The Power of Investing in Commercial Resl Estate: A Conversation with Ben Reinberg | DSH #79

I'm 53 years old.

If the average life, now obviously it's growing, but let's say it's 77 years old.

So you take 77 minus 53, 24 multiplied by 52 weeks.

That's the amount of weeks left in my life.

I think it was like 1492 or whatever it was.

If that's true, if I'm dead at 77, Wayne, Sean, how am I going to live that 24 times 52 left?

Who am I going to surround myself with?

What podcast am I going on?

What employees am I going to associate with?

Am I going to not take that vacation I wanted?

I could be dead tomorrow, Wayne.

So I got to live every day to the max, every conversation, grateful for every moment, whoever I meet.

I got to look at things differently.

So you think about these things and you start putting together the numbers and the time.

You realize, wait a minute, I got to value these moments.

It starts making you think about what's important in life.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, and with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, Ben Reinberg.

How are you?

Thanks for having me, guys.

Absolutely.

Appreciate it.

Flew in today, right?

Yeah, I flew in today from Laguna Beach.

Oh, it's nice out here right now.

It's beautiful.

It's 65 degrees and sunny, and it's the same temperature all year round.

I'm not used to this heat coming coming from Chicago, where I was born and raised, and where my headquarters are.

And I lived there for I'm 53 years old.

I lived in Chicago for 52 years.

I just moved to California.

So I get back into this heat.

It feels like Chicago in the summer.

Wait, so Chicago gets hot hot?

Oh, Chicago, it's really hot.

We'll get 90, 100-degree temperatures, and there's a tremendous amount of humidity in Chicago.

And it's right on the lake.

And so you're just sweating instantly.

Here it's a dry heat, but in Chicago, you get not only 90 degrees, but it feels like 110 because of the humidity.

Wow.

So you've achieved massive success with real estate, obviously.

But what were you doing before that?

I've always done real estate.

It's something I started.

I'm a CPA.

I'm an accountant when I got to college.

I graduated from Indiana University, a huge basketball fan.

And

I realized that I wanted to build wealth.

So I had to take a step back and say, well, how do I build wealth, guys?

It was through investing in assets that produce cash flow.

So I started buying commercial real estate.

That's my expertise.

I am an expert in office, industrial, and retail real estate around the United States.

That's what we own.

That's what we invest in.

So when I was 23 years old, I started my company alliance, consolidated group of companies.

We've grown tremendously.

I've been doing this for almost three decades.

We started syndicating commercial real estate.

My first deal was an industrial warehouse in the Chicago area.

When I started the business, the internet wasn't as prevalent.

It was shoe leather.

It was going out and hustling and meeting people and raising equity and canvassing properties and looking for deals and asking for help and being vulnerable.

All these traits that have carried forward with me that now we are in this technological age where our business has changed drastically.

This past week, there was something called ICSC, which was in Las Vegas, the largest shopping center conference in the world.

It takes place here.

They take over the city.

I didn't come in for it because we focus more on medical office now these days.

That's one of our expertise.

But I've owned anywhere from retail shopping centers, grocery anchored, net lease, to industrial, flex.

distribution manufacturing warehouse around the country to office buildings, high-rises, to medical office, which about 90% of our portfolio now, guys, is medical office.

You know, there's the human body is never going out of style.

And so about 19 years ago, we decided with our investors, where do we want to pivot to?

We saw healthcare.

We thought with Barack in office, we're going to go more towards socialized medicine.

We took a step back and said, nah.

human body is never going out of style.

We're going to start buying medical properties.

And we did extremely well.

We got into dialysis facilities, surgery centers, orthopedic.

Anything that you and your family would go see the doctor or physician or a hospital for, that's what we own around the country.

We own here in Las Vegas surgery centers, we own clinics,

we own West Coast and what I call the smile states.

We start up in Maryland, we draw a smile face, and we go up all the way through Mountain West, certain parts of the West Coast, and that's what we own in about 30 states now in the United States.

So I have 200 plus years of leadership team experience in my company.

We have a great staff.

And what makes up my company are the people.

We're a people-first-oriented type company.

We've done some unique stuff.

We brought in a human behaviorist to sit with everyone and find out.

So, say, you, Wayne, you'd fill out a playbook and I'd look at your playbook and you're like, you know, I'm into health and wellness.

I want to spend more time with my family.

I want to spend more time with my significant other.

I want to get into mentoring.

You know, we basically would know everything about you, Wayne.

And I I would say, okay, how does my company alliance?

How can we align with Wayne to make him fulfilled in life on a personal and business level?

What people struggle with in business that they want to miss, especially employers, that I learned a long time ago, is that we're all human.

And our personal lives and business lives bleed into each other.

And when you can understand that as an employer and you're looking at it and saying, well, why is this person struggling at work?

What's there?

Something's going on in their personal life.

Could be a toxic relationship.

Could be just

stress going on with their kids.

Someone's sick in the family.

So we started looking at this and we're saying, well, if we don't get involved in people's personal lives,

how are they becoming the best version of themselves?

