The Land Geek's Podcast #87

Welcome to the Land Geek Podcast, your resource for information and tips to making money by buying and selling. 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 is the man that's gonna help you do that. The Land Geek.

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.and today I'm really excited for my podcast guest because I've never had anyone as impressive in the sense of what he has been able to accomplish outside of real estate. Because, you know, we talk a lot about real estate, but we don't talk about what it takes to sustain motivation to succeed in very difficult business environments and very difficult niches. So my guest for nearly 20 years has been a premier expert on peak performance. He has mastery in two different global industries and has made him an authority on peak performance. He's delivered entertaining and dynamic messages to companies and associations throughout the United States and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe. His clients include Accenture, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, the Dwyer Group, Alliance, Amway, gnc, Hilton, Medtronic, UPS Store, Radio Shack, Red Robin, and many national associations. Walter Bond, welcome to the Land Geek podcast. How are you?

I'm great, Mark. How are you? Thanks for having me.

I'm great. I'm great. So, Walter, tell us real quickly how you became Walter Bond, peak performance extraordinaire.

Well, I mean, it was a journey. I never knew that I would become owner of a training and development company. And I go around the world training people how to be peak performers. And it started out as a keynoter, and now we've kind of evolved and actually do some adult education and training and development. But I learned everything. I learned through basketball, had an incredible journey to the NBA. And what I didn't realize is that it was preparing me for my next phase of life. And that's to be an inspiration and motivation to people. You know, everybody's got a dream. And just because my dream might be bigger than your dream or perceived to be bigger, doesn't matter, you know, my dream is my dream, you know, so if someone's dream is just to go to college, you know, nobody has the right to poo poo on somebody else's dream. My dream is real, just like anyone else's dream is real. So I had a dream of playing professional sports, had an incredible journey to get there. I learned a lot, and I broadcasted a couple years for the Minnesota Timberwolves. People don't know this. I really didn't enjoy broadcasting. I love talking, but in the context of broadcasting for the Minnesota Timberwolves, I knew it wasn't my life's work, and it was a job that I just didn't see me doing the rest of my life. And one of the good news benefits of being a broadcaster, you had to go out and speak. We would go out and speak to season ticket holders. I would go to boys and girls clubs because it's really hard to get an NBA player to come out and share a few words. When I played in the NBA, there was some additional pay and they would pay for your time. But now guys are making so much money, you know, it's hard to lure them away for 2000 bucks or whatever it might be. So with that said, at the end of my career when I didn't enjoy broadcasting, my college coach, a guy named Clem Haskins, recommended I become a motivational speaker. And really on his faith, we launched in 2000. And here we are 14 years later. And I go all over the world, motivating people, training people, developing company's labor force. You know, the most valuable resource a company has is not its product, it's its people. So they invest money into their people to be more productive. And that's what we specialize in. We specialize in creating an environment of people former, you know, in the world we live in. Mark, you know, a lot of people, top producers always get attention. Sure, all performers always get attention, but the biggest category is always that group called average. And there's typically nothing for that group called average. And so if you're a great realtor, they have tons of programs for you. If you're struggling realtor, they have some things that can help you generate business. But if you're okay, if you're right there in the middle, that's really a neglected group, and it's our largest group. If you go to a school, you're going to have a students, you're going to have some f students, but the average student is right there in the middle. There's nothing for that kid, really. You know, they're almost in no man's land. So we really do a good job of helping professionals bust through whatever barriers they need to bust through and become peak performance.

Sure, sure. Now we're at the time of the year, you know, we're coming into the New Year 2015, and this is the time of year where people are making their new Year's resolutions. They're setting their goals for 2015. I want to ask you about that as far as setting goals, but before I get into that, what happens is people seem to fall off the wagon. Super bowl comes and they wanted to lose weight, they wanted to go to the gym, they wanted to exercise, they wanted to do this, they wanted to do that. And then something sidetracks them and they lose that motivation. Someone like you kind of bridges that gap and can help sustain that motivation throughout the year. How do you do that?

