How Mike Balcom Makes $1M / Year Flipping Land (While Traveling Around The World)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business

"How Mike Balcom Makes $1M / Year Flipping Land (While Traveling Around The World)"

Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Mike Balcom
Date: April 16, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Brian Luebben sits down with land-flipping expert Mike Balcom to break down how Mike built a nearly 7-figure business flipping land – all while traveling around the globe for extended periods each year. The conversation dives deep into leadership, team building, delegation, and operational systems that allow for both scale and true freedom. Real estate nuts-and-bolts, mindset, and culture are all discussed, with Mike sharing both practical and philosophical insights for ambitious entrepreneurs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mike Balcom’s Background and Path to Land Flipping

• Mike’s Journey (03:21)
  • 10 years in real estate: started in single-family, moved into multifamily, then self-storage.
  • Land flipping began about 3.5–4 years ago, sparked by rescuing a friend’s properties headed to tax auction – netted $120k on first land deal.
  • Rapid success led him to focus exclusively on land, leveraging systems and teams.

Notable Quote:
"My father still does not believe in my business model, but years and years and years later, we're still kicking. We grew a large team. Money's going well. We make a healthy six figures every year. You know, looking to cross that seven figure threshold in a year. Getting very close to it. And life is very good, man. No complaints." — Mike (03:21)

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2. Team Building & Organizational Structure

• Outsourcing & Delegation (04:14)

  • Mike admits he "loves to work hard…but I’m also probably one of the laziest people you’ll ever meet."
  • Nine full-time core team members; about 30 part-time “data scrubbers” for property research.
  • Roles are clearly defined, with a strong emphasis on autonomy ("You are CEO of due diligence.")

• Data Scrubbing Explained (05:01)

  • Research team reviews every potential property before any outreach, eliminating 60–70% of targets to save marketing dollars.
  • Not recommended for beginners, but invaluable at scale.

Notable Quote:
"Anything that crosses my desk, if I don't want to do it, I'm always just trying to pawn it off to someone else. And really, as I'm sure you've learned, being around the space so long, there's so many people that know more than us that we can leverage." — Mike (04:14)

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3. Systems That Drive Freedom

• Travel & Autonomy (08:04)

  • Mike takes one month off every year (often no connectivity) – and the team keeps executing.
  • Profit-sharing and accountability systems encourage initiative and ownership.
  • Team example: Platform outage in Africa—team pivoted to cold calling on their own.

• Philosophy on Passivity

  • Real passivity comes from “profit AND people.”
  • You need margin to hire, and you must train people to own their lanes.

Notable Moment:
Mikes says, “Everybody on my team, whatever their role is. I might tell you, like, Brian, you are CEO of due diligence. Like, you are a master at this... We've been really good at really teaching our team to just take accountability and run the business like it's their own.” (08:11)

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4. Avoiding Common Mistakes in Land Flipping

• Analysis Paralysis (21:03)

  • Biggest obstacle: People overthink, under-act.
  • “Less than 1% of people that even hear this will even do anything about it.” — Mike & Ajay Sharma (21:20)

• Micromanagement

  • Successful operators hire for competence, use delegation frameworks (e.g., Dan Martell’s 1-3-1 rule).

Dan Martell’s 1-3-1 Rule (22:19)

• When a team member encounters a problem:
  1. State the problem
  2. Offer three possible solutions
  3. Choose their preferred solution
• Drives agency and reduces founder bottlenecks.

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5. How and When to Delegate: Scaling Lessons

• Early Outsourcing (16:23)

  • Delegate admin and “tedious” tasks ASAP—hire even before you think you need to if it frees you for $100/hr+ work.

• Hiring Philosophy

  • Hire for culture first; skills can be trained.
  • Test “figure it out” muscle — can team members learn independently?
  • Key delegation transitions: cold texting, calling counties, and eventually all sales calls.
  • “I haven’t picked up the phone (sales) in a year and a half.” — Mike (30:59)

Notable Quote:
"So for me, the first things I always delegate out is what does not light you up? You know, what are you not like, ‘Oh, I can't wait to do this,’ or what do you feel like you don't thrive at?" — Mike (30:59)

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6. Executive Assistants & Core Team

• EA is the first crucial hire when truly seeking freedom.
  • Mike’s EA runs major operations, starts new business lines, manages large teams—even though she was his “second pick.”
  • “Car ride test”: Only hire someone you’d want to take a long road trip with.
  • Let go quickly if it’s not a fit.

Hiring Tip:
"Make sure you'd be okay going on a long car trip with them. And especially an EA—I meet with mine every morning for 30 minutes…we build an amazing relationship." — Mike (39:33)

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7. Company Culture & Longevity

• Cultural Fit Over Everything: (26:47)

  • “We hire everybody for culture. Yeah. Do they meet the core values? Are they competent?”
  • Dream team = people you’d take with you to any business, not just land flipping.

• Embracing Feedback and Truth-Telling: (28:10)

  • Mike and Brian share stories about hiring and promoting people who challenge them and drive improvement—even if it’s uncomfortable.
  • True “stars” challenge processes and help leaders see their blind spots.

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8. The Vision: Growth vs. Maintenance

• Passive? Or Build the Empire? (44:01)

  • Mike is driven to keep building (“If I didn’t do this, what would I do?”) inspired by mentors with $100M+ net worths who are still active.
  • Two focuses: scaling land operations (subdivides, larger deals) and building a new CRM tailored to land investors.

• Final Lessons on Action vs. Inaction (48:29)

  • “Entrepreneurship is doing what most people won’t now, so you can live the rest of your life how most people can’t.”
  • Repeated emphasis: It is “easy to win” if you take action, as so few actually do.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Systems & Passivity:
  “Passivity is found on the other sides of profit and people. And so people ignore that... a lot of our guys are in the beginning. I'm so sorry for people listening. Like my nose is dying. And if you saw me on camera, you really feel even worse for me.” — Brian, with humor and candor (10:15)

• On Culture and Teams:
  "My team, I would take them with me anywhere and everywhere, and I love them for that." — Mike (33:07)

• On Pricing Overseas Talent:
  "I’m cheap, man. I’m very cheap. Cut your number in half. And that's like my ballpark. Almost everyone on my team right now is in the four to six dollars range." — Mike (19:45)

• On Implementation and Action:
  "Less than 1% of people that even hear this will even do anything about it." — Ajay Sharma, relayed by Mike (21:20)

• On Long-Term Vision:
  "Game plan is keep building the empire." — Mike (44:01)

• On Leadership & Feedback:
  "That was a hard transition for me, just firing myself from sales calls. But now I can’t imagine going back." — Brian (34:51)

• On Work Ethic:
  "The one thing you can always control in your life is your work ethic." — Mike (48:29)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Mike’s Background & Big First Deal: 03:21–04:14
• Team Structure & Data Scrubbing: 04:14–07:51
• Systems, Passivity & Travel: 08:04–10:53
• Common Pitfalls in Land Flipping: 21:03–22:19
• Delegation & First Major Hires: 16:23–18:47; 26:47–28:10
• Dan Martell’s 1-3-1 Rule Explainer: 22:19–24:27
• Executive Assistant Insights: 35:57–39:33
• Vision for the Future: 44:01–45:41
• Philosophy: Work Ethic and Action: 48:29–49:19

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Where to Find Mike Balcom

• Email: [e-mail]
• Text: 1377-35631 (Google Voice; “no one ever texts!”)

