Episode 23: Building Wealth and Giving Zero F*cks, with Jaebadiah Gardner

Aug 27

How to Build Wealth, Stay Authentic, and Not Burn Out

A real conversation about hustle, mindset, and staying true to your community.

Summary

What does it actually take to build something from scratch—and stay sane while doing it? Ellen talks with Jaebadiah Gardner, founder of Gardner Global, about building wealth, the importance of believing in yourself, and pushing past barriers as a Black and Latino entrepreneur. They get real about hustle culture, staying grounded, and what success looks like behind the scenes (it’s not always as pretty as it seems on the surface). If you’ve ever felt stuck, under-resourced, or underestimated, this one’s for you. A thoughtful, no-BS conversation about drive, ambition, and getting in the room where it happens—even when you don’t know anyone there.

Show Links:

Find Jaebadiah’s book, Believe in Yourself, here
Learn more about Jaebadiah’s company, Gardner Global, and all the cool work they are doing in Seattle.
Connect with Jaebadiah on LinkedIn and Instagram

Takeaways

Success isn’t shiny. It’s built on rejection, doubt, and a hell of a lot of repetition.

Want more access? Start asking “How can I?” instead of “Can I?”
Hustling doesn't mean killing yourself. Find your own formula and protect your peace.
Mentorship doesn’t have to be formal—just be relentless (and a little gutsy) about getting in the room.
True entrepreneurship means knowing when to grind and when to rest—without apology.

Notable Quotes

“I sacrifice my todays for my tomorrows.”

“Nobody has it figured out. Some of us just stopped pretending.”

“If there’s something I want, I’ll figure out how to get it.”

“The hustle became a tranquil exercise. I conditioned myself for the long game.”

“Don’t waste your energy on people who aren’t building anything.”

Chapters

00:00 – Meet Jaebadiah Gardner

01:30 – From nothing to real estate CEO

04:00 – Staying steady through adversity

07:00 – Fencing, boxing, and mental clarity

09:45 – How he broke into real estate

13:30 – Getting in the room with power players

18:00 – Rewiring your mindset around success

21:00 – Hustle, burnout, and building your own formula

27:00 – What reps and footwork have to do with leadership

35:00 – Affordable housing + art + equity

43:00 – Changing the face of development

46:00 – TED Talk: How to give no f*cks

Keywords: burnout, hustle culture, entrepreneurship, real estate development, Black founder, Latino entrepreneur, building wealth, affordable housing, leadership mindset, mental health, business resilience, Black-owned business, community development, work-life balance, financial equity

Transcript

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:01.781)

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for being here on another episode of Hard at Work. I am so happy to have my guest here today, Jaebadiah Gardner. Hello Jaeb!

Jaebadiah Gardner (00:17.538)

Hello, Ellen.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:19.081)

It's so nice to have you here. Jaebadiah is the founder and CEO of Gardener Global, Inc., the author of Believe in Yourself, which I don't know if you can see, but it's in my background here, and a whole lot of other impressive things. So I'm super excited to get into some good trouble with you today, sir. It'll be fun. All right, so let's start with the question everybody gets. Give us your general 60 second Wikipedia. What do you want people to know about you?

Jaebadiah Gardner (00:37.994)

Absolutely, let's do it.

Jaebadiah Gardner (00:49.258)

This is 60-second Wikipedia. Yeah, I'm Jaebadiah Gardner, the founder and CEO of Gardner Global. We're a real estate investment development firm headquartered here in Seattle, Washington. We specialize in urban infill sites, multi-family projects, and we work on affordable housing and mixed market rate units here in the city. So trying to do our job with filling the void of housing that exists currently.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:14.795)

That is amazing and impressive. And we're gonna get into it, but like, you built it from nothing.

Jaebadiah Gardner (01:22.958)

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, this is definitely a ground up experiment and we're 16 years in.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:30.827)

Holy moly, that's amazing. We're getting old. Yeah, I want to just maybe jump to that because it's so easy to look, I'm going to just say social media in particular, but to look at somebody and you see someone like you, you're super successful, you're jetting around the world, you look like you've got it all handled and are cool, but I know it wasn't an easy process to get there. Can you share a little bit about like, what were some of the hard dips along the way? yeah, maybe just start with that. It's so easy to look at you and see successful Jaebadiah, but it took a lot to get there. So what are some things that you would want people to know about how you put it all together from the beginning that they may not know just by seeing you as a successful businessman?

Jaebadiah Gardner (02:24.718)

Yeah, no, I appreciate that question, Ellen, because social media is a whole interesting animal and people can get carried away in their perceptions. so, you know, being authentic across those platforms is super important to me. And so anything that I post or share is something that I'm actually doing or actually happened.

And people will see that and again assume, my God, he hasn't figured out. But no one hasn't figured out.

Like, you know, I have mentors who are in the real estate development game and they've been in this game for 40 plus years. And you know, they're still talking about a lot of the struggles and things that, you know, give them heartache just to, just to create housing in Seattle on top of just being a business owner and a businessman and being black and Latino at the same time. it's never, it's never rosy and peachy, but sometimes you have wins, right? And sometimes you have moments where you're excited about something and, and you know.

