The Biggest Mistakes in Real Estate: Insights from a 25-Year Pro

Stephen Schmidt (00:02.829)
Welcome back to the show if you’re joining us for the second third or first second third or hundredth time And if you’re joining us for the first time, welcome to the show It’s your host Stephen Schmidt and this is the real estate pros podcast And as always I got a special treat for you guys I got Guy Barretta in the house guy has one of the more impressive rap sheets that I’ve seen and Has some pretty incredible stories to tell currently. He is the founder of a fractional

Co. O company, which he is running in the real estate sector He has actually been working in the real estate business for over 25 years and crazy enough He actually at one point held the record for the biggest sale in Brooklyn at least the property itself is over 150 million dollars and That’s pretty pretty incredible to have so we’re honored to have guy here in the studio today and we’re gonna get rocking and rolling on a conversation about how

Really any any agent if you’re in the real estate business or investor should have their SOP is put in place and if you’re an agent specifically you should be investing in real estate and How to execute upon that so we’re gonna get rocking and rolling but before we do remember at investor fuel we help real estate investors service providers and real estate entrepreneurs 2 to 5x their businesses so they can build the businesses have always wanted in order to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of that being said guy welcome to the show today

Guy Barretta (01:22.99)
Hey, thanks for having me, Stephen. Great to be here and looking forward to a great conversation this morning.

Stephen Schmidt (01:29.033)
Absolutely. So I know we had a chance to chat a little bit here, but can you give our listeners a little bit of a background on yourself and what got you into the real estate business? I know you had a little bit of a pin it at one point there in the beginning. And then what got you to 25 years post that to where you’re now solely hunkered down and focused on helping people unscrew their processes is what I like to say about CEO’s.

Guy Barretta (01:57.918)
I like that. Can I steal that? All right, I like that. So I… So yeah, was working for a startup company in New York City and I was getting my MBA and they were helping me with the MBA and I thought with the MBA I’d be moving on to another role.

Stephen Schmidt (01:59.245)
Absolutely. That’s the PG version of how I would normally say it, but…

Guy Barretta (02:21.186)
within the organization and that role never materialized. So I actually did a pivot and went into commercial real estate investment sales in New York City, working for a great firm at the time and really enjoyed working in the investment sales space and working with owners of commercial real estate. And from there,

My career just started transitioning. I went from an investment sales agent to working for several prop tech firms to aligning myself with a company called, at the time, Realogy, which is now Anywhere Real Estate that owns several residential and commercial real estate brands from a franchising perspective. ran their growth, ran the growth of their brands throughout 14 states.

took over an opportunity to actually hope out and run a residential and commercial real estate brokerage and help that company grow. And then from there, I pivoted in 2023 again to starting my own business, which was a fractional COO.

and creating credit consulting to work in the real estate space, whether it be with real estate brokerages or real estate property management firms or investors to help them scale and grow their businesses by making sure that they’re operationally fit. I always say there’s two aspects of growth. There’s the internal growth.

and making sure that everything’s aligned and everything looks great on paper and everything’s executing to the best of its ability. And then there’s the external growth. What can I do going forward to help build my business, whether it’s acquiring more property, taking on more head count to manage what I have and what I’ve built. And those are all difficult questions that we look at every single day.

Guy Barretta (04:18.978)
But I think to your point, there’s also an aspect of this whole business that we never talk about. that’s, you know, there’s 2 million real estate agents in the United States. How many of them are actually investing in real estate? And how many real estate brokerages are taking the time to help their agents invest in real estate and teach them how to invest in real estate? And that’s where I think Investor Fuel really can come in to play.

