Ending 2020 Strong And Setting Goals For The New Year

 

It’s that time of the year! Let us end 2020 strong and set ourselves up for greater things in 2021. Join Dan Zitofsky and his co-host, Logan Hassinger as they run through what they are doing in terms of goal setting for the new year. This is a time to reflect on the good and bad in life and business and changes you want to make. It’s time to go beyond the usual financial goals and ask yourself who you really are, what you really want and what kind of legacy you want to leave in the world. Are you ready to step your game up and achieve more in the years to come? Start setting your goals now and don’t you scrimp on them!

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Ending 2020 Strong And Setting Goals For The New Year

Goal Setting For The New Year

I’ve got my cohost Logan Hassinger. Logan and I have been together for a few years now. I was coaching him as a mentor, a friend, and somebody who’s blasting off in his life and his business. This is a great show to talk about what’s going on. What are you doing for the end of the year? What are you doing for goal setting? Logan and I were hitting each other up like, “What should we talk about?” This is so prevalent now with many things going on. Logan, thanks for being on.  

It’s been a little bit since we were on the campaign trail with you and all this stuff that’s going on down here. I’m glad to be back on. These episodes are always motivating for ourselves as well. It keeps us on track and holds us accountable.

What’s cool about these episodes is I personally take that week from Christmas to New Year because everyone is talking about goal setting and all of that. In the fourth quarter, I always plan for what am I going to do for the end of the year. Goal setting is important to do every single year. I’ll show you a little bit about what I do. I know that I have ideas and I stopped thinking. From the day after Christmas to New Year is where I focus, take time, and put everything else aside. Even if I go away with my family, sitting on the beach, I’m always thinking about, “What is my plan for 2021?”

I always look back while I’m doing it like, “Where was I in 2020? Where will I be 2, 5 years from now?” I write my goals down. I have a black notebook like I had back in school. Every year, I write my goals down, and then I have subtitles and stuff like that. Have you looked back? Have you thought about it? For me, it’s a little different looking at myself, but when I look at somebody I mentored and I looked back where you were three years ago. We had a little talk before the show, where you are now and where you were a few months ago when we started this. It’s amazing.

I’m like, “Everything is showing you. All the writing is on the wall for what you should be doing.” I’m not going to say what you should be doing, but all the writing is on the wall because you’re crushing it. I give you all the credit in the world. We’ve been friends and we talk all the time. We had a nice call on my way back from North Carolina. Have you thought about it? Did you ever think back to like, “Where was I the year before?”  

I always go back to where my story started. I’m trying to figure things out and taking some action from a simple approach of, “How do we go pick up a rental property?” I am putting things in place and moving down the line. I spoke at a youth group event talking about goal setting and it’s a journey. All of the same stuff that we would talk about here. I looked back and these were 18 to 24. I think a lot of what I was saying is going over their head. I wish I had somebody at that age telling me something. It clicked for a couple of them. When you think about goal setting, it’s more difficult when you’re trying to get through school with the younger crowd. Even when you feel like you’ve accomplished all your goals, we’ve talked about that as well, what turns into your mission in what you’re doing? We got into notes years ago and it’s evolved. The note business is not as big as I’d wanted it to be because of some of the things that we’ve got going on there. Everything is pushing me now to do what I’m enjoying. February 2021 is the date that I’ll be heading out of corporate.

I hope your corporate bosses aren’t reading this.  

It’s just a target. I’m still crushing it up there. They’ve got nothing to worry about.

I liked that you have a date on that because a lot of people I mentor, I’ll sit with them and ask them questions. I was in North Carolina with my partner out there in my project. I almost hate saying that because it’s a business. He’s become one of my best friends.  

I’ll share what I’ve got going on coming up in March. He was like, “You’re not working for me. You’re working with me.” He runs a company. I run the company. We’re going to run them and grow them together. I don’t like saying we’re partners, or this is my employee, or whatever. We’re all working towards a common goal.

It’s true. I was with him, we talked, and we met somebody we’re looking to do a lot of business with. I’ve sat with them and I was asking them. I got into my mentor mode with him because I took a liking to the guy we met out there. Warren brought them into my life in my inner circle. He knows that I’m very particular with who I bring into my inner circle. To me, it’s not about business or money anymore. I don’t say that to impress you. One of my mentors, Mark, a friend said, “It still impress upon you that you can make money.”  

I don’t want to say it’s easy to make money because it is a little pompous, but money comes and goes. People in your life don’t come and go. I was sitting with this gentleman. He’s a builder. I’m not going to mention his name because he’s not here. Who knows if his workers or bosses are on there. I don’t want to do that. He was unhappy in his work situation. He was a very good person, ethical, moral, and a great all-around guy. You can see that he’s a family man. He loves his wife and kids and wants to be there for them. He wants to have a work-life balance. I started talking to him and we got into his vision.  

I ran right into his vision and his why. Why is he doing what he does? What does he need? Most people don’t understand that. This is important to know what your goals are every year. You and I have been to mastermind. I remember we sat at one mastermind, but I don’t want to have anything to do with the person. I don’t want people to think that that’s somebody I would back. I was there. It was almost a favor back then because I knew he was bringing in a lot of new people and new business. I got to speak to them and he would ask me all the time to come down and be part of a mastermind. I would go once a year. I enjoyed going because I got to meet you.

I’ve got to say, that was the best favor you did for me.

 

What’s important is that every time I go to events and meet with people, I started asking them questions. If I don’t connect with them, I don’t even get into it because it’s just, “Why?” If I liked them and I want to help them, I started asking questions like, “Why are you doing what you’re doing?” They give me these BS answers.

You can quickly identify if it’s a partner.

They would say, “I want to make $100,000 or $200,000 a year,” and I asked them why. They have no reason why. They don’t know what they need to make. They think that, “If I make this number, I’m going to be happy.” I can guarantee, if you’re telling me you need to make a certain number and I can help you make that number, you will not be happy because you have not figured out what your why is. You haven’t figured out what your vision is. You haven’t figured out who you are as a person, what you want to be, and who you want to be known as.

