Mastering the Growth Mindset

Irwin Boris (00:57.593)
Well, it's much better than the snow yesterday. So, you know, I woke up, I'm looking at the right side of the ground. So I guess it's good.

Irwin Boris (01:22.729)
Well, a big picture is, you know, my kids who are in high school and in college say to me, why do you keep going to these educational classes? You know, I said, well, you never stop learning. I said, I always want to be around people that I perceive to be that are smarter than me, even in different industries, because I like to learn. I'm inquisitive. And even though it might not be directly related to what I'm doing, I'd like to think I could take something and sort of craft it and use it for something that's, you know, more directly in my wheelhouse. So it's about...

always learning and growing in life. Otherwise it's really, what's the purpose?

Irwin Boris (03:37.341)
Well, I guess I like to tinker with things. I like, even when I was younger, I like to take things apart and try to put them back together. Sometimes you always had leftover parts. And it started in high school at auto shop and I had an old Oldsmobile, I used to take it apart. I'm like, God, I guess they didn't need that. The car still runs. But because of that inquisitiveness, it's always about trying to figure out, you know, how things run, why they run, what's the science behind them.

And I think, you know, even in the business world, you wanna understand other people's point of views because, you know, maybe you'll change yours, maybe you won't change your point of view, but at least you can stand in somebody else's shoes and look at things from another perspective. And I think that's part of what growth is, is being able to see things from multiple angles. And I think it's really helped me, you know, drive forward and continue to, you know, relate to people from different walks of life.

Irwin Boris (07:23.269)
Well, I think to some extent they go hand in hand. It's about balancing your schedule and your life. Uh, you, because you can't stop growing and learning in order to do operations. Um, so I'd like to think that I'm able to sort of incorporate both, uh, together by learning, I'm able to streamline operations and make them work better from what I am learning. And sometimes there are things that aren't, that are working well that I could talk about.

while I'm learning and relating with others on what they're seeing and how they see operations. So I always ask people, you know, what's going on in their office, what they like, what they don't like, you know, whether they're in real estate like I am, whether they're in other operating businesses, you know, people, you know, places, things. Like when we look at acquiring real estate, I know a tenant could always move to another building. So I really wanna find out about the people, you know, what's your sense of community? You know, what's the average tenure?

How far is their commute? So I'm sort of like figuring out what goes on in the operations of the business to make a decision whether I think they're gonna be a good tenant long-term. So, and I bring a lot of that back home and I think about my own people, how long are they here? What drives them? If I moved 30 miles, would I have to replace them? So I think that it's a real-time learning exercise that goes into the operational excellence.

Irwin Boris (08:53.349)
Well, it was kind of interesting. I guess really I started asking more questions in the last five years. And it was just something I stumbled upon where I met a facilities manager who was telling me about this sense of community and how great his people were. And I'm like, God, you know, I never thought about, you know, as a business owner, you know, sometimes it's in a small business, everybody's like family anyway.

But here you have a business that employs 400 people or 500 people sometimes, if it's a distribution center, and just listening to the way you talk about your sense of family. And I thought that was a good mindset, a good test to see if a tenant was going to be there long term or not. How sticky are they? Can they move easily? You know, if you think about it, if you move your office 40 miles away, are you going to have to re-tenant?

I mean, restaff because your people don't want to change their commute if they can get the same job down the road. And so it's sort of evolved over time. And it gave me a better appreciation for the people that actually work in these businesses where before, you know, you're a finance guy and everything's all about the numbers, but you really need to understand what goes in to make those numbers work and to make those numbers better.

Irwin Boris (12:20.89)
you

Irwin Boris (15:21.862)
Okay.

Irwin Boris (15:33.001)
Well, it's, you know, people, well, comp is one aspect of it. It's also about quality of life. People want a certain, uh, balance between home life, work life. And in our business, a lot of it is eat what you kill. So people know that we have a foundation that you can build upon. And the upside is really infinite, including, you know, equity participation in the projects. Uh, so that also keeps people.

interested, the fact that they know they're going to get a piece of the upside in the deal, whether it's a roll-up or an up-read or an outright sale, they can participate in that. People generally want to do well, they want to succeed, and they also have to know that their work is appreciated, that they're adding value to the enterprise as a whole. We have a lot of people that have been with us for many, many years. I don't know whether that's good or that's bad.

