Episode #19 – How To Create Wealth In Leadership With Special Guest Brad Harris

 

A student and his teacher discuss how the people we choose shape our character; the connection between wealth and wellness, and the humbling necessity of failure on the road to your own success.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

How To Create Wealth In Leadership With Special Guest Brad Harris

I’m going to welcome a special guest, Brad Harris. He’s been my friend for decades. He’s been a mentor and his superpower is leadership. He has studied leadership every single morning. He’s read the most books of any other human being that I know. He wakes up at 5:30 AM and reads for at least an hour. He doesn’t just read but he studies.

His skillset is so strong that based on his leadership and who he is as a person, he’s built an enormous marketing business and has a huge amount of knowledge and overall wisdom. When I think of the word wisdom, there’s only a handful of people in my peer influence that come to mind right away. Brad is that guy. Please help me welcome to this show, Mr. Brad Harris.

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Welcome to the show. I have a special friend and longtime mentor over decades, Mr. Brad Harris. Thanks so much for being on the show, Brad.

Jack, how are you doing? It’s good to be on.

I’m great. Thanks for your patience in getting the episode started. We had to bring my son in. You got to meet my technology master to fix some of the new equipment-related issues.

I love it. I get my granddaughter too. I give her my phone and say, “Fix this.” It is crazy.

My mother-in-law was over so he’s helping her order a new iMac or iPad. She’s like, “What features should I get? What do I do? Where do I have it shipped to even?” He’s walking her through everything like, “Come on. How do you not know this?”

We’re starting to date ourselves, Jack.

I know. I got it all way off. I’m excited to have you talk about leadership gold. How does leadership elevate your wealth? Not only financially. That’s the topic of this show. That’s our theme but wealth is not just financial in nature. Wealth is all the major areas of your life, spiritual, relational, physical health, intellectual and personal development. We want to dive into that. Talk about first your background, Brad. How do you get into the business?

I’ve been in the business for many years. You have to go back to almost 1993, Jack. I was an airline mechanic. That’s how far back it is. The company that I worked for doesn’t exist anymore. It was Trans World Airlines. You can look it up. Google it. Howard Hughes did own it at one time. That’s a whole topic there but TWA, Trans World Airlines was the first airline to introduce jets. It was the incredibleness.

They were the deal then Pam came. I was in the airline industry. We’re going to talk about leadership, wealth and all this stuff. TWA didn’t follow that path. They had it all and lost it. I believe it was because of leadership in our company. I got married. I did the deal, Jack. I got the house, 2 kids and 2 cars. I had all the bills.

I was living the American dream. I had it all, no money and couldn’t go on vacation. I’m working the regular 40-hour week. Plus, I’m working Saturday and Sunday. I’m putting in 60 to 70 hours. That’s what my dad did. I watched my dad do that for 38 years and then retired from TWA. That’s the way you did it. I remember Pam coming to me and was like, “I don’t like this life.” I had to work from midnight to 7:30. I’m working at night.

I’m sleeping during the day and she’s trying to babysit kids to make us extra money. I’m not being a part of that family. She’s like, “I didn’t sign up for this.” I’m like, “Hunker down, 38 years. Do what my dad did. I promise you. You always have a roof over your head and food on the table.” She goes, “That’s not what I signed up for.”

That was my philosophy. Luckily, Pam was more the entrepreneur, in the beginning. Sometimes, there’s probably a leadership principal right in there. Make sure who the mate you hook up with is. That person that you’re hooking up with is going to be. Pam would’ve been the other way. She was looking for something. There’s got to be something we can do. There’s got to be a business.

I had an associate’s degree because I got my MP license. I had no education. I was a mechanic. My dad was a mechanic. I know how to work on cars and airplanes. Luckily, Pam answered this ad in a zoo paper by that time was called a work-at-home opportunity and she jumped into it. The next thing you know, she’s equal to my income. She’s rocking it. It’s incredible.

That’s when I jump in. I was very negative and skeptical. I wasn’t on the path I’m in now. It started rocking and doing. Our business did great. We were entrepreneurs. We were at home. It started to happen and then a couple of things happened in that business. It was a little bit of negative press. My business went from making $10,000 a month at that time to $300.

That sounds like a lot of people’s cryptocurrency accounts.

That’s a great point too though right there. I did believe in my product, the company and the leadership in that company but it was a huge shift for me. People always asked what my best check was in my business. I made a lot of money, Jack. That $350 check that I got was my best check because I had to decide there.

It doesn’t make sense when you say that. Most people are like, “Your best? What do you mean your best check was dropping from $10,000 down to $300? It’s the worst day of my life.”

