Welcome to Other People's Perspective, a place for you to listen, learn, laugh, and always feel better at the end of every episode, taking something bigger away from it for you and others. And now here's your host, Freddy Cocek

Welcome back, everybody. This is Other People's Perspective. I'm your host, Freddy Cocek It's a pleasure to be here today. Anyone listening? My guest today is a young gentleman by the name of Zach Sasser. Zach is part of the APEX group. I met Zach back in around about July when I first joined and got involved with APEX. was July of 2022. I think we actually had some conversations and stuff back and forth that kind of, you know, ultimately led and escalated to me, you know, joining Apex and being involved with the organization and being a part of that. And Zach's been Zach's been kind of a guide and kind of a mentor of sorts for me along the way with Apex and some other things. And so it's a pleasure to have you on here today, Bubba. Appreciate you.

Freddy Cocek

Man, thank you for having me on, man. I'm super excited to come on whenever you make that post in Apex asking, hey, who wants to come on? I was like, dude, I definitely want to chop it up with Freddie, man. I always enjoy our talks, and I'm super excited to see where this podcast goes.

Zach Sasser

Absolutely. Myself included. I appreciate that. It, it's been a it's been a slow progression for me on the podcast thing, you know, I had my my, you know, when we first first met and first talked and held over the last couple of years, you know, my, my obviously, obviously my career, my industry, you know, my background, I've been in oil field and oil and gas services and operations for over 24 years now and was involved with having a partnership business in the oil field at a trucking and transportation company that I recently sold out of not even two months ago. And so it's been a It's been it's been a wild ride over the last couple of years with that and getting involved with apex and getting into a new circle of people and getting some exposure to some new things and and you know a lot of a lot of things that I knew existed, but had never really. taking the time to get much exposure to or much familiarity with because I was just kind of just entrenched in my own space. So, you know, getting involved with Apex and meeting new people and experiencing new things, it's been it's definitely been a breath of fresh air as far as business and career is concerned. And, you know, big focus on you know, personal growth and personal development. You know, there's a lot of emphasis on that. Obviously, you know, growth and development in your business and career as well for anyone and everyone. And it's been great, man. I've really enjoyed it. You know, I've enjoyed the opportunities to meet different people and experience different things and look forward to a lot more of it in the future. I'm digging it. It's been good stuff.

Me too, man. Me too. It's cool because I know I work for the organization, but it's kind of like, I don't just sell this stuff. I live and breathe it too. So like, it's changing my life the same, man. The people I've connected with, what I've learned, the epiphanies I've had, the lessons, the wisdom shared, just so much, man. The relationships that I've garnered from it. It's been a game changer for me, man. And it's cool because the name of your podcast is what, Freddie?

Other People's Perspective.

other, other people's perspective. And it was funny because you mentioned, man, you've been in business for 24 years and dude, I'm, I'm just scratching. Like I was born 24 years ago.

So I think that's 25 this upcoming weekend, right?

25 on Saturday. So, um, I think this is going to be fun, man. This podcast is definitely going to be other people's perspectives because, uh, we'll, we'll be able to chop it up, man. So I'm, I'm, I'm super excited.

Good deal. Um, um, I'm enjoying everything I've done thus far with it. It's been a great experience and appreciate the opportunity to get you on here and get the perspective from someone that I can legitimately consider you a younger generation because I have a kid that's this close to your age. I mean, you met Freddie. I mean, y'all are within a year or so of each other. It feels kind of I never I guess I never pictured myself in the in the phase of my life where I'd be looking at, you know, kids in their mid 20s and calling them kids. But, you know, that's just that's the beauty of life, man. It goes on and progression. Progression's a good thing. You just got to embrace it and and just just enjoy everything day by day. So. Absolutely. Tell me tell me a little bit about your your background. I know if I recall correctly, your family, you come from a family of business owners, entrepreneurs. I know you've got siblings that are in business. Your parents, from what I understand, they're in business for themselves as well. So it's almost in your blood to follow that path or at least be on that path.