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a masterclass in building a leveraged, high-profit business that enables a life of exploration and freedom. Mike’s story showcases the power of systems, hiring, and culture over “hustle” alone—and gives a candid look at real mistakes and lessons learned. The episode is as much about the “who” and the “how” as the “what.” If you want to scale any entrepreneurial venture, the playbook shared here translates far beyond just flipping land.

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Transcript

[A]

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Acton Academy Podcast, Corporate America's least favorite podcast. This is the show that helps you replace corporate with cash flow through buying small businesses and big old commercial real estate deals. Now, for anybody that's been following the show for a while, you guys know that land flipping has overtaken our Action Academy community and our podcast. We've got not one, not two, but about half of the freaking people flipping land in our group are making over 400, $500,000 in profit and within their first year. And because of that, I believe we've had about five or six Action Academy members quit their jobs through building land flipping businesses. For those that are new to the podcast, my name is Brian Lubin. I left a six figure corporate sales job in March of 2022 to travel full time around the world and build my own business, which is the Action Academy community that we're talking about. Our business model is simple. We give you all the information you could eat on the podcast for free and we implement it within the community. And today's guest is a systems and process expert that has been helping a lot of our land guys build and systematize their businesses, build out teams so that the businesses truly run without them. Mike Balcombe is our guest today and not only does he share how he flips raw land, literally, he buys land off market, puts it on the MLS lists, it sells it for huge amounts of profit. But how he built his team to be able to operate this while he travels around the world. He's going to India, he's going to Africa, and the business operates in the background with, without him. So guys, I hope you enjoyed today's show and if you're interested in learning how to do this yourself, we have our Action Academy community that you can go in the show description, click the link, book a call, we're happy to speak with you for 15 minutes and see if it's a fit. Let's get to it. All right. All right. Mike Balcombe, how are you doing, my friend?

[B]

I am doing great. How are you doing today, Brian?

[A]

Man, I am doing awesome. I can't breathe, but that's okay. Like, that's fine. Who needs, who needs oxygen, right? Like we got, we got microphones and airpods. Like we don't know. We don't need oxygen. So no, I'm very excited to meet you, man. You have blown up within our Action Academy community without even being in the Action Academy community comment yet because you came and spoke, I believe, to our land Flippers to our land. People with Brian and Landon and Jake and all of them. And they were raving about you. They're like, mike is the real deal. Mike rocks. Like, Mike knows his stuff. You need to have him on the podcast to share with thousands of people. And so now here we are. Brian introduced us, and now we get to share your light, share your land with. With the rest of the country, man. So what's up? Welcome.

[B]

Oh, I love it. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, you run such a phenomenal group. You know, a lot of them just happen to come into my ecosystem and it's been a blast hanging out with those guys. We're all learning from each other and happy to help and your community any way I can, dude.

[A]

It's just such a reciprocal relationship. We got guys in our community that run other communities. And it's just like the way that I see it is anybody that's a hoarder of knowledge and a hoarder, they're like, I'm going to keep my secret sauce over here. Like, that's not a person I want to connect with. But I just go and I share everything with everyone and they share it, and it's just. I think that's the best way to be, man. So tell us a little bit for people that are unfamiliar with you, you know, who are you? What do you do today? You know, what's the business look like today?

[B]

Yeah, so I'm Mike Balcombe. I am a land flipper. I've been in the real estate world about 10 years now. A lot of different facets of it, but about three and a half, four years ago, land flipping kind of fell into my lap and I thought, this is way too good to be true. I think my father still does not believe in my business model, but years and years and years later, we're still kicking. We grew a large team. Money's going well. We make a healthy six figures every year. You know, looking to cross that seven figure threshold in a year, Getting very close to it. And life is very good, man. No complaints.

[A]

I'm curious. So a lot of our guys maybe have one or two VAs that are working on their land flipping team. And I'm curious, like, what does your org chart kind of look like today? And like, who is full time, who's contractor, who's. Who are you mentioned something about like scrubbers, like, what's the team look like today?

[B]

Yeah, great question. So I gotta tell you, Brian, I love to work hard. I love to get things done. But I'm also probably one of the laziest people you'll ever meet in your life. So anything that crosses my desk, if I don't want to do it, I'm always just trying to pawn it off to someone else. And really, as I'm sure you've learned, being around the space so long, there's so many people that know more than us that we can leverage. We can bring them on our team. They rather just be pigeonholed into one spot. So we started doing that more and more and more. Now I have, I believe it's nine full time team members. And then we also started scrubbing our data this year and we hired one person for that and they were way too slow. So we brought on another and another and another. And now we have somewhere about 30 people that do data scrubbing for us as well. So it is wild.

[A]

What do you constitute as data scrubbing? What does that mean?

[B]

Yeah, so an issue that we had last year, an issue that we've always had in the land space. You know, you do a lot of research, picking out markets, figuring out potentially what the price of each property will be, your average price per acre, things like that. And then you send out all this mail or all these text messages or however you're going about doing your outreach, and then you might get something back. You start analyzing it and they're like, wait, this, this is literally a cliff. I'm buying. This property is garbage. I would never want this in my life. And it's like, why'd you spend all that time? Why'd you spend that trouble? Why'd your team hop on the phone with them? So this year we decided let's just look at every property first before we do any outreach at all. So now we have a team that goes through and they look at every single property individually on the GIS map. We use land ID and they'll look on there to see is there wetlands, floodplains, you know, does it look like vacant land? But the house next door is owned by the same person. Is it next to a cemetery, a dump site? Is it sloped? Really what's going on with the property? And it's something we've actually tried to build out with AI and different things there. The challenges we have with that is something might have wetlands on it, but if it's 50 acres and the wetlands are in the back, who cares? Or if it's right in the front where a driveway will be. This is a huge issue now. So because of that, we just built out this team of data scrubbers and it's shocking, about 60 to 70% of all the land we would have targeted now gets knocked off of our list.

