EXPERIENCE 161 | An American Dream featuring a Chinese Family with Peter Yu, Candidate for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District

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I was introduced to Peter Yu by a mutual friend as the liberty minded person's best pick for Colorado's 4th congressional district, and a good candidate for this podcast. Peter has a great record of success in both big and small business, fell just short in his race for Colorado's 2nd district in 2017, and has remained active in the political sphere since his first run. Peter is the first American born child of a Chinese family, who arrived together in 1969 with six children, no money, and no English skills. They lived in cramped conditions, often with other families, and worked entry level roles in food and hospitality until a turn of fate brought their family to Loveland in the mid 1970s as owner operators of the only Chinese restaurant in town at the time, and for many years. Hard work and underpaid child labor kept the restaurant alive through some of the lean years, and though Peter's parents never tasted financial fortune, They saw five of their seven children finish college and all seven build successful businesses and careers, truly their American dream. Peter mostly grew up in that restaurant and has a unique perspective as the often only Asian kid in every class or school. He was a star football player in his day, but his stature and the laws of physics made a pro career impossible. Peter is in a crowded field for this primary race, a group of 11 that includes the infamous Lauren Boebert attempting to move over from the more competitive third district. Peter is a great interview and has my endorsement. He's a fast thinker, has dug into all the essential issues of our region and our time, and is a great conversationalist. Further, he's fully invested in the causes of liberty and the American dream, and I know you'll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Peter Yu. Welcome back to the Low Co Experience Podcast. My guest today is Peter Yu. And Peter is a candidate for the 4th Congressional District here in Colorado. And we're going to learn a little bit about his story and why he would do such a silly thing as get into politics. Well, first thing I want to say, I just want to say thank you, Kurt, for the invitation to be here. on your podcast and to be able to, you know, tell a little bit about my story. Uh, I am a candidate for the fourth congressional district here in Colorado. And I've been in, I actually entered right in at the end of December of 2023. So I'm about a little over two months in now. And it's been quite the ride. Now, this isn't my first foray. Um, in 2018, I was actually the congressional nominee, um, for the second congressional district. Right. Uh, was it Nagusa? Uh, Nagus. Correct. Nagus. Yep, absolutely. And it was, it was quite the experience. And, you know, um, back in 2018, uh, Loveland in the part of Windsor that I'm, I'm in was actually part of the second congressional district before they redrew the lines. Okay. Yeah. And, but it was, um, quite the experience because obviously that's a very, very, um, hard Democrat district and I, I am a, you know, a conservative Republican and, but it was, it was amazing because along that ride, uh, we had a couple of national forecasters, you know, they, they picked me to win. Which was something that was kind of just unheard of. And considering that these, I mean, these are forecasters who put their reputation in line to, you know, say, Peter, you is getting a lot of attention. He's getting a lot of, um, uh, the independent vote, I assume is what that takes. Exactly. Exactly. And as a result, um, I was getting a lot of attention, um, nationwide and it was, it was quite the ride now at the end of the day. Um, uh, you know, I just think. The, uh. the, the amount of voters registered to the Democrats. Demographics were just, it was just against. So how much, how far, how far did you miss? So we missed by quite a bit, but we did. But, um, 2018 was a weird year for the Republican party because, um, when I entered the race, um, back in there, I mean, the Republicans had four statewide elected officials, one of them being us Senator, you know, Cory Garner, uh, we had a majority in the state Senate. We had a minor deficit in the house. Today, you fast forwarded that now. Oh yeah, it's like 70 30 all across the board, except for the big offices that are all Yeah, we don't even have a statewide elected official now. And, um, we're outnumbered by more than 2 to 1 in both the House and State, in the Senate. And so, and that all started in 2018. But it was, it was, it was The blue wave of Colorado. It really was. It really was. But, um, you know, I, I stayed active and, you know, And you've just been chilling for six years since then? Just biding your time, stewing on sour grapes like Trump or what? Well, you know, I, uh, I, I did get back in, uh, involved in 2022 in the state Senate race. Uh, I mean, it started the U. S. Senate race at that point in time. However, that was, it was, it was brief. It wasn't, it wasn't a long term thing. Um, and it just, it wasn't the right time. And so I basically been very involved. I've I've been very, you know, business minded, and I think that's part of the reason why it's actually good that I'm here with you today speaking about business. But, um, it was something that I felt Is this something I still wanna do again or whatever it may be. I've always, you know, helped out, um, helped other candidates in Yeah, gotcha. In regards to their, their, their, their journeys. So you've been doing some consulting, some different things like that. Exactly. And then I also help as well, you know, I'm willing to help any candidate go knock on doors or do what all it may be. Um, because I, I'd suggest you focus on your race right now. Exactly. Well, that's that's where I am right now. And it's, uh, it's, it's been a, a good ride. And you know, it's really good because. I consider myself a strong conservative, but however, I do believe that, um, my biggest asset is that I'm, I, I, I really like to focus on things that are common sense, things that everyone would agree on regardless of what your affiliation is. Yeah, yeah. And I think that really does draw a lot of people towards me. So that's kind of where we're at. Well, it reminds me of our longtime mayor and mayor emeritus, uh, Wade Troxell here. Yeah. You know, he, he's a pretty conservative guy at his core. And. He doesn't focus on that. A lot of, uh, you know, He had the support of a lot of people that were like, I don't know how conservative or democratic he is because he just talks common sense. And I, I think that's really something that's missing nowadays because everyone feels like you're either red, you're either blue, you're either right or either left or it might be, but I think if you actually talk to any person out there. I believe we all kind of want the same thing. We all want to be able to have a good job. About half of my guests are closet libertarians. Oh, as it comes out, as we explore a little bit, they're like, Oh, I think about this. I'm conservative fiscally, and I'm fairly liberal on the social side. And I'm like, well, yeah, you're a closet libertarian. You just don't want to throw your vote away every year. Exactly. You know, this is a, we are, I mean, I think it's hard to argue that we're not a two party system. For sure. And, but I mean, when you like the big tribes have all the power. You know, and that's just where, you know, everybody's been built up, the system's been built up that way, and it's just, but I, I, I do believe that everybody wants, you know, you know, a good job, be able to have a roof over their head, be able to put food on the table to be able to, you know, live their life how they want. And I think everybody agrees it that way. Just how do we actually achieve that. Yeah. Is it one through more government or is it more through just free markets? That's the, uh, the fixers and the mixers ex. Exactly. Uh, you should read my blog from April of 2020, uh, was the, uh, the fixers take. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm going to have to make sure I get that one. So yeah. And I basically contrast that, that kind of, that's really where people are more than they are right and left in a lot of ways. They're like, you know, there's a lot of problems in the world. Government needs to do something about it. Or there's a lot, a lot of problems in the world and the more government tries to do something about it, the more they seem to back out. F it all up. Exactly. And, I mean, I always try to analyze things like, how does government really help me? And I, I've never really been able to come up with the plans like, well, thank God the government wasn't around for that. Yeah, think of all our three letter agencies and you're like, well, how much help has any of them actually gotten me over the last 50 years of my life? Very well said. Very well said. And I just think that we need to realize that, you know, um, no, life is hard. We all know we understand life is hard. And at the end of the day, is the government really going to be there to take care of you? And my answer is no, they're not. You know, I mean, there's a small safety net, which I think there should be in certain degrees in certain situations. However, I think the best chance for the most prosperous as well as, you know, achieving that American dream is really by having opportunities and then us working for it. And a community based safety net. Correct. In my opinion. They're perfectly set. Well, well said again. Um, so it's a pretty crowded race, no, in this fourth district because, oh, tell me, I guess two questions at the same time, like, tell me about this redraw and where, what the fourth district does. kind of geographically is, and then tell me about the race itself. Okay. So the district is one of the bigger districts. It actually includes the, encompasses the entire Eastern Plains from Wyoming all the way down into Mexico. Um, but the redistricting, uh, basically brought, um, Loveland and Windsor and Wellington into the fourth congressional district, where it used to be part of the second congressional district. Okay. And then it basically wrapped around, it took Greeley out, which is weird, because Weld County is a big. Part of, so Greeley just has to live with, they are now part of the new district's, um, the eighth congressional district now. Okay. But they brought love into it. Into it, but then they also took all of Douglas County basically and put it in this district now too. So even though this is a very large geographical location on the Eastern plains, um, the majority of the votes coming out of the urban areas of, you know, Loveland, Windsor. Um, and Highlands and Ranch, Castle Rock. Oh, right. Yeah, and so I mean, that's, in reality, it's probably close to 80 percent of the vote. Interesting. Yeah, so, that's one thing And those places are frankly, probably concentrations of more kind of business minded people. So even though they're population centers, They're, they're business leaders and stuff and, and 100 percent more of them are libertarian, conservative leaning. Yeah, and that's, that's a great point because, you know, like if you look at Douglas County, which is about 47 percent of the vote. Wow. It, which is, I mean, that's almost half, really. Right. Just that one county alone, even though there's 21 counties. Right. Um, It's a two to one Republican to Democrat, um, registration. Okay. However, um, in the last governor's race, which was 2022, um, the Republicans only came away by less than a percent. Oh, really? Yes. Wow. And so that really kind of shows you it's not, it's not, Yeah. The typical Republican. Even though a lot of them might be registered Republicans, they're really independents on paper or when it comes to actions. They can definitely swing both ways. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And that's, um, that's one thing I think Just like our governor. No, just kidding. Bad joke. I'm sorry. It's a, but it's, it's one of those things where I just, I, I, I think we need to, in regards to our messaging in this state, is make sure we have the right message, especially when we are, you know, addressing all constituents. Yeah. So now tell me about who's in that race. So, right now, I believe there is 11 candidates. Okay. 11 candidates. Now, I mean, everyone has their own different opinions about this race right now, and I would want to say that it's, Who has a limit Jim a chance, you know, that's really I guess in the eye of the you know, the person you're talking to But the most famous one is it's congresswoman Lauren Boebert Who is the representative right now currently for the third congressional district? Yeah, and she switched to a safer place You know, I mean There's, if there's one rule I do have is that I, I never really talked poorly of any other candidates or any other person really in reality, but the reason why she's over here, I can't agree with. And you know, it's she just said it, didn't she? Well, she, she said it was because she needed a new start in life. Oh, she didn't really say it's because, you know, of the other reasons, which is getting it. Beat. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and she was, I mean, there was, I mean, I Do Republicans have a decent candidate in her former district now? Um, there, there is. And I, there was a very good chance that she was actually going to lose the primary. Oh, right. Which would be, like, very damaging to a narcissistic personality type like that. And it would, it would, it would be definitely difficult for her to understand, but, so, you know, but, I mean, you know, this is America. You're allowed to do whatever you want. Well, and she's got a ton of name recognition, so you've got to overcome that, I imagine. Well, she has monster name recognition. The name recognition isn't the name recognition that you would want, I guess. I guess the easiest way to say it, because I you're one of ten others. I am. So that's a big challenge. I am. Like, getting to all these dispersed places, Douglas County. I imagine you're spending way more time than you'd like down there. Well, you know, like I said, I, um, I, I'm a big believer in representing all constitu I mean, I'm never home, really. This has been, in the two months that I've declared, it's been full go, nonstop. And so, I, uh, I've been down there. In fact, I was down there this morning. Um, they had a blizzard down there, which is crazy. Yeah, there was no snow up here, and it was, yeah, it was, it was a full, and they probably got at least three to four, no, three to five inches down there. How many miles, uh, do you think you put on your vehicle in those last two months? Ugh, geez, easily, easily, um, I mean, I'm never home and one thing that I think I'm different from other candidates and part of the reason why I, I think I got so much notoriety back in 2018 is because I do a lot of groundwork myself. I mean, people are shocked sometimes they go, well, I didn't expect you out here. I'm knocking on about 200 doors a day right now. And I mean, I, it's weird in two months, I've lost 14 pounds because I am never, I'm, I'm literally knocking on doors left and right. I'm standing in front of, you know, stores that are my be, I want people to know who I am. I mean, people, they actually are excited about that because they go, wow, I've never thought I'd actually have a chance to shake hands with you and get to know you. And the one thing that I'm really well known for too, is I never turned down a phone call. I mean, if someone calls me up, I won't answer it myself. And if they asked me to sit for a cup of coffee, I won't do it. So tell me about, like, like, there's one thing knocking on doors and stuff, but it also, for a race like this, I imagine it takes money. Like, It does. Tell me about the process of, and are like, are you eligible to get party dollars or things? Are you just going to find private donors that are willing to write small checks? Well, and it's so, I'm a big believer, um, in small donors, but by all means, um, I knew getting into this race when you had this many candidates in the race, it really is actually kind of hard to raise money because if someone's sitting there saying, well, I definitely support you, but how do I know you're going to be in this race in a few months? So a lot of people, a lot of it's on a hold and wait and see. It's like, well, let's see who's on the primary ballot before we start dropping these checks. Um, Oh, just to get on a ballot, you have to get to a certain level. Exactly. What signatures or something or polling data or how do they determine that? So there's two ways to get onto the primary ballot. One is you can actually go through the caucus system, uh, assembly system, which basically you are, um, You actually it's like party leaders and stuff. Yeah, it's all the delegates exactly You would go down to assembly and then basically the delegates would vote on you in that manner The second way to do it is basically through a petition process which you had to get in this case 1, 500 registered, you know in this case Republicans, okay, who live in the district to sign on for you Okay, so I am doing Both processes at the point in time. Um, so it's, it's definitely very time consuming. Is that normal, just in case the caucuses thing doesn't work kind of thing, or? Um, it, it will be this goal. You actually build name recognition by the process of collecting these signatures. You know you can do that, you're knocking on 200 doors a day. Correct, yes, and that's exactly part of my game plan. And, you know, It's, it's a scenario here where, um, I've, I've had some experiences with the caucus system in the past, like when, when I did it back in 2018, I went, I went strictly through the caucus system and I actually had two other candidates that I ran against and I actually got 90 percent of the vote and actually knocked them out because you had to get a minimum of 30 percent to be able to put on the private. So I was able to do that now with, with this many candidates in the race. It's going to be extremely difficult to get through the contest. For anybody to get 30%. Exactly. To get 30%. I mean, at max, only three people can even come through. Well, plus Lauren will get 40%, right? Just kidding. Well, I mean, that's what, I think that's what she's banking on with her name recognition. Right. But it's weird because I'm knocking on so many doors now, the number one response I get right now is, don't you dare let her be our next representative. And I mean, that's, that's, that's not my statements, those are the statements I'm hearing. Well, and. You know, you're not going to say anything bad, but, but I can say what I want. And like, I've got a lot of respect for a lot of her ideas. Like, I think she's been a powerful voice for the rural America and the rural Colorado and the, um, conservative person that just doesn't want Washington DC to be up in their business all the time. And like some of her, some of her comments are a little bit intentionally inflammatory. And her personal behavior was, you know, of questionable morality at best. Correct, yes. And I, and, and the one, the one thing is, I mean, I'm a big believer that your private life is your private life. Sure. You know, we're all human, we all make errors. Yeah. However And recognize that you're under a microscope when you're That's exactly In the public sphere. Correct, that's exactly, that's the difference though, because your private life is your own life. However, if you decide, To be in this position, you have to understand that you got to, you're, you're being upheld to a different standard. And I mean, and I think the one thing that's really killing her is her, you know, her event back in September, I believe it was last fall, whenever it was, you know, down at the performing arts center and, you know, I mean, The minute you google her name, that's She barely apologizes for it. Yeah, exactly. And it's just, it's just, I mean, everybody is never I mean, no one's gonna be able to look that. Well, like, I'm in a weird position in the world where I've got, you know, this network of loco think tank chapters and I've got, you know, the mobile phone numbers for a thousand small business owners in my phone. Um, And, like, my wife is in Florida right now, I might go down to the trailhead tonight and shoot some pool. You know, cause that's what I like to do sometimes when she's out of town, I like to show those punks what's up. And I'm Fort Collins famous, like, if I take home some college girl from that bar, like, there's gonna be five people that recognize me that know it, and in T minus 28 hours, my wife will, like, learn about it, you know? And Lauren has the same standard to uphold. I'm sorry if you wish you were anonymous. You made it so it ain't so, and you know, I mean, geez, Kurt. I mean that's the best way to put it right there is if you, if you are in a situation where someone's gonna recognize you wherever you're at. Yeah. And also, I mean, the fact is you're, I mean, she's a US congresswoman. Yeah. If she's a Napa and she wants to get sloppy drunk and Yeah. Like make out with her boyfriend. Exactly. Whatever, you know, I guess. But somebody would probably recognize her still there. And that's she made herself famous though. Well, she's such a lightning rod that everyone does know who she is now. It's just like, well that's, that's the scenario you, you put on yourself. And if you can't. Understand the, the, your, your status. Well then, you know what? Maybe this isn't the right spot for you because there is, there is, well, you're my representative. Exactly. You know, there's a, there's a lot of meaning in that word. And there's more than just policy, obviously involved in a scenario. It's obviously, if you're going to be my voice, you also also representing me and how I expect you to behave. And so. She's, she's got a lot of stuff that's gonna hold her back, and I, I mean, I find it very hard to, even though she has monster name recognition, the recognition isn't what you want. So who's your, who's the next closest, or are you, do you think you're a solid two in the polls right now, or have you seen polls of, whatever? Well, there's been a lot of polling going around. Okay. Um, I haven't seen the results or anything, but, um, You know, and obviously it's easy for me to say whatever I want to say, but I feel very, very, very strong about where I'm standing right now in regards to the people in this race. I feel like I'm actually the, you know, the, the, I guess, I guess the easiest way to say it is the people's choice. Because I'm not the establishment. I'm not, I'm not part of the swamp. I, I'm someone who, you know, Take some time to speak with every single person. And I mean, there's been other candidates on the, on the campaign trail. He goes, Pete, you're like a walking encyclopedia when it comes to, you know, the, the talking points when it comes to actually having a solution. And there's one thing I've been actually pitching hard. So you're like a policy wonk. Well, I mean, if I'm going to. I'm not saying I know everything in the world, but I will say if there's something that I need to be addressing, I will make sure I find out every single detail, but then also find out how do we actually solve the problem? Because if there's one thing I think you probably agree with this on too, when it comes to, you know, people who run for office or people who are politicians, they throw out a bunch of bullet points. They throw out the campaign promises or the platitudes, but then it's like, but did you even tell me what you're going to do? And it's, um. It's something that drives me crazy because you can hear the same thing every two years, four years, six years, every election cycle. It's like you said that but that's all it is just a talking point and I don't know about you But that's not who I want representing me anymore. So what are you gonna do? So what's your platform? So my platform is like as we're as we're saying I'm a big believer in in common sense issues I believe in addressing things that you and I affect Are, you know, are affected by every single day. Like when I go to the store, if I had to pay 4 for a carton of eggs, it drives me crazy. If I had to go to the gas station and realize, geez, just this last week alone, you know, gasoline's got up by 25 cents. Those are things that affect me on a regular in a, you know, like when we have a cold spell here in Colorado, uh, like we did back in January and I get that email from Excel energy saying, Hey, by the way, uh, because of the high demand of natural gas, uh, your energy bills are going to be going up because we have to pay more. We totally failed to hedge our natural gas for this spike and it burned us. Correct. Yes. And so those are the, the, the, the ideals that I want to focus on. And obviously we have a border that, It can't be unseen because it's out of control right now. I mean. So those are problems, you know, inflation and border crisis and things and what are, what are some solutions on a national scope? Okay. Well, I think, I think the one thing that America really needs to focus in on is obviously energy. I think energy is, is the basis for everything. It's, it's, it's the, it's the basis for our quality of life. It's the basis for supplying goods. And so when it comes to those items, um, I actually spent, um, time working in the solar industry. Okay. Um, actually, um, I helped, uh, when we're talking about small business, um, I basically helped a local, um, solar company in Denver, Colorado, and it was, you know, it was at a point where it may not even survive, but we took that to the point where at one point it was the fastest residential installer of Colorado. So you take a, A stewardship perspective when it comes to energy. Absolutely. You think solar is good? Well, I, okay, I'm not against solar because, but working in the industry, I've learned a lot about it. But it shouldn't be subsidized to the level that it. Oh, absolutely not. Out competes other things because it's not really better. No. Well, and that's, that's a great. Those things wear out. You know, that's the thing. It's not sustainable energy because windmills and solar panels wear out every 20, 30 years. That's a great point. And not only do they wear out, they're, they're intermittent energy source. Right. Right. I mean. Solar panels. They only generate power when it's sun outside. I mean, wind only generates power when it's windy, and so it's not a reliable energy source, and the storage capability We just need cables to the other side of the world where it's always where it's sunny, so you Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, as long as the sun's always that's a great point, and that's actually one of the biggest problems with solar and wind, is that to be able to even transfer the power Moving it around is a big problem. It's not very slippery. It's not, again, it's extremely expensive, it's extremely, um, unreliable, and people don't understand that solar and wind, like I said, the reality of the world is we need more energy. Sure. Because, um, That's humanity. Exactly. Like, that's why we're thriving is because we've found access to this affordable energy. Like, where do you think our global economy would be without having discovered the power of oil. We'd be in the dark ages. Even if we just had coal. Exactly. Like in comparison, like what we wouldn't have accomplished in comparison. Correct. I mean, that's what people don't understand that everything that we. We take for granted is has to be because of fact fossil fuels came into our life, and I mean There was one time I did this candidate forum on the University of Colorado's campus Yeah, and the question came up is you know is man responsible for global warming and they asked all the candidates And of course it was hard yes when they got to me My answer was, you're not even asking the right question. The real question is, what do you have to replace what we're using right now? Cause it's easy to howl at the moon when you're enjoying the benefits of turning on the heat when it's freezing outside or turning on the AC when it's burning up. Or the fact that right now at night, these lights are actually being powered by, you know, the things that you're against. And it's not like I'm against solar wind, but the reality is it's. Really about 5 percent of our power in this country less than 1 percent of the entire world And so it's easy to say that but as someone who worked in solar, you know what? I know why it's not reliable or why it's even acceptable because even when I go outside the doors here in Boulder I don't even see any solar panels here in Boulder. Why it's because it's not reliable You don't like the way it looks and it's it's not affordable and yeah We can't just put them all in deserts and run cables exactly and I mean That room, you could hear a pin drop. And so that's what all I'm trying to do is just educate people and understand what, because if you ask the normal person out there, how much do you think about, how much do you think of our country is powered by solar and what they say, 50%, it's like, no, it's a, it's a minute fraction. And by the way, by the year 2050, our energy demands are going up by another 50 percent and as you, what you were saying to solar panels and winter, they only, they do have a shelf life. And people don't realize this, that we're going to become, over the next 10 years, we're going through our first wave of recycling of solar panels. Right, right. And people don't understand that. We'll see if anybody can actually do it very good. Well, and this is what's sad. The amount of plastic in the amount of solar panels that are going to be disposed, the gross tonnage is 10 times higher than all the plastic in our