The Tenant’s Tale: Importance Of Resilience In The Real Estate World With Marc Miller

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Barkel and his inspiring guest explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change Proof.

Hey there Change Proof listeners at Change Proof Family. Today's podcast I get to talk to Mark Miller, who is a guy, very, very interesting man, is came from a lower middle class economic background, entered the office leasing business with absolutely no contacts and had a very has had and continues to have a very prolific career in that space. After trying some other other things out that you'll hear about during our show, including being a a member of a big eight accounting firm and is now an artist as well. I think you're going to love this app, this conversation with my guest today, Mark Miller. So stay tuned and enjoy. Hey Mark, welcome to the show. It's great to have you today. And you know, I want to ask you this question. To begin with, what's something that's not a part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you? Just one thing that's not typically part of your bio or your intro. Let's say that you would love for people to know about you.

Probably that I'm a very visual person that is so into nature and colors.

Yeah. I mean, and it's interesting because if people are only listening to this, they won't get the flavor. But if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see that behind Mark on the wall is quite a bit of artwork. So, you know, obviously I don't want to talk about the artwork for, you know, more than a moment here just because people can't see it if they're not watching it on YouTube. But can you say something about what is hanging behind you?

Absolutely, Adam. I, you know, since I was about five years old, I started drawing with, with whatever I had available, whether it was a children's pastel set or who crayons. And as I got older, it led to using Parker pens and paper mates and then gels and Sharpies and even fountain inks. You know, and make a long story short, from, from the size of a business card up to on average 10 by 14 inches, I create abstract works of art. And in the past year or so we decided to, to basically introduce it to the, to the world and, you know, go commercial and also go organic in terms of people, you know, getting to know where I come from and why this is, this is authentic, soulful work.

Yeah, beautiful. I'm so happy that that led, that just so naturally led out. I would have said, is, is there something that, that I've learned about you in just the first couple of minutes of our conversation? Because we've never, we've never had a conversation before. This is one of those wonderful moments in podcasting where sometimes you get to meet a guest for the very first time just at the. You're going to have an interview. But you took a really, you know, just for folks that might be wondering, what was that space between the question I asked you and your answer to that question? And that was an intent. That was a space which of course, we're, we're not, you know, haven't edited out, which I would have, I would have said you're thoughtful because you didn't just start to respond as so many people tend to do. Meaning you begin to speak and then you figure out what you want to say or what you're going to say in the process of speaking. And I think that's one of those interesting things that you tend to notice about folks at times. But you didn't do that. You took a pause and you thought. And you thought some more and then you responded. So that's something I noticed about you. Is that true?

It is true. I, I first, I appreciate, you know, what, what you said, because the mind is different than the mouth oftentimes. Right. And what, what our first. My, the first impression I had was, should I. What's not on my buy was the fact that I ran a marathon when I was 22 and that, you know, that's, that's something that is relevant. Who cares? But in terms of resiliency, that was one of my first huge tests in not stopping during a pouring rain for four and a half hours. And even though my brother and I started it together, he's. His pace was a little too fast. So within a half a mile, I let him go over the Verrazano himself. And. And then I continued my, my, my race all alone. You know, kind of like that. The loneliness of the long distance rudder. You've heard about that.

Sure.

Sorry for, Sorry for the shaking to move back a little. So, so that, that's the first thing that came to me. But then I said is this is nothing. I mean, aside from maybe some internal mental toughness or resilience, that's not necessarily what I wanted to portray or introduce myself to you.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I was thinking, my brother is the runner in Our family too. I mean, I don't think finish a marathon at the moment, but let's, let's just say for argument's sake, I could finish it. He would probably have left me in the dust within a half a mile and I'd let him go over to Verazano all by himself.

Exactly.

Just like you. Well, your career is, is quite a bit different than what people might somehow in this moment, you know, be thinking it is based on what you're doing. Your first answer was anyway, because you're not in. Your career hasn't been about art or about artistic pursuits, even though that is, is a part of your journey at this moment. So we can certainly talk about that too. Why don't you take us back to or, or share a little bit about the, what your career over the last 39, about thereabouts years has been. Because I think that's fascinating and I, I actually want to explore a little bit of that, that, the contours of, of that space with you today, given the environment that we're all living in.

Absolutely. And I, I was the last person to, to jump into office space or brokerage or any type of field like that because again, my, my, There was no one in my home that was involved in real estate. My brothers were becoming accountants and, and CPAs and the rest. And I was the youngest of the three of us. And you know, by the time I was 15 or 16, I just had my eye on the big eight. Now it's big four, as you probably know. And accounting for accounting firms for people.

