382 | Gino Barbaro's Multi-Family Mastery: No Secrets, Just Strategy

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• Episode Transcript

  [00:00:00] On today's episode of Gathering the Kings.

  [00:00:03] Gino Barbaro: All Jake and I really wanted to do is 100 units. 200 profit per door, that's 20 grand a month. That's more than what we needed , to survive and to live and to thrive in life. 

  [00:00:13] Gino Barbaro: When you have more options and opportunities in life, life gets a lot more interesting. 

  [00:00:17] 

  [00:00:18] Gino Barbaro: What's up everybody. I'm 

  [00:00:19] Chaz Wolfe: Chaz Wolf gathering the Kings podcast, coming to you with a special guest, a King, a King in the real estate space. Mom, man, Gino 

  [00:00:28] Gino Barbaro: Barbaro. How are we doing brother Chaz? I'm actually going to send this to my wife as soon as I get off. Cause I'm going to tell her I was called a King today.

  [00:00:35] Gino Barbaro: You know what I'm saying? She's the queen, but I mean, I'm the king right now. So great. Thank you. How are you doing brother? I'm doing well. 

  [00:00:40] Chaz Wolfe: we're fresh here Monday morning. And so, I'm excited to be first thing here with you. It's really, I mean, I'm excited about all of our guests, but you've got a huge platform.

  [00:00:49] Chaz Wolfe: You've got, of course, a podcast of your own. Most people in the real estate space, no Jake and Gino. And so to have you here as a true honor, and I want to let people that don't know you get to know you here today and maybe the story behind the story. So tell us, you know, get a little 

  [00:01:02] Gino Barbaro: bit about what you guys do.

  [00:01:04] Gino Barbaro: Jake and I started investing together in 2011. He was the drug rep and I was the pizza guy. I own the restaurant, one restaurant in New York. I opened in 1994 and he was a pharmaceutical sales rep. When things were good, the getting was good, as they say. And in 2009, we met and I guess the getting wasn't that good for either one of us because we're like, brosephs, we need to do something because we are struggling.

  [00:01:25] Gino Barbaro: You hate what you're doing. I just, the great recession just wiped everyone out. Everyone thinks real estate got wiped out. I, the restaurant was working harder and making less. At the time I had Four kids. And I'm like, I need to do something. And we got together in 2009, in 2011, we, Jake moves down to Knoxville, Tennessee from New York.

  [00:01:43] Gino Barbaro: And I'm like, Jake, where's Knoxville number one. Cause no one knows. And no one knew where Knoxville was back then. I'm sorry. It's the truth. And now everyone knows what Knoxville is. And we just started looking for deals. And in 18 months. Long time. It took us to find that very first deal. Cause we had no process.

  [00:01:56] Gino Barbaro: We had no framework, but we did find that first deal after 18 months. And, you know, three months after that, we got our second deal. And I guess the rest is history. You own today, 1700 units. We syndicated deals, but the vast majority of our portfolio is not syndicated. We just continue to refinance deals, put money back into the business, refinance out.

  [00:02:14] Gino Barbaro: I left the restaurant in 2016 and I went into real estate full time. And that's about the time that I started the Jake and Gino education community. Yeah. I 

  [00:02:21] Chaz Wolfe: love it. So first off the history there of just your own success in real estate. I love 1700 units. That's incredible. Well done. But then at the very end there, you kind of just lightly slid that in that now you teach not just a few people, but hundreds, if not thousands of other students.

  [00:02:36] Chaz Wolfe: I think I saw one of your videos, your students represent like 20, 000 plus units across the country. Is that, is that right? Is that more now? 

  [00:02:43] Gino Barbaro: Actually, it's 71, 364. We did. We have a weekly huddle on Monday morning. So before I got on with you, mom, with the executive team, we're looking at our numbers. It's silver, almost 400 million in capital raised from the students because Chaz, I think with multifamily, it's a little different than single family.

  [00:02:58] Gino Barbaro: Once you get going. You either just finish or you just figure it out with the framework and you just start snowballing and snowballing. And that's what a lot of our students have done and they've realized one thing you've talked about being in business that real estate and specifically multifamily, I think, is really an entrepreneurial venture.

  [00:03:14] Gino Barbaro: We create multifamily entrepreneurs. At Jake and Gino. And if you're flipping homes, you're fixing homes, you're doing rentals. It really is a business. It is real estate, but it really, you have to look at it as systems and processes. It's buy right finance, right? But it's also managed, right? And if you can't manage these assets, they're like having kids, you're having kids, you have to raise your children.

  [00:03:35] Gino Barbaro: And if you don't. Bad things going to happen to those deals as we're seeing right now, as we're seeing the operators in the space right now, it's, it's a wonderful thing to go out there and raise capital. It's a lot of fun, but raising the capital, your fiduciary. And if you can't operate these deals, it's not easy.

  [00:03:48] Gino Barbaro: Find someone out there who can operate the deals, who can partner with you. And as you saw Joe Sullivan, he's, he's in your community as well. Great student of ours is a Jake and Gino coach. He's an operator in Kansas city is doing a phenomenal job. He's buying these assets. He's financing them, but he's also managing these assets.

  [00:04:05] Gino Barbaro: Yeah. 

  [00:04:05] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. There's, there's a huge business component to it. I think a lot of people think, you know, real estate and business are separate. I was telling you before we hit the record, but we've had. probably 100, 120 or so real estate investors, some very large, portfolios, some, some just getting rolling.

  [00:04:20] Chaz Wolfe: you know, obviously to be on the show, they've got to have a qualification, but, to get rolling in comparison to someone like you with 1700, but the reality remains the same that. Inside the asset. Okay. You call it a building that has 200 units and people are paying rent. the asset could also be a business, an HVAC company that is providing a service and it's really the same fundamentals as what I'm hearing you say.

  [00:04:42] Chaz Wolfe: And so I'm anxious to jump into some of those things. When did you know in the real estate journey that it was really business? Cause obviously you came from business. 

  [00:04:49] Gino Barbaro: That's a great question. I'm a slow learner, just like you, Chaz. I got, I struggled, I struggled on this podcast. So for us, I think. At around 600 units, we're using this crappy property manager software.

  [00:05:01] Gino Barbaro: We didn't have enough maintenance techs. We didn't have enough property managers. We were just, I'm a gets burned out. And I think at the 600 unit mark, we're like, we need a regional manager who we need someone to help and Jake out. We're trying to, yeah, exactly. So that's what I'm saying. We were a little, we're a little slow in the uptake, but that's, I think the seminal moment, because what had happened, we had done a.

  [00:05:23] Gino Barbaro: We had done a 25 unit, a 36 unit, then 136, then back down to 22. Then we hit 281, 281 units in one shot seller finance. So we grown to 600 units within probably three years. So it was for us, it was really large and really huge. And for me having one restaurant in, you know, 20 years, that was just a shock to my system.

  [00:05:45] Gino Barbaro: And I think at that point, we're like, we need scaling up. We need to do that. We need to get it on traction. So we had gotten some scaling up coaching and that just changed everything as far as working on our mission statement, working on our core values, working out what we call a cadence of accountability that changed everything.

  [00:06:00] Gino Barbaro: And for us, the paradigm of, Oh, wow, we're not just buying these assets and trying to get cashflow. There's so much more to the real estate business as far as just looking at cashflow. And I think. That's one thing I want to impress upon all this, you know, all of our new students coming on, treat it as a business.

  [00:06:15] Gino Barbaro: As soon as you get in that very first deal, you do will be life changing because then all of a sudden you're creating metrics. You're creating KPIs for this one deal, and then you're able to scale up to 3456 10 deals, and you don't have to do thousands of units to have significance in the real estate space.

  [00:06:30] Gino Barbaro: And I think if you can start putting some KPIs in early on and using property management software and trying to think of it as that business, I think everything will change once you're looking 

  [00:06:40] Chaz Wolfe: at real estate.

  [00:06:41] Chaz Wolfe: You know, you're, you're really describing the entrepreneurial journey, right? Like. You as the pizza shop owner, you were there making pizza, maybe not at the 20th year, but probably for a long time base is probably a very similar road. And that's how, as a lot of entrepreneurs are listening right now, whether they're in a, in a business or in real estate, if they're in a business and they have real estate on the side, then it probably is just that just on the side and they're not really running it like a business.

  [00:07:06] Chaz Wolfe: And, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to mentally check. Am I running a business? And so when you, when you take a look at a business, you kind of already mentioned systems and process. We kind of hinted at that. A team comes along with that, but in your mind, when you're telling one of your students to, okay, from the beginning, run it like a business, what's the formula to that, what are the things that pop up in your mind?

  [00:07:27] Gino Barbaro: So Chaz, for me, I at the restaurant had no core values and I had no mission statement. So every time there was a problem with an employee, every time something didn't get pulled through, it was their fault. It was never my fault. I was hiding in the kitchen, washing dishes, doing menial 12 an hour work when I should have been getting somebody else to, I was, I was thinking about how much money I was making every week instead of thinking for the longterm.

  [00:07:50] Gino Barbaro: The seminal moment for me came when I was in the shed at my restaurant and I'm putting away. The containers to go and I'm putting away bags of flour. It's 12 an hour work. And I've got my cell phone jammed to my ear like this. For those of you watching this thing live, and I'm negotiating that 281 unit deal, that 11 million deal.

  [00:08:08] Gino Barbaro: And I'm saying to myself, I'm doing 12 an hour work. And I'm negotiating this massive, what the hell am I doing? There's going to come a point in your journey where you're like, this is not a part time gig anymore. And that was it right then and there. But if I look back, At the mistakes that I made with the restaurant.

  [00:08:24] Gino Barbaro: The first thing was I started that restaurant business to provide for my family. And I think if I had looked at it differently and I was, you know, started that business to provide for the customers who came in and those customers would provide for my family. That I think was the, all of a sudden the shift.

  [00:08:39] Gino Barbaro: So it's the same thing with the education company here. I didn't start this education company to provide for my family because the real estate is providing for my family. The education company was started to provide for the students and to provide for the employees here. So ultimately when they're here for two years, they can start investing with Jake and Gino.

  [00:08:54] Gino Barbaro: And once I had that shift, it was like, okay, I'm providing value for them. The more value I provide for them, the more money I'm going to make on this side. That was a shift for me. And the other one is I keep coming back to the core values, values. We didn't have those early on in the restaurant, never had them.

  [00:09:09] Gino Barbaro: And when I started Jake and Gino, I already had them because about year three, we sat down, we scaled up with the property management company. And with that system right there, we had people first make it happen. Extreme ownership. Unwavering ethics and growth mindset. Those are the five core values. It took us months to flesh them out and our mission statement to create communities and empower people to be the best versions of themselves.

  [00:09:32] Gino Barbaro: Whether that's our education company, that's our property management company. That's our syndication company where we're taking care and working with investors. We have to really think about how to provide value for them and how to continue to scale. And there's so many different systems you can implement the scale, but having quarterly priorities.

  [00:09:48] Gino Barbaro: We never had quarterly priorities. We just. When I, Hey, what do we need to do this week or this month, really dialing those in is really important. And I think having touch points as you grow, you need to get on calls with team members weekly, daily, whatever that looks like when Jake and Gina, the two Yahoos are working by themselves.

