In this inaugural episode, I talk with Austin Netsley of Yo Pro Wealth about the mindset you have to have and how to be unstoppable when it comes to creating wealth. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. You embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life, this is who you are, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:00.000Welcome to the Order Man podcast. In this inaugural interview episode, I talk with Austin Netsley of Yo Pro Wealth about the mindset you have to have and how to be unstoppable when it comes to creating wealth.
00:00:11.480You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:21.640You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:36.480All right, guys. My guest today is Austin Netsley with Yo Pro Wealth. He is a former athlete turned engineer, investor, and entrepreneur, and now he is the author of the 27-time number one bestseller, Make Money, Live Wealthy.
00:00:52.340He's also the founder of several businesses, including One Pursuit Investments and One Press Publishing, as well as the host of the Yo Pro Wealth blog and podcast.
00:01:02.920Austin has interviewed over 75 successful entrepreneurs, and he's also taken their stories, failures, successes, and advice, and turned them into 10 simple steps towards true wealth in his book titled Make Money, Live Wealthy.
00:01:18.100Austin, so stoked to have you on the show today. I'm glad you're here.
00:01:21.260Mr. Mickler, man, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
00:01:24.260I've got another podcast, and on that podcast, you were the very first person that I interviewed on this podcast, and you are going to be the very first person that I interview on this podcast.
00:01:33.700You did it right last time. I figured you could do it right again.
00:01:35.580Boom! Man, that's some pressure, but my life motto is one, so I'm glad to be number one here, man. I appreciate it.
00:01:43.200Awesome. Good. Well, so I know a little bit about your backstory, but if you would, and just take a couple of minutes to explain a little bit about what you're doing now,
00:01:51.140and then we can delve into your backstory and how you got into what you're doing.
00:01:54.480Sure, sure. So what I'm doing now is I have several different businesses. They're all online, so I basically travel around and manage these businesses.
00:02:01.760One is a stock trading and investment business. It's all automated.
00:02:05.280The other is a personal finance and wealth business. I wrote a book. I have a podcast. I've got a couple of different websites, so I'd love to share the information about that.
00:02:15.120I have some different programs and things.
00:02:16.680And then the third one that's brand new is the publishing business.
00:02:20.120We launched my book, had a lot of success, and found that we were doing different things than anybody else out there.
00:02:26.000So now we offer a training as well as a done-for-you service where we get other books out there and do that in the biggest way possible, make bestsellers and big businesses.
00:02:36.280Awesome. Well, I know we've had hours and hours of conversation between you and I about the success of some of those things.
00:02:41.440But again, I know your backstory a little bit. How is it that you – because really what we're talking about is this theme of money, and I know your background is different than that.
00:02:49.820Tell us a little bit about your background and how you transitioned to what you're doing now.
00:02:54.640Well, let's go all the way to the start.
00:02:56.340So, I mean, early on, I made the decision that money was very, very important to me.
00:03:00.520I didn't grow up with a lot of money, so I made the decision at about eight years old.
00:03:05.140I remember that I'm going to become a millionaire. I'm going to become rich, and that was going to be the solution to all my problems.
00:03:11.160So from an early age, money was very, very important to me.
00:03:14.060So anyhow, I went down the system, went to college and played football and got my engineering degree because I didn't know anybody in the financial industry.
00:03:23.180All I knew was corporate America, so I went and got my engineering degree with dreams of becoming a CEO.
00:03:29.800And I went down that path, went and worked for my dream company, had an amazing experience.
00:03:34.380But a couple of years in, I started to learn that, you know what, maybe I was in a system.
00:03:38.500So maybe there were some other opportunities out there that were going to bring me more money, bring me more opportunity, more happiness, more freedom, all these different things that I talk about now.
00:03:47.600And I started to explore those, and I started to invest, and I got into it very, very heavy.
00:03:53.460And I started to day trade and eventually created my own algorithm and automated it and started making a lot of money on the side,
00:04:00.780where eventually I was like, you know what, I do love the people I work with, love the opportunities that I've had with the company,
00:04:07.220but it's not really worth it for me to work anymore.
00:04:10.020So eventually I built up some confidence, grew my network, and stepped away from the corporate world.
00:04:16.100And then that's when I started the second and third businesses.
00:04:19.000So that's a little bit of the story, but the money piece has been foundational from well before the age of 10.
00:04:24.480So one of the things that you said that stood out is that you didn't know anyone in the financial industry or had any of this knowledge about finances.
