Episode 255: Mastering the Skill of Trust with Angus Reid

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Prophet podcast. I am privileged to have somebody that I have followed, that I have watched, that I have studied, and now I know. The unstoppable Mr. Angus Reed. Angus, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Mike. It's an honor to be here.

No, no, I. I'm privileged to have you and having learned so much about you, your journey, who you've become, and, you know, I heard you say the work you've done to become who you are is part of your story, and I want to dive in and learn more about that and everything that you're willing to share. But before we get started, just in case there's somebody out there who doesn't know who Angus Reed is, share just a little bit about who is Angus. Angus Reed.

Sure. Well, from a professional bio background, I'm a former professional football player in the Canadian Football League, the. The Canadian Pro league. I'm a Canadian, born and raised in Vancouver, BC. I played 13 years pro. So anyone that follows football knows that's a long go. I mean, that, that's like four careers for the average pro football player. I played center about. About 90 pounds heavier ago. So that was a childhood dream for me, like it is for a lot of youngsters to play pro sports. And I was able to do it for a very long time, fought all the odds that everybody has, even with the best case scenario to make it. I think my, my thing I'm most proud of is what I've done post career in terms of, you know, you gain a platform. And I've always said, Mike, I'm always impressed with what people do after they gain a platform. I mean, people do what it takes to make it. What do you do then? And I, you know, I'm always proud of the work I've done where I do a lot of speaking around North America, trying to take all the lessons I learned in a highly competitive team sport and help business owners create that culture of excellence in the right way. Not done by fear driven, not done by, you know, old school pressure tactics. But how do you create environments that people can't wait to be there and want to be coached and want to bring their best. So that keeps me very, very busy. I'm a facilitator for a program called Be more Than a Bystander which also helps companies create cultures where their employees feel good about owning their space and supporting each other when bad behavior does exist. Instead of waiting for someone else to deal with the problem. Create ownership and accountability for individuals to make their place great. I've become a bit of a writer. I wrote a book about my, my great coach. Again. What I'm doing is basically spending my life trying to pay forward everything I learned from football. That has nothing to do with football. That has everything to do with, with real stuff, you know, and I, that's my real passion now.

Well, football is just a tool. It's part of life.

Yes. Yeah. And you're using that path, correct, Mike and I, I also coach high school football now and my big mission, I do a lot with, with helping amateur sports coaches and it's, it's that constant reminder. It's just a tool, it's just an outlet. And here we are, you know, coaching high school football. And here's a great reminder to anyone that coaches you sports out there. You might be the last people on the face of this earth that has a 15, 16, 17 year olds undivided attention for two hours. Without social media in their face, without a cell phone on their hands, without their minds and fingers scrolling the Internet. They're actually paying attention to you. I hope you're doing more than just teaching them how to win a game. I hope you're teaching them how to win the real game. The only game that really, really matters. Because if you're not, you're wasting an opportunity that no one else has anymore with these youth undivided attention for two hours. Think about that.

The biggest game.

The biggest game.

And it's not that game. The game.

Oh no, that, that, that's the game to teach you the game.

That's right. That's right. And that's what you're doing. Let's jump back to culture for just a minute. And I didn't say this at the top, but Angus Reed is also a champion athlete, a best selling author, an international speaker and his reference to the book thank you Coach which is available on Amazon and many other outlet outlets out there and Amazon number one bestseller. I just picked it up myself. I can't wait to dive into it. But you chronicle everything you've just been talking about and more in the book. I'M sure. But let's jump back to culture because you're out there in business, pouring back into business everything that you learned through life on the field, in your upbringing, everything else. What, what the heck is going on with culture? What are you seeing? And what are you able to pour back into culture based on what you've learned?

Well, what I, because I was sort of in my own little world for a long, long time in sports. And, and sometimes you don't realize what else is out there when, you know, I did that for, let's call, since I was 16 years old. And I didn't retire until I was 37, so I didn't think I knew anything about anything except football. And then you get out the real world. And again, also, Mike, let's, let's be very clear. I was on a team that won two championships and was in the semifinals for five consecutive years. So I wasn't just playing a competitive sport. I was in an elite culture within a competitive sport that was consistently elite, which is very, very hard to do. High standards business like football. Well, yeah, you know, everybody, you know, everybody's out for themselves trying to up their contract every year. We had high retention ratio under a salary cap league, and we would win consistently. That's not my accident. And I played long enough that I was. My last couple of years, I was trying to look back going, why are we better than everybody? Because everyone's got good players, there's talent everywhere. And I really, really dove deep into the framework our leaders set and the way they did things. And then I got, you know, in the real world, if you will, you started realizing how dysfunctional so many businesses were, even though they were making money, even though they were profitable. The spreadsheet looked good, but the culture inside wasn't healthy. And then when Covid hit, you started, it started exposing, I think, a lot of weak cultures where people didn't feel they were a part of anything. They didn't feel valued, they felt transactional. The second you feel transactional, why not leave for a buck more? Why, why not?

You're a commodity.

