Learn How to Run Four Businesses without Yourself

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, the language.com. and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast, how would you like to learn how you can run four businesses without yourself? Because my guest today, Jim Manning, who is the CEO of Doorway Properties and the host of the Passive wealth show, has founded two real estate funds and three real estate companies. Jim and his team have successfully closed over 3, 500 deals. And again, he has strategies to run all these businesses without him. Jim Manning, welcome.

Mark, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm, I'm so excited. The, the listeners should know that we grew up five minutes from each other in St. Louis. So we'll try to stay on, on, you know, on track and be focused about real estate and passive income. But we might throw in a few St. Louis nuggets here and there, maybe a few Easter eggs for those of you from St. Louis. But Jim, let's just, let's just skip the pleasantries, right? Like, I know that you worked for a billionaire. Tell, tell me about that.

Yeah, so I had an internship out of college, and this guy, you know, when I met him, he said, hey, Jim, why don't you fly on my private jet? I'm like, well, that's cool. I'm used to drinking beer out of a keg at the, in my college Animal House dorm room. I can fly in a private jet, too. That sounds pretty amazing. And so flew on his private jet, started drinking thousand dollars bottles of champagne. And this, by the way, was in 2006, when you could remodel an entire bathroom for two grand. That's what I first budgeted in my bathroom remodels at, so pricing, you know, a thousand dollar bottles of champagne at the time, man, I'd imagine they're, you know, $10,000 now that we were drinking. But so I started idolizing this guy because of that and all the bells and whistles that he had. And it was an amazing opportunity because I saw that, hey, this is just a guy shaking my hand. He's not using big fancy words or anything like that. He didn't have an Ivy League education. And what he did, though, was he started a business and got really good at it and succeeded and built up a billion dollar empire. Right? And that was the moment where I realized how amazing of a opportunity that, that America has for all of us if we're willing to show up and put in the work.

No, absolutely. So when, when did you say, okay, I'm working for the self made billionaire. I'm going to start going and becoming a real estate investor.

Yeah, so, so it was a neat experience because I could see what happened or like what you can do on your own. And that was, it was a short lived, a short lived internship actually. And I ended up getting a corporate America job after the internship ended and I realized, wow, like this isn't going to make me a billionaire. I feel like I'm working for the man, pushing paperwork and what I do is not important. And I, I fell in love with the idea of real estate because I thought well, if I buy a house that needs work and the family can't live in it, I can create a home for a family by fixing it up and I can make quite a bit of money as well if I do it right. So fell in love with the idea of real estate investing and, and got into it with, you know, was very fortunate still. My business partner Ryan was already in it and he had a couple high net worth individuals that were willing to lend us some money to be able to do these property flips. And so we had a couple financial backers and, and started doing some deals over the course of time and, and you know, started out slow. I did one deal my first 18 months and you know, fast forward to, let's see about eight years later. We did 250 flips in a year, you know, and you know, We've done over 100 deals a year since, you know, for the last decade plus on the investment side. And then we've had a, and that's just on the flips but we've done wholesales and we've done a lot of different other strategies too where all the deals combined pile up to the 3, 500 plus.

Yeah, yeah. So where does the passive wealth come in when you're such an active investor?

Oh, that's right. Yeah. So I, you know what was funny is, is I was, we had these high net worths that were lending us money and to me it was like a means to an end. I loved it because If I got 100% of purchase and fix up the amount of deals I could do was only limited amount of money I could raise from people. Right. And so for me it was a great deal as like a, as a hustle partner. But you know, so we just by happenstance talked in some people to be our money partners. Right. And so then we're doing all these deals and building it and then I started doing the math and realizing, wow, there's people that, there's several people that are generating millions of dollars a year passively through our organization and they're doing it from their couch without doing any of the work. And yeah, I'm working my tail off, but my partners that are funding this whole thing are able to do it in a way that, you know, they, they wrote a check and, and that was it. And it didn't matter if the deal made money or if it lost money because they were debt partners. They were able to receive what their promised return was the whole way. So, so I kind of accidentally stumbled upon being able to create passive wealth for people for selfish reasons, I guess just for a means to end for me. And then it was like, oh wait a second, like, like we're pretty good at this. We've been able to help a lot of. And you know, it just goes to show what they teach you at school on, you know, like what you learn is like, hey, if you, if you want to be good success, you have to like know what all the answers are. You can't collaborate or talk to anyone because it's cheating. Right. And it just goes to show that when you learn how to collaborate properly with other people, you can create passive mechanisms. Not because real estate in and of itself is passive, it's because if you have the right collaboration, it can be made passive. And I know Mark, it's. You have kind of a similar thing going on with, with your land geek too. I know where you guys have a done for you product too, where you're making it passive, but it's not passive at all for, for yourself operating the team. Right?

