Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum,
founder and CEO of First Class Business, and
I've got Mike Deaton in the house. This guy is
a model to emulate, not just because he's good
looking and because his wife's good looking as
well, but because they actually emulate leadership
to its core. And so we're going to be talking
about designing your life first, the leadership
shift behind real freedom. My friends, if you're
looking to launch a business right now, I'm not
saying throw the business to the side completely,
but definitely consider the reality of what Mike
and I are going to talk about, because it's so
easy to get involved in something that we're
told to do or that we feel. the world wants us
to do, but may not be aligned with our inner
passions and purpose. And so Mike and I are going
to be talking a lot about how to make sure that
we align for our own life's sake so that we can
enjoy the types of businesses that we launch.
He's got a background in business and real estate.
He's got a, excuse me, a book as well. He's got
a company called Flipping Dirt with Mike and
oh, what's her name? Ligia. Ligia Deaton. And
they help us, they coach us how to confidently
create cashflow simply by flipping land. And
that's one of those unique aspects to my friends,
real estate. There's so much money to be made
in it, but there's so many people who are, I
don't wanna say blowing smoke, but creating smokes
and mirrors. And it's hard to know who's really,
really great at it and not. So do your research.
I've done mine and I'm in Mike's corner on this.
So I'm really excited I'm on the show. Mike,
welcome back to Vision Pros Life. Man, Jackson,
thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited.
This is going to be a fun one. It's a little
bit different than I'm on several podcasts. And
it's a lot of just in the lane of land flipping
itself. And I really love to venture out and
talk about, you know, land is a vehicle for us.
It's not exactly. And we'll get into all of that
here. But, yeah, I'm excited to venture out and
talk about things that I'm truly passionate about.
So this will be fun. Oh, good, man. I love that.
In fact, I want to honor you fully with that.
What are some of the most passionate things you
want to talk about? Because we can fit those
into with our schedule for the audience. What
are you most passionate about, Mike? Yeah, for
me, really, it's at the macro meta level. I just,
you know, I'm aged, but I've always since probably
19 or so kind of been interested in life and
what drives life and what. what's our purpose
and what fulfills us and i'm i'm kind of a seeker
in that way i really like to be out there and
personal development has always just fascinated
me uh we can get into any and all of my story
that you that you want to but um i went to university
into college to be a medical doctor and this
was back in the 90s and um i ultimately mid mid
-college career shifted gears. And really the
shift was more away from medicine as I just,
the whole process of getting a degree didn't
fulfill me in that way, or I didn't think it
was going to. I got a whopping 0 .37 GPA. So
I kind of know what that felt like. I didn't
do too well in the university. Yeah, I did a
little better than that, but I actually got out
with a degree. It's hard to beat my score. I'm
on a different level of honor roll list. You
set a bar for sure. That's a definite. Back in
those days, there weren't all of the alternative
aspects of things that I'm fascinated by these
days in terms of mindset and everything there.
But anyway, for me, it's really those types of
things. And that can apply in all domains in
life, right? Relationships, business, life, just
the people that we want to be, all of the things
you can find ways to. to find and seek those
high standards um and i lived the hamster wheel
uh kind of getting into something just to pay
bills and uh ultimately it wasn't fulfilling
and kind of shifted gears out of that but yeah
i mean so the the the domain list is wide open
in terms of of uh any and all areas that we can
go well for sure man and i'm Excited for the
team to pull up your website because we actually
did an internal experiment or rather a study
as a team. And I pulled your website up and pulled
the whole team together. And I said, guys, I
want you to dissect what what do you recognize
about this photo that emulates success and that
shows how successful Mike has been in his life?
And we were talking about things like the genuine
smiles that you and your wife both have, the
closeness that you have, the fact that you care
about nature, the. Exercise you obvious and you've
got the hairdo that obviously it's not too hard
to come over because you've been so consistent
and reliable. You know, you've taken care of
your health again. There was so many things that
we looked at and we're like, guys, this is this
is somebody who really cares about purpose in
life. And I highlight that once more for all
you visionary leaders out there. Look, we may
not be as put together. If I took my shirt off
next to Mike, you everybody would want to cover
up half the screen. I'm not. I'm just not chiseled
like Mike, you know, and that discipline that
you've put into your health and wellness, it's
yet just another emulator of like, oh, this guy
really cares about maximizing his experiences
in the world. So same thing with this one. It's
like this picture right here of you and your
wife. We brought up little things to the team.
I was like, look at how she's holding his hand.
You know, that that takes a proactive action
on her part in this. And so and you got her in
a UFC position. Somebody could easily be like,
oh, man, like, but she trusts you that much that
you're that happy in that picture. And so these
things, these are the essence of leadership that
lead to creating businesses that we're that we
can care about, that we love. It all starts with
our relationships. in our personal lives. So
Mike, do you want to speak to that a little bit?
