Confidence in Your Success AND Failure (LA 1618)
Confidence in Your Success AND Failure (LA 1618)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Well, hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show. It’s entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about confidence and your success and your failure. I think this came from Jill’s binge watching PBS biographies.
Jill DeWit:
Specials. Might have been. Exactly. Are we going to hear a football coach story?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I don’t know. It’s only so many times I can tell these football coach stories.
Jill DeWit:
I was just going to say, we’ve kind of all heard it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think we’ll leave it alone.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I was saying that to save you, listener.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re brand new, the whole gist of it is-
Jill DeWit:
Uh oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
Celebrate your failure.
Jill DeWit:
There we go. Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Make the best of it.
Jill DeWit:
We’ll get into that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you’re on your way to success. Before we get into this though, 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 DeWit:
[Erin 00:01:07] wrote, “Has anyone mailed Hawaii? Wondering if there is anything weird, different, or just anything to know or avoid? For example, lava zones. I don’t want to buy a [foreign language 00:01:23]-”
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s [foreign language 00:01:25], yeah.
Jill DeWit:
“Or something and find out that the locals don’t approve. I see there is a HARPTA withholding for non-residents of 7.5%.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Same thing in California.
Jill DeWit:
But it looks like you can apply to get that back. Sounds like Canadian stuff too. Also, that seems to be two land systems will require some reading up on.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all true.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
We have another member who piped in here who’s got a lot of experience in Hawaii and I included this question in here because this is the kind of typical thing that happens in Discord.
Jill DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
They all help each other.
Jill DeWit:
Help each other out. So, Steven, a different Steven wrote, “Hey Erin. There are unique things to Hawaii like other states. I’ve done a number of deals there in the lower price points on the Big Island, and I’m now working on a larger deal so it’s possible. Avoid lava zones one and two, lower Puna. Demand is generally not high for most areas on the Big Island as supply is high and the weather is poor. The land court system isn’t a big deal if you close through title companies. Title companies in general are more expensive and slower. Hit me up if you get stuck.” That’s so cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s several subdivisions that are very much non developed on the Big Island where I purchased property in the past. I actually took a trip there a lot of years ago and met in Honolulu, met with everybody, met with the state people about tax properties and back tax properties and I was met with nothing except roadblocks for a lot of reasons, so…
Jill DeWit:
Is it because you’re from the mainland?
Steven Jack Butala:
Probably.
Jill DeWit:
Ah, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was definitely part of it. There’s no doubt about it, so… I’m used to a system here out in the Southwest, in Southern California, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, where tax sales are part of life and they happen in some cases, in Texas’s case, weekly. So, that’s just not the case there. In fact, every time I read about Hawaii and real estate, they’re off out in the Pacific Ocean on their own. They make their own rules. Everything’s slower. The state is forever caught up in this, “Yeah, we’re part of the United States, but we kind of do stuff ourself this way, the way we want to.” And so you have to decide. Obviously Steven’s made a success out of it. You just have to decide if that’s the pool you want to swim in. I don’t buy a lot of real estate in New Jersey for this exact reason.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, nobody’s picking on Hawaii here. Believe me.
Jill DeWit:
No, exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, confidence in your success and in your failure. This is why you’re listening.
Jill DeWit:
Hundred miles an hour. That’s your thing. I know, I’ll just say it, get it out there. It would be bad because this… I think we came up with this topic as just conversations you and I were having too, and talking about life and us and kids and overcoming obstacles. Could you imagine if we never had a failure? For many years, I could go along saying that every job I applied for, I got. So, I didn’t know what it was like to deal with not getting a job, and then it finally happened and I was a little bit thrown. I’m like, “What do you mean you don’t want me,” kind of thing. I mean, everybody wants me. And you have to learn how to deal with that and overcome it. If you asked me which would I prefer, I wish that everybody had way more failures, way more, than successes, because what it teaches you, to overcome and bounce back, and the confidence that it gives you when you figure stuff out is tremendous.
Steven Jack Butala:
If stuff goes your way 51% of the time, you’re lucky.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And for some reason, young people, not just this generation, but all young people in every generation, including mine, have a tough time with that. They think that things should come easy. I think a lot of it’s because of TV. Television just presents the highlights of everyone’s life. It makes everything look easier than it really is, and so I think failing is more important now than it ever has been. But I think it’s important to fail at a hundred miles an hour and you need to embrace it. Jill and I are spending a lot of time RVing right now and we are lucky enough to buy a newer rig and stuff’s blowing up all the time. I watched this video of these cute two kids and said, “Here’s the truth about living in an RV.” We don’t live in our RV, but we’ve put a lot of miles on it since we bought it late last year. I guess maybe even early this year.
Jill DeWit:
This year. This year. It seems like it’s been a year in the RV when it’s really only been months.
Steven Jack Butala:
And these young kids with pets and stuff are boon docking and they have a show, and essentially the show is, here’s the seven things you need to know before you start to off on a trip in an RV. Number one, everything breaks all the time.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s constant failing. Constant failures, and then you can’t fix it because you’re not a mechanic like me, and so now it’s you failing. And the only way to handle that is to laugh about it. If you start to get down on yourself or the person that you’re with-
Jill DeWit:
Gives you a hard time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Whose name might be Jill or might not be. Yeah. No, you got-
Jill DeWit:
I wouldn’t give you a hard time.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, just hold on a second.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not accusing you at all. Jill has a greatest attitude and spirit about all this stuff that there ever was.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t go RV with somebody who’s yelling at you because-
Jill DeWit:
Like, “Told you so.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Because he propane tank won’t fill all the way.
