The Land Geek Podcast #26

Welcome to the Land Geek Podcast, your resource for information and tips to making money by buying and selling land. Let the Land Geek show you how to make a passive income by working smart, not working hard. Learn strategies and tricks to make money buying and selling raw land today. And here's the man that's gonna help you do that. The Land Geek.

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek from your most visited website on the web, thelanegeek.com and I'm thrilled, honored, privileged to have the one, the only, you know him, you love him. I love him. I'm not afraid to say it. Duran Frazier, Carlsbad, California. Living the dream on the beach. Duran.

Everything's going great, Mark. I was actually just, I think about 10 seconds too slow to do my crowd applause, but I brought it on there for you. There you go. Everything's great, Mark. Just trying to stay motivated and I love seeing your face because you make me ultra motivated.

Yeah, okay. So the theme of this podcast, it's a little bit touchy feely for us. Typically we like to go a little bit more into more technical details, but it's one we haven't really touched on and that's how to stay motivated. Because in, you know, whether it's the land business or any business or any project, any endeavor you do, you're going to get kicked in the mouth, right? And when that happens, you've got to have something in place to keep you motivated so that you get back up and continuing driving forward. Does that make sense?

Are you kidding me? I mean, I have to have motivation to wake up in the morning every day, so. Yes, of course it makes sense.

Well, what motivates you?

Everything. There's nothing that doesn't motivate me, Mark.

No, I know, but like in, in, you know, in general, like how do you stay motivated? Like, do you set goals? Do you have some kind of routine?

You know, I'm pretty routine based in my daily life. I wake up and I generally either want help with the kids because we have one that likes to wake himself up at 5am and wake everyone else up with him. So I'll get up and I'll help every morning with the kids, try to spend time, quality time with the kids, interacting. You know, it's actually funny because, you know, I think some people would say that kids aren't motivating. I have a five year old that if he doesn't motivate you, there's something wrong. He's a firecracker. He's a firecracker. For at least a good hour. He doesn't wake up on the general, wake up on the right side of the bed. So he's a challenge, but he's a challenge that sort of motivates me to kind of make things happen and get things going in the morning. But, but he's my, but my routine goes from watching the kids, let my wife sleep in for a little bit if I can going and then I going to get my emails done every morning. You know, it's funny, one of the things that motivates me is actually getting in my email box, seeing, kind of getting excited as to who emailed me the night before, what is on my agenda for the day, Looking at my calendar, kind of just seeing what new people I'm connecting with, what new ideas am I working with, what am I. And at the same time sort of, you know, putting into perspective what, what sort of priorities are going to make me money and are achievable and that kind of stuff. But I'm not, I'm not much of a goal spec. I don't write down, we've talked about goals in the past. I don't write down goals like hey, in six months from now I want to be driving a Tesla like you, Mark.

Right.

I'm, I'm, I'm more, I'm, I'm more focused on today and I generally have like, if I'm working with a business model I'll have like a five year plan or a strategy or, or, and I'll have, I do implement just so I just so you understand like with, with landhub.com there's, there's milestones that I've got set up until the end of.

Those are like goals.

A milestone's a goal but that's in, that's in a particular business I have to do that. So yes, like if that makes sense. And I think the difference between me and, and most three or four things at once. Okay, so not everything has milestones, if that makes sense.

Right. I mean, I mean I hate to pick on you, but.

Pick on me?

I'm going to pick on you a little bit because there's, there's something you said in, in that story that kind of resonated with me.

What's that contradicts itself?

No, no, no, it just resonated with me because I'm just like that in the sense like the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check my email. But what I found is that it's actually becoming a huge Distraction and huge problem in my life. And I actually did a coffee talk video on this. And because what's happened for me, and maybe, and I'm not picking on you, but you may have a totally different way of viewing email than I do. But for me, I'm constantly, I mean, I should say I'm not now. I'm detoxing, but I was constantly checking my email like it was a slot machine, right? And I was, I was looking for that good email, even though. And so it was like this neurotic, panicky feeling all the time. Did I get a good email? Did I get a good email? What's going on? My email. And instead of getting real work done and productive work done, I was constantly distracted. Like, any time that I could check my email, even if it wasn't a really good time to check, I would do that. So now, literally, all day, all night, my phone is on do not disturb, and if you're not in my favorites of my contacts, your phone call won't even get to me. So during an hour a day, I literally chunk and put into my schedule, check email, respond to email, and then the rest of the day, I don't check it, and I feel so much better. That's my thing.

