Reframing Your Money Making Mindset (LA 1401)
Reframing Your Money Making Mindset (LA 1401)
Transcript:
Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Howdy.
Jack 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 sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about reframing your money making mindset. I think everybody’s got a preexisting condition about money, like a healthcare pre-existing condition. And some people can get out of that if they make some changes in their life, eat better, exercise, whatever. You can change that mindset and go on and-
Jill DeWit:
Like learn to save money.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. I mean, that’s part of this. Not really, but okay. That’s why I want to hear your perception though. 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:
For the record, I didn’t learn to save money until I was an adult. Way into being an adult. I would save up whatever money I had and then blow it all on a fun concert weekend and then start saving up again to do it over and over and over again.
Jack Butala:
I’m going to honestly argue I think you’re supposed to live your childhood.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. My account would go from $600 to $20 and like whatever. And where I sat at the concert was just a direct relationship to how much money was in my account. I can afford these tickets. I can’t afford those two goods.
Jack Butala:
I think you’re supposed to do stupid stuff when you’re a teenager like that. That’s what you’re supposed to do.
Jill DeWit:
Sure. And by the way as a girl, even though I could only afford those tickets, don’t think I didn’t end up down front.
Jack Butala:
I don’t even want to know how you got down there.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Joys of being a girl. Okay. Thomas wrote, “I’m buying a property right now. And my title company sent a 14 page for sale by owner document for me and the seller to complete. A fellow investor asked why I’m doing that. And he’s never done one before through a title company. Is the title companie pushing off their work on me to do? I’m already a month into this deal possibly. And I just want some progress. It’s a large well-known company, so I just assume this is normal and that they know what they’re doing, but now I’m not sure.”
Jack Butala:
May I?
Jill DeWit:
Please.
Jack Butala:
What they’re asking you to do is sign a purchase agreement that’s non real estate agent driven. And so the purchase agreement that we use for all of our deals and everybody in Land Academy uses is a single page. I want to buy it. You want to sell it? Here’s the price. Here’s the timeframe. There’s a few conditions in here. If I change my mind or you changed my mind before it closes, the deal’s off. So why that document needs to be 14 pages Thomas baffles me as much as you. The reason is it’s not the baffling part. There’s a bunch of lawyers got involved with the national association realtors and made this complicated for everybody. And it’s been accumulating since the fifties in this country and the contracts Jill and I are doing a large deal right now through a realtor, which is unusual for us. A few of them actually, but one in particular, on a very urban area, there’s a document after document after document to sign, and it gets worse and worse and worse as time goes on. Our way’s better. Our Land Academy way is the best way to do this.
Jill DeWit:
Here’s usually what happens Thomas. Betty, 20 years ago, learned to do this somewhere. It’s usually how it goes, right? And then she’ll never change the way she does it. Nevermind, the person sitting at the desk over for her at the same office doesn’t require that document. Betty might. There’s a little things like that that just happened because that’s the way they learned them. So here’s what I do. So what do you do? You could either say, “I’m not doing that.” And they might say, “Okay, will you please send me a letter saying I’m not doing that and that’s fine. They just need it for their file.” That’s one way, I’m not kidding. The second way… I’m such a rebel.
Jack Butala:
Jill answers this question. She has this. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
I’m a rebel, man. You’re making me do this document. Well, guess what I’m going to do then? This is exactly what I’ve done too Thomas with this situation. I’m going to print that baby out and I’m going to cross out all the stuff I don’t like. And I’m going to initial it and I’m going to date it. And you know what? It might be 80% crossed out and all that’s left are the little terms that we agreed on. And then I hand it back to them and all they do is go, “Okay,” and they note it in their file. That’s all they really need. It’s silly, but have at it. It’s kind of fun for me.
Jack Butala:
Jill has like 500 girlfriends and a couple of weeks ago, one of them, she wears too much makeup. And I said to Jill, “Why do you think that?” It’s because she’s clearly a cool person. It’s fun to be around and that’s exactly how she just answered that question.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. She’s been doing it that way forever. No one told her and that’s okay.
