Do You Know The 4 A's Of Success?

Today we're going to talk about fundamentals of success and we're going to pick the brain of one of my good friends for all my life, and that is big Sam Shepard out of Atlanta, Georgia. Good morning, Sam.

Good morning, Larry. And thank you for the opportunity to be on here. It's an honor to be with you anytime. One of my heroes. Thank you, Sam.

Well, thank you, Sam. I feel the same way about you. You know, Sam, when I started, I had my college degree, I was a building contractor. The economy wiped us out, wiped everybody out. So I found myself on food stamps and unemployment. And so I started in bottom and had to learn this thing, a total new business from the ground up and had to find out what worked for me by taking the brains of other people. You went through the same process. And what we want to do is share the on this first take the fundamentals that you kind of the cornerstones that you developed back then. And you know, you and I did the same thing and we found things that worked for us and we've been teaching these things for over 30 years. The first thing you had? Well, first of all, just to let people know a little background. And we're going to have people listening to this from all walks of life, all over the actually all over the globe. It's amazing how many people listen to these things and from where they come from, from all industries. And the principles that you've learned and that you use are not just industry specific or specific to one company. It's pretty much what any company uses one way or another that has a lot of people involved and needs to recruit quality people, train quality people, motivate quality people and have an organization to market their and the key to your success has been not only hard work, relentless, everything, but you've stayed with what worked for you. And what we want to do is share those things and pass those on to people who are not quite sure how they're going to base their business, what really they haven't really found what's going to click for them where they can build a big foundation. And so what are these four A's that you tell people about when you start passing on to them things they can use to be successful?

Okay, Larry, thanks. And the four A's, and I'm probably gonna add a fifth one here as we talk, but the four A's I found that work universally to be successful. First of all, I've always felt if a person had a great attitude, and I want to be very clear, you can win with A bad attitude. It's just that no one wants to be around you. So I encourage you to not only fight to win, but keep a great attitude. And I think if you have a great attitude, you'll stay around longer because you know, you'll see your way through tough situations. A lot easier to get a tough situation when you have a good attitude, and you have a good attitude about your future and where you're going and what you're doing. So I just think to be around people is very important to have a great, great attitude. And a great attitude doesn't mean that you're not challenged. It just means you're always looking for the positive in the situation. You're always looking for what's next. Okay, this isn't going good. I just got attitude about what's next. And if it's down, I'm not gonna be down a long time. This is just temporary when I'm down. So I got to keep. Matter of fact, the worst things are, the more important it me to have a great attitude, because it's easy to have a good attitude when you're winning. Your challenge is have a great attitude when nothing's going, when it's totally flat and you. You just don't see any good things happening. That's when it's very important to have a good attitude, because it'll stop you from quitting. Once you get your attitude right, then the next thing is attendance. You man, you got to show up, and you can't have a business, and the store is always closed, and the store, you know, you got irregular business hours. So I think it's very important that you attend all things. You know, what things? I tend everything. I never. I go to all events because I don't know which event will be the event for me. So you just keep the store open, be there, you know, and this is what you sign up to do. If you're going to the business for yourself, and whether it's financial service, whatever your business, then you got to be there. You got to be stable. I think a good attendance shows stability, and people like to follow stable people the next day is accountability. Okay? We've got to be accountable for our actions, for our, you know, what we do on a daily basis. And I find that the older we get, the harder it is for us to be accountable to other people. But I think accountability makes it harder for you to do nothing because, you know, you have the answer for what you're doing, and you got to be accountable. I believe on a daily Basis. Absolutely. On a weekly basis. I think accountability does change as you go around, but I think it's so important that you have people that are beating you, that I have a better business than yours, that are in leadership to you, that you stay accountable to. And then that fourth A is activity. What are your activity on a daily basis? Different businesses have different activity. But in our business, the business I'm in is about sitting with people, meeting families, gathering clients. And to do that, we have to have daily activity to help us grow our business, to help us get in front of new people, to continue to prospect on a daily basis. And prospecting does not mean standing in a mall. But prospecting is meeting people, making friends. I call prospecting friendship farming. Okay, I'm just friendship farmer. We'll talk about that, that in the seven fundamentals, what prospecting is in a minute. But that's the fourth A. We manage your activity on a daily basis. I think you need to write it down and you need to have a game plan for the next day. You know, at the end of the day, you have a game plan for the next day. And the fifth day, I would add, I've just started talking about is being available. And I hadn't, I've never really added that in the past, but I think you gotta be available. You know, in other words, if I'm gonna pour into, if people gonna pour into you, if people are gonna, you know, help you get to that next level, are you available for growth? Are you available to be led? You got to make certain. And it's hard to be in attendance, but I think being available all the time, you know, 24, seven, you got to be available so that people can help you go to that next level. Because it's going to take people and mentorship, I believe, to get you to the next level. And those, I think if you stand firm on mastering those, those A's, I believe there's no way that you will not be successful in your business.

Yeah. And one point you made real quickly. We'll get into this stuff later on. But the activity. And that was. You said it real quick about when you close out a day, you already have the day plan for the next day.

You can't wake up. If you wake up and decide to say, what am I gonna do today? I think that day is already dead. You got to know what you're gonna do, you know, each and every day. You, you're pre planning your day, you're pre planning your week. And if not, it's just too Easy for it to get by. Because the one thing that we all have equal, we all have 24 hours in a day. Nobody. I don't care how rich you are, how poor you are, we still wake up. If God wakes us up, we got 24 hours in that day. And how we utilize that day to get the most out of activity and make certain we're doing the most productive things possible at every given moment. It's going to be real important to us getting the most out of our days. I think a lot of times people that win are just the people who are more productive in their day. I don't think it is. You got to be more productive. How do some people go through a day and get one name or two names, or some people go through the same day and they meet 20 new people or 30 new people. Nothing. A lot of that has to do with what are your goals that are driving you to make something happen each every day. And valuing, you know, every day is important. Every day is important.

All right, let's wrap this up. We're going to get into your eight fundamentals. These are like the cornerstones. And you got to have things that you're going to build your business off of. This is work for Sam. He started as baggage handler at Delta and moved through one up to where he's built an organization that generates over a million dollars a year income. He's got. He's influenced tens of thousands of families lives in a positive way. He's made friends. And it came because he organized himself around. He committed to. He had discipline. And he said, this is what I'm going to deal with. Thank you very much, Sam. And real quick, the first one was Sam.

Attitude. Second one is attendance, accountability. Attendance, accountability, activity, activity and availability.

You can't hide. You can't get. People count on you and then go hide.

Right, right, exactly.

And so, folks, take a look at those and see. See if you can. Any of those can make a difference in how you are running your life. Thanks so much, Sam. And we're going to move now over. We're going to take all this. All this is kind of general cornerstone. But now you've got to have fundamentals. You got to have specifics. And if you don't have that, it's just these. Just theory. I got a great attitude. I'm working hard, I'm available. Yeah. Well, what are you doing now? Now that you've got yourself mentally organized, committed, disciplined, what are you actually doing? How can you keep yourself honest? All right, we're going to look at the fundamentals. And thanks so much, Sam. Let's go look at the fundamentals.

Yes, sir.

Sam.