I know I put you on a huge pedestal just now.
Yeah, really. I don't know that I can live to
that standard, but no, this is fascinating exercise
like we were talking about just before the show.
I mean, I love the fact that you guys kind of
dig in at that level. And in particular, we've
been coaching in this lane for two and a half,
maybe three years and putting this website together.
We wanted it to feel very personal and to somehow,
exude what we are. And you nailed a lot of those
things. I mean, we love, I've been health minded,
gosh, since I was probably a teenager, I really
kind of fell in love with fitness and that stuff.
My wife and I've been plant based for like 15
years. We just, you know, everything, every edge
we can get to, to do things that we think are
healthy. I, Ligia is my second wife. And so I
have experienced, as I kind of teased a little
bit ago, this first chapter of my adult life
anyway, was dysfunctional in many ways. I mean,
I got into work on the hamster wheel just and
got into debt and got into paying bills. And,
you know, my wife and I just kind of went, I
think, down a fairly normal path or my first
wife at the time, like of. I did it too. Paying
attention to things outside of the relationship,
right? I mean, you become a parent and you become
an employee and you climb the corporate ladder
and suddenly the relationship takes, you know,
not even second place, but just it kind of goes
down. And so all of that fell apart. And so that
for me was an awakening. And I'm so fortunate
to have found Ligia in this next chapter of my
life because we do have. you know, just a really
standard of excellence in our relationship. I
think we truly care about one another. Part of
why we chose to leave corporate America and start
our own business was so that we could work together
and we spend almost 24 seven, you know, together
other than, you know, there's, I go for runs
or whatever, but we genuinely like challenging
and taking on life as a team. And This phase
of our life is amenable to that because I have
adult children. And so we're not active parents.
And we are able to then focus on other things
and set goals and chart courses and check in
with one another. But our personalities are such
that our personal life and our business life
really complement and work well together. And
so we're able to. to really one plus one is kind
of the classic one plus one equals more than
two that we're able to really help each other
grow. Oh, nice. Yeah, I like that. But yeah,
I mean, the website, the website is intended
to be I mean, coaching is a very we've done a
lot of coaching as a coachee. And, um, if I had
experience of coaches, we liked and coaches,
we didn't necessarily like, and it's a, it's
a very intimate or it can be an intimate relationship
because you're, you're kind of vulnerable in
that. And so, yeah, we, we wanted people to feel
a certain presence, um, with our website before
they ever speak to us, uh, and hopefully encourage,
you know, they always say your tribe finds you
or you find your tribe or that kind of thing.
And I truly believe that. And so, yeah, the energy
we wanted to put forth. with all of that was
a lot of what you described, right? Being caring
and empathetic and really invested in someone's
success. And we exhibit that in our, we run our
own land business where we buy and sell the vacant
land. And we have a lot of clients and we try
to form relationships with them and be a partner
for them. And then in our coaching business,
it's the same. And so, yeah, I really. appreciate
the effort that you guys took to digest some
of that. Well, absolutely. And it's great to
have individuals to model. And my friends, Mike
and I, we're still figuring our paths out too.
We're not Jesus. We got a ways to go and we have
an opportunity, but I think there's so many opportunities
to learn from. where both of us have come from
in terms of vision. We've seen the good, the
bad, and the ugly. And we want to make sure that
you get to move towards more of the good and
more of the great than we did. Perhaps you can
learn from some of our downfalls in the process.
But also, I think more importantly, if we want
to move forward, we can't be looking in the rear
view mirror too much. We need to be looking at,
well, which direction are we headed and how we're
going to head there the best way possible. So
we're going to come right back. We're going to
dive into how leaders can move. from reactive
growth to intentional design as well. We'll both
throw some thoughts on that and we'll continue
this process of lighting up. How do you create
the best vision possible for yourself? All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum.
I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews
for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders
who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey guys, welcome into Vision Pros Live. I've
got Mike Deaton in the house. As I said, he's
emulating what we're talking about today, designing
your life first. I love having somebody who's
a living, breathing example of that so well.
You can see it all over his LinkedIn page. And
all of us have the opportunity to lean into how
do we maximize and enjoy this journey we call
life while we build businesses and while we create
our legacies. Before I bring Mike back on, real
quick, a couple of opportunities for all of you.
JourneyToWellnessPlan .com with Dr. Justin and
Dr. Shannon Pierce. I highly recommend checking
out what they've built. I've sent three friends
and family members to them who were in health
situations where their doctors just didn't know
what to do and kind of left them feeling hopeless.
Shannon is not a miracle worker. She just does
the right tests. And all three of those people
came back with such raving results. And I was
like, OK, I'm just going to send everybody to
Shannon from here on out. And again, I don't
know much about how the doctor side of it works.
