Booster #2: Casey Crawford Bridges the Gap From Super Bowl Champion to Entrepreneur/Philanthropist

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Coach Gruden was brought in there to win a Super Bowl. At the end of that practice, he got everyone together and he looked, he looked around, he looked in everybody's eyes like, get in here. We're gonna win a world championship.

Nice.

We're gonna do it this team and we're gonna do it this freaking year.

And welcome to the Gap, the Get Attitude Podcast. The Gap bridging you from who you are to who you want to become and helping you get from are to where you want to go. Hi, my name is Glenn Bill, founder of the University of Attitude, keynote speaker and author of the international best selling book the ABCs of Attitude. I've been fortunate enough to help tens of thousands of people Get Attitude and this podcast will help you get yours. You know, Attitude is the secret formula to success in business and in your life. I'd like to welcome everybody. Please make sure that you subscribe, rate and review our podcast. Make sure that you join us and check us out on Facebook at the University of Attitude and the Attitude Movement. Today we have an incredible guest that's going to talk to us about Attitude booster number two. Which is everybody needs have a big goal. Let's just take a quick second to learn about our guest.

Football field to the housing market super bowl champion Casey Crawford.

Crawford is the CEO of Movement Mortgage.

Lending company that's making home buying easier. Movement Mortgage is one of the top 10 purchase lenders in the country. This nation needs an example of what it looks like for a corporation to love their customers. To treat them with dignity, to treat them with honor, to treat them with fairness. If what you're doing isn't attached to your purpose as a person, man, it's just so what? It just becomes so what? But if what you do every day is attached to your purpose, to your why man, it becomes so that.

And we are here with the one, the only Casey Crawford, CEO of Movement Mortgage. Casey, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Man, I am glad to be here. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, we are going to have a lot of fun. We really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are with all the things that you have going on today's podcast, we're going to focus on this thing, on have a big goal. And Casey, as I have done some research on you, obviously your story is quite cool. We know about your pro career, but I didn't hear anything about where you were born, where you came from, where you went to college. I'm not sure what college you played for. So what I'd love to do our gappers or the listeners that we have share with us a little bit with our gappers about, you know, how started. How it started for you. Who, who is Casey Crawford? Maybe, you know, from the football back, and then we can talk about your future. And then also, you know, what I'd really like to know is when you talk about having a big goal, and I know this is a lot, but you're good. I know that you are. I'm not worried about this. And I'll remind you who, who like, who like taught you about having a big goal and what that matters. So give us a little history and then let's kind of get into booster number two and you know, that big goal mentality in your mind.

Yeah. Love it. Love it. So, yeah. So earliest days, I had the incredible privilege of growing up in a home and watching two parents who were both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in a pretty humble sense, though my dad had a True Value hardware store.

Wow.

We had True Value Hardware store right in D.C. and it was during the 80s and 90s, right. So the crack epidemic was kind of full blown. DC was actually the murder capital of the world. Like, it made Chicago look like kind of a kumbaya town or something.

Wow.

My dad ran that True Value hardware store for 20 years, so I got to watch him really grind in a tough business in a really tough part of the country. Day in, day out, just serving people, selling them $1.50 worth of nails a day. And my mom, on the other hand, ran her own consulting business and she did a human resources consulting business where she went and taught soft skills to the government, NASA, Campbell Soup, Tom, things like time, quality management, Myers Briggs, wow. Oh, yeah, all this stuff. So I'd watch my mom putting together her materials at night and kind of organizing these classes around a lot of soft skills that are still incredibly applicable in business today. And then my dad was my hero growing up. He was a football player and a football coach and ran this hardware store. And I go work with him in this very blue collar, tough environment where I really get to see an interesting picture even of America. Of really some of the experience of what some folks are living in some of the big cities across America and how difficult that could be at times. So grew up. I was always a gigantic human being. I'm sitting down right now, but I was, I was 6, 6, 230 pounds when I was a sophomore, junior in high school. I was about the same size now. And I always played sports. I love sports. It was a place, man, where I just found a real sense of camaraderie with friends. And, you know, God made me gigantic. So that helped in football, basketball and baseball that I played through high school, ended up going to the University of Virginia, playing football and baseball. And you know, all through my life, man, I gained great parents and just really been blessed with some amazing leaders and many of them were coaches. I got to play at DeMatha High School for a guy named Morgan Wooten, who was the all time winningest basketball coach in history. I think for 37 straight years. Every graduating senior out of Coach Wooten's program had a full college scholarship. And, man, I got to be in his system. Ended up actually transferring out of the math and graduating at another high school, but just got to see what leadership looks like and what it looks like to organize and lead a team. And when you're 13, 14, 15 years old, you don't always appreciate the depth of the lessons you're ingesting. And you're kind of on reflection, decades later, you realize, man, these rich, rich deposits coaches and men and women have made in you, and you hope to return a little bit on that investment they've made in you and kind of pour those lessons into a next generation. I think that's been a lot of our story here at Movement is, I mean, taking some of those lessons from the ball field, and I know you enjoy a lot of those as well, and helping pour some of those hard earned lessons into other folks who are looking to grow or to achieve at a really high level of what they've been called or gifted to do.

