How to Be a Contrarian Success

Now, when you have groupthink and you have the media all regurgitating the same thing and there's only one thought and there isn't divergent thought. And this is for entrepreneurs.
If you surround yourself with yes people and you're not getting differing opinions and your lens doesn't widen to say, I may be wrong. I may be doing something wrong.
We were talking about New York City being a sanctuary city. And if there's somebody to tap the governor's shoulder and say, maybe this whole illegal immigration thing is not really working well for us.
Instead of spending $700 million to house these illegals, let's figure something out. Let's come up with a policy to possibly get them green cards or work visas so at least they can get a job.
Even though they're here illegally, they're undocumented, however you want to call them. Let's think of a solution instead of trying to virtual signal.
So there's no diversion thought. So when you're the only one with the opinion and you have no one to balance ideas off of, that's really dangerous.
Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.
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Gino, great to have you on the show, man. We were just chatting.
We should have hit the record button for the first 15 minutes of our conversation because that was awesome, but great to get going here. Ryan, from one fellow New Yorker to another fellow New Yorker, that was an interesting conversation.
Listen, I love talking about New York. I left seven years ago.
And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you know how it is. You've got to follow your passions.
And I wasn't finding it in New York. It just didn't align with my values.
And for anybody listening to this, think about what your values are. I mean, if you don't live in alignment with your values, I mean, Ryan, you were telling me you're such an entrepreneur.
You want to build businesses. And you're starting to hang out with people who don't value that or don't, you're going to feel a little bit out of alignment.
And that's how I felt. I got to the point where New York didn't fit me anymore.
And I said, you know what? I have a choice. I continue to continue to suffer, continue to make excuses like most of us do.
And I did, or you just have enough pain and the desire to leave. And I finally hit that button and I just, you know, I exit.

I left in 2017.

Yeah, I had a woman who's worked with me for a while.

She's tremendous.

And she's always done admin, accounting, kind of just catch all and good filter for my own crazy as well.

And her and her husband, and, you know, and she works remote, obviously, our company's remote. And she's called me one day and she goes, guess what? And I go, what? She goes, we're moving to Tennessee.
And I was like, really? She's like, yeah, we just can't do it here anymore. She's like, we can't do it.
She's like, you know, we're the taxes, the, the, the social situation, the, the, the, the value structure here, the, the pace, the, you know, all this stuff. Um, she's like, we just can't do it.
We love Tennessee. We're moving to the mountains.
And I was like, so they're in some, I can't even tell you the town, some rural, uh, town in Tennessee and she's happy as can be. And, uh, you know, they, they did it and, and they had two young kids and just got up and moved.
And, um, now she's, you know, waking up every day, loves where she's at, loves her community, loves, loves the way it aligns with her. And I think, you know, it's, to me, it is sad that our country has gotten to a place where you can't, you, you have to move to, to find a place where you can be comfortable and happy.
Like it used to be, you know, I remember, you know, I'm 43. I remember growing up and people have talked about this as well, but like Democrat, Republican, entrepreneur, you know, office worker, everyone kind of just did their thing, got along.
You had your values. I had my values.
We maybe were part of different organizations or community groups, but, you know, kind of everyone was pushing the same direction. Let's make the community safer, nicer.
Let's let's get more business in town. Let's get more programs for kids, etc.

And today, it's more like I feel you can't be different than the majority or people look at you funny.

They don't understand who you are.

They want to carve you out of things. It's just no longer about, and I think, and I'm interested in your take on this, just having got you to know you this short time.
I talk a lot on this show and some, and some other piece of content that I create around generational thinking. When I was a kid, probably 10, 12, old enough to ask my dad questions, but still not like an adult.
I asked him something about being a parent. And he said to me, when you become a dad, your only goal in life from that moment on is to make your kids better than you.
That's it. Not better off, not just handing them money, not, you know, scamming every system and being part of every PTA or head coach to make sure they get some unfair advantage.
Your job is to make them a better person than you are. And that type of generational thinking, You know what I mean? Like my last name is Hanley and there's been hundreds of Hanley's before me.
I need to make sure that I do right by my family name, by my immediate family, by my community. This idea of we're part of a bigger ecosystem.
And while we all want personal success and satisfaction and meaning and purpose, and it's incredibly important, it all should be working towards a greater good for the community at large. And, you know, I have a sweatshirt on so you can't see, but I have an elbow to shoulder tattoo of the American flag with an inset cross, a negative space cross on it.
And I got that got that, uh, this year and someone said at 43, you gotta, you gotta half a half a sleeve. And I said, I want to wake up every day and have a clear and present reminder of the values and the, um, the, the things that are, that are, that I'm working towards, right? I have my kids' birthdays, I have God, and I have my country.
And I believe in these things. I believe in the ideals, principles that they were based on, and I work towards those.
And that mentality, I feel today, is unfortunately becoming more the exception than the rule. It's why I do this podcast, so I can hook up with great guys like you and hear what they have to say and share your original thoughts and your viewpoints because we are not thinking originally anymore and it is a huge problem and we're seeing it.
We're seeing all the systemic symptoms across the board. Does that play for you? Does that hit? It hits in multiple different ways.
The first thing I'd like to really address is the group think. When I was growing up in the 80s and the 90s, there were two parties in New York state.
It was actually Republicans were governors, but there were Democrats to balance them out. Now, when you have group think and you have the media all regurgitating the same thing, and there's only one thought and there isn't divergent thought, and this is for entrepreneurs, if you surround yourself with yes people and you're not getting differing opinions and your lens doesn't widen to say, I may be wrong, I may be doing something wrong.
We were talking about New York City being a sanctuary city. And if there's somebody to tap the governor's shoulder and say, maybe this whole illegal immigration thing is not really working well for us.

