[00:02:18] Patrick Donley: I am super excited. I’ve been a big fan of yours for a long time, both your podcast, following you on Twitter.

[00:02:23] Patrick Donley: I’ve learned a ton from you. I wanted to jump in right off the bat. You had Sahil Bloom on the Fort podcast, and he had this quote, or he said there’s a steep price to pay. to reach the top 01 percent in any given field. And I wanted to just start off hearing about the sacrifices that Chris Powers has had to make to be Chris Powers.

[00:02:45] Chris Powers: Yeah, I can answer this several ways. Especially while you’re younger, there’s, it feels like there’s more sacrifice from a standpoint of, I started my business in college and there was a lot of times that just not. Doing social activities or not just being lazy and not doing much or enjoying free time, it occupies a ton of your time.

[00:03:07] Chris Powers: And so there were just a lot of times growing up when I was probably out working and really building when I had an opportunity to be doing nothing. And I think, especially in college if you’re fortunate. To have some downtime, it’s really the last time in your life where you really do and then you’re off to the races if you’re gonna build any type of career, whether it’s in business or sports or just anything you want to be great at.

[00:03:32] Chris Powers: And so I look back and I think I sacrificed some of my college opportunity to do less. I put a lot into it, but then really, once things really got going that just amplified a lot. And for me, I got so addicted for a while to the game of building business and making money and really growing the heck out of our business that I really, you know, candidly lost sight of some of the things that were really important to me along the way, family, friends, relationships.

[00:04:04] Chris Powers: My health, just things like that. I think you can get such in tunnel vision and the world is continuing to push you and cheer you on that you can just often forget. Maybe what’s important. So there’s a lot of time sacrifice. There’s just also, I think the sacrifice of losing your way a little bit, if that makes sense, and neglecting a lot of the personal site and then just like the mind space, even if you’re sitting there doing nothing, sometimes not being able to enjoy and smell the roses because you are always thinking about the company, the opportunity or investors, the next deal, somebody you just hired.

[00:04:44] Chris Powers: I think a lot of people that have never built a business or started a company or really whether it’s a business, you see it with athletes, you see it with top performers in whatever field they’re in, their mind just never really stops thinking about it. And so you’ll hear often hey, once you’re off work, you should be off work.

[00:05:01] Chris Powers: And that’s really easy to say, but you find it almost categorically across the board. People’s minds never lose sight of this kind of mission that they’re on. And I don’t know if it’s something I gave up, but it’s something I certainly feel even to this day. It is a constant struggle for me to be in the present and not be distracted by things going on in my business or in some of our investments or really anything around the business or the business world.

[00:05:32] Patrick Donley: I was listening to your interview that Eric Jorgensen did with you, and he was, you were mentioning that you constantly feel behind the eight ball, like you constantly are feeling like you’ve got to be doing something. I wanted to touch on this a little later, but you’re jumping into it now, just crashing and burning playing these status games can get, they are alluring, our culture does promote them, you do get a lot of accolades for them.

[00:05:56] Patrick Donley: But it comes at a cost, I think, so I wanted to hear a little bit more about playing the status games, succeeding at a very high level, but crashing and burning, maybe not those accolades fulfilling you like maybe you thought they would. 

[00:06:11] Chris Powers: I think you want what you can have, and so there always seems to be, at least in business, but I would imagine this is another thing, there’s always another level to the game there’s different people in that level, there’s folks that you aspire to be like.

[00:06:25] Chris Powers: But if you really look at the people that are, if you take a step back and what something that I started to do more of was allow really older men into my life, whether they were 20 years older, 30 years older, sometimes 40 years, my senior, and you really start asking them questions about. What should I be thinking about right now?

[00:06:46] Chris Powers: And initially I was going to them with questions thinking they were going to give me like better business answers about how to run my business better, how to make more money or get to the next level. And what you actually start to find, especially the older of the person that you talk to is they often will tell you what not to do and some of the regrets that they’ve had.

[00:07:07] Chris Powers: And there’s just very few, if not any, I certainly have never met anybody, especially like Very much later in life, call it 70s, 80s, 90s, that will be like, Hey, I really wish I had worked harder. It was worth it to miss all of my family’s events and my kids growing up and it was worth not maintaining friendships, like it was worth all of it.

[00:07:31] Chris Powers: But the truth is none of them actually would also say that they set out to do any of those things. Those were just byproducts of focusing and just empire building and chasing status and trying to be really great in one thing. And so what I found was this just okay, you had people telling me not to do this, but then I also found none of them were actual, like while they were young, they weren’t thinking they were doing it.

[00:07:56] Chris Powers: It wasn’t till after the fact that it became obvious to them that Maybe they had made a misstep along the way. And again, I think I’m a byproduct of a lot of great folks in my life, including my, especially men that have really poured into me and really helped me understand what a man goes through and what a father goes through.

[00:08:16] Chris Powers: Whether it was my father or just a lot of men around me that didn’t want to see me make those mistakes. And I was your typical candidate for push the whole world aside, business build and empire build for as long as you can, and then enjoy the riches and spoils later in life. And again, maybe I was lucky.

[00:08:35] Chris Powers: I don’t really know, but there’s just been a lot of people, and we can talk about faith and other things if that’s important, but they’re just. Taking all that into consideration, it became impaired to me that not that you couldn’t build a great business and have a lot of fun doing it and really stretch for big goals, but it had to always be kept in context and perspective.

[00:08:54] Chris Powers: And I think for me, if anything, now I have this framework of guardrails where I know if I’m going off the edge, because like I said, I don’t think you’re like fully cured of it. You’re constantly trying to test the boundaries. It’s the DNA of how I believe I was built. But now I’ve got a lot of, again, people, but guardrails that would say, Hey, slow down a little bit, or don’t do this, or you’re probably overkill here and it’s just not as important to me.

[00:09:22] Chris Powers: Again, there’s just nobody you’ll meet on their deathbed. That’s I just wish I had made a lot more money and stayed at the office a lot longer in my thirties, forties, and fifties. 

[00:09:32] Patrick Donley: You mentioned your dad and I wanted to talk about the, you wrote a medium article basically honoring him. He passed away how many years ago at this point?

[00:09:41] Chris Powers: It was 11 years this year. 

