This Sales Routine Made Me $50,000 in 3 Months ft. Brian Covey | Ep29

people that maybe have all the talent in the world, but they typically will get comfortable. We call it being seduced by success.

Yeah.

Yeah. Coachable people will have more periods of consistency cuz they recognize yesterday is not promised tomorrow. Last month isn't promised in 2 months. And they know what they're experiencing today is actually the last 60 and 90 days of work.

All right. What's up y'all? John Wetmore here with Brian Covey. I'm excited to connect, dude. Uh, cool business guy. Personal branding, former athlete, speaker, author, podcast guy. And I don't even know how we got connected on social, to be honest. But I'm excited to chat, man. Been following you for a while and like what you're doing out there, so appreciate you connecting with me for a little while. I know you got a lot going on here at Impact Effect. You're in Nashville, I mean, your town. Oh yeah, appreciate you connecting, dude. Um, would love to know I guess for those that don't know, you know, I mean, just, you know, you've done this a million times, a little background. I know professional soccer into, was it straight into mortgage? I know you run a massive mortgage team leading a bunch of people now.

Yeah.

Uh, but was, was it, was the journey straight from pros to leading people or what?

I wish I could tell you it was like this perfect linear path, right? For most people, they can probably look back and realize that they didn't get to where they are sometimes intentionally, right? It was like all the signs that were there. And my, mine started, I grew up in Memphis and my dad was a pastor. And psychologist. My mom worked at the city of Memphis for almost 30 years till she retired. Older brother's a police officer, 5 years older, and I was always chasing him and his older friends, right? And I was always the younger kid in the neighborhood playing, like trying to compete, trying to keep up. And it was one of those where I go, okay, how do I make sure I can compete with them and still play out in the streets, right? Because that's what we used to do.

Yeah.

And there was no curfew there. And that competitiveness is what drove me through soccer. And soccer kept me out of a lot of trouble in Memphis. I'll just say my friends that went certain directions You can't really get in a lot of trouble and still show up and compete at the level that I wanted to. And so getting a D1 scholarship was my pathway that ironically stayed in Memphis. I thought I was going to UConn. I looked at some other schools, but I had other plans. And so I stayed at Memphis and I was able to start, played 4 years and played professional, which was my dream. After that though, I could not get a job. I hadn't finished college. I came back and finished because I promised my parents I would do it. Came back, went to a job fair. And I remember Wells Fargo Financial, like consumer finance, right? Oh yeah. Finance furniture for anybody that doesn't know, like Super sexy. Yeah, you know, 0%, no payments for 4 years. And I remember they said, we hire athletes, we coach you, we train you, we teach you, we pay commission, and if you work hard, you'll make a lot of money. I'm like, sign me up, because no one else would hire me. I was still coaching to make money and make ends meet, and I thought, well, if somebody's gonna pay me and they're gonna train me, yeah, I'm in.

Nice. I love it. I was in Memphis last week for an event speaking And we walked around downtown when it was dark. Yeah, I was like, oh, Memphis don't— this is different. I grew up in the projects, but I was like, this is different down here.

The 901, people that are from there, we know, like, you know where to go and not to go. And you grow up, you learn some street smarts pretty quick. I love it.

Crazy. So you played how long, you said? Did you say how long did you play? Yeah, professionally.

Oh, just 2 years.

2 years?

Yeah.

Injury or what?

No, came back, finished my degree, and actually met my now wife.

You're just like, I'm done.

It's like, that was it. It was one of those, I had this experience of you get there and it's not what you thought, which by the way, back then the average salary for people that were not playing in the MLS and stars and all that stuff, there was a USL, A-League, you're making around $15,000 to $18,000 a year. Get out. Yeah. Now you've got an apartment you're sharing with everybody. It is not what you think of today. And so it was not that at all. And I realized I could make more money coaching. Really didn't fulfill what I thought it would. I thought, I'm going to get there, I'm going to do that, feel something. That was it. And so I realized I was either going to stick with it, which was the option of play for the next 5 to 10 years, get my shot, just ride it out long enough.

Yeah.

And I said, well, I always had this business urge. I had a teacher in high school, Warren Buffett, like, yeah, talked about Buffett all the time. And I'm like, well, I love that, I love investing. And I thought I would go there. And my friend's parents that drove the BMW or Mercedes and wore the suit, I could always see myself doing that. And so I said, well, I'm going to go try to get those jobs. No one would hire me. No experience. And so that was really my transition out is it wasn't really what I had dreamed it would be. And so I decided I can either wait or I'm going to go create a career. And I didn't know what I would do, but I found it.

