Rooted in Consistency with Bryan McKee

Hey, it's Phil Treadwell, and before we dive into today's episode, I have a game-changer for you. Top performers don't succeed by chance. They follow proven systems, stay accountable, and surround themselves with the right people. That's where growth happens. That's exactly what the M1 Academy Mastermind Group is all about. This is a free, monthly coaching and strategy experience designed for professionals who are serious about building a high-performing sustainable business. By these group coaching calls, you'll get direct access to tactical training, industry leading strategies, and a community of driven professionals. Each month we'll dive deep into streamlining systems, building a magnetic personal brand, creating engaging content, and proven lead generation strategies. If you're serious about growth, this Mastermind Group is not optional. It's time to align with the right people, apply the right strategies, and move with urgency. You can register for the M1A Mastermind Group by clicking the link on our show notes or by going to M1A.Pro/Mastermind. That's M, the number 1A.Pro/Mastermind. We'll see you on the inside. Now let's get into the episode. Welcome back to the Mortgage Marketing Expert podcast. I'm your host, Phil Trudwell. Our Mortgage Marketing Expert today is Brian McKee. Brian is a top-producing loan officer. He is a real estate investor. He's an endurance athlete. He's M1 Academy coaching client. The list goes on and on. We'll have his full bio and the notes for you. This is a long time coming. I'm excited that we finally get on here to have a conversation. Welcome to the podcast, my friend. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be here, obviously. Your podcast is how we got connected in the beginning, and I followed you for quite some time. We met at an Amplify event, actually, and I just became friends, and then I started coaching with you several years back, and it's been a great journey since then. Yeah, man. It's been a lot of fun. We've got to know each other pretty well over a few years, and man, one of the things that we've had in common from the very beginning is around mindset. M1 Academy is about mindset first. We understand, and I think people are starting to understand that they're consuming this content and been listening, that our activities, our actions, the things that we execute on are only as good as that foundation and mindset that we have. You have groups that you coach and people that you influence, and so I know this is a big thing for you, so I really just want to jump in from there. In today's kind of market, there's a lot of people that are frustrated or they're plateauing or they have challenges in their business, and it's not necessarily because they don't know how to do the work or they can't do the work. It's just they're not doing the work, and it's typically kind of a mindset issue. As you talk to people, as you build your business, as you collaborate with folks, what's the key to unlocking this thing from a mindset perspective? What is it people need to start focusing on that they're not necessarily looking at as much? For me, I think it starts with the most basic personal level items. Obviously, we're talking about business, but for me, it starts on the personal side, and executing on that every single morning, we talk about morning routines, having a morning routine. I get up probably way earlier than most people do, but that's just how my morning routine functions. That's what I chose. The most important thing you could be doing right now is controlling your mental state going into the day, and that way you can execute at a much higher level, because we know that we are supposed to be making the phone calls, we know that basically having as many conversations as we can possibly have, but if you're not in the mindset going into it, you just lose momentum. You lose the ability to execute well, and so I think taking care of your body and taking care of your mind on a personal level is the absolute key to unlocking high productivity for sure. It's interesting that you say that, because obviously, we talk a lot about daily habits, to talk a lot about a morning routine, and I'm obviously also a big advocate for get your body right, because your body directly affects your brain, the organ that is going to help your mind, the more abstract version of our brain, like the way we feel, the way we think, what controls our attitude and our actions, and you're a guy that really focuses on health and wellness. You know, Spartan races, and you do a lot of stuff physically, you have history as a chef, you love to grow your own food, kind of talk about how the importance of those things for you, you know, in terms of you kind of talked about a morning routine, getting your body right, but how do those directly affect not only your mindset, but your performance as you go throughout the day and throughout the week? Well, I think pretty much everyone listening has had this experience for sure. I mean, if, you know, pardon my words, but if you eat like shit, you feel like shit, period. Growing food for me, honestly, it's just, man, that's just a passion, that is my Zen area. I'm one of those weird people, I love going out there and just watering the vegetables and like, picking at it and pulling the weeds, it's a, for me at least, it's a place where I can just relax, I pray often out there, it's just, it's just my space, kind of thing. Same thing with the kitchen, but when you are in the kitchen, you have other family members in there. And so it's a little bit more chaotic, I guess you can say, but I'm very meticulous about my vegetable garden. But the reason I enjoy it so much is because of the way that makes me feel, knowing that I'm eating extremely healthy food, it's very organic, the way that I garden, and that goes into working out and taking care of your body. Same thing, if you're not taking care of your body, you will