Gary Acosta: Recent Episodes
Gary Acosta
Gary Acosta is a successful entrepreneur, investor and founder of today’s leading Hispanic business organization. This podcast will feature Gary’s take on the economy, politics, sports and Latino culture.
Many people will tell you the easiest path to success is to find someone already successful and emulate what they do. Nothing is wrong with that, but I can't think of anything more boring. People tend to gravitate to that thinking because it's a shortcut. Making money is hard, and anything that makes that process easier or shorter is appealing. I get it.
However, the best businesses and the most successful people don't just perform a task and make money. They solve a problem or facilitate an opportunity. Uber, Tesla, Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft approached their business with that mindset. They were designed to solve humanity's most significant challenges and opportunities. However, even the smallest companies can develop solutions that people care about.
I believe there is a profound difference between making money and earning money. This may sound harsh, but if you perform the same daily tasks that thousands of others do, you are probably just making money. That is what most people do; again, nothing is wrong with that.
However, if you are solving a problem or facilitating an opportunity, you are in a different category and are, without question, earning your money. If you are solving a problem important enough to someone, they will be willing to pay you. If the problem you are solving or the opportunity you are creating is important to a large number of people, you will make a lot of money.
When you commit yourself to solving a problem for people, your purpose in business changes. Your mindset changes. You become less concerned with competition and margins and focus exclusively on solving that problem. For me, this is a much more exciting approach to business. Problem solvers have more purpose in their work. A purpose-driven business or career is far more exciting and fulfilling for most people.
Think about your business or job. Ask yourself what problem you are solving for people and how you can improve at solving that problem. This self-reflection is a powerful tool that can lead to simple tweaks or even a complete overhaul of your business, empowering you to make a positive change.
There are two types of people in the world: those who add stress and those who subtract stress. Simon Sinek says that every person in your team should be judged by productivity and loyalty. Everyone wants people who are highly productive and loyal to the organization’s success. But Sinek also says that if you must choose between loyalty and productivity, always go with loyalty.
It's not difficult to get rid of people who add stress and are low producers, but it’s hard to get rid of top producers. Three years ago, Gary Vaynerchuck spoke to the NAHREP audience about how common it is for leaders to compromise company culture for productivity and why that is so detrimental in the long run. Vaynerchuck says most people don’t realize that top producers who bring negativity undermine the productivity of everyone else on the team and slowly destroy a company from within.
Dumping productive people is tough, but the best leaders do it with impunity. When you purge your company of productive but harmful elements, three things happen. First, your team will respect you even more. When the team respects the leader, they will be willing to go the extra mile for that leader. Secondly, employee retention will improve. People will stay with a company where they respect the leader and feel appreciated. Third, overall productivity will go up. This may not be evident immediately, but company productivity will soar over time.
The concept has many applications, some unrelated to business. If you are the type of person who won’t tolerate disrespect, you will command respect from the people in your circle.
Dr. Maya Angelou says, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Productivity can be learned. Skills can be learned, but character can’t be learned, and it rarely changes.
Ask yourself if there are people in your organization who are dragging everyone else down, and do what you know needs to be done. You’re never wrong to do the right thing.
As the two presidential candidates lay out their economic plans for the country, housing affordability is on the list for the first time in decades. Republicans' default solution for any economic issue is tax cuts and deregulation, and for Democrats, it's grants and more regulations. Anyone who knows me knows how frustrated I have been with the current administration, who seems to believe that the solution to America's housing problem is scapegoating the mom-and-pop businesses that service the real estate market. However, I haven't heard any solutions from the right that aren't centered around the magic bullet of reducing taxes, which is no different than grants and other giveaways, except tax cuts primarily benefit the rich.
The usual solutions will not solve the current housing affordability crisis. Any solution that does not begin and end with a sustainable plan to radically increase housing supply is just noise. The barriers to increasing housing supply are complex and require the crucial cooperation of both public and private sectors and more education.
A National Campaign to Combat NIMBYISM
Americans need a better understanding of why affordable housing in their neighborhoods is beneficial. The data shows affordable housing improves workforce participation, increases tax bases, and strengthens communities. However, because of NIMBYISM (Not in My Back Yard), elected officials are reluctant to support policies that lead to more housing supply in their communities. It's high time for the federal government to invest in a comprehensive national awareness campaign to combat NIMBYISM.
Relaxing Restrictive Zoning Policies
Zoning policies were created to ensure more orderly communities. Today, they are primarily used to suppress growth. Restrictive zoning policies may be the primary cause of the housing crisis. Federal and State governments must incentivize cities and local municipalities to allow for more density.
Government Funding
The federal government must invest in developing affordable housing for both renters and homebuyers. During the Great Recession, homebuilding almost stopped, but the country continued adding one million new households each year. That deficit has never been reconciled and is a primary reason for the current housing shortage in America. Approximately five million units are needed to meet the demand and take the pressure off of home prices.
Affordable housing will take center stage as the election goes into high gear. Any economic plan that does not have a viable strategy to dramatically increase the housing supply in America will be a disappointment and fall short of America's most important economic issue today.
In 1992, Eddie Murphy was one of the biggest stars in the world. At 30, Murphy had already starred in ten studio films and built two billion-dollar franchises with “48 Hours” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”
“Boomerang” was a different kind of film. It was a movie about friendship, loyalty, and romance set in NYC at a medium-sized Black-led company that sold beauty products. Boomerang had an all-black cast and a plot that had nothing to do with being Black. While that was unheard of at the time, Murphy was such a big star that it didn’t seem like a big deal.
What is most interesting to me is that even though the film received mixed reviews upon release, it has withstood the test of time and is still fun to watch more than thirty years later. Critics mostly said the movie was predictable but still entertaining.
Eddie Murphy was obviously trying to expand his range. I don’t think he was trying to make a political statement, but I think the film is extraordinary partly because it portrays Black characters in a setting that was not common at the time. All the leads were sophisticated business people dealing with the same problems as everyone else. Unlike “Boyz n the Hood,” released only one year earlier, there weren’t any crimes in “Boomerang,” and nobody got killed. Beyond being a fun film to watch, I think Eddie Murphy and “Boomerang” positively contributed to the Black brand in America without trying.
Allow me to explain why this matters. I have been a partner at L’ATTITUDE Ventures for the last three years. During that time, I learned a lot about the investment community, which made me even more attentive to the narrative about Hispanics in America. If I were in control of a lot of capital, I would want to invest that capital in things that would give me a strong return on my investment while positively contributing to humanity. I would probably avoid investing my capital in communities that are full of problems. Let’s face it: if I were in that position and got all of my information about the Hispanic community from the media, I might have a negative opinion about Hispanics and, therefore, would invest our money elsewhere.
Make no mistake: access to capital is everything in a capitalistic society. Without money, your ideas don’t matter (Where have I heard that?)
At NAHREP and L’ATTITUDE, creating an accurate and positive narrative about Latinos is a high priority. Our primary tool is data, but art can move people in a way that reports and data just can’t.
We need more films and TV shows with Latino leads that have nothing to do with crime, drugs, or murder. We also need good films with Latino leads that have nothing to do with being Latino. Politicians can convince people that Latino immigrants bring crime and are a drag on our economy because that is precisely how we are portrayed in the media.
Perceptions matter, and I still await the Latino version of “Boomerang” or “Crazy Rich Asians.”
The Difference Between Good and Great
A video of an interview with Will Smith is making its way around social media. In it, he discusses the gap between being good and truly great at something. Smith says the difference between 90% and 100% is “lightyears.” I have always known this, but Smith described the difference in practical terms well. At one point, he says, “You can be good with talent alone,” but to be great… man, you might have to change what you eat.”
Terms like “great, genius,” and “world-class” are overused, perhaps because they mean something different to everyone. Greatness is subjective. Some might say you must be great just to be employed in the film business or to play professional sports, but I don’t think Will Smith or LeBron James think that way. The concept of being great also requires context. You could be a great high school athlete but only an average college player.
Greatness is Habitual
I’m sure you have heard the saying that if you take all the money away from a rich person and give it to a poor person, it is only a matter of time before the rich person is rich again and the poor person is poor again. So, what makes a person rich and what makes them great? I think it is a matter of habits and processes.
If you have ever studied Six Sigma, it is described as a set of methodologies and tools used to improve business processes by reducing defects and errors, minimizing variation, and increasing quality and efficiency. It is essentially a process designed to achieve peak performance in business. Some of the best business executives in the world have utilized the principles of Six Sigma to get from good to great.
Deliberate practice is another concept discussed in the book “Talent is Overrated,” where elite performers perfect their craft through repetitive practice with clear intentions, laser focus, and specific, well-defined goals.
Creativity is the Final Ingredient
The point is that there are several well-established methods for getting better at what you do; however, greatness can still be elusive. People who are great don’t just work hard, nor do they follow a template. They think differently and always take things to another level.
The most often overlooked quality for greatness in any field is creativity. People who are truly great are typically obsessed with their goals, outwork everyone, believe in their ideas, and have the confidence to do things differently.
Whether you like Donald Trump or not, the recent attempt on his life is not something we should take lightly or joke about. Certain things should be off-limits.
Crossing the line in circumstances like this can also cost you your career. From what I have read, hundreds of people have already lost their jobs because of what they posted on social media after the assassination attempt. If you get nothing from this blog, get this: social media is permanent; emails and text messages are also permanent. If you post or text something applauding the assassination of anyone, make no mistake: there is a permanent record of it, so don't let your emotions get the best of you and do something that can come back to haunt you.
I think this is also an opportunity for self-reflection. I think it's fair to question how much today's political vitriol played into this and whether you are contributing to it. While there will always be crazy people who think God called on them to commit murder, I do believe today's political rhetoric has created a fertile environment in which extremists are more emboldened.
Regardless of political persuasion, most people think the rhetoric of politics has gotten out of control. If you believe that, as I do, there IS something you can do about it. You can ask yourself whether you are helping or hurting the situation. I like to say that there are two types of people in the world: people who add stress and people who relieve stress. I think similarly, some people are adding to the political spectacle in the country, and others are at least trying for something better.
We get the political leaders we deserve. They reflect our society, so allow me to float a few thoughts.
It is important to understand. Despite what we hear, the political issues of today are nothing new. Populism is on the rise because people feel they have less of a chance to lead a successful life today than they did in the past. I have said that the core economic problems in the United States are wealth and income disparities.
Some people think that closing the door on immigration will create more opportunities for those already here. Others believe dismantling institutional systems that historically favor one class of people over others is the solution. These are not new concepts. Some people think lower taxes lead to higher growth that benefits everyone, and others believe that with certain societal safety nets, such as access to quality healthcare and education, it will be possible for all segments of our population to achieve their potential. Also, nothing new.
From a social policy standpoint, religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation have always been central to the debate. The fundamental question has always been: Is everyone genuinely equal, or should there be limitations to equality?
While the details may change, the political issues are constant. Today, politicians and political journalists who address the issues in a sober and objective manner will lose to competitors who are more demonstrative and passionate. This will never change, and it doesn't solely apply to politics.
Consider business. Aside from great brands having good products, they can connect with people on an emotional level. That is what branding is all about, and nobody embodies it better than Nike. However, there are limitations to what we are willing to accept from businesses. For example, what if Nike focused all their advertising on Adidas' evil intentions rather than inspiring messages about sports? What if Pfizer ran a campaign about Merck's secret desire to destroy America? I think most people would be turned off. Yet, for some reason, we have higher standards for companies that sell...
This past week, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) invited me to participate in a meeting with the NAR leadership and Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Antitrust Division. The parties agreed in advance that to encourage an open and frank discussion, only high-level elements of the conversation, which took place in a large conference room in the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C., should be shared with the public. Of course, I intend to do my part in honoring that agreement.
Kevin Sears, the current NAR president, led the discussion on NAR's behalf. Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant AG, accompanied by about 15 government attorneys from his office, led on behalf of the government. Following the meeting, Mr. Sears sent a letter to the 1.6 million members of NAR describing the highlights of the meeting. Rather than paraphrase the contents of his letter, I have included it in its entirety at the end of this blog.
What I can share is how critical it was that I was there. Not surprisingly, out of almost 30 people, I was the only Latino in the room. I believe this is important because the decisions made by the people in that room will likely profoundly affect how residential property is bought and sold in America. Considering that Hispanics are projected to account for the large majority of homeownership gains nationwide over the next two decades, I think it was critical that someone able to speak on behalf of that cohort was present.
The meeting was part of a larger process to explore whether there was enough common ground between NAR and the U.S. government to avoid litigation on the part of the government. For those who think the settlement agreed upon in March represents the end of the lawsuits against the real estate industry, the meeting with the DOJ confirmed there is much more work in front of us.
The DOJ called the meeting, and early on, it became clear that the viewpoint I was there to express was not part of the agenda. I wasn't really deterred. I have been in a number of exchanges with powerful people in the past and have learned never to get emotional and always play the long game.
While I didn't get to make the statement I had prepared about how the disruption to the market would likely have a devasting impact on Hispanic homebuyers, I did get to make a few points. I did say that Latinos were the largest share of first-time buyers in the market, and any changes to industry practices that required buyers to bring more cash to a transaction would disproportionately affect Latino buyers and potentially exacerbate homeownership disparities in the market. I also said that the current system, with all its flaws, created a 75% homeownership rate for White Americans, and now when for the very first time in U.S. history, the majority of new homebuyers are expected to be Hispanic, there are calls to dismantle that very system.
For those who question whether representation matters, believe me, it does. Major decisions that affect the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Latinos and millions of future homebuyers are made by a handful of people who sit in a room like the one I was in last Wednesday. While I was in the meeting, I couldn't help but allow my eyes to wander to the portraits of Teddy Roosevelt and Robert F. Kennedy and think about meetings that took place in that room and how I hope there aren't future meetings like the one I was in without a Latino with a seat at the table.
I am grateful to the NAR leadership team for including me in the meeting. I look forward to the next opportunity to meet with the DOJ and other government members about the role of Latinos in housing and the U.S. economy.
“Dear NAR members,
I’m reaching out to share...
Never in U.S. history have we had two older or less popular candidates running for president of the United States than we do today. We repeatedly hear the question, “How can these two candidates be the best our country has to offer?”. Joe Biden is 81 years old, and Donald Trump is 78. I don’t think it is ageist to note that neither Trump nor Biden would be eligible to serve on the majority of public boards because they are both too old. Yet, they are the choice of their respective parties to serve as president of the United States, the leader of the free world, and the most important and possibly most physically demanding job on the planet.
How did we get here, and who is to blame? Believe it or not, that is not a hard question to answer. We are all to blame. We got here because we repeatedly choose showmanship over statesmanship, prefer insults over intellect, reward duplicity over depth, and applaud nonsense over nobility.
Instead of educating ourselves about the issues, the majority of us choose a team. We allow ourselves to be convinced that anyone who is not on our team is determined to destroy our country. We select the candidates not based on their competency but on their perceived ability to fight for our team without compromise and with extreme prejudice.
To make matters worse, the media learned a few years ago that bad news sells better than good news and that fear sells more than positivity. Don’t expect that to change anytime soon because the business of “news” has never been more profitable. Social media companies that produce nothing are among the most valuable companies in the world, and make no mistake, they learned a while back that online bickering keeps people on their sites longer than anything else.
While the country appears to be more politically divided than ever, I still believe the majority of Americans are actually pretty similar when you break things down to the issues. Most people lean towards pro-business economic policies and are fairly tolerant of social issues. They would like everyone to have a fighting chance to succeed but are against policies that undermine innovation and hard work. Most people believe everyone should be free to live however they choose, provided they don’t hurt other people. Of course, there are disagreements on how to best achieve these goals, but our system was designed to promote healthy debate and political compromise.
