How a Retired Pastor and Father of Three Turned Full-time Land Investor

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelangic.com and on this week's podcast, I am very excited to bring you one of our esteemed coaching clients, Brian Lark. And Brian is going to walk us through his land investing journey. I love doing these podcasts because you really get a inside look of what it's like from somebody to start from zero and what they can build in a very short period of time. And we're going to discuss with Brian the elements that he thinks made him so successful. And he's got a great background. So without further ado, I want to introduce to you Brian Lark. Now, if you're not familiar with Brian, he is married, he's got three kids, he's spent 26 years in church ministry as a pastor, retired early in 2021 to take a year long trip around the states with his wife and kids. He's the author of One Kid, One Dollar. We'll talk about that. He started land investing part time in 2018, but he's now been doing land investing full time and is the owner of Zateo Land. Now we're going to get into his journey and go there. So, Brian, welcome.

Hey, thanks Marcus. Really an honor to hang out with you and be on the podcast. Thanks.

I'm so glad you're here. So let's just rewind the tape. You started part time in 2018 and you're working in ministry. What was that like?

Yeah. So my wife and I, we moved out to Colorado in 2011 and we moved out to start a church out there. And one thing we noticed really soon was that land ownership was kind of a big deal in western Colorado and not so much. At least we didn't notice that as much in the in the southeast where we were from. But there we started noticing, hey, it would be really nice to own a piece of land. I got into hunting and I thought, well, let's just see what we can buy as a property for us to enjoy. So we bought a piece of land in 2018 and had a really good agent to start working with through that year. And then years after, Reese Lovell with Lone Eagle Land Company and he helped me really just kind of think through a lot of the land purchase process and sale process. But we bought our first piece of property in 2018 and we bought a 35 acre mountain property, hunting property, and fixed it up a little bit and sold it the next year, took the profits from that and bought another property about the same size Just a couple of doors down, sold it, made a profit, wrapped that up in the third deal there, took the profit and wrapped it up into hopefully what's going to be the next fourth deal here pretty soon. But just did that on the weekends. I was serving full time as a pastor and just enjoyed just getting outside in nature and was able to do that in the evenings or the weekends sometimes with either my wife or kids, sometimes we'd go out and do that. So just, just what I did on the, on the part time level. But the more I did that, I started thinking about, you know, this would really be something I could do more of, I'd like to do more of. And so I started reading some, some different books about land investing. And of course that's where I came across Dirt Rich, your book. And thank you for that. Appreciate you taking the time to do that.

No, of course, of course. So you, you read Dirt rich in late 2020 and then you start with the toolkit in 2021. What, what was that like?

Well, it, it was super easy to, to buy. I don't know what it was like 15 bucks, you know, for the, for the book. That was easy.

Right.

But somehow, you know, I found out about the toolkit and I think at the time it was seven or eight hundred dollars. And, and I remember talking to my wife about it and saying, hey, you know, this is something I think I should really invest in. And, and I think we both were a little bit iffy. You know, is this really something that we could really, you know, benefit from? And so I went ahead and did it and we didn't have too much to lose and figured out that there was a lot of value there and there was a lot of opportunity. Went through the boot camp one weekend as a part of that and that was very helpful and just moved on through the process from Toolkit. And I, I knew that toolkit would help me and I was determined to implement what I learned in the toolkit. But I also knew that I could move a lot further, faster if I were being held a little bit more accountable. So that's where flight school came in. Flight school was a big pill to swallow for us. As many people know, being a pastor, you're not raking in the dollars by any means. And so it was a big investment for me to go through flight school. And fortunately for us in our marriage, we had been savers and could do that, and flight school was very helpful. Started doing some of my first deals in the middle of flight school and from there Just took it into the one on one coaching, which was kind of the cream de la creme for where I needed to be. And having Eric Peterson as my coach, that was super helpful. Very good to be in a community with other investors that are learning. Same place that I was in where we were able to discuss things on Mastermind calls. So all that just is very helpful.

No, that, that's fantastic. And what would you say you learned the most from Eric? What was some of the biggest lessons in that coaching program?

I will say the, the one thing that, that he helped me with and I think he had to tell me this at least once, maybe twice.

And.

That was about comparison. And I always kind of felt like, all right, I should be further along or somebody had a bigger deal than me or, you know, it's not moving as fast as I want it to. And I would ask Eric, you know, things like, well, you know, how am I doing? Like, am I really doing all right? And he'd say, no, you're really doing well. And I always kind of felt like, you know, the slow kid in class, you know, like I'm not getting it or I'm not successful like somebody else is. And, and he just tried to help me understand that comparison is not going to help me. You know, there's a good thing. It's, it's healthy to be competitive, but not to necessarily be comparing yourself with where somebody else is because they've got different skill sets, they've got different background, they've got different abilities with tech stuff and all that. And I think that was helpful for me just to really grab a hold of that. And I still find myself doing it a little bit, but that was, that was a big deal. And, and you know, he's called the technician for a reason. Yeah, he, he knows his stuff on the tech side and I think that was helpful for me. Just helping me or encouraging me not to be so overwhelmed with that because I, I came out of a, a career in an environment where, you know, people in conversations were, were my day to day you know, operation. And now it's, it's a, at least for me, it's much more of a tech career or environment. And so he was helpful to encourage me not to be so overwhelmed with that.