You're a commodity. Because unless, and you know, and I, I started dealing with these CEOs and business owners and they started asking me, you know, why are so many people leaving? And I said, well, why should they stay? And don't tell me paying benefits because they get that everywhere. That's not a competitive advantage. What are you doing to make your place different than your competitors? And, and it can't just be paying benefits because that's not special. And that is a never ending game. And that dove into the reality of them asking, well, how do you do these things? And that's when I, when I wrote my book and I really reflected on what were the greatest leaders I had. What did they intentionally do as a human being, not as a, you know, as a contractual requirement. What did they do that separated them from the other ones that made me want to be around them longer? Maybe not want to leave just for a few more bucks that made me want to bring my best. And I, and I spent a year or two, really basically trying to unpack everything I could learn and then, and then bringing it back to a kind of a culture audit via a workshop creation. And I realized very quickly, culture is a universal thing. It's not football. It's not, you know, heavy industry, machinery, industries, it's not sales. It's people together. And how do you create teams where people are excited to bring their best in their roles? And that is a universal trait, and so is leadership. It's understanding how to, how to, how to, how to get people in a place where they aren't willing to do what they, what it takes. They are eager, they're excited. And there is a massive difference between, you know, how many times, Mike, have we heard coaches and leaders say, I want someone willing to do what it takes? Willing until what? Until they got the pay raise, until they made it. I want people eager because they actually love what they do. They're not willing because you're paying them money, or they're willing because they want the raise, because when they get it, they're done. I want people that are eager and what are you doing as a leader? To create that environment where they are fired up to come to work every day. They're fired up to be coached. They're fired up to get better. They really want to.

So based on your unique perspective in life and in business and in championship football, what do you say, the number one strategy or a couple of ideas, at least for that strategy, for an entrepreneur who might be listening or watching this podcast that they can implement in their business or something they might be missing?

I mean, there's so many things, but I think the number one, I mean, I speak a lot of trust, I speak a lot of these other things, but I think the number one thing that you can intentionally do. Here's my question I always ask to business owners, Michael asked you, can you, can you make somebody care? Can you make somebody care?

No.

Can you easily make them not care? Yes.

Easily.

So my question always is, I firmly believe, as a leader, there are things you can do and you need to do to make it very hard for someone not to care. And that's to show them that you care about them. And within that, we unpack an entire folder of actionable items. But if you are not 100% sure, you've ticked these boxes to do everything possible to make sure they know how much you care about them, you're leaving a gap in a window for them to think they're a commodity, to think they're being used to make them money. How can you make sure they know they're valued, they matter, they're appreciated, and you are so grateful that they're here today. And then, you know, at the end of the day, people can choose still not to care. But I've exhausted. You know, it's much harder not to care when you know someone cares about you that much. So you care first. Are you doing it first? And within that, there's a million ways to do it. But do they know you care about them? Do you know for sure? And are you doing it again? And, you know, you don't water your garden once a year. You got to do that again and again and again. That is your job. If you want to be great, you've.

Got to keep watering it all of the time.

Yeah. And, you know, you. And I know culture is. Is a. Is a now thing. Yesterday's culture isn't today. Like, you got to keep doing the things that matter. And I've dealt with business owners say, look, I don't have time to do this. And I was like, well, then you better have time to keep rehiring new people, because this is your role here. Their role is to do their job as best as possible. Your job is to give them every reason to want to do that. And the foundational principle I believed in, if I feel I matter here, that I am valued, that I belong. Listen, we're tribal by nature since, you know, historically, we want to feel a part of something. And that's why I think Covid was hard for people. Working from home sounded like a great idea until human instinct kicked in. It's like, does anyone care about me anymore? Am I on my own in this world? Am I all by myself? That is terrifying for most of us. So what are we doing to make sure they know better? Here, you belong to us. We take care of you. We support you. Most people gives them that base layer to drop, that ba. That underlying insecurity to go, I'm a part of something now. I can bring my best. Because until you do that, there's that baseline fear. I matter here. Am I going to get fired next week? Does anyone care about me? And you'll never bring your best when you come guarded with the, with, with that.

They want to be part of something special, some, Some place that's going somewhere. But not only that, they want a yard stick by which they can be measured. They want to be able to envision their future as part of this something special.

Yeah, I agree. I, I couldn't agree more. Like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not valuable for sitting there, going nowhere. Like, I need to know I matter. I need to know the work I'm doing matters.

Right.

I need, you know, the group I'm with is doing something that matters and heading somewhere. So you're right. It's. It's all about fitting into that piece. And I also think it's important to keep reminding them, not just they matter, but keep reminding them what they're a part of and where's it going. So there's a bigger reason here. You know, we want to always be part of something bigger than ourselves. And I need to know where this is going and my piece that is valued and important so I can keep reminding myself why the work I'm doing is so important, why we're getting better, where we're headed tomorrow will be better than today. And, and, and I, and I, you know, I want to be a part of that purpose.

Back to something you said. You said, you asked me the questions, can you make someone care? No. And I can't remember the second thing you said. However, really the point to touch on that I picked up was, you know, no one cares how much, you know, until they know you care. And you've got to care about them first.

