Episode 468: In the Beginning Whatever Can Go Wrong, Usually Goes Wrong with Dennis Vaillant

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind, where we get real world insights on winning from people who have accomplished amazing things. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. And let's get going. I'm here with Dennis Viat. And Dennis, where are you today?

I'm in Clearwater Beach, Florida.

Clearwater Beach, Florida. How long have you lived there?

Just for a few months and it is beautiful. I'm looking at the Gulf of Mexico and the beach.

Yeah. So you're new to Florida?

Well, new to this area of Florida, but I've been in Florida for probably about 10 years now.

And where. And where else were you in Florida?

I was in Ocala, Florida.

Ocala, yes. It's a big difference.

Yes.

It is our capital of the world. Yeah. And what would you, what in the world were you doing over there in Ocala? Were you, did you have, you like Travolta over there where you have your jets parked outside your house, you have your own runways and.

No, no, we were at a different part. We had a horse ranch.

Oh, you did? We did not know you were in horses. So thoroughbreds probably?

Well, quarter horses. My wife was very much into quarter horses, yes.

Oh, I did not know that. And so there's really no reason to be in horse country unless you got.

Horses, I guess for sure.

I tell you, when the Kentucky Derby comes on, I've never done horse racing, but that's the most exciting type thing. And the illustration for everybody who's never caught the fever is watch the last, you know, 30 seconds or something of that race on Saturday where that horse just, I mean, I was electrified just watching it on the video feed on social media. But horses are a great thing to pour unlimited amounts of money into. You know, that kind of shows that you were, you know, you get boats, you get horses, you get planes. And if you want to go through tons of money and it doesn't matter what kind of horse polo, saddlebreds, you know those, harness racing, horse racing, show jumping, hunting, doesn't matter. Rodeo, you're going to go through a ton of money. But it's so much fun. That's why it's so addictive. And how long were you in the horse business?

Well, I was. I wasn't as much in the horseman as my wife was.

You were paying for it. Yeah. You were paying.

She was. And she was very good at it and she loved it. So. Yes.

How long, how long was that she was all over?

Well, for several years growing up, and then she took a break and then and then probably her and I were in that moment, probably 10, 15 years. Ballpark.

Yeah. Well, there's plenty of opportunity to go through a ton of unlimited ton of.

Money, that is fair to say.

So what happened now as you started, how fast did you start your new business once you got going in your new direction? How quick did that unfold? And were there some terrorizing moments you went through or are you just a Pollyanna story of success? Dennis?

Far from it. Yes, whatever. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. Okay. And then that, that helps you to really be able to grow. At the same time, it also lets you, you know, it also lets you know how determined you are. Right, right from the get go that you, you really test you to see if this is what you really want to do. And you really, really, you know, have not just the passion, but the work ethic. And because pretty well everything you touch turns to crap initially. And at some point, okay, as long as you just build upon, you know, each, each, each area that you want to get, you know, that you just plow through and then you get, eventually you start to see some success.

Well, you know, you and I have been through these wars and I was thinking about it this weekend. It's almost like the worst thing that could happen to you in starting your business is you get super employees, super staff, the perfect right hand person, the perfect this, that and the other, because your growth is going to stop. It's almost like the worst thing that could happen to a new recruiter, a new salesperson, is they go out and they make a bunch of sales, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Like, and they think they're special. You know, it's, it's really the curse of the super talented person. Even in sports, because, you know, high.

School.

All the way up through high school and even college, some of the NFL players, I mean, they can get by, just coast and just crush everybody else. You know, they're just one guy in the team that's just so much better. They don't. And they get in the pros and there's such a high wipeout level in the pros because they're all learning, pretty much all learning. No, you got to bust it up here. And they've never learned to work hard. That's why I think you and I have had an advantage growing up where, where we didn't have advantages. You know, we had to learn this and we had to learn to work that you're not special. You're going to have to work, you know, you know, you're not going to be the guy who just slides through with a smile and a handshake. You're going to have to dig deep and outwork them and think on your feet. And so as it's almost an advantage that things go wrong because you learn that you're going to have to dig down and dig deep because maybe two, three years, if you have it easy, two, three years down the road, when you have the inevitable tough times, the people have had it easy getting off to a fast start, they go right down the train because they think they're special. You know, talk about those early days, things that surprised you.