Yeah. How quick, like, did you ever have the career that was like, I got in, I thought it was gonna be this and it wasn't what I thought. And I had to shift.

Well, the financial side of Wells Fargo, like financing furniture was, was not glorious at all. Imagine the strip center with a Chinese buffet, a pizza buffet, and your manager takes you there. Like that's where your training is, right? Like, We're going to go to the buffet today. And I'm like, as an athlete thinking, I've not put this stuff in my body in years. This is going to be horrible. So one, you're not eating well, you're making cold calls all day. And I got to a point where I said, you know, I think I can do more. And the other side of the company was the bank or the mortgage side. And my friend that was in mortgage, Nicole and I were buying our first house. I remember I'm going, if he can do that, I can do that. He's not working a lot of hours. And I'm seeing him on the golf course. And I remember thinking, You know, when you see people doing something, you go, okay, the barrier of entry is not there. I can do that. I'm going to learn it. So I shifted 100% over to mortgage, all commission. And I remember telling Nicole, I go, honey, I'm going to leave the job with the salary and the commit— like, I've been doing well for a year and a half. I'm going all in on this. I believe I can do it. I got offered a whopping $2,000 a month for 2 months. Big money, right? And they said, okay, after that you're on 100% commissions. You Here's your laptop. Here's the guidelines. FHA, VA, conventional, go for it.

What year was this?

This was 2002.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So it got good.

I had a little run.

There was a little run with the refinances. People know that, that season we had a nice little run, and I used it and took my cold call experience, and I would work late. We would have leads coming in from the bank, and I would just pound the phone. First person that would pick up the phone got the lead. So the phones would ring through the office. Imagine that. Almost like they were inbound. They were inbound.

Got it.

And so I'm out still making cold calls on the weekend trying that, but I'm realizing these refinances are easier, faster, and at that time didn't pay much less. And I knew if I could answer the phone quickly, I could convert.

Crazy. Yeah, dig it, dig it. Do you want to get effing paid? Attend the 2-day workshop I got coming up October 23rd, 24th. 2 tiers of tickets. Regular entry gives you a day and a half access to the event. VIP access is a private mastermind networking event at my house. The evening of the 23rd. I'm gonna be going over everything in terms of sales, agency building, team building, scaling, systems, automations, everything we've done over the last 12+ years building not only this company, real estate, I've done some mortgage stuff, um, and gonna be helping people get paid. Dates are October 23rd, 24th in Atlanta, Georgia. Click on the link below and see that. So when you say pounding the— for those that, I mean, we're in the same, we do the same thing basically. Yeah. Right. And you get some sales guys How many people do you manage now, roughly?

Um, wow. Our sales team's a little bit over 250, 300.

Yeah. That's a lot of people.

Yeah. It's a lot of people.

So what do you, what happens when you get that guy's like, I pounded the phones and I got beat up today, but they, their version of pound the phones is different than your version.

Yeah.

How do you, how do you, how do you bridge that gap given it worked for you? You did it your version. How do you, how do you relay that?

I think one is the, I use questions over statements.

Okay.

Ask better questions versus our tendency is I wanna tell them how to do it. Here's how I did it. They don't care. And so ask them, so you said you pounded the phones today, tell me about that. What was the win? I like, as a coach, start with the win.

I like that.

What did you do well today? What was the win you had? 'Cause if they can start there, they will open up to you later. You know you're gonna ask. After they share the win, it's, hey, what was something maybe you struggled with today? Like somebody probably said no, or you dealt with something maybe Didn't go your way.

Yeah.

What was that? And they'll start to open up and then you can ask them better questions of, okay, what could you have done differently? Or how could we approach that next time you have that? How do we do that? So we can convert them, right? Get people to think and solve their problem. But I always say questions over statements like that, because as a manager, our thing is we want to tell them what to do, how to do it, how we did it. And they will not respond to that as well as just asking the questions.

Yeah.

Let them lead themselves to the answer. And then I always ask them is, was that your best?

That's good one.

And just pause.

Most people probably say no.

Like, no. And I said, yeah, what could have been better? How will you show up differently tomorrow so that tomorrow can be your best?

I like that.

Just leave them with that.

Yeah.

Look, you're not gonna change somebody from today to tomorrow, but if you ask those questions over and over and over, one, they know you care. 2, you're actually going to help them get better performance.

Yeah.

And when they start making the money, then they can tie that back to, you know what, John cares about me.

Yeah.

Brian cares about— he asked the right question. He got me to take action.

How long did it take you to develop that? Did you mess it up a bunch early?

