Making Yourself Likeable By Eliminating Your Arrogant Self With Curt Shewell

In a world full of turmoil, despair, and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude Podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart, and your attitude. And welcome to the Gap, the Get Attitude Podcast. And my name is Glenn Bill. I am your host, international best selling author, host of the Get Attitude Podcast. And today, let me tell you something. We got somebody that's going to bring the fire and bring the. If you're a little down, if you're somebody that owns your own business, if you're somebody that's thinking about owning your own business. We have one of the top coaches and trainers in America with us today. He not only builds teams, but he builds people. He's an incredible entrepreneur. He has over 3,000 real estate agents that are working with him in his organization. And I was fortunate enough to speak with this guy in Vegas and we became fast friends. And I said, man, I got to get you on. Because his current statistics and his current story, although impressive in my opinion, aren't near as impressive as the lessons, the antidotes, and the answers that he may give you about his past challenges and his past successes. So we're going to get in a little conversation with the great Kurt Schiwell. Kurt, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast, My man, Glenn.

Bill, how are you, buddy? Good to see you again.

I'm good, I'm good. I had to watch our Colts give up 37 points. Biggest loss in history. Probably an attitude lesson there. I'm shipping a carton of my books to the Indianapolis Colts facility to help them.

Thank you, Yusuf. They forgot that you got to play the whole game. And I think that's what happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. We get excited because we have a little success at the beginning. And I think it's important that you have success right away because success breeds success, right? And we. And we learn success, these clues, we get all that stuff. But what happens is we get excited because we're having success and we keep forgetting about why we're going after that success, and we start enjoying it. Not that we're not supposed to enjoy it, always enjoy it, but they did the same thing. They played the first half and said, we got this in the bag. We're all done. And reality was, they weren't. And they needed to finish that game out, and they only had to play this much more, and then no one could have caught them. Unfortunately, they. They kept looking around and they didn't look what was coming up behind them. You got to pay attention.

Yeah, that's True. And that's the story of many entrepreneurs. Out to a fast start. Then all of a sudden, what happens when you have all that success? You start making mistakes, you start investing in the wrong things. You take your eye off the balls, you take your eye off the fundamentals and things happen. Now, the team that I think doesn't do that, and I watch them on Hard Knocks and their coach is an absolute psycho. And he was not really doing, but you could tell his belief, his passion, his clarity with what he has done with the Detroit Lions. It's, you know, unstoppable. I know a lot of guys like that. I coach football for 25 years and the Detroit Lions are having success and there's a lot of belief. Have you gotten to witness what he's doing there in Detroit and what's your thoughts on him?

Yeah, as you know, I'm a season ticket holder, right? So I've sat through the 016 season. I sat through the, you know, Barry quitting, the greatest running back in history of the game. You know, I don't want to play anymore because I'm here. That's a bad. That day, right? Yeah. So, yeah, we've had our share of. Of learning, right? Because we didn't lose. We just learned, right? Because remember, anytime we lose, I gotta ask that question on stage. You know, you speak with this confidence. You do these crazy things. Have you ever lost and you and I had this conversation in Vegas? No, I don't think I've ever lost. I always say that the score might not have reflected that I won, but the reality was I just ran out of time. Because if we kept playing, trust me, at some point I ought to beat you because I'll never quit. I'm going to keep coming, right? I'm going to keep bringing it. And I think that's the story the Lions. This particular coach has done an amazing job from Hart, Knox, the show. You got to see his attitude and what he was able to do is get believers. And this is what entrepreneurs need to know. You've got to get believers. You've got to get people that know that you're there for them, with them and you'll never leave them. Right. Their job is to either decide that they can run with you or they can't. It's called proximity. And I'll talk about that a little bit more. Right. So nearness in space, nearness in time and nearness in relationship. Well, the first thing you got to do is get in their space. But with him, he needed them to run on his time and they weren't running on his time. So you saw that on the show and he needed to get them to believe in themselves. They believed in him, but they had to believe in themselves. And that's the trick, right? You want people to follow you, they got to believe in themselves. But they know you're their leader. And you don't have to be the boss, you need to be the leader. Best leaders are leaders, they're not bosses. The worst leaders are ones that think they're bosses because they're all you see them.

And so when you think about getting people to believe in themselves and as a leader, this answer is going to be great. As somebody that's just maybe self employed or entrepreneur, are there certain steps that you take? Are there questions that you ask, like what is the process that you go through with folks to really help them with self confidence? I mean, this is, this is needed and this has been asked to me on many different occasions. So I'd love to know how are you helping people increase their self confidence?

