How a USAF Veteran Went From 27k a Year to Multi-7 Figure Companies in 3 Years with Tyler Austin: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Product Boss. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives so the giveaway may not be active. And we'll be breaking down how a USAF veteran went from 27K a year to a multi seven-figure company in three years to drop these value bombs. I brought Tyler Austin into EO Fire Studios. Tyler is a husband, dad, SaaS founder, a real estate investor and United States Air Force veteran.

0:37He went from 27K a year just with a job to a multimillion-dollar company in three years. He loves cigars, whiskey in the outdoors, and being with his family. And today at Fire Nation, we'll talk about how success is a mental state, how to stop living your life through the lenses of someone else's eyes, and how prosperity has a lot of different faces by your nation, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Tyler and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more.

1:15Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:50Tyler, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? John, thank you for having me on. What's going on, Fire Nation? And man, it took me a while to think about this question. And what I came up with is essentially that a lot of people determine success as a dollar value or I determine success as a mental state. Mental state. And I really do believe, Fire Nation, that when you're thinking about success and happiness and just everything that you're doing in this world, Think about it as, how are you feeling in this moment?

2:28And when you're waking up every morning, looking in the mirror, asking yourself, like, am I doing what I feel like my purpose is? Am I doing what I feel like I'm meant to be doing every single day? And you're saying yes more often than not. It's not having to be every day because there's going to be off days. Then you're winning the game. So, Tyler, as I teased to Fire Nation before we jumped on here, I'm looking forward to chatting with a fellow veteran. You're from the Air Force. I want to talk about how you went from$27 ,000 a year to multi-seven-figure companies in just three years. So I love the story.

3:04And I want to hear about motivation because we do hear that word a lot, brother. So I want you to break it down for us. How can we, Fire Nation, find our true self-motivation? Sadly, something has to happen in your life where you get into a state where you have to kind of dig in deep and find it. but hopefully I can give a couple ways that you can shortcut, you know, the path to it. And the very first thing, see, see what happened to me is I was getting out and then, you know, I turned out that I had a baby on the way and I ended up no longer being the breadwinner in my family. And so mentally and physically, like I started going down a really bad place in 2015.

3:45And so I ended up having this moment where I had, I got on the phone with my dad and I ended up essentially, um, having the first moment that my dad ever seen me cry or heard me cry. And I just broke down on the phone. And later that night I was sitting there and I was like, dude, like, what am I going to do? Like, what, what is it that I'm even like meant to do? I was like, the only thing I know how to do is build bombs for a living. That's not really useful outside the military. And so what I realized is that I was trying to live life based off the lenses through someone else's eyes. And so I sat down and I did a self-reflection of myself.

4:25I did a self-reflection of the reason why I wanted success. And I realized that the only reason I wanted it was for me. And up until that point, I was saying that I wanted it because I needed it for my family. I wanted I needed it because I need my family to to have the byproducts of my success. And in all reality, that's not true, because if really I cared about my family, I would have been spending more time with them. Right. I would have been I would have been focusing on more of the things that would have made them, you know, have me more. And so when I became honest and I sat down with my wife and I had said, you know, listen, I think that I've realized that this whole success thing, this whole me trying to do this path, me leaving the military, me, you know, needing you to basically pay our bills.

5:04like all of that is really just me being really greedy because if I don't achieve the things that I feel like I'm capable of, then I'm never going to be able to be fully present with you or Tessa or any of our future children. And so once that happened and then I looked at it from that lens through, you know, what the true purpose of why I was trying to do these things was, it enabled me to like fully accept it. And when I was working, I was able to focus on like what it is I should be focusing on and not, you know, feeling guilty, essentially. I love that phrase, Fire Nation, that Tyler used at the beginning of this, which was he was trying to live a life based off the lenses of somebody else's eyes.

5:46I mean, just think about that phrase. And you've heard me talk about this before. If you listen to some past episodes, the five biggest regrets of the dying. And this is essentially one of them. They're literally laying on their deathbed and they're like, why did I spend my entire life living my life through the lenses of somebody else's eyes, somebody else's opinions, somebody else's expectations of me. And thank goodness, Tyler, you found this out at a relatively very young age. Because again, most people have this realization on their deathbed, which is devastatingly sad. But you need to be thinking about this, Fire Nation, because you don't want to be having one of those regrets in the last days of your life.

