Working Full Time, Parenting Small Kids AND Killing It with Land Academy Member Nathan Cheung (LA 1795)
Working Full Time, Parenting Small Kids AND Killing It with Land Academy Member Nathan Cheung (LA 1795)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Steven and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today we have Nathan Cheung, current Career Path member. I’ve got a ton of questions for him. First and foremost, how are you finding Career Path, and what led you to the point of making the decision to join us?
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah, well, first I just want to say thanks for having me on. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time, probably since 2019. When I first listened to it, I probably started with episode 100, or something, and just rolled all the way back. I had a really long commute.
Jill K DeWit:
Wow.
Nathan Cheung:
So, a little surreal to be talking live, but just-
Jill K DeWit:
Outside of Career Path.
Nathan Cheung:
Yep. Yep. That’s right, outside of Career Path. I think I’m the fourth cohort of Career Path. I was really interested in joining one, two and three, but I actually work full time. I’ve got two young kids, so I think before, it was on Wednesdays or Thursdays, so that was… It was going to be hard to explain to my boss what I was doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Why are you taking these four hour lunch breaks every Wednesday? I don’t know.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. But as soon as you guys offered it for Saturday, I just jumped all over it. I asked my wife, almost sheepishly, “Hey, there’s… Land Academy is doing Career Path on Saturday.” To my surprise, she didn’t even flinch. She just said, “Do it. Go for it.” She watches the kids while I do it. I hide out. They don’t even know I’m around. It’s been awesome. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
What do you do in real life? What’s your [inaudible 00:06:23] job?
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah, so my background, I’m actually a pharmacist.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Nathan Cheung:
So no real background in real estate or entrepreneurship, but caught the bug a few years ago. Long story short, I’m here now. I’m still working full time, but kind of… I’m really doing both.
Steven Jack Butala:
We interviewed Dan Smart, who was… He’s a pharmacist with his wife. I don’t know if it aired yet. If it didn’t, it’s going to air next week.
Jill K DeWit:
Brainy people travel in our group. That’s the whole underlying theme here. I’m going to say, it’s definitely because of you. It’s not because of me. I don’t think I draw in the brainy people. So, that’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have a really good friend, he’s from Iowa. He’s retired and he is got… He created from the ground up, this very successful contracting business that specializes in grain elevators for farming. He told this joke recently to us, and we were all on the floor about checking out a pharmacist with a couple of packages of bacon and his cholesterol medicine, over here. I’m sure you’ve seen it all.
Nathan Cheung:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. Okay, so 2019 you found us. Do you remember when you joined Land Academy?
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah, middle of 2019.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Nathan Cheung:
I didn’t really know what I was doing yet, still kind of getting my first couple deals under my belt. Actually went to the live event, the last one in Hermosa Beach, so that was, that was huge for me, just kind of hearing what the other members did. I remember specifically, I want to say Matt Rogers, kind of hearing him speak, hearing some of the other advanced members talking, just thinking, “Wow, this is possible.” It seemed really far away from me at the time, but realizing that it was possible, I think that kind of helped catapult me a little bit. It’s like each step of another mental barrier to level up, and to level up, and to level up.
Steven Jack Butala:
Someone told me a really long time ago that if you’re a real entrepreneur, all you need to know is what’s possible. You don’t need to know how to do it. You don’t need to know how you’re going to bill for it, or how the money works, or any of that stuff. But if a switch flips in your head, once you know what’s possible, that’s it. Then you and you start taking action on it. I’m glad really glad you said that. I forgot about that until now.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. That was a huge… Sorry. That was a huge reason why I joined Career Path also, because this has been working for me. This is my third full year in Land. Last year, I did well. My second full year, I did well, but I also felt like I’m just scratching the surface. I know there’s so much more to it, or so much more that could be accomplished, and so I wanted to be part of Career Path and hear from you two, and the Office Hours. I love the Office Hours. I know I don’t say much, and I don’t look like it during Office Hours, but I’m enjoying it.
Jill K DeWit:
Good.
