The Grind-Cast “Special Guest Matt Diulus”

Count money man, money man, bitches.

I'm trying to told trying to tell them I'm a beast, but

What's up gang?

Welcome to the grind cast.

Stop it, there he is.

Here.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

New day.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And I have my very good friend in right hand man.

Hey, hey, in this business, the Maddie D.

What's up, everyone?

We got Maddie D in the house.

So real, real quick with Maddie D,

not only is he a beast in business,

this is one of the guys that

when I had the opportunity,

our company gave me the offer and opportunity.

Wow, I can't believe it's been seven years,

seven years ago was the first time

to be the CEO of one of the insurance companies

that Torchmark Corporation owns.

And they said, you know, if you had to pick a person,

you know, I wanted to pick a person or two

that I could bring with me, obviously,

like any coach would in order to, you know,

go to a program, you don't go by yourself,

you bring some of your staff.

I thought so highly of his business skills

at that point that one of the first people

that came to my mind was Maddie D.

You know, and if there was, you know,

three that I could take, there was others I could take,

you know, I would want to do that.

But in my first thought process was gonna, was him.

That's how much I believe in your skill set.

And I've watched your leadership level grow over the years.

And so from there, you know, more important than that,

he's one of the best friends a person can ask for.

Great father of two beautiful children,

getting married, excited to go to Italy for your wedding.

We're gonna be in Italy and on accident crashed,

your after party to the wedding,

they call your honeymoon.

That's now gonna be an after party

because me and Nat are gonna be there for a day or two

and Greece on accident or so you think.

And so I wanna turn this over to exposing you

to other people right now that are listening.

And you know, maybe I think the first place for us

to start Maddie D is your start to this whole deal.

You know, what you were doing prior to this.

And how that all happened and where you're at right now.

Because I think a lot of times people get stuck

and where they're at and they're so afraid

to make a jump, whether it's in this business

or in other businesses or opening up their own business

or whatever, they just get stuck in that.

And I'm doing this so I couldn't possibly,

if I'm counseling kids, how does counseling kids move over to

a business situation where you're dealing with

insurance of financial products and I joke a lot

and say well, you had to perfect background for this

because we're back to counseling kids.

I'm just trouble kids.

You know, you're trouble kids.

And so talk to us about that transition.

Yeah, so thank you Simon.

Thank you, it's honor to be here and hopefully

could add a little bit of value whether it's one

or one million people that takes something from this.

But I was raised in Pittsburgh my whole life,

blue-collared kid and you know,

went through hardships growing up

where there were periods of times

where my parents were unemployed and didn't know at the time

but we were broke, couldn't pay.

I remember my dad negotiating for tuition at school

when I was in special programs and whatnot.

But I don't think just like a lot of my friends

and a lot of people I talk to that grew up in Pittsburgh

that are in their 30s, 40s, they'll tell you.

Like we were broke but we didn't even know it.

You know, we were eating cereal milk with bread in it,

you know, as our dinners.

Like and that we just thought that was a meal

where we were happy kids growing up

and they were able to kind of come together

in my teenage years.

My dad got a job with PennDOT

which is a pretty prominent job, you know, in PA

and then becoming a forming with them.

And our lifestyles started to get better

to the point where they were able to put me through college

and I went to University of Pittsburgh

and was a political science degree

in legal studies minor and political science.

Yeah, political science, legal studies.

Political science, legal study, I think the only class

that I probably liked was history and social studies.

I liked law, wasn't good at math, wasn't good at science,

you know, just kind of like law.

But didn't know exactly what you'd want to do with it.

I think a lot of people just go to college

and it's almost like that we're programming like that.

50, 60, 70% of my friends what they want to college for,

they're not in that field.

So I just thought that's what you were supposed to do.

I went to college and when I came out of school,

you know, I had these big dreams, you want to make a lot of money.

You just want to make a lot of money, you want nice things,

you look at people, you look at C on TV,

you just want these nice things.

So part of me and I look back, I was so naive.

I literally just thought, all right, I graduate,

I was 22, 23 years old and I was naive,

never really been on a real job interview before.

And I graduated, throw me a big pain job.

Yeah, I just thought like, okay, I graduated,

where's my money?

Where's my six figure job offers?

And it like didn't happen like that, you know,

from 22 to maybe 25, 26 years old in University of Pittsburgh,

you know, pretty good degree.

There was nobody just willing to give you a six figure position,

you know, at that position in Pittsburgh,

at least that I know of, it was thought about law school,

but grades weren't good enough.

My work ethic in discipline and study habits weren't good enough

at the time to even probably pursue it.

So it was like a deep thought.

I just wanted the money that the lawyers make.

So I was doing construction for a while.

And 24, 25, I'm like, I got to get in the work field.

I got to get into somewhere, even though it's starting somewhere,

I knew I had to do it, you know,

and I ended up taking a position as a counselor here in Pittsburgh

for adolescent youth.

And you know, they have a place in Pittsburgh

where kids get locked up.

And if they're bad, they send them, while they're locked up,

they send them to another place.

