The Rejection Formula That Separates Winners From Everyone Else

Practice dying. Like if you're on your deathbed and you look back on your life like, what things would you be glad you did and what things would you wish that you did different?

It really does come all come down to your priorities and what's the most important thing to you and what your non negotiables are.

I don't need to be big shot real estate guy to like have meaning in life. If you want to have $100 million in revenue or something, like, well, why? You know, because like you're never gonna be able to spend all that.

Like as very young kids we lose ourselves and we just kind of fit into this dogma of whatever we're told we have to do or whatever we're rewarded for whatever gets us the girl or the boy or the parents appreciation. Some of us end up as adults and we just don't even know who the hell we are.

Like that's what you want as an entrepreneur is to see exactly where you're going. But it can be murky. Just got to keep trying. Like, don't give up.

It's crazy because most normal people will get rejected once, maybe twice, maybe three times and they're like, all right, I can't do it. It's impossible. That's just not reality. You have to do it 40 times and you're going to have to do it 400 more times after that if you want to continue to be successful. Not just obtain the success, but keep it. Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond Show. I'm sitting here today in Michigan with Rob Walters, who is an absolute beast in commercial real estate development and specializes in single tenant, net lease retail developments and has done over $500 million in trans in development projects over the course of his career and hundreds of transactions and working with lots of the retailers across the country, from Aspen Dental to Monastery Schools, a bunch of different retailers, and he'll get into all that. But we actually met through my business partner Jeffrey at HP Capital, who I know you guys have partnered on some deals in the past on, and I'm just excited to welcome you on the show today. Thanks for being here.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So what I know we were talking a little bit offline, but what do we need to understand about your earliest days in life to understand how you got into commercial real estate development and then went on to become so massively successful in that space?

I mean, I guess I just start with. I think people always wonder, you know, was this something that sort of your family had. Was given to you or something versus did you figure this out on your own? And for myself, both my parents worked in education at a community college. So great upbringing, great parents. But you know, they weren't in business, they weren't in real estate. So those little things, they were frugal. You know, when my friends would have starter jackets, I'd have like the Walmart version and I never liked that. I always want to figure out like how can I have the starter jacket version. So as early as eighth grade, I think I was getting the newspaper and looking at the stock ticker symbols and picking up books. You know, Robert Kiyosaki is a guy that I actually remember reading Rich Dad, Poor dad relatively early in life. So I was curious, wanted to figure out how to make money, how to have more freedom as I grew up. So the path was very, you know, zigzag. It wasn't a straight line. But yeah, I just, I looked for people in my life who had lifes that I, that I emulated. And you know, there's one particular father it was, it was a girl I actually dated. Best friend's dad who worked in real estate. And he would always be up at his lake house on Thursday night and I'd often be there on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I wake up Friday morning and see him jet skiing and then he'd be at his, his desk and making phone calls and stuff. And I'm like, gosh, this is, this is a guy that I'd like to meet. So I actually asked him to meet and tell me about his experience. And he explained that he got into student housing development and you know, he made a great living for himself. So you know, there's a lot of things that went into it, but that, that piqued my interest in real estate. We can get more into this later. But I ended up going into the military and I got done with basic training like 10 days before 9. 11 happened. So I ended up getting deployed to Germany for a year with the army and spent a lot of time there reading anything I could get my hands on that I thought would give me a leg up to try to make some money, not just through a big salary, but other ways of investing or passive income and whatnot. So I learned about fix and flipping and being a real estate agent and all these different things that gave me just a general understanding of different options for how to make money. But that kind of set the table for when I went to school. I got a finance degree, I started trading options, I got all my classes on Tuesday And Thursday. And I lived in a fraternity at the time, so the other three days a week, I would just sit and I had a second room in the house, and I'd trade options. And that went well, sometimes went poorly, others. I really thought I'd get a degree out of college, you know, with an investment bank or a trading company. But the Iraq war was going on. I could be deployed at any time with the military. So I had a really hard time figuring out, you know, who was going to hire me. And then that's sort of when I had my one big lucky break, I think. I had a fraternity brother whose dad had a house in Key West, Florida. And my fraternity brother asked me if I want to go down and visit, and I did. I spent a week down there, and his dad was there, and he was an accomplished real estate developer. And each day I'd wake up in the morning, go for a run and read books. And he had an office that sat above the pool where I was out reading. And he saw me every morning. So it was like the second to last day. He just came up to me and he said, you know, you're the kind of guy that I like to hire. You look like you're hardworking, you're, you know, inquisitive. Would you be interested in the interview? And I was like, sure. So I got home, I borrowed my dad's suit way too big, and I went in literally the next day and had the interview with this guy and took a job with his real estate development company, which would have been, I think, 2004, you know, and that really set the stage for kind of what was to come.

Yeah. And so it's so funny because as you were saying, that I had such a similar journey in growing up, you know, like, had no money growing up, parents, dad worked at a pawn shop. Mom was a night shift grocery bagger. My best friend's dad was a luxury residential developer in high school. And they had, like, the life that I dreamed of, you know, the opposite of the life that I had back at home. And. And so that was what kind of got me the bug. And just started reading every book that I possibly could and learning fix and flip and wholesale and residential and commercial and all these different things. And then Rich Dad, Poor dad with Robert Kiyosaki and all that. And so it's. It's funny, we had those. Those similar paths. And how old were you when you got offered the job for your friend's dad?

I would have been 21, I think, because I started Geez. I started college in 17. My mom put me in school at a private Christian school because she thought I needed to get, like, going early. So when I went down to college, I was still 17 years old. I missed a year of college with the deployment with the army, but I graduated in three years. So I think I was still 21 when I started that job. It was like, September of 24. Yeah.

Were you a really good student in school, like an overachiever type your whole life, or.

No, I was always a pretty good student. I mean, I wasn't the valedictorian, but I was definitely in the top tier. I was always in the, you know, classes. Like, I took five or six AP classes my senior year. I think that helped me to graduate in three years. But I always had, like, a little bit of a contrarian tilt where I didn't want that to be, like, my identity. Like, I didn't want to be a smart kid. So going in Army, I think had a lot to do with that. Like, I had friends who were going to some prestigious schools, even though I grew up in a town that didn't necessarily send that many kids to Ivy Leagues. Like, I had a friend who was going to Harvard. And just even from that point in my life, I was like, I don't want to get into the game of just having to do things the way I'm supposed to. So, yes, like, I did well in school. I think know I was smart, whatever that means. I think there's so many ways you can be smart. But I was always looking for, like, another route than just the. The typical path.

Yeah. And is that what drove you? I mean, you kind of mentioned that, but is that the main thing that drove you to get into the army, or what was the reasoning behind that? Because it's such a, like, contrast, right, with being super smart and studying and reading and all these things?

Yeah. No, I had actually skipped AP Bio, so that was right after lunch in high school, and I went to Taco Bell, and there was a armory nearby, and I just walked in and was like, tell me a little bit about this. And these recruiters are very good salespeople. So he kind of got his hook in me and explained, hey, we can pay for your school, and even beyond that, you'll have some money when you're going to school and these different things. And I had one kid who lived, like, two houses down from me who was similar to me, that he was, like, really good at soccer and he was pretty good at school, and he went into The Marines. And I actually thought it was the craziest thing. Like, what a terrible idea in my head. But I think the fact that he did it, I was like, man, I'll have this experience and you know, maybe it'll change me. So there was no real well thought out part of it. I mean, my parents actually were like, please don't do this. I needed them to sign off because I was only 17 and I just, I said, I think I'm going to do this. And you know, finally they came around and signed off. So the army piece, other than, I think I did have some of these financial principles in my head of like, hey, if I don't have to, you know, take out debt or I don't have to have a job when I'm going to school, like that'll help. I think had part of it to do with the military, but the other part was just, I think my contrarian nature of like, all right, these people are doing this. I'm going to do something totally out of left field and, and go into the Army.

Yeah.

So that's what I did.

And how did that, how was that experience for you? And how did, do you think that shaped you for what you then went on to do when you got out?

For the most part, I hated it. Like, I just didn't enjoy it. I don't love being told what to do in general. I tried to learn how to be told. Like my wife often can you take out the garbage? And it's like, okay, yes, I can do that. I don't have to be so prickly on every request of my time. But nine weeks of basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in the middle of January, it toughens you up, you know, like you'd have to get up every morning at 3:30 and go running even though it was 10 degrees out. And so I think that caused me a little bit to believe in myself more, believe I could do things that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise thought I could do. But in no way was I like excelling or really into it or kind of a, you know, hoorah person. But then it gave me also this time, like I said, when I was deployed in Germany and before that. So you go to basic training and then you do training where you learn your job skills. So mine was going to be a signal system support specialist, which essentially was like a communications radio guy which had I had no interest in at all. So most of the time I went down to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia for like 20 weeks and I started reading. And on the weekends, I remember the first weekend we were able to leave post, everybody went and rented a hotel room for like $40 and got a case of Bud Light and like a bunch of Taco Bell and just got drunk and ate the food in this hotel room. And I did it. The first weekend. I'm just like, this is stupid. Like, this isn't fun. So I started staying on base and, and running. And to this day I run a lot, but in reading. And when I got deployed to Germany, I was out 12 hours a night guarding posts. And I would sit out there and like, have German flashcards or I'd try to read a book, like, while I was doing this. So, you know, it created a lot of principles in me that I think helped me to have success later in life. And in particular, I'll never forget when I got out of the advanced training in Georgia and I finally had free time. Like, I woke up and I realized nobody was gonna tell me what to do that day. And I was so thrilled. But like, I didn't wanna waste any minute, you know, So I, like, I was very productive, almost too much so, or like, I feel like I needed to chill out a little bit and enjoy life. But, you know, at that age, I think those are the kind of things you need to be doing is like, taking things seriously, using your time effectively, like, you know, putting your time towards the goals you have. So I think that's probably the piece of my military experience that was most pertinent to, you know, my success later in life.

