Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

The Industrial Underdog: Gregg Gruehl on Grit, Growth, and Going All In

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Episode Summary:

What do you do when your industry shuts its doors—and you’ve got a dream too big to quit? If you’re Gregg Gruehl, you go all in.

In this episode of Dragon’s Gold: The Magic of Mindset, Gregg shares how he walked away from the institutional world to build something better: a company focused on legacy, family, and unlocking industrial deals for the underdog investor.

Key Themes:

  • From playing Cashflow as a teen to co-founding Gruehl Capital Management
  • Why institutional real estate often excludes the “everyday investor”—and how he’s fixing that
  • What it means to “go hard” on a deal (and why he nearly lost $100K to prove it)
  • How brotherhood, resilience, and one 650 sq. ft. apartment shaped his perspective
  • The power of iteration, trust, and the long game

What You’ll Learn:

  • The mindset shift from corporate security to entrepreneurial ownership
  • Why “no” just means “learn, try, iterate”
  • How the Gruehl brothers are designing industrial projects for sub-100K sq. ft. users
  • How Gregg leveraged his network to build a pipeline—without gatekeepers
  • Why legacy is more than portfolio growth—it’s about people, purpose, and trust

Tools & Weapons Mentioned

  • Rich Dad Poor Dad – The foundational mindset and early inspiration
  • Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins – Gregg’s go-to when he needs mental armor
  • Never Quit Philosophy – Internalized from hockey, business, and bouncing back
  • Diversification Strategy – Bringing institutional-grade industrial to everyday investors
  • Learn, Try, Iterate – The mantra that built Gruehl Capital Management

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About Gold Dragon Investments:
At Gold Dragon Investments, our mission is to bring joy to others by helping them win the game of investing — helping every client become the hero of their financial journey. We believe that wealth is a tool, but joy is the ultimate outcome.
Through meaningful partnerships, we strive to empower our investors to create freedom, and build lasting legacies of purpose, fulfillment, and wealth.

Join Us on the Adventure:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold:

