For today’s episode, we will be discussing the origin story of how Invictus Capital came about.
Episode #1 goes over each individual’s origin story but this episode will go over how each meets to become Invictus.
New book LIVE! Passive Investing Made Simple: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income through Apartment Syndications.
[00:01 – 08:29] Opening Segment
- Bad investing tips
[08:30 – 16:36] Dan’s Origin Story
- Not know the options outside of middle class
- Starting a side hustle
- Getting bored and diving into podcasts and audiobooks
[16:37 – 21:07] Anthony’s Origin Story
- ADHD and high revs
- Tasting freedom
- Building business and keeping scores
[21:07 – 28:14] Crossing Paths
- Meeting at a networking event
- Building an impressive machine
- Being ready for Luck to happen
[28:15 – 34:52] Closing Segment
- What makes you happy?
- Book recommendation
How to Make Offer so Good People Feel Stupid to Say No
“I was trying to cram a square peg into a round hole, which is effectively me in a corporate environment that was pitched as the thing to do.” – Dan Kreuger
“there’s a lot of times when the universal position, a really great opportunity in front of you and you are not your eyes aren’t open“ – Dan Kreuger
“entrepreneurs change the world like and that’s the coolest thing. They change the lives of individuals, which then go on to change the lives of communities, which go on to change the lives of cities” – Anthony Vicino
“so most kids have like sports pennants, posters of athletes, and bands of movies. I had money on my wall, which in retrospect is kind of interesting” – Dan Kreuger
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Origin Story
Origin Story_processed.mp3
Anthony Vicino : [00:00:15] Hello and welcome to Multifamily Investing Made Simple podcast, it’s all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can take action today. I’m your host, Anthony Ticino of Invictus Capital, joined as always by Dan. Let’s keep this brief.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:30] That’s what they call me to the point. No fluff going on, it just cut the fat, thick slab of meat. We don’t have any meat.
Anthony Vicino : [00:00:41] Maybe that’s a better nickname than a thick slab of meat Gruyere.
Dan Krueger: [00:00:44] No, no, no. We’re not we’re not going for that one.
Anthony Vicino : [00:00:48] I kind of like that one. I’m going to put that on a plaque now. So, Zidan, what’s new, man? How’s life?
Dan Krueger: [00:00:57] Life is good. Life is busy. But I would have it no other way. I’m not busy. I am not happy. I got to be busy with projects I thrive on. There are a lot of things to do and problems to solve. So busy but happy. How are you?
Anthony Vicino : [00:01:15] I am not busy but happy. You’re doing all the work so it’s great for me.
Dan Krueger: [00:01:19] What are you doing right now?
Anthony Vicino : [00:01:20] Oh no. I was trying to launch a book and that’s a big deal. No big. So I mean I like to. Yeah, I like to be active like doing stuff. And this has been a really crazy month. So July I thought was a crazy month. We closed on a couple of properties. Now this month we have another property under contract and we have the book that’s launched and just travel. That’s all sorts of craziness, but it’s good craziness. I wouldn’t change one word. Exactly. So today, though, you know, this has been a crazy ride these last few months, but I thought it’d be really cool to revisit our beginnings, go back to the beginning for an episode. And I think we’ve talked a lot about our personal origin stories before. We like our very first episode of multifamily investing made simple is our origin stories. I thought it’d be cool to talk more about our origin story from the company perspective like Invictus and how we as partners came to be in one another sphere and how Invictus is formed and really like what that journey has been like. Because I don’t know if we’ve really talked about that a lot, like really what the timeline was and what it was and how it came to be. But before we get to that, now that we’ve buried the lead and everybody’s like, I want to know more about their story, like I’m super interested to tell me more Anthony now. Nope. Can’t we get to wait first? We have to have bad investing advice.
