Ben Reinberg (0s):
What I love about challenges is I love failure because I love the comeback, or I love rising above the failure and say, okay, well that didn't work. How do we learn from? Or, I don't like the way I handle that situation. How do I learn from it? So I think as you age, your awareness grows. Hmm. And you start realizing like, how did I show up in that podcast? How did I show up in that conversation?
Travis Chappell (22s):
Welcome, back to the show, I'm Travis, Chappell and I believe that If, you can connect with the best you can become the best So. after creating 800 podcast episodes about building your network, I've come to realize that networking is really just making friends for doing it the right way. Anyway, join me as I. ma ke friends with world class athletes like Shaquille, O, Neal, entertainers like Rob, Dyrdec authors like Dr, Nicole, Lapera, former presidents like Vicente Fox, or even the occasional FBI hostage, negotiator, billionaire, real estate mogul, or polarizing political figures. So. if you want to make more friends that help you become a better version of yourself, then subscribe to the show and keep on listening cuz this is Travis makes friends. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the episode of Travis Makes Friends podcast. Today I am making friends with Ben Reinberg.
Travis Chappell (1m 3s):
Ben is a commercial real estate investor, and I know I've had a few of those types of people here on the show before, but Ben has been doing this for 30 years now. He's been raised hundreds of millions of dollars in equity, has done syndications, has done funds. They buy medical properties, they do development. They do so many different aspects of the commercial real estate world, which is interesting to me because real estate's made more millionaires than anything else in history. So I always like to see what people's paths are, especially when that is the path that they choose. And so the thing that makes Ben a really great conversation and something that's really interesting is that he actually started in commercial real estate.
Travis Chappell (1m 45s):
So a lot of people, for those that don't know will start in residential, will start investing in residential though. Start with something that they can, you know, more conceptualize the, the money that's gonna have to come out of pocket, the money for the purchase price and all the other good stuff that comes along with that. But Ben started directly in commercial real estate back 30 years ago and then has done that ever since. And then he decided to get into the content and personal branding space just about a year ago. And since then, his personal brand's really blown up and it's due to the fact that he actually has a lifetime of knowledge and information around how to successfully build a commercial real estate portfolio and a career in commercial real estate as an entrepreneur. So Ben and I talk about how he got started, how he funded his first deal. I was pretty wild.
Travis Chappell (2m 25s):
He was 23, 24 and, and went into this big commercial space where the, a bunch of other people were already operating and put together his first deal ever, his first real estate deal ever, which was a 3 million building in Chicago. So I asked him, you know, why not, why did you start with that instead of starting with, you know, a hundred thousand dollars home? And so his answer to that was very interesting and really unique, which I, and I, I thought it was widely applicable to so many other things besides just real estate. So Ben and I talk a little bit about real estate, but this is not an intense real estate conversation. So even If, you have no interest in doing commercial or, or no interest in doing real estate. This is a conversation that's still gonna benefit you in a lot of ways because he's built outsized success and outsized returns inside of his company and inside of his life because the principles remain the same regardless of the industry.
Travis Chappell (3m 12s):
So we even talk about how unhappy he was after he attained a certain level of success with all the money that he was making, the cars he was driving, the houses he was living in. Even his family life was great but still was unhappy. And so we talk about kind of how to reverse engineer that piece of it and really how he was able to go from, you know, being unhappy to back to optimizing for happiness rather than just, you know, money and things like that. So we talk a lot about life philosophy, we talk about money, we talk about discipline, we talk about personal development. There's a lot of different topics, conversations get brought up in this conversation. But it was, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed having Ben in studio. So I am sure you will enjoy listening in on the conversation. So please enjoy this chat that I just had with Ben.
Travis Chappell (3m 52s):
Reinberg What is going on everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Travis Makes Friends podcast, Today I am making friends with Ben Reinberg. Man, welcome to the studio. Thanks
Ben Reinberg (4m 2s):
Travis, pleasure to be here. Thanks
Travis Chappell (4m 4s):
For taking the time. I know you're in through Vegas for a couple of these, so I appreciate you stopping by. No problem. So we have known each other now for a little, a little while started working with our team to do exactly what we're doing right now, but your resume is much more impressive than just your ability to be on Podcasts. So I would just, we just did an intro right before this, so I won't get into that too much right now. But I want to go back in time and kind of rewind the clock here because I find that anybody who's taken an unconventional path, like the one that you've taken, I usually didn't start with the intention to do so. So let's go, you know, 10, 11 year old Ben Reinberg. Sure. Set the scene for us where we're young.
Ben Reinberg (4m 45s):
I, I grew up in an area where it was a middle, lower class area in Chicago, in the north suburbs. My parents both worked, my father worked for the railroad. Okay. As an executive lower level. He worked himself up. My mother was an office manager for a prominent, one of the most premier architectural firms in the country. Hmm. That she ran. But they did Michael Jordan's house in Highland Park and the different houses he is done. Wow. And various other celebrities in Chicago's last celebrities that live in Chicago. And that's what my mother did. And so I saw their work ethic, but I also realized I didn't wanna work for someone. Hmm. It was a turnoff for me. I said I always wanna work for myself. I never, I was rebellious when I was a kid.
Ben Reinberg (5m 27s):
When I was eight years old, I sold cigarettes at a bar to make money. I always worked cutting lawns, shoveling driveways. That's what you did in Chicago when you were a kid growing up in the seventies, did you have
Travis Chappell (5m 38s):
Siblings?
Ben Reinberg (5m 39s):
I did. I had two older brothers. Okay. And so we lived in a really tough neighborhood. We lived in a neighborhood kind of like the outsiders. You were either Jewish or Italian where I grew up. And we grew, also grew up next to a prominent army base. So you had such an eclectic melting pot and also an affluent area. So there was more of a lower tier area where we lived. And then there was upper scale areas in Highland Park, Illinois where I grew up. So it was, it was a lot of pressure. You saw money, but you also saw people that didn't have money. So for me, I wouldn't change a thing because I learned the value of the dollar. I learned hard work. I was working when I was younger.
Ben Reinberg (6m 19s):
I worked all the way up until I got to college. Then after college I started working. So for me, my work ethic was established not only for my parents, but the area I grew up with. Cuz all the kids worked. Siblings were the same way. Yeah. Siblings were the same way. Everyone worked hard. And so you develop this work ethic as a kid. And what that does is it has carried over every single stage of my life where it allowed me the confidence while I was 23 to say Travis, I'm gonna start my own business. Yeah. And when I started my own business, I had no fear cuz I realized like I didn't come for money. So what, what could I lose? What's the worst case here? Yeah. What if sign on a loan with recourse, which I don't do anymore than non-recourse, but if I sign on a loan as a young man, I can get a loan.
Ben Reinberg (7m 2s):
What's the worst a lender can do to me? I'll, I'll go back to where I was. Right. But I knew I was never gonna go back. Yeah. Because of my work ethic, hustle. I'm smart. Street smart. And so for me, I realize that if I just keep pushing forward, I'll keep growing. Why? Why do you think you were rebellious? Did, did your brothers also do entrepreneurial path or did they No, my oldest brother is one of the top healthcare attorneys in the country. Oh wow. Okay. He represents all different hospitals. Catholic. So he went hardcore corporate. He went hardcore corporate. Yeah. Been wildly successful. He's gonna retire soon. He's about five years old than me. I'm 53. My middle brother has a work ethic too.
Ben Reinberg (7m 42s):
And so they went more corporate side. I went more entrepreneurial. I went because I I would see the Mercedes driving by on the streets. And I said, how do I get of those those? Yeah. you know, how do I able, when I was younger it was more about candy and Slurpees. Sure. How do I afford that? And then as I got older, I started realizing, okay, what do I like? And then I realized that if I don't control my own destiny, cause I used to see my father and my father worked for a Fortune 50 company. It was Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, then it was Union Pacific Railroad. And he would come home and I remember being a kid, always worried about if he was gonna have his job the next day.
