Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm really excited today. I think you guys probably hear me say excited a lot, but I got to put a 10X on this because I'm going to introduce you to somebody today that I think is really going to help you get the right mindset around making a lot of money. It's back to this principle I learned from Harv Eker, where if you get your mindset right, you can really truly create the life and lifestyle you want to do. So Gino is an individual that I want to introduce real quick before he says hi. He's an entrepreneur that really grew his real estate portfolio to over 2,000 multifamily units, $250 million in assets under management. And he and his partner, Jake, are teaching people how to do the same thing. And more important than that. And I'll tell you, his students, by the way, have closed 68,000 deals. They have $4 billion in deal volume. So the proof is in the pudding, but this gentleman has a good heart. He's really looking to help create impact and help you to find ways to create passive income and passive income in real estate more specifically. So Gino, welcome to the podcast, brother. George, we feel like I'm a kindred spirit. So we got on the call in like 30 minutes and a lot of similarities. Listen, I'm really super impressed with your background. You've done some freaking amazing and wonderful things in your life. So congrats. Well, I appreciate that. But I tell you, man, we're not here to talk about me and you know me, I like to be behind the scenes. So I love the fact that the whole concept of the mastermind is to associate with people. And listen, guys, if you're listening to this, if you want to increase your net worth, you've got to increase your network. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So Gino, give everybody a little bit, I kind of told them a little bit about you, but give us a little bit of your background and more importantly, why you are doing what you're doing right now. Give us the reason behind it and then we can jump into some tactical and strategic stuff. Wow. If you'd allow me two minutes, that's a great question. Why I'm doing what I'm doing. My dad, Italian immigrant, we owned a restaurant. I was nine years old and I'd go to work with my dad. I remember walking into the restaurant, seeing the little loaves of bread there, bringing them into the kitchen. I remember everyone saying, hey, Chef Vito, there was so much respect and that information from my dad and he loved it. And I could see that he loved to mentor people, but more importantly, he was the one there teaching me to make the meatballs. He was the one there teaching me to clean the chicken. And I ended up going to college. And when I went to college, got out of college, worked in a cubicle for a year, hated it, decided to open a restaurant. Dad, mom, my brother, we ate the restaurant for about 15 years. And in 2007, he passed away. And that's when I stopped. And I said, am I living his dream? I live with my dream. And I started hating the restaurant because I think he wasn't there. I think I just loved working with him. And I loved being around him. And I loved his energy. And it's ironic. You talk about T. Harv Eker. In 2008, I pick up the book from the shelf and I read The Secrets of the Millionaire. Wow. The fruits are in your roots. I'm blaming everybody. I'm blaming Bush. I'm blaming Obama. I'm blaming the economy in 2008. It's no one else's fault except mine. Once I understood that I needed to take responsibility, it was game over for me. I got mentorship. I went out. I did a couple of really bad deals in real estate before my dad passed away. I decided to go invest in real estate. I went to a Dave Lindahl seminar, signed up with Dave Lindahl, signed up with Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I really learned the business of real estate, and that led me to meeting Jake, my business partner, in 2009. He was a pharmaceutical rep taking out orders from the restaurant. We partnered up. 2011, he moves down to Knoxville, and we start buying deals. But if it wasn't for the personal development, if it wasn't for not going to life coaching school, if it wasn't for not taking complete responsibility for all my actions, and I think for not meeting my business partner, Jake, I probably wouldn't be here today. You know, I love that you said that. And I'll tell you why. Most people see the level of success you have and they think, oh, man, I couldn't be that guy. But everybody has an origin story. And I want to just highlight what's one thing you said for those of you that maybe hadn't heard that concept before, but I learned it from T. Harv Eker as well. And that is most people in life are chasing money and money is the fruit, but that's not how you get it. Your roots create the fruits. In other words, your inner game, your mindset, the way you think about money, the way you think about life, the way, like you said, take responsibility versus blame game, victim game. The roots are what create the fruits. And the reason I think that's so great that you pointed that out is most people will jump on with you and go, man, let's talk some freaking real estate. Let's talk a million dollars in portfolio. And what they don't realize is your origin story, it sounds like, was not just happened because of that. It's the reason I pivoted from financial education into personal development. But also that seems like that's the foundation you use and what you do as well. So talk to us a little bit about how those principles have extended on a personal level. But then also we can kind of then start bridging into some of your principles for, you know, passive