Successful Leaders Do This ONE THING | Brian Covey and Stephen Scoggins

Meet people where they are. The next generation of Brian is really aware of where people are and where they want to go and realizing that their goals may not be my goals. We may not be in alignment of our work ethic. Great leaders are able to serve a large array of people where they are. That's going to be the test of your leadership and your impact. Never let your influence grow wider than your character runs deep. Which really means we always have to think about our character matters over everything else.

You know, one of the things that I love about your thought leadership and the things that you do is not just the life mastery, it's not just the business. More importantly, it's about mastering in the marketplace or level of mastery. The marketplace. And I know one of the, one of the areas that you focus a lot of time and talent, energy into is the mortgage industry, housing industry, banking, like that whole sector. I personally believe we're not heading for a housing crash. I think we're definitely heading for a correction or we're in the process of a correction. Can you help me eliminate some of this fear porn?

Dude, man, let's jump into it. One, let's just say that the majority of the news you're probably reading or seeing today is it's got an agenda. It is trying to get you to think one way and fear to be one way. And they're trying to sell you on watching what they're actually sharing with you. And so here's the reality. I've been in the business 22 years and I was framed this up. I was in 07 and 08. We had our first two kids during that. That housing crisis was absolutely very different. Like being the mortgage business, let's just hit the high points. One, anybody that could breathe, anybody could actually have a pulse. You got a mortgage and you almost could get 100% even in those times. So imagine all these bad mortgages being written. Couple that with the point number two. You have markets that are being inflated because of straw buyers. You had an excessive amount of homes being built. Home builders were building left and right trying to capitalize on what was there. So you had this massive, what I say, artificial price appreciation that was happening. And then the third part would be most people didn't know what was going on. The news is reporting one, you got mortgage people, one, real estate. Everybody's trying to do things and I think we were overly aggressive as a population of everybody thought they could get rich quick. And yeah, people signing contracts. Well, I'm just going to buy five properties and Stephen, I'll never forget I was going to the Orlando Housing Summit. Every year the NHB National Home Builders were meeting. Our taxi driver told us he had just purchased four condominiums. What? In a development I knew. And this was like 06 going into.

Must be a very well paid taxi driver.

What I said is like, wow, you must be paid differently than I think. Right. And so you start just doing the math and all this, guys. And so that's what was happening then. Here's what's happening now. One, we have the lowest inventory since the 80s. Think about that for a minute. If there's no inventory and you're a buyer, limited supply means demand is going to go up. So we're already starting to see people paying over asking. We're seeing multiple offers again in the same time. We're seeing sellers want to give concessions because they've made so much money over the last five to 10 years, let's call it that. They've owned a home, they have massive equity position. And so you have this really dichotomy of, wow. Well, the buyers are coming in and able to negotiate. The sellers have made so much that they're willing to negotiate. So I do think deals are happening today. Couple that with the biggest thing today is probably 80% is the latest data point we have of mortgages are 4% or less. Really?

Wow.

It's not where we are today.

Yeah.

That is putting a real imbalance on people that would move typically in this cycle. And they're saying, well, if I'm at 3% today and I need to get to five and a half or six to buy a new home today, yeah, I can't really go up as much as I used to. So as families grow and those things continue to happen. So that's a dichotomy that's happening. But here's what I see for the future. May 10, mark it on your calendar. That's when the Fed is meeting again. If you follow inflation, you'll understand that that's a 12 month look back. What's going to happen May 10, if you look at all the data points is we're going to see inflation has come down. We're actually going to see housing is performing well on the fundamentals that are there that we should be watching. So on May 10, what you're going to see is another correction in our favor of interest rates. You're going to see, I believe, start to ease up and we start to see those drop to a level that people start to make sense of it, but here's, here's the punchline. Wherever you are and wherever you want to go, realize that you're buying a home for the long term mortgage is always short term mortgages you don't have to hold for 30 years. You don't even have to keep it for five years. So there are products and experts out there, our team or other experts, they'll guide you through your situation. Do not listen to the news. They've got it wrong. For the last two decades that I've been in the business, if you had missed out on buying over the last 10 years that the news said not to Stephen, you know, most people, dude.

I would have missed out on $200,000 of equity in one property.

So are you going to listen to that news? Are you going to listen to the experts? Listen to the experts. The housing market is in a slight correction in the sense of, yeah, we're not going up every month over and over and over. Yeah, it is settled back down, but we're still in a great place. If you were to buy today and you're going to hold real estate, which most of us do five to 10 years, you're going to be in a great place.

Well, and I've been saying to my, to my team and a lot of the folks that I've been working with that, you know, because, you know, one of my flagship companies is in the construction industry, right. We, you know, it's exterior cladding company, it's in multiple states and, and whatnot. And I told my team 912 months ago, hey, by the way, we're heading towards it, we're going to head towards a pretty good correction because you can start reading the tea leaves a little early on. And I think that's one of the, the principles that you and I both agree with when it comes to success habits, you know, so is to kind of look at the forecast, not necessarily look at what's going on right now, but in doing so, I told him so we're, we need to raise our sales, decrease our costs. We're weather storms just fine. Because here's what's going to happen. I said the freight, the Fed is going to raise the rates as they've been doing. They're going to try to stall inflation to the best of their ability. It's not going to be at 2% anytime soon. Probably 4%, I'm thinking is probably where it's going to before by kind of settles down. But in doing so what's going to happen is you're going to see a decrease of about anywhere from 10 to 15% of total cost value. Meanwhile, your interest rate is going to go up and then it's going to start slowly come back down. You start having a 15% reduction of house cost on top of a 5, 5 and a half percent interest rate. You're back to buying at 3, the same value at 3% you were 12 to 18 months ago. The other thing that people, look, I don't think, think about is, you know, if they need to move and they need to go do this, they need to partner with someone like you guys so you guys can actually help them and guide them because you guys have a servant's heart, which is very rare to find in the industry you're in. But you know, but in doing so, when you actually go to do that, like it's okay to refinance the house three years from now or four years from now, like it's your to your point is short term thinking. When a housing in general is a long term asset that gives you long term gains. As long as you're patient.

