PJ Crescenzo III : [00:00:00] Welcome. Welcome to the Pillars of Purpose Podcast with your host, PJ Czo. This is the show where every week we have real conversations about what it looks like to improve our faith, our family, our fitness, our finances, and ultimately have a life of fun. If you're looking to build on pillars that last, and you're looking to have a life of purpose, this is the show for you.

Thanks for tuning in and look forward to today's episode.

Welcome to the Pillars of Purpose Podcast. Today I have a great friend, a world-class entrepreneur, the founder of Gold Bar Staffing, uh, which not only staffs world-class entrepreneurs nationwide, but also has been an instrumental resource for our team at Element Mortgage and some of our top producers in the country.

Welcome Juan Carlos Bar. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Bj, thank you so much for having me, man. You're amazing. And you said my last name, right? So we're off to a great [00:01:00] start. Let's go. Let's 

PJ Crescenzo III : go. Thanks bro. I'm super grateful for your time. I'm glad for you to be on. So we're gonna dive in head first, and I don't know if you're prepared for this question's, question number one, but we're gonna fire away.

When did you first fall in love with business? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Uh, for me it was when I, uh, I read the book, rich Dad Poured Dad back in 2015. It was my junior year in college. Uh, and I remember I was supposed to be studying for an organic chemistry final. Uh, and instead I kind of dozed off, I typed it on Google how to become financially free.

And then that book popped up. Um, and that was the very first time in my, in my life where I kind of had a different mindset shift behind like what is possible when it comes to money, uh, and just financial freedom overall. So, uh, ever since then, I just been obsessed with the fact of how can I make money without doing anything?

How can I, uh, invest in an asset that works without me being there? Um, and that was really kind of what started my obsession of getting into real estate, finance, business, everything overall. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Okay. So you brought, you brought up a good point, which is also what you help other people with. So you [00:02:00] said, Hey, I've been obsessed with the idea of how do I make money without doing anything.

As somebody who is a hard worker, how do you detach or what would be your advice to an entrepreneur on how to detach From all of my output being attached to labor? And not feeling bad about not working a hundred hours a week, but still wanting to produce and scale. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: I, I, I think it's about. Kind of disconnecting from the idea that the harder you work, the more money you're gonna be making.

Mm-hmm. And once you go out of your way to start delegating and hiring other people and putting them in those places, uh, what you're doing is you're providing a career path for people. Uh, not just to grow financially, but to grow personally. Um, a lot of the people that, that we've staffed and employed throughout the last couple of years.

Have come to me and said, Juan, you have changed my life, uh, both financially, both mentally, uh, both emotionally, because now with the work that you've given me and, and the purpose you've handed me, um, I now feel like I have a much higher responsibility on earth, um, as an individual to become the best version of myself.

So, um, I think [00:03:00] employing other people, um, from a Christian perspective, uh, is giving 'em an opportunity to grow. Uh, and when you're constantly encouraging other people to grow, you're handing off one of the best gifts we we have, which is wisdom. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Hmm. That's incredible. What do you think is the number one cause of the mismanagement of time?

Like this is a thread in and of itself that I kind of wanna expand, but when it's all about time efficiency and time management, where do you see people wasting time? What do you think, you know, causes people to not value their time more like, just talk to me about all things time management. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: So when it comes to Goldbar Staffing and what we do when it comes to time management specifically, is we broke it down into three pillars.

Uh, number one is identifying what you're actually doing. So if you're not aware about what you should be doing on a daily basis, it's very hard to outsource or delegate that, that task. So, uh, we always recommend doing a time audit, uh, where it's as simple as you writing down on an Excel sheet, um, everything you're doing 30 minutes at a time for maybe two or three days in a row.

And then once you identify the tasks that you're actually doing, [00:04:00] like we're off to the races and we could actually work with something. Um, the second part is going to be, uh, organizing or prioritizing those tasks. So there's gonna be some tasks that are gonna be higher priority than others. Uh, for example, lead generation is probably gonna rank higher than watching Netflix.

Uh, and then there's gonna be other tasks that are just non-negotiables, like you building relationships and following up with people. Um, these are gonna be tasks that are gonna be higher income based. So we break down the tasks into low value, medium value, and high value. And then once you prioritize them, then we know, well, we should keep doing this.

We should delegate this, and then we should completely remove this. Um, and then the third pillar is automate. We wanna automate anything that we're currently doing that is not the highest and best use of our time. And the way we do that is through documenting that task, writing down and creating an SOP, and then hiring someone to take it off our plate.

PJ Crescenzo III : Okay. So guys, I just need to hit pause on not only what was just shared, but [00:05:00] on planet Earth as a whole, so we could just debrief on what was just shared, because that is a master class. If you just take the last 90 seconds of what Juan just shared, hopefully you hire him to implement and apply what he just went over, but awareness, right?

