Discover the secrets of land flipping success in this exclusive interview with Karl and Samantha Lathus on the Land Academy Show. Hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit delve into the strategies that propelled the Lathuses to mega-success in the land investing world. From corporate careers to full-time land flipping, Karl and Samantha share their journey and insights. The tables turn in the second half as the Lathuses interview Steven and Jill, uncovering the failures that paved the way to their ultimate success. Get ready for an inspiring episode filled with practical advice, personal anecdotes, and a glimpse into the mindset of successful land investors.

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Land Flipping Success Stories: An Exclusive With Karl & Sam Lathus (LA 1959)

This is episode 1,959. We’re hosting an interview with mega-successful members Karl and Samantha Lathus. What state are you in?

We’re in Illinois, but after this show, we’re going to be leaving for the wonderful state of Michigan. We’re excited.

I’ll never say this at the same time with you guys again, but we are on our way to Michigan.

We’re going under the lake.

We’re about 2,000 miles away from Michigan.

We’re taking this scenic path a lot longer.

Welcome to the show. Jill has a whole cue card of stuff to talk to you about. It should be a lot of fun. Before we get into it, I would love for you to take the gloves off and ask us the stupidest stuff you can possibly imagine.

Is that first or second?

Whatever the order is.

For anyone tuning in and learning about you, I’m going to introduce you. You are our only official ambassadors to Land Academy. You have been in a short amount of time. You guys impressed us. That’s why we’re all here. We love the stuff that you do. I’m telling everyone that in a short amount of time because you impress us so much, you help us with Career Path and Thursday calls. It clicked for you quickly, and we’re happy.

You do consulting for Land Academy. You might even start doing some smaller live things you guys have working on in your community and show up and represent Land Academy. I love all that. That’s where you are with us. If you would give everybody reading some of your background, that would be awesome.

You said how well we’re fitting in the community. I want to say that it’s been a great time for us to get to know this community and to be a part of it. It has been wonderful. There are great people in the community. It’s led by you guys. It’s been a blessing for us to be able to sit with you guys and learn from what you’ve still continued to teach us. Even learning from the community, everyone in this community has so much to offer. It’s mind-boggling. The level of intelligence and business acumen of people in this community is great culture. It’s never-ending. We love that. Samantha, do you want to give your background first?

I worked in the corporate world in finance for several years until Karl whispered in my ear, “Let’s do land investing.”

Where was that? For the record, that’s how I get what I want with this one. For that right moment, I’ll whisper as you’re like, “We should buy this.”

That’s the way you got me. Jill knows all my buttons, and she pushes them at her leisure.

It goes both ways. When you have me in a jewelry store, that’s when you should whisper all that’s up in my ears.

After looking at all of the data and all of what was possible, I finally ended up quitting my W-2 job when I was in Career Path. We made this our full-time career.

I want to point out that Samantha is a little bit of a sandbag when it comes to her W-2 job. Samantha was a successful international CPA for one of the world’s largest chemical companies. She is good at what she does. This wasn’t a decision that was taken lightly for us to move away from that. That’s a career that people spend their entire lives looking to build.

After we started getting involved and understanding these things and how successful we can be in this world, it has been a no-brainer. We’re coming up on a year in 2023 since she quit that W-2 job. We have never looked back. It’s a blessing to say that she left a job that most people would fight for their entire lives to have. They were begging for her to stay. We’re happy with that.

What was it like, Sam? Would you have to look at yourself in the mirror ten times straight and ask yourself if you’re doing the right thing, like before you got married to Karl?

Have you had that conversation with yourself?

It’s funny because the day before he proposed, he ended up quitting his job to start his construction company. He’s like, “Can you marry me because I’m jobless?”

Sam, was it hard? Did you have second thoughts?

Yeah, I did because I knew how hard I worked to get to that position and to let it go to see what could happen. I felt like I was jumping off a cliff, being like, “I don’t know if there’s water underneath.” What I know is that I would’ve done that sooner. I wish I would’ve done it sooner. I wish we had been in this business even longer than we are now. It’s been great.

I don’t know a lot of people who sit for their CPA and move up the corporate ladder as fast as Samantha had, who listened to me and quit their jobs.

Keep up the continuing education and keep the CPA active.

Yes. I’m going to keep it active.

What about you, Karl? Give us some of your background because this all ties into my first question.