It starts you being like, “Am I in this?” We have a say in our business. If you come in for the wrong reason, you’ll leave for the wrong reason. We came in it because we wanted to be our own bosses and have a lifestyle. If I went back to TWA, which I could have, I’d go back to what I hated. It’s like going back to Monday morning to work. On Friday, they would give me that drug called a paycheck and inject it in me.

When starting your own business, if you come in for the wrong reason, you'll leave for the wrong reason. Share on X

That would give me like, “I can go another week.” I’d go another week and another week. That’s people’s lives. Pretty soon you look at your wife and you’re not happy. She looks at you and says, “I’m not happy.” There’s a divorce. You see it over and over. I didn’t love what I did. I was doing it because my dad did it and a lot of people do that out there. That check made me like, “Am I in this?” Like that game show Am I In It to Win It? That was a leadership problem, Jack. That check went from $10,000 to $300 because of me. At that time, I didn’t think that. I was blaming everybody in the room.

They don’t take full responsibility for everything that happens to them.

Never. I was blaming everybody including Pam for getting me into it.

Poor Pam. Cute little blonde Pam gets the play in here. This doesn’t seem right.

She did something so important to me. A check went down and I was like, “I can go back to TWA.” She’s like, “What? Go back to what you hate?” It was a Sunday night and I can remember it like it was yesterday. I got up Monday morning and I’m like, “I’m going to build this and do it.” That’s when I started in leadership. I started looking at why this happened and it is because of my leadership. We build teams, Jack. It’s one of the big things that we do in our business. We build teams of people in the market with us. It’s like, “I wasn’t a good leader. I didn’t have any leadership.”

At TWA, my job was to put that engine on by myself and they gave me a check on Friday for it. I didn’t care about the company. That’s when I started that leadership and picked up the book called The Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley. A guy gave it to me. That was such a great book for me. I look at myself and read that book. It started me on that path of leadership so I grabbed every leadership book. I got a job involved in John Maxwell at the time and Jim Rohn, a big mentor of ours. I started that path and read everything I could grab. That was in 1993 when that happened. In 1994, I read almost 76 books on leadership.

You didn’t read your first book until your check dropped down to $300. Did I get the timeline right?

Yes.

What does that say? That’s just about human nature. We need moments to humble ourselves. It’s almost like dropping us down to our knees so we’re like, “Maybe I don’t know everything. I need to become a student.” That was an amazing moment for you. Would you be on the path you are now having read probably 1,000 or 2,000 books? With your leadership podcast already number 80 on Apple or iTunes and all that. Would you be there now if that check hadn’t dropped and humbled you?

If Pam doesn’t come at me, I’d probably go back to TWA, which went under in 1998. I don’t know what I’d done. I’d probably have transferred to another city or something if I wanted to stay in the airline industry. That’s always an industry that lays off. It would’ve been, “I don’t know.” You had those forks in the road, Jack. You can take this or that way. Luckily, I took it that way.

A lot of people don’t take that. That’s why mentorship is so good. When you come to those forks, you need a mentor. You need somebody there to say, “There’s the fork. Which way do I go? Can you help me out with this decision?” I believe there are 2 or 3 forks in the road in your life that takes you down the path where you’re at. You pay attention to what you’re teaching at a young age because there are forks in the road at a young age and when you’re talking about wealth and investments, they can go down the wrong path.

A show like this that you do could take them down the right path. Many years down the road, maybe you’ll see I’m here but it was when I was 29 that I chose that path. “I listened to this guy named Jack Gibson that told me this.” Jim Rohn always taught me that. “The highest honor in life is to have your name in somebody else’s testimony.”

He said it doesn’t take much. If you don’t know who Jim Rohn is, look him up. He is one of the greatest business philosophers, wrote lots of books and was a great teacher. He talked about he was reading a book one time. In the book, a guy said, “I’m successful because I read this guy named Jim Rohn.” He said, “I’m reading this book and he said my name. I don’t even know that I affected his life.”

He said you affect most people’s lives that you’ll never even know. That’s called residual impact, which is what we want in life. For you to have someone say, “Jack, you took me down the wrong path. They had to do it and be with it. I got you going the right way doing that fork.” I need you to go here and you’re going to take that fork miles apart. That’s huge. If you’re reading, it’s like, “Are you at a fork in the road?”

You and I were at that fork in the road. You were the mentor and I was the mentee. Years ago, when I came to Kansas City, we sat down for what I thought was going to be an hour but turned into a full day of affairs. I laid out my sales team and said, “This person and I aren’t getting along but this is what they’re doing. This person we’re not getting along but this is because of them.”

