Unpacking Money Mastery with Austin Cheviron

Summary

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Wake Up to Wealth: Unpacking Money Mastery with Austin Sheviron

Podcast: Wake Up to Wealth
Host: Brandon Brittingham
Guest: Austin Sheviron
Date: February 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Brandon Brittingham sits down with real estate investor, coach, and author Austin Sheviron to unpack what true wealth mastery looks like. Austin shares his personal journey from high school real estate investor to building one of the top teams in the country, then shifting his focus to money stewardship, coaching, and writing. The discussion dives deep into the importance of vision, stewardship, stress management, and a holistic approach to building sustainable wealth—beyond just earning more income.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Austin’s Backstory & Entrepreneurial Journey

• Lifelong Real Estate Exposure: Austin has been around real estate since age six, heavily influenced by his father's career as a top Coldwell Banker manager. Licensed at 20, he has over 21 years of experience in the field.
• Early Investing: Bought his first house at 18, six rentals by 22, then transitioned to selling real estate at 28.
• Setbacks and Comebacks: Faced significant financial hardship before rising to become a top agent in Indiana, then built and later disbanded a leading real estate team to focus on coaching and managing his investments (03:15–04:13).

"The ultimate job, I think, is just managing your own wealth and then helping people." — Austin Sheviron (04:13)

2. Building & Shutting Down a Top Real Estate Team

• The Role of Vision: Austin emphasizes that every business decision should be guided by a clear vision—both for starting and ending ventures (05:45–07:22).

"Without a vision, people perish... Everything's a season, dude. Some people stick around in the winter way too long." — Austin Sheviron (06:02)

• The “Brain Space” Challenge: Even a business that “doesn’t take much time” can be a huge mental load, taking up valuable brain space (09:35–10:30).

"It's taking more brain space than you think." — Brandon Brittingham (10:10)

3. A Life-Changing Health Scare & Defining Stress

• Stress as a Wake-Up Call: After a “lightning bolt” health event (thought to be a stroke but actually stress), Austin reevaluated his commitments, realizing that both good and bad stress from growth and opportunity were overwhelming his life (10:30–13:31).

"You have too much stress in your life." — ER Nurse (11:46)
"There's good stress, too... And the stress that I was dealing with was the stress of opportunity." — Austin Sheviron (12:06)

4. Hands-Off Real Estate Investing: 50 Houses, Never Visited

• The Power of True Delegation: Austin’s rule is to invest his money, not his time. He owns 50 single-family homes within 25 minutes of his house—and has never visited them (13:49–16:40).
• Lessons from Clients: Many wealthy clients sold their rental properties because being the landlord was a “headache”—they managed them personally and regretted it (15:31–15:34).
• The Importance of Good Property Management: The key is finding experts to handle operations so you can focus on your own financial vision.

"I'm going to invest in real estate, but I'm not going to be an investment on my time. It's going to only be an investment of my money." — Austin Sheviron (15:44)
"Stay out of the way. Get a vision for your money, you be the CFO and the CEO. Do not be the COO." — Austin Sheviron (16:50)

5. Why Single-Family Assets Still Reign (for Austin)

• Liquidity and Flexibility: Prefers single-family homes for liquidity—easy to sell off one if needed (17:35–17:51).
• Institutional Validation: Even the largest investment firms are buying single-family homes, reinforcing his approach (17:51–18:56).

6. The Asset-Driven Leap: Creating True Financial Security

• Assets Enable New Pursuits: Austin’s assets have allowed him to pivot careers without fear, supporting big moves like taking months off to write a book (19:21–21:01).
• Responsible Stewardship: Advocates knowing your assets—even if you don’t micromanage, visit them at least once to be a good steward.

7. Writing ‘The Money Puzzle’: Beyond Earning Money

• Book Thesis: The focus isn’t on “how to make money” but on stewardship—vision, awareness, and protective structures (23:13–35:20).
• Three Pillars:
  • Personal finances and habits
  • Business structure and the “wealth machine” (allocation, taxes, insurance, giving)
  • Longevity and resilience: What happens when economic “storms” come, and leaving a legacy your heirs understand

"I wrote everything I knew, but I didn't write anything about making [money]... I teach you how to think about making money." — Austin Sheviron (23:39)

8. Industry Blind Spot: The Obsession with Income, Not Wealth

• Active vs. Passive Income: Most agents are obsessed with top-line sales, but forget about profit and keeping money (24:08–27:10).
• Generational Habits: Many top earners are still broke later in life because they never learned stewardship (27:13–29:52).

"If I put $10 million in your bank account tomorrow, would you still sell real estate? ...Absolutely not." — Austin Sheviron (28:16)
"I just like you, I work with people who make millions of dollars a year and they have more stress and more problems than people making 100 grand." — Austin Sheviron (28:36)

• Awareness as the First Step: The true difference-maker for most is simply developing awareness, tracking spending, and understanding one’s financial reality.

