Hey, what's going on, everybody? Joe McCall, Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast.

It's been a little while since I've came to you live on the phone like this while I'm driving. But I thought I'd share a couple real cool things with you guys that I think might hopefully inspire you to be a better investor. I am driving home right now from playing golf, and I just joined a golf club. Country club. Whatever. It sounds weird saying country club. I don't like calling it that. So I just say golf place like played golf over at this place. And it's a really nice club actually. And it's one of the nicest in the St. Louis area. It's about 15-minute drive from my house through beautiful, winding, rolling hills. It's just gorgeous. But I really, really enjoy playing. It is so much fun and it's great exercise.

Like, I just I usually walk and I usually walk nine holes. Sometimes I'll write a card for 18 holes and it's actually honestly a workout and like, I'm closing all my rings on my watch. It's pretty fun. And I need the workout. I need the exercise anyway. And here's the cool thing. My wife is encouraging me to play and I bring my boys with me a lot. I think part of it is just to get us out of the house, honestly.

And also, it's probably, you know, she wants me to get in shape, you know, not that I'm already pretty in shape as it is, to be honest. You know, I just need to get in better shape anyway. Just kidding. Here's my point in sharing all of this, you know, they say that nature abhors a vacuum and whenever void you give to something, you know, whatever, you know, I should have looked this up before I started talking about it. But nature will fill any void that you give it. Right?

And the same thing happens all the time with your business and in work and productivity. If you give yourself eight hours or 10 hours a day of work, you're going to fill it up with eight or 10 hours of busy work. And usually I've seen studies of this that on average you really only get three at the most four hours of productive work in any single work day. So even though you give eight hours of stuff, you know, get eight hours of space, you really are only getting done a couple, three hours of work.

And so what I found this over and over again is when, you know, when I've gone to Europe for three months or when I've gone to camping for three months at a time with my family, I only give myself a small window of time to work of usually three to four hours max. And when I was in excuse me, when I was in Europe, the reason for that was because of the time zone change. Right? It's when we were in Prague, they were seven hours ahead of where I am in Central Time. And I only had a small window when I could actually talk to people on the phone. So my phone conversations were really quick and short to the point because I don't have a bunch of time to chit chat. And when I was doing work, it was either in a coffee shop or was that a like one of those coworking spaces that I rented.

And I didn't like being there. And I wanted to be with my family driving around town looking at everything. And so anyway, when we were camping, the same thing, I didn't have very good Internet and I had hotspots, Wi-Fi hotspots, which were really expensive. And my family is in this beautiful national park and I'm driving half hour to get to some kind of coffee shop somewhere where they can get Internet or where I can actually get a desk to work.

And so you know, I gave myself small windows of time to work and guess what happened? I actually got just as much work done, if not more than I did before. Because I I gave myself a small window. I was forcing myself to think more really is what it comes down to. I was forcing myself to think more in advance. OK, when I am going to work tomorrow, what are the most important things that I have to do that I have to get done?

And what can I give my team to do? And so, like, we haven't traveled for long, big, extensive trip like that for three months at a time and about two or three years and I. Well, about three or four years now. And so now I'm taking up golf. And guess what happens when you've got a tee time at 10 a.m. or 12 p.m. and you go and you play usually a walk for a couple hours and then it takes me I wouldn't want to get there a little early to warm up by you, I take my time to get back home. And it takes up three to four hours of my day. And when I'm playing with a friend that can take five or six hours. If you're playing 18 holes. And so now what it's done is it's forced me to, when I'm working not far around anymore, doing stupid stuff, putting out fires, I'm leaning on my team more to get stuff done.

And I'm asking them to do things, which is what they want to do. It's what I've hired them for. That's what I'm paying them to do. It's what they want to do. Right. Why am I doing the work that I'm hiring them to do for me? And I catch myself doing this all the time. Like, I'll just do it myself. No, like, they want to do this stuff for you. And that's why you've hired them, so give them that work. Stop thinking that you. And you know what? Here's a crazy thing. Most of the time they can do it better than you can anyway. So that's what I'm learning. My team is better at this stuff than I am. When I do it? I'm running 100 different directions. My mind is on a hundred different things that I do it. I do, excuse me here, a half assed job. My team does not do a half assed job. They do a full ass job or zero ass. What is it? What is a good thing. Half ass is bad. So what's good? Is it full ass or zero ass?

There's a funny video, have you seen this? Of a guy who is from I think he's from Russia and he is doing a standup comic comedy thing and he's saying, I don't understand you Americans like he gives about eight different examples of the word ass and how it can be used in different ways. And for a foreigner, it's really funny. So take a look. Just Google that video on YouTube. Russian comedian talks about ass. Okay. Anyway, sorry, just offended a ton of you. But anyway, here's a cool thing, too. I want to just end with this. I was in a mastermind the other day and there's a guy who is on there who is very successful and he plays a ton of golf. He just loves to play. And I'm starting to wonder if there's a real pattern here. A lot of the guys that I see out in the course, they are real successful in business.

And most of these guys know, I'm sure some of them were, you know, give fed a silver spoon or whatever. But a lot of them are hardworking entrepreneurs, small business owners. And they play golf because they love to play golf. But it's also a great place to get business done. But I think it's also a sign of their success. And they're not just wasting time playing golf. So here's my point. This one guy was sharing something that he always tells his team. Bring it six inches to the hole. Like, don't bring it to me until you have it six inches from the hole. And I was thinking about that. That's such a great analogy. I need to lean on my team more to bring things to me that are six inches from the hole. That's what we hire them for. That's what that's what they're good at.

You know, like if you think you're a jack of all trades and be good, you're deceiving yourself. Really, you're. What's the saying go? You're Jack of all trades, but really a master of none. So stop trying to be a jack of all trades. Just admit that you can't do it all yourself and that's OK. You don't you shouldn't be doing it yourself. You should be relying and leaning on your team. You should be spending more time thinking than doing.

Understand what I'm saying? You, as the executive is the leader of your team and your business. You need to be spending more time thinking and reading than actually doing. Forget the hustle stuff. That's so stupid. If you give yourself a window of two to three hours, four hours a day where you're actually getting some work done, productive work, you're going to find your income going up, your productivity going up, your team is going to be happier. And you're gonna be doing. You're going to be having much more impact. Forget this stuff that you that you have to work eight or 10 hours a week. And who has time for golf when you're, quote unquote hustling?

That's the dumbest thing ever. Cool? So get a team around you that will bring its six inches from the hole so you can put it in. All right, guys, that's all I got to share. I'll keep you updated, I'm sure. Over the months and years, as I get better and better at golf, my score is pretty pathetic. So please nobody ask me what I'm shooting. I won't tell you because it's embarrassing.

I don't know what my handicap is. I don't even know how to calculate your handicap. But it's pretty high, I'm sure. All right, guys, take care. Hey, listen.

Have you read my book yet, REI Secrets? I still got it out there. And I used to promote it a lot, and I haven't really talked about it in months. But go check out my free book. REISecrets.com, REISecrets.com. It's free. Just pay a little bit. Shipping and handling. Send it out to you. I'm working on a new book, by the way, also. And this one is gonna look really, really cool. It's like I'm creating it like a workbook and you're gonna love it.

Lots of pictures, diagrams. It's awesome. So stay tuned for that. Take care, guys. Go to REISecrets.com, REISecrets.com. Daily nuggets of real estate investing wisdom.