Podcasts about OPM

In this week's episode of Business Lunch, Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss continue breaking down the “Bottlenecks” framework—the 11 proven playbooks that billionaires use to grow, protect, and multiply wealth.From AI-driven acquisitions to tax-optimized exits, this conversation dives into the strategies that separate ordinary entrepreneurs from long-term empire builders. You'll hear how the world's wealthiest think about capital allocation, scaling “boring” businesses, and structuring companies for massive, tax-efficient exits.Whether you're scaling your first venture or managing a growing portfolio, this episode is a tactical deep dive into how to think—and act—like a billionaire.Key Takeaways • Tech Is Not a Moat: With AI making innovation easy to copy, your real advantage is distribution and users. • The QSBS Advantage: How the Qualified Small Business Stock exemption can eliminate up to $10M (or more) in capital gains per shareholder. • DAFs & Charitable Strategy: Donor Advised Funds can combine tax savings with long-term impact—if structured correctly. • Boring Businesses, Billionaire Results: Logistics, energy, and real estate can quietly create generational wealth when value is added and scaled. • Capital Cycling: Why the world's best investors (like Blackstone and Berkshire) act like banks—recycling capital and compounding returns.Episode Highlights [00:02:00] – Why tech is easy to copy—and why users, not code, create real enterprise value. [00:10:00] – The billionaire tax play: how QSBS and DAFs legally minimize or eliminate capital gains. [00:18:00] – When to start thinking about tax strategy (hint: usually not before $10M net worth). [00:25:00] – Logistics, land, and “boring” businesses that create quiet fortunes. [00:33:00] – The ESG arbitrage: adding sustainability to raise valuations. [00:40:00] – Network effects and marketplace rollups: creating compounding flywheels. [00:55:00] – The rise of “edge retail”: micro-brands, coffee chains, and inversion models that scale fast. [01:05:00] – Capital cycling and other people's money (OPM): how billionaires play the funding game.Memorable Quotes“If all you are is a feature that someone else could build, you don't have a business—you have a countdown clock.”“Boring businesses aren't boring when they compound quietly into billions.”“It's not what you make—it's what you keep.”“Billionaires don't think like operators; they think like capital allocators.”Mentioned in This EpisodeQualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) – U.S. tax exemption strategyDonor Advised Funds (DAFs) – Philanthropic and tax planning vehiclesRoss Perot Jr. – Logistics real estateDutch Bros – Scalable retail model exampleBlackstone & Berkshire Hathaway – Capital cycling and compounding modelsListen If You'reA founder or investor learning to structure smarter deals.A CEO or operator ready to scale beyond execution into capital allocation.A strategic thinker who wants to play the long game in business and wealth creation.ConnectHosts: Roland Frasier & Ryan DeissPodcast: Business Lunch with Roland FrasierMore at: businesslunchpodcast.comMentioned in this episode:Join Roland & Ryan at Get Scalable LiveIf you're a founder, CEO, or operator running a 7- or 8-figure business, Get Scalable Live was built for you. This is not your typical business event. It's 3 days of hands-on strategy, real-world frameworks, and next-level networking with the smartest operators in the game.

Is the new OPM Online Retirement Application (ORA) speeding up federal retirement or causing more delays? In this video, CD Financial explains the digital process, timelines, hidden pitfalls, and speedy tips for federal employees (FERS & CSRS) preparing to retire. Learn how to optimize your paperwork, avoid late annuity payments, and get the answers to crucial OPM system changes for 2025.

The number of federal employees filing retirement claims in September was the lowest all year. Just over 6,300 employees submitted their retirement paperwork to the Office of Personnel Management. At the same time, OPM also processed the fewest number of current claims in September, just over 7,900. Despite the lower number of claims, OPM says it took six days longer, on average, in September than in August to process claims. The current retirement claims backlog is at 23,500, which dropped for the fourth straight month.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most rookies think you need a mountain of cash to buy a rental property, but the truth is that the financing strategy you choose matters much more than the size of your bank account. Today, we're breaking down five of the best (and sometimes overlooked) ways to get your hands on the money you need to close—from low-money-down bank loans to options that let you bypass the bank altogether! Welcome back to the Real Estate Rookie podcast! In this episode, Ashley and Tony share some of their favorite ways to fund real estate deals in 2025. Whether you've got very little money saved or already have a sizable down payment, we've got options for every budget. You'll learn how to put less money down with FHA and conventional loans, but we'll also share several strategies that allow you to use other people's money (OPM)—like real estate partnerships, private money, and seller financing! Already own your home? We'll even show you how to tap into your existing home equity so that you always have funds on hand—money you can use to build a real estate portfolio much faster than you thought possible! In This Episode We Cover Five of our favorite ways to fund your first or next rental property How to put low money down on a rental (even with an FHA or conventional loan) Three creative financing strategies that allow you to bypass the bank How to pitch seller financing as a win-win scenario for both sides How to get fast funding by tapping into the home equity from your primary residence Four ways to find the right partner for your next real estate deal And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/rookie-624 Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not every deal needs an army of lawyers and sky-high fees to get across the finish line…So how are today's owners navigating increasingly complex M&A—and why is buyer behavior making it more challenging than ever?In this episode, Dennis O'Rourke, Partner and Chair of the Corporate, M&A and Securities Practice Group at Moritt Hock & Hamroff, shares why lower middle market companies don't have to compromise on expertise or affordability—and explains how a dramatic shift in buyer dynamics, fueled by the rise of “other people's money” (OPM), is adding new layers of complexity to deals.You'll discover…The surprising impact of buyers using investors' and lenders' capital—and why that's changing diligenceWhy “simple” deals are rarely as straightforward as sellers thinkHow to access big-firm legal expertise without big-firm price tagsThe hidden tension between buyers and sellers (and one way insurance is helping bridge the gap)The critical moment to bring in a specialist M&A lawyer—before it's too late

In this conversation, Sebastian shares his journey in the mortgage lending business, emphasizing the importance of leveraging other people's money (OPM) for real estate investments. He discusses strategies for building business credit, the significance of mentorship, and the value of networking and collaboration in achieving business success. Sebastian also highlights the need for a solid business plan to avoid debt and the importance of helping others in the entrepreneurial community.   Professional Real Estate Investors - How we can help you: Investor Fuel Mastermind:  Learn more about the Investor Fuel Mastermind, including 100% deal financing, massive discounts from vendors and sponsors you're already using, our world class community of over 150 members, and SO much more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/apply   Investor Machine Marketing Partnership:  Are you looking for consistent, high quality lead generation? Investor Machine is America's #1 lead generation service professional investors. Investor Machine provides true ‘white glove' support to help you build the perfect marketing plan, then we'll execute it for you…talking and working together on an ongoing basis to help you hit YOUR goals! Learn more here: http://www.investormachine.com   Coaching with Mike Hambright:  Interested in 1 on 1 coaching with Mike Hambright? Mike coaches entrepreneurs looking to level up, build coaching or service based businesses (Mike runs multiple 7 and 8 figure a year businesses), building a coaching program and more. Learn more here: https://investorfuel.com/coachingwithmike   Attend a Vacation/Mastermind Retreat with Mike Hambright: Interested in joining a “mini-mastermind” with Mike and his private clients on an upcoming “Retreat”, either at locations like Cabo San Lucas, Napa, Park City ski trip, Yellowstone, or even at Mike's East Texas “Big H Ranch”? Learn more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/retreat   Property Insurance: Join the largest and most investor friendly property insurance provider in 2 minutes. Free to join, and insure all your flips and rentals within minutes! There is NO easier insurance provider on the planet (turn insurance on or off in 1 minute without talking to anyone!), and there's no 15-30% agent mark up through this platform!  Register here: https://myinvestorinsurance.com/   New Real Estate Investors - How we can work together: Investor Fuel Club (Coaching and Deal Partner Community): Looking to kickstart your real estate investing career? Join our one of a kind Coaching Community, Investor Fuel Club, where you'll get trained by some of the best real estate investors in America, and partner with them on deals! You don't need $ for deals…we'll partner with you and hold your hand along the way! Learn More here: http://www.investorfuel.com/club   —--------------------

Senate Democrats are charging the Department of Government Efficiency is putting federal data at risk at the Social Security Administration, the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management. In a new report, Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says staff investigations and whistleblower accounts show how DOGE personnel are working without any accountability to agency leadership, Congressional oversight or the public. For example, Peters says despite an SSA risk assessment warning of an up to a 65% chance of catastrophic breach, the data remains in systems without any verified security controls. Peters called on SSA, GSA and OPM to immediately halt DOGE operations and access to information systems given the risk of a serious data breach.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SummaryIn this engaging conversation, Peter Murphy Lewis shares his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of human connection, the role of AI in marketing, and the value of authenticity in building relationships. He discusses the challenges faced by businesses today and offers actionable strategies for small business growth, highlighting the significance of attention and the effective use of data. The dialogue also explores cultural insights gained from Peter's experiences in Latin America, reinforcing the idea that personal connections are vital in a tech-driven world.TakeawaysPeter's journey reflects the uncertainty many entrepreneurs face.Success often comes from being comfortable with being wrong.AI can enhance creativity but should not replace human insight.Building relationships is key to business success.Cultural experiences can shape personal and professional growth.Authenticity in marketing fosters true connections with customers.Attention is the most valuable currency in marketing today.Data should be used wisely to inform business strategies.Brick-and-mortar businesses have unique opportunities with AI.The future of marketing lies in perspective and human touch.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Peter Murphy Lewis and His Journey03:05 The Uncertain Path of Entrepreneurship05:51 Navigating AI in Creative Industries08:46 The Importance of Human Connection11:57 Cultural Insights from Latin America15:10 Building Relationships in Business17:55 Challenges in Business Strategy22:02 Navigating Data in Marketing Strategies25:03 The Role of AI in Marketing Execution30:04 Human Insight vs. AI Automation35:18 Identifying Opportunities in Brick and Mortar37:35 Strategies for Growing Small BusinessesLinks from the show: strategicpete.comCredits:Hosted by Ryan RoghaarProduced by Ryan RoghaarTheme music: "Perfect Day" by OPM  The Eggs Podcast Spotify playlist:bit.ly/eggstunesThe Plugs:The Show: eggscast.com@eggshow on X and InstagramOn iTunes: itun.es/i6dX3pCOnStitcher: bit.ly/eggs_on_stitcherAlso available on Google Play Music!Mike "DJ Ontic": Shows and info: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠djontic.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@djontic on twitterRyan Roghaar:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠rogha.ar

Agencies are being allowed to continue any work related to reductions in force, even during a government shutdown. That's according to guidance the Office of Personnel Management published over the weekend. OPM's update comes as the Trump administration is encouraging agencies to conduct even more RIFs. Here with more on this is Federal News Network's Drew Friedman.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CJ Calio - The Deal That Changed My Life In this episode of The Deal That Changed My Life, CJ Calio from WNN Properties shares the real estate deal that transformed his path from UPS driver to financial freedom in just four years. Based in Hawaii, CJ focuses on out-of-state investing, building wealth through buy-and-hold residential and commercial properties in more affordable markets. CJ dives into the pivotal deal that changed everything: an 11-property portfolio he secured without having the cash in hand. By leveraging OPM (other people's money), he raised $500,000 in under 30 days to close on the deal. This portfolio not only accelerated his journey to early retirement but also opened doors to larger opportunities, including a $3 million commercial property. Topics covered in this episode: How CJ built financial freedom in 4 years through real estate The power of resourcefulness vs. resources in investing Leveraging private money and creative financing to scale Using the BRRRR method on a portfolio of 11 single-family homes Transitioning from residential to commercial real estate deals Whether you're a beginner investor or looking to scale your portfolio, CJ's story is proof that with the right mindset and strategy, you can create financial independence through real estate.

Are you tired of struggling to grow your real estate investments with your own savings? Relying on personal funds can limit your ability to scale and create wealth. This is why today, I will explain why using your own money isn't enough and how leveraging other people's money (OPM) can unlock faster growth. I'll show you how using OPM, like private investors and banks, allows you to expand your portfolio without risking your savings. Click below to learn how to leverage OPM and take your real estate game to the next level.Learn more: https://blog.titanreteam.com/is-it-wise-to-use-personal-savings-for-real-estate.html

Agencies are being told to change the way they describe positions when promoting job openings. The Office of Personnel Management wants federal job titles to be descriptive, organizational or functional in nature, or in other words, OPM says cut the government jargon. Here with the latest is Federal News Network's Drew Friedman.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At its distribution centers in Brisbane and Sydney, Coles uses state-of-the-art WITRON technology to pick 1.6 billion sales units annually from a dry goods range comprising 19,000 different items. More than 90 percent of these items are picked either fully automatically or at semi-automated workstations. The WITRON solution has fundamentally transformed not only the processes in the distribution centers but also enhanced efficiency and product availability in the stores. Working conditions for Coles' employees have also significantly improved. As a result, nearly 18 million kilograms of manual lifting and carrying have been completely eliminated each week across the entire supply chain. By halving the required footprint compared to a manual warehouse, the ecological impact has been substantially reduced - enabling the implementation of a business model that is both economically viable and environmentally sustainable. A third, even larger logistics center is already under construction in Melbourne.

Robert and Adam are sailing solo on this special episode of the GovNavigators Show, featuring an in-depth discussion of recent developments from OPM, OMB, GAO, and more. With the end of the fiscal year fast approaching, the GovNavigators are here to make sense of the storm. Hold on tight!Show Notes: OPM: New Guidelines for Performance ReviewsOMB: Updates to A-11GAO: New VideoEvents on the GovNavigator's RadarSeptember 24-25, 2025: AGA's Internal Controls & Fraud Conference  October 9, 2025: FedInsider / Carahsoft Innovation Summit 

The Office of Personnel Management is rolling out Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT to its workforce, following a similar move by the Department of Health and Human Services. According to internal emails obtained by FedScoop, OPM Director Scott Kupor told workers that Microsoft 365's Copilot Chat became available last Monday and that ChatGPT-5 access would be available “over the next few days” to all workers. Kupor said the move “is part of our broader effort to equip you with AI tools that help you work faster, think bigger, and collaborate better,” calling for OPM to “lead the way in using AI thoughtfully and effectively — starting now.” OPM spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover confirmed one of the emails sent by Kupor about access to the two tools. She said both offerings were the result of deals the General Services Administration has inked with companies to provide services at deeply discounted rates as part of its OneGov initiative. OPM was also able to add Copilot to the agency's existing subscription at no cost with Microsoft's new GSA contract in place. Similar to the HHS rollout, Kupor cautioned workers using the tools to still use their best judgment and previewed training from the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Federal workers will soon have the ability to use Meta's Llama artificial intelligence models at no cost for the agency under a new deal with the General Services Administration. GSA announced Monday it reached a deal with Meta, which will offer its open-source AI models and tools to federal agencies for free. The agency emphasized that the open-source nature of the Llama models allows agencies to “retain full control over data processing and storage.” Meta's free offer to the government follows deals from a number of other technology companies selling their products, namely AI products, to agencies for a significantly cheaper price. The Trump administration has repeatedly encouraged agencies to adopt emerging tech to streamline workflows. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Meta, said the company wants to ensure “all Americans see the benefit of AI through better, more efficient public services.”

