The Success Trap No One Sees Coming

What keeps people from being successful? And why do some successful leaders completely fall apart? There's no one better to answer those questions than my guest today, Brian Buffini. He's a best-selling author and leadership expert who's built a multi-million dollar real estate coaching business. Here's what Brian will tell you. There's a pattern. Most leaders slip into it without even realizing it. And once you see it, you may realize that you have too. And Brian's here to show us how to break that pattern and get back on track. So let's get into it. Well, Brian, thanks so much for being here today. My pleasure. You've spoken before. And one of the things that I thought was so applicable to our audience, small business owners, is the conversation that we had about how leaders kind of drift, how they lose their way. and maybe they run into some unintentional detours. And I was hoping that we could talk about that today. Well, you know my background. I'm 40 years in this and 30 years in the coaching business. Nobody wakes up on any given day saying, I'm going to screw up my life today. I'm going to destroy my marriage today. I'm going to get big and fat today. I'm going to get broke today. The most deadly thing in the coaching business is the word drift because it's silent. you don't notice it you don't experience it until you get to a place you go i don't recognize where i am i don't see land anywhere and then any entrepreneur worth this salt any human being worth this all is going to say this phrase how did i get here how did i get here and it's never this conscious decision it's a series of unconscious decisions it's a series of neglect we get busy right the two things that'll test you success and failure i will say in my experience i've had greater levels of drift and success because you you confuse the results with your fundamentals so drift is the big word and if if people are listening to this today watching this today if you can this is what you need outside perspective you need help you know i got five grandkids so i go back and see him and say oh they weren't doing that a month ago the young ones like yeah they were because the mom and dad can't see it but i come in it's like hang on he was not giggling and rolling on his tummy this kid wasn't thrown with his right hand yeah so the same thing with us as adults and we do it in business and it's the tyranny the urgent the busyness of the day you do your to-do list you go home what did i get done today and then you wake up one morning And you go, how did I get here? And it's a silent killer. Yeah, I've had that moment, you know, and it's a scary moment because you really don't know how you got there. And that's what I appreciated so much as we talked about that is, is you've seen so much in coaching thousands and thousands of people over, over 30 years. We were just in your office. You have a tremendous team helping a whole lot of people not do what you just talked about doing. Right. And so let's walk through a little bit the things that you see, the patterns of what causes that. What caused them to get there? I know it's drift, but let's break that down. Sure. Well, it's a descending order. So it starts with just little things you notice. And so we call them the five detours on the road to success. And so it starts with this lack of motivation. Okay. Well, what happens? You know, one of my favorite verses says, never grow weary in doing good. we all grow weary and doing good it wouldn't be in the book if we didn't yeah so what happens is you get a couple of complaining clients it takes a little bit of sales you get look i've i've employed thousands of people everybody seems normal to you hire them you know and then you go oh i didn't know you were kind of psychotic like i didn't know that like you interviewed great you thought you were great i live in san diego we got some crazy people in california as you seem normal yeah and so you get a few people like that you you every human being has their a check written on their trust account so now you're running a business you have people let you down you have clients give you some negative feedback and you're grinding along and then the third piece is sometimes you don't see any progress so and by the way the most important business seasons in your life is when you're doing the right thing and you don't see the process of progress so that's where you got to focus on the activity and not the outcome if you don't you get this loss of motivation yeah and so when you do that it's just you kind of start losing a bit of juice in your tank so talk to me a little bit about that because i i hear also that you got to do what you got to do regardless of motivation you know like our buddy jocko right he would say you know you don't feel motivated you broke your leg good you know right what do you mean when you say motivation because you just said yeah when you're not seeing the results when it's not fun what i'm hearing is the grind yeah but is it what is motivation by your definition great and look we're in a full cycle you know your boss dave ramsey and i are great friends well we became linked because we were raised up in the positive motivational world zig ziglers and jim rone and charlie tremendous jones and we would go to seminars to get fired up motivated and now today it's like ah motivation sucks and the other latest books and whatever motivation is not a real thing none of that's true here's the thing everything you do in life you do it with motivation you do something better now what people are ultimately talking about is motivation is an external application to you okay and zig used to say no motivation doesn't last neither does bathing that's why we do it daily so what you need is inspiration like what's the purpose everybody here's what you'll hear today and again not to sound like grandpa get off my lawn but i am a grandpa and i do mind telling people get off my lawn. And so I want purpose. I want purpose. I want to feel passion. I just want to feel purpose. I just got out of college. I've never had a job. I want purpose. No, you need a