Finding Your Significance When The World Is Your Oyster

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. i am highly caffeinated and extremely excited for our podcast guests. But before we talk to our guests, I would be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, typically the smartest guy in the room, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist postings and your Facebook postings, posting Domination.com TheLandgeek Scott Todd, are you ready?

I am ready, Mark.

Did you have your diet Coke this morning?

You know what? I actually have it right here. Look at this thing.

Look.

I mean, this thing is a massive, like, you know, what are those? Like those yeti. Yeti mugs, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm not drinking that. I'm drinking out of the Costco brand one, which I don't know if it's Costco. I see it everywhere. It's like reduced or something. It's very, very nice. It keeps the drink nice and cold. Love it. And this was only like, like 10 bucks as opposed to, like, I don't know, 10. $10,000 for a yeti or something?

You know, those yetis are like, you know, it's either like, do you send your kid to college or to get a yeti, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's a tough choice for.

A lot of people.

I've been thinking about the yeti over the college, but that's for another day.

Yeah, they can get scholarships. All right, well, let's just remind all the listeners that today's podcast is sponsored by landmodo.com it is the best, easiest, and most effective way to get your listings on land out there. And check it out. Landmodo. Com they're eating up the lands, especially because of the pricing. Right, Scott?

You know, it's funny because our traffic is up, it's been staying up, and the number of people that are responding to ads is really kind of cool. I kind of worry sometimes that maybe I don't have enough land listed up there. We have, like, almost 300 properties up there. When we're recording this and it's continuing to grow, we need more.

All right, I love it. Landmoto.com all right, let's talk to today's guest, Rick Coplin from RickCoplin.com. if you don't know about Rick, he helps people live a life of significance. What's interesting is that he's about family first no exceptions. Friends and mentors are essential. Do excellent, thoughtful work. Live in integrity. Pursue self investment. Embrace constant learning. Exercise personal responsibility. Seek new opportunities. He's a communicator, coach, and catalyst leading successful people to clarify their mindset, identify their purpose, and cultivate the conviction to intentionally leverage their success. Move into a life of significance. Rick Koplan, how are you?

I'm doing great today, guys. I want to meet the guy you just described, though he sounds like a pretty good guy.

He sounds amazing. And I'd love to just rewind the tape and find out how Rick Coplin becomes the Rip Koplan guy that can help you help successful people go into significance.

Well, it's not that hard of a journey, but it does take some forethought. So the reason why I have this success to significance focus is that I'm really approaching mid career people, not middle of their career, but people who are looking around, going, you know what? I can do a lot more than I'm doing today. They're happy with their work, they're content with their families. They want to do more. And so that more usually involves some level of significance outside of themselves and their families. So that's what we're aiming for.

Okay, but why, you know, why aren't you just, you know, helping yourself, Rick, or doing, you know, some kind of charity work on the weekends? Like, why, why devote a podcast, a Success to Significance podcast to this? Like, what was it that you woke up one day and you had this epiphany, Hey, I can help people do this.

So it really wasn't an epiphany. This was actually about a three year journey for me. I began to look around the venture capital firm that I was working for. I really loved my job. We had a great time working with early stage entrepreneurs, helping them raise funds, helping them to grow their companies. But I looked around and said, I think I can do more, and began to explore what that more was for me. So the more was that I can help people understand at this juncture in their careers that, yeah, there's more out there for them to be able to do and that they can pursue that. But in order to pursue it, well, we have to plan ahead and really get down to the nitty gritty about what we're going to do well before we actually do it.

Okay, so let's just get a baseline definition of the Rick Kaplan definition of successful.

So everybody has their own definition of success. My definition of success is that I had been through several portions of my career and each Time I'd gotten a little bit more responsibility, a little bit more latitude in what I could do. I enjoyed what I was doing, and I could continue to do it. I was making a lot of money. Great. However, that success piece wasn't all there is to life. Right? There's much more to life to that. And you mentioned, you know, donating your time to charity. That's also a valid thing to do. Helping other people do things that they need to do, writing books, speaking. All of those things add into this next level of significance. And each person defines what their success is and what their significance is. So, for instance, Scott, your success and your significance probably wouldn't interest me to do myself. I'd be interested in it and I'd cheer you on, but not to do myself. Every person has to define it within themselves.

And how do they do that, Rick?

