Work Ethic

Count money, man.

Money, man.

Stacked riches.

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

What's up gang?

Welcome back to another episode of the Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

Similar stuff, but a different spin.

I need you to...

I want to talk to you about work ethic.

Real old school work ethic.

I think one of the blessings that I could say is, you know,

shout out to Youngstown, Ohio,

and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, two places that have been my home.

That are two hard-nosed cities.

I think I've been blessed to start a business in Pittsburgh

that has branched out into other areas.

But the foundation was people in Pittsburgh that still,

if you're here, you'll see that there's still some left over old school work ethic

from their dads and moms and parents and grandparents.

That is getting ever more rare where people are looking for the easy route,

the easy way I was blessed to have people in the rust belt over here

that still had that work ethic.

And so the work ethic is something that you can control into me

as the ultimate separator.

You know, I know there's people out there that come up with ideas

and stuff like that.

I'm sure there's still a certain amount of work ethic that comes with that.

But I knew for myself I wasn't going to really invent anything.

I was never going to be the God of...

You know, I was never crushing my science projects, you know,

where I was the God that was inventing some crazy machine.

I knew I wasn't going to invent anything,

so I learned to invent the grind and reinvent the grind.

And what I would point towards is I remember hearing stories of

man, my grandparents, they had to walk to school.

You mean when it snows grandpa?

Yeah, when it snows, he would say, oh man, I get to school in my hair with drip.

Because if I had a little bit of water in my hair, it was so cold outside,

it was freeze.

And then when I would get to school, I would see sometimes my hair with drip

because they walked to school.

And one of the hills, they would...

Where I grew up, one of the hills, they would show me that they walked up,

was like, man, that's what people do for like training.

You run hills for training, not walk to school every day like that.

And so I'm talking about men, where, where, oh, where, oh, where,

oh, where has that old school work ethic gone?

What happened?

We could put technology with work ethic and explode as Americans,

as a country.

If you look around, I think sometimes not all, I don't want to be offensive.

I think we're unblessed and privileged to grow up and live in my opinion,

the greatest country in the world.

I'm proud to be and happy to be an American.

But I also look around at other countries and I see we're getting our ass beat in work ethic.

And that's no denying.

You can see that.

And I see it in our own business where, man, if it gives me the choice to hire a foreign person

or an immigrant, that can... that can semi-speak the language.

More than half the time, without knowing all the details more than half the time,

I'll take that immigrant.

I'll take the foreigner.

Why?

Because they're still willing to do what it requires in order to be great.

They haven't taken for granted growing up in a country where people give their life

to come to this country just to have opportunity.

All people, people from other countries give their life, they try to get citizenship here.

People are dying at the border to try to come into this country just for the opportunity

you woke up with today.

Automatically given to you.

And yet, I have friends of mine that are not from this country that came here for opportunity

that have far surpassed many of the Americans here that had it better and spoke to language.

How does somebody come in and don't even speak your language?

Imagine us.

I'm bad.

I don't speak... I'm half Venezuelan and I can't speak Spanish very well.

The other half, I mean, most of it is Italian.

I don't speak no Italian, a little bit, only some curse words.

And I barely speak English properly.

Can you imagine I'm going to another country and within five years of not even speaking that language,

I'm kicking everybody's ass in that country, that's what's happening.

I'm watching friends of mine that have blown up and made it that are not from this country

immigrants based on their work ethic.

And instead of having the attitude of, oh man, I gotta do this.

Their attitude is I get to praise the Lord.

I got opportunity unlimited, praise the Lord.

And they're willing to work weekends.

Did you know 40% of your week is the weekends.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Guess what most people want to do on the weekends.

They want the weekends.

You know what happens to people.

You've heard this. I didn't invent this.

I wish I did.

But you know what people do on the weekends?

They let that be their weekend.

That's the end because they're weak.

That becomes the end of them trying to be great because it's the weekend.

For me, if you ain't where you want to be,

it doesn't matter what some man or woman named the day.

If it's called Friday or Saturday.

If you woke up and you bumped your head and you didn't know what day it was,

it wouldn't frick a matter.

