From Expelled Student to Entrepreneur: Mike Sancho on Network Marketing, Passive Income & the Metaverse

6 Mar 2026 · 17 min · 11 chapters

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In short

Mike Sancho’s journey from being expelled/arrested to building wealth, plus his views on network marketing and his company Wealth Accelerators’ “passive income” automation models, including trucking, Amazon FBA, and metaverse real estate.

Guest background

Mike Sancho is CEO of Wealth Accelerators and a real estate investor. He was expelled from high school, then expelled from college after a very low first semester at Clemson, later got arrested and spent weeks in jail. After release, he moved to Charleston, worked two jobs (Subway, 82 Queen washing dishes), and rose quickly to store manager and then general manager.

Key claims

Outwork everyone, learn continuously, and diversify beyond network marketing because you’re “live or die” on someone else’s company. Network marketing stigma comes from average people quitting early and lacking self-accountability; it’s essentially sales-team building. Success requires relentless daily recruiting, skill-building, and recruiting “up” to people with influence/audiences.

Notable examples

He rebuilt six-figure residual income multiple times after network marketing companies collapsed due to owner conflicts. He cites a recruiting example: targeting a person running a 500-person webinar and enrolling 300 that night. Wealth Accelerators example: trucking automation packages sold for $75k with a 50/50 profit split; they handle truck acquisition, staffing, registrations, maintenance, and freight brokerage. Metaverse example: partnering with “Euphoria” to sell properties in a VR city with events, arcades, and plans for a casino and “MetaMall.”

Guests

Mike Sancho (main guest). Host: Ryan Alford (interviewer).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Mike Sancho's Journey Begins

0:58 to 1:30

Mike shares his life-changing moment in jail that inspired him to succeed.

“I got arrested and they took me down to jailhouse and I spent a few weeks in there.”

Early Entrepreneurial Spirit

1:30 to 2:26

Mike discusses his childhood inspirations and early business ventures.

“This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production.”

Trouble and Expulsions

2:26 to 3:24

Mike recalls his experiences with trouble in high school and college.

“You ain't losing sometimes, you ain't learning.”

Rock Bottom and Motivation

3:24 to 4:34

After hitting rock bottom, Mike describes how he found motivation to succeed.

“I had a 0.71 my first semester at Clemson.”

Work Ethic and Early Jobs

5:20 to 8:14

Mike reflects on his early jobs and the work ethic that propelled him forward.

“People need to hear that kind of reflection of knowing what was ahead of you.”

Struggles in Entrepreneurship

8:14 to 10:00

Mike shares his challenges in transitioning to full-time entrepreneurship.

“I went to work at Lowe's, serving at an Italian restaurant.”

Success in Network Marketing

10:00 to 11:28

Mike explains his journey and successes in network marketing through perseverance.

“But at the end of the day, you're live or die on someone else's business.”

Developing a Business Mindset

11:28 to 14:00

Mike discusses the importance of mindset and skills in network marketing.

“I've had enough guests that talked about it.”

The Entrepreneurial Mindset in Network Marketing

14:00 to 14:33

Learn how successful network marketers embody the entrepreneurial spirit.

“And a lot of people have the fear, the fear factor, the fear of rejection.”

Wealth Accelerators: An Ecosystem for Passive Income

14:33 to 16:28

Discover how Wealth Accelerators helps clients build passive income streams.

“What is it and how are you helping people?”
Show all 11 chapters

Innovative Business Models: Trucking to the Metaverse

16:28 to 17:52

Explore various innovative business models from trucking to the metaverse.

“One that I'm really excited about, which is the metaverse automation.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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1:09That's when I really made that decision in my life when I was in that jail cell all alone. And I just made that line in the sand decision of I'm going to flip the script and people are going to be surprised. They're going to see what happens from here. Pretty much made a promise to myself that I'm going to just outwork everybody and I'm going to go all in all the time. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to be successful and I'm going to do it legally. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month.