You you gotta take those ones. You gotta celebrate every tiny little win you can. And that's one of the ways I get through a lot of the turbulence is, you know, like anything that goes right, celebrate it. And I try to celebrate it as much as possible because Lord knows there's negativity and hard times to go around, right? And so.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:47.307)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (03:49.004)

So yeah, hasn't been easy. hasn't been easy, you know, like anything you can imagine possible with the as being hurdles to growing a business. I've definitely been through it and I'm still going through it. You know, it's just a matter of just I just don't stop. I just keep running away through.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:02.635)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:07.563)

How do you keep doing that when, and I think this might be a little different for those that have traditional jobs, you know, where you're not building it yourself. It's a little different, but there's a lot of similarities. Like, you can feel really beat down and like you don't want to keep trying, you know, but sometimes you feel like you have no option but to stay in the thing that is making you feel that way. What are some of the ways that you get yourself up and around the really big challenges that you face.

Jaebadiah Gardner (04:42.092)

Yeah, you part of it is you gotta go through, you know hard times, you gotta go through adversity because at every level of business there's gonna be adversity, you know, and it shows itself in different ways but if you don't address the adversity in your early stages of business then it's gonna be hard to survive later and so for me I've always welcomed adversity, I've always welcomed challenges and like anything else, nothing scares me anymore. know, and so being able to survive some of those early challenges of building my business in the first five years, like the second five years, I was like, well, I got through that, so I should be able to get through this, right? And so it builds up a level of, I don't want to say callousness, but it is, like it's character building in a sense. And so there's not much that scares me because I've seen a lot. I've seen, like, I've dealt with people wanting to sue me for frivolous things. I’ve dealt with negative bank accounts, I've dealt with, you know, clients who are telling me they're gonna shut down my business on Google and Yelp. I mean, like, I've dealt with family members who think I have all this money and I don't share it. I've dealt with, you know, like, I've seen a lot. And so as you go through it and learn how to navigate through the hard times, then when hard times presents itself to me, I'm just like, this is just another, this is just another

Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:51.765)

jeez.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:57.407)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (06:11.18)

day in the office, is par for the course. This isn't anything out of the normal. So I fully expect diversity, fully expect challenges. And I think that's a mental state that some folks as business owners kind of, you know, if you don't have that mindset, if you think, yeah, I'm like, everything is going to be great today. And why are these people messing with me? Why am I getting legal letters? why? Because you're doing work. You know, you're pushing the boundaries and people are taking notice. And a lot of people don't like that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (06:18.667)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (06:39.128)

They don't like positive progression because they might be in a space where they're not doing so well. So I just kind of shut my ears off to the world and I keep pushing through and part of the ways that I do that is I box three days a week and I fence two nights a week. And it keeps my mental, you know, focus because I can just focus on that.

Mm-hmm. I love that you fence. I would not have expected. I don't know anyone who fences. That's amazing. So East Coast.

Jaebadiah Gardner (07:03.694)

Me either. Me either, but I stumbled across it and I figured out that like, yo, I really like fencing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:14.623)

Nice.

Jaebadiah Gardner (07:15.54)

And it occupies a space in my brain where I can just focus on that for two days a week, right? And then the other days I'm boxing. And so I'm getting my cardio up, I'm trying to stay physically healthy and just really kind of compartmentalize my work. But again, I'm in a space where I can do that. And some people aren't in the space where they can go, I have time and the resources to take boxing or time and the resources to go fencing. And so I recognize that. And so I'm going to take advantage of it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:20.833)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (07:45.424)

I couldn't pay for fencing classes. Well, I can now, and that's a part of my mental health, you know?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:47.999)

Yeah. Yes, you earned it, man. I love it. I think it's interesting that both of those activities are all about sort of strategy and an opponent as opposed to like, I go on jogs. know, do you think there's something in that that you like to be with other people or you like the game or what do you think? Just curious.

Jaebadiah Gardner (08:09.154)

Well, you know, like I used to wrestle in high school and it's one of my favorite things and I'm just I love one on one competition. I love sports. I love team sports, but it's just something about one on one competition to me that that I really enjoy because when I'm in there, it's just me against the other opponent. So I don't have 10 other people to rely on or five other people to rely on. Like it's just me. If I win, that's me. And if I lose, that's also me. And I can't blame anybody else.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (08:31.381)

Mmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (08:39.088)

And say, someone missed their block and therefore we lost. I have to take responsibility. So it's just a level of accountability of sports that I really enjoy. It's the challenge. I hate losing. And so I really hate it. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (08:49.855)

Yeah. No, it's the competition too though that's so interesting because you're competing with someone and you're not on your own. You're not like beating your own running time or whatever. You're like up against someone, which is cool. You've got the business mindset even in your workouts.

You had such an interesting beginning to real estate development work. Can you tell everyone just a little bit, it's in your book, which is a great book, and I will link to it, and everyone should buy it, particularly millennials, because it was written to the millennial entrepreneur. But what were some of the things that, like, how did you get started in this work? And like, yeah, how'd you fall into it? Because it definitely wasn't something that, your family did or that, you you maybe set out to do, but you certainly got there quickly.

Jaebadiah Gardner (09:45.23)

Yeah, I mean if you consider 16 years quickly Yeah, yeah

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:49.345)

Well, I mean, like were pretty young when you first started like acquiring property, I guess is the way I'd say it.

