Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Ready to get the inside scoop on equity funding? Tune in to TDJ Equity Funding Insiders Podcast for an in-depth look at what it takes to access financial capital and maximize your investments. Hear from experienced professionals, including bankers, underwriters, loan officers, and industry experts as they share their unfiltered stories and valuable lessons on securing funds.

Jacquelyn Jackson 0:41

All right. So we want to go and welcome all of you into our show, Giving Power to the Business Owner series. And today we have a special guest, uh, which is Gino Barbero, is who's going to be dealing with us today. He's bringing some wonderful knowledge to us, he's getting us ready. And for those of us that's in the real estate investment, those of us that are looking to get into real estate investment. I mean, he is a great, great resource. And I was so uh happy when he said uh or elated, as some of us say, when he decided that he was definitely gonna be a part and help us out in what we have. So let me give you a little information on Gino. Gino, you hadn't heard this. Our office put it together as we did our research. We said we got to put all this stuff out of here. So I want you to be ready to hear how great you really are. Now, Gino is an investor, he's a certified money coach, entrepreneur, podcast host who has built multifamily portfolio for more than 1,900 units and roughly $450 million in assets under management. You all see why we got him here? All right. All right, but Burroughs 360, and it's the Jake and Gino community. He's gonna talk to us about it. He teaches families, entrepreneurs, and investors how to create financial independence by thinking like owners and using simple, repeatable frameworks. Now he's a best-selling author of Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy, and a co-author of We'll Borrow Profits, where he outlines the big the buy right, manage right, finance right framework that has helped thousands of investors grow their portfolio. Now, Gino lives in St. Augustine, Florida with his wife, Julia, and their six children. Man, you awesome. And his mission is to help families restore traditional values, build stronger relationships with money, and create legacies that last for generations. So let us welcome Gino to the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Jackie, that was really nice. It's an honor and a privilege to be here, and what an awesome introduction. I'm gonna let my wife listen to that a couple of times, I have to say. Uh, and it's really interesting how you said in the beginning how you're you're you're dealing with Gino. My wife has been dealing with me for 27 years, and it's been painful at times. So hopefully we will make this an enjoyable uh uh dealing with Gino. So nice to be here.

Jacquelyn Jackson 3:17

Okay, great. And again, we're so happy to hear you that you're here. So let's go into this, let's

Fixed Mindset Versus Growth Mindset

Jacquelyn Jackson 3:23

get into it. All right, Gino. You built 350,000, 350 million real estate portfolios. What was the key mindset that shift that made that growth possible?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I love that question, Jackie. For me, growing up, I had a little bit of the victim mentality. I blamed a lot of stuff on people, on situations. I never took responsibility for certain things. When the Great Recession came around, I read a book by T. Harvecker called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. And in T. Harvecker, in that book, he talked about your fruits earn your roots. And the mindset that I had, and I'm sure a lot of the listeners have as well, is I had that fixed mindset. Carol Dweck wrote a book called Mindset, and in it, she had two types of mindsets: one that was fixed and one that had a growth mindset. And I really want to talk about both, just real quick, because it's so important. Because the fixed mindset is the mindset that they think they know it all, they they find excuses. If something doesn't work their way, they just sort of quit. A great example of that would be John McEnroe. Although he was an incredible tennis player, when things didn't go his way, it was the crowd, it was the noise, it was the weather, it was the sawdust, he was sick. That was his fixed mindset. He had to blame something. And I was trapped in that for a lot of years. Why can't I grow? Why can't I make money? It's gotta be Obama, it's gotta be Bush, it's gotta be the recession, it's got no, but I have to point the finger back at me. That was my fixed mindset. And when I started diving into personal development and into growth, and I read Carol Dweck's book as well, the growth mindset looks at everything as your yourself, your learnings, your teachings, they're not immutable. You can actually learn things. The growth mindset sees the problem and says, Well, there's a problem. How do I solve that problem? Or how do I learn from that problem? Whereas the fixed mindset says, There's the problem, I'm gonna avoid it, right? I don't want to even deal with it. The growth mindset is like, I can grow, I can change, I want it a challenge. I know that if I do make a mistake, I won't view it as a mistake. It's just an opportunity to learn and to continue to grow. I had a restaurant for almost 20 years, one location. That was the fixed mindset. I couldn't scale that. But when I met my business partner, Jake, within five years, we went from one apartment complex to over 1,500 units in about five years. That was the growth mindset on steroids because I was so fed up and I was so inundated with personal development and so I raised my standard. That's what that's really what it came down to. So if that if there's one thing when you talk about the different mindset, it really said shed that fixed mindset and adopt the growth mindset.

Jacquelyn Jackson 6:20

All right. So it sounds like a hundred percent dissatisfaction is a hundred percent change, and that's what happened with you, and that is awesome. So so many business owners, and we've talked about that, you and I, uh, so many business owners struggle to scale. Okay.

Scaling Without Breaking Infrastructure

Jacquelyn Jackson 6:38

So what can they learn from how you structured Jake and Gino?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

95% of businesses in this country generate less than a million dollars a year in revenue. 95%. But of those 5% that get above a million dollars, 20% of those get to the $10 million range. That's pretty cool. That's a that's a significant number. I think the first thing that we did at Jake and Gino, my business partner and Jake, is we had an alignment. We said to ourselves, this is what our goals are, this is what we want to accomplish. And we weren't looking for scale, we weren't looking for growth. What we were looking for early on is we were looking for wins. We just want to close a deal and we just want to cash flow on that first deal. We want to have some credibility, we want to have some proof of concept. Let's not think about a thousand units on our first deal. Let's just think about that first 25 unit deal. And that's what happened. It took us 18 months to find that first deal. But then after that first deal, three months later, we bought our second deal, which was 36 units. And then six months after that, we bought our third deal, which is 136 units. So within two and a half years of partnering with Jake, we have 200 units. And there's two lessons that I would pull from that. The first one is when you're looking to scale, you do not want to outgrow your infrastructure. Hey, if Jackie's out there crushing it, she's been doing it for years. I can't look at what Jackie's doing and try to say, I want to get to Jackie's level. I need to stay within my infrastructure. If I outgrow my infrastructure, that's when things start happening. If I don't have my admin work and taken care of and I'm out there hiring sales reps and I'm trying to grow revenue, but I don't have the systems to be able to handle that, it's going to be overload, and that's when you really have big problems. And the second point that I would make about that is how to we grew it. Once you start growing, you do not come out of the womb when you're born with these skills of scaling companies. I never knew how to scale a company. So what did we do? We went and we hired coaches on how to help us scale a company. And one thing that we really truly leaned into, and this is for my business partner, Jake, who was in the world of corporate, hated core values and hated mission statements. But then he realized, wow, if you have to grow a business yourself, well, you need your North Star, you need your new admission statement, and you need your core values. And that I think is one thing that really, truly helped us to scale our company from those 200 units to over 1900 units today.

