The Grind-Cast “Special Guest Michael Russin”

Count money man, money back riches.

I'm trying to talk, trying to talk to my beast, but

What's up gang?

Welcome to the grind cast.

Stop it, areas here.

Get ready to do.

Get new day.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

Got my man Mike Russ and in the house.

And I'mma just bring it out there in advance for those of you watching.

For those of you guys listening, just picture.

This is my, this is, this is one of my dogs in the business.

What are you 26, 27 now?

26 years old started it.

20.

21.

21 years old.

In Erie, Pennsylvania was not where he's from, but that's where he started in this

business, played rugby and reached out to me on his own out of the blue on

social media and introduced himself as a new agent.

And the, you know, one of Maxwell's laws is the law of intuition.

And my intuition and instinct or, you know, to give, you know, more credit to the

situation, I believe that I don't want to sound corny, but I believe God put us in

each other's lives.

And so I feel like my spirit was led off of, off of something so small.

And I knew that you had it like that because I've been doing it for so long.

You know, so if it's, you know, if it's six years or five years, you know, for you,

you know, we're nine years in for me.

Imagine how good you are in this business, you know, three more years on top of where

you're at right now.

You're, you're going to be on a whole other level.

And so my instinct told me that that something was special about, about Mike.

And, you know, not only did, did he go through a shit ton of adversity that I want you guys

to hear.

I mean, this guy went through a shit ton of adversity that people don't see.

They just see the beautiful girl inside and out in my girl Geneva.

They see the Mazza Rottie bouncing, chopping through the streets and they see you crushing

numbers and wearing suits in a smile and donating to, you know, to our, to our youth program,

thousands and thousands of dollars.

But they don't see your car getting reposed and repossessed.

And most people would have quit, you know, at, at that point.

And so if you see me or hear me laughing over here, it's, you know, my man, I tell him,

you know, he got those eyes.

If you got any friends like that that, you know, you could tell the thing, got them all,

you know, there's, you know, elevator don't go straight to the top floor.

Maybe one level below the penthouse, my man.

So you know, so he got the eyes that tell you, so when I look at him, I got the balance

of like, man, you, you just, he looks like he's, he's crazy, but he got a lot of heart.

And he put that energy into, into, into being great and special in this business and

special, special to people.

And I smile a lot just because I got so much love for you.

And so, and so proud of you, you know, I know you're starting to experience the, the

feeling of, of being having people with you that started with you and, and went through

some hard times and started out young and then you watched their life change.

Yeah.

And, and Sam and Travis and the people that you've been able to, and, and you know, the

feeling that that brings.

Yeah.

And so, for me to, to watch your transition and to see where you're at right now, I know

that it couldn't have happened for, you know, to me, you know, don't get too much better

or more deserving than you is exciting for me.

So I, you know, I'm laughing and I'm smiling, you know, when I'm looking at you all the time,

bro.

So, you know, we, why don't we jump into how you came into, to, to this business where

you were going to school, what you were doing up bringing a little bit and kind of, let's

get a little bit of background in your story.

Got it.

Got it.

Thank you, coach.

I appreciate all that.

I was, I was born in New Hampshire, but I was raised in New York just a small town in

New York.

I'm just now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Born in Nashville, New Hampshire, moved to New York.

I was raised in a western New York from there.

I went to Allegheny College in Medville, Pennsylvania, played rugby in Allegheny College.

We had a great year, my senior year, undefeated and unscored on my senior year.

So that we're pretty proud of that.

And then from there, you know, when I left school, actually, I was home on the rest of the

high school.

Yeah, rest of the high school.

Yeah.

How do you do that was very important to me.

I would have been, I broke my leg, but I would have been a state champ my senior year, but

I busted my leg.

That was no fun.

But, you know, sports was always really important to me, especially that one on one aspect

in wrestling was I think formed a lot of my discipline and character now.

You know, wrestling was the hardest thing that I ever did.

You know, there's no conditioning on the planet.

I don't think like wrestling.

I played every single sport.

I don't think any of them come close.

You know, but, you know, back to Allegheny, I was actually home on fall break and I sent

my resume out.

I wanted to get some interview experience with different companies and a few companies

reached out to me.

I had a semester left to go.

I figured I'd just go interview, get some experience, get my name out there, build some

relationships before I graduated.

And AIL and Erie reached out to me at the time.

My MGA was Casey Koonash, his recruiter at the time reached out to me and set up an

interview.

She set our managers, our makers, six figures here and immediately I was sold.

So I came in for an interview and...

Let's stop for a minute.

That's a key component of this, you know, in this same plan, we have no agendas.

Right.

We're just going with the flow.

So to me, what stands out in that already is your mind.

One of the things that it takes to be great in life, I think, is to be open-minded.

So a lot of people would have heard that, like, oh, this can't be too good to be true,

you know what I mean?

And not come in.

And another person here's the exact same thing and they hear opportunity.

Right.

You know what I mean?

It's like is that glass half empty, half full.

So understand if you're spiriting your mind couldn't have received that the right way,

none of the other shit happens.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, and I think what else is important is that I wasn't accepting anything other

than a six figure opportunity.