[A]

Right out the gate before you even send. Your preferred outreach is tax.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Text is our main outreach. Yeah. So before any of those texts ever go out, we're doing that because we found too we'd have these texts go out, they may not be interested now they get put on a drip campaign, nine, 10, 11 months later, they finally come back into our ecosystem. Our team gets them on the phone, it goes to underwriting and then we're like, we, you couldn't get this property to us. And also that's why we started changing all of that this year. And it's, it's been a huge help. It's crazy how much it has changed the game for us.

[A]

Would you recommend somebody that's getting started to go in this direction or is this a luxury that you have with kind of economies of scale later down the road?

[B]

Yeah, it's definitely if somebody was just getting started. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this if somebody's just getting started. We started doing it for other people selfishly, just because we want to keep these data scrubbers busy and they've gone through 500,000 records of our own and I want to make sure they stay busy so they're still there when we have more data for them to go through. So if somebody was starting it, they could reach out to us to do it or they can just send out mailers, text RVMs, cold emails, whatever they want to. It's not a necessity, but it will save you so much in marketing dollars. I think it's worth it. But if you're just starting out, I don't know if I'd tell you to like oversee a whole team doing it because it's a pain to just manage that much. So yeah, economies of scale play a huge role in this.

[A]

So let's go back a little bit. So right now we've got this almost seven figure land flipping business that you're operating. You just said you're about to go to India, so what's, what's going on in India and how are you able to go travel to India while your land business operates without you?

[B]

What's going on in India, man, I have no idea, but I'll find out next month. A really good friend of mine, my best friend, we started this about six years ago. We try to go out of the country for close to a month every single year just to explore do like a mini retirement, a mini retreat, whatever you want to call it, you know, big fan of Tim Ferriss, the four hour work week. So we like to do that every year. One thing I'm really proud of with my team is teaching them to kind of take the reins. Everybody on my team, whatever their role is. I might tell you, like, Brian, you are CEO of due diligence. Like, you are a master at this. You're a CEO, you figure out what should be going on. So we've been really good at really teaching our team to just take accountability and run the business like it's their own. We also have a nice commission, profit share with the whole team, no matter what their role is. So it really helps them kind of take ownership of it. So because of that, I have the luxury to go travel somewhere. And my team knows I'm going to be off the grid for three weeks. There's a good chance I will have no Internet, no reception, nothing. I mean, I will tell you, my team is so great at this stuff. Last year I was actually in Africa, and when I was in Africa, I would have Internet 30 minutes a day. That was it. While I was there, texting was our main outreach. The texting platform completely went down and I was so shocked because when I got back, I talked to other business owners and they're like, yeah, it was so hard. I had to figure out what to transition my team to or what to do or anything. I'm like, man, I was shocked. My team started cold calling. You know, they, they didn't have a dialer, they didn't have the proper systems built out. They were just using open phone and they just started cold calling random people. But they did something. They took initiative, you know, and I'm like so proud and happy for them to do that. And I think that's the key to this. It's just don't micromanage your team. Hire smart, competent people that you can trust to just take the reins and carry the business forward.

[A]

I love that. So is that in your company vision? You said to go travel one month out of the year, Every single year, man.

[B]

Company vision. I don't have a company vision, but it's not a bad idea. You know, I'd love to put it in there. It's kind of just in the back of the head every year, travel out of the country. And actually over these last couple of years, I've been traveling more and more and more. So I'm, I'm addicted to it. In this business, you can do Anywhere in the world. Which is amazing.

[A]

Yeah. Passivity is found on the other sides of profit and people. And so people ignore that. They're just like, oh, real estate, passive income. I'm gonna go buy a business. I'm gonna hire an operator. Passive income. Got it. Okay. So it's that easy. Right? And we literally do that full time for our business. It's like we teach people how to do this. And I say, okay, well you're buying a business that doesn't have enough margin for you to have the passivity that you want because you can't hire it, because somebody else has to do it. Because it can't be passive for everyone. So a lot of our guys are in the beginning. I'm so sorry for people listening. Like my, my nose is dying. And if you saw me on camera, you, you feel even worse for me. But a lot of our people.

[B]

This is Mike with the sniffles. Brian is absolutely killing it right now on the pod. This is 100% on me. Worst guest in history.

[A]

Yeah, it's the worst. Like I am allergic to Mike. It's insane. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So a lot of our guys are landfill guys. You know, they're kind of doing a solo shop right now. You know, maybe they're making a few hundred thousand dollars in profit. Most of them are, which is insane. You know, they're 2, 3, $400,000 of net free take home profit. But they maybe have like 1 VA or 2 VAs that are doing this. If. Can you take us back to Mike that's just starting out, just getting into land flipping. And take us through like the building of your team piece by piece, person by person.

[B]

Yeah. So starting on the land flipping space is pretty wild for me. I was in the housing space for a while, had a small portfolio of single family homes. Slowly from there, started selling off some of that capital and then investing that into multifamily, some self storage. And then at the time I was actually studying underwriting to underwrite value add deals and man, I just absolutely hated it. There's so much money to be made in there. The value add's amazing, very lucrative. But underwriting those deals are just, it's so complex, so hard to do and just not my cup of tea at the time though. I'm constantly talking to people about real estate, telling them in the game, letting them know some things I have going on. And it was actually a friend of mine, had six properties he was going to lose at tax auction. So he came to me, he's like, Mike, would you be interested? We negotiated back and forth. We ended up coming to great terms on it. I picked up the back taxes on it. And then I bought that from him. Five. Well, I bought it from him within five days. Fastest closing the title company's ever done. We closed the same day it was supposed to go to auction. So we're able to stop the auction from happening. And then I was actually able to sell it to a builder in that same area. These six lots, they were just quarter acre lots in an HOA and it actually ended up netting me about 120,000. It was unbelievable. Yeah, great, great way to start the land business. You know, it's like, this is easy, man. You know, why doesn't everybody do this? I unfortunately, no deals like that have ever fallen into my lab. Just from a buddy I know. But when I did this, at the time I had a VA who was helping me just manage some different clients. I had. I coached pickleball as well on the side, just for fun. And he knew I was always looking at another side. Hustle, ways to make money, things like that. So then he started poking around and he said, mike, there's actually educational programs that'll teach you how to flip land. I think we should sign up for that. So we signed up for one of those guru programs. We learned how to do it. And then it was just him and I. We worked side by side, so to speak, virtually, because he was in the Philippines. And we started building this business, started picking out markets, figuring out price breaker, started sending out blind offers. He would do the due diligence side of. In some of the data side. I would talk on the phone with everybody. And then we discovered texting. And then we hired someone to start texting for us. Then we hired someone to totally handle the dd. Edmund was that first va. He was just handling market selection. And unfortunately, the only downside to this whole story is I love Edmund to death. He was the early VA of mine. He had been with me for years. Unfortunately, I think I ran him into the Peter Principle. I kept promoting him higher and higher and higher to a place where he really needed to be micromanaged to do a great job, which is so unfortunate. So eventually we had to let him go. But the team kept trailing on and we just kept scaling from there as much as we could.