not have the energy to sustain the activities and stuff that we do. I mean, speaking from personal experience, I mean, there have been times in my life for sure where, you know, I wasn't working out, I wasn't doing racing, I wasn't doing those things. And if I go back and think about it now, like, I mean, I would burn out real easy. Tons of energy drinks, coffee, whatever I could take. I started taking like alpha brain, which is a great product, but I was feeding myself all of this stuff. When in reality, the issue was not that I needed more energy input, the issue was, I wasn't healthy, I wasn't working out. My body just was reacting in a negative way. And so by the time we get into that zone, we all know the zone, right, where you have to kind of push a little bit harder to get the things done, I would just, I would be done mentally during those phases. And so that I would only execute, you know, 70% of the activities that I needed to do that day. And then of course, if you do that on a repeating basis, it just piles up and then you get really demoralized from letting it pile up and then you start beating yourself up because of it. And I'm guilty. Like, there have been times where I've gone days without working out, I make excuses and I know with certainty the difference I feel when I'm not executing in that morning routine and that goes from mental state, not just a physical state. If I don't put myself in the right place before my day begins, 100%, I'm off. I'm just off for the day. Well, you hear me talk about often and people that listen to this podcast or have participated in any of our webinars or masterminds know that I'm a firm believer because I've seen it in my own life and in other people's that those habits, that morning routine, you know, beating your body right is going to help you get your mind right. And all of those things lead to creating some momentum and that momentum creates more motivation. It makes you want to do more checking more things off the list. It also creates that confidence because you're actually taking action and getting things done. And the way that I frame those things can sound pretty and almost become cliche, but I'd love just from your real world experience, what are those things doing for you, right? Like in your garden, you're able to kind of take some time, take some quiet time. You know, mentally prepare, but as you go through your habits in the morning, as you get through your workout, as you, you know, maybe take some quiet time or read a book or listen to a podcast on a real practical level, what does that do for you? How do you feel and how does that spur you to go take action in your business? For me, the morning checklist we'll call it that for now is, I mean, you get like little dopamine hits from doing that. It creates a little kind of a in your brain, this energy that I'm getting things done. And it's kind of in a very addictive state of mind, I guess you can say. And so you want to continue that throughout the day. I'm a checklist guy. I functioned very well off checklist and process. So for me, when I look at my morning and what I got to get accomplished that morning, not just that, but also for the rest of the day, I know for a fact, I can knock all these things out before my kids ever even get up. I feel like I'm on fire, basically. And so that helps just really push myself in there. And the garden thing in particular is, it keeps me very calm is because it gives me a place where I can practice gratitude because you put in the work. That is something that like we just seeded for the spring, late spring summer season. You go out there, all you see is dirt, right? You have to wait 45 days before you get any fruit. So you have to nurture it, take care of it, prune it, set it up basically for success. And by the time you take the first bite of that tomato, bro, I'm like, I'm like tweaking out, just thinking about it right now because I'm like, it's going to be so good because you're putting in the work and the effort and you are nurturing that part of you. I think that that goes back to taking care of your body, eating right like if you do it for one day, you're not, you're not going to get the effects that you think you're going to get right. It is something that you have to be extremely consistent about it. And there are times where I've been like, we did 75 hard last year, it's funny enough, I attempted it multiple times and I would fail in like the first couple of weeks. I just just didn't do it. And then one day, man, I woke up and without even thinking about it, I just opened up the app, went to the gym, knocked it out and just started going. And by the time I got through to the 75 days, the energy I felt for achieving that, I have it truly been the same ever since I've been much more consistent. And that's the point of the program, if anybody's ever done the program, it forces you to do things that you wouldn't necessarily normally do on a regular basis and you have to execute on those. And the way that it changed my mind has done amazing things for me personally. I love that you share that when you go back and listen to the original intent because so many people think 75 hard specifically is a workout program or a health and wellness program and it is to an extent, but what it's really about as a mindset, can you go through 75 days of working out twice and making one of those workouts outside? Can you drink the amount of water that you need to, can you stick to some type of an eating routine or regimen, can you take a progress picture, can you read a certain number of pages out of a book, can you do all these things on a daily basis for 75 days straight because to be able to do them all, it brings you to a place mentally, right, all the way comes back to mindset, Andy forzele did an incredible job in designing it that way with intentionality. And I know from our conversations and experience with coaching, through 75 hard as you prepare for some of