How To Escape The Corporate Matrix—Creating Your Escape Velocity

Hey, it's Mark Podolski the land geek with our favorite niche real estate website, www.thelanegeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest simply because he shares so much with Scott Todd. But before we talk to our guest, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce the professor, the brain, the mini bat. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark? I'm great.

How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. I'm getting back into the whole Wim Hof thing. So Matt Forbes at boot camp gave me this book by his cousin Scott Carney. Whatever doesn't kill you. And it's like the whole thing about him going up Mount Kilimanjaro with, with Wim Hof with like no shirt on. And so now my wife thinks I'm crazy because I'm always cold. Like because I'm taking the cold showers and I go to hug her, she's like, you're freezing.

But I couldn't do it, Mark. I couldn't do it.

You're gonna do it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna motivate you.

That's ridiculous.

It's not, it's not. Well, I'll tell you what's ridiculous is how comfortable you are. You're too comfortable.

Too comfortable?

Yeah, too comfortable. It's not good. Gotta get out of your comfort zone. Alright, enough of my issues. Let's talk to our guest Paul Thompson from PaulDavidThompson.com he used to have a corporate day job. Now he's a full time real estate investor who lives to help others find their way. Scott Todd, does that sound familiar? Paul Thompson is turning his personal story of securing 20 deals in his first 18 months of investing into an inspiration to others. When Paul realized that the perfect time to start investing was never going to come, he just jumped in. Now doing about three deals per month, Paul is able to help himself as well as helping others build wealth and with passive income. Today we're going to learn how Paul acquires his sweetest deals through various networking strategies. He's going to share with us how you can enhance your communications to overcome the variety of challenges real estate investors face. Marketing sellers. In the digital age, it's all about having the right geeky tools. Paul Thompson's like our guy. So Paul how are you?

I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me today.

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. So, Paul, let's just rewind the tape and tell us a little bit about your. Your sort of metamorphosis, if you will, from corporate lackey, you know, free real estate investor.

Yeah. So I was probably. Like many people you talk to, we have the traditional American plan, or I had the traditional American plan, and I went and got a college degree and I got a job, and then my plan was over. And I remember thinking I was a little bit depressed when that first happened. I wanted. I wasn't sure what to do with my life anymore. Right. I was just kind of unfulfilled, unrewarded. But then you just kind of work your way into work and you find that that's not all that bad, and you just kind of do your thing. You start earning your paycheck and you get married, you have your mortgage or whatever, life goes on. And about 15 years into that, I realized that I was just. Just kind of trapped in this, what I call the real world matrix. I was exchanging my time for money. We all have these ideas and these visions and these hopes for something more, something greater that you could do, but you're confined by all this time that you're having to spend. And corporate America will just spit you up or chew you up and spit you out. They just. They keep pressing. And every year your benefits get a little bit less and you might even go up the corporate ladder. But I did that. I found out I was middle management and that I was climbing the. I was on the. On the ladder, but my ladder was on the wrong wall. And it just hit me. I was like, if I'm. If I'm ever going to do anything different, I've got to figure out a way to earn income that isn't completely dependent on me going into this corporation. Because I knew if I were ever to get laid off or my company were to get acquired that I would have to either move to a different place or change industries. So I just decided to change industries because I wanted to stay in Little Rock. This is home for me, where my family, my wife's family are from. And I don't want to move. It's important to me to be around the people that matter to me. And I didn't want that to be controlled by some corporation that I'm just a cold equation to.

Sky. Todd, does this hit home?