Stephen Schmidt (04:43.532)
Yeah, 100 % man. So let me ask you this, as far as your business goes now, somebody is rocking and rolling, know, they’re a decent size brokerage, let’s say, and they’re thinking to themselves, I really got to…

button some things up here with within our business. Like what is the type of client that actually like reaches out to you? What’s that pain that they’re feeling that they need to get solved within their business? And then you’re the perfect fit to come in and solve it. Or do you have more of a consultancy piece? Because I know like what you are really interested in, like obviously helping people to, you know, create generational wealth. I’m sure that comes up at some point in the conversation. But, you know, to your point also, like it’s not something that brokers are really thinking

about.

Guy Barretta (05:35.726)
It’s not it’s not something that’s top of mind because sometimes the brokerage the broker owner hasn’t even really invested in real estate Maybe they have their one home and maybe they have a second home, but they never really invested So they don’t even know how to have that conversation When I when I work with a brokerage when our brokerage reach out reaches out It’s basically when they realize that no one has their back

Stephen Schmidt (05:43.883)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (05:57.27)
Mm.

Guy Barretta (05:58.03)
It’s a very fragmented industry, so they can’t go across the street and talk to another broker owner and say, hey, how are you doing this? So if they don’t feel that they have that backing and that partner, that’s when they’re reaching out to me. Or they realize that their backend systems are a mess and nothing’s talking to each other, and they just can’t get out of the day-to-day to achieve their strategic vision. You know, we’re all.

we’re all amazing in that we all have a vision of where we want to be and people in real estate space are the same way. And it’s just, how do I get to that next level? And it may make sense to bring somebody in to help facilitate that and get that individual or that brokerage to the next level. And then, you know,

I look at it from, what can you create from an ancillary service perspective sometimes, right? Obviously there’s mortgage and title, but you know, the great one is that we don’t talk about enough is property management and the investment on your own properties and bringing potential clients into your business that way. And then also providing an opportunity for your agents to invest in some of these aspects or some of these properties that you may have purchased. that’s, it’s really comes full circle. That’s what’s amazing about real

status. There’s so many different nuances to it and there’s opportunities for individuals to make money in so many different ways.

Stephen Schmidt (07:21.292)
So first steps of your process, you come into a business, what does that look like? So you drive immediate impact and immediate value.

Guy Barretta (07:23.406)
That’s your process.

Guy Barretta (07:29.848)
First thing is SWOT analysis. I have to look at what their strengths are, their weaknesses, their opportunities and threats. Second thing is the P &L, where is the spend going and why is the spend going where it’s going. If you’re spending money to advertise in a magazine just because you like the owner of that magazine, that’s probably not the best use of your money. And then the third component is looking at…

back-end systems are talking to each other if they’re talking to each other at all or if they even have back-end systems and then starting that process to get to a point where we can implement some systems that are probably going to cost money upfront but will save you time and money in the long run.

Stephen Schmidt (08:14.761)
Yeah, absolutely. Now, so what do you think is really unique about your process? Obviously, there’s other fractional CEOs out there, but specifically for the real estate sector, what do you think? What do you think is the unique driving point that you kind of bring to the table that others don’t really bring to the table?

Guy Barretta (08:33.656)
So on the brokerage side, I’ve lived it. Having been a COO of a brokerage, I’ve lived it every single day. And I woke up every day saying, what can I do to bring value to the agents? And I think from…

my perspective when a broker or owner wakes up every day thinking that, that’s something that we can really work towards. Additionally, I have a background in &A, have a background in growth so I can really facilitate that aspect for those brokerages that are looking for those opportunities, whether it’s growth in the market that they’re currently in just to get more market share or whether it’s growth to move and pivot out to other markets that they want to focus on. And same with property management.

You know, I’m working with a brokerage that has a property management arm right now, our goal is growth, right? We have X amount of units now, we want to get to this amount of units and I’m pinging and I’m reaching out to other property management firms throughout the state to see where their heads are at from, where are they in their business life is usually what I say. Does it make sense to maybe walk away and see what your business value is?

Stephen Schmidt (09:46.859)
What’s something you believed about the real estate space when you started that you no longer believe?

