Oh, I've changed. Therefore, all of you need to change. It ceases to become work. I was not a happy [ __ ] I was I was an angry dude. Should we just surrender to this? Is this the universe now telling us that you're probably going to get frustrated if I only give you 5 minutes to meditate? But I don't know of another way to kind of express that. What do you think the frequency of wealth is?
Welcome to the Frequency of Wealth podcast where we try to interview people who use meditation as a tool for business and we try to identify how uh spiritual work and meditations help them get competitive edge in business. And today we have a very special guest uh my good friend uh my tennis partner my business partner Venenzo Verdino. Venzo welcome to the show. It's a pleasure. I'm excited to be here. Yes. And looks like we've made progress since last podcast because our guest is wearing shoes today. We actually did a meditation this morning, G and I, and I told him I was coming in here and he said, "Uh, you should take your shoes off to keep the joke going." That's funny. I opted not to. If let's start from the very beginning. Uh, can you basically tell us um um your origins where you grew up? Yeah. So origins uh both my all four of my grandparents um were born to the same town in Sicily. So uh originally um Italian grew up spending summers uh in Sicily then uh lived in Italy for about two years. So a big part of um my background and and kind of who shaped who I what shaped who I am uh is certainly you know Italian and and being um a family all being from Italy. Uh growing up, I grew up in the Catskill Mountains of um upstate New York and one of my first um experiences with uh meditation and visualization was in athletics. Uh one of my now mentors and and coaches earlier on, Jack Carter is his name. He was a Olympic caliber dathlete and he was very spiritual guy. He um he started out as a coach. one of the first things that he did and um he was my pole vaultting coach which is a very technical event um and it's very much a lot of it is kind of in your mind in your head. You have to get over um you know this fear that you may have of going upside down on a pole and you're running sprinting as fast as you can towards this little box and you're planting a pole that's you know 15 to 16 feet long and just you know as a as a kid you're hoping you almost for the for the best. Um and so we started out there with him um visualizing and going through lots of visualization exercises. And at the time we never called it or was never talked about as meditation or meditating but that um in getting into meditation now I often reflect back and um those really were great training exercises because even when I was going through and and being you know an athlete and going through active um you know competitions and and during that that period the night before you know and I would close my eyes lay in bed and visualize myself you know going over the bar and it's you know you're You're you're visualizing yourself achieving something before it even happens and then materializing that. And when you believe it and you have the belief systems, it's your body follows. And a lot of with pvaulting your um it happens so quickly that it's just you don't even think about it. It's it's your mind has already trained your body to do those things. It happens so quickly in you know the split second. And so much of the activity that's done a lot of it is is mental. It's a very mental uh sport. Well, you would think such a energy and physically intensive sport like palting would be just a lot of physical exercise, but what you're saying is that it's more of a mental game than a physical act. 100%. And it is very mentally I mean physically challenging, but someone can be just as physical and can be just as fast or just as strong. You know the two people can be the same but if one is just has this u mental aptitude and able to train their mind they will be light years ahead of I mean anyone else. So it's almost like you have to uh see yourself there. You have to become that version of you who already accomplished that. Feel all the sensations feel all the emotions. Have the uh visual uh matrix of possibility uh in your head uh before the event can actually happen. And it's it's so funny, you know, from back then when I think about the exercises that my coach was having me do, it was even, okay, jump, clear the bar, how high are you, how high over the bar are you, feel yourself coming down, and then land on the mats, and then picture yourself celebrating. And it's, you know, I I didn't connect the dots until, you know, 20, 30 years later when now I'm going through meditation. I was like, wow, that was the same thing I was doing back then, which the exercises that you're doing now. So you now started applying those practices in your in your uh daily life, personal life and business. Correct. What kind of things do you visualize on or mentally rehearse before they happen? As little as the things you're doing on on a day-to-day. So I think if you take a step back, it's a lot of the things that you're learning through, you know, doing the meditations, I think, is one facet of it. And then the other facet of it is as you're going through life dayto day, how are you retraining your mind on that person that you are, you know, you want to be, but that in your mind you've you've become. And so I think there's, you know, two components to it. The visualization side, how you're really um, you know, we talk about it, you know, sometimes you and I, the destination upon arrival, you're already at some place