these Spartan races as you work on a real estate flip project or have goals personally or in your business, you're a guy that is very good at staying consistent using your checklist staying regimented that you mentioned something right there with a garden with the tomato. But not only is the tomato so much better quality than probably which you could get if you short-cutted it, but it also means that much and taste that much better because of the work you put in because of the consistency. Talk about your business or businesses and things that you do and kind of describe for people how that same concept is going to apply to them doing their marketing consistently, doing their outbound lead generation activities, fostering relationships, building their business, not only are the fruits of the labor going to be good, monetarily and helping people, but you like it that much more because you know it came out of consistency and not because of some random thing that happened all of a sudden and now you have a couple of deals. Well, I'll go back to something that happened to me personal because it'll give context to doing things consistently. I recently went through a divorce that we pretty much knew, I mean, we knew it was coming and we finally, I think, just made the decision to do it and, man, even though you know it's coming, going through the experience as a whole different animal and it really did rock my world mentally for several months and it was a very emotional time, needless to say. And in that time, I'm extremely grateful that I have the partners that I have that we were still getting business, but to be frank about it, I really wasn't working the way that I typically would. My leaf follow-up was off. I was still doing it, but not at the level that I was doing it prior to and same thing with the furl partners. I wasn't really staying consistent. I wasn't documenting even when I talked to them. Like, my process was just off. And a lot of that was just because of the emotional state. I guess you can say that I was in. And one of the things that actually helped me through that was working out eating healthy because it gave me something because if I had lost that, I think it would have been a lot longer than a few months of emotional turmoil. That really kept me in a better headspace even though I was struggling with everything else that I was doing. It really did affect my business. The reason I even bring that up is because we're still producing right now, but it's definitely down. And I definitely went through a section of time where it's like, man, is it something that I was doing or is it my referral partners or their slow? And the truth is, it's because I wasn't working. I wasn't doing the things that I told myself I was going to do that we know that we're supposed to be doing in this business. And going back to that tomato scenario, like everything that we do, you won't know or feel for 90 days roughly, right? That goes from leads to nurturing the referral partners, all of those things, everything that we do, it takes a while to understand or to feel the fruit of the labor that we have. And so I went through several months where I didn't work. I'm feeling that affect the first quarter, you know, lowest first quarter that we've had in many years. And it's a direct result of the inaction that I was taking, if I could say it that way. Basically, I wasn't working, right? And I'm feeling that now. It's very eye opening for me to go through this experience because now I know it's like, okay, I understand why I'm here. I'm the one to blame. I told my team that I'm the reason we're not having production. I apologize to them. I owned it. And, and I'm out hustling again. And I know going through the last month of hustling where I can see the referrals being picked up. I can see the applications being picked up because I'm working. So consistency is everything. We know what we're supposed to do in this business. And you just have to do it and execute at a high level. And that's it. You know, I love that you bring it up because this is one of the reasons that I wanted to have this conversation is it's very easy for all of us to have conversations when things are going perfectly, you know, according to quote plan, it's a much different level of understanding whenever we've had success, not had success, built success back. You know, we're going through these peaks and valleys that everyone has in their life and in their business. And with you, one of the things that has been really cool to watch from an outsider's perspective is seeing how you've navigated both personal and professional challenges by finding this new north star, not even necessarily a big north star, but a goal that you're working towards is it's a physical challenge because when you stayed discipline in your physical work ethic, your mental work ethic, obviously you get results in your business. And then in times whenever you're staying true to your business habits or with your attraction marketing outbound lead generation and seeing those things happen. But the question in here lies of how important is it for people to have a plan and a strategy going forward with what they're doing, right? Not just I'm just going to go take some effort and see what happens, but you and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the big picture, the short term picture, and what does that mean for us right now? So I'd love you just to kind of talk about how that's been beneficial not only in your life and business, but why it's important for people to take the time and put these pieces together. Well, I'm guilty of this for sure of taking time to know where it is that you're going. I think a lot of us in this business just have a number of that. We want to hit 25 million or 50 million or the big hundred. That's just a number. And I know for fact that there was a couple of seasons in my life where that's all I was focused on. I didn't have anything that I