9. Advice for Listeners

• Vision First: The most important thing is having a clear vision for your money (37:13).
• Personal Spending is the “Black Hole”: For most people, the reason their wealth doesn’t grow is uncontrolled personal spending.

"Without a vision, people perish. The big black hole of your finances… is your personal bank account and what you spend." — Austin Sheviron (37:13)

10. Waking Up to Wealth: Defining True Wealth

• Personal Definition Matters: Waking up to wealth means deciding what “wealth” truly means to you—money, health, relationships, impact, etc. (38:40–39:34).

"What does wealth mean to you? ...That's the ultimate question." — Austin Sheviron (39:14)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Vision & Change:

  "Everything's a season, dude. And some people stick around in the winter way too long." — Austin Sheviron (06:12)

• On Mental Bandwidth:

  "It's taking up space in your brain... more than you think." — Brandon Brittingham (10:10)

• On Hands-Off Investing:

  "I own 50 houses all within 25 minutes of my house. I never saw one of them. And let me say this—it was the best decision I ever made." — Austin Sheviron (16:40 & 16:45)

• On Real Estate Industry Blind Spots:

  "Most agents and team leaders don't invest in real estate...you watch some of these people that were on a 20 year run, and they lost it in one year." — Brandon Brittingham (31:00)

• On Stewardship and Legacy:

  "Are you teaching the people... that's going to inherit what you have? Or is Brandon going to give me, his nephew... these golden coins... I go to the pawn shop." — Austin Sheviron (35:09)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Austin’s Background & Story: 02:36–04:39
• Why He Shut Down His Team: 04:59–08:45
• Dealing with Stress & Health Wake-up Call: 10:30–13:31
• 50 Houses, Never Seen Them & The Power of Delegation: 13:49–17:00
• Why Single-Family Rentals?: 17:35–18:56
• Importance of Having Assets: 19:19–21:01
• On Writing His Book, The Money Puzzle: 23:13–35:20
• Industry’s Focus on Income, Not Profit: 24:08–27:10
• Stewardship vs. Making Money: 27:13–29:52
• Defining and Waking Up to Wealth: 38:40–39:34
• One Piece of Money Advice: 37:11–37:52

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Where to Find Austin Sheviron

Website: AustinSheviron.com
Book: The Money Puzzle (available on Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble)

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Final Thought

Austin’s advice boils down to this: If you don’t have to work for every dollar, build assets and structures that let your money work for you—guided by vision and stewardship, not just relentless hustle or income chasing. Define your wealth on your terms, then build the habits and protections to make it last.

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Transcript

[Brandon Briningham]

This is Wake up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Briningham.

[Austin Shevron]

Hey.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

This next segment is brought to you by my good friends at Rocket League AI. That is Rocket League AI. If you're in the real estate business, especially investment side, and you need a platform that can run your real estate business and talk to leads through AI when you're not able to talk to them and can qualify and get to all the leads you can't get to. Plus it has a amazing piece of technology with a called lead detector that helps get all the people that come to your site and not opt in to opt in to turn into a lead. These are my good friends at RocketLead AI. I'm part of this company as well. I use it to run my real estate business, my real estate investment business. Go check them out again, Rocket League AI. And thank you guys for sponsoring the segment. Hey, what's up everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake up to Wealth. And guys and gals, man, thank you all so much. As of Today, we are 3 million downloads. Our last episode hit 115,000 downloads. We have been trending crazy as one of the top shows in the United States and this is not possible without you guys as the audience supporting us. So thank you so much. And again, as every episode, my goal is to bring you people on here who are going to talk about money, talk about things that we've never been taught about correctly. That's why we call this Wake up to Wealth. So today I've got one of my exp brethren here, Austin Chevron. And you know what's cool about him is he wrote a book which we'll talk about, that has to do with stewardship of money and wealth, which you guys know. As a, as listeners of the show, I'm a huge believer in and you know, trainer, investor, agent, team leader, you know, just very, a lot of similarities. So I appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you.

[Austin Shevron]

Thank you, man. Thank you. It'll be fun to see where today goes.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So if you wouldn't mind, I just always ask, everybody, give us your 2 or 3 minute elevator pitch of who you are so that just the audience knows about you.

[Austin Shevron]

It's funny, I was just working on this yesterday. It's like, well, who am I today and who am I going to be tomorrow is different than who I was last week and last month.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Sure.

[Austin Shevron]

Starting off, I've been around real estate since I was 6. My dad's been a real estate agent, manager of. He was manager of the largest Coldwell banker office in the nation when I was growing up. So all. Only thing I know is real estate agents. Everything, houses, financials, everything in the real estate industry is. Is my background licensed when I was 20, so I'm 41, so 21 years licensed. It's the only job I think I've ever had.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

And I started buying. I bought my first house when I was 18 in high school, which puts me in a little different position.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So.

