The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 157 - Jen Interviews Pete

Transcript:

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Hello Pete.

Pete: Well, I had so much fun, so much fun interviewing you. And I wish we had six hours as opposed to the forty-five minute constraint that we set on ourselves. And I find myself a little bit nervous now, as I realize the tables must be turned.

Jen: Mwahahaha. Yes, today it's my turn to interview you in celebration of our three year podcastaversary. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, Peter Shepherd. Are you ready to be interviewed by me?

Pete: You and I have been lucky to be interviewed on quite a few different podcasts. And I don't think I've ever been as nervous as I am to be interviewed on our own. How funny.

Jen: Okay, so I feel like I know the last four years of your life pretty well. But I want to go all the way back to the early days. Can you just first tell me the makeup of your family? I feel like you've kind of mentioned that there is at least one sibling...I think there might be two. But can you just describe your family?

Pete: Most definitely. This is such a meta experience for me, because I'm actually in my childhood home. So, I am the youngest of three. I have an older brother, who is the oldest of the family, by the name of Matt. He is, I think, six years my senior. And then my sister is the middle child, Kate, who would be three years my senior. And so, I'm the youngest of three. And that is the makeup of our family.

Jen: Are your parents still married to each other?

Pete: My parents are, in many ways, my heroes for many, many, many reasons, one of which is they still continue to this day to have a very happy, healthy relationship and marriage. So they are still together, and they're currently caravanning around Australia.

Jen: That's amazing. Okay, so call back to last week...are you a textbook youngest child? Or how does being the youngest child inform you?

Pete: I think I'm a textbook youngest child in the sense that I got it a lot easier than my older siblings. And I feel like they would definitely attest to this. And I know many other younger siblings that would also attest to this, where it's kind of like...I can imagine it now, being a little bit older. By the time you have your third kid, your parents are kind of like, "You know what? He'll figure it out. So like, we don't need to be as strict. We don't need to be as paranoid. We don't need to have as many rules and regulations for how he, you know, grows up." So, I was lucky to...I think I probably got away with a little bit more. Like I remember as a really young kid, seeing my sister have like quite hysterical arguments with my family because they would want to call, you know, the mother of the girl whose party was happening on a Saturday night and they wanted to check in with the parents to make sure it was all kosher. Like, that never happened to me. I just didn't get that. So if I wanted to, you know, go around to a friend's house on a Saturday night, Mom and Dad would be like, "Alright. See you tomorrow," kind of thing. So I guess I was textbook in that sense. I was very lucky. I was very, very, very lucky.

Jen: Are you still close with your siblings?

Pete: Oh yeah. Yeah. I think I would say I'm very close with both. My brother lives on the other side of the country now, so he's in Western Australia. And my sister lives fifteen minutes from where we grew up, which is about ninety minutes-ish from where I live in Melbourne, and we are very, very close. We text quite a lot. We call each other maybe every couple of weeks. You know, when it's a non-COVID year (or life), we have family gatherings and Christmases. It's funny...I'm so lucky and privileged to have had such a harmonious, happy, healthy family. And I was actually thinking about this the other day, I was super lucky to be surrounded by my closest, closest friends growing up with the same happy, healthy, quite large families with parents that are still together and siblings that are about the same age as me and my siblings. We were kind of...you know, you were talking last week about being in a bit of a homogenous bubble. The homogenous bubble I was in was like everyone is in a really lucky, happy, healthy family. And for the longest time, I just assumed that that's what everyone's experience was.

Jen: Yeah. Okay. I have heard you say in the past to me directly that you never thought you would grow up to become a leadership coach. That wasn't like your childhood dream, like, "I'm going to coach CEOs right across the globe." What were your childhood dreams? What did you want to be when you grew up?

Pete: So I had a few. One was the...well, in Australia, for a young male in the part of Australia that I'm in, you would say a fairly stereotypical childhood dream which was to be a professional football player. To be an AFL player was sort of the childhood dream. But very quickly, I realized that that's not really a reality. But it was kind of the, "I want to be a footy player," kind of vibe. Which, again, didn't last that long. Strangely enough, I suspect it was because my mum got me into John Grisham novels at quite a young age. And I absolutely devoured John Grisham novels. There was a fairly large period of time where I was like, "I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to like, you know, be one of those people who...", I feel like in a lot of the John Grisham novels, there's this charismatic lawyer who holds court, you know, and like is really good at crafting stories and arguments in a courtroom to defend people who should be defended and fight for justice and all of that. So I suspect in some way, that rubbed off on me. And I thought for the longest time, I actually thought I was going to be a lawyer.