How many entrepreneurs do you think complete a time audit? Annually or on a consistent basis, like how, what is the frequency of time? Audits? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Every time we do a time audit for someone, they're like, yeah, I did one of those like four years ago, and I'm like, four years ago. Like, it's 

PJ Crescenzo III : every leap year. They're evaluating their time.

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yeah. Like, like, like it, it's very rare we find people doing it on a consistent basis. If anything, it's been over 12 months. But the reality is the person that you are now, even myself, dude, we're different human beings every 30 days. I 

PJ Crescenzo III : just sent you that selfie of us getting lunch a year ago and like the planet Earth isn't even the 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: same I day.

Exactly. Like you're in a different role. I'm in a different role. Company's expanded. So like that's the crazy part. It's like every 60 days we should be performing this time. Just because our life is changing so rapidly. Um, if you work with [00:06:00] us here at Goldbar, heck, I train your assistant to perform it on a monthly basis because there's new things happening every single month.

So, um, I think doing it on a consistent basis of remembering, um, like I said, if you're not growing and you're not scaling, you're dying. Um, well, if you are growing, then chances are your habits and your tasks are changing also, and it's worth actually identifying and restarting this process all over again.

PJ Crescenzo III : That's incredible. Okay, so, so that's pillar number one, awareness. The second organizing and prioritizing. Do you find entrepreneurs have a challenge with being able to discern what is a priority? How often do you find somebody where they're not actually sure what is. You know, what should I do? What should I delegate?

What should I remove? Is that something that you participate in as part of the conversation or kind of walk me through that? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: It actually happens all the time where everyone just kind of messes up their priorities when it comes to what they should be doing. Um, I was reading this book. Mm-hmm. I, I was telling you, you about it earlier.

Uh, and in the book it starts talking about, um, everyone is committed to a hundred percent. It's not a matter of if, it's a [00:07:00] matter of what you're committed to. Wow. So if someone tells you like, Hey, I'm not really hitting my goals. Uh, it's not that they're not committed, it's just they're committed to different priorities.

Uh, and when you start auditing and identifying what you're doing on a daily basis. You may find that you spend three hours committed to your email, and when you're in that email, you are in the zone, you're locked in, you're replying back. However, you should probably be transferring that commitment somewhere else that could get you a higher return on investment.

So for us, um, yes, we have to find ourselves all the time consulting and guiding people like, dude, you are worth $300 an hour. Maybe you should stop calling to confirm your appointments and rescheduling people on your calendar. Maybe you shouldn't be booking your own flights and managing your own restaurant reservations.

When you make $600 an hour, uh, people forget how much they're worth. And once they realize that, we have to constantly remind them, 

PJ Crescenzo III : bro, that's incredible. All right, so two threads with knowing what you're worth. One is practical, right? Like, hey, how, um, what's the best way to identify what I'm worth? Just gimme like a [00:08:00] really simple formula, but then, then touch on the philosophy of what is the best way to upgrade what I'm worth, and how do I step into that worthiness of being somebody that is worth more in 2027 than I'm worth in 2026?

Juan Carlos Barreneche: So if you don't know what you're worth and you want a very simple and practical formula to follow. Uh, what I like to do is take my total revenue that I've generated as a business owner for an entire year, and then I divide it by 2000, uh, 2000 takes into effect. Uh, you're working 50 weeks out of the year.

We're taking 50 weeks plus two weeks for vacation, and then we're multiplying those 50 weeks times 40. So that's how you get 2000 hours. Once you're able to calculate that hourly rate from there, it's about identifying everything that you're doing and then starting to cross out anything that is worth half or less.

So if I'm worth $250 an hour, I should not even be coming close to anything worth $125 an hour or less. And if I am, well, then at that point, it's time to invest into [00:09:00] leverage. And hire someone for 15, 20, 25 bucks, outsource that to them. And now I'm getting, not a Forex, but an eight x return on my time by delegating anything that that isn't the best use.

PJ Crescenzo III : Bro. That's incredible. So one thing that I appreciate and admire about you is the quality of everything you touch from the mic to the lighting to the first place we got lunch. Like you just have a very quality ecosystem and you also have a very quality network. So walk me through. And I'm gonna take it one step further.

Even the caliber of network, right? Because I'm sure at some point in your career, let's go back to the real estate agent that's starting today, or your junior year when you're reading Rich Dad, poor Dad. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yeah. 

PJ Crescenzo III : At what point did you bridge this gap and step into, Hey, there's not a room that I'm not worthy to be in.

How do you prepare yourself to get in those rooms where you're interviewing? Billion dollar teams like talk, talk to the person that admires the [00:10:00] quality and wants to just figure out how do I start this journey of, of. Of improving the quality of my life. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: So, so this comes from the Book of Science of Scaling, but he talks about setting a goal for five to 10 years from now, and then asking yourself the question, if I only had 12 months to accomplish my five or 10 year goal, what would I be doing differently?