Yeah, I mean, it does. I mean, you know, like, I packed up and moved, right? Like, you know, I chased the dream and, you know, I think that what happens is, you know, like, for me, I went. I went through this period where, like, I. I didn't know what I wanted to be, right? Like, I didn't. Like, I was doing. I was doing the corporate job thing, and, like, I didn't know where I could go. Like, I didn't know what I could become. And, you know, I remember I was like, with this boss. Like, a boss is really good boss at one time. And he's like, you know, where do you see yourself in five years? And I'm like, I honestly don't know. And I'm like. He's like, really? I'm like, really? He's like, you don't have a career goal. I'm like, I don't know what I can do because. And I gave him all these other things. And he said, well, he's like, you could. You could have my job in five years. And I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, you could do it. And the mere fact that he believed that I could do it, all of a sudden, man. Like, I was a man on a mission, right? Like, I was. I was marching to, like, I'm gonna go do this. And so then I chased the dream, right? I moved multiple times to go chase that dream, because here's a guy that told me, you could be like me one day. And I'm like, that's great. So now I had a mission, I had a plan, and I went and executed on it. And then you get that. And it's funny because, like, I remember, like, okay, today, you know, like, today I got promoted to vp, and. And, like, literally nothing changed, right? Like, my life did not change.

You think that.

You think, like, okay, my life is going to change over this thing. And then you realize, like, your life doesn't change. It's. You're still the same person that you were. You basically have the same job that you had, right? Like, nothing, nothing else changed. You might have more responsibility. And then you've chased. What have you chased, right? Like, you've chased this magical mystery career thing. And at the end, as you said, when they're done with you, they're done with you. And that's really what I experienced was I saw the write on the wall, like, this isn't going to go well. You could start to see the signs. And I'm like, I better do something different. And to your point, like, there is no. No one's going to knock at your door one day and say, hey, I'm here to take you to your new career. You either have to like, say, this is what I'm doing, and you make the decision to split, or you wait until the man tells you, like, we're done, like we're done working together. And then all of a sudden, because you didn't prepare for that change, you now chase the next corporate job. Right. And it's. And I think that you have to make the decision, like, I'm done, right? Like, I'm done. I'm gonna go do my own thing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and Paul, I thought it was really interesting. Like you're like, I was in the, the corporate matrix, if you will. And I do think that for those of you that haven't seen the Matrix, it's basically about the story that it's in this sort of dystopian world and we're just human beings are simply batteries for the robots and a mentor, this guy Morpheus, goes and frees people's minds and, and they start living in the real world, which isn't so great, but they're free. So luckily for us, the real world for us is great. As opposed to what I would consider the cultural matrix, which would be mom and dad raise you to get a good education, get a good job, work those good jobs for, you know, 40 plus years, and then retire to Florida.

Right.

And die. So Paul, where were you on that cultural matrix where the level of difficulty to free yourself? Because like you said, you're married, correct?

Mm.

Kids.

Yeah, two kids.

Yeah, two kids, big. I'm assuming a mortgage.

Yep.

Yeah. So you've got responsibilities. Not like your 22 year old kid that can live on ramen and, and do a Silicon Valley startup. It doesn't go well, there's really not that big consequences. So how did you escape the cultural matrix, if you will, and take that risk and free yourself? Like, what were, what were some of the mindsets that you had to go and shift to? And was there any kind of catalyst? Like for me it was rich dad, poor dad. That kind of really helped me. For Scott, I was like his Morpheus because like I was able to quit my job in 18 months. He beat me. 17 months, three days.

I don't want to talk.

But so for you, what was it?

Well, I had a seminal moment when I was coming back from a vacation and I had to leave. We were there for 10 days at the beach and we considered the idea of staying longer, but I just shut it down because I had to go back to work. I had enough money, uh, My, my wife doesn't work, she stays home with the kids. And both my kids were off for school. It was summertime, so there was nothing that kept us from not being able to go other than I had to go back and check back into the Matrix. And, and so it like vacations are really just like furloughs from, from, from your, from your jail cell. And, and I just never ever wanted to have to ask permission of anybody else to spend more time with my family again. So that was the driving force between why I wanted to change things. But then I had to figure out how. So I went through the gambit of what are the alternatives. I considered starting a franchise or buying a franchise with my retirement money. I just looked through a lot of different options and the only thing that I came to that I could step my way into without taking a leap and having to build the plane on the way down was real estate. I could buy a deal and see how it goes, make a little money and then buy the next deal. And then I just kind of kept doing that. And with any sort of success it compounds when you get a little bit of momentum, each subsequent deal gets all the better. And so once you get those first few deals under your belt and you actually make money at it, then you really feel like you have a, the wind is in your sales and you can, things get much easier from there.

Alright, phenomenal. So what is your real estate model?