  [00:10:04] Gino Barbaro: I can pick up the call and say, Hey, Jake, how's the deal going? Yeah. 30 or 40 units. But with the end in mind, we really need to have those dedicated touch points every day with the team member every week. And I think those are some of the things that we learned as we started scaling up. Communication is paramount working with, you know, the team members and making sure that they're being heard is really, really important.

  [00:10:23] Gino Barbaro: Those are some of the things that we learned as we started to scale. 

  [00:10:27] Chaz Wolfe: Tell me, you said something that kind of, drew up some past experience, maybe, maybe a wound, but the, the, the moment in time of you setting an appointment, right. Or setting a meeting, whether it's every day or once a week, whatever those, whatever that cadence is, you're bringing.

  [00:10:42] Chaz Wolfe: Order to the business, to your team, to you, to your life. And so, the experience previous similar scenario for you is that I had to set a cadence for one of my companies and because I didn't have a specified meeting. And so once I did that though, it eliminated all these phone calls and texts throughout the week, because guess what we were going to meet.

  [00:11:03] Chaz Wolfe: On this day at this time. And so ideally all those things were kept and saved. And then we, we did them on that one specific day at that one specific time. Of course, there's always things that come outside of that. The person listening right now, that's, you know, within a couple of years of starting their business, they're maybe sub million dollars in revenue, or maybe sub a hundred units.

  [00:11:20] Chaz Wolfe: They're still very much like, you know, all over the place, but I'm hearing you say very similar to my experience is that if you just bring a little bit of order, it actually. Allows for impact. 

  [00:11:30] Gino Barbaro: Talk about this a little bit. So it's comes down to discipline and I think the discipline is very difficult because if it's only you and another person Have a weekly what we call weekly level 10 meetings.

  [00:11:40] Gino Barbaro: So we have them with every one of our property managers I have them with all of my employees here. So we have a daily sales huddle So before I got on with you this morning, I had a sales huddle call for 15 minutes with two sales guys. we have a weekly huddle with our executive team every Monday at 8 AM.

  [00:11:54] Gino Barbaro: We go through KPIs, we go through wins, we go through losses. We try to, you know, give shout outs as well. It's about 30 minutes and we have a daily huddle in the morning with the Jake and Gino team at 8 45. Before the day starts is for 15 minutes and a weekly call that you talk about is so crucial because I don't want to get texts every day saying, this is what I have.

  [00:12:12] Gino Barbaro: This is what I have. We have what we call a little parking lot on that weekly level 10 doc. And on the bottom, the parking lot, I've got this idea, throw it on there. I have to schedule this podcast, throw it on there. I have this meeting that I need to get to. And when the weekly level 10 meeting comes at nine o'clock, whenever it's scheduled every week.

  [00:12:28] Gino Barbaro: And it's. It's one of those meetings. That's really great because it's 30 minutes and it's pointed. There's structured to it. We don't get on and say, how you feeling? We really get on and talk about what happened to the week. And on that, that level 10 meeting, we have our quarterly priorities. So if that team member has a quarterly priority, well, what are you doing?

  [00:12:44] Gino Barbaro: What are the tasks involved with that quarterly priority? Cause I think a priority for us is anything that takes more than eight hours. Are you building websites? Are you building a funnel? Are you, creating content, whatever that looks like. And then from there, whoever owns that priority, let's task it down the tasks, the duties that you need to do.

  [00:13:01] Gino Barbaro: And every week you're getting on with that, with that team member and going through that. And then if you have any other epiphanies, because right now we're doing a virtual model and a virtual model is going to take more than eight hours. So I need to get out with the team member, break it down, look What's the calls look like?

  [00:13:15] Gino Barbaro: What does the content look like? How are we going to market this thing? How are we going to schedule it? If I just say, let's do it, there's no structure to it. It may get done, but it's so haphazard and it may or may not happen. But when you're getting on weekly calls and like you said, I don't want to get texts every day about what's going on, what's on fire, if it's really on fire, that's important, but if it's something that you don't want to forget, go to the level 10 doc, put it in the parking lot.

  [00:13:38] Gino Barbaro: And then the following week we can have that discussion. Yeah. Those are 

  [00:13:41] Chaz Wolfe: great insights. You know, the, the on fire comment, I remember, this was probably 10 or so years ago. I was a heading, to one of my first elk hunts out west. And I had a couple of restaurants at that time. And, you know, anytime you go out of town, that's when things break or fall apart, until, until the fire no longer becomes the fire.

  [00:13:59] Chaz Wolfe: Right. And that's, that's what you're, what you're saying. And so I, I even had the epiphany. I remember thinking like only call me if, if it's burning. And then I was like, wait a second. Thank you. No, don't call me. Call 9 1 1. Like, I can't even do anything that don't like, literally, there's no reason for 

  [00:14:13] Gino Barbaro: you to call me.

  [00:14:16] Gino Barbaro: Yeah, because you're gonna go there and you're gonna see it on fire. You're gonna start crying anyway. Like, what can I do? I can't do anything anyway. You're right. Yeah. Let me, 

  [00:14:22] Chaz Wolfe: let me, let me hunt the elk, you know, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. There's, there's obviously, I don't want to, I don't want to, pay a reckless, attention to your business, with that, but there's freedom in that when you realize what Gina's telling you is.

  [00:14:35] Chaz Wolfe: Hey, look, order brings happiness is that, I mean, that's, 

  [00:14:40] Chaz Wolfe: that's the, 

  [00:14:40] Chaz Wolfe: that's the, that's the equation here. Order equals happiness. And you're frustrated in your business because there's probably not enough order. So for the person that's listening right now, do you know, and they're new or, and they're like, oh my gosh, dude, just like hit my brain.

  [00:14:54] Chaz Wolfe: And I got all this stuff and I got to get all these meetings. I gotta get an order. What's like, just like step one for them to take. I 

  [00:15:00] Gino Barbaro: think step one for me would be to. See any tasks or any duties that you're doing that you can farm out. I mean, early on with Jake and Gino, Jake was editing the podcasts.

  [00:15:11] Gino Barbaro: He sucks at, he can't even turn a computer on and he was editing the podcast. Now, six or seven years ago, that was probably 10 or 15 an hour work. But why was he doing it? We just didn't know. We didn't know when you think in your mind that, man, I really need to hire somebody to do this, you're way past that you've should have already hired that person.

  [00:15:30] Gino Barbaro: So take a real deep dive and don't let me hear you that. Say that I can do anything better than everybody else. Maybe you can, but you can't do everything. Don't be washing dishes and working in the shed and throwing out the garbage like I did. There are other people who are qualified to do that.

  [00:15:46] Gino Barbaro: Bookkeeping is not rocket science. If you don't like the bookkeep, why are you bookkeeping? Now you may need to learn it. Yeah, I don't think you have to do it. If you're in real estate, I don't think you need to sit in the office as a property manager and rent your units. Go hire somebody for 40 or 50 grand a year to do that.

  [00:16:03] Gino Barbaro: I don't think you need to go out and change toilets and clean up fixed toilets. Get a maintenance tech. That's why you want to scale and multifamily and get those units or hire a property management company to do that for you because the value in real estate is you want to build your portfolio and get as much equity in these deals as possible.

  [00:16:22] Gino Barbaro: Let those minimal tasks go out. So the answer to your question is take a deep dive into your business and see where there's holes. See what, see what you're not really good at, obviously. Get that farmed out and start getting that off your plate. And I think what you need to do as an entrepreneur is to start focusing on anything that generates revenue.

  [00:16:38] Gino Barbaro: That is, if you're on here and you want to scale the education company, get on podcasts, start doing more virtual events, start getting on more stages. I think that's what I need to do. And I need a lot of my team members to do the ops and to do the back end. Imagine me sitting there. Editing a podcast right now, it would take me three hours.

  [00:16:57] Gino Barbaro: I can't even turn the damn thing off. I could you imagine? So that's something where you're sitting there, be honest with yourself and say, why am I doing this job? I mean, where can I find there's so many VAs out there. There's so many companies out there that weren't there 10 years ago. So go out and find your weaknesses, hire them and focus on generating revenue for the company.

  [00:17:15] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, the generating revenue piece is obviously a great decision is there, you kind of mentioned a couple of things there for you for like an education company, getting on podcasts, getting on stages for a real estate investor. What is that 

  [00:17:28] Gino Barbaro: for real estate investor? My personal opinion? There's two things you're doing.

  [00:17:32] Gino Barbaro: You're sourcing deals. And you're sourcing capital. Those are the two things you're constantly doing as I think a multifamily, but even single family, even self storage, you need to look for deals. And what does that mean in Stephen Covey's quadrant? It's not urgent, but it's really important. And how do you measure it as an entrepreneur?

  [00:17:50] Gino Barbaro: Well, when you're going out to these events and you're talking to brokers and you're talking to property management companies, it's not really an urgent task and there's no money being generated today. But you're creating relationships in three months down the road. They may come to fruition. So you need to focus on the deal flow and deal flow comes from meeting brokers, meeting other members in the community, going to these live events.

  [00:18:09] Gino Barbaro: We have an event October 14th and 15th this year. It's probably going to air already after, but go out and go to a couple of live events. Every year, go to meet up, start networking. And as far as deal flow, that's how you take care of it. But raising capital, you need to be raising capital and sourcing capital.

  [00:18:26] Gino Barbaro: Just in case you find a deal that you can't take down by yourself, you have the ability to bring in investors. And that's something early on that we didn't focus on because we just kept refinancing these deals. But you want to have the luxury of saying, Hey, this is a 22 million deal. Where am I going to get 4 million bucks?

  [00:18:41] Gino Barbaro: Oh, well, I've got 72 investors on my database. Let me go to them. When you have more options and opportunities in life, life gets a lot more interesting. Most people won't even look at that opportunity because they don't have the investors. If you have the luxury of looking at that deal, because you have the investors, that's really important.

  [00:18:58] Gino Barbaro: Deal flow and capital. Yeah. 

  [00:19:00] Chaz Wolfe: And we can break that down for any business. It's it's marketing leads sales, right? It's, it's, it's getting into the river, you know, and I'm going back to your, description of doing dishes, putting the flour away in the shed. It's like, luckily for you, you were multitasking with the phone on the ear, but.

  [00:19:17] Chaz Wolfe: For the most part before that, for you and for, you know, listeners here today, because they're putting away the flower, they're not in the river over here catching opportunity, which is what you're talking about. And so you got to like, get rid of those tasks, not because you're better than, but because the more levered activity is over here in the process, the process of prospecting, 

  [00:19:39] Gino Barbaro: right?

  [00:19:40] Gino Barbaro: Yes. And I'll give you an example at the restaurant. I should have been more out front in the restaurant. I was building a brand. I was actually in the, at one point, I'm just a cycle worker. I've got six kids. We homeschool the kids. the restaurant's a 50 hour plus work weekends. At that time, I was creating Kajabi courses.

  [00:19:57] Gino Barbaro: I was creating YouTube courses. I was writing a cookbook. I was doing, physical orders, physical products. I was creating a brand with the restaurant. But how are they doing that at the same time while I'm doing the real estate and I'm working in the kitchen at the same time, I could have probably expanded the restaurant brand if I'd pull myself out and said, let me get somebody else.

