The Pillars of Prosperity

How many of you have made $100,000 in this industry? Raise your hands. Now, before that, I know one guy that did. But before you made that first hundred thousand dollars you ever made, did you say, hey, that's what I want to do. I want to get to $100,000. Do you ever think like that? I want to make $100,000, and when I make $100,000, I'm going to do this with it, and you're going to do something really good. You were going to give back to the community. You were going to tithe. You were going to do this. But did you or did you operate from a place of fear that I needed to get more and gain more before I could give. Be aware of that, because that will hurt this feeling of prosperity. Because prosperity is not a destination. It's a journey. It's a lifestyle. A lot of people call me the contractor coach or just coach. I've been doing this for 10 years, and we're over a thousand contractors that we've helped. Our contractors did about $5.6 billion in business last year, which has been pretty awesome to see those type of things. And. And my purpose on this planet is to help people and companies be more prosperous. That's really what it's all about for me. I decided to do this 10 years ago after working at. Maybe you've heard of this thing, Acculex. How many of you have heard of Aculinks? All right. I was their director of sales and design for five years. They bought my software from me that was called Silver Lining. And all the stuff you use as salespeople is pretty much that. Okay. That front end piece was what I owned, and they had the back end piece. We joined up and my job was to make Accu Lynx a thing. I think we did okay with that here in the coaching deal, it's been the same type of thing. When I first started coaching, there wasn't any. There was no competition, no other people doing coaching. And I was like, somebody needs to help contractors out there. Because what happened is I was going in the back office of contractors selling ACCU Links. Be there for about an hour. Sell ACCU Links to them? Yes. I closed every single one of them. Just kidding. Not everybody. But then I would sit there for another three or four hours. How did you build a $40 million company? How did you hire 100 plus salespeople at one time? How'd you have all these locations? How did you pay people? How'd you keep people going? How did you retain people There was all these questions and that was an indicator to me that I needed to go out and help a little bit. This industry has been wonderful to me. It literally changed my life. It is one of those things that when you come across it, you go, wow, there is an opportunity here. How many of you thought that, like, once you kind of got into it, you went, wow, there's a real opportunity here. There's one problem with that. There is a big opportunity here, but it's also a low barrier of entry. Just about anybody can do it. I mean, seriously, you can figure out how to get a business license and you don't even have to have a high school degree. You don't have to have any of that stuff. You got a truck, a hammer, you can get a business license. Guess what? You're a contractor in the state of Texas. That can lead to some bad things, which is why I started doing what I'm doing. Because it's not about you, it's about the consumer. I was sick and tired of watching consumers not have a good experience with a contractor, not following through, not doing what they said they were going to do, not giving them the experience that they really should have as a contractor, and having work done on their most valuable asset. So my job here today is to help you not only get better at what you do, but to help you find that prosperity, hopefully that you're looking for. How many owners do I have in the room? Okay, how many managers or leaders? Okay, good. How many salespeople? All right, I got some salespeople. Good. I want to hear from you guys as we talk today because this is about leadership, motivating you. I want to hear if this would push you. Okay? Alright, so think about that as we go through this today. Now, before I start all this, I got to kind of walk you through a few things to set tone and put us in the right position to talk about what we're going to talk about today. And you've heard me use the word prosperity or being prosperous a couple of times. I want to ask you guys as a group, what does it mean to be prosperous? Anybody? To be happy and have a balanced life. Not bad. What's your name again? Seth. Seth. I saw it on the Stuff, but I couldn't remember. Sorry about that, Seth. Good answer. Anybody else? When you hear the word prosperity, what do you think of wealth, success, time? Okay, so 20 some odd years ago now, right at 20 years ago now? Yeah, right there. I had a pretty horrible experience happen to me. I had a bookkeeper steal $585,000 from my company. Not too cool, right? It gets worse. So we were able to prove that this bookkeeper had stolen the money. And I had hired a guy who I'd become friends with for a couple of years because I saw potential in him as a salesperson. He would not even come to work for me the first summer. He had a purpose. He knew what he was going to be. He was going to be a high school football coach. He was going to school to be a high school football coach. But I watched him and he was