Most of us say we want leaders who are smart, honest, and charismatic, but do we? I know for a fact that there are plenty of people who fit that description and would be far better political leaders than the ones we have today. But why would they enter politics today? What is their incentive to subject themselves and their families to the most heinous attacks conceivable? Our current environment does not reward honesty, intelligence, or genuine appeal; it rewards the exact opposite qualities, and that is on us. We created this environment with our gullibility and combative nature, but the good news is we have the ability to change it.
My hope is that the current political leadership represents the last gasp of a dying generation. The promise of a better future for America rests in the hands of America’s youth. The young people in America are almost always right. It was America’s youth that brought about civil rights in the ‘60s. They forced us out of the Vietnam War in the ‘70s. They demanded we divest from companies doing business in South Africa during the apartheid era in the ‘80s, and they have been driving the world toward sustainable energy since the ‘90s. If we want leaders that represent the best of us, not the worst, then I am betting on America’s youth to make it happen. I gave up believing a while back that people are willing to change politically, but I do believe the next generation is revolted w<
I was born in East Los Angeles in the sixties. My parents met at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and were married shortly after they graduated. I was their firstborn.
My grandfather on my mother’s side was a Pentecostal minister and the former national president of the Apostolic Assembly Church. When I was a kid, my family would go to my grandfather’s church in the El Sereno area of Los Angeles every Sunday and sometimes during the week. It was a strict upbringing, but I have positive and vivid memories of that time.
My grandfather gave his sermons in Spanish because 99% of his members were Spanish-speaking Latinos from Mexico and Central America. A high percentage of them were undocumented, and I got to know many of them. I witnessed firsthand their optimism and their pain. Some ventured into the dark side and got involved with drugs and gangs. Still, the large majority of them were hard-working people of high moral character who lived in the shadows and were often mistreated by employers and practically everyone else.
It was my first glimpse of how poorly undocumented people are treated, including by other Latinos, and it was something that stuck with me. Our legal system and the fundamental rights that everyone has in this country are not available to undocumented individuals. They can’t file a complaint to the Department of Labor if their employer exploits or abuses them. They can’t safely go to the police if they are robbed or assaulted. People blatantly treat them like dirt; there is little they can do about it. It made me feel bad for them, but I learned early on that some people need to feel superior to other human beings. I guess it makes them feel better about themselves, and undocumented people are at the bottom rung of our social ladder.
It was this experience that shaped my opinions about immigration and undocumented immigrants. I learned that, as a rule, people don’t come to this country without legal documentation because they are bad people who want to take advantage of our social systems; they come because they are in desperate need and because there are jobs here waiting for them.
Let me repeat that. Undocumented immigrants risk their lives coming to this country because there are people here eager to hire them. Don’t let the politicians on both sides of the aisle fool you. Undocumented immigrants are here because we need them, plain and simple.
Matthew Desmond writes in his book, “Poverty, by America”, that poverty exists in the wealthiest country in the world, not because we don’t have the means to resolve it, but because the wealthy in America benefit from it. The same applies to illegal immigration. We have the capacity to reduce it drastically, but we don’t because the rest of us benefit from it. We benefit in the form of ultra-cheap labor. The data clearly shows that illegal immigration doesn’t cost us money; it saves us money.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support illegal immigration; I detest it, but I don’t look down on undocumented immigrants. I have empathy for them. They deserve to be treated with dignity, just like everyone else.
People who demonize undocumented immigrants today do it to score political points or, as I mentioned earlier because it makes them feel better about themselves. It’s sad because the system is at fault, not the people. It’s why I sat down almost ten years ago with Jerry Ascencio and wrote the play “53 Million and One”. We attempted to use art to bring a little humanity to the situation.
The lesson I learned at my grandfather’s church is that being a United States citizen doesn’t make me better than anyone else; it makes me lucky. I was lucky to be born in this country. I was lucky to be born healthy to parents who loved me. Not everyone is as lucky as I am; in
The author, Jordan Peterson, asks why rich people send their kids to liberal arts colleges. Is it because they are stupid? No, it's because they know that nothing makes you more powerful than being literate and articulate, and there isn't any single skill that will move you up the ranks of any organization than the ability to communicate. The ability to read is the ability to learn. Communication skills buttress your ability to negotiate, persuade, and win people over. On top of all of that, great communicators are confident. People with a clear and organized sense of what they believe and can articulate it with ease and elegance are typically the most confident people in the room. People gravitate to confident leaders.
Kevin O'Leary, of the television show Shark Tank, said if someone asked him five years ago what skill is the most valuable in the economy, he would have said engineering without question. However, today, he would say it's the ability to tell a story. Think about that. The most valuable skill in today's economy is storytelling. O'Leary wasn't the first to say that. Ten years ago, I remember asking Bill Clinton what made him a great speaker, and he said he was a good speaker because he is a good storyteller. As our economy evolves, the ability to communicate will become even more valuable.
Almost everyone can recite a checklist of what makes a great leader. Vision, integrity, and authenticity frequently make the list, but you rarely hear about the importance of elite communication skills. There are a million books about success on the market. They tell you to wake up at 5 am, do daily affirmations, think positively, and upgrade your friends. But they don't say much about the most important skill set for long-term sustainable success, the ability to communicate your ideas with proficiency. Perhaps it's because it takes work, or maybe it's one of those secrets that the ultra-successful keep for themselves and their families.
If you want to be a better communicator, you need to work at it like everything else. Read, write, and study a speaker you admire. I have always been a reader, but I also do a lot of writing. There is a concept known as deliberate practice. You can write a thousand email messages and never improve your writing skills. You will only get better if you are conscious and deliberate about getting better. If you want to be a better writer, be attentive to your writing and work on it.
Every week, I go through the exercise of writing this blog. It takes time, but it forces me to organize my thoughts and be thoughtful about the words I choose. I believe this process not only makes me a better writer, but I am confident it also improves my speaking and presentation skills. Writing makes my thoughts more concise and fleshed out. All of us who are in business are in the business of communicating. Whether it's to clients, colleagues, or employees, the quality of our communication will determine whether we get that sale, promotion, or recruit.
It has been said that success is a factor of what you know and who you know, but I would amend that. Who you know and what you know is only valuable if you know how to communicate what you know to the right people.
This is part 2 of my blog from last week about political extremism. In this blog, I will explain what most people get wrong about the root causes of dangerous political movements, both left and right.
Let me begin by saying if you are primarily fearful of living in a society that is racist and discriminatory, you should be very concerned with what is happening with the political far left. If your primary fear is moving our society towards socialism and communism, then you should be mostly fearful of the political far right. That statement may seem counterintuitive, but it is absolutely true.
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, and conservative pundit, recently said in an interview with Ben Shapiro, "If 24-year-old college graduates wake up one day and find out they can't get a job where they can buy a new car much less afford a home or a family, why should we be surprised when a high percentage of them think socialism is a good idea?" He said, "I think capitalism is the best economic system there is, but it should not be treated as a religion; we should be able to make decisions for the betterment of our society that don't perfectly adhere to capitalistic ideology." I don't know a liberal who doesn't despise Tucker Carlson, and I certainly disagree with a lot that he says, but he understands how politics work, and in this case, I think he is 100% correct.
If you look at communist countries from a historical perspective, they were usually preceded by governments that produced extreme income and wealth disparities and were absent of strong social programs and safety nets for the poor and disadvantaged.
If you are genuinely concerned about our country becoming socialist to the point where people are no longer rewarded for their hard work or innovation, you should be extremely concerned about the widening wealth disparities in our country, and you should be generally supportive of certain social programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and yes, welfare programs and free college education. If people feel like they have a fighting chance to succeed and have a decent quality of life, they won't try to tear down our systems; they will fight to preserve them.
The same applies in reverse; extremes on the left will undoubtedly force even the most reasonable among us further to the right. I was going to title this blog "Why I Love Trump Supporters," which would seem very odd coming from someone who does not like Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president and a horrible person, but I think I understand why so many people support him.
Take an issue like transgender women competing in women's sports. People who challenge the fairness of that are immediately called bigots by many on the left. I think it's ridiculous that some people won't even tolerate a discussion on the subject. As a sports fan and someone who hates every form of discrimination, I think it's a fair issue to question.
The label "racist" or "bigot" should be reserved only for the most vile individuals, but when average people are called those names by the far left, we shouldn't feel surprised when those people feel threatened.
I think a lot of people like that Trump fights aggressively against the far left, and when reasonable people feel threatened, they don't want a leader who is going to play nice; they want a leader who is going to fight aggressively for them. Donald Trump isn't the political movement that he is because Americans are innately racist. We do have racists in this country, and most of them love Donald Trump, but there aren't enough of them to elect him president. Donald Trump was elected president and might be a second time because reasonable people on the right and center feel threatened and vilif
George Washington cautioned against political parties. In his farewell address, he said, “It [political parties] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.” That sounds about right.
People on the political right believe that people on the extreme left are the biggest problems in our nation. People on the political left think that people on the extreme right pose the biggest threat. This is one occasion when both sides are correct. While practically everything we hear and read about politics comes from the far right and far left, most people view themselves somewhere in the middle when asked. Extremism and an inability to compromise are our biggest problems, politically. I use the word inability because gerrymandering has made compromise a non-starter. In a congressional district that leans red, the only way an incumbent can lose reelection is by not being red enough and losing to someone from their own party. The same goes for blue districts. This dynamic, along with social media, is what is pulling us further and further apart. Compromise is political death to any candidate in our current environment. This is why our elected officials spend all their time demonizing their political rivals, and real political leadership is a thing of the past.
I am not optimistic about things changing anytime soon because it’s all about money. The primary purpose of political parties is to raise money. Candidates need money for their campaigns, and generally, the party that raises the most money wins the most elections. The greater the importance of money, the stronger the parties become.
Imagine what life in America would be like if we had heeded Washington’s advice and never started the party system. For one, our political persuasions would not define us as individuals. Of course, there would still be political differences, but they would be more issue-driven and less tribal. Voters would make their decisions based on something other than whether a candidate has an R or D next to their name. Elected officials could hold more complex ideologies. They could be pro-business AND pro-gun control or pro-life while supporting gay marriage. Most importantly, there would also be a lot less money in politics, which would dramatically limit the political influence of big companies and wealthy individuals.
Political parties aren’t going away anytime soon, but America is different, so I would never say never. Limiting money in politics would be the first step. Challenge yourself and your family to find something you disagree with in your party, and don’t be afraid to make that known. It’s refreshing, and people respect independent thinkers. In a democracy, we get exactly the politicians we deserve. We can create a better system.
I was speaking to a friend of mine who works at one of the largest Wall Street Firms. We were discussing the Realtor class action lawsuits. He recently purchased a second home in an exclusive area in Nantucket, and he told me about how hard his agent had to work to close the deal and how much he admired her. He said that buyer's agents work so much more than seller's agents, and he added that the same dynamic exists in investment banking.
In case you don't know, investment bankers represent the buyers and sellers of businesses, sometimes very large businesses. Their primary business is mergers and acquisitions, also known as M&A. My friend said the most elite investment banking firms typically only work on the sell side of a transaction and rarely, if ever, represent the buy side. I wasn't aware of that. He explained that both sides of a merger/acquisition earn a commission for their services, but representing the seller is preferred because the likelihood of closing is substantially higher. It makes sense, but I hadn't previously understood how similar the investment banking business is to the real estate brokerage business.
The top real estate sales coaches, like Mike Ferry, flat out tell their students that representing buyers is for losers. Driving buyers around to open houses, dealing with fickle lenders, and filling out multiple offer forms is a lot of work. To make matters worse, after doing all that work, you still might not get paid if your buyers' offers aren't accepted.
Ferry and the most successful brokers know that if you want to be an elite realtor and earn the big bucks, you should forget buyers and spend all your time sourcing sellers. Like the investment banking business, representing sellers in a real estate transaction is far more lucrative than representing buyers. The logic makes sense, but I'm glad that not all agents subscribe to that way of thinking.
Last week, I was on a call with Dr. Lael Brainard, Director of the National Economic Council in the White House. Jason Riveiro, who leads our government relations, and NAHREP's national president, Nora Aguirre, joined me on the call. I had the opportunity to explain the nuances of the real estate business and the dire consequences ending broker participation will have for first-time homebuyers. Nora eloquently spoke about her business and how she typically spends up to six months preparing buyers to purchase their first home. It was a great opportunity to speak with Dr. Brainard and her staff, and I hope our message resonates with them.
Agents like Nora, who are successful but choose to represent buyers, do so because they care about more than money; they care about people. They get more satisfaction and fulfillment when they hand the keys to a family because they understand what that will mean to that family over time. If Nora and agents like her have to deal with the added uncertainty of how they will get paid, I fear the worst for our industry - and for the first-time home buyers they represent. This is why NAHREP has been fighting so hard for the interest of buyer's agents and their clients.
Saving seller's money won't trickle down to home buyers, regardless of what anyone thinks. It's not the way the business works. If advocates and the federal government truly cared about consumers, their focus would be on lowering the barriers to entry for first-time home buyers, not raising them, and they would be cherishing, not vilifying agents like Nora Aguirre, for they are truly doing God's work.
The disruption in the real estate market has me thinking about unintended consequences. I don’t think the lawyers and plaintiffs in the class action lawsuits that have triggered changes in how real estate is bought and sold in America care a lot about the impact on the market. They stand to make a lot of money, which is probably what they care about most. I don’t think much about them, but the proponents and advocates of the lawsuits also include many people I have admired in the past, who, for whatever reason, are on the wrong side of this issue. For them, the laws or unintended consequences need to be considered with more willingness to alternative viewpoints.
By definition, unintended consequences are the results of an action different from what was expected or planned. They are often referenced in relation to changes in policies. I have heard the term used for years, primarily related to government policies. Still, I didn’t realize until recently that much has been written on the subject, and most experts believe that there are three categories of unintended consequences: 1) unintended benefits, 2) unintended drawbacks, and 3) perverse results. Here is a little more detail on all three categories:
Unexpected benefits – As the name implies, these are positive but unplanned outcomes. These are benefits that are not part of the original plan. Adam Smith, the famous Scottish philosopher, described the “invisible hand” as one in which, in capitalism, people pursuing their self-interests actually provide social benefits such as more innovation and better consumer prices.
Unexpected drawbacks - This type of unintended consequence occurs when the goal is to improve “A,” we later learn that we made “B” worse in the process. These are also referred to as “externalities.” The mass adoption of the automobile in the early part of the 20th century provided many benefits but created unexpected drawbacks such as air pollution and car accidents.
Perverse results - ‘Perverse Results’ happen when our goal is to improve “A” but we actually make “A” worse. These are often the most frustrating category of unintended consequences.
I think the current disruption in the real estate market falls into category three. The stated goal of the proponents of the class action lawsuits, including the U.S. Department of Justice, is to lower commissions and improve affordability for all real estate consumers. I don’t think the changes they are advocating will have that result; in fact, I think things will become more expensive for many consumers, especially those who can least afford it. To be clear, I don’t spend much time worrying about whether the sellers of million-dollar properties pay too much in commissions. I assume they will all be fine, but when I think about the potential changes in the real estate industry, I worry a lot about the impact on first-time home buyers and the small businesses that service them.
Anyone who has ever purchased real estate knows that one of the advantages buyers have is that they don’t have to pay out of pocket for their real estate agent. They can choose any agent they want to represent them, but that agent is paid from the proceeds paid to the seller. This lowers the barrier of entry for buyers and is especially helpful to first-time buyers who have to pay for everything with money saved. The proponents of the lawsuits think that by requiring buyers to pay for their agent out of pocket, commissions will have to get lower, and that will benefit buyers in the long run. That sounds a little like trickle-down economics. Reduce costs for the wealthy, which will trickle down to less affluent consumers. I think we know that doesn’t ever really work.