I was waiting for you to say, “Yes, it’s all because of them. I can see that that’s their fault. You just need to go get new people.” That’s not what you said. You said, “Jack, you have a relationship problem.” I was like, “What? You got to be kidding me.” I took it in. That’s when you said, “There could be a fault on both sides here. There are two sides to a story. Here’s what I suggest that you do. Go to work on building and restoring relationships.” It made a huge difference because I wasn’t enjoying my business and the fruits of my labor.

It isn’t then you talk about longevity and wealth. Jack, I think I’m correct on this. The Latin word for wealth means well-being.

That is the origin.

We’re talking about well-being. We think of wealth as money.

We always think of money but it’s one part.

Your mental health is what you want in life. Money is one piece of that that we need because it drives the engine but what you’re talking about relationships is the glue that holds everything up. The leadership pyramid is held up at the bottom by relationships. When it crashes, then the whole thing crashes. You could be up to $100,000 a month. In those relationships, we’ve seen people lose their wealth because of divorce. It crashes. It’s like that John Maxwell book I probably talked to you about at that time because I remember that, The 5 Levels of Leadership. To me, it’s a clinic book.

Your mental health is what you want in life. Wealth is only one piece of that because relationships is the glue that holds everything up. Share on X

If you haven’t read that, he talks about the position, relationship, productivity and people development. If you can’t develop people, that means you have a productivity problem. You’ve never had a productivity problem. You’re a producer. That’s what you are. When I’m sitting there with you, I knew that was not Jack Gibson’s problem. I knew his position because I knew the position of the company.

You had position productivity all down so I knew it was the relationship. That’s why the people development’s not happening. Sometimes it could be you’re too relational and not producing. Some guys I sat down with are very relational. Everybody loves them on their team. Everybody’s like, “You got a productivity problem.”

They have almost too many people that like them. You almost got to have a few that you piss off every now and then.

If you’re too relational, you can’t get productivity so you can’t develop people as we talked about John Maxwell and Jim Rohn. They walk in the door. I don’t need to have a relationship with them or see their production. Tony Robbins doesn’t have to walk into the room and prove himself to me.

Very few people get to that stage five.

Very few people can walk into the room and already have an audience like this because of who they are. Jack, that’s what we want. Going back to my show, that’s that legacy mindset. That’s that legacy that you want that when you walk in the room, it’s Jack. Not because he has all that. If we look at well-being and wealth, all that comes together. It’s built on this leadership that we build and it starts wherever you’re at. For me, it started at 31 years old. Did you start at seventeen?

Nineteen.

You started much earlier than me. Where you’re at in life compared to 43 to my 43, you’re way ahead of me. Jack, the future’s bright for you. Keep your relationships in order.

Let’s talk a little bit about how does leadership affect your earning power? I agree with you in terms of relationships and how that affects your overall quality of life and well-being or wealth. I think back to Brian Tracy. The one thing I remember from what he said is, “Eighty-five percent of all your relationships are responsible for your happiness.” Therefore, everything has polarity. If 85% of my happiness in life comes from my relationships that means 85% of my misery in life comes from my relationships. There’s this other 15% that comes from other things.

The finances though, in American life, it’s so interwoven into so many different parts of those relationships and into everything that we do. Our physical health and statistics can back up that, it’s certainly affected by your financial means with the ability to be able to get good food, get the best coaching, gym memberships and all of that. We do need earning power. We need to be constantly looking at how we can increase our earning power. I honestly don’t think anything affects earning power more than raising your leadership capacity. How do you see that? What are your thoughts?

My mind went to when you were saying that. We got this saying, “We are the five people we hang around.” We all say that and that’s heard a lot. It’s so true. Sometimes with the easiest profound things, people are like, “Yes, I heard that.” It’s whom you hang around. Your leadership will dictate whom you’re hanging around. If you’re a level 5 leader so it’s a 1 to 10, then you’re going to have level 4 people around you. The people they bring to you are level two whom you don’t even want to be in the room with.

 

That’s what I look at. Everything starts with me in leadership. It’s going to dictate that. If I get to level 8 leadership, I’m getting 7. I believe sevens and above is what I’m looking for. If I can get to 9, I’m bringing in 8. I look at who’s in my inner circle and there’s only a handful of people in your inner circle, Jack. Who’s in Jack’s inner circle? Who’s in Brad Harris’s inner circle?

It’s very small. We train a lot of people. We talk to and speak life into a lot of people through various platforms like podcasting or Facebook posting but how many do we mentor and work with at an interpersonal level? It’s very few.

You want to be at that level 8, level 9 or level 10. That way, I’m around these people. One of the highest qualities of an inner circle is they bring you an opportunity. When a level 9 brings me a guy, it’s a level 8 guy. He doesn’t bring me level one guys. He doesn’t hang around them. It’s starting to raise my wealth and they bring me an opportunity for a real estate deal.

