Welcome back to another episode of IRA Cafe, where we uncover winning insights for business owners, investors, and anyone seeking more balance between life and entrepreneurship! In this episode, Kyle Moody sits down with Jason Wojo, CEO of Lifeonaire and accomplished author, to explore how entrepreneurs and business owners can break free from the "work to live" trap and build a holistic, vision-driven life. Jason Wojo shares his personal journey from academic overachiever and 9-to-5 employee to successful investor and business owner detailing how the pursuit of business achievement nearly cost him the things he valued most. Through candid stories, Jason Wojo and Kyle Moody delve into the importance of setting boundaries, creating your ideal week, and leveraging self-directed IRAs especially for passive strategies like private lending. They discuss practical methods for due diligence, the critical difference between owning a business and building a prison, and how Lifeonaire empowers its members to design a business that serves their best life, not the other way around. Whether you’re just starting your investing journey or ready to scale with strategic intent, this episode brings actionable ideas and relatable stories that will resonate with anyone seeking more life in their business.

Key takeaways:

1. Vision-Driven Growth: Jason Wojo emphasizes the importance of designing a clear, holistic vision for your life before structuring your business. Without this blueprint, it's easy to let business interests overshadow personal priorities and relationships.
2. Life-First Scheduling: Success comes from scheduling non-negotiable life blocks such as family time, workouts, or faith activities first, then fitting business into the space that remains. This life-first approach helps entrepreneurs avoid building a “prison” instead of a business.
3. Passive Investing & Self-Directed IRAs: Jason Wojo shares his passion for passive investing, especially private lending through self-directed IRAs, explaining why due diligence is essential for both properties and borrowers, and offering pointers for safeguarding investments while keeping the process hands-off.
4. The Reality of Entrepreneurship: The journey from employee to business owner is rarely smooth or predictable. Jason Wojo details how facing personal setbacks led to greater clarity and purpose, underscoring that business metrics alone can’t replace true fulfillment.
5. Sustainable Success: Leveraging principles like the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law, Jason Wojo argues that focused effort and clear boundaries can drive business and personal achievements without requiring 60+ hour workweeks, freeing up time and energy for what matters most.

If you're seeking actionable wisdom on building wealth, finding balance, and using alternative investment strategies to fuel your life goals, this conversation between Kyle Moody and Jason Wojo is a must-listen. Don’t miss the chance to rethink your priorities, gain practical investment insights, and take the next step on your path to a business and life you truly love!

Business and life, life and business. How much time do you devote to each one? Do you have time for either one? In today's IRA Cafe, we sit down with Jason Wojo, who's really going to talk to you about his Life and Air program, how entrepreneurs, business owners can go from living to work instead of working to live. We can't wait to see you there. Come on into the cafe. Hi, once again, everyone. This is Kyle Moody coming to you from the IRA Cafe powered by American IRA, your one-stop shop for everything self-directed. That's right. Whether you are looking for the self-directed traditional, a Roth that's out there, maybe it's an inherited IRA, Are you a new entrepreneur and you are considering the Solo 401? The list goes on and on, and everything and anything that you can do with your self-directed IRA goes on and on as well.

I'd love to listen to your story. I'd love to find out your scenario and find out how American IRA can be the number one self-directed tool in your toolbox to help you move forward with your investing objectives. And if that sounds right for you, then please reference this podcast when you give me a call at 828-412-8123. Just say, hey, Kyle, I heard you on the Jason Wojo Podcast. And if you do that, then I'm going to make sure that we're going to waive your setup fee. Okay, so Kyle Moody. With the IRA Cafe powered by American IRA. And remember, that's 828-412-8123, or email me at [email protected].

It doesn't just end with the retirement accounts and some of those asset classes. If you were looking to invest in something where you know that you're going to need that LLC entity to have that flexibility and that arm's length, we can definitely take care of you on that as well today. So you know that Here in the cafe, one of the things we do, we pride ourselves on the education that we bring you, but also making sure how it ties in. If you're looking to use American IRA to take your investing to the next level, right? Are you in the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds right now? And you understand that that isn't what we do. We specialize in the alternative investing. All right, so whether real estate is something you're looking to diversify your portfolio in, whether you want to be a private lender, whether you want to get into private equities, syndications, joint ventures— oh gosh, what is the rest of the list that I was telling you about? Precious metals, oil and mineral rights. Okay, again, there's— it's not so much what the IRS tells you that you can do with your self-directed account, because that's actually really vast. It's the handful of things that they tell you that we— that you can't do.

