Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Restaurant Grind to Real Estate Empire: Gino Barbaro’s Path to Fulfillment

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From Restaurant Grind to Real Estate Empire: Gino Barbaro’s Path to Fulfillment · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  That's the problem.
• 0:05
  So every time you make a deal or you make an investment or you go do something in life, make a decision, you need to really know what your values are and how do they align with that decision you're
• 0:16
  making.
• 0:17
  What does it actually take to go from running a family restaurant to managing over 2000 multifamily units and hundreds of millions of dollars in assets?
• 0:27
  Today's guest found out the hard way.
• 0:29
  Gino Barbro is an investor, business coach and author who built his real estate empire through hard lessons, the wrong partnerships, and eventually the right mentors.
• 0:41
  In this conversation, he gets real about the early missteps, the mindset shifts that changed everything, and why values based decision making is the foundation of sustainable success.
• 0:53
  We also dig into something every entrepreneur with kids needs to hear.
• 0:57
  How to raise the next generation with accountability, purpose and financial intelligence.
• 1:03
  If you're building something and wondering whether you're doing it right, this episode is for you.
• 1:08
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:14
  All right, Gino, Barbara, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:17
  Thanks, Dave.
• 1:18
  How you doing?
• 1:20
  Fantastic, fantastic.
• 1:21
  How about yourself?
• 1:22
  I'm doing great, brother.
• 1:24
  Excellent, excellent.
• 1:26
  So, Gino, you are an investor, a business coach, an author, and truly a lifelong entrepreneur.
• 1:33
  You've got over 2,000 multifamily real estate units, several hundred million dollars in assets under management with your partner Jake.
• 1:44
  And we're going to get into all of that.
• 1:46
  But you've got quite an interesting background of your entrepreneurial journey.
• 1:52
  So if you would, just to set the stage for our listeners, can you tell us how you became an entrepreneur and how you got here?
• 1:58
  I will.
• 1:58
  But first I have to acknowledge that we both have six kids.
• 2:01
  And that's probably the best part of the entrepreneurial journey, is that you can actually afford to raise a family right.
• 2:08
  That's what the goal is about, you know, becoming an entrepreneur.
• 2:11
  But I did it backwards and I'm going to tell you what I did wrong with my entrepreneurial journey.
• 2:16
  When I got out of college, I was sort of forced to go to college because my family never went.
• 2:21
  I was the first one that, like, sort of pressure me.
• 2:23
  These Italian immigrants, like, you got to go to school, you got to get a job and I went and I sort of didn't like it.
• 2:30
  I worked a year in corporate and then what we ended up doing was we ended up opening a restaurant, but I opened the restaurant.
• 2:37
  And this is what I think most entrepreneurs do incorrectly when they start a business.
• 2:40
  I open that business to provide for my family when what I Should have really done is I should have opened that business to provide for the marketplace and to provide for the customer.
• 2:50
  Now, I was fortunate that we opened it up back in the 90s.
• 2:54
  There was less competition, just different eating habits.
• 2:58
  We were actually pretty good at preparing food.
• 3:00
  The business part wasn't so good because we were the mom and pops.
• 3:03
  So we were always there like we could never leave.
• 3:06
  One of us was always there from the family.
• 3:09
  So we started out that way, and it went really well for the first ten years or so.
• 3:13
  You know, the Great Recession comes and Dave, everything changes.
• 3:17
  All of a sudden, people are delivering.
• 3:19
  Eating habits are different.
• 3:20
  You know, that one business that helped and provided for three families is all of a sudden providing for two.
• 3:27
  It's harder to make money.
• 3:29
  That's how I started.
• 3:30
  And I was fortunate that I had two parents that said, hey, you know, this is not.
• 3:35
  You don't really like what you're doing here.
• 3:37
  Go and find something else.
• 3:38
  We started investing in real estate.
• 3:40
  I did great on my first couple of deals, but then after that, I made a ton of mistakes.
• 3:44
  I didn't have a framework, I didn't have a process, and I started making big, big mistakes in a couple of deals.
• 3:50
  When I met my business partner, Jake, I was fortunate that I went out and I found a couple mentors that taught me the business of real estate, of how to invest in deals.
• 3:58
  So that's when things started changing for me.
• 4:00
  Back in, like, 2009, 2010, when the world was quote, unquote, falling apart, I was stepping into the real estate space, I guess, at the right time, with the skills that I needed to learn to be able to come
• 4:11
  successful real estate investor.
• 4:14
  Okay.
