One Thing In Our Business That We Are Eternally Grateful For

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable, we have almost all the usual suspects. We have the Zed master, Breathe in the mailing, breathe out, the marketing. Mike Zano. Mike, how are things?

They're wonderful. Thank you for asking.

Good to see you. We've got the nightcap OG dude, buddy. Probably freezing in Onalaska, Wisconsin, Scott Bossman. How are you?

I'm doing great. Yeah, it's getting, getting colder here. We were spoiled this fall with a very warm fall, but we got our first snowflakes the other night, so nice.

I feel like, you know, when you say that Zaino gets excited. We'll get, we'll get to his, you know, polar bear extremes at some point. We've got the technician in Franklin, Tennessee, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are things?

Things are good.

Good to see you. And last but not least, you know him, you love him. The brain, the professor, your flight school Sherpa, Scott Todd. Scott Todd.netlandmodo.com Learn anything but anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm great. You know, we'll talk about it at some point, I'm sure, but I feel like my, my office game has been stepped up a bit. Camera, lighting, background. If you're not watching this on video, go to YouTube. Just check it out. Check out the new suite setup. All thanks to the technician, Eric Peterson, being my new office Sherpa. But we do have a good topic today. And Scott Bossman, what is our topic today?

Well, with Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought we should focus on gratitude. So I think it'd be good to talk about what is one thing in your business that you are eternally grateful for that you either automated or delegated.

So what is one thing in your business that you are eternally grateful for that you've either automated or delegated. I love these kinds of questions because it really narrows down the focus. Like I'll ask, you know, Eric over the weekend, if you only have one movie on a desert island, what would you pick? Right? And these are very tough questions because it just narrows your focus. So many movies, so many automations, so many delegations. But then when we put the spotlight, that red hot spotlight on the Zen master to go first.

Yeah, but I feel like I'm going to go macro again on you and destroy this whole thing because I can't have a gratefulness episode and not Mention. There's two aha moments in this business for me, Mark, and they both are centered around this sort of question. Number one was meeting you and learning about this business model in general, because how would I ever even heard about it? It paid off debt and all that, but. But then, you know, a year and a half, two years later, I started going to the boot camps all the time and hearing Scott Todd talking about what we're talking about right now, spinning. He used to say. I don't know if you still use this word, Scott. Spinning plates. Because he used to say spinning plates. And I remember being in the hallway at one of these boot camps, like, what is he talking about? I'm like, just walking around. He's talking to people about spinning plates. I'm just trailing behind them, like, you know, like, what's, what's, what's Big brother talking about? Spinning plates. And he's talking about, you get this spin and then you get this. And finally, after hearing him talk about it enough times, it dawned upon me and this what we're talking about right now, right? This automation component. And so not only could I be really, you know, pay off debt, make a ton of money, but then I didn't have to do all the work. Are you kidding me? Like, that was like. So I just want to say at the answer, I get to go first and maybe it's not the exact answer. I'm just grateful that we have automation and delegation and, you know, we're not doing all the work because it is infinite amount of time that has been created in my life to spend with those I love and do the things I really want to do because of it. So I don't know, is that too macro? I just have to say that because this is really. This is really. I say this a lot to people because those two aha moments, meeting it, meeting you, Mark, and then figuring out what the heck. Scott Thomas. I want to use spinning plates because it took me a while.

I think it's a great answer, honestly, even though, you know, part of it has to do with me, humbly speaking. But I do think that, you know, to be so grateful for the big picture of what the land provides you and the fact that you're able to parse out that it's not a job. Right. It's a. It is a business. And, and that's the way that we approach it. I think that's. The sentiments are beautiful.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

I will be dedicating a turkey leg to you this Thanksgiving.

All Right, then.

So let's go to your. Your partner in crime, the nightcap OG a sober, bearded dude, buddy. Scott Bossman.