1:41Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. Hey guys, what's up? We're talking sales today. We're talking marketing. We're talking trading. We're talking Mike Sancho. What's up, brother? What's up, man? Happy to be here. Hey, man. Excited to have you. My people and your people, we're talking. CEO of Wealth Accelerators, real estate investor, badass mofo. I'm glad to have you here. What's been shaking, man? You've been riding the train? We've been riding the train hardcore, man. We've been booming.

2:16Yeah, man. Sounds like it. Been reading about all your success and automation and sales. Let's talk your background though, Mike. The highs, the lows, everything else. Definitely some lows. You ain't losing sometimes, you ain't learning. When I was a child, the entrepreneur vein is just something I was born with. I'd be like eight years old watching the infomercials, all those commercials. But wait, there's more. And they're selling the products on TV. I was trying to invent products at that point. And I would go to my mom and say, hey, mom, can you help me get a patent? I was like trying to get patents with my mom's help at eight years old.

2:45Not many kids doing that. I had it early on. I just started to get into more and more businesses as a teenager. Not necessarily all of them legal businesses. I started selling a little weed as a kid. It's a common theme, I guess, in entrepreneurs. They take their business skills to a different kind of industry. That ended up getting me in a little bit of trouble. I ended up getting kicked out of high school because of it. I found my way into college after that and didn't learn my lesson the first time. I'm that guy who got expelled from high school. You were the true entrepreneur. Every friend I knew was either smoking or selling it or who knows what.

3:13You had to make money somehow. But I can relate to that entrepreneur, Gene. I like that. I'm that guy that got expelled from high school and got expelled from college. As you imagine my family was wicked proud of me at that time. I had a 0.71 my first semester at Clemson. Is that even possible? 0.0. That's at F minus. My ass got yanked home first semester. It didn't go well. So I can relate to making the family proud. I think you were majoring in parties and girls instead of class. I think that was the exact line I used on a podcast once. I was majoring in boobs, boobs, and beer. Hey, you got to go pro in something.

3:47I think I was a pro. You finally learned your lesson. I learned my lesson when I got kicked out of college. I got arrested. They took me down to jailhouse. I spent a few weeks in there. I came pretty close to some more serious charges and actually doing some prison time. That's when I really made that decision in my life. When I was in that jail cell all alone, I just made that line in the sand decision of, I'm going to flip the script. People are going to be surprised. They're going to see what happens from here. Pretty much made a promise to myself that I'm going to just outwork everybody. I'm going to go all in all the time.

4:16I'm going to do whatever it takes to be successful and I'm going do it legally. From there, I got out and went to Charleston, South Carolina when I got out of jail and I was living with my parents. I had no money. I was in debt, probably a hundred thousand dollars from student loans, car loans, lawyer fees that I owed back to my parents. You name it. I was in a big hole at 21 years old. But your whole life was in front of you. Exactly. Exactly. But you didn't realize this at the time. I'm sure you probably felt like, you know, life's over. I was motivated. I was fired up. Actually, that's good.

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5:24People need to hear that kind of reflection of knowing what was ahead of you. You were just barely getting started, even if it started a little bad, a little rocky. When your back's against the wall and you're at rock bottom, for me, it was purifying. I just felt free. I was able to just clear out all the bullshit in my life. It's a fresh start. it's a clean slate. I went down the main strip King street in Charleston. I applied at every single restaurant shop, whatever. I took the first two jobs that I could get. One was at Subway for seven 15 hour. The other one was at a restaurant called 82 queen washing dishes.

5:56I started working two jobs like a madman. The crazy thing is I decided to outwork everybody and that's in everything. Cause I said, how you do anything is how you do everything. So I came in a subway. I started showing up 30 minutes early working before I even clocked in. I started going in, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning underneath the oven, straightening the chips. This is before I even clocked in and you're talking subway. I know you can imagine the work ethic that comes with that for a lot of the people there. Customer service through the roof. I was staying late, clocked out, still working, still helping, sweeping, taking shifts, being super helpful.

