I put out the Bat-Signal. I reached out to all my friends, family, and people I’ve done business with. And I asked them…
What are some of the lessons you learned in 2021?
We all know how crazy 2021 was, there had to be some good things that came out of the year. So what are some of the things you learned from the past year?
Everything from the government to self-improvement, we have distilled all of the best advice!
We will talk about these things…and more in another episode of Multifamily Investing Made Simple.
Tweetable Quotes:
“Before you can lead a company or anything, you have to first be able to motivate and hold yourself accountable” – Anthony Vicino
“That that should be kind of the foundation of things for people is really just self-improvement every day.” – Dan Krueger
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** Transcripts
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:13] Hello and welcome to multifamily investing made simple, this is the podcast where we take the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can take action today. I’m your host, Anthony Vecino of Invictus Capital, joined by the one. The only the man, the myth, the legend Dan. One word answer Kruger. Yes.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:30] Affirmative. One word answers, we’re going to make this an efficient episode. We got a ton of content to get through.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:36] We should try an episode already deviating. We should try an episode one of these days where I say a word. Then you say a word and we just keep building for 20 minutes straight.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:45] That is going to get, well, see where
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:46] It takes us. There’s a game, right? Like that.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:49] Kids play something like that. You just, yeah, you got to follow it. I don’t know what that is. We should do that. I want to play that game to be entertaining right now. Ok.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:56] Ok. 15 seconds. 15 seconds. Can we do it for 15? I just want to try.
Dan Krueger: [00:01:01] So I have to associate.
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:02] I got. No, I got to. I’ll throw out a word and then you add a word to it and we’ll create. We’ll create a sentence. Ok, ready. The man.
[00:01:11] Went to. Fiji with. The.
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:18] Dog who was paying.
Dan Krueger: [00:01:24] Then we did it. Wow, well, that did not end the way I wanted it to, I got peed on.
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:32] God, we have fun here. Ok, guys, let’s talk about real estate. Today we’re going to actually, we’re not really even talking about real estate today. Today’s lesson or today’s podcast is going to be a retrospective. A look back on the year that was 2021. At the end of the year, I texted a bunch of friends, investors, business people, people that I just generally look up to. And I was like, Hey, what’s the number one lesson that you learned in Twenty Twenty One? And I got a bunch of really good answers, some really bad ones, but we’re not going to read those ones. And that’s what we’re going to pack today because I think there’s there’s value in learning from the collective. And so hopefully we can bring our collection to you guys and you can learn a little bit from us, from our network, from us. Do you
Dan Krueger: [00:02:16] Remember what my response was that
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:17] Yeah, it was so bad. I deleted it instantaneously. And Lee? Yeah, that’s like that word. It was bad. I mean,
Dan Krueger: [00:02:24] I bring bad advice. I bring speaking of bad. I just like bad things.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:29] I’m feeling a Segway here. Yeah, yeah. Do you guys, you guys at home, you feel that tingling sensation? That is the
Dan Krueger: [00:02:37] Bad information coming.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:38] That’s the bad info train coming in to. Then is a conductor. He’s wearing his little overalls with stripes. He’s covered in coal and he’s ready. So, you
Dan Krueger: [00:02:51] Know, this is not really what’s happening. I’m wearing a hoodie with a white T-shirt
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:56] Looking very crisp, very
Dan Krueger: [00:02:57] Clean. Overalls are in the car.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:59] Fine ruin the metaphor and the imagery. Give us your bad advice, would you?
Dan Krueger: [00:03:04] All right. All right. All right. Inflation, well, we’ve all heard about bad. It’s bad. It’s going up. It’s going up, up, up, up, up. It’s hot. What does that mean? Your money is losing money. Your money is losing value very rapidly. You hear us talk about this all the time. I hate cash. It’s like ice cream on a hot day. You can’t get rid of a quick enough, right? You’ve got to be invested
Anthony Vicino: [00:03:27] With ice cream on a hot day. Sounds awesome. No, it’s melting. Oh, it’s melting. Ok? Ok. I just wanted to be clear
Dan Krueger: [00:03:32] It’s disappearing into nothingness. That’s what’s happening to your cash because it’s
Anthony Vicino: [00:03:36] Getting all my fingers are sticky
Dan Krueger: [00:03:38] Now. Yeah. So I mean, you got to invest in something that’s going to respond well to inflation, meaning it’s going to go up in value as inflation increases because cash is losing purchasing power. That’s my bad advice.
