Rocky Garza on Self-Awareness and Personal Growth in Leadership

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No. Well, and I think not only does success not happen overnight, but success is not a destination.
Like I think that's why. Did that make you sheltered? Yeah.
I realized about the age of 30. Not that you didn't trust people, but it was more of, I don't need to get close because this is temporary.

I was very good at disclosure and very bad at vulnerability.

Was that a Rocky feeling?

I was very good at giving you what you thought was vulnerability.

But for Rocky, it was simply disclosure.

The biggest reason that most companies don't grow is because of that.

You hold the title, but then you also hold all the cards and you won't play the hand. I want you to imagine if you're a leader currently and ask yourself if visionary and integrator rubs the wrong cord with you and you're thinking, don't tell me what I am, what I'm not.
Let's give it an analogy sense because we all like a good analogy. Problem number two with most businesses, that the companies that celebrate small success usually have a much better culture.
Rocky Garza, the floor is yours. Yeah, totally.
Culture is not what you pontificate. It's what you tolerate.
That's Rocky's fancy word because I like rhyming. Culture is not what you say it is.
It's what behavior you do you allow. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose.
Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations. Buckle up, here's Mick.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today we're joined by a transformational speaker, an amazing coach, and an author who's dedicated to helping people uncover their true selves.
With a gift for connecting deeply and challenging individuals to live authentically, he's empowering leaders and teams to create meaningful impact. Please join me in welcoming my dude, the authentic, the impactful, the fearless, my guy, Mr.
Rocky Garza. Rocky, how are you doing today, brother? Man, I'm doing wonderful, Mick.
Thank you so much for having me on the show. By the way, if I can grab that record, I'm going to take that with me to my next keynote.
And when they say they're going to read my bio, I'm going to say, hey, no, thank you. Just play this instead.
I'm going to let them play that. And I'm going to walk right on the stage to Bad Bunny or something.
I think I just got my new intro. Well, speaking of that, what's your Bad Bunny song? Well, my newest Bad Bunny song is the new one out.
It's on his brand new album. Nueve Vol is the brand new one he just came out with because I can't get enough.
He did a he did a bit with Jimmy Fallon that they do in the subway and that people just lost their minds. But it is it's like throwback roots to a song historically that lots of folks

know. And then he sort of took that and remixed it into his own.
So when you hear it, there's like a whole TikTok thing right now, like the older generation hear it and they're like, oh, I love it. They're dancing.
And then it like breaks into his part and then everyone loses their mind. So I'm a big Bad Bunny fan.
So we are brothers from another mother, right? I can't tell you one Bad Bunny song, bro.

So my music taste is anything 80s, anything 80s. I don't care the genre.
80s was like it for me. And then 90s, hip hop and R&B.
Okay. Now I got you locked in there.
The 90s hip hop and R&B, I'm dialed in with you. That was like all I listened to in that range.
80s, there was like a period of my life,

maybe we'll get to it later, a period of my life. There was not a lot of pop culture for me in the

80s that I gravitated to just because life for me in the 80s was kind of more survival than it was

pop culture references and so on. I grew up fairly quick early on in my life.
But 90s hip hop,

I'm with you. And only reason, let's be honest, that I know that is because there's a couple other

Bad Bunny songs that I really liked. And then that just led to – when I pick something and like it, I kind of just stay there.
My wife makes fun of me all the time because she knows about all – she's way smarter than me. And she knows all kinds of – and then references and not just pop culture but in life and so on.
And I could – unless it's like – unless it's Jay-Z or maybe Kanye. Like unless – outside of that, if I walk by you in airport, like, I'm not going to recognize you.
Like, I don't really know who you are. You know what I mean? And so, like, I gave all my pop culture knowledge.
I just gave it to you after that. Don't ask me anything else because I got nothing else for you.
Episode done. There we go.
That's right. So, Rocky, man, been a huge fan of yours.
I think we through lindsey anderson and then we've been like instagram best friends for like the last several months wanted to tell you personally not in a dm not in a text message man just thank you for being the human being that you are you do so much good for corporations you do so much good in your community that you're an example. And I'll just be honest, man.
I like following your lead on the example that you set. So I just wanted to personally tell you, thank you, bro.
Thank you. Thank you.
I really appreciate that, Mick. I think it's something I am learning and probably will the rest of my life.
Two things. Number one is to say thank you.
I tend to not want to say thank you, not because I don't appreciate it, because that means that I might acknowledge that it's true. And I think oftentimes in our lives, our hesitation to accept a compliment isn't because we don't believe it.
It's because of where the unknown that comes from what if we do. So I'm learning that in myself.
Hey, Rocky, just say thank you and trust it. Again, nobody's got a reason.
If you think someone is so, it's been enough energy to lie to you. Hey, I think you're giving yourself too much credit.
So I think that's one. And I think the second part of that is, you know, it's been a work in progress, just like you.
It's taken decades to try to really hone in on what is that. And I'm just now probably now more than ever, which I hope I get to say this for the rest of my life.
Just now feel like I'm really down into what it is I can bring to the world that I can do that allows me to stay in my lane, to trust my gut, to do those things while simultaneously creating environments for other people to do the exact same thing and recognizing that the overlap of the Venn diagram is so small if we'll stay in our lane that we can create a picture collectively that we could never just do by ourself. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why I freaking love Rocky, man.
You get insights like that all the time. I mean, you're dropping wisdom on a daily.
And one of the things that I appreciate about you is something that you said and alluded to that I'm going to ask you to elaborate on. What I heard you say, essentially, is success doesn't happen overnight.
And the reason, and I'm just going to say it, these are the words of Mick and Mick only, so don't yell at Rocky for saying this, but the reason that most people don't get the success that they're supposed to get, not saying they don't get there, but that they're supposed to get is because at some point they stop along the way. Right.
What Rocky has done, you heard him say decades and he's going to continue to work on himself is he never quit. Doesn't matter the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, you never quit because that that great win that you just had yesterday, right? Unfortunately, tomorrow still comes and next week is going to come and next month is going to come.
And I don't know about you, Rocky, but I'm not in a spot where I can just like let last week's success be the end because my legacy, not financially, my legacy depends on the work that I'm going to continue to do. So I'd love for you to elaborate on that.