  [00:20:15] Gino Barbaro: Thankfully, I want to say I didn't. So I made that mistake. So it led me to the real estate and led me to Jake and Gino. It opened another door. But I think you're just going to have to get over the idea of not having to grind. This whole word grinding nowadays is takes on a bad connotation. And for me, it's a good connotation because you're willing to work hard and those who work hard will, I think, ultimately have the luxury of not having to work hard, working smart later on down the road.

  [00:20:40] Gino Barbaro: You need to start out any venture you do working hard. You have to learn the business. No one's going to teach you. I mean, even how to wash dishes or how to shoot a video or how to do your bookkeeping, right. Or how to talk to an investor. Those are all things you learn. And then once you learn them, you create a system to take yourself out of it and to teach somebody else, but there's going to be hard work on the front end.

  [00:21:00] Gino Barbaro: I don't want people to be afraid of it. That's the challenge, learning it, getting good at it, then trying to, you know, I w we say dictate and just delegate that to somebody else. 

  [00:21:09] 

  [00:21:59] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, it's interesting coming from a large real estate investor like yourself, someone who has more passive income than like you said, like at this point now it's, it's, it's more than what you quote unquote need.

  [00:22:10] Chaz Wolfe: It's okay. So for somebody who's built a system, an asset, or even a portfolio of assets that pay you no matter what. For someone like that to emphasize the hard work necessary is a little bit countercultural. Like right now, like you're saying, we have a camp that's like all in grind and hustle and get up earlier than everybody.

  [00:22:31] Chaz Wolfe: Stay up later than everybody, you know, don't see your family, just, just go all in. And then there's this other thing over here where it's like, no, I want passive income. I want to work four hours a week. I want to just, I want to, I want to be completely present with everybody else, but I don't really want to work too hard in my business.

  [00:22:44] Chaz Wolfe: And I kind of want just the passive income. But I'm, I'm hearing you say that it's actually a 

  [00:22:48] Gino Barbaro: mixture of both. And loose flesh anybody, there's no such thing as passive income. Someone has to be creating the passive income. Now, if you've got enough equity and millions and millions of dollars of equity, where you can find an operator and become a limited partner and invest in them, that's what I would consider passive.

  [00:23:04] Gino Barbaro: But I think it takes years unless you're born into it, unless you're, you know, the Hilton chick who's got 72 million bucks or whatever, that's a little different. But if you're Chaz or Gino starting out, you need to create equity. And once you create equity, equity can be invested into these deals, right?

  [00:23:19] Gino Barbaro: That that's the bottom line. And I think people don't understand that. And then once you do become financially free, there's another news flash. You're like, holy crap. I actually really like what I'm doing here. Most of us who dream of passive income don't want to work. So you're not going to get to there.

  [00:23:33] Gino Barbaro: But those of us who really want to create impact and want to have an awesome life. Get to the point where like, okay, I'm making enough pay my bills, but I actually really like what I'm doing. I'm getting better at it and the whole Jake and Gino community. We started it because we wanted to monetize it.

  [00:23:47] Gino Barbaro: But what I've realized is, Holy crap. We've gotten really good at investing because of being on these podcasts, because of going to these events, because of talking every week to somebody who's different, who's an expert. And then that. Goes along and then you get better and you get better. And then all of a sudden, as you grow, you can start saying to yourself, well, I don't really want to do the day to day, or you can pull yourself out and you can start, you know, going, I guess, writing a book or doing something that you truly enjoy to do, but I think the grinding aspect of it, it's negative.

  [00:24:15] Gino Barbaro: We still grind. I mean, last week I was working 14 hours on a Thursday. I went out with a student at eight o'clock at night. Is it grinding? Yes, but it was a lot of fun. It was enjoyable. So that connotation of grinding can be negative, but to me, grinding is just having a great day, creating impact. And moving the business forward.

  [00:24:32] Gino Barbaro: That's what grinding is to me. And then I can choose at one point to say, Hey, goodbye. I'll sell all my assets, but I don't want to retire. Who wants to retire at this point in, in where we are. Think about it. Retirement was something created by Bismarck back in the 18 hundreds to get rid of old people and to supplement and say, get rid of the old people.

  [00:24:51] Gino Barbaro: Anyone over 60 years old retire because we need jobs for the young. So it's something that's just relatively new. And you can see people who are older, ones who are really still active, really creating impact and having fun. Those are the ones who are going to stay healthy in life. So I have no, I have no way, no ideas.

  [00:25:08] Gino Barbaro: I would retire. My word retirement is a lot different than most other people. 

  [00:25:11] Chaz Wolfe: So, yeah, I think that, I think you're, you're spot on with that. I love how you actually, you tied it to financial freedom because before that the grind feels like survival and that's where I think like the word grind fits a little bit better into like, It's doing something that I don't really want to do and it's hard and I got to keep doing it.

  [00:25:29] Chaz Wolfe: It's the grind. But once you reach that financial, you know, independence where you're like, no, I don't have to do this, but I get to 

  [00:25:35] Chaz Wolfe: do this. Of 

  [00:25:36] Chaz Wolfe: course you can train your, your attitude and your mind to do think that way beforehand. But once you can get there and the nut is covered and everything else is just like, I get to like, go be who I'm designed to be, right?

  [00:25:49] Chaz Wolfe: Now, now you're like, I'm, I'm out of purpose, right? You went with your student 14 hours the other day because that was, that's what you're made for. 

  [00:25:57] Gino Barbaro: And the great thing about that was this student just joined a year ago and learning from him and the business model that he has, where he buys hotels and wedding venues and listening to his business model, it was truly amazing.

  [00:26:10] Gino Barbaro: And I think the problem is before you become financially free, we have that scarcity mindset. But I think as you become financially free and you start making money. Hopefully you'll shift into that abundance mindset. Whereas like, Holy crap. I really, what is my sole purpose? What am I here for? Right? It's success over significance.

  [00:26:25] Gino Barbaro: And I think that's what it comes down to. And I'll give you another quote. It's purpose over popularity. You figure out what your purpose is in life. Once we become financially free, cause you don't got to worry about paying a mortgage or the car payment or the kid's college. And you can focus on, well, what am I doing?

  [00:26:38] Gino Barbaro: What am, why am I working? Why am I continuing to scale my, my real estate? Do I need to buy more assets? If I don't, why am I buying more assets? That's something where you can actually choose to say, I want to continue to scale. And if I don't good autopilot. So I think it gives you just more optionality and more options and the ability to choose what you want to do for your life.

  [00:26:58] Chaz Wolfe: What do you, what would you say, you know, the person listening right now, who's thinking about all these options and, and they're like, okay, it just seems like a really far journey. and the grind, you know, maybe they're not financially free right now. And they're, they just can't, they can't even imagine.

  [00:27:16] Chaz Wolfe: Living for purpose. They're really in survival mode or as we call them warrior mode. What, what's your, what's your, you know, maybe encouragement to them or what, what would you say to that person? Who's just like, can't quite see past it. 

  [00:27:29] Gino Barbaro: I don't want to say I've been there because I'll never know anyone else's experience.

  [00:27:34] Gino Barbaro: You know, having four kids in 2008, when my dad had just passed away a year before, and I had been going to work with him since I was seven years old. I mean, I'm at the restaurant. I'm saying to myself. What am I doing here? Am I living his dream or am I living my dream? And I was really stuck up against the wall and I felt like I was in survival mode.

  [00:27:51] Gino Barbaro: Then I read T Harbecker's book, The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and everything changed for me from that book. It was all about responsibility. I had been blaming everybody up to that point of why am I not making more money? You know, why is the president doing what he's doing? Why is the economy doing what it's doing?

  [00:28:05] Gino Barbaro: And for me, it was about responsibility. I would challenge anybody to listen to this, to work on personal development. I became a life coach because I wanted to work on personal development. I wanted to work on all of these different skills you need to become a life coach. And it really helped me out and it gave me clarity and it gave me the ability to sit and to really think and to work on my emotions and to work on what I wanted to accomplish longterm and just take the money aspect of it away and.

  [00:28:30] Gino Barbaro: For me, it was that calming period as I met Jake and I got clarity and I chose one vehicle. I said, I'm all in a multifamily. There's no shiny object. I'm not going for crypto. I'm not going to the mobile home park space. I'm not even doing RVs. RVs were the rage for the last three years. There weren't that many deals in multifamily.

  [00:28:47] Gino Barbaro: We only, we've only done a couple hundred units in the last two years. RVs were big, but. We're not built for RVs. So we stayed in our lane. So what I would say is work on that personal development, start listening to Zig Ziglar, Jim Rome, Tony Robbins, T Harv. I had to listen to all those guys who less, you know, from 08 to 2012, 13, even before that, not really.

  [00:29:08] Gino Barbaro: Really helped me out. Shut off the news. It doesn't really matter what's going on in Ukraine. I'm sorry to say it's, we can't affect it. There's nothing that I can personally do about Ukraine. I can't do anything about Trump. I can't do anything about Biden. I have to worry about my economy. And if I can fix my economy, then I show up at a better place.

  [00:29:25] Gino Barbaro: And then when I'm with the Jake and Gino community, I can affect that one person. Then I affect the entire world because that one person shows up differently to the world. And it's just an amazing thing to think of it that way, pull back. Think about yourself, think about what you want to accomplish and start working on your personal development.

  [00:29:42] Gino Barbaro: Yeah. You said something 

  [00:29:43] Chaz Wolfe: there as far as like, you can't control, obviously what's happening with the presidents or, you know, a war, whatever it is. And so there's one thought on that of like, that seems disengaged or, selfish. The other part, which I'm in, I'm in agreement with you on if I'm cutting out the noise or I'm focused on my singular purpose or me or my family or what I'm after, then you just have a greater lever of, of energy to, to put towards it.

  [00:30:10] Chaz Wolfe: And so I remember, when I started in business, well, from, from being in business 12, 13 years ago until now, there's been, you know, left to right to left to right swing in the presidency. And I'm like you, where I'm like, you know, I hear it. I see you. But what does it have to do with me? Like really, like really all the way down to 

  [00:30:30] Chaz Wolfe: my day.

  [00:30:31] Chaz Wolfe: And 

  [00:30:31] Chaz Wolfe: so when I look at the last 12 or 13 years, there's been people, their lives have been completely swung left, right. So just like blown with the wind and they're tired, they're worn out from all of the polarization and all the stuff. Right. And it's like, that's not me the last 12 or 13 years. I've been winning.

  [00:30:47] Chaz Wolfe: I've been controlling my economy. So for the person listening right now. It's hearing you say that, how do they do 

  [00:30:52] Gino Barbaro: that? How do they say, ah, how do I give up on all that? It's a very difficult thing. I mean, social media has done an amazing job of, of having confirmation of having confirmation bias. So the problem is if you're watching Fox news, you're all you're going to see is Fox news.

  [00:31:06] Gino Barbaro: If you're watching CNN, all you're going to see is CNN. And if you understand I'm a little bit older than you. I've seen these pattern for the last 20 years. All they're trying to do is just trying to split people apart and try to factions of one and the other. And where the reality 80 percent of the country is probably more aligned.

  [00:31:22] Gino Barbaro: And once you see that, you're saying, okay, and it's just been frustrating for me to see this the last 10 years and I can't do anything. And all I know is I've got 24 hours in a day. I have six children. I have multiple businesses. I really can't worry about what's going on in Ukraine. That war is going to be going on two years in February.