All right. Since Mike went macro, we should probably go macro. I mean, that probably relates a little bit more to Thanksgiving, right? So I'll do macro and micro. So first of all, the micro. The one thing in my business that was just a huge game changer for me was just getting rid of all of the marketing. Like, I have a marketing guy, and he has taken care of. He takes care of website postings, Facebook marketplace postings. I have another person doing marketing on Facebook as well. He takes care of all the land platform postings. So that, for me, was huge. To find that person in my business to take care of that aspect of my business that frees up just a whole ton of time on the back end of the business. So that was huge for me. Macro. I'm going to expand upon what Mike said a little bit. It's really been apparent to me lately how this business has afforded me the opportunity to have time, freedom, something that five, six years ago, I just did not have. You guys know, my dad passed recently, and to be able to travel to South Dakota at a moment's notice without having to worry about reporting to a job or reporting to somebody else who. Who was in charge of my work. Fate, right? Like, I'm kind of the captain of my fate, which is pretty awesome. Could pick up and leave and do whatever I need to do, not only for one day, but for an entire week or longer if I needed to. And with the business built like it is, the income kept coming in. So that, for me, is something I'm very grateful for. You know, it was a time of trouble, but it was something that I thought about on the many drives that I had back and forth. The fact that, you know what? I could have done this so easily years ago, or I couldn't have done it with. Without worry, I guess. So that's something that the business has really granted me.

Yeah, that's wonderful. And of course, we all knew about it, but I'll just say it for the community. We are so sorry for your loss. And it was unexpected. And it's one of those things that when it does happen, not only do you want to have that time, freedom, but you also want to have that headspace, to be able to grieve in the way you want to grieve and not have in the back of your mind, oh, I got to call hr or how is this going to affect my work or my job you know, or my bonus at the year end or whatever it may be, and just be able to be completely present with the people you love the most at a time in life that we all are going to go through. And it's, it's, it's a gift even at the most dark times in our lives. So, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, very touched by that as well. The technician, Eric Peterson. You got a lot to be grateful for, but what are you most grateful for?

I feel like I've said this one before, but I really am like that. One of the greatest things for me to have outsourced in this business is the intake side. To not have all of those interruptions throughout your day, whether they're phone calls, emails, follow ups, etc. On the intake side of the business just makes everything run so much smoother. We can focus on the retail side, you know, and ultimately building the business. So to me, intake is one of those things that if that wasn't outsourced, if it wasn't delegated, I don't know if I'd still be here, honestly.

You'd still be here. You just may not be.

I wouldn't be here on this podcast talking about land.

Yeah, that's possible.

But on a macro level, I think that financial security comes from this business. As you build up a note portfolio, you know, you have some financial security. Yes, some of those notes could default in the future, but the likelihood of all of them defaulting, if you've got many, is, Is very unlikely. In an economic downturn like Mark talks about, you know, you might lose a big portion of them, but compare that to losing your job.

Right?

I mean, here we have financial security for five, six years, depending on what your average note length is. So I think there's so much power in that. I mean, it just, it gives peace of mind.

Right.

Especially in our economy today with what's going on around us, I, I can't be more thankful for the passive income that has been built in my business.

Yeah, I think what you said there was really important, not just the intake manager piece. And we've talked about this on other roundtables where I think we've all agreed that that virtual assistant or that team member really is sort of the key first person. Well, I'll steal a line from Scott Todd, you want to delegate first what.

You hate the most.

But after that, you definitely want to get intake off your plate because it saves you the most time. Food tastes better, color is more vibrant. But then as we Go into financial insecurity. So let's just compare and contrast. Let's say that you have a million dollar note portfolio and you have a million dollar stock portfolio. One day the recession hits and you are down from a million dollars in your stock portfolio to $800,000.

Right?