Dan Krueger: [00:02:51] Of course. Of course. Yes. So something I’ve heard don’t say frequently, but I’ve heard it from, you know, some pretty big reputable individuals out there. And I’ll say when I said you might be able to kind of jump in and remind me who has said something similar to this recently. But there’s this kind of message of, you know, the common belief for the vast majority of people for a very long time is that diversity is key. Sprenger when it comes to investing, you want to spread your capital over a broad base of uncorrelated assets that should theoretically hedge off the downside risk because they should all take at one time. And what I’ve heard from some pretty big reputable guys is like, yeah, that’s that sounds great and all. But if you’re really trying to get well, then you’re really trying to excel in life. You’ve got to like zero in on one thing and just go really hard at that. So the complete opposite of diversity or diversification really just hyper on on on the thing you don’t understand best, which, you know, that sounds pretty good. And that’s what we’ve been doing and that’s what I’ve been doing for many years now. And I was kind of looking at the math recently and chatted with Anthony. And then, you know, for a long time, I kind of operated into that mentality, like, I know real estate the best I’ve got the most control over this. This has got the most asymmetric risk-reward opportunity available for me based on how close I am to the asset, how much control I have, and how much I understand it, which is great. However, still got to diversify. It’s just something that’s got to be a part of the pie. So as much as I love real estate, I’ve been getting more attention lately. It’s trying to spread some capital into some other long-term investments that are not real estate, which is really like swimming against the current. For me, it’s really hard to do because I feel like this is such a sure thing for me, however. You never
Anthony Vicino : [00:04:56] Know. So, yeah, it’s interesting, the concept that keeps coming to my mind is the difference between volatility and risk like the risk is a kind of a hard thing to quantify and measure. And how people define it is a little bit different, depending on the investor or the individual. But the risk in volatility isn’t necessarily the same thing. And what I want to point out here is that I think the advice if you want to get uber-wealthy of like Neshin down into one specific thing like that probably is the right advice, but it’s very volatile. That’s a thing like if you’re focused on that one thing, then the chances of that thing exploding and you’re doing incredibly well are high. But then the chances of that thing also going down to zero are incredibly high. And you’re in a very, really risky position. So if you’re not looking to be a billionaire, then you’re not looking for the most volatile things. You’re looking for a more stable solution. And that’s where most people are. They’re not looking to get stupid wealthy. They’re looking to say, OK, I want my investments to continue performing as expected.
Anthony Vicino : [00:06:08] I want to be able to count on it. I want to be able to draw my dividends from it on a consistent basis. So you’re trying to shrink that volatility and to do that diversification is key because if you’re over-leveraged, whether that’s real estate or in tech or Bitcoin or whatever, like your, you’re always at the whims of that one market. And it’s the same thing when we talk about investing in a city or a certain market is we don’t want to invest in a market that has only one single industry as Detroit did. And in the 2000s, like, we want to have that diversity so that if something goes wrong in that one industry, there are others to buy in that marketplace. Well said, well said, I thank you. OK, so that’s good advice. It’s an interesting one. I think it’s not a one size fits all solution. Again, you have to understand your parameters and where you are in your investment for like for us where we are now. It’s like, OK, it’s time to take a little bit of the volatility off the table and hedge against that.
Dan Krueger: [00:07:08] So, yeah, I think that’s the key. The key right here is that this isn’t a static state of mind. It’s a fluid concept that is going to be changing and adjusting based on what Anthony just said, like where are you in your life early on? You know, in the earlier stages of our business building days here, which will kind of dive into it, would have been silly to not be a hundred percent focused on that one thing. But as that machine gets built and as the payouts start to come and the dividends start to come, that’s where you start to kind of park some things off the side. So I think it’s you know, there’s no like they said, there’s a one size fits all answer because it’s incredibly unique and even for the same individual that that correct approach and strategy are going to change throughout their life.
Anthony Vicino : [00:07:57] So definitely, definitely it’s fun. It’s like billionaires are all focused on capital preservation, which if you’re poor, poor and you have no money as I did 15 years ago, capital preservation doesn’t do me any good because I didn’t
Dan Krueger: [00:08:10] Have nothing to.
Anthony Vicino : [00:08:11] It’s not what I’m thinking about. So you change with the times? I guess so. So let’s go back to the beginning. Let’s talk about how we met and in the formation of Invictus and what that looks like. So walk me through the story from your perspective.