[Austin Shevron]

Bought first house in high school, bought six rentals from 19 to 22 and got out of it. Started selling real estate at 28. I did so well. I put myself on welfare, which is. It's like real estate. Let me sit there for six years before it kicked me right in the face, in the teeth. Picked myself up within four years after that. I was one of the top agents in the state of Indiana. Then stopped doing that to build a team. Built one of the top teams in the country and then shut that down. And today I'm just all in on training and helping and coaching. I started building my portfolio back five years ago again and went from zero to about 50 homes in three years. Just hit. Just straight gas, dude.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Just.

[Austin Shevron]

And so now we sit. We sit in the investor world. The coach, trainer, author, now speaker. It's kind of, you know, at 41, that's. That's where we're at. So. And I've quit essentially everything else. I don't sell real estate anymore. I shut down the team last year. I'm just helping people now and then managing my own money, which is the ultimate job, I think, is just managing your own wealth and then helping people.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. So, interesting enough, there's a couple things I want to get into with you today, but I'm just always fascinated by entrepreneur stories. So you said I built one of the top teams and I shut that down last year. There's a lot to unpack there.

[Austin Shevron]

Why?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, well, I mean, I get it. Right. But I want to hear it from you because, you know, again, not. There's. There's no wrong or right. It's what's right for you. And. But I do want to mention something. If you're running a real estate team, you're listening to this. There's a lot of people that I'm talking to right now, and I'm sure you are, too. They built a version of a real estate team that they thought they wanted, and they've ended up figuring out that they don't and a lot of it was based on I sat in a room or I heard somebody speak on stage and, you know, I copied what they were doing, which wasn't necessarily for that specific person. And it's just interesting that you said that, and I'd love for you to touch on that.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah, I think so. The core of everything we're going to talk about around this has to do with vision. And without a vision, people perish. Ye so with vision, everything becomes clear. Options that you didn't think existed start to exist once you get the vision. And so when I think it was Robbins who taught me, Tony, who taught me to think about, is this thing going to be in your life and time? And it might have been Maxwell influence, too, with his book Failing Forward. And it's like, so if I go to anybody here, anybody listening, if you think about your life, what you currently have in it, do you see having it forever? I won't be having my real estate forever and giving it to my kids where it's in a trust, it's doing its thing, you know, But I don't see having my real estate team when I'm 90. So what that means is that thing in my vision is going to come to an end. Let's just get there. It's going to come to an end at one point. So then the question is, why not now? Why not next year? Why not five years? So what is this purpose of this thing in my life? And Robbins was the one that taught me seasons. And I've just come. Being in Northern Indiana, we get all four seasons, I've come to the realization, like, everything's a season, dude. And some people stick around in the winter way too long. It's like, let the winter go, man. It's so put your bathing suit on. You don't need to shovel. Drop the shovel. It's nice out. And so it's a season. So just what I got to is I got to the realization, and it was tough, dude, because we crushed it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

I mean, I have 25 agents. We're top five teams at exp. We never bought a lead. Only thing I did was just poured into these 25 agents. Essentially, they were my coaching platform.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah. And I poured my ass off into them, teaching them how to live a better life, fight personally, how to handle their business like a business, and then how to treat their financials. And it just. It just grew, dude. And it grew, not in terms of people, but in terms of production. And then I'm like, we recorded. I Put in. I flew 80 of my friends from across the country. I put $2.2 billion of sales in one room for two days. We recorded everything I knew about my team, and now I had it to share with the world. And I'm like, I don't need the team anymore. And so we shut the team down. I took the extra time and energy, and now we invested to people all over the world. And it's a better use of my time and my skills and my abilities. No differently than when I sold real estate. And then I ran a team. My. My impact went up.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

It's interesting. Number one, you had the guts and the foresight to do it. But I think it's. It's interesting of your analogy and correlation is, is this going to be in my life forever? That's powerful statement, I think vision. Yeah. I think more people need to do that more often. Right? Yeah. You know what I mean?

[Austin Shevron]

We live on the front end. Like, you can. You can probably attest to anybody who has a team or wants to start a team. It's like, well, tell me the vision.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Of why I want to start a team.

[Austin Shevron]

Oh, why? How is that?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I know. I'm just saying, it's like, sounds cool. I want to be on.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah. I want to be the guy now. Yeah, right. Like, I want to make the money. I want to be the guy. I want to be on the billboard.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Right.

[Brandon Briningham]

But.

[Austin Shevron]

But the same is true that once again, without a vision, people perish. Without the vision to start, that's one half. But then what's the vision to stop?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Sure.