That's right.

Right. So let's talk a little about the, the importance of patience and strategy. Like what are some strategies that people can be using right now? Because I know for a fact the demand hasn't gone away. Like the demand is sitting on the sidelines just waiting until they can get to a place of affordability. They can jump right back in 100%.

And I go back to like Nicole and I, we bought our first house and we were at 7% interest rate. We've been renting and the numbers were pretty similar to what we would rent versus what we'd own. I knew, you know, obviously being in the business and studying, I was like, okay, owning is better than renting. Right? Like that was my belief. And so I stayed there. And for most people, you're right, they're not patient. So we refinanced, Stephen, two years after getting that 7% rate, we refinanced in the fives. That actually happened. So when I speak from a place of, hey, here's what I believe is going to happen, here's what I've seen. I did it right. This is me in the business as I went through. So I do think people need to be patient. You also need to think about, I still believe this is a core belief of mine. The home is where your heart is. The home is where you raise your kids. The home is where you have beliefs and your memories made. What is it worth to you? And I Would I would go down this path of what you shared. We ran some numbers the other day. Everybody said, oh, rates are up, rates have doubled, blah, blah, blah. For the average consumer today, we did the math. It was about $600 additional monthly payment. That's real, that's, that's a real number on a high home. I think it was over 500,000. Here's the deal. Consumer debt has also gone up. So we're encouraging people. Our holistic approach is being patient, is, let's look at your budget. What are the subscriptions? You don't really need an auto loan for $1,000 a month. Where are you losing money? Out the backside. We look at everything from insurance. We make sure holistically we're looking at when we see your credit report and other debts, can we put all that together? And if you can invest in a real asset like a home, we're going to help you get there and structure your entire budget so you can actually afford the home that you should have. So to me, that's the game plan. And to your point, here's the last one, guys. You're going to own the home. You're going to refinance that mortgage typically two or three times in the average lifespan of what people stay in them.

Yeah, well, not only that, I was just thinking too, if, you know, obviously if you, if you can decrease your debt, you'll increase your personal cash flow. If you can increase your personal cash flow, you can put it towards a hard asset. You know, homes in general not only hold their value, but escalate in value over time. I think the trick is, is this fear thing, like, don't go and sell in the moment of fear. Like, go ahead and just hold, like just wait, wait, wait till you get a, wait till you get a place of peace in your heart about, hey, it's okay to move, it's okay to sell, it's okay to do. You know, I, I, during one thing I saw during 2008 that was, I think there have been, I think there have been forces trying to kind of make us think like 2008 is to go and sell things out of fear. And then people who are.

Wealth, wealth minded go and pick up those same assets at a discount. What I'm seeing more is the, the whole thing with COVID like people are, are just tired of living in fear, so now they're kind of waking up, which is kind of a good thing.

Yeah, yeah. Here's the other thing I would share with you is there's one strategy we're sharing right now for everybody out there. That I think is actually a phenomenal strategy. Which is what we did with our first house that we bought is we actually ended up moving to another house and we rented that house. There's such high demand for rent and if you're able to, I get this doesn't work for everyone. But if you could rent that house and cash flow positive and offset some of the new mortgage and you've got. If there's a lot of limited to, no down payment options that the government and lenders are rolling out for qualified buyers, these are not what you saw in the past. These are truly. You might put 3%, three and a half, 5% down. If you can do that for some of you, you may have access to a 4.1K, you may have access to other assets that we can walk you through what works. I share that because for many of you, like, well, I don't want to sell it now. Maybe you don't sell it now. Maybe you actually create wealth for your family going forward. You rent that house, create the positive cash flow, use that to offset the higher mortgage rate of today, refinance it down the road. That strategy works phenomenally well. And it's one I wish I continued to do an 0708 right through that and we sold some properties. And that's what I would share with people today is that's why working with professionals, changing your mindset to really a longer viewpoint is going to work and help you win.

Yeah, not only that, if you can, if you can get these principles in place to your point, you know, wishing we had done some different things in 2007, 2008, I think we all have been there, you know, but one of the things that even we went into this quote, quote unquote recession or whatever the heck, whatever this thing is we're currently walking through.

Just by not getting involved in fear, specifically not listening to all the voices, the world's coming to an end. There's meteors falling everywhere. I'm like, walk outside your house, do you see any meteors falling kind of thing? But if you can stay out of that zone, then you can start to put together some of these wealth principles. I know a lot of our mutual real estate friends, you know, they got into real estate by buying and, or having a builder build them a duplex and they live in one side and rent out the other side. And then five years later they did it again. And then they did it again, they did it again and now they've got Net worths in the high seven if not eight figure category because of the asset and the cash flow that comes with the asset.