The Magic of Mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having with us Gregg Gruehl, co-founder of Gruehl Capital Management. Gregg, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Justin. I appreciate the invite to be on the show. Yeah, absolutely, my friend. I've been looking forward to it. All right, well, let's dive in. Let's go to the origin story. Where did it all begin for Gregg? I mean, it began long before Gregg was even a thought. really real estate has been the lifeblood of my family since World War II. My great grandfather unfortunately passed in World War II, leaving my great grandmother who was a licensed broker her entire life from 1942 on as a young 20 year old single mother with a new infant, which was ultimately my grandfather. Real estate was passed into him and he was always a licensed agent. He did that as part of one of his three or four jobs because he also had two young kids when he was 19 years old. Being my father and my uncle who was ultimately mentally handicapped. So that was challenging in the early 60s. As you can imagine, there wasn't as many social programs for that. So ultimately my dad also continued the real estate trend. After college, he went on and became a commercial broker focusing on retail properties. And really, my entire life, I listened to him on the phone or I was being taken to vacant buildings to tour them or I was going to see projects that his developers that he was working with were working on. So real estate was always kind of around as a kid, really around in my late teens. He handed me Rich Dad Poor Dad and said, You know, got to, you got to start figuring out like where you want to go, what you want to do after your hockey career is done after college, you know, what, or what you want to study in college. So ultimately I kind of landed on studying finance because not only does Rich Dad, poor dad talk about real estate, but he also talks about investing in general. So I was like, all right, well, I know a lot about real estate. Let me learn about stocks and investing in portfolio management as well. All right. so I was like, I'll, I'll diversify and understand that. So that's kind of really where. I took the real estate journey. took it a little bit out of that in college. did take some of the real estate classes. Didn't really feel I needed a lot of them just because of my given my background, with my dad and having that education through my whole life. so really after college, instead of going out and being a broker, just like him, cause I had saw the trials and tribulations and the cycles of his cashflow. Yes, he had a lot of freedom, but he would make big checks and then no checks. I decided to go into the principal side of real estate after college. Awesome. So in the experience that you had, that we call it the leap of faith, when did you know that you were destined for greatness? When did you know that you wanted something better, you were going to achieve this success that you've experienced in this life now? So what I've done, ultimately, my goal always from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad was that I wanted to be a business owner and entrepreneur. But I knew that I wanted to have a deep understanding of what that looked like on a mass scale. So when I went to college and when I was studying finance, I always had my eyes on big operators, big principals, institutional firms. So my first rollout of college, I went to DDR, which is a shopping center REIT very large at the time. have shrunk since. Then I went to work for a multifamily firm that has grown to four billion in assets under management. Then I followed that up with landing a job unbeknownst to me that was a part of the Blackstone family and became their largest platform company at the world's largest private equity shop. So you can imagine the experience that that was. Really, and then to my role at STAG Industrial, another institutional shop, I was kind of always picking these roles. Like the first one was a management trainee role, then it was an asset management role, then it was a leasing and asset management role, and then it was acquisitions. It was always to put the pieces together. And then really that leap of faith was honestly when I got laid off from STAG because the transaction volume wasn't high enough. and that leap of faith was, Hey, I can go get a job for another principal. Really easy. I have the resume. I can go do that. I was laid off on Friday, reviewed some principles on the on Saturday said, I actually have more experience than the founder of this. Why not do this in industrial? Most people are doing it multifamily. Why not try industrial, right? Syndicate in industrial for the little guy. because most little guys don't have a chance to invest in industrial. So by that Monday, I was in my brother's office and saying, let's start a company around industrial syndications. And that's kind of that big leap of faith moment in my life. That's amazing. so your brother, did he react to request? Obviously you guys have done it, but I mean, how did that go? So he was excited, right? Because he had always been begging me to join him on the entrepreneurial journey. So he had more of a background. He kind of followed in my dad's footsteps, worked at his brokerage for a little while, but then ultimately decided the income was too lumpy. He went to work for a residential home builder during the COVID boom, made hundreds of thousands of dollars in a very short window. But he was dealing with 18 month build processes. So he was dealing with customers for 18 months. calling him from 5 a.m. till 11 p.m. at night, seven days a week. He couldn't take it anymore no matter how good the money was. So he made the leap of faith a year before me, really on the residential side, doing wholesaling, flipping, and really just kind of putting deals together for other people. When I joined, he was at his wit's end on another venture with a Section 8 kind of portfolio, and he wanted to get back to the roots of commercial where my dad was. But knowing where my background was, he was super excited that I was joining him because I brought a new life to where he was struggling his way through it. I brought new life to that. And we've really just