Unlocking Opportunities: Paul Dircks on Alternative Asset Investing

Greg Lyons (00:10):

Welcome to the Passive Income Brothers podcast.

Tim Lyons (00:13):

Here we take the fear out of real estate investing using real life stories of everyday successful investors.

Greg Lyons (00:19):

 Let’s go.

Tim Lyons (00:22):

Welcome to another episode of The Passive of Income Brothers podcast. My name is Tim, and today I’m joined by two absolute rock stars, one of which being and my brother Greg. How are you doing, buddy?

Greg Lyons (00:32):

Tim never gets old, but boy do we have a rock solid podcast today. Huge announcement right here on the Passive Income Brothers podcast. We are announcing the expansion of Cityside Capital, And I never thought I’d see this day.

Tim Lyons (00:47):

That’s a hundred percent right, Greg. We started this journey a couple of years ago and we didn’t know what to expect, right? We did one deal at a time, we failed forward. It was a great kind of a journey, and we found some early success and we’ve kind of aligned ourselves with the great people we’ve had a ton of opportunity to and build great relationships. And I tell you what, Greg, if we ever had an idea to start a podcast and that we didn’t do it, we probably may have never met this individual who is now going to be joining Cityside Capital. So we want to take this opportunity on the Passive Income Brothers podcast to have a special episode to introduce everybody to someone that’s going to be joining us in our endeavors over here at Cityside Capital. And I think it’s a true testament to taking that leap of faith, Greg, failing forward, getting educated, taking the action surrounding yourself with people that are doing the thing that you want to do and accountability. And I think we’ve been able to be a part of mastermind and accountability groups, and I’m really excited because it’s not just going to be the Tim and Greg show anymore. We’re Going to Have somebody else to hold us accountable. So I’m really looking forward to this.

Greg Lyons (02:06):

Tim, could you imagine if it didn’t actually take us 13 months to start the podcast? I mean, we could have met any number of people before, but in that 13 months we got it right or we got out of our own way and thank God we’ve been putting out content. We’ve met so many wonderful people along the way and this is one of them.

Tim Lyons (02:27):

So I want to just take this opportunity to introduce you guys to our newest member. His name is Paul Dircks. And Paul and I had a great conversation one day a couple of months ago after he heard my story on a podcast. I’m going to let Paul tell the story, but I want to introduce you guys to Paul Dircks. How you doing, Paul?

Paul Dircks (02:47):

I’m doing well. How are you guys doing?

Tim Lyons (02:51):

Well, we’re doing great, and we’re happy to bring you on to this podcast today because not only are you a longtime listener, but now you’re going to be a contributor, which we’re super pumped about. So Paul, why don’t you tell the listeners how did you hear about City Side Capital? What was that process like? And then really tell us what’s your background? How did you get to where you were today?

Paul Dircks (03:14):

Sure, yeah, no thank you and so pleasure to be here. And the whole way I got here is through exploration and through just multi-year evolution really. Maybe to cut to the chase. I worked for nearly 20 years all on Wall Street, and we can dive into that in a minute. But after pivoting out of that career on Wall Street, I was going in the direction really of the industry and the assets that really always interested me and that I just couldn’t get enough of. And that was investing, real estate investing and alternative asset investing. And so like anything, I’m a junkie. I dive into books, I dive into podcasts and listening to a variety of different podcasts. You come across a lot of inspirational people. You come across people who open your eyes as to what’s possible or stories that resonate with yours. And frankly, Tim, when I heard you on one of the many podcasts I know you’ve been featured on as a guest, your story resonated with me in a way that just stood out from many of the others.

(04:23):

Obviously somebody like you who’s worked for many, many years with the New York City Fire Department and as an E M T nurse, and then obviously with Greg as well and his story and how he’s gotten to this point, I knew that what you guys bring to the table, what Cityside Capital embodies was aligned with how I am as a person, as an investor, and my own journey. So getting to this point really came from, like I said, in a short way, pivoting away from Wall Street to going in my own direction as an investor. But that being said, it’s all about reaching out. It’s all about building the network and building that bridge just like you guys have for so many years for your clients and with the many sponsors and other industry participants out there. For me, I was building a bridge to you guys and I couldn’t be happy to be here.

