Retirement Stopped Being a Goal (JJ 651)
Retirement Stopped Being a Goal
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill Show, entertaining real estate and investment talk. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how retirement stopped being an actual goal, quite some time ago. You know why? ‘Cause I feel rewarded.
Jill DeWit: You know what happened-
Jack Butala: Helping everybody.
Jill DeWit: Well, you know what happened to me? I remember thinking for me, what made me think of this topic when we were discussing it the other day, we used to have these numbers in our heads. “Okay, we’re gonna do this by 50, do this by 55.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s right.
Jill DeWit: “This by 60.” We had all these different goals and then I realized we don’t talk about them anymore.
Jack Butala: We really don’t. We don’t talk about numbers.
Jill DeWit: Right. And I used to think that, “Okay, by X dates, I want to have, or X year or X age, I want to have this accomplished because that means I can stop whatever I’m doing, or take my foot off the gas,” whatever I was looking for at the time. And now I just don’t even talk about it. It’s so funny.
Jack Butala: I agree. It’s healthy.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: It’s a real positive.
Jill DeWit: I hope so. You know what, I know it is.
Jack Butala: If we all sat around counting the days saying, “Well, 322 days till whatever.”
Jill DeWit: Oh, shucks you know what?
Jack Butala: Man, come on.
Jill DeWit: People do that.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: “Well, I’m gonna …” and I have actually literally heard people, mainly school teachers and in that kind of environment, or other union jobs, where they have said, ’cause it’s more than a year and they’re literally counting down, “422 days to retirement.”
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Like, wow. Are you gonna do this for 422 days?
Jack Butala: You know, speaking of-
Jill DeWit: Like, say it?
Jack Butala: Especially from a teacher situation, it’s too bad because I’m sure you don’t go to be a teacher unless you want some fulfillment out of the position. It’s not a money thing. So, that’s just too bad it gets to that point.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: But I’m sure it’s just because of the cog, you know, it’s probably, I have no idea. Who knows why. But something went a little haywire.
Jill DeWit: Maybe it’s the teacher. Maybe it’s the subject.
Jack Butala: Let’s just call a spade a spade.
Jill DeWit: Call a spade a spade. Wait, I have to share something funny. So, last week or last weekend, I had a girlfriend in town who was visiting and she is a teacher. And she was, we had a little downtime, she goes, “Do you mind if I grade some papers?” It was really cute. She teachers second grade-
Jack Butala: You graded papers?
Jill DeWit: I did. Well, she said, “Do you mind if I grade papers?” I’m like, “Hey, can I help?” She’s like, “Are you serious?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, yes.” I had so much fun, by the way. It was hilarious. Little second grade spelling tests and math.
Jack Butala: Did you write them notes and stuff?
Jill DeWit: Well, here’s the thing, I would draw pictures and do notes, she said, “If you do that, you have to do it on every one of them,” because in second grade, they’re kids. They’re like, “Well, how come they got a star and I didn’t get a star?”
Jack Butala: Oh, I see.
Jill DeWit: So, do on every one. So, it was kind of funny.
Jack Butala: Maybe ’cause you suck, Johnny.
Jill DeWit: I know. It was so funny. But anyway, the point was we were talking and she said, “Do you know why …” I don’t know if I asked her or she shared, but why she became a teacher. She said, “I wanted to write on the chalkboard, which is now gone.” Now they use whatever white board and different things. But she said it’s not the same feeling. “And I wanted to grade papers.” And she goes, “And now I hate grading papers.”
Jack Butala: Wow. And there’s no chalkboard.
Jill DeWit: There’s no chalkboard. Those were the two reasons.
Jack Butala: Pay rate never increased.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness. So, but she’s a great teacher and she’s a good friend and I had fun. She’s like, “Do you want to do this again?” I’m like, “Oh, I will do this again.” Because by the way, too, Jack, we’re grading papers with wine.
Jack Butala: Oh, good.
Jill DeWit: It was pretty funny.
Jack Butala: That’s good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the JackJill.com online community, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: FYI, I never, that’s one career I never, ever considered growing up. I considered vet, I considered architect, all those things, but teacher was never one of the things that I thought I would want to pursue.
Jack Butala: Me, too. And guess what we are?
Jill DeWit: This is true. I never thought about that. That’s hilarious. Well, blew that one.
Jack Butala: You know what? We actually get paid nothing for teaching.