before you've before you've taken off. Um, so I think that's if you're compartmentalizing bringing spirituality into business or into life, then the one side is really the visualization in my mind and the meditation. And then when you're not doing that act that that action of meditating physically focusing on that then on the day-to-day side of it you know what are you what are you doing that is reinforcing that when you're in you know the the three-dimensional reality that that we're in right now. I assume growing up in an Italian family, you probably had a big influence uh from Roman Catholic Church. Was the spirituality or religion or Christianity a big part of your life growing up? Yeah, ve very much so. So, Italy, you know, 20 years ago when I was growing up was probably 98% Roman Catholic as far as the country. So, that's all you knew and all my family there knew. Uh, growing up, I was an alter boy. um you know went through the whole steps of you know of that and I think western religion um can be looked at you know in two different ways also one is the cultural side of it where my parents my grandparents grew up this way and with with that comes the traditions of the holidays we celebrate and the things we do and I think that's one component that all of Italy still to this day you know the majority of it has those those traditions and then the other component of it is the religion side of it uh which is you know really you know the basis of the church and I think the religion side of it certainly has you know um dissipated for a lot of Italy um and maybe in the US there certainly has been a resurgence especially where we live in in the the sunb belt the southeast south south um where even in in the younger generations there there's been more of um you know the conservative side of Um, so I think there's two sides, two dynamics. I was having a conversation with a friend of ours that that you know as well who's um, uh, Jewish from the Jewish faith and he last night where yesterday was Roshashana, the Jewish holiday uh, for Jewish new year and he was celebrating it but at the same time saying um, you know, I'm really not that religious but as a part of the traditions and part of more of a cultural thing. So for me it certainly has become cultural although I I was raised on the religious side. So have you experienced any friction with the family dynamics as you were kind of a moving away from traditional religion practices and the guide of you know how to live and having more independent religion of your own where basically I believe that you create your own reality through you know manifestations visualizations you you you experience the end results before they even happen. um and those type of uh spiritual practices that are different from traditional Roman Catholic church practices. So, it's very hard to have those conversations with um individuals that may not have been exposed to other ideas and we've talked about lots of great books. Conversations with God is one. Um, and there are lots of books that open your mind to other possibilities or question things that in religion you you turn off that that side of the brain to question something. So, I think it's hard to have um conversations with people about that if they're not open to entertaining those questions. So, I don't think I've gone down that road with a a lot of people. And then within the family, I I do agree with the idea and I wrestle with this. I should say I wrestle a little bit um with young kids, you know, how do you expose kids to something like this? And is it a good idea for them to be exposed to it as almost history and being exposed to religion and being taught it as, you know, this is a cultural thing and this is a a way of life the way I was. and then um ensuring that they get exposed to all things including the spiritual side, you know, as they get older and then having them decide. Um so that I wrestle with kind of back and forth um what is the right thing with having, you know, young kids um and a significant other that may not be as bought in to the spiritual side as as yet. Um and so I think that's uh you and I can can talk about that um offline as well. What I found for me it's best not to um you know try to convince them hey here is something you should do. This is what I believe in and you should do the same thing. It's more by just being yourself and do what's works for you and have them question you like hey I see changes like I see changes in your net worth. I see changes in your quality of life. I see changes in you. and let them inquire and question it and know well if you're interested this is what I'm doing instead of coming back from a retreat and like thinking like oh I've changed therefore all of you need to change you know like you need to go there I know I've done it to other people that's why I can joke about it uh but uh so did you use this visualization practices uh that you used in sports uh throughout college yeah yeah so I was I did sports in college So, as well, you know, throughout there doing the same kind of techniques. And you went to Georgetown, right? That's right. Yes. Which is an Ivy League school. It's not It's not an Ivy League school. Um Georgetown, Duke, Stanford are some of the kind of schools that are not Ivy League, but that are kind of considered to be good academic. Yeah. And then you studied political science there, right? So when a lot of people think Georgetown political science major and commercial real estate kind of two things that don't go hand in hand right now you work in a commercial real estate field um along