Maybe a little of both, but I guess it doesn't bring in new blood and new ideas. But on the other hand, it's continuity. You know, they're trustworthy. You trust them, they trust you. You know, you have each other's back. Because, you know, sometimes if everything is too radical, the business fails. It changes too fast. But they all have a vision.

Irwin Boris (16:50.449)
Is that time out or something?

Monte Clark (16:56.574)
Sorry, there we go. Sorry, gentlemen. I am not... Steve, would you look and tell me on your screen if you are showing that your data is uploading? At the top of the screen. Yes, it says that.

Irwin Boris (16:59.697)
That's alright.

Monte Clark (17:21.934)
okay good over excuse me on my end for some reason it's showing me 0% I just wanted to make sure go ahead and I'm sorry for interrupting your thought Herman go ahead and continue with

Irwin Boris (17:36.173)
No, no, as I was saying, it's all about mutual trust and being everybody wanting to get to the same end place. And it's been working for many years. If it's not broken, I'm not fixing it. We do occasionally interview people when we have an opening and we look for people from totally different company backgrounds. Some people, especially with accounting or asset management, I might look for somebody that has a slightly different background than 100% real estate because I want to see another viewpoint.

on what we're doing and maybe there's something more operationally or technology wise that we could use. You know, because otherwise most of the stuff I do is on the back of a napkin. You know, it's worked so far, but you know, it's what I know how to do.

Irwin Boris (18:51.353)
No, well, we do we do allow and we encourage people to attend industry conference, whether technology conferences, asset management conferences, just to see what new technology is out there, what other people are doing. And to the extent that they think that's something they can bring home. Like we just spent a huge amount on a whole new management system. Two years ago, it's something we never thought about doing. We're using some you know, software from the dinosaur age.

And you know, it was expensive and with some learning pickups, but it works great. Uh, and now I'm sorry, we didn't buy more modules that go on to it, which we're now looking into because the, you know, if it's making your life easier, you got to embrace it, uh, and especially if you want to continue to scale.

Irwin Boris (20:12.937)
Correct.

Irwin Boris (21:26.569)
Thanks for watching!

Irwin Boris (21:57.393)
Yeah.

Irwin Boris (22:02.065)
No, we're open 24 hours a day to the extent that the third party property manager we expect that to deal with notify us and call the appropriate people. I'm on calls typically because we deal with people all around the world, you know, at six o'clock, seven o'clock Eastern time, because people are in the West Coast. And then again, early in the morning for people who are in Europe or in the Middle East. So and even on weekends, we have calls occasionally if there's an active project going on. So

People understand that I might give you some flexibility if you want to be remote one two days a week But when I need information from you, I can't get it on the server. You better be available. Tell me where you filed it

Irwin Boris (22:59.589)
No, of course. Of course, you know, I don't mind if you want to be remote one day. We heck, you know, I, uh, some days I don't feel like getting out of bed and, you know, this is, although I don't have to get dressed up for the office anyway, but, uh, but in the summer I wear shorts. I don't really care. Uh, but if you want flexibility where you want the latitude of potentially working, uh, remote a day or two a week, then you have to have flexibility for me. I may call you after hours. I may, you know, be working on something on the weekend that I need help with and you're going to be available.

Irwin Boris (23:53.445)
Well, I understand what you're saying. And yeah, they expect to make a million dollars their first year with no job experience. They all want that. But you gotta pay your dues. And so they have to understand that you get out, you reap what you sow. And you go back to the old farmer's adage. And so they understand that they're gonna pay your dues, you're gonna put the time in, and in time, you really will be rewarded. There's no free lunches.