Jen: Mmm. Okay, so building on this, you just described what you think a lawyer does. What was the appeal of a football player? What does a football player do?

Pete: They ultimately get paid to play a game, and stay fit and healthy. And I think that maybe if I really like peel back the onion, I guess there was an appeal in the sense that they were (like, if I really go back to my ego), probably that they were liked, and respected, and public figures in a way, and reveered. And I guess subconsciously (or consciously) I, for some reason, valued that. And I just I think I was, you know, a product of my environment. All kids my age, all my friends, basically we all wanted some version of that same thing. It was more or less a pipe dream of like, "How awesome would it be to be able to just get paid to play sport? Like, we already do it. We already spend hours training. We already spend...not as much as they do, obviously. We already love it. How cool would it be to just get paid to do that thing that you love?"

Jen: How funny, because I've actually heard you use a similar phrase now to describe leadership coaching, which is, "How cool to get paid to do a thing that I love so much."

Pete: Isn't that true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's wild. Yeah, that motivating factor. And I think if I really like trial it through, I lost it for a while, which is probably why I had the desire to get it back. Again, probably unconsciously. But I knew...you know, we've talked before about being in a corporate or being in a startup, where I was like, "This doesn't quite feel like it. I feel a little bit held back."

Jen: Okay. Since you're going to go there, let's double click on that for a second. I know that feeling wasn't just for one day. The decision to leave takes one day. Like, I mean to actually activate telling the boss that you're putting in your notice. So can you just talk about like the period between feeling the dissatisfaction and then actually doing something about it? And what actually gave you the fire to do something about it?

Pete: Yeah. So, the feeling was years. Like, it lasted years. Some of it was because I was not accepting responsibility. And I was, you know, waiting for someone to bestow a new opportunity upon me, waiting for me to be discovered without actually doing anything to be discovered, you know. I totally acknowledge that was on me and not doing anything about it. And part of it was the environment, and the role as well. But it was years. Years and years and years of feeling like I wasn't in a place that I wanted to be. Even though, like I would say on reflection, the opportunities I had, the work I was doing, that job that I worked in, in particular, was so cool, and so dynamic, and I got to travel literally the world, definitely Australia to help the clients that I got to help with. So it was like super informative and amazing, and I just had this like sense of dissatisfaction like almost the whole time. So, years. The thing, to your point...it takes, you know, one day to finally make the decision. It was a series of events. One was, I took altMBA as a student. Which connected me to people around the world, and gave me a sense of what might be possible, and helped me realize that you are, you know, the author of your own story, or you are someone who can choose to be a leader and lead yourself through a different career path, whatever that looks like. So I had that like aha in the back of my head, but I still went back and worked. And then what happened, actually, I wrote an article about my experience in altMBA. I posted it on Twitter, I guess, because I was using Twitter back in the day. And someone reached out to me and said, "I read your article on Twitter. I'm starting a new company that would be in the, you know, online education technology space, edtech, and would love to have a call about it." I spoke to this guy, Riley Batula, and I'm still in contact with him. And he basically said, "I want you to be my first employee of this company that I'm starting. Are you up for it?" And so, that was the...I guess it was the excuse or the kick up the pants I needed to actually decide that moving was something I was going to do. So, it was really that moment. Yeah.

Jen: So, it was that an opportunity was presented?

Pete: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I'd liked the idea of...you know, I was very interested in startups and, you know, starting your own business, or like being part of an early stage startup. I was super nerdy about all of that. And, you know, this was someone who set up General Assembly, the online education company in Australia. So, he had a track record of building really great startups and great teams. And he was interested in my perspective, and me being the person to lead it. So I was like, "Oh. This is a great opportunity." So yeah, there was some sort of soft landing. However, you know, there's the whole reality which is, you know, like you half your salary overnight, you work far more hours, you like...there's a whole different world to it. But I guess it was the opportunity that I needed or wanted to give me the gall to leave.

Jen: Okay, I'm making a major pivot to a different topic. We've only been in person together a couple times. But I'll tell you something that I notice. When you walk down the street, people look at you, because you're really tall. I don't have that problem. What is it like to live so conspicuously all the time?

