Don’t Cash Out

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

I told trying to told him I'm a beast, but

What's up gang?

Welcome to the grind cast.

Stop it, area.

Here.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

Don't cash out too soon.

Don't cash out too soon.

This is going to go for business.

This is going to go for people climbing up in sports or in any arena.

And so too often I see people wanting to reap the rewards too soon.

And so a lot of the issues in life financially that people have are that they get money

and instead of living below their means they spend all their money.

And so you even you'll see this when people start to make more money.

Sometimes people will make more money than they ever thought they would make in their

life.

And they still end up spending it all and it's gone.

And they have nothing to show for it.

So this is the example and the analogy that I'm going to use when I'm trying to explain

what's the thoughts that are in my mind right now.

And you're in the pursuit of greatness, excellence, a championship run, whatever that may

be.

And so what I see is people will start to have success.

And they'll start to have success and instead of keep on grinding, they want to start to

taste taste the fruits of their labor a little bit more.

They want to start to treat themselves a little bit already too soon.

It's premature.

You're almost there.

But what happens and for you you may think it depends on what your position is.

Do I want to be a super bowl champion coach?

Do I want to win a world title in MMA or boxing?

Do I want to win a national championship in football?

Do I want to hit a certain amount of production in business or do I want to take my business

to a certain level?

Whatever it is, the first problem and the problem that I see the most in people that start

having success is that on their climb, before they reach that level, before they get there,

they start acting like their Mike Tyson, before they ever win the championship, before they

ever win the heavyweight title, they're on their way, but they already start acting like

they're there.

Not the mindset of believing that you're there, but you start rewarding yourself like you're

there already with time off, days off, not training the way that you should be training.

Too many buying too many nice things and being all flashy like you haven't won it yet,

you haven't been there yet, but you're acting and treating yourself to all the rewards before

you ever got the results.

I've seen this in my business, and that's where this energy comes from, is in watching

other people in our business, they will see people that have already obtained a certain

amount of success.

Let's say they've been with the company for 25 years, and they're hitting a certain level

of production and they're making tons of money, and they got this balance of life where

they take vacations and they do these types of things.

Some people on their journey of getting there, they start saying, maybe I should get those

things too right now.

They're doing it.

Why can't I do it?

Because I got the same title, I got the same position, but you don't have the same result.

What happens is as you grind, as you put in the effort in the work, you start building

up your bank account, okay, not money, but you're building up these credits in your account

of the grind that leads you to success.

When you start to cash out too soon, just like your bank account, if you go up to $100,000

you already start cashing out on 50, well now you only got 50 left.

If you cash in on another 50, you're done.

You're broke.

Even though you once had money, you once had success, but you start rewarding yourself

too soon without a big enough savings account in your one disaster away from not being able

to pay your bills.

And so I watched people in business reward themselves too soon when their business isn't

built to the level to where they should be taken for vacations a year.

They're already starting to go home before the staff.

They're already all the time.

They're already going on vacations multiple times a year.

They're going to this place.

They're going to that place.

They're going to this place.

But I'm looking at them and you haven't accomplished shit.

You're not there yet.

You're on your way.

You got the potential to be.

You're a contender.

Congratulations.

You're a contender.

But you're not there yet.

And so what happens is they keep on caching out on success too soon and they keep bankrupting

their account.

And so it really never completely goes away, but I'll give you the window.

I finally get a chance to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I'll give you that.

But let's go get it first.

And the reason why a lot of these people don't get it when they should get it is that

they see the person that has it and they fail to understand the amount of energy and

effort that it requires to get to that level.

Also everybody is born with different gifts.

So sometimes somebody is a born, natural, freak athlete.

So maybe they don't need to work as hard to get it or maybe it happens to them like it

happened for Tyson at 19, 20 years old.

You may need to grind like that until you're 30 years old to make it.

But Tyson got it at 19, 20.

How come I can't have it at 19, 20?

Because he's Mike Tyson and you're not.

But you think that you deserve the rewards in the lifestyle of somebody like Tyson, but

you haven't gotten there yet.

So this can be applied in anything, in business, in sports or whatever.

But if you're on to come up and you're building something, don't underestimate the amount

of effort and energy and work that it takes to get you where you want to be.

The rewards are going to come.

Nobody gets rewarded better in an entrepreneurial situation like show me somebody that has a

super successful business that's rocking.

You ever see somebody that runs a successful business to where it looks like it just is

a machine?

They can take a vacation and come back.

Nothing burns down.

They can show up to work eight, nine o'clock.

It's cool.

They can leave it two, three o'clock.

Everything runs decent.

You know, they can put in some effort, but the thing will run smooth.

