A Goal Is Not a Goal Without a Plan Attached to It with Senior National Sales Director Bill Orender

I'm with my great friend Bill Arender from Dallas, and I wanted to. You know, the last time we talked, we had a great concept, and that is learning how to work. You know, one thing is work is fueled by progress and having goals and making progress towards it. It's like racing, you know, if you're racing against somebody, you know, like, I would never forget Jeff Castellin said one time, I've never. He said, in anyone. He said, even a junior high kid in gym class will run faster if they've got somebody in the lane next to them. You know, if they're running a 40, you're timing them in the 40 or something like that. And so there's things that can bring out. You need to put yourself in situations that will bring out your best performance. And that's one thing is peer pressure. You know, you get in a situation with a team, you got goals where you're racing against other people, but also the goal, the goal, the peer pressure, Putting yourself, putting a time frame on it, things like that. But getting yourself to just do little things will build into where you'll go, you know, like little things. I'll give you an example, Bill. There's a general who wrote, like, one of the SEAL team generals. You know, he retired. He wrote a book about winning himself. And he said the first thing in the morning is winners make their bed. You know, the idea is you have a winning routine. You know, and I've never known of a winner who does not have their own personal routine. And it doesn't. It's not good enough to just hear, okay, the top 10 people in the world, they do these things when they start off the day. No, you got to find out what you need to do to start off and end the day where you can be the most productive. Brushing your teeth, doing some. You know, I have a thing called Activate. You know, like six or seven or eight different little exercises that I'll do to basically stretching and things like that. It's just like, you know, I'm not full training at the gym, but I'm activating the body. You know, as you get older, you know, it can creak up on you. And you do things to activate, and then you got like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But you know, just your regular routine. Things that, you know, when you're tired, you don't want to do these. Get all these things done before you go out, you know, lay out the clothes for the next day or something like that. But what I try to do is tell myself is I'm going to give myself the advantage of a good start tomorrow. And so I'm going to do all these crap things that are annoying, but I focus on the benefits and I'm going to have, you know, and I'm going to start the day because I don't want to have to come out later in the day and come back and do the stuff I should have done in the first half hour of the day. You know, it's a matter you set yourself up to get the little thing. Lot of learning how to work and continuing to stay keep that momentum because that's something you can fall apart, you know, when crisis hit. That's what people do is they, they stop doing normal things on a normal schedule. And so learning how to work and finding the right things to work on and doing that at the level you need to work on is Lutz starts with the little things, you know, and get those things knocked out of the way so you have a clear head. But if you're clutter with will hold you back. And so I'm interested in your viewpoint about, and what you have to say about working, learning how to work hard. Because you said you had to do.