Jack Butala:
Her name’s not Betty.
Jill DeWit:
No, it’s not Betty.
Jack Butala:
Thomas, rebel against this. You know what it’ll solve it? Jill’s way is great. It takes a long time, or you can just say, “We already have a purchase agreement and here it is,” and it’s a single page thing.
Jill DeWit:
Both ways will work. You can say respectfully. And they’ll just say, “I’m just seeing a letter from my file saying that I almost gave it to you and you declined and the seller declined, and you guys were happy with your own thing. Can you just do that for me?” Absolutely. No problem.
Jack Butala:
Here’s a 35,000 foot takeaway from this whole thing. If you’re not a licensed real estate agent, you’re just an investor like us in the vast majority of the people that are in Land Academy group, none of those rules apply to you. The association, every state’s got a department of real estate, there’s no sections in there about, if you’re not a sub divider and if you’re not doing anything with a property, you’re just buying some property and reselling it, there’s shockingly few, if any rules that you have to comply by. I shouldn’t say if any, there are some, but they’re tiny and in my opinion, insignificant, compared to what goes on with real estate agents.
Jill DeWit:
Well sometimes too-
Jack Butala:
Why? Because all the problems are with real estate agents not with people like us. Sorry.
Jill DeWit:
Sometimes to title agents, they’re a little thrown by what we do. They think that they need to have this form and they do make mistakes. I would not be surprised if you someday go through escrow and you get a lead based paint disclosure, you need to sign like there’s-
Jack Butala:
For land.
Jill DeWit:
For land. There’s no thing. You want me to sign a lead based paint I’ve been notified about? There is no paint. They just don’t know. They’re just going through their checklist. That’s the way they do things. I always use the same 20 forms. Oh, I don’t need to do that because we throw them to because not only are we not agents and there’s no agent involved, there’s no lender involved. There’s cash. For many title companies, they’re confused by you.
Jack Butala:
They’ve never done a deal like that.
Jill DeWit:
And they don’t understand how easy it is. We don’t need all these things. There’s no appraisal. There’s no inspection. It’s kind of like, “I just need to pass money through you and you check the title, change the title.” That’s kind of it.
Jack Butala:
Just close the deal, please. And make sure the numbers work.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Thank you.
Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, reframing your money-making mindset. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know why, but I feel bad because I mean, I really have a few title agents, one that works for us full time that I love and respect and they know their stuff, but it’s so darn fun making fun of them. Not them, the other ones. It’s interesting. It’s kind of like county people. Sometimes they’re just like they’re set in their ways. I guess I wasn’t done with that question. Sorry. Go ahead, sir.
Jack Butala:
That is a big issue with Jill because it’s real frustrating. And I’ll tell ya early in my career, I never had any issues with title agents, never. For the first 10 or 15 years, they’re Johnny-on-the-spot with everything. They were fast. I don’t know what the reasoning is now, but I think it’s probably just a lot more volume. I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
Part of the reason I think we’re successful as investors and everyone that we teach, the way we do things is you just need to take a step back and really realize what’s involved here and what you’re doing and look at it smartly, and it doesn’t have to be hard. Thank you. Now I’m done.
Jack Butala:
So reframing your money-making mindset. Again, this is a study that I read. It wasn’t so much a study as it was somebodies topic, and they had a lot to say about it. Excuse me. And so do I. Nothing starts without you believing in yourself or believing in your partner or believing in the fact that you can buy and sell land or buy and sell houses or buy and sell stock, whatever you believe in. You will never get the plane off the ground if you don’t start with that. So joining Land Academy or buying and selling stock with this thing lingering in the back of your head, that you don’t believe in yourself or your parents told you whatever happened, or you didn’t go to college and you wanted to, or… we come up with all this stuff.