And, uh, be more than happy to cover those types of scenarios and all of those questions with you. Sometimes on the Cafe, we will bring on a guest that is really going to start developing maybe the totality, the holistic approach to what you're doing in the investing world. Are you somebody right now that is still working the 9 to 5 and you've got your passive income on the side? Are you somebody who has said, hey, you know, I've got this many properties. I know when I get to this many more, it's going to take me to a level where I'm probably going to be able to scale back, or you might be able to leave that 9 to 5 altogether, right? So many people have their eye on the ball, and those investors who are really tracking and are really scaling, they're going to go from the 9 to 5 employee to entrepreneur at some point. And with that some point, are you ready for it? Do you have all the directions laid out? Do you have all the questions answered? What happens when you go from employee to business owner and now it's all on you? We're joined today by Jason Wojo with Life and Air and also an accomplished author. We're going to get to his book a little later in the show. And the reason I'm bringing Jason on Is because I've met him. He has been at a lot of the same events I have been to.

He is really in tune and a good friend of, of a REIA, a Real Estate Investment Association board, that I am also associated with. And so I wanted to bring him on so that you could hear how he came from the same place that you might still be in. and some things that he recognized that might not have always taken— it wasn't always the great things that he learned from, but to get him to where he is now. And we know that that's going to be something that all of you are going to benefit from wherever you are in your investing journey. There's some other things that you're going to learn about him too that he's going to be able to speak with regarding your self-directed IRA. So make sure you listen to the entire show. Okay. So without further ado, Jason Wojo, we're so excited to have you in today.

Thank you so much for being someone that I have met along the way who's been just a great ear, a great soundboard. We like the fact that you're now a friend of American IRA and also our local Triad area here where I am in the Carolinas, and Wojo's also in the Carolinas. So tell us a little bit about Wojo, where you came from, how you got to where you are now, and then we'll jump in on some more stuff later. So, The stage is all yours, sir.

Thanks, man. Well, hey, Kyle, really looking forward to our conversation and I've enjoyed getting to know you and what you guys do at American IRA tremendously. And so for me, you know, one of the things you said is I feel a lot of people with jobs at some point decide like, hey, you know, I think I'm going to be better off going on my own. And maybe it's because your boss, you know, isn't quite the person that you hope they were, or you want more autonomy, you want more decision-making. abilities in your life. And so you realize that having your own business, calling the shots, is the only way to do that. And so with that leap, oftentimes there comes a lot of surprises if you're not prepared for it. And even if you think you know what it's going to be like, prepare and buckle in because there's a lot more things that you don't know yet and that you are in for a shock in some regards.

And in other ways, you just have to evolve as an individual As you make this leap. So I always knew that I wanted a great life and I was told and I was taught from a young age that the way to do that is to have a job, a good job, a corner office, something high paying. And so I followed that path and because I didn't want just a great life, I wanted like an amazing life. I went out and got 2 bachelor's degrees, a master's degree, and a PhD in The reason for that was that I correlated my preparation and my education with what I would qualify for later on in life. So, I figured the more education, the more chances I'd have at that. And so, I got the education, 15 years in school, literally, this is no exaggeration. And I get out, I get that very first job, and I realize I can't work for anyone else. Like, just handing over that much control was just something that sent shivers down my spine and just made me feel nauseous.

Wasn't that my boss was a jerk or that I didn't like the people or anything like that. I was making decent money, but I just couldn't see myself doing that for another 20 or 30 years. It just eroded my soul. And so I got into business and my first venture was real estate investing because I, let me be clear, I had zero background in business. I didn't know a single business owner as a kid. My family, my parents are both blue-collar workers. And so I thought that was the only path. And so here I am, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do.

I just knew what I didn't want. And I had seen maybe a few too many episodes of HGTV, of Flip This House. And I'm like, ah, flipping houses, how hard can that be? Well, for anybody who's done it, it's not exactly like it goes on TV. So I started that. And then at the same time, I decided, you know what, it'd be helpful for me to have my real estate license while I'm also doing investing because then I can pull comps and I can do all these other things. And so I got my broker's, excuse me, my agent's license. I didn't have my broker's license yet. And then I also decided to dip my toe into the water of doing a fitness consulting and coaching business because I had been super blessed with some success in bodybuilding, had won some contests.

And so here I am, I have 3 businesses, and then I was, from the outside, I was living the dream. I had cleared 6 figures my first year and I thought I was on fire. I had the 3-story brick home and the gated community, corner lot, and just everything's great until one day my wife comes to me and says that she wants a divorce. And I remember thinking it was late at night and she usually went to bed earlier than me, and I thought she just had a rough day. She's tossing and turning in bed, probably. She's just exhausted, had a hard day. Well, no, that was not the case. She was serious.

