Resilience. What does it really mean in organizations or in the real estate world? Why is it always mentioned? Why is it so important? In today’s episode, Marc Miller discloses the current state of the marketplace, the crucial factor in operationalizing resilience in organizations, and the perspective of the tenant’s side in the real estate business. Marc is a strategic commercial real estate leader, business and workplace solutions advisor, trusted global C-Suite consultant, and tenant representation expert. Join us and learn all about resilience from the tenant’s side of the story!
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Show Notes:
- 13:16 The nature of tenant representation
- 17:10 Achieving the American dream
- 20:58 The concept of micro spaces
- 26:25 The loss factor: differential between rentable square feet and usable square feet
- 32:43 The state of the marketplace
- 40:59 The leasing velocity in Manhattan
- 44:20 How to create resilience
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The Tenant’s Tale: Importance Of Resilience In The Real Estate World With Marc Miller
In this episode, I get to talk to Marc Miller, who is a guy that’s a very interesting man. He came from a lower middle-class economic background and entered the office leasing business with no contacts. He had and continues to have a prolific career in that space after trying some other things out that you will hear about during our show, including being a member of a Big 8 accounting firm. He is an artist as well. You are going to love this conversation with my guest Marc Miller. Stay tuned and enjoy.
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Marc, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you. I want to ask you this question to begin with. What’s something that’s not a part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you? What is one thing that’s not typically part of your bio or intro that you would love for people to know about you?
It is probably that I’m a very visual person that is so into nature and colors.
It’s interesting because if people are only reading this, they won’t get the flavor. Behind Marc, on the wall, is quite a bit of artwork. I don’t want to talk about the artwork for more than a moment here because people can’t see it but can you say something about what is hanging behind you?
Absolutely. Since I was about five years old, I started drawing with whatever I had available, whether it was a children’s pastel set or crayons. As I got older, it led to using Parker pens, Paper Mates, gels, sharpies, and even fountain inks. To make a long story short, from the size of a business card up to, on average, 10×14 inches, I create abstract works of art. In 2021, we decided to introduce it to the world, go commercial, and also go organic in terms of people getting to know where I come from and why this is authentic and soulful work.
It naturally led out. I would have said there is something that I’ve learned about you in the first couple of minutes of our conversation. We’ve never had a conversation before. This is one of those wonderful moments in these shows where sometimes, you get to meet a guest for the first time at the moment when you are going to have an interview.
For folks that might be wondering what was that space between the question I asked you and your answer to that question, that was a space that we haven’t edited out. I would’ve said you are thoughtful because you didn’t start to respond as so many people tend to do. That means you begin to speak, and then you figure out what you want to say or going to say in the process of speaking. That’s one of those interesting things that you tend to notice about folks at times but you didn’t do that. You took a pause, thought some more, and then responded. That’s something I noticed about you. Is that true?
First, I appreciate what you said because the mind is different from the mouth oftentimes. The first impression I had of what’s not on my bio was the fact that I ran a marathon when I was 22. That’s something that is relevant but who cares? In terms of resiliency, that was one of my first huge tests in not stopping during a pouring rain for four and a half hours. Even though my brother and I started it together, his pace was a little too fast. Within half a mile, I let him go over the Verrazano himself. I then continued my race all alone. It is the loneliness of the long-distance runner. Have you heard about that?
Sure.
That’s the first thing that came to me. Aside from maybe some internal mental toughness or resilience, that’s not necessarily what I wanted to portray or introduce myself to you.
I was thinking my brother is the runner in our family, too. I don’t think I could finish a marathon at the moment. Let’s say, for argument’s sake. I could finish it. He would probably have left me in the dust within half a mile, and I would let him go over to Verrazano all by himself like you. Your career is quite a bit different than what people might somehow at this moment think is based on what your first answer was anyway.
Your career hasn’t been about art or about artistic pursuits, even though that is a part of your journey at this moment. We can certainly talk about that, too. Why don’t you take us back or share a little bit about what your career over the last couple of years has been? That’s fascinating. I want to explore a little bit of the contours of that space with you, given the environment that we are all living in.
I was the last person to jump into office space, brokerage or any type of field like that because there was no one in my home that was involved in real estate. My brothers were becoming accountants and CPAs. I was the youngest of the three of us. By the time I was 15 or 16, I had my eye on the Big 8. It’s now the Big 4, as you probably know.
