Episode 400 - The John Bjorlie Die Happy Tour 2024

00:00:00 - John Bjorlie

My hometown of Rome, New York. I've always kind of said, I mean, I've lived in Phoenix over 30 years now, however long, and I couldn't get enough people to half fill a room at a funeral here. I don't think. I mean, I. I've got friends, the golf, but, you know, people come and go. But I always knew if I ever wanted to actually have a funeral that was attended, it would be up in Rome, my hometown. And I can thank Facebook a lot for that because, you know, these are contacts that I probably would have lost if not for social media. So I've got a big bunch of friends who are up in that area. So it occurred to me, why don't I have the funeral while I'm still alive?

00:00:41 - Bill Risser

You're listening to The Real Estate Sessions, and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers, and really anyone with a story to tell. It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now, I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 400 of the real estate Sessions podcast. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. Yes, I said 400. This is a huge milestone, probably the last milestone of this podcast as I have decided to kind of wrap things up next July. I'm going to finish right at the ten year mark. And so I wanted to have a special guest on episode 400. And this doesn't get any specialer than John Biorli. John is the creator of the John Bhorli die Happy tour 2024. I've talked about him before. You probably know who I'm talking about. When I talk about John, he's a stage four prostate cancer patient. It's terminal. He understands that. And he's decided that he wants to go out on his terms, which means he is visiting a lot of people around the country. He's done things like thrown his own wake. I'm sure we'll get him to talk about that in this episode. And just some of the other things he's doing are fantastic. And so we're going to have a lot of fun chatting with him today. You might want to buckle up. It'll be, I'm sure with John. We don't know where we're headed, but this is going to be a lot of fun. So let's get it going. John, welcome to the podcast.

00:02:15 - John Bjorlie

Hello.

00:02:17 - Bill Risser

Hello. I love it. You know, John, you're the very first person to say hello. And that's it on the podcast. I like that. I think that's very cool. I can't tell you how excited I am to have this conversation with you where. I'm actually in Phoenix. I'm at your home, and we just got off the golf course, had a great mexican dinner. The west coast kind of mexican dinner, right? You had. What was yours?

00:02:42 - John Bjorlie

Carne asada. Quesadilla. Yeah, it's a quesadilla with steak in it.

00:02:46 - Bill Risser

And I had my little kid menu, the thing that I love, which is roll tacos, but, you know, everybody's got their own different kind of foods they like. John, it was a no brainer for me to have you as my guest on episode 400 of the real estate.

00:02:59 - John Bjorlie

Can I cut in on that?

00:03:00 - Bill Risser

Yeah, go ahead.

00:03:01 - John Bjorlie

Congratulations on 400. I'm honored to be the guest, even if it just so happened the numbers fell this way. But I remember when it was just an idea, and I'm pretty sure it was in Kanto, third or fourth hole. But I remember one day we had time between shots, and you told me about before there really were podcasts. I mean, podcasts weren't hardly a thing yet, you know? Anyway, well done.

00:03:27 - Bill Risser

Yeah, well, I appreciate that. You know, you know how we probably got to this? That conversation was. I loved listening to Howard Stern interviews. People ask me. Right?

00:03:37 - John Bjorlie

Yes.

00:03:37 - Bill Risser

And you do, too. Right? And so the ability to do the same thing, to ask questions of people and to not have to worry about.

00:03:45 - John Bjorlie

Ending your industry, real estate, to go that direction, I thought it was a great idea, other than Bill came up with another way to make his job harder. You know, that's. You've always seemed to have done that. Everyone else is trying to get it easier.

00:03:58 - Bill Risser

You've got a point there.

00:03:59 - John Bjorlie

Yeah, I did do that.

00:04:01 - Bill Risser

Well, I know you've listened to a few episodes, John, so I'm going to start off the same way I always start off, which is generally saying the thing I just said, but then I'm gonna go. You're an upstate New Yorker. You grew up in Rome, New York, which is near Syracuse and Utica and all these other places that are from Europe.

00:04:21 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Well, particularly Italy.

00:04:24 - Bill Risser

Particularly Italy. Tell me about growing up in Rome, New York.

00:04:29 - John Bjorlie

I've often told people my father was norwegian, my mother was polish, but I was raised italian, and that's. That's how it was, a very italian city that would. If there was any diversity. Well, not that there was no diversity, but there was a big air force base there, and that brought in that population. But otherwise, I mean, the name of the city tells you how it is, you know, and it was a small city up in farm country, central New York, and a great place to grow up. You remember the show unsolved mysteries.

00:04:59 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:05:00 - John Bjorlie

One time, the host, I can't remember his name, but he once described Rome, New York, as a city right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

00:05:08 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:05:09 - John Bjorlie

But at the same time, he was describing a case where two people were murdered in their house mercilessly. So it's a city, like, of a lot of. But it was a great place to grow up.

00:05:18 - Bill Risser

Yeah. What's one thing we should know about Rome? Is it the air force base? And you've talked about it before, that the bombers, like, did they have the B 52?

00:05:26 - John Bjorlie

The B 50 was a B 52 base during Vietnam, and missions began and ended in Rome. I mean, they would leave from Rome, bomb Vietnam, fly back to Rome without ever landing. You know, that's over the North Pole. That's one of the reasons. All interesting stuff, and. But those things were just part of our life. I mean, the biggest, loudest jets you ever heard. But it all started out military. It was. Rome was a fort during the Revolutionary War and the American Indian war, but after the wars, the fort was actually disassembled, and a town was built out of it, out of a lot of the wood. Wow.

00:06:04 - Bill Risser

All right, tell me, you know, your dad has a very interesting backstory. I think. I mean, it's, you know, I guess.

00:06:12 - John Bjorlie

I got used to it. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't that big a deal.

00:06:14 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Your dad was an educator of the deaf? Of the deaf, yeah.