I got news for you.

It wasn't always that way.

And if they drop their guard too much and cash out too soon, that business will eventually

collapse.

But what you see them enjoying, don't think because you're opening up your restaurant

right now and you're having a little bit of success.

You should start doing that yourself because your business isn't going to make it if you

do that.

You need, it takes a ridiculous amount of energy and effort to get your shit built,

to get it to where you want it to be.

But yes, the rewards come because what happens is if you want to live a life that other

people don't get to live, you have to do things up front that other people are not willing

to do.

The shit that sucks.

The sacrifice is nobody wants to make.

The time that nobody wants to put in.

The weddings that nobody wants to miss.

The stupid stuff that nobody wants to miss out on.

I need this relaxation.

I need to treat myself.

I just got to unwind.

I got, well, you can do that.

But don't expect to have the things that the other people got that are where you want

to be that kept their nose to the grindstone and kept grinding.

And so what happens is on the come up, you keep building up these credits in your bank

account of the grind, the grind, the grind, the grind, the grind, the grind.

And that's when all of a sudden you'll see a person put in the years of grind and they

got the results.

Don't mistake time with accomplishment.

I don't give a shit if you've been grinding for 20 years.

If you ain't where you want to be, you need to keep grinding for another 20 years.

Or don't play the game at all.

But time don't always have it.

But let's say you have somebody that's been grinding for 10 years and they built a successful

situation, successful business and they want to go to Italy for two years.

Do it.

You should have enough credits in your account that when you come back, you still got a

little bit of money left in that account.

But the mistake that people make like specifically myself, when I do stuff like that, they'll

see me travel the world.

I go to all these different places, go to Spain, go to Greece, go to Italy, about

two months around.

But yes, it's a reward.

Yes, it's great.

Yes, it's fun.

But let me tell you what wasn't great that made that happen.

What wasn't great that made that happen is being at the office at six o'clock in the morning,

seven o'clock in the morning, 80% of the days.

Evening's traveling to satellite offices for three days, missing time with my kids every

time I miss them.

Every single time I miss them.

No matter what, Thursday nights till nine, ten o'clock, sometimes needing to entertain,

spend time with people, whatever it may be.

All the things that just people don't see, the headaches, the lawsuits, the ability to

stay calm under pressure, dealing with people backstabbing you, people quitting, whatever

it is, all those things, you can't just want the three week vacation without being willing

to go through the grind.

That's the thing that comes with it.

And so you build it up, build it up, build it up, build it up.

Yes, I'm cashing in on all this bullshit that we went through to make this happen.

And in order to do that, leading up to that, I'm going to grind, grind, grind, grind,

when I come back, I'm going to grind, grind, grind, grind in between.

I'm going to grind to build that account back up because people will lose respect for

you.

If you're running a business dealing with people, it don't matter what phase it a game

you're in.

If you don't show that you're willing to put in some work and more people are outworking

you, whether they say it or not, people are not going to have the ultimate level of respect

for you.

I want to encourage you out there to not cash in on your success too soon.

You got a couple years under your belt, your building up some wins, your building up some

success.

People starting to recognize it, this ain't the time.

This ain't the time to start going backwards.

This ain't the time to start rewarding yourself, I'm going on vacation.

Once you own just on vacation, yeah, I'm taking another vacation, taking another day off,

take, well, what's going to happen is you're not going to get to where you want to be doing

that.

So if that's what you want to do and you're happy doing it, that's cool.

The only issue that I ever have is when people say that they want to obtain a certain level

of success, but their actions don't align.

If you say that this is all you want, that's cool.

Another thing that I got to point out to people is I have a friend of mine who is battling

cancer and not doing extremely well, lost a lot of weight.

I had the opportunity to spend time with them and get some wisdom and share some moments

and man, it was great.

While I was there, two things stuck out to me.

One is when I left there, I'm thinking man, life is short.

You never know when your number is going to get called and I want to just wrap my arms

around my kids.

I want to be there for them while I can.

I want to enjoy things while I can and that's true and that's the way I felt and I was half

of it.

But I think too often people make that all of it and don't understand the other half.

So the other half that I saw that I heard saw and felt was his feeling of I just, if

I'm not going to be okay, I can live with that.

I'm not going to be okay with that.

But I'm more concerned that my daughters are going to be okay and be able to survive now

going through this or without me and that my wife is going to be okay, that my family is

going to be okay.

Probably was the bigger concern than even his own health and well being.

In those conversations things started to come up such as money.

What are we going to do to make sure these kids can make it through college?

What are we going to do to make sure when they get married?

What are we going to do to make sure if my wife lives to 80 for the next 30 years?

