How This Land Couple Found Their Place In Paradise

Three. Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek. Their favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I always love these podcasts, Scott Todd, when we have our successful students walking us through their journey. But I'd be remiss, Scott Todd, if I didn't properly introduce you. You know, you love him. The brain, the professor, the flight school sherpa. Scott Todd, from scotttodd.net, landmodo.com automating you, your Craigslist and your Facebook postings. Postingomination.com landgeek learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd, are you as psyched as I am?

You know, Mark, these are always exciting, especially because, like, I get to see the transformation of people, right? Like, I get to as they go through flight school, I get to see like, oh my gosh, what is this guy asking us to do? And all of the potential mistakes that people think that they're about to make. The heart racing moments and then the growth. So it's really cool for me to have people on this podcast who have kind of gone through flight school. And so, yeah, I'm excited.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, our guest today is Evan Boulier and Chloe Bauman. Hi, guys.

Hello.

So let's just get into it. Evan and Chloe, how in the world did you learn about the Lange community?

Well, I guess rewind a little bit back to summer 2017. I recently finished my MBA and I needed a little more direction in my life. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go on to a PhD to start teaching full time. I was teaching as an adjunct faculty member and also running the system department at Eckerd College. But I wasn't sure if I want to go for a PhD, so I took a, took a, took a book, Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And that ended up making me take a deep dive into real estate. And I started listening to a bunch of podcasts, listen to reading a bunch of books, listen to them on Audible. And I heard you being interviewed on another podcast, and it just made a lot of sense.

Sense to me.

All right, so now you've got a Chloe problem, right? Like, you're all excited and you're all jacked up. Chloe, how did Evan convince you about this wacky land investing niche?

Well, he told me on a cruise, so I think it's a little easier for me to say it was a good idea. And he proposed to be my business partner. He was like, I'm not going to ask you to marry me right now, but do you want to be my business partner? And so we learned a little bit more about it, and then about a month and a half later, we went to boot camp, and I still thought he was a little bit crazy, but.

Okay. So, Scott, Todd, is that the most romantic sort of proposition you've ever heard?

You know, Mark? Maybe.

Maybe.

Strong, maybe.

Yeah. I mean, I just kind of picture it on the cruise. I'm assuming alcohol is involved?

I don't think yet.

Not yet. Not yet. Evan gets on one knee and says, will you be my lifetime passive income partner and make 300 to 1000% returns with me?

Yes.

It's. It's like. It's like a. It's like a beautiful Hallmark, really. Like, that could be a Hallmark show. So, Chloe, Evan, I assume doesn't drag you kicking and screaming into boot camp, but what was boot camp like for you?

At first I was pretty skeptical, and then you came in and you were like, write down your why. And we were just looking at each other, and immediately we were both like, wow, there are people here that are actually doing it. And I remember we were sitting next to somebody who was selling properties while you guys were talking, and we were like, okay, if these people can do it, then we can do it. There's people in here that have kids and have all these commitments, and if anybody can do it, we can do it.

Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty powerful thing because every boot camp, somebody closes a deal in real time that weekend. Scott, Todd, have we ever been shut out?

No, I don't think that we've ever been shut out from people not making sales at boot camp. You know, I think that there's a lot of. A lot of factors at play there. One is you got a lot of people in the room doing the. Doing the business. Not a lot, you know, like, less than you would have at other real estate conferences or meetings. However, there are people that are doing things right. There's people taking action, and just by the mere fact that they're taking action, the sales are going to come.

Yeah, absolutely. Evan, what was it like for you, especially given your academic background?

Yeah, so, I mean, from the beginning, it made sense to me especially. I bought right after the cruise. I came back in August, and I had bought the toolkit in September. And, yeah, we went to boot camp in October of 2018 in Orlando. And, yeah, it just kind of really made sense to me and got me really excited. And at the time, I recently got my real estate license probably about six months prior to that and I wasn't sure also, again, I needed direction. I wasn't sure whether I'd go down the traditional real estate agent route or whether it's the investing route. And weekend before boot camp, I went to, I won't name the name of it, but another a conference for real estate agents. And I've. I don't know if I've ever felt more out of place in my life. And I felt, came back from that Sunday just feeling really just, just not, not excited. And then the next weekend, boot camp, a complete 180 degree difference. I was excited. I felt like I fit in immediately. And yeah, I couldn't, couldn't be more excited and still am.

