What does it take to lead with purpose in every area of life: business, family, and beyond?
In this episode of The Competitive Edge, Brian Covey sits down with Schuyler Williamson, former US Army Ranger and multi-business entrepreneur, to unpack what it means to lead with vision, grit, and heart.
From his military days to running multiple thriving businesses, Schuyler shares how discipline, faith, and servant leadership have fueled his journey. He opens up about parenting with purpose, building value-driven teams, and why surrounding yourself with leaders is a game-changer.
If you’re looking to grow as a leader, elevate your mindset, and build something that lasts, this episode will give you the tools and inspiration to make it happen.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Steve, what's up, guys, and welcome back to another
(00:03):
edition of competitive edgepodcast. So our guest today,
you're gonna love this resume,because not only is he written a
phenomenal book The City Leader,he's also got a podcast around
it. He's a US Army Ranger. He'sgot a real estate company,
construction company. Actuallyowns four laundromats. But more
importantly, as I look at it, healso has a family, and so for
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those of you out there that yourparents, you've got things
you're doing, how can you showup and be the best leader inside
your business, inside yourfamily, always say, inside your
home, and then outside and leadpeople. So today, we're going to
break this down with SkylerWilliamson about not only his
journey as US Army Ranger, butalso how he has built a
successful real estate companyoutside of Austin, Texas, there,
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and more importantly, what hashe learned along the way through
those things that could help youin your journey? Whether you're
in your 20s and you're trying tofigure out entrepreneurship,
trying to figure out what youwant to do with your life, or
you're somebody that you've beenin the game for a while, I
believe today you're going toget some of the lessons and some
clarity, as Skyler talks about,how do you move from chaos to
clarity and move forward in yourlife and really attack and use
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the gifts that God's given? SoSkyler,
welcome to the show. Man, I'mfired up to be here. Brian,
thanks for having
me. Dude. I'm honored. And I gotto start here because, you know,
very few of my friends US ArmyRanger or seal or you've done
things that, let's be real. Man,like not a lot of people have
done that. And as I was goingback through and kind of kind of
prepping and studying whatyou've done, you know, I'm sure
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a large part of your leadershipjourney and what you learned was
entering in and doing that. Butlet's give a little little
background into who you are andhow you got into actually be an
Army Ranger, because I lovethese stories.
Yeah, well, I grew up in ahumble family, but full of love.
So my parents are still marriedtoday, great examples of not
(01:47):
only how to how to love eachother as a spouse, how to love
your kids, but also just hardworkers. And they both are of
the type that went to work andwork for the same company for 30
years from my mother and 40years from my father. And so
they just, they put their headdown, they climbed the ladder,
and they and they remainedloyal. And so they instilled in
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me those kind of, put your headdown, be loyal. Work hard, don't
complain. You know, theyinstilled that in me at a very
young age. But financially, youknow, I pretty early. I figured
out that if I wanted anything, Ihad to go create it myself. And
and I remember having aconversation pretty early in my
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life. And I was always a maturekid. For whatever reason, God
blessed me with maturity and,and I'm the oldest of three
brothers, so maybe that was thereason why, because I was just
the oldest. But I rememberhaving a conversation with my
father pretty early that if youwanted to go to college, you
were going to have to get paidfor yourself. And there's two
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ways to do that. You can just beextraordinarily smart and do
really well in academics, or youcould be an athlete. I said,
Well, you know, I like theathlete piece, so I'll just
focus on that. And you know,whenever, whenever you put your
head down and you work hard onsomething. You know, my high
school baseball coach used tosay you can't be a three to five
player, and three to five waswhen practice was. So what he
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was saying is, if you wanted tomake it, you had to do something
before practice. You had to dosomething after practice. You
can't just show up whenever. Ishow up when everybody else is
showing up and expectextraordinary results.
Extraordinary effort gets youextraordinary results and a lot
of things. And athletically, youknow, when you put in the extra
time working out, putting theextra time recovery and and just
doing the skills and all thethings, you get those results. I
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had a brilliant athletic careerin high school, football and
baseball. I had scholarshipoffers all throughout the US,
but I had this one to the USMilitary Academy at West Point.
And again, you know, kudos to myfather, you know, just just kind
of laying lessons out for me.But he sat me down and he said,
Hey, look, you might make it tothe NFL if you go to University
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of Miami, chances are you'll gethurt or something will happen.
You know, football is a toughsport, but if you go to West
Point, you'll never have toworry like me and your mom ever
always had to, and so that madeit an easy enough decision for
me to kind of make the choicethat I wasn't going to play a
professional sport that I'mgonna go to West Point and take
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care of my future. Now, when Ichose to go to West Point, we
weren't at war, so that made itan easier choice as an 18 year
old, but nonetheless, still,still a very like forward
thought choice, right? I'mchoosing my life beyond sports,
rather than gamble and try tomake it to the NFL and maybe get
a sub optimal education, yeah,one with the West Point, you
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know, as fate would have it,they changed the rules halfway
through, and I was able to gopray a professional sport. But
we, you know, we came into atime of conflict, and I. Yeah,
you know, I walked away frombaseball after getting told,
Hey, I'm gonna, we're gonna haveyou come to spring training with
a big league team. I walked awaybecause my whole team from from
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West Point was overseasfighting, and my younger brother
had gone overseas and fought inthe battle for Fallujah and, I
mean, it was just so many peoplethat I knew and loved or
overseas, and so I made adecision to walk away from
baseball and go into themilitary. Well, I don't, I'm not
really an average person. Idon't care to be, you know, I
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want to, I want to do everythingto to the max that I have gifts
that God's given me to do,right? I believe in taking your
gifts and going to double them.That's right. You know. And I
was an athletic person, and so Ibelieved I could be a warrior on
the ground that was better thanmost. And you know, the schools
are very simple. In themilitary, you know, if you want
(05:51):
to be of the elite, then you goto this school called Ranger
School. And so just just in me,trying to be my best, led me to
Ranger School, you know. Andthen all the things that I did
in the military after that,military after
that, I love that. And I sawthat sports ground. I'm glad you
brought up your backgroundthere, because I looked at that.
I'm like, Okay, let's be real. Imean, Scott, there's a lot of
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things you've done, and I'mgoing, okay, cool, like, multi
sport, you're going in andyou're successful and you're
playing and, you know,similarly, I played soccer, of
course, and got to live out thatdream. And at some point, we all
know that that doesn't lastforever. And I gotta imagine, as
you look back and you thinkabout the steady leader, are
there things that you look backnow? Because I think it's always
cool to look back on that, thatyou learned lessons, that your
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dad, you know, encouraged you,hey, you know, let's go do this.
Let's, let's go this path thatyou would give people, maybe
with kids going to college. Igot one going to college in the
fall. Another one two yearsbehind and all. What advice
would you give now on the parentside to people, potentially, of
if you're sending your kids tocollege in the future, what do
you know now?
Yeah, well, you know so much ofbeing a steady leader is being a
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thinker, right? I mean, I thinkevery smart person who's in a
leadership role, if asked aquestion, you know, or is it a
part of your job to think theywould say yes, right? Like that,
just intelligence tells you Yes.But how many people do you know
that are in leadership rolesthat actually have time to
think, right? And if I were, ifI were, my kids are a little
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younger than yours, so I've gotsome time here, but if I were
about to send my kid off tocollege, I do a lot of what my
father did for me, and just say,hey, look man, like, let's sit
down and let's, let's cast avision for your life, right? If
you, if you had a great life510, years from now, what would
that look like? And I'd havethem go through that exercise,
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and then I just, just likeleaders do, I would just ask
them the questions to back into.What do they need to do to make
that a reality? Right? I mean,and you know, you've been a part
of coaching, coaches just askgreat questions, right? A lot of
a lot of performers, especiallythe ones that seek out coaching
know the right answer. They justneed someone to challenge them
and ask them the right questionsto lead them to that. And so I
(08:07):
would just ask my my daughter,who's my oldest. You know,
what's your best life? That'scalled vision casting, babe. You
know, this is how you cast avision as a leader. And you
know, the books broken intothree parts, lead yourself, lead
your team, lead your business. Imean, right in that moment, as a
father, we're teaching them howto lead themselves, because the
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first step of leading yourselfis having a good vision for your
life. And that's what my dad washelping me do. He was helping me
cast a vision. Do you want togamble and play a sport for a
living, or do you want to besure that your life will be
stable and you'll have more thanme and your mom ahead? Yeah?
Well, I chose the latter. Andreally, what that was doing was
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That was my first lesson invision casting and and so as I
moved on from them, it justcontinuously right, as you're
leading yourself, you're you'recasting a vision for your life,
and it changes, right? Vision.Vision is not like purpose. It's
not ever purpose is evergreen.Vision changes directions,
right? Because we can only seeas far as we can see. And
certainly right now withtechnology and some of the other
(09:10):
things, that it just changes sofast, right? And it's funny,
I'm, I'm a follower of Eos, likeI loved, you know, Whitman
system, yeah, you know, he hasto do the 10 year, right? And
then the three year, and thenthe one year when you're casting
your vision. Well, the 10 yearsalmost like, why do we even do
that
anymore? So far, it's just sofar out and but you look
(09:33):
as far as you can, that's right,you cast that vision. So I'm
just helping my kids do thatthat, and I love that. I do that
for myself all the time.
Had to ask, and I love you.Broke up the book because I was
gonna ask you about that isleading yourself, you know. And
a lot of times I know as a newleader, and I was captain on the
soccer team and fumbling throughlike figuring out what is
(09:53):
leadership, and you model afterother people. And I know you
talked about that, a lot of yourlessons were modeling after
others that you saw. All, ifsomebody's listening this, okay,
the steady leader. How do theybest lead themselves? Because
I'm in that camp with you. Youcan't lead yourself. It is
really hard, if almostimpossible, to then lead others,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You haveto show up and be your best if
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you're going to lead a greatteam, right? Like we don't. We
don't have championship teams,without every player looking
like a champion, eventuallyyou'll be exposed as a fraud by
a better team if you're not alltogether, and that starts with
you as a leader. Yeah, again, alot of it's just thinking. Right
to me, living a successful lifeand running a great business is
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simply just how many gooddecisions can you stack in a
row? To the extent that you canmake a good decision and a good
decision, a good decision justcontinuously, you're going to
have steady production. And Ithink that we owe it to our
teams, and we owe it toourselves to be thinkers, so
that we can respond in moments,not react right and chaos would
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attack you in your business toget you to react to things. And
some of us are super clever andwitty, and we can react better
than most, but your chances ofanswering those problems
correctly increase even for thewitty ones, if you have clarity,
and you're actually leveragingmodels to think through what
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could happen, right? And so Ithink, as a leader, leading
yourself, you know you're theseare the kind of the five tenants
that I work through. Is vision,being combat ready, this thing I
call love, which is pursuit ofexcellence, energy, and then a
plan to win. And when you workthrough those five buckets, and
you just kind of do thosecontinuously, you're going to
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lead yourself to being the bestthat you, that you can be. And
because we, I mean, John Maxwellhas taught us a lot of this
stuff, two things, every leader,you will be the lead lid of your
business. If you stop growing,if you stop leading yourself,
you will cap your business. Youwill either have to get out of
the way, or you'll settle withmediocre, right? And people will
pass you. And then the secondthing about leading is is you
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have to have influence, right?That's what Maxwell defines
leadership as. Is influence?Well, you have to lead your life
in such a way that people seesomething in you that they want.
And it can be, it can be whatyou look like, physically. It
can be what you are paper,wealth wise, you know,
financially, it can be thebusiness you're building. It can
be how healthy you arespiritually. But you have to
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have something in your life thatyour teammates look at you and
say, I'm gonna follow him,because I want that in my life.
And the cool thing is, is thereare people part of my company
because they want something thatI have spiritually. There are
people on my team that follow mebecause they want to build
wealth like I have, you know.And you know, it just runs the
(12:53):
full gamut. But the point is, tobe that person, you got to lead
yourself, right? And then you'llhave influence when you've done
that? Well,
hey guys, it's Brian here. Ihope you are enjoying the show.