Nathan Cheung:
Then also hearing from the other members. We got, what, two or three guys making a million bucks, or 6 million, or whatever it is, so jut hearing from them too, has been awesome.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s what you do. You’ve successfully thought about it and you’re doing the right thing. You need to put yourself in those rooms, like you are, and you’re like listening to them like, “Well, I could do a deal like that, especially now.” I mean, you’re really seeing behind the scenes, what goes into it and what’s needed. This is awesome. I want to hear some numbers. If you don’t mind sharing first year, second year, and for everyone to hear, because you’ve told us, what you’re doing.
Nathan Cheung:
Sure. My first… Well, I’ll kind of skip the first six months. I didn’t know what I was doing there, but it was still important because at least in the first six months I learned the whole process, did all my own closing, sales, all that. Then I also learned, I don’t like doing most of that but at least I can do it. I would say in my first full year, I did about 50K in net profit. Second full year, did about 150 in net profit. On track for a little bit more this year, but I think that’s kind of where I felt like, “Okay, this is my bottleneck now,” which is really just getting a lot of mail out. My goal is to do about 15 to 20 deals of maybe 40 or 50K in profit. I think that’s the next part I’m trying to get to. Last year when I did 150, I did maybe 15 deals. I definitely err on the side of doing less deals, but bigger. I’m trying to do less work.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I like.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you’d know this from Career Path. I’m a big fan of making 50 to 80 on a deal, and just doing 10 or 20 of them a year. After doing this for how many years, Jill, I just think that just makes… To make a million bucks and just do 10 or 20 deals, it works out really well.
Jill K DeWit:
It does. So what’s the… Are you going to ever leave the other gig? Is that in the cards, or are you just having this supplemental thing? I hope you’re paying off college educations right now, for the little ones or something, putting that aside.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. I guess I just want to know that’s possible, or that I can, if I want to. I don’t know that I’m really looking to step away just yet. I think once my first son was born, this is around 2019, when all this started, I think I realized, “Oh, if I lose my job or something happens to me, I just have this one income.” I think that really sparked all this, that I needed to have something on the side. I personally would really like the accomplishment of being able to do both. I have my full-time gig, but then also if I’m able to scale the land business to something that’s more than a full-time, W-2 compensation, that would be awesome.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot of people listening now. They’re probably like blown away like, wait a minute. Did he just say he’s got this full-time gig, and it’s a serious gig. It’s not like you can… It’s not fluff work. You have little kids, and you’re doing this on the side, and you quietly made 150, and you’re going up from there. That’s huge. What’s your secret that you could tell us, because a lot of people are saying, “Oh, there’s no way I could do that,” and your proof that you can.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is leveraging other services. Kind of working backwards, I sell with a broker, because I don’t like handling sales. I close with a title company, because I didn’t enjoy doing all that paperwork, and then I was only 70% sure of what I was doing anyway. If you move into the bigger deals, I felt less comfortable with that. With the phone, I have PATLive.
Jill K DeWit:
Excellent.
Nathan Cheung:
So it’s almost more of like a real company, in the sense of just leveraging other ways to be more efficient. I think the biggest thing that’s helping me right now, or that I’m starting to use a lot more, is concierge. I think that was probably my biggest hangup because I only have so much time., I still like to sleep. I get up, 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning before work and do all the kids stuff, but I was kind of reaching a limit of how much mail I could get out the door, because I was doing the pricing myself. I realized if I want to get to the next level, I got to get mail out. I need to get mail out. I got to price it. And I need help with that part, so concierge has been something that I’ve really emphasized a lot more. That’s probably the next part that I’m kind of leveraging out.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s huge.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s great. I mean, you’re the perfect customer for it. You’ve been doing this for three years.
Jill K DeWit:
You know how to do it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Concierge data was… For those of you who know or don’t know, is a service that Jill and I concocted because we use it. We’ve been using it to price and to create our mailers for years. In fact, it’s the exact same people. We’ve made it available to Land Academy members who want to outsource their mailer. We’re working on a very similar service to outsource our transaction coordination staff directly to Land Academy members, so you can get that out of your life too. We’re trying to make it real hard to make any more excuses about not getting the mail out, not getting deals done, and not succeeding.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
For the right personality.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s going to be funny? This was a debate. I used to always say that when we got together, one of the things he said was, “Look, I always want have a career from the back of a boat.” What you didn’t say was drunk on the back of a boat, because that’s how you’re making it. I was going to be like, you don’t really even have to do that much because just be sober a couple days, pick the counties, price the counties, and all the rest, everybody else will do for you.