  [00:31:39] Gino Barbaro: There's nothing that I can really do about it. How many billions of dollars we've wasted there? Am I going to get upset over it? I can, but then my whole, my whole day is ruined. I need to focus on what my economy looks like and the people that I can affect. And if I can go out there and have students close deals, I've had over 120 students leave their W2 jobs.

  [00:31:55] Gino Barbaro: Isn't my energy. Better supplied in that Avenue than worrying about what, you know, the election coming up in two years. That's how I think. If you think differently. Then God bless you. You do what you do use, they say. But as far as this goes, I need to worry about my family and how I'm going to create value for them and how I'm going to put food on the table and watching CNN and listening to, you know, Instagram scrolling down, that's a waste of a day and you do that today and tomorrow and tomorrow, then all of a sudden you're, you're sucked into the vortex and you can't get out.

  [00:32:24] Chaz Wolfe: You know, being here in Kansas city, the chiefs have been pretty popular the last couple of years, won several super bowls. Mahomes is the thing. Right. And so it's funny because you know, whether it's connections or even before they were a thing and I had a job years and years ago, you know, Monday morning, you talk about the chiefs game, you know, and, and a lot of times it, I don't think people know what to do with me, honestly, you know, because it was like, Hey, so did you watch the chiefs game?

  [00:32:48] Chaz Wolfe: I'm like, yeah. They played like, bro, what are you talking about? We're in Kansas city. It's like, there's nothing else going on. I go, you know, the last time I checked, there wasn't a guy out there with the last name WOLFE on his Jersey. 

  [00:33:01] Gino Barbaro: Yes. And your priorities, your priorities, you're focusing on your, it's the same thing.

  [00:33:05] Gino Barbaro: I used to be a big Yankees fan. Back in the day, I was a big Jesus fan. I'd watch them all the time. But then at some point in your life in 08, 09, you're like, I got to make a decision. I've got a family. I've got to feed them. I've got to become more valuable. I can spend three hours watching a game, or I can spend three hours, two of those with my family and an hour we're listening to the podcast.

  [00:33:24] Gino Barbaro: And so you have to make choices in life. I can't go out on the weekends and hang out with my friends and drink, got a family, have to make those tough decisions. You just have to know what's right for you. And that's the problem. We don't have values. People haven't chosen values for themselves and live by those values.

  [00:33:38] Gino Barbaro: And if you don't do that, you're going to be living somebody else's values. That's the problem. That's what I've seen happen with a lot of people. They have values, but they haven't really written them down and really followed them. So if I really truly value growth mindset, I'm sorry, I can't spend seven hours watching football on Sunday.

  [00:33:53] Gino Barbaro: I just can't do that. That's that growth mindset now, an hour or two, absolutely. But you just have to have your priorities. And once you have your priorities in order, go after those priorities, listening to CNN and Fox news, it's not my priorities. It's not my values. So I'm just going to shut them off.

  [00:34:09] Gino Barbaro: Yeah, 

  [00:34:10] Chaz Wolfe: this is like. Really success one on one, but you're giving it to us so plainly. So I just appreciate that. you've, you've mentioned family here a couple of times in the last couple of sentences. I want to transition here a little bit, but for you, I can tell just the energy that you've brought here.

  [00:34:24] Chaz Wolfe: I mean, it's, it's first thing Monday morning, the listeners don't know this cause they're going to be listening whenever, but the energy on this call right now. Fresh Monday morning is not like probably many offices right now. And so I know that you're all in, you're obsessed on business, real estate, all the stuff that we're talking about.

  [00:34:40] Chaz Wolfe: I can tell, but I can also tell, I mean, you said it's six kids, you're homeschooling, you know, you were going, you know, choosing them instead of going out, like. You've already said several things that tell me that you're all in and obsessed over your family as well. My question is, how have you done that?

  [00:34:54] Chaz Wolfe: Because there's a limiting belief that a lot of people have that they have to be balanced, or that they can't be obsessed or all in on all of it at all the same time. But I'm hearing you say that you can't. 

  [00:35:03] Gino Barbaro: The simple answer is I've got an amazing wife. And when we got married, No, when we got married, she decided to stay home.

  [00:35:09] Gino Barbaro: She decided to raise the kids. That was her job. And I'm gonna tell all the women out there, It is the, even the men, and it's probably the hardest job that you will ever do. The sacrifice that she's had over the last 20 years. I mean, it's just been mind boggling to me. She stays home with them. she's created these amazing relationships.

  [00:35:25] Gino Barbaro: And now we see the fruit of the labors. I have a 24 year old and a 21 year old. I am so proud of my kids and it's not, it didn't happen. We weren't lucky. We had to sacrifice a lot. We had one income for most of those years I could have used her. She was a cosmetologist and other 50 G's a year. It could have really helped.

  [00:35:40] Gino Barbaro: But we decided to, Hey, let's put that aside. Let let's sacrifice and her wellbeing, being home with four kids, you know, the two of them in diapers at one time being by herself for those days. It's really, really challenging, but we knew what our values were. We knew what we wanted to accomplish and seeing her sacrifice, I mean, I have to sacrifice as well.

  [00:35:59] Gino Barbaro: I can't be selfish. So I've got to put in all the work. So when I told her back in 2011 and 12, that I'm going to do this real estate thing, and I'm going to invest in this, this mentorship and I'm going to go on the Knoxville, she's like, okay. But when she gave me the, okay, it's like, okay. I'm working in the restaurant.

  [00:36:15] Gino Barbaro: I'm going to be working during lunch. I'm going to be working at nine o'clock at night. When I come home, I'm going to be working when I get up early in the morning. I have to be all in as well. So having that partner, that accountability that gives you the ability to do that. I couldn't let her down. She never let me down.

  [00:36:30] Gino Barbaro: She's home seven days a week. She's never got a day off. She's she's, she's cooking. She's cleaning. She's the doctor. She's a psychologist. She's the laundry person. She's, she's the chauffeur. She's doing it all. So for me to say, oh, it's Monday morning. I can't come in and not want to work. That's just selfish on my part.

  [00:36:46] Gino Barbaro: So to see her work for her to be a role model for me, and it just makes my job a lot easier. Cause I'm like, I can't, I can't let her down. I've got to put out as much as possible because she's not willing to let go and not, not. Not back down either. 

  [00:37:00] Chaz Wolfe: The power of, of that position or the, the, the difficulty rather of that position, it just gets overseen so much.

  [00:37:09] Chaz Wolfe: And so I can relate to that. I do not want to switch. We've got four under the age of nine. So I'm, I'm a little bit less of less of, numbers and volume wise than you have, but, but I understand that thick of it right now that's us. And so when I think about what she's doing, like literally right now, I'm like.

  [00:37:27] Gino Barbaro: The Lord for you, Julie. Yes. You know, it's challenging because if you have to break it down, the value that they provide, I mean, it's two, 300, 000 a year easily by between nannies and chauffeurs and teachers. And from my perspective, and it's one of those jobs where. You don't get that instant gratification.

  [00:37:44] Gino Barbaro: You've got to wait years for your kids to grow up. No one's telling you you're doing a great job. So just go out and tell your wife or your husband, Hey, you're doing an amazing job today. Let them know, because no one else is telling them that it's a lonely job. Sometimes. Yeah. 

  [00:37:58] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. It's funny that you say that because that's how we feel as entrepreneurs.

  [00:38:01] Chaz Wolfe: Right. We feel like really there's not anybody telling us great job, 

  [00:38:04] Gino Barbaro: you know? Yes. And that's the thing you said, balance to bring it back to the balance. I don't really think there is balance when I ever have time to go with them. I'm out yesterday was Sunday. We hung out all day yesterday. Went out to dinner last night.

  [00:38:15] Gino Barbaro: Today. I'm back in the office. My wife actually does a podcast with me. So she's doing a podcast this afternoon with me. The kids come to my events. They're part of the business as well. They're seeing where dad works and they're part of that business. That's the balance that we have. I don't think if you're going to go out there and say, this is one compartment, this is another compartment.

  [00:38:31] Gino Barbaro: It's not, it's going to be a tough ride for you. Yeah, that's good. 

  [00:38:35] Chaz Wolfe: Got one last question here for you, Gino. Your insight has been incredible so far. If you had the chance to whisper in the younger Gino's ear, 

  [00:38:45] Gino Barbaro: what would you tell him?

  [00:38:49] Gino Barbaro: Marry your wife.

  [00:38:56] Gino Barbaro: For me, early on, I would have said to work for equity. To build a business and to work for quote unquote, that passive income and not invest money in your houses, but buy buildings and buy assets. I wish I had done that sooner. No one really told me that. And I was at that point just spending money on building a home, which was amazing.

  [00:39:17] Gino Barbaro: The memories that I have from building the couple of homes that I had were amazing. But if I was able to put that money into a couple of investments, I would have been able to leave the restaurant a lot sooner and had that option to leave it a lot sooner. I just didn't know what I didn't know. We're not taught these things in school.

  [00:39:32] Gino Barbaro: Unfortunately, we're not taught equity and how to create wealth. And I didn't know what I didn't know. That's probably the only thing that I say I would change going back early on. And, and I think the other thing is don't be afraid to find a really good partner. I had, I had a bad partnership early on and I, it held me back from finding other people to be able to partner with.

  [00:39:50] Gino Barbaro: It's not the partner's fault. It's, it's my fault. It's my responsibility that I didn't have those core values. I didn't know how to choose a partner. So go out and, and create partnerships and invest in assets. 

  [00:40:03] Chaz Wolfe: Love it. I appreciate your insight, your story, obviously an overcoming of not only just a restaurant, world, but you know, hundreds, Thousands of units across all of your students, even just the impact that you've given, not just here today, but just in the world so far has been incredible.

  [00:40:18] Chaz Wolfe: How can the listeners find you? Number one, if they're an entrepreneur and they're just like, wow, I got to connect with this guy or number two, they're a real estate investor. Maybe they are interested in your mastermind and some of your education, some of your events, how can 

  [00:40:29] Gino Barbaro: they get involved? Just go to Jake and Gino.

  [00:40:31] Gino Barbaro: com. The website has everything. We've got three podcasts. Every week we've got blogs. We're writing all the time. There's a lot of content on there. Just go on the website there. If you want to get a book, we have a wheel of our profits book. Just email me gino at Jake and gino. com. I'll send you a free PDF copy of the framework that we teach our students.

  [00:40:48] Chaz Wolfe: Love it. Love it. You, still are a king in my book, Mr. Gino. So tell your wife and that she gets the title queen naturally, especially after you've described her as a, as a queen, but thank you for being here. Blessings to your family, blessings to your entire community and all the people that you impact all the deals that you're doing.

  [00:41:04] Chaz Wolfe: Thanks for being 

  [00:41:05] Gino Barbaro: here, brother. Thanks Chaz. Appreciate it, brother.

  
  [00:00:00] On today's episode of Gathering the Kings.

  [00:00:03] Gino Barbaro: All Jake and I really wanted to do is 100 units. 200 profit per door, that's 20 grand a month. That's more than what we needed , to survive and to live and to thrive in life. 

  [00:00:13] Gino Barbaro: When you have more options and opportunities in life, life gets a lot more interesting. 

  [00:00:17] 

  [00:00:18] Gino Barbaro: What's up everybody. I'm 

  [00:00:19] Chaz Wolfe: Chaz Wolf gathering the Kings podcast, coming to you with a special guest, a King, a King in the real estate space. Mom, man, Gino 

  [00:00:28] Gino Barbaro: Barbaro. How are we doing brother Chaz? I'm actually going to send this to my wife as soon as I get off. Cause I'm going to tell her I was called a King today.