Those are accounting firms for anybody that may not know what that whole thing is.
They have HR, consulting, and God knows what else but you are right. It’s primarily accounting. My first test as an adult and professional came eight months after killing myself to get the job when I was canned. It was because they saw that even though I struggled and raced through college to get this job before the age of twenty, the field was not for my personality. My personality is not for sitting, doing tick marks, and checking other people’s records. It’s more about getting to know people, researching, and thinking. The visual part came out of nowhere.
After I left accounting, I found this position with a real estate firm. In the firm that I was auditing, there was one guy that wanted me on his “team.” The chairman of the firm was known as a very centric guy. He asked people questions like, “If you are at the end of a movie theater line with your girlfriend, how are you going to get to the front of the line and get in?” It was strange stuff like that. He didn’t like my answer, so I went on to other firms. I had over 39-plus years, including 8 and a half having my own boutique between 2000 and 2008. It was a historic time for Americans especially.
I created something called Miller & Partners, which was a boutique tenant’s representation firm. I did that for nineteen years after starting in the industry because integrity was lacking at my old firm, where I had become a Managing Director. I left some ships on the table at the age of 39 at that time and said, “Even though people are talking recession, this, and that, I have some clients. I have some loyalty. I have a core group that loves what I do. Let’s do it.” That led me on a different journey of eventually getting bought by a bigger firm in ‘08 that I felt comfortable with.
It is interesting because that space, the multifamily space, and the landlord-tenant area are relevant. It is in controversy on some levels in ways that I don’t know how predictable those are. Perhaps it was because there are quite a number of investors that are buying up single-family homes and other multifamily structures to maximize profits as property owners and landlords. We are in a situation where the rental market has spiraled in many markets. I would love to get your take on that because it’s bringing up some interesting things.
Like when we were in college and having an Ethics class, we understand that the purpose of, in many ways, capitalism is that people create businesses, and those businesses thrive. When those businesses earn a profit and they thrive, there is a sharing of the profit because people earn more money at those places, and those people spend more money in the economy. It is a ripple effect where all the boats are rising because the tide is rising, yet there’s another story of capitalism that tells some other tale.

Resilience In Real Estate: The purpose of capitalism, in many ways, is that people create businesses, and those businesses thrive. When those businesses earn profit and thrive, there’s a sharing of the profit.
I’m trying to leg into this conversation about resiliency but more from the tenant side. I’m not being a tenant advocate here in any way. I was a lawyer for eighteen years. I did a lot of real estate work. I represented developers and also the financing arm of commercial development and residential development for a brief period. For 5 or 6 years, I handle bankruptcy work as well. I got to see up close and personal the relationships between landlords and tenants. I would love to get your sense of what the landscape is. We could start with a big, aperture wide lens. Talk about your thoughts on the environment, and then we can also talk about resiliency in that context as well.
I want to clarify that I’m more of a commercial guy than a residential guy. When it comes to the multifamily or the landlord-residential tenant side, I could speak to it as a business person but not as what I would call a market expert.
That’s fair. We will do this. I want to talk about that, too. I will put my lawyer hat on. I’m not calling you an expert witness to the stand. You don’t have to talk about your CV. I won’t qualify you under Federal rules.
I was exposed to the industry from an office-leasing office space and commercial real estate point of view. Instead of becoming in-house with one of the big real estate families or institutions, or becoming a building agent, I grew my career organically with 1 tenant and 1 space user at a time, whether they were IT, architecture or law.
I built this following and organically was able to get referrals as well as grow with my clients. Some clients would come into New York with 10,000 feet. At the end of several years, we would be up to 60,000 feet in some cases based on their industry model. The nature of that side of the business, called tenant representation, is creating leverage and space between the tenants who has less power and the landlords and their brokers that have most of the power. That’s something that I took to like a fish to water, thankfully. After that negative experience in my brief accounting career, it gave me that charge of energy when I saw this service that I felt I could provide beautifully and get well paid for it.
Philosophically, not from an expert’s standpoint, we are going to talk about the commercial but I want to start with the residential. It may well be on the philosophical or opinion level. Your opinion is based on your observations or your own experience in life, etc. I’m curious. Do you see challenges in the way that rents have escalated, for example, across the country?
There’s a disconnect between what’s going on with people’s lives and the institutional owners, as you were saying before, that are buying up suburban homes in addition to their holdings in the cities and CBDs. It’s difficult, depending on where you are in life. For young people graduating college or law school, you are still in that mode of building a career.
