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Creating a Culture of Excellence & Attracting Top-Tier Talent

- [Peter] Now you have the team, how do you create a culture where the A+ players want to stay? Where you have people that are working for free that want to stay and be a part of the movement? Okay, first, we're going to talk about the definition of culture, we're going to talk about defining your deepest convictions, we're going to talk about how to attract top-performing, not just millennials, top-performing producers, entrepreneurs, people in general, key accountability questions, and really, that's it. So those are the four things we're going to discuss here as well that I think will add massive value to you guys, so really pay attention because this is a huge key. The rookie mistake here is, people model somebody else's culture or they create an incongruent culture that they don't fully believe is relevant to who they are. Okay? And I'll tell you guys, culture eats strategy for lunch. When you have the right culture, you don't need to persuade anyone to do anything. Period. When y...

ou have the right culture, people want to perform, they want to go to the next level. If you have to fight with people to do things and you're micromanaging, you don't have the culture that's conducive to creating A players. Sometimes you have to push out your C and D players to push up your B and A players to a higher level. You're only as good as your weakest player and if they're not going the extra mile, if they're not all in, that's going to hurt everyone else. So culture eats strategy for lunch. Culture is a reflection of three things and I've never really talked about this. I just executed it. We had the most dynamic culture our company has ever seen and we had people wanting to perform, showing up at 6 or 6:30 a.m. I had 17, 18, and 19-year-olds showing up at 6:30 or 7 a.m. We were doing workouts together in the office. There was like 60 of them. Their parents can't even get them to make the bed and they're up at the office making phone calls before school because they love the culture. So what you preach is first. Standards, expectations, this is verbally and nonverbally. This has to do with your past growth and your preparation. What is being consistently communicated throughout your entire organization? And I've spoken quite a bit and I've noticed in top-notch companies, the communication throughout the organization, whether it's from the insurance agents, to the CEO, to the assistants, to the executives, the conversation's a lot higher level in better companies versus mediocre companies, they talk about anything. There's...you know what I mean? So the conversation, the intelligence, and the intellect of the people are different between top-notch companies. So what you preach. Next, what your team sees from staff, from you, from the receptionist. This is around your company, around the industry. Is it professionalism or is it fraternity lifestyle? Do you encourage innovation? Do you micromanage? Do you lead the team? Do you pull them to excellence or push them? Right? So what your team sees. One is what you preach, two is what your team sees, three is what you recognize consistently. Whatever you appreciate is going to continue happening and whatever you promote will happen over and over again. So we had an MVP award, we had a Break To Build award but you want to publicly endorse positive settings or pop positive actions in a group setting because you want more of that to happen, right? Whatever you promote and focus in your company will multiply. So let me give you an example. When we ran a sales company, sales is hard. People had to do B2C and they had to work with customers, they had to get rejected all the time and these are young kids, a lot of them, right? We had an MVP award, a most valuable player, and then we also had a Break To Build award which means the person who went through the toughest challenges. This is a person that pushed, they worked hard, they went the extra mile but they didn't get results yet. So I said, "Hey, the Break To Build award this week goes to blank because he is someone that never gives up. He pushed past challenges, he called this many people, he got rejected this many times, and he didn't get the results he wanted but he's still here. He's not a quitter." Now, why am I giving awards for people like that? Because I don't want…I want other people to understand the importance of pushing past challenges. Because in real life if you quit, there's a lot worse that can happen than just getting rejected in the sales organization. Right? So whatever you want to continue to happen in your organization, you have to promote that in a positive setting. Okay? That's a huge key. If you recognize problems and you call out problems, they're going to keep happening, plus, that's not a good leadership trait to call out problems in front of people. Problems, you deal with one-on-one, never ever in a group setting. So what you recognize consistently. This is huge. And you cannot create a culture that does not exist inside you, meaning what do you care about? Your business, your team, your culture is a reflection of who you are as a person. If you're lazy, your team is lazy. If you cut corners, your team cuts corners. If you don't care about health and you eat McDonald's and fast food, your team probably will and they won't even care. It's a reflection of you so if you're tenacious, your team's tenacious. If you make excuses, they do. If you cut corners, they will. This is where it gets tricky because 99% of people building a culture don't understand this. If your team's not good at marketing or getting leads, you're not good at teaching them. So you're taking all the responsibility and