00:04:32.480How do you go from engineering to really the background that you have and the experience and the conversations that we've had?
00:04:39.240I know you know a lot about how money works.
00:04:40.940How did you make that transition if there wasn't anybody that you knew?
00:05:36.560I mean, and there were books like Stone Fox and The Art of Racing in the Rain, which is about a dog, and The Book Thief,
00:05:43.020which, again, none of these books are about business or money or sales.
00:05:46.700But at the same time, so I read them, and I was just hooked.
00:05:50.400And then I started to get into money books.
00:05:53.280And I read psychology, mindset, self-help, success, business, entrepreneurship, money, all these different topics.
00:05:59.940I just consumed everything that I could because I was on the road a lot.
00:06:03.620I was just addicted to making more money and getting to that next level.
00:06:08.020And I started to learn from these books.
00:06:10.020These books became my advisors about all these other opportunities that I talked about.
00:06:14.720So then I started to learn some things about the stock market, and then it wasn't a big deal for me to go and start to implement those things.
00:06:39.120So maybe to narrow this down a little bit more, is there a book or two or three that you'd recommend that really stood out in your mind as how you're able to now be in the position that you are?
00:06:49.860Yeah, I would say three books that I really recommend over and over and over again.
00:06:55.080One is Think and Grow Rich from Napoleon Hill.
00:06:58.020And we're probably going to talk a lot about the mindset, but the mindset is everything.
00:07:01.720I mean, thoughts create feelings, which creates actions, which create results.
00:07:06.320So if you want more results, if you want better results, you have to go back to the beginning, go back to the thoughts and the way that you think.
00:07:12.460And talking to so many wealthy people now and fortunately having a network of so many successful people now, you just hear the way that they act and talk and think and see the way that they carry themselves.
00:07:24.680It's a 180-degree difference than everybody else that's complaining and not necessarily getting ahead.
00:07:33.200The other two books are – my favorite book of all time is from Dale Carnegie.
00:07:37.500It's How to Win Friends and Influence People.
00:07:39.340And that book is about how to carry yourself in the world, how to connect with people and build relationships because at the end of the day, it's all about people.
00:07:48.940And then the third book that really started to put that bug in my ear about entrepreneurship is the best way or at least taking control of your own future is the best way to build long-term wealth was Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
00:08:02.960So those three books are a great place to start.
00:08:06.020And Thinking Girl Rich, I read over and over again.
00:08:08.600Dale Carnegie's books, I read over and over again as well.
00:08:12.180Well, I know there's a fourth book in there that I would recommend, and I think you know what I'm referring to.
00:08:18.680Well, the fourth book – so again, books made such a big impact on my life, and as soon as I started reading a lot, I was like, you know what?
00:09:31.640It walks people through the journey towards wealth, and it starts with that foundational piece of, one, making the decision, and then, two, getting the mindset going.
00:09:41.660So one of the things that I really like about that story, in addition to the book, because I've read the book, and it's awesome.
00:09:46.500And one of the things that I really like about what you just said is, and you didn't really allude to this too much, and I know we're going to talk about the mindset of building wealth,
00:09:53.860is that one of the things I really like is that you saw an opportunity after you had so much success with your book that it created this entirely new business for you that I know you are just killing it right now with that new business.
00:10:07.880So how did you recognize that opportunity, and then, more importantly, how and why did you take action on the opportunity of being a successful publisher?
00:10:17.000Man, that's such a great question, and kudos to you for kind of noticing that because the biggest secret to success that I can tell somebody is to have success.
00:10:50.980So I wasn't worried about making money from my YoPro Wealth business for a long time.
00:10:58.320The first six months, I made zero dollars, and that's perfectly fine with me, but most people have that eager anticipation that they want to make money from day one.
00:11:06.800Well, you're not going to do that, or at least I haven't found a way to do that, nor should you want to do that.
00:11:11.520What you should do is instead have a mission and have something where you're moving forward, and if you do, opportunities will really just show up right in front of your eyes.
00:11:20.380When I started down the path, guess what?
00:11:44.820The entrepreneur in me was like, all right, we're doing something that nobody else has done because we started to share some of my results publicly.
00:11:52.220Once some of the experts that have books out there on how to make money on Amazon or how to launch a book or how to become a bestseller, once they started to come to us and have us launch their books for them, that was kind of the validation that, all right, we've got something unique here.
00:12:07.340And the cool thing is since books have changed my life, it's a huge passion for me to continue to do that in the best way possible, not just with my book but all the 100-plus authors that we're working with now.
