How To Make The Pieces Fit For A Balanced Rich Life

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com and today's guest is Deep Rich, dare I say soulful. But before we talk to today's guest, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo calm. I'm loving land moto, by the way, Scott. It's like sale after sale after sale. It's pretty soon you're have land and farm people are gonna buy you out.

I'm hoping.

Let's not forget postingdomination.com landgeek Today's podcast is sponsored by TLFolio.com cash sell partial of your note to an investor TL folio.com Today's guest, Scott Todd is going to it's like, it's, you know, we don't have a lot of guests like this. Often they're just, he's just all about a richer life. Rocky Lalvani, the owner of Richer Soul.com and he wants to help people create fulfilling, meaningful lives they've dreamed about and walk them through the journey of shaping themselves in the people they want to be to help them more fully and lovingly support their families and communities and give glory to God. Virgin Soul is not a financial blog, although he talks about finances and money. It's about becoming rich, not just a money sense. It's about living a richer life so you can live your dreams without regrets or debt, provide for your children without worry, give to others in the ways most meaningful to you. Rocky Lavani, how are you?

Wonderful. How are you today?

Mark? I'm great. I'm great, and I'm really excited to have you on the show. And if you don't mind, let's just get into it. Let's just skip the pleasantries, Rocky.

Okay?

All right. When did you sort of come to this realization or have this epiphany that you could not only live a richer life, but you could help other people live a richer life?

I think it was probably about three or four years ago I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life, which was to help people come to grips with their money and get over the money scripts that they had and just live a richer life? It just amazes me. We live in a land of abundance and there's so much available to us, and yet there are so many people who aren't living an abundant life. And I'm like, something's wrong here. And so I'm trying to fix it by helping people. Just do that. Exactly.

Well, let's rewind the tape a little bit more. Let's go back three to four years ago. What were you doing and how did you find or come to this realization that people weren't living this abundant life?

I think I've noticed that people haven't been living an abundant life for a long, long time. When I was young, I had one simple goal in mind and that was I wanted to be a millionaire. And so I literally set up an automated savings plan to get me there. And along the way, inflation happened. And so million turned into 2 million, 2 million turns into 4 million, and it keeps going up like that. And I noticed people weren't talking much about money. And when you'd start having conversations with people, it was amazing that there were so many people who were making six figure incomes and had no savings. And it just kind of shocked me. And as I was thinking of what I wanted to do as I retired from my corporate job and start the next part of my life, a lot of soul searching and this kind of came to be. And so here I am.

And Rocky, what were you doing in your corporate job?

I was in sales. I sell biotech drugs. I've been doing that most of my life. I've been in sales in somewhere in the medical industry.

And how did you start sort of figuring out from that industry that people weren't saving money and sort of become like a financial blogger?

So in that industry, I'm calling on physicians who by and far make large amounts of money. But I noticed right out from the beginning, I mean, even when I was in my 20s, there were a handful of physicians who were money savvy. The majority of them probably spent way more than they made and they lived lives that were far bigger than their incomes truly were, and they weren't saving. And throughout my time, I would talk to a lot of different kinds of doctors and especially get a lot of time to talk to people who were finishing up their residencies and fellowships. And you would see the differences. You'd see, we would have, we just have casual money conversations. You can only talk, talk so much about the drug side. And the conversations would be, you're about to go out and make a very high income. If you walk out of here and you buy that big massive house and the big fancy car, you're going to go into immediate debt. And more often than not, in a couple of years, you may not even like where you landed. And now you're in A massive mess. Whereas if you just stopped and said, wait a minute, I'm going to kind of slowly ease into this. I've been living on next to nothing forever. I can live on twice what I was living. Save the rest and ease into this lifestyle. You'd end up with a ton more money and you'd be way ahead of the curve. And it's not just physicians who are doing this. It's people all over, professionals everywhere. I see this happen with. And it's a shame. And you look at the number of millionaires in the United States, there's something wrong. There should be so many more of us.