That's huge. One of the things we teach people like especially this first time home buyers, people like go into the fourplex, right. And you, you can rent three and you've got one. It'll positively cash flow majority of them. Even the numbers are running today. I've seen properties you live in that one. You're right. And you just kind of rinse and repeat the cycle. The duplex. There are ways to start investing in real estate and there's so many other programs out there today that even our investors don't even know some of the programs they can qualify based on the rental income versus having to go through a typical income asset qualification.

Yeah.

So there are ways to get in the game. And you said this. Well everybody else is fearful. This is what we know. Statistically you can go back through this. You're going to see people make moves. This is when they're going to build the most amount of wealth, the most amount of millionaires are created. And I want to help more of those people that are listening to your show and what stuff I do, I want to help more people win that are the good people that are going to use those profits and proceeds to go make a difference in the world.

Yeah, I mean my, my millionaire journey, if you want to call it that. Right. Getting to where, you know, from homelessness to where I'm at today started in two different recessions. It started in the late 90s when I first started my first business and then it started again in 2007, 2008 and because I was out of debt, my competitors basically fell away. I4 5x well no we 5x size in the next two years preceding that. That created a reputational foundation across multiple markets that allowed me to scale that company into the high eight figures. Right. It's all about, I think, I think it's about, I think one of the things that I'm trying to, I think we're both saying in different ways is you can't be short sighted. Like if you, if you legitimately are trying to build, you know, wealth for your family, wealth for your community, which I'm a big, big believer in. It's like hey, if you're going to make a bunch of money and you give some of it away, you know, if you're going to do these types of things, you want to kind of become that next level of you per se, then you're going to have to start thinking ahead, right? One of the things I love about your whole organization, everything you guys touch on is, is the wholeness, the holistic approach. And I know that's something you're really passionate about. You wrote about it in your book about a good friend that talked, talked a lot about the wholeness approach. Like give us a, a good understanding what wholeness really is. Because I find that if we can help people shift their perspective, they become a whole lot more powerful.

Isn't that the truth? Man, I was blessed and a lot of people confused the name like that, that we were related to Stephen Covey. And there's probably some connection there that.

Would be a bad relationship if it worked out.

Like, man, I wish, I wish I knew him closer than what you guys think. But I did read the books and so Stephen Covey, I'll give him credit, is Dr. Covey came up with the whole person theory. And so I learned that as an early kid and I would read all the Seven Habits and all that stuff and it really started to talk about realizing so later in life how much that actually applied. But if your, your fitness isn't in order, your family's not in order, your faith is not in order, your finances are not in order, you're not really operating at 100%, you're depleting and you're operating at this lower percent, which means you're not your best. And I don't know about you. Like I want to show up my best, I want to show up and compete. And so for anybody listening, realize that those are more intertwined than we typically give credit. I know when I'm more fit, I have more energy to go do the things with my family, the things that matter. When I have more, my finances in order and have money, I'm going to travel, I'm not as stressed about things, things that come up in life, which they will, they don't derail you from where you are. And your faith for me, obviously my foundation and my relationship with God is like, if I don't have my faith in order to know how I'm making decisions, what my alignments are, and realize there's more to life than me just showing up, making a lot of money or doing things that the world would tell us are successful, then it's an empty, it's a non fulfilling life. And so I've chosen to really integrate all of those every chance I get and to talk about them and look intentionally for how do I integrate them is because they are a lot more Alike and integrated than we try to separate and compartmentalize, especially as men.

Yeah, that's right.

Integrated who we are. When you show up, you don't get like part of Steven, you get part of Brian. Like you get all of us. And that, that is where I think when we lean in, that's how we grow and develop.

No, I love that and also love the fact that, you know, the Bible talks about faith over fear all the time. Like in a variety of different ways. Thousands of different, well, what seems like thousands of stories. But there's plenty of stories about having faith in lieu of fear and how faith and ultimately brings prosperity and abundance along the way. And I was just thinking, you know, even in this whole market stuff we were just talking about a minute ago, like having faith that God has got you, he's not going to let you fail. He's going to give you insights. As long as you're patient and you don't operate in fear, you end up kind of going to the next level. I do find that one of the things that at least I struggled with early on.

And I'm sure I do at some level, even still today, I hope not as bad as it used to be, is more of an ego based consciousness rather than a faithful one. Like how can, first of all, how is, how detrimental can an ego based consciousness be? And then two, what can we do to shift it?

So I listen, you probably heard the same one, but the Ed Mylett John Gordon podcast, the new one. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So he dropped a bomb and I'm going to share it, but I want to give John credit, is he said ego is edging God out. That hit me like a freaking ton of bricks. Is I realized when my ego's at play, what I'm doing is I'm edging God out. And the guiding light principle, like to me, God is the one that provides and has given us the opportunities and the gifts and all these things to go do it. When I shift over to my ego and oh, Brian knows this, I've done this. Reality is all good things come from God. And so I looked and thought, man, when I'm edging God out, that's when I need to bring God back in. And so you might have a default. And I think about patterns show up. So how do you respond to the patterns? Is what matters for us to go to the next level? Well, a pattern could be. I recognize it. And secondly, what is my response? And my response now is I love proverbs because there's a lot of Wisdom.

You want to get wisdom? Read proverbs a lot.