They’re not bringing me an opportunity to go buy a chicken coop somewhere, probably. I’m not putting chicken coops down. You can have a chicken coop if you want and have eggs. All of a sudden, if we look at all areas of income that we make, we don’t just make from one area of income. It’s multiple streams. I have that inner circle and leadership circle. I have this guy that says, “Look at this Bitcoin.”

You start having deals brought to you and things that are brought to your attention. They may be experts in that field. They can mentor you. When I look at why leadership is so important, I got to get to that levels 8, 9 or 10 so I start attracting those people. They don’t want to hang around you. You bring no value to them. It’s all about bringing value whether to the marketplace or to people.

Brad, when you’re talking, I’m thinking about, do I have the ability? Does Brad Harris have the ability? Does Jack Gibson have the ability? Where are we at on levels 1 through 10? I don’t know. I’d like to say eight. You’re higher than me. I guarantee that. We’ll give you a 9 and give me a 7 for example. Do I have the ability at where I’m at as a 7 and you as a 9? Do we have the ability to take somebody from a 2 up to a 7, 8 or 9? I think we could. Do we have the energy, time and desire to do that? No.

John Maxwell says if you take a 2 and you double him, he’s a 4 but you still don’t want to work with him. For the 1s and 2s, you got to start paying attention to 4 and 5 so we can get those if you can double them.

The 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s need to be reading the show, devouring the books and working on themselves so that they can raise themselves up and then get to a 6 or 7 to get around the 8 and 9 to pull them even further ahead.

You got it. It’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown. The best thing Charlie can get is a dog, Snoopy. I don’t want to be a Charlie Brown. I tell my guys, “Don’t be a Charlie Brown. You’re just going to get a bunch of dogs.” You talk about wealth and leadership. Leaders are such an important part. Everything rises and falls in leadership. You keep going back to that point whether it’s in your relationships, business or finance because you have to be around people. You start figuring out that the name of the game is people.

 

When it all comes down to it, it’s people because that’s where you get your significance and all the stuff and things that we need. It’s Tony Robbins’ thing on human needs. We all need certainty, uncertainty and significance as one of our human needs. Love is one of our human needs and connection. We then need growth and contribution. You have to satisfy those human needs. If you can’t satisfy those human needs, you can’t get to wealth. We’ve seen some wealthy people kill themselves. How does that happen, Jack? They’re missing something big.

It has to be that they don’t have significance somewhere or love.

People don’t love them.

The relationships started with the tanker.

You want love. Tony Robbins talks about the guy with a gun to someone’s head. What human need is he satisfying there? Certainty. We’re very certain about what’s going on here. It’s uncertainty, which is, “I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I’m the most significant person in your life. Look at me.” That satisfies a terrorist human need.

“I’m connected. He’s looking me straight in the eye.” He’s lacking growth and contribution. We don’t know where that’s going to go but he thinks it’s maybe tied to one of his associations that he’s with. Even that guy is satisfying human needs. We had to look at when we’re doing things, what human need are you satisfying here? One of your human needs is significance, Jack. I do see that in you. When I talk to you, you want to be significant. You can say, “I want to be a better leader.”

You came to me like, “I want to be more significant.” That’s a huge human need for you. It’s a great human need to drive. Most people out there reading is like, “We want to get our money in order. We want strategies.” All the stuff that I’m sure that you cover in this show with these guys when it comes down to it is going to be, are you satisfying those human needs in your life? Are you going to grow and contribute? That’s the spiritual side of it, growing and contributing.

Being significant is the greatest human need. So if you are growing and contributing, you'll be happy. Share on X

That’s what I look at. It’s like, “With what I’m doing, am I growing? Am I contributing?” If I’m doing that, I’ll be happy. At my point, when I was at TWA in 1993, I wasn’t growing or contributing. I was flat. You don’t know that. If you’re not growing, you’re dying and decaying. That’s such a point when you are looking. “Why do I want to build wealth?” The number one thing is to supply your human need for growth and contribution. “Why are you making all your money,” so you can go give it away. At one point, was that Andrew Carnegie? That’s what he did with his libraries.

He spent the first half of his life making it and spent the second half of it giving it away.

Probably if you talked to him at 21, he wouldn’t have said that.

He said he wanted to do it within the next five years. He didn’t ever get to that point until it was 2 or 3 decades later. Maybe he bit off a little bit more than he could chew at age 21. He had to go from survival to success to significance, which is what you cover on your show. That’s the stages of aspiration in humans. Back in my life, my twenties were largely trying to survive. I was living on a prayer a lot of times. I didn’t know where I was going to financially make it because my business dropped. I couldn’t get it to go.

