Coffee Talk

Breath. Yeah, deep breath in.

Happy Wednesday. It is Coffee Talk with David Bonellis, the Facebook whisperer. And you love this guy? I love this guy. He brings calm whenever he talks. Mike the Zen master Zaino. Mike the land guru, the wholesaling master, the ebay wizard. I can go on forever. Mike, how are you today?

I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing, David?

I am doing wonderful. But we'll get to that later in the show on why I am ecstatic. Right. If you are just tuning in, watching the replay or if you've never seen us before, you don't know what we do. We are professional. Semi professional. For myself, land flippers. Right? You can flip a house take four months, but you can flip land in a week. Mike, is that too long?

An hour?

An hour, yeah. If you're a ninja master like Mike, you can flip land. We're trading paper. No toilets, no tenants, no termites, no renters, no rodents, no renovations. This is the best passive income model. If you want to learn more, go to thelandgeek.com we buy properties for 25 cents on the dollar. Turn around, sell them on payment plans. That is how we get our passive income. At an average note of $150, you do the math. You want to get to $10,000 a month divided by 150. You want to do 1000amonth divided by 150. That's how many deals you have to do. This is a math game. This is a formula. This is nothing to be creative with. Don't try to blaze the road on your own. Lean on the community. Go to the Langeek.com learn about the resources there. If you click under students and prospective students, there is a great webinar on there underneath Flight school. Watch that. Check it out. It'll be worth an hour of your time. It could change your life. Good. Mike, we're gonna talk about the mental side of this business today, right? I mean, this could be. Oh, nice. Keep calming, Carrie. I already already had my cup of coffee, if you can't tell already. Wow, we've got a lot to talk to talk about because if anyone has ever done this business or any business, you know how much of a. Not a drag, but how overwhelming it can be to start a new business. So what was it like for you? Obviously you're a firefighter, so. Right. You have a lot of commitments and full time dad, full time husband. What was it like for you in your first, you know, six months, first year of your business? Were you overwhelmed?

Yeah, I think it was at the time, you know, because those first six months are before I actually met Mark. And you know, that's when everything changed is when we went down and met him at a boot camp. And I still remember that day. It was just like that's when everything changed. The clarity came through and you know, but, you know, the reality is I always liken this business to the firefighting world because nothing's ever the same, nothing's ever perfect. You know, there are similar type of situations. Right. Similar apostles, similar fires, but everything is always about recovery. We're always in a recovery mode. But recovery is good. That means you're able to adjust in the moment and you can recover from whatever happens and just follow the guidelines, the SOP as you would in our business or both of our business, the firefighting and the land investing. If you have an sop, you have a mental game plan and you stick to it, it works. Like you said, don't reinvent the wheel. I think I tried that in the beginning too. I'm going to come up with the best offer letter anyone's ever seen. Right. People don't care. They basically have like a number that they want and their land parcel and your phone number and they probably call you, like what? Someone wants my land that I don't like anymore. Yeah. Okay. That's it. But you know, all this two page letters, all kinds of goodness. Yeah. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. They don't care.

Yeah. I think that's part of it.

Right.

When you're trying to just do something completely different, you're losing the momentum that, you know, Mark and the rest of the community has already, you know, allowed us to, you know, tag on to. I heard this one guy mentioned this saying about like, even a fly can travel a thousand miles on a horse of a tail. Could you tell us more about that?

We always give these.

Come on.

It's like I have round table. I have to give. We give our little tips of the week. And I love quotes because they, they. I like when I could take something that makes sense to me in one part of my life and I connect it to another part of my life. It just brings like extreme clarity. It means it's a universal principle. It's real. So that's like a martial arts saying. You know, it's like, hey, even a fly can travel a thousand miles if he grabs hold of a horse's tail. Right. It just means that there's a defined process. If there's someone that's like really like excelling in Something shadow them. They asked the other day, remember on the way on the roundtable, what would you do different if you had to start the business over? What's one thing you would have done differently? Right? And to me, it was like, let me throw that over there. I would have followed Scott Todd closer. Scott Todd is, you know, he's a phenom. We started about the same time. He embraced the system sooner than I did. And if I had stuck onto Scott, didn't like being referenced as the horse, but I don't know why he had a problem with that. But, you know, if I had grabbed close to the, you know, stuck closer to him, my systems would have been in place sooner, and then I would have had the results I'm having now even sooner. So, yeah, that's a great quote.

