#725: Barbara Corcoran — How She Turned $1,000 into a $5B+ Empire: PR Stunts, Sales Techniques, Critical Early Wins, Fighting Trump, and Becoming a Real Estate Mogul

Barbara Corcoran has been an investor/Shark for the past 15 seasons on ABC’s four-time Emmy-award-winning show, Shark Tank https://abc.com/shows/shark-tank. She is also the founder of an eponymous real-estate company, which she started with a $1,000 loan after leaving her job as a waitress in New York City. Over the next 25 years, she would parlay that $1,000 into a $5 billion real-estate business. Barbara is the host of the top business channel on Patreon, Barbara in Your Pocket https://www.patreon.com/BarbaraCorcoran, which provides exclusive content created for entrepreneurs at every level. Please enjoy! Timestamps for this episode are available below. Resources from this episode: https://tim.blog/2024/03/06/barbara-corcoran/ Sponsors: Shopify https://shopify.com/tim global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: https://shopify.com/tim (one-dollar-per-month trial period) Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover https://eightsleep.com/Tim sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save $200 on the Pod Cover) AG1 https://drinkag1.com/tim all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://drinkag1.com/tim (1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase.) Timestamps: [00:00] Start [05:56] Barbara’s fake funeral. [08:23] Where Barbara’s knack for PR originated. [10:02] Storytelling. [11:25] Early business wins. [14:29] What Barbara learned about competition as one of 10 kids. [17:27] Early jobs: Barbara’s real education. [20:04] Dyslexia and dodging the victim mindset. [22:50] Barbara’s first company. [26:47] Why Barbara didn’t begrudge her first business partner’s romantic betrayal. [28:41] The value of enthusiasm. [29:44] From almost-evicted to exclusive agent. [33:29] Early recruitment gimmicks. [35:36] Being the only woman in the room. [39:14] Rules and systems. [41:46] Experiments, innovations, and mistakes. [44:17] Homes on Tape and puppy sales. [49:06] Esther Kaplan’s persuasive purse. [51:23] Sales 101 with Barbara. [57:37] How Barbara stays active. [59:37] Butting heads with Donald Trump. [1:05:21] Picking battles. [1:08:00] How Barbara fell in love with trailer park life. [1:14:14] Why Barbara only hires happy people now. [1:15:36] Barbara In Your Pocket. [1:17:47] What gives Barbara the most energy these days? [1:18:51] Barbara’s billboard. [1:19:58] Parting thoughts and proposals. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors https://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts https://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books https://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss http://linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, Margaret Atwood https://tim.blog/2022/02/22/margaret-atwood/, Mark Zuckerberg https://tim.blog/2022/03/24/mark-zuckerberg/, Peter Thiel https://tim.blog/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/, Dr. Gabor Maté https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/, Anne Lamott https://tim.blog/2021/07/09/anne-lamott/, Sarah Silverman https://tim.blog/2022/01/12/sarah-silverman/, Dr. Andrew Huberman https://tim.blog/2021/07/06/andrew-huberman/, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Shopify, one of my absolute favorite companies, and they make some of my favorite products. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. And I've known the team since 2008 or 2009. But prior to that, I wish I had personally had Shopify in the early 2000s when I was running my own e-commerce business. I tell that story in The 4-Hour Work Week, but the tools then were absolutely atrocious, and I could only dream of a platform like Shopify. In fact, it was you guys, my dear readers, who introduced me to Shopify when I polled all of you about best e-commerce platforms around 2009, and they've only become better and better since. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or getting ready for your IPO, Shopify is the only tool

• 0:44Tim Ferriss?

  you need to start, run, and grow your business without the struggle. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. Doesn't matter if you're selling satin sheets from Shopify's in-person POS system, or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's all-in-one e-commerce platform. However you interact with your customers, you're covered. And once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States. And Shopify is truly a global force as the e-commerce solution behind Allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across more than 170 countries. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way if you have questions.

• 1:29Tim Ferriss?

  This is possibility powered by Shopify. So check it out. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y. Shopify.com/Tim. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to take your business to the next level today. One more time, all lowercase, Shopify.com/Tim.

• 1:52Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseam. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. The Pod Cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep. With the Pod Cover's dual-zone temperature control, you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees.

• 2:33Tim Ferriss?

  I think generally in my experience, my partners prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting, this helps. Based on your biometrics, environment and sleep stages, the Pod Cover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep. In addition to its best-in-class temperature regulation, the Pod Cover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. Conquer this winter season with the best in sleep tech and sleep at your perfect temperature. Many of my listeners in colder areas, sometimes that's me, enjoy warming up their bed after a freezing day. And if you have a partner, great, you can split the zones and you can sleep at your own ideal temperatures. It's easy.

• 3:16Tim Ferriss?

  So go to eightsleep.com/tim, spelled out, eightsleep.com/tim, and save $200 on the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep this winter. Eight Sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia.

• 3:33Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Now would be the appropriate time.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 3:56Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I interview world-class performers to deconstruct how they do what they do, to tease out the things that you can use. My guest today is not only incredibly successful in her various endeavors, she is absolutely hilarious, and I burst out laughing a lot in this conversation. I had a blast. I think you will enjoy it as well. Barbara Corcoran. Barbara Corcoran has been an investor slash shark for the past 15 seasons on ABC's four-time Emmy award-winning show Shark Tank, investing in more than 100 businesses to date. Even more impressive to me, she is also the founder of an eponymous real estate company, the Corcoran Group,

• 4:39Tim Ferriss?

  which she started with a $1,000 loan after leaving her job as a waitress in New York City. You've seen this name everywhere. It's on signs, buildings, all over the place. Over the next 25 years, she would parlay that $1,000 into a $5 billion real estate business. And we get really deep into the weeds about early decisions, critical inflection points, and oh, my God, some of her stories are just incredible. Barbara is the author of the national bestseller Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 Into a Billion Dollar Business, and host of the top business channel on Patreon, Barbara in Your Pocket, which provides exclusive content created for entrepreneurs at every level. On Patreon, Barbara will dive deep into the topics most important in business today,

• 5:23Tim Ferriss?

  give an inside look at how she runs her business and works with her Shark Tank companies, and join members live to answer their toughest questions. You can find Barbara on TikTok, on Instagram, LinkedIn, all Barbara Corcoran. And you can find Barbara in your pocket at patreon.com/BarbaraCorcoran. Without further ado, please enjoy this very wide-ranging, meandering, hilarious, and also very tactical and strategic conversation with Barbara Corcoran.

• 5:56Tim Ferriss?

  So I thought we would start, Barbara, with your fake funeral. Because I would love to know, for your 70th birthday, how did you decide to have this funeral rehearsal, effectively? How did that happen?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  It was a competition with my friends. I overheard two friends were planning a birthday party for me as a surprise. And they didn't know I knew, but I don't like surprises. I like it when I give the surprise. So I immediately kept thinking, I'm gonna surprise them. I'm gonna surprise them with my own surprise. And when I gave it some thought, I tried to think of the most absurd things. And the most absurd thing was to kill myself and have my own funeral. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Because I knew it would have great shock value, and I love to shock people.

• 6:45Tim Ferriss?

  You do love shock value.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  So I planned it, but I took the two other good friends into my confidence, who could keep a secret. So we switched the party. They thought they were waiting for me to come into the house upstairs of my apartment. It was a great memory of it. And I was really downstairs, waiting in the coffin. And then my good brother told them, hey, she's coming downstairs. Hurry down the stairs. They all kept charging down the stairs. I guess I had 85 people there. And they walked into a funeral. I mean, if it had ended there, I would have been satisfied. Because the guests were, I could hear it with my eyes closed. Ha, ha, ha. They really thought I was dead. And then they came up and paid my respects. And I had the rabbi give the last rites, or whatever he does in the Jewish faith.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  And the minister, they're both phony friends, but they were dressed for the occasion. And I got to hear what everybody said about me before I was dead. And I thought, I'm probably the only person on earth who actually is hearing about it before I'm dead. So I loved it. And I had a beautiful gown. I looked the part. I was gorgeous. And so my final day was really a beautiful day.

• 7:55Tim Ferriss?

  And I think there was, am I making this up? That you hopped out at one point and then started dancing the tango? Is that right? Something like that.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Yes, of course.

• 8:03Tim Ferriss?

  Of course, the tango.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  I had taken lessons. I had taken lessons for four weeks. I had a beautiful gown with a tall slit, red. I looked gorgeous. And when I kicked my leg up, I had practiced that move. I could kick my leg and hop right out. And then we started the dancing and that was a dance party. We had a ball.

• 8:21Tim Ferriss?

  Incredible, incredible.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:23Tim Ferriss?

  You really seem to have a knack and obviously an enthusiasm for shock value. And PR, stunts, getting press has been a superpower. And in the early stages of your business, certainly that was the case and continues to be the case. Where does that come from? In the reading and research that I did, I couldn't quite figure out if that was you out of the box as a little kid? Where did that interest in buzz and PR and the knack for that come from?

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Honestly, from my dad. You hadn't met my dad, you would have known that. He was the king of fun. He worked two jobs his whole life, so he killed himself for his family. But on Saturday and Sunday, he was our playmate. And he would think of the most irresponsible things to do with us. We had 10 children and he was the most popular dad in the whole town. Because he would put us on a wooden ladder, shove us down the side yard, over retaining wall into oncoming traffic. He thought that was exciting. And it was.