J-O-B and pay a B-I-L-L. That's what you need. And I have a very purpose-driven life. The word passion comes from the Greek word paseo. And the word paseo means to suffer. what are you willing to suffer for what are you willing to suffer for if you're an entrepreneur if you're suffering just for money you're going to have a loss of motivation if you're suffering just for status you'll have a loss of motivation you know i always say out of your pain comes your purpose right so here i'm the poor immigrant i want to afford a better opportunity for my kids i'm a guy who always desired mentoring and never got us i got it through books and tapes from afar So what do I do? I build the largest coaching company in the world to try to give people what I always desired. I'm willing to suffer for that. I'm willing to go through recessions for that. I'm currently in a real estate coaching business. I'm on my fifth major recession. Now, my wife's like, are you ever going to get tired of this? And I'm like, no. And it's like, bring it on. So I'm willing to suffer. I'm willing to go through hard times. So motivation does come and go. but even with that like i when i need it i'll watch if i have to a rerun of rudy sacking the quarterback i i have music in the car that gets me jacked up and right on the edge of getting a ticket you know so i'll do stuff like that i read books i go back and watch youtube clips of aug mandino or the great zig zagler or jim ron i'll do all that stuff yeah so i have the passion but you need motivation and it's like topping off your car with the gas so what i see is when the here's the real thing you don't have symptoms of lack of motivation here's the symptom you start becoming critical you start becoming negative you start nitpicking you start finding fault with everyone every client every staff everything that's done you start nitpicking and the real deal is you're losing your juice and so now that starts to spiral down yeah so that first one is is a big one all that nitpicking kind of sounds like it's it's complaining about the suffering that you referenced earlier, right? Because that purpose is going to require putting up with all of that. And here's the thing. You don't just suffer needlessly for years. I'm 30 years out of it. There's been some highlights. I got some fun things. And so then what has it done? You got to replace it with gratitude. You know, Dave and I were at dinner last night and talking about all these people we've met. And I'm like, I'm a house painter from Dublin who grew up with 10 people in a 710 square foot house. And we're sitting there. Yeah, I know that president. Yeah, I met this guy. Met that speaker. Met that. And we're sitting there to exchange stories as we always do because we've kind of both lived this Forrest Gump type life. You know? Yeah. I want to brag on you for a second because you – correct me if I say this wrong. You are the second largest distributor of thank you cards in the world. Yeah. Behind Hallmark. Behind Hallmark. Yeah. Because of that gratitude. That's a foundation of your business. I forgot about that. Yeah. So, yeah, we provide – because I'm big into personal notes. And the more the world becomes tech and AI, the more that personal note becomes powerful, impactful. And so we're all about building relationships with our customers and for their customers. So we provide millions of personal notes to our customers to express that. Hey, thanks for your business. You know, appreciate you. Thanks for your referral. Hey, just so you know, sorry, that one problem came up. Just so you know, we're on it. And it's just like, when was the last time you did business? somebody in the someone at the front desk say thanks for your business i mean if you do the basics you know we were out here in tennessee my other kid who's looking around for a house and we're walking through and i was i was talking to this contractor he goes how can i be good and i go here's how you be great i'm gonna show up at nine o'clock on monday morning and you show up you start the job when you say you're gonna start it and you work on the job till you finish it, you're in the top 5%. I know you have a lot of contractors. Let me just say, I know that's out, but that is right now puts you in a top 5%. If you will do the basic fundamental things and then say, thanks for your business. And I'm never too busy for any of your referrals. You're a rockstar. You're golden. You're a rockstar. Yeah. As you say all of that, I think of all of the contractors that haven't done those things because that's the norm. Okay. So the motivation, that gives you the forward momentum, right? That gets you moving. But that doesn't necessarily dictate the destination, right? Like where you're going to end up. So I know direction is a big part of what you've seen. Talk a little bit about that. Most business owners aim for nothing and hit it with amazing accuracy. And so you've got to know exactly what you're going to do. One of the great, again, Forrest Gump life. i had neil armstrong come to one of our events by the way how he hadn't made a public appearance in 15 years how do we get neil armstrong in 2004 to show up to my seminar i started writing him personal notes and by the fifth one not badging him but by the fifth one he never responded he wrote on my note are you going to keep sending me notes and sent it back to me and i took a red marker yes and sent it back to him and i got a phone call so how does an irish house painter who is a realtor who trains realtors gets the first man on the moon to show up so i'm sitting there we have 5 000 people in this event and it was i mean it's a quintessential experience it was like sitting at grandpa's feet and he's telling you stories yeah and he's our magellan right so i said how did he do it it's 1960s they basically one half of the technology in that cockpit that you have in your iphone straddled to a nuclear missile so strap your rear end to a nuclear missile with like a dial-up phone that's what he had yeah and they had 11 branches of the government 40 companies a 40 billion dollar project in the 60s and he said was this he