Brian Smith: Mastering Leadership and Growth in the Midst of Business Evolution

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're like that buzzard ain't rang.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
That game ain't over with, so keep going.
I have thrived in that chaos.
How?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
could this be?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
happening.
Did any of you guys payattention to anything I said?
Like, welcome back to theReckless CEO Podcast, where we
keep it real, raw and real.
They ain't really gotten thisoff the line.

(00:34):
You know what I mean.
It's like here is your host,the Reckless CEO himself,
Michael McCudder.
Alright, my man Brian Iappreciate you coming in, man
and dude, I'm, I'm.
I feel like we got a lot ofcool things to share.
One I'm super excited to beable to just introduce you to.
You know my people and the.
You know everyone that I knowand you know it's.

(00:54):
It's exciting to see where thejourney started Right and I know
we haven't got to connect there.
The past, you know, this pastyear, was a little less
connection than we've had before.
But you know, I was actuallyjust telling one of our guys
this morning I'm like, you know,outside of my mentor, Ryan, I
was like, when it comes to theleadership and disc assessments
and all of those things, man, Ithink that you were like the guy
that really started, introducedme to those things, that helped

(01:17):
me to see more of a corporatestructure to the entrepreneur
business side yeah man Right.
So that's been really cool man.
So, brian, I'm excited to haveyou in man, and, you know, share
us a little bit of justyourself, right?
I know you're?
You're at Union Home.
You've been there for how long?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, 20, over 22 years, now, over 22 years.
So first of all, man, it's youknow it's an honor and a
privilege to be on your show.
I think it was probably two,two or so years ago that Greg
Ford introduced us and connectedus, and you know, watching you
go from selling your truck andmoving to Columbus to see the

(01:56):
incredible business that you'vebuilt and created in a very
short period of time, and I'mvery, very impressed and blown
away with your success, man.
So kudos to you.
You're one of the hardestworking dudes that I've ever met
in my life and probably one ofthe biggest risk takers as well.
But your risks have been payingoff.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, and I think that that's the thing with risk,
right, it's like sometimes riskis the down payment for success
.
It is Right, you've got to yousometimes you got to put it out
there and you know, and evenwith the risk, I think it's not
as riskful as you when you backit with action, because it's all
happens, what happens after therisk.
Right, you take the risk andthen hope it works out, or do
you take the risk and make sureit works out?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, it's got to be calculated, but I think that so
many people want it to be sofigured out before they're
willing to get out into thewater.
Sometimes people want to stayon the dock and they want to get
out in the water at the sametime and you kind of get this
straddle effect right, when yougot one foot on the boat and one
foot on the deck and slowlyover time it just it pulls you

(02:56):
and then most people just jumpback to the deck because it's
safer to be there than out inthe middle of the water and it's
comfortable.
You can't figure out everythingout ahead of time and that's
what I love about you is thatyou know.
You're like I don't knowexactly where this is going to
take me in Columbus, Ohio, butI'm going to sell my truck, I'm
going to figure out the steps asI go, and I feel like so many

(03:19):
people you know I'm a big JohnMaxwell fan and I hear John say
this a lot that most people wantto go ready.
Aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim.
They keep aiming to try to gettheir target right on that
center and they never want topull the trigger.
Yeah, and I get.

(03:39):
It goes between aim fryer, aim,aim whatever fire, and then,
when ever you miss, then you goback and you reassess and you
re-aim and then you fire againand you keep working to get it
better and better.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, but too many people want to aim too long.
Just pull the dang trigger youhave to right, it's like pull
the Band-Aid off kind of dealYou've got, take that stuff in.
Like I said there's, that's thebig piece suit.
It's like the calculated sideto it.
Right, Because just out ofignorance making decisions can't
always be the best way, right?
Right, growth with CRC was thatyou know I was working with you

(04:11):
and other mentors before CRCwas even really a thing right
when.
I met you.
We had just, we just started.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I had to it was the concept Right.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
It was just the concept right and so.
But I had done a lot ofresearch and study in and
learned EOS models and all ofthese things that at least
helped me to.
It gave me insight behind thedecisions I was making.
So, even though it was kind oflike ready, ready shoot you know
I'm almost like ready fire aimsometimes but still was able to
make those decisions because Ihad factual things behind it

(04:41):
that it's like okay, like atleast I can see the way that it
goes.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
But here's the thing that I've recognized about you,
Mike, is that you have a hungerto learn and to get better and
to improve and to learn frompeople that have already been a
little farther down the paththan you, and I think it's an
incredible characteristic thatyou have that.
A lot of people they want toready, aim fire, but they don't
want to have a coach or somebodythat's already a marksman

(05:08):
standing behind them giving theminstructions on how to hit that
target.
You are constantly reading,listening to podcasts, watching
YouTube, listening to the bestof the best CEOs out there, so
that you can learn from theirmistakes rather than just making
them all yourself you know,School of hard knocks.
Trial and error is the longestway to get to your destination,

(05:30):
but if you can learn from theguys that have already been
there before you coaches I'm ahuge, huge proponent of coaching
.
You know I pay tons of moneyfor coaching and I've had many,
many coaches over the years andI still do and I just want to
learn from the guys that havealready walked that path.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well, I think a lot of it is.
There's like the ego to it,right.
The ego, of the willingness tolearn from somebody.
I said all the time it's likewhen we're growing up, we've got
teachers, we've got footballcoaches and hockey coaches, and
you get into college and youstill got coaches and teachers,
but then all of a sudden it'slike we get out into the real
world and it's like, well, Idon't need it anymore because

(06:06):
I've already had, I'll justfigure it out and it's like
that's just such a hard you hiton the head.
I'm hungry for knowledge.
I really do enjoy it, and I'vegot myself to the point now
where you know I say that mostpeople I don't think are
inherently lazy.
I think that is, haven't founda passion.
They haven't found somethingthat, like, gets them excited.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, and they haven't found that other person
that's done what they want to do, right, and you have to search
out those mentors and thoseteachers.
Sometimes it accidentallyhappens, but when you are
passionate about learning andimproving and you keep
networking to find those folks,you're going to find them.
You know, the greatest, one ofthe greatest coaches of my life,
mike, I found when I was l Iwas, I was searching at the end

(06:47):
of 2010 for some new leadershipand a new direction in my life
and and you know I'm readingemails, I'm clicking around on
different things and there's aonline seminar for two days and
it costs like 200 bucks orwhatever, and I clicked on it
and I jump on this on thiswebinar and nobody's really all
that impactful.

(07:07):
Everybody's talking aboutadvertising and, you know,
trying to find clients throughinternet and it's just starting
to get going with Facebook andGoogle, but nobody's really got
the the corner on this market.
All of a sudden, the screen goesdark.
There's no presentation,there's no webcam, there's no

(07:28):
PowerPoint.
This guy's big head pops up onthe screen and he goes.
I don't usually do this kind ofstuff, but I'm a good friend of
Sue Woodard and she asked me tocome in and speak with you
people.
He said if these presenterscan't show you how to make a
million dollars or more usingtheir systems and techniques,
then I don't know why anybody'slistening to the to them in the
first place.
And I'm I'm kind of payingattention and I'm also putting a

(07:49):
loan file together and I likeliterally I drop this file and I
go who is this crazy guy that?
just insulted everybody ahead ofhim and after him in one
statement I'm like.
I want to know that guy and Ilistened to him rant and rave
for 30 minutes about hiscoaching program and all of his
coaches.
And then I picked up the phone,I gave him a call.

(08:09):
It took me three weeks to getany time into his calendar and
all of a sudden, I'm actuallytalking to the guy and he starts
telling me everything that I'mdoing wrong as a salesperson
spending too much time pushingpaper, too much time pushing
keys on the keyboard, not enoughtime building relationships and
seeing people face to facebreaking bread.
And that was my introduction toa guy named Rick Ruby.

(08:32):
Yeah, he, he invited me to cometo his, his, his event in
Asheville, north Carolina, mayof 2011, and it just transformed
my life.
I met a bunch of just ordinaryguys like us that were getting
extraordinary results throughhaving a proven sale strategy,

(08:55):
having a team building strategy,going back to discs and
personality profiles and reallygetting the right people on the
right seats in the bus, doingthe right activities and how to
manage the dollars and cents,the P and L's, the personal
finances, and it transformed mylife.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, man, I love that.
I mean, I was actually Reesehas been looking to get into
mentorship and coaching, right.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
That's been a big.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
That's a big thing here, like self, you know,
personal development is a hugepiece.
I'm always telling the guys toyou know, get a mentor outside
of me, right, you've got to hearfrom multiple people.
You've got and that's whereI've been just extremely
fortunate to be able to beexposed to just some incredible
leaders.
Right, yourself, greg Ryan,like these people that I've and
I've got the ability to learnthrough osmosis too, which is a

(09:38):
great skill set.
Yeah, right, I mean, obviouslyyou want to ask questions, you
want somebody to coach you, butsome of the best learners can
just watch.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Like I can watch Greg go speak, I can watch Greg go
lead.
He don't have to tell me whathe's doing.
I can.
I can see what he's doing.
Yeah, Right, and that's been apowerful thing for me is being
able just to get in the roomwith these people.
But, like you said, it's it'swhen you start to.
To me it's like the languageyou use, right, when you start
talking to the universe.
You're talking to God, you'retalking to people about looking
for a mentor.
You're, you're actively lookingfor it.

(10:05):
Like one of the hardest partswith finding somebody is not
knowing what you're looking for.
Yeah, You're not knowing whatyou're looking for in somebody,
because I think you can reallyget anything from anyone, but
you got to know that what you'relooking for that person
possesses.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
If you have an ear for it.
You kind of you know there'sthis, there's the trigger right,
and then you start going downthe path of following that
individual.
There's so many great leaders,but they're they're.
They're less and less everysingle day and every year.
And there's there's young guyslike yourself and others that
are here that that need tocontinue to pursue great leaders
and be a great leader.

(10:40):
So you know, I think in thissociety people are getting
lazier and lazier.
It's easier to just sit backand do nothing and let somebody
else take the responsibility,and the word responsibility is
very scary to a lot of people.
But the word responsibility iswhere all the growth happens.
The more responsibility thatyou take on, the more that it

(11:00):
forces you to get better.
You have to produce results,you have to give reports, and
when you take on theresponsibility which is really
scary for most man that's whereyour growth opportunities come
out.
So my the biggest leader in mylife is Bill Cosgrove.
He is the owner and CEO ofUnion Home Mortgage.
I met Bill in the fall of 2001,.