[Austin Shevron]

And no one ever asked that question. No one. I mean, I remember when Leo calls me up, I'm like, hey, I'm a shutdown team. He's like, dude, you don't even do anything. It just. You just do nothing. And you guys do well. Like, what, are you quitting? I'm like, I can't have the one more thing on my brain.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, that's. Yeah. You know, that's very. You know, it's so, you know, coaching people a lot of times, too. I'm actually glad you brought that up, because the most people where they make a mistake is where you didn't. But it's like, yeah, but it doesn't really take a bunch of my time. It doesn't. And what they don't realize or understand is the brain space that actually does take. Right. It's taken up space in your brain. Even if you don't. If it's not on the peripheral, it's in your Subconscious, it's eating. It's eating up time in your brain, and it's eating up space. And that's the one thing when I coach people a lot of times, and they're like, well. And I'm like, you need to get. You need to get out of that and get rid of that. Yeah. But it doesn't really take me a lot of time. And I'm like, bullshit. It's taking you more time than you think, and it's taking more brain space than you think.

[Austin Shevron]

Well, I'll say this. I think I had a blessing, but it didn't look like a blessing. And three years ago, I say I was struck in the head with a lightning bolt. Not an actual lightning bolt, but I thought I had a stroke. And so I admitted my. I admitted my. I was walking slow. I was talking slow. Everything was slow. And I'm like, I'm. I'm. Normally. My therapist says I run a Ferrari and I redline it all the time.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

So, like, I go fast.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

And I was slow. And I'm like, I'm normal now. This ain't cool. And so I went into the er, and I'm like, something's wrong. I thought I had a stroke. And I remember sitting in the. In the bed crying, thinking like, that. That was a good run you had, dude.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Like, yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah. You ran faster and further than 99.9 of the people. But at 38 years old, that's. That's it. Like, that's it? That's all you got? I spent eight hours in the er, took every test possible because I'm like. I hit my deductible. So I'm like, if you got something I can do while I'm here, just do it. Whatever you got. And after. After eight hours in there, the nurse comes to me. She says, you're ready to leave? And I'm like, what's wrong with me? She's like, nothing. I'm like, yeah, like something. Something's wrong. And she goes, okay, you want to know what it is? I'm like, yeah. She goes, you have too much stress in your life.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

I'm like, stress? You talk stress? She goes, okay. She goes, how many houses you own? I'm like, 50. She's like, see? I'm like, but I've never seen any of them. She goes, okay, whatever. She goes, well, how many companies you own? I go, nine. She goes, see? I go, but I don't do anything. I don't do much. And it took me, like, two days to let that sink in. And Brandon, what I realized is there's a difference. I always thought stress was what I got from selling real estate. Hey, this is a problem. This is on fire. The toilet's leaking. It's not my toilet.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Somebody took a shit at my open house.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah, like, there's no. Like, that's not. And so I was used to dealing with that type of stress, and I got rid of all that, right? And what I realized this was. This is like learning lessons the hard way. What I realized is there's good stress, too. And the stress that I was dealing with was the stress of opportunity at all these companies. I had all this growth. I had all this stuff. And essentially is this guy, God, said, hey, you can do it better than most, but you're not going to. So you're done. And you can either do the talents, do what I gave you, or you're going to do nothing. And so I just made a choice to say, you know what? I just got to do this now. I'm going to manage my money. God gave me talents around money and stewardship, and you give me a dollar, I can turn it into three in my sleep. But doesn't mean I should run all these other companies and do all this other stuff. So I just really honed it in. And it's like, this is what I do now. And yes, it's. The money was nice with all the other companies. It was nice to, you know, do thousands of whatever. But this is. This is my path now, man. I'm okay with it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I think it's very interesting you just mentioned this, and you sent me a message yesterday, and I'd love for you to touch on it. You own 50 houses that you've never seen, and I'd love to hear. I just would love to have you explain that.

[Austin Shevron]

I'm gonna. Everybody listening here. Hone in on this. This is. This is you. This is 35 years of watching Real Estate agents, and this is what I learned.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay?

[Austin Shevron]

So I told you When I was 19, I started buying my investment properties. 19 to 22. I was the landlord, the property manager. I put the carpet in. I would go to the tenant's house on day one and say, I got a payment. You got to pay me. If you don't pay me, I'm going to take your door off. Yeah, that's not legal, by the way. But I didn't know I was 19, right. And make my point, you know? And so I sold all the houses. My dad. My dad needed the debt off of his Credit so he could do some other things. So we ended up selling all the houses. And then I remember I was probably 34 years old, I'm in San Diego for a Brian Buffini conference, which Buffini was my main mentor growing up. And Buffini said this I'll never forget. He said, if you want to buy appreciation real estate, he goes, you go buy a Coronado island right out there. They're not making anymore. And he goes, if you want to buy cash flow, you buy Fort Wayne, Indiana. I'm like, I'm in Fort Wayne. Like, why don't I have any of that? So I just, like, screw it. I got to stop being stupid. So I made a deal with myself. I started studying cash flow real estate again, and I made a deal with myself. And here's why I had the deal. I went back through all the people I served, and I'd ask them these questions, like, my wealthy, my millionaire clients, and I would ask them this, hey, do you own rental real estate? And they would say, no. And then I would say, well, did you own it in time? And they would say, yes. And then I would say, well, why did you? Why don't you have it anymore? And they all said the same answer. What do you think it was?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Fucking headache.

