--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, when you have groupthink and you have the media all regurgitating the same thing and there's only one thought and there isn't divergent thought, and this is for entrepreneurs. If you surround yourself with yes people and you're not getting differing opinions and your lens doesn't widen to say, I may be wrong, I may be doing something wrong.
--:-- [Discussion continues]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We were talking about New York City being a sanctuary city. And if there's somebody to tap the governor's shoulder and say, maybe this whole illegal immigration thing is not really working well for us. Instead of spending $700 million to house these illegals, let's figure something out. Let's come up with a policy to possibly get them green cards or work visas so at least they can get a job. Even though they're here illegally, they're undocumented, however you want to call them. Let's think of a solution instead of trying to virtual signal. So there's no diversion thought. So when you're the only one with the opinion and you have no one to balance ideas off of, that's really dangerous.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Let's go. Make it look like the Ryan Hanley Show. The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Gino, great to have you on the show, man. We were just chatting – we should have hit the record button for the first 15 minutes of our conversation because that was awesome. But great to get going here.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Ryan, from one fellow New Yorker to another fellow New Yorker, that was an interesting conversation. Listen, I love talking about New York. I left seven years ago. As an entrepreneur, you know how it is. You've got to follow your passions. I wasn't finding it in New York. It just didn't align with my values. For anybody listening to this, think about what your values are. If you don't live in alignment with your values – Ryan, you were telling me you're such an entrepreneur, you want to build businesses and you're starting to hang out with people who don't value that – you're going to feel a little bit out of alignment. And that's how I felt. I got to the point where New York didn't fit me anymore. And I said, you know what? I have a choice. I continue to suffer, continue to make excuses like most of us do. And I did. Or you just have enough pain and the desire to leave. And I finally hit that button and I exited. I left in 2017.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I had a woman who's worked with me for a while. She's tremendous. She's always done admin, accounting, kind of just catch-all and a good filter for my own crazy as well. Her and her husband – and she works remote, obviously, our company's remote. She called me one day and she goes, "Guess what?" And I go, "What?" She goes, "We're moving to Tennessee." And I was like, "Really?" She's like, "Yeah, we just can't do it here anymore. We can't do it. The taxes, the social situation, the value structure here, the pace, all this stuff. We just can't do it. We love Tennessee. We're moving to the mountains." And I was like – so they're in some rural town in Tennessee. And she's happy as can be. They did it. They had two young kids and just got up and moved. And now she's waking up every day, loves where she's at, loves her community, loves the way it aligns with her.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think it is sad that our country has gotten to a place where you have to move to find a place where you can be comfortable and happy. It used to be – I'm 43. I remember growing up, Democrat, Republican, entrepreneur, office worker – everyone kind of just did their thing, got along. You had your values. I had my values. We were maybe part of different organizations or community groups, but everyone was pushing in the same direction. Let's make the community safer, nicer. Let's get more business in town. Let's get more programs for kids. And today, I feel you can't be different than the majority. People look at you funny. They don't understand who you are. They want to carve you out of things.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm interested in your take on this, having gotten to know you this short time. I talk a lot on this show about generational thinking. When I was a kid, probably 10, 12, old enough to ask my dad questions but still not like an adult, I asked him something about being a parent. He said to me, "When you become a dad, your only goal in life from that moment on is to make your kids better than you." That's it. Not better off, not just handing them money, not scamming every system and being part of every PTA or head coach to make sure they get some unfair advantage. Your job is to make them a better person than you are. That type of generational thinking – my last name is Hanley and there's been hundreds of Hanleys before me. I need to make sure that I do right by my family name, by my immediate family, by my community. This idea of we're part of a bigger ecosystem. While we all want personal success and satisfaction and meaning and purpose, it all should be working towards a greater good for the community at large.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I have a sweatshirt on so you can't see, but I have an elbow-to-shoulder tattoo of the American flag with an inset cross, a negative space cross on it. I got that this year. Someone said, "At 43, you got a half sleeve?" And I said, "I want to wake up every day and have a clear and present reminder of the values and the things that I'm working towards." I have my kids' birthdays, I have God, and I have my country. I believe in these things. I believe in the ideals and principles they were based on, and I work towards those. That mentality today is unfortunately becoming more the exception than the rule. It's why I do this podcast – so I can hook up with great guys like you and hear what they have to say and share your original thoughts and viewpoints, because we are not thinking originally anymore. It is a huge problem. And we're seeing all the systemic symptoms across the board. Does that play for you? Does that hit?
--:-- Gino Barbaro: It hits in multiple different ways. The first thing I'd like to address is the groupthink. When I was growing up in the 80s and the 90s, there were two parties in New York State. Republicans were governors, but there were Democrats to balance them out. Now, when you have groupthink and you have the media all regurgitating the same thing and there's only one thought and there isn't divergent thought – and this is for entrepreneurs. If you surround yourself with yes people and you're not getting differing opinions and your lens doesn't widen to say, "I may be wrong. I may be doing something wrong."
