Gino Barbaro on Building Wealth and a Happy Family

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. "I love rich guys." "You're not like show-up." "I never went to get more." "I never went to get more." "I never went to get more." "It's kind of a few seconds of hours of work." "I don't know if it's going to be a complete deal." "No, no, no, it's not going to be a complete deal."

Rich Bennett 0:29
"Oh 

my God" 

"Oh my God." "Oh my God." "Oh my God." "Oh my God." "Oh my God." "Oh my God." "Oh my God." 

"It's going to be a complete deal." 

Over 2,000 multi-family units and 450 million in assets under management. But before all of that, Gina was known as the Pizza Guy. Owning an Italian restaurant for more than 20 years. You heard me right, 20 years. I know you and he looks like he's 25. But for over 20 years. In 2016, he made a bold move. Leaving the restaurant business to go all-in on multi-family investing. While also co-founded the Jake and Gina community to help others do the same. Along the way, Gina never lost sight of what mattered most. Family, Faith, and fulfillment. Today he lives in Florida with his wife Julia and there are 6 kids. And his message is simple but powerful. You can grow a successful business and a happy family if you're intentional. So this conversation goes way beyond real estate. You're going to learn a lot. So let's just go ahead and dive in. You know how you do them, man. 

Gino Barbaro 1:54
Rich, I'm doing great, brother. How you doing? 

Rich Bennett 1:56
I, cold but you know, you're warm. So I don't want to discuss that anymore because it's disgusting. 

So a lot of people, a lot of people know your business says sex. Not everybody. But a lot of people 

Gino Barbaro 2:10
success. 

Rich Bennett 2:10
know your But I want to start with the bigger picture. When people hear your name, they often think real estate and success. But how do you personally define success today? And has that definition changed over the years? 

Gino Barbaro 2:26
That's an excellent question because I think everyone view success through their own lens, through their own prism, through their own values. What do they value? Now, a younger genome valued balance sheet, valued success through the business prism. I didn't, you know, you get married. You want to have kids. I was looking to have one or two kids. That was a successful life owning the restaurant, running that to me with success. But as I got further along on my journey, my success and my value started to change. The restaurant started to become less, less of a goal for me. 

Rich Bennett 3:00
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 3:00
I valued Family life. I valued being home during the holidays. I valued being home on the weekends and the restaurant did not afford me that luxury. So it's okay for you to shift your values, but just understand what your values are. And to me today, what success looks like to me today is to be living what my sole purpose is. What my why is? Why God put me on here? Doing His will, trying to glorify Him, trying to help other families become financially independent. 

Rich Bennett 3:29
right. 

Gino Barbaro 3:29
That's what I think to me success looks like. And it's funny, the younger me was like all about me, 

Rich Bennett 3:34
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 3:35
me, me. Once you become financially independent, to me things start changing because now you have the flexibility and the time to be focusing and helping others. You can still do that when you're working your ninth to five, but really the focus is more on the family and you don't have the time. To be able to sit down and to be able to say, well, what can I do? And I think to me ultimately the successful part of, I think anybody out there is I think really think that us as humans, we crave to be part of a tribe and we crave to really help others and to create impact in other people's lives. And I think that is what success is morphed into what my thought of success is. 

Rich Bennett 4:12
Well, I want to go back to the restaurant because I caught some of the old videos. I think you're you're making a marinara sauce. I forget what it was for. But I just I love cooking. I explained everybody because my goal what I wanted to do one of the things I wanted to do was go to culinary school and become a chef. I wanted to run my own restaurant. I'm glad I did it because when I talk to other chefs and it's it's a struggle. It's hard. How much of a struggle was that for you? Especially, you know, Marin and you had, you know, you wanted two kids. Something changed because now you have six, but I mean walk us through that. 

Gino Barbaro 4:57
It is very interesting. I grew up in the real estate business. When I 

Rich Bennett 5:00
Oh, 

Gino Barbaro 5:00
was eight years old, I went to work with my dad. He had a restaurant. I made years old in the kitchen with him. Things have changed a lot over the years. I was working the friar. Eight years old. I'm filling chicken there. I grew up around it and I thought it was normal for other kids to go to work with their dad. So I grew up in the environment of hard work. 

Rich Bennett 5:18
right. 

Gino Barbaro 5:19
People yelling at you under pressure. I went to college. I got out of college and worked for a year. I hated it. I was commuting to New York City. It was not the cubicle type. I said, "Dad, can we buy our own place?" We ended up buying our own place. It's interesting. Our values, I think, are created when we were 

Rich Bennett 5:36
Yes. 

Gino Barbaro 5:36
younger. The values of hard work, my dad was a good mentor to me and to the people he worked with, the value of family, the value of being responsible, the value of wanting to control your life. That all came from my father and from my surroundings. When I started a restaurant back in the 90s, it was still profitable. You could still live the middle-class dream with a small business. personally think everything changed around 2008 with the Great Recession. Once we started becoming really global, once the internet started taking off, things started to become more expensive. Healthcare became more expensive. Student going to college became more expensive. That one income was not able to be able to. You still can, but you really have to live a very guarded life. You have to have one car, 1200 square foot house. You can still do it because I think rich, the problem people have is they don't have perspective. Everyone always goes back and says, "Back in the 50s and the 60s, you could live on one income." Yes, you could, but remember, the average footprint of a home was 1200 square feet. There was no cell phones. There was no Uber. There was no Grubhub. 

Rich Bennett 6:41
I 

Gino Barbaro 6:42
There was no vacations. There was one car. Your expenses were very limited. And that's the way life was. Nowadays, we have so many opportunities. It's amazing, but at the same time, with those opportunities, you have to figure out where to sacrifice. For me, I grew up in the business. I loved the business. In 2007, my father passed away. I really had to sit there and say to myself, rich, am I living his life or am I living 

Rich Bennett 7:09
my life? Am 

Gino Barbaro 7:11
know what I mean? I loved it so much, Rich. I would go to work with him. It was always talking about money. I was around him. I enjoyed it every Monday. We were off. I'd be at his house with mom and my family would have lunch together. It was just part of my 

Rich Bennett 7:24
I 

Gino Barbaro 7:24
life. 

Rich Bennett 7:24
living here? 

Gino Barbaro 7:24
But at the same time, I felt as if I was trapped. I was on that W2 hamster wheel where every week, it was like, 

Rich Bennett 7:30
You 

Gino Barbaro 7:30
I'm getting a paycheck, but I'm not creating wealth. And I wanted to create wealth. I wanted to create some type of legacy. I wanted to create some type of financial freedom. And I wasn't able to do that with that one restaurant back in '08. And that's where things started to shift for me and saying, well, how are other people doing it? I mean, there's persons having a great life. This person is making a ton of money. This person is running multiple businesses. How are they doing it? That for me was the shift back in 2008. 

Rich Bennett 7:58
I was listening to another podcast that you were on. And you told the story about, you know, with the restaurant, and you're I think you had the apartments upstairs, right? Where your mother 

Gino Barbaro 8:11
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 8:11
was staying? 

Gino Barbaro 8:12
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 8:13
And a lip a light bulb in your head. 

Gino Barbaro 8:16
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 8:17
Can you 

Gino Barbaro 8:17
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 8:17
tell us that story? Because I just I loved it. I found it 

Gino Barbaro 8:20
Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. My mom owned 

Rich Bennett 8:23
amazing. 