I don't have to be dangerous. That's not my call.
My hope is that if you don't know where to send
your loved ones, that you can send them to Shannon
and get more hope like my family did. Then there's
Practice Makes Permanent with Jennifer Reed.
Jennifer Reed has been training for more than
two decades in government environments. There's
a lot of bureaucracy that goes on in government
environments. She never talks negatively about
it. I love how she is this bright, shining light
of emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence.
And she's earned that, again, also through Good,
Bad & Ugly. I don't want to diminish the power
and value of her story. In fact, I'm not even
going to share it. But what I will invite you
to do is anytime you're looking to bring somebody
in for leadership or culture as a facilitator,
as a coach, I would always ask them what their.
personal reason as to why do they do what they
do? Just ask that question. Why is it? And with
Jennifer, have a tissue box with you. You're
going to need it. She has a very sincere reason
for wanting to bring EQ and SQ to the entire
world. And she's phenomenal at what she does.
Then there's the water project. I have a glass
of water right here by my side. I have never
been thirsty in my life. And I'm sure some of
you have also never understood what thirst is.
And my hope is that this little conversation.
will lead you to think through what if i paid
attention to this water project thing and started
looking at it and shared it with my friends and
family even if you don't donate to it i will
also share why donating is so cool When I picked
the first project to donate to for the water
project, I got to learn about sand dams and borehole
wells a little bit. And I like to learn. And
I got to see that there was going to be 500 people
affected by this. And by giving that $10 donation
or $20 donation, I don't remember what my first
one was, but they actually sent me a report of
what was going on with this project. And I was
like, this is one of the most transparent causes
I've ever seen in my life. How cool is that?
And then I started to realize there's millions
of people who don't have access to clean drinking
water, something that, again, I take for granted.
And this next picture here reminds me of my own
children on Christmas Day. But this is their
children celebrating clean water. How humbling
is that? So my hope is, again, talk to your friends
and family about it. If there's another cause
that's near and dear to your heart, it's actually
how the Water Project came up for me. I was promoting
another cause when one of my coworkers says,
Jackson, we need to switch gears and support
the Water Project. And we did. I still promote
the other cause as well. But my point is, if
you know of a cause that you want us to support,
just drop the link in the comments. Give me the
chance to look at all, look at all of those personally,
and I'll see what I can do to help or support
those causes as well. We've got 8 billion people
to help on this world, my friends. And as long
as I'm going to rock this mic, I'm going to lean
right into doing just that. So let's go back
to helping each one of you figure out, well,
what is your purpose and your passion? And how
do you lean into business ownership in a way
that also unlocks your life to new levels? Mike
Deaton, thanks for being here to rock the mic
with me on this. Right on, man. I'm happy to
be here. Absolutely. So let's dive right into
this leadership shift we talked about from being
reactive with our growth to being intentional
by design. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah,
there's so many thoughts on it, but I would say
for me, I fell into, as I was talking about really
just a minute ago, I kind of fell into the normal
American path, I would say. And I don't know
if it's the normal global path, but There's these
rites of passage. You grow up as a child. You
become a dependent into a dependent and ideally
into an interdependent being. But there's this
pressure, I would say, at least historically
there has been. I think things change with generations
as we get more to the present. At least for me,
there was this pressure just to get out of school,
get a job, start contributing to society, do
all the things, get a wife, have children, do
all those things. And that inherent pressure
really is relentless. I mean, parents are pushing,
society's pushing. There's very little breathing
room. I mean, I think there's some more and more.
openness for people to take these gap years or,
or that's the crazy thing about it. You're right.
I hadn't thought about this, but you know, the
pressure exists, but now there's more freedom.
And so when you pressure and push somebody and
now there's more doors to escape through, it's
like now, now we create a little bit more chaos
or turmoil. So. Yeah. So for me, the whole intentionality
thing comes down to somehow stopping or slowing
down. such that you can be present and aware.
And there's a lot of different ways to do that.
There, you know, there's meditation and journaling
and just slowing down. I really never did it.
And very quickly, I got myself into a situation
where I almost felt like I couldn't do it because
I had bills to pay. I had that debt to climb
out of, you know, I'm trying to get the next
promotion and, and not take time off. And, and,
and so I didn't really have this bandwidth to
to do things until i was almost forced to do
it uh in the form of a layoff right i got laid
off my knee -jerk reaction was to get right back
into the workforce but my body started reacting
like i was just nauseous i had anxiety uh what
was i gonna step into and unfortunately i listened
and was able and also i was in a a financial
and a personal situation such that i could afford
to do it, but I was able to slow down and pause
and give thought to forward. What was something
that I wanted out of life? What did I, and so
Lidge and I sat down and we did core values exercises
where we mapped out, you know, what are our core
values? We ranked them, right? We went through
an exercise of a forced ranking to understand,
you know, what's your top of the list and are
we living in alignment with those values? And
especially vocationally and everything pointed
us down to we should do something different.
