The Hot Shot Answer
Host: Travis Norris
Ep. 1
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Welcome to The Hot Shot Answer podcast, I’m your host Travis Norris; the hot shot fellow. I’m here to discuss family, business and life; bringing you answers to some of life's toughest questions and topics, some things you may or may not already know. This is the one place to get those answers. Here at The Hot Shot Answer podcast, we’re glad that you’re here; let’s begin today's discussion.
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So, Today is episode one of the podcast, and I wanted to come on and say kind of who I am, what I’m all about, you know, my hobbies, how this all started, who is the hot shot fellow, you know, all that kind of stuff, that way you know who I am and you can uh, you know where I'm coming from as we progress through this.
So, who is The Hot Shot Fellow? Well, I’m a husband, uh I've been married to my wife for many many years now, I’m also a dad, so we have two kids currently and uh no she's not pregnant, but nonetheless we have two boys, Bryce and Owen. Bryce is the oldest, he is currently thirteen and about the best way I can describe Bryce is if you have ever watched Big Bang Theory and you see Sheldon, that is about the best way I can describe Bryce and his personality, how he is, he’s not as obnoxious as Sheldon is, but, he has that personality in the way he thinks and processes information, that’s who he is. Like I said, he is highly intelligent; almost scary intelligent on what he does academically. And then my youngest one is Owen, he is eleven and he is for the most part of an epitome of me, he struggles in school, we will talk about that a lot in future podcast episodes, he does struggle in school, but at the same time he is very very gifted in the gift of gab, he never meets a stranger, he's always able to hustle and make money. Some things that we’ve talked about with him over the past are, you know, things that I wish that I did when I was a kid, and how I made money to support, you know, my family at a young age. I was a big supporter of my family, I mean I was paying a light bill at eleven or thirteen years old, I was buying groceries at twelve to thirteen years old so we could eat. You know, so the road has not always been easy and smooth and nicely paved for me.
That being said, I am also a business owner, entrepreneur, and I'm a veteran as well; I served in the military for nearly eight years, I got medically retired which brought me back to Texas. While I was active-duty I was an aircraft mechanic so I spent some time on airplanes working on those, making them fly and getting them back home safely, as long as the pilots didn’t screw it up, and most of the time they didn’t.
So, some of my hobbies, basically I love cooking, that’s one of our things that my wife and I definitely do together. We cook a lot together and we’ve done it for many many years. On the weekend I’m usually smoking some kind of meat; I got the smoker going and I'm doing something, you know, either cooking ribs or smoking ribs, cooking turkeys or smoking turkeys, or brisket or things like that, because we are in Texas and we love our meat, we love our beans. So, that’s usually where I go with that. Uh– We enjoy camping, we do go camping quite a bit, not as much as what we would like to, but nonetheless we do enjoy going camping.
And one of our biggest hobbies between my wife and myself is riding our motorcycle.
So, we do own motorcycles uh and that's kind of our thing; you know it’s our way of– of breaking away from the family dynamics to to work on our marriage to work on who we are to work on reconnecting between her and myself. Like I told the boys growing up when as we kind of have those times with our kids you know some things i've told them in the past like, you know I chose her I didn't choose you guys not that I don't love my boys I love them very very much but the bottom line is come year 18 year 19 they're moving out of the house and I still have to be married to my wife. So, um it is all about uh her and I in, you know, the long haul so you have to continue to work on that every day, constantly work on it so we do, we don’t necessarily do date nights um, but we we do break away from time to time, a lot of time on the weekends because it is more uh family oriented time; that’s time that i've carved out is mainly for the family uh cause we work so hard during the week and and I put in so many hours during the week that I have to be able to give back to my family on that time. So, on weekends usually when we go ride, uh if we do uh either than that we, you know, we spend that time smoking meat and spending the days at the house or days at the campsite.
So, uh what makes me tick?
So, I've actually been asked this not too long ago on what makes me tick, what makes me, you know what am I always thinking about why am I always– What’s always on my mind. And one of the things that’s always on my mind is, you know, creating– how can I create opportunities for business and making it work for not only myself and my family but for others. You know, I take a high level of pride and a high level of honor to be able to create a company or to create a business that not only is feeding my family, but is feeding and supporting another family as well.
You know that’s what it’s all about, you know I’m willing to roll the dice i’m willing to invest and, with most risk in this whole aspect, you know, for it to take off and grow in order to give a livelihood and give a career to the next generation or the ones that are willing to jump on board with me and go down this journey.