Yes. But for any of us listening, especially our faith based brothers and sisters, is like when you feel yourself going into that ego based consciousness and you're going there, hey, just slow down, read a verse. I've got some guys in my text chat, I've got verses of the day that come in. You're integrating that in your day. Then what I've, I've found for me is I can reprogram that back in and go, okay, I'm going to stop for a minute. This is Brian's ego. This is me trying to impress or do something. Let me go back to my center. And my center for me is my faith. What has God's word told me about what should I be doing? You said it earlier, it seems, what's the clarity in that moment? Because typically it's a decision we need to make. And so that's where bringing that back, you can balance those things together and allow God to lead you. I'd much rather have that than me making a decision by myself because I've made plenty of mistakes trying to do it myself. And I look back and go, that was me. That was all me.

Yeah, it's crazy. You know, I was just thinking too, as I was reading through conversations with Covey, your book, I noticed something that was very instrumental. A lot of authors and no harm, no foul, because sometimes, sometimes you need a good story. That's, that's about the, you know, it's completely about the author. One of the things that I discovered that I loved about what you did was not only did you talk about some of the elements of how things were brought in and challenged you and kind of awoken you and kind of set you up to kind of be as successful as you are, but you gave a lot, a lot of credit away. Like each, each individual chapter was actually dedicated to a mentor of some kind in many respects. And kind of what you gleaned from that, why did you set the book up that way?

I think that's life. You know, when I look back, like starting with my mom and dad were the greatest influences in my life. And then I had some coaches that came along that were the greatest influence. What I learned is the best coaches and mentors and people in our lives, they bring out what's already inside of us. They bring out our greatness. It. Wouldn't it be cool to have something different? It's very astute that you picked up on that too because a lot of people, they just read through. And it's like stories and people giving away great lessons, which. That's awesome. Like, yeah, take the lessons and go in. That's cool. I really believe, when we look back in life, life was meant to do with other people, not a solo game. And I learned that in soccer. But my intention was to share things that really inspired and motivated me, but also give you tactics. And so I incorporated that in. Because it's one thing to hear something and be emotionally moved, like, yeah, I'm going to do better. I'm motivated. What are you going to do with that information? Yeah, down the field. And, you know, I was, in a way, opening up my own playbook of, hey, here's how I received this. You might take it different. Here's the actions I'm going to take. What are you going to do? You have the ball in your hands, at your feet, whatever the sport, what are you going to do? You got the ball. Make a play.

Yeah, no, I love that. I saw so many of my friends that you. You brought up Meltzer and trucks and, you know, there's so many amazing human beings that you brought up. And it's funny, you know, every time I get on one of these calls or one of these. These podcasts, I always get super excited because I get. I get to ask questions to some of those brilliant people on the face of the planet. And, you know, my goal is to always try to get that nugget that they haven't shared anywhere else for my audience. Right. But also in doing so, even when we went to go create the online platform that's coming out in a few months, or actually a month, unstoppable startup online for business owners, for startups. One of the things that I did was I. One of the. One of the positions that we have is that I bring in thought leaders like yourself to come in and, like, come in, like, coach people on a specific segment. Because I've also discovered that.

I can say the exact same thing you do in a different way, and the audience resonates with you, even though they might not resonate with me. And if my heart's really about the. Serving the audience, then it's not about serving me. And if it's not about serving me, it's about serving them. I need to feed it to them in a way in which they can digest.

Right. 100%, man, that's spot on. And that's why we shared and I think that book, why it's. And I love reading the stuff. Like, to me, it was more about One, it was a big goal to get it out there and to share all that. But two, what you just said is really, when you think about people share things differently. They may connect with a story. The importance of sharing their story was somebody's going to read that. One of the chapters we've had, a lot of people respond that are going through, unfortunately, illness and a cancer that one of our guests won't give it all away, but they had to battle through some of that. You're going to go and read. You're like, that's me. That's my story. I'm connected to them. And it's how they said it and what they did. Wouldn't it be selfish? I thought about this. Would it be selfish if I kept all those conversations that I've had with people? I didn't go share them with people and say, you know what? You may never have access to a trucks or Melt or somebody like that, but I'm going to give you access. Pull back the curtain, and they're going to share all this. And if you love it, cool, go follow them. Because these people are making a difference in the world. And so that is. That was the intention and what I think has been the joy of. Doesn't matter who you hear it from. We're all on the same collective impact journey. And if somebody else can help you because I introduced you to them, go for it, man. All on.

No, I love it. You know, as I was reading through it, I was learning. I was like, ooh, that is such a good principle. And I know that one. But I've never. I haven't. I haven't been implementing that one and long. You know, it's a. I think it's a good tool to kind of put yourself in an environment. I know that you talked about this as well. You may not be able to put yourself in the room with those relationships, but you can put yourself in the room with the content that came out of those relationships. You know what I'm saying? So trying to get to that point.

People often ask, like, you know, what are the things about, like, proximity is power. And I think proximity fuels your purpose. And you've heard me share those things. And, you know, for a lot of people, they may not be able to afford to get in that room and get close enough access, but really, today, there's no excuses to listen to a podcast reading a good book. And you're right, they can be close enough. And then if you implement the one thing, where's your life going to be and now you start moving down the journey. That's the cool part of. That's how we all learn. Let's be real.

Like, yeah.

You know, the guys, like, if we've mentioned and other people, they're still learning from someone else today. They're constant learners.

