Things I Wish I Had Known

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

I told him, I'm a beast, but what's up, gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And I got a few things that I wish that I knew.

I've gotten the question a few times.

What do you wish that you knew in the past that you know now?

So a few things that I wish that I knew before becoming a leader in business is probably

a good place to start.

And so, you know, I think the first one I'll lead with is that CEO is just a title.

In reality, you can't let the title of anything that you do get to your head.

And I see a lot of title chasers out there.

And I think it's first, it's initial reaction as a person to want to just chase titles out

there because you get a promotion, you get a title, you feel accomplished just like they

give out belts and things in certain martial arts.

And I think the belt, you know, they say in jujitsu, there's a term that says the belt

only covers a couple inches of your ass.

Okay, excuse my language.

I apologize for those that have kids listening in the car.

But the belt only covers a few inches of your bum.

Okay.

And that's your title.

Brown belt, black belt, purple belt, blue belt, whatever.

But you got to be able to live up to that.

And it's not just by only your skill set is what my coach looks at.

And he looks at a black belt is, it's not just what can you do on the mat.

It's what type of person and how do you reflect off the mat, right?

And so understand that your title is just that is all it is is a title.

And in reality, it's about serving others.

You know, I don't want to get too, I don't want to beat you over the head too much with

the Bible.

I want to say, you know, just because I'm, and maybe here's a quick fun fact for you.

And I remember one of my biggest challenges as a young person growing up, making mistakes.

As I never wanted to turn to the Lord, because I felt like I was such a sinner that I had

to get myself together first and be perfect and be white, clean before I could go out

there and impact somebody else or impact myself and come under God's grace.

And you know, I remember Jim Sirace telling me one time, he said, he said, you ever go

to emergency room and you see the way people are dressed.

Not like they're all getting in tuxedos and getting their hair done and everybody's

coming in their best outfit, right?

Because if it's an emergency, you don't wait till you're perfectly clean.

You just don't care what you look like.

You go with your rollers in your hair.

You go any way that you got to go because we just got to get help, right?

And so let that encourage you to move forward if you're trying to grow in your faith and

I'm getting off subject a little bit.

But be encouraged that you don't have to be perfect in order to work on yourself as a matter

of fact, most people that you see in the gym, you know, I remember talking to Jim Sirace

about hypocrites and what turned me away, you know, from the Lord in the beginning and

it was hypocrites, right?

And he said, man, that's like you saying, you know, you don't want to go to the gym anymore

because there's fat people there or because there's people there that are going to leave

the gym and they're going to go eat junk food after they just got done pushing real

hard, trying to work on himself.

That's between them and their diet and their nutrition.

What you could admire is that they're at least they're putting in the work and everybody's

trying to get a little bit better.

So I think what we got to understand is that, you know, the first step is to understand

it's when you, when you, when I read the word, I remember it saying that whoever's going

to be the most amongst you who will lead to others is going to be the least amongst

you.

And you know, Jesus exemplified that and in washing the feet of his disciples.

And so I think any way you slice it, just the picture, the mental picture is the leader,

it's about serving others.

And I think a lot of times people in leadership and it's human nature, right?

You watch a little kid.

They don't want to share their toys typically when their babies, you know, once as they grow

as kids, it's not, it's more human nature to be selfish than it is to be selfless.

So it's a daily fight.

It's a weekly fight.

It's checking yourself, working on yourself constantly to remind yourself.

It's not about me.

It's about others.

It's about what can I do for other people?

Okay.

And so even when we, we just got done talking about the Maxwell five levels, you know, remember

position was just level one.

Servant leadership means that it's not about you.

It's about the, it's about the team.

And so the second thing I wish I would have knew earlier was the higher that you climb, you

know, I remember here in the term, the higher you climb, the more you're here, I go again.

Right.

Bum shows, right?

Just climb a ladder.

The higher you climb, the more your bum shows, right?

So the higher you climb, the more hate and criticism that you're going to get over time.

So if you don't want to receive any criticism, if you don't want to receive any hate, then

I would advise you to stay at the bottom of the ladder and do not climb all the way up

there because when you're up there and everybody's looking up at you, you're going to receive,

number one, you got to, it's your own bump, you got to worry about, right?

So not even pointing a finger at anybody else.

Just know that if you're in a position of leadership and you climb to the top, people

are looking up to you.

And so every little thing that you do wrong can impact other people in a major way.