Dan Krueger: [00:08:30] Yeah, so, I mean, going way back to how we even got into real estate, which got us into the circle, the real estate world, which is what kind of brought us together, like, you know, initially what got me into it as I’ve always been obsessed with investing ever since a very young age. I developed an I would say healthy obsession with money when I was a child. I grew up in a very kind of lower-middle-class household, so there wasn’t much money around. And so I was very aware of this concept or I should say that the concept of money appeared to be this kind of thing that was over here that was like a fantasy in a dream, you know, lots of money and wealth that were always kind of like a pipe dream, kind of how it was presented in my household. Then, you know, the Kruger’s, if we were to ever accumulate wealth, would be from something like winning the lottery. Right. That was kind of the vibe that we had, as we are in this kind of income bracket and anything outside of that is just a fantasy. And I just accepted that for a very long time. But I’m still really obsessed with money because it was sensationalized and made to be kind of like this fantasy for me. And so I love movies as a kid, like about treasure and gold and money. And I got into collecting currency. You know, my parents had some antique coins. I got those like, oh, this is really cool. So I start going to this coin shop at my house. I really like the paper currency. So I’d go and buy all the coolest-looking paper currencies from all over the world and frame them up on my wall as a kid. And so most kids have like sports pennants, posters of athletes and bands of movies. I had money on my wall, which in retrospect is kind of interesting. I suppose it’s
Anthony Vicino : [00:10:23] Been like a subversive thing.
Dan Krueger: [00:10:24] Yeah, this is weird, but I just thought it was just a fascinating thing. I just love the look of it and just do not even like buying stuff with it. I just want to accumulate these cool-looking pieces of currency, especially some of the older Chinese currency, which is really beautiful. Brazilian currency was was was really cool looking. And, you know, the dollar after that just seems so playmate’s, like these other currencies, so colorful and like works of art. So it’s a lot of fun and then kind of fast forward later into life, get into like the end of high school, started to get into college age and start seeing movies like Wall Street and Boiler Room. And I get really turned on by this kind of like stockbroker image that’s presented in Hollywood. I was like, that is really cool. There’s something exciting about just kind of going out and like. Almost like everyone’s got a shot, if you can go out there and work and position yourself correctly, anybody can get to an extremely high level. And this ties into the whole kind of like you got to win the lottery if you’re a cougar to get wealthy. I saw that as like that’s an interesting avenue. So I ended up seeing finance in school thinking that that was going to be my way to kind of be like Bud Fox and Wall Street and work my way into that world. But based on when I was graduating, this was post-2008.
Dan Krueger: [00:11:45] I graduated college in 2011, and there weren’t that many investment banking jobs around 2008 that that that got cut way down. And so anyone just coming out of college. In the best-case scenario, maybe you can be a junior analyst at a Charles Schwab or something like that. You could be an investment adviser, which I had didn’t appeal to me at all. I didn’t want to do retirement planning. I wanted to be like, you know, in the bullpen, people screaming and craziness. That’s what I was looking for. So I ended up in corporate finance, very good learning experience, but did not scratch the I wanted to scratch that investing niche that that that trading itch. So I’ve been very active in trading through college, whether it’s futures options, stocks, forex for about five minutes, lost money really quickly. And that didn’t really understand the leverage component. When I started playing around with it, it was just trying things. Playing around is kind of like a video game for me. And then, you know, I kind of kept up with that a little bit in my corporate career, always on the side. Like sometimes I’d throw in like an option position or something like that and kind of dabble in dip my toe in and out of the water, but didn’t take it real seriously. But during the corporate job, I got a sidekick started side hustle that’s providing nutrition, coaching services, effectively acting like a consultant and a coach for people.
Dan Krueger: [00:13:13] Ones either lose weight or gain muscle or do something. I did the food piece for them. It’s a very quantitative exercise. I understood it very well and realized that I was actually a lot more entrepreneurial than I thought it was for five years. I was trying to cram a square peg into a round hole, which is effectively me in a corporate environment that was pitched as the thing to do. That was the path. That’s what my parents really presented on a pedestal because they went to art school and my sister went to art school. And so everyone was effectively educated in the arts but didn’t really have any valuable skills. And they didn’t see themselves as having valuable skills in a corporate setting. So like, wow, if you want to have any chance, you just being middle class, like go to college, get a job at a big company, get benefits, like that’s what you do. I did that and I was miserable. And that’s where I kind of started dabbling with the entrepreneurial books, I should say, dabbling. I was going hard into how to build a business, how to build a brand, how to market yourself. And in very closely related to all those books is personal development along with business development. Very closely related to those types of books is real estate. So, you know, this is around when YouTube’s getting bigger and podcasts are getting bigger and just listening to podcasts all day long and just by the algorithms doing what they do, the audiobook of rich dad poor popped up and I was running out of content.
