Passive Investor Spotlight #6: Getting Started in Passive Real Estate Investing feat. Josh Haslem

Somehow I found you guys. I've strained my brain to figure out how did I find Aspen? And I think that, I think the way that I found it was I started searching podcasts, other podcasts that I, because I wanted to learn all I could. And I found the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, started to listen to that. And it became my favorite, by the way. And I don't just say that because I'm on your big interview. It's my favorite. I love it. And so from there, I start, I learned about the 2017 JOBS Act. I never knew anything about that. This accredited investor, all, I'd never even heard of these terms. And I started learning and my eyes were just open. I thought, look at all of these investment opportunities that are available to me because I'm an accredited investor now and I can do all of these things because of the JOBS Act. And so that was kind of the moment where I realized, hey, I could take this business, I can sell it at its peak and I can invest it into all these different passive income streams and I can accomplish what I'm trying to do, get my time back and then preserve my capital and of course replace my income and then hopefully grow it through these different Passive investments.

This is the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investments and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth. The tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build legacy wealth. Join us as we dive into the world of alternative investments, uncover strategies of the ultra-wealthy, discuss economics, and interview successful investors. Looking for passive investments done for you? With Aspen Funds, we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market. As a passive investor, we do all the work for you, making sure your money is working hard for you in alternative investments. In fact, our team invests alongside you in every deal, so our interests are aligned. We focus on macro-driven alternative investments, so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment. Get started and download your free economic report today. Welcome back to the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. I am your co-host Ben Frazier, and today we're joined by special guest host Ben Brundage. And very excited to be interviewing Josh Haslam today. Josh, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. Glad to be here.

Awesome. So this series, this is our Passive Investor Spotlight series. This is a series of the podcast where we interview passive investors and hear their story, listen their journey into passive investing and what that's been like, you know, the wins and the struggles and challenges. And really just as a means for us all to learn and how we can continue to benefit from other people's experiences in this journey of passive investing. And so I've known Josh for a little bit and just loved his story and thought it really resonated with a lot of you listeners. And so I want to bring him on and I'm sure you're going to pick out some golden nuggets and just appreciate his authenticity and some of the things he's going to share. So Josh, thanks for coming on, man. Tell us a little bit about just your background so people have a context for who you are and how you jumped into this world of passive investing.

Sure, sure thing. Yeah, so I'm, I'm 44, happily married, have 5 kids. I live in Wyoming. I'm here from here originally, lived in California for about 20 years and then moved back to Wyoming about 5 years ago. As far as my background business-wise, I've owned a pest control company I started in Modesto, California back in 2003. And I ran that for about 19 years and loved it. Loved a lot of things about it, hated some things about it, and eventually sold it about a year ago. And when I did that, I decided I wanted to get into this whole real estate game. And so I went all in, I sold it and I basically just jumped off both feet. It just flew off. And so that's awesome. I've been learning everything I can about passive investing and Have invested in actual real estate that I hold, syndications, multifamily, self-storage, you know, kind of the whole gambit. Mortgage notes, of course, with Aspen, gas and oil. I've tried to get a little bit of everything, but that's really it in a nutshell. I'm just a blue-collar guy. Like I told Ben Fraser the other day, I'm just a regular guy, you know, that worked hard and tried to do it right. And I was able to build a successful business and sold it at the right time when asset prices for pest control companies were at their peak. And everything kind of lined up and it worked out. And so now here I am about a year into this real estate adventure and it's been an adventure. I'll say that. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

No, I love that. I think, you know, you had the benefit of having kind of a windfall of cash come into, you know, your possession and, you know, some investors, that's how it happens, right? As you sell a business or you receive an inheritance, which sounds like a great problem to have, but it also does create a problem, right? Which is how do we turn this pile of cash into passive income and get it well diversified into different asset classes? And so first talk a little bit about what was even the light bulb moment or series of moments that you thought that this could potentially be a possibility to do this, right? In selling your business and then turning that into passive income and you kind of, you know, have this, you know, semi-retired or financially independent lifestyle. What was the kind of, you know, tell us that journey a little bit.

