ROUND TABLE—Spousal Support In The Land Business—The Antidote To Resentment Is Alignment

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and we've got a great topic for this week's roundtable. And I actually had another podcaster recommend to me that Just get into it. Like, you don't need to go through the whole introduction thing. Everyone else is on the roundtable. I'm just gonna say the irascible Eric Peterson, Mimi Terrace under Schmidt Tate, the Big Papa Litchfield Bearland. Aaron Gurr, Jeannie. We're still working on your nickname. And of course, you know we love him. Scott. Todd. Scott todd.netlandmoto.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com landgeek. Try listening to this podcast on 2x speed and how fast it's going now. All right, let's just get into it. We got a big topic, spousal support. So I can imagine you find the Land Geek somewhere. Maybe it's on a podcast. You hear me on another different podcast, or social media or a friend. Maybe you saw an Amazon review and you got the book and you're super excited about the possibility of not just more money, but more time, more freedom, more of the things that you really want to do in life. Because you know you can always make more money. You can't get more time. The business is 90% automated with software. There's all these advantages to it. You know that investing in real estate is the best way to get to wealth. But here's a way to get wealthy without having to deal with renters, rehabs, renovations, and rodents. It's scalable. You can do it from anywhere in the world. All you need is an Internet connection and an inexpensive computer. There's all these really exciting benefits to it. No one knows about it. There's no competition. So now you go to your spouse and say, I'm super excited about getting started. And what do they say, Eric Peterson?

They say, what are you talking about? You're gonna buy land and sell it? How are you gonna make any money?

That's not the first question. What's the first question they asked Tate?

I don't know.

How much money are you gonna make and how long?

No, no, I don't know.

How much?

How much is it going to cost?

How much is it going to cost? And now you're already on the defensive, right? So bear Land. Erin, you're talking to Missy, and she's like, well, that sounds good. How Much is going to cost. What do you say?

Yeah, that's. You know, I told her it can cost as little or as much as we want, you know, listening to the podcast. And I guess the initial thing was the toolkit. And she was okay with that, you know, because she's used to me starting a business previously anyway, so she's got a little bit of trust there, you know, and then beyond that, she was completely on board. You know, she went to the first boot camp with me, and she was on our call when I got into coaching, and she's like, pretty much, yeah, do it. So she's been really on board, very supportive. So I'm lucky in that aspect for sure.

Right. Jeanne, what was the first thing Kurt said to you? He said, I want to do this.

You know, he didn't say anything at all. He just listened and kind of nodded his head, like 30 years of ideas. So he basically wanted me to show him and prove it to him that it would work.

Yeah, I know when I look at a program, because I do a lot of different programs, I always say to my wife, 30 day guarantee, it's okay. It sucks. We're not taking any risk because she always wants to know, how much does it cost? Right, Scott? Todd, what about you?

She said, try it.

What.

What's the worst that can happen? We gotta try this thing.

Right, Right. Mimi, how about you? Excited about the toolkit?

He said, how do you know this guy isn't just trying to take your money?

Which is. Which is, I think, a legitimate.

Yeah.

By the way. So how do you. So I think the way you say that as well, There's a. A 30 day guarantee. There's a guarantee on the toolkit.

I'll just dispute on our credit card.

Yeah. I mean, worst case, you always dispute on the credit card. I mean, Mike Zaino, you got to talk to a lot of spouses. What is the biggest fear? Number one. Is Mark one of those other pie in the sky? You know, he talks a big game, but then it doesn't work. Or is it more just fear of. It works for all these geeky people, but will it work for me? Or that's a big investment. Right. Or is it a combination thereof?

Yeah.

I mean, because clearly one of the couples is excited. The other one's like, whoa, let's be rational about this.

Right, Right. Although we are getting more and more couples coming in. You know, we're getting more. More couples that are joining. But I think what ultimately converts people over and makes them realize the potential is that they have other friends, or maybe in the past they've done some other types of real estate investing where they have to invest so much money to get a return, and our investments are so small, but generate such a large return. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. So I think when they realize that, when it fully sinks in that the small amount of capital that we need to buy, to buy land and how it can truly amplify our passive income, I think that really is a big turning point. Because what's your other option? To go buy hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars on some sort of rental property. And that's not passive. That's pretty dynamic. Right? So I think once they start seeing that, but I think for us, when we came on, it was that we didn't have a choice. So we were doing all these other jobs, but we couldn't leverage our time, and we have 40 grand debt. So there's no way we were going to climb out of that. There was no way. So we found you. We found a solution to scale our time and create more money. So that's how she was on board, is that we needed it. We had no choice.