• 9:23Tim Ferriss?

  Surprised you didn't have your funeral earlier.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. But he would put a twist on everything that would just make everything fun for us. So I realize the importance of fun. I mean, people just don't have enough fun. I'm sure I'm everybody's most fun friend and I like that. Because I think it's so worthy to introduce fun and joy and memories into people's lives. Whether you're at work or whether you're at home. I think about it afterwards and I get so much satisfaction out of it. Even some days I think to myself, well, if I died today, I'd be happy because I really had a good time last night.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  But I don't plan on dying.

• 10:02Tim Ferriss?

  And as I was trying to deconstruct, let's just say, the first five, 10 years of your business, and we're going to talk about things that preceded that, too, the 22 jobs and so on. And I'll just bounce around because it's my curiosity that I'm chasing here. But your ability to storytell, it strikes me that you're very good at people, you're very good at systems, you're also very good at positioning and storytelling. Is that also from your dad? Or was that a trained or learned skill on some level?

• 10:31Speaker 03

  That's an Irish trait. It's called Irish bullshit. Talk to any Irishman, he can usually throw it around. I don't think that's a special trait at all. But why I like stories is people remember stories. You could lecture, you could share experiences, and people will like it for the moment, but they won't repeat them, nor will it resonate with them. Just like the old Indians probably sat around the fire and told stories, same kind of thing. And also, I was in the sales business, remember? And in sales, telling a good story is powerful. The PR that I did for my real estate company were all stories, creating a story that people would be curious about to pull them in. And so it always had a great, spectacular beginning or a hook. I always just think, what hook could I use? What hook?

• 11:17Speaker 03

  And then I would develop the story quickly. And that's why I also think I did so well with the press, building my business, because of the storytelling.

• 11:25Tim Ferriss?

  What were some of the hooks or early wins in the press for your business? Because in the beginning, my understanding is you're basically competing against this old boy network, but they're complacent and they're accustomed to doing the things the way their father or grandfather did it. And so you had certain advantages in terms of speed and so on. What were some of the early wins in terms of press or early hooks that you used that seemed to really work in the beginning chapters of that business?

• 11:56Speaker 03

  There were so many hooks, little hooks, big hooks, some that didn't make money immediately, but wound up making money, and some that made a lot of money really fast. I think probably my first stunt was when I got my first big listing, which was, I don't even remember who owned it now, some famous guy had a ton of money. And he owned the top floor. He had a cell, the penthouse of the Galleria. Oh, Stuart Mott, that was his name. Mott applesauce, lots of money. Nobody could sell the damn thing. It was too big, too expensive. It wasn't even attractive. And he had cows on the roof. So he thought the story might be that we have cows grazing on the roof, which could have been. But what the story I developed was, I figured out what the maintenance was per night.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  And I asked him how often he slept there, because rich people have multiple homes. He said, three nights, maybe four nights. And I divided the maintenance by that. And my headline was, uh-uh, live in this apartment. And the picture was all over the place. It will only cost you eighty thousand dollars a night to put your head on the pillow. And people are fascinated. People would spend that money. I think right after that, I then got a very good listing because of that. Because one thing leads to another in the real estate business. And I got the Guggenheim mansion. Nobody could sell it. It had never been touched. It was a dump. A real dump in the most expensive block in town. I couldn't even get anybody to see it twice. And so then I discovered a safe in the basement. I said, what's in that safe? And they said, we don't know. We haven't opened it.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  So I invited the Today Show to come over for the opening. And they filmed it. And we opened it and there was nothing in it, but who cares? There was so much suspense about it that I sold it like within a week. We had so many celebrities come to see it. They just were enamored with it. That's the story. Those are early hits. And then I just started churning out any kind of bullshit I could think of, really. And people usually went for it, you know? One of the most fun things was when the boards in New York, the stubby boards, announced they were going to interview dogs before they let them into the building. I thought it was reposterous. But the very following day, I had all my salespeople bringing their dogs to Central Park. I invited the New York Post, and I taught dogs how to shake hands, like five hundred.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  And it was, it was a great picture, you know? So I knew people would go for it. Did that sell apartments? No, but it put my brand in front of everybody's face and made the old boy network go crazy, which was half my reason for doing things. To compete, to show them that I could think of things I could never think of, you know?

• 14:28Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. And as one of 10 kids, I've heard in other interviews that you've mentioned you learned how to compete and you learned a lot of social dynamics in that environment. And I've been trying to study what differentiated you from your siblings in the sense that what were the contributors to your later success? One certainly seems to be your experience with dyslexia. Are there other experiences or innate differences that you feel really differentiated ultimately the trajectory that you took from your other siblings?

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Not innate, I don't think, but taught or brought out by my mother, definitely. My mother would decide what each child's gift was and we had a role in the family. So we weren't just 10 kids doing the same thing. We all had a job. My job was to entertain everybody. My mother said I had a wonderful imagination. I could think up games. She would always push me like that with chalk was in my hand, not in a sibling's hand. The rainy days, I was in charge of entertaining the kids. So I think my mother's belief that I was very creative and she always told me, you're so creative, you're so creative, you're so good, you know what you do. I think that gave me the role that I got. And then I practiced.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  I mean, not every day of my life, but constantly I had to entertain kids. And so I think I just grew up with great confidence that I had the ability to do that because I could do it really well. I mean, if you were to walk into H-Water, New Jersey, when I was eight years old, nine years old, 10 years old, every kid in the neighborhood was playing in front of my house on the street because I was able to draw extravagant snail games that went on for like a block and a half. To win the game, I had to go for a block and a half with the traffic going by.

• 16:14Tim Ferriss?

  What is a snail game? What type of game is that?

• 16:16Speaker 03

  I don't know if I invented it, honestly. I don't remember how it came to be. It's like a very sophisticated hopscotch board. Instead of having a straight line, I made it in circles, winding, winding, winding, winding. You couldn't see where you're going. And on certain spots, I had two feet. Another spot, I had one foot. Another spot, I had two feet, one hand. Another spot, I had no feet. You had to really jump to get over it. And I always used different colored chalk and it made it exciting, you know, so people would cheer for the kids. It entertained us for years, my snail games. And if it was a rainy day, I would make board games at home. And my brother to this day says, I wish I had those board games. I would have made a fortune if I had produced them. I said, I don't think they were that good, Tom.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  That's your memory, you know. But my mother was responsible, definitely. Moms are powerful creatures, as you know.

• 17:08Tim Ferriss?

  Very powerful.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  They can make you. My mom was a maker, thank God. God bless herself.

• 17:13Tim Ferriss?

  And it seems like that would also be, on some level, a tremendous confidence builder in combination then with starting work as early as you did, school being difficult with the dyslexia, then building confidence through work. If we look at that period of work before you start your company, and I guess there were 22 or some odd jobs, I've heard you discuss service jobs, waitressing before. And I worked in restaurants for a long time as a kid, busboys.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Then you know.

• 17:41Tim Ferriss?

  I think everybody should do it. And I'm curious if you could maybe take a second just to say what was so critical about that particular job in terms of what you learned, but also what second place might be. So outside of the waitressing, in terms of learning, things that contributed to your later success, is there a second place type of job that really helped you?

• 18:02Speaker 03

  I don't even think of it as first, second place. Honestly, every job I had, I learned something new on, and that's what I wanted to do. I don't think consciously, but my first job, when I was 11, as a playground supervisor, not a very big job, no doubt, but I watched four kids in the morning for three hours and played on the playground. But I'm thinking, this town is filled with poor kids. Where are the kids? So I took my kids and I sent a letter to the Bergen Evening Record, the local paper, and I said, we have kids here coming for breakfast. Breakfast with Barbara, I titled it. Breakfast with Barbara, I was 11. I had to have somebody else write it for me because I couldn't write. But I sent it out to the reporter and they sent a camera down.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  And after Breakfast with Barbara was in the Bergen Wreck it, I had close to forty kids show up every day. And I realized my very first job, The Power of the Press, I never forgot that. But sales jobs, I learned so much in talking on my feet. I learned I could talk to people. I could get them to see things the way I saw them. So I would say, imagine if you had this granny dress at Schreitz's department store. Imagine if your kids had it, they could play house all day, they could blah, blah, blah. And people would see it through my eyes and they'd buy one. I learned everything in my jobs, nothing at school, not a damn thing at school. But I learned everything in my jobs and I found my confidence there. And I also found out what I wasn't good at.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  I wasn't good working for a bastard if there was a really mean, cheap boss. I quit after a while, you know, I just wouldn't take it. I was no good as a secretary. I couldn't type, even though I lied to get the job said I could. I couldn't take Steno well, even though I said I could, I would get fired. And so I really learned that I had a narrow piece that I was good at selling, hustling, and PR. You know, I got that early, how lucky you are when you have jobs as a kid, how lucky you are to hustle and get your real education. That's the real life, you know?

• 20:03Tim Ferriss?

  For sure. I would add another superpower in so much that I've seen of you and heard and watched. The one thing I have never seen, and maybe I've just missed it, but I have never heard you take a victim perspective. And I have heard you say, for instance, that the difference between successful people and others is how long they spend feeling sorry for themselves.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  So true.

• 20:26Tim Ferriss?

  I've also heard you say, and I'm paraphrasing here, so if I get it wrong, please correct me.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  So far, you're right, Jim.

