0183: Cashflow2Freedom: From Life Support to Fulfilled Life with AJ Osborne

Intro [0:00]

EA Interviews Episode 183. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview. 

Mario Fachini [0:14]

Have you ever been worried about the future? Have you ever worried about, you know, what happens with this client? What happens with my business? What happens with these relationships, the partnerships, all of these different things? I know I most certainly have. And it’s no joke. It’s no laughing matter. Because whether you’ve been in business five years, ten years or 50, or something in between, the reality is the business can outlast you. But what if you can’t outlast last the business and you haven’t set something up? I’m excited to have AJ Osborne here today. And he’s going to be talking about how cash flowing properties have literally saved his life. I’m going to bring him right after we thank our sponsor. 

SPONSOR Acorns [0:56]

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Mario Fachini [1:13]

Here he is ladies and gentlemen, Mr. AJ Osborne. AJ, how are you feeling today? 

AJ Osborne [1:18]

I’ feeling good. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. 

Mario Fachini [1:21]

Well, it’s my pleasure because I know you specialize in producing cash flowing assets to stabilize your life down the road. And you have an incredible story I can’t wait for you to share. So why don’t you just take us back to the beginning? 

AJ Osborne [1:38]

Yeah. You know, I appreciate the opportunity to be on here and talk to your audience. Like you said in your intro, life is very uncertain, and unfortunately, some of us find out the hard way. And I guess that’s kind of my story. So I’ve always been in sales, entrepreneurship since I was little. I watched my father do insurance sales and I got into insurance sales, too. And, you know, along the way, I started to realize I was doing some mergers and acquisitions. We were buying smaller firms bringing into ours. And we had one that went really bad. Like, really bad. And it kind of taught me a very valuable lesson but that the industry in the business that I was in, although, we may have owned the infrastructure of the business, we did not own the source of the revenue. And this lesson was a very important and defining lesson in my life. And it taught me that there’s two different – like, not all rich people are the same. There is the rich and there’s the wealthy. And those two things are very distinct. Rich people make a lot of money. Wealthy people don’t have to work for money. And when I started to look and understand more of my business model, understand the future and what that may look like, I started to get concerned. There didn’t seem a time that was an easy exit off the treadmill. In fact, I couldn’t figure out there was no exit off the treadmill for me. If you lose a client, you got to go sell another one. If you don’t own the client, they can leave you at any time. We did have residual income, but it was only residual from the standpoint as long as the client stayed in contract with you. And so we grew by selling more clients. But if I wasn’t selling, if we weren’t out doing producing, we weren’t making money. So yeah, I could take some time off. But there was no case in which, you know, two years or something like that, I would be okay if I didn’t. So, because of this concern, I started to look at kind of foundational principles of revenue and how they work within your business, and how to create a framework of something that could be compounded out that the work was, although, it’s front loaded, it could be hands off to me. Yet, the results were still the same. So it was repeatable. Look, real estate was an obvious example of this as this is the one most people know. But for me, I had problems with real estate. It didn’t generate very good. Upside, I was an entrepreneur. I was expecting, you know, large, large upside. But we did find an asset class that we loved and that was self-storage. And the reason being is because it was kind of an in between, right? You have business operations. The business operations theoretically allow you to increase or change the revenue. You have levers within a business in how you manage that income and revenue coming in. And with self-storage in most real estate asset classes, the levers are very reduced and their market dictated. So a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment is the same price as the one down the street. That’s how the market works. Self-storage isn’t like that. So we could buy self-storage facilities. We could work on marketing, revenue management. We could dramatically increase the revenue. We could increase our margin, therefore increasing value, refinance, and repeat. And this became an amazing strategy. We were able to create over 100 million in assets during this time as we were doing it. But along the way, as we start to sort of do this, as it always seems to be, you know, you’re on top of the world. I was working for a very large brokerage company at the time. We sold our brokerage company years back. I was working at a large brokerage company. I was running through Idaho departments. I had a couple other businesses. And the company was paying us so much money, they didn’t want us to leave. Kind of little golden handcuffs there. And I also had my real estate portfolio. But one day, literally, out of the blue, it happened so suddenly. I lost my ability to walk. My wife took me out to the car and we went to the hospital. And within days I was put on life support and I was paralyzed from head to toe. I was put into a coma. When I woke up out of the coma, I couldn’t speak. My eyes were even partially paralyzed. I can only see the end of the bed. They moved me to a long term care facility out of the hospital, somewhere that could take care of me for we didn’t know how long. And I had just had our fourth child. And while I’m in the long term care facility, my boss came and informed me that, obviously, I would no longer be working because we didn’t even know if I was ever going to walk again. They paid me while I was on machines, keeping me alive, which was months. That was very kind and generous. They didn’t have to do that. But it was still [unintelligible] [00:06:51]. There was a point where my treadmill stopped. And it’s completely – and there was no anything. And in most cases, this is not only catastrophic to the point of health. But financially, this is for a young family like me. I mean, you got to remember, I was 33 at the time. Fly Fisherman, backpacker. You know, I don’t sit still. I’m extremely active. This is the last thing I would have ever even imagined. Even when they were telling us what was going on, it didn’t even make sense. And you know, my wife was sitting there in the hospital with our new baby. The other three with grandma and grandpa. And all our kids were under the age of ten. And you start asking questions, is my wife going to have to go get a job to feed us? Are we going to lose the house? How is this going to work? And there was no answers for anything. So in the hospital, you’d ask – I asked when I can finally speak after ten weeks. They changed the way my lungs finally got to a point where I could say a few things. And you try to ask and try to communicate, am I ever going to walk again? And what’s going to happen here? And the answer was always, “We don’t know.” And so it was a time where for the first month we didn’t know if I was going to live. And then after that, it was we didn’t know what kind of life I was ever going to live after they determined, “He’ll be able to get off tubes. We were confident he’ll be able to get off tubes.” But then the next question is, we don’t know what kind of life he’ll live after this. And that on top of then figuring out how your family members have to pay for basic things, like food and shelter, that’s just a one-two punch that I know people have that they go through that. And I can’t imagine it. I was going through a period that I went through was hell. It was a nightmare beyond belief. You know, when you’re paralyzed, a lot of people think you just lie there and stare at a wall. My nerves have all been destroyed. And so, you know, you feel pain when something happens to your nerve, and your nerve sends a signal your brain saying, “I’ve been cut. I’ve been burned.” All my nerves in my body are telling my brain you’ve been cut, you’ve been burned, you’ve been destroyed. So I didn’t sleep for weeks. Like, getting sleep for more than an hour in as much drugs as they tried to give you. They can only do so much because your nerves are telling your brain, you know, every piece of you has been ripped apart. And so it just was like this never ending nightmare. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And the light at the end of the tunnel was that we only had to worry about me. My wife, my family. It was just worry about you getting back. So I lost my job but we still had our income from our other businesses coming in that we’d worked for decade on trying to build systems and processes that could be hands off, that can be operated without someone directly operating. In fact, they grew while I was in the hospital. They were worth more and made more income. And you know, when I got out, that began a journey for years – or it was three years that I’ve been trying to come back. My lower extremities are still – they struggle. But I got rid of my leg braces about just last fall. And that was something that I was told in the rehab facility I would never do. And so I left the rehab facility and I went out on my own. And I got out of my leg braces. And I’m still on medication and things like that. But I’m working full time. I’m back to playing with my family. We are going on trips. And we are living a semi-normal life – not semi but most people – I can’t say that. I live a much better life than the average [unintelligible] [00:11:07]. So I’m very fortunate. We have passive income. We have lots of it. I can grow my business. And if I’m in pain or if I need to stop, I can stop. I’m not good at stopping. I like to work hundred plus hours and weeks. But I’m afforded the opportunity to do so. Which to me, is something that it’s hard to express the importance of it. I mean, when I [unintelligible] [00:11:32] the hospital, I was planting trees. It was a beautiful day where kids are out playing yard. I was planting trees. That night, I couldn’t walk. When I was sitting in the hospital paralyzed from the chest down, it was snowing outside. And you know, it was Christmas. And I wasn’t at home with my kids. We’ve already passed all the other holidays. And when you’re sitting there with nothing to do but think, you can’t leave the hospital if you like, you can’t do anything. Those other things, I mean, I could still feel good about being a father to my children. I was still providing for them. I didn’t feel like my role in life had been taken away or that I was useless. Or even worse, a burden to them, which would have crippled me mentally to a point that would have been very hard for me to recover like I have. So you know, I really do believe that this financial freedom is getting off that treadmill creating a processing system. So if you’re in entrepreneurship, whether you’re an entrepreneur starting up a business, whether you’re investing, depending on how you’re doing your capital management, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. You need to build out infrastructure that not only can operate without you because this is the key of scale. This is the key of growing a business. You need to be working on your business, not in it. And that’s what I became very passionate about telling people and teaching people. You may be an attorney, you may make a lot of money doing your job. And you’re like, “I don’t want to leave my job because I make so much money.” That’s totally reasonable. That’s totally fine. You may be an expert in your industry. And you may get paid lots of money for speaking. You may get paid lots of money for different kind of engagements. But what happens – because there’s one thing that is guaranteed, you will, at some point, not be able to work. That’s guaranteed. So you just try to mount as much cash as you can to live off it after the fact. Because if that’s your plan, you could be in big trouble if that day comes sooner than is expected. Or the economy changes and now your position in the industry tree is irrelevant, or another million things that can happen. So that’s an actually very bad capital management model. And for existing businesses, for starting businesses, or starting out and for investing. That’s kind of my story. And that’s my passion. That’s what I’m really into. I made a promise while sitting there looking at the snow, it was Christmas. And as I was looking at the snow, I was thinking about what my children were going to get in the morning. If they were going to have a big Christmas. And the hospital was going to let me go home for the first time on Christmas. And I was going to go home and spend three hours with my kids. I had to be taken there and cared and stuff, but they were going to let me do it. And I was only concerned about what my children – you know, when were they going to wake up. And I hope they don’t wake up before I get there. And that’s it. I knew we were going to have an amazing Christmas. I knew that it was going to be great. I was grateful for the hours that I get. And then I go home. It was home at the time. Back to the hospital. And they would be able to play and have a wonderful time. And it was at that moment that I realized this is important. And if I get out of this in any way, shape, or form, good enough to talk about it. This needs to be the focus area of my life because this is what it did for me. 

Mario Fachini [15:11]

Well, that is an incredibly moving story. And I’m so glad it worked out for you. Because there’s a lot of people that have stuff happened to them, and some not even near as bad as what happened to you, and they don’t recover. And when you said, you know, the mental anguish and it’s like, you know, you might have everything taken care of, but if you’re not in the right mindset – once you lose hope or in another perspective, never have it. I know people that had every advantage in the world. And they don’t have any belief, hope, or whatever. And it’s like, there’s so many things you can help people with. And I’m glad you’re sharing this message with people now. Because it’s something – and it resonates with me because it’s something I thought about 10, 15 years ago. I started my business nearly two decades ago and it was one of the main reasons was I wanted to own my time and calendar. And also, even if you’re sick for a few days, or maybe you want to go on a two week vacation, or maybe just take the summer off, what do you do? You can’t do that with a job. And I mean, we’re not even talking the financial aspect of it. And there’s things that I’ve done. You know, I love what I do. I love helping people publish their business books. I love speaking. Obviously, hosting the show. But I also developed a software to build WordPress websites automatically. And it was an idea I had. And I go, this will help -you know, I can infinitely help people. And it has nothing to do with me. I can prove that that thing is running while I’m doing this. And it has nothing to do with me. 

