Episode 25: Circumventing the Slump - How to Maintain Your Momentum with Million Dollar Earner Br...

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell and let's get started. I'm back with my great friend Brad Gerard from Canada. And we're going to talk this time about avoiding plateauing. Once you get some success happening in your life, you get some momentum, you get good things happening, doors open. But you know, there's a reason why very few champions repeat in the college, in the professional sports world, in any sports, it's the subtle dangers of success. You know, you lose your edge. It's like how a knife becomes dull. It doesn't get dull all at once, it gets dull slightly over time. And if you're not continuing to sharp that thing, pretty soon it's not cutting through as like it used to. And you know, the old story, Brad, that I guess I heard the first time from Mike Tuttle is like if you take two guys chopping wood and they're out there eight hours, one guy just chops relentlessly, never stops. You know, even eats lunch while he's chopping. You know, he takes his bites in between swings of the axe and the other guy takes a five minute break every hour and sharpens his ax. Who do you think chops more wood during the eight hour period of time? And of course, it's the guy who sharpens the axe. So keeping ourselves sharp, keeping your system sharp and everything is something that we don't always, always consistently do. And that's the kind of thing it's easy to. In the euphoria of success. You know, most of us start when we didn't have a lot of success, but the euphoria of success, it starts happening. It's like, you know, we can't, we're pinching ourselves, we're enjoying things, we're laughing, we're, we're having fun, we're moving faster through life. And some of those necessary things that we did earlier that allowed us to have that highest level of success kind of slip away from us. Not on purpose, not because we're lazy, we're still working around the clock. But we just kind of dropped the ball at some of the essentials and you find yourself plateauing. And plateauing is never an accident. Plateauing is always the result of something you do. So Brad, you know, you went through that. We've all gone through that at one time or another. So how about talking about your experience with plateauing and how you break out of that type thing, you know.

Okay, I think that here's the way I look at the world right now. And my life right now, I think that trying to be successful is like walking up a down escalator. And the challenge is that if you stop walking, you don't stay where you're at. So even though, you know, we talk about plateauing, the reality is, you know, when you stop moving forward, I think you start moving backwards a bit in your belief in yourself, in, you know, in your ability to move forward and stuff like that. And so, you know, the challenge that I constantly have is to constantly manage my environment, because I think environment overrides almost everything. Your environment has to be constructed to support what you're trying to accomplish. And what happens is that it's very easy to start having subtle comforts, move into your life. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't. I enjoy life. There's things I love doing, you know, and I do a lot of what I love. But I think you can either live in a position of comfort or you can live in a position of challenge where you're challenging yourself. And the way to either pull out of a plateau or a lull or a dead spot or to keep yourself from going into one is you got to constantly work on your environment. And. And, you know, and the environment is the people that you hang around. It's the things that you listen to. That's why I spend large amounts of my traveling time, large amounts of my spare time. Instead of just watching television or watching the news, I am listening to podcasts, I'm listening to audio books, I am scouring YouTube, and I'm trying to study success so that I can constantly be giving myself different ideas and pushing myself. And the reality is, you know, the most powerful force in our world is our peer group. It's who we hang around. And if the people that you hang around are okay with the success that you've achieved, then you're most likely going to plateau. Or worse yet, if they're kind of negative, you know, about the success you're achieving, then you're probably not going to find the motivation or energy to move yourself forward. And so it's not that I change, you know, the people that I hang around, but the reality is you got to change the people that you hang around a lot of times. And, you know, if the people you're hanging around most are not challenging you to do better, then you've got to really address that environment. And I think that's the most important thing that you can do to try and avoid or to move out of a state where you're in A plateau or in a slump, change your environment.

Yeah. And the thing is that if you're. You remind me of a couple of things. It's like the coach at Alabama, Nick Saban, says it's the process, you know, and that's why he's so focused on staying with the process and keeping that intensity up. It's always about the next championship, the next thing. We're always pushing for the next one. In fact, after they say, after a season is over and when, especially when they won championships, they bring everybody into the room, all the players, even the graduating seniors, and they celebrate. They go through all the highlights, they give out awards for who did you know, who were the stars? And they celebrate. And then he takes a break and he sends all the seniors out of the room and he's dealing with the guys who are going to be here the next year. And he says, now let's talk about you guys, because you guys haven't done anything. He said, you haven't won anything. This is your year to win. You know, you had a little bit to do with that, but now this is your chance to make your mark. What's the program going to be like with you guys moving up into a more senior leadership position? And so they're always pushing forward, but he does that right from the beginning to kind of set the stage. And one of the guys I want to get on these podcasts is a friend from Reynolds Plantation, Georgia, and his name is Dr. Jerome Ruruca. And Jerome, one of the things that Jerome says is that general consistency wins every time. And so, like, where you talked about the environment overriding almost everything else in your life, the thing is that the more you can get your environment and your system in your process set up to automatically cause the bulk of the good things, you know, the necessary activity, the necessary tracking, the necessary monitoring, the necessary development, the more you can build that into your system, the less you require individual spectacular performances in a month or a year, whatever, to come bail you out of a hole, you know, because like they used to say with Michael Jordan, when Michael Jordan was young in the league, they were always telling him that it's, there's no I in team. And he said, yes, but there is an I in when. And so sometimes.