So you, you got out of military? Out of the military. And then after that you. I'm sorry, you actually. Did you finish your finance degree and then go to the military and then.

Well, it's confusing because it was the reserves program, so it wasn't like go for four years straight. Yeah, it was supposed to be. And prior to 9 11, it was essentially the way it had been since the Vietnam War. Like you went and you did a weekend of training somewhere and then your other three weekends you had to be at school or whatever you might do. And then during the summer you'd go for a couple weeks of training. So that's what I was intending to do. And then 911 happened, we got deployed. I ended up actually then signing up for Officer Candidate School, which, you know, the process to become an officer in the army as opposed to being on the enlisted side. And that was an 18 month program that I had to do on the weekends while I was going to school at the university. Of Illinois. The reason I bring that up is because during that time my unit actually got deployed again to Afghanistan. But I wasn't able to go because I was in this program. And I think that would have made me a totally different person than what I went through in Germany, which was quite safe and not traumatic. The army was an eight year commitment from when I was 17 to 27, but most of the time I was able to continue, continue on with my everyday life. So I finished up school at the University of Illinois in 2004 and started working. And while I was working, I had to go do these weekends away and stuff. And it was a tremendous amount of stress because I constantly thought I was going to be deployed on a dime to Iraq or these different places. So, you know, trying to get your career going while like, you know, every time you'd hear of some new thing in the news, you were afraid I might, you know, have to disappear for a year was not the easiest way to get started.

Yeah, always like a open tab in the back of your mind like, what if I get taken tomorrow? And who knows what's gonna happen after that? Okay, so then you got offered a job by your buddy's father in Florida at the house in Key west, who sounds like was living a pretty good life. And then walk us through that process. Like, what was that experience like for you as you were starting to learn? Because then you ultimately went on to start your own development company. So yeah, what you said you were hired as a dirt dog. What is a dirt dog?

So at dirt dog to me was just, I guess to set the scene for the answer. This company did a lot of things, but primarily at least what they had a ton of their growth was doing build to suit development. So what that is, at least when I'm using the terminology, is you have a tenant kind of in hand when you're going to look for a project who wants to occupy space. So you know, you could do a build to suit in the industrial space for Amazon to put in their, you know, for a warehouse, but you could also do it for Chipotle for the restaurant, or it could be a doctor who wants you to build a building for their designs, but you know, you're doing your development with a specific tenant in mind. So that's what this developer had done with Blockbuster Video back in the 90s, like did hundreds of them. So at the time that I came on, they didn't really have a ton of those types of tenants. But they, for example, the, the one that they had at the time. And it's funny, we're sitting in suburban Detroit. It was called Murray's Discount Auto. They were actually based here, and they ended up getting bought out by O'Reilly's. But I would drive around suburban Chicago, where they had given us targets of where they wanted to open, and I would, you know, over time, learn what they were looking for. And then I would. It's funny how this has evolved with technology, but at the time, it would be like, I would take a picture of a property, and if there wasn't a sign on it, I'd go to the recorder's office and look at the plat map and get the PIN number. And then I'd go to, like, the treasurer's office, and I'd give them the pin, and they'd tell me, here's the tax bill. And then I'd research who owned it, and I'd try to call them and see if I could buy it. Obviously, some properties were, you know, on the market, and it was just a matter of calling on a sign. But that's what I spent the first year and a half doing, is just driving around and looking at property and then calling to see if you could buy it, and if so, for how much. And from that point, you know, learning how to negotiate a purchase proposal and a purchase contract. But what sort of happened at the same time is my now partner, Mike and I, we sort of teamed up, even working at this company, Insight, that's where we met. Just saw that we needed to find our own tenants to be able to, like, have the process more in our own court. Like, we didn't want to have to wait for somebody else at the company to come along and say, hey, you know, we have this new client now you go find the real estate. So we just started a driving around the country on our own. And while we were doing that, we'd look up, like, who are the best real estate brokerage companies in this town? And we'd try to set up a lunch with them. Or if there was a conference going on, we'd go to that conference and try to meet people and just network and grow our, you know, grow our network that way. As that happened, we began to not just be looking for dirt, but we'd be looking for the tenant that might create that relationship. You know, take them to a dinner, whatever it might be. The first development project ever put together was in my hometown. It was a corner. We thought we could do a drug store, and you needed this tire store on the corner. And I Couldn't get a hold of the people. Finally, I remember driving out to their. Their house and knocking on the door late at night. And they were like, we're never selling the property. So we pivoted and I put together a site plan that showed two little retail buildings. And I called the guy from Chipotle. This is back when they probably had like 80 locations. And we had lunch, and he's like, I want to be there. I'll pay you this much in rent. And my eyes are getting all excited, like, maybe I have my first development deal. And that was it. We did that deal. We put in potbelly sandwiches and Starbucks. And so from that point on, things started to grow. Where Mike and I, like, you know, would ask the Chipotle guy, well, hey, we put you there. What about this other town, you know, like, could we help you find you there? And we just pieced things together. I think during the time there, we. We did about 14 projects. We ended up finding a dental group. There were some guys that used to work at Aspen Dental, which is a large chain of dentistry across the country. And they had started their own company. And this was part of what we did. Like, we were in Willoughby, Ohio, suburban Cleveland, and we saw All Care Dental. And so we just figured out who the owner of All Care Dental was. And we called and we're like, hey, do you need Build to suit development services? And six months later, that guy called us back and we ended up doing a few projects for them. And so when we finally did go to leave and start our own company, they did their first few projects with us, sort of the transition.

And is that company that you started at still around or did that. Did they retire?

No, they're still around. Yep. They've. Yeah, they're like a competitor of ours. They've shifted some of their focus towards, like, large industrial projects. They actually own, I think, like a 2 or 3 million square foot building really close to here in Ypsilanti that's leased to gm.

Did they get upset when you left? I always think it's fascinating because I've helped two people at my. Because I own a real estate brokerage as well as the lending company, but I've helped two people start their own brokerages.

Okay.

From my company, like, help, you know, support them, teach them everything. I did, like, give them the systems, teach them, like, the ropes and everything, and. But then I hear all these stories, and it's sometimes not so smooth like that. Like, a lot of. A lot of men in the industry, they get Very mad or make threats. I know Simon was talking about he was getting threatened when he was going to go move to a different company or things like that. So like what did that look like for you?

More like Simon. Unfortunately we had a one year non compete that we'd signed when we started, which, you know, I was 21 years old. I had no authority whether it would have held up, I don't know. But it was a very something we took seriously because as I've learned more over the years, you get in a lawsuit, it's going to cost you a lot of money whether you did anything wrong or not. So we waited a year before we did much of anything. But like for one example, during that year period, I went to the International Council of Shopping Centers national convention in Las Vegas and I had helped my at the time roommate get a job at this, this company. And he was there and I had left and he said that my boss, former boss, the guy who owned the company, had asked him for my address because he was going to send a cease and desist letter because he saw us talking to Panda Express or something. You know, at the time it like my heart rate got going and. But yeah, unfortunately afterwards we got together, me and the owner of that company and it was in person like a very positive, you know, had drinks and stuff. But unfortunately he did some things after that in terms of kind of like telling his company go after the competitors or clients I'd mentioned that we were working on and stuff where. So from that point forward, you know, there hasn't unfortunately been that much of a relationship but teach their own, you know, like he's, I guess protecting his business, I guess what he thinks he's doing. For me personally, we have a lot of guys in their 20s working for us now. If any of them ever want to go off and do this on their own, I would, you know, if they do it in a thoughtful, respectful way, I would 100% support them and take it as a, you know, badge of pride that hey, look like we were able to help create more success rather than there's some limited pie that, you know, if somebody takes out of it, I don't get as much pie. I just, I don't believe in that way of thinking.

Yeah, I'm the same way. It's just that that scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset. And I think instinctively and culturally we are trained. I mean, I guess everybody has a different family, but people like you and me, who didn't come from much, we kind of have that scarcity mindset ingrained. And so for me, it was a shift to that abundance mindset of, like, for me to win doesn't mean somebody else has to lose. Right. And it might be, sure, I won that deal and they lost that deal, but they're not losing the game.

Right.

It's just that one play, and that's how you learn and you grow. And there's so much abundance in the world that there's more businesses being created all the time. Like, there. I just think that there's. It's so silly for people to hate each other and make these massive, you know, ruin really great relationships because they. They feel like it's a zero sum game.

Yeah. I just, I don't, at the end of the day, believe that it's in my best interest either. I mean, like, obviously I want it to be better for these other people, like in an altruistic way, but I've thought about it a lot and I think it's better for me to have more people out there who are like, wow, thanks for what you did. It's, you know, reputationally, whatever. Like I mentioned what I just mentioned, it'll be heard by whoever's heard. I didn't get into details, but still, like, that doesn't look well on, you know, my old boss. Like, that I'm describing it this way versus if I would have been able to describe it some other way, I could probably also mention his name and the company and it would be like a plug for them. You know what I mean?

But so, yeah, people, yeah.

