Episode Transcript

Henry Kaestner: Good morning, partner.

Luke Roush: Good morning. Good morning. It’s great to be with Jason here.

Henry Kaestner: It is great to have Jason on. You know, we’ve been around the world on this podcast in many, if not most states. We have never been to the very, very fine state of New Hampshire. And when I was growing up, I collected license plates and I loved New Hampshire license plates. Live free or die. There’s just something just massively motivating about that concept and that context. And so we’ve got a really special guest. We’ve Jason Syversen in the house, who is an investor and entrepreneur and stepped into politics because I think he probably has read enough of the backs of people’s cars in his home state of New Hampshire and decided that actually maybe that might mean something. And so maybe he might even talk about that a little bit during our time with him today. But Jason, thank you very much for joining us.

Jason Syversen: […] Guys I am a long time listener, so excited to be on the show and enjoying the content that’s been producing and for being here.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you. Thank you for listening and your encouragement. And then also we’ve gotten to know each other just a little bit more. We’re you know, we’ve got this Faith driven entrepreneurs group which right now in our January cohort on time stamp on this a little bit about when we’re recording, we have 1500 entrepreneurs representing 88 countries going through these this eight week process. We’ve watched some Faith Driven Investor through that group, but we’ve never had a Faith Driven Investor specific group with new content. And you’re helping us debate that out. We’ve got four different cohorts going through that, some really neat stuff and exploring the new Slack channel. We have to be able to interact and you’ve been a big part of that and really advancing the conversation, so thank you for that.

Jason Syversen: I’m thrilled to. I think i have shared not having that local community, and […] to find a virtual, or even global community that you are helping assemble cause without you know those kind of matchmakers like you guys making that happen, that’s super hard to find other folks that have that same passion person. Investing in entrepreneurship so it has been awesome in finding. I feel like a wet sponge soaking up moisture. So it’s been great to get poured into and have a chance to share with others.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. Okay, so as we work with any podcast guest, we’d like to get a flyover of who they are, where they come from, give us a biographical sketch. And then eventually, of course, during this podcast, we’ll talk about all the things we’re talking about, the entrepreneurship, the investing and the politics a little bit. But who are you?

Jason Syversen: Yeah, thanks. I thought about this last night and I’ve been listening to podcasts. I listened at one and a half speed. I think I mentioned that, I have ADHD, so I like the extra stimulation. Funny trivia fact I actually read the entire Lord of the rings trilogy in a single night, which of course is part of the reason I never thought someone like me had ADHD, you picture ADHD as a person who can’t sit still and force my leg like sit in here as I chat, so I tend to move at high speeds. So for those of you that like me like to listen at high speed, I’m to talk fast and gain a lot of content. So you might want to move to one and a quarter speed or even one speed some of the Southern drawl folks that talk nice and slow. 1.5 speed works great but I might not do as well.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it’s funny you say that. I’ve always wanted to listen very quickly and I can’t. I feel like I’ve just haven’t been able to do it well. Luke and I have a great friend and business partner at Bandwidth With David Morgan who listens to books at 3 x , and I remember calling him up after a book. He recommended to me the hard thing about hard things, about the injuries and hardwood story. And I said, yeah, I just can’t listen to this guy. The guy that had read it had this British accent. I said, It just is grating on me after a while. And he said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I was like, you know do you know that British accent? And I listen to it. At three X, you can’t discern any accent.

Jason Syversen: That’s fascinating. Now yeah, I’ve never three is impressive. I’ve done two before, but one and a half is a little more comfortable where I can feel like I’m absorbing it better. But that three is that’s a real speed listening right there.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I’m locked into one and I feel really inadequate. Okay. Who are you? Where you come from?

Jason Syversen: Yeah. So thanks born in New Jersey. You grew up in Maine. My dad, is some KAT engineer that they’re working in the paper mills for […] reasons. Someone tried to abduct a girl down the road from us in our house in Jersy. And so my parents decided they wanted to move somewhere safer. And that works with paper mills. They start shutting down and we ended up being out of work we loss the house that we bought on the auction. When I was young maybe 10 and went through period of a decade of kind of, I guess American poverty. So rental properties and crappy housesyou know with like a holes in the floorboard and wearing your shoes and doors and cutting wood in the middle of the winter time. So we’d have heat. My dad ran ground over a gravel driveway trying to fix our broken down. 1967 Chevelle was cutting Christmas trees or all kinds of crazy stuff, fermenting butter and food stamps. I did not realized that this was like life in Maine and everybody’s like that. Normal, rich people from out of state can afford to come Maine in the BMWs eventually was that wasn’t the case. And we’re just actually in a very poor place. We were actually homeless for a summer, living in someone’s pop up camper, and I remember the shame my parents had in kinda sharing that, but I just thought it was cool we were camping, but I didn’t realize some of the ways that that changed my mindset and motivation to try to live differently until I got married and my wife was kind of yelled at me one day. Why do your socks have holes in them? I was like because I wear them and they’re tube socks. What’s the big deal? It’s like they have multiple holes and she pulls up the socks and there’s like holes around them. I was like, Yeah, cause I just rotate them and keep wearing them like to do with socks. And she kind of soften in her face and she realizes, like, honey, you’re not poor any more like wearing some decent the socks. We are going to throw them out. We are going to buy you new socks. Like, why that’s so wasteful? Like, I didn’t understand. That wasn’t what normal people did with socks. And so that’s some of that mentality. Even my forties, I find myself still sometimes spending 5 hours to try to save $15 on something. I’m like, It wasn’t a good use of my time. I really need to delegate that and just like pull it in. So it’s something I’m still working on today. Yeah, I’ve got a free ride for computer engineering at U Maine then went to New Hampshire because I love that […] mentality and have a quality of life of Maine by people. Slower pace of life, but also a great high tech economy. Close to Boston. I live about an hour north of Boston and my wife and I got married in college. I have been believer since I was five. Never went to that falling away phase In college, many do when I try to center my entire life around my relationship with Christ I have loving, homeschooling parents you know grew up reading scripture and made that the centerpiece of my identity and my wife. We have four children biologically we end up adopting twin boys. My wife and I felt passionately about kind of adoption story and being something in our family because that’s so central to the gospel message about us being adopted into Christ’s Kingdom and family. So that was a long journey and my wife actually wrote a book about it […] CNN was interested in. We also went three years infertility.

Henry Kaestner: Wait What’s a book called.

