Connecting People Businesses and Ideas

John Harcar (00:01.486)
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, John Hardcar, and we’re here today with Russ Labrasca Jr. And what we’re going to talk to you about today is connecting people, businesses, and ideas. Guys, remember, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, really all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X your business. And that’s by providing tools and resources to build that business you always wanted to build and live that life you wanted to live. Russ, welcome to our show.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (00:30.185)
Hey, welcome, John. How are you doing today?

John Harcar (00:32.487)
I’m fantastic, how are you?

Russ LaBrasca Jr (00:34.729)
Good man, where are you located at? I didn’t ask you that beforehand. Okay, yep, I know exactly where that’s at.

John Harcar (00:38.574)
Oh yeah, I’m actually in Boise, Idaho. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, our investor field were based out of Dallas, but I’m Boise, Idaho, and I’m excited to talk today about, you know, connecting and I think that’s important nowadays because of so many people may be out there in the business room and just as a personal human trait. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, how you got here, etc.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (01:03.357)
All right, so I’ll give you the shortest version I can, because I’m sure we’re a little bit short on time.

My book, Connecting Versus Networking, will definitely talk about that more, but I’m originally from Chicago. I was born in 1970, so I am the epitome of Gen Xer. I was a hustler from day one. My mom wouldn’t let me have a lawn mowing route. So instead I had 20 houses I would walk to because I lived in a suburb of Chicago and I would get $20. This is 1980, right? $20 per house to pick up their dog poop in.

their house. So I was like, I made tons of money just picking up dog poop. I was I actually had a real rich dad poor dad life experience growing up. I was telling you I went to Columbia College in Chicago and that’s where I really learned.

John Harcar (01:49.015)
Okay.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (01:56.51)
the art, I’ve always had the skill, but I really learned the art of how you connect with people. So we live in a society, especially with net, when you hear the word networking, you think of a creating a network or whatever, but networking really in our society is you hand out.

100 business cards. Here’s my card. Here’s my card. Here’s my card without taking one second to ask the other person anything about themselves Okay, that is and then so it’s an all me me me kind of attitude versus a How are you how can I help you? situation, okay, so we

The last four years, especially I’ve really seen, and I’ve been through a lot of stuff medically and this isn’t the time for it, but, I’ve really seen, a, the world has become a character versus compromise type scenario. So people will compromise for money. you know, for the love of money, fill in the blank for the love of whatever fill in the blank and they compromise. Right. So.

John Harcar (03:10.146)
Mm-hmm.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (03:11.529)
People that really connect and are genuine and if you genuinely care about someone, it’s amazing what you can do. So connecting is really about building relationships and the way that you do that is twofold. It’s,

Usually there’s an introduction of one person to another person. So there’s a handoff, right? And, this can be high level, low level, medium level. you know, I know a lot of people, I know Mike, Ambrite. I remember when he did flip nerd. I actually, Joe McCall, was on Joe McCall. was on episode number three on Joe McCall and Alex young bloods, podcast.

John Harcar (03:57.772)
Yeah

Russ LaBrasca Jr (04:02.386)
It was businesscreditforealestate.com. JP Moses helped me do it. But where I’m going with that is…

you create, I learned especially in college, but I learned at a really young age. I had a real, real rich dad, poor dad thing going on as a kid. My friend Derek was, his dad was Jay Strodden and my uncle Jay actually was a headhunter for like CEOs like Trump and stuff, right? And so Derek, Derek would be like,

we’d be in a park somewhere and Derek would bring two girls and we’re 15. It’s the eighties, right? You know, and Derek’s like, come, come, come. And I’m like, no, I’m listening to your dad. And he’s like, what? And I’m like, and of course I like girls, but I was like, I just was interested in business and stuff. And I, I could pick up cues and that’s part of connecting to you pick up cue. If you, if you truly pick up cues from people and go with in with an attitude of,

John Harcar (04:52.718)
You

Russ LaBrasca Jr (05:11.529)
how can I help them, what’s going on first? And then…

Maybe some benefits happen, maybe they don’t. For you, if you look at that way, quite honestly it’ll happen. So when I was in Chicago, I told you I have a BA in music, business, minor in sound engineering. I’ll give you a perfect example of this. All the professors had to be in their field. So I had a professor named Mike who did computers and he actually lived in a warehouse very close by. And his friend Mike, way too many Mikes in this scenario, his friend Mike, his friend Mike.

