logo
episode-header-image
May 2023
5m 49s

Live from The Toronto Multi Family Confe...

Victor Menasce
About this episode

On today’s show we’re coming to you live from Multi Family Conference in Toronto. 


There were a number of great speakers at the conference, but I want to focus on one speaker in particular. Our North American culture can be celebrity obsessed and I don’t buy into that. However, I believe that success leaves clues and that success is rarely accidental. 


That speaker was Alex Rodriguez. He is known as a baseball player, first for the Seattle Mariners, then the Texas Rangers and finally the NY Yankees. He played a total of 22 seasons in MLB, an industry in which the average tenure is 5.5 years. 


Most recently he is known as one of the Sharks on the TV Show Shark Tank. Naturally, most people believe that he made his money in baseball. There is no doubt that baseball helped. But baseball did not come close to affording the growth that Alex has experienced. 


I’m here today to talk about none of the celebrity stuff that most people focus on. Alex Rodriguez is a real estate investor. He started like all of us, with a small single family rental, duplexes, triplexes and eventually moved up to small multi-family buildings 10 units, 12 units and so on. He started investing early during his baseball career. In the early days, his baseball salary was used to cover the negative cash flow in his real estate portfolio and there were many times when he was at risk of running out of cash. 


Today, ARC has a portfolio of over 20,000 units. He is not known as a real estate investor. But he is a real estate investor at a very high level. 


A portfolio of that size is operating at an institutional level. Here are some of ARod’s key take-away’s.


  1. He has been investing in real estate for over 22 years. This looks to me like one of those 20 year overnight success stories. 
  2. He continues to grow the ARC companies by having hired A players. He has had the good fortune of developing a friendship with Warren Buffet who counselled him to only hire A players. A players tend to hire other A players. B players tend to hire C players which can poison an organization. He’s better off maintaining a smaller organization of higher quality people than having an organization of mediocre players. 
  3. While ARod had an impressive 696 HR in his 22 year major league career, ARod also holds the title of having the fifth most number of strike outs in the history of major league baseball. It was this fact that trained Alex to approach the plate to a clear head each time he went at bat. It didn’t matter if he had just struck out. It was this quality that meant he could simply never quit. He was unaffected by setbacks and failures along the way. In his experience, most people can’t handle the emotional pain of failure and quit far too early. He has tried to bring some other professional athletes into real estate investing only to see them quit after a short period when they discover that it’s difficult. 
  4. When A rod is hiring people into the organization, he always looks for people who have that emotional stability in the face of adversity. It’s the one thing he looks for that he considers to be a super-power in business. 

  5. ----------

    Host: Victor Menasce

    email: podcast@victorjm.com

Up next
Yesterday
Office Tenants Become Buyers
On today’s show we are talking about a growing trend in the office market. This was reported last week in Urban Land Magazine.It seems that U.S. Office Tenants Are Becoming Buyers. Deep discounts, favorable financing, and long-term benefits are turning users into owners.--------- ... Show More
6m 16s
Jul 10
AMA - How Do I Process This Quote?
Today’s show is another AMA episode (Ask Me Anything).Marc asks, “We received a quote from a general contractor that is way above the expected averages for the actual square footage of the building. I’ve attached a copy of the quote and the drawings for the building. I’d love to ... Show More
5m 17s
Jul 8
Asset Allocation Like The Pension Funds
At Y Street Capital, we are specialists in storage and light industrial. If you are interested in getting exposure to a portfolio of storage projects including retail, industrial and boat & RV, our storage fund might be perfect for you. To learn more visit ystreetcapital.comOn to ... Show More
6m 42s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2022
Business Daily meets: Paul and Mike Rabil
The sport of lacrosse has a long history, being one of the oldest sports in North America. But, for a long time, many players couldn't earn a living in the same way athletes could who were playing in established leagues like Major League Soccer or the National Football League. Af ... Show More
17m 51s
Apr 2024
Power Plays: Finance Insights from Florida Panther’s NHL CFO James Suh
If you like sports, you might say James Suh has one of the coolest jobs in the world. After 11 years with the Toronto Maple Leafs, James became CFO of the NHL’s Florida Panthers. What a first year he had, as the Panthers went from barely making the playoffs to the Stanley Cup fin ... Show More
42m 21s
Mar 2024
Business Daily meets: Leigh Steinberg
Lawyer Leigh Steinberg had no big dream to become a sports agent. He was a huge sports fan, but the job was not something he was aspiring to – more something that he stumbled across. Today, he's built up a career representing more than 300 professional athletes across a range of ... Show More
18m 18s
May 2021
Alex Rodriguez: How mentorship provides an edge
Even all-star athletes are coached. So why not you? Alex Rodriguez, former professional baseball player, leaned into outside advice at the most challenging moments in his career – and in building his enormously successful business, A-Rod Corp. Rodriguez shares what he's learned f ... Show More
35m 12s
Dec 2019
The $300 Million Dollar Man | Bobby Castro
In this episode of the Millionaire Mindcast, we have a great millionaire guest today, Bobby Castro who shares his story of hardships as a young entrepreneur, how he get out of from the struggle, maximize and create $300 million net worth and portfolio of apartments talks about di ... Show More
57m 43s
Feb 2023
317: Scott O'Neil, How to thrive where you're at (Strategy Skills classics)
For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we interviewed one of the most recognized, connected, and dynamic executives in the sports and entertainment industry today, Scott O'Neil. In this episode with Scott, he shared most of the valuable lessons in his lif ... Show More
1h 4m
Sep 2023
James Outman On Why Baseball Is Stoicism
Ryan speaks with James Outman on why he believes that baseball and Stoicism both promote the same practices, why baseball players are uniquely prepared to deal with failure, how practicing the Stoic mindset helps him survive “the yips”, why Lou Gehrig’s story is the perfect examp ... Show More
1h 4m
Aug 2020
How To Stay Prepared | Monday Marketing Takes: Alex Rodriguez
This episode is a new series called “Monday Marketing Takes” featuring a special assortment of essential marketing tips, key insights, as well as interviews with some of the key players from around the world in marketing. Today we feature an interview that I had with Alex Rodrigu ... Show More
14m 12s
Sep 2023
Alex Hormozi | $100M Business: How to Get Strangers to Want to Buy Your Stuff | Podcast series / Marketing
I’d like to re-introduce you to Alex Hormozi, a entrepreneur who is having a moment. If you don’t know Alex, he’s pretty amazing and is an amalgamation of influencers who have gone before as if Gary Vaynerchuk, Russel Brunson, Tony Robbins and Schwarzenegger had a baby. He's ... Show More
1h 38m