[00:09:43] Patrick Donley: 11 years. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the lessons you’ve learned from him. He’s made a huge impact on your life. I know he went through a career change that. was pretty formative to you sounded like an amazing guy just from reading that article. So I wanted to just touch on some of those lessons that you’ve learned from him, what it was like growing up with him and then just how he’s influenced your life and business career.

[00:10:05] Chris Powers: Yeah, I hit the lottery, the jackpot with a father and I know I wish everybody could say that. But for me, that was a gift and a blessing that I was given was a father that even 11 years later, maybe how I would judge. Some of, or not judge, but how I would describe maybe what a good father is 11 years later, I still have like no doubt what he would tell me in certain situations.

[00:10:30] Chris Powers: He had a pretty incredible moral compass, and. Really never wavered from it. And I think one of the things I appreciate now that I’m a parent is how easy it is to stray from your moral compass, maybe to make parenting easier, to not have to discipline or to just be the cool parent or just let things go.

[00:10:50] Chris Powers: And there were just lots of things growing up that in hindsight, it drove me crazy as a kid. But as I sit here today, I’m so thankful that. He just wouldn’t let me do some things or he would remind me that when I did something wrong, that it wasn’t right, he always encouraged me to work hard. And he was a huge supporter of mine.

[00:11:08] Chris Powers: I, to this day, there’s nobody that kind of believed in me more, which I think is huge and critical. And so he was just a very great voice of reason. He was a consistent, steady hand in my life. And again, there were periods where. If you had interviewed me while I was in my teenage years, I probably I was maybe a lot more agitated, but I think that’s a sign of great leadership is knowing what your values and your principles are and sticking to those even when things aren’t easy.

[00:11:39] Chris Powers: And when you have a. a son or a daughter that’s a teenager that thinks they know it all and they’re making life hectic around the house. It’s easy to want to bend on something to just make life easier. And my dad just wouldn’t do that. And there’s a letter up on the wall over there three days before he died.

[00:11:57] Chris Powers: He sent me an email that I didn’t know he was about to pass away. It was a tragic accident, but. We had this banker that basically had come to me, I was very young and was like, Hey, I can get you this loan, but you have to do X, Y, and Z. And it was very much a gray area. It wasn’t illegal, but it just wasn’t great.

[00:12:16] Chris Powers: But he was like, Hey, everybody does this. But it required my dad help me out with something. Basically, he had to lend me money for 30 days or gift me money for 30 days, and then I would just give it back to him. But it would show that I had cash on the balance sheet, et cetera, et cetera. And anyway, he basically wrote me this long email and was like, I know, and the gist of it is, I know everybody does this, but that doesn’t make it right.

[00:12:42] Chris Powers: The world needs more people that are willing to do the right thing, even when. Nobody’s looking, even when the world tells you it’s okay, if you know it’s not the right thing to do, it’s not the right thing to do, and he basically just ended it and said I hope you can keep your head high and know that you did the right thing in the long term, if you do that over and over and over and over again, that will be a great life, even if in the short term, it creates a little bit of pain.

[00:13:09] Chris Powers: And I never knew that would be the last email he sent me, but I have it printed up on my wall and. It’s just little things like that, that I think were critical and have just stuck with me for so long. 

[00:13:19] Patrick Donley: And he was a, he went to Harvard, was a lawyer and maybe like when you were six or seven, he ended up going back to medical school.

[00:13:28] Patrick Donley: So you went through this gap of years where you were up here on the socioeconomic scale when he was a lawyer, then dropped a little bit in terms of he just wasn’t making much money. I would imagine like putting himself through school. Like it had to be a rough period. But I really give he pursued his passion.

[00:13:46] Patrick Donley: That’s what he really wanted to do. And he totally changed course that he was what in his thirties, right? With kids and wife. And he was like 

[00:13:53] Chris Powers: 37. Yeah, 

[00:13:55] Patrick Donley: it’s a pretty incredible. 

[00:13:58] Chris Powers: Yeah. I think you nailed it. We basically decided we were going to live. I don’t know what you’d call it, but I can tell you it made 130, 000 over an eight year stretch when you combine four years of medical school of zero, and then a whopping 30, 000 a year for four years, he had money saved from being a lawyer.

[00:14:17] Chris Powers: So we had that and some support from my grandparents, but overall it was a total life shift. The irony is it was some of the best years of my life. We lived in Lubbock, Texas. I was young, played a lot of sports, but yeah we changed our socioeconomic and one thing I’ve thought about over the years that I think was also interesting is, but a lot of our friends and people we knew remained at a different socioeconomic class, the one we had come from.

[00:14:42] Chris Powers: And so you went from Hey we’re all kind of living the same life. We can travel the same, we can do the same rituals and have the do the same things. And then all of a sudden you can’t with the same people that you always have done that with. And I think whether I was I was young, so I don’t think I really knew what I was observing at the time, but it became apparent to me that there had been a shift and it also became apparent to me that the shift really came from.

[00:15:08] Chris Powers: Money or not having the money or because they had money and we didn’t, there was a difference. I remember my mom. A lot of times they treat medical students and residents pretty poorly. They work them like just forever. They’re on call all the time. They’re always tired. Doctors aren’t.

[00:15:25] Chris Powers: Not all doctors are, can be great, but trust me, there’s a lot that are just very not pleasant people because they’re just run through this medical system that never stops. And so it was this combination of not making money and then never really being able to be around and always being controlled by the hospital schedule.

[00:15:42] Chris Powers: And so I just remember as a kid, a lot of the rhetoric around the house was like, you got to make more money. And you can’t let somebody control what you do. And those, I think, were some of the early seeds that were sown in me of Okay, this is what I’m never going to depend on anybody. I’m going to start a business at an early age, and I’m going to try and make as much money as I can.

[00:16:01] Chris Powers: I’m really not a big spender, but it was more for this idea that it would create freedom and margin in my life. But yeah, those were really interesting years. I think that the beautiful part of it is my dad also taught me through that you only got to live and he would say this all the time.

[00:16:15] Chris Powers: You’re only going to live one life. And so for him, he was okay giving up a comfortable career. that clearly had more upside to it, had already gone to law school, had already made partner and was willing to put that all away to take the really less popular path, making a lot less money, working incredibly hard hours, trying to raise a family all because he believed like that.