And the reality is a lot of people are scaling in a linear fashion. Where it's like, I did a million dollars in my business this year. Let me do 1.2 next year. Let me do 1.4 the year after. But the reality is that linear path to get to those goals is actually a longer path and it's a harder path. Whereas if you actually calculated, how do I go from a million dollars a year to $10 million a year and I only have 12 months to do so, you actually start cutting out everything in the process that actually doesn't generate what you just mentioned, which is quality, relationships, and and, and quality clientele.

So I'm in the process of doing that right now where I'm realizing for next year I need to identify like, like where did the, my majority of my clients come from and who were the best clients I worked [00:11:00] with, and then any other lead source or any other relationship that I had that was generating me those type of clientele that warrant my target ICP, my ideal customer profile.

How do I completely abandon those? And then how do I just double down on the two or three sources that would completely like 10 X my business? So I think when it comes down to it's from a logical perspective. Investing in quality relationships and focusing on people that have quality businesses. Uh, it's always going to make for an easier process when you're servicing them as clients.

'cause they have more money. They're not gonna complain about little tiny things, and they're always gonna show up at a higher level. From an emotional perspective, well, you feel like you're actually providing a service to someone that could afford the service, so you feel good about it. But number two, they actually value the service way more.

Uh, and I'm sure you've dealt with this with clientele where, like I said, they're borderline broke. They don't know where their next deal is gonna come from and you start working with them. And then everything is just a, a, a, a tug and pull of like, I need to nit knack this, and I can't worry about this and all that stuff.

Versus you have the guy that makes $4 million a [00:12:00] year and you're like, Hey, my service is $50,000. He's like, where do I send the wire to? So, um, I think that's where the quality component comes from and why focus on that? Um, I always wanna associate myself with not just quality people, but people that have quality businesses and can actually afford to pay for what your services are.

PJ Crescenzo III : So one quote from there, which was a game changer, linear is harder and longer than exponential. I mean, bro, that whole dynamic, I mean, you took us down the threat of quality relationships, but. 99.9% of the population is linear. Yes. And you have this 1% focusing on exponential, which is actually easier and faster.

I mean, bro, that, that's incredible. I, I got a list of questions, but we're just having an organic conversation so I don't even need to reference the list of questions. Alright. So walk me through relationship building, right, because you've done a really good job. Of building quality relationships, getting in bigger rooms.

Has there been a strategy? Has it just been the grace of God with organic introductions? Like walk me through, [00:13:00] somebody wants to scale and relationship building's a big piece of that. What's been your mindset strategy framework for relationship building? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: My biggest strategy for relationship building has been any single time I go to a networking event or a conference.

Uh, instead of trying to network with the people that are attending, I network with the speakers and the hosts mm-hmm. And the sponsors and the vendors. Um, so I always kind of associate myself where it's like, hey, if we're gonna get a hundred people in the room, 99 of those people are there to listen to someone that's speaking on stage.

But the 1% that are speaking, or the 1% that are sponsoring and have enough money to sponsor, those are probably the people I'm gonna learn the most from. Um, so any single time I go to these conferences, events. Not only do I purchase the most expensive ticket, not only do I sponsor myself, um, but I always make it my intention to network directly with the speakers.

Um, so my strategy overall when it comes to relationships is, number one, identify your ICP, your ideal customer profile. And if that person is the one person, then you want to put yourself in a position where you can actually speak to them. Once you're in a room with them, the [00:14:00] whole question is what's in it for them.

What's in it for them? When you have a conversation with them, what's in it for them? If you stay in touch with them, what's in it for them? If you get their phone number, like what kind of value can you provide to them that either no one else is providing or they haven't thought about providing for themselves?

Um, and my way that I ask that question is I always ask them like, Hey, what's one thing that you're struggling with right now that if it were to magically go away would completely change your life for your business? Um, and it's a hard question to answer, but it gets them, wow, bro, that's a, you know, what's 

PJ Crescenzo III : a great question?

Juan Carlos Barreneche: This is something that's interesting. And then I'm like, cool, let me see if I can work that, that, that out for you. Lemme see if I can come up with a solution and then we'll be in touch and then I genuinely try to solve that problem for them. 

PJ Crescenzo III : I'm just taking notes, bro. Like that, I mean, that's incredible.

We could listen back to the podcast, but the, the strategy of actual implementation podcast is writing it down on paper. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yeah. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Uh, you know what's cool about that, bro? Like the framework of. Value. I mean, I think the, the marketplace rewards value. We know that, hey, the more value that I create, the more revenue I'm gonna generate.