Yeah. And that's. I can only imagine what that seminar was like, so. But you've got the toolkit, you've been to boot camp. What was it that made you feel like I should really accelerate this and have Scott Todd take me up that land investing mountain quickly, safely and efficiently into flight school?

I think it was Chloe that really helped convince me. Yeah, I think it was Chloe. She has a little more disdain for her job than I do mine and she was ready to quit and go full time into it immediately. And no better way than to learn from someone smarter and better than us. And, and that's been through up the mountain before.

So, Chloe, let's try to make Scott Todd blush. What was flight school like for you?

Stressful and amazing all at the same time.

Stressful and amazing all at the same time. Can you elaborate?

Yeah. So we did it on a Saturday morning, so it was really nice for us to be able to set out the two hours to actually learn and then implement everything at the same time as everybody else. And so it was really cool to see how other people were doing and how other people were doing things and how we were doing things because we had still been mailing by hand and being able to go to LOB and use LGPass was huge for us. So we got a lot of our time back and got to focus on business a little bit more than we had. And we bought our first property like.

December about a year ago.

So during flight school?

Yeah, during flight school. Okay. And then kind of tell us what has happened from joining flight school to today.

Cool. So let's see. Yeah. Bought our first property December 2018. And since then we've done just over 30 deals.

You've done over 30 deals? And how many hours a week are you working in the business?

In the business? Yeah.

Five.

About five.

At most 10, five to 10 hours a week. Wow. Okay. So tell us about your favorite deal.

We were actually talking about this just last night. We each have two different deals. My favorite deal was, I guess, the third and fourth property we bought, but we ended up selling them. Those were the first two sales. We sold them to the same guy. We picked up two properties for $900 each. So we're all in at $1800. And we turned around, and a few weeks later. Oh, yeah, I also bought those two properties down in Honduras when I was teaching abroad class. And so I was having Chloe on the other end over here, like, mailing the deed, get it back in, record it on simply file. This is how you do it. So I was really excited to buy property in another country when I was teaching a class down Honduras in Kapan. And yeah. Came back from the abroad trip, what, three weeks later and turned around, sold them for $6,000 total cash.

And paid off flight school.

And paid off flight school. That's the last week of flight school. So we completely paid off flight school from two properties.

Yeah, that's. That's a. That's a good one. Scott. Todd, everybody's always talking about how great flight school is, but we never reverse the question. What makes Evan and Chloe, in your estimation, you know, successful coming into flight school? Like, why. Why were they able to be more successful, let's say, than maybe somebody else in flight school?

You know, Mark, I think it comes back down to one thing, and that is the problem that they're trying to solve. Right. You know, like, a lot of times you just find people, people that are just comfortable in their situation, and, you know, they. They go through it and they take the knowledge, and they don't necessarily jump into action. Right. It's the people. The people that are that I see that have success in flight school are the people that jump into action. Okay? It's the people that, you know, when you say mail, they mail. It's the people that. They don't go through the process and say, well, let me just buy a couple of properties that they've moved the chips onto the table. It's all in. Right. Like, they've made the mental decision, like we are doing this, as opposed to let me buy a couple of properties and then let me see if I can sell them. There's no toes in the water with the people that really have the success. What they do is they jump in, they're going to do this, they're going to hit roadblocks. I mean, no Path is direct. I don't care. Even if you go through flight school, you're going to hit roadblocks. There's going to be things that you don't know. There's going to be moments where you think you've made a mistake, and then all of a sudden, you're going to be able to turn that back around and just keep plowing through the roadblocks, you know, like, that's it. It's just. That's where the mini bag came in, right? Like, the mini bat came in. Because it's like, man, I'm going to hit a wall. And then you got to figure out, like, this wall is not the end. It's just an obstacle. Get over it, get around it, figure out, go through it. Whatever you have to do to keep moving. And, you know, I. I know that, like, Chloe and Evan, they had that same type of connection with flight school they were in. They made the decision that this is the business that they were going to go into, and they didn't, like, you know, like, go half in on it.

