[Greatest Hits] Episode #369: Keep Yourself Growing to Keep Your Company Growing

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 talking with Bill Arender. Hey, Bill.

Larry, Good to be here.

I hear that you still have a question for me, and I'm really enjoying these conversations, and I appreciate you taking the time to do it and looking forward to seeing what this one is.

You know, Larry, in another conversation we had, you said, things don't naturally grow. Someone must keep it growing. And what are some of the things you did or have done and are continuing to do to keep your company and your art, by the way, your art interest growing? Because I can't ever see you being a bored person. Seem like you're never satisfied with the status quo.

Well, this is the whole thing about falling in love with winning in life. And to win, you got to stay fresh, you got to stay energized. But we operate in a world that's controlled by the second law of thermodynamics, which means everything is in a state of decay at all times. Your yard is not getting neater. It's the weeds are growing, okay? It's on its path to turn into a hay field if you don't keep, you know, make that lawn behave. You know, your car is not naturally getting cleaner. Now, as soon as you wash it and clean it off, dust starts to settle on it. You know, your kids are not becoming more and more better behaved. No, you leave them alone, they're going to become bigger rascals. You know, you got. If you want them to behave, you've got to make you make sure they behave. They're not going to get that homework done easier. Just naturally. All of the good things you want to happen in life require effort. And it's what, you know, I say this like we live life on an incline. You got to make an effort to go up that hill. You do not live. You know, so many of these life coaches and fake experts seem like just follow the formula and it'll work out. No, it won't, because nothing ever works out by the formula. You know, you got to make the formulas work. You know, the formula kind of give you some of the big pieces, but you got to put the last little ingredients together. And so you're not going to do that consistently. If you're not doing. You're not in an area that excites you or appeals to you that you have a natural curiosity. You know, I got that from my cousin Edward. He said, follow your natural curiosity. He said, if most people don't do that, they do what they're supposed to do and they get their natural curiosity beat out of them and they become dull and useless. But he said, follow your natural curiosity because that's put in you for a purpose. There's a reason one little girl is interested in being a ballerina and another girl is interested in swimming and another girl is interested in horses. I mean, if you try and take the girl who's interested in horses and try and put her in the pool, you know, she probably not going to like that. She might. Might be fun for a Saturday afternoon, but she's not going to want to go every day. And so the thing is, you know, your interest, like some people like sushi. I can't explain it. I don't have any youth, you know, we were not raised as fish eaters. And all of a sudden I have two sons and they both eat sushi. I don't know where this heresy came from in my life, you know, but I can get myself to eat sushi. But I have to kind of psych myself up. Me too. About a week or two, and then I'll go in and I'll actually love it. It's fantastic. But then when I leave, it's like, what did you do? Don't ever do that again. And I actually set up to be a regular fish eater, you know, and like, some people like Italian, some people like Thai food. It's like, you like what you like. It's not our job to go through life and say, you know, justify why you like certain things. It's our job to go pursue what we're interested in. Because when you're pursuing what you're interested in, you'll make those extra efforts and you'll get better at it. You naturally get better. You'll spend. You won't resent the time it takes to accomplish things or especially, you know, to become little refinements, to become great at certain things. And because you're doing something that suits you, that you were kind of supposed to be pursuing. And we're not all supposed to do the same thing, you know, look at. I mean, it's very obvious. Some people are supposed to be a quarter pack, some people are supposed to be alignment, you know, like I was talking to one of my therapists, one Time they have a big rugby thing in Aspen every September, Ruger fest or rugby fest or something. And his wife was kind of making fun of all the big rugby guys. And you know, what is terrible sport? You know what? You know how dumb they are to run around and throw themselves, you know, like, at each other and, you know, all that brutal type thing. And he said, honey, when you look at the size of these guys, he said, what else are they going to do? Are they going to be a basketball player? What are they going to do, be a printer? These are big, burly guys, you know, and they want to get out and have fun, too. That's their version of fun, you know. And so you don't like rugby. You don't have to justify it to anybody. You just go play rugby. And so I don't. I get a strong independent streak. So do you, Bill. And I like doing the things I like doing. And the sooner we all realize you're never going to be great unless you're doing things that you like. And ultimately in life, you wind up doing the things you like, spending money on the things you like, associating with people you like. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can be great at the things you like. And our job is to stay fresh. And this where it's like, grow or die. It's like, you know what, you know when you're fresh, you know when you're excited, you know when you have energy.

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 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.

And you've got to create your world. We all have to create our own world. And in that world are people. In that world is places. If you're in a place that you don't like that things just don't click for you.

Move. You're not a tree. You're not.