Jason Syversen: It’s called Mustard Seed Faith Journey Through Infertility, Miscarriages. And Faith she talks about our process of trying to adopt to adopt failed adoptions, people ripping us off lies and crazy stuff. And then also years of infertility, miscarriage and how challenging that was in her faith and just her belief is God good, right. We feel called to do this and age analogy seems like touching a hot stove and keep burning its keep touching on the hot stove that we felt like we’re supposed to at some point feel like I don’t want to touch the stuff anymore. I keep getting slapped or burned. And then we gave up trying and then someone approached us and ended up adopting these amazing twin boys, four identical twins, like the guys […], which is really fun to watch them growing up. So, yes, I went to New Hampshire, I work for the defense company, decided signal processing all that was great, more like warfare school but I really want to be a hacker and started hacking the company network reporting it to the IT guys which of course annoyed them but their management loved it.

Luke Roush: So in the wake of like events of the last year or two with Russia, many of our listeners are probably wondering, you know, what does it mean to be a hacker? Maybe just talk a little bit more about that.

Jason Syversen: Yeah. I mean, I was just I was going to grad school at Boston Polytechnic Institute for Electrical Engineering focused on crypto and security. So I’m getting the academic knowledge. But inside the network, I’m poking around and like, how can I do this? And realizing I could see vulnerabilities in the network and I would try them out or I’d get permission before I actually did anything. I’d try stuff out of my own system, but if I was touching anyone else’s, i want to make sure I wasn’t breaking any rules. So I told the IT guys what i was finding. They’re like, no, you can’t do that. Oh yeah, i could get domain admin. I can on all 4000 computers in this network and they’re like, prove it. Like, cool. I was hoping you’d say that. Like, you give me that in writing just so I do not lose my job or get in trouble here. So his boss emails me and it’s like a couple of weeks and I wrote a little program and I had full control over the entire network and I sent him a message was like, How did you do that? But I told you about it two weeks ago, man. He’s like, Oh, you got to write that down. So I wrote a whole report up about all the things I was finding. Then had a meeting. Yeah, one of the IT guys like you should be fired. Like, I can’t believe you’re doing this. And I’m like, Dude, I’m not making the issue. Like, I just got a flashlight and showing you what’s there like, You don’t have to fix it. You don’t have to do anything. I’m just identifying stuff that exists on the network because your boss told me to like, No, no. And the boss is like, You’re good at this. Like, you should do this for a living, but I don’t really want to do IT. I really want to be an engineers engineer. I love inventing stuff and finding new things that other people have done. And if I’ll be on a IT management side, I really want to be inventing finding new capabilities. So ended up hooking up with the older guy in the building, a group inside the company to do cyber warfare. So built it up to about 20 folks.

In that siege. That siege right.

Jason Syversen: Now, this is inside of a large defense company. Then I got recruited to go to DARPA, which was a total joke, going to out of jail to Pharaoh’s Palace. I’m a 30 year old guy in New Hampshire, and I am going to DARPA and all my peers are in their forties and fifties. They have PhD These are like lieutenant colonels and military. I’m running $100 million portfolio of research programs. And I’m this I was the youngest person they’d ever hired at DARPA at the time, which again, it was a total divine thing. I’m pretty self-confident guy, but I told my wife I’m like, Honey, there is no way I get this job unless God is divinely orchestrating something to put me in this position. So I’m commuting from New Hampshire every week […] To my house and my mother in law asked my wife, do you still feel God called you to Virginia? Now you got the job and he has to commute and she’s like, Yeah mom, I do. It’s not always works is doesn’t always go the way you want but we will prioritize our family. I was gone Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. I was a geo bachelor and ended up going down. And then Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was home and I just cancel everything I was becoming an elder in our church. And I stepped out of that and said, I’m just gonna be a family guy for that time. I did that for two years. I ran the portfolio transitional program, airports, Army, Navy, CIA, NSA and other groups and then […] said, I can’t do two more years. It’s only a temporary job. And then I started my own company, Siege Technology in 2009, 2010, we did a million in revenue and we just kept growing from there in cyber warfare, technology, R&D were mostly government contracts for defense companies and other […] clients and paid us to build technology and find problems. It’s all about the capabilites response and tech venture backed firm, and then we scaled up and wanted to build a couple more and I was like, You know what I skipped to that point. I can’t be a good husband, Dad, run this company and run two more companies. So we ended up selling to somebody called Nehemiah Security. The founder is also a Christian. I think guys at Nehemiah called Farrell. I think. Yes. I think he has some exposure in Sovereigns and that great guy. We prayed together after the acquisition every week and I left in 2019. My wife and I had a double digit exit we basically had committed before the company started that we were going to take all we needed to just what we need to live on. So I enjoyed the conversation that earlier about financial disclosure. So I lived on my 12 grands a month And have six kids and we’re joining the rest of the foundation. So I work with the National Christian Foundation and put […] Into the nonprofit. So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing. So that happened 2019, went into full time investing and I also end up running for Senate because I really felt like God was pushing me to do that. I did not want to do it, but I felt like Jonah […] go to, Niniveh. And I was like, I’ve read that Bible story and I know what happens if you don’t get into Niniveh. So I guess I going to go to Niniveh. I did that and did not win lost by 3%, but I had a chance to share my testimony to a bunch of folks and then this past year decided to start new company.

Henry Kaestner: Gosh there’s just so much there. There’s so much that a part of me wants to go all the way back to a startup and selling government contracts is you hear that the sales cycle with the government is just really really really long maybe just very quickly hit on that.

Jason Syversen: Yeah it is long but you know so much of it like anything is relationship driven so like found is by you know if you have a high end team and a great reputation, which I was very blessed to have coming out of DARPA, we were able to get sub contracts under bigger companies and cut off that process of the long sale cycle. We didn’t win a lot of prime work, but we just were able to come in and help them find some work that they had with our team. And then we got on the process that long cycle and it can be long but sometimes I can sort any other group like tactical customers, like special ops guys. I’ve been privileged to work with groups across the gamut from intelligence and defense and some of those to move pretty quickly. If you have a capability, they can they can make things happen.

Luke Roush: So when you first get going with kind of that company, it was very much kind of a founding moment. Yeah, there’s some great stories around just bootstrapping and what that looked like for you and your family. Maybe to speak a little bit more about those early years.

