Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, here's your host, Blake Elsner.

Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner, where we bring the best minds in business and personal growth together. Today, we have a powerhouse guest, Freddy Cocek He's a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and host of Other People's Perspective. We're talking mindset, scaling business and the art of resilience. Freddy welcome to the show.

Blake Elsner

Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. Absolutely.

Freddy Cocek

So give us a quick backstory. I know you've been in oil and gas for for quite a while and now you're, you know, trying to find something else. But give us what got you into the whole entrepreneurship and in that world as a kid.

Blake Elsner

Well, when I remember, you know, to take it way back, you know, before before my illustrious professional career, my working career, you know, back to even when I was a kid, man, I remember, you know, when I was nine, 10, 11 years old, I, I I remember wanting to, you know, wanting to earn money, earn extra money. You know, I remember my dad helping me out when I was a kid. You know, he had a few friends that he'd load me up, you know, I'd say, Hey, dad, can I go, you know, can I, how can I make some money? You know, can I, can I mow some yards or something like that? And he'd tell me, Hey, you know, go talk to so-and-so. He, he put it on me to, to learn how to, you know, communicate, and convey myself to other people and communicate and put my name out there and my interest in trying to provide a service and trying to make a little money and go talk to so-and-so and then I'm sure he gave a little heads up and said, hey, my boy's going to talk to you. Anyways, as a kid, I had the hunger to do something more than just, hey, dad, can I have $5? Or, hey, mom, can I have $5? I wanted to go and I wanted to earn it on my own. guy would load me up with the, put the lawnmower in the back of the pickup and take me over to, you know, so-and-so's house. And I'd mow a yard and I'd get a little, you know, I had a couple of neighbors down the street that, uh, had a, I remember one, one family, they had a bigger yard and the guy had a riding mower. And of course he, he wanted to, you know, he wanted to, to, uh, you know, save the time for himself. So he'd pay me to come over there and ride the mower. And, and, you know, that was kind of like my first intro to, you know, a little bit of entrepreneurship and, and, making money, you know, making my own money and trying to make my own way and further myself rather than just expecting it from my parents at, you know, age 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there. And as I, when I got to a teenager, I had, you know, down here in the area, I live, I live in South Texas. I live like we were talking about, uh, I'm about halfway between San Antonio and, uh, you know, Texas, Mexico border. I'm about, about halfway in between, right. And, you know, Corpus Christi, and there's a lot of area around here. That's, that's a lot of farmland. And the town I grew up in was a big farming community. So I had a an uncle, he was a family friend of ours that that farm. So when I was a kid, you know, I was about 13 years old, I remember there again, you know, my dad helping me taking me out to taking me, he'd take me out to the, my uncle's farm fields, like in the afternoon, like in the spring after they'd planted crops, one of the practices for as they were growing cotton crops and different crops for like weed control, you'd go out there and literally manually walk up and down the rows of the field. And I'd walk out there with a, with a big long, like a big garden hoe, and you'd have big, big sunflower plants and some other stuff that was like invasive weeds. And so as a kid, you know, like 13 years old, I remember I was just having this conversation with somebody the other day. I was like, man, I remember back in 93 when I was working for 425 an hour out there, you know, chopping weed, chopping sunflowers and chopping weeds in the field. And, and, you know, it's kind of funny to look back at it, but really that was that was like the beginning, one of the part of the beginning of, of, you know, entrepreneurship, because I didn't, I didn't need income at the time because I was a kid, but I had the interest in, in, you know, doing something above and beyond for myself, uh, you know, cause I wanted more out of that. And it just kind of grew and progressed. You know, I was, I was a teenager. I did some of the same stuff with, with farming