Is Learning the Guitar possible for You (LA 808)
Is Learning the Guitar possible for You (LA 808)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about is it possible to learn the guitar for you? What the heck does he mean by that?
Jill DeWit: This is a Steven topic.
Steven Butala: Yes, it is. Because it’s not for me.
Jill DeWit: It’s not for you?
Steven Butala: It’s not possible for me.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I thought you meant the topic’s not for you. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” Oh.
Steven Butala: No, it’s not possible for me to learn the guitar. And we’re gonna make … Because it’s just not in my wheelhouse. I look at a guitar and I see wire strings in a box.
Jill DeWit: But you used to play the ukulele.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Very poorly.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: And that I had a long … That’s really actually my whole story …
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: Me failing at something that is just not in my wheelhouse.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: I can bang the heck out of the drums, by the way.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: But we’ll talk about that in a minute.
Jill DeWit: Now I know where you’re going with this. Okay.
Steven Butala: Before we get into the actual show, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Isaac asks: I have property in San Bernardino county. Area’s assessed value is at $1500, but the cheapest five acre property in the area being sold is about $7000. So I can probably … Assessed we don’t care about, by the way. So I can probably sell this for 3-4 thousand dollars. Yeah. The one thing I’m unsure about is that there’s a concrete slab on the property. The owner says it’s from the remains of a cabin that used to be there. Does the concrete make this property more valuable and if so, by how much and how would you price it?
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I know what I’d do.
Steven Butala: I’d love to hear your answer on this. ‘Cause I’m sure it’s the same as mine.
Jill DeWit: I would not even factor that in, but I sure would make a big deal about it when I go to sell it. So I wouldn’t offer more money for it, to the person who is selling, but you know, it’s really not an issue one way or the other to them. Whatever you’re buying it for, buy it. Hopefully it’s like 2000 dollars. That’s what I’m hoping.
Steven Butala: I think he already owns it. It sounds like.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: It says he owns a piece of property there.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Got it. All right. So, then that’s perfect. Now but I would put the photos and everything … I mean, you could say “cabin ready”. You know, here’s the foundation, how great is that? It’s already here, that work’s already done for you. And make sure that’s one of your lead photos, because it differentiates your property from a lot of the others that are in the area and that’s a good thing.
Steven Butala: I would … There’s 50 headlines come through my head when I read this question, like tiny house ready, cabin ready-
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Steven Butala: Build your dream home, 80% of the work’s already done.
Jill DeWit: That’s perfect.
Steven Butala: Utilities … Although, confirm this on your own. Utilities are probably at the lot line, because somebody already figured all this stuff out for you.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So this maybe quadruples the value of this land. And to directly answer your question, yes, it makes it way more valuable and yes, it’s now no longer-
Jill DeWit: So you would-
Steven Butala: I would probably sell this for 30 grand.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: Yeah. This is an end user’s dream, because the people who are perusing these properties … Not the wholesalers, but the actual people who … The retail people perusing the internet, like Land and Farm, and all the websites that are out there, have this little dream in their head.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: You know, you’re selling the American dream. “Man, I wanna get out of this city.”
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: “I wanna have a place to go. I don’t have a 180 thousand bucks to buy a ready made cabin, but I can buy this lot for 10 grand and maybe over the next five years, have somebody build us something or park my RV on the slab.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Or on and on and on. This is the thought process that’s going through their head.
Jill DeWit: Roll.
Steven Butala: You just addressed 80% of the concerns that they might have about buildability and utilties and all kinds of stuff, so …
Jill DeWit: Wait, there’s already-
Steven Butala: It’s great.
Jill DeWit: It’s true. Something that we talk about, the terrain and what everything. You’ve already got a flat surface there.
Steven Butala: I mean, there used to be a house there.
Jill DeWit: You’re right about that’s huge. So what they could do with it-
Steven Butala: They probably did you a favor by knocking down the old bad house.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Paved way for the great … Almost literally paved way for the …
Jill DeWit: Wait, what’s funny about that. Remember we had … We talked with one of our members, Luke Smith, the other day about this. And he talked about this old, dilapidated shed-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That he sold on this property. And these people actually went out there with wood and-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And their own tools-
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And they actually made it livable.
Steven Butala: Great.
Jill DeWit: They went out and like rebuilt the exterior or whatever it is and they’re like moving in. When putting kids in school.
Steven Butala: You can buy a cabin kit for 10 grand.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Way less than that. Six thousand dollars on eBay, with instructions and all you need is a ratchet set, so to speak.
Jill DeWit: That’s cool. I think those are really cool.
Steven Butala: If you’re the right person. I couldn’t do that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, no.