Yeah, it's. I love stealing tips from everyone else and, like, pawn them off as my own. So, like, I was thinking about that this morning. I was like, you know, very, very true, you know, and, you know, along the lines of, you know, what do you do when you're frustrated in this business? You know, there's the whole motto of, like, just hustle, hustle, Go hard, go hard, work hard, play hard. But I think that can lead to a lot of burnout, right? What I think will be useful for a lot of people is taking time for yourself, right? So if airplane loses pressure, they say the mask dropped down. If you're with a child, they say, put your mask on first before you put your child's mask on. So you got to take care of yourself first, right? This is very true. So it needs to become a daily habit, whether it's 10 minutes every morning, just to drown out the noise. Sit very still. It could be with a cup of coffee, not. But some form of stillness. You know, some call it meditation, some call it prayer. I don't care what you call it.

Just.

You need to have this pausing period where you just. You quiet the mind so that you can approach the day strategically and not just be bouncing around from topic to topic, subject to subject. What do you do every morning?

Well, okay, so here's the whole thing. You know, meditation or centering yourself or getting yourself realigned with your business. It doesn't have to be some esoteric, crazy principle. It can be. Let me give you an idea of something that I do that calms me down. And, I don't know, some of you maybe can appreciate this. I have a lot of kids, and so we have a lot of laundry. My father always said, I'd be a great husband someday because I always had to do chores around the house. I love doing the laundry to send to my mind. What I mean by this is the process. If you're having a hard time with something and you're getting. So I'm call this the laundry principle. Okay. For lack of. And you're getting so overworked and, you know, just your mind is going everywhere. You need to dive deep into one thing simple and enjoy the actual process. The process is how things get done. I used to look and say, like, look how those people that are building that house over there. I mean, when I was younger, it'd be like overwhelmed with all the things that have to go into building a house. But then you realize that someone who's deep into their trade is enjoying every moment of that experience, and they're taking it step by step. So when I do the laundry, I take out the piece of clothing, I flick it down. Whatever child it is, it's my wife. I just have a nice thought about them, and I fold it up and I put it back and I do it in a very kind of deliberate manner. It's not like I got to empty this dryer and throw all the stuff on. I take it out, flap it down, I move it and I make it. And it's a conscious thought about that person, as I put it. So I use it as a reminder to take pause and appreciate the things in life that matter. Clearly, all of us and I always. We talked about this before the call. David. The land geek community is like a large family. This is really. You take pause. What's important? Well, the family is important, so. And same thing on the business. If you're having a hard time mailings or marketing, break it down and go into it. And don't try to do 10 things that day. Do that one thing and really just enjoy the process. And when you slow down and you do that, everything changes. So it's not some esoteric principle about how you got to go do so many breaths and monitor your in breath and your outbreath. Of course, that stuff, I'm not making light of it. It's very real. But you can do that in your daily life.

That's. That works. That's very beautiful. That's actually kind of like next level being present, right? And there is this I read somewhere in some book, it was a simple quote. And you know, I like quotes too. So I kind of rag on you about quotes, but I totally dig them.

God didn't like being called a horse Majestic.

This one came to mind this morning when I was eating breakfast. It says when eating, eat. So whenever you're doing any particular task, just do that task.

Right.

So instead of eating on your phone doing other multitasking, your brain is scattered. So if you can train yourself to be doing one task at a time. If it's folding laundry, I've never known of a story of someone being so present. Folding laundry.

Relaxes me.

So if I get a little extra.

I do some kung fu steps with it too. That is a whole routine I learned. Anyway, let's be honest. Next. Next level.

Ye. But if you're doing due diligence, do due diligence, be in the moment. If you're doing marketing, do marketing. So like it's very easy to be overwhelmed on all the different things you need to do in this business. But if you can just drown out the noise, put the blinders on like those racehorses and just, I need to mail today. I'm going to mail and I'm not going to think about anything else. Yeah, you can really get rid of the anxiety that comes along with this business from, you know, I have to do this, I have to do this. I gotta hire this va. I gotta get this checkout. I got this tax bill. I got. It can be overwhelming.