00:06:18 - John Bjorlie

His. His parents both worked with the deaf, educating. My grandfather was a minister to the deaf. There were a lot more deaf people back then. When you go back 100 years or so, and. But my dad was his. He ended his career as a superintendent of a school for the deaf in New York.

00:06:35 - Bill Risser

Yeah. You also shared with me in one of our millions of conversations that he had some work he would do for the supreme Court.

00:06:44 - John Bjorlie

Yes.

00:06:44 - Bill Risser

Tell me about that.

00:06:45 - John Bjorlie

He was a very well versed. Is that the word for it? But in american sign language, he felt he had abilities that a lot of other people didn't because he had moved around the country a lot in his career, from the midwest to California to New York. We had been around, and he said that sign language has dialects just like a lot of other. There's accents there that you can move your hands a little differently. But because of that, my dad was chosen to be an interpreter for supreme court cases that involved a deaf person. If they had to take testimony from a deaf person, they would have him do it. There might have been a couple others, but I know that he was one. And late in his career, he did that several times.

00:07:28 - Bill Risser

So if they were from a certain part of the country, he could sign in a way that was more comfortable for them.

00:07:33 - John Bjorlie

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

00:07:35 - Bill Risser

Wow. That's awesome.

00:07:36 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Using slang that they use that they might not use in Oregon, you know.

00:07:41 - Bill Risser

Yeah. There are a few things I can't wait to get out of you in this interview. One of them is, you are, in my opinion, a fantastic piano player. Now, you'll always go humble on it. You'll go, no, no, no. I don't do what these people do. But I know if I said to you, John, could you play this song for me? If you know it, you will. And if you don't, you can learn it. And you don't read music.

00:08:07 - John Bjorlie

Yes. That's how it's been.

00:08:10 - Bill Risser

So my first assumption is, and by the way, your sister Lisa, we all see the videos that are out there now. You guys are playing together. She's singing beautifully. You're playing the piano perfectly. Was the Bjorli family musical growing up?

00:08:27 - John Bjorlie

We were, you know, we sang together like the von Trapp family. You know, I used to say, I was in middle school before I realized not all families sing in five part harmony. That happy birthday doesn't have to be a whole big production, but we always enjoyed it. If we were on road trips anywhere, we were always singing, and again, always in multiple parts. Like, by the time you were five, you better be able to pick a lane and learn to sing it.

00:08:54 - Bill Risser

Wow.

00:08:55 - John Bjorlie

But, yeah, everyone in my family is musical, and everyone is good at something. At least one thing.

00:09:02 - Bill Risser

Your mom has a great story, right? She sang professionally?

00:09:05 - John Bjorlie

Yes. She was a songstress in the 1940s, a little bit of the fifties. She definitely quit on the way up, not the way down. It's kind of an interesting story she had. She met my father, got married quickly, and that was it for she did. They lived in Washington, DC for a number of years while my dad was finishing up grad school. And she did continue singing in Washington for a few. Cause she had a name that was recognized, but other than that, she never went for the big ring, you know, and it was kind of out there, you know? But, you know, she. She stopped before and this looked kind of interesting. She was, we believe. We're not sure, but she was in the middle of a tour, we believe, when she decided to quit or at the end of a tour. But at the end of the tour, the intention was to record her first album, and it was going to be with the Tex Benicky orchestra. That's who she had been touring with. And if you don't know that, that's Glenn Miller's orchestra. After Glenn Miller died.

00:10:07 - Bill Risser

Wow.

00:10:08 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. And. But she was going to record an album with them. She, you know, it was going to be them accompanying her singing. She quit, and she was replaced by someone nobody really knew of but Edie Gourmet.

00:10:20 - Bill Risser

Oh.

00:10:20 - John Bjorlie

So, wow. So in some ways, you know, mom always thought that she saw Edie may living out her the rest of it. If I would have stayed with it, what would have happened, you know?

00:10:30 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:10:30 - John Bjorlie

So, yeah, it was just kind of an interesting thing, but, yeah, for you.

00:10:34 - Bill Risser

Millennials out there, go Google Edie Gourmet.

00:10:37 - John Bjorlie

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:40 - Bill Risser

I want to talk about you and the piano a little bit. So when did you start taking lessons? It's weird that you took lessons. You're very skilled at what you do. But do I think, is it weird that you don't read music? Do most people read music?

00:10:54 - John Bjorlie

None of the beatles could read it.

00:10:55 - Bill Risser

Okay, well, yeah.

00:10:56 - John Bjorlie

George Martin was the only one that could read or write music, and that's what he was used for.

00:11:00 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:11:01 - John Bjorlie

So that they came up with a song, he could actually write it down so that they had it and.

00:11:04 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:11:05 - John Bjorlie

You know, and work from that. Or when they had symphony. Yeah. But it started with, we got a piano when I was maybe six or seven years old, because my older sister was taking lessons, and this thing turned up in the living room, and I immediately was kind of gravitated to it. I heard my sister practicing, and I'm thinking, I think I could do that, you know, and I kind of figured things out quickly. I started out with one finger, and I can still remember very quickly learning to play the Star Spangled Banner with one finger, just standing in front of the piano, but making few mistakes, you know, and it just went from there. At some point, I learned to add the second hand. And then when. By the time I got to around ten years old, that's when my mom wanted me to take lessons. But I was already pretty good. I was already covering a lot of songs that would surprise you for a kid my age, that kind of thing. It was a lot of old and, you know, Broadway hits, that kind of stuff, and I started lessons and it didn't go well. I maybe five, six lessons, and I wasn't learning. I just have a mental block with reading music. I've really tried and I can kind of figure out the notes, but I read music the way, like, a four year old would read a novel. I mean, crawling through it, one word, I can never imagine, just boom, you know? And I have an older sister who is a piano teacher. She's a master on the piano, and she's the exact opposite of me. She can't memorize anything, but she can play anything you put in front of her with music.

00:12:34 - Bill Risser

So I'm sure your piano teacher loved the fact that you weren't learning how to read music.