Jason Syversen: Sure it was actually really cool faith building experience for me because I actually started the company in 2005. So before I went to DARPA, I really was feeling led to kind of start this company. And I prayed about it for months I said God, like, I’m not going to start this company unless it’s for you, because I don’t want to be an ego thing for me and I’m just too good for this company and I’m going to be an entrepreneur. So I prayed for months and I was like, I’m not starting it until I feel like you’re telling me to do this. And it took three or four months and I kept praying. I didn’t ask God if I starts company, which is kind of weird. I was asking would it be successful if I did? So it was like a foregone conclusion and I kept praying and finally I felt like God said, yes, it’s going to be successful. I said, okay, I’m going to do it. So 2005, I started the company Siege Technologies Inc and wrote a proposal, submitted it to […] Because I didn’t want to do anything competitive with my current employer and a year goes by and I didn’t win sales cycle to go on did not win, okay, God, I still trust you. You said it’s going to work. Maybe the next one, right? Wrote another proposal, throw it out off the wall, six months or whatever go by. I don’t win and my buddy who started it with. said, you know what, you really need to go and do this full time. But I was like, I have the money, I have the big enough reputation. I don’t think I […] in my twenties. And I kind of gave up like, you know, like this just isn’t going to work out, I guess. And so it kind of cost me question my faith. Not that I didn’t believe in God, but I was like, maybe I just have no idea how to pray, right? I think that you’ve shared Henry about listening, sometimes being challenged in prayer, and I definitely do. I talk too much when I’m praying and don’t listen enough. I was like, I actually sound like I thought, God, really told me something and it didn’t happen. So I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s clearly I have no idea how prayer works. And then suddenly I get this offer to go to DARPA out of the blue, they call me at my desk. Would you consider come to DARPA? I’m like, Yeah, I would so I go to DARPA I get this job came to DC, so I can’t take a job at one of these other places. I’m back in New Hampshire. Not really an opportunity to do cool cyber warfare technology work in New Hampshire outside of my old job, which I didn’t want to take. And I’m back in and I start this company, Siege Technologies, LLC, and we take off, right? We do a millionaires and scale up. And I realized, like, God had to do some things right he wanted to say, Will you trust me and move out in faith and start this company. Despite the fact that […] New Hampshire And I did and it didn’t work out. And he’s like, Do you still trust me in the middle of that? And I did. And He was like, All right, well, I got to move some things around to make this work. He has me go to DARPA, then he puts me back. I can’t move down to New Hampshire then I start the company and it takes off and I totally could look back. It was like, Oh, I asked if we were going to be successful. I didn’t ask when. I just ask would it? And as long as I stayed faithful and kind of trusted him, he made things happen. So that way we were able to be very fortunate and take off after I had that reputation. So it was amazing. It was scary, right? We bet everything we had and part of it was that difference of doing it part time the first time around, the second time I put all the chips and I saved up some money, I had 30 grand in savings and took out a home equity line of credit for 30 grand to put in company. And I said, All right, God, this is it. And I have to say, my wife was a key part of that. I’ve heard people share and hear one of the other guests who had talked about the wife not being supportive but my wife was all in the whole time. It’s like, I believe in you. It’s like, what’s the worst that happens? We lose our house, we go back to rent and it’s like, I don’t care. Like I have your back. I think this is going to be tremendously successful.

Henry Kaestner: And that’s awesome. That’s a special gift.

Jason Syversen: Having that support for me was like, All right, I don’t have to worry about her because I’m not planning on losing the house like I’m going to do everything I can, which doesn’t happen. But knowing she was willing to go there took a lot of pressure off of me. I just felt completely supported throught that journey.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Okay. So a bunch of other things you mentioned along the way. One is running for state Senate in New Hampshire and sharing your faith along the campaign trail going and I know you well enough and we talked about a little bit before we went on air, but part of that means door to door campaigning. What does that look like?

Jason Syversen: Yeah, during the pandemic. Right. So that was an extra twist.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah.

Jason Syversen: So yeah, 2019 in one day, you know, just getting some started. Why I ran once again, I had zero interest and I’m reading this paper from a group called Founders Pledge, which I’m part of. So Founders pledges this group of entrepreneurs who have pledged to give some portion of their proceeds of their company to charity. It was actually it’s not a Christian group. It’s just a group of folks, Christian or not, that I felt strongly about having a public declaration about something around giving. Right, you have heard about the giving pledge. The billionaires have wasn’t anything really like that beyond that. And founders pledges is cool because it’s a contractual commitment, you actually sign a contract saying you’re going to give whatever amount you’ve determined. And I wanted there to be something in a public declaration and a community that was part of that can connect others. They also have a free donor by fund and they have free researchers. So they will make available to help you make informed philanthropic partnering decisions. So I did that. I was getting to know the head of research, another random topic we could talk for hours about is. I’m pretty passionate about effective altruism and this concept of giving wealth and how do you do that and how do you research and build randomized controlled trials and counterfactuals and how the nonprofits measure impact. And they have a great research team. So I was talking to their guys about how do you do that? I don’t know this. I am new that having any money, right. I came from nothing. I don’t have a network of people. I can just figure out how the rules work. And I’m an engineer, so I want data. I want understand the logic and the system, the rules, how does it work. And so they’re giving you some feedback. And you wrote a paper on government and said, look, if you actually care about impact, you should think about influence and government. And it gives examples of China and Vietnam, India, South Korea and how when they embraced capitalism, open borders, they lifted literally a billion people come out of poverty. And he’s like, if you can influence economics, people that write a paper, it influence, a government leader that can change policy in a nation, you could have hundreds of millions of billions of dollars in impact very quickly and affect millions of people in a way that your orphanage and your microloan program is just not going to have. So I am reading this paper. And I was like, Wow, this is really make sense to me logically, but I don’t understand how it applies to me personally because it feels a little bit like playing pool, like it’s going to be like a four ball combo. Like I’m going to fund the economist is going to do a study, is going to write a paper that maybe a bureaucrat reads and maybe changes law. Maybe four people get help from like, I don’t know. And I want to read the gospel message. A very much point in the sphere. You’re helping someone who needs help. So I go to talk to my wife about it and she’s on the phone with someone saying, Hey, this person do you want to run for Senate. I was like well, that’s crazy. And that’s never going to happen. But that’s funny. So we’re talking and my wife have done some work to start a group fighting human trafficking. So she’s done some work working with the state and governor trying to help legislation to help protect women, and we were joking about maybe I can run and you can serve and you know, you can do that thing because we like to state our self and I don’t. But while we’re talking I look at my phone, I had a voicemail from an unknown number and there’s a guy saying, hey, do you want to run for State Senate for District 16. And I felt like that kind of a booming spotlight moment. I’m like, Okay, wow. So in a period of 3 hours, three random people are now convincing you the logic, the impact you can have in government and pushing me to run for this one specific seat and I’ve never had anyone asked me to run for town […] all the way to governor before. Kind of feels like it. Maybe God is pushing me in this direction. So I said, okay, I’ll look into it and I talk to people that all pushing me to go and I prayed about it, and alright God a little fleece out on the ground like Gideon, I’m only going to do this if all four of my older kids and my wife are all 100% in because it’s going to affect them. And of course, I laid out for them and they also yes dad that you should do it. So yeah I ran for Senate went door to door, had to wear a mask, ran around and was very challenging, lost by 3% to the incumbent, which sadly I learned in New Hampshire. You actually work for a special interest group that paid him a full time salary while he served as a senator. And New Hampshire is unique in the […] World. They only pay $100 to our state senators, even though it’s a full time job half of the year. And so he had an arrangement where they paid him, but then he voted on issues related to the special interest group and the press for bragging about it. That was part of what got me fired up and part of my campaign message. Wow, It doesn’t matter what party you are in, that seems like something we shouldn’t do and part of something I hope to change if I got elected. But I didn’t which I was totally fine with because God you ask me to run, I did. I’m totally fine not winning. And you had a plan. I got to share my story and background with dozens and dozens of people along the way.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. I love that entrepreneurship investor, politician. We get an investor side, but we’re going to try something we haven’t tried before because I’ve got all these notes, all these things I wanted to ask you, maybe because you have this experience and all these different things, we’re going to bring up a bunch of different topics, 32nd responses to each one and we got to go rapid fire kind of like I love watching ESPN’s Pardon the interruption and just go through okay so first one. Effective altruism.

