How much do you really know about yourself? How deep can you look inside with clear and truthful eyes before turning away?

I learned recently that answering questions like these is much, much harder than it seems.

Let me explain.

Since I cannot resist the temptation to relate everything back to Ancient Greece, I’ll begin there. An inscription found at the Temple for the Oracle at Delphi famously reads:

 “Know Thyself and Nothing in Excess.”

Pretty good advice! What strikes me as true about modern life though is that we have constructed a society and culture where failure in these two pursuits is all about assured. Surrounded by the technology of distraction, inundated by the artificial, we live in a time where indiscipline and unconscious forces reign supreme. 

As someone who has dedicated a lot of time and energy to reflective work—i.e. journaling, meditating, writing…etc.—I thought I was different, perhaps even better. But what I’ve discovered lately is that I was just as lost to myself as everyone else.

Look, I know this newsletter is usually about wealth building, citizenship, and growth but stay with me…

For 10 long years, I’ve been searching for a new way of being. I felt called—first by the stress and crisis of a business blow up and then by becoming a father—to a serious reexamination of just how I wanted to live and why. And this call led me down many philosophical and spiritual paths. On fire for truth, I read voraciously and widely, sampling from all the great traditions, the sheer excitement of which sustained me for years. In a way I almost felt awakened or maybe partially so. But as good as I felt, in my heart I knew something was missing and I felt kind of stuck. 

I kept at the reading and study, thought about it a lot, almost obsessively, and even tried a bunch of new things, including writing this newsletter and producing my podcast. I thought maybe I could experiment my way to the answer. While I certainly made some progress in my understanding, the feeling of being stuck remained.

Eventually, I turned to a practice that has served me well over the years: systematically facing my fears. Several times now in my life I’ve used this practice. It’s how I met my wife, how I got started as an entrepreneur, and how I got comfortable with public speaking. Basically, I sit down and write an honest list of things I’m afraid of and then I put a proactive plan in place to face those fears head on. Well, this time two things came up: dancing and talking to a therapist. 

I wasn’t expecting either of these! But I wanted to stay true to the practice. 

We will have to talk more about the dancing some other time but I’ll share this: I did sign up for lessons and picked the absolute scariest thing I could think of—hip hop. After a few really stiff and awkward sessions, I got my groove! Now, despite what my wife and kids may think, I’m on way to actually having some game. 

As for the therapy, I knew exactly where I needed to go. For years, I’ve been fascinated by the revolutionary ideas of Carl Jung. This goes all the way back to my childhood, as my father has long been a fan and student, and came back recently in one of my rich conversations with my friend and business partner John Young. If you are at all interested in leaning more, the best starting place is “A Life of Meaning” by James Holis. 

After months of hesitation, I finally took the plunge and scheduled a session with a Jungian analyst. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the staggering degree of emotional challenge I’ve experienced in this process. I thought I knew myself pretty well but turns out I hardly knew a damn thing. To really look inside at yourself, to examine with clear eyes the things you’ve done, the things you are ashamed of, the things you feel guilty about, and the things you fear, is frightening, painful and humbling. It’s also wildly clarifying. I have learned more about myself in these last few months than I had in years of deep study and introspective work.

I won’t bore you with all the symbols and archetypes that have been coming up in my dreams, I’ll just tell you this: our dreams are real, meaningful, and full of medicine. How can we assume otherwise? We are of Nature, who wastes nothing, and spend half our lives sleeping and dreaming. 

I learned right away that I have real problem just talking about my feelings. It took me about a month before I opened up and when I first started crying in a session, I felt so incredibly awkward. I don’t know why but being vulnerable like that in front of a stranger just felt weird. But good things happen when you allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. 

I’ve always been a much a better listener than a talker and for the longest time just assumed I was just really good at emotional regulation. Maybe in a way I am—people have always been drawn to my emotional steadiness and predictability—but I realized I’ve also just been too afraid to look inside. I discovered that behind this mask of composure there’s a deep and rich layer of emotionality that I wanted to pretend didn’t exist. 

I became a master at repression and compartmentalization and developed very powerful and useful defense mechanisms like seeking refuge from the chaos of life in intellectualism and hiding from the potential pains of my own emotional life by focusing on those of others. So, when facing my own crisis, rather than dealing with the intense emotions that came from my own failures, I spent a decade seeking universal truths. I was so interested in finding “the” answer from others I closed myself to the reality that there might not be one, at least not in the form I was looking for. And I completely missed the possibility that the answer, if there is one, might only be found inside myself. 

While I’m still so early in this process, I couldn’t be more excited. I feel like I’m getting better in every roll I play in life, even in business. I’m absolutely going to see this Jungian process through and plan to share more with you all along the way. Today, I’ll leave you with a few ideas that have come up that might be useful to our Profit+ mission.

My respect for the meaning of individuality has grown immeasurably. We matter because we exist. Period. And what binds us together in this crazy, unpredictable life is that we are all so profoundly psychologically vulnerable. Even the strongest among us will tremble when they look inside. 

This is why it’s so important to pursue self-knowledge and to do so like our hair is on fire. The Ancient Greeks were right—to know thyself is absolutely essential. 

This is also why it’s so important to conduct our economic life in the right ways. We absolutely cannot take advantage of others, especially psychologically. What the tech industry has been doing these last decades is unconscionable in light of what we know about our psychological vulnerabilities. When it comes to business, we must do better. We need to engage with constant care and compassion and keep the well-being of others always on our minds. 

Finally, this is why we MUST pursue a society that protects the freedom of the individual above all else. We cannot sacrifice or abandon even a single soul for the purpose of some collective convenience and still preserve our humanity. 

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Recently, I made a mistake. It was not my first one obviously but one I shouldn’t have made. Essentially, I completely misread a situation and put Westward Homes in a bad position on a few deals.  

But one of the most important things I’ve learned from entrepreneurship is that  it’s ok to make a bad decision so long as you are willing to acknowledge it to yourself and then get busy dealing with the consequences.

Like most truths, this sounds simple enough but, in practice, in real life, it’s not always so easy. Even just admitting an uncomfortable truth to yourself—that you have actually made a mistake—can be psychologically challenging. Believe me, most people don’t get past this part and waste their precious energy and time denying and/or blaming others. But in accepting responsibility for a mistake, there’s always an opportunity—for growth for sure and often for redemption. 

This is exactly what happened for me last week.

For several months, we had been negotiating with a savvy but mercurial billionaire about doing a big partnership in the Palisades. The talks went really well out of that gate and it wasn’t long before we had a verbal agreement, or so I thought.

We started interfacing with the lawyers and got the legal structure all buttoned up in just a matter of days. There wasn’t a single material issue or term we hadn’t resolved and our potential partner was talking about wanting an exclusive arrangement for at least the first 5-10 homes. I was feeling really good about things.

But then some questions started coming in—nothing unusual or existential just inquiries about how we’re handling insurance, fire mitigation systems, the design of the house, and so forth. Somehow days turned into weeks and the internal alarms of my intuition started to ring. My partners were feeling the same actually and we started talking about the possibility that the deal might not get done and what we might do if that happens. 

Instead of addressing these concerns head on, I hesitated and put my hope and trust in the general good nature of humanity. “Are they really going to walk away after all this time? Who would do that anyway?”…

To be fair / kind to myself, this whole time the investor was communicating with us on a pretty regular basis, either directly or through his representatives, and giving absolutely no sign that the deal itself was at risk.

About a week before we were supposed to close on our first lot, I got a call from his lawyer saying he was pulling out with nothing more than a “He changed his mind” as the rationale. For the briefest of moments, I let myself feel the anger and disappointment coursing through my veins. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

But having been in this crazy, capital-intensive business for so long—the ultimate school of hard knocks!—I’ve seen this one before. A deal is never done until it’s done. 

Should I have trusted my instinct and those of my partners when things were dragging? Absolutely.

That was my mistake here and, unfortunately, it’s one I’ve made many times. I keep learning over and over that you have to trust your gut and you have to trust it enough to actually listen to it. What else do we have to rely on in this crazy and wildly uncertain world? 

Thankfully I’ve been trained by the fires of entrepreneurship to be resilient and resourceful and knew exactly what I had to do. I certainly wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself or stew in anger at the investor. I was going to get busy dealing with the consequences.

The first thing I did was reach out to the seller to try to get an extension. Time is the key to salvaging a broken deal like this. Thankfully, our seller was willing to accommodate without too much brain damage and my faith in humanity was almost instantly restored. Then my partners and I just started making money calls. We reached out to our lender Arixa Capital—a trusted partner we’ve borrowed hundreds of millions from over the years—and of course, they came through with some extra loan proceeds at closing. 