with me that's how you know uh you know we became close friends we work together but how did that come about the transition from one to so from political science was something that I studied at Georgetown because it had such a great program um and u it was a great place to do But Bill Clinton was an alumni and he was a president at the time. So it was a great thing to study uh when not knowing what you really wanted to do at the age of 18. From there, how I got to um you know, commercial real estate. I was doing uh trade finance at the time and um happened to be playing uh tennis with a with a buddy of mine that I play with all the time. And uh the next thing I know um that buddy the last time um I had we had been playing tennis together about a month earlier was up in a drove up in a Mitsubishi SUV and then um a month later he drives up in a Maserati and I said man what is going on and um you know that person was was Nikita of course and um the market had just begun to turn and he had convinced me that uh man now is a great time to um to get into commercial real estate And so I did and that was back in 2012 I believe and since then we've you know worked under the same roof under the same office uh since then and it's been awesome. It's been a great Yeah. What a good friend you had. Yeah. You should uh you should really thank him. I think I have many times in different ways. Yeah. Thank you. The purpose kind of of this podcast is to uh interview people who have were able to create millions and tens of millions of dollars, significant wealth. Uh but using not just working harder, but using kind of a quantum um hacks to manifest wealths and create wealths at accelerated speeds that otherwise would take many years and decades to build. you have been able to accomplish to accumulate significant wealth and how did was it just a lot of hard work or how did your practices of v visualization that you learned during your pubulting years or how is it other spiritual practices of faith play a role in you building your um your family wealth yeah so one I think surrounding yourselves with great people I mean having a partner like yourself and our other you know two partners that we have um really help you know tremendously having that support and having at bouncing ideas off each other. You know, in um in our industry, creativity really can put you ahead. You look at a deal um 10 people who get the same deal and you have one person that looks at it in a different angle and that could be, you know, a multi-million dollar idea. So, I think we've been um I've been fortunate to be around, you know, great a great partners. Um you know, I think, you know, luck I think uh is an easy thing to say plays plays a role. We like to think as uh trying to be a little humble. Um, and you know, the the idea of it's following a lot of these great practitioners out there and these great teachers. um outside of just the spiritual field, a guy like Tony Robbins who we've, you know, been to his seminars before, there are lots of people, you know, like that that some the premise of their work is a little more business driven and then others the foundation of their work may be a little bit more spiritual and being able to take as much of that as you can and apply it to your life. And you know you say this podcast about how can you uh make spirituality or meditation you know really focus on the business and for me what I've always talked about is that our lives and what we do on in business is really like fun. I don't call it work right people say I'm going to the office I'm going to work you know I just say I'm going to you know I'm going to the office but I'm not working. I don't in my mind it's not like ah I got to go to work. when you're when you're doing what you do with the people that you love and it's fun in your mind it's fun it ceases to become work you know the definition of work is like something that is arduous or strenuous and I don't feel that way you know at our office and work majority of the time yeah do you know that I've started call calling instead of our workplace I started calling it joy place I didn't know that yeah I go I go to my joy place that's beautiful that's beautiful yeah so uh speaking of Robin So I think he he's uh he's more focused his practice is on activating your peak state which is essentially activating your energy flow in the body right he's more about uh physiological changes in your body can lead to uh material uh results right so even your posture uh and the stuff you do like walking on coals or standing on nails you know that activates uh energy flow in your body because if it's not flowing in your life, it's probably because it's not flowing in your body. And if it's not flowing in your body, it's probably not going to flow in your life. So, how do you um interpret energy? Like right now, you work and you started City Plat with two other co-founders, right? So, you have um you're one of the co-founders of City Plat and now you have essentially three partners. Um how do you navigate energies because they have different personalities, different skill sets? uh how do you navigate the energy between those people and are those energies aligned or are they misaligned? So I'm going to go back to luck I think on this at the beginning. I think um luck being it was not an intentional thought on that. You know there wasn't much thought at the time um towards that ensuring that kind of energies in that standpoint. I think um we happen to be people with great energy as far as you feel positive and that's why we you know strive to go to some of these