Greg Lyons (05:16):

That’s great. Paul and Tim, again, we should have started the podcast earlier. We have met so many wonderful, not only listeners, but now a future partner and different people that we’ve been able to connect kind of outside of Cityside Capital because you meet so many wonderful people. But I think the thing that probably struck me about you Paul, is there’s an intense curiosity about you and when you kind of take a look at something to devote your time to, you go all in. And I think that has a lot to do with your previous career. So when you’re on Wall Street, what were you doing and how’d you get started on Wall Street?

Paul Dircks (05:57):

Sure. No, I appreciate that. And maybe to even step back before getting into the Wall Street part, I’m a husband, I’m a father of three children. I live here in Long Island, New York while I’m originally from the Baltimore area. I moved to New York City in 2009 to further my career in finance. And with a lot of that, I kind of follow that traditional path of moving up the corporate ladder in the financial world. I should also mention I’m a son and brother of financial advisors. So I was the kid that grew up watching my dad work long hours studying financial markets, watching Wall Street Week with Louis Ru Kaiser at night and working hard to be an authentic and really just a good steward of his client’s capital. So ever since I was a little kid, I always thought being in a financial services serving in an advisory capacity was the most noble kind of job.

(06:52):

I always knew I wanted to go down that path. But for my time working on Wall Street first, I worked with a group of equity and fixed income portfolio managers and later as a sell side equity research analyst covering a wide range of industrial stocks working on Wall Street, you have the opportunity to work with many bright and ambitious professionals. They challenged me to dive deep into the markets, to ask critical questions about business models, about management teams, about the ability of different sponsors to execute on their plans. And ultimately they challenged me to deliver sound and substantiated advice to clients. While on Wall Street I earned a chartered financial analyst, C F A designation carried multiple FINRA licenses. And so when you have that experience, like I said, nearly for 20 years, you get a good understanding of investment risks of different securities products and really the whole gamut of things that affect our financial picture.

(07:52):

Like you Tim, we’ve talked about this before. I too was I guess you could say had a bit of an epiphany after reading Rich Dad, poor Dad. I read that book back in 2017, but unlike you, it took me two years to act on it, to really act on the lessons that were taught. I mean, ignoring the fact that my wife and I were having our second child and juggling all the responsibilities that come with having kids. I was stuck trying to reconcile the difference between the assets. I thought I had a good job on Wall Street, a house kind of following the traditional path and the assets, what they really are as painted by Robert Kiyosaki in that book. And truthfully, I didn’t have any of those real cash flowing assets. I didn’t have hard assets and I didn’t have any visibility to ever leaving the rat race or doing things a little bit differently.

(08:45):

That stuck in my craw for a while. And ultimately it took me two years to act on that. Eventually, a couple years later with the help of a mentor and a business partner, I ventured out, bought my first rental property. I know you guys have been active as active real estate investors to this day. I am an active real estate investor, and it’s something I very much enjoy, not just for the tax advantage cashflow that comes with real estate investing, but really the entire journey of finding an asset that’s been neglected needs to get fixed up, brought to its best and highest use, and then given someone or even a family a chance at a place to live, always found that to be very fulfilling. But over time, after learning about passive investing, kind of pivoting a little, I shouldn’t really say pivoting, but just kind of growing to that role to where I am in my life, passive investing’s become what really excites me.

(09:38):

In my opinion, passive investing is something that offers many of the best qualities that come with active real estate investing, but it’s a superior fit for many folks out there who don’t have the time or maybe the requisite expertise to dedicate to operating and managing properties. I mean, I personally find it as a natural compliment to many of the traditional investments out there like stocks, mutual funds or ETFs, but many of those traditional assets don’t offer the high cashflow yields or some of those tax advantages that I think are very attractive to many folks out there. Over time here, and as I’ve kind of built out my exposure to passive investments, I’ve done due diligence on several different asset classes, whether it’s multifamily, self storage, real estate, node funds, ATMs, even express car washes. I’ve invested with retirement money and non-retirement money. So I understand the steps that you need to take to kind of go along the path of opening up a self-directed I R A and ultimately taking a little bit more control of your assets and kind of pulling it all together. I’m very excited to bring these experiences my time on Wall Street, my understanding of different risks and opportunities to the cityside capital, to our community of listeners and clients. And I really believe strongly that this company is something special and that we have the ability to help people gain clarity on and actualize on their financial goals.