In my 30s, I was starting to get some incredible success and make some great money. The babies came in. We were doing the travel and all that. I’m still young in my 40s but it’s like, “I got through the survival. I got some success. What is it that I want? I want significance.” That’s what my platform is all about. It’s somehow for me to be significant and help guide younger versions of myself to hopefully avoid a lot of the mistakes that I made and get to where I am faster.

In every leadership situation, when they come to me and go, “I can’t believe Joe did this,” I will always say, “I’ll tell you why, he wanted to be significant. That’s stupid the way he did it. I got it.” People do what makes sense to them and they want to make a difference. Somehow it made sense to him and he did it because he wanted to make a difference. He’s way off track so he needs a mentor.

 

Everybody wants to grow. It’s a human need. I tell people if they want to be significant, they want to grow. If you walk into that with that concept in your head, I can get through most leadership problems and relationship problems. He did that because it made sense to him. It doesn’t make sense to me and I got it. I’ve done some stupid stuff that people probably thought, “Why did you do that?” It made sense to me and I was trying to make a difference.

The last human need, which I always say is they want to grow. If you get that in your head, that’s a human need. It’s proven. It’s built inside of us. If you will attack that part of it, like the day I talk with you, that could seem very daunting. I’m like, “Jack, you don’t know how to build relationships.” You’ll be like, “Crap, thank you.” I attacked your human need for growth.

“Jack, you can be better. You have a great relationship with me. You can build relationships.” You then went into growth. It’s some of the stuff I heard you say you did the way I called him and said this. It was like, “That’s stupid, Jack,” but it made sense to you. You were trying to make a difference at that time. It was like you’re being a jerk and that’s in anything.

It’s called investing. Somebody does something and you’re like, “Why did he do that?” It’s because it made sense to him. He was trying to make a difference. It’s time to grow. Jack’s show says, “Let me help you grow.” That’s what it’s all about. Once you get that, then you can help almost anybody. If you attack them with, “Why did you do that,” they never go to growth. That’s what I’m good at. It’s like, “Let’s talk about this.”

When I was 21, I hustled, saved and banked every last dollar in college. I did not buy a new pair of sneakers. I was still wearing my sneakers from high school in my senior year of college. I wouldn’t buy anything. I was banking cash like crazy and I was investing it. I went in and bought a lot of tech stocks because that’s what was popping up in the previous few years. I wanted to make money fast off my money. That was the 2000-com bubble boom burst. I see the same thing happening in 2022. These kids are buying dogecoin and meme stocks.

Five years from 2022, there’s very little chance that they’re going to be around. They don’t have any intrinsic value. I could be wrong and way off my rocker here but I don’t think I am. What is it in human nature? Why are they trying to get rich so quickly without understanding the fundamentals? Why are they doing that? How do they change that or is it just they need to learn the lesson, get pumped, come back to the drawing board and be ready to learn how to do it the right way?

It’s easy to say what we’re saying like, “Let me help you grow. Let me show you the way.” There are four levels of know. “I know. They don’t know.” Until a person can get out of the level of know, I call it I know. It’s like, “You need. I know. No, they don’t know.” They don’t know what they don’t know. One of the highest qualities we talk about in leadership is coachability.

 

We can go into an ego talk. The ego is your enemy at one level because it is trying to protect you. The ego is telling you this when you need to be doing this. Ego protects the human need and things. It’s trying to protect your significance and who you are. If you coach someone, first of all, you have to have that personal development or personhood.

You have to have that little bit of relationship, this and that. You can build it through a podcast. As you do more and more and they’re listening to you, I believe you can build that relationship. Sometimes, I’m walking into a situation like, “I can’t help that person. I have no productivity and relationship with them.” Once again, level 4 leaders listened to their level 3 or level 2 friend.

That’s where we talked about wealth. We talk about it all the time. Your brother-in-law is giving you advice. How much money does he have? He’s broke. They just took his car. You’re like, “You’re listening to him.” That’s what these young people do. They’re level four leaders. They’re listening to their brother, their sister and their dad. Dad could be a level-two guy.

If they’re going to join your show, Jack, I believe they’re wanting to break away from that. They’re wanting to develop themselves. We know that the path to success is through failure so they have to go through some failure. I believe without failure or somebody being tested, you don’t know if they’re in the game or not. You got to lose a few dollars to see if you’re in the investment game. You’ve lost a few dollars, Jack.