That's the actual [00:15:00] tangible metric. Yeah. But your question is the strategy for value, which is if there was one thing in your life that you're struggling with or one thing you're struggling with in your life that went away, what would have the biggest impact? I mean, brother, that's powerful. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yeah. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Um, all right, so I'm gonna pivot a little bit, but this lays the foundation What?

Things have you learned from your parents that have made the most impact on the entrepreneur you are today? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: The things that I've learned the most, ironically, were not. The positive things 'cause the positive things have, have made me as an individual and have shaped me to become the person I am. But the things that have really shaped me the most have been the negative things.

So when it came to my parents, um, something that they really struggled with was delegation. Um, and I come from like both sides, where my dad was very corporate his entire life. Worked a nine to five, close to 52 years of his life, clocking in, clocking out, two hours in traffic every morning, the whole nine.

And then my mother was self-employed. She thought she had a business, but the reality was the business had her, and what I [00:16:00] realized is although they were both in two different lanes, one was self-employed and one was working for someone else. They both struggle with the idea of delegation. Uh, and that's really what has rubbed off on me the most.

It's the idea that once you get to a certain income bracket, you could actually start buying back your time. And the way you do that isn't just through hiring someone, but it's developing a process where you create a system for that task. And it's so systemized that if someone were to walk in and they had no idea who you are and they just read your SOP, they could take it off your plate.

So for me, it was a matter of, like, I saw my mother build her dental practice. I saw my, my father go work, his corporate job. And although both of them were making a decent income, they never started delegating properly. And it's the whole reason why they never were, like I said, in a position to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

So, uh, I'm a big believer in delegation and a lot of that has to do with the way they live their life and. I wanna be in a position where my future wife and kids don't have to worry about time with me because I have as much time as I want, 

PJ Crescenzo III : bro, the power of the podcast, I love [00:17:00] that origin story, which I never knew what have been.

All right. So that's a, you could say negative, but it was a. A framework that you got exposed to or a, you know, just a lifestyle that you wanted to do differently. So now transition me into, you mentioned Rich Dad, poor dad. You've mentioned signs of scaling. If you look back at the last 10 years, who's your hall of fame for sources of inspiration and encouragement?

Personal development speakers, entrepreneurs, who's your starting five, top three, or number one in, in the Juan Carlos Hall of Fame for, uh, positive influences. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: If I had to go one for one for my biggest inspiration over the last 10 years, heck, my entire life. Someone that I look up to, someone that I admire, someone that I just completely buy into their entire philosophy on life and origin and everything on that side, I'd probably have to go with Jesus Christ.

Okay, let's 

PJ Crescenzo III : go. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Now. The entire concept that I see here is everything that we hear about from Jesus' philosophy. Uh. Um, treat your neighbor the same way that you would want to be [00:18:00] treated. The golden rule, uh, to giving everyone love, empathy, and respect. But when, when you meet them to going out of your way to, like I said, put others first and like it's this entire embodiment that like, if we truly go out of our way to care for others and love them and not hold back and just put ourselves in a position where we could generally be good human beings, life will be better.

And I've always tried to do that. And I will say this, people have taken advantage of that. But when I identify those people and they take advantage of, and I cut 'em off, I will say this, for the 99% who didn't take advantage of it, it strengthened my relationship. It's made my life better, and it's just made me just happier overall.

So, uh, I'm a huge fan of JC when it comes to just helping others and loving others and, and promoting. Uh, like I said, abundance and, and, and happiness and grace. Um, and that to me is, is kind of my philosophy for, for living. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Bro, you know what's cool is. This is an organic thought that just came out, which I've never actually processed before this conversation.

So one thought that I have processed is you have the [00:19:00] strategy or how Christianity is a strategy in the marketplace. Like I think people miss this because there's a lot of people in the marketplace that. I'm not religious, and they don't realize that the actual teaching, like the people that Jesus had conflicts with were the Pharisees and actually the religious thought leaders at the time, because his message was anti-religion, which is we don't need to have a thousand rules on the Sabbath.

We just need to remember what the origin was. So you have people in the marketplace that miss out on the opportunity to build this intimate relationship with Christ because they. Think of it in a different lens. They think of it through religion, and I don't wanna be told what to do, but, so you have the strategy of Christianity, but I'm gonna tie it back to you with time management, which is when you think about servant leadership, you can't actually be a servant leader unless you have the time to serve.

Correct. So you actually tie all of those things together with help. You help entrepreneurs buy back their time, and then you bring in the biblical framework, which is, hey, if you're somebody that's passionate about the [00:20:00] kingdom and you're not delegating. Tasks that are below, you know, your hourly rate, you're actually missing the opportunity to create the freedom you need so that you can serve and make a positive impact on those around you.

Juan Carlos Barreneche: You just took it to a whole nother level, like, like when it comes to just being a leader, right? When it comes to, uh, embodying Jesus Christ in the sense of like, how can I be? My, my best version of myself to lead and inspire others. Something that he did very well was he passed on wisdom to his apostles and he took the time to mentor them and guide them, and, and he used to call himself a rabbi or a teacher.