Jaebadiah Gardner (09:57.973)

Yeah, you know, I think I was maybe 24 when I bought my first condo 25 when I bought my first duplex So yeah, I think I think you know from that perspective

But you know how I came into the game is like I got hired to work for a general contractor and work. I worked for Turner Construction and they were building, you know, 100 million plus commercial buildings downtown Seattle. And you know, I was the lowest man on the totem pole, but I got tasked with the work of managing several scopes of work on having to piece the building together. So I learned very quickly, you know, at a young age, like the power of a hundred plus million dollars and how that translates into an actual physical structure.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (10:46.783)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (10:48.618)

And that experience to me was more than just like putting on a roof and on the building or laying the carpet on all 15 floors. It was like, Whoa, like there's literally a hundred million dollars. And then there's a lot of budget for everything it takes to get this thing built. And so I started to see things through a very interesting lens. And again, you say a hundred million dollars in any conversation and you're like, that's a lot of money. that's like, who thinks of that? Right. And I wasn't exposed to that type of talk growing up. And so here I am with early 20s and all we're talking about is like, you know, three million dollar contract here, 25 million dollar contract there, and I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, like it actually is a real thing. Millions of dollars is a real thing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:36.343)

Yeah, seriously. People actually talk about this. Wow.

Jaebadiah Gardner (11:41.538)

Yeah, so, you know, I cut my teeth early on understanding like the power of a dollar and what it can accomplish from a building perspective. And I decided to research, you know, who developers were, what they did, how they maintained. And then, you know, the word that kept coming up was wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth. And what is the, is that? My family doesn't come from wealth. And so I decided to build a set out to build a real estate development company that was focused on building wealth.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:59.809)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:11.543)

I love it. And you have had some pretty intense mentors over the years. And one of the things I love about the book is like, you tell these stories about how you get into the rooms with these amazing leaders in development that like people don't meet, you know, off the street, but you got there. That's something I love about you. And I think it's something that I want people to know that like it's possible, to like not necessarily get in the room where it happens, but like it's possible to get to that level that you thought you would never get to. And I think the system kind of wears us down to think that, you know, we're never gonna get there. And even if it's just like that manager role or whatever, you know, it's easy to be told by all of the signs that you're not good enough and you're not doing it well enough and you're never gonna be wealthy or whatever it is.

I would love you to tell the stories of, you know, particularly like how you just showed up at that one guy's office and we're like, Hey, by the way, I'm going to meet with you. Who's like the biggest developer in Seattle. And like, what, what do you tell yourself before you do that? Like, how do you get in those rooms?

Jaebadiah Gardner (13:27.438)

Yeah, yeah, no, that's hilarious. It's a fan favorite story right there. It's in the book. Yeah, you know, ultimately it's relationships. And if you pair relationships with your passion...

Ellen Whitlock Baker (13:32.023)

It's in the book.

Jaebadiah Gardner (13:45.57)

you know, but the course kind of lays itself out for you. You know, and for me, I was passionate about real estate development. I was passionate about building wealth and I needed to build the relationships, you know, needed to go all along this journey. So, you know, I think I talked about this in the book, cause I think it's first chapter is passion. Like you gotta have passion, but then you gotta figure out how to monetize it. And part of that monetization process was building a network of mentors and people I can learn from that were in my business. you know, for me...

Like, like we're just people, everyone's just people. So, you know, I don't, it's really hard for me to look at someone and say, I can't get in touch with them or, they're worth a billion dollars. They'll never talk to me. Like, I don't care about that. Like there's, it doesn't really matter. If there's something that I want, I'm going to figure out how to get it. And in that sense with the developer in Seattle, I wanted to know how he came to be. I wanted to know his story. wanted to like understand like what were his, some of his trials and tribulations.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:36.684)

Love that.

Jaebadiah Gardner (14:50.138)

Right? And so, but I was a nobody to him. I was not in his circle, you know, and why would they meet with me? Why would he meet with me? Right? And so I email and I call, call, is he there? Is he there? And, you know, they would say, no, he's not here. He's not here. And I just was like, you know what? I'm going to introduce myself. And when I walked into the office, they were like, you're Jebediah. And I was like, yes, because I've been calling for three months, you know?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:57.461)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:10.903)

Yeah, yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (15:16.046)

And he called me back. He's like, what the hell do you want? Who are you? And I just was like, hey, I just want to know how you got to be where you are. He's one of the biggest developers in Seattle. And he shared a couple pieces of insights. And I had a mouthful of food because I was eating lunch with a friend because a call came out of nowhere. And I was like, OK, all right. I appreciate that. It was maybe about a 45-second phone call.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:19.51)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (15:40.987)

But I just don't see any boundaries or barriers to meeting the people that I need to meet to grow what I'm growing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:47.689)

Mm-hmm. I love that. I think that can be a big barrier for people, don't you? Like, it's not common to... Yeah, so like, what would your advice be to someone who's like, my God, I could never do that?

Jaebadiah Gardner (15:54.1)

yeah, absolutely. But it's all mental. It's all mental.

Jaebadiah Gardner (16:03.266)

Well, I mean, I can't relate to that mindset. I don't even know, like, I don't even know what I can't means. don't understand. And so I think it's just a mindset thing. Like we get beat, like you said it earlier, you just said it earlier. Like society is not set up for us to think we can achieve certain things.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (16:21.803)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (16:22.478)

is actually set up to do the opposite. It's actually set up to, you know, serve instant gratification on Instagram and social media and Twitter. Everything needs to be fat. There's nothing that comes across my algorithm or feed that's like, here's how you build wealth, or you should think about health building wealth, or here's a wealth building page. It's everything is just trash. 99 % of it is just trash that comes through my social. So as consumers, if you're consuming that daily, unconsciously,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (16:24.65)

Exactly.