• 20:32Tim Ferriss?

  That you are at your best when you're being talked down to by a man or something like that.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 20:38Tim Ferriss?

  And I would love for you to perhaps tell the story of your 51% partner and the founding of the company, but also I'm so curious where that resilience and ability to reframe.

• 20:52Tim Ferriss?

  What other people could take as victimization and turn it into something to your advantage? Because I've seen that over and over again in your story.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  It's such an important part. I mean, recovering from failure in my book is 95% of life. If you're going to have a good life, you better be really good at getting back up like a jack in the box. Boom, boom, boom, just get back up, get back up. I think I got that honestly by being dyslexic. Because when you're the kid in class that's dumb, you're a failure by anybody's standard. And you're constantly put down or looked down on. And I was embarrassed. I learned shame in the classroom. Terrible thing for a child to feel like a nobody just because they don't have a certain skill set. But that definitely taught me about, I had to go to school every day. I had to go back and sit there and hope they didn't call on me for reading, whatever.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  And I got used to being a loser like that and getting back up and just I just had to go to school. So I got early training in that area. And I also learned from running sales through my whole life. That really was the only difference between the superstars that I had making $2, $3 million a year and people made an average of $45,000, which was the norm. How does a superstar do it? You know, I became a student of that. I used to think it was connections I would hire for that. Work ethic, I would hire for that. Who did they know in real estate, high-priced real estate, I would hire for that. And then I realized that's just a starting gate. It gets you in easy. But when it comes down to it's how will you get back up and how long it take to feel sorry for yourself?

• 22:27Speaker 03

  They drove me crazy too. But I admired my superstars so much because of that ability. I could see them like you could punch them around. They go, ah, they back up. And so I learned from them too, you see? But I don't know if I answered your question too.

• 22:44Tim Ferriss?

  You did.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  I think I got a little lost in that answer.

• 22:46Tim Ferriss?

  I think you did answer it and I think we'll probably end up expanding on it a little bit. To give an example from earlier, would you mind describing the founding of the company? And your business partner and how that came together, just to give people a little bit of context if they don't have it?

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yes, of course. I was waitressing when I was 17 at the Fort Lee Diner, which was above my house. A middle-class town, which I thought then was a rich town. And it's really just middle-class by comparison. And one night, a man walked in and I looked at him. He had olive skin, jet black hair, aviator shades on. You couldn't really see his eyes and a real suit on. I had never seen a man in a suit in my life. Until that night, nobody wore suits even into the diner for dinner. I looked at him and I thought, I'm gonna lose my virginity in one look. I knew I was gonna lose my.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  And I did that month and I knew it would be within the month. But anyway, his name was Ramon Simone and he convinced me after a month of driving me home at night, which my parents didn't like at all, but he convinced me to go to New York City. He said, with your personality, you should really visit the city. I'm gonna pay for a week at the Barbasan Hotel for women. I'd never heard of that. I had never visited New York City. It was the only hotel left in New York that only leased rooms to women. No men were allowed. So it was respectable. It's now a Reebok Club, of course, many years later. My mom accused me of being a prostitute. I wasn't.

• 24:17Tim Ferriss?

  Your mom did?

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Let a man pay for your hotel and I was going to New York City and leaving her home? Oh, not a good thing. But he gave me a hundred dollars to buy my new first New York outfit. And then I was wondering if my mom was correct, but she still wasn't. I could tell. I was just taking the hundred to get a new outfit. But let me make a short story of that. That's so boring. The key part is he gave me the thousand dollars to start my business and he said he would take 51% of the shares. So I would take 49% because he was the founding partner and I was the operating partner. I said, it sounds like a deal and off I went running. About seven years later, when we had a rental business, we had, I think, 14 agents at the time renting apartments all around Manhattan.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  He came home one night and I was making pasta for his three kids who I became their mom. And he said, I'm gonna marry a secretary. And I couldn't believe it. I thought I was hearing things. That bitch, I thought, my med, but I said, Tina?

• 25:16Speaker 03

  And they were married within seven months. It just broke my heart, but more than broke my heart. It really broke my confidence because remember he had found me at a diner. He taught me I could have my own business. He loaned me the money. He took me out of my hometown. He was a man 10 years older than me. He knew this way around the world. So all of a sudden that's gone. My legs were taken out from under me and I thought I couldn't live the year almost is how I felt at this stupid time. What a waste of energy. Anyway, just about a year later, I think I was finished off on a Thursday, watching Ray and Tina in my old office together, holding hands and making eyes. It broke my heart. So the very next morning I arrived in, I said, we're ending the business today. Ray, we're going to cut it in half. I said, you pick the first person. I'll pick the second until we have them cutting.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  And five minutes later, I took my seven people and I said, guess what? On Monday, we're going to move. Ah, where? It's a surprise. And it was a surprise. But in those days, Tim, honestly, you could get a phone installed on a weekend, a great advantage. Mob Bell came on that weekend and stole phone lines. I had a landlord who rented me the 11th floor, which was just like our previous eighth floor. So I had a space to open it and I was able to buy all my desks down on 42nd street. And the guys ran it up to Midtown, put it in place. It was a different world, but on Monday I was open for business and that was the Corcoran Group. That was the first day of the business and I named it the Corcoran Group because I knew with my cash position and acumen,

• 26:43Speaker 03

  I was going to need a lot of help from the group to make it to the finish line, you know?

• 26:47Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to pick up on that very briefly, but I have two follow up questions. One is related to the landlord, but before I get there, I was listening to Diary of a CEO, your interview on that show, which was excellent.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 26:58Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely. It was a very vulnerable, very powerful. And one thing stuck out to me that I wanted to ask about, and maybe it'll be a dead end. But when you were describing the, I don't want to say betrayal. Maybe that's a strong word. Maybe it is an appropriate word.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  It's life.

• 27:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's life. But what you said that struck me is. I don't blame him, something like that. And I wanted to ask you if you meant that, or if you could say a little bit more about that. And this comes back to the, my perception that you very rarely take the victim perspective. You use it in some way. But I'm curious what you meant by that, when you said, "I didn't blame him."

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Well, you have to realize Tina was five years younger than me. I was 30 when he left me. Tina was 25 or so, prettier than me, much prettier. Had long blonde hair. She was far more feminine than I ever was. And she was quiet, and she adored Ray. So how can you blame him? They fell in love. They had three children together after they were married. I mean, they were clearly in love. But I couldn't blame him. I mean, I would have fallen in love with Tina myself if I was Ray. Probably would have helped him out the door, you know? No, I didn't have a grudge, honestly. I was tremendously hurt, as we all are when we're rejected. And I was at the age where I was thinking

• 28:19Speaker 03

  I should start getting serious about marriage. But I didn't have anybody. So I was, you know, I had that moment where I was hurt. But I didn't blame him, no. He did the right thing. He did me a great favor. Without him, I wouldn't have gotten started. Probably I would have found some other sucker to give me $1,000, I don't know. But he was there, the one that did it.

• 28:40Tim Ferriss?

  Now, you are good at spotting talent, and we're gonna come back to that point. What do you think it was that Ray saw in you?

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Enthusiasm.

• 28:48Tim Ferriss?

  Enthusiasm? What type of enthusiasm? There's so many different species of enthusiasm.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  I was a happy girl. I saw the bright side of things, which I have always done. My whole family was pretty positive, you know? I had good, positive role models. But I was highly enthusiastic, very talkative. It wasn't my first job, remember, when Ray met me.

• 29:08Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  He couldn't look at me and realize I had been working since 11. And I was comfortable in my skin. I was flirting with the guys at the counter to get the bigger tips, because that's how you get bigger tips. I knew the ropes, so to speak. I looked like a young girl. I wasn't so young inside. I think he saw me as a fresh, happy person. Who wasn't shy. And I made him happy. He was a bit of an introvert himself.

• 29:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Little bit of darkness in him that I didn't have in myself.

• 29:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So he, he wanted something to offset that, to counterbalance it.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're pretty opposite. We're pretty opposite in that way, yeah.

• 29:44Tim Ferriss?

  The landlord you mentioned, who I guess gave you a floor, was that, and I might get the pronunciation wrong here, but was that Johnny Campania? Or was that someone else?

• 29:53Speaker 03

  That was John H. Campania.

• 29:55Tim Ferriss?

  There we go. John H.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  As he always pointed out. He always pointed that out.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, John Campania. Now, he is a handsome man. Wow, was he handsome.

• 30:05Tim Ferriss?

  So how does he fit into this story?

• 30:07Speaker 03

  He did me a great favor. I had two roommates on East eighty-sixth Street, and I was operating my first business out of my apartment, as so many people do. It's another story. I won't go on a different road. But I got lucky in that somebody called me one day and I could smell the person on the phone wasn't who they said they were. I could just feel it. And as it turns out, that lady posing as a customer represented the largest relocation company in New York. And I sensed something, and I gave her a dog and pony show all day, like the perfect agent in New York. And she fell in love with me, and she gave me all her business. She said, you know, I'm not who you think I am. I said, oh, really?

