This $7B Developer Started With One Flip

Today we're sitting down with Paul Thrift, CEO of the real estate giant Thompson Thrift. Over the next 50 minutes, you'll hear how he goes from flipping one house in high school to building a $7 billion real estate empire. If you're new here, we're Roots Reality Co, a real estate company that has helped over 400 people plant roots and build wealth in Indianapolis and beyond. We work really hard to bring on top entrepreneurs like Paul. Only 10% of you are subscribed. All we ask in return is that you subscribe. Now, let's get into the show. Paul, you flipped your first house when you were 17, built a development company starting in college, and now your company has done over 7 billion dollars of investment across half the United States. Did you ever think it was going to get this big? The easy answer is no. Didn't really know what to expect. I met my partner in high school and we were friends, but really [clears throat] had no plans to go into business together. And really before I started university, we were talking. He had been working with his dad. He graduated a year before I did. And that summer, we bought a repossessed home together. And that began what's now been a 40-year partnership, 40-year journey. But it really didn't begin as some business plan or here's what we're going to try to accomplish. We were just trying to pay our way through school. We were entrepreneurial, ambitious. So pretty soon we had big aspirations and thoughts and dreams. So I would say we would have told you we would have accomplished something but really we didn't really build a business. We were just working our way through school that turned into a business. So I wouldn't have I wouldn't have imagined it being what it is today. But I I had no idea what it could become or really what it took to get there at the time. And thankfully, you know, kind of ignorance is bliss. If you would have realized what it took and the time and the energy and the commitment probably wouldn't have have done it uh if I would have known at that time. Yeah. Just just what it really takes, right? To get I was reading it's 7 billion of investment across I think 22 or 23 states. So like half the nation with offices Tero, Indie, Phoenix, Houston. I don't even know if that's all of them. Um, it's kind of mindboggling when you just look at it that way. But of course, back then you're just like, what's the next thing to get the cash flow going to pay college, which I love that. I mean, your story, I think, is very um grassroots and organic. And obviously, you had no trust fund money or anything like that. So, I think that's really, really awesome. It's completely organic. That's good word for it. [laughter] Completely organic. Starting with one house. I think that's uh everybody's story starts with a reason why they invest in real estate. Like real estate can become attractive. So I like the the bringing it back to one. One of the things to prepare for these shows that I do is call people that know you or at least that I know know you, which in my network is Ethan Fernho. And I was like, "Hey, we're having Paul on. What should I what is a question I should ask?" Um and Ethan said, I'll miss the quote, but it was you're at the pinnacle peak of success today. How did moving to Indianapolis or to Indie Teraho 8 uh set the stage for that for you? Like how did Indie play into Indiana in general? Ethan's a big Indiana guy, so I think he wanted to hear the champion of of Indiana and the roots. Yes. Well, I think a lot of Ethan for many [clears throat] reasons, you know, he's a guy of deep faith, very smart business guy, so appreciate, you know, his support and confidence. My family moved from Texas when I was eight years old. So Indiana's home to me and it's what I've grown up with and raised my family in Indiana. So it's it's been very good to me. Afforded me opportunities that I don't know where you know I would have been otherwise. And so I moved to Teroot Indiana and that's where I I grew up. So that's home to me. Began to work in Indianapolis in the mid 90s. And so we hired, you know, our first person in Indianapolis in I think 1996 or seven and then just grew our presence here from that that first hire and began to to work here and then really sourced our our team and talent here on our development side. While we still have a a goodsized presence and a great team in in Teroot that you know has been there a long time, we've grown our office here. I think we have about right at about 200 people than here in Indianapolis. So, Indiana, I think, is very stable. It's very steady, a lot of opportunity, friendly as far as supportive in that way. So people that you've talked to or I've had so many people in my path and in my life that have supported, given opportunity, kind of shown the way. And so I think that's what you get and in the Midwest, Indiana particularly is that supportive environment. So it's been a been a great place for me to grow up and to raise a family and to start a business. I think if you're not like integrated into Indiana, you don't appreciate the network that exists here and how easily accessible it is to just meet and learn from others. You don't have that in like if I think of New York, there's so many people. It's so congested to just try to meet people. You could run into anybody in the street where here we're a little bit more spread out. You know, I can call somebody like Ethan who I met from two other people and then have you on the podcast which he after he did the show he's like, "You have to have Paul on." So I knew I had a bookmark like I gotta call Ethan the night before and get the run down. So I appreciate him and that and I appreciate Indiana and the way that it just breeds entrepreneurs and the real estate here and the way that we are able maybe we can talk a little bit on investment for real estate specifically. How do you feel Indiana stacks up against like its other competitors in the Midwest from a real estate lens? So there's two aspects that come to mind when I think about that question. uh one is investing here and developing uh real [clears throat] estate in Indiana which really only you know less than 10% of our business is conducted in Indiana we go out throughout the country and develop and support that here from Terode and Indianapolis we have other offices but our primary uh you know route and team is is here in in Indiana so we don't in only about 10% or less of our volume is here. It's a great place to develop. It's very friendly compared to many other environments that we develop in as far as entitlement, financing, understanding the market, the stability of the market and and so on. So, it's a great place to do business, great place to invest. If I had my brothers, we