100% man. So it's a little backstory on me. Yeah, you're correct. My dad, I grew up in a roofing family. So for the first, I don't know, maybe like eight years of my life, I was born in 99. My dad was in mortgages. So he was in sales and he could sell dude ice to an Eskimo. Like when I say this dude is like cold at sales, he's like the best salesman I've ever met. He's probably the best man that I've ever met. Not probably, he is the best man that I've ever met, but salesman, cold, like absolutely cold. So I've learned a ton from him and I've been growing up around it. And that's kind of, I believe everybody has a story and your story always leads to where you where you get to. So some people, right, perfect example, Ryan, Ryan got to where he is because of his story, like everything lined up, he went to prison, then he crushed loans, and then he couldn't do loans. So he started coaching people. And then that led to Apex. It just made sense. It's almost like God is just like a master story writer. And that's been a part of my story is I was around my dad. I got exposed to people at an early age. So in 2008, whenever mortgages crashed and all that sort of stuff, my dad got into roofing. So he started a roofing company. And remember that because I'm going to come back to it later on. But yeah, man, I've been exposed to, you know, kind of the business world and sales and entrepreneurship, marketing, all that sort of stuff. And since a an extremely young age, actually, whenever I was 15, my dad was purchasing different marketing courses and digital, digital real estate, Facebook ads, SEO, that that sort of stuff to kind of give something to me that he didn't have when he was growing up. So I say I grew up in an entrepreneurship family because my dad started a roofing company whenever I was about eight. But besides that, man, we don't come from business. We don't come from anything like that, acumen or sales or anything like that. But it's like my dad did it all. And he wanted to give us a foundation that he never had growing up. Isn't that crazy how that works out? Strong men create good times, good times create weak good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, that same cycle. My dad's the epitome of that. He grew up in a tough childhood and gave us a childhood that we could never even imagine. Like we definitely had rough years, especially 2008. You know, everybody does, man. Everybody goes through it. For sure. So it was really cool. And once again, your story, God's a master writer. So he showed me really good years, what was possible. They show me really tough years, man, reduced, if not free lunches at school and stuff like that. So I got to see both, hey, this is what's possible. This is what I want. But also, hey, here's the value of a dollar. Here's how you have to work hard, because it's not just handed to you. So I got to see kind of both of those. And it led me to, I think that's what led me to my work ethic, you know, on top of seeing my dad works so hard, seeing what was possible, if you work hard, but also what was possible if you don't, it just kind of a fire under me. So when I was 15 and I was going through different digital marketing courses and I actually started a digital marketing agency while I was still in high school. So I think I was 16, 17 at the time making websites first. At the time, my dad's roofing company, my brother eventually ended up starting his own and growing. And now I'm a part of that organization as well. But it all kind of fed into each other. So I started learning marketing. I learned about Ryan Stumann and that's what led me to land in an internship whenever I turned 20 with him, which eventually led me to Apex. I started as an intern with Stumann, worked my tail end off, started doing some sales and became the top sales producer for Apex. And that's where I met you, Freddie. So, dude, it's crazy the stories that God writes and just kind of gives you the opportunities in order to grab a hold of and to actually take hold of Um, but yeah, man, little story about me.

Um, I guess that's a little bit, you know, I, I could keep going, but that's definitely, you have to, you have to give yourself and any, I, my personal feeling, uh, any, any individual has to give themselves a very fair level of credit for, you know, Opportunity, you know as well as I do, you have an opportunistic mindset because you can see and you can visualize, either you can see something somewhere and either recognize a direct opportunity in it or within it, or you may look at it and say, well, This is a step to the next step. And some people, not everybody can visualize things that way, and not everyone can think that way. And beyond that, the reason I say that I think anyone that pushes themselves harder and pushes themselves farther to do more They deserve to give themselves a very fair and pretty huge level of credit because not everyone is willing to do the work and put in the extra effort and what it takes to get farther. There are a lot of people that have this mindset or this misconception that things just Things just happen, you know, like good things are going to happen to me no matter what, just because I'm here and just because I deserve it. You know, and in my opinion, that's a that's like a that's a setup for failure. You know, you have to be anyone has to be willing to do the work. put in, you know, put in the extra effort above and beyond what it takes just just for normal things to get by. You got to be and you got to be willing to to face adversities whenever, you know, they come along. You got to you got to deal with hardships. You know, one one big thing about about hardships and struggles is that they, uh, they, they, they give us the opportunity to, to appreciate a lot more when, when things are good, because if it was, if it was good all the time, then, then, um, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know what it's like to struggle. I mean, it's, you know, and it's just not, you know, by, by the, the, the natural order of things, everything is just not always, you know, rainbows and unicorns, you know, 24, seven, three 65, you, you have to have, you've got to have some struggle and some adversity mixed in there. to be able to recognize and appreciate when things really are better. And a lot of people, they struggle with that. They struggle to deal with that and to kind of rise above that stuff and be able to push through it and work through it. So anybody that is willing to or anyone that takes it upon themselves to work, work harder and, and, you know, deal with what comes and make the best of it and recognize and realize that it's not always going to be bad. You know, as long as you keep, you keep working toward a solution and, and, you know, keep pushing yourself, uh, keep looking for, you know, the, the right answer or the, the, the best answer for a situation, you know, things, things are going to level off and get better and, and they're going to be good. So, a big pat on the back to yourself for not only having the opportunities afforded to you, but also having the presence of mind to push for that and to do that and to make it something bigger for yourself. That's good stuff. Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, let's see. What do you got going on currently? with things.

