If You Persevere, You’ll Always Break Though – If You Break Through, You’ll Never Regret It

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 back with David Landrum, and we're going to follow up on something David has very graciously decided to give me a few more minutes and talk about a statement he said on the last our third episode. And that is if he said, if you persevere, you'll always break through, and if you break through, you'll never regret it, or at least that's what he's found in his own life. And David, that's pretty profound. And you found that you said pretty much after you found the other where that light bulb came to you while you were in the hot tub about the life of purpose and passion is.

Better than what is the, is better than a life of leisure and pleasure. Yeah. So, you know, that purpose and passion, you know, is, you know, just, you know, I always found that, you know, I just, you know, we're put here for a reason, you know. And you know, the thing that hit me, too, Larry, man, everybody's important, right? Everybody has value. As a matter of fact, there's only, there's only typically about three, maximum four generations living at any one time.

Yeah.

And so, man, your generation, whatever, whichever one you're in, buddy, it's important. Yeah. About three or four living at a time on Earth and on all of Earth. And, man, we've been going a long time and hopefully we can continue on in the future. And so, ma', am, we're important. There's a reason we're here and that we can go out there while we are here and make things better. And you know, even if you're in the later, like me, I'm in the fourth quarter. Right. I mean, I started when I was in college. Of course, I was later going to college because of the three years in the military. But, you know, when I started my financial business, I was 24. And, man, I'm, I'll be 67 in October. So, you know, that's my. So I'm in the fourth quarter of life. Well, but that's important because, man, being able to share and teach the younger generation and those lessons that, as you mentioned earlier, that, man, what if, what if they can, you know, you can learn by experience or instruction yeah, man. So instruction is. Is a great. Is a great teacher. Can save you a lot of. Can save you a lot of years. A lot of, you know, I don't know, a lot of. A lot of pain and mistakes.

Talk about. Where did you. Obviously lessons he's phrased about, you know, persevering. What are things that you've had to just hang in there.

And.

You'Re never challenged to persevere unless it's something that you're tempted to give up on. And you're never tempted to give up on something that's just working left and right. You know, success. It's always the stuff that's just bogged down in the mud, you know, and it's just everything you try, it gets bogged down deeper. And that's when you get to the point of. I've tried everything I know to try. It's not working. And why, you know, at some point I gotta go do something else. But why, when you talk about. And that's the decision to make, is when is it stupid to keep trying? And when is it important to just lock down and say to yourself, I got to get better, I got to get more help. I got to come all, you know, I need a fresh idea. I got to regroup. Like you say, get. You know, get. Get somebody to come in from the outside and reassess. But. Or just say this is a lost cause and move on to something more productive. How do you. When you look back in your life, when you're in talking to those college students and they would ask you, what are some. That you can look back on, you've never regretted persevering?

Yeah. Well, you know, the thing that I. That I believe is when you. When you think about, you know, persevering and, you know, naturally you want to make sure you get good counsel. But at the same time, I mean, I know when I started my business, you know, there were no cheerleaders. I mean, Jill was not happy about me being at the club full time, going to school full time, had just gotten married. Then I start something on the side in the financial field. But then, because she had our life mapped out, her dad worked in the oil business. We were going to move to Dallas, have 2.3 kids, dog, cat management program with Halliburton. Right. That was their game plan for me. But. But I felt the more I started doing, I was kind of. When I got in the financial field, I said, man, you know, money never goes out of style. Right?

Right.