--:-- Gino Barbaro: We were talking about New York City being a sanctuary city. If there's somebody to tap the governor's shoulder and say, "Maybe this whole illegal immigration thing is not really working well for us. Instead of spending $700 million to house these illegals, let's figure something out. Let's come up with a policy to possibly get them green cards or work visas so at least they can get a job. Even though they're here illegally, they're undocumented, however you want to call them, let's think of a solution instead of trying to virtue signal." So there's no divergent thought. When you're the only one with the opinion and you have no one to balance ideas off of, that's really dangerous.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: As far as the legacy component, I'm writing a book called *Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy*. It was inspired by Ken Honda. I interviewed Ken Honda probably three or four months ago, and he challenged me to write the book. I've got six kids, ages 25 to nine. We homeschool our children. For me, the legacy component means so many different things. It means I've got a ton of money. I want to leave it to them, but I want them to understand how to be stewards of that money. I do podcasts. I write books. I've got an educational community. That's all part of my legacy. I want to teach my kids this. Are they going to go into business with what I do? Probably not. Maybe one or two of them. But I want them to understand the value of the dollar. And I want to continue to perpetuate that money into the next generation. I think that's important for me as far as what my legacy looks like.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: As a parent, the goal of any parent, as far as I'm concerned, is you want to create a happy, healthy, safe environment for your children. You want them to be able to thrive. You want to be able to be vulnerable and transparent to your kids. Don't be scared to say sorry because we all make mistakes.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process? Chasing leads is a losing game. That's why I created the One Call Close System, a battle-tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call. No more "Let me think about it." No more "I'll get back to you." Using the One Call Close System, we took new reps from a 25% close ratio to over 80% in just three months. To grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost. The One Call Close System allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points, all while watching your revenue skyrocket. Ready to stop chasing leads and start closing? Visit masteroftheclose.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week. Visit masteroftheclose.com to learn how.
--:-- [Discussion resumes]
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Because that will help them in their relationships. And when they're 18 and 19 years old, they can step out into the world and they can make their own ideas and their own solutions. You don't want to helicopter over them too much. You obviously want to guide them, but as they get older, you start pushing up boundaries, and you start giving them more and more, and you give them the confidence. They need self-esteem, these children. They need self-esteem, and they need to know that Ryan and Gino are going to be there to protect them and to give them a happy, healthy, safe environment where they can thrive so that when they do become adults, they can step out, and they're not spoiled, entitled children.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I think we've stopped living by example. My kids are heavily involved in the baseball community. I love baseball individually. I played in college. I played after college. I just love the sport. I love what it teaches us, particularly about life – how individual moments compound to a larger group. There are very few sports in which you have to hit. When you're up there, all eyes are on you. You are the only one that can control that situation if you're hitting or if you're pitching. So there is this individual – I have to own this moment. I can't lean on anyone else. At the same time, you have to play as a cohesive unit at all times, get along with each other, understand different personalities, setbacks, and all the things that happen throughout the course of a game that allow them to grow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: One of the things that drives me crazy is I see so many parents who are incredibly out of shape. They drink too much. They don't really work that hard, yet they're screaming at their kid through the fence to go max effort and get your head up and don't cry. And I'm like, they're mirroring. They're too young. My kid's 10 and eight years old. They're too young. Obviously, everyone has their own personality, but they're getting their effort, their engagement, their attitude, the way they approach things, their mindset, their mentality. They're getting that from somewhere. Unfortunately for a lot of parents, it's like TikTok or something else. But it's also they're watching every move you make. If we're not embodying the values that we believe in and that we want to instill in them, they're not going to pick them up. Being a shithead and then yelling at them is not going to work. Those words mean nothing to them. They're watching your actions, how you interact with people, how you approach a situation, how you respond to different things. They're watching all of that and they're taking it in.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Taking this back to the entrepreneurial world, a lot of parenting – if you're the leader of an organization and your goal is to maximize your personal exit of a company, your employees know that. If your goal is to play golf every Friday, your employees are going to know that. If you don't respond to emails and then you yell at your team for not responding to emails, they're going to see that. We can't hide. I think a lot of people get to some position of power and then feel like they get to down throttle and do all the things they want to do and that these other individuals on their team are just there to service them. The number of companies, sports teams, organizations that I've seen fall apart or had incredibly hard times because the leadership team or individual did not embody the standards, values, and disciplines needed to be successful is incredible.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: When you look at it – I've been doing a lot of work from my childhood. I'm a big advocate of life coaching as well as therapy. I think those parents who are struggling like that – and we've all had struggles – go back into your childhood and do some work in your childhood. What were the things that you heard? Did you hear "money doesn't grow on trees"? For me, early on, I got a lot of criticism from my parents. I love my parents. You'll always hear people say, "Oh, I had a great childhood." I'm not doubting you didn't have a great childhood. But we all have traumas from our childhood. Some may be a lot greater than others. I'm not going to equate it. But if somebody was criticizing you, somebody was bullying you, somebody was telling you you're fat – this whole stuff happened to me. And it comes into your adulthood. And then all of a sudden, you're yelling at your kids. And you're saying, "Why am I yelling at my kids?"