Okay, interesting. And it's funny because. It's funny you say that because about an hour and a half ago, my wife and I had this talk, and she goes, you know, this woman was telling me that she just checks her email once a day, and that's just how she operates. I said, you know, that's interesting because there's a little bit of a dynamic there. There's. I'm a, I am very, very, very particular about communication. I like to make sure that I communicate immediately to somebody. Just. That's just, it's almost like a pet peeve. I, I, you know, if I send an email, I don't get a response for a week. I. You're literally, you're, you're done. It's like casting a demon out. Like, you're. You. I want nothing to do with you.

No, wait a second. A week is a lot, but 20. I think 24 hours is reasonable.

You're right. But if I from. And again, we're different. But if I have something, a lot of things that I have, like, I'll have a. Let's just talk about a lead in a. For example, okay, Somebody sends you a lead for a piece of land, okay. And. And nine times out of 10, that lead may just happen to, to contact 10 people. So guess what? If you're late to the party, you may lose that client. And I, I 100 believe that, that, that could and does happen. If you, if you do act once a day at one, at one point, if you get back somebody 11am and that person that you had emailed the day before doesn't get back to you till 12. Now all of a sudden you have another day. So there's like a two day spread before you can actually get back in touch with that person and he or she may be on and already closing a deal on a piece of land.

Yeah. So yeah, but at that point, once you've already kind of planned for that scenario, actually be flexible enough to say, okay, I'm actually expecting an email here because it's time sensitive. I mean that's completely different than our regular, I mean how often do you really have such time sensitive emails coming in? I rarely do.

Well, I'm, well here's here just for example, I have, I generally have three or four meetings, conference calls each day. Okay. So I'm a busy guy.

Right.

And, and whether, whether or not they, they are smart is another conversation. I, I take meetings that generally aren't always ones that are priorities for me. But I like to help people. And we've talked about this again in the past. But, but at the same time I have people canceling meetings. I have people, all sorts of things that happen within my daily schedule that if I didn't have email I wouldn't have access to that so.

Exactly, exactly. I mean that's, but it's your calendar. That's not email. Yeah, but that's not the slot machine. That's not the neurotic panicky feeling.

Sure. I'm missing out who interacts with my calendar. I, I, my, the people I'm meeting with don't have a way to interact. My calendar.

But no, but you know, okay, at that time I have to communicate with somebody. That's different than just constantly checking your email. I think, I think you should try the detox.

You know What? I am 100% okay by what I mean. In fact, it would help me from a stress perspective. But I believe there could be certain things that I'm missing and they may be little nuggets here or there that like 95% of emails I could get back the next day, maybe 98%. But there's that 2% that I, that I fear if I leave hanging could end up being that low hanging fruit that I miss and that I could have nabbed as a client if that makes sense.

Why don't you try it and just see and see and really.

No, no.

I mean, who wants to operate in fear?

You're not motivating me right now.

Okay, let's motivate you. All right, here's seven steps to staying motivated, okay? And this is from the motivational guy of the generation, Tony Robbins. So number one is set a goal and visualize it down to the most minute detail. See it, feel it, visualize it. This is what elite athletes do. So that's number one. You and I really don't do that, though, do you? You don't do that.

The elite athletes, all they do is take hgh and then just that motivates them.

Okay. Number two, make a list of the reasons you want to accomplish the goal. So because it's so easy to kind of get distracted and blown off course, you kind of need this. They call it, like, success insurance. So you kind of, you know, engage your brain more actively by writing down all the reasons you want to accomplish that goal. Right. So you're taking that goal and making more of a mental connection to it. Then number three, and I really like this one a lot, and I do this. I'd be curious if you do this, is break the goal down into smaller pieces and set intermediary targets and rewards. So this is what they call chunking. And there's a bunch of variations on this concept, but Tony Robbins would basically say a major source of stress in our lives comes from the feeling that we have an impossible number of things to do. And if you take on a project and try to do the whole thing all at once, you're going to be overwhelmed. Neuroscience tells us to take each task and break it down into even smaller pieces, which triggers our brains in a reward center because we're getting these little things down. We feel good, we got it done, and we get this feel good. Chemical dopamine. Do you do that? Do you break things down into chunks, small pieces?