It was popular then. It's popular now and being able to do that and work my own hours. Wrong boss. No quotas. Be an entrepreneur, no inventory, no franchise fee, no payroll. And I just saw that, the freedom. I remember my first office I ever opened. My total overhead. I've been in four months. My total business overhead was. Jill put the bank and was my assistant. So we built it together. By the way, that's another key thing of partnership if you do have a spouse to really build a family business. But our total overhead was 500amonth. So anything that the health club that I was running, I had to bring in 9,000amonth before I could pay the owner a dime. So when I looked at this, but, but anyway, so on the. As far as going through the. The challenges and all that. So you want to, you want to get counsel, but you need to make sure they know what the heck they're talking about. Because most of the people in my life, you know, you. One thing I found is you can't live by someone else's word. You've got to hear. You got to hear the Lord for you. That's where I think Psalms 32, 8. I've got to instruct you in the way you should go. You know, what if you're, if you're praying about that? I mean, if you believe in that, if you, if you're praying about that, then, you know, then you just got to know in your heart that you're doing the right thing. And then if you're doing the right thing, then the real key, you got to flip a switch in your brain. The switch you got to flip is the harder it gets, the harder you try. The harder it gets, the harder you try. So when it's hard, realize most people, you know, I always used to ask myself, tell myself, so look, what would most people do right now? They'd throw in the towel. So what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Because I'm not going to be like most people. I'm going to get up 30 minutes earlier in the morning and I'm going to try harder. And see, all of a sudden, then the negatives become positive. Because you told me no, because you rejected me. And you're not going to do business with me. You're not going to, you're not going to buy to my vision, whatever. I don't say that out loud, naturally, but to myself, I'm going to get up the harder it gets or harder I try. So then that way the negative becomes positive, and I'm going to Be bigger because of it. And I'm telling you, the most businesses, matter of fact, I heard the story, true story. You know how these, these angel funds or whatever, they'll give away grants and all this stuff. They had this contest for the technology and this young man, I don't remember his name or anything, but he had this amazing development from a technology standpoint, and he won this big grant. It was like, I don't know how big it was, but he was a floundering company and he got awarded this grant and he turned it down. And they said, man, why did you turn this down? He said he found that in his business. He got the most creative in his business when he was within two weeks of going out of business. Right. I mean, if you're committed to something, you know, that's, that's the problem. Most people throw in the towel, you know, and they may have been, you know, right around the curve, you know, from, from making it. And then the other thing that I think that is, you know, what if you, if your dream does come true, if you do make it, what are you going to do with the, the spoils of that? What are you going to do with the blessings of your, of your business? You know, and if you make that list out, you're pro. It's probably not everything's about you and your, your nice car and your nice house, but it's probably about others, your goals, your dreams, your family, your charity community. Well, you understand if you, if you, you know, if you win, if you, if you make it, you understand there are forces in this world that don't want that to happen. So you're going to go through hell. All hell is going to break loose. And so a lot of people look at adversity the wrong way rather, rather than. They let it discourage them. We're really, we almost need to get excited that, hey, man, I must be getting close. I must be getting close to a breakthrough. So, man, I'm fixing to pour it on. I'm getting warm, I'm getting, it's getting hot. And so I'm going to persevere even more. I'm going to get up earlier in the morning and just, you know, that's got to be something on a hard level that, you know, that you're, you're willing to lay it all on the line and make it happen.

Well, it's mentality of, you know, it's steepest. You're climbing a mountain, it's steepest as you get closer to the top, you know, and you're more exhausted, and you've traveled all the distance to get there. And so the biggest challenge comes right as you're getting ready to get over the hump. And if you got that in your mind, it's like, okay, you know, I worked to get here, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna fight my way through and enjoy the experience. You know, I'm gonna see what I can learn out of it, you know, But I knew. And basically you say to yourself, I knew this was coming, you know, but as you look back, though, David, like, where are things where you were really challenged the most, would you say, specifically.

Oh, Lord.

Financial, business, personal health. What's the nastiest challenge, toughest challenge you had to deal with? Are the things you just despise to go wrong?

Yeah, I mean, crap, man. Probably all of the above. Everything you just mentioned, I mean, because it's. You know, I think of, you know, everything from naturally, the. The business, and, you know, you know, in business, you can make. I mean, hindsight is 20 20. I can look back, you know, at some things that I did that I regret doing, and I. You know, the problem is a lot of that water is on the bridge, and you can't go back. But a lot of times we. We still live in the. We still live in the past. And, you know, I think we can learn from that. We can look back and learn from it, but we don't need to say, well, you know, even. Even the bad becomes good when you realize that, you know what? That's why people that have had success and then they lose it, but then they make it back again. And you alluded to that earlier in that experience where you know what to do, you know what not to do, right? And you can collapse time frames, and so even the bad becomes good because you learn from it. You know, what not to do again. And. But I look back and. So, sure, there are those regrets. But you know what the main thing as far as going forward, I read a quote the other day. It said, use today to build the life you want instead of trying to escape the life you have. And a lot of times, those regrets.

The things that will come. The thing you come across, though, as, like, very even keel and, like, you know, just a slight adjustment, but the fact that it burns you and, you know, you can't get to where you are if you haven't had experiences, just burned you to your core, you know, and made you furious or just, you know, at yourself or your. Whatever the situation or whatever question, what you're doing, you know, in other words, Mikayla. I love Mikayla Schiffrid, the ski racer. And she comes out of. She has the winningest racer of all time, does everything perfect. She goes over. She's supposed to win all the medals in the Olympics. And first race goes bad, doesn't win the gold medal. And immediately the Twitter haters. This is like the legendary take Tiger woods times 10. You know, in ski racing, that's Michaela Shifra.

And.

You'Re just a loser. You've always had. I always knew you were soft. It's like what. You know what you're talking about? You know, it's like, you know, it's like saying to Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak, you know, I knew you couldn't lift a five pound weight. I knew you were all show, you know, and. But unfortunately she listened to it and she. It just ripped her up.

You know, she.

