Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Austin Hancock - From Marine to Real Estate Investor: Courage, Transition, and Financial Independence
What happens when a middle-class kid from Oklahoma, fueled by action movies and military history books, transforms into a successful real estate investor? Austin Hancock, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, shares his remarkable story of perseverance, self-belief, and the pursuit of financial freedom. From his adventurous childhood stunts to the transformational experience of Marine Corps boot camp, Austin offers listeners a candid look into the world of military life and the challenges of returning to civilian society. His journey is an inspiring testament to the power of breaking out of comfort zones and challenging societal norms.
Listeners will discover Austin's insights into navigating the often difficult transition from the heightened adrenaline of military service to the more routine civilian life. Austin candidly reflects on how amateur bull riding became a thrilling outlet during this transition and how he avoided the complacency trap that catches so many. He emphasizes the importance of creating one's own financial independence, exploring the evolving roles of masculinity, and the significance of nurturing relationships. This engaging conversation also touches on the controversial topic of participation trophies and the resilience needed to overcome fear and self-doubt.
Austin's venture into real estate investing reveals a wealth of practical advice for those seeking to redefine success on their own terms. Through his personal experiences, he emphasizes the value of financial literacy, mentorship, and the importance of making informed decisions in real estate. Austin's story is a powerful reminder that true success is multi-dimensional, requiring balance in health, wealth, and relationships, while never losing sight of personal growth and adventure. Tune in to hear his unique perspective on living a fulfilling life, prioritizing personal aspirations, and creating lasting financial freedom.
hector, bravo. Unhinged chaos is now in session. Welcome back to our channels, warriors, we are still growing. Today, another special guest, another banger man. This dude rolled up in a badass ride. I had to open up the parking garage for him. We have none other than austin hancock in the house. What's up? Had to open up the parking garage for him. We have none other than Austin Hancock in the house. What's up, dude?
Speaker 2:What's up, man? Thanks for having me on your podcast. Thanks for showing up, man For sure Good to connect with like-minded people.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah, we were chopping it up beforehand. And Austin the former Marine, right, there's no such thing as the ex-Marine, that's right. Former Marine, former Iraq War veteran yes, sir, and now just fricking, thriving in business and in life. Thanks brother. I appreciate that. Yeah, bro. So you said you were originally from Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so born and raised. I mean, I was born in Kansas but my parents moved to Oklahoma when I was eight. So when you were eight it's pretty much grew up in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1:All right Were you. Were you like a hyper kid back then? Cause I want to get into the mindset.
Speaker 2:You know I tell people this I grew up, you know, with the pretty middle class. You know bread and butter freaking conservative family. You know riding my bicycle. Like you've seen the movie sandlot. That was kind of like my life, like I had a great suburban life like a good kid, you know we're pretty much the same age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, were you doing stunts?
Speaker 2:on the bike. Oh yeah, do we jump each other like?
Speaker 1:we dig dirt jumps, and then you'd lay down I jump you, and then we do it you know that the whole group of us. That's how it was. There we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bro, of course I'm trying to see like there's skating you know, bike riding, whatever you can do, swimming in the summers absolutely swimming in canals.
Speaker 1:Did you guys ever swim in canals?
Speaker 2:yeah, there was. There's creeks and everything behind that in the forest. We just get lost. We were just kids, I mean at that time, you know, in early 2000s and all the 90s and even before that. But when we grew up you could, you know, your parents just let you go and then when the streetlights came on, you had to check in a lot of times or figure it out. Call from a friend's phone.
Speaker 1:It builds character. Yeah, it does A lot of freedom.
Speaker 2:At that young of age you know a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1:Elaborate on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of freedom as in like no cell phones tied to you, no GPS can track you, nobody's videoing you, like I mean all the stupid shit you do as a kid and it could be like harmless stuff but it's a big deal to you. You know hitting, you know throwing sticks, rocks, you name it yeah, egging houses yeah yeah, teepeeing, knocking on your buddy's doors, you know running.
Speaker 2:How were you in school as far as grades-wise? I mean, I'm a C student, dude. On average right, some classes were A's. I mean I always got A's in wood tech, always got A's in PE, but when it came to really sitting down and being good at math and stuff, you know I was a C student.
Speaker 2:I wasn't intrigued in it. Honestly, I think it's one of those things that I thought back onto it. I was like if they would have taught me that I needed money and the money would have got me the things that I wanted, and put a dollar sign in front of the math, maybe I would have learned it faster.
Speaker 1:You were probably a C student because you didn't apply yourself.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm sure if you applied yourself, you would have been a fucking A. Some of that stuff doesn't come easy to me. I just didn't. I wasn't interested in it, man.
Speaker 1:No, that's nice, bro. I've seen similarities. Dude, at what point did you decide to join the Marine Corps?
Speaker 2:So I always wanted to be in the military. Like I feel like since I was watching the Rambo movies as a kid I was, you know, saving Private Ryan came out when we were I think we're in high school-ish, middle, maybe it was middle school all these movies you know associated with it but like I've always wanted to be in the military of some capacity. I would go to the library and talk about not being a good student, but I would go to the library and I would check out like Navy SEAL books, marine books, army books. I got really hooked on, since you're an Army guy. I got really hooked on for a while being an Army Ranger because I was like I want to jump out of planes. I had this infatuation with like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute. I was like that's super sick, that's some bad dudes.
Speaker 1:man, I want to do that commando style that's crazy, bro, because I got hooked on carlos hathcock, the famous sniper from vietnam.
Speaker 2:Bro, with a feather, dude, that's sick and I didn't think much about the marines honestly at that time. No, um, I don't know why, I guess I I just didn't think much about it but did you have? Any knowledge on the military. Oh yeah, I knew it, dude. I knew weapon systems before I was in the military at all. Yeah, I studied it that much. I was kind of a nerd, like I knew I would watch World War II documentaries sometimes and I was like yeah, really.
Speaker 1:I was like a war junkie. So you made the conscious decision to join the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so funny enough. So all the—I was a good kid throughout my childhood. You know, here and there, fistfights, trouble, normal boy shit, um. But senior year I got myself in a lot of trouble. Before, before I graduated high school, I got my hat, I landed two felonies and two misdemeanors. Felonies, yeah, yeah, I wasn't ever convicted, but I was, uh, I was charged. So you were charged, yeah, but I was never convicted while you were a senior in high school.
Speaker 2:I was 17 years old, so I got tried as a youthful offender and I was a senior in high school now did, did that affect your schooling?
Speaker 2:No, surprisingly, it didn't affect my schooling, but what it did do is it paved the way for my little sister to go through high school. So the reason I say that is because what I did was essentially I was at a party. Honest story short, I was at a party and I got jumped at the party. You and I go out back, it's just a college party and I was the youngest there. We're the youngest guys there, we're high school kids and I got jumped, just punched and beat up and then, you know, surprise attack, essentially for some reason, and we come back. We left, we come back. And then I stroked this dude over a head with a tire iron, busted out his windows and really sought revenge with my boys and I got going into the property. I got burglary one because I just walked into the house, but I didn't steal anything. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And I got assault with a deadly weapon for hitting the guy over the head. Damn, but yeah. So I led a pretty solid senior year for my poor parents.
Speaker 1:Now they charge you with assault with a deadly weapon? Did they charge you with attempted murder first and bring you down?
Speaker 2:No, they didn't, Fortunately they didn't. No, that's a good, because I was 17. Yeah, yeah, because I was going to get tried as a youthful offender. So I was looking at going to a juvenile delinquent center for like a minimum of six months. Because I was kind of the lead, because I was the one that got jumped, I brought the guys back like come on, hector, let's go bro.
Speaker 1:So I was kind of the antagonist to bring my homies with me.
Speaker 2:But I was the youngest one, my that and so, but I was going to get, I was going to try to be a youthful offender and at that time I was like dude, I really wanted to join the military.
Speaker 2:And that summer I was working construction, like I did every summer growing up, working for my dad's company, doing concrete work, tying rebar, you know, learning how to trim houses. Whatever was needed, I would do it. And I learned that high school years, yeah. And so I was working with this guy and he's like dude, you should join the Marines. And he wanted to join the Marines. His dad was in the Marines, his brother was in the Marines but he couldn't join because he busted his jaw bull riding and he had steel plates in his jaw.
Speaker 2:And then that was back in the eighties, you know older guy, and he goes you should join the Marines. And I was like, dude, I got all this shit going on and he was giving me some good life advice, right, like I didn't think about it. That's just this old timer old guy that I worked with, that was you know cool older guy, that construction, um. But he was right, he could see where I was going, what I was doing and who I was hanging out. And he was like, yeah, dude, you need to join, you should go to the Marines, that'd be the best place for you. And he said something to me that's huge.