00:12:19.260Well, I'm stoked that you took the opportunity to do that because you and I have talked a bit about this, and you're actually going to help me with my book, Order of Man, for this podcast and for the blog that we're doing.
00:12:29.660So I'll be sure to let everybody who's listening know when that comes out.
00:12:32.860But, Austin, you're going to be instrumental in getting that launched as well, so I'm excited about that.
00:12:36.300Yeah, I'm excited for the book myself.
00:12:38.020I mean, it's just an awesome message, awesome mission that you have, and again, the opportunities that are coming from you moving forward.
00:12:45.400And if you do it in the right way, a book launch is the best way to get any type of career to the next level, whether you want to have an online business, whether you want to have an e-book empire, whether you want to have residual income, whatever it is, it's just such an amazing opportunity.
00:13:00.980So one of the things that I'm hearing in this story is that, obviously, I know you, you're an action taker.
00:13:07.080I think, you know, guys that are men of substance tend to be guys who take action on things.
00:13:12.520But that being said, I also know that even though us as guys are supposed to be tough and strong, that there's a lot of fear and doubt and uncertainty that we deal with.
00:13:22.160But do those things creep into your mind when you're launching a new project?
00:13:26.620And if so, how do you overcome those things?
00:13:45.640A couple of things that I would say are, one, your network, your environment creates who you are.
00:13:52.620So if you want to change your life, you change your environment.
00:13:56.440Unfortunately, the environment that 99% of people are in is not the best situation.
00:14:01.980So, you know, we hang around with the same people that we've grown up with forever.
00:14:05.700Or we watch the news and just have some bad information going in our head.
00:14:09.760You have to separate yourself from what most of the average people do.
00:14:15.220And by doing so, every single piece of information that's going in your head, every person that you see do something,
00:14:21.820they're slowly altering your programming, your thermostat, your mindset, whatever you want to call it.
00:14:27.900And at the end of the day, it makes a huge difference.
00:14:30.380So if you look at the confidence that I had in my abilities internally and externally, the way I carried myself before and after, like two years after I started reading books,
00:15:07.880I read some affirmations that basically created the mentality that I wanted ultimately to develop.
00:15:13.900Because I hadn't had confidence in my life at all, even though I had some success with athletics and school, whatever.
00:15:20.720I didn't have much confidence in myself until I was probably 25.
00:15:24.620And then by the age of 26 or 27, then I had convinced myself to become unstoppable.
00:15:30.340And once you become unstoppable, not in a cocky way, but in a way that you just have so much strong belief in your abilities to figure it out,
00:15:37.980that's when you have freedom and that's when you push through the obstacles to get to the point that we're talking about,
00:15:44.380that tipping point where you get over and you have so much opportunities, so much easier success happen.
00:16:54.300That shows you how much confidence, how much I really, really needed to actually make that leap, which is unfortunate.
00:17:01.100I mean, we should have much more belief in yourself and your abilities before you do that.
00:17:06.140But I was in a good situation where I had a good job.
00:17:09.380So I guess if I didn't like the job, if I didn't like the people I was working with, I would have pulled the trigger much, much earlier.
00:17:16.020But again, it's those things that I'm talking about, joining a mastermind, changing my community every single day, doing some personal development.
00:17:24.420Those were the final things that put me over the edge.
00:17:28.040I started to see some of my friends have some success with entrepreneurship.
00:17:32.080I became a little jealous internally now that I'm thinking about it.
00:17:39.720Well, I'm glad you brought up community because that's one of the things that we're going to be implementing with Order of Man is a Facebook community initially so that guys can jump on, can talk with each other.
00:18:03.160And it's a beautiful thing with the online world that we have today where you can access all these people that have a very similar mindset, that are all ready for that next level.
00:18:26.260So let's get back to this mindset, and this is important for me, too, because I come from a financial background as well.
00:18:33.860I've been doing financial services for the past eight years or so, and in all of the people that I meet with, one of the biggest things that I see missing is having their head wrapped around how money works and how it doesn't.
00:18:47.940And so my question for you, before we delve into that too much, is why do you think that is?
00:18:54.340Why is it that we always talk about the strategies and the products and all the things that we should be doing versus taking a step back and thinking about and wrapping our head around how the world really works when it comes to money and finances?
00:20:26.820And then the third, we could get into some different skills.
00:20:29.960But what you need to do is to do two things.
00:20:36.680One, learn from people that you really, really, really, truly admire.