Sure. Sure thing. So, so there I was knee deep in my pest control company, right? I loved so much about it. I loved building it. I loved setting goals. I loved growing it. I just, I loved it. It was my life. But the side that I did not like was two things. It took a lot of time, even though I had a manager, it wasn't a huge company. I had 23 employees when I sold. And I had a general manager who did a lot of it, but even with him, it took a lot of my time. And my wife and I were at a point in our lives where we wanted to be able to use more of our time for charitable things, humanitarian work. We're both very active in our church. It takes a lot of our time. So we wanted our time back more than anything. And then the other thing was employees, dealing with employees, especially in California. It's so hard to find good, good help anywhere really, but there, they're just making it so difficult. And so I started to think about how do I, how do I take this asset, this business that we've built, and how do I monetize that and take it and diversify it into something else that's going to give me more of a passive income, less of an active role, and maybe diversify it so I don't just have all my eggs in that one basket, that one company, which was a great company, but again, everything was right there tied up in that one company. And so I started to think about it and I don't know why it took me so long to learn about real estate. I just, I didn't know anything about real estate. And I thought of a friend who I knew that owned single-family rental properties in different states. And this was in California. Of course she lived there as well. And I reached out to her and I said, hey, tell me about this. Why, what did you like about it? Why are you still doing it? And just, she turned me on to BiggerPockets. And so I thought, I'd never heard of BiggerPockets. So I got on there and I started listening. And then all of a sudden this light bulb moment comes on where I'm just thinking, look at all the benefits, you know, to real estate. And I just, I can't believe I didn't know about this. I can't believe. I can't believe my CPA didn't say something about, hey, you might want to buy some real estate and offset all this income that you're paying these huge tax bills on. Get some depreciation, get some appreciation, and save yourself a lot of money and grow your wealth. And so that's kind of how it started. I started with BiggerPockets and then from there I discovered Keith Weinhold, his podcast GRE. But they're mostly into just the single-family rental, you know, actual holding real estate. Somehow I found you guys. I've strained my brain to figure out how did I find Aspen? And I think that, I think the way that I found it was I started searching podcasts, other podcasts that I, because I wanted to learn all I could. And I found the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, started to listen to that. And it became my favorite, by the way. And I don't just say that because I'm on here being interviewed. It's my favorite. I love it. And so from there, I start, I learned about the 2017 JOBS Act. I never knew anything about that. This accredited investor, I'd never even heard of these terms. And I started learning and my eyes were just open. I thought, look at all of these investment opportunities that are available to me because I'm, you know, an accredited investor now and I can do all of these things because of the JOBS Act. And so that was kind of the moment where I realized, hey, I could take this business and sell it at its peak and I can invest it into all these different passive income streams and I can accomplish what I'm trying to do, get my time back and then preserve my capital and of course replace my income and then hopefully grow it through these different passive investments. So that's kind of how it all unfolded. And I started planning, making my little spreadsheets and I love to do that kind of stuff to forecast. And that's why I loved having a business so much. And so that's kind of how it happened. And then I just pulled the trigger and started investing with Aspen and some of these other things that I would due diligence on and felt good about and jumped in. Wow. That's kind of how it happened.

Josh, that's incredible. Really just a fun story to listen to. What were some of the things maybe in the beginning as you were getting started? You talk about due diligence. What were you looking for there on the front end?

Sure.

So I was looking for track record, of course, number one. One of the things that caught my eye, if I'm going to use Aspen as an example on the note fund, the track record caught my eye. At the time, I think it was 32 straight quarters. They'd never missed a preferred payment. And I just thought, Is that too good to be true?

I mean, is that real?

Because it just seems like mailbox money. It seems so easy. And I realized, you know, there's pros and cons to all investments, but to me it seemed like a pretty safe thing to invest in. It's backed by real estate. The track record was a big thing. The next thing was the sponsors, the operators themselves. You know, just, I told Ben the other day, I said something that really made me feel comfortable about Aspen, for example, was you guys have a podcast. I was able to listen. I've listened to all the episodes and it allowed me to be able to learn. I felt like I, I feel like I know you guys from listening to that podcast and with some of the other things I've looked at and tried to do due diligence on, if they don't have a podcast, really the only time I get with them is on the phone. So it might be one or two conversations, but by listening to a podcast, you really get to kind of know, at least I feel like, the personality of the people, what they're like, the, you know, you can hear their, the genuineness of, of what what they're saying. So that was another big thing. And then just trying to read through those PPMs. I had no idea what I was looking at. I mean, I still feel like I don't know what I'm reading half the time, but I would try and read those and go through 'em and I could understand a lot of it. So much of it is, you know, attorney jargon that I don't understand all of it, but I, the part that I need to understand, I think I kind of, you know, can understand. And then the last thing was referrals. So I would ask other people, other operators, hey, have you heard of so-and-so? What do you think about them? And there were several people I talked to that knew you guys at Aspen and said, those guys are awesome. You know, shout out to the guys at Spartan, the Spartan Storage guys. They told me when I called them and asked them about you guys that they said, hey, those guys are top tier guys, that it's a good place to put your money. So those were kind of the ways that I would try and figure out who should I put my money with. Those are the things that I looked for.