And for boys in particular, it’s imperative in my opinion, to fail a few times really bad, like hit rock bottom bad, and then recoup from that. For some reason because boys and me included, run their heads into a wall with no progress at all and then say, “You know what? I suck,” instead of saying, “This wall sucks. I’m going to try a different wall,” or, “I’m going to try different spouse,” or, “I’m going to try a different business,” or, “This girlfriend has been dragging me down for three years.” That’s the wall. You have to come to that realization, but if you put it all on yourself and you say, “I suck.” Everything after that just becomes a futile attempt at accomplishing whatever it is you want to accomplish. I think it’s different for girls.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I’m trying to rephrase it in a different way. So you’re saying stop blaming them… wait, don’t blame yourself, blame the situation?
Jack Butala:
Well, you need to reset your mind. You need to say, “You know what? I know I suck at reading, but I’m great at math.” It was just my personal situation. And so I’ve been gone all through school and college and we were supposed to read this stuff and regurgitate it on a test and I found out later it’s all dyslexic related, but that didn’t stop me ever. I don’t know why. I knew that I was always very good at math and math is what I wanted to do and it became a data thing. What I’m talking about is confidence. If something is bringing your confidence down, you got to sit down with a pad of paper in my opinion, find out what it is and change it.
Jill DeWit:
Everybody’s good at something. Everybody has something and you can’t compare yourself to others. You’re right. You have to sit down and figure out what is you’re good at and really focus on that. One of the things, we’ve naturally done it and I know a lot of people listening here, it’s very interesting, we have encouraged people to just within Land Academy, “You’re the data guy. I’m talking on the phone person period.” And then we have a lot of people that are the opposite. And there’s people that say, “I don’t have a Jack. I need a Jack,” or, “I don’t have a Jill. I need a Jill.” They know that about themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. They know what they’re good at.
Jack Butala:
That’s a huge step in the right direction. They’re being honest to themselves.
Jill DeWit:
They know what they’re good at.
Jack Butala:
If you ask 10 young men what they want to do, nine of them are going to say, “I want to be rich.” And then if you ask those nine, “Well, what does that mean?” And then eight of those nine are going to say, “Well, I want a Ferrari and I know exactly what my first wife looks like and my house-”
Jill DeWit:
There’s a picture of her on my wall. It’s a little scary.
Jack Butala:
In my house or my condo, I don’t care too much about that, but the car and the wife, I know exactly what that’s all about. And so what number are we down to? Seven. And you ask those seven people how they’re going to do it, one of them is going to say, “I’m going to go be a medical doctor. I’m going to go be an entrepreneur.” A lot of them will say, “I’m going to go be an entrepreneur.” So and a couple will say, “I’m going to be an accountant. I’m going to own an accounting firm.” They have a real serious plan, so we’re wittling the numbers down to be now five of them say, “I’m going to be an entrepreneur.”
What does that mean? “Well, I’m going to be Mark Zuckerberg.” We might as well say, “I’m going to win a lottery.” That’s how much of a chance you have that happening.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Jack Butala:
Mark Zuckerberg, by the way, is start to finish brilliant on all fronts. He started as a developer writing code in a dorm room and now he gives huge talks and can motivate, it’s a Steve jobs level thing, and motivate people. So I don’t have that in me. No, I don’t. Jill, I don’t. And I don’t want that by the way. I never want the responsibility that comes with being the fifth or eighth most wealthy person in the world. I never wanted that. When I was a little kid, if you asked me that, I didn’t want that.
Jill DeWit:
You are motivating a lot of people. You do realize that.
Jack Butala:
Thank you, Jill. That’s very nice of you, but now’s not the time for compliments. I’m trying to be stern dad here.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, oops sorry.
Jack Butala:
That’s her way of softening.
Jill DeWit:
I brought it in the warm and fuzzy like, “Not now. Not now.”
Jack Butala:
Here’s my point. I can go off and this is in my book by the way. But really what you really need to say is to yourself as a young person, you need to reframe your money making mindset and it starts with doing a deal or getting really educated and getting into something that you’re interested in and you can’t spend hours and hours reading or researching or on anything if you don’t first have some confidence. You’re just wasting time. It’s like building a house without foundation.