Speaker 2:That I think helped change my life because and this can go into a longer conversation but he said don't tell anybody, you know, because my parents were already strung out with it. They're already upset. I come from a very conservative household no alcohol, church on Sundays, you know it's. My parents never really got in trouble. They owned their own construction business. My dad was a college graduate, like very square people, like in all good sense of ways. So I didn't want for, I didn't need for anything. They're always there like middle-class good people. You know, smart.
Speaker 2:I mean they're still together today. My parents are married, like both sides of my grandparents have been married, you know, until one passed, and so I come from that kind of background. And then I go and do this and it's like, oh dude, he's going to go to prison, he's going, he's getting like. I got a tattoo senior year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the black sheep of the family. Yeah, I get felonies.
Speaker 2:I'm doing all this, and so they think it's over. They're like, they're like want more control, they're like putting the hammer down on me. And so I just dialed up the recruiter, went to the Marine Corps recruiter's office and talked to him and, dude, fortunately, like things happen for a reason, god is there, the universe, it aligns, and the recruiter staff sergeant he used to, his dad, used to be the chief of police if I can spit it out of my mouth chief of police for the town that I lived in. So, yeah, and so back when he grew up, and so he was just there on recruiting duty and he requested that area because he grew up around it. You know what I'm saying. And so, anyways, he's like, yeah, I'll go with your attorney.
Speaker 2:I had an attorney, I was lawyered up, I mean, I'm going through the whole thing in senior year and he goes, I'll go with your attorney, me, the recruiter and my attorney go to the judge. And this is after two or three. You know, trial takes a couple of times, multiple times, and I'm just sitting there, I can't do much, until it's my time to speak, which we didn't get to that point. And so we're like, austin's going to join the Marine Corps. You know, if he falls through with everything he does what he says, he's like old school bro. Charges get expunged, holy shit man. Yeah, they wrote on my like you could look me up on OCN, because when I was starting to make money and be as an entrepreneur and go do banking and lending, they'd be like when they would do their background search.
Speaker 2:I'd have to be like, all right, and this is like years after today and they're like, oh, okay, so it maths out oh, this conversation just got a hell of a lot of interest. Yeah, it's wild bro and so uh, yeah, so anyways, I did that. And then my recruiter ends up going to freaking court for me and with me, and then I that I, we make the deal and I shoot off to boot camp in 2006 I think what played in your favor.
Speaker 1:And you're right, everything does happen for a reason. It was that surge in iraq.
Speaker 2:Exactly what I tell people. They're wavering people left and right. They were like pump as many people out there as possible. Absolutely. They're like well, the kid's gonna go to juvie or he's gonna go to war shit, send him to war if he wants to go to war.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need dudes in war right now. I think it was bush at the time fucking that's it was a huge.
Speaker 2:It was a huge surge. I remember that. I mean, that was part of it yeah, I mean there was a ton of dudes that were getting wavered in through boot camp and shit so let's fast forward to the surge.
Speaker 1:Um oh, six iraq. Coming from your experience, your background, did you enjoy that experience or did you feel at home being in the marine corps?
Speaker 2:yeah, I did so. Like I mean, honestly, joining the marines was the best thing for me because that's what I needed. Like I went from like fist fighting, drinking as a high schooler which was leading me nowhere, good, hanging out with the wrong people, wrong crowds, chasing tail, and then I joined the marines and it was like that's all that everybody does, but it's harnessed. You know what I mean. So it was harnessed and shaped and so I felt like you know, I tell people this I'm like the Marine Corps. I was like reborn in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2:Like I knew a bunch of things about life because I'd been working and I'd grew up in construction. Like I had a lot of skills already as a young man from doing things, but the Marine Corps was a really good place because I got to meet people like you, like like-minded people. It's very similar to what we talked about off the show, talked about how podcasts and social media can draw people together that are like-minded. Well, that being a Marine, being a Marine is like oh, we all wanted to be that, and so now you have a lot of commonality with people from Texas, new Jersey, wherever in the United States states, and that was awesome. I loved it.
Speaker 1:I was where I wanted to be, yeah especially at that time frame, things hadn't taken the far drastic left woke.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, man, like, uh, like, we talked a little bit off camera. Um, my drill instructors were freaking purple hearts, fallujah vets, oh, they all came back. So in 2006 they're all coming back and I mean I got guys with a pretty large rap sheet of you know, combat, I mean I mean fallujah marines, and they're now they're drill instructors because they get sent to the drill field because they picked up sergeant um, and so it's a different type of preparation for boot camp absolutely, bro.
Speaker 1:and let's think about the generations right, the generations of the vietnam veterans that were drill instructors or drill sergeants for oh yeah. I was just thinking for you to have been trained by Fallujah War veterans. Bro, that's Marines. That's a huge fucking deal.
Speaker 2:There was hardcore. Boot camp was hardcore. This is my initial, so for y'all that don't know Marine Corps boot camp. Marine Corps boot camps 13 weeks long.
Speaker 2:First week is receiving, so everybody just gets in mcrd right here in san diego, okay, and west coast marine, uh. And so we check in first week is is just receiving. You're just like paperwork, you know, making sure you're squared away. You got all your medical bullshit, uh. And then you pick up, and that first day you pick up is that friday, and they call it black friday in the marine corps boot camp, and so everybody, that's when the drill instructors get introduced to you. They do their whole thing and then they just thrash you, thrash you for the entire day. They just throw your footlocker, they throw all your shit around. They're trying to just completely scramble your brain and make you second guess why you're even here. It's all psychological and it's great. It's needed, especially for men that are going to go to war, people that are going to go to war. And so Black Friday we're freaking doing the thing, carrying our footlockers out, in and out, in and out, getting yelled at, getting spit on, getting pushed over, getting bashed over the heads on accident. You know all these things. You know how it is.
Speaker 2:And we're outside with our foot lockers and I'm looking up. I'm looking up and I'm wearing so, for I'm in the barracks, right, and there's a three-story barracks and at the very top floor this is San Diego, so there's no air conditioning, there's only old heater heater units. And there the windows are half cracked open, like they slant forward like old government buildings, right, barracks. And so I'm looking up and everybody else is getting the same treatment in our, in our company, right, so my platoon, and then there's multiple platoons inside the company and on each floor is a different platoon, right, and so you're looking up, that floor is getting fucked up.
Speaker 2:These guys are getting thrashed Like all these kids. I call them kids because we're really young, you know, I'm freaking 18, 19, 18 years old this time. Most Marines are very young and, um, I remember the oldest dude in our, in our, uh, platoon, was 26. And I was like bro, he's so fucking old, like why are you here? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we're carrying our foot lockers out. The drill instructors make us take them out, dump them out, put them back together, take them out, put them back in. And so we're heading back into the house, into the squad bay, and I look up and this freaking recruit jumps out of the third story window and tries to kill himself right through the fucking glass, lands like 10 feet away from me with my footlocker in my hands, on. All the rest of us are doing the same, all of us recruits, and the drill instructor just looks over and looks at him after he smashed. He's like good, I hope you fucking die, I hope he fucking dies. And we're all like, oh my god, bro, it's over for me holy shit, I've heard of stories like that yeah, boot camp was like that you know, did he fucking jump through the?
Speaker 2:window. He jumped through it. He just like saw the opportunity and said I want the fuck out, probably a lot. You know how it is. I mean, I'm assuming you guys went through the same similar stuff but people they want out and they don't. There's no really way out.
Speaker 1:Like the military is not letting you out. I was about to say that there is no getting out. There's no, getting out what happens is now they're on suicide watch and now you got to put them in the kill zone and we got to do security fucking fire watch on them.
Speaker 2:Yes, to like real medical help and the tele can get processed and then through processing like they might as well gone through boot camp, because it takes the same amount of time if you're thinking about during the military.
Speaker 1:You want out. Do not try to do anything retarded. You're not getting out.
Speaker 2:No, no, especially during boot camp. Like the objective during boot camp is you're not, it's like you're not getting out, you know and so, but these guys, they'll do that. They'll like claim suicide, they'll try to kill themselves and all this stuff and they'll get med stepped out and it's good. Like I talked to my drill instructors now and they, they, they did that. Like, uh, one of my drill instructors actually I've talked to a couple of them since I've been out one of them jumped on my program and started doing some badass shit. But uh, he was like, yeah, that was our goal. Our goal is to break people there because we knew that 99 of you guys were going straight to freaking war that we just got back from.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so 100? Yeah, I don't say they take your boot. Laces away too if you're suicidal yeah, they do.
