The Grind-Cast “Special Guest Tommy Vena”

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

I told trying to told him I'm a beast.

But what's up, gang?

We're getting to the grind cast.

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Get ready to do the new day.

All right, so welcome back to the next episode of the grind

cast.

We're going to have Tommy Vina on with us today.

Tommy, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, Simon.

Appreciate it, man.

And so a little bit of background on Tommy.

When I moved to Pittsburgh to start our agency,

within the first 90 days, I would meet Tommy.

And he would be one of the first people

that I would meet from Pittsburgh

that would help to lay the foundation,

to grow this organization, to where we are,

and where we've gone beyond.

Tommy is one of the most decorated people

in American income over the last 10 years.

If you look at his track record, multiple times

on stage, multiple, every position he's been in,

he's dominated for this agency.

And I've had the opportunity to,

we have different levels to our agency that we've created.

And so Tommy has earned the title and level of partner.

In our business, he's earned the title of Father

and Husband, also outside of the business and coach.

And he's doing everything at a high level.

I love watching him hang out with his two boys

and had the opportunity to go watch him coach last year,

some flag football for his young son.

And all the parents in the crowd were telling me

what a difference it made in the change in the team

when Tommy started to help out and call the place.

And that's called Winners win.

And Cream always rises to the top.

And so that's just a small background about Tommy.

He's loyal, great son.

And almost anything you could ask out of a person.

We all fall short, nobody's perfect.

But Tommy, you get decently close to it.

Tommy, if we could start out, man,

why don't you tell a little bit about your journey

in business from where we met, how it all happened,

the process of getting started, and then walk us through your life

through today.

And then we'll try to create some nuggets and bullet points

that people can pick from there.

Yeah.

Thank you for all that, man.

I'm just saying all that.

And I'm just trying to walk through.

Like you're saying, when we met, I'm just sitting back here

thinking the day that we met just kind of reliving those feelings

and those thoughts, man.

And just to kind of go a few steps before that,

how that even happened, right?

And I think it was getting into the financial services

and industries was kind of linked us together.

I graduated college, no more than probably 20 miles from where

you did in the same year, which is kind of crazy.

Alligainy, yeah.

On Mother's Day, we both graduated.

We walked that same year.

Alligainy College, Mercyhurst College.

So we both dealt with the snow and the cold.

We played football and the mud and all that stuff.

And you went right into American income.

And I went into the financial services industry.

I first started out to become a real estate agent.

And I got my real estate agent.

I was like, you're going to do the same thing.

So that's kind of crazy.

And then my dad pulled me aside.

And he was like, every time you sell a home,

you're going to get paid on that.

But that's going to be ended in the story.

And I was like, what do you mean by that?

There's no residual income in sale in real estate.

So he taught me about residual income.

He taught me that I need to get into an industry

where I could build residual income.

And he told me you could become a singer.

Or you could get into the financial services industry.

And I said, I knew I could have sing or dance or act much.

So I went into the financial.

I got Mr. Hino, right?

My dad taught me to pop.

I planted that seed.

Plant a dead seed.

He kind of stopped my career in a dead track.

And made me kind of divert.

And I went ahead and got my serious seven,

serious 66 life accident and health.

I got in the financial service industry.

And I love the idea of helping people financially.

And doing all that.

But I was only doing that for like 10% of the time.

Because I don't know people really realize it.

But when you have a financial advisor on your card,

your business card, you're really a professional marketer

and networker.

I was prospecting and marketing like 90% of the time.

Cool calling.

And I enjoyed working with the people,

but the prospecting got old after a while.

So three years of doing that, my friend,

she saw how hard I was grinding.

I mean, my friends call me Tommy Wall Street.

That's all I talked about was the financial services industry.

And then one day she introduced me to you, man.

Through the grace of God, through her,

just looking out, having that just knowledge to like know.

To just, she was even telling me,

you got to meet this guy.

And I give you a lot of credit for feeling it and seeing it.

Because we didn't have all of the things

that we have now to show and show the vision.

All we were on is on a vibe and a vision without seeing

the picture.

Even though it looks like we're done with the movie,

we're just getting started with the movie.

But the movie looks a lot cooler now with nice cars

and beautiful wives and big buildings and vacations.

And we were meeting at Jersey Mikes having sub sandwiches

and coming over my house where I had a couple of roommates

here in Wexford.

And I'm talking to you about the vision.

So thank you for believing in the vision.

And thank God for putting us together.

So go ahead and move on with the story.

So you found a little bit.

You found some interest in what we were talking about.

I tell Tommy, I tell people that we were dating for like three

months.

And I think one of the things that made me feel even more

comfortable with Tommy was his biggest concern.

And I remember the phone calls like it was yesterday.

His biggest concern was his clients.

I just feel bad, man.

These people are trusting me with their money and my clients.

I just want to make sure my clients.

And I remember not pushing you too hard and saying,

take your time.

Whatever it takes to put them into a good spot.

And I remember thinking to myself, man,

if he's that caring about his clients and not just

making a jump, that's a character that we can build on.

And so I would tell Tommy, I said, well, the difference

is what I want you to do is I want you

to love on your clients here the same way, but your clients,

you're going to be in leadership.

And so your clients are going to become your people

versus the clients that you're dealing with financial services.

And so eventually, what would happen is your clients,

the same way you feel about your clients.

I want you to think that way about your people,

taking care of them, worrying about them.

And the same way you worried about them

is the same way that you've been able to develop and multiply

and grow leaders in different offices and stuff like that.

I mean, just a comment on that.

When I was an advisor, I think after three years of it,

I had close to 200 clients.

So I thought when you said that to myself,

I was like, three years.

If I could just get 200 clients built over here in three years.

And then regards what kind of success

would we be able to have and impact

we'll be able to make with that.