Mine's a single family buy and hold. I do a lot of other creative techniques, but that's the central pillar of passive income is from rental income or from interest, from money alone or from setting up notes in my either outside in my taxable accounts or in my self directed accounts.

Okay, great, great. What's some of the worst advice you hear given regarding buying and holding single family homes?

I think a lot of people confuse values of houses. When you're talking about single family houses especially there are two different markets. There's the market that most of us are familiar with that we go and buy and we use our comps based on what other people around us are buying it for. And that is not the market that you're in. That's the one you're competing with, but that's not the market you're in. When you're looking to buy properties, you're only looking to buy cash flow. That's all that matters. And so when people sometimes get confused, oh well, I'm this property I can buy for $100,000, 150, whatever, and I can rent it for 1800 and the mortgage payment is, you know, 1200. That's not really cash flow. Over the long term, if you're able to sustain the mortgage, you'll come out ahead, probably. But that's not cash flow. That's probably feeding an alligator for five or ten years before it ever wins at the end. And a lot of people get. They build a house of cards by paying way too much for properties that aren't based on the fundamental dynamics of what true free cash flow is.

Interesting, Scott. Todd.

No, I think you're right. I think that it's funny because, you know, like, I remember watching Carlton Sheets, right, Like back in the day, and Carlton was like, oh, man, all you gotta do is make a hundred dollars a month positive cash flow. And when you look at that like that, like you're set. Like you said, that's like a house of cards, right? Like, $100 a month on a house is not a lot of money, right? Like, that's not, that's not, that's not.

I don't know.

It. It seems like you got to buy a lot of houses, deploy a lot of capital to make $100 at a time. It doesn't work. And so you think, well, okay, well, over, over time, the mortgage will get, you know, the rent, rents will go up. There's no guarantees of that. Right. You know, there's. There's no guarantees of anything. So I think you're, you're right. You're. If you approach it from that aspect, you're. You're going to be in trouble.

Yeah. And that's actually how I would say I started. But that's, that's not the way I would recommend people starting. It's, you know, people get too hung up. And how many doors do you have or how many deals have you done? And that makes for good clickbait type marketing and interesting conversations. But then when you actually get somebody into the conversation you really talk about, it's about cash flow. It's not. I mean, would you rather have 10 doors that are completely paid for and making $10,000 a month, or would you really have a hundred doors that are. That are heavily leveraged and are only making you $10,000 a month? I mean, that doesn't. I mean, it doesn't make sense. I mean, it's more about that it's the cash flow that you have, not the amount of doors you control.

It's funny, I had a neighbor. I had a neighbor once that very. He's an older guy. Retired him. His Wife. And one day I'm talking to him like, hey, his name was Jack. I'm like, jack, what do you do for a living? You know, like. Or, you know, like, what? You know, like, I know you're retired, but what did you do? He said, oh, I was a. I was a real estate attorney. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And he's like, yeah, you know, I did it for many years. I'm like, well, did you, like, do you still do anything with real estate? He's like, well, the way I live today is back in the 2008 meltdown. You know, the financial meltdown. I went And I bought 15 duplexes for $75,000 a piece. And I'm like, oh, did you mortgage those? He's like, no, I paid cash for them.

Right?

So he waited till the market dip. He paid cash for them. And he's like, you know, after repairs, whatever, some management expenses, I probably make, you know, 700 bucks a month per unit, but there's no paying out to the bank, you know, like, it's all his. And it really just does make sense. I mean, like, you can go and you can get leverage to get the doors. And, you know, he's got 30 doors, but look at it. It's all paid off. Right. You know, and he's living. That money will come in for the rest of their lives.

For sure.

So, Paul, let's say that I always like to pick on Procter and Gamble. I'm sitting in my cubicle and Procter and Gamble and. And I'm listening to this podcast, and I'm like, well, I want to be Paul Thompson, but I got two kids, I got a spouse, and I've got a mortgage. I just can't quit. Right.

Right.

What would be your advice to that. That person as far as creating the right mindset to escape the matrix as well as get kids? How do you do it?