Irwin Boris (26:56.769)
I think a lot of these, my own kids included, grow up having it easy because of all the hard work that we as parents and grandparents, especially if they were immigrants, laid forth the groundwork. And I tell my kids the story of my grandmother who was deported twice as she smuggled herself before the Holocaust. And how they used to open the mail, they used to cut the envelopes all around to make scrap paper.

you know, that was scrap paper. And even now, if they print, you know, 30 pages on the printer, I'll cut it in half and you know, put a binder clip on it for scrap paper in the house. When they're throwing it all in the garbage, it's like they don't have appreciation for how money is made. And I think some of that comes from school. Like I have a license in New Jersey to teach high school, to teach financial, anything to do with finance, accounting, financial literacy.

And I substituted one time in a financial literacy class, and we were talking about banking systems. And I'm in the classroom and I'm just trying to get a sense. These are kids that are 14, 15, 16, nobody had a checking account, nobody had a debit card, nobody understood what money was or what banks even did. And I think if kids had some kind of financial literacy training and understood money and why the importance of making money and saving it at a much younger age.

they have a different focus when they got into the workplace, that they knew there was a goal. It was financial freedom. It was saving for my retirement. It was buying a house. It wasn't necessarily about me and my free time and my friends and social media, but there was a financial purpose that was driving me to do all these things and how eventually I would get rewarded for my hard work.

Irwin Boris (29:01.001)
Exactly.

Irwin Boris (31:55.337)
Thanks for watching!

Monte Clark (32:17.054)
Guys, I'm having a technical problem. What I'm getting from Riverside is they had an update, and it's caused a problem with something. So Morty, what I'd like you to do, will you please exit the room and join back in with the link that I sent you?

Monte Clark (32:37.17)
Guys, you can stay on with me real quick.

Irwin Boris (32:51.169)
No, I think we did. The quality of the kids these days, and they have great figure dexterity, that I'll give them. That they get A pluses in, but it doesn't help the work environment.

Mordy Hackel (33:08.175)
How are we doing here?

Irwin Boris (33:10.341)
You know, and everyone walks around with their phone with selfies and pictures, and whether it's the workplace, their private life, and it's like, look, less, less than we know is better.

Monte Clark (33:10.858)
Okay, we're.

Greg W (33:22.275)
Just know you guys are coming at my generation by the way. So I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Mordy Hackel (33:27.292)
We're not coming at anybody, Greg.

Irwin Boris (33:27.883)
No, I understand that.

Mordy Hackel (33:34.684)
By the way, just to point out, Greg is a professional lacrosse player and he can beat the living daylights out of all of us. Just saying. So you know.

Monte Clark (33:44.099)
I can't do this well because this is wrong. We might forget, but it's going to get pretty good.

Greg W (33:45.22)
Yeah, I Can't do the flow because this is as long as my hair will get until it turns into the most curly hair You'll ever see I can't even put my helmet on It's insanity

Monte Clark (33:57.043)
Greg, why don't you stay on the call and join in the conversation?

Irwin Boris (34:00.017)
Yeah, but Greg is used to all this new high-tech equipment. I got an old-fashioned, you know, Brazilian cherry hardware depot that if I hit you with it, you're going to know you got hit with it more so than one of those fiberglass poles.

Greg W (34:12.279)
That's true Erwin. Erwin that was uh, I want to say middle school for me is when they banned the wooden shafts And I just remember carrying it and you could barely even hold it. It was so heavy now. They're like a pound

Irwin Boris (34:22.941)
But it was good because if you could use that for practice, you could be able to whip that stick around on the field in a game.

Greg W (34:28.323)
Oh yeah.

Mordy Hackel (34:30.12)
Nice.

Greg W (34:32.785)
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

Mordy Hackel (34:33.252)
All right, so Greg, you're staying on the call. Is that what's going on?

Greg W (34:38.221)
I can, you guys were free flowing.

