EP 493 – Are You An Askhole?

This is the no Closers show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for pennies on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host, CEO of We Close notes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the no Closer Show. As always, Scott Carson. Excited to be here with you today. This episode is designed to kind of go through a little thing and I might be venting a little bit here, but my goodness, I'm sure a lot of people will identify with this episode and what they're seeing out there in the market, because I guarantee many of you are all basically stealing. Seeing some of the things I'm going to talk about here in this episode and it's just kind of humorous. I thought, what the heck? You, you know, I ran a topic by a few of my peers that I respect and trust, like that's a great deal. This episode needs to go viral. So it's something you're gonna wanna share, I think. And this episode is not geared toward those that are doing things, those are making things happen. Because this episode. Are you an asshole? Is designed to kind of just vent a little bit, I think. You know, I've been, you know, we keep rocking and rolling and I had a great phone call recently with some of my good friends and peers in the industry and just kind of cracking up at some people. I had my buddy Robbie woods, maybe you're familiar with him, give me a phone call. We visit for a good about half hour to 45 minutes on where the markets come and what's working both towards. And those are the calls that I really love. I love hearing from people who are taking action or doing things. I mean, we had a great fast track training this weekend. Doug and Trey, you're just doing amazing things already and you got to really watch out for these two guys coming forward here in the near future. They're going to do some big, big things already, making some big happen. But when I started thinking about things that frustrate me the most, not only as a note investor, but a podcaster, as an educator in this industry. It's the ask holes out there. And you probably like, are you, hey, am I hearing you say that correctly? Okay. And yes, I am saying that correctly. An ask hole. Now what's an ask hole? You ask. Okay. It's a word that's come up recently Describes someone who asks for your advice but never follows through on it. I mean, we've all got friends that are asking. That in itself is aggravating enough and you shouldn't do it. I'd also add to the definition of person who always wants free consulting, free training, free coaching, or free advice. Think about it. What has that person you're asking done to be able to give an informed opinion to begin with? Myself, I mean, I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds and thousands of hours into the note craft. I mean, I've done this for over a decade now. And I get people that always ask, they want free, free, free. And I get so crack up looking at bigger pockets and seeing, you know, the different threads out there on Facebook and other things like that. Oh, and then people just bashing, you know, they want you to give your information away for free nonstop. And then, you know, but they don't take any action or they won't sign up for something. So that's what an asshole is. And so I thought I would do this kind of fun thing here, you know, 10 signs that you're an asshole. All right, basically, here's you go. If your focus is on small items versus the big rocks, especially if your coach, mentor tells you exactly what you need to do, you might be an asshole. All right, that's number 10. 9. If you attend education after education event and workshop that have nothing to do with each other, nothing to do with each nip niche that you're in, but never pull the trigger on anything, you might be an asshole. I just don't know it yet. If you complain that people aren't responding when you send an email late at night or on the weekend and they haven't called you back by the first 8 o' clock in the morning, yeah, you are an asshole. And I'm always amazed at this. People like sending an email late at 8 o' clock at night or 9 o' clock at night on a weekend, and then they want you to call by 8 o' clock in the morning and they start complaining, oh, yeah, that's not cool, homie. Don't play that. Here's another one. If you ask the same question at an event that someone just asked right before you and you weren't listening, you might be an asshole. There's nothing more frustrating. If somebody gives an answer and people are sitting there, oh my gosh, answer my question, answer my question. And they ask you the same question that you just answered either a minute before, two minutes before, but somebody's Too busy thinking about their question versus actually listening. Yeah, you're an asshole. One of the most important things that you want to do in life is make sure and use the ratio that God gave you. Listen twice as much as you speak and you'll be a lot happier. Okay? If you listen to advice from anyone, but don't listen to the counsel of others who are actually doing it, you might be an asshole. All right? Seriously, if you listen to advice from anyone but don't listen to the actual great counsel that you're getting from people, you are an asshole. Okay, number five on this one. This is when I start doing this number five here. And this is my most. This is one of my most frustrating things when I'm doing a webinar or coaching or something like that and we're got a group together. If you ask weird left field questions that have no bearing on the topic being discussed, you might be an asshole. There is nothing ruder than that. When you're going