[00:16:37] Chris Powers: I only got one shot at this life. I don’t want to have any regrets. And it’s been later in life that I’ve appreciated that opportunity. And I’m going through some of the same things right now. Business has been great, but there’s things in my life I want to pursue that didn’t necessarily check the build a billion dollar business box.

[00:16:56] Chris Powers: And it’s Hey, I’m only going to have one chance to do these things. I don’t get to come back again and do it. And so it adds to my decision making process and really. I think it’s just been a huge kind of positive in my life to think that’s possible. 

[00:17:13] Patrick Donley: Yeah. You’re fortunate you’re in a position now to evaluate and reevaluate and look at some of the decisions he made and alter course.

[00:17:20] Patrick Donley: Potentially you’ve stepped away from Fort Capitol a little bit, right? You’re chairman, no longer involved in the day to day stuff. And we’ll get into that, but I wanted to hear too, just sticking in with your dad and some of his I remember you talking about this story about. At 13, hopping the border to go to Mexico and hanging out with your brother maybe and drinking beers in a bar and there’s a series of events that your dad, you ended up graduating high school in three years, right?

[00:17:47] Patrick Donley: But that wasn’t because you were like, Mr. Academic, it was because he put the hammer down right and said, you’re not going to this big European trip. Can you share it with us a little bit about some of that stories? 

[00:17:59] Chris Powers: You’ve done your research. Well done. I can’t remember where I said that, but that is a hundred percent true.

[00:18:04] Chris Powers: So the story there is, again, back to principles was like. Lying was just not an option. He really didn’t care if I got in trouble or did something stupid or but I just like lying about it was just not An option and so as a dumb I was a rebellious kind of high school kid to be totally honest with you I think there’s a lot of people that didn’t I was probably gonna go one of two directions either take the path I took or just totally Become you know a bum I had I liked having fun.

[00:18:35] Chris Powers: I liked going out I had I just, that was a big part of my life at the time. And so that also came with me consistently like sneaking things by my parents so that they didn’t think I was always out and about. And so basically I got on this role where I would just lied a few times about where I was.

[00:18:52] Chris Powers: And one of the times I had gone over to Mexico, which again, I was allowed to go to Mexico. I just wasn’t allowed to go to Mexico that day and I got caught. And I lied about it. And basically my dad said, if you, that trip was this huge Europe trip that everybody looks forward to from the time they’re in like sixth grade, you just know that after your sophomore year, there’s this huge trip.

[00:19:15] Chris Powers: And he basically just said you do it one more time. I had already grounded me. That wasn’t really working. I was sneaking out. I’m probably. Making myself sound a lot worse, but it’s the truth. And he’s just said, if you do it again, you’re not going to Europe. And sure enough, like two weeks later, I tried sneaking out or I can’t even remember.

[00:19:34] Chris Powers: I think I went to Mexico and I got caught and I lied about where I was. And he was like, you’re not going. And this goes back to what I said at the beginning. Usually it’s like parents will say that, but are they really going to enforce it? And he enforced it. He’s you are not going. So all my best friends.

[00:19:50] Chris Powers: This trip we’d been looking to for four years. They all go to Europe. And I basically said if you’re keeping me here, I’m going to summer school all summer. I’m going to get enough credits to skip junior year. And I’m going straight from being a sophomore to being a senior. And I’m out of here. I can’t live under this roof.

[00:20:06] Chris Powers: And that’s what I did. And the truth is, it was actually one of the best decisions I did, not for the reasons I did it, but getting out early and getting to TCU, I totally changed my life around. Again, I took college really seriously. I started a business, but people think sometimes I graduated high school in three years cause I was some whiz kid.

[00:20:24] Chris Powers: And that really wasn’t the case. 

[00:20:27] Patrick Donley: So let’s get into that. TCU, you’re 17 years old, 2004, maybe, I think 2000. Right around there. And you end up buying your first home, like at 17, right? And get involved in student housing. Talk to me about that. Like, how does a 17 year old kid have the balls to get into real estate at that young age?

[00:20:48] Patrick Donley: Honestly, it reminds me we’ll touch on Sam Zell, but it reminds me a little of his story. Very similar. He got involved in student housing and just ran with it. And but I wanted to hear your story. 

[00:21:00] Chris Powers: I think the answer is the quick lesson is take advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you at a period in time.

[00:21:07] Chris Powers: And this was 2004, this was pre Great Financial Crisis, and I was probably one of the stories of why the Great Financial Crisis happened. I was fortunate to be buying good real estate around a Texas university that was growing, but I was also a 17 year old kid with No money, no track record of having done this successfully and was having to put virtually zero down.

[00:21:30] Chris Powers: I was actually getting cash back at closing. And I got to TCU. We, TCU had a lot of wealth and it became apparent to me pretty quickly that if I was going to be able to socialize in the same way that a lot of my friends and fraternity brothers are going to be able to I had to make some money because it wasn’t going to come from home and getting like a typical minimum wage job was not going to also fund the bill either.

[00:21:56] Chris Powers: I wanted money again, for things trivial, like going to spring break and being able to travel and being able to buy nicer clothes and things of that nature. And so anyway, I picked up the skiff, which was the TCU newspaper, and I saw entrepreneur of the year and my really good friend, Adam Blake, who’s still a great friend of mine to this day, had just won entrepreneur of the year for buying rental houses as like a sophomore.

[00:22:21] Chris Powers: He was on the football team and had lost a scholarship and he was going to have to leave TCU. And he basically had this remarkable story of learning to make money in real estate. So anyway, I got to know him. He basically told me what to do. I read a couple books and the basically it was like, go down to Countrywide Home Lending, which at the time was still around.

[00:22:40] Chris Powers: That was one of the during the great financial crisis, everybody knew about Countrywide. They were making some of the worst loans out there, but I was a beneficiary of one of them that actually worked out. And. Got a loan for 3 percent down, 6 percent cash back at closing, leased it to some TCU students, some of my fraternity brothers, and was able to refinance the house not too short, not too long after, pull out cash, and was off to the races, and steadily did that throughout college, and we can we can get more into it, but I think the quick lesson there was, I’m not even sure if I was 17 today, in today’s environment, I could have pulled off what we pulled off then.