goes everyone knew their goal and everyone knew we going to put a man on the moon bring him safely to earth that when armstrong signed up bring him safely to earth by the end of the decade most perfect goal ever written we're going to put a man on the moon bring him safely to earth by the end of the decade and he said every night everyone in the space program when they looked up they saw their goal every night that moon's in the sky everybody sees the goal and america put a man on the moon before the end of the decade when kennedy made that speech another irishman america had not launched a rocket without it exploding unmanned at the time when he said the statement the engineers went we're doing what and you have an engineering background yeah they're like what man on the moon safety to earth end of the decade every entrepreneur needs that yeah and they need to work and work and work until that goal is that clear what am i doing why am i doing it what's the outcome and what am i trying to do it by yeah that's the most perfect goal ever written in my opinion and so that's the direction we all need what why do people miss that what why does is it just inertia all the people that you've worked with is that extra work is that you know henry ford says thinking is the hardest work we can possibly do i mean you just said it so succinctly why do people not do that well look it's hard we all lose perspective that drift comes yeah the next thing is you you're like we're like a mole and you dig dig dig i'm working every day to dig dig dig dig and they pop up with a whack you know the market you want to whack interest rates like hey what's going on my assistant's bat nuts crazy how did that happen so we're all in need of the direction yeah it's there was a great little booklet brought out in the church years ago called the tyranny of the urgent as a tiny little booklet and it was basically jesus's teaching on people who are busy and i always remember the story of like hey jesus come quickly your friend lazarus is dying and then it says and he waited three days right now i'm no offense i love jesus but like i if he's my friend i don't want you waiting three days but like i'm on life support and jesus waited three days yeah the tyranny of the urgent and so what happens is you know Stephen Covey used to talk about first things first and you have the four quadrants you remember that yeah yeah and so the key over here with the goals is it's what's urgent and important is one what's not urgent not important and that's where goals live okay was it urgent for America to put a man on the moon that was testy because America had to beat them Ruskies you know so there was competition but it wasn't an urgent goal yet it changed America forever changed technology forever so if you're the owner of the business you can't act like the employee of the business you gotta call timeout you gotta get above us you can't stay down in it like a mole you got to get above it without the direction you're gonna hit nothing say a little bit more about uh that line if you're the owner of the business you can't act like an employee of the business what do you mean by that so I own a company that has hundreds of employees and i do work like i'm a working chairman right like i do speaking and i i'm the lead salesman for the company and i do i work i create content for the company right as the owner entrepreneur i have to take time out what's going on in the market where are we at as a company where have we been what's going on what do we see where are the innovations where's the technologies where's the market going okay it doesn't take a rocket scientists people are building houses in tennessee don't think a rocket scientist to figure that out hey you might want to have some infrastructure here you know my son-in-law's here he's a basketball coach i'm looking around going i don't see a lot of gyms might be a good opportunity to build a gym all these families want to have personal training and have sports for their kids so i'm driving around not looking at houses i'm looking at dirt it's going where could we build a gym yeah so you know find a need fill a need that's because i'm above it okay i'm not coaching basketball okay he's coaching basketball yeah he's he's not thinking like i'm thinking he's a young man just learning his craft right you got to get up above it you got to get clear and so the key is the off-site you got to get off-site you got to go to a location hopefully you go with somebody you could start by yourself but you need to synergize and brainstorm right because good ideas get better over time yeah but you know you start with this and you go okay maybe i've noticed a little lack of motivation hey now maybe i'm no i'm in needed direction now it's i get to get above it. If you're the entrepreneur, you've got to create it. You don't have to perfect. That doesn't have to be perfect, but you do have to create it. We'll get right back to our episode, but first, as your business grows, everything gets more complex. There was a time when we had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business. We wasted time chasing information instead of making decisions. That's why we got NetSuite. NetSuite brings your financials, inventory, CRM and more together in one place. More than 43,000 businesses run on NetSuite including Ramsey Solutions and now they're taking the next step with NetSuite Next, making it easier to put AI to work across your entire business. NetSuite Next automates routine work like following up on overdue accounts and with NetSuite Next, AI is built into everything you do so you can ask questions just like you're talking with a member of your team you'll have the information you need to make decisions faster that means less busy work and more time growing your business and right now you can try NetSuite next for free if your revenue is at least seven figures go to NetSuite dot AI slash Ramsey that's NetSuite dot AI slash Ramsey now let's get back to the episode as i think about our audience and the people out there in the communities around the country making it happen every day with their