Episode 043: Mark Podolsky

Full Transcript

Rock Thomas: My next guest is Mark Podolsky and he is the land geek guy. This gentleman has a very, very interesting lifestyle where he has two days a week that he takes off.

Rock Thomas: To live the life that you would want to live. If you knew you only had a day left which is super cool as a lifestyle and how did he get there.

Rock Thomas: Well, he has uniquely carved out a niche that you might want to consider yourself, which is purchasing raw land and then selling it quite rapidly.

Rock Thomas: But keeping a certain payment that keeps on coming into him over a series of months and allows him to become financially free and that is where his monthly fixed expenses are covered by these payments that come

Rock Thomas: From the land deals, you’re going to learn about that on today’s call. You can learn a lot more from his beautiful mind as he is an avid reader and consumer of amazing content. Please welcome to today’s I am movement podcast Mark Podolsky

Mark Podolsky: Rock Thomas, I’m so glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Rock Thomas: So, you know, we talked a lot about people that have gone from, you know, maybe not exactly where they wanted to do living through their dream or hoping to get their dream.

Rock Thomas: And all of the obstacles that come along the way. A lot of them being labels that have been suggested to them by other people.

Rock Thomas: Maybe their parents or there’s their surrounding environment. So let’s talk a little bit about how you may graduate yourself through some of the disempowering labels as you grow up. So tell us a little bit the story as to how you got where you are today.

Mark Podolsky: Sure, sure. So, you know, I’m a professional investor and I’ve done over 5200 land deals and I’m known as the land geek. And as I was building my business frontier properties. I had this

Mark Podolsky: Sort of, you know, kind of label or or programming from my parents that people who were successful did these things.

Mark Podolsky: And so I did these things. So I basically the more money I made the more money I spent trying to look successful. So I had a Toyota Camry perfectly in good shape that I got a Lexus. I’m not even a car guy.

Mark Podolsky: Rock. Right. Um, I had a really nice house in North Scottsdale not nice enough. I had to move to area that’s called Paradise Valley where we live, and get like this 4500 square foot home that was just ridiculous and then certainly my children being in

Mark Podolsky: Public school not good enough private school and then my wife didn’t work. But of course, because I was making all this money. I thought, well, she’ll be happier if we have a nanny.

Mark Podolsky: And if we have somebody clean the big house, five days a week. And so I started building up all this personal overhead thinking that. Oh.

Mark Podolsky: All this is going to make me feel successful and make me look successful and be happy. And honestly, the inverse was true, my wife and I started arguing more about money. I was more disconnected.

Mark Podolsky: There’s that there’s that that underlying feeling it just nothing was enough and 2008 rolled around

Mark Podolsky: And it forced me to really re-examine these programs’ values of what I considered success and taking this ego hit of having a short sell of the house.

Mark Podolsky: Moved to a small way, small house 70 hundred square foot house fire the staff tell my kids. Hey, I’m sorry. I know you got good friends at these schools, you’ve got to go to this school now and

Mark Podolsky: Unwind all that and then suddenly realize, Oh my gosh, instead of going out to a big steak dinner on a Wednesday night.

Mark Podolsky: I can play charades with my kids and have more fun and realize that what I wish my parents had really inculcated was the fact that relationships,

Mark Podolsky: And the quality relationships and meaningful relationships are ultimately true success and will ultimately make you happy, along with, you know, a few other things like a purpose, bigger than yourself and

Mark Podolsky: And just some other you know definitely things that had nothing to do with the external world.

Rock Thomas: So, so how do you now look at your life and go okay I went through that roller coaster ride.

Rock Thomas: And I want you to know what people do. I did the same thing as I bought the second house. I got the boat, I got a motorcycle. I got a drum set and accumulated all these things thinking they were going to

Rock Thomas: Add to the joy of my life. They did the opposite. They just created more overhead.

Rock Thomas: And then you realize that it’s some of the simple things that make a difference and a big part of that is helping other people not make the same mistakes you made. So what have you done now what you kind of gotten to the other side. How is your identity around your values?