delivering pizzas to make ends meet while he was going to school. I'm like, why don't you come over and work for me during the summers, make some money and then go back to school. Nope, don't want to get distracted. I like my pizza delivery job. I'm good. And he blew me off that first summer. The second summer I said, hey, you're coming with me. Just watch. I think you're going to be great at this. And we did. He came in, he watched what I did, and he goes, man, that's not what I thought it was. I thought it was like door knocking and canvassing and seemed terrible, but you made it seem like it was comfortable. This is easy. And he did work for that summer. He made $72,000 that summer and went back to school, got his degree, but he kept working while he was going to school and he never did pursue his degree. He came to work for me as a full time salesperson. Sold a million dollars his first year easy. Proceeded to do more and more as time went on. Bookkeeper still 585 grand. He decides to become her partner in a competing business. I was pretty mad, pretty frustrated, pretty upset. Like, how could either of them do to me what they did after the opportunity I provided to them? Any guesses why. You got it? Not theirs, mine. I was probably the most self absorbed, narcissistic, selfish human being on the face of the planet. My wife would maybe argue back there that maybe not on the face of the planet, but it was all about the numbers we achieved, how much we sold, how much I did to make it all happen. And what I realized is the reason he left is because I was selfish and not selfless. It kind of broke me, to be honest with you. I won't go into the whole story, but through a bit of a prayerful moment, all I understood is that I need to become a servant and not selfish. And I started that very next day. And it's been a long road And a long journey figuring all this out. But that was kind of the first step, was a bit of spiritual growth and development on my end. But I still didn't feel quite right. Like, I still felt like there was gaps in my game, that there was something missing. Anybody ever feel like that? Like, I can't put my finger on it, but I know something's just missing. Well, I want to share with you a little bit of that today. It's not what this is about, but this is what sets the tone for everything else that we're going to be doing. So there's these pillars of prosperity. And I kind of went on and my wife has just recently found out about this. Let me tell you where this all. What all happened. About a year ago, I bumped into a guy on one of my coaching calls. We had a little side conversation, and he did one of the kindest things he could do. He invited me to go to this thing called High Capacity Leaders with John Maxwell. John Maxwell is surrounding himself with young leaders, which I questioned young with me. But he. He's not long for this world. He's 77 years old. How many of you know John Maxwell? Okay, so some of you. John Maxwell, probably the most preeminent leadership author of all time. He's written 90 books on leadership. They're fantastic. They're values based. Really good stuff. He's been one of my mentors and heroes for a very long time. And so I was honored. And I kind of thought they were trying to sell me something, but that wasn't the deal. I actually paid for it. I went to it. All I had to do was pay for my airfare and hotel, and there was no cost. And he poured into us for a couple of days. One of the things he asked me is, is there anything that you do for you that you haven't told anybody about yet that you think is valuable? And it was instant for me. I knew what it was because I had been on this journey to kind of figure some things out for myself. And I thought it was just for me. So I shared with him that I did. And he goes, great. You have 15 minutes tomorrow morning to present. I'm like, what? That was not what I was expecting to have happen. And I didn't sleep much that night. I put something together pretty quickly. I shared what it was. And he goes, why is it just for you? That hit me pretty hard. He goes, you know, this is for everybody, right? This is something that everybody should hear about. So he has encouraged me to share this and I'M evolving as a coach, and I'm going to be start doing more of this type of stuff. And that's really where all the coaching stuff and everything, where it comes from, why I do what I do, because I do feel very prosperous. I'm not the wealthiest, I'm probably not the happiest, but I do have a lot of joy. I do love what I do. I do love doing this and being with you guys. And so after that whole spiritual thing, I still felt like there was things I couldn't put my finger on. So I want to share with you what those things are that I found out. Number one was work fulfillment. I had to find something to do that fulfilled me on a daily basis. It didn't mean I had to like it. That's the big key. That was the thing that really clicked for me, is I didn't have to like it, but I had to feel there was some purpose behind it. I had to feel that all the hard work was worth, Was worth the investment of time and energy. And if I didn't feel that way, I didn't believe in the thing and we would quit it. How many of you have ever done work in New York, like three or four years and quit, then you move on to another