207: Building a Legacy: Balancing Business, Family, and Personal Growth
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Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast! Today, we’re joined by Moshe Popack, a visionary third-generation entrepreneur and the owner and president of YMP Real Estate Management LLC. With a diverse real estate portfolio spanning six states, Moshe is passionate about community well-being, long-term wealth creation, and fostering connections.
Beyond business, he shares his remarkable journey as a father of 11, offering insights into how he navigates entrepreneurship while maintaining a strong family foundation. We also explore his contrarian investment strategies, his take on today’s real estate market, and the mindset shifts that have fueled his success.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
The power of mindset and personal growth in achieving success
Balancing business, family (with 11 kids!), and personal fulfillment
Contrarian real estate investment strategies and market insights
The role of philanthropy in creating lasting impact
Tips for building a strong financial and family legacy
Resources from Moshe
LinkedIn | YMP Real Estate Management LLC | Common Denominator Podcast
Resources from Mike and Nichole
+ Read the transcript
Mike Stohler
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today we have Moshe Popack. He's a visionary third-generation entrepreneur. He leads YMP Real Estate Management LLC, overseeing diverse property portfolios across six different states. He's passionate about community well being. He founded YMP Family Foundation and Neighborhood Farms USA - promotes healthy nutrition, local collaboration as the host of Common Denominator Podcast. Check it out, everybody. Moshe and notable thought leaders offer expert insight and actual strategies. How are you doing, Moshe?
Moshe Popack
I'm doing great. We're actually recording today, on Election Day, right?
Mike Stohler
We are.
Moshe Popack
I don't know when it's going to be posted, but it's just amazing, right? I don't know what's going to happen, what's going to be, obviously, big changes on on either side, but the point of our podcast, Common Denominator is that we sit in and talk about, instead of things that divide us, which we're dealing with right now, that angst between family members, which I've heard, and friends and a but instead, we talk about the things that bring us together, things that bring us to our potential As humans, right, being successful and having a good mindset and purpose, things like that.
Mike Stohler
That's so important. Because I talked to my friends, I mean, you're right. It seems like no matter who wins the election, something's going to burn down or be destroyed because we're so divided, someone on the other side is going to start either the rights or burning downs or who knows what, and that's how far it used to be here. It was an election. This person won, this person lost. You go about your life and deal with it. Now. It's like mental health. People just cannot accept anything that is different from them, different from their opinions.
Moshe Popack
The strangest thing Jerry Seinfeld just said was that he was so frustrated that his kids' school is giving off the next day, on Wednesday, for basically Mental Health Day. Like, have we gone that far? Right? It's supposed to be like, this great thing in America, right? Like, Election Day, super cool and that's how far we've gone. I hope we've known through history, sometimes you have to reach a certain point, and then people just get sick and tired, right?
Mike Stohler
So I think hopefully there's always a correction. You look at some of the things that are just gone so far away from the norm in society and business corporations, personal lives, I'm starting to see it. I'm maybe crossing my fingers that we're getting back to median, back to the middle a little bit, because both sides, they've just gone so far, bam, that people are now pushing back. It's like, "You know what? That's not okay." It was, whether it was a fad or whatever it was, the thing of the moment, let's get back to the middle.
Moshe Popack
Yeah.
Mike Stohler
You know where we all get along, but, yeah, we'll see. Before we dive into what you do and your business, who is Moshe?
Moshe Popack
I guess I'm in my nature. I guess, I'm a deep empath, but yet a contrary and I'm a seeker in my nature, constantly reading, constantly speaking to people, curious, wanting to understand things. And the nature of in relation to business and in its nature, once it becomes established, once the majority of smart people start talking about things at the right opportunity, it's after the opportunity. The opportunity is to take calculated risk and to get higher returns. But we moved down here from New York. My wife and I are just on our journey. I had a job. I went to law school, business school. I had three kids. I have 11 children now, and I had three kids at the time. In 2009, I had no job. Grit, resilience, blood, sweat and tears for both my wife and I were, I guess, co-chairman/chairwoman/chairman. We work together in our company,YMP Real Estate, multifamily office and assisted living. And I tell people, it's miracles, but it's a combination of doing everything that you possibly can. So we take broken real estate and then we turn it around and refinance and hold it for a long term, because real estate is a great means of wealth creation.
Mike Stohler
Absolutely. Do you do this on your own? Do you do JVs, funds, syndications?
