What to Do When you Can’t Stay on Your Own Schedule (LA 1638)
What to Do When you Can’t Stay on Your Own Schedule (LA 1638)
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 the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about what to do when you can’t stay on your own schedule.
Jill DeWit:
Hey, for a minute. I was like, “I’m going to be just like the listeners right now. I don’t know what this topic is about.” And then I remember what we were talking about earlier. I’m like, “Okay, I got it.” This came out of your intensive, right?
Steven Butala:
Came out of a discussion that you and I had earlier-
Jill DeWit:
Oh shit.
Steven Butala:
…about writing topics for the podcast this week.
Jill DeWit:
Well, there is that.
Steven Butala:
And it was your idea.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Which came out of the intensive which wrapped up last week and I got to be a guest, if you will, on your last session, and that was very fun.
Steven Butala:
Yup.
Jill DeWit:
It was really cool.
Steven Butala:
Totally.
Jill DeWit:
Different groups. It was really interesting, I got to jump in on yours and you jumped in at the end of mine and we all talked about very different things. So it was cool. Awesome.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.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 DeWit:
Greg wrote, “Bought this 1.29 acre lot up in the mountains of Eastern blank for $2,259 back in February. Last week, we’re going to a nearby city from Pennsylvania and after ignoring this property for most of a year-
Steven Butala:
Been there.
Jill DeWit:
We just, right?
Steven Butala:
Ignoring this, because he bought it, but-
Jill DeWit:
You forget.
Steven Butala:
He just didn’t get around to sell it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Story in my life.
Jill DeWit:
Now you’re know, Greg, you see how easy it is to forget, what, “Oh yeah. I still own that. Oh yeah.” Okay. So anyway, we decided to stop by and take some pictures, do a drone video, dash cam video, and then put up a sign. It was a beautiful sunny day and I got some great colorful shots from both the ground and from the drone.
Steven Butala:
And so it’s cool. He put all this in there.
Jill DeWit:
This is it.
Steven Butala:
He put the content in there, like the shot, you know-
Jill DeWit:
The pictures?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
That’s cool.
Steven Butala:
It was really cool.
Jill DeWit:
After four hours or about four hours after we left, we got a call from a neighbor who had seen our sign and wanted to know our price. We hadn’t quite settled on a price. So I told him somewhere around $16,000. He said, “I’m just curious” and local Tennessee folks wouldn’t pay that much. But if you could get people from Florida to pay that, if not more. This seemed like an unusual but interesting opinion of the market value of the land in this area. So then, the next morning, this is so good. I get, “What did you pay?” You paid 2259, or something like that, right?
Steven Butala:
Let’s see.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Wow, I have good memory 2259 and he said it’s only around 16. So then the next morning I got a call from another neighbor who was out for her morning walk and saw our sign. She said she lived very close by and was looking for land for her daughter and daughter’s husband, both of who live in Florida and want to move to this state.
Jill DeWit:
Given the opinion that I got from the local guy, I said that the price is $20,000. She thought about it for a minute and then said, “Yes.” We now have signed purchase agreement and title company working on this. When all is said and done, we will make about $16,000 profit off our 2259 purchase. Although I was really looking forward to working on the listing, I now have nearly completed the deal and no use for any of the pictures of the video I took.
Steven Butala:
Of course.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t it great? So what I learned is one, once you get the property quickly figure out your initial listing price and do contact the surrounding neighbors.
Steven Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
Two, get a sign the ground as, as you can.
Steven Butala:
Yup.
Jill DeWit:
Three, strike up a conversation with whoever calls and get more helpful info. And four, apparently some Floridians are moving to this part of the country to escape the heat and humidity and they will pay more.
Steven Butala:
Escape the heat.
Jill DeWit:
Uh-huh (affirmative). That’s so funny.
Steven Butala:
What I got out of that story is put a sign in there as fast as possible.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.
