How Adrian Gonzalez Guerra Balances Family Legacy with Bold Innovation

In this insightful episode, Adrian Gonzalez Guerra, CEO of Grupo Stiva, shares his journey on success, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Discover how aligning personal and professional life can redefine success, drawing from his experiences and the influence of his family.

Adrian dives into balancing corporate structure with an entrepreneurial mindset, emphasizing the critical role of emotional intelligence and soft skills in effective leadership. Learn how investing in people and navigating office politics with empathy can transform your approach to business and personal relationships.

Key discussion points include family legacy versus innovation, and Grupo Stiva's vision for the future of construction, focusing on sustainability and efficiency. Adrian also shares personal reflections on fatherhood and building a lasting legacy.

Key Takeaways:
*   Success means alignment in personal and professional life.
*   Entrepreneurship is often a family legacy.
*   Corporate experience provides valuable lessons for family business.
*   Balancing structure and entrepreneurship is key to success.
*   Investing time in people fosters better relationships.

Whether you’re a founder, executive, or someone seeking deeper meaning in your work, this episode offers real-world wisdom on leading with integrity, building for the future, and redefining what success truly means.

Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriangzz/
Grupo Stiva's Website: https://stiva.com/

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Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (01:34.802)
All right. All right. Welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks so much for tuning in once again. Today, we're really looking forward to our conversation because on the podcast today, have Adrian Gonzalez Guerra, who is the CEO of group steva, which is a real estate conglomerate based in Mexico. Over the past month, we had the privilege of talking to many, my OPM classmates from Harvard business school and Adrian also one of them and.

We had a great three years together and so it's lovely to have you on our podcast, Adrian.

Adrian (02:10.057)
It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Very excited.

Dylan Pathirana (02:13.34)
So Adrian, this podcast is all about success. And so we need to start with a fundamental question. And that is what does success actually mean to you?

Adrian (02:19.295)
Yes.

Adrian (02:23.819)
I think that's a good question. Success means alignment, alignment in personal, professional, and whatever is in those two buckets. If you can align those and you have congruence in your life, I think you're successful at any point.

Dylan Pathirana (02:45.458)
And when you say those buckets, what are the buckets that you need alignment with?

Adrian (02:50.324)
Well, so let's say there has to be three, I guess, main ones in my experience. Professional, which is the bucket that includes work. Also work that is not necessarily for profit. So work in associations or anything that you work on professionally. Also the other bucket would be the personal one where you have family.

You have your friends, which I think is a very different category versus family and yourself. So as long as that's in there and then you can do the soap buckets, which is maybe yourself, whatever you are spiritually minded off or your energy management, your time management and all of those things in broad terms.

Dylan Pathirana (03:41.702)
Yeah. Yeah. I like that holistic kind of definition of success. And I suppose for us to understand the man who's sitting in front of us today, we need to go back to the beginning and understand, young Adrian. Can you walk us through a little bit about your early journey, where you grew up and how you think those early times shaped who you've become? This is a therapy session, Adrian.

Adrian (03:56.124)
I don't know.

Adrian (04:02.395)
Yeah, great. Well, first off, Dylan, I think I'm more comfortable with the way your dad speaks English because I feel like I speak a little bit English like he does, whereas you are extremely eloquent. So I congratulate you. love the way you introduced the company. I'm going to learn a lot from you. So young Adrian, in terms of what like the, maybe the critical path that led to success.

or things that impacted me? What do you think is the precise kind of...

Dylan Pathirana (04:36.604)
think it'd be good to understand a little bit about kind of your early journey and then maybe touch on what are you think the core things that you learned from that kind of upbringing and how it impacted you.

Adrian (04:48.241)
Okay, got it. I think early on, I would attribute a lot of my impact, at least every impact I lived had to be through the lens of my parents and their relationship with me. So both my parents are very successful people in my view in terms of where they started and how they started to

go through different phases in their lives. And I mentioned that because when I was young, they kept repeating the phrases. This is the phase where you're from zero to 10. And then you're going to go from a phase that from 10 to 15 or 10 to 17. And then you have another phase where you go to college. And then after that, you have a phase. So they started to explain all of these things since we were very young. So I think one of the things that most impacted me was that I always knew

what the chronological order of things were based on how they narrated everything I was going through. So for example, my first time abroad, maybe at 10 years old, I would say, they gave me my passport. They put me there with somebody in the, this is pre-9-11 by the way. So.

Dylan Pathirana (06:11.666)
Yeah, yeah.

Adrian (06:12.899)
They put me there and with somebody in the airport and it was my first time flying alone and figuring things out. So that was very impactful because they had, my parents had a big influence on me in terms of being independent. So that's one thing. The other thing would be sports. I would say that, tennis, golf and swimming in my case, but I do,

In retrospect, understand that I only played individual sports. You know, I don't think tennis counts as a team sport, even when you're playing with a doubles partner or golf. So now that my son is very much into soccer and he's very much into like American football and all of these things, I see the big difference between growing up and excelling in individual sports versus team sports. So that impacted me as well.

and that had its consequences. And I guess the other thing would be my parents and my siblings, we were all encouraged to have our own pursuits. So like hobbies and different things that we might've found interesting. So in my case, I always liked film. So I went to a summer school, like film academy. I used to take a lot of...

Dylan Pathirana (07:19.666)
Okay.

Adrian (07:39.299)
films with camp quarters, et cetera, and I would just be in my own thing. And I didn't end up like dedicating my life to that, but it did really spur my creativity. So I think it was a big impact that my parents didn't try to influence my tastes. If that makes sense, it's something that I appreciate very much now because it broadens your horizons.

Dylan Pathirana (08:05.468)
Yeah. And gives you that freedom as well. You don't feel like you're, tied to whatever your, your family's doing. But I suppose I want to understand kind of how you got your entrepreneurial spirit and where, where in that journey, were you following your, parents or like, where did you first get exposed to entrepreneurship?