Moshe Popack
So through the years, asset values have continued to go up. We've been able to refinance, buy out kind of high net worth. With partners. Now most of the properties, my wife and I and we have our own again, my own management that we do in separate office division, separate multifamily division and separate assisted living division. And so now we're very close. In a few weeks from now, we have a track record of great IRRs over 10 years plus actual returns, actual track record that we've put together for our fund. Now we're going to go to sovereign wealth institutional partners to try to, we call it opportunistic southeast real estate investments for the long term. So we're going to be doing that, and I'm excited about that. It's different reporting otherwise, but it's definitely exciting.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, it was very different for me. I did my own thing. Then had a JV. I was like, "Yeah, there's one other person, and all of a sudden you start doing syndications like wait a minute. I need a portal, and I need this person to update and doing all these different things it becomes encapsulating." So good for you. You concentrate in the southeastern.
Moshe Popack
Yeah. It's both basically the southeast. I mean, we have a property in New Jersey, but we have North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, majority in Florida. I live in Miami, right? And our offices are kind of in the Fort Lauderdale area, and kind of right now the past year, again, to that contrarian perspective. And I know you've seen the front page of the Wall Street Journal that office space is the worst, yeah. And as we're seeing the Fed lower interest rates, right? Were you able to buy, 50 cents or below on the dollar for office buildings? And then you're seeing the numbers of South Florida, where 90% plus are back to Office and the rents are still rising. Plus you have 1,000 people net migration still moving to Florida, and a very healthy business climate with low regulation. So I think it's all the corner's recipe for hopefully good business results and returns.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. And that's, I think those people that are really smart in the real estate space, you don't buy where everyone else is buying. It's too late. And I think that office it's the same. It's like, my next 1031 it's like "Man, I'm just kind of itching. Is that office space here in the Phoenix area? Or that type of area, is that it?" I like that mindset because I think people are going to come back to work. It may not be the big corporate buildings, but maybe the Regis type things, where you have an office and and a whole bunch of small offices in a central place, but I don't know, but let's talk a little bit about you're doing so much with your wife. How do you balance it, having children? You know, this business. I mean, my goodness.
Mike Stohler
Meditation, maybe...
Moshe Popack
I know. I just took a breath on this one. Yeah, so it has to be greater than you, the purpose and the drive. Because if you're gonna have good days there, there happen to be a lot of tough days. There are days where you're being pulled every which way. I think it's a point, maybe about eight years ago, as we were growing I told my wife, I said, "I can work 80 hours and you'll never see me." But we decided, basically I have a home office. We work together, so we hired a CEO, and then I'm able to see the kids. I'm able to drive the kids, and in between making my phone calls, I call myself a recovering ADHD, it's just a pure businessman, right? It's the guys in the back of the class that just didn't do well in school and whatever. I mean, I mean, I did go to law school because I did do that, but it wasn't really for me. You want to be around people, do things, hustle, create things. My grandfather used to say, "If the kids are not meant for school, just give them a job, put them to work, let them make money."
Mike Stohler
I think that's where a lot of things are going wrong. There's nothing wrong with trade schools.
Moshe Popack
Yeah.
Mike Stohler
College is not for everyone. I don't understand why people get into college. We need trade schools, right? I mean, we need they're good with their hands, man, you can make a lot of money being an electrician, plumber.
Moshe Popack
Exactly that point. My 13 year old said, "You know, I want to become a plumber." And it was very interesting. He's like, "I'm I read that there's a shortage of plumbers, and I could work on these big development projects as I grow." And he's like, "Even where there's less competition, I can move to, like, I don't have to do it in Florida. I can do it in Georgia or somewhere else where they just a high demand and they need it, right? And they need it." I was like, "Oh, that's really smart of you." You know, there's no shame in that. Again, all the youth are looking for the tech or the influencer or things like that. No, you're young, you're healthy. Just get at it, right? Get at it. Make things happen. But so that really helped. I mean, I work on a calendar. There's 11 kids, so I try to have one hour with each kid undivided once every two weeks. So my wife and I will switch off. It's like one on one time. We're not doing anything, where I got to tap in and see kind of where you are. My oldest is 18. The baby's nine months, right? So doing that, but no movies, no TV, none of that, right? And constantly, on Sundays, okay, what's going to be doing when the kids finally go to sleep, okay? What's going to what's my calendar look like? It's just being in the moment, day by day, and I train martial arts for 13 years, I find the one thing that that helps so much is not being reactive, to be able to have those few seconds to breathe. And I think that that's super important CEOs or people running businesses, because the reaction is a ripple effect, because it wasn't controlled, right? So you breathe, you will see what the situation is, and you could think, because you're constantly in business, constantly having to make decisions, right? Constantly having to pivot. And the best decisions are ones that are thought out. And you're on your journey, your business is a reflection of you by what you're doing. So I do tremendous work, it was a great line from female CEO. She was climbing Mount Everest, and it was like three o'clock in the morning and she had slept like 15 or 20 minutes, but the guide was like, "Okay, you want to reach the top. Woke her up. Now's the time we're going to go because we can't, right? We can't go any other time." So she made a choice. It's like, "I can be stressed and tired, or I can just be tired, right?" It's like, and then she went and that, that decision of understanding, how do I feel? What am I feeling? Being self aware. I think that applies and is personal. You know, trying to be extremely present with the kids, obviously, with my wife. This year, we've been together 20 years. So it's a long time, many ups and downs, but it's really a lot of miracles, a lot of miracles, I'd say. But faith plays a big, big part in that.