• 4:14
  All right.
• 4:15
  Yeah.
• 4:15
  So let's.
• 4:16
  Let's get into some elements of the journey, because what I'm hearing, too, is you certainly didn't have a problem taking action and that that's where so many people fall off or they never make it, where maybe they.
• 4:29
  Just thinking about it, they won't necessarily take the action.
• 4:32
  But it sounds like you were maybe taking the wrong action and.
• 4:35
  And just kind of stumbling in the dark, figuring things out and running into some.
• 4:39
  Some roadblocks after time, not only with the restaurant and then with your early real estate career.
• 4:45
  Is that.
• 4:45
  Would you say that's accurate?
• 4:47
  That is spot on.
• 4:51
  We always say education times action equals results.
• 4:56
  I was the massive action taker, but I lacked the education on my very first real estate deal that I was part of partnering up with somebody back in 2005.
• 5:05
  I call him Maserati.
• 5:07
  Mike, he pulls into the restaurant in this nice gold Maserati, and I'm sitting down on the bench.
• 5:13
  He walks up.
• 5:13
  He's like, I've got a mobile home park deal now.
• 5:15
  He was referred to me by a friend of mine.
• 5:17
  He's like, I'm investing in mobile home parks down in Florida.
• 5:20
  I'm like, great.
• 5:21
  I've got money.
• 5:22
  I need to invest in real estate.
• 5:24
  I'm looking to park my money somewhere, right?
• 5:26
  I'm looking for a deal.
• 5:27
  These are all the things that a novice investor says instead of saying, well, has Maserati Mike ever been successful doing this?
• 5:34
  He was, but, Gino, have you actually looked at these deals?
• 5:38
  Do you know how to underwrite these deals?
• 5:40
  Do you know what a syndication is?
• 5:42
  I knew none of that.
• 5:43
  All I knew was that I had some money.
• 5:44
  I wanted to take massive action.
• 5:46
  He had an opportunity.
• 5:48
  We partnered up.
• 5:49
  It went great day.
• 5:51
  For like, six months, I was getting in these checks.
• 5:53
  I'm like, I'm the smartest guy on the planet, man.
• 5:55
  I don't got to do anything.
• 5:57
  And then after six months, money stopped.
• 5:59
  And after 12 months, could put.
• 6:01
  So for me, taking action was not the problem.
• 6:04
  I was just taking the wrong action.
• 6:05
  And you think I would have learned from Maserati Mike?
• 6:08
  About a year and a half later, my dad comes up and goes, we've got to buy this building.
• 6:12
  This is a beautiful strip mall upstate New York.
• 6:15
  It's got retail, it's got warehouse, it's got some office space.
• 6:18
  I knew none of that.
• 6:19
  I don't even know what a commercial lease was at the time, but I'm like, hey, great idea.
• 6:23
  Once again, I've got money.
• 6:25
  There's an opportunity.
• 6:26
  I jumped into that after that painful endeavor for years.
• 6:30
  I said, there's got to be a better way.
• 6:32
  I mean, like, I know that real estate is not rocket science, because I see a lot of people making money in real estate, and they are not rocket scientists.
• 6:39
  What's the secret?
• 6:41
  I mean, the secret for me, basically, was go out and find somebody who is doing what you want to do.
• 6:47
  Success does leave clues out there.
• 6:49
  Just go out and find people who are doing it.
• 6:51
  And that's what I ultimately did.
• 6:53
  I went out and I joined three mentorship groups within two years.
• 6:56
  I mean, at the time, I spent a lot of money.
• 6:59
  Now, looking back, you know, the words that I would use is, I invested in my education because I was getting an education one way or the other.
• 7:07
  I was learning on the street, and learning on the street is expensive.
• 7:11
  I know that Learning in the classroom is going to cost you money.
• 7:14
  But man, there's so many things that I learned in that classroom that I wish I had known back back in 2005 with Maserati Mike.
• 7:21
  Wow.
• 7:22
  Maserati Mike.
• 7:26
  So that's interesting.
• 7:27
  So whether, you know, because you always hear like, when a deal goes bad and you lose money, you consider that lost money the price of education.
• 7:36
  You hear a lot of people say that.
• 7:37
  Whereas you kind of had both experiences where you went through a couple of those instances and then you went and you invested in the mentorship groups, which, I mean, the good ones certainly aren't cheap, but.
• 7:49
  But it's a much less painful way to get education that route versus, you know, investing in a deal, not knowing what you're doing, and then losing your capital.
