The Silent Killer of Land Deals: Why Some Investors Quit Too Early

Bye.

I once dined on steak with a candle's soft glow, but the bill left my savings despairingly low. Now wisdom has taught me, so simple, so grand, Eat baloney, buy land. Oh, eat baloney, buy land. Trade the fork for the deed in your hand. Skip the fillet, let the sandwiches stand. Your fortune will grow when you buy your own land.

Welcome back, everybody. We took a week off. Uh, we're excited to be back. Tonight we're talking about the biggest reason investors never become successful. It's not because they aren't smart enough. It's not because they don't have enough money. It's because they quit before the business has the chance to compound. We've watched hundreds of people start this business with excitement. They send mail, they get a few leads, they buy a property, and maybe even sell a property. And then poof, they're gone. So tonight we're counting down the top 10 reasons land investors quit too early and why this business actually gets better the longer you're in it. Wait, look who's here!

Oh my God, I miss you guys so damn much!

Cheers!

Cheers, Mark! Good to have you back.

This is, uh, This is a pretty cool surprise.

Yeah, I, uh, first of all, I apologize for the hair.

No, I was just gonna tell you, I'm jealous of the hair.

Seats on the airline, one for me and one for my hair.

Looks, uh, you kind of remind me of Ross right now from, uh, Friends, back when he had the crazy hair day.

Yeah, yeah, this is the longest I've gone without a haircut.

No, that's good.

Back on Saturday.

I was about to say that I'm jealous of that haircut, just so you know, so you don't need to apologize. It's pretty Awesome. Thank you, because I got mine cut a little too tight.

No, no, it looks good.

It looks good. You guys look great. But I like the—

I like the— but I don't— I don't want to distract from the show.

Well, let's, uh, let's do intros quick. We should probably do that, right? So people know who we are. So I'm Scott Bossman. I'm a land investor. Joining me tonight is the Zen master himself, breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing, Mike Zaino. Mike, how you doing tonight?

Good. I don't know how I got the nickname Mick Zanio, but somehow it's on there. I don't know who played that little, uh, tech game, but that's me tonight. I'm Zanio.

MC Zanio.

Oh, MC Zanio.

Thank you.

Thank you. That sounds better than Mick.

Uh, I like Zanio though. Uh, John has the night off tonight. It's his son's birthday, so, uh, we'll be missing out on John, but As we saw pop in a little bit early, uh, earlier, Mark J. Podolsky, the Godfather, the Land Geek himself, is back. So we're going to have you, Mark. Glad to have you back, Mark. And, uh, tonight's show is fun, I think, because, well, it sounds a little, uh, a little Debbie Downer, right? Yeah, it's about why people quit. But there are a lot of reasons people quit, and I thought it might I think it might be helpful for some folks to hear what we have to say. So we're into the top 10 reasons people quit land investing.

I love it. By the way, can we do a shout out? October 1st through 3rd, we've got the Dirt Rich Summit coming up, and if you haven't gotten your tickets yet, get your tickets. Meet the Zen Master, meet Dude Buddy Nightcap OG, meet John Eight Is Enough Burnett, Handsome Rob, Well, hug it out. Let's go get your tickets.

Coming up quick. Like, what are we—

coming up fast.

Like, it's based August, well, less than 2 months. Last— countdown's on.

Yeah, yeah, we got people in the comments saying, uh, they got their tickets booked. Scott Elliott got his VIP. Um, yeah, it's gonna be awesome to see you.

Scott Elliott will be your second What's that thing you do on the, uh, you know, before Christmas? You open the little door up and you get a candy. We should be doing that for the, uh, the advent calendar. We should be doing that, something similar on the way up to the, uh, to the summit, like a little Land, a Land chocolate every, uh, every Tuesday.

I love it. I'm gonna send Scott Elliott a Land Geek Elf on the Shelf, and then like, you know, it's like we're watching you do your deals. Scott.

That's actually not a bad idea. Mark on the shelf, keeping an eye on your accountability.

Ooh, Mark on the shelf. I like it.

Who wouldn't want that?

That'd be a, that'd be a great Christmas.

I want to be a beta tester. Pay your mortgage, retire yourself, retire your spouse. I mean, there's no limit here. It's, uh, There's some people in this business doing some pretty big monthly income, uh, from this type of model, and it can be life-changing, but you just got to stay committed. So I think tonight's topic is apropos. How do you say it?

Apropos.

Apropos. Apropos.

Apropos. Apropos.

Apropos. Because you just gotta hang in there, right? You just gotta hang in there. So Yeah, that's what we— who we are. That's what we do. So back to you, Scott.

It's all about the river of nickels. Yes.

Base hits. If we were baseball players, we'd be hitting a base hit after base hit after base hit.

Yeah. And actually, it's about the compounding, right? Because I was thinking about this today, like, Everything compounds. Uh, your, your success compounds, your, your money compounds, uh, your knowledge compounds, your confidence, um, your relationships, uh, your skills, right? Your systems, your capital, it all compounds over time in this business. Tate Litchfield last week was talking on a call about how the business just gets better the longer you're in it. And I've often thought about that before, but I don't think we verbalize that enough. I don't think we talk about that enough. Like, it is really a long-term play. It's, it's a slow burn, right?

It's a fine wine business. It gets better with age.

Love it. Fine wine business. Awesome.