How can we set up to make sure she's okay?

How can we make sure all these people that I love are going to be okay?

And I'm telling you man, I had that balance in me when I left.

after of yep, gotta make every day count.

Yep, love your family, love your kids, enjoy every moment.

But, but you know when they say, man, on your deathbed,

you know, people you work with ain't gonna be there

and you're not gonna be worried about where these people are at,

all that's gonna be around you as your family

and all that stuff.

Part of that stuff is true, but part of what I've seen

in multiple times dealing with this stuff

is that people just don't wanna admit.

They're also wondering what the hell is gonna happen

financially to their family, which is why I don't mind

being in a life insurance business

because that's what we're protecting against.

But, that also encourages me and keeps me balanced of yep.

Those days when I'm grinding, and I gotta be on the road

for a couple days and I don't see my son,

I don't see my daughter for 24 hours, 78 hours.

You know, however long it takes me to get home,

72 hours, whatever, as much as I miss him,

I know that's daddy's job.

That's my job right now.

I'm not a stay-at-home mom.

So there's weeks where I do drop my kids off at school

sometimes once or twice throughout the week.

I do pick my kids up from school sometimes throughout the week.

I do spend time.

Is it all the time?

No, I'd like to spend every waking minute.

Most of the time, today starts stressing me out

then I'm running out of there for a couple hours,

but you get the point.

But it's irresponsible.

The only way that I can make sure five years from today

is better and that they're prepared

and they're okay to go to the same schools,

it would break my heart if something happened to me

and I had to sit down and watch somewhere from heaven,

look at my wife move out of the house

because she can't afford it.

Or my kids can't go to the same school when I was here

that they're going to now, they can't go there anymore.

They can't live where we were living,

can't go to them schools, can't get swimming lessons,

can't get extra attention for baseball,

can't get all these things

that was able to be provided when we were grinding

would bother me.

And so you gotta balance the,

you gotta balance that feeling.

If you got kids of, oh, I wanna be there for them

and oh, I also got an obligation to make five years,

10 years, 15 years from today, better than they are today

and to try to set our family up somewhat.

So we're protected and prepared for a potential disaster

in the event that I'm not here anymore.

So that being said,

if you're out there grinding, pushing,

grinding for something,

don't come this, like you didn't come this far

just to get this far.

And if you don't keep doing more of what you got you here

and take it to another level,

your ass is on your way backwards, I'm telling you.

And the biggest mistake is when you start to do these lazy things

and you still keep having some success,

it's all a setup for a bigger disaster

because now you think that you're cool doing this

and it's over time you're gonna hit a point

where you didn't realize that you banked up,

banked up the grind account and now you're done

or the only way is now you gotta go back to work

in seven days a week, 365 days grind

because you gotta build that account back up

to live this lifestyle you wanna live,

to do these things that you wanna do.

You, now you've already built your life around this life

but now you gotta go grind on another level

whereas if you just wanna maintain it,

like once you get to the point,

that was the other part of it is when you get there,

there is great, great rewards that come with you doing

the grind and having success at it,

that other people don't have.

Like the people that tease you about you can't do nothing,

you can't hang, you can't do this, you can't do that.

Well, they're probably working till five

and you get to leave it one o'clock if you choose to every day.

You get to see the world from a boat

and overlook the sea from the ocean

and overlook the view from the ocean

and this and that and they don't have those experiences.

There's things that you'll get rewarded on

that people will, you will be able to give more things to charity.

You'll be able to start things with your time

and help other people with your time.

You'll be able to coach kids games and practices

and all these other things but if you start to reward yourself

too soon, you never quite get there.

It's a constant, constant grind, keep climbing,

keep pushing, keep moving to the top

and then when you get there, it's easier to maintain

than it was to get there.

And so I think the people at the bottom are in the middle,

they get confused because they're looking at these people

that are in the maintenance stage

and they think that's what they did

so that what they're doing is currently okay.

No, this guy's just maintaining,

this woman's just in the maintenance stage

where there's so much coming in,

if they're, and I'm not talking money, I'm talking credits.

This woman got a million credits,

so yeah, she spends 200,000 but she got 800,000 left.

So yeah, it looks easy and then she'll put that 200,000

back in the account, she got another million

but you, you're trying to get to the million.

Shit, when you got a million interest on credit,

you know, credits, if you got a million

and you just get 10%, you're gonna get 100,000.

They might be living some life on credits

that are building off interest that you don't even have

but you're trying to live your life like these people.

You will get there, you will get to live that

if you keep on grinding.

If you keep trying to cash out too soon and reward yourself,

you're on your way back, backwards.

