West Palm Beach Growth Explained: The Man Behind Nora District | Ned Grace | Jared Goetz Show

Talk to me about West Palm Beach. Why is this such a hot spot right now?

I moved here 13 years ago and it was like a pretty sleepy place. You had all these successful people that vacationed here. People said like, there's no reason why we can't live here.

Your project, Nora, it went from a 60,000 square foot project to a multi-billion dollar potential project.

We started a property management business. It was super lucrative from 2014 to 2016. Our career just took a detour and we were like, okay, let's do something fun here that we can create this place that is highly Originally, we bought 60,000 square feet of these warehouses. We started to sort of recognize that there's a much bigger opportunity here. Every project within Nora has a unique look and feel to it. We try to just be super high design, super curatorial, and we thought that that was the answer to what was missing. When it's all said and done, I think it's gonna look like one major metropolitan area.

Hey guys, welcome to the show. In this episode, I'm interviewing Ned Grace. Ned is creating something called Nora, which is the second largest development project in West Palm Beach history. What's fascinating to me is that a project A project like this takes a long time. There's lots of people, lots of obstacles, and a lot of uncertainty along the way. So when I think about things like this, I wonder how can someone navigate such a grand challenge? And Ned goes deep on the way he thinks and what's gotten him to where he is today. If this interests you, tune in and I think you'll get a lot out of it. Enjoy. So talk to me about West Palm Beach. Why exactly is this such a hotspot right now?

Good question. I think, you know, I was saying earlier, I moved here from New York 13 years ago, and it was like a pretty sleepy place, but it was— there's still like the cachet of Palm Beach Island. So you had all these successful people that vacationed here, and I think like everyone had a lens that they viewed Palm Beach through. And then over time, you know, as other states got more difficult to do business and COVID happened, and people said like, there's no reason why we can't live here. And I think that's what basically has happened is, you know, people had been used to coming here and vacationing here, had grandparents here, had, you know, had some sort of connection. There was a lot of connectivity to the market. And then when sort of the fuel on the fire was the ability to do business here, and, um, and then I think, you know, what's happened now is that it's the commercial offering is catching up with, you know, all these sort of high-taste, you know, like high-taste New York City type entertainment options. And so now it's like you have the best of all worlds. You have the weather, you have the ability to do business, and, you know, and it's, it's a nice place to live. It's a good quality of life. So it's sort of like it was pretty obvious, I think, for a long time that that was what was— that it felt like that to me when I moved here as a young person. But the only issue was that other people hadn't sort of figured that out. And now it's like everyone's figured it out. Big businesses have figured it out. And, you know, I think that the key to West Palm is that there's the— is the business environment, the office product, it's like, you know, if you look at the West Coast of Florida, it's a great place to live and vacation and retire, but it's not necessarily the same dynamic of, you know, a place that you're year-round and going to an office. And so I think that's— it's just sort of caught fire because of all those things at one time, and people kind of—

it became really obvious during COVID Do you think West Palm has the potential to be the it city over Miami in the future?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's different than Miami. I think it's like, you know, Miami is big and spread out. Um, you know, I think when you look at— when you compare Palm Beach County to Miami, that's probably a better way to look at it. But, um, you know, West Palm is the center of Palm Beach County, right? So it's like this, and it's pretty small, like it's a few square miles of downtown. And, you know, I think the, you know, on the development side, you're not going to have 80-story buildings in West Palm Beach. You know, they've— it's been a little bit more tempered on that side, and it's provided for a little bit less fast-paced of a lifestyle. And I think it's attracted sort of more permanent, it's attracted a different type of person. It's been like a principal of a business has moved there and then brought people here. Whereas Miami is like, it's so big and so diverse that you can kind of, it just kind of keeps going forever. But I think when you look at Palm Beach County, I think there's gonna be a ton of stuff happening in Boca, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, all of this stuff. Wellington, it's sort of going to get surrounded. And when it's all said and done, I think it's going to look like one major, major metropolitan area. And people are going to refer to Palm Beach County as the sort of the place and not necessarily just one microcosm of it.

I mean, you could even look at like Hobe Sound where they're building, you know, Panther National and all those new things are coming up. And I know, um, uh, Ken Baxt is building The Ranch, which is like a 4,000-acre golf facility in the middle of nowhere where land is probably super cheap.

Yeah, was super cheap. Was super cheap.

But it's becoming, I mean, that was like the nowhere.

Yeah, the Discovery, the Grove. I mean, all these things, like, you know, that whole world is, you know, that was like, yeah, Palm Beach County is, I think, the second or third largest, uh, county by land mass in the United States. Crazy stat. Yeah. Um, so it's a massive county with tons of land and like tons of land west. And so, um, you know, you're able to do that stuff, you know, given the land mass. I think You know, that North County area has become, you know, that was like sort of the obvious place for golf and whatnot. But I think what'll happen in North County is you're going to start to see like real retail development. And, you know, traditionally West Palm has been pro-business, pro-development. And, you know, I think North County, it's still like a little bit stuck in its ways. You know, they're definitely not, you know, they're not full bore on development. But as, as more stuff happens, like, you got to sort of provide these consumer services and restaurants and just like a general commercial offering that's got to come there. Great hotels got to go to Hope Sound. Like, all these people are there and playing golf and, you know, need a place to stay. So like, I think it's just going to naturally happen and it'll be more organic than it is here. It was like, you know, West Palm was like throw the gas on the fire. But, but West— but over time, I think the whole north component of this city or this county is going to be is gonna be fully filled in and have a bunch of great restaurants and things to do.

And I wanna go deep on your project of Nora. I know it's one of the biggest development projects in the history of West Palm Beach. I'm really excited about it, to talk about it. But I want to hear a little bit about your background and how did you get kind of thrown into this world? I know you were in New York. I know you went, you were in the finance world, but can you give a little bit of context on your background?