And that's where I was teaching.

Whenever they were bad, they came to this place.

So, you know, I oversaw about 25, 30 kids.

A lot of them were from Philly,

some of them from Pittsburgh,

and they were in there for anywhere from rape theft,

you know, violent crime, you know, aggravated assault,

you know, and they were anywhere from 13 to 18 years old.

So, you know, part of me that I realized always liked teaching.

I liked helping people.

I liked dealing with people.

And that was kind of my first avenue.

I said, okay, maybe I could get some experience here

and end up being a history teacher

at a collegiate level or a college level,

something like that.

And that was my beginning base.

So, you know, I got to meet with the kids,

hang with the kids in a classroom setting,

and you kind of rank the kids.

A lot of them were in gangs.

You know, a lot of them were gang related.

And you kind of rank them, or from the leader, and whatnot.

And while I was there, I noticed I was developing social skills

to be friend, troubled, you know,

all kinds of different personalities.

A lot of them were cool

and I was completely different

off being in background from a lot of them.

But found a way to be able to relate with them,

which later helped me out in sales,

and got used to the teaching aspect,

how to teach someone that's never learned something.

How did you even, so what was the next step from there?

Did you come straight from there into...

The American income.

Yeah, yeah, so...

In my area of agencies.

Yeah, I was there for about a year and liked it,

but you know, I didn't like the paychecks.

You know, I was like, whenever I had this goal,

what I wanted to make,

I always thought that I would make it by 55.

Like, that's what I thought I would be a middle-aged,

and I would finally work my way up for 25, 30 years

and make that income.

Yeah, that's what I was like.

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah, when I saw my head,

that's what age I saw it at.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I'm Tommy Vino,

started working here in July, I think of 2008,

and I started hanging out with them,

started seeing them in the clubs in January, February, 2008,

six, seven months later,

and you start noticing that he had this Christ or 300 GT,

and I remember, I thought it was the coolest thing

he had a computer screen that was a 42-inch flat screen,

and we're 25 years old, broke, you know,

we're struggling for day to day.

I was making 800 take home every two weeks,

so you know, you do the math on how there's not much left over,

so he had toys, and I'm thinking,

oh, these are nice, and I'm like, what do you do?

And I, when you do the same people and whatnot,

so he slowly started, slow-playing me, we were going out,

he was winding, dying to me, I didn't even know it,

and you know, he invited me in an interview

before I came in for an interview, I met you,

I met, and you were 25 year old kid with a Range Rover,

and Pittsburgh with the people that I grew up with,

you didn't have a Range Rover at 25 years old,

unless you were doing something highly illegal,

and you were in a legal business,

and so that intrigued me big time to say the least,

you know, I think at that age,

you go through stages of your life,

what you're chasing, and what's important to you,

and anybody that tells you,

yeah, I mean, anybody that tells you at 21, 22, 23 years old,

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying

that that motivates, I didn't have kids,

and you know, you go through goals and stages of what comes

important to you, you move finish lines and whatnot,

as you go older, but at that age,

I mean, that was what I wanted, yeah,

I mean, that was what I was ambiast, that's what I liked.

I know people have gotten about this car,

you know, not a lot of people,

you and Britain mainly killed it,

but a lot of people, I had it there,

she was nice in her prime, and I got it when I was 16,

that was 1998, it was a Chevy Lumina,

and it was gold, champagne gold,

it had leather seats, a CD player in a sunroof,

I was 16 years old, I mean, that's a prize,

that's like a Bentley, you know,

however, fast forward, you know, 11 years or so,

the air condition was broke,

and the power windows were shaky,

there was a few rolls, few dents,

and one of the headlights was a tinny yellow,

so Britain called it the gold tooth pirate,

whenever I pull up, we go pull up,

we go to south side, and you know,

try to look like we had a lot of money

and go out and stuff,

so I'd have to park that thing a good 10 blocks away.

Fast forward.

Right.

What's where you're at now, what happened, you know,

and then we'll get into giving some advice on how to,

yeah, change.

I started, I switched over to the company

past my insurance test in March,

and started in March 2009,

and I had no sales experience,

and no management experience at the time,

and but I did have mentorship with you,

and with Tommy, with a lot of other people in the company,

you know, that I picked their brains

by my second calendar year with the company,

I made $250,000, and you know, I was 27, 28 years old

at the time.

Yeah, I mean, you talk about a,

years ahead of schedule.

Yeah, you talk about a life changing experience going

from where you're at and the lifestyle you're used to

and what you know to 36 months later,

you know, not even 36 months, 29, 30 months,

a whirlwind of change in your life,

and that a lot of stuff comes with that,

a lot of responsibility comes with that,

a lot of decisions and smart decisions,

what you do with it, how you affect people,

how you influence comes with it,

so there's a lot of stuff that comes with it

by 28, 29 years old that I went through,

and from now to, you know, fast for 10 years later,

you get used to dealing with them 36 years old

and still learning, still learning a ton,

but the overall point is,

was blessed with an opportunity where I was even able

to be faced with the situation and be able to do it.

