His story
Opportunity was here. It was not enough.
Johnny grew up in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where his parents operated a jewelry shop. There he learned to work hard, serve customers, and watch expenses.
He came to the United States in 1986 “with ambition, but without knowing exactly where life would take me.” He studied Computer Science, but much of his education came from watching his father, an entrepreneur. He became one himself very young and, as he puts it, he has never really had a boss.
In 1994 he helped establish Electronic Plus in Washington, D.C. Over the years he opened and became involved in a tax and accounting business, a body shop, a used-car dealership and a restaurant, and became part owner of one of Washington, D.C.’s leading nightclubs. He created his own electronics brand, Cosmos Audio, and expanded into real estate, stocks, and other investments.
Success taught him that earning money and managing it are different skills. He began reading constantly, attending seminars and taking classes, including a week of classes at Harvard University: “Going to Harvard didn’t suddenly make me smarter. It reminded me how much more there was to learn.”
Today he writes so that others can learn those lessons sooner. Besides The Business of Buying Time, he wrote The Art of Debt; its Spanish edition, El Arte de la Deuda, is available in digital format at ELARTEDELADEUDA.COM, and the English edition is in the works.
I don’t write as someone who made every decision correctly. I write as someone who made the decisions, lived with the results, learned from them, and wants to pass those lessons forward.Johnny Arnez