The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 015 - Grant Botma: How to Motivate Your Staff When the Problem Isn't their Paycheck

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comGrant Botma, a dynamic professional services entrepreneur, joins the podcast to explain how leaders can motivate their team when their paycheck isn't the problem. Get more: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have a feeling a decent number of you listening to this right now are going to re-listen to this episode because today's guest, Grant Batma, an incredible entrepreneur in the mortgage, insurance, and financial services space, the owner of Stewardship out of Arizona, the way that he addresses corporate culture, the way that he addresses motivation of his staff, of his team, I think is answering one of the core issues of this generation's business professional, which is how do you build a company culture that people want to be part of, that's purpose-driven and Grant has done that and he's been asked to speak all throughout the country to share with business owners from all different industries how he's done it and he's on the show today to share that with all of you. He's also written a book that you can check out. He has a course that you can check out and we get to all of that. I highly

recommend that you do his book, their paycheck isn't the problem is available on Amazon. And I highly recommend after you get done listening to this episode that you go purchase this book and start to put some of the stuff that we talk about into place, because this is the difference. You're high performers, the high performers that you have at your business. That is the value. That's your competitive advantage and you need them to want to be there. And I think Grant has tapped into a methodology and a belief structure which allows business professionals to do just that. You're going to love this episode. And my friends, if you want more amazing episodes like

the one you're about to listen to, then you have to subscribe to this show. If you really love the show, share it with friends, tell a friend to listen to the show, or just jump onto iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a rating and review. That helps more amazing people just like yourself find this show, build the audience so we can spread these ideas and just keep everything rolling. I love you for listening to this show. Let's get to Grant.

All right, man. Well, you know, I want to kind of get right into the show here. And the first thing, the first kind of, and perusing through your book, the first thing, the first kind of, in perusing through your book, the first stat, it's towards the beginning, it's in the introduction, it pops out, you bring it up a couple more times throughout the book as you go. their full potential. And 88% is an enormous number. Right? I mean, I think that would give cardiac arrest to most business owners, certainly any business owners with even a stitch of a controlling nature, right? Because God forbid someone show up

at a business that I'm paying you to work for, and you're not working at 110% of your capacity. And here we have, you know, 88% of them aren't. So just talk to me a little bit about, you know, that stat in general, in terms of like, is that are we thinking that that means like, ah, you know, I'm just, I'm close, but not there. Or like, you know, I'm feeling slightly disenfranchised and just not connected to this. And yeah, I show up and go through the motions, but I'm not efforting here. This is not where I give my full attention. Yeah. So this study by Deloitte was really vast. They actually did it based on brain activity. So they knew that what the human brain can take in and as a result, what performance could be done through that. So they went and studied thousands upon thousands of people from, you know, admin staff to even C-suite ownership. And through that, they recognized and realized that not only are

the employees not working necessarily up to their performance, but the actual brain activity that was happening, the work that was genuinely getting done throughout the day and throughout the week wasn't up to the potential of that particular human being. And I think there are some people that, yeah, they're like, whoa, and they get scared or crazy, freaked out about that stat. But then the weird part is, Ryan, like a lot of people are like, yeah, I know. I believe that stat. I know myself because the team that I have, I'm lucky if I've got one superstar in nine and 10, I'm just trying to get them to be half as good, you know? And so I think it's a, it's a reality that a lot of people are recognizing and settling into. It's like,

yeah, this is real. What do we do about it? You know? Yeah. And it's probably just millennials, right? Cause they're lazy as shit. Yeah. Right. I think the crazy thing about that statistic is it's not only millennials because that's the greatest part of our workforce. But the funny part is about it is like it was anyone and everyone that they that they did. It's just it's nuts, man. It's just a human. It's a human thing. It's not just a millennial thing. When people bring up millennials and I I've never brought this up on stage before, but I certainly have in conversations like after, after presentations or whatever at conferences, the depiction of Peter Gibbons in the movie office space, like that was made in 1999. Millennials at their oldest were only were only like 13 at that point. So they weren't even part of the workforce. So this idea,

this idea of like, not feeling connected to your business, not feeling motivated, feeling like, you know, you need more than what's being provided to you, like the paycheck isn't enough, like, this has been going on for a very, very long time. I just I wanted to kind of right at the beginning, come at that millennial thing, because I think so often, and I think it's getting a little better. But so often, like, we're just like, ah, you know, they're just, they're this other thing that we can't deal with. And it's simply not the case. Yeah. There's a lot of people who think that, um, you know, just even the title of my book, the problem isn't their paycheck. Like, oh, we've got to give them more than just

