Decisions That Affect the Rest of Your Life (CFFL 61.2)
Decisions That Affect the Rest of Your Life (CFFL 61.2)
Jack Butala: Decisions That Affect the Rest of Your Life. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It’s super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Steven: Jack Butala here for Land Academy, welcome to our Cash Flow From Land Show. In this episode Jill and I talk about the decisions we’ve made in our lives that lead us to where we are and some of the ones that maybe we would have made differently. Jill, I’m not sure there’s a more important topic than this that we can talk about today at least.
Jill: I agree and what’s funny is when I read the title of this I took a different spin on it, so this will be really good. I’ll have to quickly adjust and come up with some things.
Steven: What did you think it meant? You probably think like most of our listeners.
Jill: Do you know what’s funny, I took it as not decisions I have made, I was thinking about going forward.
Steven: Yeah, okay, that’s what I think.
Jill: Okay, cool.
Steven: It helps to talk about the past and why we’re all standing where we are at the moment. Yeah, I think it’s all about looking forward. I made up a super short mental list of some of the things that I think are so important because our members at Land Academy and a lot of our customers at LandStay, the regular land company, they all get to us … They all have stories by the time they get to us. We have so many customers at LandStay that they’re chucking it all and they’re going to buy 40 acres from us and [inaudible 00:01:17] somehow and that’s always an interesting story.
Jill: That’s true.
Steven: Our Land Academy members just want … They want to improve the situation that they’re in financially and I guess some of them it’s a hobby, but most of them they want to make some more money or set up money on the side or whatever. I think these little tiny decisions that you make all through along that path really affects the decision that you make to either buy property or become a member of something like Land Academy.
I heard somebody describe recently, I think it was a TED Talk and somebody in the audience asked if you were starting all over what would you do. The person who was giving the TED Talk said I would just focus on the thing that’s most important. Sit down and ask yourself what is really, really, really important to me. Is this new sports car important? Should I buy a bigger house, is that important? Or do I want to put a bunch of money in the bank, is that important?
Jill: Or people, my family.
Steven: Yeah, or is everybody on the same page in my family or can I be a better father, all that stuff. Let’s start with you because you’re the one sitting next to me.
Jill: Oh, great, great.
Steven: Let’s look forward. It’s early 2016, what decisions do you want to make this year? What do you want to leave in and cut out or what’s important?
Jill: I don’t have any, how do I say this, concrete decisions right now that I need to make, so I was thinking …
Steven: Oh, that’s nice.
Jill: Isn’t it? I’ve kind of already picked out the next car, I’m just waiting for it. No, really, I don’t have … Oh, shucks, I’ve already made the decisions. Now have I acted on them? No.
Steven: What are the decisions you’ve made?
Jill: Oh, the book. I’m going to take care of my transportation issues, I’m going to work on the book. You and I are … I’m going to complete a book, I will complete a book. I just said that out loud. I’m going to work on the … We’re going to have a new show, that decision has been made.
Steven: Yeah, that’s at the top of my list.
Jill: Our professionals have spoken.
Steven: We have been incredibly encouraged to polish up our podcast and make it a show … We’re not exactly sure what it’s going to be yet, but it will be soon.
Jill: It might be a version of what we’re doing right now.
Steven: It is a version of what we’re doing right now, but it’s you and I giving some version of advice/entertainment. What’s that word they use? Infotainment.
Jill: Is that a word?
Steven: I just heard it last week for the first time.
Jill: My favorite is your new topic, business fantasy. Talk about writing a book and it’s business fantasy. What is that?
Steven: A fiction book.
Jill: Like The Firm, but with more business.
Steven: Here’s the thing because this is on my list, too.
Jill: You’re welcome.
Steven: It would be a fictional book and just if every single thing went right from the day that you started a business with twists and turns. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re a kid who’s not very good at school and you don’t know what to do, but you totally believe in yourself and nobody believes in you, all right. Now he’s got something huge to overcome or she and so they start a lemonade stand or whatever version of that is in the 21st century. It just turns into this and that and all of a sudden it becomes an amazing situation and a worldwide phenomenon. I think this generation of readers that probably are a little bit younger than us can really identify with that because they’ve all experienced some version of something that went viral that they’ve produced.
Jill: Oh.
Steven: Tweets. It may be significant, it may be really, really important.
Jill: Or the kids that videotape their soccer moves and they put them up on … I can’t remember the name of that site and they get all these little … It’s not a normal site and they get all these viewers and followers and stuff. I’m just thinking, is that the 2016 version of a lemonade stand? I bet it is.