And so

it's not a topic that a lot of people want to go into because they're worried about people filing claims and litigation.

But we looked at it differently.

We said, wait a minute.

If we can build loyalty in a community, in our company, how great would it be for someone to walk in the office and know wherever they are around the country and they work for alliance they're being supported their growth where they want to be there's no ceiling for their growth they can make more money and lived a more filled life that builds more loyalty more trust a better community more productivity and that's what we learned so we do different things in my company compared to other companies especially in commercial real estate so we were one of the first companies to start investor portal for years we were mailing out checks and with stamps and envelopes, and people weren't cashing their checks.

Can you imagine sending someone a thousand dollar check for a distribution?

And they would cash in it, and then they'd hold it for 90 days.

And so, we had a whole staff that would have to deal with our investors.

And nowadays, it's direct deposits.

It's all electronic.

You could see things 24-7.

Our business has become more transparent, which is what I like.

You can go kick the bricks and mortar on everything we own.

You want to go to Las Vegas, you want to go in the medical district in Charleston Boulevard and and see our pristine property, you can go there and see it if you're an investor.

So what I like is I am the largest investor in what we do because I love the transparency side of what we do.

There's not many assets or investments better than real estate, especially commercial real estate, because you get tax benefits.

It's transparent.

You know what you're getting into.

You see who the tenants are.

It's intelligent type investing.

So we have investors from all over the world now because they can go and they see the transparency.

We communicate with them on a frequent basis, every quarter at least, with narratives and financial statements.

So if you invested in our fund, our brand new fund we launched, you feel comfortable because you say, okay, they have 200-plus years of leadership team experience.

Ben started this company almost 30 years ago.

They have a great track record.

They show it to you.

What's the track record?

Like what returns on average?

Let's look at medical office.

Overall, of our whole portfolio, we're probably high 20s IRR, which is pretty good in my career.

I'm really proud of the people that have gotten us here.

For medical office, we're mid-20s internal rate of returns IRR.

So what that shows you, it's about two and a half times multiple on your money.

So our minimum commitments in our fund is $100,000.

It's a call fund.

We call it over time.

And so let's just say you commit a million dollars.

In this new fund, you probably walk away with $2.5 million with tax benefits.

A year?

Not a year at the end.

Oh.

You look at the whole investment.

So you'll get a preferred return six to eight percent depending on what class you come in it's all depend on your commitment is it quarterly annually it's quarterly preferred return payments okay it's like interest payments and then at the end when we sell it you get your money back any outstanding return and you get a proportionate share of the proceeds that's not bad so how do you feel about the state of the economy right now and are we headed to what some would say is a worst recession that we've seen thus far?

I think we're headed into a recession.

My take when I look at how I gauge things is I look at our business.

Our business for years has always lagged behind the stock market and what's going on in the world.

I'm starting to see a lot of tension and tightening in our business with the lenders.

So lenders aren't as robust getting capital on the street.

Their interest rates are higher than they've been accustomed to the last three years.

And so they're looking at and they're saying, well, we're going to...

we're going to kind of batten down the hatches and get a little bit tighter on who we're going to lend to, how we're going to lend, and what we're going to to lend on.

What's great in this environment is they look to experience.

So, our business is an experienced man and women's game.

And with that being said, when they go and they look at lending to a company like Alliance or a Ben Reinberg brand, they said, good experience, good fiduciary of our capital.

We trust them.

They're not going to over-leverage.

We'll ride with them.

I think it's harder.

It's challenging in this market for folks is when you're getting started, how to get a loan.

Because they're going to be more scrutinized.

They're going to look at your experience and your track record.

So, for us, one of the benefits of our funds is not only the purchasing power, but the cost of capital.

We're able to get great cost of capital in this market because we have a lot of experience and we scale.

We have enough volume for a lender to wrap their arms around.

So, in this market, to answer your question, Wayne, is I think we're in a recession.

I think we'll get deeper.

I feel that there's a lot of folks out there in residential as well as commercial real estate that won't be able to finance.

There's going to be businesses that have loans coming due.

And what ends up happening is they end up becoming in default.

So if they're in default, people will start buying loans or taking back properties.

And that's where you start seeing trouble.

Will you start seeing people file for bankruptcy in this market?

Absolutely.

But what I love about this market from a selfish person standpoint is when there's chaos in the market, there's opportunities.

So when you have a lot of experience, we're raising money right now.

We're actually adding staff.

We just hired 15 new people.

We're hiring more to join our company.

We have closers and setters.

We have acquisition department, investor relations, property management, administrative staff.

We've added in California as we're growing that office where I sit.

And what I love about this market is that when...

chaos happens, the players step up and take advantage of the opportunities.

So that's what we're looking to do.

We're looking in this market and we're saying, okay, we're the the best place to invest.

Where can we feed our new Alliance Medical Property Fund?

How do we generate great returns?

And how do we benefit the employees that have been with us that grind every single day that we're grateful for?

So that's what I do for a living.

