"This MILLIONAIRE ROUTINE Will Change Your Life TODAY!" | Jayson Waller

You're an underdog. You can't look at where you're going to be in two years or a year. You can't look at the ultimate, what I call dream goal. You got to look at your small goals and know every single day that you put in the work, you're getting that much better. And a bunch of these equals a lot.

You know, you've got one of the fastest growing businesses across America right now. Yeah, right. And it's all to do with solar and alternate energy and all that kind of stuff. What I wanted to do is because I've been hearing some things through the grapevine about, you know, we shouldn't do alternative energy because of things like that. What's going on with Texas where people. The power grid shut down and all kinds of stuff. Break that down for us and help us understand, like, what's the truth and what's the faults.

Oh, dude, great question. So the truth is the utility grids that the utility companies have put in place in most of the country are obsolete. They are. They have issues they, they don't have. They're not structurally sound. They haven't invested a lot of money into the grid. They just haven't. And they should have. What you see in Texas is, yes, some windmills froze, but that's not why everybody's power went out. They went out because there were issues on the grid. You know, they have other sources of power that go onto that grid. That grid had issues. I'm in Michigan, DTE area. We have tons of power outages here. North Carolina with hurricanes, Florida, Georgia, everybody gets their power outages. And the problem when the power goes out, the grid is so frail, they, there's issues. And people's mindset is, well, if they get solar, that's going to be like the wind turbines. No, that is a grid issue. Yes, the wind turbines froze on a storm that happens once every hundred and something years. But with solar, nothing freezes. Right. In fact, they heat up a little bit and they can melt some snow off your roof. But how solar works and how wind is supposed to work when it doesn't get that cold is you use that energy first. So the grid is so frail, the more power you buy from the power company, the more distribution and usage is on that grid to make it worn out. But if I have solar on my home and I use that power first, I'm not buying a lot of power from that grid. I'm in essence saving that grid and I'm saving the utility company money because they don't have to make power, send it to the substation and send it all the way to me. So in essence, it helps the utility companies as well. So most of them, people don't know this, want you to have solar. They just want to be a distributor and charge you a meter fee because it saves them money making power and shipping it all the way to your home. If me and you are neighbors and I overproduce and I have solar and you don't, it works like water. That molecule will go to you and the utility company will sell that power to you. But it came from my solar, so that's how this works. And the mindset of people thinking utility companies.

I ask people, what's the longest bill you have in your house? And they always say, the mortgage. No, it's not. It's your water bill, it's power bill. And it goes up all the time. In fact, does anybody know their interest rate on the utility bill? No, because, you know, some Companies go up 10%, 20%, 12% every year. It seems like they just keep adding that. And it's not because your kids are using more power. It's because the utility companies need to make more money. And so the only way to offset that. What we try to empower in our business and our industry is to give people that choice to own their power set. One flat cost for it. You know, they're not spending, you know, $30,000 buying a system from us. They're financing a payment. So they're reducing a power bill, and then they're taking that savings and they're paying and financing the solar. Another way to look at this analogy is if you spend $1,000 a month filling up your car with gasoline. And I told you, look, man, I can't get you to be zero, but I can get you to be like $200 a month. And I'm going to finance the other 800 for 10 years. After that, the gas is free. Would you do it? Oh, heck, yeah. You would do it, right? Makes sense. Like, oh, yeah, then that gas is free. That's how solar works. You reduce one payment, utilize that for a solar payment rather than paying the utility company, and you're using your power first, you're still hooked to the grid, you're still pulling power from them. But a friend of mine, that's the CEO of Sonova, they're a solar finance company, he emails me a picture from his thing. He's the only house within 20 homes that's all lit up. You know why he had Solar batteries in Houston. That's why. Because you know, it's all lit up, he's able to utilize that. And then he has a generator as a secondary backup where a lot of people don't. Didn't do that.

Yeah, man. Well, I know you convinced me when you and I did a show together long ago. You know, I'm building a brand new house. We're facing, I think it's east, it's got a phase to kind of get most of the sunlight. And I'm convinced, like I'm convinced, you know, I am going to take advantage of that $200 versus that thousand dollars all day long.

Well, look, you should.

Yeah, you know, it's clear. You know, power home solar is obviously rocking and rolling. Right? You're doing a lot of great things across the country, but it hadn't always been that way. And one of the things that I love about you most is this passion for the underdog. And I mean, you've built an entire secondary brand off of it as a whole. Explain to the audience a little bit why you're so passionate about the underdog. And even I know that kind of plays in a little bit of power Home of solar. So talk a little bit about that.

