In this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind, host Larry Weidel sits down with longtime friend Bill Orender to explore Larry’s personal definition of "winning." Larry frames winning as living purposefully—doing the work you were created to do, staying engaged, and continually growing both spiritually and professionally. He rejects the traditional "bucket‑list" mindset, favoring an ever‑present list of pursuits driven by faith, competitive spirit, and a desire for "wow" experiences. Larry ties his philosophy to his own business success (over $5 billion in assets under management, a large financial‑services organization) and to his artistic passions (photography, painting, travel). He emphasizes that winning requires overcoming obstacles, maintaining focus, and leveraging 90‑day periods of intense, focused effort to master new skills. Throughout the conversation, Larry promotes his webinars (winning.com, Whiteellumwinning.com) as pathways to replicate his results, and he repeatedly invokes biblical concepts of God as the source of growth and greatness. The episode blends personal anecdotes, motivational advice, and promotional material, presenting a holistic view of what it means to win in life and business.
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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 with my good friend Bill Arender from, from used to be in Dallas, Texas. Where are you now, Bill?
Possum Kingdom.
Possum Kingdom,
It's a lake out west of Weatherford.
And I'm sure you add value to the kingdom.
All the possums love me.
All the possums love you. And Bill and I are. Have taken on Bill's. I've accepted Bill's challenge here. What we're doing is Bill is interviewing me again. And so I'm going to turn it back over to Bill.
You know, Larry, you talk a lot about winning. You wrote the book, incredible book serial winner and you said you just wanted to win. And I. What is your definition of winning? You know, I've heard you talk about winning, but what is your definition of winning? What is that, that point that you're seeking all the time and winners seek?
You know, to me, Bill, winning is living. Living and doing what you were put on the planet to do. Doing the things that keeps your juices flowing, keeps you challenged, keeps you engaged, keeps you around like minded people. You know, we all have things inside us that we uniquely like, you know, and we're a combination. It's also something not like one goal. You know, a lot of times it's, you have one main thing. But a lot, a lot of times you have lots of things that, that you're intrigued by, you want to do in your personal life with your married life, with your kids, with your family, with your community things. Some people have a bucket list. I've never understood a bucket list because I never wanted to slow down long enough.
Yeah, I love what you said about that bucket list. If you, when you said, don't have a bucket list, have a list of things you want to do all the time, not just wait one time down the road, that was really a great explanation of that for me.
Yeah, I did. I don't, I didn't realize I'd actually done a rant on the bucket list. I know, I felt it. It's just like, what a pile of crap, you know? You know, okay, I've got 100 kill me now. You know, it's just like I got more than I could put on a list, you know, and the other thing is, it's, you know what? God just might have a bigger life for you, you know, the thing is, you and I are living lives, Bill. And most successful people I know are doing things they never imagined in their life they were capable of achieving or doing or going or meeting these people or having this, accomplishing whatever. And it's like, I don't want to be limited by the vision of what I can think would be a great thing to do at any one stage of my life. This is my bucket list. I want to do abundantly beyond anything I can think of, because that's what God wants for me. That's why he says it over and over and over in the Bible, abundantly beyond. And it's, you know, God put the competitive streak in us, so I don't apologize for it, Bill. And he goes, and then he taunts us. God taunts us. And he says, I have things abundantly beyond anything, you know, for you that you could. You can even think of. You know, he's like taunting us to, like, come up with the wildest thing you could think of. I got stuff abundantly beyond prepared for you, you know, and it's like, I want to go and do what I was put here to do, whatever in the world that was. And you, you know, you got to grind it out. You got to do it day by day. You run in do, you know, accomplishment is overcoming obstacles and problems. And, you know, it helps develop you personally and your maturity and your wisdom and all of that. And so it's. But to me, winning is staying on track, being diverted. You know, anytime you're stalled out or diverted, you get back on your horse, you handle it and get back moving. You know how to handle diversions, you know how to handle things you thought, you know, how to come to the conclusion of figuring out what it is that you really want to do right now and you can stay on track to accomplish it, not just working all the time and never getting there. I mean, you know, the journey is a big part of the fun, you know, and the process is a big part of the fun. But it's not the whole fun, you know, at some point for it to be. It's got to be worthwhile because you've got to actually get there, you know, if you want, I'm sure there's a lot of wonderful places you can see. If you could drive from Possum Trot or Possum Creek up to Alberta, Canada, you know, and A lot of beautiful things to see along the way, and amazing. Never, never thought of it, but you saw them. But it's kind of not really fulfilling if you never get to Alberta, which is where you were headed to begin with, you know what I'm saying? So you got to get where you want to go. I mean, you got to have a time frame. You got to be in a hurry to accomplish some of these things, or at least to make progress, hit the next goal. And so, to me, winning Bill is very simple. Are you living the life that you know you're supposed to be living? You know, are you doing right now what you feel you should be doing right now, or are you doing things that other people tell you you should be doing, or that other people had a plan for you, or that you have some opinion that, well, this is the way, you know, I should do it, because I've seen other people do it that way, but it's not really what I want to do. Well, as long as it's practical, you know, like finding what you want to do with your life. Of course, it's got to be a marketable skill. It's got to be a way you can earn money. But there's a lot of things out there that you can do to earn money that you may not have a clue how to do right now. But if you're fired up about the idea of learning how to do that, you can get pretty good at it. You know, just about. It's amazing how good you can get at just about anything with 90 days of concerted effort. And, you know, you can get in the top percentile of people in any given subject pretty much in 90 days of focus, concerted effort. And you'll only do that if it's something that really turns you on.