Instead of spending $700 million to house these illegals, let's figure something out.

Let's come up with a policy to possibly get them green cards or work visas. So at least they can get a job, even though they're here illegally, they're undocumented, however you want to call them.
Let's think of a solution instead of trying to virtual signal. So there's no diversion thought.
So when you're the only one with the opinion and you have no one to balance ideas off of, that's really dangerous. And as far as the legacy component, I'm writing a book called Happy Money, Happy Family, Happy Legacy.
And it was inspired by Ken Honda. I interviewed Ken Honda probably three or four months ago, and he challenged me to write the book.
I've got six kids ages 25 to nine.

We homeschool our children. And for me, the legacy component means so many different things.
It means that I've got a ton of money. I want to leave it to them, but I want them to understand how to be stewards of that money.
I do podcasts. I write books.
I've got an educational community. That's all part of my legacy.

I want to teach my kids this.

Now, are they going to go into business with what I do? Probably not. Maybe one or two of them, but I want them to understand the value of the dollar.
I want to continue to perpetuate that money into the next generation. I think that's important for me as far as what my legacy looks like.
I think as a parent, the goal of any parent, as far as I'm concerned, is you want to create a happy, healthy, safe environment for your children.

You want them to be able to thrive.

You want to be able to be vulnerable and transparent to your kids.

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And when they're 18 and 19 years old, that they can step out into the world and they can make their own ideas and their own solutions. You don't want to helicopter over them too much.
You obviously want to guide them, but as they get older, you start pushing out boundaries and you start giving them more and more and you give them the confidence. They need self-esteem, these children.
That's what they need. They need self-esteem and they need to know that Ryan and Gino are going to be there to protect them and to give them a nice, like I said, happy, healthy, safe environment where they can thrive so that when they do become adults, they can step out and they're not spoiled, entitled children.
Yeah. I think we've stopped living by example.
We, we, we, the number of people that I see, you know, so my kids are heavily involved in the baseball community and I love baseball. Individually, I played in college.
I played after college. I just love the sport.
I love what it teaches us, particularly about life, how individual moments compound to a larger group. I feel like there are very few sports in which, yes, you have to hit, right? When you're up there, all eyes are on you.
It is all, you know, you are the only one that can control that situation if you're hitting or if you're pitching, whatever. So there is this individual, I have to own this moment.
I can't lean on anyone else. At the same time, you have to play as a cohesive unit at all times, get along with each other, understand different personalities, setbacks, and all the things that happen throughout the course of a game that allow them to grow.
Okay. So I do love that sport and for that reason, but there are other sports that do that.
One of the things that drives me crazy is I see so many parents who incredibly out of shape. Uh, uh, you know, they, they, they drink too much.
They, they don't really work that hard yet. They're screaming at their kid through the fence to, you know, to go max effort and, you know, get your head up and, you know, don't cry.
And I'm like, they're mirroring. They're too young.
My kid's 10 and eight years old. They're too young.
Obviously everyone has their own personality, but they're getting their effort, their engagement, their attitude, their, the way they approach things, their mindset, their mentality, they're getting that from somewhere. Unfortunately for a lot of parents, it's like Tik TOK or some, something else, but it's also, they're watching every move you make.
And if we're not embody, uh, uh, embodying the values that we believe in and that we want to instill in them, they're not going to pick them up. Just, you know, being a shithead and then yelling at them is not going to work.
They're not that those words mean nothing to them. They're watching your actions, how you interact with people, how you approach a situation, how you respond to different things.
They're watching all of that and they're taking it in. And, uh, and this goes in and taking this back to the entrepreneurial world, a lot of parenting, right? Like you said, if you're the leader of an organization and your goal is to maximize your personal exit of a company, your employees know that if your goal is to play golf every Friday, your employees are going to know that.
If you don't respond to emails and then you yell at your team for not responding to emails, they're going to see that. Like we can't hide.
And I think a lot of people get to some position of power and then feel like they then get to down throttle and do all the things they want to do and that these other individuals on their team are just there to service them.

And the number of companies, the number of sports teams, the number of organizations

that I've seen fall apart or at incredibly hard times because the leadership team or