It's been weeks since the Office of Personnel Management announced that it would not be conducting the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey this year in place of the 2025 FEVS. OPM says agencies can still choose to conduct their own surveys, but many have already said they don't plan to here to discuss the impacts of the absence of FEVS and what the future might hold for employee surveys is Federal News Network's Drew FriedmanSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Day in Legal History: Nuremberg Laws EnactedOn this day in legal history, September 15, 1935, Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, codifying one of the most infamous legal frameworks of racial discrimination and hate in modern history. Announced at the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, these laws included the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, the Reich Citizenship Law, and later, the Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People. Together, they stripped Jews of German citizenship, prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and “Aryans,” and laid the groundwork for systematic persecution.The Reich Citizenship Law divided citizens into two classes: full citizens, who were of "German or related blood," and subjects, who were denied full political rights. Jews were relegated to the latter category. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor banned intermarriage and extramarital relations between Jews and Germans, criminalizing personal relationships based on ancestry. Violators could be imprisoned or sent to concentration camps.To enforce these laws, the Nazi regime devised elaborate charts and pseudoscientific metrics to assess Jewish ancestry, culminating in a 1936 chart issued by the Reich Health Office. This visual aid defined citizens by the number of Jewish grandparents they had, assigning labels like Mischling (mixed race) to those with partial Jewish heritage. Even one Jewish grandparent could strip a person of civil rights.The Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People added a eugenic dimension, requiring couples to undergo genetic testing before marriage and barring those deemed "genetically unfit" from reproducing. These legal measures normalized state-sponsored racism and laid a legal foundation for the Holocaust.Big Law firm Perkins Coie terminated an attorney over a social media post that appeared to criticize conservative figure Charlie Kirk following his shooting death. The firm stated the post did not align with its values and that the lawyer's conduct fell significantly below professional expectations. The firing was made effective immediately. Kirk, 31, served as executive director of Turning Point USA and was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. He was fatally shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. Perkins Coie has a history of political entanglements, notably becoming one of the first law firms to sue Trump after his executive orders targeted firms representing political adversaries. These orders reportedly restricted access to federal facilities, revoked security clearances, and jeopardized client contracts. The firm was a particular focus for Trump due to its work during Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, including hiring Fusion GPS to conduct research that led to the Steele dossier, which alleged ties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.Perkins Coie Fires Attorney Over Social Media Post on Kirk ShootingU.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly extended a temporary block on the deportation of unaccompanied Guatemalan children with active immigration cases. The move halts a Trump-era effort that attempted to deport 76 minors without proper notice or legal process, including waking children in the early hours of August 31 to board planes. The judge's ruling followed a contentious September 10 hearing, where he criticized a Justice Department attorney for falsely claiming that all the children's parents had requested their return. A report from the Guatemalan Attorney General's Office later revealed that most parents couldn't be located, and many of those found did not want their children repatriated.The children in question mostly come from Guatemala's Indigenous, rural regions—Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Quiché, and Alta Verapaz—areas known for high poverty and malnutrition. Guatemalan officials emphasized that such a large-scale repatriation request was unprecedented. Some families reportedly mortgaged their homes to finance the children's migration, indicating the high stakes involved.US judge extends block on deportations of unaccompanied Guatemalan migrant children | ReutersU.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully directed the mass firing of around 25,000 federal probationary employees earlier this year. These workers, many of whom had served in their roles for less than a year, were dismissed under a directive from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in February. The mass terminations sparked lawsuits from unions, nonprofits, and the state of Washington, arguing the firings lacked legal justification.Judge Alsup found that the OPM's directive was unlawful and "pretextual," noting the terminations were falsely framed as performance-related. While he acknowledged that the workers had been harmed, he declined to order their reinstatement, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings limiting judicial power over executive branch hiring and firing decisions. Specifically, the Supreme Court had previously paused a preliminary injunction in April that would have reinstated 17,000 employees.Despite not ordering reinstatement, Alsup mandated that 19 federal agencies, including Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Treasury, correct the employment records of affected workers by November 14. He also prohibited agencies from continuing to follow OPM's original directive. Union leaders praised the decision for confirming the firings were baseless and for requiring agencies to acknowledge the false rationale behind the terminations.Trump administration unlawfully directed mass US worker terminations, judge rules | ReutersThe University of California, Berkeley confirmed it had shared information on 160 students, faculty, and staff with the Trump administration, in response to a federal investigation into alleged antisemitism. The data was provided to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights as part of an ongoing probe linked to pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The university stated that it acted under legal obligation while striving to protect individual privacy and notified those affected.This move comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to penalize universities accused of allowing antisemitic behavior, particularly during recent demonstrations opposing Israel's actions in Gaza. Critics argue that the administration is conflating political protest and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, raising serious concerns about free speech, academic freedom, and due process.Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to institutions involved in such protests and attempted to deport foreign student demonstrators, though those efforts have faced legal challenges. The administration has already reached high-profile settlements with Columbia and Brown universities and is in ongoing talks with Harvard. A proposed $1 billion settlement with UCLA was publicly rejected by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who called it extortion.UC Berkeley shares information on dozens of students, staff with Trump administration | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Right About Now with Ryan Alford Join media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.     Resources: Right About Now Newsletter | Free Podcast Monetization Course | Join The Network | Follow Us On Instagram | Subscribe To Our Youtube Channel | Vibe Science Media   SUMMARY In this episode of "Right About Now with Ryan Alford," real estate CEO Justin Brennan shares his journey from family roots in property investing to building a large multifamily portfolio using syndication and other people’s money (OPM). He offers practical advice on leveraging skills and sweat equity, emphasizes the importance of mindset, and discusses transitioning from a W2 job to investing. Justin also highlights his philanthropic work supporting military families and disadvantaged youth, underscoring the value of community, collaboration, and purposeful giving in real estate and wealth-building. TAKEAWAYS Real estate investing, with a focus on multifamily apartments and syndication. The strategic use of other people's money (OPM) to scale investments. The importance of moving money in capitalism and its economic implications. Tax benefits associated with commercial real estate investments. Mindset shifts required for transitioning from a W2 job to real estate investing. Personal background and family history in real estate investing. Philanthropic goals, including support for military families and disadvantaged youth. Practical advice for aspiring real estate investors, emphasizing starting with available resources. The significance of community and collaboration in wealth-building. Viewing money as a tool for freedom and positive impact rather than a negative force.  

Many federal employees are still unclear about how working affects their Social Security benefits. From spousal eligibility to the earnings test and delayed retirement credits, we clear up common misconceptions. Then we turn to rising retirement claims at OPM and what that means for processing times. Here to help us sort fact from fiction on these two important topics is the Founder and Principal Retirement Specialist at Retire Federal, Tammy Flanagan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Office of Personnel Management has put an official end to the 150 year old rule of three in federal hiring. Instead, it's telling agencies to begin implementing a technique called the Rule of many it's one of several changes OPM is making to federal recruitment this year, and here to break it all down for us is Federal News Network's Drew Friedman. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As religious rights in the workplace gain new attention, a recent OPM memo broadening religious accommodations for federal employees could impact employers everywhere—at home and in the office. Essential Impacts for Employers: The federal memo expands religious accommodations, including remote work. The Supreme Court's 2023 Groff v. DeJoy ruling raised the “undue hardship” standard, making it more difficult for employers to deny religious accommodation requests. Accommodation requests are increasing, intersecting with remote work. These developments create new compliance challenges and potential legal risks for employers in the public and private sectors. Epstein Becker Green attorney Nancy Gunzenhauser Popper explains how to evaluate accommodation requests under the heightened standard and what the new federal memo could mean for your organization. Visit our site for this week's Other Highlights and links: https://www.ebglaw.com/eltw403 Download our Wage & Hour Guide for Employers app: https://www.ebglaw.com/wage-hour-guide-for-employers-app. Subscribe to #WorkforceWednesday: https://www.ebglaw.com/eltw-subscribe Visit http://www.EmploymentLawThisWeek.com This podcast is presented by Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. All rights are reserved. This audio recording includes information about legal issues and legal developments. Such materials are for informational purposes only and may not reflect the most current legal developments. These informational materials are not intended, and should not be taken, as legal advice on any particular set of facts or circumstances, and these materials are not a substitute for the advice of competent counsel. The content reflects the personal views and opinions of the participants. No attorney-client relationship has been created by this audio recording. This audio recording may be considered attorney advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. The determination of the need for legal services and the choice of a lawyer are extremely important decisions and should not be based solely upon advertisements or self-proclaimed expertise. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers.

Federal employees, on average, are waiting longer to see their retirement applications processed. New data from the Office of Personnel Management for August shows it takes an average of 70 days to process a claim from a retiring fed. But if retirement claims are coming to OPM in less than 60 days, those cases take, on average, 45 days to complete. At the same time, OPM received more than 9,400 retirement claims last month. OPM's backlog of retirement claims dropped by 2,000 to 24,300. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Greg Hogan is out as the chief information officer of the Office of Personnel Management after roughly seven-and-a-half months on the job. Hogan was installed at the human capital agency on the first day of President Donald Trump's second administration, replacing Melvin Brown II after roughly a week on the job. According to an OPM spokeswoman, Hogan departed the agency earlier this week and Perryn Ashmore, who is currently assistant director of enterprise learning at the agency, is currently serving as CIO in an acting capacity. Although not much was shared by the agency about Hogan's background, a legal filing in a challenge brought by current and former federal employees over Department of Government Efficiency access to OPM data provided some details. According to that document, Hogan was the vice president of infrastructure at comma.ai — a self-driving car software company — before joining the Trump administration. He also told the court he had 20 years of experience in private sector IT and a computer engineering degree. Stephen Ehikian, the deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, has left the agency to take over as chief executive officer at the enterprise AI application software company C3 AI. Ehikian told GSA staff Tuesday in an email obtained by FedScoop that he would “transition out” of the agency's deputy administrator role, but remain an adviser to the leadership team during the transition process. On Wednesday, C3 AI announced Ehikian's hiring as CEO. He said in a statement he is “honored” to join the company “at such a pivotal time in the AI era.” He served as the GSA's acting head for the first half of this year until July, when President Donald Trump tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas for the role and Ehikian moved into the deputy spot. “I want to thank Stephen Ehikian for his service and wish him well,” Rigas said in a statement shared by GSA. Edward Forst, a longtime financial services executive, was nominated by Trump in July to serve as the next administrator of the GSA. A nomination hearing date has not been scheduled, according to congressional records. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The federal workforce is shrinking fast—OPM says 300,000 fewer employees are on the rolls compared to last year. Agencies are bracing for a retirement wave and some are cutting bargaining rights. Congress is heading toward a budget showdown with a continuing resolution almost guaranteed. What does all this mean for the people who keep government running? John Hatton, staff vice president at NARFE. joins me to break it all down.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A year after launching the Postal Service Health Benefits Program, the Office of Personnel Management is facing critical resource shortfalls that threaten its ability to sustain operations. An Inspector General audit warns that without urgent staffing and funding fixes, OPM may struggle to process enrollments, manage benefits, and maintain service for more than 800,000 postal employees and retirees during the 2025 open season. Here to explain what's at stake is the Group Chief, Community-Rated Audits Group, OPM Office of the Inspector General ,Matthew Knupp.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Office of Personnel Management is taking on some big changes this year, like trying to modernize the Federal Retirement System, improve health insurance programs for federal employees, and overhaul the hiring process. But as OPM undertakes those major efforts, the agency is on track to lose 1000 employees, a third of its total workforce by the end of the year. As part of our Workforce Reimagined event Federal News Network's Drew Friedman, got more from OPM Director Scott Kupor. Here's a segment of their conversation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In This Episode What separates a company that grows sustainably from one that stalls out? According to Juan DeAngulo, it's all about process. In this engaging conversation with host Adi Klevit, Juan shares how structured systems transform founder-dependent sales into scalable, repeatable growth. Juan reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, including scaling a real estate investment firm and attending Harvard Business School's OPM program, where he realized his passion for building structured organizations. He then dives into the creation of Inselligence, explaining how its proprietary algorithms plug into CRMs to deliver insights that help businesses identify bottlenecks, segment pipelines, and improve sales and marketing alignment. Throughout the interview, Juan and Adi emphasize the power of process in sales—from documenting superstar behaviors to designing workflows that managers and teams can actually follow. They highlight how data-backed systems not only increase efficiency but also empower people, making companies stronger, more predictable, and ultimately more scalable.  

The top lawmakers on a key House cybersecurity panel are hoping to remove a barrier to entry for cyber jobs in the federal government. Introduced last week, the Cybersecurity Hiring Modernization Act from Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, would prioritize skills-based hiring over educational requirements for cyber jobs at federal agencies. Mace and Brown — the chair and ranking member of the House Oversight Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee, respectively — said the legislation would ensure the federal government has access to a “broader pool of qualified applicants” as the country faces “urgent cybersecurity challenges.” Mace said in a press release Thursday: “As cyber threats against our government continue to grow, we need to make sure our federal agencies hire the most qualified candidates, not just those with traditional degrees. This bill cuts red tape, opens doors to skilled Americans without a four-year diploma but with the expertise to get the job done, and strengthens our nation's cybersecurity workforce.” Brown said in a statement that expanding the cyber workforce is “imperative” to “meet our nation's growing need for safe and secure systems.” The bill aims to “remove outdated hiring policies, expand workforce opportunities to a wider pool of talented applicants, and help agencies hire the staff that they need,” she added. The bill calls on the Office of Personnel Management to annually publish any education-related changes that are made to minimum qualification requirements for federal cyber roles. OPM would also be charged with aggregating data on educational backgrounds of new hires for those cyber positions. Texas-based defense startup Saronic Technologies will produce multiple batches of autonomous maritime drones for the U.S. Navy by mid-2031 under an other transaction agreement (OTA) worth more than $392 million, according to officials and public contracting documents viewed by DefenseScoop. Details are sparse regarding the specific features, types and quantities of unmanned vessels Saronic will deliver — but they'll likely mark a major component of the Navy's AI-enabled, hybrid fleet that's being designed to counter security threats in and around the Pacific. OTA contract vehicles offer Defense Department buyers more flexibility and speed than traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation-based acquisitions. They're a key element in the Navy's broader plan to modernize and incentivize accelerated technology adoption to prepare for future fights. According to records posted on the Federal Procurement Data System, Naval Sea Systems Command and Saronic Technologies formalized this $392 million OTA — which has a completion date of May 30, 2031 — on May 16. Two months later, in July, NAVSEA made an award to Saronic worth nearly $197 million under the agreement, or about half of the total award ceiling. It's unclear if more awards have been made to date.