Greg W (34:46.123)
Yeah, I think I'll stay on and let you guys talk if there's anything from my from my opinion I'll share just to kind of defend my My my other Millennials just in case

Mordy Hackel (34:59.648)
I actually wanted to take that in a slightly different direction and that is, you know, the responsibility of leadership. Meaning like, if the younger generation is in fact dealing with a lack of proper leaders.

who are not able to articulate a good vision, not able to get them to buy into a mission, not able to help them understand why they should do this. And all they're getting from social media, as Erwin pointed out, is some other nonsense that they don't really understand or want or deal with. And they look at all these little reels that say, just do this and here's an Amazon trick to make a million dollars a month. And everyone's like, yeah, why don't I just do that? Like...

I don't know, why don't I do that? You know, the question becomes like, right. But, but how many of those are, are actually succeeding? What? 2%, 1%? I mean, it's gotta be, right. It's gotta be a tiny little percent of the people who are succeeding, just like in any other business, you know? And the more we talk about the inability of people to embrace growth and change.

Greg W (35:47.445)
Yeah.

Irwin Boris (35:58.877)
Very few.

Mordy Hackel (36:14.688)
and balance that against operational excellence. So what exactly are we dealing with? Because we would be looking at people who otherwise, I think Steve was the one who said this, like really put their head in the sand. Reality isn't what it is. They think it's something else. And they kind of like, I don't know, just pretend that they're going through emotions that don't really have impact on any level. I don't know. Sorry for soapboxing on that one.

Greg W (36:39.287)
Okay.

Mordy Hackel (36:45.118)
Okay.

Mordy Hackel (37:44.84)
Steve, maybe I'll.

Mordy Hackel (38:05.224)
maybe elaborate on either a story of somewhere where you've sniffed it out or some other questions that you tend to ask in order to determine whether or not.

Mordy Hackel (39:32.017)
Erwin, what do you think? What are your experiences?

Irwin Boris (39:34.081)
I, you know, leadership is important, but I think people want to work. They also have to want to learn. They have to want to adapt. They, especially if you have no work experience, don't tell me you know a better way, uh, where everybody wants to, you know, change the world out of school versus something they learned out of a textbook, you know, I think they should just stop with half those textbooks because they have no bearing on the real world. All they are basic framework that guidelines, it's not gospel, you know, even, even in law school, it's all just.

It doesn't mean that in the law operates in different shades of grade, depending on who your counsel is or the judge is. I think people have to understand that. If there's something that you could tell me you had a real life experience and I can relate to it, then I might say, oh, this is kind of interesting. Yeah, maybe we can work this in over time, but let's see how you do it my way first before you try to suggest it your way.

Mordy Hackel (40:28.728)
Yeah, and it's incredibly interesting that you noted that both now and before that the educational system may be actually failing the young generations. Because if we're not teaching them, I mean, Balancing One's checkbook, if you have a program for it, is no longer the skill that you need, but household budgeting? Who doesn't need a household budget process?

Irwin Boris (40:52.625)
Yeah, exactly.

Mordy Hackel (41:03.304)
I'm sorry, Steve, say that again. How do you teach what?

Mordy Hackel (41:22.741)
No.

Mordy Hackel (41:37.234)
Yeah.

Mordy Hackel (41:42.312)
To me, the differentiator there is the extracurriculars. Are you a member of a group that serves like the military? Are you a leader for youth where like the scouts, do you need to teach? Do you need to be responsible for other people? Do you need to have learned? Were you a counselor in camp? Did you need to be responsible for kids making sure that they...

cleaned up after themselves and didn't kill each other quite literally, like, you know, that's to me, that's to me true mind-opening leadership, particularly for the places that really care and do well.

Mordy Hackel (42:28.473)
Hmm?

Mordy Hackel (42:45.956)
Yeah, you know, we're joined here by Greg, who's the producer of the show. He jumped in and Greg is, you know, going to potentially have some interesting perspectives, especially because he's got a few less gray hairs than, than the rest of us do. Greg, maybe just throw in some observations about school. And what do you think is being taught is not being taught should be taught? And, you know, as somebody who plays, you know, organized sports, what do you think about, you know, the comments that Stephen made earlier?

Greg W (43:05.129)
Oh.