was actually trying to achieve in my personal life. It was just I just wanted to hit the number. And when I hit it to be frank about, it didn't really mean anything to me. I thought it would, but it didn't. And that is when I realized that I wasn't really working for something that was bigger than myself. I guess you can say. And so now I'm much more like focus on knowing what it is that I'm after knowing what it is that I want what I want my life to look like. Because money just affords us the ability to get the life that we want. But if you don't know the life that you want, maybe you don't want to be a 50 million dollar producer. Maybe you don't want to be a hundred million dollar producer. Sounds pretty. The money sounds great. But maybe that's not who you are as a person. That's not what is going to drive you and get you up in the morning and push you through things. And so for me, I've definitely been able to accomplish a few things even through this divorce situation that happened last year. I was able to knock off a few things that were important to me because I understood these were the things that I was trying to achieve. And so to get them only encourages me more. I got more, you know, things on my board here that I want to accomplish, but I can see them every single day. And it gets me motivation. Having a goal is is absolutely critical. You got to know where you're going. I've had time where I'm just going after whatever I could to get a big number. And it means nothing once you get there. It really doesn't. It's got to be something that you want, right? It's got to be something that you want badly, not just because it's the next arbitrary threshold. And we're all guilty of it. We're all guilty of wanting to reach the next level, the next position, the next promotion, the next income bracket, the next production bracket, whatever it is. But one of the things that you downplay a lot is how much those things impact how you are as a dad, how you are in your business, how you are with your referral partners and with your clients. And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, because you find things that you want in your personal life, that forces you to stay disciplined in your mind, in your body, in your motions, in your spiritual life, which in turn create positive results in your business and and monetarily. Correct? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I remember the first time I hit 25 million. That was a big goal for me. I wanted to hit Presidents Club. You know, I'm sure every company listening has one, right? But I sacrificed a lot with my family during that time to reach that goal. And when I reached it, I really thought I would have a very different emotional feeling to it. And it didn't mean shit. That's the honest truth. It felt great for like less than a day, not getting you ever since then. And that was several years back. Ever since then, I have huge amount of time blocks for my family. My boys, especially like they're into sports. I redirected all of that because that money means nothing. If you're not able to take care of things that are actually important to you. And it did take me going through that experience to realize that I had so many missed opportunities with my boys and things that they were going through at the time. And my boys are pretty young. They're almost eight with the youngest one in 10. So I still have plenty of time. But but still it kind of eats at you a little bit. There are things that I I missed. And so I'm a huge family guy. My boys are 100% of my heart and 100% of my why. I want to encourage strong growth, strong men. And whether I see it or not or whether I understand it or not, these boys are watching me in every move that I make. And they're absorbing what a what a man is supposed to be. And I don't want my boys thinking that you can't make good money and not be a father. So I reprioritized everything once you realize money. It's great. But money is definitely not everything. Absolutely. Well, and again, you know, just for people for context, you know, you're a guy who's who's managed your money well has made good money. And so, you know, even though you're producing every month and you're building your business and continuing to achieve thresholds, I'm sure you'll be okay with me saying, guys, this is a guy that even if he doesn't close any business, he's going to be able to pay his bills. And so when you talk about money's not everything, there's so many people that money's not everything because they don't have any of it or they're not capable of making it. It's different whenever you have the context, because there's a bigger picture at play of what it is we're trying to do, what it is we're trying to accomplish. And I've never met anyone in mortgage and real estate that when their feet hit the floor in the morning, they say, oh my gosh, the mortgage business real estate business is my passion in life. No, that just doesn't happen. But we can be very passionate about it and go put in the action, put in the effort, serve people, create relationships because it affords us the time, the money, the resources to be able to pursue the things that we are passionate about in life. And that's really the point here is we have to identify that so we don't talk about those enough. We don't talk about how getting our body right, getting our mind right, getting our emotions right, getting our spiritual life right actually produce business results. That's what M1 Academy is completely built around is we do talk a lot of tactical things. It's the far majority of the things we talk about are tactical, but only once we have this foundation built because the tactics are nothing if you don't have these other things that are in place. And you are a habit guy and obviously over the years, we spend a lot of time talking about what those habits are and how they're elevating you forward. But I want to talk at maybe a little bit higher level here. When