Mark Podolsky: Yeah, so my values are, like you said, I really want to help other people. And I think having that purpose of helping other people get rid of what I call solo economic dependency.

Mark Podolsky: Fuels me, which means if you’re not working. You’re not making any money and then having this purpose, bigger than myself, helping other people makes me

Mark Podolsky: Happier now it’s not any easier. Life is certainly not easy, but it’s more joyful and then from there, just always having the, the quality of relationships lead

Mark Podolsky: You know, how’s my relationship with my wife, my children, my friends, am I putting the time in for that. Am I taking care of myself on a day to day basis? So I’m a long term meditator I meditate every morning.

Mark Podolsky: I exercise every day. I tried to get a good night’s sleep. I try to eat really cleanly so that I have the energy and I have this tranquility of mind to go out and try to make as big a difference as I possibly can in the world and make you know the little impact. I can make

Mark Podolsky: Which which you know essentially brings more meaning to my life.

Rock Thomas: So how do you do that, how do you go about helping these people. Because if you’re the land guy are you helping people get into land. Do you believe that that’s the key to getting out of the rat race.

Mark Podolsky: I do. I think that whether it’s land or any entrepreneurial venture. I think that having true freedom and wealth means that

Mark Podolsky: You know when you wake up on Monday. You don’t have to be anywhere. So time wealth, being able to work when you want where you want with whom you want. I just think that my model.

Mark Podolsky: really lends itself to that because I’ve done it. We’ve had hundreds of our clients.

Mark Podolsky: Become, you know, not just solve their money problem but solve their time problem. So oftentimes when people get into real estate.

Mark Podolsky: You find that they’ve created another job themselves. But the way that we have this system in this process and the sort of geeky methodology.

Mark Podolsky: Of investing in raw land. It’s a one time sale. And then you get passive income every single month without renters, rehabs , renovations or rodents. Mm hmm.

Rock Thomas: The four R’s.

Mm hmm.

Rock Thomas: Okay, so do you teach people how to do it, do you partner with them. What’s the methodology?

Mark Podolsky: Yeah, so we teach people how to do it. And I also have a book dirt rich that introduces people to the concept as well. And then we have live events.

Mark Podolsky: We have a quarterly boot camp and we have this community. And so it’s for me. It’s amazing to watch a bunch of strangers on Friday bond together and have these really close friendships and they come out of there with accountability partners on Sunday.

Rock Thomas: And you do this in Phoenix.

Mark Podolsky: I do this in Phoenix Vegas San Antonio. And this year, Atlanta. So every 90 days we run a boot camp.

Rock Thomas: And it circulates between those four locations.

Rock Thomas: It does. Okay. Super cool. And have you found that purchasing land is something that happens.

Rock Thomas: Like if somebody lives in a certain area that is purchasing and primarily where they are or they are looking throughout the country.

Mark Podolsky: Though the people that invest in our, in our rollin are all throughout the country.

Mark Podolsky: I’ve got land in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, California, Florida, Washington, Oregon.

Mark Podolsky: Colorado, but you’ll, you’ll find that it’s not just locals that are buying that raw land. And so what we teach people is our model. We tell them, hey, you don’t need to just buy in your backyard.

Mark Podolsky: This model skills, you can buy anywhere I in fact I can’t remember the last time I actually personally went out and looked at a piece of property.

Rock Thomas: Okay, so you’re buying site sight unseen and how is a piece of land cash flowing. If there’s no there’s no asset on it.

Mark Podolsky: Yeah so. So let me walk you through the model and you know you can really get a bird’s eye view so rock, you’re, you’re in Phoenix. Right. Yes.

Mark Podolsky: Okay, so I’m going to assume that you own a 20 acre parcel in Texas and you owe $200 in back taxes on that parcel.

Mark Podolsky: So when I get the list from this kind of treasure. I see. Oh there’s rock Thomas and yo $200 in back taxes and you live in Phoenix, your advertising two things to me.