And so it's important, the higher you climb, the more that you're on top of yourself

of what am I reflecting to my people?

What can I do to be a better positive influence on my people, but also be prepared?

You know, I think that the higher you climb, the more hate that you're going to receive

typically.

They hated Mother Teresa.

They stoned Jesus nailed them to the cross.

What do you think is going to happen to you?

There's always going to be people that don't like you.

I don't care how good you do, how well that you do, how nice you are to people.

The more people you impact, the more people you serve, the better you do, the more you're

going to have some of those things pop up.

My advice on that journey is to not let it affect you negatively.

You know, you've heard the term, no good deed goes unpunished.

No good deed goes unpunished.

And when you look at that, to me, that's negative.

It's like almost discouraging for people to go out there and do positive because you're

just expecting that it's negative.

But I think if you just keep your eyes on, I just want to do good for people, do good

for the world.

Not everybody's going to receive it the way I want them to receive it.

Some people ain't going to care.

Some people are going to say negative things, even though I'm trying to do positive things.

If it's all about you, it's easy to be discouraged.

But if it's about others, it's easy to be encouraged to not slow your hustle down

and impacting others because of a small percentage of people that show no gratitude or actually

want to aim and hurt you about doing a good deed.

So just be prepared for it.

Don't let it affect you negatively and respond to those things by continuing to show love

and serving other people.

And then just remember, there's a classy way to go about it and then there's an ego-tistical

way to go about it.

But just remember, in the great words of Frank Sinatra, the best form of revenge is massive

success.

The best form of revenge is massive success.

People are going to get what they get no matter what.

Like you are who you are.

So sooner or later, no matter what someone does to you or takes out of you or takes from

you, you're going to get it back if it's the right thing for you if you're the right person.

And sooner or later, if you're the hater and all you do is point blame and put point fingers

at everybody else and you spend your time at that, that may get you ahead for a moment.

But sooner or later, you're going to be right back where you were because that's not really

what breed success.

Okay.

Number three, there's no investment like investing into your own business.

I mean, if you want to go back and look at really me diving into this deeper, I get into

full detail on this on one of the recent grind cast episodes called Keeping Your Main

Thing, The Main Thing, Keeping Your Main Thing, The Main Thing.

But for the folks out there in business, and I even see professional mixed martial artists

out there.

It's a business.

You just are in the ass kicking business, but that's your business, right?

There's no investment like the investment into your own business.

So that's why you see, you know, before we talk, we had some athletes on the on the

grind cast and talked about how much money they spent on their body.

But as a professional athlete, that's your business.

You've seen LeBron James spends a million dollars a year on maintaining his body.

That's his business.

Spend a million dollars.

People say that's crazy, right?

Would you spend a million dollars on your body per year to make 50 million in return?

To make 30 million in return?

Would you spend 200,000 on your body in order to make 2 million in return?

So the business is the same way.

And I think as people start making money, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people

make.

And I know it's a catch, it's a catch 22 in a sense because everybody's going to tell

you to diversify, right?

And there is a time and a place for diversification.

But when you're making it, just like, you know, if my business is mixed martial arts and

I'm going out there and I got two full-time jobs and I'm trying to be a professional mixed

martial artist, it's hard.

That's not what you should be doing at that time.

You should go all in.

So you're the champ of the world and you made 50 million dollars.

Now we can diversify our money a little bit.

But until then, we got to save some money for rainy day.

I'm not saying don't save, save some money for rainy day.

Not take a bunch of risks with that money.

Set that money to the side.

In the best way you're going to double up, triple up, quadruple up, continue to grow your

business up.

The best way that's going to happen.

The best way that's going to happen is by you investing back into your own business.

Nothing usually is going to give you a better return, a quicker return than on your own

business.

People want to go out there and get 10% return on their money.

It'll take you seven years to double that money, which is great.

Nice, conservative approach that you could take.

Money will double up twice in over 14 years, three times again, over and over again over

20 years.

Nothing wrong with that.

That's great.

But if you want to grow quickly over the next five years, your money has to get put back

into your own business in my personal experience.

What are you a master at?

What do you feel like you have the most control at?

Would you rather bet on somebody else, another man, another woman, or bet on yourself?

And if you track those numbers, it may sound sexier.

If you're in the ice cream cone business, it may sound sexier to say I'm going to buy

real estate.

But you're probably going to make less money buying real estate if you're in the ice cream

cone business than buying some more things that are going to increase the waffle cones or

the cake cones or the ice cream cone business.