Same thing. Million dollar note portfolio, you're down to $800,000. Okay. Now the difference is, is that one, if you sell on that stock portfolio, that is a real loss in that time with the 30 day wash sale rule, you can't buy back in and so you don't get the tax benefits of it. Where in a business, if you are losing, let's say $200,000 of income, well, yeah, you won't have as high of taxes, number one, but number two, you haven't really lost anything. It's more that you, you now have the opportunity where you don't in the stock market to reprice your land and resell it in a different way, completely different. One has cash flow, one has hopefully appreciation, which is completely out of our control. We don't know what moves Tesla stock up or down. It goes up, we feel good, it goes down, we feel bad. Right. And it's day to day, moment to moment. It is an emotional roller coaster. I wake up every day in a great mood. I have no idea how volatile my land portfolio is. It doesn't feel very volatile at all. And even when it was volatile for me, it took, you know, and this is, you know, 2010, it took me two years to resell it, get those notes producing again. So as long as you're living in a way that is within your means, don't do what I did. Like when I talk about dirt rich, it's a little bump. Is it a fun bump? Not necessarily fun, but it's solvable. So Eric, did I say that right? Yeah. Scott and I talk about this a lot as well because sometimes we'll get shiny object syndrome. Like wait, wait, wait, why would we even think about that? We don't want financial insecurity. I heard a great term the other day. Fire financial independence, retire early. And I love that we're going to fire like everyone who's listening to this podcast, they're going to fire their bosses one day because they're going to be financially independent, retired early. Man, I've been talking a lot. I am so grateful to be able to pass that microphone off to Scott Todd.

I have no words, man.

You have no gratitude for delegation automation in your business.

Here's the thing is, I know you're.

Getting that trigger fired up. You're gonna have some epic turkey.

So we've all talked about the big stuff, right?

Okay.

The financial independence and the time.

And really, at the end of the.

Day, that's what wealth comes down to, right? It doesn't come down to the money in the bank account. That's riches. You can always see riches. You can't see wealth. And wealth is the control over your own time and the control over the money.

Right.

The money and the time together combined for the wealth. You can see riches in the cars that people drive and stuff like that. You don't see the wealth. What happens behind the scenes, the relationships that you have with family members or the time flexibility that kind of Scott talked about, we've all talked about is because that's the stuff that we all strive for. And so having this business and this model be able to provide those things for me and for my family, that's the cool thing. To me, it's like, I am grateful for that. If there's one task that I'm grateful that I delegated, it's all of them. I'm glad I got rid of all of it, because the thing is, it allows me to think things through at a different level. If I was running around trying to deal with my property of the week or something else, then I can't think about managing the business to grow it. And it's funny, because I went to lunch with my wife today. Benefit of being wealthy. Went to lunch with my wife today. We're driving back, and she says to me, hey, whatever happened to this one property that you, you know, that you acquired? And I'm like, I think we still have it in inventory. I don't really know. She's like, you don't know? And I'm like, don't know. She's like, you're not marketing. I'm like, I don't do any of the marketing. I don't know what we do there. I don't choose the deal of the week. She's like, what do you mean you don't do that? I'm like, it's not what I do. The CEO doesn't know that stuff, right? Like, the CEO is telling the bigger. The bigger picture stuff. And so are you running your business like the CEO would, or are you running the business like an individual little storekeeper would? And however you run the business is up to you, but I think that you kind of really have to challenge yourself to the way that you do things. For example, how many Times this week, for example, and I'm just going to talk to you guys on the call here, forget, forget the audience for a second. But like, how many times this week have you gotten an email from one of your VAs that says like, how do I do this? And so now all of a sudden you got to take off your CEO hat and you got to put on your IT support hat, right? And now, now you're like, okay, well this is how you do it. Well, today I got one of these emails and I'm like, listen, go to the Google, Google you would not send, like when I worked at the Court, the big corporate headquarter there, and my computer broke down, I wouldn't send an email to the CEO going, hey, my computer's broken, what do I do? Or hey, why do I do this? You don't do that in the real world.

What do you do?

You cause support. So if you don't, if you're dealing with that from your own VAs, that's a position that is like a hidden position that you gotta figure out how to outsource. And it's these little things that if you get rid of these little things and you get somebody who answers all the questions for your IT support, well, now you can start to think like the CEO would have that big company and how do you become that big company? By thinking the way that the CEOs think and driving performance and worrying about the big stuff and forgetting about all that little stuff, like how do I log into this system again? No more.