Scott Todd, I mean, I have a personal story about this as well with my, my lovely ego driven Parkinson's law of money. I don't want to go too deeply into that shame rat hole for myself, but we can talk about it. But Scott, I mean, as far as what Rocky saying, you are a lot smarter than me. Have you seen this in your own life with people?

Yeah, I mean, you know, like for me, I was given some good advice a long time ago, which was like, hey, whenever, because I too, Rocky, worked in a corporate role right up until about, I don't know, almost a year and a half ago, two years ago. And the thing is, is that, you know, I was always told like, hey, whenever you get a raise, you know, let's say you got a 3% raise, well, take one and a half percent of it and like split it with yourself. Like, okay, hey, I'm going to take half the raise and I'm going to go and I'm going to put the other half of my 401k. So you know, like if you, let's say you're putting away six and a half or six percent and you got a three percent raise, well then kick it up to seven and a half percent and then just keep pushing that.

All the way through.

And it's so easy to say that, right? It's easy to say it. The reality is, is that it's really hard to execute on it. But I can tell you like, Mark, like since since switching to like being my own boss, I have, since I've been taking money out of my own company for, you know, the year and a half to two years. I have continued to pay myself the exact same amount like every two weeks. I just take this amount as a pay paycheck. It's not like, when you think about it, like in the big scheme of things, it's not a ton of money. It really isn't but you know what? It allows me to live the lifestyle that I want to live, have money that's going right back into my business to grow it. So I'm investing in my future self, still continue today. And it's a happy lifestyle. It's not necessarily one where I'm driving around in a Maserati and living the fast life. I'm doing the stuff that our family is very comfortable. We have a good lifestyle. And I think that that's really kind of the abundance, you know, that we're talking about here. It's not necessarily this cash number that hits your bank account or, you know, that you can go out and you can buy all these cool toys. At the end of the day, it's not really. The toys are not going to bring you any type of satisfaction.

Yeah. And I tried it, and I was literally like Rocky's doctor. I was making a ton of money and spending it just as fast as I can make it. I thought I was being savvy saving, but I wasn't saving enough because I wasn't a doctor, and I didn't have a steady income. I was an entrepreneur. And then 2010 hit for me, and it was like, oh, better get rid of the big car. Get rid of the private schools, the nanny five days a week. The clean the house cleaner five days a week, you know, and it was a huge blow to my ego, but it forced me to really dig deep with my wife and my family, what's really important. So I want to pivot with Rocky when we go to richer soul.

What.

What are the things that you find? Because we clearly know money's not gonna make anybody happy. What does make people happy? What. What does fulfill someone's soul?

Well, I. You know, I think at the first part, you need to know your purpose. You need to have direction. Napoleon Hill wrote a book which was called Outwitting the Devil. A lot of people aren't familiar with it. I think it was written in 1937. They wouldn't let him publish it until long after he died. And what he basically said in that thing is that if you don't have a purpose, then you're in the drift. And when you're in the drift, your life kind of sucks. And if you ask people, say, do you have a written life plan? Do you have something? Do you have a purpose? Do you have direction? So many people, the answer is, well, kind of, maybe. Is it written down? No. When you have that, it gives you meaning, and it gives you something to work towards. And the Biggest thing I talk about is that too many people, I think, live life in silos. Everything is interconnected, and you have to look at all of these types of things. First and foremost, you need your health. If you aren't, you know, if you're not healthy, you'll give up all your money for health. To try and be healthy again, you've got to have great relationships and you've got to build those relationships. You don't take care of your wife, she walks away with half your money. And that year your business goes in the tank because you're fighting her. You're like, you know, again, screwed up spirituality. Just believing in something bigger than yourself and being connected to the universe and then constantly learning and growing and putting all those puzzle pieces together. I think a lot of times people make a decision and they don't see that if I make a decision here, it's going to have an outcome over there, and they don't take all of that into place. So it's looking at your life and all the different puzzle pieces and making sure that they're properly placed so you don't get out of balance.

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, there's a lot of people out there that kind of talk this talk, but they don't walk the walk. What is some of the worst advice you see or hear given in your area of expertise?

