Delayed Gratification Wins

You can tell who’s serious by what they’re willing to do when nobody’s clapping. Lying backstage between pre-judging and finals at a bodybuilding show, I connect the discipline of competition prep to what actually creates wealth in real estate and business: delayed gratification, long feedback loops, and doing the boring work with precision.

We talk about why chasing quick money feels productive but often keeps you stuck, and why bigger goals demand patience and a longer timeline. I share how that mindset pushed me to focus on mobile home parks and other scalable real estate investing strategies, where deal flow can take longer but the payoff can be dramatically larger. You’ll hear how building a track record turns into better opportunities, including partnerships where the operator creates value through execution instead of simply “having cash.”

We also get practical about the mechanics behind the scenes: why the monthly income isn’t always the operator’s paycheck right away, how preferred returns and reinvestment affect timing, and where the real “drips” of income can come from, like acquisition work, infill projects, and dispositions. Then we bring it back to the personal side: taking feedback, staying in alignment with your goal, saying no to distractions, and letting compounding do what it always does for consistent people.

If you want stronger work ethic, clearer goals, and a mindset built for long-term real estate success, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. What goal are you committing to for the long haul?

Transcript

Waiting For Finals And Setting Up

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Y'all, so I am legit laying here waiting for uh I had pre-judging this morning on my bodybuilding show. All right. And I'm legit waiting here for finals in another three hours. So the way it works is, you know, they judge you in the morning and then you come back for finals and then you get placed. And my mustache is messed up if you're watching this. I gotta put some more gel up in this sucker. If you're listening to this, I've got like a curly mustache for the stage, and it takes like a wax gel, and like it started separating. Anyways, so today's show is about how bodybuilding is tied in to real estate success, business, all that stuff. And some of you might roll your eyes and be like, oh, whatever, turn it off. Trust me, you want to hear this, all right? Because I'm just like, I would say a regular dude, right? And there's a lesson to learn about this. But I guess I'm not a regular dude because I have this drive about me. And I think if you're listening to this or watching this, if you're watching this, I'm like on a green tan-ass pillow and laying down. But, anyways, if you're listening to this, I think you have the same drive or want the same drive. You want more. I think a lot of us want more, but we don't know what that looks like, right? We don't even know where to start. Like, what is more, right?

Defining What You Want Next

SPEAKER_00 1:25

And I think to define that, it would be like you got to figure out what you want, right? And I know as cliche as that sounds, it's the truth. And you could start small, right? I want X, and so I've got to do Y, or I, you know, whatever. But like me, that's changed over time. I'm sure with you, it's the same thing. These things change over time, right? And I want right now 10 mobile home parks that are a hundred plus units, right? That's my want right now, and that'll keep growing. Before it was a certain amount of houses or a certain amount of revenue or a certain amount of this, right? And that's just where I'm at in this stage in my life, right? Because I want, I want more um, I don't know, I want more monthly income. I think a lot of people do, and I want my net worth to grow. So like I have a few things that I won't, you know, settle on. Like I won't do anything that isn't going to grow my net worth business-wise.

Delayed Gratification And Long Feedback

SPEAKER_00 2:24

All right. So back to my point is like bodybuilding is all about delayed gratification. All right. Like you prep, meaning you eat reduced calorie meals, do cardio, do very uncomfortable things, like like long you know, workouts, cardio, calorie restriction, and it's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable, or very uncomfortable. And you do this for like four to six months at a time. And yeah, you get the bulk after that, but whenever you're you're bulking, like really competitor-wise, competition-wise, you're not just eating like like you would think, like, I don't know, just fast food all the time. It's like controlled, right? It's a lot of food, but it's a lot of good food, right? And what I mean by good food is quality. You know, you're not out there just eating burgers and crap. So it's all just delayed gratification, whether you're bulking, shredding, whatever. And, you know, that's kind of why I'm drawn to bodybuilding. I'm drawn to things that have a long uh feedback loop, right? It's like I think when I was younger, I chased a lot of short feedback loops, meaning I wanted the quick cash, the quick money. I did businesses that I could get quick money. Hell, I'd make a thousand dollars a day just selling scrap iron that I got for free from people, you know, just because I wanted that quick money. You know, at wholesale houses because I want that quick money, right? And then one day, took me a long time to realize this. I was like, I'm only gonna do what, like the things that take a while to get the money, right? And what I mean is like the bigger the job, the bigger the payoff. And then I just said, you

