Joe Polish interviews Larry Winget: Grow A Pair

Hey there, this is Joe Polish and I'm here with my good friend Larry Winget, the pit bull of personal development. So been looking forward to doing this interview for a while.

I know we've been talking about it for a long time.

I know it's just been kind of dragging on and dragging on and you're a pretty interesting guy. You've written five New York Times bestsellers. Your newest one, which will be at the time we're doing this interview, this is your brand new book called Grow a pair how to stop being a VICT and take back your life, your business and your sanity. But you're known. We're going to talk a lot about the content here and I'm at the time that we're doing this. I'm only halfway through the book, but I think it's really awesome. And I love your books, I love your videos online, you met on tv. You are contrarian. You say it like it is. I tend to agree with almost everything that you say. You've got big cojones. You'll describe that this is not just a male thing, this is a male and female thing. But what do you really do? I mean, what's your deal? You've written a all these books. Like your first one is shut up, stop whining and get a life and we'll talk about other stuff. But who is Larry Wingett?

I wake up every single morning figuring out how many people I can piss off by taking.

Do you get joy out of this or just.

I do. It delights me like none other. No, see, I think that people should be challenged. And if I have a role on this planet, it would be to challenge people's thinking. So I say things that will piss them off, make them think, make them look at what they believe, make them look at all the crap that they're hearing out there from all the motivational bozos and all those happy smiley faced people and say, is that really right? And the way you know whether it's right or not is whether it works or not. And if it's working for you, good, believe it, go with it. But if it's not, stop believing it and start believing something new. And so I try to challenge people into thinking that's really my role. I do that. I speak. I've been speaking professionally for over 20 years. I've done 400 of the Fortune 500 companies. It's hard to believe that companies hire me and pay me a whole lot of money and go on stage and stuff.

Do they keep having to come back or not.

Yeah, they do. Which also surprises me. It's not like I've been unclear the first time. I think they should have gotten it right. But they bring me back and I yell at them and say, you people are idiots. Your service sucks. You need to get off your ass and work harder. The reason you're not doing well is nobody's working around here. So I go on stage and say all that stuff. And they love it. I also discover you can say about anything in the world of people as long as you make them laugh. Right. And anything. If you're funny, they'll get you. By with it. Yeah, by with it.

Actually, I've always loved the line. Enthusiasm covers many deficiencies, but it's how you do it.

It's how you approach. So I speak, I write books, I'm on television a lot, work with lots of different television networks, talk about some.

Of that, because some people, a lot of times when I'll be out with you, like, where have I seen this guy before? But they can't pin where they saw.

I'm easy to spot in the crowd, first of all. Well, of course, you know, wear the shirts.

You sort of look like this all the time. We're going to talk about your attire, too. Do you like my get up here?

It's very saf. You know, it's very safe.

Well, I brought some props. I was going to see if you wanted to. It's brand new, too. Look at this.

I could tell it still has the tags. You might want to keep that hidden. I've been on television. I had my own show on AE for a few years called Big Spender, where I would go in and sort of interrupt people in the middle of their stupidity. People who had wrecked their lives financially. And I would go in and point that out to them. Really. It was a television show about an angry bald man yelling at stupid people until I made them cry like a baby.

Right.

And it was great to hear.

Did it change their lives, though?

No, but it changed a lot of people's lives who watched.

Okay.

I don't think people really change their lives that much during the show. It's hard to turn somebody's life around when they're really, really in love with their lifestyle. You see, I think people change when they want to, not when you want them to. And so I don't really ever try to change anybody's lives. I just point out that it would be very smart for them to want to do that all on their. They don't want To I don't care. I'm one of those motivational guys that'll go on stage and say, I don't care whether you do anything or not. Your life can suck and I don't care. I'm good with it. What you do in your life has no effect on me. So I don't care what you do. And I have all my buddies in the industry say you shouldn't tell people you don't care. I don't. It's not, I care about my life. I don't care. I don't give a damn what you do. I don't give a damn what anybody in my audience does. Not my deal. Go fix your life if you want to. If you like it the way it is, you like being broke, fat, stupid, lazy, I don't care. No impact on me.

So what is your primary motivation like? Motivation? Because you're called a motivational speaker. I don't know if you refer to yourself.

No, no, no. In fact, I license that I trademark that I'm the world's only irritational speaker. See, I don't think you can motivate somebody from where they are to a better place. I guarantee you I can make you so irritated with where you are you'll do anything to go to a better place.

Do you think that's a far better process?

Much better. You see, I don't think you can paint this pretty p. Need to go over there. It's wonderful over there. I think you can say, are you kidding me? Your life sucks. You deserve better than this. Let me prove to you what an idiot you've been. So what I do through all of my work is just try to hold a mirror up to people so they can see how dumb they've been and then show them that they have the power to do whatever they want to do when they decide to fix it. But it's up to them, not up to me. When I get those letters that say, larry, you changed my life, I write them back instantly and say, no, I didn't. I just reminded you that you could change your life.

That's great. That's great. Well, you know, when I was, you know, we all have our own stories, however we want to convey them in the business world. When I went into what I do now, which is marketing and teaching people marketing, I read so many books. I mean think and grow rich, all the old ones and the new ones. And I've read over a thousand books, most of them business related and a lot of self help, a lot of Personal development. And I've always had a love hate relationship with it because early on I learned that the best positive attitude in the world is no better than the worst attitude in the world in relation to making money. It wasn't until I actually had a system on knowing how to take a skill and persuade people to give me money and do business with me, that how I felt about things had nothing to do with it. Now, having a good attitude, of course you're going to approach things differently, but the fact is, you know, I mean, you can, you can run around and think positive thoughts all day long or you can get motivation, but if you don't direct it into something that's going to produce a result, it's usually completely ineffective.

I'm not a big believer in a positive attitude.

Well, I'm not either.

I'm a much bigger believer in having a negative attitude. I think you have to get negative about your life before you're willing to take positive action in your life. And so what I like for people to do is to get really negative. When I was shooting the television show, if I couldn't make people cry, tie some emotion to their stupidity, then I knew I hadn't done my job. I want people to cry. I want them to go to the mirror, look themselves in the eye and look up to the heavens and cry like Jimmy Swaggart. Really, I want them to. I want them to have that Jimmy Swaggart moment where tears run down their face and they say, oh God, I'm an idiot. When you do that, then you might have a shot at turning things around. But first you have to stop and assess, get negative, and then take positive action to create positive results. You don't happy your way to success, you don't think your way to success, you bust your ass and work your way to success.