So I, I, I think not going into delegation and not helping others understand what you've learned along the way. You're doing a disservice to your community. You're doing a disservice to yourself. Uh, but most importantly, you're not passing it on. Um, and I just think wisdom is one of the most beautiful gifts that we could ever, uh, hope to inherit.

And for people like me and you who inherited at a very young and early age, it's [00:21:00] up to us to identify other people who would cherish that wisdom and, and treat it accordingly. And it's to give it and, and pass it on to them. So, uh, like I said, I, I think delegation not only gets into a point where it serves you on a personal level.

But it could change other people's lives when done correctly. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Yeah, bro. We're gonna label this episode Divine Delegation because we're bringing all things together. I, I'll share one of my favorite, uh, stories and scriptures that I don't think about often, but this conversation's inspiring it. Then I'll get back to the action list of questions.

So, uh, David, right? One of the best shows right now on Amazon. You got House of David, if you haven't seen a good, check it out. So his son, Solomon. The Lord appears to him in the middle of the night and says, ask for anything you want. Almost like a genie out of the bottle. God is sitting at his throne and he says, all I want is wisdom and understanding to lead your people Well, 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: yes, 

PJ Crescenzo III : and he responds and says, because you asked for this, I'll not only give you wisdom and understanding, I'll make you richer than anybody that's ever lived before you.

And it's like, bro, wisdom is just so, I mean, bro, if you [00:22:00] know the right questions to ask, the right places to go. Let's just give a moment of silence for wisdom. So it's, it's good, bro. Um, all right, I'm gonna get back to the action list. So I got a ton of questions for you, bro. These are just things that I, I personally want to know that are just fun.

So, your goal setting process, how do you process setting goals? We're heading into the new year. We're gonna have, you know, a million people that set a New Year's resolution, and it's done by week 2nd of January, and then they wait till next year. But how does Juan Carlos process goal setting and. How you approach a New Year 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Goal setting to me is comprised of two things.

Uh, number one, it is, um, identifying what that North Star is. Um, okay, so instead of having like 15 goals, it's about having one or two, uh, that you could really, really focus on. Uh, and then number two, um, it's breaking it down into what action or, or what habits would have to take place in order for you to, to reach those goals.

So for me, last year, my goals were, um, I need to perfect my client acquisition system. And I need to perfect my talent acquisition system. And if I could just [00:23:00] focus on those two things, well, I will hit my goal, which is ultimately X, Y, Z, and revenue. From there, I tied down each one of those goals to A-K-P-I-A key performance metric.

Um, and then once I had that KPI, I basically had an entire like gauge of like, all right, if I hit this, then I would have perfected my client acquisition system. And for me, it was a number of clients that I would have. And for the talent side, it was a number of virtual assistants that we staffed, uh, properly.

So, um, I think it's simplification. Um, I think it's just instead of trying to solve everything you solve for the biggest problem that would have the biggest, uh, change in your life. Uh, and then I think a lot of it is focus. Um, I am such a sucker for the woman in the red dress. Whenever another business opportunity comes by, I'm always like, Hmm, this looks interesting, or, huh, this looks great.

But the reality is over the years I've learned is in order to scale you have to say no way more often than you have to say yes. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Bro. That's so good. All right, so I remember this takes me back to, I mean, bro, there's so many things that you said that I wanna touch on, but I'm [00:24:00] gonna go back to the theme of what I just heard you say, which was North Star one to two habits that are required KPIs, the track, I think about when we had lunch and I had all this noise going on and it was just this like calm moment of clarity.

It's like, bro, all you need to do is delete social media. And I'm like. Wow, this one thing just changed my entire life and organized my home screen on my phone. Where, where does the clarity come from? Like was there a season in your life where you didn't have clarity? Has that just always been a gift from the Lord where like you have a lot of clarity?

Walk me through the journey of clarity because I think the, you're right. One of the greatest skills for entrepreneurs is to focus, and one of the greatest bottlenecks they have is the lack of focus. So. Walk me through your journey and also how somebody else's journey, what does it look like to develop and grow clarity?

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Alright, so, so there's two things that we have to cover and number one, it's clarity when it comes to consulting others. Uh, and number two, it is clarity when it comes for your, for your own personal life. So I don't wanna go ahead and sugarcoat [00:25:00] something. I struggle a ton when it comes to clarity in the sense that.

My brain is thinking about 1500 things, different things at once. Okay. Although I'm just sitting here talking to you, I'm also thinking about like, as soon as this is over, I have to get this over to my, my video editor, and then my video editor's gonna drop it up, the short form. And so like, there's always the main things going on, uh, in, in my mind.