types of retreats or read these types of books with um really about positivity and um you know making yourself a better version of yourself. So I think by the three of us at that time really having those things in common as a result our energies in general were were all pretty aligned and having similar visions on what we're looking to do in business did that. Um, I think personality traits, even you and I, we've talked about that a lot and it's come up where we're very different um, in many ways from a personality standpoint. And in some ways that's really helped us a lot where we would, you know, go back and forth from a personality. And I think outside of the spiritual realm realm, we use those words interchangeably. And if you're looking at it from a pure energy flow, you know, it may be, you know, looked differently. You're really hyperfocusing on one type of thing as opposed to, you know, personalities and um and how people interact or if they're positive and negative as opposed to, you know, the energy or the frequency that they're calibrating at. So, it sounds like uh energy being alignment aligned on energy with your business partners. So, people you do business with is more important than their personalities or their backgrounds. Absolutely. Okay. So, you think those things are less important as long as you have an alignment of frequencies? How do you determine if it's the person has the right energy? Is it the inner feeling or is it certain ways the way they look or what they say? How do how can you tell if the person has the right energy for you? It's typically if they have an accent, then they have terrible energy. Joking. I think it is it you know it certainly is more of you know the feeling that you have with somebody you know the energy list a lot of that is um you know you're you're calibrating at extremely high frequency you know love of course is is the is the highest um frequency and so the feeling or the the intent that somebody is putting out there if what they're doing and the intentions that they have are full of love which typically you know runs in with positivity falls along that you know than that is at a you know calibrating at a at a higher frequency. So it sounds like it's what the intention and what's where is the person's heart is behind what they're doing. Uh is it coming from a good place? Correct. So right now in your uh business day-to-day business decisions and activity um do you how do you balance between looking at financial analysis versus gut feeling or intuition? So I I think we internally so aside from just how what my you know kind of gut feeling is you know I think internally we've started having more conversations you know at city plat within the partnership that take into account or take into effect some of the spiritual um sides of things if something happens to us and before we may get frustrated with it um and rather than just saying well I mean you know things happen it is what it is it's more of well is this you know do we surrender to what just happened and is that you know the universe telling us something and kind of looking at from that standpoint rather getting frustrated with it right and you know if I heard myself saying this you know 10 years ago or 5 years ago like what are you what are you talking about the universe like dude surrendering to universe yeah yeah yeah like that even the verbiage sounds you know so um can you give me a recent example of actual whole deal or you went maybe would use more spiritual practice to make a decision or maybe you use the concept of surrendering. So I mean the one real life example was um you know with us looking to open a you know to start a fund as opposed to raising capital traditionally the way we have go doing business as usual. There was an event that happened where um the group that we were going to use that we had already paid, you know, $35,000 had wired them, you know, funds um to go ahead and begin that process. And something came about and the money is essentially being refunded back to us. And you know, we're looking at each other like, okay, we've been wrestling with the idea back and forth for the last six months um whether we should move forward or not. Should we just surrender to this? Is this the universe now telling us that, you know, this just is not a good idea? You should have your money. You take it back. You know, that's a great example. And uh then, you know, I know you recently, one of your bigger acquisitions have been um the old Kmart on Western Boulevard. And was it purely uh financial modeling analytical thought or because it was kind of like a risky deal. buying a fully vacant, you know, 8 figure retail properties in the market that's not very lender friendly to those type of properties. It was a pretty heavy lift. So, uh, what made you to move why did you make decision to move forward with it? This was more of a gut, I would say. Um, one of one of the partners, um, took a look at the deal and saw it as a small bay flex opportunity. Um, one of the partners is the other person sitting in a chair across from me. We looked at it and it made so much sense just from um, a high level. This is amazing. This is incredible. And we went ahead and got under contract after running the numbers and after looking at it um, we realized it just didn't make sense as small bay flex. But we already had jumped in. And when we were looking at it as Small Bay Flex and realized it wasn't immediately we pivoted and looked at it as a retail site and and now you know we're ecstatic at what we have as a product as a project and a future