I don't know that it's the worst advice, but I think the biggest thing is people just take right an early age. They don't take the time to think and make a decision. I've got a daughter who's about to start college. You have kids going into college kind of thinking, I don't know what I want to do. Signing loans for 50, 100, 100, $50,000. They come out like, especially with the doctors. They come out with a degree, and a doctor can make a lot of money, but they never took the time to think, what does that really mean to be a doctor? And how does that affect my lifestyle? And then they finish this program and they realize, how did I get here? This isn't what I expected and this isn't what I wanted. So it's just taking the time to be intentional and thinking forward, what is it that I want and where do I want to go? You know, from where you live to the work you do to whether or not you want to have kids, all of those different things, you have to think about them and be intentional and purposeful in what you do.

Well, let's take Scott Todd as An example, right? I'm just going to pick on Scott because it's fun to pick on Scott. Scott, let's talk about your parents for a second. Right? I'm going to make a leap here. I don't know if I'm right or not, but I'm going to bet that growing up, they told you, number one, get a good education, number two, get a good job, and number three, money don't grow on trees. Right? Am I close?

All three are correct.

Okay, so somehow, how did you take that script and flip it? Because you live an abundant lifestyle, you are an entrepreneur. You are living the life of your dreams. You're not following that path.

Well, I think I did follow the path, right? Like, I did go to school. I did go to college. I, you know, I have the student loans to prove it. So I did go to college. I, you know, I went that path. I did get a job. I worked for a company, you know, worked. Worked 10 years for very large company and, you know, continued to work my way up, you know, and always had visions of, like, this larger career. We didn't have a lot of money. Like, we didn't like growing up. I didn't have a lot of money. And there were times even when my kids were born where, man, we were juggling just to keep the lights on in our household. You know, money was a struggle for many, many years. And I think that what happened was, you know, you just start having some success, right? Like, you start having some things connect, then you're able to, you know, it's. It's almost like a baseball game. And you, you hit. You hit the. You hit the ball, you get on first base, next guy gets up there. It's not. It's not all about home runs. It's a lot of singles that start coming in and a lot of. Lot of lucky plays. And then all of a sudden you. You're on this role where, you know, where the, the paycheck, the corporate job is enough to keep you happy. And then every time you stepped up with a new, new job, I mean, you. If you went out and spent all your dollars, you know, all your new newly earned dollars, well, then you were in trouble. But I always kind of. I was always proud, like, we're keeping our lifestyle exactly where it is and we have extra money and, you know, we continue to kind of hit, hit those singles and maybe every now and then a double. And then, Mark, I'll tell you, the biggest change for me was when I, When I realized that my corporate job was coming to an end. I. I went out and started looking for land. You know, for me, that was like, way outside of my own comfort zone, just to be my own boss. It's something that I always wanted to do. Like, always always wanted to do that. And when the bad news did come that are the good news, depending on how you look at it, that I was, in fact, outsourced. My job was outsourced, literally. I remember one of the first things my wife said to me is like, okay, well, where are you thinking you're going to look? And I'm like, I'm not. You know, I've already been looking. And it's right here. It's called land. It's called land investing. Right? So that's what we're going to do. And I showed her the numbers and she's like, okay, we can do it. And then, you know, kind of telling the family that it was kind of like, what, you know, like, what do you mean? You're not sending out resumes? No, man, look at this. And I had my collection of notes I was pulling out. I was probably showing everybody, like, you know, look at this one, look at this one, look at this one. All this money's coming in. Kind of felt like a. Like a Walter White moment. You know, I got all this money's coming in and, you know, we're gonna be okay. And sure enough, you know, that's what's happened. There's a little bit of a leap, a little bit of faith. But at the end of the day, you know, I think that if you prepare properly, like anything, you prepare and you, you. You're willing to make the sacrifice and you take the leap at the appropriate time, not too early. If you take that leap, the net will in fact appear rocky.

What do you think of that? Because you probably have a very similar trajectory with your own background, you could have, you know, kept doing your job, but you went out on your own.