All right, well, unless you buy a 1971 wine from overseas and it comes back and the cork is dried out and you open it up and it tastes like vinegar. Unless that happens.

Vinegar.

Yeah, somebody I know did that and I was so excited and it was like, when the cork got all brittle, I knew there was a problem. I'm telling my dad, this is gonna be the best wine ever, Dad, it's the year I was born. You take the first sip. He's like, no, you take the first All right, guys, well, should we get into it?

The top 10 reasons. Now, I, I just, uh, we just came up with these, uh, reasons earlier, so I'll just, I'll just read them off and then we can discuss. How's that sound?

Let's do that.

So the number 10 reason that people quit too soon is, uh, they expect results too quickly. Expect results too quickly. So Mike, why don't you start? Uh, we see this all the time in the land business, especially with mailing.

Yeah, but what, but what are your thoughts on, uh, well, you know, I think people— I think of it as two mountains. The first mountain is getting deals, right? And many people, most people conquer that mountain right away, and it's like, wow, they're feeling great. But then they get a little tired on mountain number 2, selling the properties, right? So, you know, it takes time, it takes consistency. Just like the reason you buy land is consistent mailers, it could take time to get some rhythm with the marketing. But I've seen this over and over again. You go to an area, you start marketing the properties, oh, these aren't selling, they're not selling. But if you stick with it— and this is months sometimes— but if you stick with it, you start to get a rhythm and they start to sell. So you really need to have that sort of, um, just that, that long-term vision, right? You can't— we always say it's a marathon, not a sprint, right? Uh, if you're trying to sprint to get that sale, you're going to run out of breath and you're going to run out of, um, steam, right? So is that what you're looking for, Scott?

I don't know.

That's what I think.

That's what I'm looking for. We, we expect results too quickly. Mark, can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, I call it my golf game where I'll go out and I think I should be better than I am. I haven't practiced, you know. I'll watch it on TV, I think, oh, how hard can this be? And then I'm like, I'm miserable and I want to quit. Where other people who just practice and they stay with it and they don't have any expectations, they just go out and have fun, enjoy golf.

Yeah.

And so it's the same thing in the land business where You've got to have that beginner's mind. And, you know, do what the SEALs say, embrace the suck, and get over that to get to competence. But it's so often we have this low frustration tolerance. It's like, oh, screw it, it's not for me. Well, you just haven't been doing it long enough, right? I don't know if you guys ever watched that documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

No, I've heard of it, but I haven't watched it. Is it worth watching?

Yeah. Why? Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It's a great, it's a great documentary. And it's basically this guy who's the greatest sushi chef ever. I don't know if he's still alive, but when he was made, it was like he was in his 80s and he's still going to like the fish market himself. And then finally, like, he had a heart attack and had his son go to the fish market. And you can see him make the sushi. But he tells a story of how he hated it in the beginning, and then all of a sudden he started to love it. And he loved it so much he actually would be depressed during like holidays because he couldn't work.

Really?

Yeah. But I'll never forget, like, oh wait, this guy literally hated it for a long time, and then, uh, his apprentices have to apprentice with him for 10 years.

Wow.

10 years before they can serve the food. And then they go on and like, they're like great sushi chefs, they open their own restaurants. But one guy tells a story of making— he had to throw out, I think, 500 of these, they call it tamago egg dishes, before Jiro was like, that was good enough. And when Jiro said that's good enough, will serve it, he would have cried. Like, so like, you know, we're missing out on that, that also that sense of accomplishment by doing something hard too.

Right? We like, we're gonna have to have stamina is what you're talking about. We have to have some stamina and some intestinal fortitude. Is that the word? Like, we gotta stick with it, right? You know, great podcast. I think Alex Hormozi is so inspiring, and he was on Diary of a CEO, which is a great podcast. I think it was a year old, but it's got like 15 million views. And essentially, um, just kept talking about like, if you stick to the— all you have to do is stick to one thing and keep going and keep going. And but as entrepreneurs, we get the shiny object syndrome, right? Things aren't going well, we start focusing our attention elsewhere.. But if we just stick on the one thing through the ups and the downs, we start to really get masterful at it, which is very similar to what you're talking about with the sushi, right? I mean, that's 10 years, seems like a long time, but we all know 10 years is coming either way, right? We talk about that, you know. So yeah, that's that.

Well, this actually segues into the number 9, the number 9 reason why people quit too soon.

We have 10 ranked, 10 to 1.

We have 10, 10 to 1. All right, kind of fun, right?

Yeah, the pace we're going, this is gonna be a 3-hour podcast.

Yeah, no, we'll go through these. Uh, but, uh, so, so this is in the same vein, really. Um, people underestimate how long it takes, right? And they maybe, they maybe are a little bit too aggressive with thinking, oh, you know, I'm gonna get there overnight, right? Because It takes a while. You got to plant these seeds, you got to cultivate the plant, and it takes a long time for this plant to grow and for you to start, you know, harvesting from this. So, um, and, you know, I think, uh, you know, it leads into, into another reason why people quit, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. You, you see the success of others, and, you know, you see Scott Elliott slinging deals, deal after deal after deal.

Is he the deal slinger? Do you just nickname him Oh, maybe the deal slinger.

I like it.

Oh, Scott, what do you think of that, Scott, huh? The deal.