I showed it to my wife who doesn’t care that much about finance, money, growth and wealth. Every month, I do a network statement. I update it on a little Google sheet. Nothing complicated. I want to know what’s my trajectory. Am I growing? Am I not? In some months, I go down. I showed her that. I said, “Here’s why. Here’s what happened. This is all I have, net worth.” She said, “Do you know how many people would punch you straight in the face if they heard you say that’s all that you have net worth? That doesn’t even make sense.” I’m like, “For me, it makes sense.” She said, “It makes sense to you because you’re looking at the mistakes that you made in your past but look at all your wins. Right here, I can see your wins.” I got a pretty good wife.

We both do, Jack.

They’re pretty amazing. That’s gold. My wife is wealthier than the whole net worth state right there.

That piece of paper or number that you are writing down is for her and the kids. It’s your significance. It’s like, “Babe, look here. This is what I’ve developed.” There’s the ego thing, “Look what I’ve done.” You can compare network sheets and that’s ego. We can have that friendly conversation. Nothing wrong with that. You’re a card player. I know it.

The real thing inside of Jack is the significance, “I’m going to be able to take care of his family whether I’m here or not. My family’s taken care of and I’ve done a great job of that.” Your contribution is huge, Jack. To be able to accomplish that in your 40s is a huge accomplishment for you and you’re just getting started. What did you tell me before we started this? Warren Buffet got always wealth win?

The bulk of it has been in the last decades. It was late in life before it started popping. He started buying his first stocks at age sixteen.

That’s amazing. That 25 percent’s pretty good probably of his. He’s doing okay but still, the question always is, “What are you learning?” Somebody calls me and says, “I can’t believe this happened.” What did you learn? As soon as I say that, it takes them out of the problem. “I can’t believe this happened in my business.” What did you learn? If you learn nothing, we’re in big trouble.”

The question is, “Did you grow?” If you grow, this is a win. Every time you lose, you win because you grew. You accumulate that over from 21 years old to 43, Jack. You can start having more wins and losses because you had the losses. It’s a part of our growth. Anyone on here who thinks they can get rich quickly and says they can bypass the learning part, they’re in trouble because life will throw you a curve.

 

The ebb and flow is the law. The tide goes out and comes in. That’s going to happen. It’s better to do it and learn than to get to 60 years old and somebody takes all your money because you never learned. You’re in trouble. I’ve seen a lot of people lose their wealth. You’ve seen it too, Jack. At 61 and 62, they jump out of buildings. That’s not well-being. We don’t want to be that person. I’d rather have some losses that will develop that mental muscle, fiber and strength that we all need. The same thing to care. We could probably talk about that relationship. There’s a bit of stuff, Pam and I.

Mine’s been a straight-line trajectory up. It’s not because of her. It’s because of me that it hasn’t been a straight lineup.

Hopefully, you’ve learned every time. To me, that is wealth. You want to tie that to monetary. It’s going to skyrocket because of that accumulation and the compound interest story. It’s the accumulation of your knowledge, all your losses and wins to losses. Those are the paradox. I’m so grateful that I’ve had some of the stuff that’s happened to me.

The best check ever was $350. Why? It’s because of the learning curve that took me through and what I learned from that. I could have gone the wrong path. Pam would’ve been there. I could have gone back to TWA and stayed on that path. That’s what a lot of people have done and probably more than we like to say. That turns into stress. Stress is 85% of all health problems and we’re in that cycle.

We see this not in any particular business but across the board with technology, social media and all these communication tools that have accelerated everyone’s ability to create wealth, especially in their 20s and 30s. They have a huge advantage over what we had in our 20s and 30s, which probably they’re going to be saying the same thing when they’re in their 40s and 50s. They’re going to be like, “All this younger generation got these advantages over us and all that.”

What goes around, comes around. I can’t wait to see that. They’re making money faster in their 20s and 30s than we were. What do they need to be on guard for? What do they need to be looking at? When you’re young, those two things don’t always go all that great together. Not that we want to say, “The sky is falling and this is such a bad thing,” because it’s a great thing. However, there could be some pitfalls.

There’s a saying out there and you’ve probably seen it, Jack. Success loves speed. I do a podcast. That’s survival to success to significance. Success loves speed but the significance is when you go to your wife and say, “What are you talking about? I bought you a house and a car. I took you on vacation.” She’s like, “I wanted significance. I care less about all that stuff you got me here. You can sell it all.” “I married you for the significance that you were giving me my life. You made me feel pretty and special.” That’s a problem right there. The second problem is here’s what I know. Fast growth builds the ego. Slow growth builds character. I’m doing this study called Winning Teams. It’s how to build winning teams.

Fast growth builds the ego. Slow growth builds character. Share on X

When you say study, you’re not just reading a book. You’re doing something in more back.

