Old Guys Still ROCK

Blair Armstrong (00:31)
All right, all right, all right. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. This is your first time here. You have found old guys still rock. We are in episode, I believe number 116, it 117? Something like that. Something like that. We're getting up there. But anyway, I'm Blair Armstrong of Team Armstrong, Coldwell Banker. I'm a global luxury specialist in the world of residential real estate.

Brent Wright (00:47)
Yeah, something like that 116 117.

Blair Armstrong (01:00)
located in beautiful, beautiful Coachella Valley. Summer is almost over here. But if you don't know where the Coachella Valley is, it's basically like the Palm Springs area, all the cities around that, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage, I'm guessing sometimes somewhere you've heard of that. We are gonna be a balmy 116 today. We started off the morning at 84 degrees, but honest to God, yeah, this was, it's just been the last eight, nine days.

Brent Wright (01:21)
Woo!

Blair Armstrong (01:30)
And actually that hasn't been that long the last four or five days and then we start getting into fall believe it or not So it was a it's a good summer. It wasn't as bad as last year. So anyway It's a long drawn-out process But on my left possibly your right is the other host of this show and a good friend of mine for almost 30 years Brett right of Brett right incorporated a man that has many many different hats from

body shops, to detail shops, to multiple property owner, to payroll companies. Him and his wife opened up a wellness center just a little over two years ago. Got together with a group of venture capitalists. They just started or actually revamped a t-shirt company called bustedtees.com. You're looking for some cool little novelty t-shirts. I'd suggest that you go there. And again,

Bustedtees.com is a new venture for him and about three other guys. And we'll talk about that in a little bit, but a really, really good thing about Brent Wright that you may not know. And again, as we have all these episodes that are kind of in our, we'll have 115 episodes, 116 episodes. he is a great personal and business coach. So if you kind of feel like your life is either stuck or your business is stuck and you're this needing somebody, you don't know who to turn to.

Again, I'll go back, watch a lot of our episodes and see if he's a good fit for you. He gets a lot of golden nuggets. As I just said, I just kind of listed all these businesses that he's been a part of or still a part of and probably has some good knowledge that could help you out getting over the hump. So what's up my dude? How's life? What's going on in Eugene, Oregon?

Brent Wright (03:09)
So back to the weather, back to you, Blair. We're gonna have 97 degrees tomorrow. Today's gonna be about 86, 87. And then we have a whole nother week of dang near 80, 90, 100 degree days. So.

Blair Armstrong (03:12)
I'll After you, Bob.

Brent Wright (03:27)
Although my wife said, I wish everybody would stop talking about fall. Cause I'm not done with summer yet. Really for me, it's been an interesting time seeing, you know, I'm up early, stay up late enough to see the sunset. I love my sunsets. It's just amazing. A good view, a good view. So,

Blair Armstrong (03:32)
Hahaha!

Yeah, you got a good view.

Brent Wright (03:51)
for me to see the time.

pressing on, on daylight is been kind of an eye opener and a little bit of a game changer for me. As you know, we talk about how many summers do you have left? And it's just, uh, I'm trying to extend every minute, every second, every day of summer, because I, I'm counting them. I'm counting them now. And, um, I started counting them about four or five years ago and

I just really want to take advantage of every minute of every single day. So for me, summer is a great, great time. Everybody loves summers. I like the winters as well. But for some reason we don't count winters. I don't know why.

Blair Armstrong (04:36)
I count my winter. love, I love my fall winter down here, bro. It is, uh, come October. Yeah, I know it's, uh, it's pretty awesome because we, in October here, uh, the beginning of October, we scalp all the grass and, uh, recede. And so for about, about two weeks, it's kind of Brown and all of a sudden you wake up the next morning and it is Emerald green and flowers are everywhere and it's awesome. And it's, it's.

Brent Wright (04:40)
Well, because it's like our summer.

Blair Armstrong (05:06)
My favorite time of year is like the end of October all through November, because we typically had around 80, 85 degree weather and it's just, it's awesome, man. I live in paradise. I am super, super blessed to, that I get to live here. I am in a bubble compared to the rest of the world of just the real estate and some stuff that's around here. So it was good, man, but it's awesome. So yeah, man, but for,

Brent Wright (05:27)
Very cool.

