Gino and I dive into what it takes to become a master player in the multi family game. We go into detail on topics such as: what mistakes beginner investors make, why you want to start investing, property management techniques, hiring staff, how to get a headstart and much more. This episode is PACKED full of incredible learnings from one of the investing legends. Don’t miss it!
Gino Barbaro is an investor, business owner, author and entrepreneur. He has grown his real estate portfolio to over 1400 multifamily units. He is the co-founder of Jake & Gino, a multifamily real estate education company that offers coaching and training in real estate founded upon their proprietary framework of Buy Right, Manage Right & Finance Right.
He is the best-selling author of two books, Wheelbarrow Profits and Family, Food and the Friars, and graduated from IPEC (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching) where he earned his designation as a Certified Professional Coach. He currently resides in St. Augustine, Florida with his beautiful wife Julia and their six children.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. You have to look at everything from the investor's mindset. That means utilizing leverage, liquidity and control.
2. Start with the "Why?". If you have reasons and clarity they will reap rewards.
3. When you're managing a property you need to be in constant contact with the management company. Weekly calls and "pulse" emails containing KPIs.
4. Every property should have it's own management budget.
5. What are your core values? Use these when hiring staff, using vendors and working with partners.
6. You need to know the market. Know the expenses, taxes and operating costs.
7. Speak with community bankers and property managers to learn about the market and gain knowledge on the market and costs.
8. It's a "people business". Tenants leave due to bad customer service and bad landlords... not rent increases.
9. Turn into that fear and head into it, despite having it.
10. Challenge your limiting beliefs.
BOOKS
Limitless by Jim Quick - https://www.limitlessbook.com/
The Go-Giver by Bob Burg - https://www.amazon.com/Go-Giver-Expanded-Little-Powerful-Business/dp/1591848288
Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman - https://www.amazon.com/Never-Lose-Customer-Again-Lifelong/dp/0735220034
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Napoleon-Hill/dp/0449214923
Honeybee by Jake and Gino - https://jakeandgino.com/honeybee/
LINKS
Title: Avoiding Beginner Mistakes & Mastering Multifamily - Gino Barbaro
Duration: 38:15
Interviewer: Steven Pesavento
Interviewee: Gino Barbaro
(00:01) Steve:
I've got some really exciting news. Our operating partners on the commercial multifamily space have agreed to invite new investors in some of our future deals. We are proud to bring these institutional style opportunities to investors within our community. In order to have access to these investments, you have to sign up at theinvestormindset.com/invest. And we have thousands of people who listen to the podcast and we typically only allow 50 people to invest in each deal. So make sure you head over there right now, because once we send out the email announcing our next deal, it'll likely be sold out and oversubscribed. So get started at theinvestormindset.com/invest. And I look forward to seeing you on the inside.
This Is the investor mindset podcast and I'm Steven Pesavento for as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with understanding how we can think better, how we can be better and how we can do better. And each episode, we explore lessons on motivation and mindset for the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs in the nation. One of the most important pieces of success in multifamily is successful asset management, running the business, running that property well. In today's episode with Gino Barbaro of Jake and Gino, we dive deep into asset management. Most importantly, the mindset you need to have to succeed in multifamily, what it really takes to go out there and get started and this is coming from somebody who has bought and directly owns nearly 1500 units. That is a syndicator as well that has taught hundreds and hundreds of people how to go out and buy multifamily and runs one of the top multifamily podcasts out there. You're not going to want to miss this episode, so let's get right to it.
Alright guys, welcome back to the investor mindset podcast. I'm excited and grateful today. I have Gino Barbaro in the studio today. How are you doing, Gino?
(02:08) Gino:
Steven? I am doing great. Thanks for having me on.
(02:10) Steven:
I am excited to have you. You guys know Gino from his best-selling book, Wheelbarrow Profits and The Honey Bee, and he's the founder of Jake and Gino, an education platform that helps others achieve financial freedom through multifamily. They own 1500 plus units, they're direct owners, as well as syndicators, they've got a top rated podcast from multifamily. They've been doing this a long time and they're really, really good at it. And I'm excited today because we're going to be diving into one of the things that Jake and Gino are the best at. How do you actually manage these properties and run these businesses super effectively to make sure that you as the investor make great money and your investors on the partner front make great money as well. Are you ready to get into things, Gino?