AJ Osborne [16:52]

Yeah. There’s something about – so there’s two things that I think is human [unintelligible] [00:16:58]. I think the first thing is, we love to do. We love doing something with our hands. This creation process is innately in us. We are so, you know, crazy about it. But then there’s another another side of the same coin, where there’s also this innately desire to build something long lasting. Or what I would say when I mean long lasting – 

Mario Fachini [17:21]

Legacy. 

AJ Osborne [17:21]

Legacy. You’re building something that isn’t involved that can be passed on that affects more people than you can do manually with your hands. And when you look at the world, that’s when big change comes. There’s a reason that the information age of technology has had such a massive impact on humankind. And once we have reached that – you know, we weren’t even prepared for what it would do. Because what it says now, you as an individual can reach thousands and millions of people. You don’t have to be confined to the bakery on your street. You don’t have to be confined to these things. And once that’s unleashed, it completely changed the world. And so to be a part of that and we see that and we understand the impact. And we strive for it almost subconsciously. And the employment situation that we have today, your life is in a box. Which, after what I was going through, didn’t work anymore. I couldn’t be defined in a box of employment. Because my employer may have – you know, they may need things from me that I couldn’t do. So sometimes I get chronic fatigue and I’m like, “Listen, I’m sleeping for two days.” Because my nerves in my body are still trying to rebuild after three years, things like that. I can do that if I want. If I’m like, “Hey, I’m taking a break.” I came in to work today. Tomorrow is Wednesday. Thursday, I saw that the salmon flies were hatching on a local river. And I’m like, “All right. I’m gone for the next two, three days.” I have the ability to do that. Now, with that said, you know, I work way more than I should because I have the ability to. And I’m sure I’m trying to break that habit right now. But that’s the beautiful thing about it because you realize when you’re doing entrepreneurship investing, your efforts are exactly in line with the output and the change that it makes in other people and other people’s lives. So the big move from corporations in delivering these, you know, culture became the number one thing. And you see the CEOs would get up [unintelligible] [00:19:22] it was part of a, you know, multibillion dollar organization. And they got up and they say all the buzzwords and they say you’re changing things. The reason they have to do that is because you’re disconnected with the result, the output, and the change. Now, they’re very closely tied to it monetarily and they get the credit and everything else. So they’re very satisfied in that. But they know, if you don’t buy into this culture, if you don’t buy into this output, people aren’t going to stay. And so people have invested billions and billions of dollars to try to create work environments that bring in this meaning and this output closer to the people that are sitting in a cubicle. Because if not, they’ll lose their minds. And that’s what started to happen. And so entrepreneurship get that firsthand. You get it directly. You get to invest. You get to see change. I revamp properties. I will buy up underperforming assets. We’ll turn them into new assets. And it’s amazing to see when you turn a piece of the city around and it’s brand new, it looks amazing, customers are happy, neighbors are happy. And you’re making a change and impacting and solving problems for the community. And we can do that all over the United States, right? I have businesses that work directly with health insurance. There’s so much you can do. And as you know and as all entrepreneurs know, once you get that bug, it’s over. You just can’t go back from it. It doesn’t work in this employment structure in the United States. But the vast majority of everyone were too disconnected from it. 

Mario Fachini [21:01]

Well, I’m so thankful we have the opportunity now. And I know it’s been around for hundreds of years, but I love seeing and hearing – and I’m just going to flat out say, if anyone’s listening to this and they’re considering it, go for it. Because there’s so many people that want to go for it. And unfortunately, it took the recession in ’08, ’09. And I’ve read a lot of stuff and that’s why Shark Tank really blew up. I love the show. And I was doing it before that and a lot of people were. But now, it’s like a thing again. And around the turn of the century, it’s what America was built on. And then everything became, let’s just say different. And then for like, 100 years it took. And then it’s like, I’m feeling there’s a resurgence of it. And I’ve been saying, you know, I’m excited about the roaring 20s. You know, the next decade is fantastic. Because people have that creativity. They can inventr They can do things. And you can profit from it and support people. And, you know, be charitable. And you can do whatever you want. 

AJ Osborne [22:08]

[Unintelligible] [00:22:09]. It’s crazy when you look at these trends. And I mean, in the last, you know, ten years, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. They’re putting it on their site or their Instagram handle, everything. It’s like, all of a sudden that became cool. When I got started, that wasn’t a thing. Social media wasn’t a thing. So there was no way for these rockstar entrepreneurs, you know, this whole, literally, a culture to come up. And we have a culture now of entrepreneurship. And that didn’t exist. I mean, there was a model and a mode. You go to college, you get a degree, and you get a job. And then after 2008 that was liberated. And people said, “That model is broken.” And they wanted to be closer to the results. They wanted to have equity in them. They wanted to take the responsibility. Because this idea that it’s safer to have a job than it is start your own business. Everybody started their own business. You know, they were fine. All the employees though were laid off. And that really opened the door. And then we had online, where people could go find the resources. And all of a sudden, this is what is taught in the information how it’s passed down through on society completely changed. Now, you can learn everything you want. You don’t even have to go to college. Now, you can go find a trade online, you can learn it, you can do it yourself, you can start making money off immediately. And that’s never existed. And so it lasted years. It’s just as amazing resurgence. It’s like somebody pulled back a veil and said, “Look, here’s another life that you could live. Not that it’s perfect. It’s by far not. And not that it’s risky.” You know, when I got started – [unintelligible] [00:23:58] most people, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. Gone through all the crap I have and you may rethink that. But you got to earn it. You know, people want that. They want it. “I want hard things. And then I want to benefit from the results if I make it. Because I’m probably going to get fired from a job I’m at anyways.” So to me, the risk is identical, but the upside is not. 