Well, so, you know, I grew up with, you know, less than middle class. I mean it was, you know, I lived in a trailer park. People made fun of me in high school. I didn't finish high school, I didn't go to college. I had a kid in my teens. I fought with my in laws. They didn't like me because I was lived in a trailer park. Now I buy their dinner and fly them all over the United States to see us. So, you know, that's one of my little ding, my check marks. But you know, I, I love when people tell me I can't do something. I don't know why. It used to bother me as a young man, as an older teenager, but now I love it. I love the challenge. I mean, I believe there are three kinds of people in this world and the three categories I'm going to give you right now, I think we all have been in all three at some point. But where do we house most of our mindset, Right? One is you love to see success. You're excited about it, you're a motivator, you're a believer, you're a dreamer. You are happy to see people be successful. You love to look, learn from them. That's category one, right? We need more of those. Category two is the intimidated ones. Those are the ones, the family and friends that see you start to succeed and they're not going to bad talk you, but they're going to kind of be like Homer Simpson where he goes back into the bushes. They're going to just be like, I don't. They've outgrown me. They get intimidated. They get insecure. They don't get hateful. They get insecure, and they kind of fall off that relationship. You've outgrown them. They feel like. Or they're left out in the wind, and. And they're just intimidated. They. There's that category. And then the third category are the haters, the complainers, the wine bags, the ones that want to bitch about everything. Those are the ones that their failures are because of other people and other people's success is because of their failures. And, oh, that should have been me. And this. And those are the ones that I love. Now. I've been in all three in my life. At some point, there's a time I've been a three, and I'm like, I've complained and said, oh. Then I'm like, why would I complain? That's not true. Or two where I've been intimidated. Like, whoa, this guy's doing great. And then one is where I house myself mostly. And we need more ones in this world, and we need to convert the twos into ones, and we need to get the threes. I'm okay with having them. I mean, a lot of people, we're going to have them. That's what gives me the fuel. Because as they're watching me, I tell them, get your popcorn, get your Goobers, get your Coca Cola. Be ready. I'm going to put on a show, baby. You watch me, and I'm going to watch the road I'm building and where I'm going. And so that underdog mentality of getting people to focus on me, there's no such thing as bad press. That's how I feel. If you're worried about me, and I'm worried about me, man, there's two people worried about me. That's a good thing. And so I utilize that as a point to really drive home what I want to accomplish. And I just love to win. I mean, it makes me the ultimate competitor. I mean, I tell my son, he plays football. He's 10. You know, he's not the most athletic. He's definitely not the fastest. He's not the best shape, he's not the strongest, he's the smartest on the field. He plays quarterback. I mean, he threw 20 touchdowns, no picks last year, and this year he's got 17 touchdowns, three picks. But he's having a better year this year than last year. Right. It's okay, the picks, because he learns when you only succeed, you don't learn and you don't get good. He regressed, but now he's made picks and he's changed the way he plays a little bit, so it's okay. And I told him, I said, look, you don't have to be the biggest, best. The reason Tom Brady wins is because he's such a great leader. He elevated the rest of the team. And if you can be that great, because there's 20 quarterbacks better than Tom Brady physically, but not mentally and not with leadership. And so I think that if you can elevate the people around you that are in your category, one with you and trying to get to the next level, then it becomes infectious and more people are empowering other people, and people are excited and they're growing in life. And I think that you got to be able to push those points and utilize haters and stuff. And I just. I love the underdog. I mean, I'm a Rocky Balboa guy. Like, I love knock down and get back up, right? So I love Rocky, man.

And everybody now knows why. I love you so much, bro.

And that was just question number two.

Oh, wow. I'm a talker, man. You know, when I won, when I won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, I was very humbled. I didn't know what to say. I was the first one to go, and I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe I won. And I went up there, and it was 90 seconds. That's all I spoke, and I thought we had to hurry. And then I came back down, and there were eight other winners that night in different categories, and they talked for, like, 15, 20 minutes. This was last. Last April. I told my wife recently, had they let me go, I still could be talking right now. Had I known we had more time to talk. But I tried to hurry up and do it and was like, oh, I had more time. And I watch these. These folks talk forever.

Well, it's.

It's.

I'm going to wind you up, dog. I'm going to wind you up. All right, next question. And here we go. Number one reason or number one thing that underdogs can do right now to build momentum. Go.

You got to grind, and you can't quit. You got to set your goals that are reasonable. You know, a one week, a 30 day, a 60 day, a 90 day, 180 day goal. Anytime you look past that, you're going to get discouraged, you're going to resign, you're going to quit, you're going to feel defeated, you're never going to feel like you're achieved in anything. I use weight loss as a thing. You can't go 0 to £100 in a week. It takes time. You know, it's one bite at a time, one piece at a time, one day at a time. Or I like to say one step at a time. So if you're an underdog, you can't look at where you're going to be in two years or a year. You can't look at the ultimate, what I call dream goal. You got to look at your small goals and know every single day that you put in the work, you're getting that much better. And a bunch of these equals a lot.

There you go, man. Dude, I love your heart. I love your energy, man. You know, it's funny, you and I share similar backgrounds. We discovered that on the last time you and I connected and you know, I've spent my entire life trying to figure out how to help underdogs in my own right become unstoppable. Right. I find that one of the things that you, you and I both had to face head on and that most underdogs also need to face head on is this sense of overcoming your past or not looking at your past. What can underdogs do to kind of use their past for fuel rather than pain?

Well, some people just try to say forget your past and I'm not a big believer in that. You can't forget it because you have to learn from it and you have to be better for it and it makes you stronger and you have to remember the good things like growing up in my house. My parents are better grandparents than they are parents. Love them to death, but they're way better grandparents. But there was some abuse. There was some verbal and physical abuse. We didn't get the best situation to grow up. But there were a lot of great things too. I learned how to work hard. I learned how to, you know, stay motivated to not quit, to. I saw, oh how what my dad went through. And I think that when you look at your past and I've made tons of mistakes and lots of boo boos, when you're able to own them and not let them defeat you, forgive yourself, right? Move on from. I think you become stronger and you become more motivated in life because you didn't let something control you. I always say create your own map. Anything that you've done in the past, the reason your eyes are in the front is because you're looking forward. You can glance back and remember. You can glance back and use that information to make yourself better. But when you live in that moment, you can't grow. It's taking a hold of you. It's an evil force that just keeps you down and you can't let it do that. And so I'm a big believer if you got to evolve, you got to get better, you got to focus, you got to stay on the mission and keep it simple in front of you.

Do you feel like it's related more to, you know, as far as what prevents us from doing that? Do you think it's more insecurity or more fear or maybe a combination of both?