Yeah. I love too, with your story, because you've already said it, you know, earlier that you're one year into this journey, right? Which, In a lot of ways, that's not very long. And you're kind of figuring out as you go along. But one of the things I love about how you're doing it is you're really being intentional with it. You're really, you're taking the responsibility to educate yourself and, but you're also comfortable with, hey, I don't know everything and I'm going to kind of go into this and I'm going to trust my gut, but I'm going to do what I can to do due diligence. And then I'm not locked in, you know, I can change my approach over time. I don't have to— the cool thing about this, there's so many ways you can slice the pie of allocations, right? And you know, into real estate, into different asset classes like oil and gas, or, you know, active real estate versus passive real estate, you know? So, you know, with kind of one year into this, what would you say are some of your biggest learnings or takeaways, both maybe positive and negative, about what you've done so far with kind of the deployment journey you've been on?

Gosh, I feel like I've learned so much and I'm sure I've made so many mistakes, but I guess some of the things that I've taken away is what I've learned. You know, before I did this, I had no idea, like I said, that these opportunities were even available. And then to go into these opportunities and to know what Class A is and Class B and common equity and preferred equity, I had no idea what any of these things were. And so I feel like I still feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose really. I feel like there's so much, and like you said, there's so many avenues you can take. You can invest actively, passively, and then within that asset class of real estate, there are so many subclasses. And so I feel like I've learned a lot just in how a syndication works, for example, what a PPM is about, what you can expect, what a pro forma is. I'd never heard the term pro forma, you know? And so I feel like I've learned a lot of those things. Things that I feel like I still need to learn is evaluating risk. I still feel like a greenie, you know, a novice when it comes to that. I just, you know, I don't know. You know, I just do the best that I can and talk to the operator and they're the expert. And that's what I like about this is I can lean on their expertise. For example, you guys, you know, you guys do the diligence. I just have to choose people that I trust and know that they're way better at it than I am. So some of the other takeaways, I'm kind of learning what I like to do and I'm sure it'll morph as we go along. At first I thought, oh, I'm my first, when I first learned about this, I thought I'm going to put all my money. This is how dumb or naive that I was. And I'm sure I'll look back 5 years from now and think that I'm still naive, but I thought, ooh, I learned about Memphis, Tennessee, right? And I said, I'm going to put all my money into Memphis, Tennessee, and I'm going to buy a bunch of properties and it's going to be great. That's really what I thought in the beginning. Luckily I learned one, I thought, no, no, that's not a very smart idea. And so I just feel like as I go along, it's going to change. I'm learning that I like the passive more than the active. It's just a matter of getting more comfortable with the fact that is it really as easy as it seems, putting this money to work passively and then just sitting back and letting the operators do it. And it is so far, it's worked, but I just need a little more time under my belt. And I think as I get more and more comfortable, I think I'll shift away from active and go fully passive because right now I've got 40% of my net worth in active properties that I own out, you know, properties I own residential and commercial. And then the rest of it is split into these, the passive stuff. So I don't know if I answered your question fully, but those are kind of some of the things I feel like I learned and some of the things that, you know, that I've taken away from it so far. But it's been interesting. I'll tell you, it's been great on some counts and other counts, it's been not very comfortable because it's so new. I'm only into it a year and you know, it's just, it's foreign to me. Not as foreign as it was, you know, I feel like I've learned a lot, but it's still, it's still new. I'm learning. I have so much to learn still.

What was kind of your approach on the front end from an allocation standpoint, right? Did you create any internal rules for yourself of I'm not going to invest X dollars or more into any one deal, or I'm not going to have any X dollars into one market or with one sponsor? What were some things that you kind of initially gave yourself some kind of governors or kind of some ways to just, you know, not, not, not too much too fast, like you're saying, but all into Memphis, Tennessee, you know? And then, then kind of second part of that question is what's kind of been the broader allocation strategy? Are you doing mostly multifamily, mostly single family? Do you feel like you have a healthy balance of a lot of different types of commercial real estate? Do you have any of the public markets? Talk a little bit about how you look at your overall pie as well.