Then we started sending emails and making calls to family, friends, industry colleagues and other connections and I was reminded again of another important entrepreneurial truth: it’s amazing what happens in life when you just ask for what you want or need. It only took about a week to find the equity we needed to close our first deal and now we are over-subscribed and have several new large investor groups at the table willing to commit to a larger program. Of course, all these new investors will make better partners than the first guy. Such is the way of the entrepreneur! 

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Warning! What I’m about to share is dangerous—not dangerous per se but rather for what it implies and, more importantly, because it is threatening to basically all of the most powerful people and organizations on planet Earth. I share these thoughts with you with some trepidation…. 

I know what you are all thinking: “Nick is finally going to weigh on this whole Epstein thing!”

Well…no! As interesting as that may be, that’s not what this article is about. Today, we are talking about far more serious matters, things actually relevant to your pursuit of wealth and purpose!

Let’s get into it. 

1. Market dynamics in the AI world are starting to look suspicious.

In fact, conditions are eerily resembling those of the first tech bubble, which burst 25 years ago or so and caused a whole bunch of damage to our economy. Everyone knows (or should!) about the concentration issue—i.e. the big AI stocks account for almost all of the stock market gains of the last few years—but it’s the circularity that I find troubling. 

These companies are basically trading money around in huge numbers—investing in each other and signing opaque multi-year service contracts back and forth.  It’s so confusing that it’s hard to know what revenue is real and what is not.  This, by the way, is exactly what Enron was doing and what the crypto fraudsters were doing during the 2022 crypto bubble.

Anyway, I wanted to highlight this for you all just to keep on your radars.  I don’t know for sure that this is a bubble and I certainly don’t know what is going to happen next.  But I know this: if the AI market crashes, we are going to get a nasty recession and political conditions will deteriorate even further down the wrong path.   

2. The global elite is absolutely petrified right now but not for the reasons you might think.

One of the most exciting things about the technological revolution of the last few decades is that we have finally created the infrastructure for widespread financial ownership. For the first time in human history, it’s possible to build an economy where literally everyone can have a legitimate opportunity to participate in the true spoils of capitalism. Ownership, once the private playground of the ultra-elite, is now open for everyone.

This is fantastic news, right? Yes, but there’s one small problem: this development is also a threat for those at the top and they know it.

You will hear the global elite celebrate this much needed progress in public: “Look at us! We’ve democratized finance at last!” But in private, they are petrified of their own creation and whispering amongst themselves “Oh wait, we’ve democratized finance and now everyone can own and not just us….ummm….oooops. Wait, why did we do that again?”

I share this because it’s helpful in interpreting the often-disheartening behavior of the global elite. Realizing that the age-old game of traditional capitalism (restricting access to ownership) is up, they are now holding on to positions of power for dear life and/or seeking to extract the maximum possible benefit from their current situation. You can see this playing out in everything from the bizarre economic positions of our political parties to extractive boardroom antics to the strange political resistance to leveling the financial playing field.

This is something worth both paying attention to and also fighting against. A more inclusive capitalism is the key to preserving freedom in the world! 

3. Politicians around the world are grasping for more power because they have realized there’s a new and dangerous threat on the scene.

The rise of political autocracy is often thought of in purely political terms but that is not the whole story here. We’ve been busy focusing on things like the impact of the Internet and social media on the news and the perception of truth, the politicization of the justice system, and the willingness of governments to use technology to control their citizens. And we are right to be worried about such things. But we’ve missed a rather scary problem emerging at the same time: the corporations are out of control and represent a real threat to governmental power. 

It's no secret that we live in an era of unprecedented corporate power. We’ve got companies worth trillions and sitting on cash piles larger than many countries fiscal coffers. Some global juggernauts have become more powerful economically and culturally even than many nations and states. And because these corporations have so many masters, they feel beholden to no one. Who exactly is Microsoft or Meta accountable to? And don’t say “their shareholders” because we all know that is a joke. Just how can Congress or even the President get Apple to do what they want it to do? It’s just not so easy.

These multi-national companies operate in almost every country in the world (all 195 of them in some cases), have employees and property everywhere, and earn money everywhere. They may be American in name but they have interests that are vastly different than our own and they are willing to pursue them unabashedly. 

As it turns out, corporations are after the same thing as governments: money and power. And now that we live in a globalized world, they are finding themselves with important seats at the power table—but because no one is willing to admit the truth, everyone is acting like they are not even there! Meanwhile, they are out making moves and amassing resources and influence left and right.

While I don’t agree at all with the impulse to grasp for more autocratic power, I understand why the politicians are scared. There’s a vast, amorphous, hard to control locus of power out there and it’s not exactly on our side! Figuring out how to deal with this unrecognized power is one of our most important collective challenges.      

I have been overwhelmed by all the positive feedback I got from you all in response to my latest Westward Homes update. Not only did I get a ton of interest from Profit+ readers in participating in our investments but also, so many of you reached out with encouragement, kind words, and support. I feel so honored and grateful to have readers and supporters like you all. Thank you for being here!

Welcome Back Everyone!

I have an exciting update and opportunity for you all this week. As you probably have noticed, I’ve had to dial down a bit on the content production in recent months. I’ve even missed a few weeks completely. Well, that’s because I have been hard at work getting a new business off the ground. 

I’m happy to share that Westward Homes is now fully operational. We have broken ground on 3 new homes in the Palisades and are actively in planning on another half dozen or so. We’re also helping a few clients with large scale high-end renovations around town. As someone who has made a living exclusively through investments for two decades, it feels oddly satisfying to actually have some clients and to be able to help people in this more direct service-oriented way.

As you all know, we started Westward Homes with the specific intent to build an impact business. The idea was to serve an urgent need—helping fire victims get back into their homes—and prove that this could be done both profitably and with integrity. To honor this intent, our clients are getting true market pricing, complete transparency, bespoke design, and world-class development expertise. And based on the feedback we’ve gotten so far, I couldn’t be more bullish about our future.

While spending so much time in the Palisades, we’ve also grown incredibly bullish about the investment opportunity there. This neighborhood is going to rebound way faster than people think but the uncertainty around it all is producing very interesting market conditions. There are tons of lots for sale (almost 200) and they are already trading down more than 50% from their pre-fire values. At the same time, every single adjacent single-family neighborhood is as strong as ever, despite a general housing market that is fundamentally broken.

Interestingly, the Palisades rebuild is one of those issues where there’s a ton of misinformation spreading online. Should we be surprised? Probably not. Mayor Bass is fighting for her political future and Palisades is ground zero for the case against her. I cannot tell you the number of people who think she’s been busy either making the rebuild process overly onerous or working to change the Palisades into some mecca for affordable housing. 

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Believe it or not, the city is actually following through on its promise to expedite the process. It’s only been taking us 45 days or so to get our plans approved (the stated goal is 30 days or less and the historical norm is 6 months plus). City staff across various departments have been unusually responsive and, dare I say, maybe even friendly! And lo and behold, there are already almost 300 homes in or approved for immediate construction. Interesting how that works, right?  

LADWP is still being as difficult as ever—for example, not being willing to waive the $1000 permit fee for a temporary power pole when every other city department is—but their ability to mess up the construction timeline for residential isn’t near as much of a problem as in multifamily and other commercial development. More on that someday! 

As for the affordable housing conspiracy, this is an absolute joke. The city, with the help of Governor Newsom, is going in the exact opposite direction: doing everything it can to make sure the Palisades ends up looking exactly as it did before. Whether in the expedite orders themselves, which highly incentivize rebuilding what was there before, or in the surprise suspension of SB9—a highly touted pro-housing measure that allowed for by-right density improvements to single family zoned lots—in fire affected areas, the government is bending over backwards to accommodate the desires of the historic Palisades community. 

To make a long story, short: what’s manifesting here is a unique opportunity to invest in one of the best single-family neighborhoods in the entire country and to do so with a conservative margin of safety and a compelling expected return profile. Given where lots are trading and what it’s costing us to build for our clients, we think we can build stunning homes and be all-in at cost far below historical Palisades and every adjacent sub-market.

I’d like to offer you all an opportunity to co-invest alongside us in the Palisades rebuild. We’ve already got two lots under contract and plan to buy a whole much more in the coming months. We’re working on opening this up more broadly but for now we can only take accredited investors and the minimum investment size is $50K.

If you are interested in learning more, please click the button below.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

In the spirit of Halloween, which is a huge deal around our household, I want to talk about something scary that few people understand:

The battle for the fate of humanity has already begun and we are losing. 

And I’m not talking about climate change or the war in Ukraine. As big of a deal as both of those are, they aren’t the scariest thing happening in our world today. Not even close.

Over the last several decades, not only have we have voluntarily created the technological infrastructure for a kind of totalitarian control unprecedented in the annals of history but also, we have invited this technology into every little intimate space we inhabit.

