Episode 80: How to Launch a New Career with a Bang with Larry Stephens

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell, and let's get started. All right, I'm back with Larry Stevens and we're going to continue on with Larry talking about coming out of he's 23, he's coming out of the Vietnam War and moving in to a totally different environment in Chicago in financial services and not doing the same thing, thriving, moving up through the ranks, making the most of the opportunity and making an impact. So help me welcome back Larry Stevens. Larry, welcome.

Glad to do it. Now, are you being the cousin today or am I being the cousin today?

I think I'm the cousin. You're the uncle, you're the cousin.

So I'll be the Larry.

Yeah, yeah, you're the Larry.

Sometimes when we both have the same first name.

Yeah.

Coming back from the military after I had a little period of depression and just sort of adjusting to the fact that I'd taken life and that was in the past and I had to move on. One of the strange things about the military experience, at least that I had out of Vietnam was that real life that most people here think is so difficult. It's not really that difficult. The guys that I were working with, they came to work at 8 o', clock, which means they probably got up at 6:30. Well, I was used to coming awake before the sun came up so I could be ready for something that happened. So it was nothing for me to be in the office an hour before the other people, getting a jump on the day and getting a jump on the people that weren't really my competitors, but they were in the sense of I wanted to achieve more, have more territory, more responsibility, you know, etc. So I guess just wrapping up the transition or because sometimes it's just difficult to talk about. I hope you can appreciate that the transition thought that I brought to the real world is that the people that I knew then and I know now, they make way too much of it. Take, just make it too complicated. Life is not that complicated. When I was listening to you in our last conversation, you talked about two of the things that I, I brought with me from the military, I brought with me from my home life before that, being in a poor environment that anybody that wants to succeed, whether it's leadership, individual commission, sales, building a team. You mentioned this before in our last call. You have to value hard work. If you don't work hard, it will not happen. As our mutual friend Art says, you just got to do it. You have to value hard work and When I came into civilian life, relative to my life being on the line every day, it just isn't that hard to value hard work. But a person has to control their own mind. They have to control their areas where they are not disciplined and they have to subdue those things and embrace the principle of hard work. And the other thing that you mentioned on just briefly, which was always in the forefront of my mind when I was starting out and trying to figure out how I was going to move up from operations to sales to ownership of a firm, it was I had to have a plan and I had a long term plan. And that long term plan hit me when I was about 30 years old. And that long term plan was real simple. I decided that when I was 50, I wanted to be in a position where I could walk away from it if I wanted to and lay it down and do something different or I could keep, keep on keeping on. And my short term goals were really finite, they were well defined. When I hit the office in the morning at 7 o', clock, I knew I was going to get my calls all organized. I know who I was going to have called by 10 o', clock. The mental break that I was going to take at 10 o' clock just to refresh myself because nobody can work eight hours at max capacity without some mental breaks. And then I knew who I was going to call from 10:15, 10:30 to noon. And then I broke up the afternoon in the same way. I had a short term plan that was hourly and daily and had a long term plan that involved me and my family. And then the other things in life that I valued like spirituality and church and contributing to the greater overall good. I don't know if that's really what you were looking for, but that's immediately what I fell into in my working life.