So.

What would you say?

One thing that sticks out about the real estate industry,

that mirrors a little bit about what we do.

And what you've done with the math of explaining,

Tommy's residuals right now.

So this is before he wakes up and starts working,

should be $4 million a year.

So if he said, Simon, I'm taking a year off.

I'm not coming in for 2020.

He cannot show up and they're going

to pay him a quarter million dollars

from what he's built up already from serving people

over the last, over the last 10 years.

What he and I have played with is the numbers

of how much real estate that we would need to hold and have

to get that type of cash producing for us

and the amount of money that would need to go into that real estate.

And I like the real estate industry.

I'm a real estate investor.

You own properties.

And so I don't want to say this to knock the game

or I'm not against the game at all

because I participated in the game.

But what I have learned is it's a whole lot more fun

being an investor into the game and building up real estate

than it is to be selling it.

And the second thing is it typically

requires money in the real estate game

to make that type.

And so here you didn't need to have the money

to build up that type of residual income.

And so why don't you explain a little bit because people

that are not in our business need to be educated on residual income

in itself and some of the things that you teach on this stuff.

But there's also, I'd say probably half currently right now,

where we're at, probably half of our viewers and listeners

are in the financial services industry

and a lot of them are in our business.

So they will understand this.

You want to explain some of that, maybe?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So first of all, the clear, people

have understanders residual income and passive income.

If I open up a T-shirt store online

and last night somebody bought a T-shirt, that's passive income.

I'm only going to get paid once on that.

But I kind of is passive though,

because I wasn't actively doing anything to earn that.

Residual income is where you do something once

and you get paid forever on that.

Like Michael Jackson sung that song Thriller.

Yep, my dad said, how many times did he go into the studio

and record that song you hear on the radio one time?

But every time it plays, every Halloween,

someone's getting paid, right?

Residual income from doing one thing one time.

So in the financial services industry,

there's a way to build that.

Life insurance, when somebody takes a life insurance policy out,

that's what a trick question I was asked people was,

how long should people pay for their life insurance for?

Obviously, it's for their entire life, right?

So as long as they have that program in place,

the person who initiated and rolled them into that

and helped them and served that client

and really made a difference because without that agent,

going to that person and making that sale,

go down.

That person would be in the same position

they were the day before.

It's a night and day difference

when somebody has life insurance

and when they don't have life insurance.

So they made a big change, help that family out.

For them doing that, they're gonna get paid

every single month, essentially,

for the rest of that policy's life

for the rest of that client's life.

So, in life insurance, you could essentially do it one time

and get paid over and over and over.

Now, in the financial services industry,

it's a little different because I would have had

to build a book of business and manage your assets.

And then if I manage $10 million or $100 million,

no matter what I'm managing,

you could typically make a half a percent

to a percent and a half off that book of business.

So everybody would always use 1%

as what you would make off of the book of business.

So if I could manage $100 million,

it'd make 1% a year.

I could make a million.

But the incentive is for me to manage it good

because if I could grow that $100 million to $200 million,

now I just double my income.

You double their income.

Me and you go out of skin in the game.

I want to grow your assets for you, you know?

But the problem is, is that's not true residual income.

Guess what I wanna do every day.

Every day you wake up in the stock market is here

and then China does something overnight.

And now it's over here.

So it's not even in control.

You can't control over it, you know?

None.

And so that's kind of, that was where I was going, you know,

with it.

And part of the sales were life insurance.

You could build in some residual income

of that in the life insurance sales,

because that's what you do.

The number one of the main things you do

as a financial advisor is you protect your clients.

And we do that through life insurance,

which people don't really realize.

So when they hear life insurance agent.

I looked out getting into the life insurance game,

and I looked out meeting you, you know,

when I talk about the life insurance game,

you know, I was doing that about three years

before I met you, and I lucked out coming out of college.

And the reason why I said I lucked out

is anytime you're really doing sales, true sales.

Not like I'm sitting there waiting on somebody,

you know, but like true, true sales, it's uncomfortable.

You know, as you gotta ask people, like even right now,

I'm in the process, what a youth program.

And that's why I think kids, hey, listen up, kids.

Woo, this for you, listen, young people.

It's like my son, I want him to wrestle.

You got your son wrestling, right?

It's awesome.

I want my son to wrestle because of what it teaches kids.

But the base, you know, of everything I've learned

in almost 10 years now, training Jiu-Jitsu

and expanding into other martial arts.

I mean, man, if you got that good base of wrestling,

you're really starting at a good spot.

It's difficult to get into that game

and not be able to wrestle.

It's difficult to get into sports

and not be able to move.

So footwork is a good place for you to learn some sports.

That's why they say gymnastics or things

with your footwork, because I don't pay off in any sport.

Man, kids, if you ain't learning sales,

at some point you're gonna need to learn to sell.

I'm telling you, if you're a dentist,

you better be able to sell.

If you're an attorney, you better be able to sell.

Your case, sell your services, sell it, sell it.

What it is that you do, anything that you do,

so now I'm working with the nonprofit youth program

that I started with others as an expansion

of inspiring minds and warn with their tolls.

We expanded it out.

You've helped me with that immensely.

In Youngstown, I'm back to selling.

And it's uncomfortable.

I'm selling the kids.

I'm selling what we're doing.

And I need a couple bucks a month.

And I'm gonna ask you for a couple bucks to the Friday.

You know, I'm gonna ask an obnoxious doors,

you know, right now asking my car tractor,

man, give me a couple bucks for these kids.

I'm asking the doctors.

I'm asking Jimmy one.

I'm stopping at the restaurant.

And I'm like, man, I'm back in the door to door.

You know, I'm back in the sales, you know.

No matter what you do, if you're going to be a parent,

you're going to have to sell your kids a little bit.