That's my expertise.

We started my personal brand a year ago.

I didn't know what a personal brand is.

I didn't know what social media is.

I have three kids.

And I would watch them on social media.

And I was learning.

And I was always on LinkedIn.

Jeff Weiner from LinkedIn is from Chicago where I'm from and so I knew when he started and I got on that platform and so I have a lot of followers on LinkedIn.

But I look at your Instagram and it's amazing how many followers you have.

I want to ask you for advice because I started literally, we launched Instagram and all these platforms a year ago.

And I now have about 110,000 followers, which is pretty good.

Which is good.

That's pretty good.

So I'm growing it.

And we started my podcast, Ben Reinberg, i own it which is about success to significance we talk about health wealth relationships we have celebrities and ultra high net worth individuals come on my show but with that being said what i've learned is that the personal brand is like its own animal yeah you know it's different entity yeah i had to i had to take a step back and say what's the time commitment on this thing it's a lot of time so i have a staff that handles it and my podcast and i realize how beneficial it is not only to be able to give knowledge and content in my experience, but also, guys, I also looked at it and said, you know what, this is kind of fun.

I'm enjoying it.

Where do you get to network with people on a podcast?

I'm one-on-one.

We swap contact information.

People call me all the time for advice on business or commercial real estate that was on my show or I was on their show.

It's rewarding to me.

I love it.

And it's cool.

It's great.

And the thing is, I ask them questions, you know, resources, or, hey, I'm in this situation.

How would you handle this?

So the collaboration and the networking is phenomenal for the podcast.

I enjoy it.

But the personal brand stuff was so new.

It's interesting how where it's going now, it's developing.

What I love about it is that it gives great exposure to my company and my team back all over the country where they can say, you know, Ben's out there promoting Alliance Consolidate Group of Companies.

Ben is out there pushing us in the forefront to make change and what we want to do and to help our business grow.

And I'm excited.

We have a lot of cool things coming down the pike in commercial real estate.

We're going to be at the forefront of the blockchain.

We're looking into how to implement that into our business.

Nice.

We're looking at all different types of technology.

That's good.

And so we're not stopping to grow.

You know, there's a saying in my business: you spend the first third of your career on your back

when you're in your 20s and 30s.

Then, as you get older, you spend the next third on your feet, and then the last third is on your stomach.

So it's like you're swimming, you can navigate through things.

So, like,

outside of real real estate um what other things are you into

in regards to like maybe investing or what things are you curious about about getting into or like what moves you outside of real estate

um

well now living in california i've gotten into usc football because my kids go there i'm a season taker and i love caleb williams i'm big fan i'm crazy about it i don't have a sports team out in california i'm a huge sports fan coming from chicago i'm a bulls blue bears Black, Hawks, Cubs kind of guy.

I grew up around sports my whole life.

I played sports.

My kids do.

I was very athletic as a kid.

You play college?

I did not play college.

But I love sports.

And being from Chicago, that's all we did as kids because there wasn't the internet.

Go to the park and you play.

The good old days.

Yeah, I tell my kids, go to the park and you play.

I caught the tailwind of that when I was like 10.

Yeah, so

with my kids, they had no idea what a park looked like, but we would go to the park and play baseball and football and they'd freeze over the park and play hockey.

I mean, we did everything.

It was like you played every sport when you were a kid, soccer, you name it.

So that's awesome.

So what I love to do is I do love investing in companies and other things.

I do some technology stuff investing.

I invest a lot in what we do in real estate.

I build my own portfolios, a portfolio within the company as well.

So I love that.

And I want to do different things.

Like as I age and I'm winding down and I'm letting my leadership team kind of lead more and I'm delegating more.

I'm getting into the personal brand space, which I really love.

I'm going to start speaking more and helping and creating an impact.

I'm looking into teaching commercial real estate.

No one's really taught it.

And being from Chicago.

It's not.

It's not.

Yeah, I've never heard of it.

Everything's residential.

Absolutely.

And so one of the things I learned is a friend of mine said you should teach it.

I said, well, I got to look at my schedule and see.

So if I'm going to do something, I like to go all in.

I don't like to do things things half.

It's just not my personality.

So I realized, okay, well, if I teach you what's going to entail, and we're looking into that.

But the reason why what interests me is I come from Chicago.

Southside of Chicago is one of the most dangerous, roughest areas in the country.

We have more homicides.

It's sad.

Wow.

And I took a step back and I said, what if I could take a young man or woman from a south side of Chicago?

Doesn't have an opportunity, doesn't have parents or the guidance they need.

I could take that young man or woman and create a legacy for them, show them how to invest in commercial real estate.

How many lives would that person change?

Grandparents, parents, maybe a significant other, she has a significant other, kids, friends,

more job opportunities for colleagues around the area.

And then take that person, impacts 30 people, 50 people, 500, 1,000.

How cool would that be?

And I realized that's why I was put on this earth is to help people and to give back.

And I said, if I could take that young man or woman and create a life for them, how great would that be to create a mentorship?

That's great.

