Nite Cap with The Land Geek Guys—Getting Focused

Ready? Spin.

Ready? Are you? I'm ready. Are you ready?

I'm not ready, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Here we. I swivel too soon. I can never get the timing down. Scott.

Are you gonna not even comment about my pour and swivel. Swivel and pour.

I can't even get the swivel down and you're swiveling and pouring a beverage. I don't even know how.

Swiveling and pouring. I'm taking it to the next level. Cheers.

Cheers. I can't take it to the next level. We need someone to take over, like, the broadcasting part of it, like we really do. That's gonna help us.

I don't know.

Do you hear what I'm saying, though?

I hear what you're saying, Mike. Who are we and why are we here?

Who are we? We're the land Geek guys. And we're here because. I don't know. It's 10:30 on the East Coast. It's 9:30 in your world, 7:30 on the west coast. And people burn the midnight oil when it comes to land investing. So we like to get together, have a drink and talk about land investing. And as I always tell people, if you're new to the show, if you're new to experiencing us, we take our businesses very serious. Ourselves, not so much, but especially you, huh?

Especially you. I don't take very serious.

How's it going this week?

Pretty good. How's business for you?

Busy. Busy is good. As a sign that will soon adore my new office wall will say, deal flow solves everything. You just can't see it yet, but it's gonna be there. Deal flow solves everything.

Nice.

Because I believe that, right? I mean, the only way to get good this business is to do land deals, right? Proof of concept. The only way to get efficient is after you become effective is by doing deals. So deal flow solves everything. I don't know if I should buy this land. It's got some two taxes too high. Oh, it's in probate. Who cares? Get some more land. Deal flow solves everything.

Yeah. Yeah, you're exactly right.

Was that too harsh?

It's not too harsh at all. No.

I probably crack open my Kentucky Bourbon.

Might be a little too harsh, but it's not too harsh. It's not. So what are you drinking tonight? I have.

What is that?

Double dry hop Pseudo Sue Pale Ale.

I can't handle the hops.

You can't? Too bitter for you, huh?

So I go with a Kentucky bourbon Ale. It's just a minor 12%.

Yeah. I love bourbon ales. I've made my own bourbon ales before. They turn out. Very good.

Awesome.

Yeah. What are we talking about tonight, Mike?

Well, you know, we're going to talk about land investing. However, I think tonight, you know, it was kind of, you know, this topic came up between us, and I thought that you can present it, Scott, because, you know, I figured, you know, I'm going to be a little philosophical tonight because what I do and you're pragmatic and, you know, more like get it done. That's why. Get her done. I just use that guy. Wisconsin. He's a Wisconsin guy. Get her done.

No, that's Larry the Cable guy. I think he's in a Nebraska guy.

Isn't that similar, like, guys, like neighbors in Nebraska?

Yeah. A couple states away. Same. Same. Same football conference. Anyway, so tonight we thought it would be helpful to, you know, we always hear it. We always hear from people how in order to move the needle in this business, you need to be focused, Right?

Yeah.

You need. You need one to two hours of very focused time per day to move the needle. A day to move the needle in this business, Right?

Yes.

So instead of using. Instead of using jargon, instead of just talking about focus, we thought we'd actually break it down tonight and actually give the community some tips and tools for actually focusing. What can you do during the day for an hour or two to really optimize your success, optimize your efficiency, optimize your time? Wow.

I like that focus.

What do you think?

Well, you know what? I love it because focus does not come natural to me. It's just something that in my life, I think I could probably recall a million times hearing my father saying, you need to focus. You know, it's like in school, like, you know, get in here and focus and, you know, try to, you know, do your best, study hard, you know, and try. And it's so hard. Like, this whole concept of trying to focus, like, it's just almost. It's almost impossible when you put in that terms. Right. So, like. Right. I think it's a good discussion to have. Like, how do you focus, especially related to land investing. That's you complete me section.

You complete me. You complete me.

So, yeah, I think it's a great topic that could truly help people, you know, in this business, because there's only a few things really have to happen to make this business. We know there's two things that. That you can control, Right? Two things. Two. Gas pedals in this business, Scott, tell me what they are.

Mailing and marketing.

That's it. It's like you got. You complete me. That's a love story I've been told by my good friend boss man.

You got it. You finally got it. It is a love story.

Two gas pedals. You got a car, right? And this car, this lane of esteem machine has got two gas pedals. Mailing, marketing. Therefore, if you need to focus, that's where your focus needs to go. Now we'll get into the second about how you even do that. But focus. If you're going to focus on anything, you might as well focus on the things that move the needle. Don't focus on things like. Let's talk about things you probably shouldn't. Focus on the very beginning, Scott. That'd be a good start, wouldn't it?

Well, yeah, sure.

What are some things? Give me an example of something. Could you complete me here? What's something that maybe I shouldn't put a ton of focus on in the beginning?

Beginning?

Not to say it's a bad thing.

