The Home Service Expert Podcast - Breaking Limiting Beliefs: on Leadership, Sales, and Mindset Mastery with Grant Winstead

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Grant Winstead is an expert in home service, renovations, leadership, coaching, and sales based in the Washington DC-Baltimore area. He is the CEO of Renovation Experts and operates as a transformational coach. With over 40 years of experience, Grant has built his multi-million dollar company from the ground up, starting as a door-to-door canvasser. Throughout the interview, Grant shares his personal journey from a challenging upbringing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to becoming a successful home service operator. He emphasizes the importance of mindset over tactics in achieving growth and success. Grant discusses overcoming obstacles, the impact of mentorship, and the critical role of self-belief. He also touches on his current focus on coaching and mindset development, detailing his 12-week coaching program designed to help individuals and entrepreneurs break limiting beliefs and achieve their highest potential. 00:00 Introduction to Grant Winstead 02:35 Grant's Early Life and Career Beginnings 08:59 Transition to Leadership and Mentorship 17:47 The Importance of Mindset in Success 25:42 Sales Strategies and Overcoming Obstacles 28:51 The Role of Mindset in Achieving High Performance 35:00 The Importance of Self-Belief in Interviews 35:57 Challenges in Finding Driven Individuals 38:00 The Role of Family Support 40:47 The Power of Repetition and Curriculum 45:45 The Will to Win and Discipline 59:22 The Role of Books and Mentors

How do you go from a hammer and now up to $10 million, $20 million company? You've got to have the wheel to win. That is the first step towards success. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, The Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to

implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I ask the team to take notes for you. Just text, note, N-O-T-E-S, to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1-299, and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevate and win.com for slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the home service expert. Today I've got Grant Winstead. He's an expert at home service renovations leadership.

Coaching and sales, he's based in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore area. and he's the CEO of renovation experts, limitless potential coach. Grant is a home service operator, CEO, and transformational coach with over 40 years of experience. He built and scaled renovation experts into a multimillion dollar home service company. Serving Washington, D.C. Baltimore Market. Starting as a door-to-door canvasser, Grant knocked on over 30,000 doors, sold tens of thousands of projects and personally trained sales reps to earn six-figure incomes. as CEO, COO, and GM grant owned every lever of the business, sales systems, canvassing programs,

marketing, pricing, forecasting operations, and leadership, consistently driving three million an annual revenue while improving margins and building repeatable processes. After decades of execution at the highest level, Grant discovered that the real ceiling of growth wasn't tactics, it was mindset. Today, he coaches entrepreneurs and leaders through his ignite with, ignite your potential within framework, helping them break limiting beliefs, lead with clarity, and perform at their highest level. In business and in life, Grant, it's a pleasure to have you on today.

Hey, Tommy, it's been a real pleasure. It's a lifelong dream. Thank you. Thank you. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're excited about, what got you into the industry and where you're looking forward to. Yeah, so Then again, thank you for having me, Tommy

When I met you, you meet a lot of people And some of them are real And some of them aren't so real And when you were up on stage I had a connection to you And I don't connect to too many people Because they just don't I mean, I'm a maverick

I'm doing my way I have some mentors, but I didn't connect to people. But your story and your lifestyle really impressed me. And so it's an honor. It's really an honor that you took the time out of your busy schedule and invited me to your podcast. This is something I don't take for granted. Thank you. Yeah, it's a pleasure.

It's a pleasure to have you on. I want to hear all about it and learn from you today. So let's bring out all the secrets. Okay, so I start off in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a young man with no way out. I had no way out. My mother had died when I was 16, and my father was 65 years old when she died, and she was 40. And we were born, and I was born in a working class Western Pennsylvania. neighborhood.

It was a majority of all white neighborhood. We were the only black family in that neighborhood. And work was my way out. There was no other way out. I didn't do well in school. I was allowed to play sports with Minneapolis in that, play football, baseball, blah, blah, blah. After my mother died, I kind of lost my way.

We lived 60 miles outside the city. We had cousins in the city and every now, then, I would find myself down in the city. Just hang it out with my cousins and whatnot. And this particular night, I met a young man. He had a BMW, well-dressed Afro-American male. And he was kind of impressive. And the first thought you get,

this guy's a drug dealer. You know, he was surrounded herself by a lot of people, and I was kind of impressed with him, and I could never get enough courage up to introduce myself to him, even though I was curious of what he was doing. So one day, I'd go back to that part of town, and at that time, I must have enough courage to ask them, to walk over to him and introduce myself,

and I said, what he did. He said, my name is Tony, and me and my dad are in the home improvement business. He said, you know anything about the home improvement business? business? I said, I know a little bit, but not much. I said, I'm looking, you see, you're looking for a job? I said, yes, I am. He said, meet me here tomorrow and I'll put you to work. I married in the next day and begin to knock on doors. He gave me a script to say to the hormones and I began to knock on doors. He was training me after we were going along. We would generate leads for the closer and the closer would go back and close the deal. And that's how I got

my start into the home improvement industry. What were you guys selling? We were selling everything, windows, doors, roofing, kitchen, bathrooms. So back there, it was the 80s. And a lot of these owners were Jewish, Italian, Polish. Pittsburgh was a racial, different kind of town. They have after America living in one part. You had the Jews people living in one part.

You had the Polish people living in one part. And you have the Italians living in one part of the city. And every now and then, you know, you were going to those neighborhoods and they were nice. And they were really nice neighborhoods. But everybody had the same type of house that needed work done to them. So you would see job size, different job sides of different neighborhoods from different companies, different home and prima companies. And, but no, we were selling there.

We were selling windows, doors, kitchen, bathroom, basements, fences, whatever we could sell. So you got into it, your five, seven years in. And what was the next thing you got into? Well, what happened is, is I moved to Washington, D.C. And one of the owners in Pittsburgh had a friend down here that owned a supply company. he had, I think he had like seven or eight locations in Virginia here. And they were good friends back in Pittsburgh because the supply company owner had one in Pittsburgh. And they were all Jewish owned businesses, and this is put in like the click type of thing.