Steven Butala:
That’s a great story.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic. What to do when you can’t stay on your own schedule. This is the meat of the show. Everything starts with great intentions. I just spent $800 on a new treadmill. I got a really cool used guitar, all good intentions.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) I got a new computer, all this equipment. I’m going to make my own podcast.
Steven Butala:
And there it sits collecting dust inside the boxes.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Still, I know this from experience. So this can happen to everybody and what do you when you have a schedule? So the next step, when the stuff is still in the boxes to put a schedule together for me, like, all right, I’m going to get on the treadmill.
Jill DeWit:
I think before you have the equipment, you should have the schedule.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. But you don’t follow it. So, and everybody knows this story. Everyone’s nodding their head, listening to this. If you’re not nodding your head and you’re saying this isn’t me, I’m always on my schedule, and I’m beautiful and I love my life. This is not the show for you.
Jill DeWit:
Ha. Oh, I’m sure there’s a lot of people out doing that. That’s hilarious. Well, I’m almost fell off the chair.
Steven Butala:
Are you okay?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I’m good.
Steven Butala:
I look to the experts on this, like on everything. And so with any type of-
Jill DeWit:
Who are the experts?
Steven Butala:
The people who run Weight Watchers.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Butala:
And the people who run AA and the people who run things where there needs to be a schedule you’re going to fail.
Jill DeWit:
Hmm.
Steven Butala:
And you, maybe you need to go to meetings or maybe you need to go get on a skill once a week or whatever it is for you. Maybe you need someone because you can’t do it yourself, like a personal trainer to show up and tell you what to do with that treadmill or a personal, you know, take guitar lessons from somebody who can teach you.
Jill DeWit:
You know what an expert to me is? Someone who’s kind of been in my shoes and they’ve done it. They’ve overcome it.
Steven Butala:
So my point is, there’s just a lot of stuff in my life that I can self-teach, I have enough self-discipline or enough raw interest or-
Jill DeWit:
You’ve overcome it.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
You’ve been there.
Steven Butala:
But the vast majority of stuff, for whatever reason, I’m very lucky about this running a business and this land thing, Jill and I are both. We just, we show up for it. Like we were supposed to show up today at a certain time to record these shows. And we do. I don’t need somebody looking over my shoulder saying, “You really need to record these shows, you’re late.” Actually. That’s probably, that’s what I am to Jill.
Jill DeWit:
I just have all these, I just have these horrible things going through my head. Like, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t, it’s just hilarious.
Steven Butala:
No, go ahead. Tell everybody.
Jill DeWit:
I just, could you imagine, “Hey, fatty, get over here.”
Steven Butala:
Oh geez. You know what? That would work for me. I need that kind of leadership. I’m serious.
Jill DeWit:
Put down the cheeseburger.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And show up tomorrow morning.
Steven Butala:
I had a magic genie on my shoulder that’s every time I ate stuff or drank something, I shouldn’t, that would work. Anyway-
Jill DeWit:
I just need somebody to like knock it out in my hand. So I need, there would you please, someone could follow me around and knock stuff out my head.
Steven Butala:
I’ll sign up for that for free actually.
Jill DeWit:
She’s hilarious. You’re going to do that today. It’s going to be hilarious.
Steven Butala:
Be funny if I cracked a beer after this is all over today and you just smacked it out of my hand.
Jill DeWit:
We should do that. Like Thanksgiving with our friends, like you watch me going, reaching for something-
Steven Butala:
Like a champagne glass?
Jill DeWit:
And you’re like hit me? Like I’m a kid, slap my hand, I would just love to see the look at our friend’s faces. Like what just happened?
Steven Butala:
I guess this is a last year at Thanksgiving with Steven.
Jill DeWit:
That’d be so flipping funny. Yeah. I like the beer thing. I’m going to do that. I’m going to walk up and just say, “Nope.” And I’m going to hand you a water bottle.
Steven Butala:
You should do that, I swear Jill. Phil and I are hosting Thanksgiving with a bunch of people at our house. Because we have this new house this year and that would be so much funny as you say. Stage this whole thing like that.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, totally. You’ve got it though-
Steven Butala:
Everybody’s like-
Jill DeWit:
Not today.