(11:23):
Greatest, greatest businessman,greatest leader, greatest
mortgage bank banker on theplanet.
And I met Bill in the fall of2001.
Prior to that I was working atWells Fargo and I was part of
this huge, huge bank nationally,I meet Bill.
He's a sole owner of Union HomeMortgage.
He just purchased the companyfrom Monty Hegworth, his

(11:47):
predecessor, who was a strongGerman accent man who had strong
German values, and Bill boughtthe company from him and I met
him.
I think he was like three orfour years into his ownership
there's only about 30salespeople at the company at
the time and he starts tellingme things about mortgage banking

(12:08):
that nobody ever had to thatpoint in my career.
It made me a big promise.
He said Brian, if you join me,I'll take you to the major
leagues of mortgage banking.
And I did.
I made the choice to join Billas a greatest business decision
of my life.
I joined him in January of 2002, so I just finished 22 years

(12:31):
with Bill.
He was my original coach,original mentor, taught me all
the things about takingownership and responsibility.
About a year into my first yearwith Union Home, he calls me up
and I started to have someimmediate success with the
company and I thought he wascalling me in to congratulate me

(12:53):
or to give me a little pat onthe back.
He said Brian, have a seat onthe couch.
I said absolutely, sir.
He said tell me aboutprocessing and underwriting here
at Union Home.
Now, all of my previoustraining was at Wells Fargo, and
Wells Fargo's training was youtake a loan application, you

(13:13):
throw it at other people and letthem do the rest of the work.
So when I went in, I startedpointing my fingers at
processors if they could pick upthe pace and if the
underwriters could underwritefaster and if we could close
these deals.
And it was all about what otherpeople could do.
And he looks me straight in theeye One of the best lessons I
ever learned in my life, he saidBrian.
He said the longer that youpoint your fingers at other

(13:36):
people, the longer it's going totake you to be great in this
business.
He said if you don't take onthe responsibility and the
ownership for everything in thatdeal, you'll never be who you
could be.
And he taught me extremeownership that day.
And there's a lot of peoplethat talk about it now, but that
was back in 2003.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
That was pre-jocco.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, pre-jocco, and I learned extreme ownership, and
so I just said you know what?
I'm going to learn?
Loan guidelines better thanunderwriters.
I'm going to process the loanbefore I give it to the
processor.
I'm going to have that thing soteed up and so perfect that
nobody else has to do anythingbecause I'm going to own all of
it.
So when I started building myteam, mike, in 2011, I started

(14:20):
putting people in place to dothese time-consuming activities
so that I could stay focused onrelationship building, because
that's the big job.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, and it's simple , right, but it's the thing that
it's.
Even though it's simple, don'tmake it easy.
Right?
You've got to be intentional.
You've got to be able to beconsistent with people and show
up and talking about the extremeownership stuff I tell all of
our people just exceedexpectations.
That's all you got to do.

(14:49):
It's to take the trash out,it's to wash the dishes.
It's these little things thatwhen you start to do it, you
start to stack your certaintyand you're not doing it out of
spite of like, watch me, rightFor me, I'm always looking, just
because that's just my radar,right, I'm like oh, I can take
the trash out.
Trash needs emptied out.
I never do it to say everyone,look at me, I'm the leader and

(15:09):
I'm cleaning.
It's like no, that's just.
I'll never ask somebody to dosomething that I wouldn't do.
If you can start to exceedexpectations on the small stuff,
well then.
When you master one thing, youmaster all things, and so as you
can get better there, it's likeeverything starts to grow like
that I like that.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
See it, do it right.
See it, do it.
It's huge.
It's huge man, that's great.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
And I think one of the big things, brian, is the
evolution of somebody that goesfrom coming in and working as a
salesperson right.
You're getting that instantgratification of closing a deal,
seeing a check hit, seeing thebank balance grow, seeing the
revenue right.
It's very easy to measure yoursuccess when you're in sales.
It's hard to measure yoursuccess as a leader because

(15:51):
you're investing time, energyand to resources and people and
you don't know if they're goingto stay.
You don't know if they're goingto be right.
You can't guarantee.
You can run through discassessments and you can do
everything, but there's noguarantee that someone's going
to come in, take all theknowledge that you're giving
them and grow your business orhelp you to grow.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, man, and I think that as a leader, you have
to be generous, to pouryourself into other people and
not try to control them or thinkthat I'm only going to give
them if they stay with me.
I'm only going to be generousto them if they stay with me,
and I got rid of that mentalityan awful long time ago, because

(16:28):
I don't want to control people.
If somebody's going to give meany time in their life, I'm
going to look at it as anopportunity to help them along
the path of life, no matterwhere that path takes them, and
I want to help everybody thatworks with me or for me on my
team.
I want to help them achieve thehighest level of success that I
possibly can.
So for them, if they want toaspire to be a salesperson and

(16:51):
they start with me as anassistant, let's get you on a
path to go there.
If you want to take on teamcaptain or leadership roles,
let's get you on a path to gothere, because I'm not here to
stop you or restrict you.
I don't want to control you orkeep you in a role or
responsibility that's going tobe less than what you want to
achieve.
So I'm always pushing people totake on more responsibility,

(17:13):
take on more growth, and if youwant to take it and you want to
do it, let's go there.
So here's one thing that we doevery year is we sit down.
I know you're a big tractionguy, so we do the vision
traction organizer, the VTO, andI sat down with my key people
on my team Diane Polly, scottScavuzzo, jennifer Troyer and we
looked at our business, johnSchwartz, and we looked at our

(17:35):
business for everything that wehave our vision, our values, our
mission statement, our 10-yearbig vision, mm-hmm in our
three-year targets.
And as we're going throughthere, I said, diane, what do
you, what do you really seeyourself doing over the next 10
years?
And she goes you know, I Reallysee myself leading more loan

(18:00):
partners rather than just beinga loan partner.
And I said is that somethingthat you really want to do?
Now she teaches jazz or size.
She's super fit, she's aninstructor, it's in her DNA to
do that.
Yeah, now she's been doing thisjob with me for 10 years and I
almost think that she didn'twant to disappoint me Because
she's doing this role, yeah, butshe's got greatness on the

(18:24):
inside of her, but it's kind ofbottled up.
Yeah, so she says that shewants to take on that role.
If I don't ask her about takingon, you know what do you want
to do in 10 years?
She might not say that in thattype of setting.
Yeah, I said let's pursue you,not just doing that job, but
duplicating yourself, becauseyou are the best in the country

(18:47):
at that job.
Nobody's better than you atbeing a loan partner one.
Yeah, so guess what?
She starts to pursue, we startto put pursue and there's a job
opening.
Somebody else steps out.
Now she's coaching and trainingloan partners all across the
United States of America, whichis her greatest leverage to
Right, like that's how he canaffect the most people for her

(19:08):
and for the entire organization.
Yeah, now she's duplicatingyourself into all these other
folks.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
But if we don't have that conversation at the end of
the year, if we don't look atour 10-year vision or three-year
targets, yeah we might not everdiscover that well, and and
it's, and it's hard to thinkthat big Right it's, it's, it's
to think 10 years is a long time.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
And so it's hard to even fathom that and I think
that's one of the biggest thingsis is that we're not, because
we haven't exposed to so manythings and exposed these
thoughts and what could be therein 10 years.
It's like we don't even, we'reonly seeing what's in front of
us because we get into survivalmode.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
I want to get past today.
I just want to pay the bills.
I'm going paycheck to paycheck.
So many people are in that thatlittle rat race of just
thinking about now and if we arenot thinking five, ten years
out, what are some of the bigthings that we could do.
I'll give ourself anopportunity to dream big, and I
have to do that when you have adirection of where you're going
Right.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
You've got to have that and, like I said, I think
that's a huge piece to you.
Know, being the leader right isunderstanding your skill set,
like truly knowing, like, whatis the thing, yeah, that I'm
best at, and being able to gointo every conversation, every
connection, every opportunity,knowing that, hey, I'm for me.
I know that I'm good at vision,like inspiration right, like

(20:24):
those are the things I can.
I can help you see where youwant to go, I can help you get
excited about getting there andI can help you build the
framework to get you there Right.
But I have to make sure thatevery conversation I'm having,
that I'm approaching it fromthat angle, because if I'm
trying to come in and teachsystems and processes or
Accounting not my wheelhouse,right, but being able to know,
like, okay, in this opportunity,why am I here, what, what does

(20:45):
this person need from my skillset to get them to where they
want to get to?

Speaker 2 (20:49):
so let's break that down a little bit More.
And you are incredibly giftedat helping people have a vision
for their life and you'reincredibly gifted at getting
them excited and motivated aboutgoing down that road in that
path right.
So, as a visionary, it is keyto have great vision questions

(21:09):
teed up, to engage with people,to open them up and to get their
imagination rolling into what'spossible.
How big could we be, how greatcould we create this to be?
And, in and as a visionary, ourrole is is to have those great
questions.
I think traction does a greatjob with it.

(21:31):
I say that the bit thedifference between a great
advisor and being a bad advisoris just simply the questions
that we ask.
Was that really me?
Well, as in financial services,somebody that just goes right
into taking applications andcollecting data doesn't really
understand the goals andexpectations of that other

(21:52):
individual.
So if we don't have thosequestions teed up in advance of
the dialogue, then we're goingto rush into something without
getting really to the source ofwhat this person wants to
accomplish as a visionary.
You know, one of my favoritebooks on this is put your dream
to the test.
John Maxwell goes through alist of of 10 or 12 great

(22:15):
questions to really get you tothink big.
And that was an inspirationalbook.
You want me to pull it out, man?
We could go through a couple.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, that's great.
I love that.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I think, I think these your light on there.
Yeah, man, thanks.
I think these are some reallygood.
There's 12 good questions here,or maybe 10.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I've actually been bill.
I've been building out our alittle like leadership
development program.
So going through a ton of JohnMaxwell content, you know seeing
how he's framed some of hisleadership programs in the past.
But I mean, it's everything,man, it's the culture of the
business is one of the mostimportant things.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, here we go.
So, um, we Talk about John fora minute.
Yeah, I don't feel like that'swhat I'm looking for.