and working there. When I was in high school, I had a, I had a, uh, an afternoon job. And after high school, when I got into college, I kind of stumbled across the oil and gas industry kind of by mistake. I was in college and I'd been in college for about two years, year and a half, two years at that time. And my head really wasn't in it. Uh, I was just ready to go to work. I just wanted to make money. You know, I, I followed the, I followed the college route because you know, my, my father wanted, wanted his kids to, to get a college education and you know, his mentality and his mindset was that, you know, having an education is going to afford you a better, better career opportunity, better life than, going to work in a plant and what he did. he knew that he knew that his, his career and his living wasn't, wasn't bad by any means, but he just, you know, in his mind, he, he wanted better for, for us. And his idea of better was to get a formal education and, Hey, go be, you know, go be one of those engineers that I worked for instead of being, you know, one of the guys in the plant. So, you know, I, I love and respect him for that, but you know, I was a kid and I knew everything. So I was like this, you know, I just, I just want to go to work and I want to start making money. So. When I was in college, I had kind of put my feelers out and was looking for a, you know, part-time job and stumbled across a guy at the time that was in the oil and gas industry, you know, in a service business that was kind of like a support business to some of the operations. hired on with him. And so I, uh, my, my school career, I think I had classes like two days a week. I think I was going to college like Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then my part-time job turned into Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So it was like, I was working five days a week and going to school too. And which I was cool with. And you know, I was, it really, That's, that's kind of what, you know, that, that was almost kind of like my, my exit for me to, to get out of school. I was, I was already at the point where I wasn't really, I wasn't making the grades to stay in school anyway. So, and it just kind of, it just kind of snowballed from there. And I just, I ended up, I ended up going to work full time. And of course at that time, you know, I was, I was 20 when I started. And then, you know, the following year in 21, I had my first kid. So, you know, then I was really committed to have to stay and work and generate income. And so I was 21 years old with a newborn on the ground and, and it just, it just kind of stayed from there. You know, I just, I just stayed in it and, and, uh, I worked for someone else. uh, for several years. But even during that period of time, you know, like I had an interest to want to do something bigger, uh, you know, for myself, try to do something on my own. I remember back when I was, excuse me, about 21, 22 years old, I remember thinking about, you know, or having thoughts of, of wanting to, you know, diversify myself or try to do something outside of, you know, the, the, the business and the employment that I was in. But, you know, for, for a 22 year old kid, I had a lot on my plate, man. I was, I was trying to, you know, trying to hold down a career, trying to, you know, trying to be a dad. And it just, it was, it was a full plate for me at that time. But as, as time went on, as things progressed, uh, you know, I worked for companies over the work, work for work for people and work for different companies over the years in that field, but, uh, was always looking for the opportunity to, you know, start my own deal, you know, to do something in like an entrepreneurial capacity. And so, you know, finally, finally dove off into that actually starting my own business with a with a partner in 2000 and 2011, uh, we started putting everything together and then actually got functional and operational in 2012. So, um, you know, I had had several years of working, working for other people, but also, you know, knowing in my mind and having in the back of my mind that, you know, I want to do something bigger, uh, you know, in, in the entrepreneur space. So, you know, I'm sure that that happens to a lot of people. It's like, you're, you're, You're working a day job, you're working for someone, you've got the comfort and the consistency of a steady paycheck and all that, but a lot of people are trying to decide or figure out when is the right time to make the jump or when should I do it, when can I do it. So that's, um, yeah, you're right.