But it's also just the way that I live my life is I want to be able to do the things that I like to do. And, you know, I moved to Manhattan. It's expensive. I never thought I'd spend as much as I do in a year as I do now. But I don't. I don't buy status symbols. Like, I'm not into, like, just getting stuff to show, like, how well I've done or to boost my ego. It's like, if I've got enough money to do what I enjoy in a given year, in the next year, then that's all I need. So, yeah, if an employee of mine left and did something that would jeopardize, like, my business and my ability to, like, you know, live, that might be one thing, but I don't think that's going to happen. So to your point, I think you can, you know, grow the pie by sharing and helping.

So you were getting started in the boom and like 2004, 2005, 2006, that kind of era. And then you went out and started your own company. And then I'm pretty sure pretty shortly after that, like within a year, that was where the market crash was starting to take place. And then I know you've had, you had some tenants or equity partners that filed bankruptcy. So can you walk us through that process? I mean, as an early entrepreneur, you're super excited. Like you have that. I actually just finished a book by a friend of mine, Cameron Herold, called Double Double. But he says there's four stages of entrepreneurship. And the first one is uninformed optimism where you go out and you're just like so excited to take it on and like you're unstoppable. You're going to own the world, you got it all. And then the next phase is informed pessimism where you're like, I can't do this, I'm in over my head, I'm going to lose everything. Like, how do I move forward from here? So I'm. And then paired with the economic environment that we were in, I'm sure you had some pretty severe experiences in those two phases. So like, what was it like for you launching the company in a peak market? That was crazy. And then, you know, going through some of those, those dark times shortly thereafter, it was rough.

Those first two stages you mentioned fit the situation perfectly. Because part of the reason we left, because it just everything seemed so easy. Like the idea of getting money for a project at the time in 2006, you know, I didn't handle that at my previous company. There was somebody else who like did the financing and stuff. But it just felt so easy. Like you come up with an idea, you go out there, you get the money and you build it. So that certainly informed my decision to do this in the first place was like the times we were in. But I left In March of 2007, I think April. And like I said, we had that one year non compete. So our first real like work was being done. Like April 2008. During that year I had driven all across the country and looked at real estate. I mean, that was one thing that I think led to our success is we would get in the car and do 3,000 miles in four days. Like we just.

Are you sure you didn't run?

I wasn't as good of a runner then. I'm sure I did plenty of running, but yeah, not, not 3,000 miles. 3,000 miles is about the annual mileage I do, but not in A week.

Saying, I know for those of you who don't know, because I didn't mention it, but he's ran 25 marathons and four New York marathons and had a personal best last year of 2:46:17.

Oh, wow, you did your research.

I have a photographic memory too, but yeah, that's crazy. I run like, you know, to get my food from the door dash driver and I'm winded.

So, no, it's. It's a bit of a neurosis which I think, you know, can benefit me and a lot. Like, I'm sure you had a lot of people on and sometimes people who have success in different areas can be like, hyper focused on things. And running is one of those things for me sometimes. Yeah, a lot of times, yeah. But no, like. So I, I just, I'll never forget it. We had our. We had a couple projects sort of then like sites, pieces of real estate in Tennessee that we thought would be our first development projects. And once the non compete was out, we. We put offers on them and we went out to get financing. And at that time, everything still felt kind of fine in hindsight, like the early 2008, things were falling apart, but at the time it felt fine. So we had a term sheet from, I think it was BB&T. And then I get a call like, you know, six weeks into the underwriting, like, we can't do this deal. And I was like, okay. We went to another regional bank. Oh, yeah, we're good to go. They did the appraisal, came back, and then it was like a couple weeks out from closing and they pulled back on the deal. And this is when I think you start hearing, you know, Lehman Brothers collapsing. And these are all things. At the time I didn't, you know, I wasn't smart enough or in the know to know what was going on around me. But like, you could feel this isn't going in the right direction. And so we got serious and we drove down to Tennessee and we set up meetings with I think like 40 banks. And we just drove from like Kingsport over on the east side to like Memphis. And like any, you know, Knoxville, Chattanooga, every. We just met with banks and we were striking out left and right and I'm like, oh my God, this might not work. You know, like this whole thing. And we ended up going to Clayton bank and Trust in Knoxville for the last one. And there's like a loan officer, he's probably in his twenties, and then five minutes later this old guy Comes in and he's got two books in his hand, thick books, and he signs them hands. And he's like, I'm Jim Clayton, you know, founder, CEO of Clayton Bank. And I was like, oh, all right. He's like, tell me what you're, you know, what you got going on. We told him. He's like, you guys seem like good guys. Yeah, we'll lend you the money. And we're like, okay. So I went home, read his book, and he. Guy's a billionaire. He sold his. He grew up in West Tennessee as a sharecropper's son and started some car dealerships and then manufactured housing business. He sold it to Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway for like a billion plus. And then he started this bank, and every dollar he. He got from the bank, he donated back to the community. So I'll never forget because it was the day I was supposed to leave for my honeymoon. I get in the sellers on the properties. There's three of them that we were working on. We're all getting fed up. They were like, you know, we'd gotten extensions, and they're like, this is it. We're not giving you more time. And the call, I'm in Oklahoma City, and the call is like, I'm about to fly home to, then fly to my honeymoon. And it's like, oh, Rob, we effed up, man. I don't think I can do your deal anymore. And, you know, like, I. I just. I couldn't believe it. So my partner Mike got Jim Clayton's business card out, and he had his phone number on. He called him, and Jim picks up. He's in his cell phone. He was in Las Vegas at some convention. And he's like, wait, what? No, no, no, I'll take care of this. And then five minutes later, I get a call back from my loan officer, like, okay, we're good to go. And we closed those loans and sold them. So, you know, there was definitely a lesson in, like, perseverance and not assuming that things were just going to go well, that there. But, yeah, then beyond that, like, the tenant that we built for those first three projects for ended up going bankrupt. You know, luckily, I hate it when this happens because somebody else is sort of left holding the bag. But we had sold the three properties, so it didn't, like, take us down completely there. And when I go look at those three properties now, they're well leased to other tenants. So I'm hoping. I know for a fact one of the people that we sold the property to, even though they had tenant had closed and gone bankrupt, ended up being our equity partner on one of our first projects after that, as we were trying to figure out, because yes, at that time period, also the equity partner that was going to do write the equity checks for our projects went bankrupt. So we literally then in 2009 were back to like complete ground zero with no tenant, no money, no idea really what we were doing. But we kept, you know, we put our head down and it was like, hey, what's our other choice? Like, go back to work for somebody. So we pieced together a project with Aspen Dental with some of the work we'd done for this other dental group. We had a property in Cheektowaga, New York, which is suburban Buffalo, that we had leased to Chipotle and Aspen Dental, despite the fact that we had two 10 year leases. It was like 11% yield on cost on the project, which today is like impossible to get on a retail project. We could not get a bank to lend us money on it. So it was tough. But we again, it was one of these like, all right, how do we find money? And I was sitting at a CCIM luncheon and there was a broker who like sells investment sales properties. And he was like, hey, can I sell any of your projects? And we were like, hey, we don't really have anything to sell. But we needed help raising money. He was, you know, probably 20 years older than us, and he set us up with five individuals who may have had interest in investing in real estate. And the first four, like, laughed us out of the room. And the last one didn't show up. But we called him and he invited us over to his house and we go over and his dogs are like accosting us while we're trying to explain to him what we're doing. And he's like, all right, tomorrow why don't you come back with and I'll bring my high school friend and we'll have the lunch we were supposed to have. And we had that lunch and they wrote a check on that project in Cheektowaga, New York. And then they ended up doing like 40, 45 projects with us. We're still doing some stuff with them today. So sometimes when you don't have the path, like that's what you want as an entrepreneur is to exactly where you're going. But it can be murky and you just got to keep, you know, trying. Like, don't give up.

Yeah, I mean, that's a testament to your resilience. Is like 40 banks, you know, you went to 40 banks. You must have not had Jeffrey at that time. No, but, yeah, it's crazy because most normal people will get rejected once, maybe twice, maybe three times, and they're like, all right, I can't do it. It's impossible. Right. And so it's just. That's just not reality. You have to do it 40 times, and you're gonna have to do it 400 more times after that if you want to continue to be successful, not just obtain the success, but keep it. So that's really cool. Yeah. And I think I was talking to Simon about this, too, is like the one trait I see in every super successful person. And not just financial success, but health. Like you. You have an amazing marriage, you have amazing kids, you have a great relationship with your family. Like, you run 3,000 miles a year, which I want to talk to you about, because I don't know how I still haven't found that balance of, like, you know, making time for some other things in life outside of business. And then you have this incredible development company and an amazing reputation and all these things. And that's really hard to do. And it takes insane dedication. And that one trait that I recognize in the people that are able to accomplish success in all the areas of their life and be a very well rounded and successful person and every right. Is that they are just insanely driven and determined and resilient. And that's really all that it comes down to, is like, they just don't quit.

Yeah. No. And it's. I do think there's an aspect to it when you have to know when something's not going to work. And I think, like, if I would have. If Clayton bank would have been my 40th. No, that might have been it because, like, we had pulled up all the banks, you know, and maybe there would have been other opportunities or whatever. But there is some level where you have to realize, like, all right, this isn't my day. But until you know that, that's the point you've assessed. Like, here are all the options, here's all the things I can do. And it's funny, if we talk about running, like, I have a very similar history with my running and getting from, like a dark time to a successful time and kind of assessing, like, what can I do to make this work?

Can you share that?

