Episode 56: Always Move Forward with Business Owner Andy Young

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell, and let's get started. All right, I'm back with Million Dollar earner and producer of Million Dollar Earners, Andy Young. Andy, as we did, we didn't really talk about the fact of all of the impact Andy's had around the country far beyond his own industry. You know, when you. You have big success, you make noise, you attract attention, and there have been a lot of people listening and following the Pied Piper that is Andy Young for a long, long time. And the results show up in the kind of success they have. So that's, you know, it's the proof of the principles and concepts and the fundamentals you have is when you can pass them not only be successful yourself, but you can pass them on to others and they can duplicate it. And Andy has certainly been able to do that. So welcome back, Andy.

Great to be here, Larry, and thanks.

For taking some more time and sharing. You know, we talked last time about your formative years in that, you know, that drive and 7am running out on the track because, you know, you have, you were challenged to do that and you wanted greatness. And you, you know, growing up in a family where there were seven kids in one bathroom and a disabled mother and never had money and, you know, not only didn't have money, had a bad attitude towards money, you know, you know, a very spiritual, religious, solid foundation there. But the trouble sometimes is they, you know, when, when you start out, you can misread the Bible and think that money is evil when really money is the solution to so many problems because it gives you answers. And it's the love and worship, you know, I of money that's the problem. You know, you put it ahead of your relationship with God. That was a problem. Money's not bad. Money's fabulous because of the things you can do for yourself and other people. And so, you know, fortunately, you saw through that right from the beginning. But I always, I was stuck with that phrase. You said, we always talked about money because we didn't have it. But on the other hand, it was an evil thing, you know, but you still need money to get groceries. And so, you know, it'd be nice to have money to buy a second, a house with two bathrooms or more. And so, you know, you saw through that. You put yourself in a position to be able to have a life where you could get your hands on some of the good things of life. However, and I know you got married and you wanted to provide a Better life for your family and Debbie and Susan and. And the other rest of the family that was on the way to come, Sarah and Amy, and. But in the beginning, it's just like, you know, you wanted a. You know, you want a better life, and you saw it and you said, this can happen to me. Fortunately for you, Andy, you had the preparation deep down in your bones, in your marrow, and you had the experience to go with it. And so you were really far better equipped to deal with the big obstacles that life put in your way to get to where you wanted to go, where you are today. So let's talk about when you came out of coming out of school. You know, you had this. It had to be crushing that the first thing you had to overcome is the feeling sorry for yourself. That my NFL career that I worked for, I got up at 7:00am you know, in high school, running on the track. You know, I've been in the weight room lifting. You know, I get a scholarship to go to a prestigious university, play Division 1 football, and then surgery after surgery after surgery, and your dreams are just wiped out. But you did not stay down because of what was in you. And that's an important lesson for everybody. You don't have to stay down just because you get knocked down by things out of your control. In fact, you're not supposed to stay down, and you're not supposed to feel sorry for yourself. So, Andy, let's talk about how you approached that and overcame, you know, like success came by inches. You know, you had to inch your way to building up momentum in a business of your own and establishing the career that you have today. So talk about how you looked at that and how you coached yourself, because at this point, now you're married, you're away from all your early mentors, and you're having to, you know, even before you found me and the rest of us, you're having to sort through the things that, you know your options and decide which direction am I going. So let's. Let's pick up the story there.

