A Former Student Proves That the Land Geek Can Lead You To Live Your Best Life

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable podcast, we have almost all the usual suspects. We've got Landon. I love Land Harris. Landon, good to see you.

Thanks, Mark. Good to see you as well.

That's not going to be your nickname. I know.

We got to come up with something good, man.

Yeah, I honestly think it should be Land Shark because you swim.

Land chart.

Yeah, that makes sense. That kind of makes sense.

That does make sense.

Oh, the dude buddy, the nightcap OG Just give that look like. No, Scott, you're not loving it. Land in the land.

Well, I mean, I think we write something better than Land Shark. Yeah, I think. I think we can.

All right, fine. Good to see you. We got Eric the Technician Peterson. Eric, how are things in beautiful Franklin, Tennessee?

Doing well. No complaints here.

Good to see you. And of course, you know him. You love him. Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott. Todd, are you excited for our special roundtable guest? Absolutely.

Let's get going.

You know why I'm so excited? Because we're going to learn about a recent coaching graduate's journey. She started just like you, but maybe not just like you, probably just younger than you, but she started just a little. She's just a little bit ahead of you, and she's absolutely crushing it. And we're going to learn all about her journey. These are always sort of my favorite interviews. I really want to start doing more of these with students at all different levels. Our guest today is none other than the Mikayla Sorny. Mikayla, welcome.

Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me.

Thanks so much for being here. So I'm going to start with the first question, which is how did you find Land Geek and what were you doing at the time?

Yeah, so probably like most of the listeners here, I found you through a podcast. So at the time, I was actually in College. I was 21, interning. So I was just listening to podcasts at work and driving to work. I started by listening to single family rentals, multifamily, just different types of real estate. And then I heard you speak on a different podcast. Kind of piqued my interest. Cheap or affordable to get into? At the time, I had more. More time than money. So I figured, let me. Let me give it a shot. So, yeah, I heard you had a podcast. It was interning, and I just kind of jumped right in with the toolkit and then flight school and coaching after.

Awesome. Awesome. So, Landon, what is your question for Mikayla?

Well, first, Mikayla, it's awesome to see you here. I mean, I think we've known each other for a little while. We've done a few deals, so just want to say congratulations so far on all your success. It's just pretty cool to see. But my question for you, if you had to start all over and knowing everything you know, now you've been in this for a little while, what would you do differently?

I think I would structure some of my deals differently. So at the time, like I said, I was young, so I was in college, I didn't really know if the business worked. So I definitely didn't want to get in debt over it, take out loans or do any. Basically any creative financing. I just bootstrapped it myself with my own money. But looking back, I would definitely maybe do different creative financing things like maybe sell partial of a note or maybe take on a partner for certain deals, profit split. Do different loan structures just to help me help me grow faster.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, it's definitely a business that if you learn something new and you can move it forward, it's pretty cool. Thank you.

Dude. Buddy, Nightcap. Og what is your question for Mikaela?

Well, Mikaela, congrats again on all of your success. It's been fun to watch from the wings here the last few years. Um, you know, I think I always get jealous when I talk to young people on the phone who are interested in this business. I wish I'd found this at 21 years of age. Right. I think a lot of young people, though, are maybe a little bit intimidated to start the business if they don't have a ton of capital or that type of thing. So I guess what advice would you give those young listeners out there who are. Who found Mark accidentally on a podcast this week and they're. And they're thinking about taking action.

Yes. I would just say just start with little steps. So at the beginning, you don't know how everything works and you just learn it over time. So I wouldn't get bogged down with, oh, I need to know. You know, I don't have a sales contract when you're trying to mail properties, like, just kind of take it one step at a time. And, yeah, don't be intimidated by the whole process. And don't be intimidated by people who have been in the business for years. When they've been in the business for years, they have great systems automations, like partnerships. Don't let that intimidate you. Just start, just start by mailing and go from there. Take it small steps at a time.

I love that there's a. Do you guys remember this old, old real estate book by Rob? I think it's Rob Ringer, Winning through Intimidation. You guys remember that book? Eric, you remember it?

No.

Well, it was like a best selling book and you thought oh it's the idea is to win through intimidate, like being intimidating. It's not that at all. It's winning, going, you know, winning by conquering, feeling that, feeling intimidated and you know, breaking it down to these smaller steps that are more achievable. And anyways, I digress. It was, it's an old very good book to support Mikaela's point. Anyways, let's move on. Eric the Technician Peterson, what is your question for Mikaela?