[A]

Yeah, so talk about that. Talk about that principle I've never heard. Is that a specific principle that you're referencing?

[B]

Yeah. So Peter Principle is just known as if somebody comes into your organization any Organization, as you start promoting them higher and higher and higher, eventually you promote them to a level that they cannot achieve. So you're essentially setting them up for failure. And we see this at times, and we often see this in business. Somebody who's an amazing engineer may not be great at running an engineering firm. So this guy was amazing at doing the work when him and I were right there on a zoom call together. Or it's like, oh, let's look at this market. He wants me to review it. Then he dives in the nitty gritty as eventually the team gets bigger and bigger. And it's like, okay, you just pick the markets. This person's just going to text. I'll just pick up the phone calls. Eventually, his work got worse and worse and worse, started diminishing, and nobody was really there to look over his shoulder and make sure things were getting met. Right. And eventually we just scaled him up to a place that he could not sustain, unfortunately. So then we had to let him go. And that's the Peter principle. Just moving somebody up to a level that they cannot handle anymore.

[A]

Wow. I feel bad for the original Peter that that was named after. That sounds terrible. Like, that guy. Yeah, that guy must have really dropped it. Wow. No, that's the first time I've heard that. But I've seen that. I've definitely seen that. And I. I can completely understand where that comes from, because that's almost like a promotion out of necessity before, like, the actual, like, skill set. You're like, oh, okay, well, I'm just gonna move this person on my team up into this role. And now all of a sudden, your VP of operations or your VP of marketing, or, you know, know, your VP of sales or, like, whatever position that you say, and you're like, okay, this is you now. And they're like, wait, I don't know how to do this. And you're like, well, I don't know how to do this. I just started the company. Like, I don't know. And then you just kind of fail together. And so, yeah, I could. I could definitely see that. So are there specific profit milestones or metrics or markers where you're like, okay, at this? After I made a hundred thousand, I hired help. I hired this position. After 200,000, I hired this position. Once we're doing a consistent amount of X amount of deals per month or we had X amount of volume, then I was like, okay, we can have a transactions person or an acquisitions person. Were there any, like, metrics that you can give that are rules of thumb for your acquisitions team.

[B]

It's hard to give rules of thumb in that regard because what's sometimes hard in this business is you get into some deals, some deals turn quick, some deals turn slow. But as long as you're starting to get that pipeline profit in there, you know, and you have proof of concept, I think it makes sense to hire out, especially with some of these roles. I think what was really eye opening for me in this business was I started texting. I texted for a whopping two days and I studied all about how to text, what to say, wrote all these quick replies, these templates, all this other stuff going on. And then I posted an ad for a texter. I found this phenomenal girl. Her name's Elise. She's been with the company over two years now. I'm actually going to Pakistan and beginning of December to go to her wedding. She came in and she did not follow any of my SOPs, and she did not use any of my quick replies, any of the templates, anything else. And our response rate was way better. And she did such a better job. And, you know, I think there was just kind of the moment where I'm like, wow, there's so many people out here. I think so much of us as business owners have this idea of, oh, I need to learn how to do this so I can teach someone else. And I don't think that's necessarily the correct frame of thinking. You know, you just look at some of these massive companies. I look at something as simple as Amazon. Do you think Jeff Bezos knows how to drive a box truck? You know, that's essentially what the company does all day long, is just deliver packages through box trucks. And also this idea of we have to learn every single thing in the business I think will prevent you from starting to scale it. And then something as simple as texting, it's a very simple skill that I would imagine all of your listeners, it's not the best use of their time. So I'm a big fan of starting to, you know, quickly hand off tasks that are just. They're tasks that are tedious, that need to get done, but they're not necessarily complex or really hard to do. So I would start looking at that very, very soon. Because if I'm on the phone with the seller, you know, I might be able to make anywhere between a 10 to a 200k spread on that phone call. When I'm texting, I'm just starting the process. No matter what I do, I'm not going to be winning a deal right there. And it just takes so much time. So I just don't think it's the best use of time. So I'm a big fan of looking at all those trade offs and just what takes time, what's annoying. Hand that off to someone else. And a lot of labor out there you can find really cheap if you start outsourcing this to other countries, anywhere from, you know, $2 an hour to $15 an hour and everything in between. So I'm a big fan of just handing off some of those lower level tasks early on.

[A]

Yeah. So you can actually think about things like a business owner and not just another investor that's doing this as a side project. Martell talks a lot about this. And buy back your time where it establishment of your personal hourly rate. How much is your time worth if you're only on sales calls all the time? And then how do you say it's like worth $100 an hour even, which would be low for a CEO. Say it's $100 an hour. Okay, cool. Then that means that every single thing that's A$15 an hour activity needs to be off of your plate and that's leverage for you to be focused on your $100 an hour activities. And so I love, I love what you're saying there. My next question was going to be, you know, what are you getting this talent for? And it sounds like it's between 2 to $15. So that's kind of what I'm seeing for virtual assistants and our team probably between like 10 to $12 is kind of what we're seeing for somebody that's actually pretty decently sophisticated, somebody that is critically thinking, that's operating, that can do stuff on their own. We're seeing about 10 to 12. Is that kind of sample part?

[B]

No, no, I, I'm cheap, man. I'm very cheap. Cut your number in half. And that's like my ballpark. Almost everyone on my team right now is in the four to six dollars range.

[A]

Dang. I need a. Yeah, okay, fine, you win. But no, we, we. I think we have two. I mean, it also matters because of how much like volume you have. So you have so many team members and I've got like two or three. So that makes sense also. So are you running these guys and girls 40 hours a week? 20 hours a week, like just variable. What are you running?

[B]

All of them are 40 hours a week.

[A]

Okay, cool. So that's why you're looking for the extra work to make sure that they're fully like booked and busy, right?

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And they do a good job. And I mean we've hired leaders in the business that thou manage the rest of the team, which is really good and we're all kind of aligned in our vision.

[A]

Where do land investors go wrong? What's the way, what's the difference between a successful land investor like you that has achieved scale and that can achieve a level of passivity to where you could travel a month out of the year and, and almost make a million dollars take home per year? You know, what's the difference between that guy and the guy or girl that starts and they're like land flipping, I'm going to go do that. And they just never seem to get traction or maybe they get a few deals done and then they just kind of fizzle off.

