The Core Values of My Inner Circle

Count money, man.

Money, man.

That grits us.

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

What's up, gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Gruntcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

We're going to talk about the values of the core group.

I guess you could say the inner circle here in the business.

We were calling them the Fab Six.

And we just expanded it to the Elite Eight.

Oh, you got eight?

Just expanded to the Elite Eight.

And so shout out to the members of my Elite Eight here, Justin Adams, Matt Diolis, Brodie

Evanson, Britain Costa, Tristan D'Labick, Joey Crivelli now.

Joey, you made a team.

Mark Burns' Dorf.

Now.

Let's go.

Who the heck, who am I messing here?

I got Brodie, I got Justin, I got Matti, I got Greg.

Greg, I want to say Greg.

I got Greg.

Greg.

So that's the Elite Eight.

So it was first the Fab Six.

And now we just expanded it.

Burns' Dorf on there.

So it's one thing for Greg to make the Fab Six.

Now he got somebody also in there, which is when you really start to, you know, like Maxwell

says, I like to multiply and pour into other multipliers that pour into others.

You know, so when you got in that small circle, you're responsible for bringing somebody into

that circle is super cool.

You know what I mean?

So Matt, he's been able to bring Britain Costa into that circle.

And Justin was able to help bring, you know, Greg into that circle.

Now Greg has marked into that circle.

Brodie helped Tristan to get into that circle.

And now we got Joey, you know, into that circle.

And so I thought as we, you know, as I started to look at what was always a small group,

you know, was Tommy Justin and Matti for me.

And then it, you know, it started to evolve when the group is small, I'm thinking, if

I look out 10 years and we're doing hundreds of millions of dollars in premium, that circle

is going to have to get a little bit bigger.

And so as that group gets a little bit bigger, it's always a challenge as a business when

you're small and you have certain values and systems and a culture, the challenge is

not in that moment.

The challenge is as you expand and multiply, how do you keep that same culture when you're

not altogether?

You're not all in the same office.

And how do you get that to continue to transcend generations and to go, you know, levels

deep as other people start to come into the business?

And so I felt like it was important to have values written down.

We could always make adjustments to them, but just to have something almost like a north

star of, are we doing the right things?

Are we moving in the direction that we said that we wanted to move in together even as

we expand?

Is this action aligning with our values or does it not align with our values?

Because it's not personal, you know what I mean?

Because I think that if we're going to expand the right way, we're going to have to have

people in that circle that are willing and down to withhold the values of the organization.

And if not, then we have to part ways.

And it's really that simple.

And part ways doesn't mean like, I want to hurt anybody.

I would, part ways can mean, let me help you still do something good for yourself.

And try to help you be in a good situation.

And just, you can't do it here.

You know what I mean?

It's just time to do something because the values of the organization have to come above

me, above anybody else.

It's bigger than all of us.

This is the bylaws that's going to run just like the people that wrote the things that

the Constitution and stuff for America.

These people are dead and we're still living bodies.

So it's got to be bigger than that individual.

So I believe that we've built something here so special together that it's bigger than

any individual.

And I could be gone or I could retire.

And I feel like the infrastructure is at a place to where it can function.

And there's so many other people's lives that are responsible.

But for some reason, I couldn't be here.

The last thing that I would ever want is for this not to go on.

You know what I mean?

And so we got rules that are going to lead us no matter who's here leading us.

These are the things that we stand for as a group.

And so we came up with these values collectively together.

And number one, it's funny I'm wearing the shirt.

Number one is loyalty.

Come on.

It's a buzzword sometimes the people.

Like real old school true, true, true loyalty.

And so it's about playing on, on playing for the name on the front of the Jersey.

More than we're playing for the name on the back of the Jersey, which is like the front

of the Jersey in sports is typically the team.

And the back of the Jersey is typically the individual.

And so we got to be playing for the team more than any one individual.

And by doing that, you got to be loyal to the group.

You got to be loyal to the organization.

You got to be loyal to an, and I have to be loyal to the organization.

Loyal to the organization isn't again loyalty to only me.

It's loyalty to the whole thing.

