Parallel Entrepreneur with Mark Cleveland

Mark Cleveland (00:00)
Welcome back to The Parallel Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Mark Cleveland, and today I'm thrilled to introduce a guest who embodies the spirit, creativity, entrepreneurship, and community building skills of a parallel entrepreneur. Christian Paro is not your typical entrepreneur. He's a real estate investor, a business innovator, and a man who truly knows how to turn dreams into reality. He started his journey in the co-working world around 2011. We're going to focus on that with the creation of Center 615, a vibrant co-working space here in East Nashville, coolest place in Nashville. And since then, he's been expanding his footprint with Studio 615, which is a production and event space, and the Five Points Alley Shops, a unique hub and retail
for dining. His business model is all about supporting small business and fostering creative environments. Christian's journey is one of passion, adaptability, and sheer determination, particularly, I think, when it comes to finance and banking relationships. Let's welcome the man behind some of Nashville's most innovative spaces, Christian Paro. Welcome to the Parallel Entrepreneur. I want to ask how did your experience at NYU

Christian Paro (01:13)
Thank you, Mark. Happy to be here.

Mark Cleveland (01:18)
lead to your adventure with the New York Parks and Recreation Department and how did that transition into entrepreneurship and the kinds of things that fuel you today?

Christian Paro (01:28)
Well, it was junior year at NYU. We were required to do an internship. My roommate went to an intern fair, found a brochure for interning at the Parks Department, threw it on my bed and said, hey, I think you'd be interested in this. So went and interviewed, met really cool people and got a job interning for the Manhattan Borough Commissioner. So I started there writing letters for the commissioner, liked it so much they interviewed me for a full-time job when I graduated. And it was a desk position admin, but it was fun. was a position that allowed me to meet the whole kind of Manhattan borough team. But when we went on field site visits, I realized very quickly I wanted to be in the park and not at my desk. So then I started applying for various field jobs and became a junior park manager and then eventually a park manager, managing a park is a perfect training ground for property management. So it was a very nice shoe into real estate investment, which my father did. And I realized how it could be lucrative long-term. But I also kind of got a little tired of New York City and through my connections with the Predators franchise, I visited Nashville and decided to move here to start the real estate investment company. Transitioned from residential to commercial and step by step, year by year, somehow got into office before I even knew that coworking was a thing. And that was around 2011.

Mark Cleveland (02:54)
I love it. I want to differentiate this idea that you're investing in real estate. And so you're buying and selling buildings. And it's classic. I own multiple buildings. And that's what makes me a "parallel entrepreneur" - That's not the story here. The story here is how he used the building itself and became a incubator, a sponsor and really a creator of one of the very first co-working spaces in Nashville. I think that's where I want to dig in because this is how you became a parallel entrepreneur. Talk to me about what it is that might have been the unique experience that taught you something that our listeners could benefit from as it relates to getting out in front of your skis and trying to turn a vision into an opportunity.

Christian Paro (03:58)
I would say that a lot of that credit goes to my realtor at the time, Chad Grout of Urban Grout, who still is a big presence here in Nashville. We found a building on Main Street in East Nashville that was already carved up into tiny private offices. And this was in 2010, before anyone heard about Adam Neumann or WeWork, even though he was, think at that time, signing one of his first leases in lower Manhattan. But Chad said, I have so many small business clients who need a short-term lease because they don't know where their business is going. And at that time, the standard minimum for commercial leases was three years. So he said, why don't you just paint and carpet these offices and offer three months to start and flexibility to change. And did that. It took off. We filled up. I had heard about this thing called coworking out of New York City, and I'm like, I guess we're already kind of doing that. So then in 2013, we expanded to the building next door, whose address is 615 Main Street. I had one part-time employee at the time. And she's like, well, we have to use that because it's the area code for Nashville. And we rebranded to Center 615.

Mark Cleveland (05:18)
There you go. And in all fairness, I have incubated my companies there. I know a lot of other entrepreneurs in Nashville, which is, know, middle Tennessee, Tennessee, Nashville, one of the greatest places to start and grow a company anywhere in the country. And you're you're at the ground level of trying to create really a new business model at that point in time. How did that go for you?

