The Hotel Investor Playbook

This 3-Step System Automated His Real Estate Business to 4 Hours a Month | Mark Podolsky E69

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Most investors think they're building a business, but they're actually building themselves a job. The truth? If you died tomorrow, your "business" would die with you.

A real estate investor who scaled from 80-hour weeks to just 4 hours per month reveals the exact automation framework that freed him—and how to apply it to any real estate asset, including hotels.

Mark Podolsky built a multi-million dollar land flipping operation, lost 50% of it in 2008, then rebuilt it into a passive income machine that runs without him. His approach isn't about working harder—it's about systematizing smarter.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  • The 3-step system to automate ANY real estate process: Do it, Document it, Delegate it
  • How to systemize direct-to-owner outreach for boutique hotels (instead of competing on broker listings)
  • How to lock up deals with minimal capital and flip them to other investors (the arbitrage model)
  • How to use inexpensive virtual assistants to handle repetitive acquisition tasks
  • Why the biggest mistake new investors make isn't about the property—it's about their calendar
  • The "brick your phone" strategy that helped Mark reclaim focus and family time

The real question isn't whether you can find deals. It's whether you can build a business that doesn't require you to do everything yourself. This episode shows you the framework to buy back your time while building real wealth.

About Mark Podolsky

Mark Podolsky, widely known as "The Land Geek," is a former investment banker turned land investor who has completed over 6,000 unique raw land transactions since 2001. As the author of Dirt Rich and host of The Art of Passive Income podcast, he teaches investors how to acquire distressed land for pennies on the dollar to generate passive income without the headaches of "tenants, toilets, and termites". Through his coaching platforms and automation software like GeekPay.io, Mark empowers entrepreneurs to build scalable, recession-resilient businesses that break the cycle of solo economic dependency.

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Michael Russell:

Your phone breaks and your kids cheer. That's when Mark Podolsky knew something was deeply wrong. He built a multi-million dollar real estate business, but he was still a slave to it. Fast forward to today, he works four hours a month and teaches others to do the same. In this episode, Mark reveals the exact three-step system that freed him from his business and how you can apply it to build real estate wealth without becoming a prisoner to the process. If you're serious about hotel investing and want to work as efficiently as possible, this one's for you. The Hotel Investor Playbook, your guide to building wealth and freedom through hotel and hospitality ownership. Now, today I'm bringing on a guest who actively avoids everything hotels require. Mark Podolsky has built wealth and freedom in raw land, and the principles that got him here, well, they apply to any asset class. So today we're actually going to extract the mindset, the systems, and the life design principles that separate investors who build wealth from investors who build jobs for themselves. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Podolsky:

Michael, thanks so much for having me.

Michael Russell:

Yeah, absolutely. So listen, I want to start. I think this is very relatable to me, but I want to start with a story that you told about your kids. You were playing basketball with them, your phone fell out of your pocket, and then your kids cheered, thinking, dad's phone is broken. Can you tell me about that moment and what that felt like?

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, I mean, I'm playing basketball and they know where my attention was. My attention wasn't on the basketball game. My attention was on my phone and a business call or a business email, maybe a dopamine hit. And so we're playing, but I'm half in, I'm half doing work. And sure enough, we're playing and the phone falls out, it cracks, and the kids cheer. And at that moment, it was just a wake up for me that oh my gosh, they are so happy that they're not competing for my attention with this phone. And it was really a pivotal point in my life and my parenting where I was able to look in the mirror with enough self-awareness to know, like, okay, this is a real problem in my relationships. These are the most important relationships. And yet I'm not acting that way. The truth is the phone to them was more important to me than they were. And now their other brother was cracked and they were cheering it. And so since that point, it's been years, it's been a struggle. But today I actually use a little device called a brick. So it's a physical device. And I actually take my phone to the device and I brick my phone, which means no dopamine hits, no Gmail, no Slack, no socials, no, you know, anything that I would touch and check on my phone to distract me from anything I can't get to anymore. In the first three days, I was like a drug addict. Like I was like, oh my gosh, this is really hard. And now I can't live without it. So I've got three bricks. I've got one in my office, I've got one at the house, I've got one in the car. So that if I need to unbrick it and I need to get access to to work, I can. But most of the time at night, six o'clock at night, phone's bricked. I'm out. I'm not checking anything. And I've noticed that in time, I feel less anxious. And my power of concentration is better. Michael, I couldn't even like read one page of a book without wanting to check my phone. And now I feel way better.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Well, I think that the larger context here is as an entrepreneur, you're you're faced with this dilemma. It's, you know, an internal dilemma, a push and pull, if you will, of ambition and wanting to have a better quality of life. And finding that balance is often easier said than done. And I think what I get, you know, I wanted to start with this right out of the gate because I think that your story of what you've built and who you've become is a really great demonstration of someone who is extremely ambitious, but also places great value on your own personal time. And I think most entrepreneurs listening to this can relate to some degree before we dive into the full story of how you manage your time effectively and efficiently. I want to rewind a little bit though, because before you got to that specific moment, let's rewind in your career. Take me back to the year 2000. You're an investment baker. What did your life actually look like at that point in time? I was miserable.