I'm telling you, if for no other reason,

if for nothing else, if you plan on doing anything

and like with people, if you don't get yourself

a couple years of wrestling,

couple years of sales under your belt,

I'm telling you that I'll never, never, ever, ever fail you.

And I think when I say where I lucked out is,

I don't know if I could have been as passionate selling

anything else other than knowing.

For a fact, it's 100% chance these people

are going to need this stuff, they're going to use this stuff

and what happens if they don't have this stuff.

And then to be able to be paid on something

that you believe in and people that you care about

and people that you're working with,

we got to work with blue collar people

and all of that stuff.

But I got off on the tangent a little bit.

Why don't you help them understand and explain

the residuals that you've accumulated?

Why don't you use that as an example?

And it's going to go up, we check back in on this podcast

in a couple of years, you're going to see Tommy's double.

But where you're at right now with the quarter million a year,

safely if somebody were to try to gain that

into something that would pay them residual income, create,

like I try to create on the side a little bit

of residual income in real estate.

And boy, to get 20,000 a month, woo!

You better be pumping a lot of money into that soccer.

Quarter million dollars a year, that ain't no million dollar

investment.

That ain't no $2 million investment.

That ain't even no $3 million investment.

There's a lot of money that you would need to pump in.

And I think that's what people don't understand.

They hear what other people say.

And they don't understand how much money actually

it would take to create 20 grand a month, a quarter million

dollars a year.

Why don't you just, can you give us the reader's

digest version education on residuals?

Yeah, and this has an example.

So, but just a comment on, you're going through just right now

all the sales you just had to go through for an inspiring

minds and looking back at it.

I'm grinding.

Looking back at it, you kind of laugh.

And it's kind of almost fun.

I remember going through the sales and it sucks.

Being out there doing the sales.

But then I look back at it and you're like,

man, those were like the glory days.

And you're kind of almost getting nostalgic about it.

So, anybody's out there in sales.

Trust me, man.

This is your prime time right now to get your sales out

of the way so that you can't give what you don't have.

So, you got to be able to go through it, learn.

That's why we're able to teach other people.

Because we got our butts kicked out there in the field.

The best way you learn is through failure.

So, even though it might suck going through it one day,

you're going to be able to sit back 10 years from now and be

like, man, those were the days.

I remember when I sat down with this guy.

I remember this week.

I had, I remember this month.

Well, everybody wants to manage.

I think to manage is that's great.

It's huge.

Then you can impact more people.

But when you look at management, and it's really,

I don't really deal with management.

This is the first thing you told me to fry gotten management here.

You got to manage me.

Management, the word management, if you separate it's manage me.

And so in order for me to, like, we got Tommy,

Tommy does wrestling.

Well, who coaches them on wrestling?

Not somebody that's never wrestled.

Not somebody that's never, you know,

you better put some years into the game before you're

teaching my son.

And so a lot of times people just want to skip.

Go, you know what I don't really want to sell.

I just want to teach sales, but I've never really sold nothing.

And so I think it's important to go out there and get

you, cut your teeth, get some, get some wins, get some losses,

get some bloody noses.

You know what I mean?

Out there and learn a process.

But man, you got to teach us about residual income.

OK.

So we can go on and on.

We love it.

We love the game.

Yeah, we had, we had, so I'm going to get into it.

We went from financial advising.

We talked about life insurance is my opinion the best.

Then there's financial advising.

That's the way that works.

The real estate, I mean, first of all, to be able to get 20,000

a month was a question.

Yeah.

I'd save it $4 million.

And that's it at what about a 5% return?

Yeah, that'd be 200,000 a year.

That'd be a probably middle of the road.

Because then some of that, you're going to have to put back in

the keeping the places up cap.

And then you're going to have to deal with vacancies.

6% 7% will bring you to about a quarter mill.

Is that what it'll be?

About a quarter mill.

So you'd have to get right around.

4 mill invested.

4 mill, 6.

And that's pumping some pretty good numbers.

I said.

Or are you going to get to 4 million from?

First you got to make the 4 million.

Well, everybody wants to get in the real estate.

But then I'll realize you have to take money to get in the real

estate.

So people start out with these small properties.

And there's other ways.

You can leverage that money.

You get in the game.

You can hopefully the market is where you want it to be.

Hopefully your credit is where you want it to be.

All these things have to play perfectly.

Hopefully, all of it.

And then you can pull some of that equity out years down the road.

There's things that you can do to leverage that money.

It's a process.

It's a process.

Like anything else.

It's a process.

And so then you could go above 6%, 7% and go to 10%.

But then if the market dips, like let's say the market dips.

And we go from where we're at to where we were in 2000s.

Well, all of a sudden if the property was 4 million,

you might be worth 3 million now or 2 and 1 half million now.

The good thing is you're getting cash coming back.

People are still going to need to rent.

And you just got to wait it out.

It may take you 10 years to get back to that number or 15

years back to that number.

What I love about this game is not only

does it create opportunities to invest in things like that.

But what I love about this game is that it's not really

dictated by the market.

If the market drops, they're still going to send you a check.

People still love their families.

People are still like the you're not going to that's not

going to be the first thing that you're that you're taking off

the table.

And so to get a quarter mill coming in every year.

And then it goes up every year.

Somebody would need to have typically $3, $4 million in cash.

And that would be like you saving right now $400,000 a year

over the last year.

You would have to have it paid off in full.

Pay off.

If you have $4 million in property, but it's all leveraged out

and mortgageed out, you might be getting $20,000 a month

in rental payments.

But more than half of that's going to pay the mortgage back.

So you're not really clearing until it's paid off in full.

So who knows how long that would really take to have that all

paid off.

And then if you did have it all paid off,

you're probably going to want to remorgas the place and take

the money out and keep doing the same thing.