(02:55) Gino:
Yep. Let's jump right in.
(02:56)
Well, I've been looking up to you for a long time. You've got a lot of success here, but why don't we start out by taking a look back earlier in your life? What events or influences from your childhood shaped who you are today?
(03:11) Gino:
Well, I was very fortunate to have two great parents. My parents are immigrants from Italy and that shaped my whole entire life. When people talk about working smart and work, I worked hard as a little kid. I had the paper route, I was an entrepreneur when I was little, I was working two jobs, I went to college, came home on the weekends to work. So, working hard was instilled to me. It was part of my DNA. Then I ended up doing something stupid and opening a restaurant. And that just made it even harder, right? Really difficult, hard work. My problem was that I didn't ever really look at it as a business, right? And that was, that was the unfortunate incident for me. I really got ingrained in the day to day and I wasn't really working, you know, you know, on the business I was working in it too often. And that was my path for the first, probably 20 years of owning it. You know, at the time 25, 30 years ago, you could work one business and make a lot of money and have a great living.
I think 2008 comes around, that changes everything. I mean, they were always talking about, go to school, get a good job up until that time you could. But once the great recession came, everything shifted for me and all of a sudden, I said, I've got to learn how to run a business and that's when I met Jake. And that's when things started changing for me. Because you know, the investor mindset podcasts, it's a great title because everything you do in life, whether you're investing in yourself, whether you're investing in an asset, whether you're investing in multifamily, you have to look at it from the investor's mindset. What does that mean? It means leverage liquidity and control. And when I was running my business, I didn't, I didn't look at it that way. I looked at it as I like what I'm doing, but I have to do everything. The “Ima” mentality. I'm a do this, I'm a do that. And when Jake and I came across the people systems and culture that we always talk about, that's what really made the business change and made the business flourish. But you know, going back to me, meaning Jake, back in 2011, we decided, hey, let's start investing in multifamily. I had done some bad deals in self storage and I had some done a bad deal in a mixed use building in New York. And I said, you know what? I want to do multifamily, I just want to do some type of passive income and make a couple bucks on the side of my restaurant. That's where my, in my short-term and long-term goals where I didn't have this big vision, right?
Jake moves down to Tennessee, thank God he moved to Tennessee, Knoxville. We started buying there and I'm like, there's some great opportunities down here. You know, knowing about the market. I didn't know anything about market cycles, I didn't know any of that stuff. All I knew is I wanted to buy assets and make money. So for us, fortunately, we started in 2013, bought our first deal. But Steven, it took us 18 months to get that first deal. Lot of hard work, networking with brokers, not knowing what you don't know. We didn't know syndication, we bought it ourselves, and we learned owner financing. All those things took us 18 months to get that first deal. But ironically enough, after that first deal, three months later, we bought our second deal.
So it's just starting and you know, the message I like to give to everybody out there, everyone's always asking me, is this the right time at the end of the multifamily? And the answer truly is, are you ready? Are you ready? The book behind you starts with why? What is your why? You know, Jim Kwik says reasons, reap rewards. That's a huge statement. Listen to that and just let that resonate with you for a second. Do you have a reason for doing it? I did. I have six kids. I've got a lot of mouths to feed. I've got a lot of college to pay, so that restaurant was not going to do it for me. So multifamily was that passive income vehicle that I thought nothing truly passive about it unless you become an LP investor and you get to that level, but you don't start out that way. You have to put in your lumps. So, everyone out there becomes clear on why you're doing something. Even when you're investing in the stock market or you're buying crypto or whatever, that, that vehicle may be, start out with the why start out with reasons. And if you can have reasons and you have clarity, they will ultimately give you those rewards. Does that make sense?
(06:50) Steven:
Man, so much to unpack there, so much wisdom. I hope you guys hit the rewind button, re listen to that one, two or even three times, because at the core of what you're saying is you've got to just get started. That things are not perfect, you're going to get your lumps, but if you've got a clear purpose and you've got that drive, then there's no wrong time to get started in real estate and there's no wrong time to get started in multifamily. Regardless of whether you're going the direct ownership route, you've got the cash, or you've got the hustle with some backers behind you, you're going syndication the end of the day, you need to just get out there and start doing it because when you do it can create that true freedom that we all dream about, that we all know as possible once we've been in that. But there was a time I'm sure you can remember where you didn't think that that was possible.