Anthony Vicino: [00:03:51] That wasn’t even advice you just started hating on inflation and ice cream.
Dan Krueger: [00:03:55] Yeah, you invest. That was
Anthony Vicino: [00:03:56] Nothing. Did you make it bad? I might have missed it best.
Dan Krueger: [00:04:01] Oh, I missed that part that respond well to.
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:04] I’ll be honest, I really just kind of like I blacked out and just started hearing white noise when you said ice cream on a hot day. Big, bad. And it’s like I just was fixated on ice cream. Ok, so invest in assets that are inflationary hedges. Yeah, OK, so stop listening to this podcast, which is all about multifamily real estate investing and historically a fantastic inflationary hedge because Dan wants you to go invest in ice cream. Could be. Why are we not investing in inflationary hedge assets?
Dan Krueger: [00:04:36] Well, the reason that’s bad advice is that sometimes you don’t know what to invest in, and that advice implies that you need to be in. You need to have your money allocated somewhere. Got to get it. There are so many people that don’t know what the heck they should be doing. It’s a very confusing time. Things are changing. And so that advice is bad because it encourages people to just jump into things before they really fully understand what they’re investing in, or they really even understand the paradigm they’re in with inflation and how to how to navigate that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:05:03] You got a saying around these parts. What is it? It’s no deal is better than a bad deal.
Dan Krueger: [00:05:09] Exactly. That’s where I was going with it because sometimes the best thing to do is nothing and this came up over and over again. Sydney recommended a book last week called A Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green, and it’s a great book and it’s a book about all your past. Chapter two Yeah. Yeah, actually. Dang, OK. Good.
Anthony Vicino: [00:05:26] Good, good. Stayed good. Stayed good. Nice.
Dan Krueger: [00:05:28] Ok, well, each chapter is kind of an interview with some sort of financial guru. All right. This guy was a journalist, a financial journalist for twenty-five plus years. And so he’s talked to all the greats out there, and one of the big reoccurring themes across all these people was sometimes you just don’t do anything, you just sit and you wait. And that’s investing in sitting and waiting, doing nothing, not actively putting money into things, but just watching, waiting.
Anthony Vicino: [00:05:52] Well, I haven’t read this book, but is it kind of like mistakes millionaires make?
Dan Krueger: [00:05:56] No, no. Wizards of Wall Street.
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:03] How about Alison, I’m just stirring up books that the
Dan Krueger: [00:06:05] Wizards won, I think he’s got the name
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:07] The NASCAR Wizards,
Dan Krueger: [00:06:10] Hedge fund Wizards, Wall Street Wizards.
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:13] There’s a bunch of wizards, a bunch of stuff, but is similar to that concept.
Dan Krueger: [00:06:16] It’s the exact same thing. It’s just each chapter is effectively an interview. Ok. And it’s I love that
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:21] Those other books are really good too. By the way, they are the wizard books, whatever they’re called, and the mistakes that millionaires make
Dan Krueger: [00:06:26] ‘s what they’re called because we’ve got hedge funds. You get the original one was the market wizards. Then it was like new market wizards because he wrote the same book, like ten years later, and then
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:35] You got to get that cash grab and every decade,
Dan Krueger: [00:06:37] Unknown market wizards. And the guy basically was just writing a book in a podcast format or podcast existed. That’s effectively what they are. Amazing. Both good. Recommend them enough. Very good. Very good. Especially if you’re into like the public markets and not real estate, but like stock stuff, not market wizards.