Jaebadiah Gardner (16:50.892)

And then you're like, I want to meet a billion dollar person in my industry, but you're not constantly feeding yourself the information it's gonna take for you to have the confidence to go do it, then you're gonna have a negative mindset. And so the first thing I would say is you gotta remove yourself from any space that isn't serving your purpose or your goal. And if it's deactivating social media, if it's just maybe unfollowing a whole bunch of things and maybe following the things that I mean.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (16:57.205)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:20.001)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (17:22.4)

It's just, it's like your body. You gotta give your body nutrients. And that's what I try to do mentally is give myself positive nutrients so that way I'm not, I don't think about what it is I can't do. I'm just thinking about how can I get it? It's not like how, you know, I don't think I can do it. I'm like, how can I make that happen? How can I make that happen? How can I put...

Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:36.449)

I love that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:41.783)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (17:46.894)

an eight-story building on a 15,000 square foot lot that's going to cost $50 million. How can I get $50 million? I can't get $50 million.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:55.807)

Yeah, I love that. It's the how can I? I like that. There's this curiosity that comes through too. It's not like, let's not shut ourselves down immediately. Let's ask those questions. And what you said earlier too, those tiny steps, that's what I talk about a lot when I'm working with folks who like, they know they wanna make a change, but they don't know what, you know? And especially a lot of us who have been in the workplace for a really long time.

Jaebadiah Gardner (18:05.39)

you

Ellen Whitlock Baker (18:24.693)

Maybe you're in our middle ages, we care for a lot of people in our lives. It's really easy for us to lose the thread of what we actually want. And I think that's an excellent question to ask yourself, how can I get there? Even if I don't know what it is, what's one thing I can do to get in a different direction or wake myself up or learn about something? It's such an important thing, and it is actually how you grow. But I think people think like it's easier to, because of social media and instant gratification, just like you were saying, it's like, it's easy to see the end result and think, I have to immediately go there. But, you know, that's not how it works.

Jaebadiah Gardner (19:08.238)

Yeah, not even close. doesn't sound, but you know, when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you see is the shiny object or the big car or the big house, fancy jewelry and all the materialistic things and that's what you wake up and it's first thing you see. And during the day, you see it and then at night before you go to bed, seeing it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:10.208)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (19:29.548)

You know, you gotta be able to feed yourself, you know, the information that it's gonna take to get those things. If that's what it is what you want. You might not even want those things. You might just want to be able to like hold down a stable career, you know, and make sure you're consistent every day with that. Then you gotta put in the work it's gonna take to build that consistency because that's also hard too.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:37.931)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:50.145)

That work is really hard. Say a little bit about that. I mean, so you talked a little bit about how boxing and fencing kind of gets your brain into a zone, but we were talking about this a little bit earlier, like, especially for you in your particular career that you chose as an entrepreneur in this really intense business, you had to hustle and you still do.

And we talk a lot on this podcast about like, not being in hustle culture because there's a lot of this sort of like patriarchal capitalism that's like, I want you to work hard and not have fun and you know, whatever. In workplaces, you know, we're trying to, or at least I'm trying to say, hey, no, you don't have to give your whole soul to your job. It's different though, when you founded it, because it is kind of, and I'm learning that myself, but it's like, it's so much more intertwined with you.

So how do you balance the need to hustle and grind and the need to take care of yourself?

Jaebadiah Gardner (21:01.602)

Yeah, yeah, it's such an interesting question. know, I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm still trying to figure out. I think it's different for everybody. Everybody has individual tolerances. And honestly, the gauge for me is like my happiness.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:06.217)

Right. What's the answer? Thank you.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:13.225)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:23.371)

Hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (21:23.852)

You know, if I'm not happy, something's wrong. Something is wrong. And I got to identify what that is and then remove it. You know, and you know, like the work that I'm doing, if I'm not happy, I got to figure out why, you know, because, you know, it was something that I used to be so happy about. if I'm not, I'm like, whoa, maybe I'm just I'm just locked into the fire so much where I need to take a step back and I need a break. You know, maybe maybe there's just certain things that I wanted to accomplish that were in the back of my mind that I haven't and it's been irritating me and it shows itself in other ways and so you know for me it's like no question when you're founded a company or you're building a company you have to put in more time than anybody you have to outwork everybody you have to outwork them there's no way around it there's no substitute for hard work there is no substitute for hard work you have to put it in and and after a while that hard work just becomes easy

Ellen Whitlock Baker (22:16.033)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (22:23.632)

I said it my book, after a while, the Brian the Hustle becomes a tranquil exercise. It's nothing for me to hustle and Brian and spend 15 to 20 hours a day on my business, multiple days in a row, because I've done it for 15 years. And so I'm conditioned, I conditioned myself, like stamina, like boxing, to last 12 rounds, you gotta build that stamina. Otherwise, you're gonna last the first two rounds and get knocked out, and then wonder what happened. It's like, you gotta put in the…

Ellen Whitlock Baker (22:50.987)

Yep. Yep.