No. So how about for me, how about formulating your llc, building your website?

Right? That's two. That's two good ones. Right. And people always ask, do I need. Yes, of course. Of course. You probably will end up getting some sort of dba, LLC or something like that. Right? But in the beginning, I always feel that proof of concept is the most important thing, like understanding that if you talk to anybody, right, and they do their first deal, I don't care how much money they make. That's. That's. Regardless of that, that's where the empowerment, where you have this kind of, you know, epiphany, like, I just did this. I just lifted myself up by my own bootstraps. I bought some land, I sold it. And we always say, if you could do one, you can do it. If you do it once, you can do it 10 times. Do it 10 times, you do a hundred.

So, yeah, and that's the foundation of the business, is the mailing and marketing, the buying and selling. So focus on that stuff first. Yes. So we thought we'd give the community some actual, like, some actionable steps that you can utilize to become focused. And, Mike, I'm a big believer in this first one. So do you know when you are most focused during your day? And maybe it's different for different people, but I think generally speaking, it's probably very similar for most people.

I'm gonna guess it's not 1039 on the east coast, right?

Unless you're Scott Todd.

He's, you know, I have a feeling Scott Todd. And not to call him out because I know he's always watching. I have a feeling he's a night owl. I've heard him on a few podcasts say, hey, nobody says you can't take a day off and fly a plane, go on your boat and work the business at night. So I don't know if he's out there. I have a feeling he's a bit of a night owl.

I think so, too. But for the rest of us who are not necessarily in the same realm as Scott Todd, I think the majority of us, for a majority of this, and this is actually well documented, the most focus that we have, the most creativity, the most clear we are on our thoughts, is right in the morning when we wake up. Ah. So, you know, you've probably heard too, that the most successful people in the world, the richest people in the world, millionaires, when do they get up in the morning? They get up at 5 in the morning. They spend the first two. Sometimes they get up at 4 in the morning. They spend the 1st 2 to 3 hours of their day doing things. It's not that bad. It's not. It's not.

He likes to make fun of my accent, folks. So every time I hear him say the word A, I can't help it.

So anyway, we're talking about the morning time, and I would have to say when I first. Now, I'm not as. I'm not as good at this currently, but three years ago, when I was motivated to change my life and I was focused, I was getting up at 5 in the morning. And I can't tell you how productive I was between 5 and 7 in the morning, every day I would listen to podcasts. I would create lists for myself, daily lists. What do I want to accomplish in a month? What do I want to accomplish in a year? I would, you know, I'm not, I guess I've never really meditated, but I would have some quiet time to myself, like, thinking about what I want to. Where I want to be a month from now, a year from now, and visualizing that. So I think your morning time is really, really important. And I think if you can find the time to get up two to three hours before everybody else, you will have focus, you will have creativity.

I like it. You know, here's the thing, too, going along with that whole morning kind of idea of getting up in the morning regardless of what time you get up. I was listening today to I forget the fellow's name, but it was on. You know, I like these different YouTube, you know, inspirational quotes and whatnot. You know, people that talk, I listen to it. I just love that kind of stuff. Right. So it was just talking about, you know, waking up with that.

Right.

Mental mindset. Right. And if you wake up, you know, basically I was talking about how, you know, your body and your mind can't distinguish your mind really, between sometimes real things and things that happened in the past, it's gonna happen. So if you get up and you start worrying about things and you carry over all these worries from the night before and you wake up and you're already start to. You get this kind of really kind of edgy feeling, that's not gonna help. Right. But if you wake up and you. They talk about having gratitude in the morning, you know, feeling like, yeah, maybe there's not. Maybe there's a lot of things to be grateful for. Then you start to shift your mindset into. And, you know, the more you can kind of visualize success, the more that you can actually, you know, be grateful and the more you can have this kind of. Rather than wake up and start worrying about all the bad things that could go wrong or things that you need to do or all these to do lists that, you know, just kind of wake up and try to have a positive vibe to it. Right. And I think waking up early does that. Right. I think if you wake up early, then, you know, you tend not to be bothered by a lot of extra type activity because most people aren't up. You're not going to be getting a ton of text messages. You're not going to get a ton of other people trying to contact you. So you really do have this buffer of time.

Right.

That you can truly focus. So that's a. That's a really good point, Scott.

Well, thank you. So I, So, you know, let's talk about the next thing that, that I thought would be helpful for. For people. And I think you and I have talked about this, but, you know, creating a to do list for your day. Yes, right. I mean, for my day day, you could have a. Yeah, I know, but. But I'm big on to do lists. I mean, I love checking things off a list. So I mean, I. My to do list is kind of very long. I know some people, they have a daily to do this to do list, a monthly to do list, but I like momentum. There's a great to do list in there. There's a great to do list in my Gmail, you know, so I think to have a to do list for people is very helpful. And then I also think that, especially if you're at home and maybe you're in a little bit more charge of your time, that a schedule helps. What do you think of that, Mike? You know, schedule for yourself?