Yeah.

Ever stop.

Yeah. And they all have coaches. That's like, I would. I would even dare say. And I know you talked about a little bit this as well. They have more coaches than they do mentors now. They have people that actually hold them accountable. I've discovered, for me, a coach will hold me accountable and drive me and push me where a mentor will give me an education, but necessarily won't hold me accountable.

Man, I do. Every Monday, I've got my coach that I pay. And every Monday. We had a breakthrough today, and we're like, hey, this is what we did. Some of this in the past. We're not doing this today. Here's this. Okay. And it is. You've got to be coachable. You gotta be willing to do the work. But I get excited about the work I get to do over the next week to implement things that I know are gonna help me help those that I care about.

Yeah.

And you're right. That coach one. When you're paying money and you're investing, I found there is a heightened intensity and awareness what you're doing.

You're paying a little closer attention, for sure.

Oh, isn't it the truth? And you're right. And I've got mentors in my life that are phenomenal. But. But it. It is not the same relationship. Somebody, listen, do not confuse the two. The people that are coached outperform those that are not coached. And I look back as an athlete, I can't imagine playing a soccer game, although I have on a pickup game with no coach. It is elite chaos.

Yeah. You need a coach. Well, let's talk about your. Your professional soccer career segment, because obviously, you know, so it was a huge part of your life for a long time. What are some things that maybe you brought into your current life from that you learned in competitive soccer and professional soccer? What are some things that you figured out you had to eliminate from maybe the mindset that you used to kind of like, you know, work through when you were playing competitive and professional soccer?

There is. You hear people talk about this obsession, and I think obsession can be a good and a bad thing. Right. Depending on how you do that. But I look at. I was truly obsessed with soccer. It's how you move to the next level. And you move through an obsession. For me, looked like I would run extra. I would stay after training sessions and do shooting drills, footwork drills, hit the weight room as a teenager and Even my early 20s learning I do, I would do all the extra things. I think people today. One tip I would give you is what I took away was that work ethic and doing the minimum practices and the minimum work ethic will get you the minimum results. It might get you on the team. But my goals were to start. My goals were to play D1, to go play professionally, to do all these things. You want the extra, you got to be willing to do the extra. And I think about, you know, Kobe Bryant talked about the standard was here. And then he comes in the league, he's like, okay, if they're practicing twice here, I'm going to add an extra practice earlier in the morning. I was doing that with my running and my fitness and really treated things different. So what I take from that to today and why it matters and I'm sharing it with you is today I'm always doing extra. What's the one book? What's the one connection I can do? What's the thing I need to get better at? I'm always on this real awareness of I need to consistently get better. I'm not like the Brian of last year isn't the Brian that I need today to compete in 2023. And so I would say that part, couple that with some leadership. I was really blessed, you know, Stephen, High school and even college, my last two years of both, I was nominated by the teammates basically nominate you to be captain. And that taught me a lot about leadership and a lot about you can be a leader within a team without a title. In a lot of my career, I've been a leader without a title. I've been a leader with a title. And they're different. And today what I've had to eliminate is my title doesn't mean anything to some people. It really just does not. Become the leader that people would follow you and really trust you. They didn't have to.

Yeah.

Have to. And we had that on the soccer field sometimes. There were times where we had to get on to teammates for being late, not doing what they had to do, going out and partying, whatever it was. Do you have the respect and authority? When I'm not their head coach, I'm a teammate. Yes. I'm a captain. They didn't have to listen. You have that ability to influence people positively today. And what I've had to Let go of. I'll tell you, this is my competitive drive is. I get it. It could be excessive for some people. How I'm wired. And so what I've realized is meet people where they are. The next generation of Brian is really aware of where people are and where they want to go and realizing that their goals may not be my goals. We may not be in alignment of our work ethic. They may not have kids in a family and priorities of mine. Great leaders are able to serve a large array of people where they are. That's going to be the test of your leadership and your impact. I'll leave it. This is your pastor shared. This is Never let your influence grow wider, then your character runs deep. Never let your influence grow wider than your character and deep. Which really means we always have to think about our character matters over everything else.

Yeah. There's a reason trees have roots, right?

Amen.

The bigger, the bigger, the deeper the root, the stronger the tree, the more prone it is to withstand the storms. All that good stuff. You know, I was just thinking too, you know, if I'm in the audience position and you know, obviously you've been uber successful. It's easy to look at Brian Covey today. You know, going through, you know, business success, managing a book of business in the billions and mortgage industry, like, all of that. It's like, it's really easy to kind of get lost in that. I'm curious. I would like to talk about this one aspect that was in the book that I think is a life truth. I think there are certain things that are just life truths. And it was the principle of it's not as. It's. It's a. It's only when we get this right, everything is a setup, not a setback. It's a setup, not a setback. Talk to us just a little bit about early stage Brian, because, you know, it's. Again, you're a sharp dude. You're super articulate. You know what you're doing. You're coached. You've been uber successful in the marketplace. You're. You're uber well relationally connected by people that you sincerely want to serve and. And whatnot. I want to give. Let's. Let's assume for just a second there's a Brian Covey out there right now that maybe is going through his own 2008 or is going through his own thing. Like, what are we going to do? What do we need to tell him so he can. We can get him to Brian Covey of today.