Nathan Cheung:
That’s the next goal.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s right. You have a goal to be just like us. I don’t know, Nathan. Hold on a moment. Aim higher.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nathan, you’ve had my favorite… My favorite [inaudible 00:16:08] with you is I might not look like it, but I’m actually really enjoying this right now. I say that to Jill, often.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s right. It’s going to happen tonight. How’s your dinner? I might not look alike it, but I really like it.
Steven Jack Butala:
So how do you think this ends? I love that your first child motivated you to do stuff, because that’s exactly what happened to me. Exactly. I said, “Oh darn. I really got to kick this up a notch. The house isn’t big enough,” and just there’s all kinds of stuff that kicks in when you have that first child.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can you see that end of it at all, like financially, what it looks like?
Nathan Cheung:
Financially, I think right now I’m probably just looking at once I kind of cross that million dollar threshold. I think that’s still… I’m not there yet. Working on that. I always envision myself as the soccer dad, basketball dad, all that kind of stuff. That’s kind of where I want to have the freedom to do that sort of thing with my kids. I think financially, the finances play a big part into the freedom to do that. Don’t get me wrong. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I like them the most when they’re outside and playing sports. Or something. That’s kind of where I see, at least for the next few years anyway.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. If you keep sticking with your plan, you kind of tripled your money from year one to year two, so if you triple to year three, year four, you’re there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I mean, how do you think honestly, this year will end?
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good question.
Nathan Cheung:
This year. We’re kind of at about halfway through the year right now. I think the deals that I’ve done up to this point were still the ones that profited 15, 20K, but as soon as we started Career Path in late April, early May, I’m just targeting ones that are 40, 50 plus in profit. Since our five, six weeks in Career Path, I’ve sent out probably 15,000 mailers. I’m hoping, even out of those 15, let’s say it’s conservative and I get a deal like one out of 3000, hopefully that’s four or five deals right there. With that 40, 50K threshold, I’d be happy with that for the end of the year.
Jill K DeWit:
It would really push you forward.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those are amazing numbers. You just do half that, that’d be great.
Jill K DeWit:
How is your wife so supportive? How amazing is she?
Steven Jack Butala:
Have you had a vasectomy?
Nathan Cheung:
Great question. Thinking about it. Sometimes in those hard times when the kids are not listening, it’s like, “All right it time. Let me schedule the appointment.” Well, my wife has been amazing. Actually both of us are pharmacists. If you look at the personality traits of pharmacists, very safe, very conservative, not taking a lot of risk, all that sort of thing. But once I kind of caught the bug, she’s very supportive of me starting, and I think seeing the growth, now she’s the one that anytime I have a doubt, like, “Hey, should I go with this property?” Or, “Should I join Career Path?” She’s the first one to like, “Just go ahead and do it,” because I think she’s seen the progress. It’s really helpful.
When we first started though, I didn’t know how I was going to get on board. Because kind of coming from a non-entrepreneurial background, even just buying a course is kind of a big step for some people, “Oh, I got to spend…” Now, it’s chump change, but back then it’s like a big mental barrier. I sat her down and I said like, “Hey, can we talk about our goals?” That really sparked her interest because I never talked like that before. I was just watching Netflix or something and was like, “Hey, can we talk about our goals?” She said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” I told her my goals of financially, time, freedom, all that sort of thing. I kind of used that to lead me to the course. Then sometimes my friends will ask me now, because I tell them that story, and they say like, “Oh, well what goals did she talk about?” I have no idea. I don’t remember. I brought all that up. I set all that up just so I could go on this course.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s funny. I’m so sorry, honey. It’s your turn now. Yeah.
Nathan Cheung:
To be fair, she doesn’t remember either.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, good. That’s cool.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. But I think just seeing the progress, she’s really enjoyed it, and is very supportive of it. Our kids are two and four. During Career Path, Office Hours, she’ll just take them and get them out of the house, and go play or something. A lot of this I owe to her too, just having someone to support you.
Jill K DeWit:
That is huge. You did that right. I’ve talked to people in the past, and that was one of the things. I always make sure you got to get your significant other onboard because if they’re not on the same page, it’s going to make this really difficult.
Steven Jack Butala:
Back in the early days of Land Academy, Jill would talk to wives, once or twice a week. Men wanted to join and women didn’t. Not women didn’t, but spouses in general, and so Jill was designated spouse discussion.
