This episode captures perspective shifts from a Costa Rica mastermind event with Kellan Faulkner’s Uncommon Business Team, where observations of extreme wealth creation in hostile conditions exposed the psychological trap of scarcity thinking in down markets. The journey through Nosara, a luxury expat destination requiring 3-hour drives over rough terrain to transport materials, revealed stark contrasts between US infrastructure advantages and developing world constraints. Real estate’s $400+ trillion global value means capturing even the smallest fraction is sufficient, yet most entrepreneurs remain paralyzed by competition concerns while billions globally lack basic infrastructure to participate at all.
Key Takeaways:
- Infrastructure Is Your Competitive Moat Reliable internet, logistics, water, roads, and capital access in the US create advantages that billions cannot overcome regardless of work ethic.
- Luxury Happens in Impossible Conditions Multi-million dollar homes with floor-to-ceiling glass are built in Costa Rican jungle heat with no ports and 3-hour dirt road supply chains, proving demand overcomes obstacles.
- Competition Complaints Signal Privilege Market saturation concerns become absurd when billions of people lack the basic infrastructure to compete in the first place.
- You Only Need the Smallest Fraction Real estate represents $400+ trillion in global value, and capturing a tiny piece is more than sufficient for generational wealth.
Listen to the full episode for the unfiltered perspective shift on why psychological barriers, not market conditions, prevent entrepreneurs from capitalizing on opportunities.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious, we’re at Serious Land Capital. We have successfully funded over $6 million of land deals with industry-leading 41 % operating margins. Today I just wanted to share some general takeaways from this mastermind event I went down to in Costa Rica, Nosara, Costa Rica. If any of you are familiar.
with Kellan Faulkner and the Uncommon Business Team, all AI related, probably close to 20 other higher performing entrepreneurs there. I can get into some of the particulars on the key takeaways, but I wanted to comment a bit more just on the endless opportunities that we have in front of us.
as land investors, assuming that is the case for you or really anybody who operates with a significant business footprint within the US and particularly if you live there. I imagine most folks listening to this, that is the case. Because especially in down markets like this, it becomes so
you know, easy psychologically to, you know, start thinking, Hey, things aren’t necessarily working out as well as you were expecting. the opportunities aren’t there. you know, maybe you’re just never going to figure out the, but the land game or figure out a piece of real estate that can actually make, real money back. maybe, you know, the competition has, has gotten, higher and, you’re not
sure if you can keep up, maybe it’s saturated. Yeah, know all of those thoughts I’ve experienced all of them before. I know that is still rampant throughout the industry at the moment here. But you know, especially when you undergo some travel and just to, you know, again, everybody’s well aware that real estate is the single largest asset class worldwide, you know, something like
400 some odd trillion dollars worth of global real estate value and a huge chunk of that is within the US that you really only need the smallest piece in order to you know still live the Life of your dreams for for yourself and your family And it was you know striking to me again you know traveling down to Nosara which is a
You could call it like a bit more of a bougie place within Central America. I hadn’t been familiar with it before, but it looks like a lot of expats go there. And my understanding is that Costa Rica probably attracts the most investment in expat activity, probably is the furthest along from all of the Central American countries.
may be wrong on that, but that’s the impression that I’ve heard and seen for myself now at this point. And, you know, in this particular area, kind of, you know, beachside, but, still within kind of mountainous jungle terrain, you know, there are some just spectacular houses and
hotels and just physical infrastructure there. And any of you who might have traveled to other vacation destinations or even like the ski, larger ski resorts like Park City and so forth, and you’re aware of some of these 15,000 square foot combs with the floor to ceiling windows and so forth, they are replicating a lot of that down there.
like it is pretty, again, amazing. I think, you know, just being in this central American heat for, pretty much the entire year, and not easy to move materials around, not easy to get there. I don’t think they have a port. and the roads, yeah, I think it’s only like 45 ish miles from the. You know, nearest, you know, larger city where there’s a more international airport, Liberia. and
takes roughly three hours to drive that because much of the back half or going from Liberia to Nusara is just, know, divoted gravel or dirt roads. And so you just naturally can’t go as quickly, harder transport, a lot of twisty turns, mountainous terrain. So it’s like, it’s not easy to do anything out there. And yet you’re still seeing just these.
Massive glass panes and concrete and so forth and you know people building and really difficult hot Conditions, and this is like in middle of the jungle, you know monkeys are outside of our hotel room and everything But it still struck me at You know kind of the the level of demand the creativity the fact that human ingenuity will figure out how to get something done and there’s just
plenty of contractors and engineers who actually understand how to build luxury units in an area like that. So that to me was just fascinating to know. And meanwhile, again, like pretty much all the roads locally, I mean, some of these were just huge divots, almost like creek beds running through the middle of the roads and a lot of folks are just riding ATVs around and so forth.