6:23So let's talk about real estate, because it has a very low barrier, Very low barrier. I mean, a lot of people ignore it because anybody can quote unquote just say, oh yeah, I'm gonna be a real estate agent or I'm gonna get into real estate or this or that. And they take a quick test and yada, yada. So let's be real. How can real estate actually be a breakthrough tool for entrepreneurs? Real estate is such an amazing thing because like you said, the barrier to entry is really, really low. And the same thing is in a lot of other industries, but I think it's extremely powerful in the real estate industry because of the fact that not only is it a breakout tool, meaning that you can make large sums of money in one transaction, but it's also the major storage of wealth.

7:06Once you start earning a lot of active income, it's where you end up going back to to try to take that active income from your savings account and put it into an asset. So it's kind of like a double-edged sword, or it's like in a good way where you truly get to learn a skill set that is going to be not only that thing that puts money into your life, but also allows you to then store that money in the future. For me, the reason why I chose real estate as I was getting out is because, well, I had already bought a house, right? I knew how to do that at least. And most people understand the concepts of, okay, we're going to buy a house and this, that, and the other.

7:46But where people don't think about is the fact that you don't need money to do it, right? You don't need thousands and tens of thousands or even a dime to do a real estate transaction because there's a lot of different ways that you can assist in that transaction to reap the benefits of the financials on that HUD statement. So for me, real estate really, truly a thousand percent was the ability to get myself out of the hole I was in through efforts. It's like one of the only industries that you can work your butt off and, you know, get a few deals under your belt. And those deals can assume to be, in my case, in my first quarter was 250 grand.

8:30And I mean, that was huge for me, right? I mean, I paid off the$60 ,000 in debt I had. I put money in my savings account. I mean, it really jumpstarted my ability to be able to focus on the business. And from there, you could just take that skill set that you've learned and you can just continue to improve upon it and make active income from real estate. And then now start doing some other business ventures. And Fire Nation, that is the one very interesting thing about real estate is because it is a low barrier of entry, it can be something that you can test without having to go to graduate school for four years and get hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts before you're like, oh, I actually hate this career too.

9:08You can figure out pretty quickly that, hey, do I have a passion for this? Do I actually enjoy this? Is this something that I'm really into? Or is this something that is just not for me? And of course, for Tyler, he found out that it is for him and allowed him to do a lot of really cool things. So Tyler, you believe that working for passion and working for money are two different things. expound upon that. It's a really controversial topic when people say like you got to do what you love to do. As long as you're always doing what you love to do, you're going to be successful. You're going to end up enjoying your life and yada, yada, yada, yada.

9:41And I have a different belief on that. I believe that if you do whatever is going to put you forward the most, whether it's something you enjoy doing or not, whatever's going to make you the most money, that's what you focus on as a way to build that catalyst. And then you take and you focus on what your passions are as a way to direct the byproduct of the business ventures that you're doing. So, you know, you might not enjoy, you know, cybersecurity, but you might be good at it or you might be able to make money doing it. So therefore, let's let's do it and let's make money doing it and then let's take the money and now let's let's do the things that we really truly enjoy because even in business if if it's something that you love to do quote unquote over time because of the byproducts of business you're going to start to not enjoy that thing and um and so i don't ever recommend people actually doing the things that they love as a thing that they're making as their main breadwinner because you want to be able to do that as passion projects so that when you are doing it, you're solely doing it to be in it and not as a byproduct of what could come from it.

10:57So that's just something that I've used as a way to focus on my energy and the things that give me the most back mentally and physically so that when I am working and spending time with my family, I'm able to actually fully focus on it. So there's a lot of takeaways here, Fire Nation. I mean, sometimes there does have to be a season of making hay when the sun is shining. That means There's an opportunity to make money and you may not love this particular thing, but you may be actually great at this particular thing. Or it may just be the right place, right time for you at that situation where you can get in there, generate some revenue, get a little bank so you have a little leeway, you have a little runway.

11:35For instance, that was kind of the first 10 years of my life post-college was when I was in the Army, then when I was in other jobs that I didn't necessarily like. but were paying the bills or allowing me to stack the Benjamins so that I was then able to, in the next season of my life at 32, go all in on what turned out to be a passion project, which was podcasting and talking to entrepreneurs and building an online business. But I didn't just wake up at 15 years old and say, I'm going to do this thing. It was me being able to put myself in a situation by generating revenue, doing things I didn't necessarily love doing.