I do have some thoughts on that because, you know, I like the idea of. To do this. I like the idea of scheduling, but I also think you can get a little. It can get a little crazy right down to the point of, you know, I lost. Scott. Todd likes to, when I say, breathe in the marketing, breathe out the mailing. And he said, don't forget to breathe. Like, literally, you could all of a sudden be like, you know, schedule everything out. So it's like you can just get carried away with it, right? So it can be. I've seen some people that talk about, you know, maybe, you know, you get this piece of paper, right? This white piece of paper, and you fold it into four sections and you just put one thing in each section, right? So now you have four things to do that day. Very simple. And don't overburden yourself because we all know if we put too much on the plate, you're going to most likely not accomplish everything and then you're going to have this negative feeling that you didn't do it. I love the idea of the one thing. I mean, there's a book out there about that, right? I love that. And I will talk to my son sometimes and he might be listening here, and I'm like, hey, Josh, what's the one thing you need to do today? Just the one thing that will move the needle forward. What is it? Identify it and do it. Because if you knock that out of the park, the rest of the day is going to feel awesome, right? And that could be something that's pretty challenging, right? But make that the one thing you're going to do. So lists, I think are awesome. I just think that not to over exhaust them, right? Not to make them so large that it's like Santa's list of presents for all the kids in the world. I'm going to do all this today. We all know you're not going to, right? Let's just face it, you're not going to finish that huge list you have there. But if you put one or two things on there and specifically about our business, Scott, you know, something that's going to move the needle, mailing wise and marketing wise. And, you know, even if, well, I don't want to Jump ahead. I'll say even don't have any property. Right. Because we do blind ads and all that. But if you do something, one thing on each of those areas, you will have done something great for your business that day. So, yeah, lists are great, but let's keep them realistic, let's keep them concise, let's keep them on target.

I love that. I mean, yes, I have a very long running list of things I always need to do, but I really do try to mark down one to two to maybe three things if I have a lot of time that day to focus on for that day. And I love the one thing. You know, I was going to bring that up as well. I'm glad you brought that up. You know. What's that?

I took your topic. I feel like we were just felt it. I felt you going that way.

Not at all. Yeah, you felt me going that way. You completely. We're good.

That's it.

Another love story. Tom Cruise. Keep going.

You know what, though? I do have a new. Do have a new tip that I don't think anyone has ever spoken about before.

Relative to this subject.

Relative to the one thing.

Let's hear it. This is pretty relevant right now. Let's hear it.

All right.

Okay. So here you go. I found this new technique. All right.

Okay.

It's called, it's called the pomodoro technique. You ever heard of that?

I might have, but are you serious?

You know, you know it.

Listen, I might have. I said I'm not here. I'm not the guy that. I'm not the guy that spoils another guy's joke. That's not me.

I'm saying pomodoro technique. This is, this is very scientific. All right, so what you do, you take a timer and you set it for 25 minutes and you work on that one thing for 25 minutes. Look at that. When the timer goes off. It's not a 25 minute timer. It's not.

I work in powerful small moments. Look at that. That's your pomodoro.

Yeah, exactly. That's your pomodoro. Have we talked about this before?

No, no, but this is just. This is a visual. Keep going. The audience visual representation of what you're talking about. So continue.

I love the visual. I love the visual hourglass. I love it. I love the visual hourglass. I use my timer all the time on my phone. But set your timer for 25 minutes, focus on that one thing. Take a five minute break, right? Walk around the house, walk the dog, come Back set the timer for 25 more minutes. If it takes you three or four cycles, but you get that one thing done, how great are you going to feel at the end of that? Mike.

I'm going to use a word that I hear you say. Phenomenal.

Phenomenal.

You're going to feel phenomenal. That's true. Because look, you take the one thing and you focus on. Now I do use this at times just to kind of say, okay, I'm going to go over some email this long, right? And then I'm going to do something just to kind of. Because there are certain things that are basically, for lack of a more eloquent word or words, time suck, right? They're going to like just drain you, like, and you start to get in this business, you will at some point have a lot of emails. So finding ways to kind of parse through those. And there are some techniques for that. Gmail is great for that. But focusing on being like, okay, well.

I'm going to.

I'm going to just only do it for so long, right? And just while we're on that, like Inbox by Google has Inbox. Have you tried that? You can, there's another one called. What's the other one? Google Inbox is a good one because you can kind of group them all together, delete them all at once, clack, clack, clack, they're gone. So that works really well.

But again, and do you know what I like that you introduced to me?

What's that? Grow a tree.

I wish I created that app, the forest app.

It's a phenomenal app. Tell us about the app.

What a great app for focusing on one thing during the day. So what you can do is you can set a timer for however long you want between 10 minutes and 120 minutes and you click start and the app does not allow you to pick up your phone. By the way, let's say I set my timer for 20 minutes and I'm going to focus on this one activity for 20 minutes. During that 20 minute time, I'm planting a tree in this app, okay? If I go to pick up my phone for whatever reason and I interrupt the time that I have dedicated to whatever task, my tree dies.