She meant it. And she had said that she felt like we were roommates and there was just no remnants left of what we had originally had. And my work was a large part of it. Certainly was not the only reason, but what I've discovered and what I've really probably knew back then as well is that problems don't get better when you leave them alone and bury your head in the sand. And me working all the time was allowing those problems to fester and get worse and to the point of no return. And so that was the moment for me where I realized that I had to do things differently and I had to really go back to the tool shed and figure out what I wanted my life to look like because you know, the business success in the world, all of it meant nothing to me if I was going to lose out on the things that I really valued more than just money. And I had made that trade. And as ignorant and as horrible as it sounds and as naive as I was, like I thought, I remember telling my wife at the time, I'm like, if you just hold on for another 3 years, 4 or 5 years the most, like I'm doing really well.

I came out of the gate swinging. Like we'll never have to work again. Like I'll have a portfolio, I'll have all this stuff. We could take it easy. She didn't care at all. She did not care at all. And I can't believe I even said those things. It's like, it's humiliating to even imagine myself now back in that position.

But I think that a lot of business owners, when you make the decision to pursue entrepreneurship, they make similar trades. Now, I'm not saying anybody's going to end up in a divorce or anything like that, but like we start to really allow business to create and really fill the cracks and crevices of our entire life, not just the work that it was originally anticipated to be, but every— it seeps into every corner of your life.

So how old were you when that happened?

So that was early 30s because I had just— I had graduated with my PhD in 2007. And then from— and then it took it— then we were— I was living right outside of D.C. My first job was in D.C. And so this would have been my early 30s.

Yep. Gotcha. Well, and so we're talking about just 20 years ago.

Yeah.

And if someone is listening the way that I am right now, I hear you're right. You had all these accomplishments, then you had this start in everything, and then you started over with something else. And now, as you said, the things that were the most important kind of crumbled, and now it sounds like a Starting over all over again. And there are some folks, I guarantee you, there's people that are listening that are saying, golly, can I start all over? What is it going to take? And where you've had visions, even when you had the vision where something didn't end up correctly, the one thing that I heard there is that she didn't need all the glam and everything else. She had her vision, you had her vision, and the visions weren't the same. But then it sets you on the course for this. I mean, you took something bad. We always say, why me? Why did this happen to me? Well, maybe one of these days something is going to come down the pipe and I'm going to be able to help others.

And it seems to me that now you've taken those experiences and this is your help and your education. to folks.

That's right, man. And I think sometimes you have— this is the hardest thing is there, I believe there are lessons that we hear other people say, you know, we hear people say money's not gonna make you happy, but many people need to make the money to find that out. Like, because they'll always discount it and say, well, it's easy for you to say you have money.

Yeah.

And when, or when they say, oh, you know, make sure you prioritize the things that are most important. It's like, oh yeah, well, you're already successful. It's easy for you to say that. But the truth is, if I can help one person from making that mistake of really putting all your eggs in the basket of business. Now, with the caveat, if you've created, you mentioned this vision thing, right? And so, your vision for us is essentially a really detailed document. It's a blueprint for the ideal life you want to live in every area, from goals, ambitions, dreams, who you want to be, what you want to have, how you want to spend your time, relationships, all of it. And if you've created your vision and truly all you want to do is work, I will not try to talk you out of that because my belief is that everyone should determine for themselves what they value most. But I will say it is unavoidable that if you choose to go down that path, there will be catastrophic damage to your personal life to some extent, and it gets worse the longer you pursue that.

And that's why I'm I've just seen a lot of damage caused by the hustle and grind mentality, at least for people that want to have families and have time to go to the gym and do things that are valuable outside of work.

It's funny that you mentioned that because folks, anytime I'm calling Wojo, I can remember, I think I took a picture of it. As a matter of fact, I'm sure of it, but I'm always thinking, okay, His gym block, which he's at the gym more than he's at his desk. And somebody, people might say, well, what's he really accomplishing? A lot and everything and more than you can probably imagine. And that's the whole point is that one of the things, and on another one of our programs that you might hear Jason on in August, is where he really is going to talk about what a lot of entrepreneurs slip up. With, they're so gung-ho, coming out of the gates hot and everything. They don't even realize that they're building a prison instead of a business. That's one of his lines of something. And what are the things that can really have you chained down on stuff to where once he broke those, he showed us, hey, here's my week.

And he really schedules in, hey, this is gym. This is my family's quiet time. We've got church built in there. Yes, even church is built in, but because that is a block that nothing will interfere with. His workouts, now doing them with his kids, that's something that nothing is going to interfere with. So I know we're kind of jumping around a little bit, but I love these conversations. Tell me a little bit about, or if you want to share, how you've done those blocks and how you took the things that you— in the past you didn't have time for to where now they're your priority?