Christian Paro (05:40)
It was tough. When we expanded to 615 Main Street, I went through seven local banks to try and get financing and got a lot of nos. I even got laughter a few times when I said I thought about expanding the office space model on Main Street in East Nashville. I think one of the bankers said, East Nashville is where you go to drink and eat at restaurants, not work.

Mark Cleveland (06:03)
Which is true today. You go to East Nashville to have a really great set of diverse experiences.

Christian Paro (06:11)
Yes, and also if you want a really cool office space.

Mark Cleveland (06:14)
There you go. So I get this. I've had some experiences with people sort of laughing at the vision. Is that because they don't understand it? Is that because it's new or you don't fit their model?

Christian Paro (06:27)
I think it's all the above. It wasn't widely understood. So I was searching for financing in 2012 and it wasn't until the teens, '13, '14, really down here, we started to hear about the rapid success of WeWork. And then after that, like places like Industrious. So there's also a classic commercial financing model about what percentage of the real estate project is owner-occupied. And my response was 100%, but they viewed it as a traditional leasing model where every other suite was a different business, which is technically true. But we managed the whole space, the hallways, the conference rooms, we cleaned the bathrooms, we make the coffee. So that was like a, I guess at the time, a lack of understanding, but I could see why the banks would see it that way in terms of risk. Because if the business goes belly up, then you have one less suite rented.

Mark Cleveland (07:25)
So let's talk for a minute about the lesson that came from that. You had a relationship that believed in you. I think it's important to dial into relationships.

Christian Paro (07:35)
There was a gentleman, Hayes McGahey, who was working at First, at the time it was called First Tennessee, now it's First Horizon, when I did the first building, he walked in the door and was trying to win my business to bank with First Tennessee and was very persistent, checked in maybe once every month, two months and we heard about my ambitions to purchase 615 Main Street. He said he was interested. And then when the last one fell through, I gave him a call and he had just moved to a new bank based in Clarksville and he said we could do it and gave me a commitment letter within a week and I've worked with him ever since. So that is definitely one of the most crucial relationships - critical - I've ever developed in this pathway into commercial real estate investment.

Mark Cleveland (08:29)
I'd like to ask a question related to how those lessons building out Center 615 and you creating an entrepreneurial beehive. How did that inform your daily operations? And then how did you move into the second innovation, which is Studio 615?

Christian Paro (08:46)
Well, before the coworking model, I did a small kind of five unit strip center in East Nashville and rented it out to five different businesses. And during that process, I realized I enjoyed working with commercial business owners a lot more than residential tenants, which is what I had been doing before. was residential investment exclusively. Then when you start a coworking business, you know, not only do you have only commercial business tenants, but you're around many of them because I put my office in here. So the energy of the space is what kind of became almost like somewhat intoxicating where you're surrounded by people just like me with an idea, starting a new business, needing a flexible office space. And for the most part, you know, we've been doing it 13 years now. It's like good news. People have exciting stories to share. Like you're an example of one when you were with Hytch. Like just being around the energy of you and your team, it makes coming to work very enjoyable. So I was ready to invest in a new building and I had a tenant here at Center 615 that did video production. I got a building that I didn't think I would get. It was a big warehouse. And they planted the idea in my head of building out a custom photo studio with a cyc wall because Nashville didn't have one. We had a really big one, but nothing that felt boutique. And I ran with the idea and then Studio 615 was born and they moved into that and helped me get that going.

Mark Cleveland (10:34)
So I've been to Studio 615 a number of times. It is really the art epicenter of entrepreneurial shared creative spaces, I think. Did I describe that well?

Christian Paro (10:51)
One thing that's cool about that building is the variety of, clients we've hosted from a music video that will start in the woods because this property has woods behind it, if you can believe it still exists in Nashville, and then comes into the space or building customized sets. And then there's events. So we're still about a third, third, third at Studio 615, photo shoots, music videos, and events. And if you can think about the variety of all three of those types of uses and the art that gets created within the space, it's pretty diverse.