Anthony Vicino: [00:06:53] Don’t care. All. Dan, you just got a little flush. I’m excited. Ok, good. Ok. All right. Let’s segue way back to real estate and away from the stocks and the way from whatever it was that we were talking about before the ice cream inflation. I don’t want to hear about inflation anymore, and I just can’t make it a day anymore without talking about inflation because it’s important and terrible and all that stuff. But let’s talk about something more exciting. 2021 2021 was a better year than 2020, but was it? Was it by much? It’s hard to say so.
Dan Krueger: [00:07:26] It’s different.
Anthony Vicino: [00:07:27] So let’s reflect on some of the lessons learned in twenty twenty-one. This one comes from my buddy Mack Mack Benson Mack Truck Benson, who I know actually listens to this podcast. So if you’re listening to this Mac, it’s for you, buddy. He says always trust the government to have your best interest than their heart. That one’s obviously tongue in cheek, and I think I think it has something to agree with this. My guess is it has a lot to do with the COVID stuff, but I think there is something here which is I do not think that generally, the government does have your best interest at heart. I really don’t. I think they’re trying, but there’s always like this divorce between intention and result. And I think if we learned anything in 2021 from the rent control policy that went into effect in St. Paul. And that’s not the government’s fault, per se. That’s the other people, but what are your thoughts? Pro-government, anti-government? Neither should we be right in the streets. No. Or should we just go lay in the sheets?
Dan Krueger: [00:08:33] Yes. Now here’s my thought is we’ve talked about this concept a lot on this podcast, and it’s always it always comes down to you. Follow the money and you follow the incentive of the incentives, like, what is this person getting out of X, Y and Z? So in the case of the government, right? What are they trying to get in most instances, reelected? Right. That’s kind of the bottom line for them is they’re going to do what’s in their best interest. They want to get reelected, they want to have a good career and they want to make their own money. And it’s not really starting with what’s the best thing for Joe the Plumber over here. It’s what can I do for my political career and how can I make that work in a way that looks like it’s in everyone else’s best interests? I think that’s kind of a lot of the logic you get with government is it attracts people that that are. Seeking power, right, and those types of people are going to behave in a fairly selfish way, for the most part.
Anthony Vicino: [00:09:31] Well, it ties into we always talk about Naval Ravikant in one of our favorite phrases from him is play long term games with long term people to a problem with government is generally they’re incentivized to play short term games. Yeah, and
Dan Krueger: [00:09:42] Think about a four-year time.
Anthony Vicino: [00:09:43] Exactly. So I think that’s great. Thanks, Mac, for phoning in. We will send you a thank you mug. Do we have a Mac? Only if you’re listening to this and text me afterward, like, where’s my mug? Are you going to get your mug? Just so you know, we got to get a mug. All right. So next up is this is actually a really good one. This so I started coaching in twenty and twenty-one for Jake and Geno because I just I think to to to level up and get really good at something like, you have to first learn it, then you have to do it, then you have to teach it. I think teaching is like the grand escalation of your skills because by teaching you learn to like all the ways that you really suck at something. So I started coaching. It’s been a lot of fun. One of the guys that I coached his name is Wyatt, and he’s super badass like a young guy who’s just crushing him. And his advice is, in order to be a great leader, you have to lead yourself. It’s like, wow, it’s actually really good. I don’t he’s like in his mid-20s. Like, really insightful. Really good.
Dan Krueger: [00:10:42] In order to be a great leader, you have to lead yourself. Mm hmm.
Anthony Vicino: [00:10:46] And it’s true. Like I was thinking about the book, Peter Drucker wrote, which is called Managing Oneself Where you before you can lead a group of people, before you can lead a company or anything like you have to first be able to motivate and hold yourself accountable, discipline yourself and like, get the work done like. And that’s we talk about entrepreneurship a lot and how it’s great. But honestly, it’s really hard. Like, if you can’t, you can’t hold yourself accountable and manage yourself. Like, Good luck.
