ROUND TABLE—Preparing For A Recession—Setting Yourself Up For An Advantage

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek for their favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on today's Roundtable podcast, we've got the Big Papa. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you? Great.

Happy to be on the show again.

Great, great. We've got Eric the Technician Peterson. Eric, how are things? Things are good.

School starting back up, and summer's coming to a close, so it's kind of a transition time. But all is well.

I will tell you that My wife and I went through a tough week last week. Back to school. And then we started comparing notes with, like, all our friends. They all hated each other and their kids. Back to school week. Like, the stress went from, you know, 1. From summer all the way up to 10. Like, it was crazy. And people are, like, throwing elbows at staples, like, no, that's my binder. No, that's my notebook. You know, it was insane. But we survived. And the kids like their classes and their teachers, and it's only 109 here. It's great to go, like the back to school and just sweat. Bearland. Aaron.

Hey.

Good to see you.

Pretty good. They have to have to agree with the back to school bit. So kids just went back today. Bear land. Bryce only got one day between a summer of drum corps and going back to school, so I feel a little bad for him.

Awesome. Awesome. Mimi the terrorist hunter Schmidt. Hi, Mimi.

Hi. How's it going?

It's going great. It's going great.

Good to see you.

Take my son to college tomorrow. So very excited for him. And I'm a little heartbroken, so I'm so won't be on the mastermind call tomorrow because I'll be driving to Virginia Tech.

Wow, that's big doings. The proud mama, but a sad mama.

Yeah.

Yeah. We've got one more year. So my wife, I don't know, she's. She's like. She's got, like, one foot, like, please leave, and then one foot, like, no, my baby. So it's like, you know, it's. It's crazy. The Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. Mike Zaino. Mike, how are you doing?

Wonderful. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. And last but not least, to round out the round table. You know him, you love him. Six Sigma, the brain. Scott Todd from Scott Todd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings. Posting domination.com land geek Scott. Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great.

How are you? I'm good. I'm good. We got a lot of things to talk about on this roundtable, but I do just want to mention that today's roundtable is sponsored by my 21st anniversary coming up this week. I'm really excited, and I just found out that my wife actually listens to some of these podcasts. So, honey, if you're listening, I love you, I appreciate you, and I just want to let you know that it's been 21 years of unadulterated bliss. Not one argument, not one fight. And I appreciate you so much, and I appreciate all the hard work that you put in so I can actually do these crazy roundtable podcasts because without you, there's no way I would be able to do anything. Happy anniversary.

If you're listening, Happy anniversary.

That's like a mic drop. That was really good.

That's like a microphone. That's right. So, you know, she got.

Listen to this one, though.

I don't. I don't.

So I think you need to keep saying that until you've confirmed that she's listened.

Yeah, it's like a little Easter egg. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think the first topic and this kind of got brought up in the official Land Geek motivation group. I put up an article, I think it was from time, you know, how to prepare for the recession. We are now in the longest real estate recovery, I think, in history. So this is kind of making me a little nervous because it just seems like it's inevitable. You know, we're always in a cycle. That cycle has to come to an end at some point. Tate, the last cycle ended 10 years ago.

Yep.

What was that recession like for you? It was a really tough one.

I was 18, so can't say that it was particularly bad for me. I was starting school, college. I do remember that gas prices were really expensive, but other than that, I mean, I don't. I just remember hearing a lot about it, and, you know, everybody was talking about it on the news and online, and I remember thinking, wow, this is. This has got to be really bad. Glad it doesn't affect me.

Unbelievable. Feels so old. Eric Peterson, how about you?

Yeah, at the time, we were living in Florida, so, I mean, we saw some. Some drastic, you know, housing prices falling drastically, I should say. So. Yeah, it was an interesting time. I think it was. I don't remember exactly when during the market collapse there, that we were actually Selling a house and moving to a new one kind of in the midst of that. So, yeah, it was interesting for us, but, you know, it's definitely a learning experience. So prior to that, we had always bought and sold real estate and made money on it. So, you know, that was the first time that didn't happen.

Yeah, yeah. Do you think that there is an impending. Is that the right word, impending? Do you think the recession is coming and if so, what's your prediction and how bad would it be?

It's always coming, right? I mean, it's a perpetual cycle that continues. You know, the values go up and then eventually they're going to come back down. I don't feel like I've got the knowledge to be able to predict when that is, but, you know, it's sooner or later.

Right.

Okay, that's a good politically correct answer. Bearland. Aaron, how about you?