Gino Barbaro 8:23
the building. So my mom, when she bought the building, the restaurant downstairs, we were paying mom rent. And she had three apartments upstairs as she was renting out. And it was, it was a snowy night in January, on a Friday night, about six inches of snow. And I'm out there by myself because the restaurant's basically closed. It's like nine o'clock at night. I'm out there shoveling snow. I'm throwing salt in the driveway. And I look up at one of the apartments, the light bulb lights on in the bathroom. And I just, it's just dawn on me. I'm like mom is home right now in bed making money because that apartment had the other month. They're paying the bills. They're paying the rent. And I'm here in the parking lot. And it's another week where I'm not getting paid. And that's when I said to myself, wow, are you working hard for your money, which I was or is your money working hard for you? Well, my mom was doing both. Her money was working hard for her because she had it in real estate. She was making her dollars earn dollars. And that's when the light bulb went off for me. I'm like, wow, I need to start creating other streams of revenue. I need to start getting the money that I'm earning. My earned income. And I need to have that earned income go into what we call portfolio income, and passive income. And it doesn't have to be big. Think big but start small. 

Rich Bennett 9:36
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 9:37
Start that habit and that mindset of saying, yeah, it's great to work hard, but at some point you want your money to start working as hard as you are. 

Rich Bennett 9:45
And is that when you started with the passive income, you didn't give up the restaurant right away? 

Gino Barbaro 9:49
No. And Rich, there here's another lesson. Don't listen to any gurus or anybody out there. Let's say to you, hey, you found your passion. Go all in. Quit your job and go all in. I said, you know what? I have five kids at the time. I had five kids. I can't quit my job. I need to continue to pay the bills. 

Rich Bennett 10:09
Yep. 

Gino Barbaro 10:10
And at the same time, start a business on the side. And that's what real estate is every time you buy a piece of property, whether it's a single family home, a multi family, a self storage, you are buying a future stream of revenue, you're buying a business. So I were very first business Jake and I bought was a 25 unit apartment complex. I'm still working at the restaurant. I'm able to earn income at the restaurant. That is paying for my lifestyle. And at the same time, I had my first stream of revenue from the real estate. Now, I would take that money from the real estate and continue investing it into real estate. And if I had quit the job, I would have to live off of that revenue from the real estate. I would not be able to scale that business. 

Rich Bennett 10:50
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 10:50
It took me around five years from the from when I started working with Jake, we started looking at properties in 2011. It took us 18 months to find the first deal. But by the year of 2016, I had accumulated enough assets and enough income to be able to leave the restaurant. So don't think to yourself that, "Hey, I have to quit my job and go all-in. You can be methodical. You can have a plan and take your time and be able to set it." And that's what I loved. I was able to think all that money from real estate continued to buy more properties. 

Rich Bennett 11:22
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 11:22
And at the point that I felt that I could cover my burn rate, that's when I left the restaurant. 

Rich Bennett 11:27
Now, was Jake also a partner in the restaurant? 

Gino Barbaro 11:30
He is not. I met Jake through the restaurant. He was a 

Rich Bennett 11:33
Okay. 

Gino Barbaro 11:33
pharmaceutical rep. H was a young dude coming 

Rich Bennett 11:35
Wow. 

Gino Barbaro 11:35
to the restaurant and he was taking orders, catering orders out of the restaurant. And he was going to doctor's offices with these nice lunches and he was selling, they was selling them drugs. He was selling the vaccines and all. 

Rich Bennett 11:47
drugs. 

Gino Barbaro 11:47
Legal 

Rich Bennett 11:47
A licensed drug dealer, right? 

Gino Barbaro 11:51
Basically. But he is same as me. He's like, "I don't want to keep doing this. There's no future. I've got a six figure netting or paying job, making about a 100 grand a year." But he's like, "The Sunshine Act is coming in. Healthcare is completely changing. I have no security in this." He's like, "I like this real estate thing." So I said, " Jake, when you move down to Knoxville because he was living in New York as well, when you move down to Knoxville, let's start looking at deals." He moved back in 2011 and we started looking at deals. And the great thing about Jake is when you're looking for a partner, you want a hard working 

Rich Bennett 12:22
Yes. 

Gino Barbaro 12:22
partner. You want to have a partner that has vision. Same vision as yours, complementary values, right? Someone who has expectations laid out and doesn't make excuses. And that for us, we got really, we started buying deals together and we were both working our jobs. Jake left a little sooner than me. He had smaller families than me. Knoxville's obviously, Knoxville's expenses were a lot less than me. So he was able to leave. Plus, he was managing the property because he was boots on the ground. So for us, we just both wanted multi-family. We both wanted to create wealth. We both were really focused on our families and we both wanted to build a sustainable scalable business. 

Rich Bennett 12:59
So with that, with you meeting him and you guys jumping into this, let me rephrase that. You didn't really jump into it because you still kept the restaurant. But were there any fears you faced and if so, had you overcome them? 

Gino Barbaro 13:16
It's another, it's another great question. I had failed as a partner in real estate back in 2005. 

Rich Bennett 13:23
Okay. 

Gino Barbaro 13:23
I had gone into a deal with the gentleman and obviously, I can look back at it and say he was a criminal, he was a fraud, he was negligent on the management of the property. But I had to take ownership. I'm the one who signed on the docs. I'm the one who didn't get on the plane and go look at those properties. 

Rich Bennett 13:41
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 13:41
I'm the one who didn't know what a cap rate was or a cash on cash return was. I had money. I gave it to someone with experience. That person who had the experience, he took my money. I... experience. And I had to understand through a lot of personal development, through a lot of life coaching that I needed to take responsibility from that. And I did. And 

Rich Bennett 14:01
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 14:01
I said, it's not that partnerships are bad. It said I was a bad partner. And he was a bad partner. And our values didn't align. That was the thing. He was a sloppy person. He was not a hard worker. He always made excuses. And ultimately we lost that deal because of him. But I had to take responsibility once again because I stroke the check and I put my money into the deal. I didn't have to. But I learned a lot of lessons from that. So when I 

Rich Bennett 14:25
Yep. 

Gino Barbaro 14:26
became, you know, I started looking for partnership. And I think partnerships are great in real estate because there's so much to do. You have to acquire properties, you have to go, you have to go do do do do, do something, the property, you have to run properties, you have to sell properties, so much to do. At one point we took on investors. So I think partnerships are awesome. But when you look at a partnership, you have to first ask yourself, what am I bringing to the table? 

Rich Bennett 14:50
Y. 

Gino Barbaro 14:50
What value do I have? Most people look at it and go, well, what's rich going to give me in this partnership? Now look at yourself in the mirror first and say, am I a good partner? What value do I have? And when I looked at the partnership that Jake and I were creating, I knew that I had more experience in real estate. I had been through a lot of bad deals. I had gone through a couple of real estate cycles. 

Rich Bennett 15:11
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 15:11
And I had the experience. So I had a lot of value for Jake. Now Jake had a lot of value for me because he was boots on the ground. He lived in Knoxville. He could go tour the properties. He could talk to the brokers. He could go to the bank. So the value for value was about equal. So when we got into it, we just said, let's buy a deal. Let's see how it works. It's almost like you're getting engaged. You don't have to get married. You can do your first deal. And if it doesn't work out, you can part ways. 

Rich Bennett 15:40
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 15:40
But after our first deal, three months after our first deal, we found our second deal. And after our second deal, six months later, we found our third deal. Now were there difficult conversations? Absolutely. But just like any marriage, you have to have the tough conversations and you have to be able to communicate. But you have to be also on the same page. If I was the person who was going to say, Jake, we're buying these deals and we're flipping them. And Jake was like, no, I want to buy and hold these forever. That marriage is going to 

Rich Bennett 16:08
divorce. 

Gino Barbaro 16:08
end in 

Rich Bennett 16:08
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 16:10
for us, we had the same vision. Even to this day, over the past couple of years, it's been challenging finding deals in multifamily. We almost decided to switch to RV parks, 

Rich Bennett 16:20
And 

Gino Barbaro 16:20
but we looked at ourselves, yeah, we said, you know what timeout? We want to become the Chick-fil-A of apartments. We want to have superior customer service. If we move to another niche, we have to learn the whole management model. Exactly. So let's just wait. Let's be patient. Let's continue to hold our vision. And that really led us through the last couple of years where there weren't deals to finally deal started showing up. And we started buying again. 