Yeah, so currently I am Currently I'm working at Apex and I do sales for Apex. I'm the top sales producer over here. I'm just focused on, you know, getting better every single day, man. You know, sometimes people, um, I think it's real popular to, to, to think like, Hey, what's new? You know, people always ask me, Hey, what's new, what's new, what's new. Um, but for me, man, it's, it's, it's just doing the same boring stuff every single day, day in and day out. Um, cause that's what gets results, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it may not be sexy. It may not be the shiny object out there, but. um shiny object crypto you know shiny object this over here starting a new business drop shipping all this sort of stuff and it's just um man i'm just doing the boring stuff i'm enjoying life um you know i i think sometimes you can get out of balance a little bit um we can talk about balance you know everybody my opinion on balance is you just kind of gotta find what works for you man so before this call you know i mentioned hey you know i may be going to costa rica um it's that balance man being able to put my head down and really do what i enjoy which is business, you know, selling for apex. I also, you know, going back to coming back to, to the roofing company. Um, I run the sales team for my brother's roofing company as well. So that's another thing that I'm focused on. Um, so not only, you know, learning sales, but then also teaching other young hustlers that are hungry and they want an opportunity. They want to be able to seize an opportunity in the same way that I seized an opportunity whenever I was younger as well. So being able to pour back into other people that want what I have, while also being surrounded by other people that have what I want as well. I think that's very important. I heard one of my friends and mentors, actually, you know, Brandon James, a part of our Apex program, say, I want to be surrounded by people that want what I have or have what I want. And I think that's just like kind of being in line with, with, you know, people above you, people below you, and just kind of living with those people. So that's really what I'm focused on, man. Doing the boring stuff, you know, making sales.

Master, what do they say? Master the mundane, right?

For real, man. You know, and definitely finding that balance between enjoying life, man. I'm sure Costa Rica is going to be a blast. A few months ago, I went to Switzerland. That was my first time out of the country. So, Uh, enjoy life.

I bet that was, that was a fantastic experience. Wasn't it?

It was man. It was. And I went to Switzerland a few months after Montana. So dude, I'm not a traveler. Like I haven't traveled like this. That was my first time out of the country besides Mexico. So first time ever to Europe, first time ever to, you know, across the, to another country besides Mexico. Um, but dude, definitely enjoying life, man, but also, you know, not forgetting what got me here. which was hard work. I had down in, like you said, me and master mastering the mundane.

So some of the some of the best experiences I think anybody can can have for themselves is in the form of travel and getting getting to new places and experiencing new things. You know, this this is a it's a big world and we're tiny little people. We're tiny little things in a big world. And there's a lot of stuff out there to see and getting out there, you know, taking advantage of that opportunity. And at your age, that's huge. You know, get yourself out there, go see the world. You know, you're earning your own way to go and to be able to do that. And not only, you know, not only having, you know, good and memorable experiences, but creating good memories and also, you know, When we get ourselves out there in the world, when we spread around and go see and experience new things, you never know what kind of opportunity you may encounter elsewhere. Also, when you go to another place, obviously most of the time if you're traveling or going to a new place, it's primarily for fun, but hey, you never know. When you spread around and see new things, meet new people, get introduced to new avenues and new ideas, you never know what may come of it. Yeah, it's a, it's a big win across the board doing any of that stuff. I think it's awesome.

That's great. I'm enjoying it, man. Like I said, I was never a big traveler, but you know, ever since I started, I went to Montana, got to go see Yellowstone, um, Switzerland going to be doing, uh, what you would call it. Hopefully Costa Rica soon. I haven't booked that trip yet. Like I said, I just started thinking about it like, like five hours ago, but I think we're going to do it, man. I think life, uh, life could be long. Life could be short. You don't really know.

So, so, you know, taking that trip, if you feel like going to Costa Rica, like let's do it, you know, tomorrow, tomorrow is never promised as, as they say, or as I've, I've heard it said before. So now, man, that's, that's good. What, uh, what I know when you, when you, uh, you said y'all went to Switzerland, what, what prompted the, the, uh, the idea to, to visit Switzerland, anything in particular?

So Switzerland's one of those things where you see all these videos whenever you're on Instagram or stuff like that. If you see any travel videos, a lot of them are like Switzerland. It's like, man, travel here, this place doesn't look real. And to be honest, I wasn't sure if it was real. Everything on Instagram is kind of like a different version of reality. I feel like a lot of people can Fake things edit things you know virtual reality there's all these different things so my girlfriend actually hurt her mom said hey you know I'm getting this into your bonus. I want to take you somewhere. my girlfriend asked, Hey, can Zach come along? And I was like, Yeah, you know, she said, Yeah. No, honestly, at first, I was like, y'all go enjoy it. And then, and then they said that they're going to Switzerland. I was like, man, that's like a once in a lifetime opportunity. So you know what, yeah, let's let's take eight days off from work, you know, go sit in a plane for 12 hours. And dude, it was a blast. So it was real. And dude took my breath away. It was incredible.

I have, I have some, some friends that, uh, that actually they, this they're, they're older than me. Um, but they, they got married last year and I guess, uh, before, before there, I can't remember. I can't remember if it was their honeymoon trip or if it was a trip that they had taken prior to, to their wedding. But they, uh, they went to, um, Oh, they went to Switzerland and several, several European countries. But I remember, I remember Travis showing me on his, on his iPhone, like showing me a video that they were taking a crane, a train, like cross country. And you could see like the, the, I guess like the Swiss Alps in the background and You know, Travis is an older gentleman. He's probably, he's probably early sixties, something like that. So he's not, you know, he's, he's kind of an old country boy from down here. He's not worried about having the iPhone 16, you know, super pro plus he's got some, he's got an old, he's like, by like me, he's got an old raggedy ass beat up phone. I was with the crack screen or crack screen cover and everything. And I was looking at it and I was. I was watching the video and I was like, it literally like what you're talking about with Instagram, how, you know, a lot of things can be edited or doctored and it doesn't, you know, sometimes some of what you see, you kind of wonder it's like, man, is that, is that legit? Like, is that, is that natural? Is that normal? And, uh, he the video he was showing me, like it was it was just raw footage when they were in the train just passing, you know, through the countryside and filming the Swiss Alps. And it was like it was surreal. Like the it looked it looked like something out of a movie and then some. But it was just I mean, it was just normal. I mean, it was just regular old picture, regular old video. And but yeah, it's it looked like an experience that that You know, not very many people get to have, and if you, you have the opportunity to do so, you know, heck yeah, that's, that's awesome. You got to take advantage of that. That's a, that's like a once in a lifetime deal for, for a lot of people. That's badass.