Steven Butala: Not ’cause I couldn’t do it. Just ’cause I don’t have the patience. Ask Jill about that.
Jill DeWit: You have so much patience. Oh, that’s all we say all day long.
Steven Butala: I know. God, man, he’s such a good-
Jill DeWit: Oh. Just you know what?
Steven Butala: He’s so patient with us.
Jill DeWit: Here’s what you should do. Why don’t you just go bounce those ideas off Steven?
Steven Butala: Is that what you guys say?
Jill DeWit: It’s one of the things we say. Yeah, I think, you know what, he’s always got a ear. He just always loves to just, you know what, let you think out loud with him.
Steven Butala: How bad is it, really? Is it pretty bad?
Jill DeWit: On a scale of one to 10?
Steven Butala: How bad is it?
Jill DeWit: Well, it’s above five. Let’s just say that?
Steven Butala: Do you just run as a buffer between everybody and me?
Jill DeWit: I do that often.
Steven Butala: I wonder what they say when I come in.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh.
Steven Butala: Like, oh, man.
Jill DeWit: You know what they do? Heads down. Don’t make eye contact.
Steven Butala: Just like the teacher came in.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Is it that bad? Are you joking?
Jill DeWit: Pray he doesn’t talk to me. Pray he doesn’t talk to me. Just kidding. I’m teasing.
Steven Butala: I’ll tell you what. Our numbers are rock. All these companies.
Jill DeWit: What numbers?
Steven Butala: Our financial performance numbers.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Steven Butala: You know, I don’t even need to go there.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: So it has to be because some of the stuff that I input and some of the stuff that you input. We’re basically like Mom and Dad.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). We’ll go with that.
Steven Butala: Your father loves you. Even though he yells at you, he loves you.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Steven Butala: Or something like that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Thanks.
Steven Butala: I don’t yell at people. Come on. Today’s topic is Learning The Guitar: Possible For You? This is the meat of the show. Learning the guitar is not possible for me, so I could … Even though I have all the right motivation and reasoning about why I would like to … You know, I love music. I could see … Back in the day, I saw a potential, really if not anything else, worse case, a really good hobby for me. Like lifelong hobby ’til you’re 80 kind of thing. So I sat down, bought a ukulele. Actually, a bigger ukulele that was just like a guitar to practice and get through it and very quickly learned that reading music, for a lot of reasons, and learning properly to play that type of string instrument like that, it’s just not in the wheelhouse for me.
It would take me probably eight to 10 times the amount of energy and practice time and effort that it takes a normal person who plays the guitar and actually succeeds at it enough to where they could sit around at a campfire, learn a few songs, and entertain everybody. That was really my whole goal. And I, after hours and hours of truly trying to learn this and getting teachers, multiple teachers, it’s just not gonna happen. It’s not there for me so-
Jill DeWit: Why.
Steven Butala: Because I … There’s a part of my brain that is … Look, I can do it. All right? But it’s gonna take me 10 times longer than, let’s say, it would take you or somebody that actually knows … It’s just … People are born with stuff. But I’ll tell … And here’s the flip side of it. I took a computer class in seventh grade or eighth grade, back in the 80s, and a typing class, and I was at the top of the class from day one to the end. I picked up a keyboard and just immediately, it worked.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Steven Butala: And there’s still stuff like that that I try that’s new and I immediately get it. Excel is like that. I’m just a database data person. I’ve never had to try at it. I just walked into it.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So my point in all this is you really have to have honest conversation with yourself, if you’re brand new at this. I’m not saying it’s … Well, you … Back me up here. Because you’ve long said it. If this super, super hard, don’t do it. Go do something else.
Jill DeWit: Ah, well.
Steven Butala: I’m not trying to turn away customers, I’m just saying-
Jill DeWit: Actually, that’s not what I say.
Steven Butala: What do you say?
Jill DeWit: What I say is different. What I say is if it comes easy for you, you really should consider pursuing that. If it doesn’t come easy for you, that doesn’t mean that you can’t.
Steven Butala: Well, that’s the-
Jill DeWit: So, can I talk yet?
Steven Butala: Wow. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: No, I’m just curious, are you-
Steven Butala: That’s the beautiful joy of saying what I’m saying. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: So here’s my thoughts on this. Because I have a whole different mindset on this. Sometimes, too, I have a thing where if someone says, you know, things like, “Oh, you’re a girl. You can’t possibly do that.”
Steven Butala: Wow.
Jill DeWit: Or stuff like that, right? People say that. People say that.
Steven Butala: No, they don’t.
Jill DeWit: Well, they used to.
Steven Butala: That’s crazy.