Cause that's a, it's a scarcity move that a lot of times we get comfortable and, and we'll just continue to do the same thing where, you know, our minds in it, our heart, but our heart's not, and we're just doing it just to pay the bills and keep going. And yeah. And then once you realize like, okay, I gotta, I gotta go somewhere else, take my, take my passion elsewhere or go find what my purpose is. Um, and then once your heart, and your mind align, then it's like, then you don't work another day in your life. But no, that's pretty cool that to go back, I always joke, there's a lot of successful people, I swear, that start cutting grass as like a kid. That seems like one of like the most successful starting jobs as a young kid. But it makes sense. I mean, you always have been hands on. And since obviously the farming and now they have drones that probably do that. So you don't have to walk up and down.

Technology has brought so many different avenues to, you know, the advancement of technology has brought so many different, you know, positive changes to so many different industries and so many different capacities. It is wild. Yeah, they're talking about the drone stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh, so yeah. And, and being obviously, so you had 25 years in oil and gas, um, I joked with you, I go, a lot of people probably don't understand how oil turns to gas and makes it to quick trip, mobile, wherever, and then goes into your car. So give it like, where do they decide like, Hey, here's a spot to drill. Let's go ahead and drill right here.

Yeah. It's, uh, um, I'll try and, you know, and I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a geologist. I'm not a, an engineer. Uh, I'm not, I'm not a smart guy. I want to sound like Forrest Gump. I'm not a smart man. Uh, cause I'm, I'm, I don't consider myself to, to be, uh, you know, very high on the intelligence spectrum, but I understand the process and I've, I've watched it over and over many times, uh, to, to keep it simple. I'll just say that, uh, they are, People that can, there's again, where this is a huge thing where technology comes into play. They've got technology that can be utilized and is utilized basically to observe what's underground. And I'm talking at depths of thousands and thousands of feet because a lot of the, crude oil that's extracted in these processes. A lot of this stuff is in deposits and in zones and areas that are thousands and thousands of feet below the ground. I'm talking some of this stuff is two miles, two or three miles deep. You're talking It can be anywhere from 2,000 feet to 22,000 feet. It's pretty wild. But there again, back to the technology aspect of it, basically they utilize technology to, it's almost like a sonar type technology, or they call it, there's also a seismic, how they utilize seismic technology for, earthquakes and earth movement plate tectonics and all that. But there's a type of seismic technology that's used to where they can analyze underground formations. And if they see something in a particular area, then they go, OK, boom. Based on these readings, this is what we've got here. This, this looks like it's going to be blah, blah, blah. So they will, they'll, they'll make a decision based a lot, a lot of the decisions on where they're going to drill a well or where they're going to start a project initially is usually based on that. So they'll use, you know, seismic and use seismic technology to determine where they're going to drill. then they'll come in, and this can be anywhere. There's oil and gas deposits that have been found in the remote corners of the world, and then there's also stuff that has been found in areas that are now cities and towns and heavily populated. And then all of a sudden, if they if they realize that there's a deposits there, I remember many years ago, back in well back in like the mid 2000s, this has been about 20 years ago now, there was a huge a huge deposit, like oil and gas deposit that was discovered in like the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And for several years, there was drilling and exploration that was literally in, they were setting up operations, setting up drilling rigs and operations like in the middle of established, you know, neighborhoods and subdivisions and like in the Fort Worth area. It was pretty wild, it was pretty crazy. But anyways, they'll use that technology to determine what's down below, what's beneath. They'll come in and set up a drilling rig and a drilling, it's like a mobile drilling operation where they can drill down to that depth. And once they reach that depth, then whatever's trapped there, whether it's like liquid crude oil, or sometimes some of it is natural gas like propane. You've got a gas grill outside that runs off of a propane tank or something like that. Or if you've got natural gas heating your home, some of these deposits that they find is dry. It's dry, what they call dry gas. And so they'll drill down to those depths, and then they'll basically build out all the infrastructure to extract it from the ground and either store it in storage facilities that are on site, or if it's liquid, if it's liquid crude oil, stuff of that nature, They will they'll either store it temporarily on site or sometimes they'll are a lot of times they will have like pipeline. You know they'll have pipeline infrastructure that they'll build out and develop that these these liquids and these fluids can be pumped down these pipelines to bigger storage facilities gathering facilities. where it's held there and then either transported by truck, by rail. Sometimes they have pipelines that will carry these products, these raw products, all the way to refineries and refining facilities where they'll take in these raw products and basically, you know, crude crude oil. And there's a lot, there's a lot more steps in there, there can be a lot more steps in the process. But I'll try to make it as simple as possible. Basically, what they do, they take this, they take this raw, they'll take this raw crude oil, and heat it and essentially, you know, boil it, which a lot of people are like, Oh my gosh, you can't heat gasoline. Like, you know, you put, put fire on gasoline, it explodes. I'm like, well, yeah, it, it does, but it's in a, it's in a specially designed and controlled environment. to where when these natural raw products are heated and boiled or pushed to their boiling point, there's all kinds of different elements within this raw product that when you heat them to certain temperatures and put them through certain chemical processes, they either split into, you know, it's basically the refining, it's the refining process where they refine that raw product and make, you know, they refine it into a cleaner liquid, cleaner fuel, which is, you know, like your gasoline for your car or diesel fuel for your car or, you know, diesel for a piece of equipment or whatever. And then, There's also all kinds of different elements within that raw product that once it's run through the refining process, there's all kinds of stuff that comes out of that, stuff that's used for plastics and a whole host of items that we use on a daily basis. But they basically take that raw liquid product extract it from the ground, you know, either and either, you know, transported by pipeline or by some transportation method to where it can be refined and broken down into a usable product that I mean, we use everybody, everybody, almost everybody, you know, everybody in some form or fashion is using, you know, petroleum products, whether it's, you know, gasoline or diesel or you know, the plastic that your iPhone or your computer's made out of, or, you know, there's even some components of that that goes into, you know, women's makeup. And I mean, you name it, like everything.