It’s called what drives winning teams. One is what drives winning environments. Winning environments is character. What drives wing teams is fast. In other words, Kentucky brings in a five-star athlete and wins the national championship. We’re all suddenly seeing these programs though because they didn’t build character. Coaches are cheating. It’s crumbling. Some of these coaches have gotten prison time. The environment is not good.

The winning one builds your ego. When your ego gets built, then I can cheat. The biggest deterrent to these kids who are making all this money is that’s building their ego. It’s getting so big. It’s becoming a monster. Tiger Woods is a great example. Look what success did to him. He built his ego so big and look what he did to his wife and all the girlfriends he had. Look at his life in the last 5, 6 or 7 years. I wouldn’t call it significant. Look at that. Take Phil Mickelson who’s always lived by character. He’s always been good. He hasn’t been Tiger Woods, has he? He just won the master here, the oldest person in the world.

At age 50, the oldest ever at a major.

He’s walking on cloud nine. Success loves speed but the character doesn’t. Be careful. If I’m mentoring someone, I got to make sure I know what you do and who you are. I got it. You can shoot that ball and run that 40 and 42. I got what you do. I need to know who you are. These programs, because they’re winning, they don’t have time for that. I don’t have time to decide who they are. That’s why some of those programs are crumbling. If we’re in our businesses, we’re building our empire. We can’t go fast. It’s such a paradox. It’s the highest leadership quality. It’s why I need to study it. I keep my ego in check. Also, I need people like you to call me up and go, “Brad, your ego’s out of control.”

Success loves speed. Share on X

I’ve never said that to you before.

I know but I need somebody that can call me out or I call you out. That’s a great point you bring up because these kids are going rocket fuel. In our business, we have some of that going on. I’m happy if you said, “I don’t want them to slow down but I want to get in there.”

Part of you wants to see what they’re made of. We don’t get to see what people are made of until they’re under pressure. I’ve heard you say that many times. We don’t get to see what a man or a woman’s all about until they’re squeezed.

Somebody hits you right in the stomach.

They will be tested.

They will be. If it’s not financial, it’s going to be Kara. She’s going to hit you in the stomach. You’re going to say, “I have a $2 million balance sheet here.” “I don’t care.” That’s going to rock your ego or world. Everybody else is out there telling you’re the greatest and she’s going to hit you right in the stomach.

She’s going to say, “Go take out the trash cans. You forgot last night. You were ten minutes late to take Tyler to his baseball game. You are in the dog house.”

That’s your character. That’s why there’s a good woman behind a great man. Pam has always been my balance sheet. “We have a birthday on Saturday for the grandparent.” “I got it.” “There’s a family reunion coming up in June. Don’t plan anything.” “Yeah.” That’s character-building. I got to go there. There are a bunch of level twos there.

I got to go hang out with a bunch of level twos. It sounds like the worst day of my life.

It’s okay because it’s important to Pam. I love the subject that you’re picking here. How do leadership and all this tie into wealth, which is well-being?

The last question is how do they raise their leadership lid? We’ve hit on it but what are some of the top things, action items leaving this show to get from a 2 to 4, hopefully, a 5 to 7?

People go and say, “What book should I read and all this stuff?” “You don’t need to be reading the books I’m reading. Maybe in that, we talked about position and relationship but my question is where do you lack?” “I lack in productivity.” “We need to be developing that.” Every year, I pick a subject deck like, “This year, it’s negotiation. I’m reading Chris Voss’ negotiation and several other podcasts,” all about negotiation.

 

I need to get tough. I need to be like you, learning negotiation. A year ago, it was about memory. I did this memory course. The year before that, maybe it was in investing. If they’re level 2 or 3, they’re probably good at one thing. Let’s go read the thing and develop the stuff. Maybe you need a mentor to identify that for you. You’re weak in this area like me to you. You’re weak in relationships, Jack. You got productivity, position and all that down. You need to study relationships. Sometimes that’ll take a mentor to say, “This is where you’re lacking.” Do not read a book. Study it. The next time you see me train on stage, you’re going to hear all about this.

They have these coaches on there. There’s this North Carolina coach who coaches the girl’s softball team. He’s won 22 national championships. There are all these coaches that we don’t even know about like the golf coach that’s won twelve national championships, the volleyball coach and the Connecticut coach that’s won all those national championships with the girl’s basketball team. He’s won incredibly. He wins every year.

They talk to those guys and build character. Their program is built. They don’t have the pressure of Kentucky, Kansas and Alabama because nobody knows about it. You don’t even know they won 22 national championships. That pressure for you to say, “I got to win or else. Life is telling me I have to be significant, in character and all this,” doesn’t coincide in most people’s minds. If you’re reading under the path, I got what you do. Who are you? Develop who you are.

