Restarting Life with a Plan (LA 1393)
Restarting Life with a Plan (LA 1393)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about restarting life with a plan because it’s Friday.
Jill DeWit:
It is.
Steven Butala:
It’s a little bit lighter. Topics are a little bit lighter.
Jill DeWit:
Are they?
Steven Butala:
But just as informative.
Jill DeWit:
This could be a very deep topic.
Steven Butala:
It will be actually. I don’t know what to day.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Butala:
I’m sure you did too.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
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:
Grace wrote, “Any suggestion what website or Facebook groups I should post wholesale requests? I have a buyer who would like a waterfront lot in Travis County, Texas near Austin and Travis Lake. Thank you for your advice.” Do you want to go first, or you want me to go first? I’m going to try to be really gentle.
Steven Butala:
I’m not. So let’s go gentle first because I’m going to… Let’s good cop, bad cop this.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
You’re a good cop.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I have done this, Grace. I thought years ago when I had these buyers that were looking for property that call in and I didn’t have exactly what they wanted, I would take notes. “Well, what kind of…” They were wholesale guys too. “What are you looking for? “Okay. I want anything in the West part of Texas. I want anything from 10 to 20 acres. I want this kind of access, this kind of zoning,” and I started to keep a list. I thought, “All right, I’m going to try to do this.” What I found out was, huge waste of my time.
Steven Butala:
Biggest waste of time in any real estate career ever. I don’t care if you’re a real estate agent or if you’re a loan officer. I don’t care.
Jill DeWit:
Because I really tried, Grace. I said, “Okay.” I would get a deal and I go, “Oh.” I go look at my list and I’d send it to the guy. “This is perfect. You asked for A, B, C, D and E and I’ve got them all. Here you go. How do you want to do this?” “Shucks, I didn’t want that much of a… That’s a little too close to the city than I wanted. I wanted to be a little further out.” I’m like, “This is exactly what you said,” but there was just something that didn’t work. So my point is it was such a time killer. I eventually… I have a solution. Do you want to talk about that, and then I’ll give you my solution?
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Please keep going.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. [crosstalk 00:02:29].
Steven Butala:
What I have to say, this is not pretty.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. He’s going to get it off. [crosstalk 00:02:32] I’ll finish my whole thoughts on this, Grace. I’m all good cop, and then he’ll come along and give you his truth. So what I found was, “Hey, that’s great. I have all kinds of properties.” This is how the conversation ended and how I saved it and what we do today. Anytime someone is in a situation, they want this thing. “You know what? I get awesome properties all over the country all the time.” Here’s what I would suggest. “I send out an email once a month, once a whatever with a list of the properties. If you are really serious about this, get on my… I’ll even do it for you. What’s your email? Okay, Bob Smith, BobSmith@gmail.com. Awesome. You are now on my platinum buyers list. You will be notified when I get properties in. Scan the list. If you see something you like, give me a call.” Done.
Steven Butala:
First rule in any investing scenario, it doesn’t have to be real estate, just any type of investment plan is to control an asset at a cheap price. I don’t care if you’re buying stock or buying Apple stock at X because you believe it’s going to go up. So you’re controlling that asset by pushing the button on your computer at a price that you believe is cheaper and it goes up and you sell it theoretically. If you’re a person who buys and sells land like us, you want to control that asset as best you can. In our case, we pay cash for it. We completely and entirely control it. Then we go and resell it for more. So it’s all about controlling assets and there’s 50 ways you can do that. The end result of controlling an asset is to create equity for yourself.