John Harcar (05:22.721)
Right.

John Harcar (05:45.176)
Yeah.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (05:47.84)
Um, was the tour manager for Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. And so, um, so I’m talking to, to the tour manager, Mike, and he’s like, Russ, do you want to go on the South side of Chicago tonight and just hang out at the concert and just watch? I’m like, yeah, sure. Now I was a sound engineer. Like I could do all this stuff. I’m just going to the introduction was made. Mike. Mike.

John Harcar (05:51.965)
wow.

John Harcar (06:12.782)
Hmm?

Russ LaBrasca Jr (06:14.111)
Russ and Mike was like, Russ really is a great guy and he’d to learn what you’re doing. And the other Mike was like, they want to come, right? So this is natural connecting, right? So I get to the concert and I’m sitting in the back. Dr. Dre is doing interviews. He’s kind of looking back every once in while, like who’s this fat white kid, but he doesn’t care. It’s just what’s going on. Snoop Dogg, marijuana was illegal at the time in Chicago.

legal but somehow Snoop Dogg had five Colt 45 bottles he’s juggling the whole night and he’s well it’s hilarious there was a midget rap group at that time not a well full rap group of midget rapper they come to the door and I had no authority at all

And I knew who they were and they were like, we need to come in, we’re so-and-so. I’m like, yeah, sure, come on in. So I’m sitting in the back and here’s the coolest part. So I’m sitting in the back hanging out. Mike says, gotta go do some stuff, And then their sound engineer guy is starting to set up for the night. He ate a bad burrito or something or whatever, and he’s blowing chunks everywhere. so Mike’s like,

John Harcar (07:12.204)
Yeah.

John Harcar (07:32.11)
Ugh.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (07:34.496)
Russ, can you jump on the board? Heck yeah. So I’m jumping on the board. I do the concert. They had to go to another tour. So I never got to actually meet yet Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. And I say yet. I’m sure I will at some point again, because that’s how my life has been. And that…

Those started to form certain moments. So fast forward to, I get to, I end up because of different things, which were short on time, obviously for today, but I ended up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And I told it, I was telling you a story of, I ended up working for one of the first internet service providers called Mindspring. And I started as a tech support rep for them for six months. And I loved every minute of it.

one of the best tech support reps and I’m not saying that arrogantly at all I’m saying because I understood how to deal with people when they would get on the phone and and they’d be angry and they’d be angry for two minutes being waiting for two minutes nowadays you wait an hour for customer service right so I understood

John Harcar (08:44.856)
Sure.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (08:48.319)
And we were kind of piecemeal building stuff because it was very early on in stages, but I understood the concept of… There’s a concept called… When people get angry, when they’re truly angry, anger is not a primary emotion, it’s a secondary emotion. So hurt, fear, rejection, loss, frustration, pain, physical pain, those are all the things that motivate anger, okay? And so…

So the very first thing is when you’re meeting someone and they come across as angry or whatever and in that situation is they’re not, they’re not.

They just call tech support. So they’re not angry at Russ. They’re not angry at me. They’re angry at the situation, right? So if you understand that, which I did, I’m like, Hey, I totally understand. How can I help you solve your problem? Let’s what’s, what’s, what’s going on? And then they tell you, then immediately critically thinking boom, solve the problem. And then,

John Harcar (09:32.824)
Sure.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (09:50.846)
very quick and easy to do that stuff. I’m sure you guys in real estate and I’ve flipped over 500 properties and I’ll get to that in a minute. And I coached a number of people and I created the real Amish Mafia here in Lancaster. And I’m Italian, you guys are Amish. I literally uttered that phase in one of my meetings and then six months later the show Amish Mafia come out and yes, the producers were

John Harcar (10:04.408)
Yeah.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (10:20.779)
in the room and there’s lots of stories to that too but I want to stay focused on the earthling thing for a mind spring thing for a second because this this skill set is really important so I did it for six months I was one of their best techs and my supervisors knew it and now we’re up to 200 people at this call center

John Harcar (10:25.707)
Yes.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (10:41.305)
And the one thing though is I have ADHD and I’m dyslexic. So at the time CRMs weren’t in place and I was, I had to stop between calls and they’re like, whatever. So the director, because of that, all my supervisors were saying, Russ would be a great supervisor. And the director was named John Reitmuller. John’s a great guy, but, and it was an internet company and,