Blair Armstrong (05:30)
Going back for people who don't know, Eugene, Oregon for being the 90s, it's hot. It's hot. And they're not really, when you have 300 days of rain, 90 degrees is smoking. So how's busted tees, dude? What's going on with that? I know you're about three months into that.

Brent Wright (05:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yep, yep. So we're just getting our feet under us and getting some things reorganized and getting things changed. And we've engaged a person that's doing a lot of Instagram and TikTok for us, guy named Alex, and he's done a great job. Alex Velez. Thank you, Alex. Pretty jazzed about what he's done. You've seen some of the stuff I posted. He's really good creative.

Blair Armstrong (06:11)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (06:15)
but we're really kind of just gearing up for season. So season in the Ecom world in this starts in about mid September-ish and then runs through about a week after Christmas. Maybe a week before Christmas, but it kind of just tapers down from a week before Christmas to a week after Christmas. And then kind of ticks up again a little bit in January and then kind of.

just stay steady and then kind of starts dropping off this time of year. We haven't seen a decrease in sales. Our average day is staying pretty steady. So we feel pretty blessed about that. But we're really gearing up for that whole EECOM, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, all of those things, people buying stuff for other people. That's what we're really gearing up for currently is and that's going to be make or break. Right now we're holding our own.

We're paying our bills and yeah, we're exactly, and we're throwing a ton of money at advertising and we knew we were gonna have to do that. So we're buying back, if you will, through advertising, the brand awareness. So although it's one of the oldest e-comm businesses out there, started in 2008 ⁓ by the folks that we purchased it from, it...

Blair Armstrong (07:06)
That's not standing on a street corner.

Okay.

Brent Wright (07:29)
it's taken a little bit of a backseat to some of their other projects. And so the top of mind awareness has been down a bit. So we're buying back brand awareness. So that's the phase we're in currently. I feel pretty excited and blessed to be part of it and to be learning and growing. This is a big departure from my standard operating procedure in most of my businesses. Typically most of my businesses

I own, I run, I hire people to do it, things like that. And so this is a big departure and a big growth.

Blair Armstrong (08:02)
No, another thing too, as you said to you, a lot of times you have started the business from infancy to where it is, to where either you sell it off or keep it or whatever. This one, you've taken it over and revamping it. And I feel you because when something has been built and then it kind of goes away to the wayside and you try to revamp it, it feels like you're putting so much more energy in just to get it back to...

Brent Wright (08:08)
Okay.

Blair Armstrong (08:30)
I can, you know, head above water, I guess you can say. I'm not above water, but my head's above water.

Brent Wright (08:36)
Well, and in a whole new industry and a whole new business partnership perspective that I typically don't like and don't do. And then trusting that others are going to take the reins on certain aspects of it. So I am the CFO of this business and an investor. And so two different hats and I don't have control.

Blair Armstrong (08:38)
in a whole new industry.

Yeah. Right.

Brent Wright (09:01)
of all aspects of it. And I purposely put myself into that situation to promote growth for me and not having control over every aspect of everything. And just being a guidance and a coach and a question asker and learning and growing and possibly poking the bear maybe and getting bit every once in a while or getting swatted every once in a while from an analogy standpoint.

Blair Armstrong (09:08)
Right.

Brent Wright (09:26)
And then taking that response and figuring out how not to get bit next time.

Blair Armstrong (09:33)
Yeah. Yeah, we're doing, I feel like when we come back to onsite here at Ironwood, which is a Coldwell banker spot, obviously you can kind of see kind of behind me, maybe not. But anyway, left here in 2022 and then just came back last July. I mean, a year ago, July. So this has just been just a little, it's about 13 months in as of today. But anyway, there's so many things that just kind of went by the wayside. There wasn't a lot of leadership. It was a bunch of

Brent Wright (09:44)
Go ahead.