small business isolation like we're talking about this stuff and it's like yeah man this all sounds exactly like what needs to happen it's tough to do on your own right in america america has the death penalty which a lot of countries don't have in some states the second cruelest punishment that the american judicial system can place upon a human being is to lock them up by themselves if you are either a grievous criminal or we need to punish you for certain acts maybe you did in the prison and in order to punish you the most severely we're going to put you by yourself solitary confinement so isolate people do that all the time and oh by the way since covid it's become culturalized i was a young man who works for me named david lally he has a band in uh and you met david's a creative guy yeah so he has this band he's got this huge following in oceanside where we are and we were out i was actually doing an offsite with him on content we go down for breakfast and this gal walks up and i get oh are you brian buffini are you brian buffini this guy walks up she goes oh are you david lally i'm like what she goes oh i come to hear your band all the time she goes now since covet i really haven't been out much and i said to her what do you do i watch a lot of netflix and this and i said to her do you miss going to see the band and she goes oh of course i said what do you miss the most of course david's down there i miss the music i miss dave rocking out she goes i miss vibing with people and i said the problem is it's it's easy to vibe with people the problem is it's easier to stay home watch netflix well it's easier to do that in business you know one of the things we do is we do this big survey of year what people do with their day and admin that gives me a shiver just thinking admin social media emails errands that's what dominates the day i shared this in entrepreneurship we get people three percent of their day talking to a customer and we magically have people double their income because we have them spend six percent of their day talking to the customer buffini you're a genius yes i am yes i am there's no irish space program right there are no geniuses now we try to go up to the sun we went up at night there are no irish space programs they think about drinking and fighting i can take someone from three percent to six percent and double their income from three percent to nine percent genius they triple their income the key is to reduce those other things here's the thing that's what ai can do for people yeah it can reduce some of these tasks so that you do the most important stuff now so self-reflection and time can rejuvenate isolation depletes no human being one and one when masterminded together equally 11 okay so that's why we're better together and so that's why it's crucial for entrepreneurs to get together that's why entre leadership some of the i've i say it on stage every time and dave always looks at me i go for some of you the best thing that will happen at this conference is not even this lineup of speakers yeah that's second to none right so for some of you it's the conversation at breakfast yeah or in the hall yeah and the conversation you go this person's right where i am they've gone through exactly what i've gone through and all of a sudden they're not isolated and so i will say this we have to take the self out of self-employed you have to because by myself you know i'm capable of some real clangers yeah you know so i just think that isolation is real deadly it is and and i know exactly i've seen it time and time again where people connect in the lobby or they connect in one of our groups and it makes a huge difference. But what doesn't always come with that, I was thinking about our previous conversation about accountability. There's something about accountability that feels like it's built on what you just said, but there's some intentionality that comes along with it. Yeah. My phrase is, and so I run a coaching company, which its predominant product is accountability. And I say, everybody wants accountability until they get it. Right? and it's you know we have entrepreneurs patients right if i wanted a boss i wouldn't be self-employed i wouldn't own my own business right so why do i want accountability well here's the thing i have a beautiful gym in my home but i have this guy named rico that comes four days a week because i can look at that equipment and just walk right by it and or i can busy it up or i can start answering emails but that guy's coming at seven in the morning yeah and i got to go do it and it's that i will say one of the greatest secrets of our success every single coaching call is always finished up with okay what's our next action steps and then the most important part of the coaching call is we're scheduling the next one so okay john we're going to talk in two weeks and here's 30 years we've done three million coaching sessions as a company imagine that wow so let me give you this so let's say today's the four let's say today is the 27th of july and we have a coaching session and we're going to meet in the 10th of august and we agree i'm going to do these three things here is 90 of our business by about the 5th of august this person has done nothing on the list hasn't even looked at it they know in three days i got a coaching call and a flurry of activity breaks out and they go i got this one done i got half of this one done and i don't ever remember agreeing to the third one and that and we have people you know we have people in our coaching program 25 26 years over time that little incremental action that gets done you do that every two weeks that means over the course of let's say 25 coaching sessions in a year that person did 25 or 35 action steps they would not have done and that compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world yeah compound activity is the ninth wonder of the world so if you compound those activities, now it becomes explosive. That reminds me of James Clear, right? Didn he say get 1 better and then it makes a world of difference when you stack that up over time I know that you talked about Drift a little