Think about it. Unless you simply refuse to use phones, tablets, and computers, some company or another knows exactly where you are at all times. They probably even know what you are doing as well. At the same time, social media companies are hacking your consciousness—distracting you with nonsense, making you want to buy stuff, capturing your attention and awareness—and know everything about you, including the things you might not want anyone to know. 

Privacy might already be dead.

Authoritarian regimes, like China and Russia, are already using this technological infrastructure to exert control over their citizens and with great effect. Here in the West, we seem to be aware enough of the danger and occasionally even marshal resources to sue companies for privacy violations. But big tech remains unphased and probably just laughs off the associated fines as another cost of doing business. 

To be clear, I am no luddite and am not hankering for a return to some mythical technology-free past. The genie is out of the bottle on this stuff anyway! I use these technologies every day and with great appreciation. But I’m convinced that a better future demands two things:

1. As individuals, we HAVE to learn how to engage with these technologies and not lose our personal freedom. 

The challenge here is to learn how to maintain awareness—on-going, never ending, hyper-vigilant awareness—in the face of ever more invasive and psychologically manipulative technologies. Easier said than done! This is why self-development practices like meditation, exercise, and journaling have become so important to modern life. Without these, we literally have no chance against technology’s dark side.

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2. As a society, we HAVE to ensure that this technology cannot be used against us. 

The issue here is that this is a battle with many fronts. On one side, there’s the ever-present danger of out-of-control government. You’d have to be hiding under quite some rock not to see the threat here. In places like China, totalitarian technological control is on full display already. But even here in America, we’ve been messing around close to the thin red line. Anyone remember the Patriot Act? Given what we know about history, we have to assume that the threat from government is as real as they come! 

On the other side, there’s the risk from the corporations themselves. Look, these companies already figured out how to design technology that taps into the (mostly self-destructive) tendencies of our unconscious mind and, in doing so, created some of the most profitable businesses in human history. Do we think they are going to just stop now in the name of the greater good? No way! They are absolutely going to double down and as the tech gets better and better, the threat will become scarier and scarier.

To make things even more complicated, this is a fight that could evolve in multiple directions all at once. It might not be as simple as the Nation versus Nation battles of the 20^th Century. We could see citizens fighting their own governments, fighting each other and maybe even fighting against the corporations themselves. We could even see the rise of corporations strong enough to attempt to challenge Nations. 

What should we do about this? What can we do?

No matter what, we all need to win the awareness battle at home and in our personal lives. This is the only way to remain truly human and avoid evolving into whatever it is that TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram wants us to be…. Keep this in mind the next time you pick up your phone or open up your laptop! 

When it comes to the bigger societal question, we need to start fighting back. What’s at stake here is nothing less than freedom itself. 

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For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Economic success is imperative for modern life. This doesn’t mean that you have to be rich or that you should idealize and/or over-prioritize money. But you do have to achieve some baseline level of success and fluency when it comes to money. Period.

For all the threats we seen in the world, for all the things we like to complain and worry about—political polarization, climate change, the threat to democracy, the rise of autocracy, wars…—very few people are talking about the rather urgent economic problem staring us all in the face. The fundamental promise at the core of ALL modern civilization is that we are on a path of inevitable and inexorable material progress. Yeah, there might be setbacks now and then but the trend is most definitely up and each rising generation can take it to the bank that they will live at least slightly better than their parents did. What’s happening today is that we’re seeing a rapid erosion in faith for this idea. All around the world, the baseline level of economic success necessary for a good modern life is getting harder and harder for people to achieve. 

I cannot emphasize enough how serious of a problem this is. For the last several hundred years, we have constructed a global order based almost exclusively on the primacy of money and economic growth. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a democracy or not, without a credible belief in the possibility for economic success, there’s nothing to hold things together. As belief in the idea of material progress goes, so goes modern civilization. 

Ever since we emerged on the scene as a superpower of unprecedented cultural reach, the American Dream has become a Global Dream. What’s so unique about American mythology is that we are the first people who dared to believe that a society of mass prosperity was possible. The Dream wasn’t that we’d all be rich but rather simply that we’d have enough to live a materially dignified life, that we’d be free from the worst of the evils of extreme poverty and that each generation would have it better than the one before. Today, literally everyone in the world is chasing the same damn thing and our corroded global political and economic system just cannot take the pressure. The game is basically up or about to be.

Here in American the Dream is fully under attack. By one estimate it costs as much as $5M to achieve the standard vision:

For those keeping score, this a mere 60x the median annual household income. I don’t know about you all but 60 years sure seems like a long, long time to work!

Why has it gotten so hard to get ahead here in America? 

It’s much more of a practical matter than you might think. You see, the American Dream is under attack not because of technology, corruption, foreign influence, or global competition but rather simply because we have allowed key industries like housing, education, and health care to languish under a self-imposed sickness, one that involves everything from corruption to ineptitude and inefficiency to the worst kind of political interference in markets. We’ve broken these industries ourselves. 

What a profound collective failure. For me, the whole situation is exasperating because these are problems that are simply not beyond us. Do we really not know how to build more housing in this country or how to develop efficient business and governmental processes or how to improve our education system? Give me a break! We are a people who won a World War, sent people to the moon, produced untold inventions, and became the most powerful Nation in recorded human history. Our companies basically control the world economy and operate on a scale and complexity that is staggering in scope and power. No, these problems are not beyond our capabilities. We can fix this and we must.

By failing to address our collective loss of faith in a viable American Dream, we are pushing people down extreme roads that lead to nowhere. I see people increasingly making two big mistakes when it comes to money: they are either profoundly overemphasizing or fundamentally discounting its importance of money in leading a good life. There are those who see the accumulation of ever more money as literally the path to salvation and there are those who basically believe the exact opposite. Actually, they are both very wrong!

The truth about money is that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for leading a good life. Even a casual study of history and the human experience reveals that there’s just not that tight of correlation between money and things like happiness, meaning, or fulfillment. For every example you find on one extreme, you’ll find countless others in the opposite vein. So, money can be confusing and morally ambiguous. 

That being said, money, or at least what it represents, is as close to a motivational imperative that we can find in life. Above all else, we crave security and connection and money promises both. And, if dealt with in the right way, it’s a credible promise.

What people need to realize is that money may not be able to buy you happiness but it certainly can help!

This is true at an individual level and for society at large. Economics matters and matters a lot! Whatever your motivation—whether it’s working to better your own situation, or trying to support your family, or pursuing policy change for a better/fairer world—the economic imperative cannot be ignored. 

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

The single, largest force standing in the way of the American Dream is NIMBYism. NIMBY, by the way, is shorthand for “Not In My Backyard” and stands for anti-development political sentiment. You will find NIMBYs anywhere and everywhere in America—red, blue, city, town…it doesn’t matter, NIMBYs stand at the ready to block much-needed growth. Their favorite targets are dense multifamily projects—i.e. precisely what’s needed in most places around the country—but they will fight to block anything. 

The purported fears of the NIMBY class are many—dreaded traffic implications, environmental concerns, preserving the unique character of neighborhoods…—but it’s in the truth of their motivations that we see the rot in the American body politic. More on this later. 

Look, there’s plenty of blame to go around for our massive housing affordability problem here in America. But as much as we’d like to blame things like over-regulation, corrupt local politics, and high interest rates, we are deluding ourselves if we think NIMBYism isn’t the real problem! 

I’ve been thinking about all this because the City of West Hollywood is considering a major zoning reform that would essentially upzone all R1 neighborhoods in the city. R1 neighborhoods typically only allow for the development of single-family homes and often come with design and heigh restrictions. The proposed zone change is aimed at making it easier for developers to build denser (i.e. more affordable) housing.

I happen to live in of these R1 neighborhoods and, let me tell you, it’s a phenomenal place. It feels like a small suburban subdivision just got dropped right in the middle of some of the coolest, most walkable dense urban streets in the entire Los Angeles region. There absolutely is something very unique about the neighborhood and I’d love for it to keep its charm. I will not, though, be opposing the upzone!

Many of my neighbors are up in arms about the proposed changes and our local neighborhood association has been busy organizing a campaign of resistance. Here’s a little flavor of the dialogue on the thread.

Mind you, this is a neighborhood full of liberals, in one of the most liberal enclaves in the whole country. This is a place where you’ll never see a Trump sign, that’s for sure. 

Anyway, what’s happening here is a perfect example of why NIMBYism is such a pernicious political force. It seems to operate at an unconscious level. Why is it that everyone is pro-development up until the precise moment they become a homeowner or a project is proposed in their neighborhood? The response is uncanny. I cannot tell you the number of diehard pro-affordable housing liberals I know that have become virulent NIMBY advocates for their own neighborhoods. These people must not be able to see the obvious cognitive dissonance of their positions.

What gives?

NIMBYism is partially a function of raw self-interestedness—“I got mine so who cares about everyone else”—partially a somewhat rational economic concern—“If we just keep building more housing, what will happen to the value of the house I just bought?”—and partially the worst kind of political calculus—”Yeah, I care about others but not if it impacts or inconveniences me in any way. 