Ben Reinberg (8m 22s):
Mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, different economies, different administrations going on. We lived in the Reagan years. So we just saw different environments. And I looked at, I said, I don't want that life. I don't wanna be in the blue suit, red tie, taking the train from Holland Park to downtown Chicago in the freezing cold. I don't wanna be that guy because I have to. Yeah. Because everyone, it was acceptable. Like, you get a job, hopefully you can go to college, you move forward and you have a career and then you get pensioned and you're retired. And I was like, I don't want that. That sounds like a bad deal. It's just, to me it's not attractive. Yeah. So I said, well what is attractive? And the word entrepreneur wasn't really prevalent when I was a kid.
Ben Reinberg (9m 4s):
Sure. Especially when I started in the early nineties. It was more like being a business owner, having your own business. The word entrepreneur I think cultivated right after that. So for me, I looked at and I said, you know what, I wanna be my own boss. I wanna control my own schedule. So I started Alliance and that was the genesis. I, I tell this story. You start that was your first company? Well I first started company called Hillcrest Trading. I was buying debt and reselling it. Okay. And then that launched me into commercial real estate. Why even give you the awareness that that stuff existed? I just taught myself what, what I learned was I read Sharon LE's book. Okay. Or in the early nineties, rich Dad, poor Dad. Cuz I was trying to figure out like, where is wealth creation?
Ben Reinberg (9m 46s):
Wealth creation, especially in Chicago is commercial real estate. I learned all the icons. Sam Zoga rest his soul just passed away. He was an icon. The Pritzkers, the Crown family. You had huge old money families in commercial real estate in Chicago. Yeah. And I would watch, I would see it. I'm like, how do I become that person? And so I realized commercial real estate was the way through. So I'm up late at night, I'm reading Sharon's book. I read it once, read the next day. I said this is where I wanna be. And so I figured out, I did accounting right after college. My mom said, get a job. There's a recession going on. Just like kind of now And.
Ben Reinberg (10m 26s):
it was worse. And the best thing to do is to get a job. Well I had an accounting degree. I was studying for the CPA exam, which I am a cpa. And I realized Travis that if I don't get a job, I'll never be able to fund the initial stages to eventually go on my own. Yeah. So that was kind of the thought process. So then I was on an audit in New York with a billionaire and he looked at me, he's like, you're not much of an accountant. I'm like, what do you mean? Yeah, I was young. I've never been to New York. I'm in Manhattan. I've never really traveled. We didn't take family vacations. I'm in New York the first time and I'm in his office. It's got this gorgeous office, Florida glass, you know, Florida ceiling, glass windows, and looking out in Manhattan in really upscale place office.
Ben Reinberg (11m 11s):
And I'm a young guy. I'm in my suit. you know, I'm in my $300 suit with my tie. Yeah. And my shoes. And they're polished. And maybe I had a couple dress shirts that would weave in and out for 'em, you know, to look professional. And he just said to me and goes, you're more of an entrepreneur. And I said, really? And he said, yeah, that's probably where you're gonna be. And I kind of took it to heart and I got back and the accounting job wasn't working out. I wasn't really happy. So then after that I went into starting my own business and I bought my first deal. I had someone help me. And I bought an industrial deal in Chicago. I bought it for somewhere over like 2.8 million, 2.9 million.
Ben Reinberg (11m 52s):
It was a small deal. I raised a lot of money. Yeah. In a mayor of three weeks. I closed, I sat, I was buying the deal in front of two icons in Chicago that were big, huge residential home builders. Okay. That were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They were in their late fifties, sixties at the time. I was in my twenties. And remember sitting across the ca, the conference room, I would wear suit all the time to look professional. I was young, I had to play the part. And so I was sitting in their conference room and they probably had a conference room twice the size of this room. Yeah. With a huge table. And they're at one end and the secretary puts me in a certain place. And of course back then we used to have like China. So they'd bring out the China and you got tea, coffee, and maybe they feed you or give you a Dr.
Ben Reinberg (12m 36s):
Bowel water. They turned up the heat of course on purpose to get They're doing the power place. Yeah. They're doing the powerfully. I'm a young guy. Okay. They both walk in and they look at me and they put their hands on sale. They go, so Ben Reinberg, what makes you think that you can close on this property? I mean huge commercial real estate residential icons in Chicago and around the country. I said, I have a loan, I have a term sheet. Here it is like, oh, you can get a loan. I go, those are pretty good terms. You're gonna sign with recourse. I say, yeah, I have a choice. I said, okay, where are you getting the equity from? I said, well I have a high net worth of credit investors. I'm bringing in. How you doing? I'm almost done. Probably about 70%.
Ben Reinberg (13m 17s):
Great. What do you need? I need a credit on the purchase price. You come in here and you're asking us for a credit on the purchase price. Like that's a lot of nerve. As a young man, I said, well, let me show you what I found. I gave them all the quotes of a new roof. H V A C organized. Okay. Wrote it by hand. Okay. I don't remember using Excel at the time. I wrote by hand like, here are the quotes, here's the backup, this and that. They said, well Ben, what are you asking for? I need 82,000 to be able to cover all this. It wasn't the, your broker that listed did not have it disclosed. I don't have a choice in any credit. We were able to get the credit.
Ben Reinberg (13m 58s):
We closed. Nice. After we closed, they saw, we retained it, we sold it for a three x multiple. I bought it for Tucson. I sold it for six four. Really? I sold it myself. I went through what timeframe? It was three years. Three years. They called me and said, I saw that sale. What did you do? Cause I was young. It's hilarious. They wanna know. They're like, what's your secret? What'd you do? Said add value. How'd you add value? I walked 'em through the story and I said, kid, you're gonna be something in this business. I said, you're damn right. I said, this is just the start. And they said, we know. And so I still keep in touch with those guys, but they see me now and it's just amazing.
Ben Reinberg (14m 38s):
I mean, they're a lot older or retired. Yeah. Yeah. But just the, the gratitude I had for that experience. Sure. And I've been through a lot of these experience. I, I've dealt with people all over the country and the world that we bought and sold from. And my company now has taken off and, and we've done hundreds and hundreds of syndications and we're doing funds and we've built over 10 million square feet of office industrial in my career. So I look back, Travis and it's like a blur. Yeah. That, that young kid who is eight years old selling cigarettes in bars in Highwood, Illinois is now a different person. Yeah. And it's interesting cuz I see the younger people that work for me and I try to empower them of, you can be wildly successful with me If.
Ben Reinberg (15m 21s):
you do the right things. And so what drives me nuts about the younger generation or or people out there that is that I am living what you could live. I am the person that can show you that came from nothing. Work hard, keep grinding, keep focus, build relationships, build your expertise. And great things will happen. Persistence, consistency, developing your expertise. If, you look at the core value of my company, Alliance, it's transparency, integrity, consistency, and expertise. We didn't grab those words just out of the thin air. We did it because we said what creates success in our business. In most business it was those four kcs.
Ben Reinberg (16m 2s):
And so for me, what I see is that people are not consistent in their behaviors. you know? you know, like you go to the gym, I go to the gym, I work out with a trainer five days a week in California. I am consistent in my behavior. I have a morning routine. I get up, I meditate, I go, I'll work out, get in the office. It's a pattern that I have that keeps me consistent in order to provide white glove service for our investors. My staff does lead as best as possible as I can be able to have process to find deals. How do we raise equity now in the technology world? How is blockchain gonna come into our business? Cuz our industry is the forefront. We're the leader that's gonna get into blockchain.
Ben Reinberg (16m 44s):
So now I gotta understand what that means. Hmm. We're constantly evolving as an industry in commercial real estate cuz technology has become so relevant in our business work. It used to be, I'll send you a shiny book, go look at it, put in an offer, see what happens three or four weeks. You have no idea who you're bidding it. Now again, we could send PDFs, we sell deals, it's a lot quicker. We have some of the top brokers in the country that work for us that were here recently at I C S C, the conference the past few days. So what's great is I'm in the prime of my career right now. And so now with all the staff we have, we have 200 plus years of leadership team experience in my company.
Ben Reinberg (17m 24s):
And we're just rolling and we're excited about what's ahead.
Travis Chappell (17m 28s):
I'm curious as to what gave you the audacity to, as a 23 year old, have your first real estate deal. Be a 3 million building instead of a $50,000 single family home.
