Technology
Growth Mindset in a Shifting Market: Luke Ogelsby on AI, SF Resilience, and the Business of Belief
In this episode, Luke Oglesby, vice chairman at CVE and San Francisco Business Times Broker of the Year, shares insights on the evolving landscape of commercial real estate amidst the rise of AI and t...
Growth Mindset in a Shifting Market: Luke Ogelsby on AI, SF Resilience, and the Business of Belief
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome back to the NAOPS San Francisco Bay Area's podcast.
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Today we're joined by Luke Oglesby, vice chairman at CVE and this year's San Francisco Business Times broker of the year.
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Luke has represented some of the most well-known names and tech and AI.
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He's also known for his tenacity, loyalty to San Francisco, and a deep belief in people around him both in business and beyond.
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Luke, it's great to have you.
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Thank you for having me. I'm humbled that you're thinking me for this, so I appreciate it.
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Absolutely. No, you've been busy. We're excited to sit down with you.
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Wanted to start at a big picture and just talk about the industry at large.
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How's the business of commercial real estate changed over the course of your career?
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Well, I've been at this for over two decades now, so I've had a front row seat to see how the business has changed.
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I think the biggest thing is our clients have really just become a lot more sophisticated.
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And that's led to a tremendous amount of specialization.
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I look at our industry really as a team sport and delivering kind solutions as a team sport.
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A big reason why I work at CVE and our team works at CVE is really we feel like we have the best platform in the industry.
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And we've really been intentional about team formation.
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We've brought in people with a diverse set of skills that really complement each other.
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And that's really just a reflection of the industry and how we can best support our clients.
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And historically being more kind of siloed around people and personalities versus the team approach.
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Yeah, I think the old school days it was, you know, who's your broker and now it's really become a team event.
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And so you need people that really complement you and push you on a day and day out basis.
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Yeah, that really makes sense.
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So one of the things we wanted to talk about here was some of the headlines about San Francisco.
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San Francisco's been through the ringer and we'd love to get your view of where we are in the
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cycle right now.
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I think we're in the early days of the next great innovation cycle.
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When you think about AI, we really think it's going to be ubiquitous.
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It's going to have a profound impact on productivity and creativity.
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And we feel like we've got a really long way to run in the cycle from a real estate perspective.
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Luke, you touched on AI and you've got a unique kind of front row perspective on AI.
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Can you give us your thoughts on how it's disrupting?
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I mean, not even just a real estate thing right now, but just disrupting our overall kind of
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economy and productivity and then also a little bit about how it's intersecting with our local market.
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Well, I think what's really exciting is these AI applications touch everything we do.
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I mean, it started with autonomous vehicles and you can see how prevalent they are on the streets today.
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Yeah.
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But, you know, you look at any industry as capable of being disrupted from an AI perspective and
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a lot of the innovation is happening in the Bay Area.
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And these are things that touch infrastructure and defense and, you know,
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software and hardware.
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So it goes across a wide spectrum of use cases and really there's nothing that can't be
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disrupted by AI.
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So across the globe, this is going to permeate its way through literally everything.
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A lot of the companies that we're growing here in the Bay Area are disrupting industries that are,
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you know, other sides of the world.
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That leads to something I know you feel strongly about belief in our city.
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What do you still believe in San Francisco?
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Well, let me start by saying I'm not from here originally.
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I'm from outside of Philadelphia.
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You know, I choose to live here and there's a lot of reasons I do.
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First and foremost, I think it's the scenic beauty of the city.
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It's a temperate climate and just living here is easy.
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But I think there's also a certain level of sophistication with the city.
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You know, you've got highly educated people, amazing restaurants,
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you know, eclectic neighborhoods and we're really sitting in the cradle of technology.
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So the future is really created here and that's just something that's really exciting.
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Doesn't not go on a way.
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Not anytime soon.
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So relative to long-term value, what's giving you confidence that this market has some running
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room?
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Some of the trends we're seeing and that we're following, I think everybody's looking at VC funding.
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But if you look at what's the true impact to the VC funding, particularly around AI,
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first and foremost, we're sitting in these conference rooms and boardrooms with our clients
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seeing their projections for hiring and growth.
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But that gives us a lot of conviction.
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The other thing is migration.
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We've had six quarters in a row of positive net in migration to the Bay Area that's
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dating back to 2023.
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And then the residential market, we had the highest rent growth in the country in Q1.
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The Bay Area did almost 5% rent growth.
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At closer to home, the residential market, my wife and I and our family just bought a place in the
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city. So we're feeling it firsthand. We were in two bidding wars.
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So I think a lot of the forward-looking indicators are showing that we're in the early
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headings of this recovery.