I think it's two things. One, what you've got to do is you got to get them to understand that they need to be in the room. And this goes back to part three of proximity, right? Nearness and space time and then relationship. Well, you want to get to the relationship, but you got to get in their space. And what happens is people, they lack confidence so they fear going in the room and they're going to say something foolish. Well, it's easy, right? Stop going in there to tell people who you are, what you're about. They don't care, right? The reality is people care about three people. Me, myself and I. That's what's important to them. You got to start coming at them. It's not about you, it's about them. And when you come there and you talk to a billionaire in a room, you're like, oh my God, I'm talking this billionaire. And I don't, what am I going to say? This guy that's going to wow this guy, you know what you're going to say to him is going to wow him. You're going to ask him about him, that's going to wow him. Because nobody does. Everybody asks what they can get from him, what he can do for them. They want to tell him and beat their chest. And he's looking at them going, are you kidding me? You know, this is stuff I didn't, you know, in third grade of my business, right? He's like way up here and they're trying to impress him. Stop trying to impress them, right? Impress upon them that you care about them. You want to get a, you want to get a big person that's really important like, like a Glenn Bill to sit there and look your way and get their attention. You better either do something that gets them to go, hey, I want to talk to you. And then when you do, what you better be doing is ask him about him because that's what he cares about. You know what's easy for Glenn to talk about? Or any big people and big players and entrepreneurs, them what they've done. Ask them how they did it. Ask him, you know, what was their passion at the time and where are they at now? That's the stuff that fires them up. That's what burns inside them, that gets them to go. You follow? You get me, you know where I'm going. This is what we want to do. They're going to give you the help and guess what they're going to do? Put you in their space. Now you start running on their time, you're going to form that relationship and they're going to open the next door and then next door and the next door. Your confidence comes with that. Be confident in asking questions, stop talking, start asking. You start doing that, you'll have a lot more success.

I love it. Now I'm guessing just because I know you're a networker and you understand this thing called proximity. Who is maybe the most influential or impressive or well known person where you had to get in the room and have them talk about them and tell us a little bit about that story and did it end up a success for you?

Yeah, a couple things I'll give you one was was interesting people thought was kind of funny. I was another in Vegas, I'm in Vegas and we're at a convention and we had this huge party end of the convention and it went till like 4 in the morning. Well, I had a guy that I had promised at the end of the week I would meet him before he left. He was going back to Costa Rica and he was trying to open up his business there. And I said okay, I'll meet with you at 8 o' clock on that day. I didn't realize that's the morning of the party like after. It's just like this is so bad for me also to fell on my birthday and my wife's got this whole thing set up in my room my birthday, this whole big get up at 8 o' clock and I thought I got this meeting 8 o'. Clock. She's like, are you kidding me? I'm like, no, I'm not kidding. Sorry. And I go, listen, I'm going to be down there, I'm going to meet this guy. I'm about 60 proof still. I think I was still pretty lit when I woke up. We went to bed about 5:30. And so it was 8:00 clock and I'm running down to the Starbucks to meet the guy in the casino lobby. I meet the guy, I'm talking to this guy, and I start going through my business plan with him of how we could do this. And all of a sudden, Elena Cardone, Grant Cardone's wife, comes over and she's like, oh, my God, you're Kirchheim. I really want to talk to you. And we'll talk to you about this other girl that you did this with and your business partners with this girl named Gogo Bethy. And she's like, crazy. She's getting his TV show and I want to talk to her. And you're the guy and I want to talk to you. And she literally just kind of plops in and she's like, bam. Hey, can I talk to you now? And I'm like, I was kind of in a meeting this. I got a. I got a baseball cap on. I'm in shorts and a T shirt. I look like, like, you know, 5:30 in the morning. Bill was there, right? Just a bad moment. I'm like, oh, my God. I got. I gotta seize this opportunity, right?

Sure.

Because this is the once in a lifetime. I gotta take this shot here. I gotta see what happens. So we start talking. This guy is so blown away. He's like, oh, my God, you're Atlanta Cardone. So I'm like, okay, Carlos is good with this from Costa Rica. Let's work this, let's work this. And I'm trying to do this with like, half brain power. And I'm like, all right. So we start talking. Make it happen. She's like, oh, my God, this is amazing. I go through this presentation stuff. Then she says, listen, Grant's got to see this. Grant's got to see this. I'm like, okay, we can set that up. Thinking, good, give me a week. I mean, you know, maybe, I don't know, fly to Miami or we'll meet or we'll do something. And she's like, right now? I'm like, right now it is in your villa. So I got to go down in her villa, grab my laptop off the table and literally, from the Starbucks. We walked all the way down, and they're in the villas, and it's like this really cool little place, and been there. And we. So I actually sat in a villa for a couple hours of her. And granted, she calls billionaire Glenn Sanford. She calls him on the phone. Glenn, you got to get down to our villa, and you got to meet this guy. Well, it's funny. I work with Glenn. Right, right. You know, so, you know, Glenn Savage is the founder of our company. So he comes in for this, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This big moment. He's going to meet this person she's going crazy about. And he walks in, and he looks at me, and I'm like, how you doing, Glenn? He's like, hey, Kurt. And she's like, you two know each other? Oh, my God, this is going to be so great. He's like, well, yeah, we do. And it was kind of a funny moment, and everybody was like, holy smokes, what was it like? You're in there with Grant, and Grant's working a business deal on the phone, and we're all doing this stuff, and it was a pretty kind of cool event. And then from there, I got the. You know, so many people asked me the story, how did you get into Grant Cardone's villa? Like, how do you do that? How are you sitting on the couch with this guy?