I think it's both. I mean, look, I still get insecure sometimes. I still get scared of things sometimes. I mean, you know, everybody. I have anxiety sometimes. My anxiety is different than my wife's. My wife cannot stand a fly. She literally has to take a bunch of medicine before she gets on the plane and she's out of it. You know, she's so nervous that we're going to crash. My anxiety is more, you know, running a company, 1800 employees or now I have a leak in the house and it's like we got to deal with contractors and I got all this stuff on the schedule. My anxiety kicks in and how we deal with those things are different too. My wife gets scared, trembles. I get angry or irritated. Everybody's different. And you know, I think being scared, you know, we have kids and when we have kids, you're scared. You know, I've got a 22 year old and I got a 17 year old, so two of them are driving. Are they going to get home okay? I still get nervous, you know, as they get older, you don't. The fear doesn't go away. It's a different kind of fear. And I've got girls. So you're like, well, hopefully they're in early tonight. And I hope nothing happened. I mean, you become paranoid and I always have to just go, look, I believe in people, you know, I believe, you know, I believe in God. I believe in the faith I have. I have, I have hope, I have faith. But, but I also am a numbers person and I try to tell myself time and time again, you know, hey, you know, my wife, like, look, it's, it's more dangerous for us to drive to the airport. Honey, she doesn't want to hear that. But that's what makes me set at ease. I'm not scared to fly, but I'm not scared to fly because I know the data, right? And, you know, anything else? The data. All right, well, my kids are driving home. Well, what are the odds of something happens? Okay, the data says it's good. It's fine. I'm going to quit tripping. You got to just. You got to find something to ease that pain. But I think fear and I think insecurity. I think they both equally play a part. I mean, I know they do with me. I mean, there's times I get a little insecure. I'm a little chubby. I got a dad bod right here up in the pool. I'm fricking amazing. Then I get out there like, oh, you eat cookies and you're a dad. That's cool. So, you know, I get a little insecurities. Dudes walking around six packs, I'm like, man, they got too much time on their hands or selfish or something. But really, you know, I get a little insecure. I'm like, I work out, but I can't lose the weight. But everybody feels that way, especially today. Social media and the life we live in. Everybody's world and life is perfect. I don't buy into that. You'll never see me going, oh, my gosh, look at their day. I don't do that now. I have family members that do, you know, and I hate that for them, I'm like, hey, don't do that. That's not real. But I don't do that part.

Yeah, well, you know, fear and insecurities, I know that for the underdog are definitely things that we have to kind of check and challenge on a regular basis. You know, that negative thought comes in your head. How quickly can you push it out? To me, it's almost like doing that extra rep, right? It's almost like doing the reps of the mind kind of deal. The other thing that I love about you is that you have a mentality that is built around supporting your dreams with the routines. Right? There's a daily practice, a daily ritual, so to speak, that most people go through that are highly successful. Talk a little about yours and why it's important.

So I get up every morning and usually get my kids up ready for school. Now that we're on virtual, the girls kind of get themselves up, but my son doesn't. I wake him up so he knows if I don't wake him up, he ain't getting up. But I automatically Wake up. 5:30, 6, 6:30, whenever, you know, no later than 6:30. But I all right, I'm up and then I go in there and I get him up. And recently we've changed a little bit of it, but I always work out at the gym in the morning. I try to do cryo once or twice a week because it makes me feel good, gives me the endorphins I need. And then I start my day, believe it or not, like 10, 10:30, probably not ideal, but I go till 6:30 or 7, so it's OK. My son, you know, with it being the pandemic and he gets a little insecure about his body. He's like, I want to be in better shape. He's been challenging me to get up at 7, work out with him for an hour. Then I go to the gym for an hour. So it's two hours. I got to work on my. And then, you know, I drink energy drinks. I probably shouldn't. I should do coffee, but I drink the energy drinks and then come home. So with him, I took him to cryo this morning, but I tried. I try to do something. I've got to work out or I've got to have a few moments to myself or I've got to do cryo. I got to do something to set my mind up for the day. If I don't, I can tell there's some irritation. I can tell I, I'm off, you know, when I'm on vacation and I can't and I don't go work out on that day or I don't get some time to myself, I'm off and I need that. And then it's the same thing, you know, I log into my phone the same way, I log into my computer the same way. I clean out all my emails before I go to bed. I have no emails open. That routine keeps me structured. I need a plan. Now, not every successful person needs a plan. I know lots of successful people that are all over the board. But for me, I need structure and I need a plan and I can change my plan, but I need that routine. I mean, I like having those moments to open up my mind and body and get the juices flowing before I start to kick some butt for the day. And I started doing that about. I started working out about eight years ago every morning. And I am addicted to it. And I am playing for a tie because I don't gain weight and I Don't lose weight. I am just setting a tie because I eat bad. Now, if I ate good, I might win some. But I just play for.

I once heard a friend of mine say that. How do you put it? He said he doesn't run to eat. He eats so he can run or something. No, no, it's the opposite, right?

He runs so he can eat. Yeah, he works out so he can.

Eat what he wants.

That's me. I'm like, look, I like donuts and I like cake, and I like milkshakes and ice cream. That's why I work out, because Otherwise I'd be £400. So in order to stay at the 215 range, I got to work out.

Oh, my gosh, man. Dude. You know, oftentimes the. Your mindset is kind of controlled by your mentors and the people that you allow in your life, who in your life right now is making a huge impact and helping you become a better man. Father, business owner, all the above. And what are you able to take from that person and then teach other people about?

Well, I would say, you know, growing up, yeah, I would lean on my dad for all kinds of things. You know, we didn't have the best relationship, but, you know, as a young man, having a kid in my, you know, 18 and living on my own, yeah, I would call him almost every day, like, what do I do with this? How do I handle that? I, you know, I wanted to. I wanted to know I was doing the right thing until I finally got it. And my daughter does the same thing with. With. With my wife. And then now in my later years, you know, I've got some good partners that work with me, some executives that I lean on. We all bring something to the table. We're like a puzzle. Every piece is different. So I help them with stuff. They help me with stuff. You know, I sometimes can lose control. I am 1 to 10, right, trying to get some gears. So, you know, I'm like, oh, man, I shouldn't have been that hard on you. But they know that that's. That, you know, that's one of my deficiencies is I get angry quick. You know, I'm able to see things better than them. In some instances, they may know more information, but I have this good sense of intuition. And so, you know, we all bring something to the table. We all have our deficiencies. So I lean on them a lot to challenge. We all challenge each other. What can I do better? And we ask, and you got to be humble, and you got to be Able to take it. My wife also really does help me a lot. I mean, you know, she's one of the few people in my world that isn't scared to be real. Like, you're being a prick. You got to handle that differently. You shouldn't be this way, you know, and I need that. You know, I feel like if you're really my friend and you care about me, you're going to tell me what I can work on. Don't blow smoke. You know, help me get better. I want to get better, but people need to learn to take that, not take it personally, take it as they're helping me. Like, they want me to be better, they want to see me succeed more. So they're giving me real advice on how to do things.