That, you know, you know, first of all, you have to understand a goal isn't a goal without a plan attached to it. You may have a goal to drive to California, but what's your plan to get there? Well, you work your plan and then you get your goal. And so that's what I learned in college, that I had to study five hours a day. And I literally got a sheet of paper and I tracked it how many hours a day when I could not stop studying until I x'd off five. And I did that five days a week. Then when I got in our industry, I got a sheet of paper and I figured out to reach my goals doing the math, what I had to do income wise. I knew I had to put away $4,000 a month, Larry, within 10 years to be worth a millionaire. That's what it is, 4,000 at 12% in 10 years, you're a millionaire. So I figured out I got to start saving $4,000 a month. That required me to go find an opportunity that would pay me so much money that I can save $4,000 a month after taxes and after taking care of my family. Then I decided, what do I have to do to attain that? And I said, if I do this on a daily basis, I'm slam dunking all my goals. Travel, home, net worth, everything I wanted, car, everything. So I made up my mind, got a sheet of paper, you know, just a blank sheet of paper, drove five lines on it, and then put the numbers just like you did in college. And I made phone calls every day. So I didn't work. I never said I worked hard. I worked. I did my job and I did the things necessary for me to make my goals come true. And so I made my phone calls every day. And I had so many phone calls I had to make a day and so many appointments, and I blocked out every day how many hours a day I was going to be on the phone. So if it's 10 to 12 every day I'm on the phone booking appointments, you could call me and I wouldn't even take your phone call. I wouldn't even take my wife's phone call unless there was an emergency because that was precious goal time to me. And I did that day after day, and it became a habit. And so now my habits create the success, not the work. It's the habit of the work that we think is so hard, but once you get in the habit of doing it and then next thing you know, it became I was making the money I wanted to make. I kept my program up. Kept my program up. And to this day, Larry, I've got some elements in my life. If you take a look at my daily calendar that I put down, like exercise every day. I put down how many minutes I exercise every day. I've been doing it for 40 plus years. I don't know any other way to operate. Because if I want to be healthy, as you know, Larry, health conscious, as you are, you've got to do things today. You know, you go to the doctor, you have a heart attack. The doctor says, well, lose weight and exercise. I thought, that's interesting. That cures a heart attack. So how do you prevent a heart attack? Lose weight. Exercise. Isn't that something? And so an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And most people wait for the pound to hit them in the head, to force them to do the things they don't want to do when they don't want to do them. But I figure I'll pay the price. Now, like Virginia said, I'm going to do today what others won't, so I can have tomorrow what others can't. And successful people form the habits of doing things that the unsuccessful people don't want to do. See, successful people don't want to do them either. Instead of. Right. You like making phone calls? Oh, no, I don't. I like the results that come from making phone calls. I don't like to exercise every day. I like the results that come from exercise. And so when you take a look at your life, either you're going to be disciplined or someone's going to discipline you. I prefer to be disciplined because I don't like authority, especially don't like financial authority. So if I don't want something, a lot of people can't discipline themselves. So we go get a job and a boss disciplines them and gives them 1/5 the pay they could have had. Yeah, so I'll discipline you, be here at a certain time, take your lunch. If not, I'll be mad at you and I'll pay you one fifth of what you could have made because you can't discipline yourself.

So again, wait, I'll tell you a couple of things. First of all, I had the attitude, and you referred to this like things are either this way or that way. I had the attitude, people are either fat or their metabolism. You're born with it, your metabolism victim. And I had the attitude growing up. I was very thin growing up because I played sports all the time. Then you get in college and the pounds start coming on and, you know, I'm carrying £20 more than I needed to be carrying all the way up into, out of my first career in building construction. And then when I started financial services and in some of those meetings that we would have manager meetings, I remember there was a table at the break, it was a morning meeting and you know, the coffee and the orange juice, but then the donuts and the pastries out there, you know, and there was this really trim guy that of course, you know, he's one of these guys who looks like Brad Pitt. You know, the Brad Pitt guy, or shall we say Randy Godfrey, you know, type guy. You know, the guy who just appears like he's perfect, he's never had a care in his life and he's just naturally trim. Okay. He was a good looking guy, well dressed, had a great wife with him and everything. And we were standing in front looking at the donuts and he spontaneously said, I love donuts. He said, I'd love to eat all of them, but he said, but I can't. And he walked away. And I thought, oh, you can make a decision on that. I just thought somehow, you know, you see people like, I know I was over at Rusty Crossland's house out here in Aspenwater, you know, years ago, and there was like a container of ice cream. And Rusty went in there and he took A couple of scoops and put it in the bowl and ate that. And I'm thinking, I have never not eaten. If I scream comes into my. I don't ever remember, I don't ever remember leaving anything in the container to put back in the freezer, the freezer on ice cream. It's like, no, you can do that and you can actually make that decision. You know that. But you have to have reasons. And I'm gonna tell you how that relates to that thing about, you know, you would go and you were like a robot, you would lock yourself in your office. What was it, 10 to 12 or how many hours that was.

Change it every day, two hours every day. I change it every day.

