January 24, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
With Vicky Schiff — Real Estate Investor
The episode in one minute
What really separates strong real estate professionals from everyone else when markets tighten and capital gets complicated?
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What really separates strong real estate professionals from everyone else when markets tighten and capital gets complicated? In this episode of No Vacancy, Taylor Avakian sits down with Vicky Schiff for a wide-ranging conversation on work ethic, conviction, and how serious operators think about risk, relationships, and capital in today’s real estate market. Vicky shares how she built her career by being the person who actually executes, prepares, and shows up when it matters. They dive into what’s happening inside the debt markets, how lenders are structuring risk through pref equity, CLOs, and loan-on-loan strategies, and why understanding the incentives behind capital is just as important as understanding the deal itself. Vicky also explains how high-level decision-makers prepare for meetings, evaluate opportunities, and maintain confidence without ego. Beyond markets and structures, the episode explores discipline, curiosity, and human connection — and why relationships still drive outcomes even as the industry evolves. This is a practical conversation for anyone operating in commercial real estate who wants to think more clearly, move with conviction, and understand what’s really happening behind the capital stack. Sponsor — Loan Titan Upscale your experience with https://loantitan.com/ Sponsor — AI for CRE Collective Join 500+ CRE Professionals actually learning AI https://www.skool.com/ai-for-cre-collective/about?ref=3b3ff2c0ccce44ba8039fafd54bf291a Connect with Taylor Avakian Newsletter: https://www.thegroupcre.com/newsletter-signup Instagram: https://instagram.com/tayloravakian Twitter: https://twitter.com/tayloravakian Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayloravakian/
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This 13,961-word transcript is matched to English (Original) automatic captions. Timestamps seek the episode player to the matching passage.
I had absolutely zero experience. We bought and built about 14,000 units of storage in four states. I started a management company and I think we had like 100 over 100 employees at the height. My dad passed away when I was 19. He was a developer in Las Vegas. He was just self-made.
Left home at 12. What was the internal feeling? Was it like, am I good enough for this?
There was this book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I think you just have
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Huge thanks to Calazani at loan titan for supporting today's video and supporting the channel. Now, let's jump back into it. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Avakian and I'm here with my esteemed guest Vicky Schiff.
Vicki, thank you for being here. Absolutely excited about this here. What a cool space.
Oh my gosh.
Great space. Wait a second. Tim Ferrris is coming in after us.
He's supposed to be here, right?
Yeah, he's supposed to be here right now. All right. You think we could pull him in make be successful in four
hours? 4 hour real estate. It's going to be tough, right?
I know. If we see him, we'll
try. Speaking of uh of work, um I saw your 25 or 26 lessons or rules that you live by, something like that. So you said that do the most work out of anyone. Why?
Uh I think you know our industry as a lot of industries is information based and the more you dig into something and understand how it works and understand how your counterparty thinks um which takes work right it takes it's time it's the 4hour work week doesn't actually work in real estate I don't think um to be the most informed and to understand a transaction or structure or a market better than anybody else um allows you to avoid a lot of mistakes. The other thing is when you're starting off in your career and you're working for someone else and they see the dedication, a lot of opportunities will open up for you. So, uh you know, I worked for a firm early on.
It was an investment firm and we were 247. I mean it was during you know it was in the 90s like investment bank and it was a it was a firm um in in LA that was buying a lot of assets and we were there you know morning noon and night and we got stuff done. So I think others seeing that quality in you is important but it also allows you to be more informed and make much much better decisions because you're not going to miss as much. Totally. We all make mistakes in real estate. Yeah, a market changes. Um, it's it's more about like how the environment changes and the market changes and surprises than it is um misjudging something if you do your homework. Uh, but you're also able to figure out how to shift or maneuver in a
situation. The more people you know, the more information you have, the more contingent uh kind of options you create for yourself. And again, that's all work. But for sure, you know, when you're starting off or you're in school, I mean, I see my son who's 16. He's the most disciplined person I've ever met. He gets up at 4 in the morning. He's has a well past a 4.5 GPA at Loyola High School. I see how hard this kid works. And when I walk through campus with him, he knows everybody. Like people notice and ask him to be involved in things. And I just think starting from such a young age or you know really understanding that work ethic which I think has gone by the wayside a
little bit. I was going to ask you do you think this generation
is I mean you're this generation. What do you think?
You know I'm a millennial technically. I'm I'm 29, so you know, I I think I'm past the the Gen Z's or the Gen X's, but it it's um I will tell you actually from from my experience working in brokerage, there's certain cultures that are built I think from the top down leadership and it I would not work as hard as I do. My schedule I'm at 4:35.
I wake up at 4:35, go to the gym, get in the office.
Not 4:30, 4:35. 4:35. Yeah. I've I've dialed it down by 5 minutes. um depending on when my sleep schedule is. I've just found like that works for me with my my REM cycles, which is interesting um through reps. But when I first started in the business, it was 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Like that was what was expected of us and everyone did it and it made it a lot easier. Yes. Now I'm I'm at different shops and different firms and the very rarely are people getting in there at that time. I'm the first one in there by two hours and I just do it because that's what I've learned and that's what I know and those those two hours in the morning are my sacred hours. Like that's when I get real [bleep] done. Uh but it starts top down and so I don't know if this generation has
that mentorship or I learned by seeing someone do it right and there was competition with other people and I didn't want to get left behind. If you don't feel that drive
knows the highly competitive guy.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I understand that. In sports, right? So, your son is super dedicated. You were super dedicated. Is it a nature thing? Is it a nurture thing? What do you think instills that in someone?
Um, that's a good question, but I want to go back to what something you just said. You want to get [bleep] done. That was another one of my lessons is be the person who gets [bleep] done. Yep. So that no matter what's asked of you, it's not below you. Like you have a investor in your office and they go, "Can you go grab me a latte?" And you figure out how to get that thing to that person even if you're talking to them about a transaction. So just be the person that gets gets stuff done. And that's what I've always uh really focused on for myself. Um the question was nature or nurture? Nature or nurture? Um, I've trained myself for sure. My dad passed away when I was 19. He was a developer in Las Vegas. I had an amazing upbringing just being around him.
And he was just self-made. Left home at 12. Like he was just he worked all the time. Yeah. But he took me with him. And I think that that uh level, you know, grew up in the depression, all that stuff. that level of dedication was embedded to me from a very early age. And he would say things like stupid things like money doesn't grow on trees type of thing. Like you have to actually manufacture it yourself machine but you know by accomplishing things. Um my son always tells me I'm so happy you're my mom because
wow that's awesome.
