From A Decorated Veteran To One Of The Most Sought After Coaches

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's podcast we've got somebody who's got a tremendous amount of background and skill sets in various areas. I just feel like we're going to be smarter and better after we talk to our guests. But before we talk to our guests. That'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. You know him, you love him. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd how are you Mark?

I'm great.

How are you?

I'm great, I'm great. Very excited to talk to Joe Evangelisti. He is the host of the Legacy Blueprint, co founder and or principal of four companies, Digital Media, E Learning, self storage development in real estate investing. He's currently the president of Mammoth Conversions and principal and legacy developers Hero Propertybuyers.com and the Syndicate Mastermind. I don't know how this guy has time to do anything. Can't believe he's on the podcast. He does specialize in mostly self storage development along the east coast. Also a decorated veteran who served in the U.S. navy Construction Battalion the seas be the Seabees. So Joe, thank you for your service. So having built an eight figure empire himself, Joe understands what it takes to master the game of business. With over 5,000 hours of coaching experience, Joe's one of the world's most sought after coaches. He's helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners to cross the seven, eight and nine figure. Mark, Joe Evangelisti, welcome.

Thank you Mark, appreciate it. That's got me on the show.

Yeah, my pleasure. So let's just rewind the tape. And how did you get to where you are today?

Yeah, you know, quick story or long story short, I did six years in the military. As you were, as you were saying earlier, I did about six years with US Navy Seabees, which is really construction battalions in the military. Right. These guys go everywhere by air and do everything on land mostly. And so I had an amazing career with the US Navy Seabees and you know, not long after that I got out of the Navy and ended up back in New Jersey doing general contracting for my dad. Working with the family again. Wife kind of, kind of brought me back to the area. I met my wife and you know, we said she had a short umbilical cord and was never cut and so she had to be close to her family. So we ended up back in Jersey at a pretty quick pace. And you know, right away I got the bug. I had a construction background and I knew I wanted to build wealth, I knew I wanted to build, you know, long term legacy of some sort. And you know, I turned to real estate pretty quick out the gate. But you know, that was 2007 and so arguably maybe like the worst time ever to get into real estate. I'm sure there's probably some worst times, but one of the worst, right? And you know, I immediately got into fix and flipping. Like I knew construction site said, you know, I can flip stuff, I can do all the work by hand and why not? And so it taught us a lot of things, right? It taught us that we had to pivot, we had to figure out how to stay alive, we had to figure out how to do good business and ride a really tough market for the first couple years. And so a lot of changes happened, a lot of things occurred and we started to figure out ways to scale, started figuring out private money, started figuring out how to do bigger deals and you know, how to find deals. And short sales got hot. You know, at that time I was wearing lots of hats, man. You know, fast forward four or five years. I was doing a lot of things in the real estate industry. I was, I was a landlord at that point because I had to hold on to the first couple deals, couldn't sell them, right. I was a broker, I was selling houses because I was trying to make commission on the side, try to, you know, feed my family. I was flipping houses at that point. And I was also doing what's called a broken brokers price opinions. I was doing BPOs at a pretty high level at a team doing that. And you know, but I was like super stressed out, Mark. Like I was like, you know, one of those people where I kind of felt like I could be an island and I could be everything to everybody. And you know, I felt like I was making a ton of money, but I never really seemed to have any money. Like cash was coming in as fast as it was going back out the other side. You know, I was living out of my personal checking account and blending it with my business checking account. I think a lot of people go through that, you know, and I had two little girls at home and I had my wife and I had two dogs. And you know, I was worried about figuring out how I was going to pay my personal bills. And meanwhile I had this crazy large tax return and I was like, dude, I didn't make that. Like if I made that much money, I don't know where it is. You know what I mean? So I kept thinking, you know, if I push harder, I push stronger. If I just keep putting more hours in, you know, I'll miss a couple more nights at dinner with the family, I'll miss a couple more family barbecues, I'll miss my nieces birthday party. But you know what? It'd all be good in the long run. And that was just the wrong move, man. I almost had like a complete meltdown. And I remember the stress piling up and I remember, you know, being just underneath a lot of it and thinking like, you know, I don't know if I can unbury myself from this. I've just pushed harder. I got to figure out a different way, right. And that's really when I started reaching out to others. And I hired a coach and I hired a mentor and started figuring out a real plan, strategic plan for getting myself out of that. And that was really the precipice for like, you know, starting to figure out that piece, starting to level it all out, you know. And I figured out what I call today like my five roads of progress. Like things you have to get done in order to level things out and make it work. Right. In order to make that pivot happen so that we can start to really make things automated and create good teams and create good culture and throw good business practices. And from there then things started to grow. Right. I started the media company. We since transitioned a little bit out of single family. We're doing mostly self storage development. We still have the wholesale business inside the single family, but we don't really do any flips. We don't really buy any additional rental, single family rentals. We have the ones that we have, but we're not adding to that portfolio very much. And I focus now on elf businesses. Right, right. Easy, lucrative and fun. Like I try to find ways to make, you know, great passive income or great profit margins with really, really effective teams and manage them in effective time management ways.