(23:13):
Give me one second, I'm sorry.
Yeah, good start oh yeah, dude.
You and I could talk about a lotof things and go a lot of
directions.
Here we go.
So, um, in 2004, I just beenwith Union home for a couple of

(23:36):
years and at the time I was, Iwas going to the chapel in
Sundaski and and there was aleadership event at the the
chapel and it was a Chick-fil-AOf one day seminar and there was
these different speakers fromall across the country.
And you know, like you, I havea passion and a desire to learn

(23:59):
right.
My strength finder is I'm anachiever.
It's not something that I tryto do, it's my DNA.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I achieve.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
The more that you're around me, I promise you, the
more that you will achieve,because it's in the hard wiring
of my brain and my blood.
I Achieve every day of my life.
I lead sales people all acrossthe country to achieve.
I push people to achieve higherLevels of success and I'll talk

(24:29):
about success in a second but.
But it's who I am.
The second thing I was I'm alearner.
My, my strength is I want tolearn and I want to understand
and I want to get as muchknowledge as I possibly can from
other people.
I'm constantly studying, justlike you are.
If I'm not talking to studysomebody, I'm studying somebody
and I'm going back and forth.

(24:49):
Right, because you can't pourfrom an empty cup.
You've got to be filled, yeah.
The third is I am focused.
I am focused on whatever we aredoing, so whatever our vision
and our, our goals are, I amfocused on Achieving those
things and I have accountabilityall around me.
Maybe later We'll talk aboutaccountability.
I have accountability allaround me to stay on track.

(25:11):
Next is command.
I am a leader by nature, by DNA.
It's part of who I am.
And the last one is analytics.
So if you go to strength finder2.0, you can take your strength
finder and know your strengths.
I think it's incrediblyimportant.
I study my disc all the time.
I just got a new set ofStudents.
We're going through their disc.
I am a super high D.

(25:32):
I'm a 90 60.
I'm a 61.
I I'm a 7s.
I have no steadiness.
I'm constantly moving.
I got 75 projects going on atone time and that's what makes
me feel calm is having a lot ofprojects going that took me a
Long time to understand myidentity there and my my
compliance is around 60, so so Iam or I'm sorry around 45

(25:53):
natural and about 60 adapted.
So I am a conductor on the discI.
Those are my five strengthfinders.
I'm a enneagram 3 and in a 3 isan is an achiever.
So that's who I am by nature.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I'm actually I pull my cliff and shrank up real
quick.
Yeah, you know and I'm alearner commander Achiever
futuristic and ideation.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
We are almost, our brains operate the same.
That's why I love gettingaround you, baby, because we
sing, we sing the same song, we,we talk the same language.
Right, it's not hard when youget around a super high D and
you get around achievers andcommand and learners.
I mean we could just go backand forth all day.
Yeah, I love the disc because itteaches you to Communicate with

(26:38):
people in their language eventhough it's hard for me to
commute and communicate in otherpeople's language, because I'm
a high D and I want tocommunicate in high D's.
I talk in bullet points, Ithink in bullet points I don't
give a lot of detail, that'sjust.
You know, that's who I am.
Yeah, so when I get aroundanother high D like yourself, I
mean we could just wrap all day.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, no, I love that and I think that's you know.
I will dive into the, theMaxwell stuff too, but you know
how?
How have you Gotten better atbeing able to communicate in
other people's language?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah.
So there's a couple questionsthat I ask, and if we were
really studying the discassessment, I mean we could do a
whole bit on just the disc.
Yeah, so we as an organization,last year we spent over a
million dollars on Discassessments for incoming
employees.
Just think about that.
Wow, we have 1600 employees andand we disc every single one of

(27:28):
them because we can't afford toput the wrong person in the
wrong job.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, that's good.
That's gonna spend more moneydoing that.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes, so we got to make sure that we get the right
person, because anybody caninterview well, anybody can say
anything.
But when you're going throughthe assessment and you look at
really who you are, in, the wayyou're wired, I Want to get
people in a role where it's easyfor them Right, it's easy for
them to do that job, and there'sthings that are wire in your

(27:56):
wiring where it's like breathing.
I can do that job, like theseguys with video editing in
production.
They can do that job.
They have a love and a passionfor it and it's gonna be so
simple, yeah, that it takes noeffort.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
You very little stress.
You put you and I in there, youthrow, you make it, you let us
do the editing and video or highstress high fatigue.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Right, it's just it's gonna be a train wreck.
So if you can get the people inthe right spots to do what they
love and what they're wired todo, they're gonna produce more
of it in a shorter period oftime.
Let me say it again when youget people in the right roles
and responsibilities, based onthe way that they're wired,
they're going to do moreproduction in a shorter period

(28:40):
of time and they're gonna loveit and your, your whole team, is
going to love it.
So go back to your question.
On on the disc.
It's a communication toolbecause everybody has a style
that they like to communicate inand they have things that
really irritate them.
There's one page it's usuallypage 10 or 11 on the assessment
that goes through the threelikes and the three dislikes of

(29:01):
a high D, a high I, a high S anda high C.
There's two questions that Iask to try to determine quickly
who that person is, so I can tryto communicate In their style.
I can customize mycommunication to their language.
Not perfect at this, my teamisn't perfect, but we're always

(29:22):
working aware right, that's thebiggest thing is being aware of
it aware and in to not yeah, tonot push somebody away.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Greg Greg Ford always tell me he said that he said
empathy is the secret sauce,right?
He's like that's the secretsauce of life, man.
And when it comes tocommunication, when it comes to
leadership, he's like so oftenour egos want to be the ones to
control the circumstance in theoutcome.
He's like you, when you canjust be empathetic and be aware
that you're being empathetic andaware of the conversation that
you're having, and just try tosay if I was them, I'd probably

(29:53):
do the same thing as well, so Ican't get frustrated with them.
That's just a playbook.
They've gotten Empathy secretsauce when you talk about
empathy.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I have like none of it.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, right, so we look at our we look at our disc
assessment.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
It shows us our dominance, our influence, our
steadiness and our compliancewith that.
We always do a motivators testand there's six factors in it.
In a motivators test that wereally look at, one of them is
Aesthetics peace and harmony andempathy.
I'm like almost negative.
I mean it's so low my aesthetic.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
So when you talk about empathy.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
I really can't, I can't, I can't play in that game
because I don't have a lot ofit, but I do want to Find out
what somebody is looking for andhelp them get it right.
So, if I can ask two questions,is this person more reserved or
are they more aggressive to kindof control the conversation?
Are they leading or being led?

(30:45):
Most dominant people andinfluencing people are are are
leading the conversation or theywant to lead the conversation.
Most Steady and compliant folkswant to be led.
So that tells me okay, they'rekind of quiet, so they're
probably an S or a C.
All right, very good.
And then the next question isare they using more of their

(31:09):
heart or their head?
Are they using their feelingsand emotions or are they using
more of their head and theirlogic?
So high D's and high C's usemore of their head and their
logic.
More heart from the I's and theS's.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
That's interesting, see where I'm going, yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
So if I can ask those two, you know if I can go, this
person's pretty dominant.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
And they're talking about a lot of facts and figures
and talking to bullet points.
They're probably a high D.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
And one thing I love on that like just how you kind
of broke it down there too, isthat, even understanding that
the situation, right of sayingokay, high D, you know you're
more driven up with head, headdriven right, Because that's
such a powerful trait, right, itis a mindset thing where, if
you look at high I like that,it's more of a heart thing, it's
more of an influence thing,right, so it's a very I like

(32:00):
that.
That was good awareness on thatone.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, I made the mistake long ago where I had a
lady called me up for a homeloan and she says, brian, I'm
getting a divorce, I got torefinance my house and I wonder
if you could help me.
I said, absolutely Love to helpyou.
And I said what are you lookingto do?
And then we went through, youknow, full consultation.
I sent her over in Excelspreadsheet with four options

(32:28):
and just a page full of details,didn't hear from her.
Didn't hear from her.
Didn't hear from her.
Call her back two days later Isaid, hey, which you know.
I didn't hear back, whichoption you wanted she goes.
Brian, you just made it way toocomplex, too many options, too
many details.

(32:49):
I called my current lender and Ithink I'm just going to work
with them.
I said you know what?
I'm so sorry.
I'm talking to a high I in avery emotional state of divorce
and I'm treating her like she'sa high C.
But I want to treat everybodylike a high C because I think
that everybody needs to havethat data.

(33:10):
I'm treating her like a high Das well, giving her bullet
points of all these differentoptions.
You know what she wanted.
She wanted to be led.
She wanted one option, shewanted one piece of advice and
at the end of the day she cameinto the office.
She goes, brian, what would youdo?
And I said this is what I woulddo.
She goes, let's do that you haveto be able to communicate with

(33:34):
people and understand.
High S's make up 60% of theworld's population.
Most people want to be led.
They want to know what youwould do.
They want to have the securitythat keeps them in that steady
steady role.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, man, that's good, man that's so good, and
there's just, there's the valueon knowledge of understanding
people right, and that, to me,has been one of the things that
has helped us.
So much is again.
Fortunately, I've been able tobe around a lot of good people

(34:12):
in playing sports.
I've done a lot of things.
I was reading a book the otherday called Culture.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Code.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, great book.
And they go through.
They say the top threeorganizations have three things
it's safety, it's vulnerabilityand it is purpose.
To create a strong organization, you need to have those three
things.
Everyone needs to know it, theyneed to feel it and they start
glistening like here's how youcreate safety, here's how you
create vulnerability, here's howyou create purpose.

(34:41):
There's action steps to it andwhat to look for.
And I'm going through this bookand it was wild because there
were so many things inside ofthat that we're doing Right.
It was like I felt like I wasreading a book on our business
almost, and a lot of thesethings that we do here and I've
done naturally has just like Ididn't go to school, I didn't
work at a corporate company,right.

(35:01):
So it's just kind of been skillsets that I've developed that's
allowed us to create this.
Yeah, so good.
And that's been the biggestthing of all of it right.
Even when we got into roofing,I didn't really know roofing
right and I was much more peoplefacing yeah.
Right, have you seen the showTed last, though?
Oh, absolutely Love Ted.
Same scenario, right, I'm likeyou don't really need to know

(35:21):
soccer, you don't need to knowsoccer man, you just got to know
people.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, man Be in the people business.
That's it, and you're great atthat.
You're great at giving thevision about.
So I got one coach might youlove this?
You'll love this.
He said that that people, theyhave to have a clear vision.
Right, they have to have aclear purpose.
I think it's our job as leadersto help people understand their
disk, help them understandtheir identity.