So whether I do it on a mass scale or I do it on a private client scale, I want to look at doing that.

Because no one did that for me.

The baby boomers above me.

I'm a Gen Xer.

I'm 53 years old.

No one said, Ben, here's how you're going to do it.

Here's the roadmap.

It's easier now with the internet.

You can find mentors, you can find coaches, you can kind of lean into someone.

You can call a guy like Ben Reinberg and say, how did you do it?

What's your story?

How do you deal with failure?

How do you deal with your mindset?

How do you personally

deal with failure?

How do you deal with it?

How I deal with it is.

Yeah, do you still experience failure?

Yeah.

I have failure going on right now in my life.

I have employees that aren't happy, or I have

relationships with agencies in my personal brand that maybe we're not satisfied with that we want to look at exploring opportunities.

We're always growing.

Failure, what I love about failure is growth.

Now, when I was in my 20s, guys, like I thought failure was like, oh, I suck.

Who is Ben Reinbert?

You know, nothing.

But as I aged and grew, I realized failure is everything to grow and get better in business and life.

I failed at a lot of things.

I've had deals that haven't been perfect.

I've had employees I didn't handle well.

I had situations and disagreements I didn't like about myself.

Some people look at it as failure.

I look at it as growth.

If I have a failed relationship or a relationship doesn't work out as well or a deal or a business or whatever, that's growth.

If you take a step back, one of the things I teach people is if you could seek the truth in what someone's saying and not have this lens of everything you do is right, but you can learn from others, you'll grow tremendously.

Business, personal.

It's listening.

Because when you can really listen to someone and find out what's behind them and understand, like, what's the truth in what Wayne's really saying to me?

What can I learn from him?

And so, when someone's criticizing me, I look at that as growth.

I say thank you, appreciate it, because they freak out.

They're like, what the hell are you talking about?

Thank you.

Why are you saying thank you?

Because you can grow from me.

I'm breathing into this guy, and

he's saying thank you.

Because I'm looking at saying, okay, yeah, I can get better at that.

And I always tell people.

I said this to a friend earlier today, if you could look in the mirror and be honest with yourself, because I look at stuff and

I won't swear, but I've effed up on things where I look at things, I'm like, oh, Ben, you really effed up on that one.

Or I laugh.

Now I laugh at myself.

Because if you could laugh at yourself, be like, I didn't handle that one.

That sucked.

And like the way I wrote that email, that sucked better.

But when I could say that to myself, I can grow.

And I laugh.

That's how I deal with it.

That's how I do it.

So failure to me is growth.

It's opportunities to learn.

If you don't fail, okay, you're not in business.

If you don't fail, you're not going to be successful.

Because I don't care who you are.

You can be Ben Reinberg, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Sean Kelly.

It doesn't matter who you are in life.

You're going to fail.

If you're around long enough, as you get and you age, you will see that you'll have relationships, business, personal, whatever.

They don't work out.

You know why?

Because the basis is you're going to know, guys, your values.

Okay, so I have deal breakers.

So I had to learn about myself.

And I went through a deep dive on who Ben Reinberg was.

So my deal breakers are respect.

I don't like when people don't respect me because I respect everyone and love everyone.

That's my attitude.

I'm a Midwestern value Chicago kid.

That's who I am.

I look for people that keep their word.

They're honest with me.

So I have these deal breakers.

of what's important to me.

And if you're outside the deal breakers, it's hard for me to gravitate with you to like love you and trust you.

And trust is huge for me.

Being reliable and consistent are like huge things for me and my employees.

Where people say, well, Ben, what's upsets you?

When people aren't consistent and reliable, because everyone goes through these like different things as a kid.

Like I went through abandonment when I was a kid.

So if you abandon me subtly, because like

You say, hey, I'm going to show up at noon and you show up at one.

I'm going to start questioning my relationship.

You know,

when you say to me, hey, you know, I'll do this and this, and I turn around and say, you work for me and it doesn't happen,

that's trust.

I will go 120% for a person when they hit my core values.

And that's what you'll see in life.

And the reason why you struggle with relationships is because the standards you have, either you're breaking your standards and you're saying, Wayne, okay, well, I'm going to let, you know, my significant other,

when she tells me something that's not true and i'm going to stick with her is that what you really want in life someone that you can't trust yeah you know what i mean and so now all of a sudden you're breaking your own rules you're not loving yourself and so you look at these things and we say why do we struggle we struggle because we have standards and and are deal breakers and we're dealing with people in our lives that don't adhere to them so it doesn't matter where you're from It doesn't matter what religion, the color of skin, whatever.

We're all people.

We all have minds.

We all have hearts.

What differentiates us is what are our values and our standards we're living to live with.

I had to realize that because I was letting people in my world, it was getting effed up.

And

I was like, what am I doing?

Like

this person can't even tell the truth.

So I allow this person my life.

Why?

What am I worried about?

How do you manage

balancing work, family, success?

And

what's that dynamic like, if there is one?

Because you know, most people say that once you reach a level of success, there is no balance.