Sure. So initially when I thought about how am I going to do this, because that was one of the first things I thought is how much do I put where? How do I allocate this? And so I'd listened to people talk about allocation and read about things and thought, okay, me and my wife got together and said, okay, here are some of the ideas. What should we do? And so kind of our broad starting point was let's put about half in active, half in passive because we had no idea which one we were going to like better. We'd never done it. So that's kind of the rule we started off with and we've stuck pretty close to that. Like I say, 40% is in, is inactive right now and some's in passive and I still have about 18% that's still in cash, which I know is burning up, but I didn't want to just deploy it all in the first 3 months and then think, oh geez, I wish I would've known about this. And so somebody told me at the beginning, one of the guys, it might've been you guys, you guys are the Spartan guys that I talked about or talked to and they said, hey, take your time. Even if it takes you 18 months to deploy, you know, 12 to 18 months, don't be in a hurry. Because you'll find things that you wish you would've waited for because you don't know anything right now, essentially is what they said. You're gonna, yep, you've gotta try and decide. And so that was kind of how I went about it in the beginning. And then within that, that active side, we figured we'd want mostly residential just because I didn't know anything about commercial really. I didn't know anything about either one of them, but residential seemed kind of the simple way that most people start. So that's kind of how we were going to split that was mostly residential, a little bit of commercial. And then on the passive side, we just wanted to get a good blend. We didn't really have any set rules other than we didn't want to put more than 10% of our net worth with any one operator. And even much less in one single deal. I didn't want to get even close to that in a single deal, but I thought, well, let's do about 10% with an operator if we're comfortable with them and maybe more as time goes on and it grows. As long as we're putting it into different deals with that operator, we'd go above that 10%, I think. But initially, that's kind of where we started out.

Yeah, I love that. A couple of things you said I think are so, so critical for people that are maybe in a similar journey, uh, in the path of one, don't put all your eggs in one basket. And you've already kind of said this, but over time you're going to, your perceptions are going to change. Your education is going to rapidly increase. There's a big learning curve, but you can kind of get to a good place pretty quickly. And there's always another deal, right? And I think one of the challenges that people feel when they first start getting into this world, it's like, it's amazing, right? There's so many cool opportunities and cool options and you feel like you don't want to miss out on anything, right? And so you just want to put it all in and get it all going. But one, you got to think about liquidity needs and you don't want to deploy all your cash because a lot of these deals are locked up for a long period of time. So you have that and then Then too, you know, a lot of times you're going to have a different perspective on the deals that you would do a year from now or 2 years from now or 5 years from now than you did at the beginning. So it's good to kind of meter your approach as you're allocating and not get too aggressive in one area. And then you just, you know, having diversification across asset classes I think is really, really key because all asset classes behave differently in different economic environments. So you want to create some diversification, right? And diversification, not just from an operator standpoint, but also from a geographic standpoint and an asset class standpoint. And so, yeah, I think a lot of the things that you shared are some really helpful just barometers as you're trying to go into this and just, I would encourage any of the listeners that are kind of in a similar position, create some kind of internal guidelines that you're going to hold to. They may Doesn't have to be rocket science. It doesn't have to be, you know, you may change it down the road, but hold yourself accountable to them. And it's great that you've kind of brought your wife into this journey. You guys are doing this together because that's a huge piece of this puzzle. But that 10%, no, not more than 10% into any one deal or any one operator. That's a, I love that. You know, it's just a natural way to kind of create a little bit more diversification and making sure that things are going to happen the way that you want them to happen.

So it is hard though, I'll tell you, Ben, because I, you know, like I say, where I'm very comfortable with you guys and a couple others, I want to just put it all there, you know, and say, ah, forget it. These guys are great. I'm just going to put it all here. So it's hard to kind of, you know, try and stick to those rules. But you did bring up some other things that we also did on our, you know, I have this whole spreadsheet where I've got all these things that where it's allocated. And that was another thing we looked at was geographics too. We wanted geographic diversification as well besides the different asset classes. And then we did look at different hold periods and try and split it up to where some of them were 3 to 5 years and some were 5 to 7 and some are 7 to 10, you know, as far as the syndications that we invested in. And then of course you have the note funds and debt funds, and those are a year to maybe 3 depending. So I think we got a pretty good mix of time horizons, asset classes. I feel pretty good about it. You know, like I told you the other day, I just hope it all works.

But so far so good. Absolutely. So are you focused mostly on like your investment objectives? Are you looking more for income, more for growth, more for a hybrid when you're doing, you know, these different types of deals? Is it, you know, kind of depends on the deal and, you know, have you kind of been able to replace your income and so far?

