Why Successful People Hide (LA 882)
Why Successful People Hide (LA 882)
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: I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about why successful people hide.
Jill DeWit: This is an interesting topic.
Steven Butala: I have to admit, there are some topics that I write for myself. Most of them I write in an attempt to be helpful. This one’s for myself.
Jill DeWit: Oh, no. All right. You’ve been warned.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: John P. asks, “Hi, guys. You talked about the $10,000 thing on the weekly call last week. What is it exactly and why would it work for someone like me?”
Steven Butala: You want to hear mine first?
Jill DeWit: I do.
Steven Butala: The $10,000 thing, as what we’re calling it, I don’t know in the end what it’s going to be called, but Joe Martin during one of our live events got this crazy idea that we all in put 10,000 bucks into a bank account and raise whatever, I don’t know, 10 or 15 people put in, that ends up being 150 to $200,000.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: We incorporate. We’re all partners on deal. Each of us as deals come up use that money as capital to purchase property and then we just go about our business and resell it like we always would individually. We don’t collectively work on mail. We don’t collectively work on sales. We just use the dough, and we all have to agree whether or not we want to do the acquisition. It’s all via text. When the money ends up at the million dollar mark, you put the money back in. You keep half for yourself on the proceeds of the deal and then you put half of the money back into the pot. When it ends up being a million dollars, we do a bunch of disbursements and do it all over again.
That’s the $10,000 thing. There’s a lot of legal implications to that. You certainly can understand why we wouldn’t want to do that with somebody who’s brand new in the group. But seasoned people who have a track record of doing deals, certainly like Jill and I and like Joe and many, many other people that are probably doing … Well, I know they’re doing much better financially than we are buying and selling land on a monthly basis. I love to fund some of that stuff. The whole point is not to make money for the seed money people like us. The whole point is to allow people that are relatively advanced access through a bunch of dough to do great, great deals.
50 to $80,000 deals where the sale price is immediately $250,000. Keep have of that. Put half of the seed money back in and just keep going back to the well. That’s this $10,000 thing. I’m not sure who asked this question? John. I don’t know where you are or even if you’re in our group, but it’s reserved right now for the advanced people. It hasn’t happened yet. My lawyers are still drawing up the agreements in Arizona. Some version of it is going to happen for sure. We just don’t know. I want to make sure that it’s legal and I want to make sure that the outcome is what everybody expects. We have so many deals coming in and out of this group that you get 10 people in a room, everybody’s going to have 10 opinions.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: These are 10 entrepreneurs who are very strong-willed and bright. We just want to do it right. I’m actually excited to talk about it. I think it’s got massive potential. I know as a group we generate … Last month we generated, I don’t know, it was more than $4 million in equity. Not in sales, but just purchasing undervalued real estate.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: It has huge potential.
Jill DeWit: I’m excited because we each individually want to put in some money. I know one of the things you discussed, which would make it great, is that instead of waiting for one person to hold up, green lighting the transaction, I think that one of the ideas was having a majority or a certain percentage of when it hits that level of yeses, then it’s just is going to happen. I’m like that’s great with me because I’ll let you know, I … If that many people, if 80% or 70%, whatever it is, say this is an awesome deal, I’m like, “Great. Fine. You guys run with it.”
Steven Butala: Yup. Exactly.
Jill DeWit: I trust this group.
Steven Butala: It’s a sophisticated way of saying getting another set of eyes to approve a deal.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Steven Butala: I would be really concerned if one … Every time we play that game, would you do this deal, like 75% of us say, Yeah, I’d do it,” and 25% say, “No, man, I did a deal like that and I got stung.” There’s some huge value in that.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. There’s always deals that there’s some that we pass on and people are like, “Oh, I do these deals all day long,” we’re like, “Oh, wow good for you.” “And I make a killing.” I’m like, “Good for you.”
Steven Butala: Everybody’s got their thing. I personally would never be involved in an office building in any way ever just for a lot of reasons, and some people that’s all they do. Today’s topic, why successful people hide. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: Tell us, Steven, what brought this on today?
Steven Butala: I got the idea for the show because somebody else on the internet who’s very vocal, like a name brand person, did this show, did this title. They were just a stressed out messy wreck. It cracks me up because from the outside looking in, like what we do and what people that are eons beyond what we do, like public speakers and people like Tony Robbins, it all looks like it’s fun and profitable, but there’s always critics. I’m going to try to say this as nicely as I can.
Jill DeWit: Oh, this will be good. You going to Jillify it?
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good. Okay.
Steven Butala: There’s always critics. There are always people who are extremely skeptical, which is healthy. It’s a free market, but occasionally there’s people who totally cross that professional line. It either comes from drunkenness or raw jealousy or idiocy. Some version of all. Maybe all of them was on the wrong moment. Wrong place, wrong time. They say and do some awful stuff. I look back on my mentors. This is back in the ’80s and ’90s. I was very young. Those guys went and hid. They were successful. It’s like where did that guy go? This was way before the internet. This is before cellphones. It was really easy to get lost really quickly, and you didn’t need that much money back then to do it.
