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VoiceAmerica 0:04
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host, Rick Morris.
David Osborn 0:26
And welcome to another edition of the work life balance. So excited to have everybody along on this Friday afternoon. Most of us are still under quarantine and so we wish you well we wish you safety we hope you're having fun the the neighborhood kids are out and about right outside my window here. So they're they're having a ball and being tired of being cooped up in the house. I think we all are a little bit so why not spend some time with us here to work life balance and learn something new and we're so excited about our guest today. He's built one of the top real estate brokerages and founded over 50 companies The father of three and a husband as well. And today he is rooted in his boundless sense of adventure. He continues to travel the world not only to be enlightened by new experiences, but to share his insight and expertise with others, so they too, can truly be free. Let's bring him in David Osborne. How you doing, sir?
Man? It's so good to be with you, Rick. Sorry that our circumstances are so tough. Being stuck at home is no fun.
It's no fun. But you know, it's worth the same time, I think to two big metrics are gonna come out of this right is it's either tremendous amount of divorce or closer families but you've traveled the world. you've traveled the world quite a bit. I was always enamored by Italy, when I when I go to Italy, and how close the families were how they took, you know, the lunch breaks, everything shuts down. Everybody goes home and has lunch as a family. You know, I'd love to see some of those types of things happen here in the States.
You know, I think there is a lesson from all of this, that slowing down a little bit is probably not the worst of things. We've moved at a breakneck speed in our country and in the world for a long, long period of time. It's nice to see a clean environment. It's nice to see no traffic on the road. For the first week or so I was looking at five o'clock every day and I interstate 35, which runs right through Austin, Texas, just to look at it with no red traffic, your eye traffic jam on it. I was amazed. But yeah, hopefully we can take some lessons from this. I think people will take a while to sort of get back to that level of frenetic activity. At the same time. I'm ready to get out of the house. I am. We're lucky enough to live near some woods. So we've been able to hike a little bit and our walks are a little bit more extended, but my daughter misses her friends. School has been great. They've done a great job of kicking off the online curriculum. And maybe that's part of it too. Maybe schools partially online, maybe we all work from home a lot more.
And I think there's definitely gonna be a new normal. I mean, I usually travel between 50 and 60% of the time so I'm kind of itching as much as I don't like to be on planes are sitting in another hotel room. At the same time I'm realizing that I can't Really I'm kind of a caged animal and here
we're ready to go. Let's Let's rock. Yeah, I think this probably the longest I've been in one place in my life as an adult, you know, since I've been an adult because I travel to for work almost every other week. Two weeks at home in a row is a quiet quiet time for me. So we're we've been in quarantine for a month now in Austin. And I think we got another month to go. But it's definitely you can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel, can't you?
Or at least, David right, the two weeks that you spent at home, those were frantic. I mean, there's all this stuff that you got to catch up on all the day.
I still go to appointments. It's not like I'm I would meet people all week on row. Yeah,
yeah. So having this kind of time I'm finding myself really creative. And speaking of that, you you wrote a New York Times bestselling book called wealth can't wait. tell the audience just a little bit about that book.
You know, this book was my favorite. It took I've written three books now and I've got a fourth coming out. But this one was a labor of love. My dad was dying of cancer, and I was sitting with him and he was slowly kind of, you know, going, you know, fading away, Rick. Just like He had it was uncurable. And I knew it, but it took three years for him to die. And I was like, Man, you know, I love my Dad, I'm gonna miss him. But what I'm gonna miss a lot are all his stories and he has so many good ones. And maybe I should write a book. So while I was at his bedside, I started scribbling down notes. Now, I wasn't the same kind of storyteller. He was, I was, but I'm a business guy. And I've had some success. So I thought, what if I wrote a book on helping people, you know, be successful. And I wrote it from the point of view of if my kids picked this up and they were little, then they're a bit older now. But if they were, if they pick this up, could they read it and get some value from it? I was a little bit of a perfectionist about it. So it took me seven years to write but the the general concept is who you have to be to be successful, then what you have to do, and then what it takes to stay there. You know, once you've got there,
Rick A. Morris 4:42
about how old were you when he passed?
David Osborn 4:45
10 years ago, 42. So I lost my dad to cancer at 19. That was that was Wow, that's hard. I don't think I really appreciated You know, some of that time. Some of that last time I tried, but I tried as a 19 year old and I think, you know At the same time, but I remember having to be there with the hospice worker and they were telling me to tell my father, it was okay to die because he was hanging out for us. And I was like, I'm not telling him that, because it's not okay with me. Right and, and that became a huge driver in my life as well. I've wrote a book about it and same, same kind of thing. But it's amazing what we can actually glean from those experiences and how that can impact the rest of our lives. Because, quite frankly, life is too short. And if we're not taking adventure, and we're not taking chances, then you know, living that safe life is not something I've ever really subscribed to.