Jacquelyn Jackson 9:13

So what I'm hearing you say, um, pretty much, Gino, is that we don't want to outgrow ourselves. But the biggest thing with us as business owners, and you and I have, you know, we talk about it is that we don't know what we're doing. We don't know at what point we are outgrowing ourselves, you know. And that's why I was glad you were here. You you were willing to come onto our show because you can actually help them to see what they don't know because you've done it. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

So Jackie, let me add this one quote, and I want everyone listening to this to write this down because this was made a profound impact on my life. Revenue is vanity, profit margin is sanity, and cash is king. I think if you live by that motto, it doesn't matter how much you gross. To me, it's how much am I netting? How much am I taking home? Right? If you're scaling just to scale, if I'm buying another apartment complex just because I feel good and I got another hundred units under management, but it's not producing cash flow or material benefit to myself, why am I growing? If I'm hiring another salesperson and I'm adding revenue on, but I'm adding more cost than the revenue, does that make sense? If you live by that motto and you pay yourself first and you worry about the bottom line, then the scaling will take care of itself because then you can scale responsibly as

Pay Yourself First And Build Cashflow

SPEAKER_01 10:33

well.

Jacquelyn Jackson 10:33

As well. Now I noticed you said if you pay yourself first. So I really want you to take to talk about that because you know we kind of messed up in how it's supposed to go. So when you say that for somebody that has the real estate that's trying to grow and they don't do that, what is your uh uh advice for them?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Well, the first thing that a person should do is you should pick up the book by Richard Clayson, the richest man in Babylon. He has seven laws and five rules in there. The very first one is pay 10% of all of your earnings, one copper out of 10 and pay yourself. Now, if you're on here, you're saying to yourself, well, I've got so many bills and I've got so many expenses, I can't do that. Well, guess what? Next week is gonna be the same thing as this week. And how do I know that? Because I was there, I was on that wheel and I was making those excuses. I got four kids. Well, guess what you got to do? You got to tighten the belt a little bit. You have to figure it out because that's the only way you're able to create wealth and you're able to sustain your lifestyle. You want that one out of 10 coppers to be saved. And then what he says in the book, take that one copper, invest that one copper. That copper, that dollar will make babies. You invest those babies as well, and they will make more babies. It sounds so simple and it is such a simple concept, but it's very hard for people to do. And then you have people on here who are making a living and then they get a raise. Instead of taking part of that raise and saving it, they have the feeling, and I know exactly the feeling, I deserve to spend this money. I want anybody listening to this, this is important. I want you to start adopting the mindset of the producer. And I have this, all my children, that's what I want them to understand to be a producer, to produce value in whatever you do. I have two massage therapists, his daughters, produce value. Give them a great experience. The more value you produce, the more you're gonna make in tips. Now, from that production, you can go off and consume. Whereas most people, what they do is they consume and then from that consumption, they try to produce. They're doing it the opposite way around. Think of your production, think of becoming a producer and not worrying about spending your money and all. That time will come. And the irony is once you do make all that money, you're saying to yourself, well, I don't really need the flashy car, I don't need the third house. It's very strange how that works because you've been you've been conditioned to really produce and to provide value. And out of that, whatever's left over, part of it you save and part of it you can actually enjoy. And I think if you do that with your company as well, that's that's important to think of a company. Why is a company exist like Amazon? Amazon, Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, they exist to produce value for their clients. The more value they produce, the more money they make. And out of that production, they can go out and give it to their shareholders or take profits from it. If we all have that mindset, man, how much would change in this business world and how many problems would actually get solved because people are trying to create value, and the more value you create, the more profit or the more money you will end up making?

Jacquelyn Jackson 13:43

All right, which I think that is some great information. So, what saying that I noticed, like I said, you give us books, and you know you told me you're a big reader, I am too. So let's talk

Buy Right Manage Right Finance Right

Jacquelyn Jackson 13:53

about books. Let's talk about the wheelbarrow profits, okay? You emphasize the buy right, manage right, finance right. Can you explain how the framework applies to everyday business building?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Whenever you're doing anything in life, trying to create wealth, trying to raise a family, trying to build a business, it's pretty easy to go out and find success. Success leaves clues. And Jake and I, when we first started out, I was fortunate to partner with Jake. He had no experience in real estate. I was sort of, you know, the one who had the experience. I had life before Jake, and it was life after Jake. Life before Jake was a nightmare for me. I lost so much money, I made so many mistakes. And Jackie, you'll probably agree with me. Have you ever met anyone in real estate who's been an investor who hasn't lost money? I haven't. Anyone who's in real estate, except for Jake, my business partner, it's because I lost all the money before we partnered up. So I'm like, bro, you got a good deal here. And the reason why is before I invested with him, I had no map, I had no process. I did what most beginning investors do is we're looking for deals. Give me a deal. I got 10 grand. Where should I put it? That is probably the worst thing that you could possibly do as a beginning investor. That's why we created the buy right, the manage right, and the finance right. They're three separate pillars. Now, if for multifamily, I'll go through it real quick for multifamily, but this really applies to buying a business as well or buying a single family home. When you're buying an asset, you're investing in a business, you have to have a buy right criteria. You can't just go to somebody and say, I want to buy a business. Well, what kind of business is it? You can't just go out and say, I want to buy a multifamily property. Well, what market is it in? What's the median income? What's the neighborhood look like? How many units do you want? Right? What is the unit mix? Do you like one bedroom? Do you like two bedrooms? Do you like brick? What's the age of the asset? The vintage? Is it 1980s? Is it newer? Is it older? What type of investor are you? Do you have a ton of capital where all you're doing is trying to preserve wealth? Or are you one like me when I started out that had Lint in his pockets and you're just trying to buy a property where you can build equity? That's important to understand. So you need to create this criteria when you're buying or investing in an asset. It's the same thing with buying a business. What kind of business are you buying? Important to understand. Now, the finance part of it is very similar in business as well. How are you financing this business? Is it through an SBA loan? Is it through seller financing? We've done over 25 million bucks in seller finance deals. I've actually got an opportunity to do one right now. Great way to do it. Are you getting community bank debt? Are you getting credit union debt? Are you going to the agencies, Fannie and Freddie? Really important. And out of this is the exit strategy of this. What are you trying to accomplish in real estate? Because you need to have an exit strategy. Whether you're buying a business, people are going to say, I'm going to buy and hold forever. Well, we're not, we don't live forever. You're ultimately going to pass, and that property is going to be passed on to somebody else. So understand that there's an exit in real estate, whether you're selling it andor possibly refinancing it. So understanding that will help you get the type of financing. Is it short-term financing? Is it longer-term financing? And then the third pillar is the managerite. It's the operations of the business. And the biggest mistake I see, other than what I mentioned before with newer investors, is they think real estate's passive. And it can be passive if you're the investor who has all the money and you can find somebody doing the work for you. But if you've got to invest yourself, there's operations, there's people, systems, and culture in real estate. And the successful people who have portfolios of single family homes, of mobile home parks, of self-storage, they understand that the operations in the business is key. And if you don't know how to operate a property, you can buy it really well and you can have a great business plan, but it's not going to come to fruition unless you know how to operate that property.