Right. No, absolutely. I mean, you know, we try to make it as passive as possible with systems and op, you know, automations and, and that piece. But you know, passive is such a funny word because ultimately if you think of passive as not having to do something, it's not, that's not what I think of as passive because there's nothing. Even if I inherited a billion dollars, I, I still have to do something with that billion dollars. So nothing is 100% passive. But when I think of passive it means that I've done the upfront work so that the work that continues doesn't need my continual involvement. And that's what I love about real estate and land is that it's a one time sale and then we get that recurring income every single month but we don't have to deal with the renters and the rehabs and the renovations and roads. And I imagine that your model is Similar as well, where you have a team that's really operating and doing the work. When you and your partner are strategically being the CEOs and looking for the opportunities, you know, finding where the critical bottlenecks are and.

Yeah, that's right.

And growing.

Yeah, that's right. And like even if you like so like the really high net worth individuals, your top half of a percentage that have 100 million plus net worth, like Mark's absolutely right. Guys like, like that's a full time job to manage that money if you're going to do it by yourself. And they call it family offices. So what's natural is that an individual that has that much high of a net worth will, will hire people work for his family office and then they'll do the work and make it more of a passive thing for the family. But it's through the leveraging of other resources that you can create these passive mechanisms. But it's, you know, you need, you know that's really kind of the great truth and the great lie of real estate as you have a lot of gurus online talking about passive income. And I promise you there's nothing passive about it. Even if you hire a property manager like they still have to say hey, the tenant did some damages, are you okay with these repairs? And you know like there's still like a level of monitoring that's needed if you're able to outsource it and get all the right other partners with you or you can find the marks of the world or the gym mannings of the world who have an entire team set up to make, to make it a passive investment. But it's, you know, it's, I promise you and knowing what, what our team does and you know we have 30 plus people, it's not passive at all. Like you have to monitor it and really be on top of it. Right. So you know like it's, it's, it's true. You can develop passive income. Mark was sharing a story earlier. We have a mutual friend the wealth without Wall street guys that are generating more money than I don't know like 95 of of people in the the nation passively through his land geek program. Right. And but it's, you know, for them it's passive. But Mark's team's doing a lot of amazing things for him.

Right. So it's not. Yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, someone's doing the work. Exactly right. Exactly right.

So you have to get for this idea of like well it needs to like as me as the guy, like, I thought, like, I. Jim Manning, I had to be the guy that had all the answers. I had to be the guy that knew how to do all of this. And. And, you know, I. I think if you can get over that ego part of us and get into the. Well, no, I. It's not necessarily me. It's. I need to know how to find the guy. I need to find my who. You know, Dan Sullivan has a great book that. It's the who, not the how or.

Yeah, who know how. I have.

And so, like, you know, how do you get good at working and collaborating with people and finding them?

Yeah. Yeah. So, Jim, what. What is your tip for finding good who's.

Oh, is this the tip of the week?

No, no, just. No, that's not the tip of the week.

Okay. I'm gonna need another one.

Okay.