Even when he was like five or six, people probably laugh at this, but I would be like, "Do three sit-ups, do one push-up." You know, get getting him in the mode to train his body. And just it's just a mindset. Um, and then being very consistent over and over and over and over again. So, you get in if you if you're in sales and you're just like, I'm going to make 15 calls a day no matter what. I'm not going to let my emotions get in the way. I'm not going to uh feel dejected if somebody doesn't want to talk to me. I'm just going to do it and it's going to be scientific and I'm going to see what my results are. And then the better you get at talking to people, the better results you're going to get. But just that raw action of doing that thing over
and over again actually scientifically creates results. And so it's just like working out or reps and I've done various athletics my during my lifetime. But um I think that you do have to have a mindset and we were talking about joking about Tim Ferrris, but just like how he writes and when he interviews people and the books that kind of inform us of how other people think and how they've create like what you're trying to do here. Yeah. Um is very inspiring and I love I just like eat up that stuff, you know. I love it. I love part of you. This whole kind of self-improvement, self-help, and it's I've certainly been through, you know, a lot of challenges and a lot of situations in my life where I didn't know it was really going to happen the next day. And that's being an entrepreneur, you know.
Well, and you're very entrepreneurial. Um, I talked to Jamie Lee, a mutual friend of ours, and she said, "I love Jamie." Yeah. What what stood out to me when I met Becky is she's just so serial entrepreneurial. Like, she just wants to get stuff done. and she wants to get [bleep] done and she Jamie feels like she's more of like a hired gun kind of situation and you're the one going out there and starting stuff and putting your your risk, you know, on the line. Um, tell me about walk me back to when you first started. I think 2930 you started your first company. What was what led up to that moment and why why did you say, "Hey, I'm going to take this risk on and try to build something for
myself." I love the Jam Lee reference because when I first first first started in in the industry, I was a broker.
Okay.
Okay. I worked
for a guy named Jerry Porter who's wonderful. And my job was a canvas midwilture. And so all the buildings that family owns and uh we were, you know, moving a lot of those that that pole market was in transition and we were moving a lot of the tenants out of there. But every day I'd be like knocking on office doors and, you know, you're [clears throat] getting rejected left and right. It's okay. We just keep doing it. Um, I went to work for an incredible investment firm. Um, and over a three-year period, I just learned a lot. And we were buying assets, um, all mostly in California, um, during the, you know, early to mid 1990s. And they were just throwing stuff at me that I like had zero experience doing. I remember they asked me to refin help work on a refinance of the office building we were in.
I was like, I've never done a loan before. And I met a broker through them, Gary Moser, who's a dear friend to this day. Legend. Uh, and uh, he kind of taught me about the lending business. And we got a loan done on the building with uh, I think it was like Ford credit or something like that. Some some I just remember it was a car company. And um so through that experience and them just throwing me in the fire because there was so much going on, I learned I learned about structuring. I learned how to deal with private equity. I learned how to operate a building. I learned how to add value to an asset in a short period of time through leasing and just improvement, you know, physical improvement strategies. And I thought I could take the package this up and do this on my own.
And so that led me through a bunch of twists and turns to create a business plan around self- storage. And I was very very fortunate to meet a a group that ended up backing me. And over a three-year period with them, and I certainly couldn't have done it without them, uh we bought and built about 14,000 units of storage. uh in four states and ended up exiting that asset through a variety of uh kind of situations and transactions. But you know, I I told you yesterday, boy, if I was still in the storage business, I probably we would be on permanent vacation by now. But it was a situation where the company I work for had a piece of land. It was really interesting for storage. I asked them if we could do a storage property there and they wanted to.
they were in the business of kind of, you know, selling some of the assets at the time. So, we ended up buying that asset and building from the ground up a storage facility, but it was the way maybe I saw an opportunity and I had absolutely zero
experience.
Yeah, I was going to ask doing it, but I built up the confidence to walk in the room and ask this amazing group to um to support me in it and they they did. Uh, and so we ended up buying the asset, buying the piece of land, and building a property. And we expanded that business plan across four states. And we I started a management company. And I think we had like a hundred over 100 employees at the height.
Wow.
And so it was it was a really really amazing experience. But it's back to you can't do things without other people, right? So, it's other people at that time um not only liking what I was presenting and that went back to work harder than anybody else because the amount of research and time I spent getting ready for that first meeting
was enormous. Walk me through what that process looks like when you're doing your research and coming to the table with a business plan. Like what is what goes into that? Uh well, first you have to see what the trends are in the market, right?
you have to understand, okay, what's actually happening in the market that's not so obvious and that was a area that was emerging at the time and there's other things that I've been involved with in my career that have that same theme. Um, and so then you go, okay, that that's really interesting. I'm going to pay attention to something that very few people are paying attention to. Let me dig into it. And with the storage business, it was interesting because it was such a mom and pop. Public storage was there. They were enormous and they're even bigger now, but they were the big, you know, publicly traded company and there was a few other smaller publicly traded companies, but it was mostly mom and pop, which probably it still is. There was around 20,000 properties in the country. I think it's probably doubled or tripled now. Geez. From that time.
Yeah.
And I just saw that, you know, it was it was a really interesting fundamentals and interesting growth opportunities and more and more people were buying stuff and uh military, student housing, all the things that went into it. I really studied what those trends were. And um in addition to that, I tied up a couple of properties with my own money, like I think $10,000 with my own money, which is a lot.
So, were you cold calling these people and and getting them or how did you find the deals?
I yeah I I cold called really and tied up a couple of transactions and then had this wonderful opportunity from the group I was working with to buy this piece of land which was in a great site uh in Southern California and put together a plan with you know a lot of research and walked in and believe me I was not I was very nervous because I uh I had never done this before but I had done so much work that I felt very prepared and you know I was extremely fortunate that they said yes and so it was kind of off to the races from there. Um and with other things I've done it's been the same like you know seeing a seeing a trend uh whether it was with emerging managers I wrote a business plan where we
uh with others uh that we started a fund of fund that supported emerging managers and and uh convinced a few pension funds to back that plan early on.
Um, how do you convince pension funds to to back you?
They have to get to know you and trust you over a long period of time.
So, it's a lot of networking.
It's, you know, personal relationships.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, you can't just walk it. It's it's it's a it's a it's a very very long sales cycle, right?
Real estate is a very Yeah.
sales cycle. Real estate is long sales cycle. Yes. Um, so I think I think back to be prepared and be the person who gets [bleep] done and also being able to a little bit see around the corner and that's just paying attention, right? It's just paying attention to what's happening,
keeping your eye on the ball. Yeah. Ear to the ground, kind of understanding what's happening
and just talking, you know, relationships. Uh, you know, I was in a board meeting uh at a I'm on the board of a a family office and I was in a board meeting a couple days ago and I said to the uh the gentleman who runs the real estate group for this family office. I go, "At least if I have no value at all, at least I know a lot of people." And he goes, "That's crazy. You're such an amazing thinker and you know, I was you have so many good ideas about how to structure things. You're you know, you're you're also very competent." I go, but [Laughter] at the end of the day, I know a lot of people and that's like just making those connections and uh and and also trying to help others in any way that I possibly can has
been something I really love to do.