Okay, so what are your thoughts on the personal development, self help in general? And I will say this, I'll preface this, that I have taken a lot out of it, okay? I've learned a lot from a lot of people. And as you know, I know a bazillion people in the self help world and half of them, well, I wouldn't say half, probably a lot more completely and utterly full of shit. But there's a lot of people that are incredibly smart and really, really helpful. And at the same time, you know, I learned early on that if you ever invalidate the message because of the messenger, you'll never read another book or attend another Semin because there's a lot of people out there dispensing advice that they themselves do not follow. So what's your, what's your take on it? I mean, you like it, you dislike it.

Unlike you, I came from the self help industry and I've like you read a lot of books in the last 20 years. I read over 4,000 books that cover thousands of years of information, read all the time. Most of my friends come from the self help personal development industry. I was truly a self help junkie. And I think when your life is a mess and you're broke and all that sort of stuff and you go, shit, I need help, you become junkie. And just like you said, you read everything you can get your hands on, you quickly figure out that most of it is full of shit because it's not working. Especially you can read all these guys stuff and you say if you believed it and it worked, you'd be better off than you are. And most of them are not really very well off. But my problem with the whole movement was that I think, and I talk about this a lot and grow up here is that the got bastardized along the way. It was originally, the original intent was to empower people that you have, you know, Zig Ziglar said you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do, have whatever you want to have, as long as you believe in yourself. That's a message of empowerment. In my opinion. If you believe you can go accomplish whatever you want based on your level of belief and confidence and so forth, we turn that whole message into a message of entitlement. And so we move from empowerment to entitlement. Entitlement. That's what happened along the way. Self help went from self to help. And so everybody sat back and said, well, help me, I deserve it. Do nice things for me because look, I'm special and I'm wonderful and I believe in myself. Instead, what they should have said was, I have the confidence in my own abilities to get off my ass and go make anything in the world I want to happen happen if I'm willing to work hard enough to make it happen.

Yeah, okay. So was your life sort of a wreck when you first started doing this? Like a lot of people that I've learned in the, you know, if you want to look at what someone's interested, what the hell do they write about? You know, And I've also learned that sometimes the best messengers of something are also people that suffer the most pain from it. So if someone's going to talk about, you know, how to raise your self esteem. There's a good chance that this person has terrible self esteem and has done enormous research. So much so that they want to start writing about it or making a career out it of it. Some of the people that I've met that are really skilled at writing about time management, they actually suck at managing time. But they're really aware of that condition so they can articulate it, they can talk about it, they can write about it. So what was going on in your life that caused you to go into this stuff and start doing this? Was this kind of like Larry's version of being a convert of his own system or what?

In a way. I grew up dirt poor and a kid made fun of me when I was 13 years old for being dirt poor in front of a bunch of little girls in the eighth grade. And it just humiliated me. And I made a decision at that very moment. I was going to get rich. Didn't know what rich looked like, had no role models for rich, didn't know what it took. But I just made a decision. I was going to get rich because no one was ever going to make fun of me for being broke again. So I made that decision. At that time in my life at 13, the only thing I knew I ever had going for me was I could work harder than everybody else. I wasn't smarter than everybody. I wasn't better or bigger or badder or meaner or any of those things. I could just outwork you no matter what. I could outwork you. I could come in earlier, I could stay longer, whatever it took. And that's what I did. No matter what job I ever had, I worked harder than everybody else and I did real well. I went to work for the phone company when I was in college and I was a telephone operator. When I left 12 years later, I was the area sales manager for AT&T. And so I worked hard to make all that happen. And when I left at the end of during divestiture of the Bell system, I started my own telecommunications company, went out again, just did really well because I could outwork everybody. Built it from just me and found a part time installer. Until soon we had offices all over Oklahoma and Kansas and we're doing great. And then the corporation commission ruled that what I did was illegal. So I went into work one morning and a rich guy and I went home that day and my company was gone. So I went from rich to bankrupt that quick. Lost everything. So I turned to my wife and she worked there too because she came out of telecommunications. And I said, you need to find a job because I'm going to go be a speaker. And she said, you don't know what it takes to be a speaker. And I go, no. But I've written a lot of sales training material for the Bell System over the years, and I can sell this sales training material. And besides, all I've ever wanted my whole life was an old audience. So I got the Yellow Pages out, and I started the DA's in the yellow Pages in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I called every company and I said, you have anybody that sells at your company? I didn't care what kind of company it was. Dry cleaners, whatever. They had one person, I wanted to train them and I would teach them how to sell. And I started doing that and found out I was pretty good at it and built a sales training company and. And was doing a lot of speaking around the topic of sales. Then I found out that they pay you more to make people laugh than they do to teach people how to sell. And people thought I was funny. Right.

So you actually. You're semi funny.

You are funny. Yeah, pay me enough, I get real funny. And so I started doing humorous talks, and I was sort of a motivational humorist talk.

Did you have this whole get up? Did you wear.

No, no, no. I wore suits. I didn't have earrings or any of this stuff. I wore suits. I look like you're supposed to in corporate America. And about 10 years into that, I was doing really well in the motivational speaking, happy, feel good crap that everybody talks about.

So you actually did do that in the beginning?

Oh, you bet. You bet. If Zig could say it, I could say it better.

Really?

And that's the way a lot of people get started. They're just out there saying what everybody else wants them to say. And everybody wants that message of, make me feel good about myself and I'll be okay. They loved that message. And it just flew in the face of everything. I truly believe I had a meltdown, a typical midlife crisis thing. And I.

At what age?

45. And just everything fell apart for me. And I went to my wife and said, I don't like you anymore, and went to my manager and said, I don't like you anymore. And I hated my audiences and I hated every word that came out of my mouth. And I just threw it all away. I said, I'm getting in a car and don't call me, I'll call you. So I drove from Oklahoma to Sedona, Arizona, and I Got a big bottle of good scotch and a box of cigars and some good music and a stack of books. And I just sat and I was watching TV one night. There's a lot of story here, but.

This is very interesting.

I was watching TV one night, and I watched an interview with Dennis Miller. And they were talking to Miller about his career. And he said he used to go on stage like all other comedians. Comedians go on stage to endear themselves to the audience so the audience will like them. Because if the audience likes you, the audience will laugh at you, he said. The problem was I realized I'm not very endearing. So I gave it up. And when I gave it up, that's when my career really took off. And when I heard him say that, just this light went off in my head. Changed my life. That great. And I said, I'm not very endearing either. I think I'm going to give it up. And I did. And I called my wife and said, we'll be okay if you'll still have me. I called my manager and I said, the business will be okay, but it's going to be different. I don't know how it's going to be different, but it's going to be different. And I just decided that I would never be inauthentic again. I threw away the suits. When I was a little bitty boy. I used to watch Porter Wagner with my grandma on Saturday afternoon. And Porter Wagner was the original King of Bling. I said, if I ever get rich, I'm going to dress like Porter Wagner. And I realized I was. So I did. So I started dressing like Porter Wagner. And I put my earrings back in because I used to take them off before I went on stage.

