The Power of Mindset: How Mark Bruce & Duane Gibbs Help People Unlock Their Potential

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, host Pedro sits down with Mark Bruce and Duane Gibbs, co-founders of Huddle for Success, to discuss the transformative power of mindset, leadership, and personal growth.

Drawing from decades of entrepreneurial and coaching experience, Mark and Duane share the life lessons that shaped their journeys, the importance of developing a success-oriented mindset, and why growth is essential in today's fast-changing world. They explore how limiting beliefs hold people back, the value of mastermind partnerships, and the strategies they use to help individuals gain clarity, achieve meaningful goals, and unlock their full potential.

The conversation also highlights the story behind Huddle for Success, their passion for helping entrepreneurs and professionals create lasting impact, and the practical steps anyone can take to evolve personally and professionally. Whether you're a business owner, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone seeking a new direction in life, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you move forward with confidence and purpose.



Connect with


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duane-gibbs-40a04822b/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-bruce-a30955a/
Website: https://huddleforsuccess.com/

Transcript

Mark Bruce 0:00

The mind is so powerful. It's it's the the the most powerful thing in all of creation is the mind. And if you can learn how it works and learn how to make it work for yourself, you've you've got that you've got this journey to the So can I follow up with that, Pedro?

Pedro 0:11

Absolutely.

Duane Gibbs 0:12

Yeah, so so you you were asking about, you know, who is our our our pe you know, who are the people that we attract? And Mark said it it's us, you know, it's the guy that's from forty to sixty years of age, that is a business owner, that's an entrepreneur, that someone is looking for something different, and you know, it's it's men and women. You know, there there's there's a lot of so I say soccer moms that are out there that are now empty nesters that are looking for something different. They they've always wanted to go off and do whether it's Mary Kay, or they they wanna they want to be involved. They want to, because they've always stayed home and had a hard job of raising raising the family and now they're gone. What are they gonna do? You know, and so there are a lot of people that we come across that really want to do something different. You know, they don't they don't want to be a stay-at-home mom anymore. They don't want to be that soccer mom, even though they miss it. They really want to branch out and and you know, people are living longer. And so someone at at 40, 50 years of age are finally going out and starting something that they've had a passion for for so long. And so those are the people that we resonate with just because that's where that's that's our wheelhouse, that's our playground. And we're very familiar with it with you know, if you constantly have to evolve in today's world, and if you're not evolving, then you know, you're just coasting along and who likes to coast? I mean, it's just it's not productive. You know, no different than going to Las Vegas. If you went to Las Vegas two years ago, it's completely different now because all the hotels have to evolve. They have to rebuild, they have to restructure because if if it's the same all the time, people are gonna go visit it. So everything evolves.

Davis Nguyen 1:36

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars. In every episode of the podcast, you're gonna learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is gonna give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro 2:21

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Dwayne Gibbs and Mark Bruce, co-founders of Huddle for Success, who together bring decades of leadership experience, helping teams and organizations break through the performance barriers that keep talented people from reaching their full potential. Duane's background in building high performing cultures combined with Mark's expertise in strategic leadership development, creates a powerful partnership that addresses both the human and operational sides of organizational growth. Their huddle for success methodology proves that when leaders invest in genuine team cohesion, accountability, and purposeful communication, their results go far beyond productivity metrics to create workplaces where people actually want to show up and give their best. Welcome to the show, Duane and Mark. This is our first duo episode, so I'm excited to record with you guys. Hey, good morning. Good morning, Pedro. Yeah, great to have you both, okay? And I'd love to for us to rewind a bit, okay, because you know, I know we're talking about two people here, but I want to browse into each one of your origin stories really quick, okay, and why coaching became a thing right now, right? And let's start with Duane. Duane, uh, what made you go into coaching?

