Join me for a riveting sit-down with construction and real estate mogul Ken Banks as we explore the foundations of a 50-year legacy that's towering over Maryland's horizon. From his audacious start at 28 to reimagining the iconic Johns Hopkins Hospital, Ken's narrative is a blueprint for aspiring trailblazers. His keen insights on strategic ownership in the concrete jungle provide an invaluable masterclass in constructing a business empire brick by brick. Delving into the challenges that come with managing colossal projects, Ken's candid anecdotes on maneuvering through economic upheavals and the human element of his workforce are as foundational as the structures he creates.
The entrepreneurial battlefield isn't for the half-hearted, and we peel back the layers of determination needed to stand tall amidst the industry's titans. We engage in a mental skirmish, examining the warrior-like resilience essential for anyone daring to forge their path in business. Ken's tales envelop you in his world where setbacks are but a pivot or pause in the grander scheme, offering a potent reminder that the journey is as fluid as it is fierce. Embracing the "do or die" mindset, this conversation is an ode to those who brandish their dreams like a sword, cutting through the cacophony of mediocrity to claim their victory.
As we wind down, the narrative arcs towards the sanctity of a well-rounded existence. Ken and I reflect on how one's true measure of success isn't bound by the confines of financial gain but interwoven with the threads of family, spirituality, and camaraderie. This dialogue is a meditation on the art of balancing the relentless pursuit of ambitions with the tender moments that give life its sheen. We close with musings on professional evolution, the elation of learning, and the fulfillment derived from fostering both personal and professional relationships—the kind that form the sturdy beams supporting the towering edifice of a life well-constructed.
Join me for a riveting sit-down with construction and real estate mogul Ken Banks as we explore the foundations of a 50-year legacy that's towering over Maryland's horizon. From his audacious start at 28 to reimagining the iconic Johns Hopkins Hospital, Ken's narrative is a blueprint for aspiring trailblazers. His keen insights on strategic ownership in the concrete jungle provide an invaluable masterclass in constructing a business empire brick by brick. Delving into the challenges that come with managing colossal projects, Ken's candid anecdotes on maneuvering through economic upheavals and the human element of his workforce are as foundational as the structures he creates.
The entrepreneurial battlefield isn't for the half-hearted, and we peel back the layers of determination needed to stand tall amidst the industry's titans. We engage in a mental skirmish, examining the warrior-like resilience essential for anyone daring to forge their path in business. Ken's tales envelop you in his world where setbacks are but a pivot or pause in the grander scheme, offering a potent reminder that the journey is as fluid as it is fierce. Embracing the "do or die" mindset, this conversation is an ode to those who brandish their dreams like a sword, cutting through the cacophony of mediocrity to claim their victory.
As we wind down, the narrative arcs towards the sanctity of a well-rounded existence. Ken and I reflect on how one's true measure of success isn't bound by the confines of financial gain but interwoven with the threads of family, spirituality, and camaraderie. This dialogue is a meditation on the art of balancing the relentless pursuit of ambitions with the tender moments that give life its sheen. We close with musings on professional evolution, the elation of learning, and the fulfillment derived from fostering both personal and professional relationships—the kind that form the sturdy beams supporting the towering edifice of a life well-constructed.
How many people are gonna make a million dollars this year? If you're going to start a business, you gotta have about a hunger in your gut. You gotta have a hunger in your gut. You cannot be afraid of 18-hour days. You gotta think differently and you can't be afraid. You can't have fear. You have to look forward. That's saying you know I'm gonna do this. No matter what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get it done. When you're a business owner, you can't plan. I've seen a lot of people that are going to school, they're going to MBAs and all that, and they try to start a business. They can't do it. There's benefit in having to check every week. Music.
Speaker 2:
Welcome once again to an awesome episode of Connected Minds. Now, if you hear once again listening to this podcast, then I'm sure that you get value from the content that we release. Today I'm gonna have a conversation with Ken Banks, who is an entrepreneur, a businessman, a strategist, who owns Banks Global. Banks Global is a construction and development company in Maryland. He's done great works in the skyline of Maryland up to a tune of 100 million US dollars. Now, if anyone of you is here and is listening to us, then I'm sure you wanna stick around and listen to the cues that he's gonna give us when it comes to real estate companies, how he's done it over the years. Look, he's been in business for over 50 years and for me, it's certainly a man that I want to sit down and have a chat with, mr Banks how are you doing?