Yeah, you have to change this concept and this thought of that time is equal to money. That's a flawed mindset. Time is certainly valuable, in fact, invaluable. But when you are trapped in this matrix type thinking of always trying to exchange your time for money, it's a losing proposition. You have to figure out how to make money when you're sleeping. If you can go to bed each night and wake up the next morning a little bit richer, then that's how you're going to get ahead. And you have to figure out a way to replace your earnings now with some sort of other income that's passive. Now, it may not be passive to begin with. It takes a lot of effort on the front end, I use the term of creating your escape velocity. You want to get out of the gravity well of the Earth's orbit by doing a lot of effort on the front end. But once you get out of the Earth's orbit, then it's very easy to maintain your height. That's what you got to do. You got to launch a business, you got to start some sort of investment, you got to do some sort of side hustle that, you know, start with and in mind where when you get there, you will have some sort of residual streams of income. I mean, I mean, I don't care about the asset class you're talking about. Figure out something that you can understand. Invest in yourself and start. And start investing so that you don't have to be invested with your time all the time.

I love it. I love it. So let's get geeky, Scotty. I know this is gonna make you happy. All right, let's talk about some of the right tools to start finding real estate investors in the digital age and sellers in the digital age. What are your favorite geeky digital tools right now?

Was that to Scott or is that to me?

Oh, no, that's you. I know what Scott's favorite are.

You know what his. So is this the tools to find other investors or to find. To start your business?

Either one.

Okay, well, one of the, I'll give you kind of a technique that I don't think a lot of people are figuring out yet. Craigslist is a lot of places where people go to get free leads. Craigslist is getting really scammy. And so I suggest that Facebook is actually taking over the place. Facebook Marketplace and Facebook messenger is the place to be right now to find really anybody you want. But whatever business you're in, but specifically in, if you're looking for motivated sellers, a lot of people are out there. And if you're putting a message out there in Facebook Marketplace on your profile page and on Facebook messenger that you're in this business of buying and selling real estate or doing land or whatever your niche is going to be, put it out there and use Facebook messenger to send follow up message to people. You can automate this with very. It's very inexpensive to do so to hire somebody or you can figure out how to do it yourself. And more people will answer a Facebook messenger on their phone faster than anything else. It is the single best way to reach out to people these days.

Facebook Messenger. Scott. Todd, what are your thoughts?

I mean, you know, I. I still do a lot with Craigslist, and Craigslist, you know, does have a lot of. A lot of spammers. I think it really is the market, you know, like, you know, I. If you're looking for people that are going to sell you properties, like, you know, I've never really tried. I mean, I shouldn't say I have tried this to post, like, ads out there. Say, like, I buy land or whatever in different cities. I don't really get a lot. A lot of responses back on that. And probably in that aspect, Facebook is good. Where I get a lot of pushback on Facebook is when you try to sell. People just want to hate you, man. Like, social media, to me, is not very social. It's kind of like antisocial. They just want to hate on you. Lots of haters there. So I think it really. I think it depends on your market and your effort and kind of the approach that you take, but not a bad idea.

It is about the approach. I agree with you. You cannot just. You don't want to be spammy on Facebook because then people just unfriend you. You want to turn around and figure out what the other person wants. Your lead with service. How can you help somebody? I'm looking to help somebody find some. Find some raw land for a cabin in the Ozarks. You know, anybody who has anything like that out there for sale, that would be a good way to get started.

All right, fantastic. Fantastic. And I'm from St. Louis. I love the Ozarks.

Yeah.

And I love the show Ozark, which, by the way, is not really filmed.

In the Ozarks, is it not? I love that show.

It's in Georgia, but it looks just like the Ozarks.

It does.

All right, let's not get off topic here, because, Paul, we're at that point now in the podcast where we're gonna put you on the spot and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

Well, I would say it's a book that has not gotten enough attention that I think it's worth. This is what Called the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Have you guys heard of it?

I have heard of it. Yeah.

Yeah. It is probably in my business now. It is probably the book that has kind of allowed me to break through that. It's given me the vernacular for the limiting Beliefs that we have that are upper limit problem. So if anybody else is having trouble thinking, thinking big enough or when they do, they self sabotage. That might be a good book to help work through what's going on in your, in your inner psyche that's keeping you from taking your, your next big leap.