That's cool. And on a personal note, my cousin played football for Virginia. And I know that you probably had an awfully nice time in March watching those Cavaliers get it done. Yes.

I mean, like, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is Tar Heel country. All right. Like, basketball and football season have been pretty tough for the last two decades, I'd say while I was in Virginia, I like to point out that we won and we won a lot. We had George Welsh, He, Joe Paterno and Bobby Dowden were the only Coaches in the NCAA that had won seven games or more for a decade. So I got to enjoy success. But after I left, and not because I left, but after I left, man, it went downhill. And yet, goodness, grace, you talk about leadership, you talk about goal setting, Tony Bennett, and now Bronco with uva, man, have absolutely transformed that program, and I think really helped them grow into the sports and athletic program they should be because it's just the great university that it is. So it's been a lot of fun.

That's cool. You know, Kyle Guy is an Indianapolis product where we're based out of, so went to high school with his mom.

Could she shoot? I mean, could she just spot up and drill?

Not like, not like Kyle. No, not. Not like Kyle. Hey, so you mentioned some of the big lessons you learned. What, what would you say are one of the, one, two, three of the best lessons you've learned from your athletics career? What, what, you know, what are those? And if there was any lesson about big goals. Tell us a story about that.

Yeah, great. So, you know, I think one of one of the most poignant ones and easily expressible was my first year in Tampa Bay. I was fired from the Carolina Panthers. I was the 54th most valuable player on the team that year. And you know, in the NFL, when they say they put you on the wire, right? Which is. Which is NFL for you got cut. And my mom gets to see it. Come across espn, you know, released, released. Your talents are released to the world. And sometimes, man, it's that obstacle, that adversity that you face that creates the biggest opportunity. Right. Sometimes, man, God just, I think, shifts us out of our lane and lets us step into bigger opportunities. And I had the privilege of then joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and went down there. And a mutual friend, Ken Dilger, was the, you know, five time all Pro tight end that I get. I mean, I had a habit of following all pro tight ends. Wesley Walls is in Carolina, and I go down to Tampa and they got this guy Dilger, who never dropped the pass or missed a block in his entire career. I'm sitting there in practice just trying to make a team. But in that practice, man, I really got an amazing first glimpse into Coach Gruden's leadership style and how to cast a vision, how to set a goal and how to execute on that goal over the course of a season. So I remember poignantly, at the end of the very first practice, coach called the whole team in, called the whole team in. And this was an iconic team. It was Like Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks and all these all pro legends, you know, to be John lynch and just great, great team, but they had never been able to make it to a Super Bowl. Coach was brought in there with one purpose. Tony Dungy had been the coach, previously amazing coach, you know, not a more respected man in the NFL. But Coach Gruden was brought in there to win a Super Bowl. At the end of that practice, he got everyone together and he looked, he looked around, he looked in everybody's eyes, said, get in here. We're going to win a world championship.

Nice.

We're going to do with this team and we're going to do it this freaking year.

Right?

And then when he said that you could kind of just see collectively everybody's chest fill up a little more oxygen, you started standing a little bit taller. And he started to cast a vision for what this team could do together that was beyond any place that they had ever gone. And. But he was speaking it, you know, he's speaking into reality and telling me he believed that this group. He told us what we were going to do when a world championship told us when we were going to do it this year. Who was going to do it? This group.

Right, Right.

Only thing didn't say was how we were going to do it. And that question was answered the next week when he brought in coach Mike Tomlin, who was a backup linebackers coach. Wow.

Okay.