Jason Syversen: Effective Altruism was started by Peter Singer, he is an atheist. And the idea is like if you actually care about doing good and not just feeling good about yourself by giving money to someone, then you should do some research on where you’re giving. And as a Christian, I think that is a parallel to parable talents about giving well.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. Number two, talk to us about capping your lifestyle. You mentioned before 144,006 kids.

Jason Syversen: Yeah we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. My wife and I went to Haiti with our olderst kids and we saw people living on $3 a day. We saw someone getting robbed over a $10 that we bought in wristbands from a local there. And you realize that how much wealth we have, the poor people that we serve sometimes some of the nonprofits we work with are richer than middle income people in Haiti. And we have our comparing ourselves to […] model in the U.S. So we felt strongly that once you get to a point where you can pay your bills, you have a house and go on vacation once or twice a year you don’t need anymore. And anything else, for giving us something for us to use exclusively for charitable purposes. I think it’s all about money, obviously, but that particularly should be allocated to funding high impacts charitable activities that are Christian. But you want.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, correlated to that, what do you feel about leaving kids money?

Jason Syversen: We’re not giving any of our kids money, so we think that they’re growing up in incredible home. They can do a travel basketball, they get to travel internationally. We took them to Australia, New Zealand after I sold the company. They go to a private Christian school or homeschooled. I’m going to introduce them to my network and give them every opportunity I can see my network. I’m going to help them get a great college education, but I’m not giving them checks like they had to buy their own car they bought on iPhones and if they ever hit hard times, I’m always going to be here to support them and back them. But I think that it’s damaging and harmful to kids to give them handouts and have them just live independently.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, next one up evangelism within the investor community. You live in a place like Boston. That can’t be easy.

Jason Syversen: Yeah, it’s challenging and I don’t have it figured out, which again is part of my enthusiasm for embracing what you guys are doing trying to learn best practices and I lots of friends often about being in some in your faith so the porch I’ve taken, which is what I learned on the campaign trail, is, you know, I’m just naturally a fairly transparent guy. Like, you know, I’m the kind of person I’ll tell you what I need. I’ll tell you what’s going on. My kids will see on what issue, and I try to balance that. And social media is the same way. Like, I’m the guy who puts awkward pictures of failure and not just, you know, I don’t hear someone shaking vice president hands or whatever, but also a picture of like, oh, here’s some drop in on my stuff all over the floor looking like an idiot, clinging to poopy diapers or whatever.

Henry Kaestner: What did you say, you’re posting picture of you with poopy diapers on Instagram?

Jason Syversen: I didn’t post the picture, actually I did post a long story about cleaning up like a diaper explosion when I was, you know, solo dad or whatever. So I.

Henry Kaestner: You may or may not get more followers after this.

Jason Syversen: Yeah, that one was kind of gross. But that that’s kind of how I decided to just be open about my faith. It’s like, look, I’m not going to try to push what I believe on other people, but I’m just going to be super transparent, honest about who I am, what I believe. And if someone wants to learn about that or engage or find that attractive, then I’ll take that opportunity. But I don’t want to take up a strategy or try to manipulate someone into taking a perspective or whatever. So I’m just like, Look, this what I believe this is why I do the things I’m doing. The new company is I want to make as much money as possible in that company that I can drive into helping charitable causes. And that’s kind of a purpose for me is take the wiring that I have. I’m not the most touchy feely guy. I’m not always the most empathetic. When I work with these nonprofits and serve the soup kitchen or food pantry, I do what I can, but I’m really good with math, I am good with number, I am good with engineering and technology and risk taking and vision, if I take those skills and drive that. To create capital, I can drive into high impact charities, then that’s a way that I can feel. I love that quote from Chariots of Fire. Where he said when I run, I feel God using me or God purpose through me. And when I’m doing those things, I feel like I’m operating with gifts and the talents that I have and I can use that in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a failure, because I’m not the most warm, compassionate person who can help administer someone on a street. But I have other gifts that do have value that I can use to fund people that do have those frontline talents. And that’s super exciting.

Luke Roush: Hey. Okay, bootstrapping or resourcing, what do you prefer for companies that you start?

Jason Syversen: Yeah, great question. I think it really depends on the type of company. So some businesses lend themselves while bootstrapping and others, especially for second time entrepreneurs, are better for taking outside capital. But I think to cop out the real answer is it really depends on the situation.

Luke Roush: Got it. All right. That is a cop out, but I’m gonna let you get away with it this time. Having worked for intelligence agencies and the defense sector, make a biblical case for some of the work that you’re a part of DARPA.

Jason Syversen: That’s a great question. So I think one of the things that I shared and I got quoted in Bloomberg, I think on this I think particularly cyber weapons and non-kinetic options provide alternatives to kinetic warfare, which actually can produce saving lives both for US, obviously, but also for people overseas. Right. Because you don’t have collateral damage. If you use electronic measures to shut down a power facility remotely, you don’t have to worry about the plant operator or the civilian who’s nearby and killed in the kinetic strike. So for me, I was always excited to provide non-kinetic options and alternatives to dropping bombs and shooting bullets as a way of having projecting national power and kind of hopefully saving US. And that’s.

Luke Roush: Okay. That’s good. That’s good. Waterboarding or sleep deprivation? Favorite torture style. Go

Jason Syversen: Neither of those would be ones I would try. I’ve never done waterboarding. It seems kind of interesting, but sleep deprivation is definitely a measure for me. I sleep almost 9 hours a night, so I probably might go to the board.

Luke Roush: All right, last one. Negative screening. Positive screening. We should invest in things that we really love and think are redemptive, or we should avoid things that are actually putting sin into the world. Which one is your preferred style of investing and deploying time ,Talent, Treasure?

Jason Syversen: That’s great question I started with negative screen, but as I’m growing in my faith and acting, the FDI and other groups and excited about embracing some screening abilities. So I’d love to have kind of a holistic model that look at both sides of the coin.

Henry Kaestner: You started an Angel Network in New Hampshire. What’s one thing that you’ve learned that you hadn’t expected in doing that.