There's a disconnect between what's going on with people's lives and the institutional owners buying up suburban homes in addition to their holdings in the cities. It's very difficult, depending on where you are in life. Share on XThey might have to share apartments like we always did but because rents are so high, they have to squeeze in an even smaller space. Therefore, they have to spend more time in the cafeteria, library or the local Starbucks unless the WeWorks of the world open their doors to people that can’t necessarily give WeWork $500 to $2,000 a month.
As we go older than just people that are sub-30, we are dealing with people that have career issues and have been dislocated because of their companies, an M&A or maybe even a Chapter 11. They probably have a kid or two. They are 35 or 45 and have to pivot. It’s very challenging. As you were saying about the balance of capitalism, it’s a huge issue because you don’t want the government’s hand involved with anything.
We want the free hands of the market but when the free hands of the market start to weigh the scales to such an extent on the power side and the regular people that don’t have the significant bankbook, institutional money, parental money or whatever it might be to pay their rent or mortgages, there has to be some simple justice. I don’t want to use any prefixes before the word justice. It is a just, fair environment where people can be good citizens, make an honest living, and be able to house themselves and their families in a safe area.
They have access to the American dream, which I do believe is still alive and well or alive anyway. It is something that we want. I certainly want it, not just for myself. I want it for my kids and my grandkids. I want it for everybody’s kids and their grandkids or whoever. That’s the great promise of this nation. At least, that’s my philosophy about it.
That’s the promise to all of us, not to some of us. It is not for the privileged, powerful, or rich. The cost of admission, we’ve seen it in so many areas, not just in rent. As you and I are speaking, there are sports championships going on or playoffs. The cost to take your kid, a family, or to go yourself or with a friend to a ball game is pretty exclusive in terms of what that cost looks like.
Capitalism is the worst system unless you compare it to all the others. You’ve heard of that. It’s a matter of who we are trusting. Who is the common citizen that isn’t running for political office or isn’t necessarily on their town board? Who can you trust? Who will listen to you? It’s all a matter of problems and then solutions. That is one of the reasons I have always been into reading self-improvement literature and other things. I realize that if I can gain wisdom from people that have lived much prior to me being around or me needing that wisdom, I don’t have to make so many mistakes myself. There are a lot of lessons.

Resilience In Real Estate: Read self-improvement literature and other things because if you can gain wisdom from people who have lived much prior to your being around or needing that wisdom, then you don’t have to make so many mistakes yourself.
This may be the last question on this for the moment. I would love to get your thoughts on what you see as the future there. Do you see there is a swinging of the pendulum in some other direction? Do you have any thoughts on where this is headed?
Do you mean with housing or with residential?
It is specifically with the housing, and then we are going to switch over. I want to talk about the commercial in a different context but similar.
I see more of a trend going toward micro-apartment developments. That’s why even micro hotels are huge, too. Everything from construction to engineering to all of the ancillary services that go into renovating or building is so high. Everything’s crept up. Even prior to this new dose of inflation, to capture a certain amount of steady, long-term revenue business that they don’t have to necessarily replace every nine months because someone either, God forbid, goes bankrupt, loses a job, etc. they have to go smaller and more affordable with services within the buildings or the structure. It is so that people can have that huddle or gathering space somewhere else outside of their 300-foot or 350-foot apartment or a small townhouse. That’s one trend.
That’s a great trend, too. Will you define the micro space a little bit for our audience as well?
Micro space means the landlord is offering a footprint or box that’s smaller in size and more compact for each living area. It is extremely intelligently laid out in terms of where the windows are in relation to where the master bedroom, so to speak, comes out of the wall when you need that. When it’s not coming out of the wall for sleeping, it is backed in. You then have a sofa area for entertaining and a small kitchenette. You are not having dinner parties for 6 or 8 people necessarily. We are talking about intelligent design on that.
We are talking about developers and landlords being extremely sensitive to what the population is and who they are attracting. Is it the new college grads to 35 or is it the 40 to 60 crowd? Is it the married or unmarried or divorced and single again, or whatever it might be? A lot of empty nesters, correct me if I’m wrong, do not necessarily want an environment that’s going to exclude their grandchildren from playing in the pool. It’s interesting.