putting it on your back. And I truly believe, if you don't understand this, it's going to be really hard to grow your business and once you decide what you care about, what's most important to you and you start promoting that, you can't ask for feedback. People aren't going to give you feedback. If you need feedback, good luck. So you're promoting what you really care about. So you're creating a culture that's a reflection of who you are. If you promote to show up early but your character is you don't care and you show up late, that's living incongruently and you're going to not attract the best people because they're going to pay attention to that. So you've got to understand. You got to keep driving this culture even if no one gives you feedback and eventually, the right people will catch on. Does that make sense? You're going to attract the right people. Like, that's a huge key. So creating your ideal culture. This is some big, big questions you need to answer. What do you care about? What do you really care about? What are your convictions? And I'll talk about what that means next. You see, you're always going to go to your most important beliefs when you're challenged and when you're struggling. So what convictions do you have about business, about your industry, about what's possible in your business? How much control do you really feel like you have over your business, over your income, over your influence, over your future? Think about that. I'd reevaluate your convictions. You can develop new disciplines through repetition and focus but nothing happens unless you're aware. So what does your company and culture represent? What do you value most? What does your team value most? And I'll get into what this means. Now, let me break this down where I've never really shared this. When I got into sales, like I was in charge of an international wholesale company and I had to create my business, I had to get a lease, I had to open up the…I mean, I had to hire receptionists, I had 11 or 12 W-2 employees. It was challenging. I was so young. But I felt like I could take it on and I failed miserably and I looked back and I figured out why I failed. I had the worst convictions about me as a leader and about my business. So here's my convictions when I was 21, 22. I'm not a good trainer and I'm too young to lead a team. I mean, I have people in the…I'm 21, I have people in the interview that are 40 and I'm like, "They have a lot more experience." And this is when I was like not confident and insecure a little bit about my leadership ability and I'll show you the difference here, though. I don't have enough experience. That was playing in my head over and over and over again. When I'm stressed, I should take time off. That's what I fully believed, when it actually is the opposite. But that's what I believed. Whatever your true convictions are, you're going to go to those when you're challenged. So I believed I should take time off. So when I was stressed, guess what I did? I literally went…I was in Seattle and my home was in Oregon so I went all the way home. I said, "I just can't deal with this." Then, of course, things got worse because I didn't deal with issues. I don't have a good territory and it's holding me back. I was in a rougher territory that was a little bit urban. It was in Tacoma, Washington, and that's not an easy territory to have an office. It's a rougher area, which was my advantage later and I love working with those kids and it taught me a lot now but that was my convictions. Great people aren't going to work for me. So here's the result of this. There's my standing of my company, bottom 5%, which, do you think that pays pretty well? No. So this was me working 80 hours a week, losing money at 21, 22. Losing money, not breaking even, but losing money. Here's what happened. I went through a total transformation, became obsessed with studying leadership, and I got a mentor. I tried to reach out to the top people in my industry and totally transform my mindset. This is how powerful the mind is, that's why I say mindset comes first, results come second. So here's my new convictions. I can get anybody to succeed and age is irrelevant. If I have the confidence, I can get anybody to succeed at sales at what I do based on their strengths and based on my training and age doesn't matter. One of my top reps was I think just turned 19, broke almost every record. My other top rep was like 52. Now crushing at doing Comcast, or I think it's Comcast [inaudible] sales from his experience with me, now he's one of the top in those sales, which is crazy. But I can get anyone to succeed and age is irrelevant. Next, when I focus on something, it magnifies and multiplies. So whatever I focus on gets bigger. If I focus on results here, they get better. If I focus on problems, they get worse. So this was my new conviction. Stress is just a lack of results and you have to hustle harder and smarter. So I used to think when I was stressed, I should read a book or write my journal. No, I should just work, just hustle. So see how the different conviction caused me to take different action? My conviction was, when I'm stressed, I should take time off. Now it's when I'm stressed, I'm just not getting results. You need to work more and make more money and actually get results and progress so you could feel motivated and that's what my conviction then was. Next, personal recruits. This is referrals. This is people that referred other people. This is the most effective form of marketing that I had, that I realized. Friends telling their friends about it was amazing and I had attracted such great people that their friends wanted to work there because the person that got hired by us was the leader of all their friends and he loved what he