Don't kill a tree.

Don't kill the tree. So the cool thing is a 20 minute task results in a certain type of tree. A 30 minute, 65 minute task results in another type of tree, right? And before you know it, after all these tasks have been completed, you create kind of this forest for yourself and you kind of. I don't know, it shows productivity. It's kind of cool.

You know what I like about the tree, too? And I don't want to get too philosophical.

Come on.

But the tree is like roots in the ground, so you root it, but at the same time, it reaches up to the sky and it's taking inspiration. And it's just this whole. This whole idea of a tree is so metaphorical of just awesomeness as a human. Like, what you could be like as a human. Like, you're rooted, you're reaching out for your goals, you're focused. I think the tree is a great representation.

I think it's a great app. I need to use it more. I used it very faithfully for a couple weeks. And looking back, I'm like, yeah, I had a good couple weeks. And I don't know, I think it's just like. It's this day and age. Like, we become so distracted. We find something we like, we use it for a while. And then, oh, there's this other thing you gotta try. And then, oh, there's this other thing you gotta try. Like, I don't know. It's really hard in this day and age, isn't it, to stick with what works? Because it's just continual process improvement on everything.

Well, they're all trying to get the same thing. They're really trying to. The whole idea that. I guess the root of what we're talking about here is habit formation, right? It's not so much. I mean, I always. It was put to me like this years ago. When I believe it, it's not so much you have to get rid of your bad habits as you have to build more good habits, because the more good habits you have will take away the time and the effort from the bad habits. So just keep focusing on the good ones. And all these. The Pomodoro technique or using the forest app momentum, all these things, they're meant to really try to create some sort of continued activity day after day that becomes habitual. Right? So the mailing and mark, something that has to all of a sudden become just like brushing your teeth, tying your shoes, walking. Mailing and marketing should be that natural to your business. So I love it. I gotta ask you, though, anybody commenting on Facebook, we watch this? Because I don't know if anybody's even watching right now. Any comments?

No, no, no, no. We. We do have some comments, so I'm gonna pull them up here. We got some good viewership tonight. Paul Bellotti is watching. You'll Get a kick out of this, Mike. He said, hey, I made it live. First time not watching these stars on YouTube reruns.

Soon to be Net.

One day he hopes to meet us in person. Well, we hope to meet you too, Paul. That's awesome.

We're gonna be in Orlando. Unless it's. I love this. We just got done Arizona. We're going right to Orlando in October. It's gonna be awesome. So come to Orlando.

Yeah, come to Orlando, Paul, for sure. Sandy Marrero sighs, says she's most focused in the morning. But I'm at my. She's at her full job at that time. She gets up at 5 every morning to make her 45 minute commute. So, Sandy. But isn't that an amazing time in the morning to listen to Land Geek podcasts?

Yes.

Like, I'd be all over that.

Hello, Sandy. Nice. We just saw Sandy in Arizona. It's great to see she's watching.

All right, let's see. See what else Barbara Thibodeau is watching, as always. Sandy also says Tony Robbins says focus on outcomes, not activities. It's true. Incremental tasks are what you get, are what get you to your goal. But the focus must be on the goal. Then you need to reverse engineer on how you get there. That's awesome.

Yeah, I love it. Because it's so true that you could get caught up in all the details. Like, you could get your whole day, your whole focus could turn into, like, how to structure your to do list, how to make it the best to do list, how to. And really, the two. It's like the old Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon. It's like a finger pointing to the moon. And then the young pupil looks at his finger and he's like, don't stare at the finger. You'll miss all the heavenly glory. It's the same thing. Don't focus on the to do list. It's just a tool. It's to carry you to where you need to go. So that's a great point. Who made that? Was that Barbara?

Sandy brought that up.

Again, great point.

That was awesome. Thank you, Sandy, very much. So I think, you know, we've been talking a while. We should probably take a little breather and invite our good friend in.

Oh, all right. Let's do it. Let's see.

For the refill segment.

So coming from the attendee role, all the way up to panelist Matt Foley. Oh, all the way from.

All the way from panelists. So exciting.

Matt, we missed you. Where have you been the last few Shows. This has been really.

All right.

So I couldn't go to the last boot camp and it was actually made me rather sad and. And then I went to bed early last week and completely just forgot about everything. Orlando disaster. No, I'm in for Orlando. I'm gonna.

I got.

I booked my hotel and the flight. I just need to email whoever and Daniel, I could email Danielle and actually get a ticket.

You know, behind the scenes, Danielle, she makes everything happen.

She's awesome. So, yeah, so I'm drinking something I just found in my basement. It's a mystery. It's.

I don't know. Is it one of those sparkling.

I think it's a sparkling seltzer from my wife. She just sort of handed it to me and said, drink that.