Well, if anyone struggles, the root of it is desire. I mean, you really have to have a strong desire. And a lot of people don't recognize that their issue is really a lack of desire. If you want to lose 30 pounds, we can do it, but you have to desire to lose 30 pounds. You know, a lot of people don't have that desire. They just say to themselves, you know what? It would be nice If I was 30 pounds lighter. It would be nice to be able to fit back into a size 2. It would be nice to be able to go to the beach and take my shirt off, you know, and feel good about it. It'd be nice, but it be nice. It's not going to get it done. Desire is what's going to make a difference. And when I came through the sports world, my desire to play in the NBA was so strong, I was able to get up at 5:00am you know, I didn't have a problem waking up and working out twice a day. I didn't have a problem eating the right thing. I mean, my desire to play in the NBA drove me all day long. I mean, it consumed my day. So when I asked someone who's struggling in a marriage or they're struggling in a business, or if they're struggling with their kids or whatever the issue may be, my question typically always goes back to desire. And if you have desire in the world of the Internet, there's information everywhere. So if you think about it, at the touch of a button, you can get the right information that can help you in any dilemma you might be in. And so it's not an information issue. It's more of a desire issue. Because you and I both know if you're an entrepreneur, if you want to become a realtor, if you want to become a banker or whatever, a lawyer, on the touch of a button, you can have detailed steps on what you need to do from a million different sources. Google will give you anywhere from 10 to 20 pages of information. The real thing that holds people back, from my estimation, is desire. If you have a desire, you know What? Working with you is a piece of cake.

Now what about setting goals? What do you think about that?

Oh, it's humongous. You know, we've been told about setting goals since what, the third grade, you know, we've been taught that it's not anything new. And, you know, but for whatever reason, only about 7% of professionals actually write their goals down, which is mind boggling if you think about it. You know, if you write your goals down, you know, some of the data says you're seven times more likely to achieve it. I take that back. I think only 3% of professionals actually write their goals down. And if you write them down, you're seven times more likely to achieve it. Now think about that. If you write it down, you're seven times more likely to achieve it. And meanwhile, very few people write it down. So something as simple as executing that can make a huge difference in a person's life. So, you know, my job as a motivational speaker, my job as a CEO of a training and development company is to teach professionals the fundamentals of success. It's their job to execute. I can't make you do anything. My job is to inspire you. My job is to teach you. But there's an element of accountability that that person must bring. And I can't make you successful. You know, I can't make you have desire, I can't make you hungry.

Right.

You know, I wanted to play in the NBA. I desired to play an NBA. I want to be the best motivational speaker on this planet. So as a result, I don't mind working, I don't mind getting online, I don't mind doing research, I don't mind studying my craft because my desire is to be number one.

Yeah. Let me ask you this because it's interesting the way you kind of phrase that. You want to be the top motivational speaker in the country. You want to make the NBA. Those are specific goals. You know, if I come to you and say, walter, I want to be.

Rich.

I want to have a sports car, I want to have a mansion and I want to be rich. Is that too general? How do you say that? Because some of my coaching students, they want to have the passive income, they want to have the one time sale and the recurring revenue that real estate and my land niche brings them. But sometimes their goals aren't specific enough and they start getting into it and they get kicked in the teeth in this business and next thing you know, three months later, they fall out.

Yes. You know what, you have to be Very specific. And I'll give you the difference. You know, I could have had a goal of becoming a really, really good basketball player.

Right.

Or I could have the goal of playing in the NBA. Right, right. And so they're very similar, but they're not the same. Right. Playing in the NBA was a very specific goal, which means there's some other behaviors that needed to happen in order for me to play in the NBA. You know, there's some marketing behind it. I have to be in the right place, I have to talk to the right people. There's some behind the scenes work. In addition to getting in the gym and getting in great shape and dribbling the ball and shooting the ball and putting my work in, there's a business of the industry that I had to get educated in. And so for someone just to blankly say, I want to be a millionaire real estate tycoon or multimillionaire real estate tycoon, that's a great start. But we have to be able to be more specific than that. Typically, that inquisitive nature will drive a person to get more information. But most importantly, I teach people. You have to think, you have to execute, and that's going to lead to domination. You got to think, it doesn't matter the industry. You have to think, you have to execute, you have to dominate. Something like real estate is always a good time. You're either buying or you're selling. A lot of people don't like to sell. But if you really think about real estate and its most common lowest denominator, there's always a good time in real estate. You're either buying a bunch of stuff or you're selling a bunch of stuff. Just like the stock market. People who understand the stock market. The stock market is never in a bad state. I'm so knowledgeable, the stock market, I can make money when the market's high. I can make money when the market's low. I can make money when the market is volatile. But it takes time and years to become an expert in order to do so. So expertise is critical. You know, you play in the NBA, you know, sometimes they're playing man to man, sometimes they're playing zone, sometimes the jumpers fall, and sometimes it's not. And you have to be able to make adjustments. But being able to make adjustments goes into becoming a pro and being a pro.

