Real Estate Smorgasbord
I work hard. Indeed an average work week for me is about 80 hours. Now this may sound awful and you might think ‘what is wrong with this Old Guy?’ But I think I have the last laugh here since what many call work is really play for me. Yes – through talent or luck or hard work for years – I have happened upon a great gift which is what the Chinese loosely call wu wei, which is roughly defined as the effortless that one achieves when activities that others would struggle with become effortless.
If you can achieve this in your work, then the world is truly yours, as you get to have your work and your play become the same thing and – playing semantic games a bit – it means you never have to work at all!
So my play – I mean my work – I mean my play – I mean my work – is this:
- Real Estate Lawyer: About 25 years ago – I guess now 26 years ago — I founded a law firm in New York City called Duval & Stachenfeld, with the name recently changed to Adler & Stachenfeld. By the way, my last name is in fact Stachenfeld. Over the years I built this into a 50-lawyer powerhouse real estate law practice, which is today one of the top real estate law practices in New York City. This has been the biggest success story of my entire life and I still have a feeling of pride and joy when I come into the office in the morning and find myself surrounded by talented lawyers and incredibly good people.An accolade that I mention is that my partner Terri Adler and I were one of very few lawyers ever elected to the New York City Real Estate Power 100, which is put out by the New York Observer every year, stating the 100 most powerful persons in NYC real estate.Notably – and unusually – the law firm is powered by our hedgehog, which stands for, well, love. It means we deeply care about our lawyers and our clients. That is the glue that holds us all together. I admit I really like that the heart and soul of a law firm in the midst of the cutthroat NYC real estate industry is that we care about people. I suspect it is one of the reasons for our great success as the caring is very sincere and people feel it, both within the firm and as clients of it.Feel free to come visit my website www.adstach.com and see for yourself what it is all about.
- Real Estate Industry Thought Leader: I really don’t like the phrase ‘thought leader”, as people should think for themselves, but so I am thought of in the real estate community. I am one of the most respected and well-known thought leaders in the industry through my writings as The Real Estate Philosopher, which reaches close to 50,000 real estate professionals nationwide. You can learn more at The Real Estate Philosopher . Also, a few years ago, I put all of my articles into a book called The Real Estate Philosopher’s Guide.
- Real Estate Industry Business Advisor: Since in my day job I am a real estate junkie, I find myself with not only legal expertise, but deep industry expertise as well. In this capacity, I work to help real estate players succeed in building their real estate businesses. I (mostly ) try not to put on airs about myself, but this is something I am really good at. Typically, I can look at just about any real estate business and in less than an hour come up with a bunch of ideas to improve it.
- Real Estate Capital Raising: I am licensed to act as a placement through a FINRA-approved broker dealer. This is through a company I formed called The Useful Bruce LLC, www.theusefulbruce.com. Through this activity I am permitted to raise capital for real estate parties.
- Real Estate Investor: I have invested with various clients in their real estate endeavors; however, so far I have been smart enough not to dabble directly in real estate itself, since, being honest with myself, I would have no clue how to do it. See my upcoming book, How to Invest in Real Estate if You Know Nothing About Real Estate.