Episode 75: Partnering Up For Success with Titan of Industry Glen Li

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell, and let's get started. All right, let's go back and help me welcome back to the podcast, Glenn Lee. Welcome, Glenn.

Hey, thank you for having us back, Larry. It was a pleasure.

You know, Glenn, you said something last time that really got me thinking. And what you said was that you were told along the way, if you don't have a great foundation, then build yourself a great foundation. And a great foundation has a lot to do. You started off in the first episode talking about how you can change your life by developing your people skills and your relationship skills and your overall skill level. But the people side of things, you're never going to do anything great without a team, you know, if you. Once you get your act together. That's why, you know, I got tired of writing books, Glenn, but I was going to have a three. My thing about writing books, the first book serial winner, was basically to put the fundamentals of winning down, like how people could compress a decade of reading thousands of books, and they could get it, like in one book, here's how you do it. Here's how you organize yourself for success. And then the second book was going to be about building a team and how you can, because once you get successful yourself, you get more good things happening than you can keep up with. And you got to expand your team to keep growing. But then the last book was going to be the third and final was going to be about becoming elite, not just winning, not just building a team, but how do you go to number one? And so maybe sometime in the future, I'll write those other two books. But we could talk about it now. But the second phase of that is once you get. You start a business, you get a career, it helps. You're going to run out of hours in the day, especially if you're in an entrepreneurial situation. And if you're going to keep growing, you better get some help. And it's great if you can get help just to get things done, but especially if you can get help in areas where you're maybe not that great at, and that can really transform your life, you know, and so because that's where two can turn into the power of four. But so I'd like to. Not everybody, you know, a lot of single people listening here, but a lot of single people are not going to stay single. And maybe, you know, even the people who are single who are listening, this could give them some ideas about thinking about going forward. But I'd like you to start off about the idea of involving your, your partner in the business, because some people have their, you know, it's important at least have your, your partner on your side and knowing what you're doing so you can grow together and develop together. Go to the same events, you know, talk about the same issues, even if they're not actually working in whatever business it is you have. You know, if they feel like you talk to them, you include them enough to where they feel like they're involved, and then sometimes they're right working side by side with you. But how important has that been for you? And then after we do that, we're going to talk about expanding the core of your team because as quick, quickly as you could get successful and then start putting your core group together. Sometimes that your partner, your spouse is part of that, sometimes not. But in your case, I think your partner made a big difference. Is that right?