00:12:39 - John Bjorlie

Yeah, well, he just told my mother, you're kind of wasting your money on this kid. He said what he's doing is he's listening to me play the song he's supposed to learn for next week, and he's memorizing it on the spot and not reading the notes. He just practices what he thinks I played for a week, but I can tell that he's not reading it. And so anyway, so, yeah, I dropped out, but I. I did later. There's a couple people I worked with along the way. There was, when I got in high school, a guy who was a year two older than me, but he was an accomplished piano player who also played by ear, and he helped me develop that direction. By ears. What you need to know. So I got a lot from him. And then along the way, other people I've met and worked with. There's one particular woman named Robin that I'll always wonder about because she taught me one of the toughest things I can do. And I always wonder, and I taught her something, you know? But I always wonder where she is. Still don't. Never knew her last name.

00:13:45 - Bill Risser

So as you get older, you know, your piano playing skills get better. You also decide that you're going to be a diver. So I'm guessing that started in high school.

00:13:57 - John Bjorlie

No, junior high school. Wow. And I hardly decided to be a diver. That the quickest story is two of us were skipping class on the day that they have signups for winter sports. We came around a corner. There's our guidance counselor. We see him from behind. So we ran because we knew big trouble for being in the halls. You know, this is during home run period, so nobody's in the halls. So we ran as fast as we could to that winter sports signup, sat in the first bleachers available so that if he came in, he wouldn't find it, you know, and it happened to be swimming and diving. If it was basketball, I would have been signing up to get on the basketball team, and I would have bombed out of it quickly. But when my friend and I were sitting there, he goes, we dive. You know, we like that. Why don't we try that, you know? And. And so we both signed up for the junior high team. My friend went to about two practices and quit, and I stayed with it. You know, I had a little bit of a knack.

00:14:50 - Bill Risser

Not only stayed with it, but stayed with it through into college.

00:14:54 - John Bjorlie

Oh, yeah, yeah. By the time. Yeah.

00:14:56 - Bill Risser

And when you were asked by Virginia Tech, offered a full scholarship to come.

00:15:02 - John Bjorlie

They sent a scholarship. They never gave me a number, but, yeah, my senior year, they offered me. But, yeah, I was on a diving scholarship for two years, and I was never that, you know, middle of the road, I'd call myself. I was never a great diver, but enough to get a scholarship at a smaller school, and that's what I got.

00:15:20 - Bill Risser

And the waters seemed to have this attraction for you, right? Because not only were you diving in college, but you decide that you're gonna learn how to play another instrument that I guess is a relative of the piano, but called the calliope.

00:15:35 - John Bjorlie

If all jobs paid the same, it's the job that I would still be at that I had. In 1978, I transferred from one college to another, and in between, there was a riverboat in Charleston, West Virginia, a stern wheeler like the delta queen. One day, I happened to be. My mother that year had driven me down to college, and she just went back with me. And then she was flying back the next day. So the next morning, I went to the. Her hotel, and I was going to bring her to the airport. And while I'm waiting for her to get ready, I'm looking down because her hotel is right over the river, and I see this stern Wheeler down there, this big, beautiful red, white, and blue, you know, riverboat, and there's somebody playing an instrument. I don't even know if I knew it was called a calliope at the time, but it was. I was riveted. I'm watching this because I could hear him. I'm 24 hours up, and I could hear him clear as a bell through the window, and I'm watching him. And I said to my mother, I said, mom, if I ever don't come home for a summer, it's because I got a job playing that thing. And she said, okay, I'll remember that. And the next summer, I got the job playing that thing, and I did that for a whole season. Best job ever. Play a crazy people who don't know what a calliope is. You hear it in the circus. Oompapa oompap. Pop, pop. One of those. It's an organ, but it had a six mile range, so everybody heard me, whether they liked it or not. And it was just a fun thing to do.

00:17:01 - Bill Risser

And you talked about the owners of that riverboat, right. They turned out to be almost like family for you when you were kind of doing that five month.

00:17:10 - John Bjorlie

Well, yeah, the people at the captain and, you know, the crew in the boat, we were very close to each other. We spent 100 hours a week together, easy, especially if we were out of town. That's 24/7 but, yeah, and the management, the boat, we were all very tight. There wasn't that many people involved in it, you know, to keep it going.

00:17:27 - Bill Risser

Most requested song on a calliope. Did you take requests?

00:17:30 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. And it's funny, they used to always call it the quick one. Play the quick one. Play the fast one. A lot of people couldn't remember the name Zorba the Greek, but I used to play that song starting very slow, and it gets. I used to get wildly fast on it faster than I can sing it. And every note has a corresponding light that lights up when you play the note. So the sky is just filling with this light going crazy because I'm playing all these notes. But anyway, that's a lie. Then there was always the West Virginia fight song from WVU. Oh, West Virginia. Oh, West Virginia. Yeah, everyone wanted that one.

00:18:11 - Bill Risser

That's awesome.

00:18:12 - John Bjorlie

Yeah.

00:18:12 - Bill Risser

So, John, you graduate from Virginia Tech. What's next? What were you thinking? What was the plan for you?

00:18:20 - John Bjorlie

My parents had moved to the New York City area when I was in college, so that's where I was going to go back to. I had a degree in marketing, so the most obvious thing to do was to maybe Madison Avenue was an hour commute from their house. Get a job in Manhattan in advertising would be cool. It's right in my major. But at the time, it was 1980. The economy was horrible. Jobs were almost impossible to get. So I never went that direction. I mean, I did go to a few interviews in the city, but I learned quickly. I didn't like the commute. I didn't like going into New York. I mean, it's fun for a day, but not for my job. You know, that just seemed like be a lot to do, so.

00:19:05 - Bill Risser

But you had another natural talent. You know, I know we've talked about this on thousands of fairways, but you're. You are a sales guy. You can sell just about anything.

00:19:16 - John Bjorlie

That's what I found my way into.