No, it's great. Now I'm going to give some stats and if you're listening to this again, he, Brian's advice. Comparison is the thief of happiness. So if you're not doing this and doing numbers like Brian, it's okay. And just like he Said, everyone starts from a different place. Everyone has different lives. But I would say that at some point on the timeline, if you stick with this consistently, everyone's going to get paid in this business. So, Brian, you've bought and sold 59 properties last year, 2022. That was your first year using the land investing land geek model. And your sales were close to $1 million. Right. At 945,000, your average monthly revenue, 2022 was $25,000. Your passive income is now 8,300amonth. So let's just make you feel a little bit better here and do some math. So if I said to you, and we'll go to the calculator here, you, you go to the bank and you say, okay, Look, I've got 8,300, right? And let's just multiply that by 12, and that's going to get us $99,600. And you say to the banker, hey, how much money do I need to deposit in the bank at a very, oh, aggressive 2% interest rate to throw off in interest $99,600 a year. They would tell you, no problem, Brian, you need to deposit $4,980,000, and that'll throw off that monthly cash flow that you've got in a year. How long do you think it would take you to save 4 million, $9 million? I would think it'd take longer than a year.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So hopefully that makes you feel a little bit better. Yes. Yeah. And so now you've got 10 people working with you right now, and these are tremendous numbers in a year. My question is, what has been the, the biggest leverage point for you where, if I'm listening to this, well, how can I also get that type of success?

I would say for me, focus is, is just what helped me. And I think that there's a lot of things to be overwhelmed with in this business, especially when you're starting out. I remember, you know, my first several months and even into the first year, I just constantly felt overwhelmed, like, I've got to do this, and there's this and there's this and so many different moving pieces to the puzzle. But I think by focusing on my most important task and taking care of that, in spite of all of the other noise that was going on in the business, that helped me. And I think the same thing applies to your area of focus. You know, for me, I, I've chosen to be more of a specialist in a specific area than to know a lot about a little or a Little about a lot. And so I've tried to be more of a specialist in, in the area that I work and really learning the ins and outs of that area as opposed to getting sidetracked. That's just my personality. I work a lot better if I'm able to focus on one or two things at a time as opposed to spreading out my focus. So I would just encourage people to really think about how you're going to go about your business and find a specific niche within the business or a specific area and focus on that at least in your first couple of years and then move on from there.

I think that's great advice. I can't tell you how many coaching clients I talk to and they're doing really well in this county, in this area. And then they'll say to me, well, should I go to another area? And it's almost like people get bored making money and having that self awareness. To know it's better to be an inch wide and a mile deep in an area is I think a huge advantage where you see other people. And I had a, a mentor Ori, he would say to me, you know, if you remember you're a kid, we'd have a magnifying glass and you'd go out and you try to kill ants. And he's like, mark, you know, a lot of people will just move the magnifying glass around trying to kill ants. Well, you generate a lot of heat, but you don't ever kill an ant unless you hold the magnifying glass down and then, you know, and have that focus. So I think that's really an insightful piece of information. Yeah.

And one thing to add to that, I mean, I think it's a good idea if you're going to start in a specific county, you know, before you move on to a second county. I think it's really helpful if you can understand things like the GIS map for your county. You know, the ins and outs of the GIS map, where utilities are, where water is, who you need to talk to at the county level if you have a question about a deed, who you know, what's the first name of the person at the recorder's office who's going to be your title company that you use if you need to go through title, you know, who can get out and photograph properties for you if you need to do that, who can go out and check on the property if you've got a boundary dispute, all those kinds of things. You don't, you don't learn Those things in just a few months. Those things take time and I think that's the benefit of not moving too far too fast.

No, absolutely. And it's so interesting to me when you're talking about all the moving pieces and I'm just curious, what part of the business do you like the most and what part of the business do you think, oh, I can't wait to outsource this piece?

I think the part that I really enjoy the most is just, is, is talking with the people and the buyers and the sellers actually, you know, being on that frontline call. Now granted, I do have an intake manager now and she handles most of the phone calls and that kind of stuff. But, you know, when it comes time to selling, I still enjoy the sales side of things a lot and helping people find a great property that will meet their needs and their wishes. So that's what I enjoy. Now, the side of the things or the side of business that I'd like to probably get rid of sooner than later is the automation side of things. You know, again, I came from an environment and career where nothing was automated. Everything was face to face, conversation to conversation, or at the bare minimum, you know, a phone call or an email. But you know, this business is, is improved by delegation and automation. And so the automation side of things is one of those things that still intimidates me a little bit. And so I'm working on that and hope to improve that in the future.