So that’s it. It’s two steps; control the asset cheap, and then do whatever you’re going to do with it. Sometimes you improve it. Sometimes you just resell it for more because you’ve got it so cheap. The first thing that they teach a real estate agent right when they’re green and pass the test in any state, if you have a good designated broker or you go through a program like Sweathogs, they tell you never, ever, ever work with a buyer. Only go out and get listings, spend a hundred percent of your time with listings. Let somebody else sell it. This is exactly true here. Never work with a buyer. It’ll always play out with Jill and worse, you might find one that actually works and does buy a piece of real estate and then you’re trying to repeat it. It’s just not going to work. It’s not scalable.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. If you’re running around doing this all day long, it’s going to be…
Steven Butala:
So our job is to teach you how to use data to secure these assets just like in the stock market. They look at charts or whatever algorithms you find or whatever. I’m not plugging the stock market. I don’t get involved in that at all. So now, in Grace’s case, you’re just running in circles for somebody. You’re not using data. It’s all wrong. It’s not about the real estate, it’s about the Schmo that wants to buy a piece of property, or at least he thinks he does, in Travis County on the water. I can paint a picture of a little cabin that I want in Prescott, Arizona too. I would love to call a couple of brokers and say, “Hey, I want these a cabin for about $30, needs to have a little stream in the back, needs to be built newer than 2000, and it needs to have about 22 acres. I want a big long driveway. I want the clouds to be fluffy when I go look at it at the first time. I want my favorite song to be playing when I walk in.”
Jill DeWit:
“… and Jill’s whiskey on the counter.”
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Yeah. “… and Jill half dressed in a cowboy hat with a glass of whiskey and big smile on her face.”
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny. Tell me when you find that.
Steven Butala:
Boy, that paints a picture, isn’t it?
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Butala:
I’m actually blushing.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh. Wow. There might be children in that vehicle right now.
Steven Butala:
“Half dressed? Do you mean the top or the bottom?”
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Let’s leave that alone. Oh, no. Thanks.
Steven Butala:
Please, don’t work with buyers. It’s just a waste of time.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Put them on your list. That’s good. They’ll be in your email blast. Let it go.
Steven Butala:
This is all about learning how to use data to buy cheap property.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic: restarting life with a plan. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I’m trying to think what my version of that would be.
Steven Butala:
Oh no. Yeah, I’d like to hear. [inaudible 00:07:00] I could paint a picture.
Jill DeWit:
Let’s see.
Steven Butala:
I know what it is.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, man. This is really funny. Okay. I would like Steven fully dressed in a tuxedo.
Steven Butala:
Oh, really?
Jill DeWit:
… with a rose in his mouth.
Steven Butala:
Oh my goodness.
Jill DeWit:
You think I’m kidding?
Steven Butala:
Is this real?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I’m giving my version of this. I like fully dressed, tuxedo, rose, maybe not in your mouth. Fully dressed, tuxedo, roses, standing by a beautifully set table… You know this is true. … with a fantastic-
Steven Butala:
I’m going to do this.
Jill DeWit:
… meal. My vision is a version of our master bedroom right now because we have a killer view of the ocean as you can see behind me. Same view, but up a few floors. So view, table set. I don’t care about the music in the background. I don’t need a violent or anything like that. That’s stupid. I just want the doors open. I would like about 75 degree temperature and a perfect breeze coming in, a few dolphin going by like I saw this morning, and the whiskey. The whiskey is there and the sun’s about to set.
Steven Butala:
What’s on the table? What’s the food?
Jill DeWit:
Steak.
Steven Butala:
Steak?
Jill DeWit:
I like a nice steak.
Steven Butala:
We should talk more, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I kind of… Well, you know what? Because we don’t eat steak that much. It’s kind of a treat once in a while. We had a lot of fish and chicken and turkey. Kind of chicken and turkey-ed out right now. I think I like steak.
Steven Butala:
I thought you were going to say candles and a massage and all that, but no.
Jill DeWit:
Well, that’ll lead to that.
Steven Butala:
This is only the front 10%.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. [crosstalk 00:09:00].
Steven Butala:
This is a rated G front 10%.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I’m sorry. There was a whole topic here. I was just having fun with my own…
Steven Butala:
Yeah, me too.
Jill DeWit:
I’m sorry. We just had a little dream.
Steven Butala:
Never blushed so much.
Jill DeWit:
My mental dream sequence. Just back to the show. Restarting life with a plan. Here’s what I think. A lot of people right now are thrown into this. They’re not doing it on purpose. They’re having to restart their lives and come up with a new game plan for obvious reasons. My answer is, because I’m always going to be the inspirational one and I just have to go there, it’s just how I go. How I deal with things is I make it a positive. So what I’m saying to myself as, “All right, it’s not always a bad thing.” Having a reset button could be a good thing. I want you to think about too, it’s okay to go backwards to go forwards.