I don't know. The last one didn't affect me too much. The business I had wasn't really very affected by it. Most of the industries that I worked with were pretty stable through it. Did listen to a lot of information when it did happen, and I think if we have another one, which we eventually probably will, you know, it can be caused by so many things. I don't necessarily know that it'd be a crash in the real estate market this time. You know, it would be affected, of course, but, you know, but the government kind of fixed some of those things that caused some of that lending that, you know, led to it, so. But they didn't fix a couple other things like, you know, maybe reigning in the derivatives market, things like that, to, you know. And I think when it starts to look like there might be some trouble ahead, you know, I think the Fed's gonna just keep markets propped up until all of a sudden they just can't. Can't hold it up in that stick that's propping it up finally snaps, and then it'll be a pretty bad one, you know, so we do need to be prepared for it in some way or another, you know, I know you have some ideas. It never hurts to have some assets that are on hand, physical assets to help weather it, whether it be land or even some precious metals or something like that. But, you know, we have a pretty good thing here that is good hedge. So, you know, that's. That's kind of my take on it.

Yeah, Mimi.

I remember we came, we moved back from Japan in 2008, and we bought houses before, but that summer we had to find another rent A place to live because the lender wanted us to have multiple appraisals to see within a month or within two months if the value of the property was declining while we were trying to buy it. So I've never had that happen before. But I feel like we're just getting into the strength of the economy. It was just what, two years back when the GDP was only like 1%. Now it's 4%. So I feel like this is. The economy's really getting strong. So it surprised me if it came. If we were looking at something happening next year already, I think that'd be. If it's the longest recovery, then maybe it'll be a longer time that we can stay on the up and up. But yeah, I have to remember what you said. I won't get in too much debt. I have to make sure that I don't get too leveraged and make sure that I have enough cash on hand so that when it does come, I can take advantage of the deals.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Zen Master.

Well, it's kind of interesting. I do remember being a firefighter and blue collar type job and there are a lot of. So what pre. I remember what came before it. I remember everybody getting their zero interest loans. I remember we had firefighters that were actually peddling these loans and we had a little song. One of the guys, it was just because we always make fun of people and he was, I remember sitting at the table with 12 guys, he's like, yeah, I can get you this, you know, zero percent interest. It's great. You're going to be. And then, well, what happens a few years? Well, you can just do it all over again and you can just get more money. And I recall if you guys did that and I really remember that, you know, it was just crazy. Everybody was just getting money everywhere. You know, taking these zero interest loans and refinancing the house or taking equity loans and you know, I watched the Big Short and movies like that and I see the flip side. And I remember that time everybody was becoming like this, this is broker Mark. Everybody was becoming the one that could, you know, they were hiring all these guys that could go in and just talk to their friends and get them a loan. I can get you money. And it was, it was crazy.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, people are flipping houses left and right. It was crazy. It was, it was.

That was insane.

You get a signature loan. You didn't have to have a job, you had to have a heartbeat.

It reminded me when I was in college, when I. You know, you could pull everywhere in college they had like these applications to get a credit card. And it says, you know, what do you have for income? And really, this is back in like 90, right? And it would say parents. It would say, what do you call it? From parents. What do they give you? The allowance. Allowance. Parents allowance. And I got. I was like, oh, I feel like Scott Todd does this thing at boot camp. I'm like, look at this. Cash comes out of getting a leather jacket till my dad gets the bill. He's like, mike, what's up with this? I'm like, I got a credit card. So that all kind of reminds me of all that. All that swirl and that bustle. And then, you know, I don't think that our job, our income, you know, of course, negotiating with the city for raises and all that, but what I remember is people were. They were over leveraging themselves. And, you know, at the time when it crashed, I had just got divorced, so I was renting a house, and I remember the landlord left and I was just like, would you get. They were getting ready to go, and I got a notice in the mail, and I was like, hey, what's going on? And they're like, oh, don't worry about it. I go, okay, I'll put all the money in a bank account in case you do leave. And if you. When you get it fixed, let me know. Give it to you. They left, and a year later, I bought the house for half of what they bought it for. And it was kind of like. It was weird. Like, I kind of benefited from it. So anyway, that was my experience of that whole thing was just a crazy time, people taking more money than they should, and I ended up in debt, you know, from that type of scenario. And that's where the land business came in. That's like the precursor to me getting with land is that whole frenzy, right? And then the debt that ensued. So you. You know, I think that now I'm much more prudent. I don't carry. I mean, I have a little bit of credit card that we just revolve. We pay it off, we travel to boot camps, we get points on. You know, I want to be a JetBlue preferred guy, you know, just because I like that. But I think listening to someone like Scott Todd talk about profit first and these buckets and things like that, I think that has been extremely valuable. Surrounding ourselves with people that have gone through even worse things. And then listening to you with your wealth discussion at boot camp, which is always very well received by people. And I think that just keeps me fresh in my mind to live within your means and to keep things safe. So I don't know if it comes, great, but we could still buy land so cheap. But we can make money. Come on, It'll be a buying frenzy for us. I mean, really.

