Barbara Corcoran on letting confidence drive your vision

- The idea that he was leaving me for that beautiful secretary I had, I wanted to die, but he told me I'd never succeed without him. But when he gave me that curse leaving, I'll tell you, I knew I was going to be successful just to prove him wrong. - Welcome to "The Path." I'm Ryan Roslansky, the CEO of LinkedIn. Today my guest is Barbara Corcoran. Barbara was known as "The Queen of Real Estate," and now is a Shark on "Shark Tank." But before all of this fame, she was one of 10 children raised in a New Jersey family, working her way through an array of jobs, from playground supervisor to hotdog salesperson, and everything in between. But when she dipped her toe into the real estate world, everything changed. Here's how Barbara Corcoran paved her path. (bright upbeat music) I want to go way, way back to a young Barbara growing up in New Jersey, and maybe the first time you can remember at all what you wanted to be when you grew up. - I guess I wanted to be a teacher, but I didn't realize that until I was in third grade, because I wanted to get, even with the nun from hell who told me I was stupid, and I said, I'm going to show how I'm going to teach well. I'm not ever going to tell a kid they're stupid. I couldn't read or write till I was probably in seventh grade. And for me, school was just a jailhouse. - What did you like at that point in your life? How did you think about what was guiding you early on then? - I wanted to be like my mother. She was a powerhouse, she was influential. She ran the household like a bootcamp. We had 10 kids in two bedrooms, but everything had its place. She would've been phenomenal at business. And I just wanted to grow up to be like my mother 'cause I admired her so much. My father, on the other hand, constantly complained about his boss at the dinner table. He never liked working for anyone, so I made up my mind as a very young kid I wanted to work for myself. And you know, funny, as out of the 10 kids, nine of us became entrepreneurs very successfully. I owe that entirely to my father, who set a very poor example of working for someone and always getting fired. - School remained challenging for Barbara, but she knew she was great at working. She went on to work a whole mix of odd jobs, playground supervisor, hotdog salesperson, printing press assistant, house mother, newspaper dispatcher, nurse's assistant, and several waitressing jobs. By the time she was 23 years old, she had already tackled 22 different jobs. Barbara, before we even get to real estate, to have all of those jobs, you know, 22 of them, just seeing so many different things, was there one theme that ran through it? What did you learn from all those experiences early on? - I learned what I was good at. I wasn't good at everything, but I learned I was good talking, not writing. I could talk a dog off a meat wagon in any job I had. And I also learned that I had a great imagination that I could think of gimmicks or ideas that people would want to watch or listen to. And so I used it at every job I had. My first job, I was a playground supervisor, I think they called it, which is a fancy word for babysitter. I had two kids in the morning, but I noticed that the two kids that came never had breakfast. So, I started bringing them breakfast, and then I went and talked to Mrs. Kosky, our neighbor, whose daughter was a reporter for the local newspaper. And I asked Mrs. Kosky, could her daughter come down and take pictures of the breakfast with Barbara and show it up, because we had a very poor town, we never had any good publicity. And she came down as a reporter with a camera, put us on the front page of the living section the following day. And the very next day, I had 27 children come to my playground and they stayed with me the whole summer. That was my best job, my introduction to work, and I felt like a tremendous success. But I knew I had a sell and I was going to be good at marketing when I became an adult. I knew those were the two gifts I had, and I didn't have anything much more than that. But that's all you need to succeed. You have to know what you're good at and wrap yourself around it. And I wouldn't have known that if I didn't have all those jobs. - [Ryan] Barbara was working as a receptionist when her boyfriend suggested giving real estate a shot. He let her $1,000, and in 1973, they co-founded Corcoran-Simone. Barbara was finally her own boss. She loved it and she was good at it. She recognized an influx of business people moving to New York City, looking for apartments to buy, and she dug into that market. The business was growing fast. But seven years later, her personal life took an unexpected turn. - And that all ended about seven years very abruptly when he told me he was going to marry my secretary, and I thought I was living a nightmare. The idea that he was leaving me for that beautiful secretary I had, I wanted to die. But he told me I'd never succeed without him, because I decided to end the business and divide the business in half. And that's what I did. But when he gave me that curse leaving, I'll tell you, I knew I was going to be successful just to prove him wrong. I knew I would die rather than let him see me fall on my face, you know? And I think I learned then, as a leader, the power of an insult. It can really motivate you. I don't believe in it, I believe in positive reinforcement, but if you're the type that doesn't like to get insulted, it motivates you. And I think it motivated me my whole life just to be successful, really, that singular insult. (bright upbeat music) - In 1978, Barbara founded The Corcoran Group with seven agents. She basically had to start from scratch again. It must have been just insanely competitive in the real estate market when you're starting The Corcoran Group, what do you remember was kind of the secret sauce, or what did you figure out to stand out at that time? - I remember distinctly noticing that every business was owned by a man. I noticed that every man was a second or third generation wealthy kid, and every man was cocky. The minute I sensed they were cocky, I knew I was coming to get him. They didn't gimme respect, I had nothing to lose. I had everything to gain. I threw everything at the wall and a lot of stuff worked. So, I learned they had a giant Achilles heel, it was called false confidence. And you know, even to this day, I'm never worried about who's competing with me right to the left. I'm always looking behind me worried about the little guy. And it's really true that the little guy always has the advantage of the big guy in bad times, but in good times, the big guy out spends you. So, I never pulled ahead in good times, I always pulled ahead in bad times. - How did you know what to do? How did you know how to build a company? - I realized the keys to my business were only two things really that I was particularly good at, which is I knew how to recognize talent and knew how to build on it. I could see the light in you that you couldn't see in yourself, much like my mother saw it in us. So, picking the right people and making them powerful was my gift. And then the other thing was throwing the bullshit and churning out all kinds of reports