Right, right. Well, let me ask you this, because I'm sure you hear this a lot. You know, yeah, it's, you know, maybe Walter Bond. It's real easy for someone like you to be successful because you were just born with the talent, you're just talented.

Well, I mean, yes and no. Okay, I was good enough and talented enough to get a college scholarship to play basketball. Now I was. But to become an NBA player was another conversation.

That's a different thing.

My work and my commitment is what elevated my game from being an average college basketball player into becoming an NBA player. I mean, you got to keep in mind only 2% of high school athletes get a college scholarship to play sports. 2%.

2%.

So if you calculate the revenue producing sports in college, that's even less than that. And if you really calculate basketball specifically, you know, you can't really even calculate how few people actually make it to the NBA. There's only 450 jobs, and it's a global industry. So you have athletes representing probably 90 different nations. You know, there's only 450 jobs, you know, that make up the NBA. So it's incredibly difficult to get there. And the only way I got there was through hard work, commitment, determination. And even with all that, you still need a little luck along the way, too, to achieve something so special.

Sure, sure. So you're coaching students and they get on a coaching call. What's like a typical problem? They come to you and they say, walter, you know, I don't have X, Y and Z to accomplish this. How can you help me? What do you typically see? Is there a pattern or is everyone different?

Everybody's a little different. I deal with a lot of people. I would say that on a good week, on average, I probably deal with 2 to 3,000 people. I just spoke in D.C. saturday night in front of 1500, and that's just one event. Problems range all over the board. Some people grab me and say, walter, I want you to mentor me because I want to be a motivational speaker. I've had people come to me and say, I loved your message, but when I get home, I'm going to be a better parent. I'm going to be a better dad. I coach one guy who says, look, Walter, I make a bunch of money, but I've been married three times and my kids hate me. There's a bunch of different needs out here. And some people have issues professionally, some people have issues personally. You know, it broke my heart Saturday night. You know, I talked about leadership as it relates to professional leadership, but also parenting. If you think about it, parenting is leadership in its ultimate sense. And there was a dad in the audience whose son was a heroin addict. And with Tears, you know, he pulled me to the side and showed me a text exchange with his son, who was a heroin addict. And his son was grieved that he was disappointing his dad. And I felt like that disappointment of being a heroin addict kept him a heroin addict. And he was saying that, one day, dad, I want to be like you. One day I want to be strong like you. One day, I want to be encouraged and strengthened and be a man like you. And, you know, this dad showed me in tears. I mean, this is emotional stuff, man. People are dealing with issues out here. You know, everybody has some type of issue. Nobody's living this perfect life. You know, I belong to country clubs, and also, I'm a Chicago city kid. One thing I do know, everybody's got some drama. And the key is, how well do you manage your drama? And my job as a motivational speaker is to help people attack their professional and personal drama.

Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, no one goes through life. There's no free ride. I don't care who you are, there's no free ride. You're gonna have your ups and your downs. So my question is then, you know, do you. You have to combine then, like, let's take my niche, for example, learning how to buy and sell raw land, right? It's hard in the sense that you've got so much to learn tactically, right? You've got to find buyers, you've got to find sellers. You've got marketing and you've got deal flow, you've got selling, you've got accounting, you've got management aspects to it. And at some point, you get kicked in the teeth. In this business, how do you sustain the motivation when you get kicked and you get hit, what do you do? How do you stay motivated?

Well, one, I'm committed, right? And I think that I teach the 31 troops that boost peak performance. And one of the truths that any professional needs to understand, they have to commit to an industry, right? And a lot of people try an industry out. You can try real estate out. You can try motivational speaking out. You can try being a financial advisor. You can try buying and selling land. But until a person commits, until a person becomes devoted, you're not really going to have success. Because in success is a process, and part of the process is struggle. Part of the process is lean times. Part of the process is having success and bouncing back and dealing with the good and the bad. And over time, that's how you become a pro. I became a pro after I went through some Shooting slumps and missed 10 shots in a row. I became a pro after I shot an air ball and bounced back. I became a pro after I gave a rotten keynote and followed it up with a good one. Went to a venue and a microphone doesn't work. All of that goes into my development to becoming a pro. And until you're committed to an industry, you're not going to kind of fight through the ups and the downs to really get the prize or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And for anyone or any professional, you gotta commit to an industry. I, like in the industry, commitment to like a tree.