Mario Fachini [24:23]

Absolutely. And it’s interesting you bring some of that up. Because you’re in control of it, even if you don’t make it, who cares? You know, when I do my interviews or I’m talking to the audience, they’re like, “When did you start your company?” I love saying, “Which time?” Because it’s like – dang it. Excuse me. Well, whatever. When you think back, it’s like, “Well, when did I start it? Well, when I had the idea and I went for it, and got my first client. From the time I actually registered it a legal thing. From the time that I screwed everything up and started over. You know, times one, two, three, four, five, six, plus. When I lost everything and had to start over again.” And it’s just like, which time are you referring to? Because I started my first company at 12, so technically, a long, long, long, long time ago. Not that long. But I started at 12 and sold that one. And it’s like, I don’t know. I just knew what I wanted. I don’t really track it as much of a, “Well, I did this and I did this. And every six months.” You know, I wasn’t running quarterly reports when I was 14. I was, you know, swimming. And, you know, buying a lot of video games is what I did with it. But I did buy stocks and saved some of it, like, at 13, 14,15. So when it came time to buy a car, it was like, “Well, this is vastly different than, you know, who can I persuade or convince to buy a car for me. I was like, shoot, here’s the money. Let’s go.” 

AJ Osborne [26:01]

Well, and you know, it’s interesting when you look at all of us. When you look at our economy and how it’s built up, when you look at how capital is created, how it flows. These are topics that used to be reserved for mostly elite MBA programs. These are topics – so the tools to control your future. There was gatekeepers to those. And there wasn’t readily information, right? I mean, the internet came around in the 90s. I remember when my school got a computer lab. It was crazy. And I remember getting a computer at home. And then the first day that my friend instant messaged me on a game, everybody’s the same game. It was World of Warcraft because we could message each other on it. I think that’s the real reason it was popular. 

Mario Fachini [26:57]

Community and social media. 

AJ Osborne [26:58]

It blew your mind. It was just like nuts. It was crazy. And those barriers that have been pulled down, it’s all of a sudden now, if you realize that the tools are out there, there’s nothing you can’t analyze. There’s nothing you can’t pick up. There’s nobody you can’t talk to. And what happened is, I think there was a buildup of a lot of fake things. But after 2008, authentic content, authentic people became the norm. It’s funny when people were [unintelligible] [00:27:27] videos, I’ll be like, “Yeah. Here’s our building I bought. We tore it down. It’s worth 25 million.” Things like that. I get way more people that were looking at content or they wanted to hear about, you know, when I was in my wheelchair, when I was mostly doing good. And the reason being is it’s past the BS. There’s no gatekeepers here. There’s no positioning. We actually want that authentic seeing how it really works. We’ve never had that before, right? You’ve never been able to see in the daily people’s lives. And see what they really go through. And what we found is that people are okay with it. It used to be like you didn’t watch a weakness. You didn’t want people to see when you failed. You know, I mean, the book I published, the first thing I wrote about was the first property that I sold and made less money than I bought for it. All of a sudden, it’s like, “Listen, I’m totally okay with my failures. There’s not an expectation that I have to be perfect. I don’t have that expectation for myself.” And the authenticity makes people more aware of possibility. Because they’re looking at themselves and saying, I’m not perfect. 

Mario Fachini [28:37]

It’s more relatable. 

AJ Osborne [28:40]

More relatable. Yeah. You’re right. I can relate to you, right? Because what is being produced in mass – it used to be the supply chain of information – it was curtailed and it was defined and it was redefined. And then you have this perfect image of the entrepreneur and how they took over the world. And it was as if they were just blessed with Midas touch and God had reached down and gave them a money kiss. And so everybody’s like, “Oh, God hasn’t reached out and kissed me with the money kiss yet, so I guess I’ll have to wait.” And then all of a sudden now, in today’s age, we know that’s not true. And that is amazing. That is amazing because it shows how we’re all the same. And it’s possible for anyone to do. I had those false beliefs on me about writing a book. I’m dyslexic. I’m dyslexic. I wrote a best seller. I kid you not, I was a dyslexic. I speak two languages. And when I had to first speak the first language, I was like, “You guys got to be out your mind. I can’t speak my own language.” To this day, when I’m sending emails, if it’s at all long, I have to have somebody come review my email or it’s all mess things up and people are going be like, “This guy is a moron.” And so we have possibilities to things that I believe and I was literally told they weren’t possible before. Now, information and access to it has shown us all that that’s not true at all. That’s just a false narrative that people that want to make themselves look amazing or better than other people put forward. But it doesn’t matter what your downsides are or what weaknesses you have, you could still create something amazing. And you could still follow, you know, your desires, your passion, and create a life out of it. I mean, that’s awesome. 

Mario Fachini [30:27]

Yeah. The opportunity that people have nowadays – and I’m so glad you’re talking about the wealth is not just the riches because you can make a lot of money. But what are you doing to create something, you know, passive? You know, I’m always looking to build assets. It’s, you know, one of the upsides of the show, I personally look at everything as every single episode is an asset. And if we can market it for 10, 20 years, someone will get the benefit out of this and it’s a piece of art also. You know, how well can you do on this one thing if you could only make ten more episodes? What would you do differently in those ten than you have in the last 50, 100, 200 plus? And when you have that mindset for it, it’s like, you can really make something that stands out. Because my background is in broadcast TV, special effects, animation, and all that. And if you look, TV shows are only now 9, 10, 12, 13 episodes when it used to be 20, 23 for a season. It’s a lot to produce. So it’s like, if you’re going to do it, do it completely right. And how long will this thing live on. Instead of I’m going to make 452. You know, I’ve been teaching video for ages. And the thing before was like, how do I make 947 videos talking on the topic? Please do them. But it would just be, like, kind of iffy subpar. Like, at least get a good mic and a camera, like, holy crap. At least try. But people always thought it was the quantity over the quality. And it’s like, you know, it depends what you’re doing. You know, I’ve done 3,000 lives in Facebook, whatever, and LinkedIn, YouTube, even pre-recorded before live was the thing. But I didn’t really put a lot into it compared to professionally producing the show. It’s like, when you treat you just – I’ve looked at it completely different. When you treat your business like that, it’s like what can I build this decade that’s going to live for the next decade? Instead of, what’s the next project for this week so I can survive this month? 