[Austin Shevron]

It was a headache.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

I mean, I took a doctor and I made him a janitor. I took a surgeon. I took. I took these top people in the world that worked their ass off to get up here, and I made them the janitor of the house. They got to clean the toilet. They got to do this. And so they all got out of it. Then I asked them one last question, and that was, did you manage it yourself? And the answer every time was yes, Brandon. Every time. And these guys were the best of the best that I had. And so I made a deal with myself. I said, I'm going to invest in real estate, but I'm not going to be an investment on my time. It's going to only be an investment of my money. That's. That was my deal. And so I called the best person I know, my property manager, and I said, hey, I need help. I do not want to get involved. I'm going to tell you how much money I have. You're going to tell me what to buy, and I'm going to buy it. And I'm a licensed real estate agent. So imagine this for. For anybody that's in this. I'm a licensed real estate agent. The best. I'm good at what I do. I bought 50 houses all within 25 minutes of my personal house that I live in. And I never saw one of them.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

That's. That's wild.

[Austin Shevron]

Crazy, isn't it?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, that's wild.

[Austin Shevron]

And let me say this, it was the best decision I ever made.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, no doubt.

[Austin Shevron]

Stay out of the way. Get a vision. For your money, you be the CFO and the CEO. Do not be the coo. Let Brand do it. Let someone else who does it do it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

You know, it's funny, I can't say that I haven't. I've. You know, I can't say that I don't see the stuff I buy, because I do, but I don't manage it. And what's crazy is I have a policy with my property management in general of like, I don't even care. Like, it's not that I don't care, but it's like you guys have the autonomy to make the decision, right? You only call me if it's like the damn house caught on fire or something. Outside of that, I don't want to hear about it. You guys can make the decision and run it.

[Austin Shevron]

So I bought over three years. I ended up buying 50. I own all single family homes. I don't own any duplexes or anything like that. All single family. And the reason about single family was insurance for me. If I needed 50 grand, I could sell one. I could sell them if I had to.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. And I want to make a point on that. Like, again, there's so many asset classes in real estate that can do well. To this day, I own just about every single asset class under the sun. And I still love single family. You know, you can move it quick. It your ultimate. The cool thing I also like about single family is it could either be to an investor or it could be retail and like commercial, which is great because you're, you're selling it on a cap rate, but you're only selling commercial property to another investor. And again, there's pros and cons to both of them. But I personally to this day still like single family. I mean, I. There's also something to be said that the largest institutions in the United States, blackrock, Blackstone, you know, a bunch of these hedge funds buy single family home assets. I know this shit came out with Trump saying he's going to prevent their ability to do it, but up until this, that point, you know, they, they bought a substantial amount of single family assets. There's something to be said for that.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah. And Brandon, I think everybody's got their own Mix of what they do, I own, I'm in my studio right now. I own a 6,000 square foot commercial building. So I'm diversified, but my vision was I need to grow. You said it. You say it. Well, what you make is never probably going to make you wealthy. It's what you buy.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

And for me, every time I took a leap to do something, it was always my assets that allowed me to have confidence to take, take that leap. If I'm like, God, I got to go make the same amount of money running a team that I did selling real estate, it's not going to happen. It's going to take years. And so it was always my assets that allowed me to take that leap. My assets make me more money than I make and I do well. And so I'll give you a great example.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So.

[Austin Shevron]

Going into the coaching and training world, what I realized is I wanted to document my successes for my kids. Like, I'm not supposed to be here, man.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

If you, if I'll go see some people tonight that I went to school with and they'll be like, I never would have thought you'd have done anything. I missed 76 days of school my senior year of high school because I'm my own house. I never went. It took me five and a half years to get a two year college degree. And so I'm like, I gotta document this. So I took two months off of work to write everything I knew about money. 2 months. Most human beings can't do that. And what I realized is I was going back through the parable of talents and I was going back and asking myself like, I own 50 houses and I've never seen any of them good. Badge of honor, right? I think it is. Yeah, sure. How irresponsible is that though too? It's not like these houses are in Japan. They're, they're down the street.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I mean, an argument could be had on either side of that. I actually don't necessarily would sit here and say that you're wrong.