Yeah, well, I mean when you say massive action, it doesn't have to be massive. It can be massive action on something small. Right. So massive action could be dedicating one day to one tiny part of your business. That's. And you want to get it right. Or take a whole week or take 12 weeks with a 12 week year. Take massive action on one little thing and then that little thing will be gone and then move on to the next one.

That's it. That's it. I've been doing a one day in the business, one day on the business and just not nice, you know, blurring the lines like whatever that it is that day. So Monday is on the business. So only worked on the business. Tuesday was in the business. I only worked in the business. And this has really helped me find focus because you know, I did. I used to struggle with focus a lot. And you know, I got to a point where in order to scale, I need to have focused hours of work.

Yes.

It really comes down to this is exactly what I'm going to do and I'm not going to do anything else.

Right.

It gets done. You eat that frog. As Ben Clark says, nice.

Eat the frog. You complete the priority fear. Most rest of the day rolls. Ah. Very nice. Because there's always something we're avoiding.

Right?

Right, Ben? Yeah, we're avoiding the one thing that needs to get done. Let me do the other five things that are easier.

Exactly. You know, like there's so many books out there. The one thing anyway, you can read books till you're blue in the face. It's just at some point you just got to execute on these books, execute on this business. Stop thinking, one day I'll have my own business. Stop thinking, one day I'll scale up or one day I'll hire va. No, today. Or in worst case, later today.

Keep it simple. Right? That's the whole idea. This business does not have to be complicated. In fact, an easy litmus test for your business, if it's, if your pipeline and your business model is working correctly and working the way that it should, is that I, you should be able to have a conversation with somebody and within a few minutes explain to them very, you know, an easy discussion. Tell them this is how it works left to right, and it should just flow. And if any point you have a hard time talking about it, then there's a problem with your system. And you, it should be just complete you, David, I can tell you straight out what it is. And you're like, ah, I get that. If it's certain points where it's kind of confusing and I'm not really communicating it good to you, well, that means there's a breakdown in the system as a clog, the pipeline's not open. And so, you know, keeping it simple is huge.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, you can break down any action into very, very tiny increments. Right. If you want to break down the mailing piece, what do you need exactly? You need a list, you need some names, you need some offers. I mean, you can break it down. Like if it's getting offers out and you're still working on your list. Okay, today I'm going to scrub my list. If I get past that, even better. But today I'm gonna scrub my list, like, right. You, you see, you want to have both really big goals for this business, but also you want to have daily attainable goals as well.

Yes.

So, like, if I said in one day I want to automate the entire buy side, I'm probably not going to do so. Well, you know, if I said I want to automate how my responses to sellers is done. Okay.

That.

That's possible. That could be done one day.

Yeah.

So, you know, breaking things down, identifying.

Really what needs to be worked on, I just Putting a laser focus on the one thing that's really eaten at you and then move from there. The mailings, like you said. Boy, people really get kind of hung up on that. And I think, you know, we talk about all the time, but there's no perfect mailing. And if. Why would you take the time to make a perfect mailing? It's just, okay, I sent out 10,000 offers. Am I really going to go through each one of those properties individually and do some quick due diligence on them and all that? Oh, my God. Are you crazy? Yeah. Mailing out.

Exactly.

You know, consistency, and then it. It balances out. That 3 to 5% acceptance rate is there, and it's. It takes into account bad addresses, bad offers, whatever it may be, and you still get that consistent return. It's just, you know, there's no perfect mailing. And it doesn't need to be.

Absolutely, Absolutely. If you are just tuning in, this is Mike Zaino. I am David Pinellas. We are full time, mostly full time, for myself, land investors. We trade paper and we change our lives financially, which allows us to better our relationships. If you want to learn more, go to the landgood.com if you want to schedule a call with us, you can do so@thelangicoc.com training. We can explain to you a little bit more about this business model or what education as a community, we can offer you. There's different paths for each person, and it's our job to diagnose your current situation, where you want to go, and then find the best path for you. How do you like these calls? I love those calls. How do you like those calls, Mike?