Yeah, good to see you Mikayla. It's been a little while. I think my question is, you know, obviously you've been successful in your land business. So if you had to pick one thing that really, that looking back you feel like was the biggest contributor to you getting to where you are today.

What would that be?

What would you tell the listeners to that they need to have in order to accomplish something in this business?

So I would say two things and the first is a good coach. Not to plug you Mark, but are you Eric, since you're my coach. But really, I mean it's invaluable having someone kind of walk you through that. So getting the proper education and once you have that basis, I think the second thing I would say is automations or delegating to certain people. You know, I still work a full time job and I spend a couple hours a week in the business and it runs itself pretty much. If I were spending 40 hours in the land business it wouldn't be feasible. I wouldn't be able to do it. I'd probably burn out like some people do. So I would just make sure you're always looking at what can you outsource. Whether it's like I said through an automation or maybe to a VA or contractor or something like that. Because I think that will weigh on you. If you don't do that early on you'll, you'll wake up and then you have like a full time job, a second full time job. So just be very conscious I would say about that.

Okay.

And follow up question on that. So on the, the idea of outsourcing and automating and so on, did you have any experience in that Prior to getting into the land business, like, how did you kind of figure out how to do all that in your business?

No. Yeah, I didn't have any experience. I never hired a person, never did anything like that. So I went to up for ongoing contractors. I would say I went to Fiverr for more, like, close end projects. Those were great. Also, just talking to other Langeek students or coaches, a lot of people have recommendations or referrals for people, you know, who've worked with them or are working with them. I know there's a couple other, you know, companies or websites like land vas4u, a couple different ones. But I personally, when I started, I used upwork the most. I kind of honed my skills on how to interview these people. At the beginning, like I said, I had no idea what I was doing, so I would just trial them out. So I'd have a few, you know, maybe two or three at the end. I give them, you know, a piece of work to trial and see. How quickly do they respond to my messages? Their quality of their work, their flexibility, or do they have a lot of hours? I would look at, like, how many jobs they have active on upwork. I think it's a balance. You want them to have a lot of jobs, but you don't want them to have too many active. Me at least, because I want them to be able to devote enough time to my project. So those are a couple of tips, I would say. And then more recently for, like, larger positions, like an acquisitions manager, for example, I started asking for referrals. So it's probably not like the standard on upwork because you can, you know, review past employees. But I would ask for referrals and actually call up some people if it was a big enough position and just talk to them about the person.

Love it.

Thanks.

Asking for referrals is such a great tip right there, but that's not your tip of the week, Mikayla. I was gonna say we're not gonna make it that easy. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Mikayla, how are you?

I'm happy you're on here with us. We could, you know, we could use you here. Break up the boys Club party. So we're excited. Anyways. I got a fun one. It's a question that most of our listeners want to know, and that's, what's your favorite deal you've ever done? I mean, you've done a lot of them. Doesn't have to be like, your greatest ROI or yield, but thinking back about the two, two plus years you've been in the business. What's your favorite one?

Yeah, so I love all the singles. Buy for 8,000, sell for 20, which is by any other standard an amazing deal. But I have two properties, they're in Florida. I usually have no attachment to my properties. I've never seen any of them. I really don't care what I'm selling, to be honest, as long as they sell. But these two, I was like, okay, these are actually some nice properties. They're right on the water access to the gulf. So if you wanted to build, you can have a nice dock on there, put a nice boat on it. So there are two side by side, so about like a half acre total. I bought them both for 8,000 total, so 4,000 each. And then I sold them for 50,000 each. So 100,000. So by far my favorite, I sold them on terms, so the down was 10,000 each. So I basically more than doubled my money on each parcel on the down. And then it's like 1000amonth for a few years. So by far my favorite.

See, you know what I love about that is that is like a home run deal. But you also made mention of the fact that you're still very excited about our bread and butter deals, right? Like the ones that aren't $50,000 sale prices. And what I've learned in the land business is that if you go out and you're exclusively looking for these unicorns deals, then you don't find you miss out on all the bread and butter deals. And the way you probably came across these is you were looking for your standard properties, right? And then, boom, you got lucky and you found one. So it goes to show you that, like following the recipe, if you, if you follow it to a T, every once in a while, the universe kicks you a home run. So that makes me excited and very jealous. Not even a little jealous. I love those numbers. So good job. Go do it again.

Yeah, thanks. And also, I think when you, when you focus on the bread and butter and then you get your passive income high enough, it's covering all your expenses. And then at that point, maybe, or maybe you can experiment a little bit, but you're not putting, you know, all your eggs in one basket.