It was, man. It was, it was incredible. It was ridiculous. It really was.

What did, uh, what'd y'all think of Yellowstone or Montana, I guess, state of Montana, Yellowstone. I don't know where else y'all went besides that.

Yeah, so we stayed in Idaho, we went to Montana, we went to Wyoming. And we went to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons and stuff like that, dude, it was that once again, that was incredible. So I went there before Yellowstone. And I don't want to take away from Yellowstone, man. We should have talked about that first, but it was just ridiculous. But but Yellowstone, I'll say this, man. Yellowstone absolutely took my took my breath away. And until I went to Switzerland the following month or two, that was the most beautiful place that I've ever seen. Dude, ridiculous up there. Once again, like I can't I can't even put it into words. And I'm just grateful to have that experience, man, because like I said, I was never a traveler before this. Yeah. Went to Florida a couple of times, went to California. But that's pretty much it. Went to Cabo with you a couple of times. So like, like, I went some places, but I've never been to places like that. So, dude, just grateful. And I can't even put it into words. Literally took my, like, took my breath away, you know, just like normal for them. Like there's people that live, man, the park rangers up there, they live in the, in the park and that sort of stuff. Like they wake up to that sort of stuff. Drove by some bears, drove by just, dude, it was just ridiculous. It was, I highly recommend it. I really do.

Oh, that's awesome. It's awesome to see and to hear. Like I said earlier, I don't mean to keep beating up the whole deal of saying, well, you're a kid because you're not a kid, obviously. But I think of someone in your age bracket in their mid-20s. When I was in my mid-20s, I I wasn't thinking about and I wasn't focusing on pursuing those kinds of things. And now in hindsight, I look back and I'm ridiculously grateful and eternally grateful for where I'm at in my life. I've had great opportunity with career and business. I've had the opportunity to raise my two boys. Freddie's 23. He's out of the house. Halen is 15 and he's not far off from, you know, finishing school and being out of school. But I. I, you know, from, from my early twenties, when, you know, I had Freddie when I was 21. So my mindset at that time was like, man, I gotta, I gotta go to work. And I came from, you know, my, my dad passed away, you know, about a year after Freddie was born. And I was just, I was always kind of trained and chill. My dad was a, you know, he was a hard worker and I, I didn't. I didn't have the exposure to, you know, the kinds of opportunities that, that would have, you know, possibly put me in a different place or a different path, but I don't, you know, I'm not, I don't dwell on that at all. Like I'm, I'm grateful for where I'm at. And, you know, I had the opportunity to be around and, and, you know, raise my boys and be involved with them as they've been growing up. And even now, you know, even Freddie into his twenties. We talk all the time and I get to see him and get to experience that. But for the younger generation, kids and people in their 20s, work hard, push yourself as far as you're willing to go and work hard and earn the ability and the opportunity to do things like that and go out there and experience those kinds of things for yourself, man. That stuff, if nothing else, at least to your soul, it pays dividends to your soul, man, to be able to experience those things and have that. I mean, that's a lifetime memory for you to remember and reflect on. think about it and use it going forward in some sort of context. That's, that's awesome. That's, that's good stuff. And it's, and it's cool to see you, you know, see your, you know, you said, well, you know, I've never really traveled much and, and to see you like taking more of an interest in it, you know, and, and that's, that's like progression, you know, in general, a lot of, you know, every, everybody, every, every person, you know, evolves from where they're at at a given point in their life as, as, uh, as, as they age, as they progress, as they experience new things and get exposed to different things, you know, your, your outlook on certain things changes and your perspective on certain things changes. And what, what was important, you know, yesterday or last week or last month, Not that it's become unimportant, but as you experience new things or get exposed to new things, your interest, I don't want to say that it changes, but it evolves. And for you to have an interest and a taste for wanting to go and do more of that, that's good, man. Jump all over it.