potential project and it could be you know one of the greatest projects that you know we've done at least to date and we would have never gone under contract had we looked at it as a retail site to begin with because we're just not really retail developers. We weren't looking at retail. We're only looking at small bay flex. So it sounds like it was purely mathematical calculations. There was no um spiritual or meditative uh like inner knowing practices involved behind the decision. I would say it was kind of we were pushed and it was our gut to move forward with it. We thought it was great and had we not moved forward with it thinking of it as um you know as small bay then we just wouldn't we wouldn't have we wouldn't have purchased it as as uh as retail. So it allowed us to get under contract while it was under contract we were able to you know we direction. So sounds like it was pure luck could be. Do you believe in luck? I believe in the phrase of luck but I don't believe that it is purely for no happen stance. You know the luck is usually something behind it that is a lot more than luck. So So you do believe you create your own luck. Yes. So you you are the creator of your own reality. Correct. And do you believe that you can change your reality at any given point in time? Yes. Absolutely. There's a practical tool. How do you go about changing your reality on daily basis? So I'm sure there are there are lots of them. U not lots of them. There are probably others is what I should say. For me, the most tangible that I know of or have been exposed to is very intentional specific meditation. Um, and being exposed to that, um, you know, thanks to you, I I joined a or I went on a, uh, Joe Despensza retreat and, um, his form and there are others where it's a guided meditation is easier for somebody to be able to step into the meditation for the first time. And within those there are some meditations that are very very much hyperfocused on what we're speaking of right now which is looking at you know future reality and how that could be you know how that could be changed how it can be changed or manipulated or shifted correct and you were a big skeptic before that right yeah I mean yes now I wouldn't say a big skeptic but skeptical of that extreme being able to control being like having your emotions control what you do. Positivity, you know, reflects, you know, positivity and that happens to you um is one version of that. And then the other extreme is, you know, going into time space continuum and really affecting, you know, your reality at a much more um drastic way. I remember you saying to me, I just don't know how to meditate more than like I cannot meditate for 5 minutes. What's what's your now that you know how to do it, you're probably going to get frustrated if I only give you 5 minutes to meditate. What's your average meditation? How long does it last? So, my average meditation is based on the time that I', you know, I'm I'm I'm able to fit into my day, I would say. Um, and I wish it was longer, but 25 to 35 minutes is what I can kind of find. um the longer you get into it, the more um you really can see out of it. The more you're it's like warming up as an athlete. It's like you're beginning to warm up and warm up and then eventually you're kind of you're getting your stride if you're a runner after 15 20 minutes now you can really open up. Do you use meditation to more like manifest things and visualize like you were describing earlier or are you doing it more to find clarity such as quieting the noise in the head and having absence of thought? Yeah, manifesting for the most part is what my focus is. But I feel like as a byproduct, you're quieting the noise as well. It's like the first portion of that meditation is quieting the noise to get into your, you know, your body to be your mind to be a tool to achieve some of the manifesting side. What do you think the frequency of wealth is? What is that frequency? Is it a a certain behavioral pattern? Is it a certain way of thinking? So what I'm, you know, learning in this, I'd say like kind of the spiritual journey is it it all goes back to love, right? It all goes back to opening your heart. And before you can really begin to receive, your heart needs to be open. And that sounds so like cliche, you know, to say, but I don't know of another way to kind of express that. And most of these, you know, teachers within that discipline is an overriding theme that they all kind of say is that it's the more you open your heart to be able to receive this knowledge, to be able to be at that point when you can change your, you know, your future, um, so to speak. So I think that is um I think that's that's that's the biggest you're you know once you have none of that you know negative feeling inside you inward or outward you know then it really opens everything up and your perspective um you know the the people that calibrated in history at the highest calibration were all guys that spoke of love Jesus you know um the Buddha all all of them. Um, so it sounds like the key to um to start attracting wealth is first you start with opening your heart. So it's going to be open for receiving. So it's not closed up. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. What do you how how do you open your heart? Everybody it's a you know a little different u but looking inward which is a lot of you know meditation and spirituality starts with you know kind of looking inward to you. what are your you know each person has their own inner demons their inner struggles um sometimes we think that if we don't say something then it's not a negative I'm not being negative but your thoughts are the same no different right if I think these negative things inside about me about what I can do then that's no different than me speaking them so I think it's also you know you're you're you're looking inward and you're trying you know you're working on yourself to be you know that version of yourself that you need and then you know that you're able to you know open up your sounds like the change starts with you first instead of before you try to change the outside world or the reality that's on the outside you first change who you are. Yeah. So if you were to give um a practical advice uh to somebody watching, what can they do today or started doing today that can accelerate their path to accumulate financial wealth? You know, I think we're fortunate enough in the society that we live in now that we have um all the knowledge of humanity within our fingertips, right? Our phones are now, you know, incredible supercomputers to where, you know, they would have been, you know, 20 years ago. And so you have access, you know, just with, you know, YouTube. It's a YouTube channel. And you have access to incredible videos. And if you have this curiosity about you know spirituality and about meditation and all of you know any of the topics that we've discussed or that you discuss on this channel there are teachers and guides that you can begin listening to for free and I would implore someone to to do that and you know then find somebody that they know within their circle and if you want to do that and you put it out there you know the answers will come to you. Okay. So use the knowledge of technology that's accessible at our fingertips to constantly improve themsel. That's right. And Rainband a better version of themsel that's more educated, more sophisticated, more literate uh in some of those fields such as financial literacy or spiritual literacy. Whatever it is that hunger that they have inside them is, you know, is where whatever it is, then you know the answers are out there or the tools and education is available to them for free. If you could travel back in time, what kind of advice would you give to 25year-old Vincenzo? Love life more. You feel like the older version of Vincenzo didn't love life enough. No, but that's the only thing I think at that age if you're going to say one thing or you're going to do one thing it it's hard to you know process I think I am incredibly lucky and fortunate human being and if you would have said man what is something you would change about what you did I wouldn't change a thing I mean I think having that innocence of that age not to give them you know someone knowledge of making money at that point or beginning meditation because if I did I wouldn't be the person I am Okay. Yeah. So, the only thing I would say is just, you know, love your life more. Love life more. And it's, you know, thinking of of that. Yeah. And the Powerball numbers from last week. Love love love life more and life is going to love you back. Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you chose that as an advice because one thing unique about you uh that when I met you uh and up till still to this day, you're probably the happiest person with the greatest like positive you like internal optimist where you're always positive, you're always smiling, and you're always happy no matter what's going on. Because for longest time until probably like six years ago, I was not a happy [ __ ] I was I was an angry dude, right? I was uh I was pretty mean and angry person in general. I had success in business just through hard work and perseverance and hustling. But I was I might have been a you know financial millionaire but I was definitely not a spiritual millionaire. Right. But you on the other hand you always uh had your heart open and you always was just a total optimist and had a positive outlook on life which uh which created like a magnet. That's what people were attracted to you and that's what drew me to you. Why I wanted to be around you because you know you always make other people feel good about themsel and about life. So it's interesting that you chose that you would be in love even in love with life even more than you have than you have been. Uh that's very cool. Well, thank you. Thank you for the words. I appreciate it. And I don't know that you were always mad, but you always looked mad because of That's true. Yeah. I actually always had a good heart, but uh to the outside world, I look like an angry person. Any final words? um for our audience. I think um I've just it's been incredible to watch your you know your growth over the last well from you know 10 to 15 years but specifically the last you know 5 years to see how much it really has changed you as far as you know just diving into the spiritual side of things where you see like you know you see from you what the importance of life the important things in life that we talk about and that are highlighted on the spiritual side are now being reflected in your actions as well. And you've always said, man, certain things are more important than business, than money, as far as in life in general. And now it's not just said, but it's, you know, part of your life. And it's it's man, it's beautiful to see it. I'm proud of you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, thank you for coming in. Absolutely. You've been watching Frequency of Wells podcast with a special guest, Vincenzo Berdino. If you have any thoughts, please comment them below. 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