But the one thing I always point out though,

is if you own all this real estate, it's not true residual

income because now you have to deal with tenants all day long,

plumbing issues, zoning.

If you don't want to deal with it, then you hire it out.

Then you hire it out.

I'll take out of the profit and do that.

But I don't want my friends to think I'm not going to worry about it.

I got friends in the real estate market.

That's number two.

Number one's life insurance.

No doubt.

No doubt.

That's my number two.

Yeah.

I mean, that's 100%.

And also invest into the market a little bit.

So I'm thinking, well, I got money in the market.

What would a buddy of mine?

I got money to real estate game.

What would a buddy of mine?

And those are great.

But otherwise you can have to bear it in the backyard.

You can't do that.

This business is number one at real estate number two.

And for me, you know, for it.

And then the market stuff is a little riskier than number three.

Tommy, building this business, you know, building what you've had the chance to accumulate.

And, you know, when I read books and thinking grow rich and a lot of the books that I'm reading

and the people that I'm studying and researching, a lot of the data points to your business prime

being in your 40s.

And not a, so technically you're 35 years old.

It's another ironic thing.

Our birthdays are within a couple days, like the legit birthday.

And so you're not even in your business prime yet.

But over your last 10 plus years, you know, in this business, 12 plus years in business

in general, what would, what would you say people can take from this that you've learned?

Can you give us some tips from a business building standpoint, leadership standpoint,

understanding there's people out here in sales, trying to build something.

There's people out here, you know, in all different markets.

There's doctors listening in right now.

You know, but they still got a leverage money and get to the next level.

What tips on investing into the business, the blood, sweat equity that it takes, overcoming

obstacles in adversity, if you're sitting here giving me advice and I'm in my first year

and you say, man, you look like you got some talent.

And I say, Tommy, tell me what it's going to take, you know, for me to get to where you

are, what advice would you give me?

So I don't want to go on a complete crazy tangent, but you were talking about when, when,

you know, Dr. Fen, he graduated, all these, when they graduate, they're, they got

to get in sales.

I just wanted to, as a side note, you're talking about them graduate.

I'm like, when people become a doctor, they might be great doctors, but they might not

have a great doctor practice because the number one is...

They can't sell to sell.

You know, that's why I'm not doing things good.

So I just said, yeah, he's the king of the follow up.

The king.

Yeah, the king of the follow up.

But anyways, you know, what would it take, you know, someone, I was just speaking to somebody

yesterday about this, which is just a coincidence.

And I said, you kind of got to choose what you're looking to accomplish.

If you want to, you know, a small, a small, if you're looking to do something small, it's

going to be probably a lot easier.

When we went, we went out to Lake Mead in Las Vegas.

And I took the team out there because we were number one for the air.

I took all my guys on a boat and we, we docked the boat.

We beached them.

And I pulled off and I said, guys, we got two mountains.

We got this mountain over here and this mountain over here.

And I said, which one do you guys want to walk to the top two?

Because I want you guys to just see everything from a different perspective.

And everybody chose the big mountain.

And I was like, are you guys sure?

Like, I'm the one who is like really?

Because I didn't want anybody complaining.

And they all chose the big mountain.

And I said, why?

And they said, because it's going to be a better view up there.

You know?

And so I said, I said, I warned the girl yesterday.

I said, if you want to find, choose the mountain, be where, which mountain you want to choose.

But no, if you choose the mountain, you want to put the work in to go see the view.

Yeah.

So, so the bigger mountain was a lot more work.

Yes.

So we went to the top of this thing, man, and Jessica, her foot on the way up.

She's wearing sandals, of course.

And we got all the way to the top of the mountain.

And the mercy and the way up the mountain.

And the message was I said, not everybody made it to the adventure, not everybody made it on the boat,

not everybody on the boat, even made it to the top of the mountain.

But all of us up here look at the view that we have.

The perspective on everything is completely different at the bottom of the mountain.

And we stood at the bottom of the mountain.

And if you took a picture of what you saw, like if you did one of these things,

all you saw was six feet in front of your face and just a bunch of dirt.

And then we climbed to the top of the mountain.

And it was harder to get to that one longer.

But the view was way better.

And it changed our whole perspective.

Now if you took a picture of what we were looking at, I mean, through that,

I mean, what did you see?

You didn't see six feet in front.

You saw mows and mows.

You saw everything.

Moutain range is amazing.

So I say what we want to do, guys, is when you come to the top of the mountain,

you want to be able to get a better perspective for yourself.

Even if it's a five-second glimpse, because now you can go back down

and your perspective has changed.

And now you can get other people to the top of the mountain, help them change their perspective as well.

But what would be your mission would be the first thing,

because if you want to do something big, you got to understand it's going to be

it's going to be longer, harder, harder journey.

Investing, I mean, it's two things you can invest time and money.

So you don't have a lot of money.

You got to invest time.

That's sweat after you.

You got to get out.

You got to put the time in, man.

And what I did, I moved right next to the office when I started,

so that later I could wake up good or bad, and I didn't really miss any time.

Did you say at all?

I mean, resigning came into the office.

He had a map of the United States, and he said, we're going to have offices everywhere.

And so we got to get the work.

Mows will get some sleeping bags.

And he did, I went home, and I said, Mom, I'm going to need to

get a place next to the office because I can't live in the office.

So just having, I think that's just a huge point in anybody trying to build their business.

You got to be close.

I mean, you're spending an hour and a half, two hours a day driving, five days a week,

that's ten hours a week, that's 40 hours a month, that's a whole work week driving in

the car, stress, time, money.

People don't understand.

Sometimes people get to think and penny wise.

Crazy.

And pound foolish.

Yeah.

So you think, how much are you worth per hour?

When you start to get decent at something.