Jacquelyn Jackson 17:56

And that's where you guys come in. We, as loan brokers, we get a lot of beginning real estate investors and we got a season as well. But they come in with all these different myths that they saw somebody, which you said earlier, doing this. I can do what he did. And so this is what I have. And they don't have a clue of all the internal mechanisms that help that happen with that. So with you and with Jay, that's what I love, and that's why I was glad you were here. They can actually get with you guys, and you can give them a framework to kind of guide them, no matter what stage they in. Because, like I said, we know that you can deal with the beginning stage, but if you got someone that 20 million dollar portfolio, they're trying to grow, you can help them as well. You know, give them some directions and stuff. So I want you, I know we're gonna talk more down the line in the show, but if you would let them know now how can they get in contact with you. We're gonna throw that in once in a while, but I want them to know what's the best way to reach you right now as well. Let's put that out there now.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

I mean, if you want to reach me personally, just email me, Gino at jakengino.com, and I will send you a free copy of uh the Wheelbarrow Profits by PDF. If you want to go check out the website, just go to jakandgeno.com. And if you want to visit the family website, it's barbaro b-ar-b-ar-o-three six zero.com. There's all the resources there, there's the podcast there. But you said something earlier that was very important. This is just for people who want change, who are looking for change. If you're the old Gino who is really in a lot of pain and wanted to change, or you're the newer Gino who just loves to get on at 130 or 230 in the afternoon with Jackie and loves to rip it, those are the two types of people that really want this type of information and that will actually do something with this information. That's the key. Understanding that you want to change, that you're ready to change, and that you can change. And that once you understand that's you're you can grab onto that responsibility and that you're not a victim and that you can start creating a plan. Once you realize that, it's like a weight that gets lifted off of you. And you're like, wow, I have the opportunity. I can really do this. This is something that I can do because I'm here to tell you. I mean, just listen to this. This this is 100% accurate. Real estate is not rocket science. What Elon Musk is doing is rocket science. Okay. I could never catch a rocket from space. That's way above my pay grade. But I can go out there and talk to Jackie about a loan for a 20-unit property. That's not rocket science. I mean, like, that's the reality. And your behaviors are belief-driven. If you can believe that you can get on a call with Jackie and start talking about real estate, then you can do it. I guess Elon believes he can catch rockets because he's doing that. I know for a fact I can't do that. So I'm not going to try that. But real estate is not challenging. I think there's just so many behaviors and beliefs, and your uncle says it's risky, and it's just the norm that people don't do it, and that's not your peer group or your tribe, right? My tribe at the restaurant was waitresses, busboys, dishwashers, an occasional vendor. I didn't have wealthy people to hang around with. I didn't have role models or mentors that were pushing me. So that's when I got frustrated. I like, I have to go out and find these people. And I promise you, once you start finding them and listening to them, your whole world will change.

Jacquelyn Jackson 21:07

Exactly. So, like with this show that we do, giving power to the business owner, we vet the people that actually come on this show. We don't need people to try to sell themselves or or talk about their little shiny this, shiny that. We need them to know, like you, you've been there, you've done it, and you're willing to help those that have the right mindset. So we want you all definitely to reach out. I had a young man come in uh and I thought of you. Um, he actually started one house, had a bad experience 10 years ago and refused to do it. You know, and I say, Hey, I want you to tune into the show. I want you to reach out to Gino. He said, I'm gonna watch the show because he's actually an engineer and refused to do anything. But he said, But it's my passion, I've always loved it, but it was such an awful experience. That's why I said you need some guidance. You need someone that can get you over that hump and definitely work with you. So I want him, not only him to reach out, but the rest of you all that listen to us. And we do have a great following. A lot of views that we get on our YouTube channel that actually say the information and what they get are very beneficial. So with that said, I know how do you teach students? Okay. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how do you teach your students, uh, your own children, to think like investors rather than employees.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

I'm I'm writing that question down because you said something really profound. And I want to speak to that engineer, to that person you're talking about, because I was that person back in 2005.

