Episode 97: The Monster Benefit of Thinking Years, Not Days with Unstoppable Entrepreneur Willy N...

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell and let's get started. We've got a treat. Right now we're going to be talking to the legendary Willie Narajo, who is building a nationwide organization in his industry out of Miami, Florida. You know, if you wanted to get centrally located, you wouldn't be in Miami, Florida. But with the Internet today, with Z, with the travel, with the planes, with the communication, social media, you really don't have to be limited in your growth. And so we're going to hear from Willie. His income now is skyrocketed to the million to 2 million and heading like a bullet towards $3 million in income. And the success that Willie has and the techniques that he has are the same techniques available to all of us. And so, Willie, congratulations on your success and welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Larry, thank you for the introduction. Thank you for inviting me. And I'm so excited to do this postcard.

Yes. And I know people want to know to understand who is Willie Naraujo and give them a background on how astounding your success is based off your starting point and where you came from and the obstacles you face. So tell us a little bit about your story.

Yes. I'm from Colombia. I grew up, I once born in New York, but I grew up in Colombia for 23 years. I come back to United States and start living here. And I'm immigrant and when I came, I didn't speak English like any immigrant from South America, most of them. But I'm so excited to be in your state. I always, I always see this country as for my future. My father grew a business in Colombia doing business with United States. That's why I always think about came to USA to do my life. I have never thinking about go back to Colombia, do something there. I start working in a financial company as an employee. Then I learned that the financial industry is a, is a huge business and you can make a lot of money. And I started reading some books. And one of the books I read was the reach that for dad. In that, in that book they talk about to be successful in the country, to be rich in United States, you need to have your own business. And I have an example on my partner, my father, he has a successful business in Colombia and he always be independent and all of that. But I have never know how to do in your estate. But when I read that book, I said, okay, my father is entrepreneur in Colombia. Okay, now I employ you here. I need to be an entrepreneur here. I Need to have my own business. That's how I start the business in the financial industry. Because that. The industry I know before and I have the opportunity to open my own business in that industry and start that in 2004. And from there I started doing the business, doing grow. That business really took me years really to. To. To explode. But I always think, I always believe anything you do. You need to put time there and the compound interest or the result you're gonna see in the future. Because I learned that in one of my. My. My father business in Colombia. He has a lot of different business. And one of the business is the, the. The. The coffee. He has coffee farms. And Since I was 16 years old, I started working with him. I always like to make money, but I started working with him, I've been in charge of one of the farms. And I learned that to have a coffee you need to work four years in a farm from zero to have a production. And I learned there that you need to invest, invest, invest. And year later you're gonna get the rewards. And that's why when I started the business right now, took me years. But I understand anything take years. Like the university you go to have a degree, you need to study 2 years, 4 years, 9 years you'll be. You have become a doctor or surgery, you need to maybe study 12 years or something like that. And that's how I understand you need to work hard for a period of time. For years. Most people think it's one month, two months, three months or six months. I always thinking about years. I always expect that I need to invest time, I need to invest effort and I need to pay the price. I need to start doing things that most of the people they never do it like don't go to parties, don't work in Sunday, Saturday, Sundays, late night, early morning. I start doing the thing that the most of the people they have never do. And I believe that's why the result that we have right now and now I look back and I say, wow, thank God I did that. I always saw that in my father business. He working hard, he working Saturday, Sundays, he had never had a schedule. And I learned that from there. And also my wife is entrepreneur and she has also a business. And I always saw her, she had never had a schedule. And I learned that thank God I helped my father, my wife have a business. That's why I believe for me was so easy to understand. I need to invest time, I need to invest. No day off for a couple of years. And then you're going to have the result you you expect it. And I believe this is a short parent on my story Larry and when.

You say schedule, explain what you mean about that. You know, you look at the special different schedule, different than most people.

Yes, for most people. Because I believe everybody's pro have a program in their mind like if I have a good job is to have a job like you start at 9, I finish at 5pm Then go to to home Monday to Friday. For most of the people I believe that the schedule as entrepreneur we have never had any schedule. If I need to go to a client, I can go Sunday at 9pm is a normal for me or in my. For example in the farms you cannot have a schedule. You need to for example, when it's a production you need to work every day every every hour of the day. In the farms is when it's light, natural light. You need to work that it's not like Saturday you work Sunday you work every time in the production time is like a noise schedule. For me I have never had a schedule. I work any is like 247 anytime, any hour. And that's what schedule means.

Larry and when you got it's one thing to. What did you learn from running the ranch? You said one of those farms, coffee farms you were given the responsibility of running. How old were you? How long did was that experience?

