Pat Dykstra - Swallowed by a Whale #6

Podcast
Written by Nick Halaris

🎧New Episode This week we are switching things up in a big, big way.  Our guest is my friend and former roommate, Patrick Dykstra, one of the most interesting people I’ve ever come across in life. 

Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like to almost get swallowed by a whale?  Or swim face-to-face with a great white shark in the open water?  How about what it’s like to walk on the edges of active volcanoes or stare down a charging polar bear on an ice float in the arctic? 

Well, we cover all of this and much, much more in this incredible episode.

I knew when I invited Patrick to the show that we would get some gold but this was amazing.  Patrick is someone I’ve always admired for just how audacious and proactive he has been in chasing his dreams.  We literally just scratched the surface of all the incredible things he’s done or tried to do in his life. 

Side Note: In a crazy way, Patrick is responsible for me meeting my wife.  In an effort to get me to start training in mixed martial arts and get in my first adult fight, he once challenged to fight me with one arm tied behind his back outside of the Hollywood YMCA. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous. Now, while I didn’t necessarily lose that encounter I didn’t win either and that little experience pushed me to actually start learning.  Interestingly, on the very first day I went to a Muay Thai class I met my wife! 

Patrick’s life, now filled with all the marks of contemporary success (like winning awards, staring in films, and building wealth), has been one of consistent authenticity, courage, and discipline.  He stands out as one of the few of us who has been willing to follow his curiosity and passion unapologetically and without reserve.  Of course, in the process, he achieved success but he did so on his terms and has used his unique gifts to make the world a better place. 

I know you all are going to love this episode.

Vist Patrick Dykstra:
Instagram
TED Talk
Crazy Clip
TV Show: Chasing Ocean Giants
Film: Patrick and the Whale
Company: Pictureadventure.com

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Nick Halaris

I’ve been fascinated by investing for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would read the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Barron’s, pouring over the data tables, stories and interviews with a passion and an insatiable kind of curiosity. As I grew into adulthood, I struggled to find the right outlet and channel for this passion and spent much of my twenties wandering and trying out different things. I had a very brief career as an attorney, spent some time as a strategy and leadership consultant for big multinational companies, failed in an attempt to start a hedge fund, and even ended up helping run a scrap metal recycling operation for a while.

At the age of 30 though, I took my stand. I made up my mind that no matter what I was going to be an entrepreneurial investor. As crazy as it sounds, I owe everything in my life to this one foundational decision—even my amazing wife and my beautiful kids. I don’t think I would ever have met Alicia had I not made this one choice. At that moment in time, the financial world had just been devastated by the crash in the housing market and the near systemic failure of the global banking system that followed. I’ve always had a contrarian bent to my investment thinking; so, to me the carnage in real estate looked like an opportunity.

It all started with one house in Compton California. The business plan was simple: buy a distressed foreclosed home from a bank, bring it back to life with a big renovation and sell it to a first-time homebuyer. Things progressed slowly as they tend to do with real estate. In the first years of this, I think I did 6-7 homes. But then after plugging away day-by-day, suddenly it seemed, things just came together. I found the right investors and the right loans and the right deals and in just a few short years I ended up investing in over 100 such transactions, building a portfolio of almost 2,500 multifamily units and creating a fully vertically integrated real estate company with almost 100 employees.

Fast forward to today and I’m running the second evolution of my entrepreneurial investing career and having so much fun that I have to stop and remind myself that this is all real.

http://www.nickhalaris.com
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