And so let's say you come up with, man, per hour, I'm 40 bucks an hour, 50 bucks an hour,

and it gets all the way up to 10,000 an hour.

Let's say you're 50 bucks an hour.

50 bucks an hour, 100,000 a year, 40 hours a week.

So if you're 50 bucks an hour, and it's taking you, it would be professional income.

Yeah.

It's taking you an hour to get home, hour to get back, traffic, stress, there's two hours

a day, five days a week.

It's dying in the car access.

10 hours.

You know what I'm saying?

Gas, right?

Gas, tolls, beat down on the car.

You know what it whatever it is.

And so if we just look at saying, well, 50 hours a month, and then how about if you got

to put that into working with people?

So I don't have time.

Right.

Or you put that 50 hours in the month into the exercise that you don't have time for, or

the people, you know, 50 hours a work more, or 40 hours a work more, for the whole

month.

Because you're driving this much time.

You look at that 40, 40 hours, and you take it, or 50 hours, and you take it times five,

all of a sudden there's $2,500 a month.

A lot of time.

A lot of time.

What's the difference between where they're living and moving closer to where they would

work?

It's not that they're already paying a thousand and the move closer would be 1500.

Yep.

You know what I mean?

It's only a $500 month difference in a lot of people's cases.

That's a good thought process.

You know, so the whole idea of just understanding time and money, that's one small little

teeny little sliver piece to the puzzle right there.

You know, there's, and if you're so focused that you would live that close to the office

and you care about your time that much, then you understand the value of it.

How do we talk about the time for a minute?

What amount of, like a lot of people see your lifestyle now?

And so we talk about passive income and, you know, what people don't see in people that

have, quote, made it, and you never really make it or still making it.

It was still working on it.

But, you know, for the process of where you're at right now, you're not doorknoc and you're

not making sales calls, you're not going out in the field, you're not...

working weekends hard, but you work when you get home we do outings for people and you

know we're always working but the lifestyle looks phenomenal where you could be coaching

on a Saturday or you could pick up Tommy on a Tuesday or you can do take him to school

whatever you want to not have to stress over it.

People see that life right now and they're like oh man Tommy you know he ain't grinding

or he hasn't done.

They forget or people don't realize same with me or others.

What did you do the first five years to get to this position?

What did you do the first three years?

So why don't you talk to us in general in a general standpoint.

What type of work do you think it takes for somebody to build a business or to build them

self-upper to be great at anything?

What type of upfront work would you say?

Yeah.

You know like what hours were you putting in the beginning?

So I wish it was...

I could just honestly I wish.

You know I could tell my new guy who's coming in.

I wish I could just say it's 20 hours a week bro.

Easy.

I wish it was like that but for me to be a good honest decent human being in person and

be real.

You know I'll be lying to somebody if I told him they could get it done in 40 hours a

week.

I'd feel like a bad person like how could you go to bed and like telling that boy he's

going to get to where he wants to go and bring everybody's family his whole family's dreams

in 40 hours a week.

To be real it's 80 hours a week, it's seven days a week, it's no days off and that's what

your shirt is.

I mean literally.

But from taking no days off...

That no I'm going to get...

You end up getting it shit ton of days off.

No days off though.

That's what people don't get it's like no days off.

No days off.

No days off.

So if something was going on and I told my mom and dad what I was doing I said I'm

going on a mission and they know even when I do something I go all in and I mean my

mom knew I asked my mom I said I'm not going to be able to handle anything so thank you

to my mom like literally for the first three years of my career I didn't even know when

my bills were due.

She was like she just did it all for me.

She knew that I was I needed to be zoned in like a doctor like so zoned in where no

distractions I didn't even know when my laundry well no what was going on.

I'd show up in my house though and there'd be bottles of water in the refrigerator you

know food drinks and she'd have the place like clean and I wouldn't be able to do it without

her you know but that's the zone didn't focus so small little things like that like I didn't

even let my bills be a distraction you know I don't know what they were when they were

due.

That focus that zoned in.

Yeah.

Where are we going in June middle of June you remember where we're going.

We're going that we're going to Italy with our whole families.

Our whole families are here.

I mean I'm going with you in Justin and Maddie like the people that were in here grind

like we were living together okay and now we're going to Italy together and I'm going to

Spain I'm going to Greek we're going to be in Vellas.

We're going to be we're going to be gone for that.

These coming the whole staff is gone.

We're in another country multiple country some of us for two weeks plus yeah and the reason

why we're able to do that is because of no days off in the beginning.

And we're going to work man and everybody like you're.

Your mom was there.

Tons of people pitched in.

Your mom was there in this teeny little square of a room with another person nobody seen

that.

Three staff people.

How about Matt, these little trap houses?

She had a closet.

You know all this stuff about offices you put a window you put a window in a closet to

make it look like an office.

We had to work with you told us from the bottom now we here.

She had boxes stacked up about the fall on her.

That's a big and big ass office.