Perverse results happen more frequently when the goals are convoluted, and the desired outcomes are short-sighted. Along with the DOJ, The Consumer Federation of America has been...
I once read that sports are a universal language. Regardless of ethnicity or what language you speak, almost everyone speaks sports. No place has that been more evident than the Olympics, where every four years, we are moved by images of athletic rivals from around the world shaking hands and embracing each other in moving displays of sportsmanship.
I have always been a sports fan, and my dad is the biggest sports fan I know. Sports have always been a part of my life, and I am happy I passed that passion on to my children.
I wrote a blog the week that Kobe Bryant died where I described how Kobe’s achievements on the court added to the life-long bond that I have shared with my father and my son. Even though I like the Olympics, I had never made a mental connection between my Latino heritage and my passion for sports until Kobe’s memorial shortly after his passing. More than 20,000 fans attended the event at the Staples Center, and I swear the large majority of them were Latino! Young and old, they filled the streets of downtown LA dressed in their favorite Kobe t-shirt or jersey.
When most people think of Latinos and sports, they think of soccer. There is no doubt soccer reigns supreme in most Latin American countries, but in the U.S., I’m not so sure. Latino passion for baseball has helped make the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, the first and third most successful franchises in attendance and revenue. Basketball and NFL football aren’t far behind. This past week, Nielsen put out some data on ESPN basketball viewership showing that Latino viewership in the past year had grown ten times the pace of other ethnic demographics.
Latino fandom leads to greater Latino participation in sports. It makes sense. If you are a kid and your favorite athlete is Lebron James, you’ll probably want to play basketball. Thirty years ago, there weren’t many Latinos playing basketball at the college or professional levels, and while the numbers are still relatively small, they are growing. Next to Victor Wembanyama, LA native Jamie Jaquez from the Miami Heat is the most popular rookie in the NBA. Not surprisingly, Jaquez, who is of Mexican descent, said that his favorite athlete growing up was Kobe Bryant.
The NFL, arguably the strongest marketing machine in all professional sports, is slowly starting to wake up to the opportunity. They hired Marissa Solis away from Pepsi to lead their global marketing efforts and are already making an impact on the NFL’s focus on the Latino segment.
There isn’t much data on Latino fandom, which may be why professional sports leagues and companies like Nike have been slow to capitalize on what is probably their greatest opportunity for fan and revenue growth in the coming years. My guess is that the data will soon show that because of their youth and vitality, Latino sports fans have the greatest lifetime value in the sports industry of any ethnic demographic in the U.S.
So why is this important? Sports are incredibly influential to American culture, especially for our youth, and possess a great opportunity to showcase Latinos in a positive light. Additionally, sports is a big business, and the business of sports touches several other business sectors, including media, fashion, and even technology. Therefore, it is not only important to see more Latino athletes on the court and playing field; it’s equally as important to start seeing more Latino coaches, executives, and owners.
Social media has helped make sports even more popular and made people hungrier for human connection. There are few places where...
Most of us have heard that it's not about what happens to you or around you; it's how you react. That discipline may be the single most important quality a person can possess when it comes to success. Talent is overrated, and luck is out of our control. Grit, on the other hand, is a superpower.
Despite what some might think, nobody is born tough; a strong mindstance is learned. A 2-minute video by the former Navy Seal turned author, Jocko Willink, gives me chills every time I see it. In the video, Willink says, "When things go bad, don't get all bummed out, don't get sad, don't get frustrated; just say 'good.'" Think about that for a minute. It's a simple concept, but deeply profound, especially when you understand the off-the-charts discipline it takes to have that mindstance. By the way, I am consciencely using the term mindstance rather than mindset. My cousin Matthew Fernandez, a licensed mental health professional, enlightened me on the term, which is similar to mindset but with greater emphasis on adaptability. In addition to having a strong mindstance, the following is my outline for dealing with adversity.
Uncertainty is Exciting
We are all creatures of habit, and most don't like change. However, change creates opportunity. The best investors wait for downcycles to find the best investment opportunities. Entrepreneurs are similar. People become complacent when times are good. It's human nature. Affluence is dangerous because it breeds complacency.
Conversely, desperation is a powerful drug. It heightens our awareness and makes us sharper. Andy Grove, the founder of Intel, wrote a book that became a staple in Silicon Valley titled "Only the Paranoid Survive." The best time for disruption is when people feel a sense of urgency. The fight or flight instinct prepares our bodies and our minds for action. It also separates the winners from the losers. If you are feeling a little uncertain about the market and the direction of the industry – Good! Use the juices only fear can produce to catapult yourself to an even higher place.
Know Your Strengths
You are your most valuable asset. It's not your business, the money you have in the bank, or the real estate you own; it's you. What makes you great when you peel off everything else as yourself? Is it your leadership skills, salesmanship, or expertise in a particular subject? Understanding your strengths (and weaknesses) becomes your foundation to do as Willink says and reload, recalibrate, and reengage. You can lose everything, but you can't lose your most valuable asset, which is you and what you have in your head. Use it!
Emotional Intelligence and Cautious Optimism
When times are tough, people gravitate to those who remain calm and can think clearly. Emotional intelligence is more valuable in business than cognitive intelligence. The people who can take a step back and analyze with minimal emotion will not only make good decisions, but people will flock to them.
Being positive is critical. However, positivity is not delusional. People who respond to adversity by spouting platitudes aren't taken seriously and shouldn't be. The best leaders are cautiously optimistic, which means they have the ability to remain optimistic while recognizing legitimate threats. They can play out various scenarios in their mind and can choose the appropriate path forward. Emotionally intelligent people know when to power through something and when it's time to pivot.
The Chinese Farmer
Last year, I blogged about the Chinese farmer parable. The story goes that a farmer lived alone with his son, and they had one horse. One day, the horse ran away, and later that evening...
This week's big news in real estate was the settlement of the class action lawsuits directed against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and several of the largest brokerages and brands in the industry. NAHREP released a statement yesterday in response to the news. At the center of the settlement was an agreement to eliminate any reference to broker cooperation on MLS systems nationwide. Broker cooperation is a century-old practice in which a listing agent who represents the seller of a property shares their commission with the agent who brings them a successful buyer.
Despite what you may have heard from the media, if the settlement is approved, this would be a modest victory for both realtors and homebuyers. The lawsuit's deeply misguided proponents, including Steve Brobeck from the Consumer Federation of America, have been calling for an outright ban on broker cooperation. In that regard, they didn't get what they wanted.
Brobeck and company believe buyers should pay for their real estate agent services out of pocket rather than through seller proceeds. I have blogged that the ban on broker cooperation would be devastating for Hispanics and other first-time home buyers. Regarding affordability, we are in the midst of the toughest housing market in U.S. history. Forcing buyers to pay out-of-pocket for an agent to represent them through the process would only exacerbate affordability challenges and put homeownership out of reach for millions of would-be buyers. Despite what Brobeck and CFA think, a ban on broker cooperation would benefit no one but the wealthiest among us.
Per the settlement terms, listing brokers can still share commissions with buyers' agents, but the terms of the cooperation must be communicated outside the MLS. It becomes solely a transparency issue, and I'm not sure what that accomplishes.
The terms of broker cooperation can still be communicated on broker websites, social media, or by phone. I have said all along that sellers have had the power to negotiate commissions for decades, and discount brokerages have been a thing for years. Yet, commissions have remained fairly stable for one primary reason: real estate agents provide value that equals or exceeds the price sellers pay. Full Stop.
All things considered, the impact of the settlement is a setback for an industry that has operated fairly efficiently for decades, but when it is all said and done, Latino homebuyers will still be the driving force in the market. Below are ten reasons why Latino homebuyers will overcome this new obstacle.
The Home is the Center of the Family Experience
Latinos have a passion for homeownership. There are many reasons for this, but family drives almost all aspirations for Latinos, and the home is the center of the family experience. This will never change.
Resiliency: Latinos Have Repeatedly Overcome Tough Setbacks
Despite inventory shortages, affordability challenges, and other headwinds, the Latino homeownership rate has increased for nine consecutive years. Latinos will move to where there are more affordable homes and will often pool their resources with other family members to achieve their homeownership goals. Compared to past obstacles, this setback is a mere speed bump.
Rising Incomes and Educational Attainment
Latino household wealth has tripled in the last eight years, and income and educational attainment are on the rise – easily outpacing the overall population. Rising wealth and income means stronger purchasing power.
Latinos Gravitate to the Tangibility and Utility of...
A surge in inflation coupled with the tightest labor market in decades is prompting start-ups to look nearshore to satisfy their workforce needs. For years, large companies have been outsourcing to India and China, but the politics with China is unpredictable at best, and India has its limitations as well. Not to mention, they are both really far away – making it especially difficult for small businesses looking for cost savings. However, Mexico and Latin America are just on the other side of our southern border, in the same time zone as the U.S., and with a talented and plentiful population of eager workers. There are also a number of companies that make the process of hiring a nearshore team practically turn-key.
Roughly one-third of NAHREP’s current staff of 45 is nearshore. We have nearshore accounting, marketing, graphic design, and chapter support employees. Over the next couple of years, we expect the ratio of domestic to nearshore employees to settle at around 50/50.
The money we save by hiring a nearshore team allows us to do more with less. It also allows us to invest more in our U.S.-based team, helping with employee retention. Small businesses were forced to learn how to manage a distributed workforce during COVID, and that skill set has made managing a team south of our border much less intimidating. Security has been one of the concerns with nearshore employees, but working with reputable staffing service providers can dramatically reduce the risk of data/IP security breaches.
On a related note, nearshore work strengthens the economies in Mexico and Latin America. Stronger economies south of our border reduce political unrest in those nations and will eventually result in fewer refugees coming from that region of the world.
Outsourcing became a bad word to many for essentially emptying manufacturing plants across the U.S. There is no doubt the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy was painful for America’s middle class. Still, our workforce has adapted and will do so again. I fully expect that every competitive company in the U.S., both large and small, will utilize nearshoring to some capacity. The ones that do it best will have a huge competitive advantage in the coming years.
Last week, I had the opportunity to keynote a policy event in D.C., hosted by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). My comments focused on what I described as the existential threat facing first-time home buyers in America. This week, in a brief to the judge of a major antitrust lawsuit known as Nosalek, the U.S. Department of Justice called for decoupling buyer and seller agent representation. If the DOJ gets what it wants, it would mean that listing agents would no longer be permitted to share their commissions with agents representing buyers, and buyers would have to pay out of pocket to have an agent represent them. The DOJ and other proponents of the “decoupling” of broker fees believe that the net result will be lower commissions and better consumer affordability. I think that is a fantasy, but I am certain of one thing: homebuyers, especially first-time buyers, will be the biggest losers. The DOJ explicitly said they believe the current system is unfair to home sellers. Still, they neglected to note that all home sellers were home buyers who benefited from broker cooperation at some point in the past. Ending that practice will effectively pull up a ladder that has helped homebuyers for more than a hundred years at a time when Latinos will account for more than 70% of net new homebuyers over the next 20 years.
NAR has been a highly effective advocate for decades. In their unrelenting quest to protect the interests of their realtor® members, they have made a few enemies along the way, including some participants in the civil rights community. NAR has not always been a friend to the civil rights movement and has often opposed fair housing legislation. People in Washington, D.C. have long memories. Though I believe they understand that terminating broker cooperation will have a disproportionate impact on Black and Brown homebuyers, NAR’s track record in the area of fair housing has made it difficult to get some of my friends from leading civil rights organizations to join forces with me on this issue. I also believe the DOJ and the Consumer Federation of America have had a beef with NAR that goes back decades and have become somewhat blinded by their disdain for the powerful trade group. The fact is, NAR has made some mistakes in the past, especially in the area of fair housing, and perhaps the animosity toward them isn’t entirely without merit. However, the collateral damage from the war against NAR will be inculpable homebuyers who will either have to delay their dream of homeownership or, for those who can’t afford an agent, will attempt to go without representation - putting themselves and their families at enormous financial risk.
A career in real estate sales is one of the few occupations that allow opportunities for people without college degrees to earn a good living if they work hard and develop positive professional reputations. The notion that they are overpaid is plain BS. Agents provide an invaluable service to our economy, and despite imperfections in the system, the net result over the last several decades has been pretty impressive. Two-thirds of American households own their home, which, among other things, has provided them with a pathway to the middle class.
The Biden administration should look carefully at this issue and consider the broader implications of disrupting a system that has worked well for over one hundred years. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the administration that effectively crushed the American dream for millions of would-be homebuyers nationwide.
I was in D.C. on Friday for the celebration of life for my friend, Dave Stevens. Dave was a former FHA Commissioner under Barack Obama and an icon in the mortgage banking industry. I was lucky to know Dave as a good friend. Over the years, we would often speak about complicated housing issues, and if we disagreed, which was rare, he would always say, “But I get why you have to take that position, dude. Go do what you have to do”. When we met about 20 years ago, I had just started with NAHREP, and he was working at Freddie Mac. He was an early supporter and went out of his way to introduce me to several influential people.
The FHA Commissioner is the highest-ranking homeownership official in the U.S. government. Dave was commissioner during the 2008 housing crisis, the roughest stretch in the housing economy since the Great Depression. We spoke often during his tenure. He was a phenomenal leader, and I have often said that we were lucky to have someone as astute and action-oriented as Dave sitting in such a vital position during that critical time. Dave never turned down an offer to speak at NAHREP. He was a charismatic speaker and a favorite among the NAHREP faithful. After his stint at FHA, Dave went on to lead the Mortgage Bankers Association, taking an organization that was on the brink back to its rightful position of prominence and influence.
One of the things I remember the most about Dave is that he always knew everything about my family and was genuinely interested in what they were all doing. Many people ask about your family, but it frequently sounds forced and insincere. Their eyes sometimes glaze over when you talk about one of your kids. Dave wasn’t that way at all. When I would post something on social media about one of them, he would often comment with an intelligent statement or compliment.
I sat with my friend Eddy Perez during Dave’s memorial on Friday and as well as we knew Dave, we were both awestruck with the number of people in the industry who clearly knew him as well or better than we did. The dude was incredibly good at relationships. I say “dude” because it was Dave’s favorite word! If I am making it seem like Dave was a soft, creampuff of a guy, he wasn’t. He was tough and highly opinionated. He had no problem telling you when he thought you were wrong and wasn’t afraid to take on the “assholes” in Washington, D.C. But that’s what I think makes all the sensitive stuff he did so much more meaningful and authentic.
I always knew how much of a family man Dave was, but it was still very moving to see his family honoring him with humor, music, love, and nostalgia, just the way he would have wanted it. The only time I teared up at the event was when I hugged my friend Brad Blackwell, who opened and closed the event. Brad was Dave’s best friend since college. We promised to talk more frequently in the future. That’s the best thing about these types of events: you see old friends and are reminded of how important it is to stay in touch.
Dave phoned me in 2016 to let me know he would not be able to fulfill his commitment to speak at an upcoming NAHREP event due to a recent diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. I was stunned because Dave was always the picture of health, but we all know these things strike with impunity. I remember thinking while we were speaking on the phone that he was talking about his cancer with the same degree of controlled emotion as he would about a serious housing policy issue. To him, from my perspective, it seemed like cancer was something else that he would have to have to find a way to beat – and for more than seven years, he defied the odds and did exactly that.
Last year, I wrote...
In the 1987 movie, Wall Street, Michael Douglas’ character, Gordon Gekko says, “It’s a zero-sum game; somebody wins and somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred…”.