6:25Within six weeks, they made me the store manager at 21. Within another two months, they made me the general manager of five locations because I just outworked everybody. This is the ethic that I've kept with me since that point. I just kept it booming. I was grinding my ass off. I took that into everything. And I started to take as much courses as I could, studying constantly about making money, all different types of industries, learning trading, crypto, e-commerce, real estate, course after course after course. There was no break. I shut the TV off. I just went all in. At that point, I tried to quit my jobs to go full-time into entrepreneurship, which was also a rocky road.

7:00The first thing I was doing was real estate investing. I was doing wholesaling. I started flipping properties, ultimately ended up going broke with that. I didn't have enough resources at the time. And pretty much I went on this cycle of quitting my jobs to go full-time into entrepreneurship, losing all my money, failing, and having to go back to work another job. I repeated that cycle for four times before I finally got fully free. I hear that story a lot, especially, and I see it a lot. You take a course, you learn something. There's a lot of course junkies out there. They learn things, but they don't translate it to success.

7:31I don't know if you figured out why that is. I think it's part about figuring out what you want to do, where you want to fall in line with. Because for me, the goal with taking the courses was never, I'm going to take this one course. It's the end all be all. This is the business I'm going to do. For me, it was, I just want to learn everything that I possibly can about business, every skill set I can learn. Because there is value in a lot of these courses. There's little golden nuggets. And even if I learned just that one nugget from that whole course, it was worth the couple grand that I put into it.

7:59You just got to get out there and start swinging. I believe that nothing is really a loss or a failure. Really, it's just a lesson. You just keep barreling forward. I was just so anxious to get out of there because I hated Subway so bad. I kept making that jump prematurely to get out. After Subway, same thing. I went to work at Lowe's, serving at an Italian restaurant. I worked at like an arcade, all different types of crap jobs that I hated. Every person should have to wash dishes at some point. I washed dishes when I was my first job. I was 15. It was a meet and three place and I would have to scrub the macaroni dishes that builds some grit let me tell you it builds grit on your fingers and then in your mind because they stack up i'm tall dude but if you're taller than me i'm like oh god looking at that mound of dishes but i do think everybody's got to wash dishes people laugh at me because i'd be there washing the dishes scrubbing the shit out of them like yeah i'm be a millionaire they're like okay dude yeah yeah yeah look at you now you had the trial the start and stop start and stop what was the first if you call it a single a double a triple what was it what was the first The first double, triple or home run that I kind of hit was in network marketing.

9:00I've been in that industry since 19. I got introduced to it at a young age. That sparked the mindset for me of business because it opened up a whole new world to me where you don't have to do the 40 hours a week for 40 years, try and retire off 40 % of your income. It was like, okay, there's another path to this. And that kind of opened me up from selling weed to, oh, I can become a real businessman. It's like the same thing, but just one's legal. One, you don't go to jail. One, everyone applauds you. Same skill sets though. Yeah. It's a lot of the same skill sets, which is incredible, but it took me a good six, seven years in that industry before I broke through.

9:33I hit my first six figure income. I started doing 25 K a month in residual income in a company. The funny part is four months after that happened, that company, the owner started fighting, broke up, company crashed. So I had to rebuild my income. I went to another company, rebuilt my six figure income again in network marketing. And this one went a little bit longer, but she got about a year in and then same deal. Owners started fighting, ripped the company apart, crashing, boom, went down, lost it all again. And then I went to a third company after that, rebuilt my six figure income again. I still have it now, which is good.

10:05They're about two years in. Hopefully they'll stick around. But during this volatility, this is where I really got the drive to build something that's my own because in network marketing, it's a great industry and you can do very well in it and you can learn a lot of skills and get around a lot of great people. But at the end of the day, you're live or die on someone else's business. That's a dangerous situation to have that as like your only income stream. This is where I really got into diversification in different industries, lots of different investments. And this is where we ended up founding Wealth Accelerators, which I founded in 2019.

10:39There's a stigma with network marketing. Yeah, there definitely is. I never hate on anybody's game. There's people smarter than me figuring things out, making a lot of money, doing a lot of things. But I've always been like, I never really understood the stigma, but it was there. What do you think that's about? Network marketing. It's a business built for average people. When you have a business that's built for average people, what are 97 % of them going to do? Zero. They're going to do nothing. They're going to turn around. They're going to bash the industry and they're going to point the finger because they have no self-accountability.