I'm a little jealous of that. This Scott is jealous of that Scott, the deal slinger. Um, but you know, that's just a— we'll just call it reason number 8, right? The, the, the, the comparison is the thief of happiness. We, we all see that, and we all— it's, you know, you're, you're happy for others in the community doing deals, but then part of me is like, ah, Like, I want a deal like that. But here's the thing, you keep showing up and they— and you will get deals like that, right? It just doesn't happen at the same time. The golden nuggets, Mike, we talk about this all the time. Yeah, as long as you're consistent, if you consistently mail, these golden nuggets are going to arrive. And if you consistently market—

I feel like, is this— would this be appropriate? I don't know, I'll ask you. An expert is someone who's made all the mistakes. But kept going. Like, you've made— like, you, you're an expert land investor, but you've made, by your own admission, a ton of mistakes, right?

I've made million-dollar mistakes. I've made really big mistakes. I, I'll take it. I think that, yeah, I think if you want to make enough mistakes, you're, you're technically an expert.

And the advantage of working with that expert is perhaps you can— maybe you won't escape all of the mistakes, but many of the mistakes you won't have to repeat. It's just like when I was— if I look back and my mother told— if I listened to everything she said about when I was like dating girls, my heart was getting broken, she was right every time. But I didn't think she was right. How could she know anything, right? She's my mom. But she was right, right? So the same thing, if you listen to your mentors and you listen to the people who've traveled that path before you, perhaps you don't have to make as many mistakes. Maybe you make half as many or a quarter as many, and you get there quicker.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the community is just— there's just so much mentorship in there. And so much encouragement. If you can take it in, but to Scott's point, if you are looking at it from that comparison piece of it, like, but you don't know what someone else's life is like, you don't know what their background is, you don't know what skill sets they have coming in. You have to run your own race in life, and on a long enough timeline, everyone gets paid in this business.

Everyone does.

It's just sticking with it.

So true, so true. I remember growing up and thinking of all these people around me, though, they're so successful. Then let— and then as years go by, realizing and finding out the real problems they had, the real issues they had, and, you know, it just you know, I was only looking at from the outside looking in, but from the— in their world, there were many, many problems, right? So a lot of times we, we would mentally highlight the success of others and all of the good things, but we don't understand all of the other things that are down below that, that they're suffering with. So, um, that's where the comparison comes in, right? It doesn't make any sense because there's so much struggle going on. But if we just want to look at the, the bright points, right? Well, we can look at the bright points. Why would we do that to ourselves? Look at the bright points in our life and celebrate those only.

Yeah, and, uh, okay, so this leads into number 7, right? So instead of cranking—

we're at 7 already.

Instead of comparing, be consistent, right? And we kind of already touched on this, but number 8 was comparison. Don't, don't compare yourself to others. Number 7, people do run out of consistency, and this is one— this is one reason they quit. Uh, people They simply quit mailing. That's where the deals are. They, they simply quit blocking out time when you have a busy life, right? I was a busy dad. I was working 50 hours a week. If I had not gotten up at 5 in the morning and, and found an hour a day, 5 days a week, I would not have been able to be where I am. Uh, so I, you know, and I think creating consistency like that for yourself it takes some of those emotions out of it. So like, just make it, make it a routine. Mike, we used to— remember that we created a journal years ago, and at the top of the journal was, did you mail today and did you market today? It helps with consistency, right?

Two movers. The two—

yeah, the two movers.

So, and people, you guys should sell that on Amazon, like a little Atomic Habits like workbook, but it's just one page. Did you mail?

Did you market?

Yeah, right.

Maybe we should, we should bring that back, Mike. I got it saved on the computer. I got a— who, who would want to— anybody in the, anybody in the, in the peanut gallery want to—

yeah, we built a land business accountability journal. We did, we did do that. But, um, I think that's the beauty of our business is the fact that it's repeatable. It's happening over and over and over again. And the consistency can really come from us building a system around it, right? And removing the number one blockage— ourselves, right? When we block, you know, if you want to lack consistency, we'll try to do everything yourself all the time. By the nature of you doing everything, the consistency is going to drop. But if you bring people and processes in use software like LG Pass, which is to me—

wait, Mike, wait, Mike.

Oh, oh, am I going to 6?

Yeah, this is, this is number 6.

Look at this, we're vibing.

Yeah, we are vibing because this was actually right, right next on the list. This is the next reason people fail.

Wasn't this a segment, You Complete Me?

Yeah, this is it. Can you throw away that complete?

Hold on, I got, I got, I got it right here. Here it is, the You Complete Me segment. You just completed it.

It's a love story. That's a love story right there.

Yeah, sure is.

All right, I'm dropping off now.

Why, Mark? Because you built something that is what enables consistency. LG Pass. I call it the virtual office. I remember you used to tease me with that. Oh, Mike, we got this wonderful thing. It's saving us collectively hundreds of hours. I'm like, That's great. When can I use it? Oh, don't worry, soon, soon, soon. That's all I could hear back in the day. But that alone is a virtual office. You bring in the virtual assistants, you build workflows in there, something that we really train people on in flight school. I think the second half of flight school is really about putting, um, you know, first half is getting deals in your pipeline. The second half is how to become the CEO and work on and on in the business. That's where the workflows come in. So software is huge here, right? But, you know, we all tried all these different softwares out there that was sort of generic. And, you know, there's all kinds of real estate software out there, but it just doesn't work because land doesn't have like a physical address typically, right? So that alone eliminates like 90% of the other softwares out there because you got to plug in. This LG Pass is perfect. So this is part and parcel to our system. I guess that's a pun intended.