Yeah. I mean, if we're positioned correctly, it's a great thing for us. Scott. Todd, what do you think? Am I being too cautious, too pessimistic at this point?

He's muted.

No, I can't hear you. Wait, you're muted. Here you go. There you go.

Man, you guys missed my whole dissertation on the economy.

No, I.

Look, the funny thing is that there's a lot, like, there's a lot of people running around talking about recession, right? Like, and if you just look at it from a very logical standpoint, it makes sense, right? Like, we know at some point it will happen. It's not. It's not if it ever happens, it's when it happens. So, you know, like, calling the recession would be like, hey, it's gonna rain one day next year. Yeah, we know that it's gonna come.

Right?

The issue is that, you know, when, like, no one knows when. And there's all these little things that you can look at, you can look at. I saw an article about Warren Buffett's indices that says it's at an all time high. And last time it was all time high, there was a recession. And then even Warren Buffet would say, well, that's not the whole story. That's like one indices that I look at, but it's not the whole thing. And then you look at. You kind of look at other things, like the period, how long it's been. You're like, oh, it's going to come any day now. And look, it could come tomorrow. We just don't know. I think that what you have to do is. I think you always have to kind of play into the cycle and then kind of prepare and have something in your brain of, okay, well, if this happens, well, what's going to happen? You know, run through those scenarios, because the reality is that it will happen at some point in time. Will it happen tomorrow or next week? I mean, none of us really know. You know, we just kind of have to see what happens. Mimi brings up a good point. Like, the economy is firing on all cylinders, and there's. There are typically precursors that you can see take taking place. You know, like, you start to see, you know what, like, when I worked at the rental Car company. You know, one of the things that we always looked at was, hey, what are companies doing? Like, what are our reservations doing? Because when companies start to get hit, well, then they start to limit their travel. And when they start to limit their travel, what happens is people rent less cars.

Okay.

So, you know, when you look at companies like rental car travel company, and they're saying, hey, we based on our reservations, because they're looking forward to reservations based on our reservations, things are looking pretty good. That's kind of an indice. But that doesn't mean that, like that the whole thing couldn't change tomorrow and everybody canceled their reservations. But you tend to plan out events and you tend to plan out things based on where the market is and how your company is doing, and then they're not saying anything. Those companies are kind of having good numbers. They're giving forward guidance that's positive and that's kind of a precursor. You can look at certain areas like, I know that Eric and I both lived in southwest Florida, and southwest Florida is known as like the precursor of, you know, like a bellwether, if you will, towards future things. Because there's a lot of travel that takes place in that area. There's a lot of people that buy second homes. So you can kind of look at what the real estate market's doing in that, that particular market and kind of judge. I think that really the best way to prepare yourself is, you know, right now, like, if you have debt, like, man, get the debt down now. Like if you can, if you could literally wipe out all your debt, wipe it out so that, you know, you know, you've got a boatload of credit cards or whatever that if you need to live on, that's the time to kind of leverage the bad debt, I think. And then, you know, in the, in the, in the periods like this now you've got extra, you know, room to pay down that stuff. So kind of get debt free now if you can at all cost, maybe keep debt. But beyond that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm the only one in this group that's actually gone through the cataclysmic recession of 2008. And, you know, my business wasn't affected until 2010, so it really took a while for land to get hit. Now was it like 45, 50% of my note portfolio went away because it was between groceries and their land note, and they chose groceries. However, it didn't take long to get those properties back on the market and extend my roi. So I think ultimately we're really well positioned. We're in the right niche for a, you know, whatever the economy is doing. Because when things, when there's a recession, if we're positioned correctly, it's easy to buy.

Right.

We can buy a lot easier and people are gonna get washed out and then it might take a little bit longer to sell. But we can make it irresistible like a car payment. People are always gonna want assets, they're always gonna want that good deal. Now if we're in the market where, let's say there's irrational exuberance, people are flush with cash, they're spending like crazy. We also benefit from that, but because it might be a little tougher to buy in those markets, but it's super easy to sell. And the nice thing about our niche is that we can see it sooner because housing and commercial gets hit first and then we can start preparing and sort of battening down the hatches sort of thing. So Tate, fear not honestly navigate it.

