Looking Backward to Move Forward
Happy New Year from Auben!
We ended 2023 with some industry projections in our post, “What’s in Store in 2024?“
Over the past month, we have been working on a lot of year-end finalizations and paving the way for the launch of our two new entities: Auben Capital Partners and Auben Development.
Auben Capital Partners is currently engaged in two capital raises: a friends and family loan syndication to acquire additional property management companies and sales brokerages and a soon-to-launch larger BFR capital raise for some direct-from-builder new construction rental opportunities.
If you are interested in learning more about investing, please schedule a time to meet with me.
The Auben Development team has been working with some of our Auben Capital Partners team members on deep-dive asset management, reviewing the 2023 performance of our five funds, and creating plans to optimize our investment performance in 2024.
As we prepare for an exciting year in 2024, we wanted to also close out 2023 by reflecting on things we were thankful for in 2023. Check back next week for some 2023 bright spots.
As the calendar flips its page, every year I take a long weekend solo retreat where I disconnect in order to create and validate my plans and goals for the new year. Around the time of this annual retreat I seek out a couple of business and personal growth books to read.
In 2023, the first book I read was The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel Pink. It’s a good read by the author of Drive and other solid business books.
In the book, Pink argues that the only way to do better is to initially feel worse by a 3-step process he refers to as:
- Inward (reflection),
- Outward (disclosing issue and identifying the lesson learned)
- Forward (putting the lesson learned into corrective action).
Interestingly, Pink’s 3-step path to personal reconciliation and growth mirrors the process Auben has put in place for our client’s asset management that our Auben Capital Partners, Auben Development, and Auben Realty teams perform daily, weekly, and quarterly through their:
- Review of past performance of investments
- Advisement of alternative plans and strategies
- Oversight of performance and necessary execution
We are excited about unveiling a lot of other aspects of this in 2024, primarily focused on our new campaign of Rent or Sell, Auben Can Tell. Reach out to longtime Auben team member Alex Becker for information on how this program can assist your investments.
The other book I read around the time of my 2023 retreat was staring at me from the shelf of a bookstore in Boone, NC (the location of my last retreat). On my retreat, I was searching for one additional source of inspiration when I found the book Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less. Ironically in my search of more, I found a book about doing (and saying) less. Sometimes the universe has a way of giving us what we need.
Written by the founders of Axios and Politico, Smart Brevity was created because these acclaimed journalists had to accept the reality of data that informed them that no one was reading their 5,000 word articles. As a former journalist, lack of interest and engagement in sweat-drenched prose can be hard to handle. But, Smart Brevity has a very realistic perspective about the times we live in and the need for singular focus on intent of better connecting content and messaging to our audience.
I would highly recommend both of these books for your new year planning.
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