So, yeah, Spike seltzer.

Well, we're gonna see how this goes.

Excellent. I'm going to take my pseudo Sue. How impressive.

Here we go. All right, bring them up. You guys have all been working hard, mailing, marketing, having hot dogs. Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's really good. That's actually what I get for not being on the last two shows. There it is. Be back next week with some bourbon.

Spike Gatorade.

Yeah. That is God awful.

Okay, Matt, we are happy to have you here. You're gonna stick around for the final salute, aren't you?

I'll be here drinking this. Maybe I can do better. Maybe I'll take a little breather and find something better.

Thank you, Matt. Our official refill segment.

Cheers.

Forbes. Thank you. Moving you back down to attendee. See you in a minute. So happy we missed him.

Yeah. It hasn't been the same without Matt. I would totally agree.

It's not been the same. So, yeah, here we are talking about focus.

Yeah, focus. And concrete things that we can do to improve our focus. Actionable things.

Yeah. I think again, the whole idea is to create habits. I think like, focus and habits kind of go hand in hand. Because, I mean, we all have habits, right? It's just not all of them serve us in the best way possible.

Right?

So it's like, how do you change this over to some more positive things? Well, in our business, again, you need to focus. And here's the thing, too, another focus type activity. If you get at the beginning of the week, there's ways you can line up so all your mailing is ready for that week, all your marketing is ready for that week. And you just have it all set, ready to go. Then you give yourself a big pat on the back because you really have done A lot to move the needle throughout the rest of the week. So, you know, I think that's another option. Right. Just, you know, getting things ready, like setting the groundwork in place, focusing on that type of activity.

Yeah. So you're talking about focusing on foundational things for the week. Right. Focusing on tasks that will bring you tax. Okay. Actionable tasks that will cause you to be disciplined. Right, right. Like, we need discipline in this. In this business also. So if you can create kind of a schedule for yourself or to do list or that one thing that will help you become disciplined in this business, it will help you form a habit. Right. I feel like Master Yoda right now. Remember when he said anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side?

Yeah.

It's like scheduled schedules lead to. What am I going to say? Schedules lead to action, which lead to discipline, which lead to habits, huh?

Yes, yes. You go back to our ADHD segment, which was really good. Well, we talked about how to, you know, accountable and develop habits, discipline, you know, so that type of thing. But, yeah, very, very well. It's all connected, Right. I think success in and of itself, it comes from some core principles, and those are the ones we focus on. And so. Absolutely. I think it's all connected, right?

Totally is. Yes. Everything's connected. You're absolutely right. What? I know you're laughing at me right now. Well, I don't know if you. With that one.

I was just like, what?

No, no, no, no. I wouldn't make fun of you, Mike. Never, ever.

Never, ever, ever. And I. I do apologize. I just kind of looked at the comments, too, and. And I. And this is gonna be more colorful right now.

Yeah, I got things planned back here, too.

This is a fresh new paint job. I'm just showing that off right now. But there's some things coming right there, coming soon.

We both have things planned. It's very exciting. You know what, though? I think we need to. We need to lighten things up here a little bit.

All right, let's do it.

Okay. So this is our most popular segment with the community. So I've been told. You love this one. It's time for the Boston LEGO segment.

Boston Lego.

The Boston LEGO segment. And I made a new. Made a new technological visual aid here. This is my favorite to date.

The Cheetah.

The Cheetah. Yeah. I love this one.

Cheetah. Don't ever play cards with a cheetah.

Don't ever play cards with a cheetah. All right.

Money every time.

For those of you who haven't seen. This is the segment where the community learns a new Bostonian word. And it's either a word that's commonly mispronounced by Bostonians or a slang word. We haven't done any slang words yet. That's what I'm gonna do next week. I've been having too much fun with the mispronounced words. So here's what happens. I'm gonna spell a word. Mike. Okay. You're gonna repeat that word back to me.

All right, I can do that.

Ready?

I'll give you the correct pronunciation.

Excellent. Here we go. L, I, Q, U, O, R. Liquor. Liquor. Liquor. Liquor.

Like beer.

Liquor. Like beer. Yes, exactly. Or, you know, how else would you say that word of the citizens of the United States? Say it would be liquor.

I don't know about that. Sounds the same to me.

Liquor. Liquor. Sandy loves your accent.

You know that with the Boston accent, you can actually have more efficient, quicker conversations because we just cut out the inefficiencies when it comes to language.

Is that right?

You know, like when you read a book, you don't have to. You ever notice you can actually read and, like, skip lines and still get the concept? Same thing.

You just. You take a word from three syllables to two, slice it out.

There's no need for it.

Yeah, it's much more efficient. Yeah, I can see that. That's a great argument, Mike. Is there anything else that's concrete, that's an actionable thing that people can do to maintain their focus? Anything you can think of?