Guy Barretta (09:55.96)
that everybody’s in it for the right reasons. How bad is that? Well, I mean, there’s a lot of shadiness that goes on in the industry and we don’t really talk about it enough, but you really have to make sure that you’re aligning yourself with the right people and good people and that you’re a good person. Whether you’re working.

Stephen Schmidt (09:58.38)
What does that mean to you? That’s good. I like that.

Stephen Schmidt (10:21.835)
Can you explain a little more into that without going into your trauma story of whatever situation you ran into or I’m sure you’ve dealt with? Some pretty…

Guy Barretta (10:27.15)
I mean, I’ve had, yeah, I mean, I’ve had people that I’ve had like listing agreements with that, you know, on the commercial real estate side and, know, I go away for a week and they sold the property and I don’t, you know, I had a guy, I had a guy, you know, an attorney at a closing money that I needed for my wedding, mind you, basically say that I was overpaid and that I shouldn’t get paid any money and, and

and the attorney felt that he deserved all the money. You know, just like little nuances like that. we’re, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it’s the industry, we all work together to be, to achieve the goals for our clients or to achieve our goals personally. And sometimes you just have people that see things differently in this industry. And they’re not, they’re just people that you just gotta, you know, keep at a distance.

Stephen Schmidt (11:25.055)
Yeah, so I mean on that note, how do you decide which opportunities are worth pursuing?

Guy Barretta (11:31.118)
That’s a great question. When I’m going through the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and doing a value build initial call with individuals, if they’re engaged and they want to have a conversation, that’s probably somebody that I want to work with. If they’re holding back just on that initial conversation, anything that I ask for going forward, they’re not.

I just know for a fact they’re not gonna give me what I need to help them be as successful as possible.

Stephen Schmidt (12:03.467)
So what’s changed in your approach over the years? you gained knowledge and become a seasoned veteran of the industry? How has your approach evolved?

Guy Barretta (12:15.17)
I think I’ve become more empathetic. You know, and I try to see all sides, right? And try to understand where somebody else is coming from. It’s not always about me, me, me, me. It’s about, you know, where are you coming from? What are your thoughts there? And try to bring the meaning of the minds together. Empathy goes a long way. you know, sometimes when, you know,

Stephen Schmidt (12:18.763)
Hmm.

Guy Barretta (12:44.494)
you know, an experience of a real estate agent, if you have two clients that are butting heads per se, you have to see both sides kind of evaluate the situation, maybe take 24 hours, 48 hours, a couple hours, and then come back to the situation and say, okay, how am going to handle this? So there’s some aspects of empathy that really, really plays out in the industry. you know, I would say even for

Individuals that are investing real estate, you know, so I think it’s important to always know why other the other side might be selling You know, it could be very traumatic There could have been a traumatic issue that happened in the family and they just can’t manage their portfolio properties or there are three or four properties and you know, they’re looking for the right individual to kind of I want to say carry on their name but Take care of the properties the way they took care of the properties So you got to bring a little level of empathy I think into everything that you do

Stephen Schmidt (13:40.735)
Was there a specific moment or experience you had where that just was like an immediate shift for you or how did you come to that conclusion?

Guy Barretta (13:51.48)
You know, in a previous role I worked with somebody that wouldn’t really look and listen to everything and would just react. And you really have to listen and react because when you just react, you’re going off of emotion more so than anything else. So I think that was a key. You know, another point that I would say that’s interesting is when I was in investment sales, commercial real estate,

You know, we sold a portfolio of buildings in New York and Brooklyn, and everybody says commercial real estate is never emotional, right? Residential real estate’s emotional. Commercial real estate is all about the money. Well, we had two families together that had, you know, their grandfathers bought these properties post-World War II, and they had one uncle that was managing them.

