Episode 350: What if a 747 Full of $100 Bills Crashed?

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 talking with Mike Tuttle, and he's basically from Dallas, Texas, but he's moved outside of Dallas, actually. Where are you today, Mike?

I'm actually at my ranch today in Lindell, Texas. I just got back from Mexico late last night.

And I appreciate you sharing with me. And what you and I have never really talked much about was the intersection of our lives, which we didn't know in, let's see, 60. I forget whatever the year was. Last year at Georgia Tech, I was the student leader for Campus Crusade at Georgia Tech. And the year after that, you showed up as the Campus Crusade representative on the Georgia Tech campus. We went the same travel the same paths, talked to the same people. We never knew we were both at Georgia Tech working in that capacity. But you, you learn things. And earlier you just been talking about how you. That impact your life. You're really getting an education on how to be super successful in business, but you were getting prepared. You know, you plant seeds, and you can't throw seeds on a hard ground and grow crops. The ground's got to be plowed up. A lot of people go through times in their life where their life is being plowed up and they don't know great things are heading their way in the future if they just keep moving forward. And that disruption actually can be for a purpose. You can be learning things. Cause when I was in construction, I worked for a absolute maniac, but we had to build 25 houses a year. I was totally responsible for that. And that forced me to get super organized, which when I got into business and we were doing the expansion, all that grid was in my. I realized that's why I had to learn that organization, you know. And so, people, as you're listening to Mike, you're hearing the end results of how this has played out. But it is only because Mike dove in early and was willing to put people first and kind of follow his instincts. You know, when it came time to get your own boss and get out there and be able to earn more income so you can have a bigger impact and reach more people, you know, have more time, more resources, and more freedom, you jumped on this thing. But what I was Impressed about you early in your career, Mike was you. And I kind of again had the same approach. You know, I realized I had to have help. I couldn't do everything myself. And you were getting even. When you were a district leader, the early level, first level of management.

Way.

Out there in Dallas, Texas, and the home office was in Atlanta, you had yourself, you arranged your schedule so you could focus on talking and finding people and telling people what we could do for them to build your team where you could get in front of as many of them as fast as possible. And you had a tape recorder, a little mini tape recorder as I remember it. And when you left the house, you would make the notes just like a doctor used the doctors used to do for the nurses after they saw you in their office. And you would drop that tape off. You had a guy who was studying at college at one of the seminaries, I believe, and he would come over and pick up that thing and he had the complete to do list. But even as a get started person, you had your mind on how can I focus on what I'm the best at and get the most of that done and then get somebody to support me to do the stuff that I just can't get myself to do and talk about that. How your mind.

