HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown

Ep. 36 Chris Schwagerl - Redefining Real Estate Strategy Through Psychology

• Heather Ewing, CCIM • Season 1 • Episode 36

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Unlock the secrets of peak performance in commercial real estate with our special guest, Chris Schwagerl, founder of Infinite Skies. You'll learn how Chris's unique blend of mental health expertise and real estate acumen can transform your investment strategies. This episode promises to reveal powerful insights into performance psychology, helping syndicators achieve their best mental state and optimize their systems for unparalleled success. 

Journey with us as we shift from mere transactions to forging deep, meaningful connections in the real estate world. Hear compelling personal stories about the importance of emotional intelligence, effective due diligence, and recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. Chris shares invaluable resources on subconscious goal setting, turning goal pursuit into an enjoyable, internally motivated process. Celebrate the small wins and learn to embrace failures as stepping stones to larger achievements, all while intertwining business success with personal growth and well-being. Don't miss out on these transformative insights!

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown. I am your host, Heather Ewing, and today I am excited to share with you Chris Schweigle. He is the founder of Infinite Skies in beautiful northern Minnesota.

Chris Schwagerl:

Chris welcome. Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. And Minnesota, it's summertime right now, so I got my cool festive shirt on. There's no better place on earth, maybe Wisconsin, yes.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah Well, we'll have to duke that one out a little bit later. I guess.

Chris Schwagerl:

so yeah, We'll let the listeners know which accents are which right, which accents are which right.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Exactly, we'll type that in for people, but Chris we met through LinkedIn.

Chris Schwagerl:

Was it two years ago maybe? Oh my goodness.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, I suppose it would be one of those challenges. Yes definitely so I've known you for a little bit. Please share with our audience more about you so they can get to know you.

Chris Schwagerl:

Well, I'm a 43-year-old bald white man and I am a dad, which is really exciting. I'm a husband, which is awesome. I've been a psychology geek my whole entire life and I've worked in psychology and specifically mental health for the past 20 years of my life. One of the cool things about that job or not so cool things, depending on your perspective is I never got paid a lot, and so I had to figure out other ways to make money. I worked a lot in restaurants, bars, things like that, and then I found real estate investing. Well, my friends helped me find real estate investing because they got sick of me complaining about not having any money. So I got into real estate investing that way and then I started to grow my portfolio and everyone was like man, you make $19 an hour, how are you growing this portfolio? And that's how I found out about syndication. But really, what my passion is combining both of those things psychology and real estate to do performance psychology for real estate syndicators.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

And the performance psychology. The neat thing about that is I've gotten to experience a little bit through your webinar, the two-part webinar, which was phenomenal.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

You always hear about coaching right For sports, just regular business coaching, all these different arenas but you don't come into someone that has honed in on the performances as much and it's just amazing. So it's one of those. You guys are going to want to check out his website and he's got great content and also does the performance coaching. You'll want to check it out later. But as we dive into this, how do you see performance coaching changing with commercial real estate investment as we continue forward?

Chris Schwagerl:

Yeah, well, where I see it right now is we're just kind of on the precipice, if you will, on the brink of it becoming a system. You know, I think we can all agree. Like your sports psychology analogy was really good. You know, back in the 90s I worked at a nonprofit with kids on probation and across the hallway was a woman. Her name was Mavis she's not with us anymore, but she only worked with Minnesota Vikings players this she's not with us anymore, but she only worked with Minnesota Vikings players.

Chris Schwagerl:

And this was back in the day where she kept this very confidential because you didn't want to be seen as having mental health services Like it was a detriment, you know, like a less than type thing. But she said she didn't do that work at all. She helped them get into what she called the zone. This is where you've practiced the play so many times that you can play at full speed because you've been there, done that and you know what to do. So no matter what happens, no matter what situation arises, you are at your absolute best mental peak.