I think the management rate at the time, know, property management rate was like four or five percent. This guy was charging 10 percent. And they found out when we had a meeting with everybody in the room and a conference room and they lost their mind because they just did the calculations of how much money they lost over the years because their uncle who they trusted was taking money out of the, you know, taking money out of the properties. And that got very emotional. And I always remember that. Like that’s just, you know,

case study of you have to know where your money is going, right? If you have properties that you own and you have a property management firm, what is that property management firm doing for you to have your best interests?

Stephen Schmidt (15:33.69)
really good really really good now it with your approach to what you do I know I asked about like your process but like with your approach over the years and like injecting that empathy etc what’s what are some things that have evolved with your actual approach

Guy Barretta (16:00.908)
I really try to get to the root of the problem and I really try to build down into actionable items. Like we’re gonna go from here to here to here. Where do we wanna be? And my goal is to get buy-in not only from the owner, but the rest of the organization. I’m coming in as your business partner. I’m coming in as your fractional COO.

Stephen Schmidt (16:22.484)
Mm-hmm.

Guy Barretta (16:26.542)
If we have a vision of where we want to go, we have to have buy-in across the board. And then I get that opportunity to work with the individuals within the firm to get to that point. So I think that’s a little bit different than where I was because sometimes you’re just trying to stay in the background. But I think it’s important to be forward-facing for everybody within the organization.

Stephen Schmidt (16:49.322)
So what are you seeing in the market right now that others might be missing?

Guy Barretta (16:56.482)
I think the market’s active. mean, from an investment perspective, the market is active. There’s a lot of people searching and seeking for deals. It’s just that how many of them are just seeking out that perfect deal? And we all know most deals aren’t perfect, right? They all have hair on them a little bit. But I think from that perspective, seeing people are looking and wanna do deals. On the residential side,

Stephen Schmidt (17:12.906)
That’s right.

Guy Barretta (17:24.11)
We still have a shortage of inventory. I’m hearing some cracks, I would say, in Florida. It sounds like there’s more property becoming available in Florida and certain areas and staying on the market a little bit longer.

But overall, I mean we’re still on track to only do about four million sales on the on residential side Which would still be lower the lowest number of sales in a year and in 30 some odd years so it’s we’re still in we’re still in a really weird place and Obviously, it’s it’s mortgage. But I think the Steve and I think this is

Stephen Schmidt (17:58.558)
Yeah.

Guy Barretta (18:04.332)
This is the important part for people that are looking to get investing, right? Which you guys are always looking to work with individuals looking to get into real estate investing. I just saw a stat like there are so many people in the United States that are sitting on equity in their homes.

more so than at any time in the history of this country. And if they were able to tap into that equity to buy a second home, buy a duplex, buy a three family, buy a four family, and that’s your first entree into real estate investing, and no one’s having that conversation.

Agents aren’t having that conversation broker owners aren’t having that conversation The National Association of realtors isn’t having that conversation but all this equity is tied up and people are just sitting on it and to me that’s You know and they don’t have any intention of ever really selling you know because I don’t want to sell and tap into their equity and necessarily go into a 7 % or 6 % mortgage So they’re just sitting on this and not doing anything with it, which I find fascinating

Stephen Schmidt (18:53.481)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (19:08.969)
Yeah, I’m with you there. What’s a mistake that cost you time or money and what’d you learn from it?

Guy Barretta (19:18.19)
What’s a mistake that cost me time or money? So when I first started in, when I first started my consulting business, right around the same time a potential opportunity presented itself and I stopped working on my business to pursue this opportunity because I thought it was gonna be potentially a long-term play and I should have been doing both at the same time.

And I probably lost three or four months in really developing and building my fractional business. I look back at that and say, I’m, it probably wakes me up every morning. Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (19:51.945)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (19:56.7)
no. So let me ask you this, if you had to go back to the beginning of when you got started in the space, and let’s just say it was 25 years ago, right? And also, of course, factor in what you’re doing now. But if you had to go back and restart 25 years ago, but you could take all of the knowledge and experience that you’ve gained over the last 25 years, what would you do different and what would you do the same?

