Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
Welcome back to another episode of Housing for Good. Today, we have another superstar here in the studio. It is a Theresa Barnabei. I would give her this long introduction, but if you know Theresa, you don't need the introduction. And if you don't know Theresa, you need to find out more about her because she is awesome. And she doesn't like introductions. She just likes to get into things and get going. Let's go. So we'll do the introduction as throughout the entire process. Sure. I'm good with that. So housing for good. We talk about the intersection of real estate and community activities, community investment. And one of the first questions that always comes up is, is real estate, did you get into real estate as a young child or did you move into it as an older, an older adult?
Theresa Barnabei
doll that's cute as a young child actually i did my father was a builder okay and i a carpenter contractor he did it all i watched him remodel our basement probably like three four five times and i was no this is an era based thing and let's take that as a grain of salt but i wasn't allowed to learn the craft of house building and then i was the girl gotcha my brother got all the education. So what I would do is I would just sit at the top of the steps and I would listen to everything he said. I would watch what he did. I loved the smell of sawdust and he would like do his magic. And so I think it started way back then. But then when I moved out of the house, I left all that. Then I went into corporate America, had nothing to do with real estate. It was actually UPS. It was a shipping industry. And then while I was a UPS driver, though, I was investing in real estate like I would be driving all these neighborhoods and I would see all these for sale signs and I'm like why am I not buying
Theresa Barnabei
real estate like I must be like crazy was it because you were a girl she had to be so now I wasn't buying it was because nobody ever taught me how right so I went to a weekend immersion I remember it's Robert Allen no money down weekend and that was the first lesson I got in buying real estate and by that Monday day, I had my first property in Escrow and then I never stopped because to me, what doesn't revolve around real estate? When you talk about real estate community, I think real estate is the community, right? Everything about community is built around the real estate. I don't care if it's your neighborhood. I don't care if it's the infrastructure. Everything is built around the real estate. And so to me, it was like, don't stop. So when I came back to Tucson, because GPS moved me around as I progressed. And so as I came back to Tucson, I was still an investor. I had all my properties here. And I'm like, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. That's why I laugh when you say
Theresa Barnabei
little kid. I think I still have it. But I was like, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. And then I just started thinking like, well, I'm going to keep investing. So why don't I get my real estate license? And I love teaching because I taught for UPS. So why don't I just start teaching real estate and get my license. That's how it all began.
Tom Heath
And I remember hearing, this is some time ago, you were talking about the desire to get into real estate after corporate America, because it gave you that flexibility because of your family and your mom and all of that, the promises that you had made.
Theresa Barnabei
Yes. Gave me what I thought would be a tremendous amount of freedom. And I never went into real estate with the idea that I was going to be a successful salesperson. I went into real estate with I wanted the investment properties at my fingertips and then I was going to let that take off and then as people started realizing I had my license and they knew I was an investor then my sales business just exploded yeah and that gave me the ability to do the things that were most
Tom Heath
important to me in my life I see a lot of people they get into real estate and then they get into investing uh and that you know because they see the potential of that at their end homes but But I think the perspective you had of driving all these neighborhoods probably taught you a lot about Tucson or whatever city you might be in at the time.
