How To Get Out Of The Hood

As a Black American who was born and raised in the hood, there wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t think about how to get out of the hood. I always believed in myself and knew that I could get out of the hood.

However, if it wasn’t for me getting a computer and internet (and PS3) in 2006 – I’d probably be dead or in jail.

So, in this post – I’m going to talk about how I got out of the hood and how you can get out of the hood as well.

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My Backstory

As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, I was born and raised in the hood. I lived the typical life of someone who wouldn’t amount to anything.

I was a crack baby, my family was poor with unhealthy habits, and I was surrounded by bad influences that led some of my friends to be killed, go to jail, or do drugs that messed them up mentally.

With that said – my mom is a great person (even with her addiction that she eventually overcame) and my grandma was my guardian angel whenever things could have gone really bad for me.

Both of them helped make me a good kid in a mad city.

So, fast forward to my teenage years. I’m in the streets fighting, hanging with bad influences, and trying to get as many girls as I can.

Recommended Reading: Willingly Struggle or Be Forced To

Due to having an extreme case of asthma, I was able to get disability income from the government (lump sum and monthly checks). Although my mom handled the money as she saw fit, she did give me around $2k to spend on anything I wanted.

I was about 13 years old at the time but my life experience so far had told me to focus on the following things in life:

1. Getting out of the hood
2. Getting more girls
3. Being the “cool” guy

I figured that in order to increase my “cool” status in the hood, I needed something that most people didn’t have. At the time, the PS3 had just been released – so I spent $1k on the console, some games, and a few accessories.

I knew that I needed to maintain my looks and desirability if I wanted more girls – so I purchased nicer clothes and Jordans (retro 7s in 2 different colorways). This was only about $300 worth of stuff at the time.

And, I thought that in order to get out of the hood I needed more money. I loved music and rapping with friends in the streets, so I spent about $700 on a Dell PC from some random store my cousin knew about, purchased budget music studio equipment from RadioShack, and purchased the “producer edition” license for FL Studio.

So, I started making music and selling studio time to anyone I trusted in the hood or at school.

And from that point forward, my mindset started to change from “I want to get out of the hood and be rich” to “If I sell enough studio time, I could get me and my mom out of the hood”.

I never did sell enough studio time to get out of the hood. However, after tasting the possibility of getting out of the hood – I couldn’t give up.

For the first time in my life, I saw a life path that could actually work.

How I Got Out Of The Hood

Let’s fast forward to the year after graduating high school. By this point, I had learned many different skills and failed at many different business ideas.

But, I was going through one of the most difficult moments of my life, mentally. My car broke down, I couldn’t pay my phone bill, my girl slowly started entertaining other dudes, I was still poor in the hood, and I had no idea what to do to put things back on track.

I kept telling myself “This ain’t it bro. You gotta figure it out”.

Out of desperation, I started to search “how to get rich” on Google. I did this for a week and read every blog post I could find.

After reading so many blog posts, I started to see patterns across many different websites. Sometimes they’d reference books I’d never heard of or career paths I never knew existed.

It was this week of research that opened my eyes to how stupid I was. I didn’t know anything about life outside of the hood.

So, I started buying books off Amazon (using a secured credit card I applied for that was supposed to be for emergencies).

Ultimately, the knowledge from these books and the information I read online helped me to start a profitable eCommerce business (I junked my car and sold my PS3 in order to fund it). And the skills I got from running the eCommerce business gave me the credibility needed to freelance my skills, get a high-paying job, start online businesses, and eventually make a career out of digital marketing.

Recommended Reading: My Thoughts As A Digital Marketer After 10 Years

How You Can Get Out Of The Hood

I’m going to keep my recommendations simple and straightforward.

Everything I’m going to recommend is not only realistic (because I did it and have seen others do it) but it’s also one of the fastest, legitimate methods most people in the hood have access to.

So, in order to get out of the hood, you have to do a few things:

1. Accept that you don’t know what to do. If you knew how to get out of the hood, you would have done it already.
2. Separate yourself from your friends (and possibly your family) for a while.
3. Develop a high-income skill that’s quick to learn and doesn’t require formal education.
4. Get a job or start a business.
5. Move out in the least expensive way possible

Those 4 things, if prioritized, will allow you to get out of the hood in the next 12 months.

Let’s dive a little deeper into each of those areas above.

Accept that you don’t know enough (or the right stuff)

For me, this was easy. I always felt like I didn’t know enough because I couldn’t connect the dots between my life in the hood and where I wanted to be.

But this may not be the case for you.

So, if you think that you already know how to get out of the hood – then you’ve got a problem. Because why haven’t you done it already?

Odds are, you may know how to get out of the hood on a macro level. For example, be a rapper, get rich, and then move out of the hood.

But that macro-level thinking is going to prevent you from actually succeeding because your day-to-day life is determined by micro-level actions.

You’re most likely still in the hood because your micro-level decisions are only enough to keep you in the hood.

Separate yourself from friends and family

Most of what you know and the way you look at the world was influenced primarily by your friends and family. That influence, mixed with your own personality, has kept you in the hood. You can’t expect to get out of the hood (and stay out of the hood) with that same mindset and perspective.

My mom often says “If you hang around winners, you’ll become a winner. But if you hang around losers, you’ll probably be a loser too”. And she’s right.