Why Mobile Home Parks Beat Quick Cash

SPEAKER_00 4:10

know what? I tried this a lot of times. I was like, I'm gonna get part, I'm gonna get I because I was already buying parks when I was doing houses. I had a lot of experience because I had bought parks, flipped parks. I loved it, but I I always told myself, this is all I'm gonna do. I'd flip a park and make 250 Gs, right? Yeah, it'd take me a year or two, but then I'd like to flip a house and make 20 G's. Like, you know, and it takes several months, headache managing all the stuff, right? I'd make cash flow on parks in the meantime. Like, and I was like, this is all I'm gonna do. Well, you know, getting a park at a good deal takes a while, a lot of times. You know, it's the same process, but like you might not get one for three months, six months, and then you got to do the thing, and you don't get paid for a longer period of time, but the payday is a lot more. All right, so that's the delayed gratification. You know, it's like now I I did that, I made that decision, and it was the best thing I ever did because opportunities came out of that, right? Like it's like I bought, you know, like say I bought I bought a big park with, and then I, you know, well, I bought parks and then I got a name. I was borrowing money, getting money from people, getting a name, a track record, and I had a track record in single family. But I'm like, this guy's a good operator. We want to be in business with this guy, right? And then like I get these parks now with little to no money out of my pocket, and because I'm the GP, I'm the operator. But so, so we'll buy these parks and then I'll operate them. Well, I'm not just getting this cash, this monthly cash that comes in each month, it goes into the account, right? Into the our park account. So people are like, oh, you get all that monthly income. I don't touch any of it, right? It usually there's a pref, like people all get paid at different times, and it doesn't start right away. So it's like, how do you get paid? Well, it's like, okay, I have to infill these parks. So I get paid like acquisitions fees for infilling, I'll get paid dispo fees for like rent to owning the units. I'll get paid, you know, like I do all the projects, like I've got these little drips all over the place, and I'm building my net worth, I'm getting cash flow, right, from from these drips that I'm actively participating in. And then one day, all these parks are I'm gonna be taking dividends, right? From all these parks, and it's all gonna be worth it. And by the way, it's already all worth it. You know why? It's because it's my vision, my goal, and I'm I don't accept anything

How The Operator Actually Gets Paid

SPEAKER_00 6:45

else. Every day I work towards that, every single day. And it's like in bodybuilding, I do the same thing, right? I eat the same things every day. I follow the same plan. You know, I make the same tweaks, I go to the gym, I do my same splits based on what my goal is, right? If I'm shredding, that's the goal. I, you know, have to do things that only align with that goal. If I'm bulking, only things that align with that goal. My weight's moving up. Am I doing this? Am I doing that? Everything's got its place, right? This show, like it took me a year to get here. One year of delayed gratification to go compete uh for two minutes on stage. One year. And I had a show last week, and I do two of the same shows every year until I go pro, and then we'll figure out the schedule. Then I'll go compete in Austin because it's the best show. It's the best show you can go to besides nationals, in my opinion. So I get really good feedback because they have Olympia coaches there. They have top coaches in the world in Austin, Texas, at this event every year. So I go, right? And I prepared all year. I bulked, I shredded, and it's not easy. And I didn't do so hot in Austin. And then I come to Pittsburgh the next week because that's my my um, you know, kind of trial show just to get warmed up, warm-up show. And I crush in Pittsburgh. Crush because I take the judge's feedback and I go to hell week when I get to Pittsburgh, right? Three days I freaking hit. This is what I did, no lie. I did cardio. Uh, I get up in the morning, I get on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and then I do directly after that, I get on the bike for 45 minutes and keep my heart rate up the whole time. Imagine that. I've done 75 minutes of cardio, then I'll work out for 30, 45 minutes, and then I'll go to the sauna for 30 minutes. Right? I did that every day for three days, and I lost nine pounds in three days because that's what the judges