Wow. There's a whole lesson in there in that you see potential in somebody, call it out. Don't worry about their age, their experience. You see potential, you call that out. Trust, talent, not experience. So he calls Mike Tomlin, who gets in there with his eyes bugging out of his head and says, we're going to pound the rock. And Mike's hitting this big rock, right? So every week it was the same message. We're gonna pound the rock. World championship. This group, this year. We're gonna do it by pounding the rock. This daily commitment to excellence, right? This daily commitment to excellence in the grind, focusing on the minutiae of the day, knowing that there's a bigger place that we're all headed together tomorrow. It's a place we've never been. To get there, we're gonna have to do some things that we haven't done historically and previously. So, you know, that season was amazing. It was. Man, it was something that grew me so much. At the end of it, we ended up playing the Raiders, the Oakland Raiders, who were Coach Gruden's former team from the year before. In the world Championship in San Diego.

Yeah.

And I actually, I got the. I got the. This is how old I am, right? This is back in the days of camcorders. Now, like, we'd have a phone, right. I had a camcorder, right. Sitting in my locker, hit record. And Coach Gruden's in there giving the pre game speech. And, you know, I told you, world championship. This group this year like that, and, you know, we all go running out and sure enough, we have one of the most lopsided victories in super bowl history. Yeah. Pounded them over halftime. Yeah. And, man, for me, it was just this great picture of how to cast division, how to. How to, you know, give people a picture of where they can go as a team that's further than they've ever gone, then equip them with how, you know, tell them how we're going to do that and hold us accountable to that process, then celebrate when you get there. So that for me was a really, really neat experience and a lesson I learned then tried to apply to our own business of casting a vision that was beyond someplace that we each gone individually. Yeah.

People always say, you know, when the why is big enough, the how follows, right. When the vision's big enough, you don't ask how, you ask why. Which I've seen you talk about Coach Gruden, now the coach of the Raiders again, one of the guys I coached, who was our Mr. Football, is his assistant GM now. And I'm sure you've heard Gruden's story when he was like, I don't like dreams. I don't like dreams. Have you heard this?

I've not, but it's sounding a lot.

He's like, I don't like dreams. I don't like dreams, Coach. He's like, everybody's got the same freaking dream. Everybody talks about the same freaking dream. Dreams are boring. Let me tell you what I like. I like nightmares. I like nightmares. I like ruining people's dreams. Are you with me, Coach?

Oh, I mean, that man could give a pre game talk like, no, you can't repeat most of them. You know, that or pg. I mean, I'll put it this way. We went to play the last game ever in the vet, right?

Right.

Gambay had like, never won a game below 32 degrees, right. That was their curse. They couldn't win a game below 32. This whole thing, Grigg gets up and this is giving us. He goes, yes, get back from a press conference. I told him, nick, we'll play you on the freaking Brooklyn Bridge. We'll play you on Mars. We're going to show up and, you know, proceed to tell them all the things we were going to do to this team, right?

Yes.

And sure enough, we show up at the Vet the night before the game. He showed. The pregame movie we watch is the Terminator. It's that scene when Schwarzenegger, like the Terminator one, he's coming in the police station, he's, you know, flipping the shotguns, and he's going, this is what we're gonna do to these guys tomorrow. I mean, he, like, you know, and then we had to go to bed. The way I was like, coach, how are we gonna sleep, man? Like, we're just so fired up for this game in the morning. And, yeah, that man had a rare ability to motivate and to cast vision.

Now, tell me, how tough was it playing in the Vet? And are Philadelphia fans really as surly and rude as we all believe to be?

Yeah, they are. Worse than I could describe. Put this way, man, I was worth my mom's life and safety, and my wife was there. My mom. It was a. I would never have let my kids go, all right?

Never.

And I say that we had. We had a amazing contingent in Philly. What's up, Philly movement. They had. They love their Eagles, and they were probably the same hooligans that were throwing all kinds of stuff on my parents, you know, and unapologetically, they wouldn't apologize today. I don't think that my mother for having done so. So, yeah, that's just the culture of. Of Philly sports.

So are you. Are you a Panther fan or where's your allegiance go?

I told somebody. So I grew up in D.C. right? I grew up in Washington, D.C. yeah. Redskins, man. My dad would take me to a D.C. skins, Cowboys game every year, and that was an incredibly special memory for me growing up. And I think, you know, whoever you liked when you were 8 years old, 9 years old, you're never going to rip that kind of out of your heart. Really appreciate the teams that wrote me checks, but, yeah, those memories with my dad going to games as a boy were pretty special.