So, Larry, you know, you know, what's, what's, what's so true about this business and what you just said it before was, is that most of us, you know, we only if we. If you have 24 hours in a day, it's very hard to succeed and build wealth because you're still really just trading, trading your time for money, you know, and, and just, just like so many people have told me in the past, you know, if you only have 24 hours in a day, it's, it's a, it's impossible to, to win big. And so you always need more than 24 hours of working time in order to be successful. Look at any great big organization or corporation. And one of the reasons why these corporations succeed is because it's not just one person running it. They got employees, they got people, they got just a lot of people time. You know, they have a lot of people that work in their business. So, you know, me and my wife have been in the business for, together in the business for about 15 years, and there's so many different partnerships in, in business in general. But sometimes your partner doesn't have to be your spouse, especially if you don't have a spouse. Right. But it could be, it could be a brother, it could be a parent, it could be a best friend, it could be a neighbor, it could be somebody that you have that you're on the same page with. But I really think in my case, you know, like, we work in the business together, so we kind of have the same conversations. You know, a lot of our personal time is also spent on talking about how we can grow our business. And because we know that sometimes you cannot always separate, especially in our case, separate business from personal because it's pretty much one and the same in some cases. So in our business, if you take a look at what we do, we each have different roles. There's things that, that one partner is stronger than, than the other person, and therefore there's different roles. You know, I know, I know there's partners in our business that are, that are supportive partners. Maybe they don't do. Always do the same exact thing as their partner, but two minds together, you know, you get there so much faster. And so if you take a look at, took a, take a look at my spouse, my wife, you know, she's great at handling people. She's great at, she's great at greeting people. She's great at customer service. So when you, when you work in a business where, where there's more than one mind, you know, you have multiple points of view and sometimes your partner has, has a, has, has a different set of eyes and therefore they can see things that maybe you can't. So when you have two people, you know, going in the same direction at the same time, you know, you, you have more peripheral vision. You have two people that care about what's going on. It's funny because I think that your partner doesn't necessarily have to do exactly what you do, and sometimes they don't even have to be just as involved. But a lot of times a partner, especially if you're working on a big project or you're working toward a common goal, your partner can take a lot of the outside distractions away from you. And I think, you know, if the partner's not in the business, sometimes they're wondering where you're going, what's going on. They might not be on the same page. And I'm not saying they could be a distraction, but sometimes they can distract you. If we don't, if we don't involve them in some area in our business, you know, they could be your greatest ally or they could be your greatest distraction. And so, and so when it comes, when to. It comes, when it comes to building a business, it's different than working a job in corporate America. I have a lot of friends that are in corporate America that their spouses are not allowed to work together with them in the same company. They have to hide the fact that maybe they're dating somebody if they're not married, dating somebody in a different department. Sometimes you can have family members working together, but in business It's a different story, you know, because, you know, we do run a family business. And what's great is we're in alignment. We're in total alignment to where we are. And one of the things that we do is when we sit down, we talk about, here are the things that you're better than I am at, and here are the things that maybe I'm a little bit better at. And so we give each other tasks as long as we agree with it. And so I think partnership is so important. But once again, your partner doesn't have to be your spouse. It could be a parent, it could be. It's just having. Having a. Having a core group like you talked about, Larry, where, where you don't feel alone. You know, when I went early on, when I first joined, joined, joined this business, I remember. I remember I felt a little bit alone because I was the only person that I knew, you know, fighting this battle until I started. I started having a merger with my mentors in the business, you know, and then. So I had partnered with my mentors because we had. We had the same goals in mind. We had. We were. We were going in the same direction. And so you got to look for people that are heading in that same direction. But. But once again, man, find somebody in your life that. That's willing to share the journey with you. Sell them on how it's going to benefit you both. Sell them on the direction. This is not just my thing. This is our thing. This is. We're building this thing together where we're going to build wealth for the family together. We're going to build freedom for the family together and get them sold out. And once again, man, if you're going to tell your partner you're going to do something, make sure you do the things that you say you're going to do and get the results. And therefore, the support is always going to be there.

Yeah. Because the thing is to be aware of the fact that as you grow, you know, as you do the business, you're successful, you learn things, you're, you know, meeting new people, going through experiences. They're going to be new things that change you. You're going to develop, you're going to mature, you're going to get more wisdom that you had. Now, if you leave your partner, your spouse behind at home, they never go. They never get involved. They're not. That's like these CEOs, you know, not just. But like anybody, you know, in any profession, you know, the top elite performer in sports or Whatever. If they're leaving the family at home and not going through that growth experience together, they're not going to grow. You're either going to grow together or you're going to grow apart. And so in my case, I never had my spouse involved in, in my businesses. But you know, they were always supportive. You know, their job, you know, our, her job was the home front and to free me up to go, do you know where I could have confidence that things were great at home. And of course we're talking about things, we go on trips together and all, but, you know, I didn't bother her with the details of the, the business, but the concept of it and the general thing, you know, it's almost like a detective's wife or husband on a crime drama on TV where they go home at night and they, they discuss the case and then the spouse makes some kind of suggestion is like, oh, I never thought of that because. And then they go back and solve the case. You know, that's kind of the way it is a lot of times when you're business, even if your spouse is not involved, like you say, just having another head involved, another perspective, because nobody knows the thing to realize nobody knows everything and nobody's good at everything, right? And if you try and become the jack of all trades, you'll never be elite at anything. And so the thing is to identify those things that are the most important things about your business that drive success that you can do, and you focus on that. Like if you're in medicine, you know, and you're a surgeon, focus on surgery and build a team around you to help you do that. You know, you don't need to check people in and fill out the insurance forms for them when they come in for their surgery. You don't have to wheel them down the hall to their room. You don't have to prep them for surgery and then wheel them into the, you know, you can get people to do that. And so, and a lot of times you can do a whole lot. Glenn, did you find in building your core group the importance of your core? Because I heard this from the beginning that most revolutions are running with a very few people at the core. And that's true of companies, countries, everything, pretty much, you know, because you can only talk to, you can't talk to a zillion people. You know, Even Jesus had 12 disciples, but then he had three of them that were, you know, the go to guys, you know, and Peter, James and John, you know, they were like the core group. And Then you had the 12. And don't be surprised if you got a traitor, because even Jesus had a traitor. Keep your eyes open. You may have a Judas, so don't feel if you. The other thing is, don't feel sorry for yourself if you have a Judas in there. You know, just. But you. The thing is, 11 out of 12 were great. So the deal is that you can get a lot done with a few people and talk about some of your experiences with developing your core and how that's empowered you that it didn't take a zillion people. But you do have to have a few people you could really count on.

