Dan Zitofsky, Author at Zitofsky Capital Management

Feb 03

Invest In YOU!

By Dan Zitofsky | Passive to Prosperous Podcast | No Comments

It is unfortunate that many people in the world live in a mindset of limiting beliefs. You will see them miserable, but they will still refuse to invest in themselves. Why are they doing this to themselves? It’s simple – they don’t value themselves enough. Do you know of anyone who is that miserable in their job, business, etc.? If they believed they deserved better, then they would invest in themselves and learn how to make the change. Listen in as Dan Zitofsky explains why you need to see that value for yourself and start investing in yourself first and how his new group, Prosperity Inner Circle can be a way for you to do that.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Invest In YOU!

Value Yourself Enough To Invest In Yourself

I hope everyone is doing great, happy, healthy, and you’re living a prosperous life. I want to talk about something important to me, my life, my business, how I’ve changed at many levels, where I see a lot of people making their biggest mistakes, and what’s causing them issues in their life both personally and the business. I wanted to bring this up about mindset and your limited beliefs thinking everything as a cost, not as an investment, and trying to save a dollar. These are the things that you never heard growing up. How many times have people told you, “Go to school, get a good job, save money, and then you’ll live a good life?”

You’re always looking for the coupons. You’re always looking to be a coupon shop, skimp, save, nickel and dime, everything. You jump over dollars to save pennies. I see it all the time. I mentor a lot of people, not just in real estate investing but I’m mentoring people on life. Sometimes, it’s the hardest thing in the world for me to work with people. That’s why I wanted to do this show and talk about this with you, guys. If you haven’t noticed, the most successful people in business have a different mindset, they think differently and think at a higher level. They don’t sit there and figure out, “If I go out and I mowed my lawn, I could save $50.”

I cannot pay somebody $50 because I know how to mow the lawn. If I could spend 3, 4 or 5 hours designing a logo myself of all the tools online, I don’t have to pay somebody else $100 to design that logo. If I could do all this paperwork myself, I don’t have to pay an assistant, bookkeeper, or accountant to do the work themselves. I’m not saying that there are not things you love to do. I have a pool and I love cleaning my pool. I don’t care how much money you pay me to not clean my pool. I want to clean it. I’m being fictitious when I say, “If you hand me $1 million, maybe I’ll take that.”

When I clean my pool, I get out there, I put my headphones on, and listen to a podcast or some music. I relax, nobody is out there bothering me. I don’t have anyone telling me I need to do things and ask me questions. It’s my zone. I get to zone out and I enjoy doing it. It’s a beautiful day. I get in a pool, I walk around with a vacuum, and I love cleaning that pool. I don’t know how many people out there do it but if you asked me to cut my lawn, I hate doing landscaping and cutting my lawn. There’s nothing enjoyable about it for me. Some people love it and I give them credit. That’s fine.

I look at it like this, if I hated vacuuming my pool, it may cost me $100 to pay somebody to vacuum my pool. To vacuum my pool, it could take me 1 or 2 hours so that’s $100 to $200. I could save by doing it myself. Think about this, I could save $100 or $200 vacuuming the pool myself. Why would I pay anybody? Have you ever figured out what is your hourly salary or how much you’re worth? Have you ever done this exercise to figure out how much you’re worth? If you sit with me right now, I could go through this exercise.

I tell people, “There are 52 weeks in a year. How many weeks do you want to vacation?” Everything I do is passive to prosperous and lifestyle by design. I’m talking about vacation. I’m not saying I’m not working and I’m going to watch Netflix. I want a vacation of at least 2 to 3 months a year vacation. Generally, about 6 to 8 weeks in the summer and another 2 to 4 weeks throughout the fall to the summer. It would be a lot more but with my daughter in school, it’s a little bit less. I’m alone and not doing much. I’m at the beach, at the beach house, at the boat, or whatever it might be. My kids play sports so I want to be involved with that. I want to coach. That’s my lifestyle by design.

Invest in yourself first. You can't help anybody else if you don't take care of yourself. Click To Tweet

Let’s go right in the middle and say ten weeks. That gives me 42 weeks a year of working. I only want to work about four hours a day and I don’t want to work on Fridays. Forty-two weeks a year on four days is 168 days a year work on average. There are Christmas weeks, Easter weeks, Valentine’s Day, and Thanksgiving but I’m going to say an average of 168 days a year. I want to work no more than four hours a day. That means 672 hours a year. Sometimes, I work more and sometimes less but that’s my average. I know how much money I want to make a year. I want to make seven-figures every year and I’m doing that.

Let’s say it’s only $1 million. It’s $1 million divided by 672 hours. It means my hourly salary has to be $1,488. If I cannot replace what I’m doing for $1,488, I’m not doing it unless the pool. I love the pool. I also enjoy detailing some of my cars. I get a sports car and I love detailing that as well. Do you see how I look at things? Why would I go out and cut my lawn for $50 for one hour where I can make $1,488 in the same hour. That’s my hourly salary. Sometimes I make more and sometimes less but I have to average at least $1,400 and I do. I need to know what I need to make. You have to figure it out and work backward.

I don’t know if they teach this assignment in school and they should because what happens is people don’t take care of themselves first. It’s important to take care of yourself first. When you get on a plane, what did they say when they start talking? If you run out of oxygen, the masks are going to drop. You put one on your face first before you take care of your own kids. You can’t help somebody else if you don’t help yourself. Stop not valuing yourself. I did a webinar and every once in a while, depending on the group, I offer a huge discount.

My goal was usually 10% to 20% of the people sign up. They join a webinar for free. They want to take action. They want to learn how to raise private money in the right way and they want to build a passive income portfolio. They spend one hour at a time on the webinar because they want to sign up. I don’t whack them over the head with an expensive price. I give them everything. I believe in a ton of value. I create a ton of content and not everybody signs up. I said, “It’s a test for me. I haven’t made a better one. The next ten people that will take it, I will spend 30 minutes with you on the phone going through your resume and your brochure.”