So. Okay. So what I have found is when you're working with someone and you're looking to partner, there needs to be two things. There needs to be, like, a personality and a value fit. That's step one, right? Like, on that your core values are aligned. But then the other step is there needs to be a true business synergy behind it. All right, so let's get into the first part. And what I mean by core value is I have a mentor that I said, hey, I don't hire anyone. I'm not willing to have a beer with them on an off day. Like, I need to be able to connect and like. Like be okay with them. And. And I go a little bit deeper than that. It's. It's. Yeah, you need to be able to communicate and get along with the person, but also, like, who are they going to be? Like, when your back's turned, are they the type of person that's going to stab you in the back, or are they the type of person that can. When your backstor, they can build you up and help you be better, you know, like, so from a value standpoint, like, you really want to be connected and have that trust. And trust isn't just their character. It's their competency to how good they are at something. Right? So. So there's that piece, and assuming that you have that. That fit, then the second piece of it is synergy. And so Ryan Wessels is my business partner. We actually became friends in high school. We were baseball teammates. And after college, we started coaching baseball together. And, you know, then we started doing deals together. I got into. I fell in love with the idea of real estate investing, and he was Already doing it. And so like, like he was able to kind of bring me in and show me the ro. I very much my personality is, I'm a pretty nice guy. I like to connect, I like to build rapport. I don't like to ruffle feathers as much although as I get older I'm getting a little bit more crotchety. I don't it as much anymore because we've seen a lot, we've gone through a lot. But Ryan very much is like the bulldog, right. And like you don't, you don't want to mess with Ryan. And you know we naturally as 23 year olds when we were just learning the business we were able to play good cop, bad cop really well and like you know, play like little things like that to offset some of the deficiencies we had on our skill set. But there, but we, we were friends and had that value fit and had the shared love of, of baseball and the Jesuit education talks about for the greater glory of God all the time. So we had, we had that commonality at our core. But then also we're like a yin and a yang. Very different skill sets. We're good at very different things. And unfortunately a lot of the times you have the like your friends and like your, the people that you connect with the most are just like you like Jim Manning could not be a good business partner with Jim Manning. If I had, if I had a twin that would be a nightmare of a business relationship and we, we wouldn't do all that well. But Jim Manning or Ryan Wessels, yeah, we can build some companies and, and do some deals together, right. So and then on another example of synergy is I had a lot of time from a middle class family guys and a huge blessing was that I started with a zero dollar net worth after college better than what most people get, right. But somehow my grandparents and my parents were able to scrape together and I got out with the $0 with, with $0 of student debt. And so I had money but I had a lot of time right. You know, being 22 years old and our initial partners, very successful business people, they had a lot of treasure but they didn't have any time because they're still busy at, at they're, they're both retired now and financially free but they, you know they've been with us now since the beginning over know since 2006. But it was, but that also was a synergy because we were able to structure a win win where hey, we're going to do 100% of the work, you provide 100% of the capital. And we're going to do some things together. Right. And that builds over time. But, but there was that, that synergy that happened and not only skill sets, but in that case it was a synergy of needs and what each, probably what each partner was able to bring to the table. And you know, that's, that was a beautiful day when we figured out, man, we, we just raised more capital, we can do more deals. And, and we were able to, you know, fast forward to today. It's been 41 million of capital raised for all the deals that we do over the years. And it's been good.

That's a lot, that's a lot of homes, Jim. And yeah, and that's, that's, that's really great insight. I, I, I love the fact that you're, you're looking at synergy but not your doppelganger. Right. Like you and I wouldn't make good partners who, I'm very similar to you.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. But, but it's good to have that self awareness and it's good to know that. And oftentimes people early on in their career will jump too quickly to a partnership and it's somebody, they could just have a who and not give up the equity. So it's really, it really depends on, on a lot of different factors. And I would certainly recommend dating before you get married because like Jim said, you truly won't know someone's character until you hit that bump in the road. And then is that the person you want in the foxhole or is that person not going to be in the foxhole with you? And, and you won't know that initially. So it, it does take time.

Need to have a fight?

Yeah, you need to have, you need to have a fight, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I, so Mark, I'm glad you brought that up too. Like, as far as our story goes, when we brought in the, the money partners, they actually were not equity partners. They didn't have a stake in how well we did on our deals. They were debt partners or they were lending us money and we had a promised return that we would give them an interest rate for their money. And, and we were able to grow it because we hit, we hit the promised return 100 of the time. We have our entire career since 2006 and like if we made a lot of money on the deal that we got upside, if we messed up and we lost some money on the deal, like, like we still would pay the promised Return to the partners. And so, like, like, you can also partner with people in ways that isn't necessarily bringing them on as an equity partner. Right? Like, you can just bring on, bring on some debt. And, and for these high net worths that we brought on, they, they love that arrangement because they're viewing it as a passive income mechanism. They didn't have to do any work. And that, you know, has been 100% predictable for. Since 2006, however many years that is now.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, you know, 2006, we got a really hot market. 2007, it's feeling weird. Then we have the Great Recession in 2008. How did you guys navigate that?