Boy, you talk about having a big goal. We're going to win the world championship. That's a big goal. It's been there. So then you get there, and the one thing that, you know, we always know and that I talk to people about is, there's nothing worse than accomplishing your goal. And I'm sure this wasn't the case with you and going, God, is that all there is? Like, I hit the goal, and that's. That's all there is. I don't. You know, I gotta have more. So you are a world champion, and now football ends. What was your mindset? Because people that are listening to the Get Attitude podcast, trying to figure out who they want to become and where they want to go, there are a lot of people listening in that are starting anew or that are considering and that are saying, I got to have some guts. I got to create new goals. I may have to start all over again. Talk to us about what you were thinking, what you were feeling, and what was your next big goal after football, if there was one?

No, absolutely, man. Such a great question. Thanks for asking it. I really want to give something to you, to your listeners here that I think I feel like God gave me a really unique gift. At, like, 24 years old, I got to stand on stage having done really nothing to deserve this. But sometimes it's just about being around the right team, part of the right team, but, you know, hold the Lombardi Trophy and sing It's My Life with Bon Jovi, okay? And my wife on my side. All right? So, like, my mom and dad are there. I'm hugging my dad. We're crying, Confetti's falling down. My jersey wife's like, I'm onto my arm. Bon Jovi's on my left. We're yelling It's My Life into the microphone. I mean, this is like, just shoot me now, right? 24 years old. Just.

I'm good.

That was it. I mean, that was it. Like, every. Every dream I had was. Was kind of getting fulfilled in that moment. And, man, I woke up the next day, and we were going to fly back to Tampa Bay to celebrate with the fans. It's amazing. You know, you hit all these life goals, and I don't know what they. What a goal is. Maybe it's to close $10 million in transactions or 100 million or whatever it is. And you get there, and when you wake up in the morning, you realize you're like, I feel kind of the same. Yes, there's a euphoria in the moment. But, you know, you wake up and life kind of goes on. And I remember as the plane lifted off, just thinking to myself that, man, God, there's got to be more. Like, there's got to be more than just this. And I realized in my mind, I just kind of started to shift and said, man, if I'm going to have. If I'M going to invest my life. This one life that I have to live. I'm going to invest it. I want to move from entertaining folks to really deeply impact their lives.

Cool.

Entertainment to impact. And because the NFL is about entertainment, it is amazing and it's an incredible platform and you can move and transform and inspire people. But I wasn't that uniquely gifted to be great in the NFL again. I had this guy, Ken Diller. He's really frustrating. He was in front of me in the NFL, right? And I just knew physically I wasn't going to be able to really do great and impact lives in that way. I can maybe entertain during special teams, watching me get knocked unconscious or something, but I really wasn't going to impact lives. And so as we took and left off, hey, I really want to think about impacting lives. And what I also realized, man, is that in life, the joy is not in the destination, right? It's not. The joy of life is in the journey. Yeah, it's in the journey. It's with the people you're on. So whatever your goal is, wherever you are, whether you're starting off brand new or you're moving from good to greater, great to another stratosphere, right, that destination isn't going to deliver you the joy, man. You've got to have it in the journey there. And it's got. The work itself has to bring purpose to your life. The work itself has to give you meaning, have to give you fulfillment and really needs to be something that you are passionate about. So, you know, again, I sort of realized it wasn't about getting somewhere, but it was about what I was going to do each and every day, how I was going to invest this one life that I have. And that's when I began to reconstitute my mind, this vision of, like, creating a business that maybe started to set an understanding standard of what companies can look like out in the marketplace. And I really believe that for any of your podcast listeners, folks, I love the real estate community, man. I was a realtor, was my first real job after football, my first real job. I could have just stopped there because football is not a real job. It's hard work, but it is a different environment. My first real job was as a realtor, and I love realtors. And loan officers have the opportunity every single day to carve their career out. And it's going to be what you make of it. It can be as big as you want it to be, but you have to decide what is it going to be. I really think America is built on entrepreneurship, and there's no profession that embodies entrepreneurship more so than the independent Realtor. I was one. And so I had to kind of think about what is it that I want to architect in this career, in this livelihood that's going to be different in the marketplace because fundamentally, the world didn't need just one more Realtor or one more loan officer. Right. I mean, how many call you every day? You had an amazing real estate company. I'm gonna guess your phone is full of do not calls from. From loan officers all over the place. You didn't hope that. Man, I just hope one more person gets in the mortgage business.

Right, right, right.