Speaker 2:You'll see them stomping around 100 and they put them in a jumpsuit in the marine corps so they look like they're in a flight suit or a fucking orange vest bro yeah, so you go to iraq.
Speaker 1:How was that experience? Did you uh? Did it change you in any way as a person?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, at the time I didn't think it did. It's funny because I went to iraq in 2007 and in 2008 and I didn't see like heavy combat, like I wasn't like freaking the movies right. I mean there was definitely pop shots, there was ieds and stuff but I was fortunate more direct more.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, all sorts of random things like that, um, but for I'm very fortunate that we came home with everybody in our platoon and in our company as well. And you know you wish that, you want to challenge yourself, you want to go to war. That's what you think in your head, but the reality is like I'm grateful for nobody getting injured and nothing happening, right so. But you're still under a lot of pressure and a lot of stress for a long period of time because you have a job to do. You're worried about the fucking IEDs going off, you're sweeping, you're clearing houses, you're going on operations and you're just highly stressed out. I mean, in a good way, it's what you wanted to do for your job. It is what it is.
Speaker 2:But you know, being 19 years old at the time that I was in Iraq and I have a I'm a 249 machine gunner, so I'm a saw gunner and we're pulling adults out of their cars. I mean, you're pulling people out of their cars. You take a big role in. You're going from oh, you're just a 19-year-old in the United States if you were just on the streets as a civilian, to now you're a 19-year-old and you're in control of like these adults, this family, this car, this stop, this TTP, you know this, this, you know transition point, things like that, and so you kind of get it's intense right, like you know. And so what we did was like standard operating procedures when we were in Iraq where cars had to stop when we would drive through, so seven ton would pump through and then three vehicles, humvees, would come behind it, and that's, that was our convoy. We were a pretty small convoy and everybody had to get out of their car.
Speaker 2:We would do pin flares, pop shots, make them get out bull horns you know a whole nine yards man you're the king of the road and uh, but during the time that I was in Iraq, we were actually transitioning and pulling back on the standard operating procedures, trying to get the Iraqi army to take more of a role and the Iraqi police to have a little more control and to give them back their territory and pull outside the city. Um, but that, all that being said, coming back home, you know I, I went back home and I started and I got out swiftly after that, and so now I'm hanging out with friends from high school again, but they're all young 19, 20 years old, 21. We're partying again. It went right back to that, um, and I have my mindset's completely different, bro.
Speaker 1:Probably had your money saved up from your deployment.
Speaker 2:The smartest thing I did, I did buy a house.
Speaker 1:So I bought a house at 21.
Speaker 2:Uh, I got a roommate. He helped me. He was helping me essentially, he was paying half the mortgage or more, um, and so that was kind of my first real estate. We'll get into that in a minute. Absolutely Venture, but still like just doing, you know, these stupid shit drinking, partying, yeah, living more of a bachelor life at this time. And I got in a lot of fights after that too, did you? I'm fortunate that I never got like in trouble again, yeah, but just picking fights, doing stupid shit, just drinking alcohol. I struggled a lot, um, that I didn't even know that I struggled with until I looked back upon it like almost 10 years later, bro. Um, with just like really being high, strong, you know, and then being worried about the stupidest things. You know, I say stupid things, but this is what happens. You know me driving down the road and be worried about a box, thinking my mind was thinking different than my friends were from high school and I could tell and I lost a lot of friends, bro.
Speaker 1:I still think that to this day. Bro, if I see trash, a box or even a parked car on the side of the road, first thought is ID, yeah 100% First thought, then I think to myself oh, that was fucked.
Speaker 2:Why it is how it is. I mean because it's so ingrained into your brain and it is such a life or death.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, consider becoming a patron, where you will get first exclusive dibs on the video before it airs to the public and you'll get to ask the guests special questions that you have in mind. So that's also another way to support the channel. Thank you, guys. Appreciate all of you. Keep pushing forward. Make sure you hit that link in the description below. So did your record get expunged when you got out, or that didn't ever happen.
Speaker 2:It expunged like essentially while I was in, but you could still see it like a fully erased, I think one at a time period.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, cool. Now you said you were struggling. Did you ever get in serious trouble or were you able to bounce? Were you able to bounce into success at that period in time?
Speaker 2:So I think I could have easily gotten in serious trouble. I think it missed me. There was many of times, um, that I was doing things that would that I should have or could have, if I would have been caught, gotten in serious trouble again and would have gone right back down to where it was um, but fortunately I didn't. And, uh, this isn't like hurting people or fighting anymore, but just dumb shit drinking, driving, freaking, rolling vehicles over and like just doing heinous, stupid shit, bar stuff. There's even I. I went back to construction, that's all I knew that's what I was.
Speaker 1:Next question was gonna ask you what were you doing for a living?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, I was just doing construction, working for my dad again uh, growing, you know. So I was. Now I started trying to move up a little bit, do a little more, make a little more. Money is really what I wanted to do. My dad's not one of those guys that's going to give me. You know, you can be a project manager, you're working with the crew, you're making an hourly pay. You're dying the rebar, you know, and that's good. I'm glad, because it pushed me to want more. But like I got back where I rode bulls.
Speaker 2:Like amateur bulls, yeah, to start getting into it. The eight second yeah bulls, yeah, like bucking them out of the freaking chutes and everything. I did that for a little bit because I went down that rodeo scene.
Speaker 1:You were just doing like looking for an adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2:I was looking for an adrenaline rush. I was looking for an adrenaline rush because after you get out of the Marine Corps, I mean life's so fast. When you're in there, you're doing stuff, you're moving, things are happening, you, you know, uh, you feel like life's really, you're living it Right. And then when you get back and if you have a job, even if it's a construction job and it's not like a desk job, you're still just like the mundane cycle of the same thing over and over.
Speaker 2:I feel was this, and that's what vets struggle with a lot, and I try to provide as much clarity and help for them on this. It's the I'll never be as good as I once was syndrome, you know, and it's like because we did all this cool shit or you did all these things, you have these accolades. And then you get out, and then you're like and I didn't even stay in that long, but there'll be dudes that stay in 10, 15, 20 years lifers. And then they get out and maybe they were this bad-ass Marine or bad-ass soldier or whatever. They have all these accolades. And then it's like okay, now you have to work here at Walmart behind the desk because you have no other credibility.
Speaker 1:And they feel that they don't have that identity anymore or they lost their identity.
Speaker 2:They lose themselves. They lose their identity because their entire identity is attached to that. A hundred percent Correct, yeah, and I, and I didn't have that because I was got out young, you know in and out type deal, but uh, yeah, I struggled but I'm going back. What kept me back in line, got me back in line, was when I met my wife.
Speaker 1:Was this all around the same timeframe that you were doing construction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I got out of the Marine Corps like 21 and then I met my wife at 23. And so there's about a two year span of bachelor and it up with my roommate and the drink you know drinking and problems and doing construction Right, and I really didn't want for more because I was making, you know, hourly pay typical construction guy.
Speaker 1:Enough to buy beer on the weekend, enough for a truck. Elaborate on that mindset. Elaborate on that mindset because I feel that 98% of Americans are stuck in that mindset. They are I have a job, I can afford beer, I'm paying the bills. Elaborate on that mindset and what it feels like to be stuck. It's the biggest trap.
Speaker 2:You know, you hear all these rags to riches stories and now that I speak to audiences and I coach a lot of people, these rags to riches stories, the zero to hero story we really love that as Americans.
Speaker 2:And I love it too. Foreigner that comes from nothing to freaking multimillionaire, or guy that was beat up in high school. Now he's a professional fighter. Whatever it is. We love that story. It's something I think we were as humans we find passionate. But what gets glossed over is the comfort zone of just being okay with where you're at, and so so many people get stuck, whether it's financially most of the time it's financially attached but with their own mindset and own limiting beliefs, that this is enough. Like you said, I have enough money for beer on the weekend. I drive a pretty cool truck and I can fix it.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe some wheels and tires whatever it is, all sorts of shit for my super trucks, you know, back in the day and then and I like cars like not, not, not any disadvantage to that, you should get what you want. But you get stuck and then like maybe they even move up in their job and they go from. For example, for me, maybe I move up to a project manager and now I'm making a salary, maybe a little bit more money, and then I get a three bedroom, two bath house and now I'm locked into a 30 year mortgage and then I have a wife and then I have kids.
