Welcome to the #piratebroadcast™: 

Read The Transcript

Audio digitally transcribed by Otter.ai

Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:18
I love when we start a #PirateBroadcast™. Before we start the #PirateBroadcast™, Chris and I have been talking about different subjects in different media and operations in life and a little bit of everything. So Chris, thank you so much for being here on the #PirateBroadcast™ Welcome. You are now officially a pirate. So those that don't know you, kind of give us a little snapshot of who Chris is and what you're doing and why you're doing it, Chris?

Chris Ressa 0:47
Well, first and foremost, thank you for having me on. It's great to be here. Chris, I am a husband and a father. That's first and foremost. Second, I am the Chief Operating Officer at DLC management. We own shopping centers around the United States. So my clients are the Starbucks, Walmarts. TJ Maxx's of the world. Those are the tenants that are in our shopping centers. So if you think about people have rental property where they own a duplex, and the two people who live there, pay them rent the Starbucks of the world, and the Chick fil A's are the world that's who's paying us rent. So, you know, personally, I'm a health and fitness enthusiast, I grew up playing sports my whole life, I wrestled in college. That led me into being passionate about fitness. My one of the things that kind of I talk about a lot is my birth mother left when I was two, my dad got remarried when I was 10. But so there's this period of time, it was just my dad and myself. And it was a one bedroom apartment. And he lived on the couch and I lived in the bedroom. And it really, you know, kind of gave me a high tolerance for stress, enabled me to operate under pressure. And so that really helped me grow through the corporate ladder, helped me in sports and grow through the corporate ladder coming from a you know, lower middle income area where I grew up with, you know, I was the first one to go to college in my family and those types of things. So, those are some of the things that shaped me. And you know, when I was growing up, my dad was really, really strict. It was straight A's, and you were the best in sports. I never struck out in baseball or I was in trouble. I didn't. I lost in wrestling, I was in trouble. If I didn't score the most touchdowns in football, I was in trouble. And so if I got a B plus I was in trouble. And so I see a lot of kids, that would be really troubling. And they might go in to rebel and go into different way. And I kind of took it like in my attitude was okay. This guy wants to act like this. I'll show him I'm gonna one up him and do better. And it helped me really, you know, strive for success. Yeah, and enabled me to do some things that I you know, without that tough upbringing, I don't know that I would have. But that's the story. That's kind of who I am, you know, in a lot of different places.

Russ Johns 3:30
Yeah. So, is he still with us?

Chris Ressa 3:34
Yeah. Yeah.

Russ Johns 3:36
So you have a pretty good relationship with him?

Chris Ressa 3:37
Great relationship. He is. I have two children, a three year old and a two year old, you know, in a, in a socially distance, non COVID world, he is around very often. He's about 40 minutes from me. So he comes by, especially when I need something fixed around the house. He's a

Russ Johns 3:59
handy guy.

Chris Ressa 3:59
He's the handyman.

Russ Johns 4:01
Sounds a lot like my dad. You know, we were I was actually on a call yesterday with Reggie, we were talking about this and how you instill, you know, how do you still this quality of being able out there to go out there and do things and push yourself and actually apply? Because, you know, in a world where, you know, Amazon Prime could deliver something overnight, you know, instant gratification this thing, hard work and you know, in the sports analogy, you know, wrestling takes time, technique, you know, you have to grow and expand and push your body and everything else. There's something that growing up some kids are challenged by applying themselves they want something now and in our environment now is you know, Gameboy and, you know, YouTube and, you know, sometimes they see people that are out on YouTube. I get a lot of money. And it's like, well, that's what I want to do with my life. And it's, there's still a path you have to follow, and a journey you have to take in order to accomplish these big goals. And so is that something that you think about for your kids now? And how do you apply that in your life?