(35:47):
But people get tired whenthey're not inspired.
And he says and I just lovethis quote, I love this quote
that the level of our enduranceis in direct proportion to the
clarity of our vision.
And when you, as a leader, helpyour team have that clear,

(36:12):
clear vision, you will endurethrough all the pain and all the
heartache that it takes toachieve those goals.
Yeah if everyone's clear, yougot a clear vision.
You got clear values.
You got clear goals.
You got clear top three jobduties, top three expectations
of those jobs, everybody can goboom.

(36:33):
I get it.
I know my role on the team.
Let's battle, let's fight.
Let's achieve what we're goingafter.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
And what I love about that too is you know it's
really easy to look into.
You know sales and all of whatand operationals in the process
and the systems, and those areall very important.
You have to constantly be youknow getting them better and you
know innovating and all ofthose things.
But so often the peoplebuilding gets kind of left off
to the side because they don'tnecessarily have a direct impact

(37:02):
.
And the biggest thing thatpeople building is just
consistently reiterating itright, like it's getting clear
with those things, and then it'sstart meetings, talk about it,
because, if, because, if youtalk about it today and you
don't talk about it again forthree months.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Everybody forgot.
Yeah, it wasn't that importantto you.
If you, as the leader, keeptalking about it every single
day, everyone knows that this iswhat's most important.
So one simple thing that Ilearned in coaching is have a
daily team meeting for 30minutes and every day, start
that daily team meeting with thenumbers that are most important

(37:37):
to you and your organization.
For me and my team, it's howmany new clients locked alone
with us yesterday, how many newclients applied, how many people
did we have credit polls, preapprovals, and how many deals do
we have closed in this month.
Those are the numbers in themetrics that we have to have Now
.
We got metrics behind those,those, those numbers, but we do

(37:59):
it every day.
When I say every day, somepeople like look at me, like
every day.
I'm like five days a week, 52weeks a year.
We do it every day and it helpseverybody on the team come to
that daily team meeting preparedto give a report and to give an
account of their job from theprevious day.

(38:20):
It makes their life simpler.
So it's micromancing.
It's not micromanaging people,it's helping them know what's
most important and keeping ontrack.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
When, if you're not tracking it?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
you know, you don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
I mean, that's one of the one of your biggest things,
right is you've got to payattention to it.
You know, and in it's hard whenyou run an organization of all
these people and all of thesethings, right, and so just by
all you're doing is just settingthe framework so that you're
actually helping them to besuccessful, just because, like,
hey, this is, we're not askingfor all these things.
If you just track these threethings, even if you're doing it,

(38:51):
you know, not evenintentionally, but you're just
doing it and you're not tryingto, you know, dissect the
numbers on it, just by theaction of doing it, you can't
help but to pay attention to seeprogress.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Absolutely, because if you don't have the data, if
your data is not accurate andit's not right, then you're
going to make decisions todaythat might not be in the
direction of those goals.
So you got to have the data.
You say, man, it's a little bittedious to track and to measure
.
Absolutely not.
Think about this Every sports.
I'm wearing my Browns geartoday.
We got a big game today.

(39:22):
You know the Browns have notwon two playoff games in a
season since 1950.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Dang that's a minute.
That's a minute.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
They've only won one playoff game, a couple years ago
against the Steelers.
Yeah, back in 1988 and 1986football seasons, those are the
times that the Browns wonplayoff games.
They haven't won two playoffgames in a single season since
1950.
So I'm pretty excited today.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
I believe they're going to win.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, we're talking about stats and we're talking
about tracking.
When I watch football and Ilove the game of football my
whole life is about the game offootball Not completely, but you
know a lot of it, I'm aphysician, but when I'm watching
games I'm constantly looking atthe stats.
Yeah, everybody is.
We want to see how many rushingattempts, how many passing
attempts, how many completions,touchdowns, interceptions, yards

(40:21):
in attempt, receptions inattempt per attempt.
You look at the how many stacks, how many fumbles, how many
turnovers.
We're constantly studying thisdata, because the data tells you
what's really happening.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
It removes emotion.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
There's no emotion in the data, it's just the facts.
Yeah, where are we winning andwhere are we losing?
Where do we have gaps that haveto be bridged?
I use that statement all thetime.
So here's where we're at.
This is where we want to be.
We have to bridge that gap withnew activity, new daily

(40:58):
disciplines, new things that aregoing to be habits, that are
going to help us continuallyachieve what we want.
So they do it in football, likeI asked people this and I'm
coaching, I said Mike, wouldanybody buy stock in your
company?
And most salespeople that Italk to they go well, what do
you mean?
I said could you give a reportof your entire business?

(41:21):
And somebody look at yourreports and go man, that's a
great running operation.
I'd like to buy ownership inyour company.
Could you give it to them?
Could you show them an annualstatement or an annual report
that shows you everything thatyou did over your business?
Most people I talk to they sayabsolutely not.
So how are you going to get towhere you want to go without

(41:43):
tracking and measuring youractivity and your results?
Once you have that, now we canput new systems and processes in
place.
We don't know where you'rewasting time and where you need
to hire and delegate some newresponsibilities to fill in
those things that you're missing.
If we don't have the data,you've got to have the data.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
It's huge.
You know me, that's always mythe data is always my weakness.
I got good people around methat are good at it.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
You don't have to be there.
There's a thing, justunderstanding it.
You've got to understand it andyou delegate it.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, I mean, that's been a.
I think that's one of thehardest parts with when you get
into business and you're growing, right?
Is that because it's moving sofast and there's so many moving
pieces and it's like you forgetwhat things need to be tracked
and what needs to be tracked andhow do you follow up on it?
Right, if I'm looking at youknow even the size that you need
home is, and you're talkingabout 1600 agents.
How are you able to help manageall of these agents?

(42:35):
Like I love that you do theweekly or monthly coaching calls
, like I do that here internally, kind of something I picked up
from you.
So every week I run a companywide like mentor call.
That's good.
But like with a organizationthat size, you know, how are you
able to?
Especially it's crazy, becauseyou came in when there are 30
people.
So, you've seen this thing growand you've been a major part of

(43:00):
the growth of it, and so how doyou be omnipresent and still
keep the culture in the feel andall that and I think of all,
bill Cosgrove is just anincredible, incredible visionary
.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
He gives great focus on our big goal.
I remember he said we're goingto get to a billion dollars as a
lender 200 million, 300 million, 400 million.
He said we're going to get to abillion and in early on he let
me be a part of his leadershipcommittee.

(43:34):
So I got to be a part of thehead of operations and the head
of sales and the head of HR andI got to sit in the room with
all the department heads and foryears he would say we're going
to get to a billion dollars.
Kind of look back and go are wereally are we going to get
there?
Because we got stuck at like800 million, 800 million, 800

(43:54):
million.
He brings in some outside peopleand creates an advisory board
to get perspective on union homemortgage.
He starts to look for keypeople to run our sales and our
operations that weren't a partof union home.
He brought in Al Blanke.
He brought in Jim Ferdin.
Now Jim Ferdin helped buildChase.

(44:17):
He was the president of Caliber.
He ran some huge operations.
So he brings in two key guysand all of a sudden, our company
explodes.
Absolutely explodes.
We go from 800 million in 2009,2010, 2000, right around there,

(44:38):
to 13 billion in 2020.
All the right people make allthe difference.
Now to your question how do youorganize 1600 people in all
these different departments?
I am a sales guy.
I'm learning to get better atall the time.

(44:59):
I run a coaching departmentwhere I have 23 coaches and 250
students.
I spend an hour twice a weekwith the coaches.
Those coaches we have organizedinto coaching groups.
They all meet in groups of two,three and four to disseminate
information, but also to keepeverybody accountable to their

(45:20):
activities and their results.
In every department at unionhome, there's a daily meeting.
Now think about this and I'lltell you where this came from.
Bill Cosgrove was in New YorkCity and he sat down and had
dinner.
He was the chairman of theMortgage Bankers Association and

(45:41):
he was at an event where MayorGiuliani was sitting next to him
at a dinner and he said, mayor,you got 8 million people here
in Manhattan.
You have all these.
How in the world do you runthis city?
He said, bill, it's real simple.
Every morning, we have an hourlong meeting with every

(46:03):
department the police, the fire,emergency, all the different
trash, all the differentdepartments.
We have a meeting every singleday and Bill said you know what
we're going to do that and wecall it our daily rooting
meeting, where every morning weget together for one hour Every
department, every leader in theorganization.

(46:23):
There's 100 people on this callevery day for an hour.
Mike Guess what we start withevery morning Wins no critical
numbers Every single morning.
So we go over new customers, wego through operations, we go
through turn times, we gothrough performance of every

(46:43):
step in that.
So you think about this.
You got every leader in theorganization on a call every
morning.
Most organizations don't havethat discipline.
They can't keep that discipline.
But the speed of thecommunication.
We're one of the top fivefastest growing mortgage

(47:04):
companies in the United Statesof America and it's because of
the discipline of ourcommunication that creates the
speed of our growth.
We're able to make decisions somuch faster than our
competition because everymorning the leadership team is
getting together making choicesand decisions and then every one

(47:25):
of those leaders is meetingwith their individual teams to
give that information and shareit.
So are you doing?

Speaker 1 (47:32):
will the leaders then have a daily meeting with their
team?
Are they doing, yeah, okay, soyou're top down dailies, boom,
every single day.
That's a hard thing to do.
It's definitely a hard thing todo.
I struggle with it.
We have our team meeting, whichis company-wide, that's on
Monday.
That's everybody's in here inthe office kicking off the week.
We do our level 10 meeting onWednesdays, which is just

(47:55):
leadership team, and then FridayI do my mentor stuff.
But we're not doing that and Iknow how valuable that would be
and I would say for us in ourorganization right now, one of
our biggest weaknesses is, withthe speed that we've grown, it's
really the leadership team andthat's not a week like that's

(48:16):
our focus, because I know thatthat's the next level for us to
get to the next step.
But when you've grown rapidly,we had the.
You know I bought that windowcompany this year so that they
came in, so then that's a whole.
I mean, you guys see what theacquisitions and things you're
doing, like that's a wholenother animal, because that's a
whole different culture, adifferent thing, and you're
getting them in and they've gotto adapt to what you have.
It's got to be an alignment, andthen it's like, okay, who's

(48:39):
leading who?
Who's doing this right?
And that's my focus right nowis just constantly mapping that
out.
I'm like, okay, here's themeeting structures they need to
be having, here's what theexpectation of the meeting needs
to be, here's when they need tobe having them, here's who they
need to be having them with.
Who are they then reportingthat to?
How am I getting all thesereports and making decisions
based off of the things I'mseeing right?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
So it's a lot, but it's I think that's the part of
it though right, it's learningthat Well, the communication
structure of the organization isgoing to determine a lot about
that team.
Are you going to be able toachieve and grow?
Are you going to be able toquickly assess where the
problems are and quickly fixthem?
So when we have a problem thatcomes up in the morning in Rudy

(49:20):
like most organizations, mike, Ithink that they discover a
problem and then that person hasto go and do some research and
then come back in a week or twoweeks to give a report on it.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Go to the chain of command.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
And then everybody looks at it and then they go,
okay, let's do this and go workon it.
And then a week or two weekslater they come back with a
report.
The speed of fixing problems inmost organizations is
incredibly slow.
Here's how it happens at UnionHome Mortgage, we define or we
discover a problem.
Somebody at the end of everymeeting, every single day, every

(49:53):
day Al Blank, who's running thecompany, bill Cosgrove, ceo,
sitting right there, finishedthe meeting with what are three
big things that we can do to getbetter.
Is there anything that's comeup in the last 24 hours that
anybody that we need to knowabout and any department across

(50:16):
the company, that person canraise their hand and say, hey,
we have this that needs to beaddressed.
And boom, immediately you havethe entire leadership of the
organization focused on thatproblem.
Yeah, that's good.
And then guess what that taskforce gets put together that day
and guess when they have togive a report on their findings.