There are some of these models of these development firms and their communities that exclude children and grandchildren from staying over for many, whatever it might be, and enjoy. The amenity aspect from a commercial and residential point of view is going to be the wave of the future in terms of attracting the right people who could pay rent over a longer time and be happy in less space or a different type of living arrangement.
There is a hybridization where living and working aren’t necessarily so far apart or even where living, working, and shopping where there’s that commercial end of it are also not so far apart.
What we are seeing a bit in the Hudson Yards development of West Chelsea in Manhattan is that 24/7 attempt by the related company to create that kind of an environment of the retail, the tourists coming, the office, etc., and people living there.
It is, on some level, ironic. It’s like watching history repeat itself. It wasn’t long ago. It was probably still during my growing-up years that the norm, at least in the New York Metro area, was that you did live in smaller units, mostly apartments. My grandmother lived in an apartment her whole life until she left the city. They had bought a house up in the Berkshires, Western Massachusetts, for a song back then. That was the first house she ever lived in. For the most part, all of her family, including her four siblings, whether they are lawyers, doctors, writers, etc. lived in apartments.
On 1 floor was 1 family member and 2 floors down was another family member. It is interesting. You came out onto the street, and there was all the commercial stuff that had to do with that. What wasn’t part of that mix was the work part. The fact that we are living in a world where not only gathering spaces can be communal, co-working spaces proved to be good businesses.
A lot of people are working in hybrid situations. Maybe they are not in the office at all. They are completely virtual. Maybe they are in this blending of 2 days in the office, 3 days away, etc. Everything is up for grabs, it seems. I’m a researcher in terms of resilience. I do a lot of keynote speaking on the topic of resilience.
Also, I will keynote on work-life harmony challenges, stress management, mental health, and things related to resilience. In that research, what I see in the trends reflect a pushback against a trend to exact more money for regular common living. Those are the ordinary things that are necessary for daily life, not extravagances. It’s not luxuries but ordinary stuff. That is not a model that is sustainable.
You are right. We have something in Manhattan. It’s elsewhere in the country but it’s extremely aggressive in Manhattan. It is called the differential between rentable square feet and usable square feet. Between the two, there’s something ascribed called a loss factor. Loss factors include part of the common area off the elevator, the lobby, the building, the electrical closets, etc.
There came a time many years ago when it got worse progressively until they couldn’t make it more onerous than it was. Unfortunately, landlords were going out more aggressively from the 100% envelope of the structure. With architects that were signing off, they have 130% of a building that they are charging rent on. The last time I checked, that’s not fair. I hope this is okay for your show but I always say that if Eliot Spitzer’s father were not a real estate developer, Spitzer would’ve gone after the real estate industry, not after Wall Street.
If Eliot Spitzer's father was not a real estate developer, he would've gone after the real estate industry, not after Wall Street. Share on XI know that for a fact or even agree. I grew up in New York. For people that don’t know that. I’ve grown up hearing about slum lords hearing and all the shenanigans. I don’t think that’s the norm but there are situations where landlords have gotten the reputation of whatever advantage they could take. I don’t know whether it’s measuring the square footage of an apartment out to the studs, even though that’s not technically the square footage that’s usable within that or livable in.
It is one of those things that you were identifying ethics. I started this conversation by framing it around its ethics of it, the thing that that won’t hold water after a while. I read in the Times that in Kansas City, they are pushing back on landlords and property owners based on what has been a 30% or 35% increase in rental pricing over the last couple of months. That’s about double the average in the country, and even that half of that is shocking, frankly.
I don’t know whether we are at a precipice or what have you but as a researcher, I’m always curious about what the trends are. I do recognize that it’s like a pendulum. It swings in one direction for some time, whether it’s stocks, bonds, real estate or whatever it might be, and then reverses course to some degree. There’s a brief period, I suppose, where we are in this nice middle area.
Do you mean we are in this middle area?
No. I mean, when the pendulum is making that where we find ourselves in some zone or in the middle.
We are dealing with demography. We are dealing with a population that’s growing. We are dealing with a housing and commercial building stock that’s getting older or demolished for other purposes. The supply of the bodies needing apartments, homes, and places to live, especially, is always growing. That’s the nature of life. People have children.
On the other side, if the housing stock in a municipality, town, hamlet or big city has not been staying on top of its game in terms of the individual landlords, owners, or even the city sometimes being involved in transportation and cleanliness. Quality of life issues is huge. No one wants to live on a street or within X number of blocks. It’s an eyesore or they are not safe coming home.
