Welcome to the rewire podcast.

I'm your host, Ryan Stumann, and I'm here to rewire your mind for success.

You were put on this planet for success.

You were created to succeed, but the force of average is after you every single day, my brothers and sisters.

And this podcast is the one thing that's designed to help you fight the force of average and excel in

every area of your life. We're glad that you're here. I've taken a lot of horses on leadership,

been to a lot of seminars on leadership over the last 20 years and read a lot of books on it.

It's something that I struggle with because I never in my entire life have looked in the

mirror and been like, Stumannier a leader. I look in the mirror and I'm like, what the fuck are these people believing

in you for? And, you know, it keeps a lot of pressure on me because I'm like, I have to show up for

them. I don't know that I necessarily asked for this. I just found my way into it. In prison, I wasn't a gang leader. I wasn't even a gang member, right? On the streets, I wasn't leading a drug operation. I was a solo operator. I've been a solo person my whole life. I look at my 13 year old son Jackson. And yeah, he's got friends and he's got a girlfriend and stuff, but like he keeps to himself. I'm like,'s a he's a lot like me I look at all my

kids and they might have one friend each and they kind of keep to themselves and I say that because

as a leader we have to become self-reliant and we got to keep things to ourselves if I'm leading a group

of people let's call them apex and if I'm leading a group of people, let's call them Apex. And if I'm leading a group of people,

I have to be the example. It's not about you follow me. It's about I'm going to try to do the

best version of me. I'm going to tempt this every single day and hopefully they'll buy into it.

It's not a, hey, you have to follow me. Hey, this is mandatory. It's a, I'm going to do this. And if you see the results and like them, then you should try to do this too. It was never about, hey, follow me. Instead, it's always been about if I just do the best for me. And if I do the best for me, I've learned this wasn't my intention, but I have learned other people will say, oh shit, I want that, whether it's an employee coming to work or a new friend or a new business connection. But as a leader, you also have to understand you're not going to be able to really rely on anybody else. It's been a lonely world. If I've got problems, who do I get to tell them to? The people I follow, I'm not going to put my problems on them. I have to figure my own shit out. As a leader, I can't let others see weaknesses. I have to constantly improve them and be an example. I have to become 100% self-reliant. I'll never forget 2004. I'd been two weeks on the job as a mortgage person. Two weeks prior to that, I was wiping down the owner of the mortgage company's car at the front of a car wash. I didn't know shit from Shamrock and they had this really fly dress, perfect hairstyle dude from the Brian Tracy organization. And he came in and he gave us this badass sales speech and he was a hell of a closer.

And at that time, all I'd ever sold was car washes. So I was absolutely miffed with this dude. I'm like, man, I want to be that fucking guy. But this is what he said before he left. He said, there's one ology I live by in life and it's this. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. And I look back 21 years later on that moment, two weeks into that job in that conference room.

It's one of those times. up to me. And I look back 21 years later on that moment, two weeks into that job in that

conference room. It's one of those times and moments in life that I'll never forget, right? And I

look back at that and I realized that that guy wasn't just talking about making sales commissions.

He was talking about being a self-leader. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. Nobody rescues

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