Yeah. And the thing is we'd say, you know, cause you would say that at meetings, you would share that because people are listening. Now the point I'm going to make now is why thinking and understanding and having the goals and the purpose for what you're doing has got to be firmly in your mind before you say you'll actually do the things you've already heard people tell you to do to get where you want to go. So you would tell us, this is what I do. We want to know why is Bill back at that time we only had two or three people making six figure incomes in the company. And you were one. It was like, how does this guy do it? You know, well, you get up there and I said, well, and this was before we went into distribution, you know, recruiting, training, opening offices. The only option was to be a salesperson. And I of course, like everybody else, despise prospecting because you despise hearing the nose. And I was too stupid to not figure out what Sam Shepard did. He said, I don't prospect. I go looking for friends, you know, I go friend to friend to friend. Well, you know, to me I was go looking for sales, you know, and so it's a whole different thing. And you're going to get more rejection when you just approach people and they're pretty soon, pretty early in the thing, they find out that you're trying to push something on them. And so it's unpleasant. And the idea of doing that two hours a day on the phone is just, I knew what you did, but I would have probably done it back then had I really been clear on your thinking about why you were doing it. Million dollar income, two hours. Do this and that sets that, push that, pushing that domino every day. If I push that domino, that will ripple into or that will origami out into all of the great things I want in life. But I've got to push that first domino every day for, what did you say, 10 years or something? And save $4,000 a month, that type thing. If I'd understood that, I would have probably done it. But I didn't really have that clear in my head. All I had was. You got to be kidding. Two hours a day and they're talking to numbskulls on the phone? No, you know, because I. So I was always looking for other ways. That's why thinking is so important. Is that. Do you find that interesting?

I do. And I got a first. Larry, tell a little story about you and me. We went out to lunch at one of the conventions. And you were not eating like you're eating now. You had a big, juicy, greasy old cheeseburger dripping at the side.

Big order of.

Then you said, phil, can I say the blessing? Yes, please. Bless us this Lord, to the nourishment of our bodies. It had nothing to do with nourishment. It had something to do with lust. Did he want him to nourish your body? If you nourished me, he would have ordered it.

I was asking for a turning water into wine miracle that he could turn those fries and the greasy cheeseburger into. Into a nutritious meal. So you misunderstood the prayer there, what I was asking for, Bill, Every time.

I hear that prayer said, I think of you. Let's put it that way. And I've even said it, Larry. The thing about it, I had monetized everything I did so that I knew I wanted to make, let's say, $1,000 a week. Well, I knew I had to have 10 appointments a week to have that. So I didn't have an appointment. I was making $100. So I went and saw you. I made $100. If you said yes, no, or whatever you said. Then I figured out that in order to get an appointment, I had to call four people. So now I was not making. To make $100, I had to call four people. So I wasn't just working. I was making $25 a phone call. Now, understand, my mom and dad were minimum wage people making four and five dollars an hour. Now I'm making $25 on a phone call. Yeah, to me, this is brilliant. I'm making 20. I'll be sorry. $25 every time I make a phone call. That's when minimum wage. I mean, people are making $8 an hour, $5 an hour. So I thought I was in high cotton making $25 per phone call. So I thought, you know what? I want to make more money. And so what I did, I made more phone calls. I didn't work harder. I made more money. I was working to make money. I wasn't working to work. I didn't work to work. If you're not going to pay. If I'm not going to get paid for a phone call, I'm not going to work. If I'm not going to get paid for an appointment, I'm not going to do it. Even to this day, in our business, I tell people you make $500 per new associate you attract into your company. $500?

Yeah.

It takes three appointments to get one. So you're making about $180 per appointment, and it takes four phone calls. You're making a ton of money. So my mom was a piece worker. She worked on piecework, which means she got paid by the piece, not the hour. And that's where I learned that.