through things, you're doing a webinar PowerPoint and somebody asks some weird question that has no relevance on the slide you're at. And I get to understand asking a question from the slide earlier and being excited about things. But do yourself a favor, just chill, don't be an asshole. All right? Let people get through their presentation. Let people get through it. I was speaking at some point. I was speaking at an event in another state actually last summer. This time was the most extreme, extreme part of assholes I've ever seen. I was given a group answering questions I'd be talking to people about. This was a transition. And this one person, one lady kept asking all these oddball, kept interrupting me, asking me sites. And finally the point had to say, hey, can you stop with your weird questions And I'll get to those. But let's stay on task here. I'll get to those. This is not about you. This is about everybody in here. And that person got upset, but that's okay. And like, Listen, there's 40 people here. You're not the only one here asking questions. There's a big group here and if you pay attention, I'll answer those questions definitely for you. Okay, now number four. Oh, this one actually bugs the heck out of me. If you like to jump in and educate, I'll say educate. Quotation marks others, but haven't done what you are teaching. You might be an educated asshole. All right? There's nothing. I always crack up when I'm going to meet a group or things like that. And I see A group of people talking, and suddenly somebody jumps in to give their opinion on stuff. And I'm like, wait a second. What have you done? You know, nothing. That's the thing. I would also reiterate, there's people out there, like, I've spoken at events, and there's been other note investors that came to it. They wanted to interrupt my presentation to make themselves look good. That's an asshole. You know, if we're talking about first liens and you're going to show up talking about second liens and sit in the front row and move from one side to the other side of you as much attention as you can. Yeah. You're an asshole. Okay? And I'm not afraid to tell you straight up that you're. You're not just an asshole. You're another type of hole. Okay, here you go. Here's another one. Number three, you ask the same questions over and over and over again on webinars workshops, but never do anything. Oh, my gosh. And this drives me just bonkers. We see a lot of this happening with marketing or raising capital or calling asset managers. And you say the same. You see the same person asking same people, asking the same questions. Look, I have no problem people repeating and really wanting to re educate and re saturate themselves on the information. Look, that's great. That's why we offer up allowing people to repeat a lot of times. But it's very aggravating when you see people and it's been the same. They asked the same question three months ago. They asked the same question six months ago. They asked the same question a year ago. And either they. I mean, it's not that they have a mind block. It's just they're not doing anything. Those are assholes. That's more frustrating. Okay, this kind of leads into number two. All right? Number two, you attend every free event that you can get your hands to hands on, but never purchase or join anything. I've seen this. I've actually gone speaking at other events. Like, funny thing, I was at, you know, we do webinars on a regular basis here, and somebody reached out to me. I go on thinking about doing this thing with sign up for your mastermind. I'm like, okay, great. Well, two weeks later, I'm at an event speaking at Jason Bible's event, and I see a guy there, and it's the same guy. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna end up going right this route. I'm like, okay, if you're gonna go that route, Go that route. Fine. Good for you. Well, like two weeks later, I'm doing a webinar, I see that same guy log on to my webinar and he starts asking all these oddball questions anytime he makes them. Like, listen, no offense, dude, but you said you weren't going to do this. You said you were going to focus on Jason stuff or Tom's stuff, whatever, it's fine. But you told me flat out that you're not going to focus on stuff, so you might as well log off. And that's frustrating. All right? That's just frustrating. Like, listen, don't ask questions if you're not going to be serious about it. Don't ask questions if you suffer from over analyst paralysis. Don't ask questions if you're in engineering mindset and you can't make a decision. I understand asking questions to come to a decision, but if you've already made a decision, there's no reason to go back and try to beat it the horse to death. You're just wasting my breath. And we don't want that. You don't want that up there. Okay? Now here's another thing. In the day of social media, okay, in the day of social media, this is the thing that just actually aggravates the crap out of me to the point where I'm just like, really? All right, here's the number one reason that you might be an asshole. If you post the exact same question across different groups a day after or hours after you get an answer from someone, but you're hoping for a different answer. This is different than somebody posting the same exact question or same thing at basically the same time or metaphor. Like, I posted, people post my group, I post another group. Post another group. That's completely fine. Totally. You want. You don't know who's going to respond. But what is aggravating is when people have called me and I've given them the answer, I've given them the reason, and then they