Weight Loss teaches you to cherish the moments you have, you know, just like when you're sick. I always try to remind myself when I'm walking around healthy going, Hey, just pause for a moment and notice that you're healthy because you know, there's a saying, wellness is the crown. Health is the well no well this is the crown the healthy man whereas that only the sick man sees. In other words, you only notice you don't walk around thinking oh, I'm not saying when you're saying If you're like, Oh, I'm sick. I feel so sad myself. But when you're not sick, you're not like loopy. I'm not sick, you know. And so I try to, and when I lost my dad, it was, you know, it was a tragedy and it was painful and it was also one of the best things that ever happened to me. I think I slowed down while he was sick at a level that I hadn't recently at that time and I decided to get married and have a kid and it could be brought me my family. And once the mantle My dad was a pretty big personality. So once he was gone, that mantle fell on my shoulders. I grew up I became more of the patriarch of my family and you know, there was a lot of gifts that came of it. Of course, I miss him. I'd like to have a glass of wine with him right now. There's so much I know he'd have enjoyed the life that I've created with my wife and my kids and my business but at the same time him passing was also a blessing and I think it's always that way this Coronavirus is painful for all of us. It's really tough. But in the long run, we'll probably look back at it and we'll see the good things we got out of this situation. Okay,
we saw quote the other day it was like, I wish I knew I was in the good old days. While I was you know better Basically, yeah, yeah, it's like we always remember the good old days. Finally, I wish I knew when I was right in the middle of those, so I could remember them the way I want to remember them versus finally. So you let's talk about the real estate brokerage a little bit because that's really where everything kind of started for you right before you got into the 50 companies. That was Yeah,
I mean, it all started in real estate. I mean, I was a lawnmower kid before that. So I was, you could say that was a business but in reality, I joined my mom as a realtor, but I was a lifer, a soldier, he retired, my mom went to make a couple extra bucks got into real estate. she happened to join a company that had five agents in it and the founder of the company was guy called Gary Keller. Gary Keller, his company today has like 150,000 or more either Williams Yeah, yeah. Keller Williams and he's probably a billionaire, at least it was before the Coronavirus coming out of this right. And so I joined the company with my mom as a teammate and we started selling real estate and after three years, I was like, hey, there's got to be something else. For me. I'd like to do something different. So the core Guys, I mean, Gary and Moe where there wasn't much of a court then there was pretty small selling, there was 800 agents when I joined it. He said, Why don't you go to Dallas and start opening franchises. So I went up to Dallas, with my mom, as my partner, none of us really had a lot of money. We were middle of the middle class, but mom was starting to make some dad was still getting this 50,000 a year retired pay or whatever it was. And, yeah, we went up to Dallas and start opening franchises. And that was the beginning of my journey into financial success. And it was really led by this great guy, Gary Keller, who, you know, was an incredible teacher and an incredible leader and a great focused individual. And I kind of piggybacked on that and copied him and took a lot of good traits down from that and was able to build a pretty decent little universe myself following his lead. So but how many people would you say that you kind of oversaw or was a part of at that point, you know, right now or then, I mean, when I started, it was just me and my mom, and then I built a little team around her in Austin. And so that was five of us. And today I've got with my partner smokin Dallas I've got 5000 agents in the master in the in the operations we run we sell 12 billion a year 36,000 units, and then in my greater master franchise is probably somewhere close to 25,000 people would be my guess.
And so others 25,000 people, though, what does it really take to kind of maintain that leadership role? I mean, what do you at the top there? Yeah,
five, it takes five, there's a law of five or law of seven or something out there, I can't remember some military thing that you never have more than five people report to you. Once I learned that concept. I've never tried to have more than five. I mean, I probably have an extended group of 15 or 20 that I see on a regular basis, but really only talk on a dp business level with less than 10 for sure. And on a daily basis only with four or five.
So how do you maintain that corporate culture at that point, then?
Yeah, so you know, for me, it's all in the shadow of the leaders I hire so they they lead I'm and my goal is to have five guys that make over a million bucks a year. That report to me, that's it. So, I've never, I've never really tried to tell them what to do. I just know how to lead people by being strong and being an example of how to live. So I'm very goal driven, very objective driven. But if I hire you, I got a guy that runs LA for me. And he's completely different from my partner who runs door Texas, who's completely different from my partners who run North Florida. And I just let now my overall culture is integrity, hard work, having a clear vision, driving yourself forward and treating others like I'd want to be treated. But I get into business with Brahma bulls, I don't know. There's a saying I've always loved it. If you get into a field with grain fed cattle, you drive the truck around and the cows follow the truck, but you don't put the truck in with a Brahma bull, right. So you know, the concept is these people are driven, they get out of bed, they're hungry, they want to work, they want to get stuff done. And those are the people I've been looking for.
So I love that you said integrities core piece and I'm gonna let you think about this because I'm going to send us to break here in just a second, but I do Want to teach this question? So I want to hear about a time where something was occurring in the organization that was going against your core value of integrity. And what you did from a leadership perspective, too, because that's really where corporate culture ends or begins is, is when you say this is my value, but then somebody comes up against you. There's no right there's, there's something occurring that's against that value in what you do. So we're going to hear that story. Break from break. You're listening to David Osborne, Rick Morris and the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 11:41
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project Management Office trained project managers for learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment. Visit r squared consulting.com today from the boardroom to you voice America Business Network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790. If you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
David Osborn 13:26
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. You know, I can't go at least two or three weeks without somebody asking me about the music that are leading music. That's from a group that I'm executive producer, I've called the party. And that's a song called switch. And there's a long story behind that there's it's on. It's on one of our past episodes that aired but I had chase Hampton and Damon trampoline on the show. But the joke is is that that I got to pay a quarter of a million dollars so I could have lead in music to my radio show. But that's where that music come from. And you guys can can check that out. It's out on Spotify as well. We're back with David Osborne, he's the author of wealth can't wait. He's, he's, you know, part of Keller Williams has got a huge, you know, organization in real estate. But now we wanted to get into some of the favorite ventures. But before we do that I was I teased into the break that we talked about one of your core corporate values was integrity, and I wanted to hear a story where something was occurring that was kind of against that, and how you maintain that corporate culture.