So I, I, what's interesting about it is I had so much. I got so much grief from all my friends. And, like, why are you, like, interested in real estate right now? Like, what? Like, it's a bloodbath. I was like, well, like, I want to get excited when other people are fearful. And fearful when other people are excited. Like, that's a Warren Buffett quote. Right? Like, right. Like everyone's getting scared. Well, this is an opportunity for me to learn the craft and get good at it. So when the market rebounds, like, I'll be able to go on a nice little run. And that's, that's really what we were able to do. And the crazy part about my story, Mark, is I had a moment where at the beginning of it, I, I had, like, a vision of what I wanted. I wanted to be married with kids, be in a nice house, have a business that's really running and operating where it's not so reliant on me. And, you know, to be honest with you, we. We had a lot of ups and downs. It wasn't a perfect journey. But I remember in 2018, I got there and I'm. I woke up one day and I'm like, well, hey, I'm, like, living what I originally dreamed, and I'm still. There's a piece of me missing. I'm still not all the way happy. I don't know if you've experienced that, Mark, before or not, but, like, like, it floored me, man. I was like, thinking, like, hey, I, like, this was what I dreamed of. And I thought, well, if I get to this, then I'll be like 100 fully happy. And realizing that I wasn't, oh, man, it took my, my breath away. And just, like, it took me a long time to, like, realize fully what was going on and what I was missing. And, and the wild part about it was like, like I was living an overall great life. Like I had, I had the kids and my family life was fantastic, the investments were fantastic. And yet I had this nagging little thing like I'm missing something and I just couldn't get my mind around it. And I couldn't understand why every time we hit a goal, we would just raise the bar up and be so fixated on what the next goal was that we. Like, I didn't know how to actually celebrate the achievements. And you know, I was becoming really resentful about where I was at. I mean, have you ever experienced that before? Am I just like insane?

Well, I, I think, I think what you're describing is the human condition. At least in the, at least. I think in the United States, maybe other countries, it might be a little bit different where there's, it's, it's not as individualistic and it's, it's more of a collective. When I, when I think maybe of Asia, but let's, let's just say, you know, the Western world, where it's more individualistic. I went through that myself where it's, you know, I actually write about this in Dirt Rich, but there was a great book by David Brooks called the Second Mountain. And I think what you're describing is the, the first mountain dilemma that we all go through, especially when we're younger, our 20s to maybe midlife, where we, we want to, you know, get the house, we want to get the good education, have the kids, have the family, and if we're lucky, we get to the top of that mountain. You know, we, we, you know, we, we've achieved. And then we realize, oh my gosh, it's, it's just empty. And, and then you go on that second mountain, which is more other based. It's about purpose, it's about vocation, it's about community, it's about love and intimacy and it's a harder mountain to climb, but it's, it's way more fulfilling. And I think that, you know, for me personally, I, I do, I do have that struggle where the half life of anything that I, any goal I achieve is so short. And then it's like, wait, that was right. It doesn't last very long. And then do I have enough self awareness to realize, okay, am I, am I moving the goal posts? Why am I moving the goal posts? Am I running a race? I even want to win? And having that skill set of I want to achieve, I want to do well for others, but I also want to be Happy. And I think it's two different skill sets. And I often think about a duck where can I be calm and serene above the surface and yet fiercely paddling below and striving. And I think it's, I think it's really one of those things that is difficult. I have a meditation practice that has sort of helped me anchor into that, but on a day to day basis I think it's, I think it is the human condition that we all, if we're lucky enough, we experience where we hit that goal and then we're like, we realize, oh my gosh, you know, when I got that, it didn't. The half life on that happiness was so short.