Mark Podolsky: Number one, you have no emotional attachment to that role and you live in Phoenix it’s in Texas and number two.

Mark Podolsky: You’re distressed financially in some way. Because when we don’t pay for things we don’t value them in the same way and you haven’t paid your property taxes. As a result, the county treasure.

Mark Podolsky: Is monthly sending you these notices rock you don’t pay your property taxes, you’re eventually going to lose it to a tax deed or a tax lien investor.

Mark Podolsky: So what I’ll do is I’ll look at the comparable sales on that 20 acre parcel for the last 12 to 18 months and I’m going to take the lowest cup.

Mark Podolsky: Let’s say it’s $10,000 and all I’m going to do is divide by four and that’s gonna get me what Warren Buffett would call a 300% margin of safety. So I’m going to send you an actual offer of 20 $500 for your 20 acre parcel now.

Mark Podolsky: For you 20 $500 is better than nothing. So you accept it. Now, in reality, three to 5% of people accept my quote unquote top dollar offer, but you accept it.

Mark Podolsky: And I go through due diligence or in depth research I confirm you still own the property back taxes are only $200

Mark Podolsky: There’s no breaks in the chain of titles. There’s no liens or encumbrances and for this deal. I’m going to outsource my due diligence to my team, the Philippines and pay $11 for it.

Mark Podolsky: They’re connected to an American title company. Now, if it was over $5,000 I would actually close to Title still using my team as well. So then

Mark Podolsky: I buy the property from you for 20 $500 and then rock. I’m going to sell this property in 30 days or less and make a cash flow and I have a built-in best buyer for that parcel. Do you know who it is?

Rock Thomas: No idea.

Mark Podolsky: The neighbors.

Mark Podolsky: Neighbors. I’m going to send out neighbor letters saying, hey, here’s your opportunity to expand your holdings, protect your privacy and protect your views. Know your neighbor.

Mark Podolsky: And oftentimes the neighbors will acquire that property. Now, if they pass a good my buyers list and I’ll go to Craigslist Facebook.

Mark Podolsky: I’ll go to land moto calm lands of america.com land and farm calm the lands and these are platforms, it just everyday people are buying and selling raw land, I might go to Zillow

Mark Podolsky: Let go. But either way, I’m going to make it irresistible. Make it a car payment. So I’m going to ask for 20 $500 down payment to ask

Mark Podolsky: I’m gonna try to get my money out on the down. I might go out six months and then I’m just making a car payment. Let’s say for 49 a month 9% interest over the next 84 months.

Mark Podolsky: And so then I get 49 a month. The next 24 months I have to do any renovations, renovations or rodents and because I’m not dealing with a tenant.

Mark Podolsky: I’m exempt from any onerous real estate legislation like Dodd Frank respire with the Safe Act and then rock the game that we play is can we create enough of these land notes.

Mark Podolsky: Where our passive income exceeds our fixed expenses and then we’re working because we want to not because we have to. And the best part of this is that 90% of this business is automated with software.

Rock Thomas: So one would be tempted to say, okay, great. If that’s the case, then why not scale the heck out of it and just be sending out thousands and thousands of these letters and eventually the numbers won’t lie.

Mark Podolsky: Well, because at some point, you can’t do due diligence that quickly. If you’re flooded with too much deal flow. And then, so that’s that’s the other part.

Mark Podolsky: And then certainly if you want investors. If you want to have a fund at some point you’re going to need additional capital for that.

Mark Podolsky: Right. That’s a way more sophisticated sort of model to do. You could certainly do it you could you could, you know,

Mark Podolsky: Have a big due diligence team and do that. But at what point, how much is enough so right. I think that’s the

Mark Podolsky: The game that we like to play, so I always tell people you want to be a billionaire. This is not the model to go into, but it’s certainly a gateway drug to going into say bigger projects like multifamily

Rock Thomas: So basically it’s a little kind of pocket of inequity that a lot of people aren’t going to be playing in but there’s a need because somebody bought a piece of land. They had a change of heart, they’re not going to

Rock Thomas: Develop on it. It’s just hanging out. You come along. Give them an easy out

Rock Thomas: And then you provide for the neighbors away for them to maybe be in the mood for an expansion or protection or more privacy and then you just keep on kind of filling in those holes that I get that about right. Yeah.