Dan Krueger: [00:14:40] I was sitting there at my corporate job. Just listen to audio books and podcasts all day long. And I was like, I just need something, you know, to stimulate my brain because what I was doing was incredibly boring. And that one came up. It was like I’ve heard about this. It always seems so gimmicky and cheesy. The title is like whatever. And I listen to it and it’s really cliche to say, but that really did spark some interest. There are a couple of key points in there that really turned me on to real estate in a way that I hadn’t looked at before. And then I went down the rabbit hole and then, you know, then we start to kind of get into that space. So so that’s kind of my evolution from where I grew up into finding that that that that real estate thread and starting to kind of go down that path before I just go down that piece of the story. Be kind of interested to hear about how Anthony I mean, I already know Hotelli, but I’d be interested to hear more about how you kind of found your way into just the real estate concept. And then we can kind of dive into what we actually did and how we ended up actually teaming up.
Anthony Vicino : [00:15:47] Yeah, real estate was always an interesting thing for me in the sense that the universe kept putting it in front of me at multiple, multiple junctures. And I just never really paid attention to the universe signaling that. But I like to even go further back to, like, rewind before real estate. Like, the thing that I tell people that you really have to understand about me if you want to understand how it got here, is I have really, really, really, really, really bad ADHD. I was a kid, it was a very defining diagnosis for me in the sense that I was put on Ritalin, which really made me feel trapped and really made me feel confined inside my body. Because what that does and a lot of people aren’t familiar with Ritalin, like for the normal brain, when you take Ritalin, it’s a stimulant. It’s the way that you stay up all night and study for a test. But for me,
Dan Krueger: [00:16:35] I think it’s a myth, right?
Anthony Vicino : [00:16:37] Yeah, it’s like meth. Yeah, exactly. It’s similar. But what ends up happening is for somebody with ADHD, like if you think about it as an engine, we’re already operating at a higher RPM. And so what it does is it pushes us over our internal governor. It trips the system and it resets us and it puts us into what’s known as a hyper-focused state. But one of the side effects of that drug for me was it took all my energy. It took everything out of me. And it just put me into this really focused state all the time. And what that did was it really made me feel trapped, like all the time I felt trapped inside my body. And when I wasn’t on the drug, when that would wear off, I get a little rambunctious. My mom was trained to confine me to turn herself into like a human straitjacket and, like, wrap her arms and legs around me. If I got too rambunctious, I started thrashing. She would just hold me until I would thrash it all out. And so, like, there was like this push and play between, like, always feeling trapped when I was growing up by this diagnosis. And so when I got off that drug when I was 16, I decided I’d never done that again. And I wanted to be free because that’s like my highest ideal.
Anthony Vicino : [00:17:46] My highest value is the freedom to be able to do what I want when I want, where I want. And I share all of that because coming out of college, I knew I couldn’t go work for somebody like it felt like I was trapped. If I and I was I wasn’t a very good employee, to begin with. So I went in search of ways I could pursue my freedom. And that led me to rock climbing professionally for a number of years. And then that led me to write books like things that would allow me to control my life and not have anybody else have any say in what I was doing. And the thing about me is that I’m very, very competitive. Like I turn everything into a game and I’m always keeping score. And it’s not keeping score with other people. It’s always keeping score with myself and trying to, like, beat my previous self. And so when a buddy came to me and was like, hey, I’m building this window washing business, do you want to help me do that? I was like, Yeah, let’s do that. That sounds fun, but I was never entrepreneurial. Like, I wasn’t the kid plucking up flowers and selling it back to the neighbor. Like that wasn’t me at all. So this was my first foray into that. And what I discovered was that a lot of the things that I had to figure out in order for me to control my ADHD and be a functioning member of society, those same skills were actually really beneficial for building businesses.