There is no work-life balance.

What there is, here's the secret:

you have to do what you love, not what you're passionate about, what you love, what you love.

You got to know what your mission is in life, okay, and what you're going towards, and what see it and understand it, what you're trying to achieve.

I think a lot of people is, they feel like they go to a job, they got to go home, have dinner with the family, which is fine.

I respect that.

I do that too.

And

they got to do all these things.

But what they do is they sacrifice who they want to be and what their mission is.

There's trade-offs in life.

There is a cost to everything.

You want to be a billionaire?

There's a cost.

Oh, yeah.

You want to be a commercial real estate icon mogo like I am?

There's a cost.

You got to give up a lot.

Jamie Reinberg had to deal with a lot of days of me traveling where she was taking care of the kids.

She, God bless her heart.

What a saint.

She was able to see my growth and what I want and allow me to do it.

It's hard to find that support.

But I'll tell you, you need that support as you go through life.

You need a lot of support and you have to be very grateful for the people that get you there.

But to me, work-life balance is kind of a myth.

What it is, is are you doing something you love?

Because if you're doing something you love, everything will balance in your world.

You know, I'm an avid.

I work out seven days a week.

I train with the trainer five days a week in California.

Wow.

Health is important to me.

I've done everyone from stem cells.

I eat right.

I intermittent fast.

I am, they've gauged, I'm about a 32-year-old and a 53-year-old man's body.

Oh, you did the biological?

Yeah, so that's what I am right now.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

So, I am.

So, you're a 32-year-old.

Yeah, I'm a 32-year-old.

So, you're 32.

He's younger than you.

I got gray hair.

You're 32, though.

Yeah,

I'm 32 in my life.

So, how did you manage to do that?

Like, how did you?

Well, I started started on a journey where my kids were calling me Fat Ben.

Oh, okay.

And that's when they were younger.

And I got into my first, so I used to work out a little bit in high school and college being an athlete.

And I was very active.

So, but lifting weights wasn't as prevalent as it is now or promoted.

You know, R.

Schwarzenegger was big, and Tony Lelain, and all these people when I was a kid.

But it wasn't like now with the technology.

I go to the gym, and my gym in Chicago is second to none.

They train athletes, co-athletes, and

turf fields and we're pushing sleds and we're hammering things and you name it.

Now here in California, it's more bodybuilding type stuff I'm doing.

But at the end of the day, I started getting into my health.

I got into beach body products like P90X when I was in my I was 30 years old.

And I looked at myself and the kids were young and I was eating off their plate and desserts and ice cream and all that.

In Chicago, we eat hot polishes and hot dogs and pizza and ribs and you name it food in chicago is amazing deep dish pizza it's

we have every type of food in the world in chicago and so eating is um foodie and so i saw myself i'm like man you're fat ben and so i uh i took it on me and i cranked out p90x i did it Saw myself.

I said, this is the version I want to be.

Hired a trainer, started training, started doing spin classes.

Now we have Pelotons at our house.

But

it's been a journey for me.

And then I got into,

a friend of mine's a famous doctor.

He got me into stem cells.

So I started doing that about a year ago.

And that helped a lot.

Lowered inflammation.

I don't wear glasses anymore.

From stem cells?

From stem cells.

I got shots.

Oh, you just did it.

Shots in the brain.

You didn't have any problems with it.

You didn't have any problems in regards to prior to getting stem cells.

You just got them just.

No, I have celiac.

I'm gluten-free.

Okay.

And

part of my lineage is my father had colitis and gastro problems.

Gotcha.

And so it carried down to me.

And so I do do gluten-free.

I mean, I think with stem cells, I don't know if I have it anymore.

I should be tested soon for celiac.

But I looked at it and I said, well,

if I can continue to improve my health and have the resources and the knowledge, I will continue to do that.

So I'm on that journey because I want to live as long as possible.

I want to be able to help people.

And I realized the biggest key to my health was: if I'm not healthy, what kind of message do I send to my employees, my leadership team?

What kind of message do I send to my kids?

Yeah, when they look at dad's a fat slob.

But when dad's disciplined and he's successful and he works hard and he takes care of himself, that's a good message to send your kids.

And I recommend that to everyone:

how you show up is how you show up in life.

And so I'm extremely disciplined.

I get up at the crack of dawn.

I meditate.

I go work out.

I have an evening routine as well.

I'm very disciplined.

That's how I create success in my life and whatever that means to people.

But at the end of the day, health is so important to me because that's all we have.

And so, but it also sets the tone of how do I show up in life?

How do I balance my emotions?

How do I deal with things when the chips are down?

You know, that's how I look at a man.

I say, when things are tough, how do you react?

How do you deal with it?

Because life's not perfect.

We talked about failures.

Life's not going to be perfect.

I look at the character of a person as when things are tough, how did they deal with it?

So it goes to your question of what do I invest in.

I look at a lot of the sponsors and the people I'm backing.

Okay.

Anyone can pay you a preferred return in my business.