It’s not clean. I want to shift into looking at commercials, which is a related thing. It is its own niche. I would’ve expected, coming out of the pandemic, going for a period of whatever it was, at least a year, in many places where commercial space was unoccupied. A part of our business works with organizations on a consulting basis to operationalize resilience in those organizations. One of the challenges that we hear again is getting people back to work or getting people back in the office.
In fact, there was a large accounting firm. I won’t name the name. They were saying they have a brand-new building. It was built before the pandemic. It’s gorgeous and amazing. They spent a lot of money on it. They payout. They’ve got a lot of debt on it. They’ve got about 30% occupancy in this building of theirs. Part of what we are helping and assisting them with is to get people in a place where they want to come back to work and can utilize that space. My question for you is, coming out of the pandemic, I would’ve at least thought it was possible that more commercial developments went belly up because people were not occupying that space. People are on long-term leases. Is there bad news down the road? What’s the state of that marketplace?
There was a lot of forgiveness from the various people that either hold paper or held leases in terms of the reality that not only do we not have people filling up the space, our business or P&L, look at our numbers. Out of respect for the owners of the property, they have a right to say, “If you are asking for some relief and reduction in the number of months free, then we have a right to see the actual numbers to show that your business is down.” That’s only fair. In any environment, we always know that there are people that are doing great in a tragic environment but they still got to complain and ask for something free. People do that.
In any environment, even people doing great will still complain and ask for something for free. People just do that. Share on XPlenty of people took PPP that didn’t need it but we won’t go down that road.
To your point with the question of getting people back, do you think everything in life is a carrot and a stick? What’s your view of that before I answer the other question?
I don’t see it as either/or, but I wasn’t clear either. Are there signs that there are systemic issues in commercial real estate, given the fact that, in our experience, the workplace will never be the same as it was? That’s for sure. There’s a certain percentage of people that will never come back to the office.
When you are dealing with work that could be done wireless or in the clouds where files are safe, the idea of collaboration and collegiality on a hour by hour or day-by-day basis has lost its truth. Some companies are saying, “For the partnership structure, we could work from home because we’ve earned it. If you are in the first ten years or whatever of your career, then you better get your butt in the chair in the city or wherever it is. That’s how life works here at this company.”
Each company takes a different posture but I believe the lockdown and the fear that it evoked in terms of the plexiglass panels, how many to an elevator, stand this way, go that way or don’t breathe on him or her goes way beyond the idea of you can’t even compliment anybody if you like their outfit anymore. That’s another subject.
I don’t think things are going to return to normal. We are going to see a deficit in the number of people in the office on any given day or week. You were mentioning correctly a lot of the hybrid models like 2 in, 3 out or vice versa, etc. It is all the different things. The question is, “How can a culture of a company become so attractive to its staff no matter what their level that they want to be there?”
Those are the wonderful tasks that sometimes we are able and honored to assist with in finding some of those answers when we are working with folks, companies, and their leadership teams. Do you see there being systemic issues in commercial real estate as a result of this, whether it’s that or it’s even the boxes that we know as the outdoor malls? Do you see longer-term structural issues in that industry?
It started many years ago when Nordstrom closet, Sachs, and all the other brands started experimenting with a smaller box theme. That was the tip of the iceberg, pre-COVID, in terms of the idea of, “Do we need a 50,000 to 150,000-foot box?” In my opinion, these last couple of years has solidified the idea that there’s no more business as usual. If you own a number of stores in Downtown Charleston, your business model is not going to change as much as if you have a shopping center outside of Somerville an hour away. That is to give you some geography there.
It’s back to the location thing, which is true to a great extent.
What I believe is that malls and owners of the property have to rethink their land use, in other words, and then see if the current zoning even clicks. One may need to get diversified with the number of “services,” whether it’s healthcare or car washes. There is also the store mix. There is the eating. People have to eat. They want that variety. They want fresh and healthy and not something that has been sitting there for a couple of hours.
People have high expectations. In terms of the clothing companies, they all have to rethink how much space they could afford. This goes back to then the landlords having to say, “Who is going to fill in the rest of my space? Do I build a residential component in a vertical or horizontal mall, which is secure and separate but has access to all of the other things to make it livelier, etc?”