Mark Podolsky: Exactly. So, you know, there’s no big money in this group. There’s in this niche private equity known hedge funds and it’s the least sexy real estate niche ever. I mean, if you know

Mark Podolsky: The DIY network or HTTP called me and said, hey, we want to do a show called flip this land the before picture is role in

Mark Podolsky: The architecture is wrong.

Mark Podolsky: Though

Mark Podolsky: It’s not real.

Rock Thomas: Real, real sexy. Yeah.

Mark Podolsky: No, it’s not sexy at all.

Rock Thomas: You could have a print out of your bank account that says no monthly installments. And then for 49 a month coming in. That’s about it.

Mark Podolsky: That’s about it. Exactly. Yeah.

Rock Thomas: Well, that’s really cool. So you’re doing that now. And therefore, you work when you want and how much of your joy comes from teaching other people how to do this, then

Mark Podolsky: It’s all of it. I mean, nobody ever said to me. Hey Mark, that that raw land purchase I made from you changed my life. I mean, they liked it.

Mark Podolsky: And it benefited my family.

Mark Podolsky: But teaching other people how to do this and getting so much gratitude as that has been the greatest professional joy. I’ve ever experienced where

Mark Podolsky: You know, I’ve had clients tell me hey I’m spending 75% more time with my children now than I did. I, I just retired my spouse. I just was able to quit my job. I’m working from home with my spouse.

Mark Podolsky: You know I’m I just had a client Roberto Chavez, he’s a lawyer, he got to 15,000 a month and passive and he just boxed me, which is like this walkie talkie app and said, Hey Mark, I’m

Mark Podolsky: I went from five days a week at the law firm to three days a week, one day I’m spending for myself and the other day I’m helping my father, who’s in his 70s on his ranch. I mean, to me, that’s just, it’s an incredible gift to be able to do that.

Rock Thomas: Yeah, that’s really awesome. Very cool. When’s your next event.

Mark Podolsky: Next event is January 10 in San Antonio.

Rock Thomas: Antonio. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I think it’s something that a lot of people that want to get out of the rat race and I talked to a lot of people that want to get out of the rat race could certainly consider because

Rock Thomas: You’ve got to be able to do something that is not capital heavy for most people. And it sounds like this is something that would not be and you can start to create some little bit of cash flow. So I like the idea. I certainly going to

Rock Thomas: promote you to my tribe and encourage them to go to your event. Well, how else can they follow you and be in touch with you? What’s the best way

Mark Podolsky: Well, I think, you know, I have a course Rock That’s a $97 course. It’s a starter course called the passive income launch kit. It would be great to give your listeners that course for free.

Mark Podolsky: And so if they just go to the land geek.com forward slash launch kit. They could really see if this model resonates with them or not otherwise a great place to start is just the land geek calm.

Rock Thomas: Land geek.com forward slash launch kit and they could get your $97 passive income online course for free, and they can check out and see if it resonates with them and make sense.

Mark Podolsky: Absolutely.

Rock Thomas: That’s amazing. That’s awesome. I really appreciate that.

Rock Thomas: So,

Rock Thomas: How much time would you say you spend

Rock Thomas: With your family versus working these days. What’s, what’s a good balance for you so

Mark Podolsky: Mondays and Fridays are my terminal days. So I pretend to visit my last days on Earth. How would I want to spend my days. So I don’t take any calls those days I

Mark Podolsky: If I work it’s really more just personal development. I might read, I might hike bikes, but oftentimes it’s just spending time with my family on Mondays and Fridays.