[00:23:19] Chris Powers: Cause loans weren’t floating around like that, but it was good timing and good opportunity. At the same time, there’s different opportunities for kids today. There wasn’t the internet back then, like we have it. Facebook wasn’t even out until I think the end of my freshman year. So there’s ways to make money today that we could have never dreamed of back then.

[00:23:36] Chris Powers: But back then that was a way to make more than the average. And it really wasn’t that difficult. And I started building from there and almost 18 years later, here we are. 

[00:23:47] Patrick Donley: So I wanted to touch on, is it Adam Blake? Was that his name? You’re the guy that you, he was entrepreneur of the year.

[00:23:53] Patrick Donley: How did you befriend him? What were the books that maybe he recommended? Was he willing to share his playbook with you? It seems like real estate Twitter’s like that. A lot of people sharing their playbook. Was he like that in 2004? 

[00:24:07] Chris Powers: He was as generous with his, I don’t think he told me what books to read.

[00:24:10] Chris Powers: I think I just found some like how to have a rental property. I don’t even remember. People ask me all the time what are the best real estate books you’ve ever read? And I just learned by doing I more have people that taught me along the way. I didn’t read a ton of books, but I read one that was basically like rental properties for dummies, which is just like, what do I need to know to own a single family home?

[00:24:30] Chris Powers: And I read that, but no, he was, I met him at a party and I asked him to go to lunch. We went to a Chipotle down on Hewlin here in Fort Worth. That’s still around today. And he was really generous. I just picked his brain. I’m like, how’d you do it? He, this, he told me, and I’m like, how’d you fix the homes up?

[00:24:49] Chris Powers: And, oh, we have a crew. And this is how I found my crew. Where’d you get the loan? Here’s where I got the loan. I was like, could I get a loan? He’s I’m pretty sure you could. I’d go down and ask them. And these are the things I would tell them and be prepared to answer. And it was probably an hour and a half lunch.

[00:25:06] Chris Powers: I can’t quite remember, but. It was super informative and more than anything it gave me like the confidence that if he could do it, I could do it too. There was nothing you realize, and that’s just a lesson in life. There’s, we’re all humans. Obviously, some of us are gifted and have different talents, but The truth is in a lot of things in life is like, if somebody else can do it, you can probably do it too in the right circumstance.

[00:25:30] Chris Powers: And so I left there with a confidence I could do it. And it really wasn’t that like at the time, I guess you’re so naive when you’re 17, you just really don’t, you don’t even really know what risk is. It just seemed like a pretty straightforward path. This is how I was going to get a loan. This is how I was, I didn’t really need any money down.

[00:25:48] Chris Powers: This is how I was going to fix up my house. I needed to find some students to lease it. This is where I got a lease form and I was off to the races. And a lot of it was just figuring it out along the way. I make it probably sound a little easier, but. I also don’t remember maybe this is just how I’m built a little bit, but I don’t remember feeling like I was taking a ton of risk.

[00:26:07] Chris Powers: In fact, I, it all felt pretty easy and I remember telling people along the way, I’m like, I’m surprised not everybody does this. This is not very hard. And I remember always having that feeling like, why does not everybody do this? There’s no money down loans. You don’t need any money to buy these houses.

[00:26:24] Chris Powers: You have to rent them for more than your expense. Here’s how you take care of them. So anyway, that was the start of it. 

[00:26:31] Patrick Donley: Did you have fraternity brothers that were like, Chris, this is great. I want to do this too. Did anyone tag along and follow in your footsteps? 

[00:26:39] Chris Powers: Not really any of my fraternity brothers, but there was a group of broader guys that I got to know.

[00:26:44] Chris Powers: And there was probably four or five of us that were the guys around. TCU buying houses and figuring it out. And to this day, there’s still three or four of them. We remain, we don’t talk all the time. Some of them I haven’t talked to in a while, but we all stayed in touch even all these years later.

[00:27:00] Chris Powers: And it was a little fun group to be a part of the four or five guys around campus that were buying up rental houses while still in college. 

[00:27:09] Patrick Donley: So I heard you also tell a story that there were no listings of available apartments online, and you organized that at TCU. Tell me, by the time you graduated, you had 12 homes, is that right?

[00:27:22] Chris Powers: Yeah, 12 properties, some of them were duplexes, so I had a few more units than that. But yeah, we started RentByTCU. com, and again, 2004, 2005, just to give listeners perspective Facebook was still not out, which when I tell people That 20 years ago, Facebook wasn’t out that people can’t wrap their minds.

[00:27:41] Chris Powers: But not only that, you didn’t really get online to go look for houses. The way we were looking for houses or the way most people did was you drove down the street, you looked for rent sign, you called it and you leased it. And so first need that needed to be solved was how could I get everybody to aggregate all their houses onto one website?

[00:28:02] Chris Powers: So people didn’t have to guess where houses would be. Or you would see like fraternity members pass the house down to the next generation and their fraternity. So it never hit the market. You also had all these owners that really didn’t know the market. They were either parents whose kids had gone there, but they didn’t sell the house after they left or.

[00:28:23] Chris Powers: They were out of sight out of mind. And so you would drive down the streets and you’d have one three bedroom, two bath leasing for 1200 a month. And then one to four houses down leasing for 1800 a month. And if you were asked, why was there such a discrepancy? It was like one knew the market better than the other.

[00:28:41] Chris Powers: There really was not any. And so my pitch to people was one, let’s make it easier for students to find your property, but two, if I can raise the rents on your rental property, there was a bonus system I had in place. And so essentially over the course of a few years, we got hundreds of homes on the website and I hired a few college students and we would lease houses all summer or really all throughout the year.

[00:29:07] Chris Powers: If kids would move in throughout the summer. And that was a great business. And again, lessons learned there that are still applicable today is you really get to know the market. You really get to know what your customers want, what your what students want. I really got to know what landlords wanted. And there was a point in time around TCU where there was probably not a house on 50 different streets that I didn’t have known by photo memory, knew who owned it, knew what it leased for.