Guy Barretta (20:26.222)
When I left the company that I was working for in 2003, I loved that company, loved it. But I also made a lot of money and I probably would have taken that money and invested in real estate. Back in 2003.

Stephen Schmidt (20:40.21)
Hmm.

Guy Barretta (20:43.778)
when people weren’t even investing in Brooklyn, New York. That’s mind boggling to many people right now, but people did not always invest in Brooklyn, New York. People did not always invest in Queens, New York. People did not invest in Bronx. So if I could go back in time, I would have taken money and put it towards property in those locations.

Stephen Schmidt (20:47.699)
Sure.

Stephen Schmidt (20:53.939)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (21:03.985)
Why? If you don’t want me asking.

Guy Barretta (21:06.734)
Because it would have provided me with more equity opportunities to take cash out of those properties to purchase more properties and those properties would have a 10 to 15 X value right now and You know a $300,000 property then it’s probably worth three or four million. Maybe five million today I Think about that. I think about that all the time

Stephen Schmidt (21:29.235)
Sure. Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (21:34.026)
Yeah, I actually spoke to a gentleman recently who was in the tech sector, had a career in tech and he, because of his background, was offered to buy Bitcoin back when, I can’t remember the exact number he said, but back when it was like…

if I recall is like 87 cents and he was offered to buy 500 Bitcoin or some scene number of them and the total investment would have been like $80 and had he done he basically was like no this is a scam you know it’s like it’s there’s no way it’s you know whatever and so $80 he passes on the investment and that investment today would have been worth over 40 million.

Guy Barretta (22:04.302)
Right, right.

Guy Barretta (22:24.589)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (22:24.745)
with current averages, right? Just absolutely nuts. But it’s like everything, right? It’s even like Buffett, man. Buffett, I think is a perfect example of it’s just, you hear those stories and there’s definitely people that hit it. I know another guy who did invest very well in crypto and he just cashed out $100 million. So it’s like, there are those people that do hit it, but it’s that slow, consistent growth over time.

compounded that usually is what creates crazy, crazy wealth, right? So I guess, you know, like the Chinese proverb would say, guy, is, you know, best time to have planted a tree or buy some property in Brooklyn was 20 years ago, but hey, the second best time is today,

Guy Barretta (23:11.638)
Yeah, there’s, and there’s truth to that. Does it cost you a little bit more money? Of course, but there’s, there’s truth. You know, you.

Stephen Schmidt (23:15.721)
for sure.

Guy Barretta (23:19.854)
I don’t think it’s any secret in the world that the best investment is in real estate. we’re seeing unprecedented times in terms of home values going up and that’s great. people are building wealth through their primary spend, which is their house, which is amazing. But there’s the opportunity to take some of that and now…

pivot and start acquiring properties on your own. Other properties.

Stephen Schmidt (23:52.573)
Yeah, you bet. Sure. So one of the questions I, or the question that I had asked was what would you do different? What would you do the same? What’s the portion of the what would you do the same piece of that?

Guy Barretta (24:06.702)
There’s a lot, I think I’m okay with where my career trajectory has gone. I would say one thing I would continue to do the same is get my MBA. I think that helped me tremendously.

and understanding numbers and nuances and math. Math, here’s, you know, when I was growing up, math never made sense to me. I was not a math guy. And the reason why math didn’t make sense to me is because I, when I was growing up, I was sick a lot and I missed a lot of school. And you could always catch up in history. You could always catch up in English. Math is difficult. If you didn’t catch the concepts, it’s hard to catch up. And math never made sense to me till I went to grad school.

and I saw the use of financial math and math to understand finance of businesses and financial health of businesses and investing. And that just opened me up. for me that, you know.

getting that education was so important to me. And the other thing I would do the same is continue my path in real estate. I enjoy real estate and it’s, we discussed it earlier, it’s a nuanced, fragmented world, but there’s so much to it and it’s so engaging. There’s so much that you can learn and be a part of in this space.