Jaebadiah Gardner (22:53.552)

And so there is a piece of that and then there's a piece of like, okay, once the work is put in, once you kind of feel you're at a space where you can like take a break, you know, and take a trip, then take it. You know, take that trip and don't feel bad about taking some time off. our culture, I feel like is all about, you gotta grind, you gotta hustle, no sleep, no sleep, team, no sleep. And I used definitely be a part of that. Like I don't need to sleep. And then my body just started shutting down.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:23.127)

Then you're like, I'm over 30.

Jaebadiah Gardner (23:27.342)

It's like, oh, I can't recover like I used to. Okay, I think I need eight hours of sleep, you know, or whatever the case may be. And so, you you just got to adjust to what works for you and what your formula, you got to build your own formula is what I would say. And everyone answered, I mean, from Jeff Bezos all the way down to the coffee shop founder and business operator. Everyone has a formula and you know take pieces from other folks that you think may fit with yours but ultimately you're gonna have to build your own formula and it's gonna have to work for you. Like my grind and my hustle, my daily footsteps might not work for a lot of people but there might be pieces of my hustle that may fit well with what they're building and so I would just encourage people to continue to explore the people who they admire and the people who they respect.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:13.505)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (24:21.348)

and want to emulate and take from that and learn from it and build upon it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:22.519)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:28.541)

And there's this piece of, yes, the people you respect and want to emulate, but the real person, not the Instagram profile of the person. Because I think we can easily, well, we certainly do. We deify people. Like, my gosh. Clearly, this is the most amazing person known to man. Which is why I try to post content that's like, here's how I screwed up today. Because it's like, some of my favorite Instagram accounts are these like,

Jaebadiah Gardner (24:51.19)

Absolutely.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:55.659)

these moms that are showing their normal houses, like, because there's all of these like very, like extra clean, fancy, rich mom houses. And then there's the one who's like, here is the laundry and the dog vomit and the whatever. And I love that because it's like, you gotta be true, you know? Like, and I think it helps to know that not everybody is shiny and perfect. Not one person is like you were saying earlier,

Jaebadiah Gardner (25:19.662)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, No, I mean, you know, it's it's it's a sense there's like a sense of authenticity that I feel like is slowly been eradicated through our social media fabric and everybody wants to perform, you know, essentially and and they want to do things because they're chasing

Ellen Whitlock Baker (25:24.587)

but it sure can look like that.

Jaebadiah Gardner (25:49.568)

visibility and attention versus chasing their hustle and chasing their dream. And for me, like if that's the space you're going to go in, if you're going to, if you want to chase, you know, attention, then chase it and do it, do it, go all the way with it. You know, don't have acid. You want attention, then go get attention. like, don't, don't, you know, half acid and then expect to be an overnight, you know.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (25:54.497)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:02.465)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (26:16.834)

famous musician or a viral Tik Tok, or like, people have been doing this stuff for years, you know what I mean? And there's a practice that goes into it. So, you know, I never hate on anyone's hustle. I'm like, however you get it, is how you get it. Just stay out of my lane. You know, don't get in front of me.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:22.123)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:34.207)

Yeah, no, and like the, I love the reps analogy. Like you've got to put in your reps and like figure out what that is for you. And that's a really, that's sort of sticking with me as like, okay, so maybe for those of us who have no clue, cause we are out there, maybe it is that sort of first question of like, what is my boxing or what are my reps? Like, what is that?

That muscle that I'm going to activate and it's going to be really weak at first and I'm not going to be able to throw a punch and I'm not going to be able to dodge a punch. But I don't start in a 12 round fight. I start with a punching bag or whatever. I actually don't know. What do you start with when you box? Do one of those, a jab, you know? Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (27:17.998)

The fundamentals the fundamentals yeah within like literally like boxing is Damn, they're more about footwork than it is punching, you know And so like but like how would anyone know that if they haven't you know? Taken the chance to do that and so whatever your profession is or whatever your craft is. There's a lot of probably Fundamentals that are involved with the work outside of just what you see right and so it's like if I don't know how

Ellen Whitlock Baker (27:28.97)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (27:45.387)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (27:47.904)

how to control my footwork, how is that gonna help me? I could be the strongest person ever, but if I don't know how to get around or duck or dive, it's just a whole thing. And I think folks just get so wrapped up in, like you said, they want the result, but don't wanna do the work to get the result. But they want the result.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (27:54.891)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:04.927)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there's an impatience thing. I mean, I feel it too. To be really honest, I completely underestimated how hard running my own business would be when I started this. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I didn't know how hard it would be and how much I'd have to put in and how much mental game there is in it, because it's just you. So you're like, I'm going to try this. I hope it works, right? And you're just trying to figure it out.

I feel that too. Like I was like, cool, I'm going to be really successful in year one. No, no, I'm not. I'm going to build it. And I feel like I'm putting in the reps. totally, but it can be hard to stay the course when you don't see that success because we're such a success driven culture. And also, we like money to buy things like food. So that's the other part. Yeah. Yeah. You've gotten creative with that a time or two. Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (28:54.306)

Absolutely, you gotta keep the lights on, right? Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (29:02.254)

Exactly, but you know like those are the those are the sacrifices like having an empty fridge having your lights cut off. You know having going to sleep hungry, you know, like those are sacrifices that a lot of people are not willing to Right. And so, you know, I always tell myself I'm a sacrifice my today's for my tomorrow. All right, like whatever it is that I want today, I want to sacrifice it until tomorrow because anything that I want, that's a privilege. That's, that's extra stuff, right? What I need to do is make sure there's food in the fridge. What I need to do is, you know, pay my bills, right? But like wanting all of the shiny things and traveling, like I don't need to do that until I've accomplished certain things, right? And ultimately those sacrifices do pay off. Like it may take some time, but once they do, it's blue ocean. And then now you have your formula and it works and all you have to do is step and repeat, step and repeat.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:05.205)

Yep. Yep.