• 30:50Speaker 03

  I knew she was somebody else. And then she started shoveling me business. So as a result of that, getting back to John Campania, John H. Campania, she started shoveling all these young people from Citibank, young guys. And I would meet them in my apartment and show them apartments. I said, come to eighty-sixth Street. It was like turning over pancakes. They were coming so fast at me. And so I was showing them apartments. I had my routine, raking in the commissions. And that was going on probably for three or four months. And then Mr. Rock the super reported me to Mr. Campania, the landlord, that he had a prostitute in the building.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  And I get it because I had spent my first check on a brand-new coat at Bergdorf Goodman's, my first commission check, three hundred and forty dollars. And I looked like a fancy lady. I knew it. And so I got eviction proceeding. I found a note on my door, you know, big red print. They put, it's really a public embarrassment. Eviction notice for prostitution.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  But why I say it was a favor, I knew I had paid my rent, I knew I was quiet, I knew what, I thought it maybe was a mistake, but then when I thought about it, I thought, I bet he thinks of a prostitute because of all the guys in the apartment all the time. So I went and visited him in his office, and he was very buttoned up, did not like me when I walked in. I explained that I was not a prostitute. It took me a while to realize that, talking to him. You think I'm a prostitute? I was almost a nun. I'd be the last person to be a prostitute, you know? That's how I explained it. He was Catholic, fortunately, knew what a nun was. And then I explained to him how Mr. Jaffoni on the next block, another Italian, I did it on purpose, was renting his apartments like hotcakes, when I knew Mr.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Campania had eight empty. And I said, he's renting his apartments like hotcakes, because I was smart enough to tell him to build a wall in the L-shaped living room and call it a one-bedroom and den. So he's renting the same square footage as you for forty dollars more a month than you're getting on your plain one-bedroom. It was the idea I had for Mr. Jaffoni, and I shared it with Mr. Campania. He said, you have the listings on all my apartments. I got it. I didn't even think of it as a sales call, I thought it was a defense call. But I left that building, he fired his agent, who he had worked with for years, I can't recall his name now, but I became his exclusive agent, and that was the first real exclusive agency I got. It was so easy with his listings, because I could get the city bankers in my apartment,

• 33:18Speaker 03

  go in the elevator and rent them an apartment. Easy peasy, you know? So that was a, that was a fortunate happening, fortunate happening, I didn't expect to land that way.

• 33:29Tim Ferriss?

  So then you end up with the founding of Corcoran Group.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  After Ray and Tina, yes.

• 33:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right, exactly. And you know you're gonna need help, but I would imagine it was perhaps challenging to recruit in the beginning, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm wondering what the key was to getting people you thought could be successful to join your company in the early days. What was the pitch? What was the, what was the trick?

• 33:53Speaker 03

  I had a great gimmick, two great gimmicks I used. When I advertised in the want ads, I would never put position opener, salespeople want it. That's what everybody put, salespeople want, salespeople want it. I made my caption in double height. I used up my lineage that way. One empty desk. Rare. People want what they can't get, you know?

• 34:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  And so people would call on the one empty desk, but I didn't say make high commissions. I didn't even address the money piece. I put, join a company that's a lot of fun and cleaning up. And having a blast. I just trimmed up our team that we had, which was true. I wasn't exaggerating on that. But it brought in a lot of calls, okay? Then, when I was opening up a much bigger office and needed to hire like fifteen, twenty agents at once, I had even a better gimmick. I put, learn everything you want to know about real estate. Career night. Sounds common now, but then they never heard of career nights. Nobody did them. And then as the forty people would come into my career night, I had a pencil in one hand, a pen in the other.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  And if they looked good, I gave them a pen to sign in. And then I dog and pony them, showed them, made them fall in love with me, putting on my charm in every way. They all wanted to work for me. And they'd call me the next day. I'd say, if you have any interest, call me tomorrow. And when they call, I would just see if they were in pencil and pen and I know who I wanted to talk to. So I would talk to maybe thirty percent of the people that were at the career night and invite them in for an interview. And then I would try to figure out if they have the capacity to sell, which is no easy feat. It's hard to recruit salespeople, very hard. Very hard to recognize the talent that you need to do it.

• 35:37Tim Ferriss?

  Did you view being a woman in that business at that time as an advantage, a disadvantage, a mixture of both? How did you think about that, if you thought about it?

• 35:46Speaker 03

  I have to say, when I walked into my first Real Estate Board of New York meeting and didn't see a woman in the room of the business owners, I was a little intimidated. But when I tried to talk to the sons of rich guys, that's basically who the trade was owned by, they didn't work very hard. They were a cocky. I spotted the cockiness and I knew I could beat them at their own game. It's a weird thing about cockiness. It's a blinder. Like, I'm cool, I'm cool. But they're never looking or hungry for other things. I was desperate, not only hungry, I was desperate to even like get a first sale into my bill. It was an advantage. It was an advantage because I could then walk into the rooms and I always wore short red skirts with my jackets.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  And I had great legs and I knew it. And everybody would turn to look at, because a girl stood out. You didn't even have to be special. You just had to be a girl and you were different. But as competing with them, I never saw myself as a woman. I never saw it as a disadvantage or a real advantage. I saw myself as a competitor. Just a competitor. And boy, if they treated me badly or spoke down to me or didn't give me any credence that I could possibly make it in their world. They thought I was a passerby or... I would say to myself, you just wait, I'm gonna become your biggest rival. I knew that right from the beginning because I was very competitive by nature and I hated the insult.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  It was like sending me back to second grade where the kids were laughing at me. It was too raw, even though I was much older. It was too raw, you know? And so it fired me up. It fired. It was the best thing in the world. If I had walked into a world of women, all competing also, all being good, I don't think I would have been very successful. I think the men helped me. I just had to show them I knew what I was doing or would learn what I was doing.

• 37:38Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement? And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, And whole food sourced nutrients in a single scoop AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first

• 38:22Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink AG1, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 38:42Tim Ferriss?

  So you had this attitudinal advantage, right? I mean, you had this competitive drive.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Tim, let me stop you for a minute. I have to say you are a wonderful interviewer.

• 38:53Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  I am shocked at how much you know about me. It's almost intimidating. No, really, nobody takes the time. Good for you. Over preparer for sure.

• 39:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, thank you so much.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Heard it before, but I add my compliment.

• 39:05Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. I really appreciate that. Okay.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  I mean it very much.

• 39:08Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. Thank you. I take it seriously. I enjoy doing this and I also value your time.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  It shows.

• 39:13Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate it. So you had this attitudinal advantage. You had this competitive drive. You also later became very well known for systems. And I'm wondering, as someone with dyslexia, what did you do differently? Because you're in an information business on some level, you're in a people business, but you have to handle listings, you have to handle, I'm sure, plenty of written material. What types of rules or systems did you have in place for yourself so that you could function at a high level? How did that work?

• 39:42Speaker 03

  I don't think dyslexia eliminates the ability to organize. I don't know. I've never read about it. I got my organizational system from my mother who ran our two bedroom house like a boot camp. You know, everything had its place. Anything she had to repeat, she made a system for. If she had a polish, I white buck shoes to go to Catholic school in the morning, she used a thick paintbrush and painted them on a radiator, turned them over to dry, painted the other side, and even painted the radiator white after a while when she realized it was dripping on the silver radiator. She painted it white to get rid of that problem. Everything my mother approached, she approached that way. So everyone in my family, my nine siblings and I grew up very organized, very organized. We knew what organization was. We were part of her system.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  And so I made my salespeople part of my system. I just mimic my mother in every way. But as a dyslexic, you have a problem with numbers, as you know, and words. So I didn't use them. I had no numbers, no words. I color coded everything. I had color coded file cabinets, listing cards. One bedrooms are one color. Two bedrooms are another color. When everybody else in the industry had white. I had buttons on things that signified things. I just did a visual organization of anything I touched, okay? And even right down to the memos that went out to congratulate people. I didn't use words. I found pictures and put them together and it would make them laugh, you know? So, but they got the message. So everything was visually done.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  And very much like my mother, if I had to do it twice, I said, I'm not never going to do this again. How could I repeat it and have it automatically in place? So everything was automatic, everything. It was really, if you walked into my company, I'm probably most proud. I shouldn't be most proud of it because it's systems. How excited can you get about systems? But I love them. I was so proud of the company, how well run it was because it was like, you'd swear like a Nazi was running.

• 41:38Tim Ferriss?

  I get very excited about systems, so I'm, I surely. Oh, yes, very much. I get very excited about systems and automating. So, as we have that in common. You have the automation for these repetitive tasks or processes. You also have the chutzpah and the talent of, say, driving the press and getting attention. What other innovations in this industry really paid off in the early days? Like the first handful of years of competing against these old boy networks where they have committees and they have to get approvals, then they have the lawyers and so on and so forth.

• 42:18Tim Ferriss?

