The Evolution Of The Land Business—If Only We Knew Then

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's roundtable, we've got almost all the usual suspects. We've got the nightcap OG the dude buddy, Scott Bossman. Scott, how are you?

Great, Mark, how are you?

Great, great. You keeping warm out in Wisconsin there?

It's been a decent winter. Knock on wood. It's been much better than only had the snowblower out once. So we'll see what happens. We got. I don't know. The end is in sight, right? Daylight savings time is coming. Marches, marches around the corner. So another month of snow on the ground, maybe a little bit more. And then springtime, not bad.

We get the Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. Mike Zano. Mike, how are you doing?

Well, I'm not gonna comment on the weather because I think Scott just sealed the deal. He's about to get to smackdown a snowstorm when he said so. No comments on the weather here, but I'm doing great.

Good to see you. Good. We got the technician, Landopia comm. Eric Peterson. Eric, how are you? I'm good.

Happy to be here today.

Good to see you. And then we've got. I love it when you call me big Papa Tate Litchfield. By the way, if you want to know more about Tate, check out lots. Go to landgeek.com look over his shoulder, See how he runs his business. Tate, how are you?

I'm doing well. Happy to be on the podcast today and, you know, excited for our topic.

Honestly, I am too. And last but not least, you know you love them. Scott Todd. Scott Todd.net landmodo.com if not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com TheLandgeek learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas. Scott Todd. How are you?

Mark?

I'm great.

How are you?

I'm great. I'm doing this specifically only for one person today on the podcast. Everyone else who's listening, you know, it's probably not for you. It's simply for Eric Peterson. A reminder that today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up the mountain of land investing. Let Scott Todd be your Sherpa. Get up there quickly, safely, efficiently. All you have to do to learn more is just go to landgeek.com training. How about that, Eric?

Excellent. I should have been taking notes.

No worries. You've heard it a million Times. All right, Tate Litchfield, what's today's topic?

All right, so today's topic is. It's a good one, and it's a question I wanted to ask all of our seasoned vets on the podcast. And if you were starting your land business over today, what do you wish that you knew about the land business? How do I phrase that? What do you wish you knew about the land business when you were getting started? Like, if you could go back in time, what changes would you have made? How would you have approached things differently?

Right, like, so, Scott, do you want to sing the song from Faces? For those of you who you know, watch Rushmore, one of my favorite movies of all time, by the way. The song My Face is. It goes. I wish. I wish I knew what I know now. When I was younger. Okay. Anyways, I digress. So we're not going to pick on Eric Peterson today. To go first, we'll pick on Mike Zano, the Zen master, because I'm. I'm nice that way.

I was still trying to catch that song. I'm not sure what you were singing. I'm gonna have to look that up. I'm sure it was spot on, but. I guess I'd have to say, Tate, I didn't realize how quickly this business was gonna explode. Like, it goes at, like, you know, you're setting things up, getting rolling, and all of a sudden it just kind of erupts. And I would have been probably a little bit better about organizing things in the beginning, just doing all that, kind of just getting all the stuff that, you know, things that happen now that we. There's things now that I think people, maybe I don't take it for granted, but they're very fortunate. We have systems. We have the LG Pass. We have classes and courses on how to do the accounting. I mean, all these background stuff. I just didn't realize how quickly maybe I didn't expect to be successful. I don't know if that sounds right. I wanted to pay off my debt, but I didn't realize that I was gonna. I've said it before on the podcast, I didn't expect to become like a. Like a professional lane investor. I just wanted to pay off some debt, and then that happened very quickly, and then it just kept rolling, and it overtakes you quickly. And that's not a bad thing. I'm just saying I would have been more prepared. I would go back to myself and say, hey, just stay a little bit more organized. You know, prepare for the fact that this Is gonna be like, really? It's gonna just exponentially explode. And I don't know, does that mean. Is that. Does that answer the question? Like, I guess I'll start with that.

Yeah, I think it's really good.

I think it's really good. For sure. I'd love to know what the dude, buddy nightcap og which is he knew when he was younger, when he first started business.