But I look at how do you solve challenges?

Are you solutionary oriented?

When things are tough, you lose a tenant.

or

half the building burns down.

We've had people at medical facilities that push on the gas bell and they go right through the window at the front of the building.

We've seen it all.

You know, we've seen it where, I mean, you name it, we've had issues and hurricanes.

We've been through tornadoes.

And you look at this and you say, okay, am I going to rise to the challenge?

Or am I going to be fearful and back off and be worried about?

all the negative stuff that happened at this particular property or situation in my life.

Instead of taking a step back and saying, okay, what can I learn from this?

How do I deal with this?

How do I bring in the resources?

When you're solutionary-oriented, you can focus on that positive side of you.

Your whole world changes.

And because everyone focuses, I'll give you an example, Wayne.

Do you ever ask yourself what your wins are every day?

I haven't.

So let's start.

Let's start off with today.

Well, let's start off with today.

A wind is, we're doing a podcast together.

We get to meet each other.

Absolutely.

We get to hang out.

You know, did you wake up today?

Yeah.

You did.

That's a win.

I think we, I see

those are wins, but I think, uh, I think just being human and be honest, I think we kind of all take that for granted because we're used to waking up.

Right.

We're used to walking.

We're used to being healthy.

We're used to this kind of environment that we're in.

So it's like, um, it's like a lifestyle.

But you're right.

Those are all wins because, I mean, there's somebody who didn't wake up today and wasn't able to make it to work or wasn't able to, you know, or aren't able to do the things that we do.

Right.

So you learn to be grateful.

I mean, it shows it's the little things we take for granted.

It's crazy.

All the little things.

So, we're redoing our kitchen right now.

We're going to buy appliances.

And we went to a place in

Laguna.

And the guy working at the front had like

no arms.

Okay.

Buy was completely deformed.

Smart guy.

He was checking us out.

I gave him my credit card, checking us out.

And, you know, he's typing a certain way.

His arms are to here.

I mean, I've never seen it before.

It was wild.

He was happy as can be.

And

I said to myself, I said,

this is what life's about.

This guy takes a situation where he doesn't have arms.

He could barely function with his hands.

And he's happy.

And he appreciates life.

And I realized that's what it's about.

That's what this is.

And so you like, every moment in your life, take a look and be aware and be like, what's going on?

Who I get to meet Sean Kelly.

I got to meet you, Wayne.

I get to sit in this cool studio.

I'm in Las Vegas.

I get to be out of my office.

We take all this for granted, bro.

It's just like, I write down every day five things I'm grateful for, but I got to start doing it more in the moment, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's just acknowledging, like, I do that too.

I'll write in the morning.

Like, it's usually like my family, employees, could be a day I had, a day yesterday.

But I look back and I'm like, man, without that person or that moment, who knows what would happen.

But you know what, man, one thing I don't do is take the people around me for granted.

I don't take nobody for granted.

I don't hurt my friends.

I don't say anything to put them down or anything like that.

I'm like an uplifting guy.

I'm always there for them.

So I think I show gratitude by action.

Not really too much like what you said, like kind of saying the words of affirmation to myself.

But

I probably should do both more because you need to hear that also.

It's also the thoughts.

And it's why I tell employees and friends, I'm like, be careful who you surround yourself with.

Because you'll be a product of what I am telling you.

There's a weird thing that goes on.

I've seen women that are surrounding themselves with bad, toxic people.

And all of a sudden, like, they might have been beautiful a month before.

And then I look at them, like.

They're not looking good.

It's like weird.

But it's something about the people that are pouring into you and it will totally change your body physiology, your mind.

And I see that.

And I think the employee side and the colleague side of mine is when people have stress in their life or challenges, I look at them and I just say to them,

what can I do to help you?

Why do you say that?

I could just see it.

You know, the human body is such a strong indicator of what's going on in your life.

It's amazing.

How we communicate, what you're saying to me,

what your lips and eyes and your, you know, people go like this because they're not comfortable.

You can see how people interact with you.

And if you could learn that skill, you could see how to help people.

It's really interesting.

So I see that a lot.

I see a lot of the mind and body connection and why I got into it because I realized if I can understand that, I can be a better person to people and help people.

You mentioned trust is super important to you.

Super important.

What do you do when you catch an employee or a family member telling you a lie?

Oh, man, Sean, it's such a hard thing to explain.

I pray all the time it doesn't happen, but it does.

Some people I've given second chances to.

Sometimes I look at it.

I'll look at, say, an employee of mine, and I'll say, why are they lying to me?

And I have to go deeper.

Okay, it could be we have a parent-child relationship between Ben Reinberg and that employee or that colleague of mine.

And so they feel like they have to lie, like I'm the parent, and in order to be safe.

So that's an issue they're having.

A lot of it is what I find when people are lying to me is they have to work on their inner game.

They have something going on from their past that they're hiding from me, that they can't be honest.

And that's what it's about.

And so I acknowledge that.

So I realize it's them.

Or is it Ben?

not giving him a safe space to have an honest conversation.