  What were some of the ways that you experimented and innovated in the first five years? Let's just say, if anything comes to mind.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  I think it all comes under the umbrella of urgency. If I thought of an idea on a Monday, I had on the street by Tuesday. The big guys couldn't do that. And if I thought of an idea, I asked myself, is anyone else doing it? And no one else was doing it, I said, let's give it a shot. And you know, you try five things, one thing works, okay? But I kept trying different things, different things. There was a system in New York, which is unofficially still the system, even though people don't really acknowledge it, where no one shared listings. Everybody corral listings, kept the good ones for themselves. Everybody in New York was signed up for that. There was no MLS. And I declared that we were going to start sharing our listings. My salespeople almost killed me. Why should we share? Nobody else is sharing.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Which you can understand, because people will follow us. Customers will like it and people will follow us. Well, they didn't follow us. And it took two years before the customers even caught on to it. And then the Real Estate Board of New York, all my competitors, I don't even know what the motion is called, but they filed me at the Real Estate Board to like in a virtual real estate lawsuit without the money to stop me from doing business in the state. Because they said I falsely advertised. Because I was advertising like crazy what I call central listing system. Because we had no MLS. So I called it central listing system. If you list with us, you will hit every broker in the community. If you list with your competitor, you'll hit 3%, which was true. Well, they told me the way they interpreted was different.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  They kind of thought that I was saying to everybody that they were no good. Which that kind of was, I guess. But they all banded against me and wanted to throw me out of business. And that was tenuous. It was a rough time. But that was something, trying to do things differently, that didn't pay off so good, really. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done it.

• 44:14Tim Ferriss?

  You wouldn't have done it?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  No, not worth the hassle.

• 44:17Tim Ferriss?

  We can talk about all sorts of highlights, and I do want to talk about some highlights. But let's talk about briefly Homes on Tape. Could you describe your experience with Homes on Tape?

• 44:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was that good. I made a juicy 1.225 million dollars in one day. Three hours, to be exact. That was another idea they said I couldn't do. Ha, they were wrong. There was no law against it. I checked the law. Okay, what I did was, it was a terrible real estate market. It was when interest rates in the early 80s, I think, late 70s, were 18%. So no one bought real estate in New York. Nobody would dare buy unless you had all cash and very few people. So I thought of this idea. I copied it from a puppy sale that I went to with my mother. I guess I won't give you that detail. I'll tell you how I applied it to real estate.

• 45:04Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, wait, I'm so curious. Wait, no, tell me the story. So puppy sale, what happened at the puppy sale?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  The puppy sale, which my mother took us to, to visit our grandpa Ward down in New Jersey, the shoreline. My mother made us sit and watch the farmer next door who was having puppies, Jack Russell's for sale. And she had maybe eight or nine puppies to sell. And there was a long line of fancy cars, cars I had never seen so fancy. They were all from New York City, my mother told us. All these fancy city people have come to buy the puppies. There must have been thirty cars waiting to get a puppy. And there was so much fighting in the line when the last puppy was taken because there wasn't enough puppies to, you know, to give everybody a puppy, of course. My mother said, she's really a smart woman. Watch her operate.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  And I remember thinking, operate, like she's gonna cut the puppies up because I was young and I'm not doing, you know what that is? But it was her operation. She did this regularly. She had a bunch of dogs and she would oversubscribe the appointments. They all had appointments. They left angry. I had eighty-eight apartments owned by Prudential Insurance and Bernie Mendick. They couldn't have an auction. They said they had to get rid of them. What could I do? I looked at them and realized they were not saleable. They had no kitchens. They were dumpy. They were in the wrong buildings. They were just really the losers in the marketplace. And so I went back and said, I couldn't sell it. Nobody could sell it. I couldn't think of any way to sell it unless they let me do an auction. They said, no auctions. And then Bernie Mendick, talk about positive reinforcement, great developer.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  He said to me, Barbara, you're such a smart girl. You'll figure it out. And I thought, I will. And I went home and I copied the puppy sale. So I priced the eighty-eight apartments exactly alike. Different floors, different locations, views, no views, no kitchens, didn't have a kitchen, had a back wall, whatever. Equalize them, like the puppies. And I offered them for the same price, which now you'll say, why wouldn't people buy them? But not a great price at the day, but they were all flat priced at fifty nine nine, inch under sixty thousand. And I had almost a hundred and eighty people waiting for me the morning of the puppy sale, the morning of the one-price sale, one-price sale, I called it. And you should have seen the couples, the individuals, running. I had a bus waiting for them for the east side and west side.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  It said, "Deals on wheels, deals on wheels." And they took them to the west side, took them up the upper east side everywhere, and they grabbed those apartments. And then I had a great, well, I should just really say a scam. I had the contract of sales loaded up, big stacks of them with signatures on. I signed them all. And then I had a new stack with no signatures. I goes, "These are taken. Sign the contract here." People walked in, signed them so fast. And I sold them all, like within close to three hours, two and a half hours. And Bernie Mendick wrote me a check.

• 47:52Tim Ferriss?

  How did you advertise it?

• 47:53Speaker 03

  And I opened two new offices. I didn't advertise it. I had no money.

• 47:57Tim Ferriss?

  Or how did you get the word out to people? How did they learn about the sale?

• 48:00Speaker 03

  The best way. Who doesn't like a secret? I didn't have the money to advertise, but I wouldn't if anyway, if I had the money. I told my salespeople, "Only bring your two best customers. Pick of the litter. You get there early, your customer's gonna get the best pick. Get there early, but don't you dare bring more than two customers that aren't enough to go around." Now, two times, I guess I had at the time, a hundred and fifty salespeople. That's three hundred people. That's much more than I had apartments. And so guaranteed me a line, and they were all there. Were people upset? You bet you they were like, "I didn't get my..." I was gonna call it a puppy again. "I didn't get my apartment, I didn't get my apartment." And you might ask, why would the person last in line who got the runt of the litter, a horrible apartment, who wants it?

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Why would they buy it? Because they could turn around and see another hundred people in line. Because in sales, everybody wants what they... Your short supply, it's kinda like one empty desk, the same theory. You make it tight, you can't always get it, you know? So people reach for it.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  People love scarcity, they love it.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  That was the word I was groping for and couldn't remember.

• 49:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, scarcity. And on the talent side, I want to ask you about Esther Kaplan. Am I saying that correctly?

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Wonderful Esther.

• 49:12Tim Ferriss?

  So wonderful Esther, when you first met her... It seems like, I'm just gonna read here, this is from CNBC. She was a petite woman dressed in a little knit suit with little pearl buttons and spoke so softly, I could barely hear what she was saying. I had already learned that great salespeople were typically loud and enthusiastic. So I had it after my card and told her I'd call her if something opened, having no intention of calling her. So what changed? Why was she to be seen again? How did that actually get salvaged?

• 49:39Speaker 03

  Boy, thank God. She opened her purse when I gave her my business card, to put business card in her purse. And that was all the difference, because she opened that purse with her little click. Even the click of her purse was concise, you know, she was one of those. And she opened it up and she looked for a place to file the card. And she tilted it toward me, like you are where you are now.

• 50:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  And she had a file cabinet inside it, not a metal one. But she, she had partitions with labels in her little purse. And I'll tell you, I'd never seen it in my life, and I've never seen it since. I thought to myself, which I've said before, but I remember consciously thinking, I'd like to put my business in that lady's purse. And I told her I'd open a position for her. I teach her everything I knew, she'd be my right-hand person, blah, blah, blah. I never expected her to make a sale, honestly. She did, she was a consistently hard worker and sold what she needed to, because I didn't want to pay her to help me out, I didn't have the money. But I told her I'd give her 10% of my business if she would be my right-hand man, and I'd teach her everything I know about selling. And that was a wonderful partnership.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  I could have never built that business without Esther, she was my exact opposite. She did everything well that I didn't do well, and I did everything well she didn't do well. That was a lucky day.

• 50:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, what a lucky day. And lucky she tilted her purse. Did you find out if she did it accidentally or on purpose?

• 51:00Speaker 03

  I'm having lunch with her tomorrow. She claims now, and she's very elderly, I'm hoping she makes the lunch. She said her purse wasn't nearly as organized as I make it up to be. I said, "It was, Esther, it really was." She goes, "No, it was." So we argue about that all the time. But she likes it, she says, "Even if it's a story, I like it, but it's not a story. I distinctly remember what that purse looked like." I could draw you a picture.

• 51:24Tim Ferriss?

  What were some elements of the secret recipe of teaching her everything you knew about sales? I mean, you're an excellent salesperson. What were some of the key elements of what you taught her about sales?

• 51:34Speaker 03

  How to assess a customer immediately when they're talking to you on the phone, immediately. And it isn't how much money they have to spend, what they're looking for, what part of town, whether you even have the listing possibly to show them. The whole thing was urgency. When do you need the apartment for? I taught her the golden question in all sales. When do you need it for? Oh, we'd like to get in by Christmas. That's a decent answer. At least it has a timeline. Another answer, whenever we find the right thing, don't work with them. The best answer of all is, I really have to find something within the month because I'm being transferred here. Terrific. What are you doing today? So to rate your customers based on need only. Don't worry about another thing. Just do they need

• 52:19Speaker 03

  it? Get out with them if they need it. And so I taught her how to pick the right customers to work with. And nothing unusual. I taught all my salespeople how to do that. How to qualify customers. How to rate them A, B, and C. A, immediate. B, sort of immediate. C, forget about it. Don't call them back. And I also taught her how to hustle. How to build a routine in showing customers. Show them one apartment that's terrible. Or you could reverse it. Show them the apartment you think they'll buy first, and then you compare everything else to it. You know, there's certain sequences selling that you want to expose. How to dress for the part. How to get away with not paying for the cab. Very important when you don't have money in New York City.

• 52:58Tim Ferriss?

  How do you get away with that?

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Try to hang out with the men. They usually won't let a lady pay for the cab.

• 53:05Tim Ferriss?