All my friends supervisor friends that my supervisor’s name is Cuito. It’s like Russ should be a supervisor He’s good at this and so one day there was a New York CES conference or whatever and I got they said Russ you want to go to New York for the day? I’m like, yeah sure. We’re two hours away Lancaster PA is where I’m at. So central PA and it’s definitely not just Amish we go up to New York and

I’m wearing John’s badge. And so ladies are, people are coming up to me thinking I’m somebody and I’m not. And I collect this big bag of just junk of stuff, like all the tchotchkes you get. We come back for the night and I don’t know, I wasn’t consciously thinking about it or whatever.

and I said, go into John’s office and I go, Hey, John, here’s all the stuff from the conference. And I’d throw the bag and everything lays out, goes all over the table. Right. And my supervisor, Cuito is like, shoot. Russ is going to get fired. And I, 10 minutes later, Cuito goes to me.

John Harcar (12:10.418)
Right?

Russ LaBrasca Jr (12:23.839)
You have the next team of 20. You’re now a supervisor, John made you a supervisor. Yeah. So from that point on, for another six months, I was the top trainer or top supervisor because of the skill I just said about, um, we would buy up little internet service providers and my team, the first 20 minutes we get

John Harcar (12:27.626)
Awesome. There you go.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (12:47.261)
they would hand off training to me because I had the best teams and first 20 minutes would be reading with Russ. so, and then after that it’d be, let’s push this to the side. Okay. And then I would teach the skills I was just saying about anger is not a primary, the, the soft skills, right? Those part. And then the critical skills of here’s how critical thinking skills of let’s problem solve their problem.

John Harcar (13:08.748)
Right, right.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (13:16.447)
Six months go by, I become one of their first out of eventually 10 corporate trainers. And for eight years, I, until 2003, I ended up being their head corporate trainer. And that was Tawny earlier. I was actually scheduled to be on one of nine 11 planes. That was a moment for me to come back and be like, um,

John Harcar (13:33.72)
Yeah.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (13:37.632)
Okay, what am I doing with my life? Ultimately, I met my first mentor, Steve Cook, was a part of Steve Cook, Joe McCall, all these guys, Sean McCloskey, mean, you name it. were, JP Moses, were…

We were all kind of part of the original life in there that became what’s called Flip Vips and one of the first ones. so in 2005,

There’s a here in Lancaster and I started to focus solely on Lancaster County and I understood how to flip, understood the matrix of flipping houses. I really liked just flipping houses where you have the retail. And I also got very good at business lines of credit and business credit cards. And so in 2005, my,

We were somewhere, you know, typical three day or two day masterminds in some other state somewhere. And I don’t even remember, Kansas City maybe or Florida or who knows.

John Harcar (14:45.87)
Sure.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (14:52.253)
My mastermind group said there was a very small, I think it was on a golden board, meetup wasn’t even a page yet. This was like 2005, 2006. Now sometimes my dates get a little skewed because I had a brain tumor in 2007 and I have some health issues and stuff. But, so anyway, all my group said to me was there was a guy named Alan. There was about maybe 12 people going to this little band room in Lancaster Bible college. and he was struggling.

for these meetings I could tell and um and my meetup group said again go with help first just ask him if you can help so I went to Alan it’s three in the morning

Um, and, I said, Alan, can, can I just help you with your meeting? He goes, you can have it. And it’s called REIMG Lancaster. It’s still, um, if you look it up on Meetup, that’s how it comes up. Now I’ve recently renamed it to bigger connect, which is, um, business investor group, growing entrepreneurs in real estate. And we can talk about that in a minute, but so from 2005 ish six ish, I went to the, I went to the college.

and Lang survival college that next morning I said and at the time I said I need the largest room you have not having any idea what the next step was going to be just kind of a if you build it they will come kind of moment and a trusting you know trusting God kind of moment right and so

John Harcar (16:25.912)
Yeah, right. Right. Right. Yeah.

putting it out there and letting it, and trusting it comes.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (16:32.389)
Yeah, so the coordinator there that ran the room, she’s like, well, Alan was paying 75 for the band room. We’ll let you have this other room, which was stadium seating, the perfect room for me. Stadium seating, sat 120 people max full, and we were full at times, for the same price, 75 bucks. And I’m like, it’s normally 150, and it normally 150. And I’m like, okay, cool. All right, so.