My background is complex because what we wanted to talk about was how we’ve moved through the channels of success. A lot of that goes back to my early life and sports. I’ve always been a guy who can’t go less than 100 miles an hour. I can’t stay in one place. Even in sports, that’s how I was. I was never the biggest or the strongest guy, but no one could ever work harder than me. That’s how I moved through my athletic career.

I had a W-2 job for several years, and it was awful, but I learned sales. I did great, and I moved through that corporate ladder quickly myself, but I realized I couldn’t work for anybody. I spent time not knowing how to move forward. There’s no handbook out there to say, “You’re in your early twenties, and you want to start your own company. Here’s what you do.” There is none of that.

We’re blessed to have the Land Academy community where we can learn from the framework that you guys have set up. There was none of that for me when I was a young kid. My job required me to work twelve hours a day. I would work twelve hours a day, drive down to my father’s office, which was twenty minutes away, log onto his computer, and start writing a business plan because that’s all I knew how to do since I had gone to college.

I’ve got a business degree. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be in business for myself. I knew how to write a business plan. I did that for several months, every day after work, every weekend, writing and working, knowing that I was going to figure something out. I built that framework to understand how to start a business. Every time you go to ask a CPA or a lawyer a question, they say, “No, you gotta ask the lawyer or the CPA that.” There is no way to figure those things out other than working towards it, especially when you’re a young kid and don’t have the experience I have now.

At that point, I built the structure after hours of work of what I thought I wanted to do. None of that landed 100% on the mark, but it did help me gain confidence and understand how to become a business person. I started my construction company. I built off that framework for years. It evolved into other frameworks.

I always kept in mind that no one was going to work harder than me. There’s always going to be someone out there who has more money than you. There’s always going to be someone out there who’s stronger than you. The one thing I can control is how hard I work. I’ve always taken that to heart. That’s who I am. That’s how I believe we’ve been able to move through and be successful.

The one thing you can always control is how hard you work. Make it your superpower and success will follow. Share on X

Are you going to get into the questions because we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here? We’re going to do it anyway before I read all this.

The Land Academy Aha Moment

My question number one is, as you described, you guys already had great careers and a cushy life. You owned companies. Everything was cruising along great. You guys were fine a few years ago. What was your personal Land Academy a-ha moment that made you think, “We’re going to disrupt this whole thing?” Did you have that?

Karl, you didn’t tell us what companies you had or have now.

I started off doing REO construction. I found a way to get in contact with banks and help them bring their distressed assets back to market. After the crash in 2006 and 2007, all these assets, the banks had to take them back, as everyone was aware. This is the foreclosure crisis. In 2011, this industry started coming out of the woodwork. All these houses had been sitting empty since the financial crisis. These banks needed to trash out. They’d say, “Karl, how much to trash out that house?” We’d go in there and fill up dumpsters of trash. It was a glamorous job. That’s where I started.

We slowly started evolving. As companies started buying up these foreclosures, I was privy to seeing a lot of that happen. These huge public companies owned by large conglomerates and publicly traded companies were buying up all these foreclosures and putting renters in them. At that point, there wasn’t anybody there who could handle their daily maintenance. That was an oversight on their side. I ended up being in contact through my connections at the bank with the people who were like, “We have all these houses in the greater Chicago land area.” They were foreclosures. They were never ready for renters. We need to get them ready for renters. That’s where my other company came from.

After doing that and being privy to that, which was a great experience for me, I realized that I could do what they were doing without them. I started buying my own houses and apartments and doing my own maintenance. We own those companies. We’ve always taken steps forward to evolve. We never put our heads in the sand.

We’re cushy. We could have stopped at any one of those points, but we never stopped. We were always saying, “Here’s the next opportunity in front of us.” That was what’s great about land. When my friend Mike introduced us to land, it was a natural progression for me. I could have done without the rest of the stuff before it, but if I never have to trash out a house again in my life, I never will. It’s always about moving forward. I always move forward. I can’t stop. We’ve had a lot of meetings where I’ve always said, “What else can I do?” I’m not a complacent person.

We don’t feel fulfilled yet. We need to keep pushing forward until we have that sense of fulfillment. I feel like we’re still driving forward.