Exactly.

Yeah. You know, so a lot. And so you have. You need the great stars, you need the quality people on your team, you need the quality people in your life. They're going to inspire you. It's going to surprise you, they're going to keep you motivated. But as Much as possible. You like that the system and the program you're running to keep you on track, you know, to smooth out the bumps in the road, to keep you always within striking distance of your next breakthrough. And so what happened? Talk for a little bit about how that snuck up on you and how you found yourself plateauing.

Well, I, you know, I think that once you start having success, and especially if you, if you don't come from a lot of success, once you start having success, you know, I started having success pretty early on and, you know, and I was making more money, you know, within my first five years or four years of the business and anybody I'd ever met, anybody in my family ever made. And so it's very easy to start feeling, you know, like you've got the thing figured out or that you're, you're, you're, you're really good and, and you don't have to work on yourself the same way. And, or you start thinking that you're the man type thing. And I think as soon as you start doing that, and maybe I've learned this over the years, is that you can either be wealthy or you can be proud, or you can have a big ego, or you can be rich, but you probably can't have both. So I think the most successful people are always students. They always see themselves as students. They never say that I know everything I need to know. And yet I find a lot of people who aren't very successful. They say things like, oh, I know what I have to do. I already know all that stuff. And it's a real subtle thing. And so I found myself, because of my ego usually falling into these plateaus where I would, I'd get comfortable with where I was at. And a lot of it had to do with me looking at the people being around the certain people that I was around when, when I, when I was making more money than the people I was hanging around, there was nobody saying, you're not making big money. But when you start hanging around people who are much wealthier, you know, then you, they challenge you like that. And so I just keep coming back to are the people that are. Is your environment challenging you to be better? And today we live in a very unique time. I think it's the greatest time to build wealth. It's the greatest time to be great because the world is at your fingertips. You can get on your computer and you can study success like you never could before. You think of, you know, Andrew Carnegie wanted to write a book or have somebody Write a book. He commissioned Napoleon Hill and paid him to go out and study successful people and write this book. And you think how difficult that was back then for Napoleon Hill, how many train rides he has to be on and how many years he spent trying to put this together. And today you can get on online, on YouTube, on Twitter, and you can study success. People will tell you exactly what time they get up in the morning and what they do during the day and how they achieve their success. And you can study that and replicate that in your life easier today than ever before. And you can have the same results that successful people have. And so I think it's easy to go into plateaus and if you're not managing, you know, the thermostat. And I think that's what happens is we set a goal. Like, you know, honestly, a lot of people were talking to me about, oh, you're going to make a million dollars a year. You're going to make a million dollars a year. And I'm like, I'm not interested in a million dollars a year. My goals are farther past what a million dollars will provide. And so a million dollars is just simply a small stepping stone for me. But for a lot of people, it's kind of like the epitome of success. And I look at it and say, listen, Larry, you know, if you got yourself to a million dollars in annual income, you probably have to jump off a bridge, you know, because for you, a million dollars, goodness gracious, you've been making multiple millions on an annual basis for many, many, many years. And so, you know, I think it's just a matter of perspective.