It's interesting you say that about like the makeup because I'm talking to a previous guest and he talks about having all natural soap and he's like, you don't realize all the stuff that's in your soap, not to sidetrack, but it's interesting how you say that chemicals inside of like makeup that are in gas, like that doesn't sound great or in oil. But it makes sense because you put oil, you know, you have oil substance in a lot of things, but It's kind of interesting that a process like that, you say it's been found in Dallas in the middle of cities. I guess without getting too political, how do we not just have oil refineries constantly going and keep the price of gas down? Is that just because we don't like cheap gas?

Man, there's, there's a, and I agree with you not to get, you know, too political about it. It's, it's hard, you know, it's hard for politics not to play into it because I think, you know, the, the political aspect of, of all of that is it's, it's a huge element. Uh, you know, there's, there's, uh, from what I've seen over my career and the things I've read and experienced, and of course the information that's put out there on a national scale or even on a global scale, as far as available resources here domestically for us that are in the US anyways. And really, I think globally, the availability of fossil fuels It is a global thing. It's everywhere. Now, the method to retrieve those deals, to retrieve those resources, it varies from one place to another. The availability of the ease of access to actually, there's probably a lot of resources that are trapped in areas where it's just, with current technology, the accessibility of it is just not there. To your point of, hey, if we've got so much all around us, all around us but below, if we've got so much availability, why aren't we refining more? Why don't we have more facilities and infrastructure to aid with that? I agree with that because I think we do have an abundance of that resource. The political aspect of it, I think, keeps a lot of it kind of slowed down or keeps it subdued.

And I'm guessing that's just climate, right? I mean, that's pretty much the only, I mean, I can't really think of any other con besides climate change.

Yeah, there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of factor, I'm sure there's a lot more factors that weigh into it and play into it than what I even understand, even after having been in this industry for the period of time I've been in it. There's a lot of available resources for us. I don't see any of it You know, it's not going to expire or run out like in our lifetime. Do I agree with the concept of the idea of having, you know, why don't we have more ease of access or availability? Why are we not utilizing more of it if it's right here under our feet? I agree with that, but, you know, there's, There's some, you know, there's some constraints in the way, obviously, I guess, because if it was as easy as that, you would think that it would be happening. But there again, you know, politics and a host of other things, you know, tends to get in the way when you're trying to make progress on certain things.

Yeah. I guess when we're sending in like $6 million over to Egypt, you know, for tourism, God, everybody needs to see Sesame street, right?

Yeah.

See, that's the, that's the stuff that's just a little frustrating and you don't even have to be on a political side to say that's just frustrating.

I mean, yeah, it doesn't, it, In all good conscience, it should not matter what side of the aisle you stand on. I don't care if you're on either side of the aisle or if you are not even standing in the aisle. If you're a contributor to society and a taxpayer, the way that your money is allocated, it's If you are required to put money into something and you can have no say about what's done with it, that should bother anyone, I would think, regardless of age, race, creed, political affiliation, any of it. And so I hope that that resonates with people. You know, there again, not to go down the political wormhole, but you know, some of the things that are going on and being found, I still think we're in the infant stages of it, but it should be eye-opening for anyone and everyone that is a contributor to society and cares about, you know, the people around them and themselves and how things are being done and being handled.

Yeah. I always say if you have a credit score, um, you should care because they're, they're the ones giving it to you. So yeah. So, yeah. So to move on to a little farther on the gas part. So getting back to that now, yes. it gets on a, you know, obviously a truck and it makes it up to, you know, Wally's, Bucky's, wherever you want to, wherever you want to call it, gas station. And how, you know, how does that price get set? Do you know much about that on the, on that end?