Now.

I don't ever have regrets, and I don't like second guess, whoa, should I have done that? But I love feedback and I always say, if you really care about me, you're going to find something I could have done better. So I'll work on that.

Yeah. I mean, it seems like, you know, obviously we have a ton of people who would probably classify themselves as underdogs that watch and listen to the show, and they definitely identify with that.

In my own journey, I know that self awareness was a huge part of that. And you spent quite a bit of time talking about the importance of self awareness. What are types of things that maybe were kind of like blind spots for you now, but maybe have been cultivated into strengths and how did you discover them?

You know, I think a lot of it was process of doing things and then failing. You know, I trusted people a lot early on, and we get burned where I was too emotional. In business, I would have friends or family or, you know, oh, I really like that person. I'm not going to let you know, I'm going to let them get away with that. That's okay. They're trying hard. Where eventually I had to take the personal out of it. That was one of my Achilles heels that I struggled with, is I was too naive and nice. And so I challenged myself a couple years ago to make it all business. I said, look, we could be best pals. We could rub shoulders, we could chest bump, but your numbers aren't there. You gotta go. And so I found a way to take the personal out of it. That was something there. I think also, I inspect what I expect. You know, I don't take everybody at their word. That doesn't mean I don't trust people. I empower people and I want them to grow and blossom, and I want to move in the sunshine, and I want them to produce their own branches. I think it's so important. And I've learned that over the years because I used to be a control freak, but because I used to be control freak, I open the hood a lot and I investigate because I don't believe in coincidences. If something smells fishy, that tastes fishy, it's fishy. So I want to find out why, what's going on? And I'm blunt about it. I'm like, look, I want to see the. Let me see the data. That's not a control freak. I'm not micromanaging, but when it smells bad, I'm going to look at it. And that's just who I am. And that's because, you know, I built things from the ground up where I was bootstrapping and doing things. I didn't just. And there's different ways to lead, but I didn't just entrust people to do everything. I've done most or all of it in my business. So therefore I, you know, they can't, they can't throw smoke at me. I understand what's going on, so they can't tell me. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, that's not how that works. So I. That, that importance, that learning that stuff in this business was important to me so I can answer the questions and know what's going on for our company.

Now, did that allow you to also set a culture expectation of people of kind of like this personal growth mentality? Did that, did that set the tone for that?

So when I, the first year we opened, we lost over a million dollars. And so all the money I made in home security, I already stuck into the business. Then I had to sell my house on the lake until my wife and kids were downsizing. So we sold a $2 million house and bought a. A house for a couple hundred grand to live in for my oldest daughter to finish her senior year. And my wife and everybody gave me the stink guy. What are we doing the solar thing for? If you're losing money and I'm like, you got to trust me. And so stuck everything back in, doubled down, bet on myself when I did that.

I realized after 15 and going into 16 when I did that, that I have to fire almost everybody and start over and hire people that want to be all in because they believe in the mission, not because it's a paycheck. And so that's what I did. I mean, we ended the year with like 40 employees. And I probably fired 30 of them.

Yeah.

And so with like 10 employees, I was doing the calls now I was doing the running the appointments, I was helping with the permits, I was helping move the designs around. I mean, you name it, I was doing it. And what that allowed me to do is, is really build a culture. When people would come in that appreciated and respected that I was grinding with them and I understood the job. But on top of that, I created an 8020 rule immediately. And I tell people up front, and right now we have 1800 employees and we have 23 directors and we have five executives. Everybody is on an 8020 rule every month. So they are to. Our directors are challenged to eliminate 20% of their staff and hire over 20% new staff every month. And people are like, why would you do that? Well, I'm not here for retention. The retention are going to be the ones that do their job and they need to stay a long time. I'm not here for Frank to check in and drink his coffee and stand and look at things. I'm here for results. I'm here because everybody's going to benefit. My goal for our company and for our employees is to go public and then to have a life changing transaction for all the employees. I'm talking, you know, the person comes in and checks the mail or takes out the trash, they get to go cash a check for 10, 15, $20,000. That's what I want to get us to a point to do. In order to do that, we've all got to be protecting the brand 1800 deep. It's not about one. And so when we put KPIs in place, I believe 20% of each team does 80% of the work and the next 60% of the of your team does the next 20%. Those are the averages. But your top 20 studs or stud eds, they're doing most of the work. That bottom 20%, that's shelf life. They're, they're complaining, they're negative. They're there just for a period of time, they've already expired. You got to move on from them. When you set the bar, I don't even care if you're in customer service. If you treat everything like sales, like you got numbers to hit, you got quotas to hit, they can't get mad at you. You hired them with that, with that expectation and you fired them with that expectation. We're a results driven company. We're not goodwill. Nothing wrong with goodwill. We're not goodwill. We're here to grow our company like a rocket ship. In order to do that, we've got numbers, we've got to hit. And when you bring a new blood, that gets exc. And I'm a big believer we share positive results and negative results. And it's on a board. Everybody sees if you poop the bed or if you succeeded because I believe that's what this world needs. Competition brings greatness. I don't want someone to hide, you know, and sneak and pull the little Homer Simpson thing and hide out and collect a paycheck. Hurting 1799 other employees, that doesn't make sense. I want everybody to earn their keep. And as long as we're doing that, that culture everybody's in, they love what they do, they're passionate because we're changing the world, we're empowering people. But on top of that, they've seen self growth. They're getting so good at what they do that they're making us create new jobs because we're growing. And then all of a sudden we're moving into regionals and then we're moving into directors and we're moving in to senior directors. We didn't have that stuff four years ago. Now we've got, you know, 23 directors. We had zero four years ago. You know, we've got 17 regionals, we've got 26 project managers. All those are positions that they've grown to create, that we place in and we keep doing. And their job is to replace themselves so they can move up.