Jason Syversen: I think, how many people are accredited investors and honestly, a passion project of mine. Is that question your answer? Just legalized sports betting online. The governor has even pushed it as a way of getting state revenue and it really upsets me that it’s legal to bet your entire paycheck on sports teams, but it’s illegal for non-accredited investors to invest in private companies. We’re worried about people losing money. And I think it’s a travesty that great people who I know who are excited about growing and getting out of poverty or getting from the middle class to upper class levels, and have the connections of interest and passion and investing are legally prohibited from doing that. But they’re actively encouraged by state representatives and others to go get a paycheck in a gambling casino. I think that’s a travesty.

Henry Kaestner: Artificial intelligence, does it create more jobs or does it take them away?

Jason Syversen: A phenomenal question. I think artificial intelligence is trying to make a dichotomy, too. I think it’s kinda create more jobs, but I don’t know that for sure. But the history of our planet has been new technology. Disruptions have always produced more opportunity than less. And although AI naively, on the surface, it does look like it’s going to be another thing that takes more jobs, and it certainly will. Any time we have efficiencies in society and technology creation, we’ve always seen wealth grow and opportunities created every time. So using that historical narrative, I have to believe that that’s going to happen again even I don’t see how it’s all going to happen.

Luke Roush: Universal Basic Income. As a native of New Hampshire, how do you feel about that topic?

Jason Syversen: So it’s a great question. As a technology person, I appreciate it. That being part of the discussion in politics, I do think that dependency cycles and you know, Henry, you and I are both fans of Hope International and some of the work they’re doing. I’m a fan of programs that help create opportunity for people. I’m not a fan of things that builds just the dependency cycles. And as someone who’s come from poverty to the middle class, who’s and moved from middle class to different financial layer, I’m super passionate about helping people who want to move up the social ladder do so and maybe within government resources to do that like public education. But I don’t think three checks for nothing is a great idea. But I also think that we do need to do something to try to provide those opportunities to help pull people out, which we haven’t done a good job at.

Luke Roush: That’s good. Hey, Jason, one of things we’d like to do at the end of every episode is just close out by hearing what God is teaching you now. So what do you found in God’s word lately that stuck out to you?

Jason Syversen: Yeah. I mean, it’s not something. I’ve read lately, but I’ve been sharing it lately. James, where he says religion, your father in heaven accepts, is pure and faultless. It’s this look after widows and orphans in their distress and keep themselves from being threatened by the world. That’s a verse I’ve literally shared with some non-Christian investors we see the other day. That’s my message of why I’m passionate about philanthropy, and I think it’s a restating of Christ’s commandment to love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor like yourself. And I think that loving your neighbor out by yourself, your neighbors, the person, the marginalized, those who experience persecution and injustice. That’s what I’m excited about in trying to formulate my life around how do I do that? And frankly, loving God is usually done by loving. James also says, I can see you love God. See if you can’t love a person, you can see. A lot of that message is encapsulated in loving those who are marginalized and how we do that. And as entrepreneurs, we do that in our business, our customers and all. That’s great. You also have a philanthropic side as a way to really get to those who need help.

Henry Kaestner: That’s such a great word. And what a great word to end on. May we all keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. May we also just not be held back from an investment return of 160 or 30 fold by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. And you spoke to all that today, and thank you. You blessed us all. Jason, that was awesome. Grateful for you. Our friendship, our partnership in the movement you hold now out the standard out in New Hampshire and beyond and really appreciate your time.

Jason Syversen: It is awesome to be here and enjoyed talking and I look forward talking again.

Episode Transcript

John Coleman: Welcome back to another episode of Faith Driven Investor. I am here today with my partner Luke Roush and we are soon to be joined by two incredible investors and folks who think about faith driven investing. Ben Erskine and Matt Miglarese. But before we do that, Luke, how are you doing today?

Luke Roush: Great day. It’s summer season, which means time with family, time outdoors and time cranking. And we’ve got two guys on the call today that are cranking in the realm that God has laid out for them. So I’m excited for this interview.

John Coleman: Yeah, me too. Me too. And you’re in Bear Lake today? Is that in Utah? Is that right, Luke?

Luke Roush: We are. It’s from the beautiful Bear Lake, 6000 feet elevation. And it is a great place to do remote work from, so I am greatful for my partners that let me to do remote work.

John Coleman: When was the last time you would say you worked, Luke?

Luke Roush: Well, I feel exposed. I feel exposed.

John Coleman: Well, indeed. We are privileged to welcome Matt and Ben today. Matt and Ben. Thanks so much and welcome to the program.

Matt Miglarese: Thanks for having us.

Ben Erskine: Great to be here.

John Coleman: So one thing we wanted to start with today, we’re going to circle back to Callis Capital with which you’re both affiliated. Ben, obviously, you were a founder of Callis Capital and a real estate investor. And Matt, you’ve come alongside Ben working with CallIs in an advisory capacity. But we wanted to start with this idea of the spiritual integration flywheel effect of the flywheel effect more broadly. You two recently wrote a white paper on this idea of the flywheel effect and how that applies to FDI. I was wondering if you could just take a moment to tell us what is this flywheel effect and why does it apply to faith driven investing?

Ben Erskine: Yeah, yeah. I mean, really what it is and there are probably a bunch of investors out there that are familiar with the term from Jim Collins book, Good to Great. And you know, before I forget, I always wanted to say this first time caller, longtime listener. I think that, so really it’s just an application of that idea that Jim Collins kind of gets into in his book, that lasting success is not the result of a silver bullet, but rather the result of consistent input over time. And sometimes that input might even seem insignificant. And so as we have been wading through the ecosystem out there of different operators that are doing great things with real estate business plans across the country and across different asset classes, we’ve noticed time and time again that it’s very much a process and sometimes things that feel insignificant are really the meat and potatoes that get you there on the spiritual integration side. And we really bucketed those things into three different categories that kind of fit into this flywheel.

John Coleman: It’s great. And Matt would you say more about what those three different buckets are and how those might apply practically to some of the ways in which people invest?

Matt Miglarese: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we kind of assign the term like practice of the first category. Translation is what we’re calling the second category in purpose, really. I mean, Ben touched on a little bit where we want to be in a position where we get to look back and kind of say across this landscape, what’s the pattern that’s leading to all the things we really hope we want to see? Right. And so those are kind of it’s just our terms of trying to test that, but really describe it. And so the idea about two of this very simple, faithful but consistent and intentional practices that folks are doing that in the moment, you know whether it’s weekly or monthly prayer for their tending to their vendors or whatever it might be, or whether it’s, you know, just welcoming with a very like hospitable strategy like that. It might seem fairly repetitive and insignificant, but it’s done consistently, faithfully over time. And that practice then kind of jumps in to be able to share the why behind it and then jumping into if folks into internalize the purpose behind the integration you’re going for.