Speaker 1:
I'm doing great, thank you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, and today I really just wanted to find out you know what your background in terms of real estate is when you first started and the ropes that you've taken to get to this level.
Speaker 1:
You know, I first started in the construction industry, and so I was in construction for a number of years. I started my construction company in 1980. I was 28 years old and went from doing work in a residential kind of construction and gradually went into commercial, and so we built some of the largest structures in the Washington DC area, baltimore area and back in the States. One was a $600 million hospital for Johns Hopkins. That was a joint venture. Another one was the Hilton Hotel in Baltimore and another was a $5,000 Cedar Green. These are multi hundreds of million dollar jobs, usd. And so that's where I started. I needed office space, and so why not have an office space where you own the building? And so I bought a building and moved in with my offices, and economically it made sense because I'm paying myself rent from my company. You know, my company pays me rent, the owner of the building, that kind of stuff and tax wise it works out a little bit better. And I use my company to do the construction. So, wait a minute, this is a pretty good deal, right? As I began to buy more and more properties and bigger and bigger properties, and I would, you know, find a financing, do the construction and then lease them out or rent them out, and that was my model for a number of years.
Speaker 1:
And then, at a certain point in time, the projects. There were a couple of projects that came by that were just too big. I just couldn't. I couldn't handle them myself. It was just too big. And so and one was this was my first one, but one was the redevelopment of 88 acres around Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was massive, multi billion dollar project and I knew it was too much, too big for me, right? But I had the political contacts and be able to be a strong person to be able to get that project done in the state of Maryland. And so it went out and found partners to be able to do this project with him. So when you develop a, find a partnership. Now there's a couple of different joint ventures. The first joint venture I had was with the company and I had the job, and it was redevelopment of 500 apartments.
Speaker 2:
Apartment, just a redevelopment, it was just rehab.
Speaker 1:
But it was a very complicated structure, financial structure and a lot of paperwork that had to be done et cetera, et cetera. And I wasn't really set up for that. We were set up to do the construction. And so my first joint venture was one of the largest construction companies in America Whiting and Turner and I said, look, you guys do the paperwork, take care of that and we'll take care of the construction. It was a 50-50 joint venture. And so I came in, we put our superintendents on the project, we ordered the material, we had the subcontractors and we did that work.
Speaker 1:
And they did the other side of that, the administrative side, and all that, and it worked out beautifully, and so that was my first joint venture which worked out very well and the joint venture that I bought to them and so other joint ventures are much bigger- you know, with all the businesses that you've done right and all the experiences that you've built, what are some of the things, the struggles in between, that you had to overcome?
Speaker 1:
The struggles in usually manpower in the construction world anyway there's manpower because it's like a feast of famine. You get these big jobs and you hire people and you get all these people right and at times I had almost 100 people in my business. You know, not a huge company but 100 people.
Speaker 2:
That's quite a lot of people running around, right?
Speaker 1:
And you know you're hoping that you have work for those 100 people all the time, but of course sometimes it drops down.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
And so now you don't need a hundred, now you need 70. And so what do you do with the 30 people? Because you're thinking that maybe next month this job is going to come through. You know what I mean? Those are the kind of things in between, and there's also the cyclic kind of economic times that all countries go through, and so there are those, these down times, you know, and right now we're most of the world is in high inflation.
Speaker 1:
So what do you do, doing high inflation, and so, as a business owner, can you take advantage of that? Can you take advantage of that? And you see, a lot of businesses now have taken advantage of high inflation by raising their prices when they didn't necessarily have to, and so that's happening all across the world, where businesses have had just their costs have increased because of supply chain difficulties.
Speaker 2:
But when?
Speaker 1:
those supply chains, difficulties became manageable. The costs haven't come down, they've stayed up. In fact they keep on rising them until people scream. And when they scream then they stop Right. And so you know at any point in time, if you have money, you can make money doing high times in inflation, but if you don't have money, it's really difficult, very difficult, because it's so many things that most people are at a place where you know, when things cost 10 or 15% more than it did last year, it's difficult to survive.
Speaker 2:
I've actually just seen in an email that the UK are preparing to increase the minimum wage.
Speaker 1:
The minimum wage yeah.