It don't matter.

They all end in why.

They all end in why.

It don't matter.

Somebody else made the name up.

For me, it didn't matter what day.

I remember sitting in training class to the company that I've been blessed to be with for 17 years now.

And I remember asking the people.

They'll tell you I remember asking them when they gave the schedule out.

Are we allowed to work Sundays?

And I didn't understand why they were snicker and they laughed a little bit bumping.

They said, hey, tell them what you just said.

I said, are we allowed to work Sundays?

Because all I'm thinking is my mom is dependent on me.

My grandmother is dependent on me.

Nobody believed that I could be great.

I want to be great.

I see an opportunity here.

How can I get an edge on the competition?

I'm not going to work Sundays because I know they won't.

Most people, they don't want to work the weekends.

Now I get to have some fun on the weekends.

Not too much.

I'm 40 with three kids and a wife.

That's fun to me.

But I still work a lot of weekends.

But when you see some freedom and flexibility 17 years in the game,

understand it came from a decade of seven days a week.

In Pittsburgh, I remember hiring a superstar into the business.

And I was talking to him about seven days a week.

And he said he went back and he talked to his dad.

Here's a difference.

This is what I'm talking about.

Here's a difference.

He went back and talked to his dad and he said, dad, you know,

here's everything they're telling me, but they're saying that I

to make it sometimes you got to work seven days a week.

He said his dad told him, why would you not work seven days a week, Tommy,

until you can work three or four days a week.

Man, that's great advice from a parent.

Man, I wish more dads would act like that.

I know I will.

I know, I know what I'm making.

I know I'm telling my son doing pushups right now at night.

And he's like, I don't want to.

I said, if you used to doing stuff you don't want to do.

If you want to be great, son, my daughter got dance for five hours on Sundays.

She's seven.

That's why they got one of the greatest dance studios in the country.

Studio 19 here in Pittsburgh.

That's why it's one of the one of the greatest.

These girls, these girls, my daughter goes from school right to dance sometimes

at four o'clock in do go from four to eight o'clock at night.

Get home, do homework, go to bed, take a shower, say your prayers, read a book,

go to bed, get up, do the same thing all over all over again.

I understand the whole thing about balance.

I'll have conversation with people about balance with people that have achieved greatness.

Those are the people I want to have conversations until then if you ain't accomplished,

don't talk to me about no damn balance.

Because in my opinion, the way that you achieve balance is by getting imbalance going all in,

going seven days to work three or four days, going six days to work three or four days.

That's how.

Don't kill the messenger.

But I'm not going to tell you that you can make your dream a reality working just like if you just work,

if you're on a sports team and you work just as hard as everybody else, that's called average.

If you work Friday, nine to five and you stop there, that's called average.

And I got staff people that worked for me eight to four, nine to, I'm not knocking my staff people,

I'm not knocking people.

I'm saying that my greatest ones, regardless of what time they clock in or clock out,

they still do some things on the weekends.

They'll still do some things at nighttime.

They'll still answer me in an early morning if I need to.

They'll do the extra, the extra things.

Average won't.

Greatness will.

Which side do you want to be on?

I mean, just think in your own mind.

If you work out the same amount of hours as everybody else, how do you get ahead?

If you work the same amount of hours, how do you get ahead?

So I'm asking you to dig in, go find, channel your inner self,

channel your grandfather, channel your great-grandmother, channel your great-great-great-grandfather,

grandmother's energy, and get back to that old school work ethic.

And in the process of building something great, you're going to have tough times.

Understand tough times don't last, tough people do.

Weak people don't.

Tough times don't last.

Tough people do.

Weak people don't.

Weak people when tough times come, they fold, they quit, they run.

It's common knowledge in it.

It's human nature when things get hard for you to think in your head.

This sucks.

I'm going to quit this.

You remember the term as a kid, quitters never win and winners never quit.

What happened?

What happened to y'all?

Didn't you, don't you remember that?

Did you think they were lying to you when you were nine?

Winners never quit.

Quitters never win.