Learning After Loss And Finding Mentors

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Uh I made a big mistake. When you hear the word money, in our society right now, there's a lot of shame, there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of scarcity, there's a lot of uncertainty with that word. And I was there in 05. I made an investment. One day a gentleman drives into my restaurant. I'm sitting outside on the bench. It's this nice yellow Maserati. You could hear the engine roaring. It was a nice sunny day, and I felt good. I had some money in my pocket. This gentleman comes out of the car, comes down and sits next to me. His name was Mike. I dubbed him Maserati Mike, and we started talking. And Maserati Mike had an opportunity for me to invest money with him. He was buying a mobile home park. He was referred to me by another friend, and I said, Mike, sure, here's $172,000, all my money, and let's go out and let's invest. Six months later, check stopped coming. 12 months later, the deal went bust. Went out of business. Got foreclosed on. And you know, speaking to that engineer, that does happen. Now, the fixed mindset that I was talking to you about before went right away to blame Maserati Mike. And the fixed mindset was right because Mike was a dirtbag. He was negligent. He the business blame was terrible. But the growth mindset was like, well, Gino, dumbass, why did you sign on the dotted line? Why didn't you fly down to the property? Why didn't you do your due diligence? Did you know what a cap rate was or a cash on cash return was? Oh no. So the growth mindset said, you know what? You made a big mistake. But if you want to continue to invest, and I think you should, because you're making you're working hard for your money, but you want your money to work hard for you. This real estate vehicle is incredible if you learn it. That is what led me to get into multifamily, to actually learn it, to get into life coaching, to get into money coaching, to build a community because I knew that I made a mistake. And real estate's risky to those of us who don't know what we're doing. So it's important to say, wow, okay, I made that big mistake and I don't want that to hold me back. I don't want to assume the next deal is going to be a big mistake. So what I ended up doing was I ended up going and getting coached and getting mentored and really learning, investing in my education. So that when Jake decided to pop down into my lap and he showed up, it wasn't luck. It was because I was prepared. The opportunity came. He was looking to leave New York. I was looking to invest outside of New York. He moved to Knoxville. I had a skill set, I had value that I could provide to him. He had value that he could provide to me. And that's why we partnered. So if you're out there and you're saying to yourself, this real estate thing is risky. I lost money years ago. I mean, I had shame for years. I had my Italian mother reminding me every couple of weeks, real estate's risky. And the irony is when I started investing with Jake, I didn't tell her because I didn't want to hear that. All she was trying to do is to try to protect me. And I get it. But at the same time, it was, it was just deflating to hear. But when we got to 200 units, I finally sat down with her and I said, Mom, guess what? I said, uh, I've got a couple hundred units with Jake and we're making this much a month. And I think in the next six months or so, I may be leaving the restaurant. And she was, she was completely flat. She had no idea what to say or what to think. So if you're out there and you hear people are telling you it's risky and all, they're just trying to protect you. They're trying not to lose you. You're in that tribe and you're saying, I want to become better, I want to become smarter, I want to have that growth mindset. Well, you may have to either leave that group or you may have to take that group, show leadership, and drag that group along with you. And for me, it was very challenging with my mom, but you know, teaching students, you know, it's a great question that you asked. Teaching my kids I think one of the most important things with teaching kids and students is really to set that financial foundation. Whatever you're doing in life, you need to have the foundation. If you're gonna build a skyscraper, you see what happens. There's bedrock, they go down how many stories to be able to build top. Your first goal right now, if you're getting into this space, into investing, shouldn't be looking at deals. Your first thing that you should be doing is starting to create some kind of habits. That's the first thing that I would say. The second thing I would say is really learn what type of money script, we call them money scripts, what type of behaviors or beliefs you have around money. I was grown up with a script called money vigilance. You know, money vigilance for me was all about saving money. I had two immigrants as parents, they came with nothing. We were told save, save, save, never save for a sunny day at the beach. It was always for a rainy day, it was always for fear. But that was my that was my script, right? So that was my that was the way I was raised. There's money vigilance, there's money worship, there's money status, and there's money avoidance. Those are four scripts. So if you're growing up and you're taught to avoid money or that rich person is evil, that's going to affect you unconsciously. So you have to understand what your scripts are, what your beliefs are with money, right? That's really important. I think you have to understand that. Then you have what I said, the habits, being able to start saving money. I mean, saving is not going to get you to retirement, but if you don't have any equity saved, you can't actually go out and invest that equity or invest the money saved. So you have to start creating some type of habits, like the richest man. Start saving the 10%. And then from that 10%, start investing that 10% into uh some type of asset. And for me, I chose multifamily because I already had a job. I was already the pizza guy. I didn't want to flip homes. I didn't want to trade stocks. I wanted to create long-term wealth. And I'm like, this multifamily vehicle, it can be boring. I don't have to do a lot of deals a year. It is management intensive, but it's something that I like. I like dealing with customers. I like being able to buy a property, force the value up, have a hedge against inflation, have my residence pay on my mortgage. So if you're out there, think of what you like to invest in. Is it buying a business? Is it buying single-family homes? Buying a couple single family homes a year is a great strategy for long term. You buy two homes a year for the next 10 years, you've got 20 homes if you think about it. That's that's incredible. It's a great little strategy. And then you can start selling them off, crystallizing the equity or refinancing them, or just continue to pay them down. And by the time you're 50, 60 years old, you've got a nice little portfolio built up. So I think for me, it's habits, it's mindset, and really it's focusing on what your goals are. What are you trying to accomplish with these investments? Do you want to make investing a full-time adventure, or do you want to really couple it as a side part-time side gig with what you're trying to accomplish with your W-2 job?

Teaching Kids Money And Investor Language

Jacquelyn Jackson 29:18

Okay, so basically, uh, which is great advice. So when we have, because I know we're doing a part with you with family. I have had some mothers and parents that are interested because they're doing this financial uh literacy with their children. So how do you get your children to think like investors? What do you what is it that you do to help them with that?

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Well, this is maybe challenging for a lot of people, but guess what? Kids don't hear you, kids see you. Okay? You can tell them all you want, but if you're telling them to save 10% and you're telling them that credit card debt is bad, and yet you're out there throwing that in the credit card and you're not paying it off every month, and you don't have the discipline that you're trying to teach them. So the first thing is mirroring. The second thing is language. Your language becomes your experience. Buy a board game, play Monopoly, play the cash flow game. I literally just ordered another board game on finance because these games are incredible. You have a statement of cash flows, you have an income statement, a balance sheet, you start using this terminology. My 11-year-old, the other day, we're driving by a house. She's my youngest, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, huh. She's like, Dad, you're gonna buy that one too? We got to buy everything, Dad. So she's already of the buyer-investor mindset. It's like not that she doesn't, she goes, why would we want to buy that? It's really not something you want to invest in. I'm like, holy crap. I'm like, this at 11 years old, she under, she has the language, she has the vocabulary.

