Wake Up to Wealth - Black Belts & Big Investment Deals- Tim Stout's Inspiring Story of Defying the Odds

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

In episode 57 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Tim Stout, a seasoned entrepreneur, sought-after speaker, coach, and former professional fighter, as he shares his journey from fighter to successful real estate agent and investor. Tune in for valuable insights and inspiring conversations that can help you redefine your approach to wealth.   SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Brandon Brittingham Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/   Tim Stout Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetimstout/?hl=en   WEBSITES Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home Tim Stout: https://www.thetimstout.com/ ========================== SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS: Rocketly: https://rocketly.ai/ Accruity: https://accruity.com/

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 Brittingham. Hey, this next segment is brought to you, but my good friends at rockettly.a.i. That is rockettly.com. If you're in the real estate business, especially the 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 an amazing piece of technology with it 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 atrocketly.com.

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, rocketly. com. 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 I cannot thank everyone enough for your support of the show. We are training towards 120,000 downloads per episode now. Can't say enough of everyone's support. We are well into the 3 million plus downloads, which is pretty freaking amazing. This was just an idea. I wanted to bring on people that I respect. Have them talk about wealth. have them talk about life.

And this has grown into one of the biggest shows in the world on investing. So start off every show saying the same thing, man. I cannot say thank you enough to the listeners for your support, for the growth you've had for the show. And today I've got one of my really good friends, a guy that I respect a lot on here with us. Tim Stow. Thank you for being with us today. I appreciate the opportunity, brother. So first and foremost, before we get into it, big congratulations are in the work.

You just got your second stripe on your black belt. Congratulations, dude, on BJJ, which is like if we, I don't know that anyone actually tracks this, but it's probably what, a thousand people in the world, maybe less than that, that have to get to that level? I think there's about 5,000 now. With two stripes? Oh, I don't know about that with black belts. Yeah. I know, you're right.

Yeah. Yeah, no, not two stripes. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. So how, I mean, so how long did that take you? How long have you been in the discipline to get to get there? I've been at about 25 years. It took me 18 years to get my black belt, which is extraordinary a long time.

Most people take 10 to 12. I was mainly, I was fighting. So I didn't do a lot of time in the ghee. I was hardheaded because I was fast, athletic. I preferred no ghee. But once I retired, I really got into the ghee because I needed to slow down and to to understand the true discipline of it. Yeah.

So with that being said, you have a huge, huge social media following, and you put a lot of, you know, different videos and stuff out there. I know I watch and pay attention on, like, being in a street fight situation. You know, where did that come from? Why did you decide to do that? During, it was right before COVID's when I started it. So it was perfect timing. And I just wanted to.

to do like short form content that wasn't real estate because I was doing, I've been doing real estate content for, you know, 15 years of, but, you know, real estate is boring unless you're in the act of buying or selling or investing. So I want to do something more exciting. So I did a couple and like my third video ended up getting like six million views on YouTube. Yeah.

So I'm like, okay, I'm on to something because I'm a very no nonsense, straightforward, you know, top mentality. So that attracts a certain type of person. So. Yeah. And then so now you're you're consistent with that, right? Like you're still doing that. You're still doing that content pretty nonstop, right? Yeah. I'll do the self-defense at least two times a week and I'll do the real estate five to five to ten times a week. Yeah. And so what do you see just having that type of consistency on social media? Like what do you see? What shows up in your life because of that? Real estate. I mean, as far as the residential sales, everything has.

calls of, you know, when you're selling 100 houses a year and people can look on your Facebook and you have over 400,000 followers, that adds credibility. That's a big one. And another one is like when I message people like you, because you're going to see like, you know, Tim Stout has 400,000 followers. You're like, well, who's this guy? And, you know, that gets you in different conversations as well. Yeah. So you have been, you were fighting. You're in the MMA space, right? And when did you decide like, hey, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to get into real estate. I was actually, I'm writing a speech.

I'm speaking at a boys conference this weekend that one of the local sheriff's department puts on. So they want to know about me. And I was actually just writing. And the second I knew that I was going to do something besides fighting, I was, I was laying in the bed. And it was like 5 a.m. And my wife was up. And she was like going through her jewelry.