Pete: What a fascinating question. I feel like it's a paradox in the sense that some days (often, actually), I don't think of myself as...well, firstly, I don't think of myself as tall sometimes, which I know sounds weird. I guess I forget, or I'm not aware of it a lot of the time. I just sort of think that I'm blending in with everyone else walking down the street.

Jen: Oh, interesting.

Pete: A lot of the time. And at the same time, every now and then if I see someone else really tall, I think, "Woah, that person really stands out." And then I think to myself, "That must be you too." It's usually an external trigger will remind me. So, something like that. Or, it's like this happens. I mean, when we weren't in lockdown all the time, I would say daily, someone would either say to me directly, "Wow, you're so tall. What's the weather like up there?" Or like, "How tall are you?" Or you would hear them like say it to their friend on the street, "Oh my god, look at how tall that guy is."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: So I was aware of it because of external inputs. But I definitely...like hearing you say that makes me feel funny, because I'm like, I don't walk down the street thinking everyone's looking at me at all. Yeah.

Jen: That's probably a good thing.

Pete: Which is probably a good thing, yeah.

Jen: That's so interesting. I'd love to talk for a second about mentors and heroes, which I think are two different things. Although sometimes your hero can become your mentor, and your mentor can become your hero. But who were some of your childhood heroes? And who are some of your childhood (meaning pre-eighteen) mentors?

Pete: Good question. I think childhood heroes, I want to say most of them were probably sports-related. You know, a really great football player, or a really great...like, I can't even, there's not even a name that comes to mind of like, "That person is my hero." In fact actually, as I say that, one of Australia's best cricketers was a guy by the name of Ricky Ponting. He was a captain and a very, very, very successful cricketer. And I remember having like his poster on the wall and thinking, "Wow. Ricky Ponting is pretty great." Kind of based on nothing other than his skill at that particular endeavor/sport. He was really, really good at cricket. And I guess for a while I thought that's something to aspire to. It wasn't, I guess, a hero in the sense of what I think about now. Which is, you know, people whose work or whose books or whose ideas have really influenced me. It was more, and maybe this is because of the world we lived in back then versus the world we live in now, but we have more exposure and insight into who these people are. It was more like, "He's really good at that thing, and I really love that." So someone like Ricky Ponting, I would say, would be a hero. Mentors, I really like as a question or a reflection. And again, I'm like, there's probably a couple of particular teachers that really come to mind. One was a guy by the name of Jeff Ryan, who was kind of like the coordinator of what we have as Year 11 and 12, which is kind of like a senior in high school. He was kind of like the coordinator, I guess. And he was incredibly down to earth, very, very relaxed. He was the teacher that everybody loved. Like because he was just, you know, he fit in. He wasn't strict. He was just like happy to have a chat. And there were just a few...I just remember a few moments that he encouraged me to apply for certain universities. He encouraged me to apply for this scholarship at the University of Melbourne, which at the time was considered, you know, one of the great universities in Australia, if not the most prestigious in Australia. I don't know if that's still the case now. But so he helped me, I guess, realize that was a possibility and encouraged me to go for it. He opened doors and he turned on lights for me in a way that not all teachers did. And then I would say, honestly, my mom and my dad were both heroes and mentors in the way that they, a bit like the stories you were sharing last week, they didn't tell me or push me in any certain direction. In fact, I distinctly remember sitting down with them at the dinner table and them saying, "Okay, what subjects do you want to study? And what would that look like?" And we had like basically a conversation about what subjects I might want to study, and how that might influence where I go to study at university and all those sorts of things. So there was never that push of, "You have to do this. You have to be this. You have to try this. Don't do that." It was always a conversation. Which I think, as someone who now thinks about mentorship a lot or coaching, even, a lot, I think of that conversation as being quite informative.

Jen: Can you tell us about a time when you were really disappointed by something?

Pete: Well, I feel this like this drop in my stomach already. I know the story. We have Year 12 where you get what we call an Enter Score, which I can't think of the equivalent in America, but it's the score you get...like the end of high school, you get a score which you then try and get into universities with. Is it like your GPA?

Jen: Probably like an SAT.

Pete: SAT, okay.

Jen: We take a test called the SAT. And then you have your GPA.

Pete: Right. Okay.

Jen: Grade Point Average.