You've got a great memory. I can't believe you remember that. Yeah, I just was 7:47, crash tomorrow. It had $100 bills by the millions. And the government calls us, we have a litter problem. I tell you what we'll do. If you'll help us pick up these hundreds, you can keep whatever you got. Do you think people would be doing watching videos? You think they'd be going to their anniversary dinner that night? You think they'd be going to the little league softball game? They'd say, we're going to put a moral term on that. We're going to go pick up hundred dollar bills and hundred dollar bills and we're going to be so wealthy that we can do anything we want to do the rest of our life. But our people, Larry, they try to do anything that they can do to keep them from busy, from having to go actually see new people. But I had enough Sistineau that the more new people I saw every week, the more money I was going to make. And I was so tired of being broke with campus school say, just show me how to see more people. So I hired a guy named Dave Perry. He was a seminary guy, went to church together and he needed part time income at the little cassette. And I'm a big note writer, and the minute I left that house, see, if I just met with you, I'd say, send Larry a note and tell him this. Larry was great meeting you, love meeting your boys. Da da da da da. We'll send off your app, they'll call you at the medical here in a couple of days. Da da da. And then I'd say, go ahead and order the medical. We had to do our own physicals back then. Order that. And I would list on that and I would call him and I'd say, okay, I've got a tape there by my desk. You can come by anytime today, pick it up. And he handled that. But I didn't have to do any of that stuff, and it freed me up to do it. Larry, I'm amazed at the number of people in prime America who are even making 100, 200 sometimes and they still don't have a secretary. And I said, now how do you ever recruit a secretary for our business? You tell her, secretaries, they don't pay much income of us and make all this money, but yet you do secretary work yourselves. What you're telling us, I like your job because I'm doing it. I can truthfully say I've never done a day's worth of secretary work in my life. In this business, that's not what pays me the money. You know, Art used to tell us, if you produce seven to 10 first generation RVP's, just making 50,000 a year, that's minimum wage. And they've been with you three to five years, you'll become financially independent. Now, we both know financially independent means different things to different people. Some people, they just had $50,000 guaranteed ever, they're set forever. Others have got to be 100. Some of it's got to be a half of me. So whatever it is. So I actually called the home office once and Rick Williams did, and he, I remember he called back, said, mike, I hope you're sitting down. We never looked at that, but we looked at every RVP in this company that has 7 to 10 first generation to make at least 50 and the average income and Larry was like 600,000 or something. So just let's say it was 700. Just to make math simple, if you got 7 guys, you ever boost RBP, they would make you $100,000 the rest of your life. And you sell our company, you sell 8 times earnings. So if you're making 700 times, that's $5.6 million. You can sell those knuckleheads for. Think how much each of those guys worth. So why would I spend my time doing secretary work when I go out and find a guy that might become an RVP that someday will be making me $100,000 a year, whether I'm fishing in Mexico, playing up kids in Mexico or whatever, and could even sell him someday. So I'm just amazed at how few people they see. Larry, you and I have hunted in Argentina and Mexico, dove hunted. And I was going to Mexico a number of years ago, or Argentina, I forget Mexico. And my son said, well, dad, are you going to kick everybody's butt again? I said, well, yeah. He said, dad, are you just that better of a shot? I said, I don't know. But I know this. I cleaned my rifle, my shotgun, every night in the bedroom. So I don't want any follow ups that day. Most guys don't. I carry my gun, I'm driving, it's by my leg. My vest is already on and I have four or five boxes of shells with me. When I get out of the car, I'm first looking for the tall tree, a corner, because I know where birds tend to fly. My buddies will be getting their coffee jug out, taking a sip of coffee, maybe eating a taco, getting their guns. By the time they get out there, Larry, I probably have already killed 30, 40 birds. And then you'd hear someone like Retweil or Randall Snorter, they're taking a siesta while I'm killing birds and. And then they're honking the horn, time to go. And I'm saying, time to go. There's birds are still flying. Now I know this. I have never hunted with anybody in Mexico that had a bigger shell bill than me. But Larry, as you know, we have a rule. You can never ask somebody, how many times did you shoot? We can only ask how many birds did you get? Art Williams never asked me when I told him I got 20 recruits. Well, how many people did you have to call? He never asked that. He just said, how many did you get? And so I tell Larry, I mean, I tell my guys and I tell my son that day. It's not about how many times I fired. That doesn't matter. That mean not how many percentage I shot is what I'm trying to say. The key is how many times I fire the gun.

So let's say, Mike, you, you psyched me out, you know, because you've been going down there for 17 years. You bugged me about going down there, and then I fell in love with it when I went down the first time. But by this time I had it in my mind that you were just some master shot, you know. And after having shot right next to you many days side by side, I realized that was the answer. I mean, you just went through. You also, you know, you brilliant shot. But the thing is you went through the shells. I mean, you were, you were after it. And it's not like you had like one shot every, every five or six minutes. No, you know, and it was the numbers. And I do remember the fact that nobody. The one way you could get thrown out of the club was ask how many shells we went through. You know, just ask about the birds, the results.

And the truth of the matter is the guy that's firing the most shots, guess what he basically probably comes the best shot to. Why? Practice, Practice. And the guy that makes the most presentations in Primerica probably is going to eventually be the most effective at it. But I don't know if I as as good as someone else recruiting somebody or making a sale. But I know this, even if they're better than me, if I see more people, I will win. And that's where it was. So I told my son, I said, son, I don't know. But I just know I'm going to fire a lot more shots. So somebody's maybe 10% better shot than I am. All I got to shoot 11% more shells than he got and I'll get more birds.