Dan Krueger: [00:11:10] Yeah, I think there’s a minority of people who are good at that by default and don’t need to, like, work on it actively. It’s very rare that someone’s going to be very, very self-aware and very self-motivated. So I think it’s actually really I to kind of think about it for a little bit, but I think it makes a lot of sense because like, that’s not a common attribute. And there’s so many people, I think especially over the last few years, it’s been a mass movement towards kind of the entrepreneurial thing that that that that word is like on a pedestal these days. And oh, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a business owner.
Anthony Vicino: [00:11:44] So I’m a I’m a serial entrepreneur. This is in my bio. So like, I’m that guy.
Dan Krueger: [00:11:50] Yeah, I know you are the process visionary, too.
Anthony Vicino: [00:11:52] I’m a visionary.
Dan Krueger: [00:11:54] So here’s the deal. I think a lot of people are attracted to the idea of being an entrepreneur because of how it’s like, portrayed in society right now. But it’s really, actually like a ton of work. It’s really hard, and usually it’s not very rewarding for a very long time. And so I think there’s a lot of people getting attracted to being business owners and entrepreneurs, but they’re not they don’t have the goods to really do it right. At least, I mean, maybe they can be a consultant. I’m just. Do their own thing, but if you want to have a team of people, you’ve got to
Anthony Vicino: [00:12:21] Got a lot. It’s a lot. It’s hard, it’s hard work, guys. It is worth it. It is worth it, but it’s hard. All right. This next one comes from my boy, Jeff. Jeff is a bad ass. He is president. I’m not going to say his last name out of respect to his privacy. Up up, he’s about as CEO. Yeah, the other. Jeff is a bad CEO. Both bad ass CEOs. All the Jeff’s. We know he’s also an investor in many of our deals, just like the other Jeff. So but this one is there is a lot here, and but I’m just going to distill it down to one sentence, which I thought is really good. It is. Communication is a message sent and a message received. And so often, like we’re talking about this before the show that so often the mistake with communication is that we send the message and we think therefore communication is as happened. But unless it’s received, it’s like, doesn’t matter. Talking about a wall?
Dan Krueger: [00:13:17] Yeah, no. I think it’s a really interesting concept because it’s one thing to to say a thing when you have the context of what’s in your mind and like, you know what you mean, but the person on the receiving end, they have no idea what’s in your brain. They don’t have that context. So it’s very likely that the things you’re saying are being received differently than they were intended. So this is something that comes up in every aspect of life, relationships, business, everything. So and we talk about all the time communications like really important. If you can nail that down, you’re going to be good in life. And so that’s an important thing to remember. I think a lot of us, especially in like the digital age, when you’re sending texts and emails and stuff, like you don’t really get that confirmation of like, was to this land, do they? How did
Anthony Vicino: [00:13:59] It landed?
Dan Krueger: [00:14:00] Yeah, I wanted it to be understood. So assume not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s a very good little
Anthony Vicino: [00:14:06] And a good rule of thumb when it comes to like communication or misreading communications and other people is always assumed ignorance, not malice. This came out the other day because a broker was shirking this guy around and I was like, Just assume the guy. The guy is an idiot, not evil. And it’s the same as when you’re in traffic and the guy cuts you off. Just assume he’s an idiot, not an asshole. Right? You’re going to serve yourself way better in life than just assuming everybody’s out to get you or they are doing it. To be a jerk is largely people. They get busy. Things happen. They get distracted. Like, we all have our moments of stupidity. So just cut them some slack and assume stupidity. And because you can forgive stupidity. Yeah, right. Ok. The last one that we will wrap up on is from my boy, Demetrius, who says be selfish in the pursuit of the best me, and it will trickle down to others to give an example of possibilities. This is, I think, a really powerful concept that I talked about. I’ve talked about a lot, which is like you can only you should pour out from a full cup, like when your cup is overflowing and full, then you can fill up everybody else’s cup, but you can’t pour out from an empty cup. So first, your priority needs to be to take care of yourself and make sure that your cup is full so that you can do that.
