Episode 57: Building your skills and offering value – with Gabriel Retana

Episode 57: Building your skills and offering value - with Gabriel Retana

Jeremy Cline 0:00
How do you know what's right for you? What your place is in life. Sure there are a lot of exercises which you can do to try and figure that out. But sometimes you just need a bit of practical experience. This interview is the story of trying different things to try and find your place. I'm Jeremy Cline and this is Change Work Life.

Jeremy Cline 0:33
Hello, and welcome to the Change Work Life podcast where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm joined today by Gabriel Retana, who originally studied health and fitness has moved via teaching into property renovation and he's also a Brazilian jui jitsu instructor. Gabe, welcome to the podcast.

Gabriel Retana 0:52
Thank you Jeremy, I'm excited to be here.

Jeremy Cline 0:54
So can you start out by telling us a bit about what it is that you do at the moment?

Gabriel Retana 0:57
Sure. Just like you mentioned, I renovate properties, fix them up and sell them. I also help with a family company. That's kind of my main focus right now. We run painting projects, so we do a lot of new construction apartments, and I'm a project manager. So I'm in charge of pretty much everything once we sign a contract to making sure we deliver on everything on the contract from managing the crews to paying the subcontractors. I do all that kind of good stuff. I also like you said, I train Brazilian jiu jitsu. I do some personal training on the side, but yeah, pretty busy at the moment.

Jeremy Cline 1:33
So let's talk about how you got to where you are now, because I understand that when you were at school, you actually studied health and fitness with a plan to do medicine. What was drawing you to medicine at that time?

Gabriel Retana 1:45
To be honest, well, one my biggest role models in my life was my older cousin. Right now he's actually a plastic surgeon in Washington, DC and he's actually becoming pretty famous. But I copied everything he did. He played saxophone, I played saxophone. My goal, I wanted to make a lot of money, but I also wanted to help people. That was always kind of the two requirements I had for a career. But it just didn't materialise with medicine. We moved to United States when I was eight from Costa Rica and my dad's been doing painting his whole life. And I've seen the kind of hours he's had to put in. So once he started his side business that did whatever little jobs, my uncle's company that he worked for didn't do and then eventually it grew. So he was working a full time job and then business on the side, like weekend. So I saw him working 7am to midnight, every single day, even weekends. And I knew I didn't want that. I didn't want to be time broke. And once I got deep into understanding what it really is that it was going to take to go to medical school - it was actually after I had graduated University. So I finished university and my goal was to go to medical school, but I still need to do a couple prerequisites like organic chemistry, and I taught Biology, Chemistry and Physics at a high school as well as coaching the football team. I was also the strength and conditioning coach. We've had a couple of those players that went professional so it was really high calibre athletes. So it was really fun. But I got so burnt out, and I couldn't see myself putting in 80 hours a week into medicine. And in America unfortunately here they just kind of patch up people's symptoms instead of treating the person, and I didn't want to go into this kind of health care. So I decided to move back home in 2015 and started flipping houses with my dad, we started renovating properties, and I joined the family business and started helping manage projects. So that's kind of been the journey.

Jeremy Cline 3:34
So when you came back to join the family business, was that because you had a burning desire to do what the family business was doing? Or was it and is it still a kind of okay, well, I'll do this whilst I figure things out?

Gabriel Retana 3:48
More the latter but a little less uncertainty now. Before I kind of joined the family business for a consistent income and just because although you want to make your father proud, I did need income while I was building up my real estate business and trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go as an entrepreneur, whether it was building my own business, or eventually making enough money to buy a business, or whatever my plan was, I needed some time to figure it out. So it just made sense to learn from my dad. Number one, he's built a very successful painting business. And even to this day, I still learn something from him every single day. So even though I was kind of fighting away from it, I didn't want to get into the construction business at all, I ended up finding my way back.