Mark Cleveland (11:26)
I've had some great experiences there and I love art. So, you know, what fuels my passion? I feel most alive when I'm creating something new and going through that discovery process. But I get better and better at it over time because I recognize patterns and gain insights that I can draw from one company to another. I'm simultaneously operating one company while I might be starting another. Talk to me a little bit about what patterns you've experienced and you've applied across these companies. I think we've already started to see a little bit of it. But How do you apply lessons from these patterns across your multiple companies?

Christian Paro (12:04)
You talked about like fueling your passion. I think mine is like the people and the parties at the end. I like celebrating and we have event spaces in all of our projects. And whether it's recognizing the tenants or the members who have been there a while or making it available to the businesses in here to have a celebratory event, that fuels my passion.

Mark Cleveland (12:32)
That's awesome. I think we underestimate how many things we should celebrate. I started all my meetings at Center 615 with all my staff, teams, et cetera, different companies. Every opening was talk to me about your little victories. And everybody had to bring a little victory into the meeting. And it really didn't matter that it was a significant or a small, but it was something they were proud of that would be their most recent little victory. Tell me, Christian, what's your most recent little victory?

Christian Paro (13:02)
I'm salvaging a piece of custom hand railing that we just installed at one of our newest projects. It's called Teacup and it's the warehouse behind Studio 615. It will be like a miniature Center 615 but designed for creatives and artists.

Mark Cleveland (13:25)
Salvaging a piece of iron. I love it. What's that iron gonna do?

Christian Paro (13:28)
Yeah, well we're gonna use it. It might or might not involve a DJ booth. Let me just leave it there.

Mark Cleveland (13:36)
I love it. We got reasons to come back and visit and hear what you decided to do with that little victory.

Christian Paro (13:40)
Yeah. Remember, there's a celebration at the end of all my projects.

Mark Cleveland (13:46)
Perfect. So, you know, our audience is interested in what the greatest lessons might be. You know, what not to do is often as important as learning what to do. So what is your greatest lesson on what not to do and how did you learn it?

Christian Paro (14:02)
Well, there's a few of those. One thing, one of the main reasons I was able to even invest in buildings on Main Street in 2010 and '11 and '12 is I never over leveraged myself when the residential market was so hot from like '05 to '09. And many of my colleagues in real estate investment did get over leveraged and had to sell assets to make up for the pitfalls of the Great Recession. So that's one. And it may sound a little cheesy, but integrity is one of my favorite words. Like if I say I'm going to do something, I follow through. And I think the people who've been with me, various tenants, members at Center 615 would attest to that.

Mark Cleveland (14:54)
So I'm curious, we talked a little bit about mentorship. I know people on your team personally, so it's an unfair question, but let me ask you to tell us, how do you implement and measure mentoring in your own companies?

Christian Paro (15:09)
Hmm, that's a good one. I said, I've had a lot of long-term members here at Center 615, and I've had this question or comment over the years where people remark on how I've had the same staff members. Like one I've had for 11, one I've had for nine, and one I've had for seven. And they're like, how do you do it? How do you keep people here? I've heard that's hard. And so mentorship is your question, right? When we get together and have staff meetings, I try and speak the least. And I know that that's not like a fancy answer, but I feel like when you allow people to have a voice and a sense of autonomy, that's one way in which I feel like I'm a mentor. And I think that kind of quality

Mark Cleveland (15:38)
Right.

Christian Paro (16:01)
trickles down from the people who are under my executive staff. I I think I observe it. And so they carry the same thing, the same quality for the new people to the team, is let them figure it out, give them space, a sense of autonomy, and definitely no micromanaging.

Mark Cleveland (16:20)
Definitely no micromanaging.

Christian Paro (16:22)
Yeah, I had someone like that when I was in Parks and I thought if I ever owned my own company, I never ever want to do that.

Mark Cleveland (16:31)
That's brilliant, because I think we've all had that kind of experience. I wonder if that's not a part of what pushes our entrepreneur button, and we just want to pull the parachute and become an entrepreneur. So we've talked a little bit about, Christian, about how you celebrate when you have a win. And I'm super curious, how do you restore your energy when you feel depleted?