Yeah, so I had, it's an easy one for me. I had the number one agent in my company to sit down with, and he was, you know, not behaving the way he should. And this was a number of years ago, and I just took him to lunch and I'm, I'm like, hey, let's call him Bobby. That wasn't his name, but we'll call him Bobby. Like Bobby What the heck man you know, you're like an amazing producer. You're making a bunch of money What's with these like cutting corners? You're doing what's up with this, that and the other and I brought it up, laid it out to him. He's like, he's a great salesman, of course, because you don't get to be like a person making multiple millions a year if you don't, aren't a great salesman. He's like, yeah, I hear you and I, I really thought I was connected with him I thought I was making headway. I was like you make plenty of money you don't need these fringe extra deals just drive the car straight down the middle of the road. We had a long chat about it, I thought I connected with him, wasn't 100% Sure. It's like I said he was smooth as silk and could sell ice to Eskimos As the old saying goes, and then you know, the same behavior just continued and my manager came to me and today I want him out and I said fire let him you know, ask him to leave send his license back so we basically fired the number one agent in the company over activities that were not acceptable to our standards and you know that time that was a lot of market share that was we're pretty close to number one. I think at that time by firing him we dropped back to number two temporarily. And we got heat from corporate to the head guys. I don't know the whole story, right? They're up in their their empire and they're looking at the whole universe and helping expand Keller Williams as a whole. I'm a franchise owner, but they're they're concerned about what's going on. So we had to we had to answer to Both sides. But it was just unacceptable the way he was acting, I don't think, I don't think. I don't know that he ever got in trouble for it. I don't know that he would. But from my standpoint, it was not an acceptable behavior. So that's, that was pretty tough fired our number one agent.
I think it's a great story I, I do a lot of consulting with organizations on corporate culture. And I was hired by one organization that wanted to look at inclusivity and diversity in those types of things. But I was hearing kind of the same story. This guy was number one sales guy had the parking place up front was their number one producer had a couple of harassment complaints on them. And so that was my suggestion. I was like, if you guys want this culture that you're talking about, you need to fire the guy. And they're like, all right, we can fire him and I was like, well, then what you're saying is as long as you produce, you can get away with whatever you want. So what do you want your culture to be buddy? And they didn't like any of those answers. And ultimately, I didn't get the gig, but it's probably not a company I would want to be associated with anyway, but I think it's really important that if we say I hear so much speak on what corporate culture is, but then when it comes down to that's the number One guy. And in terms of real estate, that was probably a significant chunk of money in
that time especially Yeah, we got there since then. But at that time, it was a big deal. Yeah, we, you know, you can tell are there certain ways of being you got to be in the universe and I'm not looking for St. Some businesses, not a sainthood, but you got to be in between the lines, you know, you can be aggressive, you can make calls, you can, you know, you got to do your thing, but you gotta, you can't, can't lie, cheat or steal in my world. So.
So how on earth do you have time to be a part of this organization here and then find 50 different companies? And he said, like, 20 or 25 of them are still kind of making money.
Yeah, well, a bunch of them are franchises inside that organization. I probably got, I probably got 35 income producing assets. Right now there are companies. But the real thing is like life for me is been easier as I've gotten more successful. What people don't realize is they think scale is hard. And it is hard. It has complexity to it, but it's actually way easier to run my organization today than it was when I was selling real estate in Austin, for instance, when I had a team of, you know, three or four, they're all reported to me and I had to know every answer. And today I just have some really great people working for me. I was a C student all through high school barely made it through college. But once I got into sales, and then the real world of business, I became an avid student of life. Today, I'm one of the most of all the people I know, I probably read and study as much as almost anybody, right? I'm up in the top 1% or so. And what that does is it helps me be a better business person. There's so many nuances of business that you can learn that can make your business better and one of them is hiring great people. One of them is really focusing on the big picture and having accountability and a vision. And so, you know, I hire great talent, I take really good care of them and I try to help them win and get an economic outcome that they couldn't get anyplace else. And because of that, I have very loyal people. A couple of my guys make over a million bucks a year already one of them makes three one that makes to my third one probably makes I don't know 600 And then it drops down from there a little bit, but everyone's well paid. And, you know, when you're when when someone's earning that much money generally, motivation is not an issue for him like, you know, you don't you don't, you don't have a motivation issue if you're that successful. And so once you have that it's just really laying down the lines for them to run in. So I've been able to buy all these other feeder companies, I started a private equity firm, I hired a team for that I have a distressed debt company, run by an MIT MBA and my private equity fund is run by a a&m, MBA. And then I have a foreclosure company that I bought with a partner and it's To me, it's all about the person and the opportunity and I look at the two of them, but I would start with the person could I live with them? Are they in alignment with me? Are they practical? no nonsense, straight forward, straight shooters that have integrity. And, you know, I really look for intelligence, loyalty and integrity. And I don't mean blind loyalty, either. I mean, loyalty enough to not, you know, try to stab me in the back. I don't know. If I pay you 300 and somebody offers you 350 that stabbing me back bumping 300 if someone offers you 500 or 900, you should go take that job and try to get me one two. That's what I tell you. So all these things I just learned how to hire, how to find behavioral assessments, how to use those. And then I just
when you said that just quickly, what are your favorites on the behavior,
ABA, I mean, the, you know, the desk, if we go to that one, that's the one everyone knows, but the ABA is the I like aggressive, like high aggressive individuals secondary social, high impatience, generally in a pretty good attention to detail. So a D, a little bit of high, low SNC. But if you're asking what behavior usually makes a good leader, that's one there's all kinds of different nuances. Yeah, no, I
was just wondering which because I've been certified in teaching desk for years. Yeah, this