Duane Gibbs 3:49

Well, to be honest with you, my dad, he worked, he was a corporate America guy, worked for Coca-Cola for 28 plus years. And so he worked a nine to five job. And one day when I came home from school, I think I was a junior in high school, and he was sitting on the couch very upset. And, you know, I didn't really understand what was going on. And he said after so many years, you know, that they let him go. And I just noticed the the devastation on his face of what are we gonna do? You know, we we weren't we weren't rich, but we weren't we weren't living out of a trash can either. I mean, we we did okay. My mom and dad both worked two jobs growing up, so they provided wet very well for my sister and I for a red regular middle middle of the road family, so to say. And so from that, I was I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I'll I was in construction at the time, and the guy that I worked for had his own business. And I would see that, you know, this guy didn't have to report to anybody. He didn't, he learned a trade, he was able to go out and create his own destiny. And that's really what I wanted. I did not want somebody to tell me how much I was worth. And so, even though I didn't have a coach for growing up, my dad essentially was my coach because as much as I wanted to be like him, I knew that I didn't want to go down the path and be like him in a way of somebody telling me, hey, listen, we don't need you any longer at this job. And so it really was an early off young age mindset of going out and doing for yourself. And so I started investing in real estate, and my dad always said, you know, why do you want to do that? That's risky. Well, working for you know, a Fortune 500 company, that's risky as well. And just because Dwayne owns a piece of property doesn't mean that everybody's gonna stop paying. And so that's kind of that was how the story, that's how it started. And then from that point on, I got connected with a gentleman that owned a seminar company, and it was it was right in line with uh what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to help people explain how to go out and just buy one more home. So if you bought one, why couldn't you buy just one more? And so, you know, when you go to retire, if God forbid you were let go from your corporate job, your nine to five, you had something else to fall back on because we didn't, you know, my dad had to go out and get another job, they didn't have a big savings, and so they had enough, you know, to last 60 days for bills, and then that was it. What was he gonna do? And so if you could learn how to go out and buy one more home, one more investment property, then you you would be doing better than the average American. And so I went out on a got into the seminar business and toured all around the country, showing people how they can invest in real estate and do wholesale buying and mortgage notes and all of that. And so it just evolved. And 30 years later, I was still in that same business in that industry of sitting across the table from people, educating them on how to create, excuse me, generational wealth and being able to create financial independence for themselves. And so that's really how it started. And then, you know, after 30 years, I was at a point where I wanted something different. You know, I was ready to move on and do something different, and in a complete different transition, instead of it being finance, let's I've I wanted to now go in and talk about the mind, how the mind works, what people really aren't getting today. Because listen, we live in a different world than we did when I grew up. You know, I'm 58 years of age, and so when I was 18, it's way different than it is right now, you know, with the fast pace of AI, with corporate companies letting people go, with more people working from home. And so there's a lot of things that are going on in today's world. I remember growing up as a kid, typically Saturday at 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, everything was shut down until Monday. Well, I mean, who does that anymore besides Chick-fil-A, you know? And so it just, it's, it's not, it's unheard of in today's, in today's world. And so I just I I know Mark, and so he and I transition over and we'll get further down the road on that story of why we created Huddle for success.

Pedro 8:19

Okay. Interesting. Yeah, you're talking about fast pace of technology. I'm thinking about VHS, right? I'm thinking about CDs, Blu-rays. I'm 40, right? So I'm I'm thinking about, and no, I'm not even thinking about AI. I'm thinking about the the stuff I buried along the years, right? Technology that was like, wow, this is great. And it dies completely 15, 20 years later down the road.

Duane Gibbs 8:42

Okay, now our our video game was Pong, you know. When you say Pong, kids think ping pong or something. No, it was it was watch a ball, a dot go across the screen, and you know, then when Atari came out, that was like that was like a new galaxy that we entered. You know, it was this crazy, crazy. So, you know, the the world has evolved and and people have to evolve, you know.

Pedro 9:08

100%. Now, Mark, I want to talk about you, your origin story, right? I'm just hoping it doesn't start with so my my dad fired Dwayne's dad, right? And he worked at Coca-Cola. So let's hope that didn't happen. But walk me through how that coaching went through into your world.