Christian Paro (16:42)
It definitely is. My wife says I don't sleep enough. So the answer is definitely not sleep. I would say exercise like athletics help that reading I read a lot, try to, and travel. We we get overseas a fair bit and in our own country and seeing how other people live

Mark Cleveland (16:56)
You

Christian Paro (17:13)
and being inspired by new ideas, as exhausting as that can be sometimes, it definitely refills the tank.

Mark Cleveland (17:19)
So I don't know you to have sold very many of your companies, or you're clearly in the real estate business, you're making buy sell decisions all the time. But when someone has asked me in my role as a mergers and acquisitions advisor, or because I have started and sold six companies, they'll be saying, hey, when do know it's time to, when's the right time to sell? So I've got an answer that works for me, and it's whenever someone wants that business worse than I do. So I'm curious, as you look at markets, as you're participating, as you're seeing macro and micro economic conditions that impact your business and watching entrepreneurs build theirs, how do you know when it's the right time to sell? When do you sell?

Christian Paro (18:08)
I haven't yet. That's the short answer to that one. And now that you're kind of teeing it up that way, I had an interesting thought. I'm getting more and more into the art world, not with me as an artist, more as a host, to like do art shows and present art. And when I see something I like, I imagine being that person. And I think I would have a very hard time selling it like an original piece. I feel like I'd be very connected to it. And that's how I feel about Studio, Center and Five Points Alley shops is not, it's not a sense of greed. It's just something I feel like I've created that I don't want to part with. And if I did, I feel like I'd be sad. Like I feel a loss.

Mark Cleveland (18:53)
Interesting. So I'm really connecting with your perspective on art. I think that might be a root of how you got into setting up Studio 615. If you look behind me for those people not watching on YouTube, on our YouTube channel, The Parallel Entrepreneur, but what you'll see is some of my favorite artists. I'll rotate this in my office. And this is Sergey Gordienko, who is the "do what moves ...," you know, well, "do what moves you" was something that I created and implemented at Swiftwick, but "do what you love" is his art. And he's just built this amazing energy. And so he's reminding me that we're all here for a limited period of time with this piece and also offering us everyday wisdom to just "Do What You Love." So I'm thinking about art and the art of creating a company and the art of building value and how art shows excite me. And that's why I'm...I hope I'm not taking this down a rabbit hole, but that's motivating to me. That's that part of how you view what you're creating.

Christian Paro (20:04)
Yeah, definitely. In a way, I would say like when I first started this, I kind of pigeonholed on my perception of what art is. Like, is it a painting on canvas? Is it a sculpture? But I don't know, maybe it is cobbling an adaptive reuse building together. Maybe my definition has expanded.

Mark Cleveland (20:25)
Yeah, building a community. Well, you know, there you go. That's growth, right? We're all expanding our definitions. A part of what I have learned in these interviews with other parallel entrepreneurs like yourself is that we kind of, we see ourselves a little differently and we need permission internally from ourselves to express our creativity in starting another company or go ahead and taking risks outside of what we're doing that's a template. Entrepreneurship is not a cookie cutter thing. So, you know, what I find in the lessons for me is that I look to try to understand what am I currently committed? So I'm going to ask you, what are you currently committed to doing a little bit more of or doing a little bit less of on a daily basis? And then how are you doing that?

Christian Paro (21:15)
Committed to doing more exercise. Cause I was pretty committed to three days a week, six months ago, but the workload has gotten a little intense here lately only because we're, we're gearing up to the biggest thing I've done to date, which is a ground up community that is actually behind Studio 615. We have put together a 49 acre parcel and are finally going to be breaking ground next year. So as you might imagine, that involves a lot of prep work. So that's like reaching a pinnacle right now. So committed to doing more exercise. And committed to working less than 12 to 14 hours a day. So I think I might hire an executive assistant or something like that in the new year.

Mark Cleveland (22:11)
That makes sense. That makes sense. So what I think we all do as entrepreneurs is we don't just wait for the new year to set goals or to put our lanterns out. I like to say, you know a goal is loaded in some ways with so many different definitions or trauma that people have. I like to say we're lighting a lantern and we're holding it out in front of us so that we can show the light, illuminate the trail, and see a little bit broadly more of where we're headed. Some people like to also use the term North Star. I heard you talk about integrity a little bit earlier. So talk to me, what is Christian Paro's North Star?