is basic. It's like your bread and butter. To me. It's like peanut butter and jelly. I probably won't meet with a person you know anymore without them having taken either the disc and then the ABA is kind of like a more complex disk. Honestly, it's very similar. Just cost me a couple hundred bucks instead of like, nothing. I use that because it's more detailed. And there's a consultant that comes with it that I can call and sort of pick their brain on Who is this guy? And there's not one size fits all in terms of personality type, but generally speaking, I get along with aggressives and the reason for that is Heidi's are aggressive they're going to take action right? They're not the worst thing in the horizon. I call the other day say look, the best thing I'd rather you did 10 actions five of the wrong What do you do when you're depressed or in a downturn like we are right now you take massive action. And I learned this I had to learn this I procrastinated. I did all this stuff that people do when they're trying to figure stuff out try to make the perfect decision in the perfect action. And then over many, many years, I just learned that you know, it's better to do 10 things five of them wrong than one thing right? Because one thing right is not enough. Five things right with five mistakes and now I've gotten five action outcomes and five lessons. And so it's just about speed and rolling out really quick and aggressives You don't have to tell them to do that. I have a certain amount of Heidi will do that. Now. By the way. My analysts by see Chief Investment Officer I don't want him to be all dia no analysis capability. Yeah, yeah, you want to ice there and the people that support you too like there's a whole range so I'm not trying to lean into that group but that group works well with MCs I'm also one so I'm able to relate to them we're not too thin skinned so I can be pretty aggressive straightforward and and, you know, once you're like there's the hill, Heidi is gonna charge that hill all day long, but there's a whole realm of people you need all around that that do different aspects and support and equally important, the whole team has to work well together. The second thing I think I do is really take care of people well, I'm aggressive and I can be a little bit Curt a little bit short but if your dad dies or something, you know I'm going to be the guy buying your ticket and sending you out there I may not be the warmest give you a hug and cry with you but I'm certainly like you're gonna have time off let's get this sorted out. I've always done that with people that are you know, one of my employees went to Florida one time and brb oh did this is back in the early days and there was no house there. There was just a lot and then he went to the beach and there was some kind of like toxic mold of the beach and I was lucky enough to have a King Air there. So I flew my king out and picked him up took him to an Another house in another city in Florida with his whole family. And I paid for that house. So basically, I just took that, you know, like 20 grand or something. And I sit, I fixed all those problems for him. So that's more of an example of how I show love through acts of service more than three other stuff. And if the guy's making me money, I'm taking care of him. That's what I try to do.
Sure. Now, most of the stuff if I'm trying to do the math, right, you just said 42. And then according to your bio, you were hitchhiking and broke by the time you get back home at 26. So this is really all been built over the last 16 years.
Yeah, I'm 52 Now remember, my dad Jesse. Sorry. 26. Yeah, died 10 years ago. Yeah. So I just got lucky. Keller Williams is a real good. You know, by the way, um, there's a whole thing I could go into in luck. But Keller Williams being a winning strategy was great for me. So it's like, I was at Southwest Airlines or I was at Microsoft. But before you, you know, before people get lost in luck versus not luck. There's actually studies done that if you can, they threw dollars all over the parking lot of this parking area. And they had people that thought they were lucky and people thought they were unlucky. And then they had him walk past all these $20 bills that were scattered in different places on the parking lot. And the people that thought they were lucky found more money than the people that thought they were unlucky, right? So I walked through life, believing that I'm lucky, I tell my kids, you're the luckiest kids on the planet. And I let that manifest. But the bottom line is Keller Williams was good. There were eight or so hundred other people in the company when I was there, and I was able to just take opportunity after opportunity after opportunity and build a large franchise network. And I had no clue what I was doing. I fell on my face. I made a million mistakes. But I you know, it worked out for me in the long run.
Well, and luck is I think I have a great friend chase Hampton wrote a beautiful speech around locking, saying that the only thing you really can't control is timing, but it's still preparation and opportunity like it. So you could say you're lucky or you can say that you've been preparing your whole life for when that opportunity came to you that you've been in grabbed it. So I you know, I bought
just building on that just the second time I was really lucky was in the last downturn because I knew a lot about real estate real estate Was underpriced. It was very clear to me I was terrified like everyone else in oh seven and oh eight, around oh nine i'd stabilized I was still making money not as much way, way less than I was. But I was like, wow, we're profitable. Everything's crashed and we're still making money. That's good. But I had some cash set aside and around 2010 I started buying stuff. And by 2012, I was like, I am buying everything I can possibly buy. Like, I was looking for stuff everywhere. And I remember analyzing three deals with my CFO at the time. He's like, which one should we buy? And I'm like, we should buy all of them was buy this one. And that was again, I was really lucky. So when the market recovered, it kind of doubled my net worth. And I bought, you know, about 800 single family homes. It's how I started private equity. That's how I got into distressed debt. But also it was extremely lucky, right? Because who knows that real estate would bounce back, like, you know, 10 15% a year for seven years, which is kind of what it did.
Well, and I think we're, I think we're at another opportunity right now. Certainly we are stocks and a lot of the financial things that are going on for those of us that can see abundance and not not hold all of our chips in hand, I think there's a tremendous opportunity.
And this is why I love a downturn. You see, when you're in a boom like we were every day you're in a boom, you're one day closer to a crash. So you know, right over the horizon at some point, there's gonna be a problem. But when you're in a crash, which we are right now, every day you're in it when you're one day closer to a boom.
Rick A. Morris 26:22
That's so yeah.
David Osborn 26:24
So I'm always actually more optimistic in the in the downturns and more happy, because I don't really have to look out for anything. It's here. All the trouble is here. And now I just got to react, deal, adapt, take action, move fast, and then be ready for the opportunities when they show up which they will nine months, 12 months, 18 months. I'm not quite sure when but there's gonna be some mispriced assets coming out of this.