And I think, you know, it's hard to talk about, you know,

and you know, we mentioned that you were talking about

that, you know, my early motivation was this,

but I'll preface it on two things.

One is the money don't make the man,

the man makes the money,

and so it doesn't matter if you're not a good son

and you're not a good friend and you're not a good brother,

you're not a good person, you're not a good father,

and all of that stuff, which all of those things you are,

and anyone that comes in contact with you,

can see your humility and your hard to not love.

And, but also, you know, I'm not gonna,

the second thing is, I'm not gonna apologize,

or, you know, I don't want you to feel,

like, what is gonna motivate somebody out there listening,

is that you can be all those great things,

and still live in a house that you could probably sell

for close to a million dollars, you know, right now,

in one of the better areas in the North of Pittsburgh,

and that you have an escalade in multiple nice vehicles,

and you're getting married in Italy,

and, you know, you'll make over, you know,

close to a million dollars this year, you know,

somewhere around there, and these are things that,

as I'm saying, and I know it, it just makes you,

yeah, that's it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a lot, it's still very humbling to even here.

To hear, you know, but we can't apologize for that,

because there's somebody listening on the other end of this,

that will inspire and motivate.

So let's be real about, you know, that's where you really at.

You know, as residuals right now,

or before you wake up out of bed, and this is today,

and if we check back in in another two years,

this number's probably gonna double, you know,

but I would say, you know, this year,

you should be close to 200 grand in residuals.

That means before you wake out of bed,

every month you're getting a check from work

that's already been done, and from this business,

and from the things that you've done,

and people that you've led, and worked that you've put in,

that just wake up next year, we're gonna,

no matter what's going on with the market,

if you don't show up for, you know, for,

if you go once a week to the office, don't matter,

you're starting out the year, almost at, you know,

$200,000.

So why don't we start, you know, walking into,

what are some of the things that you have found,

and, you know, and you're overseeing six, seven offices

right now.

I like to, you know, you have a hand in,

you know, almost everything that we do for this agency,

you're, as good as it gets in this business,

and as put together a run, you know,

over the last 10 years that's up there, you know,

with some of the top people in the company.

What have you found are some of the better traits,

you know, that you look for in somebody now, you know,

if you're picking and, you know,

who you're going to coach, who you're going to mentor,

who are the people that you're looking for?

How do you know, hey, this is a girl,

this is a guy that I'm going to put a little bit extra effort in.

I'm going to develop and spend some time with this person

because they have these traits.

Yeah, you know, you know,

I think that to preface it,

how straight before I even get into what the traits are,

how important that they are,

my parents were unable to set us up with a trust fund,

or a bunch of money, you know, anything like that.

They were able to put me through school.

They weren't able to give me money to start a business,

but I think that they didn't steal these traits,

you know, that allowed me to grow.

They taught me these traits.

And, you know, I think part of it is you can't really tell,

unless you've known or grown up with someone,

you really don't know their traits, especially in our business,

where you're doing an interview process,

and you know, how long do you have from the initial interview

to you're moving forward with someone, you know, hiring.

So a lot of what you're going to go off is gut.

You know, a lot of what you're going to go off is gut life experience,

intuition, the way people look at you in the eye, you know,

and...

How about when people are already in the business?

And you start to see, yeah, whenever you, you know,

that's going to be your best bet.

So when you don't know someone is you start to see their day-to-day interactions

and how do they handle things.

So I think the most common ones that you're going to look for

are, you know, what are their social skills like?

Likeability.

Yeah, you know, I read somewhere that they did a study on a bunch of millionaires

in 85% of the millionaires.

They attributed their financial success to human engineering,

their ability to get along with people to motivate others,

to inspire others, to become friends with different groups,

amongst the own organization, to ultimately kind of get them

to where they want it to be.

And only 15% of those millionaires attributed to, I think,

technical engineering they call it, where they're actual knowledge on it.

So I think that no matter what business you're in,

that likeable and social skills and how you get along with others

are going to be huge.

So I watch how they interact.

A lot of times I don't even know that I'm watching them.

How do they like, do they say things that shouldn't be said at certain times?

What's their timing?

What's their delivery?

What's their body language?

You know, people on their ass that make body language.

And that's 70% of communication, especially when you don't have a relationship with someone yet.

You know, if somebody was like walking into,

if you had a CEO that you didn't know they were CEO,

and at the end of a meeting or at end of a week after them spending some time in the office,

if they had a million dollar position to hand away,

and all they could really go off is what they saw.

Would you be that person that they're going to give that money to,

based on what they saw out of your body language throughout the week?

Because whether we like it or not,

the mental state shows in your body language.

Like it's impossible, if you even tried to do the exercise,

it's impossible to be very smile and happy and upbeat body language,

but have negative thoughts.

Like if you try it, in the same thing, vice versa,

if you slump over and have a miserable face and you're like this,

an arms crossed, and you're trying to think really happy,

motivating, it's impossible to do because whether your body language shows your mental state.