At $1,488 an hour, if you take 30 minutes of my time, that’s $744. I offered the whole training with everything they get for only $497. There are a couple of things that happen. It’s either they don’t value what I’m doing or don’t believe what I do which I can’t imagine because we proved that I am and they all agreed that this makes sense. I need to raise private money, it’s needed for my business but it didn’t make sense or they don’t value themselves. That’s where I’m going to go with. I’ve gone through this for a long time doing this for many years. Most people do not value themselves. They don’t believe they are worth investing in themselves. They look at everything as a cost. They don’t look at anything as an investment.

When they asked me, “How much does it cost for you to mentor me?” I’m like, “Nothing because I don’t have room for you.” Call me and ask, I don’t care because the mindset is everything. If you don’t have the right mindset, I can’t work with you. Mindset is not something I can teach you. You either have it, you learn it on your own, you get it from somewhere, you get it from within, or you want to live a life of a greater purpose. Where is your mindset? Guys, I want to make more money. Why do I want to make money? It’s because I want to do more with it and not buy things.

Invest In Yourself: It’s important that you think differently about yourself because if you don’t, you’re always going to be a coupon shopper, looking for discounts and freebies.

I want to give more to charity, do for organizations, and build a financial literacy course for youth around the world. I want to donate, build, help companies get to the next level, infuse companies, and investors. There’s so much I want to do. I’m not done and nothing with me is money-motivated. As crazy as it sounds, it’s not money-motivated. There’s a higher purpose. We’re at a point in life where there’s so much more to life. We’re not done. We’re not even scratching the surface but we think differently about ourselves. It’s important that you think differently about yourself because if you don’t, you’re always going to be a coupon shopper, looking for discounts and freebies.

You’re always going to look for a way to get over it. If you start looking for a way to get over, you’re always going to get over, you’re never going to achieve great success. I see it now. We’re going through a pandemic and everybody is out there. They’re looking for unemployment, stimulus checks, and how they can spend. They spent hours to get a $1,200 stimulus check. If you took 1/3 of the time they spent getting that $1,200 stimulus check and you focused on building a business of some sort, anything. I’m seeing people sell trinkets, lead gen, build logos, and do much to build some business to make money rather than going out and spending all their time looking how they could save a $1. They’re mewling themselves out. They’re not living to the greatest potential. It’s sad and I hate to see it happening. I feel like this is important.

Eventually, we might have some sponsors on here. My plan is not to have sponsors on here, not to sell ads, and create amazing content. This is my passion, to do this. I finally have the show launch. If you’re enjoying this, do me a favor. Share this out with at least five people and give us a review. We love those five-star reviews. If you find it within your heart, if you think it’s valuable and you’ve got something out of this, we’d love your review. That’s our cost to you. We’re not charging you anything to be here. This is completely free. You’re going to get a tremendous amount of value here. We’re going to have business guests on this show from time-to-time.

We’re going to bring everything our business that helped us build our business to where we’re at now to multiple seven-figure businesses, not just one. We’re going to help you and bring that to you. We’re not looking to sell you anything here. We’re looking to provide complete value and do differently than what everybody else does on this show. Everyone is in it for a reason. We’re in it because we see a need for it and a missing value out there. We want to give that to you. I’m going to come straight to you. I’m not going to sugarcoat anything.

You might not like everything I have to say, I don’t care. I did not care what people think about me. People didn’t like me when I was down, out, and poor. They talked about me when I was there. They’re talking about me now when I’m wealthy and successful. I’m not where I’m at. I haven’t even scratched the surface yet of where I’m going to be at God willing for the next years. I’m healthy and I could keep going. I still have a passion for it. I’m not even close to where I’m going to be. People are going to talk about you and I don’t care. That’s their garbage, negativity, and mindset. People say, “You don’t need a mentor.” That’s horrible.

I love what we’re doing. I honor you for being on here and I value your time. I know you can spend your time on 100 million podcasts. I love that you’re here. Please share this out and give us a review, come back, read our blogs, and feel free to reach out. Let us know the questions you have. If you have ideas and thoughts, let us know. We will be bringing guests on. You’re going to hear from time-to-time some special guests that we have. We’ve got tons of surprises for you. I look forward to speaking with you and seeing your reviews. I’ll talk to you soon. We’ll see you next time. Be well. I love you. Be passive, be prosperous, and have a great life.

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Feb 02

Are You Being Destroyed By Those With A Poor Mindset And Mentality In Your Life?

By Dan Zitofsky | Passive to Prosperous Podcast | No Comments

The great mentor Greg Reid once pointed out that successful people seek counsel from those who are doing what they seek. This is exactly the reason why you should be careful about whom you hang around with. Surrounding yourself with people who have a poor mindset and mentality will sound the death knell on your dreams and potential in life. Join Dan Zitofsky in this episode and learn why this is something you should take seriously, wherever you are in your goals in your business and in your life. Whether you’re in real estate or somewhere else, this will serve as your wakeup call that not everyone you associate with will have your best interests in mind. It’s time to cut bridges with those who don’t.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Are You Being Destroyed By Those With A Poor Mindset And Mentality In Your Life?

Poor Mindset And Mentality Will Destroy You

It’s important to talk about a couple of things here. I’ve been going through a lot. Sharing a journey for somebody who’s going through the positives, negatives, and watching how we get through it might help somebody else. That’s why we do this. Once again, we’re not doing this for money. The only thing we ask you is to get out there, like it, share it if you find value. If you don’t find value in it, don’t share it. I hope you find a ton of value in this. I thought this was important to put out publicly. Most people in this world have limited mindsets. They live in scarcity. They hang around people that have limited mindsets. One of the people I value and someone who’s like a mentor to me is Greg Reid from Secret Knock. I’ve been close in a lot of his events and I’ve got close to a lot of people there. Greg says something that sticks with me so often. I think about it and I talk about it. He says, “Successful people seek counsel from those who are doing out what they seek. Failures will listen to opinion from those who never accomplish what they’re looking for.”

He doesn’t say it exactly like that but I want to break it out to what he means. Think about it this way, successful people seek counsel. I talk about it and mentorship all the time. This is not to talk about getting a mentor. This is to get you to think about what you’re looking for in life. I’m in the real estate investing world and I raise capital in my world, I provide decent returns and passive income. If you want to seek counsel and be successful in that field, you want to seek somebody out who’s successful. You don’t want to seek somebody out who’s not successful.