[Austin Shevron]

Here's what I, here's what I realize is it can go either way and I've done a good job staying out of them. But to not know your assets and what it is and anything about them, like there's still a level of responsibility that needs to be there. So I made a deal. I called my property manager up and I said, hey, I need to go see these Principal Wise one time and they said, you told me never to let you do this. I go, I know this is A one time thing though. I'm trying to be a better steward I of my real estate. Just let me see what I got. And so we went and looked at 15 houses a day for three days. And I was the insurance guy and I looked at them all and let me tell you, nothing changed other than I felt like I was a better steward of what I had. Sure. And so fast forward, I go to, actually I go to, this is a great example, I go to put it all in the book form. And this book cost me about 50 grand to write is what I'm in it for. And I'm like, well, shit, I don't want to go work, I don't want to go find another client or two to go pay for the book. And so I took one property, one asset, and I turned it and I swapped it over to the other asset. I was able to just sell one house, strip it away, give me 50 grand and buy the book. And I'm still diversified now, but what that allowed me to do is without having to go work more to earn more money, I was able to just strip it from something easily. Make one call, money's in my account. In three weeks, house is sold. And so that's for me what the passive income with the residential has done. It's been really nice to allow me to be able to give and to do without the fear of like, God, you got to go make more money. You need to work every day and every night. And that's part of it. Brandon. Like we didn't get to where we're at because we were lazy. But then again, I tell people, if you don't have, like if you have to work today to earn money and to pay your bills, it's a warning sign that you might always have to work, work to earn money to pay your bills. Go get yourself some assets.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, that's a very good point. And obviously I'm a huge believer in that. So you decided to write a book. So tell us about that. What did you put in the book? What's the thesis? What's behind that?

[Austin Shevron]

So 60 days I took to write everything I knew about money. And then on day 30, I called my cousin who was my business partner at the time, and I said, hey, I think we got a problem. He's like, what's that? I go, I didn't write anything about making money. He's like, what do you mean? I said, I wrote everything I knew, but I didn't write anything about making it. He goes, what's the problem? With that, I go, I don't think the world's going to want to hear that story.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

That's the story they actually need to hear.

[Austin Shevron]

Think of that for a second. And he goes, well, is it true? And I'm like, it's exactly true. And he goes, well, then just keep writing. So I went 30 more days, got it all out. And the closest I got, Brandon, to talking about making money is my chapter on income. But I don't teach you how to make money. I teach you how to think about making money. And so, which is really interesting, like, if you don't even know how to think how to make money, then good luck making it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I think, you know what's interesting about that, and I say this a lot and talk about this a lot is especially us, we're in an industry where, you know, you've been in very similar rooms that I have, where you walk into the room and there's. Look, there's nothing wrong with any of this. I'm just saying it, you know, you walk into the room and it's how to recruit another agent, how to sell another house, how to get another shiny object. I can't remember until I created it. Right. Or until I got into an investor room. Right. In our industry, anyone ever talking about stewardship of money or the other half of the equation, which I think is the most important, what do you do when you get it? How do you keep it? How do you not lose it? How do you not pay it all? How do you not give 30 plus percent to the IRS? It's just, it's so interesting. We are so infatuated, especially in real estate, you know, on the active income agent, team leader side, we're so infatuated with income. Then also the crazy thing about that is we don't talk about profit and we talk about income. We don't talk about profit. And it's like, I tend to not want to be an. But sometimes, like, I see people put things on social media and I'm like, put your profit loss statement next to that and see how that stands up to the shit you're spewing. Because I think it's disingenuous for people to see. And look, I'm not calling anybody out. There's a lot of great operators out there, but there's people that will go, we sold this amount of. We did this, we did this, we did that. And then on the back end, I know, I know, like, I know you weren't profitable because you've called me for Advice, Right. And I think it's, I just think it's, we don't talk enough about, there's a side of the equation of, number one, you're in business to be profitable and top line is vanity. Right? Yeah, and that's exactly right. Enough people don't talk about it. So I'm glad that you're talking about, you wrote a book on it because. And a lot of us are not educated on it since we're kids. It's not educated in the school system on what to do when you get money and how to keep it. It. So I'm glad you, you touched on that because I think it's so overlooked and I believe we need to normalize in our industry talking about this more because we don't. And the crazy thing is just because I'm fascinated with human psychology. Right. I could do a webinar. You know, I'm going to show you how to sell 50 more houses this year and 800 people would show up. I could do a webinar that says, let me show you how to keep 30% of your income and not pay taxes on it. And a hundred people would show up.

[Austin Shevron]

Isn't it crazy?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

And that doesn't make any sense to me.

[Austin Shevron]

That's, that's my world. So. And here's why, here's why it's my world, Brandon. I told you, my father, I grew up in real estate, and not just normal real estate. My dad was the manager of the largest Coldwell banker office in the nation, which means I was surrounded by the best of the best. And let me tell you this all the time. They're fucking broke when they're 70s and I go up to them and they're great people, Brandon. And I say, hey, why do you still sell real estate? You know what they tell me? Oh, I love the people. I love it. And I go, really? I said, and I say this to them, If I put $10 million in your bank account tomorrow, would you still sell real estate? And they say this every time. Absolutely not. And so what it is, and I got a front row seat. It doesn't matter what you make. I can promise you 98% of the people are chasing more. And sure, go chase the rabbit for a while, but just understand there's a day that you gotta chase the rabbit on. How do I save it? How do I be a good steward of it? Where is it going and why is it going there? Because I just like you, I work with people who make millions of dollars a year and they have more stress and more problems than people making 100 grand who are doing better, giving more with their money, spending less. It's in alignment with who they are. Their kids are happy. And so, so, you know, I didn't want my kids. I knew what the problem was. My kids are going to get a lot of money when I pass one day. Hopefully, yeah, we're on the trajectory and I didn't want them to screw it up. So I'm like, I got to write down what I figured out because I made the money, but I also kept the money. That's why I don't sell anymore. I stopped selling when I was 38 years old. I successfully stopped selling real estate. Who else do you know that's done that?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Not many.