Chris Schwagerl:

Now that was pretty cutting edge 30 years ago and nowadays there is not a single team in major league baseball, football, basketball, soccer, men's and women's teams that don't have at least one sports psychologist and they're not behind a closed door. They're right there on the sidelines with the players as a part of the team, and so where I see this with commercial real estate, is the psychologist becoming a part of the team. I'm starting to see that. I think we're maybe at a tipping point where people are starting to realize that their mindset, their mental health is a system, and that system can't be served with reading atomic habits. I love atomic habits, but you have to make it more customizable to yourself, you have to make it personalized. There's a system for property management, a system for acquisitions, for communication, for creating content. Everything is a system, but our most important system, we're just leaving it up to chance, and so I think that's where we're at is really creating great systems and great teams around those systems to help people achieve that next level.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

And I must say it is profound and to me it makes sense right, and I think it's one of those, to your point, of elite athletes. People in elite positions have been utilizing performance coaching for years and kind of like with anything else. It takes a little while for it to become more readily known, apparent and accessed in that sense too. But jumping back to your two day course with the subconscious goal setting, the fascinating thing that I loved with that was that you know I've been in and out of goal setting for years right, who hasn't?

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

And especially in running and operating a commercial real estate firm. But the fascinating thing with it was that it's like, instead of feeling like I have to push towards a goal, I feel pulled of, like it almost feels like it's more internal, more intense in that sense, and less of a work and more of a get to. So those are a couple differentiators for me, that I was kind of thinking about the process and it's been a couple of weeks now, and so I'm excited to utilize that more within the firm. But those are a couple of things that I noticed and I was like oh, this is really fascinating and at the same time it makes complete sense. Right, there's so much on neuroscience, the conscious, the unconscious, the body, all of that. So I think it's really an exciting arena that you're able to guide people through on so many different levels.

Chris Schwagerl:

Yeah, thanks, and I think we had you frozen in a cryogenic lab for a few weeks right to get your goals, something like that. Was that the other workshop that?

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

was the other workshop. That's the next one that we'll share. Don't want to overload too much in one.

Chris Schwagerl:

Exactly, exactly. But you bring up a good point here is that we've all been to goal setting workshops. This is the first ever that I know about about a goal achieving workshop, you know, and it's counterintuitive. I think half of LinkedIn is stay motivated, get motivated, keep going, keep grinding it out, and all that is good, right. But that's external motivation. That's taking someone else's words, someone else's phrases, someone else's motivations, putting them on yourself.

Chris Schwagerl:

Now it works for a little bit, but eventually your subconscious is thinking like this isn't me. No, this isn't who I am, this is different. I'm becoming different, so I will resist and we'll go back to being this person, which is why it's so hard to have long lasting change. Which is why in the workshop, we presented some research and created a bunch of activities around the latest neuropsychological research which says, hey, get into your subconscious first, make it happy and then allow it to change, and then you go along for the ride because you're becoming who you really want to become. And so it's different in the sense that it's achieving goals, but it's cool because it'll just keep thinking about it. Like you said, it's a few weeks past the workshop and you still keep thinking about it. I first did this about a year ago and I'm still thinking about it and all the time, those B situations and C situations I ran into them yesterday those B situations and C situations.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I ran into two of them yesterday, you know, yeah, and I think too it makes sense also when you take a step back and I don't have a, you know, a psychology degree, a sociology degree, it's straight business. But to me it also makes sense that you hear so much about what happened in your early formative years, right Of zero to seven, of that's who you're going to be, and then years later, the science proves that. No, actually, you know, we are malleable, things can change, and just the power of the subconscious because it's such a big part of our lives, isn't it over 95% or something like that, which is an astonishing percent. But I think the thing also is that I feel more connected to myself and I feel like I've done a lot of self discovery over the years, right of with my early midlife crisis, but I think with it it's just almost an honoring of self and then just an excitement for the goals, Because yeah after a while, goals are just tiring and it's the same old.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

you know a couple new dry techniques that you can implement, but this was definitely different. So I'm excited to continue learning more from you. But as we shift through, then too, how do you see you know the personal connections and what really influenced you to get into this arena of coaching?

Chris Schwagerl:

Well, I mean, if you want to get personal, I enjoy the coaching part of it because I really enjoy having an impact on people and I know that sounds cliche and everyone says that you know, but I really do, I think it's awesome. You know, like when I started learning about syndication, I joined up with a couple other people that I met at an event. We kind of vetted each other out and had some meetings and we said, okay, this is great, we're going to, we're going to work together and we're going to buy an apartment building in Kansas city. And we started doing some due diligence and they showed up with like 13 page due diligence checklist, a seven page due diligence checklist for every single unit of the 128 unit building. And I showed up with a coffee.