individual did not embody the standards, values, disciplines that are needed to be successful to me is incredible. When you look at it, I've been doing a lot of work from my childhood.
I'm a big advocate of life coaching, but as well as therapy. And I think those parents who are struggling like that, and we've all had struggles, go back into your childhood and do some work in your childhood.
I mean, what were the things that you heard? Did you hear money doesn't grow on trees? Did you hear that? You know, for me, early on, I got a lot of criticism from my parents. I love my parents.
And, and, you know, you'll always hear people say, Oh, I had a great childhood. I'm not doubting you didn't have a great childhood, but we all have traumas from our childhood.
Some may be a lot greater than others. I'm not going to equate it.
But if somebody is criticizing you, somebody was bullying you, somebody was telling you you're fat, this whole stuff happened to me and it comes into your adulthood. And then all of a sudden you're yelling at your kids and you're saying, well, why am I yelling at my kids? And it's interesting, Ryan, you can come on right now and tell me, Hey, Gino, you're suck.
You're really not doing that great of a job. And I'll take your advice to heart.
But if a family member says that to me, I get really annoyed. I get really upset.
And why is that? Well, growing up, that happened to me. And I think we really need to take a deep look into our childhood, see what happened, and work with those emotions and sit with those emotions and try not to fix them and just let them know that they're there.
And it's okay. We need to be more compassionate with ourselves.
And I'm the first one to really, listen, I beat myself up when something's not going well. I beat myself up.
I take it out on others. All of a sudden, I get angry.
And is that the right way to do it? No. But I think, once again, go back into your childhood.
And if you need somebody to talk to, it's so, for me, it was so enlightening to see the things that i was reacting the things that i was doing wrong we want to live through our kids we want to yell at our kids are we yelling at our kids or are we yelling at our nine-year-old self that we sucked and we were fat and we're out of shape we don't even know that we're doing it unconsciously and subconsciously we don't mean to be that person and i think no one's ever taught us this stuff like you go to college you gotta what are they teaching in college i don't even know what they teach in college anymore but life skills negotiation communication finance all these things that truly create an empowering life none of this stuff is learned so yeah if you're that parent that's struggling or that adult that's struggling or that entrepreneur struggling take a pause look back into your childhood, look back into your preteen years, into your younger adult years and see what the patterns were. See the words that you were, see the people you're hanging around with, and then see what's going on, what's not working today nowadays.
And I make sure you could probably make that connection from the past to going on to the present. You see what's going on, you see what's wrong.
And then from there, you can figure out what you want to accomplish going forward. And that's what a life coach or a business coach can help you out.
But you can't keep looking forward if you haven't looked in the past. I don't know if that makes sense to you.
No, Gino, I could not agree with you more. I mean, literally, I couldn't agree with you more.
I'll tell you, I'll give you a case study on that. Five years ago, a mentor of mine, just invaluable human being to me.
He's 20 years my senior, incredible guy, just literally would not be where I am today, especially the progress that I've made both personally and professionally over the last five years if it wasn't for this guy. One of the very first calls that we had, he said, you know what? Go find a counselor, meet with him or her every other week for the rest of your life, and just consider it a life expense.
It's like paying your electric bill. Whether you're in a good mood or bad mood, everything's awesome or everything's terrible, go see the person, sit down and talk to them.
And it's changed my life. And I've given you an exact example to what you just described.
So my older son, I have two sons. I said that 10 and eight.
They both play baseball. My older son is an overthinker.
He's incredibly talented. He can do things on a baseball field at 10 that I couldn't do at 13, 14 years old.
And that's not a joke. And a lot of these kids can, they're a little better trained, but, but it's just incredible to watch him do some things.
But in general, because he's an overthinker, he tends to be very hesitant at times too. He has these moments of brilliance surrounded by moments of like where he's questioning himself and being hesitant and not attacking.
And, and so I played division three baseball, but i was probably good enough to play division one the difference in those the reason i didn't play division one is because i had that same even though i was more of a bulldog mentality and in general than he is i was always hesitant for that last 10%, right? I probably, if I had, you know, and I, and looking back as an adult, it's a regret that I had. Like I would love to know how good of a baseball player I actually could have been.
If I had given 100% of myself through my teens, could I have been a division one or, or played in the pros somewhere? Maybe not MLB, but, but, you know, could I have, could I have really made a good, just to see how good could I have actually been? Right. And, and I, so I, I hold that inside.
So I found myself two years ago, I'm, you know, you know, I give him a ton of praise, but I'd also be like, but, you know, and a little harsh. And I was saying to my counselor, man, I fucking hate the way I talk to him sometimes.
And we dove into it, figured all that bullshit out. I told you about me being, because I didn't, I didn't have that in me.
It took talking to the counselor, figuring out why I was responding that way. And now he and I have this amazing relationship where when we need to have a feedback moment, I can do it in a way that is productive to him, that he has told me works for him.
So I'm like, how do you want to get feedback from me? That really get, unless it's something technical in game, he said, you know, let's talk about it after the game. You know, don't, you know, like he said that to me and now it's like a whole different world right like you know he's still growing he's freaking 10 you know he you know he just learned to tie his shoes last year so like you know i mean it's not like but but the idea is like to your it's exactly to your point like and and it's helped me in my business career immensely too but like i would never have been able to pull out that I had this regret that was then manifesting in the way I spoke to my child.
If I had not spent that time with a counselor and been able to be honest and humble and listen to her feedback, it changed the course of my life. And, uh, and I hope people take your guidance because it is not a weakness.
You know, I know I have friends who are like, uh, the first time I ever talked about getting counseling on this show, I had, I got a bunch of messages. People are like, I can't believe that you said that.
Like, are you worried about what people think? And I'm like, worried that people will think badly about the fact that I'm trying to get better as a human. Like I was like,, if that's the I don't care what that person thinks the person who who judges me for that.
I don't care. So I hope I just I hope that more men in particular, women seem to be better about this just in general, but men in particular, realize that life coaches, business coaches, counselors, therapists, these, these are signs of strength going to them, not signs of weakness.
And the best part of your story is that legacy component where you've broken the cycle. Whereas if you didn't do it, you'd have taught your son that modality.
And then when he gets older, he's going to treat his kids that way. And I don't know if it's a good or bad way, but it's just an understanding and an awareness.
And if you can get better at something, why not get better? And the reality is people, a lot of people do see that as a weakness. I may see therapy as a weakness.
I see it as a strength as I've gotten older because I want to become better. I want to know why when my daughter is 14 years old and she's making meatballs and I used to have a restaurant, I come into the room, I see she's doing it wrong.
I take it away from her. We get into this big ass argument and I blow up on her and she didn't even ask for my help.
Why did that situation happen? And I think if you stop and take a step back, anger equals bullshit because it's not all her fault. It's mostly my fault, but I'm seeing it once again through my lens.
As you get older, I'm hoping as you're listening to this, your lens gets wider and wider and wider. And you're able to see things from different perspectives.
In New York State, they're only seeing things from one perspective. And listen, this may be in conservative states as well.
They may be seeing things from just their lens. That's why we need a balance.
And then obviously the best ideas win. And obviously you're going to take ideas from one side and from the other and let's blend them in.
And unfortunately, social media has been difficult because when you're watching something, if you're conservative, Ryan, they're going to show you conservative stuff. And it's just the confirmation bias is, oh, look, I'm right.
And if you're liberal, you're going to be watching stuff on the liberal side and they're going to say, oh, I'm right. But somebody who's truly intelligent, who's truly living, I guess, a more enlightened life can take a look at both.
And that's what this gentleman, Dr. Mort Orman that I interviewed, he says news is fake because it's all about confirmation bias.
They're going to share you a story, and they're going to be telling you the story from their biases. biases you may have the same exact facts but they're going to pull certain words whether you're undocumented illegal those words mean a lot climate change global warming we're having the same situation but you're looking at it from the lens of how you're portraying that's why journalism is it's a difficult job because you have to pull your biases out and just try to report the facts and we're all human yeah it's really hard to do that yeah i i want to get into what you do because i have a million questions about that too but this is the last thing that i want to ask you about uh in this particular vein when we're when we're one of the things that i work with with my my coaching clients is around incentives and what i tell them often is it you know usually starts around how they incentivize their people or whatever, but we start to broaden that out more and even look at how they incentivize themselves, how they incentivize, what are the incentives of your vendors? What are the incentives of your customers? What are the incentives of the news outlets? What are the incentives of the people that you follow? And my point in saying that is when we, you know, and I believe it's on both sides.
So, so no one at home, you know, I know I occasionally like to bash on Democrats on the show, but understand that I have just as many strong feelings about the other side as well. And a lot of the things that they do.
So, you know, I'm, I'm, if libertarianism wasn't such a crazy thing, I'm probably more there in general, but the idea is we, we have to look at the incentives of who we're listening to, right? How, how is the person, the entity, the organization incentivized for, for a CNN or a Fox news? It's, they need you to click on the article. They need you to watch the video.
They need you to buy into this. So they're going to be inflammatory.
They're going to be highly aggressive against the other tribe. They have to do those things to get you to click.
So if we're just reading one side or the other, thinking that that's the point of truth, because that's the tribe we're on, you're you're you're you're feeding your brain misinformation because no matter which side you're on, they're incentivized to hook you in. So if they know you're anti-illegal immigration, right, the border's your thing and the algorithm grabs you.
They're going to pound you over the head with every spin or piece of information that gets you fired up about that topic because you will just keep clicking and keep clicking and keep resharing and keep commenting. And that's how they pay their bills.
And it doesn't mean that we can't consume that information. But I think as we mature and as we develop and grow, as you were talking about, it's one of the I talk a lot in terms of filters.