Ben Reinberg (17m 44s):
I would see the residential market in our areas. And I would look at it and I, I would say, okay, well if I buy a $50,000 house or a $75,000 house, is it gonna sell? Is the market good? The Chicago market kind of ebbs and flows. Wasn't really great. And I saw that and I'm like, it's just not interesting. The numbers aren't big enough. Hmm. you know, I, I was a, I'm a numbers guy and when I saw industrial and office in Chicago, I said, okay, well 3 million, maybe I could turn a profit of like 700,000. Yeah. you know, maybe more, maybe less. But I could start building six figures. Sure. I'll start with six figures, then go to seven and then eight and just keep going. And so, you know, back then, you know, a hundred thousand dollars was a tremendous amount of money.
Ben Reinberg (18m 28s):
I was gonna say 50,000 was the last That's,
Travis Chappell (18m 30s):
That's my point, dude. It's like you're an accountant, right? Like, it's not like you're rolling in the dough. No, I
Ben Reinberg (18m 34s):
Made just outta college.
Travis Chappell (18m 35s):
You
Ben Reinberg (18m 35s):
Know, my first salary was like $28,000, which was huge back in 1997. And have
Travis Chappell (18m 41s):
A little bit of debt from college or something like that to pay off.
Ben Reinberg (18m 43s):
No. That I had, I wanted to buy my first car. So I bought, I bought my first car too.
Travis Chappell (18m 48s):
So this is something that I, that I, that I would talk with people a lot about. Shifting your mindset from what you define as a lot of money. And every time I've redefined that, I feel like in my life, it's been followed by a period of extreme pressure and or growth. And I feel like you, you skipped like four steps. you know, like most people are like, I'm making $28,000 a year. My rent is $700. It's like, man, if I could just make $20,000 on a deal, you know, like my, what I make this year, if I can make 20, that's, that's kind of my point in saying like there was something about your mindset that was different from the start. Because like most people are thinking so small when they first get started.
Travis Chappell (19m 30s):
Like cuz they don't, they don't even think about the fact that there's, oh, there's economies of scale. When we, when we move from a $50,000 home to a 3 million apartment building, like, oh, the market can actually support that better. Oh, the increase in doors actually makes my income more guaranteed. It's actually less risky when you really think about it. Like most people are not thinking that at all. They're thinking like, what is the most plausible chance of success for me here? And that's why they just go stick to doing this one thing that they know. Whereas you from the beginning were just like, eh, 50 thousand's not enough. I need 700,000. Even though you were making 28,000 a year, where do you think that that came from? Was that some that, was that like born inside of you or did you see somebody that was doing something
Ben Reinberg (20m 12s):
Made you think, it's such a great comment question because no one's really asked me that. Like what changed? I, I think part of it was there was no social media. There's none of these thoughts pouring into my head. I'm an introvert in an extrovert position and I just realized that I was careful who I surrounded myself with at when I was younger. I was careful of who I went to ask for advice. you know, it wasn't like I can go do a mastermind or go on the internet and and call Chris Vass who was on my show and say, Hey can you help me with negotiation? Like yeah, there was none of that out there at the time. So it was basically Zig Zigler tapes, it was whatever it was. Even If you could find tapes. It was more like, you know, Conant Nightingale was in Chicago, so If you wanted to do self-improvement.
Ben Reinberg (20m 55s):
That was it. But it wasn't, it was kind of like strange to work on yourself. Yeah. And self-improvement. It wasn't really out there. And so I just learned, I said I have to ask people for advice and I still do that today. I'm very vulnerable and I learn in life and business If, you could be vulnerable. Your whole world will open up, Hey, I don't understand what a phase one environmental report is. I don't understand like, what's the process I have to go through with a lender? What's a purchase and sale agreement for a commercial piece of real estate? What are the nuances? How does insurance work? So every month and every year I had to get more polished on all these different topics and ask for advice. And that's why commercial real estate is a marathon business.
Ben Reinberg (21m 36s):
It's a lot of learning, a lot of training. But for me, I didn't have these outside influence. I was like, okay, well I don't wanna be my parents' path. I don't wanna be the path of a lot of the professionals I grew up with in my area. So I have to be different. The only way I'm gonna be different is jump in the water trying something I've never done. Get rid of the fear and do it. And it. That was the pressure. The pressure was I want change in my life. Hmm. I want to be different. And even Today I have that same, I'm still that same young kid with that burning desire. I want to get into different asset classes we didn into. I wanna grow, you know, look at my personal brand. I was on social media. This is literally next week will be my anniversary of not only my podcast, Ben, Reinberg, I, Own It.
Ben Reinberg (22m 21s):
But it'll also be when I got on social media. Wow. I mean now on social media, I think I have 110 hundred 11,000 followers on Instagram. Yeah. I mean, you know, this year has been Travis such a change for me because everyone's like, you gotta do a personal brand. Why do I have to a personal brad? Yeah. Because you gotta explain what you've done. Yeah. Or, and help people. You can help people with all your business knowledge. So I just realized, I said, you know what, if this will help people And, it feels good And, it helps my company and my leadership team and all the employees at Alliance, I'm willing to do that. And I wasn't sure it was gonna be beneficial. It's changed the dynamic. Yeah. Because people see me out there. It helps our company's social media campaign.
Ben Reinberg (23m 3s):
We're tying in reels, we're doing posting. We have a whole staff that works on it. And I'm grateful because I've been able to bring in additional resources from all the networking. Yeah. What I love about this that we're doing, there's no better networking event one-on-one, you can exchange information, you can get to know someone, you shake their hand, you're having a personal conversation. Yep. So for me, I love the podcast. I love using your company's services because now all of a sudden as my own podcast, then all of a sudden I hired Castio and you and I connect. And so now we have a relationship and guess what? You're getting me on different shows. I'm adding value, I'm promoting my company. Yep. And it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. And so now all of a sudden, and then I can take some of these guys and they come on on mine.
Ben Reinberg (23m 46s):
And I learned too, it's like we do share resources and knowledge and then all of a sudden people wanna learn more about how do I invest in commercial real estate. Exactly.
Travis Chappell (23m 54s):
At least
Ben Reinberg (23m 54s):
So I could help them. I could help them build. Well, yeah. So to me it's been a full circle. I really didn't understand when I got into this the impact it can create for me and my company and for people out there. And it's just been really incredible year that's been happening.
Travis Chappell (24m 8s):
So I, I really wanna dive into that piece because there's a lot of, I think people that are in the same boat that you were in a year ago, that they've, they've built successful companies. They have great investment portfolio where they have already done all these amazing things in their career and then this new, this personal branding idea comes up and it's like, well I don't need that. I don't want to do that. That doesn't make any sense. I'm doing what I do and this is what I do. I don't need all that other stuff. So I'm really, I I really wanna dive into that with you. But first I want to go back to kind of part two on the initial question of like, why were you so crazy when you were younger? The part two to that is how did you get other investors to give you money for that deal when you were an inexperienced 23 year old kid who had never done a deal before?
Ben Reinberg (24m 53s):
What I did was packaging. I learned how to package a deal cuz I figured out, I said, okay, I'm, I have a financial background, a cpa. If I could run the numbers and the return looks good and I can do my homework. So what I did was I spent weeks doing homework. I spent weeks of what are vacancy rates in this industrial market, which was Northbrook, Illinois. If we have an issue, why are we gonna be able to lease the property? What I realized there was an area called the Glen in Glenview, Illinois right next to the property. Okay. All these captains of industries were moving into this development. It was an old Navy base. They converted to retail, single family homes, multi-family office, community center.
Ben Reinberg (25m 36s):
It was like a whole city. Interesting. Developed. Hmm. And, it was right next to the property. And I said if we have our own issue, we could draw tenants from people that own businesses in this huge development going on. It was just massive And. it was a famous development. So I painted the picture and told the story to investors. So I would go and I'd start with one person. I would say, who else do you know? I was fearless. Yeah. And, it was all shoe leather. I would have my leather shoes and my suit on every day. And the tie and polished and and go in and that's, you know, getting a loan from my godfather. I had a local bank in Holland Park. And so once I had the loan I said, okay, I need like 20 to 30% equity in the deal.