So you always had this. You just were. You're basically wearing a costume.

Yeah, this is the real Larry. The other stuff was a costume. So I went on stage the next time a couple of weeks later, and a guy heckled me, and I turned on him and said, you know, you need to shut up, stop whining and get a life. And the audience jumped to their feet at that moment, a standing ovation. I went, that is a good line. I think I will keep that. Shut up, stop whining, and get a life. And so I started telling that story in my speeches, and people really responded. And so I just built this whole speech and philosophy around this. Shut up, stop whining, get a lie. And I kept telling people I was gonna write a book called that. But until then, I had T shirts, and I'D shut up, stop whine, and get a life. T shirts. Then I printed them upside down so you could just look down and read it yourself. And sold hundreds of thousands of T shirts and did real well. And then I wrote the book and I self published 25 books. But a buddy of mine said, you could get this one published. And I said, I don't care. I got a big audience buying self published. Back of the room. He said, yeah, but they'll be in bookstores. And I said, that is appealing to me. My ego got in the way and so I sold. Shut up, stop whining, get a life. This book for just a damn near no money. And the first week it came out, it went to number one on the bestseller list. And when it went to number one on the bestseller list, that's when the agents all started calling saying, who the hell are you? I said, in your world, I'm not a big deal. In my world, I am a big deal. And that's when they signed and they started getting me more books and all that stuff. And that's when A and E happened to be looking for a host for a TV show. I had a number one best seller with a sort of a different cover, A contrarian view. And so they looked at me and hired men. There you go.

Yep, that's it. So going back to when you were watching Dennis Miller, you were obviously ready to hear that sort of message because you were just in a totally fucked.

Up state, pissed off. So to answer your question, yeah, my life was a mess.

Does it usually have to get there? You mean you always hear the thing about hitting bottom.

The problem is we allow people to sort of hit the bottom and way too comfortable away. And then while they're at the bottom, the whole self help movement again will meet them there and help them wallow in it. And so we don't want you to be too painful down there. So we'll come down there and hug you and we'll hold hands and sing Kumbaya and it'll all be okay. And I think that's exactly the wrong thing to do for people. People, I think you should say you hit the bottom for a reason. What were those reasons? And no matter what they come up with, it comes down to you made bad decisions. This is your fault. I can sum up everything I do in one sentence. Life's your own damn fault. Your thoughts, your words, your actions created the life you're living. If it's a great life, you caused that, that's your fault. And if Your life sucks. It's because you suck. You made stupid decisions. Recognize that them take responsibility for them take action to fix it. And so I want failure to hurt. We don't allow it to hurt enough in our society. We're too quick to bail people out. We're too quick to come to the rescue. We do it with our kids, we do it with society in general. We do it with people who buy houses they can't afford. We do it with all kinds of people who make bad decisions. We should let it be painful because if it hurts enough, you'll go, I don't think I want to do that again.

Well, that sounds a little insensitive to some people.

Absolutely.

Now here's I want to. And some of these I'll just ask as double advocate questions because I've read in your books and stuff and so I sort of know how you feel about it. Who deserves a certain levels of compassion and coddling, if anyone?

People who can't come to their own rescue. There are people who cannot come to their own risk.

No, I mean, I don't know if you'd ever admit it, but I actually find you to have lots of areas where I think you're incredibly caring, compassionate. I mean, elderly people, people that have injuries, people that were born with mental.

Disabilities, all that stuff. A friend of mine said recently while we were having dinner, he said, you don't really care anything about taking care of people. I said, no, I don't. I care about teaching people to take care of themselves. I think that's a much more again, empowering message. I want to teach people to take care of themselves, but there are people who really can't. More people can than think they can't. But there are people who genuinely.

And I think that's a fundamental problem. And one of the things I think you address better than anyone is that, you know, you're not giving people outs when they, you know. So if they have the ability to make an excuse, you're just not going to tolerate it. You're not going to listen to it, you're going to call them on it. So let's go to your current book and we'll kind of come back and forth because I'm add and I'll take this all over the place. So what is the fundamental message, girl? Why did you write this one? Other than the obvious fact that you care about yourself and you want to make more money and you're obviously, you know, why'd you write this book?

You know, as I look around for the last couple of years. And I always write books based on what's going may be going on with me and what I again, I wake up and say what's pissing me off today? Then how can I piss people off? And so I look at society and I had a real problem with the self improvement industry. So I wrote a book. Instead of eight ways to be happy and love yourself, I wrote shut up, stop wanting, get a life. And then I think business is a mess and nobody's telling the truth and business is supposed to be easy and employees are supposed to love you. And I think, who cares? So I wrote a book called. It's called work for a reason. It's work. And then parenting is the problem, the biggest problem we have in America. So I wrote a book, your kids are your own fault. And then I got on to all this personal finance thing and my philosophy about personal finance. You're broke because you want to be. So I wrote a book, you're broke because you want to be. And then I looked at society in general and said, people are idiots and I can prove it. And I wrote a book called people are idiots and I can prove it. By the way, easiest book I ever wrote. Anybody could write that book. You can write that book. Guy stopped me in the airport the other day and said, where do you find all these idiots? I said I could throw a rock and hit 20 right now. I mean, it's just so easy. People do more stupid stuff to sabotage their lives. And so it's sort of where I am in my life and things I observe and what I've observed the last couple of years is that America has become this nation of weaning. I mean, the true wussification of America. We're not teaching people to stand up for themselves. We've become so politically correct that you can't tell anybody the truth. We can't fire bad employees. I walk down the street and you will see somebody throw trash on the ground and no one will say anything to them about it. You go to the movie and people are just cutting in line in front of you and everybody's just going, oh, I shouldn't do that. Really pisses me off. I'm not going to say anything that bothers me. You go inside the movie and people around you are texting and talking all that, and nobody will say, why don't you shut up, you're ruining the movie for me and everybody else. Nobody will do that. You know, we don't want our kids to play dodgeball because dodgeball Kids get hurt and they fall down and it might hurt your self esteem. So instead of dodgeball, the fastest growing sport for children right now is yoga. Really? Yoga is a wonderful thing, but it's not a sport. If nobody's keeping score, it's not a sport. And the reason we don't want anybody to keep score is because we don't want anybody to lose anymore. So we're just destroying the very thing that made you successful and made me successful. The ability to stand up, break loose and fight our way to the top.

I just have this urge to want to go to a yoga class with you right now. That would be awesome. Okay, so let me ask you about that. So you're in a movie theater, someone's talking. What about the fear of confronting someone where they're gonna, you know, worst case scenario, pull out a gun and shoot you? I mean like, I think there's a.

Lot of not then it'd be a fair fight.

