Bonus Tip #1 | The Vineyard Principle

Welcome back!

About four years into working with my teams on building a culture of honor, I realized there was an expectation that needed to be set from the beginning. An expectation on timing.

Building a culture of honor will be like planting a wine vineyard for you. And if you've ever studied how the world's finest wines are made, you'll discover something counterintuitive that changes everything about how we approach this work.

The Vineyard Secret

When master vintners plant a new vineyard, they do something that seems almost cruel in the first few years. They cut off every cluster of grapes that tries to form. They literally prevent the vine from producing fruit.

Why would they do this? Why stop the vine from doing what it's designed to do?

Because they understand something profound about foundations and long-term thinking.

In those first three years, while the vine desperately wants to produce fruit, the vintner forces all of the plant's energy to go into one thing: developing the root system and strengthening the main trunk.

Those roots need to go deep—sometimes 20 feet deep—to access water and nutrients that will sustain the vine through decades of harsh seasons. That trunk needs to grow thick and sturdy to support the weight of abundant fruit harvests that will come year after year for the next 50 to 100 years.

If they let the vine produce fruit in year one or two, it would create small, weak grapes. But more importantly, the vine would never develop the foundation to produce the extraordinary fruit it's capable of. The energy that should have gone to building roots instead went to premature fruit.

Your Culture of Honor Vineyard

This is exactly what we're doing when we build a culture of honor.

Culture of honor will be like that grapevine for you: you will plant it and then tend to the vine for three years before the grapes, capable of producing the high quality wine you want, are grown.

Three years: that's what I ask you to give it.

Don't rush it. Don't forget it.

Become friends with patience and expectation.

In your first year, you're developing the roots of honor within yourself. Getting clear on who you are. Building that daily practice of honoring yourself. Learning to handle out-of-character moments with grace. This inner work is invisible to others, but it's the foundation everything else will grow from.

In your second year, those roots of self-honor begin extending outward to others. You're practicing new language patterns. You're learning to honor others when they fail. You're cutting out gossip and speaking life over people. The fruit isn't obvious yet, but the trunk is strengthening.

By your third year, you're seeing the first real clusters of fruit. Your team is handling conflict differently. Trust is deeper. People are taking more risks because they know they'll be honored even if they fail. The culture is becoming self-sustaining.

The Temptation to Rush

I may have lost some of you who were looking for a quick tip on how to build your teams in 90 days.

But here's what I know: every leader who tries to rush this process ends up with the equivalent of weak, bitter grapes. They get some immediate results—maybe people are nicer to each other for a few weeks. But when the first real storm hits, when trust is tested, when someone makes a significant mistake, the shallow roots can't sustain the culture.

However, if you're still with me, that means you have not fallen to the marketing tactics of "fast and easy"—the "3 Pounds in 3 Weeks" kind of promises.

Instead, you're someone who is curious about what you can accomplish in the next three to five years with your team rather than the next three weeks.

You are a leader looking to make lasting change, not just quick change.

Tending the Vine

Like those master vintners, your job during these three years isn't to be passive. You're not just waiting for time to pass. You're actively tending the vine.

You're doing the daily practice of honoring yourself and others. You're having those difficult conversations with honor. You're speaking life over people when they're not in the room. You're celebrating character, not just performance.

Some days it will feel like nothing is happening. The growth is underground, in the roots, invisible to the eye. But trust the process.

Because what you're building isn't just a nice team culture for this year. You're building something that will produce extraordinary fruit for decades. The kind of culture that people look back on and say, "I've never experienced anything like that team."

The kind of legacy that lasts.

So tend your vineyard with patience and expectation. The harvest is coming.

Remember: The world's finest wines don't come from rushing the process. They come from honoring the time it takes to build something truly extraordinary.

On that note, that's all for today.

I'll see you soon.