Today I'm talking to economic historian Judge Glock, Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute. Judge works on a lot of topics: if you enjoy this episode, I'd encourage you to read some of his work on housing markets and the Environmental Protection Agency. But I cornered him today to talk about civil service reform.Since the 1990s, over 20 red and blue states have made radical changes to how they hire and fire government employees — changes that would be completely outside the Overton window at the federal level. A paper by Judge and Renu Mukherjee lists four reforms made by states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia: * At-will employment for state workers* The elimination of collective bargaining agreements* Giving managers much more discretion to hire* Giving managers much more discretion in how they pay employeesJudge finds decent evidence that the reforms have improved the effectiveness of state governments, and little evidence of the politicization that federal reformers fear. Meanwhile, in Washington, managers can't see applicants' resumes, keyword searches determine who gets hired, and firing a bad performer can take years. But almost none of these ideas are on the table in Washington.Thanks to Harry Fletcher-Wood for his judicious transcript edits and fact-checking, and to Katerina Barton for audio edits.Judge, you have a paper out about lessons for civil service reform from the states. Since the ‘90s, red and blue states have made big changes to how they hire and fire people. Walk through those changes for me.I was born and grew up in Washington DC, heard a lot about civil service throughout my childhood, and began to research it as an adult. But I knew almost nothing about the state civil service systems. When I began working in the states — mainly across the Sunbelt, including in Texas, Kansas, Arizona — I was surprised to learn that their civil service systems were reformed to an absolutely radical extent relative to anything proposed at the federal level, let alone implemented.Starting in the 1990s, several states went to complete at-will employment. That means there were no official civil service protections for any state employees. Some managers were authorized to hire people off the street, just like you could in the private sector. A manager meets someone in a coffee shop, they say, "I'm looking for exactly your role. Why don't you come on board?" At the federal level, with its stultified hiring process, it seemed absurd to even suggest something like that.You had states that got rid of any collective bargaining agreements with their public employee unions. You also had states that did a lot more broadbanding [creating wider pay bands] for employee pay: a lot more discretion for managers to reward or penalize their employees depending on their performance.These major reforms in these states were, from the perspective of DC, incredibly radical. Literally nobody at the federal level proposes anything approximating what has been in place for decades in the states. That should be more commonly known, and should infiltrate the debate on civil service reform in DC.Even though the evidence is not absolutely airtight, on the whole these reforms have been positive. A lot of the evidence is surveys asking managers and operators in these states how they think it works. They've generally been positive. We know these states operate pretty well: Places like Texas, Florida, and Arizona rank well on state capacity metrics in terms of cost of government, time for permitting, and other issues.Finally, to me the most surprising thing is the dog that didn't bark. The argument in the federal government against civil service reform is, “If you do this, we will open up the gates of hell and return to the 19th-century patronage system, where spoilsmen come and go depending on elected officials, and the government is overrun with political appointees who don't care about the civil service.” That has simply not happened. We have very few reports of any concrete examples of politicization at the state level. In surveys, state employees and managers can almost never remember any example of political preferences influencing hiring or firing.One of the surveys you cited asked, “Can you think of a time someone said that they thought that the political preferences were a factor in civil service hiring?” and it was something like 5%.It was in that 5-10% range. I don't think you'd find a dissimilar number of people who would say that even in an official civil service system. Politics is not completely excluded even from a formal civil service system.A few weeks ago, you and I talked to our mutual friend, Don Moynihan, who's a scholar of public administration. He's more skeptical about the evidence that civil service reform would be positive at the federal level.One of your points is, “We don't have strong negative evidence from the states. Productivity didn't crater in states that moved to an at-will employment system.” We do have strong evidence that collective bargaining in the public sector is bad for productivity.What I think you and Don would agree on is that we could use more evidence on the hiring and firing side than the surveys that we have. Is that a fair assessment?Yes, I think that's correct. As you mentioned, the evidence on collective bargaining is pretty close to universal: it raises costs, reduces the efficiency of government, and has few to no positive upsides.On hiring and firing, I mentioned a few studies. There's a 2013 study that looks at HR managers in six states and finds very little evidence of politicization, and managers generally prefer the new system. There was a dissertation that surveyed several employees and managers in civil service reform and non-reform states. Across the board, the at-will employment states said they had better hiring retention, productivity, and so forth. And there's a 2002 study that looked specifically at Texas, Florida, and Georgia after their reforms, and found almost universal approbation inside the civil service itself for these reforms.These are not randomized control trials. But I think that generally positive evidence should point us directionally where we should go on civil service reform. If we loosen restrictions on discipline and firing, decentralize hiring and so forth — we probably get some productivity benefits from it. We can also know, with some amount of confidence, that the sky is not going to fall, which I think is a very important baseline assumption. The civil service system will continue on and probably be fairly close to what it is today, in terms of its political influence, if you have decentralized hiring and at-will employment.As you point out, a lot of these reforms that have happened in 20-odd states since the ‘90s would be totally outside the Overton window at the federal level. Why is it so easy for Georgia to make a bipartisan move in the ‘90s to at-will employment, when you couldn't raise the topic at the federal level?It's a good question. I think in the 1990s, a lot of people thought a combination of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act — which was the Carter-era act that somewhat attempted to do what these states hoped to do in the 1990s — and the Clinton-era Reinventing Government Initiative, would accomplish the same ends. That didn't happen.That was an era when civil service reform was much more bipartisan. In Georgia, it was a Democratic governor, Zell Miller, who pushed it. In a lot of these other states, they got buy-in from both sides. The recent era of state reform took place after the 2010 Republican wave in the states. Since that wave, the reform impetus for civil service has been much more Republican. That has meant it's been a lot harder to get buy-in from both sides at the federal level, which will be necessary to overcome a filibuster.I think people know it has to be very bipartisan. We're just past the point, at least at the moment, where it can be bipartisan at the federal level. But there are areas where there's a fair amount of overlap between the two sides on what needs to happen, at least in the upper reaches of the civil service.It was interesting to me just how bipartisan civil service reform has been at various times. You talked about the Civil Service Reform Act, which passed Congress in 1978. President Carter tells Congress that the civil service system:“Has become a bureaucratic maze which neglects merit, tolerates poor performance, permits abuse of legitimate employee rights, and mires every personnel action in red tape, delay, and confusion.”That's a Democratic president saying that. It's striking to me that the civil service was not the polarized topic that it is today.Absolutely. Carter was a big civil service reformer in Georgia before those even larger 1990s reforms. He campaigned on civil service reform and thought it was essential to the success of his presidency. But I think you are seeing little sprouts of potential bipartisanship today, like the Chance to Compete Act at the end of 2024, and some of the reforms Obama did to the hiring process. There's options for bipartisanship at the federal level, even if it can't approach what the states have done.I want to walk through the federal hiring process. Let's say you're looking to hire in some federal agency — you pick the agency — and I graduated college recently, and I want to go into the civil service. Tell me about trying to hire somebody like me. What's your first step?It's interesting you bring up the college graduate, because that is one recent reform: President Trump put out an executive order trying to counsel agencies to remove the college degree requirement for job postings. This happened in a lot of states first, like Maryland, and that's also been bipartisan. This requirement for a college degree — which was used as a very unfortunate proxy for ability at a lot of these jobs — is now being removed. It's not across the whole federal government. There's still job postings that require higher education degrees, but that's something that's changed.To your question, let's say the Department of Transportation. That's one of the more bipartisan ones, when you look at surveys of federal civil servants. Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, they tend to be a little more Republican. Health and Human Services and some other agencies tend to be pretty Democrat. Transportation is somewhere in the middle.As a manager, you try to craft a job description and posting to go up on the USA Jobs website, which is where all federal job postings go. When they created it back in 1996, that was supposedly a massive reform to federal hiring: this website where people could submit their resumes. Then, people submit their resumes and answer questions about their qualifications for the job.One of the slightly different aspects from the private sector is that those applications usually go to an HR specialist first. The specialist reviews everything and starts to rank people into different categories, based on a lot of weird things. It's supposed to be “knowledge, skills, and abilities” — your KSAs, or competencies. To some extent, this is a big step up from historical practice. You had, frankly, an absurd civil service exam, where people had to fill out questions about, say, General Grant or about US Code Title 42, or whatever it was, and then submit it. Someone rated the civil service exam, and then the top three test-takers were eligible for the job.We have this newer, better system, where we rank on knowledge, skills, and abilities, and HR puts put people into different categories. One of the awkward ways they do this is by merely scanning the resumes and applications for keywords. If it's a computer job, make sure you say the word “computer” somewhere in your resume. Make sure you say “manager” if it's a managerial job.Just to be clear, this is entirely literal. There's a keyword search, and folks who don't pass that search are dinged.Yes. I've always wondered, how common is this? It's sometimes hard to know what happens in the black box in these federal HR departments. I saw an HR official recently say, "If I'm not allowed to do keyword searches, I'm going to take 15 years to overlook all the applications, so I've got to do keyword searches." If they don't have the keywords, into the circular file it goes, as they used to say: into the garbage can.Then they start ranking people on their abilities into, often, three different categories. That is also very literal. If you put in the little word bubble, "I am an exceptional manager," you get pushed on into the next level of the competition. If you say, "I'm pretty good, but I'm not the best," into the circular file you go.I've gotten jaded about this, but it really is shocking. We ask candidates for a self-assessment, and if they just rank themselves 10/10 on everything, no matter how ludicrous, that improves their odds of being hired.That's going to immensely improve your odds. Similar to the keyword search, there's been pushback on this in recent years, and I'm definitely not going to say it's universal anymore. It's rarer than it used to be. But it's still a very common process.The historical civil service system used to operate on a rule of three. In places like New York, it still operates like that. The top three candidates on the evaluation system get presented to the manager, and the manager has to approve one of them for the position.Thanks partially to reforms by the Obama administration in 2010, they have this category rating system where the best qualified or the very qualified get put into a big bucket together [instead of only including the top three]. Those are the people that the person doing the hiring gets to see, evaluate, and decide who he wants to hire.There are some restrictions on that. If a veteran outranks everybody else, you've got to pick the veteran [typically known as Veterans' Preference]. That was an issue in some of the state civil service reforms, too. The states said, “We're just going to encourage a veterans' preference. We don't need a formalized system to say they get X number of points and have to be in Y category. We're just going to say, ‘Try to hire veterans.'” That's possible without the formal system, despite what some opponents of reform may claim.One of the particular problems here is just the nature of the people doing the hiring. Sometimes you just need good managers to encourage HR departments to look at a broader set of qualifications. But one of the bigger problems is that they keep the HR evaluation system divorced from the manager who is doing the hiring. David Shulkin, who was the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), wrote a great book, It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Serve Your Country. He was a healthcare exec, and the VA is mainly a healthcare agency. He would tell people, "You should work for me," they would send their applications into the HR void, and he'd never see them again. They would get blocked at some point in this HR evaluation process, and he'd be sent people with no healthcare experience, because for whatever reason they did well in the ranking.One of the very base-level reforms should be, “How can we more clearly integrate the hiring manager with the evaluation process?” To some extent, the bipartisan Chance to Compete Act tries to do this. They said, “You should have subject matter experts who are part of crafting the description of the job, are part of evaluating, and so forth.” But there's still a long road to go.Does that firewall — where the person who wants to hire doesn't get to look at the process until the end — exist originally because of concerns about cronyism?One of the interesting things about the civil service is its raison d'être — its reason for being — was supposedly a single, clear purpose: to prevent politicized hiring and patronage. That goes back to the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883. But it's always been a little strange that you have all of these very complex rules about every step of the process — from hiring to firing to promotion, and everything in between — to prevent political influence. We could just focus on preventing political influence, and not regulate every step of the process on the off-chance that without a clear regulation, political influence could creep in. This division [between hiring manager and applicants] is part of that general concern. There are areas where I've heard HR specialists say, "We declare that a manager is a subject matter expert, and we bring them into the process early on, we can do that." But still the division is pretty stark, and it's based on this excessive concern about patronage.One point you flag is that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is the body that thinks about personnel in the federal government, has a 300-page regulatory document for agencies on how you have to hire. There's a remarkable amount of process.Yes, but even that is a big change from the Federal Personnel Manual, which was the 10,000-page document that we shredded in the 1990s. In the ‘90s, OPM gave the agencies what's called “delegated examining authorities.” This says, “You, agency, have power to decide who to hire, we're not going to do the central supervision anymore. But, but, but: here's the 300-page document that dictates exactly how you have to carry out that hiring.”So we have some decentralization, allowing managers more authority to control their own departments. But this two-level oversight — a local HR department that's ultimately being overseen by the OPM — also leads to a lot of slip ‘twixt cup and lip, in terms of how something gets implemented. If you're in the agency and you're concerned about the OPM overseeing your process, you're likely to be much more careful than you would like to be. “Yes, it's delegated to me, but ultimately, I know I have to answer to OPM about this process. I'm just going to color within the lines.”I often cite Texas, which has no central HR office. Each agency decides how it wants to hire. In a lot of these reform states, if there is a central personnel office, it's an information clearinghouse or reservoir of models. “You can use us, the central HR office, as a resource if you want us to help you post the job, evaluate it, or help manage your processes, but you don't have to.” That's the goal we should be striving for in a lot of the federal reforms. Just make OPM a resource for the managers in the individual departments to do their thing or go independent.Let's say I somehow get through the hiring process. You offer me a job at the Department of Transportation. What are you paying me?This is one of the more stultified aspects of the federal civil service system. OPM has another multi-hundred-page handbook called the Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families. Inside that, you've got 49 different “groups and families,” like “Clerical occupations.” Inside those 49 groups are a series of jobs, sometimes dozens, like “Computer Operator.” Inside those, they have independent documents — often themselves dozens of pages long — detailing classes of positions. Then you as a manager have to evaluate these nine factors, which can each give points to each position, which decides how you get slotted into this weird Government Schedule (GS) system [the federal payscale].Again, this is actually an improvement. Before, you used to have the Civil Service Commission, which went around staring very closely at someone over their typewriter and saying, "No, I think you should be a GS-12, not a GS-11, because someone over in the Department of Defense who does your same job is a GS-12." Now this is delegated to agencies, but again, the agencies have to listen to the OPM on how to classify and set their jobs into this 15-stage GS-classification system, each stage of which has 10 steps which determine your pay, and those steps are determined mainly by your seniority. It's a formalized step-by-step system, overwhelmingly based on just how long you've sat at your desk.Let's be optimistic about my performance as a civil servant. Say that over my first three years, I'm just hitting it out of the park. Can you give me a raise? What can you do to keep me in my role?Not too much. For most people, the within-step increases — those 10 steps inside each GS-level — is just set by seniority. Now there are all these quality step increases you can get, but they're very rare and they have to be documented. So you could hypothetically pay someone more, but it's going to be tough. In general, the managers just prefer to stick to seniority, because not sticking to it garners a lot of complaints. Like so much else, the goal is, "We don't want someone rewarding an official because they happen to share their political preferences." The result of that concern is basically nobody can get rewarded at all, which is very unfortunate.We do have examples in state and federal government of what's known as broadbanding, where you have very broad pay scales, and the manager can decide where to slot someone. Say you're a computer operator, which can mean someone who knows what an Excel spreadsheet is, or someone who's programming the most advanced AI systems. As a manager in South Carolina or Florida, you have a lot of discretion to say, "I can set you 50% above the market rate of what this job technically would go for, if I think you're doing a great job."That's very rare at the federal level. They've done broadbanding at the Government Accountability Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The China Lake Experiment out in California gave managers a lot more discretion to reward scientists. But that's definitely the exception. In general, it's a step-wise, seniority-based system.What if you want to bring me into the Senior Executive Service (SES)? Theoretically, that sits at the top of the General Service scale. Can't you bump me up in there and pay me what you owe me?I could hypothetically bring you in as a senior executive servant. The SES was created in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. The idea was, “We're going to have this elite cadre of about 8,000 individuals at the top of the federal government, whose employment will be higher-risk and higher-reward. They might be fired, and we're going to give them higher pay to compensate for that.”Almost immediately, that did not work out. Congress was outraged at the higher pay given to the top officials and capped it. Ever since, how much the SES can get paid has been tightly controlled. As in most of the rest of the federal government, where they establish these performance pay incentives or bonuses — which do exist — they spread them like peanut butter over the whole service. To forestall complaints, everyone gets a little bit every two or three years.That's basically what happened to the SES. Their annual pay is capped at the vice president's salary, which is a cap for a lot of people in the federal government. For most of your GS and other executive scales, the cap is Congress's salary. [NB: This is no longer exactly true, since Congress froze its own salaries in 2009. The cap for GS (currently about $195k) is now above congressional salaries ($174k).]One of the big problems with pay in the federal government is pay compression. Across civil service systems, the highest-skilled people tend to be paid much less than the private sector, and the lowest-skilled people tend to get paid much more. The political science reason for that is pretty simple: the median voter in America still decides what seems reasonable. To the median voter, the average salary of a janitor looks low, and the average salary of a scientist looks way too high. Hence this tendency to pay compression. Your average federal employee is probably overpaid relative to the private sector, because the lowest-skilled employees are paid up to 40% higher than the private sector equivalent. The highest-paid employees, the post-graduate skilled professionals, are paid less. That makes it hard to recruit the top performers, but it also swells the wage budget in a way that makes it difficult to talk about reform.There's a lot of interest in this administration in making it easier to recruit talent and get rid of under-performers. There have been aggressive pushes to limit collective bargaining in the public sector. That should theoretically make it easier to recruit, but