Yeah. I mean, one of the crazy parts about owning an operating business, obviously, we've both bootstrapped businesses. And it sounds like you learned it quicker than I did. I got myself confused with the people that started with me that I thought were my ride or die partners that I thought were going to be here through the thick and the thin and stuff like that somehow. And there was a grittiness, a tenacity, like a perseverance about that. But probably 10 years in, that began to wane down. But I was still treating them like they were still giving me that kind of output and that we were still in this together, only to discover later on it was all about, you know, kind of the handout kind of scenario. And then I ran. I ran across an article, gosh, I think it was close to a year ago, and it said, from any company that goes from 0 to $1 million, right, and then from 1 million to 10 million in between, 1 to 10 million, you'll lose about 30% of the people that started the company, that kind of started early on. And by the time you get to a hundred million dollar business, right, or greater, you have less than 1% of the original team. And it was a really great article.

I need that article because people think I'm crazy. Go ahead.

Sorry, that I'll send it to you. No, I mean, it was mind boggling to me because I didn't. I thought that if I gave everybody in my business all of my heart and I said, you know, I'm casting the vision, this is where we're going. You know, keep in mind, I can only create opportunities if we grow. You know, that kind of stuff. You set the table that you're right, you know, only about, gosh, probably 20% of the business itself actually stepped up to the plate and said, all right, let's go. And then they would get, we would get. And then they would get complacent. And then they would get complacent, you know, and I'm glad you mentioned that because, you know, when, you know, as entrepreneurs, as the business owners, the founders, the CEO, the chief everything officer, right, the people that, that grinded this thing and got this thing going, I think everyone out there needs to understand from the entrepreneur side, it's like, hey, man, you're gonna have change in your company. Don't get soft, right? Make it met metric driven, results, data driven, all that kind of stuff. And on the flip side, set the expectation with the team like you were just coaching us on, which is like, hey, this is what we are. This is who we stand for. This is where we're going. You're welcome to be on the trip, but if you don't want to be on the trip, I'm inviting you to go ahead and find another opportunity. And for some people, that might sound like it's harsh, but the reality is, I'll give you an example. I had one of my executives I just released to find another opportunity, okay? He wasn't right for where we are in one of my businesses right now, right? And I hired somebody that was. Well, the dude just landed a job where he can thrive. I think far too many times. We're holding on to people way too long just because we think, you know, we have to in many respects. Even though performances at a kilt.

Exactly, exactly.

Dude. No, I'm so glad you brought that.

Up, by the way. I'm not, I'm not perfect at it. I mean, you know, my first two companies, trust me, I did it way too long. I kicked myself in the butt Going, man. And I even did it in the first year of this business. Brought some people with me, some ride or dies. We're going to build this company. And it's funny, I used to have a sheet of.

All the doubters and stuff, but there were people that we would give sweat equity to. Okay, help us open the solar company. We're going to give you 5%. Hey, you be the license holder. We're going to give you 5%. And then as you start to grow and they're not working, it's like, hey, what are you doing? Well, just pay me. I'm out. So we had this whole sheet of people that wanted to hang themselves because they got out of the business too early. They didn't have faith in us, right? And we used to get off on, how many more names can we get on this sheet, right? And so when I would sit there with Kevin, my partner, and I'd be like, you know, look, we. Because I've had my dad work for me, I've had my brother work for me. I can't have him work for me now. Like, that's entitlement. You know, my sister was. Works for the company, but there's about eight layers between us, you know, but this is a reset for, you know, And I struggle. I don't want family and friends. It's ruined the relationships. I don't want it because now I can't make a business decision. The good thing about me and my pops is I can. And it's evolved to that. I can come in and say, dude, you're not doing your job. But that's a hard conversation. Yeah, I've become really tough and what I call like a stone. Over the years, my wife gets a little disappointed. She's like, you don't have any emotion. I said, honey, well, for what I do, I can't have emotion. The moment I have emotion, I become weak and I get taken advantage of. And if I'm taken advantage of 1799 employees, they're hurting them. So I always have to go to this, protect the brand. Protect the brand. And I have had some tough conversations, and I still feel guilty. But that's why if you put those KPIs in place, guilt comes out. It's like, you didn't hit it. You put on pit plan after one month. Now you're let go. And so I get upset because every day, dude, we get on directors calls, and directors still like, well, I've had this guy eight weeks. He hasn't sold a deal yet. Why Are you still holding on to him? Well, I think he's got potential. Okay, well, do me a favor. You pay him. Well, I don't want to pay for. We pay in him. That doesn't make sense to me. You want the whole company to pay him, but you don't want if. Let me. So I tell the directors, if you don't feel comfortable paying them and you wouldn't pay them out of your own paycheck, I don't want you to keep them. We don't want to pay them either. If you feel like you can't pay them, then we shouldn't pay them either. The other thing I always strive to everybody is because the guilt has worn me out over the years. And now I have zero guilt. Where I go look and I say, I go to install meetings. We have 500 installers nationwide and those guys are the toughest people in the world. Snowy ice roofs, it's hot as heck out with the sun. They're up there. I mean, a couple of broke their backs fell off roofs. I mean, they're literally risking their life to build solar on people's homes. Right. They're the hardest working people we've got. And they're grinders and they're gritty. I'm not that guy. I'm a sales guy with some operations background. But I come in and I light them on fire and I go, let me ask you guys something. Does your check clear every other Friday? Yeah. Did you get paid 100% of your money? Yeah. So why the hell am I getting 75% effort? How about I cut your check 25% new? Well, it didn't seem right then. Why are we only get like I challenge them all the time to where the leaders that do work hard, that 20% and even that 60% go, yeah, I'm sick of carrying the load for these guys. And that's where the culture starts to evolve. And they don't want to carry the load for people just collecting a check and taking advantage of things. And I always say, if I pay you 100% or the brand pays you, the company pays you 100%, it deserves at least 100% effort. If you make a mistake, we can learn from mistake. But you can't fix bad attitude. You can't fix laziness. You can't fix checked out, not wanting to get better. You can't fix those things. You train people to do whatever, but those other things. And it's unfortunate because a lot of people we think are going to be right or Die. Live with us forever. Work hard. They surprise you because they fall into that category, too, of insecurity, or, like, look how far you've grown. And there's so many layers between us now. There's a lot of great people. We've had that. We've lost that. When we were small, I had great relationships with them. As we grew, I'm not as close. They feel neglected. Not neglecting you. The company's growing. You're just not growing at the same speed. But you still have a great job. And they get upset and they quit, too.