Jill K DeWit:
I kind of was. I’d say, “If you want me to, I’ll talk to your wife.” They’re like, “Really?” I’m like, “Sure, I’m happy to.” A few took me up on it. Then once we talked a little bit and I… Then they’re like, “All right.” Everybody kind of agrees. Let’s not spend a lot of money here, test it, buy some cheap property, sell it, see if you like it. Even now, see if you like it. It’s not for everybody. Then go from there.
You did it exactly how you should. You learned how to close these deals yourself and realize that sucks. I know how to do it, I know what’s involved, but I need to up my game because I don’t want to do that anymore. Then you learn too, the more you do these bigger deals, it’s like flying a plane. The bigger the plane, the easier it is. It’s all autopilot. You have title company doing this. You have your broker doing that. You can just sit back and manage them, and bring in more deals, which is awesome.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I haven’t… I think the greatest thing about having a career like being a pharmacist is man, what a safety net. If you, for whatever reason…
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
I always think in terms of safety nets, even at this point in my career, I’m like, okay… Jill and I have talked about this probably a hundred times.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have four safety nets. If something goes wrong, we’re going to go to plan B, plan C, plan D. If it goes on to plan E, then something’s really wrong. So, but being a pharmacist-
Jill K DeWit:
Zombies…
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Can’t you just go get a pharmacy job tomorrow that would probably pay the bills?
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. I think if I had to, I could be like drive-thru midnight pharmacist or something, if I really had to. So, yeah. It’s nice to have in the back pocket.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. That’s so cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
I could go back and get an accounting job, but I’m just not sure that they would hire some [inaudible 00:23:29]
Jill K DeWit:
You could be a drive-thru midnight accountant. Here’s your tax return. Please pay in cash. We’ll see. You don’t want that drunk from the back of a boat.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, no. You don’t want drunk accountant or pharmacist.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I bet there’s drunk pharmacists.
Jill K DeWit:
I bet there are.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or worse.
Nathan Cheung:
Wouldn’t surprise me.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nathan, do you have any… There’s so many people listening to this saying, “Wow, so this guy’s got…” Like Jill said, his plate’s really full, but he made it work for himself. Do you have any advice?
Nathan Cheung:
I think the first mental barrier is just kind of knowing that there’s always a way. So for me, the first thing was, “Oh man, I need five to 10 hours to work on this. I don’t really see where that time is. Oh, I know where the time is. I have to wake up a little earlier.” So, I just wake up at 5:00. Never did that in my life. I always slept in and all that stuff, but just start waking up, and then just chip away at it. I think one thing is, especially in the beginning, I don’t know what it looks like 10 steps down the road, just kind of have to go one, by one, by one.
I think my first real progression, in terms of deals… This is an oversimplification, but at first I was buying deals for 1K or 3K, but there was a string where I bought one for $3000, sold it for $9000, bought the next one at $9000, sold it for $25,000, bought one at $25,000, sold it for $55,000, bought that one at $55,000 and then sold it at $105,000, and and that was… [inaudible 00:25:10].
Yeah. I needed those funds because that was my land fund. So each deal, I needed it back, but I was still sending mailers in the interim, so it kind of just fell into place and fell pretty nicely. It doesn’t always go so perfectly. Also, each time that was spending… When you’re only buying deals for 1-3K, and then spending $25,000… The first time you spend $25,000 is, “Oh, this is a lot.” But then it came back at $50,000. The next one buying at $50,0000 is like, “Oh man, this is a lot I just made all this money.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Nathan Cheung:
Then I spend that now at $50,000, and then onto the $105,000 one. Part of that was trusting what I knew, and trusting the comp, and trusting the data. I think that one that I bought for $55,000 and sold for $105,000, that was in the middle of winter, and this is a snow heavy area, but I saw all these comps for also around $120,000. I was like, “0kay, this is everything I have. What if I just lost everything I did?” But it was just the next step. Just trust the comp trust, the data, I’m going to do it, and then my broker sold it in two weeks. That was amazing. I think it’s just a little bit of trust and a little bit of faith, like a step of faith, a little bit, one at a time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Those are crappy conversations they have with the spouse whose like, “Yeah. I don’t know yet.” Those are good checks to look at.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome. This has been so great. Any funny things you want to share about the… I love Career Path, and you know what’s funny? I love Office Hours, too. It is fun. For those who don’t know, what we do… Office Hours is before every week we have, professor time or class time, to just kind of ask any questions leading up to that day before we start that session. Anything hanging over from last week you want to discuss? You want to look at something, whatever it is. It’s all free flowing and it goes in all these different directions, which I love. It’s nice that we all do it together because I still believe you get so much more out of that, especially with a small group like this, because someone’s going to think of something that you didn’t think of if you were just doing a one-on-one. It’s better.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s two hours of us just freely asking, talking about really anything in real estate, reviewing mailers or, or whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
How’d you answer the phone, Jill, that kind of thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Do you do our Thursday calls too, Nathan? Are you on those?