Rich Bennett 16:43
And I love how you mentioned values because values are very important. But how important are shared values compared to shared goals? 

Gino Barbaro 16:58
That's another great question. I would start off by saying values should be the pinnacle or should be really focused on every time you make a decision in your life, whatever decision you make, my mentor called it values-based decision-making. I mean, listen, leaving the restaurant, why did I leave the restaurant? Ultimately, I didn't feel fulfilled and it wasn't aligning with my values anymore. 

Rich Bennett 17:22
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 17:23
You know, when you have that gut feeling when something doesn't feel right, when you're looking at a deal or you're buying a house or you're trying to get into a partnership, if there's something off, it's usually because it doesn't align with your values. And I've gone through other partnerships, since Jake, one partnership that we're building Airbnb's, the model was great, the idea was great. The partners weren't. And I made that mistake. I didn't check into my values. I was looking more at the phone goal, more at the get their rightest than the actual value. So every time you make a decision, whether it's what are you eating, who are you hanging around with, what kind of business are you going to acquire, where do you want to send your kids to school, 

Rich Bennett 18:02
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 18:02
what kind of legacy do you want to leave? It also always has to lead with values. And then from that, you set your goals or your objectives. The goal is the end result. That's all the goal is, you have to follow a system or a process to hit those goals. But I think every time you set your goals, they have to be set based upon your values. 

Rich Bennett 18:22
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 18:22
And if you don't know what your values are, most of us, unfortunately, we just don't. We don't really stop and think about it. We think we know, right? We could put some words up there, I want to live an integrity-filled life. I want to be a responsibility. I want to be in control. But are you actually living that way? Are you making your decisions that way? Or is it just a marketing slogan that you've got core values in a mission statement? You check them out every now and again, but are you actually living by those values? 

Rich Bennett 18:48
So when it comes to partners, 

Gino Barbaro 18:52
mm-hmm, 

Rich Bennett 18:52
besides your wife being the best partner, uh, [laughs] 

Gino Barbaro 18:55
And most important, uh, 

Rich Bennett 18:56
uh, 

Gino Barbaro 18:57
Obviously, 

Rich Bennett 18:57
absolutely. 

Gino Barbaro 18:57
the most important partner. 

Rich Bennett 18:59
Would you say that the partnership with, with Jake was almost like a godsend? 

Gino Barbaro 19:07
Eh, ehm, it was a godsend and God did open that door. 

Rich Bennett 19:11
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 19:12
But remember, in '05, he closed that door. That door on partnership was bad, and I could have been a victim. I could have said, 'Partnerships are bad'. My neural pathways and my brain could have really rewired and said, 'Don't look for partnerships anymore.' They're really risky. Hearing it from my mom and from my extended family about the loss of this money at $172, 000 for a young guy with three kids was a, was a significant blow. 

Rich Bennett 19:37
Mm-hmm. 

Gino Barbaro 19:37
And I could have said, 'You know what? What was me?' But God sent Jake at the right time. Because in '08, remember I said I was getting ready. I read the book by T. Harvacher. The secrets of the millionaire mind. 

Rich Bennett 19:50
Ah! 

Gino Barbaro 19:50
Fruits are in your roots. And that message opened up another door for me. I looked at, 'Hey, I need to learn this real estate business.' I need to understand how to underwrite a deal. I need to understand what due diligence is. And all of a sudden I started quote-unquote investing in my education. Not spending money, but investing in it. Because I had learned on the street. I had made tons of mistakes before. The next deal, after that 1 and 05 was even worse. So I said, 'Time out. I need to learn in the classroom.' And I started learning. And I got pretty good. And I got an understanding of what the business was like. So when Jake walked into my life in 2009, and he started catering, we started having those conversations. And then when he said, 'I'm leaving New York.' Well guess what? I was prepared. I was ready. So he was a God sent. God did send him to me. But it's as if you've ever heard that quote, when you're looking for the teacher, he or she 

Rich Bennett 20:45
appear. 

Gino Barbaro 20:45
will 

Rich Bennett 20:45
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 20:45
It is very similar to that. When you're looking for a partner, he or she will appear. And I had to do a lot. Rich, it's really similar to what a lot of my students used to say, 'You know, I've been doing this real estate thing, and all of a sudden, one day a deal fell in my lap.' A deal just doesn't fall on your lap. You've got to do a lot before 

Rich Bennett 21:03
There. 

Gino Barbaro 21:03
that deal falls in your lap. You've got to call tons of brokers. You've got to do tons of property tours. You've got to underwrite a hundred deals. And then suddenly you get lucky. The word luck is to me, obviously, a lot of hard work and preparation. And then you ultimately get lucky. You're an overnight success. But you don't look at all the work that you've done to get that deal falling in your lap. 

Rich Bennett 21:28
With Jake, well, 

before I ask you this question because you see a lot of entrepreneurs, they want to create partnerships and everything. And you've already told about how other partnerships you had. You didn't, they were, they were failures. And you also hear the phrase you never bring your work home. However, I would think when you're not your panor that's different. So do you also, like before you met Jake and these other partners, did you confide with your wife and you're actually even your family? I don't know if the kids are old enough yet. But, and what was their take on it? 

Gino Barbaro 22:11
mean, every family does things 

Rich Bennett 22:13
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 22:13
differently. I had, I had the restaurant. So my wife was intimately involved with the money. 

Rich Bennett 22:18
I 

Gino Barbaro 22:18
I mean, I talked about money coaching. Money coaching has certain, it has eight archetypes. An archetype is a character inside of you. Well, my wife was the classic innocent archetype when it comes to money. She buried her head in the sand. She didn't want to worry have anything to do with money. She knew that I was the responsible one. So I was what you call a tyrant. 

Rich Bennett 22:38
Okay. 

Gino Barbaro 22:39
and more of a self tyrant, more of a person who was coming from a place of fear, more of a place of scarcity, more of a place of control. And that's how, you know, for many years our relationship was, I would take care of the money. She would take care of the household. Wasn't really a healthy way to do things in business. I would confide with her about certain problems that I was having, 

Rich Bennett 22:57
Tyrant, 

Gino Barbaro 22:57
but I did have my, my brother who was a partner in the restaurant. So what I would say is you want to have, and especially with leaving legacy to children and all that, you do want to have conversations. You don't want to avoid the topic of money. You want to mirror a healthy relationship with money because I will promise you, if you avoid money or there's a lot of tension around money, your children will know 

Rich Bennett 23:18
Oh, 

Gino Barbaro 23:18
it. and 

Rich Bennett 23:19
yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 23:19
they'll grow up in that. So to answer your question, yeah, we did confide early on. And then when I started working with Jake, the beauty about having a partnership is, he's an entrepreneur just like me. He's going through tough situations. I'm going through tough situations. We can really and confide in each other. And what's great about it, we have two sets of eyes on an opportunity versus one set. I may have a different opinion he does. He may look at something differently than me. He may say, I never thought of that. That's a great way of looking at it and vice versa. So for me, having that open and honest relationship with your partner is important. And I would also say, you have to check your pride and you have to check your ego at the door. And the last thing I'll say is, I look at it from this perspective. I look at it from the perspective of, I don't want to let my partner down. I'm feeding his family. And I think Jake unconsciously does the same thing. He has never missed a meeting. He never makes excuses. He goes on vacation. He's last week he was on vacation and Buffalo skiing with his kids. We're putting a deal in the contract. We're 

Rich Bennett 24:21
yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 24:21
putting in 

Rich Bennett 24:21
right. 