I’m saying this now because you’re in goal setting and 2020 is a big part. The fourth quarter is huge for you. We’ll talk a little bit about that too, but you’re in goal-setting mode soon. If you haven’t been there already, you will be. Let’s put the monetary stuff on the side now because you get back into that. Who do you want to be? Who does Logan want to be as a person? Who do you want to be as a father? Who do you want to be as a husband? Who do you want to be as a friend? Who do you want to be as a partner? Who do you want to be as an investor? Who do you want to be as a cohost with me? You’ve got to figure it out.

The little things seem unimportant or immaterial, but they all create who this person is. All of our goals and why’s are different but have one other than a monetary value on it. One of the goals is to make a certain amount of dollars, but that’s the 5th or 6th goal. It’s not the first goal.

You can make a certain amount of dollars, but why?  

It allows me to do the little things that I want to do. The cash for in this situation is a necessary item. We can give back to the community and schools. I enjoy taking my daughter to school, trying to pick them up, going to events, and being involved. If you’ve got a full-time job like what I am doing, it’s difficult to do that. Cash allows me to step in, but it’s not the primary like, “I need more.” It’s like finding that happy medium of getting what I need to accomplish all the little things that I want to do.

It’s not even the job and all that. Right now, you’re taking on a lot. We’ve even talked about that. You’re taking a lot of different events and all these different things about money-making ideas, but I understand why you’re doing it. You’re trying to replace what you had so you can get the time you need. Most people think that that’s what they’re doing, but they’re not doing it. I saw a post of a friend of mine on Facebook. He was talking about her daughter going off to college and he’s grateful that she spent all these years while he is doing all these different things. He put in there, “You can always work harder and make money when you need to, but you’ll never get those times back.”

I have two adult kids. My youngest is almost an adult. I’ve blessed that my wife set me straight back about many years ago and showed me the ways. I have a life. I’m very blessed. I have what I need. I stopped thinking about cars, boats, watches, and those kinds of things. I have what we needed. I’m lucky because I have a wife who’s frugal. I was the spender and she wasn’t a spender so I didn’t have to stop her. She had to stop me.

It is the same with us.

That’s good. I have it right here. It says, “Personal Vision.” I don’t lie. I have a vision station. I have two different visions and I have a map there. They’re breathing and living objects. In my personal vision, I talk about who is Dan Zitofsky. I have these on my computer. I have bullet points on my wall that says, “Who am I? Who is Dan Zitofsky?” I’m a husband, father, grandfather, manager, friend, uncle, cousin, nephew, and a son. I talk about all these things, but nothing in there says that I’m a millionaire or I want to be a millionaire. Once again, I’m not saying this to impress you and not to impress upon you. We hit that status a long time ago and I wasn’t happy. All these people are telling me, “I want to be a millionaire.”  

That’s the exact message I gave last time.

Tell us a little bit about that.

That was fun. That was my first real experience with sharing my story to a live group of kids. These are 18 to 23. I talked about, “I’ve been in your shoes. I partied. I went to college and then failed out in my junior year, sophomore year, and then had to switch schools. I’ve been dating and falling in love and all that stuff.” At the end of the day, my topic for the kids was budgeting, money, credit, and how to leverage credit and different tips and stuff.

Numbers help paint a picture about who you are from a business perspective, but it doesn't paint who you are. Click To Tweet

John, who’s my partner down here said, “Tell them about your financial stuff.” I refrain from talking about that. It’s okay. Numbers help paint a picture about who you are from a business perspective, but it doesn’t paint who I am. He said, “Tell them because I want them to hear this.” I said, “I became a millionaire two weeks ago. I’ve finally crossed that hurdle.” My buddy and I were headed to the store and he happened to ask me, “How are you doing on your goal?” I said, “I hit it weeks ago.”

We kept going. Should I have been more excited? I don’t know. It was just the next milestone. It wasn’t that important to me. I thought it was when I set that goal four years ago. I thought it was going to be this amazing moment where we all go out and celebrate. It’s difficult in the beginning to not think about money but that’s all I thought it was, “How do I get to $500,000? How did I get to $750,000? How do I get to $1 million? Now what?”

Let me ask you this. Why did you think you had to get the $500,000 to $1 million back there?  

I thought I was going to be happy. Every time I hit the goal, it never happened. I was happy at the moment but it didn’t mean anything.

Let me tell you how true that is. We’re starting that prosperity in a circle of ten people. I already started working one-on-one with people in a group. We’re not getting together until our first retreat. I then have the same first three months with everyone I mentor, not like what I mentored you to various private money. That was different, but I have these first three months mentoring somebody. It’s all about who you are. We peel that onion back. It’s powerful. Every single person I work with is a business owner or leader. They play at a very high level. On the outside, everybody looks at them in social media like, “I want to be that person.”

I’ve been mentoring for a decent amount of time. When we pull those layers back, I have not worked with anyone in my whole life that came to me and said, “I was truly happy.” Before I work with them, I make sure they’re going to play all out. I make sure they’re going to be honest. I make sure that you can give 150% because, otherwise, I can help them. I’m not here for you to pound your chest. I’ve worked with millionaires. I’ve worked with multimillionaires. I’ve probably worked with somebody I know right now who owned a ton of land and mobile home parks. He’s probably a billionaire and I’ve worked with him. It’s not about the money.

People make way more than me. Their net worth is way more than my net worth. Every single person has given up their why and their vision to chase it. When we met years ago, we stayed so close, but I still remember. You are over some ridiculously low numbers where somebody was making $250,000 or $300,000 a year. I was weirded out by it because I think you asked me at one time like, “What’s your portfolio look like?” I almost wanted to lie to you and decline what I was doing because I didn’t want you to think that you couldn’t get that.

I do the same thing. That’s why I was talking to these kids because I didn’t want them to shy away from the money aspect of it. I said, “I’m here because this is a Sunday at 7:00. We’re in a barn with a bunch of space heaters running because we want to share what we’ve learned. We’ve got three business owners in here and we’re all sharing our different perspectives. Have you heard of us talk about how much we have in terms of dollars or items?” It has nothing to do with that anymore. I’m glad that I got over that hurdle. It’s a difficult one for a lot of people to take on and say, “What is my why?”