[B]

Yeah. How much time do we have again? Enough ways that people go wrong. I mean there's a lot of them. They really are, I think some of the most common ones. One which is so common just in the real estate space as a whole is people getting caught up in this analysis paralysis. You know, I think that's really hard. People just questioning like, is this the right market to go into? Should I do this? Anything there and really just taking action. You know Brian D. Who's part of your community as well, I worked with him a little bit and I mean he's just freaking crushing it. You know, I, I gotta start from that guy now. It's unbelievable. But he's a dude who took massive action. You know where I talk with a good friend of mine, Ajay Sharma, he's pretty well known in the space. Him and I joke a lot because he'll go on podcasts and he'll let out the secret sauce, so to speak, you know, and him and I are talking about, I'm like, how could you tell everybody to do that, man? Like double dial. You can't tell him to do that. You know, we're doing that. Nobody else is going to do that. He's like, Mike, nobody takes action. Less than 1% of people that even hear this will even do anything about it. So I think that's one key thing there that messes a lot of people up. I think the other thing is micromanaging. You know, I'm a big fan of hiring competent people. Hire people. And it's a lot like what Dan Martell does. We implement the 1:3:1 rule in our business as well.

[A]

And I really, we just started it.

[B]

Yeah, I love it. To death. Yeah.

[A]

Tell them what the one three one is.

[B]

Yeah. So those, for those of you who don't know, 131 rule. So from now on, and this is how you start doing upward delegation. Anytime a team member has a problem, they're not allowed to come with you with that problem until they have three potential solutions. So the first one is, what is the problem? They have to articulate to that to you. Then they have to give you three potential solutions. And then the last one is, what solution do they think is best? So we love doing this in our business. At first, it really drove my team crazy because they say, mike, how do I do this? I'll say, what's your 13 1? And they're like, oh, I don't know. I'm like, that's okay. I have time. You know, and most things that are we think are urgent are typically not that urgent, you know, and now, so often they come to me with a problem, and sometimes they'll say, mike, this is the problem. These are solutions. I think this is what I think we should do. Or sometimes they'll say, mike, I have this issue. I say, what's your one three one? And about five to 10 minutes later, they say, actually, I got it resolved. Thanks so much. You know, and it's just one less thing off the plate.

[A]

And it goes from you having to critically think about solving a problem that just got randomly thrown at you when you. When you're in the middle of deep work to now it's a yes or a no. And we literally started doing this in Tulum. We just threw this event for a hundred people. And in Tulum, we had catering and all this stuff. Like, it was just off. Like, we had so many issues. It's just the nature of the beast with that many people. And, you know, then everyone's coming up, what do we do? What do we do? And I'm like, all right, one three one. And one of my guys was like, all right, I think we should do this, this, or this. I was like, which one do you think is best? He goes, that. I was like, do that. And it worked out. And so now it's just, like, a cornerstone of our business. I think that's freaking genius. You guys that are listening can use that with your property managers, with anybody that's on your team. The 131 is, like, the best because it just saves up. Like, there's so much that your team could figure out on their own because there's a reason that you hire them, because they're Competent and capable. And so it just. You are your own bottleneck if every single decision has to flow through you. Now, obviously the most important decisions need to flow through you.

[B]

And.

[A]

And there should be a very well designated sandbox for those decisions to play in for. If somebody on your team is going through one of those decisions, they're like, oh, this is definitely a mic question. A hundred percent. Uh, so what is that for you? Like, what are your parameters for a decision where you're like, okay, this one isn't necessarily a one three one. Bring this one directly to me. Which one would that be for you?

[B]

I don't think we have one. No matter what it is, I'm.

[A]

You just let them. You just let them replace.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I'm really trying to train my team to a place where they do not need me at all. You know, my outreach coordinator right now, Elise, the one who I'm going to the wedding with, you know, right now, the plan is for her to run the whole entire business in the next few years. So there's really a moment where I wouldn't ask them for 13 1, you know, and really to a lot of problems, I don't look at them until we have like a signed contract or anything. And then even if the team brings something, I just say, what's the one three one? You know, and whatever they say, I typically go with it. But, like, this is where I think so many people have. The issue is they think they have to micromanage. They think they have to make all the decisions. And it's not implementing things like the 131 rule that makes it so hard. And I think a rule like that is really hard to implement because what happened in the past is this person working for you now, Brian. They might have worked for somebody else. You know, they had an idea, they did the idea, then they got chewed out for doing that. You know, where in my business, I really. I pride people for failing. I'm like, go out there, try and fail, and then fail again and fail again. Because that's how we become professionals. That's how we become experts at this. So I'm a big fan of handing the reins over to my company and saying, you figure it out. You know, we're all in this together. We have a shared commission split. We all want the same thing for the vision of the company. Make it happen. What would you do? If you're in my shoes and if somebody's constantly coming to us and they're not able to just figure these things out, we Just red flag. Yeah, we just. We want competent people. We want hungry people, we want confident people that can figure things out.

[A]

Do you. Are you hiring people to that point? Are you hiring for more so culture and then you're just training them on the systems, or are you hiring people that you're like, oh, okay, you're like a cold call expert. You're a data scrubbing expert on upwork, on onlinejobs, ph or wherever, and then you're like, just integrating them to your culture.

[B]

We hire everybody for culture. Yeah. Do they meet the core values? Are they competent? A good rule of thumb that we typically do. Depending on what they're interviewing for, we will send them a test for that. So let's say they want to do due diligence. You know, we might say, okay, you're applying to do due diligence. You know, fill out a spreadsheet and run some due diligence on a property. If you don't know how to do it, here's a YouTube video explaining how to do due diligence. And we'll just send them some guru's video on how to do dd. And then we see, like, were they able to watch that video? Were they able to put those numbers on a sheet? You know, so we look a lot for that. And it's, it's really a big thing of, you know, your job is to figure out how to do great at your job. You know, it's not my job to tell you how to do great. So we're big, big fans of that, you know, and then we have some systems and processes we'll teach them on. But we've really found, like, when you hire a star, you know, they're a star within the first week or two, and they will go above and beyond, and then they will kind of knock you out of the park or they'll start coming to you and saying, brian, you're an idiot. Why does your process say this? It takes us an extra 45 minutes, man. Like, isn't this a waste of time? You know, and then if you're a good leader, and I'm sure you are, you're going to say, wow, thank you. Yeah, I am an idiot. That's why I hired you, is to find these things that are an issue in the company and then you fix it, you know?

[A]

No, we just, we just get into a street fight in the parking lot. Yeah. Yeah, I love it.