Yeah. And, you know, I always call it my care first philosophy. You know, it's almost like when they say trust first, like, how do you build trust? You need to trust first. How do you get people to care, Care first. Like, you lead with caring. And I'm a very big believer. My brother has been in education for a long time, so he's always warned me too, about don't be a fluffy care. Like, don't rah rah, point to their value, which is great. Great job everyone today. Why? I don't know. I just say that every day because I'm a raw, raw person. It's a bunch of nonsense. And people see through it right. Caring is specific. It's intentional, and it's personal. You have to let somebody know why they matter. Because if you just tell people they're special, like we've done what we've done with our kids a lot of times youthfully, everyone's wonderful, everyone's great. There's no reasons why we're not showing you why. You see through that pretty quickly. And I think it actually heightens the opposite end of thinking you're not. You want to make sure people know that they matter and give specific reasons and showcase that. It's going to do two things, I think, Mike. It's going to, one, give them concrete reasons why they matter. So you're not just a nice guy that says this to people. And two, you pay attention to them. You notice I did that? Yeah, yeah. I am actually paying attention to you. And I see the greatness and I want to make sure you see it. So know, I don't want a coach says I'm doing great without telling me why, because I just think they say that and they're a rah, rah, happy guy. I need to know what you did yesterday. Here's the film. Look at your footwork, Angus. That is outstanding. It doesn't get better than that. So one, I see why I'm doing well. I can believe that. Two, he's paying attention to me. He cares about me. So now I care more. You know, of course I'm going to care. As you said, he cares me. Of course I'm going to care about him, which means I'm going to care about my work more. Everyone wins.

And when reaffirm reinforced like that, they want to repeat the same activity.

Well, rule number one, right? What gets rewarded gets repeated.

That's right.

What gets rewarded gets repeated. Hence, you know, might be more in a bystander program. I'm so cautious of, you know, you. You know, you've got a bully in an institution. He gets hired, he gets. He gets promoted. Everyone sees that. So what gets rewarded gets repeated. So everyone starts bullying again. You praise actions that matter. You showcase them to everyone else. I mean, listen, peer praise is powerful. You know, it's not peer pressure, it's peer praise. So all of a sudden we highlight an employee that's doing something great to the whole staff. Now everyone sees the new standard that's going to get praised. So I want to do that too. And if you're not specific, you're not giving an easy bullseye for someone to know how to hit. If you keep it vague I don't know how to marshal my energy to get praised again. I want to be super specific so I know exactly what to repeat. Keep the praise going.

Absolutely. So when you show and you prove you care about somebody, caring is specific. You got to know, let them know why they matter and give them some specific examples to reinforce the fact that you are paying attention, that you care about them. It. Does that really lead to the trust that you talk about?

Well, I think so. I mean, to me, trust is, trust is, you know, there's congruency and trust. You know, you, you do what you say. But the biggest thing to me is in the consistency of the actions. Right. I. Or else I trust that you're inconsistent and that becomes a very scary place because I have no idea what you're going to be. So probably the highlight of trust to me is consistency. So I'm going to give you a short cheat sheet from my book that probably the highlight of this caring. I had my positional coach, Dan Darazio, who's my offensive line coach, I had him for a decade. Think about that in sports terms. Had a positional coach for 10 years. Think how rare that is. Think of the relationship we had. Okay, So I played 213 games professional under his guidance. I have 213 handwritten letters from him at home. He wrote a handwritten note to every single one of his players. Remember, this is professional football. I'm an adult. This is my contract. I'm a grown man.

Right.

A hard sport where you have zero job security. They could replace you at any moment. They're always, I have 213 letters every single week. He wrote every single one of his players a handwritten note that specifically highlighted why he believes in you, why you matter, why he's so happy that you're here with him, why he's got your back. Usually pointing something that happened on Tuesday at practice, something on Wednesday, I didn't even know he saw. Good luck out there today. I always got your back, Coach Dan 213. So again, you talk about, wow, that's really moving. Talk about consistency though, Mike. And every single week, my entire career. So in between, you know, games were good, games were bad. He's got to coach me, he's got to correct me, he's got to get on me. It was layered within this. I believe in you, you matter, trust was established. Whatever he said was through the lens of this guy cares about me. And it wasn't like last year he wrote a letter, so I don't know anymore. Trust Is there? Because it's consistency of repetition, of actions that matter. And that is not in his contract. That was something he knew mattered, and he did it every single week. Guess what? I haven't played in 10 years. I still get birthday cards from him. He's probably coached thousands of people. I call it my buddies. Oh, yeah. Coach Dan writes them to me, too. That is consistent, caring actions. Builds trust that there. There was no contractual obligation that could ever be stronger than that.

Consistency of repetition. And now I'm looking at myself saying, dang, I missed the opportunity.

And Mike, that I. I challenge my leaders. I'm saying, now that you know this, if you choose not to, are you missing an opportunity to establish a trust where they're not going to look on LinkedIn for another job tonight? Because I could have left the lines three times from free agency. I'm not leaving a guy like that. A couple more bucks is not worth the unknown or shall I say the probability of a known out there. This is different. This is better. I'm not leaving. And I'm going to keep becoming great here.

I do a ton of study on the best, not the best available team members. And I have found that money, in most cases is number five on the list.

Yeah, look, look, it's number one till you have enough to get by. And then that changes the whole world. Right? People make it because they're starving. Once. Once they feed the family house and house the kids, you're going, okay, now what matters, you know, you move up the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right?

Right.

Once your baseline, you know, you're warm, you're safe, and then my psychological safety is there. Now. Now I want to be great, so I want to surround myself with people that aren't. Just as you said at the beginning, don't just know, but care about me. That's more important because I can. I can find smart people. I don't give a damn. But I won't trust them. Because the lens that I'm hearing, seeing it through, is not for me. They're just smart people. So you find intelligent people that care about you, who you don't let go. Because it's sad to say, Mike, you know, it's rare. But what's interesting to me is the more business I talk to. It's so simple. Just care. And you separate yourself from 95% of your competition.