Right.

And that was kind of a cool story.

Well, I think. And as I listen to that story and as our gappers listen to this story, the bottom line is this. Number one, if you have a commitment, no matter how bad you feel, you stick with that commitment. Number two, no matter how bad you feel, how little sleep you have, if there's an opportunity that presents itself, you grab it by the throat and you persist on, no matter how, and you don't try to reschedule. And then, number three is to have the ability to pivot to do things that you're not able or that are unplanned. And sometimes the real gold and the real money and the real opportunity comes in unplanned circumstances. So kudos to you for that and for all of our gappers who are listening. Have you ever faced a time where maybe you didn't answer the call like Kurt did? And this is why we have Kurt here on our show. Kurt, tell me what attitude means to you. How would you define attitude? And what do you look for in people that you're either partnering with or when you go, man, that guy's got attitude. So the definition. What does it mean to you? What do you look for? How do you know someone has attitude?

I think, again, in some cases, right, you're the first thing you got to do is you got to start paying attention. And I think a lot of us walk through the world where there's so much going on in our minds and our heads that we're inward focus, and what's happening is there's things going around us we're not paying attention to. You've got to pay attention to it, and you're going to start to see the people that have it, and you'll feel something. And I think the attitude same was when I met you, right? You and I hadn't known each other, and the next thing we're on stage together, right? Yeah. And that's an interesting thing. You get a couple alphas on a stage, you know, and you're not sure where this is really going to go. And, you know, they asked us to do something, and I looked at you and said, why don't we just do this? Because I could feel your energy, I could feel your attitude, right? So I can see you carried it. And you can see the people that have confidence versus cockiness. And I think that there's the. That's the. That's the piece. You're young and you're excited. You kind of get cocky. You have a little success, you get a little cocky, and then you're having. You're making some money, you get real cocky. Remember, money only makes you more of who you are. So be careful with that. Careful with that.

Yes.

Right. So have I always. Same thing I taught all my kids. Always confident, never cocky. Bring your confidence to the table, people will see it and they'll know you've got attitude. So when I watched you come on that stage, I watched how you walked up that stage and went, okay, I just intro this guy, and he's got some attitude. I can see it. And you looked at me with that little smile. You're going like, oh, yeah, we're going to do just fine. And so we started going and unfortunate, unfortunate. We had another gal on the stage with us, but we kind of went and forgot that she was on the stage because we started working the audience, and we had about a thousand people in a room, you and I, on this stage, and I just said, you want to just go live with it? Let's just take him, challenge them one on one. You're like, bro, you were speaking my language. Let's go. That attitude was like, he's a monster. We can do this. And then I could play off of that, and you played off of it as well. And it was. It was symbiotic, really quick and easy because we came with the same attitude, right? And I thought that was the thing. So I think you can feel it if you're. If you're paying attention, right? You got to be in the moment. You know, we talk about that a lot of times. You know, be in this moment. Don't you know, you're taking notes. It's listening. Stop there for a second. Be in the moment. Stay here with me. You can take your notes afterwards. Because if I make you feel something, remember, no one's going to remember everything you say to them, but they're going to remember every bit of how you made them feel, right? You bring that attitude. It exudes confidence. People are drawn to that. It's magnetic. It's attractive. Others are going to notice you, and that's how that's going to happen. So I think attitude to me is, believe it or not, I believe it's more of a feeling. But if you're paying attention, you have to see it. You got to notice it. Attitude's there. You got to be able to pick it up.

Who would you say was your earliest or first attitude coach who made Curt Sheetwell? The Curt Sheetwell? He is where you did stand and take notice and go, I need to change the way I'm thinking. Like, who was that person?

Or a guy named Neil Feldman? I was working. I was a young kid, maybe 21, 22 years old, and I was working at an appliance store, right? Back in the big up days of the appliance chains, right? And you're working on commission. You're hustling, hustling. And I worked behind on appliance back then. They were in business, and Neil Feldman was the guy's name. He was my supervisor. And Neil really liked me, and I liked him a lot. And, you know, he was really sharp guy. He knew his stuff. And he kept challenging me and challenging me, challenging me. And I would talk to him, but I always talked to more like a buddy and a friend than I did. As this guy's, you know, three layers up to the top here. This guy makes decisions of who runs what, and you want to get promoted, he's your guy. Well, I knew he liked me. We had a great relationship. So he came in one time to start talking to me on a more of a serious level. But I kept talking to him like I would normally talk to him, and I didn't realize I was actually being interviewed, and I just assumed, I'm going to get this promotion. I'm going to be the next store manager. That's how it's going to go. And we kind of get done with this convo. And I saw that it kind of went really down that path. And I'm like, all right, so, yeah, hey, let's just make that happen. I'm your guy. You know me. I'm going to kill it. We're going to do this. And he said, yeah, I don't think you're ready. And my jaw dropped. And I was like, wait, what? I'm your guy. What do you. What do you. What do you mean? Like, I run through brick wall for you, my man. You're. You're my guy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he said, kurt, you're way too mature right now. You got to grow up. And I was just like, wait, what? I'm talking to you about stuff we talk about all the time. He said, right. I need you to be a guy that wants to be a manager. Run one of my multimillion dollar stores. I don't need the guy who's this kid who wants to go party. He goes, I know you can party and get up tomorrow and go to work because you prove that. Because I need somebody that's more serious. And I was just like, oh, my God. And that was the best smack in the face I could have gotten. Because, one, it hurt my feelings, because I had feelings. Right. Which we cannot have those right away. You gotta do business, and business is business. When your emotions get involved, you mess up. So it was one of the best. Life's lessons. So then I had to really. I mean, everything. Sort of begged him to give me another shot. And he says, remember this, Kurt. You are always being interviewed. Love it.