If you’re not familiar with the Sitzer class action lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors and several of the largest real estate brands, it centers on how real estate agents are compensated. The lawsuit claims that the practice of seller and buyer agent cooperation or sharing of commissions is an anti-trust violation and has resulted in inflated commissions paid by consumers. While a jury in Missouri has already sided with the plaintiffs, the judge has not rendered a final verdict.
Some proponents of the lawsuit, including one very influential consumer group, are hoping the verdict will ultimately end the practice of seller and buyer agent cooperation, and that the net result will be lower real estate commissions across the board.
On the surface, this may sound like a victory for consumers, but a closer look clearly shows that, even if the proponents of the lawsuit are correct and real estate commissions end up being reduced, the money won’t be divided equally, and first-time home buyers and lower-income consumers are likely to shoulder the largest burden.
The following is my assessment of the most likely winners and losers of the Sitzer Class Action Lawsuit.
Winners
Home Sellers
Because it is customary that the agents for both the buyer and the seller are paid from seller proceeds, in the short-run, eliminating that practice and requiring buyers to pay for their own agent representation, will benefit home sellers.
Deep Pocket Buyers
Buyers who are short on cash will still be able to ask sellers to cover the expense of their agent as a seller concession. However, this would put that buyer at a further disadvantage if their offer is competing against wealthier more experienced investors and institutional buyers, who don’t ask for the concession.
Class Action Lawyers
Class action lawyers, such as those in some of our favorite movies like Erin Brockovich and The Insider are rare. More often than not, class action lawyers are far more self-serving than they are portrayed in movies. The class action lawyers in the Sitzer case are poised to make hundreds of millions of dollars, while some experts believe that the actual plaintiffs (home sellers in Missouri), will be lucky to receive $200 apiece.
Losers
First-Time Buyers
First-time buyers with modest wealth are likely to be the biggest losers if proponents of the Sitzer lawsuit get what they want. In addition to the down payment, closing costs, and reserves, buyers will now be saddled with the additional cost of having to pay their real estate agents. Some say this is where commissions will be driven down the most, and they may be right, but is that really a good thing?
Buyers who are on the margin in terms of their wealth will have a few options, none of which are better for them. They will either delay their home purchase to save more money to pay for their agent, or they will try to go with a discount agency or without representation altogether. Delaying their purchase will likely mean they will end up paying more, perhaps substantially more, for their home down the line. The more likely scenario is they will go without representation and attempt to fend for themselves.
Some people believe this is fine but that’s because they don’t understand the critical...
Let’s face it, we never believed the DEI movement was going to help Latinos.
I have written many times about how the powers that be privately hated the ethos of diversity, equity, and inclusion – especially the equity part. It was never going to work. Perhaps some of the fault lies on us, with too much focus on the negatives (prejudice and discrimination) and not enough focus on the positives (prosperity and economic growth), although I’m not so sure it would have mattered. At the end of the day, DEI was about power and no matter how well we sold the virtues of DEI, nobody, especially in this country, will ever willingly give up power.
In social media, DEI is now being blamed for everything from poor corporate earnings to the war in Israel. As a result, many corporations are now retreating from their DEI commitments faster than you can say George Floyd.
Ok, so now that we have that out of the way. Where do we go from here? Frankly, I don’t think anything changes. For those of us who care about the success and prosperity of the Latino community, progress is always going to come from within. As with anything, we need to focus on the things we can control. But before I get into what needs to change, let me set the table with some indisputable positives. Latinos are the youngest demographic in America, with the highest workforce participation rate. We are young and we are not afraid of hard work. Our dedication to God, family, and country is of the highest level. We contribute a lot to this country, but I’m not afraid to say, we are still vastly underachieving as a community. So, what needs to change for our immense capacity to reach its full potential?
Alignment
We all know that Latinos are not a monolithic community. We come from more than 30 countries with a full spectrum of political and social perspectives. However, when it comes to our values and aspirations, our commonalities overshadow our differences and we need to get better aligned as a group. I’ve said many times that Latino immigrants don’t come to this country because they like the food, music, or culture; Latinos come to America for one reason and one reason only – economic opportunity. Despite what some idiots think, Latinos don’t want a handout or something for nothing. Latinos simply want a chance for a better life and are willing to work as hard as it takes to make it happen. We don’t have to agree on everything, but on issues that affect our abilities to prosper economically, we need to share the same talking points and we need to get better aligned.
Connections to Power
People with power talk about how we live in a meritocracy. In other words, they would like us to believe that all success in America is earned. It may be truer here than in many other countries, but almost everyone knows that in America, success is primarily a factor of two things, what you know and who you know.
In my last blog, I wrote about self-selecting industries. Some of the most lucrative and prestigious industries in our economy; finance, media, tech, professional sports, and entertainment, are self-selecting industries. In other words, they are very difficult to break into if you don’t know somebody on the inside. Most major corporations, also function this way. To climb the corporate ladder, you typically need a sponsor or an advocate who is in a position of power within the company to pull you up to the higher positions. Latinos have historically lacked the connections to break into the majority of the most prominent positions in our economy.
The only way to break this cycle is for Latinos who are fortunate enough to break through, to open doors for other Latinos. We need to hold each other accountable for this. When one Latino is appointed to a corporate board, the
If you have been following the news on the recent resignation of the President of Harvard over her unfortunate congressional testimony on antisemitism on college campuses, you might have read Bill Ackman’s post on X (formally known as Twitter) which essentially blamed everything on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies on college campuses. Ackman’s post was reposted by none other than Elon Musk, the owner of X, who wrote, “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it”. Musk’s over-the-top response prompted Mark Cuban to jump into the conversation by defending DEI and calling it smart business. Cuban has since challenged Musk to a debate on the subject.
I have been a critic of DEI which I think has been poorly executed. However, equating DEI to racism is ridiculous. I will withhold my personal views on Elon Musk and instead focus on the issue of DEI in more wholistic terms.
At the center of Ackman’s DEI manifesto on X is the notion of “equality of outcomes” versus “equality of opportunity”. It’s an important distinction and a fair issue to debate. It’s whether we define equality as a society in which everyone, regardless of status or background, has an equal chance to succeed (hence, equality of opportunity), or in which, all things being equal, one group is consistently less successful than other groups. In the latter case, we can assume there must be some biases within the system (equality of outcomes).
Ackman claims he supports equality of opportunity and provides proof of this by highlighting how his firm has supported smaller banks (well, ok), but Ackman calls policies that strive for equality of outcomes anti-American. In this regard, he is not totally wrong. A society that requires equality of outcomes at all costs, is not capitalistic, because it disregards innovation, risk, and hard work. But things get muddy when determining how to deal with the difference between the two in practice.
I agree that the idea of a society that is equal in terms of opportunity for all is the correct goal. However, does that mean we shouldn’t consider outcomes at all? We know that some people are born poor and others are born rich. Some are born sick and others are healthy. We know that it wasn’t too long ago that it was legal to preclude minorities from certain jobs, housing, or bank loans, and the remnants of those policies still exist today. So how do we define equality of opportunity and where do we draw the lines?
Musk and Ackman were both born into wealth and privilege. They both attended Ivy League schools and have had access to every possible resource available. So whether it’s intentional or because they lack certain life experiences, they both fail to address the complexity of the issue fairly and as the intelligent adults they are.
Here is my take; whether it is attainable or not, the goal should be to create a society of equal opportunity. However, if we are truly committed to that goal, then we must also realize that a review of outcomes is the most dependable metric we have available to us, and therefore it should always be part of the analysis.
On the subject of DEI, Mark Cuban says, “If companies aren’t smart enough to realize that diversity is good business, then great, there will be more talent out there for me”. Good for Cuban, but diversity does have broader implications for America. As our country, especially our workforce, is becoming increasingly diverse...
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we are reminded of the importance of expressing our gratitude for the blessings we have in our lives. It’s a positive message that most of us embrace, but the concept of gratitude can be deeper and more powerful than most people realize.
I have seen lots of videos and memes that discuss how everyone should affirm their gratitude daily. Tony Robbins and Gary V are both big proponents of how focusing on the good versus the bad is the key to both success and happiness. I think that is a great way to live if it works for you, but it also seems a little superficial to me. It assumes that we all have a comparable amount of good and bad in our lives.
We have all been exposed to stories about people who are physically disabled or who have experienced debilitating tragedies in their lives yet maintain a positive outlook on life and are still able to achieve great things. Those stories force us to put our own lives in perspective, and while hearing those stories has an impact for a while, it doesn’t always last. Why is that? I think it’s because it often forces us to take a balance sheet approach to life. It’s supposed to make us look at all the good in our lives and compare it to the bad. I’m not sure that works for everyone because we all prioritize things differently. Happiness is subjective; What may be a small thing to some people may be a big deal to others.
Things also change during the course of our lives. Tragedy is a part of life. Failure is a part of life. It's unavoidable. Most of us will deal with abject failure and unspeakable tragedy in our lives. At certain points in our lives, the bad might legitimately outweigh the good. Then what? Being told that we should be happy just because other people have it worse, doesn’t quite get it done for many of us.
I think if you are truly a grateful person, you have to be grateful for everything – the good and the bad. How many of us are capable of that? Because that’s a much more difficult mindset to acquire. That is the epitome of being mentally strong. I’ll be honest, I’m not there yet, but it is something I strive towards because it’s the only mindset that transcends the ups and downs that we all experience. It is the only mindset where happiness isn’t fleeting. The happiest and most mentally strong are grateful for the good AND the bad in their life. They are grateful for the triumphs and the setbacks. When things go wrong, they say “thank you” in their minds, because they know that with every bad there is good. There is opportunity. There is the opportunity to get better. There is an opportunity to find a solution. The bad is what makes the good worth pursuing. You can’t experience joy if you don’t experience sadness. If you can say “thank you” in the face of tragedy, to feel honest gratitude, when things are going bad, that’s when you can’t be beaten. That is when you are truly able to appreciate life in its fullest sense. Gratitude is a powerful concept when it is understood holistically.
I believe deeply in taking the high road; it is rarely good to lose your cool, especially in business. It’s part of what we call emotional intelligence. We all know people who can’t walk away from a fight. They take everything personally and can’t deal with conflict without getting emotional. Most of us try and avoid people like that. Then there are those who always hold it together, even when everyone else around them is in a state of panic. They can think clearly when everyone else is falling apart. We admire people like that. We call them distinguished and polished. We promote them at work because we’ve been taught that leaders are always cool under pressure.
However, it’s not always best to walk away from a fight. There are some things worth fighting for, and for the right reasons, it’s also ok to lose your cool once in a while. You have to choose your battles wisely, but if our leaders are never willing to fight for us or if we have never seen them throw a punch (metaphorically), then over time we lose respect for them as well. I think I have a pretty high threshold before I am willing to stoop to the level of a street fight, but if I see anyone abusing my family or my co-workers, there is a different side of me that comes out. I think many of us are that way, but not everyone realizes that it’s also important to do it professionally.
The real estate industry as we know it is in the middle of an existential threat. Several of us have read about the verdict in a lawsuit in Missouri that many believe could upend the way residential real estate is bought and sold in America. NAHREP is hosting a virtual town hall meeting with NAR on Monday, November 13th to discuss the details of the verdict. I won’t get into it now, but I can say that the outcome of the verdict would disproportionately impact Latinos and other minority homebuyers. What is disappointing is that some of the largest consumer groups are on the wrong side of this argument and are advocating for an outcome that might help some consumers, but would definitely hurt many first-time buyers and buyers that are the least affluent.
Historically, NAHREP has been friendly with consumer groups. We have not always agreed on everything, but I respect them and have worked hard to have a good relationship with them. But that may change. My job as the CEO of NAHREP is to create an environment where our members and their clients have the best chance to succeed. Our mission is to advance sustainable Hispanic homeownership, and if I see a major threat to those objectives, it’s time for me to take the gloves off and fight with impunity, no matter who I offend along the way, even my friends.
If you want to listen to the town hall meeting on Monday, you can register here. Be a statesperson at work, but when threatened, fight back and fight hard. People on both sides will respect you for it.
I am a big believer in being authentic and original. The large majority of leaders have no original thoughts or ideas. They follow other people’s templates; they simply regurgitate other people's talking points. We are often taught “Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find someone who is where you want to be and do what they do”. I don’t think this is bad advice, but if everyone did that, there would be no innovation. There would be no progress. You can be successful by emulating other people, but you will never be a great leader and I don’t think you will be the best version of yourself.
Last year, I started playing with an idea about how entrepreneurship can close the minority wealth gap in America. I floated an audacious idea that the wealth gap poses an existential threat to America’s leadership in the world economy. That was an attention-getter! To develop my thesis on how to close the wealth gap, I thought about my observations in the housing industry. I realized that all the data and advocacy about the growth in the Hispanic sector had little effect on how big companies treated the market. However, when a few emerging companies that were focused on the Hispanic segment, achieved scale and took market share from larger companies, the larger companies responded by making more substantial investments in Hispanic markets. They hired more Hispanics and they invested in Hispanic marketing. In doing so, they created a multiplier effect that I believe has helped accelerate Hispanic homeownership and Hispanic household wealth. You can agree or disagree with my thesis, but it is unique and compelling and has become part of my stump speech that I have presented to Silicon Valley and investors in L’ATTITUDE Ventures. It has also provoked interesting conversations with some powerful people.
The NAHREP 10 is another example of a thesis. We can debate the specifics of the principles on the list, but there is no denying that the NAHREP 10 has had an impact.
Original thought is a powerful thing; it is what separates us from machines. It begs the question, “What is your thesis?” When people think of you as a leader, what comes to mind? Do you have a unique business philosophy? Do you have a set of principles that guide your life? Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur and presidential candidate said something that I found very interesting. When asked for advice by a young entrepreneur, Ramaswamy said that to be very successful, you need to come up with an idea that is different from what almost everyone believes and you have to be right. I thought that was very well put.
In the movie, “The Big Short”, a couple of obscure investors believed that the housing market was on the verge of an unprecedented collapse and millions of people would default on their mortgages. They made massive bets against the housing market, and because almost nobody agreed with them, they were able to purchase short positions on mortgage securities for very little money. And they ended up making billions of dollars when the market proved them to be right.
My point here isn’t to embolden you to make crazy bets on the stock market, but rather to acquire an appreciation for original ideas and encourage you to develop your own original leadership thesis. It seems like practically everyone wants to be an inspirational speaker or life coach these days, but most of them should just quit because they have nothing unique to offer.
While I have never been to a Tony Robbins seminar, he is clearly the leader in this field and he has remained so for decades. Why? Because like him or not, he is an original. He practically invented the industry, and he is very good at what he does.
Ray Dalio and Simon Sin
We all have our own idea of what makes a successful career. For some, it is owning a profitable business, for others it might be the stability and prestige of a high-paying profession. However, for most people, success is some combination of earning a high income while preserving the freedom to enjoy it. Unlike some people, I enjoy the process. I like the early stages of a new venture, even more than after it becomes an actual business. I am not however an adrenaline junkie. I am not willing to risk everything to pursue my next idea. I am my best when my business is doing well enough that I have the time and the means to pursue a passion project and a moonshot.
I have a younger cousin who visited me this past week. He is recently married with a newborn son. He has a very respectable career in the healthcare field. My cousin writes music, is active in his church and has a large vision for a business he wants to build. He reminded me a little of myself. Making money is important to me, but I am the kind of person that also cares a lot about the impact I am having on the world, especially for the people I care about most. My cousin’s profession is his foundation, his church and music are his passion projects, and his idea for a business is his moonshot. Everyone is different, but I think that is a good way to approach your career. It took years for me to build a strong and stable enough business to support me and my family. Building that foundation is the most critical part. Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter how much we love what we do, if it doesn’t support us financially, it simply won’t do. I personally don’t think you need to love what you do to pay the bills. It’s nice if you do, but it is not a requirement. Some people say you can’t be successful if you don’t love what you do. It certainly helps if you love it, but it’s hard to find something that you love that also pays enough money to live. I think most people acquire a healthy appreciation for the thing that supports them financially, and I think that is plenty good enough.