They don’t understand the work that goes into it. People only see the end product. They see that you became a millionaire.

I’ve had a couple of friends reach out like, “Last year you’ve taken off.” I was like, “No, I’ve been working my ass off for six years. Do you think it was an overnight success?” Whether that’s me holding back and not expressing all the things that we’re doing. I’ve got many that look at us and say, “I don’t know what happened this year, but it’s all come together.” I was like, “No, it’s been coming together for years. You only now get to see the things that we are able to afford.” I’m not at work every time so I get to do things with the family. They are like, “I don’t understand how you’re able to do that now. It just all took off.” I was like, “No, it didn’t.”

For most people, it doesn’t. The difference between us is we don’t do one deal and go on Facebook and talk about we are gurus or experts. It’s a little bit of a difference. We’re the quiet storm. Some of the best people I know, you will never find them on social media. That billionaire I was mentoring doesn’t have social media. I don’t even think he has a Facebook page. He doesn’t have an Instagram page. He doesn’t have all the crap out there. You have to do it because it’s on your way to getting content out there.  

Hopefully, we were not charging people. I always say that all I ask you to do on this group is share it out. The reason why it’s on our page is to share it out. The show is going to be live. It is called Passive to Prosperous. Follow the book Passive to Prosperous. Share our show out because you’ll probably hear this on show. We’ve already been offered a sponsor. I’ve already been hit up. People asked me if they could sponsor the page. I’m not saying I won’t do it in the future, but right now I’m trying to keep it clean of ads.  

We’re not doing this for money. We’ll take the time out of our life to change your lives. One thing we say can help you change your life. This is not too much of a show on how to do deals. It’s more on keeping on living the life of prosperity, your why, and your vision. That’s what Logan is more doing. That’s what I’ve done. I have been investing for 30 years. Over the last eleven years, I’ve started living my vision the right way.  

You said 30 years, but only a third of it is when you’re able to connect with your vision. I’m thankful that I was able to start investing years ago and I’m here in the fifth year where I’m finally connecting. That’s something to take note of quickly because it’s not overnight that you’re going to flip a switch. For some people it is, but that’s what this show is about. It may be difficult for somebody to relate to you because you’ve been doing it for 30 years. It’s easier to relate to me because I’ve only been doing it for 4, 5 years. It will happen and hopefully, we can help you get there faster.  

 

That’s what I share with someone. A lot of it has to do with your goal setting. I know people talk about it like, “I’m going to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to be better with my family. I’m going to do twenty deals.” If you got nothing else out of this whole episode, make your New Year’s resolution start this way. Start with a personal vision like, “Who are you? Who’s Dan Zitofsky? He is a husband, father, uncle, friend, life and football coach, visionary, business financial and real estate investor, educated, and positive role model.  

My vision is to be able to get out of the day-to-day admin tasks in my business. Something that I would say is I hate admin tasks. I want to spend my time doing what I want, what I’m great at, and what I love to do. I’m not talking about what I hate at. I write it down and then I go back, read, and I change it. This is not one-page guys. I finalize it and I write my goals in my notebook. I’m not just talking about this stuff on social media and telling you what you should do like, “People, set your goals.” I spend time doing this.  

I sit with my wife and my family and talk about it with them. Not one thing in my vision here says, “I want to be a millionaire.” I understand, yes we are. I’m careful saying that align, but nothing here is about money. I understand you need to make money. Let’s talk a little bit about you. If you want to share, tell me your fourth-quarter goals this year and then we’ll start. I’ll talk a little bit about my fourth-quarter goals, what I plan on doing, and how God smacked me right in my face with that. It happens. As my grandpa used to say, “You plan and God laughs, but he’s still great.” He does for us and he gives us where we should be. I believe in him. I’m not going to make this a show about God, but I’m never like, “Why me?” Things don’t happen to me. Things happen for me. Unless you believe that, your life will never be as fulfilled as it could be.  

I always have a quick prayer for myself. I’m always thankful for where I’ve been. I am thankful for where I am now and I have no idea where I’m going tomorrow. I know there’s a plan and I’m going to make sure that I’m doing things to move forward. Whether that’s next week’s school, next year’s goal, fourth-quarter goals, whatever that is. I’m going to set goals and keep moving forward.

I had said goal setting is important because it may reveal that the plan you have won’t get you where you try to end up. I see you living life to the fullest now. I see you’re giving back to a ton of people. I love what you do. You’re new in the business. Over a few years, you are out there providing value to people and living life to the fullest with your wife. Let’s talk a little bit about why. We have a lot of people on here. Warren is on here. He was with me and I had mentioned that I changed this gentleman’s perspective, which is awesome. It’s not about me patting myself on the back. It’s about changing life and that’s what I love to do. That’s why people were like, “Dan, you don’t need to mentor people. You don’t need to have to do your inner circle you’re doing.” I’m charging very little for it, but I’ve turned down a lot of people to come into the group. I don’t like to call things masterminds because I think the masterminds out there are junk.

It’s got a negative connotation with it nowadays.

You paid to get in and that’s your only barrier to entry. There’s no value. Where I met you was a bunch of newbies and it was called a mastermind.

How will we mastermind? I was there for the mastermind. I was a considered newbie in that industry. To call it a mastermind, I didn’t see a whole lot of seasoned investors other than yourself and the guy that put it on who’s moving on past that, but it’s a mastermind.

If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room but there’s nothing wrong with going to events and giving back once in a while. People want to come on to you, then ask you questions. That’s what I love about it. I don’t want to go there. It’s not about ego and saying, “I’m the smartest guy in the room.” It’s about giving back to the community, giving back to newer investors, but please don’t call it a mastermind. Call it a group, meetup or something. Don’t charge people for a mastermind if you’re not truly a master at this. If you haven’t done a certain amount yourself, don’t call it a mastermind. Ours is called the Prosperity Inner Circle because it is an inner circle.  