I do. I do. It depends on what it is. I do. I do a little bit of compartmentalizing here and there, if that's what you're referring to. But. But I do. You know, it's interesting you say that. There was one. One thing in my life that was a little. A little tragic. My. My best friend took his life about six, five months ago.

I remember that. Crazy.

And I struggled. I struggled with it for about two months. I mean, it was a tough struggle for me. I mean, I moved. I moved on. I have. I have a wife and kids. And I have to focus. But losing someone like that close to you, and I mean, there's a guy that I talked to an hour the day before he passed away, in fact, and I found out that he had been calling me the night in the morning of him before he took his life. And I had my phone on airplane mode going, goes back to what we talk about. Like that's one of those things where, okay, what happens if my mom needs me or my sister needs me? My phone is literally on airplane mode from 7 or 8 o' clock at night. And I do kind of, you know, going back to what you say, I actually do do some of these things that we talked that you were talking about. My phone is on airplane mode generally from 7 at night till 9 in the morning. So that's my phone. And what's great is I don't have any, any service in my house too, which helps me out quite a bit. So. But with, with that situation in my life, I had to compartmentalize. I had to go, you know what, I have to mourn. I have to. And I, but when I, as I mourn, I have to still continue on with life and I have to put this in a certain place in my mind and my brain that allows me to continue to move on in life. Because if I sit here and dwell and think about how know, did I was I, you know, was I responsible all these things that would literally destroy my life.

Right? I mean, obviously you're not responsible. I mean, that's, yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, you know, intellectually you, you know that obviously.

But you, well, you sit, you say that, but when you're, when you're in, when you're in a moment like that, we get the phone call that your friend, you know, you know, took his life and, and unfortunately at the time he actually survived it, but was brain dead. You. I'm on my way down to the hospital. I just. At a trip in like Lake Tahoe with my family and I'm driving down. And your brain, I mean, when you have a tragic situation like that and it literally is, this guy's been like a brother to me for 20 years. You, you don't, you don't really know how to react because we, unless you're in that situation, right? Like, unless you're diagnosed with cancer, you don't know what it's like to have cancer. Like, you just don't know, right? Like what's it like, what's it like to be given, you know, to be given, you know, to have your life cut short or potentially cut short, or a doctor giving you, you know, some news that you don't want to hear. Like, we don't know that. So it's really hard to empathize. But, yes, intellectually you understand it's not my, it's not my fault. But then you also. Could I have helped him? Could I have done one more thing that could have prevented him from getting his life? So, but, but as you sort of gather your thoughts and understand and, and come back to reality, you have to learn to compartmentalize that. But just like anything else with a business or like, I have, I have little, Little ideas that I, That I've compartmentalized. Like, I think I have a, you know, we talked about it before, but a little real estate idea that was based on charity giving, Giving a good portion of the commission from a real estate deal back to. Back to a charity of your choice. Like, these are little ideas that I've always had that just kind of sit back there. They don't ever go away. Because at some point what I can do is I can sort of utilize that maybe at some point down the line, if I make a connection with somebody who. I feel like this could be a benefit here.

Right, right. So. Okay, so. So you kind of. Yeah, so you do do that. You, you do break things down to.

Smaller pieces, if that's, if that's what you're referring to. Maybe I went off on a tangent. That's not what I was supposed to do there. But I think that's what you were saying.

Right, right. And, you know, as far as your friend, I mean, that's something that we can talk about outside of the podcast, but, I mean, that's just horrific. But in.