Part and parcel.

But this is how we build, um, a real business. We have software that is built to the exact specification of what we do, and we can bring people and processes into it. And that's where consistency comes, right? Because we remove ourselves from the equation.

Yeah, I mean, well, that's where it's going in the Lang ecosystem. Is just, you know, how do we create this, this system of consistent value that we can deliver for our customers and our businesses, day in and day out so that we are not the bottleneck. And that's what we do. Because we're just building this machine, which is a system.

You should build that book, Mark. The next book you write should be You Are the Bottleneck.

I like it.

I think you should write that. You want— you are—

but you're rich.

Dirt Rich 2 kind of talks about scaling your, your land business.

Yeah, yeah. How many out there reading Dirt Rich 2? By the way, Dirt Rich 2 really makes sense once you're building your business. I tell people, you know, Dirt Rich 1 to me is a— yes, I understand the links are old, it's 2017, but forget about that. It's a mindset book because, Mark, you had fears, you had uncertainties, and you had doubts. I mean, you were kind of trailing this path that nobody had done before. And it was scary, right? And so to hear your mind— to learn about your mindset can help people that are new. But once you're building a business, Dirt Rich 2 really shines.

Yeah.

And I'm not brown-nosing Scott. Look at him, look at him, look at him.

I, I think— I feel like Scott should be like, you know, in the realm of literary genius, it's Dirt Rich 2.

It's right up there with, with The Hobbit, right up there with— yeah.

Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, I, I can't wait to get to that tonight.

What book is that? Wait, what was that? Is this a little mock book club?

Yeah, it's our book club. So yeah, you're welcome to join.

Everyone's welcome to join, but I would have warned you the first time.

It was very exclusive to me.

Uh, oh, you know what? Okay, so Scott Elliott had a comment. Uh, and it actually leads right into reason number 5, and I love that. I love that Scott brought this up because I love this topic. Okay, so reason number 5 that people quit is they think they need more capital. Now watch what Scott just said. Scott just said this— where is it? I didn't, I didn't stop mailing. So he was consistent with mailing. Now he has several mailing, several offers from his mailings in Putnam that he can't—

Scott, why are you not calling me? I mean, I know Mark and Scott— why are you not calling? We're all going to compete for you now. Why are you not calling me, Scott?

I'm going to call you the land— call it— I'll call you the land ringer. Ring me up, man.

Right?

Like, okay, so this is, this is where they got my number, Scott. This is where the community comes in, right? Uh, and this is, you know, Mike and I, um, and, and Mark, we've all talked about this for years. Just because you don't have the money in the bank account doesn't mean you can't do the deal. You control— Scott, you control those deals right now, right?

You're the rainmaker.

Yeah, we got to find a way to get them done. So, and there are multiple ways. You line up a wholesale buyer right?

You call Mike Zeno. Geez, I'm just saying, as an option. It's just options, Scott. Give them an option. You could call Mark J. Podolsky, you could call Scott Bossman, but you have my number. You could call me.

You could also call, uh, Scott and Mike since we have a land business together. Yes, but you can just keep it to your own land business. That's fine. No worries.

It's fine. Look at the jealousy. I love it.

I love it.

It's not jealousy, it's greed.

Anyway, the land lover.

But, but I think, Mark, you should talk about this too, because this is a huge mindset thing for people, especially for people who've never been entrepreneurs. They're, they're stepping outside. I mean, this whole business is stepping outside your comfort zone, right? Yeah. So what advice would you have for Scott?

And, and we all— there is a, a big emotional hurdle depending on how you grew up with money. And, and this is really where, you know, the one-on-one coaching in the community shine is to kind of help you tweak that, because we've all been through it and we know how to solve it. So this is not an unsolvable problem, but so many people are like, oh, I don't have the money, I can't do the deal. Well, that's not true at all.

No.

And if you've been in this business long enough like we have at some point everyone's going to run out of money before they run out of deal flow. And so you just start working on looking at other ways to raise funds. You can do debt, you can do equity, you can partner, right? Do all types of things. But when you're making 300% return on your investment at a minimum, the margin's there.

Mm-hmm.

So it just Yeah, I remember, it was a huge problem.

Yeah, I think it was San Antonio. Yes, it was San Antonio. And I had this opportunity for a deal in Texas, and that's when the epiphany hit me that I know, I know Uncle Mark and Uncle Scott. I'm like, wait a minute. And it hit me, and I flew right to the source that day and made a deal that's been producing ever since with other people's money. And I'm telling you, you just need to find the deal. You're 100% right, Mark. You know, if you find the deal, um, they will come, and they are the investors, they are the money, right? If you find a deal, they will come. No, yeah, it's a magical moment when you realize that, right? It's like, whoa, whoa.

And what's great about this business is that the money doesn't drive the deals, it's you finding the deal that drives the deal. That's really, really where the value is, the magic is.

Right?

Where if you're multifamily, that is— the magic isn't getting the deal, it's raising the money.

Yeah, right.

Can I raise $100 million? Well, not everybody can do that. Well, if you're doing a $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 deal, the money's really not the issue. It's, can I find this asset 25, 35 cents a dollar, right?

Right.