The last time I did this years ago, we had ten people in our group. Why I got back to it is we did a $5.1 million pool in the note business. We’ve put a pool together, which was the best. It wasn’t like you gave me money. We all did it together. We all put it. We’re all responsible for about $500,000. Either raise it ourselves if you want to be in. We all work together. One person did due diligence. One person did boarding. One person was working on legal. One person was working on workouts. I got away from it. Here’s why I’m bringing it up. It is because my mindset and vision got screwed. I didn’t listen to my vision.  

Remember, I said years ago, I changed how I did everything. This was about 4.5 years ago. What happened is people started asking me in the group, “Dan, could you mentor me one-on-one?” My one-on-one mentorship is $26,000 for six months at the time. I don’t do it anymore. I only do one-on-one coaching raising private money. It’s only two people every three months. I haven’t done it. Throughout the whole summer, I stopped doing it. I’ll do it again in 2021, but it’s only up to two people every three months because I love doing that one-on-one.

I started mentoring people and I would do eight people every six months. I would keep them. Some people would stay for a year. I had a waiting list and I wasn’t charging the most. I should have charged $100,000 for what I was doing because everyone I did one-on-one coaching with was successful. $26,000 investment in yourself to have the knowledge, after six months, it’s no reason you shouldn’t be successful. I went and did that. Think about $26,000 and I had sixteen people through the years for over $400,000. People thought I was nuts to give it up.

What happened is I did that because I was chasing their money. It is against my vision. That’s why it’s so important. I have a mentor too. If you have a mentor that doesn’t have a mentor, probably you are with the wrong person. I have two mentors now. I pay over six figures a year for mentorship, events, and stuff like that. It wasn’t that I disliked coaching. I was just coaching the wrong people. Think about these guys in your life. I was taking people in because they could pay me the fee.

They are also chasing the dollar. What it would become is this chain of, “They chase, you chase.”

Things don't happen to you. Things happen for you. Unless you believe that, your life will never be as fulfilled as it could be. Click To Tweet

When I mentored you on how to raise private money, you were very successful. You’ve raised millions of dollars. I don’t even know how many millions you’ve raised.  

It’s done well but it was a mindset shift.

When I saw it on my calendar, I was doing three people every three months at the time and I knew you were in the group. Everybody in my raising private money group was excellent. Some people will be less successful than others, but everyone has some level of success. They stuck with it after doing it. Most people give up quickly. What I loved about that and why I say I still do the raising private money training is because I look forward. I will look at my calendar, which one week, I’m doing those calls. It was one day a week, I would meet with all three people. It was an hour call and I loved it. It was in my morning or my afternoon. I enjoyed it.

I learned this from my mentor because I didn’t see the forest through the woods. I was like, “No, I’m down. I hate coaching. I’m not coaching. I hate mentoring. I don’t have the patience for it. My stomach turns.” I have to talk to my coach and he’s like, “What is it that you don’t like?” Everything showed me that it was the people I was mentoring. There were some people I was mentoring that I love. He says, “Why don’t you work with those people?” The light went off. It wasn’t about I want to make more money. I should be charging $100,000 for six months. I should be charging that because if you’re getting this business to make $100,000, you are in business.

If you’re coming in as a business and you’re not thinking you could be a millionaire and have the life you want, is that not worth $26,000 on the investment in yourself? If somebody is not willing to invest in yourself, you don’t want them to be with you because they don’t value themselves. How are you going to help them if they can’t value themselves? If they don’t think they’re worth that investment, why would you work with them? If they don’t invest in themselves and you work with them, you’re failing them. If you work with them for free and they quit, those people could have been great to their families. They could have been a great husband, father, wife, aunt, and friend, but they never got it. They are going to quit because it’s not easy. Nothing is easy.

That’s important. I’m being humble and honest here. I have been putting myself on the line here for people. I was hating what I was doing. I have somebody with me with 30 years’ experience. This was in 2020. I was miserable and I didn’t want to coach anymore. People started asking me and I was like, “I have no room.” What I learned now is to work with the people I want to work with. On one side of the paper, I have my perfect avatar of who I wanted to mentor. The other side of the paper is my perfect avatar of who I don’t want to mentor. If somebody meets that, I won’t have them. I had one guy. When I first started in the inner circle here, I had seventeen people I interviewed. I only offered it to three people upfront and I’m only matching out of ten. Even if it’s one person in the beginning, I don’t care. I’ll work with them, then I’ll add another one. It blows up like that. It’s not about the money. The investment is very small to get in but it’s the right people.

The investments potentially cover our retreats and everything we do with a little bit of our time because we want to do three retreats a year. It’s more about I want to work with certain people. If I bring someone like Logan in the group and he’s somebody who’s pounding his chest, talking about how great he is. He lies. He doesn’t play full out with the group. He doesn’t attend. He doesn’t give back. He’s just, “It’s not on my shoulders. I’m just the facilitator.” Why would I want to go if he’s not dealing with it? I’m telling you that your vision has to change. It’s a living moving object, guys. In your eyes, you’ve got to stop thinking about a couple of things. I’m going to go back to Logan, but I want to get this out there because it’s important. Who was in your network? All those people in your network is only about money. Did they lie? Did they talk about how great of a life they have?

Look deep and peel that onion back. A lot of people on social media are talking about how great their life is. They don’t have a wife or husband. Not that they don’t want to be married but their wife or husband might’ve left them. They don’t have kids or the kids aren’t around. They don’t have family around them. They’re only around if you talk about how much money you make or showing all the toys you have. Are they there for people that can’t make money off of? There are a lot of people that have been in my life where they can make money off me. They can be involved in my deals to make money. If they couldn’t make money off of me then I’m out there. I had this conversation with Warren. I said, “Even if you and I never did a deal, we’re great friends.” Logan, we haven’t done a deal yet, but we’re doing some stuff.

There’s a goal to build together.

We’re going to do stuff not because we’re going to make money. We’re going to buy product to make money and we’re aligned like that. We have the same vision. We have the same ethics and morals. I watch what you do, how you are with your family and friends, and how you give back. That’s why you’re a cohost with me on this show. There are a lot of people I can have as a cohost on the show but it’s like, “I don’t align with you. You’re out there hosting all this stuff and all this money you have, but that behind the scenes, I know the real you. I know that you’re not who you say you are. You’re not the person you say you are. You’re great when things are great.” If I’m in business with you, and there was a bumpy road, you’re going to be there. I know that for sure.