Yeah, I have actually been able to replace my income, which I was kind of surprised because when I sold the business, I took a chunk of money. I took, I mean, I know this is way ultra conservative, but it's how I am. I took 2 years worth of living and put it in an account and said, I'm not touching that. That's our, I'm calling it our 2-year fund, you know, in case it takes that long to get stuff back up. And it didn't, we didn't have to hardly touch that, you know, by the time we started investing and I was able to replace my income. And so to answer your question, my objective, it's both. My immediate need, of course, was I need to replace my income because I sold my company and that was my main source of income. So that was my first objective was cash flow. I need cash flow. And that's one of the things that attracted me to the note fund, for example, was it was like mailbox money. It's a set percent. It's ACH into my account every month, like clockwork. I don't have to worry about it. And then of course I wanted some diversification. I wanted to invest in some other things that would give me some appreciation. And so with our passive investments, we've kind of done about 75% allocated to Class B generally, where we're getting a lower preferred return, but we're getting appreciation. We're getting we're getting some of the disposition proceeds when they refinance or sell. And so I feel like that's going to grow as well as my active holdings. That's my appreciation side between those two. I'll get some good appreciation. And then we've got about 25% in Class A, which of course I get no upside, but I get more of that predictable cash flow. So I'm going through a hybrid. I need to replace my income, of course, which I've done. But again, I want it to grow too, because if my money stays the same 20 years from now and I have that same amount of money, well, it's worth a lot less even if I have the same amount of money, right? So it needs to grow. So I've gone after a hybrid strategy, which I think is, I think we're in a pretty good spot. Ask me in 5 years.

I think we probably will. I'll bring you back on. How did it all work? So you talked about this a little bit, but I think one of the biggest challenges for people starting out is where do I find the best investment opportunities, right? Do I just go off the guy I heard on the radio or I saw on CNBC on the commercials? Do I go talk with Uncle Jim, who I know has been doing some flips for a couple years? You know, what was kind of that process of, so you know, you're going, educating yourself on BiggerPockets, listening to podcasts, but talk a little bit about, you know, what are the ways that you found the opportunities? And then, you know, maybe give us an example of maybe the most unique way that you've found an opportunity.

Sure. Yeah. I found most of them researching on my own, you know, trying to find through podcasts or another thing I would do is I would find these real estate trade shows and I would go on their site and I would see who are the speakers on here and I would look at them and then I'd go look up their websites and I'd read about them. And then anytime I'd call an operator, I would always ask them at the end, hey, have you heard of this guy? Have you heard of this firm? Do you know much about them? Just because it seems like a lot of you guys know each other, you know, the good guys seem to know each other and they speak very highly of one another. So That's a way that I found deals and I would ask operators that I've invested with, hey, do you have any other opportunities that you would recommend to me that don't compete with what you do? You know, whether it's, say you guys at the NOPE Fund, you know, sending me to a self-storage person or whatever it is, you know, something that doesn't necessarily compete with you. And I had some good luck that way. I discovered Varivest, I think on a podcast. They're good to go on and look and you can see if, you know, people are being monitored by them, if they have a gold rating, whatever the rating is. So you can kind of get an idea of some opportunities there. Most of it was just that way, research and then just asking and then looking up, like I say, those trade show speaker lists and just going and trying to learn what I could and then just calling them. I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to these guys, which I felt like was such, so valuable. It was a free education that they would take time and tell me what they know and explain the deal to me and answer my questions. And so I really appreciate, you know, the time that they took because Some of 'em I didn't, most of 'em I didn't invest with them. You know, there's just a few that I picked out that I felt the best about. As far as the most unique, I thought about this and it's probably, so I serve as the bishop of my congregation in my church, and every year there's something called tithing declaration where the members of the congregation, they come and meet with me, their bishop, and they declare to me if they're full tithe payers or not. It's just something they, and they don't have to do it. It's their choice. And so I had this couple in my congregation come to me and they, and we're meeting and of course we're at church, right? This is on a Sunday. I don't do business on a Sunday. And we're talking and, you know, we're just kind of chit-chatting afterwards. And they asked me, they knew I sold my business and I had just sold my business about a month before this. This was back almost a year ago. And we got talking about real estate and they said, oh, well, we have a fourplex in Rexburg, Idaho that we were going to sell. And I said, oh, really? And I said, well, tell me a little bit about it. And so they did. And so we made the deal right there. I said, what do you want to sell it for? What are the rents? Okay, let's do it.

I'll buy it. I'll buy it cash.

We won't use a realtor. Let's do it. And within 2 weeks, the deal was closed. It was done. And that was my first one that I went and bought like that. And it was very interesting how it just kind of, you know, landed in my lap. And it's been great so far. So that was probably the most unique way.