Blair Armstrong (10:03)
There were really good realtors, really good, but there was no direction. It was just kind of feast, you know, we're all in it for ourselves and not really looking for the common goal. And this is nothing down side to them. just, they have blinders on and it is, and we're fixing it. It's getting a lot better. But we only have 25 % of the market share and we're onsite. Like we're behind gates and that.

Brent Wright (10:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Blair Armstrong (10:26)
And it just drove me crazy for the three months. It was completely unacceptable. If you've watched the past episodes, you've heard me say that. again, not downplaying anybody. But I really kind of what you said is I had to go poke the bear a couple of times and got myself in some hot water. But I really just kind of took it. But once the hot water kind of got lukewarm, everyone's like, I see what you're doing now. But it had to take that catapult, right? You just had to like we've.

gotta go do this, we can't just keep waiting for someone to come in and save us and all these different things. And so now it's, now that I've kept everybody, this is what we're doing, here, complete transparency, here's the communication, blah, blah, blah. Now people are coming in like, hey, can I help you with this? I'm like, okay, you're really good here, I'm starting to piece off those things. Now by no means are these people part of my team and I'm not their boss or anything like that.

But sometimes what I was really getting back as like you guys have four different figureheads in this business, four different owners, and there's got to be a point person in that realm, regardless that you're all equal owners in a roundabout way, but you have to have a point person and then start delegating into it. But everyone has their special tools to continue this forward. But you can't have four people running four different directions. And that's the hard part.

Brent Wright (11:44)
Yeah. Well, that kind of puts us right into our subject, I believe of are you the example or the executioner is what you what you sent me. And I'm going to read this, the text you sent me, meaning if you're setting the standard, are you being the example or are you critiquing everyone while having cracks in your own foundation? I want to take that a little step further. So are you I wrote down, are you evaluating?

Blair Armstrong (11:44)
So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Wright (12:12)
what everyone else is doing and offering no assistance and or creating action or you just being the evaluator.

Blair Armstrong (12:21)
Well, for the thing that really spurred this too, mean, obviously the business, we go back on the business side, but more on a personal side, especially in this, in this climate that we're onto it, everyone's saying like, well, they should do this, this, this, this, and this, and this, and this, And you're this great warrior either on the keyboards or shouting some great rhetoric and doing those things. But the bottom line is what are you doing to be the example of how that standard's supposed to be?

Brent Wright (12:38)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (12:48)
And so it really kind of came back and like, listen, I got hot. somebody in our circle just went completely sideways and it was just, I'd like, I'm done. And I just went on this freaking moment, man, just and F in and da da da da da da da da da da da da. And I got home that night. I'm like, what did that solve dude? What does that solve? It's so I sat there and, I went back and I talked to Chrissy a little bit later and

I said, you know, there's a lot of cracks in my foundation and I can't, ⁓ no, it's just like, yeah, you know, you're right. There's, we, have cracks in our foundation. It's so easy to judge and then we can't forget what our foundation looks like. So how do we fill the cracks in our foundation? So other people can see that this is the way, you know,

Brent Wright (13:20)
And she said, yes, there are.

Blair Armstrong (13:43)
Okay, I wanna mirror my life the way that they run their life. And we're supposed to be the example. We're supposed to be the servant leader. And when you're a servant leader, have to help to get things further along. Anybody can have an opinion, anybody can critique. But if you can't look at yourself in the mirror, if your mirror's cracked, you gotta be very careful because not all of a you become a hypocrite

They could go back. Well, yeah, you do this, this, this, this, this, this. So why are you telling me what's up? And you solve nothing.

Brent Wright (14:19)
So I got two things on that one.

Blair Armstrong (14:20)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (14:21)
Bible talks about.

being a watchman in Ezekiel especially, I've quoted this quote before, stand in the gap, be the watchman, right? It doesn't say be the policeman.

Don't be judge and jury.

It says, the watchman and stand in the gap, meaning watch and take action. Watch, take action. It doesn't say watch, judge, put down, push away, critique without offering any help or any of those things. It doesn't say that anyway.

Blair Armstrong (14:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Wright (15:01)
And so if you're using the Bible as a guidebook for life, then follow it. And then one other thing, I get this a lot. I post a lot of verses that are impactful for me every day.