[B]

Yeah, it's my way or the highway. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's all ego over here. No, that's One of my assistants. So the irony is I hired an executive assistant and Stephanie, and she was just too good, so I had to promote her. I was like, you're too good to be my assistant. Like, because she was giving me feedback right out the gate, like bold feedback, where literally there was a time where like we got the phone together. And I was just like, I don't know who you think you are that I be coming here, like, telling me this stuff right out the gate. And she's like, well, it's the truth and you don't want to hear it. And I was just like, I'm firing you so fast. But then I like, cool down. I was just like, wait a second. It's like, she's a truth teller. Like now there's, there's. And that's to go back to Amazon and Jeff Bezos that you mentioned before. That's what's valued most in their company. Now there's difference between being what's. What's called a truth teller and a dick, right? You don't want to be a dick and you do want to be professional. And there is candor to where you talk up, you talk down, you talk shoulder to shoulder, you talk face to face. And there's always a mutual, mutually giving respect to everyone. But she was one of the first ones on the team to actually tell me what the truth was. And she's like, this is broken, this is wrong. And I think this new thing that you're trying to start is it isn't the right thing for this reason. And it was a data driven and a data backed thesis. And I was like, interesting. I don't like that you're telling me this, but I'm gonna sit on it and if the data supports it, but I'm gonna go with what you decide. And so that was, that was. Now here she is six months later and she's now our growth director. So she's overgrowth for us. So she's crushing something I wanna highlight with you. And the irony is for people listening, we're not talking that much about land, you know, because you can go on YouTube and you can go on one of our 30 podcasts on land, or you can join wherever and you could learn land. It's, you know, you, you buy dirt, you do, you do marketing, you buy dirt, you listen on the mls. That's basically, that's basically the process. But there's just so much nuance and team building and systems and process and leadership. Like, this is the stuff that actually gets you the scale and the passivity that you guys are looking for, not what mailers am I sending, what, you know, what SMS campaigns am I sending. That's the nuanced stuff. But, like, the stuff we're talking about here is really big. So, Mike, something I noticed from you as a leader and as a CEO is self awareness. So you came out the gate and you said, I hate underwriting. Oh, I hate building out SMS campaigns and prompts, but throw me on a sales call, I'll crush. Can you give some advice about, you know, to a leader or somebody that wants to be a leader about identifying where they actually crush and what they're good at versus what they should delegate immediately?

[B]

Yeah, that is, man, what a hard question. So think.

[A]

Sorry, I mean, how do you flip land?

[B]

Yeah, you just send out some neutral postcards, man. You become a millionaire overnight. It's easy. No, in terms of delegation, what I always look for. So to know whether you crush or not, I think is really hard. Because I will tell you, if you would have talked to me, you know, two and a half, three years ago when I brought on my texter, I would have said, brian, I'm an amazing texter, you know, and then she started working in a few weeks later, I'm like, man, I am a trapped texter. Like, I had no idea. You know, I'm over here thinking I'm an A student. Like, dude, I was barely passing. Like, Cs get degrees. You know, I was barely making it there. So for me, the first things I always delegate out is what does not light you up? You know, what are you not like, oh, I can't wait to do this, or what do you feel like you don't thrive at? You know, it's, you know, we joke like, I hate underwriting. I'm about to finish a master's in finance from Harvard right now. You know, I'm. I'm really good at handling data and sheets and formulas. I just hate it, dude. I just hate it. Like, I played poker for a living for five years. I understand math very, very well and numbers, and it just doesn't light me up. You know, what really lights me up is really leading teams, growing businesses, and I am really good on the phone with people, you know, but it's also, I also haven't picked up the phone in a year and a half. I haven't made any calls. You know, my team really handles everything now, and I just love working that with them. But I think a big key to this, I was talking to a good Friend of mine not too long ago, and he's like, I'm thinking about letting go of, you know, five VAs. And I'm like, wow, okay. And he's like, yeah, we're just not getting the results we want. And this is going on, that's going on, and yada, yada, yada. And I say, I got a question for you, man. He said, what's up? I said, if you were going to shift to a different business, would you take your team with you? He's like, no, I wouldn't. And I said, then you need to let him go. My team, you know, a lot of people like you run a great land business. I don't pride myself on running a great land business. I do, but I pride myself on running a good business. I would take everybody on my team with me to another business. You know, if the government said, hey, you're not allowed to buy land anymore, like, if that started today, if they said, you're not even allowed to buy real estate, it's like, okay, we'll start a SaaS company, we'll start an AI agency, we'll do something else. And I would bring them all with me. And that's what I love about my team, and that's what I try to instill in people, is hire people that a you would trust to have your back. Like, if I'm about to step on a snake, don't let me step on it, Brian. Like, shove me out of the way. I'd rather fall on the ground and get a scratch than, you know, then step on the snake. Is, oh, no, I can't tell Mike something. You know, Mike's sensitive or I don't want to lose my job or anything else. So I'm such a big fan of that in this space and just hiring people you would take with you. And my team, I would take them with me anywhere and everywhere, and I love them for that.

[A]

Yeah. We call it light work versus heavy work. So light work doesn't mean it's necessarily easier, but it just is work that you would leap up to do, and you're. You really enjoy doing it, and you're competent and. And you're. It's in your zone of genius, and it's in your zone of passion and fun. You're like, I crush at this. And then heavy work is something that is not necessarily difficult, but it just takes forever for you to do because you hate it so much. So, for instance, an example of heavy work for me would be shipping out merch. Anybody could do that, right? But I had merch these, Jack, I'm wearing an action Academy jacket right now. I. I had 12 of them that I had to get custom embroidered in Austin, Texas and then send out to my team. It took me three months to send it to my team to go to the post office and ship these jackets. I did not want to do that. That was like a boulder for me that was dragging behind me. Whereas I'm like, oh, I'm going to go figure out an entire brand new marketing campaign or I'm going to go, you know, do all this with marketing and sales. And I was just like, oh, okay. You know, really difficult, complex stuff that you have to chew on. But it was light for me. And so that's where I sit at. And that's where, that's why I work on the faster that you can get there in your business, the more your business thrives and the more the right people are in the right seats. And for us, it was even sales. I'm a sales guy and so I did the first thousand sales calls for our community. And then afterwards I was like, nobody sells like I sell like nobody does. And to be fair, I do have the skill set that a lot of people don't possess because I put in my 10,000 hours. However, my COO Caitlin, like my community director, she crushes on the phones. So we started putting her in and now I can't imagine ever going back. I'm never going to go back to taking a sales call. And so that was such a cool transition in my business. Can you think back to any transitions in your business like that where you're just like, hard and fast, oh, there's no way. I'm not going to do this. And now you're like, no, I'm never doing that again in my business.

[B]

There's a couple things that come right off the top of my head. I'm never going to call the county again. Calling a county is just the absolute worst thing.