a paycheck. Uh, those are the people that are just trying to squeeze anything and everything out of their employees. And they have this sense of entitlement that says, well, I'm paying them something, so they better be badass. Like that's kind of what their thought is. And that's just far out wrong on so many levels. And this idea that there's more than just a paycheck that creates an awesome company culture, it's not just something that's new to millennials, as you said, and the book title isn't about like, you know, rainbows and gumdrops and unicorns. Like it's not like everyone gets a trophy. The best companies in the world have been doing this for a while. The top performing and most healthy company cultures all over the place have been

doing this before millennials even existed. So what is that? So talk to me a little bit about what that looks like. Like just so so money is probably the first motivator that most like if we had if we were on Family Feud, right, like most people would say, you know, and for the steal, you know, money and they're going to ding and everyone would yell. What are the other answers to that question? Yeah, so it's not money that obviously is the number one motivator. If you want to try and attract the top talent, as I share with other statistics in the book, you need three other things. These three things are important to most healthy individuals.

And these three things are important to the top talent, the best people that you want on your team. And they are, they want affirmation. They want to be affirmed and knowing that what they're doing is awesome. They want to become a master of their craft, right? They want to be really, really good at their job. Freedom. Everybody wants autonomy. I mean, we are literally wired to want freedom. It's actually kind of one of the things and phenomenons that's happening in professional services and insurance in general. It's like, how do we give customers freedom in the technology, but yet still give them the affirmation so that we can be their wise advisor and guide through this process. But most

importantly, the thing that's the most motivating is purpose. People want to do work that matters. I've heard you say it before many times, they want to do shit that matters, right? People want to go to work with a team of other people doing something that's making a positive impact on another place. And this isn't just like frou-frou stuff that I made up. These are quite literally statistics that have been proven and studies that have been done time and time and time again. And these studies weren't just done over the last like one or two years. I'm talking years and years and years of studies. So it's those three things. Yeah. The purpose one to me, I guess for me personally is the biggest it's the one that when in in the teams

that I've led that's always been maybe the strongest pull and that doesn't mean that that's always the case because obviously freedom and and opportunities to be a master and affirmation stuff also incredibly important but if like you can just give them like dial in on their personality connected to something they're doing and the purpose of that thing man I mean it's wild what ends up happening like you have people who literally are taking ownership over even like real entry-level staff roles because they feel that connection so my question question to you is like, if for a guy like you and a guy like me and others, like that feels, I don't want to say second nature, but at this point in this point in our, in our career, probably always didn't. But at this point in our careers,

I think we both are very connected and aligned on that particular idea. Why for so many others, is this continue to be a struggle? Like what are the counterpoints or the obstacles to awakening to this idea of giving your employees a purpose? I think it starts with selfishness, really. A lot of people, let's just be real. Like my company purpose is to love people through finances, but we're not a nonprofit. Like we want to be profitable. The Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company Award that we won, they quite literally look at our profit and loss statements and our tax returns like we are a for-profit institution and we do want profit.

And I think people think that in order for you to be a profitable institution, in order to run a business, you just have to focus on money, money, money, money, right? And that creates almost like this selfish mindset. But the reality is, business as a whole, fundamentally, is you find needs, and then you fill them. You literally, quite literally have to be serving somebody else. And there's a big, big purpose in that. There's impact that can be made on other people. And if you're not making a positive impact on other people, then you're not serving people well and you're not genuinely filling those needs. So many people have the wrong mindset that business is about profit. No, it starts with serving people. Because if you're not serving

people, you're not filling a need and then there's no need for the business. That's what commerce is. It sounds kind of weird, but I believe that in order for you to be a business owner, yes, you have to be a capitalist kind of, but you have to be a compassionate capitalist. Otherwise, you're going to struggle. See, to me, I would push back on your point of selfishness a little just to say, selfishness actually really does work quite well in the short term. Like in the short term, you can be incredibly successful if you are very, very selfish. And you have to be overtly selfish to be successful in the short term, because then you're going to cut every corner and burn every bridge and you can, you know, have this huge rise up. But there is

no way to play that game over the long term, right? I mean, it's like as, as, as glamorized as Gordon Gekko, or what's his face from Wolf on Wall Street, like those movies glamorize this like huckster self-oriented like corrupted mentality but in both movies the guy ends up going to jail at the end so i like i don't understand why we can why like that is even an idea still like how we could even even how we can even idolize that culture for a heartbeat when in both of those movies, those guys go to jail at the end. It's just beyond me, right? I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, let's be real, man. All the things that I'm saying right now, there are natural rebuttals in everyone's head because they have experienced the opposite at least one time throughout their life and throughout their career because all the