Jacquelyn Jackson 30:42

Terminology.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yes, the terminology. And once you have that, there's less fear. So it what the the thing that you need to do with children, especially younger children, you need to make it fun. If your child's eight years old and they got 50 bucks for their birthday, and you take that 50 bucks and you say, I'm gonna put it in the bank for you, that's a form of punishment. Like eight-year-olds, like, dude, that was my money. Like, why are you taking it from me? I'm saving it for you. Women like, it's like, no, I I made that mistake for so many years. So what I ended up doing was I ended up having a jar system. Because right now, to me, cash is king. People, kids need to see the tangibility of money. They don't see with credit cards. So if you got 50 bucks, I had a jar to save, a jar to spend, and then a jar to for donations. So all three. I let them direct X amount into each. You can do whatever you want, a third, a third, a third if you want. And then from there, they're spending money. You want to buy candy, you want to buy a toy, it's yours. Now you're giving them autonomy over money. You're giving them decision making. They don't have to come to you all the time. That's what you want. You want a young adults who can make decisions. And now you're not avoiding the topic of money, you're discussing money, you're talking about money. So when they become adults, they can start making decisions. And it's really great because when they become 18 years old and you've been having these conversations with them, it's all of a sudden, Dad, can you help me open up a checking account? Can you help me open up credit card? Oh, what is credit? You know, how does that work? And then, oh wow, Dad, I've got this little business. Can you help me up with this business checking? Oh, and the bookkeeper. Well, let's get on bookkeeper calls. And it starts. What I would say that you shouldn't do that, I did, is at seven years old, sit down and make it like structured. You got to give them books, you got to force feed them because we homeschool our kids. And the problem is they're around us all the time. And at certain times, I feel as if I need to push this on them. But if you just sit there and you make it fun, you make it enjoyable, you make it relatable, and you don't avoid the conversation, but you be transparent and you be authentic and you be honest with them, that conversation is so much, I think, easier and beneficial for them as if one where you're saying one thing, but you're doing another. That mirroring is so important because kids will pick up on what you're doing and not only what you're saying.

Jacquelyn Jackson 32:48

Right. And like you said, making it more fun for them and adapted to what type of child you have. I think that's really important when it comes to financials because everybody, including us as adults, we don't look at money the same. Some of it it is taboo. It is taboo. Uh so we haven't learned that. We haven't got that gremlin out of us. And so I can see with society-wise, whether our children are in our house, outside our house, they're gonna pick up certain things that we can't control or we're not aware of. But I think if we look at going into money, it's not oh, financial literacy, here's a book, because I've had people do it, here's a book, this is a chapter, read a chapter. You're right, it does, it's not fun. So get into cash flow. When you talk about cash flow, that's uh about rich man, poor man, right? That game, they got one for for children in my case.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

For kids as well, they have both. I would skip to the older one. The older one is great. I mean, even if your kids are 10, 11 years old, uh, they're great. But when you use the word taboo with money, and it's very interesting, money is taboo because, in my opinion, of the relationship and the patterns and the behaviors and beliefs that we adopted from our parents and our grandparents. And it's, you know, we always want to blame our mom for stuff. And I love to blame my mom. And I got a lot of good habits from my mom with money, but I also got some bad habits for my mom with money. So if you're listening to this right now, I want you to do a little exercise. Um, what we call a memory with money is uh called a financial flashpoint. A financial flash point is an emotion or a memory around money. And if I you go back into your hat past or into your history, think about like your first memory with money. If you can really think about it, and I did a lot of work on this, and and what I did is I came up with the story when I was five years old. I went to the grocery store with my my grandmother. She was Italian. We didn't have credit cards back then. We were, you know, we were lower middle class. We went to buy some groceries. She didn't have enough money. I wanted to buy a bag of toy soldiers. She's like, sweetheart in Italian. We don't have the money to buy them. When your mom comes home, we'll buy them. Well, at five years old, I was dejected. There's shame, there's fear. Why can't I, why can't we afford these? So I went home. I don't remember ever going back to the to the to the to the store to buy them. Right. But that memory, that flashpoint was burned into my psyche, having fear and shame around money. So if you take that emotion or that memory and you bring it to the adulthood, all of a sudden, well, I'm I'm conditioned to save money. I'm conditioned because I don't want to go into that store and not have it. So saving is a great skill, but if you can't enjoy the money you've saved, and how many of you listening to this know that 52-year-old person with $2 million in the bank, but they can't spend it because they're so miserly, but it's because they've been conditioned from a young from a young age that, hey, if I don't have this money, that's that's that's safety, that's comfort. I can't spend that money. Well, the reason why we make money is to actually you know spend it and to enjoy it. So go back if you're listening to this and think about a couple of early memories. Some of you may not have them. You may say, I don't remember anything. If you sit down and really ponder it, maybe you maybe around the house, no one did talk about money. That is a memory. That's a memory. That's a tough memory. I'll give you one more. Uh, yesterday I was on I was on a podcast with some lady, and she, her dad, and this lady was in her 50s, and her dad was a financial planner. So at the age of 16, his idea of teaching his daughter was you need to open up a checking account, you need to get a credit card, and you need to save, save, save. And she still remembers that as a woman in her 50s, how detrimental that was. There was fear around money. Financial planning is all about saving for an event, saving for retirement. And that's how she was conditioned. So if you're trying to grow a business or you're trying to enjoy your money, but you're always looking at your 401k, you're always wondering if there's enough money, that can be very detrimental. That means very hard for you to invest in real estate because you're saying, I can't take that money out of there because if I put it here, I'm risking my life. There's there's and if I lose money, there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of shame around that. That is why it's really important for you to go back into your past and see what stories you've been telling yourself, what behaviors, what beliefs, what patterns you have adopted. Some of them may be great, some of them may not be so great, but I will promise you that you're unconsciously running your life through those patterns.

Jacquelyn Jackson 37:11

Those patterns. And so what it brings me on with money, and like I said, my children, we we actually raised them up on the cash flow game. So they were aware of that. And you're right, the attitude they that I had with them changed to the point they're now 24, 26, when they they that's that's where they are, and they are responsible adults. So one thing we have to realize, like I tell everybody, especially as a loan broker, it's a book uh called Taming Your Gremlins by uh Rick Carson. And that book is one that I use on all my speaks when I talk and then when I when I deal with people, because our gremlins are not negativity, it's not us having like uh a prejudice against certain things, it's our environment, how we were raised, and we take those gremlins with us and that relationship with money. I see it when you walk into our office as a loan broker. On your face, you're already saying, I'm not gonna get this loan. Already. And I'm like, I haven't asked you anything. So we go into that, and then you think about the stories we hear about real estate, or how is it that we were raised with parents that have had the same house for 30, 40, 50 years? These are gremlins that ride our shoulder, and believe it or not, Gino, you have actually let them guide your road path to success. Those gremlins are driving the bus. And so I can see that, but that book, Taming Your Gremlins, is a great book to start with, so you can see how you have internalized your environment and to how you handle business today. That includes reaching out to people like you, you know, to actually get the true help so that we can change that mindset and we can actually start working. So let's look at our business owners. What uh parallel can you give us to that's between running a small business and managing a multifamily portfolio?