Well, absolutely. Just a couple of comments, Larry. You know, when I. When I played a little, you know, in athletics, the farther along you go, there's going to be some, as you mentioned, some very talented, talented teammates or people you're going to play, play with or against. And, you know, and. And then that separation, there's going to be a certain amount of players in professional sports, no matter what, are going to make it, no matter what.

Okay?

Okay. And people do not realize. O. Okay. That's really only about 10%. The other 90%. Literally the other 90%, okay? It's.

It's.

They're all tremendous. They're all good, and they just are in the right place, the right time. It's very similar to corporate because all the guys can do about the same thing, okay? But they just need that opportunity. And when they have that opportunity, then they. They break on through. And I saw that in athletics and, and you see that in business and like you talked about, okay. As far as myself, you know, you develop a mental toughness and what I did, what. You know, again, you don't know this as you're going about, but I worked super hard in athletics, okay? Super hard in athletics. So my talent, which is not a talent, was hard work, okay? So I. So I took that same work ethic and applied that in business, okay? And then that.

Right.

That mental toughness, because that was the expectation going in, okay?

Right.

That. That's the only way you're able to compete with the next guy, okay, Is to outwork that person, right? And there's going to be adversity, and you embrace the adversity and you use the adversity to your advantage, right? You take, you know, a negative situation and you actually use that as a weapon for yourself to move you to the next level. And that's. That's what I saw early in my career. And every time that there was a growth opportunity A growth spurt that came through adversity. It did not happen when things were going well. It happened when I was challenged because then I needed to reach, reach, reach down, reach up, whatever kind of.

Right.

But I needed to reach inside myself to take myself to the next level because it wasn't happening otherwise. So those are all good things. And anybody in life, if you want to get ahead, that's how it works. Okay.

And talk again about how. Explain, Ty, what you said, the statistics. There's only a certain percent here and 90% tie those statistics into what you just said there. Right.

Well, Ty, here's the great news. Okay. Depending on the type of business that somebody's involved with. Yeah, okay, Right. Okay. The statistics may be the same, okay? Right. The separation comes, okay, from somebody's mental toughness. Okay? Right. So everybody could do it depending on what type of business it is. Okay. In the business that I'm in, financial services, everybody could do it. Okay. It's a. But it's a function of, are they going to do what it takes? Okay, right. So that, that again, that comes that separated because the business that, that I'm in, financial services, that's an ability driven business, okay. In professional sports, that's a talent, business driven business. Now, when you get to the highest level in professional sports, everybody works hard, yet you're gifted with talent, okay. In certain industries and businesses, it's ability driven. Abilities can be learned, okay. Talents are gifts from God. So in the. In financial services specifically, that's an ability driven business. So as long as I develop the abilities, I'm good. Okay. And I knew that I could because it just was a work ethic situation. Right. And having the mental fortitude to break through those self imposed barriers.

The point you're making there is that the separation, we talk about this all the time, the fine line between mediocrity and greatness, looking for the winning edge. It also comes into the emotional intelligence, keeping your head on track. That's essential for a leader. When things go crazy, you don't go crazy, but when everybody's emotional around you, you go logical, you know, and basically to get the facts, you know, it's just like everybody, because everybody else is just the feelings. How could they do that? That was the most disaster. And then you rational back down to what are the facts of the situation. And leaders got to go off facts, you know, the whole thing. Dennis, have you ever heard the facts? Faith, faith feeling. You know, you get the fact in every situation you could move forward intelligently if you get the facts, as good as you can get the facts, put your faith in the facts, and then the feelings will come. But what most people do is, and we all can do it when the, when outrageous situations happen, you know what you can do to keep moving forward, because that's going to be the key to your success. And, and that's where the people that succeed have the advantage. They are much quicker to get back to doing the things, the only things they can do to move out of the hole and to get on back on the winning, you know, getting positive things back. And so when you talk about the kinds of things that you remember early on that was, you know, if anything can go wrong, they will go wrong. What kind of things sticks with you. How many years ago was it since you started your business?