go post the same thing. Or they call up people in the industry and ask the exact same damn question that I gave them two days ago. You got to realize, everybody, I'm connected throughout the industry. If you're a student of mine, I'm going to hear, hey, so and so called me so and so couldn't even talk to me about this. Okay, great, that's awesome. But don't ask my question. Don't waste my time, okay? And go ask somebody else the same exact question when you're too lazy to actually do what you want to do. There's nothing more frustrating than that because that's the point where I'm like, I don't even want to freaking talk to people anymore. I don't want to talk to those type of people. They're just going to waste my time. I don't want to waste my now. By all means, I will always, always, always give people 30 minutes. If you have never talked to me, trust me, you can pick up the phone and call me and ask me any question. Totally great to do. I love doing that. It's my way of communicating. But what happens when it's the same question over and over and over along with everything else? People complaining, oh my gosh, this is an asshole free environment. It should be for the most part. Now this leads us to people, you've got to stop complaining. You've got to stop doing something, okay? And I see this happen all the time. I'm not complaining. I'm just telling you some ground rules. I'm going to let this thing go, okay? People complain right now. It's too hot or it's too cold, okay? The bed's too soft, it's too hard the way the things are now. And they're complaining about everything, okay? The bottom line is there's a whole lot of complaint happening on a daily basis. And you see this a lot in social media. So and so didn't return my phone call. So and so didn't respond. I'm missing my swag bag. Hasn't showed up yet. Are people complaining on bigger pockets? Whatever, LinkedIn. Most people don't want to hear you complain. Everybody, they don't want to hear your complaints. They want your negative energy. They don't want to be sucked into the energy drain, okay? You don't want to do that. Now there are legitimate times to complain. Of course there are. I totally agree. There are times to complain. But don't complain just to complain. Don't complain about something that took place months ago or hours ago just to complain about stuff, okay? Now if you've been wronged or someone like that, I get that that's a different story. But people bitch and moan just to bitch and moan and it gets really, really sad. Those are the type of people, when you see that, you want to just unsubscribe or block them, which is what I do, okay? And trust me, if you complain all the time, quit doing it. Your life will be better. You'll have a whole different outlook on life if all you're doing is complaining. To bitch and moan look, shit happens to all of us, okay? It happens to all of us out there. How you overcome those things and quit complaining and try to find the silver lining, just move on, the better off you're going to be. But if you're going to be complaining about something that happened later on or you're going to steer the conversation and others conversations so you just start griping about crap. There's no might being. You are an asshole. Okay? Number three is one thing I think is very, very important. You have to quit being ungrateful. Stop being ungrateful out there, everybody. This one really does get me. How can anyone walk around without being grateful for the things that they have is just beyond me. Think about this. We have our health, okay? You can walk. I mean, just that alone is something huge compared to, you know, somebody can't walk or doesn't is missing a leg or whatever. If you can see, you got a true blessing. If you've got your health, you've got a house, a roof over your head, you've got a heart. I mean, I could go on and on about this, but hopefully you get my point. And what I would love to do is challenge all of you guys out there watching this or listening to this, you know, take out a pen and paper. A pen and paper, not your phone, and write down 100 things that you're grateful for. Okay? Seriously, we all can go more than 100 things, but this will make you look things and kind of take hopefully things that you've been taking for granted. You realize, oh, I am very lucky, I am very blessed, okay? And this is one thing that you have to look at. If you begin to look at it as our eyes and our health and our legs and our roof, our car, our pets, our family, our friends, the deals that we have, if you start looking them as gifts, you'll be a lot further off, you'll be a lot happier, okay? And your life will be better for it when you're grateful. I'm grateful for every one of my listeners. I'm actually grateful for the askholes out there because they make me realize and appreciate those that are taking action more. So. So thank you, ask holes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're a blessing in disguise. All right? Another one big thing, this kind of leaves a lot of things with people is you have to stop giving up people, okay? One of the things that prevents people from achieving all that they are capable of is that they give up. And they give up often on a moment's notice, okay? They just Quit. And while there may be other reasons for calling it quits, whether I get it, you got to go back to work. Finances, that's a support spouse. Because the benefits of achieving the goal don't outweigh the pain it takes to accomplish it. Think about that. It's a comfort zone. People don't want to get out of their comfort zone. Oh, I'll just go ahead and quit instead of doing that. No. Okay. This