When I’m in business with some people and there’s a bumpy road, they start freaking out and cursing you out. You’re not a good guy anymore. They talk behind your back. I see that with people we all know together. That’s not the vision I want. That’s not who I want in my life. I can make millions of dollars with you but if you’re not the person I want in my life, it’s not about money. I’m driving this home so hard because everybody’s goals have to do with finances and health. Those are the two, finances and health, and things. I never see people talking about their why, their vision, what they want, and who they are.

Tim Bratz is one of the good guys out there in the multifamily world. He mentioned something about Sir Richard Branson. He got called and they said there was a company. You can check out Tim’s post. I might not have it right, but a company called up Sir Richard Branson and offered him $100,000 to come to speak at their event for 15 to 20 minutes. He could have got in there, spoke and be home in 1.5 hours on his private plane. They called back and he said, “We are not interested.” They called his staff back and they said, “We’ll offer Sir Richard Branson $250,000 and pay for all his expenses on his private jet to come here to speak for 15 to 20 minutes.”

He could have been home and got there. It was close to where he lives. He could have spoken for about 15 to 20 minutes. He could have been home at about 1.5 hours and made $250,000. He’s like, “Thanks, but no thanks.” They called back and said, “We’re going to offer $1 million. We’ll pay for all his expenses on his private jet, pilot, gas, and hangar. Have him drive over here in the limo and back. He’ll be home in 1.5 hours for $1 million to speak for 15 to 20 minutes.” He said, “No, thank you.” Long story short, $1 million meant nothing to him. Not because he’s Richard Branson, but because it wasn’t his vision to go and speak for $1 million for that organization for whatever reason it was. I’m shortening the story up a lot, but think about that. If I offered $1,000 to speak somewhere, would you speak?  

It depends on who the audience is and what we’re doing. There would be qualifying questions for it. It’s not just $1,000 and I’ll be there.

You’re different than everybody else. That’s what I love about you because if I asked this question to almost anybody, “If I give you $100,000 to speak, would you speak?” You’ll find a reason for it.

“Give me the place and time, I’ll be there.” That’s usually the response.

I’m not sure if people will believe me now when I say this, but I would be the same way. If it was to come to speak for something you truly don’t believe in for 15, 20 minutes and I’ll pay you $1 million, I won’t do it. I will not put my name behind it.

On that point, I feel like I need to speak with some conviction. If I don’t believe in the groups that I’m talking to and the message that I’m providing, what am I doing here?

I’m not saying this for some woo-woo stuff. You’ll find true happiness in your life and all the money in the world. Money is great, but it’s an object that allows you to do amazing things for amazing people and amazing organizations if that’s what you choose. All the money in the world means absolutely nothing if you don’t have anyone to share that with. Maybe you don’t want to be married yet.

It doesn’t need to be a significant other. It can be a group of people. It can be something overseas or whatever it is.

When your spouse leaves you because of who you are, you wanted to be married. You need to check yourself at the door at that point. I’ve done it. I’m blessed. My wife and I are still together, thank God. I have amazing kids. They come home all the time. My daughter has her own house. She’s been over here now because she’s working from home. She wants to hang out with us.

I have that same conversation. I don’t want them to look back and say, “Dad was always working for another dollar.”

One of the things I do and probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. If you are one of my students or in my inner circle group, you know this. One of the steps I make you take is I make you write your eulogy. I did it. To this day, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I tried to have my wife do it and she won’t do it. That’s how hard it is. I was crying. It took me so long to do it. It took me over a day to do it because I couldn’t finish it. I kept going back and I was like, “I have to have more stuff on it than this.”  

The problem was I didn’t. It will hit you. If you’re on here, write your eulogy. What would your wife get up and say something about you? What would your kids say about you? What would your niece and nephews say about you? What would your parents say about you? What would your friends say about you? If all you have in there is you’re a great guy that likes to have fun and has beautiful cars, watches, boats, this and that. It’s giving me goosebumps and I’m choking up a little bit. I’m saying this because it’s a new year. Before you get back into writing your goals for 2021, let’s go back on your life a little bit. Let’s go back on 2020. What have you done differently? Logan, I don’t know if your goal was having another kid.

It’s not going into the year.

You had another baby girl and she’s adorable. I had a grandson.

To hit on that quickly on. We’ve got a four-month-old, but I think back to my oldest who’s six. When she was a baby, I wasn’t there. I was focused on other things. I’m consciously thinking to lay on the ground and play with her. She’s not going to remember any of this but I’m able to slow things down now and not just chasing the dollar. It allowed me to enjoy the time with my new baby. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t get to do that same thing with my first but I am making a change and doing it now.

I love doing this a lot. We do it on Zoom anyway ourselves, so we still see each other. I’m watching your face while you’re saying that. When you said you became a millionaire, you didn’t even blink about it. It was like nothing. You’re talking about your baby, you are welling up in your eyes a little bit. That was awesome. You’re talking about your kids. Most people talk about being a millionaire and nice cars.

All the money in the world means absolutely nothing if you don't have anyone to share it with. Click To Tweet

I didn’t want to talk about it with the youth group on the weekend. It’s not important. It allowed me to do other things that I care about.

The lifestyle you have is awesome. Let’s go through the end of the year for you. This is the fourth quarter. That’s why the show is called Passive to Prosperous because to me, it should be called Prosperous.

It’s not always passive. You want it to be passive, but now it’s pretty active to prosperous. This quarter has been busy. In one of the episodes, we talked about the self-storage deal that fell apart on us, taking and thinking that was going to be my cashflow. That was going to kick me right out of corporate and move on. I had to pivot and I’m still driving hard on the note business marketing and talking to banks and all that stuff every month. I stumbled across the stuff that we have going on in Broken Bow. I had an experience where I was networking with key people and had this vision to bring everybody together, provide the same service that I received, and share that with everybody else interested in doing that. My goals have been to put together a new Facebook group out there to help people and share information. That’s what we have in the description is we own a cabin. We’re investors ourselves. We’ve been in real estate, but that’s the backstory. We’re going to give away everything that I’ve learned.