It's very satisfying. Did um so that in that first deal because I thought about this too in certain aspects of my life where how did you know how much to ask for in terms of what you were going to make? Like how did you structure that? Okay, I'm gonna receive this much upside or I'm gonna take a little less in the beginning to earn trust and then earn more. How did you think about the actual structure of the economics of you getting
money structure from the firm I was working with that the structure that I was taught there? Okay.
And I just replicated it. And what was the the was it like a two and 20?
Was it a five and it was just a you know it was a business. It wasn't a fund. It wasn't like their passive. I I officeed with them in their office.
Got it.
It was um you know I had to put money in. I had to put a certain amount of money in which I borrowed from my mom. I think it was like a million bucks. Wow. And I had to pay her 12% return. So it wasn't for nothing. Amazing. Um and uh so I put some capital in, they put capital in and then there was a you know there was a a share and and you were nervous covered covered overhead and things like that.
Like what in that moment can you take yourself back to what was the internal feeling? Was it like am I good enough for this? Am I going to be able to figure figure this out? Did you have the self-confidence in yourself that no matter what happens, I'm I'm just going to figure it out. I'm going to get [bleep] done
or was it, you know, it's funny. My best friend Paris has her podcast here. She's in the arts and we used to joke there was this book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I think you just have to it's not a false sense of confidence. It's just like being genuine and and but having that research and that information when you walk in the room and being able to um answer questions about numbers and f like you have to be super prepared and I think that um that's extremely important. So you can't get blindsided. you have to think like what what's any question they're going to ask and really understanding the numbers in the financials cold is really really important and I've learned that over a long period of time by not only working in the real estate industry but also serving on the
boards of public companies and um sitting in on boards of private companies and just
you know when you're talking to the um to the team you know you expect them to know the numbers cold so that's and when they do and and they're right and they can back it up.
I think that's very impressive. Give me an example of if you have a very important meeting or pitch or something like that, what is are you preparing for two weeks a week? Are you spending do you have a defined number of hours you're trying to figure this out? Are you are you flasharding?
It's not like that. It's not really like that. Like with my current team now, we spent last week we took our pitch deck and it's it's in a debt space. Um, but we took our pitch deck and we pitched to my partner and I pitched to our entire team and out of that exercise we ended up restructuring our whole deck and we were really looking at the Sequoia capital model of like how you present a opportunity to somebody. So I think you know it's the team number one, it's the problem, the solution, the market, the numbers and what the what's your ask something like that I might have left out a step but just making sure that the flow is logical that I always start out by asking the other person that I'm there to meet with tell me about what you're focused on. Tell me about your experience
with this particular thing. Um, what have you been seeing? What kind of mistakes have you made and what's been successful for you? So then you can almost tailor your comments to what's important to them. And I think it's really important not to just sit down and start talking,
right?
So funny. Don't sit down and start talking. Uh even you and I were talking earlier before we started, you know, uh taping how important it was to ask questions and why you like to do this. Like you're just always curious about
what what's somebody's thought process? What makes them take tick?
Because no matter who you're dealing with, whether it's a massive, you know, pension fund or institutional investor or a family office or just another entrepreneur, they are a human being. [clears throat] Mhm. And and they're making some sort of decision based on a trust level that that hopefully you can create with them and prove that over time. Totally. Um and you know uh a lot of times these things work out and sometimes they don't and you just have to you know do your best. But um I think asking ask understanding that on the other side's a human being is you know business is human beings and real estate's human beings. Real estate's never going to be complete. The tools of AI will be more and more useful in real estate, even construction and other things. Yes. But the the physical part of real estate, it is a physical
business, right? This is a building that we're sitting in right now. It's a room that was built somehow. That's never going to go away. And the people part of it, um, I think will live on. Um, so the people part of it is is important. Although I was having breakfast with a dear friend of mine on Sunday and he has an AI company. He said pretty soon my AI is going to be talking to your AI and there you know the information that that uh you're making decisions on is like an AI talking to another AI. So think about that for a minute.
I want to come back to that. I want to come back to that kind of wild because I know you you know a lot of people in very high and powerful places and they have to be thinking about this stuff. So I want to come back to that. I also want to come back to um your skill sets, right? Because when you're mentioning asking questions before actually going into the pitch, like I study specific sales, I don't want to say techniques, but like processes, the way you think about sales because in what I'm doing in brokerage, it's it's sales, right? It's human human to connection, it's psychology, but there's also ways that you can do it like how Sequoia structures their decks. Did you ever take any specific training or how did you learn the skills of negotiation, the arts of connecting with people?
Was this like a do you read a book or was it just through Osmosis? I've read every book, all of them. We have a sponsor for today's episode and that is AI for Siri Collective. 25 listings at the moment. We're closing four or five deals a month. It's been incredible. So, if you want to learn if you're in commercial real estate, how to use AI in your business, whether you're a property manager, a broker, an investor, really anyone, we have a huge group, over 400 people in this community. And the website, if you want to go check it out, is a forcollective.com. So, appreciate you guys.
Now, back to the episode. I've read Yeah, I I've read lots of books. Um yeah, early on, like really early on when I was a broker, a girlfriend and I uh who who was also a broker, we went to some like Tom Hopkins sales training and we were in the lobby like practicing the techniques.
Yeah. Do you want that in green or blue?
You know, [Laughter] 3:00 or 1:00 and these guys walked by and they were just giving us a massive amount of [bleep] But we were in some sort of contest at the the training and we wanted to win. Um, no. I mean, I think that there are certainly techniques, but it all comes back to being c really genuine and stripping away whatever's in between you and the other person and just really wanting to understand what's important to them and how they're thinking about things and then coming to them with some value proposition that helps to solve some issue that they're having. or maybe even presenting a new idea that they haven't thought of before about how to solve something that they're working on. Whether that's manufacturing returns, um whether it's, you know, solving some technical issue in a transaction, uh whatever it is, but that all all
of these things I've learned over time and just sitting in many many many rooms, it's just all human connection and listening to what somebody else has to say. You can't walk in with like a canned strategy and you know that all falls away and if and people sense that you know I sense
that the fakeness or the the preparedness where it doesn't feel natural where you're not trying to really understand and listen like if you have this script that's played out doesn't feel like you're listening to someone. It feels like you're trying to pitch. Um and I think it's just the practice like what you're saying you you and your girlfriend are practicing because you want it to feel natural. You want it to almost come from a place.
Well, we were like 20.
But yeah, but but it's almost this improvisation where it's it's you don't even have to think about what you're doing. It just comes up because you've learned what those skills are. You know, when an opportunity comes and your body naturally goes into whatever that is. Uh that's what I found in terms of like the practice of the actual skills of asking questions, of of getting to know someone, of building rapport, those things. If if they're canned lines, you can tell. But if it you genuinely start to pick up those skills, it just comes out naturally.
Yeah.
For you.
Um it's it's interesting. Well, I'm 40 years older than you. Maybe not 40, but 30 something.
