Episode 105: The Power of Your Brain with Titan of Industry Omar Oropesa

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell, and let's get started. I'm here today with a good friend from South Florida, Omar Oropesa. And Omar has grown the biggest hierarchy in his company of anyone in the last 25 years. He's been in the business 25 years. He has 90 locations, 6,000 people in his organization. And not only successful himself, million dollar earner himself, he's produced, he's duplicated himself. He has $5 million earners in his organization. So not only are they going out there in the marketplace delivering a quality product, they're expanding, they're exploding. And the biggest and best people have found out they've got the same chance of earning big incomes and having the big life, just like Omar. So he's an expert at the business, an expert at duplicating training, encouraging people, providing the right kind of support at each level of their development and then continuing to keep them motivated and moving forward. So, Omar, thanks for joining us today.

You're very welcome, Larry. It's a pleasure of mine because I've known you for many, many years and you've helped me grow over the years. And so where I'm at now has a little bit to do with Larry Wydell as well.

I think we've good for each other, Omar.

I think so, too.

And Omar, tell people about where you came from, a little, a little perspective on your starting point because, you know, we all have at some point you got to get started. You got to make the first step. And that could, that can be early in your life or that can be right now. But go back to where you were in South Florida and when you had the wealthy family and your dad was a banker and you lived in a country club and, you know, you got your first Rolls Royce when you're 16 and got your license. And.

Yeah, if that all would have happened, I would have probably ended up strung out on drugs somewhere. But we grew up in Miami, Florida, in a pretty rough neighborhood. We were lower middle class or upper lower class, however you want to call it. But we struggled. And I went to public school and then I graduated and I screwed off a year. Then I went to college. And when I went to college, I needed to work multiple jobs, man. I was working weekends, midnights. I was working as a window teller in the daytime. I was scratching every way that I could, you know, to raise enough cash. That way I could graduate college. And I grew up with a terrible stuttering problem. You'll notice that Even now, every once in a while, I will get stuck on a word. And there were nights when I was 8 years old, you know, I would be just angry with God and crying in my room, you know, eight years old, I'm like, God, why me? Why do I stutter? Nobody else stutters. Nobody I know stutters. Nobody related to me stutters, why me? You know, and when you're little kids, you don't really realize, you know, it's usually always, woe is me, woe is me, woe is me. And anyways, I grew up that way, and. And then later on, I realized the reason why it was me, why that all happened to me. He was just like, he was just getting me ready. He had great stuff planned, and he knew that I needed toughness and I needed dreams and I needed goals. And he placed me in a place where that was the escape, the escape that I had every day. Because we grew up in a, you know, a home that wasn't that pleasant. There was alcoholism and there was. It just wasn't pleasant. Let's just bring it up that way. And the escape was at night. I would play radio loud and I would dream about what life will look like later on, how one day I'm gonna, you know, have a great wife and great kids and live in a mansion and own a business and just live the dream. And so that was the escape. And every day, playing that in my head over and over and over, all the way from 8 years old, you know, really brainwashes you in a positive way. And then when I graduated college, I learned a business and I really grew. And all. All those dreams that I dreamt about when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and on and on I live now. I have a great wife, I got great kids. I live in a mansion, in a country club, on a golf course. I make a lot of money. I got a huge net worth. And so I'll tell you that from where I was to where I am now is night and day. But the journey has been amazing. I mean, the growth, the improvement. Who I am now versus who I was then is like night and day. And that's really what winning is all about, is you've got to grow. If you remain constant and you don't change and you don't grow and you don't improve, you're going to wind up like everyone else, average in ordinary living weakness, you know, the week owing, credit card debt and all that kind of crap. So the process, the journey, the relationships, like with you and I And. And all my other good buddies who are wealthy and they're entrepreneurial, and the relation that I've grown with them, I mean, it's just life changing. The greatest news is, if you live in America, at least now, I don't know what happens later, but at least now, if you live in America and you want to change your life and you want to. I mean, there's no other place in the world that will let you do that more than right here in America.

And so you went and got your education and hit the ground running, doing just about any kind of job you could find, is that right?

Yeah. Well, while I was in college, I worked all kinds of jobs. I even worked as a bouncer, and I traveled with the Eagles and the Rolling Stones and Ice Cube and Nine Inch Nails and Prints. And so I worked as a bouncer, a bodyguard, window teller. I worked in the accounting lab at school, I worked at a radio station. You know, I never lasted long at jobs because I just hated anybody ordering me around, telling me what to do. Although when you need the money, you do what you got to do. And so that's what I did while in college. Now, I've never worked a job after college, but while I was in college, I needed that flexibility, and those jobs would let me work around classes and stuff, so that's what I did.

When you graduated and you hit the streets, what were you looking for?

