Episode 33: Timing Big Decisions When Emotions Run High
Episode Takeaways
In this episode, Danton Troyer and Kyle Luetters speak with Rob Stachlewitz, CEO of Resolian, about making major career decisions under pressure. Rob shares how family, longtime mentors, financial planning, and careful reflection helped him evaluate becoming a CEO. He also explores leadership, career identity, finding purpose beyond traditional retirement, and why slowing down can help when an opportunity could reshape both work and family life.
Rob discusses:
- How family, mentors, and financial planning helped him evaluate a major late-career opportunity
- Why trusted mentors can reveal risks and possibilities that are difficult to recognize on your own
- How a player-coach leadership style shapes the way he approaches his responsibilities as a CEO
- Why career identity and purpose can make the transition toward retirement more difficult to define
- How slowing down during high-pressure decisions can create room for family priorities and clear thinking
- And more!
Connect With Danton Troyer:
Connect with Kyle Luetters:
Connect With Rob Stachlewitz:
About Our Guest:
Rob has over 25 years of pharmaceutical development and laboratory operations management experience. He has led large, multinational operations groups supporting analytical services and large sites supporting nonclinical toxicology and analytical services. Rob has seen the contract laboratory business from both sides as an outsourcing manager for a large pharmaceutical client and a senior executive in a contract research organization. His pharmaceutical development experience includes roles within Abbott Laboratories and Boehringer Ingelheim. Prior to joining Resolian, Rob was a Vice President in Safety Assessment for Charles River. He is passionate about getting new medicines to the patients who need them.
Rob earned his B.S. Degree in Biology and Teaching from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. In Pharmacology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rob is also a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.
Transcript
[00:00:00] -: Welcome to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most with Danton Troyer and Kyle Luetters from Moneta Wealth Management. In this podcast, we help corporate executives and business leaders navigate the real-life uncertainty around new financial life stages, from complex benefits and career changes to retirement and legacy planning.
[00:00:21] -: Join us as we explore these career and life-shaping moments with our guests, helping listeners find clarity so they can focus on what matters most to them
[00:00:32] Kyle Luetters: And welcome to another edition of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. It’s a podcast by Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer team based out of St. Louis, Missouri.
[00:00:42] Kyle Luetters: Danton, I know we say this every single time, but- … a very special guest on today’s episode of the podcast. You wanna go ahead and give the introduction?
[00:00:52] Danton Troyer: Yeah, absolutely. We have Rob Stachlewitz with us today, and I won’t steal all of your thunder, but today we’re gonna talk about timing big [00:01:00] decisions when emotions run high.
[00:01:01] Danton Troyer: And you and I have worked together and spent some time outside the office as well. Maybe let’s start off, will you… could you just walk us through a super high level as far as where you started your career versus today, and how that has evolved? Certainly high level. We’ll get into the details a little bit, but just so everybody’s got a little bit of background.
[00:01:19] Rob Stachlewitz: Perfect. Danton, Kyle, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I always tell folks my career’s an accident. I know it sounds funny to say it that way, but that’s usually how I start out. I was supposed to be a high school teacher. Went to undergraduate degree in education and fell in love with working in the lab at Michigan State and said- Maybe I wanna go try this toxicology thing and see what pharmaceutical development’s all about.
[00:01:39] Rob Stachlewitz: So decided to go hide out and do a PhD for a couple of years, and finished that up, and then went off into pharmaceutical development. I worked at Procter & Gamble in consumer products. I worked at Abbott Labs on the tail end of the Humira registration. Bulk of my career was at Boehringer Ingelheim, where I really fell in love with operations.
[00:01:59] Rob Stachlewitz: I really like to make [00:02:00] things go. And I did what most people in my industry do not do. Most people go from a contract lab, a supplier to pharmaceutical companies, into a pharmaceutical company. I went the opposite way, actually. Then to go work at a contract lab, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 12 years.
