Episode #785 - Embracing The Wealth Mindset with Bill Orender

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. Bill, what I'm curious about is why you came into our business at a relatively young age, more mentally organized about the end game of this whole thing than most of us. And I'll tell you why. I heard Art Williams, I heard the stories, you know, like Art Williams never came. His first goal as a coach working part time was to replace his income. So that meant he was making, making $30,000 back then and he wanted $300,000, 10% in a good mutual fund, you know, not that you're promised that, but anyway, it was kind of a guideline and he was working right from the beginning. You know, he didn't spend any of the part time income and he's trying to build that 300,000 up. And that was how he started his nest egg. But of course that went right over my head, you know, because for some reason I was so deep into the survival mode, I was trying to make the 30,000 DOL now worry about saving it towards 300,000, you know. And so I think that a lot of people are like that when you start a company, you know, you're, you're so deep into the survival mode. Is this going to last? What's going to, you're not going to feed my family. And also you're so frigging behind on bills that you know, you're racing to kind of get even. And then you find out with the big trap that we, you know, at some point we should talk about on this thing is as an entrepreneur, nobody's taking out your taxes. So what happens, you finally get up to where now you're even on your bills, you're getting ahead and then the tax bill rolls around. You say, oh, now I owe a fortune to the government because I haven't been paying my estimated taxes. And now you're behind the eight ball again. And so it's always like, you know, you've got these robbing Peter to pay Paul to try and get started, keep your business going. That's what entrepreneurs roll through. It's typical. And so when you hear these stories about wealth building and this, that and the other, it's not, doesn't have the immediate impact of what does not happen quick enough is where you would shift into the wealth building format. But you had that right from the beginning. And why do you Think that was the case?

Well, thank you, Larry. I came from a mother and father of both factory workers. I'm from south side of Chicago. And I always wondered how come the rich people are rich and how come we were broke and how come we were robbing Peter to pay Paul. And, you know, we can't afford this, we can't afford that. And, and I always remember driving through rich people's neighborhoods, wondering, not wanting to knock on their doors and said, how come you live there? And how come we live where we live? And I think, Larry, what you're. The point you're making is I think a lot of people get into that mindset and unfortunately, it's like putting a cart before the horse. The reason why we start struggling financially, I got to pay my bills because we haven't set financial goals. We go into a business for other reasons other than to make money, because we've been brainwashed and, you know, don't want to make money. Just help people and the money will be there. And I found that very quickly that helping people, the money wasn't there. And ever since I can remember, I had a paper out starting at age 11, and I didn't want any dependence on my parents. I hated asking my parents for money. I didn't want to have to ask him to buy, you know, a new shirt. I wanted to be able to pay for it myself. And that's where it got started. And why do you like girls? I don't know. I just like girls. Why do you like money? I don't know. And most of us feel like we have to have a reason to give back or to help people or to give to charity or. I don't know why God put in my head I'm supposed to make money. I'm supposed to accumulate money. And then of course, well, accumulate money.

Accumulate money is the missing step. And getting that in your head as early as possible, accumulate money. Because I was thinking about that you never reach the point to where your assets are not important, for example, that you can assume that I don't have to worry about it anymore. No, you better keep your eye on it the rest of your life. That's why there's so much with these family offices and with Buffett, with buying long term investments and value and things like that. It's one thing to make a lot of money at nice, big interest, but there's nothing for it to be secure. And so when it comes to accumulation, that's just something that's not, you know, not necessarily popping in your mind. But for I was, I was thinking, I heard in the news, like Trump with, if everything goes against him on all of these, just the lawsuits and damages, it could wipe out his entire. He said he's made representations the court, he had like 400 million, over 400 million liquid assets. Well, that could be all wiped out if all of this stuff goes against him, like all this other stuff. And so it's like at no stage I'm a billionaire. Yeah, but how secure is that? How much liquid is that? How safe is that? And so it's really not something you can reach the point where my business is always going to be there. And that's another thing that I started thinking is like, you know, we always assume our businesses are going to be there, but the chances are, no, it's not. And even Jeff Bezos says I can envision a world where there's no Amazon, you know, because he's thinking ahead, he's just not assuming that. And the top, we all know the top 500 top 1000 in the Forbes, you know, the top group every 20 years or something, it's like fruit basket turnover. These companies disappear, new ones emerge. And, and so you just can't assume you're always going to have the job. The company's always going to be there and you need to look out for yourself right from the beginning, don't you think?