Jill DeWit: This is true.
Jack Butala: There’s no parachute, there’s no retirement, there’s nothing.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you know, you’re right. There isn’t. I don’t get any, what’s it called? Tenure? Do I have tenure now? You get tenure of your same rate of pay, which is zero. Congratulations. You’ve got that. You can have this job for life, have fun. That’s so good. Okay.
Back to the question. So, Kevin F. asks, “Hello, all. I’m posting this for the benefit of some of the new members and visitors to this forum. After going through several mail campaigns, I have noticed a pattern in the seller calls. We have heard J&J talk about the first few callers are angry, the next ones are curious, and then the sellers call. I have seen this trend, but I wanted to add one more thing that I’ve seen several times. When the first calls come in for a new mailer, I get a few the first day or two. Then I start getting around 10 a day for a few days up to a week. And then the phone goes quiet, and maybe I didn’t get any deals in that first bunch of callers because I am being picky.
The next calls come in once every few days, and these are usually my best sellers. They called to say, ‘We accept your offer. What do we do now?’ Wait for the quiet. It’s a good thing.” That’s awesome.
Jack Butala: Kevin, you can’t fake what you just said. You can only have personal experience in it and describe it that way.
Jill DeWit: That’s beautiful.
Jack Butala: That is exactly what happens. It’s worth repeating. First, there’s anger. It’s like approaching a new female. First, there’s anger.
Jill DeWit: What the heck?
Jack Butala: Then there’s a little curiosity.
Jill DeWit: By the girl or the guy?
Jack Butala: The girl. ‘Cause the guy doesn’t care. He’s doing the approaching. Like it happens in nature, too.
Jill DeWit: First there’s anger, then there’s curiosity. Please tell me how this is gonna go. I like this.
Jack Butala: And then it’s up to her, you don’t know how it’s gonna go. So, you know, then she’s either gone at that point or she’s interested.
Jill DeWit: Or she’s all in. Or her hooks are in.
Jack Butala: You said it, not me.
Jill DeWit: I’m getting a ring out of this guy. He doesn’t know it yet.
Jack Butala: Oh, my god.
Jill DeWit: You know girls have said that.
Jack Butala: That’s not what I meant at all.
Jill DeWit: Sorry, that’s not where you were going?
Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I thought that’s where you were-
Jack Butala: I was thinking more of like a male and female hippopotamus or something.
Jill DeWit: Same thing.
Jack Butala: Just in the nature. In the wild.
Jill DeWit: Oh. Okay.
Jack Butala: By the way, Kevin Farrell, I’m gonna use his last name, because it’s plastered all over Land Investors, he has been promoted to moderator, because he’s just, because of stuff like this. Thank you, Kevin.
Jill DeWit: He gets it.
Jack Butala: Your contribution on that site has been nothing short of fantastic.
Jill DeWit: Thanks, Kevin.
Jack Butala: And you’re right. You gotta wait for the quiet ’cause it’s good.
Jill DeWit: You know, Jack walks around the office all day saying, “Wait for the quiet. Shh,” want me to be quiet.
Jack Butala: At home, too.
Jill DeWit: “Wait for the quiet. No talking.”
Jack Butala: What is it with not quiet? I came up with this new concept, it’s called word calories. People, like do you ever meet mostly women who, they count calories. I mean, obsessively count calories. My sister said this to me one time a long time ago. “Why would I eat that? I don’t want to waste the calories on it.” Men don’t think like that. They’ll just eat it. So, she’s got a number in her head that she keeps, walk around. So, I say have a word calories. There should be a number and when you use it up, when you’re at that 1500 calorie thing, I don’t know let’s say it’s 3:00 in the afternoon, it’s over.
Jill DeWit: You just stop talking.
Jack Butala: You just sit there, you stop talking.
Jill DeWit: Sit on your hands.
Jack Butala: Yep. Wait till tomorrow. Start a new day. Start a new calorie day.
Jill DeWit: Hey, Jack, how’s that working for you?
Jack Butala: Well, I’m probably, I don’t know, eight hours away from being alone for the rest of my life.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you are. Oh, boy.
Jack Butala: What is this show about anyway? Please.
Jill DeWit: Oh, no. Yes.
Jack Butala: Today’s topic. How retirement stopped being our goal. This is the meet of the show.
Jill DeWit: You know-
Jack Butala: What’s it all about for you now, Jill? It’s not about retirement, never really was.