Steven Butala:
Love that.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. You’re not a failure.
Steven Butala:
You’re saying stuff, so I don’t have to say it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You didn’t do anything wrong. If you and your wife and kids are now living out of your parents’ basement while you’re regrouping, I am sure you are not alone.
Steven Butala:
I love it.
Jill DeWit:
No one’s going to poo-poo you and say that you did anything wrong or bad.
Steven Butala:
Only you are.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. I would just… The final point is, well, two points. Fine, we’re going to regroup. We’re going to come up with a new plan, which is what the show’s about, and figure out a new life, how it’s going to look for us going forward, and it’s okay. Then my real final point is once you decide what that new game plan is, I want you to be all in. If you’re in this situation, I hope you have the time that you could spend, hours, days, maybe even a few weeks deciding what you want to do and how you want to do it and what it’s going to look like and how hard are we going to have to pitch in. Then have a family meeting. Even if you’re just a meeting with yourself, have a family meeting and be all in. Don’t listen to anybody else. Don’t listen to any criticism or negativity from anybody else. You know who you are, you know what you have to do and what you’re capable of, and go for it because it is hard to be successful if you’re not focused.
Steven Butala:
You’re so the girl for me.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, thank you.
Steven Butala:
Lose your pride. Now’s the time to forget about pride. In fact, I don’t know when pride is ever useful. I don’t know. When’s the last time anyone has said, “Wow, that guys were really proud”? “Boy, that’s a good thing. He’s such a proud person. He got ahead because he’s proud.” No. Lose your pride. Check it out the door. Actually, never get it back. If you live in a big house right now and all kinds of stuff happened to your job, and I’m speaking from personal experience on this, you got to adjust. You’re going to have to maybe move into your parents’ basement. The only thing that’s going to get hurt there is your ego.
There are more truck driving jobs, truck driving and construction jobs now than there ever have been in the history of ever. If you need to work construction or get your CDL and drive a truck, so what? Is it a pride thing? Maybe you’ll learn something. We have a lot of truck drivers in our group, not a lot, but several that do this on the road. I don’t know how safe that is, but it’s actually kind of cool. So however you have to restart, whatever life threw at you, you just have to deal with it. You got to get rid of any debt that you have. I don’t care if you have to file bankruptcy. Do it. So what? It’s just a pride thing. What’s the worst thing that happens with the bankruptcy aside from a pride situation? Your credit’s kind of screwed up for a few years.
Jill DeWit:
You’re going to save up cash for a while.
Steven Butala:
In a lot of cases, now I’m reading that doesn’t have to be a few years. There’s stuff that you can do that can really address that. Here’s how it’s supposed to start in a perfect world. You’re supposed to get as much education as you possibly can as a young person from all types of sources. I don’t just mean in schools. I mean your parents, your parents’ friends, your friends, or whatever. Get as much education as you possibly can, including college, in some cases, depending on what you want to do. Then for the next few years, you need to suck your pride up and for maybe two to four years at least, you need to work in an internship or some type of position where you’re still learning. You’re just learning on the job at whatever it is. After that period, you’re going to learn…. This is in my book.
There’s going to be a moment where you’re going to say, “I want to do this for the rest of my life. I’m going to run this company someday.” Or let’s say it’s Coca Cola. There’s a famous story of a person that was a CEO of Coca-Cola that started in the mail room and became the CEO, went all the way up. So you’re going to make that decision or you’re going to say, “You know what? This W2 job sucks. It’s not for me. I’m going to start to branch out and look for something other to do with my life because I think I’m truly an entrepreneur at my soul.” Now, while all this is happening, you’re not getting married. You’re not having children. You don’t a big house. You live in a terrible dumpy moldy apartment with six other people. I don’t care if you’re male or female where your rent’s like $200 bucks. At the least it’s in someone else’s name and the utilities are in someone else’s name and they’re constantly getting stiff and angry about it. You’re uncomfortable.