Gino Barbaro 24:21
an L O I in while he's on vacation. And I do the same thing. I don't want to let my partner down unconsciously because I know that I'm helping feed his family. And I think if people realize they're more willing, more unconsciously willing to let themselves down than they are, they're partners. That's why having a partner is incredible. They'll work harder for the jakes of the world than they will for themselves. And that's evident with me. Like, I won't let him down. I will be on as many podcasts as possible. I will try to work as hard for the business as possible not to let him down and let his family down. And he reciprocates that. And that's where I think there's that genuine bond. A I'm not doing this for pride or ego. I'm doing this really to fulfill my family. 

Rich Bennett 25:01
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 25:01
Phil, make sure that his family has stability as well. 

Rich Bennett 25:04
Now does he still live in Tennessee or is he in Florida? 

Gino Barbaro 25:06
He does. No, he's in Knoxville. I 

Rich Bennett 25:08
he-- 

Gino Barbaro 25:08
mean 

Rich Bennett 25:08
Or not? Yeah, in Knoxville. 

Gino Barbaro 25:09
He's, yeah, he loves it there. It's an amazing city. So once again, got open the door in 2011. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. I couldn't find Knoxville, Tennessee in a map. You 

Rich Bennett 25:22
[LAUGHTER] 

Gino Barbaro 25:22
know, no one knows, 

Rich Bennett 25:23
[CLICK] 

Gino Barbaro 25:23
like-- No one-- honestly, there was no migration. People from New York, New Florida. And that's it. So when he said Knoxville, I'm like, where's Knoxville? And fortunately, he moved there. And it's just been incredible. We've seen incredible growth there. It's an amazing city. The people are incredible. The state is pro-business. It's just an amazing state to do business in. 

Rich Bennett 25:46
And the reason I brought that up, too, is because a lot of people would think with a partnership you have to be in the same place. 

Gino Barbaro 25:52
No, yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:53
And you guys have this great partnership in 

Gino Barbaro 25:56
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:56
two different states. And I take it, your investments are not just one local area. They're everywhere, right? 

Gino Barbaro 26:06
Well, we have 1900 units. If they're within a two-hour radius of Knoxville, 

Rich Bennett 26:09
OK. 

Gino Barbaro 26:10
so the vast majority-- I have some single family homes down here that I'm not partner 

Rich Bennett 26:14
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 26:14
with them. But our entire portfolio is there. And obviously, people say, well, trust. I mean, you have to trust, but verify. We have weekly meetings. We have monthly draw reports. I have access to all the bank statements and all the money coming in and all the money flowing out. We have certain KPIs. We have weekly pulse reports that go out every week from our property manager. So I have access to all the numbers. So that, to me, is very important, versus my very first opportunity that I had with my partner back in '05. I didn't know what bank he was using. I never looked at a bank statement. I never saw what the money coming in, the money going out. I didn't know what the expenses were. Completely different. I had no responsibility, no understanding. Versus now, it's a lot different. And if you're going to go into partnership and you're not the money person, 

Rich Bennett 27:02
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 27:02
you still need to understand where the money's going. So then if something happens three years from now and your partner embezzles money from you, you have to understand it was probably partly your fault. 

Rich Bennett 27:13
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 27:14
They're a criminal, but at the same time, you need to understand what's going on within your business. 

Rich Bennett 27:19
Whose idea was it to start the Jake and Gina show? 

Gino Barbaro 27:22
hmm. Yeah, in 2016 when I moved down here, Rich, I thought I'm moving to Florida. I'm going to buy some assets in Jacksonville, tennis and Jacksonville, Florida. And people in this market are like Jacksonville. So expensive. Now this is back in 2017, 

Rich Bennett 27:35
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 27:36
asset prices have doubled. So never listen to anybody in the market because they think they're living in this paradigm of what Jacksonville was back in the '80s and '90s. Jacksonville boomed 

Rich Bennett 27:46
Mm 

Gino Barbaro 27:46
and I missed it. And I'm like, Jake, let's just continue invest in Knoxville. But I was bored here. I needed to do something. So I said, why don't we just after we write the book, let's start the podcast. So we started a podcast back in 2016. 

Rich Bennett 27:59
Oh, wow. 

Gino Barbaro 27:59
enjoyed it. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I loved talking about real estate. It made us much better investors. And then I said, Jake, you know what? We've got this framework, by right, managed right, 

Rich Bennett 28:09
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 28:09
finance right. Let's start teaching that. Let's start creating a mastermind group. And we started back in 2018, the education 

Rich Bennett 28:16
Mm 

Gino Barbaro 28:16
company. And what I loved about it was you learned, then you do it, and then you come full circle and you start teaching it. And this, then the amazing resources that I was able to learn, the connections that I made. I mean, brokers have brought us deals because they want to work with Jake and Geno, the brand that we were able to grow. All of a sudden, we have an investor list of over, you know, 500 people waiting to invest with us. We're able to do syndications from the, from the brand that we built. I mean, it's just an amazing thing. You start out thinking that you're going to create this business and this brand because you want to create, you know, and 

Rich Bennett 28:50
hmm. 

Gino Barbaro 28:50
grow the 

Rich Bennett 28:50
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 28:50
business side of it. But I felt so much fulfillment and so much fun being able to coach others and teach others to learn about real estate. So I was using it in multiple ways as partly fulfillment, but also as partly to be able to continue to grow the real estate business. 

Rich Bennett 29:04
Yeah. And you mentioned something, something that I love to push the mastermind group. How, I mean, was that like, I want to say like a blessing because to me, everybody should be in one. 

Gino Barbaro 29:17
Even to this day, my business partner, every Tuesday he gets on the podcast. He's like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this and I'm like, bro, and then at the end of the podcast, he'd be like, man, I'm glad we did it. And I think to him, I think to him, he's an introvert. He doesn't like to leave his house. I mean, like, 

Rich Bennett 29:34
okay. 

Gino Barbaro 29:34
He's like the kind of guy that likes to stay home, but it's one of those things where every week, we have an amazing guest on, I mean, 

Rich Bennett 29:40
right, 

Gino Barbaro 29:41
How many, and you learn from them, you spend an hour of time with somebody whose time is worth thousands of dollars. You're able to learn from them. You're able to network with them. Now, all of a sudden, you're part of their group. And for those of you who say, well, I can do it on my own. You probably can. It's going to take you a lot longer. It's going to be a lot less fulfilling. And then just the idea to be able to sit into a room with other people who are working at a high level to be able to quote on quote, pick their brain, ask them questions. And to be able to see how they view business. Because we all have different ideas and different concepts. And you're sitting in that room in that mastermind room of other people who are scaling their businesses. You get so many different ideas, so many different resources. And sometimes you get validity about, you know, validity of what you're doing. 

Rich Bennett 30:25
right. 

Gino Barbaro 30:25
Jake and I about four years ago, we decided to stop syndicating deals. We didn't want to raise capital anymore. We just wanted to start funding deals on our own. 

Rich Bennett 30:34
Okay. 

Gino Barbaro 30:34
And people, there were some people that were saying, well, why don't you want to syndicate? And we're like, we just don't want to have investors. We don't want bosses in our deals. We want to just continue to control the equity. RKPI, our big key performance indicator is profit per unit. And as a syndication company, you're more focused on the exit and on fees. And we want to really be able to control our portfolio more and really get profitability out of each, each property, each 

Rich Bennett 30:59
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 30:59
unit. Remember the values? That was our values. That was, that was how we made that decision. And getting on and speaking to operators that, like, you know what, your way is the right way. It's just a confirmation that we're doing it the right way as far as, as far as how we've seen it and how as far as how many operators are doing it in their world. So getting on there, the podcast just started. It's not even just to be able to grow your business or to monetize. It's just getting out there and having amazing conversations with people who are in business, having the same struggles as you and having the same, I guess, goals as you do. 

Rich Bennett 31:33
Now, which podcast came first? The one with Jake or the one with your wife? 

Gino Barbaro 31:38
No, Jake and Geno started in 2016. And then in 2019, I just started having that calling to family. 