Pete: So it's like the SAT equivalent. So, you study all year for this. You know, you got your subjects, you're studying. I was so unbelievably diligent that I actually am surprised...like, I think about it now and I'm like, "Wow, that was incredible how dedicated I was to my study in Year 12." And the short version of the story is I got my score. I was awarded the Dux of the School, which is the highest score that the school had got that year. And I was unbelievably disappointed.

Jen: Mmm. What? Say more.

Pete: Because it wasn't high enough, was the story. And it was so interesting, because the whole Year 12, you know, like there were subjects where I literally didn't lose a mark. Like I was 100% in, I think, like three of my four subjects or four of my five subjects. I did not lose a mark. And I would do practice exam after practice exam after practice exam. My mom's friend was actually a qualified like marker of the exams, and I would get her to mark them, and I would get her to give me feedback. And I did countless practice exams where I literally didn't lose a mark, and she'd be like, "You got 100%." And so in my head, I was like, "I'm going to get like 100% on some of these exams," and I didn't. And so when I got the score, I remember being (this is such a weird thing to think about now), I was like a little bit crushed. And yet, it was still enough to get me where I wanted to go. And it was still enough to be Dux. And like, what a great honor. But I distinctly remember being...and even now like, I think about it and I still got a little bit like hung up on it.

Jen: Oh, I am fascinated by this story. Okay. The reason I wanted to ask you this, so now we're going to have to dig around in here, is as a freelance coach, speaker, facilitator, you send a lot of proposals out into the world, and some of them cross the finish line and some of them don't. And that's just sort of the nature of the business. And I've witnessed you in the lead up, you know, the anticipation of, "Is this going to happen? Is this not going to happen?" But then if something doesn't happen, I haven't really seen you like fall into the rut of disappointment. So the reason I wanted to ask you that question was, I wanted to know about your relationship to disappointment. But this story like is confounding to me. It defies all of my expectations about what you were going to say. So can you just dig in a little bit? Like, what did you learn from that? And how is it possible that you are so different now?

Pete: I think on reflection, I was so good at playing the game. Like, school is a game. You study for the test to get the A to get that, like, for me, it was like that little validation that, "Oh, you're smart. And you got an A." I guess I became somewhat obsessed with that game of like, "I know how to play this game. I know how to get the A. I've done the work. And that should translate." And it just didn't quite translate into what my expectation was. I think, to fast forward like right to your point around proposals...it's so weird. I've been thinking about this pattern of like looking for the game and being really good at the game, and I see it manifest in all sorts of ways now. And I think that because of the work that I did as someone in a startup that was then a corporate. Which, I spent seven years at this one particular company, which I think I was in eight different roles across seven years. And there was a lot a lot a lot of account management, proposals, creation, looking for new business, having conversations with prospective clients and existing clients. And I think I, through repetition and through experience, I guess I realized the game in that sense. Is sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Sometimes people reply to you, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you win an awesome deal and everyone high fives and celebrates, and sometimes you literally just never hear from someone after putting like days of work into something. So I guess, if I to relate it to the game, I recognize that that's part of the game. And so now I know that to some degree, that that's part of the game. I guess the other thing I would say is, I don't know if I...no, I don't think I quash it, when we jump on a call. But I guess when I jump on a call with you, I'm like, "We're here." I show up in a certain way because I'm here to talk to Jen, I'm not necessarily here to wallow in something that I missed out on.

Jen: Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, moving this in a totally different direction. Actually, it's not that different, because you've just set me up for a segue. In that, you know, the relationship we have to each other is that we have a task to do, and we get on and we do the task. Sometimes we get sidetracked by conversation. But, you know, we tend to complete the things that we're supposed to complete. So, we don't have tons of room for serendipity in our organized relationship. And so, I think that there is a big part of Pete Shepherd that I miss out on, which is the passion part. So not related to your work, what are you passionate about?