was doing so all the friends wanted to work there as well because we had such a great culture. So personal recruits was the most effective form of marketing. That's what I fully believed so I tripled down on that and that's how we did over $1 million in business just from personal recruits, which broke our company record. I am always 100% in control of my recruiting and results at all times. So for you guys, it'd be marketing, I am 100% in control of my marketing at all times. Marketing is the game when it comes to business a lot of times. How many people know about your product? With this new technology, there should be millions of eyeballs on your business, millions. And this was me being 23, 24, making 300 grand net. Did not change my territory, did not change who I was, and this was me working 30 hours a week. So because I had a different mindset, because I had a different way of thinking, the same exact situation totally transformed, not working 80 hours, working 30, not losing money, making 300 grand just because I shifted my conviction. So where are your convictions right now? Like what convictions…I'm going to go back to this because it's important. What convictions or beliefs are currently holding you back? You guys online, everybody think about that. What convictions are holding you back? There's no more excuses in the new economy. When there's 15-year-olds making half a million dollars, there's no excuses. When Snapchat CEO, Evan, was 24 and turned down $3 billion and people at 60 don't develop skills and get let go and they have nowhere to go, that's an issue. So what convictions or beliefs are holding you back that you really need to work on? That's a big one. So what's going to drive your culture? What's most important to you and to your team that you're going to promote? Well, me, here's some things that we drove in my culture that people really were attracted to. We drove wealth and financial freedom. In sales, there's a tremendous upside. There's not really a cap in sales and I love that young kids can be able to get into sales and go crazy. Yes, you get through some rejection but there's endless opportunities. So we talked about, you can have financial freedom, you can create income if you understand what skills to learn and how to develop yourself, how to create time management. The crazy thing is, you don't get paid hourly or consistently. It's based off your effort. A lot of people like that. You get valuable experience to where you're not just a sea of applicants like everyone else, you actually have experience that sets you apart, lifestyle and flexibility, you can work when you want if you're disciplined. Amazing memories and relationships. We had such a great culture where I always promoted that they can have relationships and memories with some of our team that they're going to know forever. Some of the people that you meet here, you guys, you might know for the rest of your life. That's amazing. That's a great culture. And then growth and contribution. The biggest thing, too, here is, you need to be so convinced of your culture because it's so congruent to who you are that you're not afraid to lose people. It's a different way of thinking. A lot of companies say, "You should be here. You got to stay here." Now here's what I did. I would call out my best...my most valuable employee, I'd say, "Hey, whether Alex is here for two more weeks or he's here for 50 years, we don't care. We just want him to get the best experience possible while he's here so we can launch him into his best possible contributions. So he could quit now, I would hate to lose you, but if he quit tomorrow, we'd be happy. We'd help him find his dream job and we'd be happy he was here." Now, everyone's like, "Wait, you don't mind losing your best person?" Not at all. We want people, we don't need anybody. We want people, part of our organization but we want to launch them into their best possible contributions. So whether you're here for 2 weeks, 6 months, or 10 years, we just hope that while you're here, you maximize it and then move on to something that you really want to do. What do you think that does to people at the culture? They're not like trapped, like, oh, you have to be here your whole life. No, they want to stay more. We got people that would not quit if we…they would not quit no matter what because they love the culture. So think about what you want to drive your culture. Being a part of something that involves themselves, here's the survey that we did with millennials. Number one was being part of something bigger than themselves. That's what they wanted. They wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves. Two, they want to be different than their friends and society. Most people, as you guys know, just look around, most people are struggling, most people do not do what they love, most people are stressed out, most people have more forms of debt than income and they have massive regret. Now, do you think when they were 18, they were like, "You know, when I'm 40, I want to have massive regret"? No, they're all like, "Oh, I'm going to crush it. I'm going to live my dreams." They don't realize that small little habits here and there, letting time go by, there's regret. So people don't want to be like most of the society. So we play that to our strengths. I don't want you guys to be like most people but most people give up when it's challenging. Don't be like most people. So you really want to play them against what they don't want to be like and make the culture about something that's bigger than just themselves. Financial freedom and a better lifestyle, that's what they wanted. Here's some things that drove my culture, continual growth. I fully believe the biggest motivation is continual growth and