If you want to get in great shape, you’re not going to find the fat person that doesn’t do anything, sits on their ass all day, eats Bon Bons, and watches Netflix to get you in shape because they put out a great video. If you want marriage counseling, if you’re having problems in your marriage, you’re not going to seek out the men or the women that are cheating on their spouse and have been divorced 3 or 4 times. If you were going to seek financial advice, you’re not going to a financial advisor. You shouldn’t, because a lot of financial advisors, unfortunately, out there, can invest their way out of a paper bag. They sell you whatever they’re told to sell you because of the commissions. You’re not going to go to somebody for financial advice if they’re piss-poor, had filed bankruptcy, and much of times, have terrible credit, can’t pay the bills, have judgments against them.

Poor Mindset: If you want to seek counsel and be successful in that field, you want to seek somebody out who’s successful.

That’s what this is about. I say this because I’m having a conversation with somebody I consider a friend who wants to start investing in real estate and it brings up all these memories of all these people I’ve helped in real estate build a portfolio of passive income with rental properties in emerging markets. Some of them should do their due diligence and they do. You should do due diligence on anything you do. Some of them will turn around, do their due diligence, do a great job, as scared as they might be, they jump in. You can sit there, you can nitpick everything, you can educate yourself until you’re blue in the face, you could be an expert then go and show up at every event and you don’t take any action. You can do all that. Every deal I jump in, my stomach turns a bit. It never gets different but I jump in.

Behold The Naysayers

I don’t say jump in without doing due diligence. Once you commit to jumping in, be careful because here’s what’s going to happen in anything you do. You’re going to have the naysayers, the negativity, the people with scarcity, and the people that are jealous. They’re all in your network. That’s the way it is. I look at my network and I have some great friends, family, not-so-great friends, and some family that might not want the best for you. It’s the way it is that people get jealous. Some people are there for you when you’re successful and they will never be there for you when you’re not successful. They’re your best friend when you go out to D-Mac’s because they want you to pay for them and you’re the car to go. The minute you don’t have money or you’re down and out, they won’t be there for you. Here’s what happens, you take a step in the right direction for you and your family to reach the goals, your vision, whatever your vision is. I’m not talking about goals as much as I talk about vision because it’s different. Whatever that vision is, you take those steps necessary to reach those goals, which is important.

You start telling people, you go to a party and say, “I bought my first property. I’m on the contract. I’m excited.” Most people have never owned a rental property, never funded a deal as a lender, never done anything but work a 9:00 to 5:00 job that they’re miserable with. They feel stuck because they don’t want to do what you’re doing and take action to make their life better. They will give you every reason, become the engineer, and destroy your imagination. One of my mentors and somebody I aligned with Shawn Escoffery, he’s phenomenal. He’ll talk about the imagineer, engineer, implements what Disney puts out, and something you should pay attention to.

Your head is your biggest enemy. It’s your biggest naysayer. Click To Tweet

If you’re an imagineering on your business, they don’t even let you talk to the engineers at Disney. If you do and you discuss the project you’re working on, you will be fired. There’s a reason for that because your imagineer friends will tell you every reason why you cannot do this, why it’s not going to work, and why real estate is a scam. We have over 600 assets, but every other investor out there might have thousands of assets or might have ten assets and they were able to leave their job, retire their spouse, or pay for their kid’s college. If you start hanging out with the likes of Warren Buffett, BlackRock, and every major real estate corporation, you’d get a different response because those are the people you should be seeking counsel from, not opinions from, as Greg Reid says.

I bring this to you to open your eyes because I cannot tell you how many investors I speak with, whether it’s investors that have IRA money, 401(k) money, Coverdell, health savings account, or they want to build their own portfolio. The amount of investors I speak with on a daily, a weekly basis, compared to the amount of the investors that go through what they tell me they’re going to go through is mind-boggling. I appreciate that. I’ve got Paul saying, “The biggest naysayer is a space between the ears. Master this and the people around you won’t be that big of a deal.” That’s why I’m bringing this stuff here. Your head is your biggest enemy. Think about what you’re putting in. Your brain is your sponge. It is your biggest muscle. It’s your fight-or-flight. Think about what you’re putting in and who you’re letting inside that head of yours. Look at what they’ve done. I had a deal and I cut it off. I tell the investor I can’t do business with them because I had a friend who was a lawyer outside of the state we lived in and the lawyer was giving them all this advice. He never did investment properties. I said, “I’m not here to fight your lawyer. I’m here to help you. If you don’t feel we’re helping you, we’re not the right fit.” I have no problem not being the right fit for somebody.

Where I have the biggest problem is it bothers me because I see somebody that could be successful and what their goals are and what they want in life. Somebody else is stealing your vision. They’re inside your head and destroying your vision. They’re not looking out for your best interest in any way, shape, or form. Think about the people who told you you couldn’t be successful. Think about the people that told you you need to go to college, have good grades, have a good job, and work for somebody else when that wasn’t your vision. I’m not saying that’s terrible. I’m saying that might not be your vision. If it’s not your vision, why are they stealing that from you? I had a real dear friend of mine, Neil. He had shared with me that he met with somebody at a mastermind. When I meet somebody, I try to join groups, masterminds or mentorships. I have my own mentorship that I do. I’m starting my own group up again. I like to be the dumbest person in the group. It’s not too hard. If I had a cohost here to be like, “You should be joining any group.” I’ll be the dumbest in the group.

Poor Mindset: Anyone who tells you everything is perfect is lying to you.

The Power Of Six

We talk about it and we say, “What makes somebody go from a millionaire to a billionaire?” That’s impressive. A millionaire is not impressive. It’s easy to do but it’s not impressive. I don’t know how many millionaires are out there. I should look at the number for it, and I didn’t know I was going to go into this. Many people might think I’m being pompous. I’m not being pompous. A millionaire is not a hard thing to do. Get out of your own head and you’ll become a millionaire. How do you become a billionaire? That’s impressive to me. Even $100 million is not as impressive anymore. How do you go from a millionaire to a billionaire? The people have heard me talk about this is the PSX, The Power of Six. They say with the Power of Six, you’ve got to look at who’s in your network. I’m not talking about your family because your family is not going to kick you out of their life unless they’re toxic. I’m not going to even talk about that. That’s a different show. The Power of Six is, think about it as a board of directors in your business, people that you network with, you mastermind with, help you, and they’re a part of your team, whatever it might be.