So I had in my head coming out of college, I didn't want anything else.

You know, 60,000 a year wasn't going to cut it for me.

Maybe if I knew that I could work my way up within a couple of years, but the whole

corporate, you know, you got to wait for somebody to die or get promoted or transfered to get

you know, to get a get a raise, that wasn't going to work for me.

So as soon as I heard, I could make $100,000.

I was in.

So I went and I interviewed with the eerie office and I sat in on the company overview and

I dropped out of school the next day.

You know, so I was the first kid from our family that I know of.

The Russ and family crazy shit.

To go.

Yeah, yeah, everybody thought I was nuts.

I mean, they already knew I was nuts, but they thought I was even more crazy at the time.

I have you for sell as nephew over here.

Right.

So I dropped out immediately and much to the dismay of everybody that knew me.

And a lot of people at school, they didn't get it.

A lot of my friends didn't get it.

My parents at first didn't get it.

And I don't think many, many parents would know.

No, no, no.

Especially, you know, Allegheny is a prestigious school and all that.

So I dropped out and I jumped, jumped right in fully in 100%.

And there was no looking back.

Right.

So that got us to the moment.

Yes.

All right.

So then you come in, you have some success and then some obstacle started rising.

Yeah.

Some self-inflicted, you know, some happenstance.

And so you go through a rough period.

Tell us about that rough period.

Yeah.

And tell us about how you got out of it, you know, because I think that's the knockout

punch.

I think Tyson, you know, it's Tyson that said everybody got a plan today, get punched in

the face.

Yeah.

And so everything sounds, you know, good, you know, jujitsu sounds good for people until

they get started getting their ears messed up.

Or eye gets cut.

Taped out for the first time.

They get shoved down their humility.

Yeah.

And their ego gets crushed.

Yeah.

People want a box today, get punched in the face.

And so everybody wants to make 100,000.

But that's less than that's 5% of America.

So the only way to be a part of that 5% is you have to take some, if 100,000, you've

got to take some jabs, 500,000, you have to take some hooks, uppercut, some body shots,

you know, million, you've got to take a couple head kicks.

Right.

And so you took your first blow and it was a big one.

And you come out and how did you get out of it?

What was going on in your mind as most people don't make it out of that?

Okay.

Yeah.

Just a preface it.

I did have a pretty good amount of success when I started.

You know, I can remember my first month, I wrote close to 20,000, my first month released.

That's when I reached out to you because I figured I got a little, maybe a little bit of something

to back it up, right?

Second month did really well.

I did really well up until my six month.

And then you know, in our, in our business, we have retention.

Meaning you had a retain a certain amount of clients or else you don't get paid.

So we hit retention.

Which means, you know, we were, we were writing a good amount of business and we weren't

making anything out of it because of our own, our own mistakes.

So I think I'm saying that because I think number one, the biggest key was realizing that,

you know, I put myself in that position.

Nobody else put me in that position.

And I think that's where a lot of people get messed up is bad things happen.

And they want to blame everybody else, right?

So they put it all on circumstance.

They put it all up.

Parents, my coaches, my friends, my family, my teachers, the world, the economy, all this

other stuff.

And they take no accountability for their mistakes.

So what happens is, is when we don't take accountability for our mistakes, we don't learn

from them because we're just blaming.

You know, so I think that was, that was key number one.

You give up control.

You give up control.

Exactly.

It's basically saying that the world has control over me instead of me having control

over the world, you know, in my circumstances.

So yeah, that was number one was realizing it was our fault,

was my fault, especially me being the leader.

Number two was having a goal and a vision.

How we got out of it was we just knew no matter what,

no matter how bad it got, I mean,

like you said, the car repot,

I can remember Travis Vaughan and I,

my right hand man in this business,

we're sitting in my office one day

and we're just sitting there like, dude,

what the hell are we gonna do?

I've got no car to field training.

I've got no money in my bank account.

I got, I'm negative in my bank account.

I'm back two months on rent.

I got the landlord.

I'm just ignoring his number.

What the hell are we gonna do?

And we just knew that vision was very, very important.

We knew that we were always gonna reach our goals.

We knew that we're always gonna meet our vision.

We knew it was gonna happen.

Our vision was bigger than the obstacles we were encountering

and then encountering and then number three,

when we were sitting there, we just decided to take action.

Massive action forward.

And we knew if we took enough massive action forward

for a long enough period of time with persistence

that we eventually get on the other side.

So that's what we did.

We just ponied up and we went to work hard,

and we got through it.

Love it.

So let's talk about when you came out of it.

What does it look like now?

And you've been consistently rocking for a long time

and what's cool to know,

and I don't know how many other people know,

but what's cool to know is that as much as everybody's excited

about how well you're doing right now,

we know this is the bottom.

Absolutely.

I mean, what you're doing right now,

we know is just, if I were to just take a nap

and come back in two years,

I know you're gonna be quadruple

where you're at right now, triple,

at least where you're at right now,

but where you're at is a dream.

And so people can see you now in 26, 27 years old

and see what you have.

They see the perks, they see the stuff.

They see the, it's not just what you have,

it's your happiness.