Wow. All right. It's a New York Times bestseller. How to go beyond your internal limits, release outdated fears and learn a whole new set of powerful skills and habits to liberate your authentic greatness. Fans of Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson and Gabriel Bernstein will discover the way to break down the walls to a better life. You sure this isn't too woo woo, Paul? As soon as I see Wayne Dyer, I started thinking woo woo.

Yeah, he's pretty woo woo out there. But yeah, no, I would say he has this thing about Einstein time that's pretty woo woo that I'm not sure I really follow. But what he does is he gives you these vernacular for this idea of how many times have you been in a situation where you knew you could have done something but you just have these inner doubts. And he refers to it as the like your inner thermostat that you're, psychologically you feel uncomfortable so you try and protect yourself and it's self sabotage that we do for some reason that I'm not even sure I understand. And then he also has this concept of zone of working in your, your zone of genius. Most of us are working in our zone of competence or excellence and not in our zone of genius.

Well, how do you get to your zone of genius?

You got to read the book and go through the process of asking yourself what actually lights you up?

Okay, I like it, I like it. Scott, Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Oh, man. So Mark, I am now beginning to migrate over to a service called Live Agent. So it's LA Desk dot la, like Live Agent Desks.

Calm.

And basically what this thing does is you know, you, I know you know about you. Unicom, right? So I think of like Unicom, I guess, if you will. But the thing is, is that what's cool about this is that you can bring in different, different types of chat all into one dashboard. So you take your social media chats and you bring it into one dashboard. All my texting that I do in my business, like all these numbers I have for texting, I bring it into one dashboard. It all comes into the LA dashboard. And also you can get a widget so that when someone's on your Website, of course they can chat. And it all comes into the LA Dust dashboard. And so it brings in multi, multi communication channels all into one. Check it out.

So now wait, who answers the call?

My team. My team.

Okay, so your team goes in here, logs in and it's all in one place. So instead of them logging into Facebook or Gmail or whatever.

Yeah, it brings it all in together. Brings it all into one and it's pretty cool.

And starting my free trial, if you.

Act quickly, you can go to Appsumo and you can pay like $59 for, for two for lifetime.

Oh, I'm gonna do it right now. I love Appsumo.

Check it out.

Alright, so I'm gonna sign into my. Then I just go to my login.

Here, sign in to App Sumo.

Yeah, and then, yeah, you gotta find.

It for sale on Appsumo and then buy it there.

Oh, here it is. Don't let your. Wait, hold on. I'm already in there. I'm gonna browse. Paul, this stuff's great. This is. I mean, I buy things on Appsumo I don't even use. Just in case. One day.

Just in case. Yeah.

All right, so here's Live Agent. Learn more. All right, I'm clicking buy now.

If I could just send you affiliate links from Appsumo Mark, I'd probably be able to.

No, it's great. Secure checkout and it's done. I've just, just bought it. That was easy. Okay, so for those of you that don't have an App Sumo account, please get it. It's really easy. They've got amazing deals. You just never know. And like, I know for me, like I was paying monthly for Slide Mean and then they had an App Sumo deal for a lifetime. I just did it. Shout out to nine for finding that for me, Paul Thompson. Guess what? As good as a tip of the week was for Scott Todd, I think I still have the best tip of the week. Learn more about Paul Thompson at Paul David Thompson.com Paul David Thompson.com and see if he can actually be your Sherpa to help you unplug from the corporate matrix. I also want to just thank all the listeners and remind them the only way, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Paul Thompson is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got a rate, you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandgeek.com we're going to send you for free our $97 passive income launch kit course. And also, I just want to remind everybody, today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. Have Scott Todd be your Sherpa up the land investing mountain. He'll get you there quickly, safely, efficiently. You won't freeze to death. It's amazing. Learn more. Just go to thelandgeek.com training schedule. Call with the Zen master, Mike Zano, or Scott the nightcapmeister Bossman and Paul Thompson. Are we good? Good to go.

Thanks so much.

Scott Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

All right, thanks, everybody. And let freedom ring. Thanks, everybody.