Yeah. You you've had some you've had some experience. Um I want to ask you about when you're getting in a room with really powerful people. How do you maintain equal business stature? Do you think about okay this person I've read up about this person and I know they're pretty direct or I know they like this stuff or how do you keep an equal business stature especially for younger people maybe who's listening to this who are going to be in rooms with people who are more powerful quote unquote right or at a higher position or further along in their career. How do you keep an equal business stature in that meeting that conversation?
Um well I never think of myself as less than first of all. Um because you're again you're sitting with a human being. Uh I think that um you know I've for better or for worse I've built up the reputation over time. So I feel like I'm walking in the room with some some pluses. Yeah. Right. which might be different than somebody that got a meeting with somebody and you know they're like, "Oh gosh, what am I going to say? What am I bringing to the table?" Um, I think really understanding what some how somebody ticks personally and maybe doing a lot little research and saying, "Oh, I notice you love to ski or I notice da da da." You get them talking about something they're passionate about or if they're involved in a certain charity or tell me why that was important to you.
And then you kind of just ease the tension a little bit.
Yeah.
Um, some people are very business-like and they're not interested in that at all. And then you have to say, well, from a from a, you know, what are you looking for?
What what's important to you from a business standpoint?
What are you trying to accomplish and listening? So, I think it all comes back to um just having those conversations and asking questions. It's a vibe more than I'm going to pretend like I'm X Y and Z or you know it's okay to be afraid or feel nervous or scared. There's nothing wrong with that. Every single person that you look at now that's been like incredibly successful. Every single person has had those times where they've laid their head down on a pillow and just like I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow or I'm in crisis mode or I just lost everything or my wife just left me or I'm just leaving, you know, or yeah, somebody passed away or I'm uncertain. Every human being that's really successful has had that experience. Every single one of them. So, you have to tap into that a little bit.
There's a great podcast that my son and I like to listen to called
Acquired. Oh yeah.
I love love love Acquired. So you think that Oh yeah, Microsoft has always been the way it was. But it tells a story of a few super young guys in their late teens and early 20s like trying to
figure it out like I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, right? Or you know big disasters within companies and how they recover from that. And that's what an entrepreneur is. It's it's somebody that is has some sort of weird quality about them. They're they're willing to just like swim into the uncertainty ocean and with some with some plan. Yeah. Right. You have to have a plan. Yeah. And with a vision so that they see things before they happen. But having the willingness to emit, you know, like uh short-term defeat and make adjustments along the way that are still meet with their own sense of what they want to try to accomplish and their own sense of right and wrong and their their standards and all
of that because some people that you look at that are really successful are inventing something nobody's ever used before.
Right. I I feel like the really successful people that I've met are they always got they're quirky. They got like some interesting little quirks about them. Like speaking of Microsoft, I met uh Steve Balmer and this was at one of the Clippers games and he at halftime got a printed out sheet of all the statistics and all the minutes of the players and was like reading this printed out paper literally at halftime for his team which is just I don't know. I just thought that was super interesting and and spoke to who he was, right? What kind of person he is. What do you think your superpower is or what do you think your um what is your strengths that you lean into that you think differentiates yourself and maybe naturally or not but that separates yourself from quote unquote
the competition or I guess the other people that you're competing against in business.
Um, I think that I'm really able to connect with people on a deep level, much deeper than the the surface business level. I care about people as human beings. Um, I think I can turn turn around the prism and see things from a different angle. You know, I think I'm creative. Um, I think that uh my background growing up is really unique, particularly in real estate, particularly growing up like Jamie did or you said you had Naen on here. Yeah. Um or other friends of mine that have grown up in the real estate industry. I think that gives us a little bit of an edge because we understand risk a
little bit different, you know.
You saw it firsthand. Saw it firsthand. I mean, my dad was borrowing at 18%.
And he, you know, people are freaking out over six and a
half. Yeah. So it it didn't it wasn't always was very very bad for his health. I can tell you that. Very very bad. So um you know having that experience of going through that kind of like trauma and really understand how markets and a decision can lead somebody down a risk curve that they they really can't get out of. um I think is unique, you know, for learning that from a really young age. And um we talked a little bit on the phone about like you go, "Oh god, it must be so hard to be a female." I'm like, "Yo, you had to overcome so much." And I like kind of reprimanded you about that. I'm like, "No, yeah, it's actually I've never had that." And um I actually think it's a massive massive advantage. I'm because people feel more comfortable having conversations about personal things.
Totally. Um I actually didn't tell you this in the phone, but I I believe it. Um because I've seen it firsthand, too. The best brokers I've ever seen have all been women.
And uh I think Darla Longo, like and her entire
team, legitimately um they're they're more empathetic, right? And so they listen better. I think they ask and want to understand questions a little bit deeper than men. Men are kind of like D in my experience. Um and men love talking to women. Like it's just a fact of life. So I always said the best broker if they were an attractive woman who woman who was on her [bleep] and like was not afraid to get rejected.
Unstoppable.
Confidence. Confidence.
Very much confidence. Confidence is key.
Yes. Yes.
you know, I mean, some of the best leaders in the world are really competent females, especially in, you know, I I have a group of women that um I put together uh about 16 years ago, and we all get together. We go on a kind of market tour once a year somewhere interesting. Um there's 45 of us or so now. it's kind of under radar and they're all like CEOs or CIOS or have very [clears throat] senior positions, decision makers on the financial side. Um they're deal makers. They're deal people and some of these people are running public companies. Some of them run large funds. Some of them, you know, are developer like amazing developers. And um just the thing that stands out
is competence, right?
Even when we collectively get together, yeah, we'll have the the shoes and guys conversation, but it always goes back to okay, what's what kind of deal? How'd you structure that deal or what was um you know, what was what was the opportunity you saw in that and
what mistake did you make?
and very more I think more apt to admit and learn from mistakes which is huge and be kind of be more self-reflecting a little bit but I don't like to generalize about men and women because each has you know there each person has their own specific qualities for sure um but I think you know if you present yourself well I mean attractive or whatever whatever however you want to say it you don't have to be gorgeous but if you present yourself well and you're confident, but you can back it up with competence and creative thinking and you're female in business. I think that's like a killer combination. I don't think I I think it's unbeatable and I've seen from my friends so many examples of that. I agree that are incredible that um you know I uh [Laughter]
I think it's a huge huge huge advantage. I actually don't think it's a disadvantage at all.
So, when when you're thinking about making decisions and um I think you're one of your skill sets, I asked you earlier, but I think one of your one of your skill sets from understanding your business and reading up on you is is uh you know how to spot opportunities. I'm curious to know when you make a decision and you find an opportunity, what how do you measure your gut versus data?
Um I think you you have to you have to back up your gut with data.
Okay. So, it's gut first, then the data.
I think I think you have to back up your You know, it's funny and I always say this in real estate when I'm talking to people about how do you spot a good piece of real estate, right? And I'm in the lending industry, so it's a little different than being a buyer, but I have been a buyer in the past. You have to underwrite the deals. Um, you have to underwrite the deal. You have to really, you know, kind of stress your assumptions and understand, okay, what's the worst that can, you want to
would start with what's the worst that can happen? How do I how do how does this go? How does this all go wrong?