I love it. And you know, I'm gonna ask my fellow elf, Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

Well, one of the things I think is pretty interesting is one that ever changing, right. You know, like a lot of times people, they have success in something and they get loc it. So single family, for example, fix and flip. Joe didn't get locked on that. In fact, you know, he's looking at the marketplace and as he gets more experience, he's going off and doing other things. And the difference though Mark, is that at least what I picked up out of it, is that Joe's not necessarily doing it. Joe's leading, okay? He's, he's a team builder. He's got people that are, he's building processes, he's building formulas. We talk about processes and formulas all the time. Is, he's, he's the mastermind behind it, but he's not out there necessarily. And correct me if I'm wrong, Joe, but you're out there like converting these, these facilities into self storage units today. You're, you're the CEO of the organization as opposed to the doer.

Yeah, absolutely, Todd. It took Scott, it took a long time to figure that out, you know, but, but I kept pivoting and I kept making mistakes until I figured it out that like, hey, you know what, the best investment you can make is in people, right? Finding great people and finding great talent. And you know, I used to be that kind of person where it was like, how can I get it done for as cheap as possible with you know, the person that just fit the bill, right, that could just get it done. And now my focus is like, how can I, how can I create seven figure earners, how can I create great business partners, how can I create other long term wealth for people that surround? How can I create amazing teams? Literally I journal about this. How can I, how can I love the people that I work with? Right? Not just culturally but like literally like family, like you know, enjoy the teams that I build and you know, for me it's a different type of process than being the guy in the trenches swinging the hammer, you know, running around job sites.

Yeah, I think that's one of the great things that, not great things, but one of the more interesting aspects of success that people don't talk a lot about because once you become like you, you're really successful. But you know, I mean, Scott, you know, people like this, they're super successful, but there's just no joy in it. I mean it's, you know, it is a grind. They're, they're stressed out, they're anxious, they have a scarcity mindset. They may not love the people they're working with. They're hiring, firing and they're, you know, they're making other people crazy. So to do it joyfully is another skill set. I think that people also have to learn. What I really liked about your story was that even though you were successful and you had this great tax return, you still understood that or had the humility or the self awareness like, hey, you know, maybe there's another person out there that can help me, coach me and you know, help me get out of my own way so I can really get to that next level. Even though you're obviously a very bright guy and if you talk to your friends like, oh, don't, don't invest in a coach, you can figure this out.

Yeah, no, it's so true. You know, my friend Judge Graham wrote this book, Scale of Speed, and inside of it, you just reminded me of something that just makes so much sense inside that book. He says one of the killers of a good business is talking in sugar coated bs, right? Like, or making up numbers, right? And so not that the tax return was made up numbers, right? But like, again, I felt like I never had any cash, but it looked like I had a lot of cash. I think a lot of people in our business, especially with social media, I think it made things even worse, right? You know, you'll hear people either see them posting checks, you know, that's the gross, and they don't really know the net, or you know, they talk about like, what's your average deal? Oh, I'm making 25, 40, 50 grand. And they really have no idea. And the reality of it is that's, that's like, it's a way to inflate your own ego. But the really, what's the net net? What does it really boil down to? You know, you took home a check for 45 grand. Is your overhead in there? Is your employee, if you have payroll, is it in there? Is your trucks and your gas and your, hey, you know, I mean, I used to have 10 trucks on the road. These things would get dented up and they would be in the body shop and like, you know, the tires would.

Blow off of them.

Are you, are you calculating for all of your expenses that go into this business? And when you close a deal for 45 grand, what's your real net net? And I can tell you from experience, I mean, it would take like my CPA department sometimes three months to give me a true net net on a project. And it would be like 45 would go down to $7,000, right? And so like, you know, not talking in sugarcoated bs, right? Like, let's talk real facts, let's talk real figures, let's get real with it and then share those numbers with your team because they deserve to understand if the business is truly profitable or not and if they're really working towards a common goal or if again, they're just talking in bs, right. I think it's really important. Along with that same numbers.

Yeah. And included in that overhead. Like I did a fix and flip back in the day once because I made $50,000. But when I factored in my time, I really broke even. I mean, it took, you know, months and driving back and forth and, you know, meeting the contractors and all the work, I was like, wait a second. When I factor my time on this, this doesn't make any sense. Scott. Todd, what are your thoughts?