Well, yeah, I just. I wanted to run. I love running. I probably loved running even more back then because we were always traveling. It's not fun to get up in a hotel room every morning and just get in a car and, like, not see the cool city you might be in. It might be a city that nobody thinks is interesting, like, you know, Waterloo, Iowa, or something. And you're in a Fairfield Inn by the mall. But, like, if you wake up and you. You go find a little trail along the river or go through their downtown, like, it's. It's cool. You kind of know that place. And so I was doing that across the country, but I continually was getting hurt. Like, it was just one thing after another, and not, like, catastrophic stuff like torn ACLs, just tendonitis, stress fractures, stuff like that. And so, I mean, I had, you know, thousands of dollars worth of contraptions I bought to, you know, massage and stretch and all these books and changing my form and all these different things. And it just. I kept. Like, I wanted to run more because I knew to be the runner, I wanted to be, like, I had to be able to do it kind of more. And I. And then I just wanted to do it when I was on all these trips and I couldn't. And it was frustrating until I found, finally, a running coach. And he videotaped me running for a minute, and he's like, your left arm is doing something different than your right arm. That's what your problems are. So now I'm running around the track, he's yelling, move your left arm. Move your left arm. And I start moving my left arm, and, like, the pain starts going away in my right knee. I mean, it sounds like magic, but it was true. I was like, wow, maybe I finally found, you know, my thing like, a running coach was kind of on the end of my list of, like, options for all this stuff. And so from that point on, I really didn't have as many injuries. And then he told me about this function, and I'm not going to try not to be too technical on it, but there's a ground contact time balance feature on the advanced Garmins that tells you the amount of time your left foot and your right foot spend on the ground as a percentage of each other. So, like, if you're 50, 50, it's, like, perfect, but it also means you're probably landing right under your center of, like, mass. And if you start getting to, like, 51, 52, it probably means one of your feet is landing out front of the other, maybe crossing over the other. So when I learned that and I got it, I watched that the entire time. I run, not, like, incessantly, but I keep looking down and making sure the whole time I'm running. I'm at like 50, 50, that's probably 10, 12 years ago. And since then, like I've been able to pretty much run as much as I want because it was the data that gave me the feedback on the things like, hey, your left arm's doing something different. Because otherwise I could only really tell when that coach was there telling me. And now I have this thing on my arm that allows me to. So that was kind of like my Clayton bank of running.

Yeah. Because most people probably would have been like, I can't run. I give answer. Yeah, exactly. Which is probably something I would have said as an easy excuse. Excuse out. But that's cool. And you've, I mean, I could see you light up just talking about running. So it's clearly something that you're super passionate about. And you found that passion in the army. It. That's where I started.

Yeah. I mean, because it was just, it was. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong because this is somewhat long time ago now, but I remember it as being like one weekend like hungover in a dark hotel room in a terrible southern town. And the next weekend I'm like, it's sunny and I'm like feeling good and I'm like, running and then went back to the, you know, my barracks and got a nice healthy meal. And like the, the contrast and how I felt between the two was significant. And I, like, I'd ran a little bit before that. In baseball. I was always one of the third slowest people getting to first base. It's funny, I had my 25 year high school reunion two weeks ago and these two other guys who were the slowest were there and they said, I always thought you might be a distance runner because like when we had to run three miles, you were always the first person done. Like, it's just the problem is the speed. Running to first base was the same speed that you ran for three miles, which is probably the same speed you run now for like 26 miles. And there's a lot of truth in that. So I would go running a little bit in high school, different things, but it was really. Yeah. In the army where I did like six miles, it felt like, okay, like, you know, that was fun. And then I think it was my junior year in college. I had gone like a nine month period without drinking. I had this agreement with my brother about it. And I'm living in a fraternity at the University of Illinois, so not drinking was a very weird thing to be doing. But a girl that I knew and 13 of her sorority sisters were running the Chicago marathon. This is 2003. And so I signed up, and I did my first marathon. 2003 caught the bug, and, you know, continued running on and off since that time. But like I said, injuries were a lot of the problem. Like, I did that one marathon. I didn't for a while. Then I finally did another marathon. I did my third one in Nairobi, Kenya. We went, oh, wow. Raised a bunch of money for, like, these water projects, and we got to go meet the kids and different things. And then. Yeah, the last 12 years, I've just. Every spring and fall, my big goal was always to run the Boston Marathon. And it felt very out of reach. I got in a couple times, but then they seed you, and if there's too many runners who are faster than you, you get out, you're on, you're on the outside. That happened to me with nine seconds and then, like, 11 seconds. But I took my time from, like, yeah, 3. 42 to finally 247. And last year, 246, which has allowed me to run the Boston Marathon the last four years. And, you know, my point being the lighting up. It's fun to accomplish goals. It's fun to, like, have things that you couldn't do that now you can do and look back, I mean, you start to take them for granted. But when you have an opportunity like this to kind of think about it, it's like, wow, that is really cool. Like, I remember thinking to myself, man, when my dad sees me finally qualify for the Boston Marathon, like, I'll. I'll cry because I'll be so emotional. And then I have a video that he took of me, like, crossing the finish line in Minneapolis the first time I ran under three hours. And he. You can hear in his voice, like, he's choking up and stuff, you know, so it's like. I don't know. I think that's what life's all about.

So, yeah, that's so cool. How do you balance everything? You know, what are your habits? Or, like, how have you managed to balance that? Because I know personally in my life, I've always been a little bit out of whack. Definitely leaning heavily on the academics, business, real estate. Like, you know, as that's progressed, as I've aged, and then my relationships and my health have suffered more. I mean, I've kept it up decently, but, you know, I. I'm single, don't have a very strong relationship, and I don't work out as. I mean, I go to the gym when I'm at home, but I travel all the time and then I lose my routine or I go out to eat all the time. So like, how have you balanced your crazy drive in real estate development and then also running and being an athlete and then having an amazing relationship with your family and your kids as well? Because I feel like I don't know how to find enough time in the day and even with a team, you know. So like walk me through how you've managed to be successful at that. Whether it's how you built your team or your daily habits or your, your non negotiables or what that looks like in your life.

It's just funny you asked that because literally this week I, I keep like an insta story most days with something and, and I get into a lot of different things. So I got a question from like, I think it was a, a mom of kids previous school was like, I don't understand how you have time for all this. And so I thought about it a little bit. So it gives me a little bit of a head start on your question. But I mean, part of it is like I put in more of the hours like in my 20s, like I didn't go out partying as much and stuff like when I was in my 20s as maybe some other peers and I took, you know, risks like starting a company when you're 24, it just gives you that time to like learn and the time value of money and all these different things that. My point being now like I do live a pretty balanced life, but I think if I would have not put in maybe some of the front loading in my earlier years, maybe I wouldn't be having this opportunity now. I think another one is. And I don't know, I wonder if I wouldn't have been diagnosed with like ADD now learning more about it or adhd. If I get into something, I get really into it. But like trying to get me into something that like I, my brain hasn't said it's into, it's like impossible. So I don't get sidetracked with a lot of things. Like I don't watch TV much. I don't, I don't like to go out with like the guys on the block to sit on the stoop and just chat. I don't, there's a lot of things that I think, you know, most people do in a given day that I don't, I just don't do. So saying no to things I think helps. And then like as I'VE gotten older and with business is. And I think this is just key and it. Especially for any entrepreneurs, like, figuring out how to go from being the company yourself to the company being, like, all the different people. And I realized I can't do all these things that I used to do. So, you know, when we finally brought on, like, a bookkeeper and I stopped literally writing, you know, the checks, like, and doing QuickBooks, and then when we brought on young guys to make the property, the calls to the property owners that I used to do, I, like, no longer will do that anymore, you know, And I don't do anything on the construction side of our business, really, because it's not what I'm good at. So I try to focus my time on what I'm good at in work. And then, like, what do I value outside of work and how much do I value it? Because you show what you value by what you put your time into. I'm thankful. Like, my wife, since we had our first kid, she worked for us for, like a year until she got pregnant, but she hasn't worked, so she's had more time to, you know, kind of take care of a lot of things in the house that maybe I would have to if we both worked that kind of thing with running, like, it's just my top priority in a day. Like, you know, if you would ask me to do this, and I looked at my schedule and it was like, there's not time to run. I'd be like, I don't have time to do it. Where I think most people are, like, it's the first. Like, working out is the first thing to kind of go, you know. And then, like, with the family, it's just trying to make those times count. Like, my older daughter and I like to go to concerts, so we have, like, kind of big, you know, memory things. My younger one has started to get into running, so she did a 10k recently that I did with her. And like, you know, it's just kind of like those big memorable moments instead of maybe just like a lot of time sitting on the couch, watching TV with them or whatever. Yeah. But, yeah, I think, like, in short, it's. I think for me, I had to decide what I value figuring out how to get time in my life for it and then saying no to things that would take up that time otherwise. And, you know, I moved to New York four years ago on a whim, and that's helped a lot because it, like, it. All the things that I might have had, you know, Little meetings I'd have at for this group or that like it all went away and I could rebuild from scratch like what I wanted to do. And I have very few things like that are weekly occurrences that I'm committed to and stuff because I don't like them that much. Like then there you can't have the spontaneity to do other things.