Mark Bruce 9:25

It didn't happen, but oddly enough, my dad was Dwayne's vice principal in high school. We we we did not know each other at the time, but yeah. My God small world. Anyway, no, my dad did not fire Dwayne's dad, but my my dad, my dad was my first coach too, because he was a he was a gym teacher and he coached basketball and track. So, you know, I I jokingly, kids like, you know, I was born with a coach. So I was I'm just in the family business. And you know, my my my dad, he, he, he coached me. I I remember my first my first goal that I ever had is I wanted to I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I was six feet, six inches tall or two meters for for our for for the European crew when I was in eighth grade. And I thought I I thought I was gonna be, I thought I was gonna be you know this really big, tall guy. I have not grown an inch taller since then. I have grown an inch, but not taller since then. So I I did eventually, I my dad, being my coach, found me an even better coach in high school. I played two years at Damatha High School under Morgan Wooten, who was arguably the best basketball coach, high school basketball coach in the country ever. We did a tour of Brazil. I think I think I mentioned pre pre-game. Between our junior and senior year, we toured Brazil, played 14 games in 17 days. We had all kinds of great experiences. And uh it did earn me a scholarship to get through college. Once I got out of college, my actually, while I was still in college, my dad gave me a book that he was given by a friend called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I read it, great book. And when I got I got married my senior year in college, and my wife and I started a business, a tanning salon business in 1986, 40 years ago. Probably the year you were born, it sounds like. But we we we grew our tanning salon business to a multi-million dollar a year in revenue, uh, sold it to a franchise, transitioned into buying real estate, and then I met Dwayne because I got tired of the real estate business and I wanted to learn the note business. Dwayne at the time was teaching people how to buy notes secured by real estate. And that's how we we met and we kind of became friends. We found out that my dad was his vice principal, and and I built that business up with another partner to where we we own multiple mortgages and we we started an investment company. In 2020, when there was some virus that happened sometime around 2020. I don't know if anybody remembers that. It was kind of weird, but I decided, all right, so I had I had rental properties, I had mortgages, and I'm thinking nobody's gonna be able to pay me. Nobody's gonna pay their mortgage, nobody's gonna pay their rent. My gosh, I need a different source of income. So I went back and I picked up Think and Grow Rich again and I started reading it. And I realized something I didn't realize the first time I read it is it's it's it's a plan for becoming successful financially and in life. And that led me to Bob Proctor. Bob Proctor had studied that book from 1961 until the day he passed. And I was thinking, gosh, if he spent that much time studying the book, he can probably help me figure it out even faster. So I I became a I started coaching with Bob. He became my mentor, and I became a Procter Gallagher consultant. Circle around to Dwayne, we we decided to, I did some work with Dwayne coaching him. He was looking to transition. We're like, you know, we we've got similar, really similar backgrounds, and yet we come at it from two different sides. If we could form a mastermind or a group that could help coach people, that's how we formed Huddle for Success. Dwayne came up with the with the great name. I'm a true believer in mastermind. I've been a part of a mastermind group sin my entire business career almost. So that's how we came up with Huddle for Success.

Pedro 12:56

Interesting.

Mark Bruce 12:57

Our goal is to help as many people as we can figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

Pedro 13:02

What they want to be when they grow up. I love that. Okay. Interesting. So we have more in common, not just a Brazil thing. I I was a former consultant here in Brazil, too, Ernest and Young, right? Yeah. So there's that. Now I'm curious about one thing, right? Because you guys, the both of you, were entrepreneurs, right? But there is a shift that happens, and that shift it kind of happened because you guys got together and launched Huddle for Success, which is a coaching business, right? So the shifts also somewhat to an extent an identity shift because you're like, oh, I'm a consultant, I'm a business owner, now I'm coaching people, right? So towards that, my question to the both of you is this has been going for a year, okay? But how did that look like when you guys started, right? Was it like did you felt like this is really a coaching business, is a consultant business? And why did you I know you you want to help people, but why did you eventually launch it as a coaching business, for example?

Duane Gibbs 14:01

You wanna Yeah, so so that's a good question, Pedro. And and so that was I started to allude to the fact of the businesses that I was in, it was in how to invest, how to invest financially. And with doing that for 30 years, I wanted to look at it as a different way of let's look at where people are mentally and then and then diversify into finance because Mark and I have a lot of connections, you know, combined 70 years of experience. We have a lot of connections throughout the United States and abroad that we can help people create generational wealth and IRA investments and real estate node investments and business investments. So we already have that in the can. So if somebody says, listen, I'm I'm I'm a corporate guy and I I want to get out of corporate America and I've always wanted to be a I always wanted to do this, and I have X amount of dollars where I'm not worried so much about the income right now, but I'm worried about the rest of my life because what I have found over the years is what people can't get back is their time. You know, they can create more money, they can create a different lifestyle, but they can't get more time. And so when I came to Mark about two years ago, I said, listen, I'm in a transition and I cannot, I can't put together what this looks like. I want to be able to help people. And this was my this was my out-of-body thinking of what I wanted to do. And then when he introduced me to Bob, I sat up in my seat and I've listened, I've listened to so many people over 30 years of the who's who's in the in the educational, coaching, investment arena, as you can, if you name them, I've heard them or I know them, or I've worked with them in some way, shape, or form. And so this was the first thing that really sat me up in my seat. So I my head was this big, if you know, listening to it, it kind of popped the balloon, and now I'm over, overflowing with information coming out. Oh, I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this. This all makes sense. And then working with Mark, it was we were able to formulate and collaborate and put all this together and said, you know what, because we are so different, we have we have the same end goal. Mark wanted to do the same thing. Mark's Mark's end goal was really to be able to put this in all junior and senior highs of a different methodology of thinking to kids of upgrowing for because let's face it, there really isn't any corporate America anymore as we know it. You know, there you people go work for a company, typically 10 years, they move on, they go, but you don't hear people staying at a job anymore for 30, 40 years, unless, you know, you're you're in law enforcement or you're in the military or or you're in the government. I mean, that typically anybody else, not really. And unless you're that far up the scale where you've been with a company 25, 30 years, and you say, okay, well, what else am I going to do? I'll stay here for another 10 years and retire. So being able to bring it and introduce it at that level is very smart. And so he and I formulated, like you said, huddle for success, and it was more of let's let's focus on the mind, but yet then also be able to entertain the fact of, well, you know, I'm really off in where I need to be financially. What does that look like? What can you help me with that? Well, that's easy. That's the easy part. Trying to shift your mind of the way you think, the way you operate, the way you do, and what you have done up to this pat up to this point has created a pattern that really doesn't make sense to a lot of people. People don't do right goals anymore. You know, they're in a point of their life to where they're unclear. And so there's a big clarity problem in today's world because there's so many things, and everybody wants to do everything, but they're just not clear of how to do it. And so they fall short of that. And we believe that there is a huge cry for people that are falling short, short, that are looking for direction and clarity. And so I believe with our combined 70 years, with the way we have formulated Huddle for Success, it's to me, it's a no-brainer. It's what I was looking for, you know, after 30 years of doing it, and now being able to structure it and teach it as something that I've always wanted, as I I couldn't be any more pleased.