Just success doesn't happen overnight, bro.

No.

Well, and I think not only does success not happen overnight, but success is not a destination.

Like I think that's why most individuals stop or even you and I occasionally have the moment we think we should stop or we think we might stop. Why? Well, because we are obsessed.
And I say we like collective human beings. In my experience, we are obsessed with the idea of arrival.

That we think if we could get there, and if I can get there faster than you, then I could stop quicker than you.

Which means I could have more time to do what I want because I don't do what I want now.

Therefore, if I could get to the place I could do what I want, then I would finally have arrived.

And so we call that success.

We call the ability to stop doing the things that are necessary, even if we enjoy them success. And I think there's a moment where if, if we allow ourself to note that to your point, the only thing that I can guarantee that happens tomorrow within my capacity of human understanding is the sun's going to go down tonight and it's probably going to come up tomorrow.
And when we go to wake up tomorrow, everything you did today will either have been a block added to the home you are building, or it will be a hammer to the block previously that will be gone. That's it.
There is no in between. I'm not trying to like make it to, to, um, you know, we're not trying to get too ethereal here or make anybody sad, but like the reality of both what is possible and what is true is today.
That's what, that's what present is. Present is all the possibilities of what could be and what is actually occurring.
That's today. That's the actions that we take today.
So I think if we can remove the idea of success from being singular, if we can remove it from a destination, if we can remove it from the idea of this mountaintop, and if I could, if I could just get to that mountain, then the view there will be so great that will, you know, will be so great after that view and your cliff bar and your sandwich and the photo you take and the Instagram you did. You're going to walk down the mountain, my guy, you're going to go back to the valley and life is lived in the valley, but the valley is not sexy.
The day-to-day is not sexy, right? Coaching the team and going to practice and coordinating 14 nine-year-olds and their families to get together isn't sexy. But three decades of doing that and getting a message from somebody that you talked to 20 years ago, when you coach their team, when you were in college and they were seven years old, and now they're 35 with a family and they leave you a voicemail and say, I remember what you said when I coaching and WhatsApp messages with 14 parents isn't sexy, but life lived in the Valley decade after decade.
And it paints an incredible landscape for what life could really be. If we're willing to remove success as a destination and instead allow ourself to commit to what we're doing daily, because that's actually the life that we really want.
Every day, bro. This is what I get from Rocky every day.

Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to get a glimpse into the conversations that Rocky

has, the methodologies that he teaches, the principles that he provides for those that

are around him.

Rocky, where did this start, man?

Like you kind of mentioned a little bit, the 80s was about survival.

So let's go there.

Let's talk about, you know, that Rocky. Let's,

let's talk about that.

Hey, it's Cole Swindell.

And I want to meet you in Austin at the I heart country festival.