Chris Schwagerl:

You know, like I don't, I don't know what to do, and so I realized I love the, the, the vehicle of real estate, and what it's done for me and my family. You know I don't have what to do, and so I realized I love the vehicle of real estate and what it's done for me and my family. I don't have to work at the weekends, I don't work at a bar, things like that. It's been quite nice we have this house with a roof and things like that, which is great but I don't love the transactions. I don't love having three monitors and doing spreadsheets.

Chris Schwagerl:

I love the people and I love inspiring people and I love sharing what I've learned about psychology over the past 20 years and learning how to sit with people and have tougher conversations and get to the root of what's happening versus superficial conversation.

Chris Schwagerl:

So I'm just and if you meet me at a networking event and I hope that when you see me at a networking event you know we get a chance to meet and hug it out and all that kind of stuff but you'll notice I think I've got this feedback before that we don't spend a lot of time on chit chat. We kind of get like right down to it and that that's what really fills me up and I spent a lot of time in my personal life learning how to have tough conversations. I come from a long line of Midwesterners who you know at funerals we get the lump in our throat and we stare forward and we have no emotions and you know we just wait until it's done and then we have ham sandwiches and a six pack of beer and then karaoke and pretend like it didn't happen.

Chris Schwagerl:

You know, so that's what I grew up with, but I didn't want that for my life and I wanted to have a richer emotional vocabulary and connection with myself and others myself and others.

Chris Schwagerl:

You know, I remember growing up and just feeling moved in nature, feeling moved in church by the hymns, by the songs by the organ, by my grandpa playing the trumpet, you know just different things really filled me up Artwork I experienced artwork and music just differently and I didn't have words for it, and so I wanted to figure that out and I think maybe I went too far, because now I really enjoy having kind of deeper, more robust conversations and it's fun because when other people learn how to do it too, they just become magnetic towards building those connections, which is exactly what we need in commercial real estate. Whether you're building relationships with builders or brokers, vendors, insurance people, bookkeepers, investors all of those people, all those connections are human relationships, and so if you can get really good at connecting with yourself and loving yourself, you will naturally become attractive to other people and that will move the needle in your business. That was the theory when I started this business a year and a half ago, and I'm very, very happy that that that thesis was was proven to be true.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I love it, yeah, and I think you have quite a great stat, isn't it Like 283% return on investment for your coaching?

Chris Schwagerl:

no-transcript capital. That's the real data which is cool, that's huge, yeah, yeah.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, yeah, and it's one of those too, I think so many times people try to silo life, as if business is only one area of your life and then relationships are another and health is another. But as you very well know, better than anyone else, that they're all intertwined, and I think a lot of times people don't make decisions out of fear, right when they say they don't know. They do know. They just don't know how to get what they want, what steps to put together or the timing of it. So I think it's also, I would anticipate, dispelling some of those myths and helping people create better habits so that they can be more decisive, more action oriented on the things that will genuinely move the needle forward and, as those are moving forward, just everything is going to up level for them through the rest of the process.

Chris Schwagerl:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're all busy, right, but a lot of times busy is a defense mechanism, you know, because if I'm busy doing these low level tasks I don't have to stare at that big thing. That's freaking me out.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Right.

Chris Schwagerl:

Like. For me, it was like, if I'm on LinkedIn talking to people, which is what I love to do, then I don't have to spend time on the back end with operations, which I hate, you know. And so, thankfully, I have an operations guy now, which is awesome, you know.

Chris Schwagerl:

Get things off your plate where you know, how long does it take me to build a website? Six weeks and 45 minutes. You know, six weeks to sit there and think about it and then 45 minutes to execute on it. Right, you know, we all have those things inside of us and so we have to learn how to fail forward. We have to learn how to be okay with failure, celebrate failure, celebrating an effort. You know, a lot of times we're saying, hey, you know, like with goals, once I make a hundred thousand dollars this year, a hundred thousand dollar commission, once I raise $5 million, then I'll celebrate. But raise 5 million bucks, you're going to have to cold call all these people, give this many webinars, hire people, fire people. Let's celebrate all those little efforts that go into it, because then our motivation sticks with it. That's real motivation.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely, and I think also when you touched on the hard conversations, that is commercial real estate, because you're talking about people's financials and a lot of times that is tied to worth here in the United States or probably pretty much anywhere, right?