Yeah. And the thing is, I figured that out on my own in another way. When I moved up to North Carolina, we were the first expansions. You went moved. When the company decided we were going to expand out of Atlanta, Georgia, and take over the universe, you were the first one to move to Dallas, and I moved up to North Carolina. And so what I did there, Bill, was an extension. Because the people who don't have things going on right now, the hardest thing is to get yourself to do the right things on a consistent basis and to work it out that these actions. I'm putting money in the bank when I do this, I'm putting money in the bank. It's not there, but I'm filling up the pipeline. There's a pipeline I've created. I know that this action will lead to another action, will lead to another action, will lead to money in my pocket that I can put in the bank. And so you've got to have that worked out where you can connect. You're not going to do it consistently. You know, you might do a blitz, you know, psych yourself up, but you're not going to make it a way of life until you get worked out. The activity that you're doing, even though nobody else sees it, maybe it turns into a disaster, whatever, but it's going to. I'm putting money in the bank when I do this, you know, I'm building. This is going to turn into money. And so what I did was I went to the mall and I got a little brandy sniffer. I only Found out later it was a brandy sniffer. But since I don't drink but a little brandy sniffer and had activity printed on it. So I called it a jar. You know, that's. I didn't know it was a brandy snuffer. I said it was a jar. So I called it my activity jar. And what, you know, I'm up there all by myself, broke, insanely underfunded. And so what I did was I had it worked out in my mind. Every phone call or every person I approached as I went around, that was an effort to move forward. So I gave myself a penny for that. Okay, that was a penny in the jar. And then if I actually got a conversation, it was like a nickel. Like if they responded in any way, like if the phone was. If I made a phone call and they picked up, that was a nickel. And then if we actually had a conversation where we were have some kind of interaction, that was a dime. And then if we set up an appointment, where we had an appointment, that was a quarter. That was my whole system right there that I was trying to work, doing all these things to get up to a face to face appointment. Now, whether I got a sale or not, I didn't have anything for that. I was just trying to get myself to do activity that would turn into sales. And I was only able to keep that thing going for like three and a half months. But by the end of three and a half months, things were so chaotic that I couldn't keep up with it anymore. I had the tornado started. I had the flurry of activity. I had anted up to have all of this activity and people coming in, prospects and prospective clients and things pending deals and all of that in three and a half months. But it all started with me only the lonely in that office trying to psych myself up that what I'm doing now matters. Like it's got to matter. You got to have it. This matters to me, getting where I want to go, which is money, income substantial, where I can do the things I need to do for necessities with the family and all. But then beyond that to financial independence. And so I actually figured out another version of what you were doing. And I could probably done it faster in Atlanta had I known more about your thinking on why you were doing that activity. That's why there's thinking. And you're not going to get that from an interviewer, you know what I'm saying? And the guys who haven't done anything because we've had to work this Thing through to the final thing. Now, they may talk about it, Bill, they may talk about it, but they're not going to emphasize it. You got to emphasize this stuff because what's emphasized is what sticks gets down into your. You got to get this not just in your brain, folks, you got to get it in the marrow of your bones so that no matter how you're attacked, if people argue with you, no circumstances, you're not changing. It's in your marrow, it becomes part of your, it's in your DNA. It goes way beyond a stupid habit. This is becomes your DNA because you have locked that in mentally, you know. And so when I say that, how do you. What's your bounce back on that?

Well, I think what you're saying is you have to monetize, put a price on and value of what you're doing. And it's not. I'm doing it because I got to work hard. And when you're getting paid to do it, you're gonna do it. And that's what you did for three and a half months. You monetized it. Every business monetizes. Starbucks looks at how many people walk into Starbucks and they monetize that every time someone walks in, they get about $6 a purchase. Their job isn't to get them up to 10, their job is to how many more people can we get in? And so when you monetize things, even baseball players, you know, these pitchers that make $30 million a year, they're really making about $2,000 per pitch.

Yeah, right.

So they monetize it. And once you monetize.

Yeah, that's off season training program. In a whole year, they're getting $2,000. If they go out, toss in the backyard to warm up in the off season, that's 2,000 DOL dollars.