Yeah, so I grew up, I was born in Rhode Island and my dad was a restaurant guy. He started a bunch of restaurants The most notable was Capitol Grill. And so when we were kids, he sold Capitol Grill and we moved to Orlando. So I grew up in Orlando, grew up in a golf community in Orlando, which was sort of a really cool thing. It was kind of during that time when all the professional golfers were living in Orlando. It had the great international airport. And it was like, Orlando has all these Fortune 500 businesses that no one— other than everyone thinks Disney, but it's— 25 other great big businesses. And so you have a really unique set of people there. And I think that was a great sort of starting ground. I went to high school there, went to college at Vanderbilt in Nashville. And Nashville has a lot of the same attributes of West Palm. When I went there, it was, you know, it was not what it is today. And so watching over the last 15 years, Nashville went from, you know, the neighborhood bar that we went to in college is now surrounded by 7 million square feet of of, you know, vertical development. It's become this like major tech, healthcare, you know, it's become this hub. And I think that's what's happening in West Palm. So sort of watching that was really interesting. I went to New York after college, worked in finance, probably shouldn't have done that. Like it just wasn't like, it was kind of, that's what everyone did. And I think that was, that was fun, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't something that I was great at. And I was sort of like looking for, you know, what am I gonna do next? The idea of pushing paper was not something that was interesting. I think I like, you know, seeing things be built and, you know, sort of really being, um, having a more tangible— I, I guess, more tangible, um, product that you're delivering. And so I came, uh, down here, met my partner randomly. I was actually looking to buy like a widget business or do something, you know, in that type of space. And ultimately met my partner, we started a property management business. So we were just you know, down, down here at that time.

There was Kanga.

Yeah, Kanga. Yeah, it was like a— it was a small property management business. We started just third-party management, then we started buying single-family and small multifamily sort of throughout the, the county. And it was really cheap at that time, and it was super lucrative to, to, um, you know, to be able to buy those assets at that price. Over the next, you know, from 2014 to 2016, all that stuff got expensive, and we were like, all right, you know, what else are we interested in? And sort of our career kind of just, you know, it sort of just took a detour and we were like, okay, you know, let's do something fun here. This stuff's expensive now. Like, it's not what we were originally buying. We should have kept buying it, but we didn't. And then we took a detour and started— we did some restaurants, which was more just like, hey, I'm 28 years old and I want to have a fun neighborhood bar. And like, we had invested in some— I had invested in some stuff in New York. And so That was like sort of the impetus to it was like, let's build a neighborhood bar. We built a bar called 123 Daytura back in 2016, maybe 10 years ago. And that was like, it was fun because it was like, okay, like I just saw that if you provide something that doesn't exist, like it'll work. And the place worked really, really well. And it was packed every night and it was like this awesome sort of Like, it basically, like, it sort of set my vision for, like, looking at what doesn't exist and looking at what can, you know, what can you provide that will get, um, that will get eyes on it and get people sort of excited. And, like, it became pretty obvious, okay, you don't have this, you don't have this, or, like, there's got to be some, you know, the second thing we did was Cucina, which was, like, this, you know, iconic long-term establishment that we got involved in, uh, when their lease was up and Um, was it called Cucina? It was called Cucina. It was always like the place in Palm Beach. And my view on it was like, okay, we have a place that has the only license to be open past midnight. It's got basically like a, you know, a full moat around that business because no one else can really do this, and it's an institution. So we got involved in that, and that was successful. And then we kind of just, you know, from there it became, okay, like, you know, there's not a really cool boutique hotel, you know. We said— we did the White Elephant and And so it's sort of everything has been like, you know, what, what's, what's missing? And like, that's based on, you know, informed by my time in Nashville, my time in New York, whatever. Like, you know, I've seen a lot, traveled a lot. I just, I was, I think it's been, you know, it's been fun to, to provide those different things to, um, to the market and watch it work. You know, I mean, some stuff hasn't worked, but, you know, most of the time, if, if it You know, if you've got a decent taste profile and you provide something that you think people are going to want, and they typically want it, you know. And then you put the overall growth of the market on top of that, it was like, yeah, it was a formula. Formula, yeah.

So your father founded and started Capital Grill. Do you think being in that environment sparked your interest in the hospitality world?

Yeah, I think like we grew up around that, you know, around restaurants. We're always talking about restaurants, always going to restaurants. We're always like sort of always looked up to our dad. Our dad's this sort of iconic guy, and we all— I've got two brothers— we always, you know, it was always about like business ideas and restaurant ideas. And it was just kind of like, it's a creative industry and you touch a lot of people. So that was, I think, part of the ethos. And, you know, I, I think he was like, don't ever do restaurants, they're really hard. And we kind of just did it because we, you know, we were— we had something else we were doing. Yeah, we were more on the real estate side, and it was kind of like for fun. And then And so, you know, now it's become more of a part of our everyday business. So, but yeah, definitely a big part of why we did it was just growing up around it.

How many Capital Grille locations did you guys have before the business was sold?

I think he sold, it was a public company, but I think there were like 12 or something. I can't remember exactly. Today there's like 60. So Darden bought it ultimately, and so it, you know, it's part of a big portfolio and they've been able to grow pretty quickly. And it's, you know, the thing I learned about Capital Grille that I think was one of the sort of, one of the core things that we have tried to do in our restaurants is like, Capital Grille has been around for 30 years, it'll be around for another 30 years, and it's kind of timeless. And so trying to not do like, we didn't do like trendy nightclubs, and we kind of tried to look at things that are gonna be around for 30 years, and that's sort of the primary vantage point that we look at restaurants stuff.

Yeah, Capital Grill is like— my wife and I have been going there, you know, the one here in, uh, Palm Beach Gardens since we first moved to Florida. You can go to the one in Las Vegas, you can go to anywhere. Actually, I spent the Thanksgiving there one year at the Capital Grill in Las Vegas. Wherever you go, though, the, the consistency is there. Is there a particular formula that you use for restaurants? Because when you start a new restaurant, I mean, you could spend a ton of money building it out versus, you know, trying an MVP. Is there a formula that works?

Yeah, I mean, I wish I could say that I was as well-versed in the restaurant space as my dad, but, you know, for him it was, you know, he built, you know, institutional quality restaurants that were, you know, well, you know, well built. And, you know, you attract, you know, at that high price point, you can attract really good staff, right? And so like his whole thing was it was about culture and about like creating a you know, a culture of high performance. And I think that shows because, you know, Capital Grille waiters and waitresses make, you know, over $100,000 a year. And it's not, you know, it's, it's a career and not necessarily like a constant turnover game that, you know, you play in a lot of the different categories in restaurants. So, um, in terms of what we've done, like, you know, I think culture is always a good, you know, is always a topic of conversation, probably We have so many different things going on that we have partners in different things and different operating partners. And so it's tough to keep that consistency because it's not our core focus. But I think over time, we're sort of getting smarter on it and trying to be more institutional. And the more interest we take in the hospitality space, the more we do, the better we get. And the better the infrastructure is to sort of to sort of live that down. But yeah, it's all been about culture and people. You know, it's a people business ultimately. Like, so it's just, you know, you got customers and you got, you know, your employees are your customers too. So yeah, let's shift gears.

I want to talk about Nora. Um, what exactly is it? Because I know it's a lot of things.