Speaker 2:And then now what happens is fear sets in, the fear of leaving all of that, the fear of failure, the fear, fear of these things that you feel you've worked so hard for which you have like and you've. The problem is, like in my scenario with construction, you work really hard for it, like, physically, like trucks, truck driving, freaking, shoveling. When you're starting out, you know late nights, early mornings. So you're working physically really hard to make that dollar, so that dollar has much more value to you at that point in your life and so you're so scared to lose what you have that you're not willing to take the next step and risk it on the line again to go through the glass ceiling, to break the next barrier, to figure out more, and so that's where people get really stuck, you know.
Speaker 1:But how much of the government system play a role in, you know, creating this hamster on the wheel, as I call it. I mean.
Speaker 2:it's an ingenious business model, to be honest, like if you're the government or high paying jobs or companies. It's an ingenious model to keep people in there and there's a need for it. Not everybody needs to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody goes needs to be, you know, a multi, multi-millionaire or to do all this crazy stuff. But the people I'm specifically talking to are the ones that want it but deny themselves of it because of the beliefs and the track record that they have. You know, and that's okay to have a great time with your family, have a three-bedroom, two-bath house, have the new F-150. That's okay.
Speaker 2:But my question to people watching this and to most people when I coach them is like are you selling yourself that that's what you want or is that really what you want? Are you selling yourself that that's what you want because you don't feel like you can achieve X, or is that really what you want? You're selling yourself that that's what you want because you don't feel like you can achieve X, or is that really what you want? And if it's really what you want, then I give you a pat on the back and commend you all day long and I think that's amazing. But if you never self-develop and you never analyze what you really want and why you want it, then you're just gonna live life with what you have in front of you.
Speaker 1:Do you believe some of that anxiety or unsettling feeling of unhappiness seeps into those individuals because they feel and they know they can do more and yet they're stuck in that.
Speaker 2:I think that they don't know how to get out. I don't think they know they can do more. I think that they don't want to find out if they're going to try really hard and fail. Like, think about it this way If I tell myself I'm going to do something, let's say it's go to the gym and I've never gone to the gym in my life but if I tell myself in my head I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to lose 20 pounds, but I don't tell anybody else, and then I don't wake up and no harm, no foul.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if I tell you and I tell my wife and I tell my friends, I tell everybody and I tell the world that I'm going to go out there and I go to the gym because I'm like fuck, I told everybody, so I go tomorrow and then I go the next day and then I go 14 more days and then I kind of dial off and I skip the weekend because I want to hang out with the. Like the simplest thing with fitness, right, that's the. They just don't want. The fear of failure in front of other people is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about other discouraging factors.
Speaker 2:Well, other discouraging factors, exactly what we're rolling into, because another discouraging factor would be finding commonality in other people that have quit the gym as well, and it's like, ah, it's all right.
Speaker 2:So you hang out with those people and then they're just giving you a pat on the back for the life that you have. And so when you surround yourself it's the same concept with money, it's the same concept with self-development and growth you and all your neighbors with your three bedroom, two bath houses and your F-150s and your half-assed gym exercises, are all sitting there circle, jerking the fuck out of each other, because all you want to do is solidify that what you're doing is okay, and taking a big risk can lose everything in your life, and so that's the big fear. And what happens is, the further down the road you get, there is more risk involved. Right, you don't want to bet the yard when you have two kids to take care of at the house and the home goes to foreclosure and all of these things. But what I would challenge people to think about is that you think that you have security where you're at and you don't. You could lose your job at any time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, if it's a government job.
Speaker 2:you're going to get capped 100%. So you're going to be through a slow pain most of the time, but the true security true financial security and true security in general is learning how to make your own dollar, learning how to earn your own money, make your own money and learning how, who you are and what you really want, and it could be anything right.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're good at baking you now with social media, it's amazing opportunities right now, man sky's the limit yeah, but I, I, it's just like this.
Speaker 2:I can tell you how to go swim. I could, I could, I could show you books on how to swim, but I can't go swim for you, right? And that's what most people do. Most people just like talk about it and they don't go try it themselves or do it, and you know. But here's the thing, no one can take that away from you once you learn it, right? That's the same with money.
Speaker 1:I want to come back to what we're talking about right now, but let's, I love history, bro. Sure, not like the nerdy kind of shit, more like you know, fucking spartans, cavemen, our ancestors and stuff like that. The, the man right, the man, the alpha male. Do you think american men in 2025 have come a long way from what the fuck we're supposed to be doing?
Speaker 2:yes, but I still feel like there's optimistic, there's men out there. You know what I'm saying? Right, yes, yeah, we have for sure, we definitely have. But I think that if you shined a light on history, there was a lot of issues then too.
Speaker 1:You think so?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if I were to think back how my grandfathers grew up and their dads treated them, I think that men back then had a hard time with communication Right, and I feel like I see one thing that's massively beneficial today's time is that men have better relationships with their children and they're more involved and more conscious of that than back in the day when it was fucking Clint Eastwood style kick your kid, smack your son and tell him to get a job at 14.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that bro, because that's knowledge to me, dude, I just really put that in perspective.
Speaker 2:It's huge because, like our grandfathers were probably had their ass whooped for stuff like big time, like and and but. But what happens is like you could take what you said a second ago and go too far and be like, yeah, old school, back how it was. You know, you need a little grit and grind. Right, and I'm a huge advocate for it in the. You could still have that grit and grind. You could still have that. You push through things. We do hard shit but at the same time there has to be love there and communication.
Speaker 1:I stand corrected, bro, but I like it, dude. It makes fucking total sense, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But I think what you're kind of hitting on was also about, like the Blue Ribbon Award for every kid. You know what I'm saying? The first place, everybody gets an award, a participation trophy, and that's where, you know, honestly, kind of our generation comes in, right, that's where it started, like the 80s and the 90s and then in the 2000s, and so everybody it's like well, timmy fucking sucks and you know, johnny's really good.
Speaker 1:uh, well, let's just give everybody an award I was aiming more towards self-preservation as being physical fit oh, okay, okay, that's what I was like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Okay, like back then you're you needed to be physically able to outrun fucking saber-toothed tiger yeah, yeah, back then for sure, right, you know, like our grandfather's generation, you know, uh, you know they had to too, because a lot of times they worked with their hands. Facts, you know a lot more jobs that were physically demanding, you know so there's individuals that are unhappy.
Speaker 1:I mean you, you coach, I coach as well, and we've come across this man. It's like fucking a dime a dozen. They say they're unhappy. They, we know they're unhappy, we can clearly see evidence they're unhappy and they reach out for information, but they don't follow through. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2:I think there's always going to be a percentage of people that don't follow through. I think what I've seen the most of is it's not the program, it's not the diet, it's not the information or education we're going to give you or I'm going to give you, or the book or anything like that. Most of the time, people have two problems, and one I touched on a minute ago the fear of failure in front of other people. So their fear of trying hard and hard. They're hard, not being enough and failing. And now all of their friends said told you, you shouldn't have fucking invested in that guru. Look at you now. You're a dumb ass and you're $10,000 out of pocket, right. So the fear of failure. Or start the business. You could use a business as an example. Oh, you're going to go start your business and quit your job? Yeah right, good luck. And then all their people at the office tell them good luck. And then now they're like so worried about what the people at the office will think when they do if they ever had the situation of failing. So they're like fuck that. And then the other factor, which is a huge component, is that they may's. They don't believe that they can do it right. They don't have enough self-belief. They've never had anybody say you can do it like cheerlead them on.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things talking about men in this generation versus prior is that a lot of guys grow up without a father figure and without somebody that's stable there. And some people have a lot of history or issues or subconscious issues or prior traumas that they have from growing up or lack of fathers or lack of encouragement or all these things, and so they have this track record. You talked about school with me and stuff a minute ago. You have this track record of who Austin Hancock was up until today and that's the story that I've told myself. Now this is an example, but this is the story I've told myself and over and over, austin's not good at math. I was never really athletic I never. You know, I grew up poor, so I'll probably be poor. Like there's just the regurgitating story. That's over and over. I'm not well good at speaking, I'm uncomfortable on camera, like I can make up all these things, and then what I'm doing is for the. My whole story is like I'm constantly replaying the story every single day and that's giving me the results that I don't want, but it's giving me the life that I have.
Speaker 2:So in order to change that, you have to change the story. You have to rewrite the story. You have to rip the page out of the book and start the story that you want to. And in order to do that, you have to fucking have clarity on what you want in life. Paint a picture, close your eyes, meditate about it. What do you want in life? No fucking restraints. No financial restraints, zero restraints. You want to live in San Diego Fucking. Paint that picture in your head. You want to have this. You want to have this car. You want to have your wife look like this. You want your wife to look at you like this. You want to be in this shape. You want your mind to that point and then ask yourself who do you have to become in order to have that? That's it, and most people don't ever fucking think that way.