Rich Bennett 31:45
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 31:45
And I said, Julia, there aren't that many shows that I have a husband, a wife on, that get on, that talk about family, that talk about connection. And we've been able to interview guys like Dr. Gary Chapman, we've interviewed him three times. Yeah, the five love languages, amazing. He's written, you know, he's co-authored hundreds of books. I mean, he has so many authors, the apology languages. He's got a language of appreciation, five love languages for teens. It's just, and like I said, once again, we've been able to learn so many different things. So that podcast came first, then it was Julie and Geno and I just launched a podcast with my son around, it's almost a year ago called the Happy Money podcast. 

Rich Bennett 32:23
Really? 

Gino Barbaro 32:24
I wanted to have, yeah, I want to have a podcast with my son,he's  23 years old. He is really intelligent. I mean, just, he actually challenges me and we have arguments on the podcast. all the time about money, right? We just had a we had an argument last week about investing versus speculation and I just have a different viewpoint of what speculation is versus what investing is and we just sit there and it's great because you have a viewpoint of a person who's been through business for years and then you have somebody who's young who's going through it now and it's just a father and son connecting and having an honest conversation and I love that. I love the conversation that I have. So for anybody out there that's all podcasts are all about and for me the the podcast with my wife it's almost as if every week we sit down and we have a therapy session, we get out there, we make fun of each other, we have a great time and that's what to me that's what my sole purpose is is getting in front of a mic with my wife with my son sharing those stories and just showing people how amazing family 

Rich Bennett 33:18
be. 

Gino Barbaro 33:18
life can 

Rich Bennett 33:18
Did you have a hard time convincing your wife to do the podcast? 

Gino Barbaro 33:22
I did. 

Rich Bennett 33:23
Okay because I've been to get my wife away. You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett, we'll be right back. 

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Gino Barbaro 34:49
Sanchez. So Rich, it's interesting, well my wife actually ultimately came down to what it's one of those things where it's the fear of loss versus the fear of gain. She actually had to convince herself that I've got something to tell people and if they don't hear this message, they're losing out. Now once she overcame that fear and she's like yeah we do have something and everybody, all of you listening have an amazing unique story that needs to get put out into the world. Then her next goal was well I'm afraid of people and I said Julia, there's only me in you here baby. No one's listening to us. It's just a camera, you hit the button, you're authentic, you're true, you make mistakes, not the end of the world. Just get out there and just speak your truth and let's have some great conversations because people were constantly asking her Rich at my Jake and Gino events. These are real state events. Well how do you raise your family? How do you have six kids? How do you dedicate time? It's not that hard, but it's hard when somebody doesn't know. 

Rich Bennett 35:47
yeah 

Gino Barbaro 35:47
So I'm like we need to get on these shows and we need to start talking about family like making money is great. But leaving a legacy and involving your family within the business is also important. So you have a voice in this. So to speak specifically to your wife, just pretend it's just you and her having a great conversation about the things that you do in your life and all of a sudden it'll just come naturally and have fun. 

Rich Bennett 36:11
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 36:12
Oh fun at each other and you'll be 

Rich Bennett 36:13
Spoken 

Gino Barbaro 36:14
surprised. 

Rich Bennett 36:14
fun at me. 

Gino Barbaro 36:16
So it's natural, she'll be a natural. 

Rich Bennett 36:18
I've had my daughter on although my daughter didn't want to be on, 

Gino Barbaro 36:23
and 

Rich Bennett 36:23
she chimed in that we had a ramp table, she chimed in and I'll be honest with my son's been on a few times and when you mentioned that you and your son are doing a podcast, to me that is so fulfilling because 

Gino Barbaro 36:38
yes, 

Rich Bennett 36:39
my son used to DJ with me. He started when he was 13 and I love those moments when he and I would DJ together since then we've retired. But he'll come on to the podcast and you know different subjects and we'll talk about it. It's just 

Gino Barbaro 36:53
yes. 

Rich Bennett 36:54
God.It  feels so good. It's just that family value. 

Gino Barbaro 36:57
Yes. And it's, once again, it's, it's the legacy component for me. And everyone thinks legacy is something you leave behind. Legacy is something you set in motion today. 

Rich Bennett 37:07
Yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 37:07
And I think of that podcast as part of our legacy when his kids are going to see that grandpa was talking to dad and all of a sudden his kids kids, or we'll be able to see that. So that's something that's some kind of legacy. And it's for me talking about money, being 

Rich Bennett 37:22
yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 37:22
able to be open and honest about money and having that conversation for the family. So the family sees that. And I think that's what's important. And for us, we love talking about our last show is about wealth versus being rich. So understanding and having those conversations and really understanding what the value of money is and how we view money in our household. 

Rich Bennett 37:41
Well, you think about it growing up and I wish I still had these tapes. We had the 

God, answer machines. 

Gino Barbaro 37:55
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 37:55
you 

Gino Barbaro 37:55
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 37:56
know. And 

Gino Barbaro 37:57
oh, yeah, 

Rich Bennett 37:58
you used to have the tapes. The old eight millimeter. Of course, you're too young. You, you didn't have eight millimeter films. You probably have VHS or straight to DVD. 

Gino Barbaro 38:07
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 38:08
But with the family, you can have all that stuff and there's on my cell phone. There's a it was on my old cell phone and since then I've lost it. But a voicemail that my brother left me and since then he's passed, but I would just go back and you can hear his voice. Those of you listening, if you have a family. Start a podcast together. And here's the great thing about it. If you don't want the world to hear your podcast, there is such a thing as private podcasts where 

Gino Barbaro 38:39
It's 

Rich Bennett 38:39
you 

Gino Barbaro 38:39
right. 

Rich Bennett 38:39
could do it just, the family to hear. 

Gino Barbaro 38:42
yes, 

Rich Bennett 38:42
And those are, that's something you're going to cherish as you get older. And when you're going, it's something that the kids, the grandkids, 

Gino Barbaro 38:51
for 

Rich Bennett 38:51
great, great kids will have that they can listen. Man, you just put it, see that? You, man, Gino, you gave me an idea now. 

Gino Barbaro 39:00
yeah, yeah. You gave yourself the idea that's part of the mastermind right there. We just prove the concept of the mastermind right there. You're sitting down, having a conversation and you're listening. So the whole idea is to really get your level of energy up. I think our level of energy is up right now. If we're sitting by ourselves, we're scrolling through Instagram, the level of energy is down. 

Rich Bennett 39:19
Yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 39:19
We're just disengaged. But the mastermind is all about engagement. It's all about raising the level of energy in that room. All of a sudden we start working at some kind of frequency or kind of wavelength and we start throwing out ideas. Some ideas are completely crazy. And some ideas tend to stick. And for me, the legacy, I'll bring that legacy component one step further. Legacy is comprised of not only financial. That's where most people go. But it's also comprised of the human capital and the intellectual capital. Now, you're talking about the intellectual capital right there where you're starting a podcast and you're actually talking and you're leaving that to the next generation. The human capital is your children and yourself. And what you guys are worth and those stories, that's where you talk about legacy and things start changing. Write a book. I've written so many books. That's part of my legacy. I've 

Rich Bennett 40:10
yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 40:10
got the Jake and Gina YouTube channel. That's part of my legacy. I've got kids books that my wife is written. That's part of our legacy. All of these things start fitting into place. And then all of a sudden you start seeing, well, I'm not really doing this just for the monetization of it, which is great. I want to leave my kids, you know, obviously an inheritance and the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, it says a good man leaves his children's children and inheritance. But what is that inheritance? It's not just a financial inheritance. It's what we were talking about right now. And how cool is it? You're leaving your values to your kids. You're leaving your goals, your dreams, you're sharing it with them. And then all of a sudden, you don't go shirts leave to shirts leaving three generations because you're teaching the next generation to become a steward 

Rich Bennett 40:57
yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 40:57
of values, of human capital, of intellectual capital, and you're laying the groundwork. But you need to start today. It's not something you leave. It's something that you set in motion right now. 