things that are written in the book, all the things that we're talking about right now are for long-term sustainability. If you want to just try to get a get rich quick or a go, go, go mentality and you don't care if it fizzles out, fine, go the selfish way and you can do it with a money motivation. That's fine. You may have been able to motivate your team or your employees with money to get something. You may have been able to motivate yourself and put your business around money motivation and had some success. But the reality is it's not. It's not sustainable. And over time, it's going to cause more issues than anything else. Because when we're in these Facebook groups

or we're talking at these events with other business owners, right, one of the biggest questions that get asked is like, hey, you know, what do you pay your staff? You know, what should I be paying somebody? I'm thinking about hiring somebody. And the reason why they're asking that is because they want to make sure that they're paying competitively or they just want to copy what somebody else is doing so that they can attract that top talent. They see some of the awards that my team has won and they're like, Grant, well, what are you paying them so I can do that same thing and then I'll find those great employees, right? No, it has nothing to do with that. If you're thinking about paying your team, if you want it to be sustainable, look at your own finances. Look at your budget. Your income for your business is completely

different than the income for my business. Your expenses for your business are completely different than the expenses for my business. Your trajectory for your income and expenses is different than mine. So if you're going to have the biggest expense of your company be in your payroll, you better make sure it's based on your profit and loss statement, not somebody else's. And my hope is that people can get encouraged and find hope in that. Because too often, they think that they've got to pay this gigantic salary to have really awesome talent, because there is kind of that mindset. They've seen other people have maybe some temporary success with motivating with money. But that's not true for the longterm. If you focus on these other three things first,

you can attract amazing people and have a longterm success both within your business financially and performance wise, because you're giving people exactly what they want. Yeah. Or they underpay and then never actually provide the environment in which to allow that person to succeed. And then they blame the salary on the reason that the person didn't actually flourish or didn't actually appreciate working in that place. When really, again, salary has nothing to do with it. If you don't empower that person, say you bring in a question that I get asked all the time, I'm sure you do too, is around hiring a marketing person for an insurance agency, right? Like, how much should I pay them? Should I do it? Should I outsource? I mean, all this kind of stuff. And again, working through all the filters that you just described, if you don't ultimately put

that person in a position where they can do the things from a marketing standpoint to drive your agency, like if you're like, yeah, I want to hire a marketing person, but I'm never actually going to go on camera or I'm not going to support them or I'm going to give them unreasonable goals, or I'm not going to buy them the equipment they need to actually do their job. Well, now you've put them, they're going to get in. They're going to feel like everything they're trying to do. There's a roadblock in front of them. And it doesn't matter if you're paying them, you know, six figures or three figures, they're walking. And then it's, ah, you know, marketers don't work.

You know, producers don't work. To me, our whole, I talked a little bit about this in a previous episode, the principal agent problem. And what I think you're solving for, and there's actually a term that you use that I want to talk about at the end of this little thing here, but this principal agent problem, this dilemma between the owner and the staff member and, you know, each operating in their own best interest, that's solved when those best interests are aligned. And you use this term in your, I was watching your bio video on stewardship, which everyone, I'll have a link in the bio.

I'll probably actually just embed the video in the show notes, but you can also check it out on the stewardship YouTube page. But in there, you say that your primary job or responsibility is loving and serving your employees before your clients. And there are so few, I'd say even men in particular, that would go on camera and say that their primary purpose is, and use the terms, loving and serving their employees. To me, that is a watershed difference between you and most other business owners that you're probably competing against. Where does that come from? Oh, man. Well, I appreciate that encouragement, man. And that's high praise coming from you. And yeah, I'm just I'm grateful and

thankful to hear it. And honestly, it's stuff like that that helps me keep going. Because you're right, as a man and in the business world, it is different. And I do get a lot of kind of people rolling their eyes to me, but it works. And it's genuine. If I have this purpose in my business that I'm going to say, hey, look, we're going to try to love our customers the best that we can. How in the hell can I ask my team to do that if I'm not first loving them?

Really? And it might sound like vague for my purpose to be, hey, we're going to love our customers. Like, well, what does that really look like? Right? Well, I want my team to say, well, we just do what Grant does to us. And the heart behind it is this. There's no checklist of like do these things and the customer gets served well. The best way for us to serve customers and love customers well is to put ourselves in their shoes genuinely

and think throughout the entire customer journey, through the entire engagement, what do they really need? How can I serve them individually, specifically, personally, right? And I do that to each of my team members so that they see, oh, I see how Grant did that to me. And then they can do that to other people. But for me personally, where does that come from? I'm religious, I'm Christian, and it quite literally comes from the Bible. So my personal mission statement, who I am as a man, is I believe I'm here to love and serve other people. So that means I've got to do that in my business. So my purpose aligns personally with my purpose in my business, which then aligns with my actions as a manager and as a leader. So it all flows. I