Anybody that may just not know what that, that whole thing.

Yeah, yeah. Now they, now they have HR and consulting and God knows what else. But you're absolutely right, primarily accounting. So I think, I think my first test, if you will, as an adult and as a professional came eight months after killing myself to get the job when I was canned. And, you know, it was just because they saw that even though I struggled and I, I raced through college to, to get this job at, before the age of 20. The field was just not for my, my, my personality. You know, my personality is not just for sitting and doing tick marks and, and checking other people's records. You know, it's more to, it's more getting to know people. It's, it's more research, it's more thinking. And again, the visual part just kind of came out of nowhere. But so I, I, so after I left accounting, I, I found this position with a real estate firm that I was actually the, or the firm that I was auditing shed me away. They, they basically there was one guy that wanted me on his team, quote unquote. And then the, the, the chairman of the firm was known as a very eccentric guy. And he, he asked people questions like if you're at the end of a movie theater line with your girlfriend, how are you going to get to the front of the line and get in? Just strange stuff like that. So he didn't like my answer. So I went on to, to other firms and, and over as you said, Adam, over 39 plus years, including eight and a half having my own boutique between 2000 and 2008, a very historic period of time for Americans especially. I had created something called Miller and Partners, which was a boutique tenants representation firm. And I did that 19 years after starting in the industry because again, the integrity was lacking at my old firm that I had become a managing director of. And I left some chips on the table at the age of 39 at that time and said, you know what, even though people are talking recession and, and that I have some clients, I have some loyalty, you know, I have a core group that, that love what I do and, and let's do it. And then that led me on a different journey of eventually getting bought by a bigger firm in 08 that I felt comfortable with and on and on.

Sure. And, and it's interesting because that space, the multifamily space, the tenant, landlord, tenant area is very much, it is relevant today. It's in controversy I think on some level today in ways that I don't know how predictable it was. Perhaps it was because there's quite a number of investors that had been buying up single family homes and buying up other multifamily structures in, in order to maximize profits as landlords, as, as, as property owners and landlords. And right now we're, we're in a situation where there's, where the, the rental market has really kind of spiraled in many markets. And I'd love to get your take on that because, you know, it's, I think it's bringing up some, some interesting, some interesting sort of, you know, if like we were in college and, and having an ethics class. Right. We understand that the purpose of, in many ways capitalism is that people create businesses and those businesses thrive. And when those businesses earn profit and they thrive, they, there's, there's a, there's sort of a shared, a sharing of the profit if you will, because people earn more money at those places and those people spend more money. And the economy, you know, it's just sort of a ripple effect where every. Know all the boats are rising because the tide is rising. I mean, and yet, you know, there's, there's another story of capitalism that, that, that tells some other kind of a, of a tale. So I guess I'm trying to, you know, leg into this conversation today about resiliency, but more from the, the, the tenant side. And I'm not being a tenant advocate here in any way. I was a lawyer for 18 years and I represented for a period of time. I mean, I did a lot of real estate work and I represented developers and, and also the, the financing arm of, of commercial development and residential development. For a brief period, I, I handle. Well, for five or six years, I handle bankruptcy work as well. And, and so I, I got to see, you know, kind of up close and personal, the, the tent, the relationships between landlords and tenants and all that kind of thing. So I'd love to just get your sense of what's the landscape today. We could start kind of big aperture, wide lens, talk about your thoughts on the environment, and then we can also talk about resiliency in that context as well. Sure.

I just want to clarify, Adam, that I'm more of a commercial guy than a residential guy, so.

Yep, that makes sense when it comes to.

Yeah, yeah. So when it comes to the, the multifamily or the landlord residential tenant side, I could, I could speak to it as, as a business person, but not as what I would call a market expert.

That's fair. So, you know what? We'll do this. I want to talk about that too, but, But I will say that, you know, if we were again, I'll put my lawyer hat on now. Right. So I'm not calling you as an expert witness to the stand.

Right, right.

You don't have to talk about your.

Exactly.

Qualify you under federal rules. All right, cool.

Okay, good. So, yeah, where I'm coming from is basically it. I was exposed to the industry from an office leasing, office space, commercial real estate point of view. And, you know, instead of, you know, becoming in house with one of the big real estate families or institutions or becoming a building agent, I just grew my career organically, one tenant, one space user at a time, whether they were it or architecture or law, and built this following and organically was able to get referrals as well as grow with my clients. Like some clients, you know, would come into New York with 10,000ft and I, you know, at the end of, of, of several years, we'd be up to 60,000ft in some cases, based upon their industry model.

Yeah.