Oh, man. We let's get to the things that I think have built me to where I am. If I were to go back, I'm going to start teenage years, because I think there were some foundational principles that I didn't understand were happening at that point. And some of those were making it all the way, like with the U.S. national team and making it all the way to my dream, and then getting cut before the next World cup coming up and not making the final team. And little did I realize most people can say, man, that was a huge setback. I mean, that's a setup that fueled my purpose and my drive to realize. I never wanted that feeling again. I never wanted to feel like I could have given more, I could have done more. What could I have done different? And it sets you up in your mindset to, I was going to go play D1, I was going to go play professional. There was nothing stopping me. And it did create this relentless pursuit that in my 20s, when the market started to crash, really happened. Right about 30, I had my job eliminated, cut, basically, again. Yeah, I've been through it once before. I knew what to expect. I knew that you got to get back in the game. The one thing I've always learned is you can't put yourself on the sideline. And if you get back in the game, you have a better chance of scoring, a better chance to contribute. And so the Brian then, man, it could have been another setback for me. And let's be real, I thought about quitting. I thought, is this the right industry for me? What have I got myself into? I got a family to provide for. And what I was being set up for was later again, when I had an opportunity to join another organization. Things are going great. It's going really well. I'm the top performer in the company. Our region is just absolutely dominating. And they come back, brian, you're making too much money. We just don't think you're a fit here. The way we set this up, we want to change. We don't really agree with where you want to go, and your. Your team and all that stuff just doesn't align with us. And I'm like, what top performers get cut to? Okay, new realization. Another setup for me, because what that allowed me to do is I met a future mentor. I got to go open a new company and really build something out from scratch and do things I'd never done in my career. And I look at all that and look, 0708 taught me a lot of things, but nothing taught me More than what I learned through sports. And my parents always encouraging me of, you get back in the game. If you're injured, you get back, like, you get back as fast as you can. The gap for all of us between what we allow on something that doesn't go like we planned the unexpected or the things that just screwed up to when we put ourselves back in the game and not stress that enough, that's the difference between you being, okay, somewhat successful, uber successful. And I have realized through all of that, what I would say the one truth is, the faster you put yourself back in the game, you have the choice, the power and the ability, the sooner you're going to start to feel better. And one of my mentors shared this with me, is you can act yourself into a better way of feeling a lot faster. You can feel yourself into a better way of acting, right? And the principle is you can sit around and wait for your feelings to change. It's going to take a long time. Or you can get up and go take the walk. You can make a phone call, you can go do what you need to do. Go take actions. Actions create movement. They create energy. Back in the game.

Yeah, no, that's so good. In fact, I was, I just did an event for Emily Lago where I actually hosted her for her event called the Unstoppable Success Summit. And she was very kind and invited me to be one of the speakers. And we got to the end of, you know, it already been a very power packed day, or, you know, many of our friends, Ken Joslin and all these different Catherine Gordon, like, we have all these different mutual friends that were there and speaking and just all superhuman, phenomenal people, you know, but it was easy to see us, you know, I kind of, at the very end of it, I said, hey, guys, audience wise, I said, how are you guys feeling on an energy level? Like, where you. Where are you at? Are you. Are you stoked? Are you bummed? Like, where are you at? Are you like, brain numbed? Because this has been so much content at you at once. Like, where are you at? And so I had, I said, everybody stand up. So I had him stand up for a second. I said, guys, all right, repeat after me. And I, I was like, I look at. I am. Am unstoppable. Unstoppable. And then I had, by the. Within five seconds, I had them elevated, screaming at the top of their lungs. That one sentence took five freaking seconds. Five. Five seconds. And I said, guys, how do you feel? And they were like, you know, kind of Thing. So it's. You can easily do this to yourself. Like, go, go out to the backyard or go out to the yard or wherever you're at. Go, go walk down the street and talk to yourself. Rather than say the negative things that you normally say to yourself. Tell yourself some good stuff. Tell yourself there is hope, there is opportunity, there is passion, there is purpose. Like dig in deep, right?

I love that, you know, so my dad taught me the power of visualization. And actually what I later came to find out, Tony Robbins and priming and some of the stuff, you know, he talks about there. And you can change your state in such a way. And I'll tell you, when you learn to master that, what you just did and took them through an exercise will not only submit kind of cement what they learned, they're gonna have an emotion and a feeling tied to that of okay, I am unstoppable. Stephen went through that. My emotion changed. I received more than I would have. You all have the ability to do that today. And so that I would just tell you, I thought about as you were sharing that I was like. And there were times I visualize that and I would change my state before a game and I go in, even if it's a workout. Yesterday I was playing an over 40 men's league game, right. And I put myself into a state. I have a particular warmup that I still do that puts me in a state of I'm competing, I'm in the moment. I am here, right where my feet are. I am here to compete. Yeah, look, I don't do that 24 hours.

Yeah.

There are certain instances in the day you have to get a lean in and you have to be, like you said, in the right state to be able to receive that.

Well, I mean, if you're going to be successful, I think this is a another life truth. You're going to have to learn to compete when you don't want to.

Amen.

Right. When there's. When the world's coming at you and all kinds of stuff. You know, I don't know, just that's. To me, that's kind of like become. You know, I've part of the reason I named the show Unstoppable. And it used to be. It used to be named Stuck. To Unstoppable was because to me, stuck was nothing more than not making progress. Where unstoppable mean all. It is all unstoppable means it doesn't mean you're bulletproof or you can run through every wall. All it means is that you kept going.