and speaking to reporters and not being afraid to just round the edges and keep going, you know? Those two things were responsible for the growth of The Corcoran Group. And as a result of building the people, I had tremendous loyalty. I had no turnover over 12 years unless I had to fire people, which I did, who couldn't sell. But I never had anyone leave the company. I would do anything they needed, I always put them first. That's really the way it is. You're working for your people if you want to be successful. And they gave me a free ride to the top. They just took me along with them as they became powerful. It's the way it worked. (bright upbeat music) - The Corcoran Group kept growing and became the largest residential real estate firm in New York City, largely thanks to Barbara's creativity. She launched the "Corcoran Report," which spotlighted real estate trends across the city. She was early to use high quality photos and neighborhood guides and listings, and embraced technology to showcase properties online. But most importantly, she personalized each experience by creating narratives around homes to captivate potential buyers. With those tactics, she was able to navigate the ups and downs of the housing market and became the undisputed Queen of New York Real Estate. After almost 30 years in the business and reaching the number one status, she felt uninspired and decided to sell the company in 2001 for $66 million. So, you sell the company, and then, you know, you wake up the next week and when you, I mean, what are you thinking? Your career is, you want to retire? You want to take a break? How did you think about that going from this, you know, running this huge company every day to now it's gone? - Suddenly, I had all this time in my hands, and within the first week, I signed up for an Italian cooking course. And in the first (chuckles) night of the Italian cooking course, I knew I had made a mistake selling the company because I hadn't accounted for two things. I missed my family desperately. I missed all the people I found, I nurtured, I came up through the ranks with me. And I also, I'm embarrassed to miss the notoriety. Reporters were no longer calling, nobody wanted to know me. I was like a nobody overnight. And so I realized I made a mistake in selling the company. I should have never sold it. And so I wrapped my head around it, and within about three months, I decided to clean up my tears and have to reinvent myself. And I thought, I know real estate and I'm good at media, and so I became a real estate reporter just like that. And once I got occupying that and became very successful at that, I built my own team again at the business, and it felt like the old days again, and I've enjoyed it ever since. But for a while there, I was really a bit shocked at the absence of everything really. - The opportunity for "Shark Tank" came about. Was that something you sought out? It came to you, and was it a, how did you think about that? - I was a talent and being paid on "The Today Show" to do real estate reports. And someone in LA saw this, a segment and a woman called me and asked me if I wanted to be on a new show called "Shark Tank." I was getting ready to go out to LA, I went to Bergdorf Goodman's, bought myself three new outfits, a whole new set of luggage, real leather. I bought autographs, signing materials, blouses and everything. And I told all my friends, I'm going to Hollywood. I'm going to Hollywood. And then I get a call letting me know they changed their mind. They had hired another woman for my seat. I just couldn't believe it. It was the equivalent of Ramone Simone telling me he was marrying my secretary. I was like, "what?" And I hung up the phone, I was crestfallen, and I took about a minute to feel sorry for myself. And then I wrote an email, and I wrote an email to the man who owned the company. I didn't know he was an important man, was the most important man in Hollywood, is Mark Burnett. And I said, "Dear, Mark, I consider your rejection a lucky charm. Everything good happens to me after I get rejected." When Sister Stella Marie told me I wouldn't learn to read or write, she was wrong, I can learn to read. I know how to read and write. When the Donald himself said, I never collect a penny of the $4 million commission, I sued him at federal court and got every penny. When the old boy network told me this, I just boom, boom, boom, boom, quick shorts, just little dots like that, maybe three or four dots. And I ended, it was, "I expect to be on that plane on Tuesday and I let you, I hope you let me compete for the seat." But his secretary called back and said, "Okay, he's letting you come out and compete for the seat." I won the seat. Thank God I wrote that email. But you know what? I learned from my salespeople over the years, that the greatest salespeople feel less time feeling sorry for themselves. They take the hits like everybody else, but they don't give themselves much time. And I mimic them in my own personality then, and I really credit their example as what I did to Mark Burnett. You really have to stand up for yourself. It was proven over and over again, you got to get back up, like a Jack in the Box, you get hit on the head. You should be smart enough to stay low, but smart if you jump up and get hit again, you know? You got to hit, hit, hit, you know? And that was a great second career for me, it has been. And I work with all those delicious entrepreneurs in the best years of their life, starting a business, how exciting it is. And I get to be in a front row helping them out. It's great. (bright upbeat music) - "Shark Tank" is now in its 15th season, and in that time, Barbara's invested in hundreds of companies. Outside of "Shark Tank," her most recent project is called "Barbara In Your Pocket." It connects entrepreneurs online and provides advice through videos, discussions, live Q&As and more. What do you think is, you know, Barbara Corcoran's best career advice to someone? - If you're young in your career and you're uncertain about what you're doing, you don't want to die wishing you should've, could've. You know, today, kids very often try to decide who they're going to be. But it's like going to a department store and knowing what clothing looks good on you. You have to try a lot on, you have to play in the traffic, you have to see what works, and then you can wrap yourself around just a narrow thing and become very successful. - [Ryan] So, here's my takeaway, from juggling 22 jobs by the age of 23, to transforming $1,000 into a real estate empire, Barbara's journey underscores the power of confidence and creativity. She faced pushback every step of the way from a teacher's harsh words, to her boyfriend's doubt, to the dismissive attitudes of the real estate old guard, yet she never allowed herself to feel defeated. She didn't just overcome negativity, she used it as motivation. She recognized early on that her superpower wasn't business acumen, but creative vision, a tool she still uses to this day to build successful companies. Your career path might also be lined with skeptics that question your potential. When that happens, take a page from Barbara's book, hone in on your superpower and prove them wrong. (bright upbeat music)