(50:38):
The very next morning at eighto'clock.
So it runs every single day at8 am.
So we discover it today.
That person goes back and putsa team, discovers and then gives
a report on it the next day andif it's big enough, that
problem will get reported onevery single day until it's
fixed.
I'll give you a more granularexample of that.

(51:01):
We just switched over.
We have 110,000 customers thatmake their monthly mortgage
payment to us about $26 billionin our servicing portfolio.
We took all of these folks andswitched them on to a new
servicing platform.
Now think about this 110,000people all across the United

(51:23):
States of America switching theway that they make their monthly
mortgage payment.
Can you even grasp?

Speaker 1 (51:30):
how challenging that is.
No man.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
I couldn't, communicating with 110,000
people to change the behavior ofhow they make their monthly
mortgage payment.
It's incredibly challenging.
So Mike Greenwood is justphenomenal at servicing and
running this department inservicing.
So they're communicating outfor weeks and weeks and weeks by
email, phone calls.

(51:53):
How many people don't even readtheir email?
Like most of them.
So then, all of a sudden, afteryou make the switch and the
changeover, about 60% of peopledo it.
The other 40 create the world'slargest headache.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
that you've ever seen in your life.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Every single morning in Rudy, mike's given a report
on the progression of gettingeveryone switched over.
It's the most amazing servicingplatform with the most amazing
app.
I mean it tells you everyneighbor that sold their home.
It tells you what the value ofyour property is, shows you the
balance of your mortgage, givesyou a plan on paying that
mortgage off faster.
Our servicing platform isincredible, but getting 110,000

(52:39):
people from their old systemover to this new one, the only
way that that happens withoutpissing a lot of people off is
to have a daily conversationabout it in Rudy.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
With an organization that this size.
One thing that I have westruggle with here is because of
where I'm at as a leader or myleadership style, maybe how I
show up.
We struggle to help to pushothers to be innovative.
There's a lot of things builthere are built off of my mind my

(53:17):
things, I get an idea.
Hey, we're going to try this.
I get an idea, we're going todo this.
That's what's really drove theorganization to get to where
we're at.
But I know that there's talentand I know that there's ideas
and I know there's concepts thattrying to get them to voice an
opinion, try to give them tospeak up and not feel that I'm
going to I encourage it.
If we're having a meeting, I'llbe the first person to say what

(53:40):
am I doing wrong?
It's not an ego thing, it'sjust the I think people Maybe
it's a respecting, maybe it'swhere they see you.
I've started to set meetings upthat don't involve me
leadership meetings that I'm nota part of to kind of like, hey,
you guys come up with thesethings and bring them to me, but
I need you, we need you to beable to get to where you want to
be.
We've got to have other ideas.

(54:01):
That's not just the way that Ithink.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
So I got a news flash for both of us.
I have a high ego, you have ahigh ego, we're high Ds, we lead
.
Our ideas are not the best.
They're not the best we thinkthey are, because we study a lot
, we read a lot and we go oh,it's my idea, it's a best right,

(54:25):
and for years I have championedmy ideas and I have promoted my
ideas and try to get everybodyon board with just my ideas.
Then you come to the conclusionthat wait a minute.
There's a lot of quiet peoplethat have really brilliant minds
and great imagination and greatlogical thinking to come up

(54:47):
with better thoughts and betterideas.
We have a saying.
Bill Cosgrove has a saying oflook at everything from all
eight sides.
So if you take a look at thatdisk test, there are eight
different quadrants of peoplethat are on that disk.
There are conductors,persuaders, promoters, relators,
supporters, coordinators,analyzers and implementers.

(55:11):
When you have a group of peopletogether and you are soliciting
their ideas from all eightsides, now you're going to get a
clear picture of what's reallyhappening.
And if you make it a priorityto pull the thoughts and ideas
out of every one of those folks,because some of those folks

(55:31):
that don't have a high drive orhigh influence.
They're reserved, Naturally.
It's part of their logic andtheir wiring and their DNA.
So you have to go out of yourway to say, hey, sally, what do
you think about this?
Because Sally's not going tovoice her opinion, especially in
a group of more than fourpeople.
She's not going to step out andshare that.

(55:52):
So you have to be strategicabout pulling that information
out.
The other big thing is you haveto as an organization.
Union Home is just phenomenalat this.
We have something called youSuggest.
If you're sitting there workingtoday and you're typing and all
of a sudden you keep runninginto a roadblock, the people

(56:13):
closest to the problem are theones that discover it and
they're typically the ones thathave a great solution to solving
that problem.
So if you create a forum wherethey can make a suggestion of
not just a problem but also asolution to fix that problem,
then you can bring it toleadership's attention.
So we have something called ayou Suggest box.
Any partner from the companycan go in and make a suggestion.

(56:36):
It goes into Rudy once a weekand all of those suggestions are
brought out to the leadershipteam and the leadership team
will go.
That is a phenomenal idea andwe could incorporate that.
That'll save time not only forthem but everybody that's in
that role.
That's going to save thecompany 500 hours a year and you

(56:59):
take everybody's salaries timesthat 500 and that's how much
money we just saved as anorganization.
One other thing, that is youknow this is really challenging,
but I think it's another one ofthe secret sauces of Union Home
Mortgage and before you sendthis out into the world, I got
to make sure that we edit thisand I get it past compliance
right.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Can't give you all of our trade secrets, but this is
a big we can always pause it ifyou want to give me the good
stuff.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
This is ginormous.
It's called GBSB GBSB.
So when the company was abouttwo or 300 people and we hit
2009, when the Great Recessionhappens, I mean our income is

(57:49):
nose diving.
And the owner of the company,bill Cosgrove, goes out to every
branch in Pennsylvania, ohio,in Michigan, and makes a pit
stop at every single office.
Now, I don't know how manythere were at the time, but he
went to every office.
He took the P&Ls for everyoffice and he sat them down and

(58:09):
he had a discussion about theincome and expenses for that
branch and said guys, we need tofigure this out together how we
can cut these expenses andbring our P&L into balance.
And so it's get black, stayblack, because every office was
in the red.
So now think about this.
So he did that back in 2009.

(58:30):
It was a brilliant thing Keptthe company afloat to get
through one of the toughesttimes our industries ever faced,
fast forward to 2023.
Now you have from Atlantic toPacific and everywhere in
between.
We're in 49 states.
Only New York is the only statethat we're not.

(58:51):
So we have branches all acrossthe country and how do you go to
every?
There's not enough hours in theday, there's not enough time in
the year.
So we bring everybody togetherin these regional meetings of
get black, stay black.
Gbsb and the senior leadershipteam travels from location to

(59:11):
location to location and all1600 partners of the company
will be met in one of thesemeetings or mandatory for every
person.
You gotta take the day off andyou gotta come to these meetings
and you get together for abreakfast, lunch or dinner.
You have a open, honestdiscussion about the dollars and

(59:32):
cents of the organization andthen, before that meeting is
over, that region must give 15ways that the company can
improve and get better.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
So you think about this the week of March 9th, we
traveling all across the countryto see make stops in Dallas on
Monday, las Vegas on Tuesday,portland on Wednesday.
Back to Chicago, on Thursday,back to Cleveland.

(01:00:08):
And that trip happens the weekof March 9th, april 12th and May
4th.
So that's what I'll be doingover those, but it's 14 senior
leaders of the company travelingto all of those regions and
it's back to back to back,having that same conversation

(01:00:29):
with every region.
But now think about this Everypartner of the company nobody's
an employee of Union Homeeveryone is a partner.
We are all partners together.
Nobody's an employee.
We are all partners.
So every partner in the companyhas an opportunity to share,
from their perspective, what weneed to do to improve and get

(01:00:51):
better.
Right now we are chasing thetop.
We're in the top 40, but we'rechasing the top 25 in all
lenders in the country, with theultimate goal of getting to the
top.
But if you are not constantlyfinding out what your biggest
problems are and creatingsolutions for those biggest
problems, man, this guy soundslike an incredible CEO.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
He's amazing.
Yeah, man, I mean this is allobviously good insight, you know
, but just seeing and hearingfrom where it started to where
it's at, the vision and just thestructure, like it's not by
accident, you guys are whereyou're at.
No sir, right, it's intentionaland it's team building right.

(01:01:32):
This guy's done a great job.
Bill was his name.
You said Bill Cosgrove.
Yeah, I mean Bill's done a.
I mean just, it's especiallywhen you find a guy like
yourself, right, like as drivenas you are to leadership and
growth and all these things.
It's like you get matched upwith a guy like that.
That's what's built you, right,the things that you've learned

(01:01:52):
and acquired just from beingthere.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
But what makes him so special is that he keeps giving
guys like me the platform togrow, to grow my personal
business.
He gave me the platform to getinto coaching and grow my
personal production team.
I became the number onesalesperson in Union Home for
seven consecutive years and thenhe gave me the opportunity to

(01:02:16):
start a coaching program insideof Union Home.
We call it Partners CoachingPartners.
He funds it.
He gave me the opportunity andthe responsibility to grow it.
He said Brian.
He said this is going to be thegreatest learning lesson and
it's going to stretch you inways that you'll never imagine.
He told me that in 2016 when welaunched it.