So for me, I mean, there's technical things in this business. There's mindset things in this business. I think one of the technical things, you know, when I got into this, the mantra was cash or terms. Cash or terms. Cash or terms. And if I had known or if I had maybe been open to making my money work for me in different ways back then, I think I would have been more successful in the beginning. So not only are there cash or terms sales, but you have wholesale deals, right? You can quickly wholesale to people in the group. I didn't do that back then, but it happens all the time now. You have the ability to sell notes. You have land arbitrage. So there are all these new kind of new ways or I guess ways that are being used more frequently now than were five years ago in the group that I think would have helped me move along more quickly. So the fact that we're getting edge, that new investors are getting education on this stuff now, especially in flight school, I think is just absolutely phenomenal. And then just the mindset thing, just, you know, I think I did have faith in the model that it was going to work, but just, I guess embracing that discomfort a little bit more to be in the beginning, instead of being fearful and knowing that I was doing something that was going to change my life.

Yeah.

No, I mean, the evolution of the business from when I started to today with everything you discussed, from land arbitrage and just buying notes, different ways to be creative. We didn't get into, like, even the software and the systems. I mean, it's. It's night and day. It's. It's sort of like the difference between, you know, say, an old, you know, 98 Windows DOS computer and the MacBook Pro. Right. I mean, just. That's probably the best comparison I could think of. Yeah. Eric Peterson, how about you?

I think I have two things to note. One, coming off of Scott's comments there, I think that the idea of selling notes was foreign to me when I started, but also I wasn't interested in doing it because I didn't want to lose whatever passive I had generated. And I talked to the coaching students about this all the time. If you have a full time job and you're not relying on income from this business, take advantage of selling notes early when you don't have to rely on that income and you can grow your business a lot faster. So that's number one. Number two is just working with VAS in general, bringing on VAS to help you with tasks as early as possible. Back when I started, I think for the first year or so I did almost everything in the business myself. You know, I just felt like I was the only one that could do it right the way I wanted it, et cetera. And I think ultimately I was scared to go on upwork or wherever and hire someone to help me out. I didn't know how to do it. But the sooner you start doing that, it's so freeing in your business and it allows you to focus on the business rather than doing the things in the business. It's super beneficial to grow your business. And as soon as you get to the point you can have an acquisition manager, I think that is one of the most important things you can do in this business is get someone helping you with the acquisitions as soon as you can, because they can just. I mean, it's not hard, but it's the interruptions and the, the back and forth that it's just kind of a pain. So if you have someone that can focus on that, I think it's a great thing to do as soon as you possibly can.

Fantastic. Tate, do you like that answer?

Yeah. Mine kind of goes along the same lines. Is that what I'm doing? One of the things I wish I knew is that there's other people out there who take pride in what they do and that you can afford to hire those people. I wish I had learned that earlier because a lot of my VAs I've had basically since I started working this business now I've had some turnover and people come and go. But I spent a lot of time training these people and getting them well versed in what their specific responsibilities are. And they're amazing. And their help is absolutely essential to my businesses success and growth. So I agree with Eric. Another thing I wish I learned was I wish I had spent more time on marketing, like learning about marketing, studying the trends, getting confident, talking to people, understanding that I don't have to have an answer for every possible scenario. But I do need to sound well versed in this. I do need to have appropriate answer or a way to answer their questions without killing a deal. And I think you could have. I could have learned this a lot from studying other people and reading more books. But ultimately, you just got to get out there and cut your teeth. And so I wish I knew a little bit more about that.

No, I love it. I love it. Scott. Todd, what about you?

I think that the one thing I wish I knew is that. Is that I didn't need a lot of capital to do this business. Right. Like, you do need capital.

Don't get me wrong.

