Getting Past Survival Education to Success Education

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here this afternoon with Guy Shashetti, and we're going to have fun talking about winning. Hey, Guy, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great, Larry. Great to be with you.

And you know, this is long overdue. I can't tell you how long I've wanted to get Guy on because Guy has excelled in so many different areas of life and he's made an impact with so many other people in business along the way. He's an entrepreneur, he's a builder. He knows how to get an idea in his head, take that, verbalize it, and get other people to buy in on it and make really great things happen. And as a result, not only has he been successful financially independent, big incomes, but he's been able to reproduce that duplicate himself. He's got lots of million dollar earners inside his own organization that have kind of come through his system. And so I know he's got a lot of pride about that and is now doing that with his family. And so, Guy, talk about your. When you came up the ladder, when you started, what's your first thought about, like when you began in life, when did you start thinking about making money, being independent? You know, because I've heard it said, and I think it's probably true that one of the greatest things you could do for a kid is as early as possible, let them make their own money. You know, have the experience of being independent and exerting themselves and, and making some positive happen. Where in your life, when did that happen? What's the first thing that jumps into your mind that you can remember?

Yeah, for me, it's always important to understand where people are coming from. And I grew up in a city in Miami called Hialeah. Many will know that name, many might not. But I grew up in 1,000 square foot home where with nine of us and my dad always owned his own business, but he never had a business that was large. It was enough to put food on the table most nights. And with four older sisters and two younger brothers, I did not think about entrepreneurship, I did not think about money. I was on a, on a collision course with athletics and sports. It was my life growing up. I Ended up being able to play college football at Liberty University on a full scholarship. And that's when the change of my life began. Even through high school, I was conscientious, I was focused, I was driven.

Always.

But it wasn't until after college and I started coaching and teaching because that if you knew me, you knew that's what I would be doing. Something having to do with athletics, sports. So I was a health instructor, I taught health and I taught physical education for eight years in the Dade county school system. And it wasn't until I got into business that I began to change and transform the way that I thought. I was 25 years old. I had $23,000 in credit card debt for eight consecutive years while I was teaching and coaching. I spent more money than I made. I had seven part time jobs at the school, all with the idea that they were going to help me get ahead financially. None of that worked. I did not understand what I was doing other than just try to make more money some way in order to get ahead. And that's how it all started. But it wasn't until I was introduced into business and I started listening to people who were successful. Prior to that, all of my education was on, I call it survival education. Just to get by, not really to thrive. And it wasn't until I began to change the way that I thought about life and things that I started to realize that the way that I was thinking about almost everything was wrong. And if I didn't change that, if I didn't change the way I was thinking, I was never going to be successful. So that's how, how I would say that it all began.

And when you say survival education, what does that mean to you?

It means, it means get it, get a job and make money so you can pay your bills. And it was interesting because there were plenty of months where bills got put off till the next month or until they came in and bothered me enough. But we would always make it, we would always get by. But it was always stressful, not having enough money, you know, too much month left at the end of the money. Pretty much six, six, seven times a year. But so survival was just, you know, how do you, how do you just get by through the next month? How do you make enough income, do what you got to do to get by for the next month and that was it. I honestly did not understand money at all. Understand I'm that guy that went to school every day with a pair of shorts on and a T shirt and a hat and a Whistle around my neck. Sneakers. That typical PE coach. That's who I was. Loved it. Loved coaching, loved teaching. It was fantastic for me, I loved every minute of it. Unlike a lot of people who have a very bad taste in their mouth about what they currently do, I didn't really have that. But when I began to listen to successful people, I started to realize that my thinking about success and what it was going to take was off base. Now, not everything, ok, because of athletics and sports, you do learn a lot of principles of success that you can carry with you through life. But there were other things, especially what was going on in my mind, that were definitely not going to help me.

So let's see if we can put.

A.

Beam of light on that issue, because you do have people, and I know, you know, I know them, you know, the best people in the world. You look at them and you think they're, you know, they're a lot more likable and talented and great people and then, you know, maybe than I am, you know, and like, totally admirable in every way and not lacking in anything. But then they don't seem to break out. So it appears that what where you were in is where a lot of people are is like the. You're living under a cloud. Like, there's a sun above the cloud, but when you're under the cloud, you don't really see the possibilities. And that's one of the reasons, Guy, that I'm doing this podcast, because as you and I both know, we know enough about each other to know there's a whole lot of other things we could be doing on a Friday afternoon in December. But we're taking a time out to kind of share some of these things so people that are on the way up can get a chance for somebody to tell them there's another way of looking at life. And fortunately, it happened to us one way or another. But, you know, you can save decades by getting around the right people, like you say, hearing new ideas and realizing there's a bigger world out there and you don't have to be a genius to get involved, make that jump and get into that thing. Hard work and this, that and the other. There's a whole lot more available. It's like the first time in our company, they had a. I know our company took us to Hawaii, and I had grown up the son of a Air Force sergeant. And of course, we went all over the world. I went everywhere, you know, I lived three times in, you know, Germany, France, Italy, and lived in the Hat graduated in the Hamptons, lived in Tuscany for three years, you know, all that great stuff, but, you know, no money, and never thought about being one of the people that were on the high side of life was, you know, running things or in, you know, you know, in the big houses and all. But so even when I had some success in business, I was struck by the fact that when we went to Hawaii and they had all of these monster hotels, first of all, it cost a fortune to get there, especially if you're taking your family and the rooms, you know, unbelievably expensive. But the hotels were full, guy. You know, I was amazed. And then I'm looking like, who's coming here? You know, how's it? And they're young, you know, young couples with kids and this, that and the other, you know, didn't seem to be not a bunch of elderly retired people. Phillip. It's like I felt. I felt like the light bulb went on for me. You know, at that point, of course, I was already experiencing some pretty good success, but it was like, wait a minute, there's a whole lot of successful people out there. And I was brought up that everybody had to be a worker bee, pretty much. And you could be a higher paid, higher up the ladder worker bee, but to be able to have discretionary income and discretionary time and have the money and time to decide, I'm going to take the family on a vacation to Hawaii and pay for it. The fact that there were thousands of people like that out there just never entered my mind. And so we're talking about the light bulb going on, that there's a bigger world out there and you can be a part of it. That's kind of what happened to you gradually once you got into being exposed to these kind of ideas, these kind of people, these kind of opportunities, because, like, I heard early on, great ideas don't care who use them, but you can't use them until you hear them. And so we need to be able to identify that for people going through that transformation, that light bulb experience, when you realize I don't have to be left out of things the rest of my life. You know, there's things I can do to flip the tables.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management, and has done.