If you're in the bicycle business and you make bicycles or you make tires, rubber tires,

when you go to a wedding and people say, what do you do?

And you're sitting at the table and they say, this one's a lawyer, this one owns real estate,

this one does that.

And you say, I make rubber tires.

They around you is going to say, whoa, tell me about the rubber tire business.

But if you start trying to put all your money into what everybody else's main business

is just because it's, quote, sexy, you're going to lose money because if you put, even if

you make money, you lose money sometimes because if you, if you were to put a million dollars

into this business and you got a hundred thousand back, if you were to put your million

dollars into the rubber tire business, you could have got a million dollars back on

top of the million that you put in and doubled up your money in six months and been under

control of it.

So I could go on for a long time about that.

I'm pretty passionate about that.

When number four, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

One of my first books I ever read and started studying in leadership was the 21-year-old

refutable laws of leadership and law number 10 was the law connection.

And John Maxwell says that you must first touch a person's heart before asking for their

hand.

Leaders such a heart before asking for their hand.

It's always about relationships.

Look at your relationship bank account.

How have you been investing into the relationships around you and to the people in your organization

and things you're trying to grow?

the people that can bring the greatest return,

the people you're trying to influence,

you know, how are you investing into those relationships?

And then, you know, number five is that you never arrive.

I think that is a big myth.

I think that's a big myth out there.

And again, there's always exceptions to the rule.

But from what I've found is that,

old quote is success,

is rented,

and the rent is due every day.

I think a lot of times people can look at the title of CEO,

they can look at what a person does,

and say, I want that life, I want that balance,

I want that money, I want that car,

I want that vacation,

I want filling the blank, whatever it is,

whatever it is.

It doesn't have to be none of those things,

it could be something else.

And whatever it is, if you're pursuing greatness,

you know, I used to think greatness was a destination,

and then I realized greatness was a journey.

And reaching your ultimate level is a journey.

It's a continuum, it's ongoing event,

it's not I've arrived.

The minute that you think you've arrived,

the minute that you think you know it all,

the minute that you think that you don't know much

is when you really start to know something.

And so understand that you never arrive,

I got this title, I got this situation,

it's a constant challenge.

If you're not growing,

you're dying, right?

Which one are you right now?

You got to love the process.

Part of growing is you may be in a phase or stage

where you're not growing.

Can you handle the point where you're not growing

that leads before you are growing?

Because there's something you're supposed to learn

and the point where you're not growing,

it's going to help you to get growing

because what got you here won't take you there.

What got you to where you are may keep you

at where you are.

So there may be moments of failure in their moments of struggle,

moments of opportunities for you to persevere in that moment

that can take you to the next level.

And so you got to be one that starts to become someone

who just loves the process.

Just embrace the process.

And if the process was fun,

they would just call it a party.

But instead of calling it a party,

they call it a process.

So we don't say embrace the party, right?

To crush it in your business,

to crush it in your journey,

you guys have heard this term, right?

Embrace the what?

Embrace the party?

No, it ain't embrace the party.

It's embrace the process.

And the process that leads to success sucks.

Suck, success.

It's ironic that you say,

success and you start with the word sucks

because in order to have some success,

you got to do some things that suck

and the people that can't do the things that suck

don't ever get the ultimate success

because part of the things that suck

is that it's a constant battle.

It's the constant journey.

And that's why people start to say,

in order to have everlasting greatness

in order to go to levels,

a lot of people believe that you need to

like and enjoy what you do.

And I think people could take that out of context

because you can enjoy what you do,

but not enjoy every part of the process

of the journey of what you do.

I enjoy playing football,

but I remember a moment in my college career

where I was giving everything I had

my freshman year of college

and I got injured and things happened

and I loved playing football,

but I hated being fourth or fifth on the depth chart.

I hated putting in all the work

and not being on the field.

I hated waking up at four o'clock in the morning

to run at five o'clock in the morning

to go shower and get ready for class

all day and not be able to party on the weekends

like the other kids and not be able to do things

on the summer like the other.

There was part of the things

in that journey that I hated.

It almost made me quit.

Everything great in my life, I almost quit.

I almost quit football, I almost quit in high school,

I almost quit in college,

thought about quitting this business,

thought about quitting and points in my relationship.

I think if you're not having

some quitting conversations,

I've had a blessed life,

I've seen more years on this earth than a lot of my friends.