would only invest here. Yeah. uh but for our growth trajectory and aspirations, you know, that won't support that type of volume. Uh the other aspect that I think of, quick pause here, because if you're an investor in Indianapolis, access matters. That's why we work closely with Tony Bros at Indie Homes Reborn. He's one of our main sources for offmarket wholesale deals and consistently bring strong opportunities to our agents in our investor network. Click the link in our bio to get access to what Indie Homes Reborn has. available is just the developers here particularly in our space real estate and particularly multif family we punch way above our weight when it comes to the number of developers high quality developers and they're our peers I don't look at them as comp as competitors uh but friends peers we punch way above our weight with developers that are located here in Indianapolis and develop throughout the country and throughout the And so we we definitely have been a breeding ground for high quality developers that have gone out and really done, you know, a lot of volume across the country and continue to. Yeah. I always joke there's some got to be something in the water or I think it's, you know, we had Tad Miller on the podcast like you look at just Milhouse, TWWG, you of course you guys, and there's like such a high per capita volume of developers. Do you know why that is? like everyone's just like noticing this. Is it is it and I was just speculating is it is it because people it's easier to like get your first house here and then buy that duplex and then all of a sudden it balloons into something or is there another reason you think that that is? Well, I'm sure it's multiaceted. One thing is kind of the principle of clustering where you get you see it, you visualize it or somebody works with somebody or for somebody, they branch out. You know, you have some you've had some big developers here like Duke and Simon and others who have been based here and bred here. And so there's been a lot of spin-off from that. and then you get third fourth generation away from you know that epicenter and continues to spiral. So it's I think it's that clustering effect that just spins off whether it's just being associated with or seeing it displayed or working in that environment and then taking that out and maybe you do a different version of it. But to me that's the best explanation as well. It's a great great breeding ground. But I'm sure there are a lot of other places that that uh would also be supportive of that type environment. But I think it's the clustering impact is what I would point to as the biggest reason. Yeah. For you as you um [clears throat] something that repeatedly came up when I was asking others what like hey we're having Paul Thrift on the podcast. What would what would you love to hear about? A lot of people I think wanted to know as you're developing something and I know we're we're going to get back to your score. Sorry, I know kind of jumping all over the place here, but as you were institutionalizing Thompson and Thrift, um, to the point where it's like not you doing everything and hiring and building a team, were there mentors or was it books or was it podcast? What was the playbook that you were running or did you just somehow providentially just make the right decisions? And was it was it the Simons and those other people around that like helped inform that playbook? just curious how you made those decisions as you were getting to scale. So I I've used a word to describe our journey more than any other word and you just used it as you know provident providence you know God opened doors that we never could have imagined or even there and had no way of knowing where they would lead and so I really believe that it's been a journey of God just opening and paving a way for us and we were faithful to work hard and take those opportunities and walk through them. He doesn't just give it to you and serve it up on a platter. But I think that we we wouldn't have known and wouldn't have even had fathomed where we could have gone with it without, you know, God and his providence opening doors. So that that's the first thing. I did not I did not major in real estate and major in finance. Didn't go to work for another developer. So that was not my journey. If I was counseling my son or others, I would say, you know, go straight to work for one of these developers, learn the ropes, understand best practices and how it works, how this all goes together. That would be my counsel. But I I I didn't know that to tell my 17-year-old self that, you know, that's the journey. Well, I think it worked out. [laughter] But yeah, through a lot of hard knocks and it's almost like the character development of mowing the grass at the first flip, doing the carpet. Like I don't know if that was more important than the technical on this first property. Oh, for sure. We were, you know, neck deep and tearing out plaster and plumbing and mowing the grass and you name it, we did it. And so for me, for, you know, quite a few years, we were definitely swinging a hammer between classes, paying bills late into the night. What did your college mates think about that? They think you guys were crazy. like why are these guys not grabbing beers and partying with us? Why are they always I didn't say we didn't do that as well. It was actually high school too. We didn't the first flip. We didn't miss uh you know we didn't miss any parties I don't think. Wait, it wasn't high school. It was it was my post high school. So it was the summer after after high school, right? I mean that's still crazy. Wow. Uh and then that transitioned into what? Student housing from there. We did transition pretty quick into student housing while we were attending Indiana State, John and myself. We saw an opportunity that, you know, we saw at other campuses or had exposure to, but off the campus of Indiana State University there in in Terote, there was no purpose-built student housing. It was only, [clears throat] you know, houses that had been divided up into four or six units sharing a kitchen type style. Correct. Yes. pretty pretty uh tough circumstances at the time. You didn't think about it being tough. We saw an acre of ground really adjacent to campus and we'd been developing you know for a few years flipping houses and building some forplexes. And so three or four maybe three years into school we envisioned this opportunity to meet the demand for student housing. And so we identified an acre ground, put together a plan, and built 28 two-bedroom units. So that was our first kind of significant project that you now you look at the cost per unit and the total budget and you think, oh, that was pretty meager, but at the time that was a big project for