Bob Fafinski

@PGA Phil is a generational talent. The PGA is in a great place with Phil as a member of the team! We will miss you at Hazeltine National but happy for our friends at the PGA of America. Congratulations Phil!

The PGA of America today named Phil Anderson, PGA, as its Chief Operating Officer.

@Lawyer4Deals Spot on!

Unpopular, but if you’re a young/new professional in professional services, all else being equal, you need to be in the office working *for your own benefit*. Uncool to say this but so obvious. Detractors say “face time shouldn’t matter”. “I get more done at home.” “Boomer this boomers that.” “Gold watches.” False equivalents and naive idealism. Fact is working is more than simply delivering the deliverable. Sure, WFH workers *should* be treated the same as in office and receive the same opportunities, but so too should socialism work in theory. When it comes to your career, you need to be dealing in reality. Being present and getting to know the people you work with will accelerate your opportunities. A la The Wire, you need “Rabbis”. Your rabbis are the senior people who look out for you, invest in you, make your mistakes go away with others but hold you accountable internally between the two of you. They give you work. Brag on you to others. Give you stretch projects for you lr aptitude and abilities knowing they will usher you through. Sure you can find rabbis while you WFH in your sweats, but it’s easier to do in person. And humans connect better in person (especially via shared struggle/hard work). Those who disagree? They know they are lying. We know they are lying. And they know that we know they are lying. Getting work in the professional services context while being in the office is way easier than when WFH. As someone who delegates out a lot of legal work, here’s how it goes: In the office: 9 am associate sees I’m not in a meeting, stops in, asks for work, leaves with projects. Out of the office: text/email received at 9 am but I don’t see email until 912. “Do you have any work for me?” 915 meeting starts. Finish meeting and put out fires for 20 mins. Bathroom. Cafe. Talk to co-worker about how awful the Packers are. Back to deal. Next meeting starts. Meeting ends. Flag email from associate asking for work. Review redlines associate in the office dropped off. Bill morning time. Reply to email: “sure stop over or give me a buzz.” Start next meeting. Associate calls while meeting ongoing and leaves message: “hi, it’s XYZ, looking for work.” Lunch meeting. Deal pitch. Deal pitch #2. Call associate back. Leave voicemail. 90 mins meeting to markup purchase agreement begins. Associate calls/texts “sorry my phone was on silent.” Now it’s 357 pm and son’s faith formation starts at 545 and have 11 to dos before can leave office. “Do you have work for me?” request to bottom of to do list. Most clients respect professionals in real offices in real clothes. “Paying you many hundreds of dollars per hour; please don’t be in a hoodie with your cat on your lap.” As lawyers, our work truly matters to our clients. Professionalism is important. Some clients and potential clients say they don’t care, but tread lightly. Being in the office breeds cross-pollination. You’ll organically learn about what the other professionals in your firm do. This helps you better advise your clients and *sell these services*: Associate: “Hi Dave, what’s keeping you busy these days?” Dave: “Seeing a lot of assignments for the benefit of creditors. We call them ABCs.” Associate: “Sounds like a bankruptcy thing. What’s an ABC?” Learning is occurring = better able to advise clients and sell these services. Just one of a million examples. Our firm initiated a hybrid WFH policy (3 days in the office and always Wednesdays), and in our corporate/M&A group lawyers average 4.5 days/week in the office. Smart folks figured out where the opportunities are and showed up. Notice the “all things being equal” caveat at the start. Many exceptions to the above: you’ve got your own book of business; you live in an area with lower compensation and you can get arbitrage from bigger outfits via WFH; frequent travel to be in the office; you lack ambition; you found some unicorn situation. Plus, no PC LOAD LETTER at home.

“Don't just say we need thoughts and prayers. These kids were literally in a church praying.” -Jacob Frey A Christian revival has been simmering in the United States. Through the dogged work of those like Bishop Robert Barron, Charlie Kirk, Jordan Peterson, and Father Mike Schmitz, Americans (especially young American) are turning to God in a manner unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time. Rejecting nihilism and hedonism and seeking out responsibility and duty. After the last two weeks? The floodgates have swung wide open. Because of the Kirk assassination and murder of children at Mass here in Minnesota, this morning tens of thousands went to church or cracked the Bible for the first time. We have seen evil and find a collective pull in our hearts to God. Their first prayers at church will feel awkward and cumbersome. And no wonder: we’ve been programmed to believe that prayer is, as the neckbeard Redditors smugly joke, nothing more than people superstitiously lobbing up trite, petty requests to an imagined “Magic Man in the Sky.” Prayer is a quaint relic of the past, they tell us. A weak old tradition of those struggling to conceptualize disorder in the world. “Where is your God now?” they mock as dead children bodies are still warm. “Enough thoughts and prayers, we need action” the demagogues scream. Their equating “thoughts” with “prayers” is folly. Thoughts ≠ Prayers. By “thoughts” most generously we simply mean sympathy. Sympathy doesn’t help in any tangible way. Prayer, however, is powerful. Man’s purpose in life is to know, love, and serve God. God calls man to Him. And prayer is our call back to God, a conversation with Him allowing us to raise our minds and hearts to Him. Through prayer, God gradually reveals Himself to us. Despite our best efforts to control, our prayer does not change God, so why pray at all? First, Jesus prayed. Second, he taught us how to pray. That’s enough right there. Prayer also puts us in cahoots with God. He, in his generosity, invites us to participate in His goodness via prayer. Like a good father, He knows what we need but desires we participate freely in the process of getting there. He loves us and gives us this opportunity. And prayer changes us! We can become Godlike through prayer and can hasten more temporal good – moving the needle towards bringing about His Kingdom here on earth. Prayer is a battle, we are told, against ourselves and against Evil. Those who conflate prayers with simple thoughts perpetuate an evil. We are not so simple to think our prayers can undo something or convince God to just-stop-sitting-there-and-take-action. “Pray constantly,” the Apostle Paul exhorts us, that it might animate us at every moment. This is why we pray after tragedy.