Mike Stohler
It is absolutely, people don't think about that anymore, but I think people that are faith-based are just happier.
Moshe Popack
You realize, it's irrelevant. It's like, just give it over, right? They said, give it to them. Give it to God or give it to the universe, whatever. It doesn't really matter. You know that we're practicing, not practicing, but a belief in something greater than yourself.
Mike Stohler
It's nice having that person right there with the imaginary or whatever hand on your shoulder, guiding you and that's the way I see it. But I'm that's how I start my day, just the meditation, the devotions, the just give the whole day to whoever, and it just makes me happier. I'm a little less stressed going on the day, and you talk about doing that, because it, what's important, I think, is that parenting with the purpose that you do. So many entrepreneurs, so many people, they said, "I'll just hire a nanny. I don't have time for these kids." I don't and they just kind of with the kids, just the importance of because now your children are gonna be so much more adjusted. They're going to know their parents. So I think that's extremely important. You know that you're actually with a purpose, giving them time and teaching them. What else can he say about that? For our listeners that are busy, they're working 80 hours a day in tech, or they're working 80 hours, the importance of, "Hey, you know what? This is your legacy, also not just the money in the bank.
Moshe Popack
You're going to be spending, so just practically later every day. And again, there are good days and tough days with my kids. But if you don't, right, I always say, "Lead with unconditional love." And that's unconditional no condition, meaning whatever they're going to tell you, you don't judge it, right? You have to stand front and center of what that is. And the same energy you put into your business, whatever you're doing, same towards your wife and same towards your kids, right? Balance with intention, right? Not saying that you are because time goes by. A friend of mine, he's like,just in the past two days, one friend said, "My kid has some addiction issues. They're 15. 15, 16." And the other one said to me, "How do I deal with another one, but my kid doesn't even speak to me, and they're getting, like, 15, 16 like, what do I do? I don't know. I'm just trying to do that. I'm trying to just connect just like everybody else." And like I said, they started my two boys, they started a vending machine business. I wanted them to learn the basics. They don't learn that in school, income, expense, right? And I'm not helping you. If it's an emergency, you can call on me, but you're going to grow out into the world, and the world is tough resilience, right? You got to push these kids, don't be sitting around and then you're complaining and blaming everybody else can't, right?
Mike Stohler
Absolutely. And that's so important. Come down to right here, this person, yourself, and you teach them, there's going to be challenges. And you want those challenges because you're going to learn from them. And it's like going, "Hey, try owning hotels during COVID." I always tell people, it could have been the best thing that ever happened to me, because it made me stop, made me think, made me think out of the box, made me learn. So these types of divisive, and challenges and things like that, they're really good for you. So you want the kids to sit there and have some challenges in life but have them think it out and kind of along with that, with the Common Denominator Podcast, you talk about strategies to sharpen the mindset and crush your limiting beliefs. Give us some examples, a little bit about how I can sit there, kind of phase out all the social media, phase out all the all the world, and sharpen my mindset on different tasks at hand.