So, so basically the nature of, of that side of the business called tenants representation is basically creating leverage and space between the tenants who has less power and the landlords and their brokers that have most of the power. And that's something that I, I took to like a fish to water, thankfully. And, and I think after that negative experience in my brief accounting career, it gave me that charge of energy when I saw this, this service that I felt I could provide beautifully and get well paid for it.

Yeah. And so again, just philosophically, let's say, not from an expert standpoint, we're going to talk about the commercial, but I want to just sort of start with the residential because.

Okay, sure.

And it may well be that on the philosophical or opinion level, you're, you're no more, you know, your, your opinion is, is just based on personal, on, on your observations or your own experience in life, you know, et cetera. But I'm, I'm just curious, do you, do you see, you know, sort of challenges in the, in the way that rents have escalated, for example, across the country?

Absolutely. I think there's a disconnect between what's going on with people's lives and the institutional owners that, as you were saying before, are buying up suburban homes in addition to their holdings in the cities and the CBDs. So I think it's very, very difficult, you know, depending upon where you are in life. I mean, obviously for young people graduating college, graduating law school, still, still in that mode of building a career, you know, like, like always, they might have to share apartments like we always did, but because rents are so high, they now have to squeeze an even smaller space and therefore they have to spend more time in the cafeteria or the library or the local Starbucks. Unless, of course, the weworks of the world open their doors for, for people that can't necessarily give WeWork 500 to 2000amonth. So I, I think, I think. And, and again, as we go older than just people that are sub 30, you know, we're dealing with people that have career issues and have been dislocated because of their companies or because of an M and A or, you know, maybe even a chapter 11 in the, a chapter. Is that called chapter 11 in the company? And, and then, you know, they f. They, they probably have a kid or two and they're 35 or 45 and they have to, you know, pivot to use your, your, your terrific word. And I, you know, it's, yeah. I think it's very challenging and I, I think that, you know, as you were saying about the balance of capitalism, it's, it's a huge issue because you don't want the government's hand involved with anything. We want, we want the free hand of the market, but when the free hands of the market starts to weigh the scales to such an extent on the power side and the regular people that don't have, you know, the significant bank book or the institutional money or the parental money, whatever it might be to, to pay their rent or pay their mortgages, there has to be some simple, you know, kind of like justice. You know, I don't want to use any prefix before the word justice, but just, just adjust fair environment where people can, you know, be a good citizen and make an honest living and be able to house themselves and their families right in a safe area and have.

Access to the American dream, which I believe is still alive and well, or alive anyway, and something that we, we, we want. I mean, I certainly want it not just for myself. I want it for my kids, my grandkids, I want it for everybody's kids and their grandkids, you know, or whoever, you know, because that's the great promise of this nation, is, is at least that's my philosophy about it. That, and that's the promise to all of us, not to some of us, not to just the privileged or just the powerful or just the rich.

Right.

You know, so the cost of admission, I mean, look, we've seen it in so many areas, not just in rents. I mean, good, good grief. You know, as you and I are speaking, you know this, there are sports championships going on right now and, you know, playoffs and things and, you know, just take your kid or to take a family or to just go yourself, go with a friend to a ball game. Is, is pretty exclusive in terms of what, you know, what that cost looks like, so.

No, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's, I think it's a challenge of any, of any. Again, capitalism is the worst system unless you compare it to all the others.

Right, for sure. I mean, get rid of that.

Exactly, of course. So I, I think, I think that it's a matter of, you know, of who, who are we trusting? You know, who, who does the common citizen that isn't running for political office right now or isn't necessarily on their town board or whatever, you know, who, who can you trust who will listen to you and then try to make, you know, it's all a matter of problems and Then solutions. Right. You know, that that's, you know, one of the reasons I've always been into, you know, reading self improvement literature and other things because I realized that if I can gain wisdom from people that have lived much, much prior to my being around or my, my needing that wisdom, I don't have to make so many mistakes myself.

Yep.

So, so there's a lot of lessons. A lot of lessons.

Well, last, maybe last question on this for the moment, but I, I'd love to get your thoughts on, you know, what do you see as the future there? Do you see there being a, a swinging of the pendulum in some other, some other direction? You have any thoughts on, on where this is headed?

With housing, you mean, or with, I.

Mean specifically with the housing end. And we're going to switch over. I want to talk about commercial in a different context, but similar.

I, I think I, you know, I see more of a, of a trend going toward the micro apartment developments and that's why even micro hotels are huge too because everything from construction to engineering to all of the ancillary services that go into renovating or building is so high, everything's just crept up, you know, even prior to this new dose of inflation. I think, I believe that landlords, in order to capture a certain amount of steady long term revenue business that they don't have to necessarily replace every nine months because someone either, God forbid, goes bankrupt, loses a job, etc. I think they have to go smaller and more affordable with more services within the buildings or within the structure so that people can have that huddle, that gathering space somewhere else outside of their 300 foot or 350 foot apartment or small townhouse.