In my group, we’re going to do a whole breakdown of what Logan is talking about for free in my group. We’re not going to do it here because this is not what the show is about. I’ll post it here. If you’re in my group Become A Real Estate Investor With Dan Zitofsky, we’ll set up a show there. That was part of our conversation. Believe me, I riddled Logan hard.

That’s why I called you.

I thought he was going to hang up on me at a certain point because I was beating him up about it. I do that for a reason. As a mentor, I want to protect him. I want to make sure he’s doing things for himself and his family, not for any kind of money. He said, “I want to give the information about that.” There’s no scarcity in how he talks. There are many other people on social media who talk and may tell you, “I’m doing this and that.” When you ask a question, they are like, “If you pay me, I’ll tell you.” There is time to make money on mentorship. Logan gives stuff back. The reason he became a millionaire in 2020 is because of his content. Part of our mentorship was we talked about giving content. How do you raise money? Give content.  

That’s the biggest a-ha moment.

Do you go through raising private money costs?  

I did in 2019.

If you follow him, everything he does is content. He’s given a ton of content about tax. He’s not an accountant but he’s going through this and sharing what he’s doing. How I did it? It’s because I go through and share what I’m doing. I share to people in my network. I don’t call up and say, “Who’s lending you money?” I’m not going to banks or to my private lenders. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about if you need a contractor or you need to know if I’m buying. Logan put it out there. I was like, “I’m looking into short-term rentals.” Logan has gone through all the research and he’s just sharing what he’s doing. He puts it together because he’s the type of person he is. I’m going to open it up in my group. I’m not going to tell you to invest or not invest in these.

That is not what it’s about.

He’s not the builder, realtor, or property manager himself, but he’s sharing what helped him and his family. That’s living in non-scarcity. Those people will not live in that kind of mindset. When I talk about mindset, I talk about limiting beliefs. You have limiting beliefs that you can’t be successful. You live in scarcity where you think that there’s competition out there, so you can’t share with people. When we do the group event, we’re going to talk about the scarcity mindset that some people in that community are living in. Logan has gone through some headaches out there.  

That’s not what this is about, but we will share that in the group. Once again, if you’re not in the group, jump in the group. I’m sure a lot of people here are already in our group. It’s a free group, Become A Real Estate Investor With Dan Zitofsky. In that group, we’ll show everything what Logan is doing. Logan will share his group with you, guys. It’s not a paid group. He’ll let you in his group as well, but he’s going to open up the books and show you everything. You can have knowledge. Knowledge is power. You don’t have to invest.

That’s the only thing. I want to put it all out there and then let you make the decision that’s best for you and your family.

 

People are putting information out there about what you should see, so you should invest and they can make money. That’s a little different. That doesn’t go far because what happens is you jump onto the next thing next week, next month, and a little bit more about. Are there any other things you’ve been doing for the fourth quarter?  

We are continuing the same marketing efforts with the note business. It’s a little slow right now, but that’s giving where we are with a lot of the moratoriums and things like that. We’ll keep pounding that. That’s another stream for us. I’m passionate about it. I enjoy being able to help out. We’ve got a performing note right now that the borrower lost the home to divorce. He’s been fighting over it for years. Finally, we’re able to mod it and get them back in. I get a call once every two months saying, “Thank you.”

I know we spoke about this in some mentorship, but was it one of the core values that you reached with that?  

The core value in the note business for us is being able to provide assistance to a homeowner that has experienced financial difficulty and having options. For most of these people, it’s their last leg. The loans changed hands multiple times. They’d been through multiple debt collectors. I don’t personally call them but when they get a call from my group, it’s not about, “Where’s my money?” It’s, “What do you need to keep the home?”

You make a profit doing so, correct?  

Yes. That’s why I’m in business. Don’t get me wrong, but the first option is, what can we do to help you? If it’s nothing and you want to walk away, then how do we help you walk away? If it is, “I want to stay in the home and I want to get caught up. What can you do for me?” We throw those some stuff on my page, we talk about it with the borrower and say, “We’ve got a plan.” It doesn’t always work out, but that’s our first goal, how can we help you?

Part of your mission statement is helping homeowners stay in their home while making a profit doing so. I’m bringing that up because there’s nothing wrong with making a profit. Are you making a profit by screwing people over? Are you selling life insurance to somebody who can’t even afford to pay for food right now? What is your mission statement? Once again, that is something I hold near and dear to my heart. I have my mission statement right behind me and all my walls. I’ve got a mission statement laminated.

It’s eight bullet points. It talks about I play full out. I’m going to be honest. I’m going to be the best I could be. I go through my mission statement in my groups and stuff like that, but you should have a mission statement if you have a company because I don’t just do it. In fact, I like working with business owners and non-real estate investors. I like those people in my inner circle because they bring a different facet to the group that I talk about. We help them with people, processes, systems, and culture in their organizations. That has nothing to do with real estate. That’s important that you have it when you work with business owners.

I worked with some dentists out there and consulting them. I’ve worked with contractors and big tile company. When you work with them, the biggest thing we were talking about, the first layer is, what kind of culture do you have? If you’re following Jay Doran, he’s all about culture. He’s spot on. If you don’t have a culture, nothing else matters. It’s like your foundation. The three pillars I talk about are your people, your processes, and your systems. If you don’t have the right people, processes, and systems in any business, it’s like a three-legged table, it’s going to fall down. Those are the important things we talk about. Your mission statement and the company falls into usually the culture.  

If everyone doesn’t buy-in, it’s not going to work. Fourth quarter is important because you have to adjust. For me, the fourth quarter is usually things I want to fix for next year. A lot of times I have these problems. This problem is going on now. I want to fix them and get them better for next year. What was that like? Maybe that’s the wrong person, wrong process, or wrong system I want to fix. To me, the biggest part of my fourth quarter is always taxes. I try to plan all year long, tax planning in the fourth quarter. What happened to me? I just say, “Your plan got lapsed.” I’m a big note holder. I’m in note space and rental space, single-family rentals mostly. I don’t even have any multifamily rentals now. It was just single-family rentals.