Nathan Cheung:
I’m not on the Thursday calls, mainly because of work. Those are usually tough for me to get to, but a lot of times I’ll listen to them after. I’ll listen to some of them after.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.
Nathan Cheung:
I think that’s always helpful to hear everything in real time. It’s not so mystical, anymore. It’s like, “Oh this is actually how everything gets done.” Those are really big for mindset, also.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Hope you can sneak away. I think it’s next Tuesday, we have our… Oh no, not yet. Soon. I’m sorry. I think the first Tuesday of the month is our Advanced Member calls. So bring so after you graduate in June, you’ll be on the one in July.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s one big long…
Jill K DeWit:
That’s [inaudible 00:28:27] office hours.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s 30 or 40 of us.
Jill K DeWit:
Amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just saying, everything’s going great, except I’ve got this terrible deal right now, and I don’t know what to do. We all kind of pitch in and help. That’s what I love about this Career Path right now. Everybody’s doing deals. There’s a lot of people in the past.. It’s really hard to have 10 or 15 people in the group, and half are brand new, and half are where you are, and really, really ramping up.
Jill K DeWit:
Couple years in.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
But everybody seems to be doing deals in this one. It’s fun. Everybody’s got real stories to share, real time stories to share.
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. I love hearing from… We’ve got a couple of millionaires in here. I think the first session when we’re just getting to know each other, we’re ranking ourselves like, “Oh, are you level one, level two, level three?” These guys come in with like,” I’m like a level one.” At one point in time I’m like, “What in the world? What am I doing here? I don’t think I qualified, or something.”
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. If he’s a one, am I a negative one?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m at zero. I think there’s songs written like that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Muppet’s sing them.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Nathan Cheung:
But, I love hearing their experiences. It’s been cool seeing some of their deals, some of the stuff that they’re stuck on, and it helps me know too, that… Another reason I wanted to join Career Path was I want to make sure I’m doing this right. I don’t know if I was or not, and seeing some of their deals and what they’re working on helps me know, “Okay, I’m on the right path. I can tune this up, but all right. I’m on the right path.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good thing. Did you have any revelations yet, through a Career Path? Like, “Wow, I got to change this right now.”
Nathan Cheung:
Yeah. I think it’s more… Too many to count, in terms of number of little pearls. There are a lot of little tidbits I can say that Mike has thrown out, that you two have thrown out, that Ike has thrown out. I don’t think any of you even know that you’re throwing them out there, but they’re just these little tweaks that really help me along the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s pretty neat. I never thought about it that way.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. Cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know, we set Career Path thought really Land Academy, entirely just to be around, and now on Discord. The fastest way to learn something is to hang out with people who are succeeding at it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s really, what Career Path is.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Nathan, it was a blast to talk to you. I would love to, if it’s all right, drop you in the schedule for six to eight months from now .and we’ll check back in and see how you’re doing.
Jill K DeWit:
That’d be perfect. Let’s see how this year ended. That’d be really good.
Nathan Cheung:
Sounds great.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s throwing some numbers around. I want to know how these numbers end.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually in your case, [inaudible 00:31:07] out of diapers. He was talking.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
He was eating [inaudible 00:31:10].
Jill K DeWit:
How much sleep you’re getting.
Nathan Cheung:
Sounds great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Awesome, man. Thanks you so much.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we’ll see you on Saturday.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Nathan Cheung:
Sounds good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thanks again.
Jill K DeWit:
Bye.
Nathan Cheung:
Bye.
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