Jeremy Cline 4:29
The decision to go into teaching. I mean, a lot of people would see that as being itself a vocation which you kind of go into because you really want to do it. Whereas I kind of get the understanding from you that that was more at the time a stepping stone into medicine. So why take that particular stepping stone, I mean, teaching is notoriously not an easy job to do.

Gabriel Retana 4:52
So there's actually a programme called Teach for America where they go and recruit top college graduates and they throw them into failing schools and they give them like five weeks of training beforehand and it's like, Here you go, you guys can probably do better than experienced teachers. They were trying to get rid of teachers that have kind of given up on the students, so they brought in a fresh new wave of college students. So it's been a very popular programme in the United States. And it's a two year commitment. So a lot of people that do it, they are kind of looking for something to do for two or three years before medical school, law school, but a lot of people end up saying in education, which is great. But for me, I knew I needed two or three years before I started medical school. And I've always loved teaching. I've been mentoring younger kids, since I can remember maybe even like sixth grade. I've always been like tutoring little kids and I've always been very passionate about that, especially working with younger men because I had such great examples growing up, whether it was my family, or just people I looked up to that a lot of people don't have that. And I've seen some of my cousins kind of go down the wrong road because they didn't have those role models. So I always wanted to be that role model number one, but I knew once I began medical school that was going to be 10 years of just working - without me being able to kind of contribute and work with other people. And I really wanted to try that experience because I do really enjoy teaching. But I quickly found out I don't like teaching in a public school system. It's very challenging. And I can imagine now because I taught in 2011, 2012, 2013 and I can only imagine how it is now especially now with changes with the virus. It must be a little bit crazy, but yeah, that's kind of what happened.

Jeremy Cline 6:32
What was it that you enjoyed about teaching and what was it that you didn't enjoy about teaching in the public school system?

Gabriel Retana 6:39
I'll start with what I didn't enjoy. It was just so much accountability, where I had students who could not read. I was teaching 10th grade biology, my students could not read, and my chemistry students could not add. They were set up to fail from the start. And unfortunately, I had five different against bosses - principal assistant, principal department chair, there was a science coach and then Teach for America, I had two or three people kind of looking over my shoulder. So it was just so much accountability and the hours - 5am to midnight every day. So it was really strenuous. And I felt really defeated, where it doesn't matter how hard I worked or what I did, it didn't seem like I was making a difference for the kids. When I left, I got letters from the students. They really liked me they really missed me, I connected with them, but it didn't really feel like I was helping too much. You're just hoping to get such a big system and so many factors that I didn't really feel defeated and helpless as far as being able to to help the students so it was challenging looking at myself in the mirror every day and not even making any kind of an impact. And I already knew that I was going into medicine or something different after that. But I actually left teaching because I got sick - I got really sick, and had like a physical illness and emotional and definitely hit some kind of really bad depression towards the end of my teaching. So it was kind of a mess in my life too, at the moment.

Jeremy Cline 8:03
This is possibly a very unfair question. But do you think to an extent were you kind of set up to fail by the nature of the programme? I mean, five weeks training and then going into teaching, whereas normally - well certainly here in the UK - you would do your teaching degree, or at least a year's qualification and then do a period as a trainee teacher? I mean, was it realistic to expect college graduates do a five week course and then become teachers in failing schools?

Gabriel Retana 8:32
And then keep their mental health? No. You hit it right on the head, but the kind of people they recruit, it's workaholics - people that are going to work as hard as they need to. So some of them were very successful, some of the teachers for sure, and sometimes I felt like I was successful, but in order for me to have a good lesson, I would need to lesson plan maybe five to ten hours for that one lesson. And I taught biology, chemistry, physics and another version of biology. And I had 187 students my first year. It was very challenging for a teacher to get the rhythm and to become proficient, they need 5 to 10 years of experience to become very good. So I guess what the programme tried to do, they were trying to take people who had a lot of energy, they were extremely motivated. I mean, people were very competent in the material, they just had to learn how to teach. They focused on teaching us how to do discipline and things like that. But in the end, I don't think that the teachers are ready, that were coming in with the programme. They became better as school year went on. But we taught summer school as our training - that was five weeks of almost like a boot camp, and that's how learned to become teachers. But no, you're 100% right. The level of preparation just wasn't there.