been full throttle ever since. We have been taking our lumps, like every entrepreneur. only seven months into this venture, but I really feel like there's going to be a tidal wave that hits here soon. That's awesome. what are some of those, like we talk trials, tribulations, we call it the gauntlet, Along the way, what are some of the things that you've experienced from the beginning on? what have you experienced that you've had to overcome and what did you learn from those experiences? so I mean, there's several that are distinct, right? I would say first off, our initial view, our initial buy box was do stabilized industrial deals in tertiary markets where there's not a whole bunch institutional capital chasing those deals, whether that's because they're too small or they're too tertiary or the building doesn't have the right functionality. What we found was A, the deals were too small for us to really make money for our firm to stay afloat. and then B, what we found also was the return differential between that and prime sites wasn't great enough. And the returns for our LP syndicated capital wasn't great enough after we had our share, right. And our promote and pref, so, you know, that was step one. Step two was we locked up a great deal, great prime location. I've know this developer very well. we kind of, we knew roughly where their pricing was. So I made them an offer at their price. So I went and started raising the capital. was $7 million of equity. I found some partners that wanted to do the deal. I had the $7 and a half million in equity. Seller friend of mine goes, absolutely not. You guys, you can buy it at X price, which was a substantially above market price because they thought debt rates were going to continue to go down. And this was this past September when debt rates were at as low as they've been in two years. And they wouldn't agree to a price to sell in January because basically what they wanted to do was actually utilize depreciation benefits for 24 by holding the asset because they sold several other assets. They said, nah, we want to wait to see rates come down so we can get better pricing. Said, all right, you're crazy. But it was a gut check because on Friday I'm getting texts from him. Hey, your offer is good. We're going to go. Let's do a buyer call on Monday. We get on that buyer call. The other principal of the firm doesn't even join and he just gives me the business about dropping the deal. Hey, you know what? Honestly, we learned a lot. We raised $7 million for a deal. We learned a ton. We realized, hey, these institutions are going to give us a hard time. forward a couple of months later, we kind of shifted again from stable deals in class A to value add. So our buy boxes now, where can we do value add? In industrial, The best value add is being able to expand the building, extra land, either by adding industrial outside storage or expanding the building. So this was a 60,000 square foot building that you could add 45,000 square feet to. If the 60,000 was already stabilized, you add that 45, building's way profitable. So you take a stable building on its own. You know, it's a 12 IRR, but those are in place contracts for several years. Basically an investor, if they were just doing that stable deal would write me the check for the equity to close, and then I'd start sending them cash back the next month for the next 10 years. There's no gap in that. They're great cash flowing assets, great cash on cash returns. Now, this project, in order to enhance the returns, you build the extra building, you take extra equity capital, build the extra building, improve the cash flows, now you've made an institutional asset out of something that's a little bit too small on the edge of being institutional, from 60 to 100,000 square feet. know the broker really well. know the people selling it again. basically we are the top offer after the first two rounds of bidding. We are called that Thursday and said, you guys are not even being included in the best and final round or the buyer interviews. Okay. And mind you, these are people I knew personally. Okay. So I call them and I'm like, what's going on? I go by the broker. I call that the guy who's running the sale for this institution. He's like, look, the other three bidders, we're only a couple hundred grand because it's not that big of a portfolio. These are large family offices, have huge transaction histories, 25 year history, some of these groups, like we know they can close. It ain't worth my job to take a risk on you. So immediately, I put it all on the table. said, look, I'll go hard on the security deposit right now. A hundred grand out of my own checking account. I will wire you the money. no ifs, ands buts, So anything happens, I have to walk away from the deal. I'm going to lose a hundred grand personally. They debated that for days to whether or not to include me because nobody simply, nobody does that. So tried that method. I also at that same time was dialing every family office I knew personally or adjacently. I was dialing other big operators to see who I could partner with. beauty of all that, that came from all this, is we sent out my marketing decks, my OMs, my investor memos. They all said they would do this deal, but they can't join a buyer call because they don't have investment committee approval. Hey, let's get some agreements in place so you can send us the deal before you're even raising for it, before you have it under contract so we can't snake you or backdoor you, which is what you were obviously worried about. Correct. Right? So I didn't raise the capital before I had the contract, like I had done in the other deal. So was like, all right, we're going to wait till after we have the contract. Well, my mistake didn't get that done ahead of time to partner with the family office. But beautiful thing is now they're sitting in my Rolodex waiting for my deals to come. Now, the other thing we did to adjust for these two big issues was, all right, we're getting the cold shoulder by these institutions. These people I've known for 10 years, some of them. So what can we do to kind of bypass this? Well, let's start looking at industrial development. Okay. Great. But here's the problem, industrial