Do you have a sports car that you’ve make a $900 payment on? Absolutely not. You drive an old Honda Civic that you’re embarrassed about. If you’re a cool person and you’re comfortable with that, you check your pride at the door, the people of the opposite sex or however that works for you, are going to flock to you. Trust me. I’m telling my own story here.
Jill DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Butala:
No woman has ever said, “I go out with that guy because his car is awesome, but he’s kind of an ass, but I love his car.” I don’t know. I guess there’s somebody out there.
Jill DeWit:
Holy cow. Yes, I know many girls.
Steven Butala:
Oh my gosh. Really?
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh. I had one in particular and I tease her because we were like, “Do you find every guy with every red flag?” She goes, “Yes, apparently I do and I ignore them all.” What the heck? Yeah.
Steven Butala:
All right. So great. You’re now… I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
She knows that she does it.
Steven Butala:
Does it ever happen perfectly like this? No. I’m going to get to that in a second, but this is if all the planets are aligned and you’re just perfect. So you find out at the end of four years in this internship/lowly position that you don’t want to do this, or you do. If you do, congratulations. Continue on with that path and maybe start dating a little bit more seriously. Then in your thirties or late thirties, start thinking about getting married and having kids. But you should from that internship period really focused on rising through the ranks before you bog yourself down with kids in a family and a spouse. About the time you’re 40, you should be the VP of something or whatever because he chose that path. Then maybe you can start family planning. The other way, which I think for this group more popular, is after about those four years… Is this boring or not?
Jill DeWit:
No, it’s great.
Steven Butala:
After about the four years, you decide that the W2 path is not what you want. You’re more of an entrepreneurial spirit. By the way, you’re partying like a rockstar through all this. You’re having so much fun. You’re getting all of this stuff out of your system, having a blast. You’re traveling everywhere.
Jill DeWit:
Cheaply.
Steven Butala:
Yes.
Jill DeWit:
By the way,
Steven Butala:
You’re eating ramen noodles.
Jill DeWit:
On a budget.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
Having fun on a budget.
Steven Butala:
You don’t have any debt. You never incur any debt through this period ever because you don’t have any pride because you don’t care about a sports car and you don’t care about a big house. You care about your career and your future family.
Jill DeWit:
That’s your pride.
Steven Butala:
Yes.
Jill DeWit:
That’s all it is. [crosstalk 00:17:42].
Steven Butala:
Your pride comes from your performance as a father.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I think.
Steven Butala:
As a father, or a spouse, I should say, I keep genderizing this. Just as a person, as a person accomplishing stuff.
Jill DeWit:
You’re putting your head down with the plan that you know in the end when you come up for air, you’re going to be way ahead of everybody else.
Steven Butala:
So the entrepreneurial thing kicks in. You find out that you want to be a day trader, or you want to buy and sell real estate, or you want to own apartment buildings or however that thing is comes out for you. Then you start down that path hard. So you work 80 hours a week, 40 hours, 50 hours. That’s your regular job. Then the other, you spend on this and then every other waking hour, you’re having fun, hard fun because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing in your twenties. You’re still in your twenties. At some point, whatever side gig you have, maybe you have to go three of them and you failed at the first two. So what? You don’t care because you don’t have any pride.
One of them is going to work and there’s going to become a point before you’re 30, hopefully, or in your early thirties where the W2 job no longer makes sense. You’re making so much money over here or whatever you’re trying to accomplish. You know what? It doesn’t have to be about money. Maybe this thing that’s on the side is being a social worker for underprivileged kids. I don’t know, but whatever it is, you need to build a career on that instead. So now, you’re, in our case, now you’re making good money. You don’t have a W2 job. You’re in your thirties. You’re building this and building this. If you sell, let’s say, land on terms. You’ve got $20, $30000 a month coming in. Maybe you can buy a new truck. Reward yourself a little bit. Maybe it’s not new. Maybe it’s a few years old. Somebody wrote me a heartfelt letter last year about the first time they ever bought a new truck.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
Do you remember that?
Jill DeWit:
I do.