Mark Podolsky:

I had a 45 minute to commute working back. I was being micromanaged. And Michael, it got so bad for me. I wouldn't get the Sunday blues anticipating Monday coming around. I'd get the Friday blues anticipating the weekend going by really fast and having you be back at work on Monday. And then my firm hires this guy and he's telling me there's a side hustle. He's flipping raw land online and he's making a 300% return on his money. Michael, I'm looking at companies all day long. And a great company, great, has 15% EBITDA margins or free cash flow. Average companies, 10%. And I'm looking at companies all day long less than 10%. So of course I don't believe him. So I've got three grand saved up for car repairs. I go to New Mexico with him. I do exactly what he tells me to do. I buy 10 half acre parcels, an average price of $300 each. I flipped them online. They all sell for an average price of $1,200 each. It worked. So I took all that money and I went to another auction. This is in Arizona, which is where I live. And again, it's $2,000. There's no one in the room. I buy a lot and acres for nothing. I saw that land and I made over $90,000 cash. So I go to my wife, said, honey, I'm going to quit my job and become a full-time land investor. And she's pregnant. And she's like, absolutely not. So I said, okay, okay, okay. So it took 18 months for the land investing income to exceed the investment banking income. And then I quit and I've been doing it full-time ever since.

Michael Russell:

It sounds like, from what I understand, you went to your wife and she was skeptical, right? How did you know that this was actually sustainable and that this just wasn't just fluke, like this was luck? Like, where in this process did you realize, like, hey, I think I'm onto something that's real, that you're not just getting lucky with those first few deals?

Mark Podolsky:

Well, being you know, an investment banker and having all this sort of, you know, looking at all these business PLs and balance sheets all day long, I was able to strategize a few things. And based on that, I thought, okay, what's the worst case? Well, the worst case is I'll get another job. And so I thought, well, let me bet on myself. And here's this worst case scenario. And the fact that I had already exceeded my income from investment banking, if it did dip and it did go down, I had an option because I did. So that's how I would rationalize it. And then as far as like the business itself, I was like, okay, well, this is a great business. I don't have to deal with any physical inventory. I've got this one-time sale and I get recurring income every single month. And I don't have to deal with any renters, I don't deal with any red rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. And I've got this high margin business. It's inefficient, which means you can't go on Zillow and see what the value of raw land is. It's what a buyer and a seller agree to. And I thought, okay, if I do the math, and this is in 2001 after I quit my job, I said, okay, you know, these 300% margins are unsustainable. Worst case, this is a 20% margin business as competition comes in. And Michael, 25 years later, we are still at the same margins. It's just an inefficient market. It's insane.

Michael Russell:

So you recognize, hey, this is gonna take some time. I'm gonna work my job while I vet this business out. Ultimately, when you chose, you said you kind of justified getting out of your corporate job by saying, I'm gonna go take a stab at this, I'm gonna announce the world, this is what I'm doing. And if it doesn't work out, you're just back to where you were before. There's always gonna be another job doing what you're doing now. How many years now did you say you've been doing this?