Samantha alluded that your equity planner was a big moment for her when she was able to see how scalable it was. I had lofty goals for the number of houses and apartments I wanted to own. I never reached those goals, but that’s fine because as I grew, I realized I didn’t want to own that many houses or apartments. It was far more work than I ever imagined. When you’re going through that equity plan, you’re saying, “You bought this property for $10,000, and you’re going to sell it for $30,000. How much work did you put into that?”

The equity planner understands it should be a section on the CPA exam.

Are you sure you want this career?

It would be the only section that I could pass.

Do you want to spend 10 hours or 2 hours a day?

I’ve had companies and jobs that you look back on, and it’s like, “What a waste.” That gives you that relative perspective when you buy a piece of property for $20,000 or $30,000 and sell it for $80,000 or $90,000 in cash in 30 days, and you spend all of two hours on the whole thing, it provides that relative perspective. Jill and I have renovated a couple of houses, and I’m surprised we’re still together.

There were days when I was like, “This is fun. I’m decorating.” Then there were days I came home with soot in my hair because I babysat the project. It sounds like your biggest moment was when you saw the math and our equity planner, and you realized, “I’m killing myself reaching $1 million a year. I don’t have to work that hard to do $1 million a year. I can scale it up how I want to and still not work that hard by doing different deals.”

You guys went through Career Path. Was there ever a time when you questioned the actual business model itself?

Questioning The Business Model

I can say that without Samantha, I would have 100% questioned everything. When you went through the first two modules in Career Path, and you were going through Excel and talking about all that stuff, I remember sitting there thinking, “What am I doing?” I kept my mouth shut. I was like, “I don’t even understand any of that.” We got done with the first two sessions of Career Path, and I looked at her and said, “Did you understand anything that he said?” She was like, “Yeah, I got it all.” I was like, “Thank God.” As we progressed and got to Jill’s second part of Career Path, the opposite thing ended up happening.

I was like, “I don’t know if I can ever answer the phone. I’m nervous. I don’t know if I could do this.”

The first time we put something into escrow, Samantha was like, “What do we do?” I was like, “We do it.” That’s what’s important about how we work, and it’s important about how you guys work and a lot of people in partnerships in this world. Jack, you’re under the business. Samantha is under the business. It’s foreign to me. I’ll be real. Samantha doesn’t expect me to do any of that.

I prefer him not to.

I’m going to throw Jill under the bus here for a second. Samantha, you’re going to appreciate this. There have been a few times where, for whatever reason, I’m sitting at Jill’s desk, and we’re having a meeting and talking about deals. There’s a spreadsheet involved. She’s in the spreadsheet. I’ll look at the spreadsheet and ask her some questions like, “What if we bought it for $30,000 and sold it for $85,000? How much money are we going to make if we sell it for $95,000?”

I swear to God. This is what she does. She takes a little solar-powered calculator out. She’s in Excel and calculates it. She says, “This is how much money we’ll make.” It cracks me up to this day. The first four modules are mine, and the last four are Jill’s. If I talk to the buyers, the sellers, and the agents, we’ll be sweeping the floor somewhere.

This ties into my second question for them. I’m sure there are a lot of people reading who want to be like all of us. They were like, “You guys are killing it. You’re still sitting together, laughing, and having fun.” We are two amazing walking examples of having a business and a life with your partner/spouse, which is huge. I would love for you to share what your biggest spousal partnership obstacle has been. People want to know. I’m sure you guys have talked to these people in Discord. They’re like, “I want my wife involved. I want my husband involved. I would love to do this. How did you guys get to this point where you’re not killing each other and having fun?”

My biggest thing is that you have to understand that not everyone is you. I’ve yet to meet somebody on this planet who is willing to work as hard, get up as early, and do things that I do. I don’t have to set an alarm. My anxiety wakes me up at 4:00 AM. That’s when I begin work, you know? I’m 4 or 5 hours into running whatever company I feel like running that day or whatever is on my schedule. I’ll start working 5 or 6 hours before anyone even wakes up.

At first, you have to remember that everyone’s not you. Everyone is not going to put in the same type of effort. The thing is, I could put in 4 or 5 hours of work so hard to complete a meaningful task. I’ve learned that sometimes Samantha could come through, spend an hour, and do the same task. Why does she have to? At first, it’s like, “I’ve been here for six hours. Where the heck are you?” You realize that everyone else is bringing different traits and characteristics to the table. It’s different.