You think about the six people that you want in your life that you could bounce ideas off of, that will hold you accountable, push you to that next level, and get the best they can get out of you. If they’re not part of that Power of Six, they might not make the Power of Six, it might be Power of Eight. That doesn’t work. It’s Power of Six. I put a POSix out there. I have a good friend of mine, somebody I’ve watched grow tremendously and somebody I value, Kyle Milam. If you’re not following him, he’s another great guy. I hit him and he’s like, “Should I look this up?” I’m like, “No, here’s the paper on it. Read it.” The Power of Six is important because think about who you have in your life. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s your spouse, parents, brother, sister, or best friend. If they’re not successful in their own right, they might be successful in their job, their 9:00 to 5:00, that’s great. They might be a doctor or lawyer. The worst, unfortunately, are lawyers because they think that the word lawyer next in their name, they know everything. Please, whatever I say, don’t hold this against me. I’m just telling you what I see in the industry.

Most of them are not humble enough to say, “Sorry, that’s not my field. I’m not an expert. I don’t know.” I have no problem telling people I just don’t know. I don’t have that egotistical mindset where I have to say I know everything. There are a lot of things I say I know, there are a lot of things I said I’ve researched, there are experts, and I always tag experts in my group. If there were an expert, reach out to them, talk to them, I have no problem doing referrals on that. That’s where the non-scarcity comes in. A lot of people refuse to share their network. I have no problem sharing my network. I’m not going to share it with my investors out there. When I say investors, I mean my lenders. I don’t know if you’re going to be a steward of their money. A lot of my investors in my group page become a real estate investor with Dan Zitofsky, and I will go out there and go to tremendous lengths to give people quality testimonials and feedback on people doing positive things.

Once you stop chasing money, your life changes. Click To Tweet

I’ve had my lenders hit me up and asked me, “Would you fund this person’s deal?” I’m like, “I would fund their deal. If I had the money now or I’m interested in that, I’ll fund their deal their characters, and they’re ethical.” A lot of people wouldn’t do that. They’d be like, “No, I’m scared to give up my lender.” If you ask me for a lender, I’m not going to give them out to you. I’m scared to give up my contractors and my property managers. I’m scared to give this and tell you where I invest. I tell everybody where I invest. I believe in cooppetition, not competition. There is no way you could do this on your own. You need to share with people. I sit back and I listened to people and say, “If you’re not in my group, I’m not going to share. If you don’t pay me for my mentorship, that’s my paid mentorship group, you can’t get that information.” That’s a bunch of crap. Your mindset is screwed up that somebody should feed their due diligence on if they should work with you or not anyway. It’s all about your network and mindset. I thought about the people that take action and where they’ve come in the last several years.

I have some investors that have started working with me. I have one investor that has over 70 properties and works a full-time job as the CEO. He’s making more in his real estate than he’s making in the CEO position, but with the stock options, probably not. He’s planning to retire. He took action several years ago. He’s going to be over 100 properties easily. That’s a legacy that guy will be making because these properties are hot at the higher end. When they’re paid off, he’s going to be making over $100,000 potentially per month, passively on his real estate that his two kids are going to take over one day. He didn’t sit there and talk to all his friends about what he was going to do. That guy is making seven figures a year with the stock options. He didn’t talk about his $300 positive cashflow a month because that would have been embarrassing for people in that field. He put his head down. He stuck with people. He came to someone he knew who would do the right job from that he trusted and not everything went perfect, it never does. Anyone who tells you everything is perfect is lying to you. You better run, not walk. I put something out there and I started talking about what my thoughts are.

The Prosperity Inner Circle

I’m making some changes. I have my mentorship group I’m part of with my mentor. I’ll be deep into that. I’m working on myself with people that are smarter and brighter than me. I need help in my business and on who I work with. I don’t like working with people that don’t want to help themselves. I don’t want to be selling, begging, convincing, and fighting with people anymore because they have a network of people that have a limited mindset. How do you change that? You step up to people you work with and you get out of the low mindset people. It’s unfortunate. You need to work on yourself. There’s not anything I can do with you on their investment side if you don’t work on yourself. I’m putting this out there. I’ve always chosen to simply give those people less access to me than other people in my life. We’ve got to get people to the level of access they deserve within our life. One hundred percent, I went through this, it’s part of my learning curve. I’ve gotten better at this over the last several years. I always felt guilty not helping people for free, but what I was doing is I was screwing them over because I wasn’t getting the best out of them. Free never works.

Passive To Prosperous: Stop Chasing Money and Start Seeing Prosperity Through Passive Wealth

When things are free, people quit once things get tough. As long as it doesn’t cost them any money, time, or headache, they’ll do it but the minute it cost them some time, money or headache, they’re out. That’s why we charge, it’s an investment, it’s not a cost. Once we make people invest in themselves to work with us, we see great success. It’s the way it is. It’s human nature. I have multiple tasks. I’m a KPI guy, Key Performance Indicator. I look at numbers like crazy. That 80/20 rule is immensely accurate. I can show you a ton of ways why I know it’s accurate and I’ve proven it’s accurate. I thought this was important because this message needs to go out to many people. We will be bringing on a cohost and we’ll let you know who that is. We’re going to be talking about mindset, vision, life, some business strategies but it’s not going to be mostly business strategies, it’s going to be mindset like this.

I love the people on here. Share this out there. We ask you that you give us a review if you like it. If you don’t like it, if you have any questions, and if there are any topics you want us to talk about, let us know. This is going to be real. This is going to be one of the best podcasts. It’s not going to be a hyped-up, BS, and something that gets you to spend money show. It will be a show about life. Things that I’ve gone through and other people are going through. It’s not just about the real estate business. I’m going to try to keep it about people, process, systems, mindset, goals, visions, roadblocks, and skillset, those issues because people can use that anywhere they go. This should almost be called “anything in life” because that’s what it’s going to be about. I don’t make money on this. People aren’t paying for me. I have made the decision that I’m not going to do any ads on my podcast. I can’t say what’s going to happen in the future. I don’t do any sponsorship in my groups. I’ve been offered a total of $3,000 a month from sponsors in my groups from a couple of companies, and I refuse to do it because I want my group to be as organic and as clean as possible.