don't separate the two. I'm not a different dude at church. And, you know, in when I'm at home, I'm the same guy, no matter no matter where I'm at. And that takes, I think it's amazing that you have grabbed onto those concepts, which are transcendent and allowed yourself the, I'm going to use the word like vulnerability. There's a vulnerability in that, that I think, I think one, let me put this a different way. While I do think that there is some, some, some batshit ideas that have come out of this next wave of business owners, say 45 to 25 year olds. I think there's some really ludicrous things. One of the things that I think has been incredibly positive for, for biz, for the business ecosystem is vulnerability. I think leaders are far more willing to be vulnerable today. Like you may not have been just culturally willing to say what you just said or operate your business the same way 40 years ago.

You just, the society was different. And today there is at least veins where you can be that vulnerable and say those things and operate that way and be completely comfortable, be who you are. And maybe you would either way, and you'd love to believe that, but just there is that platform. And so how, I think the catch, the thing that people could get caught on is the idea that there aren't really a set of tactics. Like I'd like you to kind of talk through that just a little bit more because that's where people get caught here is they go, oh, Grant's using the word love. So I need to

put the word love in my marketing or in my, you know what I mean? And now I'm going to be set. And that's not what you're saying. Yeah. So the, one of the biggest points that I make in the book is that, um, every business has to have this purpose and it ha it's not just like a mission statement where, you know, a whole bunch of owners go to a cabin and, you know, smoke cigars and, uh, drink brandy. And then they come back down from the mountain back to their business with this grandiose statement with $30 words in it. That's not what it is. This has to be a simple statement that does several things. One, it has to be simple enough that you can repeat it over and over.

Two, it has to make sure it requires sacrifice because if you're going to the office and sacrificing every day, that inherently is going to create a selfless culture and it will unify the team. And that's why I call it a unified purpose. But another thing that this kind of unified purpose statement has to have is it's got to be you. It's got to be you. It's got to be you. My response as to like where this comes from, I told you how about my life purpose and my work purpose and how that goes into my actions. It's all aligned. Like I use the word love a lot. Like that's who I am and that's what I'm about. But if that's not you, don't use that word. You know what I'm saying? An example was I was helping somebody through this, chatting with them as they kind of went through the book and different things.

And for him, he was an athlete. And he really appreciated and almost misses competing. Like that was the thing for him. He really liked that. I'm like, you've got to put that in your mission. And you can compete to make sure that you're serving people well. You can put that in what you're doing. So yeah, man, practically speaking, it's got to be you. You can't just copy and paste like, oh, okay, I really liked that mission statement, copy, paste, put it in mind, and then

all my problems are fixed. No, no, no, no. This is a whole lot more than that. Talk to me a little bit about the idea, a little bit more about the idea of sacrifice, because I completely agree with you. I know Gary Vaynerchuk gets jobbed a lot because he says the same things over and over again. And the type of guy he is. I am, in a non-offensive way, to religion, a fairly strong disciple of the way he operates his business. And he stands from his place and says that he operates in service of his people and seemingly does so. So what does that idea, what does sacrifice look like? What does it feel like? You know, sacrificing for your employees is maybe a foreign concept to a lot of people

that are either watching or listening to this. And I just, I think it's an, I agree and just want you to expand a little on that. Yeah, well, in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, I was actually at an event a couple weeks ago in Vegas and did a question and answer with him. And one of the questions that was asked was, hey, how do you get a good culture? And before the question could be even finished said, he's like, don't hire dickheads.

And then he said, okay, well, how do you get you know get make sure that a current culture that is bad how do you how do you fix it and before the question could be even finished he's like fire all the dickheads you know like uh i think simply put uh jerks uh won't sacrifice they're all about themselves and they're all selfish. And if we really look at the best players on our team, the best team players, not, and you know, sometimes really selfish people, as you mentioned, from time to time can perform really well. I'm talking about the best team players. They have one thing in common and that is selflessness, where they're genuinely able to put other people's needs first. And if we want to talk about a sustainable culture,

that's going to do well for your business. Because remember, a business doesn't even exist without the ability to find a need and fill it for other people. Well, they've got to have the ability to put themselves in somebody else's shoes and that takes sacrifice. Look man, every day all of us want to come into the office and we want to make money. All of us want to come into the office and do whatever makes us happy, right? But because we're on this mission together of genuinely loving people through their finances, if I'm having a rough day and I have to see three or four people that are still sacrificing and going, it motivates me like, oh yeah, I got to unify. I got to get on. I got to get on with them, you know? And that's why the sacrifice is important because when you see other people sacrificing and working and doing it, it takes an extra special