So it's a process. It's a process of understanding who you are today and what you believe you're capable of doing and then who you want to be. Because it is a change in the who. It's not just a change in the what you're doing, but it's a change in who you are and your mindset and how you're going about life. And that's where the planning portion comes in. So we look at what are you interested in doing if you could live your perfect life, you know, some of those squishy feeling questions. But we begin to define what matters to you at the end of the day, what's important and where do you want to be. And that sometimes takes a while. For me, that was probably a year and a half, two year journey before I started heading down a path that I wanted to pursue.

Nice, Nice, Scott. Todd, what are your thoughts?

Rick it takes a lot of, like, brain power and like, effort to kind of go through and like, recreate yourself. Kind of like what you're doing to help other people. And, you know, it really, it really becomes kind of like a man on a mission, if you will.

Right.

Like, you know, and I think that's. I think that's very admirable that someone would do that. But what, what is it like, why, why go through all of that when you can probably just relax? I mean, like, like Mark said, like, you know, there's many different things, but why go through that pain? And then, like, because it is a pain. Like you're writing books. Is that, I mean, are you just finding the success? Is that where you're feeling like you're successful is in that one?

No, I agree with you. It is tremendously painful because it requires introspection. And we're generally not used to doing that. We're used to, especially in American society, of pushing forward, getting things done and going through the motions. We're constantly busy. We seldom take time to be reflective. And so you're exactly right. That process can be painful. Sometimes you look around and go, well, heck, I'm not doing anything I wanted to do 20 years ago. How did I get here? We have to figure that out. We have to figure out where to go from that juncture. And so that mental effort required is an abnormal thing in our society. And it's the abnormal people that pursue that mental effort that begin to make real change in their lives.

You know, what's interesting about this is that, and I say this to my kids, I say this to my wife, and I, you know, I might joke with my friends about this, but like, if there's any kind of, like even a hint, a complaint, right, I'll be like, oh, you know, we've got such first world problems. But, you know, it is interesting because once you kind of get to that certain point in life where you're not. You're outside of survival mode now, right? You're. If you're looking at Maslow's hierarchy, you're kind of at that self actualization stage in a way. And it is a first world problem essentially, to be introspective, to figure out, okay, why. Why are we anxious all the time? And a lot of it could be, well, you know, when you've reached a certain level of success now, you're anxious, you're gonna lose it and you don't want to go back. So I feel like there's not enough talk about that because I don't know, I mean, Rick, why is that? Like, why don't we talk about first world problems? Because we do have first world problems now.

I think we feel guilty about it, right? Because if we look at the difference between, say, a first world problem and a third world problem, Third world problems are life threatening. First world problems are simply life threatening at a much lesser level. It's the quality of life or the tenor of your life rather than, hey, I might not live to next week if I can't find food. There's a huge difference. So we feel guilty about that, but there's no need to. I think it's a natural progression. What our generation of parents did before us. They got out of high school, usually got a job, proceeded through life, retired after 30 or 40 years, maybe lived a few years after that and died. The generation that we're a part of is not necessarily content to do that. We're not content to launch into one lifelong career and end up with a statement or a clock that says, you did a great job. We're much more into the self actualization piece. And so that is a first world problem. Our parents work so that we can have that problem.

Yeah, and there's not, you know, a lot of sources out there. I mean, we can look at religious institutions, but I feel like culturally speaking it's all about me, me, me, and I should figure this out by myself. Right. There aren't any, you know, you're not going to go to university and they're not going to talk to you about how to live a good life. Right. We don't have modern day philosophers like Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or, you know, some of the Stoics or, you know, even, what was his name, Montaigne, that talk a lot about, or even Nietzsche about how to live this good, purposeful life and these things that add meaning to our lives. I think psychology has taken a lot of that on in a way. So now we've got Rick Koplam doing it. And so, Rick, what are the issues that, you know, when successful people are coming to you? We talked about anxiety. What other sort of challenges are they faced with today that, that you help them kind of bridge and go across?