That's funny. So I think a lot of people are just scared. But I think a lot of the fear, as you pointed out, is totally manufactured in their head, which is what the whole like, you know, when I've, I've read half of Grow up hair, I mean, part of it is you're not even talking about a male thing. You're not talking about physical strain. You talk about how Gandhi, you know, had a pair. So define what Growing a pair, actually. What, what does that look like? How does someone know if they, if they do or do not have a pair as you? Because you use as a metaphor.

But yeah, it's about a state of mind really. It's about knowing what your values are and your beliefs are and being willing to stand up for them regardless of what you might face. It's about confidence, courage, being brave. And none of that has to do with physical bravery or any of those things. It's about everything that's going on between your ears, not between your legs. That's where the pair really is, between your ears. And you have to get that kind of attitude that I can do it. I don't need anybody to come to the rescue. I have the ability, I have a brain, I can do whatever it takes. And acting up on it. Yeah.

So people that are concerned about, they want people to like them is the ability to constantly be like the saddest.

Thing in the world.

Explain it, talk about it.

Why I'm not for I don't do anything. I do so people will like me. I do what I do so I like Me, you know, and I think too many people go home and have compromised their beliefs just for the sake of someone saying, wasn't that cute? I loved it. And then they go home and they're miserable with themselves. I think it's better to be a real asshole than a fake sweetie pie. I like that.

So do you respond equally to hate mail as you do fan mail somewhere.

Saying, I don't let people get by with that crap? And I get a lot of hate mail.

Oh, you've had death threats.

Yeah, yeah, death threats. And I get hate mail every single day. For me, it's sort of the measurement that I'm doing my job. I don't think you can have rabid fans. Which people in our industry, and really anybody in business wants rabid fans. I don't care if you're running the dry cleaners or carpet, you want rabid fans. You can't have rabid fans unless you're willing to have rabid enemies. Yeah, I agree. And in order to be successful, you have to draw a line in the sand, really, a line in the concrete. This is what is acceptable with me. This is what is unacceptable with me. This is what I believe. And nothing you say makes any difference on my beliefs. I'm going to stand by them. And so when you take that sort of a stand, and I don't care what your stand is, I mean, Jesus took a stand for loving people and they killed him for it. So it doesn't matter what your stand is for you take a stand, people are going to hate you. You can let that ruin your day, or you can say, I'm not going to accept that from you. If you're going to be a jerk, if you're going to be an asshole, if you're going to be an idiot, you're going to go somewhere else. You do it. So if someone. I say a lot of things on Facebook. I've got a big following. If somebody comes back at me and says something, I'll say, you know, you can say whatever you want to. You can disagree with me, that's fine. You don't get to attack me. You don't get to attack other people personally. If you make it personal, you're out of here and I delete them. I say, you're an idiot, you got to go away.

Yeah. So when it comes to criticism, what are, what are the useful ways to use it and what are the non useful ways to use it? Because you have some interesting insights.

Well, I think the dumbest thing that was ever put Together around the topic of criticism is the idea of constructive criticism. Construct means to build up. Criticize means to tear down. You cannot build up and tear down at the same time. So when someone says to me, I'd like to offer you some constructive criticism, I say, pick one. And they go, what? You can either build me up or you can tear me down? I'm a big boy. Pick one and let's go for it. And they're always, you know, it's that whole idea of sandwiching criticism. We've all heard that. And every management class says, if you're going to say something bad to an employee, you say something really nice. And then you say your tough stuff, and then you say something really nice. What most of us call that is a shit sandwich. And regardless of the kind of bread you package it in, it still comes out tasting like shit. If you want to say something to me, I'm a big boy, say it. And so I'm a big believer in criticism as long as it's valid, as long as it's been researched, and as long as you're willing to do it face to face with me, you can say whatever you want to me.

Well, I mean, when someone says constructive criticism, what they're trying to say is they're not per se. Well, a lot of times it's disguise. It's a disguise way of trying to preface it so they can insult you and not make it look that way. I would say look at someone that just wants to attack you and talk shit about you and take it personally versus someone that wants to per se, give you advice. But your whole thing in the book, I mean, I don't know exactly where it is, but there's.

That's yours. Yours is yellow.

Yeah, see, when I read books, I make notes, all that sort of stuff, and everyone should. I mean, what's. But the thing you say about criticism, you say, our fragile little cells just can't stand to have anyone criticize these things days. Don't you dare tell me I'm not good at something. You might hurt my feelings. Well, to hell with your feelings. If you're a screw up. You need to hear that you're a screw up so you'll stop being one if it hurts your feelings. Good. Your feelings don't matter when your results suck. You need to get better. So stop whimpering and take your criticism. Criticism is how we grow. If you heard, great job every time you attempted something, you wouldn't improve much, would you? So accept the criticism, even welcome it. Take it Like a man, even if you're a woman. And then, you know, so that's good stuff.

Who wrote that?

It's very good stuff. So it is, it is a great way to have people, you know, that have the capacity. That's a big. You said something really interesting early on is that, you know, people frankly don't change that much. I mean, you know, most people that I come across right now, 10 years from now, they're just going to be a 10 year older version of themselves. What I do though is I'm like a pessimistic optimist though when I look out into the world, most of my viewpoint, I can sum up most people with three words. Not very inspiring because there's a lot of people that could do a lot in the world and they just simply don't. However, there are those that kick ass and take names, there are those that make breakthroughs, there are people that fuel the world forward. And that's the people that, you know that are interesting to me, that's what is interesting to myself in order to change the stupid shit in myself that can, you know, so I'm always constantly, I mean, anyone that would sit and watch this right now, on some level, it's either just interesting and intriguing to watch some bald dude with a crazy outfit that has a strong attitude, that's one thing. But I think most people that would listen to my stuff watch what it is that I do. They're seekers. I mean, they're trying to better themselves. So their intentions are to make their lives better, to get an edge. And so that's mine too. When I jump into the whole self improvement, personal development world, I'm simply trying to become a better version of myself. But there's all of these things that stand in the way and there's these erroneous beliefs. And what I think your greatest asset for people is you're the guy that will point out shit and say things that no one else has the balls to say. Let's cover a couple of things that you mentioned in the book Nation of Weenies. We live in this world. And what's that? I can't remember who said that quote, the unreasonable man wants to adapt the world to himself. The reasonable man wants the world to adapt, and then the unreasonable man adapts the world to him. So therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. I did not say that right at all. But the point is you are in control of your world, not the world out there's. So if the world is filled with a bunch of Weenies. I mean, that's just going to be the way it is, right?