You know, I have to be loyal to the organization.

I have to be loyal to the company.

I have to, and so I think just the loyalty is to the mission of the organization, of the

people, of the leadership.

To me, loyalty, I never want to like have hard times with my, with my people, but really

loyalty is tested when we disagree.

That's right.

That's true.

I think that even marriages, you know, relationships being married, you know, for getting ready

to go on eight years married, 13 years with the same woman.

Um, loyalty is, to me, is not tested in the honeymoon stage.

Yes.

Loyalty is tested when you seven years deep.

And you ain't getting along and you're going to Las Vegas.

Yeah.

Now let's see how loyal you are.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And, and that's when loyalty is tested when the chips are down, when, when we don't agree,

um, that's when the real loyalty is, is tested.

And so I think sometimes when you, when you think of loyalty, you have to think about loyalty

to what?

Like it begs the question of like, loyal, what am I, what am I loyal to?

Loyal, loyal to the team over everything.

That's all including, including me.

So that's just the one thing.

So the second one is growth.

Um, we're here to grow.

That's right.

So some businesses sounds like, yeah, growth like big deal.

But man, a lot of people, you'd be surprised that they're just cool with their ads.

They're cool with their company doing whatever it's doing or cool with their business doing

whatever it's doing.

They're good with that.

They don't need too much more.

They're straight, but here we're not about that.

So if you're looking for a place that, you know, I can build something and just like

coast it out and not really care if it grows or not work like we're here to grow.

That's how we're, that's how we're doing it.

So growth mode is, is critical, uh, personal and professional.

So we all try to subscribe to my body and spirit.

So growth in your personal life, um, intentional growth, inward growth precedes outward growth.

That's something that we value.

Uh, third one is respect, respect to each other.

I had that.

Uh, respect to the agency, respect to one another.

Right.

Um, all of that stuff, you know, showing respect.

So sound, another one sounds basic.

Some people are just disrespectful.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

How is this showing?

Sometimes you got to like, how does this show?

How are you showing this person respect by doing that?

That's right.

You know what I'm saying?

And so just to have that as a reminder of, I mean, you should note that as a 10 year old

kid to give respect, right?

So look, uh, number four is integrity.

And best way I could describe what that means to us is, you know, they, they use the word

integrity sometimes to, um, describe like the strength, uh, of something, right?

The integrity of the bottle or the integrity of the, you know, it's like the strength of

something like, what is, what is your true strength of, of self and values?

Are you the same person that you say that you are?

Correct.

You know what I mean?

Just keeping it real and, and, uh, in that sense to us is what it meant.

Being honest and, and having moral principles and, and, uh, being whole and not divided

and just making sure that our words and our actions align the best, the best that we can.

And, you know, everybody's human.

Everybody makes mistakes.

You know, if I, if somebody judge me on my worst moment, or I judge you on your worst moment

this year, and it's like, I mean, let me find you at your worst moment this year and

get that on tape.

All of us would be like, I could do better than that.

I just had a rough minute.

Right.

So, nobody's perfect.

But for the most part, just sticking to who you are your actions and your words align

it.

If you're saying something, can you stick with it?

Can we trust you to stick with it?

Number five, self control.

Self control could be in like physical self control, but also in your like words.

You know, not quick temperate.

Right.

So this isn't something that came natural to me.

I was always quick tempered.

Quick.

And, but I've learned like in business and in leadership, it's not good to have somebody

that is too quick tempered because you're making too many irrational decisions with people's

lives in your hands.

And so you can't be too emotional.

So you got to have self control with your words and not lacking discipline and making

bad decisions that like you want to do certain things, but you know that you can't do.

So you got to have self control in this thing.

And then also in your delivery to stuff of like your tone of voice can be a lack of self

control.

You know, how is your delivery to somebody?

You could I could say the same words to somebody and somebody take that completely disrespectful

just based off the tone of my voice and in my delivery.

So a lot of these are in self control.

And then, you know, if you're in leadership and you're in this core group, right?

Again, we're all human, but we're looking for self control, not for the person that

is drinking so much they can't control themselves.