I want people to know that when I present something in that group, it’s something I would use myself if I could or would, or somebody I present is somebody I would work with or have worked with in the past because I know that they take care of the people the right way. They’re not there chasing the money and will screw somebody over. They’re the type of people that will tell others, “I’m not the right fit for you.” Like I am, I’m not the right fit for everybody. I told that investor, “Sorry, I’m not the right fit for you. Good luck with you. Good luck with your attorney. I hope they can help you in your endeavor and the vision we talked about but you’re scared that you will get in front of your own way every single time and you’ll never take action on anything.” That’s not something I’m here to do. I don’t have the energy, the patience, and the mindset to want to work with somebody like that. I’m going to end with this. The nicest part of any business is what I call lifestyle by design or my business by design.

I don’t work for an employer any longer. I don’t work for Corporate America. I do not have to work with anybody. I choose to work with who I want. The reason I’m able to do that is because I stopped chasing money. Once you stop chasing money, your life changes. I understand that everyone can’t go out there and stop chasing money because they need money to pay bills. Think about what happens when you stop chasing money. What do you start chasing? With me, everything I do is lifestyle by design. I create my life the way I want it, the perfect life. I have hiccups. I fall off track. I’m human. I put that out there. I was having a rough few days. I fell off track and I started working with the people that I knew I never wanted to work with. I was coaching people, while coaching, my one-on-one coaching. That’s changing a bit. I’m only going to one-on-one coach people on raising private money, but my real estate investing coaching, that’s not a one-on-one anymore. I’m going to a group mentorship and it’s not real estate investing group mentorship.

That will be a lot of real estate investment, it’s going to be called the Prosperity Inner Circle. It’s a group mentorship. We’re going to cap it out at fifteen people max. We’re going to interview the people before we let them in. It’s not just the money thing. You have to pay to get in. That’s going to go back to what we do in the group but I’m giving up a ton of money in one-on-one coaching to do this because one-on-one coaching has not been fulfilling. There are a few people in one-on-one coaching and the ones I work with, I love working with them. There’s a difference. I got caught up chasing non-insurance money. When I did my group coaching last time, people started to come to me and said, “Can you coach me one-on-one?” I always felt guilty not doing it because I know what’s out there. I know the junk that’s out there and I’m not here to talk bad about anybody else, but I felt I owed it to them to teach them the right way. What do I owe myself? Do I owe it to them to make myself miserable, to teach them the right way? Is it worth stealing from myself and my family? Is it worth stealing my mindset, my drive, my head, and what gets inside my head?

Same thing with investors. If you have a business, think about who you’re working with. I’m going to talk about this in another episode. Think about who you work with, though. Stop thinking about that and pay attention to future episodes when I start talking about who you should work with. I wanted to keep this laser-focused. I love you guys for being on here. I ask that you share it with at least five people that you think you get value out of it. I don’t have a dog in this race. I don’t make money on this. I’m doing this purely out of my love to help all the people to open your eyes, mindset, and vision so that you too could live that inner life prosperity. With that, I love you all. I wish you great success in mindset, financial, family, and anything you’re doing. I’ll see you on the other side. Take care.

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Feb 01

How To Stop Living In Scarcity And Start Getting Your Mindset On Point

By Dan Zitofsky | Passive to Prosperous Podcast | No Comments

Many people never see their full potential or value in life because they are living in a mindset of scarcity. These limiting beliefs hold them back from becoming who they want and do what they want in life. It’s preventing them from creating the legacy that they want to leave into the world. But once you break that barrier and belief, your world will change at so many levels. It’s time to be honest with yourself in what could be the greatest question in your life. What’s holding you back? Are you going to just let it define you or are you breaking your way into them and taking the reins in your own life? Join Dan Zitofsky in this episode and decide for yourself.

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Listen to the podcast here:

How To Stop Living In Scarcity And Start Getting Your Mindset On Point

Fighting The Scarcity Mindset

We’re going to talk about a bit of a mindset. I’ve studied mindset a lot over the last several years and a lot of it has to do with limited beliefs or scarcity. I ask you to share this out there with your friends, family, audience, or whoever it might be. If you don’t do that, you’re living in a scarcity mindset. I see it all the time in the real estate investing world and the business world. When you ask people, “Who could help me out fix this problem?” You don’t want to give your resources because you’re scared that they’re going to somebody who is going to do a bit better than you, you’re going to lose some business, or you might lose your contractor because of it.

You’re living in a life of scarcity. I’ve seen it time and time again. I’m doing this for a long time. I see it all the time where people that live in a scarcity mindset and have that scarcity belief don’t grow. That’s why the right masterminds are important. When I say that, it’s just not somebody who calls themselves a mastermind, it’s those masterminds where you’re challenged and held accountable. I’m starting up my prosperity in a circle with up to ten people max.

The reason it’s important is that it intends to have the right people in that mastermind or that inner circle means everything. By doing that, it allows you to have people hold you accountable. It allows people to say, “You need help with this. I want you on one of my masterminds and I’m having a little bit of an issue myself.” I started realizing that my audience might not be the right audience. We talk about those all the time. You are who you hang out with. I’ve talked about The Power of Six before, and I’m sure I’ll talk about it again.

I have thousands of people over the years following me. I have an email list that’s over 100,000. I’m on Facebook. I keep it in that 5,000 friends limit. I’m not saying this to impress you. It’s to impress upon you how important it is to have the right network. That’s why you have to be intentional about the mastermind, the inner circle, a boardroom, or board of directors, whatever you’re in. You have to be intentional about the people that are on that because if you’re not, you’re wasting your time and be buried with distress and aggravation. I’m telling you this only because I’ve gone through this. There’s a lot of hurt that comes through this and what the hurt is, is when you think people value and they don’t value, it’s a gut wrench.

I believe it’s a life journey. I do believe in faith and God. I’m put here for a reason, and I’m putting every situation for a reason, but when your makeup is to be somebody that wants to help the right people. When I say the right people, the right people with the right mindset and they don’t get it, they live in scarcity or this limited belief that they’re not worth it. That drives home and it hurts. On the limited belief side, a lot of people don’t believe they’re worth it. They’re not going to tell you, “I’m Dan and I don’t believe I’m worth it.”