[00:02:14] Rob Stachlewitz: I worked for Charles River Laboratories in a couple of escalating positions, ran some sites, ran science and strategy for analytical businesses. And about two years ago, in consultation with a whole bunch of people, including Danton- … I took the leap to take a CEO position for a company called Resolian.
[00:02:31] Rob Stachlewitz: We’re a bioanalytical and biomarkers provider to pharmaceutical development.
[00:02:33] Danton Troyer: Yeah. We’ve definitely talked through some of those decisions as we’ve talked to as well. Yeah. And we tend to focus more on the financial side of things, and you try to explain the science side of things, and I, a lot of times am nodding my head.
[00:02:50] Danton Troyer: But all these decisions, too, are very emotional. And how have you really handled those emotions as you’re making all these tough decisions? You [00:03:00] had a pretty good setup at Charles River Labs, and then we had a talk about what does that mean to upend everything and take another opportunity. So it’s not just made in the[00:03:09] financial bubble, but there’s other factors, especially emotions of your family and everybody else involved. So how has that really been a challenge, and how have you dealt with it?
[00:03:19] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I’m a planner. I’m a pretty analytical guy, so I had everything pretty much planned out. I took the job at Charles River.
[00:03:26] Rob Stachlewitz: Really loved working there, had a great set of colleagues. It’s a great company. But then this opportunity came up, and it was like, I always wondered if I could be a CEO of a company, and I’d say I’ve been a little bit of a reluctant CEO, right? I like the player coach type of role. Yeah, it was a really emotional discussion when you think you have your life all laid out.
[00:03:45] Rob Stachlewitz: So I started with, of course, with my family. Should I do it? Is the leap worth it? And everybody was supportive there. And then mentors, I use a lot of mentors. I’ve had some mentors for upwards of 30 years that I rely on, the folks I can talk to about anything [00:04:00] personal, professional, that are gonna give me an honest opinion, so I use those folks quite a bit as well.
[00:04:05] Rob Stachlewitz: And then, of course, I went out to Danton and the folks and said, “Okay, my plans might be changing.” “What do you guys think if I leave and this blows up in six months?” Which I think is exactly what I said to you, Danton. Yeah. “If this blows up in six months- … like, what does it mean?” And I think we’re in a, I’m in a fortunate position where the discussion was, okay, you blow it up in six months, maybe you’re gonna work a couple more years than you plan to, but ultimately, it’s not gonna be the end of the world.
[00:04:29] Rob Stachlewitz: I felt like it was a perfect fit for me, so decided to make the leap, and I’m having a blast doing it
[00:04:35] Kyle Luetters: So that was a number of big decisions, but probably culminates within the biggest one You mentioned, Rob, talking to like family and Danton and other people, but I’m curious, what sort of framework did your mentors give you as far as taking on this role?
[00:04:53] Kyle Luetters: I know at least there’s people in my life that I hold out as mentors, and I hold them in great esteem, and there’s actually mentors I go to [00:05:00] for different things. So I’m curious, like your framework, what kind of advice would they give you? Who all did you… broad terms, who did you seek out, and what were you looking for from them when you were pulling on that a little bit?
[00:05:11] Rob Stachlewitz: Some of it was a little bit of cheerleading, right? So it’s making that leap. You’re looking for somebody who’s gonna come and say, “Yeah, you got this. You can do it.”
Kyle Luetters: Always.
Rob Stachlewitz: My family’s always done that for me as well, so they’re some of my biggest cheerleaders, but your mentors can help you see maybe the things that you’re not able to see so clearly.
[00:05:28] Rob Stachlewitz: You’re ready for this role. You’re prepared for it. We think you’re gonna be successful and do well. And I have had times where my mentors have cautioned me, “That’s probably not the right choice to make,” another decision. So you gotta have a level of trust with those folks, and they’ve been really helpful to me along the years making those decisions.
[00:05:46] Kyle Luetters: Kinda as a carry-on to that question a little bit, how did you go about cultivating those? One of the funniest stories I think probably in this entire endeavor is that Danton and I got completely linked up because- … I think he accidentally signed up to be [00:06:00]
[00:06:01] Danton Troyer: It was intentional. I promise.