Chris Ressa 5:17
Totally think about that. I think in my wife, my wife and I had this conversation the other night, if on the on the social media, YouTube gaming thing, I, you know, I don't have an issue. If my kids want to be on video games, now. They're, they're not right now. They're three and two, I look at it. Tell me what the difference is of someone playing a video game for four hours versus practicing the violin for four hours. I don't know that there is. I don't I don't know that there's a significant difference yet morally, the culture has says that this violin is an art that we want society to be good at. And therefore, it is it is not, you know, that's someone who's a hard worker. And that's someone who's challenging themselves as long as they do all their other stuff. Where's the person playing the video game that gets demonized. And, and to that end, I look at it a little differently, which is, I often say, in growing up the corporate ladder, there's like, three real ways to grow exponentially quick up the corporate ladder. You're either the hardest worker in the room, the smartest one in the room, or you knew someone in the room who got you there. And I was never the smartest in the room. And I knew no one. So I better be the hardest worker in the room. And so what I tell my wife is, whatever our kids passions are, and this isn't to obviate fun, but this is to say, I want our kids to go all in. So they know what it feels like to work towards success. And I don't care if that's a video game, the guitar, chemistry, whatever their true passion is, I want them to go all in. And I think one of the things you mentioned previously is this lack of patience. And instant gratification. I think that's also a fear of failure. And that's been talked about for the since the dawn of time, since the dawn of time, is the fear of failure. That's not a new topic. But I think it's really relevant. Because, you know, when I was growing up wrestling, no, you had people who wanted success, but they didn't want to fail to get there. So whenever there was like, they knew, like good opponents were going to a tournament, they would switch weight classes, or they would not go to that tournament. And we used to call it their duck in them. Bob's duck and Joe, right, and their fear of failure, whereas you have the other one who's like, well, if I want to be the best, I have to compete and beat the best. And here is part of the journey.

Russ Johns 8:17
You know, failure is part of the journey. And challenging yourself is always going to be part of the journey. And as far as kids in the gaming community has evolved to, and you can, you can actually have a career in that arena right now. There's so many opportunities out there for kids, there's so many opportunities out there to grow. And I just see the landscape changing and evolving in for new parents and parents that are raising kids. Now. It's really important, I think, to just instill a couple of things, like you said, if you have to be the hardest worker in the room, be the hardest worker in the room, learn how to work, learn how to be self sufficient, learn how to have your identity, learn how to know who you are, and what you're about, and what you believe in. And I think that's, that's some of the things that parents can really support their kids in. And I just have to believe, you know, I, my kids are raised and older. And growing up, that was one of the things that, you know, they had a farm, they had chores they had animals to deal with and everything else that went along with that. And so, now they're doing well working in, you know, different jobs and different careers, but it's really, if you know how to work, you can accomplish anything. At least that's my experience. You know, if you know how to apply yourself, whatever the task happens to be if you can apply yourself and dedicate some time to it, learn it, grow in it and adapt your you can apply it to any kind of skill sets you want to as you're growing up.

Chris Ressa 10:04
Yep, one of those things, and as you're talking about one of those things that really is something that can be taught, that I think helps kids on the journey. But it's really tough lesson is, I don't know anybody who's super successful or has the life they want, that didn't make sacrifice. And that's what we're really talking about the instant gratification and all that good stuff is to really, we only have 24 hours in a day. Some argue, maybe we don't, but let's say we do. And let's, let's assume that you're only one person. Well, to dedicate your time, and that's why I say go all in on something. If you go all in on something, and you truly go all in well, and you become super passionate about something, it means you're going to have to make sacrifices elsewhere in your life. And that's an important skill to learn the the ability to sacrifice, we don't talk about that skill. Yeah, real important skill if you learn that, because you'll know when something comes up that you want to chase, am I willing to make the sacrifices because you know, you will have sacrifices to go chase that people try to add things to their life without taking things out? And then you just, you're kinda mad everything going all in on something means you're going to have to sacrifice somewhere else. And are you prepared to do that?

Russ Johns 11:35
Yeah. Learning how to say no to some things to allow your opportunity to be Yes. Is, is a huge thing. You recently, you wrote an article in LinkedIn about that a post around multitasking as well, kind of a similar subject.