  [00:00:35] Gino Barbaro: You know what I'm saying? She's the queen, but I mean, I'm the king right now. So great. Thank you. How are you doing brother? I'm doing well. 

  [00:00:40] Chaz Wolfe: we're fresh here Monday morning. And so, I'm excited to be first thing here with you. It's really, I mean, I'm excited about all of our guests, but you've got a huge platform.

  [00:00:49] Chaz Wolfe: You've got, of course, a podcast of your own. Most people in the real estate space, no Jake and Gino. And so to have you here as a true honor, and I want to let people that don't know you get to know you here today and maybe the story behind the story. So tell us, you know, get a little 

  [00:01:02] Gino Barbaro: bit about what you guys do.

  [00:01:04] Gino Barbaro: Jake and I started investing together in 2011. He was the drug rep and I was the pizza guy. I own the restaurant, one restaurant in New York. I opened in 1994 and he was a pharmaceutical sales rep. When things were good, the getting was good, as they say. And in 2009, we met and I guess the getting wasn't that good for either one of us because we're like, brosephs, we need to do something because we are struggling.

  [00:01:25] Gino Barbaro: You hate what you're doing. I just, the great recession just wiped everyone out. Everyone thinks real estate got wiped out. I, the restaurant was working harder and making less. At the time I had Four kids. And I'm like, I need to do something. And we got together in 2009, in 2011, we, Jake moves down to Knoxville, Tennessee from New York.

  [00:01:43] Gino Barbaro: And I'm like, Jake, where's Knoxville number one. Cause no one knows. And no one knew where Knoxville was back then. I'm sorry. It's the truth. And now everyone knows what Knoxville is. And we just started looking for deals. And in 18 months. Long time. It took us to find that very first deal. Cause we had no process.

  [00:01:56] Gino Barbaro: We had no framework, but we did find that first deal after 18 months. And, you know, three months after that, we got our second deal. And I guess the rest is history. You own today, 1700 units. We syndicated deals, but the vast majority of our portfolio is not syndicated. We just continue to refinance deals, put money back into the business, refinance out.

  [00:02:14] Gino Barbaro: I left the restaurant in 2016 and I went into real estate full time. And that's about the time that I started the Jake and Gino education community. Yeah. I 

  [00:02:21] Chaz Wolfe: love it. So first off the history there of just your own success in real estate. I love 1700 units. That's incredible. Well done. But then at the very end there, you kind of just lightly slid that in that now you teach not just a few people, but hundreds, if not thousands of other students.

  [00:02:36] Chaz Wolfe: I think I saw one of your videos, your students represent like 20, 000 plus units across the country. Is that, is that right? Is that more now? 

  [00:02:43] Gino Barbaro: Actually, it's 71, 364. We did. We have a weekly huddle on Monday morning. So before I got on with you, mom, with the executive team, we're looking at our numbers. It's silver, almost 400 million in capital raised from the students because Chaz, I think with multifamily, it's a little different than single family.

  [00:02:58] Gino Barbaro: Once you get going. You either just finish or you just figure it out with the framework and you just start snowballing and snowballing. And that's what a lot of our students have done and they've realized one thing you've talked about being in business that real estate and specifically multifamily, I think, is really an entrepreneurial venture.

  [00:03:14] Gino Barbaro: We create multifamily entrepreneurs. At Jake and Gino. And if you're flipping homes, you're fixing homes, you're doing rentals. It really is a business. It is real estate, but it really, you have to look at it as systems and processes. It's buy right finance, right? But it's also managed, right? And if you can't manage these assets, they're like having kids, you're having kids, you have to raise your children.

  [00:03:35] Gino Barbaro: And if you don't. Bad things going to happen to those deals as we're seeing right now, as we're seeing the operators in the space right now, it's, it's a wonderful thing to go out there and raise capital. It's a lot of fun, but raising the capital, your fiduciary. And if you can't operate these deals, it's not easy.

  [00:03:48] Gino Barbaro: Find someone out there who can operate the deals, who can partner with you. And as you saw Joe Sullivan, he's, he's in your community as well. Great student of ours is a Jake and Gino coach. He's an operator in Kansas city is doing a phenomenal job. He's buying these assets. He's financing them, but he's also managing these assets.

  [00:04:05] Gino Barbaro: Yeah. 

  [00:04:05] Chaz Wolfe: I love it. There's, there's a huge business component to it. I think a lot of people think, you know, real estate and business are separate. I was telling you before we hit the record, but we've had. probably 100, 120 or so real estate investors, some very large, portfolios, some, some just getting rolling.

  [00:04:20] Chaz Wolfe: you know, obviously to be on the show, they've got to have a qualification, but, to get rolling in comparison to someone like you with 1700, but the reality remains the same that. Inside the asset. Okay. You call it a building that has 200 units and people are paying rent. the asset could also be a business, an HVAC company that is providing a service and it's really the same fundamentals as what I'm hearing you say.

  [00:04:42] Chaz Wolfe: And so I'm anxious to jump into some of those things. When did you know in the real estate journey that it was really business? Cause obviously you came from business. 

  [00:04:49] Gino Barbaro: That's a great question. I'm a slow learner, just like you, Chaz. I got, I struggled, I struggled on this podcast. So for us, I think. At around 600 units, we're using this crappy property manager software.

  [00:05:01] Gino Barbaro: We didn't have enough maintenance techs. We didn't have enough property managers. We were just, I'm a gets burned out. And I think at the 600 unit mark, we're like, we need a regional manager who we need someone to help and Jake out. We're trying to, yeah, exactly. So that's what I'm saying. We were a little, we're a little slow in the uptake, but that's, I think the seminal moment, because what had happened, we had done a.

  [00:05:23] Gino Barbaro: We had done a 25 unit, a 36 unit, then 136, then back down to 22. Then we hit 281, 281 units in one shot seller finance. So we grown to 600 units within probably three years. So it was for us, it was really large and really huge. And for me having one restaurant in, you know, 20 years, that was just a shock to my system.

  [00:05:45] Gino Barbaro: And I think at that point, we're like, we need scaling up. We need to do that. We need to get it on traction. So we had gotten some scaling up coaching and that just changed everything as far as working on our mission statement, working on our core values, working out what we call a cadence of accountability that changed everything.

  [00:06:00] Gino Barbaro: And for us, the paradigm of, Oh, wow, we're not just buying these assets and trying to get cashflow. There's so much more to the real estate business as far as just looking at cashflow. And I think. That's one thing I want to impress upon all this, you know, all of our new students coming on, treat it as a business.

  [00:06:15] Gino Barbaro: As soon as you get in that very first deal, you do will be life changing because then all of a sudden you're creating metrics. You're creating KPIs for this one deal, and then you're able to scale up to 3456 10 deals, and you don't have to do thousands of units to have significance in the real estate space.

  [00:06:30] Gino Barbaro: And I think if you can start putting some KPIs in early on and using property management software and trying to think of it as that business, I think everything will change once you're looking 

  [00:06:40] Chaz Wolfe: at real estate.

  [00:06:41] Chaz Wolfe: You know, you're, you're really describing the entrepreneurial journey, right? Like. You as the pizza shop owner, you were there making pizza, maybe not at the 20th year, but probably for a long time base is probably a very similar road. And that's how, as a lot of entrepreneurs are listening right now, whether they're in a, in a business or in real estate, if they're in a business and they have real estate on the side, then it probably is just that just on the side and they're not really running it like a business.

  [00:07:06] Chaz Wolfe: And, and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to mentally check. Am I running a business? And so when you, when you take a look at a business, you kind of already mentioned systems and process. We kind of hinted at that. A team comes along with that, but in your mind, when you're telling one of your students to, okay, from the beginning, run it like a business, what's the formula to that, what are the things that pop up in your mind?

  [00:07:27] Gino Barbaro: So Chaz, for me, I at the restaurant had no core values and I had no mission statement. So every time there was a problem with an employee, every time something didn't get pulled through, it was their fault. It was never my fault. I was hiding in the kitchen, washing dishes, doing menial 12 an hour work when I should have been getting somebody else to, I was, I was thinking about how much money I was making every week instead of thinking for the longterm.

  [00:07:50] Gino Barbaro: The seminal moment for me came when I was in the shed at my restaurant and I'm putting away. The containers to go and I'm putting away bags of flour. It's 12 an hour work. And I've got my cell phone jammed to my ear like this. For those of you watching this thing live, and I'm negotiating that 281 unit deal, that 11 million deal.

  [00:08:08] Gino Barbaro: And I'm saying to myself, I'm doing 12 an hour work. And I'm negotiating this massive, what the hell am I doing? There's going to come a point in your journey where you're like, this is not a part time gig anymore. And that was it right then and there. But if I look back, At the mistakes that I made with the restaurant.

  [00:08:24] Gino Barbaro: The first thing was I started that restaurant business to provide for my family. And I think if I had looked at it differently and I was, you know, started that business to provide for the customers who came in and those customers would provide for my family. That I think was the, all of a sudden the shift.

  [00:08:39] Gino Barbaro: So it's the same thing with the education company here. I didn't start this education company to provide for my family because the real estate is providing for my family. The education company was started to provide for the students and to provide for the employees here. So ultimately when they're here for two years, they can start investing with Jake and Gino.

  [00:08:54] Gino Barbaro: And once I had that shift, it was like, okay, I'm providing value for them. The more value I provide for them, the more money I'm going to make on this side. That was a shift for me. And the other one is I keep coming back to the core values, values. We didn't have those early on in the restaurant, never had them.

  [00:09:09] Gino Barbaro: And when I started Jake and Gino, I already had them because about year three, we sat down, we scaled up with the property management company. And with that system right there, we had people first make it happen. Extreme ownership. Unwavering ethics and growth mindset. Those are the five core values. It took us months to flesh them out and our mission statement to create communities and empower people to be the best versions of themselves.

  [00:09:32] Gino Barbaro: Whether that's our education company, that's our property management company. That's our syndication company where we're taking care and working with investors. We have to really think about how to provide value for them and how to continue to scale. And there's so many different systems you can implement the scale, but having quarterly priorities.

  [00:09:48] Gino Barbaro: We never had quarterly priorities. We just. When I, Hey, what do we need to do this week or this month, really dialing those in is really important. And I think having touch points as you grow, you need to get on calls with team members weekly, daily, whatever that looks like when Jake and Gina, the two Yahoos are working by themselves.

  [00:10:04] Gino Barbaro: I can pick up the call and say, Hey, Jake, how's the deal going? Yeah. 30 or 40 units. But with the end in mind, we really need to have those dedicated touch points every day with the team member every week. And I think those are some of the things that we learned as we started scaling up. Communication is paramount working with, you know, the team members and making sure that they're being heard is really, really important.

  [00:10:23] Gino Barbaro: Those are some of the things that we learned as we started to scale. 

  [00:10:27] Chaz Wolfe: Tell me, you said something that kind of, drew up some past experience, maybe, maybe a wound, but the, the, the moment in time of you setting an appointment, right. Or setting a meeting, whether it's every day or once a week, whatever those, whatever that cadence is, you're bringing.