That's a really really important to ask a question to ask yourself. But sometimes you'll see a building, it'll be like we're on Santa Monica Boulevard right now. You it' be on the corner of Santa Monica and something and it's like God everything [clears throat] all the data works. Like you get the you have the traffic count, you have the people, you have the it just this building has never worked on this corner. I don't know why. Just never worked. And there's little spots around major cities. It's just that that's the story. Like I don't know. It's never worked. It doesn't have the right Yeah.
So it's you know what I mean? Uhhuh. It's like that gut you're just like it doesn't it doesn't matter
what they put here it doesn't work you know. Yeah. And there's something about the way it's situated or I don't know what. But um that's that's gut. Or you could your gut with people is important. But you also have to back it up with making a few phone calls like how's this person behaves in certain situations and do they have integrity and or you know that's what's great about knowing so many people throughout the country and the world actually in the real estate industry is when I'm looking at something I can call somebody I could call a dozen people in that market and say what do you know about this person this property what do you think do you think this will work here that kind of thing so it is really important to just expand your
network, but then if somebody calls me, I always have to be willing to have that conversation and and to help
reciprocate. Yeah. What So, let's talk about lending a little bit. So, your company, your new company that you started a couple years ago, I think um you guys are lenders or or private private
debt. We're really just um kind of starting in earnest now. We kind of sat back in the market a little bit for a variety of reasons. Um, but yeah, we're we're working on a couple of interesting transactions right now. Um, I recently merged my company with another company. I don't want to announce it here, but it will be announced in the future. And we have a a fan a known financial firm that bought 12% of our company, the management company. Um, and we've got some legacy deals from my the company I merged with that we're working on that are quite interesting. Uh but it's it's really focused on how we
structure. Walk me through that. Give me what's the business plan. Give me the give me the model. Like give me your uh differentiation, I guess you could
say. Yeah. Well, it's um you know, I was talking to one of my partners on the way over here. There's just so much capital in the in the lending world right now.
Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of mistakes have been made. Um and you know there's a lot of portfolios have been hit with downward valuations even on the debt side. So we're being extraordinarily cautious. Um I'll talk to more to you about the differentiator when we announce our merger because we are the way that that the the two companies that have come together um bring something different that hasn't really been seen in a big way in the market before. Okay. So
okay I hope coming out in two months. When is your announcement coming out?
Invite me back. I I'm not sure. Okay.
Shoot. [Laughter] Dang it.
We almost had something.
I'm not.
Yeah. No yet, but that's okay.
Yeah. So, when you're thinking about um the lending side of the business, like I guess give me an update on where the current market is. You said you feel like there's some distress that's happening. I feel that personally on the brokerage side. I've seen that.
I've been Well, tell me about that. What you seen on the brokerage side?
So, I've been brought in for a couple of these debt funds, these private capital funds to help them with um execution of of dis disposing of some of these assets that they've taken back. I wasn't feeling or seeing that as much in the last couple years. What kind of assets? Multif family. So, I'm a multif family broker. Okay. Um primarily here in SoCal. Like that's my my bread and butter. I was working on um a well-known syndicator group that had some national presence as well. Uh, but most of my work has been here in LA. And I hadn't seen I was not around in 2008, so I didn't see what that market was looking like. But I've talked to a lot of um um principles and owners who at the time were either in receiverhip or in that side of the business and
they said it was completely different than what it is today or it felt different than what it was where these banks were just like getting these things off the books. Private capital to me feels like they're willing to take on the risk or the management of some of these assets. So, if they're not stabilized or they're not where they need to be, they'll say, "Hey, okay, we'll we'll take it back and we'll get it stabilized and we can wait a year, two, three before we have to exit this this property and get capital back." And that's super interesting to me because it doesn't feel like it's a distress or you can go pick up assets at super low basis. I don't see people trading deals specifically in LA below par for a lot of things. Um, and most of the loans that I've seen are between
65 and 75% of when it was there.
So, you're not 65 to 75% of cost.
Correct.
Correct. At the time of construction or
Yes. And or acquisition and values feel around par for what I'm seeing for some reason on the loan.
Correct. So, they're at 100% now.
Correct. Mhm. But uh these lenders don't feel like they need to go in and I'm regulated. Yes. Correct. So that's what I'm seeing. Um in terms of the current LA market, I know there's a ton of debt that is coming due like trillions in the next They say that every year. They say that every year, right? But it Exactly. They say that every year and it doesn't feel like anything's there hasn't been a wave of a bunch of these foreclosures. What are you seeing actually from the inside out? like what do you see that other people don't in terms of what's actually going on?
I don't know if I see what other people don't. I think you know there's a lot of big debt players that have large portfolios and they see everything. Um I see opportunities uh with some of my friends that are buying to there's this whole prep equity capital opportunity if you've seen it.
Yeah. You know where worked on it. um the equity just has to take a backseat, right?
They if if something's worth 80% of what they paid for it, equity's wiped out, the lender needs to get restructured or paid down. [clears throat] So, they have to raise prep equity. That pref equity comes in probably at some mid- teens return, pays down the lender a little bit and now because the lender now the lender's at 100%, now they they want to be back down to 70%, they want some win. They have investors too. Yeah. Right. Right? So they have to turn around and say, "Okay, we got paid down on this loan. Now we're back down to because they have to report." So it's all about, you know, some of these actions have to do with what that lender has to report out. And also borrowers don't pay attention to this, but lenders are leveraged. So debt funds are leveraged. They they use something called a CLLO
which is a packaging up of loans and a selling to some in some bond investors. They uh they could take out a warehouse line which generally isn't matched terms. So if they have a bunch of loans that are five years the warehouse lines, you know, maybe have the some extensions but they're not exactly matched with those underlying assets. Or they can do something called a loan on loan. A loan on loan is where a lender makes a loan on a property and they go to a bank or another debt fund and let's say their loan is 500 over, they go borrow it 300 over from another lender. So they're leveraging their position and they can do that anywhere from 40% to up to 80%. Wow. So when you're a borrower, you always have to ask how are you leveraged to your lender?
It's important because it it instructs their behavior because if they have a loan within a CLLO or crossc collateralized pool and one of their loans goes bad, the lender starts sweeping all the cash from all the other deals.
Right?
So the lender has different motivations because then the lender can't make distributions to their investors. Got it. So um if and if they have a loan on loan that's just a single asset loan, it's a little bit better. But if the borrower starts to get in distress somehow and that lender, that loan on loan lender is a bank. Now the regulators are coming in and they're like, "Well, now your loans not your loan on loan, your the underlying property is not performing and how is a regulator going to look at that loan on loan." Interesting. Loan on loans get better capital treatment from a bank because they're making a corporate loan. They're not making a real estate loan. So they don't have to have as much reserve.
Got it.