00:19:17 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:19:18 - John Bjorlie

Business to business. Telemarketing.

00:19:20 - Bill Risser

Yeah, talk about that. How did that first start? What was the first gig?

00:19:23 - John Bjorlie

Well, the first thing is they were hiring. That was. And I went to a place, and I remember was a real nice office. You had to wear a jacket and tie and all, so it was all very for. But as I learned to do it, I mean, to me, not that we were cheating anybody, it's. I mean, it's a, you know, I don't even want to call it a gray area business, but you're definitely manipulating people, and. And I just got to enjoy that challenge of it. To me, when I was a kid, I used to like making prank phone calls, you know, is your refrigerator running better?

00:19:55 - Bill Risser

Go.

00:19:55 - John Bjorlie

Get ahead, you know? But people will pay you to do that, you know, to make prank phone calls. And all you gotta do is make someone say yes, you know?

00:20:05 - Bill Risser

Yep.

00:20:06 - John Bjorlie

So that, that kind of became, you know, love it or hate it, but that's what I ended up doing.

00:20:12 - Bill Risser

And it was a career in sales that eventually gets you to Arizona. There's just.

00:20:16 - John Bjorlie

Yes, that there was a part. The company I was working for in New York, four of us just decided to open a satellite office out here. Three of the salesmen and the owner of the company, simply because we wanted to leave here. Houses were cheaper. You know, New York was. I was having a hard time finding a house up there at the time. Long Island's expensive, and everything was half the price here. So that's. That's how it started. That's how we got here.

00:20:40 - Bill Risser

And then ultimately, you created your own company, the company that you retired from.

00:20:44 - John Bjorlie

Right. The company I was working for sold maintenance, chemicals, cleaners, sanitizer, degreaser patch for concrete, that kind of stuff.

00:20:53 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:20:54 - John Bjorlie

Stuff you would sell to the maintenance departments at companies. And I switched to shipping supplies.

00:20:59 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:21:00 - John Bjorlie

And I was selling to the shipping departments of companies around the country. Yeah. All over the country.

00:21:05 - Bill Risser

Yeah. With your own systems and processes in place. Because realtors. It's funny, you know, because you're not a realtor. But. No, but we're gonna. Real estate has a.

00:21:13 - John Bjorlie

But, aren't we?

00:21:17 - Bill Risser

Real estate has a link for us. That's how we met. Part of. Part of it, right?

00:21:21 - John Bjorlie

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:21:22 - Bill Risser

So we'll come back to that. But so it. In some way, it had to be a giant leap I mean, you're leaving probably a fairly comfortable, where you were probably doing okay and you decided you wanted to start your own. Were you, you know, was there a confidence there? Like, this is not going to be a problem, I'm going to do this, or did you go into it going, well, we'll see how this goes?

00:21:44 - John Bjorlie

There was actually a lot of confidence going into it. And I don't like the term not to toot my own horn, because I'm tooting my own horn. But one thing I had was me, which was one of the best people in the country at doing this. So if nothing else, I had me, you know, I could sell. And I had tested it a little bit before I opened the company. I. I went home some afternoons and tried selling tape. I tried, you know, I called people in the local area. I got orders that I never even shipped because I didn't have a company at that time. I just wanted to know I could get yeses, you know, and once that worked enough times and I was ready to just open up my own. And then I, and I did work it alone for a good period of time, good year or so before I hired the next person. And it never got more than like five or six at a time.

00:22:34 - Bill Risser

Yeah. But very successful. You know, you did great in that gig and you were able to finally retire from that.

00:22:40 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Successful enough that that industry got hard. Anybody who's telemarketing has gotten tougher.

00:22:46 - Bill Risser

Absolutely.

00:22:47 - John Bjorlie

And it was getting, you know, there's. And the competition. You got Amazon, all these things happening. The Internet was getting, it was getting hard to open accounts to get new accounts. And if you can't get new accounts, you're in trouble.

00:22:59 - Bill Risser

Right. Let's talk about you and I a little bit. We got connected through a game. We both love golf. I have my version of how we connected. I'd like to hear it from you. How did we meet? What was it like? What did you think of me?

00:23:17 - John Bjorlie

Okay. Oh, boy. I didn't know that was coming. Well, we had a mutual friend. There was a friend of mine, John Dunn. But there was a group of us that on any given Friday, two, three, four of us would show up and meet somewhere to play golf. And on one of those weeks, it was three of us, me and this friend John, who called and said, would you mind if I bring a friend along? And we knew John was a real estate broker, probably somebody. It was some work colleague. And you're the one he brought along. And I remember liking you right away, if that's what you want to hear? Well, that's the cue card you're holding.

00:23:53 - Bill Risser

Up, so I. I'll put the card down. Okay, here's the applause one.

00:24:00 - John Bjorlie

And your game was good. You seemed to have a lot of fun with us. You got into the skins game right off the bat. You know, it was just a lot of fun.

00:24:08 - Bill Risser

You were big on nicknames in the league, as I noticed that when I got there, the league, you had long ball, which was Bill. Yeah, long ball. You had a parrot head or parrot head. Chris. You know, he was, he was. John was smiling John.

00:24:23 - John Bjorlie

Smiling John.

00:24:23 - Bill Risser

Because he was always smiling.

00:24:25 - John Bjorlie

Always John Dunn.

00:24:26 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Yeah. And then I got a nickname. Do you remember the nickname you guys gave me on day one? Because I had a really good day that day.

00:24:32 - John Bjorlie

Yes, because. Because we said, well, before we're gonna play for money, what's your handicap? You know, we gotta make sure to be fair one way or another. If you're way better or worse than us, you know, that's what handicaps are for. And you said a seven, which kind of falls right in ours, you know, at the time. Yeah, yeah. So, so it was, you know, no problem. Well, you know, that there's no need to give strokes or whatever. And you went on to kind of clean us up that day. You know, shot something like under 75, and we had our usual eighties and, you know, as. So you were called lucky seven.