I mean, honestly, I'm not really that worried about it. I've seen the numbers. Right. I know what's happened to other land investors during that time. And if you play your cards right and do what kind of everyone discussed on this call and you're prepared for, you know, just life. It's the way I view it. Just prepare for normal life situations. You're not going to run into much, much trouble or many problems. I mean, personally, what we're doing is we're getting ready for that so we can go on a buying frenzy. You know, it'll be a good time to be a land buyer at that time.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I worry about those FBA Amazon people because when consumer spending stops, those people are going to be really hit. They should start coming into asset based type of investing like, oh, I don't know, raw land. Right. Forever and do that. But that's just me. I do think an excellent video, Mike and I talked about this before is how the economic machine works and it kind of walks you through it by Ray Dalio, the billionaire Bridgewater hedge fund manager. Mike and I love Ray Dalio. So also why not plug the book Principles by Ray Dalio? Great book, great book. So anything else about the recession for anyone or you know, I've been hearing that if it's going to hit, it's probably 2019, 2020, but it's something to think about. I don't know. All right, well let's, let's move on to the next topic which is always a fan favorite procrastination Procrastination. If you are in flight school, you are in one on one coaching, you're going to Top Gun. We see it all the time. People sometimes like to procrastinate, and it's very natural. Right. The only reason we procrastinate is because we are avoiding some type of pain. Not physical pain, but some type of mental pain. So if you mentioned to me, hey, Mark, you got to do your accounting this week. I feel some type of pain.

Right.

I'll go find something else to do then do my accounting. So it's a very natural thing, but you need to be kind of aware of, like, the areas in your business where you are procrastinating or you're hiding where you're just playing business. You're not really doing business. The one that we always like to pick on is, hey, I'm working on my website. Right. Well, that doesn't really make you any money. So, Tate Litchfield, how do you handle procrastination?

Oh, you know, it's. It doesn't matter what point of the business you're in, there's going to be things that you hate doing. What I try to do is identify those things that I hate doing and ask myself, is there a way for me to never do it again? So the way I prevent procrastination is outsourcing. Right. If there's something I loathe, then, I mean, I enjoy what I do on a daily basis for my business. And if there's something that I don't enjoy doing, then, and it doesn't bring me joy, I can, I can guarantee, find somebody who will do it for me and they'll do it for you.

Yeah, but what if you don't like sales? You can't really outsource.

You're right.

You can't outsource. Well, you got to learn to like them.

You could, but, like, yeah, yeah, you.

Got to learn to like them. I mean, the way you got to view it is every time you pick up the phone or everyone you talk to, they potentially want to give you money. Now if that doesn't get you excited, then I don't know what, what will. Right? You've got to have that mindset change where you say, no, I don't hate this. Right. It's not like, you know, I get up early in the morning to go ride my bike every day. It's not like waking up in the morning is, you know, my favorite thing to do when it's dark and hot outside. But I know that once I do I'm going to be happy once I'm on my bike, once I'm riding with the guys. Right. So there's certain things in life that you just have to deal with, I guess. And I don't know, I. Maybe I don't have a great answer for how to combat procrastination other than you just got to do it sometimes and I don't know, have your. Have your goals written out, clearly identified, and you just got to embrace it sometimes.

I love it. I love it. Eric Peterson, how about you?

Well, I agree with Tate that, you know, when. When you can outsource those things, that's ideal. Right. I mean, move them off your plate and then you don't have to think about it. But the things you can't. I find myself that if I schedule those things out and kind of, you know, I think I've talked about it before, you know, theming your days and having a certain day where you take care of, you know, that. That one thing you don't like or whatever it is, if it's at least scheduled so that, you know that, you know, you don't have to worry about it today, but you got to take care of it tomorrow. For me, that makes it easier. Of course, when the day comes, I still don't want to do it, but I know that that's the day of the week I do that particular thing. And once it's done, I don't have to worry about it for another week. So in a sense, it's a little bit rewarding from that perspective, but that's how I deal with it.

Yeah. And I do like the idea of giving yourself a reward for getting it done, like just that little bit of motivation as well. So that's. That could be like a little hack, if you will. Maryland. Aaron, how do you handle it?

Well, I've had a lifelong battle of procrastination, and it's still tough. I've got kind of two things that caused me to procrastinate. One is something that I don't necessarily know specifically how to do or don't have a process for. Often procrastinate on that just because it's the unknown. Maybe. The other thing is things that are just take a lot of time, you know, because there's, you know, whether, you know, things like that maybe writing a long ad or accounting or, you know, making a video lesson for a VA stuff that just takes a big chunk of time. I often procrastinate a little bit on too, because I think all the other Things I need to do that I won't be able to do because of that big block of time, but to help with that problem or those problems, you know, and I'm not always the best at this, but you know, Brian Tracy's got that book, Eat the frog. Eat that frog. Yeah. And you know, if you tackle your day doing the thing you're dreading the most or that you're most likely to procrastinate on, then, you know, you went, you can go on the rest of your day knowing that that was the worst thing you had to do. And it's done the other thing too, with the processes and things that you maybe don't know. It helps. Just plan your day out, you know, and decide that this is what I'm going to do today. And once you do that, then you can look to that list and rather than saying, well, I don't know how to do to this, what can I do next? And then you end up doing the superficial work that doesn't really move you forward in a meaningful way. You know, if you've got a game plan for the day and you can, and you follow it, then when you complete each task, you're less likely to procrastinate by doing working on the website because you move on to the next meaningful thing and you can move yourself forward. But, you know, it's a lot easier said than done, for sure.