People Systems Culture And Core Values

SPEAKER_01 39:10

I'm gonna add running a family as well, because you can couple all three of these because they're very similar. And with all three, you need people, you need systems, and you need culture. If you have all three of those within your organization, so the systems component, when you're running a business or a multifamily or a family, you need rhythms in your business, you need a cadence of accountability. Are you having daily calls? Are you having weekly calls? Are you having quarterly plannings? This is what you need. And the same thing with the family. Are you sitting down and having meals? Are you having conversations? Are you setting goals with your family? Do you have a mission statement and core values for your family? Most families don't. But then what ends up happening is how do you make decisions? You know, you can always lead back and go, well, if we're going to be taking a vacation, where do we want to go? Well, what do the what do our values talk about? Well, for us, going to Italy is a no-brainer because the kids want to learn about their culture. They want to learn about their heritage and their past. So, oh, great, right? Let's go there. So, one simple example. But when you're running the multifamily business and and and a small business, same thing. You need to have systems within the business and you need to have great people within the business and within your multifamily. And like I said, that culture piece is so important. You had touched upon scaling prior and previously. You know, with those core values, you're hiring people, you're firing people on core values. It's your it's your it's your North Star, it's your guiding principle. It's it's how you make decisions. If you know our core values are people first, make it happen, extreme ownership, growth mindset, and unwavering ethics. Those are our five uh for the business. And when we look at those, if we have a vendor who shows up and they're late or they don't, we had an we had an event about five years ago on one of our properties. It was for our investors, it was for our Jake and Gino community, and it was a Saturday morning. We drive out on the bus. I see Jake getting livid. He's starting to turn red. I think he's gonna pop a gasket. I said, What's wrong, bro? And he's like, the landscaper didn't come out. He's like, dude, he was supposed to come out, make the property look really good for the students, and he was pissed. And he ended up firing the landscaper on the spot because he said the landscaper's supposed to be there Wednesday, didn't show up, and he made him look really bad. I mean, it's extreme ownership. I mean, the the landscaper made an excuse. There's no excuse for that. And that's one way that he likes to run the business. It's like one of those things where they make that mistake once, they make that mistake twice. You try making excuses for these people, and it's like you don't want that. You want to have extreme ownership and hold people accountable. At least that's that's in our business. That's what our our our core values are. And once you start running those, it's not one of those things where you put up on a wall and it's a marketing piece. No, it's something that you need to live. And if you're going to be espousing them, you need to be leading by having those core values instilled within you so you can show up every day and lead and leave by lead lead by those core values.

Jacquelyn Jackson 42:10

All right. So let's talk about that. So let's talk about the leadership. How do we build teams that share the values and the vision? How do we do that?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Connection before correction. I think that's the first thing. As a leader, you need to listen. I think as a leader, most leaders tend who are really great, tend to talk last and tend to tend to really get people in the room who are experts. I think as a leader, you need to shed your ego and your pride because you don't know it all. But what you can do is you can hire people that are really, really good at what they do and listen to them. I think as a leader with the growth mindset, you want to get input from everybody. But at the same time, someone brings you a problem, as a leader, you should say, I want to hear the problem, but I want you to bring me two or three solutions to that problem. I think as a leader, you need to empower your employees. You need to empower the people around you to actually help within the organization. And then as the leader, like I said, having extreme ownership is if I'm going to have if I'm going to espouse that, I need to have extreme ownership. I need to be the one that they quote unquote say the buck stops here. That that's what it comes down to. And unfortunately, as leaders, you need to work hard. I mean, there's just no way around it. I mean, you need to really be emotionally intelligent. You really need to listen. And I think the biggest thing that I've learned with leadership is through Stephen Covey's, you know, seek first to understand, then to be understood. One of his habits. Most people don't do that. People first seek to seek to hear and then they think about what they're going to say in response. That's not listening. I mean, truly listening and being empathetic. Not the suicidal empathy that we have going on nowadays, but true empathy, truly understanding what's going on with that person and seeing it from their point of view, not saying They're right or wrong, they they it's their experience, but then you need to understand what they're going through. And then, like, okay, how do you connect with them? How do you connect as a leader with them? That's truly important. And I think that's sort of being lost. And I think as we get on, and I'm gonna sound like an older person, AI is wonderful, AI is terrific. A lot of these skills that leaders have, they're not AI driven. I mean, it's hard to be somebody who can listen, it's hard to be somebody who has empathy, it's hard to be somebody who has patience. These are skills that are really, really challenging. And you see these organizations that are phenomenal, that empower their teams and their people. They they have that vision and that mission of what they want to accomplish. And then leadership at the top, they're always getting feedback. They're always getting feedback and they're always implementing stuff from their teams. There's no possible way that a leader can come up with everything by themselves. They need a great team behind them and around them to actually help the organization grow.

Legacy Happiness And Starting Over

Jacquelyn Jackson 44:56

Exactly. So I definitely agree with that. Now that leads into your book that you have uh happy, money, family that touches on aligning money with meaning, right? How can entrepreneurs bring more happiness into their wealth journey? That's a really big one.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Yeah. I'm just trying to I I want to be as succinct as possible. And I think the best way that I can answer that question is by talking about legacy. And I think legacy is important because it's not something that you leave behind. That's what most people think legacy is. Legacy is something that you start activating today. And if you look at it from that lens, all of a sudden you have the ability to control your legacy. Whatever you do today, you're planting a seed five or 10 years from now, that seed's gonna start growing. How cool is that to really understand that? If you want to buy a property in the next two years, well, if you start today and you start doing all the things that we talked about in the next 24 months, I almost guarantee you there's no way that you won't. So part of that journey really is becoming clear. And when you talk about the journey and the legacy, I want to give a solution or a tip for anybody listening that they may say to themselves, well, I don't really know what I want, right? I don't really know how to build a happy legacy, I don't know what that looks like. Well, just imagine yourself sitting in a rocking chair 30 or 40 years from now in front of your porch. And what do you what are you experiencing? What are you feeling? What are you thinking? What have you done? Who's around you? Like those are the things it's easy for me. I mean, I've already got it mapped out. I want to have with my six children, hopefully, each one of them is married and has at least three or four kids. I want that. I want to have my legacy being able to really fund that, really help fund their growth. I want my legacy to be split up into a human component, an intellectual component, and the financial component. I want to be able to pass that legacy on to my kids by doing podcasts, by building this Barbero 360 business, because I'm teaching my kids about business. And what better way than to build a business with your kids? That's legacy. That's also thinking about the future. So I'm thinking about what it looks like in the future, and I'm reverse engineering that today. And I'm telling you, you accomplish more in five years. There's so much more that you can accomplish. People underestimate what they can do in five years and they overestimate what they can do in one. Just get clear. Get clear on what you want and don't let anybody tell you what you should want or what that picture looks like for you. Once I did that, and I'm like, wow, I want to have my kids. I ended up leaving New York because I know up in New York the kids could not afford to live buy a home up there. So I'm like, I'm gonna start having kids. They're all gonna disperse. So I ended up moving to Florida. I know the kids are gonna live in the Southeast. They can afford to live down here. They love it down here. It's a great state to live down here. So that was I made a monumental decision. I invested in multifamily, built a business around that. That's legacy wealth. That's long-term wealth. That's part of what I'm trying to accomplish with our legacy. So as you start making these decisions, you start thinking about what you want in the future and just reverse engineer that. What that what you need to start doing today to reach that picture 37.