(07:33) Gino:
True. And you know, another thing you don't know what you don't know. Right? I think Mark Twain said, whatever, you know, you do know, but there's things that you don't know that you just, you just don't know. Like when I started, I didn't know anything about syndication, I didn't know any of my reason capital. We bought our first thousand units by ourselves. We were able to refinance, enrol the money into the next deal, and were able to refund roll over 9 million bucks. So, our first thousand units were done by ourselves. Could you imagine Steven, if I put a little gasoline in there and syndicated a dealer too early on, I didn't know what I didn't know. And some people out there, they may have an inordinate amount of capital to start with, right? They have a lot of money. They may want to go and do this full time. I would challenge them and say, hey, let me go out and find an education program where I can learn how to passively invest, and I can learn how to do it full time. Because when you start, you may not know about investing in a syndication passively. That may be the route for you. If you're a doctor, if you're an attorney, if you're an accountant and you have a demanding job, but you have additional capital, it may not be wise to tackle this full time. But you still need to learn how to underwrite a deal, you still need it to analyze a market, you still need to know what a sponsor looks like and how a sponsor’s. So that takes education, education times action equals results. So, it's really dangerous. You may have a lot of money but don't be fooled into thinking that a person that has a lot of money that they're educated, they're wise. They may have made money in one way, or may have gotten it as part of whatever, wherever they got it. If you're going into a new Endeavor, you really have to focus on learning that Endeavor and chunking down and ultimately figuring out do I want to do this full time? And if not, it's okay. There's other ways to invest in real estate.
(09:14) Steven:
Yeah, so I know that when I was getting into real estate, I had a lot of limiting beliefs about getting started about education, about all these things that are a big fear about spending money. And then I finally did because a partner of mine was convinced that this mastermind was going to help unlock so much for us and I've been in the single-family space for three years, did 200 deals. You know, half of them being flips before I shifted my focus to multifamily and specifically syndication. But if it wasn't for that mastermind, I would have never been able to do what I was able to do so quickly. At what point did you realize that education could really help unlock it and that it's worth it to spend a little bit of money on mentorship?
(09:56) Gino:
For me early on, right after me, those couple of mistakes with my deals, I said, there's gotta be a better way. I didn't even know what a cap rate was and I'm buying multifamily real estate. I'm like, there's something wrong with that picture. So, I jumped on right away and got a couple of coaching programs. I got a couple of mentors in the multifamily space, but for me, Steven, I think one of the biggest turning points for me was getting certified as a life coach, going to life coaching school opened up everything for me. And I went for personal development. I didn't go because I wanted to be a life coach and ironically enough, my, my wife a couple of years ago, who said, you know, what do you do? What do you really do? I said, I really help people. And when she came to the first event that we had, she was amazed by people coming up to her and going, if it wasn't for your husband, I wouldn't have done this, I wouldn't have quit my job. And she was like wow. What do you do? I said, take some life coaching. So, she became a certified life coach and marriage coach. And now, ironically enough, both of my children, my 17-year-old, my 20-year-old are both taking the same program she took. So, for me, that was like the turning point, I love doing that because like I said, it ultimately gave me the clarity from, from going from 40 units to 1500 units after becoming a life coach, it was like, okay, I want to do this, I want to know how I'm going to do this. And also, just learning all the other skills, like, like listening skills, like asking those empowering questions, like learning about those energy blocks and those limiting beliefs, then the assumptions in life. Those are all powerful because nothing's easy and you're going to come up against a lot of trials and tribulations. And for me having that background and being able to say, Hm, how do I, how can I look at this differently? You know, what, what am I doing wrong here? Like, do I really need money to get into real estate? Not always, you can partner up with people, you can raise capital. You just need to know how to add value, like the book behind you, the go givers, you know, adding value into the side. So for me, I think coaching was one of the biggest turning points in my life.
