What I’m thinking about: The steep cost of love…coupled with the infinite gain it can will grant you. (Editor’s Note: Love how this article came out, I spent over 3 hours writing it, hope it hits the mark with you.)
Whoa, heady start, right? Let’s weave this together…
I’ve had some incredible opportunities thrown my way over the past couple of weeks. Potentially life-changing.
The more skilled and knowledgeable we become as entrepreneurs, it’s inevitable that we either discover other avenues, or are presented with other options, for making money.
There are nearly unlimited pathways to making money (and even more paths to LOSING money, but no one wants to talk about that.)
But the core decision I keep coming back to is, “Do I love this business?“
(And perhaps more importantly at the start, “CAN I love this business? WILL I love this business…once the honeymoon phase is over?”)
The problem is, it can take a long time to answer those questions, so it’s something you need to keep your antenna up for on a daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly basis.
And it’s impossible to tell whether you love something or not…until you fully commit to it (and discover every slimy slug hiding under the surface, or conversely, every hidden golden ray of warm sunshine.)
Catch 22, right? Commit BEFORE discovering your love? Seems like a fool’s errand.
…And yet that’s where the greatest rewards in life reside.
Is it any wonder why so many people feel empty in their lives, even if they won’t admit it? One foot in, one foot out of various businesses, relationships, hobbies, etc.
If things get hard (and they will) and you lose your motivation? “Welp, must not love it/him/her then, let’s try something/someone else…”
But what if you committed instead, giving the opportunity breathing room…and discovered (and built) a deep love that made your soul sing…
Some personal examples:
Skiing: My mom introduced my brother and I to downhill skiing when I was around ten years old. My first time on skis, I kept falling over, even on flat ground. Throwing a fit, I cried to my mom, “I HATE this, I quit, let’s go home.”
Mom said, “Nope, we paid for lessons, you need to stick through this.”
Within a couple of ski trips, I was traversing down black diamonds. Now it’s a sibling bonding activity where my brother and I weave in and out of trees on some of the most difficult runs on the mountain.
True freedom, it’s unlike anything on Earth…thanks for the push, Mom.
And yet, love has to be rediscovered.
Usually, the first half day on the slopes, when I’m sucking wind in the altitude and my legs are burning, my thoughts are “Why am I out here? Let’s pack up and go home,”…but I know those feelings will pass, and my deep love and joy returns.
Parenting: The first few months my daughter was born were some of the hardest of my life (*cue fellow parents solemnly nodding*)
(Compounded that my personal health and land business were enduring their darkest days at the same time.)
I hated it.
Before you raise your pitchforks, to be clear, I didn’t hate my little newborn child, I hated the crazy life shift of BEING a parent.
But I was committed. (And it’s not my place to judge ANY other parent, I don’t know your situation and you don’t know mine, but there was a 0% chance I’d give up and run away.)
I remember going through the motions, staring at my calendar, tallying up mental checkmarks for each day passing by, like a prisoner etching lines into the walls of their cell…
Telling myself, “It’s going to get better one day. It just HAS to.”
And it did. I grew to develop a deeper love for my dear daughter over time (and vice versa, shout out to all the dads taking second-place to mommy), AND came to love the ongoing process of being a parent (most of the time, haha).
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There are SO many other examples I could name (I try to fill my life with love), and I’m sure you’re recalling examples in your own life, but let’s get down to business…
My partners and I had early success in the land space, and we liked it just fine, but it took 3+ years to really come to LOVE it, particularly when we pivoted to a funding model.
Let that sit with you for a moment:
3+ years to realize our love for this business…
When most folks are trying to figure out if they love something within 3 weeks, or 3 days, or 3 hours…or maybe even 3 minutes within our ADHD culture.
My love for this business just keeps growing – positively correlated with how much better we continue to get at it. Month over month, year over year, eventually decade over decade.
Funny how that works, right, the better we get at something, the more we usually love it?
The problem is, it takes TIME to get good at things (see skiing and parenting examples above).
And if you put the time in to get good at things, and you still find you don’t love it, then that’s okay too.
That happens in my life plenty of times as well. Knowing when you need to eat short-term pain to make a long-term beneficial change is one of the most critical skills in life, and one that few people hone.
The regret minimization framework that Bezos made famous is a great exercise here. Just imagine if you continue to do what you’re doing until you’re ~85 years old. Does that excite you? Does it fill you with future satisfaction?
When I imagine this scenario of running our land funding business for the next 50 YEARS, I can’t help but smile.
No matter how much money we make from value we create, I know I’m always going to want to be in the mix, in some form or fashion.
I see a multi-billion dollar roadmap for us as the U.S. population is expected to double over the next 75 years…imagine the opportunity in the land space. We’re just getting started.
I love diving into macro reports of the US housing market, and how it links to jobs reports, interest rates, and AI’s impact…
I love rapidly texting back and forth with my biz partner on creative capital structuring to handle a new deal that’s outside our comfort zone, but necessary for our growth…
I love the relationships I’ve built with other land-crazed entrepreneurs…
I love spacing out during walks in my neighborhood and mentally structuring how we’re going to leverage AI to optimize pricing land as the models keep improving (*cough* Land Pricer AI *cough*)…
I love writing this newsletter on weekend’s for YOU (even though, like most writers, I routinely procrastinate, but doing what you love is rarely easy, otherwise it wouldn’t be satisfying)…
I love how after driving 3 hours to get home after a long day at Ajay’s Land Scaling Summit, at 10pm on a Friday, I felt the ‘thrill’ of diving into initial DD for a waterfront lot that could gross almost $500K in profit…
(At the Land Scaling Summit, a common theme amongst the speakers is that you could sense their love for the business, either explicitly or implicitly.)
I used to listen to Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s ‘Invest Like The Best’ podcast, and he’d remark how the alternative name for the pod would be ‘This Is Who You’re Up Against.’
You have to assume that you’re up against folks who LOVE the business, regardless of market cycle or hard times.
And if you don’t love the business, eventually you’re going to run out of steam, or you’re going to be outcompeted by someone who will go the extra mile out of love.
Like I said at the top, there’s a steep cost to love…but the only cost steeper is either never giving love a shot to develop, or sticking with something you don’t (or no longer) love.
A lot of folks already consider us to be top-tier in the industry (check our receipts: 41% operating margins in the toughest RE market since the GFC), and we’re only ~6 years into our journey.
Imagine how good we’ll be 50 years from now.
Hope you continue to journey alongside of us…
For the love of the game.
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Want funding from a team who loves what they do, and is setting up a sustainable path to success for the next half century (at least)?