Yeah. You know what guys? Like, if it's okay, I can just share with you guys like my truth and what happened on, you know, so this is in the last five years, this all started happening to me. The, you know, starting a business is like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where you got the big ball that's like going to squish you, right. And you as quick as you can. But then one day you look up and you realize there's not a ball there anymore. It's like, well, what. There's so much fear based energy of like, like getting squished and not wanting to get squished that then at some point it's like you wake up and you're like, oh wait, like, well, that I, I don't, I can't use that as motivation anymore. Right. And then it becomes like, yeah, is there something that can pull you towards a greater day? Can you be 100% motivated and happy with where you're at or 100% happy and content with where you're at and 100% motivated to, to be paddling like the duck does underneath the surface? And, and so what happened to me is I would write like a gratitude journal. I read somewhere, oh, you have to write five things you're happy about every day. And I remember writing, doing it for like a month or two months, being like, this is, this is what I thought. This is effing ridiculous. Like, I, I don't, I'm right in all this, but I have, there's no contentment and there's no happiness.

And.

And I think, you know, like, and then, so then my journey became interesting because like, I, I don't think I could have gotten out of it on my own. And like I, I, and I have a, he's an now a business partner. But Jason Courtney came into my life and he said hey, well, you guys are doing a lot of deals, but like what, like are, are you doing something that has impact? And I thought about it. Well, like, you know, for the greater glory of God was like the original purpose, right? Like to make money and to honor God and, and at that point in my career, it wasn't about that purpose at all. It was about for the greater glory of money and the greater glory of Jim. And what I was missing at that point was that higher calling. And he said, well, I have a homeownership program where we can help people. And I said, well, okay, well what do you want us for? He says, well, you guys know how to do hundreds and thousands of deals. I've been working on this for eight years now. I have like a kind of a cool thing going. Why don't we partner on a deal? And so we did the crawl walk run, we partnered on a couple deals and then I won't forget it. One of our clients in the first couple deals we did was in a domestic abuse situation and her ex husband was so controlling, she wasn't allowed to open up a credit card. No credit card means no credit score. And a shelter connected us with her and said, hey, we need to get her away from, from this abusive relationship going on. Can you guys help? Luckily we had a house, but when we looked at everything that she had going on, it's like, well, you're a teacher, you're making quality money. You have. She was able to save money on the side so she had a savings. It's like you can afford a home. You just don't fit a traditional lender's box because you don't have, you have a non existent credit score. Well, like, like I believe in the American dream and I believe like homeownerships, like is one of the most important things we can foster and do for, for people. And so we said, well, why don't just be a homeowner, we have a program for you that Jason created. And so when we got her in and we started having other feel good stories like that, it was like, okay, all right, I get it now. It's like I need to let this for the greater glory of Jim thing go. I need to get re back centered and, and acquainted with, you know, with my faith and with a higher calling and, and, and hey guys, if you're not there on the spiritual front, no judgment for me, I, I did the wrong way for a long time or, or whatever, you know, like.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that, and that is in the second mountain. I did forget to say faith and spirituality is on that second mountain because it is, it is. You do have to do something that's bigger than yourself. And so that checks off all the boxes when you have faith, spirituality, purpose, community, vocation, love, intimacy, it's all other focused and where the first mountain is egoic. And yeah, I think that your story really hammers home that point that you know, why are we doing this? And at some point you do realize that it can't just be for the money. The money is just the, the byproduct of the value that you're creating. And once you've done hundreds and thousands of deals, the again, you know, you don't feel it anymore. And but when you take somebody who's in an abusive relationship, they have to live in a shelter and you take them out of that situation because of your efforts, your skill set, the value that you've created, no amount of money can absolutely substitute for that feeling and that joy of literally transforming somebody's life and then them going out and creating more value, being a better teacher because they don't have to worry about the stress of living in a shelter. And so it ripples out and so that work then becomes so much greater. And whether it's for, you know, the glory of God or your spirituality, it's, it's something so big that you, your, your passion for it never diminishes.