And I didn't think anything of it. I said, you know, what are you doing? You know, she woke me up. She goes, going to my jewelry, go back to bed. And three or four minutes later, she's still going through her jewelry. You know, like, what are you doing? So it turned out she has to go sell jewelry to pay for rent and groceries. Because I had an opponent back out of a five.

So I spent five months preparing for a five that we don't get paid for. I know what that's about. Yeah, so that was rough. And at that point, I still had two fights after that. But I decided that I wanted to do something that I got paid for what I did, not something that, because I'm always going to show up early. I was always going to stay. It doesn't matter if we were at McDonald's working at a factory. I was always going to work harder because that's who I was.

So I decided I was going to be in sales. I didn't know what I was going to sell yet. That was about two weeks later. And I come across that epiphany pretty simple, pretty easy. When was that? Like, do you remember the year? When was it? probably 2012, because I sold real estate in 2013, and I was teaching a cardio kickboxing class.

I still remember this day. Like I said, I had the gym. You know, we had a gym. And cardio kickboxing class, we had 20, 25 people in there and had three ladies that come in to try the class. And they was what I thought was success was. They dress nice. They smelled nice. They look nice.

They drove like Lexuses and BMWs. And they got in there. And I was asking, say, what are you ladies doing? And they're like, we sell real estate. I'm like, oh, okay, you never even dawned on me. Even to that point, it didn't dawn on me. We were eight, nine minutes into this cardio kickboxing class. And they quit because it was hard.

Not because they couldn't do it because it was hard. And I remember them going and setting down. And I was texting my wife on a Blackberry. And I'm like, I'm going to sell real estate. Like, if this is my competition, I'm going to crush it. That's very interesting. You know this about me. we actually recruit

fighters to be salespeople from an MMA gym here locally that I support and heavily involved with and shout out to SBIWi Fitness, Brandon Hudson. And man, there's so many parallels. Like, what have you seen that has served? Like, you learned this in the fight game and it served you really well.

And I mean, I know I can name a ton of them, but I want to hear from your perspective. I'd say one of the biggest ones, was realized I don't have to be the smartest or the most talented. I have to work hard. And when I tell people, I say, there's two ways to do more in any business. You either, you do more business, you do it better, or you do more actions. And with the work ethic that I learned through fighting, I was obsessed with not being the guy who didn't know and not leaving any actions undone.

And that just snowball. Within three years, I was selling nearly 100 houses as an individual agent. I mean, just like you, you were killing as an individual agent. And it's because of the work ethic that was developed. Like, I don't have to be the most talented. I have to work harder. That's the one thing I can control is how hard I work. And I took the same mindset of I can also control how much I'll learn.

So I've really dove into the learning, the education, the coaches, the mentors, the books, the all that stuff as well. Yeah. So another thing, and I know you will agree with this, but I want to hear your take on it is to get to, because I know. right to get to a black belt in BJJ if you're listening to this you know it's so funny you know we'll see I'll see people come into the gym and they'll be like I want to get a black belt and you're like 10 years minimum at least they're like man fuck that right and so what what I want to kind of talk about is obviously you learn this in the fight game but the people overcomplicate the discipline and the consistency you obviously have had to have a

massive amount of discipline and consistency. You don't get to a two straight black belt without it, but also what you've been able to build in your business relatively new in the industry. Like when you started selling 100 houses, you were new in the game. Like talk a little bit about that discipline and consistent because I think that just gets lost in our industry. I think it does. I think our industry, especially the real estate sales industry, it is packed full of people

who can make full-time money with part-time effort. and people fall into love with love with that. And with me, like, it was like not succeeding was not an option for me. I was tired of being broke. I was tired of being poor. I was tired of, you know, counting your money when you go to the grocery store. Like, I was sick and tired of that. So I hired a coach real fast, like out of the gate, probably my first closing.