Well, I do. I think that one of the things that destroys focus is this whole negative thought self talk and things like that. Things go in your mind. I mean, it can get. It can get pretty at certain times. I mean, it can get a little discouraging certain things. Maybe having a hard time with your marketing, or maybe you're having a hard time with your mailing, right? And you just get these kind of negative thoughts come in. So, you know, I like to have this kind of mantra like knock, you know, knock it off, cut it out, knock it off. Just like mentally remove that. Right. And if you have to physically say that, that's. I mean, this whole idea of mantra repeating things. Because mantra, right. You repeat things to yourself all the time. And it could be just something on the negative side. How many times do people say things like, oh, man, I'm just never going to get this. I'm just never going to get it. Well, that's like a mantra. You're saying to yourself, you're Never going to get it. Now you will get it. So why put that negative? So I think, yes, there's ways of kind of things that get in the way of focus is this negative self talk. So if you can remove that or even become conscious of it. Right. Just like when people. A lot of times, I don't know where you are, but where I am, people love to say, hey, how's it going today? What are you doing? How's it going? Oh, living the dream. It's like this common, like, phraseology that people say. It's just things that people say over and over again, and they. And just because they hear everybody else say it and then they say it. But you know what? It does impact you inside, like, because typically living the dream means you're not really happy with a job. Like, where I come from, it's like, yeah, live with a dream. Like, means I'm here at work, I'm doing it, but I like it. Right. And so that's kind of negative, Right? So I think just becoming aware of things like that can help you be more focused because, you know, you won't be so, you know, tempted to repeat those and get caught. It's like, I think I love the word meme. Like a thought process that you get involved in, right? And it's contagious, right. If you hang around with people that have these thought processes, they're gonna start hooking to you and you're going to start repeating them, and you're going to stop then believing them, and that's going to ruin your focus. I really think that ties into focus, right? I think there are certain streams of thinking that lead to success. So when you surround yourself by people, we all hear about the five people you surround yourself with, right? We surround ourselves. Look at, you know, we have Mark Podolsky, we have Scott Todd, we have Tate Litchfield, Eric Peterson, Mimi Schmidt. I have Eric. I have a Scott Bossman here. And we have all these people and the people we work with, we surround ourselves with people who are succeeding. Then success doesn't become something special. It becomes something kind of normal. It's kind of like that's the expected thing, the bar is you succeed, right? So you may have some problems, right, with it, but you know that that's not the ultimate end of it. You're going to succeed. So I think that gets in the way of focus. I really do. Sorry, I got all philosophical.

You do get very philosophical. But I love it. I think everybody loves it, honestly. Daniel Larson says read Mindset by Carol Dweck. It's great for promoting a growth mindset and gives the scientific evidence of why it's so important.

Right.

Nice.

That sounds good.

Thank you, Daniel. That's awesome.

Tip. Always looking for a new Audible book. Hopefully it's on Audible. I love. As we all know, my favorite new guru is Ray Dalio.

Yes.

If you want to talk about focus, you know, and he's a prolific meditator. I think that there's some. Something to be said for collecting your thoughts, especially in the morning. It doesn't have to be some long, drawn out, like hour long affair. It could be just a few moments of catching your awareness and then moving into the day purposefully. Right. Having a purpose as opposed to just kind of being ping ponged around or what's that game, you know, click, ding, ding. What's that game?

Pinball.

Pinball, yeah. Not being a pinball.

Yeah.

You don't beat a pinball and don't be like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You know, don't be a pinball, don't be a pinball.

What do you want to be, Mike? What? Instead of being a pinball, we should.

Look at a game. I like bowling.

Like.

Oh, nice. That's good. Yeah, Good.

The ball and pinballs, I think. And that's like a good representation of no focus, no goal. Ping ponging. I mean, pinball game. Focus. Goal bowling. Right down the middle. Full strike. Is that even a word?

Full strike?

But it's not a half strike, it's a full strike.

Awesome. Good work.

I apologize.

So two other things I guess I would say is in this day and age, how much extraneous noise is there? Like, how many of us get stuck scrolling through Facebook and realize, you know, 15 minutes later I've done absolutely nothing with myself? So I don't know. I think my advice would be to. To unplug multiple times a day. Unplug, get away from the noise. It's so prevalent, it's crazy. I mean, it affects. It affects your thinking, it affects your focus, it affects your family life. I think it affects your ability to be profitable in your business. So unplug, get away from things. Take the dog on a walk, spend time with the kids, rejuvenate yourself multiple times a day. And because you know how much of our business is online, Mike? 95% of it. Right, right. So it's hard sometimes, I think, to step away. And then we work in this environment online where there's so much noise and so much distraction, it's very easy to get pulled away from what you should be doing. So I don't know, set a timer for yourself, a pomodoro timer to unplug as well. And then you know what really helps me? And I think there's some evidence to show this.

What's that?

Plants grow better with music. When I'm listening to the right music, When I'm listening to the right music, I work better.