Now that I understand that, it does take time to understand those things. We’re not all the same. We don’t all work the same. Sometimes, a task will take me four hours, and it’ll take her an hour, and vice versa. That’s a hurdle. Not everyone needs to be held to your standard because I hold myself to a ridiculous standard. You can’t hold everyone to the standard that you hold yourself.

In business, as in life, it's not about working harder – it's about working smarter. Find your efficiency sweet spot and watch your success soar. Share on X

What’s been your obstacle, Samantha?

We always talk about work. That can be a hurdle for some people because you don’t know when to turn it off. Whatever is at the top of our minds, we want to talk through those issues. There are many times when we go out to dinner. The kids are with us, but we still want to talk about that one deal that we have pending on our plates. We work through all of those details whenever and as often as we can. Something that makes us successful is that we don’t push it aside and say, “Later.” If it’s at the top of my mind, let’s talk about it. Let’s hash it out now and figure out what we’re going to do moving forward.

Setting And Evolving Goals

My third and final question for you guys is, you already had this a-ha moment like, “Did we mail that county?” I’ve heard you guys say things like that. I’ve heard you say things like, “Were we even buying something that low-sheet back then?” I would love for you to share with everybody how often your goals change. You guys already know quickly. You’re like, “We have moved on.” For people who are new, that’s scary and huge. Do you methodically sit down, maybe every quarter or twice a year, when something goes, “We’re not doing those anymore. We’ve moved on to the equity planner.” Is it organically?

When we were in Career Path, we had a whole spreadsheet. These were our goals and thoughts on how we wanted to run this land business. We chipped away at some of the easy pieces. For some of our early goals, we needed to make sure we had our website up, a phone number, and some of those basic setups. We morphed it into, how much money do we want to make? How many deals do we want to have in our pipeline that are continually closing, selling, and on the market to sell?

We stuck with that for several months. We would talk about it weekly, if not daily. We’re like, “We hit this goal here. Mark it off on the spreadsheet.” It’s always great looking back and seeing that progress. What I encourage people to do is mark your goals and write down your accomplishments. When you feel like you’re in a funk and things aren’t going right this week, you can look back and say, “Last week, I had all of these successful stories and things that have happened.” We sat down in December 2022 and took a look at it. What have we done since Career Path? How is everything working? At that point, we came up with what we wanted to do for 2023. We track it monthly, if not quarterly, depending on how active our month has been.

You’re going to stick with your 2023 plan, and in December, you’re going to look at 2024.

Our goals are always lofty. We will inevitably walk into our new goals if all things go properly for me. I have specific benchmarks of what we want to do. Goals present themselves to me. We’ve been great at having a vision of what we want in our future. We alluded to Michigan earlier. That’s the thing. You guys are traveling in your RV. As our dreams and our goals evolve, they all evolve together. We write them down, and we do all that. Our goals are usually building on each other. We don’t usually say, “Scrap that. Move on.” It’s more of a pivot.

This one always comes up with big numbers in a good way. Remember when I said, “I don’t think that anymore.” We need to multiply that by four. I’m like, “I thought it was a big number already.” He’s like, “We’re way past that.”

Jill and I joined forces after that downturn, Karl, you alluded to earlier. It was 2008 or 2009, somewhere around there. I was successful before that. We got our asses kicked during that downturn. I saved up a bunch of money. I had a bunch of dirt and lived in a townhouse in Old Town Scottsdale that was free and clear. When we joined forces back to sell off some of the land we had and get the acquisition machine up and running again, we both agreed that we needed $5,000 a month.

We’re like, “If you can’t live on $5,000 a month, there’s something wrong with you, with everything paid for.”

We’re older than you guys, and some of the kids are out of the house somewhere at that point. We’re like, “It’s $5,000.” That lasted a week. Now it’s seven digits a month. That’s that, and everything in between happened.

I had that conversation with the Land Academy people. I’m like, “Come on, everyone.” When people think they didn’t do that well that month, I’m like, “If you can’t live on $20,000 a month, we have to talk.” It’s a little bit of a bring-them-down-to-reality moment. They’re like, “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Jill.” I’m like, “Yeah, think about this for a moment. You’re doing okay.”