[Austin Shevron]

It's not like I got a job like I'm still here. I just do it in a, in a different way now. I get to help and teach. And it's because of the 30 years of my life that I've watched it. I just fast forward. I've been through the trauma and so what I realized, teaching people about money is that I call it the black hole. Their problem is their personal life consumes all of their financials. It consumes all their investments, it consumes their giving, it consumes all the protection they need. For the first time, the storm comes. Their personal life, it just consumes it. And a lot of times they don't know. And in the book, I start with vision first and then I go to awareness. The number one feedback I get on the book is you help me become aware. Aware how? When I grew up, my dad, you know, my dad won a thousand dollar lottery ticket once. He bought a TV and two stereos. He spent eleven hundred dollars the day after he won the thousand.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

You know, yeah. And my dad's the best guy in the world, but still selling. He's 65. He's still selling 19 homes a year. You know why? It's because he still needs that still going. Because he, like, you learned us, but I'm still in this. I did what everybody else did. And I'm like, if I could show them another way and say, hey, we can help you sell 50 homes, but if I don't help you keep 30% that what am I doing?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What difference that make? Yeah, 100%. You're so right on that. I mean, you're so right on that. And obviously, you know, I'm a big proponent of this. It blows, it blows me away that you got a front row seat to do this. Most Agents and team leaders don't invest in real estate. And I'll tell you what made me really, like, kind of very like lock in on this is I got my license in 2008 and you know, which was stupid.

[Austin Shevron]

I was there, I was. In 2004, I was there with LA. I know what happens.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I mean, it ended up being a blessing. But you know, we. I saw to your point. You saw all these like top producers in our market going out of business, filing bankruptcy and, you know, shit going south and they had no assets. And I was just like, you know, you watch some of these people that were on a 20 year run of being a top producer and they lost it in one year. And I said, man, that just doesn't make any sense. It traumatized me.

[Austin Shevron]

It's the first storm wiped them out. Yeah, the first storm. Not even the second or the third.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, first. And so the, you know, to, to kind of compound what you're saying, go sit in that room to learn to sell another house and recruit another agent. I'm not telling you not to, but also go sit in a room and listen to guys like Austin. Listen to guys like me. That's going to tell you what to do with that money when you get it and also how to keep it. Because if not, you'll be on the hamster wheel for the rest of your Life. You'll be 65, still selling a house and fuck that, that like. And again, if that's your race, that's your race, it's just not mine.

[Austin Shevron]

Well, I don't mind working. Like, I hope I have good quality work to do when I'm 65, but I hope I do too. For free. I. I hope I can just do it for free. You know what I mean? Just because it's like it, I can. I want to. Let me go help the world now for free. Where today I still charge.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. And I mean, again, I think, you know, later in life it is, I'm doing something because I choose to, not because I have to. Yeah. And I think it becomes more fulfilling. Yeah. 100%.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah. So it's like, how do we get to the point, like whoever's listening right now, put yourself to the point where you don't need the money. So when I tell Brandon, when I tell people I spent two months writing everything I knew about money, when I speak on this in my keynote, I'd say, put yourself there right now. You spend two months, you don't work. What goes through your mind? What's the first thing and everybody says, I need money. Yeah, first thing, I need money.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Good point, good point.

[Austin Shevron]

You know, the first thing that happened to me when I did this wasn't I need money, it was my wife saying, when the hell are you getting out of here? You've been here. This is my house. You go to work all the time. I'm like, oh, that's different. I gotta deal with that. But because I don't have many cool shirts. But some of my clients tell me, I think, you know what, looking at your shirt, I might do this one day.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

You need to get a cool shirt. Shirt.

[Austin Shevron]

I need to get a cool shirt that says. What did they. What was the phrase? I say some stuff, and then they quote me, like, oh, I got my money, right? Yeah, that's what I got, my money, right?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