Right. And I think the overwhelming proof and the testimonials kind of helps. So you get the. You get the testimonials, you got the guarantee, you've got someone you can talk to that's already been through it. I think what differentiates us is that we don't have a sales team. We just have lanky coaches that have gone through their own training and now helping other people with it, you know, and be the Sherpa. So, like that authenticity. But I can imagine Eric Peterson, you know, talking to your spouse about this, being all excited. What was the first question she asked?

Well, I think when I came on at the time, it was the toolkit. If I remember correctly, I made that investment without her permission. You know, I believed in the model. I knew I wanted to try it, so I went out there and did it. And, you know, by the time I had bought and sold the property is really. I probably, like, left clues about it along the way and made mentions of it, but until I actually had proven the whole system for myself, that's. That's when I took it to her and told her, you know, that it was the future.

I love it. I love it. Tate, do you guys have the ask forgiveness not permission policy?

You know, Allison was pretty on board with it. I told her what I was doing, and, you know, I. She was kind of game with it. She's like, okay, yeah. I mean, what do we got to lose? Go ahead, give it a shot. And worst case scenario is you fail and we end up with, you know, a piece of property in our name. I don't see how that's really a big problem. So I told her I was buying it, right. I knew the numbers, they made sense. She was okay with it. And we said, let's give it a shot and see how it turns out.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the great thing about living in today's day and age is the fact that if you're not a quality company and your information isn't quality, you can just Google the person. Like, if you just Google me, I think, like, the third thing is calling out Mark Podolsky, bigger pockets. And this guy's like, calling me out and saying, this is not the best passive income model. And I Googled myself and I just responded to him. And so many people love my response because, you know, I just poke hole, poke hole, poke hole. But it's a really good way to say, oh, it's not all positive information out there. What's this guy saying? And kind of getting that other point of view where, you know, back in the day, you know, like, you'd have to call the Better Business Bureau and get a rating. Like, it wasn't so transparent what was going on. And so I think we sort of have that advantage. And it also. So it's impossible now to kind of hide in a way to do that, which I think makes a better consumer, helps to make a better investment decision. But even with all that sort of fuel, right, we have to emotionally get into the place of our spouse. And I think that I know when I. I don't see eye to eye with my wife, the only times it ever goes well is when I step into her shoes and see it from her lens, right? So I don't ever answer the question directly. You know, how much does it cost? Or I don't get to get off on the rabbit hole. I say, I can imagine, right, if I were in your shoes, how this looks, right? And based on my past, you know, when I. When I hired that one CPA for $50,000, you're probably nervous I'm making the same mistake again kind of thing, right? So I go in, right into her world, and now we're sort of like, looking at the world the same way. And I can see her fears and her anxiety, and then she feels better because then it's not like, you know, we're not fighting now. We're like, we're looking at the landscape together. And then I'm kind of saying, okay, but now that I see it from your point of view, look. Look at it from my point of view and look at all these potential benefits. If I just go to flight school and I just tell. And this guy who's done all these deals, all I do is follow the recipe. He's like, better than going on the. On, you know, the cooking show. Like, I just followed the recipe. And instead of a, you know, a beautiful apple cake, we get passive income for the rest of our lives. This is amazing. And then, like, oh, yeah. Then they get excited with it. See, there it is.

You don't get an apple cake. You get. You get a classic yellow cake with chocolate.

Where'd that come from?

Flight school, baby.

Life school.

We talked about the Duncan Hines classic yellow moist cake. I think tomorrow I might just. I might order one of these and just eat it in front of everybody. Just like, don't you wish.

That's just holding up a box of cake randomly. I just can't get over it. What else you got?

Lots of toys, right?

Right. So, Mike Zaino, how often do you think people get into it and then they get scared and then use their spouse as excuse not to execute?