We’re going to take a little break here. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

We are in Collier County, Florida. The offer is $134,183.69. The owner called to yell at us about the offer amount. He turned out to be a sweet, older gentleman. We asked him what number he had in mind, and he said he was considering $200,000. We could sell it for $389,000. This is not bad. This is good. It’s 2.44 acres. Access, yes. A broker who’s an expert in the area says it should be listed between $379,000 and $399,000. He thinks it could easily sell for $389,000. Everything went to hell. The worst case would be $350,000. I’m loving all of this.

It’s on the canal in a well-known area of Naples known as Golden Gate Estates. It’s about twenty minutes from the Gulf, about an hour from Miami. Everybody is alive. We’re good. There’s an HOA. We used to live in Naples and have family there. We know something about this area. The agent we’ve been working with lives in the area. He spent a lot of time giving us analysis. I’ve got nothing but thumbs up.

Let’s check the value of this house next door. These are the easiest properties in the world to value. We’ve done all your homework. I hope it is.

Yeah, that’s what I’m assuming.

Everything is in a floodplain here. When everything is in a floodplain, this is silly. They may have built these lots up.

They got some designation you could get later on.

When everything is built in a floodplain, it’s meaningless. The floodplain is meaningless. This is a subject property. There’s a good little spot right there on the canal. If any of this is real, I bet you they built these properties up a few feet. Adjacent property is $900,000. That’s the owner’s house.

He’s owned it since 1993. He bought it in 1998, and he built a 3,500-square-foot house.

That’s several years old. This is okay. Christian says, “Buying on floodplains is okay.” No, not at all. What I’m saying is it passes the cursory first test when I see that everything is in a floodplain in this area, and it’s all being built on. If this lot was in a floodplain, which you often see, but everything else wasn’t, the problem is it’s all relativity. You can see that, for whatever reason, this is out of a floodplain. If this map is perfectly accurate, which they’re not, these are satellite images. Floodplains become a relativity issue.

When your lot is in a floodplain, and nothing else is, that’s a big issue. When everything is in a floodplain, and your lot is also in it, it’s going to be okay. I love this deal. This is a fantastic presentation. It’s up to you if you want to get a second opinion from our agent’s standpoint, but I love the deal. Welcome back to the second half of the show. I bet Karl and Sam have questions for us. I’m scared.

We were looking back at the last episodes. We were blessed to be featured on Would You Do This Deal from when we first started. It was funny looking at those deals because we ended up executing both of them. There was the one in North Carolina that we had done. We had priced it as buy for $38,000 and sell for $65,000. We were worried about it, as were you guys on the call. I forgot about this property. This is one of our favorite properties that we ended up selling because it ended up being such a great deal.

At the end of it, Jack, you suggested maybe we try and get it for $10,000. I called the seller. I didn’t go for $10,000. I went for $28,000. I ended up having to leave her a message. I talked to her, and she hung up quickly. For whatever reason, Samantha took the phone call. I came back into the office afterward, and Samantha said, “The seller called. I gave her an extra $5,000.” I was livid. I was like, “No.” That’s our biggest fight. We ended up executing that for $30,000.

All-in costs were $35,000.

We listed it for $75,000 and sold it for $100,000 on day two.

Sam, can I tell you I can’t count the number of times I’ve screwed up Jill’s deals to the point where there’s no phone? I don’t have a phone number or an extension at the land company anymore.

If anybody asks to speak to Jack, they say, “Jack, who?”

Is that a normal deal for you guys?

We love those deals.

We’ve done a handful of those.

Those are the deals we want more of. That’s our goal. You have to play the cards you’re dealt. For whatever reason, we’ve had some smaller properties coming across our table, and we’re making good money on them. That’s what we’re doing as of this moment if you take a snapshot of where we’re at now. If you took a snapshot several months ago, that’s what we were doing, which is those larger deals.

We’re still mailing those larger deals.

It’s not to say that we’re not. We’re playing the cards we’re dealt. We’re playing what comes across. We executed one that we purchased for $3,500 and sold for $30,000.

It’s hard to pass that up.

You’d have to do it. We do a handful of those deals every year, where it’s $3,000. Let’s see what’s going to happen.

It turns out this property was near a lake that was stocked with muskies. The agent called me. He was all excited about it. I was like, “Yeah, we’re going to move forward with this.”

Speaking of fish, Jill and I went fly fishing. It was a blast. We had a guide.

Who was better at it?