Steven: Yeah, sure, lemonade stand is probably not the right way to describe this, you’re right. I did an outline of one with a student, a nursing student, and she very accidentally finds a cure for cancer.
Jill: Oh.
Steven: Then what she does with it and it was all for the wrong reasons and then she turns it all around. I suppose my …
Jill: Is this a book or is this a …
Steven: It’s a book.
Jill: Oh, oh.
Steven: I did an outline …
Jill: I’m like do you know this person? Wait, wait, wait, what are you talking about?
Steven: This is not how it’s supposed to be. This podcast is not supposed to be … It kind of is. I have about four outlines of business fantasy books. One of them was about this nurse.
Jill: That’s good.
Steven: She solves it all and then does some really bad stuff with it and then …
Jill: I like it.
Steven: I won’t spoil it.
Jill: Okay, I like it.
Steven: I won’t give the other three away.
Jill: Okay, cool. Okay, decisions you make that affect the rest of your life, that’ really the topic. I like this.
Steven: Yeah, thanks for bringing it back.
Jill: You’re welcome.
Steven: No, I think that there’s a few things that you can do if you’re very young and decisions as you make when you’re 50 or 60 or 70 are real different than when you’re 22 or 21. I see so many young kids and I don’t see it too much with our members and I really don’t have all the information on our members and don’t want it, but I see lots of young kids making decisions that I know are going to affect the rest of their life and usually they’re not good ones. Want some examples?
Jill: Oh, sure. Oh, oh, wait a minute. Am I in this group?
Steven: No, you’re not 22.
Jill: Oh, thanks for blowing that. Yeah, okay.
Steven: No, it’s more …
Jill: I’m glad I’m not 22.
Steven: … men decisions than women because I don’t understand women, but that’s a different topic. No, I think … Let me give you an example. Here’s a real example. I was an investment banker before I cut out of that and started LandStay and there were three of us there at all different points in our lives and the youngest one wasn’t me. He was constantly out buying newer clothes and had a better car and he lived by himself in this nice house.
Finally, the older guy and me sat him down and said dude, do you understand that at this point in your life you’re supposed to be renting a room from some people who are awful, that are your age that are working wherever and it costs you $150 a month and there’s no utilities and it doesn’t matter what you wear to work because you’re working with us. I just think that you need to make decisions that are forward thinking decisions, let’s put it that way, instead of self-indulgent stuff at the time. That’s really what I mean by decisions that affect the rest of your life. I’m not talking about should I go to medical school. I’m talking about I really should just go over here and live with these guys and save $7,000 this year in rent.
Jill: Right.
Steven: It’s the little tiny things they think and they all add up and then everybody pretty soon is standing in the mirror going I hate this job. I got to find something else that I can do. I’m not old enough to have this kind of pain.
Jill: Then you have that life experience behind you because of the path that you’re on which will help you.
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: I like that. When you talk about we all need … The guy blowing all his money and this stuff, there’s a lot of ways that that could not work in the end.
Steven: This ties perfectly into another outline of a business fantasy book. This wasn’t supposed to promote anything.
Jill: That’s all about Steven’s book.
Steven: I’m not trying to promote anything.
Jill: I love this and the new topic, who coined business fantasy?
Steven: Here’s a kid, he’s 19 or 20. He’s awful at school, in high school.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: He just barely finished or maybe he got his GED, I don’t know. I just have the outline done and so he goes and gets his CDL, he goes to truck driving school and buys the manual about how … Hey, you’re making good decisions now. He proceeds to reduce the expenses in his life to zero.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: He lives in his truck, he works for this company and he saves a ton of money. He’s got some hobbies on the side that aren’t expensive at all, some of them are free and he writes a book. By the time he’s about 28 or 29 he’s got so much money in the bank because if you do the math. He doesn’t make a ton of money,
but he doesn’t spend any.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: The guy is [crosstalk 00:10:03].
Jill: He’s not married.
Steven: No, he’s not married, he’s not married at all. Marriage does not play into this.
Jill: Oh, and he doesn’t date, he doesn’t spend money on anything. Okay, got it.
Steven: He makes sure that yes, I’m not going to say. Thank you for saying that.
Jill: You’re welcome.
Steven: You think those things through. This guy’s basically done by the time he’s in his … He spends eight years driving a truck more than full-timers to the extent that the law will allow and he does great.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: That book ends with him having the rest of his life to just do whatever he wants and he’s 33 years old.
Jill: That’s great and he probably will never get married.
Steven: Yeah, I don’t know what [inaudible 00:10:42].