Pete: I'm just filtering out all the work things that are coming into my mind. Such an interesting word: passionate. I'm passionate about health and fitness, for sure. And so, exercising each day, swimming in the ocean each day, eating food that fuels me that is healthy and nutritious. Like I'm quite passionate about that, a healthy and nutritious life, I guess. I'm very passionate about my family, and my friends, and my partner, Tracy, in particular, around reminding myself, being aware of the fact that at the end of the day, they're kind of...not all that matters. But like, they're the people that have always been there and will continue to always be there, in terms of my family and then now my partner, Tracy. So I'm very passionate about making space for that, being aware of that, and trying to create and craft and structure our life in a way that supports that. I'm super passionate about travel. It feels weird to say in COVID. But I've been so lucky. Yeah. I've been so lucky, and you know, a little bit brazen and bold at times to travel to some pretty cool places, some pretty crazy places. And I just absolutely love it. I absolutely love that feeling of being somewhere that you've never been before, experiencing a culture you've never really experienced before, and just trying to figure it out. And it's like scary and nervous and you feel homesick. And then you like meet a local and like they're the nicest person ever, and you just want to stay there forever. Like, I love that whole experience. I'm quite passionate about that. And what else am I passionate about? I mean, related to the health and fitness thing, I, you know, I play a bit of golf with some friends when we can.

Jen: I had no idea you were a golfer.

Pete: Right?

Jen: Nope. No.

Pete: It replaced football. And like I used to play football every single weekend until I was about twenty-six, probably just before you and I met. That was a community thing, where you play a sport with some friends. And then, a bunch of us basically just started playing golf every weekend instead. So I definitely don't do it every weekend now, but that is something else that interests me.

Jen: Okay. What is the most extraordinary place you've traveled to? And can you tell me a story about what made it so extraordinary?

Pete: That is such a hard question to answer. I have so, I mean, so many. Let's go with Sri Lanka for now. So, I traveled to Sri Lanka a number of years ago. And it was extraordinary for a few reasons, for many, many reasons. One is...I mean, you mentioned here, "What's it like to notice that everyone's looking at you?" Never have I been more aware of that than walking the streets of Colombo, which is the capital city of Sri Lanka. Where you're a six-foot-seven white guy, and as far as the eye can see there is no one else with your color skin. There's definitely no one else that's six-foot-seven. And so everyone literally just like stops on the street and turns their head and looks at you, which was a fascinating experience. So, there was like things like that. And then the thing that's so extraordinary about Sri Lanka is it's actually quite small, but it's so diverse within how geographically small it is. So you go from giant city where it's chaos, inland to the jungle, only a few hours. And then when you go southeast, you can go on safaris and look for elephants on the back of a jeep. And then you go another couple hours south, and you're on like these pristine, beautiful, world-class beaches that are like very close to the Maldives, which is, you know, as most people know, like some of the most spectacular beaches in the world. So the vast array of like diversity of experience, but also diversity of environment within a matter of hours from one another. I just think it's, yeah, Sri Lanka was an extraordinary place. Yeah.

Jen: Mmm. Oh, travel.

Pete: I know.

Jen: Some day, some day we'll do it again.

Pete: I just remember like, the friendliness of the Sri Lankans is best summed up by the fact that one morning in the place that I was staying at, you know, we go down and grab some breakfast, and the chef said to me, "What would you like for dinner?" I was like, "Oh, I don't know. It's breakfast." And he's like, "Would you like me to catch you some fresh fish?" And I was like, "I mean, I love fish. I'll be happy to have some fish." And he was like, "Great." He literally ran inside, grabbed his fishing rod, and just went like sprinting past. And he just like ran to the rocks, threw in his rod, and just started fishing for fish to catch for us just because he wanted to. It was, like, ridiculous. The hospitality and the friendliness of these people is insane.

Jen: Ah, and delicious.

Pete: And delicious.

Jen: Okay, circling back to your childhood for a moment. When I was preparing to be interviewed by you, I was like trying to think about different like episodes of youth. So it helped me to prepare to ask you some questions about your youth. Is there a moment in your childhood that you would consider the most important moment of your childhood?