Ben Reinberg (26m 16s):
How do I do that? Did 50,000 units, which was a ton of money for me at the time. Yeah. Asking for it. And I would go around around and someone would say, yeah, I'll do that deal. That's good yield, whatever this and that. They, they knew me. They knew I was honest. I was gonna say, were these
Travis Chappell (26m 32s):
People that you already had relationships with or
Ben Reinberg (26m 34s):
Not? Not a lot. Some I did, some I didn't. Okay. But I had a hustle. Yeah. I would say, who else do you So I'd get one guy maybe I didn't know he would bring in his friends. Yeah. And I would meet 'em. I would go in a conference room with them and talk to 'em. I would say I'd give 'em paper. There was no like PowerPoint at the time. So I would say, here's the deal, here are the numbers, here's the location, great location. Here's word X to the glen. So I explained the story, I explained the real estate fundamentals and the deal made sense. Yeah. It was a great deal. Yeah. At the time. And so how, how many
Travis Chappell (27m 7s):
People you think you talked to trying to raise
Ben Reinberg (27m 8s):
That? Oh my god, I must have talked to, I'm gonna guess probably anywhere from 50 to 75 people. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we had about 20 to 25 investors. That's the, and so I did a good job. I am, I am outstanding at raising equity.
Travis Chappell (27m 23s):
I was gonna say probably if I were gonna guess I would, I would probably guess that of the If. you talked to 75 and 25 invested that like 15 of those 25 were on the back half of the 75 you talked to. Exactly. Does that make sense? Like so I would assume that that's what happened. That's exactly
Ben Reinberg (27m 41s):
Happened. The
Travis Chappell (27m 41s):
Problem is that most people, they stop at person number six. Right. They, they go talk to the six people they know that have money. They all say no. And they go, well it's impossible I guess I just, I'm not cut out for this. you know,
Ben Reinberg (27m 52s):
I can go back. And I remember after like a few weeks I was like, maybe I'm not cut off this. And I remember my mom pulling me aside saying you could do whatever you wanna do. Keep going. She had a big influence. She had me, she made a couple comments. She gave me a poem. It was from CW Longnecker. Okay. And. it was, it was about the, it was about Victor is the name of the poem. If, you anyone looks, look it up out there And. it talks about the man who can, it's all in your mind. And so she gave me that poem. It was after two weeks and I remember she goes, you do whatever you want. And she cut it out. The Chicago Tribune And. it was, I kept it my wall for years. I kept getting yellow and yellower good away and I had to throw it away.
Ben Reinberg (28m 34s):
Yeah. And so she influenced me and I said, okay, well if she believes in me, why, why don't I believe in myself? So then I kind of got back at it a week later, brought my first investor another 2, 3, 5, kept stacking on the more confidence, got in that conference room with them. And long story short, we were able to close. And that was kind of what launched me in my confidence and learning. And, and then I stepped up my work ethic. I stepped up my belief, I stepped up my confidence and I just kept stacking and going and saying, but there's periods of my career where I go through it and I doubt myself. E even today, as successful as I've been, the mono deals, whatever, I have to sometimes takes a step back and you know, I'm a very humble person.
Ben Reinberg (29m 21s):
I don't tell people what I have. I don't need to show off. I learned that when I was a younger man. You don't have to. This is why I struggled with a personal brand. Yeah. Because that's not how I learn life. I'm not gonna tell people how successful I That's your actions should speak for your words. That's how I learn life from other
Travis Chappell (29m 39s):
People should tell people.
Ben Reinberg (29m 40s):
Right. They should be like Ben. Reinberg is wildly successful. Right. It shouldn't come from Ben Reinberg. Right. Let let them say it. you know, cuz I'm written up in a lot of magazines, articles, especially in commercial real estate. We have, I have a publicist and a whole PR department. But at the end of the day, that's how I learn life is you shouldn't have to talk about your successes. Hmm. Let your success follow you. Work on your integrity. How do you help people? That's who a man is to me. Is how am I gonna create impact to people and help people and develop knowledge. It's what I enjoy in the business. I mentor Travis a ton of people. Sure. And we're looking at potentially teaching it as well. Depending on my schedule, we're analyzing my time to figure out what I can do to help people.
Ben Reinberg (30m 22s):
So for me, with that deal that I did, I don't forget it. I don't forget the first deal. I don't forget that, you know, the back half of the 75 people were who got me there. I don't forget about the days where I go in my office on a Saturday and I'm buying a deal in Las Vegas. you know, we own property here. And I remember I had to raise 3.7 million and I remember sitting on my office floor, it was dark on the Saturday and one of my investors who's big investors is like, I don't like the, I don't like the structure. I said, why not? You've been investing with you for 15 years. Like I don't like it. You you're taking too much on the back end. I said, I've earned it. I said, I have other sponsors here in Chicago. They did the same thing.
Ben Reinberg (31m 2s):
You invest with them. Yeah. I don't know. He thought he can control me. I said fine. He says, I'm not coming in fine. No problem. I went back two days later, went to my office, raced 3.7 million in three hours and and, and that's who I am. Yeah. And I don't believe in the word. Can't you challenge me? I'm the wrong person to challenge. That's my mindset. And so I went and raised it. Him and his whole group of guys that invested me for years, they love it. And they do as a group. And he led the group and they're calling me saying We didn't get into that surgery center in Las Vegas. What happened? We sold out. What do you mean it's been two days? Yeah. Like we didn't even hear from him. We were wondering like, where's the deal?
Ben Reinberg (31m 43s):
It's a great deal. Yeah it is. Guess what that surgery center is one of the best tenants in the country in UnitedHealthcare. Ran Charleston Boulevard in Las Vegas. I've refined it a couple times. I've paid everyone their money back. I'm also the largest investor in that deal. On both sides at eight class A and B of the llc. We have no equity in the deal. Just debt and we're cash flowing and that property will never go away And. it just cash flows. Yeah. And so that's what I do. I love challenges. I love when people say you can't do something really. Let's figure it out. I'm always on the cutting edge of technology. We were one of the first companies to create investor portal. I was doing green ledger paper and stamps and checks to send to our investors for years.
Ben Reinberg (32m 26s):
We would get calls Travis from our investors saying, did you ever send me that check? Yeah. I sent you that check. It should be, it was in your mailbox and envelope. Oh I might, I might have thrown it out or I might. Okay, we'll send you a new one. So for years we're trying to figure out like how do we avoid that? I would have a whole staff to deal with checks. That's how crazy it was. Yeah. And then I realized, I said, you know what, let's use technology. So I had a friend of mine from Charlotte create a company's like, I want you to be a partner. I want you to be a beta test person. And it. We did it. And we're with first guys in And. it was wildly successful. We had to acclimate the older guys how to deal with technology. Sure. And it time for me, I had to get acclimated as well. So we get acclimated with the technology.
Ben Reinberg (33m 8s):
It rolls out now. Now a lot of people use portals and we've been doing it for years. And. It's been wildly successful.So
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Travis Chappell (36m 3s):
Well it seems like that's probably something that fueled the whole personal brand idea in terms of like If, you are just somebody that likes the challenge because it's a challenge. It's challenge and a half, you know? Yeah. Because like, cuz I find it interesting because especially with people like you who are used to winning at things just like you accomplish, you accomplish, you win, you win. You're,
Ben Reinberg (36m 25s):
You're,
Travis Chappell (36m 26s):
You just kinda like, here what's the formula? Let me do it. We'll figure it out. you know, but then the personal brand thing comes along And. It's like, well, podcasting and content and like, it's almost essentially building a MiniMed company that's a different ballgame than, than even like raising equity or some of these other, you know, it, it's a brand new skillset to learn And. it can sometimes be frustrating for people who are used to just like, conquering everything that they touch. Because this is the one is like, man, this takes a little bit of time. you know, I wanna, I want to destroy this like right now. you know what I mean? It's, it's like test your patience a little bit. Sometimes
Ben Reinberg (36m 59s):
It does, it, it tests your patience. But again, it goes back to those principles of persistence and consistency and, and showing up and, and working hard. And, and what I love about challenges is I love failure because I love the comebacks or I love rising above the failure and say, okay, well that didn't work. Yeah. So out so well how do we learn from? Or I don't like the way I handle that situation. How do I learn from it? So I think as you age, your awareness grows. Hmm. And you start realizing like, how did I show up in that podcast? How did I show up in that conversation? What I love about my podcast is my first episodes I was so raw, I was nervous and I was thinking to myself like, why would I be nervous?