Mark Podolsky: Tuesday I have my podcast which you’re on the art of passive income podcast and that’s my day to just

Mark Podolsky: Work on the podcast and do my interviews Wednesdays or my team meetings and Thursdays are client meetings. So really, in frontier properties. I’m working about two hours a week and I’m a land geek.

Mark Podolsky: You know, I work about 48 hours.

Mark Podolsky: A week on average. So most of my time is spent doing what any good CEO would do. It’s, it’s thinking and and you know, thinking about where can we grow and strategy and

Mark Podolsky: And team building and making my team crazy, God forbid, my team gets a call from me after I’ve had a cup of coffee because they know I’m going to break something in the business.

Mark Podolsky: Okay, cool. Try this. Can we do this?

Rock Thomas: Well, I like your really laid back approach to this and I have to say that

Rock Thomas: A lot of people attempt to have a day or two a week where they can really just do what they truly value, but it seems like in most cases people I talked to that.

Rock Thomas: That that temptation. You know it leaks and eventually they’re back to being overwhelmed. So I love the model that you have. Are there any favorite books or anything that you’re reading right now.

Mark Podolsky: Oh my gosh, I’m a huge reader. Okay, so where do you want to start

Rock Thomas: Wherever you want whatever pops up in your mind.

Mark Podolsky: All right, let me just go to my list here. So right now I am. I’m a big audible fan. So the way I like to read is I like to listen and on to speed and then read the actual book. So I’m just immersed in the book. Yes. Right now I am loving you probably saw the movie The Martian with yes

Mark Podolsky: Oh, who said, oh my gosh.

Mark Podolsky: Yeah, the guy Fred Damon.

Rock Thomas: Yeah. Matt Damon. Yeah.

Mark Podolsky: Matt Damon. So the book is amazing.

Mark Podolsky: In even as I kind of look at it like

Mark Podolsky: This is such a great sort of analogy for life because all this guy’s doing all day long is solving problems to keep himself alive. And even though

Mark Podolsky: It’s not as dramatic for us as this, but he has to go through this is what we do all day is we have to solve these problems and

Mark Podolsky: Having a good just his attitude about it is amazing. He doesn’t resent it. I mean, he feels tired, he feels, you know, angry at times when things don’t go well, but he just keeps going on.

Mark Podolsky: And it’s that I really love the march right now. I just finished talking to strangers with Malcolm Gladwell.

Mark Podolsky: Yes, that was really an interesting book and just in I just the whole idea of what we don’t know in humility.

Mark Podolsky: I really enjoyed solve for happy by mo god that

Mark Podolsky: He’s a Google engineer that was really great skin in the game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is fantastic. He’s very full of himself and you can know you’re in the book. But if you can get over that I recommend that. I just finished in distractible by it.

Mark Podolsky: That’s great, especially for those people that feel like they are constantly being distracted, right, which today. I think it’s hard like rock. Are you distracted?

Rock Thomas: I think, I think it’s come it’s tempting to be distracted all the time. I think it’s become you know people say the ad but we’ve almost been trained that way. I think with our phones.

Rock Thomas: Always being attached to something we become we become Pavlov’s dogs in many ways to the beeps around us.

Mark Podolsky: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then I think your listeners would love the second mountain by David Brooks. So the first mountain that we all can climb is achievement and ego driven accomplishing these goals, but the second mountain we climb is more purpose driven and it’s

Mark Podolsky: I’ve really enjoyed that book.

Wow, that’s beautiful.

Rock Thomas: You know, I want to thank you very much for popping by and sharing your wisdom with us and for our listeners. I think it’s

Rock Thomas: A nice little snapshot at a niche that most people don’t know about in a lifestyle that a lot of people

Rock Thomas: I think I would love to believe they could experience and you’re a shining example of somebody that’s done it and you’re spending time reading really cool stuff and continuing to grow yourself. So thank you for being part of our, am I

Rock Thomas: I am movement and how would you describe yourself today in a few words. I am

Mark Podolsky: I am dead set on being a good ancestor.