(11:44) Steven:
Yeah. It can make such a big difference. And so let's think about this as like a brief little short coaching session on asset management, because for so many people they're focused so much on going out there and underwriting the deal and talking to the brokers or marketing and, you know, finding a way to get in front of those opportunity is, and maybe they're worried about raising that capital, but once we close on that deal, it's actually, I think the most important piece are we going to manage that well? And are we going to be able to make sure that we can hit our business plan? So where do we start? Where do we start with asset management and making sure that we're actually going to be able to execute the plan that we set forth before we bought this property?
(12:25) Gino:
I love, that's a great question. We teach that proprietary three-step framework. We teach the Bi-Rite, the manage rate and the finance right now, the Bi-Rite and the finance writer both fixed in the wheelbarrow, right? Once you do the buy, right, you've got it. It's done. You've bought the property, the finance rate component, whether you're doing community bank, agency, bridge debt. Once you have that financial component done, it is done. That managed rate is the constant wheeling in constant motion. Now I can give your listeners a checklist or questionnaire to ask third-party property management when you are going out there and you're soliciting for a third party. I think the first thing Stephen is to say, do I want to manage this myself? Or do I not want to hire third party property management? There's no right or wrong answer. For us we’re vertically integrated, which you had said previously, we are controlling the asset ourselves or property managing ourselves and we are actually managing the “manager” We're having the asset management side of it. For Jake, when he moved our first property, he wanted to property manage the first property, he wanted to learn the business then he actually fell in love with the business and that's why we continued to property manage.
I think one of the most important things when you are managing your property is you need to have weekly rhythms and you need to have weekly calls and need to have quarterly priorities. You need to be in constant communication with the property management company. And if that's with your employees, whoever that may be, that's the most important thing. The most critical thing, at least the weekly call, it doesn't have to be hours long. It could be 15 to 20 minutes. I think the second thing that we do that makes us successful for our company is we have what we call our weekly pulse. We'll send out a weekly KPI list, and this is really important because you want to hold everyone accountable. You want to be able to, you know, catch the problems you want to be proactive in life instead of being reactive, being proactive. So, at the end of Friday, around four o'clock, our managers send out a weekly pulse and what does that entail? It talks about each individual property we have, you know, we'll talk about the number of units rented, It'll give an occupancy, it'll even give it an economic occupancy. Cause there's a difference between a physical occupancy, one that's physically occupied and one that's economically occupied like right now during COVID, I'm sure not all the tenants are paying. So, your economic occupancy is going to be less. So that's an important number to know, why do we have a hundred units that are physically occupied by only 90 economically? That's a number that you need to catch on the front end.
Another we'd like to see is delinquencies. We want to see our delinquencies clear up by the end of the third week if not, property managers can be out there texting residents saying, hey, we need to collect our rents. And another one that we use out there vacant unrented. We want to know how many units are vacant that are unrented, vacant that are rented. So, I can also share that document with you where that pulse that we send out and it's important that you need to over communicate with the property management. There's something going wrong, you need to stay in front of it.
(15:10) Steven:
That is huge, right? If we can get our KPIs right and make sure that we're tracking those, we can tell when there's different issues that are coming up along the way, why is this number up? Why is this number down? And be able to track to that? So, you're getting that information from your property manager or from your internal team on a weekly basis. And then are you just rolling all that information up in for your whole portfolio? Or how do you analyze and work through that info that you take?
(15:37) Gino:
Yeah, so we do it per office. So each office has around 200 units into the portfolio. Having 1600 units is around seven or eight different offices. So each office is responsible for their own pulse, and then we roll it up. And what we've done since COVID, we've done something interesting, we've done a daily tracker of collections, which is really important because we want to know where our collections are. So, March by March 1st, March daily. So we were tracking them daily for the portfolio and we saw that March looked really good, right? Then we tracked April, April looked really good. Then we tracked May, May looked good, except for those a couple of areas in Louisville, Kentucky that are down 5% from last month. So, we know that. So, we can address that data as the property managers and know what's going on. Oh, by the way, Louisville is a little bit more relaxed on evictions. You can't evict tenants right now in Louisville. Whereas in the Tennessee portfolio, they're a little bit stricter. So you can see the different dynamics, but as fiduciaries of these people, of these investors that we have, you need to have that information. So when you get an investor call, you can say, hey, we've been tracking daily collections. We're on top of it. We're trying to be as practical as possible. There's so, you know, in this type of economy, this type of climate right now, what are you going to do? You're going to try to be as proactive as possible. You can try to send out texts, you're gonna try to send out reminders. And when we can start evicting, guess what? We're going to start evicting.