Hour of commitment, burning those ships. So, Chloe and Evan, I'll start with you, Chloe, knowing what you know now, there anything that you would have done differently in the beginning.

Probably go to flight school right away. If we could have even a month.

Sooner, you would have gone to flight school right away. Evan, how about you?

Yeah, just wish I had read Rich Dad, Poor dad earlier, so I could have taken this dark dive into real estate a long time ago. So, yeah, I mean, just mailing and marketing every single week. I mean, we started just about as soon as we possibly could.

Yeah, you guys are super young. I mean, you're. You're, like, just starting. How, Evan, how. How young would you want to be getting into real estate?

I'm 30 right now, and Chloe is 25. I probably wish I was in grad school from when I was, like, 23 to 25. Wish I kind of gone into it when I was Chloe's.

Yeah, they got the Tate Litchfield syndrome, right?

Like.

Like, Tate. Tate's never like, you know, Tate's like, oh, man. You know, like, he's living the dream. He's 30. Like, he's living the dream now. And, you know, Mark, you and I, when we were 30, you know, like, we're worrying about kids and that. That job to support the kids. Like, you know, at least. At least they have a taste of, like, the real world. Unlike Tate, you know, who. Tate worked like, 1 1/2 of a day for the state of Nevada before He's like, look, this is working out. And he split. You know, like, at least they have a taste of the real world, but come on, 30, that's young.

Gonna be in it for a while.

So what would you say is your favorite part of the business and your least favorite part of the business?

Man, I think my favorite part of the business is talking to people. I really enjoy working with the people that we buy property from, the people that we sell property to. We actually just finished sending off a bunch of Christmas cards to most of the people that we had done deals with this year that we sold land to to keep in touch with because we believe that we've had a lot that are repeat buyers as well. So, yeah, just working with the people, and I feel a lot of gratitude towards. Towards them, obviously, and they're rather appreciative of financing.

That's great. And what part of this business makes you crazy?

Oh, man. People that don't follow through and following back up with people. So marketing. Yeah, marketing is my hands down, least favorite. So we're working on outsourcing it right now, actually.

Okay, fantastic. Fantastic. And are you guys focused more on cash or terms?

We're doing both right now. Just because we started this business actually with $5,000. In order to buy more and more property, we needed cash. So our first year strategy was to do more cash than owner financing in terms deals. So we did ran the numbers yesterday. We did 75% cash, 25% terms. We just sold a bunch of notes. So we've actually got some cash heavy now now. Cash heavy. Now we're going to focus on doing more terms deals.

Fantastic. And how is life different for both of you from when you first started to today?

I'm a lot more hopeful because, I mean, I've only been in the working world for like two and a half years, but working at a desk has just never seemed great to me. And I remember listening to Mimi talk one time on the drive home from work, and I just started crying, and I was like, we're gonna do it. We're gonna make it work. And we just never gave ourselves the opportunity to fail. I remember one time asking Evan, what do we do if we fail? And he was like, the only way we're gonna fail is if we stop, and we're not gonna stop. And so I think that from this point last year, there's so much more hope, and I think we're a lot happier in our time. Freedom that we have even though we work still, but knowing that we're not going to have to work forever is nice.

Yeah. So you can see the pot of gold at that end of the rainbow. Only a year in.

Yeah.

How about for you, Evan?

I'd have to agree with her. A sense of hope and direction. I felt as a little directionless. I wasn't sure what I want to do. Now I know exactly what I want to do. I couldn't be happier doing it. I love this land geek community and I love working with Chloe and we have fun.