[00:06:03] Kyle Luetters: I promise.
[00:06:04] Kyle Luetters: It’s a more funny story if you unintentionally did it. What is that old adage? Don’t ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.
[00:06:11] Danton Troyer: Yeah.
[00:06:11] Kyle Luetters: So anyway, so intentionally, but like Danton and I, so we’re on this podcast today because he signed up on a board, and I happened to say, “Hey, I need a mentor.”
[00:06:22] Kyle Luetters: How did you go about finding those people in your life?
Rob Stachlewitz: That’s a great question.
Kyle Luetters: You know, an approximation.
[00:06:27] Danton Troyer: Yeah.
Rob Stachlewitz: That’s a great question.
[00:06:27] Kyle Luetters: ‘Cause I think that’s something a lot of folks are asking now, especially in the workforce. How do you find people that are further down the path than you are that will actually give you something of substance or value or maybe a job?
[00:06:41] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I think you have to make some sort of connection first, right? So you’ve gotta have potentially some sort of shared experience or shared history, and I’ll be a little tongue-in-cheek about it, but think about those friends that you rely on that’ll bury a body with you, right? If you had to do that.
[00:06:55] Rob Stachlewitz: Hopefully, you never have to.
Kyle Luetters: Got it
Rob Stachlewitz: But same sort of idea from a mentor [00:07:00] point of view, right? Right. I’m looking for somebody that I can fully trust, and it did come out in, in, in some cases where I said, “You’d be a great mentor. Would you be willing to help me if I have questions?” And when you ask folks like that and you’re a little vulnerable, people tend to open up and say, “Absolutely, sure.”
[00:07:15] Rob Stachlewitz: And one of my mentor relationships, geez, I’ve had for 30 years, an incredibly close relationship, and I would never call him up to bury a dead body, but I could call him up whenever I wanted for just about anything from a career point of view, and he’s invested with me. He likes to see my success.
[00:07:34] Rob Stachlewitz: I like to share it with him. He likes to talk me through the trials and tribulations of things that are going on. We have a really tight and great relationship, and I have… I’m lucky I have several people like that.
[00:07:44] Kyle Luetters: Well, I think there’s a term, and then I’ll be quiet a second, but I like the term foxhole brothers.
[00:07:50] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah. There you go.
[00:07:51] Kyle Luetters: If you think about that-
[00:07:52] Rob Stachlewitz: Similar …
[00:07:52] Kyle Luetters: Those are the people that are, like, they’ve been through some of the chaos and some of the loud noises and all the [00:08:00] things that we probably shouldn’t use descriptive language on a podcast like we would offline. But you, when you hear foxhole brother, you immediately have this mental imagery of being in proximity to one another
[00:08:13] Kyle Luetters: and going through something that is way bigger than the rest of you.
[00:08:16] Rob Stachlewitz: Yep, yep, and maintaining those stories, right? And maintaining that confidentiality that potentially goes along with it, ’cause you are being vulnerable, right? You are sometimes talking about things that you don’t want other folks to know about.
[00:08:27] Rob Stachlewitz: It’s super important when you’re thinking about a mentor. And I have had people break that confidence, and they’re no longer mentors for me. That’s just how it goes.
[00:08:35] Danton Troyer: Yeah, I was gonna ask if you’ve ever had a, I’d say bad mentor, but, yeah … obviously, if they break your confidence, that is an issue as well.
[00:08:42] Danton Troyer: And how did you deal with that but still maintain trust in others? It’s kinda easy if you kinda had your hand burnt once, you’re like, “Ah, I don’t wanna do that anymore.” But it seems like you’ve stuck with that, which-
[00:08:52] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah …
[00:08:53] Danton Troyer: to me makes a ton of sense, obviously. But how did you work your way through that?