Yeah, so Nora is a 40-acre assemblage in downtown West Palm Beach between Quadrill and Palm Beach Lakes. East of the train tracks and west of Dixie Highway. So it's this, it's this effectively a rectangle, um, that's really well located in the downtown. It's, you know, the Palm Beach Lakes is the 95 exit that touches the northern border of, of Nora, and then the southern border is the bridge over to the north end of Palm Beach. So locationally, it was sort of this great location. And like, just back to like what we saw as the opportunity, it was You know, one of the things that I had struggled with with this market was that it was so fragmented. You had like, you get in your car, you go to one good restaurant, and West Palm didn't have a ton of good restaurants going back 10 years. But, you know, it would be, it would always be, I'm going here and I'm getting a car and going here and I want to go for drinks here. You know, it just became like a little bit of this like fragmented situation. And I always thought there was an opportunity if we could create a place that has multiple day parts that you could do, because a place you could spend the day and you didn't have to, you know, it didn't have to be so destination-driven. It could be, I'm going to Nora and I'm gonna get in my car and I'm gonna do whatever I decide to do. Like, that, that didn't exist. Um, and so that was sort of the ethos. And then you combine that with the design, you know, Florida historically has been like fairly cookie-cutter, you know, monolithic buildings. And like, you've got these like shopping centers with, you know, surface park shopping centers that, you know, that don't have any character to them. Nora had this, this street, the main street in Nora is called North Railroad Avenue, and it was all built in the 1920s as accessory uses to the Flagler Railroad station. So that the railroad would stop in West Palm and then go over to the Breakers, basically. And these buildings were built, you know, to support that. And so they had this like, and they, they, you know, they weren't your traditional industrial buildings. They were like 1, 2, and 3 stories, had super cool architecture. And so originally we were drawn to, okay, we got this epic location that we think is accessible by, regionally via 95, in the downtown of West Palm, closest thing to Palm Beach Island. You can kind of pull from all the different demos and you've got this amazing building stock that has a lot of character. And so the idea is like we can create this place that is highly curated. And so what we did originally, we bought 60,000 square feet of these warehouses. We were going to do, uh, sort of the first phase, the first idea was we'll self-concept a couple restaurants, we'll have a couple of our local restaurant friends do some stuff, and we'll create a little restaurant district. And as we got into it, we started, uh, we started to sort of recognize that there's a much bigger opportunity here. So we kept buying and buying and buying. And of the The area that we call Nora, we own about half of it. And so we went through this multi-year assemblage where we were, you know, you're buying from a bunch of different people in different countries and different, all sorts of, that was the craziest, was like the assemblage was one thing, like buying these pieces and doing it covertly and some of which was not so covert, but like we ended up getting a critical mass of what we needed and then we went through a 2-year process zoning it for ultimately what it is today and what it will be in the future, which is a whole other set of things. So it was like, you go from all day every day trying to buy stuff to all day every day you're trying to figure out how to get this approved by the city. And we work closely with the city as partners in this. And then now, then you go to development. So then you're building buildings and leasing spaces, and then you're operating it. So it's like these, like, you kind of like have this broad-based understanding of like the whole cycle, and it changes. Every day is different. That's what's exciting about it. But ultimately what it'll be is we've got this 160,000 feet of best-in-class restaurants. We're finishing up a super cool hotel that we did with these New York guys that have done the Bowery, Greenwich, Ludlow Mercer, all these great iconic New York hotels. So we've got this epic high-design hotel, brand new hotel that's 200 keys, that's opening up in September. Pastis is the ground floor restaurant, big rooftop, and, you know, lobby bar, branded spa, all of that. Sort of, it's all on North Railroad Avenue along with all the stuff that we've done today. Um, it just creates like this really, you know, sort of epic place that's a singular street, and you walk down it and you can go get a cocktail, you can go do a workout class, you You can go get a smoothie. You can go have lunch, dinner, facial, whatever you wanna do. But the idea was that it's highly curated, touches every type of food, every type of, anything that you could want. And then ultimately, we're building a ton of residential and office. So we'll be building, there'll be people living and working and hanging out. And so that's the ultimate vision of it. And it's got every housing stock. We've got single-family homes, We're building high-end single-family homes. We've got apartments, condos, at all different sort of price points. And every project has, every project within Nora has a unique look and feel to it. So we try to just be super high design, super curatorial, and we thought that that was the answer to what was missing in the market. And we've had great capital partners and everything that have made that possible.

So it went from a 60,000 square foot project to a multi-billion dollar potential project. How much has the vision changed from when you first came up with the idea to where you are today?

Well, I'd say like the vision has been iterative, so like it's definitely changed. I think we've always, we always were believers that if we create a place, people are going, the market needs it and people are going to go there. Um, in terms of like, you know, we've played around with what the different, you know, what are the product types that are missing in the market. Obviously, you know, Steve Ross has been super instrumental to the growth of West Palm. And, you know, they're pretty focused on office and bringing businesses and infrastructure and education. And, you know, they've done a little bit of residential, but, and a lot of placemaking. You know, for us, it's, you know, we're sort of more residentially focused, because I think that's what's missing. And so, you know, providing varied varied housing types. And then our— the look and feel of our tenants is, you know, is very, um, is very unique. So it's, you know, it's a lot of well-heeled multi-concept restaurant operators and retail operators, but it's more boutique in its feel, right? You're like, everything from obviously the, the, the infrastructure, the building is more boutique in look and feel. And, you know, the first phase is a collection of 12 buildings. And so certain tenants that, you know, have that, they're just drawn to that. Versus a shopping center or something else. And so we've just tried to be different, and I think like thoughtfully different. We're not trying to be different to be different, we're trying to be different because we think that's what people want.

Yeah. What's the total timeline from this thing to go from idea to fully alive and complete?

Forever. It's been like, so 20, I probably started thinking about it in 2018, and then You know, today we've got our 160,000 feet of retail, we'll have our hotel, you know, by 2030 we'll have another million square feet plus or minus of different residential. And, uh, and then ultimately I think, you know, probably the entirety of the project will be done, you know, by 2035. And it'll be, you know, sort of a— it'll, it'll be the ultimate vision. And I think we haven't showed, you know, like we're pretty— we've been pretty much like a, we'll show you as we go. Like we're not like telling this grand story all the time. Like, we definitely like tease it, but it's kind of fun for like the surprise, like, whoa, I didn't realize it was gonna be so nice, or I didn't realize that this was, you know. And so we're kind of like, you know, it's fun. Like, that's the fun part of it, is like coming up with an idea, building it, and then watching people respond to it, you know. Yeah, like even opening up the coffee shop was fun because you see customers go in there like, this is cool, or, you know, what you could say, it's like real-time feedback for something that you you've created.