John Harcar (16:54.894)
Wow.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (17:02.303)
Next meeting was John next meeting was 50 people showed up now at this time The Amish don’t let the Amish fool you now, but at this time They weren’t as teched so

I kept the name of the meeting, R-E-I-M-G Lancaster, and I specifically wanted to make sure it was always the third Thursday of every month so consistently people would show up. But the first meeting that was when I took it over, like I said, the next meeting in that room, 50 people. The next meeting after that, 70. The next meeting after that, from that point on, 70 to 100, filling the room every single meeting. Now, because I was part of a national mastermind,

John Harcar (17:44.622)
Full. Sweet. Let’s go.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (17:51.366)
And we talk about connecting. You always have to have a third party relationship to people. This is part of connecting versus networking. I think we were talking before maybe was before the interview was.

John Harcar (18:03.747)
Yep.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (18:07.537)
Most, a lot of people get this wrong. think of the whole always be closing. Here’s my card. Here’s my card. Here’s my card. Here’s my card. You want to create relationships with people. And then you also want to have a third party verification. as Trump, as Trump has Reagan said, trust, but verify as well. But that’s where you get your verification. You know, if you’re a person of character, that verification shows up really quickly, really easy. if you’re not,

John Harcar (18:14.093)
Yeah.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (18:37.601)
that can show up too really quickly, really easy. So my meeting, I was very protective of it. I would bring all my friends, Joe McCall and Craig Fuhrer and just you name it, Christina, Chanel Krauss, Mike Ferris.

All my friends with Steve Kavanaugh, and we would do Saturdays, and I have one this month coming up, Charles Blair is coming up to ours this month. He’s down in Baltimore. He’s doing a thing on AI. And I would do Saturday workshops. Now wouldn’t do them every Saturday because I didn’t want to, it wasn’t about trying to get them, the people in our group.

John Harcar (19:09.206)
Cool.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (19:24.175)
as to get them for as much money as possible. My whole philosophy is connecting. So part of the reason my mentor group said, see if you can help is.

John Harcar (19:27.714)
Great.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (19:38.208)
And also because I was a corporate trainer and I understood this, I was in front of rooms, lots of rooms as a corporate trainer. Um, I have the ability to connect people, business and ideas. It’s just kind of my matrix. I’m a natural trainer speaker. I, when people speak, they’re really trainers. You’re teaching people in front of room. And also when you hold a, like a RIA meeting or whatever, you’re in front of the room. Yes, you’re the authority.

because they’re coming to you and you get that authority part but you also have to with what comes with authority and responsibility comes responsibility so I protected my people as well I wanted to make sure people I was bringing in were valuable people knowledgeable people so the Saturday workshops were pretty much my friends they would do a nine to five ish we need to charge 297

One Saturday workshop, told you 75 bucks was what my monthly was. So one Saturday workshop would pay for that room for, for months and pond months upon months upon months. Yeah. And then if, they wanted to promote something, they could, if they, if, you know, I offered coaching in my room.

John Harcar (20:39.192)
Hmm.

John Harcar (20:45.324)
Yeah, of course, for sure.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (20:57.265)
So I flipped over 500 houses plus I had 2.8 billion billion I wish 2.8 million in business lines of credit And so if someone wanted to do a deal with me great if they want to do a deal with someone that I Brought to the group great If they wanted to do deals with people in the room great, but we always and still to this day and I’m seeing

Riyaz and groups make mistakes with this. We still always would give disclaimers of don’t trust anybody in this room, even me, trust but verify also, also business, business real estate, et cetera. This is for entertainment purposes only that kind of, you know, these scammers, um, yeah, right. So, um, but

John Harcar (21:37.292)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Harcar (21:48.002)
Yeah, yeah, disclaimers.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (21:52.99)
The whole idea was how can, for me anyway, is my philosophy is how can I help? How can I, how can I connect you to the person that you need that works for you? And then maybe all three of us, we get into situations and stuff. I did that from basically I lived through eight when lots of people like went really bad because Lancaster County at the time, now it’s, we’re very different now, but

At the time, Lancaster County basically, we’re two hours from New York. What most people don’t know is any entertainment producer in the world can point to Lidditz, Pennsylvania, which is part of Lancaster, because this is where all the concerts, all those entertainment stuff, that every artist in the world comes through Lidditz, Pennsylvania. It’s called Rock Lidditz. It’s right down the street from where I’m at.