investing. So how do you bridge that gap now? George, I'm not a smart guy, but I've read literally thousands of books. I've had to read. I mean, my kids at one point, I was reading a book a week. Every week we have an interview with somebody, so I need to read. And a couple of books that really stood out for me in the last couple of years, one was The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. Financial and internal. You need to understand your relationship to money. I was a great saver. I could save like you could not believe, but my mindset was to save for an event. Let me save for college. Let me save for retirement. The problem is when the event comes, the savings are over. When I understood that I need to save to buy an asset, that asset will pay for the event. And when that event is over, I continue to have that asset. I understood. Now I'm still working on my inner game because when it comes to spending money for myself, I'm a little tight. I still have that mindset. I still have those I guess living beliefs those thoughts whereas it a lot easier to spend for my kids It a lot easier for me to enjoy money for my kids than it is for myself So the first thing if you listening to this pick up the book understand what your relationship to money is Are you making money and then you losing it? Are you making it and then hoarding it? I mean, scarcity versus abundance. These are all things that you learn as a child. You develop values when you're a young kid. That's why I wanted to bring you back to my origin story of my dad when I was nine years old. As you're listening to this, think about when you're a little child, what did you hear about money? What did you hear about hard work? What did you hear about family life? How were your values? What values do you think were formed back then? And they're taken into your adulthood. That really, as I did that work, that really, I guess, shaped my foundation. I'm like, I don't have to be that way. I can enjoy my money. And it's all about adopting that mindset for me, whether it's a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Another great book by Carol Dweck. I love that book because it talks about somebody who's willing to sit there. You make a mistake. How do you learn from that mistake? Instead of having a fixed mindset going away from it, let's figure out. And I had a fixed mindset my whole life up until my dad passed away. I was comfortable. I knew what I wanted to do, but then the economy changed. That size changed. And that's what's going on right now. If things are changing so quickly, if you're not willing to adapt and to learn new skills, You're going to have the victim mentality. You're going to be blaming people, but there's so much opportunity to learn new skills and to read so many books out there that start adopting that growth mindset. Guys, listen, Gino, thank you for saying it that way because listen, what Gino's talking about is not just getting a foundation, but it's really creating the blueprint for you to be successful, not just in your business or investing or whatever else. And if you don't have a blueprint, if you don't have a money blueprint, a foundational mindset blueprint, it won't, you won't be able to be, you'll create success and you'll lose it. You'll do some great things. You won't do some great things. That foundation, that having that blueprint will be what helps you to do it. That's one of the reasons why successful people almost can be successful in anything because they have a blueprint that allows them to apply how they deal with stuff, overcome limiting beliefs, you know, push through obstacles when they happen. And we know failure is a gateway to success. So you got to plan to fail if you want to, you know, if, and if you don't, if you don't plan, you're going to fail, but you won't have any plans. So I love that. So let's talk a little bit about foundational principles around money for passive investing. What do you believe are some of the most important things people need to have when it comes to money? If they want to start investing and they want to start doing things in real estate, are there some things that you generally talk to your, you know, your students and your colleagues about? Well, I would start off by saying before I share our blueprint, because I had a life before Jake and I had a life after Jake. Life before Jake, there was no map. There was no process. Life after Jake bought our first couple of deals. It was buy right, manage right, and finance right. That's our three-step process. I'll go over that. More importantly, before you start going and investing your $10,000, what's the biggest rate of return? You need to look within. What are your investor goals? What are you trying to accomplish with this money? Really? Remember the psychology of money. If you're really nervous and you're really anxious and you're really afraid you're going to lose money, well, real estate may not be the vehicle for you because there is risk there, especially if you're just starting, right? That's the way I look at it. So understand what your goals are. Understand what your desires are. Are you just looking to invest passively and let somebody else take maybe a mutual fund may work for you, right? I think you need to understand yourself first and what your aspirations are. Now, as you move into investing as a passive investor in real estate, what we talk about is buy right, manage right, and finance right. Picture a wheelbarrow. Jake's sitting on his lawn one day, cutting the grass, and he sees the wheelbarrow is tipped over. And this framework you could use for even buying a business. The back