[00:08:57] Rob Stachlewitz: Just because one person, and you had [00:09:00] a bad relationship or a downturn with that person doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody’s impacted by that, right? So-
[00:09:06] Kyle Luetters: Yeah …
[00:09:07] Rob Stachlewitz: I tend to be a trusting individual to begin with. Trust is something to lose with me, so most of the time folks have it when we start the relationship, and, you know, they go down from there potentially.
[00:09:19] Rob Stachlewitz: If you wanna look at it pessimistically.
[00:09:20] Kyle Luetters: You’re at the high water mark, right, at the beginning.
[00:09:22] Rob Stachlewitz: There you go. Yeah. But of course, you build it with what you share and the mutual experiences you have and the discussions you have. You build more trust as that relationship goes on.
[00:09:31] Kyle Luetters: Yeah. It kinda reminds me of a funny story, a little bit on the relationship side of things, where my wife and I are training for a full marathon.
[00:09:39] Kyle Luetters: She hasn’t run one yet. I ran one 11 years ago. And we’ve got a couple of buddies, so they got roped into this ’cause I have a buddy that wants to do one. And we were doing a training run here a couple weeks ago around where we live out here, and we deputized one of the gentlemen to come up with the route.
[00:09:55] Kyle Luetters: And the guy that raised his hand and said, “Hey, I wanna run a full marathon,” is not a [00:10:00] runner. Just does not wanna do it, but he wants to will himself to do it.
[00:10:03] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah.
[00:10:04] Kyle Luetters: And he said, “How did you all manage to find the only loop around this city that is uphill the entire way?” And so the entire time, one of the guys would just look at him and say, “Look, it’s all downhill from here.
[00:10:17] Kyle Luetters: It’s all downhill from here.”
[00:10:19] Rob Stachlewitz: Oh. I love it.
[00:10:20] Kyle Luetters: But I did wanna ask too, when we talk about relationships, the role that you’re in now…Walk us through what’s different now and what made you… What was deep inside of here that made you wanna try something like this? You already mentioned that you were very happy where you were, you liked the company and everything like this or that, but help us understand what drove that decision to really wanna take a risk at probably the time of life where most people aren’t really wanting to.
[00:10:52] Kyle Luetters: But walk us through that decision-making matrix, if you wouldn’t mind. Like internally.
[00:10:57] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, some of it is that nagging question [00:11:00] of, can I really do it? Thinking that I could. It was, in my opinion, a perfect fit for my skill set. The company’s a great size. There were some things at Charles River that I just wasn’t ever going to be able to do, right?
[00:11:13] Rob Stachlewitz: It wasn’t gonna come up as part of the career, the track that I had there, and those were things that I thought I wanted to do that I could potentially do in this new role, right? So-
[00:11:23] Kyle Luetters: Okay …
[00:11:24] Rob Stachlewitz: completely owning something, right? As a CEO, you’re completely responsible for everything that happens- … whether it happened because of you or not, right?
[00:11:31] Rob Stachlewitz: So-
[00:11:32] Danton Troyer: Good or bad
[00:11:32] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, good or bad. You do take on a lot of ownership in both ways. I just felt like I was in a great position with the experience to be able to go help the company get to a level that they hadn’t been able to get to before. I loved the leadership team that I came into as well.
[00:11:48] Rob Stachlewitz: I was the new guy. A lot of them have been together for upwards of 20-plus years in other iterations of other companies, so I was the outsider. So I had to prove myself a little bit, I think, and hopefully I’ve done [00:12:00] that. It was just this nagging feeling where I felt like I, I had to see if I could do it, right?
[00:12:04] Rob Stachlewitz: So almost a personal challenge I put in front of myself.
[00:12:07] Danton Troyer: Huh. I think this will be a tough one for you probably is you’ve got tons of opportunities, and opportunities tend to keep coming. But how will you know, or how do you think you will know, when it is time to maybe slow down?
[00:12:23] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I think there’s an inflection point that comes up in everybody’s career where they have to make that decision, Danton, and it will probably come up for this role as well, right?