Well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar are now. I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Well, yeah, and, and I was on a collision course. Like I said, I was on a collision course with, with being a head football coach in high school and then in my mind going on to, you know, be a head football coach in college somewhere and then maybe end up in the pros someday. And I was very focused and very driven. But I mean, I looked at my life and where I was, I said to myself, is this the life that I want the rest of my life? And I just through reading books and listening to people because, you know, like, if you want to be successful, they say just hang around with successful people. Well, if I wanted to go to lunch right now, Larry, with Michael Jordan, and I somehow gave him a call, the likelihood that he's going to give me a lunch is not good. So what successful people do, because everybody wants their time, is they put down on paper, usually in a book or on a tape. They put down what it is that they've done to be successful. And all you really have to do is read their book or listen to their tapes or their audios. And then once you do that, you can begin to go, oh, that's not what I thought it was. And what happens is you transform the way you think. And that's what it takes. You have to have a transformation. It's almost like you have toxins in your brain that your whole life you grew up with because you people around you are very average and ordinary people. So the reason they're average and ordinary is because they have average and ordinary thinking. So how do I get this average and ordinary thinking out and get the correct thinking in, and then will that be enough to drive me? Okay, because then it takes a certain amount of dissatisfaction with your current situation. And there's a lot of people, you and I meet them all the time who are not dissatisfied. They're perfectly content with their situation. So what we look for when we're trying to find success is people who are dissatisfied. Like, they know there's more. They just don't have the vehicle. They're hungry and they're, you know, hunger is like, it's absolutely necessary, even if the embers of that fire are very faint because of their experiences to that point. They have to have some level of hunger in order for them to take it to the next level. And then once they get the realization back that their goals and dreams and their life does not have to turn out the way it is headed, that they can change that. Once they realize that, and that sometimes takes a while, they can begin the process of transforming the way they think and then becoming very, very successful. And it typically. Here's the thing, though, it typically does not happen anywhere near as quickly as they want it to. And everybody has different things they have to work on. For some, they never learned good work ethic. So in their head, they don't know that they have a work ethic problem until somebody lets them know that, hey, all you got to do to be successful is work half a day and we don't care which 12 hours it is. So when you tell somebody that who's used to working six to eight hours a day and thinks that's a lot and doesn't understand entrepreneurship or what it takes to win, just that one thing alone is something. It's a hurdle for some, never a hurdle for me. I grew up playing sports. Work ethic was not an issue for me. Other things were an issue. And a lot of those other things were helped by listening to successful people and beginning that process of cleansing my brain. And it was in there not by people who were trying to hurt me. It was in there by people who had good intentions, but they weren't successful themselves. So you can't teach somebody something that you've never done or, you know, have any, any recollection of ever doing. You just can't. You can't tell somebody or teach somebody how to be successful if you're not successful. Because you've never gone through the grind. You've never gone through what it takes. And it's really hunger and grit. I call it hung grit. I'm hungry for success, but I'm also gritty. Gritty is that when I'm down, I'm not going to get up. I mean, I'm going to get up no matter what. And I think life is nothing more than a series of tons and tons of failures with a few successes built in. And what people think in their head is that life is a ton of successes with a few failures mixed in. The truth is, it's not. Michael Jordan missed more shots than any other person in the history of the National Basketball association, NBA. He's the number one. He's the goat. He's the greatest of all time. There's some that might disagree, but he's right there. And he missed more shots than Anybody. But he had some successes along the way that make him the greatest of all time. There's tons and tons, right? You know, Tom Brady, greatest quarterback of all time. And I use sports all the time because that's just what I know. And Tom Brady is just the greatest of all time quarterbacks. Well, when you look at his story, in his life, he had tons of failures. He had tons of people. He was the last person drafted in the NFL draft, and he's the greatest quarterback of all time. So obviously the people drafting did not see what was inside of Tom Brady and what his potential was. But I guarantee you, from the time Tom Brady was drafted to where he is now, he's gone through a complete transformation of the way he thinks. And he's getting stronger every year. He's reading, he's listening, he's paying attention, and he's focused on improving all the time. And until you surrender to that, and I don't mean until you get to a certain level of success, you surrender, you really have to surrender to a lifetime of improvement because there's always people that can teach you something, regardless of how successful you are. And being open to that is extremely important. And it helps you stay humble as well as you have a lot of success. It's just so important, that transformation of the way you think.

Absolutely. Well said. I don't think anybody could say that better. Great points.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years. Put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.