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What gives you confidence that this market still has long-term value?
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I think it's a mixture of things.
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I think it's the talent, the capital, the culture, the fail-fast mentality,
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which really accelerates innovation.
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And the early adopters who live here who are willing to try new things,
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this ecosystem cannot be recreated and this area is going to continue innovating.
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I love that.
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Look, we wanted to talk about your practice next.
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Do you work across some pretty different product types?
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Tell us about your business today and the breakdown of your work across technology,
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media, and industrial deals.
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It really falls along two lines.
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From a product type perspective, it's it's office and industrial.
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On the office front, one of the legs of the stool is focusing on working with high growth
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technology companies.
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So whether those are venture-funded or publicly traded,
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another leg of the stool is more mature companies.
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So typically private equity backed and the work there might be more portfolio-centric.
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Okay.
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And then the third leg of the stool is the industrial business which you alluded to.
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And that's really focused on R&D, robotics, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce.
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The tie that binds those three is really tech.
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And so whether it's 10 in our landlord or officer industrial,
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our business is really serving the broader technology ecosystem.
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That makes sense.
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We haven't seen that in practice, but you having those tools to bring those solutions
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is really interesting.
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You mentioned a three-legged stool.
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How do you think about the balance in your client base and their business model?
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Well, it's never balanced.
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Our thesis was really around building a resilient business model.
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So when the pandemic hit and tech companies were leaving the office,
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some of our industrial clients were growing.
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Conversely, now that tech companies are coming back to the office,
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some of our industrial clients are slowing down their growth due to the tariffs.
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So our business is really built upon diversification and resilience rather than balance.
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That gives us a broader perspective.
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It gives us deeper expertise.
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And frankly, it's just more intellectually stimulating.
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Yeah, it does sound like both sides of the business are educating the other side of the business.
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And I imagine some of these will have requirements on both sides.
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Absolutely.
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If you look at a lot of big tech companies, they've almost become infrastructure
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companies and they're not only doing office transactions, but they're also looking at data
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centers or some R&D, some advanced manufacturing or autonomous vehicles.
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So they really cross both lines these days.
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So you represent local listings, landlord work here.
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You've got tenant space here.
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How much of your business is looking at this market versus helping your clients and other markets?
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I'd say it's probably 50-50 these days.
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Our team is built to support those type of clients.
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But even the clients that we're servicing in other markets are tied back to the Bay Area.
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So it's probably 50-50 breakdown.
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So now let's talk about the person behind the deals.
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What does your typical day look like for you?
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Well, let's start by saying there is no typical, which I think is a blessing,
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Ennecurs.
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If I'm lucky, I'm waking up before my kids,
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some three young kids, and getting a quick meditation and really easing into the day.
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If I'm unlucky, I'm waking up to Dad.
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Dad.
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I'm hungry.
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So it's really binary how my day starts.
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And then once we get the kids out the door, I'm a big believer in what they say, swallow the frog.
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You know, get the hardest tasks and the biggest tasks out of the way.
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And so, you know, because every day for us is different.
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And we never know what's going to pop up.
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And then in the late afternoon, I try to get a workout, dinner with family,
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put the kids to bed before back to work for a couple hours.
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If I'm lucky, I can turn my computer off by nine or 10 and get some reading done,
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but more days than not, especially now, is working until bedtime.
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So how do you keep your edge in such a competitive space right now?
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I don't think you have a choice.
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Much like this region and the companies that are based here,
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we're either growing or dying.
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And I think it's just the nature of sales that if even if we're good,
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50% of the time we're losing.
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So there's this constant feedback loop.
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And you know, we have a saying on our team,
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don't be bitter, be better.
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And it really just helps keep us grounded and a growth mindset to help keep that edge.
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That's a great mantra.
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You've been open about your early years in the business and how they weren't easy.
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Can you describe your journey into commercial real estate?
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If I think back to my childhood, when I when I really realized that there was a passion
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for real estate was when I'd be in stores and start grabbing magazines off the shelf,
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you know, back then we didn't have truly or wasn't online.
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Yeah.
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I'd grab the books with the residential listings.
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And so I knew there was something there.
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I looked at my mother's journey.
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My mom was a big inspiration to me when I was in middle school.
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She was going back to college and she worked as a receptionist in the local residential brokerage firm.
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Okay.
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And you know, in only a couple of years she went from after she graduated,
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receptionist to the top producer in that office.
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So that's neat.
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I looked at her from the bridge, we joke, you know,
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after I was having a little success early on in my career.
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My mom reminded me she said, don't you remember I was your inspiration?
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I said, oh, you were.
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And she said, well, don't you remember you told me,
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mom, if you can be successful and there's anybody can do it.