Pete: So, two come to mind. And I'm trying to work out if it's...I realize they were pivotal now, but I don't think I was aware of it at the time. So, the first one is...it's actually, it's funny. I did like a family podcast, where I did an hour interview with each member of my family. And me, my brother, and my sister all brought up this exact same memory, without doing it deliberately. We just all had that same memory. And that was that every single night at the dinner table, every single night, my dad would ask, "What was the best part of your day?" And we would go around the room, and you'd have to share the best part of your day. And at the time, you were like, "Oh my god, Dad, get a new question. Oh my god, are we really doing this again? We always do," you know, like you were lamenting the monotony of the same question. What I realize now is like he instilled in us an appreciation for and gratitude for any given circumstance on any given day. And I think, I mean, how many times have we talked about gratitude? How much research is out there now about looking for the things in your life that you already have that you can be grateful for, which changes the way that you literally view the world? Like, my dad helped us do that without any of us realizing it. So, it was like the Five Minute Journal back in the day. So I recognize that, and I have no doubt that that has helped shaped my, I would say, optimistic view of the world. So, there's that one. The other one, which is a bit random, was in Grade 6. So this is, for us, this is the last year of what we call Primary School, before you go to High School. We don't have Middle School. And so in Grade 6, you know, there was a call for who wants to be the, you know, like the school captain. And I want to say there was a hundred or so people in our year level. Anyway, I remember coming home from school one day and being like, "Mum, I think I want to try and be school captain." And my mum, in such an amazing way, was supportive. And she was like, "Great." I distinctly remember her sort of like trying to taper in my expectations, which was great. Which, she was like, "It might not happen, so just be aware of that. Like, let's prepare. Let's, you know, you've got to write a speech, or whatever. But it might not happen." And I remember thinking to myself, "I think I can do it. I think I can be school captain." And I remember, I like wrote a talk, you know, a little speech that was probably my first public speech. And I did it. And the short version of the story is, I was school captain. But the fact that I was school captain wasn't the important lesson. I think it was more that I had this distinct feeling of like, "I'm pretty sure I can be school captain." And then I did the work to do the thing, and I ended up doing the thing. Which was just a cool...I don't actually remember that many moments where I've thought to myself, "I could do that," and then actually gone and done it. I had that moment, actually, when I went to a TED event. Later in life, I went to TEDx Melbourne, and I was like, "I think I could do a TEDx talk." And lo and behold, I did it. So that was like the first moment I remember distinctly where I was like, "That's a stretch. And I think I can do it." And I mean, as it turned out, I used to speak at assembly every single week in front of hundreds of kids, which I'm sure has conditioned me to be comfortable speaking publicly. So, yeah.

Jen: Oh my gosh, yes. Of course. Okay. What is the worst piece of advice you've ever gotten?

Pete: Huh, that is a hard question. The worst piece of advice I've ever received. I mean, the only thing that comes to mind is at some point along the journey when I was clearly disengaged with being in the corporate world, as we sort of touched on earlier, and I was in that years of like, "Should I leave, should I leave," at some point in that journey, someone said to me some version of, "You've just got to keep playing the game." And what they meant by that is, "If you suck it up, ignore the fact that you are disengaged, and you know, stick with it, maybe one day, you'll get promoted in six years time, or in five years time." It was kind of like, "Suck it up, ignore what your intuition is telling you, and things will work out." Or like, you know, some version like, "This is just life. You've just got to suck it up and do work that you're not interested in." And I know the person still and we're actually friends, and I still think that he was definitely trying to help. And for me in that moment, it was not the advice that I needed or wanted. It was the exact opposite of what I needed or wanted. I didn't feel seen. I didn't feel heard. I didn't feel like he understood what I was going through. And so I guess my generic answer would be, any advice where you don't feel seen or heard or understood is probably not good advice. It has a lack of empathy. And I definitely felt it in that moment.

Jen: The reason I asked is I have a working theory going on right now that the worst advice produces the best advice. Because when you realize it was the worst advice, you realize the advice that you would give.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: So can you tell me, based on that story, what is the best advice you could have given Peter Shepherd in that moment?

Pete: Well, I think that checks out, your theory. Because what I realized in that moment was if I don't do anything differently, I'm going to stay here for ten more years and be in the exact same position, maybe I've got a promotion. And so the advice I would give myself is some version of like, "Trust yourself to take the leap."

Jen: Boom.

Pete: That's great. What a great theory.

Jen: Yes. Okay. So Peter Shepherd, in closing...

Pete: Yes?

Jen: ...I'd love for you to share with us, how would you like to be remembered?

Pete: Ooh. Okay. Okay. Okay. I would like to be remembered as someone who was generous in the way that they interacted with others, was always coming from a posture of service in order to try and help others to open doors/turn on lights, and to have always had time for the people and the things that matter most. Yeah. I feel like I could come up with thirty-five different words that I want to be remembered via, but I think some version of generosity. He was a generous person, who helped others, and always made time for the people and the things that mattered.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.