one? Three or four years, you quit. Three or four years, you quit. You haven't found your thing. Okay, we got hands going up. So this is the longest I've ever done anything in my life, 10 years. And I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. This industry I've been in for 25 years, I'm not leaving anytime soon. I'm extremely passionate about it because I think there's a lot of people in this industry that have a lot of potential and they just haven't realized it yet because of the way the world treats us over our lives. And so work fulfillment is one of those pillars of prosperity, time prioritization and financial security. I think I heard somebody back there mention time and this idea of we only have so much of it, right? We're only on this planet for so long. It's a blink of an eye, really, in the big scheme of things. And I see so many people focused on legacy, but there's almost always a word that comes in front of that. I want to leave my legacy. And that was one of the mistakes I made early on was it was about me. And there's nothing wrong with having a positive legacy, but I think you need to consider maybe a little bit more about impact. How many people from before 200 years ago. Can you name. 10, 20, maybe? Your name is likely not to be remembered, but your impact could be. I don't care if anybody ever remembers my name. That's not why I do this. I watch Melanie and Josh. They're one of my clients. Jeremy, I've become really good friends with Pancho back there in Yale. Our Latino children. What I pour into them, they pour into others. And I don't care if they ever give me credit for it. That's not what it's about. I want this world to be a better place where we can build bridges, not burn them. And we tend to do that an awful lot. Just go look at politics. We burn bridges every day. We put up barriers between ourselves and other people. And so in an effort to get there, we have to prioritize this time that we have wisely on the most important thing as often as possible. And if you get consistent with that and you're consistently staying on that thing, you're going to have a lot of success and it ultimately will lead to some financial security. Don't think about being rich. Think about what you can do with the wealth that you do obtain. What you can give. You've been given a gift. What do you do with it? How many of you have made $100,000 in this industry? Raise your hands. Now, before that, I know one guy that did. But before you made that first hundred thousand dollars you ever made, did you say, hey, that's what I want to do, I want to get to $100,000. Did you ever think like that? I want to make $100,000 and when I make $100,000, I'm going to do this with it and you're going to do something really good. You were going to give back to the community. You were going to tithe, you were going to do this. But did you or did you operate from a place of fear that I needed to get more and gain more before I could give. Be aware of that because that will hurt this feeling of prosperity. Because prosperity is not a destination, it's a journey. It's a lifestyle. It's not like you're trying to get to something you will never achieve. What it is that you think that looks like you can just live it. It's pretty simple. Third part of it is physical well being and performance. I've watched Melanie over the last few years. She's all about this. I could be better. I'm working on it, though. I have some excuses, but I don't use them. I do what I can, when I can, to stay as healthy as I can, because I want to be here for as long as I can to help others. But if I don't take care of this body that was gifted to me, it might not be here. We just had somebody in this industry pass away a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how many of you know Larry Richards, one of the best human beings on the face of the planet, and he was working hard to get back into shape, but because of a lot of other things going on that didn't quite work out the way he had hoped, the way I had hoped. If we don't take care of ourselves, how can we take care of those that we work with and for and are responsible for internally in your business and externally in your families belonging to a community? How many of you have ever heard of a Blue Zone before? Just a couple people. Blue Zones. There's five of them, I think five or seven throughout the world. These are the places where people live to be 100 years old. Consistently, they have the most centurions per capita, and they have some very common things that identify them. But one of the ones that's the most impactful that I think is important to know is that their sense of community, they know each other, they care for each other, they take care of each other, they are in community with each other. They want to belong to something. And I think all of us as human beings want to belong to something. I think that's probably why you work where you work, you belong to something that might be a little bit bigger than yourself, because of what's around you, you might be able to have more impact than you might individually. I think some of it is we don't like to be alone either, because when we're alone, our mind starts thinking. When our mind starts thinking, it doesn't always think positively. And so when we belong to something, we