Tim Lyons (11:05):

Oh, Paul, I love that. I mean, that was just the way that you married Wall Street career and the traditional path and what you used to do for a living, writing research reports, doing due diligence on big companies, companies that we all probably have in our 4 0 1 K or 4 0 3 Bs or four 50 sevens. I mean, this is where Paul was living, right? Looking at profit and loss statements and looking at finances and 10 Ks and writing research reports about them and being on the earnings calls and asking tough questions. I mean, when you talk about somebody who’s super skilled and super smart, having the chartered financial analyst designation having multiple FINRA licenses, I mean, you were the traditional guy on Wall Street, which was so fascinating to me when we first had our call because I’m saying to myself, man, this guy is accomplished.

(11:57):

He’s super smart, he’s squared away, he’s super knowledgeable, and you had that one foot in that traditional world, right? Go to school, get a good job, go to Wall Street. Yeah, you’re going to make good money, but is that really what you’re after? And Paul and I are both girl dads. We both have three little girls, so we had that in common. And then I heard about Paul and he and his wife investing in real estate while both of them are full-time employees and their parents and they’re trying to live, and they have some stuff down in the sunbelt of the us And I’m saying, this guy really understands, he understands what Greg and I are trying to do. He understands the, yes, there’s a spot for traditional Wall Street type investing, I guess. But it’s also his understanding and the way that he could talk about the passive investing side and the different types of assets like you were just talking about.

(12:56):

I mean, raise your hand if you’re financial advisor has zipper talked to you about car washes or self storage facilities or note investing or land flipping or anything like that that you’d hear on our channel or other channels. And I can probably safely guarantee that maybe there’s one anomaly out there, Paul, but many people probably have never heard this from their financial advisors. And part of the reason why we loved Paul and his story was that Greg and I have now joined the broker dealer about two years ago. We have our fin rail licenses, we want to play in the same space. We want to open this up and democratize a lot of these investments to you, the listener to you, the traditional type of investor that may not know what’s available out there. So that was so powerful to me when I met Paul and we started having our conversations was that he was firmly planted in both worlds and could really articulate the pros and cons of each. And I think that’s really powerful, especially for our clients going forward. Paul, I mean, how do you feel taking that Wall Street type of 20 year tenure and now making the pivot to private placements, how do you think that’s going to help us serve our clients going forward?

Paul Dircks (14:14):

Sure. No, I appreciate the question. And I mean, I would say fluid markets, especially times like these require a higher level of due diligence. They require more than just your standard boilerplate approach to investments. It requires peeling back all the layers of the onion, right? And it’s not just about property condition. It could be on financing structure, it could be on tenure or the management team could be the fail safe or the other invest insurance. It could be even other contingency plans. Thinking through these layers I think is more critical than ever. And when you are a Wall Street research analyst, you are required to substantiate your research. You can’t put anything out there just to say it. You’ll get eviscerated by your clients, many of which are large private offices, hedge funds, mutual funds, portfolio managers, et cetera. But even beyond that, you lose your credibility, you lose your reputation, and you also lose your opportunity to grow as an individual if you’re shown to be somebody that’s callous or closed off or doesn’t do work and doesn’t show their work.

(15:22):

And on top of that, the work can’t just be simply just what you think. It can’t just be just qualitative. It has to be quantitative. You got to look at the numbers. I’m used to diving into financial models. I’m used to checking assumptions beyond underwriting or checking for a publicly traded company, the quality of their earnings. Well, there are questions that we can ask and that we are prepared to ask on behalf of our clients, of our sponsors that we might work with to say, how well can we get behind these projections? Where are the trap doors? I think that’s incredibly important. So I feel as if there’s a certain level of institutional rigor that I’m used to applying that I’m excited to apply for our client base and any of the listeners out there that are used to traditional methods of investing and maybe feel as if they don’t have the tools or the skills or the resources to do some of this diligence.