(16:57) Steven:
Yeah, no, that, that makes so much sense. So on a weekly basis, we've got that down. We're kind of clued in on what we're going to do there. When issues come up, how are we addressing those from an asset management perspective? Now you guys are managing a house. So obviously this information is going out to your property manager, but assuming it's probably similar, if it's third party management, how do you guys solve problems based on those numbers to make sure that the whole portfolio keeps moving in the right direction?
(17:25) Gino:
I think you have to assess what's going on at each individual property. You need to have processes in your property manager, under your asset management. One of the big processes is a turn. How are you calculating when you're turning a unit? Do you have the five day turn? How much is it costing per turn? I think another thing we should really mention is every property should have its own budget. You should be doing a yearly budget and sticking to a yearly budget and conveying that to the managers where it costs $10 per square foot for flooring. Why did you pay a dollar 30 per square foot? A ceiling fan normally costs 40 bucks. Why are we paying a hundred bucks for a ceiling fan painting an apartment, a two bedroom on standard should cost between four and $500. Why did you charge $600 and get $600? So setting up those budgets for each property and like I said, that accountability piece, they'll have the framework. And you know this doesn't happen overnight. You start out with one property. You're not thinking with the end in mind. I think one of the most important things that all the listeners need to do is they need to have some type of property management software, whether it's an AppFolio, which is much, you know, for larger portfolios, but you can start with a platform like Building. It's a great asset management tool, it's all in house. It does maintenance requests, you can actually lease units on there. It does daily reporting, it's a great platform. You can talk to your tenants there. You need to start with that. We started out with QuickBooks, you know, back in 13, Building wasn't around and AppFolio was just a little bit too much of a stretch, a little too expensive for us, it wasn't relevant for 25 units, but there's so many different platforms out there that you can use. And if nothing else, get on there and start using it because you can grow into these platforms and they’re great because you can send them reports and you can generate numbers on those things quickly. So, I would definitely recommend that.
(19:05) Steven:
So, we get a set of processes going, we've got budgets, we're managing these on an individual level, but it's rolling up to the portfolio. Those are definitely some key things. What are some of the big areas that you see newbies make mistakes on or even experienced investors?
(19:21) Gino:
Yeah, that is a great question. So what I would focus on, everybody listening to this, get a pen and paper when you don't want it with this, with listening to this, sit down and really ponder what your core values are. Because we hire and we fire on our core values and Jake was a corporate guy and he poo-pooed then when he was working for somebody else. But now that you're creating your own business, you need to hire the right people and put those butts in the right seats. And for us, we didn't have core values when we were smaller, but you need to start when you're small because these core values can translate into your vendors. If you're dealing with a vendor that you don't like, and they don't adhere to your core values, you know there's something off you getting rid of that, man. For instance, our ADP payroll is killing us. We don't like that vendor right now when we're not working with it. And why? Because of unwavering ethics, they're not people first, they're not growth mindset, they're not adhering to part of our core values. So, sit down and figure out what your core values are and what your mission statement is. Ours basically is the growth mindset like I said, people first, unwavering ethics, make it happen and the last one is, extreme ownership. We want everyone on the team to have extreme ownership. If something goes wrong, not a big deal, let's own up to it, let's try to solve the problem. And I think growth mindset, for us, is also huge because as we go into the 21st century and you know, there is so much information and knowledge out there, but we have to continue to grow and learn because there's so many different types of technologies coming online, there’s so many things that we need to learn as property managers, as investors, as educators. So, we're growing and learning and we want our team to be able to do the same.
(21:02) Steven:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. The values are so key because otherwise you might have somebody who can do a great job, but they're not representing you or your company the way that you really believe they should be.