bit thematically but I also know it its own thing right What is the actual threat there and the counterpoint to it? Do you remember the band Talking Heads? No, no, no. Remember the guy with the big giant shoulder pads? No, no. I don't remember any of that, Brian. I remember Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson. Okay, great, great. well this is for non-rednecks this particular dynamic so you asked me a question i'm gonna give you an answer i'm trying to broaden your horizons here trying to let you know there's more to life than franklin tennessee and so there was this show and he would say he would say where is my beautiful wife where is my beautiful house how did i get here and it's making the days go by yeah when a boat drifts it eventually hits something it hits a rock it hits a pier it hits another boat when you're just fully drifting a boat will always hit something the key is and with personal growth is to recognize it sooner you know and it's getting off and on the wagon right the goal is to get back on the wagon as quick as you can so for me it's not like people go oh when did you conquer this in your life Brian I've never conquered that what I recognize that used to take me three months to recognize and now I can sometimes get there in the same day i i will say this it is the most undiagnosed dynamic it is the number one reason for failure in business above all it's the number one failure for health problems number one reason for financial problems nobody goes out and goes i'm filing bankruptcy in one day right i mean what's this whole organization built around yeah you know so no it's a little bit here i bought the pizza instead of me i've got the starbucks instead of making the coffee at home you know i eat out again i put it on a card they got a 10 discount at the store and then here it comes and here goes 21 interest here it comes here it comes and you drift and you drift and you wake up one day and you go and here's what happens now i'm up the creek without a paddle the interest rate's 26 and now i'm looking i need the pain to go away i'm filing bankruptcy well that happens in every area of life and especially in business so the key is you got to arrest it before and that's why here's the thing none of us is as smart as all of us there's a reason i own a coaching company right that accountability the talking to people keeping one on track brainstorming connecting you know i come to ramsey dave shares things with me to help me grow my business ramsey comes to buffini we help to grow your guys business because we got to get out of isolation and get into steering the opposite of drifting is to steer yeah and george bernard shaw great irish playwright said to be in hell is to drift and to be in heaven is to steer so you got to steer that boat i love that my dad always said if your hand's not on the tiller you're just along for the ride so it's not quite as eloquent as your guy not bad well you know well we were at a willie willie nelson concert yes sure of course you were that's it chewing tobacco it connected yeah that's great so you know he's not like a wise man he he is indeed frankly as i sit here and i listen to you talk through these five kind of detours or risks, man, it feels like I'm in a coaching session. Like I'm having stuff pop in my head. Like, I got to be careful about that or I got to do something about that. But I know from your experience and your entire coaching team's experience, you really actually have an antidote for every one of those things. That's pretty surgical strike. Like this is how you correct that. And I'd love if we could walk through those. And yeah, I mean, it's not voodoo. Like people think it's some kind of voodoo. Like if you think about it we're doing something for 30 years our average agent in the real estate business makes 10 times that of their competitors we've been doing that for three decades by the way these people were making this money when they met us so it's not about education it's not about iq right it is about i do and it's about having routines and structures so i will say this if you're trying to get motivated in your life and get your business on track win the day win the morning win the day if you win your morning you win the day so what are the routines the no matter what routines and so i have some no matter what routines now i'll tell you it's very hard when you're traveling as much as i travel but sometimes i have to replace my morning routine with an evening routine doesn't work as well but i got it done yeah but it's like for me when i'm in my routine i'm in my sweet spot and i have strength when i'm not in my sweet spot i'm using other reserves i'm using adrenaline i'm using sugar i'm using force some people use anger yeah and so you're you're using the wrong you know fuels yeah you're burning the wrong fuel and eventually you're going to burn out right so it's i'll say this you know when the morning there's a great book called miracle morning uh uh hal elrod is his name and he's he's great he's and it's nothing that's not out there in a number of places and if you listen to all the youtubers there's like here's the 97 things to do every morning it's like i just finished it's midnight and it's like no i need a couple of things i mean my skin routine you know it does it does look like i was noticing that do yours it's very nice so here's what i'm gonna say you gotta have a few basic things you're gonna do every day that are just no matter what's that are like okay i'm gonna have to get up early or do this and so i think you do it personally you know the flight attendant put the mask on yourself before you put it on a kid you have to put the mask on yourself personally you know you gotta you know i'm married to an olympic athlete and she's just different and she's different about routines yeah um and i have kids that have operated at that level and so she is a routine queen and that's how she gets these high levels of performance and so you've got to take care of yourself first you do which is not a natural state for me i gotta take care of myself first i am no good to my team and i am