You know, if you pay me to do something, I'll do it. You know, My son was in high school, he was struggling in math. And I went to the headmaster, I said, what do we have to do to get him to get do better grades? He said, oh, it's easy. I said, what? He said, bribe him.

That's exactly it.

What do you mean? Well, offer him something financial. And so he wanted something. I said, if you get better grades, I'll give you this thing. And he did. And we said, well, he shouldn't have to do that. And the man said, well, how's your way working? Everything is bribery. You take a look at our salvation, Larry. God is bribing us. If you live by Jesus Christ, you will have eternal life and all your sins are wiped away. How about that one? No, I'm not taking that deal. I'm taking that deal. He bribed me. I have eternal life coming.

Treasures in heaven and possibly. So the thing is, Art made, you know, our good buddy Art, he doesn't care. You know, he doesn't supervise how I talk about him, what I reveal about him, you know. But Art, in many ways, you know, he's like all of us, we talk so much. You say things that really hit the nail on the head and you're not even realizing you're doing it. But I've always thought of Art as almost an idiot savant on winning and success. Because every time I ask him later, do you remember you said that he'll go, no.

I had to write that book for him to remember everything.

Yeah. Which is a fabulous book. And what's the title of that book they can find on Amazon?

Locker Room Notes.

Locker Room Notes from Art Williams. I mean, that is the. And what he was teaching us how to think. That's what all that stuff was. We'd have the meetings, handouts, and he'd go through it. It's like 100. I remember like 176 things. If you do these things, you'll win. And then he would read them to us. You know, it's just like I can read, you know, put a little color behind it. Tell his story. No, you know, football coach going through the playbook and. But he said once, he said this one time to me at lunch, he said, you've got to. Describing the process. He said, you've got to get yourself to the point where you're doing enough. You know, people say, how much, how long would it take? Whatever it is, his answer, you got to get to where you do enough of what? The right things. Enough of the right things when? On a daily basis. Why? To win, to be successful. And you get your. That's the zone. People wonder the zone, how to get in the zone. Here's the zone. Let me just find the zone for you. Flow. You know, the book flow. Let me define it for you from my background of talking about this stuff nonstop for 40 plus years. It's when you get yourself into that flow of where you're doing enough. Whatever the priority of the moment is, you're doing enough of the right. Whatever the project du jour or to get to the next milestone and in an area of your life, you're doing enough of the right things on a daily basis to be successful. And so that's what we're talking about when we come to activity. You don't have to get right today up to that level if you're starting out. But that's where you want to head, and that's why you want, you know, that's how you want to ramp up. You know, even, you know, every pro team in every sport, when they. Before they play the game, they don't come out of the locker room and blow the whistle and play the game. They get out on the field and they warm up, loosen up, they ramp up. And so the thing is, it may take you a while to ramp up to this level of activity, but you can start heading into that direction. But your goal is to get up to that activity level where you're doing enough of the right things on a daily basis and to be successful. And so.

Larry, you talked about that in your book, serial winner. Yeah, Serial winner means they do. No matter what enterprise they get into, it's the same thing. They're gonna figure out, do what it takes. They're serial winners.

Absolutely. Thanks for bringing that out. And I am really thrilled with the information we got here today.

Larry, let me give you one last point.

Yeah.

There was a time in my life where I needed to have a better marriage. My marriage was not the way I wanted it to be. And I read a book called the Five Love Languages. And if you ever read the book, it's five different ways you can show love to another human being. And so I declared that in order to have a better marriage, I had to have 10 points a week. If I did the dishes, point, if I gave her a rose, that was a point. And I figured out I just got to do 10 points a week. And she finally said to me, are you doing this for a point? I said, yeah. She said, doesn't make any difference, long as you do it. And I kept that up for almost two years. So I'm on a point system and realize at the end of the week, the points are gone. I gotta start all over again.