And so the guy left Pittsburgh, he expanded down here, and I came down here with him and I was knocking on doors. and one day my clothes got real sick well he couldn't close no more and I had to decide whether I wanted to stay in the business or do I want to know how to start selling

well I was selling a little bit at the time but money camelsen and I began to sell a little bit and then the Jewish owner and the other Jewish owner they will meet on Friday on payday. And that was payday. So I guess the manufacturer was coming to pick up a check from the business owner.

And I happened to see this manufacturer owner. And I didn't know he was at the time. And we bumped to Lee Sheldon one day. And he said, I heard a lot about you. I hit my business card. Come see me one day. So, make a long story short, I ended up calling the guy up, and he became my first professional mentor. I mean, the guy had all the knowledge of going to Harvard.

He was 50 at the time. He had lost everything and built, and it was building it back up. And so he took me under his wing, and it was an amazing, amazing ride. He taught me how everything about business. He taught me everything about bankers. He taught me everything about profit loss. He taught me everything about life. He was like a dad to me.

I thought I was the only one, but he had about 20 guys that he was mentoring like that. The guy was very intrafacial into the home improvement space. And then I went to work for four or five different companies under his direction to get some training. and about 10 years into it, he said, Grant, I think it's about time you start your own

and I started my own company. And, yeah, that is a lot to that. So you were a top producer and then you had a switch to being a CEO, so what was that like? Well, so along the way, you know, when you meet with your mentor, he's giving you instructions.

He would say, Grant, how many jobs you did this week? How many jobs you sold? And I would tell me, what are the numbers? And we would go over the numbers. And he would say, okay, that's good, that's good, that's good. But it was a gradual type thing that we got into. He taught me how to, you know, go over the LLC.

We opened a bank account. And it was a gradual thing that we were welcome towards to where we just, it just, everything came together for me. It wasn't like I just became a CEO. you know, I was canvassing, then I had to recruit canvases. I knew a lot of sales people were ready, so I was able to get sales people to work for me. But it was a gradual thing over a period of time. It was a lot of fun.

It was a good learning experience. So how old were you when you actually got started your own business? I was about 25. 25. That's still super early. So you started your own business and what kind of, uh, What did you get into? What was the good, bad, and the ugly?

Well, the good, the, Washington, D.C. is what I call the mounting pot. If you can sell here in this city, you can sell anywhere. There was always a challenge to overcome when you see a, when you see a black man going to a white person's house because they really don't know, you know, why you're there, right? knock it on the door. And so that's always been a challenge. But what I was able to do is develop a program in these communities,

in these white communities, where I had to be at my best game. I had to be at my very best game. You know, I had to shoot out anything that would cause any type of inferior, less than. I have to be at the very best. And that was a good learning game for me because, you know, going into these houses is not an easy thing to do.

But that was a good learning feel for me. And so one day, I decided to do a medal. And the matter went probably 50 miles from my home, which I was living in the suburbs at the time, and I melted 50 miles west. and we met about 20,000 to that neighborhood out there and they start coming back

and I got one and I said, I'm going to go on one and I'm going to test one of these. So the girl, the telemarketers set the appointment up for me. I'm driving out there. I'm highly confident that I'm going to sell these people.

I get out there and there was a, I drove up to the house, and I see an 18-winter with a Confederate flag on the back of it. Oh, boy. Now, yeah, well, being an Afro-American, you know, your friend is kind of, I don't know how pumped up you are,

your feelings kind of dropped down. Your enthusiasm drops down. But nonetheless, I knocked on the door. And this guy came to the door, he had on a a shirt buttoned down half his down to his belly

and you can see all the van from his belly on up and he said are you deciding boy and I said yes sir I'm deciding guy he said no I said boy I said yes I'm deciding boy sir

he said okay I only got a few minutes come on in and I said well first of all if your wife's going to be joining us and he said, boy, I made the Goddorf decisions around here, not my wife. You got a couple seconds, show me what you got. And at that point, I thought, man, I can't connect to this guy. I just couldn't connect to him.

He was kind of rude in the beginning. He kept calling me, boy. And so I said to myself, the only way I'm going to get this one is showing him the quality of the product and that I could do the job, do my portfolio of job that I have done. So I'm starting pitching the guy. I'm going real fast. And I looked and I was like 10 minutes into the pitch. And the wife came.

I thought she was a wife and came and sat down right beside me. He's sitting over there looking out on the window. And I began to show her deciding and what I and explain to her what signing is and all this stuff. And so to make a long story short, I asked them and says, okay, do you like to sign it? They say, yeah, we like to sign. I said, okay. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to measure.

I'm going to come back and I'm going to give you your price. He said, okay. So I went out and measured. And I figured this guy was kind of insulting me and I said, well, there's no way I'm going to get him anyway. So I might as well just throw a high price out there at this guy and talk about quality and see what he says.

So I come back in the house after all the measurements. And the guy says, I said, sir, if I can give you a good price, can we do business today? He said, boy, we don't do business like that. We do business the way I want to do business. And no, you're not getting an answer today. I said, yes, sir, yes, sir. So I proceed.

The entire wife, I'm about deciding again and went into the pitch. And I approached it one more time. I said to him, I said to him again, sir, if I can give you a good deal on deciding, do you think you might want to try to get it done? And he said, yeah, I want to get it done. and he says to me, boy, didn't I tell you, we don't make these decisions like this. Call me next week and I'll let you know.

So I said, okay, so I packed my stuff up and I left on the way home. I'm feeling down. I called my mentor. I tell him the story. He said, yeah, well, you probably won't get that one, but you might. But call him on Wednesday and see what he says.

So when did it come along? I called the guy up. I said, Mr. Golden. He said, yes, sir. He said, where are you at, boy? I said, I'm in my office. He said, well, come on out here. How long will it take you to get here?