Jill DeWit:
So the confidence, you got to do this stuff, but then you have to take action obviously. So are you saying that figure out what you’re good at, research and then do something you know you’re going to succeed at, take one little step that you know you’re going to succeed at, and then that’s going to start the momentum for more and more and more.
Jack Butala:
No, here’s my point. Just drop the Zuckerberg thing. I’m so sick of hearing it. And drop this big Ferrari, hot girl thing. Just drop it.
Jill DeWit:
You have a hot girl.
Jack Butala:
That’s all going to happen anyway. How many women do I have to go through to get that?
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
You see? And how many cars now? Now it’s to the point where I drive an old car around. Drop all of that. That comes later. You have to first be very realistic. There’s a reason that our first program is called $10,000 a Month for Life. It’s very attainable. There’s a step-by-step way to do it. Jill and I get emails every week from somebody saying, “I joined three years ago and I just bought a new truck and I make $10,000 a month for life and I know exactly what to do to maintain that.” And that’s the best compliment we could ever get.
Sure. We get emails too from people… We just recorded it. Well, it was a consulting call with some people that are making a hundred grand a month and they’re trying to increase that. Is that going to happen to everybody? No. Stop right there. Don’t even think about that. It’ll happen if you’re making 10 grand a month and then 15 and then 20, and you’re actually enjoying what you’re doing. So you constantly hear this, all the motivators and all this think really big, think as big as you can think. No. Stop that. Don’t think big. Think about getting your first customer. Think about what you want to do with the rest of your life. Make sure your confidence is where it is. If you got knocked down by some football coach or some step dad, that stuff is all solvable. We all went through that, all of us. The worst thing you want to do is to let that soak in.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Jack Butala:
Am I preachy?
Jill DeWit:
A little bit. That was good though. We need it sometimes. Thanks dad.
Jack Butala:
Oh my God.
Jill DeWit:
No, no, no. In a good way. I mean that. That was really good.
Jack Butala:
You talk to women twice a week in these groups.
Jill DeWit:
Ask me a question. What are you trying to pull out of me? Because I agree with everything you’re saying. It’s just different for women.
Jack Butala:
I know. I want to hear how because I don’t think money is the center of it for women.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-mm (negative).
Jack Butala:
What’s the center of it for most women I should say?
Jill DeWit:
We’re not raised to be the breadwinners. We’re not raised to like… even at my age, my upbringing was nothing about building me up as doing anything great like that. Just making sure I’m a good person, that I can be a good mom kind of thing.
Jack Butala:
You were doing that in your twenties.
Jill DeWit:
Well, thank you.
Jack Butala:
So under that, you have accomplished it then. So I guess you’re done.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Apparently. That’s what’s so funny. That’s probably why my parents were like, “What the hell are you doing? You don’t have to work this hard. Just attach yourself to a guy like this and have some fun.” No, I’m just kidding.
Jack Butala:
It’s awful. That’s right out of 1951.
Jill DeWit:
I know. I know. Well, you know what though? That used to be the way and that’s not obviously how we are and how I want to be anyway.
Jack Butala:
For the record, Jill works harder than I do.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
And you seem to like it.
Jill DeWit:
Part of it is, I’ll tell you Jack, I need to prove it to myself. I still want to prove it’s that I got it and I can do this and I can make my own money. I can take care of myself. I did it before I met you and it felt great. It felt so great. Thank you.
Jack Butala:
Sure. I hope I’ve made my point. Just think small at the beginning.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. It’s good.
Jack Butala:
Then think progressively and then scale it to the wherever you want to stop.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called, So You’re a Land Academy Member now, what’s next? You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I’m excited for this topic because this came up from our team I know.
Jack Butala:
Yes it did.
Jill DeWit:
People are like, “Okay, I got the program. Now, what do I do?” And we will help you. And we will share that. And tomorrow’s Christmas Eve by the way. Yay. Cool. Thank you for tuning in. We really appreciate your support and we hope you find our content valuable. If you haven’t already, get on over to our YouTube channel and please hit the subscribe button.
Jack Butala:
And 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:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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