Steven Butala:
It’s somewhere. We have it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
We should read that. You get a bunch of stuff like that, I’m sure. We should have a whole episode where we talk about that.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
Whoever you’re dating at the time, you start to maybe get a little bit serious or you start to say, “You know what? These three people are in my life. I don’t like any of them. I’m going to start over,” and just kind of have a plan. It’s at that point in your thirties where you need to start thinking about the rest of your life and having a family and children, if that’s what you want, or whatever you see that like. Listen, it’s all about performance. You have to perform. The pride comes based on your performance as a father or a mother or an entrepreneur or a boss. That’s where the pride comes from. It doesn’t come from this other stuff. Unfortunately, when you’re young…
Jill DeWit:
It’s ego. I think it’s the first, it’s ego and then pride. It’s check your ego at the door, this whole process. I love this. We both looked at this as a different way. Restarting life with a plan. You’re talking about at any age. I’m talking COVID times or just anytime you’re you’re let go, or things happen that you weren’t ready for. You have to restart your life for any reason. So this is so interesting to me, but there’s an overlap there. I think ego when you’re young or even ego right now, so what? Let the ego go. There’s a bigger picture here.
Steven Butala:
So the name of this episode is not starting life with a plan, which is what I just described. It’s called restarting life with a plan. So great. You did it all backwards. You got married when you were 18 and had four kids. You should never be sitting around saying, “Well, it’s over.” We talked to members of- [crosstalk 00:21:25]
Jill DeWit:
… like that. Yeah, yeah. “I can’t get ahead now. I was on my third wife,” or whatever. “This one… Here, I’m third alimony,” or whatever. [crosstalk 00:21:34]
Steven Butala:
You can always restart.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
If you have the right personality type, you can restart with this, and there’s tons of people in our group that have hoards of money, more money than sense and they’d love to invest with you if you know how to find good real estate deals. I’m not plugging our program at all. You can restart it anytime under just about any circumstance. Probably can’t do it from federal prison, but you could restart.
Jill DeWit:
I bet you could.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Maybe.
Jill DeWit:
I bet you could. There’s a time you really do need a restart. If you’re in federal prison, this is for you.
Steven Butala:
Land Academy for federal prisoners.
Jill DeWit:
How to flip land behind bars.
Steven Butala:
This is possible. [crosstalk 00:22:18]
Jill DeWit:
Sure it is. Why not? This is great. We should probably end it on that. That was good. I love it. I think we got our point across. All right. Happy to join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
So join us next week for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition, or any other ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I like this. That’s one demographic I don’t think I’ve seen on Facebook. [crosstalk 00:22:47].
Steven Butala:
Yeah, we should probably leave it alone.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Hey, everybody deserves… I was just thinking. I do this with the kids too. I tell the kids, “Say you have a bad summer school experience or you have a bad middle school experience.”
Steven Butala:
Or bad marriage.
Jill DeWit:
Let me finish my thoughts. This is not for you here now. So especially for kids, “I think that I was a geek in middle school. I can never come back from that.” Oh no, yes you can. Every school year, I tell them, “This is it. This is your chance. The summer you didn’t see most of these people. You can hit that reset button and restart and be that person you want to be. Come at it. You want to have more confidence, you want to be a better student, you want to be a better athlete? Hey, let’s get you in that position. Let’s work together as a family. Whatever it is, we can overcome it.” When you really start thinking like that, part of it, it’s a mom thing. I’m sure.
I try to build them up everyday. “You’re that guy. You’re that guy at breakfast. You’re that guy. God, I’m so proud of you. You’re that guy,” and it sinks in. So now, as an adult, you don’t have your mom there to help you. So you have to do it for yourself and I have to do it for me too. You are that person. You got this. You can do this transaction. You can do this deal. You can own this company. You can build this empire. Whatever it is you’re trying to do, jut know it’s all on you.
Steven Butala:
I agree.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
You just got to not be afraid of working hard and making mistakes.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s part of it. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find this all valuable and I really appreciate support. If you haven’t, please zip over to our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button.
Steven Butala:
Your comments and suggestions help us to create the type of content you’re here for. Hitting the like button on your favorite episodes helps to support our channel’s algorithm engage your interest in future shows.
Jill DeWit:
[crosstalk 00:24:43] We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information…
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
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