selfish person to not get on board and sacrifice with these other people. And sacrifice unifies the team and it's absolutely got to be there, let alone the fact that, again, sacrifice is going to help you serve people better. And businesses don't exist without serving people. Is it good for a leader who may not have embraced this philosophy yet or maybe this just doesn't come naturally to but believes it and wants to go down this path. Do you think the idea, like a, an idea that they could grab onto as a good first step might be like mentorship, like starting to mentor people first and working in. Cause you know, I, you know, the word sacrifice and, and loving and all that, maybe that for some people, they just don't have that ability to connect those things with business yet. But the idea of mentoring employees, like, is that a good first step,

do you think? Yeah, I think it can be. You know, you're right. These words are emotionally charged. And there's a reason why I use them. Love and sacrifice, they're a big deal. And hopefully, they get people's wheels spinning, you know, or at least have you looking in the mirror. And sometimes it's hard to connect those words with business or practically speaking, what does that look like? Well, you know, here's a couple of different examples. One, as it pertains to putting together your unified purpose, in those words, you have to say, okay, if I'm going to do this thing, am I going to have to say no to my own desires to help somebody else win?

Right? So loving people through finances means I can't sell them a product or put them into a financial service that's going to pay me the most commission, but I'm genuinely going to do what's best for them. Right? And say in insurance, that happens all the time. We can place business with carriers that are going to pay higher commissions rather than genuinely looking at the needs and placing business with the carrier that's going to cover the needs of the customer best, right? When it comes to managing people, 100% mentorship can be a part of that. It can be, hey, look, I don't have much time. I've got to selflessly sacrifice some of my time to pour into and coach my team. But I think here's the most practical way that a manager and leader can sacrifice.

Intentionally listen. As a manager and as a leader, you constantly want to bark orders at folks and you want to tell them how to do things and where they're doing things wrong. But to really listen, to sit down, schedule time in your calendar, take time in your day to even let somebody finish talking before you like go and interrupt them, that takes sacrifice. That's like a huge thing that all managers and leaders can do is just listen right away. Another thing that a lot of managers and leaders struggle with, it has to do with tools and resources. If there is like a computer issue maybe that somebody's having and their computer's a little bit buggy or their phone's a little bit weird or maybe their stuff on their desk is a little bit wonky and they have to like

push two or three or four different things. Like something that a manager and leader can do to sacrifice is make sure they're budgeting some different things in the finances of the company to buy the best shit for their team. To make sure that they have the best resources all the way around. Okay. An example is my marketing guy right now. He's working with two cameras. Last night, he sent me a Slack message and was just talking about how he's editing some of the YouTube videos. And in that, I recognized that the editing time that it's taking him

to make the footage look good on our GoPro versus the Canon is very, very different. So I'm like, all right, I'm today. One of my things that I put in my to-do list here is I'm like, I'm buying him another camera. Like, do I, did I necessarily have money planned for that? No, but I, I budget for savings and different things. Right. So I'm going to find money. I'm I'll buy him another camera. Does he need it? No, but it would be a huge sacrifice for me to show him that I'm going to help him be a master of his craft. I'm affirming it and what he's doing.

It's going to help us meet our purpose. So there's just a few examples there, but kind of a lot. And hopefully somebody that's listening will be able to relate with at least one of them. Yeah, you know that last one you just described, that is a really low barrier way to do everything that you've said so far, someone needs a tool, and they're hacking their way through it. And all of a sudden, you present them with a tool. And you say, Hey, man, like, or, you know, whatever woman, like, Hey, you know, I see that you're grinding, you're trying to do your best, and you're not complaining, this is going to help you get it,

they're going to immediate that is going to pay you so many dividends. And it's such a low barrier thing. I mean, a couple hundred bucks, even a thousand, you know, whatever, just whatever that tool is, here you go. And the return that you get an appreciation and effort in exchange for just seeing somebody struggling and getting the tool they need that, that one to me is like a that is that is a and it's a low barrier you don't yeah you know you don't have to intentionally listen that's probably the hardest one on the whole list yeah right everyone yeah i'll go over the top of people and show them how smart they are but man i agree with you that that last one

that's super super easy even if it's something small little thing, like a new video camera or whatever, it goes so far. That's a great one. Ryan, we do this not just for cameras. That sounds like a big expense. But quite literally here in my office, the culture is if you need something, I'm going to see if I can buy it for you. And we quite literally have someone on staff. I call her the executive of belonging. And she asks people, what's your favorite pen? What's your favorite post-it note that you like? Like we want your desk to have all