no good for my customers if i don't take care of myself and so then you're just running on empty you're running on adrenaline you get sloppy and so that that that morning routine is everything yeah and it could be three four five when i'm when i'm in full flow and i'm home i got five things i do every morning when i'm on the road it's three and uh when i do those it's happening yeah yeah it's almost like it's just automatic you know you're not making decisions at that point that's right you're just going through the motions because you know the motions are what you need to yep to set your day up yeah what about what about the lack of direction what what is your your counterpoint to that how do you correct that when people find themselves doing that well you know the word plan of course it's just like motivation and you don't have to have a harvard degree to know what a plan is right you need you need a list of goals you need some action steps to achieve the goals a timeline for the action steps and the money to pay for it i mean there you go i just saved you spending a lot of money at harvard you know great give you the four things they'll charge you 250 grand i won't even teach you that um so you need a plan right failing to plan planning to fail all true um because you think about it let's say you're driven and we use the analogy of driving the car now i'm out here tennessee i really am not i've been to a few places but let's say i'm fired up i'm energized i get up i work out have me wheaties i get in the car got a nice high performance truck i rented yes and i've no map but i i'm gonna get to dave ramsey's house i'm hey do you know where dave ramsey no and i'm driving and i'm going 100 miles an hour and i could drive all day drive all day finish up exhausted i'm no closer to dave ramsey's house than i was at the start of the day yeah and someone goes hey here's a map oh now they have gps now hey we can put it in your truck it'll turn the wheel for you so you have to have a plan okay otherwise all the effort in the world all the best intentions in the world and so you know it's a great verse it says no commit your works to the lord and your plans will be established the presumption is you got one yeah right right so if god presumes i have a plan but i have one yeah and so you can't commit it you can't commit to the works if you don't have the plan so it's just flying blind you were talking earlier about uh you have the plan you've got the motivation but you need the accountability to make sure day in and day out i'm gonna put a little twist on this okay and i might be in trouble with you good what should you look for in somebody that you're connecting with for accountability. You know, we say, hey, don't be in isolation. You got to put people around you. Yeah. Just anybody? Well, I think the accountability comes in multiple ways. Okay. Right. So obviously coaching is a formal commitment. And what it does is I'm investing myself. I'm investing time and money. And we've had people come to us and go, do the coaching thing to me. This is a participation sport. Yeah, fix me. Yeah, no, this is a participation sport. and so here's the bottom line not everybody's coachable a lot of people think they are but are you actually do you have the humility and the desire to grow do you hate being stuck where you are and losing more than the humility requires to grow so that's one the next thing is accountability also comes with a buddy okay so let's say i might hire a personal trainer but i like i used to do a half marathon every other month until i had an injury well every other month yeah six a year it sounds good the way i say it was six half marathons a year that still sounds good all right but i had a running buddy okay and so not a paid coach but we had a running buddy and so like i say there were some mornings i didn't want to get out of bed yeah and i was a little gimpy and the hips a little sore and you know we'd done a few miles whatever a couple days before but because my buddy was there i'm showing up at the corner like it gets cold in sanio like you can get down into the 60s yeah i mean getting out of bed at 60 degrees yeah you gotta watch it that's rough you can catch something you might have to wear long pants seven in the morning and i gotta go see my buddy down at the corner i'm going so not a paid coach but now i have this accountability and then the third part of that is being in some kind of community you know being being connected yeah uh churches have done this with small groups in fact most churches survive today because of the small groups the big churches and you know if you fell down to a heart attack in the parking lot just put cones around just keep the traffic moving we don't want to be late you know it's like hey you know third service is coming he'd be fine you know but you got 12 people in a small group and say hey how's john doing i didn't see him last week so having that connection and community i think by the way harder for men than for women um but i think you got to seek it out and it could be chamber of commerce la tip you guys do a great job with small groups you actually put people in small groups and we do the same right so we have whatever 300 small groups that meet around the united states and canada of people who get together once a month so i think you want the coach that's next level a buddy on the journey with you and a community that that That cures your isolation and gets you on path. Plenty of accountability there. Maybe you said, but I want you to say a little bit more. When you're just with a buddy, when you're a peer, like when you go play golf with Dave and some other buddies, it's not necessarily about accountability. It's something else that's happening in that dynamic. Sure. When you're in community. Talk a little bit more about that, if you will. Yeah, well, you know, birds of a feather flock together. Right. You know, and we all know the stories. You want to be an eagle, don't hang out with the ducks, right? Yeah. But that's true. Yeah. So I'll give you an example. Dave does his golf trip every year. you as a bunch of buddies a bunch