You are Stronger Than You Think (CFFL 0167)
You are Stronger Than You Think
Jack Butala: You are Stronger Than You Think. 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.
Jack:
Jack Butala for Land Academy, welcome to our Cash Flow from Land Show. We show you how to buy property for half of what it’s worth and resell it the next day. Great information and instruction from Jack, that’s me.
Jill:
Great inspiration from Jill, that’s me.
Jack:
Jill, there’s gotta be some funny stuff you can start the show off with that’s happened to us recently.
Jill:
Yes. I always have something funny. I’m up at four this morning … I don’t know why I’m up. I’m just like …
Jack:
You live a crazy life, man. That’s normal for us but for other people I think …
Jill:
It’s kind of true. That’s a good thing to talk about on another show too. People probably look at us going, “What the heck is up with them?”
Jack:
That’s what I think.
Jill:
I’m up, four in the morning and I’m on the computer. I’m working on our vacation home for the summer and I’m sending out some emails and things. I hear this sweeping, it sounded like it was right out my door. You know, it’s really kind of funny … I didn’t know this. I get and I go out on the balcony and look down and there’s a guy in a truck and they actually sweep the sand back on the beach. He’s sweeping off the boardwalk. He’s not a street sweeper, he’s actually out there sweeping.
Jack:
Did you flash him?
Jill:
No. I didn’t want to scare the guy because I was kind of like, “Somebody’s out there.” I thought he would be like, “Somebody’s awake. Somebody’s watching me.” But yeah, there was an old guy out there sweeping. That made me feel good.
Jack:
Jill booked a condo for us right on the beach in Manhattan Beach, California over a month ago for about a week and we’ve been here now for over a month. That’s funny enough I guess.
Jill:
I think what’s the biggest funny take away that you and I brought from that week, we thought, “Oh, you want to be on the strand” and they were like, “No, being on the strand is not all that it’s cracked up to be.”
Jack:
There’s sand in my gums.
Jill:
It’s so funny, that’s true. We roll a little differently. You were like, “I don’t like the sand” I’m like, “Oh, yay. There’s sand in my car. I like it.”
Jack:
In this episode Jill and I talk about how you are stronger than you think. This is one of those shows where we talk a little bit about real estate and maybe some other philosophical stuff, so great show today. Before we start, let’s start with a question posted by one of our members on successplan.com our free online community.
Jill:
Cool. Rob P. wrote: Hey all. I’m a complete newbie and just getting into the process of preparing mailers while I continue to learn. Not sure this has been a topic yet but I thought it’d be cool if everyone listed their best piece of advice if they had to pick one. Seeing how I have zero experience, I don’t have much useful advice but, if I had to pick something on a more general note, it would be to take action. Far too often, like many, we’ll spend far too much time in the research stage and end up never doing anything with it. That’s why I am smartly using the “Learn as I go” approach here. That’s timely. That’s perfect.
Jack:
You couldn’t write better questions.
Jill:
That was really cool.
Jack:
You and I couldn’t sit down and dream up questions and write them better than this.
Jill:
Right.
Jack:
Rob, welcome to successplan.com and the family of Land Companies here and soon to be “Get There First”, I guess this is our short, little verbal pre-launch to a company Jill and I are launching to help people effectively flip houses and get listings the same way we’ve been flipping land for years and years. What’s your advice, Jill, for Rob? What’s your single piece of advice for someone who’s completely starting new?
Jill:
We were all there once too, don’t be afraid. Pick up the phone, think about what you’re going to say, make the call, just do it. I see a lot of people that get hung up on that. That’s one, and actually I have two. My other one is, don’t start thinking about possible things way down the road.
Jack:
Somebody said this in an interview … I don’t mean to interrupt you. Somebody said this in an interview because it’s part of my answer too. Let’s not concentrate on step seven right now. I didn’t even say it, he said it and he’s exactly right. That’s a great way to put it.
Jill:
Is that yours? Is that you thing?
Jack:
No, it was a guy that we interviewed yesterday.
Jill:
NO, no. Is that your thing for Rob, here.
Jack:
No. Mine’s going to take like a half an hour.
Jill:
I had a woman just the other day reach out to me from Bigger Pockets. She found me and she sent me a direct email based on something that she read and I think she reached out to me because of A) what I do and B) I’m a female. It was funny because she’s asking all these questions that are way down the road. Do I need and LLC? Do I need this?.
Jack:
No, no, no.