But now how did that, how did that play out? Kind of walk through some of the step by steps because you were, you know, you knew you had to get the people in place, not just get them started, but you had to get them in place. And what were things you look for, what were things that you taught people? What would cause you to spend a lot of time with somebody? I mean, you're not going to continue to take your time. A guy hunting and fishing and from your bay shop. And the guy never does anything. I mean, you know, you could identify. I remember one time it was Josh Huffman said that either you or Art Williams told. He was telling Art, you know, he had all these people and Art said, yeah, but how many horses do you have? I think that was you. How many studs do you have? And Josh said, well, actually none. They're all mule. They're all mules, you know, but you know, you evaluated who you spent your time with. You just wouldn't keep while you're spending time with, you're making your mind up about is this person somebody that I can build with. Talk about your mentality about that. 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 that's 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.

Well, that was me. That Art had called me that day and, you know, I was expecting a hoorah top from Art. Boy, go get a mic. And he said, how many studs? How many leaders? And I said, well, I got about 18 direct managers. He said, I didn't ask you that. How many studs? How many more Randy Godfrey's you got? How many more Hartmans? And I thought, boy, I don't have any. He said, well, you haven't won yet, have you? And that was a hard day because, you know, we try to fake ourselves and thinking, you know, I gotta. I got this hand and I. I've got a football team and I think we'll beat your team. But in reality, I know they're old, they're weak, they're not strong, and your team's going to win. And if you know sports, the guy at the best team is going to win. And Art was very honest to me. He said, mike, you haven't won until you get you some more studs. And so what I had to do, I started a whole new separate group that day. And that's when I went out and hired Josh Hubman. Shortly after that. But I started in the same office, but I started a separate managers meeting, a separate op meeting, because I didn't want the new guys coming in here. Some of the old guys, well, I've been here three years and, you know, you don't make no money. No. I said, by the way, if one of them even asks you who you are, tell them you work for some other rvp. Don't tell them you work for me. Because I got these guys believing that we're going to do something big. Years ago, my oldest son was still just out of college, I guess, and some guy invited a bunch about five guys, wanted to come over and have supper with them that night. And Larry, they were all about 50 years old, had been Fired many times from corporate job. Now they got another job and I'm sitting there, you know, and I mean it was just, I thought why am I wasting my time with these guys? When we got through, my son said, daddy, what did you think about those guys? I said, no, you tell me what you thought. He said, I'm surprised you met with them. I said, son, let me tell you something. There's a big difference between a Gildan and a stallion. And I said, you just saw five gildings. Corporate America has gilded them when they're recruiting for the army, Larry, they don't hire guys 50 and 60 years old because we say charge that machine nest. They say, are you crazy? That get killed. 18 year old guys, I got it boss man, they can't hit me. Yes they can. But he doesn't know that in this business I want young guys are ready to conquer the world and they don't hear all this garbage from these corporate guys. It ain't gonna happen. Blah blah blah blah. So what I was always looking. If you look at the model, Larry, I know how old you were. I know how old I was. I know how rusty crossed and was. Most of the people aren't hired was those guys 25 to 35, young couples, good ethics, hard work, people skills. When you get that, it's a lot of you to win with. I mean I can go into an office and I see what the relationships look like. I can look at the age of the people and I'm thinking this team will win. Now I may make a mistake every once in a while if a guy and he may surprise me. I don't get many surprises. But what I'll do, Larry, if the guy's just not doing something, I've always got some managers need some people. So I'll just say, why don't you work with Joe here? Now he's still on my team and if he's one of those late bloomers, he's still on my team, we'll go for it. But I've got to find the guys that I'm invest my time and energy in that. I feel like there's going to be a repay that someday that guy is going to see it catch on. And now it's like puberty. Some people take some while to go through puberty. You see a kid, it's like he doesn't have a muscle on his body, he'll never play sports. And then one year he grows five inches, you know, and it gets tall and puts on 20 pounds of muscle. And you think, my God, puberty is an incredible thing. In the same way in this business, sometimes it takes a while for some of the guys to go through puberty. You love them, but I can't invest intensive time on them. I've got to find people that I feel like would be the kind of people are we to be investing in that I speak that I can really feel like they've got potential. You played sports and you know you have there and you see some kids are nice to have them on the team, but they're not going to hit a home run, they're not going to catch some diving shot off the third base and throw a double play. It isn't going to happen. You need some of those guys are great to have on the team. But if you're going to win, you better get you a couple of guys that know how to play the game, have the speed and the muscles and the mindset. And somewhere in this business there's always going to be some exceptions. But if you study the profile of 90% of the people have been successful in this business. They're all young married couples, kids bobbed in school, has a house, you know, just mainstream. You work and something's going to happen.