So I'm going to watch this stuff.

I'm going to watch when other people are talking,

where's their eyes at?

Are they zoned in?

You could tell in one second if someone glazes over.

Which is completely natural, but these are stuff that I'm going to look at.

I'm going to look at their punctuality, dependability.

It's hard to even judge until you see them handle a little bit of adversity,

just depending on what someone's goals are.

We're going to talk about that a little bit.

I think part of anyone's journey in anything great is going to be adversely.

Yeah.

You know, what tips, if any, you know, would you give to people that overcome obstacles in adversity?

Because, you know, you're super positive, you know,

and this is coming from somebody that I think most think, you know,

would say, I'm positive.

I mean, you're super positive.

You're one of the only people I could think of that made it this far in this business

and never thought about quitting even once.

You know, I've joked about, man, I thought about, you know, everybody's thought about,

if you ever thought, he's like, nope, never thought about quitting one time.

And why don't we talk a little bit about, you know, how would you coach someone?

What do you think are ways that people can get through obstacles in adversity?

Because I don't know, there's not many, do you think there's a way to have a lot of success

without going through some type of...

No, that's, you know, I'm laughing because I think the people,

whoever, the people, the four-fathers that wrote the rules of success,

they wrote it in such a beautiful way that it tests you.

It's impossible.

So common sense should tell you whatever it is that you're chasing,

if I want to get high in performing at a high level and shoot up the ranks to a top

one, five percent, whatever that is in that field.

You scared me for a minute.

I'm like, I don't think you smoke, Matt, if I wanted to get high.

What happened?

What happened when the last couple days?

Yeah, yeah.

If you wanted to get to that, they write the rules, so you have to go through these adversities

to see who can make it out to the other side.

They make the rules like that.

Or everybody would be in it.

So that is one thing, it's just expecting it and understanding the game.

Going into the game, like, with no entitlement expectations, like, here's a point.

If I got to get the point, D, I got to expect, if D's the top,

I'm expecting to go through some...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, can we swear enough?

Yeah, shit.

All right, all right.

I'm going to expect, yeah, Giovanni's giving thumbs up.

Damn, right, we can't have an A.

Yeah, I'm going to hear it with Mauricio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know how mo go through.

I'm going to expect to go through some shit.

So you're fooling yourself to think that you're not.

And here's the thing about adversity.

Eversity is going to tailor make it to you specifically and what will bother you the most.

You understand what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like, I might have been some of us to do the same adversity of you.

It just didn't...

That particular thing didn't bother me.

So I didn't even think nothing of it.

We're vice versa.

You know, like, stuff that maybe has bothered me coming up in business to you is just...

You know, it's nothing.

So we get hit with all these adversities.

But the ones that are going to affect you the most, most are going to be tailor made to whatever bothers you the most.

Whether that is relationship problems.

Some people...

I got it.

I own that side of thing.

Others it crushes and you will go through it.

But everybody goes through it.

So the ones that stand out of the ones that are going to bother you, death in the family, missing parties, missing events, waking up early, studying, doing extra before you're paid for it.

I don't know what it is, but you're going to get hit with it.

So understand that as well.

And the rule of thumb that I'll try to live by is...

You know, that...

Can I control it?

Can I control it?

You know, could I have controlled it?

Am I in a position where I put myself throughout this adversity and be conscious and hit the 90-day rewind button and say,

Okay, you could have controlled it.

Take your ownership.

Yeah, you could have controlled this adversity, Matt.

You put yourself in this position.

Dole note it and take ownership for it.

That's hard for people to do.

That's called self-awareness.

Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of people being able to grow is you have to be self-aware to be able to look and reflect internally and look at it from up here and say,

Hey, you know, I probably could have done this better.

You know, things that you're talking about right now.

Right.

So for a true hustler, they don't like that feeling of adversity.

So I'd rather fix this stuff that I did wrong through the 90 days.

So I don't got to worry about that adversity anymore and that uncomfortable feeling and hardship that I put myself there.

So, you know, that's one of them.

Knowing when to pick and choose your battles.

You know, what adversities are big, what are little.

You know, I'll see people that are battle these minute things, small things, spend a day, two days on them.

Because this is a big one.

Right.

I think for people trying to grow in leadership or in a business that they could get so stubborn on things.

It's like we're arguing over a nickel.

Yeah.

And because of that, we're messing out on $10.

Yeah.

Or we're arguing over $100 and we're messing out on $10,000.

Right. Right. And, you know, we're in the relationship of sales.

And we just talked about human engineering and how important likeability is in your social skills.

So to perform at a high level, if you're going to be with a company for a long time, you know, if you're making a sales, depending on what sales that you're in,

sales a lot of times is a short term.

It's a short term friendship, you know, especially in an hour or two hours or even a week or two weeks depending on how long you wind or die.

But if you get into a point where you're long standing, where you're leading people, where you're on a team for years, whatever it may be,

that is a long term relationship skills.