Blair Armstrong (15:11)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (15:12)
And just to clarify, I am not perfect by any stretch. I don't know everything. I'm in fact, probably, although I've grown exponentially over the years, I would tell you that I still have my own grievances with myself. I still have my own sins that I have to atone for. And I use...

the verses to remind me of the chinks in my armor and the cracks in my concrete, if you will. And to know that I need to do better. I get this a lot from people, the keyboard warriors out there. I'll post something and they're like, hey, why don't you just stop posting stuff and start doing stuff. And I'm like, well, that's what I did by posting this as a reminder that I needed to do this.

Blair Armstrong (16:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (16:09)
How about you stop commenting on my posts and go do something?

Blair Armstrong (16:11)
Hahaha

and do something. And that's, know, I think that's just so good for, because that.

We're not going back to your Bible stuff. That's where I really want to go. But going back to your Bible, those are our subliminal triggers that you catch yourself. And another thing too, is I think that what you, especially what you did last week of kind of sharing some situations about getting close to pulling a trigger and kind of just ending it all and all those different things. But

We spend so much time being the executioner.

that.

How are we supposed to make anything better?

and

It just, we, we, and that's the it was a big, that's way I was trying to find. So sorry for the delay in this. I exerted so much energy on something that I couldn't change. Literally so much energy. I was mentally wiped, bro. And it had nothing to do, it had a little bit to do with me, but at the end of the day, it didn't change my life at all, at all.

Like it was an inconvenience, but the amount of energy had acted like it was like I was trying to.

Brent Wright (17:22)
Well,

nor did the complaining about it change the direction of your day or your life other than negatively for you because you let yourselves boil it.

Blair Armstrong (17:25)
No, no.

And then I looked like the a hole at the end of the day. mean, it's so people are like, okay, now there's, there's a message behind here that I really want people to see. that's when Brett and I talk about this a lot is to be vulnerable. I didn't have to tell anybody that I was a, an a hole. So now I'm sitting in front of the camera, like I messed up. I get it, but I'm learning from him. Like, okay, you know, someone that I was

ranting and raving to like, are doing today? And they wanted to get back into it. I'm like, I'm good. Are you sure? Yeah. It's right. But that's a good way go back to it, is how it's so simple in this world. Yes, we did. sometimes we go ahead and repeat ourselves, but in different words. that is, know, everyone has this massive opinion and blah, blah, blah. And they go ahead and point the fingers or calling somebody

Brent Wright (18:03)
We had a whole episode about this, about is it really your fight?

Blair Armstrong (18:26)
If you're this I can't believe you're you know that you love America, and if you're this I can't believe that you're this and I'm like dude What are you? What are you solving? There's so many people I just I want to get back to that keyboard warrior, but

Brent Wright (18:39)
Well, what

value are you adding to anybody else's life, including your own?

Blair Armstrong (18:46)
So you call me a hoe on the internet that you're super empowered. But what did you do to make the change? What did you, what are you doing? And so that was my, it's just my thing. So it happened and I am, there is a way that I've learned now that I wish I would have done it. I have to own that and I'm gonna have to, I didn't say anything derogatory to.

to the person that aggravated to me, but I've got to set them down. like, I've got to watch their six. Basically that's what I learned from them. I got to watch your six. I go, you're doing this, this, and this, and it's consistently happening. I care about you and...

Brent Wright (19:20)
But here's how I am willing to help.

Blair Armstrong (19:25)
You've got to make some adjustments and doing that is going to help me make adjustments because it always goes back to you and I, Brent. And I can say this and a lot of people that have been on this podcast, when we help other people, it helps us become accountable because now we're talking to like, okay, we have to set that trigger. Okay. They're doing this. What are you doing? And how, how is that trigger going to set for me that I don't go down that path and I've got to fix my foundation. So I learned a lot from what this person's mistake.

Brent Wright (19:38)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (19:54)
I got mad. I shouldn't have got mad, but I'm like, okay, I it's gut check time. What are you doing? Look at your cracks, call Kyle, tell him I need him some, some, some, some concrete tape to go ahead and fill these gaps. But, it just was so incredibly helpful. And I do, I do, I do thank God for that. Cause I don't think that the old Blair would have let that go for a long time and probably would have burned a bridge.