Adrian (08:26.274)
You know, when these questions come up, I can't help but look at you guys and I'm getting to know you, Dylan, but I remember a jam story. So everybody has their own story, alongside my parents telling me about how we go through different phases in life, my parents did a good job of telling me about their entrepreneurial stories. So my grandparents and my great grandparents entrepreneurial stories. So.

Dylan Pathirana (08:32.014)
you

Adrian (08:54.217)
I think I grew up with the fact that that was normal. I also grew up with the fact, at least from where I'm from, big corporations and big businesses didn't come into play until maybe late seventies, early eighties, probably the nineties. So before, if you weren't an entrepreneur, you had to work for an entrepreneur or you had to fail at different businesses being an entrepreneur. And that's not,

mentioned much, but that was because when economies grow, at least developing economies, people have no choice. Otherwise they have to move away. So I think small things like that. And also phrases like chin up. If it's not you who does it, then who phrases like making an effort now, pay dividends, pay dividends later.

Also a lot of humility, a lot of phrases like, I remember this one very well. The moment you think you've reached the top, that's the beginning of the end. Mind you, I was like, for a seven, eight, nine year old to be listening to this, like you don't get it until much later. So small things like selling stuff at school to get some extra cash, pairing up with friends, doing the old fashioned lemonade stand, those.

Those exist in Mexico as well. Figuring out what people like small stuff like that. think the moment you have the thrill of, of making your own money and then wisely, maybe not spending it and then seeing the fruits of your labor, if you like, you want more and more and more. And if you're lucky enough that people that are around you are different types of entrepreneurs, you get to understand that.

entrepreneurs aren't just the go-getters, the on the surface kind of loud speaking people. And you get to value how there's a lot of diversity and how people get stuff done. And one last thing I think now that I am touching on previous stuff is I was very much taught to hang around people much smarter than me, much better at me in sports. And the moment you do that,

Adrian (11:21.139)
They have a spark about them. And I think I was lucky enough that most of those friends actually ended up being either successful in their areas or very entrepreneurial.

So it's not always a bad thing to be the third or second to last place in your group of friends. That was my case.

Dylan Pathirana (11:42.962)
Absolutely. And, and was it your parents who started Groupos Diva?

Adrian (11:48.904)
So this is a story, my father started it, but my father is a second generation family business member that went to a first generation. So my grandfather was an entrepreneur, his father, and he had a series of like businesses, a restaurant, a gas station, and then he worked through relationships in a steel distribution business. And my dad was the youngest.

So that's where they all started to work together. And I don't know much about Australian economic history. I know that it's a country where I think you have like two decades of nonstop growth, which is amazing. I think I read that. But Mexico every six years, which means every time there was a new president, there would be an automatic crisis. So maybe that happens in other countries. It did in Mexico.

There in 1994, there was a big crisis in Mexico. actually spoke about this in the, in one of the history modules in OPM jam. And that's where the brothers separated because the business went into something called technical bankruptcy, which means when the, when the exchange rate.

the values are home currency that much. There's like every business in the whole country goes broke. That doesn't mean they're all bankrupt. It just means like it's head over heels crazy. So that's where my dad started his own thing. And he started it as land speculation. So he was in the steel distribution business and then he started speculating with land.

Dylan Pathirana (13:25.948)
Technically,

Adrian (13:46.029)
And that's when land values and everything surrounded knowledge of how to develop started to come in. And I think there's always luck involved. And one of the luckiest things was that a piece of land he had started to later be a very good piece of land because our new airport was constructed right next to it. So you can take it from there.

And then we just started to, to develop capabilities. I came in in 2012. So that was, he was alone from the nineties, two thousands. I worked a couple of summers and then I started working there full time, 2012.

Dylan Pathirana (14:33.35)
But you worked somewhere else before joining your dad's business, right?

Adrian (14:38.158)
Yeah. Yeah. I worked at a CEMEX, a big concrete manufacturing company. It's a very big company. It's a leader in this field. We also, I also worked in a, in a management consulting firm for a couple of years with X McKinsey's and X PCG's, a boutique one. And then I also worked during the MBA at Microsoft. And then during the masters for real estate, I worked for a developer in the U S and.

Dylan Pathirana (14:45.234)
All right.

Dylan Pathirana (15:07.718)
Yeah.

Adrian (15:08.193)
And they had odd jobs outside of the professional work experience and a couple of entrepreneurial efforts, but I don't mention those in my LinkedIn page.

Dylan Pathirana (15:18.106)
Yeah, yeah. So what made you decide to go and work outside your father's business at that

Adrian (15:25.453)
Well, it's a funny story because I went to college in the U S. So if I was independent minded back home, I was independent minded in the U S and then when I came back to Mexico and most U S friends I have don't work directly after they graduate college in the family companies, they work outside of it. So I thought it would be a good idea to know. had this idea that I wouldn't know what I was worth.

If I w I didn't work outside the family company and I, I really, like my decision because at the very beginning, my father told me to come work with him and I gave him a little speech about this and he loved it. So the joke goes that the first month when I came back from college, I was looking for work. I told him that speech the second month, I wasn't getting any work the third month. I wasn't getting any work. So when I go back with him.

I'm like, hey, you know, maybe it's a good idea if I start working with you a little while, uh, while I look for work, just looked at me and said, no, I think I was inspired by your words, you know, why don't you go and look for something and something happened. You know, those things kind of like Pikachu and like two weeks later, I had my first job offer, which, which was from Sam X and that was a great job. That's the one I took. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (16:50.404)
And was the plan to always come back and work for your dad?

Adrian (16:54.164)
No, the same way my parents gave us freedom to pursue whatever we wanted was very intelligently the same way they didn't impose the family business on us. Right. So I appreciate that as well, because I was curious about the family business. I wanted to work there. But I wasn't when I graduated from college. I was much later.

Real estate is a great thing because you fall in love with it. Everybody has a different, a different take on it. Like some people have it as an alternative investment. Some people have it as a kind of a side thing to have something other than their work, but it's just different angles. So I was able to go through my journey through there. And, and I think, I like the way it happened. I was never invited formally, but curiously enough.