Yes.

And I was like, I will never forget that. Took me about three, four months later to get him and kind of revisit that with me. And then he did eventually promote me and gave me that night. And I always respected him for that. By telling me no and telling me you messed up. Yeah, I love him for that. And I always remembered it to this day.

I love it. And that's just so good, you know? Back to this confidence and arrogance thing that you were talking about. I think you might remember my quote, the difference between confidence and arrogance. You remember what it is?

Oh, shit. If I can. If I can remember. If I can quote you on.

Because this is exactly what you were just talking about, you know, with your kids and always being interviewed and the answer is likability.

Likability. Gosh darn it. Yes. I remember we were sitting at the bar talking about this. Yeah.

And it's like. And it's like, you know, for you to advance, for you to have people that pull you up, and when you talked about, you know, being more mature, that whole likeability quotient is big. We could do a whole podcast on this. Let me ask you this.

Oh, you're right about that.

Oh, yeah. I mean, if they don't like it, you're done. Right. No matter what it is. Right. And what we always do in our source of sales that I do when I do my source of sales training, we talk about how do you know if somebody likes you? And the answer is you like them. And so if you don't like the people you're doing business with, guess what? They don't like you either. But that's a different thing that I do. So we'll move on. But I knew you would like that. I need to get. I need to get up to Detroit, do sources sales with you guys. That would be a blast.

You know what? I got an event coming up in March. You're going to come in. We're going to do this. We're going to have some fun, my friend.

Cool. Cool. Let's do it. We'd love to. I want to talk about. Because there's people listening here about the down times. Right. Look at Kurt. I've seen him. I've been around him. He is never down. But you know what? We're human, and people say the same things about us all the time. Tell me either if you want to, about the time where maybe you were at the lowest in your life, or if you don't want to share that, hopefully you will.

Okay, I'm happy with that.

Okay. A lot of strength and how you overcome those negative thoughts and those negative things in your head. So if you want to maybe start with your story on what was tough for you and then how you overcome negativity, I appreciate it.

Living pretty good, married, five kids, means I'm good at something. Parenting or making babies. Or maybe not. Or maybe not. Some of my kids might not agree with that, so at least I know one of them probably wouldn't. But I'm doing my best to try to make that happen. So what happened was I was in corporate America, the corporate job as a VP of sales for giant company called Honeywell. Great company and living life. We're doing pretty good. And my oldest daughter said, five kids. Boy, boy, Girl, girl, girl. She was eight years old at the time, oldest of my three girls. And she got sick. She had cancer. Cancer, cancer, bad cancer, brain tumors and such like that. So medulla blastoma is what she actually had. And after about almost a three year, you know, fight with it. She was a champion. She was amazing. Absolutely phenomenal. Her name's Stephanie, but she became our angel. Right. So she went to heaven and you know, so that was a, that was a difficult haul, right? That's a, that's a tough load. So the hardest part was, the easy part was being fixated on. I'm going to do everything I can to try to find a miracle cured. The good news, bad news, it didn't exist. So. But it wasn't for the lack of looking and trying. And in doing so, I had to resign from my job and I got a six month leave of absence that I resigned and I had no money. So you run out of money fast now. I thought we were set. I had a kid in college, I had one in high school, Stephanie. And then two younger daughters. And you know, I've got a, we're living at a pretty nice place. Clip. And all of a sudden you have no, no income. You run and you go broke fast. You run out of money. Wow. And that adds so many other pressures. And I, and I talk on this a lot on stage is, you know, and I tell you, I usually uphold crowd. You know, how many people in here have problems? Everybody raises their hand, everybody's got problems. Then I ask them, okay, if you had enough money, does it make all those problems go away? And most people are like, oh, well, yeah, if I had the money, they all go away, right? They're not problems, they're financial issues. You don't have enough money, right? And if you need more money, you don't need more money, you need more people in your life. This is how it's the old adage and I've probably heard it, but it's so true. Your network is your net worth, right? That's where that's at. So losing all the money adds so many problems that aren't real problems or financial issues. So they become problems and people, we let this get in our lives. You can have no money, you can make money tomorrow, right? But you've got to know what you're focused on and got to be focused. So my focus was her. And I'm letting down four other kids and I'm letting down my wife because I'm so hyper focused here. But what do you do Right? So you go to these dark places because, you know, see, the devil creeps in. He's waiting for you, right? He can't wait to talk to you. Hey, I got you. And you're like, you are nowhere in my world, baby. I got to run right past you. Because we've got to get out of it. Since the old adage, you know, people tell you you probably have the same planning. I know you have people, oh, you step in a pile of crap and you come out smelling like a rose. What's. Because we don't like the wallowing crap, right? I'm not going to lay down and crap ever by stepping it. I'm getting a new pair of shoes, right? I ain't going to clean them for four. They're off. Give me a new pair. I'm going because I'm not stopping. And with her, we had to fight, fight, fight, you know, we had to come to terms with our faith and where she's at and be good with that because there's good that comes in it. I got to see all the cliches of the world, right? Stop and smell the roses. Live every moment. And when. When she had her first brain surgery and half her face never woke up, right? So we always, you know, called her. She was our girl with a broken smile. And if you took a, like a picture of her smiling, you could take and cover half of her face, right? And it looks like a girl just sitting there. And then you move that over the other side, you just see her beaming. And so many people could look at that picture and not see the girls beaming, smiling. I saw that picture, man. I could just see her lighting up. And when she couldn't do this, you know, she was right handed. She had to learn how to write left handed, right? That's amazing. I was so blown away by these things that she did without even thinking about it, right? She didn't cry about it. She didn't say, oh, I can't do this. She's like, I got to write left handed. I. She's writing left handed and putting beads together and, you know, being able to do these things that her body and her brain wouldn't let her do anymore. It was so amazing. I was so proud. I was so happy to see these things. And I never forgot, you know, what it. What the biggest struggles that people can have are the smallest little things, and it can make the biggest difference. And if you really, really pay attention, you'll get that ride. And people like, oh, my God, I could never survive if that happened to my child. And I said, well, it depends on how you want to look at it. You want to look at it. It's happening to your child, it's happening to you.