Steven Butala:
Everybody’s like, wow, to themselves amongst themselves is this house is this whole thing is not working out for you guys. Go back to the way it was.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. That’s awesome. I’m going to walk around and put a coaster under everything.
Steven Butala:
Oh yeah, just be a weirdo. Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Sorry back to the topic. Can I jump in?
Steven Butala:
What do you do when you can’t stay on schedule? Yes. Go.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, so.
Steven Butala:
I forgot the topic.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. This is what this means to me, everyone. We all know stay on schedule on the calendar and la, la, la. The first part is you try to do it, but the good, the second part is maybe there’s a backup plan, not for everything. So this to me became a topic because we were talking the other day at the end of your intensive training program and people were commenting because we had, at the very end we brought in our concierge data guy and it led into great, now I know how to do a mailer, I know how to pick areas. We talked about trolling. I know how to price it.
Jill DeWit:
And the last thing is just now putting it into a schedule and sticking to it. And the good news is this doesn’t work for everything. This is probably, it’s probably less than 5% that it works for and I’ll give you another example. But they said, you know, the good news is now you guys told us about this concierge thing and we got to pick his brain a little bit. If I don’t stay on this schedule, I can hire somebody to do it for me.
Steven Butala:
That’s the whole thing about the show.
Jill DeWit:
They all stay on the schedule. Now, if only I could do that with the gym, I’m going to show up on Mondays. But on Wednesdays and Fridays, I’m sending in my backup crew to the gym.
Steven Butala:
You can do-
Jill DeWit:
But no, but you can’t.
Steven Butala:
Oh you mean outsource it.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I’m saying. I can’t outsource.
Steven Butala:
You can hire a trainer.
Jill DeWit:
No, but I can have them come to me. Things like that. So is that the answer? The answer is if you can’t hold yourself accountable, get somebody else that will hold you accountable and or have a backup plan? Question mark. Okay.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. There’s two. You’re either strong enough to do it on your own. And most things, all of us, including myself, we’re not. I’m not disciplined enough to learn how to play the guitar. And actually, honestly, I’m getting to the point where I’m so frustrated about it, that I will hire somebody to teach me personally and it’s not cheap and it’s not easy.
Jill DeWit:
I know people.
Steven Butala:
I know. So there’s other stuff. I, for some reason I was very, very, very comfortable and it was easy for me to leave my w2 job after having a side gig and then staying on that disciplinary track to grow the business myself and hire employees and all that. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it was. It’s not something I struggled with, not even for a day.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I think? I think there’s a reward and that reward is what, that’s what fuels me.
Steven Butala:
Money helps too.
Jill DeWit:
Going our business, right? I’d say bank balance is a reward, but for some people it’s not.
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
And maybe if we’re playing guitar for somebody’s friends and learning a song or something, that’s a reward and for you, it’s not. I honestly think if there’s a carrot that you can dangle, it helps.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And in business it’s growing your business and maybe hiring, either making more money and, or being able to afford to have people do the work you don’t want to do that could be motivating, flat out bank balance, whatever it is, you know?
Steven Butala:
I’m sure it’s absolutely tied to that.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Maybe helping people. That’s a whole nother thing.
Steven Butala:
I have no trouble showing up for the Land Academy, not for buying and selling land, but the Land Academy stuff, none, and following a schedule. It is reward.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), see?
Steven Butala:
I guess, because like to teach, who knows? I don’t know why, but showing up for these shows, and post and pre producing them there’s no issues with that or any of the Land Academy, Thursday calls.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) It’s immediate feedback, so like a reward.
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I really enjoy it.
Jill DeWit:
If I-
Steven Butala:
Yeah, maybe it immediate feedback.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe that’s it, that’s my problem. If I could find a way, every time I go to the gym, I get a piece of German chocolate pie. Just kidding. Actually know what? I kind of used to do that. Remember my, I used to have a breakfast group. I would work out and then we’d go to breakfast afterwards and I would eat really, I would try to eat really well. And I did, but that was a little bit of a reward. So I don’t know, lots of good ideas we’ve come up with.