Oh, you're right. And so many of us in our business, as we know, it's so hard to plan because you never know what's going to happen. You know, our company folded almost three times and we had to start over again. You and I both, Larry, three times at least, start all over from scratch. And I longed for the day when I thought about making money without having to work. That's wealth. And I thought about, you know, if I can get a hundred thousand dollar net worth and I can get 10,000, 10%, that's $10,000 coming in and I don't have to work. And that's. And back in those days, we had people making $10,000 a year. And so just like having, if I can get 500,000 at 10%, that's 50,000 a year without having to work, and that's without having to pay taxes on that 50,000 because it's not taxable yet. So a net worth, proceeds from a net worth are greater than cash flow because no taxes, no expenses, and they just keep multiplying and accumulating. You know, Larry, I think the biggest thing that I'm getting from our Conversation today is what Omar and I try to do once a month. Let's talk about money. Let's not hide it. Let's put it out from underneath behind a curtain. Let's just discuss it. And the more you talk about it, the more you hone your brain towards a money consciousness. Because most people have a poverty consciousness. And that is exemplified by the scarcity and abundance mentality. Most people don't have an abundance mentality. They, they have a scarcity. There's not enough to go around. If you make too much, you're taking away from other people, which is not true. And so either you have a scarcity mentality, there's not enough to go around. I might not have any at the end of the month. You dwell on that and your mind gets stuck in that mental pathway versus the abundance. There's more coming in. You know, I remember a story were During World War II, prisoners of war were in a camp and they shut off the supply line, so everybody in the prison were starving, including the guards. They finally released and after 25 years later, they had a reunion. And every wife said, my husband is a hoarder of food. You see, Oprah Winfrey said, if you've ever been, you can never be full if you've ever been hungry. So people that poo poo money, you know, it's not about the money. I know they've had a guaranteed paycheck. I know they've had that check coming in. Probably a government worker or even pastors, they got a guaranteed check coming in. So they poo poo making money. But I'm telling you, if you've ever, like you and I, we lived on something called chargebacks, where we didn't know what the check was going to be and we don't know when it's coming in. We didn't know how much it was going to be. You have to make up your mind. I'm going to provide in winter, in good times and in bad times. And that's the kind of mindset that we create in our monthly calls.

You know, the thing is that when you're an entrepreneur versus an employee, you have hit the nail on the head. You got the chance to make above average income, accumulate money, but you got also the opportunity to be distarved to death too. And you don't. You're not necessarily in charge of the majority of things that could go wrong, but you could protect yourself against things that go wrong. And I remember Frank Gifford was a longtime host of Monday Night Football after being the Star running back, know hall of Fame with New York Giants. And someone was talking to him about what was the difference between somebody who was just a sportscaster describing the game down on the field versus, you know, an ex player. And he said, because the people have never played the game, have no idea. The sheer terror of performing in the spotlight with the whole season on the line with 50, 60,000 people screaming their lungs out and the team gives you the ball and you got to get it in the end zone and not fumble. And the sheer terror and pressure of that, the excruciating thing, it's kind of like a professional golfer. Why do they miss on the 18th hole on Sunday to end a tournament? How do they miss a two foot putt like Scott Hoke did at the Masters one year? How do you miss the two foot? You get a green jacket, you get exemption, the rest of your life you're in the club and you miss the two foot putt. But they say the people that have, and I haven't been in that situation, but the people that have been, they said you get in that situation and you can't get your body to move. You're just frozen, you know. And when you do get it to move, it's not a fluid straw, it's jerky. And of course you just jerk it off. Lying, you know. And the thing is, when, when you get out there and the sheer terror of living under commission if you're a salesperson or to live off the profits of your business, that is a reality that cannot be. You can't describe that to someone else, you can't explain that to someone else, but you can use it to drive yourself to accumulate wealth. And even though it may not seem like a lot, like, you know, you're probably making a million dollars to be able to save up enough to where you know you've got 500,000 or so saved anytime soon, to where you can make 50,000. It's not the 50,000 in income from our interest off of your savings compared to what you're making now. It's what that. It's a different kind of money. It's your money. And nobody can take that. They can take your salary, your overrides, your business, that could be taken from you for a variety of reasons. But if you've got that money accumulated in secure investments, nobody can take that from you. And that's a different kind of. You're making your own security against the world. And the thing is that people, I guess why I wanted to do this Bill, is Like, people don't need to think of this as an option.