Dylan Pathirana (17:26.566)
yeah.

Adrian (17:52.597)
When I graduated from my second masters, we had a little conversation, my dad and I, and we gave it a trial run. So everything ran smoothly, you know? So I don't know. It's coming into things without baggage. It's a very nice way of working in your professional life. I think I was lucky again. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (18:21.072)
And how important do you think that period was where you, you know, you spent a fair bit of time abroad, kind of opening your eyes to the outside, outside of Mexico and different approaches to doing business.

Adrian (18:34.522)
I think it was great. think it was key because if you get corporate experience where you have systems and processes, if you get a real estate experience where the, I would say laws and regulations and ways of doing things and ways of working are different. If you get to meet people that are maybe operators, entrepreneurs, as well as administrators, salespeople.

and people that are strategic thinkers, you first, when you're young, you think it's the only way, you know, you, and you, try to, you try to emulate or simulate the best way from the best person in the best work experience you have. But then once you have like a menu of those things, you start to pick and choose, and then you start to develop your own way. So I think I was, I was fortunate enough that Dylan, all those very different experiences.

gave me at a very young age a lot in a punch versus kind of having more of a straight line, regional, same industry sort of experience. So it was key, much easier to see right now versus before, but also very mindful that once you learn something and it works and it's from somebody you admire, you kind of want to stick with that.

You don't really want to change unless you're thrown into a new experience in industry. So thinking of my kids, I would advise for them to not be like just one year per job or two years per job, but having a varied resume, I would say.

Dylan Pathirana (20:21.542)
And there's a point you mentioned there, you know, with working in corporate, that's very structured and you have a lot of processes, but then you come back to the family business, which I'm not sure what it was like at that time, but you know, very entrepreneurial. Where do you think the balance is between that kind of structured corporate approach and then on the entrepreneurial family business side? How do you find that balance?

Adrian (20:44.987)
Well, something I learned very quickly was that there's a difference between the who's and the how's. So you've got to, if you've got good enough who's, you just, can make it up as you go, or you can be a little disorganized and then learn and then like fail and whatever. And that goes for public companies, corporate companies, private companies, entrepreneurial companies. But the how's, if you're just depending on the how.

So let me give you an example. The Howes were amazing in my corporate experience. They were amazing. But the Howes, I would say never, never really got over bad who's. And I got to see that in the corporate setting. So when I came back to a family business, there were amazing who's, amazing, amazing. But there were people that were...

you know, get these amazing results and they would just come to the meetings with like a literally a napkin, a bad napkin and like a pen or they would have it all in their head or they wouldn't do follow ups with other people or typical, typical misalignment problems where twice the communication, three times the communication, four times the work inefficiencies, but the who's were amazing. So I think one of the things that, that our company

Dylan Pathirana (21:44.624)
Yep.

Adrian (22:07.083)
I would say is known for and is good at is performance management. I mean, I would see what jam all these cases about performance management and how hard it was since I got into a company. We're more institutional now, but it's been performance management since day one. So if you got really good who's now, let me answer academically a little bit your question. Obviously they weren't as many processes.

as in my other experience, obviously there weren't as many KPIs, OKRs, none of that. But you know, the who's conquered the house somehow. So I really understood, I really valued that from that point. And I really understood and it's kind of embarrassing, but I started to really understand how in my corporate experience, there were like mediocre who's.

uplifted by amazing house. Whereas when the house would change, those hools would like plummet. And over here, it's like just, you know, give me anything. I'll bring it on, you know?

Dylan Pathirana (23:19.61)
That's the entrepreneurial spirit, guess. Anything is possible, right? So do you carry on that principles like, know, even now?

Adrian (23:23.234)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adrian (23:30.829)
Yes. I mean, in the company, we literally, you know how every company has values, right? So it's usually four or five. We have four and one of them is entrepreneurial spirit. Like we literally have to name it as is, as is. So that's one thing, Jam. The other thing would be, I think entrepreneurs, at least my type of entrepreneurs or the entrepreneurs I know are the really core successful ones are always humble.

They might bask on their success. they might see sometimes arrogant. They might seem whatever, but in their core, they're humble because they know they can lose everything in one day. know how they got there. So I think that's one thing I maintain, because it's healthier in my relationships and in everything. It's more fulfilling. And the other thing is, I think true entrepreneurs are.

crazy risk takers. They, they're very, they're very mindful of, creating value and protecting it. So I maintain that to a very high level because I think in today's world, you need to be supremely dynamic. And I think those three things are completely transferable to somebody that's not an entrepreneur. It's just how you employ them.

So those three things and always a qualitative things. Who cares if somebody is good at finance? The way I see finance is like money that comes in, money that goes out. And it's just glorified arithmetic. Integral and differential calculus was much harder and that was like when we were 14, 15. So there's a lot of bluff out there, but as long as you know how the world works a little bit, I think you're fine.

Dylan Pathirana (25:16.146)
You

Dylan Pathirana (25:29.862)
And, you know, it sounds like relationships and the people is really what drives your business. So I want to understand from a leadership side of things, how do you, how do you go about being the best leader you can to guide these, these people?

Adrian (25:46.346)
Well.

I would do broad strokes before, but here's a disclaimer. And this is respecting everybody for what they are and who they are. In the, the, the end, you can be very simple about things, but there's always something very particular that you can develop with Dylan and with Jam and every person is unique. So it always comes into the foreground that it's very important to respect everybody for what they are and what they have to offer, because you can't just broad stroke things.

And, know, this is my first podcast, so I know keeping it simple, I would just say something like broad, uh, uh, you know, uh, give, give, do you say this in English? Uh, giving the example, you know, as long as you give the example, people, people can follow you, but I think you have to care personally. I mean, if I want to develop you, I really have to know you and then I have to invest hours in you. Right.