That’s why I think most people also need a passion project and a moonshot. Your passion project needs to be something that brings you joy and/or fulfillment. It can be something creative or philanthropic. It can be some form of artistic expression or some contribution to the world. Writing this blog is one way I accomplish this for myself. I also have the luxury of having a job that fulfills my need to make things better for others.
A moonshot is something different. It’s more about ambition. Even after 35 years in business, I am always thinking about my next moonshot. When I was a mortgage broker, my moonshot was NAHREP, and when NAHREP became a reality, my moonshot became L’ATTITUDE. Along the way, I have had many other moonshots that didn’t materialize into anything, but that’s what makes them a moonshot. They are big, hairy, audacious goals that excite us and give us something to dream about. I am currently sitting on about a dozen new moonshots, crazy…But that’s just the way I’m wired, I guess.
There is more than one path to success, and everyone has to find their own way.
Over the next 24 months, the real estate and mortgage industries will be challenged like no time in recent history. Companies that have healthy capital reserves and their fixed expenses under control will expand their footprints, and increase market share. Agents with strong brand awareness and low overhead will also do well. Brokers with corporate accounts and multiple channels of business like REO, relocation, and property management are in the best position for growth. Conversely, companies with high fixed expenses, and singular revenue channels will suffer.
Real Estate is a cyclical business. I have never understood why brokers and agents lock themselves into long-term commitments for office space, equipment leases, and human capital. They always regret it. I have been in the business for almost 35 years, and I have seen the same people go from moguls to paupers more than once. Ten years ago, I read a book titled “The Lean Start-Up” by Eric Ries that I have never forgotten. I use many of the principles discussed in the book to this day.
What to Expect in the Coming Months
First, expect fewer transactions. It will be a while before interest rates begin to come down, so wannabe sellers who are sitting on 3% interest rates are going to be on the fence for a while. Inventory will remain low and prices will stay high, although red-hot markets like Phoenix, Austin, and Nashville may see some price compression. Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know there are a slew of lawsuits challenging traditional real estate commission practices. I have no idea how those lawsuits will play out, but it only emphasizes the need for agents and brokers to keep costs low and have supplemental revenue streams. Mortgage lenders will need to find ways to lower acquisition and manufacturing costs. Mortgage brokers will increase in market share because of their low overhead, and more companies will look at near-shore opportunities for loan processing.
The Bounce is Always Proportional to the Dip
The worst real estate market in modern history was between 2008 and 2012. However, that dip was followed by a ten-year bull market. The longer the current real estate market stays down, the stronger the rebound will be. The longer interest rates stay high, the more loans there will be to refinance when rates come down, and so on. It is always dangerous to try and predict the bottom, but smart companies are already thinking about ways to scale up quickly when the market gets hot again. The cyclicality of the industry works both ways.
Demographics and Digitization
The Hispanic housing market will remain robust despite affordability challenges. If your plan is to stay in a house for at least 10 years, there is never a bad time to buy or invest in real estate. Hispanics are a family-oriented community, and the home is central to the family experience. Hispanics don’t care as much about price or interest because their goals are more long-term. One of the few things you can count on is that the youth and vitality of Hispanic homebuyers will drive the market for decades.
Technology, blockchain, and AI will change the industry more in the next five years than anything else since the emergence of the internet. I would advise everyone to invest heavily in educating themselves about how these technologies will impact the housing industry.
The housing and mortgage industries are staffed for six million home sales and approximately four trillion dollars in mortgage originations. Experts are predicting those numbers to decrease dramatically. That means a lot of people will be forced to leave the industry. That is both bad and good. I don’t wish anyone hard times, but a contractio
We are a little more than a week from the incomparable NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE (NAL) event in Miami. This year, the crowd will be bigger and the speakers will be even more impressive! Let’s start by reviewing the current list of speaker/headliners.
- Charlie Scharf, CEO and President, Wells Fargo & Company
- Brian Moynihan, Chair and CEO, Bank of America
- Julie Sweet, Chair & CEO, Accenture
- Barbara Corcoran, Entrepreneur and Star of Shark Tank
- Cesar Conde, Chairman of NBCUniversal News Group
- Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Apple, Inc.
- Priscilla Almodovar, CEO, Fannie Mae
- Michael DeVito, CEO, Freddie Mac
- Glenn Kelman, CEO, Redfin
- David Auld, President and CEO, D.R. Horton
- Daniel Pinto, President and COO, JPMorgan Chase, CEO, Corporate & Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan
- Isabella Casillas Guzman, Cabinet Member, Administrator, US Small Business Administration (SBA)
- Orlando Bravo, Founder & Managing Partner, Thoma Bravo
- Mauricio Gutierrez, President and CEO, NRG Energy
- Gloria Estefan, Superstar Entertainer and Producer
- Emilio Estefan, Entrepreneur and Producer
- Shelia E., Hall of Fame Percussionist and Entertainer
- Fat Joe, Grammy Nominated Artist, Author, and Entrepreneur
- Willy Chavarria, Fashion Designer and Senior Vice President of Design, Calvin Klein
- John Leguizamo, Actor, Stand-Up Comedian, Producer, Playwright & Screenwriter
- Oscar De La Hoya, Chairman and CEO, Golden Boy Productions
- Manu Ginóbili, Hall of Fame Basketball Player and Entrepreneur
- Xolo Maridueña, Actor, Star of Blue Beetle and Cobra Kai
- Gersson Rosas, SVP for Basketball Operations, New York Knicks
- Raul Alarcon, CEO, Spanish Broadcasting Systems
- Philip White, President and CEO, Sotheby’s International Realty
- Jesus Lopez, CEO, Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula
- Jose Minaya, CEO, Nuveen
- Eugenio Derbez, Actor, Producer, and Entrepreneur
If you are not familiar with some of the names, let me provide some additional color. Eddy Cue is a Cuban-American and the second-ranking executive at Apple. He has helped make Apple the most valuable company in the history of the world. Orlando Bravo is the wealthiest Latino in America with a net worth of more than 8 billion dollars, and Priscila Almodovar is the only Latina CEO of a Fortune 100 company. Beyond this incredible list of headliners, the hallways at NAL will include top producers, venture capitalists, tech entrepreneurs, entertainers, professional athletes, the national media, and some of the wealthiest and most successful Latinos in America. It is the ultimate convergence of business, media, and Latino culture in the world. So, who should attend?
Big Thinkers
Not everyone has the capacity to think big. In fact, most people can’t see beyond what is standing directly in front of them. But if you believe that your success is only limited by your capacity to think big, you won’t find any place that will expand your vision more than NAL – especially if you are Latino. Just being around the best of the best is a life-changing experience. NAL will force you to rethink everything. If that scares you, don’t come - but if that excites you, you can’t miss it. I have said many times that success is a factor of what you know and who you know. The information and the networking at L’ATTITUDE are world-class, plain and simple. NAL is for the biggest thinkers among us.
Entrepreneurs Looking for Massive GrowthIf you own a business...
I think most Latinos would agree that at our core, we are a generous people. If a member of our family is in need, Latinos, as a rule, won’t hesitate to help financially or otherwise. Family is central to Hispanic culture, and when it comes to family, our generosity has few limits. Maybe that explains why when it comes to making political donations and writing checks to support actual philanthropic activities, Latinos come up short. Maybe our family takes all we have to give. Or maybe philanthropy is a discipline not many of us have acquired.
I have several politician friends, and whether Republican or Democrat, they each will tell you only a tiny fraction of their contributions come from Latinos. Black Americans make political donations and Jewish Americans do as well, but Latinos don’t. When I interviewed President Barack Obama last year at NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE, I pressed him about politicians not prioritizing issues important to Latino voters. He politely pushed back by saying if Latinos are not aligned in support of Latino issues, how do you expect politicians to care? He didn’t specifically mention political donations, but it was implied. I have friends who would go through a wall for me, but some of those same friends will ghost me if I ask them to write a check for a politician or a philanthropic cause I care about.
A few months ago, I wrote a blog titled “Without Money, Your Ideas Don’t Matter”. In it, I described the way our system works.
Most of us have learned that politics are not driven by ideology, they are driven by money. The same applies to business, media, and even art. We all have ideas of how the world should work. We all have our own vision of justice and fair play – but in our system, an idea without money is just noise.
That sounds harsh, but sometimes the truth is hard to hear. There is a price Latinos are paying for due to our lack of financial participation in both philanthropy and the political process.
It’s not just political. I get approached all the time to support everything from youth sports to the arts. If the cause supports the Latino agenda, I typically try and help as much as possible. Last month I was in Los Angeles for a charity fundraiser. The event was for an educational foundation for Latino youths. I was surprised there were people who showed up, took pictures, had dinner, and didn’t donate a dime. An actor friend of mine, who is pretty well-known, is trying to raise money for a documentary. His documentary tells an important story about a Latino historical figure. He thought he would have an easy time raising money from Latino donors, but that hasn’t been the case thus far. Producers and distributors have quietly been telling him, that if he can’t get Latinos to support the project, why would anyone else care? I must admit some of this dumbfounds me. I get not everyone has the money to make donations, but some of this is basic courtesy. Let me start with this: Don’t go to a charity event or a political fundraiser and not write a check. It’s poor manners. Just politely decline.
At NAHREP I have been proud to see the evolution of our members. People who attend our conferences for the first time are always impressed with how sharp and professional everyone looks and acts. We have set a high bar for professional standards, and I believe we can do the same when it comes to philanthropy. If you have never participated in a fundraiser or made a political donation, and you have a little extra money, I think you should start. Like any prudent investor, you should set a budget for your donations. I would begin by earmarking 2 percent of your income for supporting a cause, or causes, of your choice. Some do 5 percent and others do 10 percent or more. Political
Leaders Run Toward Problems Not Away from Them
Early in my career, I learned that a major part of my job is to solve problems. We can all agree that problems aren’t fun. They often require tough decisions and stressful conversations. Because of this, most people run away from problems rather than confronting them. This is a recipe for chaos and dysfunction. We have all heard the phrase fight or flight. It’s a real thing. Fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. Our instinctive response to danger or stress is to either run from it or stand up and fight. Some people can’t walk away from a fight. That isn’t good, because not everyone is worth a fight. You do have to pick your battles, and in business, you need to choose those battles wisely. But that isn’t the problem for most business people. Most business people are cowards and rather than confront problems, they run away. The ability to deal with problems and stressful situations is a key component of strong leadership.
Weak Leaders Aren’t Really Leaders
I have to admit that weak leaders make me a little sick, and I know a lot of them. The first indicator of a weak leader is they are quick to take the credit but avoid responsibility. They like to make the easy calls but think their subordinates should take all the hits for them. Weak leaders love to play golf or have drinks with colleagues and customers, but they avoid tough meetings. When there is a problem with an employee or customer, a weak leader has their staff deal with it. Conflict is part of business. If you want to be a strong leader, you have to learn how to deal with conflict. In business, there are going to be arguments and disagreements. When weak leaders can no longer avoid a problem, they dance around the issue and they have buffers or lawyers relay information on their behalf to avoid the possibility of an uncomfortable confrontation.
There is No Drama in NAHREP
I am certain that one of the reasons NAHREP is one of the most successful business organizations in America is that many years ago, after a painful stretch of turmoil and dysfunction, we decided on a policy that we coined, “There is no drama in NAHREP”. Essentially, the policy served as a guide and a great case study on how organizations should deal with conflict. Like any organization, NAHREP has disagreements and problems. However, what differentiates us is that we address conflict swiftly and decisively. Problems and dysfunction can fester and like an untreated wound, can develop into a deadly infection. As the CEO of NAHREP, I have to lead by example. I don’t like gossip and I completely ignore anonymous complaints. My staff knows to only bring issues to my attention when they are serious and validated because I never hesitate to address a problem. I always say, “Let’s deal with it now”. For me, conflict and confrontation aren’t stressful, but knowing that there is a problem that is going unresolved, is a major stress to me. When I am dealing with a problem, I try to give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t beat around the bush. When a resolution is agreed upon, I am known for making my counterparts repeat verbally or in writing what was agreed. When a resolution is not possible or someone breaches the agreement, that person is cut from the team with prejudice. No looking back. I don’t like to leave anything to chance. The goal for any company or organization is to build a culture where there is trust, and where everyone begins with a core belief that every individual on the team has the same objectives. We all want what is best for the organization. There can be disagreement on strategy or tactics, but never a question of motives. When your company or organization gets to that point, amazing things are possible.
In July, L’ATTITUDE hosted its first event during the NBA Summer League, honoring Latino leaders in the NBA. The day opened with a NAHREP Northwest Regional event where representatives from our chapters in the Northwest Region discussed the market and shared best practices. Later that afternoon, L’ATTITUDE honored Gersson Rosas, James Borrego, Earl Watson, and Alvaro Martin for their role in breaking barriers for Latinos in the NBA. L’ATTITUDE intends to amplify its focus on sports because of its enormous influence on our culture and the youth in America. Beyond recognizing leaders, L’ATTITUDE will produce studies and data that illustrate the role of Latinos in terms of audience and revenue growth for professional sports.
L’ATTITUDE has always done more than host meaningful conversations and produce data. In 2022, it used its platform to raise $100M to invest in Latino-led start-ups. With sports, L’ATTITUDE is committed to playing a large role in building a talent pipeline of young Latino players, coaches, and executives. L’ATTITUDE 2023 in Miami will host the second annual L’ATTITUDE Basketball Classic featuring the top Latino high school players in the US and from around the world. This year’s classic will feature the NBA Academy from Mexico City, Columbus High School in Miami, the consensus number one team in the nation, The Academy of Central Florida, featuring several members of the FIBA U18 Puerto Rican Men National Team, and Veritas Academy from Los Angeles, a Nike Elite School. Scouts from top colleges and each NBA franchise are expected to attend.
I have written about Veritas Academy in the past. The LA-based program is the brainchild of George Zedan, a highly successful high school and AAU basketball coach who believed there was a goldmine of untapped basketball talent in Latin America and the US. He wasn’t wrong. In five years, Veritas Academy has placed 100% of its graduates in colleges where they have continued their education and basketball careers. Sol Trujillo, Armando Tam, and I are hosting a fundraising gala and silent auction for Veritas Academy on August 19th in Los Angeles. The auction is amazing and several NBA players are expected to attend. Veritas is the type of program that the Latino community should support. George was able to meet executives from Nike at the L’ATTITUDE event in 2022, and that introduction was parlayed into a formal partnership with Nike. Shortly after, Veritas was invited to join the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (NIBC) where they will square off against the top high school programs in the country, with most of their games televised on ESPN. Advocacy and creating awareness are important, but providing young student-athletes with the opportunity to refine their skills, complete their education, and compete against the best basketball talent in the world is changing lives. It’s something that NAHREP and L’ATTITUDE take very seriously. If you want to support Veritas Academy or participate in the gala and/or silent auction, please use this link.
L’ATTITUDE Sports is taking off!
In the movie Wall Street, Bud Fox’s goal was to work with a big fish like Gordon Gekko. Fox gets his wish, but it almost destroys him. Still, almost everyone wants to work with partners and customers who are wealthier and more successful than themselves. They think they will become more successful by osmosis. It is not always true but it’s not necessarily wrong either.
When I started NAHREP, I successfully pursued a relationship with Henry Cisneros. Henry was in President Clinton’s cabinet and he was the first Latino Secretary of HUD. Henry was incredibly generous with me and my relationship with him brought much-needed credibility to NAHREP when we needed it the most. Henry remains a friend and mentor to this day.