landfills right now. What? Yes. So, people need to understand that. What? You keep talking about. That's, that's actually, yeah. And so, people don't understand. Wow. Every time we sit there and think, well, I mean, we're talking about plastic bags, but yet, you don't realize that the amount of plastic. Yeah, how many million plastic bags does it take to create two solar panels? Exactly, exactly. So, it's just, people need to understand. And so, it's like, hey, you know, it's, it's just education. I was out in, uh, Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree. Uh, National Park area a couple years ago, and not too far outside of there, there's this huge like Solar farm kind of thing, but from like, I don't know, 1990 or something. And there's like, and it's just tragic. It's like, it like literally was contributory to killing that region. What once was a little village now is just this huge sprawling superplex of no longer functional things with slogans like solar kills. Paint it all over it in red spray paint. Exactly, and I mean, I believe, I mean, uh, obviously I know, I know we're on the pocket. I believe it was Buffalo who actually spent all this money on this gigantic solar farm, and it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes ever, and actually hurt the city of Buffalo because they didn't They don't get sun! They don't have, and they don't have the power then at that point in time. And in fact, it was actually, I think it was Two, three years ago, we had that giant, what are the turbines? I think Buffalo had the same issues because they had spent all their money on this, this process. And people like that. People don't even know about this. You talk about California and all the fires, people don't realize that those fires are actually, um, maybe not all, but some were started by the, the, the power, the, the, the, the lines and it's because California had to focus their resources, kind of overloaded their lines. Well, they had to update for salt, for, for renewable energy. And they didn't update the, the, the, their, their current infrastructure to handle it. And so that's actually was part of the start. So should we just give up then and just like burn as much oil as we want? Or what do you think the solution is? Like, uh, I dunno, I'm, I'm like what I've, if the central center of my politics is like power corrupts. And so when you get these big, so if somebody is the decider of who gets to use oil and gas and energy and things like that, then it's just going to be even worse than the corruption of our military industrial and pharmaceutical complex. But, you know, tax what you want less of. And so like if there could be a big, be a carbon tax of sorts, but it just went into the general fund and was distributed cleanly to all taxpaying citizens, So the carbon like that, well, the carbon taxes obviously is, is a, it's a popular philosophy because it basically kind of, it kind of puts the thumb on you. Well, if you use more, more energy, you got to pay more tax, whatever it might be. And obviously that's going to be mostly paid by corporations, whatever it may be. Right. Including solar panel manufacturers because they burn a lot of oil and coal to make it. Exactly. Um, now the one thing I was sitting there to say is, is like, let's use the technology word. It really is because people, we talked about solar, we talked about wind. Right. The reality is is that we've maxed out the technology on that in regards to what we can't but people don't understand is that United States of America has actually reduced their co2 levels Totally. Yeah, and it's the reason why though. It's not because of solar and wind natural gas. It's because a natural gas 100 percent and if we took our Uh, like, hands from around the throat of the nuclear industry, there'd probably be a lot more nuclear coming online, which is a lot more stable, and you can push the gas pedal faster. Well, Kurt, that's exactly right. And that's the thing. I mean, if you look at, at nuclear, you look at all the, the, the reason why people are scared is because they're worried about fallout. But what they don't, they sit there and think, if you look back to Three Mile Island, look at Fukushima, all these things, even, even Chernobyl. The amount of people that actually have been traced back to the death of these things is maybe 50 people. But then people don't even sit there and go, How many people actually fall off roofs when they're installing, you know, solar? It's actually a lot more. Well, and how many, how many oil field workers have died over the last 100 years? So, I mean Tens of thousands. Exactly. So, I mean Coal miners. Exactly. Tens of thousands. But they don't, but they don't We, we, we completely give this reputation to what nuclear is, but I mean, people don't really. I mean, look at France. France is, I think, powered by 80 percent by nuclear. Is it really that much? Yes, absolutely. And, but you look at a country such as, say, Germany. Germany was the most aggressive country in the world when it comes to trying to go to renewable. Yeah. I think, I think they got Well, except for the fact that they shut down all the reactors. Well, you see They shut down like 17 something like that. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. And I believe that they got to the point where 30 percent of their power was coming from renewables. But guess what? Their pollution levels are actually higher because of the fact that when they don't have power they have to basically crank on. Well, if you don't have natural gas. Yeah, they had to crank on. From Russia. Exactly. Because we bombed their pipeline. Well, you think bombed the pipeline? Uh, well Nord Stream. Well, and that's what's really silly is that Tough questions from Kurt Baer. Well, you know, I mean, I'm not privy to the information, but you obviously, you sit there and try to connect the dots. But It's weird how Germany then wants to basically do Nord Stream 2 pipeline from, for Russia. It's like, so it's, it doesn't make any sense when you need power. Um, to sit there and say, well, let's, let's focus on an industry that isn't not reliable. Do you think there's a chance that Germany and some other nations could be eventually persuaded to be like, fuck off America. We're with Russia now. Well, Hey, you know what? When you, when your lifelines dependent on it, right? I mean, it's hard not to, and we're blocking natural gas shipments from being created to give them a lifeline. And right now they're, they've got this huge manufacturing industry that is literally like, Starving on the vine. Exactly. With expensive power and Like if I was Germany, I'd be trying to bring my nuclear back online as fast as possible. You would, you would think so. And that's why it's just weird how sometimes the political thinking or the, or the, you know, the environmental. But then they've got Poland between them and Russia, kind of. And Poland's like, F off Russia, F off Germany. Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's, it's a weird thing, but I mean, that's the thing people have to understand. Power is the life. Well, energy is money. Without, it is money. You know, it's the closest thing to money because when you can just, you can't just print power. No, you can't. You can just print money, but you can't just print power. Exactly. And if you want a better life or if you want to even have successful business, you have to have power. Right. And not only just power, it has to be affordable power. Right. And it's not that, I mean, the thing that really drives, as a conservative, as a Republican, people saying, Hey, Peter, I mean, I care about the environment just as much as anyone else because you and I, we're living in the same world. We, we breathe the same air, we drink the same water. So to sit there and say, I don't care about it is absolutely ridiculous. Right. But it's just also understanding, you know, what can we do? Let's use the technologies that we do or the resources such as nuclear to make sure that we have sufficient power and we are helping the environment. Well, it comes to an individual basis too. Correct. Oh, by the way, uh, so I have to ask you, what vehicle have you driven these 8, 000 miles? So I actually have a I drive a BMW. Nice. I like it. Um, it's an old one though. It's a 2013. Okay. So I'm not a fancy guy by any means. I can't criticize. A BMW is an America's driving machine. Oh, well and this is what's crazy. The reason why I drive A BMW is, so I had an, an old three series and back in 2018 I got rear-ended. Um, on the campaign trail, um, by a gentleman, I was at stoplight, he hit me at 80 miles an hour plus. Holy shit. He had, he had a, he had a seizure and it was crazy, crushed my car. And I mean, I had three. His like front bumper was right behind your back. It was really, I remember I, after, after I was able to collect myself going, what's going on here? I've turned around, I go, no one's even in the car that just hit me. It turns out the guy's on his side having a full seizure. Oh my. So his foot was on, on the accelerator. Wow. Wow. Wow. And the one thing that, that kind of woke me up because I remember the, um, the auto adjuster looked at my car and he goes, he called me up and goes, did you really walk away from this? You're lucky you're driving this BMW because of their safety measures and how it protects the passengers and the drivers and everything. And it was literally crushed except for where people sit. Your passenger compartment. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's the reason why I bought another one. You got a 5 series now? I actually have just an X3 actually. Oh cool. Yeah, just an X3. It's a teeny car, but, um, yeah. I wish they had a little more power. I, I, I know, I, I do it too, but you know what, I try to live within my budget, by all means. Yeah. So, uh, so energy, obviously something that sounds like you've studied quite a bit. You're passionate about, is there other kind of. Big principles, first principles, topics that you'd want listeners to know you stand on. You know, well, I'm, I'm, I believe that, you know, the key for anyone is also financial, you know, just basically, you know, kind of personal financial responsibility. I mean, I, I, I wish we could get to a point where, and I'm not excluding myself from this too, but I mean, like in high school, I wish we would actually begin teaching like financial responsibility to kids. Like, Hey, when you get to college, there's going to be three, Pre approved credit cards in your mailbox. Do not, don't open those. Yeah, do not open those. Do not start your life in debt. Yeah, I volunteered for Junior Achievement for a while. Oh yeah, okay, yeah. Are you familiar? Absolutely, yes. And teaching like budgeting and different things like that. And like, I would go to Fort Collins High School and I was like, the one. Yeah. Or two people. And so I had like 30 kids or something like that. And that meant there was, 270 other kids from that class that didn't get anything exactly You know one or two teachers signed up whatever and I already told I mean like i've talked to uh, like a charter school I said, hey, I would love to be as a sitting congressman to be able to come in and like once a month just teach You know just teach the class on just life. Yeah, because I don't think people really understand how valuable it is to have good credit. I don't think people understand, you know, how much of a step up when you are actually on top of your finances, not drowning in debt. Don't go for those, hey, 0 percent interest for two years, and you say, oh, I'll pay it off. And then before you know it, it's like, oh, I didn't pay it off, and now I'm at 20%. You know, if you can, if you can save 10 percent of your income and donate 10 percent of your income, You'll be so much better off at the end of 50 years than if you regularly outspend your income. Exactly. On Joys. I, I, I forgot what the exact number, and I could be a little bit wrong on this, so I hope no one's gonna correct me on this one, or that. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm just not giving a full, they said that if at 18, if you started putting, I believe$1,200 a year in a, like a hundred bucks a month, whatever, a hundred bucks a month, exactly that. I think by the time you were like 40, you'd be a millionaire. Right. And it's like, why didn't someone tell me that back in the day? You know, now, that would have been a sacrifice because, you know, when I'm in my 20s, you know, you're living paycheck to paycheck or the reason why is because we're going out or, you know, we're, we're hanging out with friends and everything, but it's just, if I would have been knowing that, I mean, geez, I mean, I'm 51 now. How great would that have been if I would have been just financially smart and make the sacrifice back in the day? There's some who say that sacrifice is kind of the beginning of all of civilization. That's, that's a great point. It's really hard to, um, you know, sometimes you just sit there and don't realize how life can be such a common sense reality. It's just hard to actually follow through and it's like, well, you know, I'll do that tomorrow or, you know, yeah, but it's just, I, I, I really want to make sure, because the reality is the world's changing. I mean, when I grew up, you could have bought a house for 150, 000. You know, 50, 000, you know, back after I graduated college. Right. Today, these kids, I mean, they're looking at 500, 000 plus. Right. Now, granted, they're making a lot more money. I remember my first job I made after college, I made 7 an hour. You know, so, um, me being able to get by on that just goes to show you that it can be done. I mean, kids today making 60, 000 out of college and maybe Right. Yes, you And they can't buy anything because they haven't Create a lifestyle that allows them to save anything making 60, 000 a year. That's correct too. But sometimes it is sacrifice. Maybe it is having a roommate or two or three or buying a house with three friends. Right. You know, and it's like, well, we're building equity. At least we got a corner into the market. There you go. Exactly. And is it the ideal thing? But hey, at 20, you know, 23, 25, 28, whatever it might be, that's not a bad plan actually. Good start. Um, Yeah, so back to the other question, other kind of first principles topics other than energy sounds like freedom in general. It must be a pillar of yours. It seems economic freedom. Absolutely. I mean, in, you know, my family. Do you mind if I talk about my family a little bit? Yeah, no, let's jump at the time machine now. Okay, great. We are in When did you move to Loveland? So, okay. So my family moved to Loveland in 1984. Okay. You want to zoom us back and see the stage? Let's just start from day one in America, basically. Sure. Um, so, my mom and dad and my six brothers and sisters, they came to America legally in 1969. Wow. Okay, um, it, it, It was, it was a crazy, that was the early stages