Greg W (43:13.811)
Yeah, I look at it from two perspectives. One, I-

I think that there is a motivational aspect where people of my age, they don't want to work as hard. And I think that is due to our, you know, just prevalence in technology. We grew up with it. And you know, I always like to say like the greatest generation are those the World War II guys, you know, everyone thinks of them as just the hardest working guys. But you know, we were I was born in 1996. There's nothing I can do about that.

Greg W (43:47.777)
kind of forced me into organized sports and forced me to learn how to work hard. And if you have to wake up at 430 in the morning to work out, then you do. But I'd say one percent of my generation will honestly even do that. And in terms of kind of you guys were talking earlier about how they expect a million dollars their first year, it's almost and I hate to say it about my generation, there isn't really a respect for authority anymore. I, you know, going to college, I was 18 and my college, the cross coach kind of ran it.

in a military style, you know, we had 430 a.m. practices four days a week. So if you talked back, if you did anything of that sense, you're running and it's kind of you learn, there is one man in charge, if you start a job, that person of authority is, you know, your authority. You understand what they say and you do what they say and you do it to the best of your ability, but that's just not what's being taught anymore. You know, it's kind of being taught that you use technology to get through the hard stuff

that, you know, that's not your fault, you know, we'll do better. It's nothing tailored towards you anymore. It's just kind of trying to get kids through a system. It's not necessarily trying to help them.

Mordy Hackel (44:58.215)
You're the...

Mordy Hackel (46:00.445)
Hmm.

Mordy Hackel (46:47.08)
Steve, I like what you're saying and I'll go back to something you said a couple of minutes ago and that is the challenging of authority through knowledge. You know, it's something that I heard when I was probably in high school, maybe early college, a friend of mine who went to prep school used to say that the way they would go back and challenge their teacher was they would pick some author that it was likely that the teacher had not read and said, but doesn't Dostoevsky say something different?

And at some point they would pick some author that the teacher had to admit, well, I have not read, you know, author X, Y, Z. And then, but with today with Google and then all credibility has disappeared. But today with Google, you can find any information that you could possibly want. So maybe Erwin can take us away a little bit about, you know, how do you bridge the gap between the difference between.

Infinite knowledge, which is what we have, and maybe if one could say that wisdom is the ability to apply that knowledge intelligently, contextually, being able to understand how to use it properly.

Irwin Boris (47:55.585)
Well, I don't think we have infinite knowledge and wisdom because we're always learning but I You know if I did I wouldn't be on this call. I've got an island somewhere

Mordy Hackel (48:06.6)
What do you mean? You totally wanted to be on this call. You don't know. You for sure wanted to be on this call.

Irwin Boris (48:14.512)
No, no, I probably would still be on the call, but I'd be a little, I'd be really full of myself and you know, you would have to be able to get a word in. That was the case. But I, you know, we all, it's a learning process. And I think we, as we take it in, we have to be able to relate to other generations to try to instill upon them the knowledge and the wisdom.

especially in the financial sector or even in real estate. You look at what's going on now with all the mounting walls of maturities and potential defaults. And when you talk to some of these people who are out of grad school, they may be 30 years old or in their 30s. And they're like, what do you mean interest rates aren't going to drop next week? They have to. Look at Blackstone and Starwood. They have trillions of dollars of real estate.

They're going to lose money. I'm like, well, you know, so not everybody makes money all the time. Some people have to lose for others to make. And there's a cycle. It's about how aggressive you are in your assumptions, either with life, with finance, with budgeting, uh, which really ends up rewarding people. You know, it's not always, you know, the, the hair doesn't beat the tortoise very few times in the long term. Does the hair win over the tortoise? And it's getting people to really understand cycles that they haven't seen.

and to maybe try to educate them so they can at one point be a smarter person in the room.

Mordy Hackel (49:40.668)
Steve, what do you think?

Mordy Hackel (49:49.48)
Okay, well that's certainly fine. I will just note that we are starting to come up on the hour and maybe Greg has just a couple of other ideas on, you know, maybe from the young person's perspective and how would you and or your peers wish to learn from people who have been around the block once or twice?