Yeah, I mean, and You know, again, in our community there are so many investors out there now, or there's so many people in our community who, um, you know, they, they'll, they'll lend you money, right? Like, Mike, we've used people, you know, to, to, to get deal funding. There are a lot of people—

good-looking people.

Yeah, good-looking people. There are a lot of people in our community who have QRPs and, and all, you know, self-directed retirement accounts. You know, they're, they're looking for a good return on their money. Like Yeah, uh, you know, uh, I've said this before, but it left an impression on me early on. Mark said to me early on, there's so much money out there, you just got to go find it, right? So Scott Elliott, find it.

No, no, no, you found it.

Call my— found it. Scott.

Oh yeah, all three of us will fund you.

Yeah, just reach out, we got you covered.

All right, awesome. I think we covered that. That was a good—

are we down to like 4 now? Are we at number 4?

Yeah, we're, we're coming up on number 4. All right, so should we stop? I mean, we're blowing through them here, which is good. So should we stop and read some comments?

Sure. It's like, Mark, you know, a couple weeks ago we were covering the, the, the, the, you know, anatomy of a land deal. We barely squeaked that into an hour. I think we still have— I think we left it as a cliffhanger. We still got more to go, don't we?

No, dude, we did, we did the last— we did part 2.

You finished it?

Yeah, that was 2 weeks ago. We did part 2. Okay, then, and then we took a break, so we're good.

Memory—

we did Anatomy of the Land Deal 1 and Anatomy of the Land Deal 2. Yeah. Uh, oh, you sound very choppy. Well, hopefully that's— oh, hopefully—

hopefully— is it all of us, or is it Scott or Mark or me?

Hopefully that's better. Oh, is everybody saying we're laggy?

We're lagging platform. Maybe it's YouTube.

Maybe StreamYard's having issues today because my internet's good.

Yeah, you guys sound good to me.

Oh, this is a good, uh, suggestion from Rick Colcock. A suggestion for Dirt Rich Summit: Mark, please have little ribbons at the registration desk that say first year, second year, third year, fourth year, fifth year, however many guys, how many however many you guys have had. We could have a little bad system for— man, I'm gonna be really full.

It's gonna be awesome.

Yeah, I like that idea. Um, cool. Uh, let's see here. Yeah, a lot of people complaining that we're freezing. Oh, so Scott was talking about the platform, comparing himself to Valerie Young. Yeah, we just never do that. Scott, we just don't compare ourselves to Valerie Young. You just continue with your consistent deal slinging over there and you'll, you'll come out just fine.

Come on, you're the deal slinger, Scott. You're the deal slinger. Uh, I like Charles Jones, so I was thinking about golf. It takes— so this is my golf story. I went out with some friends, I stayed over in Maine at my buddy's cabin, we went golfing. First, first hole Whack! I hit the ball. Literally call Laura, we're gonna golf every day. This is amazing. 17 more holes, never hit the ball. So it was like, yeah, we're never golfing ever.

That's hilarious. Uh, Scott, Scott Elliott, uh, that's a great quote from Randy Pausch. We love that, uh We love the last lecture, right? The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people.

That's all that we haven't listened to that lecture. Like, you know, rest in peace, Randy. Like, what a great lecture. What a great— you can find that on YouTube. And it's really apropos to our business.

Yeah. Where do we find Dirt Rich 2? Amazon.

Audible.

Where else, Mark? Those are two— the two primary platforms.

I think that's it.

Yeah, Mark, you're an accomplished author.

Well, thank you.

I mean, thank you.

You got like 5-star ratings on these two books. Like, you are an accomplished author. That's pretty awesome.

That is pretty cool. Is there—

is there a third?

Uh, yeah, I'm working on the third book and Nobody likes it.

Can it be like When I Met Mike? Like, can that be the third book?

Like, nobody likes it. What do you mean nobody likes it?

No, nobody likes it. I'm, I'm still working on it. I've been working on this book. It's like a—

can you give us a hint? Like, what's it about?

I don't even want to give you a hint.

Come on.

I've been, I've been kind of dealing with it a little bit on Substack. I, you know, like, ground up. It's sort of this mindset book, memoir book.

Okay.

I don't know. There's lessons in there. I'm still working through it. I'm wrestling with it.

All right.

Wrestling.

All right.

Writing's hard.

I can't. Yeah, very hard. All right. Well, we look forward to more reports about Dirichlet 3.

Look at this comment.

This is from Go By Land. Go By Land. I'm not sure who you are, but week 6 into flight school, sent nearly 700 offers so far. Celebrating the first response today. Unfortunately, they were offended and disgusted.

That means you're in the pocket. You're in the pocket. You did it. That's perfect. If you're not offending people, you're not in the pocket.

And usually what happens is in the next day or two, you'll get your first accepted offer.

Scott, I was— I remember there's one area I was sending out $100 off of it. That was aggressive. Oh wow, $100 off. And people come, oh wow, $100. And so then I get off the phone, next I pick the phone up, yeah, yeah, I got your letter. I'm like, yeah, how do I get my $100? Like, oh, it's real simple. I mean, there's some people that won't, but there's some people that will, right? And you're looking for those people.

Yeah, I love it.

And at GoBuyLand, you're, you're in that point now, 6 to 8 weeks you're gonna start receiving. All right, Anthony Nelson, the summit.