But what I did see is, man, if we're gonna do something, do unique, do it differently, do it the way God's made you, using all the unique gifts and skills you have, and bring something unique to the marketplace that doesn't exist there. And for us at that time in Charlotte, North Carolina, it was a financial services company. They really want to love our customers, love their teammates, and love the communities that we're a part of. That wasn't being done in 2007, 2008, during the Great Recession. In fact, the financial services companies were known for how they had robbed from their customers, made miserable lives for their teammates, and then robbed from the very communities they were part of that they were supposed to be showing into. So we need to step into that gap and to do something different. I can tell you when there was four of us talking about being a movement of change across the nation was a big goal. It was an audacious goal. It was something that was far beyond what any of us had the ability individually to accomplish.

Sure. So, yeah, our goal here at the University of Attitude is to change the world one attitude at a time. And you being on this podcast, Casey, is definitely doing that. You were reaching and you're talking about, again, things that most people haven't been blessed enough to be a part of, but that, that shift and, and you've always been very humble from what I've read about you. And you always, you always. Zig Ziglar said it best. If you see a frog on the. If you see a turtle on the top of a fence post, he sure as hell didn't get there himself. And so what I. What I'd love to. What I'd love to know are, who are the people in movement mortgage. When you think about attitude, when you think about whether they're loan officers or people on your team that have big goals. Talk to me about two or three. And I know there's a lot of them, and I know you want to give them all.

I got one.

I got one.

I didn't have to think about it very long. I got, man. God blessed me with the greatest partner in the world. Toby Harris is 70 years old. I got off the phone with him two hours ago. He is in Austin, Texas right now at a big major real estate conference. And he is doing the same thing we were doing 13 years ago, which is talking with our real estate partners about how we can better serve them and help them achieve their goals. This guy, his energy, his attitude at 7, truly, if I had it 10 years ago, I'd have been blessed. He has one of the greatest, most committed, upbeat, positive, can do attitudes that anybody's ever been with in my life. And it's really the only reason we have an organization today. Because any man, I love John Maxwell, and he'll talk about that. Any destination worth reaching is uphill. Sure, they're just uphill. I mean, anything worth doing is uphill. It takes effort, it takes energy. And, man, there's points, parts of the climb that are tough and discouraging. And, man, Toby and I would do just about daily counseling with each other. We'd be picking each other up, telling each other, reminding each other of our purpose, reminding each other, encouraging each other, saying, you might feel like the worst mortgage professional in America right now, but I love you, baby. Nobody else might, but I love you. Your wife might not love you right now, but I do. And, man, for both of us, for me in particular, man, Toby was just the guy who constantly poured a positive can do attitude throughout situations. We could be faced with crazy adversity and it didn't matter, man. So I was like, I'm there with you. I love you. I'm proud of you, and I'm with you. Sometimes you just gotta know somebody's with you. You know, you're not alone.

One thing I love, that you said, my father was my hero, too. Football coach. I coached for 25 years. But I'd love to know the best piece of advice your father gave you. And I'd also like to know the best piece of advice that Toby Harris gave you.

Well, my dad. You talk about football coaching, okay? My dad was a football coach, and that was definitely playing football. Talking football and everything is definitely a center point of our relationship. And he always told me, casey, football for you will end at some point if you go on and have the best career in the History of NFL, it's going to end for you at some point and hopefully you have a whole lot of life left ahead of you.

Sure.

But what will not end, the lessons you learn playing this game will carry you through the rest of your life. And man, I'll tell you, I look back at so many lessons I learned. You know, talk about attitude, talk about hard work, commitment, grit, leadership, integrity, just all these things that I learned in playing that amazing game. And my father, and I appreciate my father saying that because I was able to pay attention to some of those lessons. Nice knowing these weren't, these weren't temporary things that were going to temporarily benefit me just for this little game. These were character traits that I needed to develop to be a successful human the rest of my life. So, man, yeah, that was my dad.

That's good. And I think for the people listening, the point is whether you're extremely great success and you're listening to the gap or it's because you need a kick in the ass and you're listening to the gap. Where you are right now doesn't have to be where you end up. There's always a next step and it's never, ever too late to start something new. And, and I think that's really what you're communicating there and that they're, they're. You don't have to keep things the same and you can do it. Tell me, Toby Harris, does he got a line? He's got to have a one liner. If he's 70 years old, been doing this, he's got to have something that he always says it's got to be brilliant.