I think that that's one of the things is you've got to, you got to get it your own way, right? You know, and I think that there is a stigma around like hiring a coach. Sometimes I think that people are afraid to do it. One, it's not cheap, okay? Like hiring coach is not cheap. It's an investment in yourself. Now, you know, one of the questions that I love when people ask me is, well, what's the success of someone in X program? Well, success is pretty relative, right? Like it. Success to you might be different from me. So you, the success is ultimately up to you. Just because you have a coach doesn't mean that you're going to be successful. But I think that what it does is it holds you accountable and it drives you back to that formula, right? Go do this stuff. But I'd just be kind of curious from Joe, like, Joe, why do you think a lot of people are hesitant to spend X dollars on some sort of a coaching program? Why do you think that is?

You know, I think, Scott, I think it's limiting. Belief is number one. I think that people tell themselves stories or they hear stories. And so what we talk about is, you know, a lot of people when it comes to limiting belief, and that really leads us into the five roads to progress, right? Number one is limiting beliefs. And with limiting beliefs, we tell ourselves stories, right? We convince ourselves of things that may or may not be true. And so what happens is we do what we call rational lies, right? Or we tell ourselves rational lies. So, you know, we immediately say to ourselves, well, it's expensive. And then we go, well, is it worth the investment? Well, am I worthy? Am I going to take action? Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not fast enough, maybe I'm not capable, right? You know, my cousin hired a coach one time and he said it was horrible. He didn't have a good experience, right? And we start telling ourselves and compounding these stories of why it's not going to work. And immediately we rationally convince ourselves of why? It's not a good investment. So that limiting belief is the same limiting belief that's keeping you from hiring a coach is possibly the same limiting belief that's keeping you from achieving the goals that you've set out to achieve to begin with, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's funny because like, you know, when I go on masterminds, everyone has a coach. I don't know one successful person that doesn't have a coach.

I have multiple coaches, absolutely. I belong to multiple masterminds. I pay multiple coaches. I was literally in the other room having lunch with my wife before we hopped on this call talking about hiring another coach. And it's not people, I think people have to understand it's not that you have necessarily one coach and they cover all the bases. Right. Like you might have a fitness coach that you go and meet that hold you accountable to your fitness goals. You might have, you know, a relationship coach that's going to hold you accountable to your goals with your wife or your significant other. Right. There's different coaches that specialize in different things and I think it unlocks a whole different world when you see the results and you're like, wow, when I invest this money in myself and I get the results that I'm looking for and now all of a sudden it's 10x ing the growth trend of my goals, Right. My goals that I thought were going to take me five years have now been compressed down to 12 months. And now I see the acceleration factor, the ROI is exponential, but it's, you have to do the work. And I think, Scott, you said that earlier, right? Like at the end of the day you still have to do the work, right?

Right. So let's talk about those five roads to progress. So number one is limiting beliefs.