I love that idea, that lens filter, right?

We put a set of filters in place to help us make more, better decisions. That tends to be the way that I teach.

And one of those filters that we use has to be an understanding of the incentive structure of where we're getting the information from. Not that it doesn't mean it's real, not that it doesn't mean we can't agree with it or believe it or that it isn't accurate, but we always have to pass it through that filter so that we can say, okay, I hear what they're saying.
I believe this thing, but I also have to be rational and understand that they're pushing this on me because they think I'm going to click on it. And how does that impact what I'm seeing? And is there another side to the story? And we're not doing that enough.
We're just picking our tribe, the newsletter we follow, or creating a Twitter list or X list or whatever. And those are the only people we read.
And then we become, we just, it's how this divide has happened. Is this, is this not, we, we, we've lost a sense of how these people are incentivized because, um, we just, we don't, a lot of people don't have time and a lot of people don't think this way, man.
Well, it's interesting. I'm in the real estate space.
So for what I tell a lot of my students is, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to completely disconnect yourself from news, whether it's Fox or CNN or MSNBC, but there are publications like biz. Now I'm in the multifamily space, multi-housing news, you know, Collier's, Bercadium, Marcus and Millichap, Cushman and Wakefield, all these real estate publications, these brokerage houses, they have a lot of great articles and great data.
That's the kind of information and news that you should be looking at and you should be reading if you're in the real estate space. Now, if you're in other spaces, let's say you're a thought leader and you're talking about influence.
Well, Robert Cialdini is pretty freaking great, right? You got Chris Voss. You have all these different other people where you can start following because they're pretty agnostic.
I'm a big fan of Chris Voss. I love looking at his stuff on Instagram.
Pretty agnostic, not much political stuff. He just gives you great content.
So go out there and follow people who are not going to give you their political opinions, but are going to give you facts and stuff that you can use and stuff that's going to help you in your life. Yeah, it's dude.
And it comes back to the whole tagline for this show is original ideas, habits and mindsets of original thinkers. Right.
That's that's what this is about. And, you know, taking that information and come up with your own thought about it.
Right. Don't just say, well, I'm a Democrat and I like Jake Tapper.
So whatever Jake Tapper thinks is what I'm going to do, or I'm a Republican and, you know, I like Dan Bongino. So whatever Dan Bongino thinks is what it's going to be.
They're all humans. So even if they are operating in the most positive, most, you know, ideal way that you could want from someone who is sharing

information, they're still humans. They're still going to have their own biases.
They're still

going to make mistakes. And take that in, take it in perfectly fine, just as you said, but then

try to have an original thought. How do you feel about it? When you see that stat, do you actually

agree or are you just regurgitating something that you heard? And I think this, and I want to