Moshe Popack
I always think about turning the flashlight on yourself, if people are saying not only are they not happy with results, but also, how am I feeling? Everybody really knows. Am I giving maximum to a certain situation? Because that is what fills your heart and fills your soul, right? So we bring in top athletes, top finance, top business people, and what I find is this, what's that commonality? They all made a choice and they're willing. That's the first thing. I don't. I'm not happy with A, I want B, I want something else. Am I going to put it? I always say, "Take pen and paper step one." Right? Like practical tools, 1,2,3,4,5, and again, we because we have habits, right? So you've been acting a certain way. That's where we're a product of our habits.You know, everybody because it fails. Don't jump so fast and change everything. Change one thing. I love that idea of, you know, make your bed in the morning or something, right? Instead of drinking soda, drink a glass of water. Do something that you know is better for you, and then you're going to see, "Oh, wow, I feel better here." So do more of that feeling better stuff, right? And then over time, because we all have a tendency to abuse for a long period of time, and most of us have different addictions and things like that, right? That's just the way it is. But slow and steady, slow, slow and steady, and create, create better, better habits, you know? Okay, I'm going to go to the gym twice a week. I'll see what it is, you know. And then, from that, I'm going to read a book every two weeks. But people know what it is. We're just kind of unlike autopilot, because we're just doing a lot of the things that make us comfortable. But it's inevitable that comfortable and uncomfortable things will be happening through life. But the great thing about choosing to make yourself uncomfortable or choosing to do the work is that you controlled it. Otherwise, if you're just doing a bunch of, you know, instant gratification stuff, and then it's going to be things that you don't control, and that feeling of uncontrolled spirals to the negative. So if you're in the right, if you're in control, like, okay, then I have a higher tolerance for things, and I don't get so emotional about it. And if you don't have your brain and you're calm, you're able to think through things.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, and that's fantastic. Moshe, so before I let you go, you'd like to inform our audience, maybe something I didn't hit on, that you really wanted to get into.
Moshe Popack
Well, as a father of 11, I'm just going to put this out there because I respectfully disagree, but I saw the US Surgeon General, and I mentioned this before the show recently came out and said that being a parent is causing a tremendous mental health crisis.
Mike Stohler
Yeah.
Moshe Popack
And I saw that, and it really took me by surprise. And I think the greatest thing for me personally, I think it's crazy, like my wife just said only now, after 11 kids, she's like, "I can't believe I gave birth to 11 kids," but the amount of push that having these kids forced me, forced me to grow. I believe the whole purpose is personal growth and development of why we're here, each on our own path, in our journey, but the opposite, if we embrace it. If you embrace, having a family, having kids, I think that goes with each kid I saw personally, the amount of success was compounding so and it's just a matter of choosing, letting go of the things that I call noise that are not benefiting you. And life's short. And we do have time. We do have time. Went to the beach. The other day I was in, I took the kids to the Bahamas, and we went on vacations and but there's a time and place so you can have great things. And I believe if people are willing to choose, like, I always think of that like a 10 year time frame. I'm willing to take 10 years so I can have the rest of my life, right? I'm going to be dedicated to this. I'm going to, I'm going to really, really grind this out so I can have the rest of my life to be able to do other things that I love to do.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, very good. It's like, above my office, "Build a life I don't need a vacation from." I get up every morning and say, "You know what? I can work anywhere in the world. I can do whatever I want. I don't need the vacation because I love what I do." And I think that's what you're telling your listeners today, if they're interested in learning more about you, how can people find you?
Moshe Popack
So our podcast, which has almost 200 episodes, a lot of mindset, a lot of business advice, real estate, and you can pick and choose. It's Common Denominator. It's on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, wherever you find podcasts. And then we have a lot of social, we have LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, @MPopack and you can find us there.
Mike Stohler
There you go. Well, Moshe, thank you so much for coming on The Richer Geek Podcast, giving us a little bit of insight about just kind of calming down, just some of the things to make life a little less busier, and getting rid of that white noise as I caught, and being able to focus, and you must do extremely well having 11 kids, all these businesses, that ability to focus is is exceptional. Thank you so much for coming on The Richer Geek Podcast. Have a great evening.
Moshe Popack
Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you.
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ABOUT MOSHE POPACK
Moshe Popack is a third-generation entrepreneur and the president of YMP Real Estate Management LLC, overseeing a diverse portfolio across six states. Passionate about community impact, he founded the YMP Family Foundation and Neighborhood Farms USA to promote healthy nutrition and collaboration. Moshe also hosts the Common Denominator podcast, sharing insights on mindset and personal growth. He serves on multiple boards, including the Florida Development Finance Corporation and the South Florida Business Journal Leadership Trust. A dedicated family man, he and his wife, Yaffa, raise their eleven children with a commitment to building a better world.