Jeremy Cline 9:49
You talked about role models. So in two contexts, one, how your cousin was a role model for you and how you could see yourself being a role model for other people. And in the context of your cousin, and seeing them as a doctor and then wanting to follow that path, it's interesting that you kind of looked up to them and then kind of wanted to pursue the same path. And I just wondered have you kind of reflected on whether it was a case of wanting to do the same thing as them, or was it on reflection that you wanted to kind of be like them, but not necessarily in doing the same thing, if that makes any sense?

Gabriel Retana 10:35
It does. He's an oral surgeon. So first, he actually went to dental school, and I didn't want to be a dentist, but I knew his plan. He went to dental school, and then he went to medical school, which was combined, I think, about 10 years after university. And I knew I wanted to go in that general direction, but it wasn't like, Oh, I need to do the exact same thing. I think we're about five years apart. So I was always keeping an eye on him and asking him questions and things but I didn't ever want to be exactly like him the same way I don't want to be exactly like my dad. He's one of my biggest mentors and role models, but I want to create a kind of different lifestyle. As much as I appreciate everything he's done for me, just now he's starting to just work like regular 40 hour weeks. Before he was always working 60 to 80 hours, and I want to have more of a balance and design my life a little bit more of the way I want to. And so now, I'm extremely committed to jiu jitsu and it's helped me a lot because it keeps me fit, keeps me sharp, mentally and physically. But I've also I guess, matured a little bit where I can own up to my responsibilities, whether it's just working, taking care of my family - I have a wife and a son - and I guess I've matured a little bit to where now I'm ready to take on the responsibility instead of just chasing the creativity and looking for that shiny new object. I dabbled a lot and my attention span was short relatively with careers where I would go a year or two into a career and almost hit a roadblock or a dead end of motivation, just knowing this isn't really what I've meant to do. I've swung the pendulum completely. I've done a complete 180 on certain careers and given them up or just keep them on the back burner. I took all these skills from this, say, from selling real estate and learning how that works and how you can create a lot of money and wealth and properties. And I haven't given up on that. But I'm keeping that in the back burner. And now I'm working on my project management skills - that way, once in the future, if I do get into some kind of bigger development, or something else, I have those skills there. We're getting ready to build four houses between my brother me, my dad and my sister - we're getting ready to build a little family compound. So I'm learning a lot more about properties as well. I see it all as learning and eventually I'm going to be able to kind of merge it all together. Like you're asking me kind of what I'm going to do in the future, and merging it all together - as far as that I see it as a great skill to have because people are always gonna need a place to live. But what I'm still very passionate about is helping people heal and I love my experience in jiu jitsu, but I've also now been combining it with yoga, with meditation to where I want to help heal people through movement. And that's eventually what my goal is, to have to build some kind of a retreat or rehabilitation centre in Costa Rica or somewhere tropical where I can help heal people through movement. Because that's where I've had some of my most pleasant emotions, experiences, feelings. Just when I get to move freely, and my body starts to feel better - because when you feel good, when you move good, you start to feel good. And as you start to feel good, you're able to just look good, right? So that's where I see the direction going. I do train people privately or in classes. I teach mobility classes, I teach jiu jitsu classes, it's my release. It's a lot of fun for me, and it doesn't feel like work. But it's not like I want to own my own Academy or anything here just yet. I think it's still five to 10 years in the future where I'll be able to save up enough money to start to develop something whether it's in Costa Rica or Brazil or Europe. We're very open. My wife and I are very open to where we're going to go, but that's kind of the direction I'm headed. Hopefully, I'm starting to tie things up a little bit. So you can kind of see how I've been connecting the dots.