00:25:03 - Bill Risser

Lucky point.

00:25:04 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. You'll be lucky if he shoots seven over par.

00:25:09 - Bill Risser

Yeah. It never happened again. Yeah. So that's how we got to meet. Right? So for anyone listening, going, what does it have to do with real estate? We've just tied real estate into this conversation.

00:25:19 - John Bjorlie

Right.

00:25:20 - Bill Risser

Good, good. But really. And we spent a lot of time just sharing these moments between us, you know, you and I. I played with some numbers. It's roughly between 859 hundred rounds of golf we played together.

00:25:32 - John Bjorlie

Do you think I have you? I've looked it up, played with it.

00:25:37 - Bill Risser

It's thousands of fairways we've walked together, and we never walked in silence. It was always a conversation going on, right?

00:25:46 - John Bjorlie

Absolutely.

00:25:46 - Bill Risser

We had a lot of fun, you know, through all those years. And so that's the only silence comes.

00:25:53 - John Bjorlie

When you say, sh.

00:25:54 - Bill Risser

Well, I do have to. You have a booming voice, John. I know you know that. So I have to calm it down when we're walking by another four step teeing off. Yeah, I was way your official shusher.

00:26:04 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

00:26:06 - Bill Risser

But look, I want to get to. I want to get to what's going on now. And so, you know, you and I have had lots of conversations about this, and you are dying. Dying. Okay.

00:26:18 - John Bjorlie

There you go.

00:26:19 - Bill Risser

Way to be blunt.

00:26:20 - John Bjorlie

Yeah.

00:26:21 - Bill Risser

You're in. You're almost at the end of year one of what the.

00:26:28 - John Bjorlie

Well, I don't know what edge you're.

00:26:29 - Bill Risser

Looking for, but I'm looking at the John Biorli. I have the diet, or.

00:26:33 - John Bjorlie

Yes, 2024, that I started a year ago because I was given a year to live. Actually, the first. I was told last October that I probably wouldn't make it through this summer. And I've done that and, and I'm feeling actually pretty good.

00:26:47 - Bill Risser

So, John, you were diagnosed a few years ago with prostate cancer that was caught kind of late, right?

00:26:53 - John Bjorlie

Yes.

00:26:54 - Bill Risser

So, and that, that was the issue is that it already metastasized.

00:26:57 - John Bjorlie

Right. Stage four. Which means. Well, yeah, when I went into the hospital, I just went to the ER because I was having one problem that I'd hope I would just leave with that fixed. But the first thing they saw was that I had spinal cancer. And then they told me that night, because they put me in a room right away and all, and they said, you better hope that the spinal cancer came from your prostate, because spinal cancer kind of doesn't ever start on its own. I think it came from somewhere. And he said, it's usually the lungs. And if it was the lungs, you're done. There's nothing we can do for you. Yes. You know, he was being very frank with me in the. But it turned out to be the prostate. So there was my lucky. I'm doing air quotes.

00:27:42 - Bill Risser

Break your. Is this 20 19 20 20 20 20. And so you've gone through different versions of treatment?

00:27:53 - John Bjorlie

Yeah, I have. I wasn't, I was on hormone therapy for two and a half years and it had me in remission, which is about the average amount of time that therapy will keep a stage four prostate cancer in remission.

00:28:05 - Bill Risser

Okay.

00:28:06 - John Bjorlie

And then when that ended, the only choice left to stop the growth of the cancer was chemo. As long as I kept getting chemo every three weeks, the cancer would stay at a low level. And so that was what I did for eight treatments until I quit. And that was it.

00:28:23 - Bill Risser

And why? Why did you quit?

00:28:25 - John Bjorlie

Cause it was wrecking me. I mean, the first couple is, haha, your hair falls out. You know, I got a runny nose today, and yesterday I slept all day. And there's different kind of symptoms. But when the nausea hit my eight, like the 6th, 7th and 8th cycle, it got worse every symptom gets worse. That's what. If you google chemo symptoms, they'll tell you it gets worse. Every treatment, no matter what. You never get used to it. You know, all the. You kind of did, you know, somehow.

00:28:55 - Bill Risser

No, it got worse.

00:28:56 - John Bjorlie

Yeah.

00:28:57 - Bill Risser

I just wasn't at that severe level that you started. At a much higher level than.

00:29:02 - John Bjorlie

Right. And I reached a point my last cycle, I didn't eat for about two weeks, and that, that alone was going to do me. And I've couldn't have been any more weak. I was depressed. I was, you know, going out of my. And at the time I was thinking, I'm done with chemo, but I told myself I have to wait till I feel good again, then decide if I'm done with chemo. Right. I did too. Easy decision to make under distress.

00:29:25 - Bill Risser

Yeah, absolutely.

00:29:26 - John Bjorlie

I waited till those symptoms were gone and the cycle was kind of through me. And before I went for the next one, I called him up. I said, I'm done with chemo. Haven't done it since, and I won't again.

00:29:38 - Bill Risser

Right.

00:29:38 - John Bjorlie

And nothing against people who stay on chemo forever. I, I don't think they're making a wrong decision, but that just wasn't my decision.

00:29:46 - Bill Risser

It's absolutely a personal decision for each person. It's.

00:29:49 - John Bjorlie

What?

00:29:49 - Bill Risser

What is it? What do I want out of these next, whatever the time I have left, what do I want?

00:29:54 - John Bjorlie

My very first meeting with my oncologist, who's, you know, he can't tell you how long you got, but he did say one thing that I found interesting, and I didn't quite get it, but he said, no telling how long you have, but I can probably keep you alive longer than you'll want to be. Like, whoa, what's that? You know? And he said, well, it depends on how hard you want to fight. I mean, if you're determined to live to an old age, it's not going to be easy, you know? And so that turned out to be very true. But I. So, I mean, I could have gone more cycles and the cancer would have stayed kind of in remission at a low, but I, I couldn't take it anymore. Those treatments were killing me.