[A]

The worst. It's the worst.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I'd rather go to the post office all day long, you know, than call a county. Oh, it's horrible. I would never do that again. I would never text again. You know, I wouldn't do phase one and the beginning of phase two DD again. Other things, you know, it's interesting. One thing I will never do again for the rest of my life is not have an executive assistant. You know, that completely changed everything. And I know you've had Dan on here before too, but it's interesting you Talk about it took you three months to send these out. So when I hired my ea, her name's Aimee. She is. She is phenomenal. And I almost feel weird calling her my executive assistant because she's almost like an operational manager, too. And she actually manages, like, over 33 people on our team. And it's just phenomenal everything she does. And, like, she's brought in. She started new businesses within my business and brought in new revenue for us that I didn't even know was possible. But I used to have things on my to do list, and I would just keep a running to do list. And it sounds a lot like, you know, your story, too, where it's like, oh, this is on my to do list. You know, pick a new marketing campaign. Okay, well, that's more important, you know, than taking this to the post office. Or at least it's more interesting, you know, And I used to have all these things on my to do list. Some of them are on my to do list. Six, seven months. I brought IMI on board. And what was great with imi, too, is I said, look, I don't know what to teach you. I don't have an SOP for you. I don't have process for you. I don't even know what the heck you're going to do. Really. I just.

[A]

That's rough.

[B]

Yeah. I'm unorganized. I'm all over the place. You just need to understand everything I have going on in my life and make sure I'm organized and just make me more efficient, you know, make sure I'm providing the highest ROI I can for the team. You know, it's like, you are CEO of my life. That is your job now. And she took that, and then she looked at my to do list, and she started putting everything on my to do list on my calendar, and it changed everything. And things that have been on my to do list for months and months and months. In two weeks, my to do list was empty. She just locked off the time. It's like, hey, here's 45 minutes for you to get in the car, Brian, drive, you know, to FedEx, drop these off and just ship them out. And it's like, here's your allotted time. You're doing it now. And, like, just by having that structure, too, has completely changed. And now she just yells at me all the time because she's like, mike, like, put more things on your to do list. I don't know how to fill your calendar. I'm like, ah, what a great problem to Have.

[A]

Yeah. No, it's funny. Yeah. The issue that we ran into is I was just like, oh, you're too skilled for this. Like, we need to have somebody else coming in. But now, like, well, I want somebody skilled. It's exactly what you just said. You're like, oh, my gosh. Like, I almost feel bad for calling you my executive assistant. Like, you're, you're crushing Executive assistant's, I think, the hardest role to hire for. Because to your point, I went through like eight executive assistants before Estefania, and it was just like, what, what do I do? I don't know, like, figure it out. So, I mean, I think for from a hiring perspective, you need someone. Like, a good character trait is somebody that's just got like, that figure it out muscle. Someone that's just very adaptable. They're very proactive. They. They plan for things before they happen. You know, they're like, okay, I see, I see this. And they're very observant. I see this. I'm going to do this. I don't need to be told what to do. Kind of like a litmus test is you just throw them to the fire. We do a 30, 60, 90, and you throw them to the fire. And you see, are they constantly sitting there asking you for things to do or are they finding things to do? You know, I think that's the biggest muscle. Do you have any other advice that people can use for hiring an executive assistant? That's rough, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. Which you said there, by the way. You just, like, dropped bombs, man. Yeah, I don't want to overview that too quickly because that is huge. Like, people's ability to be moldable is the biggest thing I look for in my business. You know, it's why too. I say, like, I would take them anywhere with me. You know, it's like, you need to just figure stuff out and figure out how to do it. Because frankly, too, a lot of us pride ourselves on being real estate guys. Like, oh, we're so smart. We make all this money, this, that and the other. Nothing we're doing is that intelligent, man. You know, I hate to break it down that way, but at the end of the day, like, really, anybody can do this. Most people won't, but anyone can. It's really not that hard, you know, and your ability to hire someone overseas, four or five, six dollars an hour to do the same thing is totally possible. I. One of my best friends is in Ireland and he does land flipping professionally in the US From Ireland. He just lives out there. So yeah, I think that is so huge there. One thing I would say too is in terms of hiring an EA especially, but really almost everyone you bring on, like make sure you'd be okay going on like a long car trip with them. And especially in EA, like I meet with, I meet every morning for 30 minutes and it's almost a non negotiable, you know, it's like, hey, we're just going to hop on a zoom call. You're going to update me on things, I'm going to update you on anything that needs to go on and then we'll go on from there. But we build an amazing relationship and like she understands me better than my family probably does at this point, which is amazing. Also too, I think a big issue I see with people a lot of times with their team members is oh well, well, Brian's trying though, you know, he's, he's getting better, he's trying. I keep him for a little longer, see if he gets better. Oh well, you know, he's really, he's putting in the hours he's trying to get. It's like if Brian is not producing, you need to let him go because there's other Brian's out there that'll do an amazing job. You know, there's other EAs out there that'll do great. So it's, it's so funny too because even with my ea, Imi, I love this story. She was not my first hire. You know, she interviewed and this other lady named Rika interviewed and Rika ended up getting hired and Imi was my second pick. And I emailed Imi, I said, hey, thanks for interviewing. You did an amazing job. I want to let you know you were my second pick. I went through 150 applicants. You know, I interviewed 25 of them. And like you were number two. We just decided to go in a different direction because X, Y and Z and I always do this with people we don't end up hiring. I don't tell them they were second unless they were. But one thing I love is IMY responded back to me and said, Mike, thank you so much for telling me that. I'm so proud that I to know I was even, you know, your second pick. That's great. What could I do better in the future? So I know for my next interview I'm like, I love that. I'm marking that. And then sure enough, the person I ended up hiring over promised underdelivered, you know, and 10 days later and notice I say 10 days later. It's not like three months later. Like, 10 days later. I knew this wasn't the right fit. You know, could we have worked it out maybe? But, like, life is short. I got stuff to do, man. You know? So I let go of Rika. I reached back out to Imi. I said, hey, have you found a job? And she. She's such an angel. She reached out. She's like, oh, Mike, I really appreciate you reaching up on my journey. You know, I haven't found anything yet, but, you know, I really believe I'll find something soon. And I'm over here. Like, lady, I just want you to say no because I want to hire you. Like, I'm not checking up on your. You know, like, selfishly, thank you to

[A]

be with me for checking on my journey. Yeah, I like what you said about the. The car ride test. I had another executive assistant who I won't name. I just didn't like her. Like, I just was like, I don't want to talk to you. Like, she just had this really New York personality. And I thought that's what I needed. Like, somebody that was just, ah, this girl's going to get it done. You know, she's a New Yorker. She's going to figure things out. Was just like, dude, I don't like hanging out with you. I just don't like talking to you. I would avoid her calls. I was like, this just isn't fun. And I think that's important. Can you sit in a freaking car with that? Because that's. No one's going to be around you more than your executive assistant. Like, no one. And I remember Stephania sent me, like, it was like something along the lines of, she. She will bathe in the tears of my enemies. If I hire her, I was like, done. But come on. Like, you bathe in the tears of my enemies. All right, sweet. Like, you have the same sense of humor I do. Let's rock. And so we did. Now here we are. So what's next for you, man? What's. What's next? In the vision, so you said you're almost wanting to do seven figures of profit. Is this something that you want to scale to too much bigger, you know, with already like 30, 30 some odd people? Is this something that you just want to kind of sit on autopilot and then redistribute the. The. The profits into passive assets? What's the. What's the game plan?