That is the way it is. Yeah. I just don't choose to let them ruin my day. I don't choose to participate. It's just like. It's kind of like when you hear as you go into fall that cold and flu season is upon us. And you can say, I choose to participate or I don't choose to participate. When they say cold and flu season is here, some people go, oh, my God. And then they start to sniffle and they run into the drugstore and they start buying all that crap. And me, when I hear it's cold and flu season, I just say, not for me. So when I look at the world and I realize that the world is full of idiots who are, for the most part, broke and don't care about improving their situation, and for the most part, obese and for the most part really doing a lot of stupid stuff, I can let that get me down or I can stay true to myself and do what I believe I need to do to make my world better. I would love to change the world. I would love for the world to be different. I think all of us would. Realistically, that's not going to happen. I can't change the world. Besides that, if the world changed, I'd be out of business. You'd be out of business. There'd be nobody left to buy our crap.

I love the fact that people suck at marketing because the fact that they suck at marketing allows me to make a pretty good living.

Exactly. And if everybody suddenly took responsibility for their lives and I paint in the front of those sports, book this utopic world that said, wouldn't it be great if the world was like this? It's not going to be that way. So I can control my world. And the only thing that allows me to go to sleep at night and feel good about my world is knowing that I did my best every single day. Not according to you, not according to anybody else. But I can look my myself in the eye, in the mirror and say, I did my best. I did a good job. I was the best version of Larry Wingate that I could be. Today I feel good about myself. When somebody confronted me and insulted me, I handled it well, with dignity and with grace. But I didn't let them get by with it, which I think is important. And I think that's the pair we've lost as well.

Do you ever cross the line sometimes where like, you've got. I mean, you're Talking about this all the time. People expect you to be this pit bull of personal development. You've sort of created this whole shtick about it. I mean, you're fine. I mean, do you ever accidentally go too far?

Oh hell, we all cross the line.

Well, I mean, how effective are you in terms of responding and knowing boundaries? Because I imagine you have boundaries. I mean, I think a lot of your boundaries are you draw lines in the sand of what you will and will not accept and also what you will and will not say to people. I mean, when does being honest, when does it actually you can go too far?

If someone is asking for my honesty, then I don't hold back. If you're asking for it, I'll give it to you. If they're not and I just see you being an idiot and you don't want my opinion, I don't feel compelled to share it with you. I think that would be rude. Sometimes when I accidentally cross the line, I am just as quick to apologize if I cross the line. And I think apologizing is also part of having.

Well, yeah, and you have an interesting thing about saying I'm sorry. The ways to say sorry. Like a lot of people just running around and say I'm sorry for this.

We live in an awfully apologetic society. Some cultures are built on being apologetic. You ever been to Canada?

Yes.

They're sorry. I love Canadians, but they just, it's built in their culture that, you know, you're, they're so nice, they're so nice all the time. Canadians are, and I admire that. But their culture is built on saying I'm sorry. And I, and I just had a big discussion with a bunch of Canadians this last week weekend about that. That's sort of what they've been taught to do. And I think that's one of the problems with society right now is that we're sorry for being who we are. We're sorry for having beliefs, we're sorry for speaking our opinions. We've built a whole language around that. I know that was some of the stuff that you pulled out of the book that you kind of like this language that we built that people say with all due respect, which means really I don't respect you at all. And what I really want to tell you is you're a friggin idiot. And get ready for it. They don't respect you. They just like to say that with all due respect right before they say something really, really obnoxious to you.

What are some other things that you've said in there? Because.

Oh, in my humble opinion. Why is your opinion humble? Why? And why do you have to tell me in my opinion to begin with, why? If you're saying it, obviously it's your opinion. We use weak language. That's one of the things I think we all have to get away from is our weak language. You will rarely hear me use. You'll never hear me say, in my humble opinion, or with all due respect, if I want to say something to you, I'll just say it. You won't hear me say I think. Why would I say I think? I'm saying it. We preface everything to just kind of water it down a little bit, sort of that political correctness. So we wouldn't dare offend anybody. If you think what you're going to say is offend somebody to the point that it bothers you, bothers you, don't say it.

What about political correctness?

I mean, I think that is one of the most castrating things that has ever happened to our society, political correctness. I think that we're so careful, careful with everything we say so we won't hurt anybody's feelings, any group of people. We want to make sure that we say it just the right way so we won't step on anybody's toes. And everybody's become so damn sensitive. I gave a speech and it's one of the examples I did in the book where I told a joke. I rarely tell jokes from the stage, but I told this joke. How's an Oklahoma tornado like a Texas divorce? Either way, some old boy is going to lose his double white. I thought, that's funny. I'm from Oklahoma. And it was just one of those throw out things. I kept right on going. And a woman came up at the end of the speech and she said, I do not appreciate you making fun of fat white wives. And I said, I don't recall ever making fun of fat wives in my speech. She said that whole thing about double wives. I said, lady, that's a house trailer. She said, what? A double wide is a trailer, a mobile home. It has nothing to do with fat wives. Of course, she weighed 400 pounds, so she was going to take offense, but she was looking for things to take offense to.

And people are.

And that's where we are. We're looking for people to hurt our feelings and then when they do, we're quick to be there.

I think it's really interesting too, because in so many areas there have been things that are so over the top. I mean, a Race to with reality tv, you know, take a show like, you know, Fear Factor back when. Just the shit that people would eat on. I mean, literally, you know, on camera. How hardcore pornography has come, how violence on television, all of these things that, you know, back in the 50s, you know, I mean, comedians, I mean, so on some levels, things are just completely over the top. But the political correctness and the sensitivity, it's so bizarre.

We desensitize so many areas. And that area, maybe that's our last bastion of hope is that we get, you know, we won't even call people fat anymore. You know, they're weight challenged. You've probably been called follically challenged. And people think that's funny. No, I'm bald. And you know, I do this bit in my speech about fat people and a woman wrote me a nasty letter and she even called the office and said that I shouldn't talk about fat people. And she said, I am not fat. I am not fat. I'm big boned. And I said, dinosaurs had big bones. You're fat. You know, and why are we afraid to tell somebody they're fat? Why are we afraid for our kids to get a failing grade? We don't get failing grades anymore For a little bit of kids, kids that might hurt their feelings. Listen, if you didn't do the work, you failed, you need to be aware of that. I have issues with political correctness.

I think you have issues with a.

Lot of things I do.

It's good.

And my issues are based on anything that's not honest. And I ask people to draw lines in the sand. One of the things I do in the book is say, tell me your five things that you will never compromise no matter what. What's your number one thing you'll never compromise?

Me. Incompetency. I mean, I'm thinking about in business and stuff.

Or you just don't tolerate incompetence or.

People that have no integrity. I mean, like, you know, okay, so.

Now you have two. That's good. Keep going. You've probably got a handful if you thought about it, right?

Shitload of them.