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Ryan, you can come on right now and tell me, "Hey Gino, you suck. You're really not doing that great of a job." And I'll take your advice to heart. But if a family member says that to me, I get really annoyed. I get really upset. Why is that? Growing up, that happened to me. I think we really need to take a deep look into our childhood, see what happened, and work with those emotions and sit with those emotions and try not to fix them and just let them know that they're there. It's okay. We need to be more compassionate with ourselves. I'm the first one to beat myself up when something's not going well. I take it out on others. All of a sudden I get angry. Is that the right way to do it? No. But go back into your childhood. If you need somebody to talk to, it was so enlightening for me to see the things that I was reacting to, the things that I was doing wrong.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: We want to live through our kids. We want to yell at our kids. Are we yelling at our kids, or are we yelling at our nine-year-old self that we sucked and we were fat and we were out of shape? We don't even know that. We're doing it unconsciously and subconsciously. We don't mean to be that person. No one's ever taught us this stuff. You go to college – what are they teaching in college? I don't even know what they teach in college anymore. But life skills, negotiation, communication, finance – all these things that truly create an empowering life – none of this stuff is learned. So if you're that parent that's struggling, or that adult that's struggling, or that entrepreneur that's struggling, take a pause. Look back into your childhood. Look back into your preteen years, into your younger adult years, and see what the patterns were. See the words that you heard, see the people you're hanging around with, and then see what's going on that's not working today. I'm sure you could make that connection from the past to the present. You see what's going on. You see what's wrong. And from there, you can figure out what you want to accomplish going forward. That's what a life coach or a business coach can help you out with. But you can't keep looking forward if you haven't looked in the past. I don't know if that makes sense to you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: No, Gino, I could not agree with you more. I'll give you a case study on that. Five years ago, a mentor of mine – just an invaluable human being to me. He's 20 years my senior, incredible guy. I literally would not be where I am today, especially the progress that I've made both personally and professionally over the last five years if it wasn't for this guy. One of the very first calls that we had, he said, "Go find a counselor. Meet with him or her every other week for the rest of your life and just consider it a life expense. It's like paying your electric bill, whether you're in a good mood or a bad mood. Everything's awesome or everything's terrible. Go see the person, sit down and talk to them." And it's changed my life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'll give you an exact example of what you just described. My older son – I have two sons, 10 and eight. They both play baseball. My older son is an overthinker. He's incredibly talented. He can do things on a baseball field at 10 that I couldn't do at 13, 14 years old. That's not a joke. A lot of these kids can. They're a little better trained. But because he's an overthinker, he tends to be very hesitant at times too. He has these moments of brilliance surrounded by moments of questioning himself and being hesitant and not attacking.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I played Division 3 baseball, but I was probably good enough to play Division 1. The reason I didn't play Division 1 is because I had that same – even though I was more of a bulldog mentality in general than he is – I was always hesitant for that last 10%. Looking back as an adult, it's a regret I had. I would love to know how good of a baseball player I actually could have been. If I had given 100% of myself through my teens, could I have been Division 1 or played in the pros somewhere? Maybe not MLB, but could I have really made a good run? Just to see how good could I have actually been. So I hold that inside.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I found myself two years ago – I give him a ton of praise, but I'd also be like, "But..." and a little harsh. I was saying to my counselor, "Man, I hate the way I talk to him sometimes." And we dove into it, figured all that bullshit out. I told you about me being hesitant. It took talking to the counselor, figuring out why I was responding that way. And now he and I have this amazing relationship where when we need to have a feedback moment, I can do it in a way that is productive to him. He has told me what works for him. I'm like, "How do you want to get feedback from me?" Unless it's something technical in game, he said, "Let's talk about it after the game." He said that to me, and now it's a whole different world. He's still growing. He's 10. He just learned to tie his shoes last year. But the idea is, to your point, it's helped me in my business career immensely too. I would never have been able to pull out that I had this regret that was then manifesting in the way I spoke to my child if I had not spent that time with a counselor and been able to be honest and humble and listen to her feedback. It changed the course of my life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I hope people take your guidance because it is not a weakness. I have friends who – the first time I ever talked about getting counseling on this show, I got a bunch of messages. People like, "I can't believe you said that. Are you worried about what people think?" And I'm like, "Worried that people will think badly about the fact that I'm trying to get better as a human?" If that's the case, I don't care what that person thinks. The person who judges me for that, I don't care. I hope that more men in particular – women seem to be better about this just in general – realize that life coaches, business coaches, counselors, therapists – these are signs of strength going to them, not signs of weakness.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: The best part of your story is that legacy component where you've broken the cycle. If you didn't do it, you'd have taught your son that modality. Then when he gets older, he's going to treat his kids that way. I don't know if it's a good or bad way, but it's just an understanding and an awareness. If you can get better at something, why not get better? A lot of people do see that as a weakness. They may see therapy as a weakness. I see it as a strength as I've gotten older because I want to become better. I want to know why when my daughter is 14 years old and she's making meatballs – I used to have a restaurant – I come into the room, I see she's doing it wrong, I take it away from her, we get into this big argument, and I blow up on her, and she didn't even ask for my help. Why did that situation happen? If you stop and take a step back, anger equals bullshit because it's not all her fault. It's mostly my fault, but I'm seeing it through my lens.