You could tell that you enjoy what you do.

You could tell that your people love you.

When you win, they win, when you get,

they guys are all a family.

So it's not just the money that you're making

or the card that you have,

it's the happiness in Geneva,

it's the happiness in your team,

it's the happiness in within yourself.

And no one's perfect or nothing's perfect,

but it's not just the stuff, but it's the whole Shabang.

And so they see that.

And what they don't see is,

when they see you sipping wine at Napa Prime all the time,

you know, eating steak, they don't see you eating,

Udels and noodles.

You know what I mean?

And so tell us about what it looks like right now.

What it looks like right now,

by the way, ramen noodles with hot sauce and an egg,

that's, that was like, that was the retention meal.

That's what we call the retention meal.

But what it looks like right now,

you know, it's funny is that,

I don't really have a good answer for that

because like you said,

we're nowhere near where we wanna go.

No we're close, nowhere close.

It's better, don't get me wrong,

but I still have a fear.

And what I mean by that is,

I can remember my cousin Josh teaching me

how to box for a couple months.

And I remember every time I would throw a cross,

I would drop my left hand a little bit.

And what happened was he popped me a couple times

right up the side of the head.

So getting hit in the head

because I was dropping my hand,

taught me that I can't drop my head hand

or I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get rocked, you know?

So it's kinda like now, yeah, yeah,

it's getting punched, you know?

And now, you know, where we are now,

I still have that fear to where I'm not gonna drop my hands.

And I'm not gonna, yeah, people like you were saying

the Mazoradi and the Ring on Geneva's finger

and the lifestyle and the dinners

and the money, it's cool,

but our team is awesome,

but I'm never gonna drop my hands again

because when you drop your hands,

that's how you get knocked out.

What I mean by that is,

I'm never gonna stop going to work.

You know, you'll still find me here in the office.

Yeah, they stop going to work.

You know, you'll still find me here at the office

at 6.37 o'clock.

I don't have to be here.

I'm gonna get paid anyways,

but I know it's important that I'm here.

You know, I didn't have to go in the field this week.

We went in the field this week yesterday,

dropped four or five thousand, you know?

Because I'm never gonna drop.

Just to give the viewers, your listeners a small,

you know, taste of what we're talking about

from the bottom, you know,

to what is now the top of we know is the bottom still

because we're going to another level.

What do you think the check's gonna look like on Monday?

Monday will probably be anywhere from 10 to 12,

10 to 12 thousand for the week, weekly,

for one week.

Yeah, so that's what we're talking about.

We're talking about dude went from not being able

to pay his bills to 10,000 a week in income.

Don't know when's the last time.

A lot of people got to hear from people

or see people like that at 26 years old, but it's a rarity.

And so I think, you know, we'll go from here.

start talking about your mindset, you know, the obviously your mindset, your heart.

I think your head and your heart got to be in the right place in order to win.

You know, if you don't have heart, but you know what to do in your head, but you're heart

in it or you ain't ready to go to battle or you don't have heart, then I don't think it's

good enough.

You know what I mean?

Or if your heart's in it, but you're heading in the game and you ain't focused and all

of that stuff, you can have all the heart in the world if you don't know what you're doing.

So what are some, what are some things that stick out to you now as a coach, you know,

of others?

What are some of the qualities that you would say the best people have, you know, the

ones that show to have the most success?

What are, what are those, what would, what sticks out in those people?

Grit would be number one.

People that are gritty.

You know, I've had people walk through the door that looked the part, you know, good looking

tan muscles or good looking girls and stuff like this and they talk a big game, but they

don't have any grit.

You know, basically when it comes down to it, A, they're not willing to do the work required.

And B, when things get hard, they tap out immediately.

They dip.

So I would say number one would be grit for sure.

There's a great book on that too called grit.

I think it was Angela Duckworth.

That's one of my favorites.

But it talks a lot about that.

And then number two would be discipline.

You know, I'm always looking for people that are going to be disciplined, you know, and

it.

So the first two you name takes no talent at all.

None.

No, it wasn't.

We need you to graduate from Harvard.

You know, you got to have a 4.0.

The first two things you name were things that doesn't take anything but heart and focus

and things that are within everybody's reach.

Yeah.

Right.

All right.

So I got it.

Yeah.

Keep going.

Grit discipline.

I think it was funny that number three would be people that are willing to do what other

people don't want to do.

So what I mean by that is they did this cool study on violinists.

Then they took violinists.

They started them at the same age, same socioeconomic status.

Everything was pretty much the same.

And they followed them for 20 years.

And they went back and they looked at them after 20 years and they ranked them.

So the ones that just sucked and then there were ones that were average and then there

were ones that were great.

And they had all three groups rank activities from most fun to least amount of fun in all

three groups from the great to the ones that were terrible all said that playing for crowds

and concerts was the most fun.

And the least amount of fun was alone time practice.

All three groups said that.

The difference was is that the greats did what was least fun more than all the other groups.

And that's what made them great.

So it has nothing to do with talent.

It has to do with being willing to do things in the dark when nobody's watching when the

lights aren't on.

That's going to separate you from the rest of the pack.