Number one is limiting beliefs. You got to work on limiting beliefs. Number two is lack of a strategic plan. Right. So many people will spend more time planning a vacation, the trip to Mexico than they'll be than they will planning their life, planning what they, what they want to achieve. Right. What if I, if you ask somebody what are the top five things you want to achieve personally this year? Right. Most people would just. I never even thought about that. It's a great question, right? You know, what do you want to achieve personally? What do you want to achieve in business? And then mapping it out and creating a systematic, actionable steps and focusing on outcome related activities instead of task driven activities. Right. We're not trying to create a to do list that never gets done. We're trying to focus on outcome and connect your belief system and your identity for the outcome. Not necessarily a task because people aren't motivated by tasks, right? We're motivated by what we're going to become when we, when we create the outcome that we want, right? So lack of a strategic plan is, number two, Very, very simply, if you don't have that strategic plan and you don't have that thing written out, then you're not gonna achieve it. Number three is time management. Poor time management. We call it the rule of 168, right? We all have 168 hours in the week, right? And so what makes a Steve Jobs or a Mark Cuban or an Oprah control their clock differently than the rest of us, than the people that we look up to? Maybe your mentors or maybe people in the space, you know, people, I'm sure. Mark, Mark, I was actually just doing an interview last week with a guy who's one of your mentees who does land, right? And I said, man, you gotta know Mark. And he goes, yeah, absolutely. You know, I went to his class, why I do what I do, right? What makes you that much better than him at that level is you know exactly how to control your clock when it comes to land acquisition, right? Your, your, your high gain activities are dialed in at a higher level because you know exactly the processes and you know how to make it happen, right? And that brings us to number three, right? Which is the. Sorry, number four, which is systems and support, right? What systems, what processes? You know, what, what people, what relationships, what things are you not already utilizing to 100% of their capacity? How many people are sitting around with that fancy CRM and they don't know how to use it, right? So then we chase the next shiny object, right? When the reality of it is if you took 15 minutes to learn how to actually use the program, the chances are it actually does everything you needed to do, right? What other teams and people around you can help support you? Sometimes it's consultants, sometimes you don't have to hire full time to make something happen. Sometimes there's resources out there to make things help you level up that you haven't really tapped into yet. So what type of people and systems and support are you not getting into? And last but not least, number five is our lack of execution, right? We have to execute on these things, but then we also have to be able to course correct. And so being able to go out there and take action is one thing, but being able to know how to pivot, like we said before, at the beginning, right? You know, I'm at home, I have two little girls, I have a wife, I got two dogs, I got bills to pay. I got to figure out how to make sure that I can stay alive and thrive and not stress out and have a stroke at 35 years old so that I can continue to scale and support and make the income that I need to fulfill my needs, right? So I got to figure out how to course correct along the way while I'm going down that road to success and then pin this whole thing together. Got to have accountability. And that's where a coach or a great mentor, you know, come in. Having an accountability with a partner or potentially your significant other or your best friend, right. Doesn't always add up, right? If you have your best friend as your gym partner and you know, maybe you're supposed to be there at 5am at the gym and you text each other, hey, man, it's cold, I think we should sleep in. Yeah, dude, good idea, right? Where's the accountability in that? Right? You guys are in alignment to fail together, right? And that's where I think, Todd, when you were talking about earlier with coaching, the investment pays off, right? You're investing in somebody to hold you accountable. They're not your buddy, right. They're not your friend. They're your coach. And their job is to help push you along in the trajectory that you want to go. And you're making that investment for that reason.

Yeah. I love it. I love it, Scott.

Todd, No, I think that that's a key thing. I think that it's a, it's a mindset thing. Mark. We talk, we talk a lot about, you know, working with our own coaching students about kind of the lies that they accept as real. Right? Like that's one of the things is that we look at is this. Whether you want to call it self limiting beliefs or whatever, I think that ultimately it comes down to action, right? Like you've, you can have the greatest coach in the world and just say, not going to the gym this morning. And that's, that's on you. That's on you. But I think if, if you put in the, the reps, as we like to say, as you put in the reps, well, then the success will come to you. Especially when you have a targeted approach of how you're going to succeed.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. So, Joe, I'd love to know what's some of the worst advice you see or hear given in your area of expertise.

There's all kinds of fun stuff I think the idea of push button simple or push button made easy has been propagated so much in the last couple years. It's terrible. I think a lot of people say, you know, it's easy to get into a business, easy to get into wholesale, right? You know, to get anything. I don't care what it is. And I mean, we have. I'm in the educational case. I have soup to nuts products. On getting into wholesale real estate, right? No matter how. How push button simple you can make a product, you still got to do the work, right? People think it's like, I'm going to get through your system, and all of a sudden money is just going to start flooding in the front door. Like, you still got to go out there and take the action. You still got to take your bruises. The reason that people are successful, the people that you look up to, is not because they don't get punched in the face. It's because they're used to getting punched in the face. That's the difference, right? And when you take that first punch and you go, oh, whoa, this isn't for me. I'm not getting punched, right? Then you're not going to see the level of success that those people that you look up to have. They didn't just get there because they walked, you know, some. Some golden. Golden road that was comfortable and was easy the whole way. They just got used to being punched. That's the only difference. You got to go out there and take your loss.

No, I love. We talk about this all the time. Grit. And in having that. That burning desire. So when you do get punched, you get back up. Yeah. Nothing's gonna keep you down.

That's it.

Yeah. Scott, did you have a thought? No.

I was gonna say, like, it just makes me think of my. My. My good buddy, former Navy Seal. Or like I always say, I'm not sure you're ever a former Navy seal, but, you know, the dude told me some crazy stories. I saw him do some crazy things, and I remember one day asking him point blank, why are you so crazy? And he said, when you're a Navy seal, you learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

That's it, right?

However way you want to look at it, if. If you just get over the fact of it's. It's okay to be uncomfortable. It's amazing what you can do. In fact, I was talking to someone the other day, and they said, well, yeah, they were talking about owner financing land, right? Like, how. How they could approach somebody and say, would you own or Finance the land. And they're like, well, it doesn't say that. I'm like, it doesn't have to say it. What's the worst they can say no? How many times have you been told no in your life? I'm still breathing.