Thank you. thought.
How do you feel about it? How, when you see that stat, do you actually agree or are you just regurgitating something that you heard? And, you know, I think this, you know, and I want to kind of pivot this into what you do and talk about entrepreneurship and, and, and, and, uh, in, uh, the multifamily market and the property market, like there's so much information about entrepreneurship. And the minute someone says like this seven step process for X, know that that is, there might be something valuable in there, but it's bullshit.
You know what I mean? Like, and what I mean by that is not that that didn't work for them, but it worked for them. That doesn't mean that that thing is going to work for you.
A version of it might step four of the seven might be something you you're not doing that you wanna integrate, that's great. But if you just stop what you're doing or you base your entire growth plan or hiring plan or service process on what someone else is doing verbatim, you're not being true to your business, you're not being true to your dream, and also you're going to run into roadblocks because that's their thing, not your thing.
And it's so hard to do. So, so here's my, my first actual question for you, besides this amazing conversation that we're having, I'm blown away.
And, and I think by your ability to get as much done and be as successful as you are, and you got the podcast, multiple podcasts, I see you guys writing all the place. You got books coming out.
You have this coaching community. And then you have this huge portfolio of multifamily homes that, you know, and then that's the teaching you do.
You also have six children. How do you manage that? Because I know I have kids is a big excuse that entrepreneurs and would be entrepreneurs use as a reason for throttling their productivity and how they get things done.
How are you able to manage that? Because I think a lot of people listening to this show will hear you have six kids and they're like, how is it possible that he can get this much stuff done? all praise and glory go to my wife. I mean, she's a stay at home mother.
She's an amazing person. When we got married, we decided that I would work and she'd stay at home and, and, you know, she doesn't have a day off.
She's a doctor. She's a chef.
She's a chauffeur. I mean, she does it all.
And I think the fact that she does that, as a man, I need to step up my game. I can't make excuses.
I rarely hear her make excuses. So she's my role model.
We've set up this whole ideal, this whole value system in what we believe. And by the grace of God, we've had six kids.
It's just amazing. I didn't want to have six kids.
I thought two would be great, maybe three. Then they kept coming, and I thought it was amazing.
But I really want to get back to the point that you were talking about with groupthink. I'm in real estate and multifamily specifically.
And this has been dangerous over the last five or six years with the real estate cycle in the market. All this groupthink, there was a lot of cheap money out there.
And what happened was everyone was jonesing for deals and everyone was thinking the same. Well, I've got to buy a deal.
There's so much money where Jake and I have 2021 and 22. We were pretty much on the sidelines for a lot of that.
We understood what was going on. Right.
And if you can see that I already went through that experience teaches me a lot. I was back in the cycle and I was telling people, be careful of what's going on.
And like you said, when you're on the news and everyone's saying the world is great, deals are great. And now it's in the reverse.
We've got $30 million worth of assets on the contract right now, whereas most people are heading out of the exits. We're coming in now because now is the opportunity.
It's usually the contrarian thinking to be completely honest with you. So for anybody out there, if you're afraid of real estate, now is the time.
Interest rates are high. They've slowed the economy down.
That's the purpose. They're going to stay high for a while because they do not want inflation to rear its ugly head again.
Because if they could have dropped interest rates, they would have because there is an election in November. They want to elect the dude that's in power, but Jerome Powell understands if he does that, inflation is going to come roaring back and we're screwed.
So interest rates are high. Real estate, once interest rate drops, all of a sudden the cost of capital becomes cheaper.
And what happens when the cost of capital becomes cheaper? Asset prices are going to elevate right now. So don't listen to the noise.
The world is not ending. Real estate over the long term, it's the long term, right? You can always buy real estate.
You can't always sell real estate. And that's what's going on right now.
Somebody who bought two years ago with short term financing is stuck right now because their valuations are upside down. If they can hold on for the next two or three years, they're going to be golden.
So all this noise that Ryan's talking about out there, don't listen to it. Listen to yourself and start getting the hard facts.
Believe it or not, apartments are down 28% from the high of 2022, and they've got some more to go. That doesn't mean you stop looking.
There's opportunities now, and everyone's saying survive till 25. That's the mantra right now.
Well, we're thriving in 24. So if I listened to survive to 25, I wouldn't have been engaging with brokers.
I wouldn't have been looking at deals. So that's the important thing is really, to me, focusing on all those publications that I talked about and understanding why you're getting into any venture, whether it's real estate, whether it's entrepreneurship, whether it's building a business, that's the important thing to me.
How do you think like a contrarian? Oh, it is so hard. Listen, in 1998, my wife came to me and says, we're going to homeschool our kids.
And I looked at it and I said, first of all, what the hell is homeschooling? And second of all, I have public school teachers coming to the restaurant. They're asking me, where do your kids go to school? And I'm like, well, 151 Barton Road.
It was embarrassing. And that was the starting point.
And it really took me a little bit of, I guess, experience. And I saw the proof in the pudding.
I saw the difference that we were making with our kids being home. And then she throws the bomb on me.
Hey, we're going to have home births. And I said, what's a home birth? She goes, we're going to have our kids born at home.
Now this is 2000, 2001. Now it's in vogue because now, you know, the COVID shutdowns, but back then that was scary to me.
So I said, you know what? This is all about you. It's your health.
You want to do this. I need to support you.
So I've been a contrarian for, I mean, for basically my whole adult life. My family's telling me I'm crazy.
My friends are telling me I'm crazy, but I had a great conversation back in 2021 with a gentleman who used to come into my restaurant and he would sit down. He was a construction guy, made a lot of money, him and his friends, they'd make fun of me because my homeschooling my kids and all.
And he said to me a couple of years ago, he says, I've got to tell you all those years I made fun of you, you know, homeschooling your kids, you did the right thing. He said, it's the school and he's got no real relationship with his kids.
And it's just, if you're out there, if you truly believe in it, and then that's what our value systems were. We were, you know, people with integrity, people who had a belief system, public schools, weren't going to teach us what our, what we wanted our kids to do.
Was it a sacrifice? It's still a sacrifice to this day, but nothing that is easy is worth it. We've got to struggle.
And like I said, the proof is in the pudding. My oldest two kids have been missionaries.
I mean, they're really followers of Christ. That's something that we gave them and something that they're teaching me.
They've got much stronger faith than I do. So they're basically my role models.
So if you're out there and you're feeling a calling, really what we call a vocation to be called to do something and it's contrarian and it may seem crazy, just shut down. Listen to that calling.
Just whether you want to meditate, whether you want to call it to pray on it, just silence yourself and really listen to that. And I think I did that with homeschooling.
I did that with home birthing and then actually leaving New York state to come to Florida, investing with Jake, all those pivotal moments in my life. They're basically all contrarian.
Seven, 10 years ago, leaving New York state, are you nuts? I had all my, they were pitching forks. They were building bonfires.
My parents, my family's like, you're not leaving New York. I'm like, yeah, I am leaving New York.
And it was one of the most difficult things to do. But now that I look back on it, I'm like, I'm thankful I did it.
Yeah. You know, it's funny.
So I, I founded my own digital commercial insurance agency. It was a national agency, fully remote, digitally native, which for the property casualty insurance industry is on another planet.
I started seven days before COVID. So I got $50,000 into this thing and we launch and I'm all jacked up.
Seven days in, COVID hits, New York State, shutdown, game over, right? And in all honesty, I had a month of wallowing, right? Drinking too much. Woe is me.
How is this possible? I'm watching the meter spin like this and cash flying out because, you know, I still got to pay for shit and people even though, you know,, you know, there's literally no business coming in the door. And, um, and we turned to YouTube and we turned to an education heavy format where we gave away every piece of information that for 440 years, insurance agents have held, you know, behind their vest, you know, that they've, they've guarded.
And I used to have this saying, I don't say it anymore because it's kind of obvious, but I used to say, we're no longer the gatekeepers of insurance information or really any information. We're not the gatekeepers anymore.
The days of, you can only know what I know if you come and sit, those are gone. So what that, you know, so the huge contrarian take initially, and then we grew like wildfire, just grew, grew, grew, grew, grew.
And two years later, almost to the day, I sold. And people were like, what are you doing? You're crazy.
You're growing. Now, we had some cash flow issues we had to solve.
We could have probably done that with investment. But I looked at the marketplace, and I said, I saw what was happening with interest rates.
I saw that, you know, these are there's money flying all over and I'm not going. I basically was like, this is not gonna last.
This is not gonna last. I have a moment.
Yeah, sure, I could plow through this, take some investment that's relatively cheap and keep growing. That would be great.
I could do that. But what is the world going to look like in five years? Right.
What, what is the marketplace actually? And, and, and truthfully valuations are down. There's, there's money starting to come back into the market now, but for the last, you know, since 2022, there's, it hasn't been any.
And, and it's particularly in the insurance industry. And, and I got like, I mean, I got letters from people that were like, what is wrong with you? Are you okay? Like I got all this stuff and, you know, and they weren't being jerks.
They just were like, like could not understand or believe. And I was like, yes, I'm looking at what's going on and I'm taking a different path on this because this is what I see.
And truthfully, it worked out as well as it possibly could. But it comes back to this idea, and I'll put contrarian thinking as a subtitle.
We have to think for ourselves. You look at these people that you envy online, and whether they're influencers or authors or entrepreneurs or community leaders, whatever.