Pedro 18:37

Okay. Now, I'm curious about one thing. You you were mentioning Dwayne, and I want this answer for Mark, for Mark, okay. When you guys sat down, and when you were putting this together, the Huddle for Success Business a year ago, you guys, I imagine, sat down and realized, okay, this is our ICP, our ideal client profile. This is the people who are gonna serve. So who do you serve and why do you serve them, Mark?

Mark Bruce 19:02

Well, we we did create, we, we, we did take a look at who we wanted to serve, and it was basically us. Yeah, we we wanted to serve people like us because we knew that we could relate to people like that, people that were successful. They had built things, they had built companies, they had built investments, and yet they feel they felt paused or pulled to do something different than they were currently doing. And you know, the world is changing so fast. We, you know, we've mentioned that a few times on this conversation already. The one thing that Bob taught me is that if you're not growing, you're going backwards. And and my desire is to help people grow because a lot of people right now, a lot of people my age, I'm I'm I'm the old guy here. I'm I'm sick, I turn 66 tomorrow. And uh, and I've got a lot of my friends, they're retiring and they're they're starting to get comfortable, and good for them, but man, the the world and the economy is changing, and it's gonna change faster than anybody imagines. Um I believe that Colonel Sanders had it right when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 65 years old. You've gotta keep, you've gotta keep growing. And I know that's gets going to be beneficial to people our age. We do, we, we do actually Dwayne was right. I I think this, what we teach, needs to go into high schools. I wish I'd learned it in high school. I was fortunate my dad shared me the basics of it when I was in college, and I learned a little bit of it then, but I didn't learn it nearly as well as I did when I started working with Bob. But the the mind is so powerful, it's it's the the most powerful thing in all of creation is the mind. And if you can learn how it works and learn how to make it work for yourself, you've you've got that you've got this journey to so so can I follow up with that, Pedro?

Pedro 20:41

Absolutely.

Duane Gibbs 20:41

Yeah, so so you you were asking about, you know, who is our our our peak, you know, who are the people that we attract? And Mark said it it's us, you know, it's the guy that's from 40 to 60 years of age, that is a business owner, that's an entrepreneur, that someone is looking for something different, and you know, it's it's men and women. You know, there there's there's a lot of so I say soccer moms that are out there that are now empty nesters that are looking for something different. They they've always wanted to go off and do whether it's Mary Kay, or they they wanna they want to be involved. They want to because they've always stayed home and had a hard job of raising raising the family and now they're gone, what are they gonna do? You know, and so there are a lot of people that we come across that really want to do something different. You know, they don't they don't wanna be a stay-at-home mom anymore, they don't want to be that soccer mom, even though they miss it, but they really want to branch out and and you know, people are living longer. And so someone at at 40, 50 years of age are finally going out and starting something that they've had a passion for for so long. And so those are the people that we resonate with just because that's where that's that's That's our wheelhouse. That's our playground. And we're very familiar with it with, you know, if you constantly have to evolve in today's world, and if you're not evolving, then, you know, you're just coasting along and who likes to coast? I mean, it's just it's not productive. You know, no different than going to Las Vegas. If you went to Las Vegas two years ago, it's completely different now because all the hotels have to evolve. They have to rebuild, they have to restructure. Because if if it's the same all the time, people are going to go visit it. So everything evolves.