Jeremy Cline 14:08
This is really interesting about how you're kind of formulating your roadmap. So you mentioned that you're in the family business at the moment, you're developing these project management skills. But you've got this desire in five years time to start this academy, teaching people to heal themselves through movement. I'm interested in what the roadmap looks like. I mean, is it a case of kind of biding your time to build up the investment you need? Or I'm just curious as to how you see yourself getting from where you are now to there?

Gabriel Retana 14:46
Absolutely. I either need to have the money to hire experts or I need to become the expert. Number one, and I'm like a human guinea pig where I'm testing everything on myself. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of YouTube, I buy different programmes. Just to learn, I try to be as well rounded as possible without any prejudice to - as long as it's great content, I don't really mind if it's coming from a yogi, from a neurobiologist, a neuroscientists or a psychologist, right? I want to learn from people that are world class at their content, what they do to increase my skills. As I start to increase my value, one of my goals is to - just throwing a number out there - say, I can charge $100 an hour for a private session, whether it's it's personal training or jiu jujitsu, or something, once I'm able to build up my value where people are happy to give me $100 to spend an hour with me, I need to kind of raise my value to that level, if that makes sense. So that's one thing that I'm doing, but it's still a hobby where it's fun. And I'm not putting pressure on myself, but I want to become a world class instructor, a world class movement expert. So I'm working on that on my own kind of on the side while I'm making money and learning skills and kind of building that up together. So I kind of pair them together because I know it's going to take time, it's gonna take a lot of a lot of study, a lot of repetitions and a lot of working with clients to take myself to a higher level. But if I'm not able to become that good in five to 10 years, and I have been able to acquire the capital, maybe I do start developing my resort, my retreat, whatever it ends up being, and I can start to hire people that are experts in those fields. So it's still kind of up in the air. But does that make sense? So I'm just kind of really working on myself. And that's my hobby. It's my first project, right? And then once I'm able to bring enough value to people, I'll start to open up for more clients, while at the same time just still work and take care of the family.

Jeremy Cline 16:35
How will you know when you're at the right level to start charging clients a hundred dollars an hour? And I guess circling back to that question is how do you know you're not there at the moment?

Gabriel Retana 16:46
Great question. I don't want it to be, oh, I'm able to charge them 100 bucks because right now, I think it's 60 the rate they pay for personal training, so it's not too far off, but I want it to be where it's to the point where I can't keep people off my calendar. And they're just continuing. I don't know, it's a great question. But it's just going to happen over time, I feel I just got to keep increasing my value. And the other thing, I also don't want to have 100 clients at a time - my ideal, especially while I'm still working full time - I want to have maybe three to five clients as maybe I only have 10 hours a week to work with people. So because my time is scarce, the amount they'll have to pay will continue to increase as demand goes up. But it's just something I'll pay attention to not necessarily like, Oh, I need to get $5 an hour better, so I'm going to start adding this. Is this more of a measuring stick than a goal because I feel like there's only three things we can sell - we can sell a product, we can sell a service or we can sell an experience. And if people are very, very happy with what they're buying from you gladly keep buying from you again. That's kind of where I want to bring it. The reason I brought a number value is just I want to because it's not just chump change. It's $100, it's still a lot of money. And people should be very careful where they spend their money where they take that attention and when they invest their time and money, but if I'm able to deliver that kind of value, that's what I'm going to be able to do. Does that make sense? Or did I just kind of go around in circles?

Jeremy Cline 18:12
It does make sense, but I am still curious as to how you kind of will know that you are at a place that you feel you can add that value. I mean, there's the old expression that to be an expert, you just need to be a page or two ahead of the people that you're teaching, and you practice yoga, you practice jujitsu. So yeah, I'm interested as to why - even if it's just on a part time basis fitting around what you do at the moment, why not, you know, kind of dip your toe in the water and start advertising something to clients and seeing what interest there is?

