Episode 454: Having the Conversation You Never Want to Have with Patti Schechter

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 Patty Schechter. She is the highest paid female in her company. It's a New York stock exchange organization, 130,000 people. And the number one earning female is Patty Schechter. So, Patti, congratulations.

And.

We could put a lot of other. You've got 13 other million dollar earners on your team and you know, you've had a lot of success for a long period of time. But when we were talking earlier, you brought up the thing about having the conversation you never wanted to have, and you did that in advance because Dennis was in a cycle of downward cycle there with the health. You had basically a warning which a lot of people don't have. And so you can't assume that you're going to have that warning, folks. And so learn from Patty because of the incredible advantage of having things in place. But in spite of everything you did to line up the business, to have a lot of business partnerships lined up in advance, Dennis had good staff, strong staff. I bet there was still an unbelievable number of large number of things you couldn't plan for that shocked you after the event happened.

Absolutely. Well, I'll be honest with you and tell you, one of the things that shocked me was me. I was real strong through the whole thing. He had been sick for about eight months. And so when he finally did pass away, it's almost a relief, be honest. He was so sick, you know, and, you know, I buried him. And I, and I thought, you know, I thought about what I had and where and what I was going to do, and I thought I had it all together. And then I found out I didn't have it all together.

Right.

You don't really know how you're going to react in certain situations. And I just, I don't want to say I fell apart, but. But I lost myself for a while.

And how did you lose yourself? You know? Cause, you know, the thing is emotional intelligence and being able to keep your wits about you in the terrible. That is a great phrase. But learning to live through those things make nightmares, you know, and so how did you. What was the shocking thing about that for you is the fact the questions that came out, the doubts that you had about yourself.

I think more than that. Well, not more than that, but aside from that, I always, you know, everybody has self doubts. I don't believe people who say they don't.

Right.

Normal. It's natural. But I always was able to like get past that and go forward. And I'm a person of action. I just, I'm a doer. I'm like. I'm just full of energy. I'm one of those. Always been that kind of. But I think what shocked me is I became paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. Even though I had a plan, you know, I thought I had a plan. I didn't do any. I just became paralyzed. And everybody said, well, of course, you know, look what you just went through. And then of course, my dad passed away shortly thereafter. And then my mom. I'm an only child, so taking care of all that and selling this big Giganto house that we all lived in. So that kind of took me. My daughter at the time was 8, 9 years old at the time. But then even after that, I got all that stuff done. All the physical things that I had to get do, I had to get done. I just. I was stuck. I didn't know where else to go at the time. I had taken kind of a sabbatical from the company. I had backed myself off. I wasn't doing any meetings or speeches or anything. It was just kind of on its own. And I wasn't sure I wanted to jump back into that. I wanted to raise my daughter and do that. But what else did I want to do? I don't know. And I just became paralyzed.

Well, I think, Patty, one thing to recognize from that is for people in advance of this happening, Lord, hopefully it won't happen to any of us. But when these things happen, it does help for you to hear in advance that you're thrown into situations where you're responsible. And as the tragedy happens, you're thrown into things where you're working day and night, coming up with stuff to solve problems, look out for people, come up with solutions, find doctors, get this, that the other. But then when you go through the trauma, then you gotta take care of all of that. And pretty much you're being jerked around, you're on autopilot, you know, and you're getting through it. But on one level, but you know, your brain and your emotions and your body is. They're basically in a reptilian shutdown, autopilot mode. And as that you start to come back, the pressure comes off, you Know the circumstances put you in a vice grip where you got to do this, got to do that, got to do this, got to do that, and then you got to do that next week and then the week. But then after extended period of time like that, as the pressure comes off, that doesn't compel you. Then what's really inside you has a chance to come out. And so don't be upset with yourself. Would you say that? Let your body recover in your mind. Go through those things. Don't be hard on yourself and get down on yourself because you're, you know, accept the fact you're, you know, you're. You're healing. It's going to take what it takes. And would you. Would you say that's accurate?