  [00:10:42] Chaz Wolfe: Order to the business, to your team, to you, to your life. And so, the experience previous similar scenario for you is that I had to set a cadence for one of my companies and because I didn't have a specified meeting. And so once I did that though, it eliminated all these phone calls and texts throughout the week, because guess what we were going to meet.

  [00:11:03] Chaz Wolfe: On this day at this time. And so ideally all those things were kept and saved. And then we, we did them on that one specific day at that one specific time. Of course, there's always things that come outside of that. The person listening right now, that's, you know, within a couple of years of starting their business, they're maybe sub million dollars in revenue, or maybe sub a hundred units.

  [00:11:20] Chaz Wolfe: They're still very much like, you know, all over the place, but I'm hearing you say very similar to my experience is that if you just bring a little bit of order, it actually. Allows for impact. 

  [00:11:30] Gino Barbaro: Talk about this a little bit. So it's comes down to discipline and I think the discipline is very difficult because if it's only you and another person Have a weekly what we call weekly level 10 meetings.

  [00:11:40] Gino Barbaro: So we have them with every one of our property managers I have them with all of my employees here. So we have a daily sales huddle So before I got on with you this morning, I had a sales huddle call for 15 minutes with two sales guys. we have a weekly huddle with our executive team every Monday at 8 AM.

  [00:11:54] Gino Barbaro: We go through KPIs, we go through wins, we go through losses. We try to, you know, give shout outs as well. It's about 30 minutes and we have a daily huddle in the morning with the Jake and Gino team at 8 45. Before the day starts is for 15 minutes and a weekly call that you talk about is so crucial because I don't want to get texts every day saying, this is what I have.

  [00:12:12] Gino Barbaro: This is what I have. We have what we call a little parking lot on that weekly level 10 doc. And on the bottom, the parking lot, I've got this idea, throw it on there. I have to schedule this podcast, throw it on there. I have this meeting that I need to get to. And when the weekly level 10 meeting comes at nine o'clock, whenever it's scheduled every week.

  [00:12:28] Gino Barbaro: And it's. It's one of those meetings. That's really great because it's 30 minutes and it's pointed. There's structured to it. We don't get on and say, how you feeling? We really get on and talk about what happened to the week. And on that, that level 10 meeting, we have our quarterly priorities. So if that team member has a quarterly priority, well, what are you doing?

  [00:12:44] Gino Barbaro: What are the tasks involved with that quarterly priority? Cause I think a priority for us is anything that takes more than eight hours. Are you building websites? Are you building a funnel? Are you, creating content, whatever that looks like. And then from there, whoever owns that priority, let's task it down the tasks, the duties that you need to do.

  [00:13:01] Gino Barbaro: And every week you're getting on with that, with that team member and going through that. And then if you have any other epiphanies, because right now we're doing a virtual model and a virtual model is going to take more than eight hours. So I need to get out with the team member, break it down, look What's the calls look like?

  [00:13:15] Gino Barbaro: What does the content look like? How are we going to market this thing? How are we going to schedule it? If I just say, let's do it, there's no structure to it. It may get done, but it's so haphazard and it may or may not happen. But when you're getting on weekly calls and like you said, I don't want to get texts every day about what's going on, what's on fire, if it's really on fire, that's important, but if it's something that you don't want to forget, go to the level 10 doc, put it in the parking lot.

  [00:13:38] Gino Barbaro: And then the following week we can have that discussion. Yeah. Those are 

  [00:13:41] Chaz Wolfe: great insights. You know, the, the on fire comment, I remember, this was probably 10 or so years ago. I was a heading, to one of my first elk hunts out west. And I had a couple of restaurants at that time. And, you know, anytime you go out of town, that's when things break or fall apart, until, until the fire no longer becomes the fire.

  [00:13:59] Chaz Wolfe: Right. And that's, that's what you're, what you're saying. And so I, I even had the epiphany. I remember thinking like only call me if, if it's burning. And then I was like, wait a second. Thank you. No, don't call me. Call 9 1 1. Like, I can't even do anything that don't like, literally, there's no reason for 

  [00:14:13] Gino Barbaro: you to call me.

  [00:14:16] Gino Barbaro: Yeah, because you're gonna go there and you're gonna see it on fire. You're gonna start crying anyway. Like, what can I do? I can't do anything anyway. You're right. Yeah. Let me, 

  [00:14:22] Chaz Wolfe: let me, let me hunt the elk, you know, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. There's, there's obviously, I don't want to, I don't want to, pay a reckless, attention to your business, with that, but there's freedom in that when you realize what Gina's telling you is.

  [00:14:35] Chaz Wolfe: Hey, look, order brings happiness is that, I mean, that's, 

  [00:14:40] Chaz Wolfe: that's the, 

  [00:14:40] Chaz Wolfe: that's the, that's the equation here. Order equals happiness. And you're frustrated in your business because there's probably not enough order. So for the person that's listening right now, do you know, and they're new or, and they're like, oh my gosh, dude, just like hit my brain.

  [00:14:54] Chaz Wolfe: And I got all this stuff and I got to get all these meetings. I gotta get an order. What's like, just like step one for them to take. I 

  [00:15:00] Gino Barbaro: think step one for me would be to. See any tasks or any duties that you're doing that you can farm out. I mean, early on with Jake and Gino, Jake was editing the podcasts.

  [00:15:11] Gino Barbaro: He sucks at, he can't even turn a computer on and he was editing the podcast. Now, six or seven years ago, that was probably 10 or 15 an hour work. But why was he doing it? We just didn't know. We didn't know when you think in your mind that, man, I really need to hire somebody to do this, you're way past that you've should have already hired that person.

  [00:15:30] Gino Barbaro: So take a real deep dive and don't let me hear you that. Say that I can do anything better than everybody else. Maybe you can, but you can't do everything. Don't be washing dishes and working in the shed and throwing out the garbage like I did. There are other people who are qualified to do that.

  [00:15:46] Gino Barbaro: Bookkeeping is not rocket science. If you don't like the bookkeep, why are you bookkeeping? Now you may need to learn it. Yeah, I don't think you have to do it. If you're in real estate, I don't think you need to sit in the office as a property manager and rent your units. Go hire somebody for 40 or 50 grand a year to do that.

  [00:16:03] Gino Barbaro: I don't think you need to go out and change toilets and clean up fixed toilets. Get a maintenance tech. That's why you want to scale and multifamily and get those units or hire a property management company to do that for you because the value in real estate is you want to build your portfolio and get as much equity in these deals as possible.

  [00:16:22] Gino Barbaro: Let those minimal tasks go out. So the answer to your question is take a deep dive into your business and see where there's holes. See what, see what you're not really good at, obviously. Get that farmed out and start getting that off your plate. And I think what you need to do as an entrepreneur is to start focusing on anything that generates revenue.

  [00:16:38] Gino Barbaro: That is, if you're on here and you want to scale the education company, get on podcasts, start doing more virtual events, start getting on more stages. I think that's what I need to do. And I need a lot of my team members to do the ops and to do the back end. Imagine me sitting there. Editing a podcast right now, it would take me three hours.

  [00:16:57] Gino Barbaro: I can't even turn the damn thing off. I could you imagine? So that's something where you're sitting there, be honest with yourself and say, why am I doing this job? I mean, where can I find there's so many VAs out there. There's so many companies out there that weren't there 10 years ago. So go out and find your weaknesses, hire them and focus on generating revenue for the company.

  [00:17:15] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, the generating revenue piece is obviously a great decision is there, you kind of mentioned a couple of things there for you for like an education company, getting on podcasts, getting on stages for a real estate investor. What is that 

  [00:17:28] Gino Barbaro: for real estate investor? My personal opinion? There's two things you're doing.

  [00:17:32] Gino Barbaro: You're sourcing deals. And you're sourcing capital. Those are the two things you're constantly doing as I think a multifamily, but even single family, even self storage, you need to look for deals. And what does that mean in Stephen Covey's quadrant? It's not urgent, but it's really important. And how do you measure it as an entrepreneur?

  [00:17:50] Gino Barbaro: Well, when you're going out to these events and you're talking to brokers and you're talking to property management companies, it's not really an urgent task and there's no money being generated today. But you're creating relationships in three months down the road. They may come to fruition. So you need to focus on the deal flow and deal flow comes from meeting brokers, meeting other members in the community, going to these live events.

  [00:18:09] Gino Barbaro: We have an event October 14th and 15th this year. It's probably going to air already after, but go out and go to a couple of live events. Every year, go to meet up, start networking. And as far as deal flow, that's how you take care of it. But raising capital, you need to be raising capital and sourcing capital.

  [00:18:26] Gino Barbaro: Just in case you find a deal that you can't take down by yourself, you have the ability to bring in investors. And that's something early on that we didn't focus on because we just kept refinancing these deals. But you want to have the luxury of saying, Hey, this is a 22 million deal. Where am I going to get 4 million bucks?

  [00:18:41] Gino Barbaro: Oh, well, I've got 72 investors on my database. Let me go to them. When you have more options and opportunities in life, life gets a lot more interesting. Most people won't even look at that opportunity because they don't have the investors. If you have the luxury of looking at that deal, because you have the investors, that's really important.

  [00:18:58] Gino Barbaro: Deal flow and capital. Yeah. 

  [00:19:00] Chaz Wolfe: And we can break that down for any business. It's it's marketing leads sales, right? It's, it's, it's getting into the river, you know, and I'm going back to your, description of doing dishes, putting the flour away in the shed. It's like, luckily for you, you were multitasking with the phone on the ear, but.

  [00:19:17] Chaz Wolfe: For the most part before that, for you and for, you know, listeners here today, because they're putting away the flower, they're not in the river over here catching opportunity, which is what you're talking about. And so you got to like, get rid of those tasks, not because you're better than, but because the more levered activity is over here in the process, the process of prospecting, 

  [00:19:39] Gino Barbaro: right?

  [00:19:40] Gino Barbaro: Yes. And I'll give you an example at the restaurant. I should have been more out front in the restaurant. I was building a brand. I was actually in the, at one point, I'm just a cycle worker. I've got six kids. We homeschool the kids. the restaurant's a 50 hour plus work weekends. At that time, I was creating Kajabi courses.

  [00:19:57] Gino Barbaro: I was creating YouTube courses. I was writing a cookbook. I was doing, physical orders, physical products. I was creating a brand with the restaurant. But how are they doing that at the same time while I'm doing the real estate and I'm working in the kitchen at the same time, I could have probably expanded the restaurant brand if I'd pull myself out and said, let me get somebody else.

  [00:20:15] Gino Barbaro: Thankfully, I want to say I didn't. So I made that mistake. So it led me to the real estate and led me to Jake and Gino. It opened another door. But I think you're just going to have to get over the idea of not having to grind. This whole word grinding nowadays is takes on a bad connotation. And for me, it's a good connotation because you're willing to work hard and those who work hard will, I think, ultimately have the luxury of not having to work hard, working smart later on down the road.

  [00:20:40] Gino Barbaro: You need to start out any venture you do working hard. You have to learn the business. No one's going to teach you. I mean, even how to wash dishes or how to shoot a video or how to do your bookkeeping, right. Or how to talk to an investor. Those are all things you learn. And then once you learn them, you create a system to take yourself out of it and to teach somebody else, but there's going to be hard work on the front end.