(16:16):

I mean, the last thing I’d say to your point on financial advisors out there, like I said, my dad and my brother, financial advisors, and I have many friends that are involved in the industry. They’re great people, they’re hardworking people and they do a fantastic job. But at the same time too, not every investment vehicle out there is something that really is, I would say, sellable or marketable under that kind of arrangement. When you think about alternative investments, many of them are liquid. Many of them have long-term holding periods. Many of them need to be held in separate accounts or need to be treated with a little bit more of a longer term incubation period before you actually can invest money. Some of those different nuances just don’t jive with the traditional financial advisor business platform. So again, this is a way where Cityside Capital can drive value not only for our clients, but even truthfully for many of the financial advisors and R I A advisors out there who want to have somebody and a group that can go out there underwrite investments and basically help eliminate them to what’s out there for their clients.

Greg Lyons (17:31):

This is all really great background on you and the way you think and your history of how to substantiate what you’re recommending. And of course, at Cityside Capital, we don’t recommend any investments to anyone. We merely present what’s out there and it’s up to the investor to decide. But when you kind of take your history and then you do your research and you kind of heard about Cityside Capital, what made you finally say, Hey, let me pick up the phone. Let me send an email. What made you say, Hey, there’s something here with Cityside Capital, I should reach out. So basically, why Cityside Capital?

Paul Dircks (18:15):

Sure. That’s a great question too. And I mean you’re right to say without any sort of structure to which team do I want to join up with or really what capacity I want to go as far as helping help others get down the investment journey. I’d say there are a few things that kind of stood out about you guys about what you guys have built and continue to build here at Cityside Capital. I’d say the first one really I would say is integrity, right? It’s very clear from everybody I talk to within your network with clients, the testimonials, you name it, that you guys have served your clients authentically over the last couple of years. You’ve been forthright in helping your clients understand different risks and opportunities out there. They’re associated with passive investments. And part of that also too is being licensed capital raisers with FINRA and the S E C, carrying those licenses requires a higher amount of D.

(19:09):

It requires professionalism and ethics, and I feel like that’s really important in the world of real estate syndications where it’s a little bit more wild west, it’s a little bit more unstructured, and sometimes frankly can open up a door or a window for folks who don’t have a lot of experience managing or talking about money and risks. I mean, when it comes down to it, the work that Safeside Capital does, we’re talking about helping give people education and opportunities to invest their savings that they’ve accumulated over many years and that they’re trying to invest for the future. These are really important things that should be handled diligently in a principled manner, and I think that’s something that you guys here have always done, and I look forward to continuing. A second thing that comes to mind really is the mindset that comes around with investing and investing in alternative investments.

(20:01):

I think as many of your clients would attest, there are some mental hurdles that can come with making passive investments and kind of transitioning into this world a little bit. Like I said a man ago, these are not liquid investments. They’re not marketed by Wall Street financial firms, and they require individuals to take on a little bit more control as to where their financial future comes from. But we’ve kind of seen in life in many ways over the last three years that taking on a little bit more control, bringing in a little bit more insourcing, if you will, that’s kind what we have to do in a lot of different areas of life. And ultimately, I believe that taking control helps you write the future that you want to see. So helping individuals embark on this journey, you guys are guys that have crossed that proverbial river.

(20:47):

You’ve invested in passive income investments, you know what to look for, how to educate others on doing this kind of journey. I think that’s important. And I guess maybe the third thing that comes to mind is action. You guys have always been Cityside, capital has always embodied action. You guys started the company because you wanted to empower individuals and families to learn and explore alternative investment ideas and to take action to secure their financial future, your financial future. And frankly, that’s what I’m all about. That’s aligned with the kind of person I am that’s aligned with the kind of value that I want to give to others. And seeing those three things really in action, integrity, mindset, and then just being active out there, that’s what drove me to Cityside Capital. That’s what really makes me feel very comfortable that this is the place for me and this is the place where we can continue to do really good work.

Tim Lyons (21:46):

Dude, I love that. I mean, thank you Paul for that because I mean, listen, there’s a certain level of transference that I think occurs when I tell my story or Greg tells his story, or we have our podcast and we bring people on this journey kind of with us. Where do we start, right? I’m Tim the fireman, Tim, the ER nurse, right? Greg’s a former college basketball coach, still playing in the beer leagues on Sunday, Greg, and then now he’s the director of real estate for a company down in Virginia. So we’re just regular guys, right? We didn’t invent real estate, we didn’t invent syndication. We didn’t invent the regulation D 5 0 6 B and C, we didn’t do all that. However, Greg and I always loved pointing the term like r and d, ripple off and duplicate. The rule book is already out there. The blueprint is already out there.