Jacquelyn Jackson 48:07

So we need to have a happy, well, not happy face, but a happy place. We need that need that would kind of incorporate in our business to think of that. I think that's a great idea, Gino. I like that. I like that. Okay. So let me ask you something a little bit more personal about you. If you had to start over in 2026, AI, all this stuff is out here, where would you focus first and why?

SPEAKER_01 48:34

I'm gonna take the question in two ways. The young Gino, if I had nothing, I would find something that I loved. I would actually go into real estate and I would go work as a real estate broker at the age of 20 or 21. I would get the best producing broker that I knew, coffee. I would lick his shoes. I would do whatever I possibly could to learn the business from that person because that person is super successful. And it may take me a little time, I may not get paid, but hey, I'm young right now. I've got time. I'm gonna trade money today for skills and for value and for network right now. Because in five years, that broker may retire. He may love what I'm doing, and he may say, Gino, hey, you know what? I want to slow down a little bit. I want to go away in the summertimes. Can you take care of my book of business? Absolutely, Mary. I would love to do that for you. And guess what? That's the opportunity. And that's what they talk about in The Richest Man as well. Learn your craft. Arcad did not get lucky because of luck. He actually showed Algames, the person that he was working with when he was young. He struggled for five, four or five years to show him that he was really bought in. And then all of a sudden, Algames saw all the worth and all the hard work that he did and he trusted him with some of his properties. Some people call that luck. I call it preparation. So that's what I would do if I was young. Now, if I'm older and I'm starting over and I have the knowledge that I have, I go right back into investing, right back into real estate. I would learn how to do seller financing even better, master lease options even better. And I would focus on that. And I would actually get into syndication and raising capital from other people. Because if I didn't have any of my own, I I that's that's where I would go. That's what I would do.

Jacquelyn Jackson 50:18

Okay. That sounds like a good winner. I mean, on both of them. And I'm and I thank you for breaking it up. I thought that was really good. So that was a wonderful way to do that. So let me ask you this because I know we've talked, and you you know, one thing about you, Gino, you have no problem if people, hey, I made mistakes. This is why I'm here today. So and I love that about you. But I do want you to let us audience know um what was one of your proudest, and because that's what you say they are, failure stories that taught you an invaluable business listen.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

I've already shared one with you. I'm gonna share another real estate. I don't want to call it a disaster because looking back at it, it wasn't that bad, but it was bad because it was one that I one that I could have avoided. And it's a property that I bought in in November of 2006. It was a retail industrial office. It was it was mixed use. Another one of those I didn't know what I was doing. It was a shiny object, but I was buying it in in the wrong part of the market cycle. If you remember back in 06-07, the market started to get really hot, really frothy.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Right, right.

Jacquelyn Jackson 51:19

Before eight.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Yes, I overpaid. And you know, for anybody listening right now, write these words down because this has served me very well. No deal is better than a bad deal. And I learned it from this deal. I owned this deal for 10 years, and every day while I was at work, I would get a phone call from my manager, Lou rest, you know, let his soul rest in peace. Every day I'd see his name pop up and he'd always say, We got a problem, got a problem. I'm like, what's the problem? What could possibly be wrong today? And it was one of those where I didn't have any managerial experience, remember, though no operator, I didn't understand commercial leases. There were so many things wrong with this deal, but I had it for 10 years. I learned all about the financing because I had to go into what they quote, remember back in the day, the my debt was coming due, it was expiring, and it was just at the wrong part. Valuations dropped. I couldn't refi, I couldn't sell, so I had to get an extension, I had to get a have a workout with the bank. That was a great experience. That's why in this these past three or four years, we didn't do any of this bridge dead because I had already learned. Remember, if if I hadn't learned those mistakes, Jake may have gone through one because it's so hard when you're sitting around, everyone's doing deals, and you're like, what's going on? Why am I not doing any deals here? So that that deal taught me that lesson. I remember buying it for a million two. I probably put a half a million dollars into it, maybe more. Probably I'm into it for a million seven or million eight. And we sold it in July of 2017 when I moved down here for $975,000. I lost a lot of money on that deal. Yes, the only saving grace is that owning it for that long, a significant amount of principal was paid down on the mortgage. So that were that really helped me out. But I mean, over time, just putting money back into the property, fixing it up, doing all the work, not having due diligence. I mean, I took a property over that was commercial, that had no war, no working water system, had no commercial fire alarm, had units that were not that didn't have certificates of occupancy. This is stuff that I should have known, my lawyer should have known. But at the same time, the banks didn't say anything. The town didn't say anything. It's when the new owner came over, it's like, uh-oh, we got a new sucker. Here we go. And it was it was pain. I mean, I had a buried oil tank in the ground that I had to remediate. There were so many things that were wrong with this property, but it gave me the fortitude. Like I said, the growth mindset kicked in and said, you know what? You've got the problem, let's figure it out.

Jacquelyn Jackson 53:47

Right. And that's why I said those, those are I look at failure or and I don't even want to say failure, but when things don't go the way we want it to work, because this is the thing. If it's going wrong, it's gonna go right. So if it's bad, it's gonna be good. So we have to understand when those things happen in business, real estate, or anywhere, especially with us in the loan business, you're learning something, if not, if not anything else, you know, or what not to do. Because you're gonna see that again, that's for sure. So let's

First Steps Plus Closing And How To Reach Us

Jacquelyn Jackson 54:17

do this. We're about to wrap up our show. I definitely want to thank you, but I want you to give us a final advice if you would. Uh, how could our listeners take the first step toward achieving multifamily or business freedom, even if they start small?