Ben Reinberg (37m 41s):
Yeah. you know, I have experience. I understand business. I've been successful, but I was still nervous. I was like a kid. Five in, I got better, 10 in I get better. I I, we've probably done a hundred episodes.
Travis Chappell (37m 54s):
That piece right there that you just said I think is so huge is that you put yourself in a position to be uncomfortable and nervous doing something brand new in your fifties on social media when you already have raised hundreds of millions of dollars and been wildly successful in this other field. Like, you did not have to put yourself in a position that would make you nervous or uncomfortable. You could just keep being in the position where you're always confident and the expert in the room, but instead you like, I think that's just a con that's a sign of people that, that I like to work with is people who are constantly putting themselves back in the chair of like, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm really excited to figure it out, out And.
Travis Chappell (38m 35s):
It's gonna probably suck for a little bit. I'm wanna be nervous and it's not gonna be good. The content might not be like that great, but at the end of the day, I wanna do this. So catch me in like two years, three years, four years, five years from now and see, see where we're at at that point because it's gonna be somewhere way better than we are now. That's
Ben Reinberg (38m 52s):
So well said. Cuz the truth, one thing I've learned is that you have to keep growing as a person. And I realize there's gonna be times it's not comfortable. I do a lot of personal development I've been doing for five years and it's evolved. We did something wild in my company last week. We brought our whole leadership team into Newport Beach where my west coast office. That's why I said my headquarters are in Chicago. We have offices around the country. Okay. So we bring everyone in, put 'em up, great experience. We give 'em this cool swag bag with garb and and Ben's favorite candies. It was all about teaching 'em more about me. Okay. you know, Ben's favorite water bottle, Ben's favorite workout clothes, you know, like everything was, it was cool and we tagged it, but we brought in a famous human behaviorist.
Ben Reinberg (39m 37s):
So she comes in and everyone does what's called the playbook. So If, you came in and you were on my leadership team. I would look at what does Travis want out of life? What's important to him? Maybe it's family, maybe it's spending time with friends. Maybe it's building his personal brand. Maybe he likes to go hiking. I'm gonna know everything about Travis so I could take Alliance the company and align myself with him. Hmm. So he is more loyal, he's more vest in what we're doing. He knows he's being supported. His lifestyle is mirroring what the company is doing. Yeah. And that's what we do for people. It's different. It was uncomfortable because think about, I had to tell everyone and, and I did a video and I did this extensive letter I wrote.
Ben Reinberg (40m 20s):
I had to tell everyone, we're getting into personal development. We're taking your personal life and business life and we're gonna know everything. That was a challenge. Yeah. I got everyone to buy in. She came in, everyone loved it. It was glowing. And the people that would not end up in the company, they'll end up fading out. It starts weeding out. Yeah. The, the people are on high performers. If you're gonna work at my company Alliance, there's one common theme. You have to have a great work ethic cuz it, it's basically my blood and knowledge is oozing into the company. So what does that mean? Persistence, work ethic. My core values If. you don't rise to that level and become a high performer.
Ben Reinberg (41m 1s):
My company just kind of pushes you out like any other company. Yeah. And, it's people end up firing themselves, which is an interesting concept I've learned in our company and business. And why is that? It's because people are not grateful for opportunities. One thing I learned Travis to go back to when we were talking about when I was a kid and 23 and starting was I was always grateful for everything I earned stolen. I never forgot the last penny. I've earned anyone that invests in Alliance in our funds and especially our new Alliance medical property fund. One of the core values my company is we ever forget that how hard that person worked.
Ben Reinberg (41m 41s):
Every penny that they invest with us, every penny, we shouldn't be in the business. You can't be a good fiduciary of capital in commercial real estate or any investment company that you do If. you don't have gratitude for the people that now I help you get there. Your resources, your employees, all the investors and every penny they fought. you know, and I look at that stuff and when you have that mindset, everything else carries through. You attract money, you attract resources, you attract relationships like this. It's a simple concept. My father, my grandfather was graced. Like treat onto others how you would like to be treated and If, you do that and you give. So when people say, well Ben, what's the best way to network?
Ben Reinberg (42m 23s):
the best way to network is I give referrals. No strings attached. I don't want anything in return. And guess what? Yeah. I get like tenfold from that. Yeah. People give me resources, you know, Travis says, Hey, you should meet this person And. it would be good to connect with them. This guy would be good on your podcast. You can network. Yeah. I don't have to ask for it. you know why? Because my heart is, I want to help people. And when I do that, good things just follow. Yeah. And you'll run to bad people in your life Of course. And you're gonna have failures, but you know what? You'll gravitate and you'll attract the people that should come into your life. It's that long-term thinking. Right. And what I've learned, I could help your Listeners out there in business, in life, is that you're gonna run into challenges.
Ben Reinberg (43m 6s):
And anytime you have a challenge, you have a supporter, same time someone supporting you. And if you know that going in, you can deal with situations. So what I teach people and say, look, you're gonna have challenges. What those challenges are to you is their life lessons that are going on of what you don't want or how to deal with a situation or how not to deal with a situation. So when someone comes into your world, your universe and they challenge you or you might not like what they say or the criticism. See I love criticism cuz criticism me is growth. So when employee says to me like, I didn't like the way you handle that. Okay, tell me why. Why didn't you?
Ben Reinberg (43m 46s):
Great, thank you. Thank you for the criticism. Thank you for the knowledge. I'll work on that. Prove great. Yeah. I learned people struggle because they look at criticism, they look at challenges and they say, God, that guy was a real asshole. Yeah. Or that woman was such a bitch to me. Like instead of saying what was the truth behind that incident? Sure. What was the truth behind the interaction that I could learn from and grow from? Yeah. So If, you change your mindset, which is so big, it's huge. And I do that with my kids. We talk about mindset. you know, one of our neighbors is a guy named Jim Madrid. He was on my show and he talks about mindset and he just spoke to my daughter's lacrosse team. And it's, it's no different. It's like, how are you gonna show up?
Ben Reinberg (44m 26s):
Are you gonna wake up happy? Are you gonna wake up in fear or sad? And things happen to all of us. you know, we wake up and we might not have a good night's sleep, or one of our kids is going through a challenge or our significant other didn't, you know, we didn't connect with 'em a certain way. We had an argument, whatever you could let everything in your world affect you. But then the day, what I've learned in life, it's all an illusion. It really is. We live in an illusion. It's basically how am I gonna show up every day? What's gonna be my mindset? And so when I was younger, I was 23, I had nothing to lose. So now that I'm older, yeah I have things to lose. But I also realize that what's my fear?
Ben Reinberg (45m 7s):
My fear comes from my mind. Everything's gonna be okay. Yeah. you know, my father taught me this shall pass. So when I would go through challenges when I was younger, especially in business, it would affect me emotionally. I would be 30 years old, get pounded on in a deal or something didn't work out or, or maybe the investment wasn't as good as I thought would be or my negotiation didn't go well. And I realized this shall pass. And If you always have that this shall pass, you'll keep going. Life will be okay. And to get back to your point is people give up early, they see the challenges, they see the fear. They have this little voice talking to 'em. They have the worst cases. You have this white noise of your family and friends that are jealous.
Ben Reinberg (45m 51s):
Travis, you can't do this incredible podcast. You're not good enough, If, you don't have the knowledge, you don't have the experience. you know what, that happens because they don't want to do it. They don't have the drive. You have, they don't have the passion. They don't have that love of, Hey, I wanna do this as something I'm interested in because they might have failed at somewhat thing or they didn't take the chance or have the guts to do what you do. And I've just learned in life is that that's what it's about. And the thing that I love is people criticize you. Like, so for me, I was criticized for the personal brand and the podcast, why are you doing this? I had investors questioning. But now after all the criticism and we're almost a year in, everyone's applauding.