of characters you know you're there you're there yeah yeah and so i had hurt my arm and i was like dave i don't want to take a spot you know i'm not sure how much i going to be able to play that was pretty serious golf for a long time ago and he goes oh it not that kind of trip He goes a lot of these guys you be able to do better one arm than most of these guys Okay Now so what happened was this Three things. One day I went down and he's a master. In my opinion, most people would know this about Dave Ramsey. His greatest gift is his ability to connect people. Yeah, he's a connector. And he's able to connect people you think would never belong with one another. So he puts amazing people together. So that's kind of a gift. Then comes the synergy and the joy of that. and then i also played golf every day and i had not been playing much golf i wasn't a sore arm i just hadn't been playing much golf and i went out there no i was i had flashes and then i had other flashes and i came away from that trip going you know golf has always been a big deal to me again i don't need to try to prove a point with it but i'm like i want to go out and be proficient the way i have been in the past and i could see i was working too much and i made a commitment and so i i took a few lessons again hadn't taken lessons in years started practicing with my kid getting in it now by the way when i go the next trip there's gonna be a can of whoop on these boys um but the but the point was like that was that was something i didn't go there for okay and so that's the part of the thing is more is caught than taught yep and so that's where connection accountability synergy you just can't do it alone and and right now our world is designed to be isolated and alone and get all your answers from AI. That ain't leading anywhere good. No, that's not good. The theme over all of this is people drift. They get off course. How do you counteract that? How do you prevent that? What is the antidote or the medicine that you take to prevent drift? So let's go back to Neil Armstrong. So Kennedy makes his speech in 1962 at Rice University. You got to look at it. Why does Rice play Texas? not because it's easy but because it's hard right and he does this oh i'm gonna go to the moon and do these other things because they're hot right well so you have 1962 to the end of the decade so they put together their goal we're going to put a man on the moon safe there at the end of decade that's the goal well now you break it down reverse scheduling is technically what they call what are all the steps we got to do from july of 1969 to august of 1962 so you have now milestones oh we're ahead we're behind you know the milestones you have not always a profit loss but not always not a profit loss right what are the activities how am i doing on the activities because if i really focus on the activities the results are going to come uh where am i at staffing wise where am i at talent wise where am i at training wise where are my gaps you have your goal you have your milestones and that's where that that internal accountability comes it's like now i got performance things i got to meet and by the way the team needs to know as well yeah just like all of these people in the program like oh we got to get a rocket in the air we got to find a way how to have a rocket come back down you know um apollo 8 jim lovell you know him better as tom hanks yes we had him at our seminar as well and you want to hear 6 000 people go silent in a seminar i go what did you think your chances of survival were and he said 20 percent a billion people are watching live including their families so i go what was your guy's mindset and you never heard more silence in a ballroom in your life he goes we made a commitment until the last breath of oxygen we have that we would report back our findings so the people who were on the next mission would learn from what happened to us wow and it was just matter of fact he just kind of said it like that yet he's there and everyone's around like these dudes are different yeah so that kind of dynamic that you're talking about right it's this this process you're going to go through you're going to make mistakes you need that feedback what are we doing you're learning from everything every setback genuinely is feedback you know it's not the end of the game yeah it you know what i'm thinking about is is that as we go through these you were talking earlier about what you have to do every morning this routine and the discipline that it's required but then when i ask you about this and and a bigger picture it's almost the same answer writ large it's like every morning you are building the muscle to be disciplined to hit the big goal on the big stage you know why because i'm not a naturally disciplined person i'm not a naturally just if there's football on god bless you know i'm i like that you know i've become merkin you know i might not you're talking about real football i'm real football you know i'd ncc football for you you know and so like i can get going and i love to watch it but i have to make it a treat for myself yeah because i can sit there all day long and it's designed to have you sit there all and then here comes sunday and oh by the way now we have monday and now we have thursday and then they have friday and so you football season you can do nothing but football and i love football but the next thing you know big old drift is coming in yeah so that dynamic of feedback that dynamic of accountability and then the other piece that is but i want to one thing i don't want to gloss over because here's the fellow you know he's on stage he's speaking he's this butter didn't melt in his mouth oh he's made gazillions whatever and i've had a lot of success i've owned 47 businesses 46 of them made money the one that didn't is the most important experience of my life the one that didn't it brought me to the end of myself it took me six hours to put a deal together it took me six years to recover i didn't just lose my money i lost my confidence and because what had happened was you know success you start to get on a roll and then you start to