it also increases the precariousness of civil service roles. We've seen huge firings in the civil service over the last six months.Classically, the explicit trade-off of working in the federal government was, “Your pay is going to be capped, but you have this job for life. It's impossible to get rid of you.” You trade some lifetime earnings for stability. In a world where the stability is gone, but pay is still capped, isn't the net effect to drive talent away from the civil service?I think it's a concern now. On one level it should be ameliorated, because those who are most concerned with stability of employment do tend to be lower performers. If you have people who are leaving the federal service because all they want is stability, and they're not getting that anymore, that may not be a net loss. As someone who came out of academia and knows the wonder of effective lifetime annuities, there can be very high performers who like that stability who therefore take a lower salary. Without the ability to bump that pay up more, it's going to be an issue.I do know that, internally, the Trump administration has made some signs they're open to reforms in the top tiers of the SES and other parts of the federal government. They would be willing to have people get paid more at that level to compensate for the increased risks since the Trump administration came in. But when you look at the reductions in force (RIFs) that have happened under Trump, they are overwhelmingly among probationary employees, the lower-level employees.With some exceptions. If you've been promoted recently, you can get reclassified as probationary, so some high-performers got lumped in.Absolutely. The issue has been exacerbated precisely because the RIF regulations that are in place have made the firings particularly damaging. If you had a more streamlined RIF system — which they do have in many states, where seniority is not the main determinant of who gets laid off — these RIFs could be removing the lower-performing civil servants and keeping the higher-performing ones, and giving them some amount of confidence in their tenure.Unfortunately, the combination of large-scale removals with the existing RIF regs, which are very stringent, has demoralized some of the upper levels of the federal government. I share that concern. But I might add, it is interesting, if you look at the federal government's own figures on the total civil service workforce, they have gone down significantly since Trump came in office, but I think less than 100,000 still, in the most recent numbers that I've seen. I'm not sure how much to trust those, versus some of these other numbers where people have said 150,000, 200,000.Whether the Trump administration or a future administration can remove large numbers of people from the civil service should be somewhat divorced from the general conversation on civil service reform. The main debate about whether or not Trump can do this centers around how much power the appropriators in Congress have to determine the total amount of spending in particular agencies on their workforce. It does not depend necessarily on, "If we're going to remove people — whether for general layoffs, or reductions in force, or because of particular performance issues — how can we go about doing that?" My last-ditch hope to maintain a bipartisan possibility of civil service reform is to bracket, “How much power does the president have to remove or limit the workforce in general?” from “How can he go about hiring and firing, et cetera?”I think making it easier for the president to identify and remove poor performers is a tool that any future administration would like to have.We had this conversation sparked again with the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. But that was a position Congress set up to be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and removable by the President. It's a separate issue from civil service at large. Everyone said, “We want the president to be able to hire and fire the commissioner.” Maybe firing the commissioner was a bad decision, but that's the situation today.Attentive listeners to Statecraft know I'm pretty critical, like you are, of the regulations that say you have to go in order of seniority. In mass layoffs, you're required to fire a lot of the young, talented people.But let's talk about individual firings. I've been a terrible civil servant, a nightmarish employee from day one. You want to discipline, remove, suspend, or fire me. What are your options?Anybody who has worked in the civil service knows it's hard to fire bad performers. Whatever their political valence, whatever they feel about the civil service system, they have horror stories about a person who just couldn't be removed.In the early 2010s, a spate of stories came out about air traffic controllers sleeping on the job. Then-transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, made a big public announcement: "I'm going to fire these three guys." After these big announcements, it turned out he was only able to remove one of them. One retired, and another had their firing reduced to a suspension.You had another horrific story where a man was joking on the phone with friends when a plane crashed into a helicopter and killed nine people over the Hudson River. National outcry. They said, "We're going to fire this guy." In the end, after going through the process, he only got a suspension. Everyone agrees it's too hard.The basic story is, you have two ways to fire someone. Chapter 75, the old way, is often considered the realm of misconduct: You've stolen something from the office, punched your colleague in the face during a dispute about the coffee, something illegal or just straight-out wrong. We get you under Chapter 75.The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act added Chapter 43, which is supposed to be the performance-based system to remove someone. As with so much of that Civil Service Reform Act, the people who passed it thought this might be the beginning of an entirely different system.In the end, lots of federal managers say there's not a huge difference between the two. Some use 75, some use 43. If you use 43, you have to document very clearly what the person did wrong. You have to put them on a performance improvement plan. If they failed a performance improvement plan after a certain amount of time, they can respond to any claims about what they did wrong. Then, they can take that process up to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and claim that they were incorrectly fired, or that the processes weren't carried out appropriately. Then, if they want to, they can say, “Nah, I don't like the order I got,” and take it up to federal courts and complain there. Right now, the MSPB doesn't have a full quorum, which is complicating some of the recent removal disputes.You have this incredibly difficult process, unlike the private sector, where your boss looks at you and says, "I don't like how you're giving me the stink-eye today. Out you go." One could say that's good or bad, but, on the whole, I think the model should be closer to the private sector. We should trust managers to do their job without excessive oversight and process. That's clearly about as far from the realm of possibility as the current system, under which the estimate is 6-12 months to fire a very bad performer. The number of people who win at the Merit Systems Protection Board is still 20-30%.This goes into another issue, which is unionization. If you're part of a collective bargaining agreement — most of the regular federal civil service is — first, you have to go with this independent, union-based arbitration and grievance procedure. You're about 50/50 to win on those if your boss tries to remove you.So if I'm in the union, we go through that arbitration grievance system. If you win and I'm fired, I can take it to the Merit Systems Protection Board. If you win again, I can still take it to the federal courts.You can file different sorts of claims at each part. On Chapter 43, the MSPB is supposed to be about the process, not the evidence, and you just have to show it was followed. On 75, the manager has to show by preponderance of the evidence that the employee is harming the agency. Then there are different standards for what you take to the courts, and different standards according to each collective bargaining agreement for the grievance procedure when someone is disciplined. It's a very complicated, abstruse, and procedure-heavy process that makes it very difficult to remove people, which is why the involuntary separation rate at the federal government and most state governments is many multiples lower than the private sector.So, you would love to get me off your team because I'm abysmal. But you have no stomach for going through this whole process and I'm going to fight it. I'm ornery and contrarian and will drag this fight out. In practice, what do managers in the federal government do with their poor performers?I always heard about this growing up. There's the windowless office in the basement without a phone, or now an internet connection. You place someone down there, hope they get the message, and sooner or later they leave. But for plenty of people in America, that's the dream job. You just get to sit and nobody bothers you for eight hours. You punch in at 9 and punch out at 5, and that's your day. "Great. I'll collect that salary for another 10 years." But generally you just try to make life unpleasant for that person.Public sector collective bargaining in the US is new. I tend to think of it as just how the civil service works. But until about 50 years ago, there was no collective bargaining in the public sector.At the state level, it started with Wisconsin at the end of the 1950s. There were famous local government reforms beginning with the Little Wagner Act [signed in 1958] in New York City. Senator Robert Wagner had created the National Labor Relations Board. His son Robert F. Wagner Jr., mayor of New York, created the first US collective bargaining system at the local level in the ‘60s. In ‘62, John F. Kennedy issued an executive order which said, "We're going to deal officially with public sector unions,” but it was all informal and non-statutory.It wasn't until Title VII of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that unions had a formal, statutory role in our federal service system. This is shockingly new. To some extent, that was the great loss to many civil service reformers in ‘78. They wanted to get through a lot of these other big reforms about hiring and firing, but they gave up on the unions to try to get those. Some people think that exception swallowed the rest of the rules. The union power that was garnered in ‘78 overcame the other reforms people hoped to accomplish. Soon, you had the majority of the federal workforce subject to collective bargaining.But that's changing now too. Part of that Civil Service Reform Act said, “If your position is in a national security-related position, the president can determine it's not subject to collective bargaining.” Trump and the OPM have basically said, “Most positions in the federal government are national security-related, and therefore we're going to declare them off-limits to collective bargaining.” Some people say that sounds absurd. But 60% of the civilian civil service workforce is the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. I am not someone who tries to go too easy on this crowd. I think there's a heck of a lot that needs to be reformed. But it's also worth remembering that the majority of the civil service workforce are in these three agencies that Republicans tend to like a lot.Now, whether people like Veterans Affairs is more of an open question. We have some particular laws there about opening up processes after the scandals in the 2010s about waiting lists and hospitals. You had veterans hospitals saying, "We're meeting these standards for getting veterans in the door for these waiting lists." But they were straight-up lying about those standards. Many people who were on these lists waiting for months to see a doctor died in the interim, some from causes that could have been treated had they seen a VA doctor. That led to Congress doing big reforms in the VA in 2014 and 2017, precisely because everyone realized this is a problem.So, Trump has put out these executive orders stopping collective bargaining in all of these agencies that touch national security. Some of those, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seem like a tough sell. I guess that, if you want to dig a mine and the Chinese are trying to dig their own mine and we want the mine to go quickly without the EPA pettifogging it, maybe. But the core ones are pretty solid. So far the courts have upheld the executive order to go in place. So collective bargaining there could be reformed.But in the rest of the government, there are these very extreme, long collective bargaining agreements between agencies and their unions. I've hit on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as one that's had pretty extensive bargaining with its union. When we created the TSA to supervise airport security, a lot of people said, "We need a crème de la crème to supervise airports after 9/11. We want to keep this out of union hands, because we know unions are going to make it difficult to move people around." The Obama administration said, "Nope, we're going to negotiate with the union." Now you have these huge negotiations with the unions about parking spots, hours of employment, uniforms, and everything under the sun. That makes it hard for managers in the TSA to decide when people should go where or what they should do.One thing we've talked about on Statecraft in past episodes — for instance, with John Kamensky, who was a pivotal figure in the Clinton-Gore reforms — was this relationship between government employees and “Beltway Bandits”: the contractors who do jobs you might think of as civil service jobs. One critique of that ‘90s Clinton-Gore push, “Reinventing Government,” was that although they shrank the size of the civil service on paper, the number of contractors employed by the federal government ballooned to fill that void. They did not meaningfully reduce the total number of people being paid by the federal government. Talk to me about the relationship between the civil service reform that you'd like to see and this army of folks who are not formally employees.Every government service is a combination of public employees and inputs, and private employees and inputs. There's never a single thing the government does — federal, state, or local — that doesn't involve inputs from the private sector. That could be as simple as the uniforms for the janitors. Even if you have a publicly employed janitor, who buys the mop? You're not manufacturing the mops.I understand the critique that the excessive focus on full-time employees in the 1990s led to contracting out some positions that could be done directly by the government. But I think that misses how much of the government can and should be contracted out. The basic Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statute [OMB Circular No. A-76] defining what is an essential government duty should still be the dividing line. What does the government have to do, because that is the public overseeing a process? Versus, what can the private sector just do itself?I always cite Stephen Goldsmith, the old mayor of Indianapolis. He proposed what he called the Yellow Pages test. If you open the Yellow Pages [phone directory] and three businesses do that business, the government should not be in that business. There's three garbage haulers out there. Instead of having a formal government garbage-hauling department, just contract out the garbage.With the internet, you should have a lot more opportunities to contract stuff out. I think that is generally good, and we should not have the federal government going about a lot of the day-to-day procedural things that don't require public input. What a lot of people didn't recognize is how much pressure that's going to put on government contracting officers at the federal level. Last time I checked there were 40,000 contracting officers. They have a lot of power. In the most recent year for which we have data, there were $750 billion in federal contracts. This is a substantial part of our economy. If you total state and local, we're talking almost 10% of our whole economy goes through government contracts. This is mind-boggling. In the public policy world, we should all be spending about 10% of our time thinking about contracting.One of the things I think everyone recognized is that contractors should have more authority. Some of the reform that happened with people like [Steven] Kelman — who was the Office of Federal Procurement Policy head in the ‘90s under Clinton — was, "We need to give these people more authority to just take a credit card and go buy a sheaf of paper if that's what they need. And we need more authority to get contract bids out appropriately.”The same message that animates civil service reform should animate these contracting discussions. The goal should be setting clear goals that you want — for either a civil servant or a contractor — and then giving that person the discretion to meet them. If you make the civil service more stultified, or make pay compression more extreme, you're going to have to contract more stuff out.People talk about the General Schedule [pay scale], but we haven't talked about the Federal Wage Schedule system at all, which is the blue-collar system that encompasses about 200,000 federal employees. Pay compression means those guys get paid really well. That means some managers rightfully think, "I'd like to have full-time supervision over some role, but I would rather contract it out, because I can get it a heck of a lot cheaper."There's a continuous relationship: If we make the civil service more stultified, we're going to push contracting out into more areas where maybe it wouldn't be appropriate. But a lot of things are always going to be appropriate to contract out. That means we need to give contracting officers and the people overseeing contracts a lot of discretion to carry out their missions, and not a lot of oversight from the Government Accountability Office or the courts about their bids, just like we shouldn't give OPM excess input into the civil service hiring process.This is a theme I keep harping on, on Statecraft. It's counterintuitive from a reformer's perspective, but it's true: if you want these processes to function better, you're going to have to stop nitpicking. You're going to have to ease up on the throttle and let people make their own decisions, even when sometimes you're not going to agree with them.This is a tension that's obviously happening in this administration. You've seen some clear interest in decentralization, and you've seen some centralization. In both the contract and the civil service sphere, the goal for the central agencies should be giving as many options as possible to the local managers, making sure they don't go extremely off the rails, but then giving those local managers and contracting officials the ability to make their own choices. The General Services Administration (GSA) under this administration is doing a lot of government-wide acquisition contracts. “We establish a contract for the whole government in the GSA. Usually you, the local manager, are not required to use that contract if you want computer services or whatever, but it's an option for you.”OPM should take a similar role. "Here's the system we have set up. You can take that and use it as you want. It's here for you, but it doesn't have to be used, because you might have some very particular hiring decisions to make.” Just like there shouldn't be one contracting decision that decides how we buy both a sheaf of computer paper and an aircraft carrier, there shouldn't be one hiring and firing process for a janitor and a nuclear physicist. That can't be a centralized process, because the very nature of human life is that there's an infinitude of possibilities that you need to allow for, and that means some amount of decentralization.I had an argument online recently about New York City's “buy local” requirement for certain procurement contracts. When they want to build these big public toilets in New York City, they have to source all the toilet parts from within the state, even if they're $200,000 cheaper in Portland, Oregon.I think it's crazy to ask procurement and contracting to solve all your policy problems. Procurement can't be about keeping a healthy local toilet parts industry. You just need to procure the toilet.This is another area where you see similar overlap in some of the civil service and contracting issues. A lot of cities have residency requirements for many of their positions. If you work for the city, you have to live inside the city. In New York, that means you've got a lot of police officers living on Staten Island, or right on the line of the north side of the Bronx, where they're inches away from Westchester. That drives up costs, and limits your population of potential employees.One of the most amazing things to me about the Biden Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was that it encouraged contracting officers to use residency requirements: “You should try to localize your hiring and contracting into certain areas.” On a national level, that cancels out. If both Wyoming and Wisconsin use residency requirements, the net effect is not more people hired from one of those states! So often, people expect the civil service and contracting to solve all of our ills and to point the way forward for the rest of the economy on discrimination, hiring, pay, et cetera. That just leads to, by definition, government being a lot more expensive than the private sector.Over the next three and a half years, what would you like to see the administration do on civil service reform that they haven't already taken up?I think some of the broad-scale layoffs, which seem to be slowing down, were counterproductive. I do think that their ability to achieve their ends was limited by the nature of the reduction-in-force regulations, which made them more counterproductive than they had to be. That's the situation they inherited. But that didn't mean you had to lay off a lot of people without considering the particular jobs they were doing now.And hiring quite a few of them back.Yeah. There are also debates obviously, within the administration, between DOGE and Russ Vought [director of the OMB] and some others on this. Some things, like the Schedule Policy/Career — which is the revival of Schedule F in the first Trump administration — are largely a step in the right direction. Counter to some of the critics, it says, “You can remove someone if they're in a policymaking position, just like if they were completely at-will. But you still have to hire from the typical civil service system.” So, for those concerned about politicization, that doesn't undermine that, because they can't just pick someone from the party system to put in there. I think that's good.They recently had a suitability requirement rule that I think moved in the right direction. That says, “If someone's not suitable for the workforce, there are other ways to remove them besides the typical procedures.” The ideal system is going to require some congressional input: it's to have a decentralization of hiring authority to individual managers. Which means the OPM — now under Scott Kupor, who has finally been confirmed — saying, "The OPM is here to assist you, federal managers. Make sure you stay within the broad lanes of what the administration's trying to accomplish. But once we give you your general goals, we're going to trust you to do that, including hiring.”I've mentioned it a few times, but part of the Chance to Compete Act — which was mentioned in one of Trump's Day One executive orders, people forget about this — was saying, “Implement the Chance to Compete Act to the maximum extent of the law.” Bring more subject-matter expertise into the hiring process, allow more discretion for managers and input into the hiring process. I think carrying that bipartisan reform out is going to be a big step, but it's going to take a lot more work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