Anthony Vicino : [00:19:00] And I really liked building businesses because it was a way of keeping score. Like when you get a new customer, that’s like a way of putting another plus one in the column of like, oh, that person voted for the stay like this or every dollar coming in is a way of saying like a new high score. And so that was like the fun part of it for me in real estate, it really was never about the real estate or even money in particular. It was just another is another game to play. And a lot of ways where I’m like, you know, we can go and we can serve these people. And for every tenant or every resident, we put into our property and for every dollar, we bring in like this is another way of playing a game. And like, let’s see what we can build with this. And that’s the thing that I’m really fascinated with, Invictus is like building this game that for me, the rules of like how you win is like how many lives you can positively impact. It’s not really about how many dollars we bring or anything like that. It’s like how many residents, how many employees, how many investors, how many lives can we positively impact? And that’s the score by which I’m like, I’m playing that game.
Anthony Vicino : [00:20:04] And so that’s how I think about it. And that’s kind of like my weird it’s very different than your journey because we just come from such different backgrounds. But it’s interesting because I think our perspectives and our personalities, mesh really well. And that’s something that we discovered when we first met, which was at a conference, a networking event. And I think I think that story is really interesting because I I’m really introverted. I don’t like people generally, or at least that was a limiting belief I had for many years, is I don’t like people. And it’s not that I don’t like people is that I’m uncomfortable around new people. And so I went into that conference saying, like, I just need to go meet one person. That’s all I got to do. And so I walked into the conference hall, looked around like there’s hundreds of people, tables everywhere, people sitting at all the tables. But there’s one table with nobody sitting. And so I go sit at that table all by myself. And then next thing I know, this muscly guy and a black V-neck are sitting down next to me like I would like to be next to. And we start talking and the rest is history.
Dan Krueger: [00:21:07] Yeah, it’s that’s kind of where the paths crossed for the first time. And I think it. Interesting to note as well that my initial draw to just investing in real estate was in the pursuit of money and I had already noticed in the corporate part the like just the following money doesn’t really get you what you want. I could have made pretty good money in the corporate setting, but the bottom line was I was unhappy and so there was something missing there. I didn’t I didn’t enjoy the day-to-day process. I didn’t feel like I was building anything. And what I did that side business and had an entrepreneurial experience, I discovered the joy of not only having control over your money, because when you’re not an entrepreneur, you get paid effectively for what you put in or in the corporate world. You know, if you’re in sales, yes, you do get your compensation based on how much hustle you have. But for a corporate financial analyst, you get your salary. And if you work twice as hard, there’s not really much of a benefit there. So it wasn’t a correlation. When I had that business, I was like, OK, the thing of initially drew me in was, yes, if I work harder, I make more money. The thing that I also found out was that it’s incredibly satisfying to also get compensated by helping people and providing value, which was great, because then sometimes in the consulting space, you know, any business, any time you’re a self-employed individual, it’s up and down. Right. There are good ones and there are bad months. And so there were times when I wasn’t making as much capital as I wanted.
Dan Krueger: [00:22:40] Then worst-case scenario for me was like, if I could at least help people, then I feel good about what I’m doing with my time. It’s not wasted time. And I really got to enjoy the process of building the business, building the machine, just like Anthony said. So I got turned on to these other aspects of it that I realized I had a passion for until I actually did them and felt them. And then I’m like, oh wow, this is really cool. I get paid in multiple different ways. I get paid by the satisfaction of helping people providing value. I get paid by the satisfaction of building and making this big, impressive machine, whatever it is, whether it’s a consulting business or a real estate business, or whatever business you want to start. It’s effectively a big machine, a big puzzle, big sculpture that you’re making. And it’s you could just create this entity out of nowhere, which is really rewarding. And so all these other aspects of it really turn me on and then it doesn’t take long. Once you get into the active real estate space, you’re going to start making some pretty decent money right away. So really quickly shifted from how much money can we make to how big of an oppressive machine can rebuild it? How far can we take this? Like how many jobs can we create? How many communities can we improve? And it became about something bigger because as soon as you get X amount of dollars, like the incremental value received or the incremental happiness that you receive for making more money starts to diminish. And I can attest to that.