Quit everything.

Every time it gets hard, they quit.

They tap out.

The people that are winning, the reason why they are winning is they never quit.

All the people that you admired that are winning right now got their ass beat.

Yup.

I know some of the toughest warriors in the world.

MMA, wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu.

They'll tell you.

They used to get their ass beat.

That's how they got good.

So far as of right now you have so far you've survived 100% of the hardest days of your life.

I want you to survive and then go from surviving to thriving, understanding that usually,

if you don't miss the opportunity, every time you go through adversity and obstacles,

it'll carry a seed of opportunity with it.

If your eyes are open for it and your mind is open for it and your spirit is open for it,

and you're ready to receive it and recycle it and turn it into greatness.

It's a seed of greatness ready to be planted inside of you.

Stop crying.

Stop crying.

Stop running.

Stop quitting.

Stop feeling bad for yourself.

Allow the seed to be planted inside of you because it's exactly what you need to go to the next freaking level.

People die.

Don't let that stop you because your mother, your grandfather, this one down.

And I believe me, I understand these things hurt, man.

As a father, I'm already thinking, man, I just, when the kids are old enough,

I want to explain to them that daddy's always going to be here, but daddy's not always going to be here.

One day, I got to go home, too.

And don't cry too long for me, man.

Life got to go on.

Don't let that be the reason you stop.

Let that be the reason you go.

Let that be the reason you're inspired.

Let that be the reason you feel calm.

Don't let that be the reason why you stop.

That's how you would, if I was alive, I would cry harder that you stopped.

And that was the reason why you stopped versus that's the reason why you got set on fire.

Tough times don't last.

Tough people do.

People are going to get sick.

People are going to die.

People are going to backstab you.

People are going to talk shit about you.

People are going to hurt you.

People are going to leave you.

People are going to cheat on you.

People are going to...

lot of you people are gonna say bad things about you bad things are gonna happen

flat tires are gonna happen rainy days are gonna happen games are gonna be lost

at the buzzer that you worked so hard for breakups are gonna happen you might

get cheated on let that be the reason you go to the next freaking level tough

times don't last tough people do weren't the beginning of the year we're

now in February new year everybody's back to zero reset even the most

successful people they in their mind they reset like what I've done in the

past doesn't matter I gotta go get it today what happened last year didn't

matter if you lost it don't matter if you wanted don't matter reset and those

of you that are already at the top reaching reaching to go to that next mile

reaching to go to that next level if you're already near the top of the

mountain like you're near the top of the mountain that never stops growing

because it's an always it's a constant climb you're either growing or you're

dying and we want to grow understand the closer you get to the top the harder

the inches are that you have to fight for what do you mean well in the Olympics

the gold medal in fifth place are only separated by a fraction of an inch like

here's here's how here's how much time is separated from the gold medalist in

a sprint in fifth place that nobody knows their name ready for this here's how

here's how much time good stop here what we'll do it again here's gold medalist

to fifth place ready go stop that's the difference inches inches and so some of

y'all are at the top and you're like man why do I gotta keep sacrificing water

why do I gotta keep working why do I gotta keep getting up early well you

don't if you don't want to win a gold medal you don't if you don't want to be

to go you don't if you don't want to be the greatest you don't but if you think

now that you're near the top of the mountain that it changes from taking the

stairs to there's an elevator that's gonna take you up you gonna be waiting for

that elevator for a long time you ever get in a hotel where it's packed with

people and you sitting there waiting on the elevator and like screw this shit I

just why I just take the stairs football games I'm done just just screw it man I

just I'll just here I need to exercise let's just take the stairs if you're

up towards the top of the mountain right now and you're and you're waiting for

the elevator because you think I've worked hard enough now I shouldn't have to

do it anymore I don't want to work so hard because it's steeper anymore and

you're waiting on the elevator it may come but it may take you a long time you

might die before it gets to you or you may luck out but the majority like for

my athletes out there that have lifted weights do you remember when you first

started lifting weights and to do 135 on the bench press was hard and then overnight

it seemed like you were able to do 200 pounds or 225 and then you got further down