Mark Podolsky:

What? No, 26 years. But Mike, I'll I'll I'll tell you, 2008 was no fun in the Great Recession. 10. And I write about this in my book to a rich. I had to sell my house. I had to fire the nanny. I had to fire the housekeeper. I had to sell my car to pay taxes. It was no fun. I mean, you want to talk about an ego hit. It was, I mean, I look back, and it was a it was a huge blessing. But at the time, it was terrible for me. And I really realized what you're saying is that I was a first mountain person. I'll kind of explain to you like there's two mountains. And so the first mountain is egoic, right? Coach tells you get the good education, get the good job, get the stuff, get the house, get the cars, go on the vacations, do the thing. And you get to the top of that mountain if you're lucky, and you're like, oh my gosh, this is empty. Or it's like me get knocked off that mountain. You're like, okay, this game's no fun to play because it's never enough. So I'm gonna play a different game. So you go to the second mountain. The second mountain is other focused, it's about purpose, vocation, right? It's about your community, it's about your faith and spirituality, it's about your relationships, love and intimacy. There's no top to that mountain, and it's a harder mountain to climb. And I'm not saying the first mountain isn't important, especially in your 20s and 30s, as you're forming your identity. But as you get into your 40s, that's where the midlife crisis I think happens for most people. And Michael, I'm gonna make a I'm gonna make a bold statement here. Nobody rides for free in business. At some point, something is going to happen where you are gonna get knocked down and you're gonna have to get back up. And it may not be as dramatic as losing 50% of your income like I did, but it's gonna be something. Every entrepreneur I know gets knocked down in some way, they learn from it and they come back with what I call anti-fragility. They're stronger because of it, and they could become more anti-fragile through the years. And so this is something that I think if you're let's say you're you're an investor, right? And I'm looking at an operator, I want to know they have they've gone through some business road rash. I want to know about their failures. And if they haven't failed yet, I'm not investing with them because I know they're gonna fail with my money, or maybe they fail with my money. Yeah, so it's you know, it's not linear. I don't know if any other just does a linear growth curve.

Michael Russell:

That is so good. Actually, so one of the earlier episodes that we recorded was with Adam Daly, and I can't stop thinking about something he said very similar. When he's betting whether or not he's gonna invest with a group or partnership or an individual, he wants to see that they've been knocked down before because your decision-making process, when you get knocked down at the time, it could be painful. There, there can be shame and failure. But for those that are resilient, that are determined, that have the willpower to overcome, those are the ones that he wants to invest with because he knows when the goings get gets tough, they'll be able to dust themselves off and keep going. And until you have a blow like that, it's tough to really be able to vet someone if if they've got what it takes to be successful. In 2008, you took that gut punch. You had the luxury car, the big house, the nannies, the private school, all of that. And I guess more so than than just financially, right? You had to rebuild everything. I think that was a an important fork in the road for you as far as building your relationship with, again, not just money, but but time and your identity. I think what came out of that on the other side is something that you're you're using today. And I I want to I want to learn from you from that episode, how did that change your relationship in terms of building systems or teams or people that could partner with you? What was the effect of the 2008 crisis on how you built your business thereafter?

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, well, I I write about this in in my second book, Dirt Rich 2, How to Scale Lamb Business. And so I'm going to coffee with my buddy Ori. Ori sold his company for $360 million. And his mentor was a billionaire, Mort Myerson, who's partners with Ross Pro, actually one of the great corporate breakups of all time with ADP. So I'm telling, I'm kind of like humble bragging to Ori about what I'm doing and how well I'm doing. And this is in 2007. And he's like, Stop. Don't call yourself an entrepreneur. I'm like, what are you talking about? You've got a job. I'm like, Ori, I don't have a job. I'm like, I make my own hours. He's like, really? And this is when Steve Jobs is alive. He's like, you think if Steve Jobs dies, Apple's gonna go under? What happens if you die? What happens to your family? You're doing all the work. You don't have a business. A business outlives you. I'm like, well, okay, well, how do I do this? He's like, well, you can't create systems, you have to create processes. The more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business. And so I would meet with him for coffee and he would kind of walk me through step by step what I had to do. It took five years because, you know, I thought I'm the best at all this and into systems and processes, and I made mistakes. I'm still making mistakes, but I'm learning from them how to actually get myself out of the doing and more into the strategies of CEO, watching the money, building systems and building processes so that I've got a machine that's working 24-7, whether I'm interested in it or not.