Stephen Schmidt (25:37.363)
Right? Yeah, you know, to your point there, it’s funny you say that because I was the same exact way with math, but what I would tell people is, it’s my favorite type of math was calculating my bank account and what was gonna happen when I spent X or saved X. So, to your point. Yeah, yeah.

Guy Barretta (25:51.754)
I mean, that’s the key, right? you know, and it’s amazing because, you know, my son’s, my oldest son is going into high school next year and they actually start teaching financial health and financial wellness to these, to the incoming freshmen. And I think that’s so important because we didn’t get that, right, Steven? Like when we graduated, we didn’t have any, I didn’t have any financial health classes. And I think that’s…

Stephen Schmidt (26:08.858)
That’s awesome.

Stephen Schmidt (26:12.712)
I don’t know.

Stephen Schmidt (26:16.23)
The only financial class I took was when I was, it was identifying what dollars and coins were. Kindergarten man, you know?

Guy Barretta (26:22.006)
Yeah, exactly. This is a penny. This is a nickel. This is a dime. That’s great.

Stephen Schmidt (26:30.94)
Go ahead, continue with what you’re saying about the financial literacy piece and what they’re doing with it.

Guy Barretta (26:33.806)
No, so I think that’s important. Anything that you can get your hands on to learn more about financial literacy and reading books, I think is extremely important. I really try to spend an hour every morning learning.

Stephen Schmidt (26:53.702)
Mm.

Guy Barretta (26:54.926)
addicted to information. I’m probably an information junkie, but I think it’s important to, you know, always have your mind ready to go and learning nuances. And additionally, any aspect of real estate is a people business. And you don’t know who you’re going to meet and a conversation may pop up on something you just read and…

Are you going to be the expert on it? No, but you can lead to that conversation. And by having that conversation could lead to the opportunity in whatever field of real estate you’re in.

Stephen Schmidt (27:27.72)
Absolutely. I love what you said there. You know, I my kids all the time.

Well, at least the one that can read as of right now who? Who’s old enough to read not telling him I say look man the only difference between someone who can’t read and someone who won’t read is nothing so like at the end of the day, dude, this is what separates you from the rest of the pack and He’s he’s also had some challenges like getting up to speed It’s not diagnosed, but he might have some dyslexia going on because he it’s like we like listen. We’re like you’re switching some letters

around in there, you know? And so it’s like, it might be more difficult, whereas like, I was just like a natural reader, you know? So it was, it’s like kind of figuring out like this, you know, different deal, but you know, still stressing that importance and trying to get him interested in it, because that’s been a pivotal thing for me too, is just continue my own education. I wouldn’t say that I’ve…

Guy Barretta (28:02.52)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (28:22.168)
Well, I haven’t in all truthfulness. haven’t had a formal education post high school, but with the amount of knowledge and information and the things that I’ve self studied, you know, I could piece together quite a bit, I would imagine, for some different higher educational things. so and

Guy Barretta (28:40.43)
Yeah, exactly. And just with your child, I would say stay on top of the school. My son was a little bit the same way, right? Not necessarily, he was just a little behind, right? And now he’s my youngest son is my most avid reader. My oldest doesn’t really read, but my youngest who had a little bit of a learning curve.

Stephen Schmidt (28:46.204)
Yeah, 100%. Right.

Stephen Schmidt (28:52.156)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (28:58.183)
Nice.

Guy Barretta (29:03.118)
I came into the room the other night and he was reading. like, that’s, that was so amazing. That just, as a dad, that made me very proud. He wasn’t as bad. He was reading. I’m like, that’s awesome. So.

Stephen Schmidt (29:07.378)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (29:12.06)
You bet. And isn’t it so interesting how our world has evolved? know, this is something I think about all the time, I think to myself, you know, not even 300 years ago, literally not even 300 years ago, 200 years ago, still a long time in the grand scheme of history, not really.