The reason they're there is because they think differently than other people. Yet what most people do is just follow the leader.
And it's like they got there. The reason that you're watching their YouTube channel, listening to their podcast, reading their book is because they looked at the world and, and created a frame that worked for them, that, that was unique and different, that had real value.
And it does, you don't have to write a book or have a pocket or whatever, but like for your life, for your thing, I have a piece of wood that one of my, um, uh, carving that one of my audience members made for me. It's the letters GNF.
Give no fucks. It's your life.
It's not theirs. And I just don't understand why so many people are willing to wake up, be told what to do, and then just be freaking, just that suffering, that like dull pain of like, I'm getting through the day, but like, you know, we used to have a rule.
If you said, I have a case of the Mondays, it's hump day, or thank God it's Friday, you were getting fired, right? Because if you didn't show up here and want to be here, it's not that I think you're a bad person. It's that you don't fit this culture, right? I need people who are going to fight for what our customers fight for what they believe in, who are going to look at our business and find ways to improve it and not care if I disagree with you, not care if, you know, your manager doesn't, you know, this isn't the right time or whatever, but still be able to speak up and think about the business and push.
And we just, it's rare to find those people today. But I think, you know, I'm so glad that there's people like you and I'm assuming Jake is the same way out there pushing this message.
So do you have just a couple more minutes for me? Because I know we're at the time, but I have more questions. What I like to piggyback off of that just It's, it's once again, it's the relationship with yourself going back to that nine-year-old.
Maybe you heard, Hey, I heard from my, most of my adult life stay small. We don't take any risks.
My mom's barometer for my success and happiness was, Hey, Gino, you've got this small business. Take a look at your friends.
They hate their jobs. So what is that message telling me? Well, you're okay if you stay small and don't take any risks because everyone else's life sucks.
So you keep hearing that message. Don't take any risks.
I had one restaurant for 20 something years. Within five years, Jake and I had over a thousand apartment units.
What was the difference? The difference was I became a life coach. I understood the messages that were coming in.
I had a lot of limiting beliefs and assumptions that I was able to crush and overcome. Obviously, there were skills involved.
I learned core values. I learned a mission statement.
I learned cadences of countabilities, processes, systems. I get all that.
But for me to get that, I need to get over the hump of myself and the crap that's going on. And a lot of us have that stuff going on and we don't know.
And that's self-doubt. I mean, why are people so afraid of public speaking? It's because they're sitting in a classroom when they're 12 years old and their teachers are telling them that they're idiots and you may be dyslexic and you're afraid and you're embarrassed and you've been called out.
So you sit in back of the classroom and you shut the hell up for the next 30 years of your life that's a lot of work i feel sorry for those people i feel i feel pain for those people yeah you should not be going through that as little kids that's how the educational system has failed us we're not even knowing it you're elevating these 13 year olds who are supposed to be geniuses they may have a genius iq but they may not have any eq but we're elevating them and we're punishing others so if you're out there and you're and you're you're hearing ryan ryan's and maybe it is time to do some work on yourself maybe it's time to be a little more compassionate yourself stop beating yourself up i always love to relate it to money the relationship with money i had a terrible relationship with money i was the best saver i I can save. I love to save money.
But when it came time to spending money, holy crap. And my only way to rationalize was I can invest money because an investment is not really spending it.
I'm investing it to make more money. Does that bring true happiness? Not really.
I was tricking myself into thinking it was. So understand all the relationships you have with everything in your life.
And once you can understand them and diagnose them, bring it to money. I want money to make me happy.
And money can make you happy by the experiences that you can get from money. Look, I'm in an office right now.
I'm paying this electric bill. I used to hate to pay the electric bill.
I would get that bill and I would hate it. But now to me, it's a form of happy money because if I go around the rest of the world, what is it? 30, 40% of the rest of the world does not have electricity.
So it's once again, that paradigm, the way you look at things. And as you get older, hopefully you start expanding your horizons and taking a look at it.
And when I look at my relationship with money, some people are sabotaging themselves. Some people don't think they're worthy enough.
They'll make a hundred grand and then all of a sudden they'll lose it while others, they flourish with money. It's just an interesting observation that I've made over the last few years.
Guys, I hope you'll go back through this and listen to what Gino is saying, because this, this cannot, we cannot make this point enough or strong enough. Coaches, mentors, masterminds, counselors, therapists, like that true inner circle friend that we need someone in our life that we can be 100% vulnerable with, who we are also willing to take real and honest feedback from.
Because you made this point, and I think it's incredibly valid. We oftentimes will share thoughts and feelings with people because they're old friends or they're family members, yet we don't want respect or care about the feedback we get from them.
We're just sharing with them because we feel like it's safe because we've known them for a long time. Some of the absolute most influential people in my life I've met in the last 10 years, you know, so the first 33 years of my life, sure, I have a couple of people that have come out of that, that I'm still incredibly close to, but it's only a handful.
It's not a lot, but in the last 10 years, doing work on myself, being more honest, trying to be more humble and vulnerable and more accepting of feedback, I've been able to find a group of, and it's about six people, that I know I can call, be 100% honest with what I'm thinking. Even the most crazy vulnerabilities or like fears that like cobbler's shoes type shit, right? Like if they were saying it to me, I'd be like, you're crazy yet, you know, I'm so good.
And then they'll give me feedback oftentimes that I don't want to hear, but I need to hear it and I will accept it. And cultivating those relationships, you don't need dozens of them.
You need three, one, five, right?