That's awesome.

I wasn't even looking for it.

I love it. I think so much of what you said there is really helpful because One of the biggest challenges is you're kind of getting into it is getting the deal flow, getting just people to look at deals. And if you start looking at them, you know, you're going to start, the more and more you look at, the more PPMs you can read, the more people you talk to, the, it's just this knowledge builds and it grows and you get smarter and smarter and you see things you didn't see before. And so I always encourage people to just do as much as you can on the front end before you, you know, invest a dime. And get as much exposure as you can to as many operators, as many investment opportunities, because you're going to really start to pick up certain things. And I love one of the things you said, which I, you're one of the only people that I remember jumping on a phone call with you, or maybe Ben did, and you were asking about other operators, which I hadn't had anybody else ever do that. But you're exactly right. You know, we have our own money and we're investing in our own deals. We're also investing with some other operators that we know and we've, you know, we've done some diligence and we've emailed them. And so it's actually, I love that because I think it is something that not a lot of people have done. At least I've never experienced that. And, you know, I've shared some things that maybe I don't share openly, but I'm comfortable in a one-on-one conversation and you can get some great recommendations that way. So I love that you did that or you thought of that because it's definitely true. A lot of these things happen through networks, right? And people, people know people and, you know, the good people generally tend to, you know, flock together and, and there's a lot smaller circles that you kind of get into it than you initially maybe imagine there are.

They do. And I feel like it, I feel like just feedback from, you know, an investor to you guys. I feel like when, when I talked to you the first time and I, and I asked you about those, the fact that you would give me those referrals told me a lot about you. And you also told me, you said, don't put all your money with us because I talked to other operators. They didn't say that. They wanted as much as I would give them. They didn't care. And I would cross them right off the list. Like, nah, I'm, I'm not gonna deal with you. And you guys, that was one of the things you told me, don't put, you know, don't put too much with one person. Don't, you don't have to hurry and do it right now. And yeah, here are some other people that we've worked with and, or no, I haven't heard about these guys, but that really, it really Bought trust. It made me trust you guys more that you were willing to do that. I knew that you were honest and it just showed integrity and I just appreciated it.

Yeah.

Well, even, even coming from the investor relations side, I think for us, that's a telltale sign that you would ask these questions, that you would set these limits for yourself. That speaks volumes about the investor, but also for us, it gets us excited when you're asking questions about who do you go to? How much should I put in this deal in particular? Here's my kind of strategy. Because that's telling us that you're really serious about this investment for the long term, that you're a serious investor for the long term. And we're absolutely happy sharing other operators that are out there who we really trust and believe in because in all honesty, we're here to steward capital. We're here to operate the business and keep things going. But at the end of the day, we're not here to just take your money. We really care about the deal. We really care about the relationship. That's what's important to us. And we care about you. We want you to be diversified. We want you to be thriving into the future. And so connecting you with people and other operators out there is a joy to us.

Much appreciated for sure.

So Josh, who would you say are in kind of your inner circle, right? So Talking about networks, talking about, you know, so much of, um, you know, things that are good come through referrals, right? Or at least, you know, whether that's a fault of human nature or a benefit, you know, it's probably different, different circumstances. But, you know, we, we like to band together. We like to be around people that are in similar kind of positions to bounce things off of. So who do you kind of have in your inner circle?

So I'll tell you, it's not a very big circle because I'm so new still. I feel like I have my CPA, I talk to him quite a bit, and my wife. That's it. I don't have a financial advisor. I don't have an attorney. There's an attorney that I've sent some PPMs to, but I don't really discuss with him a whole lot. I probably should. This again shows how rookie I am. I'm just a regular guy. And so I don't have a very big team. I mean, I would even, I would say you guys are in my inner circle. I feel like I trust you. I trust you guys. I've invested in several of your things. In fact, I have probably 8% of my net worth invested with Aspen so far. And so I would include you guys in that. I feel like you guys bring a deal to me, I trust it. You've done the diligence. And so you guys, and there's maybe a couple other operators, probably two that I can think of that I might say are close to being there. But I would say it's mostly me and my wife, my CPA. That's about it. I don't, I don't have a mastermind that I belong to. You know, that was one of the questions maybe that we were going to talk about. And I, I don't know, I, maybe this is wrong of me, but I feel like somebody that's trying to sell me a mastermind that costs money, I feel like, why are you selling me that? You know, are you not very good at what you do? And so you're having to sell masterminds and that's probably wrong. They're probably just saying, hey, we want to share what we know. And, but I, it just kind of turned me off and financial advisors. I feel like a lot of them. They make a commission based on pushing what is in their best interest and not mine. And I heard your dad say it on a podcast when I listened to one of your podcasts. He said, basically, nobody will take care of your money like you will. You know, nobody's going to care like you will. And I thought, well, that's true, but I definitely probably don't have the smarts that a financial advisor does. And so I just kind of had to weigh that, you know, what do I do? And I opted to not go with one. And that may cost me a lot in the long run. I don't know. But as far as my inner circle, it's not very big. So that's it so far. Maybe that will change as I go along. So.