Right.

People think it's happening to them. It ain't happened to me. Coming to her, my job is to make this the best ride for her I could possibly make. Right? Right. And wherever that takes us, that takes us. But we're going to keep on going. We're going to be all right. And you got to keep pushing that way. And it's about. It's about the experience. So even though she was going to heaven, you know, the experience of that ride, I wanted to make sure we experienced that with her, and we get to be part of that. And I believe part of me is in habit. Right. And maybe I don't get to get the rest of me there, but I certainly got a piece of me there, and I feel pretty damn good about it. And I'll do everything I can to help everybody I can get there. And I would believe with all my heart, and I didn't believe this my whole life, but I believe it now that you really want everything you ever want, then you better help a whole bunch of people get everything they want. You'll have everything you ever want.

Yeah. God bless.

That's really the truth.

So great tribute for Stephanie, for, you know, I, as, you know, coach, for 25 years, I've buried 15 of my players. Just. I mean, what is going on with Young America today is insane. And I get the calls from the parents that say, coach Bill, you're not going to believe what happened. Right. And it's recently happened to us again, to experience the loss of a child, certainly one of the most stressful things you can do for those people who have kids that are close to passing, that did pass. Do you have just one or two tips or how did you manage it? What could you tell those people today that could maybe change things for them?

Yeah. Remember, if they move on, make them proud. Right. Do the things that would make them proud. And when you stop, because it's so easy to be that person that they died, you die with them. You don't die. There's others counting on you. You still have a job to do. Right. And I always tell people this, and whatever your faith is, God chose you. And this is what people. The first question everybody, everybody asks Glenn is, you know, why me? Well, God chose you because your next door neighbor couldn't handle this, but you can, because he's never going to give you something you can't handle. There are people that I know, they do crazy things, and they do. They do the wrong things because they give up, right? First, never give up, because this is your challenge. This is your Neil Feldman telling you you're not good enough yet. You got to earn it, right? And you got to get refocused. So the thing I would tell you is, don't stop because you have to live on for them. That's your job. That's your responsibility, right? You have this move on for them, right? Think of them. Live for them. Be them. Don't stop in place and be frozen in time. Don't have the room. We did this right for the first year. It's very difficult year. And I don't want to downplay this to anybody. Anybody's gone through this to get it. The first of everything, first birthday, first Christmas, first, you know, anniversary of the time that they went to heaven. All these things, those dates, they matter, right? They matter and they freeze you. You can't be frozen. What you have to do is you have to embrace them. You cry with them. I. I cry plenty, right? I cry plenty. There's a song will pop on the radio, and I'm sitting there driving my car, and I'm like, oh, my God, what am I. What am I doing? You know? I'm like, who? Get it together, pal. You got this, you know? And then I look and I look up and I laugh, and I talk to her all the time, but I talk to her and I communicate, and I feel her, and that's how I still feel her. And you can keep going, right? So that first year, we had to get through that first year where her bedroom looks frozen in time. And that's a really tough thing, because when you're. When you're fighting this kind of adversity, every time, I'd walk in a room to help box up some things because we got to put these things away. Can't just let it sit like she's supposed to come home tomorrow, she's not coming. And then it's like, oh, my God, we're going to be those people you see in a movie that, oh, my God, the bedroom still looks like they live there, and it's 20 years later. You know, you got a padlock on the doors and stuff. You. You can't do that. You're dying. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's not fair to them. It's not fair to you. So you've got to remember there's others that are counting on you. Be fair to them. Right? You're not the only one going through this, but you feel it differently than others. I get that. Been there. However, my wife would go in, she would try to do the same thing, and she'd just start crying and falling apart. Then we went in there together to do it, and we looked at her, we just start crying. Because everything that your child last played with, their favorite things are all sitting there.