(22:36):

And for me, Paul, you know my story very well. I was stuck in the W two grind, 80, 90, a hundred hour weeks. I’m sure you felt it too, having two parents working in the household and something has to give. It’s either time, effort, or money, and what are you willing to put in? Are you willing to lose time? And we weren’t willing to do that. I was willing, and I found that real estate was by avenue. So I love when you say that there’s authentic being with Cityside Capital. There is, Greg and I are just who we are. We tried to solve our own problem, and in the process, Paul, as you know, we were able to provide a service and to solve other people’s, right? And there’s a great quote out there that you get paid in proportion to the level of the complexity of the problem that you solve or something like that.

(23:33):

I usually fudge quotes a little bit, Paul, you’re going to have to get used to that. But anyway, we had to solve our own problem. We had to solve our retirement problem. We have three girls, Paul, you and I, we got weddings, we got colleges, we got all this stuff to do. And when I was a W two, strict W two guy, it felt like it was insurmountable. So I love that you gave us that ring endorsement, but you know what? Let’s talk about some of the alternative investment classes. Paul, we always talk on this podcast previously that there’s a certain investment thesis that Greg and I subscribed. Yes, I still have a 4 57 plan, so I still have an s and p fund, a stable fund and whatever, and I have to do that. I don’t have the option to self-direct right now, but let’s really dive into the investing thesis that Greg and I have are people need food, clothing, and a place to live. That’s our multifamily thesis, that there’s a supply and demand imbalance, obviously market driven, and we want to be the people to provide clean, safe, affordable, thriving communities for people to live in. So why don’t we start from multifamily, and maybe we’ll just go down the line multifamily and maybe some other ones.

Paul Dircks (24:54):

Sure. No, I mean I certainly agree with that at a very high level. And I also would go one step further to say that at least when you look at multifamily, we’ve kind of had, I’d say three different chapters to the multifamily story here. Looking back over the last decade coming out of the Great Recession, we’ve had a major undersupply of new homes and housing stock in this country. Now, here in the last year or two, we’ve had almost in a very short-term sense, almost an oversupply in certain markets of at least apartments or condos, for example. And we’ve also kind of had this affordability crisis that’s submerged. But then I would go as far to say that while we don’t necessarily have good visibility as to what’s coming here in the very near term from an economic perspective, I’m optimistic on multi-families long-term prospects. When you think about the fact that from an economic perspective, inflation is going to continue to stick around, even if it’s coming off of its peak year over year changes, inflation looks likely to persist. And so when you think about different Assets and asset classes Out there, multifamily is one of the better ones, at least in my purview, that has the opportunity to at least tread water or at least not get buried under the weight of persistent inflation. Furthermore, to the multifamily thesis, we’ve seen a major move of individuals and families from certain states to other states now that work from home has grown, now that there’s been differences in levels of affordability and also different preferences for which states to live in and how environments are changing. So I do think offers a very unique opportunity for folks to diversify from an investor standpoint where they have exposure. I live in New York. New York has a very different path forward, I believe, than other states on the other side of the country or in the Sunbelt or in the Midwest. And so having some exposure to those different distinct geographic areas and different demographic trends, I think is a very, very positive thing, especially when we consider the long-term outlook for your investments. So I continue to be constructive of multifamily, but a lot of asset classes here, it’s a pretty precarious time right now in the economy. So with any investment, I certainly encourage a deep amount of diligence and being patient where possible.

Greg Lyons (27:33):

Paul, it’s always great to get that color on kind of multifamily, and everyone has an opinion about what’s going on. And no matter what podcast you listen to, both financial real estate doesn’t matter. No one actually knows what’s going on. But it’s always good to hear from intelligent people and kind of what they’re thinking of, what they want to do with their money, what they want to do with their investors money. So again, it’s always great to have a little color on what people are thinking. As we shift gears a little bit, we’re also involved with self-storage and self-storage operators. Do you have any thoughts on what we’re seeing in the self-storage world at this point?