That'd be good on a shirt.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah, like, he's got his money, right? And because I got my money right, I'm good. Like, I'm just good. Like, you can't throw me off. I'm not only good on this side, I'm good over here. I got insurance, I got protection. The book you asked about, the thesis of the book. When I was sitting down, I figured, Brandon, there was three main pillars in which I look at my money. The first one's the foundation is my personal money. And I go through everything personal. The first 10 chapters are all about personal. After that, I go into the business side, and I created what was called my wealth machine, which was every dollar that comes into my business. Here's where it goes and here's why it goes there. Taxes, insurance, giving business budget, personal budget, budget in deposit account. And then the last part was really, it went back to, like, John Wooden's pyramid of success that I studied back in the day, which was the outer core. Like, how do you keep it all together when 2008 hits? How do you keep it all together when. When your family members got cancer? How do you keep it together when Covid hits? Because the greats go away. We see it. And so the last part of the book is how to keep it all together with your assets and passive income insurance and inheritance in givings, the last two chapters. So, like, are you teaching the people that you're. That's going to inherit what you have? Are you teaching them how to inherit it? Or is Brandon going to give me, his nephew, let's say, all these golden coins that I don't even know if they're worth a hundred million dollars or a hundred dollars, I get a pile of Brandon's coins and I go to the pawn shop.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Austin Shevron]

Like, are you teaching me what to do with this? And so then the last chapter is all about and how do you get the mindset to say I have enough to give and it's not a scarcity mindset and building your character and your finances and your habits to be able to say I can always give 1%, Brandon, what I have. Always.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Of course, always.

[Austin Shevron]

So, yeah, that's kind of the thesis of where those all that time took me. It was a pretty cool journey. And so now we're talking about it. And it's nothing sexy by the way.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

It never is. And I think that's the thing that, that, that why more people don't learn about it. Right. Is, you know, I was, I was, I helped a good friend of mine launch Shout out to Rob Chavez. He has a community called grid. And a good friend of mine launched the Chicago chapter last night. And one of kind of my imparting things that I close with is, you know, the win is consistency and, and people just, it's not sexy. Right? So that, that's the, that's where everybody up is because you're just not willing to be consistent day in and day out because it's not fun and it's just not the, it's not the sexy thing. I want to end this with. I'm gonna ask you two questions. One, we always ask every guest at the end and I want to ask one before that. So know a lot. You unpacked a lot of things and you have a book, by the way. I don't think we name, name the book and tell them where they can.

[Austin Shevron]

Get the money puzzle and they can buy anywhere. Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. Okay, so check that out. Everybody. Secondly, or first question, just one. And you have tons. But give one piece of money advice for people listening.

[Austin Shevron]

Wow.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I know.

[Austin Shevron]

Just, just one. Just one. The most impactful thing I can tell you I'm going to do two. I'm going to put it in and I'm going to put an and in is one. Without a vision, people perish. So the point of your money is to accomplish something in your life. Understand that, use it as the right tool, get it in the right places, do have it, do the right thing. And then the end to that is the big black hole of your finances and why you're not where you want to be and have what you want to is because of your personal bank account and what you spend it. That's out of the thousands and thousands of people I've talked to, that's the common trend.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Awesome. This kind of correlates with. We named the show Wake up to wealth. The entire thesis and idea behind this show was to have people on like you because we just were not taught about money. Most of us were not taught correctly about money. And our money habits were passed down generationally from our family, which typically weren't good in a lot of cases. Right. And so the whole thing is to educate people on money better. That's why we call it wake up to wealth. So my last question I would ask you is two things. One, what is waking up to wealth mean to you? And two, how can they find you if they want to get more information from you beyond the show?

[Austin Shevron]

Love it. Website's the easy answer. AustinShevron.com is the easiest way to find me. And the wake up to wealth chapter two of my book helps people establish their vision. And I truly ask them this. I ask them this question. What does wealth mean to you? And what we find, Brandon, is it means something different to everybody else. And so I challenge the audience here to answer the question, how can you wake up to wealth when you get out of your bed? What does wealth mean to you? Is it a mindset? Is it a health piece? It is. Is it somebody laying next to you? Is it something to give? Is it something to do? That's to me, wake up to wealth means getting out of my bed, being wealthy. And what does that mean to somebody else? That's the question. That's the ultimate question. Isn't that it?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Absolutely.

[Austin Shevron]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Well, dude, I thank you so much for coming on here today. Wealth of knowledge dropped all kinds of gems for the audience. I'm. I'm glad we. And I'm glad you stayed on me to get on here. And I appreciate you coming on with us. And it's. It's why our show is blowing up, because of guests like you. Because you educate the audience on things they don't know. You guys all check his book out. Give him a follow. Look him up, up, brother. Thank you so much for. For coming and pouring into my audience.

[Austin Shevron]

Thank you, Brandon.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Hey, everybody. This next segment is brought to you by my good friends at Accruity. Now, if you run a business, most business owners neglect their back office, and they don't even know where to go or who to trust when it comes to their financials or CPA or taxes. That's where accruity comes in. You can trust them. They can give you you advice, and they understand the back office. Listen, you're not running a business correctly if you don't have a hold of this and it's really hard to trust people that are out there and most CPAs frankly work for the IRS and don't work for you. That's not the case with ack, my good friends out at Acrity for any needs that you have when it comes to helping with your back office, getting your book straight, getting your taxes correct, and they guide you and give you advice which most firms don't. So check out my guys at ac tell them I sent you.

[Brandon Briningham]

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of Wake up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume Podcast. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.