You know, it's interesting. I think success brings its own challenges, as you said a few minutes ago. So one of the challenges of that, if somebody comes to me, they look around at their life and go, this is pretty good. If I make changes, this could go downhill. And so there's a big fear of change for losing what we've attained so far. There's also a fear of change for not particularly knowing when you start this process where it's going to end up. If you had asked me four years ago, would I be doing a podcast today, would I be writing a second book and doing those sorts of things, I would have looked at you with a blank stare. So it's been a journey for me, and it's a journey. And you don't necessarily know where you're headed, you know, what your goals are. You have no idea the steps you're going to take to get there. So there's a little bit of trepidation around that. And then I would say the third thing. We are so tied to what we believe expectations of other people are around us, whether it's our family, our colleagues, or our friends that we're really upset. I'm sorry. Afraid of upsetting that equilibrium where we're living out our expectations. Their expectations, they seem to match, and so there's some discomfort in assuming that you're going to make changes.

Very interesting, Scott. Todd, do you have any anxiety?

Anxiety? No, I don't have anxiety.

Yeah.

It's funny that, you know, as we're talking here, I was just kind of thinking, like, you know, it's amazing how far as a society, like, we have really come, because, you know, Rick was talking about, like, you know, our fathers and grandfathers and grandparents. They went to work for a company, they stayed there forever. They got the gold watch, and they. They lived out their remaining days. And, you know, our. Our society, if you will, has evolved to where I think that a lot of people, you know, they're sitting in their corporate job and they're, you know, they. They may like it. You know, they may not love it, or, heck, maybe they do love it. You know, like, they like the challenges of it, but there's this concern in the back of their brain. It's very similar to the concern I had at one point, which was, man, at some point in time, this company is going to be done with me. And then, you know, why. Why. Why am I going through all of this? Why am I putting myself out there? Why am I doing all of these things when the company's not going to have that same loyalty to me that maybe once existed for our grandfathers or even our fathers? And I think it's. I think it's amazing, Rick, that, you know, like, that you've been able to transform, like, your own career to helping people, you know, at that stage where they are today, to, like, connect the dots and make their leap and finally enjoy, Mark, what you and I have, which is this freedom of time and doing whatever the heck we want to do. And, you know, it's. It's crazy how much life is different when you don't have to report to that, like, 9 to 5 anymore.

You're exactly right, Scott. And both of you guys went through some kind of this process, right? You both looked around and said, I can do something different. I can do more. You didn't know exactly where you were headed, but you were willing to take a leap and try an experiment or two and give it a shot. And I think that's the first thing that somebody has to admit to themselves is that they're willing to take that risk.

Yeah, I mean, that's Something that I talk to my wife about a lot is that I never want to stop working. I never want to stop growing. I never want to stop challenging myself. I want to die, you know, trying to do something that's bigger than myself, that's purposeful, that's meaningful. And, you know, I see some of these guys, you know, they're on the golf course. Nothing wrong with it, right? But when they're. When they're sort of saying from a. Like, I mean, I could play. I can pick on this one guy who's. His sort of definition of success is go into the golf course when you want, whenever he wants to go on the golf course. And I think that's. That's sort of, you know, that's nice for him, but I think for most people, they would get tired of that after a while because it's nothing bigger than himself. Right? Okay, great. You can play golf. And what a. What a life of leisure you live. You live, right? But, you know, essentially, though, he's making this video and he's selling this dream, if you will, that I think is a lot of, you know, smoke and mirrors. I think once people get to that point, then they're like, oh, well, okay, how much can I do this now?

I think you're right about that, you know, but it gets back to, what is success and significance for you isn't for me or for Scott or for anybody else, right? So if that's his definition is going to the golf course whenever he wants and enjoying that game, that's phenomenal. I personally just. Like, you don't think that that would be a lasting thing. And personally, I'm not going to retire. I watched my grandfather retire and then do nothing for 20 years, and I couldn't do that. So I think it's part of a generational difference between us, but it's also this first world thing where we look around and we go, we can continue to contribute.

Right? Yeah. Scott, what are you going to say?

No, I was going to say it's funny, though, because you do. See, I think it's kind of something that's kind of built into you, right? Because, like, you know, it's funny because my wife said to me the other day, she's like, when? When do you think you'll retire? And I'm like, what is that? Right? Like, Mark, I'm like, you, man. Like. Like, I don't know that I necessarily need to, like, have this date that says I'm done. Like, I'm done with doing whatever I wanted like, why is that? Like, if you found something that you enjoy or something that, you know, maybe doesn't take up your entire day and you can go do what you want? I mean, like, in a way, Mark, I gotta tell you, like, I'm kind of in. I kind of believe in a way that I'm already there. I'm already retired. Yeah. I still work. I still have money coming. I still have obligations to me. I gotta get the kids to where they are. But, you know, what I'm doing today doesn't necessarily seem like it's work. So why retire? What does that mean? Because what am I gonna do? Sit in a lounge chair and, I don't know, watch Breaking Bad again? Like, I don't know. It's. It's. That seems pretty boring.