You're not. You're not a tree. Move. You know, they're great places in the world. Get out and find one, you know, and if you have some friends, they're just a bunch of idiots. You know, and they never do anything and all they do is gripe and grumble, get some new friends and just be too busy for them. It's not that you are going to say, you know, you're so negative. I'm, you know, it's not. You're not going to fire your friends. You're just going to get. Fill up your life with things that are more fun and, you know, like Rusty Crossland said something once at a con, one of his conventions, and I'll always remember, he said, it's like you never change from one thing to another until you're more excited about the new thing, more excited about the new thing you're going to go do than what you're leaving behind. Then you don't feel like you left behind or you made any sacrifices, but it's like, no, I didn't sacrifice anything. This is a treat for me. You know, this is an advantage for me. You know, this, this is my lucky day. And I thought that was well said by Rusty. And so that's the thing. Look for things that, you know, we're in charge of the quality of our life and our friends and our relationships and what we accomplish. You know, this whole idea of living your life, to me, that's what the winning thing is, is getting you and yourself and keeping yourself in that combination of activities that is rewarding to you. Because everything's work. You know, going on vacations or work, you're like, well, we went to this and we went here and we went there.

We did that. Yeah.

It's a lot of work. You gotta pack, you gotta make plans, you gotta do this, you gotta travel. Yeah. Even if you have your own chat, it's annoying. I don't have that experience, but, you know, I've flown enough private jets to know that, you know, that doesn't make. There's nothing out there you could buy that's gonna make all your problems go away.

Right?

And even doing all of the things in your life that you just love doing, you know, there's. There's a resistance. We're in a decaying world. You know, you have to make great. You have to make the effort to make great things happen. You know, because, you know, the natural thing is people are sad. The natural thing is people get depressed. The natural, you know, if you're going to make your planes fly on time, you got to make an effort. If you're going to make your planes fly and not crash, you got to make an effort. You got to make that happen. That doesn't happen naturally. All good things, you have to make them happen. So that's why when you see things that are happening, well, feel free to go ahead and compliment somebody, you know, who's running it. Say, you know, I know that didn't happen by accident and I see you're in charge and I just want you to know I noticed. And it's just nice coming into a well run place where people are pleasant and things are, you know, kept clean or things are done in the right way, you know, like the Colorado Springs. I've been over to the, done a lot of service work at the Range Rover service department and I swear these guys are incredible. And Mercedes is pretty good in Palm beach too. But these guys, you know, like, efficient, happy, you know, the dentist I have in Boynton Beach, I mean it's just like a super well run place. Consistent, good attitude, get the job done. They, you know, it's always a positive experience. So look at the, what you do, Bill, is measure the effect of the things in your life and are they, you know, helping it, helping you stay on track with a positive energized thing. And so as far as new things, you know, when things come across your path that you're interested in, it'll be fun to do. Don't hold back. You know, automatically what you do is you find that you can.

You can.

Get a whole lot done. People ask me how do I get everything done? It's because I got so many people helping me and so many good people helping me because there's a lot of people out there looking for things to do or looking for somebody who's going places doing things and want to be a part of it. So there's lots of people out there that you can add on to your team. But there's a whole lot more people employed now because I started the painting and you know, doing more of the photography and things like that. You know, I got guys, you know, like I said, you know, there's five or six up there in Southampton today and be there through Labor Day. I got people building my new studio in, out by the airport, the airport business center there in Aspen. I've got a new combo studio storage place out there. It's just fantastic. But you know, we had to build a, build all the shelving and everything and big project but you can get a lot done. It's just, you know, and things you don't know how, don't know how to do. There's somebody who knows how to do it and then that person is probably going to be a good person for you to meet and you'll probably enjoy learning from them too. So it's how you, you know, new experience. It's like when we started that expansion thing to the uk, it didn't work out because of all the new worldwide financial restrictions due to Enron. Enron had the unfortunate thing of happening right as we moved over there and we're going to build a marketing organization. But you know, I went over there not for money. I went over there for new friends, new experiences, new adventures and for the fun. Because I knew whatever I learned would energize me and I'd learn new things that I, that would make me better with my business, you know, back, you know, my main business or the stuff already had going on. So I knew it keep me fresh and it'd be a way, it's a, you know, it's kind of a way, Bill, of tricking yourself into continuing, unfortunately, continuing to work like a dog.

Right, right, right, right.

Because I can't believe, I can't believe how hard I'm working now. And a lot of it's because all this new stuff that's in my life, it's fun, you know, it's unbelievable that I get all kind of compliments and pats on the back, encouragement. But yeah, man, it's work, Bill. And the thing is that you, but you, it keeps you, you know, it's how you trick yourself into moving forward and staying fresh in your life, following these new adventures. That's what I do, you know, I just look for the wow. You know, I look for excitement, I look for inspiration. Because we're only going to be here for a short time, so why not be have the hundred watt bulb burning in your life while you're here?

Well, you're never going to rust out, Larry. I can tell that.

Yeah, I don't think so.

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 Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now. And in order to move up as fast as possible, I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go.