Ben Reinberg (46m 33s):
Yes. That's how it goes. They, they criticize you, criticize you and criticize you until they prove them wrong. And then, and then you start having success with it. And you look at the followers and you look at what you're doing and then I'm on your show and, and we're rolling. And next, you know, people are like, oh my god. Yeah, great job. How did you, how did you do that? Right. Right. I'm thinking about starting Instagram. Right? Yeah. So they, they don't, most people don't see that you have a vision, you execute, you carry it out. You gotta be consistent and persistent. You gotta keep going. And it's life's lessons. And life is not easy. And people give up. They stop short. And if I can give anyone out there that listens to your show is don't believe in the word can't.
Ben Reinberg (47m 16s):
I don't believe in the words with contractions. Shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't, can't. Because what you're saying to yourself is you're not good enough. Well, wait a minute. Look at all these successful people in the world. World. Do you think they're different than you? We all bleed. Right? Right. We all breathe. We all have hearts. We all have minds. But they were willing to control their mind in order to get to where they're going. And that's, that's to me, when I was younger, I didn't really understand that concept. So what I tell people is work on yourself. Work on your inner game, become the best version of yourself. Cuz then you will show everyone on the outside what you can do and you'll gra, people will gravitate to you, you'll attract money.
Ben Reinberg (47m 58s):
And it's the real key to success. you know, for years Travis, I was looking at being happy. I couldn't find it. I thought money was the answer. Doing deals, having a nice car, having a gorgeous home in Highland Park, having three kids and raising 'em, I thought that's what success was. I thought that's what was gonna create happiness. It's not, I had to realize that internally, if I'm happy, my whole environment will change instead of, I kept searching and searching for happiness and my environment wouldn't change. Hmm. And the song pulled me aside and said, you have it all wrong. I said, what do you mean? He goes, I see you're successful. Are you really happy? I said, no.
Ben Reinberg (48m 38s):
He goes, well If, you would create happiness for yourself and be happy and love yourself. Whole environment will change. So I took a step back years ago and I, I listened to him. I was like, he's absolutely right. And that's when I changed. And once I made that change, business started taking off more, became more enjoyable. I, I was happier traveling, going to the office. I was better communicator with my staff And. it was all on me. I had to reflect and say the hard truth that happens is internal, not external. Yeah. Who's the real Ben? Reinberg. Yeah. And that's why we named my Instagram handle the real Ben Reinberg because I had to figure out who is that person?
Ben Reinberg (49m 18s):
Cuz I didn't know him for a while. I was living this life of like this successful commercial real estate mogul. Right. Who didn't know who he was as a person. Your achievements became Ben. Reinberg, that's it. And you lost touch with who you really were. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know who I wanted to be. I didn't even know like how am I gonna connect with people anymore. Hmm. And so, and then as I saw our employees were getting younger and the different generations and I wasn't the young guy. I was always the young guy in the business. Now I'm not that guy. So I transformed say, well how do I communicate with millennials? How do I communicate with people above a millennial? you know, how do I communicate with Gen X's that are my age or even younger?
Ben Reinberg (49m 60s):
And then how do I deal with even the older generation with technology blooming? Yeah. So I had to like go back and retool the way I look at things, the way I communicate, the way I handle myself, balance my emotions. And so that's when I learned significantly I have to keep growing. It doesn't matter, I'm 53 when I'm 60 cuz I'm not retiring anytime soon. I love what I do. So for me it's to offer anyone out there is that continue to grow. Be it, you know, a lot of people Travis have trouble doing a self-assessment on them saying, I that didn't go so well Ben, you didn't handle that well If you could say that.
Ben Reinberg (50m 40s):
Okay, it doesn't matter how successful you are, it doesn't matter what you've done in life. If, you can look at yourself in the mirror and give you an honest assessment and be honest with yourself. Really honest with yourself. That's what life is about. Because then that you could learn how to grow and fix yourself. And people won't do that.
Travis Chappell (50m 59s):
It's the only option. Yeah. That's the, that's the thing that drives me crazy with it. It's, and, and I know that all of us could probably do a better job at doing it, but it's something that I pride myself on in most scenarios is picking, like taking away things that I did poorly even. And especially when my ego is involved. And I don't wanna admit that I handled it poorly. you know like when you're in a situation tempers flare and things get heated and then you just kind of respond and you're like recapping and reflecting later and then you start like poking holes in your own argument and going like, ah, maybe I was kind of an asshole there. And it's like it doesn't feel good at all to admit those things to yourself. But to your point earlier, it's the only way forward.
Travis Chappell (51m 40s):
If. You can't admit that you're ever wrong. Then there's no room for you to grow. And this version of you right now is the best version of you that will ever exist. And I refuse to believe that I am currently the best version of me to exist. you know what I'm saying? Like that doesn't make any sense. So the only option is to be open to the fact that you're probably wrong on some things still. There's probably some things that you can learn. There's probably some things that you could potentially change or optimize or grow into. Like that will help you and everybody else around you live a better version of your one chance at life.
Ben Reinberg (52m 14s):
And you know what ends up happening by what I call being vulnerable. What ends up happening is that you start meeting people that you can be vulnerable with and they'll be vulnerable with you. And you can build authentic relationships. but you know, like, like for me, my deal breakers are respect, being consistent, keeping your word, being honest. These are all deal breakers for me. So what, so I had to learn that like what are my deal breakers? What are my standards? Like
Travis Chappell (52m 40s):
Baseline shared
Ben Reinberg (52m 41s):
Values? Yeah. My values because I have trouble gravitating with people that don't have my values. Or if I'm putting a situation that jeopardize that, it makes me resist. And I don't wanna resist in life. I wanna attract and I wanna help people. So I have to, I have to figure out who do I surround myself with that provides that the value. Cuz that's what makes me happy. That's what shines, that's what allows me to be great in business. Where I struggle is when people resist with me, I have trouble connecting with them. And I realize that like why am I struggling to communicate with this person or this employee or what, what's the challenge? Well the challenge is our values don't align. And so I'm having trouble bringing them in the world, being vulnerable, showing them the knowledge and experience I can offer to them.
Ben Reinberg (53m 28s):
And so I see that a lot. I see sometimes with employees relationships. And so for me, for everyone out there is figure out your standards. Figure out like where you wanna live your life and, and stick to 'em. I think a lot of us lie to ourselves and we, we go beyond what we're comfortable with or our standards. And then all of a sudden, like we have failures that create for or bad relationships or we don't establish the boundaries that we should have in life. And I've learned that If, you don't do that. Establish boundaries and are consistent with us. It causes chaos. And chaos causes stress helps you where your balance are not emotion. People gain weight from it. They're unhealthy, high blood pressure.
Ben Reinberg (54m 9s):
you know, your mind and body are connected and people don't realize that. And If you realize that. You realize, okay, well I am responsible for the people that bring my life. And. it goes back to my podcast, I, Own, It. It's Owning Every, Aspect of Your, Life and negative emotions. Travis are created from the responsibilities that we avoid. And someone taught me that a long time ago. Cause I said, well why am I upset by this? Well because If, you would've handled this this way or had an open conversation with this employee. Yeah. You wouldn't be so bitter towards him. Took a step back and I'm like, man, they're right. They're right again. So If, you could seek the truth in what people are telling you.
Ben Reinberg (54m 50s):
Your whole world changes. Now I might not agree with you on a topic or we might talk commercial real estate or whatever might be the case. But the end of the day, if I understand your truth and what you're really saying and I listen intently, it opens a door for growth for me. And a lot of people do that. I think a lot of people struggle at listening and understanding like what listening really means. And I always like to look intently and, and if I don't understand something, I'm like, what'd you mean by that statement? Educate me. Cause I wanna learn. So I have this openness to learn and to grow and be vulnerable. And to me that is such a key ingredient to create success in your life personally and professionally.
Ben Reinberg (55m 31s):
Because like you said, we don't know everything. We have to continue to learn And. it doesn't matter how many deals I've done, it doesn't matter the resources I have, the staff, I have the experience. I am continuing to learn. Technology is moving rapidly. It's hard to know everything. There's different, my daughter taught me a new saying that's out there, I don't even remember what she said, fudge. I'm like, should I use this word now, honey? She's like, or oh here she used the word hall. you know the word h a u l? Yeah. Like yeah, I got a hall today. Yeah, yeah. Like cuz she went shopping or something. Or she went to buy like bakery goods and she like, I got a haul. And I go, are you talking about, and she started using the word, I'm like, is that like a new word at dad used?