So this whole ecosystem of understanding what's under the hood with your lender if you're a real estate owner is extremely important and I would say they don't focus on that enough for sure. Maybe they don't focus on it at all but I know they don't focus on it enough because that's driving the decision of the lender. So when you're saying okay I've seen debt funds restructure but you know maybe they brought some prep equity because they want to have a win to their investors. Oh, we got paid down on this loan. So, you know, it's back to performing world. So, it's all about like how what story they're telling their investors as well. So those are some subtleties that I think as if you representing multif family owners um either for restructuring or sale or you know somebody's looking to buy something you really have to understand
what the whole capital stack looks like not just oh my lender is ABC debt fund it's like the lender's capital a billion dollars or $10 billion or whatever well okay how are they
leveraged is there a way to go and find that information um publicly or is that through relationships and talking and having
you can look it up. Okay. Um if it's like a loan on loan, it's difficult to get publicly because that information is generally not okay showing up anywhere, but you can ask them. You can go, you know, hey, they will generally that loan on loan uh investors generally going to want to understand the real estate too. So they're they're they generally do know, but it's not something they could they pay attention to as much.
It's funny you mentioned that this morning. I'm actually working on a a deal that uh I didn't know the structure of where the capital the the lender we're some distress. They told me that there it's a CLLLO loan, right? And so we were working on prep, we were working on buy downs, we were working on a new buyer coming in because the they haven't taken over the property yet. Um, but I had no idea that that was I didn't even realize that that was the case of depending on where their money is, how it's leveraged, that's going to determine what they're going to be wanting to do, if they're willing to write it down, if they are not going to be willing to write it down, like all the leverage points that come into actually negotiating when you're trying to get a deal done. Yeah. Right.
I can bring the buyers. I can bring, hey, here's the market feedback, but if I don't understand the leverage points of what works for each person, then it's really hard to actually structure a deal. So that just comes obviously with experience and and and in doing these kind of things right now. Do you feel like the debt market people are like ready to go and deploy this capital? You said there's a lot of capital on the sidelines or are they still trying to get their arms around where what's happening? Is there distress here? Was there things we can take advantage of? How are you feeling?
I've talked to two uh I've had meetings with two firms in the past week. One was a bank and the other was a a private lender. Um and they both told me, at least on the multif family side, things get super competitive even with construction lending. So, um, and they're telling their investors, not the bank, but the private credit group is telling their investors they're going to return a certain return to their investors. Right. So, it's not 6%. Yeah. Right. It's something else.
Yeah.
So, um, they they have to either take lower returns on some of the deals they're doing to get into the market and be competitive, work on hairier deals that have some sort of issue or maybe more construction risk. Um, or, you know, be in that sort of super opportunistic
bucket like the prep equity bucket or other things where they can pull outsiz returns. But um and then then it comes down to relationships because a borrower with a if if you're a borrower and you're just refinancing a stabilized asset, you're going to pick like who's five basis points lower. Yeah. That's that's your decision point. If you're in something where there's a lot of moving parts, whether it's renovation, major renovation, construction, or restructuring, you're going to pick the counterparty that you can work with the best. You're going to pick my um I had to fire my contractor. Oh, business plan isn't going to, you know, I didn't get the tenant I would underwrote. You need somebody to pick up the phone and talk to so they work with you. Got it. And so the competitive edge for a private lender that says they're entrepreneurial.
Um can equate to a borrower paying more because it's a short-term loan.
Totally.
And if you pay less, but you're caught up in like red tape hell and you're not getting your draw for three months, that actually kills your returns. That actually might kill your returns worse than just paying 100 basis points more for two years or three years. Interesting. So it's like there's all these subtleties that you as a broker might not be paying attention to. Totally. Because there's all these participants in this market. So there's the loan on loan, there's the warehouse lenders, there's CLLO guys, there's the, you know, banks that are participating in leveraging the funds. Um, there's the, you know, individuals at these firms. There's, you know, the borrowers themselves. There's all the equity partners that are sitting with the borrowers.
What is their motivation? How patient are they?
U, there's private equity funds that are partners with these firms that may be more sophisticated than syndicators. So it's like really that's why I'm saying work the hardest like un not understanding just the surface like oh here's a building it's worth this it's to understand what's going on under the ocean you know it's it's really really important it's it's 100% not options of how you can get something done
you start to see the full picture right and if if you don't understand the full picture of what's going on you're just working with a specific piece of what you see there's other things behind it that actually could be affecting how the movement above the water. Like it's the duck with the feet, right? Like what's actually happening underneath the water, that iceberg. Um that's so that's I I love that because the the moment my brokerage business changed is when I started looking at deals from a buyer's perspective. When I actually put my hat on of like, okay, if I was to buy this property, right, how am I looking at this? What am I going to be doing? What are my options? What are my debt options? Am I going to be able to get a tenant to leave? Do I have to do buyouts?
Do I have to, you know, what's my cost of renovations? What's my yield on cost going to be? I started asking those questions of like, not as a broker. Okay, well, the cap rate's this, right? The GRM is this. Like the the surface level metrics. It's like, okay, no, if I'm a buyer, what am I seeing? What am I looking at? And then I could communicate and connect with them more and actually sell the deal of of, hey, here's how you're gonna make money.
Yeah.
Because that's what they want to do, right? They want to make money. And now it's even a step further which is now I guess the journey that I'm on is understanding okay not just how the buyer's looking at it but how's the debt the debt how is the debt looking at the the debt that they're putting on the deal right it's even deeper than that right
which is so fascinating to me but you're stopping at what's the debt looking at you're not you got to go back you got to now go down even further another level right okay how is the debt leveraged what's the leverage what are their who are their investors what are they what's the life of their fund like how Do they you know you got to ask get to know the lenders get if you get to know the lenders you'll be incredibly valuable to your
clients peel those onion those those
layers clients that's that's the fun part oh man and I am also you know I we talked earlier I'm the global chairman of the yo real estate network so yo is a large organization we have about 35,000 members um uh some of your past guests that we mentioned there are yoers and we have 6,500 members in our network. So, this is my second year as the chair. I've got a board of about 35 people from all over the world. Wow. Every region in the world and um I'm not only seeing what's going on here, I'm seeing what's going on everywhere and we have lots of conferences and we have a podcast which I mentioned to you. I started um and we have you know Harvard program and INSEAD program and symposiums for asset classes. We have meetings and meetings. we have there's just so many intersections of getting to know
what's going on and and and meeting and building relationships with people. Um and I just keep hearing the business getting harder and harder like you know that it's getting harder to get stuff done. If you started in the 90s um it you know there were a lot of opportunities to buy very cheap.
Yeah.
We just had a we just had an amazing meeting at um the CEO of Krexy's office.
Oh yeah.
