Distraction Leads to Your Economic Destruction with Hector LaMarque

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here with Hector Lamarck, and we're talking about winning in business, winning in life. And one of the things that Hector has seen clearly and taught clearly his entire business life and one of the biggest difference makers is the fact that everything is selling. It doesn't matter what business you're in.

That's right.

You got to sell the thing and you got to get good at it. I mean, it's not going to sell. You know, the one thing I heard early on, Hector, was that one of the biggest myths in American business is that build a better mousetrap and the world will be a path to your door. And remember Tracy Byer, Tracy by her said, the reality is build a better mousetrap, and it's going to gather dust in your garage unless you get somebody.

To get up there to sell it.

Bushes and sell the dad thing, you know, and even if you found the cure for cancer in the beginning, even if you really have the cure for cancer, the first thing you're going to meet is total skepticism across the board. Like, no way you got the cure for cancer, so you got a selling job. Even if you got the greatest thing that's ever been invented, you know, so talk about that. Because people want to dodge. They're being proactive in doing this and accepting that this is what you got to do if you want to be a business.

Right? Well, you know, every. I said this earlier, but everything is selling. There's no thing in your life that's not selling. You know, if you have a spouse, you have to sell your spouse on, you know, being with you and marrying you, whatever. If you're, you know, if you start a business, every business requires selling. Even if you're an educator, if you're a teacher, you still got to sell your students on, on buying what you're teaching, you know, so everything, there's no thing that doesn't involve selling. In fact, your quality of life will improve dramatically the better you become at selling. It just, you know, in every relationship. Where are you going to eat dinner tonight? Well, whoever has the best sales skills decides where they eat. What movie are we going to watch? Well, whoever has the best sales skills decide what movie you're going to watch. It's always that even with your kids, rearing your kids, getting your kids to do what you want them to do, everybody has, has to sell what, what they think is important to their children and get them to buy it in order to, you know, raise a healthy child. That's, that's a good, a good citizen. So. But there's no thing that doesn't involve selling. So I know for a fact that for me, I was, like I mentioned earlier, I'm very shy person. I was very shy. I'm not as shy as I used to be, but I was very shy. And so learning how to sell was what allowed me to develop the confidence, the self confidence to approach people, to talk to people, because I knew, I knew what to say and how to say it and how to ask questions and all that sort of thing that you need to do to become great at sales. And that allowed me to be very proactive. And I think most people.

You lose.

People because in the beginning they don't know how to sell. So I'm constantly teaching people right away, you know, what you need to say, how you say it, how you prospect, how you set an appointment, how you do a presentation, how you do everything in a way that's a sales oriented kind of way so that you get people to make a decision to go forward. So selling to me is a no brainer. I know for a fact that's been, that's probably been the number one reason for the kind of success that I've had in my businesses. I have so many professional salespeople in my organization. And the other thing that's really great about it, that's for me, I mean, that's really worked out well for me. The better people are trained, the less they need you, the less they need you, the more freedom you have. I don't go to a lot of functions anymore because, because I don't want to and I don't really have to because I have a bunch of really great people. And when you have people that are super competent, super, super, you know, able to do what they need to do without you being there, that was always the number one thing I was, I would do. I would train people and my, I would actually tell him, I said, well, I'm going to train you so well that you're going to tell me, hector, get out of my way, you're slowing me down. I don't need you. I asked what I always wanted. I wanted everybody to be super confident and not need me. So that I could have a life. And I have a pretty amazing life because of that. And the business keeps on growing and going because so many people are really, really good at the business. They know what they're doing and they're knowing how to. They know how to teach people. So if you're not focused on becoming a professional salesperson, you're missing the boat. That's the bottom line.

Well, you mentioned it right off the bat, even in relationships, some of that. That's the toughest selling you can do.

Yeah, absolutely.

Your kids, your spouse, they know you and they can see you coming from 100 miles away, you know? You know, you've got to be at your best. Let's say. I remember when one of my sons was 2 years old, and, you know, we were talking about the alternate clothes, you know, and I figured I'd try that on him to get him to go to bed. You know, he's like, well, Brian, do you want. Do you want to get a bath now or do you want to brush your teeth next? Okay, you want to get the bath or you want to brush your teeth? And he said, I don't want to bath or brush my teeth.