Christian Paro (22:51)
It's funny, you created a lot of imagery with that description and I pictured the elves leaving Rivendell in Lord of the Rings and they knew it was time to go because they are like holding out lanterns and walking down a dark trail. Well for right now it's managing my time to focus enough on this new community we're building

Mark Cleveland (23:05)
I love it.

Christian Paro (23:17)
up at Broadmoor to make sure it's extremely thoughtful at the design phase, which we're nearly complete with. And we're not having to backtrack once construction begins. And my partner is helping a lot with this. His North Star is showcasing artists and artwork throughout the development. So we're creating a budget line item for at least eight, possibly 12 public art sculptures along the greenway that will go through this. And the new Teacup project, the warehouse behind Studio 615, the artist creatives co-working building, that will be like a kickstart to that. They'll be showcasing various local artists in there. In fact, as we're recording this, one of my best friends, Tom from DC, just got here and he'll be painting the first mural in that building. He's getting started tomorrow.

Mark Cleveland (24:12)
I love this creative energy that you have immersed yourself in and that you are building. I like to say that a parallel entrepreneur is creating a beehive. And these synergies, these energies, how we spend our time is really, really important. So I'm curious what kind of a mindfulness practice helps you stay present.

Christian Paro (24:35)
We used to take kind of like lessons in that as a team from Joanna Barbera. She's local too and she's really good at it. So before her, I didn't really understand what that term meant, but now I have a pretty solid understanding of it. Very new to meditation, but starting it very lightly. But at the very least, she taught us how to do a mindful minute and a mindful pause. My favorite example of a mindful pause is when I start losing in ping pong because my partner and I, Trey, play every Monday and he's really good. We're both pretty good. And when I'm on a losing streak, lose a few points in a row, I ask for a mindful pause. I take a deep breath and then I return. But yeah, those are the tools I use and new to meditation,

Mark Cleveland (25:20)
There you go.

Christian Paro (25:24)
challenging myself on how long I can focus on just my breath before thoughts come in and I think I've gotten to 10 seconds so far.

Mark Cleveland (25:36)
There you go. Hey, anything that is advancing and making you more capable and pulling you within yourself a mindful minute and a mindful pause,

Christian Paro (25:47)
The mindful pause is easier. That's just kind of like one deep breath in on like maybe a four count and deep breath out on a four count. But the minute is the whole minute. So it's more challenging.

Mark Cleveland (25:58)
I like it. One of my co-founders in a company and good friends, Robert Hartline, is doing this 8 Decisions program. And every Monday at five and Friday morning, we have an hour of breath work. Just speaking from my own personal experience, it's just taking my capacity to be creative and innovative to a whole new level. So maybe you'll join us on one of those afternoons.

Christian Paro (26:26)
Yeah, is there Kundalini involved where you do the rapid breathing?

Mark Cleveland (26:30)
Yeah, it's got a little bit of Wim Hof, a little bit of the four second box. I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I have sure learned from people that are helping me with mindfulness practices. I think it's made me a better leader. And it sounds like it's made you a better ping pong player.

Christian Paro (26:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark Cleveland (26:51)
So I'm curious, what is it that you want out of life? If you were to try to break it down, what does this parallel entrepreneur want out of life?

Christian Paro (27:00)
It's kind of like a mantra, but it may sound a little cheesy, but it's true. it's love, gratitude, and tolerance. If I could get more fellow humans to step into the world every day with those three - love, gratitude, and tolerance.

Mark Cleveland (27:17)
Well, that's wonderful. I usually would like to ask somebody what three words define your life and you just did that.

Christian Paro (27:23)
Haha.

Mark Cleveland (27:24)
So I'm going to pivot for a second into what I call the rapid fire section. Tell me what is the best gift you have ever received?

Christian Paro (27:34)
Ever? I don't know if I can answer ever this that quickly. But I know a recent one that's, it might go down is the best one ever and it's simple, but it's changed life-changing. I would call myself a lighting snob and my wife got me these little portable night lights that you have magnets in them so you can stick them on like an outlet in a hotel room and I also use them when I'm DJing so I can see the knobs better. Just a little soft spotlight, but you can travel anywhere. They're small and very light, easy to charge and create like a magical lighting environment. And for someone who appreciates good lighting and soft lighting so well to take it from an Airbnb to a hotel room to a DJ booth and feel like cozy and warm and welcome, pretty life changing.