Dan Krueger: [00:15:21] Can you read that one more time for me?
Anthony Vicino: [00:15:23] I already turned off my phone, but it was effectively very selfish in the pursuit of your best self so that you then shine as an example of possibilities to the people in the world around you, and you have the ability to go out and make a maximum impact.
Dan Krueger: [00:15:40] Yeah, I think you were a little better off working concisely. No, I think that’s great. I think it’s I mean that that should be kind of the foundation of things for people is really just self-improvement every day. Like if you can do that, you’re probably going to be good with whatever your end state is. Whatever your goal is, if you could just focus on improving yourself every day, a little bit. It’s going to be it’s going to work out for you and it’s going to produce value for everybody around you. I think because of like you said, set an example for other people. You give people some inspiration. It all kind of works out. So I’m a big fan of self-improvement, honestly. So I like that one. The best
Anthony Vicino: [00:16:16] You do? I do. All right. Well, Demetri saw you win the big award, and I know you do listen to our podcast because you used to be the one that edits our podcast. So if you text us, you’ll get your mug. Actually, I’ll tell you what anybody listening to this episode wants a mug. Reach out to me and email Anthony at Invictus Multifamily. I will send you a mug. Yeah, you can drink out of it. You can put pins in it. It’s great. You can use it as a paperweight. It’s got a lot of functionality. Marion, head on the side of it, looks ferocious. Nobody’s going to steal it from me. And. That’s all I got. Let’s talk about the book recommendation for this week. I was struggling to remember the name of the book that I’m reading, and I’m actually rereading it because it’s really good. It’s by a guy. I his last name is Masterson. I don’t remember the first name, but he’s a serial entrepreneur who’s built many, many businesses that were like 20, 30, 50, 100, $150 million in annualized revenues. So he’s got a lot of experience. And generally, when it comes to building business, I like to look at people who’ve done the thing that I’m trying to do and say what work for them, what didn’t work for them.
Anthony Vicino: [00:17:22] And he wrote a book that’s ready fire aim. And it’s all about the different obstacles and hurdles that you’re going to encounter at different stages of your entrepreneurial growth. So first, he lays out stage one, which is like zero to one million in revenue, then stages two, one to 10 million, then 10 to 50, and then 15 above. And I think the problems that you’re likely to hit each one of those phases is different, and I will say this from personal experience. What he identified as the issues from zero to one million were the same issues we experienced in all the businesses that have grown from zero to one and then from one to 10. They’re all the same issues and I have not gone from 10 to 50, so I cannot say if he will be accurate there. But so far he has correctly identified where I’m at in those two stages, so it’s a good book ready fire in.
Dan Krueger: [00:18:09] Element to the list. I think you brought that up once a long time ago to it sounds vaguely familiar.
Anthony Vicino: [00:18:14] Yeah, I’ve talked about it before.
Dan Krueger: [00:18:15] It’s good. Sounds apropos. Yeah.
Anthony Vicino: [00:18:18] So hopefully this brought you guys a little bit of value, not too much value because we don’t want you to go home all drunk and silly with too much value. We want just the right amount, the Goldilocks zone. If nothing else, I want to leave you just a little bit hungry for more value. So you come back to the next episode, ready and raring. I’ll tell you what if you want a full buffet of value on the next episode. Does favor just I’ll make you a little offer, a little quid pro quo? You go over to iTunes, you leave a review and in that review, you say, Anthony, I expect a buffet. I don’t know what it means. And then we’re going to shower you in the next episode with value. But if nobody goes over and leaves a review with those words, Anthony, I’m ready for the buffet or whatever I said, then you guys are just going to get your measly morsels of value so you have nobody to blame but yourself if you want more. We’ll leave it with you.
Dan Krueger: [00:19:12] That’s it. Sounds fair to me.
Anthony Vicino: [00:19:14] Ok, well, you guys got your homework. We’ll see you in the next episode. It’s.