By the way, if you're anentrepreneur or a solopreneur
looking to grow your personalbrand, make a bigger impact,
(13:14):
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(13:37):
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personal brand. Can't wait tohear how it goes you
(14:01):
talk about this? I was listeningto one of my favorite guys, Ed
mylett, was sharing these fourlevels of leadership. And you
get through, you know, just thebaseline you manage because you
have a title, and you be giventhat authority, and you move
into motivation. And we knowmotivation, you basically like a
shower every day, right? Theywould say that. And you got
inspirational leaders, and youjust triggered something for me,
as I was thinking, Skyler issort of this fourth level, which
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most never get to or maintain,which is aspirational. I love
your choice. People arefollowing because they see in
you your spiritual walk. Theysee a physical side. They see
you know, your ability anddiscipline and finances, right,
and being able to build wealthand to budget and do things. I
think for a lot of people, theymiss that. They just want to
skip over and it's like, youknow, I hear this all the time,
especially in our mortgage andreal estate, is like, I just
(14:46):
want to, you know, manage andhave a big team and lead a bunch
of people and all these things.And, yeah, I'd love for you to
help someone, if they're in thatspot and their aspiration and
their desires. They do want tolead all these people, maybe not
for the right reasons. They kindof hadn't figured it out. Out. I
know I struggled with that earlyin my career. Yeah, what are the
things on a daily basis thatthey can start intentionally
(15:07):
doing? I think about keeping thepromises to yourself, but
anything you found in yourjourney that helps them start to
build that muscle, right? Likethe real tactics,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, listen,you got to have the table set to
do everything else really well.And so I think you've got to be
clear on your purpose, thepurpose you have for your life.
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If you know why you wake upevery day and get after it at
your life level, then you willhustle every day. You will you
will give it your all. And thenwe can go work on some of the
other tactical stuff, but yougot to know what your purpose
is. And here's the thing, yourpurpose has to be about other
people. And I'll just tell aquick story just to drive that
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point home. You know, RangerSchool we talked about earlier,
but it's tough. It is tough. Ilost 55 pounds in 63 days. Or,
you know, however many days itwas, wow, and it just wore me
down. And I thought aboutquitting non stop. Now, thank
God I didn't, you know, I wasable to endure and kind of push
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through, and that was with thehelp of some teammates and, you
know, just, I guess, in theirinner endurance. But I thought
about quitting all of the time.Fast forward to my time in Iraq
and Afghanistan. I'm not onetime ever thought about
quitting. Now in ranger school,my life was never at risk. It
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was very controlled. It was atraining environment. In those
combat zones, I was gettingblown up. I pulled grenade
shrapnel out of my body armor, Ikick open doors. And it was like
a cartoon where the bullets justkind of went over the doorway,
you know? And that was just,that was just a regular Tuesday,
right? It was non stop, but Inever thought about quitting,
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yeah. And the reason why isbecause I was in combat with a
team that I cared about, that Iwould never let them down. I was
there serving a country that Ilove. You know that that country
that hosts my family that Ilove, you know I'm not going to
let them down. Right? In rangerschool, I was there for a badge,
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okay? I was there for acertification. I was there for a
trophy. Now it's more to that,but, but I'm making it simple so
that we can understand, yeah, Iwas there for myself. Nobody
else cared whether I went toranger school or not. It was
just about me, and that's why Iwas willing to quit. There is a
point that's closer to the startthat you'll quit. If it's about
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you, if your purpose is aboutyou, you will quit. That's
right, you're doing it forothers. You'll never quit.
You'll just give it, and you'llwork yourself to the bone and to
the end, you'll work gladly.Would I give my life for
another? It's for another that'sthe key part of that. And so you
got to have, you got to havethat purpose dialed in with the
purpose, you know, kind of theend of destination. Then you
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can, you can create that vision,and vision gives you general
direction, right? Then you cancreate a plan for yourself,
because you can backwards, kindof engineer that vision to today
and logically create the nextcouple of steps and the
priorities for yourself. Andthen at that point, then it's
just kind of getting yourselfready to go, right? Can I be
cotton in the mid in themilitary, we call it combat
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ready, and that is, if you'rehanded a mission right now, can
you go and operate like rightaway? Yeah. And to be combat
ready as an individual and inbusiness, you need to be really
healthy as a leader. And healthyis mentally healthy, physically
healthy and spiritually healthyfor me, yeah. And the way I
think about it is, pictureyourself on a boat, okay? And
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you're sitting on a stool in themiddle of the boat. Well, mental
health is one leg. Physicalhealth is a second leg, and
spiritual health is two otherlegs, right? So it makes a four
legged stool. Well, when thingsare all kind of calm, right?
When there's there's a lack ofchaos in your life, well, yeah,
if you're athletic, you can siton a two legged stool. Yeah, no,
no sweat. Now, as soon as chaosenters your life and those waves
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start to rock that boat, you'regoing to need all four, right?
And so you need to be healthy ifyou're going to be a steady
leader, right? And mentallyhealthy means you have a growth
mindset. Physically healthy, Ilove the way the stoics talk
about it. Are you in controlyour body? Or is your body in
control of you? Like, does yourbody tell you to hit the snooze
button? Or do you say, Get up,it's time to go, baby. We got to
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do these things to get betterevery day, and then spiritually
healthy. I like to summarize itthis way, when you wake up in
the morning, do you wake up andthink, What am I going to get?
Or do you wake up and say, Thisis what I'm going to give the
world, to the extent that youwake up every day and you are
excited to go give the worldsomething that's how healthy you
are spiritually. And, man, youknow, and those things are all
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tactical to me, like the morningroutine, the planning, like how
I plan, all of that stuff'stactical, but you do, you do
have to have that per. Businessand vision. I mean, you have to
have those things dialed in, sothat every day you can tap into
something that's never going torun out. Because if you saw how
hard I worked, you'd be like,maybe I don't want that, but the
reason why I want it is becauseI got a big purpose.
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That's right. And you take meback to this fire fires me up.
Number one is everything you'resaying I align with which I
love. I was as excited for thisconversation because of that,
and then to think about incollege, like the times that you
didn't want to go out there andsometimes compete at the best
level, or do some of thephysical training, we'll just
call it, like some of thephysical training. And I got a
(20:34):
team counting on me, right? Likethere's people that you would
do, and always think about thatmy life, the times that I have
gone further, or that I havepushed through an obstacle or
boundaries. There's peoplecounting on, whether it's my
family, the team that I serve,you know, all those. And so I
want people to miss that as thatpurpose being bigger I love, and
then I love you talked aboutbeing combat ready. I'd love to
go a little deeper and thinkabout, you know, people today,
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if they're in business, right? Ithink about, like, mortgage,
real estate, we got a lot ofpeople there, yeah, what's some
things that they need to thinkabout? How can they be combat
ready? Because, you know, we'rein this market. You know, this
is it feels as if there's agroup and a smaller group that's
winning, they're up, they'reperforming like you're talking
about earlier. You guys havesold, what, 40 million this
year. Yeah, your day. Yeah, yourday. Now just think about, Okay,
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you guys, you're winning. Butthen there's these other people
that are not combat ready. Sowhat does it take today, more
specific, like in real estateand mortgage in this economy,
and get combat ready?
Yeah, well, we can just startwith just the mental health of
things, right? Just being combatready from a mental health
standpoint, when you are in agrowth mindset, and then you're
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challenged with something, howwould you respond when you have
a growth mindset? I mean, yeah,yeah. I mean, you just you, you
attack it right? If you don'thave the growth mindset, and
then challenges hit you, youcan't fall into that victim
mindset. And, you know, in avictim mindset, it's really hard
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to take action because yourbrain is stuck in a fear or hurt
based kind of mode, right? And,and a lot of this is just
understanding your brain and thebrain of your people, right? So
as a leader, I've got tounderstand how my team's brains
working, and the most primitivefeelings that we have in our
brain is fear and hurt, and itdrives our survival, right? And
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your brain is always trying topredict what's going to happen
based on fear and hurt, not notthe positive stuff, right? And
and you got to know that. And soyou know when you're talking to
your team, you need tounderstand that they're probably
in a fear mode, and you need tounderstand why they're fearful,
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right? They're fearful becausethere's uncertainty, and then
you got to get them in control.And so so much of our businesses
in real estate comes down toyour lead generation, how you
understand and work yourdatabase and how consistent you
can be. And I mean that that'soversimplifying it, but it can
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be that simple and and we wehave to have lead generation
mechanisms that work in the goodtimes and the bad times. And
then we also, as a leader, needto be thinking all of the time
like, Well, if the market didthis, this is how I'll respond,
right? I'm not going to react.I'm going to respond and and I
(23:31):
do a good bit of that thinking,you know, it's, it's my job as
the leader to be one step aheadof the team and to pull them
there. I don't got to be 10steps ahead. And that's, that's
where most people fall fallshort, like they think they got
to be 10 steps ahead. And itlooks like I'm 10 steps ahead,
because I'm always pulling themto the next rung. But the
reality is, I'm one step up theladder, and I'm just pulling
(23:52):
them there, right? And soon as Iget them to that step, then I'm
taking the next step and pullingthem there. And so I look like a
genius in this guy that justlike is way ahead of everything.
But the reality is, I'm one stepahead, and that's my job as the
leader. Is to be one step ahead.What can we lead generate around
that gives us an advantage inthis moment, right? And I think
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that our approach as real estateagents has made us pretty good
at this on my team, because Ibuild value, I build lead
generation around each person'sunique value, because I know,
you know, we're we're five toseven years in between
transactions, right, if thingsare normal, and so I've got to
find five to seven ways to orfive to seven years worth of
(24:34):
value to give somebody just tohold them close. And so, you
know, for me, what that mightlook like is, I know how to run
a business. I am your realestate agent, but I can teach
you how to lead I could teachyou how to grow business or a
side hustle. I could teach youhow to build wealth. And, you
know, and I do this for mydatabase. And so I've got people
at all levels coming to me tosolve business problems, wealth
(24:56):
problems, to talk spiritually,you know, like kind of how. How
can they take that next step?And it's keeping me in
conversation with my database,in in my strength zone, and and
they love it, and they all knowI'm in real estate, you know,
like I tell, I do tell them I'min real estate. I just happen to
(25:16):
be pouring value into their lifefrom a leadership perspective or
some other way, right? And sowhat I would challenge people
with, if you're in a hard time,and first you gotta, you gotta
be positive, right? You gotta,you have a growth mindset,
negative. Negative thoughts helpyou expose problems. But no
problem was ever solved withnegativity. At some point you
(25:37):
gotta turn positive to solve aproblem. So you got to be a
growth mindset. You got to bethinking so that you can respond
and build value around youruniqueness that gives you a
reason that you feel really goodabout to reach out to people. I
mean, I got a person on my teamwho loves to declutter and loves
old folks, and so she does all,all of this stuff, you know,
(26:03):
events and things like thisaround decluttering and kind of
helping older folks findretirement communities. Yeah,
you think that that part of herdatabase is growing or
shrinking? Yeah, it's fine.Yeah. Old folks are trying to
downside is all the time, andthat's all the time part of the
business. And, you know, I gotanother gal who, you know,
(26:27):
she's, she's really good oncamera, she knows makeup, and
she, you know, kind of knowsdesign, and she builds a lot of
value around them. I just find,what is it that you feel really
good at teaching people, andthen just go teach the world. It
just makes sure that they knowyou're in real estate too. And
we, that's how we communicatewith our now, we do a lot of the
traditional things to like openhouse, all that stuff too, but
(26:48):
we, I mean, we build around ouruniqueness. We understand that
that's that's where you want toadvertise and market to, is your
uniqueness as an individual,what you feel best being
valuable at man,
I love that. So we work with,you know, brand builders group,
and they'll have a commercialwithin the podcast today. People
hear it as well, but they alwaystalk about that as your
(27:10):
uniqueness. And Rory Vaden, heand his wife, AJ, had that up,
and Rory shares this quote aboutyour most powerfully positioned
to serve the person you oncewere. Yeah, like, you know, all
the experience, the thingsyou're sharing, like, that's the
value I would want. I thinkabout in mortgage, real estate,
financial services, yes, there'sthings that you do, but we all
know, like, there's years inbetween, some of those actual
(27:33):
transactions that occur in thetimes that we're really solving
the big problem. What a cool waythat you guys are doing it. So
I'd love to expand on thatuniqueness piece. How do you
then get the uniqueness? I knowyou guys have a newsletter. Are
there other tactics with sociallike, how do you get that
uniqueness? Sounds like you'veidentified it, you've packaged a
little bit. Then how do youdistribute it? Because I think a
lot of people struggle. You knowSkyler, it's like they may kind
(27:55):
of know what they do. They maytell a few people, but they
don't really go at it like this.I'd love to learn how you guys
are packaging it anddistributing
it? Yeah, well, it can look alot of different ways. Okay, we,
we do have the newsletter. Thereason why we do the newsletter,
and you know, this isn't Skyler.I've learned this model from
(28:15):
other people, like, I own mynewsletter, right? Nobody can
rip that away from me. I ownthat we're building a YouTube
channel, but that can be rippedaway, right? If YouTube chose
to, they could, they could takethat away from me, and they've
done that. People that havebuilt big channels for one
reason or another, they violatedthe policy that they have and
and when that's gone, it's gone,right? And so I think you have
(28:39):
to be understanding of whatcaptures your building and what
processes you're building thatyou own, and the things that you
don't own and the things thatyou don't own. Point them all to
what you do own. Yeah, right.And then, and then just, really,
just make the things that youown just next level valuable.