I mean, Toby is so full of one liners, man. Like take picking one is going to be a.

Not to put you on the spot.

I'm sorry, but no, no, I know, man. I wish, I wish I could just give you, give you. I'll tell you one thing, Toby always does and one thing I really love about him, one thing. Toby. We end the phone call and this is me. And there's a thousand other men and women have this story before Toby hangs off the phone. He goes, hey, partner, I want you to know I love you. I want you to know I love you. Yeah, me and it's funny, man. There's so many people, I think that thinks they're the only ones that he says that to, you know, and he means it, he means it. But man, what an encouraging thing to hear from a partner, from a person just to say to you before they hang up the phone, I want you to know I love you. And man, just having like a man in the 70s kind of tell me that for a decade every time we'd hang up the phone again. You talk about an attitude, talk about an encouragement. You talk about a place of strength.

Right.

You don't have somebody in your life that's saying that to you, man. Be that for someone else. Be that for someone else. He's got me in the habit of saying it to other people that I'm in a relationship with because I know how good it felt for me to hear it. So I'm trying to give that to others. Now.

Let's talk about the love of your life. Obviously you got a wife. Talk to me about your family and talk to me about how she affects your attitude to the positive.

This is a hot one here. This is a hot take topic. Yeah. So I married Michelle. I married Rocco Vazuzo's oldest daughter.

Oh for the love of God.

Yeah. My girl is half Cuban, half Italian attorney from New Jersey.

Oh my mercy.

Marinate on that for a second. Yeah, yeah. Michelle was the, she, she, she had the all time goals record in New Jersey field hockey history. She's an eight time all American in field hockey.

Oh my gosh.

Like everything, everything you can imagine athletically she does. You remember that, that Michael Jordan Mia Ham commercial?

Yeah, yeah.

You can do I can do better. That was like that's our life song.

Sure.

Think about Michelle can do better than I can.

I have a feeling I may need to interview her on the Gap bro.

Yeah, all the attitude, all the energy. We live by that Jimmy V kind of statement. We try to laugh and cry every day. We experience the full range of emotions. And Michelle, I mean she's been my best friend for 23 years now. We started dating in college, man. Never thought I'd be married at 22. We got married at 22. She went to law school. I started playing football and we just started this adventure of life together as you know, kind of relatively kids and then you know, have two beautiful daughters. 13 year old, 9 year old little girls that we're having a lot of fun trying to figure out parenting with. Yes.

Let me guess, they play field hockey.

Man, listen. So that is one of the great ironies in life. Is that like you think like I was pretty sure like I was married. I have to deal with Mary Michelle is that I was going to be the dad of the shortstop and the starting quarterback and like she has a way better arm than I do. Man. I just knew all this and our Oldest daughter is amazing. You know, she plays volleyball and our youngest one is like, way into theater and science. So, yeah, nothing that we can coach them in or help them with a whole lot, but amazing children. We're having a ton of fun parenting.

You know what, Kate, man, your interview's been amazing. We talk about 10 boosters all the time. I'm not sure I've ever had a guest hit all 10. Number one, be nice. You talked about Toby Harris saying he loves you.

Right?

Like, if what we teach people is if you do all 10 of these things every day, you can't help but have a great attitude. You can't help become contagious. You cannot help change the world around you. One attitude at a time. Have a big goal. That's what we've talked about. Three believe in you. You know, your story about being the fifth, always being behind and all pro and what that belief did for you. Unbelievable. Have a mentor copy them. You've mentioned your mentors love adversity. You talked about that. What I want to hit one of them and what I want to. Before we go to break here real quick is be a part of something bigger than you. And I know that the Movement Foundation. What you guys are doing is incredible. I know that when it comes to the attitude, the culture, and the leadership of a, you guys have 5,000 people. Is that right?

Four. 4,000.

4,000 people. But, you know, I know that when you're. When you're leading an organization, an organization of 4,000 people, you have to have something, what I call attitude alignment. And one of the best things you can do to align the attitude is something that's bigger than yourself. Talk to us a little bit about the Movement Foundation. Let us know what our gappers could do to help the Movement Foundation. Maybe there's a website you could tell us, but, you know, give us a two minute commercial on what you guys are doing, what you're doing, what your LOS are doing, your staff is doing. I can't wait to hear about it.

I love you, man. So. And I'm gonna try to break it down a little bit because we talk about being a movement of change in our industry and corporate cultures and communities across America.

Cool.