It's gonna be a bad landing, a crash landing,

it's miserable.

The only thing worse than not having anything

is having everything and losing it all.

Once you saw what it was like, now,

when you get to that next level,

let's say you're listening to you,

you got to that next level,

to get to the next level which you may or may not decide

that you wanna do, you may not wanna go to the next level.

I'm currently in the process where if I just compare

normal things, I'm a couple levels above the goal

of what most people, so in our business,

people wanna do 100,000 a week.

We're doing four, 500,000 a week this month.

That's not where I'm trying to stay.

We're trying to go to another level.

We are going to another level, so guess what?

My grind looks a little bit different

than somebody that's trying to maintain.

I'm grinding like I'm just trying to get to that 100,000

because I'm trying to take this thing to the next level.

We are willing to do what it takes that's necessary

to sacrifice as the grind energy, the amount of focus

that it takes to take this thing to the next level.

But the other issue I think that people have on the climb

is when I talk about rewarding yourself,

let me talk about the levels of rewards.

So the first level of rewards may not even be a reward.

It's a reward for yourself mentally

because it's just the right thing to do.

If you have kids or you have people that you need

to take care of, then those are the things

that are important.

You put those in your schedule, you can do it all.

I used to buy this excuse from people before I had kids

that all because I have kids, I can't do this,

I can't do that, I can't do this, I can't do that.

I learned to have more empathy, not sympathy.

I don't sympathize for me, I don't feel bad for them.

But I do understand and I empathize more,

which has made me a better leader.

It's also taught me how to help people with their bullshit

because a lot of it is excuses whether they understand it

or they don't understand it's all bullshit.

If you schedule it properly

and you put it in your schedule,

this is when I'm gonna spend time with my kids,

this is when I'm gonna spend time with my son

or this is when I'm gonna spend time with my daughter.

Here's my date night for my wife

and I look a month in advance in my schedule

and this is what we're doing.

You may need to look a month in advance

to plan a trip or plan a couple of date nights or whatever it is.

But if you plan it and schedule it,

you can be there as a parent,

you can be there as a husband, as a wife, whatever.

You can do it all if you schedule it,

plan it, stick to it, discipline to it.

And then you go around that, you put a ton of work in.

Like I'm talking about, there's 168 hours in a week.

Let's say you sleep for 50 of them,

you got 118 hours left.

You work out, pray, go to church, get ready,

all those things that my body spirit for 18 hours.

And you slept, you got 100 hours left.

If you said I'm gonna give, already slept,

already worked out, already prayed,

already did this, already did that.

I'm gonna give my undivided focus to tension to my wife

or my husband or my kids or whatever

and I scheduled out 20 hours.

Like not 20, I'm sitting on a couch watching Mary with children

eating a bag of chips drinking a 40.

But you're home, you think you're spending time with the family.

I'm talking about legit 20 hours,

focused, intentional, planned, organized, you're zoned in.

You got 80 hours left to grind.

It's those 80 that I'm talking about.

It ain't got nothing to do with you spending time with the kids.

This ain't got nothing to do with you spending time with the family.

This ain't got nothing to do with you sleeping.

We already accounted for all that.

I'm talking about with those other 80, those other 70.

You gotta go to work.

You gotta quit making excuses.

You gotta cut out the unnecessary shit

that you don't need to do that you're wasting time on,

whether it's video games, social media,

pickup basketball games, pickup baseball games, golf and,

whatever these extra curricular things are

that are not making you any better in business

or whatever your goal is,

you have to cut that shit out.

You may think, well, I don't want to cut those things out.

I gotta have some piece.

I gotta have some unwinding.

I gotta have some.

I gotta, you're unwinding is spending time with the family

and my body spirit and doing some yoga,

working out and time for yourself.

And you can't want all this

and play golf and games and this and that and play soccer

and all these things.

But you also want to be able to go to the next level

and be a world champ.

You also want to go to the next level

and you want to have millions of dollars

and travel the world and give to charitable organizations

and go travel to country and drive a Ferrari,

drive a Lamborghini and do all these.

You can't want both.

If you're not willing to do what it takes to acquire both,

but you can have both, you can have it all.

Your people said, well, I don't want to have these things

because I want to be a good dad or I want to be a good wife

or I want to be a good husband.

Well, who said that you got to draw a line in the sand

and say, you can't have these things if you do these things.

It's an excuse or a lack of organization

or lack of discipline.

Let's call a spade a spade.

It's all bullshit.

Because I can point out to you a ton of moms,

a ton of dads, a ton of husbands, a ton of wives,

a ton of them.

If I picked them all and put them in this room,

we wouldn't even fit.

