Episode 376: Paradox: To Get Big You Must Get Real Small with Million Dollar Earner Joe Ward

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 Joe Ward and we're having fun talking about winning and the advantages to you from continuing to move forward in your career in learning, understanding, and exposing yourself to other winners. And so welcome back, Joe.

Awesome. This has been great.

It's been, been a lot of fun for me. And one of the things that I would, you know, we last time we were talking about the advantage of the better and clearer you get at seeing things, you can reach more people. And that means of the people you're talking to, more of them can be successful or they can be as successful as if they're capable of X. Let's just say on a scale of 10, they come in as a 2. We all come in as duds because we don't know anything. But if their potential is 7 out of 10, you help them reach that 7, and then maybe some of them, they really want it can go on and become eight or nines, you don't know, but you can help most of them be successful. And here's the other advantage of that. And I wanted to wait before I put this in front of you, that insight, seeing your business clearly, you talked in the last episode about the most important thing and focusing on the most important thing, what the light bulb for me about that was, we all know the Pareto principle or Pareto principle, 80, 20 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 20% of the activity gets 80% of the results. But what I've always, always focused on, I don't know where it came from, but I always focus on the 20% of the 20%, you know, because I got 24 hours in the day, right. How can I focus on something that's going to make all the other dominoes? You know, the Archimedes principle. If you can focus, it's like you don't just aim at the target, you aim at the bullseye in the target. And then if you miss, you've got a margin, a great margin for error. We talk about, you know, bow hunting. My son and I have always done bow hunting. And mainly because of him, you know, he was only interested in archery coming up. But in archery, especially in hunting, you aim At a spot. Like, if it's deer, you don't aim at like the front of the deer or the head or the lungs of the bear. You aim at a hair on the deer. You know, you lock in your concentration. And they have this phrase he was saying the other day, you know, I was. We were. We remind ourselves of these things. And he said, you know, the. Someone had told him, the smaller the target, the smaller the miss, you know, because, you know, you're in there. And the point is that if you focus, the more you focus in on one spot, exactly what do you want to have happen today? And you referred to that earlier, like, what is the point? And I was going to tell you, like, with meditation. Meditation never meant anything to me. It's like, what am I going to think about? You know, I want to think about this. I'm going to sit in a room and empty myself and have black blackness in my mind. And then the Bible says, don't just cast out demons, you know, out of a house, because then seven worse will come in. You know, you want to put some good thoughts in your head. And that's what you're doing with reading 10 positive pages a day, you know, and exposures like, well, if I'm meditating, how can I make that? And then finally it came to me. Pray, you idiot. Connect with God. You know, read the scripture, you know, have a quiet time, but have a focus to the quiet time. And that is, I'm not just going to, you know, there's all kind of spiritism and mystical this, that and the other. That's nonsense. But, you know, there is a creator and, you know, he made himself pretty well known. And so there is a Bible and depending on what you believe. That's what I believe. And why don't I just focus on that and then focus on that line of communication? Now I have a purpose to the meditation, the, the.

The concept that you were sharing. Now, about two years ago, I started working with Frank Dillon also in our industry and our company. And it was basically, I did the exact same thing, Larry. I sought Frank out. He's another multimillion dollar earner in your organization with our company. And I sought him out because here was my thought process. I knew I needed to grow a massive bay shop over a long period of time to be able to perpetuate the growth this next wave within my organization and in all depictions in my own mind. I felt like he had done that the best of anybody in the last, let's say 20 years, over a long Period of time. And he gave me, reminded me, confirmed with me the very concept that you're sharing. And it is. Let me go back to what you said a little bit earlier to give the difference, because you really got two organizations you have got to kind of navigate at the same time. You have your think of it as in starters and subs. I got that from Ivan Earl. And so you already talked about that one. And that is your people that are just good people, but they're probably not going to be transcendent leaders inside your organization, but, boy, are they important. And the thing with them is, and this is a term that just kind of popped into my head by what you said, my job is to get maximum performance efficiency out of them, help them to be the best they can be for them. What are they here for? They're only here to make an extra 3, 4, $500 a month. Unbelievable. I'm going to show you how to do that. You're going to be a part of a great team while you're doing it, but that's not going to get you big ever by any stretch of the imagination. But I know a lot of young leaders inside our industry that don't do a good job at cultivating those people, because those people are going to keep you afloat, they're going to keep you in business, they're going to keep you propelling forward while you're waiting on that transcendent leader. Now, as those people come in to get, the concept is to get big, you must get small, Real small. And this is what Frank helped me with. And what he did was, is he taught me to take a small percentage of the organizations, the one that you have identified as your next vice president. The ones that have the goodies, they're showing up, they're plugging in. They don't have to be tremendous performers. They just have to have the will and the plugin factor. And they're trying. Right. Everybody wants a superstar leader, but you don't want to grow them and help develop them. But for you to grow and develop them, you've got to set them aside. You mentioned spiritually, and we were talking from Christianity standpoint. Well, there are a few billion Christians all over the world, but Christ only trained 12.

