Jack Thursday – Life is a One Way Trip so Live Consciously (LA 1746)
Jack Thursday – Life is a One Way Trip so Live Consciously (LA 1746)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday, and I’m going to talk about how life is a one way trip so you need to be real conscious about what you do in my opinion.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Bear in mind, this is Jack Thursday. There are some people on the internet, I’ve noticed, that this is what they think about this show. Oh my God, really? I thought this was supposed to be a show about buying and selling land. I thought I was going to tune into this show and you were going to have a show like, “This is how you send out mail.” Like Ferris Bueller’s math teacher, and you send mail out. That’s not what this is. This is a podcast. If you want to know how to send out mail, you should join our club or ask other people in the club if the education is worth it and all that. And trust me, it is.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m confused too, then, because that’s not what I thought this was.
Steven Jack Butala:
If Jill and I did a show about how to send out-
Jill K DeWit:
Wait.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mail on how to buy property real inexpensively and then resell it for a lot more, it would be like 20 shows and that’s it.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I have a little side note. Hold on a moment. If I’m not sitting here and you sit down and do your own podcast, brand new right now, about anything you want to talk about, what would it be?
Steven Jack Butala:
This topic.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what Jack Thursday is.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because I’ll tell you right now, Jill and I do exit interviews for people who choose to leave the group. None of them, none of them, not one person that I’m aware of has ever said, “This system of selling, sending blind offers out and then answering your phone and putting a deal together, running through some due diligence and reselling it, that doesn’t work.” Not a single person’s ever said that. What they say is, “I couldn’t get organized enough. Some stuff changed in my life.” It’s all life stuff. It’s driven us. We don’t just sit around and talk about what we want to talk about. Most of the time we respond to what our members are asking for and many, many members, way more members ask for, “How should I deal with this thing that’s going on over here?” They don’t ask for clarification on what kind of offer to send out or what should be in the offer.
Jill K DeWit:
I get you.
Steven Jack 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, and don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
This is the question I accidentally started to answer that I also saw in Discord from Monday. Drew wrote, “Is it a hindrance or a benefit having a real estate license? Now that I’m telling people what I do at gatherings and out and about, is it worth getting my state real estate license even if we see way better margins as our normal way of doing business? What about the occasional warm leads to list?” Oh, this is actually very different than what I read, so no. “What about the occasional warm leads to list a property as an agent? What’s the deeper worry? Anything non agents versus agents can benefit or hinder as being a Land Academy…” He used the word wholesaler, but I don’t use that word anymore.
Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t use it.
Jill K DeWit:
Because it’s not-
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s got a different meaning.
Jill K DeWit:
It does. It took a life of its own on. And then the way people think wholesale is not what we do. Wholesale to me is how I price it. Wholesale is somebody else is you never buy it. You’re just the middle guy signing a contract and that’s not what we do. That’s an interesting concept. Do you really want to take a lead and list somebody’s property? Although I know you have a lot to say about this. Go.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re a licensed real estate agent, you’re a licensed real estate agent for one reason. And that is to represent other people.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
In the purchase or sale of their property. We don’t do that. We don’t represent other people at all. We represent ourselves. And so I don’t need a license. I don’t need to have a license to do that. As a licensed real estate agent, it’s a completely different business. Licensed real estate agents wait up in the morning and they contact sellers to see if they want to list their property. Very ineffectively, by the way they do that. And so, no, there’s no such real thing of warm leads and all this business and the… But the real problem is this, and I’ll let Jill answer the question how she wants after I say this.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are exposing yourself to a tremendous amount of additional liability as a licensed agent then you would as, let’s say, Jill and I, who are just representing ourselves and I might as well… The equivalent of what we do, we do it electronically in the 21st century manner is me knocking on a door and saying, “You want to sell your house? Or do you want to sell your piece of land?” That has nothing to do with… To me. Sell it to me. And so that licensed real estate agent, that has nothing to do with what they do.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
The only possible benefit that being a licensed agent would be over not is to have access to the actual MLS. And as we move through technology time-
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t matter because we have all that stuff online now anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s the funny thing. Yeah. Everything pretty much that you need is on online. I agree with that. The only time I’ve ever needed an agent to get some information for me is when I’m going to look at a house and I can’t get in and I need a lockbox code. And you know what? If you have a friend that’s an agent and you know you’re… They’ll get you that information.
Steven Jack Butala:
We all have friends that are agents.
Jill K DeWit:
We all have friends that are agents.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is our business.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s been our business for 30 years.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, I want to go look at this house. Can you get me in? I can’t. I know you, here’s the deal. Here’s the code. Let me know what you think. Done, done, and done. And that’s what we do. You got this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. Life is a one way trip, so live it consciously. This is why you’re listening. Imagine that you’re going down a river and you’re going down river, not up river, in a canoe. And every time I’ve ever done this, figuratively and literally, in the back of my mind, I’m like, “How am I going to get back?” It really hinders the decisions that you make. It really affects what you’re going to dom how far you go, how fast you go, where you end up, all of it. I hope it does affect every decision, every little micro decision you’re making along the way. Well, I-
Jill K DeWit:
Because my car’s back there. Is that what you’re saying?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Or I’m going to need a helicopter to get me out of here if I keep going.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Imagine if you didn’t have that. Well, that’s what life is. Life is a one way trip. It’s not a round trip situation. And so if you’re raging down that river without a care in the world, you don’t care where you end up or you do care where you end up-
Jill K DeWit:
I know those people.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you get to that point. You get to that point, you’re going to make choices a lot differently than if it were a round trip. Before I did this, I asked some people, “Do you think life is a round trip or a one way?” And immediately all of them, without exception, said, “It’s round trip.”