Jill:
That’s what I said. Hold on. Let’s get some money in the bank before you even think about where you need to put the money and then we’ll go from there. Don’t think about the LLC, don’t get hung up on that stuff right now. You don’t need to worry about that.
Jack:
The single, number one, biggest mistake I see new people make in our group and all over the Internet, is that everybody’s got a deal. Everyone’s looking at real estate. They’re saying, “Hey, should I do this deal or not?” That’s absolutely not the right place to start. I think you’re setting yourself up to really fail at the first deal and then consequently not pursue it as a career. What you need to do is start with education. Don’t’ even think about looking at … Perusing the ML ads or Driving for Dollars or all the crazy stuff you hear about on the Internet.
Get education first then, get the tools that you need, this is step two, get the tools that you need to really succeed and get yourself to be part of a group. Whether it’s Land Academy or somewhere else so that you can ask people questions all along the way. I had a consulting engagement yesterday on Skype for an hour that they were supposed to pay for. The people that interviewed me … It wasn’t an interview. Somebody scheduled a $350 one hour consulting audio session with me on Skype and at the end of the hour I said, “You know what? I’m not charging you guys for this because I think I learned more than you did.” I’ve got probably twenty-five years experience flipping properties, almost sixteen thousand now. Those guys gave me some ideas and some great advice.
Jill:
Good.
Jack:
They’re already our members, too, and they’re doing great. That couldn’t have gone any better.
Jill:
Cool Awesome.
Jack:
Well, that’s my answer. I hope Rob P., I hope you … Stick with it, man.
Jill:
Yes.
Jack:
And if you have any questions, let us know. If you have a question or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816. It’s really early for Jill and I right now.
Jill:
It is.
Jack:
So the topic today is “Are You Stronger Than You Think”.
Jill:
You are stronger than you think. Is it “Are You” or “You are”? I think it’s “You Are”.
Jack:
I’m checking to see if you’re awake.
Jill:
That’s hilarious.
Jack:
Actually, I just read it wrong.
Jill:
Are you? I don’t know. I’m not sure.
Jack:
You are stronger than you think. This is the meat of the show.
Jill:
That’s actually funny. I kind of like your wording better. I want to write that book. “Are You Stronger Than You Think?”
Jack:
Jill and I came up with this topic and here’s why. I was thinking back about some stuff … We all have stuff that we went through. I don’t care if it’s starting a career, maybe it’s a deal that just went sideways … A real estate deal. You look back and at the time it was the worst thing that could ever possibly have happened and you’re laughing about it now. Hopefully, you’re not going through something like that right now but, if you are, you’re stronger than you think. That’s really the whole point of this. You just got to stick with it and reach out to the people that can help you with whatever it is and get through it. Right, Jill? You’re great at this stuff. What advice would you have for someone?
Jill:
I think back to my personal story because I had a monumental birthday, which I’m not going to say out loud, a few years ago and boy did I make some changes. We’re talking leaving a job.
Jack:
Midlife crisis?
Jill:
I think I had a female midlife crisis. I did.
Jack:
No one ever talks about girl midlife crises.
Jill:
Oh, girls do it too. Yes.
Jack:
Half the Corvettes on the planet get sold when men turn forty.
Jill:
Girls have car things too.
Jack:
Oh, yeah?
Jill:
Yeah, they do.
Jack:
I want to hear all of this.
Jill:
I left my job after seventeen years and I moved to a new city and changed my whole relationship status. All of that. What’s really funny is that it all happened in that thirty days of that birthday.
Jack:
You went nuts.
Jill:
I went nuts, man. I never looked back. It was funny because my friends were like, “What is up with you?”
Jack:
You and I should talk more often because I haven’t really heard this story.
Jill:
All my friends are like … I feel my friends are like, “Okay, you’re crazy.” Then, I had a few friends that are like, “Aw, I want to be you.” Later on I realized, if you want to make some big life changes you kind of can too. I had some friends who were just sitting around the sidelines just cheering me on going, “I wish I had that in me.” It’s so interesting that they feel that way. I didn’t think I had it in me. You know? I just did it. I knew it was the right thing for me because, I told you this, we just all fall into place. It’s like when you say Jack, that you’re career finds you. What if you can start into something investing and you find that you are really, really good in a certain niche. Just go with it, don’t second guess it. That would be your career finding you.
Jack:
I really believe that. These careers find you. You start dabbling in whatever, maybe it’s a hobby, or you’re horsing around the middle of the night on the Internet and then all of a sudden it just hits you like a ton of bricks. We have a lot of members who say that. “Man, you’re right about that.” It becomes, I’ll call it a healthy addiction.