Stop living in scarcity. Value yourself. Invest in yourself. Click To Tweet

They’re not going to tell you that. They’re going to talk a big game. They’re going to go on social media and talk about how great they’re doing but when they close that screen, they get off, or they power off, real life happens. A lot of it has to do with living in the moment, being honest with yourself. A lot of these things I’m talking about is what I speak about at events. I’m bringing it all on the cumulation of one podcast episode. A lot of people live in this limited belief that they have. They don’t value themselves.

I’ll explain how that is. They want to do better, more for their family, life, business, relationship, and to be healthy, whatever it might be. They go to these events and then they find somebody they love. That person they love is a mentor or has a program. They believe that it’s a cost to them. Anytime you think it’s a cost to you, an investment in yourself, and getting better for yourself, then your beliefs are wrong. We can argue forever. It’s not a cost. It’s an investment. If you’re not willing to invest in yourself, why not? Why wouldn’t you invest in yourself? Are you not worth investing in yourself? How much are you worth? Are you worth $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $50, or nothing? It kills me when I see it. I see it all the time, not just from me because I’m intentional about who I bring in.

That’s why I said it in my group. When we launch, we’re only launching to a maximum of ten people. I’m intentional about who I’m bringing in. I want the right people in the group, who are givers and going to hold each other accountable. I don’t want people that are going to pound their chest how great they are. I want people that are vulnerable, honest, or we’re going to come and play full out. Not lie, not pound. They trust that right there. That’s social media. You can do that all day long. Put those fake cards, the planes, the boats, whatever you’ve got.

Put that on social media. Fake yourself and your life out. Fake your wife, husband, and kids. Let them see how great you are. That’s not what I’m looking for. It does nothing for our group and for me. I can’t do anything for you. I’m looking for honest people. I might be the only one saying this out there. Everybody else is looking to take the money. I’m looking for a great group of people, man and woman, to be in this group. I call it Prosperity Inner Circle that are going to hold each other accountable, play full out, not lie, be honest including myself. That’s what I’m looking for, that’s what I love. Those are people I want to be around.

That’s my boardroom and my power. I call it Power of Six and that could be my Power of Ten. I see many people out there that will talk a great game. They will put all this fake stuff on social media. I know it because I know them but I’m not going to mention names. They want to meet with me all the time like, “Let’s meet up and work together. Let’s talk and have coffee. Next time you’re in town, hit me up and let’s have dinner.” They’re putting all this crazy stuff on social media. I talked to him about being part of a group and it becomes crickets.

Scarcity Mindset: Anytime you think an investment in yourself is a cost, your beliefs are wrong.

You don’t hear back from them. Our group is not expensive. It is an investment. I don’t know if it’s a cost to them and their mindset is the cost. I don’t know if that’s one thing. I don’t know if they don’t value themselves or they don’t value me, and that’s okay. I want people to read this, look in the mirror, and be honest with themselves. I’m hoping that’s what I get out of this show. I’m hoping that you get off this and you read it. I’m not going to make it long. You look in the mirror, look at yourself, and say, “Who am I going to be? Who am I to my wife, husband, kids, friends, business associates, partners, students, or players if you’re a coach?” Who are you?

I know who Dan Zitofsky is. Dan Zitofsky is a husband, father, grandfather, friend, son, uncle, brother, coach, mentor, partner, consultant and entrepreneur. Nothing in there says Dan Zitofsky is a millionaire and drives the most beautiful cars in the world, which I think I do drive some nice cars. Nothing in there talks about Dan Zitofsky has the nicest watch collection, which I do believe I have one of the nicest watch collections. Nothing in there talks about that because that’s not in my life vision, goal, and business vision. Was it at one time?

If you read my book, Passive to Prosperous, you’ll know what happened and you’ll understand why it’s not like that. If you haven’t, go back to episode one which I talked about why I started and why it’s called Passive to Prosperous. Why living a prosperous life is in my vision and what prosperity means to me. Do I still do business? Yes. I love it but that’s not my vision. With that, I’m not going to make this a long show. I think it’s a power-packed brief show. You can take this and change your lives. If you read this, this might be one of the most powerful episodes we did besides episode one.

You start realizing that you’re being honest with yourself. You’re living now and for the moment, being honest, realizing who you are, what your life vision is before you have business vision, who’s important to you, and how you’re going to change people’s lives. With that, once again, thank you for reading. I would love your review. Hopefully, it’s a five-star review on all the mediums we’re on, and share this out with at least five friends.

If you don’t, I believe you’re living in scarcity. You were put on this earth to do your part and you’re not doing your part sharing something positive like this. It would be hard fetch to say it won’t change your life but I can almost guarantee you, 1 of your 5 or 10 friends or family members is going to change their lives. They’re going to look in the mirror and realize that they’ve been living a life of lies, that maybe we could save somebody if we did our job. With that, I wish you all the best. Peace and joy. I love you all. Thank you for being on and have a great day.

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Feb 01

The Story Behind Passive To Prosperous

By Dan Zitofsky | Passive to Prosperous Podcast | No Comments

Welcome to Passive to Prosperous, the podcast that will help you stop living in scarcity, find value in yourself and start focusing on what your vision is, what your goals are and what you want your legacy to be. Today, you will hear of your host’s personal journey to a life by design. Dan Zitofsky was once an unhappy multimillionaire who constantly fed his ego and almost lost everything he thought he wanted. A fateful conversation with his wife brought him to a realization that made him figure out his “why,” his vision in life. From then on, he made a tremendous change and has never looked back ever since. Listen in and learn how you, too, can make that decision to change your life for the better.

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Story Behind Passive To Prosperous

The Dan Zitofsky Story

I’m loving it because finally, after all this time, I was getting it done writing my book, Passive to Prosperous, and finally getting our show launch for you, guys. It’s important because I want to bring a tremendous amount of value to the group and to everybody who’s reading the blog on Passive to Prosperous. I wanted to start off and tell you a little bit about myself, my story, my journey, why I’m doing this, what my vision and passion are, and why it is. This is the greatest way to start this show. It’s by giving you that information. Once again, we did launch our bestselling book, Passive to Prosperous, and the title speaks for itself. We’re going to talk a little bit about life, why we came up with this, why we decided to do this show, why we decided to do our book and where our lives had brought us.