Yeah, ditto. Is that like—

jinx, jinx, you owe me a Coke. Uh, but Anthony, I would say to you— and good to see you here, by the way— if you get more angry people and more angry people, that could be the market telling you something. And I would just encourage you do not be discouraged. No, because we don't all hit the nail on the head on our first thousand or even couple thousand.

I would call them too. If that was like a letter, I'd call them, talk to them, get, get your reps in, right? It could be close, you never know. I mean, I think every conversation helps you develop your skill set on acquisitions.

Yeah, love it.

I love Scott.

You're not a real land investor until they call you and cuss you out and threaten to sue you. Yeah, it's happened a few times.

So says the landslinger.

But then the next day you get a call from, like you said, Mike, people are, people are wanting to do the deal, right? So the deal. All right, cool. Well, so I think we have 4 reasons left, the, the top 4 reasons people quit the land business. All right, all right, here's number 4. Fear starts driving decisions. What do you think of that? There's lots of fears we have. That's a big one. We have fears of— we have fears of mailing. We have fears of, of, of not doing our due diligence right. We have fears of overpaying. We have fears of talking to people. Uh, we have fears of our own success. Yeah, we have fears of hiring people. We have fears of, of like managing people. We have fears of like—

you just stung me, Scott, when you said fear of success. Because I first started, I always felt like success is for the other person. I don't know, you know, I've said this before, I don't know if anybody can resonate with this, but it was like, it's not for me, it's for the other person, right? I really felt that way, right, until I just started being consistent And, and, uh, but that's very real. That's a very real mental, um, affliction. I don't know, you feel like success is for the other person, but it's not. You just need to follow the process.

It's not for— I mean, well, so many of us feel that success is not for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Success is not for me. Because who knows why you feel that way, right?

All you have to do is follow the exact same steps that people who are successful follow and keep consistent with it. So it sounds easy, but it's not. But you got to stay the course, right? If you're making the same decisions, taking the same actions, the likelihood of your success is exponentially increasing.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. And think about your own lives, like, what have you made a good decision based in fear? Never, never.

Yeah, never.

And then you sabotage it. You sabotage everything. Right.

So that's number 4, the sabotager.

The sabotager. Is there? Yeah. And I don't know why, you know, why we sabotage. Is it the— is it the fear of failure? Is it fear of change? I don't know. Is it the fear of people in your life? Judging you, you know.

I think a lot of these beliefs we, we unconsciously take on when we're little. Yeah, you know, maybe it was, maybe it's a teacher, you know, maybe it was a bully, maybe it was a parent.

Maybe you're the last guy on the wall and they're picking people for, uh, Nerf football.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And I mean, they picked girls before me, like, for Nerf football. Like, I was the last person picked. That sticks with you. I'm not saying, oh man, Mark, they picked me last.

Look, I had the same thing with kickball. Girls ahead of me. Yeah, it was— it stung. Yeah, we're still thinking about it.

Rover, Red Rover, don't send Mike over.

Yeah, exactly. Like, maybe, you know, maybe that kid, like, you know, who knows? Like, maybe.

But it does stick with you, doesn't it, Mark? Like, that stuff sticks with you.

Yeah, like, it has nothing to do with our skills, and, you know, in the actual game, then maybe they're just having a bad day. We don't know. They're just like, I'm gonna take it out on Mike and Mark.

So many little things. You really nailed it though, right? Somebody had a bad day, somebody said something to us, we took it personal, we internalized it, and then the rest of our life we thought that's who we were. It's not even true. It's false.

Yeah.

What are you doing, Scott? You do a little, uh, Be right back. Kind of like doing a side eye in there. We don't know number 3, 2, and 1. Oh, Mark, but it's true, right? Things that happen when we're little can carry over for decades.

No, it's so true. When you think about reality, it's just the way we interpret it. Reality is completely neutral. It's just a slight Sound, color. And then we just give these concepts a name, like, yes.

And then we attach ourselves to them as if they're real, as if they're truth and reality, but they're not. But, but they become our truth and our reality because we believe in them, and our belief in them causes us to make decisions that aren't in our best interest.

Exactly. So we can just change our beliefs, no problem.

We are kickball masters, Mark. We're kickball masters, right? We could have— we, we're kickball masters. That's what we need to remember.

We, we could have been professional kickball players if not for Scott.

Did you play kickball in like— I'm talking like grades 1 through 4?

Oh yeah, I love kickball. I was great at kickball. I loved it.

I was not. I was not great at kickball, not great at Nerf football. Nerf football, I wasn't good at all of it.

Oh yeah.

I mean, you got other gifts.

What were they? Please tell me. I was the guy in 7th grade that was so scared of like Friday the 13th and Jaws that I couldn't sleep without touching my feet to the floor in the bed. Like, you know what?

Oh, I was very sheltered. That's interesting because you're the youngest, aren't you?

No, in the middle. The middle child.

You're in the middle. Okay. Oh, all right.

But the point being, things that happen when you're younger can affect you for decades into your adulthood.

Yeah.

Until you get brave enough— I think that's the right word— to start taking, making decisions that go against that and fight that impulse to like revert back to who you think you really are, which is just a man of It's just manufactured really from, you know, who you thought you were, which is— it's really powerful.

Yeah, maybe this will be the next book.

There you go.

I don't know, I think it's already been talked about though. I'm trying to find a different spin.

It should be Land Who? Land You.

Oh man, this guy's so clever.

Clever.