Right.

If you plant a tree, when you first put the tree down, that root system is not developed. And over time the roots will begin to search water and it'll go deeper and deeper in search of water. And the fact that it gets deeper and deeper in the soil is what's going to create its stability. Right. So if you start in the real estate industry, your desire for information. Right. Is what's going to keep you stable. Your desire to be in this industry and commitment is going to keep you there when a storm blows through, Right?

Sure.

If you really look at a 30 year old oak tree, those trees are so strong they can bust through concrete. Yeah. Concrete will buckle in the presence of a root system from a 30 year old oak tree. So my challenge to anyone, if you're going to be in real estate, commit to it and it doesn't matter if it's ups and downs, commit to the industry and over time you'll go through enough ups and downs and you need to go through them so you can become a true pro. Think about a boxer. A boxer needs to get a couple jabs to his jaw to understand that. I need to be a defensive boxer. Right, Right. They need to get knocked down a couple times to understand how to get back up. They need to get hit in that gut a couple times to understand how important AB work really is.

Right, Right, right.

So the ups and downs in your industry are what really makes us a pro. And unless you commit to an industry, it's going to be really hard for you to really become a true pro, in my opinion.

Right. All right. Well, to be honest with me, you ever wake up some mornings and you're like, I know I have to do this, but I don't feel like doing it. What do you do?

Well, I travel a lot. You know, I spoke in D.C. saturday, it was a day trip. You know, I Woke up at 5 o', clock, called 7am Got to D.C. went to my hotel, got freshened up, went and did a keynote for 1500 people, hopped right back on the plane and flew right back home that next day. Did I feel good? No, I still had some things I needed to do. My love for what I do is what drives it. You know, in the NBA, you play 82 games, you might play four games in five nights. And I hear fans all the time, well, you know, I don't like pro ball because those guys don't play hard. Well, you know what? Have you ever seen someone run a marathon?

Yeah, right.

It would be absolutely foolish to sprint a marathon, right. When you play 82 games, you're running anywhere from five to seven miles a night. And we're not talking about a jog. You are sprinting up and down the court five to seven miles a night. So if you play four games in five nights, you in essence just sprinted 30 miles in five days. And the fans say, well, these guys don't play hard. Has nothing to do with playing hard. It has to do with pacing. Because I know I got a game tomorrow night. You know what I mean? And then when all that's said and done, I might get a day off of that day. I'm traveling. And if anyone travels, you feel like crap. If you travel from LA to New York, you're tired, you're fatigued, but I still gotta go and sprint my 47 miles. And these mileage and travel and pressurized airplanes, overwhelm takes a serious toll on your body. So when fans don't think guys are playing hard, the reality is athletes are playing smart. And it's a marathon, and you have to be able to pace yourself. You got to stay healthy. And when you're tired, you got to know when to take a break. And sometimes people don't know how to take rest. You know, I'm a Christian, you know, and even God rested, rested on the seventh day. So in my mind, if he needed some rest, if he took some rest, there's nothing wrong with me resting. So I go hard. But you can ask anyone. I know how to keep myself fresh. And if you keep yourself fresh and don't wear yourself out, typically you can bounce back. Even if you have a night where you have to push it a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. So how do you manage all that? Because I can imagine you probably get 100 emails a day and phone calls and all these people. How do you manage it? How do you manage your energy levels so that you can be a peak performer?

Well, the reality is I am gifted to do what I do, right? So it's not work.

It doesn't feel any worth.

I'm just being me. You know, when I wouldn't play basketball, I mean, it never felt like work because I was gifted to do it right. And I think a lot of people just decide a career. And my approach is you need to discover a gift. And if you operate in an area where you're not gifted to operate, you're going to always be fatigued. Some of the simplest exercises can wear you out. You know, people ask me all the time, people ask me all the time that, wow, I could never do that. You know, how do you speak in front of a thousand people? Hey, man, I love it. I get energy from it. I've done 25,000 people, right? But if you're not gifted to do it, it'll wear you out. So with that being said, you know, I think it's very important for you to love what you do. And my whole philosophy, if you don't love what you do, quit.