AJ Osborne [32:32]

Well, you’ve hit on something that is so fundamental and I want to talk about it real quick because that is just an amazing point you bring up. What is so important now, the curse that we have today – and although there’s all these amazing things, there’s absolute negative sides that come with it. We have it. That’s [unintelligible] [00:32:51]. The curse today is people are so short term thinking. I mean, it is just I struggle with that with employees. I struggle with that with entrepreneurs. They’re so short term thinking. And when your short term thinking quality doesn’t matter, because you’re always going to be on to your next big thing. And I suffered from shiny object syndrome. And I had to find a middle ground where I said, “Listen, I can do all these things. But I got to do my best at the one thing before I can move on.” So if I don’t feel like I’ve mastered that – and you know, when I speak about investing, when I speak about entrepreneurship, the economy thing, I haven’t ever talked about it. So I was never putting myself out there. Because I just didn’t feel that I was – I, personally, didn’t feel that I was there yet. I wanted to be better. I wanted to get better. Now, that has good things and have downside. But what I put before everything is I am so long term thinking that in my opinion, I was like, “Oh, it’s okay if I waited another five years to get better.” Because I’m still going to be doing this. And I want to be the best. I wanted the best results. And I want people to think of it. And you’ve talked to a lot of people starting out five years to them was unimaginable. It seems to them, they’re like, “Oh, I’m not going – I’m going to stick with this for five years and not make money.” Or, “If this doesn’t work within six months, I’m out.” And I’m like, if you want to create something incredible, if you want to do something really good, you’re passionate about it, you want to make a difference truly, you want to help other people, you’re not going to do it in six months. I mean, unless you already have the background and the education, you already have the skill sets. 

Mario Fachini [34:35]

And you got that 20 years knowledge that you can do in six or 12 months, but it took you 20 years to get to that point. 

AJ Osborne [34:43]

Bingo. So you know, when you have a 23 year old, that’s a life coach, writing a book on how to raise children, and they’ve never had children, you want the reward, but you don’t want to work. Now, you have a lot of people that have had careers where they are the best ever at whatever they’re doing in their career. And they’re not putting out content. They’re not publishing books. They’re not utilizing their experience. And today, it’s easier than ever to do that. And they’ve already done the hard work. That’s when I talk about this stuff is amazing, because you can reap rewards from your past that you work so hard on. 

Mario Fachini [35:21]

Yeah. You should be capitalizing on it. 

AJ Osborne [35:23]

You should be capitalizing on it. And you can build things that are legacy. You can build, you know, books for – you know, we talked about that. And I just released mine, so I bring it back to it. But books are a form of passive income, because once it’s out, I don’t have to do anything. So you know, I looked and I sold 65 copies, at least, today and I haven’t done anything. And you know, it’ll do the same tomorrow or the next day and I forget it. I don’t even look at it. And it just keeps depositing money in the bank account. It creates and generates leads. So what I’ve done is I’ve also created a marketing machine for my business. So the content that I put out – so everything I do from my podcasts, to the books, to speak and everything, I don’t have this high paying coach thing or anything like that. Which is fine if you do. There is nothing wrong with it. But mine is to generate opportunities to close deals. So I’m looking at finding opportunities to buy real estate, invest in companies. The more that I can get my word out and tell people, “This is what I’m good at. This is what I like. And this is what I’m looking for.” The more opportunities come. And I’ve talked about this analogy a lot, but I’m still going to use it because I think it’s great. I’m a fly fisherman. I live in Idaho. We have grizzly bears. So you’re going to to bear with me. So imagine a fly fisherman sitting on a river, right? When you sit on the river, you’re trying to hope that a fish comes by, and they’re going to bite whatever you’re feeding it. And that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re sitting there and you’re just waiting and you’re hoping. You’re hoping you’re in the right spot, all that kind of stuff. A grizzly bear walks out into the middle of the river and he plops themselves down on top of the waterfall and the fish jump into his mouth. The difference between the two is the grizzly bear went and he sat in the path of opportunity. The other one is out trying to find it. They can’t even see it. They’re hoping that they’re going to put something out and opportunity will just take it. I learned that it’s way easier to put yourself in the middle of the stream, when you’re talking about content, when you’re talking about books. That’s like walking out into the middle of the river and just sitting down. Think about all the effort, all the time, and how much you bag, and how many people said “if I only had the opportunity.” The opportunity comes after you’ve done the work to deserve it. That’s not what people want to hear, right? But doing the work is once again easier than ever, like we’re talking about books and everything else. But you can put yourself in the middle of the river. And you can tell people, and inform people, and people will know ,and they’ll come to you. And then if you give out advice and if you’re actually helping people, the best opportunities are going to come. I’m under contract to move four deals across the United States right now. And five or six months ago, I had none. All I’m going to was my book got published. That’s it. And I’m probably going to close $30 to 50 million in real estate in the next year. And I changed nothing except writing a book. And so – that and I have a podcast. But that, to me, is the reward. That’s because that’s what I do. And so what it’s about is it’s about helping other people and you benefiting in the process. That’s a win-win for everybody. I get deals, I win, and I’m helping other people get deals and change their lives. And then I show everything in the process. So I can be completely transparent. The more transparent I am, the better quality deals I get because people really know what I’m looking for, really [unintelligible] [00:38:46] around. You want to be very specific. And you know, you help them and they feel that they owe it to you, which they don’t. Nobody owes me anything. But I’m very grateful when people give me a heads up to a deal, because they say, “AJ, listen.” I know this stuff. I even had a guy that said, “Hey, I got a deal. I can’t take it down. You come do it with me.” Like, “Yeah.” I’m doing it with three different people right now. They get in, they get on a deal they could never do in their life. That’s going to create mass of income and equity for them in their lives. And all they had to do was bring it to me. And I’m literally going to do it for them. And I’m grateful for that opportunity. So you know, this stuff is such a win-win. And it helps everybody out. And that’s one of the things I really like about it. That’s one of the things that encourages me to move forward. And we talked about books, and produce more books, and to help others and to do more for others. It really is a rising tide lifts all ships. 