Well, now that we had that, uh, that was a nice little land therapy session, guys.

Yeah, we're down to 3, aren't we?

Yeah, we're down to 3.

Whoa, whoa, Lance Slinger, somebody else's opinion does not have to become your reality. You nailed it, Scott. You're probably good at kickball though, just saying.

Yeah, Scott, Scott's very—

I have a feeling he was like very kickball master.

He was the one picking the kids.

He was the picker. He was the picker. All right, number 3 reason why people quit: they don't think like business owners, right? They think about doing a deal. They're, they're, they're, they're buying land, right? Uh, they're selling land. I'm selling a land parcel. But I think the, the future-focused thinking of like, what does it look like to grow a business, right?

Right.

And that's one of my questions to people that we talk to on the phone is, you know, are you thinking about doing this just to kind of learn how to do a land deal, or are you thinking about doing this to, to grow a land business?

Right, right, right.

Excuse me. And with the business comes the compounding things that we talked about earlier, right? Compounding capital and net worth and success and systems, um, passive income, right? Year after year after year, the passive income gets better and better and better, right? So, um, and I think a lot of people, uh, for many of the reasons we talked about earlier, they have a hard time thinking about you know, what does that future business look like? How do I get there? Um, and that, that I think you really do need to start thinking like a business owner very early in this business.

Yeah, I mean, we, we really did touch on that, that it's, it is a system, it is a business. Could you imagine Richard Schultz going to like Starbucks and making your cappuccino No, he's, he's the CEO, right? He's, he's thinking about, right, you know, strategy and other markets and growth. When you first start, you're— yeah, of course you just want to do the transaction, but then you want to develop into the business side of it because maybe that one transaction was really hard and then you like you think, well, if I had to do all this again, this is no fun, right? And, and that's really where the entrepreneurship angle comes in, is, oh, I can— we're going to teach you how to build this, this system like a, like a McDonald's of land, right? In each piece of it, you can have somebody, you know, a trained, inexpensive virtual assistant running it along with software. So 90% of this business can be automated and systematized with inexpensive virtual assistants and software.

Right. You know, Mark, reminds me of something you talk about a lot— the slowdown to speed up. Like, the days that I slow down and just think of and just reflect, and how can I make things smoother, more efficient? That's when things really start to develop, right? Because you could just try to do everything and, and, you know, work like a banshee, as they say, right? Just go, go, go, go, go. But you're not developing these— you're not developing your business, right? When you slow down, you think about it, you really do speed up, you know. And that might be a concept you learn somewhere else, but you talk about that quite a bit, right? I think that's really important— slow down to speed up.

No, it's true. I mean, think about all your best ideas. Where are they happening? They're not happening when you're in the work. They're happening typically when you're not doing the work, you're doing something else. Maybe you're in the shower, maybe you're taking a long walk, maybe you're working out, but your mind is playing with these ideas. And all of a sudden, like, oh wait, I got it, I'm gonna do this, right? And, and then it, you know, it grows from there.

Love it, love it. All right, number 2 reason people quit. I love this one. We talk about this all the time. People quit during the dip. Oh yeah, you know, and I'm gonna pick on the Lens Slinger again for this one because he mentioned something earlier on the call. He's working in Putnam County. He's not afraid to say that, which I think is so cool., right? Um, and he's feeling a slowdown right now, right? Uh, land isn't selling right now for whatever reason in Putnam County. How many people quit when they feel that, right? A lot of people, right? And I think this is where the successful people in this business separate themselves, is they, they push through, they endure.. And, um, during the times where nothing seems to be happening, they just kind of have faith in the model, have faith in the recipe, and you know what, it's going to turn around, right? And you might have to tweak things here and there, Scott. Like, you know, we all have to tweak pricing, we all have to tweak ad copy and marketing, um, but you're going to push through and you're going to start selling those things. Like you were a few months ago, right?

That reminds me of a quote. It says, know the wisdom of patience in times of inactivity. That's from a— like, that's a ninja grandmaster from like 2 generations ago that wrote that. Know the wisdom of patience in times of inactivity. It's a very— you know, I think about that quite a bit, right? Because that's when you really— that's the big challenge, right? Things are— nothing's really happening as it seems, but things are still happening. But you've got to have that patience. You're going to have that long vision.

I love that.

I love that. And I love the idea of just that the market's constantly changing as well. And Scott's point, you, you make a little tweak here and there But, you know, when we're on a win streak and things are selling, or buying, selling, it makes it seem so easy. Like, yeah, it's gonna change, and then you're gonna hit a dip. But the dip doesn't— you're not gonna stay in the dip either. It's gonna— you're gonna come out of the dip. It's just about staying consistent. So having this sort of false illusion that, you know, over a long period of time things are just going to go like this. It doesn't. It's like this. I mean, it's like, but ultimately, long term, it, you know, it goes up. But there's, you know, that ball is constantly bouncing.

It's a market.

Yeah, yeah.

And sometimes you need to pivot, right? So, you know, if people are feeling a slowdown in a particular area where they've done deals, maybe, you know, pivot, try it.

Or as we used to say, Scott, move your feet.

Move your feet.

Yeah, yeah. Stuck in one place? Move your feet.

Yep. Awesome, Scott. I mean, you know, Scott, you're feeling a slowdown right now, but you have deal flow. There's an opportunity in that deal flow, right?