Yeah. Yeah. The number one thing for me is honesty. I won't lie to you. I just won't. And I won't be lied to. That's the other thing. I will not tolerate dishonesty. You can come to me, my kids could come to me when they had screwed up. I said, you can call me any. I don't care how much trouble you're in. You tell me how much trouble you're in. You tell me the truth and we'll work our way through it and I'll punish you on the backside of this thing, but we will get through it right now. But don't lie to me. And I remember when teenagers were being teenagers, and everybody's going, oh, God, we're in trouble. Who are we going go to call? My kids will always say, we call my dad. He'll fix this thing right now and he'll deal with all of us later. But we can call my dad. That's a much better place to be, especially as a parent. I just won't be lied to. And I won't lie to you.

So someone's listening to this, and they're clearly either irritated and agitated by what you're saying, or they realize that, yeah, you know, I mean, he's saying stuff that absolutely applies to me, or I'm putting up with shit that I shouldn't be putting up with. I'm acting like a wussy. I mean, whatever, whatever. Everyone has their own way of how they process in here, information and knowledge. What's the best way for someone who is mature enough to realize they're fucked up and they want to unfuck themselves? Basically, what is the quickest path to just getting rid of all the bullshit? Because you got to a place where you were just completely. I can't do this anymore. This is like a facade. I mean, I'm going to start being me. And I think there's a dream that people have to just, you know, you talk about it in the book. People will look at you and they'll gawk at you and they'll notice you, and sometimes they'll talk, you know, make fun of you or whatever, and you say, you know, I think a lot of people just secretly, you know, they just wish they could, you know, do this.

Yeah. I have CEOs that come to me and they look me up from head to toe and say, wish I could dress like that. How are you on the company? You're the boss. You can dress any way you want. Right. You're dressed for them.

Isn't that funny? When someone says that they're in a position to where they can do what.

They want, and they actually, they don't. They're living their lives for someone else. I'm really selfish. I know you are, too. I'm a true hedonist. I know you are, too. We do what we do to make ourselves happy, knowing that when we make ourselves happy, we ultimately make more other people happy. Right? Right when you're true to yourself. And more people need to understand if they got true to themselves. Not what this is about. Know what your beliefs are. Know what you will never compromise on and be true to that and stop compromising. Yeah, we sell out way too quick for no reason to impress people that we shouldn't give a damn about anyway. Why do we do that? That's sad. And to answer the question, it sort of starts with knowing what it really takes to be successful. I have a philosophy of success that says first, know what you want, want. And I tell everybody. Get three sheets of paper and on one sheet of paper write down everything in the world, the way it is right now in your life. Write down how it is financially for you and physically for you and your relationship, everything. And then on the second sheet of paper, write down how you'd like for it to be. And then on the third sheet of paper, write what you're going to give up to get from the way it is to the way you want it to be. That's the most important sheet. And that's the one thing most people in self help never want to talk about. I believe success is based on sacrifice. I believe you have to be willing to give up. You don't get rich, you give up what's making you broke. You don't get skinny, you give up what's making you fat. You don't get happy, you give up what's making you unhappy. And it takes balls to give things up. The self help gurus, the motivational idiots out there will say, you can have it all. We've all heard that. You can have it all, all. No, you can't. You got to choose. It takes balls. You have to grow a pair to start to look at your life and say, I'm going to choose differently. I'm going to walk away from people and ideas and activities that don't move me closer to my goals. That's the first thing people can do. Yeah, gotcha.

Well, you know, I have a good friend named Dan Sullivan who founded a company, Strategic Coach. I think based on your criteria of having a pair in the book, I mean he's definitely a guy has a pair. I mean, he does not take shit from anyone. And at the same time, he's gracious, he has class. You know, he's just an awesome guy. And he talks about when he was in the army where whatever sergeant or whatnot was saying to him, he was in boot camp, you know, they were going through an exercise where they had to crawl through barbed wire, and there were real bullets that were used and people had been shot and killed. And so they. They were, you know, the sergeant was explaining this to all of their cadets or whatever that they had. I know nothing about the military as you can obviously tell. Were you in the military, by the way?

No. No. Okay.

You look sort of like you were.

Yeah.

But anyway, so the guy said, you know, how many of you are scared? And no one raised their hand except Dan. And he said, well, you know, Mr. Sullivan's the only one here that's telling the truth. And then he went on to say, the difference between fear and courage is fear is peeing your pants. Courage is doing what you need to do with wet pants. And, you know, Dan talks about how confidence, having confidence, you actually know what the hell you're doing, you actually feel effective, you feel good. Whereas courage never feels good because you're having to go through something and your apprehension, you're unsure. In some cases, you could be risking your life. I mean, you could be taking something on that you may not know if you have the capability to handle it, but you do it anyway. I thought a lot about the words confidence and courage because the things that I do well in life that don't seem to be a mental struggle are the areas where I have confidence, but where I'm taking something on, taking risks that requires courage. And I think growing a pair requires having courage and being able to go through, I think. So I wanted to get your perspective on that.

I absolutely agree with you. Let me ask. You just said the things that you're good at and you feel confident about, and then there are things that you do that, you know, it takes courage at the end of the day when you've done both, which makes you feel the best.

If I'm successful, probably courage, because I stand. Exactly. I just overcame it.

Exactly. It's like that Susan Jeffers book, Feel the Fear and do It Anyway. When you feel the fear and you do it anyway because you gave your word, you said you would. You have a commitment to your commitments, all those things that you know you ought to do. Regardless of how afraid you are or how much courage you lack, you just do it because it's the right thing to do. That always makes you feel better at the day. End of the. The day. Yeah.

And I heard early on from probably some damn self help book, I don't know where, but you know, do something every day that scares you. I mean, I just embedded that into my head and it always caused me to push through Things, because that's how you grow. I mean, even public speaking. I was definitely afraid of public speaking. But I also realized that if I don't go out and interact with people, it's going to be really hard to make money. And I wanted to make money and I do want to make money and that. So, you know, I, I just did that. And you know, I mean, there's.

Let me show you how that applies to what I just went through there. You had a fear of public speaking and yet you knew you wanted to make money. So you looked at where you were my page number one. You looked at where you wanted to be a lot of money and you said, what am I going to have to give up? I'm going to have to give up that fear of speaking. I'm going to have to give that up. That takes a pair to give up. And when people will go through that three sheet process and they look at all the things they have to give up up, they must be courageous about those things. And it's going to be hard. And that's one of the things we never tell people. We tell people to plan for success. No, you kind of got to plan for failure because when you attack something new, it's going to be hard and you will fail. And you better be prepared. When it really takes a pair is to stand up and do it again. When you just fail, but you just keep doing it. You were probably a horrible speaker first time you went up.

Oh, absolutely.

But you did it again. Yeah, and again. And you keep doing it.