Jill DeWit: It hit me recently that I stopped thinking that way, and it made me take a step back and go, “What happened?” Because I really did. I was going, “All right. By 40 I want this. By 45, I want this.” You know, you have these numbers in your head and some of the numbers are still ahead of me, but I don’t even think about them anymore. I stopped saying out loud or even thinking that way. And it’s not because, well partially because I feel fulfilled. I mean, I really do feel like we hit so many of our goals pretty darn fast, Jack.
Jack Butala: I want you to think back to the one time where I had a bunch of leftover property. It was during the economic downturn, and we had the conversation and I said, it was a lot, like two or three hundred of these properties. “I know you’re a master salesperson. Why don’t you just, whatever you sell them for, you can just keep the money.” This was a lot of years ago. More than a decade. What went through your mind then? Was it retirement? Was it a challenge? Did you want a bunch of money?
Jill DeWit: Challenge.
Jack Butala: The challenge. It wasn’t about the money?
Jill DeWit: Well, a little bit about the money. But it was more about the challenge.
Jack Butala: Is it still about the challenge.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Right now today it is?
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Well …
Jack Butala: Was it ever like, “I need X amount of money in a bank account so I don’t have to think about it again?” What I’m really asking is without-
Jill DeWit: What was motivating me?
Jack Butala: Yeah. ‘Cause it was never retirement for me.
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: I think that’s such a weird word.
Jill DeWit: No, it was money. You know what, it was money, and it was the challenge, and it was financial security, I think. That’s the thing.
Jack Butala: Okay, all right.
Jill DeWit: Money can bring financial security.
Jack Butala: So, follow me along here. We’re long past financial security.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Why are we sitting here doing the show even?
Jill DeWit: I ask myself that every day.
Jack Butala: Seriously. What motivates you?
Jill DeWit: Sorry, I’m out of word calories. I can’t talk. I can’t answer that question.
Jack Butala: Every single show now. Every show, it’s gonna be like, “Oh, I hit my limit. Thanks.”
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:10:53], sorry. I’ll be over here.
Jack Butala: Jack, finish the show.
Jill DeWit: Drinking my coffee.
Jack Butala: Nice work. Bury yourself.
Jill DeWit: Well, okay. I get where you’re going with this. So, something shifted is what I think you’re, what you’re trying to bring out in me.
Jack Butala: I’m just wondering what, why we’re all really still doing all of this.
Jill DeWit: Well, Dr. Jack …
Jack Butala: Dr. Jack?
Jill DeWit: Dr. Jack. You sound like a therapist right now. Let’s discuss why you feel the need …
Jack Butala: We’re gonna do me next.
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Okay. Not just me. So, wait. What was the question again?
Jack Butala: Why are we all doing this?
Jill DeWit: Oh, why are we all-
Jack Butala: It’s not retirement.
Jill DeWit: You know what? Now it’s fun. ‘Cause you know what, now it’s like I enjoy what I’m doing and it’s not, something shifted. And this is a really good point. I wish I could figure out what shifted. All I can think of is this is a perfect fit for me.
Jack Butala: Maybe it’s habit. Maybe we’re just locked into a bad habit.
Jill DeWit: No, I think I’m finally where I should be, and that’s really what I think it is. So, I think for everybody listening, I think that’s what you should be striving for, whatever your zen is. For some people, you know what, for some people, their zen is a job they go to every day and you don’t think about stuff and you just like the comfort, and security, and the consistency. And they like that. And they like knowing that in 422 days, they will be done from that job and they can be home and retire and work on their garden. I don’t know, I think that’s for some people. It’s not for me and I don’t think it’s for you.
Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: So, I think I’m finally where I need to be. And it sounds cliché and it sounds silly, but I really like helping people, and I really, we talked about this the other day and you brought up before the show, I think we took two years or more, probably three at this point, perfecting … Actually, it has been three years, wow.
Jack Butala: It’s been three years. It’ll be three years in the summer.
Jill DeWit: Since we started to write and put together Land Academy in the way it is now. And I love it. I had no idea. You know what’s funny, when we were doing it, I didn’t know that A, we could probably convey this or myself, even, and B, that I could help people, and C, see the physical, tangible benefits of people saying, “Yeah, I just did it. I just did this deal. This is what was in my bank account. This is what I started with and this is what I have right now.” Like, what?