Giorgio. Amazing. And I don't want to say too much because these meetings are confidential, but he walked us through his story. U but I don't think he'd mind me sharing uh when he worked at I think it was auction.com, one of the auction companies. He said you could have anybody could have bought anything like anything on our site. They just bid it up like you would have made a ton of money like just buy it. But everybody was afraid, you know, oh, am I paying too much? Um, and it's not like that now, right? It's it's getting there's more capital. It's the asset class has expanded with institutional investors. uh there's more debt capital that's trying to make equity-like returns and it's more competitive and it's it you know I was also with a friend um last week who's
a a developer in a major market and they just put a project that they were going to break ground on in January on hold because the numbers don't work tariffs um yeah you know labor costs rents are backing up vacancy rates are going up it's like you know just finding the things that work it's just getting harder and harder to find things that work as a real estate owner. And I don't know what you're seeing. I mean, you're in the LA market. Got a lot of regulatory issues here. We've got ULA, which is awful.
The worst awful. They just came out with something that they're working on um potentially putting a bill that would exempt buildings built within the last 15 years or at least reduce the ULA tax to like 1% or one and a half%
back to [clears throat] where it was before.
Yeah, it was 55% 55 basis points previously and I think it's going to be one, which makes a ton of sense to me. They're still going to keep from from the language of what I read, this is a real deal article. Uh homes, mansions are still going to be on there, but it it is so
obvious.
That's crazy, too, because stuff's not trading. No, it's so obvious that it's a terrible situation for our housing crisis that everyone keeps saying is a big issue, right? But they're doing things and they're the actions are not speaking to that actually being a problem for them and they're they're not voting with what they're saying. They're speaking out of two sides of their mouth which is very frustrating being on this side of the table and just having so many regulations being thrown one more obstacle in front of you. Another obstacle you got to overcome. And I think there's there's benefits to having a very difficult time too. But speaking of what you were saying about now is difficult. If you were in your 20s, right, or you were 29 again, 30, and you had to start a company, like what would you do? Where? Gosh, I know, right?
My my son said to me, "Mom, I don't ever have to go find a job because I only want to work with you." Which is a huge complimenting. Not really in real estate too much. Yeah. Um, God, I you know, what would I do? I mean, I always tell people I'm like just a stupid real estate person. I don't know really about much else. I know I know about all elements of real estate, you know, to some proficient level. Yeah. Um, you know, more than others, not as much as others, you know, whatever. But what would I do? I don't know.
What would you do?
You know, everyone's like, everyone talks about AI technology. There's some incredible examples of people that are very young. They've made a lot of money in a very short period of time. Yeah.
But what would you do? I am very much fascinated by AI. I'm I'm not like a quant or a genius. I'm I'm like the guy I'm I grew up as an athlete and so the coach said, "Hey, you're gonna go run 50 laps. I'm gonna go run 50 laps. You're going to hit, you know, 250 balls off the tea. I'm going to hit 250 balls off the tea." Like I'm very good at taking directions and then just doing the work. I'm a worker. Um but I'm I'm which is why my fascinate fascination with AI has come into play because I am I always say I'm like a hardworking lazy person. And what I mean by that is I love to work, but I want to find a more efficient way to actually get the work done. And I see that with AI being able to the repetitive
task that I do in my job. There's so many ways that that can be streamlined where Taylor is not one Taylor, it's a hundred tailor being able to do what I do. Y So AI is super fascinating with me. We actually I started um a commercial real estate AI like community and so we've been sharing a lot of tips and and tricks and prompts and things and and workflows u that I use in my day-to-day business and then my partner who is on the more principal side what he's using in his day-to-day business and that's been super fun and exciting to see because every day there's this new workflow there's this new use case for us to help someone in their real estate business streamline things and I I see so much opportunity in that obviously, but with anything
there's there's hype cycles and there's only going to be probably a few winners. Uh I do see the economy getting more into like a soloreneur kind of
opportunity with how much ability you can have with just your computer and an internet connection. What you can create with this stuff now you can like type and code a whole website just with talking to it. Like that's really incredible. So I would probably still do real estate, but I think there'd be an AI component to just having something that's more efficient andor looking into the data on a deeper level trying to find opportunities that others have missed. So using my specific knowledge plus the technology to then go try to com create a competitive advantage. Yeah, that's where I would see. But I'm talking with my friends and they're like, you know, some of them make some money and they want to invest in real estate and they're like, I don't know where to go, like invest my money. Like it doesn't feel like anything's great.
I know LA multif family better than, you know, my competition in terms of stuff. This is what I do. And even then, I'm like, would I go put my money in this stuff? Is there going to be regulations changing in it? I don't know. It's it's difficult. I think a lot of young people are struggling with what do we
do, right? Well, I uh I my son's starting the college application process and from what I'm hearing in the market, the humanities are really in demand. You know, back to how people relate to each other kind of psychology kind of, you know, how e even with AI humanizing, you know, some of the things that are going on is a really really important skill set. back to you and I talking about being able to ask questions and relate to people. Um, you know, it's not it's not all tech. You know, a lot of people that have built a lot of wealth in the middle of this country are in manufacturing or they're in other things. Um, I've looked into recently um, you know, some temp technology around energy efficiency including small nuclear um, reactors
like ESG, right?
You're pretty heavy into ESG sustainability sustainability. But even just like how is energy going to get more efficient whether it's through nuclear whether it's through other things we can't do we can't uh you know power the grid particularly with AI and other things the way it's been powered in the past so that whole area unfortunately military you know technology is growing a lot you said you just went into the you went to the all-in saw Alex Karp of Palunteer talk yeah which was the the summit which my brother actually flew from Singapore to attend which is amazing. Um but uh you know I mean what did you learn what did you learn there like what are two or three takeaways that you could share? Yeah from the all in about emerging opportunities and and how is it how
do you think it intersects with real estate overall?
It's a super interesting question. Um I was I was supposed to reflect on this two days ago and I ended up not reflecting on it. So my weekend, my plan this weekend is to sit down and write some of my reflections, but some of the takeaways cuz I I saw Rick Caruso speak and he was talking about rebuilding and I know you were affected by the Palisades. I was super interested to understand how what he mentioned was basically that some of the technology that we're trying to accomplish plus regulations coming together to allow us to be more efficient in that is super exciting. And I think if people can get over their own like [clears throat] way, get out of their own way to let some of these things happen, we're going to be building things much quicker and much more efficient than ever before, which is interesting to me.
um from like a pure ma macro and and microeconomic perspective. What was interesting is there was the CEO or president of Eli Liy who is the big GLP-1 peptides stuff that just creation of that molecule itself has had a huge downstream effect on so many different industries from food tech to the drug manufacturing to insurance carriers to PBS or PRBs or something like that from the drugs. So, it was it was super interesting to see how really what it felt like is all of these different industries were because of AI being affected in different ways that they weren't expecting. And they're all kind of interconnected in a place that I never really had to think about because I was so focused on real estate. But like drug manufacturing kind of affects real estate in certain ways
and then war, you know, and military affects real estate in certain ways. And where the funny is with the government, it's all interconnected and interwoven. And it was really cool to see different people like there's a throughine throughout of it that I could start to put together being like, "Oh, wow. This is more than just this industry or this industry. It's everything is going to be changed and affected by this." Yeah. Did your brother mention anything to you?