I love it. I love it. It's so good. I have so many more questions to ask Michaela, but let's just hand off the question baton to Scott Todd, the flight school Sherpa.

Hey, Mikayla.

Hope you're doing well.

I guess my question would Come down to when you got going, like, how nervous were you or were you absolutely confident that you were going to succeed at this? Did you have any self doubts along the way? And if so, can you talk about those?

Yeah, I definitely did. I think it's funny, some people will say I'm quietly confident. Like I've heard that several times from different people. But with this, I mean, it's something totally new. And I definitely had self doubt when I started. And a couple of things when I started. I talked to Mike, Mike Zino on the free call and we just kind of talked about it and we found an area that I wanted to mail in. Just sent out a couple hundred offers. This was when I just had the toolkit and I bought a couple of properties and I just. They're very cheap properties. It was like a half acre for $100. And my thought process was, okay, these don't work out. Worst case, I'm in the hole a couple hundred bucks. Like I can, I can kind of deal with that. So that's how I dealt with it. Just taking small steps for a proof of concept. And actually funny enough, sold my first property on ebay too, just to kind of get it out the door. Didn't really care too much about the profit, but just to prove the concept. So took kind of slow steps. And then also with like the education piece of it, I talked to several people who like had the, the toolkit or flight school or been through coaching and obviously, Mark, all your reviews online and stuff like that. So then when I felt like I had the education piece too, and like you guys kind of side by side going through it with me, that really kind of eased any remaining doubts after I had the proof of concept.

Yeah, Mark, I think that that's one of the things that we see quite often, right, is most people, I mean everybody. Everybody's scared, right? Like, I don't think there's anybody on this call that would say and be honest about, oh no, I wasn't scared at all. I mean, we're all scared about the whole process. And I like what Mikayla said about the fact that she, she kind of eased into it. She found. She found something that would give her confidence. And you know, like my first sale was on ebay as well. I think that's my first. And I don't know, I probably made like a handful of them. And ebay is terrible. Don't sue me. Ebay. I'm just saying, like from a, from a sales standpoint for what we do, it's not my favorite platform. Nobody would say that today. But the thing is, is, like, you know, you. You find success in some way, and then success leads to more success. And so that's what continues to build the confidence is, oh, I did this one time. I can go do it again. And then it's just rinse and repeat. So it's kind of. Kind of cool to see how you started it with that aspect and kind of grew it to where you are today.

Great job.

Yeah, thanks.

Yeah. And I'm also curious about just your parents and their attitude. You're in college and you want to invest. I mean, flight school is not a simple investment. And certainly coaching is not a simple investment. What were they? What was their attitude about that? And was there any kind of convincing that, hey, this is going to be a great investment, I'm going to 10 exit, 20 exit, and it's going to change my life?

Yeah. So I didn't have to convince them because I didn't tell them. At first. I waited till I sold my first property. Then I was like, hey, this is, you know what I'm doing. Because I could just imagine them being like, what? Who's this land geek that's scamming you on the Internet? Like, he's scamming my young daughter. You know, I could just hear it now. But I went through. Yeah. So I told them after I sold my first property, because like you said, I mean, you know, it's like flight school is a little bit of a bigger investment. And then. And then for coaching, it just paid for itself with, you know, the deals I did each month and stuff like that. But, yeah, they were. When I told them, they were definitely a little shocked. They both have W2 jobs, but they both like real estate. So they're fascinated with it now. They love it. They're excited. They always talk to me about it. But, yeah, a funny way to kind of start out with them.

I love it. I love it. I want to steal Landon's question. Landon, do you care, please?

Still?

I just have one more question. How has the land investing business, the land investing journey for you changed your.

Life in so many ways? I mean, first of all, the. I met so many great people from it, number one. Number two, just the freedom. So at this point, I can. I still work full time. I can quit if I want to, but I live in Manhattan. It's super expensive, and, you know, like, the business kind of runs itself at this point, but I can if I want to, and I think that's important. You Know, I think when you have to go to a job every day, it's totally different mindset than, hey, I'm going to it because I like it. And extra money is nice, but just the financial freedom, the flexibility of, you know, when I do this full time, I can, you know, move anywhere. And just a lot of connections, I think, to different. Just different things. It's so cool to just talk to people who aren't, you know, W2 employees and just, you know, go to work 9 to 5. I told this story on the Wealth Without Wall street podcast, but as I was listening to, like, starting to listen to the Langee podcast, when I was interning, one of my co workers was talking to a couple others and like, someone made a joke that, hey, like, I spend more, more time with you guys than I do with my family. And then everyone's, of course, like, laughing and like, oh, yeah, that's so true. And I was just like, wow, I don't want to be in that situation. So, um, it changed my life, you know, incredibly.