Theresa Barnabei
Yeah, well, I knew where I wanted to invest. I knew where I didn't want to invest. I knew the neighborhoods. I kind of got to know the people. I was like, you know what, I want a house in this neighborhood. There's some neighborhoods I still want to own a home in and do not yet own a home in because of that experience of driving around and seeing some certain neighborhoods that just slip in a door of hope. it up. Slipping. Oh, look at that. Was that intentional? That was intentional because I didn't want to, you know, have to bleep it out. Okay. Well, no, flipping like, you know, house flipping and... You're sharper than I am this morning. That's not saying a whole lot for
Tom Heath
you. I'm sorry to say that's scary. Do you mind sharing? And if you do, that's fine. We'll edit this part out you talked a lot about um you know how it was important for you to for your parents to your mom not to be in a in a facility that she wanted to be at home and that was part of
Theresa Barnabei
your decision too wasn't it that was why i got up every morning to do what i did at the level that i did it right because you can get into any business you want and just play here right i call this well i'm not going to tell you what i call it yeah i am this is what i call mediocrity right because whenever when you play here and you have the ability to play here why why do we play here right and it in it honestly it depends on the driving force right so my driving force to play up here and i still do you know and the why has changed when i was in sales and i was playing up here when i could have played here people would ask me all the time it's like why you work so hard you don't have to work that hard why you work so hard okay well one day my mom uh we were
Tom Heath
were
Theresa Barnabei
having a family meeting and my mom says, we asked her, you know, like, well, mom, what do you want? And she said, I don't want anything. I just don't want to be put in a nursing home. And I said, okay. And then I realized that to deliver on that promise was huge. And so there were a lot of times I worked to accumulate commissions so that I could accumulate enough additional wealth so that she
Tom Heath
never had to live in a nursing home. Because you didn't start off to be a, you know, superstar star sales agent but you did pretty darn well in the sales arena did it was easy and it was fun um
Theresa Barnabei
you know i worked by referral only it i was just blessed that way from the get -go and uh i don't think there's any other way to work business period because of the relationships and you're the best one to know that relationship and networking and just what you do for people comes back tenfold with no intention of anything coming back like that is you that's like the the epitome of who you are in my opinion and so so when you live in that world it's just so easy and it doesn't have to be hard we just have to know what to do when to do it and basically it's
Tom Heath
just take care of people so what to do when to do it and take care of people which a lot of people struggle with that which with you you sort of morphed your your career in education as you you mentioned you were teaching and i i think that's how most people probably know you in tucson i mean you're definitely a real estate agent i think a lot of them know you as someone they've taken a class and learned from and then you you took that even further and went into your book or a couple of books and you moved into coachings okay and that's i mean that's a and that could be a um in some cases a pay cut when you first make that move just say but but it's a passion you know just that education that driving force to get people from here and if you're just listening to the podcast by the way on spotify we're making motions with our sign with our hands to indicate levels of mediocrity and superiority yeah but you you made this conscious effort to help people get from here to here which has improved
Tom Heath
our our industry at least locally and i know you teach nationally and you coach internationally but uh here in tucson you can see the impact of what
Theresa Barnabei
you've done yeah i'm i'm very blessed in that respect but it really is doing the right thing right like okay I believe if we give ourselves permission we go through phases in our life we just have to recognize what phase we're in right so one of my sales managers at the time or I was I was a branch manager and I was I'll just be really honest here as a branch manager I was running an office of 150 agents plus or minus we had to write over a million dollars a day in production, the whole office. And it was challenging. And I remember one day looking at my sales manager and I'm like, are you ready to take over the reins? Cause you know, when you leave a high management position, you're supposed to hire your replacement. So I'm like, are you ready to take over the change? And he's like, well, where do you think you're going? So I think I'm ready to do something else. And he says, let me, let me talk to you for just one second. I'm
Tom Heath
I'm
Theresa Barnabei
like, okay. He says, there are basically three phases of your life. Your first phase is your learning phase, where we get to learn what we need to learn to live in this life and do what we do. He said, the second is your earning years. He says, and that's where you're in right now. You're in your earning years. Why would you want to leave a very lucrative position and take a pay cut? Like you said earlier, he says, and then the third is you get in your give back years. He says, and if any time you just realize where you're at, you always know where you're going. And I was like, oh, that was so profound. And it's kind of governed my life. So I learned this beautiful art or created it. I'm not really sure that I can still earn and give back. So I've combined the two. I'm still learning. Do we ever stop learning? But now I live in the mode of I can earn and give back. And giving back is huge. Right. And I think that's where we get the fuel to continue to earn, in my opinion.
Tom Heath
I would have to say, based on what I've seen of you, I don't know how you would exist in this world if you weren't helping someone get to the next level. Yeah. Every time I see you, that's what you were doing. You were helping someone move their business to a different level. It's hard to separate you from that. Yeah. I've seen you driving a truck around delivering packages. Yeah. But I bet you're the ones that brought it up and stacked it nice and neatly on the porch. You're not the one that threw them.
Theresa Barnabei
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. I wanted to meet the people. But yeah, you know, I think it's when you know what's possible, right? Because either you've experienced it, you've witnessed it, you've helped other people. It's very difficult not to continue to do that, right? Like you probably, you feel it all the time. I know I'm going to speak for you, but you get one person in a house, you know you can can get another person and another person and another person and another person you help an agent with their client you help another agent another agent another agent like when does it stop i mean i don't know how you draw a line in the sand and say okay i'm done helping people i
Tom Heath
don't mean can you even fathom that yeah it's when i win the lottery that's what i'm done with everybody you would win the lottery one of my remote islands and you would yeah i don't you'd
Theresa Barnabei
be inviting people to your remote island for R &R? Probably. Well, I think it's important.