You know, I think they call this midlife now.

I remember when I was young,

but I feel like they call this middle age.

I think I'm a middle age man.

How did this happen to me?

How did y'all let this happen to me?

I used to be a young man.

I was the young one now.

I think a middle age now.

And in my journey,

soon to be 40,

in my journey, when I look back on things,

it seems like to me all the great things in my life

that I've accomplished or that I have I wanted to quit.

Thought about quitting.

Maybe I didn't want to quit,

but I had some conversations where I've had to talk myself

out of quitting and not stopping.

When I heard it came up,

when an injury came up,

when another injury came up,

when a setback came up,

when it got inconvenient,

when an argument came up,

when somebody back stabbed me,

when somebody hurt me,

when the pressure got tough,

when the tears started flowing,

and the money wasn't flowing.

When the bills were flowing,

and the money wasn't flowing,

when it wasn't popular,

when you look around and there's nobody there,

but you and God,

in those moments,

I'm grateful that I didn't give up,

but it looks like almost everything on that journey

that I would consider a greatness or success

or something I'm proud of,

took a stick to itiveness to it,

because that's called the damn process, y'all.

And the process weeds out the week,

the process weeds out the pretenders from the contenders,

because the process is going to punch you right in the face

when you least expect it.

It's a constant challenge.

You gotta understand that the rent is due all the time,

and leading a company is like being a parent,

and you have to continue to grow

and support your people,

but understand if you want the perks of leadership,

you gotta consider the price of leadership,

and leading a company is like being a parent,

and they tell me once you're a parent,

you're always a parent, and I can see it.

I'm a parent now, I'm always gonna be a parent.

I'm never not gonna be, you know,

ready to be there for my kids.

It's once you are the one running the show,

you're the owner, you're the CEO,

you're the top, you're the head woman,

you're the head man, you're the oneness and charge,

there is a lot of perks, there's a lot of great things

that come with it from the influence that you have,

the impact that you can make on people,

sometimes the money, sometimes the resources,

the decision, the platform that you have,

there's a lot of perks, there's a lot of great things,

schedule flexibility, a lot of things,

but what people don't see when they say they want to be the boss,

the boss, the CEO, the head coach, whatever,

they don't see the price,

and when you're the leader,

it ain't always a nine to five,

it ain't always a Monday through Friday,

it ain't always I've been doing this for 17 years,

I'm entitled to this,

people don't care what you did 10 years ago,

yesterday's home runs don't win today's games,

that's why they say it's rented

in the rents due every day.

I keep growing out there,

if you've invested your time into this,

I don't know all of you personally,

but it tells me something about you,

it tells me that you care about your future

and that you're willing to invest into yourself

and for that you got to patch yourself on the back

and say already you're already a part of an elite,

small percentage of people that are not willing

to invest into themself consistently.

And then I got to take it a step further and say,

man, how humbling is it?

How cool is it for me to sit here and know

that through a microphone,

the pain, the advice,

the ups, the downs can go through this microphone,

through this system into somebody's car

and somebody's Bluetooth into somebody's headphones

and have a shot at positively impacting that person's life

and that person that's listening right now,

you could have spent that time doing anything else

the last 25 minutes and you chose to spend that time

with us and for that we're grateful.

If there's anybody that you know out there

that could benefit from this message or the ground cast,

please help share the message.

We're just trying to impact more people out there

and we're just getting started.

We're just getting started by the grace of God,

Lord willing, we're just getting started.

We're going to look back on these moments

and say, man, look at five years ago, look at 10 years ago.

I look back five years ago and I already am like,

what was I doing on that message?

What was I wearing?

Who was I looking like?

Look at, remember when we started this Josh

with a picnic table, the first podcast I think

was a picnic table.

Remember that?

We had a picnic table and a microphone couldn't hear it.

Echo, people listening to it.

I got one, you know, I just got one piece of advice

you talk about having people that could keep it real

which I remember young ladies,

we just had a hard time hearing it real well.

You know what I mean? It's like, well,

I didn't have the right cameras, I didn't have the right system.

I didn't have the right microphone, I didn't have the right,

but you've got to start somewhere and you don't have to always

start from a perfect setting in a perfect situation.

And so I know I look back on those moments and look

at where we are today and I know Laura Willing,

I'm going to look back five years from today

and you're going to be on the journey with me.

We're going to impact a lot of people.

So share it, pay it forward if you can.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Grindcast.

Get ready us a new day.