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Sponsored by Chumba Casino. Yeah, you know, today, 41-year-old Rocky is, yeah, it's the 7-year-old Rocky that was like looking for a place to belong.
You know, I love, let me be very clear when I started, love my mom, love my dad, love my grandparents, love my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, everybody who was a part of the process. And okay.
A and D it's a very powerful word. And like you can live a life where you have all of your material needs and recognize that there are many things in life that are missing.
My parents got divorced when I was young, right before I turned two, um, never lived with my dad growing up, love my dad, have the best relationship with my dad today I've ever had. And I can spend my whole life without him.
Uh, my mom's been married and divorced quite a few times, four or five times. So I went to 13 schools before I graduated high school.
Uh, most of those pre seventh grade, cause I moved in with with my grandparents in seventh grade and actually went to the same junior high and the same high school. So all those schools are happening pre seventh grade.
I didn't realize the term first day of school didn't mean first day at a school until seventh grade. I didn't realize it was a time of year.
I thought it was a phrase that we use because this is our first day at this school, which I was always confused why that seemed to happen for everybody else only once. And it seemed to happen for me two or three times, right? And so I say all that again, this is not sad, not a sob story, not a woe is me.
Like I'm 41, been to a lot of therapy, have a lot of coaches. Like I'm feeling, I'm feeling okay today.
And A-N-D, we're going to come back to that again. And, you know, where I sit today is both a result of every day stacked up over the last 41 years.
And, you know, I think we all have a decision daily with work, with practice, not in isolation. We have a decision to say, will I make my past pain a mechanism to protect myself from people, or I use my past pain as a mechanism to propel myself in the direction of my purpose.
And I think that's a question we have to ask her. That's a question I have to ask myself daily, today, daily.
Been married 16 years, got a nine year old, got a six year old, good friends, a great community, spent a lot of time, effort, energy building for chips. And I have to ask myself daily today, daily been married 16 years, got a nine-year-old, got a six-year-old good friends, a great community, but spent a lot of time, effort, energy building friendships.
And I have to ask myself daily, the guy that gets on Instagram every day and says, you got this, let's go. Let's do it.
I have to ask myself daily, Rocky, why did you not express to your feelings to your wife? Is it because you were trying to protect yourself? Cause you're afraid if you're honest, she will leave like everyone else. Or are you going to express how you feel because you want to propel yourself in the direction of your purpose, which is to build a committed relationship with someone unlike anything you have ever physically witnessed in your own life? But that's a decision I have to make.
That's a question I have to ask myself. No one else is responsible for that other than me.
And so I think we look back, I look back on my life and go, why was it always so much easier to find value, worth, and fulfillment from strangers than it was from the people that I love most? Is that a problem with them? Or is that a result of my inactivity and my inability to allow myself to be present and fully show up without having the fear that they were going to run away? And I think all of those are parts and pieces of the questions we sort of have to ask ourselves, at least me regularly, maybe for somebody else, you only have to do it quarterly. I tend to have to do it daily to go, what are, what are those things? And so as I look back over my life, I, you know, graduated high school, I was going to go play football.
And then I realized like right before I graduated, like, I don't even like football. I'm about to go do this for four more years.
This is a terrible idea. And so then through a few events and I'm going to junior college for a couple of years and I transferred to Texas A&M.
I graduated from there. I went to a place out in East Texas called Sky Ranch.
It's a summer camp for kids. And I worked there for four years.
I came back to Dallas. I joined a pastoral staff at a church for about four years and did that.
So I was in full-time ministry for about eight years, right out of college. I realized that I was a jerk and that I was way more interested in you liking me than I was teaching you about God.
And that's a really crappy reason to be a pastor. And so I don't know if I had, I don't know if I could tell you that, that clearly, but I could tell you I was a jerk.
So got offered a teaching pastor job, um, in 2010, uh, big church, a few thousand people said, Hey, 26, one tattoo fauxhawk. You think your God's gift to people.
Why don't you teach 25 weekends a year? Uh I said, why don't we not do that? Because that sounds like a bad idea. And so I said, no, they said, what do you want to do? And I said, you know, of course I want to be a wedding photographer.
And that was more like, it was a hobby my wife and I had, she had just quit her job. We were just got married, had an apartment, no debt, no kids, one dog.
Let's start a business. Why not? This is pre Instagram.
This is pre Pinterest, pre personal branding. Like we got so lucky.
So we rode that wave sort of our entrance into entrepreneurship. And then I started this business about 11 years ago.
We found out we were pregnant with our son. And my wife said, if you could do anything for the rest of your life, what would you want to do? And I did not say this eloquently, although I do like to recount that I did because it does make me feel better about my career choice.
As I said, if I could do anything the rest of my life, if I could attempt to end my life having attempted to become an expert at anything, I would love to be a people expert. If I could marry my life experience, which is like the reality of what was with eight years of ministry, which is the reality of the care, deeply caring for the human being, for people.
And at this point now, marry that with 15 or so years of entrepreneurship, or we'll call that business or commerce, right? If you could

marry history in your past, and you could marry that with a deep care and desire for a human

with the capacity to take that into the market to say, what then shall we do? If I could marry all

those things together, if I could be an expert at anything, I'd want to be a people expert.