Yeah. So one of the things we encourage people to do in Life in Air is to plan out their ideal week. So if money was not a concern, and listen, I know that parts of our life cost money, I get it, but remove that as a filter temporarily. Just suspend that for a moment. Write down what you would do Taking it off of your vision on an average week. And so, for instance, maybe you want to go to the gym 3 days a week, you're going to have date night with your spouse, you're going to hang out with your kids in the evenings, and you're going to decide that you want to take some quiet time in the mornings or have lunch with a friend. And so, pencil in all of those things. And the reason, by the way, the reason this isn't just a to-do list is because it's linked to your vision.

So, you've already identified these as important to you. And that's a really important point, a distinction to make. So you put all these things in your calendar and then we have you look at how much space is available, things that aren't filled with the things from your vision. And then that becomes your work block. That becomes the amount of time that you can put into your business and not interfere with the parts of your life. And so this is really a life-first approach to business. And we have a lot of people think this is impossible. There's no way.

This is, this is pie in the sky. And I'd ask you to suspend your disbelief for a moment, and I can give you a couple reasons why. In addition to just seeing this now in hundreds and hundreds of business owners' work, what I've seen is that when you have a reason to stop working at, say, 2:00 PM, your kids are coming home from school, you have something else with your whatever, that's, you're going to the gym, you have a tangible deadline that all of a sudden becomes Your bookend for your workday. And so many people after doing this for themselves will see, for instance, will have somewhere between 20 and 30 hours a week that they feel like they can work and still live their complete vision. And then the rest of that time, that 20 to 30 hours a week goes to the business. And this is important because number one, one of the things that I think is 100% possible is you can absolutely have both a business and a life you love. Now, if you want to build a Fortune 500 company or the next competitor to SpaceX, maybe you're not going to be able to do that, but this is where your vision comes into play for you. Like you just, you get to decide what's best for you and what you really want.

A lot of times people will default to material items and business success and revenue numbers, but I really believe success is more intimately tied with the things that you really value most. So You know, when you're 80 years old, what are going to be your fondest memories and the things you cherish? Like, that's probably what you prioritize and where you— and you want to really dig into. And the things that you don't really, you know, you're probably not going to see yourself on your deathbed talking about, maybe those are the things that are less important to you. And so, let me just share a couple pieces of evidence that I think are important for people that think this is a challenge. And, you know, maybe you're working 60 hours a week right now and you're like, there's no way I can't even get down to 40 or 50. Are you kidding me? So number one, I want to share the Pareto principle, which maybe your listeners are familiar with, which says, you know, it's the 80/20 rule that says the minority of inputs lead to the majority of outputs. So if we apply the 80/20 rule to your work hours, let's take a 40-hour work week. 20% of your hours lead to 80% of your results.

So 20% of a 40-hour work week is 8 hours. So that means 8 hours of work approximately produces 80% of the results in your business. Now, that's the real stuff. And that's the real catch here is like so many of us, Kyle, like we call it working, but if we're really truthful with ourselves, it's, you know, we're pushing paper, we're, you know, messing around on Facebook, we're like on Amazon, you know, just we're not really doing the stuff that matters. That's number one. Number 2 is The Pareto principle, sorry, Parkinson's Law that says the amount of work you have, excuse me, the amount of time you have to complete the work is in direct proportion to how much you give it. So said another way, if you have 3 hours to finish a piece of work, it'll take you 3 hours. If you have 3 days or 3 weeks, it'll take you 3 days or 3 weeks.

And we all know this back from like high school when we had a term paper. If it was due at the end of the week, you got it done. If it was due at the end of the semester, you got it done. And so, we know this. So, there's 2 pieces right there. And what I'm really trying to do is just one of the most important stumbling blocks I see for people is this belief that it's possible. And before I can, I mean, I can give you the tactics of how to do this, but unless I break your belief system around this as being something I can actually accomplish, you're not going to do the tactics. And so, that's why I'm spending time here.

One other thing I would say is Quite frankly, 2017, a study was done. They looked at 1,989 office workers, and out of a 40-hour work week in, you know, an 8-hour workday, the average person worked 2 hours and 53 minutes. And I should add, this is self-reported, which they probably, you know, exaggerated in their favor. And so maybe it's even less than that. So if we take 3 hours per day, that's 15 hours per week produced, not 80%, but 100% of the results in that, in their position. And so this is where I like, I want to kind of to churn the waters a little bit to get people like really thinking about how they're spending their time in the business to show this is possible.