I love it. I love it.

Mark.

I would say too, that, like, to. To what Mikayla's saying, though, like, if you don't. If you don't have to have the job, right, like, and you have income that's going to support you one way or the other, I think a couple of things happens is, like, one, you're more confident in the job that you're doing because, like, I. And I know from my own experience, like, you know, when. When I needed that job to pay my bills, man, I had to watch what I would say and watch what I would do. And you're just hypersensitive of, like, everything because you need that money. But when you have the money, you know, they don't call it f you money for. For no reason, right? Like, you can go in there and you. I'm not saying you. You have control over the place, but, man, if I were to go back today to a corporate job, like, I would just tell them like it is. Honestly, like, I. I'd be like, that's a terrible idea because I don't need to, like, you could fire me tomorrow. I'd be like, okay, thank you. I did my. But at the end of the day, it would probably make her a better asset to the company she's working for because she doesn't have to feel like, you know, I'm going to. I got to watch what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that she doesn't. I'm just saying that you know what? She's there because she wants to be there and not there because she has to be there. Right. And she doesn't have to worry about those aspects. And if they decide that they're done with her, she's like, okay, see you later.

It's such a good point. I was talking to Chris Merklein, another. He's a current coaching client and it like once his passive income got to a certain point, it totally changed his current job. And he had that attitude, Scott, and with that attitude, he got a huge promotion because they're like, this guy is just different. No, he's different. He, he's, he's not, he's not toeing the corporate line. You get that there's like that sense of inner confidence that people are attracted to. I could only imagine, you know, being a coworker of Michaela. Everyone else is kind of stressed out. Can you believe what that's like? Corporate's like, yeah, whatever. Doesn't bother me. Tate.

Tate's like, I'm just, I'm just trying to imagine myself like sitting next to her.

Yeah.

Because you need to look up what.

A job is, by the way.

Yeah. I mean, this is not my area of expertise by any means. Jobs, jobs. Right. But I'm just imagining like Mikayla, here she is, she's successful in her day job, but on the side, when most people were watching, you know, Netflix and binge watching and binge drinking, she built a, you know, huge business on the side that is powerful enough to replace her current job. And it's like you deferred your gratification for what, two, three years to get here and now you can basically do whatever you want whenever you want.

Yeah.

You've got some restrictions still, but for the most part you're living the good life and you should be stress free. Like, it's, it's incredible. So I love it. I, I think it's amazing that you've made the sacrifices that you have at the age that you're at. And, you know, this is just the beginning for you. And that's what's exciting to me is what are you going to do in the next five years, in the next 10 years? I mean, you're way ahead of everybody.

So.

Good stuff.

Yeah. I was talking to a coworker and he was mentioning how he wants to get XYZ promotions and it's going to take him the five years. So that's what reminded me. It's kind of funny. He has this big five year plan to basically make I don't know, $50,000 more, say, a year. You can create that in notes in like a matter of months and pay yourself, you know, more. And then also it's funny, every time, every year, you know, at the end of the year when I have my annual, you know, sit down with my boss, we talk about how I'm going to get like a 3% raise, you know, basically for inflation. And then I just think, like, wow, I could just sell one property and make more than that. So it's kind of. It's kind of funny.

Yeah, you're spoiled.

You get it.

You just hacked it. You just hacked the system.

Yeah.

Dude.

Buddy, nightcap. OG I want to give you the final question to Mikayla. And the reason is not that I want to skip Landon, because I don't, but we can't go all the way around again. And Eric's like, oh, good. But because, Scott, you're talking to a lot of potential toolkit fight school coaching clients and you're hearing more of what their aspirations are and their fears going in. And I wonder if you'd have a question from Michaela that might touch on that. So someone listening to this who might be on that precipice would have a little bit more confidence going in.

Yeah, I think that's the most common thing that I come across on a lot of calls that I talk to with people is just the fear they have to take action. I mean, I think, you know, and we've all said on this call, you know, there's a ton of evidence that this works. But to put yourself on the ledge and take the leap is the hardest thing. Right. But the interesting thing is that once you say yes, like, then things get a little easier almost. Right. So it's that, it's that initial commitment. So I guess what advice, Kayla, would you have for people who are just, they are on the fence and like, they know they should take the leap or they, they want to take the leap, but there, there's a stuff holding them back from becoming a land investor with just that one simple decision.