You need capital. But at the same time, like, I started with $10,000 of capital, and in doing so many deals, I think that you kind of understand that it is possible to start with less capital. Right. Like, we talk about land arbitrage, you know, and that's an opportunity to pick up land and control the land for even as low as, like, $100 down. So there's that opportunity. There's ways that you can get into this business without having to have a lot of capital. And then, like what everybody else said, it kind of compounds on it. So, like, can. Can you pick up a property through land arbitrage? Sure, you can. You can pick that up and you can go out and you can sell it, and you can create a cash flow. You can. Then do you create the cash flow. Then you do what Eric Peterson said, which is you take the cash flow note and you go and you sell the note. Now you have cash on a note that you've created, and then you don't even own the land underneath. Underline it.

Why?

Because you sold a note. It's a different thing. Right. So, like, I've never seen anybody compound that series together. I'd love for someone to, like, do it. I can help them do it if they want to do it. You do this, then you do that, and boom. Next thing you know, you've got cash in your bank account where no cash existed the day before. And if I had to start all over in this business with no money, that's exactly how I would do it, too. So I think that a lot of times people maybe delay things, or they say, well, I don't have money. Well, you don't need a lot of money. What you need to do is you need to hustle. Get the deals, sell the deals, and next thing you know, cash will come to you.

No, it's so true. And really, that's what we're doing. That is, in a nutshell, the business. We're buying an asset. 25 cents, 30 cents on the dollar. It doesn't matter what asset you Buy. We just happen to like this asset of raw land because there's nothing to maintain, nothing to protect. It's pretty much headache free. No one's calling you at three in the morning saying my roof is leaking on your raw land or my land is leaking kind of thing. It's just this incredible asset that's just headache free in cash flows. Tate, to answer your question, I know I've talked about this on other podcasts, but I wish I had you guys when I first started. Not that I wasted five years of my life trying to figure this out. I don't consider it a waste because there was value there. But I definitely know that I could have smart cutted it if I had a mentor who could just say, oh yeah, I've had experience here, you're doing this wrong, this wrong, this wrong. I mean, oh my gosh, if I had just an hour coaching call with any of you, you guys like, yeah, Mark, you don't have a business, you have a job. Better job than what you had, but it's still a job. And it took, you know, five years to build systems and build the infrastructure and get myself out of the business so that it was, you know, really automated and in a machine so I could grow. I mean, took a long time for me to figure that out simply because I didn't have a mentor. And then the mentor that I had was a business mentor. He wasn't a land investor. I literally could avoided million dollar mistakes. So I'm not mad at you guys that you weren't around. Maybe Eric, but other than that, I mean, not really mad. It's just, it's just I'm kind of regretful. It's like, wouldn't this have been nice?

So I was in middle school. What do you want from me?

I bet you were, I bet, I bet you were the kind of middle schooler Tate, that like responsible.

Yeah, I came home, did all of my homework, had a healthy snack, right? Typically carrots and an apple. And then I went to bed early. Didn't watch any TV before bed either.

See, I could have learned something from you for sure. Well, I think it's, you know, I think it's a really great topic and certainly the listeners can really smart cut their own journeys by learning from our own, you know, sort of, you know, wistful regrets of what we wish we knew now when we first started so that they don't have to wish and can start implementing it. I think what Eric mentioned, you know, in the beginning, if you don't need the income, you don't need to go, you know, you don't need a lot of money. Like what Scott Todd said. Like, there's so many creative ways, land arbitrage and just smart cutting it. I mean, there was no flight school around a few years ago. That alone is just a tremendous way to get started where you don't have to, you know, try to figure this out through trial and error or just get out of your own way. You have to execute in real time with Scott Todd leading you and guiding you. I wish I had that even.

You know, Mark, we don't really talk about this a lot, but the thing about flight school is that flight school just wasn't like created, right? Like, flight school was in fact cultivated from experience of watching people struggle, figuring that there had to be a better way. And like, you know, you and I, we talked about flight school, even though we didn't have a name for it. We talked about it in like 2015, if you, if you remember back. And we stood there and we. What we imagined is that there would be this program that people could come into this program and we could show them how to mail their offer letters.

Right?