learning. When you continue to spark your mind, spark your body, challenge yourself, you'll never be complacent. This is what I believe. If you don't believe this, you can't promote it because it's going to be incongruent. You only promote what you fully believe with every fiber of your body. Consistency beats talent. I fully believe that. We have some talented people that could have broke records, they didn't have the ambition or hunger, they weren't consistent. They would make five grand and then go out and party for a week, come back when they need money. Not that it's bad but I just know consistency creates habits and character and it's always going to beat talent. You have both, that's great. Creating versus waiting. We were all about, hey, guys, let's not wait for the phone to ring. Let's create our success. Let's not wait for success to come to us, let's create it by taking action. That's what I fully believe. Everything in my life, I've created by taking action. Nothing's came to me. So that's what I believe. If you fully believe that waiting is better, then you probably won't promote this. But you got to think about what you really believe that you can promote to your team. Never knock progress ever. What that means is, if someone did 1…they're super-shy, they're not into sales but they did 1 appointment, and this week, they did 2 when the average people do is 10, should we be like, "Oh, he only did two. Hey, great job. You did one? Now, you did two"? So we never knocked progress. Dealing in reality. I owe it to you guys never to deal in fluff. I always want to deal in reality because that's what you guys deserve. I'll tell you how it is and I'm not here to be your best friend. I'm here to help you be a better leader. They don't need friends. They got match.com, Cowboys R Us, whatever they are, [laughter] there's a bunch of weird ones. There's like so many now. [inaudible] yeah. [laughter]. They don't need friends, though. They're not there to make best friends. They're there to actually grow and be better leaders. Next, I spend time with people who deserve my time, not people who want my time. And I teach people how to deserve my time and I also really believe that if you develop yourself when times are tough, you can thrive with no struggle. The economy is not going to get better. It's doing okay but it's going to go through some ups and downs. You want to be the rock for the people around you. So to be honest, you need to develop yourself when times are tough. You need to continue to educate yourself, develop your skills, sharpen, sharpen your skills and then when the tough times come, you're ready. I fully believe that. I also fully believe that you shouldn't be sleeping in if you don't have the results you want. So I told some of these, my team, "Guys, you should not be sleeping in if you don't have results." Sleep is for people that deserve it and they'd up there. People didn't want to sleep. I used to say sleep is for broke people, now I value sleep but I was young. I'd say, "Sleep is for broke people. You don't sleep." They're like, "I don't want to sleep." But the reality is, you're going to promote whatever you believe. Like I started understanding fast food. I didn't like fast food because I knew how much energy it took. So I didn't let fast food in my office. You're not bringing fast food in my office. I actually care about you. That's why. But if you like fast food, you're not going to tell people not to bring fast food. You're not going to care. But I actually valued health. I said, "Hey, guys, our competitive advantage is I want our whole team to be not only healthy and vibrant but have energy and be sharp." So I had people that haven't lost weight or been on a health kick for years and they were healthy again. We had workouts in the morning. So you just want to create a culture of what you believe in but if you're not healthy, you can't promote a culture of health. So it just depends on what's important to you. Instill confidence in your people. I explained throughout the job to focus on building confidence. Everybody acts based on their confidence and I talk about it every moment. You're either helping or hurting your confidence. Now, we really dive into this, Chris. I remember you had a lot of comments on this. In our other course, Six Months to Six Figures, there's a whole 45 minutes on how to develop confidence and how to really maximize your confidence account to where you never have issues again. You have a bulletproof mindset. So they can check that out, too, if they want. - [Chris] Yeah. If anybody does want to check out Peter's previous class, very easy to find on CreativeLive, you'll see it. There's a link to Peter's instructor bio page which has a list of all these classes or you could just search for Peter Voogd up at the top of the class. You'll be able to see all the classes he's done, hopefully more to come in the future but right now, we got two classes in there. If you do want to check out the previous one, Six Months to Six Figures. - So confidence, so I taught them how to instill confidence in themselves and how to be self-sufficient and you want to ask them, "So what are some ways…" Let's have a quick brainstorming recession. What are some ways, guys, to build your confidence just in business and sales and life? Let's literally get some dialog going. What are some ways to build your conference? - [Female] Getting results. - Getting results. It's a huge one. What else? - [Male] Consistency. - Consistency. What else? Being around confident people. What else? - I said practice. - Practice. - Your mental dialog. - Mental dialog. Making money. - [Female] [inaudible] important. - Yeah. Good results in general like progressing and obviously getting results. Persistence, pushing