leg is buy right. The other back leg is finance right. Once you buy a deal and you finance a deal, they're fixed. They're not going anywhere. They're done. The wheel of the wheelbarrow is the manager's right. That is in constant motion. If one of those three is off, your wheelbarrow is going to tip over. And ironically enough, over the last two years, what we've seen is we've seen terrible operators in real estate because there's all this capital swishing around and there's people who have never done the business. They think real estate is passive. It can be passive if you're the investor. But if you're the operator, you need to run the deal. You've got eight kids. I've got six kids. They're not raised by themselves. Somebody's got to raise those kids. And the real estate's the same way. You need to raise your real estate kids. But the finance right, we've seen in the last couple of years, this bridge debt, this problem with this, what they call short-term debt. And it's a problem if you've got a deal and it's going well, and then all of a sudden your debt comes due. There's two ways you go out of business in real estate. You're the run out of money or you run out of time. And people in the last couple of years have run out of time. So for us, when you're looking at investing passively, you need to learn the three-step framework. I mean, if you want to email me, gino at jakeandgino.com, I'll send you a free PDF copy of our book, Wheel of Our Profits. It talks about that framework. But to take it one step forward, if you're going to be investing passively, what you need to do, and you had said the word no like and trust before. You need to look at a sponsor, that person who's running the deal. You have the jockey and you have the horse. Are you betting on the jockey or are you betting on the horse? The horse is the deal. The jockey is the sponsor. You want the jockey because the jockey, that person sponsoring the deal, if a deal goes bad, he'll make it up one way or another. We've had a lot of bad jockeys over the last couple of years. Deals are going bad. They don't know what to do. So focus on the sponsor. And really the first thing as that passive investor, what do I want to accomplish? Where do I want to invest? Where do I see myself in five years? Once you take care of that, that next part is I need to find somebody who's going to be operating these deals and who's going to be running these deals. Yeah. And listen, I want to make sure that if you're listening to this episode and you're a business owner, whether you're interested in real estate or not it so important for you to understand that guys you heard me say this before success leaves clues Principles and blueprints that work in one industry work in another So I love how you put the simplicity of that Gino because you started with set your goals right And whether you own a business or real estate, you've got to know what you're looking for. It blows my mind how many people get into real estate or business or whatever, and they don't even actually have a target. They don't have a goal. They don't know what their risk tolerance is. They don't know what they're willing to do and not willing to do. So they structure a business that has no relation or real estate goals unrelated to what they want to accomplish or their lifestyle. So once you start with that, you talk about, you know, buy, manage and finance, right? Buy, manage and finance, right? It's no different than strategy, execution and structure in a business. So guys, you've got to listen to what's being said here because these principles are universal. But I love how you put that because you ended with this idea of, are you betting on the horse or the jockey? And, you know, of course, there's subtleties to both, but it's so important that you surround yourself with the right people. I will make one other comment. I wanted to get your thought on this. One of the things I've learned, because everyone that's going to be successful has to operate outside their comfort zone, right? So if you got to operate outside your comfort zone, you're going to be a little fearful. You're going to have these kinds of things. You're going to have limiting beliefs because you only believe what you've known. What I've learned over time is that if you get around the right people like yourself in real estate or, you know, business, whatever, but you get this belief transference, meaning you, you, you can bridge a little off the confidence and the success. Cause I, I know if I'm going to go out and do a deal with you on real estate, bro, it for you, you're going to be just absolutely confident. You know what you're doing. I could know nothing about real estate, but get a little bit more confidence just being around somebody like you. Do you, have you seen that same principle of belief transference happen when you're working with people in financial education. And I'm saying this because many people might be going, you know what, man, I just don't know if I got the stomach for real estate or business or whatever, to the level we're talking about. But isn't there this real thing of belief transference? And what do you feel about that when it comes to limiting beliefs around money? I love that. Such a great question because I have the best example for that. It's my son and I'm writing the book, Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy. And he's 16 years old and he wants to buy an amplifier. And he's got five grand in the bank and he wants to spend 1500 bucks on his amp. And I said, Mike, you're 16 years old. I'm not going to allow you to spend 30% of your net worth on an amp. And we're going back and