(01:02:38):
So we were at ReynoldsPlantation, georgia, at our
President's Club retreat at theend of 2016.
We sat down Bill Cosgrove, alBlank, jim Ferdor and I had
breakfast together and I learnedso much from the coaching from
2011.
Now, at the end of 2016, mybusiness is just exploding, just

(01:03:00):
exploding.
I closed 265 home loans in 2016, building a great team.
Everything is growing.
We became a national coach inthe core training and everything
is just going great.
We sit down and we talk abouthaving our own internal coaching
program and after we talked forabout an hour.
Bill said you know what I'llfund it, brian.

(01:03:22):
You get with Jim Ferdor,national Sales Manager, again
the guy that built Chase'smortgage operation in Manhattan.
He worked downtown Manhattanfor years, friends with David
Rockefeller, built caliber, gotwith Jim and we started putting
out the structure of thiscoaching program.
Al Blank just a great friend,motivator, and he really runs

(01:03:46):
the company.
He's the most amazing mortgagebanker as far as knowledge and
experience he get.
You know we're all working onthis together.
So I picked five coaches.
We launched with 30 students.
We had 60 apply, we chose 30and we launched our first year
of coaching.
Year two, we grew to 69.
Year three, we grew to 108.
Year four, we grew to 128.

(01:04:07):
Year five, we grew to 174.
Then 228 and now we're at 252partners across the company that
are involved in coaching andaccountability.
It's completely elective, it'snot mandatory.
If you want to be in, you canor you can apply to be in.
It's not mandatory, but he gaveme that opportunity as an

(01:04:28):
example of how amazing of a CEOhe is.
But he gave me that opportunityto lead and grow something.
And now my big vision is I want500 sales people that are all
working and accountable to eachother and I want to grow it to
$10 billion in annual productionand we're off and running man.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Man, that's incredible and I love that.
I mean because the coachingside for me is I'm passionate
about it too, right, because Iknow how important mentorship is
, because, just like we talkedabout it right, that's why I
love the coaching and thementoring, because I've seen it
change my life in such a waythat it's not from a standpoint

(01:05:11):
of the more money side you can,literally you can help somebody
change their entire life.
You can help them.
It just takes one person to seea version of you that you can't
see for yourself, or thatvision for you.
And like Bill's done for you,right, he not only saw that in
you, but then he created thespace for you to step into it
with, like, giving you theresources, the opportunity,

(01:05:33):
right, being able to set that upand kind of tee it up for you a
little bit.
It's like I see this in you.
Here's the opportunity.
This is me betting on you.
This is your opportunity tostep into this.
It's up to you if it'ssuccessful or not.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Yeah, yeah, and he's done that and he takes a lot of
chances on guys like me andgives us the opportunities to
make mistakes.
He didn't call me up and berateme if I make a mistake.
He gives me a lot of latitudeto make those mistakes.
And I'm a big fan of CraigGrishel and I love watching his
stuff.
He's got like the biggestchurch and largest organization

(01:06:04):
in the country Like 150,000people attend every single week
at this.
You know Craig very well Justabsolutely phenomenal.
You got to study him.
He does a podcast.
He had a guy named Dr HenryCloud on the other day talking
about trust One of my favoritesof all time.
But I was listening to Craigtalk about giving people

(01:06:25):
responsibilities and thenallowing them the latitude to
make mistakes.
You know, sometimes as leaderswe give somebody responsibility.
They fail.
We should expect the failureand the mistake, not jump all
over them when they make thatmistake.
I think early on in mydelegation and team building,
you know, when there was amistake I addressed it the wrong

(01:06:47):
way.
Now it becomes my trainingagenda for our next training
session.
So here's another thing that Ithink is really important.
So I coach guys on how to buildteams all across the country
and when we're building outthese teams, you know we have to
determine who's the rightperson for the role and the

(01:07:08):
responsibility and we have a 12step hiring process that I think
is pinpoint accurate.
Got it from coaching Plus.
We've modified it a little bitand when it never fails me, when
I'm coaching somebody and I'mtalking to them about their new
employee that you know 30, 60,90 days in they'll go, you know

(01:07:29):
they're just not getting it.
I think I hired the wrongperson.
I said, really you hired thewrong person.
I said, did we follow the 12steps?
And you know, yeah, I said yougot the disc assessment.
Yeah, does their discassessment meet their top three
job duties?

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Do you have on their roles and responsibilities to
fulfill those top three jobduties?
Yes, do you have your dailyteam meeting?
Are you keeping themaccountable on the numbers?
Yes, and then here's the keypoint How's your training
schedule?
You hear that silence.
That's the same silence thatthey give me.

(01:08:07):
I said send me over yourtraining calendar for this
individual.
Nothing.
And I said let me understandthis.
You think you hired the wrongperson.
They're not doing the thingsthat you expect them to do, but
you're not training them everyweek on how to do that job.

(01:08:30):
I said how do you expect themto learn it?
How do you expect them to getit?
I said this isn't the matrix.
You don't have that thingplugged into the back of your
brain and you're pushing abutton and all of a sudden you
know Taekwondo.
It's not like that, bro.
You have to spend time withthese people.
And I said it's like filling upa 55-gallon drum of water and

(01:08:54):
your training is in drops, drops, drops, and every time you
train them you're dropping alittle bit of liquid in there to
fill up this drum so they cando the job as well or better
than you did for the years thatyou did that job.
I said when they make mistakes,the mistakes become the training

(01:09:15):
agenda for your next session.
You didn't close that client,no problem, we'll make that at
the very top.
We'll role play and we'llscript out how we can win that
one next time.
We didn't help this cut.
We didn't get a five-starrating from this client.
What in the world went wrong?

(01:09:36):
Let's analyze it in our nexttraining session.
So the mistakes become thetraining agenda.
I don't like to just teachpeople a syllabus and just give
them random ideas.
Let's talk about the thingsthat really we're battling right
now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Again, it is so hard to implement that that's one of
the biggest things that I feelhere.
Right Is that the consistenttraining, locking that in,
making sure you're accountablewith the whole and the people
accountable, giving them theframework to be successful.

(01:10:13):
Right, when I probably lost 10,15 good people that came into
this organization over the pasttwo years, that would have been
successful, but I never gavethem the framework to be
successful because I didn't knowit.
I was figuring out and learningand having them step in.
The ones that have been with methe longest are the ones that
were able to come in and theywere able to create their own

(01:10:35):
curriculum to learn from.
That's where we're at now.
I'm like how do you create thisculture depth?

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Create the extension, so let's dive into it.
So the secret for all of oursuccess is our daily agenda.
Our calendar is a picture ofall of our priorities.
If training and growing yourpeople is not a priority, it's
probably not going to go intothe calendar.

(01:11:03):
To me, there's nothing morevaluable than building up,
coaching, training my people.
It's right at the very top.
So you have to look at yourdifferent departments of people
that you want to coach and trainand you have to pick 30 and 60
minute time slots to get intospecific training for them.
So every Monday, every singleMonday, every single Monday let

(01:11:27):
me say it one more time everyMonday at noon, my back end team
of loan partner twos we have a30 minute coaching and training.
I did show you my entire processfor my organization, how we
manage how we manufacture homeloans In.
Every Monday at noon we areworking on tooling that process

(01:11:49):
to make it a better clientexperience and to make sure that
we are manufacturing loansfaster, more efficiently.
But if we don't have that everysingle Monday at noon, we're
not getting better.
You know how long we've donethat Over a decade.
That's why.
So if anybody's watching this,that's into home financing 90%,

(01:12:10):
which I mean.
This number doesn't compute formost people that are in the loan
business.
90.4% of every home loan that'sproduced in my office is
perfect.
There are no conditions.
We don't go back to thecustomer for anything.
It's all done upfront.
So when that loan hits anunderwriter's desk they grab the

(01:12:33):
rubber stamp of approval andstamp it approved and move on
because it's already done.
The last 10%.
It's something so minor, it'ssomething so simple that we just
get it and then we move righton to closing.
That wouldn't be possible if wedidn't meet every Monday for at
least 30 minutes to work on ourprocess.
Every Thursday at 10 o'clock wehave my front end meeting where

(01:12:55):
I have my LP one and my teamcaptain and we're working on a
greater client experience forevery pre-approved customer, for
every person that's outsearching for a home, to help
them make a decision and to winthe offer on a property.
So I have those two trainingsessions for my salespeople
every Wednesday at 9.30.

(01:13:16):
We do 30 minutes of salestraining and then all of my
salespeople are in coachingaccountability groups that meet
twice a month for one hour.
So not only are theyaccountable to me as a coach and
they're getting personalcoaching for me every week for
30 minutes.
They also have a peeraccountability group that holds
them accountable to their goals,to their activities, to their

(01:13:39):
results, and they have thatsupport group to continue to
improve and get better.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Man.
That's the goal.
That's awesome man.
That honestly just gave me somegreat insight just off of that,
because where we're at, I onlyknow what I know and that's
where I'm at now.
I'm trying to find people thatcan be innovative and collective
thinking and being able to growthe people and what's next and

(01:14:09):
how do I continue to traineverybody and get everybody on
board.
So everything that we're doing,especially from that side of it
I'm creating it as I go andI've only been exposed to so
much too Just these things thatyou're sharing with me will be
extremely valuable to be able toimplement that.
And if you're listening to this, that's a framework.
You're talking about a $14billion company that we said.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Our peak was 13.
Last year we were a little over5.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
5 billion, and that ain't by accident, man.
And that's what's incredible isthat there's people out there
that will hear this and notimplement any of it, not even an
attempt to it, and as soon aswe get off this, I'm going over
there and I go.
Oh, I'm going to build thewhole training program out this
week.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
So here's what I think the next secret is so you
can study and learn and get abunch of knowledge.
We can read every book, we canlisten to every podcast, we can
watch YouTube until we justcan't keep our eyes open any
longer.
It's great to have knowledge,but this is I say this all the
time in coaching, mike, thegreatest gap in life is between

(01:15:15):
knowing and doing, and the onlyway to bridge that gap between
knowing and doing is to have acoach that has already bridged
that gap, that can help youimplement the tactics and
strategies to do it yourself.
And the problem is is we wantto go to an event and think that

(01:15:36):
it's a light switch.
That just makes it happen.
For me personally, for the last12 and a half years of my life,
working with a coach every twoweeks to slowly implement
strategy, to implement thetactics that we learn.
That's where my growth hashappened.
That's how we grow oursalespeople.
It's just slowly over time.