If I'm not bringing that up. So just so you guys all understand, I'm not bringing that up as saying, hey, you know, like, it's, it's, it's, you know, I'm still, I'm not struggling anymore. I'm at peace with it now. I'm happy. My life is great. I'm. I think I'm 100% now, at least 100% from effect, I'll always feel more my friend, but I've moved on with life. And I'm just sharing with you that there are these things that you have to. Even as you mourn, you still continue on with life and work on your different business deals and what you have to do, but you still compartmentalize certain things in your, in your mindset that allows you to sort of move forward and.

Right. You know, what's interesting about that story though, is, you know, obviously I didn't know him, but I'm sure I met him at your wedding. But, you know, the difference is that for me, when I hear these stories that are so tragic, you know, that night when I put my children to sleep and I kiss my wife and say goodnight, you know, I am filled with gratitude that I have my health, my family has their health, that we were given this day. And it really allows me to sort of recenter and be more present in that particular moment than just let my mind go forward and constantly be thinking about, okay, I need to do this in the future, or, you know, what, this just happened in the past and kind of be stressed. And so, you know, from every one of these terrible, horrific things that you hear about or experience, there is always that. That point in life where you can say, well, you know, I'm lucky. And you know what? We are really. We have a lot to be thankful for and, you know, we're blessed. And I remember I was talking to one of these guys at that real estate seminar and he was telling me that he gave $32,000 to one of his students that, you know, flipped a house and took that profit. And she was like dead broke, right? But he said, look, instead of taking that $32,000 and you doing another deal with it, we're gonna do something else for you. And so they flew her to Guatemala with the $32,000 and she literally took all that money and donated it to a Guatemalan orphanage. Personally with this group. And it really, I mean, tears are streaming down everyone's eyes hearing the story, because even though she was what we would consider not well off in the United States, compared to these kids, she was wealthy, wealthy beyond compare. And so there's always someone else out there that is. Look, we live in this country, we have first world problems. We don't even understand what third world problems are until you experience something like that. But that's not here or there. Let's get back to our strategies for being and staying more motivated. Right.

I will say humility, just to touch on that for a second. Humility is a good thing. I've obviously been through it. I've lost a couple of people really close to me in life, and I've never looked at it as like, it being a life changer. For me, it's always, it's actually always been, what good can I take out of a bad. Like, what good can I take? What good out of this situation or what did this person that changed people's lives. Like my friend that passed away flew to Burma. He snuck in with the Burmese Free rangers, I think is what it was. And you can actually watch their video on road, the whole movie. It's an amazing documentary called roadofresistance.com and his name, my friend that passed away, his name is Dustin. You'll see him in the movie. In fact, two of the five guys that are in that movie have died. They were all in their early 30s. One died from dengue fever in Thailand and my friend took his life. They snuck in and these guys did so much good for people. So they went out and they gave back and they, they knew that, that they had so much. Here's my friend who's struggled with depression his whole life and yet he was still able to give back and, and do, and do good for other people. So I, and you know, it's funny, Mark, I'll be honest, that that motivates me. Like giving back to people is actually very motivating.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, altruism is definitely motivational, but you've got to, you've got to do the work first to be able to give back. So, you know, so another strategy is to have a strategy and be prepared to change course. Right. So, you know, that's just great. Quote that I love from Edison is that, you know, I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that it won't work. And so, you know, if you're out there making offers and going to tax sale auctions and struggling in this business, just keep at it. You know that if you're making low ball offers every day, you're going to get deals in. And so many times we get frustrated when it just seems like we're not getting results fast enough. And you got to kind of look at it from 10,000ft and you know, give yourself some time. Would you agree?

Totally.

I mean, you know, you were kind of an overnight success in this business, but not, not everyone is. I think that's unrealistic.

Yeah, no, I mean, if, you know, for me, and I have people that. It's funny because I've noticed lately a lot of haters have come out of the woodworks with me because I'm sort of out there now on the Internet and, and you know, I'm helping people or doing things or I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I've got my hands on a lot of different things, but I'VE noticed that people tend to have a dislike toward me because they're like, oh, he's what? He's like, parker Lewis can't lose, right? Beautiful wife, beautiful kids. He's an okay looking dude, but he's got everything going for him. And what's funny is I, I still went out there and tried and made things happen. Like, I still took a $250,000 risk at the age of 24 to make it happen. Like, it wasn't like I just ended up there. Right? Because it's all about risk and rewards. So. So it's not like, well, I'm an overnight success. I started with nothing. I mean, I had to, I had to get something. Wasn't like, I mean, I had to learn how to. How to, you know, how to write HTML. I had to, you know, make ads. I had to learn how to outsource to India. All these different things that at an early age I had no clue about, and I learned it. So.