Rich Bennett 41:08
You mentioned something there. And I have to ask you this, so how does faith influence the way you actually lead and not just with work, but even at home? 

Gino Barbaro 41:21
It's evolved over time. And I think for me, what I've come to realize two things, I'm a big, big proponent and a big advocate of David Green, the gentleman who went to Abilavi. 

Rich Bennett 41:32
Oh, 

Gino Barbaro 41:32
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 41:33
okay. 

Gino Barbaro 41:34
his company, he grosses $7 billion a year, he's a private company. 

Rich Bennett 41:38
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 41:38
He nets a billion dollars. But to him, in his mindset, he doesn't own anything, 

Rich Bennett 41:43
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 41:43
god owns everything. 

Rich Bennett 41:51
Yeah, 

Gino Barbaro 42:03
But as well. So that, that's the mindset that I've been able to adopt is like, it's really mine, but it really isn't mine. 

Rich Bennett 42:09
yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 42:09
And I'm here thinking about my biggest, I think, as parents, this is just what I believe, my biggest goal or my biggest duty is to try to get my kids into heaven. That's what it is to me. 

Rich Bennett 42:21
Wow. 

Gino Barbaro 42:21
So if that's what the value is here, okay great, they can have all the accolades. They can have the best students in the world. They can have six figure incomes, but if they're terrible people, or they lose their faith, I fail them as a parent. I think so. That to me, that's how I'm trying to align the financial, which is great, it's important, but the values to me are a lot more important. And all the decisions we make should be based upon that. And I think if you have that guiding star, that North star, and you have your vision and your core values based upon that. One of our core values is stewardship. One of our core values is God first, we have to live by that. I mean, that our actions really are all about that. And if you don't have that, if you don't really aren't making decisions based on values, then it can be muddy and you can be confused and you can feel like as if you're getting stuck. And it can be hard because sometimes there's fog and you don't see the shoreline. But once that fog clears, you see the shoreline, that's where you have your vision. That's what having a legacy and having a plan for what you want the future to look like really will help you today in making the decisions that's best for your family. 

Rich Bennett 43:28
You look at different families and there are, you know, I mean, you make it just sound so easy and a lot of parents 

Gino Barbaro 43:37
It's not... 

Rich Bennett 43:38
struggle. So how... and you parents that are listening, I want you to listen to this very carefully. And... because I think Geno's response is going to teach you a lot. How do you teach values like responsibility and gratitude to your kids? 

Gino Barbaro 44:00
Actions speak louder than words. Your kids are going to mirror what you do. And listen, you need to give yourself some grace. You're gonna make mistakes. One thing that I've learned that's really powerful is you need to listen to your kids.They  drive you nuts and it's all... it's really hard work. We've homeschooled our kids. So we have six kids ages 26 to 11. They're always around. They drive us nuts. There's never a moment of peace in the house. It's a lot of hard work. It's hard to be able to listen. 

Rich Bennett 44:34
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 44:34
There's two things that you need to do with your children. You need to number one, not always dictate but just sit there, listen and not try to solve. You need to create connection with your children before you can solve a problem. That's... is if you're a leader in a business, that's if you're a father in the house. We're always trying to solve. I don't want to say we. I had that issue. Well, what's the problem? Let me solve it. Sometimes they just want to talk to you. They don't want to have the problem solved. You want to be able to create a connection. And the second thing that you need to do as a parent, you need to be able to apologize when you do make a mistake. And that's hard for a lot of men because we have ego and we have pride. But you do make mistakes. If you want your kids to be more charitable, if you want them to be more grateful, if you want them to learn how to apologize when they make a mistake and become more responsible, you need to show them how to do it. And that has been... that's one of the hardest things for me to admit. That's one of the hardest things for me to admit is when I make a mistake, I'm like, "Dude, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." But part of that emotional intelligence and growing up, and that's one of the values that we have, is that we have to admit when we're wrong and that can be very hard. But for parents, I want to deviate for one second and make people understand why it's very challenging. Our brain is set up into three different areas. The first part of our brain is the crock brain, it's the reptilian brain. It's the primitive brain. That's the fight or flight. You react right away, you know, it's stimulus, react right away. The second part is the emotional part of the brain or the limit part of the brain. That's where the emotions are processed. That's when things are going on and you have an emotional 

Rich Bennett 46:09
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 46:10
response. You want to be able to calm that second brain down because you want it to go to the prefrontal cortex, which is the neocortex, which is the more advanced brain, the rational part of the brain. So when you're having an argument with your kids, I think you need to stop slow down. You want to go from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state. So you want to just leave the situation, let it simmer for 10 minutes, and then all of a sudden, you can come back to it because you can't elicit the rational part of the brain if your emotions are all wound up. And I'll give you a quick example. We were having a discussion the other day. We want to buy a new cow. We've got a farm. So we want to buy a Jersey cow. And with this Jersey cow, she's pregnant, but there's a bull, also. And we're talking about it. And one of my children starts freaking out because she's afraid. And she says, "I don't want a bull in the pasture." And my younger one is like, well, we can get it. Don't worry about it. There's a big argument. And I'm just sitting there going, wow, their emotions are so high that they aren't even hearing each 

Rich Bennett 47:06
other. Right. 

Gino Barbaro 47:07
They'll get each other. And this was going on with the internet. You see what's going on in the world. But as an adult, as a parent, you let the situation simmer after we had that discussion. 30 minutes later, we decided as a family that we weren't ready to get this bull because we don't have electric fencing and we have repercussions. We're not really sure. Some kids are afraid. Some aren't. So I went to my daughter who was afraid. 30 minutes later, she had calmed down. And I just had a conversation with her. And I said, "Listen, I understand what happened. I just want you to learn. You see how you were acted. I know you didn't mean to act that way. But this is what happened. Your emotions overrode. And you're just going crazy. You need to calm yourself down. And you need to teach your kids how to emotionally regulate their emotions. Their teenagers, their brains aren't even fully formed yet. And that's what's happening. That's why teenagers go crazy. And you as an adult need, we're not taught this. We have to learn this stuff. 

Rich Bennett 48:00
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 48:01
And if we can learn this stuff, we can understand why a 16 year old is screaming at us and you're telling them to do something. And it seems like so logical and so rational to you. But to them, they're so filled with emotions that they can't even elicit that part of their brain. So just calm down, let it cool, come back to 20 minutes later. You heard the expression cooler heads will prevail. 

Rich Bennett 48:22
Yes. 

Gino Barbaro 48:22
Well, that's what ends up happening. 

Rich Bennett 48:24
And I think with that, not just with the kids, but with people in general, 

Gino Barbaro 48:29
in 

Rich Bennett 48:29
because 

Gino Barbaro 48:29
general, 

Rich Bennett 48:30
I think that's something that is missing today. A lot of people don't know how to have conversations. 

Gino Barbaro 48:37
Nope. Nope. 

Rich Bennett 48:38
They're they're they'd rather just yell 

Gino Barbaro 48:41
well, 

Rich Bennett 48:41
and argue. 

Gino Barbaro 48:42
there's two two things going on. One is the confirmation bias. And I fall into it as well. My biases need to be confirmed. I need to be right. And that's dangerous when you're in business, and that's 

Rich Bennett 48:54
Oh, 

Gino Barbaro 48:54
dangerous 

Rich Bennett 48:54
yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 48:54
when you're a family. Because you see all the great entrepreneurs they're out there and taking cues. And they're taking advice from everybody, whether they're conservative or liberal and trying, and that's what the mastermind does, trying to get, you know, viewpoints from everywhere. When you're living in a bubble and you're constantly getting confirmation bias, that's not a good thing. 