And for us, that was entrepreneurship because
it gave us the flexibility and the freedom to
do a lot of the things that we wanted to. We
did a vision casting type exercise where we imagined
our perfect day, five or 10 years in the future.
All those things helped give us the clarity of,
OK, this is more what we want out of life. How
do we then go about? achieving that. And there's
multiple vehicles to go about. Even working in
a W2 job, you can do that. You just have to have
the awareness of what you're moving toward. And
so, yeah, I think it all starts with that. That
awareness can be hard to figure out. Go ahead,
continue. No, I was just going to say it all
starts with that slowing down or tuning in to
what is going on, right? What am I feeling? and
taking that i mean we all spend so much time
on distractions with social media and television
and streaming and there's so much time that we
just kind of waste that could i mean it didn't
take us long to do any of these exercises right
i mean we're talking an hour or if you want to
spend an afternoon you can do it in afternoon
but it's not hard to really figure out what are
the things that you want? If you put intentional
time in it, we just don't necessarily many of
us slow down to do that. And I think a lot of
people never get invited, you know, and they
don't realize that it can make that big of a
difference. So I'll share a resource, my friends
with you guys. And this is something that we've
created years ago. I give it to all of my team
members when they come on board to first class
business, we call it the passion pro assessment.
And I redesigned it right before, um, My call
with Mike, I was talking to Rich Potter, big
shout out to him. He wanted to license the assessment
that we give our team members. And I said, wait
a second, let me like create something that's
far easier for people to value and understand.
We're talking about finding your passion, living
with purpose, living with love. And anybody who
wants to do that can come in here. You can check
out how this works. You can understand how the
guide goes into play, but it's actually a five
minute assessment that then helps you go into
finding out clarity for yourself. And anybody
who's a coach or therapist or wants to be can
also wants to be a coach for these processes
can come in here and understand how we're building
that out as well. So I'm going to go over to
the assessment real quick. You can see it's got
seven questions. It takes less than five minutes
and it starts to walk you through some self -awareness
questions that. Again, if nobody's opened the
door for you regarding this stuff, don't feel
bad about yourself. Don't don't act like, you
know, you should feel stupid. No, some people
never get the chance to talk about things like
why it's so important to dive into significance
and why it matters so much to our souls to contribute.
And so Mike gets that. And I'm going to go right
back to Mike on this because I'm not here to
tell you guys like, hey, come my way. I mean,
I'm not his. No, no, no. Go both ways. Like,
go try this assessment out. Get yourself rooted
in some of this. Then go work with Mike's stuff
as well, because as he talked about, even if
we just spend a few hours on these processes,
and I recommend maybe one to two hours max per
day, because it's deep diving stuff and it's
exercise, right? But try to always intentionally
align your life and your purpose with what it
is that you're doing. And over time, what you
will see is your life's probably going to have
more peace. You're probably going to have less
anxiety. You're probably going to have a little
bit more happiness and you're probably going
to start to uncover some things that make you
go like, wow, I really enjoy this. And so that's
exactly what I want. I think Mike and Mike and
his wife are two people that can also help further
with that. Mike, switching gears for entrepreneurship
directly for just a little while. Well, you know
what? You went and grabbed something. I think
you did it on purpose. So before I switch gears,
did you have something you wanted to share? Do
you want to dive into entrepreneurship? Just
a few months ago, my wife and I put together
a journal, Finding Your Purpose. It's a guided
journal. And really what I wanted, what made
me think of it, I forgot all about it, honestly,
but what made me think about it was just that
there are different vehicles to do it. This particular
journal, we put in some QR codes that will take
you to a chat GPT guided prompt where you can
like, it'll act as your coach and tease out.
you know some of the things about uh icky guy
process and trying to find where things dovetail
or some of the questions that you were showing
on that on that page and so yeah there are so
many ways that you that you can achieve this
clarity in terms of what are your passions what
do you like to do what do you want to achieve
in this world and so that's all i it just it
jogged my memory and i was like oh we we just
put this together so um I'm going to put a warning
on it real quick, my friends, because there are
those who will guide you as an invitation. And
then there are those who will take control of
your vision and tell you what to do. And I think
it's a very dangerous reality to recognize. Anybody
who tells you what you should do or what you
have to do or what you need to do, be careful
because they can be very convincing and they
can help you find a path. But that doesn't make
it your path. and so i love that mike has that
open into nature and he's like well you know
this is what you might want to do and here's
another resource that exists there people who
are abundant in mindset will also help lead you
to abundance and so again i just i mean it up
not just bromancing but helping you guys catch
these things too so yeah entrepreneurship i'm
going to say it flat out it is not a sprint and
even if ai helps you create the sprint you're
going to lose control It's not a good idea to
have a system that doesn't have a great process
on it. This is an ultra marathon, as Mike and
I both talked about. Mike, lean in, man. What
are your thoughts on the ultra marathon of entrepreneurship?