  That's true.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  So that's a bonus. You could line up eight apartments to show to a man, but if you're showing it to a woman, make sure the apartments are closed. Limited to three. Not because you're biased against women, but you had to make your cab fair. You know, all these little details. How to sequence what you show. What street, like 86th Street was a choppy street. So I always approached 86th Street, not from Lexington, where my office came from. But I always went to York and East End Avenue. It was quiet with the birds with Colchester Park and then got out of the cab and walked them through that neighborhood up to eighty six. I wouldn't say, well, maybe some people might call it scamming people, but presenting it as best you can. All those things are so important in sales.

• 53:47Tim Ferriss?

  Super important.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Thoughtfulness, thoughtfulness in how you present and how, oh, and how to close.

• 53:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, how do you close? That's what I was gonna ask. That's what I was gonna ask.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Very important thing, the reverse close, the best close in the world for any business. And it would start like this. Listen, today I'm gonna show you a number of apartments. I don't expect you're gonna like all of them, but they're all to be measured against one another. I'll show you a range of prices so you see the value. This way you're moving up from the price they said they had to have. You would have like a ten percent leeway. I'm gonna show you all of this stuff and I want you to promise me right up front, you will not buy anything today.

• 54:27Speaker 03

  What do you mean I won't buy anything? Because I don't want you to be rash. Everything takes thought. You should really buy something you love. And even if you think you love it today, you cannot buy it the same day because it might not really be a love affair. Promise me you won't buy anything. I would have customers calling me and I panting and begging me to let them buy something. You know, it's a routine, right? It's sales, you know?

• 54:51Tim Ferriss?

  It's brilliant.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  But every customer was happy with what I sold them. Every customer referred their business. So I knew I was doing good and making everybody happy. Wasn't like I was selling anything bad. I always believed in what I sold or I wouldn't have shown it, you know? I just, I'm saying that because I don't want you to think I'm a bad person.

• 55:06Tim Ferriss?

  No, I don't think you're a bad person. I mean, you've, you've had very, very low, very low churn rate in your company and companies. And I don't think that for a second. And I'm curious about the aftercare. If you had any particular type of follow-up, like after you sell something to someone, after you sell a home, was there any type of call the day after or kind of protocol for that, that you had within the company?

• 55:31Speaker 03

  Definitely. I bought a gift, which was from the salesman, because I want them to get the repeat business. Those are my men, you know, I need that. Always sent a gift. I always had a lovely gift that wasn't too expensive, but we were making money, so I could afford it. And the most important follow-up was the follow-up. I made sure that every three months, they got a postcard from the salesman, but it had my face on it, my brand on it, saying hello. I had cute little messages, really hokey, now that I look back at it, but it's unimportant. What was important is I didn't have to open an envelope to find the message. They had to see it, because it was on a postcard. And it had a rhythm to it, always like a steady drip, a steady drip. So it was hard

• 56:14Speaker 03

  for them to forget us. I remember I learned this lesson. I didn't do it the first one or two years, but I was at Lincoln Center one day, having a lovely dinner with a friend, and I sat next to a couple, and they were talking about moving, and they were trying to recollect the name of the agent, right there, right next to me. And they were saying, what was her name? Where did she work? But they had lived in this apartment like 15 years. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, that's terrible. And I went right back and created the system to stay in touch with people, because I saw what a loss it was. How much money did that mysterious agent lose that day? Probably a lot of money. They looked rich to me, the way they were dressed. I learned the lesson at her expense, whoever she was.

• 56:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Stay front and center in the mind of your customers. And what was the gift?

• 57:04Speaker 03

  We varied it. We started, I think, with a calendar. Everybody used a calendar, but my face was on it. Pretty ego-driven, don't you think? Why would somebody hide a calendar with my face on it? You're like a pin-up girl, maybe, but my face, ah, you know. But at least they see who I was. Then we did bottles of wine, Beaujolais, if it was that time of year, a nice hearty red wine, with a lovely handwritten note. I don't know what we did. We didn't do anything special. But the fact of the matter is, we did it, and a lot of people didn't do it.

• 57:33Tim Ferriss?

  It was the cadence. It was the steady drip.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  Yes, it was. It really was.

• 57:37Tim Ferriss?

  So speaking of consistency, I've heard you mention that exercise is your therapy. You're very sharp, mentally, physically. What does your exercise routine look like? What has it looked like over the years?

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Nothing special, but what it does have is consistency. And that's the key to any exercise. I don't think it matters what you do. Okay? I've thought of taking up different kinds of exercises. I never get to it. But I have four appointments with a trainer. Well before I could afford it, she would be the last person I'd give up if I was going to the poorhouse. A trainer that is at my door and I have no choice because if I had a choice, I would never work out. But there she is, Margaret, who's been with me like now fifteen years and I gotta do it. So it's weightlifting, stretching, cardiovascular, a little bit of that. I get away with as little as I can. I don't like it. I've never liked a day of training in my life. I really don't like it. I love to give it up.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  I hurt my back a short while and she insisted on coming anyway. I'm like, don't I get a break? But no.

• 58:41Tim Ferriss?

  So you wish you could give it up, but you don't. So what do you get from the exercise? How would you explain that?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  First of all, you have your own time. I have an hour just for me. Splurging on me is all about me and I don't ever have any time like that or make the time. What I also get is relaxation. I run hot. I'm woo. Calms me down, calms you down. I get vanity. I look firm. I look good in clothes. People say you have a great figure. So I get all the flattery that's good for my ego. And most importantly, I find that when I don't exercise, it's really a question where you don't like, even when I go on vacation and give myself a break for a week, I don't think as well. I think it gives you a great ability to think clearly. I really do. Exercise and pulling weeds in my mind are the two best therapies in the world.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  You really don't need much more than that. You straighten out all your problems that way.

• 59:37Tim Ferriss?

  So you're building strength and part of strength in my mind is also how you contend with fear if and when it presents itself. You do not strike me as a fearful person and I want to bring up something I found that this is in New York Magazine and I want to ask you about this. Here's the paragraph. Corcoran and Trump haven't always seen eye to eye. In 1994, Corcoran accused Trump of not paying millions of dollars of commissions to two of his brokers who brought him key Hong Kong investors of his Riverside South project. I think a lot of people are intimidated by many things in life. Certainly, a lot of people would be intimidated by somebody like Trump, but it seems like you are willing to fight and I'm curious. How you developed that?

• 1:00:19Tim Ferriss?

  Or if that has been something from childhood that you've just carried forward? But a lot of people know what they should do, or the moral thing to do, and they're afraid to do it because they're afraid of some type of punishment or someone who is intimidating. And I'm wondering if you could just speak to that, maybe to the example, but it could be another example, and your willingness to not back down.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  Well, that's a good example because he's an intimidating man. He's a bully. He's a real, live bully in every way. With him, I wasn't scared for a second. I had never had a lawsuit. I didn't know how to hire an attorney. I didn't know what it was about. I'm not a fighter. You got me wrong on that, Tim. I don't like to fight. I'll walk a mile to avoid a fight. But when someone insults me, it brings out the fight in me. I don't know where that comes from. I guess same thing with the competitors being insulting to me. I know where that comes from. When my father would drink, and he was a social drinker, so it wasn't a big issue, but it was an issue, he would be abusive with his mouth, like a bully. And he was the loveliest man in the world and would turn into a bully. I hated him for that. I hated how he talked to my mother. I hated how he talked to his children.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  And so just tip into that. So when Donald is like, "You're not seeing a penny", I'm like, I turn into a killer. It's insulting to think I'll really roll over on that. And thank God how life happens. It was the first year I made a real profit in Horton Group. Because I never made money because I was always throwing my money back in and living so cheap so that I could afford to open offices. Always the money went to the business. The money went to the business, never came to me. And that year, I had more money than I could spend. I had like over a million dollars in profit. The year before, the many years before that, I either had losses or a hundred thousand. But it cost me $500,000 to sue, but I had the cash. Think about that.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  So I felt powerful that I got the money to fight it, and I'm certainly not going to walk away. Because you know what? My thinking is, I'm walking away from a well-fought fight. You resent it and regret it for the rest of your life. I didn't want to be that girl who said, "You son of a bitch, how did you get away with it? How did you get it?" You regret when you don't confront things, I think, in anything. But particularly with a moral fight. And in my mind, that was morals, all about morals. I earned the money. You signed, you'd give it to me, and you're not giving it to me? You're suing me instead? Oh, no, I don't think so. But what other lesson I learned at that juncture, just as important as a willingness to fight, is get the right help. I never had a lawsuit, as I just said, and I interviewed the top law firm.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  I think I had five or maybe four, maybe four is more realistic. The four top attorneys and the four litigious firms in town. And I wanted to hire the toughest guy, thinking, I need a tough guy to beat this tough guy. But I didn't conclude there. I met an attorney, I forget which firm, Skadden Arps, I think he was with, Richard Seltzer. He's now retired. And he had the most solid thinking. And I used my common sense to say, which attorney is not saying I'll win? But which attorney is saying, why I'll win? And this guy told me why I was gonna win and the strategy. And it was so simple. I said, you've got the case. And he was a showman in court, like show business.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  And his thinking was so smart. And he didn't give Donald an inch. And he called me after the lawsuit was won, like two weeks later, and said, I need your permission to work for Donald Trump. Donald Trump, what do you want? He said, he's hiring me for a major lawsuit. He said, it's a conflict of interests. I said, I got my money on the way, so no, no problem, you know?