What if you could remove the obstacles that stand in your way and shape your life's direction with purpose? My guest, Dhiren Harchandani, believes that the secret to overcoming challenges and flourishing in life boils down to one essential skill: mastering our inner game. Today, he will share with us how to achieve this through his insightful wisdom and personal stories. Dhiren Harchandani is a growth coach who has mentored entrepreneurs and organizations. As a TEDx speaker, he passionately advocates for unlocking human potential. An entrepreneur with over two decades of experience scaling businesses across five industries, his contributions have earned him recognition among the Top 40 Change Management Leaders. A graduate of Harvard Business School's OPM program, Dhiren's approach integrates a dynamic blend of NLP, neuroscience, and psychology to achieve transformative results. Beyond his mission to guide one billion individuals in mastering their Inner Game, Dhiren is an avid mountaineer. He competes in Ironman races and has traversed the diverse landscapes of over 70 countries, spanning all 7 continents. In our conversation, Dhiren will help us in identifying the patterns that hold us back and share practical techniques we can incorporate into our everyday lives to break free and live with more meaning. You'll discover how to cultivate resilience, confidence, and self-belief to realize your dreams and fulfill your potential.

Agencies are facing tons of changing expectations from the Office of Personnel Management this year. In the last few weeks alone, OPM has told agencies how to think differently about awarding employees for good work, as well as how to implement recent changes to the federal probationary period. To help make sense of it all Federal News Network's Drew Friedman caught up with the Partnership for Public Services, Vice President of Government Affairs, Jenny Mattingly.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Real Estate Investing School podcast, host Joe Jensen interviews Ray Glymph, a real estate investor and business coach who overcame homelessness to own over 100 properties. Ray discusses how his tough beginnings fueled his ambition, ultimately leading him to win awards like “Best New Business of the Year” and the NAACP Champion of Change. His inspiring journey is packed with lessons on building real estate success through resilience and self-motivation. Ray dives into his unique investing approach, from house hacking to managing multi-unit complexes on the East Coast. Initially self-managing his properties to maximize profit, Ray eventually took on partners and used other people's money (OPM) to scale efficiently. He shares the value of hands-on management, relationship-building, and a deep understanding of the market. Throughout the episode, Ray emphasizes his core values of health, wealth, and freedom, and how they guide his investment philosophy. He provides insights on creative financing, scaling, and balancing life and work. This conversation is a motivating listen for investors at all levels, showing how real estate can unlock financial freedom through strategic, disciplined growth. Ready to take your real estate investing game to the next level? Book a free one-on-one strategy call with one of our experienced coaches and see how we can help you grow your portfolio, no matter your experience level! Book a free real estate investing strategy call! No experience necessary. Check out the Real Estate Investing School Youtube Real Estate Investing School Instagram Brody's Instagram Joe's Instagram Ray's Instagram