So how do you acquire property when people know that you're gonna buy everything, which probably drives the price up if someone's holding on to something?

We were like super under the radar because no one really knew who we were. So I think that was part of it. We had some people that helped us along the way, a bunch of people that, you know, helped us buy properties sort of covertly. And, and, but it wasn't, you know, our firm was, you know, this is really, you know, we were, we were pretty under the radar. We really just got— we'd really just started NDT around Nora, so It was a combination of things. It was also before COVID so it was, you know, people didn't necessarily see the vision that, you know, and ultimately I don't know if our vision would have, would have played out the same way if COVID hadn't happened. Like, I think the profile of the tenants, what we actually create, were able to create, and the money that we spent creating this place, if we didn't have tenants that could pay the rent, like, we wouldn't have been able to do what we did. So it's You know, it would have been just a different project. We would be like leasing up some industrial buildings and, you know, yeah, and it would be a different, uh, different animal.

What are like, what are the biggest obstacles that can delay or challenge a project like this?

I mean, real estate takes a ton of time, right? It's like you can't just like, it's not like every real estate moves slow is what I always say. And so like the biggest obstacle is it moves slow because you've got You know, you've got so many different people in the mix. So, you know, and when you talk about like, you gotta obviously buy the real estate from a, from a willing and able seller, you gotta go through that transaction, then you gotta get whatever you're doing approved by the city, then you gotta go get it permitted, and then you gotta— so you have all these different people that touch it. And so you got like 100 cooks in the kitchen effectively. And so managing all that just takes a bunch of time, and that's— it's challenging, but that's like, that's what And that's why I think it's such a rewarding business. And then I think we deal with our biggest— the biggest issue in theory for a project like ours would be capitalizing it. And we got— the timing was great with our project. And so we had a really supportive partner early on that helped us buy all the real estate. And then getting the ultimate deal capitalized, we have an amazing capital partner that is is involved in all aspects of it, which is, I think, the second piece that is unique. Because most people are tying up real estate, trying to find equity to build the buildings. And so having a single-source equity vehicle was crucial. It was, you know, that's been hard for some people. We got lucky with that. And then, you know, we're dealing with like stuff every day, parking and, you know, infrastructure. And, you know, there's all these challenges every day, like, you know, building an operating business is complicated, right? So like, you're dealing with, think about just like on the 160,000 feet of retail, you got 30 different tenants that all are from different places and have different views on the world and construct their spaces differently. And so, you have to manage a lot of different types of people and trying to be as process-oriented as possible, but it's a lot of putting out fires, is really what it is. And then you gotta build, you know, We've built a marketing team, an operating team, a development team, and then you've got, you know, you're dealing with, you know, you're dealing with all the different disciplines, like architect to civil engineer and everything in between. And, and so you gotta like constantly be marrying all these different people, um, and that's, that's what's difficult.

Yeah, I can imagine. There's so many moving parts and so many people and different emotions and problems that pop up. I'm curious as, you know, the person running this in the position you're in, how do you keep your mind and your day-to-day operations organized personally?

Yeah, I'm probably not the most organized. I should— I mean, I like to— I have an organized brain and a very disorganized way of doing things. So I think like having great partners, like, right? So like, I know I try, I try to know what I'm good at and let people that are good at other things do those things. Um, and so, you know, for us, we're learning on the fly. You know, we've got a lot of good smart people that sit in the room, um, and at times it, you know, it feels like a little bit of management by committee, which is always difficult. Um, so if you have, you know, you have a lot of decision makers. And so the good news is it does move slow, and my view on all of it is like, as long as we're making one foot forward every day, like we're gonna end up, you know, looking up and being like, wow, you know. And that's, that's so like, just try not to go backwards. That's how I organize myself. And, um, I'm jumping around to all different stuff though. I mean, one second I'm looking at restaurant stuff, the next second I'm talking to lenders, the next second I'm, you know, talking to tenants. It's, it's a, you know, it's all over the place. Um, so you kind of have to be able to move from thing to thing. It's like, it's probably like, it's almost like if you're a real estate person and in my shoes, you just have to be like I'm super ADD, so you just have to be super ADD, but you have to have people help you organize around you.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think a common misconception, especially for younger aspiring entrepreneurs, is that people who have built something large and successful, they had a plan and they knew what they were doing the whole time. Um, from my experience, you know, building companies, like, I don't really know what I'm doing. I kind of figure it out as I go. Where do you sit in that realm, and what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think like very, it's very, like we were just talking about this in our morning meeting today, like if you look at any business from the inside, it's super dysfunctional. Doesn't, like the biggest companies in the world are super dysfunctional, and you know, and that, you know, so it's easy to, you know, it's easy to look really good to the outside world, but like internally, you know, it's a grind, and I think you focus on culture being good to people, and And that's kind of like where we sit on it, but, you know, it's definitely complicated. You know, it's not straightforward.

Yeah. In the midst of all the chaos and, you know, the complication, how do you keep yourself in, you know, a high-energy state where you're showing up to the table as the best version of yourself?

Yeah, I pride myself, I typically show up. That's like one thing I do, even if I'm not super productive, I like to show up. And so I think I, you know, I work pretty hard. You know, sometimes I don't work on the right stuff. Like, you know, I struggle with that. What am I working on the right stuff? Am I doing the low priority stuff before the high priority? Like, a lot of that. But I think, you know, I try to, you know, I try to always, you know, sort of be thinking about stuff. And, you know, there's always, there's always priorities. And so I sort of organize my world as like, what do I, what are my priorities, and make sure that I can justify them to myself. And, you know, I've got partners that have different priorities, and so sometimes we struggle with sharing those with one another. But I think as long as, you know, we're getting— we're getting to a place now where, you know, the beginning was really fun, the middle was really hard, and now, like, with Nora, it's like, now it's starting to like, okay, we're not doing this right, let's solve that problem. Like, it's like whack-a-mole, and then get it right for the long term. And so, you know, we're doing a little bit of that every day.

Do you— do you have any, like, personal habits or disciplines or things that you do to keep yourself in, you know, in the state you need to be?

I would love to tell you that I like wake up and meditate every day and play, you know, golf 5 times a week, but I don't. I mean, I like, I love, you know, I love, I'm social, so, you know, the restaurant, it's all part of my like sort of DNA. Like, I like, I like being out, I like socializing, I like networking. Like, I'm a strong networker, and I know like that, that's, that's, I know that that's my strong suit. And then You know, I pair that with, you know, what I think is, you know, healthy habits. Obviously, you can go down the path of owning restaurants and bars and be a complete degenerate, which I'm sure I have been at times. But, but I've tried to like really sort of be thoughtful now. I've got two kids and, you know, it's sort of outside of work. I focus on my other stuff, but I'm always kind of thinking about work and, you know, just trying to— I'm always juggling what's my priority in my brain, like all the time, but I play golf. Yeah, like, I play golf and I hang out with my friends.