• 8:02
  Dave there's two things I'd like to point out, and I think these two things.
• 8:07
  I think the listeners really should focus on these two things.
• 8:10
  The first thing is values based decision making.
• 8:14
  I wasn't making these decisions based upon my values.
• 8:17
  I mean, my values of hard work.
• 8:20
  Yeah, but how much work was I putting into the real estate business and handing money over to this individual?
• 8:24
  Right.
• 8:25
  Where my values aligned with this Maserati Mike?
• 8:28
  Absolutely not.
• 8:29
  I had my pride in my ego out in front, but my values weren't making those decisions.
• 8:34
  That's the problem.
• 8:35
  So every time you make a deal or you make an investment or you go do something in life, make a decision to.
• 8:41
  You need to really know what your values are and how do they align with that decision you're making.
• 8:47
  That's the reason why I wanted to leave the restaurant.
• 8:49
  Because at some point I got older, having all these children, it felt as if it wasn't aligning with my family life.
• 8:57
  All of a sudden I'm working every weekend, I'm working on all the holidays, I'm missing time with my family.
• 9:04
  And that's one of the main components, unconsciously, that I didn't understand.
• 9:08
  I'm like, why do I not like working here anymore?
• 9:10
  And I started to realize that when you're young, you have no family, it's okay, working weekends, grinding, doing all that.
• 9:17
  But as you get older, sometimes your values do change.
• 9:20
  And I didn't understand that.
• 9:21
  And every time I look back, whether I made a bad decision, doing a deal, made a bad decision, partnering up with somebody, made a bad decision, something personally, if I look back and I say to myself, did that
• 9:33
  decision really align with my values or did I just make it?
• 9:36
  And I didn't really think about the values, I didn't put it out front either.
• 9:40
  Even setting a goal, I think you really have to really focus on your values.
• 9:44
  And there was another point that I had to make on this is when you are looking at educating yourself.
• 9:50
  We're looking at all these universities now.
• 9:52
  Some of them, the top universities cost 80, $90,000 a year.
• 9:56
  I was just at an event for Maui Mastermind.
• 9:58
  It's a business scaling company.
• 10:00
  They teach businesses to scale.
• 10:02
  And his price tag was hefty.
• 10:04
  It wasn't inexpensive.
• 10:06
  But I stopped and I said, you know, people spending 200 grand to get an undergraduate degree to be able to go out and to find a job.
• 10:12
  This group is teaching you how to scale your company for 1/5 that price.
• 10:18
  I mean, to me it's not even, it's not even close.
• 10:21
  So when you're saying these groups are expensive, if you're going to go out and find the group, just make sure that the group aligns with your values.
• 10:28
  Make sure that they have had success.
• 10:29
  Maui Mastermind has been around for over 20 years.
• 10:32
  I mean, they're really great.
• 10:33
  And if you're going to look for a company like that, make sure they align with the values.
• 10:37
  And you have to be all in.
• 10:39
  There's two things you need as an entrepreneur.
• 10:41
  You need to be radically accountable to yourself and to your, and to everybody on your team.
• 10:46
  The radical accountability that I had, it came from being radically accountable to my kids and to my wife.
• 10:52
  Because my wife said to me, yes, Gino, you have permission to go risk our capital.
• 10:57
  You have permission to take the next step.
• 10:58
  When she gave me that permission, I felt the burden and I'm like, wow, she's giving me permission to do this.
• 11:04
  I really need to put the work and the effort into this and I can't let her down.
• 11:10
  And the second part is that relentless execution.
• 11:13
  You said action, but action is great.
• 11:15
  But there's also execution.
• 11:17
  You know, there's education and there's implementation.
• 11:19
  And that's why for me, I really flourish with a partner.
• 11:22
  My business partner has been phenomenal for me.
• 11:24
  Our decisions are based on our values.
• 11:26
  Our portfolio is based on the values that we've created.
• 11:30
  So if you're out there as an entrepreneur, always think about values based decision making and always think about being radically accountable and always trying to relentlessly execute.
• 11:39
  I love that.
• 11:40
  Now I've got so many, I mean, you rattled off a lot there.
• 11:43
  I've got so many follow up questions, but let's just talk for a second.
• 11:46
  First about the values based on decision making.
• 11:49
  Right, because.
• 11:51
  Makes perfect sense the way you explain it.
• 11:53
  Why do you think?
• 11:54
  Because I'm sure so many people struggle with this, with people that make mistakes and maybe going after the wrong deal, the wrong business.
