Planning the Rest of Your Life Today (CFFL 0116)
Planning the Rest of Your Life Today
Jack Butala: Planning the Rest of Your Life Today. 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.
Steve: Jack Butala here from Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow from Land Show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about planning the rest of your life today. Jill, is there anything more important than this to do today?
Jill: No.
Steve: I still do it sometimes.
Jill: I love it.
Steve: Before we really get into, let’s take a question.
Jill: Okay. Brian from Seattle called in and asked, “You guys are great. I am all in. How can I convince my wife?”
Steve: He’s all in. Have you talked to him?
Jill: I have talked to him and this is true.
Steve: Of course it is, I know. I’m wondering if he’s like, is he a member?
Jill: [crosstalk 00:00:41]
Steve: Is he a member is what I’m asking.
Jill: Yeah he is. This is why I actually threw this in here because this is real and I think this comes up more than you realize Steven.
Steve: Oh, you’re qualified to answer this more than me.
Jill: I am qualified to answer this because this is what I told Brian on a couple things. One, have her call me. No, seriously. There’s something to be said for that. We women look at things differently.
Steve: Really?
Jill: You’re so silly. Nice. Oh my goodness. All right. We all know it’s true. Our gut, we have these things. We see things differently and it’s a good thing. You know, if you, how do I say this? When you’re looking at something, you want your wife’s input. A, she might pick up on something that you missed, so that’s a really good thing. Have her evaluate the situation, or the investment, or whatever it is with you. Then, for that reason. B, she better be on board or it’s not going to work, so you want her to be all in. That’s a good thing. Here’s what I tell Brian, a couple things. A, I’m happy to talk to her. B, get her involved, listen to her. C, if she’s not sure that this is something, that would be to doing our just buying and selling land and making a profit, agree on a dollar amount. Say hey sweetheart, I want to spend five hundred dollars, buy a property, make some money. I’m going to show it to you as a working example, what do you think? Because that’s what he did and she was like, “Oh, I’m in.”
Steve: That’s good.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steve: You know, I’m going to have two points to make here. One, you should never get into any partnership or stay in one, whether it’s in marriage or a business partnership or any two people doing anything if you’re not better together.
Jill: True.
Steve: Sometimes you find out about that later and you make some changes, but two people have to be better together, so if his wife’s concerned it’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing, right? Then, my second point is, I have a peeve, you want to hear what it is?
Jill: Uh oh, yes.
Steve: Don’t just say, no you’re not going to get into the land business. Say, you know what? I love your spirit. I don’t want to work at this job the rest of my life either, but land’s not my thing at all, but I would love to own an ice cream shop, or I would love to buy skyscrapers. Land is too small. Let’s go bigger. Let’s provide a solution too, not just like a bitch.
Jill: What your peeve is, just people that just shut down ideas for no reason?
Steve: Yeah, or just say no. Like remember your parents used to do that. No.
Jill: Steven are you speaking from experience? Where did this peeve come from?
Steve: I have spent a lot of time in Detroit. There’s a lot of people in Detroit who are, they’re just, you know. My dad calls it quietly desperate, which I think is a poem or some crazy quote from some car guy somewhere.
Jill: Quietly desperate.
Steve: Quiet desperation.
Jill: Boy, that’s sad.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: Yikes. That’s not a book I would pick up off the shelf.
Steve: It’s not a book. It’s a quote from a car guy.
Jill: No, just could imagine that’s the title of your book, Quietly Desperate. Lah!
Steve: Now, we’re going to get seven hundred emails for the source of that. People are googling stuff right now. Don’t Google this on your phone if you’re driving.
Jill: Oh yeah. Quietly desperate. I know some guys I’ve dated like that.
Steve: Did you help them through it though?
Jill: Oh no, they’re quietly desperate. Geez, I can see through that. Actually, they were publicly desperate. That’s a good one. I like that. I’m going to, don’t be quietly desperate. Be publicy desperate.
Steve: I think it was Andrew Carnegie said. The quote is this, “Most men live a life of quiet desperation.” It was coming from Andrew Carnegie or something.
Jill: Who is that?
Steve: Andrew Carnegie?
Jill: I don’t know who that is. I know Dale Carnegie very well, but I don’t know Andrew Carnegie.
Steve: Andrew Carnegie was-
Jill: Was he in sports?
Steve: No, no. An industrial mogul. Like, he built one of the five guys that built this country.
Jill: Oh, oops. Sorry. It’s like, he’s not Carnegie Hall, Andrew Carnegie.
Steve: Yes, that’s who that is.
Jill: Oh, oops. Sorry. I missed that class. You know, there’s a few classes I got out of in high school, like biology, so I missed a few things. There’s a lot that I slept through, like history.