Jill: Ha, ha, ha, just kidding.
Steven: You want me to work marriage into that book, don’t you?
Jill: I’m just kidding. I was joking because he has so much money and that was part of the reasons why. I thought that was funny.
Steven: [Crosstalk 00:10:52] some of this stuff.
Jill: That’s good. I was thinking about, okay, the topic. Here’s my three things I thought this was about and what I wanted to point out is one with all decisions you have control.
Steven: Oh, beautiful, beautiful.
Jill: You have more control than you realize you do every day in every decision. You think your boss is in control of you, but they’re not. You think the bank is in control of you, you think the traffic around you is in control of you. None of that,
you have all the control, so let that marinate.
Steven: No, I completely agree with you. I think we have way, way, way more control over stuff than we all think. Here’s an example, if you’re stuck in traffic [inaudible 00:11:45], don’t try to control it, so now you are controlling it.
Jill: Use it. Use it to your benefit or by the way or change something about it.
Steven: Yeah, take a different way or whatever.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: I don’t stress about that stuff anymore at all.
Jill: Isn’t that interesting.
Steven: I really don’t.
Jill: It’s a mindset.
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: It’s a mindset and once you realize that I really am in control, I’m not working for the man, it’s not my parents telling me or whoever. It’s really I’m making these decisions every day to get up and show up and be here. I’m going to take ownership or I need to change it.
Steven: Right, so Jill and I are exposed to now because of Land Academy and because of this show, lots of different people and I can see in 30 seconds who’s contrived and who’s not. I think that a lot of people who struggle with this topic, with making the right decisions and doing the right thing have some type of way deep down, some type of confidence issue.
Jill: Oh, I’m sure you’re right. I see that often.
Steven: I do, too.
Jill: There’s no reason for it. We should all be walking around with our heads held high.
Steven: Absolutely.
Jill: I don’t understand why some people have this mindset.
Steven: I’m not a psychiatrist by any stretch, but whatever it is, you deal with it and then move on.
Jill: Yeah, there you go. That kind of ties into my number two, I wrote down be thoughtful. I think that ties into what you’re saying right now. That mindset that they put themselves in, they put themselves there for some reason.
Steven: Yeah, I just think confidence is so important.
Jill: The way it is.
Steven: It’s such a cliché, but what you put out is what you give back and I don’t mean that in a … Be nice to the checkout person and then she’ll be nice back to you because there’s so much clicheish garbage that goes on, you know what I’m saying. There’s so much clicheish, weird, silly, cute sayings out there. Be nice to people, so that they’ll be nice back and that’s not what I mean at all.
Jill: Right.
Steven: The routed truth in that saying is true, but it’s so silly just to say it and say yeah, I said it.
Jill: Right.
Steven: Is what I think happens.
Jill: Like karma. Is that what you’re saying?
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: Okay. I learned …
Steven: Let me put it this way, if it’s hanging on someone’s … If you go in a guy’s office and it’s hanging on there.
Jill: Oh, gosh, I can’t stand that.
Steven: Then there’s some problem.
Jill: You’re right. Isn’t that funny?
Steven: If he’s living his life that way then there’s another problem.
Jill: When was the last time you walked into somebody’s office and they had those stupid motivational posters framed.
Steven: [Inaudible 00:14:27].
Jill: Really?
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: Like with the airplane going up and the …
Steven: Exactly what I’m talking about.
Jill: … jet stream below and there’s a saying there, we all know what that is and please tell me no one still does that.
Steven: You can reach the top.
Jill: Wow.
Steven: Reach for the stars.
Jill: Success is whatever. Oh, that’s the funniest thing. That’s so good. My third point and you just tied into it and I love when I see this and you and I have seen this in people very close to us that you can reinvent yourself. If you think you’re going down the wrong path, you’re making the wrong decisions and you think you’re doomed that is absolutely not true. You can and I’ve seen people … Maybe with the new year I think a lot of people will get in that mindset, too. They’re saying, you know what, I’m going to stop doing ‘x’ and I’m not going to take this from that person, that from that person or whatever it is. You really can … You don’t have the confidence, you could wake up tomorrow and just make a mental decision. I’ve seen people do it, that you know what, I’m going to be confident. I’m sure of myself, I’m going to walk around, I’m going to stand up a little bit taller and the more you do it the more natural it becomes.
Steven: Sure.
Jill: You can reinvent yourself. Whatever decisions that you’re making now or some that you made that you’re not sure about or didn’t feel great about, who knows, you can change it.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steve@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