Right? Yeah. And Mark, so here's the crazy part about it is like 2006 is when Simon Sinek's start with why it came out. And I think that's like also why I was like oh well real estate because I can fix things up. And like, like I intellectually knew that having a purpose was important and I was almost like I was living a lie when we started just driving revenue and I was in denial about it or like I, like, like I knew but I didn't understand it or I didn't understand how my impact was with it. And my words fail me here on it. But there's a difference between like reading a textbook on free throw shooting and understanding how to really be a world class free throw shooter. And what I found was like that that was part of, that was really part of my journey and I wish I didn't have to like struggle as much as I did to understand that sometimes we're so thick headed right? But, but like I've been so blessed these last few years with, with a lot more joy and contentment and what I found is like now that the Ball's not there. Like, I'm every bit as motivated as I ever was to, to make an impact. And it's really aligning, you know, like what. There's that quote when we want to align our thoughts, words and actions together. Right. And. But it's having that true alignment. Not, not an alignment that's like a guy going to church on Sundays and then lives a corrupt life the rest of the week. Or like an investor that says they're a Christian, but then they go and invest in things that are contradictory to Christian values. How do I align everything? And actually I got asked to speak at a C suite conference for a national organization a couple weeks ago on this topic of how do we align our faith and our investments together or our values, our investments together and have it, have it all be in sync. And when I got into more of an aligned phase in my life, what I found is like a lot more joy and, and a lot less, A lot less ego around it and, and not like having to have the desire of Jim Manning being the guy or Jim Manning having the idea. You know, when I have other people that are brilliant on my team that can provide every bit as good of ideas as I can now. Right. Like, you know, it's. It's been a journey to kind of like open up my eyes and my heart to that. And my goodness, it's been worth it. It's. It's been amazing. You know, hopefully this is helpful to you. Hopefully there's people listening in that, that, you know, if you're going through it, keep going. I know, but it's part of the journey, you know.

Yeah, it's part of the journey. And I think if you're lucky, everyone will experience it at some time and, and go through that, that maturation process. Typically it happens in midlife. So if you're younger and you're listening to this, you're probably thinking, well, I'm not there yet. And that's okay. I think it's important to have that identity, to have that ego and then dissolve it and, and it's okay. So I think it's, it's to have that, that self awareness of what you're going through and going through what Jim went through when he was younger, it's normal. But what's more interesting, I think is going through that process of, okay, how do I transcend now that, that egoic striving for something bigger.

And Mark, what you said there, if I can expand on, it's so important. It's okay. Like, like one of like the, like I won't be loved and I'm not enough for two of like our root fears as people. Different people get impacted different ways. I'm not enough was actually a deeper kind of seated fear that I've had. And you know, and it makes sense, right. I, I set a goal for 10 houses in a year, hit it. Now I'm so busy trying to get to 30 and celebrate to 10 and just in this like kind of discontent state. Right. And I think part of the inner work was like coming in with a, a piece of. It's okay with where I'm at and having like an embrace and an acceptance and like a self love. I can't believe I'm saying that. Oh, it makes me cringe a little bit to say self love, but I don't know of a different term for it than that. But to like, like just to like embrace the flaws and all, you know, it's like, hey, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. And you know what? I can, I can still. It's okay, it's okay that I'm not. And, and getting into that headspace is, has been one of the, one of the inner works I've had to do to get there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean after, you know, 14 years of therapy, that was my big thing was that feeling of not being enough as well. And it's still a struggle in, in one of the things that I know. It's, it's, you know, self love's one of those cringy or woo woo type words. But really when you really get down to the, the meat of what that is and unpacking, at least for me, it's again, it's other focused in the sense that I can't love another or care for another any more than I do for myself. And I know parents will be listening to this like, well, no way. I love my kids way more than I love myself. And yet I bet you there are times when you do get triggered when you're not your best self, even with your kids, because you don't have that in you internally. And so it's, it's one of those infinite games of, of, of self development that you keep, you keep going through.

You know what's funny is as we're talking about this, the thought popped into my head like, hey, what in the world are two real estate guys talking about self love and energy like on a real estate.

And like why.

And I think that this is an important thing to not skip guys even if you want the tactics of real estate and the X's and O's, because like, like you get there and then this is work that you have to do anyway. So why not like, work on this and as you're growing, like, enjoy more of the journey along the way. Don't take 15 years of your life and, and have that missing piece because, like, at some point you have to work on this anyway. And it doesn't matter how financially free you are, how much passive income that you have. That is not a, that's not a solution to discontentment. That makes life a little easier. Sure. But it's not like, if you think that that's going to solve a discontentment on the inner, you know, on your soul, that's not the truth. It's not, it's not going to do that for you.