Speaker 1:They just keep telling the story and one of the easiest things to do is to reach out to somebody that's already fucking done that and is where you want to be, yeah, and ask them how did you do that?
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the biggest advantages that I had is I was always somebody that asked questions Right, always, like from the very beginning of me wanting to learn how to be better at wrestling in school or me doing. How do I become a bodybuilder, how do I get more muscles? I'd ask the dude in the gym hey, hector, how'd you get those biceps? Bro you back?
Speaker 2:oh, dude, I do a bunch of curls like this. That's how it started for me, literally, and I would just take what you said and I would just do it. I'll back roger, that, bro, I'm in closed mouths don't get fed and I'll ask all the questions.
Speaker 2:Dude, I did the same thing about with with money and I wasn't. I was not scared to go try it and look stupid. You know, I would go do it and then, and if I fail there or something happened, it didn't work for me. I'm a hacker. Uh, I, I did exactly what you said. I've been eating chicken and rice and I'm how do you fucking eat this every day? I'm doing it for two weeks. You're like, oh bro, I only do this, and then I'll eat beef at dinner and then I'll go do that. And it's like adjust, adjust, adjust, ask question, adjust, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's fucking magic, dude. Yeah, and then I, I signed up for tons of mentorships and I got a lot of mentorships from people.
Speaker 1:Let me dive into that right now, from the after the Marine Corps working construction to the bad-ass dude that just drove up in that bad-ass ride. What steps did you take? And you said you sought mentorship.
Speaker 2:I did, and it started there, though, like where I kind of said that where I was going to the gym, the gym was really I like to equate that to it because you can see physical change right. It's the easiest thing. It doesn't really cost you any more money to eat better, to eat less, to stay leaner, it doesn't. Gym memberships are pretty cost effective. So, changing your physical body and it's one of the biggest confidence producers that you can get. So shaping your body, you know if you want to be jacked and big or if you want to be athletic and lean, whatever it may be, you just want to lose the weight Once you can form the body that you're proud of.
Speaker 2:Now you can go forward and have conversations with people. You gain confidence a little bit more to ask the business question and you have a track record to lean back on. That says, when I asked Hector the question about biceps, I fucking did it for two years and now I got biceps. You know what I'm saying and it's like. So I know that if I do the same system, the same process, if I ask the right question and I implement it, that there will be a result, and if I don't like the result. I need to get new information, then I need to apply it again, and so that's I mean that kind of sums up what you're asking, right? What was that your question?
Speaker 1:That was now. You mentioned two years, right With your mindset and my mindset. We understand that nothing happens over overnight. No, no, no, nothing happens overnight, man. So what do you have to say for those that get discouraged and they do something once? Oh fuck, I don't got the biceps. Oh fuck, I'm not rich.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing good it happens overnight. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't happen overnight. It's going to take longer than you expect and it's going to cost more than you want to spend, and so but I think that was your question a minute ago. I didn't elaborate all the way through. But so how do I go from the guy that gets out of the Marines to being who I am today? It w it's not overnight, man.
Speaker 2:I've been an entrepreneur for over 10 years. I've been lifting for 20 plus years in some capacity, whether it's the gym, jujitsu, crossfit, you know whatever. It is Um, and so it's a longer run. You know it's a longer run. And one day, when you have that, going back to what I said, if you have that clarity on who, on the life you want to have so often, if you're revisiting it every single day, you're painting that picture, you're being intentional about what you do, you're reading the books, you're listening to the podcasts. You know you're. You're paying for mentorships, you're just chugging on every day, every minute, every day, day, you're constantly growing. One day you're going to lift your head up and you're going to realize that you're that man, that you're that person, and that's literally how my life has evolved, and so I wanted the same concept of learning how to gain the biceps we talked about a minute ago.
Speaker 2:I did with business. I went from working construction and labor to starting a building company as a builder, so I built my own house, I sold it. I made 45 grand on one sale in my mid twenties, mid to late twenties, and I was like, oh my God, this is after being married and after having two kiddos, and so my kids are real young. I went off and did it and I was fortunate. I mean, I had support around me, right, like my dad was in construction so I could ask him a ton of questions.
Speaker 2:There was people in my life that were willing to help me out, because they saw that I was going to do what I said I was going to do and they want to see me win. Right, you know what I mean. And so I would do this. Made 45 grand on that one deal. That's more than I made the entire year working hourly for my dad, and I was like so. But my mindset shifted there boom, glass ceiling broken. Because I was like, oh, this is how bigger money can be made. Now I can actually see what can be made. Now I can actually see how people can make $300,000 a year.
Speaker 1:I just have to do X amount of these. Did you sell the house you were living in or it was a separate? No, no, no.
Speaker 2:So I. So I had the house I was living in and then I built one for sale. So a spec house went and got a loan. You know how to, uh, somebody goes. My father helped me co-sign on the loan. Nice, he didn't have to put any money down, but I had to co-sign on this loan and I figured it out and then we sold it and then I made 45 grand and that was like an epiphany. Now I like dude, I could be, I'm going to be a builder, and so I go all in pretty much I'm like. So I stopped. I slowly stopped working for my dad. I start building homes.
Speaker 2:I get a couple of custom homes, meaning houses I built for other people. I would build these from ground up, do a little bit of mini development, build a few spec houses which are like houses for sale, and I was like, man, this is awesome, I'm grooving, I have a company, I'm like doing the thing. And then it kept growing and growing and I got to a point where we were doing big numbers and I was doing big high-end homes and I was in magazines, I was doing creative homes. I was doing all this but another pinnacle point happened. So this is this is crazy. Like you'll see, most people thought like dude, you've made it. People like you're up around, like you're the builder, you know you have show homes.
Speaker 2:I, of course, during this transition I had built my own homes, so I'm living in some pretty sick pads at a young age. You know I'm doing well, but that business this is a little bit more deep on business that business wasn't going to still provide me the life that I wanted. Why? Because it still required me and it required the clients were emotional about the investment. It's their home, it's their custom home. If I'm building it for them, um, and higher end product people are more picky about. They will not buy a million dollar home with the countertops not the colors that they want. They want it to be more customized to them, and million dollars in Oklahoma is definitely relatively different than a million dollars here in San Diego County Plus like minus five years ago, you know so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I started. So I was like, boom, I need to learn new information. And I didn't have it. My dad wasn't a real estate investor. He was a construction guy. He's smart, he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't know real estate investing. So I didn't have any of those resources around me.
Speaker 2:So I've had to go out and seek mentorship from people that had that right, that had already done what I wanted to do and I had to pay to play, and so my wife and I at the time, with two young kids, had some houses on the market that weren't selling. We weren't in the best financial position to do this. I invested $52,000 in a two-year real estate program where I went out this is before Instagram, when I was like 2015,. Maybe Instagram was out, but it wasn't what it is today. We would go out and we would go to these classes and we would learn about how to invest in real estate and how to buy property, how to fix and flip property, how estate and how to buy property, how to fix and flip property, how to hold property and build portfolios, and I started implementing it and slowly got myself out of being a builder to becoming an investor.
Speaker 1:Now did you find that mentorship and course is beneficial Massively?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at it. You'll hear people you know that'll invest in a mentorship or a program or whatever. I didn't get any value out of that. That was the worst. Well, there's negative people, half-splash, empty-type people. I go into any of this anymore and I still invest. I probably invested over $150,000 in 2024 in mentorships. I go into it now If I can take one piece away that saves me 50 grand or makes me 50 grand, or 100 grand or 300 grand. Bro, what about the time period between now and the next five, 10 years? What can I do with that? So I just need one piece of information and that's. That's all I need. And so, or or just to be able to see you do it, I want to like hey man, can you mind if I shadow you for a day and watch you do this podcast? I don't know anything about them. Yeah, dude. Then boom, now you're going to see it done. How else are you going to learn that stuff? You're going to go try the hard way.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely tracking, bro. I get it, bro, I see it, man, and that's why I love you know doing this. So I love giving knowledge to the audience, to the people watching, cause I know there's a bunch of unhappy motherfuckers out there. I mean, I just left the prison system full of it, you know what. I mean and it's like hey, dude, there's fucking a way out. I showed you the way out, man, other dudes are showing you the way out. If other people have done it, you can do it, you know.
Speaker 1:And we're just average normal dudes.
Speaker 2:Maybe we're not anymore. Yeah, you're correct. I think we're perceived.
Speaker 2:I know for a fact like I've had a realization recently. One of my reels went viral and I said something that offended a bunch of people, not like in a racist way or anything or not bad, but in a way that they disagree with. It was about money, and the people that want to be more dependent on minimum wage or government checks were offended by it, and so I was really shocked. So they only have a perception of me looking through me on social media. They don't know any of my history. They don't even know I was a veteran. They don't know that I worked construction growing up or anything like that, and by I said I didn't have a hard life, but they just don't know that I put in the work.