So you can't cut corners. If you really wanted to be a good leader, if you wanted to contribute to other people, you have to invest the hours. And then you understand that you can't invest the hours in many people all the time. So you have to prioritize. But you know, there's a funny thing that happens. If you invest time in 10 people during the year and you're in like a 300 person company.

As long as it's a genuine thing, it just ripples, you know, and people always understand if you're being genuine or not. So I would say that investing time in people and we have three words in the company. We learn, we collaborate and we transform. So as long as we do those three things, everything else is manageable.

Dylan Pathirana (27:23.462)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (27:34.311)
Nice.

Adrian (27:42.215)
So investing time, can't cut corners. I don't believe in leaders that just like dictate from Mount Olympus being very nice and polite. I don't believe that. I think you have to invest time.

Dylan Pathirana (27:45.234)
Absolutely.

Dylan Pathirana (27:53.436)
Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I mean in relationships all about slow is fast. Right, so you have to give time. know, know, when you're working with, I mean, I'm going through the same thing. Company's getting bigger. I don't really know everyone's names. You know, I feel like, this is not what I want to do. You know, I want to know everyone's name. But as you said, sometimes you don't have that control.

Adrian (28:01.959)
Yes.

Dylan Pathirana (28:23.142)
But if you can work on few people every year, focus on them, spending some time, give them the real quality time and slow is fast and that's how you build relationships.

Adrian (28:35.898)
And have you seen, have you seen jam, an impact come, come from your years in the company acting like that? Have you seen that produce kind of better relationships, people staying in the company, people wanting to work for the company, cetera.

Dylan Pathirana (28:47.282)
Absolutely.

Dylan Pathirana (28:52.178)
100%. One of the key things for any organization people to stay longer is your relationship with your boss, not the pay, not everything else. So if you maintain the relationship with your coworkers, they follow you, they work with you. again, I like what you organization principles.

every opportunity to learn right? I mean even we should have that mindset we don't know everything right? We need to learn from others so I mean we are stronger as organization when we have smarter people around us so I always tell in my team I want to be the dumbest guy in the room because I hire smarter people I mean hopefully they are smarter than me so I can learn and they

Adrian (29:23.098)
Yes.

Dylan Pathirana (29:49.34)
move the organization forward. So Adrian, one thing I've noticed, your transition from other businesses to your own, your father's business, you didn't get the opportunity to come straight into the top. You started from like very bottom like, and then you had to work up like for many years. What's that like? What was the transition like?

Adrian (30:18.712)
I'll tell you, first off, just because everything you said is extremely valuable. will tell you just to wrap up the previous concepts that you were talking about, thinking fast and slow. There's an African proverb, which is amazing. And it goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I think it explains it. And I say it in the company all the time because high performers are quick. They're fast. But then they end up.

Dylan Pathirana (30:26.822)
Yep. Sure.

Adrian (30:49.129)
having obstacles. So I have to go together and once they go back, when they got there fast, they think it's slower. But if you start from the get go together, it's much faster in the long run. But anyways, I liked the way you phrased it and I wanted to share that proverb because it's very nice. Going back to when I started in the company, first off, I think it felt like a relief because having experience in other places,

When you're young and I don't know, how old are you doing? You're 24. Okay. So when I graduated college, I was 21. And at least in my first work experience, I remember you get these kind of know it all attitudes with your colleagues that are around the same age and you see managers and other people screwing up and you think to yourself, this is very typical. And what's that guy doing in that job? And.

Dylan Pathirana (31:21.906)
24.

Adrian (31:47.819)
He doesn't deserve it or she doesn't deserve it or why is she or he taking credit for that? And you start having all these kinds of like fairness issues with your colleagues and it makes for banter and good relationships. And I'm touching on that because once I got to a family company, you have to remember there's stigmas in family companies. You know, I'm the owner's son. Nobody knows what he's going to be like. He might be some sort of entitled person.

Dylan Pathirana (32:09.554)
yeah. Yep.

Adrian (32:16.961)
Is he gonna be having a free ride? Is there any value to what he's doing? What's the owner gonna act like? So I think the great communication I had with my father and my family made it so I found it very reasonable to start as a manager and not as a managing director or much less a CEO. I felt less on the spot and opportunity to learn. I was lucky enough that I had

a very great first boss sponsor me. I think what gets uncomfortable later on is that, you know, one is very ambitious, you know, I can tell that Dylan is ambitious. You're very ambitious. And then that's where office politics come into play. And I'll quote, you know, Ramal, amazing professor. And I remember he told me.

Dylan Pathirana (33:09.905)
Yeah, yep.

Adrian (33:14.835)
Like I went to his office hours and, and he told me, just remember, and I think he said this at the end of the course, remember mind the office politics or remember about the office politics. And I didn't really understand what it meant until I had him like take me through it. And what it means is coalitions alignment, creating value for people, making your boss shine, not you, your boss. So.

You hear about enough family company disasters that you start to overcompensate. You you start to play office politics in a good way and it plays to your favor if you start getting results in the meanwhile. So in a way, again, lucky enough to understand that lucky enough to be sponsored, but lucky enough that I understood these concepts and I started playing around with them. Now.

Dylan Pathirana (33:49.66)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian (34:14.705)
The path isn't smooth. you don't have to be part of a family company. You can be part of like another company and there's always competing colleagues and there's always office politics in an ugly way. But that's where you get in emotional intelligence. And that's where I understood very quickly that all the soft skills are much more important than hard skills. And that's where I started all these book clubs I have and all these.

kind of situations where I speak with people like you, not in podcast form, in different ways to understand others. And that helped me a bunch because once you start to refine your soft skills, you start getting much better at growing and not stepping on people's toes.

Dylan Pathirana (35:02.93)
building that empathy for others.

Adrian (35:04.859)
Yes, yes, empathy, not compassion. Empathy, very different. Compassion is for like Mother Teresa. Edit that part out.

Dylan Pathirana (35:12.818)
Yeah.