When I had the idea for a large Latino business conference, I pursued a relationship with Sol Trujillo, easily the most prominent Latino executive in the corporate world. Together Sol and I launched L’ATTITUDE. Today, I have the honor of calling Sol, Emilio Estefan, and Oscar Munoz my business partners. They are three of the most successful Latinos in American history. If, instead of Henry, Sol, Emilio, and Oscar, I wanted to do business with Gary Vee or Jay-Z, I am confident I could have done so. Working with exceptionally successful people can be great, but if you want to dance with elephants, you need to keep a few things in mind.
Bring Something to the Table
Successful people are busy, and practically everyone wants something from them. I don’t care how charming you think you are; highly successful people aren’t going to want to spend time with you if you don’t bring something of value to the table. The good news is that it could be almost anything. For example, a lot of successful people love golf. If you are great at golf, some very successful people will want to play golf with you. That could be what opens the door for you. People like to do business with people they like. If they like you, and you don’t come off too desperate, they may also want to do business with you. If you are an expert or highly skilled at something, whether business-related or something completely different, your chances are good that successful people will be interested in knowing you. That’s why I always say that the first step in building a successful career is to be great at something.
Never Lose Your Dignity
Desperation is the biggest repellent in business and in relationships. No matter what your situation is, or how important you perceive a relationship will be, never lose your dignity. Do you ever wonder why celebrities prefer to socialize with other celebrities or why wealthy people spend most of their time with other wealthy people? It’s because it’s stressful to be around people who are needy and who always need something from you. Even the most generous people compartmentalize their relationships. They allocate a certain amount of time to charity or mentorships, but they want to do business with people who have it together, and who they admire. Come across too needy and most successful people will run the other way.
Carry Your Weight, But Don’t Act Like You Have More Than You Do
There is a saying, “When an elephant dances with a mouse, only one can get hurt”. On one hand, you don’t want to be a freeloader. You want to be a person that always carries your weight, but this can also get you into trouble. Successful people may think nothing about investing a million dollars in a restaurant or nightclub, but if you can’t afford to lose that kind of money, you shouldn’t feel compelled to do so, just to maintain appearances. This is when dancing with elephants can be dangerous, if not fatal. Always be willing to step away from a deal that you can’t afford, but don’t expect something for nothing. If you don’t have the money or something of eq
Thirteen AGs Send Letter on DEI to CEOs
On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw affirmative action policies in college admissions, Attorneys General from thirteen states including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia sent a letter to the 100 largest corporations in America, advising them that they believe the ruling extends to private companies. In their letter, the group of Attorneys General stated their view that “racial discrimination in employment and contracting is all too common among Fortune 100 companies and other large businesses.” They warned that if a company “previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed” as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard and that those companies must “overcome their underlying biases and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.” The letter provides specific examples of the ways in which employers allegedly engage in unlawful discrimination, such as “explicit racial hiring quotas” and preferences for contractors with diverse staff or minority leadership. The Attorneys General further criticized pledges by several major companies to foster diversity and support minority-owned businesses during racial justice protests in 2020. There is little doubt, that corporate DEI policies in all forms will soon be challenged in the courts.
Not Many Latinos Benefitted from Affirmative Action
In the short run, the elimination of DEI hiring policies and supplier diversity programs will have a negative impact on the relatively small number of employees and small businesses that have benefited from those policies. However, the programs were far from perfect. 60 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Latinos remain the most underrepresented ethnic group in America’s c-suites and boardrooms, and if you have ever attended a National Minority Supplier Development Council convention, you probably noticed there weren’t many Latinos in the room. Perhaps some of that is on us, but affirmative action has never worked especially well for Latinos.
DEI Policies Make it Too Easy for Companies
I have often said, that corporate DEI policies make it too easy for companies. Most DEI executives are what I call “one-tank generals”. In other words, they have big titles but rarely have a significant budget or staff. When I first started building NAHREP, I visited many of the largest companies in the industry, and I joked to friends that it seemed like most companies had executives whose only job was to deal with people like me. Let’s be honest, for many companies, DEI has always been more about optics than about anything real. If the Supreme Court rules that race-based hiring and contracting practices are illegal, as I expect they will, companies will have to base their hiring policies on actual business strategy, not on quotas. That could create a paradigm shift in how companies view the issue. The bottom line is that companies who have hidden behind disingenuous DEI policies will have to find alternative ways to find diverse talent if they don’t want to be embarrassed and if they expect to compete in America’s New Mainstream Economy.
It's About Growth, Stupid
Make no mistake, the 13 Attorneys General and the critics of affirmative action are not trying to help minority groups. They don’t believe their efforts will result in a greater strategic investment in diverse communities, but that could very well be the outcome. The first rule of capitalism is capital flows to where the growth is, and the data clearly shows that...
I had a great time in Las Vegas this week at NAHREP’s Northwest Regional Event, where among other things, we honored Latino Trailblazers in the NBA. It was terrific! Later that evening we had dinner with friends and the subject of my recent blog about affirmative action was discussed. Fortunately, NAHREP has built a culture in which people can disagree about sensitive issues without losing their minds. I explained that my blog did not take a hard line on the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, but rather addressed a general misunderstanding of the topic. I explained that unfortunately, we live in a society in which people acquire strong opinions with only soundbites of information. Critics of affirmative action characterize it as a policy that allowed colleges to admit students of color who were undeserving and unqualified. However, the data shows that everyone who is admitted to Harvard meets the university’s academic criteria. Harvard, like most elite colleges, receives about 50 qualified applications for each available opening. Because of this, additional criteria are used to determine which applicants will be admitted. Colleges can consider several factors including a person’s socioeconomic background, their proficiency in sports, or whether their parents are alumni. But they can no longer consider race as a factor. You can have an opinion about whether race should or shouldn’t be a factor, but once you understand the issue in its entirety, you will probably realize this issue is more complex than what you have heard. The question of whether a person who is unqualified for admission should be offered admission to an elite college solely because of their race is a false choice because that is not what is happening.
There are larger false choices, primarily having to do with how much we should do to help the poor and unfortunate. I’ve raised my kids to work hard, expect nothing, and appreciate everything. They are all college graduates and high achievers. I am most proud that they are good people, strong but considerate, confident yet humble. Best of all, they are all the furthest thing from entitled. However, they were lucky. They grew up in a stable environment with a family that loves them. Not all kids are that lucky. In fact, many are not. Approximately one-third of our youth live in poverty, in abusive households, or have chronic health problems. One of the best things about the real estate industry is that it rewards hard work as well as any profession. It isn’t easy, but with the right discipline and mindset, you can do exceedingly well. Successful people in our industry speak passionately about accountability and being mentally strong – that nothing is free, but anything is possible. I love that kind of thinking and it’s exactly what I teach my kids. However, those tenets, as positive as they are, sometimes oversimplify things. We think that just because we were able to earn our success, literally anyone else should be able to do the same thing. However, that is not quite the case. I think we all would agree that a child born with leukemia or who was orphaned at a young age has it pretty tough and should receive help from the rest of us, correct? Then we know that not everyone can do what we do. The question is where to draw those lines. What is the fair and morally right thing to do for people who are in genuine need of help? And where is the line in which we are doing more harm than good by making things too easy for people who are lazy and entitled? Because this is also possible.
Healthcare alone is a great example. I have a friend who is dealing with the most devastating situation any of us could imagine; his young son was diagnosed with stage four cancer. My friend attended an Ivy League college and works at a large Fortune 500 company, yet ...
On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that colleges could no longer consider race as a factor in admissions policies. The following is my statement on the ruling.
Today’s action by the US Supreme Court to eliminate affirmative action for college admissions is a setback for those that support efforts to address past discriminatory practices and ethnic wealth and prosperity gaps. With America rapidly becoming a majority-minority country, the economic well-being of our diverse communities will be directly tied to the overall prosperity of our nation.
There would be no need for affirmative action in college admissions if every young person had equal access to safe housing, healthcare, and quality educational resources during their formative years. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I hope that Harvard and other elite colleges also eliminate the practice of providing admission preferences to children of past graduates, known as legacies, and consider a complete overhaul of their admissions policies, including incorporating a new set of metrics in the admission process that look beyond grades and test scores and are more predictive of academic success.
We live in a merit-based society that rewards innovation and hard work. That is what makes America great. However, organizations like NAHREP are also committed to eliminating unnecessary barriers and creating a more level playing field where people from all backgrounds have a fair chance to succeed and prosper. Our work is far from complete and we will continue to develop products and programs that make that goal a reality.
On the surface, the ruling doesn’t sound that crazy. After all, when it comes to our rights and our ability to access opportunities, most of us endeavor for a color-blind society where race is as insignificant as the color of our hair. However, most people don’t understand how college admissions actually work. They think that because of affirmative action, Harvard and other colleges and universities are admitting unqualified Black and Hispanic students to fill some sort of quota, but that is not true.
Even at the most prestigious universities such as Harvard, grades and test scores are not the only factors. If that were the case, every student at Harvard would have near-perfect GPAs and SAT scores. However, that is not the case. When my son was a high school student, he was a recruited basketball player. In the summer before his senior year, he was invited to attend a basketball camp at the University of Chicago. UOC is one of the most prestigious colleges in the nation with a 6% admission rate. The head basketball coach explained to my son and the other student-athletes that Chicago receives 30,000 applications each year, and of those 30,000, approximately 18,000 have the academic credentials to succeed at UOC. However, the school can only admit 1,200 freshmen each year. This means that less than 10% of qualified applicants will be offered admission to the university. The coach stated that the admission committee allows him to tag four recruited basketball players for admission each year. He added that as long as the four recruited players were part of the 18,000 that meet admission standards at UOC, he had the power to grant them admission. Admission committees at the top colleges and universities strive to build a student body that mirrors the best of our society, and they all consider a wide range of factors.
Top colleges and universities only offer admission to students that meet admissions standards, but also consider whether the applicants bring something of value to the student body beyond academic success. They do not offer admission to students who aren’t qualified, regardless of their race or basketball skills. In my son’s case, it was his skill as a basketball player...
Peter Thiel is an investor, author, and co-founder of Paypal. In his bestselling book, Zero to One, he famously proclaims that “competition is for losers”. I love that line. When Thiel gives interviews, he says that unhappy companies are all the same because even if they are successful for a period of time, they eventually become demoralized by the daily stress of intense competition. Conversely, Theil says that happy companies are all different because each of them has discovered a way to provide a product or service that is extremely valuable - yet so unique that they have no real competition. Mega companies such as Google and Microsoft, as well as hundreds of smaller companies, have figured this out and have found a way to transcend the competitive business world. Companies such as Google that have quasi-monopolies are happier because they are free to think more creatively, build better products, and can focus more on the customer experience precisely because they don’t have to spend all of their time and money fighting price wars and struggling to retain their best employees from being lured away by ruthless competitors.
If you talk to one hundred CEOs, each one will tell you why their company is unique. But in reality, most companies, even successful ones, are only incrementally different from their competitors, and will ultimately be pushed to the brink of failure with their margins impelled to zero. I encourage owner-operators to think differently, in quantum terms. You must either own intellectual property or have a business secret that is 10 times better than anything on the market. I believe achieving this is possible in any field.
The Denver Nuggets won the NBA championship last week. Their star player, Nikola Jokić is a 6’11” Serbian national with below-average athletic skills. While most young players in the U.S. are working on their dunks, Jokić shoots, passes, and rebounds better than almost anyone in the league. Analysts are already calling him a once-in-a-generation big man, who has reinvented his position and perhaps the entire game of basketball. Jokić plays with the patience and temperament of someone who has figured out something about the game that nobody else seems to know. He has clearly spent thousands of hours improving his fundamental skills, but he appears to be miles ahead of everyone else in the way he breaks down the game intellectually. If you follow basketball, you probably know that point guards usually lead their teams in assists and are typically the smallest players on the court. However, Jokić has shown that a big man who can easily see over defenses is actually in a better position to pass the ball to a teammate in a scoring position. This innovative strategy will probably have general managers from around the league re-thinking the skills they look for in their big men. However, by the time the competition can find someone with Jokić’s unique skill set, the big man from Serbia will probably have five championship rings adorning his fingers. After he won the NBA championship and the finals MVP, Jokić was telling reporters that basketball is not the most important thing in his life and that he couldn’t wait to get back to Serbia to be with his family. While 99% of the players in the league will be spending their off-season working on their skills, trying to find the tiniest incremental advantage, Jokić will be in Serbia relaxing and enjoying long walks with his baby daughter. Nicola Jokić is happier because, with supreme innovation and thinking substantively different than anyone who came before him, he has found a way to transcend competition in one of the most competitive sports in the world.
With technology advancements such as AI, the business world will change forever and millions of jobs will disappear. The market will value innovation and original thinking more than ever...
Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak at the T3 Conference in Florida, which attracted many of the most influential people in residential real estate, and at Yale University for a large start-up and venture capital event. At each event, I surprised the audience when I explained how the issue of diversity has been framed incorrectly, and has for the most part alienated the business community. I explained that while most companies say that diversity is a priority for them, privately they consider it an issue of compliance and regulation. They view it as policies that are imposed on them…and who likes that? When business people think of regulations, they think of cost burdens and the unfortunate price of doing business. Business execs put it in the same category as liability insurance and sexual harassment training; necessary, but not fun. Companies may publicly state they love diversity, but as with all compliance and regulations, the goal is to do just enough to stay out of trouble, and to spend as little money as possible.
My session at Yale University was titled, “Doing Business with America’s New Mainstream”. It was Sol Trujillo who first coined the phrase “New Mainstream”, so it’s nice to see it becoming more widely used. I enlightened the audience made up of professors, students, and investors at Yale that when the business community thinks about diversity, unfortunately, they don’t think about growth, market share, or profit; they think about cost burden and reputational risk. I further explained that Latinos and other diverse segments will account for almost 100% of economic growth in the coming years and that the data that supports that hypothesis was indisputable. Even the most sophisticated business leaders are surprised when they are confronted with the data. We live in a capitalistic society, and while philanthropy and good deeds are commendable, they are typically neither scalable nor sustainable. Essentially, if we want to see our diverse communities thrive, our initiatives must be economically viable, and the language we use must inspire an enthusiastic reaction from the business community.
I got into the venture capital business because I see a direct connection between entrepreneurship and closing the racial wealth gaps in America. I have seen first-hand that when Latino-led businesses achieve scale, it not only creates wealth for the founders, employees, and investors of those companies, it attracts more capital into Latino markets and prompts large companies to hire more Latinos and invest more money into diverse communities. Making that happen starts with the language we use. If we frame the issue of diversity as the “right thing” to do versus the “smart” thing to do, or better yet, the “profitable thing” to do, the outcomes we seek will be better and will come sooner.
Elon Musk dropped by the Real Time with Bill Maher show recently for an interview with the host. Maher, who considers himself a liberal is an obvious fan of the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. The centerpiece of their conversation was their discussion regarding what Musk called the “woke mind virus” or what I prefer to call “cancel culture”. The term “woke” was, at one time, a more positive term referring to someone who was informed and sensitive to systemic injustices in our society. While I believe that is a good thing, I’ve never believed that cancel culture is a good thing.
While I do believe there are things a person can do or say that are truly unforgivable, the rise of Twitter and other social media platforms rapidly lowered the bar to the point in which people were losing their careers or being completely banished from society for relatively small breaches of propriety.