Yeah. I love everything you said and I feel the exact same way that what I love the most about my delegation, automation is everything. Everything that being said for me, it's a little bit different because my gratitude even transcends the land business. For myself, I'm most grateful for the coaches and the community. It starts first at the top with the coaches because when, when we talk about these things and, and you know, Scott Bossman and Mike Zaino are doing nightcap, they're running working lunches, right? Where those, you know, those conversations, these roundtable conversations attract a certain kind of person into the community. For whatever reason, we attract very bright, very abundance minded good people into the community. And when you go to a live boot camp, everyone there is just like all ships rise with the tide and everyone wants to help everyone else, everyone wants to support everyone else. And when you go into the mighty networks group in the Facebook group, it just puts a smile on my face when I see somebody playing post a question and there's 12 comments. Really in depth, helpful comments on how to solve a pain point for someone else in the business. So that is just something I'm so grateful for. You know, it starts with the coaches and then it goes into the community. So, you know, cheers to you guys. Tria Tate, who are not on the call. And I will be eating lots of turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes in honor of the entire community to the point that on the next podcast, I might look like Elvis before he died. Just unrecognizable, like one of those big belt buckles, you know what I mean? It's gonna be that kind of, you know, Podolsky Thanksgiving. I'm excited. But we're now at that point in the podcast where I'm going to put myself on the spot and ask myself for the tip of the week, a website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. Mark, what do you got? Well, thanks, Mark, for asking. So if we go back to Scott Todd being the CEO, well, first of all, you have to do initial training. It's not like flipping on a switch. It's not like, you know, all of us were able to just flip on a switch switch and delegate everything, you know, in a matter of weeks. I mean, it is a process to do that. Now, I know that Scott Todd loves fleek IO I know that other people love loom. I know they like making their Zoom videos. But Sean Adams, who was, I was actually on his podcast, he is a head of another company. And I'm going to put it in here. It's Iorad I O R a D dot com. They have a free version and it records your screen so you don't have to talk, you don't be on video. It actually records every movement you make while you're training a virtual assistant. And then the AI writes down everything you just did into sentences. And then you can send it as a video, you can send it as a PDF, you can send it as a flow. It is unbelievable. I got a demo on it this morning. I said, sean, that is my tip of the week. That is amazing. Even the basic version is good enough for us. Big companies like Doordash Zoom are using IO radio for training for like, you know, 200 plus employees, thousands of employees. So big companies are using this, but they also have a free version for you and me. The little guy, the little gal, right? IO rad.com Scott Todd, have you checked it out? No.

How do you spell this again?

Okay, Seriously? Here, I'll put it in the chat. I O R A D dot com.

Okay. All right, all right.

An auto magical tutorial builder that changes the status quo. The Tortilla builder enables users everywhere to create stunningly efficient tutorials and share them at light speed. So it's actually. It lives in your browser as an extension.

Okay, so let's. So I'm going to. I'm going to play Mark Podolski here. And why would I spend the starter version here for all this money when I could get like.

No, no, it's free. There's a free version.

There's a free version.

Yeah, you don't have to do, you know, the big.

I go to the starter version. I don't see the free version. What am I missing?

Okay, so personal rather than business. Personal, Personal.

Personal. Okay, I see.

I see.

Okay, personal. Okay, so I got a free version here. All right, so.

But these.

Okay, but these free versions, they're publicly accessible. Is that what we want?

No, we don't want them to be publicly accessible.

Yeah, see, I got to be like the Mark Podolski. I don't know, man. This looks a lot like Jotno Pro to me. I don't know.

I can't believe you just. I'm just saying, man, like, that when you come.

How does this compare to loom. I'm just saying, like, I'm just doing what you would do. I'm just asking questions. I'm being, like, smart.

Just try it for free. All right, I'm gonna try it for free. Sign up.

I'm gonna end up spending $200 a month on this thing.

You're not gonna spend 200 bucks a month.

Yeah, because I don't want to use my stuff.

I actually got a Land Geek pricing deal from oh.

So.

Yeah.

So.

I don't have it yet, but I'm gonna get one. You just killed me.

I'm looking for the Land Geek pricing. I don't have it yet.

It's. Yeah, I mean, the pricing escape me is a little high, too. I gotta call Sean. Don't worry.

It's no fun being on the hot seat, is it, Mark?

It's not. It's not.

Yeah.