Speaker 2:
But it's funny, you speak about economies and you know the current struggles that countries are going through. Again, the UK also released, I think a few months ago, that they're in recession now.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I think they've been in recession for years before now, but it's come out and it's official. Do you still think that real estate is a good investment now?
Speaker 1:
Of course, you when you say real estate, real estate is has a lot of different pieces to it. Okay, you can't say real estate and say it's good or bad. You have to say what part of real estate, like I would say office space is probably real bad right now because in in, in an age where so many people can work from home, businesses have gone to the point where they don't need 50,000 square meters, right, or you know they need 10,000 or whatever.
Speaker 1:
Everybody's, almost almost everybody's cutting down, cutting back in terms of the office space needs. So if you're a developer and you are in office space needs, it's not it's not a good place to be, yeah. Now, if you're in medical, if you're in rental, some.
Speaker 2:
Well, what kind of?
Speaker 1:
rental. You know if you're housing, you know that's rental. But business rentals is not what I was going to say. Storage, what do you call that? Storage units, you know, for your computers and things of that nature.
Speaker 1:
This distribution is very good in certain, in certain areas. This you know because of you know companies like Amazon and you know they. Just all the distribution centers are doing well and there's medical centers are generally doing pretty well. So you got to kind of say pick your field. So if you're in residential it might be very good, according to whatever you're in.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's true. You know when most of us, when we start business, we don't have the first hand experience. We've never done it before.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Because I remember coming out of university and saying, look, I want to register a business and start a pharmacy. The only experience I had was what I had in me which is Derek saying that he wanted to do business. Now, what sort of mindset do you think an individual needs to be able to pick themselves up to say, I want to have a startup business?
Speaker 1:
You know, I think that's a good, great question. That's a great question because I've seen a lot of people that are going to school, that are going to MBAs and all that, and they try to start business. They can't do it. Yeah, because I think it takes more than that, and I'll say that I was fortunate enough to have a very poor upbringing and so a desire burned within me and I think that many business owners not people who get money handed to them and continue business ever.
Speaker 1:
But if you want to start a business, you got to have a hunger in your gut. You got to have a hunger in your gut. You cannot be afraid of 18 hour days for months on end. You can't be afraid of that because if you want and the other part of that is you have to be not you know there's benefit in having to check every week from an employer, right? Yes, get a check. I know I can plan. Everything is safe when you're a business owner. You can't plan. You might get a big hit, but that might be the only hit you get for a couple of months, right? So you got to think differently and you can't be afraid. You can't have fear. You have to look forward. That's the. You know I'm gonna do this. No matter what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get it done. You know you have to take. What is that Japanese general who, when they were going to war, right, and they got into these ships and they took these ships over to the island, the other island, where they were gonna fight?
Speaker 2:
And the general turned around and they burnt it. They burnt the ships to the blind. It's actually a think and grow rich.
Speaker 1:
They said you know, we, either we either win or we die. There's no option. And so sometimes when you take the option away, when you take the option away from I used to tell people you know, I give a speech and I say, look, how many people are gonna make a million dollars this year. You know, let's say, a thousand people in order. Maybe one person raise their hand and he's that person lying right. They're not really the reason. I said I'll tell you what. What if I told you that If you don't make a million dollars this year, you're gonna lose something very bad, like your children. You're gonna use your children. You're gonna use your children or your parents or whatever. You're gonna lose them. If you don't make a million dollars this year, how many of you now are gonna make a million dollars this year? All the hands go up. I said what's the difference? What's the difference? The difference is we know we can do it. It's just that we don't feel like doing it.
Speaker 1:
But when something is given to you that you have to get it done and you will not take any other answer except to get it done you're gonna get it done. And so that's what business takes. You have to have that fearless attitude. You have to have that mindset that I'm gonna make this happen, no matter what, and you're gonna run up. You're gonna wind up seeing adversity. You're gonna come into it Almost looks like a hard stop. You're gonna have hurdles in your way. You're gonna have people telling you you can't get it done. You're gonna have all kinds of things happening, but at the end of the line your mentality is gonna be I'm gonna make this happen. It's gonna happen for sure.
Speaker 2:
Whoa. Now, yeah, whoa. At what point did you feel you got very close to giving up. And what happened? What was the time I I can't.