Like live in real time. It was real time execution is what we called it. And it's really cool to look back at flight school and see how it's evolved into kind of what we envision. But also it becomes the cornerstone of education. Like, I can tell you that there are people that are doing well in this business. There are people that are talking about this business. They've all gone through flight school. It's amazing to see that this is the cornerstone training program for the land investing community.

It's really cool.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, we're all like, you know, land investing OGs like Scott Bossman. I mean, you know, Scott and Mike and Eric, you guys would have been even farther ahead if you'd had flight school when you first started instead of, you know, just going straight to one on one coaching. Mike Zano. Yes.

You know, I imagine someone out there right now listening to us, because I think it's the case that someone that hasn't stepped into this yet, right? They're thinking about this as something to generate some passive income. You know, Scott Boston and I are very fortunate. We talk to a lot of people when they come into this business model or they're thinking about it, you know, and the first thing that I always look at it as like three steps, one that like, they have to figure out, does this even seem like something that they like I always say, does it sing to you? Is it something you could see yourself doing? Does it seem like enjoying it? Then it becomes do you know like and trust us. I think that's what this is really great. When we get together and talk, I think people get a real sense that there's not to burst any bubble, but there's nothing really unique about us. We're just following a recipe as Scott Todd talks about. And so they hear that, they know, they like the fact that we take our business serious ourselves. Not so much as you can see sometimes. But so you put that together, you have something that sings to you. You really think, wow, this could be a great. And then, geez, I'd like to learn. And then you find out that yeah, once you know us, you like and trust us because we're just average people that follow a recipe and we stay consistent with it, then it becomes okay, how are you going to learn? And that's where we're talking about this flight school. Because seeing a lot of people had the benefit to talk to a lot of people and learn from their experiences, just talking to them. People that want to blaze it on their own. And you know, there are some people that can do that. But more often than not we develop or we see them develop this paralysis by over analysis which you've identified over the years. And I think that jumping in with the two feet, you know, and taking a full, taking this full on if you know it sings to you and you know, like and trust us. Well, flight school, it's just amazing. And to see the transformation of people as they go through this. And I always say, I think there's, you know, I don't talk bad about anybody else out there, but I say what's unique about us is we talk about other people's successes. We talk about the people that have come through our programs and actually replaced their income, solve the pain point in their life, myself included. $40,000 in debt gone in the year. All of us have these pain points. So I just, I know someone out there is listening to this Mark. So I just think, you know, to be really. And I believe in transparency and honesty as we all do. Listen, if this sings to you and you, you're starting to get a sense that you can know like and trust us. Take that step, like believe in it and telling you it can change your life.

No, no, it's so true. I, you know, I know a lot of people are skeptical out there, which is why we have the one guarantee to rule them all. Because I love the idea. Like. Like, my son's taking economics class right now, like, and I'm paying his tuition. Like, there's no guarantee he's going to go out, get any ROI on that class whatsoever. The professor could suck. Maybe he's, you know, not learning it and there's no office hours. Whatever it is, like, we guarantee your tuition. It's like flight school tuition isn't gonna cost you anything. The investors toolkit is not gonna cost you anything. You're gonna make back that money. Just show us your work. Show us you're putting in the effort. That's it. We guarantee it 180 days. Most people do it in two months. That's. That's really what I think sort of is the. The mic drop on all this. Is that, like, we've got skin in the game, too? I mean, as much as I like to haze Scott Todd, he's a, you know, he's really a teacher professor at heart, and he cares. It's not like you can go in this big lecture hall and. And you invest all this time and money and no one knows if you're getting it or not. And there's no guarantee. What do you think, bossman?

All those things are very well said. I can't say enough about flight school and the teaching of Scott Todd. He was my teacher and look where I am today. So I think we're all indebted to him and you, Mark. And just, you know, the people on this call and the community, phenomenal. And that's the other thing is this community. I mean, you know, I see and I think, and I know you guys see it too, the sage advice that's being given in our Facebook group and in our Mighty Network group by people who are now becoming veterans. I just mentioned it the other day, like John Burnett, when you see him talk in the Facebook group, he's always got amazing advice for new people. And I just love that about our community is people are just so transparent and so giving of their knowledge because, I mean, this market is so huge that nobody's afraid to share that info. So it's just a combination of all this stuff that makes it all come together to be larger than the sum of its parts.

No, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. I wish when I started, I had more of an abundance mentality just for myself. And I think that if there was a community like that when I first started, I mean, oh, my gosh, things would have been so much easier. Just the collective intelligence of that community is. It's priceless, really. So Tate, to sum up, I thought it was. I thought it was a great topic and I appreciate everybody sharing what they wish they. They knew when they, you know, when it's. They started the business. And again, a great song by the Faces is one you should listen to on any of those fine music subscriptions. I'm personally you know Apple Music, but I'm sure there's some people out there that might do Amazon or Spotify. I don't know. Does Microsoft have a subscription service?

Music song, by the way. Can you, can you say it?

I wish I knew what I knew now. When I was younger I thought it.

Was an Elton John song, but I'm wrong, I guess.

I think it's.

I think I found it.

Do you find it?

It's fate.

It's Faces. It's from the. I mean I know it's on the Rushmore soundtrack. It's older song.

A great movie. Rushmore.

That really is a great movie, isn't it? I don't know if it. Is it my top 10? I don't know. It's one of those movies like when it's on cable like Shawshank Redemption. I have to watch it. Rod, we're looking it up right now. It's Rod Stewart.

Oh man. Does that mean we have to re record the whole podcast?

No, I don't. Not a Rod Stewart fan. But, but I'm a fan of the.

No, no, but it's not Rod Stewart. It's Rod Stewart in Faces.

Oh, he's in Faces. Okay.

He's in Faces. Yeah, and it doesn't really sound like Rod Stewart. It's not like one of those. When you listen to. You'll see, just trust me, it's a great song. I don't know. That could be another topic as well. Some of your favorite songs. Anyways, I want to thank the listeners. Just remind them if you're getting value from the podcast, the biggest favor you can do is just do little three little things. You got to subscribe, rate, review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review to support the landgeek.com we're going to send you for free as a thank you, the $97 passive income launch kit course as well as a new whole tailing course, how to double your money 30 days or less. Again, learn more about flight school. Just go to land geek.com training schedule a free strategy call. Alright gents, we ready to do this?

You want a tip of the week?

Oh yeah. Forgot about. You know, when Mimi's not here. I just Completely forget about tip of the week. So we're at that point now. Scott Bossman, we're going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website resource, a book, something actionable for the auto. Passive income listeners go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

All right. Hopefully this hasn't been brought up in the past, if so, a long time ago, so it'd be a refresher. But we got a message, got an email message from a prospective customer asking what the Bortle scale was, where this particular property was. Bortle scale. I had to think about that for a minute. Oh, okay. That's what light pollution. So I emailed him back. I'm like, where might I find this information? Well, there's a great website you can go to. Light pollutionmap.info. you guys know about this? Is this an old tip?

No, no, this is new.

Okay, awesome. So anyway, you type in the location anywhere. You know, if I have a property in Castilla County, I put in the coordinates or the location and you can see what the Bortle scale is. Bortle scale is anywhere from one to nine. There's a different scale on the site, but if you look up Bortle scale on Wikipedia, it'll show you how to convert that. But anyway, the darkest areas on the map obviously are the best areas for no light pollution. So this will be, you know, you can use it as a marketing tool for your stargazers out there, which I thought was kind of cool.

Nice. Very cool. I love that. Yeah. Scott Todd, are you stargazer?

I am not a stargazer.

Eric, are you?

I am not.

No. Tate.

You know, I think it's interesting, but no, I'm not very well versed when it comes to astronomy.

Zen master.

No, I don't look at the stars tomorrow. I do listen to a lot of people talk about them, but I don't look up. I look like. Doesn't make any sense. That sounds funny, but no, you don't.

See them out there in the East Coast.