I like it.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, classical music, I turn on classical music. I turn on, you know, Minnesota public radio, classical music, whatever. When I'm working.

Did you ever see, like, Christian Bale in that movie the big short, and he's like, at the, like, the speed rock. Some people can even focus to, like, heavy metal.

It's like, yeah, you're right.

Keeps you in the zone.

Yep, you're right. So those are my two suggestions.

I want to throw out a challenge since we're talking about focus. So all the listeners out there, the hundreds of people that are watching us live right now.

Yes. What is the challenge?

I want everybody to double their mailings this week. Focus on mailings. Double your mailings. And guess why? Because the imaginary sign that you can't see right here, which will be here soon, says, deal flow solves everything. So focus on one thing you can control, and that's the gas pedal. Well, one of the two things, the most primary left side equation thing you can control, which is the buy side w mailings this week.

Do it.

I challenge every one of you to double your mailings. I don't care if you usually do $500, 1000 if you usually do 200. If you do 100, do 200. Double it for one week. And just watch that deal flow increase.

Jake Martin. Lisa Torres. Daniel Larson. Barbara Thibodeau. Sandy. Who else? Justin Patterson. I'm calling you out. Matthew Forbes. Paul Bellotti.

I think Tim Evans is talking about a good topic for a book. That's right. I'm gonna write that book. Nobody steal that title. I'm writing that book. Deal. Flow solves everything.

All you guys double your mailings, and then Joshua Anderson, double yours, too, and then come back to us here with your reports. Today is August 18, 2000. Wait, what is it? August 16, 2018.

You're never gonna hurt yourself by doubling your mailings. You're only gonna make it better.

You're exactly right.

Go for it. Think big. You know what? If you mail so much that you cannot handle the intake, like Mark Podolsky always says, you have a new problem, but a good problem. Now you need an intake manager. You just created a great problem. Someone to pass through all those accepted offers and counteroffers, and you're about to make some serious coin. So create the problem. Don't be comfortable in the beginning. Yes. 20 a day. Get 100. Scott does that because it's manageable. But then think bigger. Mail so much that you can't handle the intake, and you have to hire someone to do it.

Do it. That's awesome. Good suggestion, Mr. Zano.

Challenge.

We have a question from Roger McDougal. Yes, Roger, we hope you're well. We had an awesome time interacting with you at boot camp. Hopefully you're coming to Orlando. So Roger says he's trying to focus. Huh. Trying to focus on our marketing. And our Craigslist ads are getting removed this week. Any suggestions?

Yeah, well, you know, that's the bear that everybody wrestles with in this business, right? Craigslist is like this bear with like eight. Eight arms and eight legs, and it's just like two hours. Yeah. So you know what? Here's the great thing, though. Even if your ad. I always tell people, even if your ad only made it up there for five minutes, Right. Or a minute doesn't matter. Remember the whole analogy to the parade, Right. The whole idea is that your advertising is like a moving parade. And this parade is a mile long. And if you get a couple ads out there, your parade went about five feet.

Great.

Someone in the first five feet may, in fact buy your property. And you know what? That does happen sometimes. I've had it just recently, too. A couple ads go out, bang. Property sold. Not typical. Not always that way. Many times you have to get that parade all the way down to like three quarters of the way, half a mile. That's your marketing. So you have to continually be posting. And yes, Craigslist is out to get you. They don't like you doing this. Right. They don't want you to do this, but you still keep going at it and focusing. Now, is there special techniques? Of course there is. You know, we have Scott Todd, who created an incredible course on this posting domination. You can take that posting domination and you can train your. If you want to get better at this, you would actually work with a virtual assistant. As soon as you grasp the idea, you get someone on board, you train them, and you have them scale your results so that, you know, how do you scale yourself? Or you have somebody else do it for you. Right? So if he's looking for. In terms of the specific nuances, you know, that's. That can get A little technical, I guess, but I guess the overall thing, which I think I'd like to say to Roger, is don't be beat down by it, because everybody goes through this, right? And there is light at the end of that tunnel, right? Because the more that you go in and you go through these process of posting and figuring out how to set up your, you know, all that, I don't want to give away any. The more you do the process, the better you're going to get. And every time you do it, you're putting ads out there. Someone's going to see it, and that right person will see it. It's a volume game. Remember mailing and marketing? The only thing you control in this business? And they both are basically the same. They're both advertising. One is looking for someone to raise their hand and say, I'd like to sell my property. And the other one's looking for someone to raise their hand and say, I'd like to buy the property. It's the same. It's all volume, you know. So if you get frustrated with that, take a break, go on Facebook. My son just sold the property on Facebook over the weekend. Just go on there, post something and sell it. That way there's buy, sell groups, you know, and explore that. If you haven't, if that's getting you down, go over and look at ebay. There's ways you can look at ebay, right, to use that. I know Mark. He's listening. Not a big fan of ebay, but you can make money on ebay. You can make a lot of money on ebay. It's just a matter of how you do it.