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I don’t get that.
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t get that either. I know what I thought. I only think round trip, if you believe in past lives, like you’re going to come back and get another chance.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m like, “How do you apply that?”
Jill K DeWit:
But right now, for me, it’s one way.
Steven Jack Butala:
How do you apply that to real estate and success and just being successful? I don’t care if it’s in your marriage or as a parent or as a land investor or all of it. Well, you’re traveling down that river, making decisions for what’s going to be way ahead. You don’t have to go back. You can’t go back even if you wanted to. And so the people that think it’s a round trip, I think are very, very conservative. They’re not taking any real risks. They’re always thinking about how, oh, I need to get back home and be in my comfort zone.
Steven Jack Butala:
When in reality, what it takes to be a really good land investor, in my opinion, or a good business partner or life partner or all the stuff that counts in life, you need to take calculated risks. You need to have a map to figure out where you’re going. It needs to be planned with the right material and the right provisions and on and on and on, which is why I say do this consciously. And so if you’ve ever studied Maslow and the hierarchy of consciousness, only 10% of the people in this planet are self aware. The vast majority of the people, if not everybody, listening to this is at the top of this thing. Or you wouldn’t be listening to this, you’d be listening to some quasi entertaining something else. It’s a one way trip and plan for it and do it consciously. Don’t just let stuff happen to you because if you do, stuff’s going to happen to you. You’re either going to let it happen to you, or you’re going to make it happen. It’s up to you. That’s the whole show.
Jill K DeWit:
When I think of one way versus round trip in life, the only time… You brought up a couple points. One thing that I do that I think about in a round trip way is don’t burn bridges. I’ve had times in my life in environments where I’ve worked, it’s been work related. I’ve gone to different companies in different situations or just even now. I always made sure I didn’t burn bridges where I came from.
Jill K DeWit:
I have gone back and called on people that I knew in past businesses, actually, and said, “Hey, I know we haven’t talked in five years, but you’re the pro about this? Can you help me with something?” It’s like a heck yeah, what do you need kind of thing. That’s how I see what you’re talking about. And that’s a little round trip. Well, I’m going one way. You know what it is? Okay. I believe you. I’m floating downstream. I’m going down one way. I believe in all that. But there’s a few things that I make sure that in case I end up back there for any reason, I got people who are going to… My friends are there to help me.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a very interesting philosophical point because this is how I look at that. Because of the decisions that I’m going to make short stream down, not long stream, I’ll never have to end up back there anyway. Here’s an example because Jill and I have a lot of personal fallbacks in life in case some stuff goes on because real estate markets change. All kinds of stuff changes.
Jill K DeWit:
Marriages change.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. When you get older or your health changes. Jill and I have strategically over the years purchased and paid cash for townhouses and cabins and things like that, where if for whatever reason… And we put money away that no one’s ever going to touch and separately and collectively. And so if some stuff really goes sideways, these are things… Now, I’m not going to end up back there-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because these are decisions that we made along that river together. We’re in the canoe. Like it or not, we’re in this canoe together.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah. Like it or not.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes you’re in the front. Sometimes you’re in the best.
Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes your feet are taped to the boat. Sometimes you only have one oar.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I’m very aware.
Steven Jack Butala:
The decisions that you make upstream or downstream while you’re continuing to go are in my opinion, our assurances that you never have to go back. It just doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re 20 years old listening to this, it’s not going to happen. You have to fail a few times. You have to dump the canoe several times before you figure it out.
Jill K DeWit:
Get wet.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
You got to get wet. Just don’t hit your head. Wear a helmet.
Steven Jack Butala:
And don’t freeze to death, which could happen.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
True. I just think it’s a one way trip and you need to… If I could put a jet engine on the back of it, I would.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I’m aware of that. This is a good topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just plan for it. Good.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill K DeWit:
This is really good. I’m glad you brought this up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Thursdays are really sounding a lot like Jill Fridays. I love it. Happy to join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about when have you made enough money in your land business? You are not alone in your real estate ambition. What were you guys smoking when you wrote the topics this week?
Jill K DeWit:
I know. Hello, crazy.
Steven Jack Butala:
And when are you going to actually talk about buying and selling land?
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I just want to know how you send out blind offers and get a good response and buy some property without you guys talking about each other and canoes and all kinds of other philosophical stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
It all ties together.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we appreciate your support. And if you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button. And if you are a Land Academy member, make sure you are chatting with us. Oh man, it’s getting huge, the amount of stuff going on in Discord. Check that out. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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