us. Yeah. You know, really, well, you've never done it before years into school. Never done anything to that scale for sure. Yeah. New construction. So design, you know, meeting all of the criteria, getting entitlement, financing, capitalizing a project like that was all new to us. and then managing something at at that scale. And student housing is very different than other housing that we had had some experience and gained some experience at managing the student process of you know basically leasing everything at one within one week of the year turning everything that first year turning 75% of the units or more within a week's period. That was quite an an experience. But my partner is really good at marshalling resources and managing construction activities and even then before we had really split duties uh you know that but he he shined at that. Does that building still exist? It does. Yes. We celebrated our 40th year anniversary uh this year. You still own it? We don't own it. Oh, dang it. Uh yes. I wish kind of wish we did, but we don't. I do too. And if if you look back though at at the time we sold that was probably almost 10 years into since we've since the time we started it. Uh but we went back there to record a video just in kind of the journey and [clears throat] celebrate. It actually still looks really good today and still is in service and we had multiple phases over the course of about seven or eight years and so it became I don't know several hundred beds there but it still looks great and what a blessing to the service today the college probably should you know cut you a check I'm sure that actually helped their growth and development you would imagine um you talked about your your partner 40 years you guys have been partnered together it's incredible um I was looking at a stat just always thinking about our partnership. 70% of partners don't make it in business. How what's the bread and butter? What's the secret sauce? Like I you get marriage counseling, but give us some business partnership counseling. Yes, great question. You know, looking back now, you can see that it is pretty unique and I acknowledge that and it's it's pretty rare to to be partners for that long. For many years, I didn't really think that much about it because it's just the way we grew up and it's all we knew. But really, as I look back, I can appreciate and acknowledge the uniqueness of it and the, you know, the specialness of it. Really, I think it's several things. One is we went through this business the same stage of life and so we didn't have a disparity of age or family status or, you know, somebody's getting ready to retire, they want to go. So we were marching through this kind of in the same season of life. We did not take on outside interest which I think is another big reason. So we didn't have to worry about where your loyalties are or where you're spending your time. We were all in all the time still to this day. Everything we've done is investing wise together has been together. So we didn't have to worry about you know the conflict of interest in outside things. So I think that's been a big key. Pretty early on we separated duties and migrated to the areas that were we had strengths and our strengths are not the same strengths and certainly we all have weaknesses and so they complement each other. We're very different [clears throat] people and we've always agreed on the the major strategies. So we've never really had disagreements on major issues. Our disagreements have generally come minor things that were easil easy to for somebody to to give or yield on. And I think maturity is is a big part of it is understanding, hey, there's going to be push and pull and different times and having a certain maturity and yielding, you know, to the to the other party at certain times, knowing when to keep your mouth shut, when when to say something. And uh I'm probably uh pretty bad at this at that. So know when to keep my mouth shut. But anyway, it's been a great partnership. I'm very very blessed. And those are a couple of things that that come to mind as as kind of why I think that that we've had the longevity that that we've had. So either I got to buy your Airbnbs or I got to sell at GNC or you both sell. Something's wrong. [laughter] Uh yeah, we're we're starting to get into that same pool because we've recognized the distractions outside of the the main ship being our own investments. We just went after them with each other cuz early on my wife's like don't buy a building with Tyler like you idiot. And then now she's like buy a building with Tyler you idiot. Stop doing things separate. At a certain level like simplicity and knowing who you trust and just like this is the person I trust and I'm going to continue to build that and being aligned I think in the deepest things which that's what I was going to ask. are you and your part um obviously I know your faith has propelled you and kind of been that bedrock of not just values but also I think calling um and we'll get into some of the stuff you guys are doing has that been something that sustained the partnership as well would you say faith yes I think we're deeply aligned on our values we're certainly different people and have different ways of expressing that so but I would say that we have complete alignment in that area that's awesome um for those that don't know development I think is this big word that's like oh my gosh like cranes and multi-million dollars like obviously it's just um you know buying land and developing could you kind of explain what Thompson and Thrift for the I would hate to just assume everyone knows what you guys do because I've heard from the the development side but then also from like the our side is more on the like investment side like I have friends that have invested with you kind of explain at high level what you guys do Yes. So we have [cough and clears throat] two different operating entities, a development company and we have a construction company. So John, my partner, he has oversight and is CEO of Thompson Thrift Construction and I have oversight and I'm CEO of our development company. And that development company houses, you know, acquisitions. We go out and secure and identify opportunities in markets from market research to out identifying parcels of property. So we're identifying areas of opportunity. Right now focused our focus is on multif family or apartment development. So we're identifying markets that we think have the right fundamentals to lead to the right demand for multif family that exceeds the supply in that in that market. to identify through market research the markets. We have site acquisition folks that are out identifying potential sites, researching those, putting them under contract. Then we have