Yeah, you know, I'm a fan. I fully agree. I mean,
there are things that you can do for short bursts
in life. They also need to be intentional. But
if you want to create a business or something
that's going to endure. then there are certain
tenants that need to be in place, right? You
have to build a foundation, which in ultra running
or ultra endurance sports is your aerobic engine.
And you need to be able to sustain long bouts
and then be able to react with strength, with
agility, with speed or whatever to different
things. But yeah, I mean, entrepreneurship, you
are going to face ups and downs. We go through
them. It was not an easy start. I mean, it wasn't
necessarily hard, but there were doubts. There
were stumbles. One of my fundamental values,
actually, that I consciously leaned into was
the first, I don't know, 40 years of my life
was through a lens of mistakes or failures. And
as I became an entrepreneur, I have had to, and
still today, work on this. It's all mistakes.
Yeah, it is. It's all mistakes. I have to embrace
and almost seek out the mistakes and the lessons.
And so that has been a real, that's been one
of my probably biggest personal development pursuits
as I've shifted from. a first child who was praised
and you know grades equal performance and athletic
performance equal you know all the things that
like if if you make a mistake or something it
was seen as a failure uh through to the to the
business world where as an employee you are not
encouraged to make many mistakes and so yeah
that's been a big shift for me but but business
itself i mean yes it's If you're going to endure,
you touched on it at the beginning, but you're
really encouraged to find things that you do
enjoy or reframe things in such a way that you
do enjoy them. Because I think we can all find
beauty in certain things, right? I mean, it doesn't
mean just because I'm doing something that I
didn't think I was going to enjoy or that I haven't
predefined that I can't also find value out of
anything, right? Doing the dishes. or whatever,
there's, there's a way to, to find the beauty
and the service and the gratitude from all of
that. That's an amazing realization that I think
as I get older, it gets a little bit harder to
remember that that's not a natural reality. Like
I remember being so excited to be a dad. And
I remember also like within a few weeks being
like, Oh crap, now I don't get to do this. I'm
like, oh, crap. Now I don't get to do this. And
then you learn things like, you know, over time,
maybe it takes a few children. But like, oh,
I'm not going to sleep tonight because my child's
sick. And the first time you do that, like it's
it can be very hard. And I'm sure there's seasons
and spells are different for everybody. But as
I got older and as my parenting opportunities
evolved, it was like, dang. This is like one
of the most sacred and important moments of my
life. It's like I want to be here and I want
to be in this moment more than anywhere else
in any other time of my life. And so that evolution
came about by like what you said, intentionally
reframing the thing to be able to enjoy it. You
also brought up something that caught my attention,
not in this podcast, but prior to it. Success
comes from pacing, discipline, resilience through
setbacks. And I love this part, raising your
personal standards over time. What does that
mean to you, Mike? Yeah. So, I mean, I, I do
a fair amount of long distance running more for,
for fun than which is, is, but it's my way of
getting out and escape and kind of disconnecting,
but also being intentional and being present.
But in that, you know, in that arena, you do
have to pace things out and you, you know, you
can't just go burning out the door and, and not
take water and not have fuel along the way. And
entrepreneurship is very much the same way. I
love the parallels between sport and business
in general, but for me, it resonates in this
way, but all of those things are just, and maybe
more than anything, I really like the, the raising
your standards. It's one that I struggle with.
Like, It's easy to say and it's easy to even
conceive, but what are the tangible steps to
doing that? And you just mentioned a minute ago,
but how do you keep it front and center or at
least bring it more into awareness so that it's
more constant in your everyday being? And those
are the challenges for me. And that's what I
really like to try and. and dig into because
I mean, the internet's full of people that speak
in platitudes and, and, and say certain things,
but it's like, okay, what's the reality of, of
how I can go about and achieve some of these
things. And so I think across your life, there
are areas where you can raise your standards.
You have to be aware of where you are and then
intentionally set something like I want my relationship.
to go from this level to that level. And I'm
going to do it by this one or two or three things.
Same with our businesses, which are often easier.
I think you have tangible, like in a business,
you have revenue or you have clients or you have
surveys. We don't often do that in the softer
areas of life. Well, I love that you mentioned
it because you unveiled one of my secret weapons,
one of my secret tools for it that I get to bring
up. And I don't often bring this up. My team
knows this. I also often ask them to remind them
what's the best business book that I've ever
come across. And the best business book I've
ever come across. And most people are going to
be like, no way. Preach my gospel. Preach my
gospel is the missionary training handbook for
the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.