Zoom out on them. Zoom out on the map on the United States if you do that. That's pretty interesting to see where a majority of the light pollution is.

I'm not a stargazer, but I think it's cool. I'd sound that. I wouldn't want to be. Yeah, for sure. All right, well, I want to thank the listeners again and of course, Scott Bossman for stepping up and filling Mimi's large shoes to fill with the tip of the week. Are we ready to do this?

What's the technique?

1, 2, 3, let freedom ring.

That actually works.

You guys did not do what you're supposed to do. Some of you.

I closed my eyes.

Oh, that's what I couldn't figure out. What do blocks block mark on the.

Screen or you close your eyes.

Either one.

It still works.

So for you know, we were talking on Voxer this weekend. Should we even mention it? Because Mimi's not on. I feel like we need Mimi on the podcast to discuss it. David, I think we have to save it. We'll save it, but. Ooh La La is the name of the song from Faces. A big shout out to Eric Peterson for finding that. It's a great Eric. Have you heard it?

Yeah, I've heard it.

Do you like it?

I did not know the name of it. I had to search and figure that out. But I've definitely heard it.

Okay, cool. Tay, what music are the cool kids listening to these days? I don't know.

Do kids listen to music or do they just listen to podcasts nowadays? Hopefully they listen to us.

There's a music on that tick tock thing. So they have dance to it.

It's very Justin Bieber.

Right? There are no songs anymore. There's just 10 second snippets. They just go from one to the next to the next to the next. There's no. There's even. Yeah, so this.

Yeah, that. Like, like, my children literally have the attention span of a ferret on double cappuccino. Like, they can even like, like, I'll be like, I'll be in the car with my daughter. This. No, this is true story. We'll be listening to a song. It'll be a song I like. And she's like, I got it. And like, she'll just go on the next song. Like, I wouldn't listen to the whole song. She's not. It's okay. I got it. I got the parts I want to listen to. Like, she's that tick tock generation. I don't know if she's ever listened to a full song. She can't stomach the full two and a half, three minutes when the 15 seconds would suffice.

That's a good point. It's true.

So I don't know any parenting advice? Should I ever do, like meditation? A meditation retreat? Work on attention?

I was seeing. I saw something where they were saying that this generation is actually be more productive because they can quote, unquote multitask. They can do multiple things. So, I mean, there's a negative and a positive.

I don't know.

They're, like, going to have the ability to do more. I don't know. Anyway, just another possibility.

Is that really true, Mike?

I did read that. I'm not sure it's true that they can, but I'm saying I did read someone make that point, that they're able to have fractured attention but be able to use that in a successful manner. Does that sound bad?

It sounds like a 16 year old was probably trying to convince her parents of that. Hey, no, dad, listen. I'm gonna be smarter than you. Why? Because I can watch tv, text, do a TikTok and my homework and meditate all at the same time.

I'm pretty sure that the human brain can't multitask. I think I've read the neuroscience on it.

We're evolving.

I'm not standing behind it. I'm saying I heard it. Food for thought.

Okay.

Everything you read on the Internet is true, Mike.

Well, yes, I know.

Is that a cat on your lap?

Yeah, it's a cat on my lap.

Everybody needs a laying cat. I want one.

Wait, is this a new bossman member?

No, she's. She's been around forever. She just. She crawls around on my desk during the podcast and I just thought I'd let her come on over.

Gosh, I feel like we've been making fun of Tate for years about having cats.

I know, right?

You've been kind of quiet about it.

He never has made fun of me. I'll make that known. Kind of silently had my back, I guess.

This is a great topic. He's got a land cat. We talked about spare animals, but, like, what kind of land animal would you have in your office? I'm wondering about all of you now, and myself probably too, but he's got a land cat. I don't know, maybe like a. I got land animal. Be marked. What would you have in the office to keep you centered?

I mean, honestly, I think about this all the time. Nothing trumps a dog. It's just, you know, there's lots of animals out there and they all have their. Their positives, but nothing's better than a dog.

I'm not sure I picked you for more of, but.