Yeah, right.

And everything. You pick one of these things up, 4,000 memories come. And. And I'll tell you, the thing that I worried about as it was coming to the end and. And maybe this will help was I feared in my own mind. This is how small we think sometimes was like, oh, my God, what happens if there's like a day I wake up and I don't think of her? Like, oh, my God, Well, I forget her. Like, you think crazy thoughts.

Yes.

That's an insane thought. But you think it and you go through it. And I honestly thought, oh, my gosh, when we lay her out for her viewing next week, when this is coming to an end, at the very end there, I'm like, oh, my gosh, you know, is she going to look right? And, you know, is she going to have the right dress on? You're thinking these things, like, these are so silly, but yet they're monumental to you, and you get frozen there. So what you have to do is you have to say, okay, we're going to go through the first of everything, and it's okay. This is a healing time. This is okay. We're mourning. It's okay. And then now what do we got to do? So what we did was we literally had to sell our house and move. Fortunately, I'm in real estate. That helped. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So I get that part. But we had to move because there was always going to be, well, this is her couch, and that's her nest where she sat in our. In our section. And that's her seat at the table. We need a new table. We need a new kitchen. I need a house that she didn't live in.

Right.

Because we're not moving forward with that Steph's room and that Steph's this and that Steph's that.

Right.

You're not moving forward. So we had to do that. And that's a big thing. So I help people and I do counsel people. So thanks for bringing it up. For the last 15 years, I've been 14 years of the 15, I've been counseling people in our charity in memory of our daughter. We have fundraisers and things, and then we help people who have kids with cancer, and that's what we do. But I help them in the way. Like you're talking, Glenn, you know, make a wish. I'll send them on a trip. Not that we don't give them money and things we do. We give them a lot of things. But I help them in the way that they really need it, especially when they have other siblings, because the other siblings get lost in the shuffle.

Yes.

And you got to do the things that keep them relevant because they keep the parents going, too. And you got to remember this is where we're living. And we get to memorize this, memorialize this, and feel great about it. We don't have to have a shrine, but we have to make sure that we're moving forward. So by moving, it changed everything for us and it allowed us to continue on so we could go, so I could teach my kids. We're going to learn from this. What do they learn from it? Because remember, they see it different than you do. When you start understanding them, not yourself, it changes everything. Just like your business.

I love it. And so we always say, let's do some good. And if you just don't think we did some good, you're crazy. We did some good right there. Tell us what's the website of the charity that we can find this at?

It's called the Stephanie Shewell Memorial Fund.

Okay, Stephanie Shewell Memorial Fund. Is there a dot com or how can we. I know Jason going to probably pull it up. All right, Stephanie Shewell memorialfund.com. all right, Gappers. Let's let Kurt know that we've been listening to him. Let's do some good. And let's send him some funds. And I'll make sure that I do that, too. So thank you so much for that story. I just. I'm going to be at a funeral in 51 hours, and I was sitting there going, what's the message that I want to give? And you just helped me with my messaging. So you just never know where God plants his energy. So what we're going to do is how we always close our stuff. It's called Knowledge through the Decade. So we'll bring it up a little bit, and we're going to go through the life of Curt Schiwell. And the first thing we always like to ask is, and you've had five kids, so whether you remember being born or not, what do you believe the attitude Lesson is of childbirth or of birth or new beginnings.

Okay, well, like you said, I don't remember being born, but I can remember when all my kids were. Right. And, you know, it's a neat thing, this. If you've been a parent for everybody that's got kids, you experience a depth of love that you've never experienced before, right? You fall in love with somebody, you give yourself to somebody. I get all that. Oh, my God. I'm infatuated with this person. I'm in love with this person. But when that baby comes out, you have a feeling so deep, a love that you've never understood. You can never even explain to somebody until they have that. And I know moms have it. They carry the baby. It's a different experience. I could never even try to explain how they feel. Right. That would be remiss of me to do that, but from a dad. And I think what gets lost in that, because it's the mom, the connection to the baby. Well, the dads, we instantly go into the protective mode, and we've got to have attitude because no one is going to do anything wrong to this baby. I can promise you that. Right? And then I am going to be the dad of the century, because I'm going to help this baby learn everything it needs to know about everything. And, boy, I'm going to put, you know, 20, 30 years of knowledge, whatever, how old you are at the time into this child. And, boy, we're going to. We're going to hit the ground running. So this is how a dad feels, and this is where dad's chest gets big. And you feel great when you take this tiny, frail, beautiful little creature that looks at you and relies on you for everything. You got to bring that attitude all day long. I got you. I'm going to love you like I never have. And what happens is you have another child and you fear, like, am I going to experience that same feeling I had before? Because how could you top that? That was something I never even felt. I could never even believe I could feel. Yes. And all of a sudden it happens again, and you forget about all the rest because you're in that moment, and it's the most incredible moment. And then it happens again, and you're just like, then I believe. And this might sound a little hokey to some of your peace. That's your connection to God. This is when God talks to you, straight to you. He puts everybody else on hold for that eight seconds and says, all right, here's how you're going to do this and you bring that in, you harness that. He gives you all the attitude you need. Step up and express it.