It's a busy time for federal retirements. From rising health care costs to the surge in retirement applications, there's a lot to keep track of. And, OPM has launched a new online retirement system at the same time. Here to explain what makes a retirement case “clean,” how to avoid common delays, and what federal employees should be thinking about before they hit submit is Tammy Flanagan, Principal at Retire Federal.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Title:  How Survive When Real Estate Deals Fail with Ruben Kanya Summary: In this conversation, Seth Bradley, a securities attorney and real estate investor, discusses the complexities of capital raising, the importance of experimentation in finding one's niche, and the critical role of networking and trust in the investment landscape. He shares insights from his journey in real estate and tech, emphasizing the need for grit and public speaking skills to succeed in capital raising. The discussion also highlights the challenges of the first capital raise and the lessons learned along the way. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the multifaceted benefits of hosting a podcast, emphasizing the importance of listening and connection. They explore the intricacies of capital raising in real estate, discussing the significance of grit, networking, and leveraging other people's money. The dialogue also covers compliance with securities laws, compensation structures in syndication, and the emerging trend of fund to fund structures. Tribevest is introduced as a solution for simplifying fund management and ensuring compliance in capital raising efforts. Links to listen and subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/raising-capital-the-right-way-compliance-funds-and/id1341895972?i=1000688593916 Links to watch and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyF9Z72m2R0 Bullet Point Highlights: You need a license to raise capital legally. Experimenting with different models helps identify what works for you. Building authority and trust is essential in capital raising. Networking with high net worth individuals is crucial. The first capital raise is often the hardest. Grit and determination are key to success in entrepreneurship. Public speaking skills can enhance your ability to communicate effectively. Learning from clients can provide valuable insights for your own journey. You can leverage your existing skills to add value in capital raises. Building a strong network can facilitate easier capital raising. Having a podcast enhances listening skills and fosters connections. Capital raising requires grit, a strong network, and resources. Leveraging other people's money accelerates business growth. Compliance with securities laws is crucial in capital raising. Compensation structures in syndication vary based on deal size and type. Fund to fund structures are becoming more prevalent in real estate. Effective communication is key to successful networking. Tribevest simplifies the process of raising capital compliantly. Understanding the legalities of capital raising is essential for success. Building a community can expedite personal and professional growth. Transcript: Ruben Kanya (00:00.142) whole idea here is you're actually not allowed to raise capital without a license. So just like being a doctor or a dentist or an attorney, you have to have a license to be able to raise capital and it's called a broker dealer or potentially an RIA, registered investment advisor. So if you're not one of those people, if you don't have a license, you need to have an exemption from having that license. if it's your, this is speaking in generalities, but if it's your own deal, if it's your own fund,   If it's your own syndication, if you're the one buying the property, that's an exemption. You're exempted. You can raise capital for your own deal and that's okay. And that's kind of the co-GP concept that we talk about sometimes. I actually don't like to say co-GP because to me it's a fallacy. There's no such thing as a co-GP. You're either a GP and an active partner.   Who's this? you're an entrepreneur? you're a real estate investor? you're trying to learn from those who did it? Well, come into the lab then. Put your white coat on, gloves on, notepad, and let's go, Joe.   Experiment nation this episode was a really fun one with Seth Bradley who is a fun manager Invest in entrepreneurs. He's an attorney he as a startup founders of software as a service and Really what I loved about What he's built is   Everything that he's built, it's vertically integrated, which I love, but he really embodies the principles of experimenting. Right. And what I mean by that is he has tried multiple models in real estate, which allowed him to get exposure, which I think is really important when I talk about having a well-rounded experiment in your lab, LabAK being your life, so that you can at least identify   (Seth Bradley) (02:10.529) what you like, what you don't like, what gives you return on energy, what drains you. I think those are all important things for us to then be able to niche down. A lot of times we talk about niching down, but we haven't even gotten a taste of what's on the menu to even understand what it is that we want to niche down in. And so part of what I created here at Experimentation in the lab is to bring you   folks who can present the menu of the different options that there is in not only real estate, but in business and even career to then give you that exposure so that you can then get a taste even from this show and then implement it yourself and maybe try one or two or three experiments or four or five. How many it takes for you to feel like this is the thing. This is the thing that I'm going to hold on to and grasp to and go all in on. Right. And that's what we did.   And keep in mind that life has seasons. A lot of us can do something and it could be four seasons. Your season could be five years, 10 years, 15, but I do believe in the compound effect. his journey, Seth's journey, he was able to get his first duplex, then quads, then small multifamilies and big multifamily units. And the next thing you know, he's doing $120 million a deal just in 2022 alone, right? In one year.   But with that, one thing I wanted to highlight, so one thing is the experiment, different exposures, AKA building blocks towards the very thing that he's doing now. But the other thing is being able to get a free, or I should say, get a paid internship. And that's through servicing your clients, learning from them, and then taking a page from their book. He was an attorney that was putting down together his SEC deals of syndications,   capital raising, and then he learned from his clients because he had full transparency. Sometimes, often we're in a position where the proof of concept is right in front of us, but we don't grab it by the horns. We just see it for what it is, just clocking and clocking out. No matter what job you have, there's an opportunity for you to actually take lessons, systems, SOPs, structure, any skillset to take it to the next level for your own endeavors.   (Seth Bradley) (04:38.252) And what I mean by that is I was a realtor and I was a realtor for the investor. understood how investors, underwrote their deals. And that was my win for me to hone my craft in real estate, underwriting deals, pulling comps, walking properties, understanding value at all. That was when I was the realtor for the investor. You can still look it up on bigger pockets. You can still see my page. That's what I was doing. I was helping investors invest until I then became an investor myself.   And in this case, he was an ICC attorney providing these, you know, going through the process of doing syndications, fund to fund, et cetera. And then he learned and he said, not only do I have a practice that does it, but I can also be on the other side of that transaction. So don't you ever forget the importance of being on the other side of the transaction in whatever service that you offer, even if it's just call it.   You work in hospitality at a restaurant to make ends meet. There's a system, there's a SOP, there's a checklist. There's something in there that is a proof of concept that you can then take and implement somewhere in your business. And the universe will tell you its secrets if you listen. The clues are all around us. Last but not least, I love our conversation around being an authority, building a brand.   Essentially, that's what capital raising is and he talked about three pillars. I don't want to talk about he said money Right is one heart of the center trust in your network, right? Your network is you gotta have a big network He talks about having a platform like this where I think everybody should have a podcast because you get the interview you get to learn the skills of communication listening, etc but most importantly you foster relationship while on the air and then   It builds trust to whoever's listening. I'm sure that if you're listening right now and you and I wanted to go into a deal together, there's some form of trust. If this is not your, your first episode. So there's that, right? We talked about having a meetup, restarting our meetups. That's key. Connecting people, they trust in you. Being an authoritative figure, trust. They can't flow you if they don't know you. So stop being cute and stop hiding and put yourself out there. Right? Money. Money follows all of the above network and trust.   (Seth Bradley) (07:00.408) people who have money in your network will make it easier than those who are in your network who are broke. So surround yourself with people who have money, not just because they have money, but of course it can help you tremendously if you're trying to raise capital. And there's something that goes about saying with people who have money, it's not that they're better or anything, but there is a level of opulence and abundance.   And I think there should be a good balance. But certainly if you're trying to raise money with people who don't have money and you're in a circle, people don't know how many doesn't mean to say that you can't uplift them when you have an opportunity, but it's going to be hard to raise capital from people who don't have capital. Right. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Money trust network and being an authority. You can build an authority from home in the lab, in a studio, in person.   And you don't always have to be an expert in something else. Sometimes you can actually have authority within your own circle. If you're a dentist and you're trying to raise capital with other dentists, they trust you. You have authority maybe in your current marketplace, you're a manager of some kind or you're a lead or you're just someone that people really trust. You have that authority. You have trust already with like-minded people in your circle. So this was a great one. He brought a lot of core values home. And that's what I love about   the show. It's every time you listen or anytime you interview someone who's had done some amazing leaps and experiments in their own lab, there's always some consistent clues that kind of bring to the surface and maybe it just, I'm aware of them, but if not, my goal is to extract that and make them aware for you. So I trust that you're going to get a lot from this episode without further ado, Seth Bradley in the lab, y'all.   Experimentation, what's going on? Your host Ruben here. Today I have the pleasure of connecting with a gentleman that we connected with, had some mutual connections. And I was like, I didn't want to let the serendipity go to waste because I saw there was a mutual beneficial component to the lab, as I always say. And I always think you're as good as your tools, you're as good as your resources. And so I'm really happy to have the gentleman here step into the lab with us to give us insight. And I also love the   (Seth Bradley) (09:21.39) I'll call it a vertical integration I think and maybe Seth will keep me honest here, but without further ado I want to welcome Seth Bradley. How's it my man? Welcome to the lab brother   Going great, man. Ruben, really appreciate you having me on. Thanks for having me in the lab.   Absolutely, man. I should so listen if I'm curious so Seth because you know, we we start to talk a little bit and I was a car We're getting to the weeds of things. I want to make sure I hit this record button, but I'm just a curious guy and I'm so curious that if I'm at a real estate conference and you and I sit next to each other and I say hey I'm Ruben Seth. Nice to meet you. You know, what do you do for a living? What do you lead with because you have a very interesting background? So I want to we're gonna reverse engineer, but I'm so curious as to   at the time that we're recording this, what do you lead with if you don't know what my interests are, you don't know where I'm coming from, I could be an investor, I could be interested in putting my money to work, what do you lead with? I'm just so curious.   I love that question, man, because sometimes I have a hard time answering it. It's an easy question to answer for most people, but for me, I have to think about it for a second. But typically I'll lead with I'm a securities attorney, specifically a real estate securities attorney. So if you're raising capital for real estate from passive investors, I'm your guy. can help you put together your fund or your syndication compliantly and secondarily, or, you know, one B I'll call it a tech founder. So involved in a few tech startups as well.   (Seth Bradley) (10:48.238) That's awesome. Then that opens up the window because I see her tech founder and then I securities attorney. Is that that accurate?   Yep, nailed it.   securities attorney. would you do you happen to do you still do I mean, of course, you've been involved in raising capital yourself, which is what I want to lead with next. But are you actively investing? And if you are, what is the model? Is it more investing in the startup? Or is it more investing in actual capitals? I should say social capital relationships, or even you know what, maybe it's some form of real estate, what is your current I guess, investing   season for lack of better words.   Yeah, it's all across the board, man. mean, everything that you mentioned, I mean, just quickly, I started in real estate in 2013. House hacked into a duplex did kind of the bigger pockets podcast. Listen to that. Red Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know, the typical journey you take and house hacked into a duplex and started buying bigger and bigger properties got to the point where, you know, I wanted to get into syndications and funds and start raising capital. So I started actually investing passively into real estate first and I got my feet wet.   Ruben Kanya (12:01.55) figured out what that investor journey looked like. And then I started raising capital myself from my own syndications where potentially I could be just a capital partner or also an operator. So I raised a good amount of capital from 2019 to 2023, I would say, before the interest rates started to spike. And then we slowed down a bit, but we still own a good amount of that real estate and just put it in perspective. We bought about $120 million with the real estate in 2022 alone. And now I'm kind of   involved with a handful of tech startups where I'm also in that same capacity where I'm raising capital or helping the CEO raise capital for seed rounds for these startups.   Okay, very interesting. So I'm glad let's go to the very beginning because you talked about bigger pockets with shout out to bigger pockets, right? Because that's or did you say bigger pockets? I did hear you say that. Okay, cool. had a mutual kind of, know, I was planning my seeds. I think that they did an amazing job, of course, like minded investors together. 2013 get a duplex. I'm sure one thing I'm curious about and you know, someone else might be listening is, you know, what   point now every everyone's situation is different with that said, but at what point did you start to think, okay, it's time to bring in some outside capital and, I'm going to lead with you. It seems that you strike me as a guy who does things strategically. enlighten me a little bit as to get the duplex. Was there another lever that was pulled to get the next property before you start to raise capital? Or is that right away, right into, okay, now it's time to raise capital. Cause   duplex going to take me so far. Tell me about that journey.   Ruben Kanya (13:43.732) No, I mean, that journey was, you know, a lot of different types of things. mean, I've wholesaled, I've fixed and flipped single family properties. We were doing that in Cleveland for a while. Then we kind of moved on to multifamily, you know, smaller multifamilies up to four units, which is still residential, but then up to, you know, like 16 units, those sorts of things. Then we started getting to where, you know, capital starts getting constrained, your own capital, or if you're doing like a JV, starts getting constrained. But I was fortunate enough that my legal practice, which also started in 2013,   was highly related to what I was doing. So as a real estate attorney, my real estate clients were raising capital for their real estate deals. So then I got into securities law. So I saw how they were raising capital. Then I started helping them raise capital from the legal side. And then I started raising, and then I realized that, hey, if we want to go bigger, I've got to be more like my clients who are buying, you know, 50, $100 million properties. How do we do that? Well, like they do it. They need to raise capital from either   passive investors or from, larger investors like family offices and places like that. So I knew that that was the pathway. So I was fortunate enough to kind of have that perspective shown to me by my clients and they kind of showed me the blueprint. Hey, this is how you need to do it. Now, a lot of other attorneys see that same blueprint and they don't really have that entrepreneurial mindset. So they're kind of just like that service oriented, Hey, let's do what I'm doing. And I'm just going to help. But I have an entrepreneurial mindset. I I'm like,   I want to do that. I want to buy that property. I want to run that business. I want to scale it. like anything else, though, I still had a little bit of reservation, I would say. So I decided to invest passively first just to get my feet wet, just to see what that investor experience was like. And then once I did that a few times, I really got into the active side and dove right in.   Oh man, I love so many elements of that. Let's unpack the experiment phase, right? Because that's what I truly believe in. I'm curious to what your thoughts are on this, right? Before I even preface by saying this, I think, and this is just a thought, could be wrong. I'm experimenting life as it is. But when you ask someone, hey, what do you want to do for a living? Right? It's like, well, I don't know. I haven't been exposed to enough.   (Seth Bradley) (16:03.116) Right. But then when you start experimenting with a lot of different things, then you can niche down because you've been exposed to like this that I don't like, et cetera. And there's a second leg to that, but I want to touch on that for a second because you said you did wholesale fixing flips, then you need small multifamily. What do you think you were able to gain from that? My personally, when I see that, I see, well, you were able you were able to get insight, but   Again, maybe you see things differently. Maybe it's like you needed to do those things and you thought it was true. And then you were led down one path and led to another. What do you take from that? Were you experimenting or was it more or less of the natural progression of events and what you thought was going to be your end all be all ended up progressing into a new ideal. Tell me about that experience.   Yeah, I mean, I think it was an experiment. It was me trying. I knew I wanted to be in real estate. I love real estate. I've always been drawn to it. It's just been an interesting thing for me and interesting subject. I remember when I was in undergrad and I couldn't afford to buy any kind of real estate or didn't have a job at all. And I was trying to figure out, well, man, how can I buy like these townhouses that I'm living in and rent those out? Like, I remember just being interested from the get go. So I knew I wanted to be in it, but it was certainly an experiment to see.   how to break into the market, how to scale a business. Because once you got into a duplex and your house hacked and bought a few other single family properties, it was like, okay, well, we can continue to do this, but I'm always looking again to scale. And to do that, a lot of times you do need to bring in other people's money to be able to fund that scale. But not always. mean, I think it would be a better pathway, honestly, if you can scale without other people's money, because then you can own 100 % of it. But a lot more difficult to do. So if you want to...   you want to grow with scale fast, typically it's with other people's money. And again, luckily I was already in a profession that gave me that experience to be able to see that pathway and be able to execute on   (Seth Bradley) (18:02.35) Now tell me that's a great insight or at least a transition point there, Seth, because we, know, in our professions, we spend a lot of time, but not a lot of folks spend the time to have the lens of an entrepreneur to say, hey, maybe I can actually take a page from their book. Right. Because I think it's interesting that it's we all are entrepreneurs. Right. So we go into business ourselves to run away from maybe possibly corporate. Some people.   And then we build our own companies. We install systems, we invest in resources. And then it's like, we turn into the thing that we were maybe running away from, but there's a lesson that we get to build it our way and have maybe learned lessons from these big corporations. In your end, it reminds me a little bit of me because I again, certainly not an attorney by any means. And I won't compare being a realtor to an attorney, but you are servicing clients and you get to at least,   at least get nuggets from their journey and then say, Hey, why don't, why don't I take a page from their book? Can you talk to us about that? Because I think honestly, it's an unkept almost secret and not even talked about enough where it's like, Hey, you're taking this opportunity right now to get to understand the playbook, see how they've done it, learn from their mistakes, right? Right. Through service and while getting paid. And then you're like, okay, now I'm going to do it for me. So   Do you see it that way as well? was it kind of, know, or did you strategically go into it thinking that you do that? Or it was kind of like, you know what? This is kind of cool. Let me try it myself.   Yeah, I mean, and Ruben, hats off to you, man, because a lot of realtors and brokers, they're around real estate every single day. That is literally their business. They have access to deals before other people. They get to see things that other people don't get to see. They get to see the transactions. They get to see how they change hands. And as you know, most of them don't invest in real estate. like, you even own your own house? Do you own any investment properties in...   Ruben Kanya (20:11.918) 90 % of them don't, right? Unless it's, well, maybe their own house, but that's probably it. They don't invest. And it's crazy to think about that when they're around that all the time. And it's the same thing with attorneys, right? Like, know, they're, whether there's somebody like me, there's real estate or securities, and they have clients that are, that are buying large properties and raising capital, or it's, you know, some other practice like and A where they're combining companies and building companies and things like that.   I think that there's a certain entrepreneurial DNA that's in some of us and it's not in others. And that's okay. Like some people thrive in an office atmosphere or thrive in a W-2 type of atmosphere. And a lot of times I don't even like to disrupt that. Like people, you know, are comfortable there. They like the steady paycheck and that's okay. And I think the vast majority of people do want that and they do like that. They like the predictability of it. But some of us out there, like me and you, I believe are, you know, we just,   We're not a fit for that. Like we need to build. I think that's the key is, is the build, right? Cause you were talking about, you know, we start putting all the systems and the processes and the things into place to ultimately end up in the, the same machine that we didn't want to work for. But I don't think that's the piece that's important. The piece is important is that that climb the build, we want to build like we were builders. love to build.   Yeah. Have you ever had a conversation, with maybe your associates on? I don't know if this is a hypocritical question, because I don't know if I could answer this. But I'm curious, have you had a conversation with another attorney? Like, hey, you see this all the time. Have ever thought of doing it yourself? What's the mindset behind? Have you had that conversation? And have you had around those? Yeah, just curious.   Yeah, I definitely, I definitely have. think, you know, at least specifically with the attorney industry or with that profession, we are, we're trained to look at risk. We're trained to evaluate liability. We are trained to be conservative in nature. and that is totally different than when you're an entrepreneur and you're out there building a business and you're, don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. And there's going to be a problem that pops up today that you didn't expect.   Ruben Kanya (22:30.01) And you don't know if you're going to be able to pay payroll and all these different things that come up as an entrepreneur, as a business builder, that's totally a different mindset than it is that attorneys are trained for. So I think that's definitely a separation. like, you know, I have a lot of investors that are attorneys. That was, that's who my investor base is. Typically it's other attorneys. A lot of other capital raisers don't go after attorneys because they are paying the ass. We ask a lot of questions. Like I said, we are risk averse. Like, you know, we're not the ideal.   person or people to raise from.   I'm gonna predict my money isn't really the case.   with a cold on the page. 137 second paragraph line four. What does that mean? Why is that? And, know, that's the kind of stuff you have to deal with. But, you know, they do make a good amount of money. So there's a, you know, there's a push, there's a give take there. But, you know, I think that that's, I have identified that with conversations with my investors and obviously my prior colleagues. I mean, that in itself is, is a big difference.   It's a big difference. We're just as attorneys, we're just trained to find and look at risk and think about all the bad things that can happen. And man, when you're building a business, when you're growing out on your own and you say, I'm done with my W-2, I don't want that paycheck anymore. That's a lot of risk, right? Or at least it's a lot of risk to a person that thinks that way. I actually don't think that way. I think it's more risky to be have one income stream and be a W-2, but that's certainly not the way that they typically look at it.   (Seth Bradley) (24:02.306) Yeah, no, it's interesting what you're saying. But I'm also curious though, that if they are also investing, because it sounds like you've also worked with some associates, or at least your investors have come from the same cloth, it sounds like they might be, instead of again, raising the capital like you are, high risk, high leverage, they're willing to put their money to work. Do you find that   And I guess maybe that's it. Do you find that that kind of archetype is finding that to be of a less riskier approach versus flipping versus doing it themselves? Or do you find that it's more of time constraint thing? it's like, listen, I got the money. You mentioned it. I have a high net worth. I'm an accredited investor. Let me just do it with someone who's an expert. What have you seen since you've been on both sides, and especially as a fundraiser?   Yeah, I think it's that investor profile. You know, these are folks that make a lot of money from their W-2. They have no time on their hands because their W-2 is so demanding. then any time they have outside of that, it's got to be spent with family. So they really just don't have any time, but they do have capital. So it's just that investor profile that you're dealing with with attorneys and some of the similar, you know, with doctors and dentists and engineers and people like that. Same thing. You know, they're highly paid professionals.   You know, they went to school for a long time. They make a lot of money, but they don't have any time. And unless they really want to venture out and say, okay, I want to raise capital or, or, I don't know, you have to figure out a way to carve out more time because they certainly don't have it. I know when I worked in big law firms and I'm trying to bill 2000 hours a year, I don't have time to, you know, invest actively. In fact, I actually got fired from my big law job, my last one, because of that, because I'm raising capital and doing real estate deals.   and starting businesses and guess what? You don't have time to do that if you're working at a demanding job, whether that's as an attorney or Dr. Dennis, whoever that might be. So I think it just comes down to that profile and do you have time? Do you have capital? And then whatever one you have a surplus of, that's probably where you're going to fit into the asset. So you can invest if you have capital and no time.   Ruben Kanya (26:26.126) You need to find something a little bit more passive and that comes through like funds and syndications and things like that.   All right. So that's very helpful and I think very interesting because you've seen both sides. You not only were on the other side, but you've also been the capital raiser and then you've also yourself invested passively. Tell me about the first deal that if you recall, at least the like kind deal when you raised capital, who did you go to?   Did you start with your client base? Did you start with friends and family? And then maybe we can even get into the granularity. I know there's different non-accredited, accredited 506V versus 506C. There's a lot of different kind of foundational pillars. But talk to us about what your first deal was like, if you recall some of the numbers and what kind of asset type and then who you actually pulled in. So people can start thinking of actually what's possible when we talk about capital.   you know, in fundraising, we think of it as this big thing, but people like you and me can actually start initiating these kinds of transactions. Talk to us about your first one.   Yeah, man, I mean, don't remember the actual specifics, but it was like 100 because there's around 150 unit multifamily something like that was your first That was the first raise it was the first raise but I was brought I I wasn't the primary operating partner I brought in as a capital raiser that sort of thing and also providing some legal services as well. Um, but I was   (Seth Bradley) (27:48.078) That was your first race.   (Seth Bradley) (28:01.422) Hold on. That's interesting. Now you kind of you're kind of double. Is that is that how you got your general partner essentially? Were you a general partner on that? Or were you tell us about that? Because from what I understand, you can correct me if I'm wrong here. You're the expert. You can bring in different subject matter expertise to the table to value your I guess your position and a capital raise. Maybe one is investor relations, one, et cetera. Did you from what I understand, bacon?   some of your services and as a GP or is that, what did you?   Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I was a general partner on that deal, baking in some of my legal services as well. Started leveraging my skillset that's super valuable. Obviously, it's applicable to these capital raises. I can help you raise capital and also be the securities attorney and also potentially the real estate attorney as well on the deal. So lots of different ways that I can get in there and provide value to the active partnership.   