And I want to go to like, when you talk over as, CEO, how do you manage the family legacy side of things with making sure the company stays modern and innovative?

Adrian (35:32.668)
Well, here I have to split it in two parts. One is I could answer all day, but you have to read this book, Dylan. And I hope Jam beats it as well. I think Jam has it in his blog, but it's called The Founder's Mentality. If you know it, it's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. So what that book says, Dylan, is it's never over. You have to start with first generation, even if you're in third generation or second generation.

Dylan Pathirana (35:49.522)
Yep, yep. Amazing,

Adrian (36:03.91)
So my dad was my mentor in that regard. think he has the founder's mentality concept without even reading the book. I read the book and there's these like three major things that happen if you don't innovate. And that's what I stepped into. Those three things are you have to avoid burnout. Imagine growing so quickly, so much that people are overworked, burnout. And then after that comes kind of like a stalling phase.

And then after that it's freefall. So this fear of high performers, a lot of good hoos, but I saw some burnout, a lot of burnout. So I saw the company growing leaps and bounds even like 14 years ago, but I didn't see the processes, the systems, the human resources side, the talent development, the assessments, kind of like the company culture. It was like a big gap.

between both things. So I thought to myself, have to, I have to make this sustainable. didn't think about innovating at the time. I just said, I have to make this sustainable. I have to make it not crash. You know, the other thing is I was always taught that there were three buckets in a family business. And I look at it as like a Venn diagram. probably seen this, like the ownership circle.

the professional circle and the family circle. So I had these three keywords in my head. The family circle had to have harmony. That's all I had to mind, harmony. The professional one, I had to think of sustainability, like making it sustainable, making it long-term. And the ownership aspect, well, that was simple because my dad was at that point, like the only owner. So I'm like, okay.

So just being in good terms with the owner, right? And that was it. So I think innovation finds you Dylan. I don't think you have to look for it. I think once you want to make something institutional or make it more sustainable, you bump into that very quickly, very quickly, because you have to, the market lets you know like very quickly, no, that's not gonna sell as much. The market lets you know very quickly, yeah, those costs are coming down.

Adrian (38:30.806)
The market, so as long as you're outside as well and mindful, it's like that phrase. There's this amazing Hemingway book, The Sun Also Rises. She also read fiction, not just business books. It teaches her a lot about life and about negotiation. But there's this like scene between two characters and one of the characters, it's very famous, asked the other one, how did you go back?

And the other character says, gradually, then suddenly. So that's what happens with innovation. You don't innovate suddenly, you do it gradually.

Dylan Pathirana (39:12.722)
Yeah. And we've, we've been talking a lot about the business, but can you, for the people who don't know, can you give us a little bit of a background as to what Groupo Steve does?

Adrian (39:21.272)
Yeah, of course.

Grupo Stila is a big real estate developer. It's focused on two main development areas, industrial real estate development, meaning industrial parks, warehouses, infrastructure, and retail developments, meaning fashion malls, community centers, neighborhood centers, and strip malls. Until recently, we also had multifamily developments, so apartment condos.

and housing developments. So that's single family developments where we would go into the affordable sector. Additional to this, we also have a joint venture with an American partner where we manufacture steel structure. So we integrate that into a company for our warehouses and we export the rest. And we also have a blooming or growing, and that was a very nice entrepreneurial effort, a self storage business. And in terms of size,

Dylan Pathirana (40:21.106)
All right.

Adrian (40:23.828)
With the industrial real estate development, we're practically maybe 12 million square feet in GLA. We have the land reserves to double that. And in retail development, it's in square meters, it's 108,000 square meters. It's about like 12 different retail developments. And with the self-storage, we've got 10 stores. the biggest in the city and we're going for...

for three more. So our core is leasing. We lease. So that has three pillars, land, development, and asset management, property management. We're integrating those three. That's what we do. So if you notice, is Prologies in Australia? I think they are, right? Prologies? Yeah. So we do what Prologies does. That's industrial real estate.

Dylan Pathirana (41:00.539)
All right.

Dylan Pathirana (41:11.154)
Amazing.

Dylan Pathirana (41:14.566)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (41:21.67)
And I suppose I want to get your insider information as to where you think the future of construction is going.

Adrian (41:31.261)
Hmm. Well, I would, let's just say three things. First, it always has to be as efficient as possible, right? So there's cost construction methods galore and every country is a little bit different. But in terms of warehouses, I've heard of technology where some warmer climates.

orient the constructions and have like air pass through the warehouses so that they cool the warehouses depending on the venting systems. So I would say technology construction in terms of being very agile at the end of the day, doing its quality, cost and time. In terms of the sustainable part, which

The world right now is on its head because people are stepping back from sustainability agreements. There's solar power for your roofs. There's also LEED certified buildings. There's a lot of stuff you can do with water and energy systems. And I would think it's around costs. So whomever does that very well will be able to use their development in the longterm. And I would say maybe the third thing would be

It's not something around construction, but property management can be done in a very nice way where buildings can last forever. So either through very good investments in CAPEX and OPEX, very good operators and very good, I would say, solutions.

You have warehouses in the Port of Los Angeles that are 50 or more years older that function perfectly. So I think who's going to win is not who's going to have the swankiest newest sort of like building. More so the people that construct for functionality and long-term thinking.

Dylan Pathirana (43:48.006)
Yeah. And I'm not sure if it's, it's a similar issue over in Mexico, but here, what I find is, especially in the residential sector, there's been a shift to how quickly can we build something without kind of that worry about long-term like longevity. So we're seeing a lot of mass production, but low quality buildings, which are falling apart in, you know, five, 10 years. So.

Adrian (44:00.307)
yeah.

Adrian (44:13.541)
Really?

Dylan Pathirana (44:13.97)
Do you see that as an issue for the industry, this kind of shift to short mindset thinking?

Adrian (44:20.753)
Well, let's look at it this way. Think of the place that you were speaking about. Just a quick question. Was it a big, big developer that developed that like maybe 10, 15 years ago? Question.