So I would say that's number three are people that are willing to put in the work that's

not fun for a result.

That's a lot of fun.

So let's talk about that.

Just that one aspect.

Doing things that you don't want to do in order to get a result is typically what separates

people from the pack.

Absolutely.

And that's part of that.

I mean, this is what I pound into my goddaughter's head.

You know, Amaya, I mean, if she was here right now, she'd be like, man, this is her life

every day.

You know, I'm always doing that.

I mean, you see, Uncle Simon going down here five o'clock to hit this bike.

You think I feel like doing that?

You know, I don't feel like doing that.

You see me going to bed right now at 8.30 on Memorial Day.

Everybody's having a good time and it's daylight out.

I'm going to lay in the bed, Maya.

Just note this down because you know, I don't want to go up here right now and go to bed.

I got to get up at 4.

I got to go to bed.

Right.

So I'm always pounding into her head if you want to separate from everybody else because

she wasn't given the easiest life.

You know, she got dad was murdered.

You know, mom didn't graduate with a super education.

They're their economic situation.

You know, they were living in the projects and and and she was wiling out.

And so, you know, she's came into a high school where she's behind, you know, as far as what

they their education level in hers.

And so we're trying to close that gap.

But what I'm trying to teach her is all these things that we're talking about that are really

getting her to surprise everybody and win.

And I'm pounding into her head of it's all about doing the things that you don't feel

like doing that that's going to get you what you want.

So everybody wants this.

Everybody wants that.

Everybody wants that.

But the gap closer is what are you willing to do that you don't feel like doing that

you know that you need to do.

And I think a part of that comes from a person needs to know why you know and it sounds

corny.

But I think people that you know the what's the the seal guy that's out right now.

Jocco.

No, the other guy that runs.

Oh, I go against go against love go against you know he's talking about being driven.

You know, the difference between motivated to be driven and driven is is is just constant

internal waking you up early in the morning and something pulling you inside.

And I think if people would sit and give themselves time to think you know people don't

think enough you know that we wake up in the morning and people are just like flying and

flying and flying but really sit back and think and about your life, your life and where

do you want to go and why do you want to go to that level and where is it that you want

to go and constantly remind yourself of where you want to go why you want to go there.

What's it going to do for your family?

What's it going to do for the world?

What's it going to do for others?

And you got to keep it in front of your head and heart every night and every morning to

do those things in the dark that it takes because a lot of what it takes is the internal

battle.

When I'm when I'm posting you know we have a thing called a group me you know it's a

you know group text message for all of our you know leaders and you know almost every

morning I'm in there posting every morning for 35 o'clock almost every morning.

And sometimes I just take a break so people don't get so they're not like they just

doesn't lose its vibe because I do it all the time.

And I think I need to explain this next meeting why I'm doing this.

And so when I'm when I'm taking pictures of scripture highlighted and sending motivation

and sending pictures of me sweating at 5.36 o'clock in the morning it's not to show off.

It's to show people what it fucking takes.

That I'm 14 years in the game a lot of people look at me and say think that I got it all

you know the main or it but why am I still doing this right.

And so I'm showing them that I'm willing to do this and you want to close the gap but you

got people in the do this that's why I'm showing you how to do this because this is what

it takes and you want to get to where I'm at these are the things that you're going to have

to do yeah and the people that embrace that you know I think you'll see it in their performance

yeah you know the people that don't you know we're sitting here two years from today

three years from today and they wonder why they're not you know where they need to be

and it goes back to some of those fundamentals.

So we talked about what would what you see in others that would you know stick out to

you about those that are successful anything stick out to you in people that fail that

should not fail you know people that come in you're like all right he got to give they

got something and what what are those people doing that they shouldn't be doing right

uh that's that that's a good question I could go on for that because most people fail

you know so there's way more evidence of failure than there are success you know and I

going back to what you just finished saying what I what I've noticed is that the more

successful people are it's almost like the more discipline they get over time or like

the more consistent that they get over time like when I study the great of the greats they

don't they don't stop when they got it you know what I mean it's almost like they almost

they they work harder so I feel like one of the biggest things that a lot of people the

mistake that a lot of people make is they have a little bit of success and they take their

foot off the gas and because they think they figured it out like you stop doing the

thing to humility right yeah they lack humility and they stop doing the things that got them

there and then they're confused as to why shit stops working out well you stop doing

everything that got you here it's like you it's like you worked out for three months

and then you had a little bit of a six pack coming in then you started eating donuts again

and it started stop running and shit like how long does it take to get in shape how much

pain did you go through on I mean how much you lost how much I lost like 40 pounds okay

so that's a lot of pain and sacrifice yeah right over months right how much time would

it take for you to get out of shape if you said for the next month or you know however

long I'm going to eat like shit and drink like shit yeah not exercise how long you think

it would take to go back way backwards took eight months probably to get in pretty good

shape and I would say it would probably take two weeks to undo it I agree I'd say two

weeks a month maybe so it's always easier to fall off always easy than it is to get to where

you want to go right usually that level you know I tell people like man this dude made one

bad decision yeah some five years in prison right he made one bad decision cost him two