And what we really think about with that is, man, we use the word love a lot. And we say to love. We define it like this. To love is to act in the long term best interest of another. To love is to act in the long term best. We want to act in the long term best interest of our customers, our partners. One Another inside the office. And then the communities that we're a part of, period. And if you can't get down with that, it's probably not the right community for you. Right. That's kind of us. And so we think about goals and being a part of something bigger than yourself. The foundation is an expression of that. That's an expression. That's how we're pouring back into the communities that we're a part of. That's loving the communities. But, man, we want to be something, a part of something bigger than yourself. Not just when we give, but when we love our customers, when we're serving our customers and their quest for home ownership. Like, we have an initiative right now, we think that, you know, we have to help increase the rate of black homeownership in America today. Love it. It's a problem. There's a huge disparity between minority and white home ownership that we need to stand in the gap on and start to be, you know, working towards solutions. And then that's just in our industry every single day. Right. We think there's a huge problem in corporate cultures across America.

Right.

You know, one of the number one issues of bullying in schools is parents job satisfaction. We need to start creating work environments where people are actually coming home energized and coming home full of life, not beaten down and angry because they've been such a hostile work environment. So we're trying to be something part of something bigger than yourself in the work environment. The way we act every single day and love each other, care for each other, challenge each other to be our better selves. And then, yeah, finally, if we've done those things, we love our customers. Well, our partners. Well, one another. Well, then, yes, we want to be about pouring back into the communities that we're a part of also and loving our communities. Well. And, you know, to think about that, we think about who really needs love, man. We want to love vulnerable children. We can argue about a lot of things in the United States. It's easy to find an argument. Right. It's easy to find two opposing sides of an argument. One thing I have not found any argument on is that, man, all of us should care about the welfare of vulnerable kids in the communities we're a part of.

That's awesome.

No one has yet had the courage to tell me that's not an important thing.

Right.

I'd welcome that conversation if anyone wants to tell me, you know what? We just really shouldn't care. And so we've looked at that said, man, how do we love the most vulnerable among us in the communities we're a part of? One of the institutions we think needs a lot of help is the American education system. So we've invested in building a urban focused charter school called Movement School. About 95% of our kids are out or below the poverty line, 95% minority. And our kids, in just two years, have four times the academic performance of their demographic peers.

Wow.

15 million bucks to a shopping center. Redevelop the school. We actually are now building an affordable housing project with some partners on that site and then partner with the biggest hospital system in our state to put an urban health clinic there as well. So we can synergistically bring some of the institutions that actually transform the experience of people together into. To serve a community that's really underserved right now. And then watch what these kids can see. Do. Watch what these kids can do actually when they're in an environment that helps them and draws them towards success. Because the amazing thing is, man, these little children are gifted and equipped and they're valuable and they can perform at the highest levels just like any. Anybody's kids in any school. But they are in some really, really tough situations where they are not getting education they need. They're in housing that's very unstable, very unsafe, creates all kinds of distractions, and they're not getting the health care they need.

Right.

You solve for those things, man. Sky's the limit for these kids, and we want to see these kids prove that out so that they set the bar and they start to help other children around America have a bigger vision and bigger goal for what life can and should look like. Gotcha. Don't be defined by their circumstance. And that's. That's kind of what we're trying to live into.

That's very. That's right. You know, Casey, the bottom line is you don't talk about it. You are about it, and we love having you. We're going to take a quick break for our. And we'll be right back with Casey.

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And welcome back to the Get Attitude podcast. We are here with the one and only Casey Crawford. Casey is full of attitude and has given our gappers a lot of information that I know they can take to help them bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be and from who they are to who they want to become. We are now going to do our segment called Knowledge through the Decades where we put our guests on the spot and ask them to give the best lesson they've learned, to give the best piece of advice from certain times in their life. And the first time, obviously, is a newborn baby. And Casey, we don't even need to know when you're a newborn baby, you have two daughters, tell us the best advice you have about starting life.

Hey, if I'm thinking about starting life, very basically, man, I just say in life, in life in general, be open to receive what people have to give you. Right? Newborn babies, man, we love my little girls so much. And I just want them to eat. I just want to get, I know what's healthy for them. I just want to give it to them or I just want to give them a nap. I just want them to go to sleep because I know what's good for them. So much in life, it laments me to look and see people that aren't willing to receive what some folks give to them so, so readily. So as a newborn, be ready to receive what people have to give you.