That's all it means. You weren't stopped. You kept going. Therefore you're unstoppable. It's a lifestyle. One of my mutual friends, Bo Hawkins even mentioned that to me. He's like, dude, it's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. I'm like, dude, you're so right. Wait, before we, before I pivot to one of my, one of my final topics to cover with you that you're just an absolute genius on, I'm curious, where do you want, what do you want everybody to connect with you at? Like, where's the best place to learn more about you? Maybe maybe hit your team up for the mortgage industry? Like, what's the best place?

Oh man. So I hang on Instagram quite a bit and now with the, the changes, there's no more fake profiles with the checks and all the stuff. And I had it on Facebook. They just gave to an Instagram with a new, new deal there. But I would hit me up there and it have a.

The.

So it's the briancovey.com like that that's kind of what's there. You can go to www.briancovy.com like same deal right there. Everything from the podcast, the book how to schedule one on one time, Our mortgage team, how you can find out things. There are tons of resources and tools. If you, if you dug some what we're talking about, check that out. Because that free resources, we drop content and I film most of it. 1 Initially it was really just to give back all the things I was learning.

Yeah.

And what I've realized now is it's making me smarter and better.

So it's like that the truth. Yeah.

This is great. It's like Personal Development 101.

Yeah. No, dude, I love it. I love it. And guys, if you, if you guys are in the mortgage, in the hunt for a mortgage in a crazy turbulent environment, you guys need a organization that has a heart of a teacher and as a heart of a servant. Brian's team absolutely has that. I can't recommend Brian and his team absolutely enough. So make sure you go check that out for sure. Brian, the other thing that I think you have a unique superpower on is building teams. And I don't know if that also comes from the soccer game or if that just comes whatever, but you have very specific theologies on what it takes to create high performing teams in general. Talk to us about two or three little segments maybe that you feel like are just pivotal live Truths, if you will, about building amazing teams to help you win.

Man, I love this one. And it does stem from my soccer days. And I'll just say, imagine, you know, in club or college or professionally, you've. You've got 20 plus players on the team at any given point. 11 are on the field. Really need to be able to inspire, motivate and encourage all different walks of life. Right. I mean, we have people from lots of different countries, lots of different backgrounds, all of these different things. And to me, to really be able to do that, you need to be able to lean in and connect with people where they are and support and encourage them. And a great leader is going to be able to do that one on one. And in group settings, it starts for me, you have to be the example. Let's just cut to the chase. If you're not living in accordance with what you say you believe, you're going to be tossed to the side. That leadership gap exists. We can all smell it, we can all spot it. If I told you that I really think working out is a pillar. You never see me work out. You never see any pictures of that. I actually never go work out. I'm totally out of shape. You see me drinking beers, eating horrible food, I'm discredited. Right? So think about what you believe and how you show up when you're the example. What I've found is that leader can change things. I'll tell you a story here. New company that I joined you over four months ago, and I came in and I talk a lot about fitness and I really believe that's a pillar to success. And we've got two of our leaders that are now sending me pictures of their food. Tell me about how they've dropped 10 and 15 pounds, what it's doing to their family, what they're doing, their kids. They're having conversations. Guys, this is the ripple effect of a great leader. Yeah, I want to be that kind of leader that, yes, I'm going to help you hit your goals. You're going to make a lot of money in our team. Like, we got that, man. We got that.

Yeah.

I want to help you become a better human and a better mom, dad, all that. And that's where some of this starts. So I'd say that's number one, be the example. Number two, let's get into some of the real world. How do you build a team and how do you put together the right team? Like, think about, you can assemble a team, but it's not the right people. You got chaos and disruption about to break your world. Attractive leadership is something that I've been studying over the last five years. I've leaned in and this is what it is for me is attractive leadership is really back to John Maxwell and the law of attraction. You want to attract people, but how do you attract the right people that you want on your team? Well, the reality is you need to show up on social. I believe you need to share what you believe. You need to share quantifiable results. If you've helped these people do this, when you start to show up and you're relatable and you're authentic, people talk about that. But the same Brian you see on social here on the podcast, when you meet me, same dude, see me in the soccer field, same guy, right?

Yep.

Need to be authentic. And that attractive leadership will now put you in a place that when you're sharing this, what I have found, people start appearing in my life dming me, commenting on my posts. I start to be in broaden proximity of people I want on my team. Then what I've found is when we have core values and we're in alignment, the conversations escalate faster and I start to realize they're in alignment or they're not. But until you're clear on what you believe and what your core values are, you're just attracting everybody. Yeah, that is not the way to build a team. So the last principle of this is sharing it on social. So I mentioned that. Get over yourself and realize when you share this, you're actually attracting people and it's about them. I found this core value to help me and here's why. Here's why it matters to you. It's always about them. But I'm also sharing who I believe. The last pillar, I'll tell you, it's even the third one is this is the truth we all got to face. If you're a four or five or six, you ain't attracting seven, eights and nines easily, if at all. Think about where you are and be honest. I got honest with myself. It's why I hired the last coach I brought in knows nothing about mortgage or real estate or housing, nothing. But he knows a lot about leadership. He knows a lot about how to put together game plans like our project design. He's very structured. He brought in areas that I'm not good at. I brought somebody in to say, you know what, Brian, you're a six or seven, maybe some days you're an eight. I'm going to help you get to an eight or nine consistently. I brought people into my life to help me do that. That has now created a culture where we're all accountable, we're all coachable, and we're all aiming to be that 7, 8, or 9, our best that's there that will attract the right people. That'll also allow you to be the example you want. So it works both ways. Those are the three pillars I look at today and live by and actually coach and train our team. And guess what? When you live by that, you attract the right people. You show up every day and you're developing, people around you are either going to opt into that or they're like, man, this is not what I signed up for.