Speaker 1:
I Can say I've been very discouraged. I can say I've been very discouraged, but and I, and I can say that I had to stop um A business, right, I had to stop because I just just had to do something else. I had to, I had to make money. You know, and sometimes, sometimes you fail, but you don't fail. You fall down, but you don't stay down. The only, the only, the only. There's no shame in falling down. The only shame is not getting up again. And so you know, I was a martial artist, you know, I was world champion.
Speaker 1:
And and years ago. And you know you get knocked down like I got teeth knocked out.
Speaker 2:
I got broken hand and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:
And you know, but you, you can. You can get knocked down, but you can't stay down. You got to have the attitude you're not going to get back up and I'm going to be successful. I don't, I don't care what, and, and you can get knocked down once. You can get knocked down twice or three times. So I I've never, I've never come close to quitting my dream. That's what I'll. I'll say. I've been discouraged, I've been you know All kinds of stuff, but I've never come close to quitting my dream. If I have a dream that I want to see happen, I want, that's what I want to happen, and so I can.
Speaker 2:
That's it you know um Some of us right, yes, uh, we. At any any point in time, there's a thought in our mind Are we doing it right? Are we doing it right? Are? We doing it right, because you move from this business.
Speaker 1:
Then you add on that business, then you add on that business. Yeah, it never stops, yeah, and you can't know, you can't know. But you got to take a step down, a path in, and the path will show you.
Speaker 1:
You know we can't we can't predict, we can't know, but you know you have an idea and and you and you and you, all you got to do is be right 70% of the time. Hmm, that's all. You can't. You're not going to be right 100% of the time. It's not going to happen. But you, but you're going to just along.
Speaker 1:
You write most of the time right and you make, you make some decisions. I, I can look back on my life and, oh my god, how did, why did I do that? That was, that was pretty dumb. You know that was pretty dumb, yeah, but but overall, most of the decisions have been having proper and so, yes, you start down a path and usually you have to be a left or be a right, that that path is not quite what I want, but I have to move, move a little bit to the left or right, um, so those, those things are, are going to happen, but you can't know. It's like All the lights are not going to be green when you start a journey. It's not going to happen. There's going to be some red light somewhere and you're going to, you're going to hit those. You got to make a left or right and you got to do whatever you got to do.
Speaker 2:
You know, in your own words, in my own words, you said yes if I was to spend 90% of my time in life Doing one thing, then I'll miss out on life.
Speaker 1:
Yes, so um, that referred to living a well-rounded life and and um, Not being I I said before not being afraid of working 18 hour days. You know that's. That's a period in life and sometimes a start of a business.
Speaker 1:
You have to dedicate yourself fully but there's also family and so, um, I'm not going to neglect my family, I'm not going. I'm still going to have family and I'm still going to have exercise, I'm still going to. So I believe in the world and I still want to travel. I still want to see the world. Certain things couldn't happen at a certain point in time, but I but I understand that we want to be holistic beings. You don't want to say, you don't want to have a billion dollars and look around and say Shack said something recently.
Speaker 1:
Shack says something very profound. Shack said something very profound. The basketball player yeah, he said that, um, he was talking to somebody else and he and I don't remember who he was talking to. But he said to the guy um, you did it right, you, you you've gotten all this, uh, attention, you become world champion. It was a football player, you know, you got. You got a ring, um, and you have your family. He said I messed up. He said I live in a hundred thousand square foot house all alone. Whoa, you know. He said I'm alone. And so, you know, family has become very important to me, and my wife has shown me how Important family is. I grew up in a situation where family was was tough, it was raised. Being raised with an alcoholic father was was tough. Right, it was just different, different dynamics um, but yeah, live a well rounded life Um church, whatever, if that's you know, spirituality, family, friends all that is important Um, I think yeah, so.
Speaker 2:
So when I, when I heard that quote, yes, that you said Um, then the next question that came on my mind was then how do you? You know balance. You know family, business and relationships, friendships. You know how do you balance it? How do you do it individually, like I don't know, I've done this for so long now. You don't have to start to do it.
Speaker 1:
I don't have to work as hard as I used to work right so I gotta look with an extra time, but I keep in contact with my friends and I try to do that on a daily basis. My family is important, so I mean, every year we're doing something. Every Thanksgiving is like a Thanksgiving and family reunion at the same time, unless for a week we take our grandchildren out for almost a month every summer. You know just things like that, you know. And so I like spirituality and so I meditate every day for, you know, an hour or so in the morning and sometimes in the evening, and so there's this I find space for everything Well balanced.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well balanced. I'm gonna find space for everything Very holistic.