You have to watch your portfolio. People hum along all the time with the notes. They pay and every once in a while, one gets paid off. Generally, I don’t have any that don’t pay because I originate them. They have solid finance through investors. I have the skin in the game. They have equity. They’re performing. If they don’t perform, they get fixed, then they stop performing. For them, they’re not going to give up a property for a $400 or $500 payment when they do $20,000, $30,000 on a deal. I had one investor that we’ve worked with for a while. One time, he did a 1031 exchange and he bought fourteen properties from us. He was paying along and with the rates so low. He turned around and says, “We’re going to refi out.” I was like, “No problem.” I thought he’s going to refi one at a time. I got a payment for over $400,000. That is capital gains on me and I did not expect it. I was planning on. Most people would love to get a check for over $460,000 at one time.

There are consequences for that.

I’m always telling you this. I got slammed when I talked to my accountant. I always have two meetings a year with my accountant before taxes are due and we were planning. What does it look like? What do we get going on? Are there any changes? Are we hovering around the same net? We don’t flip stuff. We have rentals to sell finance notes. It’s cool. Our taxes are hovering along. We have our solo 401(k)s. My daughter is on the payroll. She works for us. She does the work. We have our health savings account. My wife and I are on payroll. We’re the only people on the payroll for our company. We have our company vehicles. We have a business percentage and a personal percentage. We’re doing everything you could possibly do, but you don’t expect that $460,000 hit. It’s money in our account. It’s net to us. People out there that are putting these paid checks out there, this is a hit. It’s like, “What in the world do we do?”  

It came at the end of November. We didn’t expect it because everybody is going to refi. I thought it’s one at a time, no big deal, then my servicing account hit me with this payoff. I was like, “What in the world do I do?” I hit my accountant. He’s like, “You’re going to pay some taxes on this.” I’ve scrambled. I am always scrambled because I don’t want to invest in the wrong place. I have to find a good investment, which I believe I found. Now I have to do accelerated depreciation on it. You have to look at costs like projects. That wasn’t in my plan for the fourth quarter, but I’m not complaining. When you plan and got those lapses, you have to be ready for that. It seems like taxes are always in my fourth quarter. If you looked at my driveway, it’s not I’m buying vehicles because I talk about how I don’t spend my money much on cars, boats, or watches anymore. I still have them.  

There’s nothing wrong with making a profit as long as you’re not doing it by screwing people over. Click To Tweet

You do save on taxes.

My garage looks like a new car dealership because every year, I get a new car and truck. It should be over 6,000 pounds. It’s got to be a company vehicle, but those are the planning we do. Who can we pay in advance? We have a funnel system. We pay them a year in advance. Who can we pay off this year? Who could we hold until next year?

It’s all strategic.

That’s my fourth quarter planning. I wanted to give you a little bit. I didn’t want to talk about planning. I want to talk about the fourth-quarter plan, what we do, and then goals for next year. This is such an important show that I hope you guys read to the end. For me, I have my vision sitting out here. My business and my personal vision. I go through them and I start making changes. I go to my computer. It’s a Word document. I constantly update it and make changes. It’s a living and breathing item. I focused on my vision. What do I want to do in 2021? How do I want to make a difference in this? How do I want to leave a legacy? Don’t just say that. That’s BS. People are like, “How do I leave a legacy?” I did it the other day in North Carolina with the bell on, I’m like, “Don’t BS me. Tell me the truth.” He took it back because what he was saying was surface BS.  

Get below the surface and be honest with yourself. If you tell me you want to leave a legacy, what does that mean? I’m on a soul search for what does legacy means. That’s huge. Some of the things I wanted to do is a mission trip to Haiti. I’m not going to do it because of what’s going on in travel. I don’t want to go through that now because I don’t want to put other people at risk. I believe what other people believe, but I am not going to go and do it right now.  

I’m still going to do financial, but I got to the point where I was getting sick of the financial part of it. I wanted to see out selfishly. I wanted to go there. I wanted to see people’s faces. I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to help build something. I wanted to play with the families out there. I wanted to make a lot of difference in their lives. We could all do that. Why don’t we do it? When you look into giving $50 to some organization changing your life, it could be. I’m not going to say what works for you works for me, but there are certain things for me in 2021 that I’m looking to make a difference in.  

It’s my legacy. I’m not going to go through all my goals because I don’t even do goal setting until December 26th to January 2nd. I’m hoping to drive out to Florida in 2021, sit on a beach with my family, relax, and get into warm weather. If everything is quarantined, I would rather be quarantined on the beach. That’s where I sit. I take time for myself then I come up with my goals for 2021. How do you do this? Do you have any goals in mind yet that you’re thinking about?

For me, goal setting became a priority years ago. It became a trend. At that time, it was transactional. It was like, “I’m going to do X amount of deals,” but again, “Why am I doing X amount of deals?” It’s shifted. My goals now are more around how and who do I want to spend my time with? At this point, I have full confidence that the money will follow. That’s my mindset when I talk about sharing. One of my goals is in the new Facebook group, I want to make a post every day about something relevant, something new that people can take. Maybe only one person in the entire group got something out of the post.

Why do you want to put out content every day?

I want to give back everything that I’ve learned over these years. I’ve paid a lot of money to learn this stuff. I know that a lot of people don’t have the means to do that. I want to give back what I’ve learned because it will help accelerate other people in their growth and whatever path that they’re trying to go down. I can give back free information or point them to the expert in the field to get them in whatever goal they’re trying to reach, whether helping somebody on their credit. I’m not saying I’m a credit repair expert, but there are some things that I’ve learned in credit optimization, 2 to 3 things that people aren’t taught.

If you get those, that takes you to the next step and that leads you down some other path. That’s one of the big ones with the group. I’ve got a big goal here in Q1 coming up. We’re transitioning into full-time for myself and helping another individual grow his business. As I said, I’m not his employee. I’m working with him, not working for him. We have the same type of vision, alignment, and stuff. We were sitting up in Broken Bow, Oklahoma having a beer and pizza. He asked me the same question, “Why are you doing all this?” He wanted to make sure that I was the guy that he wanted to partner with.