Rich Bennett 49:12
Now 

Gino Barbaro 49:12
It's going to lead ultimately to making bad decisions. Are you, you're going to be missing things? And the second thing is called the Dunning Cougar Effect. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. But the Dunning Cougar Effect basically says the less you know about a topic, typically the louder you are and the more certain you are about the outcomes or about the results of it. You see these people on TV screaming. 

Rich Bennett 49:34
Oh, I'm 

Gino Barbaro 49:35
crazy. And giving their opinions, they tend to have very little experience. And they tend to be the loudest, but they tend to know the least. 

Rich Bennett 49:43
Exactly. 

Gino Barbaro 49:43
Are you a Dunning Cougar or are you a person out there who listens to everybody else? You know, takes advice and actually comes up with a plan. A smart person knows the answer to all the questions. 

Rich Bennett 49:56
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 49:56
A wise person knows the questions to ask. That's the difference. 

Rich Bennett 50:02
I love it. It was, I think it was a wrestler. Uh, all he's loved the line. He said it was rowdy, rowdy, paper. He said, just when you think you know the answer, I change the question. 

Gino Barbaro 50:14
I love that. That's awesome. 

Rich Bennett 50:17
I see something else you do. And I definitely want to hit on this. The money coaching. When did you start that? 

Gino Barbaro 50:25
I started it a couple of years ago because I read a book by Morgan Housel. call the psychology of money. And I just didn't realize how much of an impact the relationship a person has with money dictates how financially successful they'll be. And I looked at it in my own life. I was financially successful later on in life because I had trouble with the relationship with money. The patterns and the behaviors that I adopted as a young adult came from my parents. Some of them were really good. 

Rich Bennett 50:55
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 50:56
My parents were avid savers, they were really hard workers. They were sort of averse to risk. And that was good and it was bad. So I grew up in this scarcity mindset. I grew up in this fear and anxiety around money. Hence I became a tyrant. I grew up in this. I need to save for a rainy day. I can't touch this money. It's never a sunny day. It's a rainy day. And then I looked at it and I had that one restaurant for 20 years. How is it that when I parted with Jake within five years I had over a thousand units. It's incredible. A couple things come to mind. But to me the most important was that I was starting to heal the relationship that I had with money. I had all of those limiting beliefs, all of those negative patterns. Unconsciously, they started to unwind. It takes money to make money. Yeah, it does. But I can use other people's money. I can sell their finance. 

Rich Bennett 51:46
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 51:46
I can raise capital. I can refinance my deals. It's money, but it's not my money. All of that I need to save 

an event. I need to save for retirement. Well, I just changed that to I need to save to buy an asset. And that asset will pay for the event. And when that event is over, like college we're paying for a wedding. I still own that asset. Completely different mindset. And for me, a lot of people out there, their money patterns, their money behaviors, their money beliefs are on money. If you're grown up in a family that thinks that rich people are evil or they're greedy. And then you come into the world and you want to make money in the world and you start becoming successful. Your default 

Rich Bennett 52:26
for 

Gino Barbaro 52:27
is from a young age that money is evil and people are greedy. Well, all of a sudden you may come into money. You may unconsciously just decide to lose that money, put that money into a bad investment and all of a sudden you're back to zero. And you can't understand why that's happening. That's power. The financial psychology behind money. And the behaviors behind money. Once you start to understand how that affects your decisions in life and why you're not successful with money. That's why I got into it. I wanted to teach families about how they come into a relationship. Both spouses. They probably grew up in different circumstances. 

Rich Bennett 53:01
The 

Gino Barbaro 53:02
quote unquote, my wife was the single family household. Her mom, they never talked about goals. They were blue collar workers. They lived week to week. They never saved. I was the polar opposite on my household. So when you put those two worlds together, you think the fights and the concerns and the worries about money, money is just a symptom. It's not the root cause. There's stuff that it's underlying around money, the behaviors, the beliefs, the way we're brought up. That's what we're fighting about. And if you can't communicate that and bring that to light, you're going to continue to have the same arguments and you think they're all about money. 

Rich Bennett 53:36
That's probably why you see a lot people when they hit the lottery, they're broke at no time. 

Gino Barbaro 53:43
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 53:43
And I also look at sports figures, all of 

Gino Barbaro 53:47
them, 

Rich Bennett 53:47
if they've made, and then here they are broke. 

Gino Barbaro 53:51
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 53:52
Or poor investments. 

Gino Barbaro 53:54
So 

Rich Bennett 53:55
what made you decide it's like you wanted to be a money coach because I've heard of you hear about life coaches business coaches, I don't 

Gino Barbaro 54:06
coaches. 

Rich Bennett 54:06
know if I've ever heard of a money coach. 

Gino Barbaro 54:08
Well, that's interesting. The lady who started the company back in 2000. She started back in 2000. She started it for financial planners. Her name is Deborah Price. And she started it because financial planners, we're having or even to this day still have problems. Rich, I'm going to give you a financial plan. Financial planning is not rocket science. It's 1 plus 1 is 2. It's basic math, 

Rich Bennett 54:28
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 54:29
60, 40, equities, bonds, whatever it is. But when you give the plan to the individual, the individual doesn't follow the plan. Why are they not following the plan? It's because of these behavioral psychology. And now I've come into an area where they talk about financial therapy. And it's one of those things where people need to go back into the past, understanding what happened in the past, go through a money bio, go through what we call financial flashpoints. Those traumas in your life were all of a sudden something happened like a financial trauma in my life was when I lost that money with my business 

Rich Bennett 55:01
partners. R. 

Gino Barbaro 55:02
that crystallizes into you. And then all of a sudden you may start creating behaviors or beliefs that partnerships are risky. Well, even more real estate's risky. I can't invest in real estate. I need to double down on the restaurant. So I started creating those financial flashpoints, but what I started doing was with the masterminds, with the personal development, with becoming a life coach, with doing all of this work, you start unraveling and start peeling back the layers of the onion, and you start to understand those are just your beliefs. And you can change your beliefs. You have the ability to do that. 

Rich Bennett 55:38
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 55:38
But if you're living in an unconscious life and you're unaware, you're just going to be continuing repeating those patterns. 

Rich Bennett 55:45
Wow. 

Gino Barbaro 55:45
That's an adult. 

Rich Bennett 55:46
So with the money coaching, is that 101 or is it like it, it's classes that you're doing, or a copy? 

Gino Barbaro 55:54
No, no, we have a combination. But what I've also done is I'm going to become a business archetype coach because business coaching is the same thing. It's behavioral. I mean, think about building a business. Once you've done it once or twice, it's all the same skills you're organizing the business, it's marketing, it's sales, it's operations, it's not rocket science. What holds most people back is the behavioral aspect of it is the way they view money. 

Rich Bennett 56:22
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 56:22
And that's so important to people. If you are, if you are a quote-unquote, let's say you're a person who has an archetype, an archetype is a character, a person inside of you, the way you view money, let's say you have an archetype that's called the fool. The fool archetype is pretty cool because the fool is an optimist. The fool likes to see things there. It's an opportunity and everything. But the fool also brings you down every opportunity and thinks of everything as an opportunity. So if the fool archetype is driving your decisions around money, guess what? You're going to be in Bitcoin one day, six months later, you're going to jump to something else. Then eight months later, you're going to get to self storage. You have to understand why are you in that type of archetype? Did you grow up in that household where your father was a gambler and 

Rich Bennett 57:08
Yeah. 

Gino Barbaro 57:08
loved the thrill? And then all of a sudden, you've adopted it and you don't know why, right? Or if you're an innocent, like my wife, and you want to get into real estate and I'm going to go out and buy a deal and I'm going to invest a hundred grand into a deal. But I don't know anything about it. All I know is that I've heard that real estate's risky. Hence, I was the innocent, I'm my very first deal. And all of a sudden, I made a decision to invest the innocent archetype shouldn't be investing in real estate. You want the warrior archetype. You want the person who's going to do the work. Who's going to drive the car? Who's going to make those decisions work hard? Understand what the business is like. So understanding the behaviors behind the actions you take, trying to create a business. Most people get stuck because they don't know the skills. They get stuck because of the behaviors that they're actually adopting to try to build or try to run this 

Rich Bennett 57:57
Geno, why do I have a funny feeling that you're going to be starting another podcast 

Gino Barbaro 58:01
business. 