Yeah, no, I love that. And I love that, you know, you're going to write down like your most important tasks and then I think a really nice hack is to actually put it into your calendar with an alert. And then you're sort of avoiding, let's say you do it the night before, you're avoiding decision fatigue for that next day because you already know exactly. You know, you already have your time allotted about what you're going to do. So in our business, the most important buckets that you've got to get done are the mailing and marketing. Once those two things are checked off, then you can go into some of the other. You know, they're still impactful, but you know, like, say like making a system and sort of knowing, okay, if I create the system, I'm gonna, I'm gonna create another five minutes for myself and eliminate that for the rest of my life and you know, creating more time type of thing. But I think that in order to get it done, you actually have to put it on your calendar and allot that time for it with a little flexibility for sure. Mimi, how do you handle procrastination.

Similar to what everyone's saying. I think theming the days are great. Eric. I do that too. And setting, for instance, if you work and you don't have a whole day, you have your two hour block in the evening. Right. Make your sure. And then prioritizing mailing and marketing. If I'm not where I need to be on my mailing and my marketing, then those big tasks come first. I think that's important. And then setting goals. Right. I need to make sure that I have short term and medium term goals that I'm staying on track with. Right. So I put a lot of pressure on myself, hold myself accountable on that.

And.

Oh, and about the phone calls. Right. I love that saying that the more no's you get, the sooner you'll get to the yes. I can't remember what you'll remember what book that's from, but yeah, I didn't really like the sales conversations at first either. But if I just eat that frog like you said, Erin. Right. And go through that pain, one more no will get me to the yes. That's always motivating for me.

Scott, didn't we have though that author learn to love no on the podcast?

Yeah, yeah, we did.

Yeah, that's what it was. And then setting time limits. If I am working on what I need to be working on, sometimes I just notice I'm getting caught up in minutia and even did it this morning. I was making a a picture from Google Maps on the distance between two places. If I'm not done with this by nine, I'm just going to stop doing it. I was getting frustrated with myself. So I'll set myself time limits.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, how many of you just raised a hand or are doing pomodoro timers where you take that task, you give yourself so much time to complete it. Tate, you're doing it. Mimi Bear land.

Yeah.

I mean, Mike Zander's got such a big team now. I don't even know if he's doing anything, but let's ask him. Mike, how do you handle procrastination?

I've been procrastinating my whole life. My father used to say you think about it all day long before you do it. You know, you run in circles. So yeah, I can relate to this. And I think with our business model, it's very easy to get caught in that procrastination mode. Right. That whole. And we talk about this a lot, all of us. Right. There's so much information out there and this is where I would just draw the relationship between the toolkit and flight school. And I talk to a lot of people and I'm very fortunate to talk to people getting in our business model and people who've gotten a toolkit. And a lot of times all the information is there. It is always there. All the information is there in the toolkit. But then to get caught up in what I was described to me when I first started the whirlwind, right, there's these things that move the business and there's all this other stuff, all the papers flying everywhere like you talked about, Mark, Website, this, that. But there's only a couple of things that really move the needle forward and you have to execute on those. But since there's so much information and there's an information gap, there is that execution gap. So we have a solution for that, which is right next to me on this Brady Bunch grid. It's Scott Todd right there in flight school. This is the. This is the solution. I always tell people, you know, what to do and when to do it, because you're not going to be at home going, okay, now what do I do today? All this stuff that I just saw on this, you know, in this toolkit. Well, how do I execute today? What do I execute on today? Well, when you have the Sherpa, the guy that says, this is what you're going to do today, and you better have it done by next week or else I'm going to pull out the mini bat or I'm going to chase it down, whatever it takes, right? Then action happens. So I think. But everybody's prone to it, I think. And then finally me, I think, to talk about the master Ray Dalio habits, right? I mean, that's like chapter 800 of 1000 chapters in his book, I think he talks about creating daily habits. There's a lot of chapters in the book. I'm joking, but it's not a thousand. But he's got a lot of chapters. But creating habits, right? So, you know, there's things you do every day that if they're routine enough and it takes a while to make them routine, you have to stick with it for a month or whatever. Then it's a habit and then you've got it, you own it.

Practice makes permanent.