Michael Russell:

Hey guys, people have been hitting me up asking if I have a mastermind or a course. I don't run one right now, but I do know the legit operators in this space. If you're thinking about paid education and you want my honest take on who I'd talk to for your situation, just email me info at hotelinvestorplaybook.com. I read every email and I'm happy to point you in the right direction. I think in a broad description, that makes a lot of sense. And most people want to sign up for that. Yeah, I don't want to be working in the business. I want to be working on the business. But what does that actually mean from a tactical takeaway? Let me give you, let me put it this way. When you reflect on some of the ways in which you implemented systemization or you relied on teammates, or you automated things, what was the first thing that you automated or implemented that like literally gave you time back, not in theory, but like what changed in your calendar? Yeah. So there's something in our business called an intake manager.

Mark Podolsky:

And the way that I sort of teach this now is I want to delegate or outsource the thing I hate doing the most. And it's gonna be different for everybody. But for me, I could not listen to another story about how they bought the land, why they bought the land, what their plans were for the land. This is the seller selling me land. And an intake manager handles that call for you. They talk to the seller, they renegotiate, they walk them through the process of us buying their land. And when I got rid of that, it was like, oh my gosh, colors are more vibrant, food tastes better. Like I'm like, oh my gosh, look at all this time now I have. And I could be way more productive. And then I started doing the next thing I hated the most and took got that off my plate. And then I did the next thing and got that off my plate. And to the point where now in the business, I'm working about, I'd say, four hours a month now. And it's just a weekly meeting, an hour meeting with the team, and just looking at numbers and evaluating our processes, and that's it.

Michael Russell:

From your perspective, why would someone want to invest in land if ultimately they are aspiring to become, let's say, an investor in another asset class like hotels or many of the others, multifamily, that is their dream. Why would one want to start with land investing?

Mark Podolsky:

It's the gateway drug to bigger deals. That's the only reason to start in land investing. I mean, Michael, I'm so jealous of you, you don't pay taxes. Land lasts forever. There's no depreciation. So that's one of the reasons that you want to start and land if you're capital constrained, if you don't have your skill set yet, because you can start with literally $50 in this business and tie up a piece of land in it, what we call land arbitrage. So land arbitrage essentially is the easiest way to dip your toe in the water in the land business, which means that let's say that I bought a piece of land for say $2,500. Okay. And I sell it to you, Michael, for $10,000 on terms. And you put $2,500 down and you're paying me $4.99 a month at 9% interest. And three months later, you default. Why I have no basis anymore. I've already made money. So I go to uh Phyllis, and Phyllis is interested in this property, but she has no, she doesn't have the $2,500 to put down. But she has $50. So I say, Phyllis, great. You can put $50 down and you pay me $200 a month. Then you flip it and you get $100 down and you get $500 a month, just like I was getting, and you sell it retail. And now she's making the spread. So she's mitigating her risk and capital because she only has to put $50 down. And if she doesn't sell it the first month, she's got $100 in. So she can have three months or whatever it is, whatever that payment is, and she doesn't have to come up with the $2,500 to do it. Or let's say if I want to filter for cash, like $7,500. So it's a great way to get started in the land business. Is it's simple, there's not as many moving parts, you don't need to have as many much you know, hardly any capital. And then you can start building up your skills as an entrepreneur, and that's when you get excited about doing the bigger deals. You go into the hotel space or mobile home parks or multifamily. It's a gateway drug. You don't end up in land, you start in land.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Well, obviously, you know, when you're describing $100 or $250, like for me and my lifestyle and what it costs to live on Maui, like that does not excite me. And so, but look, everyone's in a different place in life. Okay, I have the privilege of being in a place now where, you know, I am I've got high cash flowing short-term rentals, I've got hotels or my case, hostels. And so we're talking about much larger numbers. But, you know, I've got 20 years in the game here. And if someone is just starting out and they're like, hey, that's all well and good, but how do I get from, you know, if I want to get to point B and I'm at point A, there's some unclarity on how I'm gonna do so. You're describing a way to start getting into the game in a relative low barrier to entry asset type to where you can gain reps, negotiating reps, sales reps. I mean, life is about sales, and I imagine there are there's a lot of in order to be able to make enough money in land flipping, you have to perform a lot of transactions. That's and so volume business. It's a volume business. Walk me through like really like how many transactions a year do you have to perform to make a decent living? Let's call it a hundred thousand dollars a year. Like, realistically, how many transactions would I need to perform to be able to make that?

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, do one a week. One a week, one a week. So average note is 200 bucks a month, let's say we know that at that price point it's gonna fly off the shelf, right? Make it a car payment, easy car payment, right? One a week that gets you to ten thousand dollars a month.