Yep, absolutely. I think it's, you know, not to knock on financial advisors, but you're exactly right. You know, you're, no one's ever going to care about the money that you've worked hard to steward and to build that than you, right? And whether you use a financial advisor or not is actually not the main point. The main point is what I find in talking with people a lot of times is they delegate out the responsibility to their wealth and growing their wealth and investing to the financial advisor. Right. And that's a bad position to be in because they don't care as much as you. And a lot of times there is a conflict of interest and/or there's just a misalignment, right? Because they get paid for how much money that they manage for you. And it's not to say they're evil. I'd say that they are, you know, running a conspiracy, but there's a natural misalignment. So you have to, you know, challenge that. And you also, you know, we have a, you know, a lot of investors with that invest with us that do use financial advisors, but they use them for certain things, right? Or, you know, they want expertise in a certain area like estate planning or asset protection, or they do want to some managed money in the stock market, right? It's fine to have some balance, but the bigger issue is having that, the responsibility. I think a lot of it, what it comes down to, what we found is people don't feel smart enough or that they have the resources they need to make decisions to feel comfortable. And unfortunately, a lot of what the financial industry has done has created a dependence mindset to where, you know, all the marketing is, hey, this is so complicated. All these ETFs and these, this mutual funds and everything. And you know, we're going to create this big elaborate scheme for you and no one can understand it all. Right. And so it creates this noise and it creates this challenge for people to feel like they can do it. Right. And so one of the things that we work with an advisor group and their whole pitch and their angle is defending the do-it-yourself investor. Right. And they act more actually like a personal CFO. Than just a financial advisor because they say you're the one in charge of your money. We're going to be a sounding board for you and we're going to help give you some ideas and advice. But if you want to do a deal, that's your prerogative and we're going to help you make sure it's just set up right. So I love, you know, your perspective on this and I love too that it might change over time, right? But the primary thing is you feel like you're in the driver's seat. You're the one that can to make these decisions and you're having the confidence to stand by them, whether 5 years from now or you're right or you're wrong, it's going to be a better position than fully leaving it to somebody else. I can guarantee that.

And I almost feel like the financial advisor, if you want to call them that, is the operators of the deal themselves.

Yeah.

That's one other thing I forgot to mention when I'm looking for an operator. I don't know. I forgot this, but skin in the game. How much are they putting into the deal? If they're putting their own money into the deal, you know, and it's substantial, that gives me a lot of confidence too. And I feel like they're experts in what they do. So in that sense, you know, they're kind of the financial advisor. I mean, in that asset class. And so, yeah, you kind of, it comes down to, you have to trust people in the end, right? You just have to, you have to figure out who you trust, who you feel good about, look at their track record. And if they're investing too, you know, they're, you're aligned, you know, in your goals and you just have to pull the trigger and do it.

I love it. All right, so some of the final questions here is kind of the fun ones, but you know, what's been, you know, the question is what's been the best investment you've made over the past decade? But as you're kind of newer to this, what's maybe your favorite investment that you've made so far? One of the most unique ones or something that you feel the most confident in you know, and you don't have to give, you know, say an Aspen deal because we're on the thing, but just anything that you would say it would be kind of, you know, right now is one of your favorites or things you're kind of excited about.

Gosh, that's hard to pick because I'm excited about several of them. One that I'm probably pretty excited about actually, because it's similar to owning a business, is car wash syndications. So I've invested in one of those, not a lot, but enough to just kind of, let's see where this goes. I like it because I miss owning a business. I'll tell you that I miss it. It's, it's been, there's been days where I really, I miss certain things about it. I don't miss the employees and managing them. That was hard. But I miss a lot of the goal setting and, you know, watching it grow and getting great reviews from customers and trying to be the best you can be in your market. So I do miss that. And that's why I like the car wash syndication because it's a little more similar to a business. You know, it's real estate mixed with a business and I like the two together. And so Probably that, but I mean, I'm excited about a lot of them. Self-storage. I love the notes, how automatic they are. I debt funds, I've been looking at private lending, so probably those. One that I feel like I don't know a lot about that I've invested a little bit that I'm excited to learn more about is oil and gas. I feel like that's something I just don't know much about at all, but I'm of course invested in one of your guys' deals and it's done great so far. I'd like to learn more about that, but those are the ones I'm probably most excited about.