So I haven't. I still have the corporate job. This is on the side. Full disclosure. And part of the reason why is because I expected a couple years ago to end up in that situation. It hasn't happened. So as long as it keeps going, it'll keep going. But I think it's right. He's right on the money. And I talk about that. I say, people should take leaps, but leap with a parachute. So eliminate your risks. Make the jump, but make sure you're jumping where you're not just going to fall out of the airplane and splat. Make sure you've got your parachute. You already, it sounds like we're doing the land investing. You were familiar with it, you were comfortable with it. So when it came time to make the leap, it was just, it was easy to do. And so you took the thoughtful steps up front. And I think people have to realize it is hard work. You've got to do the work and you've got to get into places that you're not comfortable and you've got to just keep going and trying. And over time, if you just keep doing those little small steps, they keep compounding just like the compound interest curve. One step leads to the next needs to the next and amazing things happen.

Mark, I think that one of the things, and like I see this when we do strategy calls, you know when, when a new coaching student comes in and we do the 90 minute strategy session with them and we talk about, you know, okay, well what are your goals, you know, like in the first three months, what are your goals in the next year? What are your goals two to five years from now? And one, I think it's people can easily see like the next 12, 12 weeks. Man, I'd love to do this, right? Like maybe a year from now, I'd love to have this, this is what I want. But in all of these sessions that I've done, there's, there's two things that, two patterns that you always see. The first 12 weeks and the first year is all about the dollars, right? Like it's all about the dollars. It's about, obviously it's about living today, which you have to do. But then in the next 12, in the two to five year window, what you see is, okay, when all of your dollar needs are met, when all your financial needs are met, now what are you doing? And the first thing that it's almost like very predictable. First thing someone would say was, oh man, I'm going to relax on the beach, I'm going to travel. How many times have you heard travel, Mark? Like we're going to, I'm going to travel. It's so predictable and you keep digging deeper. You keep digging deeper, deeper. Like okay, great, there's only so many trips you're going to be able to take a year. You're not going to be this, you know, this constant traveler, this world traveler non stop. It's just not going to happen. You know when life's going to get in the way and all these other things, what are you going to do? Oh man, I'm going to work on my business. No, the business doesn't need you for that time. If you've built it right, like you're, the business is going to run, you're not needed there, what are you going to do? And you keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper. And guess what, when you dig down deeper and then you start to get like all of these things that people want to do. There's a lot of good that people want to do when they have the time and they have the money. You know, it's not always about being self centered, but it really takes a lot of deep digging to get down to create that abundant lifestyle. The ability to give back. That's really the why, man. Like when you start to like, I want my time so that I can go do this, man, that one thing alone will propel you and move mountains.

And that's literally my client is right at that point where they've got money, they've built up success and they sit around and they go, I'm missing something. What's the next thing I want to do more? I want to give back. I want to be abundant. And that's the timeframe right in there. Yeah.

You know, it's so funny. One of my favorite quotes is from Tony Robbins. Suffering is an excessive focus on yourself. And you know, as soon as we stop thinking about ourselves, we start giving back to others. Life becomes very rich and purposeful and meaningful and abundant. It's an interesting thing, but I think, you know, I don't want to sound glib about it, but I think it's hard to do when you are living paycheck to paycheck. And it's hard to do when you're in this. Let's say, you know, you're the average of the five people you hang out with the most. And just take doctors, right? You know, Dr. A buys a Tesla, Dr. B buys a Mercedes GL, and Dr. C just bought a new house. And you're, and you're living way below your means, feeling like you're not enough. And you feel that pressure. I've got the money, I've got the money, you know, I deserve this, I should splurge on this. But there's part of you that's also like kind of fighting it in a way. Like, well, you know, so rocky kind of, you know, how does someone who's either A, you know, in that, in that sphere of keeping up the Joneses escape it? And how do they also get out of that fear of that fear cycle?