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

A lot of times it's seen as one in the same, and so people have a really hard time having those open conversations. But I'm wired similar to you of I like the deep conversations because otherwise it seems to be a lot of nothing and you're not getting anywhere. And so you want to have an investment, both of genuine care but also helping people move forward with whatever they are. So you know, in the brokerage realm, obviously it's understanding where they can have their most successful location, negotiating the deal from them. Also helping them bring in other sources of funding or whatever they might need, and all those little details, the build out and signage and you name it zoning whatever else might happen. It's pulling those factors together, so it's fulfilling. But commercial real estate's a long game, just like investing, and so if people aren't prepared for that, they're going to want to look elsewhere, right?

Chris Schwagerl:

Yeah, well said. I like how you say that it's not all shiny, it's not all rainbows and all that kind of stuff. Like be real, be real from the get go, because then you'll save people all sorts of heartache on the end, which is why you're so great at your job.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, Thank you. Yeah, it's the, I think too, at the base of it, right Is it's the intention behind the words, because I think the intention drives the words that you choose, right? We've all been slaughtered in conversations and we've all been praised in them, and it's really creating something that will help them move forward, whether it's constructive criticism or a next step or maybe that they're not ready for something. But here's something you can do A, B and C to get you to where you need to be, and it's just a matter of time, and you know that they have a resource. So I think that's a big deal for people. But as we wrap this up, Chris, the big finale question is what does living fully mean to you?

Chris Schwagerl:

I knew you were going to ask me this, yes, and so I was thinking about it. But not think about it. How's that? I like it. I'm going to go a little meta on this.

Chris Schwagerl:

So I think living fully to me isn't necessary. For me, living fully would be, you know, being somewhere on a lake a love lakes, right, and I'm arm and arm with my babe, right, kelly, and watching my daughter and her cousins play. The sun is setting. You know, I've got myself a cold drink. I've been drinking a lot of these hop waters lately, you know, so I've got one of those. Been drinking a lot of these hop waters lately, you know, so I've got one of those. And just a feeling of contentment, just like everything's okay. You know, everything is great, you know, like I wouldn't want anything to change. I think that's what I want. When I was in my twenties or thirties, I would have given you a different answer, for sure, and it would have had to do more with thrilling, going fast, all that kind of stuff. But I did meet some health insurance deductibles in those years.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

You know, I think it's less about.

Chris Schwagerl:

It's less about thrills for me now, and more of just contentment, that feeling that like everything is cool, it's not that my problems have gone away, it's just that feeling of gratitude of just everything's good.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Which is huge. That is not a small feat. I mean, if you were to take a poll, I think the percent of people that feel content would be a pretty low number, which is another reason why they need to reach out to you. So how do people reach out to you, chris? Yeah, linkedin, so you can find me. I'm.

Chris Schwagerl:

Chris Schwe. Yeah, linkedin, so you can find me. I'm Chris Schweigel on LinkedIn. My last name is a silent R. It's German. It was broken immigration story. I'll tell you about it if you want to know about it.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Or you can find me on my website, infiniteskieslife Perfect Well, chris, thank you so much for joining me today, and I know our audience and viewers are going to love hearing more about what you offer and digging into that, so expect some phone calls, thanks.

Chris Schwagerl:

Oh, one last thing. Can I get something free out to your audience? Of course, awesome. I just got done putting the bow on this last night in fact too late, but I created a resource about how syndicators can beat imposter syndrome, so this isn't like just a generic thing. This is specifically how syndicators can defeat imposter syndrome and it's a free resource. Can we link that up somehow?

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely yeah. I'll link that up yeah. So thank you for that. I was going to say I did try, yeah, so thank you for that. I now I'm working on the second exercise of influences and what you want to keep and what you want to let go of. So just put it out there to everyone. He gives away so many valuable resources that he could easily charge hundreds thousands of dollars for because they're, they're very powerful.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

So, yes, including the uh, the uh. So, yes, including the the subconscious goal achieving that. I took that. That is definitely very powerful. So, chris, thank you so much for joining us today and I look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn further.

Chris Schwagerl:

Oh, thank you, Heather.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Live fully. Yes, I like it, see you.

Chris Schwagerl:

All right, take care.