Um, very interesting vibe. Um, and you know, not necessarily cheap either. It’s probably, you know, basically similar to what you would pay for nicer, uh, nicer spots back in, in the U S. Um, so, you know, again, that probably accounts for, uh, the clientele that they’re attracting and just, you know, the more difficult, um, uh, infrastructure build outs. Um, but you know, still like the rental rates and some of these larger homes, like they’re
fraction of what like if you wanted to get something similar in like a park city, you know, the daily rate, I don’t know, 15 plus grand a night would be like a monthly rate in Costa Rica and no Sarah specifically. So there’s still big arbitrage opportunities from from that perspective. But as far as like day to day, it’s not necessarily there.
And, you know, I had never seen this before either, you know, just drinkable water at most locations, like the tap. And, you you always want to be double checking. And even when folks say it’s safe, Hey, you’re like, Hey, as an American now, I’ve just been so unaccustomed to trusting that outside of being in the developed world, like, you know, us, Canada, you know, most of Europe and, um, yeah, maybe Japan or something like that Australia, uh, but
for the vast majority of the world, it’s like, yeah, you gotta make sure you have your bottled water. And it was just, again, kind of mind-bending because you’re just thinking, this is just the way it is, such a basic necessity. It’s just never gonna be implemented for whatever reason in some of these countries. So that was very interesting to see and experience firsthand. Like, okay, yeah, development continues.
in a upward trend here and hopefully that continues to spread out further. But again, just getting some of the physical infrastructure in in this place, all the mountain is trained. I don’t understand. Again, very hot temps year round. I’m applauding the ingenuity and the focus and determination for these folks to put all this together.
And another piece for this is as we round this out is on that longer like three-ish hour drive back to the airport and so forth, still the vast majority of the country and the actual Costa Ricans have a lower socioeconomic status and rough houses, probably don’t have AC.
You know, even being in an area so hot and humid like that, you know, drying clothes out on the line and so forth. Again, it’s just kind of classic what you might think of like developing country infrastructure that just has been kind of unchanged for the last, you know, 50 to 100 years, roughly.
until you still see a ton of that and you’re like, man, that is.
Uh, just seems like a really tough life and it’s hard to, you know, cause cause humans adapt to, you if you don’t really have a choice. And my understanding is that Costa Rica is actually one of the happiest, um, countries in the world. Uh, you kind of felt that there, think, especially in the nosara and it’s one of those blue zones where people just live longer. Um, on, on average, uh, as well, um, slower pace of life, but still like, you know, me being accustomed to just, uh, you know, a fairly good us, um,
U.S. set up and how much we have at our disposal of just, you know, always quality internet and quality shelter and, you know, nice roads and sewer and drinking water and, you know, quick logistics through Amazon to get things delivered, large choices of food and all of that. Like it is still such a striking contrast in relation to how much the,
the rest of the world actually lives and operates. And, you know, it still goes back to the fact that, you know, even though a lot of these folks just have so little to their actual names here, like they’re still, they still have to have a place to live. They, they still have to figure out how are we going to build a roof that can at least sustain, you know, their, their lives and their families lives here. And, know, and still mountainous terrain and not some of those bougie luxury,
houses in NOSARA, but they’re still figuring out a way to level out the ground and build some real vertical improvements to get things done. again, I was just reflecting on this during the ride of like, our opportunity is never going to go away. Like there’s always going to be more you can do within the land and just real estate game in general here.
And also when we go back to that point of like the competition and the woe is me type of attitude here, like it’s just worth reminding yourselves, some of these times of, just what type of, lives a lot of folks around the world are actually living. And like, they don’t even have a chance to compete. Like it is just, you know, I like some of the, shuttle van drivers, for instance, going like back and forth every day.
These three hour one-way trips to the airport and back to the start like that is just a rough existence like in my opinion and and you have so little time for Being able to kind of pull yourself out potentially of that situation and again some folks like they maybe that that is what they want to do But I imagine that’s not the case for for a lot of these workers and citizens in in developing countries
like this and so again where we have everything in our fingertips for most of us in the US and I know it’s a lot of controversies ongoing at the moment and you know folks questioning their you know country’s motives potentially and all that too but nevertheless when you see just how contrasted
other folks lives are in comparison to what we have at our fingertips and all the AI and workflows and so forth. Like it re-centers yourself to realize, if you aren’t able to win with this type of lead and this type of education and resources at your disposal, even if you’re on the poor side in the US,
like that, that’s on you ultimately, because so many folks, billions of people have it way, way harder. Like, they’re not even competing, they don’t even have a chance to compete against you. And a lot of folks are complaining about, you know, not being able to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunities in front of themselves. So a little bit more philosophical here, and you’re sharing some of the journey, you know,
a weird time to go on a trip. I brought my wife and my daughter down with me and they had a really nice time and introduced them. But the total amount of travel here, especially the longer car rides and all that would just make me think twice in comparison to more domestic travel or things that don’t require great distance from an airport. again, what am I complaining about when
Okay. A 12 hour travel day from, you know, central Texas to a Southern portion of central America. You know, when a hundred years ago that would likely take weeks, if not months, um, to, uh, to accomplish if, if at all possible. So, you know, again, we have to keep, all of that in perspective. So wanted to share that with you all, um, subscribe and share if you found this helpful, looking forward to next time. Take care everybody. Bye.