I like the fact you brought up Gil, too. I think a lot of entrepreneurs start with that, especially when it comes down to letting people go and stuff like that. And like you, we had to put out, you know, key performance indicators and the KPIs, and kind of say, okay, this is your measurement tool. This is what winning looks like. And if you're not doing that, we're going to have three separate conversations. On the first conversation, we're going to give you 90 days to improve. The second conversation, we might give you 45 days. And on the third conversation, you have to get. Get better now. And if those don't happen, then a.

Lot of days for them to do that. You're much nicer than me. You're giving them, like, five months, man. I give them 30. Like, you don't do it in a month, you're written up with pip, and after that, you're out. But that's. But, you know, everyone cycles.

The reality is, is I don't want to take it, all right? So it removes blame and shame from myself. Like, look, you had every opportunity to be successful. Like, you leaving this business is not a surprise. Like, we had conversations that say, hey, look, whatever the timeline is, we've had conversations, right? We've talked about this issue, this.

No, you're putting the right steps in place. But I always. So we have a disagreement. Not you and I, but our directors.

There's a.

There's a pushback. There are some directors that are like, no, they didn't write a deal in a month. They're written up. They have one week to write a deal. They didn't. They're fired. I'm giving an example in sales where there are some that let them go eight, nine weeks. And I said, guys, we got to be consistent. So I tell them, look, if they go four weeks and they didn't do their job.

You can train them, but they need to go on PIP immediately, and they can't go more than 15 days. So it's a total of 45 days, four and a half checks that we've paid and didn't get the results we've expected. I empower the directors to fire fast and hire slow, fire fast, because if you wait too long, they get spoiled, they complain, they infest their little diseases on other people. Now you got five people you got to let go of. That's what I've seen.

Yeah. No, and I think that the approach is a very similar system. Like, look, you're going to spend most of your life at work, right? Trying to make an income. You should bring it every day. When I sat down and wrote a, essentially we're signing a deal. When I agreed to pay you X number of dollars and I slide that paper across the table and you say, yes, I'm expecting you to do the 100%, right? And if you don't do the 100% because dad gets diagnosed with cancer or you get a divorce or something like that, those things happen. If you're honest with us, we'll work with you around that. Right? But we can't have an extended period of time with low performance. And I think people have a hard time understanding that because at the end of the day, it does come down to a biblical principle that is like, you know them by their fruit, right? And it also comes down to an, you know, the underdog principle of, look, I didn't get here overnight. I had to work my ever loving butt off. I had to sacrifice away from time with my family. I had to put, like you talked about a minute ago, which is like, look, I had to dump everything and double down on myself. The only thing that I know that I feel like I can trust, right? That is. That is the essence of what entrepreneurship looks like. And I find that too many of our population, even in the underdog, they have the underdog spirit, man. You know, you mentioned earlier, they watch Rocky, they get fired up. They're like, send me to Apollo, baby, let's go. Right? So they have all that going on on the inside, and then they go in Monday morning and they chill. Look, you know what I'm saying? I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I think it's an important thing that the intent of your heart is going to set the intent of your expectation. And without those different things, I mean, nothing actually gets happened, you know, nothing actually happens. Now, I want to flip for just a second. One of the other things I've heard you mention before is this concept of underdogs actually hearing no or not now or something like that. You had talked about it before, about, you know, when you hear that kind of stuff, what it should do for a lot of people, it slows them down and holds them back. But you have a different approach altogether.

It excites me because, you know, what I do every day is my choice. That's what God's given us. He's given us our life. It's our choice. Every day. I choose the pants I put on. I choose if I get in the car or I don't. I choose if I go left or right. I choose. I choose. I choose. So for somebody else to tell me and take away my choice, yeah, it's like fighting words. It's like.

You don't control me. You can't tell me that I can't do that. I'm not talking breaking the law. I'm talking about, like being successful or doing something. I mean, you know, they told me there's no way you'll be a great parent. You know, there's no way you'll support your wife. You're 18 years old. You know, there's no way you'll get out of the trailer park. You know, all these things. And it's unfortunate because, like, I just went to a funeral recently. I have four buddies from high school. Five, five buddies from high school when I went, and we were all outsiders. We all lived in the trailer park. Three of them are. Have already passed. And I'm 41 years old, right? So I'm going to this funeral for one of my best kid, best friends, first kid I lived with. I mean, we moved in together. He went with me to the hospital to go see my daughter born. I mean, we were thick as thieves. And I see all these people, some of them that I went to high school with. I haven't talked to him. I talked to him for four months last year, and before that, eight, 10 years ago. You know, one of those. He's one of those insecure, fault, kind of does his own thing. Not that he disliked me, but, you know, my life moved on and I moved away and we barely kept in touch. But I get there as family loves on me, I love on them. And I'm going through and I'm seeing all these people in high school, and they, you know, they see me, my TV commercials, you know, they story, they know what's. They're all intimidated. I'm like, it's still just me. Like, they're treating me like they're mad at me and I. It was a weird feeling. And you go through. And I'm just still the same Jason I was then. I'm just. Just different, but I'm the same. Yeah. So I'm trying to talk to them and they're all kind of uncomfortable. And, you know, I can't believe I was going to do something. Like, I was going to be. Like, they're insecure and they're. And someone said I couldn't do this. I couldn't. Then I said, guys, listen, I'm going to be honest. Like, some of you guys here in high school told me I wouldn't amount to nothing. Some of you people here made fun of me and all this. We're here for my friend's funeral. That's what matters. Everything outside of this doesn't matter because how much money you have isn't going to be your life. How much success you have isn't going to be life. If you're fulfilled here. That's what matters. And my man Ben, he wasn't. And I said, and you guys coming here to show the support for his family is what's important, and that's what's going to bond us here together. Not talking about me, what I did or didn't do. So we were going back and forth and, you know, it just reminded me that parts of me doesn't want to take that and use it as fuel because it is insecurity talking when people do it. But then parts of me, the mentality of trying to be told I can't do something, it just bothers me. Everyone's boxed in. That's the number one thing. Yeah, I didn't go to college. I probably couldn't do that. Or I had a kid early, I couldn't do that. They box themselves in and make their own excuses because of the doubters. And we're around the same age. I mean, my parents would. Everybody would. You got to go to college and get a good job. Got to go to college, get a good job. I have four kids. My 22 year old did not go to college. She's awesome. She didn't have to go to college. She's still awesome. But you know what? She's a mom. She's the best mom on the planet. You know, her fiance is the best dad on the planet. Like, I couldn't be more proud. They're great now, are they rock stars and do they make a million dollars a year? No. But I don't care. I don't care if they work at Walmart. I don't care if they deliver papers. What I care about is they're happy and they're safe, and they are happy, and they are safe in their loving life. And I. I used to instill in her, you got to go to college. Got to go to college. And that pressure broke her in high school, where she struggled. Her senior year, she felt like a failure. Grades were bad, and I blamed myself. I learned. I said, I got to quit putting that on people. And so I told her and I told all my kids, look, I want you to finish high school because that's important.

