Getting engaged and achieving financial freedom at 26 (reflective yap)

What's up, you guys? New YouTube video here. I wanted to make a video getting towards the end of the year about how much your life can change in like 4 short years. I just got engaged last week to girlfriend of 4 years. We went to New York City, put a lot of things into perspective, and I was just reflecting as a normal person would on how things have changed when we first got together 4 years ago versus now. The fact that we just stayed in New York City and I just spent the same amount of money on a hotel as I had in my bank account When I met her, it was a really cool thing to think about and reflect on. When I met her, I was delivering Amazon packages like 30 hours a week while in school. Sales was not in the picture for me at all. It wasn't even close to being in the picture at the time. And here we are towards the end of 2024 in a position now where as long as I don't do anything insanely stupid, I will be taken care of financially. Family will be taken care of financially, hopefully kids. taken care of financially as well. And so now through getting into sales, creating a service-based business and creating a social media audience looks night and day different than what it did when I met my now fiancée. The one thing that I think everybody should know, and a lot of people know, but they don't like, they don't actually believe it, is that you can actually be whoever you want to be. Like, aside from my relationship, aside from my career, The person that I am now is so much different than the person that I was 4 years ago. Guy living in a $600 a month downtown, 350 square foot apartment, San Antonio, scraping by, penny pinching, doesn't understand debt, doesn't understand leverage, doesn't understand a lot of things. I was a young guy. I'm 26 now. Didn't talk to people, didn't see the benefit of connecting with the right people, didn't understand the power of network and relationships and all that. Fun stuff. Back then, I really saw things as like very transactional, and maybe I wouldn't, you know, if I didn't see it like that, maybe I wouldn't be where I am today. I was very determined to just like stair-step my way up to success, and success at that time was $100,000 a year, six-figure income with a little bit of freedom. But now I am whoever I need to be whenever I need to be that person, and I'm capable of doing whatever I need to do. And I genuinely believe that, and I think that's why I've been able to unlock the things that I've been able to unlock, and the reason I I can get into rooms with people who would otherwise have laughed me out of the room 4 years ago. And by being in those rooms, getting introduced to other people, high-value people that open doors, that take my, my personal life or my business life to the next level, I've really, especially over the last 2 years moving to Austin and getting connected to more people doing this online business, the agency consulting model, I have really started to see the compounding of doing good work, knowing good people and showing up. The first 2 years was a grind. My results and my success were directly attributed to how many hours I worked that week and what on. Now, most of the stuff that I do is dependent on other people doing what they're supposed to do, what they're paid to do. So in a position of more leverage, which even 2 years ago I didn't think I would be doing what I'm doing right now, and the game becomes a little bit different. Once you get into that position, there's just no way that I can step in and do other people's jobs. If somebody doesn't show up, if somebody forgets this, there's just not enough time in the day. And I am just not— because I'm not actively doing these things anymore, it becomes difficult to just step in at the blink of an eye, which is something I'm working on. But anyways, I remember my first year in sales, I made like $80K. I wasn't even in sales the whole year. It was holiday season and I bought my mom a— she likes the Santa Claus figurines. I don't, I don't know why she always has. She puts them up around the holidays. And we were at like TJ Maxx and they had this big one. I think it was like $80. And I remember at the time I made $70, $80K. I had never seen money like that. Had more money in my bank account than I'd ever had. I was like, I made awesome money. Like, I can buy this. And for how much she's gonna potentially like it and how much it takes away from my finances and what I have, like, I should do this. I didn't realize that a year or 2 years down the road that would become A very comfortable thing to do, which changes your perspective on so much. I used to have not a scarcity mindset around finances, but I used to have a more conservative mindset around finances. As soon as you get into a high-paying sales job though, and you understand that I can unlock $100,000 per year at will, basically the game changes a ton. I used to not eat out unless I absolutely needed to. No car payment, no debt, cheap apartment. Renting was wasting. Now renting is not wasting for what I'm doing. Just very old school. But another thing to mention is sales outside of like the freedom that it gave me, outside of the financial gain that it provided me or the platform for financial gain, it gave me confidence. It gave me belief that I am who I want to be and I could be who I want to be. I can do what I want to do. It pushed me to be the best version of myself, to work those early hours, to work those late nights. And that would