I love it. The attitude of protection. It's really what it sounds like. And the attitude of creation. I want you to think back to when you were 10 years years old. Kurt, Kurt, at 10 and fourth, fifth grade. What, what was the attitude lesson you learned at 10? Maybe you were bullied, maybe you were bullying, maybe you had to move. If you can remember being 10, I'd love to know what your attitude Lesson was at 10.

All right, 10 years old we had. At 8 years old, my parents got divorced. And so when I was right before I turned nine, I went and lived with my dad and my sister. Brother stayed with my, my mother. So that was a really messy situation. I'm living with my dad and my dad is with at the time, which was his new girlfriend and became his wife, became my stepmother for 40 years. Well, when that happened, I moved into a very low income place from a very upper middle class place. And it was like, whoa, this is some shelter, you know, shock here, man. This is really crazy. My dad taught me, you got to stand up for yourself, son, or you're going to get run right out of here. And you want to talk about getting bullied? Holy smokes. That was a, that was a lesson for the ages there. And I learned so much in that year of turning 9 to 10. We lived for that year there and I went to school there for fifth grade and it was a very brutal idea to take buses to school. We didn't take buses to school. We freaking walked to school. No, no, no, not here you don't. You're lucky they drop you here. You get into your little court in your little low income townhouse you're living in. And we went from, you know, a whole different culture shock for me to learn. And what ended up happening, I got in. I think we tried to, we try to remember back when I was a teenager through, but I think I got into 40, 41 fights during that one year.

Wow.

I mean that's like every other day you're fighting with somebody. It's like, why am I in these scraps? You know? And sometimes I did okay, and a lot of times I didn't do so good. Yeah, and these kids, they don't fight fair and they don't fight one on one. And you're, you know, you're, you're the outsider and it's a, it's a culture shock thing. So you got to learn how to really carry yourself and you got to learn that, hey, you got to do these things. So when we moved the year after that back to a city, you know, middle class city, where I was more accustomed to living in that environment, I thrived and I had a paper route. I became, you know, the kids selling the little seeds, you know, for the plants, the flower seeds, for 25 cents to all the neighbors. They could plant their flowers if I'm hustling, doing paper routes. And then I had two paper routes, you know, and I was hustling, hustle and hustling. And I bought my first car at 16 from my paper route.

Wow, that's crazy.

So that was kind of my development at those, at that time right there.

We, and I know that we, you know, we both had that in common. I was a fighter, I fought daily. And that was during busings in the 70s and kids were integration and all that. So we, we, we know. But it sounds like at age age 10, you figured out maybe how to stand on your own, right?

A lot, very much.

And how grateful you were to be out of there in a year. Now, now let's talk. You're 20 years old. I want to know, I want to know what college you were at. 20 years old. What was your attitude lesson?

All right. I went to Eastern Michigan University and I got in and my parents couldn't afford to pay for anything, so I got in under a premise that they were going to pay the bills. And so I had a roommate who was there on a scholarship, a buddy of mine, I happen to know, the guy who went to Catholic high school, and he got a scholarship to go there. So we happened to be friends coincidentally. And then we ended up being roommates and it worked out really good for the first semester. And they kept chasing me and trying to find me. Well, the people from the administrative office didn't know who he was or who I was. So every time they'd come, I kept telling him I was him, right? So that way, because they kept coming for the money and I didn't have any money and I was working at Taco Bell because I needed to eat.

Oh my God.