So it's my fault too.

So I look at it and I say, okay, well, what's really going on here?

So I first take a step back and say, assess them.

Are they a good person or in this?

But if it continues to happen, I don't want that in my life.

So I'll cut them out.

I'll cut them out and figure out how to get rid of that toxic relationship.

I'll come people out just for lying.

Yeah, if I have to, I have to.

Sean, you have to realize in commercial real estate, we're dealing with millions of dollars of investment capital of our own or others.

And that's a big responsibility when you're a fiduciary for others.

So if you have bank accounts and people's personal information and Ben's personal information and credit cards and all these things we do in life, and

if you don't trust the person that you're going to war with every day, it's hard.

Well, not only that, here's the thing that no one thinks about.

You're taking so much mental space.

Imagine if you guys had a significant other or a girlfriend.

Have you ever had like a girlfriend you didn't trust her at some point?

Like she's hitting on guys or you ever go through a situation where you didn't trust something.

Yeah, yeah.

It's never.

Okay, go back and remember that moment.

You have to tell me what it is.

Trust me.

Tell me that it comes back.

Tell me that moment, right?

Think about that moment.

Are you thinking about it?

For me,

I don't reintroduce the situation.

I'm done with it because I feel like once your trust is done, when it comes to a woman,

a significant other, it kind of spills over into everything.

And I don't like babysitting.

Right, exactly.

So that's not my job.

So I just kind of, you know, just be over.

So

think of that moment with someone you're with

and you lost trust.

Think how much mind space you spent in thinking about like, what did she do?

Who is she with?

Why is she not telling me?

Hours.

Was everything alive?

Was this whole thing alive?

Right.

So think about it.

You don't get that time back.

And so now you're spending all this mental capacity thinking about something that's not in your control.

And it doesn't serve you, Wayne.

It doesn't.

And so you look at it.

And so these are all the things we do in life.

So you look at employees and friendships and, you know, your peers and your colleagues and all these people you hang around with.

And if you don't have trust, all of a sudden you're spending all this mind space like, can I trust that person with my bank account?

Can I trust that person that we're going to have dinner together?

They're going to live up to the word.

So if Wayne tells me he's meeting me at...

uh you know at mastro's for eight o'clock and we're gonna have a steak and a drink together and hang out and he's not gonna be be there.

How's it gonna affect me?

It's not loving yourself.

So surround yourself with people that care about you.

Yeah, and I'm real adamant about time.

I'm always here hour 30 minutes early.

Yeah, you're here early.

Yeah,

time is.

You're smart.

Yeah.

That's how you should do it.

I feel like it's just

the way to show that you don't respect someone is to

disrespect their time.

That's so, oh, I love that.

We should phrase that.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something.

We did a study in my This is really cool.

So, we had our whole leadership team in Newport Beach at my West Coast office last week.

And we talked about time.

Time is all you have.

It's the most valuable asset.

I'm 53 years old.

If the average life, now, obviously it's growing, but let's say it's 77 years old.

So you take 77 minus 53.

Okay, was that 24?

You're right there.

And 24 multiply by 52 weeks.

Okay, that's was that 1,948 weeks?

Is that what it is?

I'm not.

Whatever that is.

I didn't do it in my life.

I think it's 14, whatever it is.

Whatever the amount of weeks is.

If that's true, that's the amount of weeks left in my life.

I think it was like 1492 or whatever it was.

And one of our employees in the room, she has like 2,600.

That's a lot more than me.

Right?

Yeah.

So I looked at it and I said, okay,

how are you going to live?

If that's true, if I'm dead at 77, Wayne and Tron, how am I going to live that 24 times 52 left?

Who am I going to surround myself with?

What podcast am I going on?

What employees am I going to associate with?

Am I going to not take that vacation I wanted?

I could be dead tomorrow, Wayne.

So I got to live every day to the max, every conversation.

Grateful for every moment, whoever I meet.

I got to look at things differently.

And when you look at that, you do that exercise.

How old are you?

34.

34.

Take 77 minus 34.

Look at your weeks and say to yourself, what are you going to do if that's your timeline?

And when you can look at that and you look at time, every moment,

because that's all I could think about is that 1,400 weeks left in my life.

So by the way, look at your parents.

Look at your mom or dad.

How much time do you spend with them?

Let's say you guys are here in Vegas and say your mom lives in New York, okay?

And you go see her twice a year.

And let's say you're me.

Let's say it's my mom, and it's twice a year.

And let's say my parents live in Chicago.

I go see them twice a year.

So, wait a minute, 24, twice a year.

I got 48 more times to see them in their lives.

Maybe not, they might only be around for 10 more years.

So, I got 20 more chances to spend time with them.

How effed up is that?

Right.

So, you think about these things and you start putting together the numbers and the time.

You realize, wait a minute, I got to value these moments.

I got to increase the frequency.

Maybe not two times a year.

Maybe I should go back to Chicago five, six.

It starts making you think about what's important in life.

And no one does that.