(01:15:57):
And what happens, mike, is youset these goals and you work on
them for six months and youclimb the ladder and you hit
them.
And then you set some moregoals and you climb the ladder
and hit them.
Six month goals, hit them, sixmonth goals and all of a sudden
you look back over the course oftwo years, five years, 10 years
and you go how in the world didwe get way up here?

(01:16:18):
It's because of that slowlyimplementation every day, every
two weeks, being accountable,continuing to move forward.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
And a huge piece of that is that long term vision.
Right, that's why the visionthings are so important, because
there's so much urgency that weplace on these things and what
we think is important, and allthe distractions and all the
things and the shiny objectsthat you can do, but when you
can get leadership and people tolock in and say this isn't a

(01:16:46):
one year thing, a 90 day thing,this is years, three years, four
years, five years, here's wherewe want to be in 10 years.
And if we do the things we sayon your VTO sheet or have it as
we say, hey, these are the mostimportant seven things that we
got to do this year, we'vecollectively agreed that those
are the most important things.
Why do we allow ourselves toget off into the other things?
Right, because you get busy andthen we fall off on doing it.

(01:17:09):
It's like if you just focus onthe things that you say will
move the needle, you'll move theneedle yeah, man, and the focus
and getting everybody on thesame page with it is so
important.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
But small accountability groups.
I have single coaches, I havegroup coaching.
I think group coaching is thesingle most powerful way to grow
and develop.
One coach, three students.
One coach, three students.
We see it in the Bible Jesushad Peter, james and John I
think it's the best group andthen you've got 12 disciples

(01:17:42):
total.
Right, but you've got one coachand three students.
I think it's the bestenvironment for learning and for
transferring of knowledge andexperience from the coach to the
students and that small group.
For me, it's transformed mylife.
I have students that have beenwith me for over seven years.

(01:18:03):
We're in year eight right now.
Students that have been in thatgroup because they don't want
it's helped me grow so much,earn millions of dollars, save
millions of dollars, givemillions of dollars away, which
is the most important thing.
But if you don't have thataccountability and the
accountability group to help youcontinue to stay focused and

(01:18:24):
continue to move on, a lot oftimes I think you just give
yourself permission to stop.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah, that's why I never want to quit man.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
I love that.
I mean, the idea of justaccountability is such an
importance and I think that'swhere, to me, it's almost an
advantage.
When I look at accountability,I look at it of I've been able
to create something, buildsomething that I'm providing for
people.
Well, those people rely on me.
I'm the kind of person I needpeople to rely on me because

(01:18:54):
that's when I'm in my zone, whenI know I'm leading people, when
I'm doing that's what I'm bestat, because nothing in me wants
to disappoint them, nothing inme wants to let those people
down.
So it's like you build in thisnatural accountability program
because me, just if one of ourpeople are sick and they don't
want to come in today, theydon't have to come in right.

(01:19:14):
They don't feel good, they comein.
Okay, I don't have that luxuryright, but it's a good piece to
it, because that's what forcesme to say, man, I'm grateful to
be here, I'm grateful to leadthese people, just that paradigm
shift of like man.
There's a lot of pressure, alot of people counting on me.
But, at the end of the day,that's the blessing in it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
It's a great blessing to have the responsibility of
leader, of CEO for you, ofrunning departments for me, and
go back to our vision statement,the level of our endurance,
enduring past that sickness orwhatever that pain is.
I'm not gonna let my peopledown.
I don't miss days of work.

(01:19:56):
I never miss a coaching session, ever.
The level of my endurance is indirect proportion to the clarity
of my vision.
My vision is so crystal clearthat nothing is going to stop me
.
Even being sick or snow orwhatever it is, nothing's gonna
stop me from accomplishing thevision and making that vision a
reality.
So if it's crystal and in mymind it is every day we're going

(01:20:20):
at it full throttle, everythingthat we have nothing's gonna
stop us from getting there.
And I think when you instillthat same type of vision in
people with the right values andwe'll talk about values in a
second and you instill thosesame values, they adopt that
same type of mentality andtenacity because they wanna

(01:20:42):
mirror what they see from theirleader.
Like man, nothing stops theleader.
I'm going to mirror that andI'm gonna model that in my own
life.
We got three values, man, that Ithink are just.
They govern everything.
I mean I think about thesethree values, mike, and
everything that I do, and I gotthese from one of my mentors,

(01:21:03):
roy Mason, who's a spiritualleader in my life, just like Mr
Ford is, and I learned thesefrom him and I probably got
these, I don't know, 10, 11years ago, and I haven't stopped
thinking about them and workingon making these values stronger
in my life every day.
The first one is grace.
These are the three Gs.
The first one is grace, andwhen you say the word grace, you

(01:21:26):
kinda go I don't what.
You know amazing grace.
How sweet the sound.
Who saved a rich.
You know the word grace iskinda like.
What does that mean?
And to me, I just think itsimply means treating people
better than they treat you andmaking allowances for other

(01:21:46):
people's mistakes.
You know, in the United Statesof America, I just think it's
part of our world culture nowthat when somebody treats us bad
, the first thing that we wannado is immediately get revenge.
Right, somebody did somethingbad to me it could be really
really bad where they hurt myfamily, and the thing that I
wanna do is get revenge.

(01:22:08):
It's just naturally how peopleare set up.
I wanna get even, I wannasettle the score.
I wanna balance the equationhere.
You hurt me, I hurt you backand I for an eye, and I think
that it's a way to live.
But I think grace is such ahigher standard of living where

(01:22:32):
I treat people good even whenthey treat me bad.
I do something nice for youeven if you treat me wrong.
And think about what the worldwould be like if everyone lived
by grace.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
Yeah, and I think the other side of that, too, is the
grace on yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
That's good, right, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
The ability to give yourself grace for the mistakes
that you make, because you seehow many people wanna hang
themselves because of themistakes that they made and beat
themselves up and it's likeyou're no different than you
wanna have that towards somebody.
You gotta have that on yourselfBecause you, at the end of the
day, whatever you're saying toyourself, you're listening.
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
I'm thinking of some people as soon as you say that.
I'm thinking of some peoplethat haven't given themselves
grace and they've stayed in likea prison of shame, in a prison
of guilt, because they can'textend any grace to themselves
to say you know what?
I screwed up, I made a mistake.
I believe that we serve a Godwho constantly gives us more

(01:23:31):
mulligans.
Right, shanked another one intothe woods and he teased another
ball up and said all right,give it another shot.
Right, constantly giving usmore opportunities.
And I think, man, that's sogood that you said that.
I always think about the way wetreat others, but the way we
treat ourselves is incrediblyimportant.
The second G is gratitude, and I, you know, gratitude is really

(01:23:56):
the highest level of living andwe talk about.
I think it's starting to get alot of noise about.
You know, have a gratitudejournal and we do an exercise,
mike, where I say, okay, set atimer for five minutes and grab
a pen and write down as manythings as you possibly can that
you're grateful for.

(01:24:16):
And most of the time, mike,when I do this exercise, it's
just a list of people that I amso grateful that they're in my
life, that they've given to meso much and the value of them
just continues to amplify.
And then sometimes it's stuff,and then sometimes it's

(01:24:39):
experiences and opportunities,and when the gratitude increases
, man, it's just like theappreciation for life, the
appreciation for living, theappreciation for you, brother,
in our time together.
It just, oh, man, it just opensme up and I just feel more
fulfilled, right, I feel sojoy-filled and happy when I'm

(01:25:02):
living in a high level ofgratitude and I think it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
you know.
There's something withgratitude that makes you present
.
Yeah Right, it's.
You know, when you're gratefulfor the things, you're actually
paying attention to what's infront of you, not what's coming,
yeah Right, and being gratefulto be man.
This, like you said right,being here today, this is an
incredible opportunity.
I'm extremely grateful for thisright, but I'm intentional with

(01:25:27):
that gratefulness too, becauseit's like man, there's a lot of
things going on, businessesdoing its thing, there's more
good days, there's all thisstuff outside of here, but like
when you can be truly gratefuland present, very powerful man.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
I love that.
I love that because it doeskeep you.
It keeps you grounded, it keepsyou here and now and not just
focused on what I don't have.
Or the thing that drives memore nuts than anything is the
entitlement mentality, likesomebody owes me, the government
owes me, other people owe meand I'm entitled to this.
And I think that entitlement isjust.

(01:26:01):
It's also an entrapment thatgets people to feel like a slave
to that thought that somebodyowes me and I'm gonna stay right
here until they give it to me.
Right, you're just looking forit.
Yeah, or the materialistic sideof it, where I can't be happy
with what I have.
I gotta keep chasing more stuffto try to fulfill this

(01:26:22):
happiness hole that's in my life.
What's the third G?
Third G is my favorite of allof them.
It's the thing that gets memore fired up and motivated than
anything else, brother.
I mean, it's the thing that'sjust.
It's just transformedeverything in my life, whether
it's coming to time or money ora combination of anything else.

(01:26:43):
It's generosity.
Generosity, I think, is also thehighest level of life and
living and we could sit here andhave a conversation about money
for the next five hours andwe'd have more content than we'd
be able to cover in that time.
But to me, one of my greatestexperiences in life and living

(01:27:06):
it's not from earning the bigdollars and the big paychecks.
I love that side of it.
I love serving a lot of peopleand helping a lot of people and
earning big paychecks.
But to me the greatestexperience of my life is right
in the big check to give it awayto organizations where I can go
do something beyond myself tomake a difference in the life of

(01:27:27):
this organization that's gonnago beyond me to serve needs in
our local community, whetherthat's one church, whether
that's a search, whether that iswith Roy Mason in his ministry
in Africa, whether that's withwidows and orphans.
There's so many ways that wecan amplify our values in the

(01:27:47):
world by being generous, to givemoney, to serve and give our
time.
But generosity, I mean it'stough to explain how awesome of
a feeling it is to give.
Now, mike, before I got intothis coaching journey, I was a
little bit generous, but as thisjourney has progressed, I've

(01:28:08):
challenged myself every year togive 1% more of my gross income
away to organizations and toindividuals, and I can tell you
that right now in 2024, we areat.
24% of our gross income is whatwe give away, and every year we

(01:28:30):
continue to increase that.
And I'll tell you it's justsome.
It's one of the coolest things.
We've got 18% away toorganizations, 6% away to
individuals, and that's whatLisa and I have chosen to make
the difference on.
So we use the NationalChristian Foundation as our

(01:28:51):
organization and accounting forgiving to organizations.
And then this is so cool, andsomebody listened to this is
going to do this right now,based on what I'm saying is to
open a separate checking accountand just put money aside.
6% is what we do every month.
We put 6% of our income asidein that checking account and
when we see a need, we meet theneed immediately.