I said, about 45 minutes. He said, come on out here. And I ain't got much time. So I drove out there. And he said, boy, me and my wife decided to go with you. I had the girl boys out here. And that quality is siding that they have, but they're not made up to yours.

And we're going to go with you. There's two things I hate, lies and cheaters. And if you lie to me, I got something for you. He leaned his head over, and there was a 45 Glock laying on his table. And he said, I just want a good job. I said, Mr. Gordon? Mr. Gordon, so I'll give you a good job. He said, anything you can do on the price?

I said, no, so I bought him out at the price when I gave you. He said, okay, okay. And then I did the job and make a long story short. At the end, we watched him out of the house. I put the best, spare guy on the job. and even he said ask me how I got him and so at the end the guy says Grant he actually called me Grant

at the end he said you did a good job and thank you for coming out but that was typically the experience that I had working in these neighborhoods in that in that white neighborhoods so here about I don't know about 15 years ago

I decided to go into Washington, D.C. They say if you, if you don't like the people and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you're, in the inner city, Washington, D.C. I did a TV commercial and my phone began to ring off the hook. And that's what we're at today.

In the cities during, um, during, um, during, during windows, bathrooms, and roofing. So you coach, do you still have your normal business? or you do both? I do both. My business is up for sale right now. I'm probably going to sell it. I've got a guy that's interested in buying it. And so I do both.

Okay. I love it. So tell me a little bit about mindset because me and my COO were talking, especially about the technicians because they're the largest part of our workforce. And it comes down to belief that Everything we sell is worth it is a quality product.

We back up the warranty. We show up the same day. We take care of our clients. We service 25,000 homes a month. And we started interviewing some of the probably about 250, so half of my technicians. And a lot of it was they felt like they needed more training. They didn't have confidence. I mean, this was just last week.

And it was really, really intriguing to hear because they just, sometimes they sell out of their own pocket. You know, they don't own a house that they put, you know, maybe $10,000 into a garage. And that's what we found. So I think you hit the nail on the head when I was reading just the belief system. Yeah. So, you know, I had some of the, like I said, I had some of the greatest mentors, and I was very fortunate in that. And so one of the things that my mentor, first minister gave me, was an ill nightingale

Tate. an ill night gal was a 1950, 1960, 1970, personal development guy. Now, keep in mind, keep in mind, my mentor was a man's man. He knew this, he owned so many businesses. Him and his, he was a multi-mariner,

and his partner was a billionaire. And they both gave me ill nighting gal and told me to listen to these tapes at a young man. And they also said, Grant, listen to me. You can make a lot of money, but the only way you're going to make a lot of money is by working on yourself. And both of these guys had sad stories from the beginning. The one guy, Norman Rails, nobody went in him. He was born in 1940 and became one of the wealthiest guys in the industry, meeting with presidents of the United States and traveling all over the world. And his story,

was no one in him. And he said, I made it. Matt Rosenblatt, which was his right-hand man, was a guy that had no education. Mom and Dad had a candy store in New Jersey. And came down to New Jersey, down to Pennsylvania, was knocking on doors. He met his good friend, Norman Wells,

and they built a phenomenal life. together. So, and the first thing they both told me, listen to the table and work on yourself. So along the way, I have been, not only it was I good at methodology because I got the best training

in processes and procedure, but I have to believe with myself that I could do the job, right? And I think a lot of guys get at this industry, the bar is low, and they

see the potential and they think they can hit it on the arm and some can. You yourself was able to bust the ceiling up. But a lot of guys can't do that. So you need to be working on yourself. And so the belief is you got to believe in your company. You got to believe in yourself and you've got believe in product. And if you don't believe in those three things in this industry, you're going to come up short all the time. So what we talk about is. is how do you do that? How do you believe in yourself? When you come in and you say,

hey, being a technician here, you can make a hundred thousand dollars or whatever that number is. And that guy is used to making $25,000 or $15,000. How can he even believe that he can make? Now, he was to believe he can make $100,000. But deep down on his side, deep down inside, he was to believe.

The paradigms and his mindset is, that 25,000. So how can he get from 25,000 to 100,000 without, first of all, believing in herself? And so that's key. And then once you believe in yourself, you know, so we train them how to believe in yourselves. We train them how to believe in a company, and we train them how to believe in the product. Those three things are key to be successful in this industry for sell people. Yeah, one of the things we say is you got to, Number one, you got to tell a great company story. The clients need to fall in love with the company.

Obviously, they need to know like and trust you, and they need to feel love like you're going to take care of them. And to do that, you've got to have confidence. So we always compare ourselves to a doctor. And a doctor doesn't hesitate. When he gives you the prescription, he asks, where are you closer to, Walgreens or CVS? There's no second guessing. He diagnosed the person before the problem.

He gives you the prescription and you take it. And unfortunately, I don't think we're as prescriptive as we should be sometimes. And we don't even ask the question. We don't follow up and ask for the sale. And the one correlation I could say is the top 20% of my business is these guys, their belief system is like, and here's what's crazy. As a lot of them aren't from the United States. A lot of them are relentless. They don't, they're not afraid of rejection.

And they definitely feel like they're worth it. What are your thoughts on that? Well, that's a good point because a lot of guys, they see the opportunity from different countries, countries when they come over here. So it's a land of opportunity. But when you're in the middle of it, you have your paradigm. Then your head are so, I'm limiting. Your mother told you you couldn't do it.

Your dad told you were no good. your teacher told you you'll never amount to anything. And all these limiting beliefs are in our head. They were in my head. But it wasn't until I got, that's not true. Those beliefs are not true. So when you have guys coming from other countries,

they're bound to be successful because they don't have all these limiting beliefs. And the limited beliefs is what really stops guys. And the thing about, what's these limited beliefs? They're not even ours. They're programmed in us. So it's kind of hard for guys to come into an organization

and really believe because they have so many limited beliefs. So what we try to do is we try to remove those limited beliefs and get them to believe in themselves, first of all, because you've got to believe in yourself. Like, listen, I'm an Afro-American. How many Afro-Americans did you see sit in, sit in the audience at the top 500. You can probably count them on two fingers.