Yeah, we're gonna have to play golf sometime.

And the kids. Yeah, I'd love to play golf. Yeah, we gotta play.

Yeah. So how do you manage to balance family life and work? Like, how— like, for example, when I'm really busy and working on a lot of things and things are going on in my mind, I don't really show up as the best version of myself as a father and a husband. And I've become aware of that. How do you balance that?

Well, I definitely didn't show up as the best version of myself early on. Like, I mean, I got divorced. I've got two kids. But I've learned, like, you know, I've sort of learned— I think I've learned through mistakes. Like, you know, now I'm really focused on my kids' well-being. My kids have like this— the most epic mom ever. So, you know, it's just, you know, just getting better every day at that and trying to prioritize. And like, you know, I do stuff now, like, you know, a year ago I'm at home on my phone, the kids are running around. Now I'm like, you know, if I'm gonna be with my kids, I'm gonna be I don't get my kids every single day, and so now I'm trying to be more intentional with the time. And then also, you know, you got to make these kids good kids. And so, and luckily my ex-wife is really good at that. So I'm, you know, I'm lucky, but I'm like always trying to just improve generally. I think that's the only way to do it. I make more mistakes than most, I think, probably at that.

I think we all make more mistakes, or we think we make more mistakes than other people, but It's sort of like looking at the company from the outside versus the inside, you know, like it's the same idea. It's amazing how much similarities there are between successful people in different industries in that nobody really knows what they're doing, but they just try really hard and are able, you know, from the outside things look like they're, you know, put together and, and, you know, being executed on.

I think it's like people like have, there's like, there's just different DNA. Like some people want to go sit from 9 to 5 and they completely prioritize their family. And then other people just like have this like move forward at all times mentality, which is kind of like what I am. And that causes deficiency in the other areas. But trying to be as balanced as possible is, you know, and when, you know, when you— I think what the hardest thing for me was figuring out what I'm good at. Like for a long time, I'm trying to control a lot of stuff that I'm not good at, and that's just not a good use of my time. And it's like, you know, wasting half my day. But like now I've started to like, yeah, I don't have control of things that I don't— that I'm not great at, and I have smarter people do those things.

So is Nora going to be your be-all end-all project, or are there other businesses that you're interested in?

No, we're doing a bunch. I mean, I think Nora has a bunch of runway, so like we're— that's our focus right now. But I, you know, we're looking at other stuff. Like I think there's, you know, for us we're geographically focused. Like I don't think I never say never, but I don't think that we're gonna be working on a project in California. Like, I just think like, we believe that like where we live is where we're gonna care the most, and we understand the best, and we have the best network, and like all the things that I pride myself on, like I wouldn't have in another place. So geographically, and we've also been across the spectrum. We own a construction company, we have a management company, we have, you know, we have Nora, we have restaurants, we have different partnerships in restaurants, we have all these different businesses, businesses, and the one common denominator is that everyone services this market and everyone's focused on the South Florida, you know, space. And so we'll be opportunistic, you know, sort of— I mean, we would, you know, we would buy a widget business in this market if we thought that it made sense. Like, I think, um, and so we've just been super opportunistic, but geographically, like, just trying to make sure that where we live and, you know, where we eat is like where we're focused.

Being in real estate, do you have investments outside of real estate? Are you in the stock market and other equities, things like that?

Yeah, I do a bunch of stuff. I've done a bunch of stuff, like probably more like bro deals, but you know, I, yeah, I'm really interested in, like, I came from, you know, I was obviously doing stuff in New York, and I like, I care about financial markets. I follow very closely. For a while I didn't And now I'm like back interested again. And I think it's, I try to pay attention to what's going on in the world and like, and then, you know, if there's interesting things, like we've definitely done outside the box investments, which is kind of just like to our thing, we're opportunistic. Like if something makes sense and we like it, we like the people that are doing it, and then we'll look at it. And you know, my personal investments are different than Jared Goetz's. You know, my partners. But we, yeah, we all have kind of our own little view on the world.

And yeah, if you were getting into real estate for the first time, what would your approach be if you were starting over?

Um, it's funny, like, well, if I had known what was going to happen in the, in this market, I probably would have just been like some epic broker where I have no capital at risk and I, you know, I broker billions of dollars of deals a year. But I think any career, I mean, I'm not a big believer in like people that plan where they're gonna be. I just think that like the world takes you where you're gonna go, but if you just do a good job along the way, like I always use the analogy like the doctor that invented the medical part is the billionaire doctor. Like he didn't set out to be an inventor, he set out to be a doctor and then he saw a problem, solve that problem, and that's lucrative. And so I, I think that, you know, trying to be too— I have people call me all the time, like, you know, you've got people that are trying to switch jobs or kids that are like just starting out, and they're like asking a million questions, like, how do I be you? Like, or how do I do this? Or whatever. It's like, I don't know. I mean, you gotta sort of live it. Yeah, you know, like, it's like nothing is like the experience of going down that path yourself. Don't over— I think people that— and I think it's like the same thing as like, I always joke, like, the The girl who is looking for the husband typically doesn't find the husband. You know, it's like, don't try so hard, like, just let it happen.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think a lot of people want the, the game plan. What do I do? What do I do? What I do? And it's like, you know, focus more on who you need to be, and you'll— and in the chaos, you'll navigate what you need to do.

Yeah, some people can like go into investment banking and do that for the whole career, but it's very few and far between. Like, most people end up in a completely different spot.

Yeah, I think there's a huge misconception in society, right? Like, you know, I interact with a lot of younger, you know, young men who want to become entrepreneurs, and they have this misconception that it's like, oh, I need to know my plan, I need to execute it, what do I do? But it's like, I still, you know, on a daily basis there's interesting things that pop up. There's, you know, there's infinite things that could happen, and you know, you just have to be receptive to things as they come. And there's never really an answer of exactly what to do, maybe in certain specific circumstances.

No, I mean, like, you can control certain things, right? Like, yeah, I would like— I wish I was better at like a very strategic routine prior to starting my day. And I've tried, I'm actually— that's like a big priority of mine, like try to wake up at the same time, do the same stuff like that. Like, setting yourself up is different than like planning what, you know, planning what's gonna happen to you. And so I think if you you set yourself up to make progress every day, you'll be good.

