This is episode number 2,147. Jill and I are talking about how to stay motivated when you’re not seeing results yet.

This is going to be fun.

It’s a great topic.

How Jack Stays Motivated

If in anything that you’re doing, Jack, what are ways that you motivate yourself?

They are different from the ways you motivate yourself. I know that for sure.

How does a data nut motivate themselves?

I have eight natural born-with-it-interests in getting to the bottom of things and making sure that whatever theory I’ve developed, like for instance, Western New Jersey might be a great place to send mail. For whatever reason, I’ve developed this theory because I’ve looked at resources on the internet. I have to prove that, and it’s not hard for me. It doesn’t fall into motivation or confidence or any of that stuff.

Is whatever you’re trying to do is solving a problem motivation?

Yes.

When you solve the problem, like I get not a perfect male or it doesn’t. That doesn’t exist, but I’ve got a great mail ready go. I understand this area of this mailer. It’s all in the blank. That’s motivating to you, and that’s what pushes you forward.

Yes, and that’s success. This is good. Let’s follow that through, because when I send a bunch of mail out, it’s all price and I start getting a lot of responses back. Even if they’re negative, I know how it’s going to go. It’s getting responded to, so I know the negative feedback. The hate is going to happen for a brief moment when I’m male starts to hit the recipients and there’s going to be people that are interested but they’re not sure.

Probably a week later, there are going to be people that want to do a deal with you. That’s a huge, immense figurative pat on my back for myself, and most of the time it goes that way. There are people that don’t see that as success. I stay motivated when I continually send out mail, continually do deals, and you’re busy. It’s showing your staff are busy.

This is good. I’ll share mine when we get into the topic or do you want me to share now?

My point here is, before we get to the topic, in the title, it says, “How to stay motivated when you’re not seeing results yet?” You’re not seeing results because you haven’t sent a mailer out yet. That’s it.

Maybe you haven’t sold or bought it. There could be lots of different stages through this, too. You have to stay motivated all the way to the bank account.

Discord Question: Market For A Landlocked Property

There’s so much to say. On each episode, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum. Take a deep dive into land-related topics by your requests.

Mark wrote, “Is there much value at all in pursuing a landlocked property? I received a sign off for back on a 1-acre property in Greeneville, Tennessee, that’s completely landlocked. See image below. Owner is not aware of an easement. The contract price is $6,000 and the lowest sold price for a 1-acre lot with access and road frontage in the past twelve months in the area is $45,000. I’m pretty sure I can get the price down to like $3,000, but is there even a market at all? The low-hanging fruit is the adjacent owners and I will at least pursue them. Aside from that, is it not worth it at any price?”

If you are a manager or business owner, there are always operations components you have to deal with. You must embrace it and learn how to solve little problems as you go. Share on X

I cut my teeth and started this company in the early ‘90s on access lists property. The theory was this, at $100 an acre all over the Southwest is my acquisition price for any property. The bigger, the better. I know I can auction it off on the internet for $200 an acre, and I did thousands and thousands of those deals. Is there a market? That’s the question. Yes. Is it the same business model that we have now? No.

If you want to buy for $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 and sell for $90,000 or $100,000, which is a typical deal for us, or buy for $150,000 and sell for $300,000 or you’re doing more deals like that. You need to have access. Buying for $3,000 and selling for $6,000, if you’re interested in that. Buying property that has no access, that will happen and here’s why.

How to Stay Motivated When Not Seeing Results

If you throw that thing on the MLS or you put it on Facebook Marketplace or whatever or however you sell property. It’s 48-acres. Who would buy 48-acres regularly in Arizona for $4,000 and sell for $8,000? Nobody cared. No one ever heard of a 40-acre property for $8,000. There’s a huge market. I can tell you that Jill and I make ten times the money that I made back then with this model which is the Land Academy model. There’s a market. You have to decide if that’s the business you want to be in. Our topic is how to stay motivated when you’re not seeing results? Jill, you had stuff you wanted to say.

I was asking you how you stayed motivated and I was thinking about, where do you think the results occur? There are stages of this. The first stage is deciding you’re going to do this. You’re going to be an investor and you’re going to wake up and put that out on, like, “This is what I’m doing.”

Can I tell a story? This is an unrelated story. Jill and I bought a Newmar Dutch Star which is a large pretty high-end Class A RV. For the previous summers, we’ve been driving around the country, looking at land, staying in small towns, assessing markets, buying property there, selling it, and all of that, with all RVs, and I didn’t know this when I started. There are forums on the internet like we have with the Discord Land Academy forum on Facebook, and all kinds of places about where people can go in or have like mindset in with the large RV like that in the middle of nowhere.

You’d have to rely on yourself in these forums when stuff goes wrong. It’s a cult. I woke up, the slide won’t go in and our heat doesn’t work any longer. It’s problem solving. There are all kinds of things that go on to go through your average life. It turns out, I didn’t know this until we bought this thing. Jill and I enjoy that. It’s not a Toyota or a Ford F-150. You don’t just turn the key for ten straight years and have to do nothing to that car except change oil and put gas in it.