Luke Roush: So Ben and Matt, I want to jump into some specific examples of how you guys are thinking about incorporating your faith in the work that you do as a real estate investor. But first, I want to go back in time to the origin story and maybe take us back to the beginning. In 2020, Callis Capital is being formed. Help us understand from where you came in terms of form in the firm.

Ben Erskine: Yeah, yeah, sure. So like you said, we were founded in 2020, but it was really years of conversation and idea generating and prayer that led up to that moment. And so I’ve spent my career on the transactional side, the brokerage side of commercial real estate, usually working for the users occupiers of real estate and sometimes the investors into real estate as they manage portfolios around the country in different commercial asset classes, office, industrial and the others. And so as I was in that phase of my career, I always had an eye towards getting closer to the principle seed in transactions. And it really coincided with as that was starting to come into more focus. It coincided with observation of everything else that was happening in the faith driven investing sphere. So I had some exposure into that sovereigns with a part of that Sovereign’s Capital seeing what was happening in venture and private equity. I couldn’t help but ask questions about, Hey, what could this look like? What should this look like in the real estate asset class? And I’m biased. I love real estate. I have an affinity for real estate. But, you know, one of the distinctiveness of the asset class is just this power of place. When you control real estate, you control space in places where people live, where they gather, where commerce is conducted. And so there is a power to place the design of that place and the operations that drive the functions within that space. And so I was very much inclined to think, hey, if there’s ever been a phenomenal asset class for spiritual integration, it feels like real estate could be at the top of that list. And so, like I said, those conversations really evolved over the course of five or six years. And in 2020, we formed the fund that we had a few closings and took on some outside capital. And today, you know, we’ve been invested with nine different operators across 17 vehicles and had exposure to thousands at this point of multifamily units and a few hundred thousand square feet of other commercial real estate space. So it’s been a journey, and I’m grateful for all the support and encouragement today.

Luke Roush: So when you guys think of actually the problem that you’re trying to solve is the problem more around managers that just need to kind of be pushed to lean into their faith in how they do their work. Or is the challenge more of how do you actually help managers understand the tools that are at their disposal to be able to more clearly reflect their Christian faith in the way they manage real estate?

Matt Miglarese: I would say to some extent it is understanding tools. What are some opportunities? We have a lot of conversations with managers trying to sort of discerns and best practices and say, Hey, I’ve got this opportunity, I’ve got, you know, these types of properties or whatever it might be, you know, how could we best […], you know, somebody who has seen some success in this kind of a property of this kind of an opportunity? So there’s definitely a need for that as well. I think there’s also kind of the need for a vehicle that can help marshal some investors who actually care to come alongside those folks and are aligned in faith and values and want to pray and support and partner with those folks and give them a pathway to do that or vehicle to do that. It’s kind of two things at the same time. It’s almost that intersection of those two groups is the maybe the problem with I would say it that way. Ben, you’re jumping as well.

Ben Erskine: Yeah, that’s great. And just to elaborate on that, on both sides of the fence, both the operator side, so the folks that are out there driving real estate plans in the market and the investor side, we’ve seen an incredible amount of activity and progress and even mature plans. You know, we’ve talked to hundreds of operators out there at various places on the spectrum of spiritual integration, but all intentional about how they are already or how they want to incorporate their faith into the stewardship of their properties and their real estate companies. And, you know, in terms of room for growth, less than 1% of apartment buildings have any form of intentional faith integration at the ownership and asset management level. And that number drops off dramatically when you get into other asset classes. So there’s huge opportunity. There’s there’s opportunity for existing operators to scale and grow with the right encouragement and capital and for new operators to innovate and apply spiritual integration plans with the right encouragement and leadership and example. And on the investor side, you know, there’s room for existing investors to expand their allocations in a faith driven operators and for new investors to get better exposure and education. As to the excellent business that is being done without compromising on values and in fact being very intentional about the application and integration of those values. So if you think about values aligned investing as a chain, we see ourselves as a link in that chain. And if we can cultivate really strong deal flow and we can work through and apply professional diligence to all of that access to construct a diversified portfolio with preferred terms in many cases, then we can deliver to the investor side of the fence a really attractive offering that is distinctly aligned with our values as Christ followers and also positioned for excellent performance. And that should in turn allow us to expand the financial capital that we can make available to those operators out in the market, those existing in those that are ready to stand up. And that is really the role that we see ourselves filling in the problem that we are aiming to solve.

John Coleman: Love those concepts and I can see how there’s a great need for that, I think. Ben You touch on this idea of a sense of place which we’ve talked about with others before in this space, and how important that is to people’s lived experience out in the world. Maybe to make it more concrete, I’d love to hear you guys talk about a couple of specific examples. Either of things that Callis has done or of things that you’ve seen that you’ve just been really inspired by, that begin to incorporate some of those concepts. You’ve talked about how those play out, real world developments.

Matt Miglarese: Yeah. So maybe I’ll take one on the Callis side and then one from our partners and we’re going to start there. Right. On our side, we want to model as well. Both be good partners on the capital side, but also model a spiritually integrated company as well. And so one of the things we try to do to keep ourselves accountable and intentional about you’re kind of going back to that concept of there’s practices that you implement faithfully over time. Ben and I, we’ve got a cadence where we will make sure we’re praying by name for partners, manager partners and things to do, and we’ll check in with them. We also have a tool. We’ve dealt with a couple of different tools that we kind of are trying out that might help us partner with them better. So we utilize something we call a statement of intentions that we will use just to help outline, kind of like, hey, you know, the intent behind this partnership is that we could come alongside you and pray and support you as well. And so, you know, tell us what God’s called you to do. Tell us how your how you’re looking at that, what your opportunities are, and then tell us how we can potentially partner or resource you, you know, certainly capital. But maybe even beyond that, maybe it’s an introduction or something like that or just prayer. So that one thing on our end, we’ve had some great conversations. The point of that has been a tool to generate conversations and a fruitful conversations where some of our partners are just call Ben or call me out of the blue and just say, Hey, you know, we got this going on. We’d love for you to pray with us. We’re dealing with this issue. Do you have an idea? And even sometimes if they want an idea, they just want us to pray with them. That’s been pretty powerful, I’d say. You know, I think of a couple of different stories. You know, one of the groups we have that they kind of own operate immigrant refugee housing. I think they’ve probably been on here previously and they’ve got just a really unique way that they manage their properties and that they engage their tenants and they take what is a normal business operations and workflow, and they just tweak it a bit to make it redemptive where they will train their staff members to show up and welcome folks in and just spend a little bit of extra time asking a few extra questions and establish a stronger relationship for the purpose of helping their tenants understand that this is their place, this is their home, right? The way that they’ve set up their operational system is designed to kind of accelerate that sense of place. […]. It’s kind of so strategic.