When I started 60 years old. Because the situation was I start working with my father. Because he bought that farm. Yes, because he want to have a coffee farm. You know his business is like his dream have a coffee farm. Because he grew up in a coffee farm. And he like it's a. It's a. It's a. It's a emotional thing. That's why he works and but he. He. He don't have the time to. To go there and he. He asked me if I can help him and I have the time because I I've been in the school and and I have like a weekends and afternoon free and I start working with him. Then when I go to university I have also time free and I start working with him in that fund and I be in charge of that. He give me all responsibilities like by seeing then start pay to the workers. And at 18 I didn't charge all everything and manage the whole production the sales we have around when in the production time around 200 employees. And I run in all of that because he gave me the responsibilities as a young person and I learned a lot from there. He's the boss but I in charge of the manager, everything. And that's when I started was 16 years old.

Wow. And what are some problems you ran into as it. You know these. I guess a coffee farm doesn't run itself. How. What kind of big problems did you run into?

And okay. Yeah.

Learn how to solve problems and figure.

Things out, you know. Yes. In Colombia it's a lot of problems in that part because first of all it's in the farms. It's dangerous because it's not secure places and I need to carry a lot of money to pay the employees. The security is one of the things. And I have because I need to go from the city to like three hours from there to the farm and I need to take different routes in like every each day I go to the farm because I don't want the bad people know my schedule to go to the farm. I go like I take different routes and all of that. And that's one of the things. The other thing is to find the workers because working in the farm is not easy and find people, find workers is difficult. And also is like you need to. In a, in a. When you take recollection of the coffee. You need to have hundreds of people and you don't have the time like to interview. They know you, you know you. You need you. You hire anybody because you need to take the production because it's not you. You're gonna lose the production. And. And it's dangerous because it's any kind of people, a completely different kind of people. And it's like a. It's not easy business. And. And also when you go to to sell the product, most of the time you don't put the price. The price is somebody else have to put the price. And you need to negotiate with them and look around who is the person who gonna pay more for your product. And I learned a lot of things in that experience. But thank God I have my five. He helped me in all the process. But. But I learned a lot of the handling situation.

And so you brought that over to the US and seems like you were pre programmed for success because of the fact that you took the responsibility that your father offered you the responsibility, but you still had to take it. There's a lot of kids who grow up with wealthy fathers or fathers who could give them opportunities and who could do things for their kids like your dad did with you. But not all of the kids at that age, they're more interested in parties and having fun and goofing off with their friends. You had something different in your Mind that caused you to jump on that opportunity. And do you know what that was or how, why you thought that way?

Oh, yes. The reason is I always, I always like have on a huge. Like I admire my. My father is my hero. And I always, I always look him like he start from zero because he born in a farm, his family was poor. Like he has his first shoes at age 13 and he's the oldest of 13 son and daughters. And he need to take care of the family as a young age without anything. And always thinking, since I was John, I said, okay, well, my father starts from zero. He has a huge business. How I cannot do best thing that him because I had him. Okay. And like I always think about it, I need to do better. I need to do big thing because I have never start from zero. I start already with everything like a responsibility to. For me, for my life to say, okay, really I need to do. I need to be bigger. Because if my father can do from zero, how I cannot do better. And I believe that's my dream all the time. And now I always thinking about that, okay, I need to do better because I have everything. I have everything. It's not like him. And I always related with that part of my father.

Absolutely. Well, Willie, thanks for sharing lots of great insights and ideas about starting out in life. And I like the twist. And it's interesting that the principles are so similar. If you start as an immigrant, if you're in another country, if you're in different businesses, you know, and you could start at it, you could start learning lessons at an early age. And the lessons that you pointed out, you learned by observing, you know, you paid a lot of attention to your father and how he went about things. And it seemed like, you know, there's a lot of people out there that have role models, but they're not really paying attention. So one lesson, one lesson we could say to people is pay attention to the successful people around you. So many people in the teenage years want to argue, rebel, fight, they've got a new way or they want everything handed to them. But what you did right from the beginning was pay attention to success. And it was right there with your father. And you picked up that lesson that you've elaborated on, which in your, you know, you've carried through to great success in your life. And that is understanding that success takes time. We all have to remind ourselves that of when we're starting new things. In fact, I know some venture capitalist people and they say they're always cautioning people that they fund that. Don't even expect anything from great to happen for the first until the third year. You know, anything that happens before the third year is probably a fluke, you know, but the steady, consistent success will come in after you've invested tons. Like you said, years instead of days. And so you paid attention, you notice that you got to put the effort in. But if you put in the massive effort over years, not just I'm going to work hard this week and see where's the result. But if you put in massive efforts in the right industry or the right opportunity, you can expect incredible success for yourself and so appreciate you going through and giving us that. We're going to come back in another episode and I'm going to dig into how you got here. You made the transition to the US and got your own business up off the ground. And another thing that people need to find out about you is you definitely know how to enjoy life and do a lot of the fun things in life while you keep your business going. You've kind of mastered how to run the business and still have the full life. So we're going to get into some of those things in future episodes. But thanks for helping to let people understand your starting point and what was in your mind and how it got there early in your career. So thanks so much, Willie.

Thank you Larry for inviting me and anytime you need me. Thank you so much.

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.