No, that's, uh, that's fantastic. And, and something else in here, you know, folks, you're, you're saying, oh gosh, I'm trying to figure out how to channel this and how that's, you know, really gonna, you know, play to me right now. And, you know, Why Jason? Why did Kyle bring Wojo on? How does it kind of sync well with American IRA? Or yeah, but this guy has time to, he can talk about this now, like what you were talking about, because he's made it and here I am. Well, here's the rub, folks, because he's also an investor. He's just like you.

Okay.

And not only is he an investor, he's even more like you because he understands the ins and outs of a self-directed retirement account. And one of those things that he loves doing with his is private lending. So we can even, you know, jump into some private lending talk a little bit if that has some folks go, okay, there's a little bit more that I can track with now. Somebody wants to talk about private lending with a self-directed IRA. What have you done other things with your self-directed account, or do you find that private lending really is your bellwether when using your account?

So for me, it's private lending. And this is because I really— so number one, I personally am not a fan of holding real estate, especially like, for instance, like rentals in an IRA. And the only reason is because I'm missing out on depreciation that I otherwise would be able to take. However, I know people, plenty of people that do it, and they're very happy with it. And so for instance, I know a buddy, who has, he bought a rental property in his IRA for his kid. And this was to become, you know, it was actually eventually supposed to be passed down to him and help him fund, you actually, I don't think, I think it was a Coverdell, a CESA.

Right.

And that was going to fund his kid's college fund. The reason I do like the private lending though is because it's so hands-off. So one of the things like really important with me in any business I participate in is that it's hands-off. And so this is where I love, you know, self-directed IRA investing, especially with the lending, because once I do that due diligence and I vet the deal, like it's really very hands-off. Like now there's a lot more to it that we can get into if you want to, but this typically allows me to gain somewhere between 12% and 15% returns. You know, usually I'll charge a couple points of interest, I prefer to be secured by a first position mortgage. Of course, you know, promissory note that goes along with that. And so I've had a lot of luck with that and I have lent on everything from rentals to flips to new construction to storage to hospitality businesses, like all kinds of things.

And it's just a great vehicle. I do think you should have some level of familiarity with the investment vehicle you choose. Like, so, and I don't mean the self-directed IRA stuff because that's, it's actually fairly easy, especially you guys do a great job of describing this stuff and the ins and outs of it. But if you're going to invest in flips, know a little bit about it. If you're going to invest in multifamily, know a little bit about it so you can vet those deals more appropriately. And so that's been my vehicle of choice. And the reason that's important is because the whole, and this parlays perfectly into what LifeInner is because for us it's all about creating your vision first, then you have an active business, That active business is going to spit off profits in excess of what you need. And of course, we don't want you to be the bottleneck in that.

So we teach you how to kind of like become an owner rather than operator. And then step 3 is really to create those passive income streams through assets. And this is where self-directed IRAs are awesome. Like, this is great. Like, and especially if you don't need that extra business income to live, now you can put this stuff into an IRA or a Coverdell. Like, so for instance, I have, I have 3 coverdells. Well, no, 2. One of my daughters already got out of college, but I used a Coverdell to put her through school completely.

She got out debt-free. I got 2 more for my other daughters. I have a Roth right now and I don't need that money and I don't need the extra money for my business. So it just parlayes perfectly into a strategic kind of like handoff between your business and doing something with that money. Because you don't want to just put it in a bank somewhere. And to be fair, I do have another Roth that has a minority amount of my profits and that's in the market, but who knows what's going to happen with that, right?

Sure.

We all know how that goes. And at the time of this, things are shaky and that could go to half or zero or a third, who knows? But I know with the real estate, I have control of that. I have I have oversight. There's something tangible that I'm linked to. And this is where the bulk majority of my Roth IRA stuff is in the self-directed realm.

Hey, really quick, you're a guy that's into programs, automation, everything being in sync. Talk to us about how that kind of parlays into really, if you're If you're gonna be working with a new buyer, or excuse me, a new borrower. New borrowers, I would have to think that you probably do have a lot of repeat borrowers, but talk to us about your due diligence. And the reason I wanna bring that up is because a lot of times people say, oh wow, yeah, I'm done with real estate, or I don't wanna be hands-on with that or whatever, but I don't mind lending the money out. And it's like, yeah, it's a great tactic. I mean, there's a reason why it's the number 2 asset class out there when it comes to self-directed retirement accounts. But that doesn't mean that just because it's a person doesn't mean that you shouldn't be doing your due diligence. Sometimes that due diligence will uncover more things about a human than it will about a house.

Tell us a little bit about your due diligence, some of the things that you do, what you look for before you're lending your funds.