Mark Cleveland (28:27)
I like it. We're back to this theme of light, which I love. And I think I've just figured out there's a little victory this week where you've got something that might relate to a DJ booth. And then I just learned that you are a DJ. Is that one of your creative outlets?

Christian Paro (28:30)
You. Yeah, so I've been into the whole dance music scene since I was an undergrad. The first nightclub I went to in New York City, I was hooked immediately. I've been a fan of it ever since, traveled the world to see DJs all over Europe and never thought I can be on the other side. I thought I would just be in the crowd. But a friend of mine here locally, when COVID hit, he knew how much I loved it. He knew I was curious about mixing and how to do it. He said, you're going to have a lot of time on your hands. We're in a pandemic. He's like, buy the exact same equipment that I have and I'll teach you how to do it. And so that was in 2020, And I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any stretch. But I think when you love something that much, you can pick it up pretty quickly. And I love it. And I practice a lot. So I kind of bought that in '20 and never looked back. And I'm actually really proud to say this. I have the opportunity, it's the end of next week. I'm going to be opening for a fairly well-known DJ in one of our spaces.

Mark Cleveland (29:39)
That's tremendous. Well, what I heard you say that I think maybe our listeners might appreciate is you never thought - you thought you'd be in the crowd. And I think so many people are spectators and they're not in the arena. What matters is stepping into the arena. What matters is taking that brave moment and crossing over into practicing and doing something that you love because you love it. What a great metaphor, what a great lesson, what a great lantern you just actually laid out in front of us. You crossed over and I think entrepreneurs are crossing over and then they're doing it a second time and a third time and artists are always experimenting and learning. So that would lead me to the next question with, what's your walk-on song?

Christian Paro (30:46)
I have so many of those.

Mark Cleveland (30:47)
DJ Paro, give us your walk-on song when you're being introduced.

Christian Paro (30:52)
I haven't yet done a gig where I get introduced that that's a few years away. my favorite song at the moment is probably gonna be pretty obscure to your listening audience, but it's called Nasty Girl. That's my hot track of the minute.

Mark Cleveland (31:10)
It's okay, you can see it at the links below. That's amazing. So that's your walk-on song, Nasty Girl.

Christian Paro (31:18)
Yeah, as of right now, but I have many, many.

Mark Cleveland (31:22)
So what's the last book you read?

Christian Paro (31:23)
All About Love by Bell Hooks. I think it was the last one I completed. And I've since given that to over a dozen friends. So you wanna talk about stepping into life with those three things, love, gratitude, and tolerance? The book is all about that.

Mark Cleveland (31:42)
That's wonderful. And what's the next book you're going to read? What's on your nightstand?

Christian Paro (31:46)
On my nightstand now is I'm always reading one fiction, one nonfiction. So my fiction is called The Optimist by Sophie Kipner, I think. She's like a modern day Kurt Vonnegut, like really good satire, but in present day Los Angeles. And, and my nonfiction is The Madness of Crowds. The book is critical of basically mob thinking. You know, how, how ideas can go to extremes very quickly, especially in this social media online society we live in. And he's just cautioning humanity against it. It's called The Madness of Crowds.

Mark Cleveland (32:26)
Yeah, the madness of pure democracy that led to the execution of Socrates. There's a lot of wisdom in there for us to seek. Thank you for sharing that. If you, Christian, could talk to your younger self, what's the first thing you would say?

Christian Paro (32:40)
Don't be afraid. There were so many things I probably had the opportunity to do, but I had, as a younger Christian, I had a lot more self-doubt, self-consciousness. And I don't know how this happened. It's funny, when I transferred to NYU, my girlfriend at the time was a theater major and I couldn't imagine how she gets on stage and sings and dances. Musical theater was her, her specialty. It just seemed terrifying to me. And then I started at NYU and took an acting class as an elective, because I was scared of it. So it was like my mentality flipped on that. Instead of like walking away from something that made me afraid, I just went right towards it to get over it. But I can't really tell you why, but that's when it happened. I was about 19 years old.