through tough times, sacrifice, experience. Now, what are some things that destroy confidence and entrepreneurship and business in life? - [Male] Laziness. - Laziness. What else? Giving up. - The snooze button. - Hitting the snooze button. [laughs] Sometimes, eating unhealthy. What else? - Lack of energy and motivation. - What? - Lack of energy… - Lack of energy and motivation, you lose confidence. So what are you trying to do here is you're trying to put them against not having confidence. If they're thinking about quitting and they just said quitting makes people lower their confidence, they don't want to quit anymore. You're literally teaching them how to have confidence in themselves, making the tough decision in the moment. Hit the snooze button or should you obviously get up early? Should you eat that cheeseburger or should you eat a salad? Should you work out or should you watch TV? Should you go out and drink on a Friday night when you don't have results or should you sit back and study and work with your team and write your vision down? Making the tough decision in the moment always is a long [inaudible]. You want to make decisions now that literally next year, your future self thanks you for. Not focused on much on instant pleasure. And I taught these people, like when you teach someone something that they can take and they get a result with or they learn, they're always going to be indebted to you and love to be around you. So the more you teach your team about life, about, in general, just being successful, they're going to want to be around longer. But you have to be the person that's developed enough to actually attract A players so you can actually teach them stuff. So instill confidence in your people. Everyone's favorite radio station. We talked to Casy about this? No. WIIFM, what's in it for me? This is what your people are thinking a lot. What's in it for me? What's in it for me? A lot of people are promoting what they think people want. No, no. The likelihood of the marketplace or your team responding because you want something is pretty small. It's pretty miniscule. The fact that they're going to respond because you know they want something they told you they wanted and what's in it for them comes up, they're going to do it a lot more likely and they're going to be more excited to do it. So think about what your team cares about. What's in it for them? I always promoted, I see a lot of other people promoting what they think people want. I actually promoted what they wanted. So you got to figure out what's in it for them. Why are they joining your company? What do they really want? Maybe they're joining this job and they're super skilled and they will ride or die for you and be your best possible employee but all they want is to feel a part of something. They don't want the money. They can make 200 grand by their sales skills but they just want to be a part of something. If you don't know that and you think they want money, you're going to give them more money but if you don't make them feel a part of something, they're going to quit when they could have been your employee for 50 years. So you have to understand what they want. How to attract top-performing millennials. Companies are struggling. Literally, people call me and create submissions all the time for our company. "Hey, I need…" There's a disconnect with our company and millennials. One of the biggest in the game, you guys all know who he is, reached out probably like a year and a half ago because the average age of his events was 45-plus. Not bad, not saying, "Oh, that's bad that that's the age," but he just wasn't attracting any millennials so they talked to me. "We're not attracting any millennials," and I knew why instantly but obviously, it's a long process. But here's how to attract top-performing millennials. First, create a dynamic culture, focus on the cause, we're already doing that. Create a dynamic culture focused on something that they care about. Plans fail, movements don't. So you want to create a movement in a way. All these companies you're seeing come out big now like the Instagrams and the Snapchats and the Facebooks and the CreativeLives and all these, it's a movement. They started as a movement with a couple of people. A couple of people shared the vision. I used to say when I…brand-new when I opened my business, I used to take my first… "Hey, just me and you, Chris, but in the next like six months, we're going to have a team of like 10 people and this is…you're on the ground floor. This is going to be huge. I'm excited to have you on the ground floor." They all get super-pumped up, right? You don't want to be like, "It's just me and you, man. I don't know what to do next." So creating a dynamic culture. The cost of replacing a millennial employee they say averages from 15 to 20 grand, which isn't a ton but to attract and keep a millennial past 3 years, which is the average, in a company they love, the average is 2 and a half to 3 years. So if they don't like a company, a month, maybe less. You want to make sure that you know their behavior patterns, you see their needs, you know their wants and you attract that. Encourage internal innovation. All right? What this means is, a lot of companies have what they call like innovation day or they have something where they can apply or they can share their stuff but they use a lot of their employees ideas and innovations to better their company. A lot of the top companies are getting their best ideas from their employees. So they're not shutting them down. Some of the old-school CEOs are like, "You're only 23, why would we use your idea?" Well, Snapchat was started by a 22, 23-year-old. Think it's worth, what? Do you know? Forty, 50 billion, 30 billion? So once again, age