you think about success, you've had in your business, success, you've had in your personal life, what are one or two things, maybe a singular thing, maybe a combination of things, but what are some habits that you think people need to have, again, on a regular basis, consistent basis or a daily basis that's crucial for them to be successful. And business repersonal, either one, is there one that kind of is transcended upon both? Is there kind of a singular habit that regardless of what you want to go be successful in, here are some things that you need to do or kind of the approach that you need to take? Me personally, I think the personal side is the start of everything and I promise you, in their happen days, again, I'm just as guilty as anyone else where I don't do that routine for whatever reason that that may be. But if it's like I wake up late and it's like nine o'clock and I feel so far behind because I didn't do those other activities, it completely ruins my mental state for the rest of the day. And so for me, and really, any high level cheever that I know personally and professionally, they're all the same way. That morning routine is everything. It may look different for everybody. You may have to work out in the evening. That's totally fine. But getting your mind right before the day goes, I think is 100% the key to any successful person that I have ever spoken to or talk to or anything of that nature. And that pours in to the business side of things. Everyone's business looks different. It depends on your level of production. If you're lower, you're probably in the files a little bit more. If you're up or in, you're pretty much the face of a team, essentially. So everyone's business side of things is going to look a little bit different as far as what their routines are. But that morning routine, 100% to me is the key to any successful business. I agree. And you know, I spent 18 months to two years doing the same thing, waking up about 4, 34, 45, building that routine, creating that momentum for myself. What is it about a morning routine? Because I know there's a lot of people that I talk to and we talk about habits and putting a routine together. You know, they feel like they get their best work done at night or they're just inherently a night out, which for the record is me. I'm naturally a night out. I like to stay up late. I'm not a morning person. I've been labeled a morning person, but I don't think trying to create intentionality in the morning necessarily makes you a morning person because I don't enjoy it. I just knew that was one of the biggest wins that I could create for myself on a daily basis. But I'd love to know from your perspective, what is it about that when getting to kind of this root of what is this success habit or the success habits they're going to make you successful? Is it getting up earlier than you normally do because you're allotting yourself extra time? Is it the routine itself in terms of priming ourselves to go out and perform at a higher level? Is it just the intentionality of because we did it and we got to check the boxes and stack those wins that created momentum? What is it that you think is kind of the root of why so many successful people don't just get up early or earlier but have this routine and kind of prime themselves? What's the takeaway that people need to realize that's the importance of it? It's the discipline. I think discipline is everything. When you intentionally, and this is really what discipline is, when you intentionally put yourself in hard situations and find a way to overcome them on a daily basis, the iron cowboy, right? Talks about this all of time. Andy Priscilla talks about this all of time. That to me naturally, Andy said this on a podcast. I mean that naturally over time separates the strong from the weak. It's not what you did in one day. If you had a great successful day, that doesn't mean that you're a strong person. I hate saying that, but it's true. It's the daily discipline of executing on activities that we all know are high level and very important and doing them whether you freaking feel like it or not. That to me is everything. I even to this day and I'm in way better shape than I was in my 20s. There are plenty of mornings where I get up and I'm like, I really don't want to do this today. Especially when I look at what routine I'm supposed to do. My coach, I'm like, oh, I really don't want to do these exercises, but I know that it's important to me. I know it's important that it's going to set up my day to get all of those items done before seven o'clock. I feel like a freaking champion and it's only seven o'clock in the morning. So I think it's the discipline. I think if you don't have discipline in your personal life, you're not going to have discipline in your business life and that's just going to naturally affect whether you see it or not. It's going to naturally affect your business and ways it. From the outside, this is why we pay for coaches, right? From the outside, Phil can call me out all day long because I don't see it because I'm in the groove of it, right? But when I talk to him and talk it with Phil through things, he can come back and say, well, this is why this is happening because you're not executing in this area of your life. And it's like, oh, lightbulb goes off. You're like, you know what? You're right. I'm not. I see this now. So discipline, if I had to give it a word, I would say that would be it. Would you say to somebody that's like, but Brian, I don't like discipline. I don't like to discipline myself. I kind of want to just go where the wind flows, where opportunities take me. I don't want to create that discipline in my life. What would your response be to that? I think it's a shitty standard. You know, nobody likes working out either, but it's important. Nobody likes doing things that are outside of what they feel is normal or a part of who they are. And that's not an insult to whoever's