And that's where most of my, all the business
stuff that I've done. Everything goes back to
what I learned in that book. It's a 300 -page
manual, and this thing is massively and amazing
in all aspects. But specifically for this topic,
they have something in there called the Christlike
Attribute Assessment. And so it's a little self
-assessment you can take that gives you questions
about how you're doing with love, how you're
doing with charity, how you're doing with service,
how you're doing with kindness, how you're doing
with patience. It is so... neat to be able to
go through that and write yourself on the scale
of one to five. And then it's got little exercises
or scriptures to help you understand, like, where
can you go back to applying this for yourself?
And I've done that like probably six times throughout
my life. I probably did like a hundred times
in the mission, but for once, I'll go back to
it. So that, that is one of those elements. And
then on the business side, my friends. I believe
building in eight principles for business. We
call it the eight foundations, the foundational
layers of a strong business. And it's vision,
culture, leadership, marketing, fulfillment,
operations, and then scaling sales and support.
And so each one of those categories gives me
a chance to look at my business more holistically
and say, okay, how are we doing with our clarity
of our vision for our culture? How are we doing
with relation to belonging in our culture and
the values that we've set for it? Leadership.
What are we doing to develop ourselves as leaders,
marketing and et cetera? And as long as I've
got those eight pillars on my heart and mind,
then it makes it a little bit easier every week
to stay focused on moving forward the productivity
that drives our brand. So I'm glad you mentioned
that, Mike, because it's something that's for
granted. What a beautiful framework on both sides.
I love those. Yeah, I'm a systems and a framework
guy. So I love anything that gives some structure
to the way of thinking. Well, speaking of that,
so building systems that support freedom, not
burnout, right? We've both been there and every
single one of us can reach a burnout point at
any given hour of any given day. And so why don't
you talk to us, Mike, a little bit about some
of your systems that create freedom in your life.
yeah yeah well on the on the business side of
things um we found land and land flipping in
that moment that i spoke about where my wife
and i actually both were laid off in virtually
the same moment from different companies and
and we we uh faced this i don't want to say crisis
but we we faced a moment of of decision and we
chose entrepreneurship and really i would say
through a little bit of coincidence or um that's
maybe too light of a word but we had already
land in land investing had already come into
my consciousness a year or two earlier and so
it had it had planted a seed and this just opened
a window of opportunity or a door for us to step
through let me ask you a quick question pre -qualify
me um and my audience Do I have to have $100
million to do land investing or where does that
starting point safely begin? Yeah. One of the
best things about land relative to the other
real estate asset classes or the businesses in
general is the flexibility. So we have bought
and sold properties for hundreds of dollars and
we have bought and sold properties for six figures
and up. And so there is a way to do it. for any
budget and that was one of the things that felt
safer about it for me anyway was the fact that
i didn't have to allocate large sums of money
and put those at risk to get things started and
so we were able to get some proof of concept
and and really dial in our processes in a very
very low risk way and that's one of the many
things that i love about land relative to other
types of real estate the other aspect that i'll
just call out really is the fact that From an
end to end perspective in our business, we're
simply buying properties that we can get at a
discount. So we're buying them below the market
value and we're reselling them. That's it versus
other forms of even land and but especially other
forms of real estate. You start to add complexity
along the whole end to end chain. And if you're
if you're renovating or doing a physical fix
and flip. there's everything that comes along
with all of that. If it's a short -term rental
or even a long -term rental, there's all the
myriad of complexities that go with maintaining
all of that. And so at its essence, it already
is a business model that enables such a high
degree of freedom and it's very low touch for
us in terms of being able to run it. But within
that, There is obviously a business to run. You
have to find a market. First of all, like we
have a framework we call the DIRT framework,
which is basically define the strategy, identify
the market, reach out to owners and transact.
And it keeps things very, very simple. And there
are processes to do that. But, you know, as with
any business, you can. automate things. You can
delegate things. You can eliminate processes.
And this is no different. And so we have set
up our business over the years such that it is
as much as we want it to be. We're full time
in it. We do some coaching on the side as well.
But, you know, it's probably five or 10 percent
of our time and income. And so for us, we like
to be hands on in the business. We also enjoy,
I don't know. the audience exactly but there's
a classification a real estate professional status
that the government you can use for taxes and
it gives you some extra benefits in terms of
being able to to offset different tax incomes
and so it requires you be a certain amount of
hours a year in the business and so to maintain
that we stay active as well but the point is
you know we we've designed this business with
automation and systems such that we are able
to do other things with our time where next week,
we're going to go to England for several weeks
to visit Ligia's family. We do that every year.
Almost we go and it's not a short trip to get
overseas. And so we'd like to be able to take
five or six weeks at a time and get a good visit
in. She doesn't get to see her family so often.