1987. So it's been a while.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. It's been at least 10 years.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes, at least.

So how do you. What, what still stays with you? That was. Went wrong in the beginning. If any, anything could go wrong, it probably will in the beginning, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the, the, you know, your, your, you know, your core principles always stay with you.

Right.

And that's what, Joe, that grounds you. And in, in my view. Right. Is that what I can control. I can control my own, my own attitude how I, Okay. How I approach a situation. I can control that and I can control my activity. Okay. I'm not able, I can't control what somebody else's attitude is. I can influence that, but I can't control it. Okay. And I can't whether somebody wants to get involved with our product or wants to get involved with the business, depending on the circumstance. Right. I can't control that. What I can do is I can control how many people I visit with about those things.

Yeah. And so what was. Again, thinking back to what went wrong early on, that really was the biggest challenge for you. What would you say?

Yeah, that's a good question, Larry. I just, I, it felt to me, you know, it could never. My, My mindset was this, is that no matter what I did, it wasn't happening fast enough. My expectation level. I'm doing my best to answer your question. Okay. My ex. My expectation level was that I was always, I always felt I should be farther along because I had a high, I had a high belief in myself.

Right.

Okay. And that it would excel faster than it did when I started making a good income. Somebody had congratulated me and I said, thank you very much. But like, he goes, aren't you Excited that this happened. I went, no, I can't believe it took me this long. Okay, Because. Because that was my belief system, right? And I've never, I've always achieved my goals, but never in the time frame. It is always longer than the time frame I had laid out. Okay? But I always knew I was going to get there. But it. But I always wanted on a shorter time frame, if that makes sense.

Well, that's what. And that's, Dennis, that's what we all deal with. I was talking, you know, I was talking to. I was telling my staff the last day or so. I went through a period of time in the early 80s before, you know, in advance of you. And we recruited like, I went up to Pioneer, North Carolina, got my feet on the ground the first year, 56 recruits. And then we launched the major attack. The majority of. We're going to go to war now. And recruited 1800, 7000 and 15,000 people in the next three years, a total of 25,000 people. And I'll tell you this, Dennis, here's the thing. Every month, at the end of every month, because at the end of the month you zero out and you start the next month where the next month is. At the end of every month. I was so mad. I was furious because we hadn't grown that much. I thought now what it was was a rocket ship growth, if you chart it out over three years. But in my mind, as I was living through it, because here's what happens when you do a business. You have. Everything doesn't come through. You know, it's just like you launch all these, you know, all the lines you put in the water. If you're fishing with bait, very few come through. In fact, even I was very encouraged about this when they told me that even lions, you know, on the Serengeti, where they have plenty animals, even the lions only succeed one out of ten times. You know, you see those things they chase and they're this. And the other one out of ten times I said, good, you're on trip track. Yeah, because it seems like. Because I'm sure the lion is out there saying, dad got it nine times. I just fell on my face. How did he get away? And how did that one get away? And you know, that zebra came in and got ran across the thing right when I was getting ready to lunge. And, you know, the life of a lion and, you know, calculating. And then he goes back, you know, to the root, and mama and the cubs are like, well, where's the food? You know, it's like, well, they got away. Sure, you can't hunt where the crap and you know, but it's life, you know, you got to keep, you got to stay on the attack. That's why the hard work differentiates those that feel like that's why you can't, you know, what you said early on is an advantage for you when things go wrong in the beginning because, and basically people saying deals that could close, don't close.

Right.

