The Value of Daily Progress and Building Assets

James: Welcome to the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing and our mission is to equip people to invest wisely in both properties and people so that we can build our wealth and improve housing together. I'm James and this is my wife, Jessi.

Hi. Hey, good evening. Good evening. Yes, it is nighttime because what is today? Today's Sunday and We had a super, super busy day. I let's see. So I went to church in the morning, and then I was going to have a completely relaxing afternoon, do some weekly planning stuff. So you thought. Yeah, and then I got a text from a friend who is refinishing his cabinets, and he shall we say naively, was like, oh, I got a couple free days because things are happening with my family.

Let me just refinish these real quick. Just in a couple days. No big deal. Yeah. I mean, that's. And he was going to redo the floor and paint some stuff. What? He had some projects. Oh my word. He had more than just the cabinets. Yeah, so he got this Sunday afternoon and texted me and was like, I need help. Yeah.

And so, I went over there for a few hours and just gave him an extra set of hands. That's awesome. Yeah, we did not finish the project. You know, we've been, we've been there before. Yes. Been on the other

Jessi: end of that before,

James: so. Yes. I, I think the very first time I heard it was my dad. We were in the middle of a project and he was like, it was a project and a half.

Yeah, so that's what he and his kitchen is not that big. But man, cabinets, there's something about it. There's just

Jessi: so, so many nooks and crannies and corners. And yeah, then it's like there's a little lip on the other side. You got to stand in between the. I'm like, just buy new cabinets. I'm pretty sure like with, if you value your labor and add that all up, just Ikea cabinets are so much cheaper.

James: Yeah, that's true. I don't know. Maybe they're not as good. Depends on where you are in the investment cycle. Whether or not that makes sense. Cause oftentimes it's like for your own house. The labor is free and oftentimes you have the free time, but yeah, no, it's an interesting balance of like, okay, do I hang out with family, like with my kids, do I work on this project?

Do I not? Do you just buy new ones? Cause even then that's not like a free lunch. It's true. I don't know. It's hard balance, but yeah, no, he was in the middle of it. And so I got to go over and it is nice to help make quick progress on a project. And then walk away. That's true. I do like that one. That's true.

So, all that to say, my day did not go at all how I had planned, and that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about a day. A day? A day. Okay. You like that segue there? That was good. I've, yeah, came up with that one on the fly. Nice. Yeah, thanks. So I subscribe to one of those daily ripoff subscribe.

That's weird. I should just tell you. You subscribe in your day to day life. I should just tell you.

Jessi: I have bought a subscription, which means I bought

James: it once. Yes, we let's just tell you what we are in society. I think in terms of subscriptions now. Oh my gosh. So I bought. One of those daily calendar things where like, each page is a day and you got some sort of inspirational quote.

The probably the last one I had was probably like 15 years ago and it was the office quotes. Remember that one? That was super fun. And it turned out our real estate agent, he loved the office. And so I would like, every time we saw him, I'd bring him a new one. He loved it. It was awesome. But that's not what this one is.

This is actually, it's a Seth Godin one. And he's an author about marketing, getting stuff done, just kind of like deep thinker in general. He does a daily blog post. He's done, I forget how many years now, but like it's like 20 years or some ridiculous amount. They're kind of short posts, right? Yeah. That's just like, they're like just a thought, almost half thoughts in a way.

I mean, it's a complete thought, but it's like sometimes they're. And sentence. Yeah, oftentimes they're a paragraph or two and sometimes you you open it up and you go. Oh, okay There's a longer thought. I'm gonna set some time aside for this one. He's really been thinking about it. Anyways, this was for January 3rd.

Mm hmm. And so recent and What it says, oh, it's called the daily if you're looking up for the calendar That's where you can find it. Just look up daily calendar. Anyways, here's what it says. And I really liked it. Is there something you do every day that builds an asset for you? Every single day, something that creates another bit of intellectual property that belongs to you.

Something that makes an asset you own more valuable. Something that you learn. Every single day is a lot of days. It's easy to look at the long run and lull yourself into skipping a day now and then. But, the long run is made up of short runs. Hmm, so I want to share that quote with you, that thought. What are your, what's your initial reaction to that?

And I sprung this on you. You do not like, I purposely kept that away from you.

Jessi: My initial reaction is that it reminds me of whatever that rule is that you, I think you read it in a book or something, but essentially it's like what would take you like two or three minutes in a day. Like if you put that off, it just adds up and then it becomes this overwhelming task where it's like, Okay, you know, like instead of taking your clothes and just tossing them on the floor, like just put them away.

Either put them in the hamper or put them straight in the drawer, you know, or like when your laundry's done, just fold a few and then put those away. So it's like just do a little bit at a time and it never becomes overwhelming or this big like, Oh, no, now I'm behind. What do I do? It's like, oh, I've made progress.

I've Put in a little bit each day and it was doable. Yeah.

James: Yeah. Which

Jessi: is easier said than done because I have clothes all over the floor and you

James: know. Yeah. That is interesting. Like I know you, you prefer the big chunks of time to work on something. And I read a book last year called deep work and he is all about that.

And I've kind of bought into that philosophy of to do really high, to do high value work requires significant, some significant. Yeah. Significant amounts. There we go. Significant amounts of like focused time, undistracted focused time, and that's how you can do it. He claws deep work, but just like really good quality work.

And so I think that's true. And at the same time, there's value in doing the little things. I ain't like, let's just use a dumb example, right? My teeth are assets, right? Sure. I use them for chewing and for talking. I think they're useful for talking. And it feels like smiling. Yeah. And for smiling for being proctored.