He caught two. I caught one, and I fell. I did get water in my waders. I slipped at the end. I was four hours in. I stepped backward and kept on going. 

Sam’s immediate question is, “Who’s better at it?”

I had fun. I’ll do it again now.

I’ve been fishing my entire life, but never fly fishing. We had a great guide, a young kid. He was a lot of fun. We’re in these raging Colorado rivers all over the place. We’re in Estes Park, Colorado, now. We had to get in there.

Do you have more about deals, or do you want to jump into questions for us?

Defining Success In Land Investing

We want to jump into some questions. My first question for you guys is everybody defines success differently. Some people think being successful means having a lot of free time, doing whatever they please, or being financially set. What is your definition of being successful?

Mine is the first one. Mine is the time. It is being able to not work a lot of hours and have a lot of fun. I don’t do as many deals as I could, but I make those deals count. That’s what I do. I skim for the best ones because I want to have fun. I don’t want to work that hard. What about you?

My long-term goals have never changed since I was a teenager. I want complete control of my time. I want a tremendous amount of accumulated equity. Some of it is in hard assets and more, but most of it is in cash. It started with me mowing the neighbor’s lawn when I was 12 or 13 years old. I made it a business by the time I was 15 or 16. I sold it to the guy who started a professional landscaping company. He was in my high school. I went off to school, looked back on that, and I’m like, “That’s all I wanted. All I wanted to do was control my time.” It manifested itself in this.

We’ve accomplished a lot of it times ten. It’s interesting that you asked that because Jill and I never talked about it when we joined forces. We had that same long-term vision. We eventually talked about it together, and it was like, “I want that too.” We go about it completely differently. I stick my head into the computer and try to figure it out that way. She gets on the phone.

I leave the monetary goals up to him because I know that whatever he forecasts, it’s going to be times 2 or 3. I’m happy with it. Some are great. I don’t have to think about that part.

We’ve long passed the equity part. We could stop doing this at any time. My goals have changed a little bit. Now, it’s more about teaching and instructing. Those two things are what kept us on the rails. That’s a good question.

Control of your own time is important. I don’t mind working If I’m working for me. I don’t mind when Samantha and I sit down at the restaurant and say, “How about that deal we did in North Carolina?” We can laugh and cheer our glasses to it. Some people I’ve met my whole life, when I was working in sales, we’d sit around in groups of people. I want to talk about what I had done and accomplished that day. I had worked for twelve hours at this company. The only thing was my accomplishments or what I had done at work.

I’d sat with people often. They’d say, “Talk about anything but work.” My problem is I’ve always pushed forward or further. I don’t mind talking about work if that’s what I’m accomplishing. I don’t mind talking about investing in land because that’s what I’m thinking about and who I am. It’s control of your time and how often you work that is important to me. I am not going into an office for somebody else, but going into an office for me and working for me. That’s not work for me.

Sam, you left that corporate job. I left a partnership at KPMG, a lifelong mid-six digit salary plus bonuses on top of that for the rest of my life back then. This was always my side hustle. Several months into it, I cleared almost $1 million. I’m 2 or 3 months into it. I’m like, “I should have done this years ago.”

That is my question. We all know that you guys joined forces at one point. I’d like to understand what the culture of the Jack-run business without Jill was like.

I was living on the back of a yacht in San Diego, and I was financially successful. I was Nazi-like about a lot of things. I look back on that and wish that wasn’t the way. My way was not the right way. You’re supposed to hire people and listen to their input. People come to you like your kids. If they come to you and say, “This stuff is out sideways. I have a better way to do this,” my response back then was, “Tough luck. You work here. I’m the boss.” That’s ridiculous, shortsighted, egotistical, and silly. The truth, which I think you’re asking, is when Jill and I joined forces, I got my gavel out and said, “This is how it’s going to go.” Slowly but surely.

I undid it all.

I use this word, and take it how you may, but Jill is a great manipulator. I don’t mean that in a negative way. She softened the whole thing and gave it some personality and a new life. It’s both from a hiring standpoint, which is incredibly important, and from the relationships, customers, buyers, and sellers. It was a much better thing. I learned a lot about myself. You guys are from the Midwest. I grew up in the Midwest in the ‘70s and ‘80s. That’s how things were. That’s how everybody ran everything.

Can I tell the banana peel story?