Now I know. Super successful people go hide or they resurface for once and then get out of there because they don’t need to deal with the stuff anymore. They don’t need to deal with the backlash and the pushback and the opinions. As I remember back then and probably like most young people remember what their mentors or their parents, their patience are like this thin for everything. I wonder if I’m an old man like that where my patience are just like that thin now?
Jill DeWit: Oh, no, no, no, no. Not you.
Steven Butala: Why do you think successful hide or do they? Did your mentors?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Well, I mean think about the people, we say they went dark, but yeah. We can all think of famous actors and things that they just kind of go … They go below, go dark and hide, yeah, for a long time. I’m trying to think who of my … I mean some of my mentors I can think of them going to like, one person in particular, like buy a house in Hawaii and would kind of write a book now and then from Hawaii. That’s kind of all you would … Then maybe he might pop up and speak now and then, but it was for the most part pretty darn quiet. He’s from Detroit.
Steven Butala: It just dawned on me why a lot of public people buy places in Hawaii and stay there. It makes a lot of sense now.
Jill DeWit: Because it’s a small island?
Steven Butala: Yeah. There’s only like 45,000 people on the island. How much flack can you get?
Jill DeWit: Hopefully they all hang out together. They can take care of each other. I don’t know.
Steven Butala: Maybe they start going to the grocery store and after that initial oh my gosh, everybody in the town just becomes like a normal person hopefully.
Jill DeWit: I hope so.
Steven Butala: I can’t imagine some of these huge movie stars like Johnny Depp or something. I mean you can’t go anywhere.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Steven Butala: We have a silly little … Whatever version of this is on the internet. The other thing too, the big problem is too that being financially successful now involves having your face on the internet. Back before a while ago, it was all about the company. The company name and the company culture and stuff and the products that you’re kicking out and how you presented it. Look at Pepsi. There’s no spokesperson for Pepsi that I know of. These huge brands. Like look at Walmart. Nobody even knows who runs or owns Walmart, but everybody knows who owns and runs Land Academy.
Jill DeWit: Let’s say or Microsoft.
Steven Butala: Yeah. That’s just how it is. There’s nothing wrong with that. Times have changed. Everything is just more open and more honest and there’s cameras involved and everything.
Jill DeWit: And Apple.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Now everybody really pays attention at that.
Steven Butala: In fact, companies are built on that.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Isn’t that funny?
Steven Butala: It’s a natural progression.
Jill DeWit: That’s a whole new thing too. How many companies are built on the eccentric leaders now and even push forward because, “Oh, that guy’s …” Think of SpaceX.
Steven Butala: Elon Musk.
Jill DeWit: Especially everybody now. Good for him. He probably did intend it because he’s not stupid, but anything he puts his name on, everybody … Now it’s funny that the funny products that they sell on their little site is hilarious.
Steven Butala: You can’t argue with that formula. I mean look at Oprah and look at Steve Jobs. That was back in what? Was Oprah in the ’70s? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit: That’s like an ’80s, but it might be …
Steven Butala: ’70s and ’80s is when it all kind of started. They were just icons, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and everything. Anyway, it’s very clear to me after three years of doing this why successful people go hide, sometimes permanently. Well, you’ve done it again. You spent another 15 minutes or so listening to the Land Academy Show. Join us next time where it’s Finance Friday with Steve Butala, that’s me, and Justin Sliva.
Jill DeWit: We answer your questions. Post it on our online community at landinvestors.com. It’s free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I feel better.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good. You had to get that out?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You know, the person that you’re talking about that did that, I know who it is and I think I caught minutes of it. I want to say there’s even like a … Unfortunately, even your family … You’re not immune to even your family and friends looking at you differently sadly. It’s a bummer that things changed. You just have to kind of be ready for that.
Steven Butala: You know what? This is the after show. Let me be clearingly clear.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Here’s a regular week for Jill and I or let’s say a regular month for Jill and I in the public eye. We get an over pouring of positive emails, hard felt, tears well up emails. Probably six a month we get a gift. Probably a gift basket a month?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: Someone was trying to ask me what my favorite scotch was recently. I don’t even know if he can send that in the mail, but I just haven’t gotten back to him and I will. It’s overwhelmingly positive. We get recognized in Costco probably once or twice a quarter or whatever, but there’s always one thing, there’s always one person or one incident where it’s just human nature. I don’t think it has anything to do with us or anything to do with Land Academy itself. It’s just how people are it seems like. You’re very good at blowing that stuff off. My point is, the positive grossly outweighs the negative. That’s my point. I have a radio show so I can vent.
Jill DeWit: Yes, I can. Hey, and by the way, just a reminder, I have a very thing going on right now. Checkout landacademy.com, click join, you’ll find it. It’s something awesome between now and the end of this year. While you’re at it, wherever you’re listening or wherever your watching, please rate us.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
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