of the Red Revolution kind of thing, right? Yeah. Well, it, it was a little bit of crazy because if you look at my mom and dad, they were actually, so my mom and dad, they were, my dad was born in, in the, in the, in the thirties. Um, but they mean they were orphaned. Wow. Because they were, I mean, my grandparents, who I never met, you know, they were basically killed in some air raids and so forth. Okay. Um. Lucky that like fighting with Japan. Yeah, exactly. Correct. Yeah, exactly. Correct. Yeah, and so they basically were, you know, basically adopted And then fled their parents at that point I fled or Hong Kong Okay, and you know and then they worked whatever jobs they could then and you know, you know Hong Kong's only so big. America's so much bigger. It was probably still a fishing village back in those days. Which by the way, you think of Hong Kong today, I mean, that just goes to show you what a free market can do in reverse. It's this little pocket of free market encompassed by a bunch of other stuff. Exactly. I mean, they got skyscrapers twice the size of here in America. That just goes to show you what can happen when you get government out of the way. Um, but that being said, they were finally granted to come to America in 1969. Okay. Um, crazy story. I mean, my mom, dad, um. didn't even speak English, didn't have a penny in their name. Um, and where were the Oh, they were coming from Hong Kong, but where were they from in China? Um, so they were part of the, uh, the Guang, uh, Dong, um, province, which is just north of, uh, Hong Kong. Okay. Um, and Is that part of the Ming population, or something, like, were you kind of the first class Chinese people, or kind of, there's lots of, kind of, almost That's a great question. I don't know that necessarily. I don't really know that. Okay. And it's, it's crazy because I'm the only one in my family born in America. Okay. Um, and it's weird because, I mean, obviously I'm an accident. You don't want to have a seventh child when you're poor, broke, and hungry, by all means. Fair. But, um, I'm glad they did. And, um, So they saved up, left Hong Kong. Yeah. Well, they actually came with no money. You know, and it's just fortunate that, um, my, my dad's adopted, well, Sister, um, was here, and so she was able to get us some jobs when we came here. Um, like I said, these were jobs, you know, I mean, janitorial stuff, stuff like that. But it was, it was, it was a tough struggle. They had me, and then for the next, until I was 12 years old, we were basically working in Chinese restaurants and so forth, and we, you know, Lost that job as well. And so we were pretty much almost here in Northern Colorado. It was in Denver Okay, Denver, so we were almost close to being homeless. Wow. I mean literally what was your living situation before that? Like I can't imagine seven kids all had their own bedrooms. No, no, never did never like two bedrooms with a bunch of kids Yeah, I always shared I mean lots of time lots of my time I just slept on the floor and so we came to love it and that's actually this is even more crazy So a friend of ours we were Wondering how we're going to survive at this point in time. A friend of ours was opening up a restaurant in Loveland, but decided they didn't want to do it. They just felt like it wasn't going to be an opportunity. I mean, Loveland was a small town. Plus, there's nobody that eats Chinese food in Loveland. It was, it was a teeny place. Exactly, exactly. And we came to Loveland literally just by chance. Packed the car up, came up here, and in the beginning even slept in the restaurant. Wow. Because we had nowhere to stay, either. But we basically said, yes, we'll take it on. And, and we opened it up. It's crazy, like, just open the doors, you know, no advertising, nothing. Just open the doors and Had, like, who was the cook? Who was the front of the house? So, my, my dad And describe this family a little bit. Like, how much older is the oldest kid from you? And how old are you at this moment in time? So, the, I, I am 12 at the time. Okay. My oldest brother is actually, um, 14 years older than me. Okay, so he's in his mid twenties. Exactly, correct, yep. And we're very, we're very close family. Right, you're still all together. Exactly. Nobody's married off or nothing like that. No, no, nothing yet, exactly. And so, we all appear, and the only reason why the rest of us survived is because it was child labor. Six hands on deck. Seven, yeah, seven kids. Oh, that would be so illegal today. But they didn't pay you a proper wage. They didn't give you two weeks notice of schedule changes. No, it was simply, hey, you want a roof over your head? You want to put food on the table? Go give that table some rice. You're busting tables. Exactly, exactly. So, it was, it was, um, a crazy thing for, I mean, and by the way, anyone out there, I don't recommend opening a restaurant seven days a week, right? With no money and eight a. m. Till midnight. It's never day off. And my family doesn't, wow. 8 a. m. Till midnight. It was that, it was that life. What? And it was just the work. Yeah. The restaurant was literally open. It was like 11 to 10 or something. 10 exactly. Weekends, 10 exactly. By the time the dishes are done, it's midnight. Oh, exactly. You got to wake up there and you got to get prepped, everything going on. It was never ending. And I remember, I remember even close like evening, open on Thanksgiving. I go, can we, Can we close on Thanksgiving at least? And my family was like, Hey, if we get, you know, 10 customers a day, that's a hundred dollars, we're taking it. We're going to work today. And it's like, all right, that's just, I mean, I think we were closed like two days a year, it was like Christmas and like 4th of July, the only time we ever closed because our family is proud citizens. We love America. So we said, we'll close on 4th of July, but we won't close on Thanksgiving because there might be some money to be made on that day. So talk to me about. Like the immigration process that your parents faced like I assume that you said they were legal immigrants So they had to go through like the kind of naturalization and learning about the history of America and stuff. So My my like you said my dad's sister. Well, who is adopted sister, right? Yeah, exactly, so she came to America first and She actually was the one that sponsored my family to come here Okay. Yeah, because you used to have to have some family connection, somebody that was a resource for you. Who basically said, we'll be responsible for them if they can't stand on their own two feet. Yeah, yeah. Um, which I think is important because I mean, you should be able to come here and make sure that you're not going to be, you know, Yeah, just set adrift. Exactly. I've been involved with the Matthews House here in Northern Colorado for a long time and, Okay. Like, that's one of the biggest challenges of communities is just people that are kind of disconnected from anybody. Correct. Like if you look at a list of all these shooters over the last, 10 years? Mm hmm. Like, most of them are disconnected from anybody, really. It, it, no, that's, that's funny you mention that because I remember when I was running for Congress back in 2018, um, the, there was a strong Asian contingent of students that, they're exchange students from, from China and so forth. And um, this um, group wanted me to sit there and say, well Pete, could you help incorporate them into your campaign? Again, get them involved because they literally came to like, see you. Had no friends, no one ever spoke to them, they barely spoke any English. I mean, they spoke nothing obviously because they were going to school. But a lot of them actually never finished because they just were not, they were not accepted or incorporated, which is sad. And it made me sad because, you know, I love this country and even though I'm, you know, Chinese and Asian American. Yeah, yeah. I've never even thought about it once in my life. And it's just, it's, it's, it's amazing. Cause I, I could walk in any room on a regular basis and I'm 99 percent of the time. I'm the only minority in the room never even phases me don't even think about it. And that's because this country does treat me well. And it's just one of those things. I, I hope that people understand that sometimes it's just a state of mind. I, uh, I'm just remembering, and I can't remember the name, um, but his name in Nigeria was something like, um, Uh, He Who Walks in the Shadow of the Lord, or something. It was like this, and it was like this long name, and he was, Like, frankly, the darkest skin man I'd ever become friends with, and he was a, was a graduate student in engineering that happened to live with my close friend, Jody, and his wife for a while. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, and then, like, he'd live with them for a few months, and then he was, like, they were his family. Correct. Uh, it was a resource and a connection point. Man, all of our friends just loved him because he was such a kind and generous spirit and just like I was just reflecting on why has it been five years since I've connected with him, you know, and, uh, but just thinking about that experience of having a connection point and what that value was. And I mean, geez, that, that means so much to me, what you just said there, because I do believe that if you're a good person, People don't even notice anything else in regards to who you are. If you just, if you treat people well, you're a good person. And I, and I, and I think our society Almost nobody. Like, we talk about this big racist problem, but Exactly. What, 3%? 5 percent of Americans, really? Maybe in the, in the deep south, 12%? Yeah. But those people aren't Running businesses, hopefully most of them, like they're not making big decisions about people based on their race. Hopefully almost all of us are making decisions based on capability. Yeah, well, and that's one thing I mean, and I think I need to make sure I'm clear on it because sometimes I've been attacked in the past for me not being completely clear in my statements. Yeah. I, I mean obviously there, there are racism in, in, in the world. Yeah. Agreed. The world too. I'm not saying America, I'm thinking the world much more in the rest of the world than here. But the one thing I will say is I believe that as a society, as a whole, yeah. I, I, I think we are, we've made leaps and bounds where this world's come well, but you're Asian now, so which means you're white you're of the privilege class. It's really more about privilege versus. Well, you know, we, we always hear these things about how Asians now are, you know, what it is. I mean, you're being oppressed, frankly, by Harvard, MIT, Penn, all, everybody oppresses the Asians compared to the blacks or Hispanics. Well, and that's, you know, it's, it's interesting you say that because like my nephew, he was a valedictorian, um, in high school. Okay. Um, I, he got, you know, over, I think he was either 32 or something on his ACT. Right. Um, he was all, you know, uh, which would have gotten me into Harvard. Okay. That's in those days exactly. So he was like all state orchestra He was on the swim team totally and he got turned down by all state Every school he applied to. Every Ivy League. No, every school. Even more, so. Yeah, like UCLA and all these other schools, they all turned down as well. And he even got waitlisted at CU. Now, and he finally got into CU. I mean, how does a valedictorian without those kind of accomplishments Of a class of how many? Uh, jeez, what was Highlands Ranch? Probably like five, six hundred, exactly. Right, right. Of Highlands Ranch. Yeah. Which is like the smartest Whitest kids around and you kicked all their asses mean. I mean, it, it's, it's a, it's definitely a very, you know, smart, you know, group. Yeah, no, it's an elite neighborhood, if you will. Exactly. And it's, um, it's weird that he got turned and he got, he, so he finally got in to see you. And he graduated, I believe, in three years. Right. Yeah, and now he's working his way towards med school, but it's just like, whatever it was, and my brother and I were talking about this. Yeah. And I was saying, whatever you do, I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say this is exactly the reason why he didn't get into Harvard or Stanford or whatever it might be. But whatever you do do, Do not let him think it's because of his skin. Because, he does not need to have that on his shoulder thinking, Oh jeez, I'm never gonna have a fair opportunity wherever I go. Right? You know, and, Yeah, yeah. That's one thing I always try to do, and I'm gonna sit there and say, You know what? Um, whatever I do in life, Is because maybe, You know, maybe I didn't work hard enough. Maybe it's maybe, maybe I'm just not the right person for the situation or maybe now, whether that's true or not, I don't care. Well, I'm not gonna let myself think anything differently. That being said, um, like you meant Alma, um, almost been with me for almost three years. Uh, she comes from a much more Hispanic community than, um, whatever, Fort Collins. So like local think tank has been a lot of her exposure to like a lot of white people all the time. Right. Yes. Absolutely. And, um, Like, I wouldn't hire her because she was Hispanic, neither would I, would I try to let it matter, and if she was equal in qualification to another candidate, I probably would have hired her. Okay, okay. Right, like, I feel like it's okay to put your thumb on the scale a little bit for classes and people that are often overlooked. Okay. Blacks or Hispanics in particular. Absolutely. Asians no longer qualify, sorry. At least, sorry. Yeah, well, I, the one, the one But, but don't make it a rule. Like, if you tell me I must, then I'm not. Exactly. Well, there you go. If you, like, encourage a culture that wants to help people from families and classes that haven't had a taste of the opportunities of the world, like, I'm all about it. And I understand that as well. I, I, um, the one thing I always want, and like, someone even said this to me before, um, that, um. Especially when you look at the civil rights movement back in the 60s and everything, it's just like, well, it had its time and its place, absolutely. But today, I mean, if you're gonna give someone a job, strictly because of their skin color, or because of their gender, or whatever it might be, Um, and they're not the most qualified, or they're not equal qualified, I do have a problem with that, and to me, I don't want that sympathy. Well, I want the decision choice. Like, I want the choice as the decider. Exactly. Like, I don't, that's what I disagree with, is not giving me that choice. If I want to, if I want to put my thumb one measure on the scale for a black or a Hispanic applicant, or somebody from Mongolia or something, like I feel like that's my decision point to do that. And that's the best thing about America, you do it the right way. And, you know, should