Well, the thing is, though, it's not just making money because as you go through life, I'm going to get your comment on this, you know, your personal reaction and experience with this. But I know all kinds of millionaires, million dollar earners, billionaires. I don't, you know, that's kind of where I operated the bulk of the time. And once you get successful, you wind up spending time in these different arenas by necessity and you get to know people. And you know what, Brad? The people that, you know, millionaires, billionaires that are smiling, that are happy, that are energized and inspired, you know, there are dead dull, disillusioned millionaires and billionaires too. You know, people that should, you know, there are people that have won the super bowl, they got super bowl trophies, they've got Wimbledon rings, you know, and trophies and this, that, the other, that are dead dull, disillusioned because their Life has gone flat. You know, they haven't done anything in a long time. And the thing that if you have a stack of hundred dollar bills in your pocket, it's hard to experience a stack of $100 bills until you're getting ready to buy something or whatever. But the thing that causes the happiness I find the people, the million dollar earners, billion dollar earners that are happy, that are smiling, that are inspired, that are energized, they're always moving forward. In other words, they always have other projects they have thrown themselves into. Either charity work, it could be their grandkids, it could be they may have bought a new home, a new retirement home or something. They may have moved to community, they may have some new friends, they may have taken up a new recreational thing. You know, a lot of people, you know, you see people are out there, they're learning a new language, you know, and that's opening up a lot of doors. But they have things. And if you go to these people and obviously, Brad, you and I don't spend much time with dead, dull, disillusioned people, no matter if they're multi billionaires, you know, and we're going to be around the fun people, you know, you know, the inspired people. And so when I talk, anytime I've ever asked these people, you know, do you feel like you've arrived? They look at me with this shocked look on my face, like, arrived? What are you talking about? You never arrive. You know, there's always a new challenge. There's always something else you can do, you know, and they've gone long, you know, way past doing this for survival, where they can have groceries and clothes and transportation and places to live. You know, they're doing it for the sense of accomplishment, changing the world for the better, impacting people's lives, you know, that's why when I had my injury 12 years ago and shut me down on the couch where I couldn't move and television was driving me nuts, not necessarily because of the programming, because of the same commercials you have to watch a million times in a row to watch television. I said, I got to turn the TV off and I've got to start doing Twitter. I have Facebook, write, blogs, do something. Because it dawned on me sitting there, I owed so much to the people that had helped me along the way. Not only mentors and advisors, but the people inside my organization. And I realized I was sitting on a whole lot of information that a lot of people would like to know. And this is, you know, be fulfilling to kind of pass that along. And that's why, that's what's driven me over the last. It made my life really rich and enjoyable. And when you're living an energized, inspired life, you know, the success and that excitement and energy is going to spill over into personal relationships, going to spill over into your business and there'll be growth in all of these areas. And so what I'd like to put on with you is do you, do you know of anybody who's really turned on that feels like an inspired and fun to be around that feels like they've got it made, they did it? You know, everybody I know that feels like they've arrived and they've got, you know, this whole thing of nothing left to prove? Well, their life seems to be getting more and more boring all the time and they seem to be less and less excited. Have you had experience with that?

Absolutely. I think, you know, it's really not about the destination, it's really about the journey. And you know, I love, you know, obviously there's a lot of stories about Kobe coming out right now and but I love the way that he, you know, he retired in 2016 and he was in this process of completely reinventing himself after basketball. So, you know, five championships, he never stopped and said, okay, I did it all, now I'm just going to live on the path. And I think that's the difference is, you know, are you somebody charging for the future, you more excited about the future or are you just dwelling on the past? You're excited about the past. And you know, Magic Johnson's another great example of somebody who came to the end of his career, a spectacular career, but was already planning on what's the next phase and now is an incredibly successful business person. And I think that that's what you're talking about is that there's always something. People that are vibrant and excited about life right up until the bitter end still have goals they haven't accomplished. You know, I've sat down and I, you know, I try, I travel around the world. I've, I've been to about 60, 62 countries now. I do a lot of photography. I love my passion like you have a passion for photography and bringing the world to people who can't go there themselves. I don't want to watch Discovery Channel on tv. I want to live Discovery Channel. You know, the next couple months. I just finished booking my storm chase. I go storm facing every year, which people think is crazy, you know, but that's where I'm most alive when, when I'm in the hunt, you know, to accomplish something. Not once you accomplish something, you better find something else to hunt or you're going to lose your mojo, so to speak. Or your motivation.

Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that. And I want to get into more, more of that in a later episode. But you know the thing about Kobe, they said when he showed up in la, I forget it was Jerry west. He told Jerry west, he said because he was from Philadelphia and that's where Will Smith was from, Philadelphia, you know. And they kind of grew up there, teenagers, you know, similar type time frame. So everybody from Philadelphia knew Will Smith and he told Jerry west, he said, Jerry west said Kobe, you know, he's Talking to a 17 year old kid, Kobe, what do you want it? What do you want your career to be like? And here's what Kobe told him at 17 years old he said in basketball, if he said I'm going to do everything I can in my power to become greater than Michael Jordan and then when I get out of basketball I'm going to do everything in my power to be bigger than Will Smith. So he had a little checklist but they were pretty too big items, you know. And folks get start thinking about your North Star. And Brad, thanks so much for talking. Let's do this again soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. 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 and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelonwinning. Com. I'm the Million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go.