You can probably kind of on one hand, right? So I know, I just know that, you know, how I overcame so many of these obstacles they're going to be able to be in the top of 500. And all guys struggle with that. They struggle with their inner self. That's making sense to you. No, it does make a lot of sense.

So let me ask you this. you personally developed the sales procedures pricing models forecasting what were some of the most important systems when it comes to sales okay so when you talk about systems when people talking about systems i think about pricing because that's what that's what my mister told me uh information is good but you got to be able to price uh i was never the cheap guy in town, but we are not the cheapest because you have to charge. So if you're getting the right money for your jobs, if you're getting the right money for your jobs, you're able to do a lot of things. You're able to, you know, number one pay your taxes. You're able to have a good life. You're

able to take care of your employees. When you talk about procedures, and policies and all that. Pricing is very important. So we typically, in our industry, we try to afford times our costs, which is pretty good. I love it. Yeah, that's a healthy price.

I've noticed that in home improvement, especially because it's not demand-driven, usually no one says, I got to replace my windows today. It's definitely a longer sales cycle, whereas if it's a broken garage drawer and their car stuck, they're calling out saying and needs somebody right now, and they just want to get it fixed.

So home improvement is actually, in my opinion, it's much bigger tickets, but lower closing rates, a little more salesmanship. There's a guy that I went and seen speak that worked with a company I know. His name's Rodney Webb, and he used to playing the NBA, but he's a tall dude, and he used to go out.

Do you know who Rodney Webb is? I know. I know it will. So he goes and takes a guy, GoPro and he analyzes he was selling gutters at the time and he goes on the roof and spends a lot of time showing the customer exactly the differences of what they're going to do and one of the highest close rates in the industry you know you used to knock doors and what I love about what you knew how to do is you could build your own demand you know you didn't wait for

the phone to ring you wouldn't made it and that's something that a lot of companies don't know how to do is go out there and get it what do you do when you had a slow week? what would you do to really figure out a way, just knock on more doors? You know, when you're good, you're good. But I have no choice. I have no choice but to get jobs because that was my pathway out. So one said no, they didn't mean nothing to me. It really didn't.

If I got 10 nose in a day, I would wait and keep working until I got that one yes. Because I didn't, I had to be successful at this. So the nerves didn't really bother me because I knew I had to drive. And even though I didn't know where I was going with this, when I first got started, I knew, like, this is my pathway. I have no other way. So I had to make it work. And it worked out fine for me.

What are you excited about today looking forward? What I'm excited about today is really the mindset work that I'm doing. You know, a lot of people don't believe that, you know, everybody have limiting beliefs. And the limiting beliefs are already going to take you so far. For me,

it took me so far, and then I kind of crashed. But once I was able to the challenge these limiting beliefs, my career everything just took off. I like 3x my income because I start working

on myself in these limiting beliefs. In the industry, because listen, I don't know how much the cost to get in your industry but in our industry, all you need is a hammer and a nail and now you're a contractor, now you're a business, right? And so how do you go from a hammer and nail up to, you know, four or five,

10 million, $20 million dollar company? You know, I had a very good friend of mine and I did a podcast with them a couple weeks ago, Scott Berman, a Florida window and door, a very good advocate of mine with really good friends. But we talked about him losing everything and being able to climb out of that

and become an $80 million, $180 million window company from bankruptcy. So that's amazing. So when you're talking about him, and I'm his coach. And he says, Grant, I don't need a coach. describe you need a coach.

I'll be your coach for free, right? And we talk about these different beliefs that he has that are not even his that he's removing and he's steady, steady climbing up to where he wants to go. So I'm excited about mindset in the industry and now is finally coming out that, you know, we need it.

We need it in the industry. And because like I say, the entry is so low, but the potential is so high. Yeah, everyone needs a coach. Michael Jordan had four coaches on top of Phil Jackson. Tiger Woods, same thing. I mean, no matter who you're looking at, and I always compare home service, home improvement to sports.

And I'm a big fan. It's a very competitive environment here in these four walls. And that's what's important to me is, you know, I'm expected to perform every day I come in, and I expect that from everybody. And unfortunately, some people just aren't willing to step up. You know, we're recruiting 60 new people a month that come in and get trained. And at that pace, it's either you're going to sink or swim.

And, you know, I'd love to get you as much coaching as possible. Well, you've got to have a willpower that you want to succeed. The better I get at recruiting, the more the better things get. Because it's really hard. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, recruiting one thing, okay, Tommy, recruiting one thing. But you're going to have three guys that come in.

And we tested this. You can have three guys that come up for training. They're all at the same level. You know, same age, same demographics, same everything, and get three different results. You can get one guy that comes in for training and does well. The extremely well. The second guy comes up for training, he kind of struggles with the methodology.

You know, you're training him, you're giving him them the information. the second guy, he struggles, he's less than 20%. And then you got a third guy that came in, the same demographics, and he comes in, he's doing his best, and he just can't get it. He sees it, but he just can't get it. What we found out is you can have three different people come in. What really makes the difference is the mindset, because they all see the same thing.

They all have the same information. if you got the same information and you study the same book and this industry and the stuff we do, as my mentor told me, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to go south from one of the doors and garage doors, right? So there has to be something there that's stopping them and that's that internal struggle

to have within themselves and the mindset. If you told me 30 years ago, I'll be making the money I make today, I wouldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I would make $100,000 back then. So coming from where I came from, you know, and my mindset, your mindset and the paradigms have to be limited. They have to be taken out and worked on every day so you can perform at the highest level.