I guess if you don't have teeth. You can still talk, but You can play the vegetable game, but that's about it. You sound like an old person. Yeah. So anyways, it's like, it's dumb, but it's real, right? That's an asset. And you can't just be like, I'm gonna go to the dentist. I mean, I guess you could. Like, I'm gonna go once every six months and do the whole

Jessi: Kaboodle and do

James: it all.

Clean it and fix it and do other things. And then I'm going to ignore it the rest of the time. That doesn't work. Probably not smart. Because eventually you won't have any more teeth. And they'll just go, well, we've got to rip them out. Yeah. And so so I think like, and that one's, you know, it's an obvious, right?

It's brushing. Flossing, most of those too. I'm pretty sure that's it. But like, but it's just that, that idea of like you were just talking about, right? It's there's that just a little bit of progress every single day. Adds up over time and it is meaningful. And what's weird about teeth is like it feels like you're just sustaining.

You don't get better teeth, I guess. I don't think that's true. I've never really thought about enamel. Whether or not that builds up or not. I don't think it does. Whatever, we're getting off the analogy path here. So I, the point being, like it's doing that small little thing. And. And so I think it's valuable to, so that's like, so I agree with you a hundred percent on that first part, right?

Like, yeah, doing something little every day adds up or something big every day adds up. Which is part of the deep work combination of, he would say Cal Newport would say, well, don't spend 15 minutes on your thing. Like spend an hour, three hours on your thing, on your asset every day. And, and the book all talks about like strategies to make that actually happen.

Yeah, cause that sounds ridiculous. Yeah he's got I was listening to his podcast and he was talking about like he's got like a trio of books. And one of them is all about like, email's dumb, don't do it, here's how to get out of it, here's how to tell your boss you're not doing email anymore, which I'm like, I would love to read that book, cause email is dumb.

And then there's another one, it's something about like workplace communication, maybe those are related. And then there's like a third one, it's like yeah, combined. If you do, if you read the three books and implement them, it helps you set up your time so that you can get deep work done anyways.

Interesting. Yeah, so, but I think about the degree of like, you can't just wait for those magical moments. You need to build into the discipline. to work on something every day. The other thing that I love about this quote is just that idea of thinking about your assets in life and what do you have. This is something you and I have talked about quite a lot.

Even when I was working for HP, the goal wasn't maximize my income, make as much money as I can. The goal was always build as many assets as we could. Maximize our assets and that was something that we regularly talked about. And so the fact that That's what that, that's what he's referring to and I, I get it.

He's not necessarily being as literal as we were because we were like, no, no, no. We're buying real estate. Those are assets. We're investing in them. We're making them better every day, either by making physical improvements and how we run them, all that stuff. I think it was just good. Yeah. I mean,

Jessi: I can, I can see the, obviously it's the obvious analogy or, or application of that quote to our lives.

But. I think more in general. If you just think about an asset being something that improves your life, like the brushing of the teeth, or learning a musical instrument, or reading a book. You know, we've talked about that before, and I struggle with that literarily as well. Not literally, but literarily.

Because I'm like, I, I can't pick up a book and just read for two minutes. I'm like, ah, no, I want to sit down and like finish a chapter or like read for an hour and just get into that zone. And it's like, huh. But that never happens. And it never happens. And then I never read. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, it would be better maybe to, to do a little bit each day and gain the knowledge from the book or the enjoyment of reading or.

James: You know, so I'm currently listening to a Samuel Adams biography. Mm-Hmm. . Which is super interesting and I primarily am listening to it while doing dishes. Yeah. Is it absolutely, like, would it drive you nuts to know that like when I'm done with dishes, I hit pause, mid-sentence, don't care. Oh, yeah. That would drive me bananas.

Now, for the record, what I do is the next time I get up, I, I go back one minute and I, that I find that usually gives me enough of a running start where I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what was going on. And then I keep going. But yeah, that would just no drive you crazy. I just, I like

Jessi: to get to an ending point.

And, and then I don't have to go back,

James: but I'm also going to finish this book, but in the month, that's true. And I will have not, that's okay. That's all right. I it's okay. Yeah. You'll tell me the highlights. So but yeah, I agree with you. I think it's good to think about it, not just literally, but for all those areas in your life that make you better.

Having said that, I still think being very clear about, is this an asset or not? I love the way that Kiyosaki defines an asset, which is something that puts money in your pocket instead of something that takes money out of your pocket. I think it's a great way to think about it, which would say, like, your personal car is a liability.

The really controversial one is that your personal home. Yeah. Does that take money in or out of your pocket? I'm pretty sure out. You would say out. And so you go, by his definition, it's a liability. And, and so the question is, like, for actual assets. And that's where, obviously, we are a real estate passive.

Investing podcast. And so that would be the, the challenge that I would have for you listening would be like, what are those assets that you have? Or what are those assets that you're cultivating? And it may be, hey, I'm putting a little bit money more aside. I'm putting a little bit of more money aside.

Yeah, I said that right. Or just the fact that you're listening to this podcast is a deposit into that, is making it a little bit better. You're working on your education. You're thinking about it. You're making progress. And so, My encouragement would be to continue to do things like this, listen to this podcast, continue to learn, continue to save, and continue to educate yourself so that when an actual investment comes along, you're ready to go.

And if you already are invested, it would be like, yeah, just double check on your portfolio. Make sure that things are going all right. Reach out to the sponsor. Maybe ask a couple questions. Hey, how's it going? If you haven't heard recently, go back and review some of those reports and really just get good at reading them.

They've been my challenge. So anyways, I liked it. Seth Godin, as always. Good thoughts makes me just kind of contemplate a little bit. And I appreciate that. So with that, I want to say thank you for listening. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we would appreciate it. If you left a quick rating wherever it is that you listen to podcasts.

Thanks again for listening and have a great day.