Yeah, I love it. So I want to talk about a money mindset because I was talking today with Joey Murray and Joey was talking to me about the Bible and the verses in the Bible that a lot of people interpret as very money negative. It's like you're a bad person if you're, if you're making money. And coming from your, your background, what's, what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, this is going to sound really terrible coming from somebody who served in full time, you know, ministry, but I remember when I really got into this business, this specific model, I told my wife, I remember going for a walk one day in our neighborhood in Colorado. I said, you know, if I'm going to do this business, I'm going to be doing this to make as much money as possible. And that sounds really worldly and ungodly, you know, in, you know, maybe a Christian circle or so. But I wanted to be at a place in my life where my income wasn't capped out. And I wanted to be also not just that I Wanted to be at a place in my life financially where my giving was not capped out either. And so, you know, in the Bible, the New Testament tells us that, you know, it's not money that is the root of all evil. Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil. So there's a difference there. You know, the, the Old Testament says, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Bible says, you know, give to the Lord the first fruits of all your crops. And that's in Proverbs, you know, and, and it goes on and on and on. And I think it really comes down to the Bible in Christianity, it just comes down to the heart. You know, where's your heart in this? Is it just to amass stuff for yourself? There's a story that Jesus taught us in the New Testament that there was a guy who, who had all these crops, and he was very successful as a farmer. And the next thing you know, he's saying, you know what? I think I'm just going to build bigger barns. I'm going to have bigger barns so I can store all of my things. And, and, and he was told later that, that same conversation, you know, you fool, your very life will be demanded of you. And so Jesus goes on to say, it's not about those who are rich in this world, it's about those who are rich towards God. And I think it's all about the mindset, you know, and whether you're a Christian or not. I mean, I don't want to, you know, make people feel, you know, ostracized if they're not Christians. But I really think whether you're Christian or not, it really has to be about your mindset. You know, where is your motivation? Is it just to do something for yourself or is it for others? Now, obviously, there has to be an element that, where you are providing for your family, that's a responsibility that we have. But I think it's, it's got to be beyond that. There's got to be some purpose in giving and helping others and making a difference in the, in the world that we live in.

Yeah, I 100 agree. And whether you're religious, you're secular, that purpose and where it comes from is not important. But what is more important is that you're building something bigger than yourself, because at some point you're going to get kicked in the teeth in this business and you have to have a bigger purpose to get up and keep going. And we talk about that a lot in, in boot camp. But hearing it from a pastor and from a Christian point of view is, is super enlightening, I think. And whether or not you're a Christian or not, I think it's, it's still important to, to understand the, the deep wisdom of it and, and how it applies even, you know, today and in modern life. I mean. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, I think it's very clear, you know, from a Christian standpoint, the Bible teaches us that we can't have two masters, can't serve God and money. And I think even again, whether you're a Christian or not, I don't think money needs to be any of our masters. It doesn't need to be a master for any of us. It needs to be a servant. And I think that's, that's where the distinction lies. And I think a lot of people, as you mentioned, you know, they interpret the Bible to be down on money. And it's not. It's, it's. It's about how we view it and how we use it and how we relate to it. It's just like a brick. You know, a brick can be used to build a house or an orphanage, but it can be used to throw, you know, make a hole in a window.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's funny because when I talk to people, especially younger people, they'll talk to me about, you know, they want to make millions of dollars and ultimately, what. When I keep asking them more and more questions, you know, what everybody wants is just freedom. They just want freedom, and money can get you that freedom. So again, and then that freedom to give and to give back is, is provided by that. So, you know, it's. Money's in a neutral thing. It's not good. It's not bad. It's, it's, it's just neutral. It's, it's the story I think you, you create from it. But I'm glad I, I asked you that question for sure, and I appreciate your, your perspective on it, especially because you wrote a book called One Kid, One Dollar, which I read, radically impacting the future of Christianity. One kid and one dollar at a time. So can you talk a little bit about the book? Sure.

So. So basically, when I wrote the book, it was in 2020, at that time, from the research that I did. Let's see if I remember the exact numbers. But what I read was that somewhere around $68 trillion of wealth was going to be transferred to the next generation, I think, within the next 25 years. And, you know, even if it weren't 65 trillion, if it were 65 billion or even 65 million, that's still a big number. And so I got to thinking, okay, well, number one, who's going to get that wealth? You know, who is it going to be transferred to? And second, what are they going to do with it? And the wealth that's going to be transferred, whether it's 68.