00:20:41.200Learn from people that have done it for years and years and years.
00:20:45.020My favorite books are, again, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, people from the 20s and 30s, basically timeless principles that last no matter what we're talking about.
00:20:55.640Once you understand the principles, then the strategies and tactics that you implement are just details.
00:21:01.620And you can handle those pretty easily.
00:21:03.760But, again, so few people handle the foundation piece.
00:21:09.340And I forgot what the second part that I was going to talk about, but I would – actually, no, I know.
00:21:15.880You have to schedule reflection and look back.
00:21:19.180So I don't do this weekly now, but I used to when I started to read so much was every single Sunday I would stop and look back at the past week.
00:21:31.140What should I change to ultimately move me towards my goals?
00:21:33.860I would read the goals every single week or oftentimes every day in my vision board and just make sure that I was always slightly moving forward.
00:21:42.400And you have to really – again, that awareness.
00:21:44.540You have to be willing to admit what's not working.
00:21:47.940You know, what – who do you maybe need to cut out of your life?
00:21:51.380What things do you need to stop spending your time on?
00:21:55.640In sailing, that's what they call tacking.
00:21:57.480So you go forward and then you readjust.
00:21:59.180You measure where you're at and then you do it again.
00:22:00.920But just stopping for a second is something that will change your wealth situation, your life, your confidence, everything.
00:22:07.420Just taking time to reflect is really important.
00:22:16.080I'm really curious what your day looks like in the midst of just this storm and chaos and everything that's on you and that's pulling you.
00:22:25.320And I know I have it too between work and family and community and all these other things that I want to get done.
00:22:30.920What does your typical day look like and is there some things that we should be modeling?
00:22:36.040I don't know about modeling but some things that work for me are sprinting.
00:22:40.520And what I like to do is if I see an opportunity, I go all in and I spend two, three, four months just going all in and committing to a goal, committing to creating something great, creating the best thing in whatever that is.
00:22:57.380And then you've got to talk about taking yourself out of it and managing it from a strategic perspective.
00:23:04.240So the second half of that period, whatever it is, if it's four months, then you do two and two, where you're just really just grinding and spending 15-hour days or whatever it is to really get it up and running and doing well.
00:23:27.720I love growing every single day, setting new records every single day.
00:23:31.180It's so much fun but I know I can't do this forever.
00:23:33.960But what my day looks like right now is I usually have everything blocked off until noon.
00:23:41.660I just focus on my highest priority tasks.
00:23:44.980What I usually do is I wake up, I grab a glass or a bottle of water.
00:23:49.860I set my phone alarm for 90 minutes and I go and do the one big task that I need to do.
00:23:56.400At the end of that 90 minutes, I'm either done or not done and then I go and eat and get breakfast and then take a little short break and then I go into another 90-minute sprint and take a short break and I do that again until noon.
00:24:09.220And then noon right now and all the afternoon is filled with calls with clients or future prospects.
00:24:17.780And then at night, it's usually catching up with emails.
00:24:21.000But the main thing that I would suggest is that first sprint in the morning, just like have a vision for what's your one single thing that you're going to accomplish today.
00:24:32.420Today will be a success if fill in that blank and then just make sure you get that thing done early on and the rest of the day is just a breeze then.
00:25:14.780So everything Gmail works pretty well.
00:25:17.420And there's a lot of cool plugins that you can use to make things as efficient as possible.
00:25:21.400I would say I have a calendar setting thing.
00:25:26.040I have saved emails that are called canned messages that I can send out the same thing over and over and over again if somebody wants to set a strategy session or whatever.
00:25:35.260So pretty much all the scheduling and anything that you think about that you just hate to do or that you have to go back and forth about, try to have all those different things automated.
00:25:43.060Evernote is my favorite tool in the world because that's basically my database of all the information I read, information I put together, my customer retention management, my CRM system.
00:26:32.080Well, okay, so I'm going to put you on the spot here a little bit and I'm going to come back.
00:26:35.220We're bouncing around a little bit, but it's okay because we've had good conversations about all this so far.
00:26:40.020So I'm going to come back to mindset and money.
00:26:43.000And the question I have, is there some myths about money that you would say are devastating to people that maybe even share with us the truth about that myth and how money and finances really works?
00:27:35.280And it's kind of what we talked about 20 minutes ago is I just at least had confidence and the ability and the focus that I was moving forward, moving toward this mission of sharing my passion of the mindset.