I would say it's really been like the last 18 months, man. It started whenever we went to Cabo and I just kind of started thinking like, I have a list of accomplishments that I want to accomplish. I'm very intentional with that. So it's like, man, I want to do this. I want to build a real estate portfolio. I want to do X, Y, Z. And there's all these different things. And I was like, man, like a lot of them are like business focus. And it's like, I love business, man. It's a passion of mine. Like I genuinely do. I love learning about all sorts of things, reading and, you know, learning about investing in taxes and all that sort of. And I don't know, man, call me weird, but I that stuff is just exciting to me. But I was like, man, what what else? Like what what like like what else do I want to accomplish in this life? Like if I'm building a resume for life, what do I want to accomplish? And I started putting things on. I was like, man, I want to box. I want to learn jujitsu. I want to learn how to fight. I want to get into hunting. So I shot my first deer in January of last year. maybe two years ago. So maybe sorry about two years ago. Man, we went down to South Texas with you and Sammy Knight had us out there. Me, you, Ryan and Sammy and we were shooting Neil Guy and you know, in the time of our life, man, like those are those I realized that the money's important, man. It really is because it affords opportunities and it affords me need food. But then also it allows you to do things that you want to do. And I feel like life is too short not to do things that you want to do. But I want to say like, like the more important currency is memories. And once I started thinking about that, it's like, I was so focused on, man, I gotta live below my means in order to have extra money to invest so that that money starts compounding and eventually I can replace my income with passive income. That's one thing that I'm very passionate about as well is like, there's an end to those means. Like I'm not just working my life away for nothing. I'm working my life away so that whenever I'm in my thirties and have my first kid, I never miss a soccer game, never miss a football game. Like that's what I'm going for is like freedom. I want my time back. If I choose to, people have this view of retirement. My view of retirement is I don't think I'm ever going to retire. But if I want a Saturday offer, a Tuesday offer, need to take a three month vacation, whatever that needs to look like, I have the freedom to do so. So that's kind of my view on it. But I always thought, I mean, every dollar is important. It's not about how much money you make, it's about how much money you keep. So keep my spending low and make a lot of money and invest it. And five years from now, 10 years from now, I'll thank myself. But whenever I started thinking of memories as currency, I was like, dude, Yeah, let's let's go catch the money money off the coast of Cabo and have those memories for the rest of my life. Yeah, let's let's go down to South Texas to Sarita, Texas and Sammy mean he had a place for us and everything so all we had to pay for was. processing meat. Like, yeah, dude, I'm happy to pay for that. Like those memories, dude, priceless for me. I want to pay 20 for that. But whenever, whenever I started thinking of it, in terms of that, it's like, dude, yeah, let's go to Costa Rica. Let's go to Switzerland. You know, yes, it's money, but then I can make money, we can go make more money. And plus, it's not like It's not like by going to those places, it takes away from, you know, having the freedom in the future. Yeah, maybe it delays it a little bit, but like, dude, to me, that's worth it. Like I would rather have reached financial freedom in, let's just say a number, 10 years from now. I would rather reach financial freedom in 10 years and have some great memories along the way. Whenever I went down to South Texas and we went to Costa Rica, we went to Switzerland, we went to Montana and all these great memories then. getting financial freedom in eight years, just two years quicker and not having any of that. It just makes sense to me.

That's a huge, in my opinion, that's a huge major bonus of your mindset and your philosophy to think that way. I I hope at some point, I hope some of this falls on some ears of younger kids, younger crowd, that it will help them to understand or maybe realize to some degree the importance of how substantial that is to be thinking along those lines at your age and at your position in life. I think something that a lot of people, I don't want to say they fail at because I think fail is kind of fails a negative term, but I think a lot of people fall short on prioritizing. what's really important. I mean, you can prioritize things, but then the personal discipline that it takes to really, you know, commit to something, commit to a process and stay focused and see it through from start to finish. A lot of people, you know, I think it's got to be tougher now in today's society than it was you know, like 20 years ago when I was in my mid twenties, um, you know, there's, there's so many things going on in the world. There's so many distractions, you know, the, the, the constant shiny object thing, you know, the, the, the social media, I think there's a lot of influence and a lot of pressure from all these different things to, Oh, well, you know, well, this, this looks cool. And then you see this, you know, the next day, Oh, well, that looks cool. And I, I think, I think there's a, I think it's, it's, it's pretty tough. There's a lot of elements out there now that make it difficult for, for, uh, for people to focus on one, you know, not, and I'm not just saying like to focus on one specific job or one specific career path, but just to decide on a, decide on a path for themselves or really like to, to set some goals and say, Hey, okay. You know, in, in, in one year, this here's, here's the things I want to do. And I want to accomplish these things in one year. Okay. Uh, three to five years, you know, at 10 years, boom, this, these are the things that I want to do. And like, actually you, you, you can talk about it. You can have it in the back of your brain, but I think actually, visualizing it, you know, prioritizing it by, by listing it and, and saying, okay, look, these are, you know, I'm going to write this shit down and that way I can see it. And it's tangible and it's visible. I think, uh, you know, uh, I'm just as guilty of that. You know, I have a jillion things, you know, floating around in my brain, bouncing around my brain, you know, I want to, I want to focus on this. I want to focus on that. I want to do these things, but, um, you know, the, the, the distractions that people encounter, um, I think, I think, you know, like I said, I think it's worse now than it's ever been, or it's as, it's as difficult now as it's ever been. Uh, because there's, there's so much data, so much information, so many things floating around out there, so much different shit coming at you all the time, you know, shit coming from here, coming from there, coming from behind, like everywhere. And, um, you know, to, to be able to, to set goals, focus on them, stay focused and, and, you know, do what's necessary to achieve that. That's, that's big shit. That's, that's good. I, I, I would love to, to see, you know, more of the younger generation have that, you know, either, either have those, those qualities and characteristics within them and, and figure out what it takes to bring them out so that they can utilize them or. if they don't have it within them, but they can learn it or pick it up, you know, to, you know, to be involved with, with organizations like Apex and, and meet people like yourself and, and listen to your story and, and learn that it's, it's all, it's all doable. It's all possible. It just takes the, it just takes the, you know, the, the, the, the focus and, you know, the personal discipline to, to do those things. And then you can, I mean, you can, You can achieve so much in life and you can really enjoy a lot of things if you just you're just willing to work for it.