Steven Butala:
So what do you do? That’s what the title is when you don’t stick to this schedule? I honestly learned this from my long, long since deceased mother. She was always on a diet, tried everything, always struggled with it, and she told me one time and she did stick with this for a while. “When you fail at something, you can’t beat yourself up about it.” When you didn’t follow the schedule for an entire week, let’s say you can’t just say, “I suck.” That’s the last thing you want to say, what you want to do is just forget about it. Have no emotion about it all, and just start it up the next day. I’ve heard people-
Jill DeWit:
That’s exactly what I was going to say.
Steven Butala:
And you know, in substance abuse programs or addiction programs of any kind say the same thing. Oh man, I had a terrible night last night, that, should have never done that. I’m starting over today.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
That’s exactly how I do it.
Steven Butala:
It’s not so much fun and laughing right now, is there?
Jill DeWit:
No, no.
Steven Butala:
Talking about weight loss and substance abuse.
Jill DeWit:
I know geesh.
Steven Butala:
It changed pretty quickly.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Okay. So we covered all that. Let’s before we end the call, before we end the show, I want to ask, I’m trying to think, what do you and I each have in our corners besides your guitar, that’s collecting dust?I’m trying to think here that we need to work on.
Steven Butala:
Well, for me it’s really just that darn guitar. They yell, it looks at me while I’m sleeping.
Jill DeWit:
Hmm.
Steven Butala:
Looks at me and says, “You failed at this. You’re failing me.”
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s funny. What do I have?
Steven Butala:
I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
You know what? I know what I do-
Steven Butala:
I’m not stupid enough to answer that question.
Jill DeWit:
You know, I do have I have dumb little, I have like, things like stuff I have one bin, you know it is, I have like, it’s probably not that bad really, but I have like one bin of photos and things that need to be put online and stuff that are on a disc. That’s kind of my-
Steven Butala:
You know why we’re not sitting-
Jill DeWit:
To go through.
Steven Butala:
Because this is-
Jill DeWit:
We do stuff.
Steven Butala:
Well, yeah, no, you know why this is we’re you know, everybody out, there’s listening to this saying, that’s it? That’s the biggest issues you guys have because all of our kids are out of the house and they’re on their way and all the real big problems that we had for the last 10 or 15 years with everything is we finally got out of it.
Jill DeWit:
Poor kids, it’s not you guys, I promise. Dad just likes to say that a lot. It’s really not you.
Steven Butala:
Yeah it is, it’s exactly you.
Jill DeWit:
No it’s not.
Steven Butala:
You know that’s the problem, your presence.
Jill DeWit:
No, you’re not dragging us down, just ignore him. It’s fine.
Steven Butala:
Kids don’t listen to this.
Jill DeWit:
We want you to come home.
Steven Butala:
You think these kids listen to this?
Jill DeWit:
Please come home for Thanksgiving-
Steven Butala:
There’s no chance.
Jill DeWit:
And Christmas, we do really want to see you just don’t stay that long. Happy you can join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on The Land Academy show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on The Land Academy show is called Land Academy shifts into third gear for 2022. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
Our poor kids, we have one that’s half out the door and we’re about to push the other half with a foot.
Steven Butala:
I know it’s just, I was talking about this with somebody you recently. We have like, if you really line our kids up against other kids, they’re the greatest kids there ever was. They’re, they just are.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Butala:
I don’t want to get into why, but they are. And it’s nothing but compliments from everybody. And, but it’s just the kids, they just take a lot of time and energy, and so by the third one and they’re all four years apart, you know, we’ve been doing this for 25 years.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I’m just done.
Jill DeWit:
It’s a lot. I understand. Thank you for tuning in, we hope you find our content valuable and we really do appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button.
Steve and Jill:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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