years in jail and then that's don't even set you two years it's set you back further

because you you went backwards and now you got a dig out of that hole and you are making progress

and you can dig out of that hole if it's you right the key is you can dig out of that hole in your

story becomes that what what you went through becomes your way to motivate and connect with with

other people but I think the the mindset is what you're talking about is so people so many

people are taking four steps forward two steps back five step forward two steps back and and

it's rooted I think and in the you know you the first thing you opened up talking about was fear

mm-hmm and I don't want to beat anybody over the head with my spiritual beliefs you know but you

know I start off with you know I start teaching people Proverbs and all that stuff and in the

beginning chapter one is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom so in the if I believe

that one thing if I'm going to be zoned in on that then I'd understand that you basically

can't have that the the wisdom without a little bit of fear and the fear is respect respect so it

just can be respect whatever you know if you're not on the spiritual level people understand and karma

people understand and what you put out in this world you end up getting back in this world whatever

it is that you believe the the fear of of the universe or whatever is the beginning of wisdom having

that fear and that healthy respect of all right I appreciate where I'm at and I don't want to go

back there yeah and so that that fear that wisdom will keep you pushing because you know John Maxwell

says you know you can't get to the top of a mountain on accident that needs to be intention to

climb up there but you could fall off on accident you could just take two steps back and whoop you

ain't paying attention you're off right it's a whole lot harder to get up you know the meaning it's

a lot easier to to fall off and get down so any any tips or advice you know you would give for

somebody that started out that starting out in business young because you started out in business

young and there's a lot of people on here that are in sports there's a lot of people you know the

let we did the stats and like less than a quarter of our listeners and viewers are are AIO people

which is cool yeah you know that's not the even the majority right now right I have to make sure

that everybody can grab from this but you know if there's somebody young trying to excel in something

or in business and how do you overcome the inexperience you know when you get in and there's other

people that got more experience and and you know how do you pass them up how do you how do you grow

you know what do you how do you you know go from 21-20 years old what's what's the things that that

could shoot people you know to where they need to be to to not shortcut but put in the work on the

right things to get them to where they want to be anything stick out yeah you know the first thing

I'll say is that whether you're in sports or school or business every principle that's talking

the principles of success don't change the same things that make people successful in sports

are the same things that make people successful in business and the same things that make people

successful in business the same things that make people successful in school so if you're listening

to this just understand no matter where you are this all applies you know um the first thing I

would say to somebody young is don't if you're anything if you're like everybody else you're not

going to be successful. If you're doing the same, it's impossible for you to

separate from the pack, if you're doing the same shit that everybody else is

doing. If you're waking up the same time as everybody else, if you're working the

same amount of hours is everybody else, if you're going to the same amount

of practices as everybody else. The same amount of after-school hours is

everybody else, you're not going to be successful. You're going to be exactly

like everybody else. It's impossible to put in the same

amount of work as all your friends and your family might have told you was

enough to get a different result. So I think the first thing is you have to

identify that you're gonna have to take action

that might be uncomfortable

and it's gonna be very different

than what everybody else is doing.

Getting up earlier, staying later, working harder

and that you have to be comfortable

with accepting criticism from people

and the biggest thing that I learned

is that I wasn't gonna take advice from somebody

I wouldn't trade places with.

I had a lot of people finish school,

I ain't not at college, I think it's great,

but I had a lot of people finish college

and they were telling me I was crazy

and I'm looking at their life

and I'm like, I don't want anything like that.

You're still in debt and your kids are in debt.

Again, I'm not hating on anybody,

but I had to hold myself to a higher standard

as to where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.

So yeah, number one would be,

you gotta be different than everybody else

and you can't be afraid to be different than anybody else.

Number two would be, don't take advice

from people you wouldn't switch places with.

If I were trying to be a D1,

all American wrestler, I'm not gonna take advice

from the dude wrestling D3 who can't even place.

I'm gonna take advice from somebody like

Kale Sanderson or Dan Gable,

somebody who was a great, you know, in the business

or in that sport.

You know, number three, you gotta have your goals

and you gotta write them down.

There are studies, so many studies that show

every successful person I've ever listened to

or talked to whether it's you coach

or somebody that I read about always says,

write it down on paper.

You can't hit what you can't see.

So I think it's important now,

especially with all the technology we have,

I think it's important that you get out

a pen and a piece of paper and you write that down.

Every day, your goals are something

that you should revisit every single day

and you gotta have the discipline

to make sure that you do that.

I mean, think about it.

Like, if I'm gonna be an all-American athlete,

I gotta work out every single day.

Well, if you wanna be successful in any endeavor,

I feel like you should be revisiting your goals

every single day.

If I'm gonna be a pitcher,

I gotta throw balls every single day.

If I wanna play basketball, I gotta shoot.

You know what I think?

You gotta align.

If I wanted to be a superstar pitcher,

but every day, the...

actions that lead you to that don't align.

Exactly.

Something got a change.

Absolutely.

You know what I mean?

The road map to doing what you say you want,

the activities on a daily basis need to be those things.

Absolutely.