Yeah, I think if you set yourself up and have some kind of structure in your day, there's less opportunities to have internal debates of should I or should I not. It's like, should I go to the gym? I don't know. And like, the more battles that you lose, the lower your confidence gets. In turn, you show up as a less able version of yourself.

And it's a different world now, right? You can like, you can like go on Instagram and see all these super successful people, and then people feel entitled. They don't understand. They're constantly— I think it's probably different than when that, you know, when that world didn't exist. It probably was like, oh, I just got to like do the best at my job every day. And now it's like, oh wow, look at that person. Why am I not that person? So I think that's been a problem for sure. Like young people. And I don't know, I see a lot of— I'm sure you do too, but just like a lot of people that are— the grass is always greener. Kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, I see a lot of people that are living in that world, scrolling on Instagram all the time, you know, seeing these false versions of people's lives and saying, oh, I'll be, I'll be happy once I get there. I'll be, I'll enjoy my life once I get there. I'll feel confident once I get there. And it's like, no, you have it backwards.

Like, you have to be that version of yourself, and then that was the one thing I like give myself a lot of credit for. I have never thought that way. I always like have enjoyed the ride. And the analogy that I always use use on it was, you know, in college you pledge a fraternity and it's the worst 5 months of your life, but it's— looking back, it's the best 5 months of your life. Like, use that. Like, it's gonna be painful and terrible, and— but then you're gonna look back and be like, I enjoyed the journey.

That's a great analogy. I pledged for a fraternity too, and one of our nights we had to eat— I had to eat 7 raw onions.

Yeah, like, it absolutely sucked in the moment, but now you talk about it forever.

Yeah, and same thing goes with family and kids, you know, you have a newborn, it's stressful, you're miserable, but when you look back at it, it was the best time ever. So it's like, you have to learn to enjoy the journey.

You know, don't be looking out for tomorrow because there might be no tomorrow.

Yeah.

You just gotta be grateful for the day.

For sure. And I'm a firm believer that in enjoying the day and cultivating good energy and being a vibrant version of yourself you're going to pave a path for yourself that is a much, you know, much better outcome than otherwise. Has there been any specific people in your journey that have just been completely pivotal to the things that you've done?

Yeah, there's been a couple. Um, I mean, obviously start, you know, I think it starts with my dad. Was my mom and dad— I had like the most supportive mother and the greatest father. My dad— my mom was like queen mom, and my dad was super business and so we got kind of the good bit of like the social brain from my mom and the business brain from my dad. So that was like, those are two people that I think are, and then we had a guy that is our partner now, his name's Tim Mullen. He sort of believed in us and he was really the reason that we have been able to build what we've done, a lot of what we've done. We were like scrappy without any money and he really, provided, you know, he— I think he really believes in young people generally, and he's had success in investing in young people. And he took a complete shot on us and got way more over his skis than he probably was planning to. But, um, you know, he's become a second father figure, brother figure to me, you know. And, and he's been super pivotal and pivotal in, in our success and our way of thinking. And, you know, he's just a good measured personality. And then You know, I think we've had, you know, we've had the good fortune of, because of being in the spotlight a little bit, we've had a lot of professional, you know, access to best-in-class people in our businesses, whether it's on the restaurant side, the best and the brightest. We know all the best and the brightest restaurant people through the real estate side and through the, through owning restaurants. And then on the real estate side, you've got, you know, like Steve Ross and these types of people that are, you know, that you have access to. And, and like, and that, you know, you're in the, you know, you're in the trenches with them to some degree. And, you know, there's been 25 different people that I'm, you know, that I look up to that I've asked for advice over the years.

Yeah, I mean, you could spend 10 years building one apartment building or 10 years building the entire, you know, new downtown area of West Palm Beach. It's just You have the same amount of time in the day. It's just thinking bigger. How do you, you know, how do you see— how can somebody think bigger on the things that they're doing? How can they tap into a vision that's bigger than the thing that they're currently working on?

I mean, I think if you— I don't know, I guess like in the case of us, like if I— if you had told me what had to happen, like if you told me 8 years ago that like this is what I had to do, I'd be like, wow. I don't know, I might just go broker some real estate, you know, like I'm going to do something completely different. But again, you sort of like enjoy the journey. I think I always just, I kind of just think like, I think that it starts with just the biggest vision, like this needs to be better, like this West Palm should be better. And then it's like, all right, well let's just start doing it. And then you start doing it and you just don't stop. And then all of a sudden you build into that vision and like, it's, you know, and at times like there, you know, there's 50 times throughout the course of the last 10 years where it's like, this feels really hard and like I want to stop. But there's— because you've manifested this vision, you almost like can't stop. Like the snowball is too big and like you got too many people that depend on you. And like, you know, it's easy to like pull the ripcord sometimes on something when, you know, when you're half-assing it. But when you're like, you know, when it's, you know, when it's— when you've manifested a vision, and I recommend people manifest the The vision, like, you know, I want to do this and just keep telling people you want to do this, and then all of a sudden you're just going to keep doing that. Yeah, you're going to do all the little things to get there.

I think a really good way to sum that up is like, you know, people want to see the entire path to the end, but really you just need to find the next breadcrumb and then the next breadcrumb and push the ball forward constantly to a point where you can't really turn back and you're in it.

What are 5 things I can do today to make my life better for tomorrow?

I mean, yeah. In my entrepreneurial journey, there have been, you know, I don't know how many times where I thought we weren't gonna make it, where I thought we weren't gonna survive, where I thought there's no way out. And we made it through, and there was a way out of it. You know, and eventually when you go through enough of those things, you start to look at challenges and hard times as, wow, that could be really stressful, but I'm excited to see how we figure this out. When it first happens, it can get really hard, it can get really— really dark. Did you have moments?

Tons, yeah. I mean, I like, yeah, it's like crippling anxiety when you don't know, like you feel like there's no way out, you're letting people down. You know, there's, I've gone through it 1,000 times. I think at this point, the way that I manage the tough stuff is I communicate better than I did. Like I would hold a lot of it in and, you know, the problems are coming in, you hold them in, hold them in, hold them in. And like the right thing to do is be transparent and be upfront and get it out on the table and say, hey, we gotta work through this. And everyone, you know, then you have it, then you have a, you know, you have your network and your team and your infrastructure, you know, helping you solve these problems. Because one person can't solve all these problems, and one person can create a hell of a lot of problems that aren't really problems. So that's what I found a lot of times, is like the things I thought were problems ultimately ended up not being problems. As soon as I got it out, oh, we'll figure that out.