Ben Reinberg (56m 11s):
Like you're moving across town. Right? Right. I'm like, whatcha talking about? And so I keep learning these new words that everyone uses, you know, like, so the kids use, and so then I start using it and they're like, oh, dad's cool. But but that's part of the maturation process. Being open to growth. Yeah. And learning. And the world is moving quickly. And so that's just like an offer.
Travis Chappell (56m 33s):
Especially when it comes to learning from those coming up behind you. I think a lot of people have trouble learning from people that are younger than they are, maybe less experienced than they have or you know, something like that. It's just, there's like an immediate, you know, like pushing away of anything that's coming up behind you because, because you don't want to admit that it might be helpful. That's right. you know,
Ben Reinberg (56m 56s):
He's, that's right.
Travis Chappell (56m 57s):
You know, like, well I've been doing this for, you know, 15 years and I think that blah blah blah And. It's like, well if so-and-so's only been doing it for four years, but whatever they're doing is working, I wanna know that if they've been doing it for six months, if it's working, I want to know what's working. you know? And people get people Yeah. They, the ego, you know, kills more dreams than, than just
Ben Reinberg (57m 17s):
Anything else. True. you know what's interesting about that statement is we brought in a kid in our investor relations department and he was an expert at Facebook marketing. Okay. And I said, we're missing this in my company. And we started doing it. Now it's wildly successful. He was only in the business for a little over a year. I could have took approach like, this kid doesn't know what he is talking about. He's never raised equity. Instead I took the approach of how's he doing it for his other company? Sure. What was successful about it? What'd he do? So we brought him in, I op I opened up the kimono and I said, we'll spend whatever you want. I'll do the reels. I'll do all, I'll go on a Sunday, we'll bring our videographer. I'll stand outside Newport Beach, we'll do a bunch of reels.
Ben Reinberg (57m 58s):
We'll roll, yeah, we'll do ads and VSLs and we'll try this whole new program. And it's working. It was because I opened my mind to him. I hired him and I said, show me what we need to do. Teach everyone and we'll do it. Well guess what? He's empowered. He feels great. The program's working. He's making a lot of money. He's a young guy. But what that, what stemmed from that, the lesson learned, is you never know who you meet. You never know the lessons in life. Open your mind. Yeah. Open that filter to say, you know what? I don't know everything And it just like you said, if you're humble and you could do that, you can grow significantly and bring in great resources.
Ben Reinberg (58m 38s):
So
Travis Chappell (58m 38s):
What would you say to somebody who's out there maybe listening to this who's been, you know, just scared or making excuses about putting out content online? Maybe they've been, they've been doing something for any period of length of time. They've built a successful business, or they have a successful brand. Or they, they're good at what they do. They have an expertise and people keep telling 'em they need to do what you've been doing for the last year and they keep putting it off. What would be your advice to them?
Ben Reinberg (59m 4s):
I would say, just do it. Pull the trigger. Don't be fearful because you know what, no one really cares. No one remembers a, a reel that maybe you're not prob someone might love it. You don't know. Your viewpoint might be completely different than someone else's viewpoint. And I'll be honest with you, this whole world has amnesia. It's like the commercial real estate brokers in our business. Like, they forget you did five deals with them three months ago. People have amnesia. They don't, I, I don't remember what I had for dinner last night. So my advice to everyone out there is don't worry what other people think because they won't remember. And they don't care. They're, they're
Travis Chappell (59m 43s):
Worried about what you think about them.
Ben Reinberg (59m 44s):
Right. They're worried about what you think about them. And, and then also is they don't care about you. They care about themselves. They're so worried about themselves. So it goes back to working on your inner game. If. you can work on your inner game and know that hey, no one cares about me except for myself. And that's your viewpoint. And no one's watching me except for yourself. So you're accountable to yourself. So If, you wanna do something, do it. Don't worry about being criticized cuz if someone criticized you take it as growth. Learn from it. Believe me, we put out content that I look at not great. Sometimes it's great. We put out Podcasts or clips from my podcast.
Ben Reinberg (1h 0m 24s):
I'm like, I don't really like that clip, but they, it's rolling and I'm dealing with it. Yeah. So life's not perfect, but If, you don't take action and try. You'll never know. The biggest word is try. What's the worst case? If. you don't try something in life. Yeah. you know, I look at the word regret and Tim Grover is from Chicago and he's a big guy in this space now. And He says, wait till you see the bill for regret. And he's right. When, he says that it's true. If, you don't try and You don't take an attempt. You'll look back and you get older and you're like, why didn't I try that? What was I afraid of? Like, what's the worst could happen? The people
Travis Chappell (1h 1m 0s):
That I was afraid of their opinions of me. I haven't talked to them in 13 years. Right.
Ben Reinberg (1h 1m 5s):
You
Travis Chappell (1h 1m 5s):
Know, like why was I so afraid of what they thought back then?
Ben Reinberg (1h 1m 8s):
That was exactly right. So I was younger and you went back. Well why did you, why were you able to do that? It was because my mindset was what's the worst case that would happen? Yeah. It's just like anything I do now. Like I make decisions and we do stuff at Alliance work. It doesn't work. And we spent money or an employee didn't work out. We've had employees even recently we've hired and they don't work out. Oh, it's life, you learn. But people are so afraid of failure. They're so afraid of, oh man, Travis, you really screwed up. They're so afraid of the comments from other people's thoughts. Instead of looking at it saying, well wait a minute. I grew from that. I learned something from it. There was value created from all these lessons.
Ben Reinberg (1h 1m 51s):
Everyone forgets. Failure is a wonderful thing. Why? Because it provides you lessons and growth to say, how do I get better next time? How do I bring in better resources? It's like a fire under you that will say, okay, now I gotta step into this and increase my productivity or my work ethic or my communication has to get better, what went wrong. And If, you can become more self-aware of yourself. That will create great success in your career. So for all those entrepreneurs that are listening and all those businessmen and women that wanna understand how to get ahead in life is manage your emotions. Keep pulling the trigger, keep pushing forward. People use the word fail forward. And what that means is once you fail, keep going.
Ben Reinberg (1h 2m 32s):
Yeah, keep going. It's so hard for people because people look at things and they get so emotional and they're like, I'm not good enough. Everyone beats themselves up and self-loving themselves. Yeah. And if we would teach this in school of how to deal with our inner game and our mind. Yeah. People would be, we'd have a better society, especially in the United States. Instead, we posturized failures, we shine on celebrities when they're failing. We don't, when does every day, one of the things I do is I look at my wins. So if I look back at the end of the day, one of my wins is I get to hang out with Travis. I was on his podcast, I get to eat a meal in Las Vegas.
Ben Reinberg (1h 3m 14s):
I get to spend a day out my office in 95 degree weather. It's 60 degrees in Newport Beach today. I get to enjoy warm weather. It's great. There's so many winds that happen during the day. I woke up, you know, maybe I got to work out today. Yeah. Right. So why aren't we celebrating our winds instead of everyone is focused on emotionally, what did I do wrong? What'd you do? Right. Why don't you reward yourself? So I do that too. One of the things I do for myself is I'll reward myself if I go through a week and I have a lot of wins. I'm like, good job Ben. Yeah. I might say that to myself. Good job. It's not an egotistical thing. It's more about like, I'm proud of myself for the
Travis Chappell (1h 3m 55s):
Wins. Well you have to have a good relationship with you in order to do all the things that you do and to have a good relationship with all the other people in your life. you know what I mean? So if you're not, it's wild. It was, it was wild to me when somebody put it to me this way when they were like you, I forget who it was. If it was a book or audio or something that I listened to in the last decade or whatever. But somebody said, if anybody else talked to you the way that you talked to you, you would punch 'em in the face. Right. Like you would cut them out of your life completely. But for some reason we're, we allow ourselves to just like beat ourselves up and talk shit to ourselves about all the ways that we fail and how we suck. And you're no good and you are just a failure.