Yeah. Yeah. So the way I vet my deals is, and when I say a deal, I don't mean just the property, I'm talking about the individuals themselves. And so as a private lender, I'm really lending on the person as much as I am on the asset itself. And so for instance, when I meet a new person, I want to know what is your— and by the way, none of this I'm saying is a deal breaker in and of itself, and I just kind of look at the trend together. So for instance, what's your experience level? How many people have you borrowed from in the past and how has that been for you? How many deals have you done? What's been the average profit? What's the worst one that you did? And tell me what went wrong. And again, I'm listening for like ownership. I'm listening for resourcefulness.

And I also might talk to their previous lenders. I want to know a little bit about their approach on lending. So for instance, some people will go out and get a job at Starbucks to pay someone back if they lose, if the deal goes south. Other people have the perspective of like, hey, listen, you were going to participate in the upside. You're also going to participate in the downside. And that's not right or wrong. It's just like, know the person you're dealing with so there's no awkward conversations later. And so I want to know as much as I can about this person.

I also, and this might be seen as a little bit excessive, but I'll tell you, it's saved me more than once, is I will ask to do a background and credit check on the person. And I'll say, hey, is there anything I should know about before I do this? And sometimes they'll come clean and say like, yeah, we had some medical bills, or yeah, this. And if they explain it to me, Again, not a deal breaker, but I want to know the person intimately that I am lending to. And so, you know, I'm just looking for those things and I'll even say like, hey, listen, if that sounds, you know, extreme, like I just want to get to know you. We haven't had a chance to get to know each other over time. So you can pull one on me too if you want. Like you want to know who you're getting into bed with too. And so I let them pull one on me and like, so it's just kind of like, let's open up the vest, take off the mask.

Let's see what's really going on. Talk to me about your deal flow, your deal volume, like what you're struggling with, what things are going well. You know, I had a guy that approached me about private lending. He was hot and heavy messaging me several times a week. I made this statement about asking for a credit background check and the dude ghosted me. And that to me is a sign like, Okay, maybe there was something there that just, I just saved myself. So that's in the character and the experience. So basically I'm looking for character, I'm looking for capacity and capabilities.

Like, do they know what they're doing yet? And if they don't, I'm not saying I'm not going to lend to them, but I just, I'm a little more cautious in how I structure it to make sure that I'm protecting my money. Because listen, all it takes is one deal to go south and it's going to take you a bunch more to make that up. And so I'm just very cautious on that side. And I am a conservative investor and I'm, and so that's, I'm not a big risk taker. And so that's my approach on that. So, and then I have the deal itself. And so of course I always prefer to pull my own comps. I very rarely will take into consideration, I mean, I'll ask them what they pulled for their comps, but I'm not going to take that, that's at face value.

I'm not going to let that be the only decision because I, being an agent and a broker and an investor, I know how to pull comps. I know how to, Do that on my own. And so I have much more confidence in my numbers. And so I will ask them, hey, let me see your schedule. Let me see your materials list. Let me see what you think this rehab's going to cost you. And so I'm not only vetting the acquisition, but I'm also looking at what the rehab costs are going to be, if it's going to be a rehab, and/or what is your exit strategy if this doesn't work? Do the numbers work as a rental? in the short term until you get it refinanced. And what is your, by the way, this is a great question too, because DSCR loans right now are sometimes a little harder for some people than others.

And so for instance, I want to know if your credit score is trash because we did your credit check, is that going to affect potentially the back end of this deal if things don't go quite the way we want them to? And so that's really the person and the deal. And so far I've been lending now for Gosh, man, a while, like 15 years maybe, maybe longer. And I've done a lot of volume and it's served me pretty well being— I'd rather— sometimes the best deal you do is the one you don't do.

Saying no sometimes, that is what can be one of the hardest things. I'll tell you, that's the hardest thing for me. Even if I am working on borrowed time, somebody wants to pile something on, hey, Kyle, can you? I just, I'm a big yes person. Had to say no to you on a thing that you wanted me to come talk. And that's only because I was going to be as far away from you as possible on another business trip in September. I was like, hey, man, I'm there. Tell me when you need me. And then I looked at the calendar and I was like, yeah, yep.

Oh man, I got to say no. I got to dip out. I'm going to be in California on business, but I'll definitely make sure whatever I can do to make that up. Tell us really quick, I appreciate you letting us go down that self-directed route there for folks that this might be an interest of theirs. See, I told you everybody, you're always going to get a little bit of everything here inside the cafe. So tell us about your involvement with Life Aire. What drew you to it? I know that you have done a full buyout now. Is that correct? But really, what attracted you to it? And did it make you? Did you make it? And then of course, you're growing with staff and everything.