Yep. Yeah. You know, I was saying this the other day. One of our core values is fearless. Like our first, our first four values. Fearless, right? And I was saying to my team, a bunch of other teams, actually, I was doing kind of like an open, an open training for people. And I was saying, you know, our core value is fearless. Right? But guys, you're in sales. Like, like, no, nobody's putting you in a cage with a lion. Like, like you're not going on a battlefield. Nobody's shooting at you. Like, there's no bodily, like there's no chance of bodily harm, right? So like, to ask somebody to be fearless in a sales role, like, like the biggest thing you have to be afraid of is the word no, right? Like, like going out there and being fearless, you can own that. You can be confident. You can come at it 120%. Because fearless is relative, right? Like, what do you, what could you possibly be afraid of? A Navy SEAL is literally dodging bullets, right? You have to be. Follow that and go into battle, right? We're talking about getting on the phone, right? So put that into perspective. And I think that, you know, you hit the nail on the head. You got to be really uncomfortable getting uncomfortable or comfortable getting uncomfortable.

No, yeah, absolutely. So, Joe, your mentorship has been invaluable, but now we're at that point in the podcast where we're going to ask you for one more tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

Yeah, I would just say, you know, for me, this is probably not very self serving, but I just, I just listen to a really cool book and I listen to a lot of self development stuff, but I don't listen to very much of this type of book, but I thought it was really, really interesting. Matthew McConaughey wrote a book called Green Lights and I listened to the audio this week and actually it was last week. I'm lying. It was a week before this, but definitely worth getting, especially on Audible because he reads it and I just thought it was really interesting. Man talks about his story, but it's got a lot of philosophy in it and you just wouldn't think an actor, especially a lot of the silly kind of roles that he's played over the last 20 years would be that good of a writer. And so I think that's a good takeaway for this week. I think it's a very interesting listen. Read whatever you want to do, but just a good book.

Was there one part of his philosophy that stood out to you?

Yeah, so everyone knows his famous, like, first line in his first movie was, all right, all right, all right. And so he spends 20 minutes explaining how that entire thing happened. And it literally gives you chills. Like, it's very, very cool to hear that story. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you the whole story because I'll ruin it for you. But just listening to that piece of the audio makes the entire book worth it. But there's a lot of other cool stories inside the book as well.

All right, I'm gonna download it today.

Yeah, check it out.

So, Scott Todd, before we get to your tip of the week, I just want to remind the listeners that we have a sponsor this week. It's flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up that mountain of land investing with Scott Todd, who's done it thousands of times. You know, it's all about getting your reps in and being comfortable, being uncomfortable. But Scott will help you through that transition. And after 16 weeks, you will start creating passive income without renters, without rehabs or rodents. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com training thelandgeek.com training Scott Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark?

Have you ever been to a website and this thing pops up and says, hey, can I send you notifications?

I have.

Okay, well, check out this. This is easy for WordPress users. If you have a WordPress website, check out this free plugin called through Push it. It's free web. Push notifications for your website.

Download it.

Put in there hitting the easy button. Joe said there was no easy button in life. There it is. That's the easiest. And there you go. Help me prove Joe wrong.

Just kidding. I didn't mean to set you up there, Scott. Sorry about that.

Appreciate it.

That's a pretty good tip. But this one will actually help you become wealthy. Learn more. Go to joeevangelisti.com no one can spell Evangelisti except for probably Joe. So I will have a link to the site, but he's got two podcasts, the whole scaling podcast, the legacy blueprint. Tons of information on there. And check it out. Joeevangelisti.com Joe, are we good?

Yeah, man. We actually made it easier for people that want to do one on one coaching. If they want to book a discovery call where I'll offer some free discovery calls to your clients, they can actually go to elevatewithjoe.com elevatewithjoe.com that way you don't have to learn how to spell Evangelisti, which is super difficult. I understand. I don't make it easier for folks to go to. So if you want to book a discovery call and you want to talk about some one on one coaching, really, it's a good fit for real estate investors, for doctors, chiropractors, executives, business owners. If you're looking to take yourself from extraordinary to outstanding, we're here for you. We want to see you guys level up.

I love it. I love it. All right, well, Scott, Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

I want to thank the listeners. Just remind them the only way, the only way we're getting quality guests like a Joe Evangelisti is to give us three little favors. You got to subscribe, rate, review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review@support thelandgeek.com we're going to send you the $97 wholetailing course, how to double your money 30 days or less for free. So please do it. All right. One, two, three. Let freedom ring. Joe's like, I had no idea, you guys.

I had no idea we're doing that. Sorry.

Yeah, no, no, it's good, it's good. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, everybody.