[00:12:32] Rob Stachlewitz: Where we’re a PE-backed organization. At some point, that PE company may decide to sell us, right? So it depends on what happens after that sale, right? Where does it go? Do they wanna keep me? Do they not wanna keep me? Do I wanna stay? Do I not wanna stay? That comes into it as well, right? So some of it is what happens that might be outside of your control.
Danton Troyer: Sure.
[00:12:52] Rob Stachlewitz: I’ve got other interests as well outside of working. Danton and I talk about all the time,I love to work. I have a lot of fun at work. I really, really enjoy [00:13:00] working. I enjoy the company. But I have interests outside of there as well, so I’m trying to cultivate those. I’ve been doing a little bit of my own investing on the side, so I’ve got a small company that I’ve taken a founder stake in and I’m on a board position there, trying to see whether that’s something I wanna do or not.
[00:13:17] Rob Stachlewitz: Dipping my toe in the water before I really have to jump in.
[00:13:21] Danton Troyer: It’s like, “Nah, maybe not.”
[00:13:23] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah.
[00:13:23] Danton Troyer: Do you think there will be a moment that you’re kinda like, “Okay, this is the time,” or do you feel like it’ll be more of a transition as it relates to you?
[00:13:32] Rob Stachlewitz: I think for me it’ll be a transition. I guess I don’t right now ever envision a time where I’m not gonna be working.
[00:13:40] Danton Troyer: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Rob Stachlewitz: I think a lot of later career individuals like myself say that. Maybe I’ll drive my wife crazy if I’m not doing- … having something else to do. I could-
[00:13:48] Kyle Luetters: It’s a legitimate concern
[00:13:49] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, it is, right? And look at my dad, and he’s in his mid-70s, and he’s still consulting, right?
[00:13:58] Rob Stachlewitz: He has no desire to end [00:14:00] it. He seems fulfilled and loves to do it. I see myself similarly. I always think I’m gonna have to have something that’s outside of just learning to become a scratch golfer, maybe sailing a boat, or all those other great fun things I could do.
[00:14:12] Danton Troyer: Yeah, exactly.
[00:14:13] Kyle Luetters: Well, when you think about that, for decades of our lives, we wake up in the morning, and there’s a pursuit of something, and it’s usually financial.
[00:14:22] Kyle Luetters: It’s usually a number or something, but there’s something that is keeping us to task, to keep going, going, going, and then at some point you lose. The game of life in so many words is won, but you’re not necessarily done. That desire that’s far beyond anything with a dollar sign is still there to have purpose, to even be needed, I think.
[00:14:43] Kyle Luetters: There’s part of that too in our psychology. We wanna be useful. We wanna contribute.
[00:14:48] Rob Stachlewitz: Yep.
[00:14:48] Kyle Luetters: And that, that’s what’s cool, and outside of contributing to the balls in the ponds on the golf courses- … there’s something to our-
Rob Stachlewitz: Which I do.
Kyle Luetters: Which you do. Yeah. Which you do, but [00:15:00] there’s, I think also too there’s something mental and emotional that we’re all at heart, in some degree, we wanna be builders, or we wanna help in the building of something.
[00:15:08] Rob Stachlewitz: And we’re just starting to talk about that, right? We’ve gotten a lot of great opportunities through life so far. Back in my history in pharma, we did an expat assignment in Germany and took the family over there. That was a big transition. That was also stressful and rewarding and fun and exciting. So we’ve gotten a chance to be able to do a whole lot of things, and now we’re starting to have that discussion about, what does the next thing really look like?
[00:15:33] Rob Stachlewitz: Where do we really wanna be? I was talking to Danton about this a couple weeks ago. I’ve had a job since I was 12, and so it’s like, my first job was a paper route, right? I think a lot of us had a paper route when we were younger. And I’m not sure I’m gonna know who I am if I’m not working, so that’s part of it.