Pedro 22:32

Okay. Now I want to do a quick exercise with you guys. Okay. I want to pretend I'm your ICP or your client profile. I could be one of those entrepreneurs you guys mentioned. Okay. So, first of all, how would I be able to find you marketing wise?

Mark Bruce 22:46

Marketing-wise, a lot of our clients come from referrals, but we we do we do have a podcast that we broadcast every Monday, nine o'clock Eastern time in the U.S. Um, and we'll do quick mindful thoughts on Wednesday and Friday. You can find us on YouTube, and our website is huddleforcess.com. We offer anybody that comes to visit. We wrote a book, Playbook for Life, and you can download a free copy on the website. Okay.

Pedro 23:11

Now I'm going to expand on that. Okay. So I'm still that guy. So I listen to one of your podcasts, or even was referred to you guys, right? Hey, you gotta work with those guys. Huddle for success. They're pretty awesome. It just so happens I I and I got in touch with you guys. We go through the sales process. We can speed up that a little. Okay, let's say there's alignment. You guys can help me. I we're aligned. Okay. So one question I have for I'm gonna have one question for Dwayne and one for Mark. The the question for Dwayne is how does that look from my perspective as a client? How does that look like to work with you guys? And for Mark, I'll ask Mark, what are the potential outcomes I can expect out of it? Okay. So Dwayne, be my be my guest.

Duane Gibbs 23:56

Yeah, so so first of all, we slow it way down and we do in a personal assessment coming in. So what we do is we have a personal assessment growth scorecard, and we're gonna give that to you, and it has so many things listed on it. It talks about personal growth, it talks about spirituality, it talks about finance, it talks about family, it talks about job, it talks about it breaks it all down. And so you rate yourself from one to ten. And so you're gonna go in and you're going to rate yourself. And once we get that, then we have a conversation and looking at what's the most important thing to you? You know, where are you currently at? And so we do a complete assessment of saying, okay, Pedro, this is where you are. We've done the scorecard, we've totaled it up, and here you are. What's important to you? What is it that you want to change? What's that outcome? And so then our training, we have a year-long coaching program, and six months of that is we take you through the methodology of Bob Proctor's thinking and the results. And so we work with you every single week. It's it's not a recording, it's live. And so we take you through chapter by chapter by chapter by chapter, all 12 chapters, and we break all of this down. And it's it's it's really evaluating this current situation that you're in right now and building a clearer roadmap for you to get to. And so, with that, three months into it, we bring back that scorecard. And now we what we do is we reassess where you're at, and we see, okay, here spiritually, you're up, you're up, you're up three dot three marks from where you were, and that was important to you. You wanted to be more spiritual. And so that that thought process, that mind shift, now you're able to start seeing many wins in growth. You would be surprised of the people that we work with, the change that that comes to them to where they can, they feel like they're accomplishing something. They feel like, wow, I'm really growing because there's an assessment tool that can gauge where I'm at. Nobody does that. You know, companies open the door every single day, and at the end of the year, they look at their, they look at their finances and say, okay, well, we had a bad year or we had an okay year. So if companies would assess more on a regular basis and and individuals, if you were to assess every single quarter of where I am, am I hitting my mark? Am I doing what I wanted to do? Am I doing what I expected to do? Therein lies a better life for you and a better life for your business. There could there comes true growth. And a lot of people outgrow their positions in companies. Just because you hired Susan to be a receptionist doesn't mean that she still needs to be a receptionist. Maybe she's has more heart for the business. Maybe she's more engaged, and you need to now put her in quality control or whatever. So I think that if companies and individuals take more of an assessment of where they are, they'll see the growth and then it will be able to expand not only their business but personal life. And so I think that's the biggest measure and the biggest value that we bring our clients is helping them see that they can still grow, they can still evolve, and they can still achieve all the goals that they want.

Pedro 27:26

Now, Mark, I'm curious about some examples, right, of outcomes you've seen your clients going through. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Mark Bruce 27:33