Mark Cleveland (33:35)
So leaning into that, a book that I interact with a lot is a simple thing. It's Do One Thing That Scares You Every Day.

Christian Paro (33:44)
Ooh, I like that.

Mark Cleveland (33:45)
Yeah, I'll put a link to that in our comments below. Like you, I am living with the creative class here in Music City. What seems to make them stand out, for example, as musicians, is their love, their pure, their pure pursuit of collaboration, sharing, add this, take this away, they're not getting emotionally involved in the ego. And I've watched this collaborative underpinning of what I think makes entrepreneurs successful. And I think musicians, many of them are some of some great entrepreneurs. But this commitment to collaboration. What would your observation be in that arena?

Christian Paro (34:35)
For me, it's one word, it's listening, especially listening to people who, the smart people around you. Like I said, my realtor is the one who propelled me into co-working. My video production tenant propelled me into Studio 615. They presented an idea that made a heck of a lot of sense, and I just sat there and listened to it, taking my own ego and my own fear out of it. Analyzing it. And I must say, I had the pleasure of witnessing everything you described as collaboration with entrepreneurs at the record release party that you invited me to recently. So thank you for that. I feel like that is a perfect example of everything you just described.

Mark Cleveland (35:23)
Christian, that's wonderful. What a gift. I love hearing that. What you're speaking about is my wife, Jenny, who quit her job and decided to lean into everything that scares her and had never been a singer or a songwriter or a published poet and put it all on the line and wrote a song called Jenny's Answer, which is response to the Tommy Tutone 1981 hit that was a beautiful song, but had some lyrics that probably deserved to be elevated. And she wrote, she answers the phone. We threw a party to celebrate. I love how we're connected in that way, to celebrate her naked risk taking and putting her heart and soul on the line and we produced a music video. Yeah, still, I think I'm a little bit emotional just revisiting the memory of that release party. Just yesterday we were looking at some of the shares and just people who have experienced that song, for example, just commenting and reinforcing and building upon this identity that she is leaning into as a poet, as a musician, from scratch, from never having done anything like that. I'm in awe of people who do that in their own way, in their own space. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, because you just made my day.

Christian Paro (37:00)
Yeah, as you were describing it, was like, that sounds like everything I witnessed that night between the book she wrote and the music video. So great one.

Mark Cleveland (37:11)
Thank you. So I guess in closing, what question do you think we should be asking ourselves that we don't and we should? And what would your answer be to that question?

Christian Paro (37:23)
It's a little dark, but I'll answer it. What are you afraid of and why? And I sometimes feel like I'm afraid of violence because of the things you hear in the news and people, way too many people with guns and things like that. It's a little irrational, but as someone who is so loving and so peaceful, I find myself quietly worrying about that sometimes and a Jedi would not. A Jedi would live in the moment and not worry about getting shot somewhere. But because it's just so prevalent in news and in occurrences, it's just there in the back of my mind. It's something I'm afraid of.

Mark Cleveland (38:06)
Well, it sounds like that's not only an authentic and vulnerable share, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people share that same concern these days. But we definitely, I think, can be the light for showing people how we together are emerging from fear to the moment. And what scares us from our past and what scares us from our future that hasn't happened yet and is not happening now is this failure to live in the moment. And I really appreciate how you shared how you stay in the moment and how you listen. Christian, thank you so much for spending your time with us today, for sharing. If you have one last moment of wisdom, one last contribution, the floor is yours.

Christian Paro (38:54)
If you're interested in becoming a better Jedi Knight, I highly recommend watching the actual sequence of stories, so episode 1 through episode 9 of Star Wars, because there's Yoda wisdom throughout, and you will definitely be a better and stronger Jedi after watching them. And they're fun.

Mark Cleveland (39:14)
I love it. "For 800 years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep as to who is to be trained."

Christian Paro (39:18)
Yep. There you go.

Mark Cleveland (39:23)
All right. Well, another episode of Parallel Entrepreneur in the Bank. Thank you so much for joining us, Christian Paro.

Christian Paro (39:29)
Thank you, Mark. It's great to be here.