What do you give?

A lot of.

What do you give?

A lot of interest.

You have to go, Walter.

Say it again.

Do you have to go?

I gave him a note that I'll be ten minutes late.

Okay, great, Great. Okay. All right. So what if you have, like, a lot of interests, right? So, you know, I'm interested in business and startups and real estate and coaching and teaching. How do you pick your favorite and how do you know, okay, this is my gift. This is my passion. How do you assess it?

Well, you got to be focused, you know, I mean, when I played professional ball, you had to be focused, you know, you didn't have time to be dibbling and dabbling in a lot of other things. And any athlete I've seen that dibbles and dabbles in other interests typically were not as focused on their sport, and they weren't as good. And to become the best in the world at what you do, it requires focus. I used to be guilty of that. When my career ended, I was transitioning. I did a bunch of different things. And my wife came to me and she says, honey, I can help you do five different things. Choose one thing and choose something you love, something that will give you the kind of money you want to make and commit to that. Think about it. Basketball is a very lucrative industry, so you didn't need to do five different things. You know, real estate is a lucrative industry, so if you're good at it, you don't need to do five different Things, Right? So, you know, it's almost like crap or get off the pot, you know, commit to one thing and one thing only. And that's how you prosper. You can become a jack of all trades and a master of none. We have millions of people to do that. I do one thing at a time and I commit to it. And in two different industries, I've been regarded as the best in the world in two different industries. And it's really the power of focus. And I encourage anyone listening, get focused on one thing. Because if you're in a lucrative industry, you don't need to do four different things. You can focus on that one thing and make all the money you need to make.

Okay, that's great. Well, I know we're getting to that point in the podcast now where I'd love to put you on the spot and ask you for a tip of the week, maybe a resource or a book or a site, something actionable where our listeners can go and really help take them to the next level in whatever they want to aspire to, whether it's real estate or business or whatever it is, just to become a peak performer.

Well, you know, my whole deal is we all need a coach, right? And Michael Jordan had a coach. His name was Phil Jackson. And I became an NBA player because I had coaches that can pull the potential out of me and not to be self serving. We have a membership site where we coach people and it's automated, it's very cost effective, it's very affordable, and we teach people how to be peak performers. And our website is WalterBond.com right there on the website you can sign up for our huddle and our coaching program. And it's fantastic. For basically less than 30 bucks a month, you have access to me. And if you enjoyed this podcast, this is not the beginning. This is hello. And@walterbond.com, we can coach you. Because I've been put on this earth to help people reach their potential and we have not had any disappointed customers. And I'm sincere about what I do. I've struggled in my life before and I've learned why. And so I'm here and qualified to teach people how to bust out that category called average and become a peak performer.

Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, you stole my tip of the week, Walter. My tip of the week was going to be go to WalterBond.com.

But I.

Want to reiterate just the fact that you do have a book. What's the title of your book?

It's Love it all buts think how to eliminate excuses and live your best life. And anyone go to my website, they can buy the book. It's a quick read. People love the title. People share with their kids. I'm all about taking excuses away. No one can stop you but you.

I love it. I love it. So I want to thank you, Walter. I mean, I know you're busy. I know you got to jump on another coaching call, but I really think that, you know, the Land Geek community is really going to benefit from hearing you and your story and go into 2015 ready to become peak performers, be motivated and really achieve what they want to achieve in their lives and accomplish their goals. I can't thank you enough.

Well, Mark, thank you. And again, anyone that wants to continue the learning process, go to WalterBond.com want to thank you for your time. I will hop on this call right now. But also, Mark, we gotta do it again.

All right. Thanks, Walter. I want to remind Everybody, go to thelandgeek.com and download for free the passive income blueprint. Get the ebook how to avoid the three fatal land buying mistakes. And look, give us some love. Leave us a comment on itunes, let us know how we're doing and I appreciate it and we'll see everybody next week. Thanks, Walter.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Land Geek. Join us next time for more tips, secrets and information that will help you succeed. Stay connected with the Land Geek on facebook@facebook.com TheLand Geek.