Gabriel Retana 18:51
Oh, no, I'm right there with you. Okay, so I do teach, I teach classes, mobility classes and jiu jitsu classes and I do the personal training one on one. I started teaching pretty early, like you said, even as a blue belt, as your first gold after white belt, you can start teaching the white belt stuff, but it's at a different level of understanding. And I don't want to pretend like some kind of expert when I'm not yet. Even when I used to coach people with real estate, I wasn't trying to tell them I'm some kind of millionaire, I have nine rental properties, I can take you from zero to nine, but I can't take you to becoming worth 100 million dollars and I don't know how to do that. But I'm very upfront and open with my skill level when I work with clients and letting them know so I do work with clients. And I think it's an absolutely necessary and I feel like at the gym I'm at, I'm almost seeing that as my residency where I'm not super worried about actually making money there. But I'm worried about developing my skills as far as an instructor as far as understanding the human body and working with people and that's kind of where I see it there, and eventually over time I feel my value is going to continue to increase. Even now people love to do mobility sessions with me or my classes, but you know, I'm not where I want to be yet. And it's still very early in my career in that aspect. I'm not too worried about that. But I'm still focused and focused on getting 1% better every day, both as a practitioner, as an instructor, and with my knowledge.

Jeremy Cline 20:14
Do you see yourself having in the future a kind of portfolio career where you've kind of got different streams of income so it maybe something from the property, whether it's through renovations or just investment and enjoying the rental streams, and then another one with the the movement coaching, is that the way you see it going?

Gabriel Retana 20:31
1,000%. Yes, absolutely.

Jeremy Cline 20:34
What do you think would be a good sort of mix for you?

Gabriel Retana 20:37
Well, definitely having rental income has helped, especially with the pandemic - the gym is closed, I'm not able to train people and with the rental income, it helps make up some of the bills that usually would be paid with active income. But then some of my real estate income where I represent people to buy or sell their houses, that's slowed down a little bit too because people don't really want to go and see housing in the pandemic. So I've had to adapt and I've kind of been like this for about 8, 10 years now where I have multiple streams of income. And it got to a point where I was going with the momentum a little bit too much. I used to just if something was going well, I would just solely focus on that. And some things would fall off a little bit. So now it's a mixture of being aware of will this stream continue to develop and serve me well in the next 5 or 10, 20 years? Or is this something that maybe I need to put on the back burner and focus on other things. So it's a mix, and it does change, but I think it's good to be well rounded and have a good mix. Now I've been doing some online stuff where I'll do mobility classes, and it started with the pandemic a little bit. In March, I started doing zoom classes for mobility and jiu jitsu. And that was pretty cool. Maybe in the future I can develop that a little bit more. But right now yeah, the focus is the painting company and building these houses because that's where my time is going to be really needed. For the mobility and the coaching work, that's kind of in my spare time.

Jeremy Cline 22:04
I don't know if it's too early on to talk about legacy, but the reason I bring it up is because we've talked a bit about role models. So the fact that you saw your cousin as a role model, and also how you wanted to be a role model for people as well. So have you given thought as to what impact you would like to have on people, and on whom you'd like to have that impact and what your own role as a role model for other people might be?

Gabriel Retana 22:32
I haven't thought specifically oh, on my deathbed, this is what I want people to think of me. But in college, I was in charge of recruiting for the diversity office. So my job was to bring more Latino students to the university. And the simplest thing to do was have a programme where they'd bring 100, 200, 300 kids to the campus and they'd get to meet kids that look like them, that were from the same backgrounds, the same talents, the same kinds of schools where it's, hey, if he can do it, I can do it too. I think first it does start with people that look like me, young Latino men. That's definitely where I want to start. But I don't want to just pigeonhole myself to that. But I think it's a population that desperately needs role models. So absolutely working with young men. And that's something I still need to develop, because I'm still kind of under development as far as becoming a man, being a head of a household. I'm still working on that. So I still have mentorship, but eventually, yeah, I want to target adolescent men, young adults - that's who I want to target.

Jeremy Cline 23:37
We've talked quite a lot about personal development and that sort of thing. In terms of particular tools, resources, books, things like that, that have helped you and that you find yourself recommending to others. Are there any that spring to mind that you'd like to mention?