So yeah, it's, it, it's, it really does come all come down to your priorities and what's the most important thing to you and what your, your non negotiables are. Like you said like for me work is my number one priority. And so everything kind of comes as a second or third or fourth or fifth to business. And so I need to have a self reflection on is do I want that to always be my number one priority. But I'm also at a different phase in my life. Like you know, I believe you can have it all, but not all at once. And just like you said, you really put in the work when you were getting started earlier on and then now you've built a huge foundation and you have something a great team and you can settle into more of a balance in your life. And that's, that's really cool. And I love that you said that you love to dance and you go dancing out and house music's my favorite music too. And I had Garen, my friend Garen Jones on the podcast and he's just a beautiful human, but spent like, spent a lot of time in prison and had a lot of challenges growing up. And he teaches people because so many people he works with a lot of entrepreneurs that are very successful financially, but they're very unfulfilled and kind of miserable inside a lot of them. And, and he teaches people to go back to the things that lit them up as a kid. And so he like asked me on the shows like what lit you up as a child? And go back to do that. And he shared an example of one of his clients who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And she's like, I'm just, you know, on paper I have it all, but I just feel miserable inside. And, and he's like, well, what did you enjoy as a kid? And she's like I love dancing. And she just lit up saying it like I love to dance. And. And so she started prioritizing dancing over anything else in business or scaling or anything like that. And just that thing like playing and going back to that childhood instinct of just fun was able to kind of turn her life around. So I think it's really cool that you shared that you like to dance and you'll stay up all night dancing in Brooklyn. So can you talk a little bit about how you figured that out or started doing that?

Yeah, I think there's so many angles to it, but I mean, I think the starting point being, like, I used to have season tickets to, you know, the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Bears, and I spent a ton of time doing this stuff. Sometimes it would be like, you know, client facing stuff, whatever, but, you know, and then I'd listen to the talk radio on the way to work and like, it just. But I knew everything and I could have these conversations with people about, you know, sports and it was just part of my life. And I think when Covid hit and, you know, a little bit leading up to that, it was just start question it like, because, you know, eight out of 10, 10 times you go to a game and it's like, it's kind of boring. Like your team gets blown out or they blow the other team out. It's like one in 10 times. There's this amazing ending where. And I think what draws people to sports is like, it's that collective feeling of these people are on my team, you know, like, and we all did something together, even though you didn't have anything to do with it. Right. But like, that's what people are seeking out, I think, in that, in that environment. But in sports, like, despite the fact that it's only some of the times, you know, you're going to get the outcome you want, there's also always like the, the. The enemy, the opposition, like the other team. And so, you know, I'd find myself leaving a game and like hating people from Wisconsin because the packers won. And it's like, this is, to me, this just feels like very like unevolved as a human being because, like, they live on the other. You know, they like this other. They're rooting for these grown men. You know, it just didn't make that much sense. And so I, you know, had a couple, like, experience with electronic music. I went to 1. ICSC was like a beach party thing and I had a lot of fun. And then that led me to go to like a festival in Chicago just for a night. But it was really like. And then when I moved to New York after Covet, I told myself, like, I want to see more live music. There's something I, I was into when I was a kid and that, you know, as a kid, and I just totally didn't make time for music at all. But then my brother, he's six years younger than me, and he lives in the Chicagoland area, and I had moved in New York, and I think he was really disappointed about the fact that I had this distance that felt like, you know, it was never going to be changed. And I said, man, it's New York. Like, you're. And he's a musician. Like, he's really good at guitar, singing, drums, all this stuff. And so I was like, come to New York. I'll pay for us to go see whatever, like a concert, like, anytime. And he's like, I'd love that. So I. I Googled, like, concerts, comma, nyc, and it was like, Fish at the Madison Square Garden. And I was like, I kind of remember the band Fish from when I was in high school. I was like, what about this? To my brother? And he was like, that would be amazing. So we went. And it's a long story, but it's a culture that is very open to, like, whatever you bring into it is going to be, like, accepted. And the more you're yourself, the more you're kind of accepted, you know? And I think even that first show, I felt that a little bit. I've now seen them 48 times in the last two and a half years.

Oh, my God.

So, yeah, I think my wife would be like, you know, you were saying priorities and time spent, like, maybe Fish is your top priority in life. But, like, I learned then to move my body in ways that felt really good, and I didn't care anymore, you know? Like, I think growing up, I wanted to be cool. Like, I really wanted to be cool. I think about that a lot now, and I never thought I was. And dancing was something I think I always wanted to do, but, like, I was afraid that I didn't look cool doing it. And so now I finally have this, like, community that I think allowed me to. To feel like maybe not that I was cool, but that it was like, okay. And so from there, yeah, I actually met a guy at the Sphere, the venue in Vegas. I was seeing Fish on the floor, where it's general admission, and start talking to the guy behind me. And he's a dj, and he owns a really prominent nightclub in Ridgewood, which is on the Brooklyn Queens border. And so I went and saw him DJ one time. And then I've been to his club a bunch of times, and now it's just grown. I started taking a house dance class on Fridays in the east village from, like, 11:30 to 1. And I'm by far the worst every time. But. But then, like, it's so the difference, I think, when you get into, especially, like, house music, you know, plural, peace, love of unity, respect. Like, it. It's kind of the opposite of, like, sports, where, like, you're not. There's no enemy. There's no, like, anybody who's there as long as they're, like, being respectful is, you know, like, you're. The energy is to build those people up and stuff.

Yeah, it's like a. It's like an energy of love.

Yes. No, it feels good, and it feels good to move my body. I've taken, like, I took 75,000 steps one night when I was out dancing. So I just, like, keep moving, keep going. And now it's, like, become, like, really, like, a study in humanity, too, because, like, while I'm there, you can see other people who don't look as comfortable. Maybe it's their first time. Maybe they're, you know, overweight. They don't, like. You can tell they don't like what they're wearing or whatever. And I'll just go up and make, like, little comments like, hey, I like your moves. Hey, you got great energy. Or whatever. You see people's faces, like, kind of, like, brighten up, and it's amazing how you can make somebody's day, you know, that way. And I'm able to do that, like, when I'm out dancing. Like, a very quick side note on that, just because I think it's. It's very important in how I live my life is one of the. A woman that I met at the women's shelter that I was referring to earlier. We started going out for drinks, like, once a month. And one of the times, you know, she told me about all these terrible things that happened to her family, that she was, like, the only one left. Like, she didn't have any family. And she said to me one time that, you know, when I wake up, sometimes I really don't want to wake up. Like, I don't want to go to dialysis. I just want to die. But I remember that you would know that I'm like, that I'm alive, that there's, like, one person out there, like, thinking about me. And I mean, how powerful is that? Like, right? Like, there's somebody out there that, like. Because you're having any. She's not the type. She's never the top priority of my life. She didn't get a ton of my time, just a little bit of time and like she was saying that made her want to wake up in the morning. So I just think about that when I'm out dancing too. Like there might be somebody in here feels, you know, same way, like, or whatever. And then you have like an interaction. You're just kind of kind and. And nobody cares how much money you have in that scenario. Nobody cares any of that stuff. It doesn't matter which. I hate that stuff. You got to come in like, this is who I am first and now I'm important. You know, rather than like, you just show up as who you are. If people figure these things out about you later on, like, so be it. So yeah, that's. There's a lot to talk about on that, but I'm really enjoying it.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I think. And you know, now the self actualization and I don't know, exploring more authenticity and who you are and obviously now just the authenticity thing is becoming a more important piece of society. And I think historically society was just very traumatic in nature, just the way we were. I mean, at least speaking for the United States or whatever, our culture, just the way you're raised, like fit in this box, do this, obey this, follow these rules, don't do this, don't be this, don't be that. And then I think we just lose ourselves. Like as very young kids, we lose ourselves and we just kind of fit into this dogma of whatever we're told we have to do, or whatever we're rewarded for, or whatever gets us the girl or the boy or the parents appreciation or you know, favoritism or whatever these things are, right? And then some of us end up as adults and we just don't even know who the hell we are. And we like feel this emptiness inside. Even though we've done all the things that everybody congratulated us for or pushed us to do, or rewarded us for growing up and then we have to kind of go back to those things in life. Like who are we really to our core? Like what really lights us up, what really is our passion, what really is our purpose, our mission, our, our focus for our life and like the people that we serve and, and the mission that we're on. And so that, that's been a lot of the journey that I've been on the past few years is uncovering that after realizing, okay, I love business, it's a huge passion of mine, but my intention for doing it was wrong. It was very fear driven, like, you know, scarcity based fear driven, trying to prove my worth Trying to take, like, afraid that I wasn't going to be able to take care of myself or things like that. And when I was able to shift it to being driven like from a place of love and from a place of passion and service and connection and just wanting to create because I love the life that I've been given and because I love the body I've been given and the mind I've been given and, and the people that I get the opportunity to, to work with and serve. It shifted everything in the outcomes in my business. And I think that was like a bigger, a bigger sales training for me than any sales training, you know, and, and I think it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs miss because they oftentimes we're not taught that, like we're not taught to go out and have fun and dance and play and do the things you're passionate about and like be your authentic self. We're just taught to go make money, go do business, go be the best. Like go be, be this brute force driver. And I think that only, I think a lot of people miss out on a lot in life because they stick to that story that isn't necessarily the highest serving, although it can show up as it as high serving because externally you look successful.