[00:15:49] Rob Stachlewitz: It’s that scariness of, what’s my identity? like you mentioned, Kyle. And then it’s the logistics of, where do we wanna live, and what do we wanna do, and what do we want that next part of life to look like? [00:16:00] And in my professional working career, I don’t think I’ve ever got to make the decision of where I wanted to live.
[00:16:05] Rob Stachlewitz: Wow, that’s petrifying now- … to think about that. I have the whole world that we could potentially go look to live. Where do you wanna be, right? We haven’t necessarily spent our entire career around our bigger family. The kids have grown and are moving on. So we’ve gotta figure that out, and that’s a daunting task, for sure.
[00:16:24] Danton Troyer: Yeah. I remember when you told me, I was like, I never even thought of it that way, that you’ve never really got to decide where you live. And I don’t think… I’m sure there’s plenty of people in that boat, but I don’t know that’s, you know quote unquote, “normal.”
[00:16:36] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah. So, but to be in that position- I picked a graduate school, and then every other move since then has been-
[00:16:41] Rob Stachlewitz: okay, the job’s here. Let’s go. The job’s here. The job wants me to go there. Okay, we’re gonna go, and we did. So-
[00:16:47] Danton Troyer: Yeah …
[00:16:47] Rob Stachlewitz: that’s a daunting task now to think, okay, you could go anywhere in the world. Where do you wanna go?
[00:16:52] Kyle Luetters: And put down roots. You talk about making some of these decisions. How quickly in your eyes has your career, go [00:17:00] back to being that graduate student, how quickly has the passage of time felt?
[00:17:06] Rob Stachlewitz: Man, Kyle, it gets faster, doesn’t it?
[00:17:08] Kyle Luetters: Yes. Yes, it does. Yes, it does.
[00:17:10] Rob Stachlewitz: It gets faster. I used to say that 10 years at Charles River was a blink of an eye, and it was. That’s what it felt like. And now we’re almost two years into the CEO position at Rizzoli, and it feels like I’ve snapped my fingers and sorta here we are.
[00:17:25] Rob Stachlewitz: So the passage of time is really quick, and as it starts to speed up, you don’t necessarily want to waste it when you now have the flexibility.
[00:17:33] Kyle Luetters: There’s been a lot of things in your story that point to a lot of different things. One thing that I’m really catching from you as we talk together is there, there’s a great deal of humility.
[00:17:43] Kyle Luetters: There’s also a good deal of confidence when you tell your story and the places that you’ve been and the things that you’ve done. What do you think builds that over time? What would you attribute confidence-building too, in someone’s career, especially someone that’s had a good [00:18:00] number of stops and different folks you’ve interacted with, and different things you’ve done.
[00:18:04] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I think it’s certainly some of the success that I’ve had and some of the things that I’ve done helped to build that confidence. The support of the people around me probably more than anything builds my confidence. Like I said, I’m a little bit of a reluctant CEO, right? I’m not necessarily the guy who’s gonna be out on the billboard.
[00:18:23] Rob Stachlewitz: I’m gonna represent the company, but I’m more of a player coach, I would say. So I get a lot of that confidence from my team that I’ve got assembled around me and how that team performs and what we achieve as an organization.
[00:18:39] Danton Troyer: Where do you see your biggest asset as a CEO? Because you keep saying the player coach thing, so you’ve got a lot of experience [00:18:43] at the doing. How do you see that continuing into maybe a… obviously, we don’t know what the future holds, but where do you see that going from here?
[00:18:51] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I would say this CEO role I see as relatively unique. I think they’re all unique, but this one I see as particularly unique because I don’t have a chief operating [00:19:00] officer at this organization.
[00:19:01] Rob Stachlewitz: I have a CFO who’s basically one of the best CFOs I’ve ever had.
Danton Troyer: Wow.
Rob Stachlewitz: He’s fantastic, and he’s well-regarded in the industry as well. And I have a chief business officer who’s also incredibly well-regarded in the industry, and I split my time sort of being the COO of operations and the CEO for the company.