[00:29:33] Chris Powers: I knew how many bedrooms it had and really mastered the TCU market in every which way you possibly could. I really think there were two or three years there where probably nobody knew that market better than I did. And that is how you get good in real estate or really probably anything is you get to know the markets that you’re investing in really well and understand how to learn them really well.

[00:29:55] Chris Powers: And yeah, we started a leasing and property management business while we were in college. 

[00:30:01] Patrick Donley: So did you study finance? Cause I heard you mention you thought about becoming an investment banker, going to wall street. Obviously the real estate started to take off. So that altered things, but you’re basically running a business all throughout college while going to school.

[00:30:15] Patrick Donley: Talk to me when you graduated at 2008, that was a bad time to be looking for a job. Bad time. Real estate obviously started to, for some people is really bad for some, if you had cash, it was good. Talk to me about in 2008, when you were graduating, what was going through your mind? 

[00:30:32] Chris Powers: So this sounds crazy, but I, again, you’re right.

[00:30:35] Chris Powers: I thought I was going to go to Wall Street. So I actually majored in finance and marketing, and this wasn’t your question, but I actually think I got way more out of marketing than I got out of finance. But I thought I’d become an investment banker. I think maybe now I think tech is the thing, but back then, like investment banking really was the thing.

[00:30:51] Chris Powers: It was a high paying job. It was on wall street. It just seemed like the best path forward to again, make a lot of money. And you just saw people, it was almost like a sure career path that if you get good in investment banking, it opened up tons of doors to go make a lot of money somewhere, but also really was not taking into account that I owned all these houses.

[00:31:10] Chris Powers: I had this business. I don’t really know what I was thinking other than I thought I’ll just sell all the houses when it’s time to leave. and graduate. That got derailed because I graduated in December of 2008, which was the worst economic time maybe in the country. I think October 2008 was like the worst stock market drop of our generation.

[00:31:33] Chris Powers: And every job hope that I thought I had disappeared. But I still had this business, this small little real estate rental company around the university, and selling the homes off really wasn’t an option, and so we stuck with it, and we, I got a line of credit right before the crash from Wells Fargo, tied to a bunch of the equity in my houses, which was a godsend, basically allowed me to pull on the line as cash, And before I knew it, foreclosures were hitting the market left and right, and we, I basically started buying rental houses, or I basically started buying foreclosures down in the south of Fort Worth, little brick homes, three bedroom, two bathroom brick homes that had been selling for, call it 120, 000.

[00:32:20] Chris Powers: We were buying them for 40, 000, 50, 000 a year later. And we’d put some we’d update them a little bit. We’d paint them. We’d put a new carpet, maybe redo the foundation or whatever it needed. And then we were flipping them and turning around and selling them. And that was what I did right out of college.

[00:32:38] Patrick Donley: When you say we, was it you and like the subs you were working with or did you have a partner at that point that you were doing all this with? 

[00:32:46] Chris Powers: No, it was me and the subs and the folks I had. I didn’t have a partner until a little bit later. So it was just me at the time. 

[00:32:53] Patrick Donley: Wanted to touch back on Sam Zell.

[00:32:56] Patrick Donley: I know you said you didn’t read a bunch of real estate books, but I think you read, what’s his book, Am I Being Too Subtle? I wanted to hear a little 

[00:33:02] Chris Powers: bit. I read that one. That’s a great book. 

[00:33:04] Patrick Donley: I highly recommend it. Sam Zell’s such a character. But I want to hear a little about what you learned from Sam and some of the takeaways, just like how you’ve modeled your own real estate career based on what he’s done.

[00:33:17] Chris Powers: So I think it’s pretty simple. The core tenants of what I’ve taken from Sam, who was just a legend and tragic to see him go this year, but he didn’t develop. And he didn’t develop because he basically just said he said a few things, but he just said there’s so much risk that’s out of your control.

[00:33:34] Chris Powers: There are, so there’s so many things that even when you’re great, you can’t control certain factors. And so even the best developers can really get. Annihilated at certain times in the market he basically said that as they’re basically like developers always imploded themselves because at the very top of every cycle, like everybody was adding new supply.

[00:33:57] Chris Powers: And so that was really tough. And so like lesson one was there was, it became apparent to me that although you can make money developing real estate, he had this quote that for most developers, half of the return is just the satisfaction of seeing a new project go from nothing to something, which is very true because I developed several projects and it was satisfying, but he basically just said, there’s no reason to develop.

[00:34:21] Chris Powers: It’s way too risky. It’s hard to build obviously there’s companies have done it, but it’s hard to build a really great company just doing development. And he said, instead, you should just buy real estate that it’s already existing. And you’re really two inputs that you’re solving for is what’s my cost to buy this?

[00:34:39] Chris Powers: And what is my cost to get at least up to a rate that’s acceptable? And those, that’s really what you’re solving for. And. The other thing he talked a lot about was trying to buy into asset classes where new supply was going to be hindered or limited. And for me, when I looked around at what we’re doing today, we do, we buy class B industrial real estate.

[00:35:01] Chris Powers: You really can’t rebuild it at all, especially in the cities that we’re buying it. In fact, people are tearing it down to build other types of projects. So I think if there was the lessons I learned, and I think these are timeless lessons, I don’t think they ever go away was. Don’t develop, instead buy, and then try and look at buying things where there is not a lot of new supply of that product coming online at a fast pace, if at all.

[00:35:27] Patrick Donley: He also reminds me a lot of Warren Buffett, just buying below replacement costs, buying below intrinsic value. That was one of his other key things, was just like, buy stuff that, we’ll touch on John Marsh, but like irreplaceable real estates. If you can buy irreplaceable real estate below the replacement costs a no brainer.

[00:35:45] Chris Powers: Yeah that’s spot on and especially like in the cycle we’re in right now, there’s going to be so many opportunities to buy it fractions of what you could actually build new for and that further makes the development industry you might not see development for another couple of years because of that.

[00:36:01] Patrick Donley: So let’s touch on John Marsh. You said there’s a couple other guys that have really built into you besides your father and that’s John Marsh, Pete Chambers is another guy. Talk to me a little bit about Pete Chambers. I know it came first. So let’s touch on Pete, how you guys got connected, just the role of men and mentorship in your life.

[00:36:19] Patrick Donley: I had a guest recently that wasn’t a big believer in mentors, that you could figure this all out on your own, but I think you can save decades by finding the right people. 