Jaebadiah Gardner (30:06.298)

And then all of a sudden people are like, my God, you're so successful. I'm not really, I just figured out a formula that works for me.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:14.333)

a while too. Like it just it's not instant. I love that. I'm so curious because somebody asked me this question the other day on the podcast and I thought it was the coolest question. So because it tells you a lot about a person. What did you want to be when you were 10 years old? Do you remember?

Jaebadiah Gardner (30:30.414)

10 years old I Didn't even know those words went together. I didn't know the words real estate developer were actually something you could put together Ten years old, you know, I remember

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:32.277)

Was it a real estate developer?

Mm-mm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (30:46.122)

I remember wanting to be a police officer. I remember wanting to be a police officer because I was young and I witnessed domestic violence at home. And I wanted to grow up and do something about it. And I was young when my grandmother was murdered and I wanted to do something about it. And so it was very interesting. I thought being a police officer, right, that would solve.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:49.557)

Really?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:01.778)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (31:15.564)

you know, the traumas that I was going through as a kid. And also that's just what I was exposed to. I was exposed to that lifestyle that had police in my sphere often. And so, you know, kids can only want to aspire to be with what they've seen, what's in their visual world, right? And so that's what I saw. So yeah, I didn't.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:35.541)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (31:42.83)

I didn't think I'd be anything other than a police officer because I wanted to solve the people who murdered people in my family and I wanted to stop people from beating on their wives. And that was my thing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:48.311)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That's so interesting. There's a correlation though, I think of like doing, like, cause you do a lot for your family. Like you've grown a lot, like because of and for your family. You talk about that a lot in your book and it's like a different way of taking care of them, but it's definitely, seems like it's part of your purpose.

Jaebadiah Gardner (32:17.054)

Yeah, absolutely. know, like, it's just, it's just like being able to put yourself, like when you're in a, when you regrow up in a certain environment and...

You just, you always feel a sense of helplessness across the board. Whether it's like, your grandparents go to the grocery store and clip every, give them every single coupon for every single item.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (32:34.592)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (32:46.731)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (32:49.102)

because they're trying to save money because that's what they had otherwise they couldn't afford groceries. When you see stuff like that and then you see people in a space, family particularly in a space where they needed help and you weren't able to help. It sucks, it's not a good feeling. So I wanted to make sure that I could build a company where I would position myself as a provider so that way I could help.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:09.139)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:18.037)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (33:19.056)

There was help needed and I hated the feeling of being helplessness, helpless. I hated the feeling of like family would call me and say hey you know I'm going through this and I was just like God I can't even help and the thing is it wouldn't even be that big of a thing it might be like I just need a hundred dollars to pay the life bill and I'm like I don't even have a hundred dollars to give them like that this sucks and so I wanted to push myself to be able to be in a position to help when needed and and and then also you know like

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:29.473)

Mm-hmm

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:34.336)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (33:49.09)

Hopefully through example, know, like lead a lot of my other younger siblings and nieces and nephews down the path of like, that's what a provider looks like. How do I do that within my own space? How do we do that? And so really it's just trying to break the cycle of poverty within my family. That's really what it boils down to.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:11.253)

Yeah, and the world does not make it easy to do that. Like, you're fighting constantly.

Jaebadiah Gardner (34:16.952)

mean, the world wants you be in poverty. It wants you to be impoverished, right? And how it does that is like, hey,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:19.058)

yeah, yeah, yes, yes, but still buy things because capitalism.

Jaebadiah Gardner (34:25.93)

And that's how people go involved. That's how it already works. It's like, by the way, there's a new car that came out or a new necklace that came out. And people spend money on that instead of investing in their future or investing in their dreams, investing in their education, and not sacrificing. They want everything today. I want all the money today so I can buy all the things. And then not knowing that the body of work for you to be an expert in your craft was really what's going to carry you and lift you.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:29.409)

I know.

Jaebadiah Gardner (34:55.822)

you know, across that bridge for the long term. And so for me, being in real estate, because real estate is such a long term business, it helps being in a long term business because it teaches me every day that it's not about today. It's about the next 100 years. How is Garden Global going to be functioning 100 years from now?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:02.891)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:07.553)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:13.281)

So cool. When you think about, like talk a little bit about the type of real estate development you do in particular and like the areas you work in and why, because I think like, yes, you wanna be successful, but you've always carried this care for community in the work that you did, which I find really impressive. yeah, will you share a little bit about like, what's your mission and how, what have you done around Seattle? Cause it's pretty cool.