trickle into other aspects of my life, like in the gym, like with running now is something I'm really into. Sales taught me that the work isn't done because of how long you worked on it. It's done when the work is done. And I think, you know, my 22-year-old self— I was 22 when I got into sales— did not understand that concept because everyone's brought up A lot of, not everyone, but most people are brought up to understand I get paid for 40 hours of work per week. I get paid per hour. And when you switch into sales, business ownership, the concept of you get paid for things being done changes everything, bro. So I tried to start an agency after I got into remote closing. I tried to start an agency. I bought a course. I went through the course. I set everything up. I took sales calls. I realized that that agency that I was trying to start sucked, but the process of building all that up alongside taking closing calls really solidified this idea that time does not mean work is done. You could work on something 10 minutes or 10 days and the job can still not be done until it is done. And sometimes you don't know how long it's going to take. Now everybody talks about moving out of your hometown, And I've talked about it before too. Depending on where you're from, what you do, what you're looking to do, it could be good for you. I am here in Austin, Texas. I'm not from Austin, Texas. I'm from San Antonio. Moving here was definitely good because change of scenery, change who I hang out with. But to add in some context, I moved with my girlfriend of 2, 2 and a half years. We got a dog right away. I started paying for a lot of stuff. This was our first time moving in together is when we moved into a new city. And I put— I definitely put a little bit of financial pressure on myself. And in hindsight, it was one of the best things that I ever did. But not everybody would have the same experience. There's a lot of people who would face one hardship and go get a W-2 job. And there's nothing wrong with that. But understand, just like in the gym, if the muscle doesn't hurt, You're not producing work and you're not getting results. So if you don't feel strain on your finances and on your earning ability, like you could stumble into a lucky opportunity. I legitimately like 5x'd my income, 5x or more since I moved to Austin 2 years ago, doing the same things just at bigger scale. And I will say having that pressure definitely And a lot of guys that I know in Austin and just in general, especially in this online space, man, they get, they get into some money, they have some freedom, and they chase girls and they're going out trying to meet the next girl, whatever it is. And that's cool. I will say, if I didn't put that pressure on myself and if I, if I wasn't in a relationship, I think getting to the point where I am now would be a lot more difficult. Because your focus is just split. I mean, as a single guy, sure, you have more runway, but if I'm out there talking to all these different people and going out on this night and staying out late, and then it messes up your sleep schedule. Like, the fact that I didn't have to go and chase people really allowed me to focus on a big goal. And the big goal, it's not— the goal is never money. The goal is security, and it just so happens that money is how you get security in almost every case. This video is kind of all over the place, but I am just reflecting in real time on some of the thoughts that have come across my mind as, again, 26 years old. Some would say that's young. Some would say that's not young. My girlfriend and I met at a bar. I know they say a lot of stuff about that. Off of a cold approach, true sales guy fashion. But I wasn't even a sales guy at the time. Save that story for another time, man. Just through putting in directed and intentional effort, even just those first 2 years from getting into roofing sales to leaving roofing sales to getting into high-ticket sales, just that time period created this ripple effect that I think most of you guys watching my videos on my channel looking into high-ticket sales are looking to create, or at least interested in. Which is the autonomy, the freedom, the security, the peace of mind knowing that you offer a skill to the marketplace that is valued enough to pay you at least 6 figures per year. I don't do this as much anymore, but man, I used to watch a ton of stuff like this on YouTube and I'd follow people and every time they'd post a YouTube video, I wouldn't have notifications on. That's a little much. But I would see new video. I don't care what the title is. I don't care what the thumbnail is because it's this person and they're doing this cool thing like running an agency, running an online business, and they look like they have some kind of fun with it. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to put on my dinner and I'm going to watch it. Now, when I'm not doing this stuff, I don't want to watch someone else do it. I want to turn my brain off and watch football. I don't know. Like, not to say I don't love it. I do love it. But just reflecting back 4 years ago when I was driving the Amazon truck, like how much time I spent listening to podcasts of people that are now in my position. All these other people, especially when I quit roofing, people were concerned. They're like, this online stuff, online sales agency, are you sure? You graduated college and it seems like you're doing well. I didn't really tell people how well I was doing when I was in roofing, but I was pacing $180K on the year when I quit, and I quit halfway through the year. It's like I had gone to school for 4 years to secure this job, and then within 3 years of getting the job, I quit. You got to take bets on yourself, surround yourself with the right people, Do your research, do your due diligence. When you make an effort to achieve an outcome, make an actual effort and complete actual work. Time spent is not work done. Don't chase stupid things. Be frugal in the beginning. When I was making $10K, $15K a month in roofing sales before I got into remote sales, I got to the point where I had saved up a year of living expenses. When I moved to Austin, my rent was a little bit higher. But everything else was the same. And I kept putting my foot on the gas while I had the opportunity to do so. Pursuing this world was the best decision that I've probably made in my life when it comes to setting myself and the people I care about up. I could shut down my community. I could shut down my agency. I could disappear off the internet, not work a job, and I could be okay. And it's because I did all those things. I talked about it on social media. I met some good people and I just kept showing up. A lot of people quit. I almost quit multiple, multiple times. So yeah, now we have over 30 people who rely on me, my brand, and my presence alongside some other things to pay their rent, to feed their family, to invest into their retirement accounts. And it's just crazy. If you guys are in that position where you're You're not yet in that career. You're not satisfied. You're not pursuing in the direction that you know is going to get you to that next level. I'm not even here to sell you on sales. I'm just here to encourage you to take the steps necessary, even though looking ahead of you, it's not as clear as you'd like it to be. Because everything that I've done— quitting my roofing sales job was the scariest thing that I had done, one of the scariest things I that I had done. Going into remote closing full-time was scary. Starting my community was scary. Starting the agency was scary. Getting into management, scary. Working with some of these big clients, scary. Scaling teams to $1 million a month, it's all uncharted territory. You see these guys on social media, oh, I make $100K a month, whatever. I make $500K a month, whatever. It's like they all started knowing the same thing that you know. And difference between them and you is time and knowledge. You can't accelerate time, but you can accelerate knowledge if you just spend your time listening to podcasts while you deliver Amazon packages. I'm just kidding, kind of. I appreciate you guys watching my videos, uh, my 2,000 subscribers and my 100 viewers. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention too, if you follow me on like social media and stuff, but the day We got engaged. You know, I was talking about the hotel. I kind of opened up with the hotel. The damn hotel caught on fire. Like, we had evac 2:30 in the morning. We call down to the hotel, we call down to the lobby because we think it's like a false alarm. They say immediately, big fire in the back, evacuate the building. Like, we're like, what the— what the hell? We go, we're on the 8th floor. We go to the elevator. You're not supposed to take the elevator when there's a fire. We didn't think it was that serious. Open the elevator door. You know how it's usually doors around the elevator? Smoke all in there. And I'm like, oh shoot. The day my girlfriend and I get engaged after 4 years and however many days that is, hundreds. And out of all the hotels that we could have stayed at on all the nights in New York City, that caught on fire. They had to send out 10 fire trucks. Luckily the fire wasn't— it didn't like consume the entire hotel and we were safe. I don't think there were any injuries. But that like causes a lot of reflection. So again, just wanted to like set up the camera, reflect, rant, encourage you guys, document my own life. And I know that, you know, just like I said, I was listening to podcasts. Some of the encouraging stuff for me when I was looking to chase success in this industry was watching stuff like this from people who, you know, you look at them, they have 10,000 followers here and a blue checkmark here. And then you watch a video like this and you're like, oh, kind of just like me. Like, he's just a little bit ahead maybe. And that stuff was my favorite to watch, especially like people walking around the behind the scenes, which is what I try to film a lot. Again, I appreciate you guys watching. Big things ahead. We've got some big deals looking to close on our agency, some big partnerships, biggest personal brands in the space. We've got an in-person meeting tomorrow with the biggest company in a very certain space that we're very experienced in. I've got my partner Cole driving down from Houston to Austin for this lunch. Hopefully close it down. I was just talking to a buddy too. Next year going to Japan, going to Italy. Never been to Europe. Never would've thought that was even possible. And it's just 'cause I stayed the course. I'm not done yet. I'm not hanging it up. I'm not disappearing yet. But this is your sign, bro. Get an appointment setting job. I'm just kidding. I mean, it's not a bad option, but Thank you guys for watching. I'll cut it there. I've been going long enough. Let me know in the comments what you like to see. Try to put out a nice variety for everybody— educational, entertaining, documenting— and I'll see you guys later. Thank you.