Sure. So I would say like, like you said, there's a ton of evidence that this works. A ton of people there to help you and kind of support you. But so if you know this is something you want to do and you're just can't quite pull the trigger, I would just say, like, think of what your life can be like in five years or in one year, in three years. And it doesn't have to be like, what can your life be like in 20 years. It doesn't take 20 years to build an amazing business in this industry. It just takes a couple. So I would just look forward and see what your life and think of or imagine, you know, what your life could be like if you did, if you took this step.

That's such a great, that's awesome. So great. And what does Mike Zano say? Scott? Two years is coming either way. So either you're going to be a land investor, you're going to have passive income, or you're not. What's the best time to plant a tree? Well, 20 years ago, but second best time is now. So, Michaela, your mentorship, your guidance, your advice, your story has been so inspiring. I'm so grateful and I'm just so proud that you're living your best life. But that does not mean we're excluding you from the tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for our passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

All right, so I had all of 30 minutes to come up with this, but I think it could be good for maybe someone who's starting out or new to the business. But I love priced, a website priced. I'm fairly new to it in, you know, since I've been doing this for like, you know, four years, three, four years. It's fairly new in my business. But I love the website. I think if you're, if you have nowhere to, you don't know where to begin, you don't know what state you want or what county you want. I think price could be really helpful. It gives you, you know, you can run a comps report on a certain property. They'll give you their projected market value based on comps. You could also narrow down to county levels based on sold to for sale ratios, market parcels on market different, you know, whatever metrics you're looking for. So I think if you're, if you're starting out, that could be a great resource to kind of help you hone in on, on where to to work in and where to mail.

All right, we will have a link to that tip of the week. Well, my tip of the week is learn more about Mikayla and her property. Go to Lifetime PropertiesUSA.com Lifetime PropertiesUSA.com Mikayla, are we good?

We're good. Thank you.

Landon, are we good?

We're good.

Mark. Good.

Buddy. Good.

We're great.

Technician.

We're great.

Tate?

Yep.

All good, baby. Scott?

All good.

Do you know who's paid US big money to sponsor this podcast this week. Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan. Money Spotify Money. Light School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Start like Mikayla started. Go up that mountain quickly, safely, officially, with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. Oh, by the way, just like Michaela said, it's not going to cost you nothing. It's going to pay for itself, guaranteed. You're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Learn more. Go tolandgeek.com training and the only way I'm going to convince Mega Kayla to come back and continue telling us stories of success and also giving us great tips if you do us three favors. Follow rate Review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review. Support thelandgeek.com Please do it. All right, let's do this together. 1, 2, 3. Let freedom.

Freedom ring.

Not bad. Speaking of let freedom ring, have I mentioned dirt rich 2? The plot thickens. How to scale your land business. Skipping a beat is coming out soon. Is that the title? Oh, gosh. Maybe you don't like it.

I kind of like it.

The plot, they come back.

That's different.

The plot, Something about the dirt doesn't dicken.

The dirt thickens into, like, mud or something. So you can make a pun.

Okay, wait a second now. Plot is plot. It's a. It's cliche. I like it, Tate.

Yeah, it's cool.

I don't know.

I have an issue with it at all.

Well, only five people are going to read this book anyways, so what about.

What about just calling, like, clear as mud?

All right. This is devolving, by the way. I think we've got a good. Eric brought up a good nickname for Landon. How about Coach? Just Coach Landon. Is that right, Eric?

It is, right? It's. It's simple.

It's straightforward.

I mean, that's who Landon is.

He's Coach.

Coach.

Coach Landon. I like that you like it. Mikayla, what do you think?

It's good. I think if you know, like, your backstory too, it makes. Makes total sense.

Okay. I like it.

Just landed.

Everyone has to have a nickname.

I always do that.

Why?

Like, why? I'm not sure why.

Because it's fun, that's why.

Tradition.

It's tradition, too.

Where is that written?

It's not written anywhere.

It's not a written rule. It's not, like, enforceable.

Are your Christmas traditions written? I mean, look.

Look at the lawyer. Counselor, I object.

Nah, it's all good.

All good. All good.

All right. I'll have everybody sign an indemnification agreement after this podcast. Anyways, thanks everybody. See ya.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation at thelandgeek.com forward/training let freedom ring it.