Well, and I can see in your hat there that for those of you that can't see what I see it's a tribe of millionaires and I think I want to ask several questions about that when we come back from break but we're gonna go ahead and take another quick break right now and listen to Rick Mars and the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 27:09
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on him. R squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r square to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment, visit r squared consulting.com today it comes to business you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call in to the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
David Osborn 28:56
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. Friday afternoons off Going to David Osborne. So David, you've got the tribe of millionaires, I think, you know, everybody's kind of scrambling online now we start talking about luck and preparation and opportunity. We started a community started really talking about a January we launched March 1. And so right before all the shutdown everything else, so timing wise, you know, we're really first to market with this kind of tribe, in terms of the the knowledge space that we're in, but you're seeing even like, Tony Robbins and Russell Brunson, Dean gracio, see, you know, merging together, everybody's going to online, you know, products. So, talk to me about where the idea for the tribe came from how you started it and kind of what you do to service that that tribe?
Yeah, so 20 years ago, I was at a mastermind was read by a guy led by a guy called Fred gross. And Fred gross taught us in a small group of 15 to pick out a peer partner in the group and he said, that guy is gonna hold you accountable and in payment, you're gonna hold him accountable and that's going to be your mutual trust, you know, barter based relationships. There was a guy across the room called Pat heibon. He was the number one REMAX agent in the country at the time. And I was a Keller Williams broker just starting out. And we gave each other the man nod which, you know, all men across the room, he nodded me back a little bit, I know it's gonna be a relationship, pretty much as close as my wife, you know, not as close but almost, and certainly with all the same, you know, Bs that goes into that, like long term really close relationship. And so we started holding each other accountable at a very high level, I'd say I was gonna make, you know, 100 calls a week and if I made 50, he'd send me an email saying, hey, you just got to be like everyone else that talks to talk and doesn't walk the walk. And I would have the through the law of reciprocation, I got the glory of kicking him in the butt whenever he wasn't doing what he said he was going to do. And so we did this through this mastermind for six years. Then we broke away from them and kept doing it in 2004. We met a guy and we just did it over a number of hours work making our calls. We in 2004, we met a guy that it was already retired. He'd been famous in the real estate industry, and he had his Measurement was how many checks you got in the mail every month and how many hours you got skiing and mountain biking in the summer or the winter. So we added him when we became a threesome, we became the three amigos. And so now we added not just ours work, we instead we went to like horizontal income, which is your passive income. We went to age defying health, we went to bucket list adventures, and we went to genuine relationships, genuine contribution, we wrapped it all up in extreme accountability. So those became our six pillars. And then we were just we added three more guys, we were up to six, and there's just friends just hanging out holding each other accountable. And then in 2011, we were so sick of everyone's stories. We heard all the stories. We climbed Kilimanjaro together, we went on the you know, the Camino de Santiago went to the great tomato fight. We were starting to wrap an adventure with our accountability but we would exchange tax returns we would exchange our goals every quarter I just sent them my third quarter goals what I'd accomplished what I haven't. And so we just said what a guy one of the guys that came with us is a Tony Robbins guy he's guys you got something here man. People want this that people need this. They want this. They're hungry. For us, I think it was around 2013. We created a tribe. We have a membership. You have an application process the tribes called go abundance, but the book we wrote is called tribe of millionaires. You can get it for free by going to tribe a millionaires calm, but now we got we went 25 4080 120. Now we're at 240 members. And we have a built in system of we put everyone in pods of four, we switch real quickly to online. So we usually do a winter and a summer event and then a lot of local meetups and we would always our events are a little different. We would get together we did our Aspen one in January, thank goodness before this all shut down. And we ski all day. And then we meet at four until midnight. So it's like a very alpha type group of people that really want to push and go. That way. You got your endorphins flowing. You've had a really great day and then we just mastermind we're very honest and authentic. Like Where are you? We want you to be 10 out of 10 in all areas, with your wife, with your kids, with your business with your financial freedom with your faith, whatever it is that inspires you and moves you forward. Political or non judgmental in any space like that we just want to stand for other guys to be great guys and to be great leaders and great patriarchs of their family. And so that's what we created and it's been real successful. We have two divisions now the champions and then the elite and then we're just rolling out emerge and ascend which will be two more for the for the younger groups that sort of the apprentice level.
It's a go bonus com you can apply but we've changed lives man, we've had guys lose 50 pounds one of our guys got COVID and he said he thought that go abundance save his life because before he joined Gabon is five years ago, he's like 40 pounds heavier and didn't work out at all because of all the positive social pressure. In our group. He lost 40 pounds and he's working out every day and then he got COVID. And he said it was a beating, but he'd beat it back. And so yeah, I think it's been really great. People said it saved their marriage. People have been financially free. One guy I knew was making a million bucks here when he showed up and he had zero passive income. I was talking to him yesterday. He's in the mortgage business. His mortgage business is shut down but he has 247 doors now. And makes around 190,000 a year passive. So he's like I got 15,000 a month coming in from that. And hopefully that'll continue because of course got to worry about rentals and stuff. But it just changes a lot of lives. And it's, it's super inspirational, super fun. It's been really good. My wife is plugged into the go wise, which is another group that kind of emerged from it. There's now fam bundles for kids. So my kids are plugged into fan bundles. And it's all about living life on your terms. But then having transparency and accountability and authenticity around what you said you're going to do, because I think most of us have great intentions. And the reason we don't get stuff done is because no one holds us accountable. And we either hide from it or we pretend we're doing better than we are. And if you can shed that and be willing to be transparent and take the pain of kind of being real. And you do that year after year after year, you build on a foundation and when you build on that foundation, you're building stands taller, your life stands taller, I'm healthier than I was because of abundance. I have more money than I ever had. I have a better relationship with my wife. I work at it all the time. I work at being a great dad. It really ties into your work life balance concept because we are definitely not about the money. Yes, the money is important. productivity is important, but your family's way more important your relationship, your faith and giving a way to contribute. And again, like nondenominational faith, you can be whatever you want, it's important to have faith in something or find a way to give back or be connected to something greater than yourself. So that's kind of where we come from.