But 200 years ago, Abraham Lincoln was sitting around reading and his dad was throwing him off of a book like we would throw a kid off of video games nowadays. And it’s like, you know, it’s very interesting how that was the thing and now we can’t get kids to pick up books. You know what I mean? It’s an interesting shift.

Guy Barretta (29:45.974)
It’s pretty crazy, right? Like, yeah.

Guy Barretta (29:51.246)
Right. yeah, that’s pretty deep, And I think, know, and now we just want them to read. If they read fantasy, know, fiction, nonfiction, just train your brain to read, understand what you’re, you it’s pretty amazing.

Stephen Schmidt (30:00.762)
I know.

Stephen Schmidt (30:17.415)
because it doesn’t always have to be self-help books and personal development, whatever. It’s still an engagement that you’re doing with something. I think, this is another term, we’re of course over time already, way over. But I told my mom this recently, actually I was talking to her, and I just told her, said, know, mom, we’re moving into a phase of our world where essentially what’s being created is we’re just,

Guy Barretta (30:21.495)
Right.

Guy Barretta (30:31.704)
course.

Stephen Schmidt (30:44.901)
We’re just being encouraged to live a completely synthetic version of reality. You know, we don’t really get out in nature anymore. Instead of reading books, we read on our Kindles. And by the way, books are from trees. Trees are, you know, what make paper. And they’re also in the earth, right? Which there’s a lot that goes into, you know, bare feet on the ground, grounding things along those lines, connecting with nature. And I told my mom, just in a place where we’re just, we’re,

Guy Barretta (31:05.998)
Right, right.

Stephen Schmidt (31:13.363)
slowly growing into a world where it’s a synthetic reality completely removed from nature. You read a book, this is crazy, they did a study, you read a book guy compared to a Kindle, you actually retain seven times more information based on studies that they’ve done. It’s crazy.

Guy Barretta (31:30.998)
Yeah, and that’s funny because I never got into the Kindle. still, listen, I grew up in the 80s, right? Like, yeah, I have to have that book. have to, you know, when I finish that book and you have it there, it’s like…

Stephen Schmidt (31:35.621)
Yeah, me neither, can’t do it. I got physical books. Yeah.

Guy Barretta (31:48.566)
You you feel accomplished, right? You just finished another book. That’s number one. Number two, like back in the day, I loved albums, CDs and cassettes because it wasn’t just about the music. It was also about reading the liner notes. It was about seeing the artwork.

Stephen Schmidt (32:01.135)
All right. You got it.

Guy Barretta (32:04.652)
And kids just don’t have that anymore. They don’t know what that is. And it’s really surprising. And to your point, we can’t just go outside and walk and just enjoy.

enjoy. did it, you know, what’s weird is we did it for a little bit during COVID, right? When everything was shut down and you’d get the family together and walk around at like four o’clock and, you know, and, and, you know, and it was more wildlife than we’ve ever seen before because nobody was on the roads. But, you know, we were, we’re, now separated from that again, that quickly, two years, three years gone, and now we’re separating and we’re all in this rat race again.

Stephen Schmidt (32:23.505)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (32:34.855)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Stephen Schmidt (32:45.511)
All right, that’s an interesting game. Yeah, we did. Well, shoot, man. Tell these fine folks where they can connect with you for more. And if they want to see what you’re working on, more about you, where should they go for that, guy?

Guy Barretta (32:47.202)
We got really deep on this.

Guy Barretta (32:58.114)
You know, my best is LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. So Guy Bereta, G-U-Y-B-A-R-R-E-T-T-A. You know, connect with me. Let’s have chats. Let’s have discussions. You know, I’d love to hear what other people are doing in the world and, you know, engaging with others. That’s the key.

Stephen Schmidt (33:17.928)
Well, thanks so much for being here my friend. It was great to have you on and everybody I hope you enjoyed today’s show. We will see y’all in the next episode.

Guy Barretta (33:24.514)
Thank you, Stephen.