development, typically big projects, institutional projects, well, big vacancies from the last few years leasing has slowed down. What kind of niche really works? Well, sub a hundred thousand square foot buildings. If you split those into like 20,000 square foot suites, if you look at suites less than 30,000 square feet, the vacancy rate, for example, in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Richmond, Virginia, it's all sub two to 3 % vacant. because nobody has built that product in the last 20 years, call it. Some people have started building it in Columbus, but not those other markets I mentioned. And what they've proven out is that there's massive rent growth finally to have class A versions of sub 30,000 square foot suites. So then now the rents where they were $8 are now $14 a per square foot. On some of the best well-located stuff. Well, historically when they're $8, you can't build that building to get a return. When they're 14, you sure can. So our beautiful niche is some of these markets they haven't been doing that in yet. and really there's still demand being proven out in Columbus, even where it's been done several times now, that there's still tenant demand and the vacancy rate hasn't ticked up at all yet, even with some of the new supply coming on. Because overall it's not that much square footage that has been brought to market, even though there's five or six projects, but there's zero of these new class A projects in markets like Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, Richmond. So one of the things I'm working on is looking at, call it five to 10 acre sites to lay out these smaller buildings, to service these smaller niche businesses, not necessarily niche businesses, but more of the mom and pop, the local credit type businesses that want newer space instead of their class B buildings to utilize. really we're kind of trying to serve the local community with this. And we found that it's extremely lucrative niche because none of the institutions are competing here. And some of the rents have been proven out what's happened in Columbus here lately. Gregg, a couple of things that you mentioned there. One, I want to say that I love that you had faith in yourself. You offering to put down that 100K, Like that just showed how serious you were, but it also showed how much you believed. And I think that that is such a powerful thing. Being able to understand and know that no matter what you are going to do it. I think that that's something that everybody can benefit from. The other thing I heard you mention is that in many of those deals, these are people that you've known for years. oftentimes we talk about allies, the fellowship, the people that go along the journey with us. In your experience along the way, who would you say has helped to support you or mentor you your process? So ironically, that first deal I mentioned, the stabilized deal, one of those guys was one of my mentors and still technically is to this day because you move on, right? You move on to the next deal. I'll tell you from my experience in all of this, having worked at all the institutional shops, what happens when you work at institutional shops is you have a big ego because guess what? You have a big balance sheet you didn't earn, but everybody flocks to you like, Gregg, here's my deal. Here's my deal. Take my deal. Buy my deal. Right? Well, when you go out on your own, those same people say, I ain't selling you this. I'm not selling you that. I'm not selling you that. Well, okay. All right. So you have to go fight for what you eat. You you got to eat what you kill. Right. In this industry and being an entrepreneur. So some of those relationships that I've had, you know, we thought we're going to be super lucrative for our business, get us off the ground quicker. And I will tell you that's absolutely actually still true. But when it comes to a seller, that's institutional. Maybe not true, but from the ability to raise capital from family offices or ultra high net worth individuals, it is actually abundantly clear that I have the capability to do that. And so that's been the beautiful thing, even though that mentor, ultimately let me down, right? He's pushed me and helped me learn through even that let down. Right. and so honestly, to this day, like I'm actually thankful for all of the what most people would call failures, I just call attempts because until I quit, they're just attempts. And if I to learn something from each attempt to get into the next position, to be ready when that opportunity strikes, when one of these deals comes together. And honestly, we're on the cusp of that. have a few LOIs out with landowners are pretty much as good as accepted, right? And we can press go on these projects pretty much right now. Honestly, I wouldn't be in these positions without those attempts at this point. Awesome. Is there anyone else that you might cite as a mentor or in that fellowship, any ally that has helped you to get where you're at? Yeah, I mean, honestly, dad pushing me all the way through. I would even say my co-founder, my brother, right? We have a, my brother, my dad and I have a very extremely closely tight knit relationship. And I will tell you, we are always talking about things, bouncing ideas off each other, always looking to build this family, if you will. Like, cause ultimately what this business is, is not only just for me, my brother, but it's for whoever becomes a future employee. to be a part of this family. it's for our kids to be a part of this family is to leave a legacy for this family. And that's really what, you know, my father focused on brokerage so he could take care of us to take me to all my hockey games in Toronto, Detroit, whatever. So he never really built a big business that had a lot of overhead that had him tied to his desk. He just had his phone and he was traveling. He's given me the opportunity, my brother's opportunity to do just what he couldn't. I think that's massively important. Obviously, through my time at several of these roles, I've had several very fantastic bosses that have pushed me to new levels as well that are kind of part of the piece of the education where my dad is really the driving factor. That's awesome. oftentimes the case