Jill:
Yeah. And I coach people and I tell them, “Don’t close any doors here everybody.” They’re like, “Oh, I want to be this kind of investor. That’s all I want to do.” Okay, that’s great so let’s go on that path “slash” whoever, don’t close any doors because you never know.
Jack:
Never burn any bridges.
Jill:
Or what might sing to you. You might go, “I never really thought about it but God, I sure am good at this over here and everyone wants to pay me money to do this so, why don’t I do that.” It’s something they hadn’t though about.
Jack:
Were you just a big mess during that whole period or just happy Jill?
Jill:
Oh my God, I was so happy. I was so strong. It’s kind of funny.
Jack:
I wish there was a camera crew following you around.
Jill:
It was not a sad painful time in my life at all. It was a breaking free.
Jack:
You are amazing. Most people would drown themselves in God knows what during that kind of time. You must have had a pretty good pre-thought process to it. It wasn’t just reactionary, right?
Jill:
There were months that I … This is a very good question, Jack.
Jack:
No one knows my name anymore. I don’t even know what to call myself.
Jill:
I actually I … I thought about it, I thought about it, I thought about it, I thought about it, then I snapped and I just did it. That’s what happened, I just snapped.
Jack:
Was there a trigger?
Jill:
Yeah, it was my birthday.
Jack:
Oh, okay.
Jill:
I’m sure of it, I am sure it was my birthday and I’m like, “All right.” I’m confident that a lot of people in our group are probably here because of that too.
Jack:
I think that too.
Jill:
I’m making some big life changes. I’m taking my life over. I am done with this career. I want to be out of cubicle life. I want to be my own boss.
Jack:
That’s kind of why I wanted to do this show.
Jill:
I hear all kinds of stuff like that so I think that’s why a lot of people end up in our world. That’s what they’re doing
Jack:
I was talking to a member recently and he said, “I’m here because I just need fifteen hundred dollars a month extra. That covers my mortgage, my insurance.” I’m not sure what else he said and he’s doing it. I said, “Well, that’s great. You’re doing it. Why stop there?” He’s like, “Oh, no. I’m not going to stop there but that’s what made me pull the trigger.”
Jill:
You just need to have that safety net?
Jack:
He wanted extra money every month. He didn’t want to pay his own mortgage.
Jill:
Oh, that was it. He just said “I’m going to do that” and he thought he’d be done and now he’s like, “No, I’m not done.”
Jack:
He just had a number in his head and he hit it and then he was like, “Well, why stop here?”
Jill:
Exactly. Gee, this works. Let me think about it.
Jack:
Want to hear my story about how I know I’m stronger than I think I was?
Jill:
Yes, please.
Jack:
Around 2009 or 10 … Maybe 10 or 11, I’m not sure, Few years ago. We were the single largest seller on Ebay for real estate. For land. Land and houses and all kinds of stuff. That market stopped overnight so we had the acquisition machine, a picture of a freight train going just about full speed, and the sales part of it stopped. That was our only sales outlet. We never developed a website. We never developed any other … Like we talk about now. You’ve got to post it in nineteen places, develop relationships, have an A-List, and the whole thing. Which we all have now and it’s thriving again but, my world was just about over. That was it. I thought that as it. First of all, I thought the whole thing was all too good to be true in the first place, but hey, the markets change.
That was one of the biggest experiences in the end that I could’ve ever gone through. We turned the whole thing around. It took a couple of years but we turned the whole thing around. It turns out that notion in the beginning, which I kept telling myself right in the very beginning is, “What’s the worst thing that can happen? I own a bunch of real estate with no debt.” It turned out that ended up being great. I inadvertently developed an A-List because I called all the guys I knew in the business and said hey, “You want to buy these properties?” It worked out great. It was painful as hell at the time.
Jill:
That’s what I was going to ask you. Because you asked me and I think that was a good question. How were you feeling at the time? We weren’t like, “Yay! We’re going to figure this out.” No, there was like, “Holy crap it’s over.”
Jack:
Yeah, it started with that. You know the five stages of loss?
Jill:
Grief?
Jack:
Anger, denial, whatever. Acceptance is the last one. I spent my time meandering thought all of those stages.
Jill:
You’re living in a hotel for six months. I’m just kidding. Hiding from the phone.
Jack:
That’s about it. That’s what happened there.
Jill:
It ties into what we do and it ties into our topic “You Are Stronger Than You Think”. I mine, it was more of a … That’s a good thing. Mine was more of a conscious decision and I just went blazing and got it all done. Yours wasn’t so much conscious decision. It had to happen though and you solved it.