If, is there anything that stands out to you

in your first couple of years as a person,

just early 20s to now that you were weak at,

that you would say you've turned into a strength

or you at least turned it into not a negative anymore,

a positive, you know, some weaknesses that maybe

you were able to get better at or overcome

that's staying out to you.

I used to be really impulsive,

which I think a lot of young people are.

You know, I mean, I think that I would have been okay

through most of retention if I wasn't an ass with my money

when I first started making money

because I made a lot of money.

I mean, my first year I made six figures.

You know, so that's a lot of money for a 21, 22 year old kid.

The problem is as I blew it all,

I was impulsive and I wasn't disciplined.

I was disciplined in some areas and not in other areas.

So the one thing that I realized is how you do one thing

is how you do everything.

This is why I get frustrated when I see somebody toss a paper towel

and the basket and they miss and they don't pick it up.

I know that other areas of their life are jacked up.

They have to be whether it's your relationship,

you're probably cheating on your wife.

Who knows what you're doing, right?

So that was probably one of the biggest things that I had to turn

into a strict that I had to develop out of myself

was that impulsive on being disciplined in some areas

and not disciplined in other areas.

I would say that that was the biggest thing

and then maturity, which your young,

everybody makes stupid decisions

but I think that maturity was a big one.

I didn't have a lot of humility when I started, you know.

Because of everybody that was hating on me

and I started making all this money

and I just wanted to show it off

and tell other people to screw off that didn't believe in me.

I think that God took that away from me

for a little bit to humble me.

So humility and maturity

and the way that you get more mature

is you surround yourself with mature people

and you read books.

You know, I feel like you got to read books

and you got to surround yourself with people that are mature

that are outside of your age group

or even if you're in there.

These are two huge ones that are simple for people

to do that don't be done.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I feel like just surrounding yourself

with mature people and reading books.

We'll talk about reading books.

I mean, I feel like that's one where

I pound this into people's head

and it's like pulling teeth.

You know, to get them to realize

how important this is for their life

and why do you think that is so difficult

to get people to read coming from somebody that,

I mean, I legit tell people

I went through high school and college

and never read one book from front to back at all in my life.

Ever, I hated reading, hustle my way through.

Yeah.

And to somebody that I would probably say

I average two to three books a month right now

and it would be more if I wasn't so in tune with podcasts.

I'm not just a fan of my own podcasts.

I listen to other people's podcasts

and there's some strong ones out there.

And I spend time with my spirit, you know what I mean?

And doing some audio and some books

and hours and hours of self development.

Talk to people about how important you think it is

to focus on your, you know, they say education,

formal education will make you a living

and self education will make you a killing

or formal education will give you a living

but self education will give you a life, you know,

those type of things.

So people that continue on past high school

or college educating themselves, you know,

how important do you think that that is?

Which strategies have you used?

Because it couldn't have been natural to you

and why do you think it's so hard for others?

Right.

Well, the first thing I'll say is if you're not growing,

you're dying.

So if you graduate high school,

you graduate college and you just stop,

you're dying every single day.

You know, you don't retain a lot of what you read

which is why it's important to go back.

It's funny if I could even use you as an example

if it's okay, just the past five years that I've known you,

I can tell you're actually doing, I know you're doing this

but one thing that's changes your vernacular

and your grammar over the past five years are,

it's crazy and it's, there's no other explanation

other than you're reading books constantly, you know,

so you'll have a lot of little changes in your life

and I feel like people just don't do it

because they don't realize how important it is.

People won't do things until they realize how important it is

and if, I mean, the only way that I could make you understand

how important this is is study people that are successful.

You know, they say the average millionaire reads what?

Five books a month.

Five books.

58 years.

58 years, something like that, right?

So if the average millionaire reads 50 books a year,

I would challenge you to think about

where you want your income level to be

even if it's 500,000 a year and you would be cool with that.

Are you reading 25 books a year?

You're reading two books a month.

You know, so people don't do things

because they don't understand how important it is.

How many an hourly for me, you know, how many hours

you think a week does a person need to be pouring

into their mind?

And into your mind?

And cast books, audio books, you know,

what if I'm a kid out there and I'm 20 and I'm looking for,

like, I just need a goal.

Like, you tell me to do 10 reps.

I got three sets of 10.

Like, you got to be up.

Give me a amount of hours that I feel like I should be digging

in on a weekly basis as a good start.

At least one hour a day.

You think about this.

You're an athlete right now and you blow out your knee,

your tear or something.

What do you got left?

What do you got left?

You're in a horrible accident.

God forbid that leaves you paralyzed.

What do you got to fall back on?

Your mind.

You know, I feel like that's our most important asset.

It's not your legs or your arms or your chest.

Your mind is your most important asset in this world.

What are you doing?

This, this what I asked my agents.

I say, guys, what is your most important asset

that you have in this business?

And they'll say, my car, my phone,

my leads, and I tell them, no, that's, that's all,

they're good answers, but they're incorrect.

The most important asset that you have is yourself,

your mind.

So what are you doing every single day to make sure

that you're pouring into that asset?

Because it's the most important one that you have.

So I would say at least minimum, one hour a day, minimum.

Yep.

I would spend that on Facebook.

I agree.