How could I do that? And so a little over a decade ago, started coaching individuals and saying,

hey, I had this business. Do you want one? They were like, oh, I'd love to have that.
I was like,

I'll show you how. And inside, I'm like, how are we going to show them how? I know it's never going to work.
And you know, you fast forward a decade and you go, I get methodologies and identity mapping, the confidence method, the influence appraisal on all these sorts of ways. And I think for me, what has helped me in all of that make is for me to say daily with my clients.
And every time I get on stage, I start every keynote the same. Hey, so glad you're here.
Get a pen and paper out. You're going to need something to write with and write on.
If you came to a conference, you know everything to write with. I'm asking you to ask yourself.
I'm not sure why you're here, but you are here. So get something out to write with.
And as we get going, let me start it with this. If you leave today knowing more about me than you know about you, then I failed you.
I'm not going home with you. You're going home with you.
So buckle in, do the work, show up for yourself. I guarantee you can leave here with something that might actually change your life.
Let's get going because I have to have that reminder for myself. Otherwise, I will think that I am your hero and I am your answer and I am not.
So Rocky, I love that, bro. And I want to unplug, no pun intended, a few things there.
So, you know, the moving, the first day of school. Wow, like that's so that's so wild.
And to hear it from that perspective, because we all had Rockies growing up. Right.
Like we always had the kid that was here for the first part of the year and then not there the next part of the year.

Maybe three years later, they're back for a little bit and then they're not there again. So I'm going to ask you a question, Rocky, that this is me making an assumption, but you're the person I can ask this to.
Did that make you sheltered? Did that make you, not that you didn't trust people, but it was more of, I don't need to get close because this is a temporary, right? Like, was that a Rocky feeling? Yeah. I realized about the age of 30 that I was very good at disclosure and very bad at vulnerability.
I was very good at giving you what you thought was vulnerability, but for Rocky, it was simply disclosure. I was, I could recount my story for the first, for the first probably five or six, seven years as a keynote speaker.
Every, no matter what keynote I gave, every keynote started the same. So I was born in 1983.
I was born in Kansas only the other about a week, came back to Dallas and I would recount my history because I felt like if I couldn't recount everything that occurred, I didn't have the credibility to be on a stage for you to hear what I had to say because I didn't think I had the credibility or expertise in my credentials and or my resume, right? I always joke I'm the only corporate keynote speaker that's never had a resume. Why? Well, because that wasn't my life.
My resume is not the certifications I have. Not knocking a certification, they're wonderful.
Your boy doesn't have any. Why? Because I didn't know that was a thing for me to do at the time when I should have or could have done it because I was in survival mode.
I was in disclosure mode. I was in tell the same thing you need to tell to make them go, man, that guy is open while making sure you don't tell them anything because they will use it and they will get you.
And so I think as the kid that moved around a bunch of kids going to school, like vulnerability now is my number one personal value.

It's one of the values in our organization, our business, not because Rocky's an expert at it. Because if I don't do that, I know what life will become.
Because if I'm not committed to saying I create the opportunity to see and be seen by others, I will make sure you don't see me and I will absolutely see you. And I've lived that life before.
And it was lonely. It was isolating.
and as much as people in my life loved me and cared for me,

it wasn't until I got married and had my own children that I was at the same house for Christmas more than one year in a row. Because there wasn't a house.
Because one year is with grandma, one year is my aunt, one year with my mom, one year with my dad, one year back with my grandma. And I'm not good about it right.
I'll be very clear. I love my family.
And there was no such thing as tradition. There was no such thing as a space where you belonged.
You just went where you were allowed. And I think even today, I think there's a lot of folks out there listening.
I would encourage you to ask yourself, do you currently live a life based on going to places that you think you're simply allowed? Or have you begun to build a life where you are creating the spaces because it's where you belong? And that's both personally and professionally. That's in corporate and that's in our community.
Pick a category. But I think for me, that was an absolute clear understanding that I've had to come to grips with over the last decade is, are you disclosing or are you being vulnerable? Because one allows you to be seen and the other one keeps you hidden.
Dang it, Rocky. Man, you get me every time, man.
Like, I feel that. Like, not that I could ever doubt that it wasn't real, but I feel the emotion.
I feel the energy. But what I also feel, and I actually know, is that none of that defines you.
They became pillars of who you are, but it didn't define who you are. And one of the things I probably appreciate the most is the last thing that you were talking about in the first part of the story, which is you went from, again, I'm going to interpret this.
You went from vision to action to business. So again, Rocky, the only speaker that doesn't have a resume, because you just said, I'm going to go do it, right? Like you and your wife, hey, I'm going to go start in this business.
You could have easily, college degree, go work for someone, right? Go build up the skill. But the mentality that Rocky Garza has is, hey, I am the opportunity, right? I get that because I'm the same way.
Like, I don't need a door to open for me when you are the opportunity, right? Like, hey, I'm here, right? Like, I'm here, let's go. So for the listeners and viewers, man, especially for leaders, let's talk about that.
How do you take vision and then put it into action? Because Rocky, you know me, one of the things, I love people that talk about mindset. I'm not a mindset guy because everything can stay up here, right? For those that are listening, not watching, I'm tapping my head.
Everything can stay up there, but it's the action that actually takes that into a plan, into a vision. So for you, Rocky, like how do you work with leaders to do that? Yeah.
Yeah. Great question.