Oh, I love them. I love talking to people. I love hearing stories. I mean, everybody's got an interesting story. In fact, that's why one of the reasons that I had to actually get someone on the acquisition on the sales side is because I love stories. And boy, I'd be on the phone all day with one person. Like, really? Tell me about that. Oh, really? Then it'd be like a half hour in. It's like, I just love talking. So anyway, meeting people that are new and then hearing about what they want to do and then seeing their successes afterwards. Oh, yeah, that's huge.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So two last things is how do you celebrate everyone? Because I believe celebrating everyone is a key to maintain positive with this business or any business, really. How do you celebrate every win or some wins?

Yeah, it's important. I mean, I said at the beginning, this business is about family. The Reason I did is because I wanted to make more time. You know, I'm not in a soul sucking job, as someone might say. I love my job at the fire department. I love what I do. I just wanted to create more time with my family. So there are other expenses I had. So any win I have is directly thrown back. Whether it's taking. I have four children. Some of them have significant others now. So whether it's taking like nine of us out to eat for, say, hey, let's all go out for food tonight. Or whether it's buying a pool we just bought for the yard or anything that contributes to, you know, bringing us closer together makes that all the while, all worthwhile for me, all the effort. So I celebrate every win, whether it's taking them all, hey, let's go to a movie tonight. Just grab everybody, go to a movie. Just. It's always including them. Or if I go over my dad, bring him a bottle of wine, a nice, nice new bottle of wine because I sold some, you know, it's always something, my mother, some chocolate, doesn't matter. It's something to do with family. That's how I celebrate it.

Yeah, so I celebrate by actually telling my family. So my family is going to be impacted by these sales. I tell them every time. And my dad, like, he lights up like a big smile on his face. It's like, yeah, go get him. It encourages me, like to keep moving forward and, you know, keep trying, pushing through. So, yeah, I celebrate everyone. I, I used to celebrate with a glass of wine, but I had so many sales recently, I might develop a problem.

Bottles of wine everywhere. Oh.

So a little more in depth question from Sandy. So how did you guys deal with distractions, demands for your attention, more on focus, Pretty much go deeper on what we do for focus. So recently I was working from the cabinet shop in the office and that was okay for a time, but then it just got too distracting. Like things that bothered me, like never bothered me in the past. The sounds of saws and machinery and doors opening, closing, never bothered me. It started to. And I would sit at my desk for eight hours and get an hour of work done. It was horrible. So I needed a change of environment. So I would get whatever I had to get done in the cabinet shops in the office and then I would Uber it to a Starbucks. This way it's not easy for me to leave. I would have to uber out. I'm there, I'm focused. I can work in a coffee shop. Some people can't. But you know I can work this. So you. Sometimes you got to find a different environment. I used to try the working in the evenings from home, splitting time with family. At least I'm there. But that wasn't working out either. Like, when I'm home, I'm gonna be home, not on my computer. When I'm at Starbucks, I'm gonna be on my computer working. So any other tips there? Mike.

Reminds me of the fire department again. We have a saying, nothing new after two. It's like if we're gonna be doing all kinds of drills and stuff, Nothing new after 2. The reality is like, there's a certain part in the day where you kind of just kind of start to fizzle out and your focus isn't what it should be. And so making a conscious effort, whether it's 4 o' clock or whatnot, just that's it, I'm done. The rest of the day is gonna be focused on my family. So just being really kind of concrete about that. And you know, you know, we talk about this was it profit first, pay yourself first. But it's the same thing with time. Pay yourself first with time, dedicate time of the day when it ends. And the family is priority. You know, I mean, this business is putting your family as a priority because you're developing the means to take care of them, but also they need your attention. So putting a definite time where, okay, this is it, it's done. Time to go out and do things with them. Whether it's just listen to them talk or, I don't know, jumping around with them or anything goofy, just spend time with them. So I think that that's huge for me in terms of just defining this is it, you know, and because that phone could ring all day and all night and it will if you let it, if you don't have a mechanism in place to take care of it. So you just gotta really prioritize.