So just like a marriage, you got to understand you have to pick and choose which battles you want to go at test because if you try to pick every one and when each battle,

you're going to find yourself, unlikeable in losing the ultimate war of motivating you what not.

You almost like the boy who cried wolf.

So it's like, okay, you commascent should tell me what battle is this big or is this small?

Can I lose maybe two or three of these battles to win a bigger one that means more something more important to me down the road?

And if that is not something that somebody is naturally good at in the standing out, they need a mentor that they can run those little battles out.

Hey, is this worth me being this upset about?

No, all right, I trust you again. I'm going to move on.

You know, or is this? Yeah, go away on that.

What are the things can you think of maybe at 25, 27 that at 37, you're good at versus what you weren't good at?

You know, what things were you say, well, these things I wasn't really good at at 27, but at 37, you know, I'm good at it.

Right. I think that I'm probably the one that just shoots into my head as you're talking is me being able to control others.

When you get in a position where you're really trying to control the way others think or talk or respond to you or they're not going to think like you, you know, and that used to drive me crazy at 26 or 25 like this is the right way of thinking.

This is the right way of doing it. Why are you not thinking the exact same way and doing the exact same thing?

And so it would almost like bother me to the point where I wanted to end, I was being confrontational a lot of times.

And I think that as the game slows down, you'll hear people start to say the game slows down, office day slow down and whatnot.

As long as you know, you're doing the right thing, teaching people the right stuff, your hearts in a good place, you're giving people the right advice that isn't there is no hint in agendas behind it and whatnot.

You know, you can only lead a horse to water. You can't force them to drink. So I stopped kind of forcing, yeah, forcing, obsessing about control.

Yeah, it will cause you a ton of stress. Cause you a ton of stress. Right. Yes, you got it. You got it. Instead of trying to force and sometimes you want things more for people than they want it.

And that bothered me a lot more in my 20s than 30s. You know, I said just I'm content with the leadership that I give that it's from a good place and stuff.

What, what, what, what traits have you seen in some of our top players, you know, be it new people in their first six months or leaders that you've seen here, you know, five, 10 years plus, what traits stick out to you that you that all of the good ones.

All of the good ones have, um, 10 laughing because a lot of the good ones are paying in the butts, including myself. So I mean, don't don't give up on, you know, some of these top notch tears, these top notch talents that might be in your organization, don't be surprised if they're paying any ass a little bit.

Mostly early on. Yeah, especially early, right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Whether they're 25 like myself, you know, or 40 some of them that just might not have ever had mentorship or leadership to kind of coach them in the right direction.

So they're wiling out in the beginning and when stuff's new and your new way of thinking, well, this is a good chance for us to talk pause. Yeah. Yeah. They were a lot of responsible. You were so what, you know, was this your first year. Yeah. You know, he was in his first year, a couple months, first couple months, first couple months.

And I had at this point, we were small enough and I was doing a quarterly recognition meeting versus now we're so big, we get together once a year, we can't do it quarterly.

So we had quarterly recognition meetings and we had it at a nice hall. Ironically, it was it was at the place we just had the Inspire Mons cocktail party fundraiser, you know, real nice place. You get a gleaming. You get a gleaming or eye when you tell this story.

He loves helping this story. And so we're there. We're announcing awards and, you know, they're pleased, standing for your name to be recognized and Matt Diolis. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like spotlight.

I'm looking on a whisper and that D where's he at? And find out Tommy see where he's at. And and putting back. And so he said putting putting back. He was in putting back. That's a high place.

So no one knew where he was the whole day.

Johnny's thumbs up in that place never showed up. And so the next day or maybe it was the day after that within the next 24 or 48 hours, I have him in my office with my

brother in law. Son, son, son.

Now my brother lost this point. He just missed the boat with you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Putting back.

And they're sitting both of those two sitting in front of me trying to explain to me how they how they missed the boat. Yeah, you give me to see what happened.

What did happen?

Yeah.

What happened?

Well, we went on Saturday. We played on coming home Sunday and we got we had to leave the hotel before like 10 a.m.

You had to check out at the ferry. We were going to get on it like two or three. So we said let's go to this outdoor bar pool or you know, pool bar.

Squeeze one last thing.

No, we were just going to hang out. We had good intentions.

You know, we weren't even in bathing suits and they didn't open until like 11. We got there 10 30. But the bartender took a liking to us and like don't tell anyone man.

Gave us a couple drinks.

Look at the blaming.

Yeah, around 11 30. We're like, well, at least let's swim. We bought some some some bathing suit drums.

You know, fast forward. I wish you get the fast forward three four p.m. I think the last ferry left the island at like five on Sunday.

You know, four p.m. We were doing those chicken fights. What is that thing? We hold people on your ship.

Yeah, here's the shatter.

Seeing who can hold their breath along.

I mean, I wish I had a better, I wish I could,

I was, I was calcing helping people, you know,

you were looked at the clock and we,

so the bottom line is sometimes, you know,

it's gonna happen.

Yeah, it's gonna happen.

You gotta be patient with people.