is why it's so important that you are so clear about your why and why you're doing the things that you want to do or the reason you set goals for that. We'll get to goals in a second here, okay? The stronger that you are clearer and more defined about your why or why you're doing, the less likely you quit. Okay? But if you're not, your why is not defined, or it is not clearly with a date or clearly in your very get to that later on, you'll never get to it and you'll quit before you get started. Okay? Make your why a priority. If you don't have it written down out there, everybody take the time, write it down. Set your goals, and you'll be much more likely to reach them by not giving up and just working hard. Because most people give up their goals because they think it'll be too hard. And when they actually get around to doing it and taking action, they realize, hey, that was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be. That was actually easier. Easier than I thought. Not saying it won't be difficult along the way in time, but if you look at people that are accomplishing amazing things, it's because they just kept working for it. They kept, as I like to say, failing forward. They kept that one foot at a time in front of each other. Would have been very easy for me to not go back to college. It would have been very easy for me to quit after my sophomore year, took a year off, figure out what I wanted to do. College is not always for everybody. But look, we often have things that we want to accomplish, whether it's schooling or making income or taking a new job, a new position, moving, going out there. I mean, if I had given up on my idea of traveling around the country NonStop back in 2010, when my whole kind of goal thing, my world, travel thing, my world, you wouldn't know who the note guy is. Yeah, I might have some stuff online, but. But it wouldn't have done that. And I'm glad. There were a couple times I should wanted to give up. Yeah, but I didn't. I kept sticking to it, kept doing it, kept doing it one day at a time. And like I said, sometimes life can throw you a big crap sandwich and sometimes we all got to take a bite of it. So stop giving up. This is why it's so important to have mentors, mastermind people to reach out to. If you're struggling, get on the phone sooner rather than later. And don't waste people's time. People that care about you, that really want to give you great counsel, and then go do something else or ask somebody else different. Make it public where they can see it. Okay, here's another thing. I think we all need to stop making New Year's resolutions. I'm always amazed that people believe that some magical thing's going to happen on New Year's Day, okay? Some sort of special power in it. Oh, I'm going to eat my black eyed peas that day and my resolution come true. Most people out there realize it's too tough and quit with their goals they set for the first year they give up. They're like, oh, no, I'm hungover. I'm not going to start it. I'm okay. So this is why I say, why wait till New Year's Day, which is what, five months from now? Four and a half. Make today your New Year's Day. Make your resolution to change the activities that you're doing now to go out and find success. Okay? Every day can be a new year for each and every one of us. And you can work towards your goals. Maybe you're struggling with weight, so get your ass to the gym today. Maybe you're struggling with raising capital, so go out to a networking event today. Maybe you're struggling to make some deals or buy some notes. Guess what? Pick up the fricking phone and call some asset managers. Pick up the phone. Just talk to somebody. Call your peers. It's a beautiful thing. But if you keep putting your success off to New Year's, you know what you're doing? You're building negative habits. You're putting negative habits that you'll. Oh, I'll just wait. I'll push it off. Push it off. And you know what, everybody? The time is now for you to take action. Okay? Here's one that really drives me. And it kind of goes in back with being grateful. Okay? All right. Stop wanting, expecting everyone to like you. Okay? Stop it. There aren't many guarantees in life, but one thing you can rest assured of this. Not everyone is going to like you. No matter what you do or how you do it. Someone somewhere is not going to like it or you. I know that that can hurt to hear, okay? But it's the truth. If often says more about them than you. If that makes you feel any better. If somebody's gonna talk ugly about you and say things not like you, it says they have a dark hole for a soul for Buddy, okay? It's. They're the ones that have issues. Okay? So what should you do in this situation? So I would say it's a 33 rule. Just focus on the people that like you. Focus on the people that don't know you. All right? Go and win them over. Those people that are on the fence. Okay? Your life will much easier if you do focus on those that are friendly. And I see this happen all the time. People afraid to market. People scared to send an email out or post them in the face. Oh my God. My friends might find out and I'm going to get crap about it. Screw them. They're not paying your bills. All right? I don't care. This is a big thing and this kind of goes to the next one. I'll come back to it. But be you understand that what you're doing is important. It's to you. If they're not happy with it, they're going to talk bad about you. Hey, that's on them. Let them be miserable. You don't have to be that way as well. Okay? Another thing here is stop comparing yourself to others. Quit worrying about this whole keeping them with Joneses