Jaebadiah Gardner (35:44.174)

Yeah, you know, I'm always hashtagging let's build wealth. so, know, our philosophy and mission is to help people of color any way we can to build wealth through real estate development. And it's amazing to see it happen with some of the younger folks that used to work for me as interns or employees. And then they've kind of gone off and figured out how to purchase their own homes or purchase their own investment properties. And on a small scale, it's just amazing to see individual people take kind of what they

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:50.049)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:06.188)

Hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (36:17.26)

learned from the Gardner Global Institute from the few years they've been here and also apply it to their own professional life and see them flourish right and so you know the mission is to build wealth and to do it with other people that's why it's like let's build wealth like let's do this together let's figure out a way to do it and and part of the way we do that is you know you know I started a real estate fund maybe two and a half years ago it's a small ten million dollar fund and I was able to raise about six point two of that ten million we're still on the

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:32.254)

Mm-hmm, together.

Jaebadiah Gardner (36:47.28)

on the hunt to raise the other 3.8 million. But within that fund, I was able to acquire a large amount of real estate in Seattle with the intent to develop housing, affordable and market rate, and bring in people who traditionally wouldn't see that investment opportunity, who were black and brown, and give that opportunity to those folks. And so they're along for the ride. So they're part owners in all the assets that we own, right? And so that's one of the ways that we really try to

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:49.447)

Wow.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (37:00.992)

Nice.

Jaebadiah Gardner (37:17.11)

incorporate community in our model, not overthinking it, just saying, hey, like, this is something that people have not had access to, a real estate fund that acquires real estate in Seattle. How do I create that? How do I open that door for those people to come in? Not at the highest level, just come in at any level, whether it's 5,000 or 3,000, you know, usually those thresholds are really high. You know, my threshold is $50,000, like minimum investment, but because I manage the fund,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (37:25.271)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (37:46.912)

You know, I understand that like not every person has that especially when they come from like my community So it's being like being understanding to say hey What is it that you are able to invest that you feel comfortable with that you won't need for the next five to seven years? Because that's what it's gonna take And and opening that door well beneath the 50k mark and then also building affordable housing, know Creating units that are affordable to people who need it

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:00.897)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (38:12.162)

That's another big thing. then incorporating art and culture into the building so people see themselves in the actual building, in the structure, what makes them proud to be there and proud to live there. So, you know, there's a few different angles that we do.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:18.731)

Mmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:24.663)

How are you doing the art and culture in the building? How are you incorporating that? Buildings, I should say. It's not just one.

Jaebadiah Gardner (38:29.74)

Yeah, that's... Yeah, you know, I...started this model when we did when we developed the Liberty Bank building alongside Community Roots Housing who owned the building and we were, you know, hired as like a development consultant and what's very important in the black community particularly is like art, like big, big art and in what used to be majority black neighborhoods, you know, I felt it was very important to like have some strong emblems of art outside the building and inside. And so one of the ways we do it is I hire like an art coordinator.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:00.971)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (39:04.623)

or project manager, somebody from the community, somebody who can identify other artists, and I allow them to kind of curate along with those artists what those pieces are within the building. then they tell us, they tell me, like, here's the piece I want to do, here's, you know, and I give them a little bit of a sandbox to work with. I say, you know, like the Sarah Queen building is named after my grandmother and she represented business, she represented black women entrepreneurship, and then there was the church, you know, the history of the African American church.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:11.243)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:14.977)

Love it. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:24.341)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (39:34.496)

And what does that mean? And what meaning does that carry within Seattle in general? So how do you put those two things together and display that, you know, in an art form? And I allow my artists to dream and work on whether it's a mural, whether it's a statue, like, I don't know what it is. I let them go out and do it. And then ultimately we have a conversation and we figure out what goes where and we package it up. And then ideally that speaks, each piece has its own kind of message, but it all kind of co-

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:34.729)

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (40:04.4)

coalesces together. So that's a little bit of kind of like a little bit in the weeds of how I do it. But you know, it's important for me to have, it's important for me to have artists, know, lead this charge and also bring in artists, you know, other artists, you know, within this circle to deliver something that speaks to the community.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:10.121)

No, that's an amazing job.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:23.307)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:27.541)

I love that for so many reasons because like if you're listening and you manage a team, what a beautiful example of how to help your team do something amazing, but not tell them how to do it and trust the community that you're serving to tell you what they need and guide your way. And I don't care if you're in, you know, advancement or whatever, you involving community is so important and it just doesn't get done as often, was, as you were talking about that, I used to work with a nonprofit that helped put art in vacant storefronts in Seattle during, it was during the recession. So there was a lot of vacant storefronts. So we'd work with the developers. They'd give us the space for like a dollar, cause I think they had to charge us something. And then the arts group or the artists got to use the space for free. And the idea was like, maybe they could become long-term tenants. And I met a lot of, people who curated art for those big companies like Amazon and just the people who had large spaces in Seattle. And they were all white and usually men. it was not as fun of an experience. And I'm not saying all white men are bad. I know. I know. I'm not saying that, friends. But.

It's definitely wasn't a community-based experience when you were talking to them about like, could we please use this little storefront for something? And then they were like, well, I don't know how that's going to go with the Picasso on the third floor. It was just very different. having seen the other side of that, I'm loving what you said. That is the coolest way to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (42:12.29)

Yeah, it's just about representation. That's all. It's just about acknowledgement and representation. And just because you want to represent a specific culture, identity, outlook, perspective doesn't mean that it demeans another perspective or another culture. It just means we're trying to represent something here and that should be okay. It's just like, anyway, so that's great. That's great that you were able to be a part of that work.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:27.767)

Mm-mm.