I have noticed over the years, the light kind people in these communities are pilots, retired engineers, software engineers, and auto mechanics. They’re technical people, men and women that aren’t afraid to have a problem and take the backseat out and dig through the whole thing. Take the pumps out, look at it, find the problem, put it all back in, and pat yourself on the back and have a beer. That’s a regular week for us and these are good RVs.

We’ve had bad RVs where you get stranded. These are good RVs. If you don’t have that type of personality, and believe me, people buy these $500,000 rigs, go on the forum and say, “I turn the key and it doesn’t work. This is a pile of crap. I hate this. I’m selling it.” All it takes is one experience for something not to work. Think about all the plumbing, electrical, and systems that are in a rig like that or an airplane or a boat. Jill’s a pilot and I have a lot of marine experience.

Also, an accountant.

We’re used to breaking down. We’re used to solving problems on the fly and fixing them. Buying and selling land is no different. I don’t need motivation. My little success is in solving problems along the way. It’s the motivation that I need.

I need motivation.

I know you do, like some brownies.

I was going to say that was a good story. Thank you.

That’s Jill’s way of saying, “I’m glad it’s over.”

I’m trying to extract how I can apply that to this. How would I apply that to this?

I’m going to be real clear, there’s all kinds of tiny little things that go on in this business and every single other business you will ever get involved in as a leader. I don’t care if you’re a manager and owner or any of it. There’s an operations component to all of this stuff. Some of it, you either embrace it and you solve the little problems as you go so that you can cash a check at the end or that’s it. I’ll give you another example. I have said this a million times on this show. I have purchased and given away about ten guitars in my life and I’m about to do it again.

That goes with every RV trip, by the way.

I’ve taken lessons. I’ve bought ukuleles. I am not going to accept it now. I’m not going to learn how to play the guitar. Why? It’s because I am not willing to go through the chord progressions past the second lesson. I just don’t want it that bad. It just doesn’t work for me. For whatever reason, it’s a lot and there’s a lot of physical pain involved in learning the guitar that I’m not willing to go through to get to pass the pain and be able to run through chord progressions and stuff that you’re supposed to do. I don’t want to do it, and it’s not worth it. It is worth it to fix an RV for some reason and to buy a piece of land.

Figure out what gives you motivation and remind yourself about it every single day. Share on X

As you’re talking, I’m sitting here thinking about what’s the real down, in my soul motivation for me being a part of what we do and you know what? I had a revelation with you right here. It’s not the money. Do you know what it is? I want to work for myself. I want to have my own schedule and my own time. I know how to work hard and afford whatever I want. I know when I can back off, chill, and make it all work out just fine. I just realized that. For you, if you first figure out, what is the underlying theme of what you want to accomplish.

Do you want to get out of 9:00 to 5:00? Lord knows I did. I had 9:00 to 5:00 paycheck. You had to punch a time card literally back in the day and you could get fired if you were late. It was ridiculous. That’s working for now. I couldn’t stand it. That’s my underlying theme. That’s what motivates and drives me. I will sit down and do as many deals as it takes so I don’t ever have to do that again. Along the way, I do trick myself and reward myself with things like being able to afford this RV, take trips and take time off. Maybe do a little SPA thing and buy myself stuff when I want them. That’s nice, but that’s not the underlying core thing for me.

I’m going to reinforce what you’re saying. I would live in a $30,000 mobile home on its own piece of land in West Texas, buying and selling one piece of real estate per year and be happy. What I would not do is live in an apartment in a city and have a job ever again. I spent a lot of years doing that. My motivation is the same exact what you described as you, which is why this works. My way of doing it is to make sure I have a ton of money in the bank.

You take it to the next level.

When I truly am done, there’s a bunch down there and that will happen.

It could happen. The goals keep changing. We’ll get there someday. We’re still having too much fun. That’s it.

If you’re having trouble staying motivated, you probably don’t want to play the guitar.

You got to pick something. You got to figure it out and figure out what’s motivating. Most people that come to Land Academy all say it’s the money, but it’s something else, like, “I want to retire my wife.” It’s not about the money. They need to make the money so she doesn’t have to go to work, check. I don’t want to work this hard. I want a fish house.

First, you have to use a good motivation like, “I better do this real estate because I want to go fishing.”

That’s it. Not the money. It’s because you want to do that. You have to figure out what that is and remind yourself that every single day. When you’re on that path, you celebrate it and it’s going to keep pushing you forward. How’s that?

I hate working. I love doing what we do. I don’t think it’s work.

True.

I just can’t. I completely agree with you.

Thank you.

My final point is, this generation has got it tough. They have access to every piece of information there ever was and there’s a lot of Internet pressure for kids to do stuff that they don’t want to do. There’s this very small percentage of people who should own companies and it’s expected of you at a certain age group to own your own company. It’s just expected to have a side hustle, which is our next topic.

Next Topic: Transitioning From Side Hustle To Full-Time Land Investing

You’re expected to have a side hustle and then make it your lifelong career. There’s a small percentage of people that are wired like that. Join us in the next episode where we discuss how to transition from a side hustle to full-time land investing. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.