the people that help us along the way or the mentors that help us along the way. Oftentimes they teach us and we learn as much as we can from them. And there's a point then you move on to another teacher, But to be able to have that driving force, your father behind always helping to support you, Leading by example in regards to being able to help and take care of the family, but also then wanting something more, right? And I think every parent, I know I certainly as a father want better for my kids than what I experienced myself, And so I can totally respect that and kudos to dad. One of the things I want to ask you about, Gregg, is I call this the darkest hour. Is there a moment in all of this time that you were going to throw in the towel, you were just done? And how did you get through that? What mindset helped you? So I will tell you that, I mean, there's probably been five or six times in my life, right? I grew up playing high level hockey. I wanted to be a division one athlete. There was a time during junior hockey where I quit a team just because I didn't gel with the coach correctly. Ultimately to come back with another team and end up getting a college scholarship. in those moments when I quit the sport that I had played for 20 years, the same kinds of principles kind of happen. It's like, you gotta, you gotta pick your head up. And you got to grow and you got to figure out, you know, where was the weakness here? You know, maybe when I was 18, I didn't fully understand it, but now that it's really what's formulated, the attempts philosophy is like, what can we learn from each little thing? Right. And so my darkest hours being cut from teams, quitting teams to getting a college scholarship to that coach being fired, who gave me the scholarship. And this is pre-transfer era for the NCAA. So I transferred back to Ohio state. I. Go all the way through not having to redshirt, like appealing the NCAA to be told that some guy in the NFL, because he sold his OSU championship ring for a tattoo, that I can't play, right? Because they're under sanctions at Ohio state. so all these times that things are ripped away, it's like, okay, what's the next step? And so, you know, hockey was ultimately, that one was taken away completely. Couldn't do anything about that. That's fine. Cause I made the decision not to go play pro in Europe, but Basically, and I wanted my degree because I decided that was actually the next step forward, right? Get my finance degree from Ohio State. That's more lucrative than going over to Europe, making $30,000 a year, playing hockey and living on a bus, right? So from that, all these other opportunities, the layoff that happened in my first company that I worked at, I didn't get laid off, but everybody else did. That's only six months into my working career. I'm like, what is this? This is corporate America. And then to really understanding, I need to build my resume, build myself so that I can rely on myself and basically only a core group of individuals. So yeah, I mean, there's been dark moments. They happen all the time, but the key is the bounce back. Like the most recent, I was laid off at STAG. Why? Because the market was slow when the Fed decided to move interest rates up, right? STAG went from doing 70 deals a year down to like 20, okay? I was hired during the era of 70 deals a year. Well, guess what that means. It slowed down. We did a lot of transactions, did a lot of volume. They still paid me out my bonus for the year in 2024 because I had already hit those goals in the first six months, even though they were laying me off. Right. So basically in like that was Friday by Monday, that weekend was dark. I watched the sun rise, the sun set from my backyard, you know, putting the feet in the ground, grounding, thinking, you know, just sitting in the lawn chair all by myself. And ultimately by Monday morning, my brother and I are starting a new venture. That's kind of how I operate. If there's a down moment, you keep going. I love that. And it's so accurate. think in every situation, an entrepreneur's life is never an easy one, And that constant forward motion, like you fall and you skin your knee, but getting back up, Fall forward or fail forward, right? One of the things I consider when I hear you talk about that is the opportunities for growth and each one of them as you achieve, as you grow, it makes you stronger. then interaction that you have, any, every business venture that you go into after the fact, you use all of those pieces of knowledge, all of that wisdom that you've gained that helps not just you, but it also helps everyone that's affiliated with the deal that you're doing, You then have an opportunity oftentimes to become a mentor or to help people in that process. And in some cases, you don't even realize the benefit or value that you bring. And upon reflection, perhaps, much like when you're 18, you may not have realized, right? But you look back and you now reflect and you understand with more wisdom the opportunities that you had. I want to ask about Dragon's Gold, the successes, the rewards, the things that you've experienced because of all of the things that you've gained. What would you share some of the mindset shifts and values that you've gained from that? Yeah, I mean, through all those trials and tribulations I just went through, I would honestly say the mindset shifts have been steady progress over my life, right? Like there hasn't just been like one big epiphany, right? And I think people sometimes think that that's the way life happens, but because you watch a movie and it's three hours and it's only the good parts. And then there's one big issue and then it's okay now that they solved it. The, you know, the superhero solved it, but To be honest with you, real life is the grinding days, To get to the big moments. really, honestly, the big mindset shift for me is the keep going factor. Like for me, everything is no learn, try, iterate, no learn, try, iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate. And until one of those actually becomes real gold, And I will tell you, You know, as a firm that's only seven months old trying to get into development, right? Is those projects take a long time. We're on the cusp of doing