Right, right.

Don't try to, don't try to paint me as Mr. Parker Lewis Canvas. I'll smack you, pal.

No, you know what? And, and if we really analyze it, there's no such thing as an overnight success. You know, you and I, we paid our dues, we did the work, we stumbled through this, and, and we made a lot of mistakes. I mean, a lot of mistakes, which, you know, we talk a lot about. So it's not like this is just smooth sailing. And, you know, no one who starts anything does it ever go smooth sailing. And that's really the value of, you know, having a mentor is someone helping you through those rough patches and you leveraging their experience so you don't have to make those same mistakes. So number five of Stay motivated is get the help you need. Right? So when things do get tough, you've got somebody who can, who can kind of help you and keep you motivated. Number six is predetermined how you'll deal with flagging motivation. Right? What do you do? What do you do when you. When you feel like, I just don't want to do anything today?

I go play basketball.

All right, so you've got to tell you figure out a way to get a temporary boost.

Yeah, yeah, no, I do. And just so you guys know, too, we believe, and I truly believe that exercise is so crucial to motivation. Right? Because you get done at exercise, whether you. If you're playing basketball and you had a horrible day shooting, you still walk out and go, I just probably lost a pound and a half. And I mean, I feel really good. I mean, I'm in better shape than I was. I walked the door. So it is such a motivation just to work out whether, you know, whether you're at the weight room, whatever you're doing it, work out, stay in shape. It helps you, I promise.

Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So that's. So what about you, Mark? What are you doing?

Oh, yeah. Okay. So what? Okay, so typically what I will do is, you know, in the morning I'll work out. Even if I don't feel like working out, I'll force myself to work out because I know like after I work out, I get, I get a boost of energy in the afternoon when I feel like there's some just afternoons where I just feel kind of run down. I'll go to Starbucks, I'll take a half hour break and just have a coffee and kind of re energize or I'll call a buddy that I haven't talked to in a while and just kind of get my mind off of stuff. I like to do that and I like to meditate. You know, typically three o' clock every day, I'll take 10 minutes out and just meditate and breathe and then I get kind of a boost of energy and go on. So, you know, and there are some days where, you know, I'll just take the day off and just enjoy and just do something fun for myself. So I definitely, I'm not so hard on myself every single day. Push, push, push. You know, we, everybody ebbs and flows and I kind of go with it. I don't, I don't fight it because I noticed in the past, when I was younger, when I fought it, it just, you know, was terrible and I ended up feeling worse and stressed out and, you know, inevitably taking it out on the wife and kids. So yeah, number seven, the last way to stay motivated is continually check in with your reasons for carrying on. So, you know, I love to quote Steve Jobs, right. And so he once told an interviewer, I think most people that are able to make a sustained contribution over time, other than just a peak, are very internally driven. You have to be, because in the ebb and tide of people's opinions and of fads, there are going to be times when you are criticized and criticism is very difficult. And so when you're criticized, you learn to pull back a little and listen to your own drummer. And to some extent, to some extent that isolates you from the praise. If you eventually get it too, the praise becomes a little less important to you. And the criticism becomes a little less important to you. In the same measure, you become more internally driven. What do you think of that quote?

Great quote, great quote. You know, I think there's a lot of. Lot of power in statements like that, and certainly rings true in my life, too. So what about you?

Oh, yeah, you know, I love quotes. You know, I really do that. That stuff helps. In fact, sometimes I watch the Steve Jobs famous commencement address to Stanford University and, you know, he talks about how he. How he's sick and how, you know, he kind of lives, you know, day by day. It's just really. It's really special and motivating. So speaking of quotes, putting it all in perspective, right? This is a great quote from Dalai Lama. So Dalai Lama said he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present. The result being that he does not live in the present or the future. He lives as if he is never to die, then dies having never really lived. So that quote kind of gives me goosebumps. What about you?