is what? Irrelevant. If you think age is relevant, you've already missed the boat. That's why a lot of people, it's based on your convictions. So if you're 55 and you're a CEO and you think age is relevant, you're already screwed. It's not relevant. So encourage internal innovation, encourage innovation from your team. A lot of my best ideas come from my team. They know really, really…they're really in-tune with social media, with technology, with what people want, with behavior patterns, with marketing, with value they want, with the courses that we've created. It's like the same thing. They know what people need and then they help us survey and ask but we got a lot of our ideas from our team. Create a freedom and flexibility focus. I'll go through each of these. Integrity and congruence from the leaders. That's a big one. And then community and networking opportunities. So creating culture. A meaningful culture isn't optional anymore. That's the problem. Seventy-four percent of millennials would rather make $40,000 at a job they love that has a great culture than 150,000 at a job they don't like. So is money number one for them? What is? - [Male] Culture. - Right. So you got to make sure you understand that. And settling really isn't an option for them either. So people talk a lot about, "Millennials are this and that, they're entitled." They don't settle like older generations have. Not that it's bad but just, they want what they want. So if you want to attract them, you got to relate. Next, encourage internal innovation and ideas. We've already talked about that. Most ideas are coming from the employees. Google, Amazon, Zappos, Snapchat, Apple, they come from the employees. So figure out a way to somehow, hey, we had a suggestion box too that was closed off, like you didn't know who did it but you could put the suggestions in the box and we looked at those at our staff meetings every week. Great ideas. Some of our best ideas are from people, just from the suggestion box. Create a freedom and flexibility-focused environment. Millennials are different. They need to be. And they're not only changing industries, they're creating new ones. So they have the skill sets really that are required to take your business to the next level and a lot of you millennials are like, "You're right, we are." But you want to create a flexibility focus to where it's results-based and outcome-based where if they get the work done, they don't have to be there or they can work from home or it's based on flexibility being proven. So we had employees and we had staff that we had a lot of optional meetings but we had some meetings that they had to be at and the reality is, the people that were there usually were the best people. They're the ones that don't even need to be there but a lot of times, someone would say, "Hey, why doesn't blank have to be here?" And that'd be my top sales rep. Well, he's been consistent for four months, he's done this and this and this, and he doesn't need to be here. He's getting the results, he's crushing it, and he's doing this and this. So show people how to deserve to be able to miss meetings and have flexibility. You want to make sure that you create an environment that welcomes flexibility and creativity. Integrity and congruence from the leaders. Is what's promoted in your marketing material congruent to the interview and the actual opportunity? Everything needs to be congruent from the ad, to the marketing material, to the actual description, to the interview, to the follow-through, to the after the interview, to the trial period, to after they're hired. Everything has to be congruent and you have to make sure…one of the biggest reasons for bad retention is expectations not being met. Something is promised but it's not met. Or there's an incongruence from the leader itself. So if a leader is promoting this and then they're doing this, that does not sit well. The BS meter for A players is so big, where if you're saying something but not doing it, they base everything off what people are doing, not what they're saying. And here's the problem, though. They lose respect for you subconsciously. They don't mean to but if you say, "Hey, you got always got to be on time," and then they walk in 10 minutes late, they don't mean to lose respect. It's subconscious. It's like, "He just told me to show up early and he's walking in late." Yes, you could say, "I'm the CEO. I've put in 50 years of work." Yeah, that's fine. That's still irrelevant. You want to practice what you preach and live what you're teaching them. Communication and networking opportunities. One of the biggest things people look for in jobs, they want to get the work done but they want networking opportunities. Would you guys say, "At CreativeLive, there is a lot of people that have developed friendships and there's been networking and stuff going on"? - [Male] Oh, yeah. - Everyone. That's pretty awesome. It's more important than it's ever been so you need to institute some type of networking in your business. You're on my academy, I asked you, "What's your favorite part of the entire academy?" Guess what she said, "Oh, networking." I was like, "What about the others?" "Networking." I'm like, "All right." Because you meet other cool people that you can build a relationship with, develop partnerships with, bounce ideas off of, get accountability from. Networking is huge. So when you attract people who are driven by purpose, not just money, it becomes a culture of people wanting to create purpose and wanting to create things that outlast them, wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves. We actually had personal growth night where every Tuesday, we had a night from 6:30 to 8 where they could come and learn and grow on their own. We