So we went through an exercise with everyone in my company about time.

And so it's like, so if Ben has less time than you, And he's generating the most revenue, you better respect his time.

One of my biggest mentors, he was adamant about time, but he had

dementia.

He had

not Parkinson's.

What was the other one?

Alzheimer's.

He had oncoming Alzheimer's, and he was really, really big on time.

He got on me about time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time.

And it stuck with me because he said,

one day I'm not even going to remember who you are.

That's right.

Wow.

Yeah.

He said,

as crazy as that sound, I'm not.

But the time that we have right now is what matters, and the time that I'm putting into you.

So he was like, I mean, he would just pour into me every single day.

It was this constant, constant, constant.

And

that did something to me when it comes to time.

So that's why I'm never disrespectful when it comes to time.

I'm never, I give myself time for everything.

Airport, showing up, the places being early, because being early is on time to me.

So it's like, it gives me that gap to do whatever it is I need to, or if there's any mishaps, flat tire or traffic or whatever.

People value when you show up early.

I have a strong value for employees that show up on time.

What drives me nuts, people are like, well, what's your biggest pet peeve?

Is when people don't show up on time.

Dinner appointment, coming to the office, meetings.

Because I think it's a respect factor.

You know,

there's something about showing up on time, showing you respect other people.

just it's just the courteous thing to do and so whenever I have a call or a zoom call or or someone wants to interview me, I always say like or I'm interviewing someone on my show

I say how much time do you have because I honor their time.

What do you have?

Are we doing 45 minutes half hour?

And then we go.

But for most people,

they just don't They don't have that gratitude or appreciation for other people.

And when you could take a step back and say well why am i here what am i doing what's my purpose you know you can kind of figure out what what's important to you

and you have to also realize that we all have our own dna we're all different we're all upon this earth differently and you have to respect that i think a lot of people think that everyone has to be like them well that's never gonna

happen in the world there we go it won't

it won't right it won't we're all different we have different ways we look at things

I could say to you, what color are my shoes?

You'll say they're white, but they're kind of cream.

See my light.

Right.

He might look at it a different way in the light.

You might say tomato.

Yeah.

Right.

So we look at things differently.

And you have to respect that.

We have different lenses.

We also have different experiences when we're kids.

So we look at things differently.

You know,

we might look at a car accident completely differently.

That's why they put someone in a lineup and no one knows because we have different ways of looking at things and analyzing data and emotions get into it.

But when we can respect that others have different opinions than ours and we can open up that filter and that conversation, your whole world changes.

So what's the problem in this country is that we don't listen to each other.

We don't understand.

We're all different.

And if we did,

man, we'd live in a great world.

Do you think it's a great place?

It would not be about skin color.

It wouldn't be about religion.

It would be about a respect factor because

people like to go those angles, but it's not what it's about.

What it's about is we need to listen to each other and respect each other and realize we're all different.

And when we can do that, but we all know if we cut each other open, we're bleeding the same.

We all have hearts.

We all have minds.

You know, we're just different.

That's okay.

Some are shorter, taller, fatter, thinner.

more muscular.

We're different.

Different bodies, different minds.

That's what the hardest part of human body and the human nature and in our society is that we don't know how to deal with our mind because no one taught can you imagine when you're going through elementary school as a young man you would someone say you know what I'm gonna bring you aside and teach you how the human body and the mind work so when you go through challenges and struggles you know how to deal with things when you deal with people that are different than you you know how to treat them can you imagine if we did that with kids why don't we i wish we don't

we don't do it and it's crazy Because if you think about it, it's like, wait a minute.

We're not going to teach you.

We're going to teach about what goes on inside of us to help us become better in society.

We're going to ignore that.

That's what we do.

We ignore it.

Instead, we feed drugs into our body to help get over.

It's just the transparency is lacking in this country.

It's a shame.

It is.

Ben, I've learned so much.

It was such an honor having you.

How much for real estate?

I know, right?

We didn't even touch on that.

I'm literally going to look into the stem cells for my eyesight.

Yeah,

I didn't know about that.

That's awesome.

Any closing thoughts for the crowd?

No, just if you are interested and you're a credit investor and like to invest passively and produce wealth, go onto our website.

It's alliancecgc.com

and click onto our alliance medical property fund.

It's the hottest fund in the United States right now.

Hey, great way to build wealth.

Feel free to follow me at BenReinberg.com.

And you can follow me on all the social media platforms.

We're putting together great content.

And then if people want to listen to our show, it's Ben Reinberg.

I own it.

It's from success to significance.

It's celebrities and ultra-high net worth individuals that have had success, they're creating significance in their life.

We talk about health, wealth, relationships, business, commercial real estate.

We touch them all.

Kind of like on your show we just did.

We talk about topics that people want to see us.

So even though people know me as commercial real estate, we're much more than that because we talk about how everything on this holistic basis in your life also feeds into becoming a successful businessman or woman or so.

Love it.

Wayne, thanks for watching the digital social hour.

See you guys next time.

Thanks for tuning in.

Peace.