  [00:21:00] Gino Barbaro: I don't want people to be afraid of it. That's the challenge, learning it, getting good at it, then trying to, you know, I w we say dictate and just delegate that to somebody else. 

  [00:21:09] 

  [00:21:59] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah, it's interesting coming from a large real estate investor like yourself, someone who has more passive income than like you said, like at this point now it's, it's, it's more than what you quote unquote need.

  [00:22:10] Chaz Wolfe: It's okay. So for somebody who's built a system, an asset, or even a portfolio of assets that pay you no matter what. For someone like that to emphasize the hard work necessary is a little bit countercultural. Like right now, like you're saying, we have a camp that's like all in grind and hustle and get up earlier than everybody.

  [00:22:31] Chaz Wolfe: Stay up later than everybody, you know, don't see your family, just, just go all in. And then there's this other thing over here where it's like, no, I want passive income. I want to work four hours a week. I want to just, I want to, I want to be completely present with everybody else, but I don't really want to work too hard in my business.

  [00:22:44] Chaz Wolfe: And I kind of want just the passive income. But I'm, I'm hearing you say that it's actually a 

  [00:22:48] Gino Barbaro: mixture of both. And loose flesh anybody, there's no such thing as passive income. Someone has to be creating the passive income. Now, if you've got enough equity and millions and millions of dollars of equity, where you can find an operator and become a limited partner and invest in them, that's what I would consider passive.

  [00:23:04] Gino Barbaro: But I think it takes years unless you're born into it, unless you're, you know, the Hilton chick who's got 72 million bucks or whatever, that's a little different. But if you're Chaz or Gino starting out, you need to create equity. And once you create equity, equity can be invested into these deals, right?

  [00:23:19] Gino Barbaro: That that's the bottom line. And I think people don't understand that. And then once you do become financially free, there's another news flash. You're like, holy crap. I actually really like what I'm doing here. Most of us who dream of passive income don't want to work. So you're not going to get to there.

  [00:23:33] Gino Barbaro: But those of us who really want to create impact and want to have an awesome life. Get to the point where like, okay, I'm making enough pay my bills, but I actually really like what I'm doing. I'm getting better at it and the whole Jake and Gino community. We started it because we wanted to monetize it.

  [00:23:47] Gino Barbaro: But what I've realized is, Holy crap. We've gotten really good at investing because of being on these podcasts, because of going to these events, because of talking every week to somebody who's different, who's an expert. And then that. Goes along and then you get better and you get better. And then all of a sudden, as you grow, you can start saying to yourself, well, I don't really want to do the day to day, or you can pull yourself out and you can start, you know, going, I guess, writing a book or doing something that you truly enjoy to do, but I think the grinding aspect of it, it's negative.

  [00:24:15] Gino Barbaro: We still grind. I mean, last week I was working 14 hours on a Thursday. I went out with a student at eight o'clock at night. Is it grinding? Yes, but it was a lot of fun. It was enjoyable. So that connotation of grinding can be negative, but to me, grinding is just having a great day, creating impact. And moving the business forward.

  [00:24:32] Gino Barbaro: That's what grinding is to me. And then I can choose at one point to say, Hey, goodbye. I'll sell all my assets, but I don't want to retire. Who wants to retire at this point in, in where we are. Think about it. Retirement was something created by Bismarck back in the 18 hundreds to get rid of old people and to supplement and say, get rid of the old people.

  [00:24:51] Gino Barbaro: Anyone over 60 years old retire because we need jobs for the young. So it's something that's just relatively new. And you can see people who are older, ones who are really still active, really creating impact and having fun. Those are the ones who are going to stay healthy in life. So I have no, I have no way, no ideas.

  [00:25:08] Gino Barbaro: I would retire. My word retirement is a lot different than most other people. 

  [00:25:11] Chaz Wolfe: So, yeah, I think that, I think you're, you're spot on with that. I love how you actually, you tied it to financial freedom because before that the grind feels like survival and that's where I think like the word grind fits a little bit better into like, It's doing something that I don't really want to do and it's hard and I got to keep doing it.

  [00:25:29] Chaz Wolfe: It's the grind. But once you reach that financial, you know, independence where you're like, no, I don't have to do this, but I get to 

  [00:25:35] Chaz Wolfe: do this. Of 

  [00:25:36] Chaz Wolfe: course you can train your, your attitude and your mind to do think that way beforehand. But once you can get there and the nut is covered and everything else is just like, I get to like, go be who I'm designed to be, right?

  [00:25:49] Chaz Wolfe: Now, now you're like, I'm, I'm out of purpose, right? You went with your student 14 hours the other day because that was, that's what you're made for. 

  [00:25:57] Gino Barbaro: And the great thing about that was this student just joined a year ago and learning from him and the business model that he has, where he buys hotels and wedding venues and listening to his business model, it was truly amazing.

  [00:26:10] Gino Barbaro: And I think the problem is before you become financially free, we have that scarcity mindset. But I think as you become financially free and you start making money. Hopefully you'll shift into that abundance mindset. Whereas like, Holy crap. I really, what is my sole purpose? What am I here for? Right? It's success over significance.

  [00:26:25] Gino Barbaro: And I think that's what it comes down to. And I'll give you another quote. It's purpose over popularity. You figure out what your purpose is in life. Once we become financially free, cause you don't got to worry about paying a mortgage or the car payment or the kid's college. And you can focus on, well, what am I doing?

  [00:26:38] Gino Barbaro: What am, why am I working? Why am I continuing to scale my, my real estate? Do I need to buy more assets? If I don't, why am I buying more assets? That's something where you can actually choose to say, I want to continue to scale. And if I don't good autopilot. So I think it gives you just more optionality and more options and the ability to choose what you want to do for your life.

  [00:26:58] Chaz Wolfe: What do you, what would you say, you know, the person listening right now, who's thinking about all these options and, and they're like, okay, it just seems like a really far journey. and the grind, you know, maybe they're not financially free right now. And they're, they just can't, they can't even imagine.

  [00:27:16] Chaz Wolfe: Living for purpose. They're really in survival mode or as we call them warrior mode. What, what's your, what's your, you know, maybe encouragement to them or what, what would you say to that person? Who's just like, can't quite see past it. 

  [00:27:29] Gino Barbaro: I don't want to say I've been there because I'll never know anyone else's experience.

  [00:27:34] Gino Barbaro: You know, having four kids in 2008, when my dad had just passed away a year before, and I had been going to work with him since I was seven years old. I mean, I'm at the restaurant. I'm saying to myself. What am I doing here? Am I living his dream or am I living my dream? And I was really stuck up against the wall and I felt like I was in survival mode.

  [00:27:51] Gino Barbaro: Then I read T Harbecker's book, The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and everything changed for me from that book. It was all about responsibility. I had been blaming everybody up to that point of why am I not making more money? You know, why is the president doing what he's doing? Why is the economy doing what it's doing?

  [00:28:05] Gino Barbaro: And for me, it was about responsibility. I would challenge anybody to listen to this, to work on personal development. I became a life coach because I wanted to work on personal development. I wanted to work on all of these different skills you need to become a life coach. And it really helped me out and it gave me clarity and it gave me the ability to sit and to really think and to work on my emotions and to work on what I wanted to accomplish longterm and just take the money aspect of it away and.

  [00:28:30] Gino Barbaro: For me, it was that calming period as I met Jake and I got clarity and I chose one vehicle. I said, I'm all in a multifamily. There's no shiny object. I'm not going for crypto. I'm not going to the mobile home park space. I'm not even doing RVs. RVs were the rage for the last three years. There weren't that many deals in multifamily.

  [00:28:47] Gino Barbaro: We only, we've only done a couple hundred units in the last two years. RVs were big, but. We're not built for RVs. So we stayed in our lane. So what I would say is work on that personal development, start listening to Zig Ziglar, Jim Rome, Tony Robbins, T Harv. I had to listen to all those guys who less, you know, from 08 to 2012, 13, even before that, not really.

  [00:29:08] Gino Barbaro: Really helped me out. Shut off the news. It doesn't really matter what's going on in Ukraine. I'm sorry to say it's, we can't affect it. There's nothing that I can personally do about Ukraine. I can't do anything about Trump. I can't do anything about Biden. I have to worry about my economy. And if I can fix my economy, then I show up at a better place.

  [00:29:25] Gino Barbaro: And then when I'm with the Jake and Gino community, I can affect that one person. Then I affect the entire world because that one person shows up differently to the world. And it's just an amazing thing to think of it that way, pull back. Think about yourself, think about what you want to accomplish and start working on your personal development.

  [00:29:42] Gino Barbaro: Yeah. You said something 

  [00:29:43] Chaz Wolfe: there as far as like, you can't control, obviously what's happening with the presidents or, you know, a war, whatever it is. And so there's one thought on that of like, that seems disengaged or, selfish. The other part, which I'm in, I'm in agreement with you on if I'm cutting out the noise or I'm focused on my singular purpose or me or my family or what I'm after, then you just have a greater lever of, of energy to, to put towards it.

  [00:30:10] Chaz Wolfe: And so I remember, when I started in business, well, from, from being in business 12, 13 years ago until now, there's been, you know, left to right to left to right swing in the presidency. And I'm like you, where I'm like, you know, I hear it. I see you. But what does it have to do with me? Like really, like really all the way down to 

  [00:30:30] Chaz Wolfe: my day.

  [00:30:31] Chaz Wolfe: And 

  [00:30:31] Chaz Wolfe: so when I look at the last 12 or 13 years, there's been people, their lives have been completely swung left, right. So just like blown with the wind and they're tired, they're worn out from all of the polarization and all the stuff. Right. And it's like, that's not me the last 12 or 13 years. I've been winning.

  [00:30:47] Chaz Wolfe: I've been controlling my economy. So for the person listening right now. It's hearing you say that, how do they do 

  [00:30:52] Gino Barbaro: that? How do they say, ah, how do I give up on all that? It's a very difficult thing. I mean, social media has done an amazing job of, of having confirmation of having confirmation bias. So the problem is if you're watching Fox news, you're all you're going to see is Fox news.

  [00:31:06] Gino Barbaro: If you're watching CNN, all you're going to see is CNN. And if you understand I'm a little bit older than you. I've seen these pattern for the last 20 years. All they're trying to do is just trying to split people apart and try to factions of one and the other. And where the reality 80 percent of the country is probably more aligned.

  [00:31:22] Gino Barbaro: And once you see that, you're saying, okay, and it's just been frustrating for me to see this the last 10 years and I can't do anything. And all I know is I've got 24 hours in a day. I have six children. I have multiple businesses. I really can't worry about what's going on in Ukraine. That war is going to be going on two years in February.

  [00:31:39] Gino Barbaro: There's nothing that I can really do about it. How many billions of dollars we've wasted there? Am I going to get upset over it? I can, but then my whole, my whole day is ruined. I need to focus on what my economy looks like and the people that I can affect. And if I can go out there and have students close deals, I've had over 120 students leave their W2 jobs.

  [00:31:55] Gino Barbaro: Isn't my energy. Better supplied in that Avenue than worrying about what, you know, the election coming up in two years. That's how I think. If you think differently. Then God bless you. You do what you do use, they say. But as far as this goes, I need to worry about my family and how I'm going to create value for them and how I'm going to put food on the table and watching CNN and listening to, you know, Instagram scrolling down, that's a waste of a day and you do that today and tomorrow and tomorrow, then all of a sudden you're, you're sucked into the vortex and you can't get out.