• 1:03:59Tim Ferriss?

  That is incredible that it only took two weeks.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  No, to call the attorney.

• 1:04:03Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  Oh, I wasn't getting my money. No, I'm so sorry. I misrepresented. Donald Trump took about two weeks, I guess, because my attorney called me like two weeks later. Can I represent Donald Trump?

• 1:04:13Tim Ferriss?

  I see, okay.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  But it took me five years to get the commission because the judge, he said he didn't have the money, which was true, he's nearby in Crip C. So the judge made him pay me the commission of $55,555 installment payments for five years, or whatever how many years it take. And you know what? The best part of getting those commission checks, you've done such research, maybe you read this, but I gotta tell it, because it's my favorite thing.

• 1:04:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  I sent him a giant bouquet of flowers when I got the first $55,000, hand-delivered to me by Messenger. I said, thank you, Donald, hand-wrote it. I really appreciate the check. And I sent him the note with the same Messenger. And he took them back. With the flowers and he sent it back to me and he put a big, he always wrote in thick ink, you know, and he put on it, rejected and sent the flowers back to me.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  What is that stupid? But then I had the flowers, so I send them flowers for the next four or five, whatever many years it was, and flowers that I liked, because I knew he sent them back every month, rejected. That's the best part of the lawsuit.

• 1:05:18Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that is so good. That is amazing.

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:21Tim Ferriss?

  I want to come back to something you said at the beginning, which is you'd walk a mile to avoid a fight. And I think this is really important to revisit because I'm a fighter.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  You are? You don't seem like it.

• 1:05:30Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let me take that back. I've historically been a fighter, very competitive, and I think to a fault, where I've been willing to justify fights based on principle more often than has been helpful. And as I've gotten older, that has changed.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  Were they really based on principle, you think?

• 1:05:50Tim Ferriss?

  That's a very good question. I think it was a certain sense of moral outrage about some type of situation. So for instance, if, I'm not going to name the company, but I did a deal with a very large company, ended up being a public company, and at one point, they were retaining me to help with consulting and a various number of other things. I hit their performance metrics and they were like, yeah, we're not going to pay you. And I was like, but I hate your metrics.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:06:12Tim Ferriss?

  And they basically said, look.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  That's like Donald Trump.

• 1:06:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, they basically said, look, we have 20 in-house counsel. If you want to fight, let's fight. And I was like, what? Really? And that pissed me off.

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  It had a scary.

• 1:06:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, of course. And it was, I mean, it's intimidating because I'm paying out of pocket by the hour, and even if I have a retainer. But I have ended up realizing that for me, preserving my energy for the things that are really high leverage in matter is so critical that I want to avoid fights when I can. I will still fight in certain instances, but how do you choose which fights to walk away from and which ones to engage with? Because I do know people, for instance, who are constantly in lawsuits, and it's just a waste of their lives.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  They're not happy people, by the way.

• 1:06:55Tim Ferriss?

  No, they're not.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Those people that are constantly in lawsuits, yeah. How I assess them is probably backwards. I think how much energy is it going to take from me? Because it's always negative energy, it's never positive.

• 1:07:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  So I think how much energy is it going to take from me for how long? And I take a quick guess and I make my decision there. Not on whether I could win or not, which is, is it worth the energy? You know, is it worth the energy? You do have to stand up for yourself, like on that lawsuit with, with Trump. There was a lot of money at stake and certainly that entered into it. I don't know if I would suit him for $10.

• 1:07:30Tim Ferriss?

  Right, sure.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  A lot of money on the table. But I will almost always walk away because it's never worth my energy. You don't really win. That's what I've concluded. Now that I'm older, I've watched people, not so much myself, but other people that I know well in business. They never win. And the people, like you said, the people who are litigious all the time, righteous litigious is even worse. They're always unhappy.

• 1:07:55Tim Ferriss?

  Always.

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  It almost fuels their unhappiness, you know? What a waste.

• 1:07:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I agree. So this is going to be a bit of a left turn, but I'm so curious. In the course of doing some research, I found on this website in the UK. This is express.co.uk.

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  UK.

• 1:08:11Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah. So Shark Tank businesswoman Barbara Corrigan has offered fans a rare glimpse of her mobile trailer for a video with TikTok star, I think it's Caleb, perhaps Simpson.

• 1:08:21Speaker 03

  Cute guy.

• 1:08:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so it says that you use this humble Los Angeles trailer a few weeks per year. What is the story behind the trailer? I don't know anything about it. I'm just wondering how you use it, why you use it, if you use it.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  No, I do use it in more than a few weeks a year. Probably five weeks a year, maybe.

• 1:08:40Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  I shoot my show of Shark Tank in LA and I always stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which is so luxurious because they pay for it. I'd never pay the price.

• 1:08:50Tim Ferriss?

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  They put me up there. My next door neighbor in New York said, I've always wanted to buy a house in LA. I said, that's funny, I'm thinking the same thing. Why don't we buy it together? So we went out there to buy together. Her husband wouldn't let her buy it. And then I took a car and I drove around and I found a trailer park and I fell in love with it. That's all. I was trying to turn on US1, which is hard to turn on. Takes forever to make a U-turn. So I took her right up the driveway and I was in a trailer park. And it's only a half hour from my studio. And I went around and looked at all the trailers and picked out, I thought, the best position. Because you can always change in cyber, you can't change the location. And I met a lovely woman who owned the home and I asked her if she'd like to sell it. She said, no. She had no intention of selling, maybe in a few years.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  And so I called the local broker. I'd never liked the homes I saw there that she showed me. And I went back to the lady. I said, what if I give you a life estate? You could come and visit it whenever you want. Would you move out? And she said, yes.

• 1:09:45Tim Ferriss?

  Sorry, say it one more time. If you gave her what?

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  A life estate.

• 1:09:48Tim Ferriss?

  What is that?

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  A right to use it for two weeks a year. Any two weeks she wanted. She's been using it two weeks a year. She's so happy. She brings her family. She's had reunions there, as tiny as it is. And she sold it to me. Now, I paid for that trailer $800,000, which everybody in the trailer park said, a moron from New York just paid $800,000 for a trailer. I purposely overpaid by 100,000, but it seems so undervalued to me. I said, what do I care about? I'm gonna use it for 10, 20 years. What do I care about 100,000? Which is true in buying real estate. What do you care about it if you have the money to spend? But you know, I put the place into a spin, not because of me. I just bought it the right time. I put another 200, maybe 300,000 into it.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  And now it's worth like 1.9, maybe 2. Not a lot when you're in New York and hear crazy prices, but for that trailer park? It's a lot of money, but I have a full view of the ocean. I'm like at the Four Seasons Hotel, flowers, I have my garden. It couldn't be more beautiful. And so it was one of the best decisions I really made, definitely.

• 1:10:57Tim Ferriss?

  What else led you to fall in love with the trailer park? Because I imagine a lot of people listening, they're like, oh my God, like I would never imagine that Barb would fall in love with this setting and this particular setup. The view sounds amazing, the garden and the plants sound amazing, but what else, if anything, led you to fall in love with it?

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  I very much fell in love with my neighbors. I'll tell you, my neighbors, right up and down the street. You never get to know the neighbors on the other streets. So there's like a total of 12, 13 houses. I know most of them. I know most of them well. I have dinner at their house. They come to my house for dinner, but why I like them is they were just like my mother and father. They were simple, blue collar people with real values that were as lovely as a day is long. The loveliest people in every way. They cared for my trailer when I wasn't there. Let me know if there was trouble, a storm coming, making sure I was battened down. I mean, if I tried to find neighbors in New York City around my very expensive apartment to even give me a pound of sugar, I'd be waiting forever.

• 1:11:59Speaker 03

  But these neighbors are so genuine and so real. They're all from the Hollywood business, but they're camera hands, stagehands, ladder people, holding the script people. They all had these menial jobs that most people seem menial. They love their jobs. They were so happy to be in Hollywood. They're always talking about it. They've had happy lives and they share them with me. So I could never move away just based on my neighbors. Even my trailer blew up or something. I would just move right back on the same block. They're really lovely people, really.

• 1:12:30Tim Ferriss?

  And why did you deliberately overpay by $100,000? Was that to get the deal done or was there another reason?

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  I've always paid for any real estate I want. I always overbid. I even get my construction jobs done by overpaying. Two summers ago, there was so much construction work in Fire Island where I bought a new home, but it was dilapidated. I had to rebuild it. Last minute, the builder said to me, I can't handle it. You're gonna have to wait a year. I said, really? Why is that? He said, well, I can't get the help. I can't get the materials. It's COVID. He gave me a list so long, I was suspicious. I said, what if I gave you $200,000? Could you get it done this month? And he said, yes. Didn't even have to think about it. Yes, he said. And my house was done in a month. The house that was supposed to take nine months was done in a month.

• 1:13:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  So I always am willing to overpay. And you know who I really learned that from? Well, maybe didn't learn it from, but first heard it and I've always often thought of it was from Harry Helmsley. When he was the biggest landowner, big developer in New York and owned all the best real estate and the best locations, I attended a speech by him and somebody in the audience said something like, what's another tip? What's another tip on buying? How do you win the bid and everything? He says, I always overpay for everything I want. He said, because you forget about the many owner. And I thought, if Harry Helmsley, so rich, could overpay. I was stunned by that answer. And I always kept, I always overpaid and always bought real estate that wasn't for sale just by knocking on the door.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  You get exactly what you want. I love that house. Let me knock on the door. And you can often be two years early, but you could be persuasive with money.