Brent Wright (20:20)
Dude, you're like a bulldog on a bone. just... ⁓ You don't let go easy. You don't let go easy.

Blair Armstrong (20:20)
⁓ I Did I know bro, and I don't I don't like it. I don't like it Yeah, it's not good

man. It just it bums me out. It's embarrassing when you go back and look at it But I at least I'm starting again, it's not a justification at all I just know that I can I can I can see things faster than I had in the past. I You look back at how many bridges I burn because I you know

It was my way or the highway and, not good, dude. Not good.

Brent Wright (20:54)
I wrote something down this morning. It's extreme irony that in my morning prep, my Thursdays are filled with a couple of coaching meetings before this and my morning prep time, and then we come directly into the podcast. And so I wrote this down this morning that the real secret to wealth is controlling your emotional

So wealth could be construed as a number of things, So monetary wealth, personal wealth, emotional wealth, physical wealth, all of the patterns that we are fighting against. So I go out every day and I'm not just trying to create monetary wealth, I'm trying to create mental wealth and health, And we talked about that last time, the mental wealth and health.

I'm trying to create physical wealth. I told you this morning, I got a goal. I turned 53 in a month and 10 days, and I wanna change my physique a little bit. So I've been scaling back. I didn't bulk up this time. I just wanna get lean and mean. I wanna get down to about 10 % body fat, and I wanna look a little bit more polished. And so that's a wealth evaluation.

But let me repeat that. The real secret to wealth is controlling your emotional patterns. So if I am trying to change my physical wealth or my mental wealth, I've got to create an opportunity to change my emotional pattern. I need to become more tied to consistency in my workouts. I need to become more tied emotionally.

into all aspects of what it takes to get to that goal.

So you, if you have a goal of not to bulldog things, know, not trying to again judge you, but you come at me sometimes and you're like, I just went down this path and got into this political discussion with this person and it just, I just cascaded and I'm like, well, where did you land at the end?

Blair Armstrong (22:49)
Absolutely.

I got bad, it felt so good.

Brent Wright (23:03)
And, and, but sometimes you don't even,

you don't even know where you ended up.

Blair Armstrong (23:08)
No, because it's, it's, it's, it's, you end up nowhere. Really? I mean, there's a way to have a discussion. You don't have to agree with everything, but there's a way to discussion instead of just a badger. And I said, can be the executioner all day. that's, it's just not going to work. It's just, it just won't work. I mean, it's, it's go ahead.

Brent Wright (23:25)
You know, and I tend to

go into, I've told you this before, if I'm gonna point out one of your flaws, I'm gonna point out one of mine. We're gonna go even for even, okay? And so one of mine is the actuarial excuse. I use the fact that I think as an actuary and justify my critiquing of others as an actuarial function. Well,

Blair Armstrong (23:32)
Sure.

Brent Wright (23:48)
They didn't apply for an insurance policy with me, so why am I being an actuary? They didn't ask my opinion, or if they did, they really didn't know what they were biting off by asking that, because I'm going to go down every road and figure out where everything's flawed and how they can fix it before it becomes flawed.

Blair Armstrong (24:07)
Yeah, it's, We are far from, you know, you said something earlier and I think it's just so good is that we are completely broken and we are not perfect.

Brent Wright (24:17)
And I don't know everything. Even in coaching.

Blair Armstrong (24:19)
And I don't know everything. Sometimes our

wisdom is good and really good wisdom. When it starts hitting home a lot, start getting a little bit of a big head or your ego may grow a little bit and you've got to keep that in. Your wisdom was given to you by someone and you're regurgitating that wisdom in your words to someone else. So it's not

You didn't come up with the idea somehow, some way you change the words or you change the delivery, but you didn't come up with the idea.

Brent Wright (24:56)
Well,

things in life are recycled, right? So over the last hundred years, business acumen, business coaching, personal coaching, personal acumen, budgeting, all those things, this is not new information. It's just a little spin off something that somebody else did to make it apply to your situation.