[00:36:30] Chris Powers: Yeah, I think you you just said it right now. I think one thing that’s always come really natural to me before I even knew what a mentor was or that you call the mentors was there’s all these people, no matter what you’re trying to do, if it’s build a real estate company, if it’s be a good dad, if it’s be better in your faith, whatever it may be, there’s always, there’s people around that have had, have already walked the walk.

[00:36:52] Chris Powers: And they’ve already done the thing successfully. And so for me, it’s always been really natural to go, why wouldn’t I just seek those people out and ask them how they did it and not just how they did it, but what are all the mistakes you made along the way? And like from a business perspective.

[00:37:08] Chris Powers: I think our business has been infinitely better today because of all the wisdom that we’ve gotten from people that have already built huge real estate companies and done it really successfully over multi decades. And a lot of lessons they’re not short term in nature. A lot of this stuff is timeless.

[00:37:26] Chris Powers: And so for Pete Pete and I, really, we met at the golf course years ago. He was really good friends with my father in law, but I think he saw in me basically this young kid that was trying to be a superstar entrepreneur, and he basically saw the early signs of this kid is going to lose it all, and he’s going to think that he’s getting it all.

[00:37:47] Chris Powers: Again, this goes back to what we talked about. I don’t think anybody wakes up every day and goes, I’m going to make, I’m slowly going to destroy my life. They don’t, they always are. I actually think most people are trying to better their life that day. Now, humans are messy, so it doesn’t always look that way.

[00:38:04] Chris Powers: But I think he saw this young kid that cared a lot about things that he probably would regret caring too much about. And so he, at an early age, like we just started talking a lot and he would, and to be honest with you, it’s not like day one. I want to be really clear. Day one, it’s not like he said these things to me and I was like, Oh, you’re right.

[00:38:24] Chris Powers: In fact, I think the first like year or two of him saying it, I was like, I don’t know why he keeps telling me this stuff. I get it, but that’s for the birds. So lesson one was he was super consistent. He didn’t just tell me something once and then expect I got it. And if I wasn’t really listening, give up on me and move to the next guy.

[00:38:43] Chris Powers: He was super consistent in my life. And it’s not like I wasn’t listening or being rebellious. I just, Again, when you’re so in the trenches and you’re so focused on something, be like, yeah, that’s never going to happen to me. Like I’ll always keep it all together. And then I think what happens is some of the things he was saying started to start materializing, coming true.

[00:39:03] Chris Powers: It was like, Oh shoot, there is something to this. And we built this incredible friendship and this incredible bond. And I think he would tell you he’s probably learned as much from me as I have from him in some ways. But for me, it was this clear realization of. This is a guy that has walked the walk in so many facets of life that I would, I really admire.

[00:39:26] Chris Powers: He’s got great girls. He’s raised three girls. He’s got a wife that he loves and he’s raised a great home. He did really well in his business and treated his people really well and was financially successful. He’s super generous, he has a really strong faith, like there’s just all these components and the other thing I’ve learned from him and from others is none of those things happen by accident.

[00:39:50] Chris Powers: What’s funny about a lot of folks is they’ll work really hard on their business, and they’ll plan really hard for their business, and they’ll do all this strategy, And think all this, but then you ask them like what’s your strategy at home or what’s your strategy with your kids or what’s your strategy?

[00:40:05] Chris Powers: And there really is no strategy. It’s like they’ll wing all that, but they’ll work really hard on their business. And what I found out from him and Marsh and several people were The folks that had a really well rounded life put as much effort into every area of their life as they did their business, and I think if there’s one thing I could say about the genesis of my relationship with Pete over the last 11 years, and again, we have lots of fun together, we travel now we travel, we do a lot together, but the genesis of him and I’s relationship is he’s taught me the importance of investing in more areas of your life than just your business.

[00:40:43] Chris Powers: And he’s shown that to me in so many different ways. He spent hundreds of hours talking to me at my lowest and we don’t have to go all into it, but I I’ve said it on other podcasts. Like I hit rock bottom at home in my marriage, things were not going well all for the same reasons you could expect.

[00:41:02] Chris Powers: And Pete was also the person that was like, I’m here for you. You’re not getting a divorce. I’m making sure you all stay together. I will be here for you no matter what. And I think a lot of men, whether it’s with their wife or like any situation in their life without Pete, I probably would have made decisions that would have impacted the rest of my life that I would later regret.

[00:41:23] Chris Powers: And I think that goes to the importance of having, for me, men in my life that really didn’t want to see me fail and really poured into me even at my lowest. And it’s made all the difference. 

[00:41:36] Patrick Donley: You talked about a little bit about being at your lowest on the with Brent Beshore, I’m not sure how to pronounce his last name, but it made a huge impact on me.

[00:41:45] Patrick Donley: I wanted to hear about the role of faith for you, how you got connected with John Marsh and I know that he went through a period of his life where he was totally focused on business. He took a step back and he just devoted every, actually it’s his wife, devoted most, I don’t know, I think he said four or five years of just focusing on his marriage. So I wanted to hear how you and John got connected and a little bit about like the role of faith in your life and business career and maybe how it’s changed your trajectory. 

[00:42:15] Chris Powers: Yeah. So I’ve always gone to church. I would have considered myself probably a Christian since birth, but I think what I really didn’t have until the last four or five years is what I would consider like a relationship with Jesus Christ.

[00:42:29] Chris Powers: And so I think. It’s, there’s one thing to be religious, which is singing songs and rituals and doing all this, but there’s another to lay yourself down and go, there’s this much bigger God and in Christ that has, that loves me for me and that created the world and created the universe.

[00:42:47] Chris Powers: And it’s very humbling to understand that the world does not revolve around you. And I think a relationship with any type of God, no matter what your religion is, should do that to you. And in a world today where we’re so individualistic and we care so much about ourselves and we’re at this peak. Me world.

[00:43:07] Chris Powers: Having faith in something much larger than you makes you realize this is really not about you and you’re a speck of dust flying through the universe and it really humbles you to, to you if that’s the case then what is my purpose here? And and get more into faith in a bit, but how I met John again this is something I think only God could provide for me is you have this developer in Opelika, Alabama, which is like the middle of nowhere in Auburn.