I was looking for a business. Even when I was little, 8 years old, 9 years old, I knew because I'd watch my parents and they work jobs, and they were always griping about their jobs and we never had enough money. And so I always knew I wanted to own a business. And where I work now, I actually learned about it the last year in college. And I worked there part time while in college, really learning the ropes. And then when I graduated, you see there, they let you work your way up where you can open up your own offices and you can own your own business. And I was like, man, this is exactly what I want to do. So right when I graduated, I was already working there. And within a year, I opened up one office. And, you know, I was young, scared to death, had an office, lease an employee, and woke up every morning like, holy crap, you know, what am I doing right? And I worked really, really hard. And within a couple years, we had another office and another office. And right now we have 90 branch offices. Unbelievable.

And all this has happened to Omar. It's kind of amazing, isn't is?

Totally amazing.

Was your. Did you Surprise. Your mother.

Actually, my mother was one that would always let me know, omar, you're gonna do great stuff. You're gonna get rich. You're gonna live the dream. She was always very positive. Always. I mean, as long as I could remember. And my mother was a dreamer also, so that's where I learned that from. And then on my dad, what I learned with him was just hard work. He never missed work, no matter what. Like, one morning, he. What is that operation? A root canal. He had a root canal done at 8 o' clock in the morning, and he was at work like an hour later. Like, who goes, you know, to work after a root canal? Right? And so working hard was what I learned off of him, and I learned how to dream off of my mother. And I blended that, you know, in life, you know, you dream big, but you work hard. You know, most dreamers are just dreamers. They're big talkers. And they never really lay it on the line because they're worried that if they do, what if I do and what if I don't make it? Then everybody will laugh at me. Right. And that's exactly why they're broke. Whereas winners are like, I'm going to lay it on the line, and there's no way that I won't win. Okay? There's just no way possible because I won't quit. And so that's the difference with winners and losers, I think.

Yeah, you've got to have. One thing you've done, you did a great job of right from the beginning, is not worry about what could go wrong or am I good enough or all of the problems that most people worry about. If you worry about the problems and focus on the negatives like most people let themselves do, you're never going to do the things you need to do to not be. Get yourself beat.

Right?

Right.

Well, I mean, I think the way that I worked around that was every night and every morning I would spend 20 minutes visualizing about life, visualizing what it'll look like. Listen, man, I grew up, I never played golf because that was a rich man's game and we were poor. I never played golf, but I. I always wanted to live in one of them country clubs, you know, and so literally dreaming about it, visualizing it every day, every morning. So every night prior to sleeping, I would visualize what life will look like, where will I live, what will I drive, how will life be, where would I travel, the organization I would grow, the lives I would change. And then. So that was the last thing in My brain as I went, you know, to sleep. And then every morning when I woke up, I did the exact thing, okay? Now, all that wouldn't mean squat if you didn't work like hell in all those other hours. You know what I'm saying? But that's why I was never worried about losing. And what if this wouldn't work? Is I was always busy dreaming about what it will look like once it works. You know what I'm saying?

And where did you. Where did that. Where did that come from? Where you knew to do that?

Well, I can remember. This is a hilarious story. I was 8 years old, and the Pittsburgh Pirates were playing in the World Series, and I was playing Little League, and in Little League, I was actually on the Pirates. So what are the odds that I'm playing on the Pirates in Little League, and I'm watching them win it all at night, and there was a player named OMAR Moreno, number 18, that played on Pittsburgh then. And I remember, you know, you're eight years old, right? You're watching this and you're dreaming like, Omar Moreno. I'm Omar. I. I'm on the Pirates. He's on the Pirates. You know, and literally, I would dream about. I was that Omar playing in the World Series and winning the championship. And. And ironically, that year in Little League, we were in the championship, and it was the last inning. We were losing nine runs. That is 09 to 0. It was the last inning. Coach Troy walks up. He's like, listen, I want everybody with their rally hats on. We're gonna win this game right here, right now. And he gave a motivational talk. And so it was the last inning. It was nine. Nine. We had tied it up, and bases were loaded, two outs. Guess who was up? Me. And the craziest part, Heart. He walks over to me. He's like, no, I don't want you to be nervous. I said, coach, I've won this game a million times already in my mind. I've dreamt this. Don't worry about. I got it. And I really was not nervous. And I like. And I smacked one right up the middle. Not a home run, not a grandstand. I just hit one right up the middle, and one run scored, and we won it. And everybody ran out, and we jumped on each other and everybody was crying. And that was where I learned the power of your brain. Because here I am, eight years old. I didn't know Omar Moreno. I didn't even know who that was until I was watching him play. And then he was on Pittsburgh, and I was on Pittsburgh. He was named Omar. I was named. I dreamt about, dreamt about and dreamt about. And then when the opera opportunity came, it was like, it already happened, man. It already happened. So it was no big deal. And then you do it, you win, and you go, wow, that was amazing. So that was my number one event that I could remember. And that was early on in life. That was at 8 years old, you know, I mean, so that was powerful, I think.