Jill DeWit: But let’s just put it this way. Hold on a moment. Let me finish here. When people say things like, “Oh, you couldn’t possibly do that.” For me, too, that gives me even more fuel to go do it and prove them wrong, so I have … Maybe I have a little bit of a screw loose because of that. I take on challenges, just because, to prove I could do it. So my … I’m trying to think where my … I’ve lost where my point was going here.
I don’t know that I can’t do something. And if it takes me longer, it takes me longer. So the heck what? You know? I don’t care. I think that if you really want to learn the guitar, unless there’s a physical problem, that you could and you kind of alluded to that, right? But it doesn’t come to you like other things. So I think your point is don’t focus on the things that come hard to you unless there’s a real burning underlying desire to do that. Focus on the stuff that you are good at and come naturally. Am I reading you right?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So.
Steven Butala: Can I learn the guitar? Yeah. It takes me eight to 10 times more what I think the average person would take to learn how to play the guitar to the point where you could sit around the campfire-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And entertain everyone. Is that worth it to me? NO.
Jill DeWit: You know what? So here’s a-
Steven Butala: I’m gonna go spend time on other stuff.
Jill DeWit: So here’s my thing on your guitar lesson. I could probably learn to play the guitar. My fingers work. I have good whatever. I bet I could hold it. I bet I could do it. Now. Could I sing and play the guitar? No. And you know why? My singing voice sucks and I can’t get around that one. So maybe there are sometimes real things that you just can’t get around. And I don’t care if I went to any kind of a singing coach and all that. I really think it would not happen, short of having surgery to give me a different voice and I’m not gonna do that, so-
Steven Butala: You know what else is interesting on this topic is that when things come really easy to me, and I think most people are like this, and you sit down and the first, second, or third or fourth try and you’ve figured it all out. And you wonder why everybody else can’t do it. Well, it’s this easy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: It’s so easy. Why can’t-
Jill DeWit: Isn’t that funny?
Steven Butala: I heard this is what you do. This, this, this, this, and this. Which multiple guitar teachers have said to me. “I don’t understand why you don’t understand how to do this.” And I’m shaking my head going, “You know, I just … You know, I don’t … ” And then it’s like, well, maybe I didn’t practice enough. And you start beating yourself up. Well, I practiced two hours this week before this lesson. Maybe I’ll practice 18 hours before the next lesson, so I can play Mary Had A Little freaking’ Lamb. Is it really worth it after a while? It’s not.
Jill DeWit: That’s a decision. I think that you’re right. That’s the decision I think people have to make. So you’re at the point now … I know that we’re talking about learning the guitar, but I think what our underlying theme is do you want to be a land wholesaler. Do you want to be a flipper? Some version of what we’re doing. So you have to decide at some point now. Now I know what I’m up against. Now I’ve got into it. I’ve tested this. I know what’s involved. I’ve done a couple deals. Oh. That was hard for me.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: So now you have to decide like you just said about the guitar.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Do I really want to put the time and energy in? And if you do, you sure can, because I don’t want people to think that if it doesn’t come naturally to you that your drive and passion won’t overcome that. Because it will. That’s like me going and doing something stupid. Learning just because to prove my point. That’s my own little drive and passion making me prove it.
Steven Butala: Like what? There’s something stupid. What?
Jill DeWit: Well, I mean, I could get a motorcycle license right now. I was never gonna do it. Now I have a Vespa. Now I’m faced with getting a motorcycle license. I know I can do it. I probably need to do it. So just a habit. It’s just kind of funny. Nothing I-
Steven Butala: That’s not stupid. I think that’s great.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. It’s not like I-
Steven Butala: Anything that makes you more attractive is good. That’s what I think.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. So but my … So the point is, so that’s a decision. If it comes easy to you … There’s two ways to see this. One is, wow, you’re learning to play the guitar. You’re learning to flip land. Oh, my gosh. It came so easy for me. Why doesn’t everybody get this? You know what? Pat yourself on the back and run with it.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because it doesn’t come easy to everybody and you need to know that. And if it does come easy for you, well, you really need to spend some time thinking about why would I not do this? This is a no brainer. And the other half of the spectrum is if it’s hard for you. That’s okay. Please still don’t give up. You know if it’s something … If you really wanna play the guitar, Steven-
Steven Butala: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Jill DeWit: You could and you would.
Steven Butala: I absolutely … That’s exactly right. I just said, “You know what? It’s not worth the actual pain and agony and time that I have to put into it ’cause I don’t see the end value.”
Jill DeWit: Right. You know what? And there’s … I know that there’s people who have considered doing all kinds of entrepreneurial things. But they’re too afraid. There’s something holding them back. And maybe they’re afraid of being their own boss. Maybe they’re afraid of paying my own insurance. You know what I mean? There’s things like that that hold them back and so they decide not to do it. They decide to keep their day job and have the security of that. Not learn the guitar. Don’t want to put in those 18 hours. I’m way more comfortable with this. And that’s okay.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: Did I go off on a weird tangent that was not where you wanted to go?