Yeah.

But after that, if you don't want to go to college, I ain't mad at you. I didn't. If you want to go to college, we'll pay for it. If it's an experience or you're going to go for something you want to do. You want to be a doctor, you want to be a lawyer, you want to do something that you need it. But if you're just trying to learn a trade, let's go figure that out on the outside of that. But I don't want you to have that pressure. If you. Something you have to do, I want you to live your life. I don't want to tell you what to do with your life because that's what people always told me. And I don't want my kids to rebel and have to be as hardcore as I am or as you are, to fight back as an underdog. I want them to live in bliss and happiness. Look, I'm a positive dude, but I'm not a happy dude. I want my kids to be happy. Right? I'm positive and I'm optimistic and I'm excited, but I'm not, like, happy because I can't be happy. I can't. I have to be. I have to grind. That's who I am. Right? So. But I want my kids to be happy. You know, it's important for them to live a different life than me.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's. I was thinking about that, you know, my kids, I got. I've got both boys. Wanted to go to, you know, wanted to go to college. One, look, I'm going to college, want to be a history professor, all that kind of stuff. I got another boy. He's like, I don't really know what I want to do to die, what I want to do. And I said, well, look, what is. What is something that your passion. We sat down for two hours to talk about the things that he loved, the things he was passionate about.

The.

The natural gifts and talents that God put inside his heart and all that kind of stuff. And he said, I think I want to try this graphic design thing out. I said, okay, cool. So we, you know, we kind of do that and kind of go through that process. And lo and behold, he's got a knack for it. He's going to enjoy it. But he's like. He goes, ultimately, I want to be. I want to be an evangelist. I want to go out and travel the world and speak. I'm like, okay, well, you can do that, too.

That's great. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, some people don't need to go to college. I'm an entrepreneur. I didn't graduate high school, dude.

Me neither.

So, you know, and here we are. We let experience be our teacher. We identified mentors along the way that helped change our mindset and how we approach things, which did create distance from those, from the naysayers, from the people who, you know, didn't have our best interests at heart. And it's been my experience, I know it's got to be yours as well, that if you surround yourself with Negative Nancy's on a regular basis, you're not going to move anywhere. You know what I'm saying?

I agree. You're only as good as the people you're around all the time. I agree. They bring you down. You're not going to bring them up. They'll bring you down.

Yeah. Well, the other thing I love about you, too, is, you know. Yeah, you're super hardcore. Like, you come across like, I'm. I got this. We're gonna build this. We're gonna make that happen. But I actually think there's a softer side that's thrown into the harder side, which is the true underdog podcast that you launched, which is all about many of the topics that we discovered today. What made you decide to launch that podcast? Which is, what, top five in Apple right now or something crazy? Like, you're climbing the charts.

Top five in entrepreneur two months in a row. Super excited about that. I was told when I won that EY Entrepreneur of the Year award that I needed to write a book. And I never wrote. I never read a book. So I was like, dude, my story is not that special. Like, my wife's childhood's way worse than mine, and I know many people had it harder than me, but with all the odds stacked and, you know, knowing the data now and reading about it and people telling me, like, look, you weren't supposed to Marry your high school sweetheart, have a kid in your teens, not finish school, not finish college. You know, open up three successful businesses, have kids, have a. Have a grandkid before you're 40. You know, have a billion dollar company that. This isn't normal. So after it, finally a light bulb went off and go, oh, I guess it's not normal, right? Because when you're living it, you think it's normal. You're like, well, what can I do to help people? What can I do to inspire people? And how selfishly can I be coached? Can I bring people on that I can learn from so I can teach lessons on the air? They can teach lessons on the air. And I can learn because I love to learn. And so it's like, I should do a podcast. So I. I been blessed. I've got great relationship with a lot of NFL players for that play for the Lions. So I got to jump on really fast with some cool Barry Sanders, Matt Praters on the podcast fast. And then a connection to Kevin o' Leary from Shark Tank. So I had some cool guests early, and then I had some very powerful guests that shared stories of overcoming. And when I did this, I said, I don't want to just be the one that interviews all the time, because I like that. But that's only one pond of listeners. There's another pond of listeners that want to hear yelling, excitement, passion, integrity, anxiety, you know, anything I could rant about. So I want to blend it. So we came up with, you know, as it got bigger, it was just interviews. As it grew, I came up with something called the underbites. And the underbites is where I'll have someone on that interviews me, or I'll bring my co host, John LeBlanc on, who used to be my trainer. I fired him because I'm still fat. But, you know, now he works for the company and he's a director of sales, but he's moved up in the company. He's already been promoted twice. He's amazing. And he applied for the job without me knowing. That's a whole nother story. But good for him. And, you know, we talked for two years. I would vent. You know, when you have a trainer that's like your therapist, you like complaining. All of a sudden, he applies for the job. I'm like, oh, boy, what did I ever do? Tell him come back to bite me. But he has been a co host on probably 40 of my episodes or 35 of my episodes. And he's great because he's the Opposite of me. But he asks great questions, he pulls things out, and he gets inspired. And that's what made him want to apply for the job, was he loved what I was about, what the company was about. So we'll tell stories and he'll ask questions. And it's funny, but it's very educational, it's very motivating, it's entrepreneurial. That's the underbites. Or I'll just go on a rant, talked about anxiety or talked about five Tips to open a Business. But then the episodes are me interviewing people like I had you on, and I have different people on where they can share their story and I can relate, right? And I get coached and I learned, and I go, oh, that's great. Oh, I love that. And then I know if I'm getting something, the listeners are getting something. And so that's what it's about. And when you get the emails and I know we talked about this before, I get the emails or messages that it helped one person for the day, you feel amazing. You can't buy that feeling. Because we're doing our work in empowering and helping people out in the world. We're helping their spirits. We're helping. We're being kind and sharing things so they can be better. Does it cost them money to listen to the episode and be educated? Like, this is free advice to help them and to motivate them and to get them through. The world can be tough right now to get them through some of that. And, you know, I wish I had some of those tools. I didn't. But I want to try to give those tools and give back. It's our duty to give back. And that's part of the thing I'm doing with the True Underdog podcast.