the tools and resources that you need to be a master at your craft. We want to help you become awesome at this. And we're going to affirm you in that, not just with words, but we're going to affirm you in that with action, with resources. And yeah, sure. It can be super expensive stuff, like um and yeah sure it can be super expensive stuff like like a camera we're gonna be super cheap stuff like oh instead of like these bic pens i'm gonna upgrade them to the pilot g2 and they really like the bold point so we're gonna get them that one like whatever it is you know yeah and plus it just makes people feel special and customized so there's lots of ways to do it no i dude you're preaching the choir man i could i i think that's tremendous all right so i um i want to uh trying to decide where i want to go next i i want to i want to circle around to the idea of

freedom so uh i i am an enormous believer in a flexible schedule and that, um, I think there are, I mean, obviously you have to have staff on, you know, on working at certain times to manage certain processes. I mean, if people just can't work whenever they want. Um, but I do think that flexibility, freedom, um, not having to ask permission to go to the doctor's office, like simple, almost like, it's almost like you're just giving people their humanity back a little bit. Like you're not children. Like this is an elementary school. You don't need a hall pass. Like, I mean, like if you got to go to the doctors, go to the doctors, the whole office doesn't need to hear you ask for permission to leave, to go to the doctor's office. Like, you know, just like, um, so that is very

much my philosophy. And I probably even skew a little bit towards i don't want to say too much but more freedom than less okay uh the situation i just came out of was the exact opposite um in in a lot of the conflict that probably led to me no longer being there was was cultural and that um the the you know the person that I was contending with at the time, they wanted, give me the three things you're working on this morning. I want your butt in that seat at 8.05. You don't leave until the whistle blows at 5 p.m. Send me the three things that you finished at the end of the week. This really rigid, I want to know what you're doing, when you're doing it at any given

time, I should be able to send you a Slack message and you should be able to tell me exactly what you're working on. And those two ideas just, they don't work together well at all. How do you, one, can you, and two, how do you start to move people from super rigid to the type of freedom that you are describing, which I would love for you to define. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd like to even kind of turn the interview around a little bit to ask you questions to help enlighten the listener. So when that was happening to you, my guess is that you almost felt, and this is another emotionally charged word, almost felt enslaved a little bit, right? There is a sense of, so what I don't like about that culture is that it,

I think people work their best when they feel like you have confidence in them, even if you don't, right? Like even if you know, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I think the word for that is trust. Yes. And, and I think you don't even have to fully trust them. Like, you know what I mean? Like people trust is earned and that takes time. And I think people are willing to accept that. Like, I think people are willing to go like, Hey, you know, I've only been here for seven months and I know that I'm not all the way in yet, But man, he or she, they're giving me a chance to prove myself. They're giving me some self-respect, some ownership or the ability to own and then allowing me to choose. Like some people just choose, hey man, I just want to show up and do

my job. You tell me what to do. I'll be cool. I'll be nice and I'll leave. And then as a manager, you can choose whether you want that person or not, but that's some people's mentality. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's just what they want out of work. But I think our highest performers and the people that we really want to keep around, they need, they, you, they need to know that you trust them and, and, or that you, there's a path to trust, right? You don't, there is a, there needs to be a path to trust, right? There needs to be a path to trust, in my opinion. And that takes time. And I think people are willing to accept that it takes time. You don't have to trust somebody day one because that would be unearned trust, which I think doesn't have the same effect.

I don't know. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Totally. Yeah. So there's a couple of different things that I want to communicate with this. And there's a process that managers get backwards. They hire somebody and they expect them to behave. And then as long as that person behaves, then they might start believing in that employee. And then once they believe in that employee, then they'll let them belong. And then as part of that belonging comes the trust, right? So you have to do it the opposite way. First, right when you hire them, I don't believe trust is earned. I believe trust is given. You got to give them the trust. You let them belong, right? Then through that belonging, they're going to start to believe in you as a manager. And once that person believes in you as a manager,

then they're going to behave and their performance is going to go crazy skyrocketed through the roof because of the first two steps that had happened. They have been given the trust from you and they did nothing to earn it. Right. You were gracious in that regard. And they know that, man, this guy believes in me, that they have the support. Can that trust be taken away if they don't behave well? Sure. But to start, I let them know that they belong, right? And then they believed in me as a leader, which earned the voice. And then they started behaving. I think the thing is, we have to remember where this kind of freedom issue came from. The 40-hour work week was not created around some guy who did some science about the human brain.