00:30:33 - Bill Risser

That quality of life thing is incredibly important.

00:30:37 - John Bjorlie

Oh, huge. Yeah.

00:30:38 - Bill Risser

And I've heard you say this in the last, you know, we talk a lot, and it was just maybe a month ago where you right now are having the best year of your life.

00:30:49 - John Bjorlie

Oh, absolutely. As soon as I quit, because I was still healthy at the time, I mean, the chemo was knocking me out. But once I got through the cycle, I was still me at my kind of normal weight, other than being bald and stuff. But I snapped out of it pretty quick. It was just the next cycle would do it again. But I decided this is the time to quit. Why not have the year of my life? I love traveling. I got friends all over the country just by nature of. I've lived in several places. I went to two colleges. So I just have connections all over that. Why don't I go see everybody I ever wanted to see? I have money and that's kind of funny. I mean, I saved for my retirement like everybody does, but I really didn't do such a good job. If you compare it with my income and what I had, unless you're only going to live another year, then I saved like a genius. I had enough to have the year, five years of my life. So that's what I set out to do. I'm not going to care what it cost me. And, and I'll just. I'm going on tour. And as you know, I even got the t shirts and I've handed out 150 of them so far.

00:31:57 - Bill Risser

T shirts that say they're the cool logo where it says the John Biorli die Happy tour 2024. It's a black t shirt, of course, for that. That's black. You know, that's usually the color of death, right?

00:32:10 - John Bjorlie

Yeah.

00:32:11 - Bill Risser

But let's talk about some of the stops you've made along the way. You know, some of your favorite ones, because there, I think there literally are too many to go through in this conversation.

00:32:19 - John Bjorlie

Oh, there are so many.

00:32:20 - Bill Risser

And let's start with the one in.

00:32:21 - John Bjorlie

Rome because, oh, that's, let's start with the biggest one. Yeah. Because I've had so many, so many experiences that have happened to me in the past year, and I always follow it up with that. It wouldn't have happened if I wasn't in this situation. I would not have gone to see this person. I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have, wouldn't have gone there, you know, but I did because of this situation. But my hometown of Rome, New York, I've always kind of said, I mean, I've lived in Phoenix over 30 years now, however long, and I couldn't get enough people to half fill a room at a funeral here. I don't think, I mean, I've got friends, the golf, but, you know, people come and go, but I always knew if I ever wanted to actually have a funeral that was attended, it would be up in Rome, my hometown. And I can thank Facebook a lot for that, because these are contacts that I probably would have lost if not for social media. So I've got a big bunch of friends who are up in that area. So it occurred to me, why don't I have the funeral while I'm still alive? So I.

00:33:24 - Bill Risser

Genius.

00:33:26 - John Bjorlie

So I threw the John Biorli celebration of life. Come see the cadaver while it's still walking and talking. And it caught on. I mean, it all started with, I told people, I'm going to be at a certain bar. If you want to stop in, I'll buy you a drink. That turned into one of the nicest restaurants in town, their banquet hall. And filled with. There was. We were charged that night for 50 people, but I think more than that came and went throughout the night. It was just. It was crowded like a wedding. And I've never. I'll start crying if I start talking about this. I mean, every single person there meant the world to me. And what was weird, it wasn't just my Rome friends. People heard about it, and people came from around the country, people came from other states. I had one friend who showed up. He was from Pennsylvania, an attorney. And he said because of that, believe me, I had ten reasons why I couldn't come to this thing. And we weren't even that great of friends back in high school, but a guy's thrown his own celebration of life. I gotta see this. And that's why he, you know, I.

00:34:40 - Bill Risser

Know you have a great friend. Maybe, once again, somebody you weren't really tight with in, in school. But Steve has reached out. Talk a little bit about Steve. He's done some amazing Steve.

00:34:52 - John Bjorlie

Marshy.

00:34:53 - Bill Risser

Yeah. And what he's done for you and, and also how he was a big. I think he was a big part of the event in Rome.

00:34:59 - John Bjorlie

Huge. And now. So here you're trying to make it purposely. Steve has been. Steve and I were friends. We were good friends in junior high. Kind of went different ways in high school. I mean, we settle low and all those things, but he had a girlfriend he was with all the time and that. One of those deals, so. But then we saw each other at a reunion or two here and there along the way, so we stayed in minor touch. But the moment I got sick, or I shouldn't say the moment I got sick, the moment I announced I was sick, which was about six, eight months after I actually got sick, but I put it on Facebook. Hey, everybody, guess what? You know? And. But Steve saw that and Steve said, first of all, he's a retired hospital administrator. He started out his medical career as a nurse. And even though he's retired, he still holds his nursing license to this day. And he said, john, I've seen a thousand of you, and I'm here to make sure you get through this. Any questions you have, anything you need. Even though I have this team of doctors, you know, I've got a doctor for every, you know, I was going to say, for every hole you can, we can cut that imposed.

00:36:13 - Bill Risser

I might, I might not, but, but.

00:36:17 - John Bjorlie

Of all the, the medical people around me, he's really the main one. He's the one who's right. And we're great friends. We sit, we talk, we make each other laugh every day. But still, almost at the top of every day, he wants to know how I am, how I'm doing. How is this, how's your weight? How's, you know.

00:36:32 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:36:33 - John Bjorlie

And he's, and then, yes, the event in Rome. I started organizing it myself, and I called the woman who owns this restaurant that we wanted to go. It's, it's probably the most popular restaurant in town. It's been there forever. And, but I was having a hard time. I didn't know how many she's, she wants to know how many people are going to be there, how many, you know, how much, you know, what do you want to serve? And I, you know, it was hard enough that I was doing this thing. I backed out of it. And Steve said, I'll take it from here. And he arranged everything, you know, he asked me, you know, a few things, like about what do you want to serve for food? And, you know, but otherwise, he did all he, he took care of it. So all I had to do was really show up and then pay the.