And when you launched out in your business, what kind of things were the biggest challenge for you when you got started? You know, getting, getting familiar, getting your feet on the ground, learning a new business, building up success.

Look, the largest challenge that I had was in our business, you have to give oral presentations. You have to give one on one client presentations. You got to have, have recruiting presentations. You run group trainings. And I had weaseled my way out of every oral presentation in all my lifetime. I mean, elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, because I stuttered terribly. I mean, Larry, I stuttered. I mean, every other word. It was terrible. And so here I was, I weaseled my way out of oral presentations all my life. And then I'm in a business that I love, that I want to do. The only negative is you've got to give oral presentations. Like, that's all you do is give oral presentations. The one thing in life that scared me the most, scared me to death. I'd rather slice off my left arm and let you have it than me give an oral presentation. And so that was my largest obstacle, my largest challenge. And what I did is I would practice in the mirror. I would practice moving my lips and breathing and moving my tongue and all the things that you naturally do for whatever reason. I don't naturally do it. I got to really work at it. And also I was like, omar, you have to get really good at the business. You have to really bring value, value with your clients. Because if you bring value, if you really know what you're talking about, even though you're struggling with your words, they're going to listen. They're going to listen closely. And you know, so that's what I did was number one, I really practiced all the time. And I worked really hard at gaining all the knowledge where I wasn't an amateur, I was a pro. In our business, in our business, there's a lot of amateurs, but the reason they're amateurs is they don't work hard, they don't practice when nobody's watching. I would work my ass off all the time when nobody was watching. And that way, when I was out working the business, I was really good at it. And what I learned, Larry, is now when I run into people, they go, omar, you're like, way more fluent than you used to be. Like, way more fluent. And I go, well, the richer I get, the more fluent I become, you know, and so eventually, hopefully, I'll be rich enough where I'm always fluent all.

The time, you know, and, you know, I appreciate you sharing that. And I'll just tell, you know, there's a movie about that called the King's Speech, where, yep, yeah, the brother, the Duke of Windsor, married a duke, divorced lady and had to give up the throne for his love. And he dumped the kingdom of being king on his brother, who was a huge stutterer. And it was a tremendous movie showing what a real affliction that can be, but also that you can overcome it because, you know, he had to give the acceptance speech to the nation and he, he couldn't get two words out, but he worked his way through it. And the fact that you've done just shows people there are people out there today that have afflictions, they have disabilities, they have things to. We all got. We all have things to overcome. But you can overcome it, and it has to do with what you tell yourself. And as the phrase that Omar used there, the power of your brain. And Omar, between me and you, there's a person you and I know. I won't say his name out loud now, but I won't even describe him, but he's worth at least 2,300 million dollars. And he's no longer. We're no longer in business together. He's doing well.

I know who he is. Yeah, he's a hero of mine. He's a hero of mine.

Yeah. And I tried to get him, but he has the same problem. And in fact, I used to kid him when he was with the company that we just decided we want him to speak 45 minutes at our next meeting, you know, the next convention. And.

But I love that guy, though. He's my hero. He's one of my heroes, though.

But he would not, even at this stage of his life and success and everything, he. I haven't been able to twist his arm to get on the podcast. And I know the reason why, you know, because he's a friggin genius. He, you know, it would be pure gold come out of his mouth, but he doesn't want to get in front of a microphone. And so.

Well, I guess A lot of that is, it's, that's what I do every day. And now it's just normal. It's not like, oh my God, they're gonna ask me to answer a question or whatever. It's. It's what I do. Whereas in, in that person's role, he was more the brains of the operation that ran everything and organ and was really, really like, you know, smart. I mean, Wharton School of Business and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, genius. And he is the. One of my heroes. And you know, his brother also stutters.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So anyway, this is a very real issue, but you can overcome it. And regardless of what you know, there are people out there, they overcome things. It's just, I can't even think about it because it's just so mentally, I could never deal with it. You know, it would shut me down. You know, there's a lot of real heroes out there in life. So thanks for sharing because, you know, just being successful is hard enough without disadvantages, afflictions, you know, things like this to deal with. But to be able to overcome it and excel beyond what almost nobody ever, you know, the kind of levels of success almost nobody ever achieves, it's just a tremendous tribute to you. And thanks so much for opening up and sharing that with us today. And I'm going to look forward to the next time we can get together and talk. And what I want to get you to talk about next time is actually the process you go through to become a pro. Because if you're not a pro, you're not going to go to the top. You're not going to be reach any kind of level of success that you want to have. You've got to get to where you're doing it at the highest level. So I'm going to get your input on that next time we talk. So thanks so much.

Omar was a pleasure.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wdell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widel on winning.com I'm the million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go go.