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: As you get older, I'm hoping as you're listening to this, your lens gets wider and wider. You're able to see things from different perspectives. In New York State, they're only seeing things from one perspective. This may be in conservative states as well. They may be seeing things from just their lens. That's why we need a balance. The best ideas win. You take ideas from one side and from the other and blend them in. Unfortunately, social media has been difficult because when you're watching something, if you're conservative, they're going to show you conservative stuff. The confirmation bias is, "Oh, look, I'm right." If you're liberal, you're going to be watching stuff on the liberal side and they're going to say, "Oh, I'm right." But somebody who's truly intelligent, who's truly living a more enlightened life, can take a look at both.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Dr. Mort Orman, that I interviewed, says news is fake because it's all about confirmation bias. They're going to share you a story, and they're going to be telling you the story from their biases. You may have the same exact facts, but they're going to pull certain words – whether you're undocumented or illegal. Those words mean a lot. Climate change, global warming. We have the same situation, but you're looking at it from the lens of how you're portraying it. That's why journalism is a difficult job because you have to pull your biases out and just try to report the facts. We're all human. It's really hard to do that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I want to get into what you do because I have a million questions about that too. But this is the last thing that I want to ask you about in this particular vein. One of the things that I work with my coaching clients on is around incentives. I tell them often – it usually starts around how they incentivize their people. But we start to broaden that out to how they incentivize themselves, what are the incentives of your vendors, what are the incentives of your customers, what are the incentives of the news outlets, what are the incentives of the people that you follow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I believe it's on both sides. So no one at home – I know I occasionally like to bash on Democrats on the show, but understand that I have just as many strong feelings about the other side as well. If libertarianism wasn't such a crazy thing, I'm probably more there in general. But the idea is we have to look at the incentives of who we're listening to. How is the person, the entity, the organization incentivized? For a CNN or a Fox News, they need you to click on the article. They need you to watch the video. They need you to buy into this. So they're going to be inflammatory. They're going to be highly aggressive against the other tribe. They have to do those things to get you to click. If we're just reading one side or the other, thinking that's the point of truth because that's the tribe we're on, you're feeding your brain misinformation. No matter which side you're on, they're incentivized to hook you in.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If they know you're anti-illegal immigration, the border's your thing, and the algorithm grabs you, they're going to pound you over the head with every spin or piece of information that gets you fired up about that topic because you will just keep clicking and keep clicking and keep resharing and keep commenting. That's how they pay their bills. It doesn't mean that we can't consume that information. But as we mature and as we develop and grow, as you were talking about – I talk a lot in terms of filters. I love that idea, that lens filter. We put a set of filters in place to help us make more, better decisions. That tends to be the way that I teach. One of those filters has to be an understanding of the incentive structure of where we're getting the information from. Not that it doesn't mean it's real, not that it doesn't mean we can't agree with it or believe it or that it isn't accurate, but we always have to pass it through that filter so that we can say, "Okay, I hear what they're saying. I believe this thing, but I also have to be rational and understand that they're pushing this on me because they think I'm going to click on it." How does that impact what I'm seeing? Is there another side to the story? We're not doing that enough. We're just picking our tribe, the newsletter we follow, or creating a Twitter list or X list, and those are the only people we read. Then we become – it's how this divide has happened. We've lost a sense of how these people are incentivized because a lot of people don't have time and a lot of people don't think this way.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Well, it's interesting. I'm in the real estate space. What I tell a lot of my students is you don't want to completely disconnect yourself from news, whether it's Fox or CNN or MSNBC. But there are publications like BizNow. I'm in the multifamily space – Multi-Housing News, Collier's, Bercadia, Marcus and Millichap, Cushman and Wakefield. All these real estate publications, these brokerage houses, they have a lot of great articles and great data. That's the kind of information and news that you should be looking at and reading if you're in the real estate space.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: If you're in other spaces, let's say you're a thought leader and you're talking about influence. Robert Cialdini is pretty great. You've got Chris Voss. You have all these different people where you can start following because they're pretty agnostic. I'm a big fan of Chris Voss. I love looking at his stuff on Instagram. Pretty agnostic. Not much political stuff. He just gives you great content. Go out there and follow people who are not going to give you their political opinions but are going to give you facts and stuff that you can use, stuff that's going to help you in your life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, dude. And it comes back to the whole tagline for this show – original ideas, habits, and mindsets of original thinkers. That's what this is about. Taking that information and coming up with your own thought about it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Don't just say, "Well, I'm a Democrat and I like Jake Tapper, so whatever Jake Tapper thinks is what I'm going to do," or "I'm a Republican and I like Dan Bongino, so whatever Dan Bongino thinks is what it's going to be." They're all humans. So even if they are operating in the most positive, most ideal way that you could want from someone who is sharing information, they're still humans. They're still going to have their own biases. They're still going to make mistakes.