Paul Dircks (28:12):

Sure. No, in self-storage is, I would almost say leading multifamily in a certain sense. And what I mean by that is whereas we haven’t seen a major revision in rents in construction for multifamily in self-storage, we’ve seen rates in some markets come down quite considerably. And we’ve obviously seen the effects of people moving less today than they did in recent years. Of course, self-storage as an industry thrives on individuals moving or being in just a general mode of change, whether it’s new location, new job, perhaps divorce even could be a bit of a driver of some self-storage activity. Where I get interested in self-storage is for two reasons, and I continue to be an investor in multiple self-storage syndications. For one, it’s that self-storage is a hyperlocal market. You may talk about a five mile radius around any one single self-storage facility that is really the pertinent market.

(29:15):

So when we’re in this world and this economy of great change and great turbulence, that same degree of turbulence may not be felt as acutely in a five mile radius, a certain market, for example, as in other places across the country. So that kind of gets back to the idea of knowing your sponsor, doing your diligence and understanding what market you’re investing in. The other that’s interesting to me is obviously self-storage over the last couple of years has experienced a wave of institutional capital. When that wave of capitals come in, it’s made a lot of people who were not previously operators think they can be operators. Now they’re probably starting to see that it’s a little bit more difficult and there needs to be more hands-on approach, and maybe there’s not going to be quite the degree of success they were thinking about. So I think for the discerning operator, that operator with a long track record who’s seen the market swings up and down, it’s a great opportunity with financing costs, raising the way that they have here in recent months.

(30:20):

We’re not going to see a major wave of new self-storage supply come onto the market, in my opinion, over the next year or two. Therefore, it gets back to that hyper-local strategy. Where are their current self-storage assets in place? Where are demographics still broadly superior or at least moving in a decent direction over the medium and long term? Those are some of the questions that come with researching self-storage opportunities. And I would just caution that it’s not an industry, even though it may seem very, very discretionary, it’s not really an industry you can paint with a broad brush. Again, very hyper-local, very operator specific, and I still think there are opportunities in self storage.

Tim Lyons (30:59):

Well, folks, you heard it from Paul. I mean, if you guys can’t hear the analytical mind in his speech and his articulation of his thoughts, I mean that’s what drew me to him immediately. So Paul, I want to just be one of the first ones to welcome you on a podcast, a forum to Cityside Capital. We’re so excited to have you on board. We’re ready to hit the ground running. I know it’s going to just be really awesome, and I really think that the listeners are going to get some dose of Paul on this show with really nice insights because at the end of the day, who we’re serving are folks that are dads and moms and working jobs and trying to run small businesses, and they might not have the time or the knowledge or the know-how to ask certain questions to get the answers to figure out what does even due diligence mean and how am I being protected, right?

(31:54):

So I’m really excited. I don’t know if you could hear my voice, but Paul, welcome to the club here. Super excited to have you just in the sake of time, I just wanted to surprise you, Paul. At the end of each of our shows, we do ask our guests three short answer questions. Whatever kind of comes to the top of your mind, and you are no exception. You’re not getting away without these questions. So number one, that’s right. Baptism by fire, Paul, you’re at a cocktail party providing that people still have cocktail parties that they go to and you’re talking about investing, and somebody’s going to say, Paul, what are you up to these days? And you’ll tell them about Cityside Capital and investing in real estate, and they’re going to say, Paul isn’t investing in real estate just too dang risky. What is going to be your response to that person?

Paul Dircks (32:42):

Well, I think over time the environment changes and the institutions and strategies of yesterday don’t guarantee performance tomorrow. I’ll give you an example on this and forgive me for getting a little long-winded, but if you look back in 2012, that’s a critical year because that’s the year that investors could be advertised to. For real estate syndications, that’s when the Jobs act allowed syndication investing to really start to grow from 2000 2012 to 2021, the s and p 500. During those years, I had only one year where it was down more than 1%, it averaged 15% growth and inflation during those years. As you guys may recall, if you used the US C P I, which I think is a flawed data series, but if you used that, it average basically 2%. So you’d probably did just fine with your investing dollars back then doing what you always did, traditional investments, traditional methods.