Correct.

That's not.

So if I were to look at you and you're smashed in front of everybody at a function.

Right.

And we say one of our values is self control, where you displaying self control.

No.

Right?

Where you, you know, where you displaying self control with you and your this person's

relationship in the office, you know what I mean?

Or whatever it is.

So just self control.

Number six.

And the final one in no specific order was humility.

And so humility, I think people confuse that sometimes as like sometimes until you learn

true humility, it's like weakness.

People think humility is like someone that's like no confidence and kind of meek.

But you know, I forget where I heard this at, but I've been teaching it for a long time

of 51, 49, 51% confidence and humility at 49% confidence and a little bit of edge to

you.

So what that means is I think if you got to have a certain level of ego to be an athlete

or to win or to want to compete, you got to have a certain level of like, let's go in

you.

And I think the problem is when we let that ego get above our humility level that it can't

suppress the, the humility can't suppress the ego.

And your ego and your head gets out of control versus if your humility is at 51% and your

ego is at 49% the humility keeps that ego in check to where you have just enough that

you need to win, but not too much to where you start to think you're better than anybody

else.

I heard somebody say humility in the, in the balance of all of it is teaching your kids

that, that they're not better than anybody else, but that nobody's better than them either.

So how to not be a dormat and just, I have no confidence, these people are the ones.

Like, all right, nope, you ain't better than me just because you, you know, or whatever.

But also if I got a little bit more in one situation or whatever doesn't mean that I'm

better than you, you know, as a person trying to find that, find that balance for people.

And I think that, you know, that, that is, you know, in the, in the Bible, you know, we

read a lot here.

So spiritually, you know, we try to develop, and whatever their faith is, just, you know,

mind just so happens to be, I read the Bible and in the Bible, we read Proverbs and, and

in Proverbs, it talks a lot about humility.

And I've just, you can watch this in your own personal life or you could read about it and

try to learn from it.

But in the word, it says that those that humble themselves will be exalted and those that

exalt themselves will be humbled.

And so there's that whole thing of like, well, you know, in, in business, you got to market

yourself a little bit and exalt yourself.

And so yeah, you have to have to do some of that stuff.

And, or as a fighter, you got to exalt yourself a little bit or as a captain of a football team,

you got to search yourself and exalt yourself a little bit.

But you could still do that and still have a grace of, of, of humility with you that

goes right alongside with that thing.

And I think it's just scary, you know, when I look at the people here that, that nobody

sees in our organization that were good names in our business that are no longer in the

company or in the business, most of the times, if I look at how did somebody fall off

after being so big or so great, it just boils down to one thing.

lack of humility man.

They started to fill himself too much.

They started to make himself a God.

They thought they were bigger than everything,

bigger than everybody else.

And those people end up reaping that saying

of those that exalt themselves will be humbled.

And so I always took that as,

you got an opportunity to humble yourself

or you cannot, and whether you believe in God, karma,

you know, whatever, I believe in God,

God will humble you if you don't humble yourself.

And I'm like, you know what?

I'd rather just get this done myself.

That's right.

And not have to figure out what happens

if I can't take care of this myself

unless they humble because I like the way

the things are going, right?

And so I hope that we're able to as a group,

you know, and sometimes it don't look like

we're walking in humility because we got chains on

or driving exotic cars or stuff like that

or wearing nice clothes.

But I think the first place to really show humility personally

is in a couple different things.

One is in your giving, like 100%.

You, that's the first place that shows some humility

if you're a giver.

And because if you're not a giver,

it's hard to have humility.

It's really like how could you make money

and not be a giver but say that you have humility?

And so I think that's a place, you know, right there

where you could look at like the actions

of some of the people in the circle.

And then how do you treat people in restaurant settings

or in places that you, that they don't know you

or a random person out there, you know,

can you, can they say you're treating the waitress

or the janitor just as good as everybody else?

You know, do you treat those people

with respect and kindness and stuff like that?

And we try to do that, you know, of course,

as you're developing young talent or developing,

you know, people, part of getting to learn the values

is to go through mistakes.

You know, I look at periods of my life

where nobody would describe me as humble.