12:10I was proud of my military service, but I didn't necessarily love the day-to-day of it. And then I was able to do what I want. And I think there's a lot to be said with what Tyler shared as well is, you know, Hey, once you start doing the thing that you love for money, sometimes you lose the love of that thing. And that can be really sad because passions are important because hobbies are important. And there can be a lot that goes into it. Like somebody that loves to go out and play golf on the weekends, they may end up hating it if they become a pro golfer because now they're traveling the world.

12:39They're always away from family. Every swing is like so stressful. Am I going to hit it right? Am I going to hit it raw? And this is how I feed my family. And now all of a sudden they're like, wait, I actually hate golf. And again, that's just a random example that could be applied to a lot of different areas. So food for thought, Fire Nation. But when you're in a situation to stack those Benjamins, to make hay while the sun is shining, do it. And we're going to talk about so much more awesome stuff around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're a sales leader, then you know that expectations are at an all-time high these days.

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14:24Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs.

15:01That's thought-leader.com slash fire. So Tyler, we're back, And I want you to talk next about turning work into passion projects, which is kind of interesting because now we're talking about work that you're doing that's actually making money. But how do you actually take those and make them something that you can become passionate about? And, of course, we want to be focusing on net profits the whole way through because otherwise, what are we really doing? everything that I've looked into on scaling myself has always led back to okay growing businesses and philanthropy right one of the really cool ways that you can actually take those passions right instead of instead of taking a passion and putting it into work but but being able to do a passion that also still fuels you and and and allows you to you know keep more net profits in your life is you know obviously figuring out ways to handle the tax man, number one, but how does he play a part in this whole equation?

15:59And that would be like nonprofits, right? So as you start growing and as you start connecting with other people of money and of business, what happens is you end up finding other individuals who are also working towards the same goals that you are. So for me, in that case, it is in essentially online trafficking of people, kids, whatever it is. And so last year I had started a nonprofit focused on the topic of trying to combat and create softwares in order to help prevent and detect, you know, online trafficking. And what's beautiful about it is because of the fact that not only is it something that I'm super, super passionate about, but it enables me then to be able to fuel into that organization revenue, right?

16:50And that revenue essentially becomes, you know, right back to me. And of course, obviously, I'm not a tax consultant or nothing like that. However, it does enable me to keep more net profits from my primary business entities because of the fact that I have this passion project that I do. And I'm, you know, it enables me to really focus on it in a way that's different than if I was to just, you know, I don't know, just, you know, give another project a check, if you will. So that's a way that I've done it, and I thought it would be an interesting way to share in case some people have never heard about it, they can reach out to somebody to look into their lives.

17:24And it is important, Fire Nation, to have this kind of knowledge in your bank, to have these kind of arrows in your quiver. So you do know that there are more than just one way to go at a project, to go at a passion, to go at life. And that's kind of what I want to talk about next is, you know, on this show, I'll be honest, like we focus a lot about scaling your business, which is important on a lot of levels, but you're actually about scaling life. What do you mean by that? We all look at our key performance indicators, right? Our KPIs and our businesses. We look at our KPIs and, you know, our fitness.

17:54And I don't think very many people actually truly focus on, like, the overarching, like, the holistic KPI. So they don't, like, create, like, a life KPI on, like, how many times a day am I telling my wife that I love her? How many times am I hanging out with my kids? How many vacations am I going on? and I think Jesse Itzler does this really well with the build your life resume kind of stuff that he does and and so I took kind of basically those adoptions and I looked at my life and I was okay what am I truly doing as in in these four pillars of my life improve health increase wealth freedom and focus so it's kind of like the four pillars I break myself down as and so I've created KPIs essentially down to each of those pillars.

18:39And I basically track those to scale my life. So part of that is business, right? But it's only one piece of it. And so it's not really something I wanted to dig too deep into, but more or less to be able to let people know that as you continue to grow and scale, creating family core values, creating disciplines that you believe in that you live by that you can pass on to your children is one of the most important things that you can possibly do. More so than anything you can pass on through business is knowledge. And so those guiding principles of how to carry yourself and how to look at your life as a whole is something that I think is really important.

19:20Health, wealth, freedom, focus. What are your focus words? What are your important things that you're going to stand by Fire Nation in every way, shape, and form so that you can scale your life. And of course, scaling your life isn't going to include scaling your business, but scaling your health, your wealth, your freedom, your focus, your family, your relationships, whatever that might be, what is it that you're doing to scale your overall life? What I want to move into next, Tyler, is all about culture, is all about brands. I mean, those are buzzwords in today's world. Everybody says those words.