Bodybuilding Prep And Judges Feedback

SPEAKER_00 8:50

told me I needed to do. Oh, and I ran two miles each day through outside in the heat. Like I want I needed to drop the water weight they said that I had, and I did, and that's delayed gratification, right? All of that stuff. So, like, I think everybody could benefit from having that outlook. It's like when I had a job, W-2, all right. I had my own business before I had a job, and I left my business, which I was young and dumb. I should have kept doing it because I was making good money, but I didn't realize what I was doing, right? You don't know what you don't know, and I got a lot of experience. Anyways, the the company was like, hey, uh, we want to hire you. And nobody would hire me when I was a kid because I just I got I was in a lot of trouble, right? For stuff. But, anyways, I was like, Y'all would hire me as an oil fill company, and I already had my own business. I'm making a thousand dollars a day. And I'm like, cool, how much we pay? They're like ten dollars an hour. I was like, How many hours? They're like, as many as you want. I was like, cool. I didn't ask another question. I put my head down, I went to work. I ended up being the vice president of that company. I never asked, how much you can you give me? Can I get raises? Can I do all? I never I was the hardest worker, and I still like have that work ethic with everything I do. It's not like what can you do for me? It's like, what can I do for you and how much can I do of it? Right? How badass can I be? I don't care how long it takes me, just like in bodybuilding. I've been competing six years. I don't have my pro card yet, right? I'm gonna get it one day, but I don't care when that is, because I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna keep delaying the gratification. And guess what? When I hit that mountaintop and get the pro card, meaning I'm a professional bodybuilder, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna raise the bar, and I'm still gonna delay the next gratification, right? Which is the next goal, which any kind of goal we have like requires some sort of and when I say this, I don't mean you have to put yourself through absolute hell, but it it requires you to be a different version of yourself. I almost said it requires

Work Ethic From The Oil Field

SPEAKER_00 11:10

sacrifice, but that's I I don't like framing things that way because I'm all about alignment and you know, call it what you want, but I think we need to be aligned with our goal, right? Like imagine you're driving down the road in a car, right? And you veer off a little bit, you hit the rumble strips. That's you getting out of alignment, doing things that aren't toward your goal, right? Like if you want to be the best, whatever, and you get this other opportunity to do something way out of the ordinary, you're hitting the rumble strips. That's your warning. Like, stay in your lane. Like you see your goal, goal to your goal. Everything else is no. You say no. I don't care, right? I got a buddy that you know he's been wanting to be some. If you he's been wanting to be a nurse forever, right? And since we were kids, I was like, it's a dream. And we both went in the oil field together, and and I ended up being the vice president. I quit, opened my own company because I didn't want that life anymore. And he's still there and we talk all the time. And he's like, I want to be, I still want to be that. I'm like, bro, go quit and go do it. He's like, but I have all these bills, and I'm like, I don't care. He's like, I do. I'm like, bro, like, just do what you want to do, right? That's what you want, go do it. Go grab it. It's as easy as that. There's no excuses. You want to be a badass real estate investor, go do it. All right. If you, if you want anything you want. So, like these tiny homes we buy, there's systems, there's processes, right? There's delay gratification with that, all that stuff, man. Like we're building right now, and it's all just compounding. There's a compounding effect with every single thing you do. So I know this thing was a bit philosophical. It's a little outside the norm on our real estate stuff, but it's all aligned. And I hope you got something out of the day. My name's Travis Wells, the Property Profits Podcast. Britt's actually about to walk up the stairs right now from doing cardio. That's why I'm shutting this off. And y'all have a good one. Follow us on the socials, refer to a friend. If you like this type of episode, let me know. I'll do some more of these. Till next time.