Ben Erskine: Yeah. And I could build on even that example, maybe with a little bit of an illustration of kind of what does that look like and feel like in the apartment complex in the apartment. And so using that same example of a group that really is aimed towards refugee and immigrant housing, you know, they have families that are coming in from overseas that have never navigated an American grocery store before. Right. And so is there an opportunity in that to pair up a refugee family with a local family that’s tied in to the local church to navigate the grocery store, probably share a meal together, perhaps operate a stove for the first time. I mean, there are there are stories around, you know, large fish on an open flame in the kitchen, in the stove, because, you know, that was the path of least resistance. They’re cooking the fish, right, and setting the fire alarm off day after day after day. And so practical little things like that. But then how does that tie into the business model? So, you know, part of what we believe is that this kind of integration, this kind of intentionality and accountability in terms of values and faith alignment can be should be synergistic with excellent business practice. And so you look at that same example and what does that kind of love and care ultimately translate to in terms of a real estate business plan or a PNL or, you know, what we call earnings net operating income. And the reality is that you can achieve incredible improvement in terms of retention, which drives down costs. You know, one of the biggest costs in most real estate models is turnover. So taking care of the capital improvements that are required when potentially even new tenants come in and all of that work comes at a cost. And if you can avoid that, if you can crank up your retention from 55% to 58%, that’s meaningful savings. And so as a result of that, you’ve created real value at the asset level. And so these two things, this intentionality and the impact side and. The business plan can very much be accretive. And we’ve seen that time and time again.

Luke Roush: So when you think about engagement with residents in a multifamily context, is it more about actually just engagement broader or going deeper with families that are really in need? Like have you seen one or the other actually be more impactful or more in focus for for Callas as an investor?

Ben Erskine: Yeah. You know, I mean I think that there’s an array is the easy answer right is not one size fits all for certain. And there are several spectrums that we see spiritual integration kind of play out on internal external word and deed, whether or not it’s pointed at the organization itself or kind of the outside community and tenant base. And so and there are lots of things that influence that, right? So depending on the nature of the organization and even how it’s capitalized, there’s sensitivity around how things are manifested at the property level. And so some groups are very, very much focused on community care and they will absolutely seek opportunity to share the word, pray over people, enter into spiritual conversations, make invitations to church when they present themselves. But, you know, kind of the starting point for all that is just love thy neighbor, you know, care for your neighbor very, very well. That relational platform will afford opportunities to more evangelical activities versus other groups are very, very focused on, hey, you know, we feel called to share the gospel and that’s really at the top of our minds all the time. And how do we, you know, get there faster? And so the short answer is it looks all different kinds of ways and we see beauty in that diversity.

John Coleman: That’s awesome. You know, we are living through a very interesting moment right now, let’s say, and particularly real estate has come under a microscope just because it’s typically viewed as an inflation hedge. There’s a lot of market volatility, though, right now where housing prices are viewed to be inflated. There’s a ton of uncertainty around commercial real estate given return to office. And then retail has also been a consistent theme for years, but has taken some twists and turns given. COVID would love to pivot and just get you all’s reflections briefly on the current market for real estate, how our investors should be thinking about real estate in this environment, and where you’re seeing the greatest opportunities and risks.

Ben Erskine: Yes, the affordability crisis in the housing space is real. Certainly when looking at lower renter income levels and is more pronounced in certain cities and markets than in others. But it is something that we should all be focused on and we should be putting time and energy and resources into solving. It’s also worth taking a step back to look at affordability more broadly across market rate apartments. And that conversation has often started recently with a look at the steep rent growth that has been reported, driven by a shortfall in supply and continued demand that is outstripping even historically high levels of new construction delivery. But on the renter income side, there’s also been pretty incredible growth. So since March of 2020, new renters signing new leases. Those renters have reported more than 25% growth in renter income. So again, without discounting at all the affordability problem that is very, very real in certain segments of the market that we need to work to solve. We do believe that there is actually still a very healthy and robust demand supply profile that supports investment opportunity in the multifamily space. And it’s been true for years that you need to be thoughtful and buy smart it’s been very easy to buy bad as more and more capital has flowed into the multifamily category in recent years. And that is a big part of why we are focused on the operational component of value add business plan. So our strategy is not to buy assets at a cap rate in today’s environment and hope for compression in the capital markets to sell at a reduced cap rate in the future. We rely heavily on the operational expertize of our sponsor and operating partners and whether that is physical improvement of the asset, operational improvement of the asset or some combination of the two. We’re relying on that expertize and that excellence in the marketplace to deliver the returns that we’re seeking. And spiritual integration can be a huge component of that operational component. So I’ve been focused on multifamily because that’s where we spend a lot of our time. But back to your question, to quickly touch on other asset classes, industrial has been another darling in the market alongside multifamily. So not only on the demand side, as there’s continued to be significant demand growth for industrial space supporting e-commerce, there’s also been a lot more attention from the investor community, again, putting downward pressure on cap rates and pushing up pricing. And on the other side, again, broadly on the other side have been office and retail with less investor attention, less capital flow into those asset classes and questions about demand going forward. Although the retail category is very nuanced, depending on whether you’re talking about neighborhood retail, big box mall, etc., and all of these shifts present major opportunities for adaptive reuse, you know, whether that’s of big box retail into industrial space or of traditional office to more flexible workspace mixed use or even residential.

Matt Miglarese: The only thing I’ll jump in real quick for tacked onto that is Ben kind of alluded to it. It unlocks this whole new category almost of spiritual integration with the concept of redemptive imagination. A lot of the beauty of real estate is it’s just very personal, relational. There’s a lot of on the ground stuff you’re doing with ministry activity, but then you go into imagining what a space should be or could be if it was the way God designed the world to be. And that’s just a whole new category, a whole new opportunity you can open up. So it’s kind of cool in that way.

John Coleman: Guys as, we’re going to switch now to a segment of the podcast we like to call Lightning Round Sometimes, where we pose a simple question to you and you give us your gut response to that in kind of 60 seconds or less. Okay. Now, what we’ll probably do is slide a few fun questions in there alongside some of the more serious questions. So beware because you never know what’s coming first. Luke Roush, do you want to start us off in The Lightning Round?

Luke Roush: I’m happy to do it. So I’ll give you two scenarios and you get to pick one and we’ll go. Ben, then Matt. Office occupancy is going to stay stable or go down by 30% in the next 12 months. Pick one. Ben.

Ben Erskine: Occupancy as measured by leased space, is going to go down. Occupancy as measured by butts in seats. People actually returning to work is going to go up .

Matt Miglarese: And I think it’s going to down. I think it’s a new era.

Luke Roush: Yeah. I mean, arguably, there’s kind of a hangover effect, right? Because you got multi-year leases, you can’t really get out of it. And yet actually people realize they need less. So that’s a hangover that comes due over the next two, three years. John, over to you.