Well, you got to choose one.

Yeah, he just bulldozed my alternate clothes. I was like, what do I do now? But the thing is that you took ownership of this and waking people up to the fact that you've got to, you know, you got to get good at something.

Yeah. Sales, especially if you're in sales, you got to get great at sales, period.

You're going to need other things that you're going to have to be good at. Know this, that and the other. But why not get the big thing? You know, one of the deals, Hector, is that I find successful people as early on, they made a decision, they wanted to do something great. They didn't want to be average. They wanted to, you know, they wanted to. To me, it made sense that the better you are at anything, the more you're going to enjoy it, much less how much money you're going to make out of it. It's just going to be like playing golf. That's why golf frustrates so many super successful people, or really anybody tries to play, because they know they're going to enjoy it more, the better they can get.

Absolutely.

But it drives them nuts trying to get better. And you in a. You know, it's like if you get the big. The big decision is, I want to do something great. Well, that'll. If that sets the stage for you to make a whole lot of smart, smaller decisions following that because you're going to learn that you want to get make use your time well. You're going to have the right sub short term goals. You're going to want to spend time with, with people that can enhance what you're doing rather than cause you to get sidetracked or bring you all kind of other unnecessary problems and entanglements. It just informs how you go through the day because we all. Life is navigating the day and the week and the month and the year and life comes at you surprising and fast. And so if you don't have your center of gravity about where you want to end up, what you want to stand for, how you want to work your way through and then have developed some tools, some responses that allow you to stay on track and deflect things that, you know, where people come in and want to pull you offline. You're, you're going to be vulnerable to whoever the next phone call that comes in, you know, or the next person you bump into at the store. And so having the big things about your businesses of like I want my, you know, I want to get good at my business. Well, get good at sales.

Yeah.

And that's the big thing. And then the other things you need to know, don't worry about the other thing. They'll, you know, you'll have time to either get, develop that or hire someone who is so good. You know, it's like hiring a heart surgeon. You know, you don't, you know, there's certain things in life, if you've got the money, you can bring them in to kind of help support you, you know, but they're not going to come in for somebody doesn't work. And so knowing your big things in life really takes the guesswork out. But you, you know, I know you hear it and have your entire career. Hector, how do you stay focused? Yeah, you know, work, work, work, you know.

Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, is that going on with what you said? I have another saying I say all the time, distraction leads to your economic destruction. And I see the, one of the top reasons people struggle is they can't stay focused. They're always being distracted by something. Life, family, business, you know, I don't know, whatever. They're always constantly losing their focus. And people that succeed on it in a significant way, they're laser like focused. They don't let anything get in the way. They don't let anybody get in their way. They stay focused no matter what's going on around them. I fortunately have that ability to stay focused no matter what's going on around me. I've always been able to do that. And I think most people don't have that attribute, you know, and it's something you can develop. And I think the one of the things that I did that I think made a huge difference on me was my time management. Because the one thing we all have in common, whether you're poor or rich, is we have 24 hours a day at our disposal. It's how we use, how we utilize those 24 hours that separates people from being mediocre to being super, super successful. So one of the things I learned that made a gigantic difference in my performance, I learned this early in my career, from the first three years, is I learned I took a Franklin planner time management course. And then what I did for years and years is I would never go to bed at night before I had every single hour of the following day planned out. I would never go to bed. I had my planner right there and I knew what I was doing at 8 o', clock, 9 o', clock, 10 o', clock, 11, 12, 3, 4, 5, 10, whatever. I knew what I was doing. I knew how I was going to call, who I needed to follow up with who, you know, time I had it scheduled for, planning for a meeting and preparing for a meeting or preparing for an appointment. I had every hour scheduled. And when you have, when you, when you're that disciplined to do that, the people that are trying to, you know, get you distracted or the things that are trying to get you distracted, they have no chance because, you know, you have a plan for that day. And if you don't have a plan for every single day, then something else is going to come in and distract you from what you're trying to do. And then that's going to cost you. It's going to prolong when you're going to actually become successful, when you're going to become an RVP or an SVP or NSD or anything, or, you know, make, you know, have a income milestone or whatever, you can't be distracted. And so people like Tiger woods or Magic Johnson or, you know, Jordan or today, I mean, like some of the kids that are playing great golf, there's, you know, I'm a big golf nut, so there's some kids that are just killing, like Morikawa and, and, you know, etc. Those people, they, they have an ability to stay focused that's exceptionally better than their peers. That's that's one of the main thing is all of them have great golf swings and that sort of thing or a great, you know, they're great athletes but the ones that take it to another level to become legends, they have a focus level that surpasses their peers. And if you want to have super success in your career in the, in whatever that happens to be, you have to learn how to do that and you have to learn how to manage your time like a professional. Like if, you know, you go to the doctor, what they do is they have their one thing they do, they have appointments schedule, they call you to make sure you're going to be there and then they over schedule also they have, they have more than they have because they know a certain number of people are not going to show up for whatever reason. So they don't want to be sitting there twiddling their thumbs. So they over scheduled airlines do that as well. So you've got to, you got to really learn to look at your time as your most valuable commodity because it is because money you can replace, you can always go, you lose some money, you can go make more money, you can't make more time. You only have what you have and then it's done. So if you don't manage it like a professional, then you're never going to become, you're never going to earn professional kinds of incomes.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management and has done.