Practice makes permanent. You know, I like. You know, as far as books, there's a great book on procrastination by Mel Robbins called the Five Second Rule. And it's such a simple psychological.

Don't buy the book, just teach him Mark. Right now?

Yeah. Just go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go. And just do it right. You kind of short circuit that. That little lizard voice in your head that, you know, fills you through, full of doubt and fear and whatever it is that you don't want to do. Just five, four, three, two, one. You know, go. And for her, like, she tells this very poignant story about having a hard time just getting up in the morning and having children and husband, how it's affecting her life. And I really thought it was a great book. Even though this is, you know, it's a simple concept, but it's. It's. It's powerful. Scott. Todd, I know that, you know, you probably don't have any kind of procrastination.

Oh, I do. Oh, yeah, I do. I think that when you're procrastinating from something, you're, you know, you're probably. You're probably going down the path that. That ultimately you should be going down. It's kind of like a clue that, hey, here's some work that you should be doing. So, you know, like, if you're trying to do this difficult work, whatever it is, and you're like, hey, it's. Maybe I should go get a haircut. Well, that's kind of an indication that your mind is like. It's that little voice in your brain that's like, hey, you're not good enough for this. Or you get that voice, and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna go for a haircut, or I'm gonna go do this. And, you know, I think that's kind of like the clue that you. What you need to do is you just need to finish that work instead of putting it off, you know, like, because it's telling you your voice is telling you you're on the right path. You just need to kind of listen to the voice. I think that that's kind of a hard thing to kind of do over time.

No, no. I remember in corporate America, the people that take, like, you know, long smoke breaks or water cooler breaks, I'm like, they're procrastinating something. You know, no one needs this many breaks. They're. They're hiding and, like. And then all of a sudden, like, I found myself during the day, like, oh, I need a new cup of coffee. Like, I'm wired all day. But, you know, there's. There's, like, this. There's time involved in doing it. So now I'm, like, cut down to, like, one cup of coffee a day, and I'm Absolutely, you know, struggling with it, but I. I feel better.

You do that now. One cup.

One cup. And then. Oh, and Mike taught me that trick at boot camp because, you know, like, for those of you that have been to past boot camps, like, I chug coffee. Like, Nicholas Cage was chucking, chugging alcohol and leaving Las Vegas. And, you know, and so he's like, just. He's like, mark, just drink some warm water. It's like the same thing as a coffee. You're not getting the caffeine pretty good, huh? No, no, no.

Stop.

Voice.

What voice?

That's your Jeff Axton voice.

I can't even breathe.

I'm wicked cool at boot camp, drinking this warm water. So that's really how. But I think for me, it was a form of hiding, procrastinating, because that next task, for whatever reason, was going to cause me some type of pain. I thought, oh, this is a way to sort of avoid it and, you know, and do that. So now, no more excuses. Which leads me to the tip of the week. Are we ready? Okay, so I'm giving everyone a break this week. I've got the tip of the week. I'm in Staples. It's back to school. And I did an impulse buy. And Scott Todd was kind of in the back of my head. He's been in the back of my head ever since we did that whole Grant Cardone thing. And you're writing down your 10x rules, your 10x, not 10x rules, but 10x goals, right? And he was like, handwriting it. I'm like, why are you handwriting it? And, like, being all judgy about it. And I think I did that with Grant Cardone himself. Like, I don't want to, you know, handwriting. He's like, well, I'll race you right now. And he, like, wrote down his goals on the podcast. So I found this thing called the rocketbook. And what the rocketbook does, it takes this friction pen and you write on it like you would in a notebook. But then you take. You take a picture with the app and it uploads it into the cloud or email, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, whatever you want it to do. And now it can even transcribe it. So you get sort of that power of handwriting combined with the power of keeping things organized in, say, Dropbox or Evernote. And, like, I hate my handwriting. So this sort of transcribes it, if you will. And I like it. I don't know. I'm playing with it. Scott, what do you have it?

Like, I got I got a notebook here, little black and red notebook. And this thing, this is a new one. It says it's got this special paper that you'll see. I don't think see it here, but there's like little dots up here on the paper. You download iPhone app and it like does the same thing, Mark. I don't know Paper. Stop, stop, stop running away from paper, man.

I'm embracing paper and combining with technology. I think it's very. And then I only have to buy the one notebook. I'm saving paper. You wipe it up.

I'm writing mine up right now.

I don't have an army.

What's the name of yours, Mark?

Rocket. Rocketbook. What's the link? Is it Rocketbook.com? rocketbook. Let me see. I just have the app in front of me.

What is this paper? Is this like real paper?

Like it's exactly like what you have, Scott.

But what do you mean you only buy one notebook?