Tons. I mean, I remember in our office, if you can imagine, we're in a strip center and we're open cubicles, right? And so you can imagine your manager listening to all your calls. There are typically 3 of us that were on the sales team in that one office. And they would listen to your calls and immediately afterwards critique it and break it down for you. But what I told her is the amount of reps you got listening to people when you were struggling, you would go sit with someone that was doing well. How do I go sit? Okay. If John's a top producer, we would go sit and literally just listen to what you said. I would start writing down things that I struggled with. Well, I need to convert here. I need to say this differently. I need to ask this question. And so that's where I learned the skill of almost like an athlete. And I would tell them, give them permission, coach me, because I do want to win. And we had contests all the time, right? And so that was, that was the driver for me, is I want to win.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Crazy.

What was the struggle time in sales, or what, how long did you like, did that last long struggling to figure it out, or did you figure it out pretty quick? Or—

so the piece at Wells Fargo Financial is really hard because I knew nothing. And teaching you credit, income, assets, and all the things, I I remember being the kid that would just go over there like, ask the question, ask the question. Like, I don't understand this. And I'm like, I'm screwing this up. And you know, you make the mistake. I'll never forget when I transferred over to the mortgage side and one of my biggest mistakes I made, brand new realtor, top realtor in the city. Now no one tells me that he's churning and burning loan officers for a reason.

Yeah.

And I think I've hit the jackpot, right?

Because he's sending me a deal.

I've called him, I've gone to his open houses.

You got a whale.

And I'll never forget. And he Sends me his first deal and I go in there, I'm competing on rate, right? And I ended up making a pretty big error and I dropped the price so much that I'm not even allowed to quote this, right? Like it's not even on the rate sheet. And I get done and I was a junior loan officer at the time. And my mentor looks over and he's like, I don't even know what you just told him, but you can't do that. And I'm like, well, I've told him I'm going to do it. Like, how do we fix this? I'll never forget the way he was patient with me. And he goes, here's what we're going to do. We're gonna call the agent and let them know that you screwed up, but that you're gonna honor it. And he goes, you're not gonna get any commission on this deal. We're gonna figure that out, but you can't get paid. And I remember realizing, one, there's consequences to what you do, but two, the way he responded and didn't make me feel bad, didn't make me feel stupid. And he said, you've made a mistake, but here's how we're gonna fix it. And you know, not getting paid, but still having to work the deal. And they also told me something that would come really important later, which was, you need to decide who you want to work with and who you want to be in the business. Because if you're going to be the lowest cost provider, you're going to be getting beat up, compete, and you're not going to win every deal. You're going to have to continue to do this. Is that what you want to do, or do you want to build relationships? And that to me was an eye-opening of like, well, I just need deals. I need deals. And it was a moment where I go, okay, Donald— and Donald's my mentor— he goes, you need to start figuring out who you want to be and who you want to work with, because if not you're gonna be chasing deals and people are gonna leave you for the next lower rate and it's not gonna be good.

So would you decide who'd you want to be?

So I wanted to be the producer that went out on the weekends. And what I decided to do, call in the really expensive neighborhoods, because the deal is like, the bigger the loan, the more you get paid. Simple math for me is like $50,000 loan, $500,000 loan. And I said, if I go out there and build relationships in nicer communities and places that I want to be, those agents are going to see me working, they're going to see my hustle. Second part was I realized right in front of me was an opportunity I'd overlooked. My friends. I bought my first house. Who can I help the best? My friends and people that were in their 20s going, I'm buying my first home. So how do I go serve them versus trying to go after this market that reality is the 40, 50, 60-year-olds probably not looking at this 20-some-year-old kid going, you're gonna do my mortgage? And so I immediately went to my networking groups of like in our church and places and said, hey, if you're looking to buy a home, I will help you. I'll pull your credit and I'll counsel you for free. Right. We started doing the Dave Ramsey stuff, financial peace. And I started to really build a business. Who do I want to be? I wanted to help educate people that were going through what I just went through and help them. And if they happen to get a loan, fantastic. But also said I would outwork and outmaneuver everyone, which meant all the marketing, all the new CRM stuff that was rolling. I then became the person that taught at the branch sales meetings, and I was the one that was an early adopter. Like, I'm just going to try it, I got nothing else to lose. And so I became that person of known for, well, if it's, if it's in the marketing space, Brian's going to know what to do with it. And I started to teach.

Yeah, crazy. It's like, uh, a mentor of mine taught me leadership is taken, not given.

Amen.

And it's like, you took it.

Yeah.

And other people sit back on the sidelines like, I'm just gonna—

everybody had the opportunity.