Jack:
Think about where we are now. We have each other and then we have this fantastic podcast that thousands of people listen to everyday. That was a mistake.
Jill:
From six to six thousand.
Jack:
It was a mistake. The whole podcast thing was like, “Maybe we should that and talk about selling land.” Then I failed at that for a long time. Then, all of a sudden people like it. I don’t understand it.
Jill:
It’s good.
Jack:
It is, it’s great. It’s fantastic.
Jill:
Thank you.
Jack:
This is the if/then segment of the show. If you do “X” then “Y” will happen. If you want to make ten thousand dollars a month deconstruct all the steps to get to that point, and then work it backwards. Does that make sense Jill?
Jill:
Can you elaborate, please?
Jack:
Sure. If you want to make ten grand or any amount, and frankly, if you want to do anything. You want to accomplish anything, take a look at somebody that’s already done it or doing it. Deconstruct what that’s all about. How they got there, what all the components that go in, and then set up yourself to do all the steps to get to that point.
Jill:
Maybe like a mentor? You can watch a mentor doing it?
Jack:
Yeah. Every time I hear this concept … I’ve heard of this concept years ago and the thing that I think of the most for some reason is like a song. If you really sit down and listen to a song that you like, that you’ve listened to a million times, if you really then sit down and listen to all the components of it and break it all down you can really start to feel yourself looking for an instrument to try to put it all together. I think that’s what real estate investment is. That’s what anything is I’ll use real estate. Let’s say you want to buy a piece of property for half price and you want to resell it. What are the steps involved?
Well, let’s take a look at somebody that’s doing it and here’s what we do. Jill and I do it everyday. You send out a ton of mail, direct offers, in an area that you’ve identified where there’s property owners that want to sell their property. What do you need to do that? Let’s take a couple of steps backwards. You need data. You need really good access an assessor database, not some crappy list on the Internet. You need a way to get the offers efficiently in the mail and maybe you’re not going to get it right the first time or the fifth time but you will eventually get it right.
Jill:
You’ll get it.
Jack:
Somebody is going to get one of those offers and they’re just going to find out that they need some money that morning they found out and they’re going to sign it and send it back. You’re going to buy a piece of property whether it’s a house or an apartment building or a piece of land for half price. You’re going to go on Craiglist, find a guy who flips houses in that area or a person that wants a piece of land and bang.
Jill:
There you go. Next thing you know he wants more.
Jack:
Deconstructed. Then there’s more and more and more. Jill and I wholesale and flip houses for ten thousand bucks. We mark them up ten grand. They never hit the Internet, no one ever knows about it. We already have the people who are going to buy them and we talk all about that in our new company Get There First. Hey! If you have any questions or you want to be on the show, we would love to have you on the show by the way, call 800-725-8816. Jill, do you have some inspiration for us? Not that this whole show …
Jill:
Was not inspirational.
Jack:
Was just a half our of inspiration.
Jill:
It was kind of a Jill’s thing here. A Jill show. My inspiration for today is … When I was thinking about this I was trying to come up with a good example but it’s test the concept.
Jack:
This is my favorite part of the show.
Jill:
Thank you Steven.
Jack:
You always surprise me with cool stuff.
Jill:
I hope I make you think. What’s something that’s … I don’t think I have it in me. I’m trying to think of a good example. Skiing, me and skiing.
Jack:
Oh, no.
Jill:
That’s not a good one? Okay, here’s one. I’m sitting here at the beach and I’m looking outside … This is true Steven, I have not shared with you. I’m watching the guys, the volleyball players and behind the volleyball players we have the surfers. You know, there’s some pretty good chick surfers and there’s some pretty good chick surfers of all ages. We were talking about that woman who swims. I have never … When you’re in Hawaii as a kid and you’re on Waikiki trying to surf, I don’t think that counts. For me to test this to see how strong I am and what I’ve got in me, I’m thinking about taking surfing lessons.
Jack:
Oh my gosh, you’re reading my mind. If you want to start anything new, get some education first. Don’t just pick up a surfboard and [crosstalk 00:20:28].
Jill:
I’m not just going to go out there and be like a ding dong. I’m going to get somebody professional to help me.
Jack:
I’ll do that with you.
Jill:
Would you?
Jack:
Sure.
Jill:
Okay. Awesome.
Jack:
I’ve done it before and I love it but I’m sure I’m doing it all wrong.
Jill:
There’s definitely going to be wetsuits involved because boy, this water’s cold right now.