John Harcar (22:50.634)
Okay

Russ LaBrasca Jr (22:51.839)
Yeah. So, but we’re in central Pennsylvania, uh, which is a Lancaster area, Lancaster, York, Harrisburg. Um, we are probably pushing about 10 million people actually within a 45 minute range. We’re kind of like a Raleigh Durham, Chapel Hill area, but people think of it as rural. at that time, when I, in 2008, um, I saw it, I knew it was coming.

John Harcar (23:13.4)
Yeah.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (23:20.831)
because I had friends in Baltimore, I had friends in other places, all part of our mastermind, but Lancaster was about a year behind. So I was able to jump on HUD Home Store when it was just starting and I would, the HUD Home Store would have, you know, properties listed for 120 and I’d throw spaghetti at it for 20 and be like, oh crap, I should go get the property. And so, you know, I was doing stuff like that. And I’ve lived through all that stuff and…

John Harcar (23:40.973)
Ha ha ha ha.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (23:49.376)
I had a coaching partner and I was flipping houses. Um, I didn’t like holding any rentals cause I have my experience with my five, what I would call five low income, uh, rent to own crack houses that I didn’t like when I got in Harrisburg and kind of got rid of those. um, and in 2016 I was experiencing health problems, wasn’t sure what was going on. Had some memory issue, a lot of memory issues. And at the same time,

I had a line of credit at Waypoint Bank that was $20,000 back in 2003, one of my first lines that worked its way through Sovereign Bank. And then eventually, right around this time when I was sick, went to what I call Satan Bank, which is Santander Bank, and they switched banks and they illegally put a confession of judgment in there and secured my unsecured properties. And as I was sick, I…

was forced into a business bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy, and life went very upside down. Now my friend Steve Cook, who created Life in There, Life in There, the philosophy is you create a vision for your life. My friend Jason Wojo now runs it. They have a three day workshop on the vision part, but they also have a three day workshop on creating a business that if something happens to you,

then the business still runs. That actually is based off of me and my story. so you set up your, you create how you want your life to look and you set your businesses up to fuel your life, investor fuel, to fuel your life, not the, not, not the other way around. Okay. So you, you automate, you delegate, you know, you outsource those parts of your life. Yeah.

John Harcar (25:33.856)
Right?

John Harcar (25:45.464)
Got it.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (25:47.165)
So,

John Harcar (25:48.14)
Well, hey, Russ, I hate cutting this short because I think you and I can sit here and talk for probably another three hours. But yeah, but running out of time. So if folks want to get a hold of you and talk a little bit more about maybe what you do in real estate, just connecting with people, right? That ability, because I know it’s an art. It’s something you have to learn, right? And it’s imperative that you learn it. So how do people get in touch with you?

Russ LaBrasca Jr (25:54.313)
Sure.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (26:11.603)
Okay, so is this internal with your guys’s group or is this going out to everywhere?

John Harcar (26:17.014)
This will go out. This will go out to everyone.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (26:19.729)
Okay. So, the, since this will go out to everyone, they can connect, connect with me at Russ, the consultant actually, connect with Russ at gmail.com. Okay. That’s my email address. That’s the easiest way to connect with me right now. also we go, if they go on to meetup, they can find our actual meetup in Lancaster called bigger connect.

John Harcar (26:41.058)
Okay.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (26:49.631)
And there is connecting stuff too. If you’re in the central PA, our area, please come to our meeting and they can connect with me that way. I do have a book coming out that I’ll send to you guys that I’m eventually gonna put a Mamek on it and they can connect that way too for people that are national. But for right now, connect with Russ would be the best way to do it. that’s kind of my…

John Harcar (27:09.879)
Okay.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (27:19.725)
there so

John Harcar (27:21.134)
Cool, and we’ll put all your contact information in the show notes so that way anybody that wants to reach out that can. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this time. Russ, thank you very much for sharing your story. you guys, connecting is huge. I wouldn’t encourage anybody who is having issues with trying to really connect with maybe the sellers you’re talking to or anybody really. Reach out to Russ. Find some ideas. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And we’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (27:32.073)
Yeah, you’re welcome.

Russ LaBrasca Jr (27:49.44)
Thanks, John.