our first project as a company because of several deals that I have mentioned, have been failures over these first six months. Any one of those would have been great pieces to market on the website, right? Build the portfolio. Everyone would believe we're doing great, but honestly, I will tell you it's more valuable. What has happened in each one of those situations because it has led to our new. philosophy, our new goal, our new mantra as a company to just keep going, to keep iterating and the best is yet to come. Fantastic. so we talk about trials and tribulations. Something you told me about, Gregg, was in regards to when you had moved out to California. Tell me a little more about that. Yeah, so I moved out to California in 2019, 2018 actually, the end of 2018, early fall 2018. my wife and I were looking forward to California dreaming, baby, surfing, golfing. We were doing it all. We were traveling around the West coast because we're from the Midwest, know, seeing it all. was surfing almost three times a week. I was playing golf two, three times a week. It was great. And then the world stopped, right? In March of 2020. Well, that same week, We found out my wife was pregnant and we had our first appointment with our doctor for my wife being pregnant. So, and that's our first child. So this is all new. We're out in California. One of the most shut down economies, one of the most shut down areas of the country, right? The most restrictions couldn't even go to the beach, right? We're walking on the sidewalk. If someone's walking on the same sidewalk as us, we'd go to the other side, that kind of stuff. And out in California, it was crazy. We were in 650 square feet. Well, fast forward nine months, we had spent together in an apartment. working our jobs, you know, I'm dealing with rent collections because people couldn't even go work in these warehouses. So the owners were calling us, we're asking for rent reductions, all kinds of stuff, right? wife is selling medical care products so her business is busy, as you can imagine as well, right? Everybody's looking for PPE. Everything was PPE at the time. then fast forward the nine months, we have our son and we're still doing that from 650 square feet apartment. Our friends and family are nowhere near us. We had only been there a year and half, almost two years, to really, you know, make relationships where we were okay going to see people or vice versa, People weren't inviting us over. whereas, you know, when you were family, you were kind of lax on that, You'd still go see your friends and family. Back here, all of my friends and family in Ohio are like, yeah, we're wide open. We're hanging out. And we're like, yeah, we're locked in a jail cell. on Zoom calls all day like this one, And I'm in my closet talking on the Zoom call, just like this, but into shirts in the pure darkness because my son's sleeping five feet from me trying to be quiet. Like, hey, is my mic picking this up? Can you hear me? Hey, this tenant is not paying rent. We need to call them and see if we can make them a deal. Okay, yeah, go call your 85 tenants. Okay, well, like, can you imagine doing that day after day after day while my wife is dealing with her customers needing masks and gloves and shoe covers and all these things to try and protect from COVID her surgery centers? Okay, so this is going on, this is weighing on us. The only time we're going outside each day is for an hour long walk, a three mile walk through the neighborhood and we're like, dodging people with our stroller. I mean, this was very stressful. So that's kind of ultimately what led me Even though I had a great trajectory at Link, was the employee number 18 before it was even called Link. It was renamed like five times in the time I was there. But honestly, I had a great trajectory there. Everybody who was there in my same role is doing well. They're senior vice presidents, they're market officers. They're doing great. But I just could not do with what we were living in. I just, you know, we, want to get back to Ohio. I knew a bunch of brokers. This is where networks and connections come in. I make a few phone calls. come back to Ohio when we're finally able to fly. meet with one group. go STAG industrialism, hiring acquisitions. I'm like, great. I'm looking for acquisitions role. Actually. I'm looking to make the jump from leasing to acquisitions. Bada boom, bada bang. Have a job in Ohio. My wife's company is based in Ohio, so she's able to move back really good. And so then we free up our life. Right. So that was another leap of faith. It's another trial and tribulation. but ultimately grew through all of those experiences. So the biggest trial and tribulation I heard is that you lived in a 650 foot square foot apartment with a pregnant woman. so thankful. I'm alive. Yes. Yes. So we did really well during that time. Shockingly enough, you know, we were really together we built our relationship on that. won't tell you that it wasn't without its ups and downs. And there's still lasting things from those times. Right. Like the difference in how you had child care because She was always around our first child at those ages. So how she's wanted to raise our second child has been a thing. So like. We've had our moments, but honestly, we're in a really good spot and we're stronger because of those up and down moments. But yeah, making it through nine months with a pregnant woman and then the first year of my child's life, who's not sleeping in 650 square feet. Very challenging to be sleep deprived and working 12 hour days from your apartment. in a closet, like literally. Gregg, the next thing I want to ask you about is in regards to passing the torch. I like to call this the Hall of Heroes. someone was to go through and there was a statue of Gregg Gruehl and there was a plaque and it said anything you want it to so they knew about you and what you stood for, what would you want it to say? I just would want, honestly, at the very minimum, I would want to say that I was always there for the people needed I am always there for my wife. I'm always there for my family. I'm always there for my partners or investors, whether that on the investor side, it's education or it's, even if they don't invest with me, it's