I mean, as soon as you, as soon as I was asking the question,

I'm thinking I would probably say that

you got to start out with an hour.

Right.

If you can't give yourself an, I just like a workout.

You want to get in shape.

You got to be able to invest an hour a day to get in shape,

you know, at least.

And with this, you ain't even got a stretch or warm up

or cool down or go to the gym or you just

got to work that mind out.

Right.

And you'll see it in your bank account.

You know, I think, you know, we got about another five minutes.

Earners or learners?

I'll talk about that earning, earning aspect.

I think people avoid talking about money.

You know, the more that I start talking money,

the more uneducated I realize that people are on money

and I wonder why?

You know, how are people so overeducated in some areas

that don't get them anywhere in life?

And they'll get it for 12 years of school or 16 years

and becoming out so uneducated in the main things.

Right.

That the basics, the fundamentals and money.

So I think people aren't educated on money

and then I think people are, they're listening

to the wrong people out there about money

so they curse themselves with money.

So it's like, well, I don't want it.

I don't want to get money because I don't want to be a bad person.

Right.

So it's like those two don't go hand in hand.

You know, not everybody that gets money is a bad person.

Right.

You don't have to sell your soul to make a shit ton of money.

Right.

You don't have to worship money to make a shit ton of money.

Yep.

And so I think people don't end up getting the money a lot of times

because of their thoughts on themself

and what people have told them about money.

And because so much of our, you know, everywhere in the world

as people have tracked from the ancient ages

to no matter what your beliefs are,

there are studies everywhere that shows how powerful your mind is.

You know, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions,

your actions form your habits and your habits form your life.

So it starts off with your thoughts.

Right.

And so if my thoughts are polluted on money, how am I going to get any?

Because you're not seeing it.

You know, what it means is that well, I got to be bad person.

I don't want to not be a bad, good dad.

I don't want to be a bad husband.

I don't want to be a bad this.

I don't want to be worship money.

And so people get that so they never get the money.

Right.

And so I think, you know, I think I just want to challenge people's thinking on,

there's nothing wrong with you being motivated to, you know,

people I think the right answer to people is always,

well, I'm not money motivated.

I'm not that, you know, money doesn't motivate me that much and all this shit.

Well, I'm going to tell you, money motivates the shit out of me.

Amen.

And I don't apologize for it because they say if you show where a person,

you know, you want to see what's important to a person.

Look at their checkbook and look at their calendar.

And I'll show you in my calendar time that I designate to donating my time,

energy, money, resources, tons of money that I'm donating,

giving away, raising for other things from my hometown to other towns and out of this country.

And I don't say that to be boastful.

I say that to be an influence in an example of, you know,

I'm giving over that 10% number.

Right.

And the more money that we make, the more difference in this world we're going to be able to make.

Just magnifies the person that you are.

What are we doing next week to raise money for what?

Oh, for inspiring minds.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're doing that outing.

Yup.

To get two vans.

Yeah.

And so all I think about is, well, I wouldn't need to do that.

Or I would be able to buy 10 vans to transport more kids if I had 10 times the money or five times

the money.

And so understand that if you're a good person, man, there's a lot of good things you could

do for this world.

If you become a good person with a shit ton of money.

Amen.

And if money makes you like, I think about coaching football.

Okay.

A person gets into coaching sports and coaching things because they like to help others,

but they like to win.

Right.

They like the competitive nature of it.

So if all of a sudden I tell the coach, you're bad if you focus on winning.

You're bad.

If you don't just worry about treating people nice and teaching them, don't hurt their

feelings and teach them.

Don't focus on winning, coach.

Trust.

So don't focus on winning, urban, my, if you focus on winning, you're bad.

It means you don't care about the people.

You just worship the W.

I think what happens is we're all connected in making our lives better if we just focus

on the winning.

Right.

If we focus on winning, we have to grow as a team.

We have to grow as individuals.

We have to do good things.

We have to work out hard.

I have to serve the shit out of my people to get people to follow my ass to win.

Who wants to follow a leader that they don't love and that they don't care about a respect?

So that means I got to serve you properly.

If you're going to be motivated and loyal to me and we're going to win this thing, we

have to be connected in order for us to be connected.

You got to know I care about you, which means can't happen from mouth to mouth to

that's to happen from action.

And so all of these great things have to happen in order to win.

And so if you're motivated on winning, but you get to help people in the process and it

makes you a better coach because you're motivated on winning and ain't the only thing you're

trying to make good people out of them.

You do give a shit about your players trying to make them better fathers.

But it's all circulated around us getting that championship.

But it's not the only thing.

I'm not killing players over it.

I'm not dying people.

I'm not doing shady shit.

I just want to win.

And so I think people that are money motivated in their heart, but they don't want to say

it or do it.

I think they're doing others a disservice.

Not everybody's motivated by that.

But if you say, man, I'm motivated by making a shit ton of money and you can show yourself

on paper.

Man, if I do all these things, I'm going to make a shit ton of money.

And then you know, in order to do that, you got to serve your clients.

Great.

You have to serve better.

You better work harder.

You better become a better person.

You better help more people in order to get that number.