Speaker 1:
And then we travel, we get to see the world. We've been in Africa for the past month, three different countries. You know, I mean that's living a life, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's living a life. And to me I mean I could be sitting home. I got some friends that sit home, but I think also just staying healthy, I wanna be as healthy as I possibly can. You know, I told them be 72 in a couple of months. And, man, just I wanna keep on going. I wanna break a world's record. I'm not in the world, I do. I wanna break a world. There's a world's record in rowing that I became aware of in my age group that I'm talking about, right, and I said, man, I think I can do that, I think I can. So I'm gonna start working out in terms of doing this. You know not, you know the rowing machine, yeah, the indoor rowing, and so what? You know? Just a goal, just something to do, just something to keep me in shape right.
Speaker 1:
And I mean you look, fantastic, you look amazing.
Speaker 2:
I mean, if I get to your age and I look like you, then I would say hey, god thanks. Well, that's what I do. I thank God every day. You look amazing.
Speaker 1:
Because it doesn't have to be like this. You know sickness isn't coming.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you know, but yeah, you're doing fantastic. My whole round of life is important. Yeah, I've got a very, very important question, okay, right, and it's important to me because I believe it's a misconception. You know, there's a lot of misconception about having a woman with her own money.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Her own path.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Her own dreams, aspirations.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
And you, you yourself, as a successful businessman, is married to a lady who has is also very successful.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
And I'm sure the time you met her she was as successful as you were.
Speaker 1:
We met and we were both fledglings in our businesses.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Right, I mean, we weren't, you know, we, we met at a certain point where she was getting started in her business, I was getting started in my business and we just kind of grew. Our businesses grew and we grew together. Our businesses grew together. But we had similar ideas about business and about how to grow business and about how to be successful and about how to present yourself to the world and how to and how to sell, because every, every business is you gotta sell. No matter what you got, you know you gotta sell. And so, yeah, we having a successful wife, I think is a blessing and I don't know, I know some people are intimidated about that, but you know we both have our own success, we both have our own money you know, and we.
Speaker 1:
There were times when she was traveling a lot, I was traveling a lot. We might be apart from one another, almost 100 days a year apart, but when we came together it was fantastic. Now with together much more. We might skip 10 days a year or something. You know somebody looking and saying why don't you go somewhere and check some place to go?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
But we just I think, why not? Because the way I look at it is if you're a successful man and your woman is waiting for you to come home every day and you don't come home and she's worried, and you know, gloria, my wife has something to do, I have something to do, we have our lives to live Right, and she has her dreams and her vision. Why would I want to get in the way of her dreams and vision? I don't want her to get in the way of mine. And so we have freedom to go to do whatever it is that we think we need to do, and that entails traveling, and it did entail travel for quite a bit, but now it's a little different.
Speaker 1:
But I enjoyed that. I enjoyed us being able to talk about our successes and our failures and what they mean to each other, and we just found that that relationship has brought us closer. Wow, that being able to talk about those kinds of things has brought us closer. Rather than you know, upon Upon and she, you know she had a lot more because she was in a. She had a lot more notoriety than I did, you know, in terms of people all over, and knew her because she was a business and my business was in, you know certain area when I was doing her business was national, so a lot more people knew her.
Speaker 1:
but you know we had to be comfortable with that as a man.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but thank you so much, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, I think you've done fantastic and you know you've, you've.
Speaker 1:
I think I got energized about 15 minutes in A little bit more yeah yeah, yeah, but I think it's been great. I think it's been great.
Speaker 2:
I've learned a lot. You know I'm on a journey. You're almost living the future that I want to live Right. You know, so it's a lot of learning you know, and even for the people that are listening to us, you're not going to watch this podcast as well. I appreciate you Because I think when you came in I said that look, I want to get into realistic properly, and that's construction. So, the workers. Do you know that projects they work under me Right, so I want to learn the ropes yeah, yeah, you know, so yeah.
Speaker 1:
Hope I was helpful. Yeah, no, thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much. Thank you, derek, take care. Thank you, pottery barn.