And the thing is, one way of looking at that is you not only had your long term plan was locked in on something that excited you. And that's what, that's what people have got to find. If you to turn your on switch fully on to activate your internal combustion internal motivation energy engine which is inside you, you're never more empowered and you never have more energy when you're going for something you want. Because you are a unique individual put on this earth to do certain things and equipped with certain talents. And inside you, you know, just like a gerbil knows how to be a gerbil, you know, a lion knows how to be a lion. And because it's in them, you know, elephants, you don't have to tell them now. Don't, don't, don't get too tall. Don't get a long neck like the giraffe. We don't have to put you through a training course to keep your neck from getting too long. You know, let your, you, what you want to do is grow that nose out there. You know, they don't have, that's just bread in them. And people need to realize there is a plan for all of us. And this is, you know, you could fight it, but as my good friend chess Brit says, there is a God out there and it's not, it's not you. And, but there is a God out there that is running things, that organize things. And you're here for a purpose. And you have value and you have talents. And the deal is whatever you get most excited about that's productive. I'm not talking about, you know, getting drunk or things like that, but anything or just, you know, eating ice cream and pizza. Beyond that, I'm talking about long term productive value. You're excited about, you're motivated about, you dream about. These type things are come from in you. And you've got to turn all of that on. You got to get a goal that somehow makes sense to you. You know, your conscious mind says yes. And what you did when you said it's got to be something great and something worth making the extra effort for. And what you did was lock in, I mean, somehow that activated your neurons and your cellular structure to where man being able to be financially independent to do what I want to walk away if I, if I want to at age 50 was worth, you know, getting up a little extra. And it gave you a purpose and a drive. And then you got to have, and that's the goal of greatness, you know, something that really, it fits you and it's big and but you got to get there. You got to climb that mountain. And so what are we going to do today? And so you took the guesswork. What you got to do is take the guesswork out of what's your life going to count, you know, amount to by setting the direction. And all these people say, what's life about? Well, what's your life? It's not life. What's your life about supposed to be about? And so you lock in on that. And then you got to make steps, you got to get going. You know, if you want to climb Mount Everest, there's a whole lot that goes into it. And all you can do is everything. You get that, that you can cram into today. The more things you can cram into each day, the quicker you're going to get to the top of Everest. So you took charge and this is again controlling the environment because you had a T. You went from a team when you hit the ground within the first week, you were responsible for 30 plus people in Vietnam. But when you went into the bond market, you had an organization of one. But it was important still that you get that organization of one organized correctly. And so you got the goal, you took charge of what? Of the activity and our, you know, it wasn't, you know, we're going to try and do 800 calls today. You know, you took a reasonable type approach and lined yourself up and you put your butt to work. That's what a lot of people listening to this thing needs to do. You got to get something that could turn your butt on and then you got to get your butt to work. I mean that's what we all have to do. And I don't care if you're, you're, you know, you're five years, you know, you're five, you're, you're, you got things to do at five, you know, you got, you got things to do it at 15, at 25, 35, and you got things to do at 75 too. And so as long as you're here, there's things you've got to do, things you can accomplish. And so you got to lock in on them and get going. And so Larry, that's what I heard from you right there. You've put it into a nutshell and this is how you like launched yourself out and you set yourself up for a cascade of wonderful things to happen to you really, because you organize yourself mentally for your mentally and activity wise for success right from the beginning. And that's where we all have to start. So many people listening to this call, that's where you got to start. And so how would you. I'm going to wrap up this segment on this by getting your reaction to that and then we're going to get into how that expanded and how that dominoed for, for you on a another episode.

But how would.

Because I'm going to try and keep these into bite sized chunks. So when I'm feeding back to you my reaction to what you just said there because I just feel like it's needs to be unpacked and people need to, to realize there's not a whole lot more you need to hear about than that. What, what's your reaction to Hear me trampling back over your words and ideas and saying them in another way.

I agree with everything you said. I. My mind was going back, by the way. I noticed you didn't mean jack. You didn't mention jackasses. And in every organization, you're going to have one of those. If you don't believe that, you know, you haven't really tried leadership yet. But my mind, in affirming what you were saying, went back to that time about maybe 15 years ago when I first met you and I met Art and I MET Tom Mullins, Dr. Mullins, who started, founded one of America's top 10 largest churches. And our friend John Maxwell, who's given the same speech a hundred thousand times, but always made it interesting. Every individual time has had phenomenal success both financially and and with supporting his ministry. Each and every one of those guys, you and me and those guys, they had an enthusiasm about what they were doing. I was in the bond business. You were at. You and Art were doing the, you know, sell term and invest the rest thing, and Tom was doing ministry and John was doing leadership. But every one of us individually, I sensed we felt a calling to what we were doing and we were really enthusiastic about it. And if you're enthusiastic about what you're doing and you mix in hard work, it can be fun. Well, we were hanging out together, playing golf. Every guy in the group had a real fun side, but every guy in the group, Art, you, Tom, John, myself, every guy serious minded about what they were going to do to keep coming, pressing ahead for success when that fun part of our lives ended and we headed on to the next thing.

Yeah. And you were never more serious than when you were in the process of beating my brains out on the golf course.

No, no, no. You and I were always partners.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Because Tom, he always wanted to beat me to death, and Art always wanted to beat me to death. So you and I, we always wanted to beat them. Yeah.

I would have the sense of where that shows up. Really, Larry, even in golf is like, you know, you might not feel confident about your swing, your game. You might be having a bad day, but when it comes your time to march up to the tee box and it's a long drive and you got these, these animals standing around watching you. There's no sympathy if you got to get up there and you got to get that ball down the, down the fairway and that's not the time for weakness. When you're marching up to the tee box and you're surrounded by these high strung competitors and golf is a good.

Metaphor for living a successful life. If you got a thin skin and you can't compete, you're not likely to do real well.

Yeah. And you're not likely to get an error sympathy either.

Well, not from that group.

Yeah, yeah, you get the feedback real, real quick.

Well, Larry, thank you for sharing today.

Yeah, thank you. This has been fantastic. I mean, it's just incredibly powerful and condensed truth that people can dig into, start implementing the changes that jump into their mind that they start to realize I need to do this, I need to do that and start immediately to see a turnaround towards the positive. So thanks so much, Larry.

Oh, glad to do it.

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 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 widel on winning.com I'm the million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.