Steve: I know you love biology. I know that for a lot of reasons.
Jill: I hate biology.
Steve: Oh, you do?
Jill: Oh my gosh. You know that. I hate blood. If there’s blood, I’m out. Sorry.
Steve: That’s not the kind of biology I was referring to.
Jill: Oh.
Steve: There’s a lot of derogatory stuff in my head right now.
Jill: Don’t go there.
Steve: I’m not going to say any of it out loud. I would think biology was one of your favorite subjects for a lot of reasons.
Jill: Oh no. I don’t know. Okay, off air, I want to hear what this is about because I don’t know what you’re referring to at all. Okay, so what was this topic?
Steve: Planning the rest of your life today. I love this actually.
Jill: This is good. Tell us please-
Steve: That ties into that quiet desperation thing.
Jill: Tell us your thoughts and your things on this. Then, I’ll add what I was thinking.
Steve: This is kind of my show isn’t it.
Jill: Yeah, I have some notes that I want to add at the end.
Steve: People need to plan out the rest of their lives. If you do nothing else today, look, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your job, and your kids, and paying your mortgage, and all the little stuff. Everybody has to deal with that, everyone, but the people who really succeed in my opinion, they close a door and they get out a white sheet of paper, and a pencil, or a pen and say hey, this is taking a turn and I’m not sure I like it. I’m going to plan out the rest of my life and do whatever it takes, within reason, to change that. I really think it’s important to have a basic plan.
Jill: How big is it? Is it like, I’m going to write a book by the age of forty, or I’m going to retire with this portfolio? Give me what, are you talking big big, and then work it backwards?
Steve: Yeah, so I call it deconstruction. The answer is yes. It’s all of those things, but it’s very different for everybody and there’s no right way to do it. I can tell you how I’ve seen it done incorrectly. Then, I can tell you how I do it and what works for me. This is what you shouldn’t do. Oh, I want to be rich. Really? Everybody does.
Jill: That’s funny.
Steve: Except for nuns and stuff, so that’s ineffective. It’s I want to be rich, or I want to help people in Syria. You know, those big picture things are great and I love-
Jill: I want to cure cancer.
Steve: Yeah, that.
Jill: And I’m not a doctor or anything like that, but I want to cure cancer.
Steve: Dreams. I’m not knocking anyone’s dream for anything. I’m just saying great, if that the end result and you want to cure cancer or help people in Syria, then work backwards from when you want that to happen all the way to today. Then, lay out a plan, no horsing around. Then, make a commitment. If you like the plan and you think it’s reasonable, make a commitment. It’s never going to happen without commitment because stuff sucks. Stuff gets in your way and you got to make a commitment to just solve it and go through it.
Jill: You know what I find the number one thing that gets in people’s way?
Steve: Themselves.
Jill: Yup. They procrastinate and I don’t know why. They hold themselves back and it breaks my heart because I’ve seen a lot of really smart people that just can’t take that first step for some reason. I don’t know why it’s scary. They watch other people. They’re all, they’re good cheerleaders for other people, but they can’t do it themselves.
Steve: I have a theory.
Jill: Tell me.
Steve: It involves self confidence. I just finished a book, well I’m not done with it yet. It’s about raising children. The number on thing that you can do for your child is not save for the college fund, or encourage them, and give them a medal for doing nothing, which is very popular in our generation, Jill. The best thing you can do is instill self confidence in them and not beat them up for the fact, maybe they’re not a good student, but they’re a great ball player. Then, you give them some great confidence about that, you know? That didn’t happen in my generation from my perspective as children.
Jill: Yeah, you either won or you lost. You get used to losing sometimes and you learn how to recover from losing.
Steve: I mean, I just made a lot of points in what I just said and that’s one of them, but yeah, I think it’s really, really important. All of our kids have, I mean, an incredible amount of self confidence, I think.
Jill: Is it because of us? I think it is.
Steve: Maybe we neglected them so much that they just had to find their own way.
Jill: Maybe that’s it. I don’t know, figure it out.
Steve: I don’t know. For some reason all of them have it. I don’t know why.
Jill: I don’t know. Is it a role model or is it what we taught? Maybe that’s part of it. You know, for me, personally, it was a role model, I think. Well, maybe it was both though because I had a really good role model.
Steve: Oh, you mean with your parents?
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: I liked the way we grew up. I don’t mean to sidetrack you.
Steve: No, it’s fine.
Jill: You said something that is important to me that I’m curious about our listeners. What do you think, and I would really like to know this. We’re going to start tweeting this stuff and talking about these things after these shows and I want to know what you have to say about this.
Steve: Oh, that’s a great idea.
Jill: We are, so I’m telling you right now. We’re going to start having some more interaction talks about this stuff.