design folks that are designing the sites and the buildings, working with outside architects to do that. Financial feasibility, understanding, you know, how that deal underwrites. Uh will it [clears throat] you meet the proforma? Will the demand be there? what rents, what are expenses and so on, what would the exit look like at a certain time, you know, projecting the financial performance of this project. Then you have to capitalize it. And so we have to have the proper debt structure on it as well as the capital and the equity. And ours development is a very capital intensive business. So we have to raise a lot of money annually. We'll do, you know, between 800 million and a billion dollars worth of development this year. And so it requires 30 40% of that in capital or equity. So we raise that annually. We do that through a private network. So as you referenced we have a lot of varying investors, mainly high net worth individuals, family offices, RA networks. Do these have to be accredited? They do. Okay. So requirement to be an accredited investor. So we syndicate or divide up you know this equity raise into individual shares and those are purchased by individuals across the country. We have about 1100 different uh individual investment investors. So we have an investment management group or investor relations group that manages that activity and make sure all the right reporting and you know customer service for our for our investors and then going through the process we'll build that call you know talk about multif family because that's primarily what we're focused on and then we manage it. We have a management company that manages the on-site activities, the leasing of the units, the maintenance of the units and and so on. And then we'll take an asset full cycle to sell it and monetize it. And so we have a team that takes it through that process. They'll work with local brokers to market it fully, but it still takes a lot of internal resources and attention to shepherd that process to a successful conclusion. So, that's kind of the full life cycle of a project and construction obviously services that activity through the heart of that on-site activity to construct that asset. uh they're they're involved from the very beginning of helping to budget and design so we can make sure it's designed to a buildable budget and then they'll our construction group will build that project and turn it over to property management. So that's that's the life cycle of a of a project. Typically a life cycle of a project for us lasts about five years about two years you know pre start of construction and about three years post start of construction to build a community to lease it and then to exit that project. It's a highly sophisticated way to flip a piece of land essentially with thousands of people involved. Just just an elongated process. Yeah. Right. We're like three to five week timelines in the residential space. It's like and that that teaches you patience because I've been there with that much shorter life cycle. Well, markets can change entirely during that time. That's right. And that's part of the risk profile is just that we're having to think out four to five years into a market. What's it going to look like? What's the micro picture going to look like in any certain submarket and we work across the country so that can vary greatly from region to region but then also what's the macro economic picture going to look like interest rates capital flows the economy in general jobs and so it is very difficult to forecast out so you we look at a lot of data look at historical market cycles and trends but you don't always get it right either and so you have to be prepared prepared for that. And a lot of times, you know, it's a waiting game to wait till the market comes back. Everything cycles. Real estate certainly cycles. And we've been in a down market the last three to four years uh for real estate in general, multif family as well. And so after a 12-year, you know, very bull run post the GFC through 2022 when interest rates spiked post the COVID era of high inflation and high value growth and high rent growth and have a shortage of housing that was created from a decade of under supply from 2010 to 2020. So, it's been a dynamic, you know, last couple years, but we see that the market's entering a new cycle and we're going to cycle right back over the next three to four years because we'll be under supplied again. So, on the horizon of looking back over the last 30 or 40 years, you can see very distinct cycles and we've been through a very kind of unusual period from March of 2020 till today. Unusual is a great word. [laughter] Yes. Yeah. What is uh some of those tough days? Anything big failures that have shaped the way that Thompson and Thrift operates today? Well, certainly we've had our share of setbacks you learn from those. I don't think any business is exempt from that. At least not that I've been associated with or aware of. It's usually the most important turning points in fact sometimes are when things don't go right. Oh, I think yes. You learn much more from, you know, the setbacks than you do the successes. We try not to dwell on them or let them get you down, but you know, the term fail forward. You try to learn from them and move on and and lean into the next opportunity. So, there's been so many just try to pick out one. I'll I'll pick something from the early days that I find kind of amusing and hopefully you will as well. early in our career it was 90 I think it was 93 or four so let's say we were seven years into business together and we were still experimenting with lots of different things uh real estate was our primary love passion but we partnered with a person that was going to start our our vision was a chain of convenience stores so we bought a a lot we built it of course you know we had the we were going to kind of focus on the real estate and this outside partner was going to focus on operations. And so we did, we built it, opened it, operated it, we were interested in it. And so we worked I worked the counter for about a week just to get to to know the business. Very naive that I could even begin to understand it, but we didn't know any any better. So that was a very uh transitional period for that business. cigarettes, which you guys probably, you know, too too young to understand, you know, the the change in industry at that time. Went from being very common place. You made a lot of money in the convenience stores selling them to, you know, there's lawsuits and settlements and so on with the tobacco companies. Gas that you used to make margin on, you didn't. So, long story short or shorter, we lost a lot of money and we just continued to to lose money and I didn't realize you could lose