• 12:01
  Why do you think people get away from values based decision making and just don't make it in the moment?
• 12:08
  It's very difficult to think of yourself 20 or 30 years from now where you want to be like most of us.
• 12:14
  Don't do that.
• 12:15
  If you're listening to this right now, just think of yourself in a rocking chair 30 years from now.
• 12:20
  Where are you?
• 12:21
  30 years?
• 12:22
  For me, I'm out here in Florida.
• 12:24
  I'm hanging out on my farm.
• 12:26
  I've got my kids, got my grandkids around me.
• 12:29
  I own a bunch of real estate.
• 12:30
  I'm out shooting guns with my kids.
• 12:32
  I've got cows, I've got a beautiful piece of property.
• 12:36
  Now I need to reverse engineer that and to bring that into today.
• 12:40
  And every decision I make today is going to lead to that vision.
• 12:44
  Right.
• 12:44
  People think of legacy as something they leave behind.
• 12:48
  I want you to think of it, Dave, as something that you activate while you're here and that will really bring everything into focus for me.
• 12:57
  I'm not going to invest in Bitcoin.
• 12:59
  Bitcoin is not going to get me to that picture of the promised land of where I want to be 30 years from now.
• 13:04
  It's just not for, for my cause.
• 13:06
  Right.
• 13:06
  I want to have a huge family.
• 13:08
  I want to be able to leave an amazing amount of money, amazing amount of wealth.
• 13:12
  But more importantly, I want them to become financial stewards as well.
• 13:15
  So every decision I make needs to be based upon that picture.
• 13:19
  So if you haven't even thought that far ahead and all you're thinking about is the next quarter or where oil is going to be in two weeks, you're going to miss the boat.
• 13:27
  You're going to have that shiny object syndrome where you jump from one asset class to another.
• 13:33
  You're always looking for that get rich quick scheme which will never materialize.
• 13:38
  It's not going to materialize.
• 13:40
  So you need to understand like the values that you have.
• 13:43
  For me, it's all about working hard, it's all about control, it's all about responsibility, it's all about building something.
• 13:50
  It's all about making something better.
• 13:54
  That's the values and that's the picture that I have.
• 13:56
  That's why multifamily for me is just a great vehicle.
• 14:00
  Because I can build it, I have control of it, I can sell it.
• 14:04
  When I want to.
• 14:04
  I can raise the rents.
• 14:06
  I can refinance the property.
• 14:07
  I have control.
• 14:08
  It's a hard asset for me, and it's something that I can teach my children.
• 14:12
  It's a business within the business, and I can teach them.
• 14:15
  So as you're listening to this, you really need to focus on your values, on what that picture looks like for you, and don't get caught in the weeds.
• 14:24
  We all think that we can accomplish so much in the next 12 months, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in the next five years.
• 14:32
  Reverse engineer that.
• 14:33
  You know, to put that into context, Jake and I started in 2011.
• 14:38
  It took us 18 months to find that very first deal.
• 14:43
  But by year three, we had 300 units, and by year five, we had over 600 units.
• 14:50
  Those first several months, that first year may be maybe difficult, maybe challenging, but remember those.
• 14:56
  Those values were our North Star.
• 14:57
  We're like multifamily or nothing.
• 14:59
  And we stuck with multifamily.
• 15:01
  We didn't jump into other areas.
• 15:02
  We got better at our niche, we got better at our craft, and sooner or later, we found that first deal, and that first deal led to the second deal.
• 15:10
  And ultimately, we have not pivoted away from multifamily since we started because we know that's where we want to be, and that's the picture that we have in our minds.
• 15:18
  Did that answer your question?
• 15:20
  Absolutely.
• 15:21
  And to follow up on that, specifically because you brought up, okay, it took 18 months to find the first deal, but by five years in, you guys were really rolling, right?
• 15:31
  And we see so many.
• 15:32
  We hear the stats over 9 out of 10 businesses fail.
• 15:36
  We see so many people start out with high hopes.
• 15:39
  A lot of people give up or can't make it or whatever, Right.
• 15:44
  In terms of business.
• 15:46
  So talk about, too, just that part of the journey when you.
• 15:50
  I mean, clearly, right, your values were aligned going in, it sounds like, but still grinding month in month out.
• 15:58
  To go 18 months without.
• 16:01
  Without finding your first deal.
• 16:02
  Like, what's that mental conversation like?
• 16:04
  And what kept you going during those.
• 16:06
  Those.
• 16:07
  Those initial months?