listening. That is extremely normal as a person. But if you want to be at a high level and you want to operate function at a high level, you unfortunately, you have to make the choice to do things that aren't naturally within you. Discipline is a skill. Anyways, it's not something you're born with. Right. It is a daily reminder of how easy it is to lose discipline and to get off habits. It is a 100% and intentional action that you take every single day. It's hard for me. And I'm much more my, you know, iron is sharpened much more than it used to be. But man, if I don't keep sharpened and it is going to get dull and he says it's one of my, one of my favorite episodes. I listened to it like probably two or a few times a year. But that's what it is. I mean, it's, it's a shitty standard. So the takeaway in there for people is, okay, you don't have to like discipline and you don't even necessarily have to discipline yourself, but you can't expect to have what's on the other side of that discipline. Right. Because that's what I found is people don't want accountability. People don't want discipline. We want the things that are on the other side of it. And so that's really the takeaway there is that's a shitty standard to have because you're expecting and have some sense of entitlement for these good things to happen. But the way for those things to happen and for you to get those things is that you have to discipline yourself to a certain degree. And again, that's a level is different for everyone. But I love that you say that. It's just a shitty standard because we may not always achieve our goals, but we'll always meet the standards that we set for ourselves. Yep. And so our standard isn't what we aspire to. Our standard is what we actually do. So if we want a higher standard, we actually have to go do more. If we expect to more, we have to match our action with those expectations. Yeah, I talk to my kids all the time. Like we have standards. It's what we call them in our house. Like these are the things that are required in this household. And they're basic things, right? Because they're kids. But that's what I ask them all the time. So if I go in their room, let's just use that example in their rooms and mess. I'm like, boys, is this the standard in this household? And they're like, no, I'm not. Well, good. Well, you don't get anything else in life. None of the sweets, right? The sugar things, which we don't have a lot in my house anyway. So it's like, it's like a big deal in my house. No TV. Again, that's something we don't do a lot other than my house. So it's like, when they get it, it's a big deal. And they know if I go in there, and I'm not, I'm not really OCD, but I mean, like, it's got to be a relatively messy, messy kind of situation. Everything else is removed. You get none of the other things until that standard is met. Yeah. And so holding my kids accountable also does it, like, to me, if I walk around my house and my house is a mess, who am I to hold my kids to a standard that I don't have? I think the same thing applies with discipline. I mean, I got into an argument with somebody the other day, another mortgage loan officer, smart guy, super smart guy, we were talking about vaccines and nutrition and stuff like that. And this guy's getting into an argument with me. And he's 280 pounds. Like, why am I getting into an argument about nutrition and health from a guy who weighs 280 pounds, it doesn't go to the gym, right? That's not a standard that I hold myself to. And so I, I said that to him. It's like, I'm not, look, I'm not going to take health advice from somebody who literally drinks a liter of soda every single day. It doesn't go to the gym. It's not an insult to you. That's a life choice that you have. And that's fine because that's that's your life to live. But I'm not going to take health advice from you. That's the standard that I have. I take health advice from somebody who looks clearly like they take care of their body. Yeah. You know, it's a great topic and a great segue because one of the things that's been very top of mind for me and you and I have discussed and how we use this as of influence with other people and setting, again, a standard is this thing of judgment. Just like with him, you didn't have any judgment towards this person. It was an assessment of do they have the fruit on the tree. And it's very easy to stop judging other people when we stop judging ourselves. If you're not part of our text community, you should be part of our text community. I'm pretty sure the numbers in the show notes, but we sent a text out today talking about that exact thing of you have to take judgment out of your mind completely. Stop judging other people. Stop judging yourself because self awareness isn't about judging yourself. It's about assessing the situation and figuring out what is it that I can improve on? How can I adjust things and pivot on things to get the desired outcome? And I think that that's important because it ties right in with the standards conversation because we have to have self awareness to understand, are we meeting the standard that we believe that we have? And if we're going to be taking advice from anyone, taking counsel for anyone, or really associating with other people, right? The gym runs where the average of the five people we spend the most time with, it's not about having judgment on them, but it's about assessing is this someone or something that's going to contribute or help me get where I want to go? And I putting off those same standards and vibes, if you will, as well in this whole thing. So I think that this is an important thing when we talk about, you know, standards and judgment is this self awareness piece. And with you, it's one of the things that's made a great friendship and a great coaching relationship is you've always been very good about having self awareness and not using it in a punitive sense, not beating yourself up because I think so many