[00:43:35] Chris Powers: And I had another gentleman on the podcast, Bobby Feehan. And I just asked him at the end of our podcast, I said, Hey, who’s your favorite developer that I should have on? And he was like, this guy, John Marsh from Opelika, Alabama, you should talk to him. So anyway, we get in touch. And to be honest with you I probably, I put no stock in this.

[00:43:55] Chris Powers: I just thought another guy I’m going to meet, he’s from this weird town in Alabama. And We got on a pre call to talk about the episode that I was going to do with him, which I’ll usually do with people to gather some facts and get some interesting talking points. And he starts the phone call and he starts telling me this story about how 25 years ago he was locked in an attic.

[00:44:17] Chris Powers: and he was on the verge of committing suicide his wife was cheating on him with one of their employees, he was addicted to meth, and this story, and he was super vulnerable with this stranger, which immediately, what does vulnerability do? It let my guard way down. Because I think in the world we live in, especially men, they have it all buttoned up together.

[00:44:39] Chris Powers: They project strength, even when they’re going through a tough time. And that’s just how we’re raised is that’s just how we’re raised. And so it was this perfect timing. So we have this whole conversation. And he tells me this incredible story of being broken in an attic to obviously he did not hang himself.

[00:44:58] Chris Powers: He cleaned himself up. He found God, he reconciled with his wife, and 25 years later, they’ve led a ministry helping hundreds of couples across the country reconcile their marriages. And then at the very end of the call, he’s how are you doing? And the truth is, I was like a week away from filing for divorce at the time.

[00:45:19] Chris Powers: And I think I could have taken that moment to say I’m great and there’s like hop off the call and we’ll get we’ll do our podcast and move on with life, but he gave me the permission through telling of his own story for me to be like, Hey, I’m actually really not great. Things are actually really shitty right now.

[00:45:37] Chris Powers: The whole world probably thinks things are great because that’s we don’t talk about our problems. There was a few people in my life that knew things were not good. Pete being one of them and a few others, but I just, I was pretty open with him and I got to give him like a lot of credit. You talk about a guy that walks the walk, he goes, okay, don’t do that.

[00:45:55] Chris Powers: Get on the phone. Will you and your wife get on the phone with me and my wife tomorrow night, which would, this was a call was on a Thursday, so this would have been Friday. At the time I was not living at the house. And when you get on a call and we really don’t want you to do this. So in my head, I’m like, yeah, I’m going to call my wife who we’re having a tough time.

[00:46:12] Chris Powers: We’re obviously at rock bottom and I’m going to convince her that the real estate developer from Opelika, Alabama is going to help. Save our marriage and the truth of the matter is we got off the call the next night after two hours of them kind of pouring into us and we at least got to a spot in that call.

[00:46:29] Chris Powers: We’re like, okay, we’ll press pause and the marshes. And again, a few other folks in our life are just other examples of people that unselfish people who put their interest, who put our interest ahead of theirs. and poured into us at a time when we really needed it. And years later I can sit here and say I can’t imagine having made that decision.

[00:46:52] Chris Powers: My relationship with my wife is extremely better in so many ways. And the truth is the hard, cold reality of all of this journey of learning is the man in the mirror was the biggest problem in my life and I couldn’t see it for a long time. And I think that’s the beginning for me of finding a relationship with Jesus Christ is you start to learn that the man that you’re staring at in the mirror is actually the root of your problems, not everybody else and everything else.

[00:47:24] Chris Powers: And that’s why in a lot of the developing world, some of the poorest areas of the world is where Christianity is flourishing the most, where people have the least. And in Western societies where we, from a worldly view, have the most. We’re losing God at a rapid speed is because we have, as a Western society, basically built this common belief that we have it all and we don’t really need a God.

[00:47:51] Chris Powers: We don’t need a God when you show up every day and you have air conditioning on at your house and plenty of food and you’re relatively safe and all these things you start to build over time. Like, why do you need a God? Things are pretty good. And then you go to places of the world where it’s really tough.

[00:48:07] Chris Powers: And that’s really all they had to lean on is God. And so anyway, it’s been a humbling experience and I share all that to say through John, through Pete, through several others, the core lesson that I think I’ve learned is. One of like humility and realizing like as much as I thought I had it all I didn’t and the more I’m willing to let Go and not control the things around me life has seemed to Settle down a little bit and it’s not as tense as it once was again It doesn’t mean I don’t want to go build a great business and have a lot of fun and meet a lot of great people It’s just not the end all be all anymore 

[00:48:44] Patrick Donley: Yeah, it just sounds like your priorities have shifted quite a bit.

[00:48:47] Patrick Donley: And I for one, I just want to thank you. I want to thank John Marsh, if he listens to this, like you guys have made a big impact on me as well. Just being open and honest and transparent about your stories. Like it’s, I don’t want to get too emotional, but it’s like really been a big deal for me. So I want to say, thank you.

[00:49:04] Chris Powers: I appreciate it, of course and I think that’s the gift of vulnerability is and especially with the internet and podcast now, like you don’t really know who you’re reaching and it’s helped save my life and I think we all have a story to tell and I, if anybody’s listening, I just give them permission.

[00:49:21] Chris Powers: You don’t have to go say it on a podcast, but if you’re struggling with something like, You, one, you’re definitely not the only person. Part of being vulnerable is you realize everybody else is actually struggling from something and that’s okay. I think pain is your friend in a lot of ways. It’s where you gain wisdom and it’s where you learn a lot about life is in your darkest moments.

[00:49:41] Chris Powers: And it’s yeah, it’s been a hell of a journey and I look forward to seeing where this life takes me. 

[00:49:48] Patrick Donley: Yeah like you said, I think it unfortunately takes great suffering to take us to this point. It did in John’s case. It sounded like it did in yours. I really feel like John is criminally underrated.

[00:49:58] Patrick Donley: Like I wish he had a bigger following and I just think that the guy’s just an incredible man. He’s definitely impacting a lot of different people, but I’d like to see more be touched by him. 

[00:50:10] Chris Powers: I think he will. He jokes, but he’s like being friends with you guys. It’s changed my life every time we do a podcast and now thousands of new people learn who he is.