So the way I like to describe it is for me, um, I'm always experiencing 10, 15, 20 different thoughts. And I've just come to realize that 99% of those thoughts. Are not going to be anything that is productive or proactive towards changing my future. Lemme just focus on the one thought that would actually make sense for, uh, my business, my life, my career, whatever it may be.

When it comes to consulting others, uh, I've been blessed with the gift and the wisdom that if I encounter someone doing something and it has a negative effect on them, I can learn from that experience without personally having to go through it myself. Uh, for example, I mean, 

PJ Crescenzo III : that is wisdom, bro. That's the definition, 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: which is wisdom.

Like for example, like me and my sister are very different. If my sister. Like, literally like sees me put my hand on the stove and it burns me. She has to go put her [00:26:00] hand on the stove to see if it's gonna burn her. I would go ahead and see her doing that and be like, you know what, I'm never gonna touch that.

But I take it a step further and I could consult other people on someone else's experience. So, um, I think that's where my clarity has come from. I consume a lot of podcasts. I read a lot of books. Mm-hmm. Um, I network with a lot of high net worth, uh, uh, entrepreneurs and business owners. And then from all of the experiences that they've gone through, I process that and then I'm able to share that with others.

PJ Crescenzo III : Okay, so I was gonna ask this question and it came up organically, which great framework. So if you're looking to gain clarity, one is also develop the skill of wisdom, which is learn from other mistakes and don't make it yourself and you'll probably pick up more clarity. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yes. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Uh, what's it like working with your sister, bro, she's been an amazing resource for Element.

She's been great on Team Goldbar. I was curious from the family dynamic, what's it like doing business with your sister? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Me and my sister used to despise each other up until the point. We were like 16 years old. Uh, it got so bad that like in high school, she was in the same high school as me, and I would purposely ignore her in the hallway.

I [00:27:00] would literally like not know who she is and like she would come up to me and be like, who are you? So like, it was this weird dynamic. We would beat each other up. And the second we got into college together, I don't know what happened, but like. I guess it was maturity, I guess it was wisdom at that point.

But we started realizing like, listen, no one's ever gonna care for each other the way that we do, and no one's gonna understand our situation better than than we do because we grew up with the same parents in the same house and all that stuff. And the connection just started getting closer and closer and closer to the point where she's literally become my best friend.

Wow. So that being said, working with family, um, I've heard mixed responses about, but the reason it works so well for the both of us is number one, we've learned to just leave our ego at the door, and we've come to the conclusion that whatever feedback we give to each other, it's in our best interest. So if she ever tells me something, I always tell her she is 100%.

I can't defend myself, I can't tell her otherwise. But if she's bringing it up, I have to understand that she's doing it from a position of love. She's my sister. She cares about me, so she would never be bringing it [00:28:00] up if it wouldn't benefit me. And then vice versa, whenever I bring something up to her, no matter how hard it is or how much she has to change, she has to become aware.

I'm doing it from a position of love. Uh, and we've realized that a lot of our fights, even just to our existing day, come from communication versus intention. It's not what we're saying that, that that is right or wrong. It's how we're saying it. And then that's why we've kind of started learning. Well, when you have certain news to deliver, say it like this.

As she started training me on that, I started training her on that. I prefer news. That's very direct. She prefers news in a way where it makes her understand and, and, and, and learn from it. So, um, as your 

PJ Crescenzo III : female and male dynamic. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Exactly. So, so, so that's been kind of our relationship, and I'll put it this way, we have two very different brains.

I am more entrepreneurial of a visionary. I'm in the eagle, like 30,000 foot aerial view, watching over everyone where she's like down on the ground, implementing systems, managing, writing out the SOPs. So I, I, I, I think having two different different personality types works [00:29:00] very, very well. But also focusing on the communication patterns.

Um, not even just with brother and sister, but with other employees and staff members. It's absolutely huge when it comes to like scaling any company. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Bro, that was a masterclass on how to work with family. So if, if there is a topic that humanity needs, right next to how to master my time. I think the next one in the entrepreneurial community is how do I effectively work with my, how to work with your 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: dad?

Yeah. 

PJ Crescenzo III : How to work with your family. That one will definitely have no lack of views, uh, viewership, if that's even a word. So lemme just capitalize on the two things you just said. Leave your ego at the door, which by bringing Jesus into your life, that'll help you do that. Amen. So the amen actual framework will be Jesus, leave the ego at the door.

But the third one, bro, which is really a skill, is effective communication. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Yeah. 

PJ Crescenzo III : I don't know if there's any skill that you can develop that'll more positively impact your life than effective communication. So, uh, kudos to you guys. You guys are a dynamic team. All right, let's transition into another world or ecosystem.

You've spent a lot of time, and I think this will be a good takeaway for a lot of people [00:30:00] listening to this, which is what separates the 1% of real estate agents now getting to, to our field, right? Uh, and you could say the same thing for, for loan officers, but let's, because you've spent time with such. Uh, high quality team leads, and even that dinner we're at in Dallas.