Yeah. Crazy. It's not hard to outwork people. Yeah, it makes it easy. What was the breakthrough? What changed when you were like, damn, I can do this, I'm making money, I'm supporting my family the way I want to? Was there a thing, or did it—

so I realized after producing for several years that that was actually not what I wanted to do for the long run. Yeah, I'm a coach at heart. I played team sports, and I knew I wanted to be a coach. And I recognized the things that I was willing to do, I could teach other people. Yeah, but I need to recognize in them what was different. Because if I want to do it my way, I tried that, and everybody was not wired like me. I'm like, do it this way, do it this way, and they're like, no. So as I started to shift into leadership, it was really a recreation. I had to recreate myself of how do I do it. And a lot of people look at that and go, I want to be a leader, because they think they're going to get the title and the money. That was very quickly, uh, no. You're going to make more if you're a great producer. You're also going to have a lot more headaches in leadership, because I realized I was starting over. I was a beginner again. And that was painful. And so my breakthrough was realizing to become a leader, I was starting over and I need to now surround myself with leaders. Uh oh.

It's all good.

It's all good. We keep rolling. Life is real.

The guys, I think Moore's gonna fall here in a second. Yeah, it might.

It might. You all right, bro?

You good? Okay.

So just like that, deal with the adversity, things that come through and like anything that happened. Become a great problem solver as a leader. And what I realized is people would pay me to help solve their problems, but I had done the thing they wanted to do.

Yeah.

And every level I've realized I have to do it and learn it. So I've sought out mentors. That was my big thing is just like athletes.

Yeah.

Go find a coach or mentor. It'll accelerate the growth.

Which you're around a ton of big name speakers, share the stages a lot.

Now.

Yeah. Yeah. Obviously the intentionality behind that's been insane. Is it, how long you been doing that? that's been, this has been—

7, 8 years of grinding on my personal brand and figuring out what's there. And I say grinding because the sense of like, there was a large part, I was just hustling. And then I realized I need to move into more of the CEO mindset. And that's what shifted is when I started to think and behave like a CEO, that I run a business and it is actually a brand. Then I got in rooms with people that were thinking that way. The hustler piece we think is going to get us so far and you'll get around other hustlers. But the reality is the big players that you might want to be around, that I want to be around, They have a CEO mindset and it is very different. They are thinking about developing leaders that develop other leaders and scaling companies and people versus the hustler will only get so far and you hear the burnout and you hear the grind. It's because they've not yet shifted into a mindset where they believe they can be a CEO and have people on their team doing the things that they once did as well, if not better than what they did. Yeah.

How do you, how do you go about like finding, maybe identifying, developing other leaders? You know, that's a— we do relatively the same thing there, and I've had to get a lot of help because I messed this stuff up so bad early on. I mean, I was trying to like beat people over the head to drag them to success and stuff. There's some tips you can give people for like who to work with, how to go about that.

So the one thing I would share is like sports, yeah, coachability. I would take coachability over talent and even grit. And here's why. The person that's got the grit, they're the hustler. They're willing to do it, but they're probably going to do it at any and all cost to get where they are. And they're typically not loyal. They're going to grind and grind and grind, and they probably will not stay with you because they won't appreciate the coaching and mentorship. The other side of that is you got people that maybe have all the talent in the world, but they typically will get comfortable. We call it being seduced by success, right? They have this great month in insurance or mortgage, and they go, I had the biggest commission ever. They get comfortable. Coachable people will have more periods of consistency because they recognize yesterday is not promised tomorrow, last month isn't promised in 2 months, and they know what they're experiencing today is actually the last 60 and 90 days of work. So give me a coachable athlete and someone has a strong mindset. I'd also like to see when you're going through that process, what have they overcome in their life? I want to know from them, what is your story and what drives you? Because Then if I know your story, I can start to pull that in and say, hey John, you know what you told me when we met, this was something you shared with me. Are you still really excited that vacation with you and your wife and you wanna buy that house and you wanna get the boat or whatever it is. May not even be materialistic. It may be you wanna grow your team, you wanna grow your income to this. If I understand why you're doing it, I can help you get there and I can actually apply the right pressure to then allow you to be successful.

What's the hardest part of leading people for you? Like, what do you struggle with the most?

Impatience.

Clarify.

So I want people to see, believe, and act now, quickly.

Yep. Yep.

And what I've realized is some people are on a journey that they really need to experience that on their own timeline, and it might take them 60 to 90 days, 6 months to actually have their own breakthrough. Yeah. It is their journey, much like kids. What I'm realizing with our 3 kids is, yeah, yeah, they're on a different journey. and I may want them to accelerate that and get there, and I may actually know how to get them there, but until they have bought in to me helping them in their own kind of journey, it won't happen the same way, and they have to own it and believe it and act accordingly and become that person, because it's very much like you can teach them to do it, but what happens when you're not around? When I'm not around? They need to be able to do it there. That's why I say the coachable team member is the best one because you can coach them to a level that they'll be remembering why they do it and understand success on their terms.

