QUOTES:

A lot of people preach the same thing, and it's mostly words. A lot of people say leadership, it's the culture, we need to make sure we have good culture, we need to make sure we have our core values. All that stuff is great. I think what is missing in leadership is basically leading by example—putting in that hard work and really showing your team that you're not too good to keep doing that. We still do that. We still pick up the trash, we still work harder than anybody else. So as leaders, we make sure that everybody else wants to, because we are their mentors. We've worked hard to be their mentors and earned the right to be their mentors. They're constantly chasing and trying to prove themselves. We're constantly trying to prove ourselves to them still. It's like in marriage—I'm constantly trying to prove myself as a wife to you, and that's why we keep it new. Oh, he's smiling now. She sure does. But I always have to prove myself to our team. I always have to prove myself to the kids. I always have to prove myself in everything I do. And I think that's the first act of leadership—making sure that you can continue to do that and continue to push and grow and not show that you're too good to do it anymore.

We can be very direct with our people as long as we show heart. I think that's very important—being able to be direct and open with your team, where they see that if you tell them something or you might be critiquing something that they're doing, that you know they can be better at—but if they know that you're telling them and it comes from a level of care, and that you really see another version of them that you know they're capable of, that they might not actually see themselves, and you give them those eyes and that vision to see the same thing you see, then they believe in themselves. Without that, if I'm just criticizing them or nitpicking, I would just be the bitch.

Being there with people—this is something that I don't really hear any leaders talk about, but something that we do—and I want you to explain—is being there with people on your team or in your company when things are hard. Most people want to cheer people on when it's good, when a top producer is breaking records. But what about when it's hard, when our people struggle? Most leaders back off. We seem to lean in. We do lean in because I think that a lot of times—we talk about this all the time—we don't know what you really have until things hit rock bottom or get hard, or you get tested in different ways. We have such a good team and such good culture, and everybody looks at us from the outside like, "You guys are perfect, you don’t have any problems." We run into things, and we're very adaptable, and we just grow. We don't take things so hard in the way that most people do when things crumble or you might have a bad day. Instead of going, "Hey, this person's lazy," or "This person doesn't care anymore," because as leaders we can make that mistake—that's what most people do. They misdiagnose because they're not digging in. You haven't earned the right to get that information in the first place. That goes back to the last thing I was talking about—if you talk and keep an open relationship, where they don't have to walk on eggshells with you, they'll open up when there's a problem. The thing that makes us so unique is I know how everybody is, and I can sense just by looking at them—I don't even necessarily need to talk to them—I can sense there's a problem in the room. I go directly and ask, "Hey, what's going on?" And then they just melt. We talk about it, and it always ends up better, because they know we're going to stick with them no matter what. That's the reason why they're so loyal and fight so hard for us.

When we screen people, most screen for: "What did you do at your last job?" They're looking for the qualifying candidates, people who know all the information, the person who interviews perfectly. I ask them questions that try to talk them out of working with us. I tell them, "What did you not like at your last job?" I want to see how much they complain, or whatever it is. I tell them how hard it is to be part of our team, how much we demand, all the things they need to do. I almost talk them out of it. But I also look for: how coachable are they? How much are they listening to what I'm telling them? Does this person really have a shot? Just by looking at them, I can tell if they have a heart and really care about people. If they have heart and they're coachable—shoot, we can work wonders with those people. Those are the people we really want in our group.

So I saw you and thought, "What is our life becoming?" I know how important fitness was to you. When I met you, you were in shape. Not the healthiest, because you were too big and bulky—we worked on that later—but I noticed you weren’t passionate at work, with the kids, or with me. You didn’t look at me with those same love eyes. I thought, "You’re always a good husband, you’re always there for us, but I didn’t want the normal life." I needed to trigger you. So I grabbed your love handle and said, "Sounds like we’re getting a little comfortable." I remember your face—you were pissed. You slammed the door, walked into the garage, didn’t go to work, canceled everything. You turned on the radio full blast and started working out like crazy. I thought, "What did I just do?" I’d never seen you that pissed off, but I felt like I needed to do something to shake you. That normality was not us. I didn’t sign up for a life where we both had more potential, and I had to shake you.

I needed to change so bad. Honestly, maybe it triggered something from when I was a kid, but it triggered me. I thought, "This is my wife, and she’s doing this to me?" At first, my ego said, "I can’t believe she just disrespected me like that." So I understand when I grab someone else, I know they’re thinking, "I can’t believe you did that. You just disrespected me." I don’t know how anybody hasn’t punched you in the face for that, honestly. But then I thought—she’s right.
Can you say that again?
Yeah, but no—I said, she’s right.
One more time?
Yeah—she’s right. I'm just kidding. But I was capable of more. I was getting soft. I was conforming. Mediocrity was crawling over me. I was doing better than most and living in the box the world put me in. I decided to break that wide open. I needed to get pissed. I needed anger.

Maybe I was getting comfortable. Maybe I do need to change. Maybe I do deserve a better life. You ask yourself, "If I change, will this be better for our family?" And you think about those things—and it’s a yes. A lot of times people don’t change because they get defensive, or they take it the wrong way. Even from people they love. Someone might tell them they need to change, and they won’t do it because they don’t sit back, take the emotion out, and think, “Hey, is this good for me—or not?”

I wasn’t doing anything that inspired you or the kids to want to be like me or that showed what an example looks like. Yeah, I was loved. "Oh, Mom, she’s a comforting one. Mom’s going to take care of this." And I was walking around with a bun everywhere, and I wasn’t really being myself. So I realized I had to sit back and think, "Hey, how can I be a better example to show my daughters and my son what a woman needs to look like or feel?" And that was thinking about myself. It was working out. It was getting dressed in the morning. It was not eating cold food. It was me thinking for myself. And now I can tell you—it changed everything. You started looking at me with different eyes. The girls look up to me as their mentor and hero. Our son knows what a mom and a wife should probably look like—what he’d want to model in his own life. Sometimes we give so much to the people we love that we become a slave. I was a slave. And I would do it all over again—I don’t regret any of it. But I’m telling you, my kids look at me so differently once I started caring about myself. Just like when you started believing in yourself. The reason I was attracted to you was because you carried yourself a certain way. You were confident. And the same reason you were attracted to me was because I was independent, I carried myself well, I was a confident woman. And then somehow, in marriage, we lost that. We forgot what it was like. We forgot. We decided to be like, "Hey, I’m going to take care of him, he’s going to take care of me," and we didn’t take care of each other. We got away from trying to prove ourselves to just comforting each other and being there for each other—maybe doing things we don’t want to do, or making too many sacrifices in the sense that we’re like, "Hey, I’m going to do this because I’m taking care of him or taking care of the kids," and you lose yourself. And then all of a sudden, that newness wears off, and you’re not where you need to be. By not taking care of myself, I wasn’t being the example I needed to be for you and the kids. So I changed that.

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