Chris & John
- May 19, 2020
- 2 min read

Ep 54: The Difference Between Rich and Wealthy and the Power of Passive Income with AJ Osborne

There is a fundamental difference between being rich and being wealthy, especially when faced with a crisis. Today’s guest is AJ Osborne, a founding member of Bitterroot Holdings and Keylock Storage, which owns over a million square feet in storage facilities across the country. In this episode, AJ explains how he went from insurance sales to real estate to self-storage, and how he has combined both active and passive income streams to gain true financial freedom and “get off the treadmill”. He also shares a personal story of the serious health scare that put him out of a job, and how passive income from real estate saved his family’s life while he was fighting for his. We discuss the difference between being rich and being wealthy, and AJ explains how he scaled his self-storage company and the lessons he learned while writing his playbook. We look into AJ’s crystal ball to see what it says for the future of self-storage, and he provides us with some reality-based downsides to the business, dispelling the myth that self-storage is completely hassle-free to operate. Finally, AJ gives us his predictions for how delinquencies, collections, and deals will be impacted by COVID-19 over the next several months. Tune in to find out more about AJ’s story and the incredible power of passive income!

Key Points From This Episode:

AJ introduces himself and tells us a little about his background.
When AJ realized that he wasn’t in control of his income doing insurance sales.
How AJ went from insurance to real estate to self-storage.
How passive income from real estate saved his family’s life while AJ was fighting for his.
The difference between being rich and being wealthy.
Stop thinking of trading time for money.
It takes time and momentum to build a real estate business, but it pays off disproportionately.
AJ explains how he scaled his company and the lessons he learned writing his playbook.
What AJ’s crystal ball says for the future of self-storage.
How self-storage is replacing retail and hospitality as a standard asset class.
The reality-based downsides of running a self-storage business, including hyper-locality.
How AJ maintains an edge over his competitors.
Average rates for self-storage rent per month.
AJ’s predictions for how delinquencies, collections, and deals will be impacted by COVID-19.

Tweetables:

“At the end of the day, I realized I was on a treadmill, just like everybody else. The only difference is, I had control of the speed of the treadmill” — @ajosborne1 [0:04:02]

“There’s a difference between being rich and wealthy. Being rich means you make a lot of money, being wealthy means you don’t have to make money” — @ajosborne1 [0:13:27]

“If you’re a savvy real estate investor that wants to jump on and do a little more work, self-storage over the next 10 years is going to be an incredible place if you can buy right” — @ajosborne1 [0:30:04]