so much in an operating business because you're just operating at a loss. It just keeps piling up. So, the the takeaway from that is is we really determined after that to focus on real estate, stay out of operating businesses, stick to our knitting, and we've we've stuck to that to this day. But it was an expensive lesson. We're really fortunate and just put us out of business at the time. So we we fueled that and funded it with, you know, other op real estate transactions that we actually were turning a profit on. But but we learned from that like in real estate focus is just so important. You know, for me, I've done some long-term, some short-term, one flip, one burr, and I'm a master of none. Right? It's like now I'm decid me and Max are like no I think we do want to do this like small medium multif family just to like get to a level of specialization to where you're in a role where you because otherwise you're doing a bunch of roles you don't know what you're doing and someone's going to come around and beat you or you're just going to get blindsided. Um, within uh Thompson and Thrift's journey, uh, Thompson Thrift, sorry, I know there's not an and in between, but within that journey, I feel like there's an inflection point where it's it went from, you know, we're doing one deal and then we're focused on the next deal and you're kind of manning the stations and doing a lot of yourself to the point of hitting scale where it's a truly national company where you're probably, you know, the visionary leading the team, setting the the course. um for the whole organization. What were the keys to get getting there? Because I talked to a lot of developers who are stuck in the weeds making the calls to the city or to the contractor and they just can't get to scale. Like how do you get to that magical almost point of scale where you have at least from the outside looking in where you have people all in their right places? What have been the keys to getting there for you? Well, it's certainly been a journey, not just one, you know, pivotal moment or one action to to get you there. And there's been several stages to it. So, you know, early years, then kind of, you know, I would say the the middle years for us, and then the more recent phase or season. So the biggest adjustment was probably about 20 years in where we had some, you know, scaled to kind of a regional activity. We had a team in place. We weren't out doing every activity of the business, but we were still very hands-on, still command and control, dictating kind of every activity that went on, making every making the most important calls. Yeah, for sure. And so about 20 years in in the say 20067 when we looked and really decided we wanted to begin to focus and we wanted to develop a business plan that we could scale at uh nationally. And so that's when we developed the the plan for the multif family platform that we're operating today and intently set out to build a national platform multifamily development group focused on a a certain you know prototypical unit model focused on secondary markets tertiary markets where we saw institutional capital really ignoring but still had really good demand fundamentals. Little did we know how the multif family market would mature over the course of the following 20 years. That was totally unbeknownst to us. So many times I'd rather be lucky than good or it's another, you know, sign of that providence that we had no idea of. But that's what we set out to do. And in that we began to get serious about scaling. A few years after that, uh, we really [clears throat] transitioned to, you know, really having to talk about institutionalizing our business because we experienced such dynamic growth in executing that plan and then quickly realized, you know, you cannot we cannot sustain this from a command and control model. It's just not sustainable with the growth that we had, the geographic diversification, the growth in number of people, growth in volume. I imagine you were quite overloaded potentially in that time for sure. And so all the needs changed dramatically from management to capital raising and other things. So so everything's changed dramatically. Our culture that we had it was easy to kind of just transfer your culture through proximity and osmosis because you were with everybody. Everybody was around you and eyesight and well, you've got people working in a different state right now. Correct. And when we had a plane to go see them soon as we had people a thousand miles away working on a product type that we' never built, maybe never even met them. Well, they didn't they didn't have any knowledge of our culture or what our biases were or what our preferences were or even what our values were. And so we began to understand in that period shortly after that that hey we have to institutionalize these values. We have to state them. We have to memorialize them. We have to communicate them. We have to live them. We have to be really intentional about this. So so we began a process of kind of retaking our culture building it out in the way that years prior it had just been transferred through proximity and example. And now that that wasn't good enough as we grew in number and again because I know a lot of people like can recite your values, your core values. You had someone do that at your office when I visited. Yes, that was Yes. I hope they can. [laughter] I know they can. As a matter of fact, so but we had to get real intentional about that. And we hadn't been intentional because we just didn't realize how that worked and the need for that and the benefit of that. And so as soon as we started seeing that, hey, we we don't like, you know, what we've become, we have we have no culture because, you know, the people out there in the hinterlands, they don't they don't know what we're about. They were just hired to do a job. They're doing it, but yet they don't they don't understand. So So we began a journey that took a while. I think it takes longer to rebuild something and recapture than it does to build it right from the beginning. And we just didn't know that. And like so many things in our journey, you've had to learn it by doing because again, I didn't go to work work 10 years for a company and witness this in action and see it firsthand. I just had to experience it. And many times you learn that when you're, you know, building your own business through trial and error. And you asked a question earlier about, you know, mentorship. I I had many mentors, but really none that I dove in to have conversations like that. that more came from reading, you know, outside examples and seeking out, you know, specific counsel through through books, biographies or business books on those subjects that that I would I would dive into