I work with john Maxwell. And one of my favorite quotes, by the way, he said, is the only difference between people's good intentions and bad intentions is the people good intentions are generally nicer that otherwise there's no difference because of you. If you don't follow through, it's just a great intention. But you know, it's funny because you've got the john Maxwell team and I have a lot of john Maxwell team listeners to this podcast in they tried to build a business via mastermind. And you know, we have we all have the greatest manual in the world mastermind is thinking grow rich. But what I find really interesting and talking to a lot of these coaches and talking to a lot of people, a lot of people just don't see the value of a mastermind you feel like you're just inherent when you have one that works but it's all driven people it's not like you're going to recruit right it's more people find you in it's gonna be almost a pull in versus a push out.
Yeah, that's what's funny ours just caught fire and honestly it's one of the least profitable businesses I own I do make money from it but I'm super inspired by the it's probably my most pleasurable business because I get significance from it and Maxwell one of your you know, I'm a big Maxwell fan too, but not at the level you are. He goes what is life struggle? struggle success significance, right? Isn't that it before I add a
sport, I say this quote probably every radio show, but he says you can be successful by yourself. But you'll never be significant without a team and once you taste significant success will never satisfy.
Yeah, so I'm in the significant phase of my life which is beautiful. And those texts and emails I get a gratitude I talked to a guy the other day is like, Thank God I have this tribe in this difficult time and we were we were coaching people how to get the PPP money in the ideal money like you know, the day maybe have our guys submitted at midnight plus one minute. We have a lot of coaches too, and people that are driving their own masterminds. We've got six doctors in it. We've got people who have software companies, a lot of real estate guys. But it really caught fire by itself. And you're absolutely right, this tribe that we created really, were really more the midwives of it more than the actually the creators of it, it just if we had been doing it for 20 years, so it's an overnight success that we spent 20 years holding ourselves accountable and living this life. And it's super fun, man, and people come and go a little bit but we've got great momentum and growth. We'll see what happens now with the online but we also switch really fast to a zoom call almost every day now had great speakers on what to do with this and then just kind of a town council where, you know, we've had like 60 70% of the tribe 160 people 170 people just talking about who's struggling with what what are you finding, how do you do this and it's just been a very vibrant entrepreneurial opportunity. So it's been fun and as you said, it's all about significance for me, I put if you took the time I put into that on my pay per hour basis. It would I should stop it right now.
Yeah. It's the same with the Maxwell team, right? We do too big. We canceled obviously March but we do two big certification events. But I go because that's, that's where all my significant people are. That's where the people that drive me, my coaches, that kind of stuff is that there's just there's an energy that gets created. When you're all in that same when you're all actually operating on that same wavelength of energy. It's, it's tremendous. And if I go longer than six months without that right, then then I just start to I can feel my energy every day my drive my my push go down. So it's Yeah,
I think that's true. I think you've got to occasionally get out of your box and sort of let the walls get shaken up and clean air and fresh air come and wash out the system. And, you know, we do adventure masterminds too with our group so we, you know, climb Kilimanjaro go to Japan and hit all the adventure spots, whitewater rafting, different places. We try to really mix it up with a little bit of physical and also intellectual and personal growth. But the real key to it is showing up with openness authenticity and transparency and be willing to be held accountable. Because what I do see a lot of people doing in life, which is a little sad is they're all about how amazing everything is. And they never admit any of their shortcomings. And you don't want to dwell on your shortcomings, but you can't transform what you don't admit. So, yeah, it's interesting, but it sounds like Maxwell is just like, I've almost gone to an exchange. Like three times I just haven't, you know, my life's very full and I'm a big fan of john Maxwell. I've seen him speak and sat right next to him a couple times when he spoke Keller Williams, he's an amazing wisdom and, you know, a wise man of our world.
But he's in that same significant stage now to I mean, he, he be careful when you sit next to him because he's all about generating donations and money for the ventures. And he, I've watched him pull this move. I don't know how many times but but he'll bring somebody out. There'll be a great cause. And then he'll be the first one you'll say, Well, I just wrote a check for 100,000. Now who in the room is going to match me right and have you got all this pressure to start raising money and then John's just Staring through you. And of course, you're going to raise money for the causes. He's amazing at it. So, we're going to take a final break. When we come back though, what I want to do is go ahead and run through run through go abundance again, we'll run through your different businesses, how to connect with you how people can find you, your books, and then I always ask the question, what's some of the best advice you've ever received? And we'll let you answer that when we come back after the break. You're listening to the work life balance Rick Morris.
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David Osborn 42:19
And we're back to the work life balance this Friday afternoon. The final segment with David Osborne, David, first of all we got thank you so much for coming on. And you've been a blast and I appreciate how busy you are in giving us an entire hours. Huge so thanks for
having me, Rick. It's a pleasure as you said it's it's an honor to contribute to others.
And how do people get in touch with you? How do they find you? Give us give us a rundown.
I mean, it's David Osborne calm is my website OSP Rn or I am David Osborne on Instagram or go to go bonus calm and apply for membership if you want to. That's another those are really the only three ways
Rick A. Morris 42:55
and then you've got wealth Can't wait what are your other books?