Let the listeners have a little bit of a feel about it.

So I found Life Aire through Steve Cook, who's the founder. So Steve was a big national investor. back in the early 2000s. And this was, I found him when I still had that first job. And this is when I started investigating real estate as a potential golden ticket out. And so Steve was a real estate coach. The whole LifeInner thing was barely in its infancy. I don't even know if it was called LifeInner yet back then.

He hadn't written the book yet. And so I was really just looking for real estate coaching. Now, one thing that Steve was really, and by the way, Steve is just an amazing human. He's been more responsible for my success than any human on earth. And so when I started getting coaching from him, he would ask, how are things outside of business? And to be frank, and this is at my own peril, I kind of was like in such a rush to get outta my job and I had a deadline for that because it was a contract position. I had to have this thing rolling that I put all my eggs in the basket of my business. And so he did caution me. And I just wasn't in a place that I was ready to hear it yet.

And so, I got involved in Life Nairn as a member first, as a student of Steve's. And then, several years later from that, after I reinvented myself, got back on my feet, and by the way, just so I don't let the listeners wonder about this forever, I did get remarried in 2017. And so, life is good now. We're celebrating 10 years here pretty soon. And, But from there, I started coaching for Life NERR. This is one thing I get back on my feet, really started like, you know, hitting on all cylinders, started speaking a couple years after that. Then Steve asked me to partner with him. And from that point, and by the way, that was 2016, I believe, is when I took over as CEO.

Steve was still, we were, Steve and I were business partners and I was CEO. And then I bought the company 2 years ago. And really a lot of that was due to Steve's vision where, first of all, I love business and I almost feel like business can be, it's funny, like the Odyssey is out right now and the sirens, right? This allure of these sirens on the seashore and they sing to you and they cause sailors to wreck their ships. And I think like business can be like that too because is so much fun when you do it right. Like, I love business, but Steve loves coaching and that is his thing. And even since I kind of took over as CEO, like, it's been pretty much like Steve has assumed the role of more of a mentor rather than a business partner making decisions. And it was kind of my guidance, excuse me, his guidance that helped me run the company. And he's like, you know what? I just, I I don't want to run a business.

I just love like working one-on-one with people. And so that was where like, it was like a match made in heaven. And by the way, I didn't have zero, you know, I hear a lot of business partnerships that implode and go really poorly. This was amazing. Steve was a great partner and I still have, you know, I talk to him like every week. And so, you know, but it's, but yeah, I've been a solo owner for the last 2 years and there was a lot of changes we had to make when we first, when I first, you know, stepped in and we kind of reshuffled some things and really made a lot of improvements. what I believe, things that were, that I think that have beefed up our system. For instance, like one of the things that Steve really pioneered was this whole vision idea.

But when I went through this course, like at the Get a Life Getaway, our event that teaches this, I saw, I'm like, okay, well, you know, there's 20 hours a week that it's left in my schedule for work, but how do I actually do that? And so, what I built into our curriculum was like a business builder workshop. So, like this, so teaches people how to do it. That's why I even wrote the book. And like, so, So, I've built out a lot of the infrastructure. We really went from an organization that just had a handful of coaches with no systems, processes, tools to really a very structured business. We have everything that can be automated is automated. I have full delegation, full team of people that I trust and love. They're amazing coaches that are fantastic.

It's just really honed itself into something very, very special that I I almost have to pinch myself that I get to do this. 'Cause if you remember, like I was trained as a scientist and here I am running this amazing business surrounded by awesome people changing lives. And it's just like, it's just awesome, man.

No, that's fantastic. And for everybody out there, he, we just scrolled it, but I'll even show you there. There's mine right there. I told him that even though it's got the beach scene on it, which is always where I like to live, I haven't started the book yet. I had other summer reads out there and I just got this. in May. But Jason was so kind to autograph it for me. And he even says in here, build the business, live the dream.

And fewer words have really ever been spoken on that. And I think they get passed over a lot. Everybody gets consumed with the job, the money, and everything else. And so, what we've learned from the highly decorated, highly educated, the PhD here who got the corner office and everything, else who showed you that, you know, yes, like my real estate coach always said, you know, money might not be everything, but it ranks right up there with oxygen. Uh, it, it's all, uh, I believe, intent on that vision. I always ask folks when I'm, you know, when I visit a conference or if I'm keynote, or, you know, sometimes you'll hear me do it, uh, not so much on, on the calls, but, you know, a lot on presentations even here. You know, I'll ask you, what is your why? And I tell you one thing, when you really sit down and you think about what that answer is, you'll find out that it takes a lot longer to answer that question. And the answer to that question can fuel your entire investment portfolio.