Yeah, no, and it's, it's identity stuff, right? Like you started to have success in business. Like your identity became, or I'm speaking for you. So I apologize. But you know, off often she comes, well, she's this, you know, awesome business lady. But then like, what if, yeah, what if that's not serving you? Like, what if you're spending too much time on it? Or like what is your end goal? Like what do you want? Like if you want to have $100 million in revenue or something, like, well, why, you know, because like you're never going to be able to spend all that. So is it? And it could be a good thing. Could be because like I want all these, you know, people are going to work for me to have this opportunity and da, da, da. But if it's just because like that's the next thing to get and like that's going to make me feel like now I'm, you know, my identity is secure again because you keep moving up these like rungs in life too and you're going to be compared to whoever's kind of like near you on whether I'm running or whether I'm like in business. I used to be maybe good with kids right out of college in real estate, but Then like once you're an entrepreneur, it's like you're compared to these other. And so like, if you keep comparing yourself to the people around you, you're always going to feel like you need to keep going. And there's nothing wrong with keeping going. But why? You know, like, I've thought about this. Like there's actually something I heard from somebody else that used to do a little bit is like practice dying. Like if you're on your deathbed and you look back on your life, like what things would you be glad you did and what things would you wish that you did differently? You know? And like that's a really sobering thing to think about because. And different things that belief systems you have will impact that too. Like I used to be more kind of orthodox religion, so that had like a stronger push towards like what I would do now a little bit less so. So it's a little bit more my own opinion. So like dancing might not have fit into my old mindset, but in my mindset today is like, it's some of the best feelings I have in this short life I have. So like, I do want to lean into that, you know, even if maybe it is frivolous or whatever. So I just think there are things that unfortunately a lot of people don't think about at all. Like you just wake up and you go through your day and keep doing that until you die. But you know, there's a lot of like opportunities to stop and re examine that. And I think that can lead to a lot of personal growth.

Yeah.

And I think it's for me at the moment, I hope helping business because like I said, I have a lot of young people now working for me. I try to spend a lot of time with them. That's like where I feel like my time is best served, is either kind of out facing clients or with our people and like setting that culture. And I tell them all the time I'm like, do something. Do something interesting. Do something that stands out. Say yes to things. Like say yes to things would be one of my biggest pieces of advice right now is because like, if you don't say yes, you're not going to have experiences. They might go wrong, but you'll learn from it. If you don't do it at all, then like you're not growing, you're not changing. And unfortunately we live in a world where like everything wants you to, to keep narrowing in like who you are and what you believe and everything into like the same instead of like continuing to open it up to more and more, you know, pieces of information that can, like, inform how you think, how you behave. So I want more, like, I want to go to Brooklyn nightclub because there's people who are nothing like me. You know, different sexes, genders, like interests, income levels. All that stuff's in one place. And like, I realized, like, I don't need to be big shot real estate guy to like have meaning in life.

Yeah, it's cool. I. One of my first coaches I ever hired was an energetic intelligence coach, which I thought he was a business coach, which he is a business coach, but he teaches energetic intelligence, which was the catalyst that really kind of transformed that portion of my life and understand that my intentions were all wrong. And what you were just saying there is like, does it make you expansive and expand you. And so I think there's things in your life that everything in your life either makes you feel expansive or it makes you feel contracted. People, things, activities, businesses, specific tasks at your business. And he taught me to just start to have first the awareness of what made me feel expansive, what made me feel the green zone energy, like flow, state energy, passion, love, service, joy, time goes fast, all those types of things. And then what makes you feel contracted, where you're stressed or overwhelmed or bored or frustrated or angry and. And anything in the spectrum there. And the more I started to lean into the things that made me feel expansive, whatever it was in my life, and lean away from the things that made me feel exposed, it contracted the more my life started to continue to expand with ease and it became more effortless. Instead of feeling like I had to force every outcome that I wanted in my life and like battle everything. And I had the mindset that everything is hard. Like, everything good is hard. I think we all, culturally, we believe that, like, no pain, no gain. And yes, things are hard. Like, just like working out a muscle at the gym, it's painful, but it feels good at the same time. And it's something that you are proud of. And I wouldn't really call that like, pain and suffering. I mean, it's painful, but it's not suffering. And so that's the paradigm shift I've been trying to get through, is how much can I create in my life while staying in the green zone and staying expansive and continuing to be in this state of flow and not having to believe that I have to suffer through it. Yeah, yeah.

No, it's. I think a lot of times it's like in life there's something that's true, like you know, hard work, no pain, no gain or whatever. What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger. That have truth to them, but not like all the time or you need them mixed with something else. And so like I take that, you know, but then I read like, you know, Tim Ferriss's 40 hour work week or whatever and it's like four. Four.

Yeah, sorry, 40.

400.

The only 40.

No. And I was like, I enjoyed the book. I thought for me, like, this isn't, this isn't me. Like I don't want to just be on the beach every day. Like I enjoy work and you know, like putting in more hours and stuff, but there's inklings of truth, you know, to be, to grasp from that and like mix in with this army like hardcore thing and, and so each person's got to pick and choose their own. I like, one of the most life changing things for me over the last four years is like moving to New York. I, I ride a bike everywhere. They have the city bikes, divi lift bikes where you like pick one up one place and then you drop it off somewhere else so you don't have to like lock it or whatever. And everywhere I go, I ride a bike. And usually I go out to the Hudson river and I ride up and down and it's so expansive. Versus like sitting in traffic, driving home from work or like I walk my kids to dance class, it's like eight blocks away. Versus like getting in a car and like getting in traffic and getting irritated and all these different things. It's a small thing, but it's been like huge. Even when we talked about doing this today, and I know I originally was like, ah, it's three hours away. Like, let's find another time. I thought about it, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna have any traffic from where I am to where you are. And I have my car that has like auto drive so I can do. So it's like a more expansive thing. But if I would have to drive like three hours in like gridiron traffic to do this, I probably would have said no, you know.

Right.

So.

No, I love that.

Yeah.

So shifting gears into some more of the technical and development stuff, I would love to hear like go into a little bit about, you know, how you have a competitive edge, like kind of why would people work with you over other developers out there and how you've managed to build your team, which I believe you have 15 people on your team, so you guys are, I would say, a lean team. Organizationally, but that's still a good chunk of people for the amount of volume that you're doing. I mean, they must be a very highly efficient team and a very good team of a players. So, yeah, I guess first onto the client perspective. Like, what sets Quattro Development? Because you're co founder and principal Quattro Development. I can't even remember if I said that in the beginning. I hope I did. But what sets Quattro Development apart from other developers and what has led to your growth in obtaining these tenant clients?

Yeah, it's funny answering the question and realizing, like, we haven't talked that much about real estate, but part of my answer is like a lot of the stuff we talked about is the answer to these questions. But I guess for one, our niche is, I think, a tremendous niche. So, you know, unlike most developers who I think maybe have a vision of something that might work out, or they have trends and supply and demand data, and it's like, I'm gonna build this and I think I'm gonna get this rent and I'm gonna, you know, whatever. Like, it's kind of all based on hopes. We typically are like, signing a lease with our tenants before we close on the acquisition of if it's a piece of dirt that we're going to build on. So we know what the rent is and it's usually a function of what our costs are. And so we oftentimes we even tell the tenant, hey, we'll do these developments. Your rent is going to be an open book thing, like, here's our cost and we need to make a certain amount of money. So like, you know, and oftentimes the type of properties we sell are sold based on a cap rate, the return that investor is going to get for buying it. So if a Chipotle is paying $100,000 a year in rent and somebody gets a 5 cap, 100,000 by 0.05, it's $2 million value or whatever. So we'd say, well, we need like a 7% return on our cost because we're going to sell it to somebody at 5% and the spread is what we make our money off of. So for one thing, like, we don't have leasing risk. Like, what if we build this and nobody comes and now we're paying our debt service and nobody ever comes. And when we finally put them in there, it's like for less, you know, rent than we thought we were going to get. So it allows for decision making so much easier. It's like it works or it doesn't. And it's very transparent for the tenants. Like, we don't always do it that way. Some tenants just don't want to do it that way. They just want to know what the rent's going to be. And we do the same math. It's just we don't show it to them. Other ones, it's literally like, here it is. So if they say, like, hey, that rent doesn't work, it doesn't work. And it's not like, oh, we'll sharpen our pencils, or, you know, I mean, we will to an extent at times, but for the most part, like, this is what we've agreed to do, which I think tenants appreciate, because so often in real estate, it's the landlord and the tenant are like opposing sides to a problem. And what one wins, the other loses. Right. But I don't think it has to be that way. Like, I think a tenant and the landlord in what we do is truly like a partnership. Like, you can't succeed in growing if we don't do what we're supposed to do, and we can't succeed if we don't have you. So, like, let's find it's cheesy, but like a win win. And so I think just our model has helped us to not get out over our skis and do things that, you know, we thought were going to work out, that didn't. But it's also, like, created this ecosystem where I think tenants feel very comfortable and trustworthy. And I think that's another part of the success is, you know, reputation. But what is reputation from? I mean, it can be like I, when I go to icsc, because I do like the insta story, different things be like, oh, Rob the runner, the dancer, all these different things, you know, like, that could be the idea, but I think it's primarily based on, like, trust and integrity. And I can't think of anybody we work with that has a story they could say about me or us that was like, you know, that was a unethical transaction or they weren't being honest. So, yeah, just being truthful, telling when there's a problem, telling somebody about the problem, you know, taking they're mad about it, they can be mad about it, and then you move on. You don't have to, like, start a war, fight over it. It's just kind of like things are what they are and we're going to do what we can to, to fix them when there's problems. But that, that goes a long Way, like when you're trying to. Then again, not just build like one building for one tenant, move on to the next one. Like, the goal is like when we did the 50 Montessori schools, like, you know, you gotta have trust. And. And you can't break that trust. Once you break it, you're done. And then you have to have your employees do the same thing. So, you know, the couple, we very. I think we've maybe let go of like two people in our 16, 17 year history. And they were. The one is primarily just like a. Not that he didn't have integrity. It wasn't that at all. But just like that culture of how we deal with people, like hearing somebody yell at somebody on the phone, like, we don't. Not what we do. We don't yell at people on the phone. Like, I get it. If you're mad, then like, go yell, go punch a punching bag or whatever, you know, because once you start doing that, like, it just changes the whole culture of what the company is. But if everybody's doing things the same way, it. It goes a long way for building trust with the clients. And I think that's what we've done. And I think now more and more as we've grown, our people and our people are representation of us out in the marketplace. They're not copying me, but they're acting in a way, like, from a values and culture standpoint that are similar. And so then it expands. And now more and more people, like, are incoming. Like, hey, I'm a broker and I'm working with this tenant that needs a developer. Like, let's think of Quattro Development, you know, or like, whatever it is. So now we start to not just have to, like, me being out there getting the business. It's other people coming to us or the younger guys we're working with, like, making phone calls on our behalf. And maybe that tenant, you know, calls around, like, what do you know about these people? And it's all positive. Like, we just had a meeting with Sprouts, the grocery store, and I drove in from Michigan to suburban Chicago for it. And it was great. It was exactly what you want. The heads of real estate for Sprouts are there, their brokers are there, and they're asking me a bunch of questions about, like, can we really perform? Who are we? And the brokers all said they have a great reputation. And like, it's probably the number one key to success, I think, in what we do is if you can't get that from most people, then it's going to be hard to grow your business business, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And I love the single tenant net lease space because you it's such, in my opinion, I'm not a developer but it's such low risk because you already have a tenant secured. The banks will finance it at a very, very high LTV. I mean we have lenders up to 100 loan to cost on single tenant net lease buildings when the tenant's secured. And then yeah, I mean they're your corporate guaranteed. So regardless of what happens in the market, you're most likely going to be fine because these are massive. Like McDonald's is backed by, you know, chubby Americans. In any market it's not going anywhere. And same with a lot of these other big brands, Chipotle and Chick Fil A and all those. But yeah, I think that's super cool. And so in the, I think I read somewhere that you guys structure your fees differently in the development process or I guess how do you like what does it look like from the developer role? Like what equity do you bring to the table because you're locking up the property. But are you, are you bringing in equity partners to actually do the construction and the development or like how do you structure that with your projects?