[B]

Yeah, game plan is keep building the empire. So really, really good friend of mine, he's done extremely well in life. We're talking over a hundred million net worth real estate dude. And he's in his early 70s and he still works his butt off. And at one point I went up to him and I'm like, why do you still grind? Like, when. When is enough enough? And he looked at me and he said, mike, if I didn't do this, what would I do? And I feel very similar right now. The two big things we have going on is we're continuing to grow the land business. We're going after bigger and bigger deals. We're starting to get into more subdivide deals in that space. And then another issue we've slowly seen in the land space also is there's no phenomenal CRMs out there for land investors. So I actually partnered up with another person right now. We're actually building a new CRM as well. That just makes it a lot easier for people to manage, you know, the land operations, whether you're a solopreneur or whether you have a team of almost 40 people like me. So those are kind of the two big things going on. But I love building the business. I love just growing it more and more and more. I am definitely a visionary. You know, I'm not one to make sure the data met. So, yeah, don't ask me the nitty gritty man, because I won't know. And I think that actually surprises a lot of people because they're like, what markets are you going into now? I'm like, I don't know. They're like, mike, you can trust me. I won't go in the same market as you. I'm like, no, seriously, dude. Like, I don't know. That's not my job. Like, it's my team's job to pick the markets we're going into. You know, I don't know what markets we're going into. I don't know how many texts were sent out today. Like, my team, they're accountable for that, and they hold each other to those expectations. So I just work on growing it more and more and getting more marketing channels out there.

[A]

One of the coolest things in Tulum that we just hosted for a hundred people, a hundred of our action academy members, is my team. I went to bed and my team the next day, I was like, oh, how y' all doing? Did you sleep? They're like, no, we're up in the hot tub talking until 5:30, talking about, like, strategy and all this different stuff. I was like, that's freaking sick. I was like, that's sick. It's a Saturday, you know, in Tulum, and you stayed up until 5 o'. Clock. Like all meeting with each other, talking about how to work better together. Like, that is freaking awesome. Like, that's just discretionary effort. And to your point, all the way from before, like Brian Landon, Jake Dylan, all of our guys in Action Academy, we say no to a lot of people that like, fit the bill. You know, somebody would submit an application. They got 80 doors, 80 doors. But they don't fit the vision. They're just like, they're so stuck in their ways of I got to do this my way. I got to do this myself. I don't want to partner. I think partnerships where you get burned. I don't want to coach, I don't want to mentor. I take more than I give you. Can we call them takers on calls? And I'm just like, like, dude, you just don't fit the culture. I don't care how many doors you got, you know, but also on the flip side, sometimes I have somebody that's buying their first deal. I'm just like, you're a star. Like, you are going to thrive and get hundreds of doors and hundreds of flips in this group. And so we, we really, we really let people in based off a vibe, to be completely honest. And that's what preserves our culture. And that's why every single person in there becomes best friends with each other. And I'll add you to the group and you'll see and you'll have a freaking blast. Because you're like, oh my gosh, like these people rot. Like, Brian's a perfect example. Like, you've talked, you've spoken with a lot of our group. That's just our people and it's a self regulating culture because if somebody joins, you know, the, the main reason that people quit, because we have a 14 day full refund and then we have a 30 day, 50 refund. So that just basically covers operational costs. We're like, dude, you know, you've been in here 30 days. We have a lot of man hours, like poured into you. You know, we're going to keep a few thousand bucks, but. And people are like, oh, that's still generous. The main people that people quit when they join is because they say, now see what it takes. And I have made the conscious decision that I am not willing to do it. And I think that's the biggest win that we've ever seen in our business. Like, I printed it out. The mess the email. And I've got it, like in my office. I was like, that is the biggest win of quality that I've ever had in the business. Is somebody saying, I'm 14. I'm 14 days deep, two weeks. I now know what it takes. I'm 56 years old. I don't want to do this. My brother in Christ. Thank you. Here's your money back feed. Thank you. I was like, we're doing it right, guys. In closing, man, where can people find out more about you? If they want to partner with you, if they want to learn from you, if they want to hang out with you, if they want to go to. To India with you, where can they find you?

[B]

Yeah, I. So one quick thing I'll say on that. One of my favorite quotes is, entrepreneurship is doing what most people won't now, so you can live the rest of your life how most people can't. You know, I think that's the trick, man. It really is. The one thing you can always control in your life is your work ethic. You might have been smarter than me. You might have came from a better family. You might be stronger, better looking. Anything else. But I can outwork you. Like, I have no doubt about that. Maybe not you personally, Brian, you know, I know you're a grinder, man, you know, but like, yeah, exactly. You take action. I, I like to sit on the couch. No, but that's like such a big thing, you know, and just people aren't willing to take action. And I think that's why this world is filled with employees and not that many employers, because the employers have to lead the ship.

[A]

It's easy to win. It's really easy to win.

[B]

Yeah. And yes, if people want to reach out, please, you can reach out. You can email me. [e-mail]. so that's M, E, T at Land. L, A, N, D, the letter B, the letter H dot com. You can hit me up there. Heck, if you want to text me my number. Nobody ever texts or calls anywhere. My number is a 1377-35631. It's a Google voice number. But I do check it all the time. Nobody ever follows up on that, though, so happy to drop that too. Then again, this is Action Academy, so maybe everybody in the whole academy now going to hit me up.

[A]

Dude. Yeah, this is rip. Yeah. Well, man, this is. This has been absolutely awesome. We had a really great scale and leadership conversation like this. These are my favorite talks to have, and these are the ones that are most beneficial. So appreciate you coming on, man. It's been awesome, dude.

[B]

I appreciate it. And I gotta say, what you're doing, man, I've learned just more and more and more about what you've built. It's absolutely incredible. And, like, you're changing lives, dude. So anyone listening? At least what I can see from the outside of Action Academy and meeting all of these guys now, Heck, I had Alex up in Lake Geneva with me over the weekend too, hanging out from your group. So, yeah, amazing group, you know, And I mean, you're. You're changing people's lives, you know, and you got all these, like, micro pods going on where they can work together. It's freaking awesome, dude. It really, really is.

[A]

Appreciate it, man. Yeah, excited. Well, we'll plug you in here shortly, man, but thank you so much for coming on and I appreciate the kind words and let's. Yeah, let's partner up together soon. And with that, this has been Brian and Mike with the Action Academy podcast signing off.