The 40-hour work week and the way that like breaks and lunches and how you clock in and clock out, how that was created was created around manufacturing equipment. So they knew that the equipment would operate best within these timeframes and in these parameters. So the human brain can't do that. I told a story in the book, but like, when I first started working out, you know, I was 15 years old, I was a credit card collector for Discover Card. And I was damn good at it, man. And I really liked it. And there was a moment that I completely remember that I put my heart and my soul into this call. And it was really, really great. And I got the person to pay us. I got their account back regular. And it all worked out. And after it was done, I was just, I was beat and I was not going to be able to give my best on the very next call.

And I looked at my watch and I didn't have another break for like another 45 minutes. So I had to quite literally say to myself, okay, I can either go on this next call and not give my all, or I can lie and say, I got to go to the bathroom just to splash some water on my face. Either way, my integrity was forced to be compromised. Like how ridiculous was it that I couldn't celebrate that win for a little bit, stand up, take a break, you know, maybe even get some fresh air outside, then go back in and attack the next call and win that one. You know, like the, the, the employer that I was a part of didn't have the freedom to not give me the trust to know that I was going to be able to do that. And some people were like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Grant, Grant. Well, you don't understand, man. Like if I give people

freedom, they're going to run all over me. I don't trust them. Trust then is a you problem. You hired them. And if they're not worthy for you to give them the trust, you got to get people that you can. Or you got to get real with yourself and decide to actually start trusting people. And I think that is the hardest part for a manager to kind of evolve to the top level part of leadership being able to trust others it's hard it's hard and people got to start doing it i you know i think the thing with uh the

example you just gave which i love is most companies prefer predictable mediocrity over exceptionalism they just do they just they would And that's why that 88% is there. Yeah. Companies, you just hit the nail on the head, Ryan. They're okay with mediocrity by doing these systems and things. And as a result, they're lucky if one in 10 employees are top performers. Gosh, that was killer. Yeah. Um, I, I am, I am super interested in this idea of give of giving trust immediately versus putting employees on the path to trust. Because, and again, this might be some of my own personal thing. I just find this topic to be intriguing and, and, and, and whatever. But like, for me, you know, in my, in my, I'll

take my sports career. Okay, so a sport that I was the best at was football. And even though I'm six, four, I was a middle linebacker, which most people would never guess, but a sport that I was the best at was football. And even though I'm six, four, I was a middle linebacker, which most people would never guess, but that's what I was. I didn't make the team. My varsity team is middle linebacker. I made the team as a sophomore as a long snapper. Right? I made the team as a long snapper that I had that one skill. And I was the only one in the entire football program that could consistently long snap a football to a punter. So I got to go on the varsity team as a sophomore. That was great. But I was also a pretty darn good linebacker. And like they didn't

just my coach didn't just because even though I was easily one of the top two or three and should have been starting and playing regularly, I didn't just get shoved in there. Right. It took over, it took a path of time. It took, it took me to get a play and make a tackle or just live my assignment, right. Be one of 11, be, be my, be my one, own my one of 11. And, and then it took time and time and time. And then over time, I got that path. If they had just put me into that spot. I don't know that I would have. I don't know that I would have felt the strain or the uncomfortableness of the pressure to prove. And, and I guess my, my question back to you is like, how do you, how do you equate for that? Like, um, like if you were, if you had, if I had joined you,

if I joined your team and you're just like, Ryan, we hired you, we trust you, boom, go do your thing. Um, I guess I, and maybe it's a me thing, but I, I struggle with like, am I going to press myself as much as I would if I knew, hey, you know, they brought me on the team. They're putting me in the position. They've given me the tools. Like they trust me, but I still have to prove that I belong here. What do you think about that? Oh, yeah. I think this is great. I think there's a difference between trusting an individual as a human being and trusting a skill level. I think there's a big difference between that. So if I were to hire you, I'm not going to hire you unless

I think you're selfless, right? And you can align with my company purpose. So as soon as I hire you, then I choose to trust you. And I'm going to tell you that like day one, like, Hey, I, this is, this sounds weird and you don't know me a whole lot and it's your first day here, but I trust you because I hired you because I believe you're a great person. And here's the things that I saw during the interview process that leads me to believe that you're a great person. So because of that, we're going to give you these types of freedoms or whatever, these freedoms that have to do with you as a human being, right? Now, as it pertains to different opportunities that are going to be given to you,

those things definitely can be earned, right? And I'll also share a story from my athletic career. So, I played basketball and my college basketball coach, he basically told me there are certain things when I was a freshman, you do and you don't do. Grant, you guard the other team's best player, but when the ball's in your hands, don't shoot it, you know? But the reality was I could hit it. I could shoot, right? But because he didn't trust me and didn't give me the trust to have the freedom to shoot even when I was open, it made me like tense up. I didn't have confidence. Like it killed my confidence. And confidence is one of the most important things that all high performers have in common. Like especially when the pressure is on, especially when we need our employees,

when we need our team to perform at their best, one of the things they've absolutely got to have is confidence. And things changed by the time I got to my junior year, had a different coach. And at that time, honestly, I was just kind of more confident in who I was as a human being. And, you know, had a little bit more experience or whatever. So that confidence was a little bit there. But it's like – it was like completely different. Like you know those players where like during practice they'll kill it and they'll kick butt. And then the game comes, it's like who is this guy?