(33:40):

But last year we saw the s and p 500 was down almost 20% this year, it’s up about 10% today. But if you exclude the top seven stocks and look at the s and p 500 on equal weighted basis, the SS and P 500 is down a couple percent. Of course, we talked earlier in the show on inflation that’s going to be sticking around. We have a very changing dynamic for consumers and their economic health, and all of this boils down to the fact that investing strategies and approaches from yesterday may not be the best things to work here in the future. I think it requires a mindset of growth and being adaptable to what’s to come. So as far as investing for tomorrow, I think it’s a matter of growing into a new view and understanding that we’re kind of in a different dynamic and a new normal, if you will, looking forward. So those are the thoughts that come to mind,

Greg Lyons (34:40):

Knocked The first one out. I love that. The second kind of thought we have is from Jim Rohn, and he is kind of been a defacto mentor of ours. He said the once said that formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune. This is the way Cityside Capital has been built. But what are your thoughts around that?

Paul Dircks (35:03):

I think Jim Marone, who’s certainly a mentor and an incredible source of wisdom, is exactly right. And many of the smartest people that I know and that I’ve come across didn’t learn their know-how from following school textbooks. They learned their know-how and their expertise by being out there, learning through exploration kind of way, finding their way, networking of course, and learning things on their own, learning things about themselves, learning things about what life experience has taught them. And to me, that’s a very human kind of journey. It’s something we all do. It’s something that helps us all grow, and I think humans are made to grow. So I think self-education is incredibly important. I think it continues to be a driver. For me personally, it’s obviously been a fuel to help me move from a career on Wall Street to a career here with Cityside Capital. And I think it’s imperative for everybody out there to think about the ways they’re enriching their minds and their views on life. I think broadening one’s horizon is exactly what we should be doing as individuals and human beings. So I think self-education is a real big part of that.

Tim Lyons (36:18):

Love that. So Phil, I usually hit people with another question from Robert Kiyosaki, but I just want to stick on Jim Road for a second. He has another quote that I absolutely love, and it goes something like this. You are the average of the five people that you spend the most amount of time with. And for Greg and I that has been instrumental in taking us from the first rung of the ladder and skyrocketing towards the top of the ladder, and I just want to get your thoughts and your feedback about what that means to you. Well, Tim, before you answer Paul, before you answer the five people you spend the most time with, so if two of us are going to be Tim and I, who are the three people you’re going to spend the most time with and how are they going to influence you? Big difference.

Paul Dircks (37:04):

Oh boy. Well, one of them will certainly be my wife, who’s a great source of inspiration and support. So I feel like I’m already by default in very good company here. But I would say even beyond just naming those actual five, it’s about the principle of the matter. It’s about understanding that you are a byproduct of your environment. And I keep touching upon this theme, but I really feel like it’s true. We’re in a new normal. Things have changed over the last three years. Who are you with? Who’s in your tribe? Who’s aligned with your values? Who is rowing in the same direction as you? And who’s maybe holding you back? And so some of those thoughts that come to mind, frankly, can be traced to the people around you are the people around you that you are spending your time with. When you talk about your financial goals, when you talk about your career, when you talk about some of your future family goals, are they folks that are helping you grow or are they folks that are actually kind of want to see you stay in place because they’re used to you being a certain way, having a certain fixed mindset, being predictable for their advantage, not for yours?

(38:11):

So I think it’s an evolution, and I can’t be more excited to be joining Cityside Capital and to be able to share my view on not only investments, but really just when it comes down to it to life and approach to life with our listeners and with our network. I believe very, very strongly that if we collectively can be one of the five chirping in the ears of our listeners and others out there, that we can be additive. And that’s what I would encourage our listeners to think about is who are the people that are helping you and helping you grow, and who are those who are maybe kind of holding you back a little bit? I think this is definitely a time for growth, definitely a time for introspection, and ultimately a time for action.

Tim Lyons (38:56):

What a mic drop moment, and this is one of my favorite topics, Paul, you’re going to find this out. I can go into the crib in a bucket analogy right now. I mean, I could just go right on top of that. So listen, this is going to do it for this week’s edition of The Passive Income Brothers podcast. Paul, welcome to Cityside Capital, and that’s going to do it. We’ll see you next week.

Paul Dircks (39:17):

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Passive Income Brothers podcast. We would be grateful for your support of our podcast by giving our show a five star rating and review and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to take inspired action after listening to the show so that you can start building out your passive income streams. Finally, head on over to cityside cap.com to connect with us and find out more information about how to get started passively investing in real estate.