It is a force that manifests like a comprehensive worldview so strong that it will usurp even deeply held political ideology. Here in Los Angeles, you will find vehement NIMBY sentiment even among the most vocal champions of the largely pro-development liberal agenda. The only thing that separates NIMBY liberals from other liberals is that they happen to own a home. Much of the regulatory overreach blocking housing production is actually a function of a sick Frankenstein coalition that brings together leftist anti-capitalist politicians intent on driving profits to $0 for developers and free market homeowners all too willing to go along with the agenda to protect the precious character of their neighborhoods.

Historically, NIMBYs have been uber-successful for two reasons:

The first is a function of basic human psychology.  Local politicians are no different than you and I and NIMBYs figured out a long time ago that they tend to respond to the concerns of the loudest (most annoying) voices in the room.  The basic tried and true strategy, which you can see clearly in the comments above, is to overwhelm local politicians with complaints and concerns and make them feel like “No” is the majority position even when it is not.

The second is a structural and much more serious problem with our democracy.  Of course, it comes down to money.  This is classic real politics at work.  Wealthy homeowners just so happen to be the main funders of local political campaigns and time and time again, the majority (renters and aspiring homeowners) get overwhelmed by the financial might of the minority (anti-development homeowners).  Coincidence?  I think not.

NIMBYism is nasty because it gives cover to homeowner citizens to hide their true intentions and beliefs. The favorite phrase of the NIMBYs—“we want to preserve the unique character of our neighborhood”—is at best a veiled classist attack (“we don’t want poor people in our neighborhood”) and at worst the same straight up racism that got the whole movement started back in the desegregation era with red-lining and other pernicious practices. 

Unless and until we deal with the NIMBYs and the power structures supporting them, we will make no meaningful progress in solving our housing affordability problem.

Whatever you do, don’t be a NIMBY! Even better, become a YIMBY instead. Remember, there’s nothing real to the fear of growth and development and it’s downright unAmerican to block opportunities for others to thrive. 

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

While I am no Trump supporter, I am also not someone who hates on anything and everything he does just because it’s him. For example, I was skeptical at first about the tariff plan but I think it’s actually producing some interesting and positive results for the American people. The deals Trump has gotten so far represent decent progress for Americans in the reordering of the global trade landscape. That being said, what he’s doing with the Fed is both dumb and dangerous!

We have to remember where we are in history. We live in the era of fiat currencies backed by nothing! The US Dollar is still the undisputed champ but it’s being held up by nothing more than an idea—the idea that the US government and, by extension, the American people, can be trusted. 

In the US and around much of the world, the “independent” central bank model is the only thing standing in the way of complete political control of monetary policy. For all the legitimate critiques of central banking—i.e. it’s not near as independent as we make it seem—and despite all our heartfelt political disagreements, I think we can all agree on this: turning over the execution of monetary policy to volatile, partisan politicians, many of whom are completely financially illiterate, is a terrible idea! 

Trump is playing a dangerous game with the Fed right now. It’s one thing to call Jay Powell a “loser” and to question whether he’s making another policy mistake—I completely agree that he has already made at least one in not raising rates fast enough in the pandemic era!—but it’s another to make moves that undermine the already tenuous sense of independence at the Fed. His attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook for “cause” is a blatant political move. Trump is testing the waters here to see if he can force his way into getting majority control of the Fed.

Lisa Cook is alleged to have committed mortgage fraud by representing to different lenders that different homes were her primary residence at the same time. I hate to say it but this is basically common practice. The banks offer slightly better rates for owner-occupied homes and are more than willing to look the other way or take an expansive interpretation of what “owner-occupied” may mean. I’ve been on plenty of call myself with the biggest banks in the world and seen firsthand how this works. Trump only knows about this, by the way, because he’s almost certainly done it himself!

Anyway, why is this such a big problem?

Well, we already have a currency credibility problem. The purchasing power of the US Dollar is being vaporized by persistent, structural inflation:

This inflation is a direct function of our profligate fiscal indiscretion, and now, with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, growing deficits are a certainty:

Foreign governments, which in the halcyon days of the Pax Americana would bail us out by continuously buying our debt, are starting to behave differently:

China is already running for the hills:

To make a long story, short: we cannot assume things will just remain as they have been. The era of America’s exorbitant privilege may be coming to an end.

I cannot underestimate how much of a big deal this is. America is rapidly moving in the direction of a regime of fiscal dominance—a situation where our large debts and deficits will force monetary policy to subordinate to the financing needs of the government. In other words, we might want to raise rates to quell inflation but doing so would be so damaging to the fiscal deficit that we simply cannot do so. 

Soon, we may be forced to choose solvency over stopping inflation. Yikes! 

Given the stakes here, we absolutely do not want the Fed to become an overly politicized organization. We want an intelligently, rationally run central bank that is as independent as possible and strong enough to balance against the obviously short-term impulses of politicians. We need to ensure that there is at least someone looking out for the genuine interests of the American people. Remember, inflation is the secret killer of all great Nations. 

The problem with going further down the road of politicization is that we are flirting with the edge of faith. We have to remember that, ultimately, our whole system is an act of collective trust.  When there’s nothing backing the US dollar except our faith in the Government, each little degradation brings us closer to the moment of crisis.

What, then, can we or should we do?

We have to take proactive steps to protect ourselves from the ravages of inflation. Period.

Given our political disfunction, fiscal dominance is all but a certainty at this point. If I’m right, this means that inflation will become a real and persistent problem. I have always believed in real estate as a great path to building wealth, but today, more so than ever. I’m calling on all Americans to prioritize owning a home at a bare minimum and, ideally, to own more real estate if possible. There are other inflation hedges out there, like gold, some equities, and maybe Bitcoin, but the perennial hedge is real estate. There’s no time to waste on this either. 

We are planning to do our part to help by offering access to our investments here in Profit+. Stay tuned for details! 

The first step in good citizenship is to know what you are talking about! Most people think this just means reading/watching the news. But citizenship demands much more than that. We live in a representative democracy and, thus, have to actually know a little something about our representatives. They are the ones making the laws and shaping policy after all!

It can be daunting I know—in a jurisdiction like mine, there are over 20 open elected positions—but it’s easier than you think. Start by typing in your address here and seeing who your representatives are. BallotReady has done a great job compiling and organizing information and you can even click out to social media and websites to learn more. You can quickly learn a lot simply by paying attention to what your representatives are saying online.

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Welcome Back Everyone!

I had the good fortune recently to appear as a guest on Simon Bowen’s The Wisdom Of… Podcast. If you don’t follow Simon, you should! Not only is he one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a while but also his thought leadership on how business can be a force for good is compelling. Simon regularly advises leaders, C-suite executives and businesses around the world and has developed a rather unique practice involving visual models.  Just to see how good Simon is at creating compelling visual models on the fly, his podcast is worth checking out!

I have appeared on a lot of podcasts lately and this one really stands out. Simon clearly did a bunch of research—much rarer than you’d imagine! I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve showed up to an interview where the host knows absolutely nothing about me and my background—and because of his skill in questioning and intellectual horsepower our discussion reached unusual levels of depth and seriousness.

If you want to learn more about how I came to believe so strongly in all the messages of Profit+, this is a good place to start! You’ll also get to see Simon create a very cool visual model that encapsulates many of my ideas on citizenship. He and I are planning to co-author an article on this later, so stay tuned for that!

NEW EPISODE ALERT: Most entrepreneurs chase the American Dream. Nick Halaris discovered it wasn’t at all what he expected.

While building his $300 million real estate empire, this Stanford Law graduate had everything the culture promised would make him happy. The money, the deals, the success metrics everyone worships.

Amid the inevitable lawsuits, business setbacks and financial stress, the pressure on family becomes crushing.

"I was fully infected with the ethos of the American mythology and the American dream ... I wanted to get rich, and I wanted to get rich as fast as possible."

But in those moments of crisis, Nick found something unexpected … a completely different definition of success.

"We are trained by our society to be selfish, but every philosophy, every religious text, every mystic comes to the opposite conclusion - that a good human life is focused on the welfare of others."

The result? A new model of citizenship and business leadership that transforms how we think about profit, ownership, and community responsibility.

My latest guest on The Wisdom Of ... Show, Nick Halaris from Metros Capital, proves that the path to meaningful success requires unlearning everything American culture teaches about winning.

Key takeaways …
 → Why "success without compromise" isn't just possible - it's essential
 → How to transform your business into a force for good without sacrificing profits
 → The citizenship model that turns rights into responsibilities

Watch me create a live visual framework that maps Nick's entire philosophy of servant leadership - a model you can immediately implement in your leadership approach.