Well even during trying times. Now if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Now in your life, how hard was that for you to learn that? And were there any kind of processes or stages you went through really getting that fully formed in your, the way you went about, you know, your day and your.

Well, no, as soon as I took that class, I actually implemented what I learned. I mean I didn't take me any time at all to do once. I, I didn't understand, you know, before I did that I didn't understand the value of time management like I, like I did after I took that course and I studied that. So it was, you know, and then the. You have, you know, one of the reasons people can't stay focused is that they don't know what they really want. You know, I think most people, if you ask most people, Larry, what do you really want out of your business? And they're going to stumble and mumble and they're not going to know what to say. Most people don't really know what they want. I think one of the other things to be, you know, incredibly successful, you have to be crystal, crystal, crystal clear of what you're trying to create in your life through your business. Because your business is a vehicle.

You.

It's not your life. My. My business is not my life. It's part of my life. It's an important part. I appreciate it. But it's not my life. It is only a vehicle to achieve my life, the kind of life I want. And so when you know what that is. I knew exactly the kind of life I want to have. I knew where I wanted to live. I knew what kind of house I wanted to have. I knew what kind of cars I want to drive. I knew how kind of travel I wanted to travel. I knew what, you know, I want. I knew everything about what I wanted. You know, for me, I wanted to, like, I was on vacation every day. And I knew in order for me to live as if, you know, when you're on vacation, everything's awesome. You go to great restaurants, you play golf, you go to the beach, you go, you skiing or whatever you do, right? Whatever you like to do. I wanted to live my life as if I was on vacation every day of my life. And I knew the only way for that to happen was to build a really big business that would put off a lot of. I call it massive passive income. For my. Me, my, my passive income is, is significant, right, which allows me every day as if I'm on vacation. I literally, I literally live that way 90% of the time. I do. So that. And that was my goal. And I knew what it was. And I, and I was. And I imagined it and I focused on it and I thought about it. So everything I was doing in building my business was to create a passive income source that would allow me to live as if I was on vacation every day. And I achieved that years and years ago. I've been in that situation for about 20 years now. So that, that's still important to me because time, freedom is the real key, is a, is the real brass ring. People think a big house and a nice car, those are all great to have. I Have them. But that's not what I was after. I was after total freedom. I don't want, I don't like people telling me what to do. In fact, it makes me furious that when people try to tell me what to do, I want to be my own person. I don't want a boss, I don't need a boss. I don't want somebody on my back telling me what to do. Well, the only way you can get there is get completely debt free and have so much passive income that you don't need anything. You don't need anybody. That's what, that's what I try to do. That's not what I try to do. That's what I actually did with my business. So you need to get crystal clear about what you want from this, whatever business you happen to be in, okay? And if you don't know what that is and every little challenge you have is going to throw you off track, it's going to get you distracted, which is going to lead to your economic destruction. Get clear about what you want and where you want your life to go and who you want to be.

Well, and the thing is, if you're not, you hear those words, maybe you've read them in books and you've heard them before. The way to get to the point where you are clear is start moving forward in the things you do know. Because you do know, wherever you are, you want to get to the point where you have more freedom. You want to get to the point where you have more free time, you.

Know, to do what you want to do.