That's accurate. And I wish I had thought that at the time, because I didn't. And actually, although there was so much pressure, like you said, when he was sick, getting the doctors in order and doing that and taking my, you know, taking care of my daughter, taking care of the office in the meantime, unbelievably, right before he got sick, we had started this unbelievable construction and remodeling on our house, and it was ripped apart. I had. Every day I had that, I had my two infirmed parents in the guest house. So say it was a crazy time where I was pushed and pulled and, yeah, constantly doing things with pressure on me. But then after all of that, and then he passes and my parents pass and going through all that, getting rid of their stuff and getting the house together, selling the house, this big giant house, my parents stuff, my stuff, all of that turmoil, taking care of the kid, the whole nine yards. But then, Larry, there's a different kind of pressure because now there's nothing on me. I have nothing to do. Oh, my God. Now what? Now there's a pressure to, like, now. Now what do I do? You know, okay, I'm gonna raise my child. But what does that mean when she's in school for eight hours a day? What am I doing sitting at home?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was another. You know, that was. That was a shocking time for me. I didn't. I didn't expect to be. At that point. I was. And I didn't know what to do. I was pretty much paralyzed, like I said, and I. I actually thought of doing something else outside of the business I was in. And then a couple of friends got ahold of me and said, that's pretty stupid. You own this big giant business, and this is where your life is, and you could so easily Just segue right back into that. So it took me a while. I'm going to tell you the truth. It took me a while.

Was that a bad thing? Was that a bad thing?

Yes and no. It was.

Speeded it up. Could you have speeded it up?

Yes, I could have. And I wish I had condensed my timeframes and listened to myself like I said I was, I was a little emotionally stuck and. But, but the good part about it is I learned a lot about myself and it kind of reinforced actually who I really am because the who I really am did finally come out and grab a hold of me and shake me and say, okay, not stop this and go do something. And that's what I did. And so when my daughter got into high school and was older and didn't need me as much, I just started slowly getting back into the company and into the business. And I find myself now in my favorite position of my life. I'm going to be 68 years old in June. June 30th. Congratulations. And here I am at my favorite time of life because I'm reaping the benefits of all that hard work and the, the condensing of timeframes and even reaping the benefit of that stagnant period because I learned a lot about myself and putting it all to work and now living my best life. I don't kill myself, I don't pressure myself, but I do make sure that I'm involved and I interact and I'm involved with the company and I love people and I love to be on the stage and I love to share my experiences and my story because I think it's a unique one and I think there are insights that can help other people and I love to do that. And at the same time, you know, I love to live my life and I am, I love to travel, I'm doing all that. And so it's, it's a benefit. You know, people don't realize when they're in the middle of that grind and they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel and they're just putting in those 18 hour days and putting in that sweat equity which you have to do because the money doesn't fall from the sky, right? But boy, if you do it and you do it right and you do it as fast as you can, then I had the luxury of being stagnant. You know, like if I had to get my butt out of work every morning, I wouldn't have been able to be in that position. And just take my time and kind of mentally and emotionally heal. And from the, you know, I took.

A loop what you're saying and what I would encourage people to how look at this. When you say about compressed time frame, we know problems are coming down the road for us because they always come to everybody and they may be mild, they may be severe, they may be health, financial kids, because again, we're fragile bodies, we don't last forever. And so sooner or later it's going to be health. So you look at that and you say, if I'm working now, the reason to work is not because I have to, but race to get ahead, compress time frames because you know you're going to need resources and time in the future that you'll be able to get by. If you're broke and you don't have much money and you've got to have a job and all, you know, somehow you can schlep through, people do all the time. But it's going to be so much easier for you and you're going to be able to be so much more help to the people around you. And if, you know, like we all have nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, parents that are in the hospital, they're in surgery here. And then, you know, things like that. And if you're able to do the extras, even if it's an extra, just be able to take the time off and go visit them, you know, or to send them a little care package or something like that. Well, you're not going to do that if you're, you know, hand to mouth. And so the reason to accelerate and condense this thing, compress the time frames and the activity is get ahead of the game and create. Even though you, there's no way of avoiding the emotional price of going through what you did, like losing in 18 months, you know, all the key people around you, you were able to deal with it. You're able to get resources and you're able to make things easier for them. So that's one thing that people can take away from this because this is about winning. And winning is over your whole life. And the thing is, you've come through this thing and you've been able to, you know, when, you know, in the early years, you had to work like a dog, but you built an incredible business, incredible life, went through the incredible, you know, destructive collapse of your whole world and your key people around you, which is probably the worst thing to deal with in life. But now you've been able to bounce Come out of that and reconstruct a life. You've remarried and you've been wise in your choice there too. And talk about what you got going on right now.