Michael Russell:

So, what would be the best way for someone who wanted to get started in learning about land flipping? Like what where should they go to learn about this?

Mark Podolsky:

So they can learn from me. They can go to the landgeek.com, they can go to AI and ask questions about land flipping. There's tons of people on YouTube. You know, you can go and just do some searching. I mean, there's there's so much information now. I mean, Michael, it's not about not having information, it's about not doing the thing and getting the reps in, like you said.

Michael Russell:

Okay, so you've been at this a long time and you're not really involved necessarily like you mentioned it, four hours a week. You've got a system in place. I guess I'm interested to know like what are some of the automation processes and technology that you've implemented that really provide that freedom to remove yourself from the business?

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, so the number one thing is gonna be inexpensive virtual assistance, number one. So there's trained land virtual assistants now. You could go to uh uh company like landva number four you.com forward slash the land geek and you get a 10% discount and do that and hire land VAs that are already trained. That's the first part, inexpensive virtual assistance. The second part is automation and software. So we have a program called lgpass.com that automates your mailings and your CRM essentially, and it takes you all the way to closing. Well, you just take me 20 minutes of paperwork, now it takes one second. Just press a button and it does it. And then in the back end to manage your notes, we have geekpay.io. It's a said and forget it payment system. So even the hotel operators could use this where you use ACH essentially. So you get your your payments through ACH versus credit card.

Michael Russell:

So let's talk about this a little bit. Being able to hone in on a high volume of transactions is gonna give you the reps to know what's working and what's not. And if the goal is to automate the majority of the workflow or to delegate it, I'd like to know how some of these process processes can relate directly to hotel investing. I understand land flipping is a great entry point. You mentioned the gateway drug. Agree with that wholeheartedly. But if someone says, hey, this is great and all, but I want to apply this for my acquisition strategy of hotels. What are some of the carry-throughs or some of the things that are relatable for hotel investing as it relates to acquisitions?

Mark Podolsky:

Okay, so I'm gonna imagine that you are going to get a list of hotel operators in your target market. So let's say that we go to a site that gives us some kind of data. Let's call it like datatree.com, right? Something like that. So we're gonna get a list of hotel owners. And then we're going to do some analysis on that market and maybe we'll send out some offers. So we'll automate the offers. I don't know how, like I send out an actual offer, but maybe you send out a blind offer. You say, Yeah, I'm just in buying your hotel, right? As I'm doing this thing, I'm recording my steps. So I might use a Loom, I might use a Zoom. Whatever I'm doing, I'm recording the steps that I'm doing it, and I can use inexpensive software to do it. This. I'm taking those steps and I'm putting it into AI, let's say a Chat GPT or a Cloud or Gemini. And I'm saying, make this a standard operating procedure that a 10-year-old can understand and run. And then I have my standard operating procedure. I then take that to my virtual system and say, run this playbook. Let me know where you run into snags. Great. They update the playbook now in that SOP. And then they continue to run it. And we see what are the issues. So now I've gotten good enough on my acquisition side that I can actually move it away from Mark doing it and Michael doing it to my inexpensive virtual assistant. And then I just go to the next process in that business. So the next one might be hotel owner calls up and says, I'm interested in selling. Great. Now we have to go to intake. And we say these are the questions we're going to use to qualify. Is this a deal or not? We're going to need to get financials. We're going to need to do our due diligence on this hotel. We're going to need to know certain NOIs or your vacancy rates, all those things. I'm going to do the work first again because I know what I'm doing. And then I'm going to record it. I'm going to create an SOP with chat or Gemini or Claude, make a playbook for this. The 10-year-old can understand. And now I've created my intake side of it that an inexpensive virtual assistant can now go ahead and do. Now, what do I need to do next? I probably need to, you know, financing, right? When I'm done with due diligence, I'm going to go out and create a loan package or get investors for my deal. But I want to take a timeout right there.