would play audios, videos, we'd talk success and personal growth. Now, did a lot of people…did the majority of the team go? No, but guess who went. The people that were serious. And they got extra education and extra training just to be better in their job. So keep that in mind. All right. The expectations and standards you've set, guys, shouldn't be compromised. So your business is going to organize around the standards you set for yourself. So you will always get what you tolerate in your business. So when you're training your people, you're going to get what you tolerate. If you tolerate lazy employees, you'll always get them. If you tolerate being disrespected, you'll always be disrespected. If you tolerate low profits, they're not going to change. So you have to think about what are you tolerating in your business that you shouldn't be tolerating right now? And I just want to open up your mindset and have you kind of think a little bit differently about this as well, okay? So what are you currently tolerating that you maybe shouldn't be tolerating? If you tolerate being unhealthy and out of energy, you'll always be unhealthy and out of energy. You're going to get what you tolerate and life's going to organize around the standards that you set for yourself. So you got to make sure you have high standards when you're developing a team. So let's simplify the bulletproof plan. Define your deepest convictions. That was a big game-changer for me. Define your deepest convictions. Like what convictions are holding you back and what are propelling you forward? Certain convictions are helping you right now push your business forward and certain are like an anchor that are holding you back and only you know which ones those are. Who here, real quick, wants to get vulnerable and share maybe a conviction that's been holding them back? - [Female] I think I couldn't get paid more like per hour or I think I'm more valuable than I actually get paid for and so I think that's maybe a mindset thing, but yeah, maybe I'm not convicted on my rate per hour and the value even though I know I'm valuable but being more convicted in getting the pay. - What do you think needs to change? - You know, that's why I'm here. - What needs to happen differently for you to get paid more? - Charge more? - There we go. When should you start? - Right now, right after this. - There we go. [chuckles] People used to tell me when I spoke, "You got to do 4,000,982 free speeches before you get paid." I'm like, "All right. That's fine." And I got paid along my third speech. And they said, "You can't charge this." I was like, "I'm just going to charge 10 grand." So someone reached out a couple of years ago, "What's your fee?" My assistant's like, "Ten grand." They're like, "Okay," gave me 10 grand. When everyone else…and I had a friend that his fee was 2500 for like 10 years straight. "Oh, I don't feel like raising it because I started with that and…" I'm like, "Wow, that's interesting." So that's a whole different ballgame but you're worth what you think you're worth. People will pay you, trust me, if you develop a skill that's relevant. Thank you for sharing. Who else wants to tell a conviction that they know they need to shift? - [Male] I think I could be better at being more strategic with my clients so helping them more on the strategic side rather than implementing on the creative side and being more confident in suggesting my ideas. - Got it. Love it. That's cool. You think if you actually did that and you were confident and you were more strategic, you will be able to charge more and get better retention and more clients? - I think so but I think I have to understand what their desires are and what the psychology of how they interpret my ideas more. - Love it. So getting more feedback basing it off what they really want versus what you think they want. I love it. That's huge. Thank you. - [Female] I think my problem is I'm often late or behind the schedule and I think I already heard the answers, just need to get rid of distractions and focus… - What's your conviction around being late? Do you not think it's a big deal? Why do you feel like you've been late? That's the issue. - I think it is a big deal because I'm missing a lot of opportunities because of not making it on time and yeah, I feel like I just need to focus more and be there. - So that's the answer. Just focus more. And when you're more aware that it's important, you'll make the effort to do it. - Yeah. I'm actually on time for important meetings but the problem is more like being behind the schedule, planning more that I can't do and then looking back, I realize that I can actually do that if I don't have a bunch of distractions like emails and so on. - So some of this, the productivity stuff is helping you then? Awesome. I'm glad to help. Thank you. - Thank you. - So create your…define your deepest convictions about business and then create your ideal culture. What's like your ideal culture? If you have a clean slate and you're fast-forwarding six months, what does your ideal culture look like? How involved are you in the business? What are people doing? What are the results? What kind of team do you have? What's the daily activities? Most people base their future off their past and off the limitations, not potential and what's possible. So don't base this off what's happened in your past, base it off there's no limitations, like base if off possibilities. That's the key. All right. Figure out what's in it for your team. Don't figure out what's in it for you, figure what's in it for your team and stop tolerating anything less than exceptional for you, for your family, for your team, for your significant other, for your business, for life, because you're going to get what you tolerate.