Mario Fachini [39:46]

And that’s the one thing I love about it. It’s you have that servant’s attitude and servant’s heart. And it’s really about you reap what you sow. You put good stuff out there, you know, podcasts traditionally. It’s like this is not free for me to produce. But it’s free for anyone to listen and/or watch. And the more you’re putting out there, it’s like how many people can you benefit even if you were to stop today, which you’re not going to. But you just put it out there. And it’s the reason I’ve always loved helping people publish their books, because it’s like, you can take your expertise. And people can – you know, you could have it as a free PDF if you want. But even, you know, 10, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, that’s really kind of inexpensive. I remember there’s like the first decade, I took every last penny I had. I remember when I was down to, like, five bucks one time. I spent four on a book – I think I spent a penny on a book and four on the pack of highlighters. And I just, like, devoured the thing and was – you know, I go once it’s in my head, I got it the rest of my life. It’s like money in the bank, money in the bank, money in the bank, you make deposits for a decade or two. It’s going to be real hard for something not good to happen at some point. 

AJ Osborne [40:57]

A hundred percent. And the key is cultivating and putting yourself in the right position. If I see anybody make mistakes, that’s where they goof up. They are way more concerned about them. And so they don’t identify problems with other people. So we’re talking about this podcast or podcasting, we’re talking about writing books, we’re talking about getting out there and giving free information. When I go out and give free information, which my book is literally the playbook. I put everything away. People come to me and they ask questions or they say I have problems. They’re literally telling me where the opportunities lie. So you can find out by helping others which direction you should be going and where you should be taking your business. If you’re thinking about you, you’re going to go somewhere else. And instead of sitting in the middle of a river, you’re going to be running on the banks of a pond that has no fish in it and expecting to catch fish because that’s where you want to be. Remember, the bear went where they – right in the middle where the fish were, were opportunity was coming. He didn’t wheel him to come to him. And I think that’s the biggest problem people are like – and it’s all either short term or not important stuff. I want to have a nice car or I want to be an Instagram star or things that are irrelevant to anyone else. I don’t care if you have a nice car. I don’t care if you’re an Instagram star. I don’t care about any of that stuff. 

Mario Fachini [42:21]

Well, you  care how you care how someone treats you. 

AJ Osborne [42:25]

I care [unintelligible] [00:42:26] somebody treats me, what they do for me, what I can get as consumers. And if you’re not producing something that helps other people that benefits them, then there’s not any fish. There’s no opportunity there. And so by putting yourself out there, and going out, and meeting with people, and producing content, and helping other people, you will identify areas of opportunity. You’ll see it where other people aren’t because they’re being closed in and they’re thinking about themselves. So you’re right, you reap what you sow. And it’s really important that you put that in good soil. And that you tend to it and you care for it. And so that it does produce dividends of 10 percent. And you don’t hoard it under a pillow. And all of a sudden when it comes to collect the talents, there are only the original talents to get. And you were a wasteful servant, to beat the analogy. But it’s a great analogy because it’s entrepreneurship to the teeth. Entrepreneurship is about helping other people. And that’s what brings us the most joy. That’s what brings opportunity. And when you look – you mentioned education. When we got started, I wanted to learn about real estate, I had to pay $5,000 to go to a conference, which I learned basically nothing about. Then I added my course material and books when it actually give you a whole lot of information. I love Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but if you can read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, there’s no tactical information whatsoever. Now, it’s great to change your mindset, which is extremely important. I have all the rich important books in no way should [unintelligible] [00:43:59]. But especially at the time, it was always a fear into something else that was going to be monetized and monetized in a really big way. Because the information was in the hands of a few and it could not be dispersed easily. We live in an era where that’s all gone completely out the window. You can buy books today for 20 bucks and the value you’re getting is what I had spent $5,000 when I started. I mean, it’s incredible. And for people that have value to put out to others, I mean, why aren’t you doing? Why aren’t you helping others? Why aren’t you? And really, once again, I never thought I was going to write a book. I never thought I was going to do anything. I was running my businesses. I was happy to do it. The reason I changed is because when I was in the hospital, this isn’t just for me. I need to help others. And I know that by doing this and by helping others I will benefit, too. And that’s how it’s supposed to work. That’s the beauty of capitalism. As long as you are filling needs, as long as you’re taking care of other people, you benefit also. And everything you’re talking about here is just amazing. Everybody listening to this podcast, you seriously need to listen to more of it. Because this is so intrinsic because you’re building out framework. So we are talking content when you’re talking books, when you’re talking about all this stuff, you’re creating engines that are working while you’re not. It’s always working. I do YouTube videos. I do podcasts. I do book. Things, which I’ve all just literally created in the last two years. These engines are working every single day 24/7. After the 4th of July, I have 300 emails, “I’d like to invest with you.” “Hey, I have these properties I’d like you to look at.” “Would you like to invest in my company?” “Hey, AJ. I know you just started up a tech company that does this. We’re writing this maybe we could latch onto your tech company.” I’m not doing anything. I’m not calling anybody. I’m not talking at all. And this framework will last even when I’m gone. And so it will still help other people. It will still produce good results. And my businesses will have benefited and will continue to benefit from this reputation and from this knowledge. And so you know, it used to be you paid somebody for advertising on the TV. You had to pay a ton of money. And your reach was limited and scattered and you couldn’t get any good results. Everything that you’re talking about, filming, you’re talking about website creations, automating, how you automate websites so it can be done easily, it can be done quickly, and you can do it at mass. These are wealth principles, not money principles, not get rich. These are wealth principles because they last and they work all the time for you. And this is when you pass to the other side. This is when you go from a high paying job or even the high paying – you know, I was a sales guy. I made what I did. I got to do my own time. “I was my own boss.” But the moment I stopped it didn’t work. Once I passed through the veil, all my assets and everything they work for me, whether I’m lying in hospital bed or not, my websites, my SEO, my lead gen, all that stuff, it’s operating 24/7 without me. You got to have those assets working on your behalf. It’s like wind in your sails. 