No. 100%. And, you know, it is the art of Passive income podcast. It's not, you know, the, the blueprint to passive income. And you can get that, you can get those tips and tactics and tricks anywhere. But this is the stuff that most people don't talk about because it is something that is, is harder to talk about. I can, I can tell you how to, how to market your land and Jim can tell you, you know, how to do a spreadsheet, to do the, you know, to do a fix and flip. Right. That's, that part is a little bit easier. It's, it's going through the existential crisis of now what. Now that I've achieved my goal that, yeah. Is, is a little bit more challenging. Yeah.

And, and this is incredibly important. I, I was just reminded, as you're saying, that mark of a, a friend that I have that she literally, she confided in me. She said, hey, Jim, just So you know, 10 years ago, I had more money than I could have ever spent in my life. I had over 400 rental properties, a tremendous amount of equity in all of them. And I, I was set for the rest of my life. And I decided to buy a hotel that, because it was at such a high price point, when the hotel went under, everything else went under too. And so when we talk about this self worth, well, what, what happened to her? Well, I'm not enough. I got to constantly be putting everything on the line. I got to constantly be doubling down, you know, and she had already won a game, but she hadn't defined what the game was that she was trying to win. And then now here she was 10 years later, still working and, and rebuilding from it. And if you skip this step of, of working on yourself. Well, there can be very painful lesson lessons on the other end.

So yeah, I mean I had a Buddy went from 100 million in land to zero because he wanted to be a billionaire and I don't think he knew why he wanted to be a billionaire. So it's, it's, these are really good things to talk about. But, but Jim, we could talk all day about this, but we, we now to that point in the podcast where I'm going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something that was actionable for the auto passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. Before you do that, I have to give a shout out to our sponsor, which is Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely and efficiently with our team. And I know you're thinking, what the, what about the tuition? It ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us you did the work. Learn more. Go to thelandgeek.com forward/training thelandgeek.com forward slash training Jim Manning, what is your tip of the week? And your mentorship has been fantastic by the way. So thank you.

Oh, thanks, Mark. Well, I mean we, we did used to be neighbors, you know, and it only took a testing world for us to connect and even though we grew up five minutes from each other. But the. Okay, so there's a St. Louis author named Dr. Jason Selk and he wrote a book called Relentless Solution Focus. And the reason I bring this up is because it's not as well known. And he was a sports psychologist for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was either the 06 team that won the World Series or the 2011, I forget which. But his book provides a framework for why people have peak performance and when you're in the pocket, why are you in the pocket and really succeeding at a high level? And it also explains and breaks down when you're in a slump and when the sky's falling and you feel stuck, why you feel stuck. So for anyone that wants to have like more of a framework and raise their awareness level on the times when you're really peak performing and on the times when you're not, it's a wonderful book that quite frankly I think more people should be talking about. I think it's fantastic. So Relentless Solution Focus.

We will have a link to Relentless Solution Focus as well as my Tip of the week, which is learn more about Jim and what he's got going on. Go to www. Passivewealthshow.com passivewealthshow.com the podcast. Check out his funds and again, you can invest with Jim as well and start making that return and it could be life changing for you. So, Jim Manning, are we good?

I think we're good. You know, I, I'm a little bit disappointed to get off the line with you though, Mark. Like, like we're gonna have to, to stay friends and next time you're in St. Louis, we're gonna have to hang out. For sure.

We're gonna get Emo's pizza and Palomato's. Absolutely.

Palomato's is the best restaurant in a shopping center that you will ever eat at, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Strange location.

It's so good though. So I want listeners remind you the only way Jim Manning's going to come back for part two is if you do three favors. Follow rate Review the podcast, Send a screenshot of that review. Support the Land Geek.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich, but don't even do it for the signed copy. Just do it so that you get to listen to better guests because they're going to check the reviews and they'll see. Oh, okay. It's worth my time. People are actually listening, getting value from this. So please do it. All right. Let freedom ring. Thanks, Jim.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com forward slash training. Let freedom ring.