think it's you yeah yeah warren buffett says you don't know who's swimming naked till the tide goes out and all of a sudden there's butt cheeks everywhere and you're like hold on a second here bubba you know those interest rates that's what was making it work so i will say this what i had i had a little bit of a pity party this is back in oh it's in the late 80s okay and it it's not that it was a lot of money it was just all i had and so it was 2.9 million bucks and i lost on this sideline deal i had the world by the tail and everything i was touching was winning and i got into this sideline deal and it crushed me and it it basically undermined everything else i'd built and i had a great mentor called gene coolman and gene said to me okay you've had your pity party you're you've had your anger a guy did something unethical in this deal to blow it all up he said brian you've been to a 2.9 million dollar seminar and he was the guy that first introduced me to zig zigler and lou holtz and whatever else he said you just paid 2.9 million dollars for a seminar what are you going to do with the information that that mistake which was hard and it took me a long time to pay people back and do things and make things right and it hurt me like no other made me a billion dollars that's a fact i i create a business that did a billion dollars in sales directly from that mistake so failure is not the end failure is feedback and everybody goes through it and everybody i'll finish this i don't know what going here i was on a board and we were on this board for this church trying to build this building and there were some guys in there guys built the guy who was there he's passed now the guy who started Ugg Boots and you know these kind of huge business people and there was one guy at the end of this our second board meet and he raises his hand and he goes guys I don't belong here and I said I'm sorry I feel like a fraud you know you guys are all hugely successful businessmen he says I'm right now I'm in the middle of a business failure he said my marriage just struggling and i'm sitting here on this board and we're talking about trying to build this big building for this church and whatever so i'm just a total fraud and the guy who developed ugg boots who would very quiet would he was the chairman he starts laughing now initially i kind of awkward like this guy just kind of opened his soul at a board meeting this guy's and he goes charlie do you want the story or you want the whole story he goes we've all been there we've all been there and he said i'll go first and then we'll go in the circle and he says guys we only have time for one of your big clangers not the top five and one of the most successful group people i was ever with in my life we all went around this table eight of us sharing the major clangers we had had in our business terrible decisions brutal mistakes and this guy stood there and it was the most affirmed i ever saw a man in my life he felt like a fraud he felt like a phony that he had nothing to offer it turns out his idea was eventually what got the building built that's not not making it up that yeah he had it about six months later he came through with the breakthrough that made this thing happen but he felt like he shouldn't even be there because he'd made a mistake or because he was struggling or he was going through a bad time in his business a lot of people going through a bad time. And so very wise, older man, everybody fess up. You're not alone. And that's why you want to go through it with people. You want to have a coach, a buddy, a partner, a group, a small group, because life's hard on its own. I love that, Brian. And I know just about everybody that we work with has had that moment. They feel like they're the imposter. They feel like they don't belong there they don't deserve to be there and it's just a narrative that you need to not buy into yeah life's hard enough without becoming your own opposition absolutely you know yeah life's hard business is hard business you know i saw dana white here recently was doing an interview so here's a guy who sold his business for four billion dollars and has now with the backing has built it it's about 20 times the size of what he sold it for and he's been interviewed the other day and he said business is just a siege he goes it's a war but he says you know what some of us who are entrepreneurs we're made for war and you know now he's a kind of ufc guy but he's right yeah and it's like you know here's the truth in my mind i want to you know there's a hammock with the beach and this and that and i've got to be there right now here's the thing i have the beach house right and i'm here right yeah i'm doing here you know yep what am i doing here in nashville yeah uh because i love it because it's great because i'm growing as a man as a person as a husband the father as a businessman well and so the struggle that makes us stronger you know yeah absolutely and we love you and and appreciate you coming and my pleasure and struggling with us yeah it's the best thank you i've always loved being part of you guys thank you take care Brian just told you one of the keys to being successful in business, in anything, is having the right people around you. You need that accountability. You need that community. You need wise, encouraging people that you've given permission to, to speak into your life. I know I need that, and I know everybody does. If you need that person in your life, then here's my challenge to you. Connect with one of our Entree Leadership Coaches. That's what they're here for, to pour into you, to pour into your business, to give you clear steps to move forward and hold you accountable to them. We'll put a link down in the description where you can schedule a free 30-minute phone call. And if you like this conversation, stick around for the next one where I sit down with Dave and happiness expert Arthur Brooks to talk about burnout, loneliness, and how to build a meaningful life. Just click here or use the link in the description. And be sure to like and subscribe for more real-world leadership content. See you next time.