At all. I'm surprised Eric didn't jump in and start chiming in here.

Like, come on.

Eric is our tag team.

I gotta be neutral.

It's the Thanksgiving episode, so we're trying to be. Temper ourselves a little bit.

You know, this is what happens, man. You know, he hangs out with Mark for a couple days and Then now he's gotta be neutral. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike.

Yeah. See? Cheers to Eric Peterson. And, Eric, I'll be shipping you that leftover orange juice in the fridge. It's got your name on it.

Oh, no.

Be drinking from the cotton.

This is my swobo. It's my.

No, the orange juice. Eric over there drinking from the cotton.

Yeah, he had a terrible cold. So. So just so you guys know, like, he's like, he wasn't even to come out. He was feeling horrible, but he comes out anyways, right? I'm like, okay, let's just hit this cold as hard as we can. First thing I thought of, float spa.

Right?

So if you guys have never done a float spot, it's like £2,000 of Epsom salt.

Wow.

For an hour. And you go into this, like, it's like sensory deprivation. It's really cool. Eric, what did you think of was very restful?

I think I took a nap in there.

Okay, so.

So wait a minute, Wait a minute. So if I'm getting this right, basically, he started off by waterboarding you with all this absence.

Okay.

All right.

And you're.

You're gonna stay neutral here. After that.

It gets better. So, you know, Eric has the whoop, which tracks his hrv. The lower the hrv, the more sick you are. His HRV doesn't move after the float spa, so he's really sick the next day. So then after that, I'm like, all right, we're really going to hit it hard. I know Russ and Joey, they have the whoop. They're like, oh, we're going to do one of those IV therapies. So it's going to pump them full of vitamins. Like, this is going to move up the. For sure, your hrv. So we spent an hour doing the IV therapy, right, Eric?

Now he's poking me with needles.

So now.

Wonder what's going on there now.

Needle poking. Yeah.

And you're okay with this and you're still staying neutral?

Eric, they locked you in a box for this floating. I'm looking at what they look like.

Did you see this, Scott?

Todd?

It's a.

It's like an ice box they lock you in. There's no. There's no, like, claustrophobia.

Giant tub with a clamshell lid on it.

Yeah. And they lock. They put a thing over to keep it shut. Like, is there a panic button? A safe word. How do you get out?

You can open it yourself.

Seems a bit scary.

I'm not. I'm not going In a coffin with. No way. I'm not letting Mark put me in an Epsom salt coffin. No way.

Listen, I was willing to try anything.

Oh, the Epsom salt coffin.

So next morning, pump full vitamins. HRV is like lower. It didn't work at all.

So he's killing you. He's killing you and you're still defending him, saying neutral Eric, finally.

I don't know what Eric. I don't even know what it was like. It's probably like just rest time. Rest time. The HRV went up.

So what is this hrv? You can measure how sick he is.

Heart rate variability.

And it. It's an indicator of sickness. If you're getting sick or if you are sick. Yeah, it can be.

You know what I do is just get that zycam. Boom goes away, little swab on the nose and it's done.

Nothing was getting rid of this one.

Coughing didn't help. Go figure.

Yeah.

So just lay down this coffin, sir. Everything will be fine.

Yeah, I mean, anyways, it wasn't for lack of effort.

I was taking supplements all week before I went to see Mark. And then Mark tried everything he knew to get me well. And here I am today. Still not back to 100%.

But you still look good.

Still looks good. I do want to thank the listeners and remind them that the only way that Eric is going to continue helping me with My office is 3 favors. Follow Rate Review the podcast. Send a screenshot of that review to support@thelantic.com and to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich. Also, if you're listening to this and you've got the toolkit or you're thinking about getting to the next level in the land business, you owe it to yourself. You owe to your family. Go into 2022 with a plan and start building a new business, a new life, and automating your way into passive income. So the best way to start is learn more about flight school. Go to landgeek.com training schedule a call. The flight school tuition ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make back that tuition investment 180 days or less. Most people do it 90. Just show us your work. Learn more. Landgeek.com training. You guys ready? 1, 2, 3. Let.

Let freedom.

Freedom bring. Gobble, gobble.

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.