Yeah, it's not pie. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:37.29)

No, and it's

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:42.007)

Yeah, but I'm stoked for your work because I think it's really exciting to have, like, it's probably kind of rare to have a real estate company that is black owned working on a building in a historically black neighborhood that's able to work and curate mostly artists of color. know, like, that's, I can't imagine that's not normal, but that happens a lot.

Jaebadiah Gardner (43:07.79)

No, it's not normal, but we provided a template of how to do it, you know. And so when we did the Liberty Bank building alongside of Community Roots Housing, you know, and that building got done and everybody saw the art on the exterior and they did tours and they saw the art in the interior. I was getting calls from some of the biggest developers in Seattle asking me how I did that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:11.809)

given the barriers.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:16.619)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:33.407)

Nice. Nice.

Jaebadiah Gardner (43:34.414)

and you know like how did you what did you do what was your budget for the artist and how did you curate it and i would tell them like hey this is how it got done so you see a lot more projects in the city with a lot more art on it not gonna say i started at tram people but i'm gonna just tell you right now before 2015 you know before 2012 before 2019 just gonna say

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:44.695)

Mm-hmm. You do.

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (44:01.454)

You know, like, there wasn't a lot of that thought process put into development projects. Art was an afterthought. We built the building, now what painting can we put up? And I was like, how do we bring in the artists during design development?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:05.31)

No.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:08.799)

Yeah, it's like, let's put a statue here or this really ugly painting in the lobby. Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (44:22.232)

during a design phase and then have them along the journey throughout the process so they understand not only the process, but how to really think about what art piece they're gonna put in there. So it's more of a thought than it is just, here's a wall on the third floor.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:22.263)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:37.823)

Yeah, go for it. Yeah. my gosh. You're like making my Masters of Public Administration heart like pitter-patter right now. Because that's what I wanted to study because it's such a model. And I'm glad it's happening more. But the cities have done some great work around just making arts and culture a part of the city and the development of the city. But I'm happy to hear it's happening.

Jaebadiah Gardner (44:57.774)

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I'm the soldier boy of real estate development. He's always like, I'm the first one that did this. I'm the first rapper. I'm the first black developer who structured an art program in a building. I'm the...

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:06.507)

more and obviously like the fact that you're doing it is cool.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:21.173)

You know what, take it. I think you are. Take it, take it. my gosh, this has been amazing. Let me ask you my final question because we are almost out of time. I would love to know if you were going to give a TED Talk on something other than your work, what would it be on and why?

Jaebadiah Gardner (45:35.566)

you

Jaebadiah Gardner (45:39.512)

Yeah, I remember you asking this last time and I already forgot what I said. But I think it was around maybe like dedication, like nothing fancy, but like what's the art of being dedicated to your craft?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:41.942)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:55.093)

Yes.

Jaebadiah Gardner (45:55.374)

What does that mean on a day by day basis? I don't know, like people, it's not a word that I hear a lot, like daily, you know? Like I don't hear people be like, oh, you know, I'm really dedicated. And so I would love to explore like what dedication means to people's work and their craft and their expertise, or even just like how does that apply to a family being dedicated to that or a significant other? How does that word like really fit? And so I think it'd be interesting to

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:03.263)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:20.364)

Yeah.

Jaebadiah Gardner (46:25.328)

explore the concept of dedication across the field. If I guess I've had a TED talk, I do that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:31.351)

No, I love that. can actually, based on everything we talked about today, you could totally wind something together to be really cool there. So we have your topic. You're set.

Jaebadiah Gardner (46:39.092)

I would say the other probably topic I would probably have more fun talking about would be like how to give no fucks. Like, I would love to give a TED talk on how to give no fucks.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:48.087)

Yes. Please. I would I need to take that class. Will you please offer it? I just did an episode about learning the phrase “that sounds like a you problem, not a me problem”, because I had not heard that before. And then I was like, Whoa, you can say that. So yes, definitely. How to give no fucks. What's what would your first point be in that TED talk? Just for those of us who have a hard time doing that.

Jaebadiah Gardner (46:56.238)

Absolutely.

Jaebadiah Gardner (47:16.736)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Well, you know, if you're in business or your professional career, the first thing is like people get really emotional about decisions. They get emotional about people and you got to be able to separate the emotional from the task, the emotion from the goal, the emotion from the passion.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:33.303)

Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Jaebadiah Gardner (47:39.31)

There's some lines, walls, that I hate walls, but in the sense of how to not give a fuck, you gotta put up walls and be like, you know what? Why am I emotional? Why am I thinking about that? I need to get this done and that's all that matters, period. And so everybody else talking negative, everybody else trying to stop that from happening, I'm not gonna get emotional about it. I'm gonna give no fucks and get it done.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:43.286)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:52.661)

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (48:05.727)

Yeah, don't waste your energy on other people, but like we spend a lot of our life doing that. So, okay, I would take, please make that a class. I will take it. The lecture by Jaebadiah. Well, thank you so much for being on. I really, really appreciate your time. It was lovely to have you.

Jaebadiah Gardner (48:09.548)

Negative energy. And that's, Sounds good.

Jaebadiah Gardner (48:23.384)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you and best of luck on the podcast journey. And I'm looking forward to following your journey as well.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (48:28.299)

Thank you.

Sweet, sweet. All right, I'll see you later. Thank you everyone for listening. We will talk soon.