And then lastly, when Sandy mentioned, you know, how do you pick up when you left off? So I heard this tip on a Mastermind call one day and if you want to be on be to able to watch these Mastermind calls, you definitely want to join the Gold Mastermind group. It's worth every penny. You can learn more about that@blank.com I think forward slash GMM gold mastermind. If not, I'll put a link to that here in the comments. But on one of those calls, I had someone say before their workday is over, they make a list or they make notes to themselves on what they want to continue when they get back to work. So it could be, you know, as simple as putting a. Post it. Okay. When you get back to work, finish due diligence on this property. Make sure the mailings are going out. Make sure you put up ads for this. And when you get back to work, it's like having a boss tell you exactly what to do. You don't have to figure it out. So that's one little hack you could do. So I just got some wonderful news before this.

Well, let's hear it. What do you got? Kind of giddy there. What's going on?

I love my family. I love my family so much. And now we are going to be growing.

What?

Yeah. My wife walked in, said she's pregnant, showed me the little pregnancy six holding my son.

Awesome.

Yeah. So I love it.

That's part of the why, right?

Yeah. Another little language baby. You know, Tate Litchfield just. His wife just gave birth. I think it was last. Last Thursday, I believe. Last Wednesday.

Awesome.

Yeah. Well, I can't wait to be adding another.

Congratulations, David.

Thank you, man. Thank you. That's why I'm doing this business, right? To have more time with my family. And now there's another one to get to share it with. Yeah. So I'm definitely celebrating this win. This is amazing.

Awesome.

Yeah. So I'm not going to be the mastermind call today. I'm going to be spending some time with my wife. You guys can have your fun. I will be jumping for joy. That's awesome. Thank you, everyone, for the congratulations you're giving me. What's beautiful about this business? It sounds like a pitch, right? I'm trying to get you to sign up for something. But, look, if you really just put some time on this business, you can design the lifestyle that you want. And I'm doing it. I'm living it. You can do it, too. There's no reason. I'm not. I'm nothing special. But, man, I love this business. Like, I used to be afraid of having more kids because, like, oh, how am I going to pay for everything? I don't got to worry about that now. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to flip a piece of property and pay for this pregnancy, pay for the birth bill at the hospital. I'm not worried about their college. I don't got to worry about that. You know, Like, I can flip some land. Like, it's not. It's not hard. Like, don't complicate this thing. Like, just keep it simple. Keep moving forward. And the cliches are true. Like, you can make your dreams come true. You just got to take action.

That's it. It's all about creating more time, and then you fill it with what you want.

Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, everyone, for the quick shout outs on the comment section. You know, lean on the community. If you're ever stuck and it takes you more than one hour to do any particular task, reach out. You know, like, we have so many resources. There's a free Facebook group, the official. Okay. It's a tongue twister. The Land Geek official wealth creation and motivation group. Yeah, there we go. Reach out on there, you know?

Easy for you to say.

Mike. Any last words?

I just stay positive, you know, this is. I love talking, everybody. Hopefully I'll be seeing a lot of you at the boot camp. David, how long? How far away is that? It's quick.

It's quick. August 11th to 13th. Today is already July 19th.

I hear Orlando's already booking up. It's crazy, right?

Go to the langeek.com forward/boot camp to register now. Do not hesitate. If it's up to Mike and I, we will make sure every boot camp is sold out three months in advance. So you better book quickly.

They are selling out very quickly. That is.

Yeah, they are. I mean, we might have two and.

A half days of immersing yourself in this business. You can't, you know, can't ask for anything, but all the coaches are there. It's like you make such a net, such a group of people that you network with and people that are doing the business for a long period of time, people that are new, everybody meshing together, breaking up in groups. I mean, it's just. It's. Mark puts on a great show. It's awesome.

Yeah, it's amazing. And you get to see Mike Zano there. You get to see me. I mean, that's always fun. You know, I had someone actually come up to me and take a picture with me at the last boot camp. That was kind of really awkward and weird. Yeah, I'm like a Z list celebrity now. Oh, man, it's him. Oh, well, have a great day. You never want to hear that. Oh, you looked more handsome on tv. Not now.

Oh, man.

Well, everyone, congrats again, David spending time with you. Mike, always good talking to you. Have a wonderful, productive Wednesday.

You bet.