And and you I like, I like Roryand the team to, you know,
(29:04):
they're real clear about whotheir target customer is, right?
And speaking to that person,when you know exactly who you're
speaking to, then you can pour aton of value into that, yeah,
and that, you know, again,that's, that's what we're doing
on our team, is we know exactlywho we're talking to, and then
we pour value into it. And Italked leadership enough to the
people that I was like, alright,well, I still write a book,
right? Like, I'll, I'll writethis leadership book. Yeah, this
(29:27):
is a perfect opportunity for meto call people and talk to them.
Yes, first, at first, I wasselling books, but they know I'm
in real estate. And I tell youkind of laughed about, like, I'm
part time book salesman now, butyou know, we not tell them a
couple real estate stories, justso they know that I'm still
heating it up, you know, yeah.But then, you know, after I do
that, then I get to call themall back and say, Well, what did
(29:49):
you learn? You know, let's talkabout it. Oh, by the way, can
you leave me a review? Can youtell your friends? Guess what?
When they tell somebody elseabout the book, and then that
person goes into you. Thatwebsite to learn more and kind
of download some of the thecontent that you can with a
book. Where do you think thosenames are going? That's about
real estate, but database,right? Like I've got. So this is
(30:12):
a leadership book, but it's a,it's a form of Legion, where
it's capture, and I'm workingpeople down back to the
database, where I cancommunicate to them again about
real estate, yeah, yeah. Missionhome builders, our construction
company under a completelyseparate brand, but when we send
out mailers saying, hey, missionwill buy your house, where do
(30:33):
you think the response? Whenthose people respond or they
click on that link to sell ustheir house, where do you think
they go? They go right into myreal estate sales database. Love
it, yeah, any, any kind of eventthat we do to kind of just teach
wealth building or whatever,like, all goes back to the
database. So we, we're not doinganything unique. We're running
events, but they're, but they'resteady leader events, right?
(30:55):
They're not, hey, come get my myapple pie. Like, I'm not, I'm
not the realtor that does thosetypes of events. We're doing
wealth building events we'redoing. We're building houses
right, and we're hosting happyhours in our houses that we're
building and inviting ourinvestors invest in our spec
deals if they want to, right?That keeps our investors close
(31:15):
to us, because I have my agentsat the house too when we're
teaching, I mean, we just nonstop, are just teaching and
trying to provide value. And aslong as you have your mix of
real estate versus other value,right, they'll always know that
real estate's your core. You'rejust, you're just giving them
value in other ways. And that's,that's the key.
(31:37):
I love how you outline andeverybody listening go back and
rewind that and write down somethings. And I would encourage
you to look at, okay, what arethe things that you're doing?
What are some of the thingsSkyler went through? They're
like, Oh, I should be doingthat. Whether it's events or
you're funneling everybody in.And I love that kind of focus
and lead magnet, the brand ofthe steady leader funnels all
the these, these people arepotential buyers and sellers all
(31:59):
the time, and everybody needsshelter, yeah, I love that well
before we get into theentrepreneurial side. Because I
know you mentioned that withlaundromats, you got those
things cranking. You got theconstruction company. All that.
I looked at that next phase wemove out of leading ourselves. I
was about leading the team.Things that you know, people
that are listening today. Yousee these themes, and always
(32:21):
think about patterns thatemerge, and you're really good
at this is seeing the patterns.What are the best leaders today
doing in this environment?Right? Because we have this
hybrid that still exists afterCOVID, and all these things are
like virtual people across thecountry. I know our teams all
across the country, differenttime zones, some are in an
office, some are not in anoffice. And what are those
things to really lead the teamwell that you found, or are
(32:43):
those pillars, right staples ofleading a team? Well,
yeah, I'm not. I think first isa mindset of, I don't want to
surround myself with followers,Owner, surround myself with
leaders. You know, for someonethat's got a team that spread,
spread throughout the US, you'renot, you can't do everything,
and so you're going to lead youryour core four or five, right?
(33:06):
We have to obey the span ofcontrol rule if you, if you're
leading more than five to sevenpeople, you're babysitting, you
literally can't produce, becauseall you're doing is answering
questions all day long. So yougot to find a way to keep your
direct reports to five, maybeseven, if you're kind of ramping
up to that next leader, butideally five people, because if
(33:28):
you have five people reportingto you that are leaders, they'll
go lead the team, but you alsocan lead them and still produce
right, like you and I are wherewe are today, because we're good
producers. Okay, so it's stillfor our company. We still have
to produce. It just looks alittle differently. Now, you
know, we're out trying to landwells or or, you know, the next
opportunity for people to investin or whatever that might be,
(33:52):
but you got to surround yourselfwith leaders. Okay, once you've
surrounded yourself withleaders, or you have that core
team, then then it becomes avision exercise, again, because
you need people to understandthe direction that they're
moving, and you have a visionfor the team, but then you're
going to have a vision for eachindividual player, and this
might be where the kind of theuniqueness for what I do comes
(34:14):
in, and I look at it as theoffensive coordinator, right?
So, yeah, I love football. I wasbetter at baseball, but I love
football. The offensivecoordinator looks at their
offense and says, at a highlevel, the vision for this
thing. We're going to be thebest running offense, or we're
going to be the best passingoffense, or we're going to be
the the fastest offense, right?We're going to run with tempo,
(34:36):
whatever it might be, right?They have a vision for the
offense, but then they have avision for every player on that
team. And so do you think thevision that the offensive
coordinator has for theiroffensive tackle is the same
vision that they have for thewide receiver? No man, I mean,
just physically, they got tolook different, right? Because
and their jobs look different,and success looks different, and
(34:59):
and how you talk to. Them isprobably different, like, the
way they prepare for games isdifferent, like, everything's
different. And so what youacknowledge is, when you're
leading your team, yes, there isa vision for the team, but every
individual you have to have avision for. If I hit it out of
the park with this person inthree to five years, this is
what they look like. And soyou're leading the team to a
(35:20):
vision, but you're leadingpeople to a vision, right? And
so when you have your one on onemeetings with a teammate, that
you have a vision for, like, howmuch better are those one on
ones going to be? I mean, youknow where you're taking that
person, and if you can get themthere, think about where your
team's going to be, yeah. AndI'm, I'm real clear about that,
right? And so I've got, I've gota vision for the team and for
(35:41):
each individual, and I've gotplans for both, right and not in
and then what I train to isbased on that, right? I'll train
the team based on that teamvision, right? And then I'll
train each individual with who Ineed them to be if they're going
to be the successful person inthe future, right? And and I ask
them to like, I want them toknow, like, Hey, I see you as a
(36:02):
leader in our business in thefuture. Is that what you want,
right? And if they tell you no,well, that's great. Like, you
have some clarity there, and youcan change your vision for them.
That's right. Map out someone'slife and not know what they
want, right? Like, you get someof this is kind of just talking
back and forth to to expose thereality of things. And so, you
(36:23):
know, then we train right. Myone on ones, you know, we got
our plan that takes us in thedirection of our vision, right.
And then we break it up in thequarterly big rocks, right, just
and, and then every one on one,I'm asking them first, always
ask them how they're doing,right? Because if the person
isn't healthy, then they don'tcare about any of your
(36:45):
professional stuff, right? Ifthe only thing we do in a one on
one is take care of the person,and that's what we have to do,
because that's the mostimportant thing. So I check on
the person, and then I ask themhow last week went. And what I'm
listening for is, did you stayfocused on the things that we
call the priority that we callthe big rock for your next
quarter. And I'm listeningright? And hopefully what I'm
(37:07):
hearing is, yes, I stayed onpriority. Some things I was able
to accomplish and do reallywell, some things I struggled
with right now, and I'll try toplug in there as their leader.
I'll try to plug in and be whothey need me to be to help in
those problem areas. Well, thenwe say, Okay, well, what's your
plan for this next week? Andwhat I'm listening to again is,
are you on priority? Have youthought about the vision? And do
(37:30):
you understand the plan and thepriority for this next week? And
if they don't, I redirect themright? And then we settle on
what we're going to talk aboutnext week so we know what the
big rocks are for the week. Andthen I, then I just usually ask
them, hey, where do you need meto plug in more? Just ask them
that. And if sometimes they say,you're awesome, you're doing
(37:52):
good, don't need you anywhere.But sometimes they have
somewhere where they need you toplug in. And that's, that's an
awesome answer to have, becausethen you can go be more valuable
to them, right? That helps withretention and their growth and
everything that's right. Then Iask them, hey, where am I in
your business that I can unplugfrom like you don't need me
anymore? And that's awesome forme, because it saves me time.
(38:13):
Makes them feel less like I'mmicromanaging. There's a whole
lot of other great things. Yeah.And then we high five, and I
send them out, you know, we dothat in 30 minutes. But when you
have when you have a vision,when you have a plan, when
you're holding them accountable,and then you're kind of, like
leading by example and trainingthem, and, you know, doing,
doing great, kind of innovativethings as their leader, the
(38:34):
team's gonna be successful. It'sgoing to be steady. There's
going to be growth.
Yeah, I love that. That's foranybody listening, I think
that's, that's the game, right?And I love that you broke down
the one on ones. You broke down.You're having the vision calls
with them and actually mapping.And I love that you shared this
to scholars like what we mightthink is, is the vision for
them, and we see in them theymay not see in themselves, just
(38:55):
meeting them where they are andhelping them go through that
critical the best leaders at methere?
Yeah, yeah, amen. And I learnedthis from somebody. So that's
that's why I get to do it right,because I got to work under a
great leader. But I do it rightup front in the interview
process, because I need to knowthat you're aligned with where
I'm going. Because it because ifwe're aligned, and I hope you
(39:17):
get what you want, then I'mgoing to get what I want. That's
right, and that's an awesomeplace to be to push you to get
what you want, so that I getwhat I want. We're going to run
real fast, because we're justcompletely aligned. And then if
there's ever conflict later downthe road, then I can say, like,
Well, wait a minute, like youtold me when I hired you, this
is what you wanted in your life.Has things changed? And
(39:38):
sometimes things change, Brian,that's what, that's why we got
to stay connected to the person.Because sometimes things change,
and if they changed and we're nolonger aligned, then it might
be, it might be the right timefor us to help you go find
somewhere where you can be morealigned. Nobody wants to come to
work and not be aligned. No,they just, it just doesn't feel
good. No, we know. Everybodyknows that. Around. Around, and
(40:00):
they're just waiting for thatday and that opportunity. And so
I love the chance to get tolead. It's always that great
opportunity. And I love the wayyou've laid it out. I'm going to
leave the leading the business.So people go get the book,
because I want them to go getthat. Speaking of business, man,
I got to ask this, because theentrepreneurial journey we
watch, we're big fans of SharkTank. I always think about
entrepreneurial journey, and I'mgoing through years and, like,
(40:23):
everything's making sense to me,Construction Company, real
estate, stuff you're goingthrough that, like, laundromat,
okay, yeah, for those you'retalking about what you're doing
there. Yeah, the biggest lessonyou've learned, and let's keep
it relatively recent, in thelast year, maybe about
entrepreneurship and and havingthese multiple companies that
you've got there maybe some youwish you had known years ago
(40:44):
when you got into this, but anentrepreneurial lesson is
transferable. Man,
it's easy for me. I don't knowwhy I didn't trust people, and I
think it might be the way I grewup. I grew up in a rough
neighborhood where you reallycouldn't trust people. You know,
they were always out to get whatthey needed to survive, and they
would take years to have it. AndI think because of that, I never
(41:09):
trusted people enough to partnerwith them in business, right?