That's good. Usually they do, especially bottles. Okay, Casey, I want you to think about being a little kid playing three sports with your old man, going to RFK 10 years old. What's the best lesson you learned? Or what's the advice Casey could give us? 10 year old Casey, what would, what would you give us?

Oh, man, be thoughtful about your friends. Bad company corrupts good character every time. Watch who you're running with. Watch who you're running with, man. Be around great kids, great, great boys and girls, man, that are heading in the direction you want to go in life.

Yeah, boy, that lesson works for every decade, doesn't it? So you're 20, you're at the University of Virginia, you're playing ball. You're starting to think, I think I got this thing maybe figured out. Put yourself in that College. What would 20 year old Casey give the advice to our gappers for?

Oh, man, you got, yeah, you gotta, gotta get out of 20. Find some great mentors, find some great leaders, ask them questions, ask them to Pour into you. I remember as a 21 year old sitting with Jerry Richardson and then the Panthers asking him financial advice, you know, always trying to look for people that knew a lot more than I did about a lot of subjects to pour into me as a young man, I'd seek out great mentors at 20, I.

Mean, I know you haven't read the book, but you just hit attitude booster number five. Have a mentor copy him or her. Well done. All right, so now, you know what? 30, you're probably about done playing football or you are done playing football. What was the lesson at age 30? The life moment that our gappers can take and think about your lesson today.

Yeah. Know your why. Know your why, right? I think at 30, man, you got to start thinking about investing your life into purpose, something with purpose, something that's going to have a deep meaning for you. 20, you're going to be grinding. You're going to be grinding through your 20s. I think by 30, man, you really have an opportunity to pick your head up, understand what your unique purpose and gifting is in life, and start investing your life into that.

That's awesome. And then recently, 40, about 24 months ago, boy, you've done so much. You've got to look back on your life and say, you know what? I've had a pretty darn good life. At age 40, what's the profundity that hit you over the head when you went, Holy crap, I'm 40, man, I'll.

Tell you what, 40, maybe it's poured back out. If 30s was finding purpose and living into it, hopefully at 40s, man, you start to pour it back out. I think that's a transition I've been through. I realize I've been able to do some, man, some really incredible things in the last 10 years, and I just want to pour out what I've learned with, with next generation leaders who are, who are looking for some guidance and leadership in their own life.

All right, well, Casey, you did amazing. We started with take it all in. We ended with pour it all out. I'm telling you, bro, you're unbelievable. This is one of the funnest, most fun interviews I've done. Casey, you have so much to offer the world. Thank you for changing the world one out of the attitude at a time. We thank you for giving us 45 minutes for our gappers. I'm sure that there are people who are listening and if they listen intently, that your messages of hope, of caring, of love will make them feel better, will help them dedicate themselves to the way to think. And you're just outstanding. Great luck. To Movement Mortgage. Unbelievable company. I hope you have continued growth and we were just honored to have you. Thank you so much, Casey.

Likewise. Likewise. Love what you guys are doing. Yeah. And if yeah. Could do anything for you guys at all, man, please be sure to reach out.

One thing you can take from Casey is he's a big goal guy. He's not only a big person, he's just a big gold guy and certainly a blessed person. You know, I just loved it when he talked about, you know, number one, being nice and the power of telling people that you love them. I love the idea that he is doing something bigger than him. I know that we all got to listen and go, oh, my God, that guy's got a pretty incredible life. Right? But what I'm going to encourage you to do is not let a person like Casey make you feel worse about yourself. What I would encourage you to do is have Casey inspire you to reach the goals that you want to have. The life that Casey lives, the accomplishments that he has had, did not come from setting small goals. It came from having a big vision and a big goal and believing in himself and all these other attitude boosters that we've talked about. What spoke most to me was the credit that he gave his mentors and the other people. And I just loved the fact that you could tell how much he loves his wife and his family. And I just want to encourage each and every yapper to sit there and think bigger about their life. Sit there and understand that no matter where you are, it has nothing to do with where you are going. It has nothing to do with where you're going to end up. You cannot be defined by where you are currently. And most importantly, you cannot be defined by other people. I hope that you take this message of having a big goal. You set some new big goals for yourself. Please share them with me at the Attitude Movement. Please feel free to tweet meofattitude. Make sure that you subscribe, that you rate, and that you review the Get Attitude podcast. Please share this with your friends. If you know somebody that needs to get Attitudes, please have them check us out at the gap. The Get Attitude Podcast. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.