What about the flip side of that? What are some of the ones that maybe aren't going as well as you hoped they would have? Maybe it's too early to say, maybe you don't have any, but whether it's active or passive, I mean, what'd you learn from that?

Well, one thing I've learned from active is I don't think I'll want to do that long-term just because it's almost like I traded employees for tenants. You know, on the properties that I own, hey, the toilet's broke. And I have a property manager, but still she's gotta call me and say, hey, the tenant said this, what do you want to do? And so I feel like I'm still managing something. And so, like I say, as I get comfortable, I think I'll kind of go away from that. I've learned that I don't know that I really want to deal with that side of it. Just, it takes time. I want my time back more than anything, you know, I want to have my time back. And so the other thing that I feel like I won't invest again in is, and some people probably will disagree with me on this, I'm sure a lot will, is the stock market. I'm not a fan of the public markets. I invested in them, you know, some, and of course lost a bunch because of the way the stock market's been. And I don't like that it's so tied to people's emotions. That's what I like about real estate. It's backed by something I can go and touch and feel and see and not, you know, Bitcoin is another one I invested a little bit in and geez, that was, I'm glad it wasn't very much because it has just I mean, what is it now? Like 65 or something. I mean, it was up to 60 something and it's just tanked. I thought about investing in one of those Bitcoin funds. I'm so glad I didn't do that, at least at this point. So those are the ones probably that I wouldn't, that I'd say are probably my poorest investments. And you're right, I haven't done it long enough to really know, but if I had to choose, I'd say stock market and Bitcoin are two that I won't be investing in in the future. Yeah, I like private.

Yeah. Well, Josh, this is so fun and I really appreciate you just being transparent, right? And this is an evolving journey and you're so open about it. And, but I really do think it's going to help a lot of people, right? Because there are a lot of people on this boat and like the light bulb moments are happening all over of, hey, I want to get into real estate. I want to get into passive investing. These deals are really awesome and it's better than a lot of ways the public markets. And I just appreciate you sharing kind of where you're at and it's an evolving journey, but you're doing it the right way. You're asking the right questions. You're being strategic in how you're deploying it. You're using good discipline and you're putting all your effort into it and I think it's going to pay off big time down the road. So thanks so much. Any kind of final thoughts to leave with our listeners as they, you know, maybe in a similar position, they were Josh Hasson a year ago, what would you say to them?

I would say don't let fear make your decisions for you, because that was something that I really had to fight through was fear and anxiety. Here I'd worked my whole life, basically my working life to build this company and I sold it. I only get to do that once. It took me almost 20 years to build that. I knocked doors. I mean, I worked so hard to build that. And so then here you have this money and there's the temptation to hold onto it and just, nope, I'll just hold onto it and make it stretch as long as I can. And that, that's foolish. But it's a fight to overcome that. And so I would just say, don't let fear make your decisions for you. I mean, get out there and find the people you trust and take a shot on them. That, that's what you've gotta do. And I know I'll be glad. I, I mean, I know I'll look back on this 5 years from now and say, wow, I'm so glad that I did that. You know, that I, I got my time back and look, it worked out great and I'm sure it will have grown and it'll be wonderful. You know, but there's those moments where you, you wonder, is this gonna work? You know, I'm, I'm afraid I'm, I've got anxiety about this. You have to overcome those and just move forward. You know, don't, just don't stand still. That's what I would say is just, just take the step, take the leap. I mean, obviously do your diligence, right? Don't just gamble. But once you've done that and made the decision, just go forward and don't second-guess yourself because it's easy to do.

I love that. Well, we'll go ahead and we'll, we'll schedule your next interview for 5 years from now. I'm excited for that one.

Hopefully I'm not working at a, McDonald's flipping burgers. Ben, I lost it all.

Awesome. Josh, thank you so much. It's been a joy to get to chat with you a little bit, and I'm sure our listeners enjoyed this as well. And we do appreciate you all listening. If you are enjoying the show, please do leave a review or share it with a friend and family member. It really helps us continue to get the word out about these awesome types of investments and help educate investors about what's out there. So thanks so much. And, uh, join us here for the next show.

Thank you guys. Thanks, Josh.