  [00:32:24] Chaz Wolfe: You know, being here in Kansas city, the chiefs have been pretty popular the last couple of years, won several super bowls. Mahomes is the thing. Right. And so it's funny because you know, whether it's connections or even before they were a thing and I had a job years and years ago, you know, Monday morning, you talk about the chiefs game, you know, and, and a lot of times it, I don't think people know what to do with me, honestly, you know, because it was like, Hey, so did you watch the chiefs game?

  [00:32:48] Chaz Wolfe: I'm like, yeah. They played like, bro, what are you talking about? We're in Kansas city. It's like, there's nothing else going on. I go, you know, the last time I checked, there wasn't a guy out there with the last name WOLFE on his Jersey. 

  [00:33:01] Gino Barbaro: Yes. And your priorities, your priorities, you're focusing on your, it's the same thing.

  [00:33:05] Gino Barbaro: I used to be a big Yankees fan. Back in the day, I was a big Jesus fan. I'd watch them all the time. But then at some point in your life in 08, 09, you're like, I got to make a decision. I've got a family. I've got to feed them. I've got to become more valuable. I can spend three hours watching a game, or I can spend three hours, two of those with my family and an hour we're listening to the podcast.

  [00:33:24] Gino Barbaro: And so you have to make choices in life. I can't go out on the weekends and hang out with my friends and drink, got a family, have to make those tough decisions. You just have to know what's right for you. And that's the problem. We don't have values. People haven't chosen values for themselves and live by those values.

  [00:33:38] Gino Barbaro: And if you don't do that, you're going to be living somebody else's values. That's the problem. That's what I've seen happen with a lot of people. They have values, but they haven't really written them down and really followed them. So if I really truly value growth mindset, I'm sorry, I can't spend seven hours watching football on Sunday.

  [00:33:53] Gino Barbaro: I just can't do that. That's that growth mindset now, an hour or two, absolutely. But you just have to have your priorities. And once you have your priorities in order, go after those priorities, listening to CNN and Fox news, it's not my priorities. It's not my values. So I'm just going to shut them off.

  [00:34:09] Gino Barbaro: Yeah, 

  [00:34:10] Chaz Wolfe: this is like. Really success one on one, but you're giving it to us so plainly. So I just appreciate that. you've, you've mentioned family here a couple of times in the last couple of sentences. I want to transition here a little bit, but for you, I can tell just the energy that you've brought here.

  [00:34:24] Chaz Wolfe: I mean, it's, it's first thing Monday morning, the listeners don't know this cause they're going to be listening whenever, but the energy on this call right now. Fresh Monday morning is not like probably many offices right now. And so I know that you're all in, you're obsessed on business, real estate, all the stuff that we're talking about.

  [00:34:40] Chaz Wolfe: I can tell, but I can also tell, I mean, you said it's six kids, you're homeschooling, you know, you were going, you know, choosing them instead of going out, like. You've already said several things that tell me that you're all in and obsessed over your family as well. My question is, how have you done that?

  [00:34:54] Chaz Wolfe: Because there's a limiting belief that a lot of people have that they have to be balanced, or that they can't be obsessed or all in on all of it at all the same time. But I'm hearing you say that you can't. 

  [00:35:03] Gino Barbaro: The simple answer is I've got an amazing wife. And when we got married, No, when we got married, she decided to stay home.

  [00:35:09] Gino Barbaro: She decided to raise the kids. That was her job. And I'm gonna tell all the women out there, It is the, even the men, and it's probably the hardest job that you will ever do. The sacrifice that she's had over the last 20 years. I mean, it's just been mind boggling to me. She stays home with them. she's created these amazing relationships.

  [00:35:25] Gino Barbaro: And now we see the fruit of the labors. I have a 24 year old and a 21 year old. I am so proud of my kids and it's not, it didn't happen. We weren't lucky. We had to sacrifice a lot. We had one income for most of those years I could have used her. She was a cosmetologist and other 50 G's a year. It could have really helped.

  [00:35:40] Gino Barbaro: But we decided to, Hey, let's put that aside. Let let's sacrifice and her wellbeing, being home with four kids, you know, the two of them in diapers at one time being by herself for those days. It's really, really challenging, but we knew what our values were. We knew what we wanted to accomplish and seeing her sacrifice, I mean, I have to sacrifice as well.

  [00:35:59] Gino Barbaro: I can't be selfish. So I've got to put in all the work. So when I told her back in 2011 and 12, that I'm going to do this real estate thing, and I'm going to invest in this, this mentorship and I'm going to go on the Knoxville, she's like, okay. But when she gave me the, okay, it's like, okay. I'm working in the restaurant.

  [00:36:15] Gino Barbaro: I'm going to be working during lunch. I'm going to be working at nine o'clock at night. When I come home, I'm going to be working when I get up early in the morning. I have to be all in as well. So having that partner, that accountability that gives you the ability to do that. I couldn't let her down. She never let me down.

  [00:36:30] Gino Barbaro: She's home seven days a week. She's never got a day off. She's she's, she's cooking. She's cleaning. She's the doctor. She's a psychologist. She's the laundry person. She's, she's the chauffeur. She's doing it all. So for me to say, oh, it's Monday morning. I can't come in and not want to work. That's just selfish on my part.

  [00:36:46] Gino Barbaro: So to see her work for her to be a role model for me, and it just makes my job a lot easier. Cause I'm like, I can't, I can't let her down. I've got to put out as much as possible because she's not willing to let go and not, not. Not back down either. 

  [00:37:00] Chaz Wolfe: The power of, of that position or the, the, the difficulty rather of that position, it just gets overseen so much.

  [00:37:09] Chaz Wolfe: And so I can relate to that. I do not want to switch. We've got four under the age of nine. So I'm, I'm a little bit less of less of, numbers and volume wise than you have, but, but I understand that thick of it right now that's us. And so when I think about what she's doing, like literally right now, I'm like.

  [00:37:27] Gino Barbaro: The Lord for you, Julie. Yes. You know, it's challenging because if you have to break it down, the value that they provide, I mean, it's two, 300, 000 a year easily by between nannies and chauffeurs and teachers. And from my perspective, and it's one of those jobs where. You don't get that instant gratification.

  [00:37:44] Gino Barbaro: You've got to wait years for your kids to grow up. No one's telling you you're doing a great job. So just go out and tell your wife or your husband, Hey, you're doing an amazing job today. Let them know, because no one else is telling them that it's a lonely job. Sometimes. Yeah. 

  [00:37:58] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah. It's funny that you say that because that's how we feel as entrepreneurs.

  [00:38:01] Chaz Wolfe: Right. We feel like really there's not anybody telling us great job, 

  [00:38:04] Gino Barbaro: you know? Yes. And that's the thing you said, balance to bring it back to the balance. I don't really think there is balance when I ever have time to go with them. I'm out yesterday was Sunday. We hung out all day yesterday. Went out to dinner last night.

  [00:38:15] Gino Barbaro: Today. I'm back in the office. My wife actually does a podcast with me. So she's doing a podcast this afternoon with me. The kids come to my events. They're part of the business as well. They're seeing where dad works and they're part of that business. That's the balance that we have. I don't think if you're going to go out there and say, this is one compartment, this is another compartment.

  [00:38:31] Gino Barbaro: It's not, it's going to be a tough ride for you. Yeah, that's good. 

  [00:38:35] Chaz Wolfe: Got one last question here for you, Gino. Your insight has been incredible so far. If you had the chance to whisper in the younger Gino's ear, 

  [00:38:45] Gino Barbaro: what would you tell him?

  [00:38:49] Gino Barbaro: Marry your wife.

  [00:38:56] Gino Barbaro: For me, early on, I would have said to work for equity. To build a business and to work for quote unquote, that passive income and not invest money in your houses, but buy buildings and buy assets. I wish I had done that sooner. No one really told me that. And I was at that point just spending money on building a home, which was amazing.

  [00:39:17] Gino Barbaro: The memories that I have from building the couple of homes that I had were amazing. But if I was able to put that money into a couple of investments, I would have been able to leave the restaurant a lot sooner and had that option to leave it a lot sooner. I just didn't know what I didn't know. We're not taught these things in school.

  [00:39:32] Gino Barbaro: Unfortunately, we're not taught equity and how to create wealth. And I didn't know what I didn't know. That's probably the only thing that I say I would change going back early on. And, and I think the other thing is don't be afraid to find a really good partner. I had, I had a bad partnership early on and I, it held me back from finding other people to be able to partner with.

  [00:39:50] Gino Barbaro: It's not the partner's fault. It's, it's my fault. It's my responsibility that I didn't have those core values. I didn't know how to choose a partner. So go out and, and create partnerships and invest in assets. 

  [00:40:03] Chaz Wolfe: Love it. I appreciate your insight, your story, obviously an overcoming of not only just a restaurant, world, but you know, hundreds, Thousands of units across all of your students, even just the impact that you've given, not just here today, but just in the world so far has been incredible.

  [00:40:18] Chaz Wolfe: How can the listeners find you? Number one, if they're an entrepreneur and they're just like, wow, I got to connect with this guy or number two, they're a real estate investor. Maybe they are interested in your mastermind and some of your education, some of your events, how can 

  [00:40:29] Gino Barbaro: they get involved? Just go to Jake and Gino.

  [00:40:31] Gino Barbaro: com. The website has everything. We've got three podcasts. Every week we've got blogs. We're writing all the time. There's a lot of content on there. Just go on the website there. If you want to get a book, we have a wheel of our profits book. Just email me gino at Jake and gino. com. I'll send you a free PDF copy of the framework that we teach our students.

  [00:40:48] Chaz Wolfe: Love it. Love it. You, still are a king in my book, Mr. Gino. So tell your wife and that she gets the title queen naturally, especially after you've described her as a, as a queen, but thank you for being here. Blessings to your family, blessings to your entire community and all the people that you impact all the deals that you're doing.

  [00:41:04] Chaz Wolfe: Thanks for being 

  [00:41:05] Gino Barbaro: here, brother. Thanks Chaz. Appreciate it, brother.

Chaz Wolfe welcomes Gino Barbaro to the kings stage. For Gino, what started as a simple conversation between friends, led to scaling a thriving multifamily real estate investment business. Gino didn't just dip his toes into the real estate waters; he went all in, recognizing real estate as an actual business at the 600-unit mark. His commitment to not only build a robust portfolio but to also share his knowledge through his educational platform, Jake & Gino, is commendable. He’s a living example of someone who has combined mastery of self, discipline, and emotional intelligence to achieve success not only in business finance but also in personal development. This makes him not just a savvy investor, but a true king in the realms of business, finance, and lifestyle, embodying the principles of living an exceptional life. In this jam-packed episode, Chaz and Gino dig deep into the guts of successful real estate investing. They discuss why it's critical to have dedicated touch points with your team—communication is king, baby. Gino breaks down why "Order Brings Happiness" and how you can start scaling by simply finding tasks to delegate. He gets real on why you should shift your focus to deal flow and capital. Want to live an exceptional life through mastery of self, belief, emotional intelligence, and habit-building? Then you can't afford to miss this episode.


Gino Barbaro:

Website: https://jakeandgino.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jakeandgino

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3wzHivzXxcgSTtDam4vnw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakeandgino/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeandgino/

Email: gino@jakeandgino.com

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