You only buy one notebook because once you upload the page into the cloud, then you erase it and then you write more. So you only need notebook. Oh, here it is. Getrocketbook.com. thank you.

Special.

I need a special.

Comes with it comes with a special pen. Yeah. And you can get like 10 on Amazon for 10 bucks.

Be sure I need one.

You won't. Yeah, but you could lose it. Yeah, for sure. And then it does the OCR recognition as well, so it transcribes it for you. I don't think I'll be able to transcribe mine because my handwriting so bad. But if you got nice handwriting, it's even better.

How do you erase it?

So you just take it comes with a microfiber thing. You just dab with a little bit of water and then you just. You just wipe it like that. They've got another one that you can microwave. Then it'll erase it through the microwave. But I. Yeah, Eric's like, I'm not putting anything in the microwave. That's weird. You just erase it and then upload it to the cloud. You've got all your goals or notes or whatever it is.

You're journaling paper in the microwave. I don't think.

How much is this thing, Mark?

Honestly, I don't remember.

27 bucks for the microwavable one.

It's less than 30 bucks. It's affordable.

You know what? I'm getting it right now.

Yeah.

This is dumb.

But why is it dumb?

Wait a minute.

Zero point in this, Scott, can we.

Have a link for yours? Is there a Link for yours.

It's a notebook that you reuse. It's a reasonable.

I want to compare it to.

Scott, what's wrong with, like a notepad? I mean, nothing's wrong with it.

It's just that one. The neat. Once the notepad is done, you got to get Jeff Detmer to make you a new notepad. Killing trees.

I recycle. I recycle.

How many recycling? Like eight.

Which one do you have? The big one.

I got the big one. They got a smaller one, but I.

Twice the size of an iPhone, maybe. Yeah, that looks.

Yeah, I mean, it's like. It's like letter pages.

It's called the rocketbook Everlast. Is that the one you have?

I got the Everlast. Yeah.

Gotta get the pen.

And I got. And it comes with a pen. And I bought extra pens because I know I'll lose.

I'm getting the bundle.

All right.

What do you need the bundle for? Get the regular one because it's a.

Big one and a little one.

Why do you have to one up me?

Did you get the rocketbook sunglasses, too?

And the T shirt?

All right. This. This podcast.

You just microwave them and they get clean.

Now I see why.

Okay.

I don't do tips of the week anymore, Mark.

I will tell you, though. Okay? So I'm looking at this.

It's kind of cool.

And I'm looking at it and I'm like. It sounds weird and I like the fact that I. I'm writing, like, with all my lan Moto pins.

Okay.

But it does. It does bring out. I am interested in it. See, do get in the car right now and go down to Staples and see this thing.

I don't. I don't hear Eric Peterson mocking you.

Oh, it's at Staples.

Yeah, it's at Staples.

Or you can get. I'm holding it. I'm gonna look at it.

Yeah. Eric.

I don't really use paper. I don't think it's for me.

I don't think it's for me either. That's why I got it. But Because I just have always been jealous of those people that like to write. There is something special about writing.

Perfect for me, Mark. I want to fight a call. I gotta take patients information. And then I could just. This is unbelievable.

Okay, But I.

Mark.

So look, I was in a. I was at a meeting yesterday and I had my notebook with me. I had like this notebook with me right here. Okay. Like, not this one, but one like it. And what was cool is that I was able to Go back and, like, flip through and find things that I actually wanted to, like, ship person I was meeting with. Right. Like it's boom, as opposed to, like, it's in my phone and then I gotta go find it. I might flip through page virtually online. So there is something about having a notebook that you. That has, like, weeks and weeks and weeks.

Yeah, but Scott, when you have 20 notebooks, you're going to be more. You're going to be. It's going to be better off to do Evernote and tag and do hashtag meeting on this date with so and so with those keywords than you would flipping through, like, all these notebooks like that. Mimi has got a question. Talking about a show for hoarders.

I gotta have clarification. I'm a little on my own hand here. Did he just say his patient? Are you a doctor? I could have swore he just said I was with my patient the other day. This is another profession you have, Scott, we don't know about.

No, I said I was with my patient. I said I was.

I heard patient. I'm sorry. I thought maybe you had got your doctor's license on the side now. Besides, the pilot just really dropped the mic.

Yeah, I'm a brain surgeon, Mike.

Tell me.

The brain.

I did it in 12 months.

That's right.

I use my spare time to heal the injured, donate my services, went to.

The medical school and asked if money weren't an option, how still could I be a doctor?

How long would it take me to finish this deal? And they're like, six months. Brain surgeon, top one in the country. I'm like, let's do it. I want to.

I'm just gonna delegate it anyway.