Blair Armstrong (25:01)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

So what are you doing, going back to our topic, which we're still on the topic, but what are you doing when you find yourself being the executioner? How do you pull yourself back and make yourself the example?

Brent Wright (25:36)
Well, the simplest way is usually my wife points it out to me. And then I adjust accordingly and apologize profusely. And then I make changes and make inroads to rectify the situation. And as I tell her all the time, I am an old dog that's trying to learn new tricks. And it might take me three times the amount of time to get the trick down.

Blair Armstrong (25:41)
Right.

Brent Wright (26:03)
than it did when I was 25, okay? So, because I am an old guy that still rocks. But I am trying and I am growing and it's exponential. I can tell you that, that I am not the same person and anybody that's been around me for more than 15, 10 or 15 years could tell you I'm not the same person I was five years ago. I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago. And a lot of times I'm not the same person I was last week. And...

Blair Armstrong (26:07)
Yeah

Brent Wright (26:26)
And that's how I make changes and that's how I grow and that's how I adjust. And I'm extremely apologetic. And then with the apology has to come action. So it's not just the words, it's the action that creates the apology.

Blair Armstrong (26:42)
Is there a involvement in the example?

Like, you just, so meaning, meaning are, okay, I set the example, I've set the standard, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is there involvement in being the example? Is there involvement being the servant leader? Is there?

Brent Wright (26:48)
Talk more about that.

Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (27:05)
You know, those are the, those are the things that I think that sometimes like, okay, I've done really good here. I'm done. There's, there's not another level.

Brent Wright (27:15)
There's always another level. We talk about it in the map of consciousness, which I've shared here before by David R. Hawkins. You guys can look that up. David R. Hawkins, map of consciousness. It's a book, it's a chart. It says on there that the top level is enlightenment. Enlightenment starts at 700 and goes to a thousand. Buddha was about an 840. Jesus was 820.

You guys hit the top level yet? Because those two guys were pretty cool and they didn't.

Blair Armstrong (27:46)
Yeah.

I always get concerned that people get to a certain spot, like, okay, I've done this, this, this, and this, and this is, it's good enough, and you should take that. And where does the involvement stop? And I think a lot more people are understanding that it doesn't stop, that you have to constantly strive.

Brent Wright (27:54)
good enough. I'm out.

Well, it does stop.

It does stop. And it stops as soon as you park your tail feathers in the easy chair and start watching Big Bang Theory all day. That's where it stops.

Blair Armstrong (28:13)
Yeah, that's true. That's true.

I don't stop contributing and and and being a part of it is never like or you know, it's a

Brent Wright (28:23)
When you become more of an executioner instead of an executor, that's where it stops.

Blair Armstrong (28:27)
Yeah, or you could just say,

or you could just say, you know what, it's just not my, it's not my problem.

Well, yeah, it's not your problem, but.

Brent Wright (28:36)
but you're not part of the solution.

Blair Armstrong (28:38)
If you're not fighting, I think that's a good one, man. If you're not, if you're not trying to be a part of the solution, then it's going to become your problem because it's just like saying like, well, yeah, I saw somebody murder them, but I didn't do it. And then walk away from it. You're not.

Brent Wright (28:44)
Then

are

kids these days, they just don't have any dang respect.

They're being raised by your kids.

Blair Armstrong (29:01)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (29:02)
So you didn't teach your kids to raise their kids,

Blair Armstrong (29:06)
Yeah. It's just, it's, it's constant, man. So again, it's, so if you guys have, who are watching this, man, if you have gone through this and find yourself that you're critiquing a lot, cause it's kind of, it's in the water. it's very easy. It's water cooler talk. it could be at the office. Jimmy doesn't do this. Jimmy doesn't do that. Or Sally is, you know, I can't believe Sally is this and that Sally is that,

You're going to talk about it, but try to catch yourself and say, okay, what's the solution? Are you going to go to Sally? Are you going to go to Jimmy and say, Hey, you were really good here. I see you kind of over here. What's going on? Um, how can I assist you? Those types of things and try to be the solution. Um, cause this is, it's very easy, I guess right now is to do what I did and be the executioner. And at the end of the day is.