Well, yes, I remarried. Quick, crazy story. After Dennis passed away, I was in the grocery store, ran into an acquaintance, not even a good friend, and we just started to talk and she's like, I heard your husband died. I'm so sorry. Blah, blah. She said, are you interested in dating? Because I know this fellow who lives in town and he just walked and he asked me if I knew any nice women. And I thought of you. I think you two would be great together. Make a long story short, we got fixed up on a blind date. And on our blind date we realized that he and I had had a date when I was 18 and he's nine years older than I, when he was, wow, New Jersey. And here we are living two miles away from each other in Mendham, New Jersey, you know, so. And that's Dan. So I met him three, three or four months after Dennis passed away. I get fixed up on a blind date with this guy and here I am. I knew him from when I was 18 years old. And here we are, married. So, yeah, he owns, he owns an incredible business. Self made. Came out of the Marine Corps. I wish he were here actually adding his two cents because he has an incredible, incredible work ethic. And an incredible story came out of the. Came out of high school in Patterson, New Jersey. Same thing. You know, parents who, you know, just middle class parents. His father was a train conductor, his mother was a housewife. And he joined the Marine Corps when he was right from the day out of high school into the Marine Corps and he was a sniper in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.

Wow.

Yeah. So tough guy.

And then he came out of that, built a business and you say now he's got. You've got your own yacht and you're getting ready to go to the Caribbean.

Dominican, and you built a big business. Self made and is the most mentally tough human being I've ever met in my life. You know, if it's cold out, I say, aren't you cold? And he says, just don't think about it. That's kind of his philosophy work for me. But yeah, built a big business. You know, the jets and the yachts and all that. It's very lovely, but it's all, it's icing on the cake because he's an awesome human being and we get along really, really well. He makes me laugh every day of my life. Like, hysterical cry, laugh, just like two kids in high school. And that's what it's about, Larry, you know, yes, you want to be successful financially, and that's probably what people think we're talking about, but you want to be successful in life. You want to have a good life. Because, God, it goes so quick. It sounds like such a cliche, but I watched my husband, you know, I only had 20, 24 years with him, and I've already got 20 years with Dan. I'm like, holy cow, that 24 years was nothing.