I'm not going to say their names. I will say they're in the Dick Walker organization. But Dick had a convention over in Tampa one year and these two guys were in the pool talking, having fun. And at that stage they were making like $50,000 a year each. And so Dick, you know, came down, got in the pool with him and he said, let me ask you a question. He said, what is it with you guys? He said, you got all the talent in the world, but at this stage of your life you're just duds. That wasn't, you know, that wasn't the pep talk they were expecting. But you know, today both of them are million dollar earners with huge organizations. But it was, you know, the lightning bolt can come out of the sky at any time. And we don't want to, you know, you don't want to give up on somebody who's continuing to try and. Cause who knows when that, you know, that will kick in for them or us or anybody else, you know. And so the idea is to have a lot of them. And we used, you know, somehow I got this, this picture Mike, early on of my job was in the training center was like to have, you know, like eggs like chickens will not. If you go out there and try and crack the egg, you'll kill the Chicken, you know, they've got to crack their way out of their own shell. And, you know, you got to leave them alone. They're on their own timetable, and when they're ready to come out, they'll come out. And they said the takeaway was you got to look at your training center as this thing where a big nest and you get as many eggs in there as possible, that of chicks that are in the process of developing. And you sit on them and you keep them warm and provide the right positive environment where they can mature, and in due time, they'll come out. And that was the philosophy that we had. And that's transferable across the board. If you're in a training situation, don't give up on people that just because they haven't hit some kind of arbitrary development schedule that you put out there for them.

But let me just add that I think the whole key build a relationship, communicate people. You create an environment like you're saying that nest that even though they're not doing anything, they're still growing. Now, now, let me just say this, Larry. I may differ from a lot of people this. I don't hire a person because I think he can be successful in the business. I shared this example the other day with somebody. I was doing a phone call with somebody the other day. I forget who. And I said, I remember like yesterday I'd start an office back during the Primero era, and I had a young guy, he had just recently got married. She had had a kid earlier. I don't know if she'd been married, not. But she'd had a kid by somebody. And the cell phones had just got hot. Larry. Everybody was selling cell phones and changing jobs. And these wild teenagers, they were just chasing gals and drugs. No telling what it was, just that was a crazy time watching those guys. And he looked at our business and he called my guy and said, you know, it's just not for me. I'm not going to work for them. The guy told me, I said, you tell him that's an unacceptable answer. His dad had already dropped out of life and was selling coconuts on the side of Hawaii. He had no role models, Larry. He didn't have a clue about marriage and family. I said, you tell him I don't care if he never makes a sale. I don't care if he never recruits a person. I don't care if he ever gives us a name. He needs to go to work for us, because I know the road he's on is not a good Road, he'll probably divorce within three or four years. You tell him he needs to come here and spend some time with the Randy Godfrey's of the world and the Bill Stewarts. And I just go on and on and on. So he goes and tells this guy this. He said, well, if Mike feels that strong about it, I'll sign up. He signs up. Right after that he gets cancer. Now about that time while he was shooting, he got transferred to nowhere, Arkansas. Back then we didn't have Zoom, didn't have no way he could do it. But he ended up beating the cancer. But that's probably been 20 some odd years ago. I get a Christmas card every day. He's got a phenomenal family that's grown in. I promise you met that guy today. He'll tell you the best thing that ever happened to his life. And got with some people, some role models, some people that say this is where you want to go in life. This is what you want life to look like. Never made a sale. At the same time, I can't just invest every day in him, but I'm going to create an environment that hopefully that guy's going to come in and he'll have a lot of changes in his life because he needed a lot of changes and he'll tell you it changed his life. Now the daughter's grown, it just looks love them to dearly great friends.

But yeah, fantastic story and example there of not giving on people and not letting them give up on themselves.

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 whiteellawinning.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.