It doesn't do anything. You're actually more the a-hole than the person that created the situation. So it's tough. And especially, again, then you got the same thing in business and clients, and you can MF them all the day and all those different things. did you ever fall down? Do you ever do this? This is more of a self-awakening for me that I'm sharing my

my wisdom, what I learned out of all this to help you maybe look yourself in the mirror for three minutes and ask these questions. What am I doing to be a better servant leader? What am I doing to be a better leader? Not only for my marriage, but for my kids, for my partners in business, for my friendships, so forth. What type of example am I setting? Am I just gonna be, you know, look the other way when...

Brent Wright (30:38)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (30:49)
It's going to la la. Are you going to hold your friendships or your people that you hang out with accountable? Say this is an okay. Not only for, not only for me, but as society and yeah, but for you and for society in general, God did not put you on this. You know, we talked about this. God did not put you this. Oh, it's just a medium mediocre. I want to be with you on this journey for becoming greater.

Brent Wright (31:02)
for you.

Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (31:18)
So how do we get back on track? And I think you can have fun. I don't think that you have to live with a suit and tie every day and there's opportunities for you to have a great life, especially the life that I live in, that I get to live in here in this world. I'm with a lot of guys and women that have been super successful. I'm kind of a little bit younger than most, but they're retired.

you can still be an example for those guys who are retired. There's still a lot of wisdom that you can get from those guys and a lot of wisdom for them to give to others to help them succeed as well. But being that example.

is not a bad thing. One thing that I get concerned about is people like, don't want to live underneath that microscope. It's not really living under a microscope if you have morals and you have standards. Do it.

Brent Wright (32:09)
led by a set

of basic core values, daily core values, right?

Blair Armstrong (32:13)
Yeah, just do what you have to say. I mean, this is something that you've done, right? You've done very well at it and you're learning on it every day. You just talked about how your kids, how your kids were with you in Disneyland and your business trips last weekend. just, you know, it's at a constant involvement of instilling them, being the example of this is what you have to do. So they might not be intertwined with you.

24-7 but they watch from afar right there sponges same thing adults can watch from afar and be sponges as well Brent's doing this really well Blair's doing this really well really like the way that he took care of that situation It may take a little bit especially if you have a track record of Bless you It did I kind of like I could hurt go off I'm like

Brent Wright (33:00)
Thank you. I caught the microphone and turned it off.

Blair Armstrong (33:05)
Anyway, but those are just, you know, there's so many good things that I get my biggest hope out of all this is Brent's transparency, my transparency, vulnerability, not only in this episode, but other episodes is to really help you find that trigger or think about it like, yeah.

gone a little too far with this one. And even though that it doesn't fit my wheelhouse, what am I doing to make the change?

Brent Wright (33:28)
Well, I've got two of my personal core values that I read every morning that can apply to this situation is be the man or in this case, because we have different genres of listeners, be the man or woman I would look up to.

Blair Armstrong (33:39)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Wright (33:42)
The other one is have patience for the less informed.

That is a struggle for me.

Yep.

Ignorance is bliss, they say.

But the person who might have the knowledge should have the ability to teach it in a way that doesn't make the person who doesn't have the knowledge feel less than.

then we just become a bully at that.

Blair Armstrong (34:01)
And there's a lot of that. I've been a part of that too, but you know, like I'm going back thinking of the people that we've had on this, on our podcast from, you know, the Kim McCumber's, Gigi Matako. Girls wrote a book of her past experiences, you know, and it wasn't a fun ride. And she just sent me the cover of what it's gonna look like. I'm super excited for her. You know, it was a dark journey for her.

But instead of playing the victim, she became the example.

Brent Wright (34:34)
and the teacher.