Many times it's just that one touch point each
year. And so. You know, we want to get the time
in to be able to do that. And this allows us
that freedom and flexibility. If we were working
for someone, we couldn't do that every year.
I mean, it would be really hard to take that
long of a block of time. And and also, like most
Western companies, if you do take time off, you're
not truly taking time off. You're you know, that's
fine, but still check in or maybe I'll sit on
a meeting or something. And so. um yeah land
itself i mean we've been very fortunate that
we stepped into it we have done many other and
still do many other real estate ventures um but
they're all so overly complicated relative to
this that we just continue to go back and um
yeah mainly traffic and land we land doesn't
give you tax benefits like other structural forms
of real estate because you can take the depreciation
um which is a passive loss on your taxes and
so we do those really to just optimize our our
income we will do rentals or multi -family deals
or storage or things like that but um it's as
minimal as possible so that we can just you know
grow long -term wealth but also offset the taxes
Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. And
this is something that, again, my friends, I've
talked to a lot of real estate people and I just,
maybe you guys meet better real estate people
than I do, but I have a really hard time finding
people like Mike who are willing to look at things
openly and they're not, he's not hyper inflating
processes or realities. And you've got the, you've
got this depth about you to be on the real estate
side, which I really admire. Mike, I'll ask him
another question about the real estate side.
We talked about maybe there's there's some deals
out there that might be in the hundreds versus
those that are in the thousands or the six figures.
What does the what does like the. typical turnaround
look like on land um my my grandpa owned a bunch
of land in farmington new mexico and was able
to sell it to ford and lincoln and and uh home
depot and a few other places so nice but you
know he held it for years i know there was taxes
that had to be paid on that as well um and so
um if somebody wanted to get into land flipping
what should they be aware of going into that
to protect their own current reality? How well
should they be prepared for it? Or is it one
of those things? It's like, no, if you can get
a network marketing, you can get into land flipping,
you know, and just throw it on a credit card.
What are your thoughts? I want to get you in
trouble guys. We're not, we're not financial
advisors. You know, we need to put the disclaimers
out there. Mike's not telling you what to do
as much as I'm just trying to see like, what
can he help us see? Because I'm, I'm super intrigued.
I can speak from our experience and from those
of our clients, as well as we have a good network
of other people in the real estate industry.
And yes, you will find a lot of people. It does
people a disservice, but there's a lot of people
that in order to get business, they overhype
or they, you know, promote maybe the best case
scenarios, things like that. And so land flipping
is purely flipping. And so we're looking to be
in and out of properties quickly. same day in
some cases. And so the fact that we're, let's
just, let me just give you a case example. In
New Mexico, there's a lot of 40 acre parcels
of land, a lot of bigger ones, but, but there's
a decent amount of 40 acre parcels. There's also
like five and 10 or whatever, but let's just
take a 40 acre parcel that might sell for around
$40 ,000 on the open market. Well, our process
is we would go direct to the owner. And we would
make them an offer of, say, 20 or maybe 25 or
so. So we're talking 40 to 45 cents on the dollar.
That can be more or less depending on the market
and the pricing and the dynamics. There's some
some factors that go into assessing what kind
of offer we're going to make. But we're buying
it and such that we when we close on a deal,
we can immediately turn around and resell it
and we have that profit locked in. Land is a
pretty special asset class, especially once you
get outside of the metro areas. It's not subject
to a lot of dynamics. There's not a lot of ups
and downs. Property taxes are generally not oppressive
on land unless you get into really high value
areas or metro areas or things like that. It
can be. But I would say really, and so on average,
I would say we're looking at seven to eight weeks
on a deal. So we'll buy a property, we'll be
marketing it and it'll take some time to sell.
That obviously swings up and down. We've bought
some really, some six figure deals, hundreds
of acres. Those might take a little bit longer.
You're looking for just the right buyer to come
along and your buying pool is smaller than it
is for a one acre parcel somewhere. hundreds
of thousands of people can afford and so there's
obviously variability within that but really
the only risk in our business is buying it wrong
so at the wrong price and it's not too hard to
assess in most markets um what the pricing is
it's not like housing or anything like that i
mean it's five acre properties in a similar area
are selling for around the same price and so
also we're making like a 35 or 40 % offer. And
so even if we're wrong, there's a lot of room
for us to be inaccurate and still make money.
And so that's a primary risk, I would say, is
just getting your pricing wrong. There's only
a few things that can be catastrophic in a deal.