Mario Fachini [47:23]

I love that. And I’m so glad you’re sharing it with us. We’re going to do the Wheel of Whatever and thank the sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. The Wheel of Whatever is literally just that. It’s the wheel of whatever. And you know what I like about it? It always stops exactly where it needs to right on the question I needed to stop on. And today, it’s right here. So your question is – it’s good, huh? 

AJ Osborne [47:54]

Wow. Yeah. That is good. I like that. 

Mario Fachini [47:55]

I got to keep it fun, right? My question for you is, with everything you’ve learned and all the people you’ve helped and all the stuff you’ve done for yourself, have you ever thought about taking a business that’s just like a mess and doing like a total makeover kind of deal? And how long do you think it would take you with what you know now to turn it around? 

AJ Osborne [48:18]

Six months, I could triple the revenue. At least that’s what I did on the last one that I bought. And we be bought it for 250,000. We did 60,000 last month. We bought it in December. We will launch our next three products. And we’ll be on par to be doing somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 before the year – is not based on just the low levels on what we’re currently doing. So that’s totally reasonable. I think, I’m going to blow past that. But still, you know, it was doing on average about $200,000 and it did 60,000 last month. So I can kind of give you an idea of turnaround. So not only am I a big believer of that, yeah, that’s the mode to move forward. The move to go. And I’m racking up assets that work even while I don’t. And by changing the framework, like, these are easy changes to make. And by changing the framework, it does more work for you while you’re asleep and it produces more results. And so it does, you know, whatever is six times or five times more as much as when we bought it per month. But I do less work than when we bought it. And it’s, basically, totally automated and we’ll drop more products and we’ll scale it. And we want a 10 million exit on our $200,000 purchase in the next three years, which is reasonable for this company and this product and design. So yes, I’m a big believer in it. Yes, you can do it. And yes, I would suggest that to people, particular people that have been working in industries. You know, if you’ve been in the corporate world for 20 years and you understand the functionality of a lot of the aspects of that business, that industry, or different things, it’s easy for you to identify businesses that are doing things wrong that is in the framework. Because you see the framework which a lot of entrepreneurs didn’t see, because they started it out at the garage and they’re bogged down in product stuff. And they’re bogged down in marketing, which they’re not doing really right. They’re trying to be a jack of all trades. They can’t let go of certain tasks. So all they do is have their head down in the business 24/7. And you can see you’re not running on a framework. You can buy it. You can change up the framework and start working on it, not in it, and get out of the way the business and it will explore. 

Mario Fachini [50:43]

Well, I appreciate that encouragement for Expert Authority World because I love hearing those transformations and success stories and congrats. And I also love how nonchalant you are just like, “Oh, yeah. But, but, but, but, but. No big deal”. And you know, I want everyone to be that confident. And I also want to make a joke. So you think the books are important? They helped you a little bit over the years get to this point? 

AJ Osborne [51:05]

Listen, you got to understand I’m a dumb kid from Idaho. I was told repeatedly that I had problems through school. I couldn’t read. They thought I had eye problems. And when I was in college, I was put in the class with mentally handicapped children – in high school, because that’s where my learning level apparently was. So I stopped going to high school and I started skiing a lot. And then from there, I went to college at 16 to 21 credits straight A’s. The information that we get, and how we interpret it, and what we read is the difference of controlling your life and not. And I am not only an avid reader, I am obsessed with it. If I have questions, I want to know, I want to read. Books are invaluable to me, because books are my way to redefine my life and to, you know, get rid of my edges and my curves. And I can’t do something unless I understand it. And that was the problem what I had in school why I was failing. Why? Because they said this equals this and now you need to repeat it. And I’m like, “But I don’t understand why that works that way.” And they go, “It doesn’t matter. You just need to put it on a test.” That’s your rote memory. So your rote memory is your ability to regurgitate information. I didn’t know any of that at the time. But I don’t have a good rote memory. I can’t regurgitate things that are not – that don’t make sense. So I speak Portuguese, for example. Portuguese, I’m actually way better at than I am English, because the rules in Portuguese, it can’t change. You just can’t make up endings. Where in English, I can’t do anything. I can’t spell because I’m like, I know there’s rules. But there’s exceptions. And so for me when I got into a position where I could control my own learning process and I could say, “All right. I needed to work twice as hard as the other kids.” Because when they could just regurgitate, I had to really understand. But that benefited me massively. And then for me, it put me on a lifelong journey of learning because I saw it. Once I understand, I can change and I can build. And so it just opened up the doors of possibility which became endless to me. As long as I could buy a book on Amazon about it, I knew that I could read it, I could get questions, I could call people, I could understand it, and then I could do something about it. I could make changes, change my outcome, change my path, change my life and the life of others. So yeah, do I like books? Just a little. 

Mario Fachini [53:39]

Yeah. I definitely prefer making the rules instead of having to follow every last single one. I before E except after C. Don’t forget to dot the J’s. I failed English seven times. Now, I have five books, two are international bestsellers. It’s hilarious, but I’m also thankful. And don’t take it for granted. Because it’s like, it doesn’t matter what you were told as a kid, or even grown up, or even as an adult. If you want to change it, hey, today is the best day to do that. So we’re going to thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. 