I he he we talked a little bit. Well, he I told you about the Tulsi Gabber comment he made, but um one of I heard in a board meeting two days ago that the cold storage business is uh going under major change because people are eating less because GLP's How wild is that? Crazy. Like that it just the food storage business is suffering. Yeah. Because people are eating less.
Yeah.
in the in America, the GLP um add-on effect is just like incredible. Um the the the small nuclear reactor business and there's, you know, a half a dozen plus or I mean a dozen plus companies out there that are doing this can create an environment where you could put a data center anywhere anywhere. So think about that. Think about the value of real estate that has power right now. If you could duplicate that power in a with that kind of technology anywhere in the country, what does that mean for the data center industry? You know, those types of things are where you're marrying technology with real estate and seeing what the downstream effects are uh are so fascinating. And that's the whole thing about what we started the conversation like work harder
than everybody ga gain information be open-minded try to understand add-on effects for downstream effects of what certain things will do to the industry whether it's uh you know risks or opportunities because people kind of think the way they've always thought and I you know in Wall Street Journal or one of the in my newsfeed this morning with everybody thinks they're like oh I heard I'm like everybody has the same newsfeed everybody heard same thing at the same time. U they were talking about building modular, right? And how you just stack, you know, one one apartment on top of another in 60 days versus six months.
How is that going to affect the real estate market?
How much easier will it be to build? What's that going to do to to real estate regulations? U does it solve the housing crisis? You know, all of these things that and what's the downstream of solving the affordable housing crisis in the short run? you know, with with the homeless issue. I mean, a lot of that is substance abuse and mental issues. Um, but some of it is affordability certainly. So, how are all of these things and technologies, if we had to fast forward, what's the world going to look like in 20 years? And just taking time to imagine you opening up your newsfeed in 20 years, what's coming across?
What does that look like?
So, you know, we're in a really crazy crazy crazy time right now.
I want to um I want to go through I just want to talk to you about a couple of these points and get your thoughts on your 26 rules or or some of these and just tell me like the thought behind it. Okay. So, uh do things that I
know. I think the comment was something like avoid the temptation of doing things that I know nothing about. Something like that. Um like the shiny penny, you know, syndrome. It's like oh my that's that seems amazing. like I can make it too. [Laughter] I know it too well. You know it too well. So there's there's a book when I uh I I teach literacy sometimes in high school and I teach at UCLA as well called The Richest Man in Babylon. Every single person in the planet should read this book. Yeah. It's called it's about compounding interest. It's about oh I invested with a guy that knows nothing about X. I lost all my money. So, it's it's really sticking to the things where I bring some sort of a competitive advantage in the decision-m process because I understand something
is always an opportunity to like take a bet here and there, but understanding it's a bet. But yeah, do things that I know. Focus on things that I know a lot about. That's where I can bring
value. Focus. Um, keep a clean
environment. Um, yeah, just wake, you know, when you wake up and you're looking at your desk and it's piled with all kinds of crap, it's just mentally distracting. So, just making sure when you get in your car, it's clean and it it just clears the pathways in your brain to see things.
Does that make sense? To see patterns where Yeah. If you're if it's like this, if there's um if it's in disarray, there's a part of your brain that picks up on that disarray and you don't have the actual bandwidth to see maybe bigger pictures.
Is that we barely have the bandwidth with everything that's coming at us now? Yeah. So being messy is stimulus. It's just another It's a very avoidable um thing in your
life. Be the smartest person about my products and services. back to being informed, understanding the subtleties of something,
understanding. That's a good one.
I'm sure you you practice that yourself. Yes.
It's every day I try to uh it's a goal. It's not a it's not a it's not
anywhere you arrive to. It's it's somewhere you try to get to, you know, it's a
process. Speak well of
others. It's not always easy, but I think that just the karma, you know, I've won't get into it too much, but yeah. Uh I I try. Yes. And and I uh I think when other people don't practice that, it it downgrades them a lot. M it it takes them just it it it it kind of un un uh exp it exposes them to you know something they could be more than that. Mhm. So I think I try I'm not always perfect at it for sure.
But that's why these are like this is what you're trying to improve, right?
These are these are aspirations and they're not always perfect places, but they're they're things to shoot for to put on the front burner and say like these are these are some values that I
have.
Yeah.
I love that. Yeah. Have three boxes. Yes, no, and too tough.
That comes from Charlie Mer. Yeah.
Yeah. What what does that mean to you?
Um too much brain damage, too many things that can go wrong. you know, back to the okay, let's let's think about everything that could go wrong in this situation and how much time it's going to suck up. I've been in situations where one small innocuous decision that or something I missed or maybe some rule that changed later retroactively on something like wasted so much of my time and and and put me through so many and others too. I've seen it happen to lots of other people. put them through such a path of travel that was unnecessary that um I think it's really important to go okay what's the worst that can happen here and what am I missing and uh you know what this is just too much brain damage too hard I don't understand it it's like a complete roll of the
dice just move on and focus on something else and it's that way with people and it's that way with transactions you know sometimes you bring a lot of value from figuring out something that no one else can see or that's like you can figure out like a twist in something or you know looking at the prism from another side. Yeah. That's not the same thing as like you know oh this person has had this reputation and they no matter what like I'm not going to be any different Yeah. than anybody else who's dealt with them. If I if I think oh yeah it's too enticing just stay away.
I don't need to do it. Right. Finally, um before we wrap up, you've done many interviews, right? Is there a question you wish someone would ask you, but no one ever does?
Um I wish I would have prepped for that. I'd have to think about it a little bit.
Um we got
time. Yeah. I I don't know. Um I think how has a child changed you?
M how has a child h how has a child changed you?
Um I just realized that my behavior and my way of being and my decision making around um character and hard work and um persistence. how that example affects somebody else so much that's living with you and growing up as their brain is developing around you and how I really really try to be that person that's that is admired by my son not in an egotistical way but just some like how it informs him of how to be and he tells me so much I am so lucky to have you as my mom so lucky I you know I don't drink alcohol. I work out every day. I eat really well.
Um, we live a my husband and I live a very clean lifestyle. And as my son is in high school and he's around parties and things, he's like, "I am so happy that I've never seen you act a certain way." I can say that for very few of my friends. Mhm. Um, and I can go into a situation with open eyes and have the kind and I don't need to be like succumbing to peer pressure on certain things because I have you as an example. And when you're strong like that, people don't really try to push you into things. You're just like this way I am. And so I think it's just um I just try to set a really good example and it's just like an amazing love and connection that I you can't
get anywhere else and I feel so fortunate because I had my son when I was
43.
That's beautiful. Um so it's a very very cool experience for and I'm lucky that he's a great great great
kid. Well we Vicki we are very lucky to have you come and share all this knowledge. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much for coming on and I wish you all the amazing success and you are so on the right track at 29 years old doing what you're doing and uh having the courage to invite people in here and have conversations and creating like leveling the playing field between you and the people you're talking to and just creating that probably forever connection with people of having these conversations. So, thank you for inviting.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it. Absolutely.