Why is he not making those tackles? Or why is he not catching the ball or whatever it is? Like that was quite literally me at times. Like if it was practice or it was pickup balls, like no one could stop me. But if the game came around, I'm like I got no confidence. No trust has been given to me, you know. So I think that you have to give the trust to them as a human being. Show that you have confidence in them by giving some affirmation.

But then certain things for sure. I mean, the guy who does my media and marketing, he started out as like an admin person working for me. And then he earned the trust to be able to get to the the media and marketing editing piece so yeah yeah dude we could talk about this stuff all day long um i i have one one kind of final question for you um like why what was it about right now that you felt you needed to write this book that you felt this needed to be a vein of content that you felt you needed to write this book, that you felt this needed to be a vein of content that you made part of your life?

Is it just you had the time and your mind became open to it? Or is there something happening? Or did you have an experience? What was the impetus of the creation of this book? Man, that's a really good question. So go back to the purpose. I'm here to try and love and make a positive impact on people. And at Stewardship, we were having some success and it was cool. And people started noticing that. And as a result, I was being asked to speak at

different conferences and events. And the next thing I know, I'm like looking at my schedule and my assistant is like, hey, we're not able to get as much stuff done because you're out of town all the time. And I was like traveling to events like every other weekend, basically speaking at these things. And it was fun and I enjoyed it because I was helping other people. But then I had to realize like, okay, is there a better way for me to make this impact? Like I strongly believe in helping people create better cultures because business owners deserve better. Ryan, it is just plain wrong, man, that nine and 10 people at say insurance agencies aren't working to their best. Insurance agency owners deserve better than that, man. And I wanted to help give people the information to

help turn that stat around. And it was fine trying to give that information at these conferences, but in order for me to scale it and to try and get the information in as many people's hands as possible, I decided to do an online course. And then when I went through that online course, somebody took the course and happened to work for a publisher. And they're like, can we put this into a book? And I'm like, oh yeah, sure. So that was kind of like how it worked out. But the heart of it was just to try and take what I was doing

by helping people at these events and scale it. To try to make the biggest impact possible, which is in line with my, my purpose. And I just wanted to try and help people. So that's kind of where it came from. Well, I think these are some of the most important topics that our generation of business professionals is facing. I think that moving away from the, you know, I'm going to work for a company for 40 years and hope that they kind of take care of me culture to moving to a more trust-based, more reciprocal trust-based, reciprocal respect-based

business around a purpose and a culture. I had a tremendous guest on a few episodes ago, Jeff Fromm, and his whole mission is purpose needs to be a verb, right? We need to take the purpose of our business and actually turn it into actions that we put out into the world, not just, you know, the subtext below our logo. And I really think you're onto something, man. The course is the culture course. Where can people find out more about that? And then the book, the problem is not their paycheck. Where can people get copies of the book, which I'm sure they're going to want to go get. Yeah. So you just go to culture course.com and there you could check out the

course. It's basically 12 modules of me walking you through all the stuff, hiring, firing, accountability, goal setting, basically all the things that I've done in my culture. And it's just copy and paste resources and walkthroughs that can help you

make it for your own business. So you can go to culturecourse.com for that. The book is available on Amazon. It's a hardcover softcover audible version as well. And ebook. So you could search problem isn't their paycheck on Amazon, or you can go to culturecourse.com forward slash book. And there'll be some more information there and a link there. But I guess before I go, I just want to say, Ryan, thanks, man. Thanks for having me on.

And for you listeners out there, if you're not already subscribed to the show, do it. Some of the guests that Ryan has had on over the last couple of weeks, like, are amazing thought leaders and will blow your mind and help you in the paradigm shift that you need in leadership. So this guy is awesome. Subscribe to this and listen to it on a regular basis. mind and help you in the paradigm shift that you need in leadership. So this guy is awesome. Subscribe to this and listen to it on a regular basis. The conversation that you're able to create, it was fun. It was really fun, Ryan. And you're gifted and you're skilled at this.

I'm grateful for it. You're a pro. You're a pro. I love it. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. That's very meaningful. Thank you, everyone. And my friend, I wish you nothing but the best. And I look forward to the next time we have a chance to catch up in person. For sure, man. Thanks, man. Thank you. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the One Call Close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested,

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