Well, sure. One of the, you know, one of the things that that I was surprised first when I started working with is that people don't, they don't actually know what they want. That that figuring out their goal and what they actually want is almost one of the harder things. And that's the thing that we work on first is we, you know, we we sit down with somebody and we help them dream. Bob Proctor was a dreamer, and he said, you know, you can achieve anything that you want in the world if you can see yourself with it. It's the vi it's the vision board. You know, I I've worked with P, I worked with a guy, and he said, you know, I I had this job one time and and my boss, he had this house on a lake and he had a boat, and the it was a wonderful thing. And I was like, man, I I wish I had that. And he's like, he he didn't even realize it until I pointed it out. He's like, well, gosh, Jim, you know, that's what you have now. You you you created that same dream. What you saw, you now have. Yeah. I was like, and that's how you that's how you get to the next thing that you want. And want is a want is a good thing. You know, it's I don't know, there was a movie Greed about greed being bad. It's it's not. We're all born to want more. You know, when you're a baby, you you want to walk. Once you learn how to walk, you want to run. You we we all want more and we want to grow. Purpose of life is to grow. And when you when you grow intentionally, there's a system to do that. And that's what thinking into results teaches. When we when we take people through that, we teach how to how your mind and how you can replace habits that don't serve you well with habits that do. That's one of that's one of the biggest ways to help somebody increase their productivity and become more successful, is how to replace bad habits with good habits. We all have habits and beliefs in our subconscious. We didn't put the most of them there. You know, our our families put them there. Our it's all handed down. A lot of it is handed down from how you grew up. And just because you don't have good habits and beliefs don't mean that you can't change them. And that's one of the things that we spend most of our time helping our clients learn how to change their habits and believe that they can do whatever they want.

Pedro 29:38

Interesting. Now I want to shift gears for a second. I need to give a little bit of a deep dive since we're talking with a duo, right? I'm talking with the both of you. And uh, there are a lot of solopreneurs in the coaching space, right? So I gotta ask why having a partnership? Why didn't you guys one went one way and the other went to another way? So what's up with that? Can you guys expand for me?

Mark Bruce 30:03

Teams, teams win, individuals don't. And one of the one of the chapters, actually, the last chapter in Think and Grow Rich is the power of the mastermind. That's one of the things that I learned. And that's why I wanted to partner with Dwayne, because he has skills that I don't have. And I have some skills that he doesn't have. When we combine what we have to help people, we we I'm part of a mastermind group with a real estate developer in Australia, uh a real estate owner and coach in Canada. And the things that I learned from them are so valuable. I can pass them on to other people. That's why we named our company Huddle for Success. It's the mastermind, it's the huddle that that creates the team that can beat an individual, Dwayne.

Duane Gibbs 30:43

I can tell you, you know, for me, I'm I have uh an office, a big office, and I have an English bulldog, and she's smarter than I am because I talk out loud a lot. And so if you're the only person in the room, that means you're the smartest person in the room and you don't learn. You can't evolve. And so I like I've always traveled, again, I traveled for 30 years, 45, 48 weekends out of the year. And so I'm a I'm in the people business, is what I like to call it, because I love people. I love being able to help. I I I love that. It's just a passion that I have. And, you know, being able to create, I know that I didn't want to do this coaching program by myself just because if somebody's just getting me, I'm doing a disservice. I'm doing a disservice to the business and I'm doing a disservice to the individual. So I wanted somebody that knows more than I do and can surround me by people that know more than I do, and that where we can evolve, because when we evolve, then we can help our clients. And again, that's just giving back. And so Mark was the right guy just because number one, we're well, we grew up from the same area. Number one. So that that that made it nice. Number two, we both love sports, we're sports nuts. I think I'm a little bit bigger of a fan, but I I that's that's that's to say who that the jury's still out on that, but I love sports. I played it all my life. I constantly I have ESPN on right now on my TV. So I that's the only channel I have. When cable cable asks, hey, what do you want to, what, what channels are important to you? I say sports. Okay, what else? No, sports. That's it. Just give me any channel in sports, and I'm good. I don't need HGTV, I don't need, you know, homework channel, I don't need just sports. You have a sports package, it's all one. And so, you know, they give you 280 channels, and only three of them are sports, so it's really uh throwing money out the window. But all joking aside, I I wanted to, I wanted to be able to evolve myself and not only through having a partner and people that we surround ourselves by, but I also wanted to work with people because listen, there are a lot of clients that I worked with over the years, tens and thousands of people that I work with that are way smarter than me. Even though they were a client, I still learned from them. And so that's what I wanted to be part of. Because if I can learn something from somebody else and add that to my bag, to my arsenal, it becomes, it becomes more powerful for the next person. And so I'm I'm better today than I was yesterday, and I'll evolve from today into tomorrow. And so we learn from podcasts, we learn from doing interviews like this, we learn from ourselves, and we constantly mind feed. And so that was important for me.

Pedro 33:40

Okay. So, first of all, thank you, right? Because it means I'm evolving. I'm not the smartest in the room. Let's put it simple like that. Okay. Now, second, I'm curious about one thing, okay? Because we kind of understand that you guys teamed up for a reason, several reasons, right? Uh, there's a skill set, there's a you you mentioned his from your hometown and all that. Now, I'm I really want to, you know, peel off the onion and get one deep, deep reason for it. So for people to understand when to, you know, to realize you have a potential good partner. So if you had to pick Mark and Dwayne, but let's go for with Mark. If you had to pick one key true asset that you need to find in a partner, okay, to realize this is going to be a good partnership. And you only had to pick one from Duane. Okay. What would that be, Mark?