Now she got a nice office which you know

Choose on the walls and all kind of cool shit, right? Yeah, yeah, that's process going to Italy

You know, so I think at the beginning man

It's it was it was just a lot of time and the only way to do that was to blow out all distractions

You know my dad came up on a Sunday and I said hey dad

I need to be able to recruit this week and he get the and get my team built

But the only way I'm gonna be able to do that is also like to hit these numbers out for my production

So I can't be bogged out making phone calls my dad came up on a Sunday and he made phone calls with me

So that I can set up my schedule, you know and you must have sold a hell of a vision

For where you were going, you know have them back you like that right my dad was helping recruit people into the business

Still to this day, you know, so I think that's a big thing is if you get can get the the key people around you to have your back

Not be on your back be on your side not be on your back

You know, that's huge yeah

You know a lot of you're you're talking about stuff when we were young

Yeah, you know we were parents and stuff, you know the main and but the key thing is is a lot of kids or people they can't even sell their

Parents, you know, I mean you have to sell your vision, you know because what what happens is if you're gonna do something out of the

Ordinary and you don't have to but if you're gonna do something out of the ordinary a

Lot of people are gonna think that you're weird, you know that you're doing something wrong

And I was thinking of you know, I don't know about you

It sounds weird, but I always talk about this stuff because I'm keeping it 100 unless you want me to keep it not 100

And so I get a lot of ideas in the shower

And so I grind it out six to seven I was boxing this morning. I stretch real good by seven thirty. I was in the shower

I'm thinking in the shot. I'm thinking man the advice I gotta give my kids like my my kids like I don't know what better

Like this ain't me just trying to tell people stuff for settlement like I'm thinking what I'm gonna teach Cienna

What I'm gonna teach my son is tell me what your dream is and

Then I'm gonna tell you our job is to tell them what it's gonna cost the price of that

That trust will tell us man all the time like people say why I want to make it to the NFL

Well, let's look at what the size is what the speed is that people that play at your position

And what type of work it's gonna take and let's see if you still want to do that if you do the let me hold you accountable to that

But I'm gonna tell whatever it is. Let's say Cienna, you know, she right now

She's that she likes to act and model and you know do these all the things

So let's say she says man. I want to be an actress

I'm gonna I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna explain to her all the people that say they want to be an actress and what percentage actually becomes

These actresses that you see on you know Broadway or the actresses that you see in movies that has to be less than 1%

Yeah, has to be yeah

And so let's say my son says man. I want to be you know

I want to be the best football player and I was thinking like even if he's small like me

I feel like I can teach him how to create that if he if he has the the just medium

Ability good average to good we can go ahead and make you damn near great

Yeah, if you're willing to put into work and so my explanation to my son is gonna be if you're telling me you want to win a state

Championship how many teams are in the state how many teams get to win one and so that means your your team if there's

300 teams out there you got to be less than 1% what's gonna make you and your team 1%

And so what people need to understand is

Your your what you want you have to calculate what percentage of America gets to do it

And so if you want to make you know, I know a hundred thousand dollars 5% go ahead and Google it

5 6% of America is a hundred gram

And so that means you have to do something more or different and think differently than 95% of America

What percentage of Americans would like to have a hundred thousand dollars a year that don't have a hundred thousand

Arge here, I mean, I think almost everybody would have one a hundred thousand

And so then let's say well my dream is to you know, it's not just the money

But I'm pointing it in you know, let's say youth programs

Okay, so I remember when Derek first met with me and he tells me you know

He's telling me that the the amount of youth programs that start up in in in the city period

That don't make it past three years sounds a lot like businesses that start that don't make it past three years

And so when you look at that and you're going through well, these are the reasons why most of them fail

A lot of them have great ideas. We want to help how many people say I want to help kids

Okay, you want to help kids, but you don't want to you don't want to grind for the fundraiser

You don't want to go visit them at night

You don't want to deal with the stress and the hassle and all the adversity and all the so

You have to ask yourself puppy poppy syndrome everybody wants a puppy

Everybody want a dog

And so what I'm a pass it over Tommy and jump in anytime you want

But what I'm what I'm saying is

What we're talking about is somebody that wanted to be a part of 1%

Of of of organization 1% of America

And so part of 1% of America I heard from Gary V saying

I think 1% of America makes over $400,000 a year you got almost all of that beat before you wake up by the way

But 1% of America makes that that means people that you come in with if you think this is where people get in their own head

If there's a hundred people Tommy

That means you have to outwork 99 out of those hundred you can't be saying man

I'm working so hard I'm doing everything

Well, did you want to be better than 90% or did you want to be better than 99%

You can't be feeling bad for yourself. They're got to be two of us standing out of 200 people that are willing to grind if you want to be a part of the 1%

So if you don't you either need to change your goal, which is fine. That's why I never judge anybody

I treat the people that handle our trash

The same way I would treat somebody that owns the mall right a friend of mine talked to me from from Tennessee

She told me where she lives. I said my dude owns that mall like literally where she lives

Mr. Cafferle owns that mall

And so I'm talking to her about that and I would treat him

The same way I try to see

Intenacy, yeah, the same way I would treat the people that I love that that clean up our trash and wash the mats for us

So I'm not saying that that from an ego or issue like I'm saying if you

Understand I don't want to put in that much work. I don't want to do that stuff

Then you got to say this is my goal or you can do what we've done and I'm passing it right over to you

Here's the concept. Here's why people get discouraged Tommy as they say well

I don't want to not be able to

See my kids. Yeah, okay. You see your kids a shiptun. I don't want to not be able to do things with my wife

We're going out of the country. I think you've been you know out of the country already once or twice this year

We've been to Las Vegas. We've been

I mean we've been with your wife

We've been all over the place of the United States of America, but so people say man

I'd love to be Tommy. You know, I'd love to but

The reason why you're able to have all this time with your kids all this time with your family all this time

What you're with that is because of the upfront grind and so I'm here to tell you you can't have it all

You can have the American dream if you're willing to pay the price up front, okay?

We're in a credit card society like here. Let me get this on credit

I mean whoop me swipe this sucker and then give me it all and then I'll pay it when I get an opportunity to

But in business and in life real life like I can't say here hit me would have won make me a beast football player

And then I'll go ahead and put in work. Yeah, you have to put in all the work upfront for no pay

In football like bet riding the bench getting red shirted in order to go ahead and in and have an opportunity

Why don't you give them a glimpse of like what you think it takes but what's on the other side?

Yeah, like put in the work. What does it really take to be great in anything?