You know, the thing is, Patty, we're talking about winning. And the reason I wanted to do this is like winning in life to me. You know, people say, what is winning? Winning is being able to know how to evaluate what happens to you in life. You know, being willing to work, you know, wanting, you know, being clear on what you want and freeing yourself up to go for great things. You know, I believe, you know, I believe that the desire to do something great with your life is put in there by God, you know, myself. You know, you see a kid, you know, a kid wants to do great things. He wants to run fast, wants to climb to the top of the bar. You know, you. I always love it when you get a little toddler, he can just stand up, and you put him on next to a fireplace or stairs, and the first thing they do is want to hike their leg up. You know, they want to move up. And, you know, that's inbred in us, but it beat out of us by people that are dead dull, disillusioned with their life, and they're going to try and kill it in our life. And they make you feel like you're wrong to put an extraordinary amount of time into some special project or something, you know, and, you know, there's going to be plenty of critics for you anytime you do anything, great. And you'll appreciate this. I was out in California with a group of senior, you know, 200 senior leaders, and they were the movers and shakers of that side of the country. And I said, how many of y' all feel like you've really done something great in your career? And, you know, about two thirds of the room raised their hand, and I said, tell me this, what did your family and friends tell you about that when that happened, when you did that, got a big paycheck, got a promotion, built your own outlet and had your. Got things going in your new project and everything? I said, what do they say? Universal? They all said, slow down. You're Selling your soul for success. You know, think about your kids, you know, especially the wives that are trying to help or the husband is trying to help the wives. You know, we're to make it a joint project. It's like trying to make them guilty about the kids or any way they make them feel as floating. When's enough is enough, you know, and if you go. You want to go out there on this and do anything, great. If you want to be a great ballerina or whatever, people, you're just going to get abused. And so the thing is, it's worth it. It's going to be beyond worth it. Allow yourself to pay the price and realize when things go down the toilet, like for you, everybody around you died. You can. When you go through the. Even when you're paralyzed and you're shocked and it seems like you've lost everything. Once you start moving forward, allow yourself to move forward, you're going to be making good choices again, just like you made up to that point, you know, One of my heroes is this Michaela Schiffer. And she's like mid-20s. She's the greatest ski racer of all time. And she just went through a big thing at the. Her first disaster was at the Tokyo Olympics. But then she came back two weeks later and just won everything and crushed everybody. But this young girl, like two, three years ago, she builds her dream house again. She's young. She builds it out in Eagle, Colorado, one of the McMansions, you know, 20 million or whatever. Her father's up on the roof when they move in. And the father, for some reason, he's up there. It's stupid. He's up there getting ice off the roof. You know, it's like, dad, call somebody to do this. Don't get unaladable. And sure enough, he loses his balance, falls backwards, cracks his head on the brick, and she moves into her dream home. She's got success all over the world, and then her dad's dead. And, you know, what do you do? But things happen to us in life. You can't predict that. But, you know, she went out the next year and won like 20 or 30 races. You know what I'm saying?

What's the alternative? Isn't that the better? You know, when something like that bad happens, what's the alternative? Don't do anything and ruin the rest of your life. Or say, I'm going to use this as a stepping stone to greatness. I'm going to use this learning experience, this sad thing that happened to me as a springboard to do something great and say, I'm going to do this for my dad. Larry. One of the reasons I stay in this business, one of the reasons I didn't change my name, because I want Dennis like I use. You know, he paid the ultimate. You know, he's the one who really built this thing. We built it together. But, you know, it was basically him. And I want, I want to keep his name alive in this industry. I want people to know who Dennis Schechter was and what he built and what he did for people and how was his work ethic and what he put into this in the beginning of over 16,000 agents and how many families have they touched? And that's a legacy. So, yeah, when something bad happens, look, you know, that's how I try and look at it and say, okay, well, what can I use? How can I make this a legacy moment or a learning moment or, you know, a spectacular advancement from this terrible trauma that happened to me? You know, and like I said, I got stuck and I got paralyzed, but when I got out of it, it took me a couple of years. I sure as heck shook it off and went ahead and. And I've tried at least to do that. But, you know, you're talking about people. When you ask people, what did everybody say? And invariably they said, slow down. I've thought a lot about, you know, when you, when you get successful, how you lose friends and relatives. And I've thought about like, why is that? You know, and the first, your first reaction, your first thought process, at least mine is always, well, they're jealous. And obviously there's, there's a portion that they are jealous. But I think the real reason is, is because, you know, you're like them. So, you know, if you have a cousin, you grew up with, your cousin, you're just like your cous. And what you're doing is you're holding up a mirror to that person.

Right?

Right. And you're saying, okay, well, we're the same and we came from the same and we've had the same opportunities in life and. But look what I'm doing. And so it's a mirror and they really, it's an internal just. They're mad at themselves.

Right?

So they got it. You know, they just, they just project it out onto you. But it's really a self loathing, a self hatred that, you know, why am I not doing it? Why am I not. And it's funny how some people, you could, you know, ask them and beg them and leave them to water and they just won't. They won't do it. Others jump at it and you never know who those people are.

Absolutely fantastic insights and encouragement on being able to think your way through these things that happen to you, be able to stay on track, get back on track, get momentum back, and start moving again towards the kind of life you want that you know is possible. That can get you excited again. 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 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.