like, how do you pick a GP? It's any of that for family members. It's maybe whatever they're going through that they need help through. It's like, that I'm always there, that I can be trusted and relied upon to take care of what I consider this family, right? Anybody I come in contact with. So really making everybody feel like they are welcome into my family and that I give them my full attention. Thank you. I think it's really incredible To be there people that really oftentimes are there for us, but also sometimes even if they're not, Knowing that you are being there, you can look yourself in the mirror and say that you know that you have a strength of character that is true and significant, So what's next? What's the next quest for Gregg Gruehl? Yeah, so honestly, I will tell you getting our first project underfoot here in the next couple of weeks, kicking that off. We have an agreed upon LOI on our land site and we have a couple other joint ventures we can decide to take part in or not at this point. off 2025 with a bang here really getting that. that portfolio underway really trying to bring that to the everyday accredited investor, as opposed to the industrial being gate-kept from most everyday accredited bringing that$50,000 share investor who might have a few of those per to not only have multifamily options like they typically do, right? Maybe if investing in four of them, maybe you consider one to be Industrial and the reason for this is diversification. That's the biggest thing from my finance background is diversifying. I won't tell people not to invest in multifamily. Multifamily is a great asset class with high returns and a lot of people do it very successful. But I will say just consider if you have the opportunity to invest in at least an industrial project to spread your risk across market, asset class, demographic, whatever may have you. So what about tools and weapons, things that you've used or experienced, books, things that have helped you along the way, anything you'd share with the listeners? So as I mentioned, obviously Rich Dad Poor Dad was one of the foundational books and a lot of people will tell you that. what he doesn't get into enough is that becoming a residential investor and buying houses is actually another job, Being a true passive investor is being an LP investor or a silent co-GP brings other things to the table, right? So That was a foundational book, but I don't really live my life by that. I would say something else, and this is more out there. This has nothing to do with finance. These are both of David Goggins books. And that's kind of where that never quit and never give up mentality. I mean, it's not where it stems from. That's how my whole life has been lived, but that's really where I go back to. If I need some like, Hey, I don't feel like doing this today. Well that guy was running on broken legs. What am I talking about? I'm just sitting here having a few phone calls, right? Or looking at a spreadsheet. My life is pretty good. The heating or the air conditioning is on. Life is good. I have food. Like I'm not out there hunting for food and I'm not starving. Right. So just know that whatever I'm going through isn't that hard. And it's just to keep going. So that's a big mindset shift, like a mindset philosophy that I kind of, sometimes you need that reiteration through seeing those things, either whether it's his posts or others like him who post like that, that keep me going. even though that's usually geared towards fitness, But I have read plethora of finance books, right? But honestly, will say mentality is probably more important than the finance books ultimately, because you can learn through all these things, but you need to have the right mindset in order to achieve them. I agree. Alright my friend, I've got one last question for you and it is my favorite one to ask. If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be and why? So I've had to think about this quite a bit. And I would say it's a Griffin. And the reason for this is, A, I want the strength and power of a lion, Who wouldn't? And I also understand lions operate in prides and they have family around them they kind of are the king of their pride, I'm not trying to be necessarily the leader of everybody, but what I'm saying there is, You know, I want to work within a team and a group. Now the Eagle side of the Griffin is what really makes me excited. I want to soar above to be able to see the land of opportunity in front of me. And that's where that really comes from. Because a who doesn't want to fly. Everybody would love to fly. You know, we fly in planes, but who wouldn't love to fly, but B if you're using it from a mythical standpoint, being able to see every opportunity and see the world as it is from above. Fantastic. I love it. Thank you for sharing that my friend. I love Griffin's as well. Gregg, if any of the listeners wanted to be able to reach out to you, how can they connect with you? Yeah, so honestly, the easiest way at this point probably is my LinkedIn page. My name is pretty easy. GREGG and GRU-EHL. Very unique, Gruehl, my last name There's probably three other LinkedIn users, right? So you're going to see my name. Go through LinkedIn. You can also email me directly, gregg@gruehlcmp.com well and we can talk industrial we can talk life philosophy whatever you'd like I have to say, Gregg, I really appreciate taking the time today myself and with all of our listeners. was really great getting some of your story and I'm so grateful you're still with us. Please thank your wife for not ending your life. Yeah, no, we're great. We're doing great. We're life is good. You know, 100 me when it comes to these entrepreneurial ventures. She believes in me than anyone else, even if she does give me grief sometimes when I'm spending some of the money we've made over the years to make it happen. She didn't love my go hard comment as much as everybody else does. Appreciate you very much, Justin. Thank you for having me. My friends, thank you for joining us once again on our quest to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality, one mindset shift at a time. We'll see you next time.

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Gregg Gruehl

Guest