thing. Okay? Theodore Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt said he had one of my favorite quotes. He was known for saying, comparison is the thief of joy. Oh, think about that. Comparison is the thief of joy. Let it sink in. Comparison is the thief of joy. It's simple, but it's really the truth. Think about that. When we look at others and compare our lives to theirs, it'd be easy to forget how great ours is. And don't forget much of what you see, especially with social media in the world today. A lot of what you see is not true. It's not reality anyway. Don't assume that show what's shown is a true representation of the way things are. Oftentimes it's not. Okay. People tend to display their best parts only. Remember that next time you're thinking someone else's life is so much better than yours. Be happy of where you're at. Be happy of the house you have. Be happy of the car that you drive. Maybe you don't want to be. Maybe you drive a 1970 something 4.0. Okay, I get that maybe you're not happy about it. It's a collector's item, okay? And you don't want to get in a wreck, but you work hard. Look, not all we don't need a big house. I drive my. What is it now? I was excited when I bought my new Dodge Ram pickup a few years back, but I got barely 40,000 miles on it. It still looks great. Okay? I don't need a Mercedes Benz. I don't need a. What do you call it? A Tesla. I don't need a hot rod. I'm confident that I like my Ford. I'm sorry, my Dodge Ram pickup. And it gets me around. It does what I do. I'm happy. The house that we live in. I love our house. I love the location. I love this office, okay? I don't need to compare myself to what so and so is driving or where so and so lives, because most of the time, and I'll tell you this, from being out and talking with people and for the years, being a financial advisor and a mortgage broker, those that often live in the bigger things often can't afford those things and they don't have the same goals that I do or that we do. So I focus on what I can do for myself and I don't worry about what others say. I don't worry about everybody liking me, okay? I'm competing against myself. And yes, I have good days, I have bad days, okay? But I don't compare myself to my peers. I'm going and doing what I can. I don't compare and let what Eddie Speed or Donna Bauer is doing affect what I'm doing, okay? I don't like what others are doing in the podcast industry or the things out there affect what I'm doing. Now, do I take counsel? Do I ask opinions? Do I ask what's going on with other people in respect? Of course I do. But I don't let where I'm at and my experiences and that somebody might be ahead of me, might be doing better than me. I don't worry about that because nobody is walking in my shoes. And you have to think that about everybody. Only you can feel the shoes that you're walking. Only you are walking a mile in your shoes. So quit complaining about others. I don't care. Hey, if you're having a hard time making money, great. Guess what? It happens to everybody. Doesn't mean you're a loser. Just need to work a little harder. Just need to tweak Some things. Quit feeling bad that you don't live in a huge house or you don't drive a brand new car, that you're a little overweight, whatever. Go do what you need to do to get it done. But the minute you start letting, okay, you start comparing yourself to others and let that be your reality versus your true reality. As President Roosevelt said, comparison is a thief of joy. Everybody. Comparison is a thief of joy. And you don't want that. So that's why I say this, guys. That's why I want to talk about this. I wanted to have kind of a shorter episode here with you guys just letting you know that, hey, we're here for you. All right? If you are an asshole, you know the best thing you can do is quit asking questions and go take action. Be an action hole. That's even better. Not an asshole, but an action minded person. And you know what? It's okay to pick up the phone and say, hey, I really need to take action. I really need to do something. How can I do this? How can I take my business to the next level? How can I get my business started? How can I focus? What's the best thing I can do right now to start seeing smack? Seeing some things happen in the next 30 to 60 days? Well, you know what that means? You've got to take action. I love the fact that we had Karen Briscoe on from 5 Minute Success last couple days ago talking about 5 Minute Success habits and how it takes 66 days to build a habit, not 21 days, 21. You start getting in the right direction. But you've got to have the patience. You can't give up. You've got to eliminate waiting till next year to do it and make next year now and be happy, be thankful. Quit complaining and go take action. If you do those things, you'll be a lot happier off in 21, 66 days, 90 days from now. Because let's face it, in 120 days when it's almost Christmas time, you'll be a lot happier that you took action now versus waiting till then. Who knows, you just add on a whole lot more weight or a lot more excuses why you couldn't get done by waiting until then versus doing it now. And you can change your whole mindset, you can change your whole latitude and longitude of where you're at in life, where you're at in business, where you're in health, where you're at with relationships by going out and taking action and moving forward, doing a little bit extra each day a little bit more. Rome wasn't built in a day. But you can lay those first bricks today. So go lay a brick. Go make something happen. Don't be an. And we'll see you all at the top. Everybody have a great day. Bye. Ra.