forth. And he knows what network is. He said every dad to every kid, right? Yeah, but it's a battle, right? And I said, that five grand, when we find a deal, I'll let you invest in it. For three months, he's wearing me down. Finally, buying the deal, six months later, he invests that five grand. I'm going to fast forward this story to where we are today, five years later. He's got almost a six, seven figure net worth. He's got about 3,500 bucks a month in positive cashflow. So the belief transference was every month I would get on calls with him. He'd see his money. We sold a couple of deals. He learned the word economic occupancy, physical occupancy, owner draws. There was one month. By association. Yes. Yes. This one month where this property was not drawing, and he said, Dad, why aren't we making money this month? I didn't have the right answer for him, so I went to the property management team, and they're like, we don't know. And we started tracking units that weren't renovated. So we had a lag between units that weren't renovated. All of a sudden, we had this new KPI from a 16-year-old. I'm like, to me, it was amazing, and we're still using that KPI today. So belief transference is surround yourself with the right people. My son had me. I was mentoring him. I was telling him what to do. He was taking action. And every time we've refied a deal, sold a deal, he had the financial understanding. Remember the baby money soldiers we were talking about? He didn't kill them baby money soldiers. He put them into the next deal and the next deal. And you're like, how could 5,000 be worth a million bucks? Well, when you have seven deals now, you've refinanced that money out and you're not taking it. You're putting it back into the business. That can go really well if you know what the hell you're doing. And that's the belief transference. If you can surround yourself in a community that has the knowledge, it's game over. Yeah, bro, that is such an amazing example right back at you. Because if we had time, which we don't, to unpack that, not only is it a great example of belief transference operating outside your comfort zone, but it's literally the best example of mastermind you could find. Two or more people with a common goal working together in a spirit of harmony. It doesn't have to be two experts. You know, so many of you are listening to this podcast or wherever you're listening to it, YouTube, whatever my team does with it, you're saying, I don't fit in that room. Well, guess what? That 16-year-old didn't fit in the room, but lucky for him, he got pulled into it. But guess what? You have to go into the room you don't fit into, or you will never be in the room. And yet, Gino, you got something. This is the point I want people to realize. I'm a 16-year-old because you were collaborating. I freaking love that example. That's great. That's going to be good in your book as well. So I keep, isn't that cool? Yes. One of the things that you made such an amazing point, if you think you're an expert, you know it all. There's nowhere to grow. If you're getting into a room, I'm getting into a room. I may be the person that knows a lot more than George does about real estate, but there's always something that I can learn from George. And if you have that open-mindedness and you can just shed your ego and say, wow, you know, my younger self would be like, Mike, you know what you're talking about. I don't know why this property is that. I don't want to know, but I was actually open. I'm like, well, that's a great question. I don't know. I think being open and honest and don't call yourself an expert on you always learn. There's always something to learn. And I think masterminds, that's what they're phenomenal. We have different skills. We have different ways we communicate, different things we can learn from each other. And that energy, that, that passion, that, that, that, I mean, when you get in the room with somebody, it's contagious. It can become contagious. Yeah. You know what? So for those of you listening, don't worry. Don't, don't worry. We're gonna put links in the show notes to Gino and you can connect with him. And he's got tons of education and free resources and tools. So don't stress, don't fret. But I do wanna respect your time because we try to keep these episodes short. So I wanna pivot really fast. Gino you a best author of like three books And you probably weren even expecting me to ask you this question but we talked before the show that you writing a new book You just mentioned it And I want you to talk to me about because you've written three bestselling books, man. I mean, when it comes to financial, real estate, things like this, people are gonna connect with you. They're gonna see how good you are at those things. But I love the title of the book. Tell me why you're writing that book and why you're writing it now. Tell our listening audience what book you're writing. The book is called Happy Money. happy family, and happy legacy. And I interviewed a gentleman named Ken Honda, who wrote the book, Happy Money. I interviewed him a few months ago, and he heard my story, and he challenged me, this is the book you got to write. So when Ken Honda tells you something, he's sold 8 million copies. I'm like, okay, he's onto something. And the reason why I want to write it is because we have this fallacy that with money, when you're looking at money, it's an inanimate object. I I always had these beliefs about money that are just so incorrect. I think money, when you attract it, you want to attract happy money. Give me an example. Every time I got an electric bill, I'd be pissed. I'm like, damn, this