None of this isn’t being talked about more than the set of people invested in that space. It does strike me as intuitively more than interesting but maybe even on point. If store boxes go dark because there aren’t paying commercial tenants for those spaces, that makes sense, repurposing those spaces in a way that you were talking about those micro spaces. There was a trend before the pandemic of tiny homes. Tiny homes make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons but it still means putting a home on a piece of land.
A lot of people can’t afford the price of admission. The land itself, let alone the expensive cost of a tiny home, is not a cheap structure either. As you might have imagined, it is not like building a lean-to or a tree house. Get a quote, and you will know what I mean. It is utilizing space that might otherwise have outlived its optimal use, for example. Is there a lot of vacant space in Manhattan? Are there vacant office spaces? Do you see that trend increasing as leases come due and may not be renewed? What are your thoughts on that?
We are dealing with a historic amount of both sublease space as well as direct space that is on the market. The media, landlords, and PR people that work with them are trying to spin a different story about the leasing velocity coming back and how busy they are. I’m representing a few tenants. They are an investment firm and a family office. I am also consulting on a few others. Everybody is trying to navigate, “How do we see the future? Are we adding or subtracting?” Most companies that are not growing in terms of new departments or businesses are, upon renewal or earlier, if they could sublease, will be downsizing.
On a long-term basis, it’s a very serious threat to building owners. We are already seeing some of the former office space being converted into co-working and amenity space. If there happens to be a floor with a large outdoor area or terrace, they will make that floor into a ping pong or an espresso bar with beautiful couches. There’s one landlord by the Grand Central Station, which rebranded into an office building almost like a Beaux Arts Hotel.

Resilience In Real Estate: Most companies not growing in new departments or businesses upon renewal or earlier if they could sublease will be downsizing. On a long-term basis, it’s a very serious threat to building owners.
I got to give them a lot of credit because they took this 1925 building. They had columns. It didn’t lay out great for space users in the modern era but the way they started building out their space was by stripping the columns to the metal, bringing up the ceilings as high as possible, and not dropping them, which is also moving away from carpet. We have been seeing a lot of carpet disappearing and having polished concrete or some of the faux wood materials as flooring. It is cleaner, more hypoallergenic, etc. Everything I have shared with you is proprietary and trademarks.
I enjoyed this conversation. I am going to switch gears entirely. I would love to get either your definition or your own personal take on resilience or something about how you create resilience, whether it’s through habits, rituals, practices, etc. Pick either one of those or both if you like.
I will pick the latter side. For me, being resilient is being grounded. As I’ve matured in my life to where I am, it has been a philosophy of believing in a higher power. I call him God. I have a little mantra. I wrote it down, so I don’t forget it. It is faith, trust, work, meaning, effort, and then surrender. That’s not something that has never been spoken about. A lot of the football coaches talk about working the process. They are like, “Have your blinders on about the threats from any other team or don’t worry about the win. Just do your job.”
Being resilient is being grounded. It's a philosophy of believing in a higher power we call God. Share on XThe idea of surrendering, for me, but loving life is what gives me the resilience to deal with getting smashed by the waves and needing to get back up. I have a family. I have responsibilities. I have goals. I love growing continually and getting my art introduced. It’s new for me in terms of presenting art and seeing people’s reactions. I must tell you. It has been so gratifying, the fact that people want to put something that I created on a special wall. It has been incredible.
Marc, I enjoyed this conversation.
Thank you.
I feel those words that you shared. I share a lot of those very same belief systems. There are two things happening. For me, in terms of this, there’s that you are a pivoter and that you’ve got this wonderful pivot story, which is not as some people think. I wrote this book some years ago. Simon & Schuster re-released it in a paperback and updated all that for the pandemic times. It is this book, Pivot.
It’s less about having this jump ship or leave-your-current-thing, whatever that thing might be. It’s more about what you described, which is that you are utilizing the career that you’ve put so much time, effort, and love into for over 39-plus years in that commercial real estate arena. You are also embracing this other aspect of yourself. There are these other interests and other talents that you have in the art space. There is no mutual exclusivity. It’s both not either/or. I truly love that about you.
Thank you so much. I appreciated the conversation, too. Congratulations on getting the paperback on Pivot. It’s awesome.