Same with you. It's pretty amazing. I'm not really. I think you are more affected by quotes than me only because my attention span to actually think about it and dwell on the quote lasts about four minutes, and then I'm. And then I'm thinking about, you know, something else. But I mean, quotes are awesome and they definitely stay. They definitely keep you motivated.

All right, great, great. So, okay, tip of the week. We're at that time. What's, what's your motivational tip of the week? You got, you got a website or book?

You know, I'm not. For those that know me well, no, I'm not a big book reader. I just don't have the time to read books. I love, I love to actually have the time, but unfortunately, I, I just don't. Don't make the time, and that's just the way I am, so. But I love the Internet and I love reading stuff and, and getting information on the Internet and gathering for my brain. But there's a website that sort of helps you train your brain, and it's a website called lumosity.com.

What'S the website? I just, I just coughed.

Lumosity. L U M O S I T Y Lumosity.

All right, let me check that. Lumosity.

And sort of, sort of a training your brain maybe, maybe helps motivate you, keeps you on your toes. You know, if you have A. If you have a down moment where you're, you know, you're frustrated, you jump on something like this and you kind of just take your brain away from. Away from the moment and you put it somewhere else. And I'm really a big proponent of taking yourself out of the situation. Right. Why are you so mad right now? Why are you so angry? That guy that just cut you off, he doesn't even know who you are. He just cut you off because he's a bad driver. Why are you. Why are you sitting. Why are you sitting at home and you're upset with your wife? You know, your wife, she's not trying to ruin your whole day. Maybe she. Maybe she is, but probably not. Put yourself. Take yourself out of the situation. Put yourself somewhere else and do things like this. Don't go play Candy Saga on Facebook. Go train your brain. Go take yourself completely away from everything. And this is one of those sites where you can do that.

All right, great, Great. So my tip of the week is a goal setting tip, and it's an iPhone app and an Android app, and I love it. I use it and it's called Everest. So Everest is live your dreams. And, you know, everyone's got their Everest climb yours, and it gives you ideas of what to focus on. And again, it helps you chunk it. So it helps you break down what your big goal is and create step by step tasks and then you can share it with others and be inspired by others. And I really love this app. So it really helps you set your goals or your dreams, and it's really great. I really recommend it if you've got one of these smartphones, iPhone, Android, Everest, live your dreams. And yeah, that's going to be my tip of the week.

Do you like my crowd clapping there for your tip of the week?

What's that?

Did you hear that? You missed the crowd clapping for your tip?

I didn't. I didn't hear the crowd clapping, but. Anything else before we end our podcast? Anything else?

No, I think, you know, no, no, I just think that, you know, it's. It's a good. It's a good topic to talk about motivation. I mean, we. We could probably spend a three hour podcast on the different things that motivate Mark and I each day. But. But what keeps us going is creativity and new ideas and always thinking, what. What could I do here to change this? What can I do to change that? You've always got to evolve. And as a human, as we evolve, we are always trying to do new things and not stay stagnant. And that's what motivates. So sitting in one place, being monotonous, not mixing it up. If you go to one Starbucks, go to a different Starbucks the next day. Go meet some new people, change it up. Because change is good and change is also a motivator.

I love it. I love it. Duran Frazier, thanks again for being on the Land Geek podcast. If you want to get more Duran Wisdom, go to landhub.com Is that right?

Landhub.com There is not very much wisdom on there. There's a lot of properties, though, a lot of properties.

But you'll see what your hand's doing. Go to reserveland.com and then of course download the Passive Income Blueprint for me for free at thelandgeek.com subscribe to the coffee talk videos on YouTube. Go to YouTube.com thelandgeek sign up for the investors toolkit that's on the landgeek.com as well. Or the Gold Mastermind sessions where Duran some my other top coaching students, we get on once a week and really get into the nitty gritty details of the deals that we're doing. And listen, stay motivated. So Duran, thanks so much again. This is Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, saying make it another productive week and of course, stay motivated and we'll see you next time. Thanks a lot.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Land Geek. Next time, for more tips, secrets and information that will help you succeed, stay connected with the Land Geek on facebook@facebook.com thelandgeek.