You know, when we start a business, it's like, you know, if we, this guy does business with me, we'll get 15 or 20 sales. You know, that'll open up a door over here. They're in the kind of thing where they generate 10 more every month. They're going to be funneling these things into me. You know, that'll really move us up to another. And then it falls apart for no reason, you know, and the surefire things almost always seem to blow up and so you just have to keep swinging. But that's true in movies too, and it's true in Broadway plays. You know, you're going to bring a play to Broadway, you got the stand, you know, you got the five great actors in there and got your great lead and paying them all the money. And then for some reason, you know, the one critic comes in and just says no thumbs down, and you're closed in six weeks. So these things happen. But that's the thing is you can hit it big if you keep on trying. And usually even the disasters have the seed of something bigger down the road if you keep your, your eyes up. And so how long were you in the business before things started to feel good to you?

I would say probably about 18 months.

Ballpark.

Ballpark, you know, because it took me that to, you know, I, from an obvious many years ago, okay, but, but my 18th month in business from when I started, I was making six figures, right. And you know that that's not worth the same thing it is today. But at that time that was, you know, that's, you know, not, you know, late, late 80s. You start making six figures in the late 80s and then, you know, then that continues to go, to go from there from that standpoint. And you know, you build on that.

And so the biggest momentum. What's your attitude about momentum? When did you start to feel like you had momentum and you knew how to create momentum and keep it going?

Yeah, I think when I developed some other like minded people. Okay. Or they developed themselves. But we created an environment, a culture that started to breed Success, and then they were able to see success themselves. And then not just themselves seeing success, but they were also able to teach others, okay, where they could start to see success. Then I really felt that we had some, you know, that spark where things were going to continue, whether, you know, it wasn't just on me in a good way.

Well, that's the key to momentum, is when you can, you know, we're always involved in the business, but you don't feel like you have to be there every minute of the day. You've got people to help carry the load, and they're the kind of people who will carry the load, not just in good times, but they'll carry it in bad times. That's where you really build your confidence in them. And I think that's what gives us the chance to taste momentum for the first time. So when you're starting a business, you're going to go through these things, but one of the great thresholds that you're going to hit and you can just keep it in your mind is I'm going to reach a point probably a lot quicker. It'll seem like forever, but probably a lot quicker than I expect to, where this thing will roll. Even if I'm not having my best day or if I'm sick, vacation or whatever, this thing is going to run to some degree without me. And that takes a lot of the pressure off, doesn't it?

Absolutely. That's a big thing.

And that. Well, that's the whole thing to work for. And I want to say that to people in business right now. The whole thing you go into business for yourself, is not to give yourself a job where you got to work 80, 90 hours a week the rest of your life. But if you decide to do that early on, it's to get yourself to a place, you know, it's like it's an extension of the begin with the end in mind. If you have it in your mind, I'm going to do this so that I can get to a point as quickly as possible where I've got other people carrying the load. And this thing will have some strength and some income rolling in, that significant income rolling in, that I didn't have to be involved and think everything through and make every transaction. That's a good feeling, because that's really why you're going into business for yourself, is so that you can get to that spot as quickly as possible. From there on, you are working, but the stress level goes down and the income level goes up. From that point on, you will reach a thing where you go over the bubble. And from that point on, income goes up and it might start skyrocketing up, but the stress level goes down because you got more and more and more people involved in it. Is that a good description of it?

Bang on, Larry. You hit it.

And I don't think either one of us really had that clear in our mind. When we started, we were just working, right? 100%.

100% we were working. And just. It's kind of like you're, you know, if you visualize you, there's this hole, right? And then you fall in the hole and there's a bunch of alligators in the hole. Guess what you want to do? Get out of the hole, right? And then so you, you get yourself out of the hole. Then when you look back, now you can not analyze per se, but now you can be able to. Okay, that was good. That wasn't. That was right. And now you can be able to help others. So you know they're going to. If they're quote unquote in the hole, you can help them accelerate quicker than yourself because you have experience that you can guide them as long as they follow that lead.

Absolutely. Thanks so much, Dennis. That wraps up this episode. Consider leaving a rating and review if you like what you heard. In addition, I have a free video for you and it contains my best insights from 20 years of running my own business and also coaching million dollar earners. You'll find it at whitelowinning. Com Webinar. Thanks for listening and do it big.