Yeah. Well, I think it can definitely happen. You know, I don't know how often. I'd say it's every so often we have something like that that comes up. But the reality is, I think that they may use that as a crutch sometimes. Right? I mean, if they have to have security in their own decision, the fact that, you know, this is massive action. Everything that we talk about is taking massive action, leaps of faith, talk to people. It's like, okay, you got the toolkit. You get your toe in the water. But if you're gonna dive all in and you want to really, like, as you say, what, burn the ship, then you go to flight school, and you. And you go all in, and you make it happen. So I think sometimes it's a reflection of their fear, their uncertainty, their doubt, those fuds, as they call them. And maybe they can kind of parlay them off of their spouse, but maybe the spouse is feeling their uncertainty. So I think it has to come down to your confidence to take on a new step, a new, you know, a new massive action. And. And you have the Sherpa. I mean, it's like, listen. I mean, the advantage is you fought flight school works because you have someone right there with you that's showing you what to do and when to do it. You don't have to worry about. Oh, what about now? What now? No, you know what to do, you know when to do it. So if you have that, you just got to have the confidence. So I think it happens sometimes where the spouse might come in and get so involved that could cause them to change. But I think it's also maybe a reflection of that individual and their lack of maybe security and that massive action they're taking. I don't know. I think that you have to be willing to take the risk and step in or else, you know, like Mr. Miyagi says, right. Left side of the road. Right side of the road, in the middle, you get squished like grape.

No, no, it's true. I got a question for the panel because we're. All right, and I love that. And, and so the question is. I can imagine. Right. Let's say that, you know, like, my. My wife doesn't work outside the house. She never really has. Eric, does your wife work?

She does a little bit of part time work, but most of the time she's here at home.

Yeah.

Okay, I know your wife works. Scott, does your wife work? No, no. Maryland. Aaron, your wife works with you?

She works with me, but she also does a little bit of part time outside of. She substitute teaches, I think, just because she likes the kids and stuff.

So.

Right. And Jeanne, Kurt works with you, but not so much.

Right. Because he's full time.

He's full time. Laura works with Mike full time. Right, Mike?

Yeah.

She heads up all the VAs and does probably a lot more than me in a land business, but that's okay.

Right. And then, and then Mimi, your spouse is like. He's like a pilot.

He has two full time jobs.

He's two full time jobs. So. So how do we avoid the ugly head of resentment? So I work, you know, on, you know, this is like back in the day where I'd be working on my land business and something would come up where I would feel misunderstood about how hard I was actually working to provide. Right. And I would feel resentment. Right. How do you avoid that, Eric Peterson?

Honestly, I can't say I've encountered that. But I think that you've never felt resentment from my wife. No.

You've never been resentful of your wife?

Oh, man. Tread lightly, Eric.

What?

Did you listen to the recordings?

Newlywed? Yeah.

He's just so happy.

Everyone.

This situation you're describing about.

Oh, no.

Working and not looking like I'm working, that's what we're talking about, right?

Like, no, no, not at all. Just resentment. Forget the scenario.

I'm lost.

Then the ladies are helping.

He's pleading the fifth here.

He's pleading the fifth.

We help him out. You worked really hard on your land business. Kurt's worked a full day at work. You're both exhausted, and then inevitably, he's like, well, you didn't do much today, or you could. Well, how nice to have that magical paycheck come in the. In the. In the bank account.

Right.

While I'm hustling.

And, you know, I have permission to talk about him on the podcast, by the way. I asked for permission. Yeah. So we've been married 30 years, and there's a lot I could say, I guess. But you're right. He works hard, and then I have an expectation that he'll help me at night. But the problem is, I think there's fear. And he would own it. He would say it. There's fear because I have time today during the day to learn about Land Geek, and then he doesn't. So I spend my time trying to get him to catch up, and if he doesn't and he puts his foot down, I get a little ticked, and then there's a little tension, and then.

We have to call our coach.

And our coach is great. Kirby and I get along great. So don't take it the wrong way. It's just getting on. On board and getting in sync because our ultimate goal is for him to be home and we could do this together because we do get along well. But it's. It's fear on his end. And then when I sense fear and I get fearful, and so it kind of goes like that. And so I'm always the one taking the first step out, and sometimes I get scared, so. And I think he senses my fear as well, Mark. So I think he made some good points there. So in order to. To work through that, a couple things happened. Is going to boot camp was really helpful. And also having a coach, extremely helpful.