Number one, and some of you are not going to like this answer.

You start by recognizing that you're probably not the person that has the vision.

So let's, let's throw out a number, right?

In your area, there's a hundred businesses.

Let's say every one of those businesses at minimum, which we know is crazy, has a hundred

employees, right?

So that's 10,000 people that are employed within a hundred businesses.

So out of 10,000, a hundred of those are asked to be the visionary. Hey, it's Cole Swindell, and I want to meet you in Austin at the I Heart Country Festival.
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That sounds like a good time.

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That's even if assuming the CEO is actually a visionary.

He or she, they may actually be an integrator,

which means the visionary may be some other role,

which is not the CEO altogether.

They may not even actually have a vision. They may have gotten a...
Okay, we won't belabor the point there because y'all got me fired up. Number one, you may not be the visionary.
So the reason that you are stuck in inactivity is because you are attempting to be something that you were never made and designed to be because you think it will be sexier for you to be the person that has the vision. But out of about a hundred companies and there's a hundred employees, 99 of those are executors, integrators, make happeners is what their job is because they were made and designed to do that.
And for whatever reason, there is a singular, maybe two, if we're getting wild people who have a vision and their job is to empower and equip people to take said vision and then go execute it because they don't know how. Now, the difference between you and I in those instances is that we chose the path of most resistance, which was let's be visionaries and then figure out how in the world we're going to make it happen until we can make enough money to pay somebody else to actually do it for us because we realize we don't know what we're doing.
And so that's just a part a part of what we would call entrepreneurship, right? Now we, we chose the path of most resistance. So for most leaders, it's identifying, why don't I back up a second? What is the path for you of least resistance? It is to let go of the mentality that you think you are supposed to carry a vision and discover how can you use your unique gifts and skills to execute the vision, even inside your own organization, my job today is to take the vision we have to best highest use of Rocky's time and everything else somebody else should be doing.
Not because I'm selfish, not because I'm arrogant, not because, oh, I think I'm somebody that I don't have to. You don't want me to be in charge of the schedule.
You don't want me to plan the curriculum. You don't want me to create the most dynamic booklet we're going to need to really get you.
If we, you wouldn't get one, we wouldn't have a booklet. That's a bad use of my time because I'm not good at it.
So I think for leaders to take a step back on number one, you don't own the vision. Now, if you're listening, you're a business owner and you do own the vision, you should ask yourself this question.
Am I actually a visionary or do I just have a good idea? Two very different things. Ask that again.
What's that question, Rocky? Are you a visionary? Or did you just have one good idea? I know a lot of integrators who have great ideas, but they're not visionaries. An idea is something that we haven't done yet that's going to solve a problem.
A vision is something that most people can't see that changes a generation. Which of those spaces do we want to be in? Not good or bad, not right or wrong.
One is not better. One is not worse.
What does it make you more valuable? One doesn't make you don't put yourself on a chart comparing yourself apples to fish. It doesn't work.
Rocky, we're going to talk to some people right here now, man, because now you have me fired up. And ladies and gentlemen, sorry, this is what you get when Mick and Rocky get together.
So we're going to talk to, I don't care if you're Fortune 100. I don't care if you're a small business, mom and pop, getting ready to start a business, solopreneur, whatever it is.
Most of the time when you are, what's the new buzzword for 2025? Stuck. People talk about getting unstuck.
So we'll just play along. I'm not a buzzword person, but we'll just say those that aren't going where they need to go.
It's because you have a title and that title, usually a CEO, founder, president, insert the highest level for your company. And what Rocky just said is true.
You're not the visionary and you don't allow others to be that. I? I know Rocky without naming their name, Fortune.
If they had a Fortune 5 list, they're a Fortune 5 company, right? The head of a certain department with a very nice title is not a visionary, but because of the title, they feel like that's their responsibility. And so after 45 days of doing some analysis, I'm sitting there like, the problem is actually you, because you won't let go.
You are totally great at the integration piece. You are so great at making sure the pieces move at the right movement, at the right cadence.
Usually that and the let me see the problem before it's a problem usually aren't the same people because this integrator is reserved and that's why they're the integrator. But because you won't let that go and you feel like if it's not your idea, I love that you broke down a difference between idea and vision.