That is how I'm able to perform. them at the highest level because these paradox in my head, I work on them every day. And when you work on them, you're looking for a better outcome. And let me clarify two things here. Mindset is a very simple philosophy. It's getting better thoughts so you can get better feelings, so you can have better actions, so you can have better results. And that sounds simple, but it's a lot of hard work.

but that's what mindset is. Mindset is you got two words there. Mind and set. Where's your mindset at on money? Where's your mindset at on relationships? Where's your mindset on health and wellness? So if your mindset is low on these areas, you have to begin to figure out,

or we help them raise them up so they can begin to believe. leaving themselves and see the possibilities instead of seeing themselves as a negative. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the episode. I want to tell you about the biggest payday of my life and how you can land yours too. Many years ago, a friend introduced me to a group of contractors making over $100 million. They taught me a lot, but the most important thing I learned wasn't a strategy or tactic. It was how to think bigger, how to think like a $100 million contractor. While most guys I met talked about wrenches and work boots. These top dogs were talking about markets,

systems, scale acquisitions, PE deals, and technology I'd never even heard of. That's how I found opportunities nobody else knew about. I jumped on SEO early when Yellow Pages was still hot. I was the first garage door company on Service Titan. I built a training center when hardly anyone was doing real training. Those decisions helped me scale to $250 million across 40 plus markets and led to the biggest payday of my life when we partnered with Cortec in 2023. I remember waking up the next morning checking my account and thinking, there's no way I could ever spend all this money. But the real win, freedom. The freedom to go on vacation when I want, where I want with who I want. Knowing my future kids are set for life, knowing no one in my family will ever have to worry about

money. And here's the deal. You can have that freedom too. All you've got to do is surround yourself with winners and learn from them. That's exactly what Freedom 20206 is all about. You'll meet me and other $100 million plus contractors across multiple trades and learn from us for three days. And because you listen to my podcast, I'm giving you an exclusive pre-sale discount the best price will offer all year. So check out Freedomevent.com and grab your ticket before February 1st. That's freedomevent.com. Now back to the episode. It's not easy to change your mindset and that takes a lot of time. You know, know, my rule is that when I'm interviewing, would I buy from you? Would my grandma buy from you?

And what I work for you? And if that's not the case, it's very hard if somebody doesn't look me in the eyes and they don't, they don't stutter. And they tell me a good story. And if they're good at that, I don't care old, young, what color they are. I don't care if they're male or female. I don't give a shit. But what I do care about is they believe in themselves, and that's hard to identify in an interview, but you could tell that pretty quickly within the first 30 days of the way they carry themselves. And it's very hard to change people. I mean, look, I used to be able to spend years on people, and they turned out amazing. But that's a hard business to do when you're in the business of only believing working on mindsets. I mean, when you take somebody with a great mindset,

teach them how to do the work, it's a lot easier. What do you say? I agree to that, but here's the problem with that philosophy. Everybody's not like us. Everybody, everybody's not like me and you that have this A personality that's driven. See, you're driven, I'm driven. It's hard to find other guys that are driven and the ones that you are possibly, you know, trying to manage or recruit. sometimes they take a little bit more energy to dig deep in these guys to bring it out.

And that's why we have this curriculum to be able to, what do you want out of life? Do you want to be the best? Now, I'm the best of what I do, but we have to bring it out in them. And then if you want to be the best, what's stopping you? So our curriculum is designed to, number one, figure out what they want. And then let's hold them back. What paradigms are not sure with them no more? So it's a whole 12-week curriculum that I developed through my years of,

and we see it moves the needle and it gets the results. And that is what I'm pushing because I know, like, you know, spending money on recruiting, recruiting, recruiting, and looking for these ones that can match your certain parameters, but everybody's not going to match it. I mean, so what you have to do, you're going to figure out a way to reach those guys that want to believe in themselves, and they won't show up at the interview saying they do. They wouldn't even know that's the problem because the paradigms is stopping them from doing whatever they need to do. Yeah, it's definitely not easy. I will say that. I will say that you're right. There's certain people that don't need the same amount of trading as other guys. And one of the biggest things I see, Grant, is if they have somebody at home that believes in them too, especially like a significant other. When they have a wife that shows up to the meetings that wants to learn about how, what success looks like, and when the family's invested in the outcome and they make plans and they write them down,

and they commit, then it seems like they're winning a lot quicker when they have somebody that's definitely pushing them and saying, I believe in you. And we need you. We need you to perform for this family. And the outcome is best for the family. Oh, no doubt. That's the way my wife was. She was like the greatest. Her family. So, okay, so I'm involved in an innovation marriage, which is not easy. at all, right? It's just being married, number one is not being, being, it's a challenge, right? But being involved in the interracial marriage,

as you have your own set of challenges there, but I had the best wife because what she was able to do for me is really believe in me. Her mom and dad believed in me, her brothers believed in me, and we're talking about people that were like just really good people

and they believed in me, and that was able to also, but No, you're right. But still, Tommy, it's the mindset. It all reflects back to the mindset. So because I think that's so important, Tommy, especially with a guy like you that has so much opportunity for people, it wouldn't be, instead of letting that last guy go,

instead of investing in him, instead of letting him go, take a little chance in investing a little bit of, mindset work in them and see what you get. I bet you that the results would be a lot better than what you're thinking they would be. Because that's what they did to me. That's, that's, they, they didn't see, they knew I had it, right? I knew, I studied the methodology. I study the policies.

But then it was me that was self-saccharging, me. that kept, I kept failing. And so I started working on myself to see what the problems were. And most of these problems were not even mine. As I was growing up, there were a lot of paradigms put in my head that prohibit me from performing at the highest number. But once I was able to look at those things and deal with those things, then I was able to say, okay, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

So what are some of the easy ways? help reshape someone's mindset. Well, I wouldn't say it no easy way because it's all repetition, right? For many years, I thought, for whatever reason, I thought that was a failure. I was working as hard as that could be. But that's internal, right? That's internal. So you have to, you know, you have to work on that for so many years I thought that I wasn't

enough spiritually. Those things are deep ingrated in the post. and soul. So there's no really easy way other than having a system or a curriculum that can, that they can identify themselves to put out these things that are not even theirs. The parent are not even theirs. You know, well, we're born. We're born of a perfect DNA. You know, our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents, our relatives start filling us. When you look at a baby, If you watch a baby get up, fall out, get up, fall out, get up. That's an amazing sight.