All right. I love it. I love it. Mimi, how about you?

For me, the resentment came from time, right? Because in the evenings is when I'm working on my land business or I've got office hours, right. That I'm listening to. So I have to find the time, right? I have to find the time to do it. And then he sees it's bringing me happiness, and then I have to prove to him that I. That it's not a waste of time, right? So when I got to where my passive Income built up enough that it was paying for the business itself, right? And he was starting to see that. Then the resentment melted away a bit because he said, okay, it's making her happy and she is paying for it herself now. So that really helped a lot.

Alright, great. I mean, Scott Todd, is what Jeannie said really the antidote to resentment alignment? Wait, you're on mute.

Sorry, sorry. I was thinking as she was saying that the need for a common goal, right? Like, it's the alignment of the goals.

It's.

It's having that common goal, it's having that bigger goal that you're both working on and for. And so then it's like, you know, high five. We did it. Or you did it, you know, and you know, I think that sometimes you can have competing goals, right? Like, you can have competing goals, but they may seem different when in fact they're the same. So what I mean by that is, let's say that one spouse was all about, you know, like, security, right? Like, I just want to be financially secure. I just want to be about financially secure. And then the other spouse is like, yeah, I want to be financially secure and I want to have the time freedom, right? Like, they seem like they're in opposition. One wants financial security, the other wants time freedom. But the reality is that they're both aligned around the one thing, which is financial security, right? Like, if you can say, look, this will provide me with the happiness that I want, boom. But it will also allow us to provide the financial security if X happens.

What's X?

I mean, like, Mark, we did a podcast recently. I know it won't be out for a while, but we were talking about, like the guy that has one semi truck, right? Like one semi truck. And he's like, man, I'm just going to drive my truck. I don't want two trucks, I don't want 10 trucks. They're more risky, when in fact having 10 trucks is less risky. One truck dies, you still have nine on the road, your profit centers there. It's less risky to have more. So I think it's about framing it, you know, like if you can frame it to say we will achieve the financial security that we both want through this. And look, we're going to chip away at this. One chip, chip, chip, chip at a time. We're chipping away at it. And then you start to build that snowball. It's that momentum. Look, I'm doing my. I'm contributing my piece over here, you're contributing your piece over here. And it's all going to come together with this one big ball and then we're going to have the freedom and the independence and the security that we all want.

Yeah, yeah. Mimi's excited about it. His Internet's so laggy. It looks like he's shaking his head.

He'll get in about five minutes.

We'll see the bear land response a little bit.

I think it's coming out right now, just not getting it.

By the way, did you see his. His horse and buggy? That's like the Tesla of his.

Hates get self drive.

He's got self drive like a Tesla. Mike Zano, I've never even seen you and Laura have a fight. What is going on there?

Well, everybody does things different, right? So, I mean, for us, the business was to the point. We built it to the point where we could take away from working at the school system. And that was a huge step. And now working together, for us, working together, hand in hand, the business, it's incredible. It's like we're living a life that, you know, I think I kind of was talking to Laura about something that Scott had said one time he was talking about was remorse. You were talking about Scott. You were saying something about, you know, you start living a life and you feel guilty. Survivor's guilt. What did you call it? Yeah. And it's like I just. Because we just. We go on a bike ride every day. We go. It's just so. I don't know. I mean, I think for us, working together has just been awesome. It's really provided that I feel like I'm blessed with a wonderful schedule at the fire department. And so I feel like we're like retired now. It's so bizarre. It's really. I don't know, I'm kind of overwhelmed and very. And very appreciative and just, you know, very grateful, you know. But I do kind of feel a little guilty at times. So I kind of brought up Scott's comment because I thought it was pretty spot on.

Yeah. I mean, speaking of resentment, like if I were, you know, a friend with of Tate Litchfield, that would last like an hour. So this is what you do. Like I'm working like this 60 hour a week job. I'm hustling, I'm young, like, I wouldn't be able to handle you, Tate.

Yeah.

You know, maybe that's why I don't have a lot of friends. Maybe that's why all my friends are on this podcast right now.

I mean, they say it's lonely at the Top. It really is lonely.