They're looking for some secret sauce. I'm like, care, but don't casually do it intentionally. Do it all the time. Watch what happens. And if you have people that don't like that. Maybe those aren't people you want there anyways, that are. You know, I've never seen. And I'll say this because someone said, well, what if that letters? I mean, like, it worked for you. I'm like, I've never seen anyone angry that someone cared about them. It might not affect them the way it did me. Not everyone's going to get charged by it. What's the downside? Who's going to say, I am so mad my boss cares about me. I can never work in a place where they care about me. Like, I always look at asymmetrical actions. What is the downside? Are you really going to enrage someone by caring about them? Absolutely not.

I don't think so. Consistency of repetition of intentional actions. And then listen. And then as a good leader, you can reflect an audit because is it working? Because if you're not intentional, good luck auditing your actions because you don't even know what you're doing. So you need to be intentional, as people say. Well, then it's not, you know, that it's not authentic. It's a 100% authentic. Most people think nice thoughts. They never take action on it. So you want to do well, but the action is a decisive, intentional action. And then you can review. Are things getting better? You know, it's one of those things. When you add an ingredient to the soup, does the soup taste better? Do you know how much you added? I have no idea. Well, then, who knows anyways, right? Add a little bit. Then you know, that little bit might be too much. And that's the only way that you can keep polishing your culture is by being intentional, because you. Then you can review. Am I moving the needle right? Is things getting better? Whatever metric you're looking at, if you're not intentional, you'll never measure it properly. And you're. What is a great line? You know, if. If you're not assessing, you're just guessing. And that's a dangerous way to be elite.

Yeah. Guessing is not where it's at. So back to caring for just a minute. You mean we don't need to go out and find the latest strategy and everything else that's going on around us?

You can, you know, our world look like I've been in the strength and conditioning world my whole life. And everyone's looking for the secret work and social media's killed this now, right? Everyone's looking. You know, we get so enamored by bright and shiny objects. Ooh, this is new idea this person's coming with. Okay, so like we've evolved in the last two years. Human beings have not changed very much in a gazillion years. We fundamentally need the same stuff. Just give that to them, things are going to be okay. Like, don't look. The secret sauce is, is the basics. It always has been, right? There's no magical formula that all of a sudden now we figured out what human beings need to work best. But you and I know the problem is simplicity doesn't sell well. Just like in strength and conditioning, the doing the basics really well again and again looks boring. And it's hard to make a complex formula. Complexity sells, magic formulas sell and they get everyone all excited. But true buy in comes from the simplicity of going, you know, like you said, this is where we're going. That's exciting. We want you to be a part of it. This is, you know, here's, here's how you're going to be an influential piece of our puzzle. And then when they're interested in it, then it's a matter of making sure they never forget you matter. I care about you. You're helping us get there. Look at the work you're doing. Let's keep going. It's, it's not very comp, what do they sell? The time? It's not, it's not, it's, it's, it's not complicated, but it's not always easy. But I disagree with that. It is easy if you prioritize it. It's not hard.

The, the hard part of it is back to what you're talking about, the consistency, right?

So put it in your book. I, I, I put it, I dealt with. Say, listen, how many times can you guarantee me people know that they're valued? Oh sure, so you say it right to their face and hold them down. But I said listen, put a day planner. And it may sound like, like it's not authentic, but it is. You just forget all the time because we're so busy. So by carving it out, you're actually prioritizing it means it's really meaningful. Every Tuesday, every person you should see that's blocked in. You haven't finished the day yet till that's been ticked or wherever you have it, get it done. Once it's in your data planner, make sure, pull someone aside. Listen, Mike, just so you know, you are doing fantastic. Make sure you have some key points and if you haven't, look harder means you're not paying attention because they're doing something well, let them know. Give them the opportunity to express. How are they doing? How are you feeling? Because here's the other thing, Mike. I learned a long time ago, the very definition of a coach, which. A leader is just a different version of a coach, right? Definition of a coach is someone that helps someone from point A to point B when point B is where they want to go and they can't get their loan. See, if they don't want to get to point B, that's not coaching. That's coercion. That's forcing. I'm going to make you get there because I want you to get there. So I would constantly be checking on the people. Are you still happy with where you go? Don't. That's a leading question. How are you doing? Where do you still see things? Because if they're, if they're drifting now, we're, we're upset at them for not wanting what we want them to still want. And coach, I'll give you before you one, one thing, Coach Dan with my great coach, had him on a football podcast out of Texas. You know, they're crazy football down there, and they, they want to pick down. He's a guru with the offensive line. Coach Dan's one of the best offensive line coaches in the world. And they asked him, what is the number one thing you look for in an offensive lineman? And like you said, people are looking for, like, the magic answer, like foot size or EQ or like balance. He said, do you, do you. Do you really want to play football? It's my number one priority because everything else is irrelevant. You're super smart. You could make a ton of money. You could be the best ever. But I want to do this. You want me to do this? Is this what you want to do? Then I can help you. But if I don't ask that question, I tell you, you should do this. You'd be great at it. You'd make great. And people feel pressure to do things and, you know, talk about anxiety and stress. I mean, I don't. Stress isn't a bad thing when you're, when, when, when, when you're working hard, what you want. Stress is a terrible thing when you're doing something you don't really want to do for horrible reasons because you're trying to make everyone else happy because they, they, they sold you on this idea. And even a sports coach, we've got to be very careful on selling kids. They'd be great. They want to do this. Otherwise, I'm not coaching you. I'm pushing you. I'm forcing you. I'm coercing you. So constantly checking in, not just letting them know they're valued, seeing if this is still what they want to do, because if they really don't, it's not a good environment for anybody. A lot of us stop. We forget to keep asking people, are you still good here? Everything okay? What do you want to do?

Right. And this is why we are doing it. I mean, this, this is going to be the result. This is our end desired outcome.

Yeah.

You want to be part of something like this?

Correct. And all I want to do as a leader is help you get to where you want to get to help you become who you want to become. And hopefully it's within my platform that I'm running, that I'm leading. But if it's not, I'm not mad because end goals, you said the bigger game is helping people become their own greatness. And listen, I don't think there's any right career because as you said, football, insurance, business, they're all just outlets to become who you are. To me, I mean, I wrote an article once that there's a lot of sayings out there, you are what you do. I kind of disagree with that because I say you're not really what you do, you're how you do it. Because what you do becomes a title. And there's no way you should become your title. Like, I'm not a football player because when I. Because if I am, then what happens when I'm. When I don't play football anymore, then I'm nothing. How I play football is who I am because I can do that as a parent, as a. As a father, you know, it's whatever, whatever outlet you're in, how you do it is who you are. And if this outlet isn't helping you anymore, then go to another one to keep becoming a better version of you. It's just how you express yourself in these outlets, in these tools that you're using. The tool can't be the end game because, you know, I saw it with athletes, as we all know, the depression that hits when they retire. And you, you, I'm sure you've seen it with business owners. They become the brand. They sell the company for a gazillion dollars, and they're lost because that's who they were. That is a very dangerous thing to be because you should be, you know, Mike, father, husband, like things that nothing can be sold or taken away from you. How you build business is who you are. And that will never change when the business is sold. That's how you parent, how you lead, how you, how you're a friend and you go to the next version. And I think we have failed a lot of people with, by, by not reinforcing that belief and building themselves. And they become the brand as an athlete, as a business person, as a social media influencer. And when that goes away, you look at the, at the mental health crisis of the anxiety and the emptiness, because that's who they were. I'm like, no, that's, that's, that's not right. That's just what you did, right?

How I play, how you do, how.

How you do it and how you.

Do it is who you are, how you do things.

Because, look, I could get cut from football tomorrow. Does that mean that they cut who I am? No. How I did you. Nobody can stop you from bringing your best in the outlet until they remove you. Then you can bring your best in whatever you're doing, but people can remove the outlets. So if the outlet is your identity, it's your. How is your identity. And I think a lot of people, we cling too much to the what right? I'm a. I'm an insurance business owner. I'm a professional athlete. So what happens when you're not. Because nothing lasts forever. But if you're someone that brings high energy, if you're an uplifter, you know, if you're someone that loves to solve problems and support people, it doesn't matter. Nobody can take that away from you. You can do anything tomorrow that'll never, ever stop. It'll never stop. And I think that gives you that air of confidence that tomorrow I'll do something different. Tomorrow I'm the same person. I'll just keep being who I am. You can't take that. And I think that would alleviate a lot of that stress and anxiety and fear of the other side of this job, because who cares? Something else to do. Become who you are again. Keep being who you are.

100% agree. I want to touch on something just very quickly. You can go to YouTube and search Angus Reed. R E I D Mastering the Skill of Trust. It's one of Angus's TED Talks. He's got a couple of them out there. But I've especially enjoyed that one a couple of times because I believe, and this is just a business thought only, that money follows trust if you're in business. But I love all of the angles of trust that you gave. And it really went back to Coach Dan.

The Acronym for trust that he gave you.

Yeah. T R U S T to resolve unusual situations together. And you know, I don't care how big of an entrepreneur you are, no one achieves anything completely on their own in life. Right. So we all collaborate. If you want to do something great and, and you will only collaborate to the level of your trust, that's your lid, you know, you know, John Maxwell will talk about, you know, the leadership lid. Right. I believe the, the, the, the lid of your, of your co creation, the lid of your collaboration is always going to be ceiling by trust. Right. And the higher the level of trust, the more, the more and the faster everything will get done because.

You take the emergency brake off. Right. I'm all in. I'm not hesitant, I'm not nervous, I'm not worried and jumping in with both feet, baby, you're in. And I'll give you a little, I said it in my talk. But you know, football is an interesting analogy. I played offensive line. We're unique for a lot of reasons, but Dan would always remind us of this. Think of this. We're the only position in all of team sports that play the entire game with our backs to the ball. Talk about trust. Yeah. You know, the ball dictates who wins, where it goes. We are, we are crucial for clearing the way, making things happen. I never look to see what's going on and I function full speed ahead without having a clue what the most important piece of the game, what's going on with it. I have 100% trust. It's where it's supposed to be. It's what's happening. If I hesitate, nothing happens. And so, and I have 100% trust the person beside me, that we have to work in tandem in real time, in half a second and a third or second will adjust to my adjustment because, you know, we trust each other. Now let's be very clear. Speak about, you know, you got to give trust to get trust. But high performance trust, I believe, can only be acquired through constant repetition to reinforce that consistency of behavior. So, you know, I always give the analogy, you know, if you were to date someone you know first and you think they're great and you enjoy being around, but you can't build trust off one date. Right. And if you date once a month, well, that might take a year because you don't have a lot of consistency. Anyone can fake it every 30 days. Anyone can fake it in a sales meeting, if you meet once every two weeks, if you meet 10 times a day, which is not Efficient for real life. But you, you get to the core of who someone is pretty quick because you can't fake it again and again. Football, generally speaking, will huddle after every play. So I'll. I'll, I'll meet you face to face in a stressful emotional situation 70 times in two hours. I don't care how talented you are. I know exactly who you are. Now. When stuff hits the fan and there's problems to solve and I know you, someone's going to throw me under the bus and sell me out with the coach. Are we going to dig down and solve problems? We're here to help. We're here to complain. So right off the bat I'm like, I can now work with you. Talent level is irrelevant, particularly when you're at the high level. Because everyone's talented. It doesn't matter anymore. That's a baseline. But the repetition. So, you know, I think you need to do the work together. And that's why Covid was difficult. This is hard. There's so many factors beyond just one layer of trust as the whole body, human connection. How frequently can we do difficult things together to establish trust? And once you have it and you know you. You have to keep. You have to keep watering the garden, but not as much at the very beginning, the roots to hold. Once the roots are in, you keep watering it. But it's intense at the beginning or they won't hold and it'll fall. The first big wind.

Yeah. And I was telling you when we first talked about Cousins camp and I delivered a training yesterday for our grandkids on habits.

Love it.

And we used a tree as one of the teaching points. The deeper the roots grow, the harder it is to uproot that habit.

Yeah.

And same thing with trust.

100%. 100%. And it's on the front end. Right. It's. It's same thing as commitment. It's same thing as all those things. Like if you're to. We're to do a workout program together and we say, oh, we'll meet once a week in the beginning. Good luck. It waivers, you know, that's why. That's why. That's the reason why football teams do training camp. It's not to get people into shape anymore. People are elite. Athletes are in shape year round now. It's to compress trust building. That's the whole point of football. For three, four weeks, we're going to be together 15 hours a day. It's not. So we're getting you guys in shape. Everyone's already in shape. It's actually physically speaking, it's the worst thing you do to pro athlete now because you're breaking them down before the season. It's not needed anymore, but it's compressing. Trust. Got to put 60 people together for 10 hours a day for four weeks. So you can stress test each other on every level, get to know each other emotionally vulnerabilities and figure out who each other are so you can get to know each other to go out there in the real world. So you know there's so much to be said for time together. And again, Covid was a difficult one and I think it showcased the necessity because the lack of it showed what happens when you don't have it. People started looking for other jobs and people didn't feel a part of things as much. And we realized how vital humans crave. Knowing I belong, knowing someone's got my back and I'm a part of something so I can bring my best to it too. And we have to have a purpose, we have to have a reason as a group and as an individual. But we also have to know everyone is also in on that same purpose. And I and you got my back because if not I'm hesitant, I'm scared, I'm nervous, and then you're not getting my best, which means the group doesn't get the best, which means we perform subpar, which means we all lose our jobs in the long term anyways. Doesn't work.

And it has to consistently be reinforced. And we need reminders like you said.

With habits, culture, anything. I can't remember who said this before, but basically anything falls up. Everything falls apart without care. Everything, everything naturally falls apart. If you don't take care of things, they follow. Nothing naturally just gets better on its own without care. Everything you buy and own and have our bodies, you don't take care. It falls apart. So you want culture, you want trust, you want a strong relationship, you want a good marriage as you know, you want good relationship with your kids, you don't visit it once a year and go well. We did our off site meeting with, with the spouse so we're good for another year, right? It's the stronger the relationship, the more frequent, the more frequent the dosage of, of of all the things that matter. The visiting of the caring, the conversations, the reinforcement, the truth, honesty, you know, the more we drift from that, the more we start faking it. We start then within the hesitancy comes in. So again they know, like I'm sure you do the Same thing. I have two young boys, I'm one of six kids. The family dinner table. I do with my boys every day. They're five and eight. But I'm normalizing. We talk every night. We talk about, we do this thing called, you know, they're young. We do a thing called what was your apple? What. What was your pickle? And what was your onion? So apple's like best part of the day. And they, they think through their day. They want my 5 year old to review his day and be like, you know, what was my apple today? Sometimes it's having dinner with you guys today or maybe someone so on the, on the, on the playground today. So they review the day and they come up with something that was really special. And then what was your pickle? Something that really made you laugh. Something was really, really, really funny. And then an onion, which was something that made you cry today. And they, and sometimes they go, no onion today. And we all high five. What a great day. Sometimes it could have been someone got hurt at school or, you know, my onion was, daddy's been away on a speaking trip and I really miss him. But, you know, we framework because it's a fun game to the boys. Now habitually, it's, daddy, what's your up? Like it's dinner. We have to do this. Yeah. What I my. The real purpose is we build trust because these are honest talks. So if we start, if we start talking honestly and we keep talking honestly when they're 15 or 16 and you know, difficult things start happening in life. That's odd to bring up with mom and dad. We just talk honestly. We know we've normalized this behavior. We're not judging, we're helping, we're supporting, we're conversing. And also, you know, we have that carved out time. Our family huddle. It's not, it's not fearful. It's just something we do. Some days are good, some days aren't bad or aren't as good. It doesn't matter. We're a family. We talk. And, and it's that, it's that consistency, as you said, building habits that aren't just habits to have habits, but they have the benefit behind the benefit. You know, what's the benefit behind the benefit? That they don't even know until much later when they realize when they become our age. Hopefully going, that that was really helpful, you know, to them. It's just. We do our apple, pickle banana. We do our apple, pickle, onion. Yeah, no, we're building conversation lines Building trust, communication, normalizing that stuff.

And you may not be able to see this yet or you may, you may already know this. You're building generational trust.

Hope so. Well, I hope so. And my, you know, they don't with my grandma, so it's really cool. So my parents are in their 80s and they come a lot now and my boys make them play the apple pickle onion game. So it's really cool. My 83 year old dad's, oh yeah, I gotta remember what apple. But again, now they're challenging them, going, come on grandma, talk about the day. And all of a sudden now grandma and grandkids were talking about something funny. And every day we talk when they're over and it's just built into the day. I said it in my mastering trust. One of the most fortunate things that I had growing up that I didn't realize wasn't normal for everybody was a family meal. And sometimes there were 30 seconds because we had a basketball game to get to a soccer game. It didn't matter. My parents knew. Some days we had an hour, some days we had five minutes. We sit down and we check in. I don't care if we don't have time, we'll make the time because we look at each other and I make sure we're doing okay. And so we always knew our family had our back because the easiest thing in the world is to get too busy to do things that matter. And then one day you look at what happened. We stopped watering the plants so the weeds show up. That's our fault and we can't, you know, I said in the talk, and we all know hope is, is, is not a strategy, it's the absence of one. Sort of let's hope we have a strong family, make a strong family. Let's hope we have a good culture. Make the culture, make.

You said, you talked about a little bit ago, intentionality. It's an intentional decision, an intentional act.

It has to be. And, and, and, and it's, and it's okay if you don't get it right all the time because if you're intentional, you're constantly auditing it. You're looking at going, ah, it's not working so good, let's do this and let's see how things are even on the simplest level. Mike, it means, it means you care to yourself. Yeah. Care enough to be intentional.

It's back to apple, pickle, onion. I mean, it's not going to be, not every day is going to be perfect. I mean s. Is Going to go wrong.

That's okay. But you want those days because, you know, that's actually when trust gets stress tested the most. Right? We need some sideways stuff. You know, I'll tell you a quick story. And you know, with, with the BC Lions, we'd have a, you know, come August, we get a bunch of the NFL cuts. So we'd go, oh, that's great. Lyman's coming from the Dallas Cowboys. He's unbelievable. I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm not impressed by talent anymore. Whatever. Everyone's good. So I said, first practice, I always say, look to our coaches. Look. Bring our no huddle blitz pickup period, which is basically the most disastrous period you can have for an offensive line. No huddle. And the defense is going to bring the worst case scenario out of it. So it's a disaster. And he's like, that's unfair to that person. Like, doesn't matter. He's going to destroy. We just need to know who he is. Is he going to hunker down with us and try to figure things out or is he whining, complaining from the get go? We got to speed up the stress test here. And it's not fair to him. 100. It's not. We'll have his back. We need to see is he interested in being part of us or is it. This is garbage. You guys are making my life okay. And when stuff gets bad, so, you know, we give a nice stress test and guys would hunker down and go, what are we doing here? Never blaming. Like, we can play this guy 100%. All in. All in. Well, doesn't have to get one play right. Just how's he wired? So you need, you know, trust only matters when it matters. But that's an extreme case in the business world, but in the family world, it only matters when it matters. But it better be built like, you better have done the front end work. And then you get those stress tests. And you and I know that's when the employee or your family triples down, when it gets stress tested and you're there. Okay? This is real. I mean, it's e. It's easy to have a good culture when things going well. It's also easy to forget to water the plants when, when, when, when the sun's out and shining. But you know, you need to do it every day, no matter what. So when the bad days hit, it flows the way it should flow. And everybody gets reminder, wow, we are good. We are tight. This is real. This is really good.

Caring, consistency, and trust in business and in life.

What's the difference? I mean, in business, you got a bottom line. The family, you got a bottom line. It might look a little different, but the formula is the same, right? Are we going bankrupt here? Are we going bust as a family? Why? Because we stopped looking at what matters. We stopped doing the things that matter. We got caught up with shiny objects and we got busy. We got too busy to do the foundational things that matter. The business story is the exact same as the family story, right? Or what do they say? I don't know who the famous wasn't. Maybe it was Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett always said, you know, how do you go bankrupt? It always said, little by little, then all of a sudden, all at once, it's like, you know, you stop. You stop having meals. We don't have time. We just don't have time to check in as a business anymore. We don't have time getting busy. Then. Then it's like, what's okay? And you limp along, and then all of a sudden it's like, what happened? It just fell apart.

Well, I mean, that's what. Berkshire Hathaway. I was just reading it the other day. What is it, 500,000% or something like that? It's just craziness because I was reading about Charlie Mung, the late Charlie Munger, by the way.

Yeah, and his book is brilliant. Late Charlie Munger, you read Charlie. Poor Charlie's Almanac. And you know, on. On the flip side, he says that about, that's how you go bankrupt. Little by little, you stop taking care of the things. And all of a sudden you're looking at false. But the other side, the compound interest.

Side, in addition to that, they got to that point because they ne to your point. They never lost focus on the priorities. And when they knew it was a priority. And I heard this the other day from somebody else, they went back to the buffet and they filled up their plate. So we've got to make sure that our highest priorities, starting with the family, right? Has to be our buffet.

It has to be, you know, and how can you. How can you lead a business properly if your family's falling apart? Like, you know, to me, you can't compartmentalize the right thing, do the right thing and everything you do. Why not? You know, I run a great business, but my family is a disaster. Well, then, you know what? You're. You're not winning. Like, what. Why would you. Why would you be subjective good, subjectively good, Depending on the situation that's another thing. Congruency, you know, great leaders are great leaders and they lead family, they lead their children, they lead their companies, they lead themselves properly. Right. They model. It comes back to trust. Do I really trust someone that's good here and not bad here? It means they're picking their spots and either they don't care or they're really diabolical with when they choose to care. So I can't trust that either. Right? You know, you are who you are. You know who you are in every situation. There was another mentor of mine once said, you know, his big word was on congruency. I always want to be congruent. You know, the same in every situation. He is who he is. You know, he always gave the kind of offhanded joke as I want everyone that shows up to my funeral to be talking about the same person. Not this group, new business and the kids, like, that's my dad. What are you talking. I never heard of those. Everyone talking about the same person. I. I am the person I am with everybody. I'm not, you know, I'm not a chameleon that, you know, I act this way to impress these people, but over here, I act like this when I go with the boys. I'm like this. You know, would you be proud if your kids saw you in every aspect of your life? Because it should be the same. The same. Because now you got to put on fronts or you're just winging it, which, either way, those aren't leadership characters that I want to be around.

No, Angus, I could go on for hours. This is fantastic. And if you missed any part of this podcast, I strongly encourage you to stop, rewind and go back to either watch or listen to it again and make sure you have something to write with and something to write on. Angus Reed, thanks for bringing the fire. Thanks for bringing the great stuff. Super thankful and grateful. Anything else to add as we wrap up?

No, because if I start talking, it'll be another two hours. I love it. Listen, I'm a sucker for talking about self improvement, which leads to modeling everyone improvement. I love it. I love this stuff. You know, every day, every day is an opportunity to get a little bit better, which helps model for others improvement. All we care about is just get a little better. Exactly.

You're setting the example. I mean, you're setting the apple, the pickle and the onion example, which is going to carry on generationally, which is going to, you know, live long after your day, I'm sure, but it's just fantastic. And really, one of my major takeaways of many, many from this session is the fact that we need to stop chasing everything going on around us and make sure that we stay focused on the foundation.

Listen, Berkshire, the basics. Listen, look at Berkshire Hathaway. They don't venture away. They don't chase shiny bright objects. They know what works and they get really. I think he said on the back of his book, right, Take an idea that matters and take it very seriously. One idea that matters to me is building trust and care to, to, to, to people I work with. Take it very seriously, take that very seriously and watch what happens. You know, I think a lot of us live our life, what do they say, a mile wide but an inch deep. Like we, we, we want to chase everything for a while. We do a course here and a program here, look at the things that actually matter and dive really deep in it and you'll get the spread effect anyways. You really, really will.

And it's easier, it's less to consume and take care of.

We only got so much RAM and a brain and yeah, I think, I think we're world is wanting us to gain new information every single day. And we stop. We have so much knowledge, but we lack wisdom. It almost seems like we know so much. But you know, there's a business leader I work with and he said, you know, we touch so much, we touch so much, yet nothing moves. Some people actually move things because they actually grab it, hold it, shape it. We just like touching everything and nothing ever goes anywhere. Right? Right.

Angus Reed. I can't wait. We'll have to schedule round two so we can get back into it and discuss more of this great content. Thank you for what you're doing in the world. Thank you for helping so many people. Angus Reed, champion athlete, best selling author, international speaker. He's out there helping businesses nowadays with their culture and everything else we just talked about. And make sure you jump onto Amazon or any other portal and pick up his book. Thank you, Coach by Angus Reed. That's R E I D Amazon number one bestseller. I can't wait to dive into it myself.

Sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Hey, and if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about everything that we do to help people, agents and otherwise atunstoppable profit producer.com and if you're interested in joining us for one of our live virtual trainings, Simply go to upfaststart.com everything that we do is all designed to share with you our greatest money making strategies developed over 35 years as a proud independent insurance agent. All designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have freedom to live life on your own terms. So you can begin pouring back into people. And again, if this is your first time on the podcast, please go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, click subscribe. And I know if you were paying attention you got tremendous value out of this podcast. So please share the link for this podcast, Unstoppable Profit podcast.com with somebody else you care about so they can also experience just the incredible wealth and knowledge and experience shared by Mr. Angus Reed. So and you can find us on all the podcast channels, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel, Amazon and more. Again, thank you for joining us today. Angus Reed thank you sir.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Hey, remember this until the next episode. You got this.

We believe in you.

I'll see you on the next episode.

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