11:06That's really where that stigma is. The pyramid scheme things come from. All network marketing is a business. You're a sales rep for a business. They give you the whole infrastructure. They give you the product, the back office, everything. All you got to do is go out and build a team of sales leaders. And that's all it is. You're building sales teams. All I ever saw was a commission structure. Yeah. Like everyone puts a stigma on it and I'd read about it. And I mean, I understand it now. I've had enough guests that talked about it. I've been in advertising marketing my whole career, but this is just a sales structure.

11:34It's the same thing as the insurance industry or the real estate industry with the real estate brokerages because they earn overrides off their agents. It's the same concept. What's the formula that makes someone successful in network marketing? You have to be relentless. You got to get up every day. You got to talk to new people. A lot of people, they do the right activity, but they don't do it for long enough. They'll do it for two to three months. They won't get a lot of traction in that time. So then the enthusiasm drops and then they start to waver and then they kind of bail. And it's this cycle of like getting motivated and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

12:07Let's go. Like they go to an event or a convention, super motivated hearing from all the six and seven figure earners. I'm going to go do it. This is my year. Boom, boom, boom. They go talk to all their friends and family who are broke and don't have the mindset for it. They're like, dude, you're stupid. You're getting scammed. You're an idiot. Slowly, that tenacity starts to fade. So you really have to have a strong internal beliefs and motivation system. You got to learn. You got to practice your skills. A lot of people don't build on their value, their skills, because you're getting paid on the value you bring to the marketplace, which is what Jim Rohn would always say, one of my favorite mentors.

12:38A lot of people don't sharpen the toolbox. I'll be on YouTube all day watching learning sales skills, recruiting, negotiation, marketing. One thing that's amazing right now in building network marketing nowadays is social media. I've done a lot through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. I don't know how these guys built these network marketing businesses back in the day before all that. That's how I built mine because you can go target people who have the same mindset as you and you can go to the top people. A lot of people are afraid also to recruit up, we call it, going to people that you perceive as on a higher level than you.

13:09A lot of people recruit down because they think it's the easier person to recruit. But then all you're doing is bringing people into your business that are not going to do anything. You're turning your wheels and you're getting frustrated. I went straight to the top people. I'm like, who's a grinder? Who's a hustler? Who's got influence? Who's got an audience? Let's go straight to these people. Let's cut around the chase. I want to enroll one guy who's got an audience. He does a webinar for 500 people. We're signing up 300 people that night. Very smart, my friend. First thing I teach is compounding interest.

13:38The halo, it's the halo effect. Everyone has a halo. It's not always about the followers on Instagram. It's about that circle of influence. The greater the halo that you can tap into, the borrowed interest that you can get, the better you can do. And so all this playing down, let me see if I can get these 17 people that might not have any following or any influence, go up. Go up. Yeah. Straight to the top, man. Straight to the top. And then all the worst I can say is no. Exactly. And a lot of people have the fear, the fear factor, the fear of rejection.

14:09I do think what it sounds like to me, that secret formula, the people that do good at network marketing are really entrepreneurs. They're just might be doing it for someone else, sort of at first, but they're probably in their earliest phases of becoming, they're going to own their own thing one day. It's the people who are successful in real estate because you're going to go sign up with a brokerage. They're going to give you all the tools you need to be successful. But if you're really going to build it and win, you got to be an entrepreneur at heart. I love it. Let's talk about wealth accelerators.

14:34That's the latest stuff. What is it and how are you helping people? What's the nuts and bolts? Wealth Accelerator is a community. We're an ecosystem for wealth creation, wealth building, wealth compounding. We provide people with a variety of passive income streams through automated businesses. Essentially what we do is we do a lot of the heavy lifting for our clients and our partners on our businesses. We're the operations team. Basically people are teaming up with us. They're the financial partners. We're the operations partner. What that provides for our partners is a hands-off passive income experience.