• 16:09
  I had a bleak time in 2010, 2011, 2012, like.
• 16:14
  Like a lot of us did.
• 16:16
  I was getting audited by New York State for sales tax.
• 16:19
  Uh, our sales were down, income was down.
• 16:22
  I needed to make this happen.
• 16:23
  I needed to find a deal.
• 16:25
  And I was so hungry.
• 16:26
  I remember at that time, I went into confession with my priest.
• 16:31
  I sat down, Father Quinn, and I'm telling him, and I'm complaining to him, like, Father Quinn, am I having a rough time.
• 16:39
  Things aren't working out.
• 16:40
  I.
• 16:40
  I don't know what to do.
• 16:41
  And I.
• 16:41
  I started crying in confession.
• 16:43
  And he looked at me and he said to me, and this wasn't.
• 16:47
  This is not what I was expecting.
• 16:49
  He said, what are you complaining about?
• 16:51
  You got your health, you've got your family.
• 16:53
  I've got problems, too.
• 16:54
  I've got 5,000 families here.
• 16:56
  Everyone's always complaining.
• 16:57
  And I thought I was going to go in there and get a pat on the back and it's, everything will be okay.
• 17:01
  Instead, God sent a message through him and said, you know, Gino, it's all right.
• 17:06
  We all have issues.
• 17:07
  This is your cross to bear.
• 17:08
  And after I heard that, I felt terrible, terrible for about 10 minutes.
• 17:12
  And then I realized he did me a favor.
• 17:14
  I was feeling sorry for myself and I woke up and I said, life is hard.
• 17:21
  Life is challenging.
• 17:23
  But I wasn't born to wash dishes.
• 17:28
  I wasn't born to hide in the kitchen.
• 17:32
  And I don't think anyone listening to this is.
• 17:35
  And I think God reminded me that, you know what, it's going to be hard, but if you put the work and you put the effort into it, you will be okay.
• 17:43
  And I left there and I was like, okay.
• 17:45
  I felt a little bit lighter.
• 17:46
  And then I said to Jake, no matter how long it takes, brother, let's keep looking.
• 17:50
  I know you hate New York.
• 17:51
  You want to get out of New York, let's just keep looking.
• 17:53
  And that's what really prompted me.
• 17:55
  Was it easy?
• 17:56
  Those first few deals, they were really challenging.
• 17:59
  We didn't have the capital, we didn't have the time.
• 18:02
  But for me, it was all about that picture, about that picture of just getting that first deal, having the first taste of cash flow.
• 18:09
  That's all I was looking for.
• 18:10
  And then once I did the first deal, I'm like, it's not that hard.
• 18:15
  It's not that challenging.
• 18:16
  I'll find the money somehow.
• 18:18
  I just need to keep finding these deals.
• 18:21
  Okay, all right.
• 18:23
  So after 18 months, you find the first deal.
• 18:26
  It's not easy.
• 18:27
  You make it work.
• 18:28
  It really changes your perspective and you find another deal and another deal.
• 18:33
  So talk about the scaling up process, because again, you had some bleak outlook and some very hard times at the beginning.
• 18:38
  But, you know, 15 years later, you've got only over 2,000 multifamily units.
• 18:44
  It says here, over $450 million in assets under management.
• 18:48
  Talk about the process of scaling it into such a powerful portfolio.
• 18:54
  There.
• 18:55
  You know, after that first deal, Dave, we Quickly realized we don't have the balance sheet to do this by ourselves.
• 19:03
  We haven't raised capital yet.
• 19:04
  We need to find a partner.
• 19:06
  And I keep reading posts on LinkedIn and everywhere that, you know, luck plays into life.
• 19:12
  And I've done this so many times with students.
• 19:14
  I've been working hard.
• 19:15
  A deal fell in my lap.
• 19:17
  Nothing falls in your lap.
• 19:18
  If you aren't prepared for the opportunity or if you aren't seeking the opportunity, it will never show up.
• 19:24
  Once again, I'm in my restaurant, sitting down in the front.
• 19:28
  I'm exhausted.
• 19:30
  In walks a guy named Mike.
• 19:32
  This is a different Mike.
• 19:33
  My current partner.
• 19:34
  Mike, hedge fundraider.
• 19:36
  Got some nice Bruno Mai shoes on.
• 19:39
  Mike is looking good.
• 19:39
  He's looking slick.
• 19:40
  He's got a business suit on.
• 19:41
  Mike sits down next to me and starts talking to me.