But yeah, I I was tasked with raising, you know, half a million dollars. I didn't hit it. I hit way under. I think I might've raised like a couple hundred thousand dollars. And I was pretty happy that I even hit that because it's the first time. I'm, and I'll tell you what, man, like capital raising is hard. Like I think that, you know, you see all these masterminds out there and these coaching programs and things and they're teaching how to raise capital and some are great. And I'm actually in a couple of them. but they are, you know, they, have to sell you on that. easy, right? They have to sell you on, Hey,   I'll give you the systems, the processes and boom, you're going to be able to raise a million dollars easily. It's not that easy. unless you already have a built in network of high net worth individuals, that's where you'll find success. Or maybe you have a platform like yours where you can access a lot of people that you already have a relationship with and you'll like, and trust you that love what you're doing. And they're like, man, if he's investing in this, it must be good. So that those people, like you, and then also people that are.   Ruben Kanya (29:59.426) we tend to see a lot of doctors and dentists that are very successful right out of the gate. Cause guess what? They work with other doctors and dentists who already trust them, who have money, who already trust them. So they do great. and then others, like me are probably somewhere in the middle, right? We we've got a base of investors that are like attorneys, which seem like they'd be great because they have money, but guess what? They're a pain in the ass. So there's, there's a little bit of give take there. and then you have other folks who,   you know, maybe they're a school teacher or something like that where their colleagues maybe don't have a ton of money to invest and they have to follow just like, you know, follow the processes, the systems and the marketing funnels and those things and rely really heavily on that. And typically it doesn't go that well. It doesn't on the first one. You've really got to be scrappy. Like you've got to get in there. You've got to literally make a list of a hundred people that you know, that might want to invest right.   type it up, go systematically through that list, and you've gotta break out of your shell and not be afraid to just reach out to these people, no shame, get your pitch together and just do it. And it feels awkward and you don't wanna do it and you feel like a salesperson, but you've gotta do it. You've gotta break through those reservations and make it happen because that first raise is a bear. You've gotta just be.   You've got to be scrappy and you've got to do whatever it takes and 10x whatever you think is going to take.   Experiment nation, you've heard me talk about how multiple investors across the nation are landing these lucrative midterm rental insurance contracts by making these small tweaks on the branding and marketing side, especially if you're an existing short-term rental operator, there is a quick and easy shift that you can make with the ride guide in place. And because we've launched a two-day bootcamp,   (Seth Bradley) (31:59.278) that not everyone could attend in real time, I've put together a recording where you can get all the materials and all the guides to focus on rebranding either your short term rental business or your current midterm rental business so that you can actually have the insurance companies reach out to you. And then day two is if you want to actually play offense, how you can reach out to them by listing on the right platforms, et cetera.   If you're looking to get this MTR bootcamp so that you can start optimizing and you can start receiving these lucrative contracts that again, provide less headaches, less turnovers, unlike the Airbnb space, you can start receiving inquiries today by having the right guide in place. So please go to experimentrealestate.com for slash MTR bootcamp or click the link in the bio to make sure you get your hands on the   and midterm rental insurance bootcamp to fast track your way into landing these lucrative insurance contracts the exact same ways multiple investors have taken advantage of this unknown and untapped niche within the midterm rental umbrella. Wow, so I'm a systems guy and as you're speaking, I'm taking notes here guys. I heard three key pillars and feel free to add to them because I wanna hear.   kind of the downfall of some of what folks are coaching. I heard one is money, number two is trust, and number three is network. And I like how you highlighted those because I hear, well, if you have a network and you can get access and you have a large pool, then there's probably people who are gonna have money in there. Then if you have what I'm hearing is authority, trust, AKA I'm a doctor, you're a doctor, we speak the same language. And by the way, guess what? Third pillar, we all have money.   So that's kind of like the sweet, sounds like that's the sweet spot. MTN money trust and network. What did I miss?   Ruben Kanya (34:03.89) You nailed it, man. That's it. That's kind of the big level, the high level things that you need. I mean, you need that authority or you need to be able to show that you know what you're doing, that you know what you talk about and what you're talking about, that sort of thing. And then obviously that network, you either have to develop that through your W-2 that you already have or however it might be, or maybe you have a platform, right? Like maybe you have a platform like a podcast or an investor group.   or an in-person meetup. We don't do those as much as we used to before COVID, but that used to be a huge thing. Like I were on a real estate meetup in San Diego County or something like that. And it goes, that used to go really, really well for people to be able to raise capital. So yeah, you gotta have that platform. Network. I know, right, Networking lunch.   You should bring that back. There's something about because there's something about this, right? This is cool. Like, what a time to be alive where you and I can connect in the flesh. But I want to echo what you just said. Because I'm kind of speaking to myself as a reminder, Ruben, you got to get these meetups going again. We used to do a meetup in New York and Atlanta.   And just the relationships that happen in the room and you're being the super connector is so powerful. I wouldn't get cute and just, you know, this is great that you and I can connect while you're in San Diego and I'm here in Boston, but it's not, or it's and, I think we should, I think we should bring it back. Cause I could tell it may a super charismatic dude, great energy. you know, obviously you're authoritative figure and I feel like, I think, it will only service more.   never seen.   (Seth Bradley) (35:41.87) to have these in there's something about in person. So yeah, I'm just I'm preaching to the choir, but I'm also like, hey, accountability, I'm gonna check up on you. gotta do the same.   You gotta appreciate it. Tell me sure man. And it's great. Like when we meet on something like this and we have some interactions on social media and then we get on each other's podcast, you know, get to know each other. And then when you meet in person, you're like, this is awesome. You already feel like you know the person. So technology is a great and right. Another and yeah.   Yeah, don't sleep on that fit that in person. We need more of that if anything. And people are, you know what, people I think are actually searching for it with all this technology. So good reminder for the both of us and whoever who's listening. I want to touch on something that you said, Seth. You mentioned, because I like learning from those who either have failed or made mistakes because can expedite our learning process. So you said,   First deal typically, uh first one doesn't go well, uh, it's a bear but then you also mentioned that uh, you know Some some mastermind programs, right and there's a lot out there good and bad and some are better than others. Uh, some of them, you know I see I guess uh, maybe Don't um, I should say, um, maybe they fall a little short   of helping you get to your first link. What's missing? What's the missing link? We talk about money, trust and network, but like if I wanted to nail it the first time the right way without, and I wanted to learn from someone like you from, your mistakes or from someone else's mistakes or from, know, those masterminds that are just falling short, what is a, is, is it a foundational or at least insight or lesson learn or thing I should keep top of mind in addition to the money, trust and network that would maybe put me in a   (Seth Bradley) (37:40.024) position not to have the first one be so challenging.   Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I think it's going to be challenging no matter what. I mean, I think what I was going to say is actually grit, right? You have to have grit. So I think it kind of it's a counterbalance here where you have a mastermind or coaching program or a class or something like that that you're selling to somebody. And the only way somebody is going to buy it is if you say, hey, buy this or come join me in this group and   I'll make it easy for you to do what you want to do. Like that's the selling point. You have to say that it's going to be easy to get them to pay you to do it. But the problem is once they're in, you realize it's not easy. So, you know,   People sell the promise, not the process.   That's right. That's right. So, you know, I think maybe I don't know if there's any way around that. Like you certainly can't sell it is going to be hard and be like, Hey, well, if you buy my $20,000 program, you're probably not going to make it. So you can, if you want, you know, it's just not, it's not going to work. So I don't know if that's going to change, but I would say maybe once you get into that program, then you preach that, look, I can give you the systems, I can give you the processes. I can even teach you the compliance and I can hook you up with all my different, you know, my network and   Ruben Kanya (38:59.21) hook you up with my securities attorney and my CPA and my funnel builder and those sorts of things. But at the end of the day, really emphasize that it's going to be work. You have to not only implement the systems, but you're going to have to scrap. Just like building any business, capital raising is a hard business and you're going to have to do things that are going to make you uncomfortable. And if you don't go all in, you're not going to make it. That's all there is. It's just like any business.   or even a piece of a business. So me and my wife own a few gyms together and like sometimes we'll implement like you know, a promotion or something. Right. And if we half asset, it doesn't work. It just doesn't. It simply does not work. You have to have full buy-in. You have to believe in it yourself and you have to get your teammates and your employees to believe in it or they won't or they won't grow in the same direction as you. You've got to be all in just like with any business or it's not going to work.   love that. That's a good one. The belief system is certainly a big one. And I'm sure it comes off across, especially in this space of capital raising, you people want to know that, do you believe in what you're saying, right? Just as much as you believe in yourself. That's interesting. So   Tactically, was talking to this gentleman yesterday at the gym, speaking of the gym, a young guy, a hustler, you know, making some good money. And we were kind of talking about, you know, journey, you know, part of the journey is, you know, acquiring skill sets and honing your and sharpening the axe, for lack of a better word. And so I'm curious, you know,   And I'm going to stick to my pillager because that's a reference point for me. But if I'm thinking of, what is one skill? Not saying for this is the end all be all by any means, just curses. If I was to focus and truly get really, really good at one skill and, can she not just achieve mastery in it? Is it fostering relationships, remembering Seth's birthday, what he does? Is it being able to really get   (Seth Bradley) (41:17.998) great at communication and putting together a pitch deck, just to get a little bit more granular of like, what skillsets should I be thinking of, of honing, flexing that muscle and or which skill sets would actually give me an advantage in this space to really double down on? What would you say to that?   I'll just lean on what I personally did. And I think that that's public speaking. So it's a lot, it's something that people hate, right? Like most people hate it. There's a small percentage of people that love it. Not very many. Most people say it's their biggest fear. Certainly my biggest fear was public speaking. so I had to overcome that. I realized that in order to be the person that I wanted to be, I needed to overcome that fear. I needed to get good at what I was not good at. And that was certainly it. And I'll tell you what.   doing what we're doing now helped me. So I launched a podcast. It helps a lot. You get used to talking, you get used to conversating with people and you being the center of attention and focusing your thoughts and putting them into the words that you want to say. And it, it really helped. And I think that that goes from the top down. So even if you, you know, public speaking, you're thinking about, you know, being on stage and giving a presentation, that sort of thing.   Just gonna say.   Ruben Kanya (42:34.914) but it trickles down all the way to networking conversations, to having a phone call with an investor. Like it just improves your conversation skills and your communication skills that you have, whether you're on stage, whether you're on a podcast or whether you're on a phone call or a face-to-face meeting with an investor, it trickles all the way down.   I love this conversation so much and Seth, you have your own podcast as well. Why don't you plug it in for a second.   Sure, it's called the Passive Income Attorney podcast, but I will say that I'm rebranding to Raise the Bar Radio. Obviously a homage to raising capital and being an attorney.   Right. No, the reason I bring that is I couldn't, I just want to echo that, that, everything is, is, is a, is a building block, right? I think what's fascinating about having your own show, right? Seth is, you know, that when someone is talking, traditionally, or if you're not well trained, you're already thinking the next thing to say, not really hearing the person. This skillset right here, but we're doing, which I love so much, you know, forces you to be a better listener.   You know be able to collect information Digest it analyze it and then respond to it. I've always said I think having a show a podcast is one of the ultimate hacks because of the the the There's just so many multiple benefits associated with it. I'm curious. Do you see it that way too? Or is it just me?   Ruben Kanya (44:06.798) just 100 % man 100 % you heard me man like that it's a game changer I mean there's that's to me the number one thing but also you you just get to make connections too right like you get to have guests that you have to have a reason to have somebody on your show that maybe you wouldn't get to talk to for whatever reason or and you get to cross paths with people and you get to say you get to share this experience like we're always gonna have this experience I know when I meet up with people in real life   maybe five years later, like at a networking event, I'm like, my gosh, you remember we were I was on your podcast four years ago or whatever. And it's just like, you know, it's like we're high school buddies or something. you know,   You know, that's so funny you say that Seth, because I was at a conference and I've seen this dude and it had been so long. He's awesome. And I blanked on his name and I was like, but I like, hadn't seen me yet. So I just went to my episode, scrolled them like that's right. Cause I couldn't put it together. I'm like, why am I playing on it? And we hit it off. went to lunch together. Like it was just awesome. But it's to your point, it's, it's sharing an experience one.   It's learning how to communicate, learning how to listen, and then being able to... That's why I actually like being on this side more, because I get to ask you questions. It's having a master class. I'm learning so much right now, and then I get to share with my audience. It's like, Roman, that was just a great interview. like, dude, I self-interest. I selfishly was just as hyped. I'm so glad you got value out of it. So that's awesome, Seth. Let me ask you. So, know, biggest...   You talked about the capital raising, challenging, having grit, needing grit, having a network, having money, having relationships. On the other side of this is, ah, this isn't for me. Do you have a message for those folks who are saying, you know, if you're an advocating for it and obviously you have a service around it, you've done it yourself. Sure. It's not for everybody.   (Seth Bradley) (46:14.178) Right, but for someone out there who's not thinking this right like I think I was in a meetup There was a gentleman out like 300 something units like single-family homes. I think I think you did it the old-fashioned way old gentleman I'm like, yeah, I'm like damn. what is it? What message you have to like share as far as I? Like pulling on levers, right? That's why a lot of us get into real estate levers being anyone resources capital social capital, etc Can you?   Just give us your take on this lever and the power it has. And if someone's not thinking of this, the power it can have. I you mentioned 120 million in 2022. Like help us understand and grasp that for someone who's thinking still like, oh, I'm going to just refinance. I'm going to flip this home and I'm going to OPM. How important is that?   It's so important. Like I said, it's scale, right? It's scale and speed. And that applies to any business that you're trying to scale. It's speed. Like, can you get there on your own or maybe finding one partner at a time? A lot of times that's where you start. Like if you're fixing and flipping homes, you get to a max and you're like, I'm going to bring in, you know, Joe Shimo or my brother-in-law and they're going to fund this one deal. And you're doing one house at a time, or maybe you're doing two houses and you're doing three, but that takes time.   I mean, it just takes a lot of time to get there. So you're just going to be going like this. Maybe you're going to keep improving and then you're going to have one bad deal and it'll be chopped back down a little bit and they're to keep going. But with other people's money, you go like this, like that you get vertical and you can get, and you can just get economies of scale. can, again, just go with speed and that's what matters in business. Now, maybe that's not for everyone. I do get that. Like, I think if you would have asked me a few years ago, I would have said, this is the only way.   Like this is the only way you have to do it. I don't know if it's necessarily for everyone, but if you do want to get to that next level and you want to get there fast, like you want to achieve it soon, then other people's money is where it's at. Like you have to use it like gasoline on a fire.   (Seth Bradley) (48:21.678) Tell us about the, I recently heard Alex Formozzi say this, and I think he was talking about how people need to realize that a piece of a watermelon is always gonna be greater than a large grass, like grapes or something like that. I was like, oh, that's a very interesting analogy. Can you break down maybe just for us who are not familiar with the split?   when you're raising capital and you have other people's money in play and you know a lot of people talk about assets under management here and there millions here and there but help us understand like what's what's the what's the ratio you helped a lot of clients if someone's a GP on a hundred million dollar deal or a ten million dollar deal how much are they actually taking home right like how much do I make because you know you see a lot even on social like   I think that's very interesting for us because you know, we got into the space and we're super lean, but at the same time our margins are ridiculous and it's not about how many doors someone how much profit we make per each, you know, property with all these insurance companies who are paying us like five X what you would traditionally pay. So it's never been about a door contest for us, but that's very prevalent in the industry. Like, we got assets on a management, you know, 20 million here, 120 million. But how much would one.   for someone who's listening, or maybe you're not thinking, said pour gasoline on it, how much am I actually taking home, let's say on a $100 million raise, or on a 20 million, 10 million? What's the good ratio? Like what am I making? And then what's the upside of that? And why is it beneficial for me to really pay attention to this? Especially if I am for profit and money driven, and I understand the opportunity that might be at stake here.   For sure, man. And you're kind of opening up a can of worms, right? So we'll see where we take this. the general idea here is you're actually not allowed to raise capital without a license. So just like being a doctor or a dentist or an attorney, you have to have a license to be able to raise capital. And it's called a broker dealer or potentially an RIA, a registered investment advisor. So if you're not one of those people, if you don't have a license, you need to have an exemption from having   Ruben Kanya (50:41.814) that license. Now, if it's your, this is speaking in generalities, but if it's your own deal, if it's your own fund, if it's your own syndication, if you're the one buying the property, that's an exemption. You're exempted. You can raise capital for your own deal and that's okay. And that's kind of the co-GP concept that we talk about sometimes. I actually don't like to say co-GP because to me it's a fallacy. There's no such thing as a co-GP. You're either a GP and an active partner.   or you're not. And what's a co GP. So we call co GPS or the way that the industry tends to frame them as kind of these small capital raisers, right, these small capital raisers that come in and raise a little bit of capital, and they don't participate in the deal in any other way. So they don't provide any services, they don't do any of   I got got I got rich friends Right you call me you say Ruben. Can you code GP this? know you can probably bring us an extra 50 million to the table Co GP or you're saying is actually not kosher   It depends. So it all depends on how you structure that deal. So if you're bringing a large amount of capital and you're only bringing capital, what you're going to want to do is negotiate managerial or voting rights within that legal entity that you're partnering with. So maybe they're the operating partner and you're the capital partner. And that's okay. So long as you as the capital partner have some sort of like meaningful voting and managerial rights. So that's kind of what private equity does, right? They come in, they raise capital.   And that's all they do is provide capital. But guess what? In those legal documents, if something goes wrong, let's say with the property or whatever the asset is, they have takeover rights. They can come in and manage the property and take over the asset management if they want to. Those rights are baked into the legal documentation. And that's what makes it okay, because they are an active partner because they have those managerial and or voting rights. But when you come in as a, let's say a smaller partner, and all you're doing is bringing in capital,   Ruben Kanya (52:41.1) and you're not doing anything else. So you haven't negotiated any meaningful rights to make decisions or to manage. you don't actually manage the asset. You don't actually attend the meetings. You don't do anything except, here's my 500,000 bucks from my investors. And then you walk away. That's actually not legal. And a lot of people call that the Code GP model. But actually, you're either an active partner in the deal or you're not.   Would it change Seth if I, it sounds like what you're saying is I'm bringing 500K and then I'm just leaving. I'm just like, here you go. Here's, I'm just hooking you up. Would that change if I put my own money into the deal? Now I'm an LP or no, there's more complicated.   Now you're, yeah, now you're an LP because it's your money. So you're just an investor.   Right. you're saying I could, yeah. So you're saying the difference between the example you just gave is the fact that that person never had money in, they just brought money in. That's none of their own money. And then they didn't do anything. You're saying that's a red flag for lack of better words, if they don't have the proper, I guess, voting rights, manager rights, et cetera. Is that an accurate recap?   Yeah, I can use my own capital. I can put my own half a million dollars into somebody's deal and be a passive investor. And that's okay. I'm not raising capital. That's my capital. But if I said, okay, here's $250,000 from my mom and $50,000 from Rubin and another $100,000 from this person and that person. And I put it in a LLC or I just bring them into the deal. Then that is raising capital. You're raising capital from other people. And that's, that's the difference there.   (Seth Bradley) (54:14.254) Yeah, so it's almost like you could be stacking, you know, people are a bunch of people are recruiting for the fund, but those folks are not on there as investors. It's aggregated funds, essentially, which could create a problem, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Very interesting. I never even thought of that case study. Yeah.   Yeah, I didn't even ask your question though, which was how much money can you make? Right? So typically, typically, and again, we're putting securities laws aside here. We're just talking about kind of industry norms, we'll call it. Maybe 30 % or so is put aside for the capital raising. So 30 % of the GP. let's say there's a syndication where you do a 70 30 split, 70 % goes to the investors, 30 % goes to the general partners. Well,   If you bring in, let's say, 100 % of the equity, you bring in all of it, then you'll probably be allocated about 30 % of the general partnership. So 30 % of the 30 % in that example. So you get 9 % of the deal.   What did you mean by 100 % of the equity amount following?   So if you had to raise, let's say you're closing on a $10 million property and you need to raise $4 million to close it, or let's say the down payment plus capital improvements, something like that, and you bring in the full $4 million, you brought in 100 % of the equity needed to close the deal.   Ruben Kanya (55:38.574) Yep. And then overall, so and then what has happened now? So what's going on now or what's happened over the last couple of years is that there have been some very well-known syndicators in the space get investigated by the SEC and people have said, all right, well, now we need to figure out a different way to raise capital, compliantly. Right. And the answer is actually always been out there, but it's had some difficulties and that's a fund to fund. So   people out there, they've heard of a fund to fund. This is more a more prominent way, a more compliant way to raise capital nowadays. But I'll tell you what, comparing it to the CoGP model, it's more complicated. It costs more money and it's just a lot more work for you as the capital aggregator or the fundraiser. So people have avoided it because they've just done the CoGP model because it's easier. But now that the CoGP model isn't as available, people are still doing it, but people are kind of shying away from it because of the   the investigations that went on. Fund to Fund has become a lot more prominent and you have companies like Tribe Best who I'm chief legal officer for, full disclosure. We put together a Fund to Fund product where we make it cheaper, easier, more compliant, and you can just do it very easily and within five business days because we do everything for you. So instead of you having to find a securities attorney and a CPA, open a business banking account, file your LLC,   Walk your investors through the signing ceremony and get them to wire your funds. We call that herding the cats. Do all these things and put your cap table together, do your distributions, all those things that you'd normally have to do. Tribe Best does. And we do it for a very low price in comparison to what I would charge you if you came to me as a law client.   Interesting so I like how you just covered the foundation there. Let's go back to the 10 million dollar example, right? Yeah, you put in equity is you said so this is me saying Equity to close is 4 million. And so I'm bringing in 4 million just so I'm clear is do I have and this is my assumption that a Lot of syndicators are also raising the capital for that 4 million. Is that not correct?   Ruben Kanya (57:55.032) Typically, yes.   Okay, so then you're saying, just want to make sure I understand all the different use cases. So I could be 4 million and then the Delta, I can either traditional lending and or have my investors cover the Delta, which would be the 6 million. Is that accurate?   Yeah, I mean you can find however you need to fill in that the debt the equity stack Well wouldn't be the equity stack the full capital stack. Yeah   Typical though, it more typical that if I'm the GP to $10 million asset that I'm actually going to raise, I don't know, $3.5 million and put 500K on my own money? Is that more typical than I'm...   I would say that is typical. Yep. That is more typical. would say prime example idea, $10 million property, get a $6 million, maybe a little bit more, $6, $7 million loan. And then you raise three or $4 million, whether that's from passive investors or whether that's your own capital that you put in, or maybe you bring in fund to fund investors.   (Seth Bradley) (59:02.478) Okay, so that's where I wanted to ask the question, fund to fund. Tell me how that's different than the, bring in 3.5, I bring in 500K to the table, I raised 3.5, now I have a $4 million down payment, we borrow $6 million on debt. Tell me how the fund to fund is different than that approach.   Sure. So that deal that you just described, we like to call that when we're talking it with respect to fund to funds, the target deal. So that's the target deal. Like that's the entity and the structure that's buying the asset. So they're buying this $10 million asset. We're actually at the fund to fund level, one level down from there. So we create our own legal structure, our own LLC, and you have your own manager, a fund manager who brings in their own passive investors and they put them in that fund to fund legal entity.   And then the fund of fund legal entity actually invests into the target deal. So they come into the target deal as basically a big passive investor. let's say they aggregate a half a million dollars where typically, you know, the average investor might be $50,000. So these are bigger investors. It's just one big investor to the lead sponsor or the target deal, but it's really, yeah, it's really another fund is what it is. So it's a fund of a fund or a fund of a syndication.   That is so interesting. so you're saying that is becoming more prevalent. You fund a fund. I mean, I would imagine that's where not to get so far off topic, but that's where a lot of big companies who are deploying their excess capital or investing in. I I guess it's in multiple portfolios, right? Investing, right? mean, there's commercial, there's insurance. I mean, there's so many different things you can invest your money into.   Yes.   (Seth Bradley) (01:00:46.656) Is that all fun to fun families essentially?   For sure. For sure. Yeah. You know, you can call it a fund. There's different kinds of fund to funds. Fund funds aren't new. They've just been deployed in a different way recently or more prominently or more often, which is this kind of this I'll call it. We like to call it an SPV fund to fund single purpose vehicle fund to fund. Now other people will call it that same thing and mean something different, but the way that we mean it is that we create this fund to fund entity.   And it's a single purpose vehicle, meaning it's created only to invest in one deal. So that $10 million multifamily deal, we create a fund of an SPV fund of fund only to invest in that one