Owen Wilson's role in Meet the Fockers or whatever, you know, where he's just out there and he's like, living the greatest life ever, donating all his time to charity and everything. I'm a surgeon, Mike.

Yeah. So Bearline. Aaron, I'm really scared to even ask you because, like, when he gets really quiet, like, you know the hammer is coming, you just know it's coming, and then you just feel it. It's like the bludgeon to the back of the head. Is it coming bear land?

No, I'm gentle today.

See? So I guess it's just, you know, Eric and Tate are the only ones who really don't like it.

I mean, I think when you get tired of yours, just send it to me. I know you're gonna use it for, like, three weeks every single day. And then you're gonna be like, I'm just gonna write this on my phone.

That's awesome.

It's like the older brother. You always get the hand me downs.

Yeah, just take your hand me down.

Yeah, go ahead. It's scary how well he knows me.

I know you're gonna try this and you're gonna wake up and you're gonna write out your goals every morning and you're gonna be great. And then you're gonna. One day you're gonna, you know, not do it, and then you'll be back on your cell phone. So I'll just wait for your hand me downs.

Right.

Like, nothing wrong with that.

It's fine. It's fine. All right. Well, I thought this was a great roundtable, and I want to thank everybody for taking their time out of their non busy schedules to, you know, give value to the community. Hopefully the community is getting tons of value from this. Let us know. Give us a shout out on the official land geek mastermind group on Facebook. Or, you know, if you wanted to submit a tip of the week, just email supporthelandgeek.com But I think the best way to really start interacting with the community is with a beverage of choice. At Nightcap with Mike Zano and Scott Bossman. The robe and swivel Mike. When's nightcap? Next week.

Oh, this is gonna. Yeah, yeah.

So this is going next week?

Yeah. So this will be Thursday night.

Thursday night at 9 Eastern.

No, 10.

10 Eastern.

9 would be 6 in the west coast. We can't expect people to have a drink. We at least make it seven. 7:30, I believe.

Etiquette's after five.

We want full participation.

So does it rotate? Sometimes Wednesdays, sometimes Thursdays. And we gotta pay attention. Or is it most.

Mostly my fire department schedule. I know I'm the only one in the group with the real job. I keep telling everybody that I got harassed. The only one. But yes, seven rotates. So yes, it's because of me.

Yeah, that's okay. I just think it's important that that expectation is out there.

Right?

Yes.

I saw a fire truck this morning, Mike, and I thought of you. I thought, what? These people are just givers. Yeah. While I was drinking my sugar free vanilla latte, writing in your rocket book, after taking my son to school, coming back to the garage.

Mahal.

But whatever, I don't judge. It's good for you. So if you don't want to have a commute anymore, I think it's really important that you schedule a call with Mike Zaino. Or Scott Bossman and learn more about the toolkit or flight school. And you can just do that. Go to landgeek.com training and do that. But I thought this was great. I want to thank everybody. And again, if you, if you would please support the podcast, leave us a review, send us a screenshot of that review. Get a, get a subscribe rate, review the podcast, send us a screenshot. Supporthelangic.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. And if you send your address, I'd love to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich as a thank you. All right, are we ready? Are we doing it? One, two, three. Much better.

With Bear Land on mute.

It's.

Yeah, I mouthed it, so I felt like part of the group. But you didn't have to deal with it.

Exactly.

I'm glad we have to deal with that.

Oh, and it's great that, you know, Bearland Aaron can go back and listen to this podcast in real time on his, on, you know, his bandwidth.

He's hearing the echo right now, right?

It's like a 30 second delay. So he's like, he's like, melissa, let's go listen to the, the roundtable. They got to drive, you know, 30 miles to, like the public library. Get good, good WI fi.

Actually, when it comes out, it's a week later. And that's, that's right at about real time for me. A week later. Next. Next Tuesday.

Mark, have you seen the TV show Live Pulley or Live PD or whatever?

No.

Like, they record it live, but they delay it by 30 minutes or so. But it's actually like live police action across the country or like right then, but it's always delayed. That's like, you know, Bear Land. Like, it's like live roundtable for him. It comes 30 minutes later.

There you go.

I don't know, ever being so rough on. Barely. And Aaron, he was so sweet about my tip.

Yeah, and I kind of like your tip because I've got. I've got like 12 yellow notepads that I've got different subjects on. Maybe it'd be good thing, you know, so maybe I'll try it.

There you go. All right, well, I've got some leftover Chinese waiting for me. Everybody. Have a. Have a great day.

NASA uses that notebook. Did you know that?

See NASA Take that, Eric Peterson. Mrs. Peterson, if you're listening, I apologize. All right, I'll talk to you guys later. And Rachel, if you're listening, I love you. Happy anniversary. See you guys.

That.

Yes.