can get that support that we need. And then there's leadership and social influence. If you have one other person in your life, you play a role of leadership and influence. I watch Pancho back there. This man's an animal on social media. Chuck Allen Animal on social media Just unbelievable. And there's so much responsibility that goes along with that influence. They're stepping into roles of being leaders and people are watching them, and it puts on you a level of responsibility. If you don't understand it, it'll eat you, because everybody's just waiting, waiting for you to trip and fall, waiting for you to make a mistake, waiting for this Opportunity to call you out. This is where your character comes in. There's only one thing that you have control over and that's your reputation. What people believe about you is what they see from you. This is one of those ones I was struggling with whenever I went on this 10 year journey to figure these things out. Number six is creativity and curiosity. This is the part where you always feel like you may be pouring out and you're not spending enough time on you. The creativity and curiosity and the physical well being and performance are a little bit more about you. This is that time you take to think, to problem solve, to be quiet, to rest a little. How many people think this world moves way too fast, okay? And it's a million miles an hour and it's just getting faster every day. There's days I feel like I can't keep up, like things are changing. So AI came in the world. I'm like, oh my God, I got another thing to learn because I don't want to fall behind, but sometimes it's okay to slow down. Some of the best things I've ever created in my life were when I slowed down and took time to think. How often do you take time to think? I would encourage you to take 15 minutes every day to just be quiet and think. No distractions, no phones, no tv, no music, nothing like that. Just think. Take on that biggest problem in your world and think about it. I didn't sleep a wink last night, not one minute, because I was thinking, which created a lot of creativity in me, which led to this being in this today. I wasn't going to put this in today, but I felt a strong responsibility to share with you guys something that I've learned that I've been encouraged to share out there. Because if I'm not curious, it tends to be that I don't care. Curiosity is the meaning of care. I'm curious about each one of you and what drives you and pushes you. Because we're going to talk about some of that today and what I'm actually here to talk about. Because if I can understand that, I can help you get there. But if I don't know what that is, I can't. Curiosity also leads me to solutions. Whenever there's a problem, there's an instance out there that's holding me back. Something I tend to look at the world as like, hey, what's the biggest problem out there right now? One of the biggest problems I see in our industry is a lack of true skilled leadership. I get 20 phone calls a Week I'm looking for a sales manager. What an opportunity that creates for you. Everybody's sitting in this room, but if you just put the effort into learning the skills, to being a good leader, you could level up and find a little more prosperity in your life. And so I look for those places of opportunity, and it's something I'm going to do, is I'm going to start to mentor young leaders in this industry and start to help them grow. That's why I couldn't sleep last night. That little symbol that you see up there, if you see this little brain with the paint on it, that's called brain ink, think of it as a tattoo on your brain. That's probably something to maybe write down and think about a little bit. And if you want to make it something that sticks with you, test yourself. A week from now, can you remember these seven things? Because whenever I'm feeling that something's missing, I now know where to go. I can look at these seven things and go, hey, where is it? At that event, when I was at John Maxwell, I was missing belonging to a community. Yeah, I'm in this industry, but whenever I walk into a room, people tend to ask me questions, a lot of them, and I'm more than willing to give them. But it's not very often when I get to walk into a room and ask a bunch of questions and get poured into myself, and I need to be in those places and belong to those type of communities. And so when they asked, what are some of the struggles you're dealing with as a coach? I raised my hand and I said, well, to be honest with you, I don't have a lot of friends. I have a lot of people that want to ask me questions, but I don't have a lot of friends. And what I meant by that, because I don't have somebody I can sit on the back porch with, have a beer and just talk about family, talk about barbecue, talk about golf. Everybody lives so far away. And a guy stood up and he goes, hey, I'll be your friend. I've been meeting with him every Friday online, because the reason I did that is there's a protocol to these seven things that when I'm feeling that I'm missing something in one of them, I know exactly what to do. And that's when I'm going to start sharing over and over and over again. Because I think if everybody knew that protocol, they'd feel a little bit more prosperous. So that's where all this comes from.