This is a call, again, to all my pro-housing advocate friends here in Los Angeles! We have another opportunity to make a real difference in the development landscape. The Los Angeles City Council is set to consider an ordinance that would eliminate parking minimums. This could be huge as parking spaces have become rather expensive—averaging $60K-$90K per space and in some cases even more. 

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that we just spent $2M on an 11-space underground parking lot for a luxury Metros Capital project. This is an expense that could’ve be almost completely avoided with just a few small changes to the regulatory landscape—i.e. either by getting rid of the nonsensical height restriction in the neighborhood or eliminating the strict parking requirements. The end result would’ve been housing units on the market at lower prices but alas…

Anyway, this is a great time to use all your political connections, relationships, and leverage.  Don’t hold back. Call, text, and/or email everyone you know on Council. Let’s get this one passed!

Impact Story of the Week 

I am happy to report that our pro-development advocacy work here at Profit+ (in conjunction with our friends at Yimby Action and Abundant Housing LA) is working. The Los Angeles City Council just voted to move forward with the elimination of the double stair requirement! 

While this may seem small and is a decade too late, it’s encouraging that our elected representatives are seeing the light and proof that civic advocacy can and does work! Since the housing industry has been suffering death by a thousand cuts, we’re going to need a lot of little stitches and bandaids to fix things. Thanks to anyone and everyone who stepped up to help.

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Welcome back everyone!

This week will be an abbreviated edition as we are enjoying the last of summer with a week at the beach. If you haven’t spent time on the California coast at this time of year, this is your call to do so! The water is, at last, warm, the sunsets are magnificent, and there’s a special feeling in the air of the beach towns up and down the coast—part nostalgia, part revelry, part optimism. It makes you feel like you are part of something special. 

I know I have been asking a lot of you in these weekly pages—to do the hard work necessary to become your best, to pursue success and wealth the right way, to fully accept the responsibilities of freedom and citizenship—and I just want to acknowledge that I am aware this is hard stuff. Most of the time, I’m struggling myself to stay the course. But I really believe it’s worth it, no matter how hard it seems, no matter how crazy the outside world looks. Given the way our world is evolving, it’s more important than ever to maintain our moral composure, ensure that we can operate from a position of financial strength, and remain prepared to serve as the last line of defense.  

Ever since I wrote my article about how it felt like the American experiment was under attack, I’ve been searching for some ways to fight back. The Trump administration’s little trial balloon on skirting due process is the most dangerous thing that’s happened in modern American history and we cannot just let this fade from public consciousness. We have to take a stand for freedom and make sure this is the last and not the first attempt to undermine our American ideals. 

If you are interested in helping on the legal front, consider supporting the work of  Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). You can also help ease the financial burden on families who have been left in the lurch. Two great options are the California Community Foundation’s Los Angeles Neighbors Support Fund and LA Civic Leader Rick Caruso’s collaboration with the Archdiocese. 

Whatever you do, don’t do nothing!

Impact Story of the Week 

I had the good fortune to spend a lot of time outdoors this summer and was reminded, once again, why Nature is so good for the soul. These days, when it’s easy to get caught up in the humdrum of modern technological life, we forget that it’s in Nature where we truly belong. So, whenever you find yourself feeling low or in need of a reset or pick me up, just head outside and let Nature do Her thing.

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

When I first started on my mission to build an impact business ecosystem, I was really excited about the idea of building some very unique affordable housing projects here in Los Angeles. I had been approached by a very good friend of mine—one of the savviest real estate investors in the region—with an opportunity to partner on two large sites in the San Fernando Valley consisting over 500 units of fully deed restricted affordable housing. It was the perfect opportunity or so I thought…

My friend, by the way, is one of those real estate entrepreneurial success stories you only find in a place like Los Angeles. From humble beginnings he’s put together an incredible track record involving over 150 properties, making a small fortune along the way. A very private and humble person, if you ran into him on the street, you’d never know he’s one of the most innovative developers in the region.

Anyway, for the last several months, we’ve been trying to raise equity for these two sites and the experience has been as eye-opening as it has been frustrating. There’s something really broken in the market, especially when it comes to investing for impact. 

To be fair, it’s not like this is a particularly great time to be raising money for real estate deals. In fact, it’s a terrible time! The industry has been in the dumps for 3-years now. Transaction volume is way down. Rents have stalled out. Starts and permits have plummeted. You can hardly even sell a basic single-family house in most markets across the country these days. We’re clearly in the midst of a classic cyclical downturn and it feels like it’s about to get worse.

That being said, it really shouldn’t be this hard to raise equity for deals like ours. Unlike almost every other affordable housing deal in the country, these two need neither tax credits nor Section 8 vouchers to pencil. In other words, even though they are providing classic affordable housing, they can be built without any public subsidy. We thought the market would be ecstatic about this but we were very wrong!

The problem with impact investing is that no one is really investing for impact.

What do I mean by this?

Look, it’s true that there are a whole bunch of funds, individuals, and organizations pursuing impact—so much so, there’s even a professional organization called the Global Impact Investing Network and supposedly over $1.5T allocated to the space. While these groups are deserving of our praise for their noble intentions, most are failing at the exact place that could make a difference.

As usual, it all comes down to money. The impact investing world has gotten very good at pursuing qualitative aims—e.g. providing capital to people who don’t usually have access to it—but it has struggled to make meaningful inroads in disrupting the mentality around financial return expectations. Qualitative measures are important and should not be ignored or abandoned, however, what the impact world needs most is this:  investors who are willing to accept lower returns in exchange for impact.

Imagine a spectrum of investment return expectations:

When you have philanthropy on the one side basically willing to accept 0% and global Wall Street on the other side looking for 20%+, true impact investing should be somewhere solidly in the middle—i.e. 5%-15% depending on the type of impact we’re talking about. But what we’ve found in our discussions is that while impact investors are willing to sacrifice returns for impact, it’s just by the smallest of margins. Instead of 20%+, they want high teens. That’s not nothing but it’s not really enough. 

There are a lot of fair reasons for this mentality: underfunded pensions who desperately need to keep up with their actuarial assumptions, investors struggling with inflation, pressure from opportunity costs, investment managers who need/want to get paid…. Given conditions in the global economy, we should be happy that an impact investing world even exists! And perhaps, we just haven’t talked to enough groups yet. But if impact investing is going to be a thing, this dynamic has to change. 

It's too bad that our government is so dysfunctional these days as this is a perfect place where it could make a real difference. When you consider all the different types of financial players in the market, it’s the government that is best suited to play the impact role. Today it can borrow money in the 30-year Treasury Bond market at 4.8%. Why not turn around and invest that at 7% or 8% in impact projects? That would be a big win for the impact investing world—a capital partner wanting 8% is a lot better than one asking for high teens!. And this would be a significant win for the government. Not only would it enable us to pursue important social aims like equity and housing affordability, it would also be much better than all our other government aid programs which function like traditional philanthropy and earn 0%! I like this concept so much, I’m adding the to create an impact sovereign wealth fund to my list of the top ideas to improve America.  

I realize, by the way, that it’s possible that we simply haven’t talked to enough impact investors yet. There might be plenty out there willing to accept lower financial returns in exchange for some other societal benefit. If you know anyone like this, please send them our way!

I cannot believe I’m writing this but the City Council here in Los Angeles is actually considering doing something pro-housing. The planning and land use commission met this Tuesday to discuss single stair reform and the matter could come before council for a vote. My loyal followers may remember that when Abundant Housing’s Scott Epstein appeared on the podcast this was one of his top ideas for promoting housing abundance. 

Why is this so important? To make a long story, short: by wasting much needed square footage on non-livable space and limiting architectural choices, the double stair requirement makes infill urban development even more expensive than it already is, thus limiting much-needed housing production. 

Impact Story of the Week 

In sticking with our theme this week, I am proud to share that I have become a member of the Yimby Action Southern California Regional Board. Yimby Action is one of the most effective civic organizations in the country right now and the secret organizing force behind a whole slew of much-needed pro-housing policy reforms across the State. If you have any interest in joining or supporting the movement, please hit reply here and let me know. 

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

Nick Halaris and Coach Mahr:

As we’ve fallen further and further under the hypnotic spells of modern technology, we’ve forgotten something fundamental: Politics isn’t just some game we play; it’s one of the most serious things we are asked to do in this life.  And like it or not, to engage in politics in the right way we need a collective moral compass.

Strong citizenship requires strong morality. Period.  What is society without a moral foundation?  Nothing more than a loose collection of individuals, or perhaps a gang.   Morality, by providing the sense of right and wrong to guide individuals to make good choices and contribute to a cohesive and just society, fosters the very necessary cooperation, understanding, and shared commitment to ethical behavior that a properly functioning body politic demands.