Look, a lot of these wild horses like a, like a Marlin,

you ever go to catch one of those big trophy Marlins

that you're gonna put over your man-o-man, I mean,

the fight to, to reel them in is like,

yeah, it ain't like a normal little fish

that you just pull up out of the water.

Back and forth trying to rear these people in.

That's how it was for me trying to slow you down.

Yeah, right.

And they rebel against structure.

They rebel against laws and rules.

And, you know, a lot of them, that's how they live their life.

So, even though they might want it,

their initial instinct is to fight it.

And you might either be coaching someone right now

that is in that thing, in that ballgame,

or going through it, you know.

So, understand that it's normal,

but understand that you have to show

also good signs, good intentions.

And if you're going through that and you're the player right now

that is rebellion.

It can't just be to paint in the ass.

No, no, yes, there has to be a plus, man.

Yeah, yeah.

There has to be, there has to be results.

There has to be ownership.

There has to be mainly conversations and vision

and promising and, you know, they better have a lot of potential

if you're going to do that or else you just put yourself

in a position where you could get fired from the organization.

You know, that-

Other than being a pain in the ass, is there any other success?

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, they're competitive.

They're always competitive.

And everybody, you know, I read it in a John Maxwell book

and this is Maxwell Maxwell.

We can't worry about people.

Right, right, right, Maxwell.

And he's made way more successful people than me

and I remember him saying, look, I've never met

a very successful business owner that wasn't competitive.

Never.

He said, I've yet to meet one.

And, you know, everybody's is different.

You know, you might be competing with yourself

or a better version of yourself.

You could be competing with- with another person.

You could just be competing with a number

or not even a person.

Whatever you could be competing with some shit somebody

said to you 10 years ago.

I don't know, but I do know that if you're not competitive,

you're just going to set whatever you- you are.

And that is not a trait of someone that I've seen highly successful.

They're chasing.

They're chasing stuff.

They're always chasing stuff.

And competitive nature brings the best out of people.

They're positive.

They have- they have human social skills.

They're not afraid to work.

Positive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, no, they're positive.

You could get to- I think that you could get to a certain,

you know, I think you could make six figures

with having a negative attitude that you- that you hide a little bit

and mask, that you're negative by nature,

but you put on a little bit, but you kind of compensate

with work ethic maybe, like if you're lacking at one,

but to really, you know, to get that one percent,

four hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars of income are up.

You can't.

You know, there- there are certain things that you're going to fall off

that you're going to need the higher you climb.

And positive, true positive,

mind frame, and your feelings about your organization,

the people around you, your gratitude,

your lack of entitlement.

This is stuff that will eventually come to light,

the higher that you're trying to climb.

You know, you might be able to make a hundred and fifty thousand,

I feel like, with a little bit of a negative attitude

in a great work ethic.

I don't think you can make a million dollars

with a negative attitude in a killer work ethic.

You know, all these stuff-

Not consistently and-

Not over time, well, last if so, maybe one in a million.

Right, it has to align.

It has to align, you know, people that-

that they're coachable, they find mentorships and coachable,

human nature, it's human nature to be selfish in general.

You know, that's just human so- so you almost have to plan that around

being selfish and your data, you won't literally have to put in your schedule,

things that you could do for others that won't make you selfish.

It's also human nature to not do stuff that they don't want to-

they don't want to do.

You see what I'm saying?

So like-

So it's almost like, you know, whenever you find a mentor in-

I'll just use me as an example.

You know, it's just-

Half the things that it will take to get to where you want to be,

you're not going to want to do.

And I think special players, special people will do them anyway,

because they want that result.

That result so bad that they don't care about the task.

The ones that won't do them, the results second-

dairy to the actual task of doing it and getting outside the comfort zone.

Give me a little bit more.

Yeah, so it's like-

I understand but I can say that it will be hard to understand.

Just anything, whether it's a dieting or waking up early,

or just stuff that you don't like doing, you know,

say you say a mentor or coach tells you that somebody that has what you want

tells you to do 10 different things.

Out of those 10, you're probably going to have four that you don't want to do.

And special ones will do those four, even though compared to the four-

the other ones that won't do it, majority won't do it.

And it's not that the special ones want to do it.

They don't want to do it.

It's actually a small or margin.

But those special ones that are willing to do those four things they don't want to do,

it's because all they're seeing is 55, 60 percent.

Their brain is focused on what they're going to get out of it in the ultimate result that that person has.

The other ones, the majority that won't, they're seeing 55, 60 percent of the actual task

and they can't get by that of not wanting to do it.

That drives me crazy more than anything.

But they still have the vision, the 40 percent, they're just-

They wonder why they're not getting it.

They're outweigh.

So they wonder why those are the warners.

I wishers.

I wish I had must be nice.

I want the want wish must be nice folks.

Typically in those that have enough talent to do it, the problem is that is that they're-

You're doing what you like to do.

You're only doing the things that you want to do.

You're not doing anything that-

You're like, all right, I'm coachable, I'm coachable, I'm coachable to you to-

Anything but-

I'm not going to listen to things.