Yeah, yeah. I like the— mine is, I have two things: be coachable and do the things you say you're gonna do. Yeah, I mean, which is kind of intertwined naturally. I mean, so if they're— if you struggle with the impatience and they're a slower mover How do you, how do you balance that without them feeling your impatience or maybe pull away for some, you know what I mean? Like, how do you know when to call a wrap? Like you can't coach them anymore. Like how do you, how do you reconcile that? I used to struggle tough with, I mean, still sometimes I do, to be honest.

This is a tough one. Um, one of my coaches gives me this all the time is when someone shares their goal with you, right? And they tell you, okay, hey John, you know, I want to do this in this amount of time.

Yeah.

One of the questions always ask me is, are you protecting yourself? And what he means by that is, are you setting that goal so long that, you know this, if you give yourself enough time, studies will show and statistically, you'll take all the time. If I say it takes me 6 weeks, I will take all 6 weeks to complete it. And so when I ask someone, are you protecting yourself? What if, and what would have to happen for you, that goal in 90 days, what if we said we wanna do that in 10 days? What would have to happen? And are you protecting yourself? Is it possible? And usually they, well, no, no, I can't do it. Well, tell me more, like, why?

Yeah, yeah.

And get them to start unpackaging and go, well, I'd have to do this and I'd have to do that. Okay, is there anything else we need to do? And then you're leading them down a path to say, well, I'd have to do this and I'd have to do that. How long would that take? Who do we need to hire to do that? Is that you, or do we need to hire— do we have the resources to do it? You want to get them to come up with a solution and then tell you, well, yeah, you know, I could do it faster. Maybe it's not my 10 days, but they've told you 60 days or 6 months, whatever. What you want to do is find something that they commit to, and they say, you know what, hey John, I think I can do that in 30 days. Like, cool, let's go do that.

It's challenging their thought process. That's it.

Limiting beliefs.

Yeah, I find a lot of people when I if that— their answer will be, um, it felt realistic. And I always find it funny when people like, what does define realistic? Yeah, you know, so I've struggled with that, is pushing people. And I struggled with if they didn't do it right away, cutting them off incorrectly. Yeah, I mean, and like making them feel bad. I don't like how the feeling I left. That's right, you know. Um, so it's— I like, I like the style. It's like, you know, you're impatient Recognize it. Yeah, 100%.

You may even let them know that. I'll tell you, I've used that in some calls.

Yeah, yeah.

And coaching of, you know, I'm impatient, you know, I want it done tomorrow, and you do too, but you know, we've got different levels of that. So I want to help you get there faster than you think you can. So we're going to have a conversation, put it out there, how we— yeah, so you may just put it out there. And when you own it and claim it, they're like, cool, John just admitted he's impatient. So when he comes at me, like, I get it. So what you're trying to do is just move the them a little faster than they were comfortable. It's just like an athlete, right? The coach challenges you, and you think about when the first, you know, 4-minute mile was done, 5-minute mile, way back. And you go, until that time was challenged and someone said this can be possible, no one ever did it. Then it was done, and you had people doing it. We got to challenge the thought process.

How do you find some— like, obviously, being an athlete, you can reference that a lot, identify those people, people that don't have that same instinctive competitiveness competitiveness. Yeah, how do you, how do you navigate working with those, that type?

So I want to know what they are competitive in.

Find something.

Yeah, find what makes them tick. Yeah, you know, why did they take the job, especially in sales? Yeah, you know, why did you take a job that, you know, there's going to have stack rankings and you're paid based on your performance and all those things? Like, tell me about, you know, what, what really drives you in that. Yeah, and understand, oh, I want to do this, or I want to accomplish that, and understand what their psychology is. I think that's what we miss, is understand what's there and then uncover. And I'll even put that into them, go, you know what, you're a lot more competitive than you told me you were, right? Get them to go, yeah. It's like your kid. I think about this, my 9-year-old's the best example. He'll come back and he's like, Dad, you know, I'm really strong. And I go, yeah, and you're also really fast. You know, I saw you moving, you're agile. You tell them that enough and they go, yeah, yeah, I am. They sit up a little bit different. And so I would start to engrain that and say, you're more competitive. You know what, you did that a lot faster than I thought you would do. You should be proud of that. And you start to build their confidence. So the next time you say, you know, you did that last week, John, 6 months ago you were able to accomplish this in a shorter time frame. Remember when we did that? Remember when you did that? And you remind them of success and they go, yeah, cool. That's what we're going to do now. We're going to tap into that. What did you use? What drove you through that? And a lot of people will tell you, they go, Well, I was thinking about this, or I had a vacation coming, I need to make my bills, or I needed to do whatever, I just want to win the contest. If that's something going on, find out what got them there before, and a lot of times that's their competitive edge that you just need to tap back into.