--:-- Take that information in, perfectly fine, just as you said, but then try to have an original thought. How do you feel about it? When you see that stat, do you actually agree, or are you just regurgitating something that you heard?
--:-- I want to pivot this into what you do and talk about entrepreneurship in the multifamily market and the property market. There's so much information about entrepreneurship. The minute someone says, "This seven-step process for X," know that there might be something valuable in there, but it's bullshit. What I mean by that is not that it didn't work for them, but it worked for *them*. That doesn't mean that thing is going to work for you. A version of it might—step four of the seven might be something you're not doing that you want to integrate. That's great. But if you just stop what you're doing or base your entire growth plan, hiring plan, or service process on what someone else is doing verbatim, you're not being true to your business. You're not being true to your dream. And you're going to run into roadblocks because that's their thing, not your thing.
--:-- So here's my first actual question for you, besides this amazing conversation we're having. I'm blown away by your ability to get as much done and be as successful as you are. You have the podcast, multiple podcasts. I see you guys writing all over the place. You have books coming out. You have this coaching community, and then you have this huge portfolio of multifamily homes. You also have six children. How do you manage that? I know that having kids is a big excuse that entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs use as a reason for throttling their productivity. How are you able to manage that? I think a lot of people listening will hear you have six kids and think, "How is it possible that he can get this much stuff done?"
--:-- Gino Barbaro: All praise and glory go to my wife. She's a stay-at-home mother. She's an amazing person. When we got married, we decided that I would work and she'd stay at home. She doesn't have a day off. She's a doctor, she's a chef, she's a chauffeur. She does it all. I think the fact that she does that, as a man, I need to step up my game. I can't make excuses. I rarely hear her make excuses, so she's my role model.
--:-- We've set up this whole value system in what we believe, and by the grace of God, we've had six kids. It's amazing. I didn't want to have six kids. I thought two would be great, maybe three. Then they kept coming, and I thought it was amazing.
--:-- But I really want to get back to the point you were talking about with groupthink. I'm in real estate and multifamily specifically. This has been dangerous over the last five or six years with the real estate cycle. There was a lot of cheap money out there, and everyone was jonesing for deals. Everyone was thinking the same: "I've got to buy a deal. There's so much money." Where Jake and I, over 2021 and 2022, we were pretty much on the sidelines for a lot of that. We understood what was going on. Experience teaches me a lot. I was back in the '08 cycle, and I was telling people, "Be careful of what's going on."
--:-- Like you said, when you're on the news and everyone's saying the world is great, deals are great—and now it's in the reverse. We've got $30 million worth of assets on contract right now, whereas most people are heading for the exits. We're coming in now because now is the opportunity. It's usually the contrarian thinking, to be completely honest with you.
--:-- So for anybody out there, if you're afraid of real estate, now is the time. Interest rates are high. They've slowed the economy down—that's the purpose. They're going to stay high for a while because they do not want inflation to rear its ugly head again. If they could have dropped interest rates, they would have, because there is an election in November. They want to elect the dude that's in power. But Jerome Powell understands that if he does that, inflation is going to come roaring back and we're screwed. So interest rates are high.
--:-- Once interest rates drop, the cost of capital becomes cheaper. And what happens when the cost of capital becomes cheaper? Asset prices are going to elevate. So don't listen to the noise. The world is not ending. Real estate over the long term—it's the long term. You can always buy real estate; you can't always sell real estate. And that's what's going on right now. Somebody who bought two years ago with short-term financing is stuck right now because their valuations are upside down. If they can hold on for the next two or three years, they're going to be golden.
--:-- So all this noise that Ryan's talking about out there, don't listen to it. Listen to yourself and start getting the hard facts. Believe it or not, apartments are down 28% from the high of 2022, and they've got some more to go. That doesn't mean you stop looking. There are opportunities now. Everyone's saying "Survive till '25"—that's the mantra right now. Well, we're thriving in '24. So if I listened to "Survive till '25," I wouldn't have been engaging with brokers. I wouldn't have been looking at deals.
--:-- The important thing is focusing on all those publications I talked about and understanding why you're getting into any venture, whether it's real estate, entrepreneurship, or building a business.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: How do you think like a contrarian?
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Oh, it is so hard. Listen, in 1998, my wife came to me and said, "We're going to homeschool our kids." I looked at her and said, "First of all, what the hell is homeschooling?" And second of all, I had public school teachers coming to the restaurant asking me, "Where do your kids go to school?" And I'm like, "Well, 151 Barton Road." It was embarrassing. That was the starting point.