For sure. I think it's very important to have that exposure first and foremost, and then also having that time under tension. Um, so having the exposure, I never would have known all of this is popular if I never got exposed to it. So I think that's why it's so important that, you know, perfect examples. I put, I put a book out there, you know, young closer because I want more people to be exposed to the type of things that I was exposed to. And if they can do that, like I spent hours an hour, dude, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hour work weeks. in order to get exposed to it, to learn, and to kind of learn the lessons and to earn my keep, kind of earn a seat at the table. to be able to package that up into an $8 book, I just felt like that was the right move. That's why I make a Facebook post every single day. I try to give so much value to people. But also, I think that time under tension is also very important as well. So exposure alone won't allow you to be successful. There's been plenty of people that have had the same exact opportunities that I've had and have not seized it in the way that I have, which not to say that's wrong or right or anything like that. They're on their own journey. They chose for themselves. Um, I think having that time under tension is very important as well, because it didn't happen overnight.

Like my first six months here, thank God, nothing good does nothing good does happen overnight. Unless it's like, you know, a bunch of quick cash coming from a dope deal. And that's not, you're out, you're out fishing in Costa Rica and you catch some, uh, catch some other types of bricks, but yeah, just leave it in the water, leave it in the water.

But, um, Now, what was I, what was I? Oh, it didn't happen overnight, man. My first six months, thank God I was, you know, in college, I didn't need a lot of money because I wasn't making a lot of money. My first six months, uh, second six months still really wasn't making a ton of money, but I was starting to get it, you know, starting to make sense to me and, uh, starting to, to, to make improvements, make progress another six months. I finally really started to get, I hit my first month being top producer, but even then, man, 18 months into it, like, In my first month being top producer you could think like oh he's successful but like dude that was just the beginning like looking back I'm like I really didn't know everything I needed to know I didn't know what the next three and a half years would have in store for me because it's it's been you know it's a roller coaster life's a roller coaster it's um And if you want to do do mathematic terms, it's like sine and tangent and cosine and all that stuff like waves, man, that's what life is, really. So you're going to have you're going to have highs, you're going to have lows. But if you have that time under tension, then you don't you don't jump off at the high, you don't jump off at the low, you just ride that roller coaster through life and and you learn and you pick up wisdom and you learn experiences and you You learn what you need to do, but you have that time under tension that that's what grows muscles as well as it's not just going in and lifting a hundred pound dumbbell. It's no, maybe you do the thirties, but you do it for, you know, five sets of, you know, 10 or whatever it is in progressive overload. Like it's, it's that time under tension that, that really gets the results. So those are two things that I think are very important is, is not only getting that exposure, which. Freddie, you're doing your part by having this podcast, making posts. I'm trying to do my part as well, having that exposure, but then also having that time under attention and understanding, just kind of having a big picture overview. Like, dude, this isn't going to happen overnight. All the greats once went through what I'm going through. Like, don't jump off at the high, don't jump off at the low, stay low when you're high, stay high when you're low and just get through life, man.

Absolutely. I completely agree. And I think another, another, uh, another force that works against people these days, if they allow it to work against them, is there's a big perception, and I think it's a misconception on many levels, but so much of what we see or how we see and experience things, whether it's through social media or, you know, social media is huge, you know, let's not make no bones about it, you know, that's Social media doesn't rule everyone's life and their daily, but it's a huge part of how we interact, how we're connected to other people. And a lot of what we see or a lot of what we're shown is more often than not, it's a lot of instant gratification. And I think it creates a misconception for a lot of people that things just happen like that. not unfortunately, but that's just not the case. With things that really deserve your time and your attention and your focus, because if you invest for any person, for anyone, if they invest their time and their attention, their focus and their care, and they put their best effort into something, If they want the best outcome, people have to be more realistic that it takes time and it takes work. There's very few things that are going to be good and they're going to be long lasting or the benefit from them is going to be long lasting. If the result comes, if you just come by the results immediately, it's kind of like learning the value of ownership of something. It's like, well, hey, if I've You know, a kid out of high school, you know, they go and, and, you know, work all summer or, you know, work, work, summer jobs, weekend jobs, whatever, for, you know, a couple of years, two or three years and saving up their money and, and, you know, collecting all that because they want to go buy their first car or they got to, you know, uh, their, their dream car when they turn 18 or when they turn 20. Um, if, if they, if they save, you know, if they have to work hard and save their money and, and buy their time and wait and be patient, you know, then once they achieve that goal, then. it holds a lot more value, uh, because you look back and you think about all of the time and effort that you invested into what it took to get you there. Uh, as opposed to, you know, if it just, you know, have somebody just hand you, you know, here's a sack full of money, boom, go buy whatever it is that you want. You know, there's, it's very difficult to, to appreciate the, you know, the value in that. And it, uh, It kind of bothers me sometimes to see this misconception of instant gratification, but we're so used to, we've been conditioned to A lot of times, if you want something, you just go, get my phone, go look it up on the internet, boom, Uber Eats or door dash or whatever, be delivering it in 20 minutes or a Amazon Prime, it'll be here this evening or tomorrow. And that's great. Those things have their place, but that doesn't work in every instance. And, you know, a lot of people, they kind of get misconstrued thinking, well, shit, you know, if I can do such and such that easy, why shouldn't this be easy? It's like, well, that's a different level. That's a different thing.