David Osborn 42:57
Well, can't wait. I wrote a miracle morning meal. With Hal Elrod, who is a really good friend of mine and a neighbor and he wrote the Miracle Morning, which has done really well. And then tribe of millionaires, which I was telling you about, which is a parable book. By the way, the first book I wrote took me seven years. And then I found this wonderful concept called a ghostwriter. And I started the second one took me seven months, and I think the third one took me seven hours. So
after my second book, I started Yeah, tell me a good ghostwriter. At least let me tell the story and somebody else can write it. And But no,
absolutely. The reason I was
writing a book is like a dissertation
editor for the first book filled with a redline, copy
back, you know, a great a great quote I have and I always kind of had it, but for a book is it starts off as a flirtation, it becomes a wonderful romance, and then it ends up as a cruel mistress and it's really like, typing away and it's fun, and then I'm romantic. Well, this is gonna be that. Then all of a sudden, you're like, I got pages and pages of crap and I don't know how to put it all together and uh, And so then it was just whipping me and I wasn't whipping it. And eventually, yeah, we hired the reason it cost me quite a bit of money. We were in New York Times bestseller on that one. But I went through multiple editors. So I, you know, I fired a few and got kind of mad. And then I realized they were smarter than me. And I think I read it about 14 times before it started getting good. But the editors did an amazing job because you don't realize you said the same thing on page 60 as you did on page 300, right, it's the same story. So they take all that and so you don't have two chapters that are the same they move them together. The editors god bless did an amazing job. I could have spent another seven years so we can be honest with you, I I had to, I had to set a firm deadline and the reason the only reason I got it out the door is I said to myself, like I'm gonna write 10 books so you can relax the internal critic in me and this one doesn't have to be perfect because I was. It really was my it's a great book. A lot of people love it. It should have probably been five books. It's so rich with information. But if you want to start a business and know all the ins and outs, it's it's very thorough and very complete and it gives you basically the insight of David's brain and Paul Morris my co author who also brought some really good insights as well. Yeah, it was. I love that book. And it was a labor of love for sure.
Rick A. Morris 45:07
Sure. And every time you look at it,
what happens to me anytime I start to go away, I need to write another book. I look at that. And go, yeah, yeah, no, I'm good.
But I'm,
I'm an auditory thinker. So I write like, I would like, I hear myself on stage telling my story. I write that way. And the editors just tear it up. And I'm like, I don't even like, I went back and read one of my first books, and I don't even remember the words like it was like this. Oh, that's right. they rewrote everything. So the concept still there. But those aren't my words.
David Osborn 45:39
Well, the second and third book I read them, I'm like, Wow, that's really well written. And it didn't take him hardly any time at all. So for sure they do a better job. The howl Ron's The only author I know that sold 2 million copies of his book and he kills it. But I don't know anybody else really. That's made any money from books. My mind still makes me like $300 a month. Yeah, well Can't wait. It's still selling, which is better than most books. Most books just die, we sold about 40,000 copies. But we put a lot of muscle behind that too. That was a lot of work. And then the funny thing is house Miracle Morning millionaires, which is just a series book. It sells more than mine does. And it's just because he's so famous. And his just struck a nerve. And I read his book. And it's beautiful. The concept is wonderful. It's not that well written, by the way, because he didn't use editors. But the concept is amazing for getting up an hour early and doing six steps. And so we wrote Miracle Morning millionaires together to take the Miracle Morning and apply it to building wealth, which was fun. And then tribe of millionaires is really good, too. It's just a business parable. So it's been fun. It's a fun journey.
John's got a content person that follows him around because a lot of he's auditory as well. So right, I'll say something on stage and I'll look over and he's got a he's got a content person that kind of give me a thumbs up that. She got that. Yeah. And then he's got a writer as well. That's how you write so many books.
Yeah, he's done a bunch and some of them are really good. I hung out with Gary Vaynerchuk a couple times. He has like a crew following him around nonsense. Right, so and I remember seeing john, like, when he was in a group of 40 of us making a speech, we were the leaders of Keller Williams, and he was our keynote. But he came and spent lunch with us. And he said something interesting. He pointed over at whoever it was journal to write down whatever he just said, You've arrived when you've got a guy that follows you around with a notebook. But not only that, but
for the first time ever I was I was watching him and Mark Cole do a speech for us. And he just said something brilliant. And that made it into leadership's. So the first time I actually got to see a piece of content from creation to stage all the way to written word and trying to study that still doesn't make me a better writer. But
it's more than the writing. So you have to put it all together. You have to throw the boat together. You got to thread it together, right? Absolutely. So it's a good nuggets, but you have to put those nuggets into a stew. That is a meal for somebody to eat, and I'm pretty good at the nuggets occasionally. But that's a whole gift. It's a gift, man. It's for sure it's a machine.
Rick A. Morris 47:56
So what's some of the best advice you've ever received?