--:-- It really took me a little bit of experience. I saw the proof in the pudding. I saw the difference we were making with our kids being home. Then she throws the bomb on me: "Hey, we're going to have home births." I said, "What's a home birth?" She goes, "We're going to have our kids born at home." This is 2000, 2001. Now it's in vogue because of the COVID shutdowns, but back then, that was scary to me. I said, "You know what? This is all about you. It's your health. You want to do this. I need to support you."
--:-- I've been a contrarian for basically my whole adult life. My family's telling me I'm crazy. My friends are telling me I'm crazy. But I had a great conversation back in 2021 with a gentleman who used to come into my restaurant. He was a construction guy, made a lot of money. Him and his friends, they'd make fun of me for homeschooling my kids. He said to me a couple of years ago, "I've got to tell you, all those years I made fun of you homeschooling your kids, you did the right thing." He said, "This leads to school, and he's got no real relationship with his kids."
--:-- If you're out there and you truly believe in it, that's what our value systems were. We were people with integrity, people who had a belief system. Public schools weren't going to teach our kids what we wanted them to learn. Was it a sacrifice? It's still a sacrifice to this day. But nothing that is easy is worth it. We've got to struggle. The proof is in the pudding. My oldest two kids have been missionaries. They're really followers of Christ. That's something that we gave them, and something that they're teaching me. They've got much stronger faith than I do. They're basically my role models.
--:-- So if you're out there and you're feeling a calling—what we call a vocation, to be called to do something—and it's contrarian and it may seem crazy, just shut down. Listen to that calling. Whether you want to meditate or pray on it, just silence yourself and really listen. I did that with homeschooling, with home birthing, and actually leaving New York State to come to Florida, investing with Jake. All those pivotal moments in my life are basically all contrarian.
--:-- Seven, ten years ago, leaving New York State? "Are you nuts?" I had all my family with pitchforks, building bonfires. My parents, my family, they're like, "You're not leaving New York." I'm like, "Yeah, I am." And it was one of the most difficult things to do. But now that I look back on it, I'm thankful I did it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. You know, it's funny. I founded my own digital commercial insurance agency. It was a national agency, fully remote, digitally native, which for the property casualty insurance industry is—you're a weirdo. On another planet. I started seven days before COVID. I put $50,000 into this thing, we launch, I'm all jacked up. Seven days in, COVID hits, New York State shutdown, game over.
--:-- In all honesty, I had a month of wallowing. Drinking too much. "What was me? How is this possible?" I'm watching the meter spin like this and cash flying out because I still have to pay for shit and people, even though there's literally no business coming in the door. We turned to YouTube and turned to an education-heavy format where we gave away every piece of information that for 440 years insurance agents have held behind their vest, guarded. I used to have this saying—I don't say it anymore because it's kind of obvious—but I used to say, "We're no longer the gatekeepers of insurance information, or really any information. We're not the gatekeepers anymore. The days of 'You can only know what I know if you come and sit' are gone."
--:-- So the huge contrarian take initially, and then we grew like wildfire. Two years later, almost to the day, I sold. People were like, "What are you doing? You're crazy. You're growing." We had some cash flow issues we had to solve. We could have probably done that with investment, but I looked at the marketplace and I saw what was happening with interest rates. I saw that these are the boom days and there's money flying all over. I said to myself, "This is not going to last. I have a moment. Sure, I could plow through this, take some investment that's relatively cheap, and keep growing. That would be great. But what is the world going to look like in five years?"
--:-- Truthfully, valuations are down. Money is starting to come back into the market now, but for the last couple of years, there hasn't been any, particularly in the insurance industry. I got letters from people that were like, "What is wrong with you? Are you okay?" They weren't being jerks. They just could not understand or believe. I was like, "I'm looking at what's going on, and I'm taking a different path because this is what I see." Truthfully, it worked out as well as it possibly could.
--:-- It comes back to this idea—and I'll put contrarian thinking as a subtitle—we have to think for ourselves. You look at these people that you envy online, whether they're influencers, authors, entrepreneurs, or community leaders. The reason they're there is because they think differently than other people. Yet what most people do is just follow the leader. The reason you're watching their YouTube channel, listening to their podcast, reading their book is because they looked at the world and created a frame that worked for them, that was unique and different, that had real value.
--:-- You don't have to write a book or have a podcast, but for your life, for your thing—I have a piece of wood that one of my audience members made for me. It's the letters GNF: Give No Fucks. It's your life. It's not theirs. I just don't understand why so many people are willing to wake up, be told what to do, and then just suffer that dull pain of "I'm getting through the day."
--:-- We used to have a rule: if you said "I have a case of the Mondays," "It's hump day," or "Thank God it's Friday," you were getting fired. If you didn't show up here and want to be here, it's not that I think you're a bad person. It's that you don't fit this culture. I need people who are going to fight for what our customers fight for, what they believe in, who are going to look at our business and find ways to improve it, and not care if I disagree with you. Not care if your manager doesn't think it's the right time. Still be able to speak up and think about the business and push. It's rare to find those people today, but I'm so glad there are people like you—and I'm assuming Jake is the same way—out there pushing this message.