Speaker 2:They think that, like this guy, they see me today, they judge me for who I am today. Immediately they're like a guy that has a freaking Rolls Royce, lives here, he's a Lamborghini, he has all this shit. And then they judge that guy and so they get. They're very hostile and so you're right, people see that and they get. They don't think that that person did hard work, that it was a trust fund or something like that, but whatever, no-transcript work and they have to be willing to clarify what it is that they really want and they have to be willing to. This is the biggest part. They have to get rid of the old story. They have to be willing to say that I was, that I'm not that anymore, and you have to challenge your beliefs.
Speaker 1:Now would you agree that part of the old story um includes people?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I've lost tons of friends at every level of every phase of life that I've gone through. Um I've lost a lot of friends. I'm fortunate personally on my side of the family, that my family is very supportive. You know they're just, it's fine Austin's doing his thing, but I know a lot of other people that would not be the case. It would not be the case at all.
Speaker 1:Two-part question what do you have to say to the individuals that want to make the change to better themselves, but they're afraid of the criticism and the people that critique, and what do you do to face the?
Speaker 2:critics? Great question. This is usually one of the hardest things you know, and I'll give you an example. You ever heard of a crabs in the bucket theory? Absolutely Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for those of you watching that don't know what that means is if you put one crab in a bucket, the crab can get out, but if you put five crabs in the bucket and one crab tries to get out of the bucket, the other crabs will pull that crab back down in the bucket, and so if you really want to change, the best thing you can do is take the advice that I got when I joined the Marine Corps and fucking shut up, block them out, stop talking to them, block them on social media if you have to cut them out of your life and put your head down and go after what you're wanting to do. And I know a lot of people, um, especially family oriented people Hispanics, a lot of times, are family oriented, right, yeah, yeah, and I've and I've mentored and coached some of them because I've gone through these scenarios with them, and they feel very obligated to like, help their siblings out or their mothers and things like that, cause maybe the father left or something. This is just specific to the scenario. I shouldn't even. It's not even a race thing, but I'm just telling you.
Speaker 1:it's more family oriented. The shoe fits for me. Trust me, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so what I'm saying is they feel obligated to like well, I have to stay here Cause my mom doesn't have anybody to help with this. If that young man in this scenario went out and became massively successful, put their head down for three, four, five years and then came back, you can actually help people, but you're not helping anybody by still being the same person that you are, by being the baby boy. Say it again for the people in the back bro.
Speaker 2:It's like when you get on a commercial airline and they all tell you when the freaking plane if there's an oxygen problem, you have to put your oxygen mask on first and then help other people. You know, if you were going rushing around helping grandma, helping the kids out, helping all these people out, and then boom, you're fucking passing out.
Speaker 1:You're not helping anybody.
Speaker 2:Everybody's going to die Now big-ass Hector over here is fucking passing out. Now we can't pick him up and then somebody else's mask fall off. So you have to put your life right first. You have to get your who you are corrected first, and once you do that then you can go forth and actually start helping people financially with whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So funny story, dude. Uh, I actually blocked my mom on Instagram two years ago, not because I don't love her Trust me, I love you.
Speaker 1:I love you, trust me. But we were not seeing eye to eye, she wasn't seeing my vision, right. But man, I'll tell you what. She took a screenshot of that and texted to me yesterday it's like I don't need you texting me this. Yeah, that's why I blocked you. Yeah, um, but yeah, it's even our own family members, not because they hate you or anything, it's because here's the deal they have fear about.
Speaker 2:they don't, and especially like let's let's view it the military. This is probably a lot of military events, this. My parents didn't technically not want me to join the Marine Corps, but they probably didn't want me to, and they have a good reason. I don't want my son to go die. They're in it for a different reason than me. I'm in it to fulfill my fantasy of life, of what I want to go do, of being a Marine or a soldier or a special operations, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:And your parents have every right to say self-preservation. Their job as parents are to protect you, keep you alive, keep you safe, and so is it advantageous for their agenda to fucking send you off to be in the Marine Corps, infantry or the army entry Hell, no, absolutely not. But what do you do? You have to do what you that's aligned with the path that you want to take. It's the same concept with going out and doing your own thing, and so you have to be willing to shut out all that noise and and go forward and still do it, because they don't have the same vision for you as you have for you, and and that's, that's okay.
Speaker 2:If they had the life that you wanted, then you would admire them for the life that they have.
Speaker 1:And it's a lot of noise, man, it's a lot. It gets noisy, it gets extremely noisy. Dude, dude, what can you talk about? How it almost seems like people want to put their life how you should live your life and how people like, okay, yeah, I should get married, I should have the house right and it's hey, man, maybe that's not what the fuck you want, but that's what society has. Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that is true, that happens all the time. That happens all the time and we're probably guilty of it too. Yeah, like you and I, I'm guilty of it by by wanting people to to want more. You know and maybe they don't, you know, and so I'm I'm guilty for trying to be like. You know you could grow more, you could have more, you could freaking live where you want, have what you want, and there's some people that honestly, like I said a second ago, don't want that. But you have to ask yourself if that's truly what you don't want. And I don't think people ever give themselves the option. They don't think it's an option. They see the car, they don't think it's an option.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. Do well for themselves, right? They're like the first gen of successful entrepreneurs and have made what we would call, in the average world, good money, like really good money, but they never thought that they would even get there. So they really have no afterthought of where they want to go from there. So they just kind of cap and stop. And so you have to have some. You have to get clear with what you really want. Man, it's a self. That's why self development is so important and it's not a one-time thing. Oh, I self-developed and I meditated, like Austin said, and now I figured out who I wanted Checkmate. No, it's going to change. Things are going to change, like the things I want now and where I want to go, and my opportunities have grown with me as I've gone through it. But so many times people get hung on to the materialistic things or the lifestyle that they have that they'll never let go in order to get really, really what they want.
Speaker 2:You know, the best thing in the world is you have to be willing to sacrifice the life that you have now in order to get the life that you want, and you can't have both and it's going to cost you a lot more and you're going to be having, you're going to have to be willing to give up things that you may have worked really fucking hard for. You know you swung a hammer for 15 years and you bought that three bedroom, two bath house and that F one 50 with that fucking hammer, right Like we're working hard, working overtime, framing houses or or doing concrete work, so that money is it's. You're like dude. You know how hard it was for me to get to where I am today, but that's because of the information that you have, and so you have to be willing to get rid of that and grow and expand your mind.
Speaker 1:Can you elaborate how important it is to reinvest? Reinvest your earnings, reinvest in order to grow. And you're right, people work so hard to obtain a level right. But once you're at that level, you have the option you can hang out there forever or you can reinvest, but it's going to cost you to give that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I would challenge people to say this. You said he can get there forever, and I think what I realized at a point in my life was that there is no forever, because at one point in life everybody watching this if you have a home or you have clothes or you have cars, the clothes are going to go in the trash one day, the house will be somebody else's one day and the car will either be in the junkyard or somebody else's as well, and so you don't have forever things, and the sooner you realize that, the easier it will be for you to release it and give it up now so that you could move to the next level, because it may be the very things that you're hanging onto that holds you back from getting to the next level.
Speaker 1:Are there levels to the game?
Speaker 2:A hundred percent and they're all here. It's all mental, right, it's all mental, right, it's all mental. But at the beginning it is mental, it is mental and I'll tell you, I'll tell, I'll explain why. This is a good conversation. You have to start learning new information at the beginning. A lot of times we have to unlearn all of the programming we have from. Maybe it's our parents, it's the teachers, it's the school system, all of these things, this old story, right, because people, you know, a teacher in middle school told me I was never good at math and that shit stuck. I'll never be successful because my daddy was a crackhead. This stuck, like all of this stuff in this story, you know, and people pat you on the back and say, oh, hector, every day, it's okay, your dad was a crackhead, we will help you out.
Speaker 2:You need money, and so you create this victim. You create this personality and this persona of being a victim, and that's what the majority of people walk around with, facts, right? So you have to cut that out and change that, and the best way to do that is. One thing that the people need the most at the very beginning is money. They need financial education, they need some financial literacy and understand how to obtain or make more money. That's what most people think they want in the beginning or need. So you have to.