Like, I hired a coach. I'd been coached my entire life. I was like, I need someone to tell me what to do. Well, think about this really. quick. You had a fucking coach in the fight game. So you were already conditioned for that. You already understood that. And I remember talking to the, talking to the company that I was working with and they're like, well, what are you looking for in a coach? I'm like, it needs to be a male. It needs to be a, like an athlete or a masculine presence. And he's going to be someone who's

going to tell me what to do. I don't want to be asked a bunch of questions. I want to be told what to do because that's what I do. And I got paired with one. That was just that. Ex ball player. you know, just like, I need you do this, this and this. And through that coaching and other mentorships, like I developed a crazy, like, work ethic. Like, this happens at this time. I have to, my workout has to start at 5 a.m. My jiu-jitsu or kickboxing has to start at 6 a.m.

You know, I'm at the office at this time. From, just, just diabolical on this is what has to happen. And if it didn't happen, like, my day was ruined. So you became very regiment. Absolutely. I had to be. because I wasn't the smartest. I had to be the one that's most disciplined.

So right now, are you still running like that? Like, are you still running extremely regimented, extremely disciplined like that now? Probably more. Yeah. Like, my alarm gets up off of 350. I lift weights from 6 to 7. I do jitzer kickboxing from 7 to 8. Or from 6 to 7.

I'm in the office by 8 from my first meeting. And from 9 to 12, I still prospecting more for the investing side. and some real estate like i'll sell i think i sold 76 deals this year of a residentially but i don't prospect for it it just comes to me through my social media and through my past client list and then i focus on building the the acquisition business but it's still it's all day i still go in appointments i love it i love the hustle i love the chase it's like i've been out of sales and making you know high into the six figures nearly seven figures as a team leader but i am still that guy who goes gets that stuff so i hunt that deal like i chase it

And so I really enjoy that. Yeah, you still enjoy being in the hunt of the deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what else would you say that's kind of served you well, you know, like transitioning from that you learned in the gym or in the fight game or whatever? That's just really helped you in your career and in your business. Definitely the work.

The connections to a lot of people when you, when they train with you and train together, as you know, it's a different bond. Like it's not like your gym rose. You're not just lifting weights. Like when you're when you're practicing murdering each other and you decide not to because your friends, you build a camaraderie. And this, that that dictates into business and other businesses and referrals. So that was a huge help.

The discipline, the work ethic, even the way that I coach my team. It's like there's no emotions involved. Like I am going to tell you exactly what you need to do to grow. I'm not going to be emotional about it. I'm not going to take it. take your emotions into consideration either. I'm going to take the facts in place. So it's the same thing that way I did my fighters.

And even my ladies, my ladies understand that more than the guys do. Like I tell us, this is what you need to do. This was dumb. Let's not do this again. We focus on this. And I'm like, yes, sir.

And they go straight to it. So it's helped build a really good culture of, you know, GSD stuff. We get it done. What about resilience? The, like, the resiliency of like,

right, if you, like, I know what goes into going into camp, you know what I mean, like getting your ass kicked, you know, being on the diet, being super strict, you know, all the things you got to do, then you could go in the fight and get and lose, right? Resilience is, that's probably my superpower because when I was fighting, I always told everybody's too dumb to quit.

And I think it's now that I understand that if I get one inch better every day, eventually I'm going to hit any goal. So it's like, it's not no more than I'm too. dumb to quit. It's just that I'm not going to now. Well, I think the other thing, too, is that, you know, when you, when you're in the fight game, you have to prepare like a warrior and then you could still lose. And then you could have prepared. You could have got hit with a freak shot. You could have just been one inch off. Like, so many things can go wrong, but then you have to get up and do it again and be willing to get back in

in the ring, be willing to train. And for me, one of the things that I've seen, and I'd love your take on this is why a lot of fighters that we've hired have been great salespeople because they're not scared to hear, they're not scared to hear no. And they're not scared to something goes wrong. They have this resiliency to bounce back and keep going. You know, same with like athletes. You know, we've hired collegiate athletes that, you know, won championships and similar. So I'd love your take on that. I 100% agree. And I remember telling people, because the, as a fighter, you sign up to get punch in the face. Like that is what you're doing. I mean, in a bad day, you get punch in the face a lot. Yeah. In real estate, somebody's going to say no and shut the door. Like, that's worst case

scenario. Sure. And you talk about like preparation. Like, I remember the day that I was done fighting. And you're talking about a warrior. Like, you have to train like a warrior. I was fighting Jason Miller. And he had hit me. And I went down to all fours. And I went to push up. Like, I was getting up because I was pissed. And I went to push up. And I noticed there was a stream of blood about the size of a quarter pulling out of my, pouring out of my head. And I remember covering my head. And at that point, I was like, you're fucking done.