--:-- Did you have just a couple more minutes for me? I know we're at the time, but I have more questions.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Going back to that—for most of my adult life, I heard, "Stay small. Don't take any risks." My mom's barometer for my success and happiness was, "Hey Gino, you've got this small business. Take a look at your friends. They hate their jobs." So what is that message telling me? "You're okay if you stay small and don't take any risks because everyone else's life sucks." So you keep hearing that message: don't take any risks.
--:-- I had one restaurant for 20-something years. Within five years, Jake and I had over 1,000 apartment units. What was the difference? The difference was I became a life coach. I understood the messages that were coming in. I had a lot of limiting beliefs and assumptions that I was able to crush and overcome. Obviously, there were skills involved. I learned core values, a mission statement, cadences of accountability, processes, systems. I get all that. But for me to get that, I needed to get over the hump of myself and the crap that's going on.
--:-- A lot of us have that stuff going on, and we don't know it. That's self-doubt. Why are people so afraid of public speaking? Because they were sitting in a classroom when they were 12 years old, and their teachers were telling them they're idiots. You may be dyslexic, and you're afraid, and you're embarrassed, and you've been called out. So you sit in the back of the classroom and shut the hell up for the next 30 years of your life. That's a lot of work. I feel sorry for those people. I feel pain for those people. You should not be going through that as little kids. That's how the educational system has failed us. We're elevating these 13-year-olds who are supposed to be geniuses. They may have a genius IQ, but they may not have any EQ. We're elevating them and punishing others.
--:-- So if you're out there and you're hearing Ryan, maybe it is time to do some work on yourself. Maybe it is time to be a little more compassionate to yourself. Stop beating yourself up.
--:-- I always love to relate it to money—the relationship with money. I had a terrible relationship with money. I was the best saver. I love to save money. But when it came time to spending money, holy crap. My only way to rationalize was, "I can invest money because an investment is not really spending it. I'm investing it to make more money." Does that bring true happiness? Not really. I was tricking myself into thinking it was.
--:-- Understand all the relationships you have with everything in your life. Once you can understand them and diagnose them, bring it to money. I want money to make me happy. Money can make you happy by the experiences that you can get from it. Look, I'm in an office right now. I'm paying this electric bill. I used to hate to pay the electric bill. I would get that bill and I would hate it. But now, to me, it's a form of happy money because if I look around the rest of the world, 30%, 40% of the rest of the world does not have electricity. It's once again that paradigm—the way you look at things.
--:-- As you get older, hopefully you start expanding your horizons. When I look at my relationship with money, some people are sabotaging themselves. Some people don't think they're worthy enough. They'll make $100,000, and then all of a sudden, they'll lose it. Others flourish with money. It's just an interesting observation I've made over the last few years.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Guys, I hope you'll go back through this and listen to what Gino is saying. We cannot make this point enough or strong enough. Coaches, mentors, masterminds, counselors, therapists—that true inner circle friend—we need someone in our life that we can be 100% vulnerable with, who we are also willing to take real and honest feedback from.
--:-- You made this point, and I think it's incredibly valid. We oftentimes share thoughts and feelings with people because they're old friends or family members, yet we don't respect or care about the feedback we get from them. We're just sharing with them because we feel like it's safe because we've known them for a long time. Some of the absolute most influential people in my life I've met in the last 10 years. The first 33 years of my life, sure, I have a couple of people that have come out of that that I'm still incredibly close to, but it's only a handful. In the last 10 years, doing work on myself, being more honest, trying to be more humble and vulnerable and more accepting of feedback, I've been able to find a group of about six people that I know I can call, be 100% honest with what I'm thinking—even the most crazy vulnerabilities or fears. They'll give me feedback that I oftentimes don't want to hear, but I need to hear it, and I will accept it.
--:-- Cultivating those relationships—you don't need dozens of them. You need three, one, five. You just need a couple. Finding those people that you can both be vulnerable with and you respect their feedback is the key. It just takes one. You find one person like that, and you will make such enormous strides, you'll become addicted to it. You become addicted to the growth because it's like, "I had this idea, I shared it with you, and you told me it was absolutely fucking crazy for X, Y, Z reason. And you're a hundred percent right. Thank you. I needed to hear that. I've been mulling that idea for weeks. Now that I hear you pitch it back to me, I hear how bananas it is. Let's go."
--:-- We're not cultivating those people. We're falling back on who we feel is comfortable, safe, or where we've always been. Then we get feedback that doesn't help us, doesn't push us forward, and doesn't make us better people.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: I have a friend named Phil McKernan who does a lot of this work. Two things I've learned from Phil: number one, you have to sit with your emotions. We always want to solve. Sometimes it's okay just to sit with the emotion. The second thing is that one of the best things you can do for somebody is to give them space and just be there to listen to them. That's so powerful.
--:-- When you go to a family member, they've got an attachment. They want to see you win. When you go to a friend or somebody who is detached, they still might be rooting for you, but they don't have any skin in the game. So they're going to be objective. They're going to be clear. Your family member may not want you to get better subconsciously because you may leave.