Steve: You have all kinds of social media stuff in our head.
Jill: I do have some stuff in my head.
Steve: I don’t know anything about it.
Jill: Thank you. We’re going to start talking about this.
Steve: Man, I love that.
Jill: I want to tweet. I want to know, what do you think about everybody wins.
Steve: Call 888-735-5045 and give us your opinion on anything of this or-
Jill: Tweet it, just tweet it to me. You can tweet it to me on my twitter.
Steve: Leave a question.
Jill: Send me a message on my stuff. You can find us. Okay, so here’s my point, on our Facebook and all that good stuff, LinkedIn. We’re all over there. What do you think bout, everybody gets a trophy?
Steve: Oh, it’s ridiculous.
Jill: I know. I get it. I understand it.
Steve: I don’t.
Jill: Well, I think they’re trying to build up all the kids, which I kind of get, instead of focusing what what truly each individual is good at. If you’re not good at something, that’s okay and you got to learn how to handle it. That’s my biggest gripe about this, is that we never teach children how to recover from down times, and down turns, and gosh you’re not going to get that job, and boy you had to work extra hard to get that. I don’t know. You’re going to have a thirty year old living in your basement, I think, if we don’t teach them how to pick themselves up.
Steve: If you fail at something as a child or an adult or anything, there’s basically two reactions that are possible. Different versions, but basically two. You get really mad about it, so you do what it takes to not fail at it the next time, or you give up.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s what I was talking about, the give up.
Steve: Or you decide, and it’s a version of give up, you know what? I didn’t really care about football that much anyway. That’s why I’m good at math. I’m going to go concentrate on this math thing over here.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.
Steve: Yeah, there’s failing is so important and feeling that feeling as early as possible. I’m talking as a toddler. No, you didn’t win the gumball and you can cry about it all you want, but next time try harder, or don’t show up to play at all. Go do something else you’re better at. People get upset when I talk like this. Like, how can you be so insensitive and mean, to talk about a toddler like that? I don’t know.
Jill: It’s not that big.
Steve: I know you agree with me Jill.
Jill: Oh I do. I was just going to say.
Steve: I can’t get in trouble. I’m not going to get in trouble at all after this show because Jill and I talk about this stuff all the time.
Jill: We do. Well, it comes back to what I’ve said.
Steve: Sometimes I really get in trouble after shows.
Jill: Sometimes you do. Well, we agree on all this. This is one of my things and Steven’s heard this a thousand times. If it comes easy to you, it was probably meant to be and don’t question it, whatever it is.
Steve: The first time you said that I really disagreed with that, but after awhile I really believe that now.
Jill: Yeah. You gave me a hard time because you’re like [inaudible 00:13:20]. Here we go. I’m like, no.
Steve: You should struggle until you figure it out on anything and that’s not the case. Like, I will never do brain surgery. No matter how hard I study and all that, it’s just not going to happen. It’s silly to waste your life on something like that and find out you just can’t do it very well at all.
Jill: Right. Well, there are so many parts of our business that I years ago, when we didn’t have the staff and health that we have now, I struggled with. I thought it was a learning curve for me. I thought that I just needed to spend more time with it. It was something that I’m not focused right or something. I was actually beating myself up about some of the parts of our business that did not come easy to me. I finally realized, give it up. It’s not your thing.
Steve: Like what? What do you struggle with, IT?
Jill: Yeah, that’s one of them.
Steve: Yeah, you’re not an IT person.
Jill: I’m not an IT person.
Steve: Here’s the thing about, are you done? I’m sorry, go ahead.
Jill: No, it’s okay.
Steve: The thing is, when you’re beginning a this, we have more beginners, you know, it’s funny because all we hear about are all the beginning people. Then, they go be successful and it’s like, oh no, we don’t need to talk to you anymore. We end up communicating with beginners more than anybody else, but anyway. When you’re beginning at this, yeah you have to do all this stuff. You got to figure it out. You have to figure it out or pay somebody to figure it out. Then, learn what you’re good at. In IT, a lot of people struggle with IT. It’s a lot more complicated than you think. I don’t mean to make this sound hard. It’s really not, but there is moving parts.
Jill: I have something to say about this real quick on a side note because I was talking about this with my kid at dinner last night, but I think this is the coolest thing and she wished they had this too. It was on the radio yesterday talking about schools. What if schools swapped learning a language for learning code.
Steve: Oh my gosh.
Jill: Wouldn’t that be the greatest thing? My kids actually said, I wish we had that.
Steve: Because code is a language.
Jill: I don’t need to take French. I took French in high school. If I could take code writing instead of French, that would have been so much more beneficial to me. I cannot tell you.