So I'll let Jason chime in on that one as well, because I think he probably has a couple things to say about it.

Well, the one thing I do want to emphasize, like, I am pro-money. Meaning like I would rather have money than not have money. And I've also, one interesting thing is I used to wonder like, when is enough enough? Like if I make 6 figures or 7 figures or 8 figures, like what is the number? Like when am I going to stop? And I've realized it never stops. It does not stop. And so this is the same exact thing as when you set goals and you hit it and you're like, okay, what's next? So I remember very clearly there's a point in my life where if I'm like, this was decades ago, I'm like, if I just had, 10 grand in the bank, like, oh my gosh, I'd be so much less stressed. Life would be amazing. Then of course you hit it. Then what happens if I just had 25 in the— if I just had 50, if I just had 100, if I just had 250, it does not stop.

And by that same token, like I will continue to try to earn more money. However, I will never do it in a way that jeopardizes the things that I value most. And so I'm still going to honor the bookends. And so to me, this is the next level the next dimension of the game of business. Like, how can you make more money and impact more lives in the same, you know, yeah, I got a boundary, a bookmark on this side, and I got a bookmark on that side, and my family and everything else that's important to me is outside those windows, and I'm not going to compromise that. But how can I get better as a business owner so that in that whatever, 3, 4, or 5 hours a day, whatever it is in your vision, like, I can crank and I'm going to do the things that matter most and move the needle the farthest. And therefore be rewarded by the production of the most value, the most money. And so like, this is the game for me.

And so like, so that is the non-negotiables are me reaching outside of that. Like, that's off limits. Like, I almost pretend like that's like out of bounds, right? Like, you're out of bounds, you can't play there, but let's play within the boundary lines so that like we can see how far we can go. And by the way, I want to make sure I'm clear. I'm not saying to like not be successful in business and just put your time into your family if that's not your thing. Because one of the things I think for me at least, entrepreneurship is a, it's an incredibly interesting kind of beast to tame because you have ambition and that ambition can run wild if you don't temper it. And so you need to kind of learn this discipline, the self-control, the focus, persistence. to continue along that path and, but yet still find a way to be present, you know, it, it, and, and find a way to be with your family and not be thinking about the to-do list of all the things that are still, you know, uh, on tomorrow's agenda.

And so it becau— this is, this is a, a mental part of the business as well.

You know, folks, we'll wrap up here and we'll say this. I mean, I'll just ask a couple of questions. You know, where are you in your business journey? Where are you on your life journey? How old are you? Where are you on your investing journey? You know, how many chords have been struck here today with, with what Wojo has, has really brought to the surface for a lot of folks? I'm thinking, I know you're thinking, and if you're thinking about what's next, I do need to really work on my investment portfolio. I want to do it, you know, with self-direction. We here at American IRA are ready for you. You ready for a good read? And it's going to be the next on your list, Business for Life. It's right there. And then also too, maybe by the time that you're listening to this podcast, Jason has already been one of our webinar guests.

And if that's the case, that's fine. Remember, you can always find this podcast and the others and all the webinars on our YouTube. Make sure you find American IRA on YouTube, subscribe, and then you have all this education and more. But when you're ready to go ahead and take your investment objectives to the next level and you're ready to do that in a self-directed platform, give me the call. And again, it's [email protected]. That's where you can email me, and you can always reach me at 828-412-8123. Well, to wrap up, I want to say one more thank you to Jason Wojo for joining us. Uh, today.

It's always a privilege anytime I get to spend a few minutes with you. And so getting to spend, uh, this hour here has been wonderful for me, and I have no doubt it's been wonderful for all of our listeners out there. So thanks again, Jason.

Thanks, Hal.

All right, and for everyone at American IRA, I speak for them here in the business development office, and we just want to thank you again for your time, taking time out to listen to us or watch us whenever and wherever you've been getting all your podcasts. So for here at the American IRA Cafe, we look forward to seeing you next time.

American IRA LLC, a North Carolina LLC, acts as a third-party administrator for New Vision Trust Company, a state-chartered South Dakota trust company. As a neutral self-directed IRA administrator, American IRA does not recommend or endorse any investments, individuals, or entities, including financial representatives, promoters, or companies. American IRA and the IRA Cafe are not responsible for others' statements, representations, or agreements, nor do we evaluate the quality or profitability of any investment. American IRA does not endorse guests on the IRA Cafe podcast. Guest opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of American IRA, its subsidiaries, associates, or custodian. Participation in the podcast is voluntary and no compensation is provided. American IRA is not a fiduciary and cannot offer financial advice. Please consult your CPA or another professional before making financial decisions.