Dan Krueger: [00:24:04] After a certain point, you’re not incrementally happier with each additional dollar. You basically have that kind of payoff in happiness up until you get to the point where you can support yourself and live the kind of lifestyle you want. And then beyond that, it’s kind of negligible. So you really do need to find something else to focus on. And Anthony had both been through that process already. And when we met, we were very much aligned, you know, philosophically and morally. And we weren’t even looking for partners when we met. We were just kind of there doing the thing like doing the networking thing. This is still a newer business to us. And so we just showed up. I showed up to meet people and learn and just kind of insert myself in the network. And no one was really looking for partners, I think, which was part of the cool part. It was a very organic process of coming to the realization that there’s a really good opportunity here in front of us on those times that the universe actually puts an opportunity in front of us. And we both realized it in real-time because, as Anthony said, there’s a lot of times when the universal position, a really great opportunity in front of you and you are not your eyes aren’t open. You’re not ready to be aware of it and it passes you by. So luckily, he and I were both in a similar state with our mental game, our self-awareness, and our focus on our goals. And we were able to see this great opportunity in front of us, which is in retrospect, really. So lucky, I guess
Anthony Vicino : [00:25:26] We better refer to it as I never I didn’t grow up thinking a lot about entrepreneurship or business or anything like that, but one of the things I’ve been really fortunate to have in my life and the opportunity to build businesses and see this in real-time is that entrepreneurs change the world man like they have so much impact. You can have so much impact by building a business. And it’s for me, my first twenty-eight years on this planet, I really struggled with a concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot in the last couple of years, which is the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment. And the science of achievement is like, how do I go win the award, how do I build that business? How do I go get that money? And you go do that? If the money becomes your focus, you go get it. If you want to learn the game and you want that’s what you want, you can do it. It’s the science. You follow these steps. If you want to be rich, do these things. It’s pretty simple, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to fulfillment in the art of a film. It is different than the science of achievement because it’s not replicable for everybody. Everybody’s like what fulfills them is different. And so there’s not like this book you can read or the system that you can implement that’s going to say, like, if you do this, you will be fulfilled. It’s like it’s an art. It’s very tricky. And what I discovered for myself was my younger years were very focused on achieving because I thought that would lead to fulfillment.
Anthony Vicino : [00:26:55] But it doesn’t because they’re fundamentally different mediums. And the example I use is that it’s like fulfillment means that there is some lack. Right. There’s a hole in you and you’re trying to fill that hole with achievement. But if that hole is made out of concrete and you’re trying to fill it with spaghetti noodles, it will never be full. It’s not the same medium. And that’s that was the mistake that I was making when I was young, was like trying to fill achievement and try to find fulfillment. And since we started building businesses and then Victus, like the focus really is about not the achievement, but what’s the impact that we’re having on the residents of the investors to our employees. And that’s where you get like I get really energized and really jazzed about that because it goes back to what I said before about entrepreneurs change the world like and that’s the coolest thing. They change the lives of individuals, which then go on to change the lives of communities, which go on to change the lives of cities. And it’s like the sky’s the limit. And I think that’s just like the most motivating thing. When we go and look at a new apartment complex or new investment opportunity, it’s not about the dollar signs. It’s about like. All the lives that are going to be positively impacted from that one transaction, and that’s just it’s amazing.
Dan Krueger: [00:28:15] Yeah, I think one of the things that could be extrapolated from what we said so far here by listeners is, a, if you’ve if you’re looking for some kind of partnership or if that’s on your radar, you’ve got to already have done a lot of self-work and be very self-aware of who you are, what makes you happy. Like they said, what your skill sets are and what your skill sets aren’t. We’ve talked about a book called Who Not How multiple times across multiple podcasts. That book talks a lot about just getting real with yourself and like, OK, what am I good at and what do I suck at? And just being really honest with yourself, like what makes me happy and what am I good at? If you know those things and another potential partner also knows those things, kind of like being healthy, then it’s a really easy fit. It’s like it either fits or doesn’t. You know, pretty quickly, assuming someone passes like the ethical and morality tests, you know, if they’re self-aware and you’re self-aware and you both know exactly what it is that that you’re lacking and bringing to the table, then the piece the pieces fit together become quite clear. But I think the vast majority of people just haven’t done that much introspective work on themselves. And they have become self-aware enough to effectively go out there and navigate the world and figure out where they can do to assert themselves.
Anthony Vicino : [00:29:33] Yeah, 100 percent, Jonathan Adler, it’s self-awareness is the key. If you want to build, you want to find a partnership if you want to succeed in life, because success is, however, you want to define it, you have to be able to define it for yourself and you can’t define it for yourself until you have a low level of self-awareness.