It really is great. And Chloe, I have to tell you, I'm starting to listen to my own podcast now just to become a better podcaster. Nene does have that effect. Like her story is so powerful and it's so inspirational, especially for people with those, those big jobs, whether they like them or not, they definitely probably don't like that job more than their family. And so to have this big. Why of having that choice of creating enough passive income where it exceeds your fixed expenses and you're working as you want to, not because you have to, can make a huge difference. Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

I mean, that's the thing is like, well, for, I mean, okay, first of all, Evan said he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Hopefully what he wants to do is be a passive income bump, not like, not create another full time job for himself. That's, that's the first thought that I had. I was like, oh, please tell me you're going that route. The second thing is, is that it's, it's amazing because I like what they said, like, what happens if we fail? Well, the only reason we're going to fail is if we stop. See, that's the thing is it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter what, what roadblocks that you have or setbacks you have. It's really about just continuing on, right? And what I also want to point out is that they've been doing this for a year and he said that they've done 30 deals so far this year. That's fantastic, right? Like that's a great number. And I think oftentimes people, they get hung up in the numbers, right? Like, oh, well I've done 30 and you know, someone else has done, you know, 80. Well, okay, I guess I'm no good at this and I'm just gonna quit. You see, like, that's the thing, is that everybody moves at their own pace. And you know, Mimi, you know, like if we were going to, we're talking about Mimi. So Mimi, you know, it took her about three years to replace her income. She did it slowly and methodically. There's no crying, no shame in that, right? Like, there's no crime in what she did. She did it her way. And, you know, there's other people that they just want to race to the. To the finish line. Okay, no problem. You know, you can go do it. Go do what you need to do. However, really not about that race. It's really about. Look, my goal, my overall goal is that I want to have the passive income to replace my. In my position or job when I want to replace it, right? Like, that's the whole thing is control. And when you have the passive income that's coming in every single month, that's the one thing that it gives you, is it gives you control of your life, right? Like now, all of a sudden, you can quit your job or you can keep working at it. Maybe now it's a lot more fun. I always think, like, if I were to go back to my course corporate gig, having the income that I have now, oh, my gosh, man, it would be completely different because I wouldn't be as protective about what I say or the political aspects of the job. I would be me. Okay? Like, I. It would be completely opposite from everybody else who, like, needs their job. Like, I wouldn't need the job. Like, here it is. Here's the raw information that you want. I wouldn't hold back or try to, like, be PC about it. So I think that that's really the cool thing is listen to what Evan's saying. And Chloe saying, listen, don't quit, because if you quit, well, that's how you're going to fail. And then build the passive income on your own time horizon. You're not in a race against anybody but yourself.

I think I have a personal goal of having Chloe emailing me a video of her going to the job. Like, the guy in office space with, like, fish guts and just throwing it on the wall and just saying, what, is there a problem here? I just felt like doing this.

Maybe not fish guts, but something else.

Yes, yes, I could see her doing that.

Can you go and remove all of the parts from the cubicle so they all fall down? That would be great. From that video from that movie.

Someone's got a case of the Mondays.

Oh, my gosh, that's great. So Chloe and Evan, if you were going to give somebody some advice, they might be skeptical, they might be worried, they may be unsure about which path to take. Do I go straight to the toolkit? Should I go straight to flight school. Should I test this first? What advice would you give them?

I would say not to overthink it. And I guess if you can only afford the toolkit, at least get the toolkit. And if you can afford flight school, then you should definitely do flight school. But I mean, stop complaining, I guess, and just do it and stop overthinking. I mean, Evan is the biggest overthinker that I know and if he can do it and get over himself overthinking, then I think anybody can do it.

That's great. Evan, how about you?

Yeah, I'd say just go full on into it. I really liked starting with the toolkit and especially that it came with, or at least at the time it came with boot camp tickets. And that's really what sold me, especially on the community and just how realistic it is for exactly what I wanted to do. And I'm sure a lot of people want to as well. Scott, when you asked what I wanted to do. Well, I want to be ambitiously lazy. That was my favorite quote of boot camp. Be ambitiously lazy. And so, yeah, I say just jump into it and don't be afraid to take a deep dive because it will work out.

All right, Fantastic. Well, Evan and Chloe, you are inspirational. You're only a year into this. You paid for flight school your first two deals, which is a great feeling to know that you got that investment back out. You've got passive income coming in. You're working five, 10 hours a week. What is 2020 going to be for team Chloe and Evan?

Well, right now we're at 2,500amonth in passive income. We've made it our goal to get to 12,000amonth in passive income by December of 2020. Chloe wants to go. Yeah, we're gonna have Chloe quit her job. Maybe not do the fish guts, maybe just break down some cubicles, but she's gonna jump full time into the business and I'll be shortly thereafter. Maybe not in 2020, but we shall see.