Dylan Pathirana (44:31.97)
Well, it was a quite a well-known builder here in Australia, but they've since gone bankrupt. So, Yeah. We also have a, we also have a housing shortage issue. you know, it, because young people like Dylan age, very difficult to afford a house. Like they can't buy house. The house price is extremely high because of supply and demand.

Adrian (44:39.599)
Okay. I asked, asked. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

Dylan Pathirana (45:01.276)
There's no much supply. So because of that, there's an easy way to even the government encourage, like, know, to build us to build more. And that's probably one reason we build, know, build us just go and taking shortcuts and building more rather than, you know, the good quality. Yeah.

Adrian (45:22.703)
Well, I would say there's a big difference, Dylan and Jan, between building for sale and building for lease. And building for lease, if you're going to sell the asset versus building for lease, if you're going to stay with the asset. So I can tell you that when things, when there's a value chain and different parts of that value chain come in and out, well, there's less mindful of what they're living. Now,

Dylan Pathirana (45:30.267)
Yes.

Adrian (45:47.779)
They might've taken shortcuts and I don't know why they went bankrupt, but I will tell you this. Sometimes rules and regulations are followed to the letter, but they're not exactly in line with client needs and desires or client needs and desires 10 to 15 years later. So for example, if I would ask somebody from Manhattan, what their experience was like leasing an apartment, maybe like,

80 years ago, they would have been, you know, tearing their hair out saying, I can't believe the amount of noise I can hear my neighbors. I can't believe I hear the stomping in the floor above me. And right now, if you go to New York and people live there, it's like they, they look at you as if you're some sort of like a maladjusted weirdo. If you start complaining about the noise, you know, or the smells. So depends.

And I'm not excusing bad developers, but I am saying the market shifts so much and the client at the end has a say. What's interesting is your generation Dylan are going to probably be the number one reason why those places that you lease or don't lease or those places that you buy or don't buy aren't as attractive as

new developments that are coming in. Because if you give Jamdillen a choice between a development that's closer, has more amenities and is cheaper versus one that might have a bigger garden, bigger space, but have, has these like hefty maintenance, like fees and all these other things, I think nobody's going to offer the other one. So

That's where innovation and competition comes in. But then that development is somebody else's problem right now. So it's like a cycle. And I'm glad to hear that Mexico isn't the only country, even in first world countries like Australia. You made me feel a little better Dylan. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (47:50.514)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep, yep.

You mentioned, you mentioned just before about sustainability and it's quite a topical thing at the moment. What are some of the kind of projects that you're working on and driving the sustainability in real estate?

Adrian (48:16.65)
Well, first of all, I'm going to brag a little bit about the company because most public companies and REITs in Mexico, have to be sustainability minded or else. We're private. We don't have to be. So we are. And I'll tell you a couple of things that we've done. The train, the AC people, air conditioning people, train, T-R-A-N-E, we have five buildings that

we lease and we basically covered all of the ceilings with solar panels. So we got up to five megas. So in Spanish at least it's KVA, so kilowatt hours and five is like 5,000. So five megas that they use for their energy consumption. That's one thing. The other thing, and I'm very proud of this, we're gonna have our first very

in June, lead building, lead warehouse, which is also completely, it has the first, we have the first industrial park in Mexico as well with the, what do call this thing? Todo accesible, which means accessible for all. So it's not just for people in wheelchairs. It's for any type of handicap. Other stuff we've done is,

Dylan Pathirana (49:38.033)
Okay.

Adrian (49:44.434)
We were one of the first in Mexico, green, man, I have all these words in Spanish in my head, green, I don't want to call it debt, but when you ask the bank for money, what's the name of what they give you? Credit? Is it credit? Like loans, loans. So green loans with the biggest bank in Mexico. So what a green loan does is that it forces you to keep, mindful of those kind of like either edge.

Dylan Pathirana (50:01.232)
Yeah, yeah, credit.

Adrian (50:14.128)
or kind of lead or sustainability minded KPIs. We also signed, it's called like the global, it's called the global commitment impact. It's online. I think we also are a socially responsible company. So we got all these badges, but at the end of the day, what happens is our energy costs came down. We have clients where we have energy,

Dylan Pathirana (50:34.971)
Yeah.

Adrian (50:43.826)
kind of either transmission or either through clean energy or through the grid solutions. So we're kind of a one-stop shop in that regard. We do it very business-minded and also the age at the company has lowered to maybe high 30s and all the people that are in their 20s. I think one of their main things during interviews is to understand if we're socially minded. And since we don't have to do it for

something that's based on being a public company, people think it's very genuine and they start innovating. So we have these kind of round tables every trimester where we take the best ideas and just roll with it. Alzenju, there's this Harvard article, I'll send it to you, where most people that do all these sustainability kind of initiatives.

go through something that's called like a materiality matrix where they try and tie in what's good for the business versus what's good for the environment or governance or labor aspects. But what ends up happening is that you try to do it all. So you try to kind of be the sustainability hero. And what you end up understanding is that you have to do very few things very well.

Dylan Pathirana (51:46.626)
yeah.

Adrian (52:10.606)
And you're much better off because otherwise people will just start like going through confirmation bias and making stuff up as if they were kind of doing it when they're not. And as with anything, Harvard always has an answer for everything. And they have, they have this article that I sent to our sustainability manager and she said, my God, I think we have to do like 30 % of everything we have on the board.

Dylan Pathirana (52:25.062)
Yeah.

Adrian (52:37.294)
And that's the problem with sustainability stuff, Dylan. Like everybody wants to do so much stuff. You shouldn't do that much stuff.

Dylan Pathirana (52:39.45)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just do the little things well. So Adrian, what's the vision for your business?