15:07I'll give you an example. One of our newer services we rolled out a few months ago is with trucking automation. Okay. Trucking, fantastic industry, the freight business, logistics, been around for a long time. Unless you're in Canada, they're mad. I respect the hell out of them, but they're mad. I'd be pissed off too if I lived in Canada right now. I can't imagine, eh? Yeah, eh? Yeah. Get off my lawn, eh? Yeah. The logistics and freight business, trucking, it's the backbone of the economy. Nothing really works without trucking. We've been in this space for the past couple of years. We started building a pilot program, running some trucks out of Chicago.

15:41That's where our trucking headquarters is. We opened up the service of pretty much what we do is we sell these packages. Right now we sell them for 75 grand. We do a 50-50 split on the profit. What that does is we take that capital, the startup capital for the business. We're going to go get a truck. We're going to staff it with a driver, do all the registrations, inspections, maintenance. And then we're going going to put the truck on the road and broker the freight for them. We're teaming up with the clients. They're helping us scale a fleet faster. We're helping them gain passive income. It's a team business.

16:08It's a win-win for everybody all around. It's a really unique model. We also do this in a couple other industries right now. We do this in Amazon with FBA. We do wholesale distribution. We do Facebook shops. That's drop shipping. We also do YouTube automation. We build these YouTube channels for clients. We're building the YouTube shorts channels. And we have a couple other models that are in the pipeline that we got coming with real estate. One that I'm really excited about, which is the metaverse automation. We're going into VR, baby. We're going in there. Meta automation. Yeah, yeah. We have an entire city in the metaverse.

16:40We've teamed up with a project called Euphoria. We're selling properties in the metaverse and its entire interactive universe, which you can immerse yourself in. If you imagine like a Grand Theft Auto city, but you can throw on an Oculus goggles or VR headset, jump into the city. You can go around the city and then there's all types of stuff you can do within. You can go to events venues. We have arcades. We're looking at setting up a casino, also building out a MetaMall so you can actually go and shop within the Metaverse. Really exciting stuff. Mike Sanchez, where can everybody find Wealth Accelerators and you online?

17:12Where can we find you? You guys can find me on Instagram at TheMikeSancho or also our business page at Wealth Accelerators. You can check out a couple of our websites, AutomateTrucking.com, WealthAcceleratorsFBA.com, WealthAcceleratorsYT.com and more coming in the pipeline. Instagram at TheMikeSancho. Watch out for all the scam accounts because as soon as you follow me, you're going to get followed by like 15 other accounts with my pictures trying to get you to invest in some Bitcoin or crypto shit. Do not send any money. I will never DM you asking for money. Do not send any money. at TheMikeSancho is the real one and then at Wealth Accelerators.

17:51Appreciate you coming on, brother. Thank you for having me. Love your story. Search for Mike Sancho. You'll find all of today's highlight clips. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. You know where to find me. We'll see you next time. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening. Bye.

From the publisher

In this episode of Right About Now, Ryan Alford sits down with entrepreneur and Wealth Accelerators founder Mike Sancho to unpack the unconventional journey that shaped his business mindset. From getting expelled from both high school and college to hitting rock bottom and rebuilding his life through relentless work ethic, Mike shares how adversity pushed him into entrepreneurship

The conversation explores Mike’s early experiences in network marketing, the lessons he learned from losing income streams that weren’t fully in his control, and how those challenges ultimately led him to build his own ventures. 

Throughout the episode, Mike emphasizes a mindset of resilience, continuous learning, and creating multiple streams of income as the foundation for long-term financial freedom

Topics Covered

• Mike Sancho’s entrepreneurial journey after being expelled from school
• Lessons from hitting rock bottom and rebuilding through work ethic
• How network marketing can develop entrepreneurial skills
• The importance of diversification and multiple income streams
• Amazon wholesale vs drop-shipping business models
• Building YouTube Shorts channels through influencer partnerships
• Opportunities and risks in NFTs and digital ownership

• How the metaverse could impact gaming, commerce, and remote work

Mike Sancho

Founder — Wealth Accelerators

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themikesancho
Website: https://wealthaccelerators.com

Ryan Alford

Host — Right About Now

Website: Ryanisright.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford

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