and learn. So that that's the way. So that's that's a little bit about our journey to go back to your question about you know scaling and institutionalizing. So it was through that journey that now, you know, it's been almost another 20 years of really institutionalizing our business and and we're in a totally different, you know, spot today than we were even five years ago when it comes to an executive structure, distributed leadership model, you know, a shared governance model. How much of your time or decision- making is tactical? like we're running this play, we're going to this market. And how much of it is just cultural leadership? I would say 10% tactical. Can't get behind the store clerk. You can't be the guy checking people out anymore. Right. Right. That's right. Yeah. And probably 25% 30% cultural. Uh and then I have some other responsibilities I'm still involved with that take up the other portion of time. So still involved deeply with our our ultimate project approval process, investment committee, site tours, going out to markets, understanding the sites and markets at a high level, giving the ultimate, you know, buy in uh because we still support it with our balance sheet, our capital, but the biggest thing is I still represent our organization out to our capital partners. And so, you know, being able to honestly say to them that look, I've walked this side. I've understand this market. I've spent time in the market and ultimately I signed off on this project. And then the balance of my time is spent out with those capital partners raising dollars and communicating with them because it's a big part of our business and and a big, you know, drive. You're still selling. Yes, sir. I don't think you ever stop selling. I don't think you ever stop. A quick aside, most people overpay for insurance or worse, they're undercovered and they don't realize it. We partner with Jackson Blevens at Core Insurance Solutions. He's a full-ervice broker here locally in Indianapolis who handles everything from home, auto, boat, he can do it all, and he understands the retail side and investor side of the game. If you want someone who can shop the market for you and tailor correct coverage for your property, connect with Jackson in the description below. Do you get to get any joy or happiness going to these like sites? I just feel if I was the developer like this is so cool what we're building or is it all like all right let me make sure that everything's happening correctly and going [laughter] the question. Yes. I would say more the latter. Yeah. That it is got a job to do to step back and take any real pleasure or joy in the product. Yeah. Because your concentration, my concentration is always forward. Yep. I'm looking at the next hurdle. I'm thinking about four years from now, five years from now. Okay. These projects that we're having to make decisions on today, it's going to be four or five years before we know how that works out. So that's 90 plus% of my focus. Yeah. So to step back a little bit, to step back and really take much time to say, "Oh, let's just relish in in the victory here or this building that looks so great." Uh that's hard. Now, I'm trying to still to this day to try to build in some discipline to do that because you need to celebrate with your team. You need to acknowledge them. That's important. Have check points more so than for me to sit there and celebrate. It's important for us to celebrate for them. Yeah. So, I'm trying to build in better disciplines to do that and get more comfortable doing that. But it but it's hard because your focus is is forward. Yeah. But yes, it gives me joy. And there's another aspect to that question. And I would say that for many years and particularly when you're out swinging a hammer or you're very close to it, you building and developing can be very rewarding because you see what you've done right there and it's this building or this day's worth of work that you just completed and it's like immediate gratification and that's very rewarding. developing, running a company, particularly when you deal with, you know, projects with long horizons, it can it can be kind of thankless in that you don't see the fruits of that right in front of you. So, at some point in time, I had to shift my sense of accomplishment from project oriented to people oriented. And now I get most of my joy by watching a team work together, accomplish a task together. And so I' I've had to, as I've, you know, evolved our business, as we talked about earlier, I've had to get my sense of accomplishment by managing that team, leading that team, developing leaders, developing people. And so that's where I get most of my sense of accomplishment is looking at our teams and watching what they're able to accomplish. And so I' I've had to get my sense of accomplishment from from that. Yeah. I think talking about the teams, one of the things that we do with Roots, you know, we've got 15 agents and growing. Um faith [snorts] is a huge part of what we do. Not only like internally and the culture, but externally with events we're hosting or even the podcast, just not shying away from being bold and taking ground of uh for the kingdom. And how does that play into interplay with the people aspect for you? Well, I commend you on recognizing that at such an early age and [clears throat] stage of your business. That's not something I can claim that we did well early in our our business life. At that time, my faith was very compartmentalized. That was kind of okay Sunday or that was my personal thing. This was business this is life over here. It was very compartmentalized and years later really maybe 15 years ago you know I realized that look my life is [clears throat] not compartmentalized in my faith journey my work my personal social life kids that's it's all one and the same. And so I began to go through a process of trying to decompartmentalize my life, which I'm probably still on that journey of of really truly, you know, trying to break down these walls of separation between these different aspects of your of your life. But I really set out about the same time I described earlier as, hey, I don't like this culture that, you know, we've slipped into. Uh it was about that same period I was praying for a ministry. I envisioned it to be outside of the business and turned out God kept answering me. Why why you keep asking me for something different when I've given you these people [clears throat] around you this sphere of influence very narrow platforms. You're standing on it. You just got to use it. Yeah. Why do you keep asking me for something different? And so at that time I I really set out to accomplish that using business as a ministry, creating a ministry. It took me a couple years to understand