You just need a couple.

But finding those people

that you can both be vulnerable with

and you respect their feedback is the key.

And really, it just takes one.

You find one person like that

and you will make such enormous strides,

you'll become addicted to it.

You become addicted to the growth that you get because it's like, I had this idea, I shared it with you and you told me it was absolutely fucking crazy for X, Y, Z reason. And you're a hundred percent, right? Thank you.
You know what I mean? Thanks, man. I needed to hear that.
I've been mulling that idea for weeks. And I, you know, now that I hear you pitch it back to me, I hear how bananas it is.
All right. I don't want to do that.
Let's go, you know, and we're not cultivating those people. We're falling back on who we feel is comfortable, safe, or just where we've always been.
And then we get feedback that doesn't help us. It doesn't push us forward and it doesn't make us better people.
I have a friend named Phil McKernan who does a lot of this work.

And two things that I've learned from Phil is, number one, you have to sit with your emotions.

We always want to solve.

Sometimes it's okay just to sit with the emotion.

And I think the second thing is one of the best things that you can do for somebody is to give them space and to just be there to listen to them.

And that's so powerful. When you go to a family

member, they've got an attachment. They want to see you win.
When you go to a friend or somebody

who is detached, they're still might be rooting for you, but they don't have any skin in the game. So they're going to be objective.
They're going to be clear. Your family member may not want you to get better subconsciously because you may leave.
You may get better. My mother was very interesting i my first 200 units

you They're going to be clear. Your family member may not want you to get better subconsciously because you may leave.