Are the people that I know that are playing at a high level,

coaching at a high level, coaching in the NFL,

fighting as a professional fighter at a high level,

one of world championship playing sports,

coaching college football, national championships,

X-World champ boxers.

If I were to put people that can do it all,

they've done it at different levels.

I'm telling you, I can put a slew of people together,

that are good dads,

good husbands, good wives, good moms,

and their animals in business,

or they're going to the next level in whatever it is

that you can do it all, stop making the excuses,

start making the adjustments that are necessary

to live the life that you desire.

The problem is a lot of the extra work,

like I come from a day where I watch my grandfather,

I watch people in our house,

like I come from a background where most of the people

that had anything were a part of the union

in Youngstown or how I'm growing up,

steel workers, auto workers,

most of the people that had decent things,

it's like they couldn't wait till there was overtime.

I remember watching people in Youngstown,

like they would never turn down overtime

if they worked in general motors.

They got to work 40 hours, then they were doing overtime,

and the people with the highest seniority

would be able to get overtime first

because they paid a little bit more,

and they got extra hours,

and they would fight over the overtime.

I'm not missing my overtime.

Now I'm looking at people that they want to live this extra life,

they want to live this next level life,

but when you got a chance to put in overtime,

you don't want to put in overtime.

You don't want to go to work.

You don't want to go to work.

to make a little bit extra money. You don't want to go well, well, here in life, the excuses,

the reasons that those folks end up where they end up and these people end up where they

end up, which side are you going to be on? And so as we close out this message for today,

I want you to ask yourself, am I starting to cash out on my rewards too soon before I've

reached the level that I need to reach before I start to cash in this heavy. There's no

problem spending a little bit. There's no, I didn't say don't take a Saturday here

and there. I didn't say don't take a break here and there. I didn't say don't go to your

sister's wedding. I didn't say none of that. So all normal stuff, you got to schedule

out plan out whatever I'm talking about you know what I mean. Going to visit your friend

in college that you don't need to be visited. Spending a week doing some stuff you don't

need to be spending it on when you're not where you want to be. And we all have those choices.

Your decisions determine your destiny. Everybody is responsible for their own decisions, but here's

how you got to wrap this thing up in your mind. You learn this as a kid. You hear parents

saying it's either you pay now and you get to play later or you can play now and you got

to pay later. But either way, you're going to have to pay what I have seen the best approaches

to pay now. The price and what it costs to go to where you want to go like inflation

is more and more and more every day that goes by. The longer it takes you to pay the price

necessary for success, the more expensive it's going to be. If you don't pay it now,

you think you're going to pay it in five years when your kids are older? You're not. You

think you're going to pay it when you're five years more married? You're not. Pay it now.

This is the cheapest it's ever going to be. This is the least expensive it's ever going

to be for you. It's never going to be perfectly convenient. You got to look at what do I

want 10 years from today? What I want five years from today? If you want to be a Titan,

if you want to be a champion, if you want to be up there with the Eagles, you got to stop

rolling with the chicken, stop comparing yourself to the chickens and take yourself to

Eagle School. It looks easy to fly. But you don't see all the work that it took to build

them wings up and to learn how to fly and to learn how to soar, learn how to deal with

all the different weather and you don't, it looks easy. But it ain't. If you keep putting

in the grind, you keep putting in the work, you could take little bits and pieces and

reward yourself here and there. But for most of us, if you listen to this, means you're

on a mission to do something great. Means you got a chip on your shoulder, you're trying

to go to the next level. It ain't our time right now. This ain't our time to be cashing

in too much and patting ourselves on the back and telling us how much we deserve. And

you deserve this, honey. You deserve this baby. You work so hard. You work so hard.

Compairs to what? Compairs to who? It's all perspective. Success leaves clues. If you

want somebody's life, you got to want that grind that took them to get there in the obstacles

and the adversity and the mindset and the sleepless nights that it took for them to get

there. And you can have all those things. The good news is the reward that we're talking

about doesn't go to whoever graduated with the highest grades in their class and college

or high school most of the time. Doesn't go to who's the most attractive most of the

time. Doesn't go to who's the biggest, who's the tallest, who's the skinniest. Doesn't

go to none of that. It goes to who is willing to put in the frickin' work to develop themself,

to put in the necessary effort that it takes to be great to take themself and their family

to the next level and deal with the most bullshit along the way. Sacrifices, setbacks, obstacles

and adversities without quitting and giving up and finding a way to get themself off the

ground when those things happen and keep showing up. Those are the people that get the reward.

Those are the people that have what you want. Let's go get it. Let's go get there. Thanks

for joining us on another episode of the grindcasts. Get ready as a new day.