Gabriel Retana 23:51
Absolutely. I'm really into personal development, so I can just start listing people but I think that the best thing to do is find sound principles, whether it's Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, the classics because all that stuff - I think it comes from the same place, even stuff from Eastern philosophies whether it's yoga, daoism, I think it all comes from the same place and I would recommend starting there. Napoleon Hill is awesome, whether it's Law of Success, Outwitting the Devil, Think and Grow Rich, those are those are great books. But if you can learn to control your mind and align your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, your energies - if you learn how to do that, then it's is going to set you in the right place. I've been getting into Jordan Peterson a lot too. I haven't read his book. He's got a couple books, Maps of Meaning and 12 Rules for Life, but he's helped me a lot too lately, because I got really into the creative side. But he almost grounds you, brings you back to Earth. It's like no, no - first thing you need to do is clean your room. And then from there, you can start helping other people and helping the world but you need to take care of your domain first. So I think he's very relevant. Jordan Peterson right now. He's got a lot of stuff on YouTube. But yeah.

Jeremy Cline 25:04
And where can people go to find you if they want to get out and get in touch?

Gabriel Retana 25:08
So all my stuff's still under development, eventually I'm going to launch a podcast. But I guess just connect with me on Instagram, Gabriel Retana, just @GabrielRetana. And then they can find me there or on Facebook, I think I'm Gabe Retana on there. But if you just want to connect there, it's cool. Eventually, I'm going to launch my website with just more resources, share my story a little bit, maybe have some kind of video blogs on there, but still under development, I actually I just had a call yesterday with someone that's going to work on my website. So I'm pretty excited for that in the future.

Jeremy Cline 25:38
Well, Gabe, thank you so much for your time. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes next. So in the meantime, Gabe, thank you so much.

Gabriel Retana 25:45
Thank you and I appreciate you inviting me and it's helped me a lot to really have to give some concrete answers because sometimes if it's just me, it kind of seems like something completely different in my own head right. So to actually have to materialise it, it helps me because now it's Okay, I need to now that I've spoken it, now I need to go and create it. So thank you.

Jeremy Cline 26:04
Awesome, my pleasure. Thanks a lot Gabe, cheers.

Jeremy Cline 26:07
Okay, well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Gabe Retana. It was very interesting what he was saying about dabbling with lots of different careers. Because to me, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. Because, you know, to be honest, most people don't really know what they want to do to start out. I mean, yes, he had a role model. He had an idea of something which he might want to start with. But you know, having dug into it further, he realised that medicine wasn't the career for him. And so Gabe has tried a few different things and he can see where things are heading up, but he's been building up all these experiences which are going to feed into where Gabe eventually goes. I really like what Gabe was saying at the end there about how when he goes back to the classics, there's messages like clean your own room first. This idea of getting your own head straight first and working out where your mind is where your meaning is before you take action in that direction. It kind of follows on to what Trav Bell was saying last week about making sure that your own oxygen mask is on first before you start helping others with theirs. It's clear that Gabe has been taking from his own experiences and from the experience of others what he likes, what he doesn't like, what he can see already that he does and doesn't want to do. He recognises that he doesn't want to work with the sort of crazy hours that his father was working in the property business. If this is something that resonates with you, this idea of looking back at what you've already done, and working out which bits are good, which bits aren't so good then do have a look on my website. At the top of the menu, there's a link which says Find Career Happiness. I've got a couple of exercises there. And the first of them is really about doing just this. It's about looking back at what you've been doing in the past and seeing what's worked and what hasn't worked, so you've got a really good idea as to what kind of thing you might enjoy in the future. So do take a look at that. It's the Find Career Happiness tab, it's at the top of the website - that's Change Work Life. And yeah, have a little go at those exercises. Show Notes for this episode are at changeworklife.com/57. So go there for the show notes for this episode, and we've got another great interview next week with someone who decided to ditch City Living entirely and start their own farmstead. It's gonna be a really interesting interview. So come back then, and I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.