electric bill. But if I look at it from a different lens, at least I have electricity. At least I can be able to perform with George. There's no ruling blackouts. I'm not in Baghdad where you have electricity two hours a day. When you start looking at things a little bit differently, if you're in a job that you hate, that's soul-sucking, you are making unhappy money. You are attracting unhappy money, and that's going to be part of your life. And I had that for so many years. Once I started this Jake and Gina education, I started attracting happy money. I started attracting happy people. And guess what? Students are bringing me deals. Workers find out about my brand. And so I want people to focus on that because I was very similar to you, George. I'd buy a deal. This is great. I'm happy now. Nope. The next deal. Oh, the next deal. I think we can direct our way of where we spend money, whether it's in a happy fashion or an unhappy fashion. I don't think money makes you happy, but how you derive it and how you spend it can bring some type of happiness to your life. And I think that's really important. The family piece, we've spoken about it. I've got six kids. I don't want to leave them a pile of money and go, guys, go at it. I want to be able to have them have a conversation when I'm gone to continue the family legacy. And the family legacy part is important because I've written multiple books. I want to share my vision statement with my generation and the next generation. And I want everyone to hear this because this is important. Whatever you do today, the actions you are taking today will affect your kids, your grandkids, and your great grandkids. Now, that doesn't scare the crap out of you. That's a powerful statement. I've got to level up here because if I'm being a moron and I'm not doing the right things, it's gonna affect the next two or three generations. I wanna make sure that I'm taking the right steps. So the legacy and the estate planning component piece is so important to me because I wanna leave them with blueprints. I wanna have my son be the beneficiary and say, this is what I want you guys to carry on. And all this education, all this knowledge that I'm transferring from myself to you, I want you to transfer it from you to your kids and the remaining kids. Yeah, it's crazy to me how we're brought up and taught and it's intentional programming, but we're taught to focus on everything in the future. Even today, when people say, I want to create legacy, I love how you put it. I haven't heard anybody put it that way. When people think about creating legacy, they don't think about how their current actions are going to ripple through to the ultimate legacy they leave. They're just trying to create a future legacy. And I think it goes back to this concept that people talk about that you just put very, very well. And it's that everybody's on this path to try to find happiness. And they don't realize that happiness is the path and that you have to do things that you can create happiness in the moment. And ironically enough, it will bring you more money and happiness. And so I love this whole path to happiness. I love the new book concept, the family and legacy, because no matter where you are right now, no matter how young, how old you are, you will get to a point in your life where you start to question what is your legacy and what is your ultimate fulfillment goal. And I've learned you just got to start living it now. And that's why I love how you do things and what you do. So that's awesome, man. I wish we had more time and we're going to probably bring you back over to the Academy. So people will learn about that here soon. So before we leave though, is there any last bit of advice, tips or anything you have for our listeners? And this could be, you know, in general or in real estate or whatever else that we can leave them with. And I'll make sure I, and how can they connect with you? I'll make it really short and sweet. You'd mentioned something about planning. Proper planning prevents poor performance. Now, too much planning, it's analysis paralysis. There's got to be an idea where you know about 80% of the information. You just need to trust your gut. But I think the idea of hard work, dedication, and commitment, and proper planning, you can accomplish anything. I was the pizza guy. I had one restaurant for over 20 years. I meet Jake, and within five years, I've got almost 1,000 part units. What happened? I think the only thing that really happened was I found some type of personal development and I actually adopted a different mindset. And you associated with the right people. I love it. That is like perfectly put, you know, I love that. Well, thank you so much for your time. Like I said, I will definitely be putting some links in the show notes. I know we're going to be hearing more from you. Guys, listen, if you're listening to this, make sure that you, you know, follow the show so you don't miss any episodes and do me a favor and share it. You know, help us to get the message out. Help us to get, you know, to expand our community of mastermind-focused individuals, focused on personal development and financial education. And, you know, thanks for being here. You know, you're the average of the people you hung out with. Today, you hung out with me and with Gino, and we hope that that's brought you some value. So look forward to talking with you more. Have an amazing day. And don't forget, like I always say, it's never too late to start living the life that you were meant to live. And so, but you got to take action and you got to prepare. Proper preparation. Have a great day. .