I can build anything on that foundation. If we go out and get a bunch of wins, great. I want them for you but I’m going to go, “I got you one but I got to know, can we handle this?” We always say in our business, you don’t know somebody until after one year. A guy comes out and you’ve seen it comes out six months.

In business, you don't know somebody until after one year. Share on X

Their true colors don’t come out until at least a year in. They look great on paper during the first few months, don’t they?

They do and you’re like, “Where did that come from?” That’s who they are and what they got. That’s never been addressed because they’re so great. The kid who can score 35 points in a game has never been addressed on how he treats his mom. The UCLA basketball coach tells a story in his book. He said he went into this number one recruit in the land.

His assistant coach says, “We got this guy and if you’ll show up in his living room, we’re going to sign him.” He’s the number one recruit in the whole United States. He goes in there, sits down and hits him and his mom. He’s talking to the recruit and his mom says something. The boy goes, “Shut up, mom. I’m talking.” John picked up his briefcase and said, “Let’s go.” The coach says, “What are you doing? We got this kid signed. He is the best player in the land.” He goes, “I don’t want him. Phil disrespects his mom like that, he’ll disrespect me on the court like that.” He walks out the door.

“He talks to his mom like that? What’s he going to do when he gets comfortable with me? He’s won’t tell me to shut up. He’s going to tell me F-off. I don’t want him on my team. I don’t care who he is because I know who he is now.” That’s what we’re looking for, Jack. I’m like, “That’s a red flag.” If you see somebody cuss out his wife at dinner, I don’t care what that boy is. I don’t care if he has a portfolio from here to eternity. I don’t want to be in bed with him. That’s rough waters. That’s dangerous but it’s so enticing because success loves speed.

We want to get them on our team anyways, even though they come with that character defect. We pay the price for adding them to our team down the road. It works until it doesn’t.

The question is, what’d you learn? Like John Wooden, you walk away. Figure out who you are. Where do you need to grow? Do you have a temper problem? You need to go study books about temper. Do you blow up? Do you have discipline? What is it do you have? Do you chase women? How can we make it better? I’m not saying because you are that person that we can’t change. We can but you have to want to be better. The focus has to be on not what you do with who you are.

 

That’s what this whole book is about. The focus is not on what you do because we’re clear on what you do. We’re clear you can throw a football 80 yards off your knee. I want to know who you are and that’s the whole process. We spend too much time being like, “I got this guy. He’s unbelievable.” “What did he do?” “He did 30,000 sales last month.” “It’s very enticing. Let me put him on a call.” The next thing you know, I put him with one of my guys and the next thing you know, he’s taken to another company.

Talk about your all-time backfire.

We’ve seen it.

At no other time in human history, people had access to personal development and leadership development for free. Tell us a little bit about your podcast. How do they follow you?

You can follow me on all the major podcasts. It’s The Legacy Mindset on Spotify or Apple. Those are the two big ones. Start at the very beginning too if you go because it starts with that whole concept of survival, success and significance. Get that flavor. All this stuff is probably an accumulation of my last twenty episodes. This is the stuff of who I am and what I believe in, Jack. That’s why you asked me to be on.

I’m not even your league in understanding money. I say that with honor to you. I know you studied it. If I did have a question, you would be the person I would call up. You made a study up and every time I’ve met you, you are like, “I’m doing this.” It makes me nervous because I don’t have the education that you do. I know you put a great team around you and you got some great insights.

That’s why you and I have done so well. We’ve built great teams. People think that success is not done in isolation. We’ve built great teams in multiple areas of our lives. We built great teams with our wives, marketing businesses, investing, accounting, taxes and finance. You and I know how to put great people around us that we can leverage on and all win together.

A huge leadership principle right there is teamwork. You got to be able to work with a team, build a team and put the right people together in the right places. Brad, I love what you shared. I knew what you were going to deliver and you delivered what I knew that you would. This is probably my longest episode to date.

I remember asking the question when I was going through the course like, “How do I do this right? What length?” This is great. They said, “There’s no such thing as too long. There’s only too boring.” It’s good. I don’t think we bored anybody. I wasn’t bored. I was in it all the way tracking everything you were saying. I do appreciate the wisdom in all that you share, the mentorship and friendship. Thank you so much for being on.

You’re welcome, Jack. Thank you.

 

 Important Links

• Brad Harris
• The Man in the Mirror
• Apple Podcasts – The Legacy Mindset Podcast
• The Legacy Mindset – Spotify
• The 5 Levels of Leadership