• 19:44
  And we start talking about gold, oil, commodities.
• 19:48
  Because he was.
• 19:49
  He was a commodities trader.
• 19:50
  And I think he was very surprised at the level of sophistication that a pizza guy had.
• 19:56
  I think it was a little taken back.
• 19:57
  And then I started talking about real estate.
• 19:59
  I said, mike, we just did a deal down in Tennessee, paid 600 grand.
• 20:03
  We got 13 grand a month in rents coming in.
• 20:05
  And he looked at me and he's like, I just bought a $2 million home, and I'm getting 10 grand a month in rent.
• 20:11
  I'm like, mike, there's something wrong with that equation, huh, brother?
• 20:14
  And he said, yeah.
• 20:16
  He says, next time you get a deal, give me a buzz.
• 20:19
  Three months later, that's when we had our second deal.
• 20:22
  And Mike's been a partner ever since that opportunity.
• 20:25
  He's been on board with me and Jake.
• 20:28
  We leveraged Mike's balance sheet.
• 20:29
  Mike understood and saw the numbers, so I was prepared.
• 20:34
  But I was also prepared to have that hard conversation.
• 20:36
  And that's how you scale a real estate business, real estate portfolio.
• 20:39
  You need to have people who have strong balance sheets.
• 20:42
  Then we've been.
• 20:42
  We went through the first three or four deals where all of a sudden we were acquiring units.
• 20:48
  We partnered up together.
• 20:50
  We were able to refinance out a lot of that capital and get that capital for the next opportunity.
• 20:56
  We didn't spend the money, which is important.
• 20:59
  Remember, I'm still working at the restaurant, so the restaurant's paying for my lifestyle.
• 21:03
  I've got six kids up in New York.
• 21:05
  I've got a lot of bills, property taxes.
• 21:07
  I've got the real estate here.
• 21:09
  Everything I make in that real estate, I'm pumping it back into the real estate.
• 21:13
  Business.
• 21:13
  And I was very fortunate.
• 21:14
  That's why it took me five years to ultimately end up leaving the restaurant to go into the real estate.
• 21:19
  But those first early couple of years, it was just planting seeds.
• 21:23
  And I think in real estate, people focus a little too much on cash flow.
• 21:27
  Cash flow will get you out of your job, but equity will keep you out of your job.
• 21:33
  And I quickly realized that after about year four, those first few deals that we did, they started to matriculate.
• 21:39
  We didn't sell out of them.
• 21:41
  We refinanced them out.
• 21:42
  We exited with getting some capital that way.
• 21:45
  We crystallized the equity that way, and we utilized it to continue to buy assets.
• 21:49
  And then during that journey, we learned seller financing.
• 21:52
  We bought a couple of deals on seller financing, and then ultimately we learned the deal of syndication.
• 21:59
  We learned that tool.
• 22:01
  So the tools in our toolbox to scale the businesses were refinancing the assets, seller financing, master lease options, and syndications.
• 22:11
  And I had touched earlier on with you about people's behaviors and beliefs around money.
• 22:16
  The old Geno would have said, takes money to make money.
• 22:19
  Money doesn't grow on trees.
• 22:21
  How are we going to scale?
• 22:22
  Well, the newer version of me was like, wow, it does take money, but it's not my money, it's the bank's money.
• 22:29
  You know, refinances, banks making new debt.
• 22:32
  I'm being able to pull out new capital.
• 22:34
  Seller financing.
• 22:34
  There's no money involved in that.
• 22:36
  There's just value creation in that.
• 22:38
  Syndications, yeah, it does take money, but it's LPs money.
• 22:42
  It's not my money.
• 22:44
  Once I understood that, I'm like, wow, I am not buying these assets for lack of understanding.
• 22:49
  I'm buying them because I didn't have any value early on.
• 22:52
  I didn't know how to create that value.
• 22:54
  But once we understood the business and we're getting deals, the capital started flowing to us, whether it was our business partner, Mike, whether it was a seller financed opportunity because they couldn't sell it on the open market and
• 23:06
  people couldn't finance it.
• 23:07
  But they knew if that we took it over, we could operate this deal and we can get them paid.
• 23:11
  Or if it was the syndication route, where all of a sudden we've got investors who want to invest in our deals.
• 23:16
  We have opportunities and we can get money that way.
• 23:20
  Okay, love that.
• 23:21
  And love the emphasis on value.
• 23:23
  Right.
• 23:23
  Because no matter what industry, no matter what business you're in, if you're not providing value, yeah, you're not going to make it.