Very small.

So that's one trend.

Yeah, I love that. And, and I think that's a great trend to. Will you define the, the micro space just a little bit for our listeners as well?

Sure, sure. Microspace basically means the, the landlord is offering a, a footprint or box that's smaller in size, more compact for each living area, but extremely intelligently laid out extra in terms of where the windows are in relation to where your, your, the mask, the bedroom so to speak, comes out of the wall when you need that. When it's not coming out of the wall for sleeping, it's, it's backed in. So you then have a sofa area for entertaining and a small kitchenette because you're, excuse me, you're not having dinner parties for, for six or eight people necessarily. So I think that's what we're talking about, intelligent design on that and then we're talking about developers and landlords being extremely sensitive to what is their, the population, you know, who are they attracting? You know, is it the, is it the, the, the, the, the new college grads to 35 or, or is it the, the 40 to 60 crowd, married or unmarried or divorced and single again or whatever? It might be. Sure. Because the amenities, whether we're talking residential.

Or empty nesters or you know, just any of them.

Exactly, exactly. You know, and not, and you know, a lot of empty nesters, correct me if I'm wrong, do not necessarily want an environment that's going to exclude their grandchildren from playing in the pool.

Exactly. Yeah.

I mean it's, it's, it's kind of interesting some of these models of, of these development firms and, and their communities that just exclude children and grandchildren from staying over for many, whatever it might be and enjoying. But, but I think the amenity aspect from a commercial and residential point of view is going to be the wave of the future in terms of attracting the right people who could pay rent over a longer period of time and, and be happy in, in, in, in less space or a different type of living arrangement.

Right. And even sort of hybrid, a sort of a hybridization where living and working aren't, aren't necessarily so far apart or even where living, working and shopping, where there's that commercial end of it, are also not so so far apart.

Exactly. I mean that's what we're seeing a bit in, in the Hudson Yards development of West Chelsea and Manhattan is that, is that 247 attempt, you know, by, by the related company to create that kind of an environment of, of the retail, of the tourists coming of, of the office, et cetera, and of course people living there.

Right. Which is on some level, I guess you could say it's ironic, but it's just like watching history repeat itself because you know, it wasn't long ago, it was probably still during my, my, my growing up years that that the norm, at least in the metro area, New York metro area was that you, you did live in smaller units, mostly apartments. My grandmother lived in an apartment her whole life until she, she left the city. They had bought a house up in the Berkshires, western Massachusetts for a song of course, back then. And that was the first house she ever lived in. But for the most part her, all of her family, her four siblings that included lawyer, doctor, writer, you know, etc, they all lived in, they all lived in apartments, you know, where you know, on one floor was one family member and two Floors down was another family member and you know, interesting. And then you came out onto the street and there was, you know, all the commercial stuff that had to do with that. What wasn't really part of that mix was the work part and the fact that we're living in a world now where not only, you know, as you said, gathering spaces can be communal, co working spaces proved to be good businesses, but a lot of people are working in hybrid situations. Maybe they're not in the office at all, they're completely virtual. Maybe they're in this, you know, blending two days in the office, three days away, etc. You know, so everything is kind of up for grabs it seems. But the one thing that seems to not be negotiable for me, I mean in terms of just, I'm a researcher. In terms of resilience, I do a lot of keynote speaking on the topic of resilience, but also on, I'll keynote on work life harmony, ish challenges and stress management and you know, that mental health and things related to resilience. But in that research, you know, what I see in the trends really reflect a pushback against things like a trend to exact more and more money for regular just sort of common living. The ordinary things that are necessary for daily life, not extravagances, not luxuries, but just the ordinary stuff that they're, they're, that is not sustainable and it's not a model that I think is sustainable.

So I'm, you know, you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, we have something in Manhattan and it's elsewhere in the country, but it's extremely aggressive in Manhattan calls the differential between rentable square feet and usable square feet. In between the two there's something ascribed called a loss factor. And loss factors include part of the common area off the elevator, the lobby of the building, you know, the electrical closets, et cetera. But there came a time, you know, about 25, 30 years ago, and it got worse progressively until they couldn't make it more onerous than it was, than it is, is they were basically, unfortunately landlords were going out more aggressively from the 100 envelope of the structure. And with architects that were signing off, they basically now have 130% of a building that they're charging rent on. Last time I checked. That's not, that's not fair. And that's not, you know, I, I always say, and I, I hope this is okay for your podcast, but I always say that if, if Elliot Spitzer's father was not a real Estate developer Spitzer would have went after the real estate industry, not after Wall Street.

