TME 17 | Scorched Earth Real Estate: Why You Don’t Want a Billion Dollar Business with Gino Barbaro

Title: TME 17 | Scorched Earth Real Estate: Why You Don’t Want a Billion Dollar Business with Gino Barbaro In this episode, Seth Bradley sits down with multifamily investor and coach Gino Barbero for a deep conversation on real estate investing, mindset, and values. They discuss the reality of today’s uncertain market and why deals are still possible if you stick to timeless frameworks like Buy Right, Manage Right, Finance Right. Gino emphasizes that choosing between syndications, joint ventures, or long-term holds should come after reflecting on your personal patterns, values, and lifestyle goals. Seth shares his journey from a blue-collar upbringing to med school, then law school, before breaking free of the W-2 mindset after discovering Rich Dad Poor Dad and BiggerPockets. Both reveal how emotions like anger or a thirst for freedom became catalysts for entrepreneurial growth and how inherited beliefs from parents shaped, and sometimes limited, their early choices. Gino outlines his core values, People First, Unwavering Ethics, Extreme Ownership, Make It Happen, and Growth Mindset, and explains why values-based decision making is the foundation of success in business, partnerships, and life. The conversation ends on legacy: living by values, helping families, and leaving the world a better place. Bullet Point Highlights: Market Reality, deals are harder but not dead, framework Buy Right, Manage Right, Finance Right still applies JV vs. Syndication, JVs may better fit lifestyle goals, decide based on whether you want scale or freedom Mindset Shift, success starts with identifying empowering vs. disempowering patterns before picking a vehicle Seth’s Story, from coal miner’s son, med school, law school, house hacking, real estate entrepreneur Catalysts for Change, Seth’s thirst for freedom and Rich Dad Poor Dad, Gino’s anger channeled into growth Inherited Beliefs, parents’ caution or W-2 mindset often shape early decisions until consciously broken Values-Based Decisions, align investments and partnerships with personal values to avoid costly mistakes Gino’s Core Values, People First, Unwavering Ethics, Extreme Ownership, Make It Happen, Growth Mindset Redefining Success, question vanity goals like “a billion in real estate”, align goals with lifestyle vision Parallel Lives, closed doors in Wall Street and med school led Seth and Gino to better aligned entrepreneurial paths Legacy, Gino wants to be remembered for living by values, helping families, and leaving the world stronger Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley’s Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Gino Barbaro’s Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gino-barbaro-03973b4b/ https://www.instagram.com/barbaro_360/ https://myworstinvestmentever.com/ep732-gino-barbaro https://www.facebook.com/JoinGinosFamily/ Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:00.169) but man, that's, I was like, I was being sarcastic. Like, is that volume up? Gino (00:03.278) . No, actually, sarcasm is, I'm Italian and I'm from New York, so sarcasm works really good. So how you been? Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:12.105) There you go. I've been good brother, been good man. How about you? Gino (00:18.54) I mean, on the deal front, last year or so, it's been pretty painful. I mean, everything else is great. I got no complaints. Everything else is excellent, seriously. But other than that, I'm doing okay. What are we talking about today? What do you want to touch on today? Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:20.359) Yeah Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:30.707) Good, Cool, yeah, man, so I rebranded, so I changed it from, and I did this because my audience is different now. My audience used to be passive investors, because I raising capital, doing all that kind of stuff. You still probably get back into that at some point when it makes sense, but started selling the shovels a little bit, and working on growing my securities law firm, and I'm chief legal officer for TribeVest, so we put together fund to funds for people to raise capital into for bigger deals. So now we're. Gino (00:54.67) Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:01.927) So now I'm talking to active capital raisers, entrepreneurs, real estate investors, as opposed to passive investors. So a little bit different. Gino (01:08.494) Good, let's go a little scorched earth because I'm feeling a little annoyed today, especially after this volume thing. And I want to go at it from a perspective of real estate. Like, I don't even know what data to believe anymore. I think it's all bullshit. I think the whole thing is,...