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I was, she's got a really good sense of humor.
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But I just knew that I was, there was a certain passion for real estate.
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My mom was doing it very successfully, not my sister with her and my dad
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on the residential side.
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Okay.
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My interest gradually migrated over onto the commercial side.
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That's a great story.
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It sounded like it was a good eight or so years before you really broke through.
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What was it like struggling for that period of time?
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What kept you going?
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It was hard.
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One of the top producers in our New York office,
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Mary and Ty, who's an institution, if you know, New York real estate.
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She said the first five years of her life in brokerage,
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were the bleakest years of her life.
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And I think my journey was not that different.
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I was a do not hire when I took the personality test at CBRE.
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You're kidding.
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I wasn't from here.
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And truth be told, if I look back, I wasn't ready.
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So I really floundered for a lot of years.
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I started my career working south of market where rents were $17 a foot.
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And I remember vividly early on in my career,
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I couldn't afford a cab to get to my market to get down to
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show a place where I'm petro hill.
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And so during the rainy season, my soles were worn out of my shoes
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because they were made of leather.
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And I would take the plastic tour covers in the office.
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And I'd cut them in the shape of my shoe and I would insert them into my shoe
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to try to keep my feet from getting wet.
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That doesn't work by the way.
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That's not work.
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But it was tough.
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It was certainly a hard time.
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And I think without the support of my now life,
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to get me through, I don't know if I could have made it.
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That's incredible story.
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Our support systems are so important.
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My wife's a big part of mine as well.
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What still inspires you today?
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Still my wife.
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But also my three kids.
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What ages are they?
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4, 6 and 8.
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Oh wow.
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Okay, so you're in the think of it.
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In the think of it, yeah.
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That's great.
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I think 20 years in, you know,
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you start thinking about legacy, not only family legacy,
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but you know, your legacy in the business.
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And what do you want to be known for?
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And those are the type of questions I'm kind of wrestling with today to think about the next 20 years.
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You said your lacrosse coach had been a big influence on your mindset.
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What did he teach you about work ethic?
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And how do you carry that lesson forward now?
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Yeah, so I played the cross in high school under a
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all the famer cross coach John Noesstra.
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He's at Washington College today.
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And it was broader than just work ethic.
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Three things I learned from just watching him and observing him over the years.
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Number one, surround yourself with great people.
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You know, started with him.
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He's the amazing wife.
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We always had the best coaches.
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And I think about that a lot,
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surrounding myself with the best people on our team and friends.
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To out work your competition,
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you know, our practice back then were so hard that the games were easy.
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So I try to take that mentality to work and just work as hard as I can.
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And the third thing is always be prepared.
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You know, anything that came up in the lacrosse world we were prepared for.
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And so if I'm surrounding myself with good people,
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I am out working the competition and I'm prepared.
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If I'm doing those three things and we're doing those three things,
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you know, we can let the outcome kind of take care of itself.
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You can't help but be successful.
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By the way, those things are all within your control.
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Yeah, outwork the competition.
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How do you apply that to your business?
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You want me to get away with state-based nature?
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Okay, next question.
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No, no, it's okay.
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I think again, it comes down to preparation.
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For us and our team really leveraging the resources of our company,
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the skill sets of the people in our organization,
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making sure we've thought of everything and we're prepared.
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And whether that's prepared for a presentation,
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a client discussion, or when we ultimately get in negotiations,
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it's really about preparation.
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That's so important.
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I wanted to transition here a little bit and talk about some advice you would give,
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particularly for somebody starting out right now.
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I think the biggest thing when I talk to younger folks in the industry is just tell them
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to be known for something.
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There's so much noise in today's world with social media.
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If you're known for something, business will find you.
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I focused on a geography, South of Market.
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And to the credit of a lot of the senior brokers at the time in my office,
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they came and found me when they were doing business, South of Market,
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because that's what I was known for.
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So I think if you're known for something, business will find you.
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That's a great tip.
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What did you wish you had known earlier in your career?
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I think that what I would have wanted to know was that it was all going to be okay,
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that it was all going to work out.
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I would have given me a lot of comfort back then.
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Yeah.
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And it probably would have helped me take more risks and try new things.
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So yeah, I think just the knowledge that it was all going to work out,
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because there were some days that I didn't think it would.
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You mentioned this earlier when we were preparing for our podcast.
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You said, never forget where you came from and that stuck with us.
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What does that phrase really mean to you, especially after 22 years in the business?
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I think in sales, sometimes people can have success and think very highly of themselves.
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I've been blessed to be a part of some transformative deals and play a small part of those.
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And hopefully my advice is strategic and was important to the outcome.
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But at the end of the day, keeping in perspective,
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that number one, I didn't sign the lease and I don't know in the building.