You know, it's. It's funny that you talk about that, Larry, because I remember prior to. Prior to the business, you know, I. I used to have. I, you know, I used to have a lot of people that. That I would hang with, with my friends, you know, and people that. People that, you know, that you hung out with that maybe you would go maybe to a lounge with or hang out, you know, play sports with, whatever it was. But we used to have a decent group of people, you know, and the longer, you know, as soon as I started in the business, what I realized was that there's a lot of people that are not going to go with you. There's a lot of people that. That don't. Either they just don't want to, or they don't have the desire to, or they just don't. They're. They're just not willing to put in the work. And what you realize is, over time, you know, your group, you know, now. Now we have, instead of having a bunch of associates, we have just a few really close people, you know, and so when you're building your group, when you're building your group, your core group, you know, these are people that you can confide in. These are. These are people that are heading the same direction that you're heading. These are people that, when you have a conversation with that, that. That they understand what you're talking about. They're in the same game and they're fighting the same fight, you know, And. And there's got to be truth tellers in your life. There's got to be people that, if you. If you ask them a question, you're not. If you're asking a question to a mentor, first of all, if they just say, keep doing what you're doing. Now, sometimes that is the truth. But a lot of the times we need to hear what we really need to do. And maybe if we're doing something that's not right, then we need to have people let us know that in a positive way. When you have a mastermind group or when you have a group of people, your core group, first of all, the journey can get lonely, you know, if you don't have people that are going the same direction. And I don't believe anybody in this world is self made. You know, there's always somebody at one point in your career that have helped you along the way, whether it's your mentors or whether it's people that you're running with, you know, heading in that direction. And you know, you know what's great is at the end when you are winning, when you're doing things that, that, that, that maybe, maybe you start saving a bunch of money, maybe you start taking great vacations, great trips, you know, then, then those people come with you because they're doing the same exact things. You know, it's funny because, because you know, if you, if you take a look at explaining success outside of your circle, sometimes, sometimes even with family members, you know, sometimes if you talk about goals with people that are not goal oriented, they think that you're either, you know, you got pipe dreams, you're delusional, or why are you always talking about money? Or they think you're bragging when all you're really thinking about is man, we got to have goals, we can do this thing together. But when you're with, when you're with your peers that are running the same race with you, then it becomes a conversation to real conversation. You know, you take a look at quote, quality people have quality, quality conversations and they ask quality questions, right? And so if we take ourselves, especially in a business like ours, the moment you take yourself away from the, from the group of people that you're running with and you go back to the quote, unquote, normal world, the conversations change, you know, and if we just like the media right now, if you're watching TV all the time, you know, if you're like, like, like so many people are right now, right? If you're watching tv, then you, you get influence. Eventually, eventually, I don't care how mentally strong you are, if you put that stuff in your mind, it will, eventually you will get distracted, you'll get paranoid, you start thinking the wrong thoughts, right? And it's the same thing when you're around the wrong people, right? When you're around the wrong people, you're going to think the wrong thoughts. But when you have a core group, it keeps you from being. From getting distracted by the wrong people, if that makes sense.