--:-- My mother was very interesting. My first 200 units with Jake, I didn't even tell her I was investing with my business partner because I kept hearing, "You need six mouths to feed." I think subconsciously, I was ready to leave the restaurant. I don't think she wanted me to leave the restaurant subconsciously. Although she wanted the best for me, if I told her, she might have been sending me the wrong signal.
--:-- Just be aware that family is not trying to take you down. They're trying to protect you, but they're also trying to protect themselves. They don't want to lose the version of you that's there. They think if you grow into something different, they're going to lose you. I'm still the same kid, Mom. I'm still the same person. I love you just as much. I just don't think they realize that.
--:-- That's why it's important. That's why Ryan is saying go out and find somebody else. Sometimes your spouse is not the right person to have these conversations with because they may tell you what they want you to hear instead of what you need to hear.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I also think that defining what feedback you're looking for and setting expectations for that from who is important. Your mother is a great example. Mine is too. My mother is amazing at helping me understand how I show up in the world from a relationship standpoint. She is honest, clear, and direct. The other day she said, "I think the empathy gene skipped your generation." Because I don't tend to be a naturally empathetic person—something I had to work at. In fact, my natural level is probably very close to zero. My general thought in life is everything is your fault. Everything is my fault, whether it is or it isn't. I don't mean that from a standpoint of blame. I mean because it's my fault, I can solve the problem. No matter what the problem is, I can solve it because it's my fault.
--:-- So when people bring me their problems, sometimes I'm just like, "Fucking fix it. Let's fix it. Let's go." That's not a good trait as an entrepreneur because everyone has different ways of receiving information. As a leader, you need to understand that. I'm laughing because I'm very similar to you. I have a very similar mindset. That's something I've had to work on, and I've grown and gotten much better at it.
--:-- There's a great quote from Bruce Lee that I relate to this: "The value of the cup is its emptiness." If you approach a situation with a full cup, you can't learn. You can't grow. You can't empathize. Approach it with an empty cup. I'm a huge Bruce Lee fan.
--:-- But if I were to take a business thing to my mom, no idea. She's been a receptionist for 30 years. She's incredible at what she does. She loves her company. Her company is incredibly loyal to her. I'm so happy that she has a place that she shows up to every day and enjoys. However, she doesn't have an ambitious bone in her body. At different points in my career—I don't know if you know my story—I had a kind of high-powered job and I was fired from that. That happened once or twice before I realized I was supposed to be an entrepreneur. Even today, she'd be like, "So did you find a job?" I'm like, "Mom, I'm not looking for a job. I have clients that I work with. I do some fractional CMO work because I enjoy some of the operational side of the work. But I'm not looking for—" She can't understand it.
--:-- So if I were to take business advice to her, I'm going to get horrible feedback. But if I come with a relationship thing—"I had this conversation. It didn't go the way I wanted. What happened?"—she's very good at that. If we can define what we're looking for from that particular individual, they may be really great at giving us feedback on one particular aspect of our lives. Then we just don't need to get feedback from them on everything.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Yes, I like that. My mom would be the same way. I had a thousand units and she's like, "Are you making enough money? Are you okay?" I moved to Florida. I ended up buying a home. In the back of her mind, she's like, "Well, you guys are going to move back up to New York." I'm like, "Mom, I bought a house. I am not coming back." She probably knew it was for the best, but they still, at some points, are holding out and hoping that you come back. It's very interesting. Parents are probably very similar.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Very similar.
--:-- Well, Gino, your podcast—I've watched some of the episodes—it's this and the community. I know a lot of people on here are entrepreneurs. A lot of them have side hustles. A lot of them are interested in real estate. I know the audience lights up every time we ever have anyone in your sector. Where can people get your content, your books? And if they're looking to dive in and take this on and are potentially interested in being part of your community, where do they find all that stuff? How do they dig deeper into what you're doing?
--:-- Just so you know, and the audience knows, anything that Gino references here, we'll have links in the show notes or the description, whether you're watching or listening. So where can they go to get more from you and dive deeper into your world and your work?
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Just go to JakeAndGino.com. We've got a bunch of podcasts on there. We've got our blogs, our articles, our educational content, stuff for our community. We've just launched a program called Passive Investor Pro because I think as a limited partner, that's where the market's gone crazy. You have all these people who are wealthy investing in vehicles that they have no understanding of. It happens in every market cycle. We're seeing it happen again where now all of a sudden deals aren't working and past investors are pissed off. Learn how to invest passively. So just go to JakeAndGino.com and you'll find all the information there.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Gino, it's been a pleasure. Love this conversation. One of my favorites I've had in a long time. Hopefully I have a chance to have you back on the show and just chat again. Dude, I wish you nothing but the best and appreciate the hell out of you.
--:-- Gino Barbaro: Thanks, brother. Great time. Let's go.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Make it look easy.
--:-- [Outro music begins]
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