the road and you bench 315 and it was harder to get the 325 just putting two

five pound plates on there took so much work or you went to 385 just to get the

4.05 20 pounds was so much work because when you get that strong when you get

it now it's a fight for the inches it was easy a lot of people could do 135 a

lot of people could do 225 up here we got a fight for those inches because at

the top you're separated by those inches in the NFL everybody's good you got to

be better than the good ones and then to win it all you got to be better than

the good ones that was already better than the good ones you got to be the best

of the best and those are inches so at the top were separated by inches touched

a line to separate what do you mean touched a line sports fans yo I'm talking to

you guys know that that was my up up up up bringing that's who we hire here shout

out to any young athletes that that you know that are looking for an opportunity

to be great we're getting ready to grow by about 75 million in the next five

or six years or so so plenty of room for opportunity to grow with the good

culture send them our way we'll develop them even if they don't retire here we'll

develop them and send them back to you a better person without going to the

military shout out to the military and my friends that are in the military that

are in the business to make this country and make this opportunity possible

touched a line like basketball I remember playing basketball and one of my one of

my one of my memories and in football conditioning during the winter I'd have

to walk through the snow and Erie because we wasn't D1 we was D2 so we didn't have

the heated and and nobody was giving us a ride we had to walk through the snow and

Erie all the way and it's like it was like walking a slow death at five o'clock

in the morning we're walking in this dark outside and it's cold and you know

we're about to run us to death and we would have to run suicides and

basketball we'd have to run suicides and touch the line touch the line here touch

the line come back touch the line go back touch the line go back touch the line

go back full court and if somebody missed the line what happened the whole team got

to run right if if if you don't touch the line what's the big deal I mean who

cares if your hand really hit the line and I why the whole team got to run it's

because the game at critical moments will be won or lost by your mental

ability to metaphorically touch the frickin line the game is won by inches I

remember watching the Steelers win a Super Bowl in Ben Rathlasberger throws

this pass and I'm at Pizza Roma when I just got here in Ben Rathlasberger throws

this pass and in the corner of the end zone San Antonio homes what would it

feet down whoo catches the ball I didn't and they win the Super Bowl by what by

yard no by first down nope I don't even think it was six inches touch the line get

your toes down the little the little things it's the small things the small that

bit that knows of the football first down stepped out of bounds call time out we

didn't have any mentally you didn't maybe you didn't touch the line during

conditioning you wasn't focused when you was tired can lose you the game at a

critical moment it may not matter when you're blowing everybody out it may not

matter during the regular season it may not matter in the playoffs but in the

Super Bowl in the final moments shout out to my dude David Tyree you might have

to catch the ball on your helmet for that inch to win the Super Bowl it matters

now were you touching the line and so in life are you touching the line because a

lot of times nobody knows if you're touching the line your wife don't know your

kids don't know they think all my husband's working so hard my daddy's working so

hard compares to what maybe maybe regular season hard yeah maybe even playoff hard yeah

but is your daddy is your husband is your mom are they working Super Bowl

championship fourth quarter game on the line hard are they touching the line when

nobody's watching when it gets harder they make it in the last call are they

setting the last appointment are they showing up early are they doing the

extra things the things they're supposed to do are they cutting corners are they

not touching the line because sooner or later if you don't touch the line that's

where to work ethic that's what I'm talking about that's working that's grind that's

the GQ right there the grind quotient not to IQ

so I want to I want to thank you guys out there for your willingness to want to

invest into yourself to give me 25 minutes of your life I don't take it lightly I

don't get paid to do this this is what I love to do try to make a difference and if

there's one person that we can impact man that's why we're doing it if you know

people that this message can help could you do me a favor there's no charge to

this we ain't making no money on it can you do me a favor and spread the word

just share it with somebody tell them you got to hear this man share the

message with somebody so we can impact and and make a difference in the world

I'm so grateful for your time you could have spent this time with anybody or

anything or doing anything you chose to spend it with us so thank you for the

opportunity thanks for joining us on another episode of the grind casket

radius a new day