Mark Bruce 34:30

His desire to help people. That it it aligns with my desire. And when you're on the same path and and and you have the same purpose, I think it it gives you a bond a bound a it gives you a bond that will help you get through challenging times. Yeah. We we don't agree on everything, and that's a good thing. You know, I have ideas, I bounce them off Dwayne, he fixes them, and vice versa. So, but the desire to help people, I think is the thing that I like most about my partner in Huddle for Success. Nice. How about you, Dwayne?

Duane Gibbs 35:01

Yeah, he took half my I was hoping he wasn't gonna say it because uh that that I would say that the biggest, the most important thing about our relationship personal and business is I like that we don't always agree because if we always agree, then we weren't evolving. We don't agree 30% of the time, but our end goal is the same, that never changes. And the reason that we don't agree is because we're two creative people. We have we have something that each other wants to fulfill in our own personal life, you know. So Mark has a has a dream and a goal, and I have a dream and a goal, and we're we're two, we're two people that have an extraordinary amount of passion for, don't let him kid you, he loves helping people too. That's what Mark Mark gives the shirt off his back to somebody. And so he he really wants to do good to others, but I like that we don't always agree because if you could find a partnership where you agree on everything, eventually there's gonna be a blow up where you can't fix it. And so there are times that, hey, we'll we'll go weeks with everything running along, and then all of a sudden we'll hit a hit a wall, and it's like, daggone it, I'm not gonna agree with this. I don't, I don't want to, this is the wrong message, or no, you're wrong. And Mark is very ready, shoot, and make sure the target doesn't move, analyze it, and I'm the opposite. I'm like, sounds good, let's go. You know, I I I'm I'm I'm the aim, shoot, don't shoot. I mean, I I need that balance. Number one, I suffer for ADHD, dyslexia. Um, everything from me typically is off the cuff because that's the way I have to operate. And and I feel like I'm out my best that way. If I have to read a script, we're we're redoing it 50 times, it just takes so much time. And so, so having that balance, you know, with Mark, it's it's the right partnership. And I think, again, you know, to reiterate that if you have a partnership to where you gr agree all the time, like a happy marriage, and you don't have a just you know, a disagreement and you can't vocally speak, Mark and I both are communicators. We he doesn't he doesn't like confrontation. Sometimes I like it a little bit more just because I'm trying to get the best out of him. And okay, you're dead set on this. Why? Why? Why? I mean, I need to make logical sense of it. And it doesn't mean that I want to argue with him, it's just because I don't understand. And that's not what I see. And so it's nothing personal. And you have to, we both have very thick skin, and so we can have an argument and hang up and 20 minutes later get on the phone and act like nothing happened, and boom, because we're an adult, because we're in business, and at the end, at the end of the day, our students is why we're doing this. And so we we understand enough that we have to fix this issue and move on. We may, we may, we may skirt around it for a day and then we'll come back to it, but we always come to a solution, and uh, I think that's what makes us better as a company.

Pedro 38:16

Okay, appreciate the insights, guys. Now let's talk about future, right, Mark? So what's next? What I mean, where do you see the business going? Just one year in the game, you guys have a lot coming on. You know, are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you both are excited about?

Mark Bruce 38:32

We're we're both continuing to learn about AI and how it can help help us help us help more people by getting the word out, by helping us to use technology to implement some of the things that we want, some of the coaching programs that we want to have. We're we're looking at at all of that. Yeah. Uh growth. We have a goal to help 250 people this year, to help them achieve their goal. Once we hit that goal, I'm sure it'll go up to at least 500, if not more. So that's that's one of that's that's one of the growth processes. Once we learn how to help smaller groups and middle-sized groups, then we can, you know, figure out how you can do what Tony Robbins does and have thousands of people that you help all at one time. You want to expand on the future, Dwayne?