And you have deal funders looking right at you.

That microphone— I ever see that thing, I'm gonna throw it against the wall. All right.

Well, that means you're gonna come visit me. That'll make my day.

Oh, I feel like we should start like, like Land Shark Show, and like people throw us their deals and we try to compete to fund them.

Oh, that'd be fun.

That is a great idea, Mark.

That would be fun. All right, are we ready for the number one reason people quit? I don't know if this is a reason.

Hmm.

I want to hear this one.

I don't want this to be anticlimactic.

It's going to be because we've had some good ones.

Is it that after a while of listening to this podcast, you're just like, enough of these guys, enough is enough?

Well, I think this is true though, uh, they just know compounding—

because compounding, Scott, is not just like in money, but compounding is in your effort in your, in your, you know, just your resilience, your, your dedication. The compounding is not just— this is not anticlimactic, this is true, because the compounding comes from consistency and staying the course and doing the same things over and over again, even if they're boring, and then sticking to it even when they're not producing, even when it's inactive, but sticking to it. The results come.

Yeah, and the longer you're do— the longer you're in this, the easier it gets.

Tell me, as a physical therapist, I'm guessing this is true, that you put people on a rhythm of recovery, but there's times when it seems like nothing's happening, but it's probably the most important time, right, to stay consistent with the actions and the exercises that you're giving them, right?

Yeah, and a lot of people don't know they're getting better when they actually are getting better.

They don't even sense it.

They don't sense it. Their quality movement's better, but they don't sense it. Or they're raising their arm better, but their perception is they're, they're not better, right?

Okay.

And, and that's, that's how this business is too. Like, if you look back, and this is where the gap in the game comes in, and we talk about this all the time, this is great. The gap in the game is great for healthcare, but it's also great for the land business.

Mark, Scott loves Dan Hardy. He's like a Dan Hardy.

His name's Ben Hardy.

See, see, I'm not a pocket holder, so I don't know his name.

No, I, I text with Ben. Ben's my buddy.

All right, all right, I take it back. Uh, Scott always calls me a pocket holder. I'm just saying he's a Ben Hardy puppet.

Have you read this yet, Mark? No.

Well, I have no idea yet, but I need to.

I'm reading it now. It's good.

But I've read almost all of Ben's books. They're all great.

You text with him?

Yeah, yeah.

I bet he says he texts with you.

I bet he does. I bet tonight with like his 8 kids, he's like, you know what, I texted Mark J.

Podolsky.

Uh, I love it, I love it. Well, I mean, you know, back to— I don't know how we got to—

got—

oh, we were talking about compounding. I don't know how— what's that?

Compounding.

Yeah, we're talking about compounding, but I just think the, the longer you're here, the, the better it gets, right?

So the longer you're here, the more likely you'll stay here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're gonna get better at what you do, uh, and I think the business just— it'll— it rewards that. It rewards the people who are persistent, I think. So awesome. Well, I think that's really the big lesson, right, is that everything compounds in this business, and the longer you're in it, the better it gets. So don't quit month 1, don't quit month 6, don't quit year 1, right?

I'll tell you when you can quit, and I've talked about this. If you do this business for 36 months and you're still not profitable, quit. It's not for you. 36 months. Yeah, and I would say about any business, you need to give any business 36 months. And then if it's still not profitable, it ain't for you.

Love it. Awesome. Well, if you guys got value out of tonight, like the video, subscribe to the YouTube channel, like and rate the podcast.

Scott, call me.

I feel like I'm pandering. We're asking for likes and comments now.

Oh no, I'm asking for Scott subscribe. Scott to call me.

Mark, you used to do that all the time. I'm just taking, you know, taking, you know.

No, I think you're right. I think we should do it. If I used to do it, then yeah, that's a good idea.

And if you guys have a topic you want us to talk about, let us know. Uh, we'll be back next week, hopefully with all four of us. And we still need to have that women in land investing episode, so I think we need to put that together. I think that'd be—

you think that's Sharia on here?

We definitely have to have Sharia on for sure.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, oh, there's my favorite word, stick-to-itiveness. And look at, look at Scott Elliott, he's just off the hook tonight. The dip becomes the rip.

Scott, I'll be texting you in about 5 minutes.

Oh, okay.

Oh, me? No, no, Scott, your best friend. Oh, right, okay. Your other land—

your other, uh, you are my best friend. I will text you as well. I will text you first.

Hurtful.

Yeah, hurtful.

Mark, thank you for coming. It was a pleasant surprise.

It was.

Well, thank— thanks for having me.

Good to see you back. Did you even know we took last week off? We just made an executive decision. We're like, Mark's out of here, we're out of here.

Good thing you didn't show up last week. We weren't here.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I had no idea, but it's great to be back. And, um, yeah, it's— I definitely missed you guys, missed everybody, and, uh, I feel very refreshed and, uh, ready to, to get, you know, get some great content for the Dirt Rich Summit. We got Elite Week coming up in September.

Oh, that's before the summer. That's, uh, very quick, within like 30 days or 30. Yeah. Wow.

So lots, lots of good stuff coming on.

Very cool, very cool.

Awesome. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thanks, thanks everyone for tuning in. Uh, we'll see you next week, and, uh, keep mailing and marketing. Keep, uh, keep showing up.

Keep climbing the mountain.

Keep compounding.

Keep compounding. See everybody.

Goodbye.