You're not willing to die here because I was worried about it. Yeah. And at that point, I was like, mentally, I was like, you're done. You're not willing to die here. Like, you're done with this. And I think I had one more fight after that. But that's exactly what it teaches me. is because when I would knock on the door,

because I'd knock on 50, 60, 70 doors a day, what somebody's going to slam the door and not answer it? That's worst case scenario. I'm right south. You may get a pistol pulled on you, but that never happened. Politely. Yeah, especially when you look like I do. Like, I don't look like somebody you want knocking on the door anyway.

Right. Yeah, that's funny. So you let's go. You know, you just mentioned this. I think it's, I think it's an interesting thing to talk about. So in the fight, like, what was that the defining moment of like, you knew you were done? Like, what made you say, I'm done with fighting? That was, that was the second to last fight.

I got paid really good money to go up and fight, you know, Jason Mayhem Miller, short notice, like, literally like eight days notice in Nashville. It was the first nationally televised fight in the country that wasn't a pay-per-view. You remember the big The Strike Force brawl that happened? Oh, yeah, yeah. I thought Mayhem Miller that night. Like I got it. Okay.

It was that night, yeah. Yeah. And he was bigger than me, better than me, meaner than me, all the things. But I don't back down from fights. That's one thing I was known for. It's like,

people call me like, hey Tim, I got a fight for you. I'm like, yes. You know, like, well, you don't know who it is? I'm like, yes. But I didn't say no. I didn't back down. I was like, I was in 16 and 10. as a professional

MMA guy, I would much rather be 16 and 10 than 30 and 0 and picked all my fights. Like I wanted to be the guy who didn't say no to nothing. So I took the fight,

clipped him a few times. He hit me. Then that's when, you know, the blood started coming. And I had that moment. And then one more fight. They flew me out to

Clovis, New Mexico, to fight a guy that's probably my age now, which at that time, You're an old man if you're an MMA in your 40s. Yeah. And I was piecing him up pretty good. He threw a high kick and I blocked.

And he hit this hand and I could feel my hands break. Like my knuckles still right here. They're still broke from it. And I was like, okay. So I'm just going to just go ahead and take him down, finish the fight. Because there's no way. He shouldn't have been in the ring with me. Like really should not have been in the ring with me.

So I shot in a double leg, cleared legs. Landon and he scooted into like a little guillotine. And this little one of the one of the one of the one, I mean, probably a blue belt level. Yeah. And I went to grab the neck. And that's as far as my elbows will bend down. Right.

I literally couldn't grab the neck. And he ended submitting me. And I'm like, I'm done. Like, there's nothing more I can do. Like, I am. Right. And like, I made that decision right there in the center of that ring. And my coach was a hard ass special forces guy.

And he goes, good. He goes, you're still on top. He goes, don't be that guy. I'm like, okay, I won't be that guy. So, yeah. Yeah, that was the day that I knew. Yeah, that's cool. And then, and then was it, were you doing real estate still in conjunction with that?

Or you had not even started in your real estate career yet? No, I'm a firm believer. If you chase two rabbits, you catch none. So I was, the second I was done fighting, I went into real estate. I still trained, you know, three or four hours a day. But it wasn't six or seven hours a day because that's who I was, a part of who I was. and but I got into real estate and I mean I was the time I was spending training it went straight into learning reading podcast coaches books whatever I could do like I probably read 500 self-development

books or listen to them and and this is someone you know I quit high school in 10th grade but I knew that that information was out there so I ran out and I got as much as I could and it didn't realize it didn't take a lot to be smarter than most agents and it didn't take a lot to outwork them. So if I could be smarter and outwork them, it was going to be a big win. Yeah, that's really cool. So now, where you're at in your career now, like, what do you, what do you kind of, you know, you've, you've had all these great lessons in the fight game. It's transitioned. Like, what are you most excited about now? What are you looking forward to? Investing, the investing side that you've taught me, the acquisition side. That's, that is my focus. Everything else just

comes from that. Like, everything else is just what's left. So you've been an investor, you know, for some time, you know, I'd love for you to share, you know, because obviously I'm a huge believer in that. But share with our audience, like how your world changes when you get on the investment side. I remember my first investment.