Steven Butala: No. Not at all.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: This point is super important.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: It’s super … It’s incredibly important. Let’s just put it that way.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Because there are … We have … Here’s one extreme. I’ll give you the fantastic, most beautiful extreme of our membership and then the one that’s at the other end with the bell curve.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I received an email from a guy about six months ago. Jill and I did. We usually get the same … Everybody, they copy us. And he said I’ve been in real estate for my whole life, in real estate, and I’ve done extremely well, and until I found you guys I just didn’t realize how to properly source undervalued real estate. This whole business with these unsolicited offers, that was what’s been missing. And my whole life … And then he stopped right there. He was not even a member of our program.
Jill DeWit: Aww.
Steven Butala: That’s all he needed to know.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Because he brings so much other stuff to the table. All he needed to know was to send tons of unsolicited offers.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And he’s like, “I made half a million dollars on flipping houses.”
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: He didn’t need to know anything else from us. That’s it. So that’s one extreme. And he’s thanking us and thanking us and thanking us. And he’s like, “I really probably should get the right data. Because I did go to the assessor.” He did the whole data piece all around, but he still …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: But still. It’s like hand somebody who is really good at the guitar the worst guitar on the planet that’s got two strings instead of five-
Jill DeWit: Right. And they’ll make it work.
Steven Butala: And he makes it sound like, you know …
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Butala: And that guy’s just made to play the guitar.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Steven Butala: And so on the opposite end and we … There’s several people, not a lot, but a few people in our group who … And it’s mostly because they don’t understand the internet or computers. And so they have trouble logging into things and they have trouble and once they do log in, clicking through things. They don’t understand just the basics of caching out your browser so that old things are now new. And so that, if that’s a struggle, like let’s say the guitar version of that would be how to hold a guitar. If you just never get used to how to actually hold a guitar-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And how to sit and how to sit there with it-
Jill DeWit: It’s not gonna work.
Steven Butala: And it takes you two or three weeks to figure out how to log in, that’s a pretty good indicator. What you’ve done is, you’ve fallen … Like me with the guitar, you’ve fallen in love with the end.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You’ve fallen in love with that oh, I want to sit around the campfire-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And make everybody laugh and tell jokes and then play a little song. And so that path to get in for land is I’ve fallen in love with living out on the ocean in Southern California and driving the cars that I want and I don’t really have to go to work.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Steven Butala: So there’s a long, long path between staring at a blank spreadsheet and then where we are and some of our members are.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And it either makes sense to you, that path, like that guy that it clicked with [inaudible 00:17:44].
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: Or it …
Jill DeWit: That was perfect.
Steven Butala: I think the point-
Jill DeWit: I couldn’t have wrapped it up any better.
Steven Butala: She’s setting me up. That’s awesome.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve spent another 15 minutes listening to the Land Academy Show. Join us next time where we discuss the hottest land markets in the country.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community. It’s ours. It’s all about land. It’s at landinvestors.com and it’s free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I had to get that off my chest, because-
Jill DeWit: I guess.
Steven Butala: Did it sound like that?
Jill DeWit: A little bit. Do you feel … I mean, what was it … For you? For listeners? Or both? Everybody?
Steven Butala: It was-
Jill DeWit: Anybody?
Steven Butala: Jill, it’s painful for me. I’ll tell you a secret. It’s painful for me to … It’s painful. Jill and I don’t have to do this. We don’t have to this.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: We choose to do this. We choose to give back to the world on this thing that we’ve figure out and I’m … I guess I’m gonna say mastered it. And it pains me to spend a lot of time with people who have trouble logging into websites.
Jill DeWit: I understand.
Steven Butala: I think it’s a waste of what our … Kind of our unwritten, undiscussed mission is here in life.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Steven Butala: Jill and I are doing this not to make money, but just because-
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Well, part of it is because I’ve always wanted a radio show.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: But we’re doing it to give back, to spread the word-
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: It’s not … We just talked about in a couple of shows before this. There’s what? Billions of acres of property out there to buy.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: We’re never gonna run out of that, so … But it’s just hard to spend … We spend a lot of time trying to help people log into websites.
Jill DeWit: And it’s just not for them. I understand.
Steven Butala: That’s my whole point of this show.
Jill DeWit: You made your point. Thank you. Share the fun by subscribing on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. And maybe you’re watching on YouTube. Please subscribe there. And while you’re at it, please rate us … We are Jack and Jill. I just-
Steven Butala: Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
Jill DeWit: I just called you Jack.
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