I think at some point you just come to realize that it's just kind of like that aha moment, you know, you're sitting there with your fancy car in your fancy house, and you realize this isn't cutting it. This isn't giving me the happiness I want. I'm spending money like crazy and things just aren't what I expected. And then that's when you have that introspective moment and say, what is important? Where does my happiness come from? It sounds like you went through that, you had all that stuff and you realized, this isn't it. I've been living. I guess we'll call it a lie in a sense. Not that you're living a lie, but that you were sold a lie of this is how we're supposed to be happy. And I think a lot more people today are making the choice to just say no up front. I know there's a whole group of the fire people who are way at the other end of the curve where they don't want to spend any money, and that's fine for them. I do want to have nice things. I don't want to live way, way below my means. But I think somewhere in there, if you can live below your means and be happy and grateful for what you have instead of always wanting of the next thing, then that's when you find that. That happiness. You're just content.

Yeah.

I mean, getting off that hedonic treadmill frees up so much energy, and it can really open up so many different avenues of your life, so many different arenas. And a lot of people are, I think, afraid in a way to get off that hedonic treadmill, or they just don't know any other way.

I think people are afraid, but again, it comes back, you know, if everyone around you is doing something, then you just kind of assume you're supposed to do it too. This is the way life is. And it isn't until maybe you meet somebody who says there's a better way and you start to see it that you realize there is a better way.

So, Rocky, I'm your doctor. I've been living, you know, way. I mean. I mean, I'm living above my means, but at my means. Right. I'm making $750,000 a year and I've got nothing in savings, but I've got a lot of. I look really impressive, right? But then I'm empty. So what do you say to me or Scott? Let's pick on Scott.

Scott. Sure, let's. The first thing I do is have people create a balance sheet, right? Run your life like you run a business. So put together a balance sheet. What do you actually own and what do you owe and what are your assets look like? So we know, here's a picture of where we are today. Here's what I have, money wise. Second thing we do is a statement of cash flows. Budgets are like diets. Nobody wants one. But a statement of cash flows tells me, where is my money going? So I'm spending all this money throughout the year. It's going to all these places. And then you sit down, say, are you happy with where your money's going? Are you, you know, is this what you expected? And I think first off, a lot of people are surprised with where their money's going. And second of all, when they sit down and they look at it, numbers to numbers, without all of the emotions in it, then you can make a choice. You know, I'm spending X on eating out. Do I want to spend 50,000 a year on eating out? Do I want to spend 50,000 on a car every year? Do I want to spend 50,000 on the nanny? And then you make choices. So it's not to say you can't do those things, but make the choice. Is this really what you want to do? And I think when people finally look at their numbers and see where their money's going, I think they're shocked. And. And when you start to say, this is where I want my money to go instead, and you start using it for what you want, it's so much easier to say no to what you don't want. And that comes back to having a purpose. What do I want in life? And when I go in and the shiny object shows up in front of me and I'm so excited about it, it's like, wait a minute, I said I wanted this, and this is what's most important to me. This is where I want my money to go, and it's not going to the shiny object. And I think that really helps.

Yeah, clarity of purpose is huge. And I just had. I actually just had this conversation the other night with my wife because we're kind of talking about what's, you know, as the kids get older, what is our priority right now? And, you know, we're looking at all these things and all these different options and what we can do. And, you know, she wants to, you know, know, get some new patio furniture, you know, some new bedroom furniture. And I said, okay, those things are great. There's nothing wrong with them. But is that really what's most important to us right now, like what is most important to us right now? And we both came to the same conclusion. Saving for the kids. College education is most important right now. And then it was very simple and no emotion to it. This is clear after that. Then let's talk about the patio furniture. Not a problem.

And it makes it a lot easier when you know what you want. It makes it easier to say no to the things that you don't want.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So Rocky, we're at that point now in the podcast where we're going to put you on the spot. But your mentorship has been phenomenal. This, this podcast. So we ask you for your tip of the week, a website 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?