That's got to be why it's growing. I know. I love it. All right? I know that everybody should listen to it. I mean, it is packed full of value day in and day out, because you do exactly what you just described, right? You're bringing on thought leaders. You're obviously sharing from your heart, your passion. Like, all of that comes through on camera. All of that comes through, you know, on the airwaves. And it's a way. It is a way to give back. And, you know, if I'm speaking for both of us, and I hope you won't mind me saying this, you know, we didn't have access to podcasts and YouTube and all these different resources back in the day. You know, we got fortunate in that, you know, we met A mentor over here, and they shared a little snippet. And we had a mentor over here, and they shared a little snippet and a mentor over here. And, you know, I've always learned, you know, and you spoke about this earlier without even mentioning, without really knowing you were speaking on it. There's two ways to learn, right? You can learn by experiences that you have, which many of them can be painful, or you can learn from the experiences of other people who have gone before you and from me to you. I just want to thank you for taking. Not just to stand and creating an amazing business, not just trying to be an amazing father, not just trying to create organizational structures that become global empires, but more importantly, taking the time to realize that there's more me and you out there that simply just need a break. And that break all the time comes through learning. If we could save that one kid from getting in the wrong group of relationships, of all the naysayers surrounded by sharks. You know, you're right, man. It makes all the difference in the world, dude.

Or that one female that's going to change the world or cure cancer. You know, too many times people quit on themselves.

Yeah.

You know, the world's already mean to them. They need to know that they can fight back, that they can grind back. And it's their choice. It's. They create their map. It's so important. And I tell my kids that all the time, and I tell friends, family. I scream it on the podcast. Like, I've been there. I've listened to people before. You've listened to people, and you're right. These little mentors, you're like, he didn't get there just because he got there. And you got to be able. You got to figure this out and piece it together. And, you know, I have a guy that. I don't know if I mentioned this to you before, but he does our.

He does our cleaning. The cars. Details, details. The cars. And so he came to me, like, two months ago, and he's like, hey, man, I listened to the show. I'm a big fan. I'm like, I always get embarrassed. I'm like, oh, thanks.

You like it?

You know? Yeah, dude, I love it. I was listening to it, and you had this thing scared. Money don't make money. And you were calling me a wuss. I said, well, I didn't call you a wuss. He's like, but I felt like you were calling me a wuss because I wouldn't step up and take a chance. He said, I've been scared for two years to get my second detail truck out there. I said, screw it. I just did it. I booked out for two months. I'm like, good for you. But that kind of feeling, realness right here in my front door. This guy telling me still gives me chill bumps. And I've had several stories like that. I use that. His name's Jeremy. I use that story because he had the gall to come to me and say, hey, man. I listened to it and it helped me. And that's what it's about. Like, that feels like, you know what, What I'm doing, the hours I'm putting in it is helping people. Even if it's one, you help somebody and that's what it's about.

Yeah. I mean, you think about it. I forgot who said this. And forgive me if they're listening, because they might be. I know you got a lot of. A lot of very influential people who listen as well. They had this concept. They said, hey, look, you're already in pain. May as well get a reward for it.

Right? May as well grind it through. May as well see it through. Because it may not be the thing, but it will be the thing that leads you to the thing. And the only way you stay stuck, right? The only way you stay stuck and not moving is not taking another step. Well, dude, I know we're overtime. I appreciate you spending a little extra time with me. Dude, I love you to death. Everybody's got to find you. Where can they find you?

You can go to trueunderdog.com for the podcast. You go to jasonwaller.com just check out the website. I'm on Instagram, Facebook.

YouTube, I heart Google, Apple, all you. You name them. Also Clubhouse. Jason Waller Clubhouse. That's like the new spot there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm on the hustle club there. I got a thing that comes out Thursdays at 5 o'. Clock. That's pretty good.

We're gonna have to do something together on there and have some fun.

Absolutely. Anytime. Let me hit me up.

Make sure you go.

I love Clubhouse. It's like the newest thing and I love going on there and listen and then I love going and giving some tips. It's like. It's like a podcast. LinkedIn baby. Yeah, they had a baby and now you got Clubhouse. That's what I feel like.

Yeah. And then you. And you have access to thought leaders, like. Like real time.

Like, it's amazing the network that you can build on there. I mean, I'm telling people, while this is free, you better build it up, because eventually they're going to charge for this stuff. Not the people, the platform. So we've got to take advantage of it while we can.

Dude, I love you to death. Thank you so much for hanging out with me, man. I can't wait to be in it. It's going to be fun.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

I hope you learned a lot from the master of underdog success through Jason Waller. And if you did, you're really going to love this interview, so make sure you check it out. My dad always told me, like, right when I was getting ready to go to college, he said, randy, if you don't have your own goals, somebody else.

Will use you for theirs.