And then we wonder why, you know, what's cool about-

I don't know if-

You know, what's cool about business in general, I think that, you know,

if you start out and there's 10 things that you have to do and there's four that you don't like to do.

Over time, you can really end up hiring and delegating the three out of those four-

That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.

Four out of those four, but there's always going to be something that pops up that you got to do that you don't want to do.

And I think really therein lies one of the true meaning, true success tips and secrets that one can get today and every day is that-

Man, if you want to get-

If you want to take your life to the next level, there's going to be some things you don't want to do that you have to do anyways.

And there's going to be some things that you don't feel like doing that you have to do anyways in order to get to where you want to go.

And if you don't, you're going to-

You're going to be looking around, wondering around, and you're going to be quitting on people and quitting on things every time you don't like something.

Only to figure out there's always going to be something that you don't like and there's always to go to the next level.

And you said it best, you could eventually, you could delegate this stuff you don't like but you have to do my first to put yourself in a financial situation.

Two delegates.

I remember I couldn't wait to delegate dog shit cleaning.

I remember when I used to have to in the rain.

I was go out in the rain, I used to have to-

You know, we had-

That's what?

We lived in a condo, me and Nat, and we had a bull master for us to piece my girl Nadia.

And I mean, this was like a horse.

You know what I mean?

And so, man, who's going to do it today?

You know, eight out of ten times Nat would do it but I get two out of ten times I get stuck.

And I had to go do it.

And man, I used to tell her, man, please, at some point we got to get somebody to do that.

I don't care what I got to pay because I can't do this all the time.

And man, I'm telling you, if that dream didn't become a reality, we ended up-

Now we have, and we've had for a long time, a great guy.

You know, that's part of-

You know, what he'll do other things in his business and dog sitting and all of that and part of what he'll do.

He don't mind doing that.

And-

But that's part of it, is that I used to have to clean dogs.

So in your business.

Right, you might be-

In your life, you got to clean up some dog shit right?

Dog shit right?

Right.

And then you could pay somebody to clean up that shit.

And then you could close us down, Maddie, with any advice that you would give to-

You know, it's kind of corny, but I like it.

You know, maybe if you were given advice to Christian and Ava, you know, and saying, hey, you know, these are three things, or these are a cup-

I don't know why the number three always sticks out, but you know, these are three things I would tell you to do if you want to be great in life, if you want to be successful, if you want to be, you know, whatever.

You know, what tips would you give your own children?

Well, I am, you know, one thing that we started talking to, and I think I'm going to talk on them to grind, and it's how easy it is to stand out nowadays.

And just some of these traits that we just went over, so many people had them 60 years ago in our grandfather's and whatnot.

And today, you know, it seems like one of the biggest things I hear business owners say is hard finding the right people.

So, you know, I'm going to let them know that if we could develop and do my best to develop these traits, because if you have them, like you're a diamond in the rough nowadays, and it's so easy, I don't feel like there's nothing special about me.

I just literally, these common-send traits that I'll try to prevail and show daily, those shoot you up the ranks fast, you know, as far as the kids.

I think that just one of the biggest things would be the golden-roll in life, and that's how you treat others and what you do with others.

And this has helped me in business decisions, in personal life, that you just do on the others what you want done onto you.

So, I wouldn't talk about others in a certain way that I wouldn't want the same in return.

I'm not going to blow up on people that I wouldn't want them blowing up on me in the same return.

So, I'll try to live and teach them to live and show and do things that they would want, you know, in return.

That's one, another one is going to be, I'm going to try to make sure that they have high self-esteem and a high self-worth.

That, you know, self-esteem, they believe in their ability to do something, you know, whatever it is that challenges they take, I'm going to try to make sure they're confident.

Yeah, and then self-worth even more, especially with a daughter, that they've built their thought process of themselves, what they think of themselves.

And that's part of how I would like to raise them and then anybody that comes into our business that I'm around is to think and expect highly of yourself.

Because some of these people have it inside them, they're just not even thinking that they do, because their self-worth is low.

You know, so if I could build up somebody self-worth and self-esteem, and you're only going to get as far as what your expectation of yourself is.

And so if that's low, where are you going to go? You know, you almost don't even think you deserve it.

Whether, you know, that's who my daughter dates or Mary's event, I want her to have a very self-esteem, same with the people.

And then, you know, three take ownership whenever you make mistakes. And, you know, I don't think that just like parenting or in business, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.

And not every decision that you make is going to be right. But as long as you're making these life decisions, these business decisions, from a good heart, these parenting decisions, from your gut, with good intentions, good heart, you're usually going to be right.

A better majority of the times that you're wrong. If you have good intentions, you're making them from gut heart. There is no secret answer to parenting.

Like, something happens. Let me look up at a book and do this exactly right now. You don't know. So you're just going off your gut, your instincts, and that's the same stuff with business, same shit with leadership.

And majority of the time, you're going to be right if your intentions are right and you're good-hearted in doing it.

So you help a lot of people along the way. It's eventually going to come back around to you. So, you know, those are a couple of families. There's a thousand that you could probably spit on.