Greg W (50:12.491)
Well, I think it's kind of twofold in the sense where people are going to have to start to understand that The new generation isn't the same as you know when you guys were 27 It's different. It's vastly different right and you're right. I do have Yeah You know

Irwin Boris (50:27.725)
I can't even remember back that far.

Mordy Hackel (50:34.596)
Yeah, it's really both. Yeah.

Greg W (50:36.703)
But yeah, it's it is and it's like there's certain situations where

I am lucky where I get to kind of look something up on my phone. If I were to be speaking to Steve for the first time and I'm blanking right now on who he had worked for and I should have done my preparation the night before but I can all of a sudden go and look right away, if you guys had done that, you're going into that blank and I'm blessed with that opportunity so I don't have to work as hard in that situation. But what people my age have to learn is that you're not always going to be saved by technology.

where you use the technology as a resource instead of using it as your backup plan, then you'll actually kind of succeed. And if you do wake up at 6 a.m. to go grind, and as everyone said, you gotta put in your hours, everyone did. When I was working in medical device, it was 90 hours a week because the guys before you did that. When I was a freshman on the lacrosse team, I was staying after to clean up all the balls and even do the laundry because the guys before you did that.

You know if you're gonna complain then you're not gonna have a place anywhere. So there's a certain level of my favorite line is just picking yourself up by your own bootstraps like people at my age need to learn that No one's gonna save you at 27. It's it's not college and That is something that they need to really start teaching whether You start in middle school high school or obviously at college You got to teach kids that the real world is not nice and it's not great

learn to be tough and you better learn to get knocked down and get back up.

Irwin Boris (52:16.461)
I think we've got to take all these young people and stick them on an island where there's no cellular data, no wifi, and take away their phones and their Netflix and their Amazon streaming and let them actually talk to people and learn how to communicate. It is a big deal.

Mordy Hackel (52:16.477)
Thank you.

Mordy Hackel (52:30.928)
Big deal.

Mordy Hackel (53:38.08)
Yeah, and you know, on our next podcast, or maybe the next time we discuss this, because this was certainly fascinating and I'm sure we can go for at least another hour, and Monty will probably be not happy about that one. So, but on that note, I wanted to say that there's probably a little bit of abundance, or maybe even overabundance, that is part and parcel of the same issue. Meaning like, you know, there's been studies done about the children of alcoholics, you know.

some of which become alcoholics themselves, and others which utterly and completely reject that lifestyle choice, addiction, call it whatever it is. I'm not a doctor, nor do I purport to know much about this, other than the fact that different generations respond to the circumstances of their birth very differently. And is that genetic? Is that a decision? Where did that come from? How does one go about, you know, putting themselves in everything we talked about?

having the right attitude, having the right education, putting yourself in a learning mindset, assuming that the responsibility begins and ends with you, and making sure that if the world knocks you down, you pick yourself up by the bootstraps. It's not the end of the world, frankly, it's a learning experience. So those, I think, are interesting topics for further conversation. And, you know, Monty, should we continue or we're wrapping up? What do you think?

Irwin Boris (55:04.018)
I got a hard stop at that two o'clock when a conference call comes in. So.

Mordy Hackel (55:09.429)
I want to...

Monte Clark (55:09.649)
Yeah, you can go ahead.

Mordy Hackel (55:12.584)
Go ahead, Greg.

Greg W (55:15.059)
No, great job.

Mordy Hackel (55:15.556)
No, I was gonna just say, so I wanna thank Erwin, I wanna thank Steve for joining me today for Adventures in Visionaries podcast. It was a great conversation around the growth and even the leadership mindset. So appreciate you both and look forward to speaking to you again soon.

Monte Clark (55:16.798)
I want to just say, I want to, I want to.

Irwin Boris (55:21.15)
My pleasure.

Irwin Boris (55:33.341)
No, this was fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Greg W (55:36.495)
Guys from, guys from Monty and I's perspective, I'm speaking for Monty, it sounded so, it was great. Like I was truly listening and engaged the entire time. So, awesome.

Monte Clark (55:36.686)
Okay, guys.