I was still personal training. You know, I was still working in the gym. And as a bank manager. and he was training. I was training with him. And he goes, Tim, when are you going to start investing in real estate? I'm like, man, I said,

I don't even know if this real estate shit's going to work out for me. I was like, I don't know. He goes, man, I got a property that we need off the books. He's, you know, the FDIC's coming in. We need it off the books. And I'm like, I said, I don't really don't have any money. I said, I've got like $3,000 saved. And my buddy that was training with us, he goes, I've got $3,000 saved.

I said, I'll give you $6,000 for it. And he goes, let's go look at it. I'm like, okay. So we drove down and looked at it. And I'm talking to the lady that lives there. It's in a very, very rough area. And I was like, when's the last time somebody collected rent? She has been three years.

You know, people scared to come down here. I'm like, okay. So I'm like, okay, what was the last time you paid rent? And she goes, you know, I think I paid $500. I'm like, okay. I'm the new owner. I'll be by the first to collect $500. She goes, okay.

And so we closed on it. And then I showed up the first to collect rent. And it was a shit show. I mean, there are people everywhere, like people trying to start stuff with me. And it's like, yeah, of course. So I got my money. And I walked out and I ended up calling an investor that I was working with. I'm like, hey, man, I said, I've got a cash flow and property. I'll sell you for $20,000. He said, okay, sign it up. So I sold it. And then we used that $20,000 to put a down payment on like three or four more. And then I was buying, like I have 44 doors and two office

buildings. And I'm buying, but I'm buying off the NLS, you know, either cash or financing. And I didn't understand how to invest. I know like most realtors, you buy properties and you rent them. And I was lucky enough, I was making those decisions when it didn't matter when, you know, when you could cash flow doing anything. Yeah, you were buying it, you were buying it where the market was going to cover up your sentence. Absolutely. And once I hired, like, you know, hired you and coaches to specifically coach me for the investing side is like you realize like your best deals are not on the market you got to get them below market you get all your money you all these different things and you learn and then you're like this costs me nothing because

I have the information yeah so then I ran crazy on that and it's now I'm in love with the finding the deals finding the properties and you know get them to my investors yeah that's awesome um always in this the same way and And number one, I appreciate you. Again, I can't say, you can't overlook this enough, man, to, because I understand this game and I understand the fight, you know, I understand the fight game. I understand the discipline of martial arts. I understand everything.

I understand the dedication. And to get to a two straight black belt in BJJ, that is a serious discipline and commitment that you have taken. And so that's extremely cool because you're one of not very many people in this world that get to that level. So I wanted to acknowledge you for that again. And then always in the show, the same thing of the show's about waking up to wealth. You know, here's a guy who didn't graduate the 10th grade was a fighter and then got in this game, crushed it, agent investor the whole thing. That's what that's showing you guys what's possible. But always end it with, I want this show to be

about having people waking up to wealth and understanding money. What does waking up to wealth mean to you. I think waking up to wealth me is waking up with the life that I want and being able to impact people. I mean, I'll wake up exactly where I want to live, drive the car that I want, go the places I want to go. I live the life that I want because of everything that I've done. And I think that's right now that's wake up to wealth. I'm sure when I'm 65 and 70 waking up to wealth will be being healthy. But right now, it's making that money, making that money and being impactful to people that matter to me. If people want to check out your videos,

follow you, whatever, how do they find you? Facebook, you know, Tim Stout, Instagram, it's the Moab Stout, M-O-A-B-S-T-O-U-T-B-M-A-B-M-A-B-M-A-Sout and the Tim Stout for my investing in residential sales. Awesome, brother. Hey, I appreciate you spending the time with us today, pouring into my audience.

It's always a pleasure to hang with you. Awesome, I appreciate the opportunity. 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 advice and they understand the back office.

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