All right, well, we will be here to support you every step of the way. So now, as is the art of passive income tradition, we're going to put you two on the spot and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their business, improve their lives. What have you got?

Well, we each have a tip of the week. Mine, I like to keep things simple. My tip of the week is get an old fashioned piece of paper and Pen. I've got a little notebook. And Chloe and I spend 30 minutes each week, every Sunday, and we write down our goals for the week. On one side of the piece of paper we have our business goals and on the other side of the paper we have our life goals. And I keep that piece of paper on me all week to work at home. And it feels incredibly good to cross things off one thing at a time. And it feels really satisfying to see just, just one, how one small thing can make a big difference. And we've even taken a step further and we do this quarterly as well. So on our fridge we have one month at a time. So we've had say, October, November and December goals. Again, one side is life, the other side is work. And we just, we see it every time we go to the fridge and keep crossing one thing off.

I really like that tip, that reticulator activation sequence. When it's in your head, you see it everywhere and it's so much easier to be focused on accomplishing it versus not writing it down and having it vague. Chloe, what's your tip of the week?

So kind of going off of the same thing. A book that I read very shortly after we started this was Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. And that has like totally changed my life. He has always been a morning person. And I don't really like to get up in the morning, but we get up consistently now at 5:30 before we go to work. And it gives us time to work out, talk to each other, figure stuff out and then go to work so that when we come home we can work on a business together and be together instead of having other things that we need to focus on. So I cannot recommend that book enough.

Fantastic. Scott. Todd, the couple that works on passive income together stays together. Would you agree?

Okay, I'll go with that. I agree with that. Maybe we need some bumper stickers, huh? Yeah.

Yeah. So Scott, what's your tip of the week?

All right, Mark, so this is a book that I know that you, you have listened to. I am like going through it. I'm almost done with it. And it's great. It's a great book. I think everybody should listen to it. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. And the thing about this book is you think we all think that our message is being received or communicated properly or that worse yet that we're able to understand people. We're not. We don't understand people.

We.

Our messages are not being connected to people. Read the book or listen to it. You'll Find out why and I think it will improve your communication as well.

I love that audiobook. I do recommend the audio. This is one of those books that the audio is far superior to reading it And Scott, you know, I like to read both ways. I like to have the audio and the book and then listen to it on 2x and read it at the same time and immerse. This one I just enjoyed listening to. And Malcolm Gladwell is just a phenomenal narrator. That's a great tip. So, Evan, you're. You're shaking your head. You listen to it or read it?

No, not yet. Neither. I just wrote it down and I'm really excited to jump into it. I've gone through like 20 something books on audible this year. I absolutely love it. Actually, in the middle of the success principles, I love the, you know, the land geek reading list. And so I've just been going through that. I always love the tips of the week when it comes to books. So I'm really excited to read this one.

Okay, fantastic. Yeah, that's a great one as well. My tip of the week is learn more about Evan and chloe. Go to paradiseparcels.com and email them. Ask them about flight school. Ask them a question that I didn't get to on the podcast and have them give you the inside scoop of what we like to refer to as the DHR method of Scott Todd's flight school program. And you know, this patented method of getting success. So there you go. We're going to send you for free the 97 passive income lunch kit as well as the new whole tailing course. If you want to make 2020 the best year of your life, you want to follow in the footsteps of Evan and Chloe, Take massive action. Don't hesitate. Get on a call with the Zen Master magazine. Oh, the Nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Learn about flight school and the DHR method. Just go to thelandgeek.com Evan and Chloe, are we good?

We're good.

Scott, Todd, are we good? We're good. Mark, are we doing this all together?

Let's go.

One, two, three. Let freedom ring. See, Chloe? It's way more awkward in person, isn't it? Yeah. All right, well, thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Your story is so inspirational and I am hoping that we can beat the nuptials in a year from now.

A year and a half.

Year and a half from now, you.

Guys will be getting an invite to the wedding.

Phenomenal. All right, thanks, guys. Congrats.

Thank you.