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Our clients are really the rock stars and you just got to keep that in perspective.
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Yeah, that's a really important perspective.
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How do you stay grounded as the stakes get higher in the spotlight?
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It's a little brighter.
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I think in the brokerage business, it's really a hits business.
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And sometimes you're only as good as your last deal.
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So you have to make the decision, are you going to be Chema Wamba with Thumb Thumping?
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Or you know, you too.
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But hopefully I'm not the rolling stone.
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So still still out in my 80s.
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But I also think that comes down to again, the people you surround yourself with and the team
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that are constantly pushing me and keeping me grounded.
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So let's wrap up with a quick fire round.
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These are short answers to get a little more color and flavor for who you are.
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What's your favorite podcast or book right now?
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You mentioned you read the evenings.
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I try to read.
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It's a lot of business books.
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There's a couple books by Patrick Betteva that I'm reading right now.
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I think the one that's on my bedside right now is Chooja enemies wisely.
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Hmm.
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Podcasts, you know, I think we all listen to all-in podcasts in the Bay Area for work.
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I listen to a lot of self-help podcasts.
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You'll see me listening to Tony Robbins or Tim Ferris.
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But I also have a soft spot in my heart for NPR, Terry Gross.
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Me growing up outside of Philadelphia is the voice of my childhood.
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So sometimes I'll just put her on to help me fall asleep at night.
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That's great.
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Best piece of career advice you've ever received.
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So I think this gets back to something my dad always instilled in us growing up.
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And it's a quote that was his high school, and it was my rival high school.
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The quote was essay, quamvederi, which means be rather than seem to be.
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And I think my dad really stress the importance of authenticity.
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You know, it's okay to be who you are and don't try to be somebody else.
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And I think with that comes a sense of humility.
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And to recognize your limitations and that's that it's okay to fail.
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I mean, I think my mom and my dad are the first ones to laugh at themselves when they make
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mistake. And as a kid growing up, you think about what a tremendous gift that was to not strive
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for perfection and know that that's not achievable.
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It frees you to make mistakes and really learn from them.
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Yeah. That's great.
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Is there a couple of people that have had an outsized impact on your career?
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Took a risk on you, you know, mentors or or managers, somebody you want to mention?
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Yeah, thank you for asking.
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You know, again, I was a do not hire and a couple people had my back early on.
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Matt Field, who I believe was on this podcast.
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Yeah.
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Podcast recently absolutely had my back.
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Rick Capreda, they went to bat for me when when CB wasn't going to hire me.
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I took a personality test and and I managers said, come in and we'll talk about your results.
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Oh, no.
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Talked about it and he said, well, it says you're hard working, which we like,
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but it says you're sensitive and think before speaking.
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And I said, I don't think that's true.
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But Matt and Rick in particular taught me early on that the importance of a support system
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and people to lean on.
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And you know, that resonates with me to this day of making sure, you know, Tony Robbins,
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as you're the average of the five people you hang out with most.
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And I truly believe that making sure that I have a great support system around me push me.
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Yeah. You are a victim of your environment.
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They say favorite restaurant or go to coffee shop in SF restaurant.
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Terzo hands down. That's a family favorite.
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Nice.
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I mean, we I think there was one week we ate there three times.
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So my kids love it.
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We love it.
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Terzo in Cal Hollow.
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In Cal.
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I'm there.
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I'm greatly recommend it.
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I gotta hit that one word to define your focus for 2025 is unword.
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Unfocus.
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No.
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I think growth, you know, whether that's you revenue, market share,
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team members, we brought on some team members.
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New team members recently are client base and the projects we work on and just personal growth.
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And map out, you know, the next five, 10, 15 years and really think about the second half of my
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career in the next chapter of my life.
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But I think growth is something that we're really focused on.
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He stays.
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That's great.
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It's been a treat to sit down with you and learn more about you and your journey and your success.
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Really appreciate you spending some time with us today.
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Thank you for having me.
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Hey listeners, thank you for joining our conversation and being part of
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Neop San Francisco Bay Area's podcast community.
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Our goal is to reach our listeners through dynamic engagements both in and around all things
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commercial real estate.
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If you like what you hear, please like, subscribe and share our podcast with your professional networks.
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That's naipsfba.org.
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Until next time, take care and we hope you join us again soon.
Topics Covered
San Francisco commercial real estate
CVE vice chairman Luke Oglesby
AI impact on real estate
Bay Area innovation cycle
team approach in real estate
residential market trends
tech company growth
diversification in real estate
autonomous vehicles and R&D
migration trends in Bay Area
real estate market recovery
high rent growth San Francisco
commercial real estate specialization
real estate career journey
real estate industry insights