there be rules against doing it the other way? Maybe? I don't know, it's hard to measure. You know, I think you just kind of depend on people to do the right thing and set the tone as a country. And you know, the one thing I always want to say when we're talking about certain things like this, um, you know, when it comes to me, if someone's gonna have a, if I'm gonna have heart surgery, I want the very best person doing that. I don't care what your skin color is. If someone's flying me on a plane, I don't care what your skin color is, whatever it might be. And you know what? And sometimes I sit there and think, you know, when you look at Harvard and obviously they've been under the auspices of the University of North Carolina doing the same thing, it's just like, how do you know you're not turning down someone who may be able to cure cancer? Right. Or during the Black Lives Matter conversation, it was like, you know, black people should have the right to a black doctor. It's like, well, what if he sucks? You know? Cause he might! He might. Well, yeah, I mean, and that's the thing. If it's Ben Carson, then Ben Carson's a great doctor, obviously. Sure, I'll take him. Exactly. But what if it's someone else who's like, well, are you a doctor because of whatever it may be? I don't know. But that could also be, you know, a white doctor. Or an airplane engineer. Or whatever else. Right? I mean, I, I mean, would it, concerning life and death, I kinda wanna make sure that I'm in a situations like Yeah, pure meritocracy. There please, ex. Exactly, exactly. So I'm just in, in that scenario. But the one thing I've always told someone too is like, well Pete, maybe you do need some help. I go, I don't need your help to gimme a job. I don't need your help. You know? And, you know, give me a, a a to the next level. You know what, I'm gonna work as hard as I need to be to get there. And you know what? If there is a time where I am discriminated against. Well, guess what? That's, that's one person, I don't believe that's a society who's doing that to me. I'll spin and move. Exactly. Go to the next door. Exactly. And I, I think people need to understand is that yes, there is racism in America, but I would say that's per individual. Yeah. It's not a society as a whole. Yeah. And if we can understand that, that, you know, there, there's bad people that walk amongst us. And it's not just in racism. It's, I mean, it could be anything. We got murderers, we got rapers, we got people who steal, people who rob, people who do just bad things because they, that's who they are. Child trafficking. Exactly. Exactly. And so it's one of these things where it's just like. You know what, there's bad people, and they know it's wrong too. I mean, if they didn't know that racism is bad, they'd be out there running around all day long saying it. Yeah, bragging about it. But they know it's wrong, but yet you can't, I mean, no matter how many commercials or how many parades you march in, it's not going to change that scenario for that person. Yeah, yeah. But what we can do is basically try to continue to hopefully evolve and hopefully they get educated as well. Well, and bring problem situations into the light. Yes. Uh, you know, I think, cause you really should do that. And I have no problem with that at all either, but I also don't want someone to make the insinuations that are or not there. I mean, this, this is what's crazy at CSU. I was at a, um, um, a PragerU speech actually. And it was Dennis Prager. Wow. And at the end of the speech, um, Prager, Dennis Prager, he doesn't want the, the fluff questions. He didn't want us like, you agree with everything, come up and ask me a question. He wants the hardest questions possible. And one, this was the most heartbreaking thing that kind of just, I mean, I'm sitting there front row. Um, listening to this whole thing, and these two black students, two black girls, got to the microphone, and they literally said, Well, it's easy for you to talk about all this stuff Dennis Prager and whatever may be but you don't you know You don't want us like to be in my in our shoes, right? We walk outside people we don't we're scared of getting beat up. We're scared of this. We're excited No one likes us. No, we can't get a date And by the way, these were these were attractive girls, too By the way, and I want to stand that's shocking to me. It is honestly exactly. I was shocked. I was sitting there gone Who in the world made you believe that the world hates you because of the color of your skin? Yeah, I mean you're here at CSU. You're a student. You got into this college, right? Um, I guarantee you there would be a lot of guys that would like to ask you out I mean they say they couldn't get a date They said that they walk outside everyone just gives them a bad look and it's just like who in the world made you believe this Because I don't feel that way ever and even if it is happening, I still don't feel that way And it breaks my heart that they walked right down the street from where we're at right now. You know, I'm just reflecting on one of my guests. Maybe number 77 or so was, uh, my friend Patrick Soukup and his wife, uh, Janae. Okay. And Janae was the, she's black, and she was the bronze medalist at the 2012 Olympics, I think. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. And, uh, she somehow fell in love with this dorky, red haired, skinny, white guy. Um, And then she really had to make the decision to live as a black girl in a white bread town. And, yeah, I learned a lot from that conversation, I guess I would say. And so, I don't discount these girls that you talk about, their perception of the situation. Yeah, and I'm not saying that things didn't happen at certain times. Right, right. And I suspect that, like, just try a little bit. There's probably at least 30, 40, 50 percent of black people. The student population and at CSU that would be like, man, you are gorgeous. Let's talk. I wouldn't be surprised. I would say even more than that. 80, 90 percent honestly. Yeah. I mean, when I, when I first walked up there, I actually thought they were going to sit there and say, Bravo, you know, Dennis, because this is the world we live in and things are great. And they were literally just like, Terrified of their own shadow. Hmm, and I was yeah, I wanted to say who did that to you because Going down going down my same line. So I remember when I was 12 years old Here I am growing up in Denver. In fact, I went to Grant Middle School, which was pretty much 90 percent, um, black student population because they were, they were actually bussed over to the school. And it was great. I never ever even thought about it. We're all friends. We're all great. I came up to Lublin and, and it immediately, which Lublin, by the way, is a small farm town at that point in time. I don't think there was even 30, 000 people then. Right. And it got into my head a little bit. It was 1 percent black. Well, there was none. No other black, no Chinese, no Japanese, no Korean, hardly. I mean, we pretty much probably doubled or tripled the Asian population in Loveland when we moved here. And I'm sitting there thinking, are they going to accept me in this teeny little farm rural town? Little did I know it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Moving to this small little farm town, my friends, um, my, my network, who I am today is because of how I was treated in Loveland. Well, cause they didn't care. No one cared. As it turned out, No, no, Even back in Denver they didn't care. No, they didn't. No, and I never even noticed it. Yeah. I never even really noticed that all my friends at Grant Middle School were black. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. And it was crazy, but then I got to Loveland, didn't even think about that all my friends were now white, and I'm the only minority in the room. Yeah. Now, that being said, I have experienced some extreme racism in my life. Okay, tell me. Um, well, it's one thing, I actually played football. Oh, really? Um, yes, I was You look way too small for football, sorry. But so And way too Asian. Where were you when I was trying to become an NFL football player? Really? Yeah. You're that good? Well, I was Okay, I'm gonna say I was decent, okay? Okay. So, I mean I played football at Thompson Valley High School in Loveland, Colorado. We got to the state championship game. Um, I was, um, I did get to all state recognition and all stuff like that. My asset was, I was a running back in high school. College, I actually was a receiver. Um, my asset was, I was, I was really fast. Um, but once again, my mindset wasn't, No, hey, no, five foot seven, you know, Chinese guys don't make it to the NFL. You know, my mindset was, You know what, if you're the best, you're the best. If you can shut me down. Exactly, yeah, exactly. So, I, you know, it was, it was a crazy thing, but, you know, I mean, obviously on, on the football field, you experience, you know, and it was crazy because the, especially when I ran tracks, like I said, I was really fast. The, the, the worst racism I ever experienced was actually, it wasn't from white people, it was actually from the, the black community actually. Mm-Hmm. And I mean, interesting. Now, now whether was that just trash talking, whatever, I don't know. Whatever it may have have been. Well, but they're used to becoming, being the elite track stars in today's America. Right. Well, like in the NFL for that matter. Even in the football field though, I mean, I remember being under a pile and the stuff that would've said to me is like, geez, okay. You know, so interesting. Yeah. But, but same point, like I said, that may have been just trash talking for all me, but it's like, wow, that's pretty extreme, you know, for, you know, whatever it may be. Well, the. I mean, the, the flip side and the challenging thing is, all of these, this messaging, maybe meant to instill black pride, and things like that, and, and they should have pride. Absolutely. I mean, they're, magnificent, you know. Like, the silver lining to slavery was that they created specimen humans. Well, I mean Right? Like, they're They dominate our sports complex. They, they, like, you know, and there's That's not making any justification or excuse making for slavery, but they are spectacular athletes. Well, I mean, I mean, when you, when you look at our sports world today, I mean, it's definitely dominated by, by, you know, by, by blacks, absolutely. Well, and that messaging of, like You're awesome, like, unfortunately when taken, we, so we, we've been studying, uh, local think tank and I've been studying especially this thing called Halos Relational Intelligence. And there's basically, uh, Elements of polarity and with any, it's like one of those personality tests. So I'm a white green, I'm, I'm a thinker. The white is the thinker. This is the idea generator. I have lots of ideas, philosophical conversations, things like that. But I'm kind of weird and kind of build lists of things to do that don't get attended to. Like that's shows the contrast. Like I've got a lot of positive attributes and a lot of negatives. The green is social relational, very connected with people, very empathetic, and It has some negatives and like there's positives and negatives to having gone through that as a, as a society. Right? Like, it creates kind of a, a, maybe an, I don't want to say it this way quite, but almost like a durable chip on shoulder. And the Chinese probably have an argument for as much of a chip, you know, our railway system. Right? The Chinese don't get much credit for that, but they had a big part to play in it. Well, I mean, obviously slavery was a horrible thing. Right, clearly. But the one thing I also sit there and say is I think slavery is also something that it's experienced worldwide. Right. I mean. Right. Yeah, no, it was not an American Exactly. concept. Exactly, it wasn't just like, Oh jeez, America's the only country that had race. No, it was racism or slavery, my bad. Right, right. Um, it's a horrible thing, by all means. And you sit there and think about Asian people. I mean, we weren't really welcomed here either. Yeah. I mean, in fact, we're the only race We locked up the Japanese. Exactly, well The Chinese were virtually slaves when they were building the railroads. Exactly, and I mean, people Forget that, you know, when it comes to Chinese people, I mean, we're the only race that actually had the anti exclusion act back in the 1800s. Really? Yeah, but, but also, I also recognize too, that doesn't affect me. That's not Right. That, I mean Leave the past in the pasture. That is not I'm not affected by that. What happened to, you know, other Chinese people during that time frame, that, it's, no matter, everything's horrific at one point in time. When you sit there and think of what it may be, but what, how I succeed in life or how you succeed in life isn't because of what happened in the past. We learn from it. And I mean, I think it's important to obviously teach the history, but also not to sit there and dwell on and sit there and say, well, that's a reflection of who I am today. I think it's important to understand that. We learn from our mistakes. And I think mistakes are actually the best educators of life. I mean, you don't realize something's wrong. I mean, you don't sit there and say, okay, you know what? Don't grab that metal pan anymore. When you just got finished cooking, you know, whatever it may be, it's, it's, it's a lesson in life. And, and I think people need to understand that. As horrific as history may be, as a society, I mean, humans are, I mean, We're not necessarily proud people, by all means. I mean, I mean, Well, we are, but we ought not to be, perhaps. But we had to evolve to a certain level. I mean, I think the difference between us and, you know, I guess, Is that we have a brain that we can decipher right and wrong. Right. And I, I, I believe that as time has gone on, we continue to try to get better. But sometimes, but sometimes we go over the edge too, sometimes in regards like, well, that's the right thing to do. It's like, well, is it the right thing to do? You know? I mean, now we've gone way too far. Um, cause like my family, it's, it's weird because I consider myself a pretty, I mean, I, I, I like to say I'm a good person, but I think a lot of that was because of my mom's disciplining of me. Right. Whenever I did something wrong, it sucked at the time. Yeah. But the silver lining was, I also learned, you know, what, what I do and I don't do. I mean, it's, I remember once I talked back to my, my aunt, who was my dad's, the one who actually and my mom gave me a whooping, like I never would believe in my life. It wasn't like, Oh, you're grounded. It was a, it was a full on whooping. And you know what? Guess what? To this day, I make sure I have nothing but pure respect for my elders or anyone of authority, too. And so, it's, it's, I, I think there is something to be said about, you know, you