You want to get to the point where you have more income. You want to get to the point where you can do more of the things that you're really good at and are fulfilling for you to do. Because, you know, retiring, not an option for me. Do nothing is a good way of boring yourself to death and then wind up blowing your brains out because.

Absolutely.

People don't understand it. So you know that, you know, it's that we used to see about at the club all the time. Like the guys, they make their fifth in the past, you know, they make their 50, 100 million or 250 million or whatever. They sell their business, you know, and for 18 months they're just, you know, getting a yacht and they're sailing around and they're playing and they're this. And in 18 months they're ready to blow their brains out because they're just bored out of their mind, you know, and recreation is good if you're You've got some fulfilling work and you need to take a break and go do some recreation, right?

Absolutely.

Recreation as a style of life for achievers. People who enjoy making things happen and making a difference in the world, interacting with other people and helping them move up. It's not something to pursue. You won't do it. And what happens is that early on I bought into the idea of unlimited income. Because you know the example of the guy, he owns a restaurant, he's making a fortune, but he's working 23 hours a day and he has no free time.

So the idea, because he's self employed instead of he had built a business.

Yeah. So the thing is, like, you don't want to be the guy who's making a ton of money, has no time. You don't want to be the guy who's got all the time in the world, does not make any money. That's the homeless. You want to be somebody who has income. Also discretionary. I like the word discretionary income, discretionary time, but then some security to it to where it's not a fragile thing to wear. So you can have peace of mind, you can enjoy it.

Absolutely.

And you can decide what you spend your money on. You can decide who you spend your time with and what you spend your time on. This really puts you in charge of your life. I've said this before, Hector, you probably never heard it, but I grew up, my father was air force, and so we moved literally 27 times by the time I was 21.

You're a professional friend maker then.

Yeah, that was good. You know, and I've seen a lot of the world, you know, three times, three tours in Europe. But the thing is, you know, I grew up in Tuscany, so. Tuscany, the middle of France and the middle of Germany. But you reach the point where you just despise. You live in fear of an envelope coming in the mailbox. Any day, somebody in the Pentagon can decide, okay, the party's over, you know. You know, I know we used to live. When I first donned Ollie, we were in Enid, Oklahoma, a little town. Great.

You know, I have an office there.

Oh, do you really?

Like one stop sign. About 5,000 people say hello for me.

They used to be Vance Air Force Base there, and we actually moved there twice. But I remember the last time, it was like, that's when I got pissed. I don't know, fifth grade or something like that. It's like, who is this sending these letters? And the takeaway for me, Hector, was like, I don't know what I got to do, but I'm never going to put myself in a position where somebody can decide why Dell doesn't need to be there anymore. He needs to be on the other side of the world. And they can just send me a letter and uproot me and I'm gone. And really, that's why when I graduated Georgia Tech and building construction, I didn't go to work for a big construction firm because that would be giving them the ability to do that. You know, go build a bridge here, go build a power plant here. It's like, no, no, thank you. I'm going to build houses on the north side of Atlanta and be, you know, make my dreams come true doing that, you know, so. But those things resonate with you. I know that. I know they do.

Yep, I do. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's freedom. It's freedom. And the thing is, like, if you're out there with a crystal clear, maybe, you know, there's a limit to how you see it, but you do see it. You're not totally at a loss of where what you really want because you want more freedom, you want more money, you want more control out of your life. You want to be able to do things that you're good at and get satisfied from doing. And so get going. And nobody can tell you what those first steps are. But I'll promise you, you know what they are. People used to say to me, Hector, like, I'm out of prospects. I don't have. I've talked to everybody. I know, I know there is no one else on the earth that I know that I could talk to, you know, War market, whatever. And I said I would say to them, you're lying, there's one left. You're lying, there's one left. I said, go talk to them. And they would say, you're right.

Right. It's only 330 million people in America.

Yeah.

There's always people left.

You're just always.

You just got your mind locked in on the wrong side of it. And so there is an abundance out there. So I don't know. You don't know where people are, what steps they need to take. But if they get themselves thinking about moving up, those next steps are going to be clear to them. There's just no chance. You're not going to know what you need to do. And the quicker you do those, the follow up steps will close in. But we got to live our lives. That's how you, you know, you build something that is yours.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellenwinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.