(21:14) Gino:
And I think a couple of the mistakes, I think when, when investors are starting out, they really don't know their market. I mean, you really need to know what your market is, you need to know the job growth, you need to know the path of progress in the market, you need to know where you want to invest in the market, you need to have your own acquisition criteria sheet. What do you like focusing on? What are your buying parameters? What's your cap rate? What kind of cash on cash returns are you looking for? And one of the biggest ones that I see all newbie investors is when they get a T 12, they'll look at it and they'll look at the expenses and they won't know what the expenses are in the market. And they'll say, Hmm, these expenses of $3,000 per unit, that seems okay, or they'll do the 50% expense rule. There's no such thing as a rule of thumb in life. There is, but you're going to get hammered by it. You need to know. In Knoxville expenses are about $4,500 per unit per year. You're going to need to get that granular, because if you don't, you're going to underestimate your expenses, your NOI is going to drop, and you're gonna lose money all from day one. And when you take the property over, make sure that you have updated property taxes and your insurance. Insurance, it seems like in multifamily, is going to go through the roof in the next couple of years, because they have been undercharging. And I think with all these different situations, whether you're in Houston with the flooding, whether you're in Florida with the hurricanes and elsewhere, I think insurance multifamily is actually going to take a little bit of a hit. So when you're underwriting deals, make sure you're getting down the expenses and you really become granular. And you know, I'll give you another example. You're in a certain market, the South side water can be $500 per unit. All of a sudden you go to the West side and they've got more taxes and water costs more. So, make sure you get to be that granular in your marketing., you understand how much it costs to operate and run. And that's why budgets will help you because you create a budget before you take a property over, you know, exactly what the expenses look like.
(22:58) Steven:
Yeah. And that's one of the things a lot of new folks run into is they feel like, well, I'm following all the best practices, but how do I actually go out and find out, well, what are the expenses in my market? How do I find out what are some of these specific neighborhood challenges that I might face? Where do they find that information? Do you know?
(23:17) Gino:
Joining an education platform, you get coaches that that's probably the easiest and the quickest way. Seriously, that that's how I really learned. The other way you can do it is basically one of the ways that I found was really, really excellent is getting a community banker on board and going to the community banker saying, hey, I want to buy some deals. The community bankers, my community banker actually told me, if you give me a trailing t3 in rental income, I could probably build out the expenses for you cause I can understand what the market is. Now, he's a really savvy dude, they actually have the, you know, their portfolio lenders, so they know the market really well. So maybe you lean on them. The other aspect is go to a property management company and start interviewing a few of them and asking them, you know, what does a typical property in this market costs run expenses per unit in this type of the market. They should know that because they'll have any kinds of properties that they're managing, you know, realtors, brokers they may know, they may not know. They may give you your number, but I think property managers, and I think the community bankers will have a much more granular approach to it. Cause what a community bankers do all day? They're underwriting deals all day and what our property managers do? They're running the properties all day. So I think those two resources should definitely help you out with that.
(24:28) Steven:
Yeah. That's so useful for all the listeners here. What else do people need to know about effectively managing these assets after you've taken them down?
(24:37) Gino:
It is a people person business. So, when you're managing, it's all about customer service. People will leave, not because you're raising the rents because rents have been going up, they will leave Steven because Steven didn't fix my stove, Steven didn't listen to me. When I made the maintenance requests, Steven just ignores me, Steven doesn't hear me. That's where they leave because the customer service is not there. You look at Apple, you look at some of these other companies that have superior customer service, my partner, Jake, loves Chick-fil-A, why are they so popular? Why they have that amazing brand, because it's all about customer service. And we like to say in the BNC space, that's the often forgotten, you know, people out there that are just not served, they're underserved because they're taken advantage of. You know, they're going to live in the apartment, they're not going anywhere. So, they're underserved then there's not their customer service there. So, I would tell everybody, you know, we use a gentleman named Joey Coleman and he wrote a book called Never Lose A Customer. And it was an amazing process, It opened my mind up to the fact that there's a customer journey. Where you want a customer to go into this journey and to walk through it and go from a phase called the assess phase where he or she's figuring out how to work with you all the way up to the advocate phase, where they become raving fans. If you can create that system in your asset management/property management, you're going to be so successful in business.
(25:54) Steven:
These are some great tips and at the end of the day, it really is a people business, right? Like we're, we're going to be extremely happy with service, even if it's not exactly what we want. If somebody treated us well, and we were going to scream and complain and kick to get our money back, if we don't feel like we got what we deserved. So we've made it to the growth, rapid fire round, where the questions are quick, but the answers don't need to be. Tell me, Gino, how would you define success and what is success to you?