And that's the way we were, that's our DNA. But when you have your people that say, you can't do this, and you can't do that, and you're no good, and you're a loser, and all this stuff that comes into us, and then you get out to the world, and you try to get into the world, and everybody's saying the same thing. So I'm just saying, let's try to shift it over a little bit and see the results that you get.

You'll be amazed because people need, people need to know, like, Mel and Norman, they believed in me. I don't know why. Mel used to say, Grant, you got it. Grant, you got it. Grant, you got it. Grant, you got it.

And it took, you know, a good many years for me to actually think believe it that I had it. But, you know, I was performing at the same time, so he's seen it. But there was the stuff inside of me that was holding me back. And that's the stuff that most people got. You know, there's this show called Billions. And it's a, I've only watched it a couple of times with this gal that's on the show. And she, so they're like stock traders and they're, they buy businesses and all kinds of ETF type stuff.

And they got this gal Wendy that just works on mindset. She's like an inner psychologist. Like her job is to get people out of their own heads and perform at the highest level. And, you know, at A1, we've got a full-time dream manager that really allows people to learn about getting their money in order, saving money, getting the whole family and the whole household understanding what this looks like to create success. Because, I mean, I really mean this. What's crazy is certain guys, they don't like this business. they don't like working for this company because it's competitive. And they'd rather make $25 an hour than they don't like the word sales.

It's almost evil for them. Their perception of sales is evil. And so my job is to try to switch that and say, listen, sales is not a bad thing. Sales is how we meet our fiancé. Sales is how we get our kids to go to bed on time. Sales is how we make friends and influence people. And so this perception is, I don't want to. to be a salesperson, it's hard to break, I find that. I think people don't, they got a bad

image when you think about sales. And it's just not a bad thing. No, it's not bad. And you're correct. I mean, sales is a part of our society and who we are as a, as the community. And it's not a bad thing. And so, if they think it's bad, then again, something in them that they've been programs to believe that. You know? They're just been programmed. And that program can be changed depending on

what they want. So, I agree with you. And that, you know, sales can have a bad stigma to it, but those are not the people you want anyway. You want winners. You want to develop winners, man.

I mean, you know, I think um, uh, Einstein said it, you can't be doing the same thing that got you there to get to where you want to go. So, you know, I tell, I told Scott this. I said, Scott, you're doing fine, you know, but you can't keep doing the same things. So he's changing up his company focusing on mindset and curriculums and beginning to change that whole paradigm in his own head so he can be the best, so his people can be the best.

And that's what I'm talking about, you know. You know, there's one word I describe that I think is the most important thing is discipline. And it's discipline is created by doing something when you don't feel like doing it. It could be a workout. It could be going and running that other call. It could be picking up a weekend shift. But without discipline and good habits, it's almost impossible to win. Yeah.

I agree with that. You got to have discipline. You got to have discipline. But first of all, before discipline, you got to have the will to win. You got to have desire to win out-trumps them all. If you got the desire to win,

that out-trumped discipline, that out-trumped will, the desire. If you got to, if I can, I can think we're a person that has the desire to win. And they got the desire to win, that is the first step. towards success.

That's just my opinion. No, I love it. Yeah, you're right. It's hard to build desire. I mean, it's hard to make somebody that some people just say, I'm here to play the game. I don't care if I win or lose.

And that's so hard for me to listen to because I've never played anything that I didn't play to win. Like, what's the, I don't see the fun in playing a game. There's golfers I go out with that could beat me, but I don't go out there and say I'm going to lose. It continues to make me better.

You know what I mean? Right. And so when you talk about better, you know, I mean, listen, man, you have a phenomenal story. And I am like really impressed when you mention, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ, your mother. All those things are like great. Man, it's very emotional. But there's more, Tom, there's more. more. There's more for you. There's more for your family. You have even, you just haven't even touched the surface. When you mention the Lord Jesus Christ and your mother in the same,

um, uh, sentence, that's, that's powerful. That is really powerful. And I said this guy here, when they tell your numbers, two, three hundred million,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

that's, to where you're going to go. when you're, you know, I don't think you're even 40. But by the time you're 60, you should be like, oh, my God. So, I mean, the sky is only at the beginning for a guy like you. And the way that you moved the audience, you had a line amount wrong. So that tells me that, you know, you're only at the beginning. There's no reason why you shouldn't hit a billion dollars or $2 billion within your lifetime.

with that drive and that story you got. So that's just what I've seen, and that drove me right to you. I appreciate that. I do agree. I'm just getting started. I always say I'm in the fetal stages. And by the way, I like it when people win, and I like to celebrate the wins. And I don't mind calling people.

I don't like to call them out. I like to call them up. And I like to say, listen, if you got a will, I'm going to figure out a way. It's when you stop wanting to try. It's when you just say, I'm not good enough. And look, I still work with you then, but. The biggest thing is, you're right, I got to go in and say, why, I walk into a room. I don't care if it's Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Donald Trump sitting in this room is, I'm not going to go, I don't deserve to be here.

I'm going to say, why not me? Why not me? That's right. That's right. That's right. I'm not going to use anything, any excuse. Because the people that come up for reasons, what do they came up for a reason of why they should and why they could instead of why they can't? And I just never had the limiting belief that I'm not worth it.

Oh, you're definitely worth, but you'll work a lot more. So, you know, I love talking about this belief, and I love removing some of the junk. And I think that it's easier said than done. And I definitely am very curious. I'd like to learn more on your 12-week process on getting that done. Because that's a lot of, like, one-on-one work. I don't think you could do that in a massive group. It's a group.