A lot of this is hard to be vulnerable. I’ll tell you a story about where I came from in my life. I’m not going to say I grew up in a way where I have a big story. I’m not going to try to emulate that I was rags to riches or anything like that. I want to be honest and true with you. I want to relay to you what I came through. Growing up, it was a tough life in the fact of not money so much. Money was a big part of it but part of my life was a lot of lost love from parents.

I never felt accepted as a kid in my house. I grew up where anything I did wasn’t good enough. As a teenager, my mother took off on us. I was more of a mama’s boy than a daddy’s boy. I was close to my mother. When she took off, she told me that she wasn’t happy with my father. Typically, kids have a lot of questions that as fourteen years old, “Why should we do that?” Even before that, we were starting to not be so close. She was becoming a miserable person.

I was left with my father and my brother. My father provided a roof over our head and we had food on the table so I’m not going to say we were rags and poor, but we didn’t have the extra money that some of my friends had. It was embarrassing. If I wanted to get the sneakers that my friends had, I had to work myself to get on. To take a bus to go to the mall or the movies, I have to pay for it myself. Those things are hard. The other tough thing is the embarrassment. I have friends growing up where their parents would say, “We’ll take you to movies then your parents will pick you up.” I would make excuses and not go because I was embarrassed that my father wasn’t around. He was busy doing whatever he was doing and didn’t include himself in our lives. I wanted to have a parent.

I had no mother around. I have a father that provided for us but he wasn’t around. I was miserable. I was going to sports practice, I would walk home myself in the cold, and I was embarrassed that people would ask if I need a ride. I would hide to make believe that my parents would pick me up and they weren’t. It was just an embarrassing time as a teenager to go through. I went through everything. When you start dating and you have to get your own car. It was one bad thing after the next. It should have been a statistic not to woe or feel bad for me, but I’m saying this because I want to impress upon you that you might’ve gone through the same thing. You might become a statistic but you shouldn’t. You should find your way out of this. I had the opportunity to go to college. My father was going to pay for part of it but my mother wasn’t paying so my father didn’t pay.

He brought a girl into the house and want us to get kicked out of the house by this girlfriend at eighteen years old. I decided, “I’m going to go to the Navy,” because my father never wanted me to go to the Navy. He said, “I’ll never become anything.” When I signed up, he says, “You’re going to become a loser. You’ll never graduate college by going to the Navy.” From that point on, I swore that I’ll prove him wrong. I also swore as a teenager that when I grew up, I’m going to make a ton of money, I’m going to be successful, and I’m never going to make my kids and my family live this life.

What are you successful for? Are you successful in life or are you successful in things? Click To Tweet

This is a very important part of the story because I want you to realize where it came from. I get goosebumps, choking up a little bit, and tearing up just by telling the story. I do it every single time on stage or speak at events. If my wife is sitting there, I would look at my wife and stop tearing up. The room is usually crying because it leads to what came from here. I’m sure a lot of you guys might’ve experienced some of the same, some worse, some not so worse, some of you might’ve come from great families. I wanted to go into the Navy because I had nothing else I could do.

I didn’t have the ability to go and get student loans. I didn’t have a place to live. I had no other way to support myself. I had nobody to turn to, at that point. When I went to the Navy, I had parents that didn’t back me up with that. They told me I was going to be a failure by going to the Navy and I’ll never finish school, while my goal was to finish school and to prove them wrong. It wasn’t for myself at this point. I finished my college degree from start to finish. In two years, I went double full-time. I went to a university for my prerequisites and on weekends, the Navy brought instructors, professors out from other schools. I would go every other weekend, all Saturday or Sunday, and work 60-plus hours a week in the Navy.

When I got out of the Navy, I worked for a couple of years and then I became a New York City Police officer. While I was doing that, as a police officer, I was making $28,000 a year in New York City. I couldn’t afford a wife and two kids at that time. While being a police officer, I was investing in real estate, running, and doing a mortgage company. I was working as a lender and became a mortgage broker. I was investing since I went into the Navy. I bought my first condo as a rental but what’s so important here is that when I started as a police officer, I still was on this journey to make a ton of money to be successful.

I told my wife at that time and said, “I’m going to be a police officer until I don’t need to become a police officer anymore.” It wasn’t my life’s journey to be a police officer. I just needed something secure so I can afford to support my family, my wife, my kids, where they didn’t have to struggle. I didn’t want my wife to have to work because I wanted her to take care of our kids. I wanted us to raise the kids. I’m not saying anything bad if somebody has to use daycare or anything else, but I always swore that if I grew up in a house that when I come home from school and nobody was there. I talked about from 5 or 6 years old, I came home and nobody was there.

It was not the same now where parents are at the bus stop dropping you off. Parents are there to pick you up. I was walking across a major roadway to get home and no parents there. It’s not the lifestyle I ever wanted for my kids. My wife wasn’t working outside the house. She did an amazing job with the kids. That’s the toughest job in the world. I truly mean that. I give credit to every parent out there that stays on with our kids. It’s a blessing to be able to do that. I’m blessed that we had that opportunity.

I went on to start doing real estate. I was one of these fix and flip guys. I was flipping and fixing anywhere from no less than 40 properties a year. Sometimes, upwards of almost 100 properties in a year. I was netting $50,000 to $80,000 on average per property. You can imagine, I was doing some big numbers. I was making multi-seven figures. On this show, I might get a little irate sometimes. I might love you sometimes but I’m going to be honest and tell the truth about how I feel about people. There are a lot of idiots, a lot of low life gurus out there that are going to try to tell you what they did. They try and impress you but they didn’t do crap.

Passive To Prosperous: Stop Chasing Money and Start Seeing Prosperity Through Passive Wealth

As I was doing multiple seven figures a year, I was the biggest idiot that you probably ever meet because of what I was doing. What I was doing is I was making this money and I was going out there. When I was making this money, I started buying the most beautiful cars. The cars that people dream of. I have a watch collection now that can choke a horse. My son got it in his hands. He’s like, “I know this is coming to me one day.” I hope not. We have a great relationship. I bought a beautiful boat and vacationing like crazy. I’ll never take away the vacation part because I love that.