Yeah, I mean, I have the injury, and then, okay, so it's clear if I want to be there five years there. I mean, I can be there. I can play. And I finished my career, lost the steps. I knew I wasn't going to the next level after the surgeries. But then it was a matter of, okay, I'm going to add a second major. You know, instead of coasting through, I could just take one less class each semester. I doubled it up and then did the summer School so I could add the second major and, you know, then go for the scholarship to go to South America's, want to get something good. And I saw they had that scholarship. And the funny thing about that is I saw that you get to go to Bogota, Colombia, live with a Colombian family paid for by Wake Forest, and boy, that's gonna be great. In my mind, it was at the time there was this. The first Mexican restaurant that ever came out in the United. That I recall was Chi Chi's. And, you know, that's really. Nate came in, brought the big old bowl of, you know, refilled chips, tortilla chips and the salsas. And it was, you know, for a big guy eating that was great. So I. I thought when I, you know, applied for the scholarship, you know, I'm going to end up going down. There's going to be mariachi bands playing and women kind of low cut dresses, and it was going to be just a big old party, big fiesta every day and all that kind of stuff. I get down there and I find out that a third of the country is occupied by communist guerrillas. You know, you had Pablo Escobar making his move. And here I am, this big, you know, six foot four gringo with red hair showing up in the middle of that mess down there. And the family picked me up. They're speaking Spanish at a rapid rate. I get in there and, you know, I see there's tanks, there's soldiers on every corner, all that kind of stuff like, what the crap did I get myself into? But I can tell you right now that in my lifetime, if you don't say probably, if you're. If you're actually planning on doing something great at any particular time in your life, let's say this year, this year I'm going to go do something great. If you don't say one or two or three times during this year as you're going for something. What the hell did I say that for? Me and my big mouth. Why did I. I mean, I could have said this, but I said that if you can't make in your. In your brain that you know that, hey, you got to be going for it and put yourself against the wall. See, that's the thing about what people don't realize. Like a tiger. Tiger Woods. Tiger. I watched him at Augusta National. He hit his tee shot, I think it was on the 11th tee box. He hits the shot and breaks his club. Just slams to the ground and breaks his club. And I'm thinking, I'm laughing. Here's a guy who's made more money than anybody in golf in the history of golf, you know, half a billion, billion dollars. Got the one of the biggest yachts out there. He's not frustrated because he's worried about missing the yacht payment or he's behind on his light pillar crap. If you want to play at a high level, you got to get the game right between your ears, where you put yourself in positions to play at the highest level, where you're around the greatest people, where you're not around people that make excuses like I talked about in the previous, you know, talk. I mean, it's you, you got to put yourself in an environment with the people that are moving. And I tell you what, most people, they're not moving anywhere, they don't have any vision. And you got to be really care. And hey, you know what, you're related to a lot of. You got to be extremely careful about your environment, protecting your environment. So when I'm in school, I didn't, I didn't hang around the guys that were partying too much, all that kind of crap. I was the guy that was, you know, in the, had a study hall. I'm going to the study hall. I mean, I'm gonna find some way to get better at what I'm gonna do. So the Spanish thing came through and then from there came out and I had the job offer to go with Wachovia and move to Puerto Rico and be a permanent, you know, full time translator. And I saw that, but, but that's when I said, I'm going to find a business. I want to find a business, I want to own a business, but I don't have any money. So there's another challenge. But I found a business where it was sweat equity and being around mentors and people that could help me, that I could learn their craft, learn what they were doing, and if I duplicated it, it would pay off. And one of the things at that time was, you know, I could make a hundred thousand dollars and, and looking back, that seems kind of, you know, funny, you know, 100,000, but that's kind of like all the money in the world. You can make 8, 10, $12,000 a month and make a difference, find a vehicle that you can make a difference for. And the vehicle is important because we were talking earlier that, you know, you can put your effort in and you can do the paces and you get the mentors and you can embrace the repetition. You can, you can cut an oak tree down with a sledgehammer. It probably take you all week or all month, but you absolutely could cut an oak tree down with a sledgehammer or you could, you know, use an axe, or you could sharpen the ax or use a chainsaw. I mean, I'm an East coast guy. I could get to California. Hey, I could walk there. Everybody last. But, you know, 150, 200 years ago, that's how everybody got out west. They didn't get into Conestoga and hang a left on Interstate 40. I mean, they walked to California, brought their crap in the wagons. They had one, you know, or you can. You can drive. Drive with kids. That's even worse. You could take a train or you can fly. I mean, you can get there in four hours, get on a plane. The vehicle does matter. And then the people you're around you surround yourself with, and the effort you make makes all the difference, too.

Absolutely. And how did you. When you have this mindset, it allows you to quickly sort through your options, doesn't it?

Yeah, you have to sort through your options because you got to find some way to make it go, you know, and. And that's the thing. You got to. You got to keep your options open. You got to keep an open mind. But then you got to be careful as you choose which direction you're going to go in. And once you do that, then you have to embrace it. You know, when I was starting a business with you, I moved 300 miles, move my family, you know, I'm staying at my mom's. And you said, If I got 500 people in a room, you come see me, you know, And I. I don't even know if at the time you remembered saying that, but that's in my mind. I never forgot it. So a hundred days later, put 500 people in a room. And I always joke about it today, and I said, can you believe your mentor, the person above you, the one that's training, you would say something so awful like, put 500 people in a room and I'll come work with you a little bit. But I always laugh about it and say, yeah, I'm mad about it, too. Because if he'd said a thousand, I'd have gotten twice as big. Because I did the 500, 100 days. I totally believe that's what I was supposed to do. Like when Bob Turley, you know, in a management thing, you know, producing district managers, you know, you gotta have district managers and distribution. Whatever business you're in, you got all kinds of layers of management. You know, you produce six district Managers in the vehicle I was using, he's like, go get you 60 more districts. And that. I was like a golden retriever. Chase and stick. I didn't know that people didn't go get 60 districts. Like, you got a mentor that it just raises the bar for you. And you got to be around people like that who think bigger. And then you get in your mind, say like, what the crap do I say that for? Well, then you go for it. That's how great things are done. Necessity is the mother of invention. That happens over and over and over in history, but that also happens in reinventing yourself. And it really is the people you're hanging around. So, you know, get up there and I 100 days, focus, get 500 people in a room. But, man, that made all the difference in the world. We had. We had 80 different brokers in position within three years because we thought at a higher level in the early days.