Speaker 2:How are you going to do that? How do you expect to do that? Here's, here's how you don't do it. If you want more money, you don't go get more formal education to avoid trying to make more money, because now what you're going to do is you're just going to get a job and then that job you're going to have to ask permission to make more money. What you need to do is, I realized, like I just want to cut out all the shit in between and I just want to learn how to make more money. What will do that? And then I said, okay, well, now there's these things let's say we laid them out. There's 10 things that show me how to make more money Day trading, real estate, starting a company, service business, doing all these things, whatever it is, selling watches, whatever.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I throw in the other piece and I say, hey, what's going to also provide me the lifestyle I want? Because if I started an insurance firm and I wanted to grow it to a hundred million dollars, I'm not going to be home a lot with my kids. I'm going to have to trade a lot of my thirties, forties and maybe even fifties in order to get the business to where it needs to be time-wise, and some people are willing to sacrifice that. That's fine. That's not what I threw in the pot, and so you have to ask yourself what are these things that make more money?
Speaker 2:How can I make more money and then start focusing all of your energy and efforts on that, instead of watching the fucking NFL game, instead of going to the beer drinking thing with your buddy, buying the wheels for your car cars? Even though I was making an hourly wage, I somehow came up with enough money to go to buffalo wild wings every weekend and spend a couple hundred bucks on booze and wings, and then I would buy new wheels and tires for my truck almost every year, or get a new car or buy a motorcycle right like right. But I never had any money to go hire a mentor facts and so what I? The pinnacle change in my life was like if I have money to go, go do that. Then I should just maybe, just maybe be mature enough to try to try this out and not buy the things and see if I can change this really works and dude it does it really does? If you want it to, it will, and that new information, then you apply it and then it keeps growing.
Speaker 1:Not only that, it almost seems like I became more resourceful. You know it's like you're making more, but now I'm spending less. Spending on less stupid shit true, 100.
Speaker 2:I'm not spending money on dumb shit like I used to yeah, but that's because a lot of times, when you don't make a lot and you don't like the life you have, you're trying to escape it. So you try to use the time that you have available which may be only the weekends or your time off or your two weeks or a year vacation to maximize your life experience. That makes sense, because when you're an entrepreneur or you're living your life now and we're here on a freaking Tuesday at one o'clock and we can go where we want, we could have coffee for another two hours, we could have had breakfast, it doesn't matter Like when you're living a more free life, it's different, it's totally different. So they're maximizing, they're trying to make the biggest payoff, they're trying to justify the position that they're in that they hate. That's fucking crazy, bro.
Speaker 1:The amount of wisdom. You're dropping some fucking gems dude.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's been through coaching a lot of people and then what happens is, when I've coached a lot of money to go and to do this that's crazy, can you teach me? And so that's how it started. But when I would get on these calls, when I would start working with these guys and girls, I was like there's a lot of other things that need to come first and that need to be applied into these programs, because I didn't just snap my fingers and just flip houses and become millions. I had to become the person that was financially stable, that was financially trustworthy for the lenders to connect with me, that was responsible with a business, and I had a lot of lessons to be learned from step one to where I was when I started coaching and so on.
Speaker 2:These calls you dive into these things and you give people advice. But when you hear these calls, you would. You dive into these things and you give people advice. But when you hear you hear them talk to you and tell you what's going on in their life, it makes you self-reflect on how you really did do it, because my objective and just who I am is like I want to see you succeed If you work with me. I want to see you succeed in all ways, and so I'm like what was it that Austin was dealing with five years ago? What was I thinking? And I would look back, and so so much self-reflection of what led me here has helped me guide people forward, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:No, 100% dude. So I've considered doing real estate investing right. As a matter of fact, you want to grow your portfolio and stuff like that. Now I'm asking this question because I genuinely want to know you know some people have that did it make any sense to buy one rental property? And then it's like are you stuck? Do people get stuck there? Do they get?
Speaker 2:discouraged. Yeah, If you get. If you buy wrong, you can get stuck.
Speaker 1:If you buy wrong, mistakes a hundred percent, Yep, Yep, Um.
Speaker 2:And so you have to learn. It goes back to like new information, right, Right, and so learning how to buy a deal. I tell people this, I'm like it. Just if you, just if I just coached you on real estate right now. I said you're going to invest X amount of dollars working with me. Let's call it. Let's say you invest $10,000 working with me and I'm going to show you how to find deals. I'm going to show you how to get the correct ones. I'm going to show you how to build your portfolio or sell the properties and make money.
Speaker 2:Okay, you could buy the wrong deal and you're going to go do it with a realtor, a retail realtor. You're going to go do it with a realtor, a retail realtor. You're going to buy it off the market, maybe market value price, which means today's price. It's on Zillow. Is this a good deal? I know this neighborhood's great.
Speaker 2:That's what most people say. I could rent this out if I had a 30-year mortgage, and so that's what most people say. I have to put 10%, 20% down. Okay, so if it's a million bucks, $100,000 house, it's still a decent amount of money down. And then the realtor is going to catch a commission when you buy it from her, when you buy it from the market, and that could be anywhere from 3% to 6% depending on how it was negotiated. And that 3% to 6%, you're going to pay more to buy a property wrong to an agent that didn't do shit to turn the lights on than you would be to invest with me and totally understand how real estate investing works. But people won't put that math together. You know the ones that have have been super successful, Bro.
Speaker 1:I'm going to hit you up, dude, for sure, man, yeah, but you're right.
Speaker 2:Like the question you asked about, real estate is huge. So, yes, you can buy deals wrong and it can scorn you, but most people there's a lot of people that say they're real estate investors it's a very broad word like entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur, it's really hype right now, right, but they're not really buying property at a discounted value adding to it. They don't understand the business side of it. A lot of people buy property. Maybe they're a doctor, they're a high-income earner, they do something well, or they're a business owner. They'll go buy property simply for the tax deductions and they'll go buy at retail. They'll buy it wrong and they'll say they have a real estate portfolio or they built this real estate portfolio but they've taken active income and bought assets, which is okay, that's okay. That's an okay game to play.
Speaker 2:But when you're a real real estate investor and you're constantly doing it, you're a lot of times you're doing value add opportunities. So you're taking a property, you know, you're tweaking it, you're upping rents, you're remodeling it if you need to and you're taking it at a discount. So let's just use round numbers. Buy a property for 50 grand. Bear with me. I know properties aren't 50 grand anymore. They used to be when I started.
Speaker 2:50 grand, you add $20,000 in rehab, but you knew before you bought this property that it was going to be worth $100,000. Before you bought this property that it was going to be worth $100,000. So you just created $30,000 in equity instead of coming to that deal and buying it for a hundred grand and putting $30,000 down. Okay, does that make sense? Absolutely. And if you go, if you have a job and if you watch this you have a W-2 job or a commission-based job you have to ask yourself how long does it take you to make $30,000? Sometimes it takes people to save an extra after your living expenses. It may take you a year, two years, maybe five years for some people to save $30,000. So, if that's the case, how many properties are you going to be able to accumulate over a five to 10 year span? Very small amount.
Speaker 1:But does it get more complicated? I mean flipping a house, buying it for 50, adding, adding 20. You got to be able to find contractors and stuff like that. Does that complicate matters or is it more? Once you get in your foot in the door, you get a little network going oh, once you get your foot in the door, you get network going really just like anything else.
Speaker 2:Yep, just like anything else. And uh, and I'm not saying we do a whole rehab on property like crazy rehab. A lot of times it's just updating property and things like that.
Speaker 1:But that's the beginning of it, you know yeah yeah bro, I'm fucking stoked man, I just love, I love having these fucking.
Speaker 2:You could ask that question in reverse too and say, yeah, does it take a little bit to learn this, or is it is it? Is it, uh? Is it going to be harder hiring construction?
Speaker 2:that is an intimidating factor for a lot of people, especially if they don't have any construction experience um, construction experience. But I would challenge that with going back to what I said a second ago. How long is it going to take you to save 30 grand? Would you rather just learn how to make that? Because if you can do it once and you can do it twice, if you can do it twice, you can do it four times, and if you can do that in a year, then you make 30 grand times four in one year. I mean even 30 grand times one deal. How much would that impact your life? Like people watching this and added $30,000 in one year let's just say you did one deal at the numbers I just gave you. All right, how much would that impact most people's lives? $30,000 in addition to what they're doing would make a big deal for most people. Right, you know, I wouldn't shy away from $30,000 today. Still, I mean, I don't shun money at all. Correct, don't you know?
Speaker 1:at that point, what is Austin value where you're at right now? I mean, we got family wealth. Uh, what do you?
Speaker 2:value. I value my health, health big time. Yeah, I value my health. I value, of course, my family. I think that's a pretty good generic response and that's true I do. I value my family. Like I wouldn't want to go get rich or have the best body in the world or have all these things and then be lonely at night to have no family. When you, when you go to die at 60, 70, 80 years old, whatever it may be, you know, no one's there. Like wow, austin was rich and jacked, you know what I'm saying? Like so, but something that I value from more of a personal standpoint, that really excites me and this has always been this way and this is something probably a lot of vets will agree with is just adventure.