Yeah, so I mean on the fee side of things like historically we have not put fee income to us in our budgets. So where that comes into play is if, let's say another developer is also offering to do the development open book but they're saying I'll do it for an 8% return on cost. But they also have a 5% developer fee and a 1% acquisition fee and a 1% disposition fee that are all going to them. I mean that's great for them. That means the rent is going to be significantly higher than if I say 8%. I don't have those fees in my budget. As we grow, I think we are seeing we need to have some cash flow like that coming in. But again being transparent with it, having it be a very reasonable amount, not hiding it. But a lot of developers make their money off of fee income as their primary source of income. So if the project makes it or doesn't, they're making their money. I'm going to do $100 million project and I'm going to get my 3% developer fee and then an asset management fee. But if you know, my equity partner loses all their money like it might not impact me at all or if I have a equity co invest it's like a small like Maybe my fees are more than I end up losing. We make our money primarily on the profitability of the project. So like the back end promote if we're. And to answer your question more directly, you know, we've done some projects with our own equity. The majority have been with outside equity. Whether it's the guys I mentioned earlier who did like 45 high net worth people, individuals. Most recently we did a friends and family fund which was, I think the update went out today. I've been working on it for like four months. But that was interesting. I mean I went down to as small as like a twenty five thousand dollar check so that like my cousins could invest and you know, because we're making returns that are just much better than you can get in like the stock market. And I feel bad that I can make it for some high net worth people that I just met. But you know, my parents or somebody, you know, different people we work with don't get it. So that was the point of that. And I think it's been well, like it's been well received. We've used most of the money, we haven't returned it all yet.

Is that a close ended fund?

Yeah, so we, we raised like 14 million. We called it in in 25% increments. We started paying like a prep on it from when the money came in and then as the properties sell, we're returning the capital and profit on each project.

So what do you put, what's your structure? Is it like an 8 pref plus a split or some sort of split or just straight equity?

It was a 9 pref and then a 50, 50 back end split of the profit. Okay, so and when I say that it's interesting because on bigger projects you know, a developer might only be getting like a 20% back end split. And sometimes I run into that when I'm talking about like oh, this company was doing 80, 20, 80 to the investors but I'm like yeah, but their project was like you know, buying 100 acres and building a spec industrial building that they don't. No, you know like I'm coming to you and saying like this is very like tied up of what you know, you're getting. Like so oftentimes, you know, historically I think our IRRs to that individual I mentioned earlier is like 40, 50, 60%, you know. Yeah, so, so if I'm giving them 50, I'm getting 50, but they're still getting that. That's a lot better than if I'm giving them 80, but they're only getting a 20% IRR. So you know, are you still getting.

The high of our in this market?

Yeah. So the fund and to touch on like, you know, you mentioned the single tenant, that lease.

Yeah.

How a lot of these, like a lot can't go wrong.

It's all invest with you, you're getting 50 IRR. That's insane.

Yeah. But the, the three things that can really go wrong are cap rate changes, which is a macroeconomic thing you really can't control. So over the last, you know, we've raised the fund, I think like I went out to raise the friends and family fund the week that like Signature bank failed and everything. So from there like rates, you know, it was right around them when rates went up. So cap rates have gone up and you can't really control that. Ideally, if your project's only taking like a year, how much are they really going to run? And if you're getting 200 basis points spread, there's no way that cap rates should run 200 basis points where you're underwater just on that. Then there's the construction risk. I mean some of these projects when they're open book will have like, hey, up to 5% overage they'll pay rent on or something. But if you're over that, then it's like on you. So you know, we had a oil change facility where we did a phase two and it didn't show anything and then we found like a leaky tank and it cost us 200 grand and like that was all the profit on that project. So there's still risk there and then tenant risk. So if we're doing a Chipotle deal, we're going to require a lesser return on cost to us than if we're doing like we just signed up a, a primary care value based primary care provider, a client that has like 11 locations. And so we're going to need a higher, you know, rate of return because I'm taking more risk than if I'm doing Chipotle. So with the Montessori School is a great example. We did the 50 of them and they were a credit risk like they weren't making money. They had a great model but they recently closed a bunch of their schools and that was part of the risk. But we were doing those for like a 9% return on costs when maybe we were doing Chipotle for seven and a half or eight, something like that. But so those three areas where you can still lose money. So with the fund we kind of had all of them. Go against us with all the cost overruns, not just because of like post Covid. It's, you know, everything's been so much more expensive. Interest rates went up significantly and then we had one tenant issue in the fund. But I think we'll still be north of like a 20% IRR on it.

Which I think is still really good.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's cool. What do you think? What's your idea of the outlook of the real estate? I mean, I guess the overall economy, but specifically the commercial real estate market in the near and like, I guess short term and then longer term, like maybe over the next 10 years.

Yeah, I mean I'm not an economist, but I think about it a lot. Um, I think that there's so much money, like the people who have money are just getting more and more money.

Like there's a big gap.

Yeah. And you're right. And I think that's why the stock market keeps going up. People like, you know, it's a profits this and that. Yes, partially. But it's a supply and demand thing. You have a lot of money. Supply of money. Like it's demanding a limited amount of stocks and you know, you're, you've seen it with housing too. I know, like with rates being higher, like it's caused that to slow down a little bit. But I think that picks back up because there's just too much money chasing assets. Yeah. So on that side of it, I feel kind of bullish. I think rates, you know, while they might not go down tremendously, I don't see them going up just again, like there's a lot of money that wants to buy bonds, you know, like 10 year treasuries, like maybe they're not buying them now, but like over time I think the problem is more like for the people who don't have assets, everything else is still going up, you know too, like food and stuff like that. So if you're a client of ours, I could see the picture being more like challenging if you're selling $12 lunches, you know, like, are there going to be people that are going to stop being able to afford that and could that cause pressure on like, you know, the companies? That's where I'm like more concerned. I feel pretty good about like the real estate market. We just went through the worst that I've seen since back in 2008 or nine for people who aren't in real estate. Doesn't really feel like it because the economy's been, you know, fine, but you know, a Lot like, I remember moving to New York and then reading all these articles about all these billionaire families that just lost this building. This building, this building. I'm thinking myself like, oh, this is one of those periods where somebody's gonna snap these up and then, like, you're gonna look back 10 years from now and like, wow, you just. But we're coming out of that, so I would imagine we have like a. A real estate cycle on the mend ahead of us rather than, like, hopefully another downturn, even if the, like, macro economy struggles, which I could see.

Yeah. Because the commercial. I mean, the past few years about now in commercial real estate have been pretty tough. Yeah. And I think. I think hopefully we've hit bottom. But I mean, there's still quite a bit of commercial debt maturing this year. I think it was like 1.2 trillion was for 2025 and estimated 25% of that was distressed debt or, you know, either had to be modified, extended again, or defaulted. Yeah, sold. So. But with that comes opportunity because prices were insane and everything was so expensive. There had to be some give for us to be able to write it back up.

No, I think people expected things to come down a lot more other than office. You know, like, that was the one place where you really saw stuff that seemed like it was an absolute steal from, like, the cost to replace it versus what you're paying. And I mean, I think you're seeing now, like, I just read New York had like the highest foot traffic in their offices. Like, it's. It's greater than in 2019. So for all the, you know, drama about people never coming back to the office, like in New York City, it's more today than it was pre pandemic, which is crazy given the valuation changes that you've seen. Like. Yeah, I don't know. Something seems like it doesn't make sense.