00:37:14 - Bill Risser

Bill at the end real quick, rattle off cities where the tour has traveled to.

00:37:22 - John Bjorlie

Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Las Vegas. Salt Lake City. Blythe, California places.

00:37:29 - Bill Risser

Nice.

00:37:30 - John Bjorlie

I have a friend from the LA area. We met halfway, which happened to be Blythe. And we still joke about what a horrible town that is.

00:37:37 - Bill Risser

Sorry. People of Blythe.

00:37:38 - John Bjorlie

I know, but what a funny place to, you know. Well, Tampa. You, a couple times. Atlanta, South Carolina. It goes on. Baltimore, Virginia. I've been pretty much all over the eastern seaboard and then somewhat in the west. California. Took a road trip with a friend. It's been every few weeks. I've been kind of going somewhere. On average.

00:38:02 - Bill Risser

What does your doctor say to you when he sees you at an appointment?

00:38:06 - John Bjorlie

Well, it depends which doctor? But.

00:38:08 - Bill Risser

Well, let's start with. Let's talk about the doctors you have real quick.

00:38:12 - John Bjorlie

Well, I have an oncologist, a urologist. I have a heart doctor because I had one issue that they wanted to make sure wasn't my heart. Turns out I don't have a great heart, but I don't have to worry about it. I know probably in about ten years there might be time for a bypass. I don't know if I told you that I have the same thing with my eyes. I've got a problem with my eyes. That when I got a new prescription, the doctor said, look, I got some bad news for you. Basically, you need surgery, you know, or you could go blind. I'm like, question, you know, how long till this blind thing? Because I'm at the end of life here. And she's like, oh, you're good. Never mind. I'm like, so you were just trying to prevent me from being blind at 90? She goes, yeah, that's pretty much it, you know, but, yeah, I got some ocular something going on, but don't have to worry about it, okay. I barely have to brush my teeth anymore. Kidding.

00:39:04 - Bill Risser

So. So other doctors you have?

00:39:06 - John Bjorlie

You have. But my main now primary doctor is a palliative care doctor or a hospice doctor. I'm in a hospice company, and so I check in with them. I go in there once in a while, but as time goes on, they're going to be coming to me a lot. I already have a nurse who comes once a month, but that will continue more. I mean, eventually there will probably be hospice volunteers in here cleaning if I. I don't know. I, you know, but, but I. But I'm already hooked up, you know, but you don't get to actually get into a hospice bed, like, in a place till they think you have five days left. So I'll be paying attention to that move. Where are you bringing me?

00:39:53 - Bill Risser

Tell me. Tell me what he says to you when he sees you.

00:39:57 - John Bjorlie

He loves it, because his whole career is hospice, you know, helping people die comfortably. I mean, that's really what it is. And, but he says, he just said recently, the last time I saw him, he goes, you know, all the other patients I have at your stage are not like you. They're, they're crying, they're mad, they're angry, they're scared. They're clawing for any type of thing to save them, you know? And he goes, not you. You're just mister happy face about the whole thing, you know, having the time of your life. He said, whatever you are doing, keep doing it. And that's what I've been doing.

00:40:32 - Bill Risser

That's awesome. So the tour will continue as long as you can continue it.

00:40:36 - John Bjorlie

I've made plans as far as December so far. Wow. So I'm planning on being here. Yeah.

00:40:42 - Bill Risser

John, I'm going to ask you a question that you actually. You've kind of proposed it to me. It was a really cool question that someone had asked you.

00:40:49 - John Bjorlie

Oh.

00:40:49 - Bill Risser

And I'm going to see if you have an answer. I know it's. I hear you over there. What is something that used to be important to you that no longer is? And to follow up on that, what is important to you now that didn't used to be.

00:41:05 - John Bjorlie

And the friend who asked me, I said, that's such a great question because it really got me thinking and there's lots of little things that could fall on either side of that question. I'm not as. I don't like lucky charms as much as I used to, whatever. But I said I want to answer the question in the biggest possible way and simply, or as simply as I can make it. The thing that used to be more important to me before I was ever diagnosed was me. My possessions, what I'm doing, how much money I have, how much money I've earned, what my plans are, how can I have fun this month? Where am I going next? How new is my car? That was a bigger concern to me. Not that I was a company, you know, me, I wasn't a complete flashy guy, but. But my future, me and my future was my biggest concern. And that's become much less important to me because I don't. The way I see it, I don't have a future. And it's almost liberating, in a way to know that I'm somewhere near the end and material possessions seem to mean nothing to in this whole time. I've been blowing money like crazy this whole year and I've got nothing to show for it. And I love that. Yeah. I have not. I have a toaster oven that really needs to be replaced yet. I don't, you know, because that's my bit. But I've been having a blast doing all this other stuff. I don't remember the question I was.

00:42:28 - Bill Risser

Yeah, the question now you do. Got that. But then how about the question is, what is important now that didn't used.

00:42:34 - John Bjorlie

To be other people.

00:42:35 - Bill Risser

Yeah, let's. I want you to dive into that a little bit.

00:42:38 - John Bjorlie

What that means, like I said. Yeah. That me used to be a lot more important to me and. And back in the day, not that I didn't of other people, but I only had so many friends. I mean, you're certainly one of, you know. But I didn't have a big, wide range of friends, a lot of acquaintances, but I wasn't so worried about making others happy, maybe. And I did the normal things friends do if someone needs the help or, you know, whatever. But in this, since I was diagnosed, since I knew I'm somewhere near the end, those relationships with other people, I've resurrected some that were old, and now they're great friends again. I've met people in the past year that I've gotten incredibly close to that never would have happened. We met by somewhere on one of my tours or something, and just. That's what it's been. And I guess I can say that I've. I've really enjoyed passing out a lot of money, and kind of the easiest opportunity is, like, service workers in restaurants, and I've been going nuts for, like, the past year.

00:43:50 - Bill Risser

Give me your largest tip you've left so far.