The effectiveness of a democracy relies on a strong citizenship and its adherence to shared moral values and principles, often referred to as "consensual morality." The United States can function effectively only if it operates with a consensual morality of the highest degree.  As Benjamin Franklin noted, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” If we decide that all truth is personal and all morality is subjective, our collective future becomes endangered.

Political scientist James Q. Wilson noted a society has two restraints on its behavior—morality and law. Citizens either conform because of their conscience or fear of social rebuke, or by laws enforced by the police and the courts. For a democracy to do more than exist, but thrive, it's not enough to simply have a set of laws and institutions. It needs to be rooted in a shared understanding of sacred moral values and principles which guide interactions with each other and with the government.

A decline in communal moral conscience is typically matched by a rise in legal constraints, or worse “political solutions.” To get a sense of where the US stand on this scale, look no further than the Federal Code, which is approaching almost 200,000 pages!  We have become a Nation of laws and rules instead of one of morals.

Retired General Dempsey teaches that the three main principles of decision-making are constantly gaining knowledge, learning from our experiences, and using our character as a moral compass. He adds, morally based character is the last line of defense in making a good decision. Hard decisions in life will consider all our knowledge and experiences, but often we are going to have to decide based on our heart, our gut - which is another way of saying the character we’ve developed over time.

The benchmarks for good moral character, found in 60 cultures from all around the world, are: help our family and community, return favors, be brave, defer to superiors, use resources fairly, and respect others’ property. Interestingly enough, in the United States, an applicant for naturalization must show that he or she is a person of good moral character, it is mandatory. However, that doesn’t apply to those born in the United States, nor for continuing to be a citizen.

Even the most casual study of history confirms the sacred link between morality and religion.  Even atheist philosophers like Will Durant couldn’t ignore this connection.  Durant essentially believed that people’s lives would fall apart morally if they did not believe in God and famously proclaimed that even he—a non-believer—survived morally only because he retained the Christian moral code he received during his youth.

Coach Mahr  

As a strong citizenship requires strong morality, strong morality requires a personally developed strong faith that is based off love of neighbor and love of God. We can attempt to legislate morals until the end of time, but morality comes from the inside (heart) out, rarely from the outside (rules) in. God is not after behavior modification; He is after heart transformation.

Moral values are the core for all the major religions. Values rooted in acting justly, loving mercifully, and walking humbly. These values have led humankind to oppose slavery, racism, discrimination, human trafficking, eugenics, genocide, misogyny, and many other moral wrongs.

As a Christian, I believe God exists and is embedded in all of us – we were all made in His image – He has the moral truth to live by because He knows what we need. This moral dependency makes a difference in an individual’s life and by extension, their community. It leads to lower rates of almost every social pathology—crime, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, family breakdowns, and more. It influences attitudes and intentions. It instills responsibility, integrity, compassion, and generosity. It enhances our existence in this world and the journey we are walking.

Communal moral conscience is highlighted throughout the Bible, emphasizing the importance of mutual care, support, and accountability among believers. It is most evident in the New Testament with the early church’s structure, communal living, resource-sharing, and calling believers to live in a way that honors God and serves others.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. agreed: “I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.”

It is a strong faith that creates a moral foundation sturdy enough for democratic citizenship and action on behalf of community.   We are to care for our neighbor and nature, both God’s creation.

This one is for all my local LA readers.  Unite Here Local 11 is at it again.  This time they are putting together a ballot initiative that would require voter approval for certain Olympic venue site selections.  Look, I’m all for democracy, but this is crazy and a clear attempt at a power grab.  LA’s 2028 Olympic Game are barely going to be pulled off as-is given the bureaucratic and logistical nightmares of this city.  Adding this kind of complexity and uncertainty will only make things worse.  While it’s critically important for our city to make a success of these games, and to do so in a fair and equitable way, I’m calling on Angeleno’s to resist this move.  There is a better way!     

Impact Story of the Week 

Acumen, one of the most important impact organizations in the world and the subject of a previous Nick Halaris Show episode, is getting some well-deserved press.  Acumen founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz was in the news lately arguing about the profound need for more moral imagination from our private sector leaders when it comes to investing for impact and solving our most intractable societal problems.  Jacqueline and her colleagues have proven over two decades of real impact work—investing over $300M in 225 companies—how small mindset changes when it comes to money and investing can unlock scalable self-sustaining solutions for progress.  This is a story we will continue to follow.

For Palisades fire victims looking for a trustworthy, cost-effective homebuilder and any Los Angeles homeowners who need help with renovations or ADUs – Westward Homes

For Los Angeles real estate owners looking for sophisticated, professional property and asset management services — DNY Living

For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

 

Here’s the cool thing about building an Impact Ecosystem: just about any kind of business can be about “impact.” 

How so?

Well, it’s really just a matter of intention and values. A business is already serving the community, even if it doesn’t know it! Through the products it sells, the people it employs, the taxes it pays…it literally cannot help but leave a mark on the community. Add some purpose and, voila, you have an impact business.

We are a few weeks away from officially launching our new homebuilding and renovation business, Westward Homes. This is a service we started thinking seriously about last year when we noticed that all our friends kept getting ripped off by shady contractors. After the fires, the need became critical.

The problem with construction and renovation in a wild West town like Los Angeles is that it’s so fragmented and opaque there’s almost no price discovery. In other words, no one knows what anything should cost, even savvy consumers. What ends up happening as a result is that people get taken advantage of, often seriously so.

This is not to say that contractors are all making a killing off unsuspecting customers. It’s still very hard to make a living for most. However, a lot of people are getting ripped off, left with a serious quality problem, or both! Westward Homes is our answer to this market breakdown.

One of the big problems with a competitive and heavily regulated market like Los Angeles real estate is that the people who do what we do—i.e. invest in and develop properties—almost always just work for themselves. Why? It’s so darn difficult to make profits that we need the benefits of ownership to justify the effort. With Westward Homes, we are going to provide a level of expertise and sophistication in development and contracting literally not formerly available for hire! Not only are our clients going to get access to our full suite of skills, contacts, and tricks, they are going to get the best of us. Our commitment is to treat every Westward project or home as one of your own.

This commitment on its own is enough to make Westward Homes an impact business but we are taking things a step further through a set of principles—a true North—that we are not going to compromise with under any circumstances.

1. No one is getting ripped off or taken advantage of, ever.

2. We will not sacrifice on quality.

3. Every neighborhood we touch will end up better off.

I am experimenting with a new section here. I’m going to pick one political issue in the news, briefly discuss my thoughts on it, and offer a suggested course of action for concerned citizens who feel the same way. 

I cannot believe I’m even typing this but first up is this Epstein thing. The American people deserve to know the truth. The longer this absurd, sad story remains in the dark, the more damage it does to our wounded civic fabric. Whatever the hell happened or didn’t happen, whoever was involved or not, let’s get this information out in the world. Anyone guilty of a crime, needs to be held to account. Period. The rest of us, we need the opportunity to move on. 

What can you do about? This is one moment where calling or writing into your representatives in Congress to demand action might actually make a difference, especially for those in districts with Congressional representatives on the fence about taking action.

Impact Story of the Week

I’d like to congratulate my friend and former Nick Halaris Show podcast guest Mack Jenkins for being honored by Teach Democracy with the Bill of Rights Award to honor his years of service in defense of our democracy. People might not fully appreciate the nobility of the path Mack chose. As someone who could’ve easily stayed in the private sector and made millions, Mack’s choice to serve the community instead is an inspiration. Please join me in congratulating and thanking both Mack and Teach Democracy for their on-going contributions to the community! 

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For investors interested in proprietary RE investment opportunities – Metros Capital

For RE developers who need flexible capital / savvy partners – Westward Capital

I’ve got one more story for you all from our Korea trip and then I promise I’ll move on. 

We had an absolutely surreal moment while staying at the Skybay Hotel at Gyeungpo Beach. Modeled after the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, it’s a two-tower hotel connected by an incredible rooftop infinity pool. The view from the top is stunning in all directions.

After a week of walking around crowded Seoul, the kids were ecstatic about the idea of spending a day swimming in the pool. So was I quite frankly. But when we got up there, our hopes and dreams were quickly smashed. 

We checked in at the desk and grabbed some towels. As we were walking away, the lifeguard ran after us, “I’m so sorry sir but your kids need to wear a life jacket.”

“Oh no thank you. They all know how to swim.”

Smiling awkwardly, “No, no. They have to wear a life jacket. It is required for anyone under 13.”

“Wait, really?”

As she pointed to a sign, “Yes.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Even though it was a ridiculous rule and the kids were disappointed, I begrudgingly grabbed some life jackets and put them on the kids. I figured we could still have some fun up there and enjoy the view.

As we settled in, I realized something even more absurd was happening. The hotel was blaring this awful fake AI pop music. What’s hilarious about this is that these songs are absolutely terrible. They may have the general structure down but the beats are elementary and the lyrics so devoid of true human emotion that they fall completely flat.