And you keep doing it. Yeah. Well, because what I also learned is that what you, what you fear and you don't face controls you. And that what you fear and you face, you can control it. Maybe not immediately, but if you keep at it and it's important enough because there are certain things too where it's just like idiotic. I mean, let's just go out and try to do, I mean, for what reason? You know, show that you're a badass or try to make, you know, or is it really going to move your life forward to where you want to go?

I agree.

Well, and also too, when I first started in and I learned some marketing strategies, none of which were taught in school, none of what my, you know, I transformed an entire industry by just teaching them how to use effective direct response marketing strategies. Because most of them were just copying what everyone else was doing. They were.

Whether it worked or not.

Right, Exactly. Yeah. I mean, just a bunch of dumbasses, you know, copying what Everyone else is doing. And man, I mean, when I came into the scene, I was contrarian. I had long hair in a ponytail. I was a young guy.

It's been a while.

Yeah. You don't need to be like this, Coach. I'm gonna start crying here. We got the topic of this conversation. I mean, you know, you're gonna maybe need to hold me just to come back to, you know, so the cameraman can make sure I look good. Speaking of this, this is a good time for just some tangent here. This is a wrestler. I came over your house for dinner. I brought this to you, and then you made a birthday greeting for me that my wonderful girlfriend put together and somehow recruited you.

And you actually, you didn't bring it to me. You wore it to the party and then you wrote it. You're right, I left it text after text saying, when do I get my damn mask back?

There was maybe, what text? You don't need to exaggerate that. And you brought it back to me. You truly are a caring person. You give.

No, I'm a man of my word.

Yeah. Speaking of that, where was I before I went on that tangent?

You were talking about having your ponytail and changing.

So literally, people that had been in the industry, public speakers there, people that were 20, 30 years older than me, totally talking shit about me, oh, that won't work. This guy's making progress.

Promises.

But I knew what the hell I knew worked. And not only was I had this sort of fear of speaking, but I would be in audiences where people despised me because I threatened the bullshit that they had been charging people money for to teach them that just flat out didn't work either at all or nowhere as effective as what it is I was doing. So I had to go through that sort of stage too, where I was actually criticized and attacked until it became obvious that my shit worked. Because then there was all these people that started transforming their lives. So by the late 90s, every major phone book in the United States had one or multiple versions of my consumer awareness messages and pre recorded messages and consumer guide ads and every phone book all over the United States, in big cities, in multiple different industries. So at that point, no one could talk shit anymore.

Anymore.

But I had to go through that stage. The reason I bring that up is anyone that's going to go out there and really transform themselves, really go to another level, it's not just. It's your mindset. I mean, you got to go into it with a whole different attitude. I mean, if you're not Getting any results, then that shit just doesn't work. You need to give that up. So going back to. Oh, I just want to make sure I utilize these props because I brought all this shit here. So I want to sometimes put. What do you think of unicorns?

I just want to ask.

I mean, I was thinking if I could give this to you and you would accept that. It was really a gift to me and my girlfriend, but I was going to.

You know, there are so many people, especially check social media, that live in this puppy dog, rainbow and unicorn world and, you know, God bless them, really, you're not going to change their mind, so just pat them on the head and say, bless you. Really go away and be happy and live that way. And it goes back to what you just said. If they're getting the results that they want by chasing rainbows and unicorns, that's good. The only person that should ever listen to me is when what they're doing doesn't work. And if what you're doing doesn't work, really, why would people listen to you if what they're doing is working?

Exactly. Why listen to anyone? I mean, as a matter of fact, the most expensive information in the world is bad information.

And you said you're interested in seekers. So am I. And a seeker is a person who looks around, assesses, and goes, this isn't working. I need something new. And then they start to look for something new. Do you have a way? I have a way. Lots of people out there have a way. If you try my way and it doesn't work for you, it didn't work. Go look at somebody else's way. I'm sure you feel the very same way. Find something that get results. I heard years ago, you know the old saying about, is the glass half empty or is it half full? I've always said, who the hell cares? Does it quench your thirst? That's what the glass was there for to begin with.

That's great.

Does it quench your thirst?

Thirst, Yeah. I love it. So let's. Some final things. First off, I have. I went over your house for dinner.

Yep.

And we shot a video of your closet with all of this freaking all of your gear.

Yeah.

How many pairs of boots do you have now?

Just over a hundred.

Yeah. And why do you like this stuff? Why do you dress like this?

I told you, Porter Wagner was. Was my hero when I was a little boy. And it was flashy. And I believe that old line by.

Do you ever go to Lululemon, like, secretly in like, you know, want to buy like some shorts or something?

Never mind. If I went to Lulu.

I want to take a video of Lululemon and have you seriously act just for. Even if it was like five minutes.

I believe what Raquel Welch said. Never go anyplace where they won't remember you were there. I think you should make a splash and have people remember you. And, you know, I am memorable at least. And I like to dress flashing. I always have. I think my. My epitaph on my tombstone will be, he was a red sock guy. Brown sock world. Really? And you like flashy stuff too. Of course. So, you know, I designed my own cowboy boots. I wear lots of cowboy boots. I got 400 cowboy shirts. I got way too much jewelry. It's just who I am.

Yeah, well, how much does your ego play into what you do and who you are? I mean, what's your thoughts on ego? Like, what does ego mean to you?

A person that doesn't have a healthy ego and embrace it. That's a person who needs this book. Really. I think it's great to have a healthy ego ego. And I think you should embrace it. I like Larry Winget. At the end of the day, I've got to be able to say, I like Larry Winget. You're this very same way.

Did you dislike yourself and up until that point, and that's what causing you.

Yeah, that was where I went through that whole midlife crisis because I wasn't authentic when I was willing to throw off everything that wasn't Larry and become the real Larry. That's when I really became successful. I don't think people in our industry, yours, mine, I don't think they much care what we have to say. I don't even think they listen to what we have to say and they don't believe what we have to say. I think though, they will listen to see if we believe what we have to say. Yeah, that's what's important is the authenticity. People look at me and say, I don't like him, but he believes what he has to say. That's what I think people find admirable.

I agree. And that's why sitting in the middle and being all the. Is just useless. You're just not going to. You're not going to make a splash. You're not going to make any sort of impact. And yeah, most people are walking around the world hoping they can spend the rest of their lives never even running into us and avoiding what we're selling or that sort of thing.

And we're okay with that, too.

Yeah. Well, I learned early on that if you're going to make money in the information marketing business, focus your efforts on people that don't need it. Because the people that don't need it, not that they don't need it, but not people that are so desperate. Because you've heard a million times people.

Come up to you and say, oh.

There'S someone that I live with or that I know that I'm married to or one of my friends or that I work for, whatever that could really use what you have to say. Well, yeah, but they're not there. And so the people that buy how to be more successful stuff usually have some semblance of success. And the people that need it the most, the reason that they need it the most is because they never try to figure out how to do things.