John Coleman: Yeah. Ben So you’re a Chicago man, as I understand it. And so very serious question for you. Top three locations for Chicago, deep dish style pizza.

Ben Erskine: Giordano’s, Illuminati

Luke Roush: That was conviction. That was conviction on the first one. I want to go there.

John Coleman: Yeah.

Ben Erskine: Yeah. That will never change for me. And I’m I have to think about the third one […]. Might be on there.

John Coleman: Okay. Excellent. You were waffling on the third, so I think we’ll stick with those top two probably. Matt, any favorite pizza places on your end? Any style. Any city style, if you prefer.

Matt Miglarese: So my kids have a favorite just down the street. There’s a local spot, but we don’t have the best pizza in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’ll admit that.

John Coleman: Any letters and complaints can be directed towards Matt Miglarese for that response. Luke, back over to you though.

Luke Roush: I’m curious on New Single-Family housing starts, are multi-family housing starts, which is going to grow or shrink in the next three years, is one going to outpace the other?

Ben Erskine: Good question. I mean, it both starts and deliveries are at elevated levels right now as measured against history. It seems like they could both probably ember in the years to come based on construction costs being one thing and maybe just perception as we kind of get into the front end of a recession.

Luke Roush: Do you think it’s a tale of two cities where, you know, places like California, the Northeast struggle and other geographies thrive? Or is it sort of a kind of a across the board move?

Ben Erskine: Yeah, I was reading an article yesterday that kind of pointed to, to your point, Northern California, some of the expensive gateway coastal cities in terms of single family homes that the movement in interest rates has already translated at reduced velocity in the housing market out there in a way that it hasn’t, at least yet in some of the other markets. But I think it’s you know, it’s too early to tell. I think that prices on the single family home might be buoyed for a while, as so many people are locked in with attractive financing, but they’re just not going to put their houses on the market because it’s just hard to go replicate the cost of occupancy that they have through like 3% debt. So I think that could be a real artificial bouy potentially for pricing for the next little while.

Luke Roush: Yeah, it’s good Ben, thank you, Matt.

Matt Miglarese: Yeah. I don’t have a data to back me up that Ben is whipped out here. But I would say, I’ll tell you from my area, I think we’re going to see a lot more single family homes in the southeast. I think that’s where our pace is better. Yeah, that’s good.

John Coleman: So quick question for both of you kind of pivoting on what you just mentioned there about the southeast map. If you had to pick two cities to invest in right now for multifamily, where you all spend a lot of time, what two cities do you think you’re most interested in?

Matt Miglarese: Two cities. Just two. I’d say I’m a little biased here. The triangle area is pretty hot, right? So that’s one Raleigh-Durham area. That area, pretty good interest. And Charlotte though. Charlotte’s grown pretty strong too, obviously. Raleigh and Charlotte. And that’s not totally location bias.

John Coleman: Ben what do you think?

Ben Erskine: I think I maybe be a little contrarian, and I’d say some of the Southern Midwestern cities that have not gotten the attention, you know have not gotten the same attention that the Sunbelt has. And historically, the Midwestern cities typically don’t offer the same explosive growth in boom times, but they also don’t drop out when things get really slow. They’re just a little bit more steady, Eddie. But if you look at a Columbus or a Cincinnati or a Memphis, like some of these cities, they’re a little bit off the beaten path. I think there’s a lot of merit there for families and people that want affordability and can work from anywhere. You know, I think that that could be a wave of the future.

Luke Roush: Okay. I’ve got one. How many years? I just need a number. That’s all I need. How many years? Until the market realizes broadly the benefits of things like chaplaincy for multifamily complexes. Our apartment life.

Matt Miglarese: Six.

Ben Erskine: Six. Okay.

John Coleman: I love the conviction. He actually listened to the instructions there.

Luke Roush: I’m so grateful.

John Coleman: Matt and Luke

Ben Erskine: Ten.

John Coleman: Luke, you answer that one.

Luke Roush: I think four or five. And the reason is that I think that tough times reinforce the need to really care for people and care for people. Well, I think the data that apartment life has put out, among others, I mean, there’s a bunch of other programs as well, but clearly demonstrates less turnover, better satisfaction, things that are actually even more important in a down market, which I think we’re going to enter. I think it’s going to be more quick, but I’m an optimist.

John Coleman: Awesome. Well, we always close these discussions, guys, by asking the same question, which is what is something that you’re hearing from God in his word right now? So kind of something for inspiration for the audience that you’re hearing in your own life in your study of his word right now, Matt, if you don’t mind, we might start with you.

Matt Miglarese: Sure. Yeah. I think what comes to mind, I’m almost I feel like I’m relearning it right. Like so much we relearned over and over again. Maybe it’s just me. I’m hardheaded, but at my church, we’re going through a study right now to the book of Galatians. And so we’ve just been reading that book and fot the last couple of weeks, Galatians 525 has just been stuck with me. If we live by the Spirit, we should also walk by the spirit. You know, I feel like God has impressed on me that the phrase If we live by the Spirit, it means our life, our eternal life, is completely dependent on the power of the spirit and therefore our walking day by day, week by week, the stuff we do in Callis, whatever you know our work activity, our daily activity, that also ought to be by the same power. And it’s just been a conviction for me to turn around, say, God, you know, this is yours. I might have a lot of plans right now I might make. This day is yours. So I’ve just tried to implement a few, you know, kind of habits and practices to remind myself of that. But that’s really been the thing. God has re impressed on me in the last week or so just how important it is to rely on the spirit and walk by his spirit, led by it.

Ben Erskine: That’s great. So I was thinking about this and my pastor had incorporated Micah six eight into a sermon a couple of months ago. And it was timely because Matt and I were in the thick of working through this flywheel concept and kind of fleshing out this idea in a paper. And so Micah six eight is he has told you, Oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God. And I think that I like the word require in there just because it is clear instruction is required of you. I take that well. And just the notion that, you know, through our actions loving is doing and if you act and do loving things that your heart will produce loving feelings. And it just really resonated with me that there is this interconnectivity between actions and words and translation, and then ultimately posture, our posture and what you might call culture or purpose or identity for an organization, and both things feed each other. And so that was really what we were observing over the past year or two, and it resonated with me when I heard it from my pastor a couple months ago.

Luke Roush: It’s a good word, Ben and Matt, we’re grateful for the work that you guys are doing. Keep going. Keep getting after it. I think this is a sector that absolutely is ripe for transformation in terms of how investors think about deploying their capital in ways that are both responsible and also faithful and intentional. So grateful for the work that you guys are doing and grateful for your taking time to be on the podcast today. Blessings to you

Matt Miglarese: thanks for having us.

Ben Erskine: Thank you so much.