Adrian (52:52.024)
We have a phrase, we wanna do real estate value or create real estate value that transcends. That's our mission and the vision is to be a reference. That's what we say in the company. We wanna be a reference in terms of being the top three player in our main lines, in the development line, in the asset management line and in the land line. I learned this from my time at the University of Michigan. The University of Michigan says,

We're not number one in anything, but we're top three, top five, if you like, in everything, in their medicine school, in their law school, in their business school, in everything. So it's much harder to be consistently in the top three than it is to be number one, because number ones get dethroned or even sent to like number 10. So our vision is to be a reference. And if we're a reference, we're

we're at that level of excellence. know it. We had these big conversations at the company where saying my vision is to be a reference doesn't sound sexy, but somehow the sexy visions sound hollow to me. So it sounds much more boring to say I want to be a reference, but it's much harder. It's much harder.

Dylan Pathirana (53:59.41)
You

Dylan Pathirana (54:08.196)
Yep. Yep. And Adrian, we've, we've spoken a lot about that kind of a professional bucket.

Adrian (54:12.867)
A reference in Mexico, by the way. A reference in Mexico. We have to prop up our... I don't want to get political, but we have to prop up our country. Anyway, sorry, Dili. You were saying...

Dylan Pathirana (54:17.254)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (54:24.924)
No, no, I was just saying we've spoken a lot about the professional bucket, but then you also mentioned in your definition, the personal bucket. Can you tell us a little about, know, what you're trying to be as a father and yeah.

Adrian (54:34.519)
Yeah, I was feeling.

I was filling in the time with a lot of like verbiage with the professional stuff because they didn't want to get to this. So I know we have five minutes. I'll just, no, I mean, with the personal stuff, I think one of the best decisions of my life was to marry my wife. I think it is the most important decision. Anybody that wants to get married, it is the most important decision in your life because it touches on everything. And my wife and I are complete opposites and thankfully, and she keeps me saying,

And she's my best friend, my partner, my soulmate, my everything. And I don't say that in a romantic way. I say that in the following terms. For me, in terms of relationships, especially with my wife and with my best friends, it doesn't matter how much you love them. It matters who you are when you're with them. And I like who I am with my people, with my tribe. In terms of my kids, it's all about giving them a lot of security.

Dylan Pathirana (55:28.498)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian (55:38.123)
They're gonna end up doing whatever they want to do, but you need to give kids, at least in my experience, lot of security, a lot of security, a lot of security. And when you're young, you're insecure because you're finding things out. And in terms of my friends, I have a lot of vehicles, value vehicles, I would say that I go to because your buddies and your friends are always there. You can have a beer with your friends every now and again. But I think Dylan is gonna end up finding out that

from his 20s to his 30s, there's gonna be friends that are gonna have new ideas and new topics and new adventures and friends that are gonna keep reminding Dylan about that time. He made that mistake or he did something embarrassing at school for like the hundredth time, right? And he's gonna be like, yeah, I really enjoy that story. you might ask that friend, like, I don't even, it's been 10 years. I don't know what you do. I don't know.

Dylan Pathirana (56:34.139)
Yeah.

Adrian (56:36.912)
So are you learning from your friends or no? And the value of the value vehicles I have are the following. You know that Stoicism trip? I don't know if it got to Australia. It's pretty going places in the U S Stoicism. So read a lot of Stoic books and kept two phrases in mind. know, memento mori. It's like a Latin phrase that says, remember you're going to die every day. He's got this group of, of Stoic friends. And we do these like master classes where

We just make a list of topics like, I don't know, technology, artificial intelligence, carpentry, arts, cinema, whatever. And then we find these experts and we call them up and learn. And then we have like dinner afterwards or a drink. Got this book club. It's like seven years running. It's great. It's on Zoom. It's every Monday at 7 p.m. on a rate time. Anytime you want to show up. And we've had more than a hundred speakers show up on Zoom.

Dylan Pathirana (57:34.31)
Wow.

Adrian (57:36.701)
and we've had authors, journalists, academics, and you know how I get them? You know how this works? You know why they answer, you know why they show up? Because I always have on the title of the email, greetings from Mexico. And then I have like this hyphen, and then I say like on whatever book. And they find it so exotic that a Mexican is looking to speak with them about Moby Dick or something.

Dylan Pathirana (58:03.324)
You

Adrian (58:05.328)
that they just like show up. So all these pursuits plus sports, plus cycling, plus everything. And at the end of the day, this is what I do to keep saying, all of the stuff I told you, everything I told you, I just put it in a big calendar, a big calendar during the year. And I put everything on the calendar, everything, everything that's personal and everything that's professional. And then I also make up these kind of like time slots that are like for fun.

where it's like time to think, you know, and then trips and all that. So once you plan things, you have no choice but to do them. And that's how I manage both worlds.

Dylan Pathirana (58:43.74)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Adrian, do you ever think you would like to have your kids take over your business one day?

Adrian (59:01.754)
I want to do it like my dad did. I want them to deserve their dream. It's very different to have their dreams come true than to deserve their dream. And if their dream is in alignment with the company, great. But if they're proud owners and they don't work in the company and they can get a lot from

these stories and then excel with those stories, not in the company and outside and they can be proud owners. It's like being a proud citizen of Australia. Right? And the problem with being a proud citizen of Australia or Mexico is that you get let down every once in a while. But my job is to not let them down with the story of the company. So let's say, let's put it this way. They don't have to work there. I would love it.

But I do want them to be involved and I do want them to be inspired and I do want them to be proud owners so that they can write their own story and be part of a bigger one. That's what I wish for them.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:08.752)
Yeah. Nice one. liked that. Yeah. And Adrian, looking back on your journey, do you feel successful so far?

Adrian (01:00:16.612)
Yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, I went through hell. I just gave you the good parts. Yeah, we have to. I feel successful because I'm here speaking with you, having fun. I got to meet your dad. I got to hear his story. He inspired me. I've gotten to meet you as well. I'm happy. When I finish this call, I'm going to go meet my family.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:20.434)
We have to do another one.