people do that. I'd love you to speak to that for a minute because it's always come pretty naturally for you where a lot of people self awareness means I need to pick apart everything I'm doing. I need to beat myself down as opposed to let's just assess the situation and figure out how we can improve and grow from it. So this is actually one of my favorite topics. I think being honest with yourself is especially today, one of the hardest things you could absolutely do, whether you're living up to things that you want to accomplish in life, whether you realize, right, I didn't put in the work and I'm getting the fruit of that unlabor or whatever. It's a realization. I can sit here and beat myself up for it. I can make excuses. All you're doing is continuing the same action that you were taking during that time. And so the only way to switch it is just to be honest with yourself and admit that you made a mistake. I think self awareness, and again, nobody's perfect at this. I continue to go back even through the divorce and where there are things that I could have done better. I had to prepare myself for the next partner that I'm going to have. Where did I make mistakes in that marriage that I need to be a stronger person or a stronger partner for the next person? So I think self awareness is just extremely difficult for people because you do. You go down this rabbit hole of especially high anxiety people. They never feel like they're good enough because they make mistakes. And I just think that's a very, and again, I'm not a therapist, but I think that's a very unhealthy way to live life personally because nobody's perfect, even highly successful people. I know, I know millionaires just right here in Knoxville. And when you know them personally, you realize they make mistakes all the time. And yet, they're at a level that I desire to be at. And so that to me, I think is a great thing that people can do to themselves, is put themselves in places that you're surrounded by people that killers. I mean, that people that are just killing it and whatever they're doing. And you realize real quickly that they are just as human as you are. Right. And so that for me was a big realization that no matter what mistakes I make, no matter where I fall short, just owning them and accepting them. And I'm a big believer in prayer. That's a huge one. I think giving that mistake away, learning from it and moving through it quickly is a huge piece. And that goes right back to the health part that if I didn't work out and eat right, it would be a lot harder for me to go through these things than it would if if I was just you know, an environment that I'm in now, which is, you know, I work out a lot. It gets a lot of energy out. That's for sure. But because I get a lot of energy out when I go through these assessments of myself, it's for me, it's a lot easier to recognize it, to accept it, to forgive myself for it, pray on it, and then move through it. Happen so much quicker now than it ever did in the past. And I think a lot of it too is you just realize as you get older, well, you don't really have a whole lot of time like you think you do left. And so I don't have time to spend beating myself up, making myself feel worse because it's just you're actually making the situation worse by doing that versus just just accept what you did, who you are, and decide if you're willing to change. I mean, that that goes back to the shitty standards part. And even deeper to the goals, if you want to accomplish these things, you have to become the person that is at that end result. And you have to do that now. Otherwise, you'll never get what it is that you want. And I've realized that through many years of not realizing that, right? Like that was a huge self-awareness for me. And that's why I have dropped a lot of friends. I want to be around people that are at or past the level that I want to be at. And those are the only people that are in my life right now. And it keeps me focused on that piece because I understand that there are levels that I still can't comprehend to be honest with you. And that goes from fitness, to financial health, to extremely strong people. I mean, there are levels that I've got people in my circle that I still struggle with. But I know that it's possible because I'm seeing the result of somebody that has put in work for years. And that gives me that motivation of like, okay, this is the standard that I want in my life. And I talk to them, what do you do? Right? And then I just follow that blueprint, basically. I love it. You know, all of these things go together for those that are listening. Let me kind of tie a bunch of stuff together for everybody. You've all heard me say that success is a result of consistent and persistent effort over time. It's one of the things that I say the most. It's something that I've said the longest of all the little one liners and topics that I speak on or coach on. Success comes from consistent persistent effort over time. When you look at a truly successful person, the top performer, just like Brian's talking about, first of all, we want to get around those people. Just like you said, it creates belief that it can be done because you see their imperfections. You see that that discipline is a skill. The same way confidence is a skill. We learn that through that consistent and persistent effort. What I think people need to remember in all this is those elite people, the sign above me, these uncommon people, they're the ones that actually make more mistakes and fail more than everyone else because they're taking more action. But through those failures, through those challenges, they learn something. They actually move the needle. They're able to adjust their action. They're able to pivot and have the self-awareness that we're talking about. But they have a routine. They know what they've disciplined themselves to do because they know where they're going. They know what it is. They're trying