Because I believed in myself,and it was hard for me to
believe in other people, tothink like I did, you know, like
I would, I would give tosomebody else before I would
partner with them. Yeah. But ifyou look at what I've been able
to accomplish in the shortamount of time that I've been
able to accomplish, it, it'sonly because I'm 100% willing to
(41:32):
partner with people. Now, ifyou, if you are going to make my
business and myself better thanwho I am today, then I'll
partner with you and and I, Ithink that that, aha, that I
don't have to own it 100% thathas enabled me to do
extraordinary things. And youknow, you talk about the
(41:56):
laundromat, the laundromat issuch a unique thing. But if I
wasn't willing to partner withthe right people, I'd never be
able to do it. And so I'll justtell a quick sort we invested in
a commercial retail center,okay? And we had two vacant
spots, three lease, right? Soit's five, five unit retail
(42:17):
center, and we bought it, right?So even with the three units
leased, we were cash flowing, sowe were already okay. Again,
we're not average. We wantexceptional, right? And so we
juiced the value of the realestate by getting the vacancies
leased. We were able to get thefourth space lease pretty
quickly, but the fifth space wejust couldn't get that thing
leased. I mean, we were a yearand a half into it, trying to
(42:39):
give all this free rent and allthis TI allowance and all this
stuff, and we just couldn't getit leased. Yeah, I'm not
commercial real estate broker.I'm the residential broker, but
it's my money in the deal, andI'm along the journey with them.
So we started to think, Well,what businesses could we plug in
there that would be similar toreal estate but would bring
value to the retail center couldpay market rent and would bring
(43:03):
value to the CO tenants, right?And we looked at restaurants, we
looked at all kinds of stuff,and laundry was a good fit, and
so we put the laundromat inthere, and we found the right
person to lead that business,and paid market rent. So juice
the value of the real estate,but that customer comes every
(43:25):
single week. And so our abilityto go increase rents with the
other tenants kind of wentthrough the roof, because they
love that laundromat being ananchor tenant, bringing their
people in all the time. And sowhat we ended up doing was
changing our whole commercialreal estate investment strategy
to find them places we couldplug a laundromat into. Like we
wouldn't buy it unless we couldplug a laundromat into one of
(43:48):
the vacant spaces and center.And, man, we, you know, you do
that four times. You understand,like, I know how to run this
business. Now, we got a greatplaybook, and that's why we
franchised it. And this I,can't. I can't run my real
estate sales company the waythat I can without the great
people I have in it. I can't,you know, can't be a part of the
(44:09):
construction company without thegreat people there. And I surely
can't run a laundromat withoutthe great people I have there.
And I already told you, mymindset is five people report to
you, and so no matter how bigour organization is, it's going
to be five that report to you,and you just got to find a way
to let them lead the rest. Andthat's that's how you're able to
(44:30):
do it. That's how you that's howyou're able to grow your empire
and still keep your sanity,still be the dad and the husband
you want to be, and things justkeep getting bigger. Man, you
just partner with people. It'schanged my life. It's changed my
life.
I love it, man. It's such a goodstory, too. And similarly, some
of the best deals we've done,they were partners and people
that I didn't know as much, butI brought something to the
(44:52):
table. They brought other thingsto the table, and they did that.
And as I'm thinking about that,you know, Skyler, if somebody's
listening, they're like, Okay,man, that sounds great for you.
And all these things you'vedone. But if somebody's looking
to partner and they're like, Youknow what I do really well in
this this area, maybe it is realestate, maybe it is mortgage.
Like, how do I go? How do I goseek out these partnerships and
use my talents and use my giftsand even seek out a partner like
(45:15):
that. Because I've had peopleask me, and, you know, I kind of
know my answer, but I'd love,I'd love yours. How do people
get in the game over there?
Yeah, you, I mean, you got tofind people that are after the
same purpose and have similarvalues as you, and so I come off
really outgoing on this kind oflike channel of media, right?
(45:37):
But I behind the screen and it'sjust talking to you. But I'm
not. I'm not a super outgoingperson. You know, when I when
I'm on a stage, or when I'mtalking to a group of people,
I'm performing, I'm a task guy.I wake up in the morning, so I
see that opportunity as a taskthat I can accomplish. I'm not
naturally just going out andnetworking and talking to
people, but when I understoodthis, and I understood that,
(45:59):
really at a high level, I wantedto bring love to the world, and
I need good people to help mebuild something where we can
touch a lot of lives. Then itbecame a part of just the
mission that I was on and andso, you know, everywhere I go,
I'm kind of like running ascenario through my head. Every
time I talk to somebody, it'skind of this, this process,
(46:24):
maybe, and I'm kind of makingthis up on the spot, but I think
it'll help the folks, everyperson I meet, I ask myself,
first, you know, can you teachme something, right? And so, you
know, if you could teach mesomething, I'm a learner. I want
to be better. I got a growthmindset, you know, teach me
something. Then I'm askingmyself, well, can you work for
(46:44):
me? Can you help me build myempire, right? And then I'm
asking myself, well, if youcan't work for me, then are you
going to be a customer of mine,right? And then if you're not
going to be a customer of mine,then I just ask myself, well,
what can I give you that youknow might help your life. And
so I'm every person. I'm workingthrough that thought process of,
(47:06):
what can what can you teach me?Can you work for me? Will you be
a client? What can I do for you?Like I'm every person. I'm doing
that, so I don't miss anyopportunities with people to do
that. And the cool thing is,really what I'm doing, Brian,
I'm walking with open hands.Okay, I'm I'm very willing to
(47:26):
give you all that I have. Butbecause my hands are open, I can
accept things from you too. Andso, like, it's a, it's a, it's a
given take and kind of, Bob,scratch your back, you scratch
mine. Kind of mentality to justtrying to bring love to the
world. And you know, a lot ofpeople, I may only talk to once
in their life, and that's okay,but more times than not, I'll
(47:50):
connect with someone because I'mgenuinely trying to help them in
some way in their life. And thenwe just have more and more
conversations. And it's not thatconversation that usually turns
into a partnership. It'ssomebody saying, Hey, I met a
guy that just reminded me ofyou, and I thought you guys
should meet. And then they, theyconnect us. And it's like, my my
(48:13):
brother from another mother.Yeah, I meet with them like,
man, I've been, I've beenmissing you my whole life, the
whole time. And then we find away, right? And it's, but it's,
it's intentional. You're alwaystalking and, you know, just got
a web, right, putting the webout there, and you're captured
and bringing
them in, that's a cool model.And, I mean, I'm going to use
(48:34):
that, because I think aboutthat, but not in that detail. Of
when I meet people, I'm like,Okay, well, God, what is it was
the intention of this? And howcan I serve them? What's the
connection they need? Where'stheir advice? Where's their
opportunity? I think if we alllook in our lives like we come
across people every day, youjust never know what would be
this. I love that open hands,just that's gonna stick with me.
(48:54):
He's got to be a thought leader,right? Brian, like I this past
weekend, I went and spoke at anevent called fitness and faith.
And had never met the guybefore, but he read the book,
and he knew that I was abusinessman that loved Jesus,
yeah. And he's like, Hey, I'mhosting this event called
fitness and faith. I'd love toyou to come and talk about the
(49:14):
faith piece. And the only reasonwhy that opportunity came to me
was because I was putting outvaluable content, and just kind
of open hands, sharing with theworld what I've learned, right?
And I think the more you dothat, it's just going to come
back, you know, you're going toget opportunities. And so I got
(49:34):
to talk to 100 people, and theyall know I'm in real estate. I
was sure to share that. And thenwe focused on faith. But it was,
it was good. I mean, that's justthat open hand approach. I think
it really works.
Oh, it does. It ties back to theuniqueness who you are, your
talents and things you've got.So, man, I know we could jam. I
feel like a brother from anothermother there. As I was prepping
(49:57):
for I was super excited aboutthis, because I'm like, man, we
a lot. Up on so many things, andthese are the people that I want
to be around and associatedwith, learn from and share with
our audience. And so I alwayssay this, everybody that's
that's listening to the show is,man, I see I want, I want great
guests like you, where yourpedigree and what you're doing
and what you're building isinspirational and aspirational,
for those people to go manSkylar is over here doing it. I
(50:19):
can take a few pages out of hisplaybook. I can go lead better
at home. I can go lead my teambetter, lead myself better,
right? Like I can go and playbig in the world. And so dude,
thank you for sharing your giftswith us today. Last Last
question of anything that's onyour heart or that didn't ask, I
always love this, anything thatyou know maybe God's teaching
you right now, or anything youwant to leave people with just
(50:41):
kind of a final thought ormessage,
good question.
You know, we've sold some realestate this year, but I've sold
more in the past, right? I'm thesame as you all in that way
that, you know, it's tough tosell real estate in Austin, and
(51:05):
in I talk, I talk to God everymorning, you know, and I'm and I
believe that everything that Igo through is preparing me for
someone that I can help in thefuture, like I know that. And so
I'm always asking, you know,God, what are you teaching me in
this moment? How can I, how canI achieve wisdom from this, this
(51:28):
adversity, to make me a betterman and and I just, I just want
the people that are listeningand got this far to know that
everything we have is a gift,everything the struggles, the
talents, the the resources, thetiming and business. So much of
my business success is justtiming. Everything we have is a
(51:50):
gift, and you are to stewardthose gifts. And it isn't about
you, it's about what you canbring this world. Can you? Can
you be someone that multiplieslove for other people and and
just help them grow spiritually,so that they wake up every
morning and they think aboutwhat they can bring the world
and not what they're going toget themselves? You know, if we
(52:12):
could, if we could teach moreleaders that and get them to
think that way, this world wouldbe a lot easier for our
leadership to lead? Yeah, we itwould just run itself. And
that's, that's really what weneed. We need that. And so I
would just encourage people toseek that spiritual health, to
talk to God every morning andand be humble and think like,
(52:36):
what, what am I learning? That'sthat I need, that I need to go
help someone else in the future,because that's the point. Yeah.
Closed out, strong brother.Thank you. This has been
incredible, and I cannot wait toshare this with everybody. Guys.
This is why we bring on greatguests. And if you're not
following Skyler, we're going tohave his information there. You
(52:56):
can link up the steady leader.Go grab the book. If you're a
leader today, I would tell youwhat a great way for you to go
grab the book, go through itwith your team and actually
share some things from today,and I say this too, is then grab
the podcast, grab some excerptsthat you loved, bring it back.
The action you take as a resultof this conversation has
probably sparked something inyou, where you say, you know, I
want to get better here. I couldimprove there. And it's all in
(53:19):
that bigger purpose that Skylartalked about today. So if you
would, if you've listenedthrough and you've been
following us for a while, youknow, leave us a review. Share
this with your friends. That'show we get this out in other
people's hands. And I believethat ripple effect of us sharing
these quality conversations,putting that in front of people,
so we're thinking about theright things. We're using our
talents and actually honoringGod with what we've done there.
(53:41):
That's how we change the world,just one share at a time,
review, share it with a friend,and then take this back to your
team, especially if you're aleader or to your family. This
is gonna be a book that Irecommend to several leaders
that I talk with right now, andmake sure you follow Skyler.
Give them a shout out and let usknow if something has resonated
with you, as I always love thatfeedback of what stood out,
(54:02):
maybe something you want to hearmore of, or we can help you
with. So make sure you reach outto us. And then, until the next
episode, guys, go out there anddo something great. You've heard
it from Skylar today, but thatbigger purpose is what pulls you
forward? If you're in a toughseason right now, or you're
facing some of those challenges,best way to move forward is to
serve others, I found. So thisis a great way to go do that. We
appreciate you guys tuning in.We'll catch you on the next
(54:22):
episode. See ya.