Travis Chappell (1h 4m 36s):
You have no discipline and, and you're just a piece of shit. And you're just lazy. And you, like, you allow yourself to speak to yourself in ways that you would never allow any other human being on the planet to speak to you. And then you feel weird when you go to compliment yourself. You have a good week and you say Good job. And it's like, ah, that, that feels like a, you know, like you said, like you even had to caveat. It's not an ego thing. Like of course it's, it's not of course like you have to have a good relationship with you. There's a huge line between having good relationship with yourself and being egotistical and narcissistic. you know what I mean? And so I think, I think, I think people allow themselves just to beat themselves up all the time and never give themselves any credit for anything. And then you're again, limiting yourself to lesser life.
Travis Chappell (1h 5m 19s):
Simply because You don't believe that you deserve a better life.
Ben Reinberg (1h 5m 23s):
Here's something that everyone can do out there. Give them some advice. Look in the mirror. Look in the mirror in the morning and see If you like the person you're looking in the mirror. I did that in numerous times. There's been times where I, I did not like what I was looking at in the mirror. Yeah. That's when you have to change If. you can change, you can grow and become the person you wanna become. Whether it's business, professional relationships, it doesn't matter. It's when you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, give yourself an honest assessment. How do you feel about yourself? How do you feel about your work ethic? How do you, cuz people complain and they're constantly, you know, keeping up with the Joneses and measuring, you know, I have people that constantly measure themselves to me.
Ben Reinberg (1h 6m 9s):
And I said, don't measure yourself to me. Measure yourself to yourself. Figure out who you wanna become. You're a different person. We all have different DNAs. We all have different reasons why we're here. Figure that out. Figure who you are. Don't, I'm not your relevant measuring stick. You're your measuring stick for yourself. And so I always say to people, look in the mirror. See if you're happy. That's where the inner game comes into play. And that's what I had to realize. I had to realize, I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I don't like what I'm looking at. Hmm. I don't like the way you're dealing with things. I don't like the way you're treating people. I don't like who you are. And I took a step back and I said, I'm gonna change. And I changed and I worked on it.
Ben Reinberg (1h 6m 49s):
I continue to work on it. So for me, I just think if people can give themselves an honest assessment Yeah. Of themselves, they'll see their world change. And people don't wanna do that. People get lazy and they say, Travis, you know what, I'm happy where I am. I'm happy in my life. I'm happy working nine to five. I'm happy getting a paycheck. I'm, I was never that guy. Yeah. I'm never satisfied. I always want to keep growing. And that's what differentiates me from most people.
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 18s):
Yeah. I love that man. I, I Paul add one thing to, for me, something that was helpful for me to always test whether or not I felt like I had a good relationship with myself, in addition to looking in the mirror is, can you spend an hour, just an hour, not a long time, an hour by yourself, with yourself. No drugs, drinking, no music, no Podcasts, no audio, no books, no media consumption of any kind. You with yourself on a hike, driving in the car, going for a walk. Can you spend an hour just you with you? And I think for a lot of people, the answer is no. It, I, I used to not be that way. you know, now I spend like, I'll, I'll drive to San Diego from Vegas for five, six hours without listening to anything.
Travis Chappell (1h 7m 59s):
Just thinking, spending time with me, trying to craft a vision for my future and reconnect with who I am and what I'm learning and all that kind of stuff. And, it's like a normal practice for me now. But at, you know, If, you had told me a decade ago to try to do that would, would've, would, would've laughed. Like, what are you crazy? Like that seems like a perfect opportunity to mess around with a friend of mine or like, you know, listen to a, a podcast I've been wanting to listen to for a while or do a Netflix marathon or whatever. Like I, there, there's so many other things that I wanted to distract my mind with. Ultimately distracting me from the fact that I wasn't okay with the version of who I was. And If, you can't spend a prolonged period of time you with yourself then there's probably something that you are subconsciously or consciously disliking about you or the way that you're showing up in the world, the relationships that you have in some regard.
Travis Chappell (1h 8m 50s):
And something needs to be, needs to be addressed there.
Ben Reinberg (1h 8m 53s):
It's, it's perfect because it's why I started a morning and evening routine. Because everyone says you're running so fast, when are you gonna stop? So someone asked, show me how to slow down. When I had to slow down. That's when I got into meditation. That's why I got into my morning routine, my evening routine. I got into journaling. I started learning like how do I slow down? Cuz when I slow down I can speed up a lot of other things in my life. Absolutely. And, and I realized that. And I said, okay, well what do I have to do to slow down? So someone taught me how to meditate. I had a mentor. I brought in a ton of money spent with him and he showed me, he said, this is what we're gonna do.
Ben Reinberg (1h 9m 35s):
He goes, we're gonna journal. We're gonna meditate. This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna live in a state of abundance and love. Not in fear. He goes every moment, this is how you're gonna live and that's what's gonna create peace and happiness in your life. And I said, okay. And your whole environment will change. So we started doing that and I do it every day. I meditate, I'll do a little yoga in the morning and then stretch loose, loosen up, go work out depending my schedule. Or if I'm in town with my trainer and then I go and, and at night I'll journal it, I'll do meditation. It allows me to take a step back and slow down my life. And I encourage everyone out there is find what your routine is.
Ben Reinberg (1h 10m 17s):
Some people write out gratitude. Some people write out their intention for the day, which is a good exercise. If, you want a good exercise. Write out a piece of paper when you wake up what your intention is for the day. And then get into gratitude and write out what are you grateful for. So I'm grateful to be on your show and see you. I'm grateful that, you know, I had a great day this morning. I woke up, was able to talk to my staff. They're having a good day. I know they have my back behind me. Whether whatever office around the country, I'm coming here, I'm doing a bunch of Podcasts, I get to fly back home to Orange County and see the ocean. Yeah. And the beaches and wake up and see palm trees. It's unbelievable What a life.
Ben Reinberg (1h 10m 59s):
Grateful for it. But when I write it out, it becomes even more absolutely amazing cuz it's like, okay, this is real. So I write down people I'm grateful for. I I do some of that. And so there's different things you can do to help yourself become who you wanna be. And these are all the lessons I've learned. I didn't know this when I was in my twenties. I didn't know my thirties. As I aged, I started opening my mind to say, well how do I get better as a person? And that's what kind of happened in my development. And I do it now religiously every day because it helps me stay grounded. you know, I, I don't like talking about my successes. What I like doing is hearing other people's successes.
Ben Reinberg (1h 11m 41s):
I'm more interested in someone's than I don't need to be interesting If, you wanna read about me? Go on my website, follow my podcast, go on my social media, read the articles written about me. That's fine. But I don't need to tell you, I want to hear about you because when I hear about you, I can open the door for me to grow as a selfish part of me saying, well whatever knowledge you're gonna offer, I'm gonna grow from and learn. Yeah. And that's the selfish part of me. but you know what, that's the way I give back too because I'm listening to your story. Yes, exactly. And I'm interested. I wanna know about people, I wanna know how I can help them. you know, cuz I, I've had experiences and I know subconsciously and naturally they will help me.
Travis Chappell (1h 12m 22s):
Ben has been an awesome conversation, man. I know you got like two or three other shows to get out to today, so I won't take away all your energy at the real Ben Reinberg over on Instagram If. you guys have not been following Ben. Got a good sampling of stuff that he talks about here today on the show. So go give him a follow over on Instagram, check out his podcast, I Own It, right with Ben Reinberg anywhere you listen to Podcasts Ben, thanks for coming to the show, man. Thanks. Appreciate you for coming out.
Ben Reinberg (1h 12m 47s):
What a pleasure. Appreciate you having me.
Travis Chappell (1h 12m 50s):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks for spending some time with me and my friends, If, you want to be better friends with me. Then head over to Travis Chappell dot com slash team to subscribe to my free newsletter, your friend Travis, where I share what's on my mind about life building a business, raising kids, being married in anything else I would normally share with my close circle of friends. That's Travis Chappell dot com slash team. And my biggest ask of you, since I'm sharing my friends with you, is to share this episode with a friend of yours that hasn't listened to the show yet. And leave us a quick five star rating in Apple Podcasts and in Spotify it would mean the world to us as it helps us make sure that this show continues to be more valuable to you. Thanks in advance and I'll catch you on the next episode.