If somebody has a back tax situation and you
don't catch it, it can be... more than the property
in some cases uh there's not a whole lot of counties
that let back taxes accumulate so so much there
can be liens on a property and so a lot of times
we like to leverage title companies just to do
all that work they they find things but that's
about it we don't buy properties that are landlocked
that don't have access to them but there's a
lot of those out there especially in new mexico
and utah and arizona you can find those people
will buy and sell them it just gets a little
shady sometimes those are really you have to
be in personal needs or can you do this remotely
we do it all remotely like there's there's mapping
um if you use a title company there's local title
companies um properties of a certain value let's
say ten thousand dollars and above or maybe fifteen
thousand dollars and above we leverage realtors
to do a lot of the marketing and sales um and
so they'll go take photos they'll put up listings.
And so, yeah, we buy and sell property across
the nation. We concentrate in Colorado just because
we love it and we're familiar with it. But we
buy in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Utah. Last
funny question from me on this. Do you have properties
currently that you've been stuck with for a while?
You don't have to say where, but any deals that
you're like, dang it. We still own this piece
of America. We have not. I mean, we have properties
that we've held for maybe five or six months,
but we just see it as part of the normal sales
cycle. Also, we're at a place in our business
where early days of our business, we had a very
aggressive pricing model where when we bought
a property, we would put it at a certain price.
We would go for a month or so, and then we'd
either drop the price or we'd look for a wholesale
buyer. We had a we had a series, a waterfall,
if you will, of ways that we wanted to move that
property because we really want to keep our cash
flow moving. Now we're in a position where we
just hold out for for good pricing on our deals.
Mostly we'll get to a point eventually where
we'll say, OK, let's just kind of get this one
moved. I would say our longest deal hold was
maybe 11 months and it was on one of those hundred
acre type properties where we had to find the
right hunter that wanted in this market. We found
a deal. It was great. We don't sit too long.
One of the factors that allows us to do that
is we will owner finance personally deals. If
you bought a property from us and you wanted
to pay in installments, we would finance your
deal. That makes properties much more affordable,
especially for people that maybe can't get a
loan at the bank or credit. It opens up the buying
pool and allows us to move properties much more
quickly. as well as we get to charge a premium
then and we build up passive income for five
you know if it's a five -year note i know for
five years and so we're at such a place in our
in our business now where we have years of income
mapped out and it gives an extra sense of security
it also enables enables you to be a little more
bold in your business and take risks, if you
will, or do things that you might not otherwise
if money's really tight. And so that's a strategy
that we use and that we help teach some of our
clients to go through that process. It's a different
strategy, but it's a way to generate passive
income from land. It's obviously finite because
somebody's going to pay it off and they're going
to be done with it. But it's a great method that
we have employed to give us longevity in our
business. We've been able to weather. some ups
and downs in market cycles. That's amazing. My
friends, we've had the opportunity to see somebody
who represents the American dream and hear about
how he's living the American dream. And he's
not holding it hostage. That's also really cool.
Mike's leading by example. You can reach out
to him as a mentor. You can reach out to him
as an entrepreneur. You can reach out to him
if you're looking at getting into land flipping
as well. There's just so many opportunities with
this. And I can tell you the type of person that
I want to be around a campfire with. It's like,
yeah, let's do it. You guys got so much going
on. And so if you're also ever coming down to
South America or I can get you down here, Mike,
there's just there's so many things that can
be done. I'm also hoping that you guys are starting
to lean. My AI mind is going nuts right now.
Oh, man. Tying this to perplexity computer, for
instance. There's so many things that could be
done. At the end of the day, my friends, visionaries,
this is about helping you guys fulfill your visions.
And we probably all have multiple visions. So
if Mike can be a vehicle for you to unlock your
next visions, just like First Class Business
is a vehicle to help our team members unlock
their next visions, then by all means, join us
for this ride. Come and be a part of it. Mike,
thank you for all the wisdom that you shared,
the tone, the cadence, how you lead, the way
that you show up. I'll give you one final minute
on this. If this was your last chance to talk
to visionary leaders out there, what would your
final thoughts be? You know, I have always been
of the mind and I learned this early in my days
and I really appreciate my corporate career for
giving me a lot of leadership lessons. I had
the fortune to work for a lot of great companies
that invested in leaders. But I have always embraced
this concept of servant leadership. And I just,
you know, the upside down pyramid, I fully believe
that as much as you can focus outward on whoever
you're leading in whatever capacity, you're going
to be, you know, okay, just keep leveling up.
But I just, you know, that for me, for any leader
out there, it's easy to get caught up in. How
am I performing? Am I do I have the right answer?
Do I do? I mean, just if you're if you're focused
outward and this applies really in any domain
of leadership, right? We're leaders as as family
members, as community members and those kind
of things. But just I love this outward philosophy
and just giving giving value, giving help, being
of service. So that kind of would be, I guess,
my. overarching message that I would love to
get out to as many people as possible. I love
it, visionaries. Let's go serve, my friends.
We heard from Mike Deaton. We'll see you in the
next episode. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.