Steve: I think it should be set up exactly the same because JavaScript is a language.
Jill: But, here’s the point. The point is, getting exposure to it at a young age and seeing if it’s something good for you.
Steve: Right.
Jill: It was like, they interviewed a guy from Microsoft and stuff about it. It was really kind of a cool thing.
Steve: The thing about learning technical skills like that, it’s not so much that you’re going to learn the code and then go get a job and be happy. It’s more about changing the way that you think. Wait, this is possible? Yes, this is possible, but JavaScript doesn’t handle this thing over here. You have to use these other, so you start thinking like that and then you start just innately applying it to like, how to buy land, or whatever you choose to do.
Jill: I get that.
Steve: It’s changing the way you think.
Jill: That’s a good way to look at it.
Steve: That’s what I got out of accounting. It’s not so much that I was a good accountant. Frankly, I wasn’t. I didn’t have the patience for it, but I still think in terms of income statements, and balance sheets, and-
Jill: That’s who you are.
Steve: I know, and it’s not, I learned that. I learned that.
Jill: That’s who you are. You are. That’s natural to you.
Steve: There’s value in education that way. Anyway, man we got sidetracked.
Jill: No, it’s good. Okay, so I have something to say about this. Back on topic. I think it’s important to also reevaluate all the time.
Steve: Yeah, I was going to say that too. It’s not like I ever just did this white sheet of paper thing one time and decided what I wanted, put it in motion, and it never changed. I do this often.
Jill: How often?
Steve: Probably once every six months.
Jill: Do you?
Steve: Maybe every quarter. Once every four.
Jill: Do you save them to look back at yourself, or it’s all in your head?
Steve: No. You’re so good at that. I don’t save anything. You know that.
Jill: Okay. I was just curious. You don’t have like a journal that you write it down?
Steve: No.
Jill: Okay, I was just curious.
Steve: I should.
Jill: It’s in my head right now, but I should.
Steve: When I sit down and write, write a book or anything. I write it, I hyper focus on it until it’s done. Like we do with these education programs. It’s like the one thing we do for however long it takes. Then, it’s over and it’s out of my mind. You’re much better about, here’s the thing about you, Jill. You live your life. It’s all one big thing, so your kids fit into that one big thing, and I do, and these companies do, and the fact that you can’t get your car titled properly does, and it’s all one big thing. I really admire that. Most men don’t think like that. Men, it’s all compartmentalized. I’m at work now, so I really don’t care what happens to my kids. I’m at my kid’s ballgame right now, so I’m not going to take this call for work.
Jill: Interesting.
Steve: I don’t know if it’s a gender thing, or maybe a me specific thing or just a bad habit. I don’t know what the hell it is. Actually, I don’t care.
Jill: Thank you.
Steve: Just women in general, and you specifically are good at looking at the whole thing. Yeah, I don’t feel like working today because my aunt died, or something like that. That’s the way life really is, probably. Humans are like that. They can’t just cut one thing off and start the next. It all happens at the same time.
Jill: Yeah, you got to be good do yourself.
Steve: All those plate, you know? Those guys in the circus that twist those things and plates on a stick.
Jill: Right, the juggling, or the balancing.
Steve: Yeah.
Jill: The balancing. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Steve: Yeah, I mean, all this stuff I did a lot of years ago. Writing it down on a piece of paper, then changing it, and then changing it, and then changing it. For me, it was writing it down on paper. I don’t know, for somebody it might be all be in their head.
Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know, I think that’s a good point. I agree. You cannot be afraid to change gears or your direction, but you just got to commit to it, like you said on a show recently with the football coach. Commit to it a hundred percent. A hundred miles an hour. Whatever it is, you make a change. Don’t half do it. I was going to use a word that we shouldn’t say on the show. Don’t half A, blank, blank, blank.
Steve: I say ass all the time.
Jill: Oh, you can say that?
Steve: Yeah. I just got a thing from iTunes that said clean lyrics mean clean lyrics. They weren’t just sending it to me. They sent it to a lot of people. That’s being bent, that rule. I don’t think we’re even close to bending it.
Jill: Okay. Well, I’m not. I’ll tell you that much. Don’t A, asterisk, asterisk. You know what I mean, but be committed a hundred percent.
Steve: You are, for what you are rated G in language, you make up for in rated R in other areas of your life and I really appreciate that.
Jill: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. If you could see the look on my face right now. Wow.
Steve: I say that with love and respect.
Jill: Boy, that wakes you up. Okay, we’re going to talk after this. Oh, oh, oh my goodness.
Steve: Now’s a time to say that you should join us in another episode where Jill and I, if we ever have another episode, where Jill and I discuss your all important success in real estate investment and in life.
Jill: What were you talking about?
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