David Osborn 48:00
Yeah, I mean,
so much advice. But you know, when I was having a mini identity crisis building my businesses at age 30 a guy told me Look, here's the secret of success in business write down the seven most important things to do every day and do the top three. That's it, just do that. Nothing else. And so that was a game changer for me out before then I didn't prioritize real well, I kind of like I'd have a list of 100 things and I'd just be grinding my way through my list. And that was kind of liberating. The second thing I you know, that's, that's my favorite. The second thing is you're only as good as your people, you know, your you'll never be better than your people. It takes a team to build something great. If you want to go somewhere fast, go alone, if you want to go somewhere, if you want to go far go with a team because the team build structure and that could go for a long way. So I've been really obsessed with building getting great people in business with me as well. So those are two of the you know, there's so many. I'm Richard Branson. When I met him, he told me work out I said, What's your number one business advice he says workout, the more energy you have personally, the better you'll do as a business person. So that's been a mantra of mine ever since I was It's kind of a dorky kid, I definitely wasn't the captain of the football team or anything like that. And now I'm in the best shape I've been except for my natural 20 year old body when I was in college, of course, but I'm, like 9% body fat, I workout all that, and I don't work out crazy. It's not intense. I'm not trying to hurt myself, I'm just consistently on my peloton or lifting weights or hiking or skiing or doing something. And I eat better too. So, so many things, life's all about frequencies, Rick. So to me, if you want to get into the frequency of success, you just have to learn those frequencies. And if you wanna get in the frequency of health, you have to learn those frequencies. If you want to be a great dad, you have to be get into the frequency of fatherhood. And I just try to align myself with the appropriate frequency at the appropriate time. So I've had so much good advice. And you were asking too about the other businesses but they all kind of segwayed from real estate, right? So sure, once I learned how to hire people and run run organizations, led by people, everything I do is pretty much in the real estate space. I've got a few for subscription services go abundances, obviously a mastermind in the educational space, but they're all in that realm. So and I just do a one at a And the way I do a vision normally, which is different than most is, I create a vision of, you know, I meet a person, I see the potential there, I kind of play with the vision of what's possible there, I decide if they're the right person that can drive it there. And if I can I figure out how to get in business with them, I let them drive it, I wrap my vision around it, and I just meet with them on a regular basis and hold him accountable. So if you saw my, my personal workbook, you'd see I have like 15 tabs at the back. And each tab represents a business. So when I meet with each of my team members that run that business, I just look at what they said last time. Ask them how they've done on that and then ask where we are now. And then where are we going? And I write down where they say we're going with my tweets or anything. I think it's important with the best ones. By the way, I don't have any tweaks. I'm just like, everything you said is great. I'll talk to you next, you know, week or next month. And then I then that's how I track everything. And I just keep it moving forward. And as long as your partner has a vested stake in it and you're not stupid around spending money, which is another lesson.
It all works out. So anyway, that was a segue. Good. Go ahead, Rick. What
else you want to ask now That was perfect. I was going to give you just a what we've got about three minutes or so to to close but what what would you like the audience to kind of leave with what if he had a final word or a final statement for them? What would you like them to leave with?
Um, you know, I think this like, this is the greatest opportunity in your life right now. Every downturn leads to spring like Jim Rohn was one of my favorite speakers he says you get you get spring you get summer you get fall and you get winter right you don't get four springs the farmer doesn't go I got four springs to plant my seeds. Right? And so this is winter. This is what winter looks like it's a downturn and things are tight, we're stuck at home things are difficult. But what comes after every winter is spring so you've got spring coming. And so this is a perfect opportunity for people right now to sharpen the saw you know, read some books, listen to some podcasts, do some personal development. Get get your health right. And and then the most important thing for me for your for my entire life. You know, philosophy of success is to have a purpose for your life. be purposeful, be very clear on where you want to go. So I have a five year vision a 10 year vision. I have about 80 goals I set in the eight gardens of life every year. So I have 10 goals in each garden. And I want you to know that when I started, I wasn't like this. I used to listen to subliminal ocean waves that supposedly would stop me from procrastinating. Back when I was 15 or 16 years old. I was I was bad at getting my homework done. I was I get into work. When I got into real estate, I would try to initiate like 30 projects at the same time. And I've never get any of them done. They don't move like tiny inches forward. So I had this massive fuzziness in my life and a lack of focus. And over 20 plus years ever since that multi millionaire guy told me Hey, just do the three most important things every day. That's really it. That's the secret of success. I've added to that be purposeful have a massive objective and outcome for your life. We're blessed right now to spend so much time at home with our families and our loved ones and that gives you so much familiar energy. use that time to sort of project your life into the future, the way you want it to be. Go create a vision for yourself create what your purpose is, and then build your life directing yourself towards that purpose. And for me that goes to my goals, which are my daily, you know, reviews and my action steps. And then I could I can give I'm writing a 10 year vision right now that talks about post COVID. So I'm writing my vision. I'm 62 my wife is a certain age my kids ages. I'll talk about we were amazingly healthy lifespan good. We're living exactly the life we want. 10 years ago, there was a scare through the whole of society, there was a pandemic and we were all very scared and we were stuck at home. But what came out of that was a greater sense of community, a greater sense of closest people started working more real remotely, we started staying at home with our families more we start to have more work life balance, some pollution faded from the planet. And we we became stronger and better businesspeople and more productive. We worked on our zoom calls. And it really trans began the transformation of not having a traffic jam every day. And so I'll write all that as if it has already happened. 10 years in the future, then I just lean into that vision and I You know, I'm a ultimately I'm a guy that's faithful. So to me like I'm not in charge, but I am co participating at the highest level, like my whole plans are just my plans. They could be wrecked in a minute. But I'm fully engaging as much as I can with creating a magnificent life for me, for my family, for my community and for the world. And I'm playing all out towards that, with all the failures and fumbles and goofiness that goes with that, Rick. So my biggest advice is, be purposeful with your life, have an agenda, because if you don't have an agenda, the first person you meet every day will give you their agenda for you.
Rick A. Morris 54:31
Sure. Well, David, again, we appreciate you being on the show. And that's gonna call it for this week's edition of the work life balance. Next week Join us as we have Jennifer Kramer and Daniel pewter. We're talking about charter schools and a vision that they have to help educate. Some of the people have gotten left behind. So fantastic show planned for that. Join us again next Friday. And as always Friday at four central five Eastern right here on The Voice America business network. Stay tuned and we'll talk to you next week.
VoiceAmerica 55:04
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.
Sure. Well, David, again, we appreciate you being on the show. And that's gonna call it for this week's edition of the work life balance. Next week Join us as we have Jennifer Kramer and Daniel pewter. We're talking about charter schools and a vision that they have to help educate. Some of the people have gotten left behind. So fantastic show planned for that. Join us again next Friday. And as always Friday at four central five Eastern right here on The Voice America business network. Stay tuned and we'll talk to you next week.
VoiceAmerica 55:04
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.