I think you're right, Scott. And I think the key is it's something that we enjoy. And so for some people, they can enjoy going to the same job for 30, 40 years. That is not in my DNA, and it's not in yours. However, if you want to do this well, you can't just stop working and go, hey, what's next? You have to do a little bit of forethought into this, and you have to pursue something you think you might like. But this is the advantage we have in our generation. We can do that. We can do this location independence thing and work from wherever we want, whenever we want. We can assemble a virtual team, and we can do a number of other things that five to ten years ago were not possible. So we are enjoying this time and taking advantage of it. We're in a tremendous position, and that's why I think other people can do it as well. It's nothing special about us. We just took the risk.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that with that risk comes tremendous amount of rewards. But now that we have those rewards, there are side effects to that. Right now. There's the anxiety of losing it. Okay. Then you also have the world, your oyster. You can do anything, right? Like, Scott and I can live anywhere. It's almost like, okay, there's not enough structure. And, you know, like, we've got some clients that Sean and Rachel, they're. They made enough passive income, they quit their jobs, they're traveling over the world, they don't have kids. And I looked at my wife, and, like, I look at Scott, like, wait, that could be us in, like, seven years. We could. We could do that. And you have all these options. You know, Scott could do it in four, you can do it in five. And, and it's one of these things like, well, what do we want to do? And now there's like too many options. And I think that can create a lot of anxiety now. You know, my wife and I are fighting like, well, where do we want to live? Like, where do you want to have like, you know, it's like, it's like again, these first world sort of embarrassing problems in a way that people kind of wrestle with.

Yeah, again, I think you're right. The key is not thinking that it's a singular linear path. It is a path that you can start and make decisions along the way that radically change or in some way, small ways change what you're doing. You tweak it. And so this is, it's an evolutionary thing. To me, it's not a radical thing. It appears radical three or four years after you've begun this path to everybody around you because they have continued to live a consistent life, whereas you've begun to take risks and do things differently and, and built up a different life intentionally. And that, I think is part of it. People look at, say, where you guys are and including me, and I'm like, holy cow, I wish I were there. I will be. I'm just not there yet. And I think that's part of the key, is that we've got to remember that it's a journey. And the first part of the journey is you just got to start taking steps.

Yeah, absolutely. And I can tell you from personal experience, I can tell you from, you know, my mentor, that when you get to that top of the mountain, it's short lived. You want to climb another mountain. And so when we get to the significance part of this, Rick, where do you see most people going and where do you see them defining significance for themselves?

I think that a lot of times people define significance outside of themselves. You said earlier that it's the guy who's playing golf, it's not bigger than him. Well, that's true. I think people in general are more conscious today of having an impact well beyond just themselves and just their families. They realize the resources and the tools we have enable us to reach a larger group of people and make a difference. And whether that's making a difference halfway around the world or just down the street, it doesn't matter. You're still contributing to the betterment of society. And I think that's where people find a lot of significance. That that's the most common definition to me is that I'm beginning to make a difference.

I love it all Right, Rick. So you're able to invite any three people you want over for dinner, any three mentors or interesting people. Whom would you invite and what one question would you ask them?

Wow, that's a great question. Okay, so first off would be Martin Luther King. I love the way he talks. I've seen interviews with him. He's just an incredible person. So if he were living today, that would be the person Seth Godden would be a second one, kind of along a similar vein. Very cerebral, thinks outside of the box, and frankly, doesn't really know where the box is. Third person. Oh, that's a real tough one. I think I'd invite my great grandfather because I never knew him, and he and his wife were both doctors in my great, great grandfather in the mid-1800s, which at that time was exceptionally rare for a woman to be educated and be a doctor. And so I would invite both of them as my third person from Kentucky. New Mexico.

Oh, New Mexico. Okay. Wow.

So.

And what question would you ask them?

I can only ask one. I mean, that's a pretty tall order.

What would be the first question?

First question that comes to mind.