Maher praised Musk for taking on the biggest civilizational issues and problems in America. I don’t disagree with this entirely. Few would argue that sustainable energy is one of the largest challenges the world will need to solve, and Musk deserves tremendous credit for his achievements with Tesla. I admire the no-nonsense manner in which he makes his case for Tesla. Musk says he has no idea whether climate change is a scientific fact, but there is no doubt there is a finite amount of carbon-based energy in the world, so we have no choice but to eliminate our dependency on oil - and we might as well start now. Makes sense to me.
Musk also says he purchased Twitter because he believes that the “woke mind virus” is driving people to suicide and if we don’t deal with it, nothing else can get done. I don’t totally buy that, mostly because I believe issues like cancel culture are not the problem, but rather a symptom of a larger problem. I believe there is a problem that Musk or Maher don’t want to talk about – America’s wealth and money gaps.
Why do people fall for conspiracy theories or support socialist or populist agendas? Because they believe the game is rigged against them and no longer believe they have a fighting chance to succeed. The most dangerous person is one who thinks they have nothing to lose. Musk is worried about cancel culture and wants to control the platform in which it is proliferated. But he is avoiding the underlying problem.
It is not surprising that Musk, the second-wealthiest man in the world, avoids talking about wealth inequalities. Yet, if he truly wanted to take on the biggest challenge to our civilization, he would dedicate himself to solving economic inequality. Without that, nothing matters. Ray Dalio, the billionaire who founded Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, has been saying this for a while. Dalio says that the world order is about to change for the first time since 1945 when the United States emerged as the world’s only superpower. Dalio says that wealth and money gaps are the primary reason we live in the most politically divided era of our lifetime.
When someone purchases their first home, their priorities change. They temper their dispositions. They immediately become more concerned about the health and well-being of their neighborhood. That same concept can be extrapolated to the country. When people believe they have something worth preserving, worth caring for, they spend more time building and less time complaining on Twitter. Elon Musk should spend less time tweeting and more time masterminding with people like Ray Dalio.
People sometimes get me wrong. They think that because I talk a lot about giving back and living modestly, I must not care about money. On the contrary, I care a lot about money because I understand how our system works. Most of us have learned that politics are not driven by ideology, they are driven by money. The same applies to business, media, and even art. We all have ideas of how the world should work. We all have our own vision of justice and fair play – but in our system, an idea without money is just noise.
Every year, I have to make decisions as they pertain to NAHREP. At last year’s national convention, we required that everyone be tested for COVID prior to entering the event. We announced that requirement months in advance, and we had dozens of members boycott the event for political reasons. This year our conference is in Miami, and I have already had several people say they are boycotting the event in protest of the passage of the governor’s recent immigration law. While I respect everyone’s opinion and their right to protest; make no mistake, the people that boycotted our event last year had no impact on our event, and those that choose to protest over our event being in Miami will have no impact on the immigration laws in Florida. That may sound harsh, but it’s reality. If you want a different law in Florida, make more money, and support candidates that support your ideas. That will have a million times more impact than a one-off boycott – believe me.
It's not just about politics. We all know that media, entertainment, and art influence practically everything. We complain a lot about the accuracy and fairness of the media, but the news we watch, the movies we see, and the books we read are all provided to us by very well-capitalized enterprises that have very specific agendas. With Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, the evolution of technology is being debated by practically everyone. However, mark my words, the final iteration of AI won’t be driven by ethics or safety, it will be driven by economics.
If you think our immigration system is flawed, make more money. If you think our gun laws need to be protected, make more money. If you think there is injustice in the world, make more money. If you despise racism, make more money. It might be easy to misinterpret what I am saying in this blog. I am not suggesting, we should live our lives obsessed with money, but the fact remains, ideas without money just do not go very far.
Those that predicted that the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was just the beginning are turning out to be correct. The sharp rise in interest rates, plus a few regulatory gaps, coupled with the convenience of online banking have created a perfect storm for over-leveraged banks in 2023. First Republic Bank became the latest regional bank to fail. While the economic environment is like nothing we saw in 2008, the collapse of three mid-sized banks in a span of weeks has anyone with more than $250,000 in the bank feeling a little uneasy. As most people know, $250,000 is the limit that the FDIC guarantees for any individual person or company at any one bank. If you have $1 million in a savings account and that bank fails, the government will only guarantee $250,000 of your money. With Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic, the government helped facilitate the sale of those banks and made all of the depositors whole. It is definitely in the interest of the country for the government to guarantee all deposits in our banking system, regardless of their amounts. However, if the overall losses become too great, there is no certainty the government will step in beyond the FDIC limit. All of this begs the question, what is the best way to protect yourself or your company against a bank failure?
1) Spread your money around
The FDIC will insure $250K per bank, for each ownership category. If you have two million dollars in cash, you can deposit your money at multiple banks instead of just one. If you have $250K on deposit at 8 banks, and all eight banks fail, the FDIC will fully insure all of your accounts. If you and your spouse have a joint account, you are each insured for $250K for a total of $500K. Companies are also insured for $250K. Some people establish LLC’s which are also insured for $250K per company, per bank.
2) Invest in Treasuries
It is probably impractical for people and companies with millions or billions in cash to place their money in multiple banks. A company with a billion dollars would have to put their money in 4,000 banks to be fully insured. So, what do these companies do? Any company with this much cash has some pretty sophisticated managing of their money, and I wouldn’t want to over-simplify what they do. But I know one thing they do is invest in treasuries or T-Bills. T-bills have terms attached to them. Unlike a savings account from which you may take your money out at any time, T-bills pay interest to the owner at negotiated rates, depending on the term of the investment. Typically, the longer the investment period, the higher the interest rate the government will pay you. The downside is that T-bills usually pay less interest than many banks pay, but they are 100% guaranteed by the federal government and there is no limit to the amount of money the government will guarantee.
3) Invest in Dividend Stocks
Dividend stocks or value stocks are investments in companies that have consistently paid dividends for years, even decades in some cases. Companies like AT&T, Chevron, and Dupont have paid dividends between 2% and 5% every year for nearly 100 years. While dividend stocks aren’t as safe as T-bills, they are famously the favorite of Warren Buffet, and have been remarkably safe and consistent for decades.
I don’t think there is a realistic chance we will see the type of collapse of our banking system in which the government would allow people to lose the money they have in the bank. But there is a reason why FDIC insurance is capped, because no matter how remote the chance, it is a possibility. Good luck!
We live in a capitalistic society. Economics drives everything. We work hard and we have more money to provide for our families and do the things we want. But what actually makes us happy? Some of us spend our lives looking for that answer and never find it. Some look for it in church, others pay life coaches, and some think the more money they have the happier they will be. I don’t think there is a simple answer to this. Everyone is different, but for most people happiness comes down to four things.
Health
We often hear that without health, you have nothing. We hear that often because it's true. However, health is something that most people take for granted. We only appreciate good health when we lose it or when someone close to us loses it. I have often wondered why so many people strive to be in the top 1% in their profession, but those same people don’t try to be among the top from a health standpoint. I have been guilty of this, but as I get older, I think about health a lot more.
Relationships
A famous study from Harvard tracked a group of people for decades to determine the key to happiness. The study said that healthy relationships with your spouse, family, and friends are by far the most important key to happiness. Marry the right person and you’re halfway there. Having healthy relationships with your parents and kids is not always easy but people who do are usually happier than people who don’t. The study also placed quality over quantity. A few close friends who you enjoy and who sincerely care about you are better than lots of friends who are more superficial. The more you give unconditionally, the more you get. I also believe you attract what you project. If you are a petty person who loves gossip, you’ll attract people who love gossip and talk trash about people, conversely, if you are a high-character person who is kind and generous, you will attract people like that. Surround yourself with successful people if you want to be successful, but surround yourself with successful people who also care about you, and odds are you’ll be successful and happy.
Achievement
This may mean something different for everyone. It might mean making a lot of money for some and for others it might be about saving the world. People who are born into money often struggle to find meaning in their life because the one thing people spend the most time doing is working to make money, and they don’t have to do that. However, even people born into money need to achieve something – to feel like they are making a difference, and that their life has purpose. We are taught that setting goals is important, but few of us take the time to figure out what gives our life purpose. What imprint do we want to leave. What kind of example do we want to leave our children. Having clarity around your purpose in life and going after it with passion is critical to happiness.
Peace
Achievement takes work, but life can’t always be a struggle. We have to have peace in our lives. For some people, peace is found through God or their own personal spirituality. Prayer and/or meditation is a tactic that can lead to a more peaceful existence. For others, finding peace is a journey that takes time. When we are young, we love the fight, but as we get older, we tend to appreciate peace more. I equate peace with emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent people will usually pass up money and will often walk away from a fight for the sake of peace. What’s important is that we understand the connection between peace and happiness and make choices that lead to more peace in our lives.
Inflation has impacted all of us. The price of almost everything has spiked faster and harder than at any time since the 80s. Few things can obliterate a modern economy more than out-of-control inflation. The Fed has tried to contain inflation by aggressively raising interest rates. The sharp rise in interest rates has, among other things, brought the housing market to almost a complete halt as affordability has made it far more difficult for the typical family to afford a home. Of course, Americans don’t seem to have the ability to rally around crisis anymore, instead, we prefer to play the blame game. Conservatives blame Biden’s economic policies for inflation and progressives point to the record deficits accumulated during the Trump administration.
There are a number of factors that cause inflation. International supply chain issues, a scarcity of raw materials, and a tight labor market all can play a role, but government spending and a sharp increase in our money supply are the primary culprits. When you increase the amount of money in the system, the value of the dollar goes down. It's basic math. The COVID-19 pandemic caused more disruption in our economy than anything we have seen in more than a century. I know there are a million arguments about whether we reacted appropriately to the pandemic. Some think we didn’t do enough and others think we overreacted, but the fact is more than a million Americans lost their lives to COVID-19, and for all we knew at the time, it could have been 10 million. I honestly think most politicians and business leaders did the best they could with the information they had. During the pandemic, unemployment reached 13% – the highest since the Great Depression. The Trump administration, not wanting to see millions of people hungry and tossed out of their homes, quickly implemented several programs including PPP loans for small businesses, foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, and they literally gave free money to a hundred million citizens – remember Donnie Dollars? These programs injected, not billions, but trillions of dollars into our system. When Biden took office, he picked up where the previous administration left off and passed an enormous infrastructure bill that added even more money into the system to stimulate an economy that was still reeling from COVID-19.
There is little doubt that the unprecedented amount of economic stimulus we deployed between 2020 and 2022 is the primary reason why inflation is what it is today, but what choice did we have? What was the alternative? The government must have considered the potential consequences of so much new money in the system, but clearly, they believed that it was better to err on the side of caution. You can argue that both administrations did too much. However, if the current and previous administrations had done too little rather than too much to keep the economy afloat, the suffering in this country, and around the world, could have been exponentially worse. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that it could have made the Great Depression look like a mere speed bump.
For the first time in a while, experts are talking about a soft landing. Inflation has decreased for nine consecutive months, and the Fed is starting to consider a shift in its policies on interest rates. I don’t think we are out of the woods yet, but things are definitely looking better. It has become the American way to point the finger rather than argue for solutions, but I am going to stay on the sidelines this time. If we all had to pay an economic price in the form of higher inflation to prevent tens of millions of mostly poor people from being tossed to the street, I’m ok with that. America did what it had to do.
We hear frequently how Latinos are not a monolithic community. In other words, we are not all the same. We come from different countries, have a variety of political views, and even eat different foods. I get all of that, but I also think focusing constantly on our differences versus our similarities undermines our political and economic power as a community. I believe that for the Latino community to flourish both economically and politically we need to focus more on the things that bind us together instead of our differences. In previous blogs, I have made comparisons to the Jewish community. In this context, I am referring to Jews as a culture, not a religion. The fact is there are Jewish people who are politically conservative, think Ben Shapiro, and there are Jewish people who are politically liberal, think Bernie Sanders. There are orthodox Jews, those who strictly follow Jewish religious doctrine, and there are secular Jews who aren’t very religious at all. However, you rarely hear about how Jews are not monolithic. Instead, we hear more about the uniformity of the Jewish community on issues like antisemitism, the State of Israel, and economic prosperity. Believe it or not, a focus on uniformity versus differences is one of the reasons the Jewish community has thrived in America.
So, are there issues that galvanize the Latino community? I believe so, you just don’t hear about them as much. At the top of the list is family. Family is at the center of Latino culture. Nothing inspires and motivates Latinos more than our commitment to family. Also near the top is economic prosperity. Let’s face it, Latino immigrants come to this country for one reason, economic opportunity. NAHREP is a terrific case study in this regard. NAHREP has successfully attracted Latinos from every country, culture, and political persuasion. Why? Because it is an organization that is all about uplifting the economic well-being of the Latino community, and that gets us energized like nothing else. Latinos want to be homeowners and business owners, and they want to build generational wealth. I have joked many times that Latinos don’t come to this country because they like the food, music, or culture, they come to prosper and make a better life for themselves and their families. Latinos don’t want a hand-out, they want a hand-up, plain and simple. We also care about our portrayal in the media, at least I think we should. The Jewish community is fiercely protective of how they are portrayed in the media. The Jewish Defense League and the Anti-Defamation League may be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they don’t screw around when it comes to how Jews are portrayed in the media. Latinos need to be just as vigilant because the impact of the media touches everything. Data shows that Latinos are the most underrepresented demographic in the media, and when we are represented, we are usually portrayed as criminals, lazy, and uneducated. I am a partner in a venture capital firm and have learned that Latino-founded businesses receive less than two percent of the investment capital deployed each year. What? We are 20% of the population but get less than 2% of the capital...
The woman who gave me life and shaped me to be the person that I am passed away on March 5th.
My mother Irma was a strong woman – a really strong woman. She was the matriarch of our family. I joke that the rest of us were just part of her supporting cast. Mom was married to my dad for 60 years – not nearly enough, according to him. Growing up, my kids spent almost as much time at their grandma’s house as they did at ours, not only because she adored them, but because my wife, Kathy, and I wanted it that way. Kathy used to say that she wanted our kids to be raised the way I was raised – the ultimate compliment from a daughter-in-law.
My mother could have been anything. She had the intellect and leadership skills to be a politician or run a law firm, but careers weren’t really available to women, especially Latina women in the 60s and 70s. My mom chose a career in organized real estate, running the Montebello Board of Realtors® for 43 years. She was a woman of uncompromising integrity who respected everyone but had the most admiration for what she described as intelligent, kind, and “classy” people. We all tried to live up to that. She was not only a powerful force in our family’s lives, but she was also a force in the lives of almost everyone who knew her. Ask anyone who knew her.
My mother was born in Southwest Texas and was the daughter of Tomasita Saenz Cantu, a homemaker and prayer warrior, and Benjamin Cantu, a prominent pastor, bishop, and former national president of the Apostolic Assembly Christian Church. She had three older sisters, Stella, Emma, and Dalia. In 1950, my grandfather’s work with the church prompted him to move his family from Texas to Los Angeles, California. My mom attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. At Roosevelt, my mom was known for her brains and beauty – my dad, who also attended Roosevelt, brags that he dated the best-looking girl at Roosevelt. They were classic high school sweethearts. We have a few photos of my mom and dad from high school and I swear they looked like a couple of young movie stars from the 60s. Picture Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass. Soon after graduation, my mom attended Stockton Bible College in Stockton, California, but after one semester my mom and dad missed each other too much and they got married in June of 1962 when my mom was just 17 years old and my dad was 19. She and my dad started a family right away. They had three children, me and my two younger sisters, Yvette and Daliah...
I teach my kids that they can do anything if they put their minds to it and do the work. I also teach them that life isn’t always fair, but you can’t let that deter you. I think we all try to teach our kids the value of grit and hard work. For most people, success is about perseverance and overcoming obstacles.