It's group. So you do do it in a group? We do in a group. And where do you start? You don't have to give me the whole 12 weeks, but what are some of the major pivots that you guys work out? Well, like I said, the first thing, you have to decide what you want. And that can be done. When I say group, it's done in group, but it's done individually, or it can be done as a

a group of production trying to get somewhere or it can be a group and individual groups with you know people on a weekly lessons talking about individually, what do you want? So we do it twice a week. We do the group

and then we do a call for a 30-minute call to follow up on the week's speed lesson. So we figure out what they want. They got to figure out what they want. We found out in these three areas, Tommy, that's its improvement. If you, first of all, if you work on yourself, if you work on your health and wellness, and if you work on your finances, three, we call the trifecta. If you work on these three areas, even one of these areas, you'll begin to see improvement within 30 days. Because the curriculum

is designed to show you the results right away. So the first thing we work on is what do you want? And then once you figure out what they want, then we figure, well, what's stopping you? Obviously, what's stopping you from moving forward, right? And then once you figure out what that is, then we figure out how does the mind work, the subconscious and the conscious mind, right?

and then we talk about your image, you know, your image. And then we talk about your attitude. And then we talk about being a leader. And then we talk about being the mastermind. There's not more in the middle of that, but that is it in a nutshell on, you know, so you work on those three things.

then we begin to see improvement. And then I can say, mindset is just waiting your awareness so you can have better thoughts, better feelings, better actions, and then better results. And that's why it is. And those liberty needs, because everything that we do is repetitious, right?

Repetitions mean you have to continue to work on this, stuff. You've got to continue to work on it. And our program is a six-month program. It's a six months because we do 90, we do 12 weeks and 12 weeks. The second 12 weeks is reinforcement of the information that you are continuing to go on through. I love it. So what makes you want to, what made you want to sell? Well, then again, I knew there was something, when I was a little boy, before my mother died, I told her, I was going to be a man. I just something in me I was

we weren't you know my dad was the trash man he worked at the local mall and he worked three jobs this whole life and so we didn't have much you know

but we were surrounded by these beautiful homes and out little further out and I used to our school teachers have beautiful homes and some of the kids in the neighborhood

have beautiful homes and I said one day one day, I'm going to have that. I didn't know how. And so when the opportunity came up for me to start canvassing, that was my way out. And I took that canvassing very seriously, and I perfected that.

And then that led me to meet my mentor, Man Rosenblatt, which they came up in Norman Rails. And those two guys, were like, talk about coming from nothing. And then so sales, to be honest with you, I'm an intervote.

I never want a three and a half acre home. I just have built out here in Northern Virginia. And it's in the suburbs. And the nearest house to me probably like, I don't know, maybe a football field part, maybe less than that. But I'm really an introvert. but I perform so well

where I'm in these people's houses. It's like I feel great. But then I'd like to come home, out of the country, be by myself, you know, and just relax. But I'm really an introvert, but I have to do what I have to do to get to where I'm willing to be. So I have the desire to win.

That's what I have. And then you just said, it's time to make a big paycheck. Well, it wasn't so much The paycheck was probably part of it But I just so much Enjoy canvassing And just talking to people when I was out

I was I was And now come telling me I was good at it And so I just kind of developed that Because that was the natural stuff for me to do You know I don't know if you know Dave Yoho Dave Yoho has the oldest, most successful consulting firm in the country when it comes to what we do.

And I met him when I met Mel, and Dave told me, he said, Grant, you can wing it all day long. But you got to have some type of methodology, and that's when he gave me his tapes. And I began to listen to his tapes. And then I began to do what the tape said. and that's just listening to the tapes.

I was just, because it was all new to me. And, you know, from the time I entered in the house to the time I left, I just did what was doing the tapes, and I was closing deals. So, you know, that was a pretty powerful lesson for me that I wanted to share. And I wasn't a greatest sound person, you know, I had, to be honest with you, two things I had working against me. And I still have these things working against me today. I have a stuttering problem and I have a speech impediment problem, right?

But I don't let those things hold me back. I try to pronounce my words as clearly as I can. And I try to articulate the best I can. And I overcome all that stuff to get what I was able to get. what I was able to get in this lifetime. Well, you're doing great, man. I'm really proud of everything you've accomplished and you're just getting started as well.

It's fun to watch you and all the adversity you had to overcome because, look, my story is, it's one of overcoming adversity, but it wasn't, I look at it. You know, I heard a lot of successful people say, man, I'm at the right place at the right time every time. I don't know. It's obviously Jesus is guiding me, but I'll tell you this. Everything seems to just keep happening. And I happen to be at the right meeting or the right conference or in front of the right person. And, you know, there's a little bit of luck because I fell into the right industry at the right time. And now it's one of the home service home improvement. I mean, that's what everybody's talking about. Right. But it wasn't luck. It's your destiny.

It's your destiny. It was your heartwork and your positive mindset. Listen, man, when I met you, you know, you see guys up there and you were just so young and why. And I said, you know, and I'm not the type of guy that, listen, I'm not a type of guy that buys us to a lot of bull ass, right? But your words, when you mention those two things, I said, I got to go meet this guy because his destiny's set.

His destiny's set. So, no, it's your destiny, man. You're destined to do great things. And you're destined, not only all you're destined to do great things, Tommy, you're destined to help a lot of people. God put you in that position to help a lot of people. And all destinies are crossing because there's nothing new under the sun. We were destined to meet.