know, cause and effect of, you know, and that's why it's like, well, geez, maybe if we had a little bit more hardship, I mean, there's, there's, there's, There's right and wrong. Right. Right. Well then, and wrong should be punished more. Otherwise you don't. And then we understand that. It's like, okay, if I do that, I'm going to probably be put in jail. Just watch old dogs with young dogs interacting. Exactly. You know, we need a little bit more of that. Exactly. So, I mean, it's, it's interesting. Yeah. We're gonna jump back onto your family thing, cause like, I chased squirrels with you, like, way through Solar Power and a bunch of things since then, but we're gonna jump into that timeline, but we're gonna do it after a short break. Alright, sounds good. Okay, so, uh, we're back. And we've been squirrel chasing on a lot of topics, a lot of policy stuff, um, but we jumped off with, like, this Chinese restaurant in Loveland and, uh, you being, like, doubling the population of Asian people in In Loveland at the time, which I think that may have been true at that point. Real close to it anyway. I would think so, um, but it was, I mean, it was a time Tell me about it, like, was it just Like how long did you live in the restaurant? Uh, so it wasn't maybe like a month or so before we actually were able to find, you know, um, it was where we actually rented the house right behind the restaurant, um, which was nothing but a little two bedroom, two bedroom house. My mom and dad got one room. Our grandmother, who was with us, got two rooms. The other room. Okay. And all the kids slept in the living room, um, on, we had Just scattered? Do you have bunk beds or something? Bunk, we had bunk beds. Okay. As well as the couch and the floor. Right. And that's kinda how I lived for the next, um, It's seven years of my life before I went to college or six years of my life, yeah. And it was great because I didn't know anything different. We had a great family. Always had plenty of food. Well, we did have a restaurant, so that's good, yes, absolutely. I ran a food trailer business for a little while and I like, people, somebody told me along the way, always had cash, never had money. Yes. There you go. Obviously they'd have upgraded if it was super lucrative. Yeah, exactly. You know, or just build a restaurant more, right? Well, you know, I think the, the, the problem with, Us is that you know, we we hadn't even been in america if you think 1969 to 1984. I mean, that's 15 years Um, and part of that time was really, you know, not being really educated or a whole lot of things going on But I mean, so they really lived as A family of kind of the lowest cast for, for 15 years. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, life was tough. Cleaning houses, living in basically slums, different things. Yeah, we, we, we weren't, I mean, we, I mean, we, now we, we did own a home in Denver, but of course, I think they bought that house like 1971, like, 15, 000. Because it was in the Black neighborhood. What? It was, it was, it was actually in Wash Park area. Oh wow. Yeah. But I mean. But. At that time it was. I mean, homes were, I mean, obviously a lot cheaper then. Right, right. Remember I'd be. And so, um, but they were able to do it, but we almost lost that house too because we weren't financially, and that's why we were able to come up here and we actually sold that house. No, not long after we moved to Loveland. You know, unfortunately, it was fully mortgaged to the tilt at that point in time, just because we were trying to survive. Right, right. And so, not that we made any money on it, but it was, we came So, kind of the same through those high school years for you. Yeah, it was really tough. I mean, let's put it this way. We made, I told you we went to the state championship game. Yeah. I had to go wash dishes after the game. I didn't, it wasn't, let's go out, you know, celebrate a fun year. It was like, hey, we let you go play the football game now, you gotta get back to work. So tell me about the next chapter. Were you, you mentioned like trying to get into the NFL and things like that, but did you go off to college first and become a real star there? Wide receiver sounds like, right? So I actually originally came to Colorado State. Okay. Um, and it was, You know, I was the typical high school guy who, you know, or high school football star. Yeah, yeah, you were the big stud that thought you were all that. Who should be playing right now and not, I don't need a red shirt. I don't need to do this and everything. And it was hard on my ego. To just sit there and say, why I'm not, why am I not getting all the attention? Why am I not playing? Why am I not doing so? So I did that for a year and a half and I ended up transferring down to Fort Lewis down in Durango, a division two school and did pretty decent, but I did get hurt a lot. I mean, I, I mean, Well, those guys are a lot bigger than you. Well, and that's the thing. People don't, like I said, no one told me that the guys my size, you know, Right. Don't, shouldn't be playing football in reality. Right, right. But, you know, I had, I had a decent career. I mean, my senior year, I was healthy that year, finally, thankfully. Um, and, you know, I had, you know, I had the Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Cardinal Scouts come look at me and everything. And, but, you know, this is when they finally, someone finally gave me the reality to go, hey, look, You're as fast as anyone out there. Right. Um, but, and you definitely have a skillset. You're definitely got good hands, good eyes, run great routes. You're an athlete. Yeah. You're an athlete. Somebody will break you real soon. One, you're injured prone. I mean, how many, like, look at these injuries. You've already had injuries against these little guys. Exactly. And two, you're just not the biggest guy. So, you know, really, we're not going to, we're not going to draft you. We're not going to invite you to camp. You're not gonna be a free agent. And you know, it was, it was hard on me, but. It was actually the best thing in the world, once again, because if I would have played any more football in my life, I probably wouldn't be walking today. I mean, my body still hurts today from that experience, but it was something I wouldn't trade. I mean, I literally have friends who I consider brothers from my playing days that I would never have met if I wasn't part of this, you know, this, this, this sport. Maybe you know this, but how many, um, people of Chinese NFL right now? Of Chinese descent? None, I don't think. I think there's one Asian guy and he's actually the kicker for the Falcons. Right. And there's like a few Samoans and things like that. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And a few, like there's a couple Mexicans, but there's Yeah, I mean. Just not really that much representation out there. No, they're really, they're really. Especially amongst, you know. Small Asian. No, exactly. And that's one thing. People should have said, Hey, guess what, Pete? You're five foot seven. You're not going to make it. Yeah. I wish someone would have said that to me then. Like second year. Yeah. I was like, well, exactly. I could have played another sport. And maybe I had a chance. Right. Um, because I think, I think I was a decent athlete. It just. Right. Size wise, I didn't have the size. Yeah. No, I mean, that's kind of the nature of it. Like your skills. Doesn't really matter. You just didn't. So have you ever heard of traction EOS, the entrepreneurs operating system? I don't think so. It's a, it's a book that you might do well to weed a lot of businesses around these days, but they use a criteria for hiring and team building that's gets it, wants it, and it has the capacity to do the job. Okay. Okay. Very, um, and like in those days, no question that you got it. Yeah, you wanted it. And when it came to the NFL, yeah, sorry, just too small. Exactly. You know, we're not gonna work exactly. Anyway, when you are, I mean, like I said, I think at my best, I was probably weighing 160 pounds, right? Yeah, that was that you bulked up. Exactly. That's me. That's me trying to eat all the time, too. Right. Um, but me trying to block it. 250 pound guy, right? It just, it's, yeah, it's real, but you know, but yeah, you don't ever see that. I mean, and I, I've always, I still have that sometimes you block that stuff. I've gotten really good, which I knew. Sometimes I had a lot of success. Exactly. I mean, that's why I did have some scouts look at me, but it just, it was a scenario where it's just, the reality is I was, I had a huge uphill battle on that one physically, you know, and no matter how hard I try, it's just like, Guess what? You ever wish you would have played baseball or something instead? And that's, see, now you've got me on a whole different nerve because I've had so many coaches sit there and said, Pete, you would have been an amazing second, you would have been a second baseman. It would have been a phenom with your speed. You would have been a great lead off hitter, um, and your hand eye coordination. Right. So great. You're saying I probably could have been a millionaire if I would have played baseball. That's what you're saying. Well, but now you might be a representative for our fourth Colorado district. But I just. And if you're dirty, you could be more than a millionaire. I will not allow myself to do that. I believe in trying to be, I want to be able to sleep at night knowing that I've done the right thing. So part of the reason I invited you on is because you did have actually a pretty impact filled career. Yeah. So let's kind of forward through there. You aren't going to go to the NFL. Yep. I graduated college and the first thing I did actually was to start a small business. I'm a, I'm a big fly fisherman and I started this fly rod business, which I thought was going to be phenomenal because, um, it was right, right before the tech bubble, but there was a company. Oh, so you were trying to sell fly rods online. And exactly. And everything was online then. Um, I guess I want to. Geez, now it's blanking me, but it was a company that actually was bought out by John Elway and, and Wayne Gretzky, and, um, they had that company called, I think it was called MVP. com at the time. Yeah. And they were paid, we'll, we'll sell your fly rods online. Yeah. And I was excited, and unfortunately, https: otter. ai The bubble burst. Right. And the company closed the doors. And as a result, that was the end of that, that dream of that business right there. So it, it stinks, but it was also another lesson is like, well, geez, understand how the rug can be pulled out from you immediately. So that was the failure business. So then I started just getting into tech role. I actually started working for Nextel and this is, this is kind of where, what was your degree in by the way? A business administration. Okay. So business degree. Yeah. And did you always want to have your own business? When you got out of college, you were like, I'm going to start a business. Well, and that's kind of the thing is, I mean, I think you sit there and say, there's, you know, you, you know, this statement, you being all about businesses is that. You're never going to get wealthy working for someone else, you know, better be damn good at it. Exactly. Like being in the NFL. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Unless someone's going to pay you a few million dollars. Right. Exactly. So I, um, started working in the, no, the tech, I actually started working for Nextel, which is now Sprint. So the cell phone company and all that, and started working my way, actually getting real business skills. It's crazy how, you know, you can, You think, you know, things you really don't know anything until you start getting, and there's no substitute for experience. I mean, I think experience is even better than college. I mean, really, it's like, well, you taught me this in college, but it doesn't really apply to the real world. So I've been able to really function in so many different aspects, you know, in, you know, training and, and sales and, you know, just, and just understanding how corporate structures work kind of how it all knits together. Exactly. Exactly. And then I went from there to working for, um, Um, HSBC bank, which at that point in time was the second largest bank in the world. And it was weird. I just went in there as a loan officer and worked my way up. And before I know it, It was just, it's crazy how hard work really can get you somewhere. I mean, I went in there, I go, you tell me what to do, because I really want to be able to start making it. So tell me about this journey on the back. So, I mean, here I am going from, no, this was actually in Denver at that point in time. And I mean, I mean, I, going from making, you know, 30, 000 a year at, at Nextel Sprint to all of a sudden going, well, I'm going to work in this bank and get into the loan industry and everything. And I'm like 35, 000. Well, they had a salary even less than that. So it was like almost like small salary with, you know, basically like mortgage lending. Exactly. Correct. Yeah. And I go, you tell me what to do. And all of a sudden I was the hardest working guy in the room picking things up as quickly as possible. Right. And before, I know within six months, I'm the number one loan officer in the company, And I was like, wow. Well, it's, it's your experience at the restaurant. Hard work. Exactly right. I mean, it, it, it's, it's crazy. You're like, oh, I only need to call 30 people a day. That's exactly easy compared to busing 140 tables a day. Exactly. I go, this is a piece of cake and you want me, do you want me to, it was actually 40 calls a day. I go, fine, I'll do a hundred calls a day. Right. And before you know it, I was like, wow, okay. And before you know it, the company at that point, I got promoted to manager. Literally. After six months, and then the company said, I took seven different branches from being last in the district to number one. Wow. And the companies then go at this point in time. How did you do that? Just hard work. Well, you hard work, but you're training them on best practices. How did you learn those best practices? Nobody trained you. Well, trial and error. I'm, I'm a big believer. Okay. Let's see what works. What doesn't work. Okay. You know, one thing I did realize quickly, especially when it comes to interacting with clients who don't know who you are, they don't want to talk to you, right? You better catch him quick and it better be right to the point and it better be enough to sit there and say, Oh, well, do you want to save money on your mortgage? Hey, if I can lower your, if I can lower your credit card bill by this and then take them to another, you know, just, you know, exactly, exactly. Just the quick things. Um, and then also hard work though. It's like, Hey, you know what? I promise you, you make X amount of calls a day, or if you actually, you know, you