Rich Bennett 58:02
and writing more books? 

Gino Barbaro 58:04
(laughs) Well, listen, it's, it, to me, it's so frustrating because, as I was teaching people to buy a real estate, and multi-family is a difficult endeavor. You don't, most people don't start a multi-family. Me and Jake did, we were just so frustrated. I had bought some more smaller deals. But when I started teaching students, some students would come aboard and I'd be like, "Rich, this person's young. I don't think he's going to close a deal." And that person closed a deal. I'm like, "How did he do that?" And then I have somebody who's older, and in their 40s. And they've got the net worth. They've got the looks. They've got the liquidity. But they're not closing deals. And I said, "What's the difference?" And I said, "It's their relationship they have with money." Like I said earlier, it's that this person understands, this younger person understands that, "Hey, I've got beliefs. I know I can do it. I know that money is not what I'm trying to hear. I'm trying to focus on creating value and creating wealth. I've got a better relationship with money. Whereas this other person who should be doing deals is making the excuses. It's got that idea of a possibly that, "Hey, if I get really big, I may leave the tribe that I'm in unconsciously. All of my friends don't have money. If I start making a lot more money, I may lose them." I mean, my mom, I owned 200 units with my business partner, Jake, before I told my mom that I was leaving the restaurant. Yeah. And now that I look back at it, I did it because I was so sick and tired of hearing her tell me real estate's risky. You've got five miles to feed and after a while, it gets on you. So I actually literally had to leave that tribe. Was it scary? Yes. I saw her every day. I was her business partner in the restaurant. But I knew that I needed some type of boundaries. I knew that I was ready to leave that tribe and go into the tribe with Jake and go into a different class, right? Go into a different endeavor, a different venture. That was scary. And that's what holds a lot of people back. So if you're looking to build a business and you're saying to yourself, well, I just want to build the business just to make a living. Well, that's probably what you're going to make, no matter 

Rich Bennett 1:00:05
Right. 

Gino Barbaro 1:00:05
what you try. And I just challenged people, why is it that you're thinking that way? What's holding you back? What beliefs do you have to say to yourself, I want to build the most amazing business that creates as much value for the marketplace as possible and the money that I make as a result and the more money that I make will create more impact for others. What's wrong with that picture? 

Rich Bennett 1:00:23
Yeah, or the fact that I want to build a business to where everybody is everybody else wants to do the same. 

Gino Barbaro 1:00:31
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:32
Hmm. Which is a legacy. 

Gino Barbaro 1:00:35
Yes. Mm-hmm. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:36
Uh, wow. All right. So, Gino, something very important. And I know there's probably a few of them. Tell everybody the websites how they can get in touch with you. 

Gino Barbaro 1:00:46
Oh, Barbara 360.com is B-A-R-B-A-R-O 360.com. We have the websites there. I'm sorry, we have the podcasts there. We' got the books there. If you want to go to J, Gino, Jake and Gino.com, that's the real estate site. That's where I have podcasts with Jake and I also have a how-to podcast on business. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:05
Now, what about the money coaching part? 

Gino Barbaro 1:01:06
Money coaching is on the Barbara 360 site. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:08
I knew that. I was just testing you. 

Gino Barbaro 1:01:11
I 

Rich Bennett 1:01:13
so, Gino, before I get to my last question, is there anything you would like to 

Gino Barbaro 1:01:19
add? Hmm. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:21
And you know the door is always open too. 

Gino Barbaro 1:01:26
I would go online and I would look at one gentleman. His name is Ken Honda. He wrote the book Happy Money. We've done a podcast with him. I would like for the listeners to read his book and then I'd like them to read my book, Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy. He's the originator of it. He sold over 8 million copies and he was the inspiration by why I wrote the book. Because on the podcast, he said, "Gino, you need to write your book, Happy Money, Happy Properties, Happy Family." I don't want to write another real estate book and I think the way he outlines happy money is sort of different than the way I do it. He only has one child. He's in Japan. He's an amazing dude. He retired when he was 29 years old in Japan to take care of his kid. That was unheard of. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:13
Wow. 

Gino Barbaro 1:02:14
But to him, that's Happy Money. And to me, Happy Money is turning into something different with my family. But I don't only want to just create Happy Money. I want to create a Happy Family around it. And I want to ultimately create that Happy Legacy that ties into the Happy Money and into the Happy. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:29
Wow. So those of you listening, you have homework to do when you 

Gino Barbaro 1:02:33
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:34
purchase Gino's books after you read them, make sure you leave a full review and purchase copies for other people. When you listen to his podcast, embroider, why? Actually, is one of your, your son on linked on Barbara 

Gino Barbaro 1:02:52
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:52
360? 

Gino Barbaro 1:02:53
It's on Barbara 360. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:54
good. So when you listen all three podcasts, make sure you leave a review as well and keep listening because I have a 

Gino Barbaro 1:03:02
Hmm. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:02
whether just going to keep getting better. All right. So Gina, pick a number between one and 100. 

Gino Barbaro 1:03:10
84. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:11
Why 84? Oh, 

Gino Barbaro 1:03:14
I don't know why. I didn't want to go into the 60s because I didn't want to D and I didn't think I deserved the nine and A. So I'm going B. B. I'm going solid B. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:23
The eight man number. This is actually this is a very good question. If you could experience one moment of pure wonder again, what would it be? 

Gino Barbaro 1:03:39
I think the birth of my first child. It was wonder and it was fear all wrapped up into one. But when she came out, the fear and the uncertainty of like holy crap, I can't believe I got a little kid here. And just to joy for my for my family, the joy for my wife family and the joy for my our family, we have this little amazing person in our lives. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:01
She means a lot to you, I can tell because it looks like you're tearing up there. 

Gino Barbaro 1:04:05
Yeah, it was weird. You called me off guard. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:07
It's I tell you when my son was born it, oh, God. And even my daughter, it's just something about. The woman giving birth, even though my son was, what do you call it? C section. And I was in there and he he looked like an alien. I'll be honest with you. I mean, he had the long head and he was going, I'm like, help, but it 

Gino Barbaro 1:04:33
just to 

Rich Bennett 1:04:35
watch everything that the the mother goes through. 

Gino Barbaro 1:04:38
Yes, yeah. And 

Rich Bennett 1:04:41
my daughter was, ah, God, man, I can't wait to, man, can we see them again now? I gotta give them a big hug. You know, I want to thank you so much, man, it's been an honor. And like I said, the door is open anytime you want to come back because I know we 

Gino Barbaro 1:04:59
brother, 

Rich Bennett 1:05:00
could have talked for hours. 

Gino Barbaro 1:05:03
Thanks, Rich. I appreciate it. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:04
Take care. ? What a conversation. This wasn't just about real estate or building wealth. It was about building a life that actually means something. We talked about values, family, faith. Genoa's relationship with money, and what success really looks like when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. One of the biggest takeaways for me is this. Success isn't what you build. It's how you live. Growing a happy family, being present and creating a legacy. That doesn't happen by accident. And like you heard, legacy isn't something you leave behind someday. It's something you start building right now every single day. So here's something to think about. Are your goals aligned with your values? Are you just building wealth or are you building a life you're truly proud of? Because at the end of the day, money alone isn't the answer. Purpose, family, and fulfillment matter just as much, or even more. If you got value from this episode, think me a favor. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. And I'd love to hear from you. Join the conversation. Leave a comment or reach out to me directly. Until next time. Keep building something that truly matters, and keep the conversations going.