what's that look like and what's that mean for us. And again, it's still a journey I'm on today. And we have aspirations to take it way beyond where where we are today. Uh but it was to then begin to minister to our people first, then our communities outside of that as an avenue for our people to go out and grow and flourish individually through serving. Also to expose them uh to that activity of serving and to gospacentric ministries that we support. And so it all works together, but really it's about impacting our our team, you know, demonstrating the love of Christ to them, exposing them, giving them avenues to serve, giving them avenues to grow, leadership development, service, professional and technical development. All these things work together to allow them to flourish as a whole individual. So, we've built a a pretty advanced sophisticated program within our within our business that has a staff, has a brand, has a budget, we have a strategy and intentionality behind that, started very small and has grown to where now it's a huge part of our organization. I It's part of our DNA and it's part of who we are every day. And it's not me, just like the evolution of our business. I don't have to go drive that every morning uh in order to advance it. We have a really accomplished leader. He has a staff. We have volunteer leadership in our organization. And so I still get great satisfaction from being involved and and actually have as a goal to spend more of my time in that activity over the next several years rather than than less as I can move away from some other duties. So, so that's been a big part of our journey and is a big part of who we are today. But it's been a long journey. Yeah. Over the course of of a long, you know, many vision trips that's a component of it or is that the main impact sphere for it? It's a component of it. So, the vision trips we take, we have three pillars within our what we call TT serve. We have our team members which have programs to support them. And then we have community which we have outside community service partners which are gospel- centric organizations, ministries that have you know their own target [clears throat] client or or people they're serving and we just try to come alongside them, support them while also giving our team members the opportunity to serve them and be involved. Uh and then the vision trips is our global pillar which we work to build churches in five Central American communities, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, and two cities in Mexico. And so that's we're financing churches for congregations that have a need and also hope centers for that church to minister to the community. Mainly it's feeding kids, providing medical services, places they can gather. So we take trips, five trips a year, one to each market. We have aboutif 10 to 15 of our people can can attend each trip. And so very life impacting for you know those folks to be able to go to serve in that way to experience that. And so it's it's terrific. It's just been highly impactful. Incredible. I love that. That is not what I expected when I asked the question. So, congrats to you and God bless for that the Lord. That's all glory to God. He's really orchestrated this in a way I never could have. That's probably why he's allowed your company to be so successful is to have this impact. I mean, I truly believe that. Well, I would be an instrument. I would second that. Yeah. from the outside looking I can't take credit for it because again you just never could have known I could never could have known you know the steps to take to even get to where we are today and I can only imagine what that outward focus mission does within the company of just like bringing in a source of light and joy and further purpose even if they're not able to go to Mexico or to Costa Rica I'm just sure being around that and having that mentality because we've we've started to do these street sweeps which is a very locally formed version of that where we'll go out to a park and clean up, give out homeless care kits and not evangelize too much, but we're working on that. And what that's done for our agents is is monumental in terms of reframing how they think about being in real estate. It's just like, oh, it's there's more than just a paycheck. Yes. Here. Yeah. Again, congratulations to you guys for embracing that at this stage of your career. And I think it'll pay huge huge dividends and I love what you're doing. Hopefully we'll be we'll be going international at some point. We have a transaction coordinator that's based in South Africa and they uh it's a tumultuous time there. So we want to get get out there to good to serve in some great capacity. Um this has been awesome. We have a uh last minute kind of uh section called planting roots to kind of tie it all together. Um so they don't have to be quick answers but we'll ask them fairly quick. So, you moved from rural Indiana to Carmel um quite [clears throat] a few years back at this point. What's your favorite restaurant in not just Carmel, but Indiana, if you had to pick one? Well, it's easy answer when you talk about Caramel. We live right downtown Caramel and so within a block is Monterey and so we find ourselves there probably weekly and we really love that restaurant. So, I'd have to say that's our go-to and probably our favorite, although there's a lot of good choices. Vita downtown is my favorite restaurant downtown. So, I'll I'll stop there because I could uh I can name a lot of restaurants that that I think it's Ambrosia Group or something. Can't remember their name. They just opened Pedra, which is at B works. You'll have to go. Yes. Uh, and that gentleman that owns that is opening uh a similar concept restaurant at our union project which is part of Fischer District development in Fisers. I think I saw that he's from or he lives in Fischers. So he'll be opening that restaurant early next year. And so we're excited to have him as well as the Cuttingham Group is opening a a restaurant there and Flowerchild and several others. We've got a really Oakmont. Uh so we go we got a lot of great restaurants coming on top of what's already there uh in that Fiser district that we we're proud to have have developed and the city's really embraced the community's embraced it and we're really I was hoping you'd pick a terote restaurant but [laughter] there's some good there's some good choices over there. Yeah, there's some okay actually there's some I'll defend the restaurant scene over there. It's pretty pretty strong. Yeah, go deep. Yeah. Um, you mentioned books being a place of knowledge. What is a top three list if you had to shrink it all the way down? Top three reads for you. Top three books, uh, probably the best leadership development book is