to accomplish and how all the things in their life and all the people in their life contribute to this whole thing. They understand that it's not all just about being a work of public and it's not about having balance either. It's about wherever you are, being there, giving it your all in. If you're in a workout, you're giving that your full attention. If you were with your family, you're giving that your full attention. If you're out there doing the tactical things in your business, giving your full attention. So everything we're talking about today, all flunnels through to these are the mindset habits and tactics that it takes to be successful. There's no way around it. You don't have to do them, but you don't have to achieve the level of success that you could potentially achieve if you don't. And so I think in my mind, these things are very clear. They're very simple. They're not always necessarily easy to execute and implement. They're sure not for me. Obviously, they're not for Brian. But that's why this stuff is important. That's why we're having this conversation today is because Brian's had massive success in his life and his business and had challenges in his life and his business like we all have. And it all comes back to not, did I make 30 more phone calls today? It's not, did I post two more videos today? It's if I got my body right, if I got my mind right, the calls that I'm making and the videos that I'm doing or whatever those tactical things are, are more effective. And I become more efficient. And through that more momentum, I end up doing more because I'm getting more results and it creates that whole belief. So I love, I love what we've been talking about here. I want to get your final thoughts on that. And then I've got one last question that I want to ask in what we'll wrap it up for today. I think the biggest misconception about life is that it's supposed to be easy. I don't think life is supposed to be easy. When I came to that realization years back, for me, that was a big shift. There are people that are on super low income all the way to super rich and they all have problems. They all have challenges. They all have struggles. I mean, there are wealthy people that are suicidal. So I think people really need to stop for a minute and quit blaming themselves about mistakes that they make and just realize that life is not supposed to be easy. So just lean into that and realize that whether your intention again is to be a hundred million dollar producer or an athlete or whatever it happens to be, right? Any high level area of your life, you have to realize that you could not be easy and be in the greatest shape you've ever been and feel like a champion or you could blame yourself for being a couch potato and eating like shit and putting on a hundred pounds and going to the doctor every single month. Both of them suck. One way or another. I'd rather be feeling good by putting in the hard work. And we talked to my boys about that all the time. It's like, you don't get the good stuff without going through the hard stuff first. And that's everything in life. I tell my boys that all the time. It's like, you don't get to just show up at the dinner table, the foods cook. No, you're coming downstairs to help me cook it. You got to put the work in first. Then you get to eat the good stuff. It took me a long time, obviously. That was my big mature light bulb that went off in my life is life is not supposed to be easy. They talk about in the Bible all the time in multiple books in there. And people need to come to the realization and accept that part of it. You choose your heart. I know we've all heard that. I fundamentally believe that. When I started living my life that way, everything changed. It's not supposed to be easy and you have to accept that. It's exactly right. You have to choose your heart. There's always going to be something hard to do. But what we can do is find joy and fulfillment and happiness through the process. And the things don't have to be as hard as we make them in our mind. There's always going to be difficult things. That's part of life. That's nothing that's worth anything in life is ever going to be easy. And if we want those meaningful things, those fulfilling things, those things of value, it does take a sacrifice. It does take doing something hard. Brian, it's been a cool conversation. You've been an incredible guest. I want to ask one last question. We asked this of all of our guests. And that's if you could just give one tip to mortgage professionals today to go out to use to build their business, what would it be? Focus on creating the disciplines that you know that you need to do that you are choosing not to do right now. There you go. I think that is the key to again, every high level person I've ever taught to are the ones that intentionally going back to the iron cowboy intentionally put themselves in uncomfortable or hard situations and still choose to execute. So whatever it is that you are holding back on or choosing not to lead into, those are usually the ones that you should be leaning into. And so that's what I would encourage. I would find the strength whether you pray for it or you just do it. Whatever it is that floats your boat in that area that you need to take action and you need to attack what you are not doing right now. What you're leaving on the table. So right. So often the unlock and the breakthrough comes from the thing that we don't want to do. That's the bottom line. I love it. Brian will make sure and add the show notes. You're obviously your bio and then links to socials. And I appreciate you being here. You've obviously a good friend of mine. Been an incredible coaching client. And I hope this is one of the many conversations we have on the podcast. So I look forward to catch them again really soon. This has been an honor, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you for joining us. This is the Morgan's Marketing Expert Podcast.