Jack Thursday – Concept of Capital (LA 1597)
Jack Thursday – Concept of Capital (LA 1597)
Transcript:
Steven J Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven J Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I am Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala:
Today is Jack Thursday and I’m going to talk about the concept of capital.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what I know? I love capital.
Steven J Butala:
You do?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. The concept of capital by Jill, more is better.
Steven J Butala:
I don’t mean the big city in a state. That’s the capital of the state. I don’t mean capital letters. I mean the economic concept of capital. Everybody thinks it’s money, but it’s not. 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. And don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Chuck wrote, “I just read the thread about useless, useless college degrees.” I love this. “I have a slightly different take. I graduated with a degree in English literature and a minor in chemistry, really just because I liked those subjects. After graduation, I entered the Navy Pilot Training Program and spent six years as a Naval carrier pilot followed by a career as an airline pilot. My degree got me in the door for the Navy flight training. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as I passed the entry exams and extensive physical. Now, I buy and sell land. So my point is, unless one is going into a highly-specialized field, such as medicine or engineering, the degree can serve as a door opener to other worlds, but it isn’t necessary to be successful in life.” I like [crosstalk 00:01:42]. I love that.
Steven J Butala:
Well said. Chuck was in our last Career Path, I think. I think that that’s exactly right. I think that the more resources we have, which is really in my talk about capital today, I can’t imagine a life without YouTube. I just can’t.
Jill K DeWit:
Like a YouTube college degree?
Steven J Butala:
No, I just mean, like when I have a question about something there’s a YouTube video on how to do it. I don’t care if it’s to change a light bulb or economic theories, there’s going to be somebody who’s going to explain it all. We just never had that. Formal education hasn’t really improved at all. It hasn’t changed, materially changed, at all since the 1700s. Why is that, when all these other resources in the last 20 years have completely changed? I’m pretty vocally critical about formal education and why it’s becoming obsolete. If they would just improve it and improve the experience, then I think it would be great.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, here’s what it does. It does tell you that people can stick through something and follow through, because there’s a lot of obstacles to getting a college degree. So I get that. That’s good. It does, I like to think, give you a broad, I hope, a broad experience nowadays to a lot of different possibilities, opportunities, different careers and really figure out what you’re good at, not good at. What you like. What you don’t like. There’s nothing wrong with going and picking a major and changing your major. I think that’s the greatest thing on the planet, by the way. If you realize, ooh, now I got into it, I don’t like this and I’m not good at it. I realize my forte is over here kind of thing. I think that’s great. But I do wish they would do a little more… I wish they could meld a little more of, like technical schools, that kind of a thing, with a college degree, if that makes sense.
Steven J Butala:
It makes great sense, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
And I don’t like just sitting in a classroom. I want some real-world experience and not hearing someone talk about their real-world experience, you out there doing it.
Steven J Butala:
Whenever this topic comes up, the question it becomes, is it worth it? Then it immediately becomes, and Chuck brought it, he brought us to this place, what did I learn? I learned about chemistry, but I became a pilot, English and chemistry. Really what I think the real value of a four-year degree is, can you get out of bed in the morning without your parents around? Can you actually get reasonably good grades and from a linear thinking standpoint, and from a scheduling standpoint, get up, take the test, go to class, learn some stuff, just become an adult?
Jill K DeWit:
Follow through. Graduate in four years.
Steven J Butala:
That’s what it is, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot of obstacles.
Steven J Butala:
There’s huge value in that. The graduation percentages because of that are pretty small.
Jill K DeWit:
Planning, scheduling.
Steven J Butala:
Is it worth it? Probably not. But if you want to work on Wall Street, you need a four-year degree in finance. That’s the way it is. So it depends on what you want to do.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s not what I want to do.
Steven J Butala:
Today’s topic, it’s Jack Thursday, it’s the concept of capital. This is why you’re listening. I’m going to read the definition of capital. There’s a lot of definitions of capital on the internet. This is what I liked the most. Capital is a broad term that can describe anything that confers value or benefit to its owner. So we are land investors. I have access to tools. One of them is money. And as soon as people say capital, everybody says money. I don’t have the capital to do this. Look, hold on a second. There’s lots of forms of capital. Education is capital. You get that here at Land Academy. An amazingly detailed peer group in discord and on the Thursday call, those are all sources of capital. Not to mention the fact that Jill and I will personally fund your deal if we like it. And there’s a lot of other people in the group that’ll fund it in the form of capital as we think of it, money.
Steven J Butala:
So when you wake up tomorrow morning, or if you’re thinking about buying and selling land as a career, or as a hobby or whatever, please spreadsheet out all your sources of capital and put Land Academy on there, even if it’s just a podcast. You don’t have to be a member. Even if you just listen to this podcast, or whatever other free stuff that Jill and I provide, or anybody provides, there’s a lot of sources of capital that are available that I don’t think really get discussed often enough, which is why I wanted to do this episode.
Steven J Butala:
Jill’s got a whole different pool of capital that she draws on for her responsibilities and what we do together. She draws on a ton of sales experience, and a ton of personal relationships, and building relationships with escrow agents, and real estate agents, and sellers and buyers, and our staff. She draws on that probably without even realizing that you do it. My point is, I want you to really think about what your capital is. And if you have the right capital, forgot about the money. If you can come up with great real estate deals, and you’re a Land Academy member, you’re going to smash it out of the park career-wise. You don’t have to have money. But you have to have dedication and you have to have an attitude like this, like her. Not like me. Don’t have an attitude.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say, “Huh?” That made me think of I like… Remember a couple of shows ago we were talking about patience? Yeah, that’s me.
Steven J Butala:
You know what? I look back-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s real. The struggle is real.
Steven J Butala:
I’m going to be 55 this year. I look back and I don’t think that all throughout my career that I really took a 35,000-foot view enough. I wish somebody would’ve said to me… This is all showing up for life. I wish somebody would’ve said to me a long time ago, “Look, you got to take a step back here for a minute. Forget about the exact number of the paycheck or the bonus checks that you’re getting. Just take a step back. Map this out. Look at all these other resources that are maybe equally as important as financial capital as money.”
Jill K DeWit:
True. You know what’s interesting? What if you have only money and none of the other things? That could not work.
Steven J Butala:
That’s right. We have probably, I don’t know what our core staff is, but probably 10 people, Jill. I don’t know any more.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know either. Sounds about right.
Steven J Butala:
That is an amazing source of capital for Jill and I. We could never, ever get the stuff done that we get done without our post-production team. I don’t have to post-produce or pre-produce these anymore. It frees me up to do other stuff, content. So in every little nook and cranny, you can find places of capital. I mentioned YouTube earlier. YouTube is just an amazing source. I have yet to go on YouTube and have a question and not get the answer. I don’t care how weird it is.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s very true, including this, the concept of capital. I’d love to line this up with other people. This would be kind of fun. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven J Butala:
Tomorrow is Jill Friday. Jack, reel me in on a few land deals.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I was kind of funny.
Steven J Butala:
You are not alone in you’re real estate ambitions.
Jill K DeWit:
I wanted to share that, because it’s funny that you had to like-
Steven J Butala:
Because it never happens, first of all.
Jill K DeWit:
True. What? Oh yeah, Jack? Mm-mm (negative), no. He’s never frustrated with me. He just lets me run. Never any concerns. Always appreciates everything that I do. That’s true. Oh, boy.
Steven J Butala:
We are actually, ultimately doing a few of these deals now, but it’s an interesting story Jill’s going to tell tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah, yeah. By the way, thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we really do appreciate your support. Don’t forget, if you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel and then hit the subscribe button.
Steven J Butala:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven J Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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