I am living the life that everyone thought. I’m not saying this to impress you, it is to impress upon you. I have a beautiful, nice size house in a golf course community in a nice piece of land, and everything that everyone wanted, I had. I had a perfect life. I was working a ton of hours, 80 to 120 hours every single week, no less. I was grinding. That’s what everybody does. To be successful, you grind up. You go out there and work from 4:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. You’re not going to be successful if you are not a grinder.

What an idiot I was. I was out on Sunday nights with my wife with friends. I would be outside the restaurant until 9:00 at night on the phone for an hour and a half speaking to realtors, contractors, inspectors, arguing with people like, “Contract is not showing. Call new ones.” The appraisals, banks, it didn’t matter. It was a nightmare. I was working my ass off because I swore when I was younger, I was going to be successful. I was going to show them that I was going to make money. I was going to do everything it took to be successful. That’s what success meant to me. That’s why I’m telling you this story. It’s important because this sets you up for everything. I’m going to talk about the mindset.

I remember to this day where my wife and I had an argument. In an argument, she came to me and I was irritated. I am a tough guy. I’m a man. I’ve provided for my family. I did everything that my parents didn’t do. I gave her the life that she could only dream of. She didn’t have this life growing up. She came from a hard life too. Her parents didn’t own a house. She didn’t have cars. I gave her the nicest cars you can imagine, brand spanking new pulling up on the driveway. Jewelry, watches, boats, vacations, anything she wanted and she had the guts to tell me that I was a bad husband and a bad father. Who does she think she is telling me this when I gave her everything she owns but she was 100% right. The one thing she wanted was a husband and a father for her kids. The one thing was I was not a good husband and father to my kids.

I never hit them, never did anything wrong to them, or didn’t yell at them but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t present in their life. Everything I worked for to be successful was totally different than what my vision said it should be. When my mentors sat with me and they said, “What is your vision?” I said, “I was going to be successful.” “Why?” “I don’t want to answer to anybody. I want to live the lifestyle and my life by design.” “What does that mean?” When you break it down to what that means is the ultimate is I want to wake up, do what I want every single day with whom I want every single day, any time I want every single day, and I wasn’t doing that because I was chasing money from my own ego.

I’m humble enough now to know that I was a screw-up. I’m vulnerable enough to be able to admit that it was all for my ego. This is why this is important. It’s funny because this happened in about 2009. From that moment on when my wife told me, “You’re a horrible parent. You complained about your parents but you’re worse than they are. You said you never would be like them. You haven’t proven it.” When you talk about putting a knife in your heart, I don’t know the pain that you can feel in your life when your wife or somebody you love, admire, you’re passionate about who is your best friend since I’m sixteen years old. She went through all this with me and I let her down. It’s hard to even think about this.

Stop chasing money. Focus on creating a lifestyle by design. Click To Tweet

To this day, I’m still irritated and upset with myself but as upset as I am with myself, I’m blessed that she brought this to my attention, has been there for me, allows me to make it up to my family, and not just leave me. I would have had a ton of money but I wouldn’t have a family to enjoy it with. I would have been alone like I was when I was a teenager and that would have destroyed me because that’s not what I wanted but I thought that’s what I wanted. I thought the money is what I wanted so I wouldn’t have to ever be unsuccessful again. What are you successful for? Are you successful in life or are you successful in things?

Back in 2009, I said to myself, “What am I going to do?” I didn’t know what to do at that time because what I knew how to do was make a lot of money, fixing and flipping properties. I had a rental portfolio, nothing major, but to me, $300 a month for a house every single month was not that exciting. It’s a lot more exciting to make $70,000 to $80,000, sometimes over $100,000 on a flip. That’s a lot more exciting to me to make a $300,000 house.

When you make that $300,000 or $400,000 a house and do it multiple times over and over again, you learn how to become the bank and seller finance, you make more money every single month that you haven’t made flipping houses. You start getting your time back. You start realizing what’s important. You stop chasing money. You start focusing on what your vision is, what your life missions are, what your goals are, and what living life by design is. You start living that life and things change for the better. It gets better and nothing in my life has anything to do with chasing other than lifestyle by design. That is truly how I came up with my book Passive To Prosperous. Passive income to live a prosperous life.

During the course of this show, I’m going to talk about a lot of life issues, mindset issues, goal issues, how you lie to yourself, how you’re not finding value in yourself, how you have lived with a limited mindset, and how you’re living in scarcity. I’m also going to bring on a lot of information about how to build a business of passive income. This is going to be a tremendous show and here’s what I’m asking you guys. I’m not here selling ads. I don’t know if I ever will so I’m not going to commit to never doing that. I have some big plans for that. My plans have nothing to do with me chasing money. My plans have to do with generating enough revenue to be able to live my life legacy. My life legacy is the things that I can do for others. You might’ve heard this before if you heard me speak. I’m looking to build a tremendous cause to provide financial literacy for youth around the world.

That’s a tremendous undertaking. I’m not going to be the engineer on this yet and figure out how it can happen. It’s one of my visions that I want to do. I love giving back to certain organizations. Operation Underground is one of them, dealing with child sex slavery, and recovering kids from that horrible situation. I was an executive producer on the movie Wish Man which is about the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Frank Shankwitz. That’s why kids are very close to my heart. I’m a veteran so homeless veterans are close to my heart. I’m not going to come out here and say I’ll never do sponsored ads on my page but at this point, my plan is not to. My plan is to become an organic-type of show where you share it with your friends.

I’m asking you this, like Andy Frisella said, “My price right now is to please review our show and share it with at least five friends that you love and you can make a difference.” I promise you this, I will pour everything I could pour into those shows until the day I don’t see a value in this anymore going forward. I’m already working on things that I’m not going to talk about in this episode but in the future. What I want to do is I want to produce enough episodes out here now before I bring on the next set of ideas. I will produce this show with every piece of law I have. My one request for you is to share this with at least five people minimum. If you’ve got something in the show, give us a review. With that, I love you all. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Take care.