But that's the. That's the whole deal.

That's the whole point.

If you can't manage yourself, you know, it's not like it should be this way or should be that way. The deal is it is the way it is. I am the way I am. And so, like, for me to travel, like, you've done a lot of traveling in life to. For me to travel, I've got to have. I keep a list of fun things I want to do in different, like, next Time I go to Los Angeles, I want to go to this restaurant or this store or go, you know, this. Someone told me about this beach they've got there. Or New York, you know, if I go to New York, I've just got a list of them. So the way I trick myself into traveling, like someone wants you to speak or something, which I don't do anymore.

But.

The way I get myself to do it is I'm going to go and do the fun things. And by the way, I'll stick that in along the side, you know, it's just the way I am, you know. So how I keep myself from just saying no to everybody. But you've got to. The hardest. We'll wrap it up on this. I've heard this, and I believe it. The hardest thing you've got to do in your life is keep yourself. Keep yourself. You keep yourself excited about what you've got to do. Not let yourself get bored, not let yourself get sidetracked.

That's right.

You know, that's like people say, you know, and I talk to people about getting in the wedding groove. That's what this is all about. You keeping yourself excited about doing the things you need to do to get the things you want that attract you and that turn you on, that you're intrigued with, excited about. And so you can stay excited, you know. And my thing is like, you know, I used to have this thing. Why not you? You know, that I use as an introduction when I speak. And I had all of these flashes because I didn't have a big video production thing, so it was all just pictures and music. But, you know, Maseratis, big phone, big homes, you know, vacation things, great things with your kids, great things here, great things there in your life. And people go as soon as you start playing it with the music, you know, and some of it would show, like where I'm with my. With family, different family members. We're up on top of a mountain, skiing or something, you know, or we're out on the. Or me and my mother in. In a helicopter when we went to Vegas to that convention and we went over to the Grand Canyon and some of the shots of me in there, but then they're just also showing things. And you know what? Inevitably you get. People go, wow, wow. And that's on YouTube, by the way. Why not, you little short thing? But it's just spontaneous, guttural reactions from the crowd. Or like, ooh. But wow. Well, you know, people are so afraid of being materialistic, you know, like oh, that's not right to be. Hey, if your lust for a Lamborghini causes you to get off your butt and go to work and start making the changes you need, go for a Lamborghini or go for a motorcycle or go for a house or go for a vacation in Hawaii in two years and take. Being able to take, or the Holy Land or whatever, tour Europe or whatever. You know, some of these kind of things are Be able to take a weekend and go and spend a week in London and shop and go to all the plays. If that's something that. Something that will turn you on, that say, oh, that's just materialistic, that's shallow. This, that and the other. No, it's very valuable if it gets your butt in gear, because once you get up to the point where you actually can afford to do it, you might not even do it because it might not even matter to you that much. But what you gotta do is get something to strike that fire inside of you. And if it's, you know, like Jack Shulman in the original, one of the original stars, you know, his whole thing was he wanted to work like a dog so he could buy a motorhome, a Winnebago, you know, the Winnebago dream got him to launch, and he set records and did this, that and the other. Did legendary thing, and that inspired the whole rest of the company. And so, you know, turn yourself loose to go for things you want to go. Those things are in there for a purpose. It doesn't make you shallow, materialistic, or this, that the other. It makes you motivated if you'll give yourself permission to go for it like that. And so I'm going to give you the final word here, Bill.

Like Virginia Carter said, I'm going to do today what others won't. But again, why? So I can have tomorrow, but others can't. It's deferred gratification. We're living a life today that we love, Larry, and we enjoy because we did back then what we didn't want to do, so we can have what we did want to have. Everyone thinks you love recruiting, you love working, you love. No, I tolerated it. So I can have the life we're living today. And I'm so glad we did. And I don't know why we did it, but I'm glad we did.

Absolutely. Well, thanks so much, Bill. This has been great.

Thank you, Larry.