(01:29:16):
And I'll tell you what.
One of the coolest things inthe world is when somebody says
my car broke down and you sayyou know what?
I'm gonna sell you $1,000 totake care of that car.
My friend, one of my goodfriends and a guy that works for
me, john Schwartz, he just hada heater break down in his house
.
He's got one of these old oilheaters.

(01:29:36):
He bought an old farmhouse.
He's got an old oil heater.
Tag on thing went out.
And I'll tell you what inJanuary in Ohio you don't wanna
have a bad heater, bro you wannahave a good quality heater, so
his oil heater.
you're not in that business too,are you?
I mean, we do do it.
Yeah, Do you really?
You might need to go to Fremont, Ohio and put it in there.
So.
But his heater went out and Italked to him in our daily team

(01:30:00):
meeting and talking to him andI'm thinking, man, why don't you
take care of John?
And I'm able to zell over cashto him to help pay for this big
need that he has in his life.
And I just think that there'sno greater feeling than being
able to supply needs.
And I like to think abouteverything from a spiritual

(01:30:22):
perspective, not just apractical or physical
perspective that I believe Godis very generous to us.
He's given us this life, he'sgiven us these opportunities,
he's given us money and skillsand attributes and qualities
that we can take in.
The more generous we are toserve needs and help other

(01:30:43):
people, the more things comeback to us 100%.
And it's up to us to not hoardand just keep these things for
ourselves.
The more generous we are, themore opportunities that we see,
the more they just keep poppingup.
So I think we gotta continue topush ourselves to grow, not

(01:31:03):
just as CEOs, not just asleaders, not just as team
builders and coaches and mentors.
We gotta continue to pushourselves to be more generous
with our money and our resourcesto make life better for the
people around us.
And I think when we do just,everything around us gets better
bro.

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):
Well, it's kind of like that selfish side to it
right, it feels good to give,right, it's like that.
It is the closest thing to God.
I think it is what he's donefor us and us being able to
provide that for other people.
Do you remember, probably twoyears ago, at we did that little
foster?
Well, greg and them, do thefoster team stuff for the so I,

(01:31:42):
this past year got my five.
What five and one, three C anonprofit put together.
It's called Foster the Future.
I didn't know you did that yeahand so it's called Foster.
We had our first annual eventthis year back in December and
the whole focus of it, kind oftaking what Greg did with the
foster kids is basicallycreating a, a non-traditional

(01:32:02):
education system for foster kids.
Oh, wow, right, and soeverything I'm doing with like
leadership and sales, I'mcreating kind of a curriculum
for the kids as well as we go.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
I wanna be involved in that with you.
Yeah, that's what I said.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
I definitely wanna have you.
We just kind of I think June orJuly we've got the next like
annual event, but we had ourfirst one in December and had a
bunch of people come out.
The first one we ever threwended up raising $17,000.
Oh, it's great, dude.
Yeah, that's phenomenal.
We donated stuff to get thekids Christmas presents, food,
and then we brought that.

(01:32:34):
We brought 35 foster teens inhere to the office and I brought
in like two or three otherbusiness owners let them talk to
them.
We got them Rich Dad, poor Dadbook, we got them notebooks, we
got them CRC swag, got them somebackpacks and just spent a
whole day just with these kidsand educating them and let them
come in and talk on the podcastwith us and man, it's just, it's
a.
It was an incredible experienceto be able to see just what

(01:32:59):
happens when you have some ofthat belief in somebody right.
And I think as entrepreneurs or, you know, business owners and
we have such a duty andobligation to create that for
people because we wouldn't beaware of it wasn't for the
things that people have done forus along the way, absolutely,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
It's our job to pay it forward.
It's our job to give ofourselves and you never know
when somebody's gonna call outgreatness, you or one of the
people that are working on yourstaff are gonna call out
greatness in that individual andthat individual is going to do
something that's gonna influence, and it affects, so many other
people all around them.

(01:33:38):
But it happened to us, you know, back in 2004, the first day
that I ever saw John Maxwell.
I'm searching for success Iwanna even understand what the
word means and in John that day,at that Chick-fil-A event, he
said that successful people makedecisions early in life and
then they manage those decisionsfor the rest of their life.

(01:33:59):
So if you can catch some ofthese young kids early on in
their life, right, and you canhelp them start making some good
quality electrical.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
What happened?

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
dude, I think there's like cause.
I heard there was like an icestorm or something.
We can cut it.
Do you got it?
We're good, we'll close her out.
Close her out now.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
Yeah, man sounds good , we're still so.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
that happened at 36 minutes, 35 minutes.
Man, what the heck man.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
Those two separate recordings.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
What's that?

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
Two separate recordings.

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):
No, it's all on one, but I marked the time down on
everyone when it happened.
Hit that light there, Rhys.
Yeah, I wonder if it's justlike cause of the ice or maybe
getting on the telephone polesand they get all.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
I mean, I also know that they were swapping
something out out there talkingabout it.
I don't know if they're doingthat today, but there are some
electrical blocks they weremessing with.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
But you were saying, john Maxwell, yeah, that
successful people make decisionsearly in life and then they
manage those decisions for therest of their life.
So when you can take a youngkid and you can help them start
making good quality decisionsearly in life, those decisions
compound, just like compoundinterest in our bank account.

(01:35:23):
When we make small depositsearly on in life, by the time we
get into our 50s and our 60sI'm not there yet.
I'm in my 40s but the earlierthat you start making those, the
more that they have grown andcompounded over time.
So I love what you're saying,that you're doing with these
young kids.
You're helping them makedecisions early in life that are

(01:35:44):
going to turn into some greatsuccess over the course of their
life.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
Yeah, and one of the hardest things for me kind of
doing it was when I first gotinto it.
I'm like how many foster kids Isee what one church is doing
and I'm like there's X amount offoster kids in Columbus and
here and there and how do we dosomething that it helps them all
and create this big impact?
And I met with a local agencythat's a private agency and I
kind of told him what my planwas and he said man, he said

(01:36:09):
Michael, I'll be honest with you, it sounds awesome.
I love what your heart's at.
He said it'll never work.
He said the system is so flawedthat most of the things that
get bought for these kids theynever get it.
He said there's so many layersto it and contracts and this and
that where he said, dude, it'ssad to see he's like that's why
we started our own agency,because I was seeing how just

(01:36:32):
manipulated the system was,whether it was people with the
handouts and there's all ofthese things.
He said, dude, if you wanna dosomething that's impactful, he
says, start with one, Right.
He's like I got 35 kids thatare in my agency.
He's like, start with one ofthose, Start with two of them.
Like, if you can serve 35 ofthem, great.
He said.
But you need to create thesystem that helps the children,

(01:36:54):
not you help the system.
I love that, yeah, and itcompletely shifted my mindset to
it and, like I said, it wasawesome.
They came in here, they'reseeing that and now for me the
big vision of it is everyquarter having a I wanna do a
mastermind for the kids, so evensay we end a one church, right.
In the auditorium and you'vegot two or three speakers that
come in for a day or two daysand spend time with these kids.

(01:37:17):
Then every annual event that wedo is fundraiser for that, and
then every quarter doing amastermind, even if it starts
with 20 or 30, like what couldpotentially happen with
something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Yeah, I think it's so cool man because, just like me
in 2004, when I heard John sparkthis idea of being successful,
making great decisions, creatinga list of daily decisions that
I'm going to make that are goingto compound and create the
success, those decisions aregoing to be the success.

(01:37:48):
It's not gonna lead to success,those daily choices are the
success.
He says and he got this fromJohn Wooten and I just love this
quote that there's a choicethat we have to make in
everything we do.
But remember, in the end, thechoice you make makes you.
And I think when you help youngpeople make choices, good

(01:38:09):
quality decisions, early intheir life, and you can help
them continue to make goodquality decisions, you're gonna
help to unlock some greatness inthat young person's life.
Man, and I get excited aboutthat.
I get excited about it.
We do it every year with Liveto Lead.
I go into the high schools thatare part of the Teen Leadership
Corps and we give them that oneday event because I think if

(01:38:32):
you can spark that greatness,that leadership attribute, in
somebody at a young age, whenthey're in high school, man,
then they can unlock somethingthat can lead them for the rest
of their life.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
Man, this has been awesome brother.

Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
I appreciate you coming on, man, oh man, I
appreciate you having me.
It's an honor to be on yourhere.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
I feel like we could go on for hours.
You know what I mean.
I got so many questions that Ijust kept writing down and I'm
like I got three pages of noteshere just from talking to you
bro.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
Oh, brother, well, you're a great inspiration to me
.
I mean, I just love you.
Know.
I think the first realconversation that we had was at
Michael's steakhouse over atsteak and you were telling me
your story and I interview and Isee a lot of people with Union
Home, but I don't see very manypeople, if any, that have your

(01:39:18):
passion for success and growthand electricity.
It's still recording on thepodcast.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Is it on the?

Speaker 2 (01:39:31):
oh yeah here.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
It's still there.
All right, let's wrap her up.
Thank you, dude.
You can finish the compliment.
I'll take it, man.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Yeah, but man, no, seriously, I just I don't see a
lot of people that have thattenacity to push through pain
and setbacks, and I've watchedyou already overcome a lot of
different things, whether it'smonetarily or relationally, and
now to see you grow a $5 millionoperation plus, I mean, dude,

(01:40:01):
I'm just, I'm proud of you, I'mhappy to know you, I'm excited
for your future.
You continue to inspire me toget better.
I get better every time I'maround you, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
So thanks for having me on today.
No, brother, likewise man andyou know it's again I'm just
grateful to be able to have theconnections and the people like
yourself and my life and youknow and the abilities that I've
been able to learn from justwatching and getting to spend
time.
And I'll be honest with you, Itake it for granted.
I get to sit down with youtoday and I'm like man.
I gotta do better at makingsure that we connect more and do

(01:40:32):
that, man.

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
Let's do it this year For sure.
This year we'll make it a pointto continually get together no
less than once a month how aboutthat?

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
Yeah, that's good man .
Well, Brian, and I appreciateyou, dude, Thank you so much for
coming on, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
Yeah, man pleasure, thank you.

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