Steve, what's up, guys, and welcome back to another
(00:03):
edition of competitive edgepodcast. So our guest today,
you're gonna love this resume,because not only is he written a
phenomenal book The City Leader,he's also got a podcast around
it. He's a US Army Ranger. He'sgot a real estate company,
construction company. Actuallyowns four laundromats. But more
importantly, as I look at it, healso has a family, and so for
(00:23):
those of you out there that yourparents, you've got things
you're doing, how can you showup and be the best leader inside
your business, inside yourfamily, always say, inside your
home, and then outside and leadpeople. So today, we're going to
break this down with SkylerWilliamson about not only his
journey as US Army Ranger, butalso how he has built a
successful real estate companyoutside of Austin, Texas, there,
(00:44):
and more importantly, what hashe learned along the way through
those things that could help youin your journey? Whether you're
in your 20s and you're trying tofigure out entrepreneurship,
trying to figure out what youwant to do with your life, or
you're somebody that you've beenin the game for a while, I
believe today you're going toget some of the lessons and some
clarity, as Skyler talks about,how do you move from chaos to
clarity and move forward in yourlife and really attack and use
(01:05):
the gifts that God's given? SoSkyler,
welcome to the show. Man, I'mfired up to be here. Brian,
thanks for having
me. Dude. I'm honored. And I gotto start here because, you know,
very few of my friends US ArmyRanger or seal or you've done
things that, let's be real. Man,like not a lot of people have
done that. And as I was goingback through and kind of kind of
prepping and studying whatyou've done, you know, I'm sure
(01:25):
a large part of your leadershipjourney and what you learned was
entering in and doing that. Butlet's give a little little
background into who you are andhow you got into actually be an
Army Ranger, because I lovethese stories.
Yeah, well, I grew up in ahumble family, but full of love.
So my parents are still marriedtoday, great examples of not
(01:47):
only how to how to love eachother as a spouse, how to love
your kids, but also just hardworkers. And they both are of
the type that went to work andwork for the same company for 30
years from my mother and 40years from my father. And so
they just, they put their headdown, they climbed the ladder,
and they and they remainedloyal. And so they instilled in
(02:10):
me those kind of, put your headdown, be loyal. Work hard, don't
complain. You know, theyinstilled that in me at a very
young age. But financially, youknow, I pretty early. I figured
out that if I wanted anything, Ihad to go create it myself. And
and I remember having aconversation pretty early in my
(02:32):
life. And I was always a maturekid. For whatever reason, God
blessed me with maturity and,and I'm the oldest of three
brothers, so maybe that was thereason why, because I was just
the oldest. But I rememberhaving a conversation with my
father pretty early that if youwanted to go to college, you
were going to have to get paidfor yourself. And there's two
(02:54):
ways to do that. You can just beextraordinarily smart and do
really well in academics, or youcould be an athlete. I said,
Well, you know, I like theathlete piece, so I'll just
focus on that. And you know,whenever, whenever you put your
head down and you work hard onsomething. You know, my high
school baseball coach used tosay you can't be a three to five
player, and three to five waswhen practice was. So what he
(03:16):
was saying is, if you wanted tomake it, you had to do something
before practice. You had to dosomething after practice. You
can't just show up whenever. Ishow up when everybody else is
showing up and expectextraordinary results.
Extraordinary effort gets youextraordinary results and a lot
of things. And athletically, youknow, when you put in the extra
time working out, putting theextra time recovery and and just
doing the skills and all thethings, you get those results. I
(03:40):
had a brilliant athletic careerin high school, football and
baseball. I had scholarshipoffers all throughout the US,
but I had this one to the USMilitary Academy at West Point.
And again, you know, kudos to myfather, you know, just just kind
of laying lessons out for me.But he sat me down and he said,
Hey, look, you might make it tothe NFL if you go to University
(04:03):
of Miami, chances are you'll gethurt or something will happen.
You know, football is a toughsport, but if you go to West
Point, you'll never have toworry like me and your mom ever
always had to, and so that madeit an easy enough decision for
me to kind of make the choicethat I wasn't going to play a
professional sport that I'mgonna go to West Point and take
(04:24):
care of my future. Now, when Ichose to go to West Point, we
weren't at war, so that made itan easier choice as an 18 year
old, but nonetheless, still,still a very like forward
thought choice, right? I'mchoosing my life beyond sports,
rather than gamble and try tomake it to the NFL and maybe get
a sub optimal education, yeah,one with the West Point, you
(04:48):
know, as fate would have it,they changed the rules halfway
through, and I was able to gopray a professional sport. But
we, you know, we came into atime of conflict, and I. Yeah,
you know, I walked away frombaseball after getting told,
Hey, I'm gonna, we're gonna haveyou come to spring training with
a big league team. I walked awaybecause my whole team from from
(05:10):
West Point was overseasfighting, and my younger brother
had gone overseas and fought inthe battle for Fallujah and, I
mean, it was just so many peoplethat I knew and loved or
overseas, and so I made adecision to walk away from
baseball and go into themilitary. Well, I don't, I'm not
really an average person. Idon't care to be, you know, I
(05:31):
want to, I want to do everythingto to the max that I have gifts
that God's given me to do,right? I believe in taking your
gifts and going to double them.That's right. You know. And I
was an athletic person, and so Ibelieved I could be a warrior on
the ground that was better thanmost. And you know, the schools
are very simple. In themilitary, you know, if you want
(05:51):
to be of the elite, then you goto this school called Ranger
School. And so just just in me,trying to be my best, led me to
Ranger School, you know. Andthen all the things that I did
in the military after that,military after
that, I love that. And I sawthat sports ground. I'm glad you
brought up your backgroundthere, because I looked at that.
I'm like, Okay, let's be real. Imean, Scott, there's a lot of
(06:11):
things you've done, and I'mgoing, okay, cool, like, multi
sport, you're going in andyou're successful and you're
playing and, you know,similarly, I played soccer, of
course, and got to live out thatdream. And at some point, we all
know that that doesn't lastforever. And I gotta imagine, as
you look back and you thinkabout the steady leader, are
there things that you look backnow? Because I think it's always
cool to look back on that, thatyou learned lessons, that your
(06:35):
dad, you know, encouraged you,hey, you know, let's go do this.
Let's, let's go this path thatyou would give people, maybe
with kids going to college. Igot one going to college in the
fall. Another one two yearsbehind and all. What advice
would you give now on the parentside to people, potentially, of
if you're sending your kids tocollege in the future, what do
you know now?
Yeah, well, you know so much ofbeing a steady leader is being a
(06:58):
thinker, right? I mean, I thinkevery smart person who's in a
leadership role, if asked aquestion, you know, or is it a
part of your job to think theywould say yes, right? Like that,
just intelligence tells you Yes.But how many people do you know
that are in leadership rolesthat actually have time to
think, right? And if I were, ifI were, my kids are a little
(07:22):
younger than yours, so I've gotsome time here, but if I were
about to send my kid off tocollege, I do a lot of what my
father did for me, and just say,hey, look man, like, let's sit
down and let's, let's cast avision for your life, right? If
you, if you had a great life510, years from now, what would
that look like? And I'd havethem go through that exercise,
(07:45):
and then I just, just likeleaders do, I would just ask
them the questions to back into.What do they need to do to make
that a reality? Right? I mean,and you know, you've been a part
of coaching, coaches just askgreat questions, right? A lot of
a lot of performers, especiallythe ones that seek out coaching
know the right answer. They justneed someone to challenge them
and ask them the right questionsto lead them to that. And so I
(08:07):
would just ask my my daughter,who's my oldest. You know,
what's your best life? That'scalled vision casting, babe. You
know, this is how you cast avision as a leader. And you
know, the books broken intothree parts, lead yourself, lead
your team, lead your business. Imean, right in that moment, as a
father, we're teaching them howto lead themselves, because the
(08:28):
first step of leading yourselfis having a good vision for your
life. And that's what my dad washelping me do. He was helping me
cast a vision. Do you want togamble and play a sport for a
living, or do you want to besure that your life will be
stable and you'll have more thanme and your mom ahead? Yeah?
Well, I chose the latter. Andreally, what that was doing was
(08:49):
That was my first lesson invision casting and and so as I
moved on from them, it justcontinuously right, as you're
leading yourself, you're you'recasting a vision for your life,
and it changes, right? Vision.Vision is not like purpose. It's
not ever purpose is evergreen.Vision changes directions,
right? Because we can only seeas far as we can see. And
certainly right now withtechnology and some of the other
(09:10):
things, that it just changes sofast, right? And it's funny,
I'm, I'm a follower of Eos, likeI loved, you know, Whitman
system, yeah, you know, he hasto do the 10 year, right? And
then the three year, and thenthe one year when you're casting
your vision. Well, the 10 yearsalmost like, why do we even do
that
anymore? So far, it's just sofar out and but you look
(09:33):
as far as you can, that's right,you cast that vision. So I'm
just helping my kids do thatthat, and I love that. I do that
for myself all the time.
Had to ask, and I love you.Broke up the book because I was
gonna ask you about that isleading yourself, you know. And
a lot of times I know as a newleader, and I was captain on the
soccer team and fumbling throughlike figuring out what is
(09:53):
leadership, and you model afterother people. And I know you
talked about that, a lot of yourlessons were modeling after
others that you saw. All, ifsomebody's listening this, okay,
the steady leader. How do theybest lead themselves? Because
I'm in that camp with you. Youcan't lead yourself. It is
really hard, if almostimpossible, to then lead others,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You haveto show up and be your best if
(10:16):
you're going to lead a greatteam, right? Like we don't. We
don't have championship teams,without every player looking
like a champion, eventuallyyou'll be exposed as a fraud by
a better team if you're not alltogether, and that starts with
you as a leader. Yeah, again, alot of it's just thinking. Right
to me, living a successful lifeand running a great business is
(10:41):
simply just how many gooddecisions can you stack in a
row? To the extent that you canmake a good decision and a good
decision, a good decision justcontinuously, you're going to
have steady production. And Ithink that we owe it to our
teams, and we owe it toourselves to be thinkers, so
that we can respond in moments,not react right and chaos would
(11:05):
attack you in your business toget you to react to things. And
some of us are super clever andwitty, and we can react better
than most, but your chances ofanswering those problems
correctly increase even for thewitty ones, if you have clarity,
and you're actually leveragingmodels to think through what
(11:26):
could happen, right? And so Ithink, as a leader, leading
yourself, you know you're theseare the kind of the five tenants
that I work through. Is vision,being combat ready, this thing I
call love, which is pursuit ofexcellence, energy, and then a
plan to win. And when you workthrough those five buckets, and
you just kind of do thosecontinuously, you're going to
(11:48):
lead yourself to being the bestthat you, that you can be. And
because we, I mean, John Maxwellhas taught us a lot of this
stuff, two things, every leader,you will be the lead lid of your
business. If you stop growing,if you stop leading yourself,
you will cap your business. Youwill either have to get out of
the way, or you'll settle withmediocre, right? And people will
pass you. And then the secondthing about leading is is you
(12:11):
have to have influence, right?That's what Maxwell defines
leadership as. Is influence?Well, you have to lead your life
in such a way that people seesomething in you that they want.
And it can be, it can be whatyou look like, physically. It
can be what you are paper,wealth wise, you know,
financially, it can be thebusiness you're building. It can
be how healthy you arespiritually. But you have to
(12:33):
have something in your life thatyour teammates look at you and
say, I'm gonna follow him,because I want that in my life.
And the cool thing is, is thereare people part of my company
because they want something thatI have spiritually. There are
people on my team that follow mebecause they want to build
wealth like I have, you know.And you know, it just runs the
(12:53):
full gamut. But the point is, tobe that person, you got to lead
yourself, right? And then you'llhave influence when you've done
that? Well,
hey guys, it's Brian here. Ihope you are enjoying the show.
By the way, if you're anentrepreneur or a solopreneur
looking to grow your personalbrand, make a bigger impact,
(13:14):
maybe increase your leads andgrow your revenue. Let's help
you get started today byconnecting up with my friends
over at the brand buildersgroup. You've heard me talk
about them, but if you're newhere, this is definitely the
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revenue. Head over to free brandcall.com, forward slash Ryan
(13:37):
COVID again to set up your freebrand call, go to free brand
call.com forward slash RyanCOVID to set up a free strategy.