(26:22) Gino:
Well, success to me is something that you get done. Success, I think, is a feeling. Like, I feel successful now in my life, cause I'm doing what I want to do, I'm being a role model for my kids and I'm working with who I want to, when I want to, where I want to. To me, that's success and working towards your sole purpose and having that abundance mindset. That, to me, is success.
(26:49) Steven:
And how do people go about finding what that sole purpose is?
(26:53) Gino:
Wow. A lot of work, people have to work on themselves. It's difficult. You might not like the answers. It's all our responsibility pulling back that onion, right? Once you start peeling the layers, you're like, man, I don't like myself there, but that's okay. Because once you realize what you don't like, you can work on it, right? So people are afraid. Don't be afraid. We are all broken, we all have issues. But if we can work on ourselves and take that responsibility that I did make that mistake, but how do I make it better? And if we can take ultimate responsibility for ourselves, we can actually start figuring out what the solutions are. When I'm believing Steven for a problem, I can't find the solution, but I'm like, you know, Steven, it's not your fault. It's my fault. How do I fix it? How do we fix it together? That's how we can progress in life.
(27:33) Steven:
Turn into that fear and head into it despite having it. Such good advice there. So, habits, what are some of your Keystone habits? The things you do on a daily or weekly basis that have led to some of the success.
(27:47) Gino:
For me, it's about planning. I have to plan my day, I have to plan my week, I have to know what I need to get done throughout the day. And for me also, it's transitioned the last couple of years into focusing on things that generate revenue. They may not generate revenue today, but they're going to generate revenue three months from now or six months from now. How long did it take me to write The Honey Bee? That didn't take me a day or two days or a week, it took a long time. But every act that I did towards that, whether it was recording or writing or researching, all those activities lead to generating revenue. So that's what you have to focus on what's going to generate revenue and what's going to move the needle and then plan accordingly.
(28:25) Steven:
Hmm. That's such good advice. And what's a book that's impacted your life the most or one you're excited about right now?
(28:31) Gino:
I'm reading Limitless, believe it or not, by Jim Quick. Just almost finished reading it. And one little tip, read with my finger, something so simple. I've got another, probably 50 to 60 words a minute that I'm reading and if you think you can increase your reading by 25%, you can read another book in half a month. It's an amazing thing. So, I think his book is awesome. Love Limitless, but I think everyone out there should read Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. I mean, that is just the Bible for all the gurus out there. We've all stolen from Napoleon Hill and he's amazing. It's an amazing book.
(29:01) Steven:
It's amazing because Napoleon Hill stole from all of the smartest richest people and put it all together for us to steal from him. So…
(29:10) Gino:
Rip off and duplicate, my friend.
(29:12) Steven:
Exactly. And that Limitless book, I've heard amazing things, I haven't had the chance to sit down and read it yet. But it's a breaking down, the personal development side, along with how to make your brain work the best. I just think that's gotta be an awesome book.
(29:25) Gino:
Yep. No, it is. It's great.
(29:26) Steven:
So, from an inspiration standpoint, what impact have mentors made on your life and how do you recommend others go out and find great mentors?
(29:35) Gino:
I think to go out and find the right mentor you need to resonate with that mentor. That's why you go out and listen to podcasts, see how they are. It's value-based decision making. It's almost like going out to find a partner. If your partner doesn't resonate with you, doesn't have the same goals as you, doesn't have the same beliefs and ethics as you, you're probably not gonna work well with that partner. It's the same as the mentor finding out, you know, what that mentor brings in his life. If he's flashy, he likes cars and you're into that, great! If you want to mentor who's more of a family person, who's focused on family and relationships. Great, Go with that person. But I would say, with the mentor, go find someone who has the results that you want. Ultimately, if you want to get into a multifamily and you want to learn how to do it, find people in that space.
And I think ultimately, there's so many books out there, there's so much reading out there. I love T. Harv Eker because for him, that responsibility book, the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind for me changed it. Because, I ultimately was saying to myself, 10, 15 years ago, you know, the great recession comes, you know, I can't make money in this business., you know, this economy stinks. And then I look around and he's saying, you know, there's other people making money out there. So, they're not making excuses. So for me, that was the light bulb. That light bulb was often said, ultimately, wow, we are all in, in control of our lives.