Right. I'm not saying right as in I, like, I know that for a factor or even agree, but. Right. In the sense that there is. There has been an issue. I mean, again, I grew up in New York for people that don't know that. So I've grown up sort of hearing about slum lords, hearing about, you know, all the shenanigans that. I don't think that's the norm, by the way. But there, There are situations where landlords have gotten the reputation of just sort of whatever advantage they could take. You know, I don't know whether it's measuring the square footage of an apartment out to the studs, even though that's not technically the square footage that's, you know, usable within that, you know, or livable. And. But, but, but it is one of those things, as you say, that you're identifying this ethical. I started this conversation by sort of framing it around the ethics of it. I think the ethics are the thing that. That doesn't. Won't. Won't. Won't hold water after a while. Like, just recently, I read in the Times that in Kansas City. They are in Kansas City, they're pushing back on. On landlords and on property owners based on what has been something like a 30 or 35% increase in. In rental pricing over the last 12 months. I mean, that's. And that's about double the average in the country, which even that half of that is shocking, frankly. So, yeah, it's. So we're at, you know, I don't know whether we're at a precipice or what have you. But as I said, as a researcher, I'm always curious what the trends are. And I do recognize that it's like a pendulum. So it swings in one direction for some period of time, whether it's stocks, bonds, real estate, whatever it might be, and then it. And then it reverses course to some degree.

Yeah.

You know, there's a brief period, I suppose, where we're in this nice middle area, you know.

You mean right now we're in this middle area?

No, I mean, like when the pendulum is making.

It will be nice. It will be nice. Right.

That we find ourselves in some. Some zone of. Of.

Yeah.

You know, in the middle. But let's talk about. What was. What was that?

Sorry, I was just. I was. I was just going to say we're dealing with demography. You know, we're dealing with a population that's Growing. And we're dealing with a housing and commercial building stock that's getting older or getting demolished for other purposes. So it's like the, the, the supply of the people, of the bodies needing apartments and homes and places to live or especially are growing always. That's the nature of life. Right? People have, you know, children. But on the other side, again, if, if the housing stock in a municipality or a town or a hamlet or, or a big city has not been staying on top of their game in terms of the individual landlords or the owners or even, even the city sometimes being involved in transportation and cleanliness, quality of life issues is, is huge because no one, no one wants to live on a, on a street or you know, within X number of blocks. If, if they are, it's an eyesore or they're, they're not, they're not safe going home, coming home or it's not after. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right.

So yeah, so I want to shift now into the looking at commercial, which is again totally a related thing, but it is its own niche for sure. And I would have expected coming out of the pandemic with, you know, again going for a period of sort of whatever it was at least a year in many places that commercial space was unoccupied. And by the way, I, a part of our business works with organizations consulting on a consulting basis to operationalize resilience in those organizations. And one of the challenges that we hear again and again right now is getting people back to work, getting people back in the office. You know, in fact, there was an accounting firm of a large accounting firm, I won't name the name where, where they were saying they have a brand new, brand new building. It was built before the pandemic. Gorgeous, amazing. Spent a lot of money on it. They pay out, you know, they've got a lot of debt on it, all that and They've got about 30% occupancy in this building of theirs. And so part of what we're doing, you know, helping them with, assisting them with is to, to get their, their people in a place where they want to come back to work and they can utilize that space. But I guess my question for you is coming out of the pandemic, I would have ex, at least thought it possible that more commercial developments went belly up because people were just not occupying that space. Now of course people are in long term leases so it could be you're going to, you know, maybe, maybe. Is there, is there bad news down the road, do you think? What's the state of that marketplace.

Well, I think there was a lot of, let's call it forgiveness from the various people that either hold paper or held leases in terms of the reality that not only do we not have people filling up the space, but, but our, our business, our, our P and L. Just look at our numbers and, and you know, out of respect for, for, for the, for the owners of property, they have a right to, to say, if you're asking for, you know, some relief and some, some reduction in a number of months free, etc. Then, then we have a right to see the actual numbers to, to show that your business is down. You know, that's only fair. Right, because in any environment, we always know that, you know, there are people that are doing great in, in a tragic environment, but they still got to complain and ask for something free. People just do that.

Well, plenty of people took PPP that didn't need it, but we won't go down that road. Yep. Right.

Right. So, so to your point, the question of getting people back, you know, it's, it's, I guess every, I don't know. Do you think everything in life is a carrot and a stick, Adam, what's your view on that? Before I answer the other question.