I think a lot of people get lost in that sauce too. And it sucks because social media, it can be great, man. Like you want to be exposed to things. You want to learn the stuff without social media, but also a lot of people they're lost in the sauce with it too, because they see that and they're like, Oh, it should happen overnight. Uh, Oh, this person's living this, you know, highlight lifestyle. And it's just, it's not like that. And unfortunately it's like, it's awesome to see that, but it's also like a lot of people are getting crushed by that sort of stuff. So I think it's extremely important to understand. that not everything that you see is actually the way that it is. Everybody goes through their struggles. Everybody has to mean that that person that you're seeing the couple of things, man, not not not only do not see all the late night and early mornings that they had to get through in order to get there. But on top of that, dude, on top of that, their life is not even that great as well. Like that's a highlight reel. They're not talking about the struggles and the anxiety and the adversity and everything that they have to overcome. So during the beginning, I thought it was a bad thing. I was like, man, it looks like it happens overnight for these people and it's not happening overnight for me. So it was like a bad thing. And then I learned the game and it was that time under tension. I learned, Oh, everything's not actually what it seems. These people, they throw out these big numbers, but it's like, maybe they're not actually doing that. Maybe it's a syndicated, you know, maybe, maybe there there's all sorts of stuff that like people just kind of keeping up with the Joneses and And that's really led me to on a very healthy mental health aspect is I was struggling with it for a long time. I was like, man, I'm not doing it. Dude, I'm accomplishing things. A lot of things that like, like top one percent of the people my age. And I'm sitting here thinking, like, I'm not doing enough. I'm failing. Why am I doing this? And then over time, I was just struggling. I was just hitting my head against the wall. And I was like, dude, I'm not. Like everything's not what it seems with these people. Just go on your own path and be happy. And that's honestly, man, probably about two years ago, 18 months, 24 months. And that's whenever I started enjoying life more and just kind of being on my own journey. It's like. we get so caught up in this hustle bustle on, you know, accomplishing these goals. And dude, me, myself, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm one of the worst ones at it. It's like, dude, I got to get this right away. Um, but dude, it's, it's been a very healthy journey that the last, I would say probably about two years, um, just kind of going on my own journey, not comparing myself to, to people. And I don't want to say not compare myself, but trying to limit how I compare myself because you're, I don't think it ever goes away, but being, I don't think it does. Being able to control that, though, I think it's very healthy. And I'm grateful to kind of have those, once again, exposures and just kind of realizing that. But I hope a lot of people and I hope one person in the audience is like, dude, you know, you're right. And all these people were seeing these highlight reels. But we just got to take care of ourselves, man. And at the end of the day, if you take care of yourself and your family, you're gonna be just fine, man.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that that, that goes back to, at least in part kind of goes back to the, the, the personal, some, some aspect of like your, your personal discipline and, and, you know, conditioning yourself to not, not get overwhelmed or not think that, you know, you're, you're losing or you're failing. Like you were saying, you're like, man, how come I haven't done so what the fuck, you know, how come I haven't done such and such, or how come I haven't got to this, you know, well, so-and-so did it now, you know, Sometimes you gotta, you gotta, you gotta pump the brakes, you gotta pump the brakes and kind of step back and take a little breather and realize that, you know, you are, you are doing good and you are doing well. And, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, people, you know, driven and motivated people, uh, or, or sometimes their, their own, you know, worst critics and their own toughest critics. And that's another thing, I think, that never really goes away. But as we get older and as we experience more things, you learn to put yourself mentally, like you're talking about over the last year and a half, couple of years, you've kind of mentally shifted yourself from where you were to recognizing, hey, you know what? I haven't been doing this bad, but I want to do things differently. And I want to think a little bit differently because I don't want to, you know, We're going to push ourselves, but you don't need to, you know, push yourself to the point that, you know, you feel like you're, you're failing or you're making yourself feel like you're, you're failing at something or you're falling short because you're, you're not, you're not failing, you're falling short. You know, you're, you're fucking killing it and you're just learning. you're learning how to, you're, you're learning how to refine your processes and get and get better along the way. So it's, that's it.

