In this solo video Christian Osgood answers a viewer’s question about how to determine which tasks are truly valuable when trying to buy real‑estate and grow a business. He outlines a practical, repeatable process he calls the “straight‑line” method. First, you map the shortest path from your current position (A) to your desired future (B), writing down the two points, the steps needed, costs, timeline, and required number of rentals or other milestones. Next, you draw a box around any steps that are not essential and eliminate them, thereby shortening the path. Then you review the remaining steps and circle the ones you are not actually doing. Osgood explains that the most common reason for avoiding these high‑impact tasks is a lack of knowledge or fear (e.g., fear of rejection when calling owners). By confronting these gaps and consistently executing the circled tasks, you accelerate progress—from four rentals over eight years to hundreds of rentals and multi‑seven‑figure businesses. He emphasizes that the same framework applies to personal goals such as marriage, family, and relocation. The video concludes with a call to action to map one’s own straight line, eliminate extra steps, and consistently work the high‑impact tasks.
Chapters
Hey, you're joining me on a walk. I just had this question asked and it's fantastic and I loved this conversation. So I just want to immediately film this video for you. If you are struggling to move forward, you're not seeing the success that you want to see. This is more than a mindset video. This is an actual practical, how do you actually decide what things you're doing are valuable and which things are a waste of time? How much is signal and how much is just noise? So someone asked me, the actual question was, hey, I'm trying to buy real estate. I'm trying to move ahead. How do I know which tasks are actually important? Am I wasting my time? How do I know what I'm doing? So I'm gonna break this down. So step number 1, by the way, if you're new to the channel, I bought hundreds of rentals this way and started 4 companies. Some of those are 7, multi-7-figure businesses. So if you want to have some success, the first thing you need to do is you need to map out your straight line. That is the shortest path from A to B. What steps are along the path from where you are to where you want to go. For me, I want to retire, my wife wants to start a family, want to build a dream home, want to move to Texas. 4 things. So I first decided, okay, I know where I'm at today, wrote that down. And I went, okay, where am I at in the future? My end goal. So now I've got the 2 points. What steps would need to happen? What does it cost on a monthly basis? How many rentals do I think this is actually going to take? What timeline do I have? You're going to write out the map. Then you're gonna put a box around all the things where you're like, is this an extra step? If you add steps, it's going to take longer. It took me 8 years to buy 4 rentals because in the meantime, I worked for a company I didn't need to work for and I became a real estate agent, which wasted a whole bunch of time. I wanted to be a real estate investor. I figured, "Oh, an agent's a step in the right direction." Is it a necessary step? No. Put a box around it, eliminate it. Then you get a path. When you have only the steps that you need to go from A to B left on this line, I then go through the steps and I circle the ones. This is the answer to the question, by the way. Circle the ones that you're not doing. You know they're important steps. For me, it was actually going out and meeting owners, by the way. Circle them and ask yourself why. Why am I not doing that thing? What it almost always comes down to is I don't have the knowledge to do it or I'm afraid to do it. For me, it was meeting owners. I knew I needed to be an insider to get the best deals. I knew that people, like owners, No other owners. Deals transact off market. I know this. I know this is true. Why am I not doing the task that I need to get there? For me, it turned out I was afraid. I was afraid of rejection. I didn't want to call them. I was uncomfortable on the call. When I got people on the phone, I was awkward because I hadn't practiced. If you identify that and you go, okay, I know I need to do this and I'm not doing it. When you find those things, you start doing those things, the rest of the pieces come together. That was the difference between me having 4 rentals and me having 250 rentals. Puzzles. One thing at a time, one step at a time. Am I moving down the path? Where am I getting stuck? And what's causing me to get stuck? And you're going to find literally every time it's you. It's always you that have yourself stuck. When I discovered this, I grew as an individual. I mean, this applies to everything too, by the way. This isn't just business. I mean, this helped me push my marriage forward. This helped me push my family forward. Like Set these targets, map out the straight line, eliminate the extra steps. Now you got an efficient path. You got A to B as efficiently as possible. Identify what you're not doing and then eliminate the things that you're just doing because they're on the path, but they're just easy. Like, there's comfort things. For me, underwriting deals is super comfortable, really comfortable with it. Not everyone is. I'm comfortable with the math. I can spend more time analyzing deals and it feels like you're moving forward, but you're not doing the other things that you need. Just go all the way down the path every single time. What I found, I bought a lot of buildings and I kept going down the same path again and again and again. If you haven't mapped this for your own goals, this is the secret sauce. If you liked this video and this was helpful, I thought this was one of my favorite questions anyone's ever asked me. If you found this helpful, like, subscribe, share with a friend, apply it. Let me know in the comments how it worked.