What have you found as you reflect back on what separates the 1% from the 99% in the field of real estate? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: What separates the 1% from the 99% in the field of real estate is very simple. It's how well they are at effectively delegating. Um mm-hmm. The 1% of the 1%. I'm talking the ones that are million dollar a year earners or, or more.

Uh, they are masters at realizing that this is not the best use of my time. They create a system or a process for that thing, and then they outsource it to someone else. Doesn't matter if it's a virtual assistant, doesn't matter if it's an executive assistant. Um, doesn't matter if it's a loan processor, assistant, doesn't matter if it's a marketing director.

They realize that their highest and best use is building relationships, going on listing presentations, writing, um, like I said, offers, whatever that thing is. [00:31:00] And they just stick to it. Um, and that's it. They, they stick to the basics. Uh, the same way that Kobe Bryant would wake up and be in the gym four hours before everyone else.

And what do you do? Like a thousand free throws a day or something like that. Yeah. He's still doing the same thing everyone else is doing. It's just he's focused on that one thing so much to the point that he is become the best in the world at it. So the top agents in the world. Are the best at listing presentations.

The best loan officers in the world are the best at building out teams and scaling out their branches. Like it's very simple. They all have that same like, like effect ability, opportunity to do 

PJ Crescenzo III : it. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: When you really look at the underlying aspect of it, it's, they're aware of how much they're worth and they delegate anything that's beneath that hourly rate.

PJ Crescenzo III : In, bro, this, this is great. I, I don't even, every, every 10 minutes I gotta rebrand the episode. 'cause there's a new thread in which, like, somebody could key in on this. What, what's the best way to increase awareness in 2026? So as there's noise everywhere, as we have one of the busiest eras in human history, if I just wanna increase my [00:32:00] awareness, because it sounds like that's step one.

To doing anything productive is just to increase my awareness. What would you recommend as some ways that I can increase my awareness? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: The best way to increase awareness in 2026 is to follow the money. So look at every single transaction that you've closed in the last 12 months and identify where did it come from.

Who did I speak to? What event was I at? What lead source was it? Whatever it may be. And then identify the top three. And if you could get to the point where you realize the majority of all your business comes from two or three main sources, and you could put the majority of your time into investing more into those sources, what ends up happening is all of the fluff that's taking up your time, that's probably giving you the most headaches disappears.

You make more money and you scale faster. 

PJ Crescenzo III : If I'm a and great answer again, bro. I, I'm just gonna stop saying great answer. 'cause then it's just gonna become a recurring sound bite. So just assume that when you say something, I'm agreeing with you. If I'm a, if I'm a full-time real estate agent in 2026, what should I be closing?

If I'm working 40 hours a week, what's your opinion of, of what, what should I [00:33:00] be closing if I'm working 40 hours a week in real estate? 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: If you're in real estate and you're working full time, the minimum you should be closing is 80 to a hundred thousand dollars a year at an entry level. Um, anything less than that, not only does it become very hard to to live off of and invest back into your business, uh, but it becomes something where you're kind of one foot into part-time territory.

The other one foot into full-time territory. Once you get to a hundred KA year, it's very simple. It's about understanding. That you are generating an hourly rate that is more than 10 or $20 an hour, you are now worth 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, a hundred dollars an hour. And it's important you protect that time. So the reason most people can't break past six figures is they get to a hundred K and they continue doing the same exact things that got them to a hundred k.

The second you get to a hundred K, you should be completely taking off your hat of writing out contracts and, and, and, and doing documents, and doing emails and calendar and swapping it out for the hat, where now you're establishing partnerships with mortgage lenders and then you should be outsourcing all of those things to someone else.[00:34:00] 

So business is very simple. There's a path from zero to a hundred K. There's another path from a hundred K to two 50. There's another path from two 50 to 500, and there's another one from 500 K to a million plus. And at the end of each path, it's about removing the hat of all the things you were doing that got you there, and then handing that path off to someone else because you've mastered it and you realize you are way better than 10, 20, 30, $40 an hour pass.

PJ Crescenzo III : All right, so in the scale or in the theme of exponential growth, if it's the end of 2025, I'm a real estate agent. I just made a hundred grand, and I say, Juan, I wanna make a million dollars this year. What there, there's two answers. What would be my North star to go from a hundred grand to a million? And what different type of mindset is required to be a seven figure earner versus six figure earner?

Juan Carlos Barreneche: So step one is to calculate what it takes to go from a hundred K to a million dollars a year. Uh, if you're in an average market where, let's say your average transaction size is half a million. And you're earning, [00:35:00] let's just say 2% per transaction. Now we know we have to close a hundred deals to go ahead and, and make a million dollars a year once we know we have to, to close a hundred deals.