It's just, it's been important being surrounded by people like you and, you know, other people, part of Apex and, you know, that, that just kind of get that because it, it can be a lonely road if you're, if you're just by yourself and then you get into like the circular, you know, pattern where it's like, dude, I'm, like you're a victim and you're in that victim mentality, but you know, getting surrounded by other people that can help you get up and be like, dude, life's hard for everybody. Let's just keep going. I think that's crucial.

Absolutely. I want to ask you one more thing before we close it up. Think about it for a second if you need to. And like I told you at the beginning, I kind of wanted to a lot of our discussion. I wanted to wanted it to kind of be geared toward a younger crowd and hopefully offer you know something beneficial for for up and comers. As being a being a younger guy, you know what? What do you think? Or what? What is what do you think is the best piece of advice that you could offer to to anyone? You know that's that's either. Aspiring, you know, aspiring toward entrepreneurship or someone that has interest in doing something, you know, above and beyond for themselves, wanting to do more, wanting to do better. What do you think is the best piece of advice that you could you could give or offer?

Man, that's that's that's tough dialing down to one thing, but if I have to say that, I would say. that there's a book out there. And this book is the number one book that like, more like the majority of entrepreneurs, more entrepreneurs and business owners and millionaires and successful people give credit to this one single book, like out of all the books out there, they give credit to this one single book. And this one single book, it's called Think and Grow Rich. And the key in this book is, I don't want to spoil too much I think it's a great book I think everybody should read it, but I guess I am going to spoil it, the key to this book is desire. And at the end of the day if you have the desire to do something. you'll figure everything else out. Like if you truly have a desire that's burning so deep in you to, let's just think about it. Like if, let's say you're, you're captured prisoner and you're starving, like you have to break out, you're going to find a way to break out. If, if you're, uh, if, if, if you're somewhere you're lost in the desert and you're hungry, like you're going to find a way to find food. Like you're, you're going to find a road, you're going to catch a hitchhiker. Like you're going to figure something out. And I feel like at the end of the day, you got to learn how to think how to think, not what to think. So instead of me telling you like, hey, this is how you should think, I think you got to learn, or instead of me telling you, hey, this is what you should think. I think you just got to learn how to think. And I think if you have that desire, you're going to learn how to think. You're going to get surrounded by the right people. You're going to pick up on the right things. You're going to read the right books. You're going to have the right opportunities, have the right epiphanies. You're going to be in the right rooms. Everything's going to happen. to give you that opportunity if you prepare yourself because you have such a burning desire. So if you truly have that desire, and I think it's important to be real with yourself too, because some people don't have that desire. Some people don't, and they're just kind of like trying to force something that they really don't want to happen. So having that clarity on what you really do want in life, and it's not going to happen overnight. Like you're not going to hear this podcast and go to your notebook and be like, yep, this is exactly what I want my life to look like. I thought you could do that you know a couple years ago I was writing down just what my what I want my life to look like and it's changed so much but I'm constantly reassessing hey what do I really want having that clarity having having that. open discussion and talking to myself and coaching myself, really. Everybody's always looking for other coaches, but I think you can coach yourself better than a lot of other people with a lot of topics because you understand everything. You understand your desires and your feelings and your emotions and the context and where you're at and all that sort of stuff. So I think the number one thing, man, is going to be desire. If you want to be the number one basketball player, Kobe had that desire. He wanted to. He was in the gym. He was doing what he had to do, hired the right trainers. going through the practice on probably on YouTube. I don't know if YouTube was there, but probably on YouTube, learning how to become, you know, how to make that free throw, how to make this jump shot, all that sort of stuff. If you have that desire, then you'll figure everything else out. I would say probably that mean have that desire, because if you have that desire, and you truly have that desire, don't fake it. But if you truly have that desire, you're going to go through a lot of Bullshit, and you're going to get through it. You're going to go through adversity and you're going to get through it because your desire so so much that you're willing to go through some pain in order to get it.

That's that's huge. I like that. That's that's very, very true. OK.

That's a tough question, man. One thing.

It is. It is. Yeah, it is difficult to narrow it down because I think there's well, the fact that you've got the presence of mind to realize that there's a lot of there's a lot of good, helpful insight that you could offer to to other people that that in itself is huge. Yeah, it's difficult to narrow it down and say, well, you know, this one fucking thing is going to fix your life and it's going to change everything for the better because it don't work that way. We know that.

Yeah, take this one pill, it'll become a millionaire.

Brother, I appreciate your time, man. I've enjoyed it very much.

Me too. Thank you for having me on, man. I really hope this, this, uh, man, if this, if this podcast just helps one person, it was worth it. It was worth an hour of our time. It was worth. you know, you paying your editors to put it out there and all that sort of stuff. Like, dude, I, I've had a blast, man. And I I've learned some things. So I really hope the audience does as well, man.

Uh, my, myself included. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate your times. Good, good to see you. Good to talk to you. And, uh, hope you had a good Thanksgiving, had a good holiday. If I don't talk to you again before Christmas and new years, hope you have a good Christmas and new years. And I think, uh, I think we got a quarterly meetup in January.

January 9th and 10th. Yes, sir. So I'll see you then.

Okay. Sounds good. I appreciate your time, bud. All right, brother. See you later. All right. Take care.

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