Because it's not your idea, you're never going to let said employee or said vision happen. The biggest reason that most companies don't grow is because of that.
You hold the title, but then you also hold all the cards and you won't play the hand. Rocky, your turn.
I want you to imagine if you're a leader currently and ask yourself if visionary and integrator rubs the wrong cord with you and you're thinking, don't tell me what I am, what I'm not. Let's give it an analogy sense because we all like a good analogy.
CEO has a vision. Let's say they in fact are the visionary.
Wonderful. CEO gets together with all their SLT, ELT, vice presidents, whatever your company calls it.
And he casts the vision. Here's what I'm thinking.
Here's what we're doing. Now, in that environment, that visionary is tasking all of you in that room to become architects.
Go to your unique departments. Go to your areas and draw, create, show them the plan.
I'm talking CAD renderings, electrical, plumbing, where it goes, how it stays up, how, what's the foundational aspect. You've been given the vision, but your job in operations and sales and management and HR and people in training development, your job is to go architect now the drawing for your people to execute on so that they can then go and say the, let me get the plugs.
Let me get the wire. Let me go find the electricians.
Let me, but here's where it breaks down. You walk away from that meeting and you say, I'm now going to go to my team and I'm going to go be the designer.
And I'm going to see if they can become the architect. Yet we've created a system of accountability, whether you're in Rockefeller habits, you're an EOS, you're a pick, whatever it is, the systematic way that you're going at, you're approaching your business.
Many of us, number one, aren't the visionary to begin with. And we're trying to cast a vision.
It doesn't work. Let's assume that you are.
I'm going to ask you to go ask your key leaders, the top five, six, seven people in your circle. Are they leaving your office and trying to go be the designer next? Or are they leaving your office to go do their job, which is to go be the architect.
I guarantee you, if you will skip that layer and go to your senior director level and ask them if their leaders are coming to them with plans or with thoughts, 90% of the time, if you have a problematic organization and you're not growing the way you think, it's because your leaders leave the meeting with you. They go into a meeting and they take your plan, your dreams, they turn it into their own dreams and their own way.
They're not actually building plans. So your directors have no idea what to do and the lack of communication, the lack of lateral leadership and so on.
So I could not agree with you more that we want to hold the cards because we think it's going to make us important when we have to ask ourselves, are we willing to play the hand because ultimately we're trying to win the game? Do you want to hold the two pair of eight, you want to hold the two aces ready to go so that whenever you need them, you can play them? Or are you playing the card so you can win the hand so that at the end of the day, we can actually win the game? One of those requires for you to trust the people around you, making sure you put your bets in the right places. One of those says, I'm going to keep myself safe.
So if all else fails, at least I know I will be okay. One of those creates really healthy culture in teams.
One of those that is not. Because culture in your organization is not what you pontificate.
It's solely based on what you tolerate. I would ask you to encourage yourself to ask yourself, just you with you, what are you tolerating in yourself? Dang it, Rocky Garza, all day.
You have me pumped up as you do every day, right? The next thing I want to do, and I've heard you talk about this, but I want you to elaborate with the group. How important is creating a winning culture for an organization, right? Because again, these are the words of Mick and Mick only.
I see so many times where it's onto the next project, onto the next task, onto the next problem. And as entrepreneurs, we get in that grind because that's who we are.
But remember, everyone on your team isn't an entrepreneur. That's why they work with you.
So I learned early on to celebrate wins for my team, even if I'm not a person. Honestly, I don't need to celebrate a win.
My thing is, if I'm in the game, I'm supposed to win. However, the game isn't about me.
The win is never about me. And so if I didn't celebrate that and create winning cultures and create even small situations where people can get the confidence to win, right? Like I personally think that's problem number two with most businesses.
Again, I don't care the size. I can go to another Fortune 5 company where the mentality is on to the next one, but the companies that celebrate small success usually have a much better culture.
Rocky Garza, the floor is yours. Yeah, totally.
Let's go back to our phrase earlier. Culture is not what you pontificate.
It's what you tolerate. That's Rocky's fancy word because I like rhyming.