Michael Russell:

I think this is a good stopping point to just really paraphrase what you just said. Step number one, do it yourself. Step number two, document the process. Step number three, delegate it. So do it, document it, delegate it. And we stop right there because what you're describing here in the land arena is for folks that are getting started that want to build some cash flow, they can just go and master a process. And even if they don't have the cash flow, they can they can get others who can you flip it to someone else. There's like this arbitrage. I want to stop here because look with hotel investing, there's two major takeaways that I just recognize that are applicable for our listeners. Number one, it is incredible how overlooked it is to just go and door knock boutique hotels and ask to speak with the owner. Like most people automatically gravitate towards looking online and looking at listings from brokers. And I do think, look, that that's valuable. Don't stop doing that. But it's incredible how many people like don't even associate that there's tremendous value in calling hotels directly, particularly those hotels that are considered boutique or independent or mom and pop. Look, if you're gonna call a 200-room Marriott Resort, you're probably not gonna get in touch with the owner. Let's be realistic. But if you're calling a 10-key to a 50-key hotel in a tertiary market that's got value, chances are you'll be able to get in touch with the owner. And in fact, I've done so now three times. The last three contracts that we've entered into have been by just contacting the owner directly, literally door knocking. This system that you're talking about with land flipping is very similar. It is a process that can be systemized and then delegated. So stopping right before you get to the finance, I think it's an important point to do so because if you're someone that's like, okay, I've got the willpower, I've got the commitment, I'm gonna go and find a deal. You don't necessarily at that point have to be the one that goes and finances yourself, goes to the bank yourself. That's where you can either you can partner with someone who's got the ability, or what was the word again, Mark? Arbitrage.

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah. So essentially you can or maybe I lock up the deal and I flip it whole.

Michael Russell:

That's right. Yeah, like a wholesale to a degree, right? You can get like a finder's fee. And so we offer a finder's fee, right? It's two percent up to 50 grand. So, you know, if we go and have someone bring us a deal and this thing is we actually want to pursue it, it's a quick way to get 50 grand and not have to do anything yourself. Plus, in our situation, I'm sure there's many other investors that will do the same thing is we'll invite you in to partner with the deal where you can you be a fly on the wall, you can learn this whole process. So if you've got the ability to go and set up this system that Mark is describing here for hotels to just systematically contact owners directly over and over and over again, that is how you can build tremendous deal flow. And then you can partner or pass the deal on and make money immediately if you're looking to get started and build some cash flow and gain some transactional volume and some experience. A lot of what you're describing, the systemization, I'm just tuning into is very applicable for any asset class, but specifically for those that are maybe concerned about how they could actually take down a hotel. Start with step one acquisitions, apply these principles, do it, document, delegate it.

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, Michael, honestly, like I take back now what I said. Don't start land if you're listening to this podcast. Just lock up a deal and make your $50,000 or make your 2% and mitigate your risk, but you learn that's your best education. Knock on the doors first. That doesn't cost you anything but some time. That's the gateway drug to get into real hotel investing. I I mean, that's your solution. I love my niche, but if you're listening to this, that's the best way to do it for sure.

Michael Russell:

I want to shift gears a little bit here because look, you've had success over a couple of decades now, more than a couple of decades, and recently you have shifted from doing everything independently on your own to just working to do the work. To now you're teaching others how to do so. Why this shift? Why are you now focused on education?

Mark Podolsky:

All right, I'll tell you the story. I'm on vacation with my family in San Jose, California. And I get a call from this guy, Tree. And he's like, hey man, I'm on your website. I'm like, Oh, I think he wants to buy us some property. I'm like, Oh, yeah, which property are you interested? He's like, Yeah, he's like, I'm not really interested in the property, I'm interested in learning how to do what you do. I said, Well, I don't really teach this. He's like, Oh, he's like, What if I pay you this? Oh, interesting. So I was like, Okay, let me call you back. So I go to my wife. I'm like, hey, this guy wants me to teach him the land business. She's like, Why would you teach the land business? You're gonna create your own competition. Like, oh you're right, good point. So I'm like, well, let's put on our investment banking hats and let's just analyze how big is this market. And I did. And there are billions of acres of raw land, and you could not think of a more boring real estate niche. There, if there's a hundred people at a ARIA meeting, a real estate investment association meeting, 99 of them are gonna be landlords, wholesalers, and flippers. You and I might be the only land guide there. You're not gonna go on HGTV at a DIY network and say flip this land, the fourth graduate is raw land, the after picture's raw land. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna teach this. So I do a deal with Tori, and he made $300,000. I made $300,000. But for him, it changed his life. And that was more gratifying than anything I'd done professionally. And I'm like, I really love that feeling. So I hired this guy in Australia to teach me how to teach. And he's like, okay, everything you're doing with this guy, Tori, record it. And that became my first digital product, I think in 2011. We've evolved from there today. Like, I mean, I got a message from a guy who's a former pastor and he made $100,000 just this month. And he's doing over $30,000 a month of passive income now after three years of land bus. It's totally changed his life. And I never get tired of that feeling. So for me, it's the most gratifying thing I can do is literally change the trajectory of somebody's life because I'm not just interested in helping them solve their money problems, I want to interested in solving their time problems because I think once that passive income exceeds their fixed expenses and they're working because they want to, not because they have to, they can move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the self-actualization and really figure out their greatest purpose in life. And everything changes.