Everyone has it, just goes dormant. Yeah, find the thing. I like it. I wanna know more about the personal branding side of— for you, it seems like you're really intentional, you share a lot, you see your family stuff, your workout stuff. So I started— is it CrossFit officially, or what is it?

That's Iron Tribe-ish. It's ish.

I started doing CrossFit recently. Like, I did it 15 years ago.

Yeah.

And then I thought I was too old, so I'm like, I can't get back into that. And I, I was doing like an Orange Theory.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've done that for like 5, 6 years, and I just felt a plateau.

Yeah.

I like doing hard things, and I'm like, yep. I— so I got into CrossFit like maybe like 3 months ago, and then I started noticing you're sharing stuff. You're killing it in that world. I'm like, damn, I got work to do.

We all do.

Um, but it seems like you're, you're working on— you said acting as a CEO of yourself. Yeah. Um, one, kind of what's the goal with that and how— this is truly just a selfish question. I'm trying to get better at that piece. Yeah. I didn't do that during the build. I didn't share anything. I had nothing on social. I didn't see what I now see.

Yeah.

You know, I'm trying to get better at this. I would love just some advice, man, on what you're doing there and what your goals are with it.

I'll break it all down. So here's what I learned years go is document over create. I got stuck and I got to create the content, I got to create the thing. That's it, like create, create. I'm going, yeah, you know what, I think people are more fascinated and more curious and actually more interested in you document your journey.

Yeah.

And so this year I've been very intentional. I'll share with everybody, I had a goal and I'd worked with my coach on— I was at 15.5% body fat and I was complacent. Yeah, be real. Like, that's a good number. Like, it, it, it checks the box.

You're in really good shape.

You're in good shape, you know, statistically and all that. And I looked at myself and I thought, you know what, I can get in better shape.

Yeah.

And I can say this now as I protected myself on the goal I set was I want to be below 12% by July 4th. Okay. So it's 3.5%. People are like, that's a big number. I know I protected myself because what I'm about to share with you was like one of the biggest breakthroughs I've had in the past decade or two in my health. Is I got that July 4th, and right before I went, I did an InBody, and I was 11 and a half. So I beat the goal. I know what it took me to get there. I set a time of 7 months. I could have gotten there sooner had you said that was June. I know now I've done it. I could have done it sooner. So number one, I know I gave myself permission to extend that time frame.

Yep.

After that, I got done, and my daughter made a pretty interesting comment. She said, Ted, when's the last time you were like single digit? Do you think you could get down in the single digits? Well, competitive Brian goes, I mean, I was probably 24. I, and my limiting beliefs were immediately, well, I don't know if I can get there. I'm 47, you know, about to be 47 at that time in August. I'm going, yeah, I don't even know if I can get there. And I said, you know what, I am going to go all out for the next 60 days and see what happens.

Okay. —so that you're in the middle of that now, then in the middle.

And I will tell you, I'm on the other side of some of this. I got there by the end of August and it already dropped another percent and a half, which, you know, is the lower you go, the harder it gets. And I started to realize, I'm going, hold on, I went from 11.5 to 9.5 was the last that I was at, so 2%. And what I also realized was I was able to do that 2% in less than 60 days, and it took me 6+ months, 7 months almost, to get to the other 3.5. What I did is I unlocked a code for me, which was I now know what I need to do with my workouts. I've dialed that in. The nutrition, what I unlocked was I am very much an emotional eater. Okay, this will probably hurt some people's feelings, but majority of us are emotionally eating. And when I started to realize that was my crux, I started to replace it with things like the Ninja Creami, and I started to realize I need better meats, and I started to prepare my protein shakes. Guess what happened to my family?

It trickled out. It trickled over.

My son now is eating bananas and he's trying pineapple, and we've got healthier foods. And you're going, this is now— as a leader, we have to show up and do it. Our kids don't care what we say. These leadership lessons, they're caught They're not taught. I can tell them to do these things, and I share all that with people to say I'm in the middle of the journey, and so I know exactly what it feels like. But for me to teach and coach and serve other people, I had to go through this again. The Brian that was at 15.5% that was very comfortable can't help the person that wants to break through.

Man, I like that. Challenging me. We're same age. Yeah, we look— I don't know what you— height and weight, we're similar.