You know, I look at stupid, you know,

I look at ways that I could look back.

I'm like, you know, you were probably a cocky,

arrogant little shit, you know what I mean

at this age or whatever.

And so I got to walk people through that phase

just like somebody was patient with me through that phase.

And so that person, it doesn't represent who they really are,

doesn't represent us as an organization.

They're just, that's where they're at in their journey.

But these are our values that are imperfect,

we're imperfect people.

So you may see, like, oh man, this is their values,

but they didn't do, you know, this or they're not showing that.

Like, we're, we're, there's eight people now in it

and eight humans.

Right. So people are human.

Right.

And it's gonna be tough to, you know,

to not ever make a mistake.

But these are the things that we're trying to currently align

ourselves with in the circle to where we're trying to build

that family, because I think that in a competitive atmosphere

and environment, what is important to grow your business big

is those that are connected at the top

can stay connected through the organization

and those that are not connected at the top crumble

at the bottom.

And so I see so many businesses to where their top people

are not aligned and it's so hard because it's like,

man, we're, we're in competition to against each other

sometimes is the mindset and you got to teach people

how to think in abundance.

And that means you could win and I can win.

We, matter of fact, we can win together

and be teammates in the sucker.

I don't have to hate on you.

You don't have to hate on me.

A matter of fact, let's all be loyal to the organization

unless you use the skills that God gave us

and the opportunity that we've been given

to impact each other and to impact the group.

And then it goes back to that whole thing

that aligns with the values.

But, you know, we're trying to make sure

that the people in this group,

I want those people to get along, man.

I want those people to feel like a team.

I want those people to feel like a family

as much as you possibly can in a business.

And I think I've always been blessed with that.

Over the years is by the grace of God,

I've had the top people that's not me, you know,

the generals in the organization, getting along

even though neither one of them are making money

off of each other and neither one of them is their boss,

but working still collectively as a group

for the better of everybody and getting along

and actually liking each other.

I've been blessed with that the whole time that I've been here.

And so I don't ever want to get out of that

as this circle grows.

I don't ever want to get out of a situation

where I got so many people that they forgot

that we're a family.

And sometimes family fights, right?

Oh, but that's the difference is,

if you really are a family and you argue

or you fight or something like that,

you bring it back together.

And if you're really not, then you could fight

or you can argue and it don't come back together.

And that's why number one is loyalty

and we say loyalty is tested when we disagree.

That's the 100% truth.

So that's how we truly see are you really loyal

because if there's a disagreement or whatever,

that's fine, we gotta bring it back together.

This is family and if we allow that to hurt us or kill us,

then where you ever really loyal at all.

And if not, then there's really not a place

for you here long term.

And these are the values that we gotta live by.

That we're trying to live by.

And they made it themselves.

The Fab Six made these values themselves.

I was a part of it a little bit,

but they came up with these values

and now we just gotta all hold each other accountable

to the values that we put together as we grow.

So I love that, man.

That's the breakdown of the 68th problem, man.

68th, wow.

Yep, another cool thing before we close,

I at the new house that I'm building currently,

I had like, I can't even say I made five percent

of the decisions we talked about.

Like Natalie did it all.

The only small couple of things

that I wanted any input on at all

was my gym in the basement.

Yeah.

And I wanted a big table.

So I said just build a big enough dining room

to fit me at least 14 people.

I want a big table where we can all sit together

with plenty of room at a real nice big table.

And I envision this dinner

where we're all sitting together as a big family

like Thanksgiving day dinner, but it's not Thanksgiving.

It's just a normal day where we give thanks.

I love it.

With the crew.

So we got plenty of room at the table

because we're only at eight at the elite eight.

So that means I got enough room to double up.

That I put two extra chairs on the side.

You know what I mean?

And I tried to build a big enough table,

not only for my own family to sit at,

but for my business family to be able to sit at and break bread

together and all of us sit there and eat together.

And that's the truth.

I know what's going to be going on.

I see where it's going to, it's I love it.

So hey, thanks for joining us on another episode

of The Grindcast.

Get ready as a new day.