• 23:31
  And so, like you said, even though on this journey there's so much you didn't know, there's so much you didn't understand, understand early on.
• 23:39
  The fact that you were willing to take action, learn, be able to execute, and always be able to provide value ultimately led to you coming in contact with these people, attracting these other investment investors, learning what you needed
• 23:54
  to learn, and ultimately sticking true to your values, scaling up from there.
• 23:58
  Is that accurate?
• 23:59
  Yes, 100%.
• 24:01
  And one thing I would add is it just popped into my mind the book the Go Giver by Bob Berg.
• 24:06
  I think if people are more focused on providing value for others instead of what Zig Ziglar calls Wiiff wiffm, what's in it for me?
• 24:17
  That's his radio station.
• 24:19
  We're always focused on what's in it for me.
• 24:21
  I knew ultimately enough I could provide my business partner, Mike, another way to invest money into real estate.
• 24:27
  Because remember, Mike is working 60 hours a week, he's trading commodities.
• 24:30
  He doesn't have the bandwidth to be able to get into real estate and operate a real estate portfolio in the Southeast.
• 24:36
  He doesn't, but I do.
• 24:37
  So it was values for values, and it was, it was great seeing that.
• 24:41
  And the same thing with LP investors, doctors, lawyers, they don't have the time to get into real estate full time and do it.
• 24:48
  But if I have the opportunity to be able to offer it to them and create a win win situation, that's what it is.
• 24:54
  And if more people adopted that go giver mentality to be able to help others and don't expect anything in return, before you know it, people are going to come knocking on your door asking you for that opportunity because
• 25:04
  they're going to see the changes that you've made in other people's lives.
• 25:08
  Love that, Love that.
• 25:09
  One other thing too, I want to touch on because there's a lot of younger people that, you know, tune into to these shows.
• 25:16
  You mentioned the conversation around college and you mentioned what the cost is.
• 25:23
  And that's a whole other conversation relative to the benefit in today's world of that.
• 25:28
  But I notice particularly with the, you know, because I've got teenagers and all this, the system, right?
• 25:35
  There's still this just conditioning, like it's automatic to go to college.
• 25:41
  So someone that's went reluctantly, didn't want to go, and then has had this incredible entrepreneurial journey filled with a lot of ups and downs, but clearly a very, a very happy ending.
• 25:54
  Like what's your, you know, for younger people today who are maybe feeling that same way.
• 26:00
  It's like I don't want to go to college necessarily, but there's all this pressure and what if I don't go?
• 26:04
  Will I make it?
• 26:05
  What would your message be?
• 26:07
  That's such a great question.
• 26:09
  You know, the irony is that I am enrolled in college right now.
• 26:13
  I'm enrolled at K State.
• 26:14
  I'm taking a financial therapy certification.
• 26:17
  I want to get certified, I want to learn about financial therapy and there's not many places that provide it.
• 26:23
  Could I go online and do some AI videos?
• 26:25
  I probably could, but I like the structure of it.
• 26:28
  It's eight weeks, each course that I'm taking with different professors.
• 26:32
  I'm meeting people online as well.
• 26:33
  I'm doing a lot of readings I didn't do.
• 26:36
  You need to look at college as a return on investment.
• 26:40
  I mean, I would stay away from student debt as much as possible.
• 26:44
  It's pernicious, it's evil.
• 26:46
  You think you have a number amount, all of a sudden, four years later, the number doubles and then you're paying a certain amount every month and it seems as if it never goes away.
• 26:54
  It doesn't even go away with bankruptcy.
• 26:56
  Just be very careful with student debt.
• 26:59
  If you have to go to, you know, community college for a couple of years, sacrifice it and then maybe the last two years go to another college.
• 27:05
  I would pursue that route.
• 27:07
  But you go to college for me, getting that return on investment.
• 27:12
  If I can get a better job by going to college, I would do that.
• 27:16
  College isn't for everybody.
• 27:18
  I mean, my two oldest kids, I sort of forced them to go to college and I'm sort of reluctant that I did.
• 27:24
  They both did it, they both enjoy it.
• 27:25
  My third child, she became a massage therapist.
• 27:29
  Six months of school, $8,000.
• 27:32
  She loves what she does.
• 27:34
  She makes 100 bucks an hour.
• 27:36
  Who's better than her, right?
• 27:38
  She wants to be a mom, a stay at home mom someday.
• 27:40
  So that really works with her schedule.
• 27:42
  My fourth child abhors college and abhors school.