Jack:
I just went to get coffee before we did this show and we’re in this beach community where these people have … I’m convinced now they’ve completely figured this out and I would like to be part of this permanently at some point soon. There’s a woman, I put her at maybe seventy, on a bike. I don’t think she was exercising, I think she was going to work and she was beating the traffic.
Jill:
Love it.
Jack:
It’s this old rickety bike. It looked like she had it when she was a kid kind of thing. Just killing it out there with a smile on her face. There’s nothing holding her back.
Jill:
Totally.
Jack:
I should’ve taken a picture. I should’ve taken a short little video with the phone.
Jill:
That’s cool.
Jack:
It just made me … How can I have a bad day after that.
Jill:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack:
I have a theory about why everybody’s happy here. You want to hear it?
Jill:
Yes.
Jack:
Especially people that age? I think that they purchase these houses that we’re all staying in for like thirty-five thousand dollars in 1950 and they’re all worth six million dollars and how can you not be happy with that?
Jill:
How can you not be happy with that?
Jack:
I’m just joking. I think there’s a little bit more to it. Whatever it takes, man. If you’re seventy and you’re killing it on a bicycle, and you have six million bucks in real estate equity more power to you. I’d like to join you sometime. But not too soon though. Join us in another episode where Jill and I discuss how to use information, that’s me.
Jill:
And inspiration, that’s me.
Jack:
To get just about anything you want.
Jill:
We use it everyday to buy property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack:
Get there first. Good show Jill, I’m sorry that you’re horse. You were totally pulling it off though.
Jill:
I hope I have that Demi Moore kind of thing going on.
Jack:
You’ve got a lot more than that going on.
Jill:
Tell me about the lady on the bike. I think that is super cool.
Jack:
Yeah, you know how sometimes you just see some people once in a while, not very often, and it’s just like, “That person is like liquid inspiration. We need to bottle it and film it and show everybody.” Maybe that’s an unhealthy reaction for me to have. I want to share stuff like that with everyone. That’s my first response after I get over it myself. I don’t know if that’s healthy.
Jill:
I think it’s healthy. I think what’ sweet about it is she’s going about her day, she has no idea that she’s inspiring somebody and if you stopped her and told her I think she would be super flattered.
Jack:
Yeah, or she would mace me.
Jill:
If I told her she would be very flattered. We did that the other night. Remember that? The girl at the restaurant? Oh, I have to say this. Maybe I should save … I’ll say it now. Remember the girl that waited on us and I told her … I was happy that she has a brain and she uses it and you said, “I can say that buy you can.” You can tell it was okay coming from me.
Jack:
What I said was, “I’m sure that you’re on your way to some place else and this is just a stop off.” I think she was just concentrating on what she was doing because the place was packed and she looked at me … I don’t think she heard me. All kinds of stuff. It didn’t pull it off.
Jill:
She was flattered. I think she was flattered.
Jack:
Really?
Jill:
Oh, yeah. Because when we talked … She stopped and we talked for a minute so it was all good. I was just so impressed with her. I had to tell her … You know? That’s another inspiration. I’m going to use that another time.
Jack:
Here’s a funny story just along those lines really quick. I bought a house in Detroit right after college in an area of Detroit that it was up and coming at the time and we did really well on it. What I did because I was so new, I didn’t know how it worked at all and this is long before the Internet. I went in this little neighborhood. It’s called a cabbage patch on the east side of Detroit. As east as you can get against the lake and I drove up and down the street and wrote down every single house that I saw with a sign in front of it.
I went to the real estate agent that we were working with and said, “Here’s my list. These are top tier houses, these are second tier, and there’s last tier. Here’s the ones we don’t want to look at at all and all the houses are different. Really different architecture and all.” She stopped and looked at me and said, “Whatever you choose to do for a living for the rest of your life, you’re really going to exceed in it.”
Jill:
Really? Wow. How old were you again?
Jack:
I was twenty-two years old probably. Twenty-one.
Jill:
You remember that?
Jack:
Yeah, because like this guy that asked this question today on the show. “What the hell do I do? I’m brand new, I need some advice.” When you get a compliment like that and you’re … When you’re new on everything you’re like, “Can I surf or not?” Somebody says, “That’s the best first day of surfing I’ve seen in a long time.” It really means something.
Jill:
I love it. That’s awesome. I appreciate that. Everybody should step up like that and tell people.
Jack:
Hey! Let’s go buy something for half price today and resell it. Jack and Jill information and inspiration.
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