Yeah, no, I, I, I, I don't, I don't see it as, as either or, but, but I guess I wasn't clear either. Because what I'm, I'm curious about is do you see there being, I mean, are there signs that there's systemic issues in commercial real estate given the fact that in our experience anyway, the workplace will never be the same as it was, that's for sure. And there's a certain percentage of people that will never come back to the office.

Well, I, I think, you know, when you're dealing with work that could be done, wireless in the clouds files are safe. The idea of collaboration and collegiality on a hour by hour or day by day basis has really lost its truth. And you know, some companies are saying, well, the partnership structure, we can work from home because we've earned it. You know, we've done this for, but, but if you are, if you're in the first 10 years or whatever of your career, then you better get your butt in the chair in the city or wherever it is, because that's how life works here at this company. Now, each company takes a different posture, but I think, I believe that this, I believe the lockdown and the fear that it evoked in terms of the Plexiglas panels and how many to an elevator and stand this way and go that way, don't breathe on him or her. And this goes way beyond, you know, the idea of you can't even compliment anybody if you like their outfit anymore. Right. That's another subject. So I think that, I don't think things are going to return to normal. I think we're going to see a deficit from the number of people in the office in any given day or week. You were mentioning correctly a lot of the hybrid models, you know, two in, three out or vice versa, et cetera, you know, different things. And, and you know, the question is how can a, how can a culture of a company become so attractive to its staff, no matter what their level, that they want to be there?

Yes, that, and that, that's, that's the wonderful tasks that sometimes we are, we are able and honored really to, to assist with in finding some of those answers when we're working with folks, companies and their leadership teams. But I, do you see there being systemic issues in commercial real estate as a result of this? I mean, whether it's that or it's even the, the box, you know, the big, the, the boxes that we know as, you know, the outdoor malls and things like that. Do you, do you see. Yeah, you know, sort of longer term structural issues in that industry.

It's, it's, it started when, you know, years and years ago, you know, Nordstrom's and Sachs, other brands, started experimenting with a smaller box theme. I, I, I, you know, Saxon company or the closet, Nordstrom Closet or something. So that was just the tip of the iceberg. Pre, pre. Covid. In terms of the idea of do we really need a, a 50 to 150,000 foot box as you were calling it. I, in my opinion, the, these last two and a half years have solidified the idea that there's no more business as usual for, I mean it's one thing if you're a strip center and if you own a number of stores in downtown Charleston, your business model is not going to change as much as if you have a shopping center outside of Somerville an hour away just to get some geography there.

Yes. So, so yes, location, location, location thing.

Which you know, exactly is true, is.

True to a great extent. Yeah, yeah.

So I, what I believe is that, that malls and owners of property have to totally rethink their land use, in other words, and then see if the current zoning even clicks. But you may need to, you know, one may need to, I should say, you know, really get diversified with the number of quote unquote services as well as whether it's healthcare, whether it's car washes, whether it's. And then the store mix, you know, and the, in the eating. People have to eat, so they want that variety, but they want, they want fresh and healthy and not something that's, you know, just to, you know, that's been sitting there for, for even a couple hours. You know, people have high, high expectations. So But I, I think in terms of the, the clothing companies and, and the. They're all. They all have to rethink, you know, how much space they could really afford. And this goes back to. Then the landlords have to say well who's going to fill in the rest of my space? Do I go do I, do I build a residential component, you know, in a, in a, in a vertical or horizontal mall which is secure, separate, but has access to the. All of the other things to make it more lively, etc.

That's interesting. I mean again, I'm sure that nothing none of this hasn't been. Isn't being thought of talked about in, in more the, the. The. The setting of people invested in that space. But it does strike me as sort of intuitively more than interesting, but maybe, maybe even really on point because if malls go dark, if stores, if boxes go dark, because there aren't paying commercial tenants for those spaces that make sense repurposing those spaces in, in a way that, you know, you were talking about that micro, those micro spaces. So you know, there's a kind of a trend before the pandemic of tiny homes. And that idea and tiny homes makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons, but it still means putting a home on a piece of land. And a lot of people can't afford the price of admission the, the land itself, let alone the expensive cost of a tiny home. These are not cheap structures either, as you might have imagined. It's not like building a lean to or a, you know, or a tree house. Just, just get a quote and you'll, you'll know what I mean. But, but utilizing space that might might otherwise have just, you know, out out outlived its its. Its optimal you know, use. For example. I don't know, is there a lot of vacant space in, in Manhattan, let's say, is in a. An example vacant office space. Do you see that trend increasing as leases come due and they may not be renewed? What's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean we're dealing with a historic amount of both sublease space as well as direct space that is on the market and you know, the media and the landlords and the PR people that work with them are, are trying to spin a different story about the leasing velocity coming back and how busy they are. But you know, I'm representing a few tenants, you know, now an investment firm, a family office, consulting on a few others and everybody's you know, trying to navigate, you know, how do we see the future and are we adding or, or subtracting? Most companies that are not growing in terms of new departments or new businesses are definitely upon renewal or earlier if they could sublease will be downsizing for my footprints. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that I think as on a long term basis it's a very serious threat to building owners. And we're already seeing a lot of some of the formerly office space being converted into the, the gathering. No, not residential.