Different people have totally different perspectives. I mean, you know, I come from a from being a revenue profitable kind of guy, and now we're doing a software roll-up. And some of the people on our board have done giant roll-ups, and they see a completely different perspective of our business than I see. Sometimes when things look really bad to me, I have a conversation with them, and it's like, whoa, your perspective's totally different. So it seems like radical transparency and vulnerability is a catalyst for progress.

Yeah, and if you don't, if you're— I mean, if you don't do that, you get yourself in trouble, you know, with the people that depend on you and yourself. And, you know, and then just in general, like, you talk about like bigger people. I mean, listen, like, I struggle with it. I'm like, you know, should I be raising, you know, should I have raised billions of dollars and, you know, done this in 10 markets? And like, and you kind of go back to like, what do you actually want? Like, you know, and so, um, there's a bunch of different paths paths to be successful and, you know, and happy. And, you know, I think just gotta be happy every day.

How would you define a successful life?

I think, uh, you know, that's a good question. I think my— I think, you know, growing up we had a successful father, which was like very much like something we were always trying to be, you know, to— we're trying to like always make our father proud of us. I think me and my brothers. And I think that was false. Like, that's not reality. Like, the reality is what's success— like, successful is like comfortable in your own skin, authentic, completely authentic, you know, not having to worry about, you know, paying your bills is, you know, is a just fundamental thing. And, you know, and creating great children. You know, and being a good person. Like, those are the— and at different times I've been complete egomaniac at different points in time. Like, you know, if I look, I look at like myself 10 years ago versus myself today, like, I've tried to like fundamentally recognize that happiness isn't completely driven by money or fame or success. And, you know, I still like— it's always gonna be a part of me that's driving me to be, you know, to try to do better, but at some point it just becomes nominally important.

I think you and I have had different backgrounds growing up, but my experience was, you know, when I was younger, it was like, once I make this much money, I'll be good. And then you get to that point, it's like, whoa, I need to be— I remember I saw when I had nothing and I was living in Los Angeles, I had a business partner that was a successful older guy, and I accidentally caught a glimpse of his bank account and it had like $500,000 in it. And I was like, whoa, if I had $500,000, I would be— and a lot of people listening probably feel that way. And then I think I felt more broke when I had $500,000 than when I didn't. And the same thing, and it can— I mean, for me it's continued. Yeah. And I still feel the same way.

It's like, I'm poor still.

But I don't know what is the amount where that feeling goes away.

All has to do with where you live and And how, you know, I'm like, I joke about it all the time, you can live like a king in the middle of nowhere and be super happy. You look at all these other countries where people have nothing, it's the keeping up with the Joneses, it's the same thing with the Instagram world that we live in. If you're trying to constantly compete against other people, it gets to a point of being unhealthy. And so, you know, I've sort of figured that out now, like I don't even, you know, I'm not like wishing I was somebody else in the same, you know, it's all about your environment. Like, what, what, how do you set up your, how do you set up your environment?

Like, I think what, like, once I had a family, my, like, now it's like, oh, I want to give them everything. And that's a much more healthy reason to have desire than, oh, I want to consume more things.

Yeah, I think it all gets a little old once you, once you've got the basics down, like It's really like about providing for your family and having fun. Doing things you want to do because you're gonna do better. That's the thing, if you're doing something you don't want to do because it's gonna give you more money, you're gonna be miserable. If you're doing something you want to do, the net effect is gonna be more money, I'm sure.

Yeah, well different people have different paths and, you know, People have different paths that are like in their element, right? Like, you know, you're in real estate development, things like that. I'm in software, and I'm still kind of trying to figure out what my element is that energizes me more than drains me. What would your advice be to someone to be able to find that, to find their lane, to find what drives them?

I mean, frankly, like, just ask yourself questions like Do I like doing this? I mean, like, it took me a long time. Like, just this year, I think I like really figured out that I'm trying to do things that I am not good at and don't want to do. And if you ask the people around you who know you the best, what am I good at, they give you the best answers. Everyone in the room in my office knows that I'm not great at managing people and I'm not great at certain things. Like, I'm pretty good at, you know, I'm pretty good at networking and deals, and it's like, I'm like, that's what I'm good at. Like, and so I think asking— ask people around you, like, for honest feedback. I think that's helpful.

Yeah, I love that. Um, a couple kind of deeper questions I want to leave you with. Number one, when you eventually leave this world, what do you want to leave behind?

I mean, I think a legacy of some sort that, you know, I think we, you know, for me, like, moving from paper pusher Wall Street world to like building things, I think you're, you want to leave the world better than when you, you know, you came here. And the idea of, and that happens at a micro level, and like, I want to leave West Palm better than when we came here, and I want my kids to be proud of their dad, and I want them to, you know, to, I want them to, you know, to recognize the amount of hard work that went into, um, you know, what was created, and, and I want them to you know, to continue on to create, you know, their own successes in life and relationships and whatever. I think just a happy family and leaving everything better than when I got there is probably the most important thing to me.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I always want to, you know, when I don't want to do things, when I don't feel like showing up, I just think about being an example for my kids.

Yeah.

Like, I want to to show them what's possible. And that's a big driving force.

Yeah. It's hard to, I mean, it's hard to keep your kids, you know, it's a struggle when you're in a place like this that has, you know, a lot of successful people and different parenting styles. I mean, that's the biggest concern, right? Like I think, you know, if you were in the middle of nowhere, your kids are gonna have a heck of a lot better opportunity to, you know, to be, you know, to value the right things. But there's a heck of a lot more opportunities in a place like this, right? So like, you know, it's— you got to balance it. And I— we grew up, you know, with a—

with a—

in a great situation, and that was a lot of the network, and all of that has helped us throughout our career, you know? And I think so you have to sort of make sure that they still— and our dad was pretty good about not giving us money and not like— it wasn't like— this isn't like the the Grace family real estate project. And so, you know, having to go out and struggle and find, you know, our own set of investors and partners, that was important. And I'll do the same for my kids.

A lot of people that grow up with resources don't end up becoming the best version of themselves because they don't have to push through those challenges. It seems like you had, you know, you had a good opportunity growing up, but you also learned a ton and built yourself into, you know, a person that's pushed through things and continued to do so. I struggle with that because, you know, I grew up, um, you know, single mom, only child, one-bedroom apartment, you know, working at Baskin-Robbins, working as a busboy, dishwasher, you know, working at Ruby Tuesday in college to, you know, get enough money. And with like a tremendous amount of uncertainty, with nothing to fall back on, it was always like a do-or-die kind of thing.

Yeah.

Um, and so now I think about my kids and I wonder how, like, how do I set them up?