Call with one of the team atbrand builders, and they will
dive into your specific goalsfor how you want to grow your
personal brand. Can't wait tohear how it goes you
(14:01):
talk about this? I was listeningto one of my favorite guys, Ed
mylett, was sharing these fourlevels of leadership. And you
get through, you know, just thebaseline you manage because you
have a title, and you be giventhat authority, and you move
into motivation. And we knowmotivation, you basically like a
shower every day, right? Theywould say that. And you got
inspirational leaders, and youjust triggered something for me,
as I was thinking, Skyler issort of this fourth level, which
(14:23):
most never get to or maintain,which is aspirational. I love
your choice. People arefollowing because they see in
you your spiritual walk. Theysee a physical side. They see
you know, your ability anddiscipline and finances, right,
and being able to build wealthand to budget and do things. I
think for a lot of people, theymiss that. They just want to
skip over and it's like, youknow, I hear this all the time,
especially in our mortgage andreal estate, is like, I just
(14:46):
want to, you know, manage andhave a big team and lead a bunch
of people and all these things.And, yeah, I'd love for you to
help someone, if they're in thatspot and their aspiration and
their desires. They do want tolead all these people, maybe not
for the right reasons. They kindof hadn't figured it out. Out. I
know I struggled with that earlyin my career. Yeah, what are the
things on a daily basis thatthey can start intentionally
(15:07):
doing? I think about keeping thepromises to yourself, but
anything you found in yourjourney that helps them start to
build that muscle, right? Likethe real tactics,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, listen,you got to have the table set to
do everything else really well.And so I think you've got to be
clear on your purpose, thepurpose you have for your life.
(15:29):
If you know why you wake upevery day and get after it at
your life level, then you willhustle every day. You will you
will give it your all. And thenwe can go work on some of the
other tactical stuff, but yougot to know what your purpose
is. And here's the thing, yourpurpose has to be about other
people. And I'll just tell aquick story just to drive that
(15:50):
point home. You know, RangerSchool we talked about earlier,
but it's tough. It is tough. Ilost 55 pounds in 63 days. Or,
you know, however many days itwas, wow, and it just wore me
down. And I thought aboutquitting non stop. Now, thank
God I didn't, you know, I wasable to endure and kind of push
(16:11):
through, and that was with thehelp of some teammates and, you
know, just, I guess, in theirinner endurance. But I thought
about quitting all of the time.Fast forward to my time in Iraq
and Afghanistan. I'm not onetime ever thought about
quitting. Now in ranger school,my life was never at risk. It
(16:32):
was very controlled. It was atraining environment. In those
combat zones, I was gettingblown up. I pulled grenade
shrapnel out of my body armor, Ikick open doors. And it was like
a cartoon where the bullets justkind of went over the doorway,
you know? And that was just,that was just a regular Tuesday,
right? It was non stop, but Inever thought about quitting,
(16:53):
yeah. And the reason why isbecause I was in combat with a
team that I cared about, that Iwould never let them down. I was
there serving a country that Ilove. You know that that country
that hosts my family that Ilove, you know I'm not going to
let them down. Right? In rangerschool, I was there for a badge,
(17:14):
okay? I was there for acertification. I was there for a
trophy. Now it's more to that,but, but I'm making it simple so
that we can understand, yeah, Iwas there for myself. Nobody
else cared whether I went toranger school or not. It was
just about me, and that's why Iwas willing to quit. There is a
point that's closer to the startthat you'll quit. If it's about
(17:35):
you, if your purpose is aboutyou, you will quit. That's
right, you're doing it forothers. You'll never quit.
You'll just give it, and you'llwork yourself to the bone and to
the end, you'll work gladly.Would I give my life for
another? It's for another that'sthe key part of that. And so you
got to have, you got to havethat purpose dialed in with the
purpose, you know, kind of theend of destination. Then you
(17:57):
can, you can create that vision,and vision gives you general
direction, right? Then you cancreate a plan for yourself,
because you can backwards, kindof engineer that vision to today
and logically create the nextcouple of steps and the
priorities for yourself. Andthen at that point, then it's
just kind of getting yourselfready to go, right? Can I be
cotton in the mid in themilitary, we call it combat
(18:19):
ready, and that is, if you'rehanded a mission right now, can
you go and operate like rightaway? Yeah. And to be combat
ready as an individual and inbusiness, you need to be really
healthy as a leader. And healthyis mentally healthy, physically
healthy and spiritually healthyfor me, yeah. And the way I
think about it is, pictureyourself on a boat, okay? And
(18:42):
you're sitting on a stool in themiddle of the boat. Well, mental
health is one leg. Physicalhealth is a second leg, and
spiritual health is two otherlegs, right? So it makes a four
legged stool. Well, when thingsare all kind of calm, right?
When there's there's a lack ofchaos in your life, well, yeah,
if you're athletic, you can siton a two legged stool. Yeah, no,
no sweat. Now, as soon as chaosenters your life and those waves
(19:05):
start to rock that boat, you'regoing to need all four, right?
And so you need to be healthy ifyou're going to be a steady
leader, right? And mentallyhealthy means you have a growth
mindset. Physically healthy, Ilove the way the stoics talk
about it. Are you in controlyour body? Or is your body in
control of you? Like, does yourbody tell you to hit the snooze
button? Or do you say, Get up,it's time to go, baby. We got to
(19:27):
do these things to get betterevery day, and then spiritually
healthy. I like to summarize itthis way, when you wake up in
the morning, do you wake up andthink, What am I going to get?
Or do you wake up and say, Thisis what I'm going to give the
world, to the extent that youwake up every day and you are
excited to go give the worldsomething that's how healthy you
are spiritually. And, man, youknow, and those things are all
(19:51):
tactical to me, like the morningroutine, the planning, like how
I plan, all of that stuff'stactical, but you do, you do
have to have that per. Businessand vision. I mean, you have to
have those things dialed in, sothat every day you can tap into
something that's never going torun out. Because if you saw how
hard I worked, you'd be like,maybe I don't want that, but the
reason why I want it is becauseI got a big purpose.
(20:14):
That's right. And you take meback to this fire fires me up.
Number one is everything you'resaying I align with which I
love. I was as excited for thisconversation because of that,
and then to think about incollege, like the times that you
didn't want to go out there andsometimes compete at the best
level, or do some of thephysical training, we'll just
call it, like some of thephysical training. And I got a
(20:34):
team counting on me, right? Likethere's people that you would
do, and always think about thatmy life, the times that I have
gone further, or that I havepushed through an obstacle or
boundaries. There's peoplecounting on, whether it's my
family, the team that I serve,you know, all those. And so I
want people to miss that as thatpurpose being bigger I love, and
then I love you talked aboutbeing combat ready. I'd love to
go a little deeper and thinkabout, you know, people today,
(20:56):
if they're in business, right? Ithink about, like, mortgage,
real estate, we got a lot ofpeople there, yeah, what's some
things that they need to thinkabout? How can they be combat
ready? Because, you know, we'rein this market. You know, this
is it feels as if there's agroup and a smaller group that's
winning, they're up, they'reperforming like you're talking
about earlier. You guys havesold, what, 40 million this
year. Yeah, your day. Yeah, yourday. Now just think about, Okay,
(21:18):
you guys, you're winning. Butthen there's these other people
that are not combat ready. Sowhat does it take today, more
specific, like in real estateand mortgage in this economy,
and get combat ready?
Yeah, well, we can just startwith just the mental health of
things, right? Just being combatready from a mental health
standpoint, when you are in agrowth mindset, and then you're
(21:42):
challenged with something, howwould you respond when you have
a growth mindset? I mean, yeah,yeah. I mean, you just you, you
attack it right? If you don'thave the growth mindset, and
then challenges hit you, youcan't fall into that victim
mindset. And, you know, in avictim mindset, it's really hard
(22:05):
to take action because yourbrain is stuck in a fear or hurt
based kind of mode, right? And,and a lot of this is just
understanding your brain and thebrain of your people, right? So
as a leader, I've got tounderstand how my team's brains
working, and the most primitivefeelings that we have in our
brain is fear and hurt, and itdrives our survival, right? And
(22:26):
your brain is always trying topredict what's going to happen
based on fear and hurt, not notthe positive stuff, right? And
and you got to know that. And soyou know when you're talking to
your team, you need tounderstand that they're probably
in a fear mode, and you need tounderstand why they're fearful,
(22:47):
right? They're fearful becausethere's uncertainty, and then
you got to get them in control.And so so much of our businesses
in real estate comes down toyour lead generation, how you
understand and work yourdatabase and how consistent you
can be. And I mean that that'soversimplifying it, but it can
(23:07):
be that simple and and we wehave to have lead generation
mechanisms that work in the goodtimes and the bad times. And
then we also, as a leader, needto be thinking all of the time
like, Well, if the market didthis, this is how I'll respond,
right? I'm not going to react.I'm going to respond and and I
(23:31):
do a good bit of that thinking,you know, it's, it's my job as
the leader to be one step aheadof the team and to pull them
there. I don't got to be 10steps ahead. And that's, that's
where most people fall fallshort, like they think they got
to be 10 steps ahead. And itlooks like I'm 10 steps ahead,
because I'm always pulling themto the next rung. But the
reality is, I'm one step up theladder, and I'm just pulling
(23:52):
them there, right? And soon as Iget them to that step, then I'm
taking the next step and pullingthem there. And so I look like a
genius in this guy that justlike is way ahead of everything.
But the reality is, I'm one stepahead, and that's my job as the
leader. Is to be one step ahead.What can we lead generate around
that gives us an advantage inthis moment, right? And I think
(24:13):
that our approach as real estateagents has made us pretty good
at this on my team, because Ibuild value, I build lead
generation around each person'sunique value, because I know,
you know, we're we're five toseven years in between
transactions, right, if thingsare normal, and so I've got to
find five to seven ways to orfive to seven years worth of
(24:34):
value to give somebody just tohold them close. And so, you
know, for me, what that mightlook like is, I know how to run
a business. I am your realestate agent, but I can teach
you how to lead I could teachyou how to grow business or a
side hustle. I could teach youhow to build wealth. And, you
know, and I do this for mydatabase. And so I've got people
at all levels coming to me tosolve business problems, wealth
(24:56):
problems, to talk spiritually,you know, like kind of how. How
can they take that next step?And it's keeping me in
conversation with my database,in in my strength zone, and and
they love it, and they all knowI'm in real estate, you know,
like I tell, I do tell them I'min real estate. I just happen to
(25:16):
be pouring value into their lifefrom a leadership perspective or
some other way, right? And sowhat I would challenge people
with, if you're in a hard time,and first you gotta, you gotta
be positive, right? You gotta,you have a growth mindset,
negative. Negative thoughts helpyou expose problems. But no
problem was ever solved withnegativity. At some point you
(25:37):
gotta turn positive to solve aproblem. So you got to be a
growth mindset. You got to bethinking so that you can respond
and build value around youruniqueness that gives you a
reason that you feel really goodabout to reach out to people. I
mean, I got a person on my teamwho loves to declutter and loves
old folks, and so she does all,all of this stuff, you know,
(26:03):
events and things like thisaround decluttering and kind of
helping older folks findretirement communities. Yeah,
you think that that part of herdatabase is growing or
shrinking? Yeah, it's fine.Yeah. Old folks are trying to
downside is all the time, andthat's all the time part of the
business. And, you know, I gotanother gal who, you know,
(26:27):
she's, she's really good oncamera, she knows makeup, and
she, you know, kind of knowsdesign, and she builds a lot of
value around them. I just find,what is it that you feel really
good at teaching people, andthen just go teach the world. It
just makes sure that they knowyou're in real estate too. And
we, that's how we communicatewith our now, we do a lot of the
traditional things to like openhouse, all that stuff too, but
(26:48):
we, I mean, we build around ouruniqueness. We understand that
that's that's where you want toadvertise and market to, is your
uniqueness as an individual,what you feel best being
valuable at man,
I love that. So we work with,you know, brand builders group,
and they'll have a commercialwithin the podcast today. People
hear it as well, but they alwaystalk about that as your
(27:10):
uniqueness. And Rory Vaden, heand his wife, AJ, had that up,
and Rory shares this quote aboutyour most powerfully positioned
to serve the person you oncewere. Yeah, like, you know, all
the experience, the thingsyou're sharing, like, that's the
value I would want. I thinkabout in mortgage, real estate,
financial services, yes, there'sthings that you do, but we all
know, like, there's years inbetween, some of those actual
(27:33):
transactions that occur in thetimes that we're really solving
the big problem. What a cool waythat you guys are doing it. So
I'd love to expand on thatuniqueness piece. How do you
then get the uniqueness? I knowyou guys have a newsletter. Are
there other tactics with sociallike, how do you get that
uniqueness? Sounds like you'veidentified it, you've packaged a
little bit. Then how do youdistribute it? Because I think a
lot of people struggle. You knowSkyler, it's like they may kind
(27:55):
of know what they do. They maytell a few people, but they
don't really go at it like this.I'd love to learn how you guys
are packaging it anddistributing
it? Yeah, well, it can look alot of different ways. Okay, we,
we do have the newsletter. Thereason why we do the newsletter,
and you know, this isn't Skyler.I've learned this model from
(28:15):
other people, like, I own mynewsletter, right? Nobody can
rip that away from me. I ownthat we're building a YouTube
channel, but that can be rippedaway, right? If YouTube chose
to, they could, they could takethat away from me, and they've
done that. People that havebuilt big channels for one
reason or another, they violatedthe policy that they have and
and when that's gone, it's gone,right? And so I think you have
(28:39):
to be understanding of whatcaptures your building and what
processes you're building thatyou own, and the things that you
don't own and the things thatyou don't own. Point them all to
what you do own. Yeah, right.And then, and then just, really,
just make the things that youown just next level valuable.