It's a matter of cool. What type of marketing do we have to do that would generate enough appointments to close a hundred deals. And I think the biggest issue that people have that are at a hundred k. That doesn't allow them to get to a million dollars a year is they don't invest money into marketing.

If you look at any major company, whether it's a big corporation, a small mom and pop, whatever it is, the ones that are successful and the ones that are scaling are investing a good chunk of the revenue back into the business. What I see from people that are a hundred, 150 KA year earners into real estate space is they're taking all of their income and using it to live off that income.

Whereas when I see a mortgage branch manager that makes $2 million a year. He's taking 30% of that and reinvesting it back into staff and marketing. So a very simple rule is as you scale from a hundred K over to a million, you take a small percentage of that income and you reinvest it back into digital marketing.

That could be ads, that could be content [00:36:00] creation, that could be whatever it is. And then as your business scales and you make more money, you take a good chunk of that income and reinvest it back into staff. And then every single time you hit a new milestone, whether it's 200 K, 300 K, 400 k, et cetera. You just know I'm gonna allocate about 20 to 30% of my total revenue towards staff and marketing.

And I think the biggest thing that people struggle with is, well, they're like, well now I'm not keeping all of it. And like if you look at any business on earth, find me one business on earth with a hundred percent margins doesn't exist. So like that's the big thing. It's like you have to get comfortable with your expenses increasing, and you have to get comfortable with your payroll increasing.

PJ Crescenzo III : Bro, I love that. I'm, I'm gonna listen to this again, bro. This is great. What a great, what a great episode. All right, so when it's all said and done, you've staffed every Fortune 500 company. You got 20,000 gold bar assistants. And it's your final day, and all that's left is a match of tennis with your wife and your children [00:37:00] that are fluent in multiple languages, what, what do you want to be known for?

What do you want the legacy of Juan Carlos to be? When it's all said and done, 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: I want to be known for two things. Number one is, uh, is educating others and giving them wisdom so that they could become a better version of themselves. Uh, even for all the virtual assistants that we staff, I come across so many companies and so many individuals that just pay them so poorly, and I'm so against that because if you're just trying to pay someone the least amount of money possible, number one, they're gonna be struggling their entire life just to get by.

And number two, you're not giving them an opportunity to grow. And the reason that people deserve to grow is over time, if their skills improve and they learn new assets. Their hourly rate goes up. So I'm just a big believer in giving assistance, uh, whether they're director of operations, whether they're executive assistants, whether they're VAs.

Giving them as much wisdom as possible to succeed so that eventually they could get promoted, make more money, provide better for their families, and become better version of themselves. That's number one. Mm-hmm. And number [00:38:00] two, I wanna be known for preaching the message of Jesus, which is love. Which is love when it comes to your business, when it comes to your spouse, when it comes to your family, when it comes to your relationships, when it comes to your community.

Um, I really do think when all is said and done, and like I said, you've built your empire and I built mine, we're gonna look back and we're not gonna count how much our net worth is. We're gonna count on how many lives we've changed and how many people we brought closer to, to Christ and, and, and, and saw them see the light that they didn't see before.

So I, I think that's my, my true ultimate purpose. It's, it's to bring more people closer to Christ and let them know that there's a life past this and that. Like I said, if, if, if you do the right thing and, and you believe in Christ and, and you love others, and you cheat others with respect. Not only will it help you get to eternal salvation, but you'll have a better life overall on Earth as well, 

PJ Crescenzo III : bro.

So beautiful. I just, I want to just capture that last. Statement, which is not only will you get to eternal salvation, fun fact, your time on Earth will be a hundred [00:39:00] times more enjoyable as well. So, Juan, I love you, bro. This was fire. I didn't even have to, I literally only had to look at my questions twice because I just naturally wanted to ask every follow-up question possible to your feedback.

So thanks for sharing this wisdom today. You definitely accomplished goal number one. I will put all of the ways that people can follow you. Stay up to date with your content, your insights. I'll also put a link for any business owners that are looking to more effectively manage their time and maybe look to add some staffing in 2026.

Juan is your guy. So bro, thank you so much for your time and for being on the show today. 

Juan Carlos Barreneche: Thank you, bro. Uh, God bless you. I love you also, and, uh, just incredibly honored to have you in my present. You are an incredible individual and not just when it comes to business, but when it comes to, uh, how you treat your wife, your family, like, like you, you're, you're someone that inspires me to become the best person in myself also.

So I'm happy to have you in my circle, dude. 

PJ Crescenzo III : Thanks bro. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for joining today's episode of The Pillars of Purpose Podcast. [00:40:00] If today's episode was entertaining, educational, or if it was a source of encouragement, please share this with a friend, a colleague, a family member, or anyone that would benefit from this message.

Please subscribe and stay tuned for future episodes. We look forward to bringing you value every week. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.