Culture is not what you say it is. It's what behavior do you allow? Now, I think in order for us to sort of go to that place, let's redefine the definition of tolerance, meaning what do we tolerate? Because I think oftentimes we default to tolerance is the lowest, least common denominator.
What will I tolerate? That's the least amount of effort. Well, as long as you, I've never been inside a thriving organization.
I'm not talking about just top line revenue. I'm saying thriving culturally, community driven, giving back.
People want to be there. A low attrition, high retention.
Pick a category that we want to say we measure a company's success. I've never been to one that was doing that where what they tolerated was the bare minimum.
What they tolerated was excellence was excellence. So like, even if you and I, and cause we're kind of the same, not really people who are like, I don't need to celebrate a win.
You know why we won? Cause we showed up today, my boy. That's like, that's going to where me and you are, but the average person, right.
Is not that way. And so like, if that's the case, do you tolerate celebration? Hey, it's Cole Swindell.
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Is celebration tolerated? Or is celebration the level of tolerance by which we expect? See, I think we need to take the same word and it's the way we use it to go. We don't tolerate that or we only tolerate.
Oh, wait, all of a sudden, one just became terrible and negative and the other one just became empowering. Hey, just so you know, we're an organization that we absolutely tolerate celebration.
We tolerate excellence. We tolerate meeting our metrics.
We tolerate daily behavior, daily activity. We tolerate, we only tolerate you being on time.
We tell that's what we do here. We expect you to join us in that because this is not just who we say we are.
You should be able to tell by the actions of people in our organization. This is exactly what we do.
And so I think so often times to your point, we go to places and we go onto the next one. Let's get to the next thing.
All right. We crushed that project.
What's the next project we have to do. And in all of that, I'm not wanting to slow us down at all.
I love a good metric, a KPI. What gets measured gets accomplished.
I mean, we've heard a million times. You can go see a thousand memes on today.
We understand that. And A-N-D, not but, get rid of that word.
A-N-D is the third or fourth time I've spelled that word out for us today. If you're listening, I hope you caught on here.
And do I check the box of tucking my kids in bed because they have to go to sleep? Or do I only tolerate the behavior in myself? It is to lay in bed with my son, to tell him how proud I am, to remind him that his father loves him. And no matter what happens, dad is always going to be in your corner because that's the behavior for myself that I will tolerate nothing less.
One of those says, good night, son, go to bed, click the light. One says, this is the level by which I operate because I will tolerate nothing less in my life.
And I use an example about kids or family or wherever you are in your life because I find we so often, especially as coaches, especially as speakers who spend a lot of our time in the business space, we are so quick to use a business example that is forgotten. But if you can use a personal example, it will almost always translate into business.
Because I can tell you what I think about most days, not business. My wife, my kids, my grandparents, my community, my family, my neighborhood, myself, if we're being honest.
So in our point of cultures and what we're doing and what we look like and what, ask yourself, what's the behavior you tolerate when you wake up? What's the behavior you tolerate when you go to bed? What's the behavior you tolerate with your kids? What's the behavior you tolerate in the kitchen? What's the behavior you tolerate with dinner? Tonight, I'm going of all things. And as we get to know each other more and more, Mick, you'll know how funny this will be.
I'm committed to go to my daughter's school's dad's pickup basketball game tonight. I hate basketball.
I hate playing basketball so much, but I'm going because I want to tolerate the kind of behavior that says when invited by another group of dads who have children at the school that my kids go to school at, who want to engage that I know how they feel because my job is to talk to them daily. I already know the kind of conversations that we're going to have tonight.
And I already know the kind of freedom I'm going to be able to feel when I'm on the basketball court making terrible shots because Rocky doesn't do things he's not good at. That's not because I'm good at everything.
I just don't do very many things. I just don't like to do the things I'm good at.
But I want to tolerate the kind of behavior of trying new things. My kids know I hate basketball.
Part of the reason I'm going to basketball is because I want to tell my son, dad's going to play basketball. And he laughed.
All right. We have a Google doc that my kid is on that he shares.
So when he gets in one of his classes, he can get on the Google doc and we can type to each other. And I told him I'm going to do that.
His words, I'm not kidding you make, he wrote back to me, actually, question mark?