00:27:48.580And what opens up, great opportunities.
00:27:51.940What opens up when you chase one of those and do something well, great opportunities.
00:27:55.920So don't wait for that million-dollar idea.
00:27:58.280Don't look for that million-dollar idea.
00:28:01.100Go towards something that you're passionate about and money or opportunities to make money will show up.
00:28:08.960The other one that I hear so often is, I'm just not as smart as you.
00:28:13.480I just – and that goes back to what?
00:28:16.180It goes back to the internal confidence, the internal belief.
00:28:19.220But when I was in sales, man, I was working with business owners nonstop every single day.
00:28:24.400And that was the first time that I had dealt directly with entrepreneurs.
00:28:28.400And I tell you what, man, I was so blown away by the different people that I worked with.
00:28:35.380The most successful people that I often worked with were actually some of the least intelligent businessmen and women that I've been a part of.
00:28:44.860So people think, like, that's a bad thing.
00:28:47.120I think that's a great thing because that gave me the confidence that, you know what?
00:28:51.300Shoot, if they can do it, I can definitely do it.
00:28:54.140So I would say don't let some false beliefs about you have to be brilliant or you have to have this great idea hold you back.
00:29:01.200Because so many successful entrepreneurs just go forward and they go forward so hard that they have these opportunities.
00:29:08.920They take advantage of them or they outsource and hire different people to handle things that they're not great at.
00:29:15.040And what happens is great success because you're never going to have great wealth financially if you don't get outside your comfort zone and take some risks.
00:29:23.560But it's not about smarts, I can tell you that.
00:29:27.360Well, and, you know, can you imagine what limited amounts of information and resources and products and brands would be out there if everybody said, oh, it's already been done?
00:29:56.100And it goes back to the mindset piece.
00:29:58.540So somebody says, all right, so there's two entrepreneurs or one's a entrepreneur and one's a successful entrepreneur.
00:30:05.960They see something and the one on the left who's maybe not as successful says, ah, they took my idea, whereas the one on the right says what?
00:30:18.860I'm going to make it just a little bit better and I'm going to go forward.
00:30:21.380So it's just all about that mindset, the way that you view things, the way that you view yourself, your career, your opportunities, your relationships, every single thing back to the mindset.
00:30:59.360Where did you think that you were going to be at this point?
00:31:01.840Where do you want to be, most importantly?
00:31:04.100And I think that in and of itself is enough to have you identify if you want more or if you're good.
00:31:09.980And if you're happy with where you're at and happy with just kind of cruising along, then that's cool.
00:31:15.800But, you know, if you want this dream life, if you want more, if you want more freedom, if you want the ability to travel, if you want a family, whatever it is, you've got to, again, go forward towards it.
00:31:25.220And what was the second part of the question, Ryan?
00:31:26.600What does it look like when you actually step out into that, what I would refer to as the courage zone?
00:31:33.340So stepping outside of your comfort zone and taking action into unknown and uncertainty.
00:31:39.700And so if you hang out with skydivers every day, jumping out of a plane is not scary.
00:31:46.900But if you hang out with my grandma every day, that's absurd, right?
00:31:50.460So how you ultimately get outside of yourself is not by just going, just saying, all right, I listened to this podcast with Austin and Ryan.
00:32:01.180I'm going to go start my own investment company.
00:32:03.040It doesn't necessarily happen like that.
00:32:05.700What you really want to do, what happens in the real world, is you slowly take one baby step, one baby step, one baby step, until the absurd is now normal, right?
00:32:15.840So hanging out with entrepreneurs or hanging out with people that are doing exactly what you want to do on a consistent basis will eventually make that normal for you so that what you're doing is not crazy at all.
00:32:27.740So when I left the corporate world, I had been in masterminds and things heavy for over a period of six months.
00:32:35.460And I, of course, had started networking about two years before then, big time outside of the work environment.
00:32:41.180But nonetheless, within six months, one of my boss says, Austin's taking a big risk.
00:32:47.960And all the employees are there, or at least on the floors, 50-something employees or whatever, saying my goodbye.
00:33:58.540Just continually changing your environment and the people that you know, the people that you see, that you want to surround yourself with as like-minded individuals.
00:34:07.020And then other than that, I would say find somebody that you look up to.
00:34:12.960Identify one thing that they do and start to implement that one thing.
00:34:17.480And it goes back to what Gary Keller talks about, the compound effect.
00:34:21.000Whether we're talking about money, whether we're talking about your confidence, anything.