It’s fun. The new book that came out was a McGraw Hill book called Change Proof. That book is more focused on resiliency. You said something that also resonates with me. I gave a TED Talk some years ago, which talked about my journey, which has been a rocky road like everybody I know has. I love my life. I have a love for life. I appreciate it, and I’m grateful for my life. You’ve said something similar to that, “To love life is an important resilience tool.”
We are all being barraged by a lot of negative things in the media or politics. Unless we have the top-of-mind aspect that we have to choose life and what is life-affirming and life-enhancing, are we spending too much time in front of the computer and not enough in nature, and all these other things? I did watch your TED Talk. That scare you had, and then you came back and re-evaluated, I respect that. You are doing great. You look great.
Thank you, Marc. You guys make up your own mind. Check out this episode and send me a message. You can find out more about Marc and find the places in this conversation that you might want to remember, share with your teams or noodle on yourself. We love comments. You can leave a comment at AdamMarkel.com/podcast. I get it directly. I read all of those.
You can also leave a review on any of the platforms that you are consuming this on, whether it’s Stitcher, iTunes, or what have you. Even on Spotify, you can leave a five-star review. We would love that. The comments are so welcome. I do read them all. I respond to them and appreciate them. Feedback is like oxygen to us. With that, I’m going to say goodbye and say thank you, Marc, for this interesting and fun conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As always, I wish you well. To everybody out there that is reading this, I wish more than anything at all that you can love your life no matter what. With that, we will see you soon.
Be well, Adam. I will see you soon. Bye. Thank you.
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I don’t know about you but I loved that conversation. I should not even say, “I don’t know about you,” because I’m positive that you enjoyed that. The conversation that I had with Marc Miller was interesting with the track, trajectory of what we spoke about, and everything from the housing to the climate that we are in. I keep calling it housing prices in many ways. Inflation is just a word but the reality is that people are being adversely affected by the price of their rent in residential space. There is also a lot that is happening in the commercial space.
What was interesting to me was not just that we spoke about the ethical bounds of both the residential real estate environment as well as the commercial one but this interesting opportunity that exists in a hybridization, if you will, of those two spaces. We were talking about micro spaces in particular and where there are even opportunities or residential developments to embrace the work-life scenario and relationship in ways that have never been thought of before, as well as where comers come in.
We spoke about that from an ethical standpoint, a standpoint of economics, and a standpoint of identifying trends, where those trends are taking us, where we have been, and what signs we see ahead of us. We talked about Marc’s own pivot story and his transition from Big 8 accounting to the work that he has been doing for many years, as well as the passion project that has turned into a business for him on the art side. It is an element of his life, part of his personality, and a talent that he probably didn’t know he had until recently or that inspired him to share that talent with the world. It is fascinating. It is something that we can all take away, learn from, and share with others.
I hope, in fact, that you get so much out of this episode I have gotten and will share with many other people. We would always love to learn more about you. You can feel free to send us a message. You can go to AdamMarkel.com/podcast. It’s a great place to leave a message, comment, etc. You can always send us a direct email at Team@AdamMarkel.com. You can do that as well. We talked about personal resiliency as well as resiliency in those residential and commercial housing markets and other aspects of that that are in a state of flux.
Resiliency is a key element in everything. How resilient are you mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually? You can go to ResilienceRank.com. In three minutes, you get your own baseline assessment. It is a tool that I’ve used for many years with more than 5,000 resilient leaders across the globe. That’s everything from Fortune 50 companies to startups.
You get to have access to it right here at your fingertip for free. In three minutes, you can find your score, get access to resources that will also meet you where you are, and cost you nothing except the moments that it takes to be honest in your answering of the simple questions. We can go from there. I am so grateful for the relationship. I love the fact that you are tuning in. I look forward to not only you doing more of that but also sharing it with other people that might benefit from reading the message that comes thru on this show. Be well. Thanks so much again.
Important Links
- Marc Miller
- Pivot
- Change Proof
- TED Talk – Doing This for 10 Seconds Can Change Your Life!
- Team@AdamMarkel.com
- ResilienceRank.com
- https://www.Instagram.com/MosaicsByMarc/
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/marcsmillernyc/
- https://www.Facebook.com/Mosaics-By-Marc-106916391987286
- https://www.Etsy.com/shop/MosaicsByMarc
About Marc Miller
Coming from a lower middle-class economic background I entered the office leasing business with zero contacts and built a thriving 39-year and counting career. Creating abstract art was always in my life. So grateful to now exhibit, speak and sell!