I see.

Yeah, I would have picked you more for, like a hamster guy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not offended. We've had hamsters. We've had the guinea pig, you know, and there's. There's. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just nothing Beats the dog.

I don't know. I got my two desert tortoises are hibernating in my office right over here behind me.

So that's cool. Like a landscape. Like a bearded dragon on top of your computer. That'd be pretty crazy, right? Just sitting there. You fall asleep, it could smack you in the head with its tail, wake you up.

Yeah. I mean, the desert tortoise would take them about three days to then greet you at the door. Well, that's like happily greet you at the door.

They're, you know, they got good personalities. I don't know if they necessarily love me, but they're good animals. Right. They've been asleep for four months. Low maintenance. You can't beat that.

Right?

They're not loud, they're potty trained. I don't know. I feel like I'm winning this conversation.

I was caught with an alligator. He's in Florida. Like a land gator in the back, just hanging out there.

Look at Scott shaking his head.

No comment.

Scott.

Where's Scott? Todd has 15 dogs. Scott, how come we're not jumping in on the dog thing?

We don't.

That's not true. We don't have 15 dogs that don't.

Don't.

It seems like it fake news.

No, we only have two dogs. I mean, we had three. One went to heaven a couple weeks ago. Now that you're bringing it up, it's bringing tears to my eyes.

If we said dog versus cat, you'd say dog as well. Mark. You'd say dog, clearly.

And dog.

Well, you know what? That. I think what Scott just said really put, like, really just. It's like that's. That ends the argument because I cried like I've never cried before when my dog recently passed away. But the hamster. Nah, not so much. You know, no tears were shed. I mean, the desert tortoise, I'm sure it'll be a loss. We're not gonna shed a tear, Tate.

They're gonna outlive, Tate.

What do you mean?

Well, that is true. That is true.

Getting wilt. These are like, I'm gonna have to.

Don't let them define you, Tate. It's okay to be emotional over a turtle or a tortoise or a hare, whatever. Whatever that. Whatever that is. Don't let them define you. You can. You can get emotional over some sort of animal like that.

Yeah, yeah, I will, I will.

I'm gonna cry about that. Denison.

What is. You cry. They're gonna live longer than you anyway, Tate.

So like I said, we're not gonna make them. They're gonna be trust tortoises. Trust fund tortoises.

Right. I mean, Scott, will you shed tears when your cat passes away on his lap?

My kids, yeah.

Honestly, we have a dog as well. But I would have to say, I don't know, I have a soft spot merit for the dog, but it kind of depends on the cat. Like, we have a couple cats, and cats are. They're, you know, they're a little different. So they all their own different personalities. So if one goes before the other one, I don't know.

How is that possible?

They have nine lives.

True.

Cats bring gifts like little animals, like birds. They bring to you what dogs bring. I don't bring anything.

Some bring gifts.

Oh, yeah, Dogs bring gifts. Squirrels.

What's that great line from Meet the Parents where Robert De Niro is, like, hazing Ben Stiller for preferring a dog over a cat. You remember that? It's a great monologue where De Niro just lights into him. He's like, you know, it's like. So I guess you prefer an emotionally something animal. He's like a cat makes you work for its love. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. All right, Scott. Todd's giving that look like, really? You guys are gonna go there now? He can't wait to get to his Microsoft Surface and enjoy the rest of his day.

Well, I mean, the Surface does bring joy. I mean, I mean, listen, if I'm gonna look forward to work. You're using a computer. It works.

Yeah, that's right. It works when it works.

No, it doesn't.

It's not.

When it's not, it. It just works, right? Like, it's just there present. And if it brings me such great joy to use, I mean, when was the last time a piece of technology brought you joy? Mine delivers every day.

The total washlet be considered technology that brings joy. The total washlet.

Oh, no.

It's technology. Yeah.

Listen. A toilet does not listen.

Japanese toilet.

If the toilet is bringing you joy, it's speechless.

I think it's time to end the podcast now.

Yeah.

Thanks, everybody.