And that's why we're here. This is no accident. I love it. This is no accident. Yeah. Grant, is there any books in your life that obviously, Earl Nightingale. I did. I had Dave Yoho on the podcast I don't know, about four months ago. And he

Great. Isn't he great? An amazing guy. Really? Like, you know, and I used to listen to Tom Hopkins on the cassette tapes back in the day and Michael Gerber. And there's a lot of things that that I've listened to that have changed the way I show up. Is there anything that you'd advise any books or people should listen to anything or read? The first book that I have read, that two books I read, obviously I read the book Thinking Grow Rich. That is the most, everything that I talk about in my curriculum

derived from thinking grow rich. And so I went back to school at the age 50 to give my degree because people told me I couldn't do it, right? They said, no, no, you're not smart enough to get a degree. You know, you can't even pronounce the words. right? So I went back and I got my degree and I carried a 3.87 throughout the whole year on the honor roll. But they can grow rich

with one of the books I read and another book that I always read that keep in front of me is the science of getting rich. I don't know if you can see this. The science of getting rich. This book here tells people that if you don't believe in the increase you're dumb, you're in there. Everything that God ever created has increased to it. So this book here, The Size of Getting Rich,

it's a powerful book, and it talks about the increase that is naturally God's given right to all men. I love it. Those are two good books. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grant, if somebody wants to reach out and talk to you, what's the best way to do that? Well, they can do it by going on my website, co-crant-Wincet.com.

They can text me at 571-397-1052. And I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on social media, all the platforms. Cool, man. Well, listen, we talked about a lot of stuff. And obviously, I think the most important thing is believe that you're worth it and work on that mindset and your belief system. I can't believe, you know, I was just talking about this, but it's 100%. A lot of people go through life thinking maybe we don't deserve what's coming.

And the last thing I say during orientation after three and a half hours of my introduction to the new group is, listen, I'm going to pour love into you guys. I'm going to show up. You're going to see me. The one thing that I can't do is make you believe in yourself and love yourself. Instead of saying you're going to do this for your family, what about you? Why not you? Why do you got to do everything? I agree, do it for your kids and your wife and your parents.

But what about you? And why don't you dig in and figure out what that's going to take? So I definitely want to look into your six-month program. But why don't you close this out? Maybe we didn't talk about something or go deep into something. But I'll give you a chance to spend a few minutes for some. final thoughts. Well, everything I was done in my life up to this point has been by, I've been led by every person, even my pastor, they all let me down my church. And I'm a spiritual man.

And I just believe you got to believe in a high power and you got to believe in yourself. When you don't believe in yourself, find a higher power to believe in. Because that carried me a very long way. Even just everything I got, I am so grateful. I am so grateful because God put me in the industry where I didn't even have a way. I didn't know no way. And then I met Melrose and Black. Then I met Norman Rehl.

Then I met David Yeho. All this is over 40 years ago. And it's coming in full circle for me. And I'm just saying, believe in yourself and believe that there is going to be a way for you. Whoever's listening. There is a way. But you got to do the work. No one's going to give you anything.

You got to, or if you do the work, you believe on yourself. And when you don't believe on yourself, find a mentor. Someone that can see you, the good that's in you, the drive that you have, the desire to win in you. and then that I care with you as well. So those are my, those are words that I live by. I had no idea when I met Mr. Mello. I just knew that I had the, I just knew that I wanted to at least get to know the guy.

And I had no idea. I just stood up doing that guy. He had a mile, a mile along. And now look what we're at. And I think our relationship is going to, to develop to something more. That's what the Lord, our destiny is calling, and I'm just to sign it for it. But I have no idea.

I love it, Grant. Well, I really appreciated the time today. You know, for those that are listening, we're doing this on a Saturday. And I appreciate you taking the time today. My calendar is pretty limited. I'm the busiest I've ever been. That's no excuse. But one of the things I've been trying to do is make more.

time for my fiance and spent time with her too. So I've realized sometimes I've ignored some of the most important things. My mom asked me why I'm on my phone all the time. And, you know, I got to do a better job of that too. I think just turning it off sometimes is probably the best thing. It's just hard because I like to, I'm a busy guy. I like to do stuff. Yeah. So you get me, you get me somewhere. I want to do stuff. And, you know, something I'm working on is just sitting there. I wish I had to go back to Italy. I've never been there, but I, you know, just sit there. I was looking at my Italian stallion producer is just sitting there. They take like four-hour lunches and just sit there and just enjoy each other. And I got to, I got to work on that. Yeah. Tommy, you deserve it. I don't

know you that well. I just know your story and you have, you have driven yourself. And, you know, I'm at the age now to where I'm not as financially successful as you are, but I am successful as you are. And I'm learning now at 63, it doesn't matter. Just enjoy the moment. I am really enjoying this moment. This is probably one of the highlights of my whole career,

just meeting you and seeing how genuine you are, and seeing how sincere you are, and seeing how what a good man you are. all this stuff is just so good and I'm just enjoying it and I'm excited to say okay Lord I sat back I did what you asked me to do now you got to open the doors and leave to where we want us to go but I'm just you know and I think that's the attitude that you might want to take it's okay Lord I'm doing what you asked me to do I want to enjoy my fiance I want to enjoy my wife my mother I want to I don't want to be on the phone. I want to do what you want me to do. And listen to Tommy, when you have that type of attitude, that's when all the better things come because you're not controlling it.

You're just sitting back and washing it a track to you. It just comes right to you. This is your podcast and everything I'm doing in my life about mindset. It's just coming to me. And I'm saying, okay, Lord, okay, okay, I hear you. Okay, I'm just going to sit. I'm still going to work. I'm still going to be a little bit per actor, but I'm going to wait for you.

And when that happens, that's what all the good stuff comes. That's just my experience. I love it, Grant. Well, I really appreciate the time today, and I think you're absolutely right. You know, church is going to be great tomorrow. I look forward to it, and this was really, really, really interesting and fun. And I got a lot of notes, and I think you're absolutely right. Mindset is everything.

So thank you for today, and I look forward to it. to spend more time with you. If I can help you out, you have my email, you have my number, and I'll be more than happy to share this correctly with you. Do anything I can to help you further what you're doing because you're doing some good work, some really good work. Hey, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

We'll be chatting soon, my friend. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, my new friend. Thank you. All right. All right, my man.

Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets to help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to Elevate and Win.com, 4 slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.

Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.