Right. And that's very well put, Glenn. Thanks so much. I mean, we've covered so much great territory. You know, I think about teamwork once you get that core around you. I was thinking about Art Williams. He's got that resort of old Edwards Inn. I think it's a top resort on the east coast up in Highlands, North Carolina. And he's got 500 employees and. But he's not calling all 500 employees all the time. He's talking to the general manager of. Of the resort, pretty much runs the hotel. He'll talk to the general manager of the golf course, and then he'll talk to the persons in charge of all their residences and things like that. You know, there's two or three of them that he'll be talking to several times a day on the phone. But what happens is, at the top, the issues you deal with, the more successful you are, the more complex they are. And you need to have people around you who know the drill. You know, they're educated, they know, and they've been through some experiences with you. They know what to watch out for. You don't have to say, well, you know. You know, you don't have to give them all the bullet points every time an issue comes up because, like, they've been there with you. They. Their instincts have been developing like your instincts. And so. But you do need a sounding board, don't you? Because a lot of these things we think of in our head until we bounce them off somebody. We say it out loud to somebody who has a certain intelligence about the subject, about the purpose, about the team and the industry that. Where you can get, like what you said, you can not only ask quality questions to them, but you can get a quality response. And a lot of times you can say it out loud. You can read in their eyes like, oh, that was a dumb idea, wasn't it? You know, a lot of times they could save you from a lot of trouble, or they'll come up with a twist on it that makes it five times better. And so the way you find those kind of people, folks, is just by the normal growth of your business in your life, and when people fit you, you. You pretty much know, pretty much know right from the beginning if they're going to be a fit, if they're going to be a match. And then when you put them to work and you see how they perform, that tells you if they're going to be a keeper or not. And you start giving them simple things, asking them simple questions, and then bring them along as they perform. And you give yourself time to gain confidence in them and for them to develop confidence in themselves in that situation. And your goal with everybody on your team is to duplicate yourself to where the. The business will run, whether you're there or not. Because let me tell you, you're not going to be there forever. You're either going to be sick, you're going to be on vacation, or you're going to be dead. You know, you're not going to be there forever. You know, life runs its course, and sometimes you might be going on quarantine because you have a family relative that's going through a situation, another part of the country, and you want to go be with them. And, you know, life comes in surprising bursts of surprising, disruptive bursts. And the. The value of a team is you have people that can slide right instantly into the slot and keep things going even when you're not there. And so that's where. That's where you ultimately evaluate your core group. And so I want to put that in there. Glenn, we're gonna wrap this up. Thanks so much, man. And we've covered three episodes now, and every one of them have been packed full of information people can use to make their life more powerful and a whole lot more enjoyable, you know, because it. It's fun to win. So thanks so much. Do you have a parting word that you want to pass on?

Hey, Larry, you know, you started this, the first broadcast, by saying, taking notes. You know, I'm listening to what you're saying and your words in between what I'm saying, and I'm just taking notes about what you're saying. And, you know, I'm learning so much. And this is just as much of a learning experience for Sio and I as it is for anybody listening. So, you know, we really appreciate you putting this together, and, you know, thank you for impacting the world.

Well, you're very kind, and thank you for sharing. It's. It. It makes my life a whole lot richer to be able to take the occasional few minutes out to talk to people like yourself. And you may be learning, but let me tell you, I'm writing notes furiously myself as we go through this stuff. So I'm constantly learning myself and reminding myself, you know, probably you haven't. It's probably not you're learning so much, but you're, like, being reminded of things you already kind of knew, you know. So thanks so much and say hello to Zio. For me. This has been great.

Absolutely. Thank you, Larry.

All right, thanks for listening to this.

Episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Widell. 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 Widel Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widel on winning.com I'm the million Dooll Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.