Chris Ressa 11:54
So I've considered myself for years, right? Like a great multitasker. I, I have a busy job. And you know, a busy household with a three and a two year old as you know, as a parent, that's a busy household. And I'm liking myself as someone who gets gets things done. Yeah. And to that end, I was listening to a podcast about multitasking. And there was a gentleman who wrote the book, The Myth of multitasking, and says, that's actually, you know, it's he says it's an inelegant and incorrect wording of multitasking. It's actually switch tasking. I mean, you're stopping, you're interrupted, you're stopped doing one thing and moving to the next. And to that end, he talks about the real costs to that. Yeah, which are the they call it the switch time, the time it takes to go from one task to the other to, it actually increases stress. He gives an example on focus, which I'll give, and I put it in my LinkedIn post. So check it out, which and then the third is it, you know, there was a Michigan State study that said, and the average three second interruption doubles your chances of a mistake? Wow, three seconds. That's it three seconds. And the average worker in the United States, this was a study done by rescuetime. Can't go longer than six minutes without checking their email or instant message. So think about all those three seconds, those doubling of mistakes are happening. And then he says, between going from one task to the other and the average, most people that can recover about 40 hours a month, from focusing, finishing, then moving on to the next versus multitasking, which is the opposite of what people intent is by multitasking. And so it was an interesting one that I found really, really thought provoking because I'm someone who considers myself a really strong multitasker. And, but the the the, he says, if you want to see where you're at, in your focus in the world, he goes, here's a simple exercise. Turn on Netflix, you know, how long can you watch a TV show without checking your phone? And, and, and that is and he goes there's people probably out there now that that's causing stress, just thinking about that.

Russ Johns 14:31
Yeah. Just talking about it. So I want to ask the community, I want to say hi, I'll give a shout out to Jenny Gold. She's here. Good morning, Chris and Russ. Tracie, she's my producer. Thank you so much, Tracie. Good morning pirates. She's awesome. And Darlene in Florida, Good morning pirates, silverfox DJs. She you have a show tonight I believe if I'm not mistaken. Darlene. Thank you had to change accounts. She was on YouTube. So good morning, Russ and Chris. Russ Hedge out of Oregon. Thank you so much for being here. Monique is here today. Good morning. Thank you so much, Nick. I hope the schedule isn't killing you, my friend. He's up in Canada. Chandra. Thank you so much. Good morning, appreciate you. You know, I'm thinking about this multitasking thing and the ability and the opportunity. And if you have a comment or a thought in the community about looking at your phone, and I think back on before phones were around, and not everybody's had that experience, because they were, you know, phones have been around for a little while now. Can you imagine a time? Or can you imagine a time in the future? and not having a phone and not being connected? And you're unable to make those connections and what's that feel like.

Chris Ressa 15:56
Yeah, Russ. So yesterday. So funny. You say that? What, what...I made a poll yesterday. So I've been on this topic for a couple of days. Right? I made a poll yesterday. Because I've been burning at both ends of the, you know, burning both ends of the candle. Right? And definitely sleeping less than my primary care physician would like. I posted a simple question, which was, would your bedtime routine change? If the internet or cell phone didn't exist? Yeah. Or would you be reading during that time? Would you be watching TV instead? Or would you be going to bed earlier? And I think it's thought provoking. To your point on you know, the time when no phones, because I'm pretty sure I'd be going to bed earlier. Now, being able to connect with people gives me energy. I it gives me energy. I like the ability that now we live in a world where I can get more done at night, and it gives me energy. So while Yes, I might have a sleep routine today that probably needs work. But I think one of the things though, is it does give me energy to continue to do business, when it's night where you couldn't before and to connect with people gives me energy.

Russ Johns 17:28
Yeah. Don says he reads before bed, which is a great habit. Great habit. And Darlene says always here to support and take wonderful experiences. I remember not having a phone as a kid, a long 12 foot cable dragged around attach the wall being heard by my dad. The connection on the phone. It's awesome. It sounds like your little ones are awake.

Chris Ressa 17:56
Yeah, they're awake. They're upstairs. They're all good.