Rock Thomas: Cool. I like it. Yeah, that’s, that’s kind of

Mark Podolsky: You know, I like, you know, how am I going to be remembered. I want to be a good ancestor.

Mark Podolsky: Yes, he’s like, well, we kind of talked about it in the beginning of podcasts. Like, what are the values I really want to instill in my children, right, one of those, you know. Am I aware of any labels that i’m i’m giving them any sort of false identity, they have to live up to and

Mark Podolsky: Hopefully I can break that cycle.

Rock Thomas: Have you read the book mindset yet by Carol Dweck

Mark Podolsky: I haven’t, but I could reread it, I really love that book, The fixed versus growth mindset.

Rock Thomas: And one thing that

Rock Thomas: That surprised me that we can actually hurt our children by giving them labels that we think are good, like, oh my god, you’re so talented.

Rock Thomas: Oh, you’re such a smart person and she points out that in some cases, like, Oh, you’re so smart. You didn’t even have to study for that exam. Wow. Now, what are you actually telling the child that if the child needs to study to perform well in a future exam, we must be stupid.

Mark Podolsky: Oh yeah, I mean, we’re, we’re so effort, based in this House, I never tell my kids. They’re smart and they actually tried to label themselves because they’ll say, Oh, my friends are smarter, the grandparents will say you’re so smart. I say, well, that’s not really the case.

Mark Podolsky: Here you’re, you’ve got some talent but everyone’s got some town. I think what separates you is because my kids do pretty well in school.

Mark Podolsky: I say, look, you know what separates us from your effort, like you work really hard. And if you work like I had a like my my son’s in

Mark Podolsky: freshman in college right now and he’s sort of struggling on what a class. I said, look, if you’re studying eight hours a day in this class.

Mark Podolsky: And this is your best and you get a sci fi proud of that. See you worked really hard for that, see, like, that’s great. I’ll be proud of it. But, you know, and I know

Mark Podolsky: If you didn’t do your best, then learn from it and you know it’s a transition, but it’s all about. It’s about all about effort and

Mark Podolsky: You know, you can look at people like Lebron James say oh you know he’s built that way or he didn’t know that town that guy works so hard. He works harder than anybody. We’re

Rock Thomas: Yeah.

Rock Thomas: It’s just all the time. You’re right. Hundred percent right all the top people do and you dig down behind the scenes you find out that they pay the price. Price of practice and private to perform in public, like the pro

Rock Thomas: And what people don’t get also is that when they’re up there, they have other stresses, like they have media publicity, they’re under a magnifying glass.

Rock Thomas: They’ve got people that are, you know, judging them for their endorsement deals and

Rock Thomas: They’ve got to sit down with contracts and they’re going to manage all of those stresses and options and choices that people don’t really talk about. So yes, their first world problems. I agree.

Rock Thomas: Lot of problems people say they would like to have, but it’s a different skill set to be able to manage all of those expectations, etc.

Rock Thomas: We talked a lot about, you know, it’s one thing to get to the top of the mountain. It’s another thing to stay there, because now people have these expectations that LeBron has got to

Rock Thomas: Make the block the dunk at a critical time and if he doesn’t, then who is he, how will that be so there’s a different set of stresses for people that get there, but I love the fact that you get that

Rock Thomas: That it all comes down to effort. And I think as a society. Let me remind everybody that, you know, encourage people around you for the effort they put in. It’s the one thing that’s measurable results like a harvest will come when they come

Rock Thomas: So Mark, thanks so much for being with us. Let me remind the listeners of the words that follow. I am following you. So describe yourself with intent and maybe as in the second mountains.

Rock Thomas: With a purpose driven intent for yourself and look forward to maybe modeling, some of the things that Mark has talked about today, as far as lifestyle is concerned, I think it’s super cool and

Rock Thomas: You’ll get all in all the show notes ways that you can get in touch with Mark. If you have an interest in learning from the niche that he’s created and is prospering from thank you so much for being on the call today, Mark.

Mark Podolsky: Rock Thomas. Thank you so much for having me.