I might categorize it that way. What I would ask them is, if you look around our society today and this includes the folks that were 150 years ago, what's the first thing you see that's different, say, from just a few years ago? And we might think that my great great grandparents would see radically different things. I don't know. I'd love to know. I'm sure that Martin Luther King would see a radically different society from 30 or 40 years ago and very strong similarities to today. Seth Godden's answer would be different. I had no idea what he would say. Whatever comes to his mind, you know, but that'd be the question I'd ask.

I love it. I love it. Scott. Todd, we're at that point in the podcast. Now we get to put Rick on the spot. I love this.

I can't wait.

I thought I was on the spot.

Your mentorship's been great, Rick, but now we're going to ask you for one more tip. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now to improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

Okay, so one of the best books that I read, and I'll tell a little story about this, is called Halftime by Bob Buford. My wife got that for me on an audiobook 20 years ago. I listened to it at the time. It didn't make any sense. Fast forward about 18 years. I listened to it again a couple years ago. It made total sense 20 years ago. I just wasn't thinking along the lines of, hey, what am I going to do next? What's the next great opportunity? Lots of evolution happened between then and two years ago. I listened to it again. The book made total sense. The book is about, what are you doing with your life as you work your way through your career? What's going to be significant about you? And so I would say Bob Buford's Halftime would be the book I'd refer people to. It's also a great website.

All right, great. Great tip. I'm checking it out right now. At least I'm trying to. Bob Buford.

B U F O R D All.

Right, I'm on audible. Here we go. Now there's half time. Moving from success to significance. Is that it, Bob?

I think that's it. Yep. Think that's it.

Okay, awesome. All right. And it's got a lot of good reviews.

I would hope so.

Yeah. All right, fantastic. Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark?

I have a little, tiny, little Mac app that I've been using, and I enjoy it. And check this out. It's Tyke. It's T Y K E IO T.

Y K E I. Okay.

Yeah.

And basically what it does is it puts this little, like, note icon up in your menu bar up there, and you just click it. And it's really, really good for just taking a fast note, maybe cutting and pasting something over there that you might need instead of having to go bring up something or like, maybe you need to jot down someone's phone number real fast. You're like, oh, hold on, let me just find a piece of paper. Or here, let me just open up this, like, I don't know, Microsoft Word here. You just click this button, boom, type in whatever you need, and you're off to the races.

Okay, so you're telling me that you don't have time to open up notes or text editor. You have to download tyke.

Look at it.

You are a busy guy.

No, man, like, you know, like, someone's like, hey, let me give you this phone number real fast. Okay, Do I want to say, hold on a minute. Let me. Let me open up Microsoft Word. Or let me open up a notepad. Or I kind of can't find a pen around here, even though I might have one right here. My landing.

Oh, the landing pen. I love it.

I love these pens, but which you only get from boot camp, by the way. But check it out, man. And it's free. What do you have to lose? It's 2.8 megabytes.

Well, that's what I'm worried about is that. Is it a virus?

I'm using it. I mean, nothing bad has happened to me yet.

All right, fine. I like it. I'll try it. I have to haze Scott a little bit.

Rick, I love it.

It's just fun.

It's all good.

All right, my tip of the week is learn more about how you can achieve significance in your life. You're going from success to significance. Check out the podcast. Go to rickcoplin.com we will have the link in our show notes. Rickcoplin.com really great resource for, like, just moving up that chain of Maslow's hierarchy and really helping define your purpose, becoming more intentional in life and becoming a greater contributor to this little rock we're all spinning on. So, Rick Coplin, are we good?

I think we're good. You guys are great to talk with. It's a lot of fun. And the hot seat wasn't that hot.

Great. Great. Scott, Todd, are we good?

Mark, are great.

All right, I want you to remind the listeners, do us a favor, check out landmodo.com because that's who's sponsoring this podcast. And Scott has been sending me huge checks for me to plug landmoto.com and it's been phenomenal. So go there. Start selling your land on landmoto.com also, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Rick Coplin from RickCoplin.com is if you do us three little favors. All you got to do is subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of your review to support@the landgeek.com we're going to send you for free the passive income launch kit, which is regularly $97. So do that. Send us a screenshot. Supporthelandgeek.com get the passive income launch kit for free. All right, Scott, you want to lead us? I got it, Mark.

I got it. Ready, Mark? This is so great because it ties in directly to our guest today, right? Doesn't it?

It really does.

We just want to remind everybody. Let freedom ring.

Thanks, everybody.