[00:19:21] Rob Stachlewitz: So that makes this role relatively unique. And the other roles that I’ve sought out as a founder, investor in a new startup organization, it’s also that player coach type of role, right? I’m sitting in on some calls. I’m helping them with contracts. I’m helping them with strategy. I’m not the guy out front because I’m just an investor and a board member.
[00:19:42] Rob Stachlewitz: So I think I gravitate towards those type of roles.
[00:19:46] Kyle Luetters: Yeah. As we head for home here, questions kind of rattling around in the back of my mind also, too, as I peeped in on what your career has looked like. Give me about three to [00:20:00] five things that you would tell somebody else that’s potentially getting ready to sign up for this journey, or a similar one to what you’ve been on.
[00:20:09] Kyle Luetters: What are about three to five things that you would tell? And I’m trying to ask the questions what would you tell the younger self in a more–
[00:20:14] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, I get it. …
[00:20:15] Kyle Luetters: better way. Really, you’ve had a tremendous career, and you’ve done a lot of cool things, and now you’ve really hit that sweet spot, that niche, it feels like, where you’re at right now.
[00:20:26] Kyle Luetters: So how do you give advice as to how to get to figuring out where you want to be, where you are?
[00:20:32] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, Kyle, that’s a great question. And back to the theme of this, trying to make some decisions under high pressure situations, I think when you have a high pressure situation, you have to slow down, right?
[00:20:44] Rob Stachlewitz: I try to not get agitated when something high pressure comes up, right? How do I analytically approach this problem, right? What’s the potential solution? Don’t let my emotions jump to it. So there have been times when the company first came to me, and the kids were five and seven, [00:21:00] and said, “Hey, we want you to go live in Germany for two years.”
[00:21:02] Rob Stachlewitz: I went, “Oh, no,” like, “No, no, no.” What’s my wife gonna think? What are the kids gonna think? Are we gonna move?
[00:21:07] Kyle Luetters: How do we say no in German?
[00:21:08] Rob Stachlewitz: Nein, but no, we said- … we said, “Ja.”
[00:21:14] Danton Troyer: I was gonna guess at the time you didn’t know.
[00:21:15] Rob Stachlewitz: But we had a lot of long discussions at home, mostly peaceful, right, mostly objective discussions. We knew it was gonna be a hard move.
[00:21:24] Rob Stachlewitz: We knew that it had the potential to really change, in a positive way, my career trajectory. It had a potential in a negative way to change our family dynamic, right? ‘Cause we’re a really close and tight-knit family, me, my wife, and the two kids. So it’s really, I would say, slow down when you get to that point.
[00:21:41] Rob Stachlewitz: Use your mentors, use people around you, use your family, use folks to get other opinions that you trust. I’m just not one to get agitated when those decisions come up. That’s the time to buckle down, right? And make sure I make the right decision. And- No decision’s irreversible, right?
[00:21:59] Rob Stachlewitz: They may [00:22:00] harm you in one way or another, but there’s nothing that you can’t necessarily, I think, find your way out of for the most part.
[00:22:05] Danton Troyer: Yeah.
[00:22:05] Rob Stachlewitz: So, and that was part of the comfort I got when I sat and talked to Danton and said, “Okay, maybe you’re gonna work for a couple more years. What’s the… You like working anyway.
[00:22:13] Rob Stachlewitz: What’s the harm?”
[00:22:15] Danton Troyer: I did tell you last time, I think you enjoy working more than anybody else I’ve worked with.
[00:22:20] Rob Stachlewitz: I really do. I really like it. Yeah, that’s true.
[00:22:22] Danton Troyer: Not that a lot of people generally hate their jobs, but you love it.
[00:22:26] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah. I look back, Kyle, and I think serious opportunities in front of me, I really only said no once.
[00:22:31] Rob Stachlewitz: I’ve said no to a lot of opportunities, so don’t confuse that with somebody’s coming to me and said, “Hey, I got this job,” and I went, “No, I don’t think that’s a fit.” But in terms of serious opportunities where a company’s presented me with something or a leader in an organization’s presented me with something, I’ve only said no once.