It's not just our business is anything, but what's on the other side? Yeah

My son he said he said he said Tommy went or my son said when I can drive daddy

Can I have a Lambo? That's what he said, you know all these kids when they're young there you said when I'm 16

I said I said I said son. Yeah, right. I said son when

You get a people who get straight a

Get lambo's so you can't get any bees. You can't get any bees

It's what it takes, you know, and and it's in life, you know

So I was just letting them know up front like you're not don't even think about getting a Lambo if you start getting any

Bees on your report car because it's like it's you know, I mean

So anyways, what you know what it takes I've ever walked in the door and and a manager throughout there

He looked at me. He said are you a one-percenter?

I said I don't know what's a one-percenter. He said you know are you better than 99% of everyone out there, you know and and if you can get into the top 1%

You know you'll be set you'll be set for life. So you know what

What I did is is I looked around and I and I found I looked out what everybody else was doing and

I made sure that at number one I was working harder like you said you got to beat everybody will work ethic

So I mean I cut all distractions out like we talked about it made sure I could put 100% percent in me

20-500 days seven days a week into the zone then and because of that you started to make money fast fast

You made money fast fast people said well, I don't have enough money to get started like you made 10 grand your first

Money you think it so it takes time yeah, you know, yeah

So I was I was doing that and then I

Think when you asked a question about building a business though

It's you have to beat everybody else 99% of everybody else with with with with character as well and and

Reinvesting

Investing if everybody else is investing you got to invest more not not just your time

But but with with with your money, you know smarter and I've made and the only way you get good at investing

Well, we get good at anything is by doing it

So we're talking about making professional income $50 an hour. It's what they're saying you know to make professional

Income you have to first be a professional

You know, you know, you know, you don't say well pay me professional income

Then I'll start being a professional, but you know

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to become professional or anything

So if you want to do 40 hours a week

That's gonna take you about five years to hit your 10,000 hours if you do 80 hours a week two and a half years and you can become a

Professional, but I mean that's it one thing so in our business we got to do sales

We got to do recruiting we got to do investing what to do self-development

We got to help others so people want to you know

Give to others, but you got a first point to yourself and people like well

I'm not that good at developing myself. I said well how many hours have you put into developing yourself?

You're not a profession or self-development yet because you haven't put 10,000 hours into

Developing yourself, you know, and that and that's why you're not a professional at developing others yet because you haven't put 10,000 hours in

Developing others it takes time and it's a process so if people are starting their business

They can't come in thinking they're gonna make professional income

But if they put that time in and then what happens is when you get the you put the time in I made money and when I made the money

I found ways where I could take the money and and invested back into the the business to buy me time

That's where I watch you be like get it an assistant nobody saw that this is this is where you beat a lot of people that were you know

They're neck and neck

you both were putting in time and then you both got the same amount of money.

I watched you pull away in the investing side.

You would, in still, you invest heavily.

You invest into the business to buy yourself time and a full of assistance staff,

but also to make more money.

Yeah. And it's not like, so when you invest the money back into the business to get you,

it get you results too.

You invest the money to make it, but also to buy me time.

So by having the assistance, having a staff, having somebody to help you with,

with making phone calls, all that stuff to buy your time back.

And then if you take that time and you pour back into the business again,

now you're going to be able to develop yourself and become professional

and more aspects like recruiting.

How are you professional recruit people?

I'm no good at recruiting.

Well, you haven't spent 10,000 hours recruiting,

making calls, doing interviews, all that kind of stuff.

You know, you're not a professional with sales because you haven't spent 10,000 hours out there doing

face-to-face sales.

You're not a professional on the phones because you haven't spent 10,000 hours doing that.

So, you know, you really got to add that all up.

Fast forward that, almost like a time machine and get stuff done instead of five years,

two and a half years.

If you understand the concept of time, then you could use the money that you make

and invest it back in to get more time.

And here's the key, though.

When you get that time, you have to take your time and go back to work with it

and use it to make more money.

And then you get that more money and you put it back in and then you get more time.

More money and more time.

And it keeps going, though.

So what we've probably got another five, 10 minutes.

And part of what being more successful on anything, not just money,

but just elevating yourself, is going to come with more obstacles adversity.

How would you, one of the, I mean, there's, you've been through tons of adversities.

But, you know, one sticks out about, you know, Antonio, who, you know,

Tommy's son had heart issues before he was born.

We knew this was going to happen.

Even a percentage of kids don't even make it.

You know, when that happens and the stress that that could put on a family and on a person.

As a father.

And so we go through that and still the business is okay.

But that's just one.

That was recent.

This, I mean, you had adversities all the way up.

So any tips you could think of to give people, how have you been able to

mentally, because we all have mental battles.

If you show me somebody that has lasted, to be successful was to last.

And, and, you know, I don't know if it was a, was it pop?

I can't remember who said to live is, is, is, is to struggle, you know,

or to survive as the meaning of, of, of struggle.

But to get to where you need to be, I mean, we're going to struggle.

You're going to have adversity, you're going to have obstacles.

And I think people just give up during those moments and think it's only them, you know,

to mean, and they don't see the person that made it.

They just were able to make it through the same stuff differently than you.

Is there anything in your perspective, anything in your mindset, anything that you could

coach somebody on that would help them when they go through the

adversities and obstacles, you know, because you're going to have rain

in order to see the sun.

Yeah.

And appreciate the sun.

So anything that you could think of that you've been able to do?

Well, I mean, when I was down in business, I would always tell myself it gets

darkest before the dawn.

So, you know, one bad thing would happen, another bad thing would happen,

and sure enough, another one.

And then that's where most people start the, the, the crumble.

You know, and then, and then that's where you should really get excited, though.

And I would start to trick myself and get excited and say, listen,

some stuff went down.

Probably a couple more bad things are about to happen, bro.

So just get ready.

I'm talking to myself.