But, 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 that's 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 Whiteellumwinning.com webinar. 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 life, you're supposed to do something great, you know, look at this. You're, you know, there's two forces in the world, evil and good. And you got to ask yourself, this desire to do something great, where does it come from? Does it come from the dark side? No, the dark side wants you hesitant, anxiety ridden, doubting yourself, worried. You know, the number one command in the Bible is don't fear, fear not. And you know, instead trust in God and let you know, let God show you, let God help you. And rather going around like a scared mini. Of course life is overwhelming. That's why we have God, children and you weren't supposed to be able to get through life on your own.
Right? Right.
Yeah.
So there is a creator, there is a God. And like Chess Brit said, there is a God and he's not you.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, I thought that was great. But the thing is that you have things in you that you were created to do and nothing's going to satisfy you like that. But to do something great, you can't apologize for it because God is the God of greatness. And it even says in the Bible God is the God of growth. You know, all growth, all creativity comes from God. And when you're growing, you're creative. You're tapping into that creative side of your brain. You know, you have the logical side, you have the creative side. There's just intuitive comes up with stuff. And the more you challenge yourself to grow, to do things you don't really know how to do but you're excited about doing, the more you tap into the divinity side of things to where you know, you can learn things that you on an ordinary logical, figuring things out, problem solving thing, you'd never get there, you know. And so it's just like magic, you know, you plug into magic and like when I'm my photography, you know, I do the photography, I do the painting, I do the business. You know what I'm after, Bill? Wow. I am a wow businessman. I go for wow. I go for greatness in friends. I go for wow friends. Not celebrities. Not cocaine fueled, alcoholic, drunk, pleasure seeking, narcissistic type people that you would think are famous. No, I go, you know, I want wild people in my life. People that accomplish things. People got a positive attitude. People that are giving, caring, you know. And I want wow friendships, you know, I want a wow business that does so well. You go wow. Man. It's unbelievable, you know. 5.3 billion in assets under management. 70 plus billion life insurance enforcement. 500 plus offices all around the United States. 10,000 who knows? 15,000 licensed people in multiple licenses in financial services all over the country, in Canada. Wow. I want a wow business you know, and when I do photography, I'm looking for wow images because, you know, I started over in Tuscany where my father was in the area, Air Force over there. And we would take all the trips to Florence and Naples and Rome and spend a lot of time in Rome and Venice, you know, all over that place, and you see all the greatest art. You know, I was not inspired by art. I was inspired by wow art. You know, I was in St. Peter's Basilica, Bill, at 13 years old, looking at the Pieta, you know, and Michelangelo did in his early 20s. You can't believe it. I mean, that's. Wow.
Yeah.
You know, you walk in St. Peter's Basilica, all that gold and the light and everything in the size and scale. Wow. And back then, you didn't have the crowds that you have now. And, you know, you go into the Sistine Chapel.
Wow.
So, I mean, I. I was attracted to, you know, wow. Photography and art and things like that. You know, I still am. And that really got the. I got exposed because my father in the military, he was only a sergeant, but he took, you know, he. Or the Air force put us in situations where, you know, my mom and dad, we might only eat peanut butter jelly sandwiches for the weekend, you know, because they didn't have any money. But we go down and we tour Rome or we would go tour, you know, we went all over Germany and France and, you know, you get exposed to great things. And so that's. That put the idea of doing it in a huge level in my mind. So that might have something to do with you. So, Pete, you have to describe yourself as a photographer. It's like, if you're a musician, what kind of music music do you play? You know, rock and roll, you know, country, rock, jazz. Well, you know, they say, what kind of photographer are you? I'm a wild photographer. You know, what kind of painting. I'm a wild painter. And what kind of businessman. I'm a wild businessman. That's all. Anything else just bores me. So having a short attention span really helps.
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 and put them into something for you to watch, go to widelawinning. Com Webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible, I'm Larry Widell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go.