Russ Johns 18:00
Yeah, I want to, you know, and the reason I bring this up is because we're in a world that is busy. And you will live in an environment you live in an organization that deals with something that's really very dynamic right now and challenged in a lot of ways in this day and age with the COVID. And you know, totally. So, shifting gears a little bit, Chris, I want to find out what, what's going on and in your world in terms of being able to get space and manage space out and how it's evolving in the world of a pandemic. And, you know, I noticed I heard that a lot of Amazon distribution centers going into some retail spaces that weren't normally there and things are evolving and changing and I see spaces opening up. What's the biggest challenges that you have in your organization right now that that you know, keep you going and keep you moving forward. Oh, we temporarily lost Chris. So there he's back. He's back.

Chris Ressa 19:26
So here's how I would answer that. The...a couple of different ways I'll get I'll try not to get too technical inside baseball. So we own strip centers, open air shopping centers to think about the grocery store, Starbucks, whomever the Walmart, Costco those are our tenants paying us rent. A couple of things, one, when you look at who the most successful ecommerce retailers are, the top 10 in e-commerce sales, six of them are primarily brick and mortar locations. What has been proven is when a retailer opens up a store, their online sales in that market increase when a retailer closes a store to market, their online sales in that market decrease. And to that end, the reality is that it's not one channel of either retail or online, it's this multi channel, the consumer needs to be able to shop you when they want you how they want to wherever they want to. To that end, there's a cost to that, you know, the CEO of Everlane talks about how on on Jim Cramer on Mad Money. What he talks about a couple years ago on TV, is what digitally native brand really makes money? And he says basically, none of them, that's the dirty little secret. They're all growing market share and not making money. And so it's very hard to profit from... it's easy...If Russ and Chris want to open up an e-commerce store and sell goods, the cost of entry is cheaper. We want to scale up and grow the business, the cost is exceedingly more expensive. There was just an article that the logistics costs for a an online company are about double that or 50% more of that of a brick and mortar location. And so sometime this is going to come to roost where consumers want value. Let's not forget 78% of Americans are about paycheck to paycheck. And so they can't afford to pay shipping, and the retailers can't afford to make it free. And so there will be come time to come to roost. And one of the ways we think the way that is to make it convenient, and to make it affordable is the the convergence buying online picking up in store, things like that. And so to that end, we've been you know, on the small business side, we've been working with our tenants to try to help them through this time. But we are still growing and signing leases with major retailers across the country that are opening up stores in our properties. And we are maybe contrarian, but bullish that we're here to stay we we own about 2.5 billion of real estate, primarily all retail oriented open air, do you think the malls of the world are a little more challenged than we are, but that's where we're at.

Russ Johns 22:43
You know, and I like what you're you're saying because a lot of people don't realize that. If you think of when you walk into a grocery store, you see coke on an end aisle, you know, that's it, that's an investment in advertising. And a retail space in a community, you know, is still advertising even for their online space. And it's brand awareness, its brand identity and the ability and opportunity to be seen, be heard and be talked about in terms of that space. In that...

Chris Ressa 23:16
One of the things I would say, you know, that our industry argues do you know who will open up the most stores of any retailer physical stores over the next few years? Amazon. And so that's, you know, I think that's proof of the the convergence of online and physical, if anyone's been watching news, they opened up two grocery stores, and they're planning on opening up a ton more.

Russ Johns 23:43
No, I don't see it going away. And I just want to recognize the challenges that people are going through with this transition, it's a big challenge. It's a big challenge. And I just don't want to dismiss or diminish the challenges people are going through. And at the same time, give people hope that, you know, we're gonna go, we're gonna evolve through this thing, and we're gonna change and, you know, what I see now is a lot of business. You know, office workers are probably, and potentially may not want to go back to regular eight to five, nine to five, you know, office space, parking, traffic, and all of the things that go along with that. And so a lot of organizations may also consider evolving and then use flex space their buildings. I don't know if that's something that you are involved in.