• 27:47
  She is uniquely gifted, she's such a smart person, but she doesn't like school.
• 27:51
  I'm not going to force her to go to college.
• 27:53
  I'm going to let her create her own path.
• 27:55
  And I want her to pick on her sole purpose what she really enjoys and loves to do in life.
• 28:00
  I think as parents, that's what we need to do.
• 28:02
  We need to focus on what each child wants to do.
• 28:04
  If you know, your child wants to be an engineer and they're going to go out and they're going to Become an engineer.
• 28:09
  College is probably the right way to do it.
• 28:10
  But if you're going to send your kid to do some type of social sciences and when they get out of college, they may have a job, they may not, they're going to have to work at Starbucks, that's probably
• 28:19
  not a good use of time to go to college.
• 28:21
  Let them get a job, let them get into the real world, let them figure it out, and then all of a sudden something will pop.
• 28:27
  I'll give you a quick story about my daughter who's 20 years old, the one who's doing massage therapy.
• 28:32
  Now.
• 28:32
  All three of the children have their own little businesses going on.
• 28:35
  She's got her massage business and she teaches pilates.
• 28:38
  She's making 40 bucks an hour teaching Pilates, something she loves.
• 28:41
  And she's doing massage.
• 28:42
  And I'm helping her build the business.
• 28:45
  Has the llc, has the savings account, has the business savings, business checking.
• 28:50
  And she looked at me the other day and she said, dad, how do people do it when they open a business?
• 28:54
  Like, I don't know any of this stuff.
• 28:56
  You're here to teach me.
• 28:59
  That's what I think is really important.
• 29:01
  You need to be there as a parent, not telling them what to do, but helping them and guiding them.
• 29:06
  And if you think that you're going to go to business college and want to become a business major, great.
• 29:11
  You can learn a lot of stuff in school, being in business, but be really hyper focused, hyper focused on that return, on the investment.
• 29:18
  And hyper focus not to saddle yourself with a lot of debt, because with that debt may come regrets three or four or five years down the road when you have that onerous payment and you have lot less options
• 29:30
  because you have to make that payment every month.
• 29:33
  Okay, one last question for you, Gino.
• 29:36
  So after everything you've talked about, the ups and downs, the highs, lows, and where you are today, what would you say has been the best part of your entrepreneurial journey?
• 29:46
  That's a great question.
• 29:49
  If you gave me a second to think about that.
• 29:54
  There's two parts to it.
• 29:55
  I think the first part is just realizing that I was able to do something really good because I was a pizza guy and, you know, I was stuck at the restaurant for those years and I just didn't like
• 30:06
  being there.
• 30:06
  I just hated it.
• 30:08
  And I think I would would have lived a life of regret if I hadn't taken that opportunity to step out.
• 30:14
  And I think the second part is being able to do it with my family.
• 30:17
  I mean, creating the Jake and Gino platform.
• 30:19
  My.
• 30:19
  My family worked with me even when I.
• 30:21
  When I was at the restaurant, my family was part of the business.
• 30:24
  And now we've created a company called Barber360, where the kids are all involved in this business as well.
• 30:30
  Family life and business life are so similar.
• 30:33
  When you're building your family, you have the similar skills as building a business, whether it's your vision, whether it's your mission statement, whether it's your family governance, whether it's your core values, whether it's your rhythms, your cadence of
• 30:46
  accountability.
• 30:47
  Everything you have in your business, you should be implementing it in your family.
• 30:51
  And that's one of the things that I love about being an entrepreneur and being in the business world and teaching my children about being a financial steward and about taking action and about being responsible.
• 31:00
  Don't ever blame anybody else for your responsibility or for where you are in life.
• 31:04
  I wanted to teach that to my kids, and I'm so happy that I was able to model that and to mirror that for them as they.
• 31:11
  As they've gotten older.
• 31:12
  Okay.
• 31:13
  Love that.
• 31:14
  All right.
• 31:14
  And Gino, people, if they're listening to this, they want to learn more about what you do, about your platform, about all the services you offer.
• 31:21
  What's the best way people can reach out to you online?
• 31:24
  Go to barbaro360.com you can check us out.
• 31:27
  We have our podcast on there.
• 31:29
  We've got a place to schedule a call.
• 31:31
  I wrote a book called Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy.
• 31:34
  If you'd like to download a PDF copy, you can find that on the website as well.
• 31:38
  Okay.
• 31:39
  And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 31:41
  Gino, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 31:47
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 31:48
  Thanks, Dave.