SPEAKER_01 54:34

Take the first step. The first step that you need to do when you're investing in real estate is to understand what your objective is. Like what are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? And the f the s coupling along with that is we're talking about not outgrowing your infrastructure. Don't go into debt or take something on that you have no idea what you're doing. And if you really want to become successful, maybe you find somebody who has created success and you align with them and you partner with them. That's what I would do. And before you do any of that, it's education. There's two ways to learn. You can either learn on the street, like I did with Maserati Mike, or you can learn in the classroom. I did that as well. Learning on the street is a lot more expensive and it's gonna take you a lot longer. So it's one of those things AI can be great, but go out there and find a coach, find a mentor, find somebody you're willing to work with, work for, pay for that knowledge. Because then you can be out there. We're on our third deal. Jake thought I was this genius. He's like, dude, where are you getting all this information? How are you doing this? And all I was doing was I was I was calling up my coach. I was like, I was like, Craig, how do you underwrite this deal? Craig, what's a DS? How how you know? And it's like, can I have your takeover list? What's the due diligence? And Jake's like, I'm like, bro, afterwards, I said I had a coach. And he's like, dude, and that's why we started Jake and Gino, because he saw the power. It was really 136 units for two guys, the pizza guy and the drug rep, it was almost impossible to do by ourselves. It was way above our pay grade. But when you have somebody who's on your side who you're paying, who there to help you out, and you can pick up a call and ask him, hey, we just negotiated at 4.05. Um, we're gonna get seller finance.

Jacquelyn Jackson 56:35

We just had Gino stop on us. It looks like his internet went down for a minute, so hopefully we can have him again back. But what we do want to mention to everybody that if you would, you're back. We see you if you would, and we want you definitely to continue on that as well. We're letting everybody know that um we're gonna actually have you on our referral page at www.tdjequitylc.net where you can get in touch with them directly from our site as well as you want to be scheduled on our fund on our funding podcast, our webinars. You can also make an appointment to actually be a guest. And of course, we do vet George. So before we do vet you guys as well coming on our show. So before we leave, I'm going back to you. I want to make you say the last thing what you would like to say to our audience today about going forward.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

You mentioned a book, and I'm gonna give you a plug. You know, the book Taming Your Gremlins. As a life coach, we learn energy blocks. Energy blocks are something that hold you back. Typically, 95% of them are internal, you know, 5% of them are external. The economy, the weather, whatever's going on, that's external. We can control the 95%. And one of the biggest energy blocks, ironically enough, was the gremlin in life coaching. That's what they that's what my my teacher called it guy at IPAC for the Institute of Professional Excellence in coaching. The gremlin was that in your mind, that one thing, I'm too fat, I'm too stupid, I'm too small, I'm too old, I don't have enough money. It's whatever that was. For me, my gremlin was I was the pizza guy in the kitchen hiding. Did I have enough? Was I smart enough to become an investor? Were people gonna listen to me? Were they gonna laugh at me? Because who's this pizza guy trying to get into real estate? When you spoke that, that really hit a cord and really made me remember that I have my gremlins and I need you're never gonna kill them. You're just gonna battle them and you're just gonna they just gonna be tame.

Jacquelyn Jackson 58:34

They don't go in.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

I love that. Yes, the word tame. I was gonna say conquer, but tame is great, but that's all you need to do is tame them. Because once you tame them, that's it. I I don't have to hide in the kitchen anymore. I am good enough to buy real estate. Right, and some and sometimes, you know what? I may look at them and go, Am I doing the right thing? Or or am I getting over my skis? So they can at times may even help you or at least check you. But that book, Tamey Your Gremlins, you said by Rick Carlson, I would I would recommend that. I'm gonna actually get off the podcast and buy the book myself.

Jacquelyn Jackson 59:03

You're gonna love it. I did it out audio, and then I have like five books that I give them away as gifts when I go speak and everything. And that's awesome. It's just something that opens up because, like I said, being in the financial world, I didn't realize, even myself, I didn't realize how much um we come into the office, whether it's the bank or you know, because we deal more with debt. I know you guys do with equity, and we have equity as well, too. But even with equity, how much we were bringing in. We our team saw it on people's faces, how they feel. Even people that had had loans before, you can still hear, you can tell they like, I'm not gonna get this again, or I'm not gonna get that much. I tell you what, can I just get like 300,000? I'm like, but you qualify for 1.6. Well, what well, I don't, I don't know, you know, and then they start talking backtracking. We're like, whoa, what happened to you if you don't want any money? But those gremlins are there. That's why I'm saying you only tame them, and sometimes you have to look down and say, Hey, don't leave that corner, don't you leave that corner? You stay right over there, especially when you're in business. So I love his book. It's humor in it, it's giving real life, and they're letting you put a name and a face with your gremlins because we need to know, especially as business, which's for anybody, but as business owners, Gino, we have them, they're there. Just stop ignoring them, and they're not your friend. That's what we think they are. They make them feel cozy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Take it one step further. Um, I actually got a spoon, the spoon, a wooden spoon, and I would use that wooden spoon to remind remind myself of my gremlin because you need to remind yourself of your gremlins. So I actually, I mean, so whatever, whatever it's related to. So for me was like I said, the fear of being in the kitchen, the fear of being rejected, the fear of being ostracized, the fear of not not being smart enough, not having enough money, not having enough credibility, all that came back to that wooden spoon. And every time I thought those thoughts, I'm like, I got this wooden spoon, and this reminds me of my gremlins that I need to tame them. I want them out in the open. I want to be able to coach him and to deal with them. But if they're out there unconsciously, that wooden spoon reminds me of my gremlins.

Jacquelyn Jackson 1:01:06

I love that. Love that. All right. Well, let's think we want to thank you for being in our audience today, to being a part of our audience and a host with us. So, you we we want you just to, I'm just I just so glad you came. I really am. Thank you so much for being a part of our show today.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Thanks, Jackie. This is awesome. I appreciate it.

Jacquelyn Jackson 1:01:27

Yes, sir. And if you all want to get in touch with him again, like you said, he's on our website, www.tdj equitylc.net on our referral page. We will get you with him. But as well, Gino has given his information and we'll have that on captions for everybody as well. Where you all can reach out to Gino Barbaro. Again, thank you so much, and you all have a great, great day.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

We hope you enjoyed this episode of TDJ Equity Funding Insiders Podcast. If you'd like to be a guest or get in touch with us, please visit our website at TDJ Equity LLC.net forward slash podcast or email us at podcast at TDJ Equity Funding Insiders.net. Until next time, take care.