Michael Russell:

Yeah, that's powerful. Yeah, and to a degree, I mean, I can relate. Although I haven't monetized, I don't have a course or anything. I'm here week in, week out, interviewing folks and providing documenting my own journey and providing guidance to a degree for folks that are looking to invest in hotels and other real estate assets. And and so it is fulfilling. I think that sharing what you're doing is is extremely fulfilling. And also I will say that it's beneficial to the teacher because you learn more by teaching. You really do. It causes you to focus on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, and you've got to stay ahead of the curve. Absolutely.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. So looking back at the full arc of your career from Wall Street to land to now teaching, I guess to bring this thing full circle back to that moment with the cell phone and your kids and work-life balance, like what do you believe actually creates a good investing life?

Mark Podolsky:

So I'm actually, this is my third book. I'm writing about it right now called Dirt Richer. And it's how to strive like a duck. So I call it the duck philosophy. So if you watch a duck on the lake, they're very serene and calm above the surface, but they're paddling furiously below. And so I think we can embody both. We can strive and yet still be joyful and calm and serene in the process of the doing. So many times you could have been like me. You could have been that person that wasn't really intentional with their time, where you're supposed to be playing with your kids, but you're thinking about work and you're on your cell phone. And so do the thing that you're doing as intentionally as possible, and then go on and do the other thing, right? As intentionally as possible. But you can't be two places at once. And so I'm talking a lot about the mistakes that I made in my journey in that book and some of the techniques that I've learned that over the years have helped me be more present, more calm, more focused in the midst of having ambition, striving and enjoying the journey and letting go. Right? Good month, bad month, doesn't really matter.

Michael Russell:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think what you're describing is one of the things you've done very well is you've been able to implement boundaries. And my wife says this all the time. She reminds me boundaries because the addiction to the phone will creep in seven o'clock at night when it's family time. I start looking at my phone. Next thing I know, I'm checking emails. And it's like, well, do I really need to be doing that? And so you said, you know, you got some sort of like blocker on your phone. Yeah, I get yeah, get the brick. This is awesome. What okay? Yeah. So that device will protect you from looking at your your phone. But there's also one thing you could do. And if you're if you're like me at all, this is what I've been trying to implement is there's a little basket on the kitchen counter. And when six o'clock rolls around, I put my phone in the basket. And that way, if I see the basket, I know I can't touch the basket. I can't touch the phone. And the reality is, look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be able to work very effectively during the hours where I commit to working. But am I really gonna miss that much if I'm if I don't answer that email until the next day? Probably not. There is some sacrifice there to set that boundary. But overall, if you're choosing to compartmentalize and set boundaries where you're gonna work really hard when it's work time and you're gonna invest in your family and your emotional well-being and your personal life when it's not work time, setting those clear boundaries to me have been very important. And I think you've done an excellent job in recognizing that and implementing it in your own life.

Mark Podolsky:

Thank you.

Michael Russell:

So I think we'll end there. But Mark, this has been great. I feel like this has been a really important conversation. I think it's just not about success, isn't just what you build. It's about who you are as a person and who you want to become. So for listeners who do want to learn more about your work or follow what you're doing, where's the best place for them to find you?

Mark Podolsky:

Yeah, I sent Danica a link to get Dirt Rich for free. Just pay shipping. But if they're not interested in the book, I would say thelandgeek.com is a great place to start.

Michael Russell:

Okay. We will put both of those links in the show notes as always. So for our listeners, thanks so much for listening. If you know of anyone that could benefit from this episode, please share this episode and don't forget to rate and review us. I will catch you again next week. Aloha,