Tom Heath
You know, I got into real estate in the real estate industry 25 years ago, a quarter of a century, as I like to say. And over that time, I've seen people that I enjoy working with them and they share those similar interests of giving back and supporting. There's not everyone that does that. And I think this, I don't think, I know that this series was created from that place. I think it's really important that the general public, the people with inner industry, they get to see that there are ways that you can earn and give back. Yeah. And I think that's a great, a great way to put it.
Theresa Barnabei
And the more you earn, the more you can get back. Because there's a lot, there are a lot of people who have, you know, the money blocks. And it's just like, well, if you just, if you don't want the money yourself, just give it away. The more money you have, the more things you can do.
Tom Heath
Yeah. I think it's also important that you, I like those three phases because there are people, and I was one of those that was doing the give back during my earning years. And I wasn't as good at giving back because I was still struggling to earn. And I had to kind of put some of that, you know, I don't want to say be selfish, but I had to focus on building a business first before I really launched into that philanthropic area.
Theresa Barnabei
So I had this thought this morning, I kid you not.
Tom Heath
Breaking news right here on Housing for Guests, just released from the mind of Theresa Barnabei. Hot off the brass, I'm telling you.
Theresa Barnabei
So every morning I have my time, and in my time this morning, just popped into my head, like if you could think about tithing, right? People think 10 % of your income or whatever, and it has to go here or here, a lot of it's tied to a church. And I'm thinking you can tithe in so many different ways and your time, which is the most valuable thing we have, way more valuable than any dollar that's in your pocket. That could be your greatest tithing gift because there is no more tithe. And so if you choose to exchange these moments of your life, doing what you do for somebody else or some other organization or an industry, whatever that looks like, you're really tithing the biggest and best thing that you can possibly tithe. And yet our mindset is it's all about tithing the money. And that's not really it. When you tithe your time and talents, you're tithing more than you would ever be able to match monetarily. Don't ask me why I had that idea this morning, because a lot of ideas pop into this
Theresa Barnabei
head. I don't know why they're in there. But I just wanted to share that with you because tithing is giving back. And there's so many different ways to give back. And so, yeah, you may not have had the financial bandwidth you do now because you were building a business. You didn't stop giving your talent. So you were giving about the best of you that you could have given. And we don't take that in that light. We kind of like take it for granted. Like we have all this time in the world. Well, we only have right now.
Tom Heath
You can't help it, can you? We're here to talk about you and your coaching. It's like, what's going on here? We're supposed to talk about you. Is that for real? No, you're like, I'm giving coaching advice. I need this talk. How do people find out more about you? How do they connect with you? Are you on social? What's out there?
Theresa Barnabei
Yeah, so my biggest social platform is Facebook, and it's Theresa Barnabei. It's pretty easy to find. And then from there, I have a bunch of pages, but that's my biggest blog.
Tom Heath
one. Okay. And you have a website too for your coaching business or does it just go through
Theresa Barnabei
Facebook? Yeah. I'd rather just give my phone number, which most people don't want to, but it's 520 -631 -4537. And the way I do coaching, because I truly believe we have to be a fit, is we do a first 30 minute call. What do you need? Am I the one to help you? Do you like my vibe? Do do I like your vibe? If we do, fine. If not, great. I'm sure you got something out of the half hour and I'm sure I learned something out of the half hour too. So it's kind of how it works. Pretty easy. No pressure. I don't sell it. Coaching has to be something that you want.
Tom Heath
Otherwise you'll never do it. So. Theresa Barnabei, one of our two signed treasures here. And I'm looking forward to more of these interviews on Housing for Good. We've launched a video series on our webpage, which is housingthenumberforgood .com. We have a Spotify out now. We're getting super fancy. And we're going to release new episodes every first and third Wednesday. So please keep an eye on this. Yeah, it's exciting to see what's happening in the community. And I'm so humbled by the talented people that come in here and share their time with us. Like you. No, no, like you. Like you. Like us. Like us.
Theresa Barnabei
There you go.