“When I think of you

My heart is full

Like the sky is blue

…”

That kind of nonsense. Makes you wonder just how that decision got made. Anyway, the music was so loud that you couldn’t enjoy being up there, lifejackets or not. 

I remember thinking in the moment that this is precisely the problem with safetyism. What starts out as a genuine concern quickly goes off the rails and before you know it you’ve precluded all possibility for joy. Who wants to live like that?

This is a phenomenon with an American origin, like mass consumerism itself or the selfie, and it shows up everywhere in our society—in parks with equipment so safe even the kids find them boring, in all the waivers and releases we are forced to sign before doing anything, in helicopter parenting, and even in the so-called financial wisdom we teach our kids. Now apparently, this obsession with safety is going global! Not good.

Later, it occurred to me that this was yet another manifestation of the global cult of ego infecting our culture. The ego—the “I, me, mine” part of us—is literally designed to protect and defend. It’s like an armored scaffolding hiding your real, authentic self and it’s only concerned with one thing: you and your survival. To be sure, the ego has its purpose but we’ve made a big mistake in allowing it to supplant the sacred. 

We’ve gone so far in our acquiescence to the petty rule of the ego that we have people quite literally trying to live forever again. I suggest they dust off “The Epic of Gilgamesh” or study the history of all those people who went looking for The Fountain of Youth. These quests never end well.

As we’ve turned ever more inward in our orientation, “risk” has become a bad word, something to avoid, something to hide from, something from which we need protection.

This thinking is all wrong!     

Risk is the pathway to your destiny, the lifeforce of self-discovery, and the stuff of the Universe. Uncertainty is constant and ubiquitous. The sooner you accept this feature of reality; the sooner you can get busy living. 

Now, I’m not advocating that you become flippant with risk. That would be foolish and hubristic. There are plenty of situations in life—e.g. certain high-risk physical activities or gambling—where you should listen to the ego’s impulse for safety. But when it comes to the big questions of life—like love, your vocation, your beliefs—you have to learn to see risk as your ally.

The truth that no one wants to tell you is that it’s risk that creates wealth. It is a feature not a bug of our capitalist system and intelligent risk-seeking is the secret driver of all success.

By the way, it’s not some coincidence that all the stuff you learned in school about finance and all the “conventional” wisdom coming out of Wall Street marketing firms is screaming at you about the dangers of risk. 

“Get good grades so that you can go to a good college and get a good job.”

“Diversify your portfolio using low-cost index funds.”

…

These messages are not intended for your best interests but rather for someone else’s. This is one of those “Do as I do, not as I say” areas of life. Take Warren Buffett, for example. He is by no means a bad guy. Not even close. But here’s someone whose name has become associated with a whole bunch of conservative and so-called prudent investment ideas—e.g. avoiding leverage, watching out for high-fee investments, and diversifying. But when you take a deep look at his track record and examine how he actually made his money, he’s someone who has taken enormous risks. We’re talking massively concentrated positioning, leveraging off other people’s money, and even selling high-priced opaque financial products like insurance. Literally, the opposite of what he's known for. 

So, think twice the next time you hear something about why it’s so important to protect yourself from risk. Ask yourself: “What’s behind that message? What is the system trying to convince me not to do and why?” Not always, of course, but often, the opposite is what you should do.

If there’s a secret to success in capitalism, it is learning to embrace risk, to use its incredible power to challenge the quality of your thinking, to test your beliefs and values, and to express fully what’s in your heart. Now, there’s a big difference between intelligent exposure to risk and just plain old recklessness. Don’t just go looking for risk—that’s nothing more than gambling—but don’t hide from it either. There’s more truth than you can know in the statement “The biggest risk is not taking a risk at all.” 

Top 8 Things to Try in South Korea

1. Korean BBQ  Born and Bread

2. Salt Bread  Jayeondo or Soha Salt Pond

3. Black Sesame Cream Latte Café Toenmaru

4. Beef Rib Soup  Gangneung Galbijjim

5. Fancy Pastries Café Onion

6. Clam Fried Rice  Umjine

7. Italian Cheese Room

8. Unique Desserts Mingles 

My son and I were standing in front of one of the most inspiring Buddha statues I’ve ever seen. We were at the Bongseunsa Buddhist Temple, a serene enclave amidst the decidedly modern urban landscape that is Seoul. There was hardly a soul there as the city wasn’t quite awake and something about the environment that morning paved the way for one of my most profound interactions with my son.

Looking up at the giant Buddha, “Dad?”

“Yeah Ben.”

“What’s our culture?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t really understand what makes America America.”

Kids ask the most profound questions sometimes, right?

I started giving him a standard answer—“Well, what makes America special is that we are a combination of all the cultures of the world, a place where everyone is welcome, a place that brings out the best of everyone…”—but then something truer came to me:

“Actually Ben, the culture of America is freedom.”

This is what makes us special, what provides the glue holding together our pluralistic society. 

I continued, “Ben, it is our collective belief in freedom that makes us who we are. Freedom is what we value most, what we represent to the world and to history, and what we are responsible and destined to defend in the world. To be an American is to take part in a sacred bond of freedom, where you can be what you want so long as you are prepared to do your part to protect and preserve liberty for others as well.”

Our conversation got interrupted somehow and before I knew it, we were across the street and engaged fully in the sensory overload that is the COEX mall. But I haven’t stopped thinking about this little chat and its implications for interpreting what’s been going on in my country these past months and years. 

Look, I’ve been writing and podcasting for 5 years now and, thus far, have resisted the temptation to resort to hyperbole, controversy, and outrage just to gain more subscribers and followers. As much as I’d like to spread my message further around the world, I just cannot follow the standard “going viral” playbook as it is totally against my spirit. At the same time though, I’m feeling more and more compelled to speak forth, for freedom is under attack both around the world and, alarmingly, here at home. While I still believe in rationality, civility, and reasonability, this is a time to say what you have to say. If any of what follows offends you, I’m sorry. 

The American democracy is already dying.

While many in the mainstream media are out writing stories about all the ways our democracy is being threatened, no one is standing up to tell the truth. Our democracy has been struggling for a long time already and is showing many signs of decay and impending death. It’s not just that we elected Trump to be our President…twice—although our Founders and presidents like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Eisenhower are absolutely rolling in their graves in utter shock at our lack of moral judgment—it’s that not enough Americans give a damn. 

Americans pay so little heed to their civic responsibilities that our democracy is suffering from a kind of mass apathy crisis. People literally don’t know what they are talking about. I’ll give you an example: I was at my tennis club the other day and overheard an hour-long conversation about whether and when Elon was going to run for President. Apparently, no one in this group of 1%ers realized that Elon can literally NEVER be the President of the United States under the current framework of our Constitution. 

If people don’t know the basics of our Constitution, how can we expect them to form an intelligent perspective on how to reform our immigration system or what kind of policies might actually help solve the housing crisis? We cannot and they don’t. I’ve found that many of the most politically engaged people I know are operating from an insufficient knowledge base. They may care, which is good, but they’ve outsourced the work of civic investigation to media outlets that are fully infected with anti-democratic business practices. 

If you think things are bad at the national level where politics have devolved into a kind of theater, take a look at what’s going on at the state and local level. Here, democracy is an absolute joke. Hardly a single person has any idea who represents them and what they care about. I’m not sure I would even characterize what’s happening in local elections as “democratic.” Yeah, there’s voting, but the way the ballots get put together and the way voters are actually making decisions on election day is highly suspect. As a result, corruption and dysfunction are rampant across the country in state and local government. 

While civic apathy is a problem across the entire socioeconomic spectrum, I’m most disappointed in the American elite. These are people who have the time, resources, and (most of the time) the intellectual horsepower to make a real contribution to the body politic, yet they are, by and large, sitting on the sidelines, engaging only sporadically, taking advantage of the situation, or, worse, feeding off the corruption. For all the CEOs and executives who got fantastically rich off the outsourcing trade over the last 30 years, I haven’t seen a single one step up and offer to help with the transition back to a more balanced economy. No, we’ll just pass along the costs of the transition back to struggling American consumers via tariffs. 

Americans are fast becoming unworthy of the freedom we possess. I think there’s a way to turn this all around but it won’t be easy. We need something akin to a revolution in sentiment—a dramatic rejection of the selfish ethos of modernity and a return to classical virtue and responsibility. How to orchestrate that without war or some extraterrestrial invasion is the question of the age. 

The ICE raids are decidedly unAmerican and must be vehemently resisted.

Whatever you think of border security and immigration policy, you have to hear me out on this.  There is a better way!  America is supposed to be the place that honors the sanctity of the individual no matter what.  This is the place of rights and laws, of doing things the right way.  Not the place of masks, unmarked cars, surprise raids, and arrests.  If we start sacrificing the principles of freedom for convenience or economics or whatever, we will become no better than all the other failed democracies of history.    