And of that he had his inner circle. Three. Three, right.

I think that was Peter, James and John. And James, yeah.

Peter, James and John.

Peter, James and John, absolutely. So there is the concept that you are talking about. And so I did that now about two and a half years ago from Frank's instruction. And here's what he told me at that time. And using our own industry terms, I'm doing 25 or 30,000 in life insurance premium a month inside my base shop. He told me, make those changes. Let's get a group of about five to seven leaders. You deal directly with them about three times a week. And he said within. This is what he told me. He said, Inside four months, you'll be back at 100,000. And I didn't believe him, but I trusted him based on, you know, his track record. And. And we did that. And if I be gosh darn, four months later, we did a hundred. Two months later we did 170 inside my base. From the very.

How did that compare. How did that compare to some of the biggest numbers you've done before?

That was the largest bay shop month I have ever had.

And so you went from getting started and implementing the new thing to the biggest training center numbers you'd ever had.

Absolutely. And you know what? And it really had to do with.

You got big by getting small.

Absolutely.

Small, with the focus of who you focused on, right?

Absolutely. And my message was very clear because I had receptor people. One of the things that happen with people as they're trying to get big is that their message is falling on deaf ears because they're spreading their message way too. They're casting too far of a net. Right. They need to get way more focused. Right. And so their message. See, I'm always telling my team that there is energy exchange from a leadership level, and for those that are trying to become leaders, energy exchange. I give of my energy, my information and knowledge. You return that back to me, you fill my cup back up with what? Growth and production. So when I'm out here, if I'm building an organization and I'm giving, giving, giving of my energy, information and knowledge to way too many people, it's not coming back in terms of growth and production. Well, now I start to get depressed or my energy level goes down, my stores become empty. And now all of a sudden, I stop the message where the message was not the problem, it was the receiver of the message, 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 whiteellawinning.com webinar Now I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give your an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up, right?

I used to tell our guys, I said, you know, because I was pretty blunt, but I said, there's two kind of people, producers and parasites. And I said here. I said, you're in here, I'm speaking, you're taking up space, you're breathing my air in my training center. I'm projecting. Now you got to pay me back, you got to go to work. And if you don't, you're a parasite, you're a black hole. We don't need any black holes. You don't build a business with a black hole. You don't build a business with a parasite. Now, some people are super productive, some people are a little productive. But the thing is everybody's got to be active. Everybody got to do some of the things, allow them to get lucky, if nothing else. Because if you're busy, you can get lucky. But if you sit and you can always tell there's an excitement level with people who work and make an effort. You don't even know where their numbers are. When you see them. You can tell they've been working because they've been having experiences. They've been meeting people, they've been having eye opening things happen in their mind. They're moving and you could just sit like you talked about the energy, you can sense that energy. You might find this interesting, but it'll be out sometime soon. But last week I was talking to my buddy John Clenden, who's a ski hall of fame guy before. Well, we find Chase John down because he's all, you know, he's all always busy. But he was talking about how he's expanding his school and he was getting ready to go to a meeting with his key instructors. And you know, he made the point, you know, he's always meeting and spending time and getting input and everything with him. But he's growing his bit from being able to spend his time with them. He's been able to open up schools and Steamboat and Vail and Breckenridge and you know, wherever, you know, out in Tahoe, you know, and these ski. The ski industry has been consolidated among like two major behemoth type companies. And so you know, the same company, if you break in and you get into Vail, you know, you can, you know, the people who can get you into Heavenly out in Tahoe, you know, Lake Tahoe, and, and so He's. But you can't expand if you don't have the people to go out there and run the program. But he said what he. So he's got these people, but they've got to run this program that he has. He's got a very simple, but he's very precise about the words he uses. He only has a few of them, but he said there's like 10, 20 things behind each word. You got to understand it and you've got to make sure you don't turn an instructor loose on the hill.

Out.

There doing something, because they rotate classes from day to day with instructors. And he said, you want the people to hear the same message from different instructors every day so it has a chance of getting through to everybody.

You know, that is in our industry, Larry, that is a field trainer perspective, and it is the most crucial component to building the environment for a big organization. That those individuals eventually become vice president is probably one of the most important things that I have focused on in my career is getting those field trainers to be on the same, you know, sheet of music that I am on. Right. It just reminds me of what Shane Rubin used to say, that you can have, you know, 10 superstar leaders, but they're all running different Systems. Give me 10 mediocre leaders, but they're all on the same system on the same page. And he said, I'll beat you, beat you badly every single time. And I've always kind of approached my business from the same perspective of the gentleman you are talking about. That as long as I can get my field trainers right, everything else is going to take care of itself. And that goes back to the point that we were making, is that you spend your time. If there's a message we're trying to send out to people, spend your time with your field trainers slash full timers. Because, number one, that's where your first level of your number one level of effectiveness is going to be. And number two, that is where your future lies. Your future doesn't lie in your entire organization. If you've got 100 people showing up on your various meetings or whatever the case may be, there's only 10 or 12 of them. That's the actual business. Those people, you need to be in their consciousness, in their mind. Side note, going back to distractions from an earlier one, you need to be in their lives.