And, and then, uh, and then sure enough, three bad things happen in a row.

And I'm like, I knew it.

And all this has happened because, you know, it's the devil trying to take me out

because it sees greatness in me.

And he does it want me to do what I'm about to do because I'm about to go help a lot of people

and do good.

So it's a lot easier for him to take me out now when I'm young.

And it's like a weed.

Like I'm, I'm gonna be a big oak tree, but I'm just like this little plant right now.

He's trying to take me out one week.

So if you have awareness, you know, it's kind of going on out there.

Then you're not gonna be as, uh, thinking like the world's out to get you.

People think, oh, the world's out to get me.

Everything bad's happening to me.

And you think everything bad's happened for me.

Getting in, it's just a devil trying to get at you.

And if you have understood, then he's not gonna want to mess with me

five, 10 years from now when I'm a big oak tree.

He's just gonna want to go after some small little ones because that was easy for him to pick off.

You know, so if you have understanding of that,

really, really helped me.

Yeah, that was big.

What else?

I think, you know, I think, uh, when my son was, you know, in the hospital, you know,

I think I talked to Marcus Smith.

And he said, you know, I just just quote, always sticks with me.

You know, I don't know, you know, what the future holds, but I know who holds it.

You know, or I put on confident in who holds it, you know, and then controlling what I can't

control anytime I got in those situations where I was just completely just, I didn't know what to do.

I went back to, back to the basics, control what you can control.

Seven happens to highly effective people, you know, and-

That's a big one.

I think when people get stressed out the most-

I couldn't control my son in the hospital.

They're trying to control what they need.

There's nothing I could control about it, man.

There's nothing I can control.

Not many things are more stressful than somebody trying to control what's suddenly out of my time.

Control, you know, I just sit there and do what I could control, which was like,

try to make sure the room was set up nice.

Make sure my wife was in the best spirit possible because I felt like the baby would be able to feel

her.

And if she was good, then it would put-

And the doctors in the nurses said, you know what, he healed up fast, he healed up healthy,

and you guys were there every single day.

And I think it made a big difference.

But you know, I think it was, I mean, we have some other things-

That's another thing that people don't see-

In there, man.

That's crazy.

It's not only were you there every single day for months, months.

Yeah.

And he had a quick recovery.

And then he had to go home and we had to be zoned in.

But the support that you receive from people around the country, you know, in the company,

you talk about family and loyalty, you know.

Yeah.

And makes a big difference.

I was proud.

Huge difference.

But another thing is what people don't look at is-

Man, I said, man, Tommy was able to be there every day.

Can you imagine if you were at a nine to five or, you know, how much vacation time would

a person have to take for six months or three months?

They don't have the ability.

These kids, their parents weren't able to be there.

In the ability that we had to keep the income flowing, keep the company rocking, keep the

agency rocking, keep everything going while we're there with the family is the exact

fruit from your labor that you receive when people think that you were doing the opposite.

Putting in a lot of work in the upfront in the beginning, well, don't you love your family?

Well, now you get a chance to spend time with them.

I never knew this was going to happen.

I never knew my second son was going to have open heart surgery three days after he's

born in three months.

You know, I didn't know any of that was going to happen.

But before I even had a family, I knew I needed to grind in my 20s because when I have a

family, I'm going to love them so much and I want to be able to provide everything for

them.

I never was thinking that I'm going to need to grind in my 20s because of something really

bad happened in my 30s.

I'm going to need to be funny.

I wasn't even thinking about that.

But I think the whole situation when he was in the hospital, the company, I didn't get

a chance.

I was on stage in Las Vegas two weeks ago maybe.

I was going to end it.

I was going to say I'd like a chance to build up the company for a second and build a

whole room up and tell everybody I was written down in my speech that I was going to say

how I had told he was in the hospital and through one of the hardest times, we had people

all over the whole entire company.

People from literally every state, people I never met before reaching out, just even if

it was a Facebook message, social media, but I mean, we had flowers.

I remember Mike Vasue sent the biggest stuff there ever with like a huge fruit basket and

little does you know, but that fruit made the day that day.

It was like everybody was loving it, the nurses and everybody.

And all those small things, people taking the pictures of the hearts, like you don't know

how much, that really, really, like the thoughts, the prayers, you could feel, like you could

feel it.

And really, really was amazing how everybody stepped up.

Simon, you were flying up from Florida.

Maddie D was coming, Justin was coming.

My mom was literally there every other day.

Like people were bringing us food so we didn't have to go home.

It was just like unreal and in flew by.

I mean, it's sad, but I mean, the kid in the room next to him didn't make it.

And I was eating food with his dad, you know, like it was rough.

I mean, to go to a funeral, you know, for it was just unreal, especially when you're

starting to want to go through that.

And I mean, the children's hospital wasn't an amazing place.

You know, really, you know, so I try any time I try and give back, like people say,

what can you donate to children's hospital, easy one?

You know, you know, your money's going to a good cause if you do that.

No doubt.

I think in closing, Tommy, and thank you for everything that you do.

And thank you for being on the groundcast.

I would just say that, you know, you brought up Mike Vasu and the Big Bear.

And Mike Vasu's slogan is sacrifice creates opportunity.

Opportunity.

And so what we were talking about is the sacrifices.

You know, we didn't really have a plan to talk about that.

But what would end up happening is if you're going to talk to somebody about having success,

you're probably going to start talking about the sacrifices and the sacrifices are what

created, you know, the opportunity that you have and the opportunity that you've been

able to give, you know, to so many people.

So thanks for all you do, Tommy.

Keep on grinding.

Keep on doing what you do, brother.

And I see 100% commission, 100% commission, brother.

Let's go.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for having me.

Count money, man.

This is by chance old, trying to tell the mom of beast, but...