Cool.

We're gonna find people that do.

Dude, I love it. That is so good. I was just thinking too, that at least in my leadership journey, there was a point in time of trying to go from a literally a one to a ten, right? So, you know, leadership can be all over top of the place, based on emotional intelligence, based on a variety of different things. And one of the key things that I remember doing is I started moving from manipulation into influence. So I started telling. Not telling people what I specific things or doing specific things to get them to do things. I started just kind of like trying to be a good person around it where they wanted to do things. And then we wanted to win together and we wanted to kind of grow a business together. Which kind of lead me to my final question, which is, what if I'm a team member and my leader is a problematic leader currently, but I want to inspire them to take it, to take a chance and to grow themselves and become a better leader? What would you say to that team member who's trying to encourage their leader to become better?

Yes, this is a concept I was introduced to early in my leadership career, and I struggled with it, like, really struggled with it. A lot of us, we think we can lead down the organization, right? And that's our job. I actually believe the best leaders know how to lead up the organization and leading up. And if you're really a leader, you're not looking at your boss or manager, whatever you call them, as the problem. Your job is to figure out solutions. And the best leaders, look above. Look, we've all had those managers who are like, oh, my gosh, this. This person doesn't get it, and we blame them. That puts you in a state, one where you're now a victim and you've allowed yourself to be inferior and less than what you're capable of. So if you're in that spot today, share the things and be the type of leader that you would want them to be. What I found is people gravitate towards that and they start to realize it and one of two things will happen. You're either going to assimilate with that and be like, and I love what Brian or Steven, I love what they're sharing, whether it's eating well, showing up to meetings and being productive, how they communicate, whatever it might be that you're wanting to see is going to happen, they're going to move towards that. Or the other one is people get pushed out, they select out. And that has happened in my career too. And that is not a bad thing either. What I've realized that I'm control of how I show up. I'm control of how I treat other people. What I'm not in control of is how people receive it, how they show up. That is their job and they need to own it. But look, guys, if you want to become a better leader, realize that not everybody's going to show up every day and go, yeah man, I'm all in. I'm with you. I'm going to do whatever you say. If you're going to be a great leader, you need to be able to influence people that are bought in. And there's a concept of enrolling and registering. Don't get too deep into it. But you just need to realize you need to enroll people in the mission. You're going to need to continually re. Register them as they come through to make sure they're consistently bought in. That's above you, below you, whatever it is in the organization. Great leaders are able to do that. And I would leave you this. Great leaders are able to influence people outside of their organization.

Are you that type of leader? Today I realized I was not. It was only until I started giving with nothing and expectation of return. And now I mentor and coach some people from other mortgage and real estate firms that.

Yeah, I mean I was thinking that to myself, you know, it's. I was in a reintroduced or I would say was. You know, I've always been kind of one step or two rings out from a lot of the, the, the core thought leaders that are kind of at the A list category. And that's been kind of like the last few years. And then through the power of trying to serve someone else without asking anything in return, lo and behold, they, they said, hey Ed, I need you to go meet this guy named Stephen. He can probably do your book launch at his place. He can live stream, you know, tens of thousands and you can have hundreds of people show up. Da, da, da da. And sure enough, we, we end up working with Ed Mylet. And now I can call him a friend, you know, so these are. I'm so glad you brought that up because I, I feel like people don't open themselves up to serve without the expectation return. It's almost like the American culture historically is like, okay, I'll give to you, but what are you giving to me?

That's right.

Right. And what I'm seeing with, with people like yourself who are, who are uber successful and, and working really, really hard is they all have the heart of service. Even spending time with Ed on the side. Like, dude, he's got a heart of service. Our mutual friend Garn's got heart of service. Like, everybody's got a heart of service. Everybody's trying to do the right thing in the right way at the right time.

Amen, man. That's the powerful truth. We've all been there. I've been selfish my life and not done it that way. And I look back and I'm like, the relationships were empty. I wasn't fulfilled, I wasn't enjoying. And now you're right, like just showing up and giving to people, you just find there's an abundance to it. You hear about the abundance mentality, but I found you just get to meet such cool people in your life that you go, man, is this real? And guess what? As a byproduct, yes, the success will follow it. But that was never the, that was never the intention. That's, that's how the world works, dude.

Man, I know the time has flown by, but we have to do this again. I love you to death, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Likewise. This has been so good. Thank you for all you're doing out there. Just, you know, it's good to have other like minded leaders and men that in this day and time, and let's be real, we need more people to stand up and rise up and really be the positive influences that we need.

Dude, I appreciate it, man. All right, dude, I have a good one.

Cool.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

Money alone is just a tool and it's controlled and defined by our behaviors. And so many times we feel like, you know, money controls us, but we control it. So the real definition of wealth to me is about building both your wealth and your worth at the same time. It's about building that internal personal security like your self esteem, what you think and feel about yourself and building that at the same time you build your financial wealth.