No.

You know, if you're a business for yourself, you're on commission. You don't need to think of that as a luxury for, you know, the super y' all do. After my kids go and after I buy the big house and spend all the money and travel the world, then I'll get around it. No, no, no, no, no. Get after it out, because you don't know you're gonna get that far down the road.

You know, Larry, I think so many of us fight the. The words of other people. How much is enough? You can't take it with you. But the reality is that. Tell me how long you're going to live and tell me the challenges you're going to have. Like you, you've had physical challenges for the last at least 10 years when you haven't been able to work like you used to work. Well, how do you know that's not going to happen to you? How do you know when cancer is not going to hit you or heart attack problems or family problems? Like, we know people in our business that had one guy, his wife just passed away, but she fought cancer for 15 years, so he hadn't been able to work like he used to. And you want to have a rainy day fund. You want to have some money down the road to take care of you. That the quote. I love you take care of money, One day money will take care of you. You save money. One day money will save you. And there's a lot of people poo poo and that. I say, well, wonderful. Let you see. And then one day when they don't, they start yelling for the government the minute they get into trouble and they become a socialist. Well, the government's gonna help me out. We found that out during COVID All the people. And I love what. What Warren Buffett said. You know, when the tide goes out, we find all we. We finally see all the people who've been swimming naked. Well, again. Oh, that's great. Times are good. Yeah, but what happens when times are tough? You get laid off, you lose your job. You can't find another job. You only. You're getting dollars a week to help you out. You're a sick child and you find out healthcare doesn't pay for everything. So, yeah, I realized in my life, you can never make too much. I love what Rabbi Lapin said, and I'm a real supporter of him. He's a. Is an author, and he wrote a book called Thou Shalt Prosper. And I basically say, why? How come the Jewish people are exorbitantly more financially well off than everybody else? Because they look at money differently. They see money as certificates of performance for having helped other people. And he said very strongly that you can never, never be satisfied in making money. You can be content with where you're at, but the day you become satisfied with the amount of money you're making, you, you start receding and you never fulfill the life you wanted to have. Money is a measurement of our contribution to our fellow man. And in my opinion, I heard these other authors say, in the Jewish community, if you're not making a lot of money, you're an embarrassment to the community because you're not serving your fellow man. So people that are satisfied with, with and trying to tell you how much is enough. And because you always ask him, you tell me how much I'm going to need and I'll tell you how much is enough. I remember arguing with this guy one time, you don't make too much money, Bill. You go to hell. I said, wonderful. Can you tell me how much that amount is? Because I'm going to make $1 less. And I get criticized for that, vilified for that. But you know, when people finally wake up and realize they're born in a money game, they're living a money game, they're going to die in a money game. Larry, you know, we've been in the money game all our careers, yet you know, we see people desperate for money and they always call you up and they ask you for money because they know you got it. Churches, they tell you not to make any money, but the minute they need money for a building program, who do they call? People like yourself and me. Well, you didn't like me before, why do you like me now? Because you got money, right? They don't mind telling you how bad money is, but they never tell you how bad debt is, is. And strange, isn't it?

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