180 now.

What? Damn, where'd you start at?

Yeah, I got to 195 in about February, and it was like my wife— I'll never forget this too, I gotta share because people, if you want to know the truth, real conversation— she looks at me and we're sitting in a restaurant, she's like, your face is different. And I'm like, you can say it. She goes, it's not a good different. And I was like, so, so I'm, I'm fat. You can say— I was like, I mean, I was a teenager, like first two kids. I, I know when I'm not healthy. I'm the first one that knows. She's like, well, yeah, you know, your face is just different. I go, that was a pretty big trigger for me where I said, okay, I'm gonna figure it out. And now I want to find out what's possible. And the last people to share with people is surround yourself with people who are on that journey, both directions. I have people that are further in the journey. I met a guy at Impact, um, or no, at Atlas, because we're at Impact now, that is 6, 7% body. He's done bodybuilding, all these things. He's sharing with— how do I do this? How do I do this? And I'm asking him questions. Find people that are further along in the journey and also go back and serve all the people that are in that space that I was in. Yeah, when you do both of those, that's, that's where fulfillment comes in. I love it.

Damn, I'm 6'1", like 225. I'm in good shape, but I could definitely be better.

We all can. When I look back at the pictures, if I were to show you, you would to see it and go, okay, very different. But just takes a decision.

Yeah, true with everything. That's it. What else, um, personal branding advice can you give me?

So we talked about document versus create, and what I realized is me sharing even that health journey is going to build people into my community that want to know, oh yeah, okay, I got you, you do mortgages. They will now start to ask me questions. I can't tell you how many people have joined our team that have said, you know what, you inspired me and motivated me. I want to be part of your team because of that. Now, I don't know that I'm the best person in the mortgage space to teach them, train them, coach them on all that. But what they do know is if you're around me, I'm going to help level up your standards and I'm going to help you in all the areas. So think about your brand as who can you serve, who have you been in the past. And Rory Vaden— give him credit for this— he shares this quote that's always stuck with me, is you're most uniquely qualified to serve the person you once were. And I think about that all the time. It's like, well, the Brian that struggled with that, the Brian that struggled moving into leadership, the Brian that struggled, you know, learning how to budget and then invest in other areas. And like, once you're successful, like, what do you do then? Yeah. And then put your family first. I can now walk alongside them because I've been through the journey and I've been in the valleys, and I can show that, hey, here, here's what helped me through that. That's who becomes— that's your brand, right? I think about This is another one I'll give Rory credit for is your brand is about other people. It's not about you. I'm showing up to help the former versions of me. Yeah, that's it. Sick. And by not sharing my story and my struggles and my successes and wins, I am not showing up as my best self to help someone else. Yeah. That needs me today. And they don't need another fake guru influencer BS that's out there. They need a real dude that can sit down with and go, I can relate to you. And no, by the way, check the receipts. It's like, I don't need to go BS and do all that. I'm me. I'm winning in some areas and I'm struggling in some areas. Yeah. But you're gonna, you're gonna get that. Yeah. And I'm gonna help you through whatever I can help you through. It's relatable.

It's just all get out too. Love it. What's next, man? What are you, what are you chasing? Ooh.

So I'll tell you, I'm not chasing anything anymore. Really? I learned to shift that. Hell yeah. Okay. Yeah. Talk to me. I wanna hear that. I'm attracting things in that I really believe are called. So sick. That God's called for me to do. And so like launching our coaching, I've done that over the last couple years and I've kept it quiet. And I look at the people where they are and go, wow. And they tell me the feedback. Yeah, you need to do this, you need to do this. And so realizing that running a mortgage company, being a dad of 3, all these things, I still have this calling that I need to go back and serve people. And so I'm working through that for me is how do I serve people in a community? I don't even know what it looks like today, but we launched it before we're ready. Like, we're launching it January 15th, the first call. I launched it. We have the landing page, we're pushing the marketing. No, we're coming up. So you just started it? I've been coaching people quietly. Yeah. Now we're gonna start to market it and actually build out— I want to talk to you— Competitive Edge Coaching. And I'm learning so much because now this is not something I've done. Yeah. I've not scaled it. And so now I'm asking questions and I'm learning and going through it. And the stage helps, the brand helps. Oh yeah. All of it I now see is 100% inter— kind of congruent, and it's integrated, and so it makes sense.

Dude, I want to talk to you more about that offline for sure, because I, I didn't— I never wanted to do it. Like, I don't want to do that, but I hate all the people that do it and they make the money doing it, not making— they never made the money doing the thing.

Correct.

It drives me mad. And I've had a lot of people start reaching out. Certainly what I'm doing, speaking and all the stuff, has helped. I'm kind of doing it, you know, and it's, it's turned into the same thing, like by request. And I'm like, I guess I'll start a program. So we just launched something a few weeks, like a month ago. Nice. Just, I'm like, put it out. Yeah. My team's like, I guess we got to build a website. I guess we got— how much do we charge? I'm like, I don't know, let's figure it out. And dude, you put— it's wild, dude. So we're— I'm on a very similar journey. I didn't realize you were— that's awesome. We're there. Yes. I would love to figure some of this stuff out with you. Um, I guess end with anything you wanna add, anything you find important to help people get to that next level. Anything we didn't cover that you think would be important. Yeah. Just do you, bro. Just, just wrap it up.

So what I've been learning this year, I always think back cuz I can go back years ago, but what I've been learning this year is, is, is we are the ones that put the limits on ourselves. Yeah. And that's somewhat cliché, but, but I, I wanna go a little bit deeper of as you're writing out at this point, whenever this is released, you're probably thinking about 2025. And a lot of people are limiting themselves on what they can actually do the remainder of '24. And I had this awakening the other day of what do I want to accomplish in my faith, my family, my fitness, my finances? I still have time in '24 to go out and create exceptional results.

Yeah.

And a lot of people are thinking, well, when I get to this, when I do that, and it's this whole thing of you're limiting yourself now of competing every day. Yeah. And if you compete every day and you show up and you actually compete that day versus participate, watch how your life change and you start to raise the bar. And now I'm going, well, if I could do that in my fitness, what can I do in my finances? If I can do that there, what can I do in my family? If I can do that there, what can I do in my coaching program? Yeah. And then the last piece I would share is you're never gonna get there alone. The amount I've looked back and the receipts of how much I've invested, I've paid to be in rooms, I've paid to get proximity to people. I paid to be part of masterminds. You know what's cool about that is I look back and not one of them do I regret. That's awesome. Because every one of them was one relationship, one conversation, got me on a stage, got me somewhere. And for the person that's listening to this going, I'm afraid to invest in whatever the next thing is, I came up with a formula which is really sustained growth is around 10% or more of what you earn needs to be invested back in your development and in your brand and yourself. When I started to do the math, 'cause I like to reverse engineer stuff, I just think, it just makes sense to me. I go back and go, well, when I grew, what did I spend? What was I doing? And I can literally roadmap it and go, this is the blueprint now. And my best periods, my like maximum growth, it was around 20% I was spending of my gross earnings, by the way, not net. Just to clarify for people. So when your pastor says, you know, 10% of gross. Yeah. Yeah. It was 20%. And I went out on a limb so many times that I can look back and go, that was the breakthrough I needed. And so if you're listening going, I'm afraid to do it. I don't think I can afford it. My first big one, I put on my credit card for $10,000 and I didn't have the money. Yeah. But that one catalyst over 7 years ago was literally a defining moment where I go, even my wife knows this. She's like, yeah, yeah. You went to like business bootcamp with these married men, entrepreneurs and all that. And she goes, Yeah, you came back, you were different. That's what you're looking for is how do you create this version of yourself? And no one does it for you. No one gives you the exact blueprint 'cause you have to decide who that person looks like. And I wanna look one day, and I know Ed Mylett shares this, I wanna look up one day in the end and go, I am so freaking close to that person that God designed me to be that it's like we're the mirror image and I competed and it wasn't all perfect, but I competed and I made the impact that I always dreamed of. So I said, you gotta compete every day. Don't limit yourself and go out there and think bigger 'cause the world needs more world changers. I love it, dude.

I love it. Share where they can get you, all the stuff, please. We wanna put you out there as much as we can.

Follow Instagram, @thebryancovey 'cause someone had Bryan Covey years ago. And then our website, bryancovey.com. That's an easy spot. You got the book, you got the podcast, you got, yeah, we put out a free newsletter every week that's really taken off on LinkedIn, which is awesome. And hit me up. I respond to my own DMs and all the stuff there. And then our coaching program, Competitive Edge, it's now launched there as well.

Y'all wouldn't be here if you didn't respond to that DM. I know, right? We, yeah. I don't, again, I don't know how we got started, but that's how I got here, which is cool.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Cuz you started commenting on my stuff. I followed you. I don't know how you started. Homing strategy. That's right. Yeah, so I would love to talk more about it. Prospect. That's how I build relationships. Yeah, I can see you doing it. Yeah, I'm watching it. I'm like, ah, I see, I see this is working. Yeah, so I love it, dude. Appreciate you sharing. Thanks for chatting. Okay, thanks. Look forward to getting to know you more. See you guys.