James Hunter. And I'll probably butcher the name, but it's the the world's greatest leadership principle or something is is I forget the title, but by James Hunter. And that was the best leadership book that I've been associated with. You know, you can't help but love Good to Great. Jim Collins is just a classic business book that is just dynamite. Yeah. Boy, there's so many others. There's a book and I'll probably butcher the name again, but it's on Solomon and the and the proverbs and I forget the title. I've read it quite a few times and really love that. Um, you know, Frederick Hayes, the road to surfom is also just classic uh book on economics and free markets and capitalism. So that that's that's stellar and you just can't you can't do better than that. We're not following that one too well in our national economy but [laughter] not Kenyan. We're not at all simulation of the Fed. We've gone quite quite a ways off track on that. That's that's exactly so more people need to read that book for [laughter] sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Some sort of leadership. I think all the people in the private sector are reading it. It's the people in the public sector that are not. [laughter] Well, we vote them in. So, it's really blame them. Can't Yeah. We got to blame the the public. That's one thing that's easy to do is blame who's elected. We we keep reelecting them. Yeah. Last question for you. We're big on personal habits. Um, absolutely has changed our life and our trajectory from a young age. Fortunately, we've had mentors that have shown us that. What is one habit that's changed your life? So try to develop a lot of habits uh in order to you know advance where you want to be eventually. I I'll say two come to mind re reading for sure you know trying to read and be in the word read Bible as well as books to that are edifying whether they be business books or or personal growth uh books. So I think both of those or you know reading has been an important part which seems to be more of a battle these days than than it should be at my age. I would also say just a a practical habit that may have been forced upon me just by my workload but that I did intentionally over the years was just spend a lot of time Sunday nights getting ready for the week. So doing a two-eek look ahead, my calendar, preparing for meetings, you know, two weeks out constantly on a rolling basis and spending seven, eight, 10 hours on Sunday evenings just preparing for the week. If I'll do that, I mean, generally speaking, um, it's I love that it's been that in the past probably more like six or seven now. That's that's next level. But that's maybe why I'm not having that type of success. Mine's like a 30 minute interview. [laughter] You got time. Yeah. But if I go into my week having done that, it's a totally different week than if I don't do that. And when I don't, and there are times you just can't because you're reactive, right? Uh that's correct. So then then it's a totally different week. But but I am working recently on honoring a Sabbath. Yeah. Which I have never done. And I'm it's a work in progress for me. But that's having me rethink and kind of reshape that that time. So I'm now trying to spend more time on Saturday doing that. But I but I I like family time on Saturday. So I'm trying to reshuffle this right now. But that's a habit I've done for 35 plus years. Yeah. And and I think it's it's it's helped me and and because I know I miss it when I don't get it accomplished. [snorts] Yeah. I do about like a two hour on Sunday evening and if I miss that I'm screwed for the rest of the week. It's like waking up after your alarm the rest of the week you're just like what's going on? Where am I? That's the best thing. We do have one more. If you had a billboard in Indie for just a week paid for, what would it say? What's the message that Indie needs to hear? Uh that's a good question. It's hard to pin me down to one answer. I think what they need to hear is that Jesus loves you. Probably on a practical is that that's very practical. So, I don't want to take take that away, but just on a on a kind of life principle that I think would fold into that is, you know, don't sacrifice long-term goals for short-term benefits. It's just we we all suffer from that. We have these long-term goals and I've got to have a principle I put together in a graphic form of here's your goal. Here's where you are. You want to march toward that. That's going to take incremental progress. But every little angle or degree you get off of that, the longer you, you know, don't get back on that track, the harder it is to climb back on that path. And so, but but we all get distracted with these short-term, you know, lures or benefits. And so, we can't sacrifice those long-term goals to get sucked away to to these short-term gains. So that that's one principle that I try to live by and try to communicate. So I think that's a message that we could all benefit from. [laughter] I love that we have uh [snorts] an agent in our room that could hear that. Just struggling through provision and getting started. And it's like you're just so close. Just hang on. Just one more step and you're going to get there. And and that's everybody in entrepreneurship. I think that when your provision or piece gets out of whack, it's like taking a second to think about the long term. Why am I here? People make very short-term decisions is what you especially when it involves money, right? Is what I think you you notice. And it's hard to be an entrepreneur. It it dips down before it hockey sticks up usually. Yeah. Uh I love that. Um just to kind of affirm you, I love that I feel like you have a pastor's heart, but you're an entrepreneur. And that's very rare. Like I could almost see like your energy was like going down when we're talking about money and scaling and then we talk about the missional side and your energy goes up. and I noticed that [clears throat] on other podcasts. So, I would affirm you and and what you're doing and leading company. It's really cool. Well, thank you. I've been really impressed, guys. I haven't spent any time with you, but just, you know, your your advancement and your maturity for your ages. That's no criticism. Uh, I wish I could go back and, you know, be 25 or 30 again, but uh, just the way you're shephering your business and, you know, the fact that you're taking time to communicate in this way and to seek people out and have these conversations, [music] it's very impressive. So, I wish you all the best and and and know that you're going to do great things. I appreciate that. Thanks for coming on the show. This has been another Roots Podcast. Make sure to like and subscribe. Comment your top read in the comments below. [music] Peace. Cheers.