00:43:54 - John Bjorlie

Well, my event in Rome, she. There was like a three or $400 tip built in, and then she got tips from people throughout the night as she brought drinks, as we only had one servant, she was really working, but I gave her 900 on top of all that. So I think that was my biggest number to one person.

00:44:14 - Bill Risser

Yeah, yeah. I've been with you at a dinner before, and I've watched you on a $80 dinner tip. Somebody. $120.

00:44:23 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. You know, 100% doing whatever it is.

00:44:26 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:44:26 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. You know, and it's. I enjoy it more every time, you.

00:44:30 - Bill Risser

Know, bring in a ton of joy.

00:44:32 - John Bjorlie

Oh, it does. You know, the ones who realize it while I'm still there, you don't know a thank you like that, but a lot of times I like to just slide, leave it and slide out. You know, it's a. It could be a $100 dinner bill, and I might put 500 on it, you know, on top of it and just vanish and. And wonder what happened. How did that play out when they discovered it, you know? But, yeah, I've the end. Other people, I'm not putting this out there. I'm not saying, hey, anybody need money, hit me up, because it's not that at all, but other people who have needed it along the way, people who having a hard time, if I hear about it and all, it's just. And it's just been a fun. And again, I was not one for giving away money back.

00:45:15 - Bill Risser

Oh, John, I know that very well. Yeah, right.

00:45:19 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Thrifty was a dollar, by the way.

00:45:22 - Bill Risser

Oh, I do. That's a Super bowl bet. Okay.

00:45:24 - John Bjorlie

No, no, no. The, the water bet.

00:45:26 - Bill Risser

Oh, damn it.

00:45:27 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. The 18th hole.

00:45:28 - Bill Risser

Yeah. I owe him dollar for the 18th hole today. We, who can hit it over the water, but not, not hit the wall on the other side. Okay, never mind. John, this is, this has been amazing. I, I'm going to give you the same final question I give every guest. This will be really fun because you've never been involved in real estate other than your own properties. But if you had one piece of advice to give to a new agent just getting started, what would you tell them?

00:45:55 - John Bjorlie

Well, the answer that, when you first mentioned me that you might answer that question, the first answer that came to my mind was a great potato salad is nothing more than potatoes. Eggs and mayonnaise. If you know that, you could be a superstar in life, you never know. We need. But that's my funny answer, if there is a serious answer, because I don't have, you know, I mean, I know, like I said earlier, I joked, aren't we all realtors, really? I mean, it's as long as you, you know, we're all involved in property and, you know, but if I was a realtor, I, I imagine that I would. I mean, this sounds easier than it probably is, but I would say, keep getting listings. I would just fret the way I was with my company with keep opening accounts. I never found that point where I can just rest on these 30 accounts for the next three years, you know, because they, there would have been attrition, and all of a sudden, I'm sitting with nothing, you know, so I always, always open accounts. And if I was a broker, I think I would want my name attached to every listing that's out there, if I could do it. And then, you know, rather than always worrying about being the, you know, the buying broker, whatever, especially with the changes that have been made recently. Yeah, but that's what I would just. Yeah, I would always be doing that. If I had eight minutes to spare in between this and that, I would try to get a listing, you know?

00:47:18 - Bill Risser

Gotcha. Well, John, I'll tell you, that's the first time that answers ever been given in 400 episodes.

00:47:26 - John Bjorlie

Well, which one? I gave two of them. Well, yeah, okay, both. Okay.

00:47:29 - Bill Risser

Salad and the listings. Because listings is fairly advanced for a new agent, but what you're telling them is this is your goal. You want to get to this place where you are controlling more of the transaction right where you're the listing agent and that's where all the good agents want to go. So it's a great answer. Yeah, you did great. What I'm going to do is usually at this point, I say people want to reach out to you. What's the best way for them to do it? I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to put your YouTube channel, with your permission, on the show notes.

00:47:57 - John Bjorlie

That's fine.

00:47:58 - Bill Risser

As well as your name and facebook so they can find you. I'll put your URL there. So if anyone's listened to this and they'd like to get more of these words of wisdom and to watch what's happening with you and the tour, they can go in the show notes and they can connect with you, and they should probably say something like, I loved you on the podcast. That way you know who they are and where they came from and they're not.

00:48:17 - John Bjorlie

Yeah, that would be fine with me. I've picked up some friends along the way because you've mentioned me before.

00:48:22 - Bill Risser

Right.

00:48:22 - John Bjorlie

And all of a sudden I got a few, you know, a few come in that way.

00:48:26 - Bill Risser

You said something today on the golf course that was pretty cool. And you talked about the fact that even though your time here is measured and we know it's going to be sooner rather than later, we'll call it that makes you very happy to think that there's someone you were able to help in the last year, 40 years from now, is going to be talking to her grandchild and sharing the story. John Biorli. Yeah, well, he did. To help.

00:48:56 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Even if it's not John Biorli, just some guy that. The guy who left me a $400 tip for a coke. You know, somebody that.

00:49:04 - Bill Risser

It's very cool.

00:49:05 - John Bjorlie

Yeah. Yeah. And. And to feel that I touched the future in that way as just something that occurred to me recently.

00:49:10 - Bill Risser

Yeah. That's very nice. It's. It's a legacy moment. It's kind of cool. I think it's. I think it's amazing. So you know how much I love you. I want to thank you for doing this episode because I know it wasn't easy. Oh, you wasn't welcome.

00:49:22 - John Bjorlie

Well, you make it easy. And I love you, too.

00:49:24 - Bill Risser

So we will. We will be at. If you're listening to this and you're in Phoenix, I'm gonna throw this out there. You just missed us because two weeks ago we're heading to Encanto and tomorrow for our second round of golf as I make this trip out here, so we're gonna have a lot of fun. I'll see you tomorrow, buddy.

00:49:41 - John Bjorlie

Okay. See you tomorrow. Thank you, Bill.

00:49:43 - Bill Risser

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