You may get better. My mother was very interesting.
My first 200 units with Jake, I didn't even tell her I was investing with my business partner, Jake, because I kept hearing you need six mouths to feed. And I think subconsciously, I was ready to leave the restaurant.
I don't think she wanted me to leave the restaurant subconsciously. And although she wanted the best for me, I don't know if I had told her she might've been sending me the wrong signal.
So just, just be aware that family's not trying to take you down or they're just trying to protect you, but they're trying to protect themselves as well. They don't want to lose the version of you that's there.
And they think if you grow into something different, they're going to, I'm still the same kid, mom, Gina, I'm still the same person. I love you just as much.
I just don't think that they realize that they don't want to lose you. So that's why it's important.
That's why Ryan is saying, go out and find somebody else. It's really important.
And sometimes your spouse is not the right person to have these conversations with because they may tell you what they want you to hear instead of what you need to hear. Yeah.
And I also think that defining what feedback you're looking for and setting expectations for that from who, and your mother is a great example. Mine is too.
My mother is amazing at helping me understand how I show up in the world from a relationship standpoint. She is honest and clear and direct.
And she, you know, the other day she said, she said, I think she goes, I think the empathy gene skipped your, your generation, right? Because I don't tend to be, I'm not a naturally empathetic person. It's something I had to work at.
In fact, my natural level is probably very close to zero. I kind of am like, you know, I operate from it.
You know, my general thought in life is everything is your fault. Everything is my fault, whether it is or it isn't, right? And I don't mean that from the standpoint of the fetus.
I mean, because it's my fault, I can solve the problem, right? No matter what the problem is, I can solve it because it's my fault. So when people bring me their problems, sometimes I'm just like, fucking fix it.
Like, let's fix it. Like, let's go.
You know what I mean? That's not a good trait as an entrepreneur because it's one of those things where that and everyone has different ways of receiving information. And as a leader, you need to understand that.
So I'm laughing because I'm very similar to you. I have a very similar mindset.
You know, right? So it's like, that's something I've had to work on and I've grown and I've gotten much better at it. There's a great quote, very simple from Bruce Lee that I relate to this, which is the value of the cup is its emptiness, right? If you approach a situation with a full cup, you can't learn, you can't grow, you can't empathize, approach it it with an empty cup.
I love that. Bruce, Bruce, I'm a huge Bruce Lee fan.
But if I were to take a business thing to my mom, no idea, right? She's been a receptionist for 30 years. She's incredible at what she does.
She loves her company. Her company is incredibly loyal to her.
And I'm so happy that she has a place that she shows up to every day and enjoys. However, she doesn't have an ambitious bone in her body.
So she, you know, like at different points in my career, um, I know you don't know my story, but I was like, had a kind of a high powered job and I was fired from that. And that's happened once or twice before I realized I was supposed to be an entrepreneur.
And, um, and you know, even today she'd be like, so, so did you find a job? And I'm like, mom, I'm not looking for a job. Like, you know what I mean? Like I have clients that I work with, you know, like I do some fractional CMO work, uh, just to be, cause I do enjoy some of the operational side of, of, of the work.
And I, and I love that. Um, but I'm not looking for a job and she like, can't, so if I were to take business advice to her, I'm going to get horrible feedback.
But if I come with a relationship thing, I had this conversation. It didn't go the way I wanted.
What happened? She's very good. So I think we can, if we can define what we're looking for from that particular individual, it may be they're really great at giving us feedback on one particular aspect of our lives.
And then we just don't need to get feedback from them on everything. Yes.
I like that. My mom would be the same way.
I had a thousand units and she's like, are you making enough money? Are you okay? And she's, and it's actually interesting. I moved to Florida.
I ended up buying a home and she's in the back of her mind. It's like, well, you guys are going to move back up to New York.
I'm like, mom, I bought a house. I am not coming back.
She's like the realization that, and she probably knew it was the best. It was for the best for me, but they still, at some points they are holding out and hoping that, Hey, you come back.
It was just very interesting. Parents are probably very similar.
Our parents. Well, Gino, uh, dude, if your podcast, which I've watched some of the episodes, it is, is, is, is this and, and the community.
And I know a lot of people on here are entrepreneurs. A lot of them have side hustles.
A lot of them are interested in real estate. Um, I know the audience lights up every time we, any of anyone in, in your sector your sector.
Where can people get your content, your books? And then if they're looking to dive in and take this on and are potentially interested in being part of your community, where do they find all that stuff? How do they dig deeper into what you're doing? And just so you know and the audience knows, anything that Gino references here, we'll have both links in the show notes or the description, whether you're watching or listening, we'll have links to all this stuff as well. So where can they go get more from you and dive deeper into your world and your work? Just go to jakeandgino.com.
We've got a bunch of podcasts on there. We've got our blogs, we've got the articles, we've got our educational content.
We've got stuff for our community.

And we've just launched a program called Passive Investor Pro.

Because I think as a limited partner, that's where the market's gone crazy, where you have all these people who are wealthy that are investing in vehicles that they have no understanding.

And it happens in every market cycle.

And we're seeing it happen again when now all of a sudden deals aren't working and passive investors are pissed off.

And, well, learn how to invest passively. So just go to jake and gino.com you'll find all the information there you know it's been a pleasure love this conversation one of my favorites i've had in a long time uh hopefully i have a chance to have you back on the show and uh just chat again uh dude i wish you nothing but the best and appreciate the hell out of you.
Thanks brother. Great time.

Thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show.

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