We’ve had multiple calls. We’ve done personality indexes. We’re trying to identify that we’re going to be the right partnership. We’ve known each other for years. We have a good candid relationship, but business is a little bit different. We want to make sure that we’re the right fit for each other. We strongly believe that we are, so that’ll be a new venture for me. We’re calling it a business development role, but it’s more about sharing his vision that he believes that they’re the number one property manager, investor-friendly here in the DFW market. If you believe that, I believe that. Let’s go out and make it happen. That’s another thing that we’ve got going on for 2021. For me, I moved away from this transactional goal setting and into these higher-level goals. It takes me a bit to figure out what steps we need to do to get there. I’m more of a vision way out in the clouds, and then I slowly walk it back to say, “What can I do today to get one step closer to that goal?”

You said you’re a visionary up here and then you figure out the engineering on how to do it. That’s the whole Imagineering movie with Disney. Everybody should be watching that. The biggest thing is you have to figure out what you are. Are you a visionary? Are you an engineer? Are you an implementer? I’m a visionary. My problem is I used to always say, “This is my vision. I can’t do it because of these reasons.” I would always throw that in there.  

It makes it easy when you don’t hit the goal to say, “I knew I wasn’t going to hit it.”

 

You go in there and you say, “This is my vision. I want to help. I want to partner with a property management company and make it the best company. I’m going to blow it up. I’m not going to worry about he doesn’t have internet. He doesn’t have an office. They don’t have staff in place. That’s what we all do. We sabotage ourselves. They come up with, “This is what I want. This is my vision, but I’m not allowed to do it.” If you watch the story, Disney would say that if you have the visionary and the engineer talk to each other, they were fired. It’s because a visionary will have the vision that they can do this and engineer will tell them all the reasons why you can’t.  

There are engineers on this but you are the hardest to work with. You’ll come up with whatever reason why we can’t. It’s like negativity in this business. How many people want to have what you have? I’m not talking about a thing. I’m talking about the life you have, but they won’t do what it takes to get what you have. They won’t take six years of our life and stay focused. Even though you have a full-time job, you have three young kids, and you have a wife. They won’t do what I’ve done in my life to get there. If we talk about it in the inner circle. They want to know everything you do in your business but they won’t invest in themselves or they want to learn how to raise private money.  

They want to invest in mentorship. They’ll ask you a million questions, but if you think I can answer a question for you in 30 seconds, and you’re going to be able to raise millions of dollars like Logan has learned how to raise from working with us. It doesn’t work that way. If you don’t stay laser-focused and you give up right away, your business is going to give up right away. You said that about the visionary. You didn’t even mention like, “We haven’t even thought about what systems are in place.” Who gives a crap?

I don’t need to know why I can’t do them. We’ll figure it out.

At that point, hire those people that are geniuses who are your best implementer. You talked about taking your personality tests or your DISC tests. That’s out there. I believe that is good, but you get in there and you realize, I’m a visionary. I need an implementer in there. I need an engineer in there. You don’t worry about that.

It came out that I’m a strong delegator.

Those are most visionaries. Your visionaries are your CEOs of companies. Your COOs are your implementers. That’s generally how it should be. You’re a good CEO. I remember one company that I was consulting with. I was sitting with the CEO and he says, “Who should we hire?” I said, “I’m not looking for a job now, but essentially you should hire somebody just like me.” You are a COO. You’re not a CEO. You’re in-charge of programming. You’re writing code. You’re not the CEO of a company. You’re the COO or you’re the CTO, but you need somebody who’s a visionary. You need somebody who will implement. That’s great goal setting. Is there anything else or final words you have for people?

Talk with your significant others. Talk with friends that support you and see if you can pull something out of them from a goal-setting, visionary piece. If you’re not the visionary, have a truly honest conversation with some other. Get below that surface level of I want to leave a legacy. We all want to leave a legacy in some way, but what does that mean? What are you doing to make that happen? It starts with goals, vision, actions, and then getting after it. It’s a journey and that’s one of the biggest things that my mentor and business partner, and the property management owner. What’s fun about all this is the journey. If we look back and we talk about all the things that went wrong or were positive where we made money, where we lost money, it’s built us up to where we are now. Don’t ever lose sight of where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing, but don’t also sit back and think things are going to fall in your lap.

You said something about the legacy. Don’t just write, “I’m going to build the legacy.” That’s horse crap. Start peeling that on your back. What is the legacy? Why do you want to build a legacy? I want to know from you why you want to build a legacy?” Don’t just say, “I want to leave something.” That’s all crap. You have to take this seriously. Everyone talks about goal setting. That’s like an action that they don’t take seriously. It’s like, “I have to goal set at the end of the year. I have to set my resolutions.” If you want to lose weight, lose weight when you want to lose weight. Don’t do it because it’s a new year.  

Why do you want to lose weight? Is it because you want to be healthy? Is it because you want to be there for your kids, your grandkids? Is it because you want to be able to run? Unless you do that, you’ll never fulfill your goals, you’ll never have a journey, or you’ll never have a street map to get it to those goals. If you moved to a new area, and you want to go to a park, and you don’t know how to get there, you’re putting your navigation. It tells you how to get there. Do these things with your life.

With that, guys, this was an amazing show. We could talk for another two hours on this. From the show, we have many different topics we’re going to be talking about. Once again, please share this show. We’d love a five-star review. If you love what you got, share it with at least five friends. If we made a difference in your life, give us that review. If it’s not a five-star, we’d love to know why so we can do better. If you’re not in our group, jump in the group on Facebook, Become A Real Estate Investor With Dan Zitofsky. We’ll be doing a show in there and an educational show with Logan. I’m not going to put it in here. If you’re in that group, it’s a free group. You don’t have to pay. Logan is going to give more in there. He’s going to open up the books and share everything he’s doing with his journey, and we’ll go from there. Thank you so much for being on here. I wish you guys all the best. Hopefully, we’ll see you soon. Take care.  

Important Links:

• Logan Hassinger
• Passive to Prosperous
• Prosperity Inner Circle
• Become A Real Estate Investor With Dan Zitofsky – Facebook group
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c2S92ieyQo