I mean, that's just literally what pops in the minute.

A lot of one more, you know, from your parents to, you know, anything that sticks out to you, you know, is there a think of a couple, you know, people that you've learned from, be it in books or mentors or family members.

What have you pulled from, you know, some people that you feel as a part of who you are?

Even though not every trait of that person is in you, you pulled the good out of that person and said, man, I learned a lot from this person.

It's funny because it is. It's different traits from different people when it, you know, my dad.

That's the lot of your mom and a lot of your dad in you.

Yeah, right. You know, my dad is...

One's an angel, one's an angel with little devil.

Yeah, like two, two different on your shoulders. You know, they're my first and foremost. My dad is very strong.

And, you know, me and my brother put them through hell for good 10 years, both of our parents are like, we are bad. We are wild in different ways.

And they never, they never like with throughout the talent. You know, they would just, and whenever you get through that with someone that's always in your corner, even when you go through hard stuff,

I mean, like the loyalty that comes that way. Yeah, I say, I recognize that in knowing when or what to, just because someone people are going through some rough stuff, never to just throw the talent.

Because sometimes they'll come out of that and the loyalty and their animals, you know, and I think most parents, kids put their parents through something like that.

So they show me that, that will help me with parenting. My dad showed me how to handle a lot of pressure, never seeing him break down or worry or visibly, you know, just whatever pressure is that comes on his way.

Through fighting and whatnot. He was always calm, cool and collected. Kind of the leader of the group, whatever situation he was in was always like, all right, this we're going to do boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And never like break down or never heard him complain about it, whether it was construction hard, whenever. And my mom was just a sweetheart. She showed, you know, loving, caring.

You know, my mom, I would never hear bad mouth people. You know, I think that comes in. I grew up never watching her bad mouth. I never watch her, you know, mother raft swear.

Like that way said that she that's the first person I had to what a lady was like, you know, and kind of, you know, Courtney. Courtney is the same way. She reminds me of my mom in that sense. Courtney, you don't bad mouth anybody. She don't, she don't swear. You never hear say they have for her. Like I don't even mean when it's me and her. I don't hear her say the same.

You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, that too.

So, Courtney, I mean, you know, when you go to heaven, I know you're automatic for dealing with this dude. Just give me a good for real.

True, truth court to sport. You know, and then you know, you was a perfect time. It would be between the discipline and thinking big, you know, two of the biggest things that I've taken from you, you know, especially at 26 years old.

I didn't have that kind of discipline. You had it at a mid-age early age. You know, a lot of people don't have that. You're free with discipline.

And that helps slow me down because I was just off like off the charts. Wow.

in that discipline, even if it took a couple years, years, and we're still not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's persistence,

beats resistance. So that discipline helped me a lot, scheduling stuff like that,

stuff that I was never around, you know, and then the magic of thinking big,

what to expect. So, you know, it almost like whatever I was thinking like, it

allowed me to start thinking like that could be done in a year, two years,

which I would have never thought that if I wasn't exposed to the right person,

you know, that coach ability thing that we talked about, I almost feel bad for

a lot of people don't even earn in a situation where they have a mentor coach

that will coach them like that and give them, they don't even get the option to

pick those four things they don't do. So it's almost worse when you have the

person and you don't do it, you know, I mean, because we underestimate the fact

that most people don't even get to have someone like that in their life. So, you

know, you got my brother, my strong shirt off your back type of guy, very, very

loyal. My brother's a very, very, very loyal. You know, he doesn't like,

he's not good at faking anything. You know, these people that I think that,

you know, his work ethic was strong on my brother. We'll work 16-hour days.

You know, I feel like I got a good work ethic. My dad has a good work that,

you know, my mom worked 40 years. My brother's like a freak with a work ethic.

So, you know, a lot of these people, you know, Britain from the way he will carry

himself. And you know, the best, I think, whenever you get good at humans, you don't

just do it on your own. You look at these people that are in your lives and

these qualities that they have. And you're like, wow, those are, those are great qualities

on the person. And then you adapt them and steal them. Yeah, you adapt them and say,

and when you could put those together from a bunch of different people, you

become an overall, your stock is going to rise very fast. Yeah. Well, Maddie, I just want to say

thanks for joining us. And, you know, it's cool for the, you know, when the teacher becomes to,

you know, has an opportunity to be the student. You know, you've been, you know,

somebody that I've been able to, you know, I remember, you know, walking through every phase of

baggy dress shirts. You know, everything, I beggin you to please get off the south side,

you know, to where, you know, one of my go-to's for advice on things, personal life, business life,

you know, you've become part of that certainly of wisdom, you know, to where I value your opinion

because of, of how much you've grown and the things you've accomplished and the person that you

are on the inside out. So, Maddie, I love you. Appreciate you coming on. Hopefully everybody enjoyed

this. Stay tuned for another episode of Grindcast. Get ready us a new day. Thank you guys.

Count money, man. Money, riches. I tried to, I tried to, I told them I'm a beast, but