So it motivates you just like if somebody puts a hundred bucks on a basketball game.

Like it's a basketball game.

It makes the game a little bit more fun because it's a hundred bucks.

So it don't have to be the only thing in your life.

But what I'm saying is make sure you guys are educated on the topic of money.

Make sure that you don't think that you can only be, you can't serve others and be a

good person and have money.

Don't put that on yourself because what I've seen is the biggest, you know, I think less

brown said this first.

This is the first place I heard it was out of less browns mouth.

And man, I'm about to get back on a heavy dose of less brown.

I just speaking at notice, I've, you know, in the last couple of years, I haven't been

as heavy on a, on my man less brown, the OG.

And so less brown said it, the problem isn't that people aim to high.

It's that they aim to low and they hit it.

And so it's not that they aim to high and they miss.

It's they aim to low and they hit that shit.

And so I think people don't aim high enough.

You know, I think that, you know, you look at people, you know, like us, I mean, we're

not, you know, you should make a half a million dollars.

If not this year, you'll, you'll be six, seven hundred thousand plus.

You make a half a million this year, dog.

No college education, no, no Harvard, no dad started you off with a pot of money.

No, you know, like I was in welfare lines, no dad, single mom, 19 in juvenile, we ain't

supposed to win like this.

Right.

And there's a lot of people that are.

And they have all those things.

And I think a lot of what starts to stop them is that they're not even expecting at it.

They're not even looking forward or believing in it or thinking about it.

You know what I mean?

Why don't you close us down with with any thoughts at all, quick tips on, on young people that

have to do with with money or anybody that has to do with with money in any last bit of

advice for any entrepreneurs out there.

We got a lot of college athletes listening in.

What advice would you give for people that want to take it to the next level to kind of

round everything out in any any snippets that I missed on your thoughts on money?

Absolutely.

Like I said, you know, for a quick second there, I think that it just magnifies the person

that you already are.

And you say this all the time, if you're a bad person, it might make you worse.

If you're a good person, it could make you an even better person with money.

I think that that's important to remember.

But what I would say to young people and entrepreneurs, man, is, you know, it's going to take time

to be great to do anything truly great is going to I saw this quote.

I'm trying to remember it.

I only saw it once, but it said quick success breeds ego, slow success breeds.

humility. And I think that that's so important to remember that when you look at the

greats, even if it didn't take them a long time, they just crammed a shit ton of work into

a lot of hours, more hours than everybody else. So either way, it's going to take a lot

of it. So like, I think a like, I mean, I think a like the greats like Kobe, Brian or Michael

George, they played basketball for the same amount of time than everybody else. But there's

that quote, you weren't with me shooting in the gym. You know what I'm saying at 4 a.m.

You know, Kobe called his trainer up at 4 o'clock in the morning and the trainer shows

up. Kobe's already sweating, you know, other people weren't doing that. So he had played

basketball the same amount of time as people his age that were playing with him in the

league. The difference was he put more in the time than everybody else did. He put more

time into the time like he might have been playing basketball.

10 years exactly. But in those 20 years, we put in 100 years of work. That's why you accomplished

stuff that nobody else accomplished. Exactly. 100 years of work. Right. And somebody else

did 20 or somebody else did 10. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's been people that have been

in AIL for 12 years, like you. What is it? 12 years now? 14 years. 14 years now. But you

put in way more work in 14 years than they did. And that's why you are where you are and

they are where they are. So young people like, man, it has nothing to do with the amount

of time. It has to do with the time that you're putting in. And it's busy versus effective,

too. You have to remember that. It's not enough to just put in the time. It's like that

John Donahair that I believe is his name. Mr. Donahair, he's a world class jujitsu coach.

He was talking about how people go into practice just to go to practice. And that's not enough.

You have to go into practice with a purpose. And you exactly. And that's the only way you

can progress. So make sure, guys, it's not enough just to be busy. You have to be effective

with your time. And you have to know why you're doing what you're doing with goals and

progressing and moving forward every single day. And then the last thing I would say, embrace

pain. Don't be soft. Embrace pain. Pain is a part of life. Pain is a part of growth.

You can't grow without pain. It hurts to lift weights. It hurts to run miles. It hurts

to hurt. Stephen grow. Like you can remember when your legs were grown, when you're a kid,

that shit hurt. That's life. So I feel like you got to get used to like we try to avoid

pain and our parents try to protect us from pain. And I love it. How your grandpa made

you stay out there and fight. You know, I think that that that would teach us a lot in

life and in business and in sports. People have to get used to pain. And they have to get

used to suffering. And these are things that you have to embrace with the right mindset.

You have to learn how to grow from pain. You have to learn how to grow from setbacks. And

if you can learn how to treat setbacks and pain differently than everybody else, I think

that's going to propel you years ahead of everybody else and where you're at. So I think

in closing, those are the tips that I would have for young people out there. No pain, no

gain. Thanks for joining us. Money, Mike, Magic, Mike, Mike, Russen in the house. Thanks

for joining us on another episode of the grindcast. Get ready. It's a new day.

Count money, man. Money, man.

It's just that time. So try and tell them I'm a beast.