We’d love to hear the banana peel story.

We had an employee named Skyler with us. It was the four of us in this office at that one time. Mark was the weirdo who sat on a bouncy ball back then. He’ll laugh about that. Do you remember the exercise ball? I’m like, “Who is this weirdo?” This is how I got to know Mark Podolsky with his Mac computer sitting on a bouncy ball.

That was common when I worked in the office. Everyone had one of those stinking things.

He’s evolved. He has a treadmill desk. The last I talked to him, it was that. He knows what he’s doing now. I don’t know what he is using. I’m new to the game. Jack did have his adamant office rules about how things are handled. One of them is you do not throw anything in the trash. See these trash cans? He took them all away. He was concerned about security.

What is the security?

What was it?

It’s paper.

Nothing would go in the trash. Everything would go in the shredder. If I had a trash memory that had sticky notes to myself, like, “Don’t forget the dry cleaning,” he would pick them up and put them in the shredder. I was mad at him one day because he had done that. I’m sitting there watching him do this. I’m looking across at Skyler. I’m like, “I’m about to put this banana peel in the shredder.” I should have put the banana peel in to jam up this stupid shredder. This is how I feel about you and everything going in the shredder. It was funny.

Every room in our office has a shredder. Everybody knows you do not. If you have to write something down, that’s fine. You put it in the computer and shred that. We’re paperless. It used to scare me because I thought, “This is one of the things that people had a hard time with, and I’m sure they still do.”

We get these deeds with a stamp on them. There are physical things written on them sometimes. Am I supposed to keep the real copy of the deed? No, you don’t. You scan it in and shred it. When we buy the property, do I need the physical deed? No, I don’t. We all look it up. It’s all right there. It felt weird to me going, “I can shred this.”

There are a couple of takeaways here for people who are reading, completely at my expense. Number one, you can’t rule anything with an iron fist. It will backfire on you every single time. I learned that the hard way. Jill pulled me out of it before it was too late. More importantly, there are specific personality types in business.

If you start to cross those lines, you’re traveling in the danger zone. I’m a good startup person. I’ve long since let all that go, including the ideology and the justification back then. The justification in my mind was, “I started all this. I put all the capital in. You’re going to listen to me because I’m right, and it’s working. Look how much money we make, which is great because I’m a startup person.” That’s what I do.

I’m a terrible operations person. I suck at it. I suck at payroll. I suck at motivating people. It’s a banana peel thing. That’s what an operations person is supposed to do, keep everybody together, keep everybody motivated, and make sure they’re compensated correctly. They have the tools to do their job. I’m not that good at any of those things.

Back in the day, when I grew up around people who were successful, they didn’t call it a startup back then. They said, “I’m an entrepreneur. I built this business.” I look back on it. Successful people were terrible operators. You have to separate that stuff. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Who are you? Are you a startup person or not? Are you an operations person or not? Are you a salesperson or a data geek?” You have to get to know who the hell you are before you go out and try to figure all this stuff out. You’re not all four. You’re not the data person, the salesperson, the startup person, and the operations person. I’ve never met anybody like that.

Success in business isn't about being the best at everything – it's about knowing your strengths and partnering with those who complement them. Share on X

If you think you are all four, you’re none. There are a couple of notes I had made before this. In my career and my life, I’ve always tried to surround myself with what I’ve referred to as my tribe. These are people that I look to for mentorship and guidance. I’ve always gone to specific people in my life, and to this day, I go to those same people. It’s all about quality over quantity. I have people that I can trust, people who are in my life and are on the same level. They have the same mindset that I do. They don’t have some secret agenda for why they’re listening to what I have to say. At the same time, I’m there for them.

That’s what’s cool about a lot of what Jill has done with Land Academy. We have a great tribe here at Land Academy. I’m not saying that everyone in Land Academy is your best friend and is going to pick you up and elevate you. What I’m saying is we’re all like-minded. We’re building a community. There are specific people that you’re always going to steer towards more. That’s important because you’re not doing this on your own. You can’t do this on your own. You need to rely on other people who’ve done the things that you can’t do or haven’t done yet.

I’ve been blessed in my life to have a great tribe around me. We’re blessed to have you guys helping us and mentoring us on a daily basis, between the show, us speaking, and everything else. It’s important for people to understand that you need to keep a tight group of people around you that can help elevate you. The reason I asked about what the pre-Jill business was like is that there is a community here, and you guys have built a wonderful tribe. I wonder what it was like before that tribe was here.