Literally worked at Taco Bell at night from 10am and they would be open, some of them would stay up to 4 in the morning. So at 2am is the one I worked at. It would close at 2 and then you clean up and you get out of there about 3. So I worked from 10 at night till, till 3 in the morning so I could get free food. And that's Why I worked at Taco Bell, because you can make a whole lot of different meals out of Taco Bell, right? So that was always my thing. Well, in the, in the day, daytime, what I did was I had my school classes on certain days, and then I worked at Tomican shoe store selling shoes at the mall. So I worked at the mall out there, and I was selling shoes till 9 o', clock, leave there and then head to Taco Bell so I could eat because I'd be starving by then, and then work through the night, you know, slinging tacos. So. So that's what I was doing during that time, trying to get on my feet. And I took the job at. They finally caught me and kicked me out of college. So they said, yeah, you can't pay, you can't stay. And I got to stay in there with my buddy for, you know, a few more months, all the way till Christmas. And then they, you know, they finally got me out. And that's how that went. So I never finished college. I did go to Macomb Community College for another year and a half to get some, and I thought, all right. And then I got that job at the appliance store at Highland Appliance selling. And I was making money, and I made $32,000 at 21 years old. Yeah. And I was like, holy smokes. My dad made 50 grand. He's like, that's. That's where you got to be. This is, you know, early 80s, in mid-80s. So I was like, man. And then my next year, I made. I made over 50 grand. And I made more, more money than my father did. And it was like, holy smokes. You know, my dad's like, you made it, you made it. And I'm like, no, man, this is small potatoes, man. I got to get to the big leagues here. And I always chased the bucks. I chased the, you know, the 100 grand was always my number. And it's still, still today. People chase that 100, 000 number.

Yeah.

And it took me a few more years to hit there. At 26, I did. And that was the, the cultivation. It takes so long to get to 100, as you know, Glenn. But from 100 to 200 happens quickly. Yes. Right. And again, it's that proximity.

Yeah.

Got to be in the space with these people. You got to run on their time, get the relationships, doors open and your job becomes the next, the next, the next. Because somebody keeps opening doors for you and then as you become more business minded, changes everything. So that's happened when I was 26.

I love it. Okay, so, I mean, what an unbelievable story. What an unbelievable life. What lessons and bombs you have dropped on our gappers. We still got three minutes and it's going to be tough to cover 20 years. So I need about a 30 second answer on each one and then we're going to close the show because I got another guest coming on at one. So let's go to 30. Just to a quick attitude lesson. When you were 30.

Okay, attitude lesson. I was 30. Having kids, making sure that I was giving my lives, my kids lives that I always hoped that I had had from my parents if I could provide more. So you become that, but I didn't want to be that. You know, everybody gets a trophy person. I know I piss people off with that, but you got to earn that stuff, right? You know, many times we came in second, third, fourth, and fifth. Right. My high school, we. We didn't. We didn't. The scoreboard never said we won very often. I'll put it that way. Right. But I always knew that I was a winner. I was never going to lose because I got out working out, playing. And so my 30s were where you become who you're going to be. And at that point, I still wasn't in real estate yet. That happened because my daughter got sick. When that happened without a job, I asked for a miracle job. And that's how I got into real estate. And that's when I started meeting more people. That really opened the doors to a whole lot of other places. And that's really where I took off, to be honest. I was 35 and I was in a whole different place and really trying to get my head to another level. And then when I hit, you know, 38, I was in real estate and everything changed. And that took me really to a whole nother place.

That's good. So we'll skip 40, because I just know that's basically the same thing. I know you're in your 50s like me, so when it's all said and done, you. You've opened up your heart, you've opened up your mind, you've given us some great stuff for the people that are sitting there listening to you now. And there's thousands of people all across the world right now. We're just so blessed and lucky with our audience. And you will be getting a whole promo box of this podcast for you to share as well, Curt. But what's your message? Your message of hope for those who are trying to bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be. From who they are to where they want to become. Give us the best coach she will. Motivational speech to close the show.

Be visible. Make sure that you have opportunity, right? Be visible when you're in a room. Look people in the eye. Don't look away. You smile when you look at people. Make people feel welcome. Remember, they won't remember what you told them. They remember how you made them feel. Make them all feel good. Talk to them about them. That's what matters to them. Keep working forward to helping others. Remember when times are bad. Times are bad, right? The biggest opportunity to help somebody comes up, comes, comes to fruition. It's right there, right? The worst of times. The bigger the problem, the bigger problem, right, that you can solve, the more money you're going to make with it. And that's going to move you up into a whole nother level, a whole nother realm of people. When you do it the right way, guess what happens? All the right people are watching. They're going to see. That's your visibility. Make sure that they see you doing the right things. Do it when no one's looking. Act the right way when no one's watching because they're always watching. You're always being judged. Don't pretend this little perfect world that we're not judged. No, we are. We're judged all the time. We're judging how we look, how we dress and how we act. How you act matters. Your words mean nothing. Your actions mean everything. So remember that. Back up what you say. Don't give them a bunch of crap. Talk right. Get visible. Right. Rewards, we reward behaviors. We don't reward words, we reward behaviors. Make sure that your words match your actions. Your actions will speak way louder. That's my best lesson for you right now.

I love it. Coach Kurt, you are the man. If you guys are on Spotify, on our video podcast, you'll be able to just do take a picture of his square there at Curtis Shewell. Curtis Shewell on Facebook. He's got a TikTok account. I love that. Curtis Shewell on LinkedIn. Kurt, thank you so much for your honesty, for your caring and for your genuine care concern for our listeners. It was great being with you and we will see you on the next Get Attitude podcast.

Thanks so much, Glenn. Appreciate you, brother.