Well, the payoff you get is as you build a business. You know, it's like the E. Myth, it's you want to make sure you're building a business that will run if you're not there and if you're not doing what we're talking about here, all you're doing is giving yourself a job. Now it's hard for all of us to get to the point where we realize we don't have to do it all, you know, because we. The more you do something, you get really good at it. And you think, I'm indispensable. And it's like.

Which is not. Which is not right. It's not good.

Like, even on the big hitter call, you know, in the beginning, I would call the guests, I would set the appointment, I'd send them the number. I did everything. I would read the announcements. I would do this, that, and the other. I went on for years. You know, I got to do it.

I got to be.

It's me, me, me. So anyway, you know, Bill Arender got me thinking. He said, you know, this is. You got to have, this has got to continue. If something happens to you too important to the company, you got to be thinking about how to set this up. This can continue if you're not around. And so I thought, well, I'd get Adam involved, you know, because, you know, I've tried a variety of things, but Adam is, you know, works with me in the business. But I said, I literally thought to myself, well, what can I get him to do? You know? And then, you know, when you, you, you say, I need to, like, this is their thing about getting in that space, you know, And I've got to get in the space where it can get done if I don't do it. And see, that's what John Clendenin is doing with his ski instructors. Because this goes back to the statement you made earlier. It's not important that you do it. It's important that it gets done.

I would say empower others, get big, right? And I was like that too. Listen, a lot of your listeners too, there's something unique about strong entrepreneurial leaders. We're also control freaks. So you have to fight that, what is actually a positive within you, but it's an operational, long term hazard, right? You gotta let go of the reins and allow other people to take responsibility so that they can spread their wings and fly. As I built a business, it was always very important to me that I was the type of leader or quote, unquote, manager that allowed entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs. I was never the person, Larry, that said, hey, you got to show up at the office at this time and make calls from this time, this time. Then you can take lunch and then you can have, you know, this and, you know, do interviews at this time and that time. Go have dinner with your friends. Listen, if I'm talking to the right person, they, they're not entrepreneur. They don't want another job. They're going to figure it out. I just need to give them the framework and what the expectations are. Then they are supposed to figure out how to make that happen on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. But you see these leaders that, that are overbearing in terms of their leadership style. But what you see generationally on that, Larry, is they don't have big leaders. Now, we know these leaders in our industry, they're great leaders. They make a lot of money. But when you look at their organizations, Larry, they don't have what you have and what I'm trying to build, which are transcendent leaders that if something happened to me tomorrow, it wouldn't, it wouldn't change my business in the slightest. Now, that doesn't take anything away from me. It means I set a foundation that. Where leaders can be as good as they want to be and operate within the system that we provided.

Well, and the thing is, I would add to that, Joe, is you start with, you teach them meticulously the fundamentals, and then you get, you know, once they got the fundamentals, now it's a matter of doing something with them. They're never going to know the fundamentals until they do something with it. So then you give the framework and the expectations. And now we say, little bird, fly, you know, get out of the nest and flap those wings, you know, and those wings are never going to develop unless you challenge them. And so what I was going to say about Clinton, his. He broke his ankle to where he couldn't even be on the mountain. And then he's had, you know, like five operations. But the deal is, we never know when we're going to break an ankle. You know what I'm saying? We never know when we're going to be knocked out of action. And so you want to work as fast as possible to turn your operationally, your business to where it all comes from. You. That's where it's got to start. You only got one employee, You. But as quickly as possible, you want to integrate some new people in. And what I was going to point out to you, we diverted as we always do. But when you see clear yourself, you develop yourself. Not only can you train better, but you can see clear what is the most important activity and build your system around that and know you can kind of assume the other things will work out with a little bits and pieces of your time or hire someone to do that, because that's not that important. But you have your eye on the ball of the most important thing. And you can build a system that will allow even average ordinary people to do it, because you break it down in like an assembly line type thing. That was a genius of Henry Ford that he made. In fact, they say all part of the thing about a genius. So he'll unravel a complex issue into simple parts and break it down where you can assign little pieces to just ordinary people who don't understand. No way they could understand all 80 steps. But they can do these eight. And if they do these eight and the next person do those eight, they don't need to know any. And they can be phenomenally successful doing that. And so that's the other advantage of what you're turning yourself into as you drive yourself to improve and get clear in understanding your role as a leader, how things work. And, you know, the benefits cascade. They're cascading benefits not only in training, but even in building and running your systems. And so thanks so much, Joe. This has been incredible.

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. Put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.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.