No, not yet. But into those.

Yeah. Well into the co. Working and, and into the, into the amenity space.

Got it.

You know, so if there's, if there happens to be a floor with a, with a large outdoor area or terrace, they'll, they'll make that floor into you know, ping pong, you know, espresso bar, beautiful couches. You know, there's one landlord by the, by Grand Central Station which, which rebranded into an office building almost like a Bozarts hotel.

Yeah.

You know, and I got to give them a lot of credit because they took this, you know, 1925 building. You know, they had columns and it really didn't lay out great for, for, for space users in the modern era. But the way they started building out their space, stripping the columns to the metal, bringing up the ceilings as high as possible, you know, not dropping them obviously, which is also moving away from carpet. We, we've been seeing a lot of carpet disappearing, you know, having polished concrete.

Right.

Or some of the faux wood materials as flooring, which is cleaner, more hyperallergenic, etc.

Yeah, yeah. Let's not be in the carpet. Somebody's racing to get out of the carpet business right this second.

Exactly. Exactly. By the way, out of. Everything I'm sharing to you is totally proprietary and trademark. Okay.

Yes, of course. We'll have that.

Exactly.

Very, very fine print in the show notes.

Unbelievable. It's so far. You would not believe it.

That's right. You, you would not be able to even read it. In fact, it's so fine. Mark, I have so, so enjoyed this conversation. My last question for you just, is really about your personal. Is going to switch gears entirely Okay. I would love to get either your. Your definition, your own personal take on resilience. This word, you know, or something about how you create resilience, whether it's through habits, rituals, practices, etc. Pick either one of those or both, if you like. Sure.

I think I'll pick the latter. The latter side. You know, for me, being resilient is being. Is being grounded, you know, and, you know, as I've matured in my life to where I am, it's been a philosophy of. Of. Of believing in a higher power. I call him God.

So do I, by the way. Yeah.

Okay, good. That's nice to hear. So I basically have a little mantra. I wrote it down so I don't forget it. Basically, faith, trust, work, meaning effort, and then surrender. And again, that's not something that has never been spoken about. A lot of the football coaches talk about, you know, working the process and have your blinders on about the threats from any other team or don't worry about the win. Just do your job, you know, so. So I think the idea of surrendering for me, but loving life is what gives me the resilience to deal with getting smashed by the waves and getting. And needing to get back up because I have a family, I have responsibilities, and I have goals, and I. I love, you know, growing and. And continually, you know, getting my art introduced and. And, you know, trying to. It's new for me in terms of presenting art and seeing people's reaction, but it's. I must tell you, it's been so gratifying, the fact that people want to put something that I created on. On a special wall or something. It's been incredible.

Adam. You know, Mark, I've so. I've so enjoyed this conversation. I really feel.

Thank you.

Those words that you just shared. I have. I share a lot of those very same belief systems. You have a wonderful. It's like there's two things happening. You know, there's the. For me, in terms of this, there's that you're a pivoter and that you've got this wonderful pivot story, which is not as some people think. You know, I wrote this book some years ago, and actually Simon and Schuster just re. Re. Released it in a paperback, updated and all that for. For the. For the pandemic times, this book pivot. But it's. It's less about having this jump ship or. Or leave your current thing, whatever that thing might be, and it's really more about what you just described, which is that you're. You're utilizing the career that you've put so much time and effort and love into, I would say over 39 plus years in that commercial real estate arena. But, but you're also embracing this other aspect of yourself, this, these other interests and these other talents that you have in the art space. So it's not an ex, this, there's no mutual exclusivity. It's both, not either or. And I just, I truly love that about you, Mark.

Thank you. I mean, I really, I really thank you so much, Adam. I really appreciated the conversation too. And, and congratulations on, on the, the getting back into the paperback on Pivot. It's awesome.