I had a business partner. This is the end of the answer to the question, but in the most recent Career Path, which you guys were involved in as ambassadors, someone said this, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In the last session, while we were all talking, he said, “What I’ve learned from this is that I’ve had a business partner for a decade. We’ve parted ways since this Career Path.” I don’t remember which guy it was.

He realized that he’d been with the wrong business partner for several years. That motivates me to do another Career Path. You can teach how to do a mailer, but it’s the big picture of mental, psychological, and spiritual stuff that you have to figure out. I didn’t have any of that figured out, and I still don’t. One of the big benefits of before and after Jill is that I feel like I understand what I want and who I am.

What Motivates Land Investors

That leads us to the last question that we had for you guys. What motivates you?

I’m motivated by money. It’s not a Michael Jordan motivation where I have to win. I don’t have to win. I don’t care about winning. Ask her. She cares more about winning than I do. I’m motivated by money and working on stuff that generates a lot of money. As I get older, I’m a lot more motivated by having complete control over my time.

He’s got that part licked. I don’t have to think about it. I have two things that I get out of bed every day for. One is my own personal deals. The stuff that we are still doing every day, we will always be investors first. I love that. I get jacked about it. I looked at a deal the other day that came in. A year and a half ago, they called back. I’m like, “We are doing this deal.” I’m most motivated on the buy side. I know how it’s going to play out when they sell it. The needle in the arm is like, “I can’t believe I got this for fill-in-the-blank dollar amount.” That still core motivates me.

We’re driving around in this RV, and I’m thinking, “Can we mail this area?” It’s always on my mind. When we find little places, I’m like, “This is what’s coming here. We have to hit this area.” That’s number one. Number two is this community, especially the ladies. I get such a rush and pride when I hear and get feedback from Land Academy women who are running their own businesses and are retiring their husbands or are about to.

We all know we have a member who has more than one, where she was first, and now her husband works for her. It was her thing that she started. He quit his job and came in. I’m like, “This is the greatest thing ever.” Hearing the stories about how well our community or tribe is doing, especially the ladies. That’s what motivates me.

I like to see people succeed a lot. It’s our legacy.

In anything I do and any conversation I have with somebody, I hope to add value to it. I hope to not be a taker in life. I hope to add value to whatever I can. Whatever I touch, I want that to be a part of my legacy. I want to be someone who adds value and doesn’t take away from whatever I’m involved in. That’s a lot of how my mind works. I’ll work around the clock and put $0 in my pocket if it adds value somewhere. Whatever that does, that’s what motivates me. That’s what keeps me going. It is continually adding value somewhere. If I don’t do something that makes me feel as though I added value in a day, I feel as if it’s a wasted day.

True success isn't just about personal gain – it's about adding value to others and leaving a positive legacy. How are you making an impact? Share on X

You may not see the initial return on investment, but I believe that, in some way, that good thing will come back.

Those are core values. It’s 2023. All I see in the world is less of that. Congratulations, because I’m not sure that’s something most people have anymore. It’s unusual.

It’s all about them. Not about what I can do.

It’s all about what they can get.

That’s why we’re here. That’s why our tribe is who we are. That’s why we help each other. I get excited. Every time we’re on a Thursday call, you guys have seen this, where someone was like, “I’m about twenty minutes away from that. Do you want me to drive by and take pictures for you?” I’m like, “That’s so nice.”

I love it when there are other people in Career Path who are making way more money than we are.

I’m like, “You did what this month?”

Thanks for sharing an hour with us. It was enlightening. As much as we know you guys and talk to you guys, I learned more stuff now.

We look forward to being more involved with the community and being around you guys. We want to surround ourselves with like-minded people. That’s why we feel comfortable here. Thank you for always having us around.

You’re going to be with us on the next Career Path.

All four of us are going to be goofing off this summer, having some fun, and preparing for it. It’s going to be awesome. I’m excited. I can’t wait to have this conversation. We need to do this at least every six months. I can’t wait to see, several years from now, what we’re going to be talking about. It’s going to be cool.

Join us next time for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition.

Important Links

• Karl Lathus – LinkedIn
• Samantha Lathus – LinkedIn