Blair Armstrong (34:35)
and the teacher of what to do with it. And I think we all have those moments that we can do stuff. Joe Daniels, constantly going overseas to coach men in football. He's been the example. This is what I've done. This is what the wisdom I'm gonna give you. And he'll learn something new from every time of those things. The Ednas, the Katelyns. Katelyn just shared some stuff on.

on Instagram the other day of just her day of it was just, was, it was a snowball effect of yuck. And, but she had the chance to laugh, laugh about it and they're like, okay, you know, I'm just in this, I always joke with like we're in this mercury retrograde stuff, but I mean the list, you know, the Kyle's that we, you know, the Kyle's we have on the Gerards such a young age, right? And learning by example and just sharing those things. I think that's such a big thing is

Brent Wright (35:08)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (35:29)
So when you're the example and you've come from the executioner, when you've left the executioner role and become the example portion of whatever you're going through, you've got to share that stuff, man. It is so good. Wisdom is supposed to be shared over and over and over again. And it keeps building and building and building and becoming better wisdom. ⁓

Brent Wright (35:53)
So I just,

I sent this text to Kate this morning that says, as a reminder, your mess is your message. Keep going.

Blair Armstrong (36:02)
Yeah. I did something to him and finally said, well, your day is so bad. I go buy a lottery ticket. You'd probably win. Yeah. But, but say that again, what you said to her.

Brent Wright (36:10)
Yeah.

As a reminder, your mess is your message. Keep going.

She's being super vulnerable and sharing her mess. And she needs to know that everybody who is seeing her share it is getting better exponentially because of her shares.

Blair Armstrong (36:30)
Yeah, it's been fun to watch, I mean, the people that are really harnessing of taking the negativity and finding the positivity or finding themselves in the negativity and changing and then helping others get out of that well is just, it's refreshing. It's hopeful. I it start seeing a lot of younger guys do it. Now you said something the other day.

a couple of weeks ago that how much, even though you've been coaching Gerard of how much he's helped you.

kind of take your wisdom to a different level. I is this again, the student can teach the teacher, but the student just took the wisdom that, know, Gerard just took your wisdom, flipped the words a little bit, flipped the delivery a little bit and gave it right back to you, enhanced it all, right? How awesome is that though, dude? Come on, come on. It's just really cool, so.

Brent Wright (37:18)
No.

Exactly. Yep.

Blair Armstrong (37:26)
That's all I got in this tank today, think there was some good stuff in there today. And again, I hope that this really hits home, especially in this climate. I know that everybody has their opinions, and opinions are great. you should let them know. But one thing that I'm going to take away from all of this today, and I hope that you guys do too, and then Brent will kind of give you his words, is that

Brent Wright (37:28)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (37:50)
Yeah, we can have opinions, but maybe while you're having the opinion or before you give it, what's the solution going to be? Brent has always been really good about asking that question before he delivers his opinion. He's got a list of stuff that he goes through. What, how is this going to solve? What's this going to outcome? da da da. So there's three or four or five things that he has that he's done really well at. Um, but what are, what do you want to accomplish and what problems are you solving?

So when you do give it, you're gonna be looked as the example of how to handle a situation that will actually be a ripple effect probably farther than you'll ever see.

Those are my thoughts. What are your thoughts?

Brent Wright (38:34)
My thoughts are simple. Be the change you seek and go make a damn.

Blair Armstrong (38:40)
Pretty simple guys, it's all up to you. Brent said this a lot. I've said that there's no one's coming to save you except for yourself and God. it's time to put down the keyboard. And I'm talking to myself when I say this. It's time to put down the keyboard. If you lose your stuff,

Take a moment, ask yourself why you lost your ish. What did you accomplish out of it? What type of changes do you need to make? And I said that most of all, we've said this 100 times on this episode so far, is how am I gonna be the example now?

So guys, thank you so much for your support. Super, super grateful. Thank you for sharing your episode. Thank you for watching our shorts, as in video shorts, not our shorts that we wear underneath our shorts. But you guys, again, if you haven't done so yet, hit that Subscribe button. Hit that notification bell, whatever channel you're watching, if it's Apple, if it's Spotify or YouTube or YouTube.

Brent Wright (39:26)
you

Blair Armstrong (39:41)
Amazon, whatever you guys watch this on, hit that notification bell so when a new episode comes out, you're notified right away. But until we talk to each other next week, stay safe, but most of all, God bless, guys. Take care.