know, talked to enough people, I promise, and if you say what you need to say, you're going to be successful. So I was able to train people to a whole nother level. I mean, the company at some point, they started flying me out to California, to Kansas, Chicago. Touch this team, touch that team. Well, they were saying, tell them what you're doing. Exactly. And it was, it was great. And, you know, um, the one thing that is a little bit different with me though, cause I, I do do everything kind of at 150 miles an hour, you know, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it a hundred percent. And so, you know, I got a little burnt out. I did that for about four years and then I actually went over to Wyndham worldwide at that point in time. Okay. Took. As a realtor? No, no, no, no. So this is a, Oh, selling timeshares and shit. It's a hotel company slash timeshare, everything. Right, right. They come through, I mean, they own, They're like. You are amazing. Well. You teach people well. Well, this is what's weird about this because this was right, um, In a scenario where this company, they had, I mean, I wanted something new. I wanted to try something new and I'm a big believer in, in, you know, bringing on new skillset yourself in an uncomfortable situation. I go, let me do it. Let me do event marketing. So I went in there at the lowest level. They even pay anything. But I wanted to try something new. I remember I went in there and I was going, okay. And not only that, you didn't get canned at this other place or nothing. You're just like, this looks like an interesting opportunity. I'm a big believer in it. Always pick up new skill sets. And so I went to this company and it was almost. I mean, their marketing program was almost gone by this point in time. I mean, it was like, all right, well we generate like five leads a week. I go, well, that's not very good. I guess, especially if I'm getting paid per lead, this is not good. Well, I took this where we went from five leads a week to 200 leads a week. And they're going, what in the world is going on? Or how in the world is this going to Orlando? Well, before you know it, it took to another level where I actually got promoted. Well, actually, I promoted to manager, then all of a sudden I became director of marketing for the West Coast for, for, for, uh, for Windermere wide. Yeah. And that's when I just started learning a whole new skill set and also being able to take it to a much larger scale. And all this is just practical applied. How did you learn, like, how to tradition, basically you transitioned from a salesperson to a marketing person. Exactly. Correct. Yeah. And how? Finding out what people want to know. Okay. And also, once again And how? But also this Just from your anecdotal evidence from phone calls and conversations and stuff? Exactly, yeah, exactly. And then also, Everything and now and I don't believe in the you know, one size fits all yeah, I believe in sitting there saying okay. Look, um What what what what is my message? What I mean because the reality is and I think we go back to the old statement, too I think you think about this too. Someone's always In every interaction, someone's buying, someone's selling, you know? And so it's just like, well, you know, and there's only really response. It's like, it's either yes or no. And so trying to identify what really does resonate with you. I'm a big believer that we all kind of want, I mean, you wouldn't be talking to me if it wasn't some interest already. Well, and, and I think ideally. It's not just as simple as that. Like right here between our conversation, am I buying or selling? Well, right. Yeah. I wanted a podcast guest. That would be interesting. Yeah. They would have a different perspective. That's doing something important. Exactly. Yeah. Um, and I'm not paying you nothing. You got some cool swag. Well, I mean, Hey, I was looking to come and meet you. Cause I thought you were something actually very special. So it's kind of a scenario there where I am. Looked at what the industry was and being able to identify how can we actually increase, you know, production, what's missing, what's not working, what's not, what is working. And, but also I'm a big believer in leading by example too. Yeah. And there's one thing that nobody will ever outwork you. And if they see something working, then guess what? They believe it's going to work as well. I mean, this is actually funny because there was many times like we'd have events where we're doing these marketing events and they'd sit there and I'd show up. And the reps would go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Aren't you the director of marketing? What are you doing here working with us? Right. They couldn't believe that. Right. And it's like, because Hey, I'm not going to ask you to do something. I'm not doing myself. Exactly. And I want you to see how everything does work and it does work. And guess what? When people see that it works, all of a sudden your mindset is like, well, geez, if he can do it, I can do it. And that's what was a huge part of it. And so it was, it was a great success. And, um, once again, I got a little burnt out as well. Um, and it was also a lot of traveling, which I didn't like that part as well either. Okay. So this is what, this is where we kind of ventured in the whole site. And I was talking about solar earlier. Yeah. So two of my former employees, Took from, from Wyndham, took what I had taught them in the marketing role and decided to go over and go create leads for the solar industry. And they started doing that for solar city, which is actually now it's Tesla. Now, exactly. Elon Musk and everything. And they started up their own company and it was, it wasn't, it wasn't doing great by any means, but they called me and said, Pete, would you. Oh, they were just trying to give. Tesla SolarCity leads was their model. Exactly, yeah. Great guys, great guys, and the company was struggling a bit. They decided to go from leads to actually full on, you know, selling and installing of solar panels. Oh, as a contractor for Tesla still, or for SolarCity, or competition? Competition. Oh. Yeah. Like they couldn't create enough leads for Tesla, SolarCity. Well, they were also, well, they were saying, Wait a minute, we're creating all these business leads. Oh, so they were successful at that. Yeah, they were, so they, well, let's, let's, Why don't we just keep them for ourselves? So, so, but unfortunately it was a whole different level for them at that point. So they, would you consider coming a little harder than we thought? So I ran over there and became their director of marketing and sales. Right. And, you know, they could focus on operations and delivering what they needed. They basically went to the manufacturer's site where I handled everything else. And we were able to take that company to the point where it was the fastest residential installer in Colorado at that point in time. This is in Denver? This is Denver, exactly. Okay. And it was, it was a great success. But once again, this is when I started thinking about, you know what, I'm, I'm pretty blessed. I felt like I was very blessed at least because I sit there and look at my journey in life. I mean, I used to, I mean, you want, You're a high impact guy. Well, I like to think I, I, I, I think I, hard work succeeds, and I think about my whole life here. I mean, I sometimes think about my family. I mean, I watch TV sometimes, I look at these undeveloped countries, and I say, wow, we could be living there making 2 a day, but yet, seven children in my family, five who got college degrees. Despite coming from nothing are all living amazing lives in this world in this country. And I sit there and think of myself is like, well, how blessed am I to be able to do this? I started thinking, what can I do to really make an impact and actually say thank you to a country that's taking care of me. And that's actually when I decided to leave the solar company then and say, well, you know, I'm going to consider running for office. And, you know, obviously I start talking to people who are in, in the world and so forth. And it turns out that I end up running for Congress, you know, a federal position. So I'm curious, like, if that very first business would have taken off? Uh, and now you had 300 employees in four states or something like that. Like, if you could contrast that potential journey with this one. That's a great, that's a great question because I actually started the second company up too, right? Cause I was doing so well in the marketing side. I go, geez, I'm generating this business. That's a whole different level. Oh, so you started your own marketing company. Exactly. But then of course, what happened then in 2008, the financial collapse. Yeah. And so everything. Completely frozen at that point in time. And that's actually when basically Wyndham said, Hey, why don't we just basically make you director of marketing? So that's actually why everything kind of worked out. And you're, you're right. What happens if, if any of these businesses would have took out to a different level? Where would I be right now? I mean, I would still think I would probably still have the same mindset, what I'm doing right now. Yeah. However, it's hard to say for sure. Well, I mean, for what it's worth, it's clear that you've been in a high impact player at every stop. Yeah. Like there is no station where you haven't tried really hard and worked your butt off and had very solid success. Yeah Yes, and so I guess I just like to recognize that and be appreciative of the fact that you're running for office instead of like finding success and seeing this as a way to cement your legacy or Whatever and I think that's a great way to put it because I mean I'm people say why are you doing this because I mean I you know, obviously no matter what I say You I'm gonna, someone's not gonna agree with me. And that's the reality of it. I mean, that's, that's the reality of our political world. Yeah. There's no one that's gonna agree with me, no matter what I say. And, there's gonna be, you know, sometimes republicans will agree with me, sometimes they won't. Which is weird right now. Yeah, yeah. Um, even though I, you know, I'm, I'm talking conservative talking points. But, it's a scenario where I, I honestly feel like my family does owe a debt of gratitude to this country. And, and so if I can help lead by example, I, I, I said this a little bit earlier, I, I can't stand candidates or politicians who sit there and say, I'm going to fight for you, or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to throw a cheap, you know, campaign promise out there, or political platitudes. I, I want to, my hope is, if, if I'm so lucky to be the next representative. Is the show and lead example by what a represent a public servant supposed to do because this isn't a career This is not a career This is a temporary opportunity to do the right thing for the people of your district your state in your country Yeah and I hope I do at the highest level where at the end at the end of my Run, which if I if I am so lucky to win this election I'm maxing myself at six years. I won't do more than six years. Are there three years? There are two year terms, so I won't do more than three terms. Alright, I like that. One is I'll be 52 if I do get elected. Right, I'm going to need to get a job to get my retirement sorted out. I'm not doing this in my 60s. The good thing is you can go work for, you know, And that Pfizer or something will make a ton of cash after Congress. Well, just know this good and I know that you don't even live in the district by means but yeah The one thing I want you to know is that I believe in being a representative for everyone Obviously the people that I represent in my case a first choice exactly But I do believe in making sure especially when you and I first talked You Especially since you do focus on businesses and so forth. I want to make sure I'm, I'm in, I guess, I don't know, a tool or an asset maybe where I can help other people try to be successful because I believe, you know, I used to love more than anything. When I was a manager or director or whatever the best thing I always loved I always knew that if I worked hard that the paycheck would be there. Sure But the best part that I always love is when I have employees come up to me and say Peter I never thought I could make this kind of money, right? You've changed my life. And that's why I match. This is the main reason why I'm running for office. I want people to be able to sit there and say, I have a representative that I know if I have a problem, if I have any problem with my taxes, I'm having a problem with trying to get help at the VA. I mean, these are, these aren't even policies. These are just having a representative who understands you need help. And if there's one thing I live my entire life by, and this, this is something that there's not a person in the state of Colorado that can ever even doubt this. Is that. I can't stand that feeling of when I need help, or I'm trying to get a hold of someone, and I can't get a hold of somebody, it drives me crazy. I will never let someone feel that way because of me. In fact, Shelly and I, on our 7 year anniversary dinner, I answered my phone call, my phone, 20 times during that anniversary dinner. Okay. Because I, I don't know who needs my help. And that's what's important. She goes, really, really? I go, you know who I am? Well, and I know that's, I'm going to say yes, but I'm also set some boundaries. Well, and I'm, I'm definitely wrong in that. And that's why, that's why she always worries about me. Cause she knows how I take everything personally. Like, like I said, I said this earlier, where no matter what I say as, as a representative, someone's going to disagree with me. And she goes, if there's one problem you have, Peter, You can't stand it when someone says something negative about you. And you're gonna go and search that person out and go, Let's talk. I need to know what we can do to resurrect this because I need to make sure that I have your approval. Because I need to make sure I do right by you. You're like a, uh, super powered people pleaser with principles. That's a good way to put it, and it's, it's, it's, I think it's a good thing, but I also think it's a little bit of a curse, too, because it wears me out. All things in life are that way. Unfortunately, like, your, your great strengths are your great weaknesses, and Great, great, great point. Wow, I've never even heard it that way. Yeah, that's a great, great way to put it. Oh, it's part of that hallows tale. Foundation that we've studied is like, it's just kind of your nature. It comes with both good elements and bad. When I tell you what, Kurt, from everything you tell me that you're doing as well, I would love to really be able to try to help out in so many avenues because I just, well, I just, I believe in making sure that people have this