I gave up years ago trying to help people who need help. And people think that's selfish too. It's not. It's smart. You can't worry about the people who need help. You should focus on the people who want help because those are the only ones who are ever going to do anything with it anyway. Yeah.

And see the cool thing, I think too, no matter what anyone says, someone can bitch about you, bitch about me, whatever. You have put tons of useful, valuable, free advice, opinions, whatever the hell you want to refer to what you do out there. I mean, anyone that wants to learn what it, you know, they don't even need to buy one of your books, they could do that stuff. But the people that will go buy one of your books are people that actually give a shit about their own lives. They're willing to actually spend some time and do it. So with this book, if someone reads it, which they should, and I highly recommend, I was even before we did this interview today, reading as much as I could because you just gave it to me a few days ago and it's really awesome and I love it and I think all of your books are fantastic. What will they get? What should they expect?

Well, first of all, I hold that mirror up to their lives and say, if your life looks like this, you don't have a pair. If your life looks like this, then you do have a pair. And let's talk about how you can better use them. Then I give specific tactics that people could embrace to grow a pair with their mind. Because, boy, if there's an area of life where, you know, people are screwed up, it's with their money, at home, with their kids, in their Businesses with their co workers, with their employees, with their employer, every area of their life. And I even take it, what you can do to be a better citizen with a pair. So you do have an impact on society. And so I give specific tactics and then the result is what you talked about. You'll be more courageous, you'll have more confidence and you'll have more charisma, all those good C words and your life will start to change. All because what changed between your ears changed. You'll have an attitude based on knowing your values and standing up for them.

Tell the story about the woman that you talk about in the book.

I love that story. I'm getting on a plane and I'm in first class. And I sit down, I'm in row three and there's this woman on her cell phone just screaming on her cell phone. She gets, gets on, she's walking down the aisle and she gets to about row 35 on her phone the whole time making so much noise, really being rude and obnoxious. And she said, I've got to put my bags up, here's my phone number. Call me right back. And she's just screaming. She gives her phone number. I immediately, I'm dialing her phone number. So I watch her. She puts her bag up and her phone rings. And she grabs the phone and said, who is this? Because she didn't recognize the number. I said, I'm the guy sitting in first class and you are 35 rows away from me. I can hear every word you're saying and so can everybody else on the plane. I'm asking you, could you just be quieter when they do call back? And she screamed and yelled, she said, show yourself. Show yourself. And I stand up and I wave and smile at her and sit back down. Yeah, see, that's.

How did everyone respond to that?

Oh, they applauded. They applauded. There was a guy, we were taking off late and there was a guy in front of me just being a jerk. And he was screaming at the flight of attendant because the plane was leaving late because of a mechanical difficulty. And he was calling her names and doing all that. So I shook his chair and he turned around and said, what? And I said, quit being an asshole. He said, who the hell do you think you are? I said, I'm the guy telling you quit being an asshole. She didn't cause the mechanical problem. Don't yell at her. Be quiet and say you're sorry. He got real quiet and he goes, I'm sorry. I said, don't Tell me. Tell her you're still sorry. She's the one you're screaming at. And he looked back at her and said, I'm really sorry. Wow. And everybody around me went, yeah. And then she brought me a drink. So thank you.

Okay, Larry, I've. Before we wrap up here, I got to put on a marketing hat.

Would you.

Would you actually wear this if I gave this?

Well, sure I will. All right, you take that. I love to wear hats. Yes. I have to with this much head.

See, now, when you're at home, what do you typically like? What do you want wear?

I rarely walk out the door of my house without jeans and boots on.

Rarely. You live in Arizona and in the middle of summer when it's insanely hot.

You'Re still okay with that? I'll wear jeans and boots.

That's part of having a pair, I guess.

Yeah, that is part of having a pair. But when I'm just sitting around the house. The bulldogs.

Yeah.

Shorts and flip flops and T shirt. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Okay, so if people first off, get his book. Get his new book, Grow a pair and his other books, you know, first one, shut up, stop whining and get a life. You're broke because you want to be. How to stop getting by and start getting ahead. People are idiots, and I can prove it. There's other books too, but these are just some of the ones I got here. How do people follow you? Watch your videos, that sort of stuff.

Go to Larrywingit.com and you can also find me. As you mentioned, I appreciate that on YouTube I give lots of stuff. I have a series called Ask Larry Anything where people can write me questions and I'll go on and do three or four minutes on that question. I release one of those every. Every week, very popular series. And then I have one of the most active Facebook pages ever, Larry Wingett fan page, where we get into it about a lot of stuff. Yes.

So your hope for the people watching this? You probably don't. You probably say, I don't really care. It's their life.

It's up to them. People change when they want to change. If they want to change, they'll take action. If they don't, they'll go away and suffer and try to suffer and come comfort. That's their business, not mine.

Are some people destined to be successful and others to just be losers? I mean, what is your take on.

I don't believe in that at all. I don't think people are destined. I think you can take a loser. And once they change their mind and become committed, they can become what they want to be if they have the basic talent and are willing to work hard enough to achieve it.

Yeah, and here's one of the things, and I'm not saying this just because you're sitting here in front of me or because we're friends. I'm saying this because I think it's really true and it's really good advice. If you've been through a million seminars, if you've been through therapy, if you've tried a ton of stuff and you just simply are in your trap that you created your own life, if you want a real wake up call and you want to have a conversation, a dialogue with yourself that you've probably never had before. One of the things you said when you grabbed your bottle of scotch and your cigars and you took a pile of books and you're watching Dennis Miller, you had your insight. A lot of people would be really well served to grab a pile of Larry Winget books, go away for a week, anywhere where they can just sit down and think about their frickin life and where they want to go. And the three exercises you gave were like, what are you willing to give up? What are the sacrifices? I think that's critical. And also the thing you said about attitude, I mean, I remember reading a book years ago, Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer and he talked about the power of a negative attitude where you don't go into things assuming they're bad, you just go into things being realistic. If you expect a certain result, then it's better, you're ecstatic. But people that listen in this fantasy world that everything's always going to work out, but they're not doing the things that make things work out is silly. So I think a real reality check and a real reset for a lot of people when other things simply have not gotten them where they want to go and no one's telling you the truth. Sit yourself down with a Larry Wingate book and it could perhaps change your life. If you're willing to change your life.

Thank you. Hey, I've had a great time.

It's always fun hanging out with you. And we'll do a follow up at some point. Let us know your COP comments. Go to Amazon right now. And don't just buy, grow a pair. Literally. Get all of his books and check out his website and you'll love it and give me your feedback on it. So thanks, Steve.

Thank you.