Because he's like, bro, you don't play basketball, my guy.

This is a bad idea for you.

Well, that's because that's the kind of behavior we want to tolerate.

And I think the same thing applies in our work environment.

I love it, Rocky. So I'm going to tolerate you having a knee brace on and smelling like icy hot.

No, I'm putting the icy hot on before I get there. I'm telling you that.
I'm doing preventative measures. Man, Rocky could talk to you forever in a day, as you know.
Last question I want to ask you. Actually, there's two, but the first one is the importance of self-awareness.
I personally feel like, number one, I know it's something that you teach and you talk about, but I feel, and now I know hearing your story, you're one of the most self-aware people that I know. Right.
And I always tell people, you can't be relatable with others if you're not self-aware. And so how important has that been for you? And more importantly, how important should it be for others? Yeah.
I mean, I think it is paramount of importance to be self-aware because that allows us to, when we are aware of ourself, we will reflect others back on us and assume it's about us. That makes you relatable, right? Like let's, we'll go forward and we'll do a little theory we have called the upside down.
When I am self-aware, it means I'm aware of myself,

meaning I can go into an environment with another human being and I can be exponentially more aware

of you and what is unique and specific and distinct to you, not what is a reflection of my own fear. So when I know that I am confident in me, I can see you for you, no pun intended.
I don't have my glasses on today, but I can see you through your glasses, not through mine. Where we lack self-awareness though, we view everything through our glasses.
And so every action was about me. Everything you said was about me.
Every decision you made was about me. Your issues you're having in your relationships, whether it's your partner, your friends, your family, your spouse, your wife, your husband, the issues you have is because you're unaware of yourself and you think it's their fault.
That's issue number one in your relationships, not mine too. Right.
And so self-awareness is not, I think currently it's not deemed, I don't deem it as valuable and important so that I can sit in a room and look in a mirror and go, yeah, that's me. And that's a, that's a component of it.
I want to be able to look in a mirror and recognize myself. Yes.
But I want to be able to get in front of you and look at you and recognize you not see it as a reflection of me. And I think that self-awareness really asks us to, let's make it really simple.
Just ask yourself, you're listening, ask yourself this question. Do you spend more time at the window or do you spend more time in the mirror? And most of us spend more time looking out the window, trying to find the reflection of anything valuable and hope that it was us because we haven't been willing to get in front of the mirror to say actually what it is.
Love it. Love it, man.
Last question for you. What is Rocky's because? What's that deeper purpose that's deeper than your why?

Yeah. Yeah.
I have, and probably will up until this point, spent my life discovering

who am I? Why does it matter? And is it of any importance? Am I unique? Has anybody decided

that uniqueness was valuable? And can I do anything with that uniqueness? On repeat, again and again and again and again and again. Over the last 40 plus years or so, I have begun to realize the answer to that is yes.
I am unique. Not better, not worse, not actually even on a scale related to any other human being.
There is no one in the world like me. And A and D.
And I am equally valuable to every other person on earth. And they are as equally valuable to me.
If I can utilize my life, my past, my history, my current day experiences, my future vision, the love of people in my life, if I can use that such that I can not only continue to discover that for myself, but lead people to the place to get in front of the mirror and see that they are unique, to remind them that it is good, not just true, that's confirmation, good affirmation, and allow them to take any step towards creating good in the world because of how they were made, designed, and created. That's a really, really good use of my time.
And that starts with my kids. That starts with my wife.
That starts with me. And if by chance I get to do that professionally, what an incredible life I've lived.

Ladies and gentlemen, he has been Rocky Garza. Rocky, brother, I appreciate you more than you know.
Where can people follow, find you? What's new that Rocky has coming up or going out? Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

You can follow me on, we're on all platforms,

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube. It's just at Rocky Garza.

Look for the bald guy with big eyebrows. There's not a lot of Rockies out there that look like me and Mick.
So find us, we'll be out there in that space. And then if you're looking to just how you can get engaged in what we're doing outside of just a regular follow, you can go to Rocky Garza.com slash confidence.
That's Rocky Garza.com slash confidence. You can check out our next upcoming event.
We have monthly invite only events. We'd love to have you at, you can check it out there and you can register, grab your seat there.
We'd love to have you where we walk through what it looks like to lead without losing yourself. And we go through that on a monthly basis, free of charge to you.
And we would, we'd love to have you at that with us. So just Rocky Garza.com slash confidence.
We need to make that happen so much. So Rocky, I'm going to go on and choose one that I'm actually going to attend.
And maybe I'll invite a couple of people to come with me. So if you want to go with me to a Rocky Garza event, live and in person with the man, the myth, the legend, Rocky Garza himself, message me, Rocky Garza, and I'm going to select two people and we're going.
How about that?

Let's go. Man.
I'd love that, man. I'd be honored.
I'd be honored. No, it's going to, I'm going to be the honored one.
Like that's going to happen. That is totally going to happen.
Rocky, appreciate you, man. I'm going to reach out in the morning and make sure your knees feel good.
Your Achilles is still intact because, you know, I did that same thing and I tore an Achilles and And I was like, okay, I'm not 25 anymore.

That's right.

That's right.

Well, I'm that same thing and I tore an Achilles and I was like, okay, I'm not 25 anymore. That's right.
That's right. Well, I'm just going to keep playing and remind myself that I'm also not 25.
So your boy's not trying to do anything fancy. I'm going to go with the easy layup or the nice free throw shot outside of that.
Hey, I'll get to the end of the court when I get there. That's what you say.
And then you're going to get challenged. You're going to feel good, right? You're like, oh, I got the juice.

I still got it.

And then you're going to say, I still got, oh.

That's right.

That's right.

So yeah, so I'll just keep my mind.

Hey, Rocky, you got no juice, my boy.

You got no juice.

Just be a human.

Just do that instead.

Rocky, I love you, brother.

It means the world to have you great friends with us today. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go Unleash It.