Make them think it's do or die, but that's supportive when they fall, I guess. Yeah, I don't know, you know, it's like, that's— it's— I think about it all the time.

I don't know.

Yeah, I think like one thing is like give your kids— I mean, my dad, which I thought it's— I guess it's interesting for both of us, like my dad just was, you know, he was never made it easy to like, you know, it wasn't like, hey, here's money for this. It would be like, present me a business plan, present me a budget, present, like, tell me why this is smart. And, you know, it wasn't, it was more business, like more transactional, like, oh, okay, like this is not, it's like going to a bank. It's not like going to your dad, you know? And that's been kind of an interesting way to do things. But, you know, I think it's the best thing he did for me and my brothers. You know, we all kind of have our own lives. I think it's good for— it's probably— I think for him, like, you know, being the dad, it's like fun to watch. Like, yeah, you know, you don't want to watch your kids just cruise.

Yeah, I know, I struggle with that all the time.

I want to watch my kids crush it.

Yeah. And how old are your kids?

My kids are 3 and 5.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Yeah, like, I don't even know what they're gonna crush it at. Maybe they're just gonna crush it at, you know, maybe they'll crush it in sports, maybe they'll crush it in something crazy, but like, whatever it is and whatever they're passionate about, I just want them to do a good job and be good people, you know?

Yeah, 100%. So 10 years from now, when people describe the impact that they— that you had on their lives, what do you hope that they say?

I mean, I think I— yeah, I come— a big believer in experiences, right? So like experiences happen throughout the course of your day and your life, and some of them are big experiences and some of them are tiny experiences at the coffee shop in the morning with, you know, I think the, if, if I can make a positive impact on people's experiences throughout the day, week, month, like by providing them things that they want and need, then I've done a good job. And if, you know, If someone goes to, it's great 'cause you get immediate fulfillment. Like someone goes and has dinner at a restaurant and they have a great experience, they tell you about it, right? And just that sort of compounding over time. And then when people tell you the bad experience, making the changes, that's where I'm at now is like, when people criticize me, it's a positive. Like when people have a bad experience, we solve a problem, and actually solving the problem and not just letting it— people that don't solve those problems go out of business, you know. And so I think I want people to, I want people to have, you know, a bunch of different touch points and feel like we made their lives better. Love that.

What is the best piece of advice or lesson that you've ever learned that's had the biggest impact on your life?

The concept we talked about, the biggest impact is enjoy every day. Don't wake up and look at what tomorrow is, look at today and attack every day the same, you know, with the same type of— every day is your last day. It's, yeah, like, work hard and every day is your last day and enjoy it.

That's so much easier said than done for people. It's— do you consistently, or do you constantly remind yourself of that?

Are you— because, like, no, but I think about it when I have these conversations. I think about it a lot because it, it is, like, pretty fundamental to, you know, who I am. I have bad days. Like I have terrible days, I've had bad weeks, like no doubt about it. But like, I keep going back to like overall then, like, that's the other thing. Like don't sweat the small stuff. Like, you know, you're going to have like, everything's not going to be perfect. I watch my kids, like they stub their toe. It's like the end of the world. You know, it's like, that's not a big deal, dude. You know, like trying to teach my kids, like, you know, don't like, you can't like get bogged down by every little thing. I think people tend to do that. And I think the right thing to do is like, What, you know, is the bigger picture positive? And, you know, how do I make sure that it is if it's not looking that way in that moment?

Yeah, it's realigning with that because there's so many things that can invade your life now because there's so much information at your fingertips. There's so many things that could come at you. So it feels like it's really important on the regular, whether it's, you know, don't let yourself get distracted too.

It's easy to get distracted. Right, like, I mean, I think if you, you know, if your goal is to be happy, then don't sit around looking at Instagram all day looking at other people that are gonna make you unhappy, you know, or whatever. Like, you gotta kind of— you gotta— people have to have some— yeah, they've got to have some sort of driving force here to like to not do dumb things. And we all do dumb things, but you know, it's, it's the people that recognize dumb things and try to do better that seemingly are the ones that make it.

Are there any people that you either know personally or you know of that lead a life that you really admire?

That's a good question. In different aspects, yeah, there's people that I think are like in my life that are amazing family people. I'm trying to think. I know recently I thought of, there's like one Wow, that person, like, they do really well at work, they're a really good parent, they're a really good husband, like, you know, and it's not the people that are at the top, right? It's like, it might, they might be at the top of their situation, but it's not like some, you know, it's not like the famous person that is everyone knows. It's like, wow, that person like has figured it out. They're under the radar. They don't, they, you know, they've made all their money and they are, you know, great to their family. And I know a few of those, like good friends those are my— I try to make those my friends. Like, those people are the people that I want to spend time with, you know. And I also do believe, like, fundamentally, like, you are the product of who you spend time with. So the more you can, you know, be around people that you want to be like, the more likely you are to be like that person, you know. So I do think about that.

It's almost like you have to be careful what you wish for, because once you get there, it's like You know, there's so many young people that want to be in a different situation. They want to be in a new circumstance, but they don't really know what that's like yet. It's like you could embrace where you're at in your journey and the fact that you don't have a whole, you know, team of people depending on you. You don't have, you know, the stakes aren't high yet. Like embrace the bottom.

Yeah. Like that's why people are always like, God, I wish I was in college again. I mean, it's like, oh yeah, no stakes. Like, and they think like, I mean, I watched like You know, I watch my friends' kids that are like, you know, they're beating themselves up about something so dumb. It's like, you have like your life in front of you. This is nothing. This doesn't matter.

Yeah, it gets hard. Life gets harder.

Life gets harder. Yeah, the problems get bigger as your kids get older. The problems get bigger. Yeah, more expensive.

And like, you know, yeah, and that's why, you know, fortifying yourself and, you know, being the best version of yourself and working on that is so important because life does get more complicated. You make more money, there are more problems. You have a family, there's more things to deal with. The stakes are higher, things matter more.

Yeah, I mean, people that keep the— people— there's some people that do a great job of just like, I'm the same person as I was when I had nothing. Those people always tend to be super happy. Like, it's the people like me and maybe you that just like, I'm like, I'm like kind of drifting up over here with these people and they're always gonna be up there. Yeah, so I think, you know, I go through all the same stuff.

Listen, this was awesome. Thank you so much.

Thanks, man.

Extremely insightful. I can't wait to come check out Nora.

Yeah, come over, please. Like, come call me and come over and hang. I'll show you the whole thing.

Yeah, next time I go to a Capital Grille and I can't get a seat because it's taken, I'm gonna say, "I know Ned Grace." And my dad's name is Ned Grace, so that might work. Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.