(30:47) Steven:
That's amazing. And so, finishing on purpose, what drives you to live your best life every day?
(30:52) Gino:
Oh, it's my family. I love what I'm doing, I want to be a role model to them. I ultimately was thinking about this the other day. I used to go to work, not too happy. I used to come home a little grumpy and I worked hard. Now, I didn't want my kids to see and put work and grumpiness and hard and not pleasurable in the same sentence. So, for me doing what I'm doing now, I really like, and I think my kids see the attitude and the belief that I have and the ability to help other people. They see that that's work. Instead of seeing dad go, come home, tired, annoyed, not feeling if he accomplished anything, that's what's giving me the spark in life to continue to do what I'm doing. Cause I love it. I love getting those emails from students saying I quit my job, I love getting those emails to students saying, hey, we just closed the deal. I mean, our students are over 6,000 units right now and counting on deals closed. So for me, that's exciting. And it is part of the abundance mindset where years ago, I would say, I can't teach anybody what I'm doing, they're going to take away my deals too. That's great, if they take my deal, that's great. There's other deals out there and I don't need to do deals, so it's come full circle for me.
(31:53) Steven:
That's really inspirational. And so the last thing I'll ask you is what do you want to leave listeners with? You know, we talked about a lot of things. You're clearly a person of some profound mindset of some great beliefs. What do you want to leave folks with? So they go out in the world and do something great.
(32:10) Gino:
So right now, I want everyone to think about what their limiting beliefs are. Really chunk down what your limiting beliefs are and challenge them, and then start surrounding yourself with other people that you want to be around. Because if you're around people and your peer group is telling you, hey, you don't have to work, ah multi-family’s risk. The book, Limitless talks about it. Whatever you think you believe in, you're going to believe that if you think, as Steven said, he was doing 200 flips, which is freaking amazing and unbelievable he can't get into the multifamily. Come on, man 200 flips is, is an amazing accomplishment. He says to himself, I can't get the multifamily that he's going to believe that that's his limiting belief. So go out there and challenge your limiting beliefs and look at life coaching, take a look at it and see if it makes sense for you, I know it wil. Start working on yourself and start doing things differently. If people call you crazy, people think that's all nonsense. Let them say that because the majority of people are not doing the right thing anyway, so be different.
(33:06) Steven:
So, so great. Well, thank you so much for being here with us. Where can people find out more about you or get in touch?
(33:14) Gino:
Stephen, I appreciate you having me on, I mean, just go to jakeandgino.com. We've got tons of blogs. We've got, as you can see behind me, four weekly podcasts on there, go to the Jake and Gino channel. You can go to jakeandgino.com/honeybee and check out The Honey Bee on there also.
(33:28) Steven:
Yeah. Show ‘em that book. I've been meaning to read this. I know you released The Honey Bee. Tell us a little bit about it before we part ways.
Speaker 3 (33:35) Gino:
Sure. It's just a business parable. I mean, people have been equating it to The Richest Man in Babylon, which is ultimately one of my favorite books ever. I mean, I wrote it, my 11-year-old read it and she understood it. She liked it. So kudos. So, it's just basically a business parable about a disaffected sales guy, just like Jake, who is stuck in the rat race. And he wanted to get out of the rat race. And it talked about his journey from buying, you know, an Airbnb to buying a duplex, to start scaling up, to start adding complimentary streams of revenue. And then ultimately, he comes full circle, becomes charitable. He has, he has a charity, he has an epiphany. So, it's ultimately just getting out of that rat race and just adding complimentary streams of revenue to whatever business you're in.
(34:13) Steven:
What a great book to read, to change your mindset and to realize kind of what's possible guys. So please do support Jake and Gino. We'll include links to all of this in the show notes for you guys. And I'll leave you as I always leave you with a reminder to live a life worth inspiring others, and you can do so today by taking action by changing your beliefs, by putting some of these some of these strategies into place in your own life and heading towards that true freedom through real estate that we all know is possible. Thanks so much, Gino. Thanks.
(34:43) Gino:
Take care, everybody.
(34:49) Narrator:
Thank you for listening to the investor mindset podcast. If you like, what you heard, make sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share with a friend, head over to theinvestormindset.com to join the insider club where we share tools and strategies from the top investors and entrepreneurs and how to take it to the next level.