[00:22:46] Rob Stachlewitz: And I think it was the right decision to say no. We had an opportunity after Germany to continue and move to Shanghai to do something with Boehringer, and that was in the early 2000s, and Shanghai wasn’t like it is now. So [00:23:00] my wife said, “We can go, but I’m really concerned that the kids are gonna be at an international school in China and the water’s not necessarily safe all the time to drink out of the tap,” because that’s really what Shanghai was like at that time.
[00:23:12] Rob Stachlewitz: And I think it would be really uncomfortable for us.” So I went to the company and said “After a long discussion with my wife and thinking about it, I don’t think that’s the right move for us.” But otherwise- I have said in the past, “Isn’t there anybody else? Couldn’t somebody else go instead of me?”
[00:23:27] Rob Stachlewitz: But yeah, I think I’ve only said no really once in my whole career to a serious opportunity in front of me.
[00:23:34] Danton Troyer: Were the financials good in that decision, but the family bad? And, and that was the deciding factor?
[00:23:40] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah. Yeah, the family always comes first from my point of view. Yeah. I tell all the people I work with as well the same thing, right?
[00:23:45] Rob Stachlewitz: Your family comes first. So financially, it probably could’ve been a, would’ve been a great decision for us, but it didn’t fit for the family, and there were other opportunities that were out there. So-
[00:23:55] Danton Troyer: Yeah …
[00:23:56] Rob Stachlewitz: I don’t think it’s blocked ultimately [00:24:00] any of the success I’ve seen, right? I’ve had a pretty good career, I think.
[00:24:05] Danton Troyer: That’s, I’d say been all right. No, that’s what I think was interesting is that, ’cause we’ve always talked through, not always, some of these decisions since we worked together. And it was always interesting to me you always had the family support, but I wasn’t around for the China thing, so I was curious, like, how much they factor in. And everybody’s different.
[00:24:21] Rob Stachlewitz: Big.
[00:24:22] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah. ‘
[00:24:23] Danton Troyer: Cause usually by the time you come to me, the family’s on board, as long as we can make the financials work. So that’s what I was curious about.
[00:24:29] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah, and some moves are harder than others, right? The Germany move was a tough move.
[00:24:34] Rob Stachlewitz: We moved from, we were living in Nevada, where I was running a site, running science and strategy for a business to come back to Michigan and run a site. That was a really tough move. Yeah. It was a really tough move. We loved living in Reno. I had a 16-year-old at the time. Do not move a kid in high school. I do not advise.
[00:24:52] Danton Troyer: Yeah, I remember that completely.
[00:24:53] Rob Stachlewitz: That’s a really tough discussion, right? Ultimately, I think we’re all better for it, but it was a really, really difficult [00:25:00] move and, but we went into it eyes wide open. We knew it was gonna be a tough move. And there’s one where I said, “I’ll go, but isn’t there anybody else?”
[00:25:06] Rob Stachlewitz: Like- … is there anybody else that might be able to do this?
[00:25:09] Danton Troyer: Yeah.
[00:25:10] Rob Stachlewitz: Yeah.
[00:25:11] Kyle Luetters: I don’t wanna be too tongue in cheek, but that might be the name of the podcast episode, Is There Anybody Else?
[00:25:17] Rob Stachlewitz: I like it.
[00:25:18] Kyle Luetters: Well, Rob, this has been a phenomenal discussion. I appreciate your openness, appreciate your candor, and your vulnerability in sharing a lot of different things on a career that has zigged and zagged and weaved and jumped and definitely was not what I was expecting from a high school teacher going in.
[00:25:37] Rob Stachlewitz: I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
[00:25:41] Kyle Luetters: Danton, any final thoughts?
Danton Troyer:No, I think we’ve covered everything.
Kyle Luetters: Perfect. All right. Rob, we appreciate the time as always. And Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer team headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Until Next Time.
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