Americans who have been out cheering these raids haven’t studied enough 20^th Century history apparently.  To pick on a marginalized community, to bend the rules just this “one time” because these people are “different than us,” is the standard first move of all the would-be tyrants of modern history.

Yeah, we’ve made plenty of mistakes ourselves in the past—most notably slavery, our treatment of the Native peoples, the Japanese internment during WWII, systemic sexism and racism—but we cannot let our past moral mistakes justify a great mistake today.  I’m sympathetic to the idea of establishing more law and order to our immigration policy.  People shouldn’t just assume they can come here and live without following our rules.  But I’m convinced that if we let this go, if we accept this moral compromise, we will all come to regret. Freedom is not something that can be messed with under any circumstances.

I’m calling on all Americans to resist, not with violence or destruction of course, but in the spirit of civil disobedience as modeled by heroes like MLK and Gandhi.  We need to push our leaders to find a better way, a way that respects due process and the great ideals of our Constitutional system, a way that is actually American.

The time really has come for a new political party in America.

A few months ago, I recorded a test solo episode for the podcast all about how this is the first time in over 100 years where there is legitimate room for the emergence of a new political party. This was weeks before Elon had his big falling out with Trump and decided to form the American Party. Yes, I’ve been kicking myself for not releasing it!

What got me thinking this way was the realization that there wasn’t a politician in the country serious about policies that could actually help the American people—e.g. deficit reduction, deregulation in key industries like housing, improving fairness and access in financial products, preventing harmful business practices like gambling and certain forms of advertising, actually investing in our public schools…. I’ve long believed that there’s a silent majority of Americans interested not only in a return to civility but also to practicality and simple effectiveness. Americans basically want a government that cares, yes, but also one that works. I feel like there is this great potential to unify America around a platform of practical progress. 

Whether Elon’s new American Party is the answer remains to be seen. I know that Elon has become a polarizing figure but I have to admit that I was excited for a moment about the potential of the DOGE movement. Given our deficits, debts, and important promises (e.g. Medicare and Social Security), efficiency seems like the only possible path forward to a balanced budget. But it quickly became clear that DOGE was nothing more than theatre and was probably never intended to be anything more than a distraction. 

Elon discovered this the hard way! He also learned a lesson that, again, is pretty obvious if you study history. Getting too close to power-obsessed individuals is often a very bad idea. There’s only room for one at the top! The people who help would-be tyrants literally never survive. Just consider what happened to Hitler’s early cronies. Something like 200 of them, including close confidants like Ernst Rohm, the original architect and leader of the brownshirts (AKA the SS), were ruthlessly murdered in June and early July of 1934, in what history calls The Night of the Long Knives. And this has happened over and over again throughout history.

Anyway, Elon might be too compromised to be the face of a legitimate new party in America but I appreciate the effort. Whatever you think of the Big Beautiful Bill it’s the nail in the coffin for our fiscal situation. We’re looking at massive, massive deficits for years to come. This, by the way, is before the $50T in forecasted deficits from Social Security and Medicare in the coming decades.  Since neither Democrats nor Republicans seems to care about the deficit and the National Debt, we need a new party that does!

I encourage all Americans to take this idea seriously and question whether leaders in the establishment really have the best interests of the American people at heart.

Hi Everyone and welcome back to Profit+

Thanks for your patience during this much-needed break. Refreshed from our amazing trip to Korea and a great 4^th of July weekend, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming here at Profit+. I’ve got a bunch of interesting articles on deck—including some provocative thoughts on why we must resist the decidedly un-American ICE raids, what the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill means for the investing landscape, and why we should take seriously the idea of new political party in America. Up first, though, are a few articles with my reflections on our trip.

Korea is an amazing place, one of the best we’ve been. It’s safe, fun, and family friendly and has amazing architecture all over the place, highly functioning public transit, and lots of interesting and beautiful sites to see.  But it’s the food and coffee scene that makes it stand apart. That and the cosmetics—more on that below. 

Seoul feels like one of those cities you could live in for years and never quite know. It is as vast as it is populous and each little neighborhood offers countless opportunities to experience Korea’s rich culture. 

Though we spent most of our time in Seoul, my favorite moments were the few times we got out into Nature and experienced Korea’s raw beauty. Highlights for me include visiting the Wolijeongsa Buddhist Temple in the Odaeson National Forest and swimming in the frigid Sea of Japan off Gyeungpo Beach.

One of the most surreal experiences was visiting the Bongseunsa Buddhist Temple in the Gangnam district of Seoul and then walking across the street to the unusually massive Starfield COEX Mall. What a contrast! One place dedicated to the ancient wisdom of peace, awareness, and simplicity, the other, an ode to the modern materialist obsession, a never-ending labyrinth of things to buy and consume. To put a bow on the feeling, there was a robot exhibit at COEX that day, signifying clearly the inexorable mechanical and electronic direction of our future. In many ways, this interesting physical and emotional juxtaposition summarizes South Korea—a place that became modern so fast that the old blends with the new in the most interesting ways—at least from the admittedly limited perspective of an American tourist.

The Best

One of things you notice right away is that people in South Korea seem to love to wait in line. Even though there’s a never-ending supply of stores, restaurants, coffee and pastry / bread shops, you’ll see people queuing up in front of certain places all over the city at all times of the day. The phrase that seems to be on everyone’s mind is “Oh, you have to have the best one though!” 

Whatever is going-on here, you get the sense that this is a place where status and social proof matter a lot. So much so, that people will seek out the “best,” regardless of any inconvenience. One of the coffee shops we went to had a 2-hour wait just to get a to-go order! Admittedly, their black sesame coffee drink was off the charts and probably worth it. 

Similalry, as you walk around Seoul—a city that feels like one giant, interconnected shopping experience—you realize, as well, that this is a place where brands are a big deal as well. To be sure, this is a global phenomenon but it’s on extra display in South Korea. The country feels like a hot spot for conspicuous consumption and might be the best place on Earth to sell Giffen Goods (items that have an inverse demand function where demand actually goes up as the prices goes up). 

Similarly, South Korea has gone so far down the cultural rabbit hole of our American obsession with beauty, that is has become a hotspot destination for cosmetic tourism. Literally, every American we met on our trip was planning on getting some kind of face laser, treatment, or cosmetic procedure while in Seoul. It’s a thing, a big thing. One afternoon, we went to see a movie and I kid you not every single ad the theatre showed before the start was for some cosmetic product or procedure. This cannot be good.

Observing all this, I got the feeling that South Korea is a place that has become more American in many ways than America herself. 

Taxicab Confession

One night I stayed out in the city to get a haircut from one of Seoul’s famous salons and ended up in a cab by myself. I’m so glad I did this—not just because the haircut lived up to the hype but also for the absolutely surreal conversation that ensued. Almost as soon as I got in the car, my driver started going off!

Our conversation was unusually slow—as it was done exclusively over Google Translate—but it was epic. Over 20-30 minutes, my driver—a man I’m guessing in his mid-50’s—discussed everything from the rise of Trump in America to whether the NBA playoffs are rigged to the dramatic changes in Korean culture over the last few decades. The highlights though were his counter-trend thoughts on the cultural liberation of women in Korea, which is a relatively recent phenomenon.

As he was lamenting the consequences of better gender equality on Korea’s historically heavily male-dominated society, there were several occasions where I couldn’t help but laugh out loud:

“Korean women have gotten out of control. Look at me. I drive Uber Black and I cannot even do what I want any more! All my money goes directly to my wife’s account and she sees everything.”

I never did learn exactly what he was hoping to hide from his wife as the conversation quickly transitioned in a more serious direction.

“Korean women don’t even want kids anymore. They are too busy buying fancy things, taking care of their dogs, and getting cosmetic procedures.”

“Oh, jeez,” is all I could muster in response to that one.

This went on and on for a long while. Of course, I’m not someone who’s going to accept the idea of blaming all our cultural problems on better gender equality but there’s a little truth in every absurdity. He’s right to be concerned about the country’s declining birthrate—South Korea’s numbers are among the worst in the world—

But there’s obviously more to the story than his one-sided indictment. 

Just why young Koreans are choosing not to have children is one of the most important questions in the world. It’s a question we can ask of many places—Japan, large parts of Western Europe, Russia and, I’m guessing soon the United States. 

Who or what should we blame? Our increasingly unfair and competitive economy? Microplastics in the water? Our global culture of narcissistic selfishness? Income inequality? Our massive global debts? Climate change anxiety?

I don’t think there are any easy answers here. What we are seeing around the world suggests that there’s been a profound loss of faith in the future. When thinking about all the possible selfless missions we could get behind, this one might be the most important. It’s the meta-issue of all issues. What will it take to restore the feeling of hope for a better future? Please hit reply and let me know your thoughts on this.