Jack Butala: Every month or so, Jill and I get a gift basket.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It makes me feel so good.
Jack Butala: Sent to the office from one of our members saying, “I just quit my job today,” or some version of, “Thank you very much.”
Jill DeWit: Life changing event. That’s why I’m here now.
Jack Butala: That’s a lot of it for me. It’s not the damn gift baskets, ’cause I don’t, that’s not the thing, but I do really believe that there’s a higher point to what we’re doing.
Jill DeWit: Remember a couple years ago when I was playing around with, it was Periscope. Periscope had just come out and I was playing around doing live videos. I think it was, you know what, Periscope came out, it was before Facebook had Facebook Live, so I did a Periscope video, and it was like we had got our first real thank you card in the mail, and I was reading a thank you card from somebody and I started to cry. And I was like, I didn’t expect myself to cry. It was so … it surprised me. So, for me, retirement stopped being a goal because I’m here. I don’t want to change a thing. I don’t want to stop. This is what I’m supposed to do. So, let’s do you now.
Jack Butala: I’m not trying to change the world, but here’s a real core truth. I am not trying to change the world and I’m not putting myself above anybody. But there’s a subsection of people out there that really see the value in what we provide. They’re usually accountants or some type of technical person who’s frustrated with their job. They’re usually pretty well paid, but they just know there’s something else out there. They know there’s a scientific way. Not scientific. There’s a mechanical, let’s just say left brained way to buy real estate. The same way there’s a left brained way to cook, or to be a chef where you follow, to the letter, follow a recipe. There’s also a right brained way to follow and be an artist.
Those tend not to be our customers or our members. Our members are people who have some type of technical-
Jill DeWit: Left brain.
Jack Butala: Background.
Jill DeWit: That’s right.
Jack Butala: That know that there is a better way to do is than just to feel your way thorough, that you can mechanically buy and sell real estate for a tremendous profit.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Jack Butala: And that is what I like, because I’m like that, and I struggle with that. I mean, that hits home with me. I never had, there was no manual for that in 1999.
Jill DeWit: It’s true. Boy.
Jack Butala: So, we wrote some version of the manual, or we at least would talk about it a half hour every day here, or some version of that. That’s why I do this. ‘Cause those people get me, and I get them.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you just need to be amongst your people.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: And you were searching for that.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Every time I talk to the people on a deal review or a data review call, we have that connection.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Jack Butala: Or we don’t. Sometimes we don’t. But I can tell that people, right away, I actually tell them. I tell them, I’m like, “I can tell you right now, you are-”
Jill DeWit: “You’ve got it.”
Jack Butala: “You’ve got it.” And they don’t know that. They’re saying-
Jill DeWit: Really? That’s it?
Jack Butala: Yeah, because they never sent a mailer out yet. They haven’t … then they send me a note. Somebody sent me a note recently that said, “I own a piece of property in X state and I’ve never, ever thought that was possible. It was something I always dreamed about when I was a kid,” and this is like a really, really bright person.
Jill DeWit: That’s so cool.
Jack Butala: They just needed somebody like us to push them over. So, that’s why I’m here.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Jack Butala: I don’t want to get all sappy about it, I’m just saying, that’s truly why I do this-
Jill DeWit: That’s beautiful, Jack.
Jack Butala: Oh, my word calories are up. Sorry. I’m at like 2500. Now I’m gonna start gaining.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It’s gonna go downhill fast.
Jack Butala: You’ve done it again. You’ve wasted another, I don’t know, 20 minutes listening to the Jack and Jill Show. Join us tomorrow, where we discuss Jill’s concept of grown up office space and how I disagree.
Jill DeWit: That’s good. And we answer your questions. Should you have one, post it on JackJill.com, our online community. Go there, it’s free.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: That was fun. That’s good. Isn’t that interesting?
Jack Butala: You know, honestly I didn’t really know I was doing this until I just talked about it, like I talked it out.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Like a woman.
Jill DeWit: You had like a therapy session.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: See, word calories are not a bad thing. Some times you have to splurge, and it’s a good thing. And you treat yourself.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I just had an ice cream cone.
Jill DeWit: You did. You had a banana split is what you just had. Oh, that’s so good. Hey, share the fun by subscribing on iTunes or wherever you’re listening, and while you’re at it, please rate us there. We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jack Butala: Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Jack Butala: To buy undervalued property.
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