You know, I think it all goes back to. I mean, I've adopted this mindset of happiness is kind of the new rich, right? And I'm happy in my life as a result. I think my marriage is healthy, my family's happy, I get to spend time with my daughter. I get to be an awesome dad. Ultimately, that's because Alison and I are on the same. We're on the same page, right? We both want the same thing. We want to have more time, right? We want to live a comfortable lifestyle. And she is very aware and recognizes that land is the way to do that. It's the best method out there. And if anybody has a better option, I'm open to it. But you're going to have to try really hard to convince me that there's a better model out there than what I do. And, you know, the last thing we want is for this podcast to turn into some sort of marriage counseling podcast, because ultimately none of us are that, right? We're just a bunch of guys and ladies who know how to invest in raw land. And it makes us happy. And we hope it makes you happy, right?

Yeah, absolutely. But I think that if you're struggling to get your spouse's support, to get into this business, work on this business, have. Have their support, you gotta take out your machete, the emotional machete.

I mean, what do you have to lose?

Cutting it down and get to the core value. Can we agree on this core value of more time, freedom. And in exchange, we're gonna have to make an investment ourselves, right? But if we make this investment, this investment pays off like it has for all these people. We're gonna get this value of more time together, more freedom, more flexibility, and ultimately more money and more wealth. Can we agree on that? Even if we can't agree on how to get there, can we just agree on that principle and that value alone? I think that, you know, once you start talking about the real value of it, the real core value can be aligned on that, fights through all that other sort of, you know, everyone's got their stuff, right? Like, I got my stuff, too. Everyone does. Maybe not Eric, but everyone, for the most part, does. And so I think that as a side note, if you're looking at, you know, again, you know, since we're not making this a relationship podcast, there is a guy out there that has been doing this for years and years. His name is John Gottman. Check out his books. He is an expert on this. He can tell you within two minutes whether or not. Your marriage is going to last. He has an institute. It's amazing. Based on these things. So just Google John Gottman. We'll have a link to it. What if he says, no, I don't.

Want to read that.

That's a bad sip. That's a bad sis.

No, I'll tell you what. If you ever see a spouse in a restaurant, they're having a fight and they're arguing and one of the spouses rolls their eyes, that is a sure sign because it's contempt. And contempt is the relationship marriage killer. So there you go. Anyway. Yeah, I know.

So.

Listen, that's.

That's when I say to. That's why I say, don't you roll your eyes at me.

That's why she wears sunglasses all the time. I don't even know. Take those sunglasses off.

Anytime Laura's sitting with sunglasses on, he's going to freak out.

Take those off. I know. And then when we're at boot camp, we all see Laura, we're all in unison, going to roll her eyes at her. That's good.

I'm going right now.

There you go. All right. Well, I want to thank everybody for being on the roundtable. Hopefully the spousal support podcast people are going to get value out of it. It wasn't too woo woo. And if you're a spouse and you're listening to this and you want to send us some hate mail, go ahead and email me marklandgeek.com and I will personally respond and say sorry. Or a link to a Gottman book or something like that. Speaking of books, go to thelandgeek.com Dirtrich get the Kindle version of the book for $2.99. And if you leave us review, send me a screenshot of that review. I'm gonna send you the paperback version, signed, and that's worth like 2.2 million on eBay right now. So please do that. Just subscribe rate, review the podcast and send us a screenshot of that. And we're going to send it to supporthelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. So reviews, all out. Amazon review.

Get the book.

Podcast review. Get the launch kit. Are we good? Is everyone good? Yeah. All right, good. One, two, three. Freedom ring.

That's pretty good.

I closed my eyes on that one and it helped.

But Aaron didn't say anything.

No, he did. It's gonna catch up here shortly.

Let freedom ring.

Did we get it, guys?

Secure our tech addiction we should all have, like, a. Like a retreat at Aaron's house.

Aaron.

Aaron, I want to say something. I took my son to camp in Pennsylvania, and we're driving outside of Harrisburg, which is the capital, Pennsylvania. Like, literally, like, 10 minutes. We go up down this two lane road, and, man, oh, man. First time ever in my life driving, I'm having to avoid the Amish carriages.

Oh, man.

Every one that I passed, I had to stop and look to see if you were in it.

Okay, listen, I'd love to talk more about this, but speaking of spousal resentment, it's summer, and my kids are home. I got to go to lunch. All right. See you.

Ready?

See ya.

See ya. Thanks.