Dan Krueger: [00:29:52] Sounds silly to say it’s really simple, but there’s like so many people just haven’t gone through that process because it’s hard to look inside yourself and pop the hood on your own brain, especially because a lot of the stuff they get up to do is subconscious. You’ve got to like the loops, the sound bytes in your head that you can’t even hear but are influencing your actions. There’s a lot of stuff underneath the surface that’s going on and impacting your behavior in your life. And if you haven’t really tried to take a look at that, it’s going to be really hard to figure out exactly who you are and what you need.
Anthony Vicino : [00:30:29] And in a perfect case in point of that is what I said earlier when I slipped up and I said, I don’t like people. And I was like, that was a limiting belief that for so long in my life, I believed because it was just on this automatic loop. And it wasn’t until I, like, heard it for the first time and thought about it was like, well, it’s not that I don’t like people, it’s that it makes me uncomfortable. People make me uncomfortable. And that’s a different thing. And that’s a harder self-awareness. It’s easier to say like, oh, I just don’t like them. And so realize that, like, self-awareness is the game and it’s constantly changing. Like what made you happy last year might not still be the thing that makes you happy this year. So it’s an ongoing process. So this is a guy that’s got really philosophical, our origin story. But honestly, when you start thinking back on something like this. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, when you think about, like what got you here and where you came from, like those are the journeys that matter more than the physical journey of like, oh, then we acquired this building and we acquired that building. That’s mechanical. It’s the software, it’s the operating system behind it. That’s the more interesting. And that’s all philosophical. So you alluded to a book there. Let’s walk our beautiful audience out of this episode with another book recommendation. You got you got something.
Dan Krueger: [00:31:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve recommended that one. So, you know, we’ll I’ll mention again, just to remind people what we’re talking about, the Who How book by Benjamin Hardy.
Anthony Vicino : [00:31:53] Benjamin Dan Sullivan.
Dan Krueger: [00:31:55] There it is. Yes. Great book. That’s our recommendation for today. Even though we do recommend it. Don’t go with that one recently. You know, with so many times. Yeah, I’m going to recommend I can never remember what we’ve recommended. So stop me if we’ve recommended this one. But another one that’s really on the top of our radar right now or on top of mind for us right now is by the build. Have we recommended this? Yeah, we did. We did. Darn it.
Anthony Vicino : [00:32:24] That’s OK. I got I got one.
Dan Krueger: [00:32:26] Yeah.
Anthony Vicino : [00:32:27] So this goes back and this isn’t going to be a book for everybody. If you’re an entrepreneur, this is if you’re interested in building businesses. If you hear our story, if you’re a real estate investor, you’re trying to build a thing, you hear our story. And like I want to pursue that. That sounds cool. A book that I’m reading right now is by Alex Ma. I can’t think of his name now. Her Mozi Alex her it’s called make offers so good that people will feel stupid to say no make off are so good that people will feel stupid to say no. And it’s about marketing and making offers. But there’s a lot of deep philosophy in these books. What I find so fascinating about marketing, in general, is that it’s just applied human psychology in mass, like how do we drive human behavior in a group of people? And you as a human, you are just one of those people. And if you can understand what motivates the group, you can come to a better self-awareness as well. So, again, it all ties together. Self-awareness is the the key
Dan Krueger: [00:33:27] On a hundred percent. Not an easy process, but well worth the effort.
Anthony Vicino : [00:33:33] That’s the investment you’ll ever make. So unless you invest with capital, I’m just saying
Dan Krueger: [00:33:38] That’s pretty good to
Anthony Vicino : [00:33:39] Do as a pretty good one. All right. That’s going to do it for us. Guys, we appreciate you taking the time to listen to our stories as we pontificate wildly about our origins. Now, before you leave, do us a favor. Go pick up passive investing made simple. It’s over on Amazon. Go pick it up and enjoy. Enjoy it. Have fun with it. There are some good stories in there as we crack open the shell of who we are and how we got here. There’s also a lot of technical information about how do you actually find a deal worth investing in? How do you find operators worth working with? So we’ll pick that up. Do us a favor. If you enjoy it, go and leave a review. If you don’t enjoy it, keep your criticism to yourself. We don’t want to hear from you only if you love it or leave a review and we’ll see you guys next week.