OPM v. Moulton

Registration is now open for senior executives who want to take a leadership development training program. The Office of Personnel Management is encouraging federal employees to sign up after launching the new training series this week. The OPM program comes alongside other big changes for the Senior Executive Service this year, and here with more details is Federal News Network's Drew Friedman.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Federal employees submitting their retirement paperwork may have to wait longer to get their claims processed. The Office of Personnel Management reported that during July, it took the agency 59 days, on average, to process a federal employee's retirement package from start to finish. That's two weeks longer, on average, than it took OPM to work through cases in June. Another 8,300 federal employees sent their retirement paperwork to OPM last month. All combined, that adds up to nearly 37,000 feds who have submitted a retirement claim since April. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Top headlines for Thursday, July 31, 2025In this episode, we explore the recent legal battle as a coalition of Christian groups challenges the Trump administration's controversial policy permitting ICE operations at places of worship. We then shift focus to the international stage, where world leaders and humanitarian organizations are unveiling new strategies to address the emergent humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Plus, we examine the debate in California, where a parental rights group raises alarms over a proposed bill seeking to protect undocumented immigrant children, warning that it may dangerously redefine guardianship. 00:11 Christian groups seek to stop ICE operations on church properties01:05 OPM issues guidance on religious expression at federal workplaces01:52 Arab League nations demand Hamas leave Gaza02:56 Ray Comfort praises police response, thanks God after break-in03:45 World leaders, aid groups react to humanitarian crisis in Gaza04:38 Parental rights group: Calif. bill could 'make kidnapping' easier05:37 Lauren Daigle surprised Camp Mystic survivorSubscribe to this PodcastApple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle PodcastsOvercastFollow Us on Social Media@ChristianPost on TwitterChristian Post on Facebook@ChristianPostIntl on InstagramSubscribe on YouTubeGet the Edifi AppDownload for iPhoneDownload for AndroidSubscribe to Our NewsletterSubscribe to the Freedom Post, delivered every Monday and ThursdayClick here to get the top headlines delivered to your inbox every morning!Links to the NewsChristian groups seek to stop ICE operations on church properties | PoliticsOPM issues guidance on religious expression at federal workplaces | PoliticsArab League nations demand Hamas leave Gaza | WorldRay Comfort praises police response, thanks God after break-in | U.S.World leaders, aid groups react to humanitarian crisis in Gaza | WorldParental rights group: Calif. bill could 'make kidnapping' easier | PoliticsLauren Daigle surprised Camp Mystic survivor | Entertainment

Can AI run the government?     In this episode of The Data Chronicles, Scott Loughlin talks with Taka Ariga, former Chief AI Officer at OPM and Chief Data Scientist at GAO, about how the US federal government is approaching its use of AI.  With a focus on the benefits and risks created by AI in the public sector, Scott and Taka explore the impact of AI on the public workforce, public services, national security, and policy making, while discussing agile governance, transparency, and the evolving leadership role of Chief AI Officers.     Two things become clear. First, the government is experiencing the same AI legal concerns as the private sector. And, second, companies and government have much to learn from one another on how they can each harness AI's promise and manage its risks.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has made it a top priority to dismantle what it perceives as federal bureaucratic bloat. But it's the belief of some that those cuts to the federal workforce and federal programs have gone too far, damaging the government's capacity to meet its mission and serve the American public. Rob Shriver, former acting OPM director during the Biden administration, is one of those. And in his new role as Managing Director of Democracy Forward's Civil Service Strong initiative, he's helping launch a new Civil Service Defense and Innovation Fellowship Program that aims to rebuild that lost capacity by calling on former government officials to “produce research and analysis documenting the scope and consequences of cuts to federal agencies, and develop and incubate innovative work to inform future policymaking and to rebuild government capacity.” Shriver joins the podcast to discuss the state of the federal workforce, the new fellowship and what he sees ahead. Let's go now to that interview. The Department of Defense's No. 2 IT official for the past two years is leaving the role, the department announced Monday. Leslie Beavers, who also served as acting DOD CIO for a period at the end of the Biden administration and during the early days of the second Trump administration, will step down as DOD principal deputy CIO at the end of September. In a social media post, the DOD Office of the CIO congratulated Beavers who announced Monday that she will be stepping down from her position at the end of September after more than 30 years of uniformed and civilian service. Beavers played a key role in the Office of the CIO's delivery of its Fulcrum IT strategy in 2024 with then-CIO John Sherman. When Sherman stepped down from the CIO role at the end of June 2024, Beavers filled it temporarily until Katie Arrington was appointed to perform the duties of CIO in March. Since then, Beavers retained her deputy role, supporting new efforts under Arrington's leadership like the Software Fast Track initiative and “blowing up” the Risk Management Framework. It's unclear what Beavers' next role will be after her departure or who will take her place when she officially leaves. President Donald Trump has tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas to serve as the General Services Administration's new acting chief, the agency announced Monday. It marks the third GSA appointment for Rigas, who has spent the past few months at the State Department as the deputy secretary for management and resources, according to a statement from Marianne Copenhaver, associate administrator for the GSA. Copenhaver wrote in a statement to FedScoop: “We're thrilled to have his institutional knowledge, leadership, and decades of experience in the private and public sector. Under Mike's leadership, GSA will continue to deliver effective and efficient government services in real estate, acquisition, and technology.” Stephen Ehikian, who has served since January as GSA's acting administrator, will continue his role as deputy administrator, Copenhaver added. Ehikian is a former Salesforce vice president and self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

NAPS Executive Vice President Chuck Mulidore joins Bob to discuss NAPS' successful efforts to defeat USPS employee cuts in the FY 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act. Chuck and Bob also talk about a July 2 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Inspector General report, which warned of impending danger to the 2025 Postal Service Health Benefits Program open season. Chuck and Bob review NAPS' activities on Capitol Hill to ensure that OPM has the necessary resources to conduct the open season effectively. Finally, Chuck and Bob chat about potential EAS re-classifications due to plant changes, a July 24 Senate hearing  on two nominees to the USPS Board of Governors, and the 2025 "Cure for the Summertime Blues" SPAC Raffle.

In this provocative and incredibly insightful episode of An Educated Guest, host Todd Zipper sits down with John Katzman, a serial entrepreneur and one of the most influential figures in education, known for founding The Princeton Review and Noodle. John offers a no-holds-barred perspective on the seismic shifts needed across the entire education landscape.The conversation delves into the evolution of online program management (OPM), why its traditional model is unsustainable, and how Noodle aims to redefine university partnerships. John tackles the soaring costs of higher education, proposing systemic solutions to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis that challenge conventional thinking. He then pivots to K-12, dissecting its "governance problem" and explaining why top-down reforms continually fail. This episode is packed with John's unique, often controversial, takes on everything from the resurgence of for-profits to the transformative (and sometimes reckless) potential of AI in education, all while offering powerful insights for edtech founders and a glimpse into his vision for the future of learning.Key Takeaways from this Episode:OPM's Future: John's candid assessment of the Online Program Management (OPM) industry, why he believes it's "transitional," and how Noodle is forging a new path for university partnerships.Solving the Student Debt Crisis: A deep dive into the true cost of higher education and innovative, systemic solutions to the $1.7 trillion student debt burden, including state-level incentives.K-12's Governance Challenge: An incisive critique of the American K-12 system, arguing that curricular reforms fail due to a fundamental "governance problem" that requires radical change.AI's Dual Impact: Insights into how Artificial Intelligence can dramatically lower administrative costs and enable powerful, affordable learning simulations, but also its potential pitfalls if deployed carelessly.Why EdTech Philanthropy Falls Short: A frank discussion on why billions of dollars invested in education reform have yielded limited impact, citing arrogance, systemic inertia, and a lack of true R&D.The Power of Data & Networked Universities: Discover how data can personalize student support and why forging strong university networks is crucial for adaptability and innovation in a rapidly changing world.About Our Guest:John Katzman is a legendary entrepreneur and visionary in the education sector, having founded three incredibly impactful companies: The Princeton Review, 2U (formerly), and Noodle. As the Founder and former CEO of Noodle, he has been at the forefront of transforming higher education through online program management and strategic partnerships. Katzman is a frequent commentator on educational trends, policy, and innovation.

Discover three proven strategies beginners can use to break into real estate: creative financing, using private money (OPM), and starting small with high-leverage loans. Real-world examples and clear guidance—everything needed to get in the game.Learn how master lease agreements and seller carry second mortgages can help you bypass traditional lending barriers and take control of cash-flowing properties.See how one of our students closed a 12-unit deal with just $25K of her own money—and how you can do the same by structuring smart partnerships.Explore why beginning with a fourplex or smaller residential property can be the smartest move for long-term wealth building, and how FHA or VA loans can make it even more accessible.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Troy Hudson. A deeply personal and insightful interview with former NBA player and author Troy “T-Hud” Hudson. Here's a breakdown of the key highlights and takeaways:

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Troy Hudson. A deeply personal and insightful interview with former NBA player and author Troy “T-Hud” Hudson. Here's a breakdown of the key highlights and takeaways:

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Troy Hudson. A deeply personal and insightful interview with former NBA player and author Troy “T-Hud” Hudson. Here's a breakdown of the key highlights and takeaways:

SummaryIn this conversation, Host Ryan Roghaar and his guest Jones Loflin discuss the importance of conscious choice in personal and professional life, emphasizing the need for self-care, work-life balance, and the courage to embrace failure. He shares insights on building confidence and competence, the significance of clarity in achieving goals, and the role of community support in entrepreneurship. The discussion highlights the cultural challenges that affect confidence and the necessity of celebrating wins to foster a positive mindset.TakeawaysThe power of choice is crucial for personal and professional growth.Work-life balance should be viewed as work-life integration.Self-care is essential for maintaining energy and focus.Taking action in the face of uncertainty is necessary for progress.Building competence requires recognizing areas for improvement and seeking help.Celebrating small wins boosts confidence and motivation.Clarity in goals leads to more effective actions.Failure is a stepping stone to success and learning.Community support is vital for entrepreneurs.Differentiating oneself in a crowded market is essential for success.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Go-Giver Philosophy08:20 Understanding Value and Self-Worth11:31 Authenticity and Finding Purpose14:14 The Importance of Passion in Business17:42 The Role of Mentorship in Personal Growth20:35 Breaking Through Barriers to SuccessCredits:Hosted by Ryan RoghaarProduced by Ryan RoghaarTheme music: "Perfect Day" by OPM  The Eggs Podcast Spotify playlist:bit.ly/eggstunesThe Plugs:The Show: eggscast.com@eggshow on twitter and instagramOn iTunes: itun.es/i6dX3pCOnStitcher: bit.ly/eggs_on_stitcherAlso available on Google Play Music!Mike "DJ Ontic":Shows and info:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠djontic.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@djontic on twitterRyan Roghaar:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠rogha.ar

How do you fund your first real estate deal if you don't have money? In this episode, Spencer Sutton and Adam Hobson break down creative real estate financing strategies used by investors to buy deals without using their own cash. Whether you're flipping houses, buying rentals, or wholesaling, this episode shows how real estate investors finance deals and scale. You'll Learn: How to use OPM to fund your next deal What hard money is (and how to leverage it) The strategy behind refinancing How to build lasting and lucrative relationships with investors Favorite Quote: "There's really no excuse; if you want to do something, you can. The money's out there." Who Should Listen:

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Troy Hudson. A deeply personal and insightful interview with former NBA player and author Troy “T-Hud” Hudson. Here's a breakdown of the key highlights and takeaways: