Here is How to Align to Your True Path to Success with Brian Covey

Well, I made the craziest move that people questioned my sanity and said, what are you doing?

I just heard, do not follow leaders. You don't aspire to be. That's what I just heard.

I say it's not for everybody because going through this could break people.

Yeah. So sometimes I believe that a byproduct of chasing success is actually chasing worth. And if we chase worth as a byproduct of chasing success, we end up leaving ourselves behind.

I had to come to terms with who I am and who I'm not.

But how do you protect alignment with the team, whether it's the external team? Like, how have you learned to evaluate.

If you're not a leader on social? Building your brand and leveraging that to show people what you believe, what your standards are and what you'll be willing to tolerate or not. You've lost the ability to influence at scale.

Hey guys, welcome back to Build. As you guys know, we're here to help you rise, lead and last. Guys, you know what's really funny is I've been sharing now for a little while that we have been very intentional about who we're bringing on the show now. And the reason we do that is because we believe you deserve more value. We believe you deserve authentic value. We believe that the content that you have access to needs to somehow serve you in your life, your business, your profession. But more importantly, it's got to serve you in kind of a hybrid, a holistic approach to all of that. Which is why I'm super excited about my good friend joining us for the second time today. Guys, please help me welcome the one and only Brian Covey. Dude, what's going on?

Hey. Hey, man. We're together in Nashville.

I know, right? It's not even virtual this time.

This is awesome. This is good.

Yeah, dude, there's a lot to catch up on.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that I've. One that I think faces all achievers and entrepreneurs. Right. And I think sometimes it takes us out. Right. So I sometimes I believe that a byproduct of. Of chasing success is actually chasing worth. And if we chase worth as a byproduct chasing success, we end up leaving ourselves behind, self abandoning. You know, I'm sure we'll jump in this mood, but obviously not being where we want to be with our family and just fighting that internal batt battle of guilt and shame that kind of comes with not being around, like all that kind of stuff. But you've been through a radical change since the last time we, we, we, we had each other. Most everybody knows yours, you're uber successful in the mortgage field, but they don't know about your most recent journey. And I was kind of hoping you'd break that down because I feel like there's a, not only a story there, but there's lessons there that everyone needs to hear.

Yeah, well, I made the craziest move that people questioned my sanity and said, what are you doing? And mates followed. Mortgage business, real estate knows we're coming out of now we're on the other side of it. But six months, a year ago when I was making this decision was, you know what? I want to create something from the ground up and in a way start over. And left a very successful EVP job. Our company had doubled in the last three years. I've been there and built all these.

Multi billion dollar, like billion dollar deals or billion dollars worth of deals.

Great, great company had built up from like 1 1/2 to 3 billion and teams were flourishing and all that. And I just had this vision of I want to do something different. And it wasn't quite in alignment with what I saw that I wanted to build and the people that I wanted to be doing things every day and my role every day, like what I've learned over the last 24 years, what I wanted to do. I remember talking to my mentors and literally Steven, I'm like, I think I'm just gonna go start completely over. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. You can go get a passive job. Like you can go get, we'll get you a job somewhere. Those executive recruiters walking me through all the options. And I remember telling my wife, I was like, I'm going to start this all the way back over at zero. Because what I believe is I've taught people for years, I've done it before. God's equipped me and prepared me to do this. I'm not afraid. I'm trusting him to build this. But my vision is clear and a lot of times we'll ignore that voice. And we get, not now. No, no, no. Things are good and we don't take that next step. And so I said, I'm just going to start over. And as I searched, I found a company that loves to win. Number one, retail lender with cross country mortgage. I said, I want to be around the right people, like in sports. I know if I got around better, athletes better, it brought out the best in me.

Yeah.

And those around me. So I said, well, I've got to find the Platform that's going to support this vision. Because it's a big vision.

Yeah.

And then I made a decision. We're just going to start over. Literally, I was the employee number one within our group, and everyone was like, tell me about your team. I'm like, it's kind of me like, what? I go, no, no, no. We got a plan. And so we brought over a processing team, and we started to build it brick by brick. And so now, six months in, added our third team. And then we've got several big opportunities that hopefully I'll be able to announce here soon. But just trusting God that, hey, this is. This is what's on my heart. This is what I want to do, and this is what I envision the next stage of my career. Yeah. And not being afraid to say, I'm gonna completely start over. And the fear of that's real. Like, there's been nights, let's be like, I. I struggled, like, going to sleep and went, okay, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? Because there's really no, like, big safety net. Like, the company's like, hey, man, come up. Build it, man. We'd love for you to build it. Yeah, let's go. Yeah.

You know, so I like this on a lot of different levels.

So because you and I haven't had a chance to catch up, catch up in a while.

I've been coming to terms with my own form of alignment. Right. So as someone who is. We call in the personal professional development space, thought leadership space, so much of having.

Call it success. I define success in this industry by how many lives we can change and awaken.

Went through this massive overhaul. Personally, even after exiting and stuff and kind of you think you have everything you want and going through another. Like, the last time I saw you were at a mutual friends event about six or eight months ago, Ken.

Yeah.

And I was in the middle of it. Like, I was still in the middle of a kind of, like, coming back to self and like, stuff like that. And the word that keeps coming up is really twofold authenticity and alignment. And I'm hoping and praying that my heart is now communicated every time I step on a stage, every time I'm on a video, every podcast, every reel. I would rather people know the real me and not like me or like me, then chase the perception of what I think they want me to be. Right. So the reason I say that is because I feel like part of this journey aligns in a different kind of way. I feel like part of this journey aligns in the fact that you also sought alignment, which means by definition, there was misalignment. Yeah. So when we look at Brian Covey's life and we look at the former occupation and the former company, and how do we respectively articulate in such a way that tells us what was misaligned or what was missing that you felt was instrumental into how an organization should be built?

Well, coming from sports, and I love this conversation because I'm a development guy. That's my passion.

Yeah.

Is developing people. And so in companies a lot of time and such in the mortgage space, and I'm sure it's true in others, I've heard, but it's always about chasing the next team, the new team, the team that's not there yet. And my belief is this organic growth is the team you have today actually is capable and potential to 5x, 10x 20x, whatever you see in them. And it's possible we can go help them grow.

Yeah.

And so we were misaligned on that. Which respect. Hey, that's just. That's roadmap. They want to go. It's almost like a company. They want new customers. New customers, new customers. And we're filming at Brand Builders, so I'll share. Rory and I talked about this is if you take care of your existing customers and all of them referred, half of them referred one person, your business would grow double.

Almost double. Yeah.

And so that was the first thing for me of like, okay, I want to go over here and pour into fewer people and not be spread out amongst 200, because I know my capacity is. I can, I can't go deep with 200 people.

Yeah.

And so I started to look at that and I said, well, where have I been most successful in my life? Where have I thrived? Where have teams under me thrived that were part of our organization? So when we got in the nitty gritty, the day to day, we were coaching, we were doing life together. And you would see not only their business transform, but their health, their faith, their relationships at home. So that was the first one that I said, if you listen to leaders, they will tell you where they want to go and how they want to get there.

And I always say, you don't listen to leaders.

Listen to them.

Listen to leaders.

They will tell you. And if you ask questions of them, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And for me, collaboration is also another word that's thrown around, but it is completely misused. True collaboration is like we Were talking about a little bit in the hallways. Like, I'm going to listen to your point of view. You're going to listen to my point of view. And we're going to come together and go, maybe there's a third point of view that takes part of what you're doing. That's great. Part of what I'm saying that's equally really wonderful here.

Yeah.

We come up with something together.

Yeah.

It's not, hey, we had a conversation.

We collaborated, but some by only one person's view made it to the cook.

But the senior leader is going to leave with their idea, push forward. And so we see that a lot oftentimes. And for me, I know my passion every day is developing leaders that develop other leaders. And that just doesn't sit well in a lot of organizations. And I also believe this is the last one. There doesn't need to be a huge hierarchy. There needs to be player coaches in my mind that are out there doing and saying the things that they would want you to do. Yeah. Like business development, calling on real estate agents. Going to the conferences we go to, recruiting people in an authentic way of quit over promising things to people. Yeah. That for me is a deal breaker that I just said. If we're overpromising over here and they join our team and they don't get what we promised, we didn't win.

Yeah.

And they didn't win. And so I just had this belief of, hey, we're going to lose some people because we're not willing to go out and over promise to them. But the people that are going to be attracted to us are going to see that we can change not only their business, but their life.

Yeah.

So anybody's looking for alignment, I always encourage you to that little tug on you that's like, I don't agree with that. And I have experience and data to prove that I think differently. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, go to a company. Because there are plenty of companies, Steve, that I talked to that wanted to go a different direction than me. And I said, I don't. I don't think I'm. I'm your guy.

You know what's really good about so? A couple things, dudes. So first of all, everything you just said was amazing.

If we use the word alignment, there's. There's two. There's two forms that you actually, you just expressed. One is self alignment. I'm aligned with this mission. I'm aligned with this thing. The other is, is like you could have. What's the word? I Want to look for compromised to get yourself into a more structured, more quicker, you know, financial foundation rather than build it yourself. Right. So that's a form of misalignment. So talk to me a little about the trust piece. How much have you had to trust in God? How much have you had to trust in yourself? How much have you had to, you know, talk, you know, really walk with your family, walks with your wife? Because I know one of the things that I know is absolutely true about Brian Covey, and he is. He is a absurdly excellent family man.

Like I. Yeah. That's the. One of the biggest, greatest compliments I think I can ever give you as a friend.

Thank you.

It's very, very clear.

Yeah.

And I think you're a bright light to those who want to build that kind of love and that kind of structure just by doing it.

Yeah. So it's important to me. And I'll put. It wasn't always that way.

We'll start with that, too.

So, 0708, when our first two kids were born and I was in corporate America, pretty much all of our jobs got eliminated at any kind of mid level or senior level. And it was like, here, guys, we have nothing to offer. Because when the Imploda meteor and companies are going out of business, it's like we went from crushing it in business to literally phone stop ringing. No one can qualify to do anything. You've got builders going bankrupt, subdivisions going under. No one's buying or selling anything at this point except for foreclosures and short sales. Yeah. Like, oh, we're going to pivot and do that.

You have to have a lot of cash for that.

So got to have the cash. And I realized, and Nicole, I will talk about this often, is it pushed me into a spot that I was not mature enough at the time to understand, like, how to, like, balance or integrate any of that stuff.

I'm like, well, I'm sure it would give you scarcity and fear.

Oh, well. Nicole had just retired from being a nurse, and that was one of my greatest accomplishments. I always say, to say she was an ICU nurse, and she got to spend time with our two babies. We're in Florida away from family, so it's just me.

Mm.

And the pressure of a guy. You know, this is a man. Like, you have to go provide. So I was flying every week, gone, gone, doing what I could do. And you want to be present. When you're there and you're exhausted, I look back, like, me and my health wasn't in great order. I'm traveling. I'm not. I'm not living the life. As I look back on that, I'm like. And we just barely survived through that.

Yeah.

And I have that frame of reference always now to go our youngest. I said, God gave us another chance of like, for me at least.

Yeah.

Our 10 year old with Henry is like, okay, first two, I'm fully present as much as I can be now. Like that just. It's what I believe.

I mean, I know for all that you turn down some really cool opportunities because you're like, no, there's. There's a. There's a graduation happening, there's a birthday happening, there's an anniversary happening. Happens more than I love you, man, but I'll see you in the next one.

And that's my friends. I was like, hey, I love you.

But I love my family more. Like, that's what there's a. Well, if you want Brian to come to this event, you have to invite the whole family.

Yeah. And I can't wait till we do some of those.

Oh, dude, this will be fun.

But I share that story with people so they know. It's like literally when I'm on a flight every week and I remember flying from Tampa to the Panhandle and my job at that time, Steve was literally laying off other people.

But who's a double gut punch.

Yes. And now that I can reflect back on it, I think God used me because I was the one that had just been laid off.

She had the empathetic connection. And I think to do it well. I think that's what if it has to happen.

If it has to. It wasn't someone that's like, oh man, we. We promote this. They're like, and by the way, it was a temporary role. So I let everybody even know that's like, hey, I'm temporarily just helping clean up and unfortunately close offices and do this. It is not pretty. And this is not what I would have chosen, nor would you.

Yeah.

But it gave me, I believe that vantage point. One learning in an early age, laying off people that are sometimes twice your age.

And it's a little later for them to start over.

Later for them and now realize that wow, what they went through, it's always share this with you. So they know. I mean that's. That's where we start. We had to even start over because at that point all your assets are gone. Everything's done. And I think that's why it gives me alignment today. It's how I have More discernment of when God called me to do this, I never believe he did because it was one of those. I go, I just kept seeing it. I'm talking to other leaders. This is where you'll know.

Yeah.

If you're being called to do something, I believe is people are asking you for help and support on things time and time again. And I've had leaders come in like, hey, will you coach me? Will you mentor me? In my mind, I'm like, well, what if I built a company within a company that would include those leaders and you didn't get me part time, like an hour a week for coaching?

Yeah. Yeah.

You got me full time. And it's not for everybody.

Yeah.

But if you want to transform your life, I believe, look, I'm going to help you do more mortgages.

Like that. That part we can do. Yeah.

But I believe there's a greater calling to it. And I knew those conversations just kept coming up for a reason. And I wasn't in a spot. I even had some personal friends tell me this. Brian, we love you. We don't think you're in the right spot for us to have the things that we need. And now what I'm saying is these conversations, Steven, they're. They're flourishing.

Yeah.

It's the people I want. Like, this morning I got a message on LinkedIn. Yeah. And I won't give too much because I want to tell who it is.

Yeah.

They reached out and they said, hey, man, we used to work together. Previous company. I've been watching you. I love what you're doing. Family piece. And he goes, man, I would love to spend some more time with you. We're exploring options. You're the first person I've reached out to. Can we get a call? And so we're going to talk later today.

That's all.

Like, I go, that's a God thing. That's not.

Brian.

Like, I'm not. I'm not good.

Yeah. You're doing your thing, and this stuff comes to you.

And that's why I say is you'll know you've moved into a space of alignment. Not perfection, but of alignment. Because people will see what you do and your unique gifts and say, you can help me in my season.

Would you say you have to die to a certain. Um. I would say that I've been through lots of reverse and deaths in my lifetime, but to truly get into that authentic flow of sorts, that. That where you. I feel like. I mean, I'm just. Even now, I feel like I'm beginning to walk more and more into what I was actually really prepared to do. Yeah, I think I'm literally at the cusp of it. I'm hoping over the next several years you're going to see a whole different thing get built.

But I also know that I wouldn't be ready for the things that are now coming to me that are more alignment without going.

Very difficult circumstances. And as your friend, you share with a couple things about some difficult things you, you had to walk through just recently to get to this conversation. Now, now it's flourishing. Right.

And I feel like there's a lot of folks probably right now that are probably trying to figure out why the thing that's always worked isn't working anymore. And the element of that. And then on top of that, they also have the element of. I'm terrified of starting over. I'm terrified of like, you know, maybe, maybe they are a little older, like, you know, so I don't know how much you want to share transparently, but I'd love for you to share as much as you feel like you're. You want to.

About what it takes to get to a place of flourishing in alignment.

Let me tell you, it's not for everybody.

And that's the thing that I think most people need to realize is, you know, a lot of times, hey, you can be anything, you can do anything and all that stuff. And like to a certain extent I do believe that. But there are things that this is required of me had I not been through what I've been through and have a strong foundation and I would even say a great spouse in my corner to go, yeah, this is what I'm doing. I know it's crazy, but let's go through our finances, let's go through what it is. Let's go through what this means for us. This isn't just me, this is now us making some different decisions. I say it's not for everybody because going through this could break people.

Yeah.

And I don't want anybody to hear.

That since that's true. It's real.

And it's real because they were not.

I lost a marriage due to some stuff like that.

So, you know.

Yeah.

The nights that I haven't slept and the nights that I've literally been almost in panic mode and I feel pretty self regulated. I feel like I've got a pretty good. Yeah, like what I would say mental toughness to me that I go, I wouldn't wish some of those thoughts. And some of those things same on anyone.

Same.

Because I wonder if they didn't have their faith or they didn't have the outlets in the network and the friends like we do. There's no way I would be. So I just put that out there as kind of like a opening statement of. Yeah, this is not for everybody to do it. Yeah. But if you do feel called and you're a believer, then I would encourage you to lean into it is where I would start. And that's what I did. I leaned into conversations almost a year.

Wow.

You believe it. A year. That's how afraid I was and how scared I was. And I wanted to put the pieces together.

We were in the back of a car in Texas at, I think, Amber event.

Yes.

And we were. I think you would even talk. I think you would. You were touching that. You were tiptoeing in the waters of. I think I might want to do something different.

Yeah.

It's funny you even said you said what you just said because that just flashed back like super fast.

Yeah. This was not an overnight decision. This wasn't like a one month decision. And so I think this is important for people to kind of piece this together as you're going through it. I wish I'd known some of these things. But now, as I go back now I'm uniquely qualified to go, hey, this is how my experience. It was a year of talking to people.

Yeah.

A year of vetting things. A year of going how I'm going to stay here. Because my first company, I was there 13 years, and I grew up thinking, my mom retired from the city of Memphis 30 years. I thought I'd work for one company, retire. The world has changed.

Yeah.

Almost think it was almost like sports. There are times you get traded and there's times you go to your agent and say, hey, we need to make a move.

Yeah.

And I think that's true today. The last thing I would tell you is you've got to have a real, real honest conversation with yourself. What have you done? Well, and I knew for me, there is time and time again of four separate teams. We've built over a billion dollars in mortgages a year. So I have proof. But now I need to go deeper. Actually worked with one of my coaches on this. It's like, what were the cues and clues of success? Like, what did we do? Who were the people? Was it the market? Was it the timing? Was it the company start to pull all that together because that will help you create the vision for what you want to build toward. Equally, I knew the people I didn't want to hire and I knew the things I didn't want to do again.

Yeah.

Because I've done it. So I think that process was helpful because I go, well, here's the company. There's people doing what I want to do there. So that's always good. And then when you meet with the owner and you realize, okay, we're speaking the same language. Yeah, this is what I want to do. Do you think that fits here? And what I loved is he goes, man, tell me about what you love to do.

Yeah.

By the way, the only CEO that I talk to, out of several that slowed down, this was like, well, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. I'm like, that's great. He's the only one that asked me, man, what do you love to do? Yeah, we'll get you excited every day, because it's gonna be hard.

There's so many lessons of what you just said, including that last one was just like, everybody wants to feel seen, value heard, and appreciated. And until someone ask a question like that, you don't feel seen. You just like, I'm a witch.

I'll be another president or whatever title they want to give me. And it's like, cool, so I'll run that for you. And the ones before didn't work or, like, it just. It was very substance, very transaction inauthentic, very. Yeah, I was like, nah, the same for me.

All right, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna spin this off a little bit.

So a lot of folks probably wouldn't even go through the. The prep work that you did before you made the jump.

Okay.

And one of the things that I think is very interesting is even with all that prep work, my understanding is you ran into unexpected challenges and roadblocks that you had to overcome. So I think that's actually part of the process. I think.

Having there's having goals and aspirations, and there's having actual expectations. And sometimes the expectations is what causes the stress, because at least in my experience, when God promised me he's gonna. Promises me he's gonna build something uniquely for. For me to steward or whatever. Yeah. I always have this preconceived notion of how it's going to work and how it's going to look and what it's going to like, platform I'm going to use and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, now it's like the one part lion, one part lamb message out of my heart. From my grandfather to me is what's resonating with people and not all the entrepreneur stuff. You know, just so I'm curious to know, what did you learn about yourself and about preparation, expectation, unforeseen roadblocks.

That you think can offer someone else in similar shoes?

The one I've come back to is I'm a pretty awesome number two.

I'm not. I'm not a CEO, president, wired person.

And I think back to my soccer days of I was a goalkeeper and I was captain, but there was a coach.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I would carry out the things and I was entrepreneurial spirit. But I wasn't the one to go create something completely on my own.

Yeah.

And I had to really come to terms with that of my biggest success. One of the clues was I was around great people in a great environment. I wasn't the one. Like some entrepreneurs can go do a startup with their company. Right. Know the story.

Yeah.

So people see it on social media, they see it on the, the, the gram. Right. And they go, oh man, that's what I'm going to do. I had to come to terms with who I am and who I'm not.

And what I realized is there's a pattern of my success was always had a great leader or mentor.

Is that scary?

Yes and no. When you look back when there's patterns of success, I don't think God created that experience for nothing. It wasn't just to experience it and have success and wealth and numbers and awards. No. It was to show me, I believe for this decision and for my future of hey, this is where you fit in. This is where I will bless you. These are your talents, these are your gifts. And how many number ones would love a great number two?

Dude, we all would.

So I started to realize, well, if I own that, because that's who I am.

Well, that's my gift to get to come into an organization. I don't need to create the framework. I don't need to create all this stuff. I get to take my vision, which is a culture within the culture that can coexist.

Yeah.

So that had to be there. So I think that was the first place for me is who am I? Who am I not? And going through that year, I'll tell you what, what happens. And we were talking about this earlier losses from outside the industry started to happen too, which created this doubt of like other businesses that I have and things that we plan for tax strategies. And this worked out, but now they're going, oh, no, no, can't really set it up that way.

And I'm going, I just learned a painful lesson myself.

We were talking about this. I go, yeah, okay. God. Like, I had planned for this. I had, you know, I had my safety net. I had all my ducks in a row. They say to then find out. I think this was him really going, hey, man, you didn't trust me.

Yeah.

Are you trusting all this other stuff, or is it. Is it me?

And that was. Man, when you take a step back, I remember telling Nicole, and she was just like, I think you should do it.

Yeah. You know what's really crazy is you're actually speaking to me as a brother today. I share with you off air that, you know, I did. I did success. I had a successful exit. And a form of that income is apparently you can't tie expenses to which I did not know. And I went through all this strategy with all the attorneys and all the CPAs and all the things, and I'm like, come to find out these are real expense. Like, these are real expenses tied to this real number, and I can't use them. I feel like I'm getting stolen from. Yeah, right. And I remember talking to my girlfriend, and, you know, she's successful. I'd like. She's a. She's a mortgage broker and stuff like that, and not a mortgage worker. I'm sorry. She owns a brokerage and has real. She's a real estate. Real estate.

Yeah.

And.

Remember her telling me, she. She's like. She's like, you're gonna be just fine. I'm like, but it's X number of dollars, and it's a lot like. And I plan to use that money to invest in this thing over here. And. And, hey, I serve her, like, all these different. Like, these different things, and she's like, you're gonna be just fine. Yeah. She's. Let's. Let's be honest.

Will you.

Will you have the money? Like. Yes. Is it remotely close to the entirety of your net worth?

No.

You're gonna be okay.

Yeah.

She goes. She goes. Part of what I think God is trying to show you right now is he wants you to actually learn what abundance looks like rather than living in scarcity. Because I've been that poor kid my entire life. Right. You know, people think that once you exit a company and build something from scratch and, you know, that that inner child, Stephen, would just evaporate.

Yeah.

Goes away. Oh, no, no, no. He got louder. Right? So. And so every time there's a financial challenge, God has already proven to me he's going to deliver. As long as I'm faithful to him and trying to serve and keep trying. He's always. He's good. I'm not out here doing intentional dumb brain stuff. Yeah, right. But what I'm. What I'm experiencing this is. It's like. I think. And you just said it. And actually, you just said it to me. From him to me through him, which is. You can trust me. Yeah, I got you, bro. Yeah.

How big is that, though?

Like, oh, it's massive.

And until you see people and you hear people, when you go through it, it's dark and it's quiet because you don't want to. This man is such a. You don't want to talk to people about it either. Because our culture is such that you share these losses as I shared them with more people that were in my corner. In our group, some guys we know, they're like, yeah, so funny. I can tell you this.

Yeah.

We're like, dude, that's nothing.

What?

No, no. Did you hear, Like, I think you missed the number I gave.

Like, oh, that's passive income. That's fine.

And they just remind, like, how are you? You know, you look at the stats and how most millionaires and how people make their wealth after that, and. So what did you learn? Yeah, what did you learn, Brian? I was like, oh, wow. I mean, I could list off. And they go, isn't that awesome? No, it's not awesome.

I didn't say it feels good.

Doesn't feel good.

Yeah.

But I look at that and go, man, what do I get to pass on to my three kids? What do I get to pass on to people that are part of my circle and my team now that I go, hey, our team. I can share with you things in a business sense, but I can also help you as you're doing strategic planning. I share with you. And I found a group now that does strategic tax planning that I never would have even sought out. I'm like, hold on, I got some advice over here. This didn't line up. Can you help me?

You know what's really funny you just said that. Because about three weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago, I started feeling in my gut that something was missing for the people that were representing me. Because, as you know, I exited the company. I moved to Utah for a year and a half and just recently back to Carolinas. So I tried to hire a Utah firm. And I'm not throwing any shade on this company whatsoever, but I don't Know that they were fully skilled in my type of exit, my type of investment strategy, my type of operational business investment. Like, because there's a lot of facets to what I do. I mean, my.

A lot of moving pieces.

Yeah. I don't. It's not just, like one tax return. There's multiple tax return. The filter in anyway. And one of the things I realized is I felt like God was stripping me away of things that I didn't need to give me the things I did need to actually steward real wealth. Now, what's interesting about that is you would look on paper and like, well, Stephen, technically, on paper, you already do pretty well.

Yeah.

And, you know, from homelessness to theirs, like, it's a big jump, right?

Yeah.

But at the same time, I'm like, I'm. I'm discovering that I feel like he has more because he knows what I want to do.

Like, Yeah.

I, I. Dr. Isa, who has the AVI that we both know. You know, we were at our mutual friend Ken's event, Mastermind, not too long ago, like a month ago or two months ago.

And it came up during the event, I was getting really frustrated because I knew that how many people were uber successful in the room, and here she is trying to raise it. Just a few. Literally, I would call it just a few bucks to really, like, save lives. And. And she doesn't take a salary. She doesn't do anything. Like. Like, she's the epitome of somebody who's out there trying to serve. Yeah, right.

And.

I remember sitting there, and I'm like, God, if you will continue to entrust me with wealth, I will continue to give as much as I can to things like this. God highlighted her on the stage for me, and he just kept saying, she's trustworthy. She's trustworthy.

She's.

You could. She's trustworthy. You know, I knew. And you know this. When you become a person of affluence, you're. You get no shortage of deals put in front of you companies to invest in. No shortage of nonprofits that need or want checks. And at least for me, I'm always. I used to just give, give, give, give, give. And I was like, wait a minute. I gave all my stuff away. Yeah. Like, I don't. I didn't. I know I need a loan. Like, kind of, you know, kind of thing, you know, but by God's grace, I've never had to get a loan for anything. But, you know, it's. But at the same time, it's like trying to figure out where to give to and stuff like that.

And so much of having the right team to encircle the current team, I've learned to be vitally important. Which is one of the reasons why I want to bring up team building. Right. I believe that part of me, the company that I sold, the reason it was successful because it was a personal development company masquerading as construction company. You heard me say that a thousand times. And I know that's essentially what you've got your hands on. But how do you protect alignment with the team? Whether it's the external team, like how. How have you learned to evaluate people that need to be in your inner circle, on the outside of your inner circle? Because that's been the trickiest thing for me.

As the team grows, it gets harder and I think it comes back to what do you do well and as the leader of that group, there's a vision, casting, there's alignment in the sense of who you bring on you, you own. And so I tell you it starts before you've even hired anybody. So today I have a targeted list that I'd say is an avatar.

Yeah.

Of an ideal candidate, somebody on the team. But it's also then where do they fit into the team?

Yeah.

Because you know this, they could work in the wrong.

They could be talented as heck and destroy the culture.

Correct. Long roll expectations of people talking through with people, what you stand for. I think this is why leadership today is radically different. Is on social, if you're not a leader, I believe this is if you're not a leader on social, building your brand and leveraging that to show people what you believe, what your standards are and what you'll be willing to tolerate or not, you've lost the ability to influence at scale. Because if you're only relying on these one on ones group meetings in your corporate world, you're missing the opportunity to impact and influence people through what you do. Like you talked about the family piece and I tell you, when I got that sorted through and figured out like okay, this is how I'm going to start my weeks. This is how we're going to prioritize things. It did hurt my business for a little bit. That's always like I sacrificed things that I go, that was never really even a sacrifice. I just made a choice. But I share that because people that don't align with that, they're probably not going to love it here. Because that's just one of the things we're going to talk about that I want People to go out with their family. I want you to go celebrate with your family. Go do your kids stuff.

Yeah.

Do all that. But as you're building the team, I would tell you what I have learned. If you hire the wrong person, it's your job to have the hard conversation right away and let them know. Call out the behavior, not the person. Because I do believe that that is something that we often in leadership will do wrong.

Because we're making decisions on emotion rather than.

And it's the person. They take it very.

Leaders take it personally. They all take it until they mature.

I mean, it's even what we're dealing with. I'll just say socially, right now, the divide that exists. A lot of people just don't slow down to listen. But if you talk about the actual thing they did, the action, and it could be in our world of they didn't follow up with a customer fast enough, they didn't communicate well. It's like, hey, when you communicated this, this created disruption to our business because it wasn't done timely. Here's where I need it to be. Can you do that?

Yeah. Yeah.

Or like, bring them in on the process. And I think that's where leaders miss out on. It's like, we'll talk behind them, tell everybody else about how bad they're screwing up.

Yeah.

What if you just went right to them and said, hey, Steven, on this customer, we didn't move fast enough on this. Right. You know that.

Yeah.

Yeah. And one of our things that we pride ourselves on is we move fast in organization. We give quick communication, clear communication. And on this one, and I'm not feeling like we gave it our best.

Yeah.

Do you agree we could do more?

Yeah.

Like, it's. It's just conversations with people, and I think they respect it. I look back and here's how I know it to be true. The best coaches in my life were the hardest on me. They gave me the most feedback, and they challenged me.

Yeah.

I don't look back to any coach that just let me slide and never said a word to me, never challenged me. And go. That coach had a profound impact on my life.

You can't play an elite at an elite level without the kind of coaches that hold you accountable.

You cannot. And so if it works in the sports world, I'm also a believer. I told, look, I'm very much a sports coach that just happens to be in business.

Yeah.

So again, if that's not something you like, you don't want to things given to you source Feedback, you're not coachable. You don't want to get better. You don't have a growth mindset.

This is not gonna be my gold star anyway.

Yeah. Like, there are other companies that will let you do all that and be toxic in their world and pull that down.

Yeah.

And so for any leader today, last piece I wish you is you're always learning and evolving. And what I've learned to do later is open, open that up to them. Let them know what you're reading, what are you going through, what are you learning.

Yeah.

It helps them understand what you're thinking. Because if they don't know what you're thinking and where you are and what you're learning.

How are you going to catch them up?

Yeah.

If I'm reading a great book and I'm getting tons of inspiration or I've just gone on a call with a mentor or gone to an event, should I bring that back? Yeah. So that's where I think leadership is going with people. And it is, as we know, people working from home, remote.

Yeah.

It is different.

Yeah.

It's not like what it used to be. Even five years ago, we would all just be in an office together.

Yeah. I, I think in today's time, you're, you're not a leader unless you're an embodied leader. In other words, you can't expect people to do things that you refuse to do for yourself. So one of the things I've done, I literally jotted down that I love so much about you is congruence. Right. So if you sell if like on social media. Right. You've done very well on social media. People know who you are. You're obviously speaking and training and coaching and all that kind of stuff. And you're incredibly effective at what you do, you know. But if you were to go in and say, well, this is, you know, I'm spending time with my family. Right. But then you go into the office and someone says, hey, look, it's 5:30. My son has a soccer game tonight. I'd like to go watch soccer. You say, well, no, you know, we really got to stick around. We gotta get these deals done.

Yeah.

Is. Are we in underwriting? Like, where are we at with this thing? Like, when you get that done, I would feel much more comfortable if you, if, like, you don't operate that way.

Camp. Yeah, I've had leaders do that. I've been that leader. It's like, wow, you're going out and doing all this and we're just, we're just in one way, you're just. You're just completely opposite of what you say.

Yeah.

And people know it. And then when you recognize that. One of the best books I read that helped me through it was Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. And I remember I was like, dude, that's all my fault. Literally, like, I'm the one modeling this behavior. And I wonder why people are burned out or frustrated or when we get angry or how we handle a situation. If you speak to someone on your team one way and someone then hears that and you want everybody else to operate a different way.

Yeah.

It. It does not work.

Yeah.

And so I think that's just owning who you are and lead by example.

How much of that is immaturity versus maturity? Because I feel like some of those lessons, you only learn by doing it wrong. You know, my. My team came to me. I don't know, it's probably a month ago. And they were like, hey, Steven, you realize that when we. When you do leadership material. Right. On social, that it goes. It does really, really well. I'm like, yeah, I don't really want to do leadership material. I'm like. I'm like, why? I said, because I did it wrong for so fricking long. Like, I was just. I didn't do great at first. Like, I. I led from fear and insecurity. Right. And it took me time to develop the skill sets and the mindset, spiritual set, like, to really say, all right, this is what anchored, authentic, integrous leader looks like. Yeah. You know what they told me? They said, that's precisely why you should be doing it.

Yes. Which is spot on because none of us were perfect. Like, last time I checked. I've yet to meet the leader that got promoted and was like, oh, man, I got it all figured out. Like, I just read the manual. I'm in.

Yeah.

And I think it's those lessons and when you share them with people and we're looking at bringing a young leader onto our team in his early 30s, Amber shared with him. I said the reason because. Yeah, it's like, I'm comfortable and why should I join? I said, the exact reason you should join is because I was in your shoes and I waited too long. I can only share that with you because I've experienced what you will experience. Now, the people around you are not going to tell you that.

Yeah.

Because they just want you to stay.

Because you're a widget, you're a producer.

And do you think that might have something to do with you've just kind of filled a spot for them and maybe they got really comfortable. Do you want to be that leader that's senior to you? Is that what you aspire to be? And I remember they're like, well, no.

I just heard, do not follow leaders you don't aspire to be. That's what I just heard.

And I remember, I said, so would you rather be with a leader who I can tell you where I've screwed up the times that I've not gotten it right, but I can also articulate exactly what I would have done differently and then how I have changed to be different. So do you want that leader that's been through the battle? He said it's battle tested.

Yeah.

That's been through four or five really tough battles.

Yeah.

Or do you want the leader? It's like, hey, man, I've read the manual. I went through some training.

Read the manual.

I, I think, I think the first battle, I'm going to be good to go do this. Yeah, right. Like, think about that, dude.

I think this is why I have such a hard time with scholastic education.

I, I, I really struggle with that. Obviously, I, I didn't, I, I didn't graduate high school technically. I had a ged, never went to any kind of college level. And almost anything of value I learned, I learned from a great mentor, a great coach, or a painful experience. Yeah. Most of the times I learned from the painful experience that led me to the mentor and the coach then backfilled me. It's what I, Right. And I think that's one of the things that has me a little concerned about the, the overall generational capacity when we're looking at just the fact that, you know, you go to, go to, go to school, go to college, get in debt, go get a good job. And I think for the vast majority of the roles, I can't think, I can't think of a single time. And after hiring over 400 people right at this, when my company at its largest point, between subcontractors and, and, you know, and on the team staff.

Yeah.

You know, with several hundred people, I can't think of a single time I ever asked for what school would you go to?

I wanted to know, did they have the skill set.

Yeah.

Were they able to, were they able to integrate into a team and add value to a team? Did they have the character qualities that I'm looking for? Did they have the honesty, integrity I'm looking for, and would they allow me as a leader to screw up sometimes? And allow me to say I'm sorry. Yeah, right. And honestly, that's pretty much what I look for almost every time.

Yeah, well, it's much more applicable today, like going in finance. My first job was Wells Fargo Financial and we had to have a college degree.

Like it was.

It was assumed then if you didn't have it, we weren't going to hire you. Right. And so I look back now and there were things that I did learn that I can go, okay. And I played sports, so it was a little different of like. Yeah, that's why I was like, I went. And I think it taught me a lot about managing lots of things of, like playing D1 ball and going to school and the standards they had for us because we would compete not just on the field, we also competed off the field for top gpa. Like, there were. We held a different standard. I mean, that did teach me to juggle a lot of things and priorities at once. And so I'm grateful for that experience because it helped me later go, wow, I've got that. But I did learn so much in corporate America. Then leaving Corporate America after 13 years to go best mentors and coaches that I've invested in and some of the masterminds. That's what's fueled the next level. So for some people, I think it is a good foundation because they still need to learn basics like time management.

Okay.

They need to learn responsibility.

Okay.

And we've got. With one in college, I would say I'm experiencing this real time and I'm watching through this and. And even I would say I'm not on one side or the other. I'm just watching it going, okay, Presley, you're doing PT school. That's what you want to do. You got to go to school for that.

Yeah, that's your doctorate. You have to.

Yeah, you got to go do it. And then we've got our next oldest who will be going in two years, and I'm wondering, like, he's wired completely different, so what's he going to go do? Yeah, this is where I come back to. This is why it matters at home, is we have conversations a lot sooner, a lot earlier about money, about debt, about responsibilities, about things that they're not going to ever learn in a school. You know, like, I've opened up things that. About them, about some of our investments and things that we've done in real estate and like, how, dad, what would I do?

Yeah, my kids.

I took pressly to one of my speaking engagements. Yeah, dude, I'll Tell you, she's like, this is actually kind of cool. Like there's good people here. And I go, this is basically what I do. He said, but what you didn't see were the hours I prepared for that 20 minute talk. Like, you saw me up there and it was cool. And yeah, the lights are on. I said, but I just want. You remember that that was birthed out of hours of work.

Yeah. So a level of mastery.

Yeah. And I just want to share it. So she knows that because she doesn't see me up practicing and on the call. Re. You know this because you keynote and do stuff like. Yeah, man, I rework stuff all the time.

Yeah.

Up until I'm speaking.

Yeah. So say nine times out of ten, we're. We're taking. We're making the AV people like for. Hey, can you guys take the slide out? Can you add the slide in? Can you please move this over here?

Their worst nightmare on some of that.

I just.

But I share that with my kids because I want them to understand what it is I do, how we do it, but also for them. Hey, find that lane for you.

Yeah.

And I want to be able to provide that for them, whatever that. That ends up looking like, you know what?

As we kind of begin to close things out, one of the things that I want to.

I think, kind of hone in on, and I think. I think there's a lot of questions around this.

You are obviously still like you, you built a successful career, you restarted a career that's now becoming successful and rebuilding it. You're such a family man.

For me, that was very difficult to balance. A balance is maybe not even the right word to develop a very big vision and still stay connected to my family.

How have you navigated that road? Like, what do you do tactically? Principally, that protects your time, your energy. So when you do get home after doing a big deal or bringing on a new team member or whatever, you still have bandwidth. Because I used to not have bandwidth when I got home.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like my. I was. I had spent all day talking, all day leading, all day looking at spreadsheet. I just, I was exhausted.

Yeah, you were done. Yeah. Well, I'll give you a tactic, but I'll tell you this. The number one thing, if I were to tell anybody, is learning to say no.

So how do you know what to say no to?

You're going to filter it through a lens.

Okay.

And for me, my priorities back early was business, more business. And then I would get into the family piece, and then faith. We Go to church on Sunday. Like, everything kind of had its own little compartment. Hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And I would evaluate them all separately. This is how I'm performing over in business.

Yeah.

I'm here with my kids. I showed up. And you and I both know, and everybody listening knows there's a difference between showing up and actually being fully present. And so what we started a few years ago, and thank goodness I had a coach kind of walk me through. This is Sunday night. I call it Sunday success planning. And Nicole and I do it together because, look, there are conversations that need to happen, and we're talking about everything that's going on that week. And we start in order of the priorities, which is what our kids got going on that week, date night that week. Are there things that we're doing that we need to be aligned on that I don't even know about and making sure we have them entered in a calendar somewhere? Yeah, I'm just talking about it. But I'm a digital guy. Nicole writes in an actual calendar. It's got to work for both of you.

It's funny. I used to. In a prior relationship, marriage, unfortunately, I would say, can we just put on the calendar? She goes, I'm not in. I'm not important. I have to go on your calendar. I'm like, if you understood.

Yeah.

And it was never meant. And I'd say that I'm just being honest and transparent. Like, it was never meant to be an attack. It was like, I actually want to be present. Yeah.

When I recognize, I won't remember things. I think, thank goodness Nicole sees that. She's like, let's go through it. And it helps her mental map out the week as well. So starting with what your actual priorities are. For me, you know, last year, with some health and stuff, breakthrough stuff I wanted to achieve, I started to really get dialed in on my health and things of like ordering foods in and making sure my supplements are there and putting my workouts in a scheduled time, like not just randomized. And this sounds really simple because it actually is, which doesn't mean it's not hard. And then I moved into business and had to look at what moves the dial in business. So I'll give you some really simple tactical things. I did 30 minute meetings became 15 minute meetings. I started to cut everything down in half, and I realized I was wasting time. I was wasting my team's time because I would take a meeting that's 30 minutes, that could have been 15. And I've now taken 15 minutes times 10, 20, 30 people. Yeah, we've wasted hours. And so these little things will shift your perspective. And so I was like, if you can do your first call with someone, it's initial consultation, it's your first recruiting call with someone. Just make it 10 minutes. If it runs over to 15, you're good. But these 30 minutes, you will fill the block of whatever time you've allocated. So imagine these hour long meetings corporations are still having. And so I love one of Dan Martell's things, like the more meetings you have means, the more disjointed your team is. Your team should actually know. You should be able to do a quick huddle in five minutes. And everybody knows this is what we're working on. These are our priorities. This is what we're doing this week. Does it change in mortgage, let's be real, like in real estate for our friends out there? No, we want to go take care of our customers. We have in the pipeline today customers that we think are going to take action in the future and then we want to prospect for new customers. Like it's really the same thing every day. And then who does what in the process?

Yeah.

And so I think as you start to look at that, start to put what's there. Now the last one for me was, you know, this with faith being important to us is I just got really simple because I was out of alignment with this. Like, okay, like I'm here, then a week later, haven't even read my Bible. Like, so I read a verse of the day and I just slow down. I have it automatically sent.

Yeah.

And it's simple, it's five minutes. Sometimes that leads to 15 minutes or longer. I'm like, yeah, okay, God's saying something to me. I'll share it on social or I'll share it. Places to internalize. Like that's how I want to start my day.

Yeah.

And so if you program your routines and what I started to realize is if you don't have a routine you actually do, it's just not working for you. And so one of the simplest things I did, which might not have an energy, is right when I wake up, I just get up. Now I no longer roll over and snooze or do any of that. I'm going to lay here for 10 minutes, I'm going to turn the TV on. That did not work for me. Take the supplements, drink the hydration, drink that. I do electrolytes. In the morning and then I'm moving through into my rest of the day and I'm rocking and rolling. How you start your day actually started the night before and then you got the commitments the next morning. It's the first win of the day.

Which is crazy because after you do it for a little while it becomes the routine, it becomes automatic.

Think about it. Yeah, like brushing my teet teeth, taking my supplements, drinking my electrolytes. It was already in the refrigerator from the night before. Like simple things, but.

However, one of the things I think is interesting about that is I'm sure Brian of old and Brian of new and the transition between the two. Is it safe to say that your relationships with your family, including your wife, are deeper?

I used to do the early morning workout and I've shared this with some guys lately, so I'll share with this. This group is. I was the guy that would go to the 6 or 7am class because I want to get it done early. What I realized, Stephen, is I was actually taking time away because my kids leave at 6:45. The older, older son now we had to do before. And then my youngest leaves right after 8 and so I do work in the morning, get everything done, hang out at the house, spend time with them, make sure I'm there with them and then I go get my workout and then it's no distractions. And that's where coming in and saying no to what doesn't matter because your schedule gets full and if you look on Sunday and there's things that you need to eliminate or delegate out, it's the time. And I would look at meetings and I don't know if you've ever had this. I go, who is this I'm meeting with? How did they get on my calendar?

How many times?

But how many times do we allow that to happen? Okay, I'm just going to show up and I don't know. And then the last little trick I'll give people is when you've got a meeting with someone and you're not clear on the expectations or outcomes you want to achieve, drop them a note, say him to prepare for this meeting best. Can you let me know what your desired outcome is?

Yes.

What do you want to talk about? Yeah, if you do it sounds really weird. It's simple.

Yeah.

It's not always easy.

Yeah.

These little things, even with your own team. Wouldn't it be great if someone like I had someone on the way. I was taking a call with one of our team members and urge text him Back I said, hey, I got 20 minutes, 30 minutes on the ride as I'm going to meet Steven. The more in, what do we want to discuss? What do we want to accomplish? I was like, oh, hey, I want to talk about sales scripts. I'm losing some customers here in the process and I just want to get your input on sales scripts. So we're literally role playing and talking through that. Cool. I am prepared to jump into a conversation and help them. Imagine if I just shown up and said, hey, like, what do we want to talk about? Oh, now I'm on the fly. I had all night and all morning to actually prepare for a conversation to be ready. And I knew what he was going to ask and had three resources and had a couple scripts. I said, hey, here's a script I pulled up. I'm gonna send it to you.

I think this will help you preparation.

I mean, these are the little things I say as people. And then you mentioned the energy. I would just encourage my. You've done this. You look great. You got your fitness in order. When you get that in order, I was the guy at 2 or 3 o', clock, like just taking down an energy drink, coffee, you know, needing a nap.

Before we jump into that, where can somebody find out more about you and the good stuff you're working on?

Oh, man. Just go to Instagram and it's. They put the in front of Brian because you're the. The. Someone had my name, someone has my name.

So I have an underscore.

Oh, you know the drill.

So, yeah, who hasn't logged in since 2012?

Oh, man. It's like the guys tried to sell it to me, but yeah, just go find.

I couldn't even got a sale of it because he doesn't exist anymore. I don't think you forgot.

I tried to sell it a few times and then it's like, no, man, no, we're good there. And I hang out on LinkedIn and Facebook. Yeah, we've got our own website, so if you just Google my name, you'll find it there. But definitely check it out from the podcast, the speaking, the book, all that great resources in our newsletter. I will just plug it because, yeah, people love. We've gone to two a week and it's less than a two minute read to equip you. If you're a leader, a team builder or somebody wanting to improve all these areas we talked about today, I give you very tactical advice. Break it down in literally less than two minutes with actionable items.

Love it. Yeah, love it, dude. Thanks for that.

Yeah.

That's awesome. I know boys want to. Want to check you out for sure.

Good.

In fact, I think you're the third person I've even had on twice. So, yes.

Hopefully better now than before I was.

You always smoked it, man. That was always awesome. But. All right, so now I do want to ask about your health.

Okay.

Right. And I want to ask about your health because I know how changing my health has impacted me. So explain to me. Super. Because I think especially high achievers, if they're not sacrificing their family life, they're typically sacrificing their health. Steve Meyrick, my. One of my first mentors, I've talked about a thousand different times. I remember taking a mask off of his face. Basically.

He.

He went to get a knee replacement, got pneumonia, ended up passing away a few a couple months later. But I remember taking off his mask, and my dad was, like, doting over him, done all this stuff. He says, what good is any of that? I have no health. And that has always stuck with me.

Yep.

So help me understand. You look fantastic. Obviously, you're, you know, even though I watch you on Instagram, is watch you do massive deadlifts and stuff like that. So, like, what. What was it about your. Your health prior to really, really, like, leaning hardcore into this journey you've been on, man?

Well, I. I love to compete, and I let that become dormant. And I think for a lot of men, they probably can feel that they know there's areas in their life they should compete. And we were in the Bahamas on spring break, and I remember seeing these pictures, and I'm turning sideways and I'm sucking in, and I'm, like, doing all the things, like. And I'm looking at some of the pictures, and I'm like, I don't think I look like that. I remember saying something to Nicole and she's like, no. Like, that's how you look. Like you look great. And I go, no. And I had done an in body, so I had real numbers and results. And it was also, like, real numbers because I'm transparent and stuff. It's like I was over 16% for me, which was probably where I had lived for a while.

Yeah.

I just thought, well, you lost the average. Like, that's in the range.

I think I was in there with that in that stress category. High stress.

High stress. The inflammation, now that I look back on it, is wild. But that one thing just triggered something in me, and I was very overweight as a kid. And so there's that part of it that it just triggered like you talked about earlier? I was like, yeah, I don't ever want to go back to that.

Yeah.

Because I know the blood pressure, hypertension, and all the stuff that runs in my family. Like, I'm not setting a good example for my kids. And I'm out there. I can't see my abs. I'm not competing. I know I'm tired. I know I'm not performing my best, but yet I'm telling everybody else, you should go after it. You should go for what you want.

Yeah.

And after seeing the pictures, I came back, and actually one of the owners at our gym at Iron Tribe was like, dude, you look great, and all that stuff. I remember shooting a note. I go, I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna go on this next four to six months and see if I can drop 4%. I went easy. Like, I'm just gonna do 4%. Like, he goes by, when I got July 4th, that's the next beach visit.

And I remember thinking how disgusted I was. I use that word intentionally because I was not happy with how I looked. Had nothing to do with what other people thought about me. And I knew that was something. And if you ever felt that no one else said anything negative or anything to me, it was me going, this is not my best. You've ever been there. The only person standing between you and that next place is you.

Yeah.

And so I had the goal to get there.

Yeah.

I remember going in, and I was scared to death because we're leaving, we're driving to the beach, and I'm going in, and I'm like, oh, man. And I hit just below the 12 because I was like, I'm going to be there. 11.5. So I'm so, so excited. Right. I go home, tell everybody. My wife doesn't care. Good for you, babe.

Yeah.

And my daughter's like, do you ever think you could get under 10 again.

And you'd like to compete?

Just celebrated the win. And then she. But you need people in your life like that. Yeah. That love you enough to say hey. And she did it in such a way, she didn't even know what she was doing. But I took it as a way of, you know what? I don't know, but I'm gonna find out. And so then I went all after. I'm reaching out to Gary, and I'm going, okay, what do I need to do? Like, here's what I've done. I'm, like, starting to dial in and this is where just in life and business, it's these marginal inches that we think it's not gonna add up to much. Yeah, I shifted a few things and got as low as 8.4, which 16 point. I think 3 or 4. So basically lost 8. I never thought it's possible. And I'm. And I told her I'm not somebody special. I didn't go out and do any. Like, yes, I work out hard and I train hard, and I ate well. I did nothing that other people couldn't do within their own scope of where they are. If you're at 30 and you want to drop down to 20, if you're 20 and you're up, drop down to, like, whatever it is.

What the crazy part is, is when you. When you put your. When you actually put a priority on your health.

You get a monumental lift in energy, focus, clarity, all that kind of stuff. And I. And I. That's why I do it.

Confidence. Yeah. That I've been lacking. That I didn't even know when I went into meetings. And to your point, you walk into a meeting and there is just something to it. You walk and you see somebody that's like, they clearly take. Take this.

Yeah.

To the next level. Like, there's somebody I can trust with their discipline. And I remember the conversations that opened up for me, and I've heard people, oh, if you have a nice car and you open up conversations or a nice walk, whatever. I'm like, well, fit body, you can't go by.

Yeah, I have a lot of people that don't believe I'm 49.

So, dude, and you look great. And I'm like. And I'll tell people that. This morning, one of our coaches, he's like, man, I hope I can, you know, catch up to you one day. I'm like, man, the things I've learned as I've gotten older, the wisdom that comes. But, man, everyone should compete to be there. But whatever that number is, I tell people. And one of my good friends is actually going through this, and he's sharing his journey right now on this 100 day challenge. And I love it, because if you can inspire that one person that goes.

That'S me, Become the one to inspire the many to become the one.

That's it. And then they inspire people, and then they inspire. And I go, if I'd never shared that story to me. That's the connection point.

Yeah, dude, I love you to death. I can't thank you. Back on the show, man, we have to keep this. This Rocking and going. I am excited to follow the journey with, with the new build. Everybody knows I'm all about building. Yeah, I like to build stuff. So that's awesome, dude. Thank you so much.

Awesome.

Appreciate you anytime. See you, bud. Hey guys, that's going to do it for this episode of Build. As you know, I, I told you, I bring on world class individuals to make sure that you guys have everything at your disposal to increase your likelihood of not just success but fulfillment with significance of meeting wrapped up in it. I want to encourage you guys to find Brian and follow his journey. And if you're in the mortgage industry and maybe you want to look a change, he's a world class individual to partner with as well as possibly do business with. So with that being said, we'll see you on the next episode of Build. Much love. Take care. God bless. Peace. Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation. And if you want more just like that to help you level up your life and your business, you're not going to miss this next one. Check it out.

There's a separation between thought and me.

Yeah.

That I don't have to think. Hey, because you don't feel like you're enough. You are. Hey, because you want to commit suicide. You should. No, no, no, no. That's a thought. I can choose differently. And in the, in that stillness, God starts to fill that vacuum with love and presence. And so, man, it started with like, how long can I be still?