However, that does not mean we should accept the status quo, and not try to improve the uneven playing field that makes it harder for some people to succeed. The idea of hard work and trying to make the environment better for everyone are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. We can teach our kids to be undeterred by obstacles, while simultaneously working to make the game fairer for everyone. It’s called forming a more perfect union, which is exactly what the founders of our country encouraged us to do.
I bring this up because last week I posted a message on Facebook that said “We get more Latino players in the NBA by getting more Latino coaches in the NBA. We get more coaches by getting more Latinos in front office positions”. Most of the comments were supportive, but I also got a few comments from some misguided people including a few Latinos who challenged my statement saying things like “If they were good enough, they would be in the league”, and “Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. The NBA is all about the money, and they put the best players on the court, period”. I know where these people are coming from. Like my kids, they were taught that life isn’t always fair, but if you work hard and do not allow yourself to be deterred by obstacles, you will succeed. There is nothing wrong with this kind of thinking, but it is also naïve and a bit selfish. Advocacy isn’t about making things better for yourself, it’s about making things better for others. It’s thinking in terms of the macro versus only the micro.
About a year ago, I was convinced by some of my closest friends that I should do a podcast. Today it seems like everyone has a podcast, and frankly, 99% of them aren’t very good. I wasn’t sure I could do much better, but I realized I do have some ideas that some people have found interesting in the past. I also have had the privilege of meeting and knowing some extraordinary people. It is rare that I go a week without speaking with a CEO, politician, or notable celebrity. There have been times when I have thought to myself that I wish more people could have been part of the conversation I just had.
Please check out the first four episodes of G, P, and G’s here. Let me know what you think.
The NFL markets its brand as well as any enterprise in the world. I heard a comedian once say that the NFL is so popular, it has its own day. NFL football is huge. Each NFL franchise brings in approximately $400M a year in revenue; almost double the annual revenue of NBA teams and 2 ½ times as much as MLB clubs. Each year, the NFL plays a regular season game in Mexico City, and multiple games in Europe, usually London. Obviously, the NFL plays these international games to expand its audience base and increase its revenue. As big as the NFL is in the U.S., it has struggled to build much of a following outside of our borders.
As the demographics of the U.S. change some people expected that soccer would eventually overtake the big three sports and become number one in the U.S. like it is in other parts of the world, but that isn’t happening. If you know anything about Latinos, you know we love sports. We go crazy for our favorite teams. I was at the NBA headquarters in NYC last week working on a partnership for L’ATTITUDE. I mentioned to them that I happened to be in downtown LA during Kobe Bryant’s memorial service at Staples Arena. There were 20,000 people who attended inside Staples and probably another 100,000 who were downtown in the streets. I told them that 90% of the fans I saw downtown, many of whom were wearing Kobe Jerseys, were Latino. I have to admit that I didn’t realize until then how much Latinos love NBA basketball. The one thing that America does best is produce other Americans. Most Latino Americans love most of the things that other Americans do. Latino immigrants may come to this country passionate for soccer, but after a few years they also fall in love with football, basketball, and/or baseball – and once they have kids soccer usually falls to secondary status to one of the big three.
My point is the biggest opportunity for audience and revenue growth may not be in Latin America, Europe, or Asia, it’s probably here in the USA. Latinos in the U.S. are younger than any other ethnic demographic, and they are passionate about sports in a manner that is literally unmatched. Companies like Nike, Puma, and Adidas have made fortunes catering to African-American youths. Nike in particular has done a masterful job marketing to young, Black consumers. Their leadership in this regard has made them one of the most valuable brands in the world, but I have yet to see any sports brand do a great job marketing to Latinos. Perhaps this is changing. LeBron James seems to get it. His popular HBO show, The Shop, has included several Latino hip-hop stars to participate in conversations about sports and culture. Nike has been a sponsor of L’ATTITUDE for three years, and their CEO John Donahoe has participated all three years. MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred participated in L’ATTITUDE in 2020. The opportunity is there, but what sport and which brand will seize the opportunity that is clearly there? I guess we will see. Enjoy the Super Bowl!
When we invited Gary Vaynerchuk to NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE in 2021, I was mostly relying on input from others. Several members loved his content, but the little I saw online left me underwhelmed. However, I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation at our event, particularly his comments about toxic employees, which he says to dump with impunity. On the surface, his comments seem obvious, but to an audience of real estate professionals, it was somewhat controversial. Vaynerchuk specifically referenced how real estate brokers worship top producers and avoid terminating productive agents regardless of whether they also happen to be jerks. He said whatever toxic agents produce in revenue is more than offset by the damage they do to the morale of your company and the productivity of their coworkers. They pull themselves up by bringing other people down. One of the falsehoods that some people in the real estate industry subscribe to, is the notion that top producers are eccentric. Being a jerk comes with the territory and is indicative of a hard-driving personality. This is not a concept that Vaynerchuk supports and neither do I.
I have always believed that you attract what you project. If your company tolerates or makes excuses for people who bring negativity to your office, you will attract more people like that and you will repel good people. Conversely, if you employ respectful people with character and strong work ethics, you will attract more people like those. This is easier said than done. I remember 10 years ago we were modifying the structure of our chapters at NAHREP, converting them from independent entities to branches of the home office. The idea did not have universal support, and some on our national board feared a mass exodus of our membership. I remember saying that I didn’t care if we go from 10,000 members down to 500 members; if it’s the right 500 people, we can conquer the world. It ended up being the right choice for us and I learned something in the process. Surround yourself with people who share your values. No amount of productivity is worth the toxicity that some people bring. Hire slow and fire fast. Take your time adding new people to your team. Do the appropriate due diligence and trust your gut, and if you do make a mistake on someone who brings negativity to your office and doesn’t share your values – get rid of them as quickly as possible! Every employee doubles as an ambassador to your company. People will judge you by the people who work with you. You have to think of the people in your office as your second family. You don’t get to choose your real family but you get to choose the people with whom you work.
Selling during a downturn requires a more strategic approach, but the opportunities for growth and expansion are available to the savviest of companies. Here are some of the best ideas I’ve read about.
- The economist and pro-capitalist Milton Friedman in his book “Free to Choose” reminded salespeople that a recession squeezes out the excess in a market. Simple translation: most of your competitors will struggle or better yet, cease to exist during this period. Less competition equals more opportunities.
- Access to potential clients is easier since fewer salespeople are calling on them. This is an opportune time to start building new relations with accounts that at one time were impenetrable.
- Facts…When things are going well, the last thing a client wants to do is try something new or rock the boat. But when a downturn in business occurs, company leaders are looking for ways to either save money or generate more revenue. These are the moments when clients are more receptive to finding new ideas or trying something new. This leads to the next point.
- Managers, Directors, or simply decision-makers in a company who don’t want to lose their job will work very hard to look busy and will be more accommodating to meet with you. Why? They want to be able to report back to their boss that they’re looking into new ideas and approaches.
- Your financial solvency becomes an edge. If your company is well positioned financially, you can outlast your competition, and be more creative with your pricing.
- Brands matter less. Loyalty to a brand goes out the door when times are tight. Highlighting to the client how your product or service can save them money is a welcomed conversation.
- Invest in training for your sales staff. A downturn is a good time to do some on-site training and further embed yourself and your company’s products with the client’s employees. Your clients will appreciate the service and attention to detail your sales teams brings when times are tough.
- Your database is your best currency. Studies have shown that the best way to grow your revenues with existing products (i.e., upwards of 25%) is to go back and visit those clients who’ve bought from you in the past. Instead of trying to find new clients, go back and data mine your existing client base, create a list of the top 20 clients along with what they’ve purchased in the past, and put a game plan together to go revisit them and upsell them on other existing products.
- Test new products. If you have a new product you’ve been anxious to test in the field but couldn’t find any willing clients to take the time to do it, now is the time. This strategy alone helped me insert myself into my competitor’s most prized clients which eventually became my clients.
- Go to the top. During a downturn your client’s CEO, CFO, COO, and others are worried. Now would be a good time to get your CEO or senior management involved in the sales process. Have your CEO call on your client’s CEO and see if there is anything that your company can do. This has no value other than pegging, in your client’s mind at the c-level, your concern for their well-being. Think long-term. If you can help out (or lend a hand) to a client through the hard times by offering them flexible terms, small price breaks on products where permissible, and/or extra support, they won’t forget it. And when things get back to normal, as they always do, they won’t forget who stood next to them through the hard times.
A downturn is definitely the time for frugality, but it’s also an opportunity to lean in and distinguish yourself from the competition.
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors said “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!”. The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out “Your horse has returned and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” and the farmer replied “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later in the week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!”. The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied young men for the army. The farmer’s son wasn’t selected, because he was still recovering from his injury. His neighbors shouted “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!”, to which the farmer replied “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see."
The moral of this story is that very few events can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate at the time that they occur – in many cases only time will tell the whole story. All too often (like the farmer’s neighbors) we’re tempted to get way too excited when things look fantastic on the surface but that may not be great in the end; more frequently, we can go into panic mode over things that don’t go our way.
I’ve written about this in other iterations. I’ve talked about finding your rhythm, and the importance of letting things come to you, not forcing things, and then riding the momentum when you have the wind at your back. The point of it all is that success is not linear. Progress doesn’t follow a straight line. For most people, the journey is long and winding. It looks more like a stairway or a hockey stick. You make small incremental movements that are so small you don’t notice them, but every so often, when the momentum is there and the timing is right, you make large quantum leaps. If you're impatient, you’ll force things when they’re not there and end up taking two or three steps backward, and if you’re not aggressive enough or afraid to take risks, you’ll miss the biggest opportunities of your life.
I remember when NAR, the National Association of REALTORS®, invited me to participate in a panel session on diversity at their national convention back in 2002. I had never been to a NAR convention but had heard that they were huge with 20,000+ attendees. I was well prepared for the event and excited about the opportunity. I didn’t expect it would be a marquee session, but I also didn’t expect what occurred. Out of 20,000 attendees, a mere 13 would show up for my session, and half of them left before the session was over. It was embarrassing. I vowed to myself not to participate in diversity events in the future. Ten years later a sponsor of NAHREP asked me to participate in a session at their global conference about, you guessed it, diversity. It’s hard to say no to a sponsor. Ten years had passed and the subject of diversity at industry events was more common, so I agreed. This time WAS different, there were 22 people in the room.
It has been long understood that a nation of stakeholders makes for a strong union, and for that reason, closing the minority homeownership gap has been a goal and a topic of discussion for decades. However, despite a lot of talk and a modest amount of action, the homeownership gap for Black and Latino communities has remained stubbornly large. Homeownership percentages only increase when a large number of first-time buyers enter the market. This is not an easy problem to solve. It’s time to recognize that closing the minority homeownership gap won’t come without a ton of fresh capital and some serious discomfort for the industry and policymakers in the coming years. Below is what I think is required to make a quantum leap forward.
Recessions are tough on the economy. Investment activity slows, credit is less accessible, and well-paying jobs become scarcer. However, recessions also tend to be when savvy people become wealthier. Bottom line question: Who are the winners during a recession and why?
Almost everyone, including Democrats, were expecting last Tuesday’s midterm election results to heavily favor Republicans. Many predicted a “red wave” where they would pick up 50-60 seats in the House and 3-4 in the Senate. Joe Rogan said the red wave that is coming will be like the elevator doors opening in the horror film The Shining. Nate Silver from 538, who analyzes all of the major polls and comes up with an average, projected that Republicans had a 84% chance of winning the House and a 60% chance of taking over in the Senate. Five days after the election, both chambers are still in question. The results somewhat defy historical precedents and conventional thinking. The party not in the White House almost always dominates the midterm elections. Voters historically have shown a preference for power to be split between both parties. In fact, there have been only three occasions since FDR where this has not happened. High inflation and a low approval rating for the president made it even more likely that Republicans would win the large majority of contested races. That didn’t happen, and practically everyone is dissecting what actually occurred and why.
Current Affairs
Ye gets CancelledYe, the entertainer and fashion designer formally known as Kanye West, had a disastrous week. Always outrageous, his recent antisemitic comments were the last straw prompting practically everyone to sever ties with him, from his bank, JP Morgan Chase, to his billion-dollar shoe partnership with Adidas. I’ve never been a fan and I don’t think I could name a single song of his, however, my thoughts are around the public reaction or lack thereof last week and in previous years. It’s an interesting case study. Ye’s situation has dominated social media in recent days. One of the more interesting questions that I have seen pop up several times is why the penalty he suffered for antisemitism was so severe when his previous comments about slavery or his recent stunt during fashion week where he wore a t-shirt that said “White Lives Matter” had no impact whatsoever and may have even raised his profile. The implication, of course, is that you can say offensive things about Black people without repercussion but not Jewish people. I think there is more to the story than that. Let’s examine how the Black and Jewish communities reacted to Ye’s comments. The response to Ye’s antisemitic tweet was swift, uniform, and harsh. There was no debate. Ben Shapiro or Bernie Sanders, Conservative or liberal, secular or Orthodox, the Jewish community did not waver in its condemnation of Ye’s comments, and in doing so, the rest of the country followed in solidarity. Comparatively, the Black community was less aligned with Ye’s statements about Blacks. Sure, there were prominent voices that denounced what he said, but it was far from uniform, and consumers, both inside and outside of the Black community, still purchased his music and apparel without reservation.
Between 2008 and 2012, more than six million people lost their homes to foreclosure, property values lost almost 40%, and non-distressed home sales fell to all-time lows. It was, without question, the worst real estate market since the great depression. Not surprisingly, the historic dip in the market was followed by a decade-long bull market, the likes of which we have never seen before. Residential real estate is a cyclical market. The strength or weakness of the market is tied to interest rates, affordability, and consumer sentiment. Feast or famine is a fair way to characterize the industry. The cycles are difficult to predict, but one thing is all but certain: the rebound is usually proportional to the dip. The opposite is also true. We’ve had a long run upward, so we should be prepared for a substantial downturn.
Regardless of where you live you have probably heard about Nury Martinez and the circumstances that led to her resignation from Los Angeles City Council. The short story is Martinez, who was the first Latina to hold the position of president of the Los Angeles City Council, was secretly recorded in a private conversation with other council members where she was heard making disparaging remarks about her colleagues and the two-year-old Black son of another councilman. She referred to the boy as behaving like a “Changuito”…not too cool. The LA Times broke the story by calling her comments racist and outrageous. Under pressure from the community including practically every Latino in public office, Martinez apologized and resigned from her city council position in shame.
The decision to invite President Barack Obama to the NAHREP Policy Conference last Spring was a decision I made with the NAHREP National Board. Anytime we have a political figure of that stature at one of our events, we know it will stimulate a lot of buzz among our members and stakeholders. I admire President Obama, but I know full well that not everyone is a fan of the former president. Politics are more polarizing than ever and NAHREP is not exempt. On the positive side, we have had President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton at previous events and those events played out very successfully for us. Coming out of the pandemic, I wanted to do something big that would show that NAHREP was not only back, it was bigger and stronger than ever.
A few weeks ago, Twitter was blowing up when John Leguizamo spoke out against the recent casting of James Franco as Fidel Castro in the independent film ‘Alina of Cuba’. Leguizamo took plenty of heat for his stance and was ridiculed by some including Bill Maher. The criticism came from decriers of political correctness saying the movement has gone too far. Maher claimed that “actors are supposed to act” and should not be limited to roles where the character is of the same ethnicity, religion, or gender as the actor.
L’ATTITUDE 2022 is less than two weeks away. This year’s event includes a concert at Rady Shell; the coolest new concert venue in America according to Forbes magazine. The concert is in partnership with La Musica, and will feature music superstars, Juanes and Farukko. Tickets for the concert are available on Ticketmaster.