Man, it, I don't, I don't know extensively. I don't understand, you know, the, the pricing scale, you know, a lot of it is, is, um, It should be dictated largely by supply and demand. I think that's what dictates and drives a majority of the fuel market, or at least that commodity, fuel commodities. There's always going to be some level of steady usage across the board, whether it's people driving their car to work, or if it's fuel that's being used for whatever industry, if it's air travel, transportation, trucking, transportation of goods, all that. There's always going to be some level of usage, but they say that it does. Obviously, it ebbs and flows. It's always puzzled me how it can change so drastically. you know, fuel can, can get to some ridiculous price and, and, you know, everybody's squawking like, God dang, you know, when's, when's gas going to come down and, you know, and that sucks. And, and, you know, there's, I'm sure there's some artificial factors that affect it as well. Um, but a lot of it is just, it's just kind of dictated by supply and demand. Um, there's a, In my opinion, and from my experience, like I said earlier, we have an abundant supply and availability of raw product, but the refined products, the actual end user products, gasoline, diesel, everything that goes into all your daily stuff, that The supply of that is somewhat dictated by economics too, because if these refining companies and these refineries that take this raw product and convert it to usable product, If, if the, if, if the, for whatever reason, if the price of the commodities down, yeah, then they're going to invest less money to generate more product. So that creates a shortage. So then all of a sudden, when there's a demand, when there's more of a demand for, for the usage of end product, um, if, if everybody has produced less than they're like, okay, well, crap, let's, let's ramp up production. Well, then they ramp up production. Um, and because there's been a shortage all of a sudden, it's like, well, when there's, I mean, you understand supply and demand, you know, when there's less, it's just like the housing market, you know, when there's less inventory on the market, housing prices, you know, traditionally they go up. Yeah. Am I wrong?

No, you were, you were spot on. I'm glad, uh, housing and gas aren't.

Yeah. They're parallel in the sense that supply and demand dictates largely, it doesn't rule the market, but it largely dictates pricing and the value of the commodity.

Yeah. Well, so the articles I've been reading, it sounds like we're going to be doing a little more drilling. So supply and demand, right? If we all know supply and demand, if we're going to be getting more supply, right? The demand goes down prices. Okay. We, we should all follow suit. Right. It sounds good.

It's a, it's a juggling act, man. It's a, it's a, it's a less than graceful, you know, juggling and balancing act because you, you, you know, just like in the housing market when it, you know, Hey, when, when there's, when, when, when inventories down, you know, and prices are up and then all of a sudden when inventories up and prices are down, then it, you know, it's like shit, you know, where's the, Most people want to see a happy medium in a lot of things. You likely know as well as I do that happy mediums don't always exist. It's back and forth. It's like riding on a seesaw. You know, it's like, Oh, no, no. Well, if, if both kids only weighed a hundred pounds, it would be just like this, but you know, the fat kid on this side.

So, yeah, well, welcome to sales too. That's what I got to say about that. Well, um, well, no, I, I appreciate you coming on here and telling us about that Freddie because It's really interesting, like that whole process about like oil and the supply and taking it and refining it. And I mean, two miles, like I would never would have thought I'm like, I guess, you know, you just take a shovel, right?

No, I mean, there, there, there is, you know, there's technology involved in that. And there's processes that that for anyone that that has never seen it and has no, you know, like understanding or concept of some of it, there's stuff that they do. It blows my mind with some of the things that they do and some of the technology that's available. And I've been looking at this stuff for almost 25 years. So it's interesting, man. It's pretty wild. But it's a good thing. You know, the energy, you know, a commodity, you know, a resource that provides us energy. I mean, it's it's it's a necessary it's a necessary item. You know, we all got to have it.

That's that's so true. And I guess it makes sense when they say we're one asteroid away when you got all this. all this stuff underneath the ground. It makes, it does make you think, think twice. Um, but no, I, I, uh, I appreciate you coming on here.

Yeah.

So Freddy it's been great. Uh, where can people, uh, find you besides I know Facebook, Instagram, um, I know you're always posting.

I'm on, I'm on Instagram. I'm, I'm still, uh, This year, this year is going to be the year where I really, I get, I get more focused on my podcast, other people's perspective. I've got, I think I've got about 10 episodes under my belt now, but if anybody, if anybody wants to reach out, that's OPPodcast.com.

OPPodcast.com, he's got Other People's Perspective Podcast. Yeah, I saw that. Looking on there, you've had some high ups and apex on there. I saw you had, I know Pedro Meneses, he's a real estate professional, I know that. So yeah, there's some good episodes I know you got on there.

Yeah. It's been a, it's been a, an interesting journey thus far learning that. And I'm, I'm pretty stoked. I think I'm going to make a hard push this year and I've got, I've got an opportunity to, to, uh, to get with some, some, some good people and, and some really good spaces and, and, uh, I'm, I'm enjoying it. I really, I really like it and planning on growing it this year. So I'm excited about that.

Awesome. Well, they can check you out there and I appreciate you coming on and talking to us. Absolutely. Yeah. Until next time. One love. Thank you, brother.

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