Adrian (01:00:46.596)
gonna have a drink. mean, add that with a sense of humor. I mean, I'm successful, you're successful. You haven't stopped smiling the whole interview, man. Like, you're successful now. The other phrase in Latin for stoicism that I wanna leave with you is amor fati, which means like, just love your fate. So, you know, if we all get on a plane and whatever happens.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:58.436)
Yeah

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:12.594)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian (01:01:16.163)
We're going to have a nice memory, you know, on our deathbeds. I hope I make you remember this podcast, especially because you laughed a little bit because we spoke about everything. Man, I think we can all be successful. It's just, it never ends. It never ends. And by the way, Jan, your son definitely has more biceps than you do. And I can just like, look at the video.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:36.338)
Yep, it's a journey.

Adrian (01:01:45.772)
Look, the shirt is not able to even go down correctly. So yeah, I I have to say that you lost, you know? don't know. Good, yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:47.377)
It's on top of mine

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:54.033)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:57.682)
I wouldn't mind losing to my son. I've got to win something. Adrian, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been such a blast. It's been so much fun as well. As you said, can't wait to smile off my face because it's been such an insightful conversation. throughout our conversation, I've been jotting down a few key traits which I think have been very important to your success. And I'd like to share them with you. The first one is constant learning.

Adrian (01:02:13.463)
Yeah.

Adrian (01:02:22.935)
Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:25.818)
I mean, it's, evident through going overseas to study, going to Harvard, whether it's reading all the stoicism and all these other books that you read, you're on this journey of always trying to improve and learn. And I think that's so fundamental. And I'm glad that you've brought that into your business as well, because, you know, that's the only way that we can achieve growth is through constantly learning. And I think that kind of goes to towards your, your growth attitude as well. You're always.

Surrounding yourself with people who are better than you. You're trying to be in environments which grow you and make you better. And I think that's a really important point, which I hope our viewers take as well, surround yourself with people who are better than you. The next one is you're very people driven. And I think that was one of my big takeaways from this discussion, especially about business. It's all about the who. And I think that's a really important point.

I like that your leadership philosophy of really taking the time to understand people and what they need and realize it's not a one size fits all approach to leadership. And I think that's a really important point which probably separates you from other leaders. And then finally is the humility and authenticity. mean, you, it was so easy to connect with you and talk to you today because you're not hiding behind a mask and you really just present as.

as who you are and it makes the connection so much deeper. so I'm really grateful for this, this opportunity. And also, you know, you valued relationship. That's a big thing that I see in you, Adrian. I was really surprised to receive a thank you card from you. Like, you know, it's just such a little thing and it just feels like so blessed to know you, right? Like, you know, I mean, little things, right? You don't ever expect, you know, I've been hanging out.

Adrian (01:03:55.669)
you

Adrian (01:04:07.423)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (01:04:19.73)
with you, someone like, you know, study together and receiving saying, hey, it means to you and absolutely that I mean, that's a little thing that I experienced with you, but I'm sure everyone worked with you. Everyone knows you have the similar experience. So that little things and that that makes you really big. And you are a master of that, you know, and I think that's one of the key traits.

that you have and thank you so much. Taking time out from your ski holiday and joining with us and enjoy and go ahead enjoy the rest of your holiday with your family.

Adrian (01:04:55.944)
Yeah.

Adrian (01:05:04.019)
Thank you. No, thank you so much. I do want to say, I want to congratulate both of you. I want to thank you Dylan for that great, very simple, succinct way of putting things down. I will take that as the follow-up. I will tell you, once you have the recording of this, it to me because I am going to like savor that clip and I'm going to put it in like a little file and I'm going to send it to my wife.

And I'm gonna tell her you have to speak to Dylan because Dylan sees so much more of me. So I'm gonna tell that to my wife so that when things get tough. No, and all joking aside, I think we're having a good time. I will tell you one thing and with a smile. Both of you, I think, appreciate life. I can tell. When I think you appreciate and you're...

You are happy where you are and where you're going. And that just makes you a sponge. So those are amazing listening skills that you have, Dylan and your father as well. And per the thing about small details, Jam, you know what? I will tell you this. And with this, I learned this from my mother, small details matter. And you know, one of the biggest regrets on people with people when they're on their deathbeds is I regret not saying

what I felt or what I thought to the people I cared about the most. So if you're in a hotel, if you're somewhere, if you just want to write something down, the message I sent you wasn't even that profound. It was just like written in a fountain pen. And I enjoyed the press very much. I thank you for taking that into account and let's keep in touch.

And congrats on this. How many episodes have you recorded, by the way? How long have you been doing this?

Dylan Pathirana (01:07:02.046)
we'd be, we've released our 51 episodes at the time of recording this, but we've probably got another five, 10 in the backlog. So, it's about 56 we've done and we got whole lineup and thanks to my OPM, classmates, know, majority of them are with them because everyone's got a amazing story. And, I want to make sure that, yeah, we, we, we talked to most of them if possible. Everyone's got a story.

Adrian (01:07:09.168)
Wow.

Adrian (01:07:23.076)
Wow.

Adrian (01:07:27.696)
Are you gonna get to the 100 this year, do you think? Or next year? Yeah? Okay, you have to let me know when you get to the 100.

Dylan Pathirana (01:07:31.632)
Yeah, Not this year.

Dylan Pathirana (01:07:37.372)
We have to celebrate together. We invite all our guests and we meet somewhere and we celebrate. right, Adrian, thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate it. And for our listeners, if you found something insightful from today's episode, if you could subscribe and follow us on whichever platform you're listening to this on right now would mean the world. And you can see all of our conversations over on our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening.

Adrian (01:07:39.31)
Yes, yes we will. Yes, Yes. Yes. Celebrate everything.

Adrian (01:08:06.19)
Thank you guys.

Dylan Pathirana (01:08:06.406)
Thank you, Adrian. Thanks Adrian. Enjoy the rest of your holiday. hope that you have a blast. Hey, keep in touch. Take care.

Adrian (01:08:11.47)
Thank you so much. I will sir, I will talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Dylan Pathirana (01:08:15.602)
All the best, bye.