Yeah, it's fun. The, the, the, the new book that came out was a McGraw Hill book called Change Proof. And that book is really more focused on resiliency. And, and you said something that also really resonates with me. I gave a TED Talk some years ago which talked about my, my journey, which has been a rocky road, like everybody's, everybody I know. But I love my life. I've loved for life and I appreciate, I'm grateful for my life. And you, you said something really similar to that, to love life. I think is, is a very important resilience tool.

And yeah, I mean, we're, we're all being barraged by a lot of negative things in the media or politics. And, and unless we have the, the top of mind aspect that we have to choose life and, and what is life affirming and life enhancing and, and are we spending too much time in front of the computer and not enough in nature and all of these other things. So I, I really appreciate, I did watch your TED Talk, Adam, and I, I appreciated, you know, that, that health battle that you, that scare you had and, and you came back and reevaluated. I really respect that. And you're, you're doing great. Obviously. You look great.

Thanks. Thank you, Mark. All right, well, you guys make up your own mind. Go on YouTube, check out this episode so you can see and send me a, you know, a message or whatever. We have full show notes. This is, this is a message out to the, to our listeners right now. Of course, we have full show notes. You can find out and, and find out, you know, just basically find the places in this conversation that you might actually want to remember or share with your teams or, or noodle on yourself. We love comments. And you can leave a comment@adammarkel.com forward slash podcast. So I get it directly. I read all those. You can also leave a review on any of the podcast platforms that you're consuming this on, whether it's Stitcher or it's itunes or what have you even I believe on Spotify now you can leave a five star review. Hint, hint. We'd. And again, the comments are so welcome. I do read them all, I respond to them and I appreciate them. Feedback is like oxygen to us. So with that, I'm going to say goodbye and say thank you, Mark, for this really just interesting and fun conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed it and as always, I wish you well and everybody out there listening. I wish more than anything at all that you, that you can love your life no matter what. And with that, we'll see you soon.

Be well, Adam. See you soon. Bye. Thank you.

Well, I don't know about you, but I totally loved love that conversation and I, I don't even say I don't know about you. I'm positive that you enjoyed that. And, and the conversation that I've had today with Mark Miller was, was very, very interesting. You know, just the, the track, the trajectory of what we spoke about, everything from the housing climate that we're in right now. I could call it a housing crisis in many ways. Inflation is just a word, but the reality is that people are being adversely affected by the, the price of rental, their, their rent in, in the residential space. But there's also a lot that is happening in our commercial space. And what was quite interesting to me was not just that we spoke about sort of the ethical bounds of both the residential real estate environment as well as the commercial one, but this, this interesting opportunity that exists in a hybrid, hybridization, if you will, of, of those two spaces and talking about micro spaces and in particular and where there's even opportunities for developments, residential developments, to really embrace the work, the work life scenario and relationship in ways that have never really been thought of before recently, as well as where the commerce comes in. And we spoke about that from an ethical standpoint, from the standpoint of economics, from a standpoint of identifying trends and where those trends are taking us and where we've been and what signs we see ahead of us. We talked about Mark's own pivot story and his transition from being in Big eight accounting to the work that he is currently doing, has been doing for many years, as well as the passion project that has turned into a business for him on the art side, an element of his life, part of his personality, talent that he probably didn't know he had until recently and or was inspired to share that talent with the world fascinating and, and, and just I think something that we can all take away, learn from, share with others. So I hope in fact that you get so much out of this episode have gotten and we'll share it with with many, many other people. Of course. I'd always, we'd always love to learn more about you. So you can feel free to send us a message. You can go to AdamMarkel.com forward/podcast. It's a great place to leave a message, leave a comment, etc, you can always send us a direct email@teamadammarkel.com you can do that as well. And if you've not yet gotten your own resilience score to see because we talked today about resiliency, about personal resiliency as well as resiliency in those markets, those residential and commercial housing markets and other aspects of that that I think are really in a state of flux right now. Resiliency is, is a key element in, in everything. How resilient are you mentally, emotionally, physically, even spiritually? You can Simply go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com and in three minutes get your own baseline assessment, a tool that I have used now for many years with more than 5,000 resilient leaders across the globe. Everything from Fortune 50 companies to startups. And you get to have access to it right here at your fingertips for free, by the way. Three minutes. You can find your score and get access to resources that will also meet you where you are. Cost you nothing except the, the moments that it takes to be honest in your answering of the questions, the simple questions. And, and we can go from there. But I'm so grateful for the relationship, love the fact that you're, that you're listening. Look forward to not only you doing that, more of that, but also sharing it with other people that might benefit from hearing more the message that comes through on this show. All right. Will you be well? And thanks so much again.

Thanks for listening everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkelle.com podcast for more resilience tips and strategies, including including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChange Proof.