platform to be successful in life. And I, I think that, you know, the, the more people realize that there is opportunity out there. Yeah. You know, you, it's amazing what you can do. And there's one thing, I'm a big believer in this too. And this is why this, this is the reason why I'm a conservative. I mean, I believe that doing things out of the goodness of your heart, donating money or your time or helping someone else, that's, that's an honorable thing. But for the government to come and sit there and say, you got to do this, that and the other, to do this, that's not honorable at all. Well, that's why we're so aligned. My, I think I shared with you my motto, the ask of your needs and share of your abundance and the complexities within that. Exactly. You know, like, just Don't grab from me, ask of me. Absolutely. And to be able to be in that position. I want to make sure that people are in a position. It's like, you know what? Go become filthy rich or successful in life and then be able to help other people go create some jobs, could be able to donate and help them out in a situation at a time of need. If like their house burned down, I was like, guess what? I'm actually in position to help you. Whereas if I'm not in position to help you, he's like, well, I guess I can't do anything for you. Except me. Hey, here, I'll buy you a bowl of soup. Well, great. That's great for a minute. But you know what, what's the old statement? You know, you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. You give him a fish, he only eats for a day. Right. So I'm a big believer in the philosophy is like, let's make you successful. And then you can help everyone else in the way. So, the segment that got probably not recorded, we covered family and politics a bit, but we haven't talked a lot about your own faith journey. You mentioned that your family had, and you had some friends and stuff. What's been your involvement, and what's your perspective on that? Well, if we're talking about, you know, God and Jesus Christ, like I said, there's nothing in my life that I don't do, where I don't worry, am I being judged? And there's not a decision in my life where I sit there and say, would this be accepting? Yeah. And that's kind of how I live my entire life. It almost doesn't matter who that God figure is. Well, I mean, it does because it's Jesus and we've got this whole Bible that tells us that, but. Exactly. Yeah. And that's who I devote myself to. Now, like I said, am I the most religious person in the world? I mean, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to go to church, you know, every single day or every Sunday, whatever it might be. Um, I, I feel like my values. are as strong as any other Christian out there. And, like I said, if I do something, I mean, like I said, I've never been arrested. I've never broken the law. It's just, it's one of those things where it's like, everything I do, I'm, and sadly, I mean, I'm almost like a goody two shoes to a certain level. I remember, I mean, even, like, even before I had my first beer in life, it was like, oh my gosh, you know, I mean, I didn't do that until I, in college, you know, and so, It's like, well, if I was going to give you one piece of small advice, it would be probably to give yourself more grace to a little bit of like, that's one of the big things that Jesus preached against was kind of the legalism of the previous system. Yes. Yes. The legalism of our system now. Right. Exactly. It's a little bit. And the one thing I will sit there and say is, uh, you know, the one thing I have really come to understand is like, we are human, right? We are found. I see a lot of grace. In you, for people that don't think like you. Oh, well, yes. Yes. And it's just, it's kind of a weird thing how, I, uh, I want to act in a certain way. I want to make sure that, especially like, when we're talking about grace, we're talking about being humble. You know, I believe in being humble. Completely humble. Like, I don't Like, working as hard as you can, achieving as much as you can. Yeah, exactly. But also realizing it's not because I'm special, it's because, you know what, I, I, I did what was necessary. Yeah. You know, and I, uh Well, I was gifted with benefits beyond the average person. I, I Like, it's not Yeah. You didn't make you really fast. Exactly. Right? God made you really fast. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But then also, um, making sure that you, you utilize. Whatever, whatever gifts we do have, some people are better at other things. That's the reality. Some people are just better at certain things and that's okay, but it doesn't mean you still can't achieve so many great things in this life. And I, and that's, you know, I think the biggest thing for me is let's just make sure that People understand, you know, hope. Yeah. Hope is such a powerful thing. Yeah. To wake up in the morning and sit there and say, Well, guess what? Life isn't, you know, is not dire. It's not, you know, it's, there, there is abilities to have, you know, to, to improve. I was just, uh, that was actually the quote I was gonna share before I realized that we might not have been recording for that long ass stretch. Excuse my language. Which is, uh, Henry Ford's, uh, old quote, Whether you think you can or think you cannot. You are correct. Exactly. And, I think that needs to be a message of more people. That's a huge message and that kind of goes down that same line where we're talking about those students at CSU. Yeah. It's like, they already believed that the world hated them. Right. Right. And that, to me, that's what really makes me upset about it. It's a huge shame. And I think, like to go back to Alma. And what we talked about with her, like her relative isolation from the society of today maybe helped her not to have that kind of victimhood mentality and excuse making and just be like, I need to work hard and achieve if I'm going to make a difference here. Sometimes you need to be just ignorant to what's going on in the world because that actually gets you ahead because sometimes you sit there and listen to the news or someone telling you, and that's why sometimes I get really upset about. People going down this road of, you know, um, no white privilege or whatever else it might be. Right. Don't you dare tell me that when I wake up in the morning that I'm two steps behind somebody. Right. Don't tell me that because all that makes me sit there and think is like, there's no chance. Well, I'm going to flashback because I think we missed it that we talked about your family a little bit and the fact that, you know, even though your, your parents, your mom and your dad never really had a comfortable life, they like worked themselves to the bone until they were gone. And. Like five of the seven of their kids graduated from college and maybe seven out of seven are in the top 10 percent of income earners in our country. Like they're all successful and that's such an amazing thing. Exactly. Exactly. And it just, it took a lot of sacrifice. And it wasn't just like the easy path. There's like, Hey, guess what? We're all 18, graduated high school. We went to college. We all graduated. No, no. My sister, by the way, who I, I mean, she's my hero. My sister who dropped out of high school to help the family as always. She ended up meeting a guy. Got married, had three kids through her 20s. Okay. Didn't work out. I mean Yeah. No surprise. Happens. It usually happens when you get married too early or not really, you know. Yeah. Whatever. So at 31, she decides she wants to get her life back together. So she goes and gets her GED. Goes to CSU. Working as a waitress still at the restaurant, surviving, raising three kids, graduates, and now is an executive at one of the largest banks in the world, making six figures. She didn't do this until in her thirties, and had three kids in the process, had to get her GED first. Yeah, it was impressive. Why, why would anyone sit there and say, you know, the American Dream's dead, or, you know what, guess what? Right, on paper, her dream was dead. Exactly. But she sat there and said, well, I'm gonna work. I want a better life. And she had support, I presume. Yeah, well, yeah, of course, we always helped her with the kids and everything. Right, right. But she was also, but I mean, I mean, that, still, 95 percent of everything she did was on her. Yeah. And she did it, and I can't tell you how proud I am of her. She hates when I tell that story, by the way, so I'm sorry, sis. Sorry, sis. Because she's, I don't want to sound like I'm a charity case, and you're not a charity case. That's actually an inspiration. I mean, to be able to graduate college at 36, whatever it was, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable. And now Now being an executive at a large bank. Yeah, your crazy experience, your loco experience. Do you have a craziest story that you'd like to share? You know, I will say, I'm a little bit boring on the outside, but But let's, I mean, I think about some of the things I've always done in life, but, um I'm gonna go back to work again because it seems like everything I talked about is work related. Yeah, business. So, I mean, I used to work, um, at the restaurant, like I said, washing dishes till, you know, 10, 11, midnight, depending on when. You're there till you're done. But, I didn't get paid. Right. So, if I want money to go buy football cleats, or to even be able to go watch a movie, or do anything, I had to get another job. Sometimes I had, you know, multiple jobs. One of the jobs I picked up was right here at Boyd Lake, right down the street. Okay, sure. What I had to do every morning after getting off work at 11 o'clock, first thing I did at 6 a. m. over at Boyd Lake, my job was to clean, go underneath the outhouses, and actually have to lie on my stomach and use a rake to rake it out. Ugh. But you know what? It taught me a workout that nothing's beneath me. I'm willing to do whatever I need to survive. And you know what? Once you get rid of that mindset that's like, Oh, I'm too good for that or this or that. Guess what? That's when the door was really open for you. And, I mean, I don't know if that's really accurate. Like I said, I'm a pretty straight laced guy for the most part. But, I, I, I mean, Well, it is though, because, like, you were a kid that was going to high school for 50 hours a week. You're in football. You're a star football player. You're working at your restaurant and stuff. And, you're like, scooping the shit out of the outhouses. That's exactly what it was. And I used to sit, my friend, who was my best friend in the days, was like, why am I always the one picked out? Is it because I'm the Chinese guy? What's going on? Why am I the one that had to do this every morning at 6am? But you know what? I think part of the reason why is because they knew I would. Right. This guy is not going to give us grief. This guy is just He's, he's our best worker. He's actually going down there and just doing whatever we need to do. And, you know, um, and this is one thing I would love to say before. I used to sit there all the time and I'm not saying I never complained. I mean, I used to think, why is it, why am I doing this? I go, my friends are all out having fun. I had to come back and wash dishes after the state championship game. It was the best lesson in life because now working hard, whatever I need to do. Not even, not even a second thought. And I thank my mom and dad for that now because, and I think my whole family has to say that too, is like, What do we need to do to be successful? What do we need to do to put food on the table? What do we need to do to put a roof over our head? We'll do it. And I don't care if it's 10 hours or 100 hours. That's why right now as, as the candidate for the 4th Congressional District, I'm knocking on probably 200 doors a day. That takes about four and a half hours. I do that every day. And reason why I want the constituents to see me and they sit there and say, well, I've never seen a potential congressman standing at my front porch and giving me his personal cell phone. The other guy, this guy the other day goes, this isn't your number. Dial it right now. And I rang my phone right there and he goes, nevermind. He goes, how do I know you won't change? I, that's been my phone number for 20 years. Yeah. You ever need my help? If I am so lucky to be your congressman. You will have a first line number to me. And that's the kind of representative I want to be. Like I said, that's probably the reason why I can probably only do this for even three terms, if that long. Well, Peter, you, you got my vote across party lines of my independence and libertarianism and check the Republican box next to Peter Yu. I appreciate that. And I want to, in the election, I'm not going to like for the primary. But I just, uh, I just, I just want to say, I appreciate you taking the time to invite me on the show. You're a cool guy. Well, and I think you are too, and I know this is probably isn't your typical interview because this doesn't really fall in line with what you do in regards to like, your think tankering, but I think it's important that we, we expand all of our, our, our horizons. Well, and you're the family that brought Chinese restaurants to Loveland, Colorado. You know, it's crazy. Can you go to Loveland now? It's a whole different world. I mean, there's, oh, there's nine Chinese restaurants. And not only that, it's, it's Thai, it's Japanese. Sushi is like, wow. I mean, it's, it's crazy. We would, we would never have survived back in those days. We had, we had kind of a little bit of monopoly back then. It's like, no, different world now. We just had, we probably just made it work even harder than who knows what would come from that, but I just want to say thank you, um, you know, and I, I, you know, I think it's important that regardless of whoever we're talking to, regardless if you're a libertarian, Republican, unaffiliate, Democrat, We, we gotta have the conversation. You want to represent that person. Exactly. Uh, where do people go to donate money or find out more about you? Thank you so much. So, it's really simple. So, my name is Peter Yu and my last name is spelled Y U. Very simple. So, PeterYu4Congress. com. F O R, Congress. com. Um, and if anybody wants to sit down for a cup of coffee, I, I don't care what your affiliation is. Yeah. I want you to know that, uh. I'm here to represent. And if you want to volunteer to knock doors, we could use help. I could use a lot of help on that because, um, it's, it's funny. Cause my volunteers, my staff, now they sit there and say, Pete, you've got to ask for more help. Right. They're only doing like 80 houses a day. Cause they're not as hardworking as you are. And they, they sit there and say, Pete, you're going to kill yourself. I go, well, too many houses. I go, you guys, you guys know who I am. Many hands make light work. Remember that. That's what they do say. Exactly. Thank you so much.