I think, I think maybe like, class A office, like, people want new, all the new amenities that are common now. I don't know. I think the going to work in a dungy office that feels like a hospital with, you know, those horrible lights and panels and. I don't know, I think people just want more, like a little bit brighter and nicer and better energy offices with more amenities. But anyway, what. What about your team? How have you been able to build your team? You got 15 people on your team, and I know that's challenging to not only do what you're doing, but then also lead a team and recruit people, retain people. So what has worked well for you in building your team and culture and just your OPER operating system for your business.

Yeah, well, and I mean, to throw on top of it, like, I lived in Chicago for 16, 17 years up until 2020. I got this crazy idea to build a house in Panama and move my family down there to get away from the Chicago winners. And so I was like, three or four months away from, like, the whole national work from wherever you want scene. But I got stuck in Panama when Covid hit. And that's a whole nother long story. But when I came back, I moved out to California for six months, and then I. And then I moved to New York. And I've been in New York for four years. And my point of saying all this is that everybody else pretty much is in the Chicagoland area. So I'm not only, like, growing the team, but I'm growing it without being physically present with them most of the time. The guys who work for us, the people who work for us, I think, see something special about us in the company versus other companies, and they're really excited. We give a lot of big leash, a lot of autonomy to figure things out. It's not for somebody who's, like, wants to be told exactly what to do every day. Although, even, like, within our company, we found, hey, there's some people maybe on the front end where you really got to just figure out, like, how to. What my day looks like, like, what properties I'm going to call, what I'm gonna. Like, how I'm gonna canvas or cold call. People who aren't as good at that can move into, like, maybe the due diligence and entitlement side. That's a little bit more like, all right, this is what it takes. Like, put together schedule and do this and that. So, like, identifying people's strengths and getting them in the right seat, treating them well. Like, everybody gets some percentage of ownership in every project we do, even if it's very small. So being motivated by pay, that is because the company is making money, not just, like, here's 2% every year, or whatever. And, like, at the same time, like, we usually kind of freeze, like, income, like. Like salaries at a point where it's like, hey, if you want to do really well, the company's got to do really well. And so we've never, like I said, we've only let go of two people. I think it's been stable. We've never had somebody leave our company. So that tenure helps a lot. Like, if you have somebody come for a year or Two, you're mostly just giving, you know, like, you really got to get to, like, that year two before they start, like, giving back. So one of my young guys just moved to New York. Very excited about it. He's 26, I think, and fresh in New York City, so it's fun to have him nearby. But, like, allowing things like that, you know, I was like, I don't know, whatever you want to do. We got another guy just moved to Philly. Like, good for him.

And then do you guys work? Oh, go ahead.

No, no, please.

I was gonna. Do you work remotely or do you. Does everyone go to an office? I know you're remote, but yeah, most.

Of them will go to the office at least a few days a week. Week. Obviously not the guy in Philly because he's on his own. And now us in New York. But even in New York, like, we're getting together on Wednesdays at. I'm a member of this, like, club thing called the Ned Club. So we can go there and work, like, have a space to work. But, yeah, most of them go there. Every Monday. We have a construction call with everybody. Zoom call when I come back in town. Like, I was in the office two weeks ago. We went out, you know, got beers and just talked and tried to, like, make sure there's kind of. Kind of camaraderie. I think everybody generally gets along. So, yeah, I think it's just important. That's it. Like, let them figure it out. Provide assistance as needed, Be humble. You know, I never make it where, like, I used to remember going to the owner of the company, like, you had to kind of figure out was he in a good mood today or not if I was going to ask for something. It's like, you know, don't be like that. Just pick up the phone and call me if you want to talk to me. You want to talk about something, like, very approachable. Um, so, yeah, and then just like, we have people who have really good attention to detail. It's not always me, but, like, our head of construction is a civil engineer. Very detail oriented. You know, I asked him to, like, pull up an email from six years ago. He's got it, like, in a certain, you know, folder, like subfolder. Subfolder. And, like, it's amazing. I don't know if that answers the question, but, yeah, those things come to mind.

No, that's awesome. And we're going to wrap up here. We've a nine more minutes left. But you mentioned earlier, and then I also read about you. You Are you met your wife volunteering at a homeless shelter back in your 20s and then now I believe you're part of First Chance.

Is that First Chance is dated, but I can talk about that.

Yeah, yeah. So I just, I love. Because part of my mission is to, you know, don't donate a percentage of profits of the company to help teach entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, give mentors to younger kids that are, you know, don't have the resources or the education to necessarily learn about a lot of the things I think are most important in life. And yeah, so I love that you are big into philanthropy and giving back and you sounds like you, you've been that way for a very long time. So we'd love to just kind of hear that story.

Yeah. So just starting like with First Chance, it was coming out of and it ties into the Jim Clayton story from earlier because as I mentioned, he was a not for profit bank. When we finally got our three loans done with him, I sent him a letter asking him to give money to First Chance and he donated $15,000, which was probably about what our loan fees were. So it was like a pretty cool transaction. But yeah, the idea was just. And this is something I continue to work on recently with another program that got kind of taken into another one. But you know, commercial real estate like is you really have to know somebody to get into. Doesn't mean you have known forever, but like you need some sort of introduction. And so when I moved to Chicago I just felt like I needed to. And part of it was like religious teach things that like I took serious about like the Bible, like Sermon on the Mount, helping people and stuff. But I just saw a ton of poverty. Like driving to my office, like I go through a neighborhood that was one of the more like, you know, violent kind of poverty stricken neighborhoods every day. And so like I remember early on I just on Saturday morning I bought a bunch of coffee and donuts and literally just like found people on the street and gave them to them and well, it's two part First Chance. What we did was we raised money to take kids from, you know, I don't like any of the words to describe usually like underprivileged or whatever. I'll use the word underprivileged for the time being. Kids who didn't have parents, a lot of money, a lot of support and send them on either study or volunteer abroad programs. So like part of what I did there was a YMCA World Camp that was in Prague and we took three kids there. It was actually my first week of my honeymoon. So my wife and I were like, volunteering at this camp during our honeymoon. But these three kids who never left Chicago got to go to another country and experience something different. And then with the world camp part, they got to meet kids from all over the world, the world. More recently, we were working with just the idea of, like, how do you get some kids who might have grown up on the west side or south side of Chicago? Or, you know, every neighborhood, every city has these neighborhoods that just don't have the connectivity to the downtown skyscrapers and, like, knowing these people in their white collar jobs. So how do we expose kids in high school in a poor neighborhood to commercial real estate? And then how, like, how could we maybe get them into a college that recognizes they might have some shortcomings coming into college, but, like, helping and giving them maybe a mentor who's in real estate so they know about it. Because, like, I guarantee 90% of the population, if I'm more doesn't know what commercial real estate really is. Like, they don't think when they're driving down the road or going to McDonald's that, oh, there was somebody put this thing together. Like, somebody built it, somebody bought the land, somebody designed it, somebody got it, permitted somebody. The city worked. You know, there's all these things that are involved. So just trying to raise awareness around that. But then, yeah, like, I started helping at this women's shelter, and then I became kind of the lead, and I'd get a group of like 10 to 30 people to just. It was one Monday a month, and we go into this neighborhood and serve a meal, which was whatever. But what I got more out of is I go and eat with the women and hear their stories. And it really changes what you think about, like, homelessness and a lot of these problems. Because I think, you know, it's very easy to. Especially if you're fed a certain mindset about it. It's like, somehow these people's fault. And you hear story after story, especially with women in these situations, it's usually not their fault they get her beaten or just crazy things. This woman was abducted, put in a trunk, and left to die. And then somehow got to this shelter. And then I made friendships with some of these ladies. One I just visited two weeks ago. This other one I was telling you about, she passed away. You want to solve all the world's problems, and then it becomes overwhelming because, like, how do you really move the needle forward? How much money do I need? How much time do I need? But like, you can do little things, you know, one person at a time. I started mentoring at a YMCA that had, like, a Big boys, Big Brother, Big Sister program because I was going out drinking, like, too many nights a week. And so I just, like, I need to put something else in my schedule that I can just point to. Like, I can't go. So I started doing that. Mentored a kid from when he was, like, eight to now. He's probably, like, in his late 20s in the Navy. There's another kid that I just was getting together with in Chicago the other week. So it just. Part of it's for my own inner growth of, like, not only being surrounded by people who think and are experiencing the same thing as me to give a different perspective. And then part of it's obviously like, wanting to hopefully help make other people's lives better. We had a. We actually had Quattro Impact set up, and it was like, every time we sold a project, we're putting 10% of the profits into Impact, and then Impact was investing alongside our Quattro projects, and the profits from that, we were giving away. And I love.

That's really cool.

Yeah, I love. I want to get that going again. It's just, like, when cash flow gets tight, it can be easy to, like, you know, now's not the time for that. But. Yeah, I just. I'm a big believer in, like, so much of what ends up happening in your life is in your control, and so much isn't. And there's a lot of people who could have done everything right, and unfortunately, it didn't work out for them anyway. So I think having, like, the heart towards helping people rather than trying to keep it all for yourself just leads to a more happy life, so.

Me, too. That's what it's all about. It's just living the best life we can and helping other people do the same and. Yeah.

But.

Well, thank you so much. It's been great to get to know you, and I'm excited for. To get to know you more and. And. Yeah. See where the rest of your journey leads.

Thank you. It's been fun.

Thank you.