Jill DeWit:
Ah, fine.
Steven Jack Butala:
No. It’s a learning process. You got to laugh about it. Maybe have a glass of wine and laugh a little harder. So, it’s the same thing with land investing. Hopefully your mistakes don’t cost a lot of money.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s when it kind of is not that funny anymore, but if it’s just stuff like, “Ah, I overpriced my mailer. I got a couple deals out of it. I whole sold a couple of properties out of it, saved myself, but, boy, I’ll never do that again.” I wouldn’t even call it a failure. I would call it an experience.
Jill DeWit:
A learning experience. That’s what I think. I’ve had times where, oh shoot, I missed that. I did not check X and it might have been HOA. That was one of the ones I’m like, “Doggone it.” There was an HOA property that I bought that… It was totally fine, but it was a couple thousand dollars I wasn’t planning spending in transfer fees. I’m like, “All right. Add that to the list. I won’t do that again.” There’s all kinds of little things like that. Just like you said, you learn from it. When you don’t learn from it, that’s when there’s a problem.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t know, we have a very active presence, closed group on Discord, and one of the channels in there is called Success Stories and probably once a week… There’s a lot of people that post a lot of successes, but once in a week there’s a couple in there, one or two that are in there, that it’s like, they made six or $700,000 on a real estate deal. And I’ll tell you, one thing I love about this group, they don’t spend a lot of time on that very long.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody describes the situation, says, “Wow, we did it.” And six or seven of us or 10 of us, it’s always different people, I try to do it as much as I can, that say, “This is amazing. This is what this is all about. We’re super proud of you. Onto the next one.” And so you don’t sit around and revel in those. We all have known people that sit around and talk about their football career in high school. Grown men, my age, talk about a touchdown that… Don’t celebrate those successes.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine? Can you imagine? Imagine if this whole show was us talking about our two best deals ever, and all we did was bring them up every single time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh.
Jill DeWit:
How annoying would that be?
Steven Jack Butala:
And some of us have had parents like that.
Jill DeWit:
Yes. Especially the failure part like, “Oh, I never should have married that guy.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
Or, “I never should I taken that job.” Or, “Boy, our life would be different if I had got this.” And they can’t move forward from that.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got to keep moving forward.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill nailed it. Same thing with failures, and you have to constantly get better. The only way you can get better that I know of is to try new stuff, learn more things, educate yourself as much as you can. Try it, see if it works. So, I think that’s a mindset that… There’s not a lot of people in Land Academy that don’t understand this, and if you’re listening to this and you’re not in… I’m not selling you anything. If you’re listening to this and you are not in Land Academy, you would be in good company if you understand this.
Jill DeWit:
Want to hear some truth time?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I personally think that I have been a poor loser.
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I think when I was younger, I was really not good at it, and when I won, oh boy, did I gloat.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh, Jill tell us this [crosstalk 00:10:31]…
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Give me a good example.
Jill DeWit:
Well, because my brother and I are so flipping competitive. So, it was really hard that I couldn’t lose, and boy did I hang things over his head when I won. So, I know for a fact that over the years I’ve gotten much, much better at it, way more humble and way more accepting of failures. It was probably like the stages of grief. You have to accept it, and you get to the point where you’re like, “You know what? Now I can kind of laugh at it.” Like, “Well, okay. We don’t do that again.” And then there you are. But I do know that I was not a good… You know me. I’m still kind of competitive, but it’s calmed, I think, since you’ve met me. Think of like my college basketball and stuff like that. I’ve calmed way down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you have.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala:
Our third kid is applying for colleges right now. He’s a senior in high school and he got accepted to a college, NAU. It’s Northern Arizona University, and he got a scholarship, an academic scholarship, a full scholarship, as long as he keeps his grades up. And what does he do? I grabbed it. We got it in the mail. I grabbed it, stuck it on the refrigerator and he scheduled himself to take the ACT again, because he thinks he can do better. That’s how you win in life. Yes, I’m bragging about my kid so I can hear radios clicking off everywhere.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about some failures he has. Oh, because we have those too. Don’t worry. This is the one success that Jack is referring to. There’s several failures. Don’t worry.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got to keep moving forward, all of this stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s a lot [crosstalk 00:12:18]-
Jill DeWit:
Several failures.
Steven Jack Butala:
So many failures, actually.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my God.
Steven Jack Butala:
And not his last ones.
Jill DeWit:
Nope.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s about to have a bunch of freedom in college and I can’t wait to see how much of a disaster that is.
Jill DeWit:
We’re sitting back and laughing now. This is good. You’re 18. Good luck. Oh boy. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the House Academy Show is called The Psychology of Affordable Housing. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
Yes, I call it the Land Academy Show because you can find it on that channel but we shake it up now. We have a couple land shows, a house show and then a Jack show and a Jill show.
Steven Jack Butala:
You may not know this, but Jill and I developed an entire whole program called House Academy on the heels, the success, of Land Academy and the success that the members are having.
Jill DeWit:
And people asking.
Steven Jack Butala:
And we stopped, we kind of put it on the shelf because of COVID and everything, and the housing market’s just so hot. It has been since COVID started, which is almost two years now.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Coming up on two years.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, the market is showing signs of slowing down, so we believe, I believe, it’s time to start talking about buying and selling houses the same way we do with land. We don’t renovate anything, but we’ll talk about that a little bit tomorrow, but we decided to roll in a Wednesday House Academy Show.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Thank you for tuning in. By the way, if you are a Land Academy member, be sure you join us on Discord. We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill. Information…
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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