By separating yourself from friends and family for a while, you’re able to remove some of the influence they have over you and clearly think for yourself.

In addition to clearly thinking for yourself, you’re going down a path much different than those around you. It’s likely that they won’t understand your new path, as well as the mindset you’ll develop or the choices you’ll make.

Separating yourself can help prevent some of their doubts and confusion from causing you to doubt and confuse yourself.

Now, I’m not saying you have to avoid them completely. In fact, I wouldn’t even recommend you avoid them completely because life is short and people die unexpectantly all the time.

But every decision comes with a risk. And, if you’re serious about getting out of the hood – you’re going to need to reduce the influence of those you spend a lot of time with (since they’re probably also stuck in the hood).

Develop a high-value / high-income skill

My definition of a high-value skill is one that:

• has the potential to make a lot of money over time
• allows you to get a job or start a business

Surprisingly, developing a high-value skill and making enough money to move out of the hood is easier than it sounds.

Some of my recommendations for high-value skills include:

• Digital marketing (SEO, paid ads, copywriting, email marketing, or sales funnels)
• Coding and/or WordPress development (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP)

Those are high-value skills that I know work.

And, lucky for you, there are tutorials for these skills available on YouTube for free. And, if you’ve got some extra money, you could buy a course that has all the information for your skill organized in one location.

You could spend many hours every single day watching videos related to these skills and, within 30 days, have more than enough knowledge to start working on your own and building a portfolio.

You won’t be great at the skill but you’d likely have the ability to start practicing.

If you continue practicing for another 30-60 days, you will probably have a portfolio (albeit low quality) that you can use to sell your skill to a job.

Get A Job

So, put a resume together and start applying to every entry-level job on Indeed that’s related to your skill. After applying for 50 jobs, wait 30 days while still working on your skill and portfolio.

If you don’t hear back from anyone, update your resume and portfolio based on what you’ve done in the last 30 days and apply to 50 more jobs.

Repeat that process until you get a job.

This might seem too simple but it’s really that easy. Not only are you constantly improving yourself, but you’re also improving your chances of getting a job every 30 days after improving your resume.

The only way to really fail with this method is to give up.

Someone is going to give you a chance eventually (and you’ll probably mess it up too). But that’s all a part of the process.

At some point, you’re going to get an opportunity and succeed.

Start A Business

Starting a business is slightly more tricky than getting a job but that’s only because you’re going to experience a lot more failure early on.

So, instead of selling your skill to a job – hop online and start offering your skill for free. You’ll probably do a low-quality job for most people but as long as you’re honest and transparent – you’ll be able to learn from it and possibly network with some interesting people.

If you do this for a couple of months, you’ll have a freelance portfolio and will be able to charge for your skill (not much but it’s better than nothing).

If you’re fortunate, the people you did work for previously will also hire you for different opportunities (this time paid).

However, if you’re not that lucky – you can join a website like Upwork.

You can also start reaching out to businesses/agencies in your city that offer the same skill that you do and tell them that you’re trying to build your freelance clients and if they had any excess work that they could pass on to you or that you’re available if they need someone temporarily to help out.

That’s it.

You do that enough and you will get opportunities.

Move Out Of The Hood

Once you’ve started making money – your top priority is to save as much of it as you can and look for the least expensive place you can move to that’s outside of the hood (if your skill allows you to work from anywhere in the world, moving to Thailand could be a good idea if you’re not tied down to your home country)

Regardless, this will likely be an apartment.

Recommended Reading: What I Did When I Moved Out of the Hood

Wherever you move to, keep it cheap. If a studio apartment is cheap – do that.

This isn’t the “I finally made it” celebration moment. This is the “I moved out the hood but can be right back real easy” moment.

After about a year of living as cheap as possible – you should hopefully have a little money saved up and be much better at your high-value skill.

This is when you can have your “I finally made it” celebration and do a fun event or dinner on the weekend.

However, you’re still at the beginning of your journey. You need to live frugally and make good decisions, or else you’ll be right back in the hood.

Hopefully, at this point, some weight has been lifted off of your shoulders and instead of feeling like you’re barely surviving – you now have the ability to think about your future. For example:

• How much savings do you need for your emergency fund?
• How much money in investments do you need to never work again?
• How can you fit your other life plans into your life? (kids, traveling, etc..)

Final Thoughts

When I first got out of the hood, I was happy but also sad at the same time. I had a mild version of “Survivors Guilt“.

I made it out but my friends and family were still there.

I wasn’t some rich celebrity that could take everyone out of the hood. I was just a regular dude that put in the hard work to develop valuable skills.

Getting over that sadness took some work.

But, that wasn’t the only thing that made me sad. When I made it out of the hood, it was like seeing the world from a whole new perspective.

I could walk down the street without the fear of getting robbed or killed. There were also resources, opportunities, and activities available I could participate in that weren’t available in the hood.

The sadness I felt came from the fact that I lived all my life not knowing how big the world was and underestimating how many awesome things you could do when you no longer had the hood watching over you.

So, my final message to you is that getting out of the hood is a top priority and worth celebrating. But getting out of the hood is only the first step to living a great life.

Recommended Reading: Keep Testing Your Limits

There are so many things you’ll have to learn (and unlearn). But, as long as you put the work in – it gets better every year.