Chris Ressa 24:36
Yeah, in our own business we have, you know, we are in a pandemic, we're opening our offices back in July of 2021. We've been out of the office since March. Now, we even still we have given people the opportunity to work from home a couple of days a week, which when we go back, which we hadn't before, because we were big on culture and human connection in the team. And we didn't have remote workers not that any job can't be done many knowledge worker jobs can't be done from remote. That wasn't the point. It was the point that we wanted the team to come together. And we believed in the value of the human connection. But clearly there's this change that and we still want that. And we believe in that. But there will be some remote ability for people.

Russ Johns 25:24
Well, there's a lot of, you know, we talked about mental health and the isolation and the disconnect. A lot of people are really, like you said, energized by the community, the culture and the connection.

Chris Ressa 25:40
The best I heard it put was this for us, CEO of the fitness brand called solid core, Uh, huh. was a, she owns Pilates studios across the country, which obviously fitness is a challenge at this time. And I challenged her because in a recession, her prices are expensive to go to the gym. And she just, you know, really schooled me on why she wasn't concerned. But one of the things she said was the following this whole from home thing. I just don't believe, Chris, that people are going to want to work from home, eat at home, shop at home, sleep at home, work out at home and do everything at home. And that like was the most profound way anyone's boom or during the whole recession. And the whole pandemic is. Yeah, that's true. We're gonna do some things not from home.

Russ Johns 26:37
Yeah. Yeah. I I think that goes to the isolation factor. And, you know, there's times where, hey, everybody wants to get out. Everybody wants to go do something other than what they're doing at home in front of the screen. So she's, I think, got a point there. That's very valid. So I really want to know, how do you like people to connect with you, I know you're on LinkedIn, and you post on Reddit.

Chris Ressa 27:08
So LinkedIn is the best way to reach out to me for homework, please follow me. I'm over the 30,000 connections. So just follow me and engage on a post or send me a DM. And I'll get back to you. If you're interested in cool business deals, listen to our podcast, Retail Retold. That's the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. And we bring on people who were involved in some cool business deals of how locations ended up where they did. So if you want to learn about some business deals, that's what we do on our podcast.

Russ Johns 27:37
That's fantastic. I want to say hi to a couple more people. Chandra. Nancy. Wow, you're early. Nancy. Good morning. Thank you for being here. She's over on the west coast. Patrick is here. Thank you so much for being here. I want to wrap up here, before we take off and talk about some of the things that you might be working on, or some of the things we can support you as a community and put in place in position for you to be successful. How do you need support from the community? Chris, I know you have a podcast and that would be lovely. If people can subscribe to your podcast, leave a review, things like that, what are some other ways that we can support you?

Chris Ressa 28:29
I think support local business. That's the number one, they're really struggling through this time. And it's going to take some time for them to recover. And I'm a believer in the resilience of the American entrepreneur and support local business. They're going through a challenging time. And it costs money to pivot, and they're challenged. So if you can support local business, then that's the best way for In my opinion, check out our website, DLCmgmt.com. And, you know, follow Ressa on real estate I talk about retail real estate and leadership. That's my hashtag. So there's a hashtag ressaonrealestate, please follow it. No matter where you are, I think there'll be some value that comes from it.

Russ Johns 29:20
That's fantastic. Well, everyone you know, Chris, thank you so much for sharing this in a kind of a slice of life in, in your world in a lot of people don't really understand what goes behind goes on behind the scenes. And it's really important to know that there are people out there doing great work like yourself, making things happen, moving it forward, regardless of the challenges and I just really applaud your efforts and thank you so much for being a pirate man.

Chris Ressa 29:50
Thank you really take care man.

Russ Johns 29:52
So everyone go follow Chris. You know, let let him know that you are a pirate and you want to, you know, make comments on his post and his podcast and like and follow and share all of the things. And also, the #PirateBroadcast™, love your support there. Like, following and share YouTube channel is growing, I'm going to continue to pursue that arena and grow that channel. So if you can, and you're able, take a moment, go over there and subscribe and make yourself known in the YouTube world. And as always, everyone, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree. And I look forward to you every single day, because I want you to #enjoyyourday. Take care, Chris.

Chris Ressa 30:41
Thank you, everyone.

Exit 30:44
Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate ™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Join the next #PirateBroadcast™ on your favorite social media channel.