In this episode Put my money where my mouth is – you’ll learn that you’d better say what you mean and mean what you say or those around you will call you out!

In episode 38 New Goals for 2022 I mentioned Quit Telling yourself you don’t have enough time, to get up early if you have too and go to bed early & find your mojo.

Two weeks ago Kurt came up to me and said, I listened to your podcast where your advice was to get up early and go to bed early, and he said why aren’t you doing that?  And I said, “well I got up early on Monday and I completed the bulk of the heavy tasks I needed to complete all before 8am! – Like that was going to impress him.  Well, it didn’t.  Because the rest of the week, I didn’t get up early.  He said, so what happened to the rest of the week?  This made me stop and think.  The root cause in my head was I didn’t have anything to focus on that would drive me out of my warm bed.   Then he said, instead of going to the gym 3 days a week, why don’t you go 5 times a week, that will force you out of bed.  I said, “ok”.  So last week I did go to the gym 5 days a week.  

However, in my head this issue is still not resolved.  I do wake up early now meaning I don’t fall back to sleep when Kurt leaves in the morning, but I still don’t have  a great routine nailed down.

I also think that my routines got a little out of whack when life events happened and I’m not making excuses here but there’s been a lot of change and new distractions in my life over the past several months and I think, I just lost my focus and I needed a reset.   I think by having Kurt hold me accountable, brought this issue to light and now I can regain my focus and get back on track.  Thank you, Kurt!!

Then a couple of days ago I was listening to Shawn Yesner’s Crushing Debt Podcast  Episode 305 Always Sharpen Your Saw he mentioned that he too get’s up early in the morning when there are no distractions and reads for 30-45 minutes to start his day.  This routine lead him to read 52 books last year.  That’s 1 book a week!  What a great accomplishment! That just inspired me even more to get up early!  Here’s the take away for me.  I like to read in the mornings too, right before I head into the gym.  But now instead of listening to Nickleback every day when I’m on what I call the eucalyptus (elliptical) machine I’m now listening to my favorite podcasts.  I’m a serial learner to so I think I’m going to love this change!  Thank you Kurt and Shawn for the inspiration.

Ok, this next call out stung like a bumble bee.  This one hurt but I loved it at the same time!

I’m fortunate enough to be an Inner Circle member of a Real Estate mentoring team hosted by Tyler and Jill Sheff – you know the Cash Flow Guy or now known for teaming up with Michael Marino and putting together Key West Cashflow opportunities.

This is a quaint small group, we’ve been together now for 2 years and we watch how everyone on the team, over time has grown and prospered in their in their business or real estate adventure.  We have one note investor, 2 small business owners, Michael and Tyler are focused on multifamily/short term rental opportunities in Key West and I’m focused on owning or developing an RV park.

No matter what everyone is focused on, each one of us learn from the other members every week.  All of our sessions are recorded so that we can go back and review the content.  Each one of us is encourgaged to help the others out when the content is relevant.  We also post our topics of discussion prior to our meeting time so that Tyler and Jill can be prepared for what we want to discuss.

It was my turn to have the floor and this I was giving the status of an RV park development project that I’ve been working on and we were discussing the marketing I was doing.  Quite frankly, I told the team I wasn’t getting the result I needed in my marketing.  My marketing quite frankly wasn’t aligning with my true desire to own or develop RV park.  Tyler even spoke up and said, you’re marketing is boring.  I agreed 100% and put the kabosh on my marketing efforts.  That’s not to say, that my marketing won’t come back in another form, I’m just switching gears.

Then, Michael unmuted himself and ever so stoickly with no emotion said, Mechiel, I’m curious if you’re really into RV Parks, why aren’t you going to RV parks?  He went on to say, I think of you like a gypsy because aren’t you living in your RV right now? 

I’m not sure what my facial expression was at that moment,(but I intend on reviewing that recording) but I can tell you my heart stopped.  I said to myself, he just called me out and he’s right!  I let him finish my perceived digging at me and my response was well you’re right I can easily be a gypsy but I’m no longer an I and I have to consider that I’m a we but to your point, I will see what I can do and I’ll talk with Kurt tonight.  

Michael went on to say, your houses are a both on short term rental so why not go stay at an RV park?  Perhaps you’ll find an owner that wants to sell or at least you’ll learn more about what RV’ers want in an RV park.  Why the heck didn’t I think of this, is all I could think!  This was such an easy solution and it was right in front of me.  How did I miss that???

The next day, I got to thinking about what Michael did without him even knowing what he had done.  I said to myself, I’m going to reach out to him and let him know, how grateful I was for him to speak up and call me out.

As expected, he had no idea what he done, but I thanked him for pushing me and calling me out!

Within the next few weeks, after a few things calm down and we can “get” a reservation at a local park, we are out of here!  My goal is to do what I do best – go talk or interview folks on what they like about RV parks and what they dislike and I’ll be talking with the park owners too, much like I did this summer in Iowa when I met Marta at Timberline Campground in Waukee. By the end of the summer, I’m sure she was tired of me but I learned a lot from her.  So I’m off to research and find a park to visit! 

I’ll see you next Thursday on the Fearless Innovator Podcast.

Key West Cash Flow - Key West Cash Flow   Tyler Sheff and Michael Marino

Crushing Debt Podcast - Episode 305 - Always Sharpen the Saw 

Timberline Campground - Timberline Campground | RV Park