My son, Joe, who writes under the pen name Joe Egan, just published his next book, Steer Clear. It’s a thrilling and fast- paced story about two people who witness a crime and now must escape their pursuers. joeeganbooks.com/books/steer-cl…

About 60 people showed up last night for the Upper Midwest ETA/M&A meetup. Super cool. Estimate 1/3 searchers, 1/3 service providers/M&A pros, and 1/3 considering ETA. Thanks to all those who came out during this cold snap. (too cold this am) We’ll do it again springtime.

Join us at Hazeltine for the 2024 U.S. Amateur Championship and watch golf’s future stars in action. Buy your tickets now!

Proud father, partner, and friend!

Please reach out via DM, email, whatever. Love talking about deals. And lest you think I take myself too serious, here’s proof that I get puked on from time to time and still manage to make it — often needed in M&A.

I was a United States Marine Corps infantry officer after college at Marquette University. I was a platoon and company commander on two Afghanistan deployments with 3rd Battalion 4th Marines (the “Darkside”) in 2009 and 2011 in Helmand Province.

We live in a neighborhood on the bluffs of Minnesota River bordering thousands of acres of federal and state land — a massively important and rewarding part of life for us. Hiking, exploring, hunting, fishing, etc. right out our backyard.

My wife and I have been married for six years. We have four children. My wife stays home. We are practicing Catholics.

Getting good deals done matters. Deal-maker not a deal-breaker. Busy, so cannot afford to spin my wheels on a project (and charge you massive fees). Clients become friends. Foster junior lawyers’ growth. Quantify risk. Allocate risk. Document risk. Personal stuff 👇

Most of my deals are: $2-30MM buy-side deals $5-75MM sell-side deals Those buy-side deals are predominantly ETA/self-funded search funds. Also represent companies on wide variety of legal needs. Practice philosophy next👇

Whew, now that that part is out of the way (I was nervous to dox), should be easy. I’m a shareholder M&A lawyer at FMJ Law, a medium-sized commercial law firm in Minnesota. Here’s my bio (with contact info): fmjlaw.com/professional/f… More about my practice, life, and family👇

Dropping anonymity and going all in: Many of you have hired me to serve as your M&A lawyer to help you buy or sell a business. And others to represent their company in day-to-day legal matters. Time I put the same trust in this community: I’m Rob Fafinski. More👇.

Fellow veterans are amongst the most antiwar people I know, so on this Veterans Day, I have a request for you: I beg of you during these trying times to maintain your humanity. As a former infantry officer, military tactics are incredibly interesting to me. On this app and elsewhere in the Internet, we can watch unprecedented video of battle in near live time. This is fascinating and helpful for thinking through tactics, but I’ve had to curtail watching to guard my own soul — these videos seep into your existence and become normal. Just a couple of days ago, I saw a video of an injured Russian soldier pop a grenade and hold it to his head, committing suicide live on camera the agony of his initial wounds so great. “Orc,” the comment section said. “The only good Russian is dead Russian.” “FAFO” they gloated. “Ground beef.” No matter how unjust the cause, we must remember that these soldiers are actual, real people. They have families, a mother, a father, a wife and children who care about them. They had dreams and aspirations. They are children of God. They were scared on a guttural level. Their last feelings in life were pain and fear. When I was in Afghanistan, some Marines (not my unit) peed on some Taliban they killed, believing they were the TB *who had killed a Marine in their unit that day.* They were prosecuted. The vast majority of the country agreed that, no matter the circumstances, you don’t denigrate an enemy’s dead body. Just barely a decade later, keyboard neckbeards hurl horrific slanders while not in the heat of an impassioned moment post-battle but rather in their moms’ basements. Oh how we’ve “progressed.” The fact of the matter is that the infantrymen, on either side of most wars, perceive themselves to have more in common with the enemy infantrymen than they do their own countryman, generals, and politicians. Let that sink in. Dehumanizing the enemy is one way to get the bloodlust going at home: “Huns” “nips” “Orcs” etc. Be aware what is happening. So debate the causes of these wars. Fight the war. Outsmart, maneuver, and kill the enemy. These are all just things and things we must and should do. But for the love of God, understand that these are real, actual people with heartbeats and families that are dying. Front line soldiers and Marines do the awful, brutal job of killing and being killed by the enemy. If they can respect their enemy, then those of us not on the front line should be able to do the same. And even if you disagree with the above, guard yourself. Do not become callous to the brutal job of killing. The potential for rough days lies ahead. If killing must be done, we will do it. We will not lose sight, though, of the heartbreaking reality that that dead enemy soldier was a real person.

Hazeltine National Golf Club is proud to announce a long-term partnership with the distinguished architecture firm of Love Golf Design for purposes of developing a comprehensive master plan. The design team is led by World Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III.

@DavidCharlesPGA Congratulations David!

This week at Baltusrol I’m working my 100th PGA of America Championship; 31 PGA Championships, 31 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championships, 9 KPMG Women's PGA Championships, 8 Ryder Cup's & 21 PGA Grand Slam of Golf's. It's been an amazing ride & I feel like I'm just getting started

@RobFafinski Before you know it, you will be playing the State Game :)