So.

It'S a difficult process. But you know what? It's something that can be overcome with time and effort. So focus on. Just keep going.

And Roger, I guess what I would say is, I mean, if you're. If you're getting flagged, you know, in a particular account, create a new account. Create a new account with a new phone number and try that. And I know you've been in flight school, Scott Todd probably taught you some things in flight school about success in Craigslist. So take a look at that stuff again. And then, like Mike said, Facebook can be really powerful. You know, we had a huge cash sale last week from a Facebook lead. So get in those buy, sell trade groups. And I think you just. You really need to be present no matter where you are. You need to be present on Facebook, present on Craigslist, present with your buyers list. You know, I had a sale A couple weeks ago with a. From a buyer's list client. So, I mean, that's. That's really the secret, I think, to all this is just being present. And, you know, again, like you said earlier, Mike, it all comes down to mailing and marketing. Mailing and marketing. So to focus on those two things every day, no matter what, and then bring the other stuff in later, that's really gonna help.

Yeah. And you look at the steps that you go through to post these ads, right? And you could say that, you know, break them down into the micro steps, and if there's some, you know, then. And then just focus on those micro steps. Take lots of time. Right. And focus on them. So you, you know, you really, you know, just. The biggest thing is just don't be beat down by it because it works. There's plenty of us out here that are doing it on a consistent basis, consistently making sales, and we're no different than you. It's just that we've kind of stayed the course, stayed with it, and adjusted as necessary and stayed consistent.

Exactly right.

Good question, though.

What?

I said it was a good question.

It was a great question. Thank you, Roger. So what do you think, Mike?

I think we're, you know, we're probably time to bring in the final. Is there any other thing you want to do before we finally toast this?

No, I think the one last thing I would recommend to people, and we touched on a little bit earlier, but this was going to be kind of my closing piece of advice is to check out the one thing by Gary Keller. It really helps with focus. It's a great book. It's worth multiple reads. It's worth. I read it and I listened to it and really helped me out. So check that out, and I think that'll really help your focus game.

I love it. And I'll throw out the same thing I did in the roundtable the other day. Ray Dalio's Principles for Success. It's on YouTube. You don't have to listen to his audible book that's really long or read his thick book. It's. If you search YouTube, Ray Dalio, principles for Success, he'll talk about this goes with what Roger was saying, this idea of running, heading for a goal, but hitting an obstacle, going around it and continuing. So I think that that is pretty. Is it apropos? How do you say that for apropos?

Nice. How do you spell Dalio, Mike again?

D A, L, I O. Ray Dalio, Principles of Success. It's a great YouTube. It's really an awesome YouTube video to watch. It really illustrates his principles for success. And I think everybody will get something out of that, honestly.

Awesome. All right, well, we listed some resources for you guys in the comments and as always, we appreciate you watching. Spread the word. Share on your timeline.

And here comes from the role of panelists. No, from the role of attendee to panelists. Uh oh, there he is. Whoa, that was some crazy color you just had on you there, Matt.

No, I put the lights on like, you know, freaking dance party in Massachusetts, man. You know the truth. There it is. See, Bosman's doing it. Come on, Mike, get on board.

I gotta get my lights. All right. Look how big it is. I can come way back here.

I love the remotes for my lights. They're very cool.

Yeah, here's what happens, bossman.

Right?

So I work from home, right? I'm a sales guy. So I'm on zoom calls all day long and my kids come down and they take the remote and. And then they turn these things on. So I'm like trying to have a sales conversation.

And then.

And then I'm in. I'm in, you know, bright red and I'm showing my true colors.

Be like, you're in an ABBA video all of a sudden.

Yeah, I know what's happened to me as well.

How long is that video, Mike? Is that 30 minutes? The Ray Dalio video does all his.

Principles of success in a 30 minute video. It's animated. It's really awesome.

Yeah, I'm looking at it. I'm gonna watch that tomorrow. That sounds pretty awesome.

That's a great tip. Awesome.

Totally worth staying up till 11:45 at night.

Wow.

It's time, Scott. Let's get that toast. What is it?

Jesus.

Oh, the toast. You know what? Here's the focus. Here's the discipline. Here's the habit. Here's to financial and time freedom through land investing. Here's to you monkeys.

Liquor is quicker. Nice job, boy.

Liquor.

Well, guess what? I'm gonna queue up the outro. Talk amongst yourselves.

Oh, my.

I'm going to stroke. It's crazy down here now. It's. The basement's out of control.

It was great seeing you guys. You guys ready for the outro?

Yeah, we see it, we don't hear.

It all Dance along the outro. We'll see you guys next week. Listen, don't be afraid to put comments in what you'd like. We. We are always looking for new subject matter. We'll talk about anything you guys want us to. So, yeah, Bring it on.

Yeah.

Ask your questions. They're the experts.

I just drink alcohol, Not drinking.

Scotty's so happy to do it.

Sam.