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Mario Fachini [55:21]

And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. AJ, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

AJ Osborne [55:29]

Well, after this podcast I think everybody knows imperfect should be right up my alley. So, we’re all good. 

Mario Fachini [55:34]

Sixty second rapid fire answers. The first question is, what is the fastest path to the cash? 

AJ Osborne [55:42]

The fastest path to the cash is the need that someone has. So I don’t want to overcomplicate it. It’s find the highest need that people have that you can fill the best and figure out the value of you. For you, not them. For you to deliver that. And that’s the fastest way to the cash. 

Mario Fachini [56:03]

Excellent. And number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it? 

AJ Osborne [56:11]

Yes. My biggest problem that we see our prospect making, which is mostly B2B businesses or individuals, it’s all the same, is generally their thought process and the systems that they’ve put into place to make decisions. Individuals, audit your day, figure out what’s going wrong, why you’re not getting the output that you want. Businesses, the same thing, audit your day, audit your processes, and you’ll find out why your output is wrong. 

Mario Fachini [56:38]

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value? 

AJ Osborne [56:43]

So customer lifetime value – wonderful. I literally did a whole speech on this at a conference because that’s how you calculate or should calculate others. So thank you for talking about it. Anyway, you know, this is a wonderful question to ask people. Increasing lifetime value of your customers does not mean giving your customer whatever they want. It means finding the right customer. So a lot of people cast a broad net when they should be using a spear gun. Figure out who your right customer is, why the right, why you can serve them so well. Then go find them. And they’ll stick with you. But if you find people that aren’t right for you, it doesn’t matter what you do. At the end of the day, in most cases for business, they’re going to leave. 

Mario Fachini [57:31]

Oh, I like that. Well, thank you for that. And now – I would say now the fun section, but the whole thing is fun. So here’s another fun section and you alluded to it and I did everything I could to keep my mouth shut in the first half because you’re going to love this. What are some books that have made a difference in your life? 

AJ Osborne [57:52]

Great question. I’m going to give you two. And the two books are recent books. They are The Obstacle Is The Way And Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday. They are fundamental. You know, for me, everyone in my organization, should we have an inner circle on the self-storage site that I run, everybody received those. It talks about ego and it talks about obstacles and how your ego is what actually causes your failures, not your circumstances. And it explains it very good. People may say, “Oh, yeah. I understand.” You don’t. And then obstacles, why obstacles are the way? So it’s not that there’s something that should be just overcome. The obstacles are actually showing you where you should go. So people that just try to avoid obstacles never actually get where they want to go or should go. 

Mario Fachini [58:53]

And you’re saying it’s because they tried to just get through them instead of learning from them? 

AJ Osborne [58:58]

Yeah. So a lot of people they try to get through them. They don’t try to solve them. And then two months, they’ve solved them, they don’t realize the tangibility. It’s like the demands we’ve talked about. So, you know, you can see this through history and repeatedly. And Ryan Holiday does an incredible job. He breaks it through everything from war times to business. And what happens a lot of the greatest companies, they don’t actually – they don’t exist off of what they were made to do. So look at like, Instagram. Instagram wasn’t originally designed that way. They were having a problem with it. They solved it and said, “Hey, we can solve this for other people now.” So it literally showed them the product that they should be delivering. That’s what made Instagram. If they were to stay with their existing model, no one would even know who they are today. They had a huge problem. They solved it. And that showed the demand. They showed what other people wanted. It showed them what other people were needing. And it showed them how to take care of that problem. So after you’ve solved an obstacle, you’ve just figured out something you can help other people with and monetize. So obstacles in your life show you more about you, other people, and it shows you pass that you should be on. And it is a discovery process. It’s not something to be avoided. It’s something to be understood. It’s something to audit. It’s something to analyze. And then utilize in the future. And most of us avoid or just get over it. And then we want to forget about it, because it was so hard. And it’s like leaving the jewels that you’ve discovered in the mind behind after you did all the work. It don’t make sense, right? No. You should use that. You should take that. I mean, I think of your example that you use with the websites. I mean, you have this obstacle that people have or a problem that you don’t have to. You got to make these websites. A lot of people. It either cost money. They take a lot of time. They don’t want to do it. You know, you figure out, “Well, listen. We can make this real quick and just really easy for others.” And you think that I could do this for me. Then once – I apologize about that. The speaker died or broke. Once you solve that problem, then from there on out, you now have the goal. So it’s really about the obstacle becoming your path. And not just trying to get over it and not trying to just avoid it. But actually allowing that and making that the path for you. 

Mario Fachini [1:01:27]

Wow. You’re just on a roll today and I so appreciate it. Thank you for the book recommendations and everything you have shared. Where can people find more about you and your company? 

AJ Osborne [1:01:40]

Yeah. So  have multiple companies. I have two podcasts, Cashflow and Freedom, Self-Storage Income. AJOsborne is my Instagram right there. If you want to go to Cash Flow to Freedom or if you’re interested in self-storage, Self-Storage Income. But either one of those podcasts, we talk entrepreneurship, financial freedom, setting up systems. And my email is in both of them. So CashFlow2 – the number two – Freedom.com. You go on their email, it comes to my phone. And Instagram, it’s just AJOsborne. I got really lucky on that. I was an early adopter. But yeah, DM me, once again straight to me. 

Mario Fachini [1:02:17]

Excellent. Well, thank you, AJ. It’s been an absolute pleasure. 

AJ Osborne [1:02:22]

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. This was great. 

Mario Fachini [1:02:24]

All right. Expert Authority World, we have another great episode today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. 

SPONSOR Business Book Checklist [1:02:32]

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SPONSOR Acorns [1:02:47]

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www.EAInterviews.com [1:03:23]

Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.