So I think, you know, the most important thing is your health and taking care of your body. More and more they're saying that we are going to live to 90, 100. And if you're going to do that, you better do your best to take care of your body. And the number one way to take care of your body is to fuel it properly. And I'm actually reading a book, it's called the Plant Paradox. And there's a ton of stuff in this book about how things that we think are healthy aren't really healthy. Certain vegetables we think are healthy aren't healthy, certain fruits. And what's happened, I think over the years is our food supply has become industrialized and chemicalized and, and a lot of things have been done that probably aren't for our best health. But they do put money in the food producers pockets. And this book talks a lot about some very dramatic differences in what we should be eating and how we should be eating. So I'm about halfway through it and I've already started to change my diet. And a lot.

What have you changed? Because I'm ready to change.

So actually over the last five years, about five years ago, I lost about £50 and I have been able to keep it off. I do it two ways. One is through diet. And I eat a high protein, high fat diet with vegetables and I've gotten most of the way to my goal, but these last 10 pounds have been stuck. And some of the things they talk in this book, like I used to eat a lot of zucchini and he's saying zucchini is not the best for you. You should stick with broccoli and asparagus. And actually when I was losing weight, I was more focused on those veggies. So dropping that particular vegetable out of my diet. He talks a lot about lectins and there's a whole bunch of science and how it plugs up. It mimics and it plugs into your. Your cells and it affects the way that sugar is transported in and out and insulin affects your body. And so basically what he's talking about is staying away from foods high in lectin. And there's a whole bunch of other types of foods in there, and that's what we have to worry about. And there's a lot of lectins in grains and wheat and certain vegetables.

Very cool. Very cool. Now I'm not going to eat lectin. I love this, these, this protein cookie from Lenny and Larry. Now I don't know how to eat it. Let's see, it's got lectin, sunflower.

Lectin sunflower. I think. Yeah. So there you go. There's a lot. You know, protein bars are good, but some of them are filled with too much in the way of carbohydrates. The other question is, is the source of protein? These days our animals are fed corn to fatten them up, which isn't natural and it's not what the animals naturally eat. And now you're eating the unnatural animal. So I'm trying to clean up my diet. It's difficult.

All right, well, I like the tip, but I'm afraid that my meals with Mark will never be the same. Now, man, I'm not to worry about, like, Mark's dietary needs now when I plan a dinner.

Yeah, you know what?

Boot camp dinners.

Steak and broccoli.

All right, Mark. Steak and broccoli.

Grass fed steak.

Grass fed steak now. And you have to watch out because supposedly grass fed just means they were grass fed at some point. They may not have been finished with grass feet. They might have been corned up at the end, so.

Oh, great.

98% grass fed cow. All right, Mark, you ready for my tip of the week?

I am ready for your tip of the week.

All right, listen, I know you don't have this problem because the world revolves around Arizona time, But others of us have a problem with, like, trying to figure out what time is it somewhere else. And, you know, like, you might know the time zones or maybe you don't. It's okay. My tip of the week is designed to help you, like, answer that question. What time is it where Mark is? Or what time is it where my VA is? It's a nice cool app for the Mac because we know the world revolves around Macs. It's called flag times.com flagtimes.com it's like 99 cents you get from the Mac store and it goes up in your, your little bar there at the top. You're able to type in the city and it shows you the time in that time zone. So no more guessing. Like, so I don't have to worry about Mark anymore. I know what's exactly what time he's on.

Very cool. I like it. I like it. This is good. And this will be good for my narcissism because I always think everybody revolves around me.

Right?

That's what I'm saying. Like, you know, I, we all revolve around Arizona time, apparently, because, yeah, yeah, we all change except for you guys.

All right. Flagtimes.com My tip of the week is start living a deeper, more fulfilling life, a purposeful life. Go to richer soul.com richersoul.com learn more about Rocky there. He's got a podcast which yours truly was actually on. It talks about life, family, finances, tax services. He's got a coaching program. It's very cool. Richardsoul.com Rocky Lavany are we good?

We are good. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure to be here.

Thank you, Scott. Todd, Are we good? Mark?

We're great.

I want to thank the listeners and just remind them the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Rocky Lavany from richardsoul.com is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, get a rate, and you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support the landgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. Today's podcast is sponsored by TLFolio.com go on the site, start looking where you can invest your money and on notes or sell your note. Tlfolio.com all right, let freedom ring. Thanks, everybody.