[00:50:19] Chris Powers: And so he’s one of the most special people you’ll meet. And you talk about a guy that’s got a heart of gold and really walks the walk. John embodies that in every sense of the word. 

[00:50:30] Patrick Donley: I had the same exact experience, interviewed Bobby Fion, asked the same question, who should I interview next? He mentioned John and I was like, Opelika, Alabama.

[00:50:39] Patrick Donley: But yeah, you dig deep and it’s wow, there’s a wealth of wisdom in that guy. 

[00:50:45] Chris Powers: And for the record, he’s an incredible real estate developer too. I think his, the work he’ll be known for, I think he’ll definitely be known for his real estate, but he’s as talented as they come in the real estate world too.

[00:50:58] Chris Powers: So he’s multifaceted. 

[00:51:01] Patrick Donley: I don’t know where we go from here. I wanted to talk a little bit about good to great, but in the Fort Capitol flywheel, like we haven’t really touched on Fort Capitol. We haven’t touched on the podcast. You’ve got a lot going on. I wanted to actually, what I want to ask is in 10 years time, where do you see yourself still doing the podcast involved in real estate?

[00:51:21] Patrick Donley: What do you want to be doing if we were to talk in 10 years from now? 

[00:51:25] Chris Powers: It’s funny. I’m asking myself some of those same questions for capitals, an incredible company. It’s got incredible leadership, and I think the sky’s the limit for what will be accomplished there. And we can talk about the flywheel and good to great and how that companies come to be.

[00:51:43] Chris Powers: As far as the podcast goes, I love doing it. I actually on, I think Monday was my five year anniversary of doing it. I’ve met an incredible amount of people. I’ve learned a ton. And I feel like we’ve just scratched the surface for what’s possible. It’s generated opportunity for Ford. It’s generated opportunity for my family and I, it’s generated opportunity for the guests get a lot out of it.

[00:52:09] Chris Powers: It’s like a win all the way around. And look, it’s I wouldn’t say a hobby, but it’s like my personal. I think if you looked at it over a body of 15 or 20 years, you’ll just be able to see this arc of like how I changed over time and the things that were important to me. And. I think I’ll be doing it in 10 years.

[00:52:26] Chris Powers: I have no intentions of stopping. In fact, the plan for next year and the and going forward is to add more resources to it, build a team around it, to, to help grow it. I’ve thrown a couple of events or I’ve gotten to get people together to gather that I’ve loved doing, bringing people I’ve met from the online world and meeting with them in person and different settings on different topics.

[00:52:47] Chris Powers: I want to do a lot more of that. But I love investing. So it’s something I’ve loved forever. I am thinking of a couple different ways in which I will continue that outside of Fort on a day to day basis. I have a lot of inspiration from folks that have had done it before me, but right now I’m really trying to think of what does that next 10 year vision look like?

[00:53:08] Chris Powers: Fort, I have not been the CEO now for four years. Like I said, it’s one of the joys of my life. It’s I’ve got incredible leadership. I’ve got an incredible partner there who’s our CEO. And it’s given me the flexibility and the opportunity to think about the next 10 years. Forever, that next 10 years was only at Fort.

[00:53:28] Chris Powers: And I’m in a process right now. I’ve actually hired a coach. That’s helping me get some clarity around some things going on in my life. And maybe if we did this another year from now, I’d have maybe a greater vision or a better answer for what lies 10 years ahead. But what I can say now is I’m having a lot of fun.

[00:53:45] Chris Powers: I love the podcast. I love hosting people. I’m building incredible network and I love the business that, that is Fort Capitol. 

[00:53:55] Patrick Donley: So what’s an average day looking like for you? Is it mostly devoted to the podcast? Cause you put out a lot of content, both on Twitter, the podcast or is a lot of your time spent with Fort Capitol still, or is it a mix?

[00:54:08] Chris Powers: It’s probably a mixed bag and not every week looks the same. I still meet with my partner every week and then depending on what’s going on in the business, if we’re raising capital or we have some big need going on there, there could be weeks where I’m highly focused on that. I have a great team with the podcast, so a lot of my time is either spent researching the guests or just recording.

[00:54:29] Chris Powers: Most everything else is taken care of. But I would say at least a fifth of my week goes there. I’m on the phone a lot, talking to people, and then I read a lot. I spend a lot of time just reading different things and staying up to date and current. I like to invest, like I said, so allocating some of the capital that, that I have made takes up some of my week.

[00:54:51] Chris Powers: But I keep a pretty loose schedule now for the first time in my life, so I can work on what I want to work on. I have. I traveled quite a bit. I think one of the things about having a podcast and Twitter and maybe being a little more public facing is there’s been a lot of opportunities to go to things.

[00:55:07] Chris Powers: And so last year I was on the road quite a bit. I’m going to try and dial that back this year, but got to again, meet incredible people, go to some incredible events that I never imagined I’d be at. And so it’s been great to keep expanding my network, which has been a lot of fun. 

[00:55:23] Patrick Donley: You mentioned a couple things, keeping an open calendar and reading a lot, both two things that like were Warren Buffett reminds me very much of Warren Buffett, like how he structured his own life.

[00:55:34] Patrick Donley: I forget what he read 500 pages a day or something like that and kept a very open calendar. And yeah it’s awesome. So Chris, this has been a lot of fun. It’s been a pleasure having you on here. What’s for our listeners that want to find out more about you? I know Twitter, any other ways that they can get in touch with you?

[00:55:51] Chris Powers: Yeah, you’re an incredible host. I really will say this was one of my favorite interviews. You’d really did great research and I appreciate it. The Fort podcast is my podcast on Twitter at Fort Worth Chris, or you can check out Fort Capitol at FortCapitolLP. com. Yeah, reach out. I would love to hear from you.

[00:56:10] Patrick Donley: Awesome. This has been great. I had another half a page of questions I could ask, but I really appreciate your time. We’ll do round two. That’d be awesome. That’d be awesome. Merry Christmas. Happy new year and best of luck to you in 2024. 

[00:56:22] Chris Powers: You too. Thanks, Patrick. 

[00:56:24] Patrick Donley: Okay, folks, that’s all I had for today’s episode.

[00:56:27] Patrick Donley: I hope you enjoyed the show and I’ll see you back here real soon.

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