Yeah, and really, you really were thinking at a higher level, Andy, way before we even found you. Because you knew how to evaluate your options. Because whether you realize or not, you were thinking, you already were thinking is, where is this going to take me? You know, it's like that was the thing about the NFL, you know, if I know if I get in the NFL, that could take me to a different kind of life, you know, you know, I'm going to get rewarded for my hard work in the NFL. When that door was shut, you're looking for doors that you could get on to, you know, and develop skills and get into a vehicle, an opportunity, a company that would reward hard work and, you know, where you didn't know where it would take you, but it was going to be up. And so when you got out of college and you looked at the one or two standard options, the reason you were open to us was you saw the standard options that people do were offered to a person like yourself at that time. They were dead ends, and you didn't want a dead end. And that even though you weren't great at us getting started, it was like this had much more appeal to you, even though, again, you know, your Spanish and your football was not going to help you, but it's like, you know, just develop another skill.

Yeah, the big thing on that is, is, you know, and I would say this, and I know everybody listening is not going to be able to do this, but, boy, they ought to make everybody do it. I mean, living in a third world country for six months where, you know, we had water about 40% of the week, and we had electricity about 40%. You never knew the lights might be off for three days or three minutes or three hours. You had to have your big jug of water by your bed because, I mean, the water might go up. And that's all the water you got is that gallon jug on your nightstand. That's your water for, you know, three minutes, three hours, three days, whatever. Waiting, waiting in line. You know, back in Those days, no ATMs, waiting in line for six hours at the bank to go just cash a traveler's check to get. Get some pesos. You know, waiting in line for a bus, bus ticket is like an hour to wait for the bus and an hour ride on the bus. And it was just the level of, you know, where people don't appreciate. And that's why a lot of times you'll see immigrants and the second generation that just came in, you know, when they came into the country, and then the kids, the work ethic is so much stronger. What I would challenge people to do is really get an appreciation for what you have and the opportunities you have to go maximize. My line of reason with that is when I came out, I had decent job offers. I mean, they were going to start me out in the. In 1980 with, you know, 40, $50,000 a year, which is pretty daggum good money. Not the bank, but the other one, the roadway job. But I mean, that wasn't bad money. But I figured, crap, I could be. I mean, I got a college degree, I could always be a substitute. They like big people. I know offensive tackle. So, you know, you got somebody for discipline to go to the bus lot. And a substitute too. I mean, I could. I could be a teacher. I go get a teaching certificate. I could always load trucks at that point in my life. I mean, that was no big deal. We'd move furniture, all that crap. I was never scared of working. It wasn't about that, but the opportunity to put myself in position to build something great and to build, you know, my own business. And the funny part about it, looking back, and I did this research last year, I checked from everybody who graduated from college or came out of college from 1980 and before I graduated, 1980 at Wake Forest. But I looked at all the NFL players that came out of school, 1980, when I would have come out, and I looked at every single one of them and not one person from Joe Montana on, you know, you look at the names now, they. Some of them made money in endorsements, but offensive tackles don't get endorsements. So but what the NFL play paid them. I made more money in my business than any NFL player up to my time, when I'd come out. So from a financial standpoint, not only did I build something of value that was worth more than that, because a NFL career, NFL, not for long. I mean, that's average two, three years, and you got to be five years to get a retirement. I made more money than any of those guys, and it's still paying money and it's going to pay money to future generations of my children and grandchildren. So, you know, a door shuts, you find a window, window shuts, you find the door and you get the right vehicle, you get around the right people. It's amazing what can happen.

Absolutely. Thanks so much, Andy. And what this has been is priceless insight on how to evaluate the options that are front of you, in front of you so you can make the decisions that will allow yourself to move forward when doors are slammed in your face. And you know, it comes down to when you get there, you got to put in the effort, but you got to protect your environment and you got to continue to keep surrounding yourself with the right kind of people. So thanks so much, Andy, for that. And I know that's going to be incredibly powerfully helpful for people that go through those stages because we, you know, we all have doors slammed in our faces on a regular basis and it's good to know what to do at that moment. Thank you, Andy. Looking forward to you continuing to grow and compound and looking forward to having you back again.

All right, appreciate it, Larry.

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 check out my Wydell Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelawnwinning.com I'm the million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.