And and you I like, I like Roryand the team to, you know,
(29:04):
they're real clear about whotheir target customer is, right?
And speaking to that person,when you know exactly who you're
speaking to, then you can pour aton of value into that, yeah,
and that, you know, again,that's, that's what we're doing
on our team, is we know exactlywho we're talking to, and then
we pour value into it. And Italked leadership enough to the
people that I was like, alright,well, I still write a book,
right? Like, I'll, I'll writethis leadership book. Yeah, this
(29:27):
is a perfect opportunity for meto call people and talk to them.
Yes, first, at first, I wasselling books, but they know I'm
in real estate. And I tell youkind of laughed about, like, I'm
part time book salesman now, butyou know, we not tell them a
couple real estate stories, justso they know that I'm still
heating it up, you know, yeah.But then, you know, after I do
that, then I get to call themall back and say, Well, what did
(29:49):
you learn? You know, let's talkabout it. Oh, by the way, can
you leave me a review? Can youtell your friends? Guess what?
When they tell somebody elseabout the book, and then that
person goes into you. Thatwebsite to learn more and kind
of download some of the thecontent that you can with a
book. Where do you think thosenames are going? That's about
real estate, but database,right? Like I've got. So this is
(30:12):
a leadership book, but it's a,it's a form of Legion, where
it's capture, and I'm workingpeople down back to the
database, where I cancommunicate to them again about
real estate, yeah, yeah. Missionhome builders, our construction
company under a completelyseparate brand, but when we send
out mailers saying, hey, missionwill buy your house, where do
(30:33):
you think the response? Whenthose people respond or they
click on that link to sell ustheir house, where do you think
they go? They go right into myreal estate sales database. Love
it, yeah, any, any kind of eventthat we do to kind of just teach
wealth building or whatever,like, all goes back to the
database. So we, we're not doinganything unique. We're running
events, but they're, but they'resteady leader events, right?
(30:55):
They're not, hey, come get my myapple pie. Like, I'm not, I'm
not the realtor that does thosetypes of events. We're doing
wealth building events we'redoing. We're building houses
right, and we're hosting happyhours in our houses that we're
building and inviting ourinvestors invest in our spec
deals if they want to, right?That keeps our investors close
(31:15):
to us, because I have my agentsat the house too when we're
teaching, I mean, we just nonstop, are just teaching and
trying to provide value. And aslong as you have your mix of
real estate versus other value,right, they'll always know that
real estate's your core. You'rejust, you're just giving them
value in other ways. And that's,that's the key.
(31:37):
I love how you outline andeverybody listening go back and
rewind that and write down somethings. And I would encourage
you to look at, okay, what arethe things that you're doing?
What are some of the thingsSkyler went through? They're
like, Oh, I should be doingthat. Whether it's events or
you're funneling everybody in.And I love that kind of focus
and lead magnet, the brand ofthe steady leader funnels all
the these, these people arepotential buyers and sellers all
(31:59):
the time, and everybody needsshelter, yeah, I love that well
before we get into theentrepreneurial side. Because I
know you mentioned that withlaundromats, you got those
things cranking. You got theconstruction company. All that.
I looked at that next phase wemove out of leading ourselves. I
was about leading the team.Things that you know, people
that are listening today. Yousee these themes, and always
(32:21):
think about patterns thatemerge, and you're really good
at this is seeing the patterns.What are the best leaders today
doing in this environment?Right? Because we have this
hybrid that still exists afterCOVID, and all these things are
like virtual people across thecountry. I know our teams all
across the country, differenttime zones, some are in an
office, some are not in anoffice. And what are those
things to really lead the teamwell that you found, or are
(32:43):
those pillars, right staples ofleading a team? Well,
yeah, I'm not. I think first isa mindset of, I don't want to
surround myself with followers,Owner, surround myself with
leaders. You know, for someonethat's got a team that spread,
spread throughout the US, you'renot, you can't do everything,
and so you're going to lead youryour core four or five, right?
(33:06):
We have to obey the span ofcontrol rule if you, if you're
leading more than five to sevenpeople, you're babysitting, you
literally can't produce, becauseall you're doing is answering
questions all day long. So yougot to find a way to keep your
direct reports to five, maybeseven, if you're kind of ramping
up to that next leader, butideally five people, because if
(33:28):
you have five people reportingto you that are leaders, they'll
go lead the team, but you alsocan lead them and still produce
right, like you and I are wherewe are today, because we're good
producers. Okay, so it's stillfor our company. We still have
to produce. It just looks alittle differently. Now, you
know, we're out trying to landwells or or, you know, the next
opportunity for people to investin or whatever that might be,
(33:52):
but you got to surround yourselfwith leaders. Okay, once you've
surrounded yourself withleaders, or you have that core
team, then then it becomes avision exercise, again, because
you need people to understandthe direction that they're
moving, and you have a visionfor the team, but then you're
going to have a vision for eachindividual player, and this
might be where the kind of theuniqueness for what I do comes
(34:14):
in, and I look at it as theoffensive coordinator, right?
So, yeah, I love football. I wasbetter at baseball, but I love
football. The offensivecoordinator looks at their
offense and says, at a highlevel, the vision for this
thing. We're going to be thebest running offense, or we're
going to be the best passingoffense, or we're going to be
the the fastest offense, right?We're going to run with tempo,
(34:36):
whatever it might be, right?They have a vision for the
offense, but then they have avision for every player on that
team. And so do you think thevision that the offensive
coordinator has for theiroffensive tackle is the same
vision that they have for thewide receiver? No man, I mean,
just physically, they got tolook different, right? Because
and their jobs look different,and success looks different, and
(34:59):
and how you talk to. Them isprobably different, like, the
way they prepare for games isdifferent, like, everything's
different. And so what youacknowledge is, when you're
leading your team, yes, there isa vision for the team, but every
individual you have to have avision for. If I hit it out of
the park with this person inthree to five years, this is
what they look like. And soyou're leading the team to a
(35:20):
vision, but you're leadingpeople to a vision, right? And
so when you have your one on onemeetings with a teammate, that
you have a vision for, like, howmuch better are those one on
ones going to be? I mean, youknow where you're taking that
person, and if you can get themthere, think about where your
team's going to be, yeah. AndI'm, I'm real clear about that,
right? And so I've got, I've gota vision for the team and for
(35:41):
each individual, and I've gotplans for both, right and not in
and then what I train to isbased on that, right? I'll train
the team based on that teamvision, right? And then I'll
train each individual with who Ineed them to be if they're going
to be the successful person inthe future, right? And and I ask
them to like, I want them toknow, like, Hey, I see you as a
(36:02):
leader in our business in thefuture. Is that what you want,
right? And if they tell you no,well, that's great. Like, you
have some clarity there, and youcan change your vision for them.
That's right. Map out someone'slife and not know what they
want, right? Like, you get someof this is kind of just talking
back and forth to to expose thereality of things. And so, you
(36:23):
know, then we train right. Myone on ones, you know, we got
our plan that takes us in thedirection of our vision, right.
And then we break it up in thequarterly big rocks, right, just
and, and then every one on one,I'm asking them first, always
ask them how they're doing,right? Because if the person
isn't healthy, then they don'tcare about any of your
(36:45):
professional stuff, right? Ifthe only thing we do in a one on
one is take care of the person,and that's what we have to do,
because that's the mostimportant thing. So I check on
the person, and then I ask themhow last week went. And what I'm
listening for is, did you stayfocused on the things that we
call the priority that we callthe big rock for your next
quarter. And I'm listeningright? And hopefully what I'm
(37:07):
hearing is, yes, I stayed onpriority. Some things I was able
to accomplish and do reallywell, some things I struggled
with right now, and I'll try toplug in there as their leader.
I'll try to plug in and be whothey need me to be to help in
those problem areas. Well, thenwe say, Okay, well, what's your
plan for this next week? Andwhat I'm listening to again is,
are you on priority? Have youthought about the vision? And do
(37:30):
you understand the plan and thepriority for this next week? And
if they don't, I redirect themright? And then we settle on
what we're going to talk aboutnext week so we know what the
big rocks are for the week. Andthen I, then I just usually ask
them, hey, where do you need meto plug in more? Just ask them
that. And if sometimes they say,you're awesome, you're doing
(37:52):
good, don't need you anywhere.But sometimes they have
somewhere where they need you toplug in. And that's, that's an
awesome answer to have, becausethen you can go be more valuable
to them, right? That helps withretention and their growth and
everything that's right. Then Iask them, hey, where am I in
your business that I can unplugfrom like you don't need me
anymore? And that's awesome forme, because it saves me time.
(38:13):
Makes them feel less like I'mmicromanaging. There's a whole
lot of other great things. Yeah.And then we high five, and I
send them out, you know, we dothat in 30 minutes. But when you
have when you have a vision,when you have a plan, when
you're holding them accountable,and then you're kind of, like
leading by example and trainingthem, and, you know, doing,
doing great, kind of innovativethings as their leader, the
(38:34):
team's gonna be successful. It'sgoing to be steady. There's
going to be growth.
Yeah, I love that. That's foranybody listening, I think
that's, that's the game, right?And I love that you broke down
the one on ones. You broke down.You're having the vision calls
with them and actually mapping.And I love that you shared this
to scholars like what we mightthink is, is the vision for
them, and we see in them theymay not see in themselves, just
(38:55):
meeting them where they are andhelping them go through that
critical the best leaders at methere?
Yeah, yeah, amen. And I learnedthis from somebody. So that's
that's why I get to do it right,because I got to work under a
great leader. But I do it rightup front in the interview
process, because I need to knowthat you're aligned with where
I'm going. Because it because ifwe're aligned, and I hope you
(39:17):
get what you want, then I'mgoing to get what I want. That's
right, and that's an awesomeplace to be to push you to get
what you want, so that I getwhat I want. We're going to run
real fast, because we're justcompletely aligned. And then if
there's ever conflict later downthe road, then I can say, like,
Well, wait a minute, like youtold me when I hired you, this
is what you wanted in your life.Has things changed? And
(39:38):
sometimes things change, Brian,that's what, that's why we got
to stay connected to the person.Because sometimes things change,
and if they changed and we're nolonger aligned, then it might
be, it might be the right timefor us to help you go find
somewhere where you can be morealigned. Nobody wants to come to
work and not be aligned. No,they just, it just doesn't feel
good. No, we know. Everybodyknows that. Around. Around, and
(40:00):
they're just waiting for thatday and that opportunity. And so
I love the chance to get tolead. It's always that great
opportunity. And I love the wayyou've laid it out. I'm going to
leave the leading the business.So people go get the book,
because I want them to go getthat. Speaking of business, man,
I got to ask this, because theentrepreneurial journey we
watch, we're big fans of SharkTank. I always think about
entrepreneurial journey, and I'mgoing through years and, like,
(40:23):
everything's making sense to me,Construction Company, real
estate, stuff you're goingthrough that, like, laundromat,
okay, yeah, for those you'retalking about what you're doing
there. Yeah, the biggest lessonyou've learned, and let's keep
it relatively recent, in thelast year, maybe about
entrepreneurship and and havingthese multiple companies that
you've got there maybe some youwish you had known years ago
(40:44):
when you got into this, but anentrepreneurial lesson is
transferable. Man,
it's easy for me. I don't knowwhy I didn't trust people, and I
think it might be the way I grewup. I grew up in a rough
neighborhood where you reallycouldn't trust people. You know,
they were always out to get whatthey needed to survive, and they
would take years to have it. AndI think because of that, I never
(41:09):
trusted people enough to partnerwith them in business, right?