Speaker 2:Maybe I was an adventure-driven kid, from ramping bikes to joining the Marines, to doing these things. You lived in Germany. I love that. I love the adventure, I love seeing the world, I love experiencing life. I value it a lot. I feel and maybe we have that perception from going to war that at a young age you're like you have to play two games, you know? Going back a little bit to finances, you have to play two games. You have to play a short game because it's like if I were to die tomorrow, facts, would I be mad that I bought the lambo or the rolls royce? I mean, no, I'd fucking be glad I did it, absolutely, and my daughter got to ride in it. I thought we had a fun time, we had an experience. It's an experience thing, you know, but you have to also play the long game and the long game is like well, what will set me up for success 10, 15, 20 years from now?
Speaker 1:so it's a, it's a balance with that I like that dude fucking long game in the short game, bro, yep, um. What advice do you have to viewers that want to change and are afraid to start?
Speaker 2:I would ask them. The first thing is to challenge your beliefs. Why do you believe what you believe from religion, from the things that you feel that are facts? Ask yourself if they're truly facts or if they're just things that you call facts because you haven't self, you haven't dove into these things, you know? I think that's the number one thing is. And then, once you do that, I think what happens is and I know for a fact, cause I've done it is you realize like I would like to know more information about this, because I don't know if I really believe this without all the information you know, you call it a crazy conspiracy theories, lots of stuff like that out right now. But like this needs to be based on, like your own life, right? Not just what the fucking media is telling you or the news or what's going on in the world. Ignore all that, for right now you need to figure out what you believe to be facts. And if you believe that, that's why it goes back to figuring out you and who you are, because you got to know how you tick, because you're the only one that talks to yourself over and over for the rest of your life, and if you're not on your own side, then who is? You know? Mom may be against you.
Speaker 2:Like you said, when you start your business, people might not like what you do. When you put yourself on YouTube or Instagram or whatever it is, people don't believe you should start a business because you have a great life right now, but you're the person that has to live with you. So you have to figure out who you are and what you believe, and so, in order to be successful, that's one of the most important things. What's crazy is I've sat at tables and I've been in entrepreneur groups of people that make millions of dollars. I know people that have exited eight figure plus companies some nine and made big, big, big money, and I've been fortunate to have qualified to get into some of these rooms and sat down at small tables with these people, and they've made a lot of money. They've done really well in business in this one space, but I've also seen the backside of it, to where they're insecure about their body. They feel very insecure about all these other factors of their life, and so they're essentially standing on one vertical, one thing that they're good at, instead of looking at, you know, let's just say, health, wealth, relationships.
Speaker 2:You know those things, all of those, and I think that for me I want to be good at all of those, not just I'm just a rich guy that's fat and I don't need to be, have a bunch of, I don't need to be ripped because I have all this money. You know, and we all know the bodybuilders out there that are jacked, ripped, best physiques in the world. Dude at the beach, that's just like dialed in. You're like damn, that's fucking the guy who looks jacked but he doesn't know shit about money.
Speaker 2:And then you need, like I said, then we all know the guy that maybe has both of those, but at the end of the day he's lonely, he has no family, like he has no nothing. You know, when it comes down to it and you held a gun to our head I know you have a daughter, I have kids, you know, and you were like you had to give up the money, you had to go, every materialistic thing you had, you couldn't go to the gym for a month, whatever all these things are, to save your kiddo. We'd fucking do it in a heartbeat like second, like not even a second thought, right, right, and so that's super important to have that perspective and understand, but some people. I'll get off the soapbox but I promise you this is the other I could do is the fucking dads that stand on.
Speaker 2:I'm the best dad. That's why they don't go work hard and make the money and that's why they don't work on their physique too. But the reality is like you have to go live your dreams. You have to go and be the best version of you and understand you, so that you can go around and actually teach your kids to do the same thing. They're following what you do, not listening to what you say.
Speaker 2:Definitely dude, you know how can a dad like, let's say, you stayed in the correction system and you fucking fall. You went through it forever and you're like, well, I'm married, I have kids and I just should stay here because I'm afraid to lose my job. I don't want to do it, I don't want to fail my family. And you did it, but you did it miserably. But you never let anybody know and you just fucking grunted it out and your kids watch you do that. And then how are you going to be able to tell your kid dude, take the leap, go trust yourself, go do the thing. They're going to look at you and be like, well, why haven't you, dad, fuck.
Speaker 1:You know why? Because, hey, I got to give credit where credit is due. Man, back in the day, my father, that's all they knew, man.
Speaker 2:That's all they knew 100%. We could challenge that too. Yeah, Is that all they knew, or is that all they chose to look for?
Speaker 1:I'm from a small ass town, bro, but again, it's right, it's a story.
Speaker 2:I'm from a small town. You're selling the story, yeah, yeah, and you're giving them an alibi which, which is fine. I mean, I'm not saying we should beat on the people before us by all means we were where we're at because of them, so we're very grateful for that. But I'm saying this because you're doing exactly what we're talking about. You're giving them a story, but at the same time, you changed it. I mean, this is just a time blip in life right now, like they were just born before you, so you're changing it.
Speaker 1:Why is it fucking different? Why?
Speaker 2:are you more special?
Speaker 1:because you're changing it. What a trip dude it is a trip, though, to think about you'll be like that was the lack of information.
Speaker 2:To be like no dude, there were people that fucking went across the whole world back in 1919 you know what I'm saying. Like the United States is one of the youngest countries, Somebody, some fucking crazy bastard, jumped on a ship and and, and you know, went over here to the United States.
Speaker 1:Fucking flying kites with keys and shit and electrocuted.
Speaker 2:So it's the individual that challenges their thought process and beliefs. Right Like you could pick up and leave your hometown, regardless of where you're at.
Speaker 1:Do you have a daily routine that you fucking mandatory hit, like you wake up at the same time and work out?
Speaker 2:I'm huge on. You know, one of the Marine Corps phrases that I like to carry out is like improvise, adapt and overcome, and sometimes there's seasons of life that have to change, you know, when I moved or my kids were younger, or all these things and so I'm kind of in a transition period. This year I'm going to change up my schedule, but normally I wake up around four usually at four and then I go straight to the gym. I'd just go work out, get my head right, do cardio, listen to an audio book I still try to program myself for positive, right, Whether it's a YouTube video, whether it's a podcast, whether it's, you know, anything that's motivational, getting me into a positive state of mind. That's huge. It helps me a ton, and so that was kind of my routine before.
Speaker 2:But what I'm jumping into now is I find that I'm a lot more productive by jumping into about two to three hours of work. So I'll wake up, drink coffee or caffeine, and then I'll just get to work. I'll look at like, thinking about, I get really creative, I get into this deep workflow Nobody's messing with me, Everybody's asleep still and then I get to go to the gym after that and, uh, here in beautiful San Diego. You know the sun's out again now, and so I find, oh, it feels so good. Um, but I still will usually program myself before I start working, meaning listening to these, to whether it's a book, whether it's a podcast, whether you know all these things where I'm like I'm inspired, I'm creative, I'm ready to roll.
Speaker 1:So I don't have any I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm not one of those guys. It's like if I don't get a fucking ice bath and you know, stretch and do all these things like some of that, I think that could be a weakness too. Definitely it's something you and I both know as being in military infantry dudes, dude, I mean, if you're hoping you're not a professional athlete, like, oh, everything needs to be dialed in and perfect no, dude, you're fucking sleeping on a, on an iPad or a Mac on the mat on the ground. You may get into firefight or you may go through training or whatever. You may not have child tonight, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. You just deal with it, Fucking a dude. The military taught us that improvise overcome and adapt, Improvise, adapt. So, Austin dude, where can our viewers find you? Are you on the web, bro? You got a website.
Speaker 2:Absolutely dude. So easiest thing to do is probably just hit me up on Instagram austinhancock1. Hit me up there, I'll chat with you Super fast response, or go to wwwaustinhancockcom so adapt and overcome Austin.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming on the show, dude. Holy shit, I knew it was going to be a good conversation, man.
Speaker 2:I love it. I freaking knew it, dude, Definitely yeah we're going to keep in touch, bro.
Speaker 1:You're in San Diego now, yep, so we're right there. Thank you guys for watching man. Holy shit, another banger. Right, we try to drop that knowledge and wisdom subscribe button. Love you guys. Keep pushing forward. Story never ends you, thank you.