• 1:14:09Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it works, works very well.

• 1:14:12Tim Ferriss?

  Fire Island.

• 1:14:12Speaker 03

  And I love my homes.

• 1:14:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Tim Ferriss?

  If you were going to give advice to yourself thirty years ago, let's just say, you could send back a time capsule to give some advice to yourself thirty years ago. Any advice come to mind? Tips or anything at all? Warnings?

• 1:14:29Speaker 03

  I would have told myself, because I had to learn this over a few years, hire happy people. I mean, I started hiring salespeople that were phenomenal from other firms. I turned into Ace Recruiter. But they were miserable at home. They drove me crazy. You know, great salespeople have two personalities. Most of them have two personalities. So I had, for a number of years, I had miserable people that could suck the life out of you with their bitching and complaining. And then I decided one day, I'll never, ever hire anyone unhappy again. And that was like pulling the curtains back and the sky opened up for me in every way. It was fun at work every day. You know, complainers are a funny thing.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  They're part of all families, all business, all circumstances, but they're horrible. I just don't, you know, just complainers, they suck the life out of you. So I think I would have gotten tough on complainers right away and fired everybody who complained. You're out of here, you're out, you're out. Took me a while.

• 1:15:29Tim Ferriss?

  I've heard you say, you know, complainers are thieves. That stuck.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  That's exactly how they are.

• 1:15:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that really stuck. So Barbara, let me ask you about Barbara in Your Pocket. So Barbara in Your Pocket is the top business channel on Patreon. Why did you start this? It certainly seems like a rare opportunity for people to get a lot of insight, a lot of tactical advice from someone who's been in the trenches, has had more adventures than you could possibly count. Misadventures too, I am sure. Why did you decide to do this?

• 1:16:01Speaker 03

  Two reasons. I wanted to make a team of entrepreneurs that I loved. And also, I was constantly giving advice, constantly giving courtesy meetings to people to help them with their business, constant. And I would get to maybe seven, eight a week. And it was heartbreaking because I'd have thirty people who wanted help. So I just tried to think of a system where I could help a whole bunch of people at once, where they could interact with me, I could answer their questions, and then also get help from the other entrepreneurs, because all my entrepreneurs from Shark Tank help each other. I molded them into a family. It's not one business, it's 130 businesses. They don't all help. Some of them aren't gonna make it, but most really help. And so I wanted to bring people together to help each other, and I wanted to give them honest

• 1:16:44Speaker 03

  advice, no bullshit advice, not slicing my words, tell them what I really thought, what I really thought was a problem, whether they wanted to hear it or not. And I felt I could help them really build their business. But it's young, we just got started. I'm trying a new thing every week, a new approach to it, getting the feedback. They tell me what they like, what they don't like, what they want to do differently. But it's taken on a life of its own. It's only a month old, but I see it like boom, boom, boom, boom. I almost feel like I have my old Cocker Group back. It's not weird, because I see their faces, they tell me their problems, I could see what's good about them, I could see what's bad about them right away. You know, I feel like I'm building my Cocker Group all over again. I couldn't have done it without a large platform to do it that way.

• 1:17:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Patreon's great. And I'll just read this for folks as well. So the Barbara in Your Pocket channel will be providing exclusive content created for entrepreneurs at every level. And you will be doing a deep dive into the topics most important in business today, giving an inside look at how you run your business, how you've run your businesses, and also working with your Shark Tank companies, as well as joining members live to answer their toughest questions. And I don't know if this is a tough question, but a question I have for you is, what gives you the most energy these days? What is it that drives you, feeds you energetically? Like, what do you find really tips the balance for you?

• 1:17:59Speaker 03

  An entrepreneur coming back and saying, I made a difference, that my suggestion to do this worked, and is successful because of it, which they're exaggerating, I realize that. But feeling, or not feeling, knowing the feeling of having somebody come back as proof that I made a difference. If you think about it, I think maybe all of us just want to make a difference, you know?

• 1:18:20Tim Ferriss?

  Totally.

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  I don't know, that's a satisfying thing in life. But I like to make a difference with everybody by a smile, by hello, whatever I do. But my sweet spot is helping entrepreneurs. I know I make a difference. So having that confirmation come back at me makes my day. I almost have a hard time working after. It's like, oh, I'm cool, I'm cool, I'm cool. Then I'd squeeze my head down and go, get back to work. That's most satisfying, yeah, without a doubt.

• 1:18:46Tim Ferriss?

  So Barbara, just a few more questions. This has been so fun. Thank you again for the time. Really, really enjoyed this. If you could put a message, something on a billboard, a huge billboard, this is metaphorically speaking, just to get anything out to hundreds of millions of people, billions of people, could be a quote, could be a word, could be a question, could be an image, nothing commercial, but just something, something to make an impact, what might you put on that billboard?

• 1:19:13Speaker 03

  I'll tell you, it came right to my head the minute you started asking the question. I would say, you're a lot more capable than you think you are. People write themselves off so early. I mean, I saw people through my career, whether they be entrepreneurs, Shark Tank, whether they be Corcoran Group agents, come in with battle scars from life, not really thinking they deserve their success or could accomplish it. I saw losers become winners constantly, and they wrote themselves off somehow too early. So I think people are so much more capable than they think they are. So I would write you with capital Y, oh, you are more capable than you think you are. Maybe I could come up with something better, but that's how I feel. So I'm telling you that now.

• 1:19:55Tim Ferriss?

  I think that's a solid answer. That is a great answer. Well, Barbara, thank you so much. People can find you on all social. We'll link in the show notes for all of this. Barbara Corcoran, almost everywhere. Barbara in your pocket. People can find at patreon.com/BarbaraCorcoran. Is there anything else you would like to say before we come to a close?

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  Very much so. Yes, I hope you'd give me a moment to.

• 1:20:16Tim Ferriss?

  Of course, take all the time you want.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  I'm wondering. Thank you. No, it's short. Will you marry me?

• 1:20:23Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I am on the market, so never say never.

• 1:20:26Speaker 03

  You are, really? You really are on the market?

• 1:20:29Tim Ferriss?

  I am.

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  Do you like a little bit older, babe?

• 1:20:34Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not against it. I'm not against it, you know? Maybe I spent a lot of time in New York. Maybe we'll have to have a, you know, an espresso martini and see where things go. I don't know.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  If you are serious, I'm serious.

• 1:20:46Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it would be great to meet in person at some point, no matter what. I do spend a lot of time in New York. I grew up there, got a lot of family. Yeah.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:20:56Speaker 03

  I'm kidding you sort of, but I'm happy with your answer.

• 1:20:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 1:21:02Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, thank you, Barbara. You are so good at what you do. You're so engaging.

• 1:21:07Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:21:08Tim Ferriss?

  And I've enjoyed this conversation so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. So thank you again.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  You built my confidence. Thank you. You're wonderful at what you do. I'm not just giving you a compliment back, but you're really all wonderful. I do a lot of this, so you are.

• 1:21:20Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you, Barbara. Well, have a wonderful weekend.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Bye, Tim. You're gonna throw kisses?

• 1:21:24Tim Ferriss?

  I'm throwing kisses. Kisses and kisses. Bye bye.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  Okay, bye bye.

• 1:21:31Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.

• 1:22:14Tim Ferriss?

  And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top, and repeating all of that ad nauseam.

• 1:22:55Tim Ferriss?

  But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. The Pod Cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep. With the Pod Cover's dual zone temperature control, you and your partner can set your size of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees. I think generally in my experience, my partners Prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting, this helps. Based on your biometrics, environment and sleep stages, the Pod Cover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep.

• 1:23:39Tim Ferriss?

  In addition to its best-in-class temperature regulation, the Pod Cover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. Conquer this winter season with the best in sleep tech and sleep at your perfect temperature. Many of my listeners in colder areas, sometimes that's me, enjoy warming up their bed after a freezing day. And if you have a partner, great, you can split the zones and you can sleep at your own ideal temperatures. It's easy, so go to eightsleep.com/tim, spelled out, eightsleep.com/tim, and save $200 on the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep this winter. Eight Sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia.

• 1:24:21Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Shopify, one of my absolute favorite companies and they make some of my favorite products. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. And I've known the team since 2008 or 2009. But prior to that, I wish I had personally had Shopify in the early 2000s when I was running my own e-commerce business. I tell that story in The 4-Hour Work Week, but the tools then were absolutely atrocious and I could only dream of a platform like Shopify. In fact, it was you guys, my dear readers, who introduced me to Shopify when I polled all of you about best e-commerce platforms around 2009 and they've only become better and better since. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or getting ready for your IPO, Shopify is the only tool you need to start,

• 1:25:06Tim Ferriss?

  run and grow your business without the struggle. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It doesn't matter if you're selling satin sheets from Shopify's in-person POS system or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's all-in-one e-commerce platform. However you interact with your customers, you're covered. And once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States and Shopify is truly a global As the e-commerce solution behind Allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across more than 170 countries. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way if you have questions.

• 1:25:50Tim Ferriss?

  This is possibility powered by Shopify. So check it out. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y. Shopify.com/Tim. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to take your business to the next level today. One more time, all lowercase, Shopify.com/Tim.