Duane Gibbs 39:17

Yes. So I'm glad you asked. So if you know I'm the shy one of the bunch, I don't like to talk too much. So, so uh I'm really excited because right now we're at a point in our business. Listen, we've been in business for a little over a year, and everybody and everybody are out there doing the coaching business. There's more coaches out there now than there was a year ago and 10 years ago, you know. So we we both have a name in the field that we were in. So we came to the coaching space individually as huddle for success being brand new. So our challenge has been people knowing who we are. That's been a challenge. That's that's any new business challenge. So it doesn't mean we're bad, doesn't mean we're great. It just means that that's has been a fighting challenge because there's so many people out there. I believe what we bring different, again, is there's not too many people that we talk to that when we go on a podcast, they say, oh goodness, there's two of you. I believe that's a bonus. You know, the only teams I know of right now, and that was populated within the past two years, is Dean and Tony. So, I mean, that that's a that's a figure in the industry. Everybody else is, whether it's Grant Cardone, he's by himself, whether it's Alex Hermozzi, he's by himself, Dan Martel, everybody is by themselves. And so not taking anything away from them, I think we bring great value. We're just not really known out there. And so what we have done is even though that we have made great, tremendous strides in a little over a year in our business, we have now scaled it to we are doing a five-day one-on-one uh clarity breakthrough. And right now we're offering it free. So someone is able to spend five days with us, 30 minutes a day, and we're gonna take them through a breakthrough. So it's live, there's no books, there's no recordings, there they're getting us raw and live for five days. And so we're gonna, we're gonna obviously scale it down for from our 12-month coaching, but we have figured out a way that we're able to scale it back and work with people live one-on-one for a week. And so the value of that is tremendous, number one. Number two, again, it's completely free. So we are offering scholarships to people right now to help them because we don't want cost to be a factor. If they had to do one-on-one with us for a week, it would be expensive. However, we don't want that to be in a place. So we have allocated X amount of scholarships, and we said, listen, we want to help as many people as we can for the next six months. And what does that look like? And so that's a big milestone for us because we're now, we're now, because our training, our coaching now is group setting. And so what we've decided to do is okay, Mark and I are all in. We're we're all in, and it takes a lot of commitment on our end, but yet we're committed to the end result, and that's helping more people. And so this is it, this is big for our business. So you're hearing it first. No, we haven't publicly brought this out even yet, and we were gonna do that here in the next two weeks, but uh this is this is the next step for our business.

Pedro 42:43

I love that. Okay. And if someone listening wants to connect with your follow your work, guys, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, okay? But Dwayne, where can people find you and connect with you? Best best way to go.

Duane Gibbs 42:56

So they can go to info at huddleforsuccess.com. Info at huddleforsuccess.com.

Mark Bruce 43:02

Okay. That's our email address. Send it that, or just go to the website, huddleforsuccess.com.

Duane Gibbs 43:06

And if they go to the email, they go to the website, they are able to go in and they can book a call. It's a consultation call, it's free 45 minute, half hour consultation. And what we do is root we just we evaluate what they're looking for. Again, we slow it down and try and figure it out. Maybe it's a fit, maybe it's not a fit. We can't help everybody, but uh and then what we do is then we have them answer four questions, and they will answer the four questions that will give them a scholarship, and then we go from there. Okay.

Pedro 43:41

You know, there were a few things you guys shared today that really stayed with me, and I feel the need to highlight. Okay. Let's start from Dwayne's origin story when his dad was laid off from Coca-Cola, where, right? And that uh ignited a spark on Dwayne about entrepreneurship, right? So creating his own destiny based on that uh experience and just looking at his dad, and with that with that look on uh how do we go from here, right? Um, I think everyone eventually experiences that, even if it's like on a personal side today or uh a parent, you know, and his own father. So there's that important reminder, right? Then we move to Mark's dad, but that was a gym teacher, right? So the coaching is running in his veins, so put it like that, right? Um and not to mention the 14 games in no the 14 games in 17 days in Brazil, which is kind of insane, Mark. Okay, so you're a hard worker, I can already get that. Then uh moving from, you know, when you guys were mentioning that you had the same goal, right? Um and not just about that, it sounds like you do have you share values, right? Uh you're focusing on the mind. Um, when I brought up the reason why you guys partner up, and it it brings really about helping people, you know. So sharing a skill set or combining a skill set with someone that can eventually help you is one thing, but having the the real reason which we're we're talking about are values, right? That's a completely different game. It like it puts you in a different perspective because whenever you're finding yourself in an obstacle or having a hard time, you're going back to okay, but this guy, his heart is in the right place. Maybe that's not why we're maybe right now we're not coming to terms, but I know his coming from a good place, you know. So there's that. And last but not least, I would say it's you know, not growing is going backwards, you guys mentioned, which is interesting, right? Because if you're considering inflation, we're shrinking by definition each year, right? Money is not gonna work the same next year. So if you're not growing, you're shrinking, you're going backwards. That that's a great reminder. Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you guys.

Mark Bruce 46:00

Hey Drew, thanks so much for having us. We we really appreciate being here and and what you do.

Davis Nguyen 46:05

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business to six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you end your business.