So, like I said, I am the front man, I am the one that’s, you know, fronting everything and doing everything because everything I do is bootstrapped; I do it old school, I don’t have loans, I don’t have, you know, substantial money, I didn’t come into a nest egg of money I’m, you know, my mom and dad separated when I was a year and a half, two years old so growing up it was, you know, me and my mom living with one of my uncles and my grandma and grandpa for ten, eleven years almost twelve years I lived with, you know, my grandparents and my uncle and uh and then my mom and we were in a three bedroom house that was barely twelve hundred square foot if, you know, it was more than that I’m lying so uh, you know we have the washing machine, Washer and dryer on the back porch you know and then deep freezers and stuff on the back porch we didn’t have it, the room in the house. And so, going down that road of being able to create something for you know another family and being able to give them a life that, you know, they did not necessarily know was capable or possible uh is my driving force. Uh what seems to be impossible making it possible, which is one of the logos and the power statements for one of my companies uh I run a construction Company and that sole purpose of that company is to making the impossible possible. You know, so many times contractors tell homeowners, you know, it can’t be done and they walk away because they’re not willing to put in that extra ten minutes or twenty minutes or hours to figure out how to do it. Over the years I've vastly become that guy that you know I get phone calls all over the country I've gotten all over from City to City when you know reps for companies don't know, you know, they call me “Hey how can I do this, hey is this possible, Is this plausible?” And and I get those lot which has always been a personal goal of mine is to be the one, you know the systems expert on doors and windows and carpentry and you know and things like that and be the the system expert and I’ve done that, I’ve gotten to that point uh to where when people know that they have a, you know, a legit door question or they have a question that no one has the answer to, give hot shot a call, he’ll know. Um and it kinda completely goes into the mindset that, you know my grandad and my grandmother gave me growing up and, cause like I said, I grew up as (with) a single mom, and you know I watched my mom work two jobs and worked all night and you know, yeah we live at grandma and grandpas but, you know, I saw the struggle in my mom, I saw how hard my mom worked uhm and I knew my dad was on the road, he was a truck driver for many many years, so he traveled all the time, which he was never around anyways, but nonetheless I knew, you know, he was turning wheels and you know putting in the miles um, you know, that just that hard grind and I saw that all the time. And then my grandad was uh a mechanic, he actually was a forklift mechanic, uh for a houston out a– for a company out of houston and um, so I watched him grind and every day coming home and, you know, his shirts you know literally dripping off of him uh the, you know, the grease underneath the fingernails, was on the cuts on his hands and, you know, is it was, it was just a day to day grind. And, you know, yeah, you know, pop made good money I'm sure and, like I said, I know he made good money, but, you know, just the everyday grind doing the same job every day and, but I also remember sitting there listening to him at the dining room table where, you know, he would say, you know, talk about how to create, or how to do things, or having a problem and, you know, him waking up super super early in the morning to um figuring out a solution because he had a problem on a forklift that he couldn’t quite figure out. And I remember a few times growing up, you know, where my granddad, you know, you could tell his mind wasn’t at ease and he was thinking and he was processing and he would [laughs] he would sit up and, like I said, you could tell he was just thinking. I remember hearing him, you know, three-four o’clock in the morning at the dining room table with, you know, with blueprints um on, you know, with books out and trying to figure out how to make, you know, to bypass the system or make the system work that, you know, that was having problems. And uh so I remember that grind and that dedication that he had to his craft. So, here it is now you know twenty-thirty years later, I’m doing the same thing. Uh I just spent, uh I literally just spent over 10 hours trying to build a window for a customer for a client of mine and, you know, it was– I was so easy– how easy it would have been if I was like hey, I can’t make it and move on. You know, and she’s already been told no three times, that it can’t be done and, you know so, and it took me 10 hours to figure it out but it was 10 straight hours of digging in and finding the answer and figuring out how to do it. Did it come out exactly the way I wanted it? No, but I did, I’m still able to create her window and give her that window that she desperately needs and wants.
So, one of the things that you know my grandparents and my grandma always gave was wisdom and tried to, you know, beat it in our heads um, you know, knowledge and wisdom and things like that. And one of the things that they both told me uh and I remember very very distinctly was, “the wisest man isn’t the one that always has the answers, it’s the one that knows where to get those answers. And once a man knows where to get those answers and how to get those answers he becomes unstoppable in anything and everything he sets his mind to.” So, that’s where, you know, it’s like, well if I, you know, I may not know the answer and that’s how over the years and being in the door and window business and the construction business, you know, we come across obstacles we come across different things and we’ve been, you know, we didn’t know how– how to do it or how to get it. But somebody has the answer; somebody knows how to do it and uh– and I’ve pushed myself to be that guy; to have the answer uh when no one else is willing to take it on, I will. When no one else is willing to come up with a solution , I will. And uh, because, like I said, I want those answers.
So that leads to what this whole podcast is about; it’s about about bringing in to those answers and getting those answers for you guys, you know uh, it gives you another avenue and another source of “hey I wonder if uh, if he’s covered this topic” and, and eventually we will; eventually we will cover all topics as much as possible and, you know, where you come to our podcast and you listen to the podcast and and get those answers to, you know, to anything and everything you’re dealing with. You know, childhood behaviors dealing with pre-teens dealing with teenagers dealing with uh, you know, births, and deaths, and business, and employees, and all those kinds of things, you know, all those kinds of things, you know, what– how to get those kinds of answers uh, you know, that’s what we’re all about, and that’s what I’m all about. Uh I started the construction company and that was solely what I did um was, I wanted to get the home owners the answers that no one else would. I wanted to be completely open and honest with them so that they understand and they see the full picture and understand it from my perspective as a contractor and understanding where we’re coming from as a contractor. So, if you will, definitely uh subscribe, follow us, uh sponsorship is always greatly appreciated and we look forward to continuing uh this journey and continuing this uh in the future on getting you the hot shot answer.
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