Because I believed in myself,and it was hard for me to
believe in other people, tothink like I did, you know, like
I would, I would give tosomebody else before I would
partner with them. Yeah. But ifyou look at what I've been able
to accomplish in the shortamount of time that I've been
able to accomplish, it, it'sonly because I'm 100% willing to
(41:32):
partner with people. Now, ifyou, if you are going to make my
business and myself better thanwho I am today, then I'll
partner with you and and I, Ithink that that, aha, that I
don't have to own it 100% thathas enabled me to do
extraordinary things. And youknow, you talk about the
(41:56):
laundromat, the laundromat issuch a unique thing. But if I
wasn't willing to partner withthe right people, I'd never be
able to do it. And so I'll justtell a quick sort we invested in
a commercial retail center,okay? And we had two vacant
spots, three lease, right? Soit's five, five unit retail
(42:17):
center, and we bought it, right?So even with the three units
leased, we were cash flowing, sowe were already okay. Again,
we're not average. We wantexceptional, right? And so we
juiced the value of the realestate by getting the vacancies
leased. We were able to get thefourth space lease pretty
quickly, but the fifth space wejust couldn't get that thing
leased. I mean, we were a yearand a half into it, trying to
(42:39):
give all this free rent and allthis TI allowance and all this
stuff, and we just couldn't getit leased. Yeah, I'm not
commercial real estate broker.I'm the residential broker, but
it's my money in the deal, andI'm along the journey with them.
So we started to think, Well,what businesses could we plug in
there that would be similar toreal estate but would bring
value to the retail center couldpay market rent and would bring
(43:03):
value to the CO tenants, right?And we looked at restaurants, we
looked at all kinds of stuff,and laundry was a good fit, and
so we put the laundromat inthere, and we found the right
person to lead that business,and paid market rent. So juice
the value of the real estate,but that customer comes every
(43:25):
single week. And so our abilityto go increase rents with the
other tenants kind of wentthrough the roof, because they
love that laundromat being ananchor tenant, bringing their
people in all the time. And sowhat we ended up doing was
changing our whole commercialreal estate investment strategy
to find them places we couldplug a laundromat into. Like we
wouldn't buy it unless we couldplug a laundromat into one of
(43:48):
the vacant spaces and center.And, man, we, you know, you do
that four times. You understand,like, I know how to run this
business. Now, we got a greatplaybook, and that's why we
franchised it. And this I,can't. I can't run my real
estate sales company the waythat I can without the great
people I have in it. I can't,you know, can't be a part of the
(44:09):
construction company without thegreat people there. And I surely
can't run a laundromat withoutthe great people I have there.
And I already told you, mymindset is five people report to
you, and so no matter how bigour organization is, it's going
to be five that report to you,and you just got to find a way
to let them lead the rest. Andthat's that's how you're able to
(44:30):
do it. That's how you that's howyou're able to grow your empire
and still keep your sanity,still be the dad and the husband
you want to be, and things justkeep getting bigger. Man, you
just partner with people. It'schanged my life. It's changed my
life.
I love it, man. It's such a goodstory, too. And similarly, some
of the best deals we've done,they were partners and people
that I didn't know as much, butI brought something to the
(44:52):
table. They brought other thingsto the table, and they did that.
And as I'm thinking about that,you know, Skyler, if somebody's
listening, they're like, Okay,man, that sounds great for you.
And all these things you'vedone. But if somebody's looking
to partner and they're like, Youknow what I do really well in
this this area, maybe it is realestate, maybe it is mortgage.
Like, how do I go? How do I goseek out these partnerships and
use my talents and use my giftsand even seek out a partner like
(45:15):
that. Because I've had peopleask me, and, you know, I kind of
know my answer, but I'd love,I'd love yours. How do people
get in the game over there?
Yeah, you, I mean, you got tofind people that are after the
same purpose and have similarvalues as you, and so I come off
really outgoing on this kind oflike channel of media, right?
(45:37):
But I behind the screen and it'sjust talking to you. But I'm
not. I'm not a super outgoingperson. You know, when I when
I'm on a stage, or when I'mtalking to a group of people,
I'm performing, I'm a task guy.I wake up in the morning, so I
see that opportunity as a taskthat I can accomplish. I'm not
naturally just going out andnetworking and talking to
people, but when I understoodthis, and I understood that,
(45:59):
really at a high level, I wantedto bring love to the world, and
I need good people to help mebuild something where we can
touch a lot of lives. Then itbecame a part of just the
mission that I was on and andso, you know, everywhere I go,
I'm kind of like running ascenario through my head. Every
time I talk to somebody, it'skind of this, this process,
(46:24):
maybe, and I'm kind of makingthis up on the spot, but I think
it'll help the folks, everyperson I meet, I ask myself,
first, you know, can you teachme something, right? And so, you
know, if you could teach mesomething, I'm a learner. I want
to be better. I got a growthmindset, you know, teach me
something. Then I'm askingmyself, well, can you work for
(46:44):
me? Can you help me build myempire, right? And then I'm
asking myself, well, if youcan't work for me, then are you
going to be a customer of mine,right? And then if you're not
going to be a customer of mine,then I just ask myself, well,
what can I give you that youknow might help your life. And
so I'm every person. I'm workingthrough that thought process of,
(47:06):
what can what can you teach me?Can you work for me? Will you be
a client? What can I do for you?Like I'm every person. I'm doing
that, so I don't miss anyopportunities with people to do
that. And the cool thing is,really what I'm doing, Brian,
I'm walking with open hands.Okay, I'm I'm very willing to
(47:26):
give you all that I have. Butbecause my hands are open, I can
accept things from you too. Andso, like, it's a, it's a, it's a
given take and kind of, Bob,scratch your back, you scratch
mine. Kind of mentality to justtrying to bring love to the
world. And you know, a lot ofpeople, I may only talk to once
in their life, and that's okay,but more times than not, I'll
(47:50):
connect with someone because I'mgenuinely trying to help them in
some way in their life. And thenwe just have more and more
conversations. And it's not thatconversation that usually turns
into a partnership. It'ssomebody saying, Hey, I met a
guy that just reminded me ofyou, and I thought you guys
should meet. And then they, theyconnect us. And it's like, my my
(48:13):
brother from another mother.Yeah, I meet with them like,
man, I've been, I've beenmissing you my whole life, the
whole time. And then we find away, right? And it's, but it's,
it's intentional. You're alwaystalking and, you know, just got
a web, right, putting the webout there, and you're captured
and bringing
them in, that's a cool model.And, I mean, I'm going to use
(48:34):
that, because I think aboutthat, but not in that detail. Of
when I meet people, I'm like,Okay, well, God, what is it was
the intention of this? And howcan I serve them? What's the
connection they need? Where'stheir advice? Where's their
opportunity? I think if we alllook in our lives like we come
across people every day, youjust never know what would be
this. I love that open hands,just that's gonna stick with me.
(48:54):
He's got to be a thought leader,right? Brian, like I this past
weekend, I went and spoke at anevent called fitness and faith.
And had never met the guybefore, but he read the book,
and he knew that I was abusinessman that loved Jesus,
yeah. And he's like, Hey, I'mhosting this event called
fitness and faith. I'd love toyou to come and talk about the
(49:14):
faith piece. And the only reasonwhy that opportunity came to me
was because I was putting outvaluable content, and just kind
of open hands, sharing with theworld what I've learned, right?
And I think the more you dothat, it's just going to come
back, you know, you're going toget opportunities. And so I got
(49:34):
to talk to 100 people, and theyall know I'm in real estate. I
was sure to share that. And thenwe focused on faith. But it was,
it was good. I mean, that's justthat open hand approach. I think
it really works.
Oh, it does. It ties back to theuniqueness who you are, your
talents and things you've got.So, man, I know we could jam. I
feel like a brother from anothermother there. As I was prepping
(49:57):
for I was super excited aboutthis, because I'm like, man, we
a lot. Up on so many things, andthese are the people that I want
to be around and associatedwith, learn from and share with
our audience. And so I alwayssay this, everybody that's
that's listening to the show is,man, I see I want, I want great
guests like you, where yourpedigree and what you're doing
and what you're building isinspirational and aspirational,
for those people to go manSkylar is over here doing it. I
(50:19):
can take a few pages out of hisplaybook. I can go lead better
at home. I can go lead my teambetter, lead myself better,
right? Like I can go and playbig in the world. And so dude,
thank you for sharing your giftswith us today. Last Last
question of anything that's onyour heart or that didn't ask, I
always love this, anything thatyou know maybe God's teaching
you right now, or anything youwant to leave people with just
(50:41):
kind of a final thought ormessage,
good question.
You know, we've sold some realestate this year, but I've sold
more in the past, right? I'm thesame as you all in that way
that, you know, it's tough tosell real estate in Austin, and
(51:05):
in I talk, I talk to God everymorning, you know, and I'm and I
believe that everything that Igo through is preparing me for
someone that I can help in thefuture, like I know that. And so
I'm always asking, you know,God, what are you teaching me in
this moment? How can I, how canI achieve wisdom from this, this
(51:28):
adversity, to make me a betterman and and I just, I just want
the people that are listeningand got this far to know that
everything we have is a gift,everything the struggles, the
talents, the the resources, thetiming and business. So much of
my business success is justtiming. Everything we have is a
(51:50):
gift, and you are to stewardthose gifts. And it isn't about
you, it's about what you canbring this world. Can you? Can
you be someone that multiplieslove for other people and and
just help them grow spiritually,so that they wake up every
morning and they think aboutwhat they can bring the world
and not what they're going toget themselves? You know, if we
(52:12):
could, if we could teach moreleaders that and get them to
think that way, this world wouldbe a lot easier for our
leadership to lead? Yeah, we itwould just run itself. And
that's, that's really what weneed. We need that. And so I
would just encourage people toseek that spiritual health, to
talk to God every morning andand be humble and think like,
(52:36):
what, what am I learning? That'sthat I need, that I need to go
help someone else in the future,because that's the point. Yeah.
Closed out, strong brother.Thank you. This has been
incredible, and I cannot wait toshare this with everybody. Guys.
This is why we bring on greatguests. And if you're not
following Skyler, we're going tohave his information there. You
(52:56):
can link up the steady leader.Go grab the book. If you're a
leader today, I would tell youwhat a great way for you to go
grab the book, go through itwith your team and actually
share some things from today,and I say this too, is then grab
the podcast, grab some excerptsthat you loved, bring it back.
The action you take as a resultof this conversation has
probably sparked something inyou, where you say, you know, I
want to get better here. I couldimprove there. And it's all in
(53:19):
that bigger purpose that Skylartalked about today. So if you
would, if you've listenedthrough and you've been
following us for a while, youknow, leave us a review. Share
this with your friends. That'show we get this out in other
people's hands. And I believethat ripple effect of us sharing
these quality conversations,putting that in front of people,
so we're thinking about theright things. We're using our
talents and actually honoringGod with what we've done there.
(53:41):
That's how we change the world,just one share at a time,
review, share it with a friend,and then take this back to your
team, especially if you're aleader or to your family. This
is gonna be a book that Irecommend to several leaders
that I talk with right now, andmake sure you follow Skyler.
Give them a shout out and let usknow if something has resonated
with you, as I always love thatfeedback of what stood out,
(54:02):
maybe something you want to hearmore of, or we can help you
with. So make sure you reach outto us. And then, until the next
episode, guys, go out there anddo something great. You've heard
it from Skylar today, but thatbigger purpose is what pulls you
forward? If you're in a toughseason right now, or you're
facing some of those challenges,best way to move forward is to
serve others, I found. So thisis a great way to go do that. We
appreciate you guys tuning in.We'll catch you on the next
(54:22):
episode. See ya.
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