19:52I don't know how much they really mean those words, but what do those words, culture and brands, mean to you? obviously it's something that you do really well with Fire Nation. And it's something that I took for granted really early on. And that's the power of belief and not only belief in what you're doing, but the ability for people to believe in you. And that belief system, when people are believing you, you know, plays a part in a lot of different things. But more so, let's focus on the customer or facing side of the house. Um, you know, if you had, you know, a thousand loyal, you know, individuals that are willing to give you$10 ,000 a year, then it's going to be better than if you were to have, uh, you'd essentially need 10 ,000 giving you a dollar to have an equivalent result.

20:41Right. Um, and so as I, you know, kind of started to grow my businesses, I kind of learned that, um, going back to, uh, the finding true self motivation. Um, I was, I was trying to build, a brand that was based off of how I kind of thought I wanted people to see me. And I kind of like ended up stopping that. I think it was truly through like just laziness where I ended up just being a thousand percent authentic to who I am and how I carry myself in life, business and everything, whether it's a customer messaging in our support chat or it's like just a random person messaged me on Facebook. They have all bit of the authentic Tyler.

21:24And what's happened is, is this has created like a culture around me and the people that end up, you know, involving themselves in my life. And so they slowly adopt the same thing where they're not like having a conversation and everybody before they start speaking is thinking like, well, what am I going to say in order to make sure that that person is okay? And we do the same thing on our first dates or second dates or whatever, you know, you always dress based off of what you think that that person is going to like to see you in, you know. And, um, and so if you just get rid of that and you focus on building culture and brand that's truly authentic to yourself, what ends up happening is you can truly scale your companies and your businesses, uh, 10 X, which you could any other way.

22:11Um, the cost of marketing goes down. Like in my businesses, I have, well, my real company have some, but in my, in my software company, I have zero customer acquisition costs. And it's solely because of brand. It's because of me being authentic to how I am. And that brings a word of mouth and an authenticity that people don't get in other locations. So, um, if there's one thing that I can, I can give advice on when it comes to the business side and also in your personal life, let's be a thousand percent authentic to yourself and, and then, um, you know, focus some sort of, you know, primary brand around that authenticity, stamp it with something, and you're going to start building a culture and a brand that creates the ability for others to foster that same thing.

22:55And they're going to scale in life, which ultimately makes you scale in life. And I love how you started this whole thing off with the word belief, because Fire Nation, if you're transparent, if you're honest, if you're genuine, your audience will believe in you. Now, the question is, do you believe in you? That is step one, and that's going to emanate out with everything that you do. And let me tell you, Fire Nation, you should believe in you because what's the alternative? Like absolutely believe in you. Now, Tyler, we've dropped lots of value bombs over this episode. Give us the one value bomb you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we've talked about here today.

23:36Any call to action you have on how we can connect with you, learn more about what you have going on, and then we'll say goodbye. It revolves around prosperity, right? Prosperity has a lot of different faces on it. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. As long as you understand kind of what that scaling life looks like, what your four things are, minor, improve health, increase wealth, freedom, and focus. As long as you have that for yourself and continue working towards those, you're going to find prosperity in whatever it does mean to you. Hopefully, in some form or fashion, I can help you in that journey.

24:10On the real estate side, we actually created a challenge, which I think would be really beneficial for anybody looking to get into real estate or improve the real estate businesses. And we created a nice little discount code of 10 % for the Fire Nation. If you head over to reisif.io forward slash fire, it'll take you to that challenge. We teach you from start to finish on getting started in marketing in real estate to bring in some deals. And then the coupon code is FIRE. And one more time, just go ahead and spell out that URL. Yep. It's R-E-I-S-I-F-T dot I-O forward slash FIRE. Coupon code FIRE.

24:50FIRE Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with TA and JLD today, so keep up the heat. Head over to EOFIRE.com, type Tyler Tyler in the search bar, the show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about here today, links to everything, but your direct call to action, R-E-I-S-I-F-T dot I-O slash fire, and then use promo code fire for 10 % off what they have going on over there to get rocking in Tyler's world. And thank you, Tyler, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

25:28Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Tyler and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals, which is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step by step. So visit thefreedomjournal.com. Use promo code podcast for a$15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more.

26:07Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free trading where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.