She actually had a bad competition because things every now and then, even Michaela Schiffrin has a bad, you know, race. And she. But it threw her into turmoil because she wasn't used to it, you know, because when we work hard, we do the right things. Usually things turn out right, you know, and then when they don't, it's really tough to take. And so she was out there. She actually had this. It was a parent. It makes me question every decision I made for the last 15 years. And I was like, no, no, Michaela. And I think I've brought this up on the podcast before, which is like. But guess what she did. She came back two weeks later in her next race and crushed everybody. Like, won by a country mile in all four races. And she usually doesn't do the downhill, but she, like slaughtered everybody in the downhill and everybody out in Aspen. All, you know, all ski racers all over town, they were all talking about how she. She came back. But it's just how, you know, you've got to use that fury to squeeze out everything out of your life. Get better, get tougher, and come back. I went through one of these yesterday, David. I mean, the thing is, as long as you live your life, you are open. Just stumbling across either something incredibly stupid you did. That is really, now that you're aware of it, highly embarrassing that you didn't know. And I found out one of those about myself yesterday. It was just furious. But, like, what can I do? And it's just like, you just got to move forward. Because one thing about the bad disasters, you. The more time goes on, you move away from them. And I'd like even. We had a friend of ours who was on the COVID of the Saturday Evening Post one time back when that was a magazine, our People magazine. It's like you're on the COVID of People magazine from some humiliating thing. Well, first of all, not everybody sees it. And then the ones who do see it didn't pay attention to it. And then the people that did pay attention and were talking about it next week, it's something else. So no matter how bad you, you know, you flame out and you think, oh, you know, I'll never be able to show my face again, or this or the other. Oh, yes, you will, because everybody else is doing stupid things too.

Well. And the thing about is there, you know, we think everybody's thinking about us and that stupid thing, but really, people. People are thinking about their own life.

Yeah.

What I mean. I mean, people aren't thinking about. Yeah.

And you could find that if you, like, have some kind of surgery, you know, skin cancer surgery on your face or something, and you got to wear some kind of big towel around your head or something, and he's like, well, I'm going to go out. And then nobody even says anything. You know, it's like I'm walking around looking like a clown, and nobody even blinks, you know, just like, you know. You know, usually we're worried, you know, it's been so many days since I've shaved or, you know, this, that and the other. I've got to be presentable. No, don't worry about it. Nobody's paying attention anymore.

Right.

If they do say something, all you got to do is turn it on them and say, well, you look great today. I like that shirt. And then they forget about you, you know?

Exactly.

But, David, this has been. But you said, you know, like, when you. To keep things fresh or to keep the perspective and to keep. So when you get in that gutter moment of, you just got to persevere. One thing, you know, you've talked about where you get fresh inspiration. You've gone around, and we were talking about the purpose for, you know, the value of this format of talking where you said you've done it for yourself, where you've just gotten successful businessmen around town and taking them out to lunch and throwing questions at them. Is that right?

Yeah, just ask, you know, because I would, you know, say, look, man, can I buy you lunch? Or maybe I'd invite them to come speak to some of my leaders, and then I'd maybe get with them afterwards, because I always would ask Questions and just, and, but that's, that's where I think and because I wanted to just learn. I mean, how do they think? What's their, what's in their heart? What's, how have they been able to do what they are doing? And that's what I think about this is you're taking such a broad and you know, you look back at all the, all the podcasts, I mean, it's a trove of valuable insight into, you know, people, their mind, their heart, their life. And that to me, the value of that as far as being able to learn by instruction and, and collapse time frames and you can say, hey, look, okay, what if you pick up two tidbits, three tidbits over a 30 minute segment? Wow, that's. Time was spent.

Yeah. Thank you. And the interesting thing about it is that most of the people I talk to, the people in their worlds, do not know the things they're hearing when they listen to this. Because like in your world, you know, high achievers are usually involved in projects and when they're talking to people, it's like solving problems, launching a new project, putting a new meeting together, a new program, a new product, counting down to that, dealing with the situations that have come up from the day, week or month. And you know, you're not really talking about how you think. You know, you see your saw, you're in action. You know, they see you in action and they may get bits and pieces, but they never really get a chance to probe and find out how are your wheels spinning inside your head. And one of the reasons that, you know, I got a lot of encouragement early on when I realized, you know, I like, love basketball, you know, I was short and slow and so I'm never going to be in, you know, much of a player, but at a high level. But the thing is, can't play like Michael Jordan, but you can copy how he thinks. Same thing with golf. Can't play like Tiger woods, but you can copy how he thinks. And those things, just, those ideas are very empowering to let you know that you can take charge of your life, you can direct your life, you can send your life in a different direction. Rather than just default, give in, throw up your hands, you can make the decision that when things get tougher, get tough, I'm going to get tougher. It's just like I'm going to do the reverse. If I want to have a life different than most people, I've got to think different, I've got to act different and I can do that. And so it's achievable if you are, you know, you'll take the time and you'll make those changes if you really want it. And that comes back to your original observation. And as running the gym, the people that got the changes and really got in shape and were the people who wanted to the most. It comes down to want to, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And you know, the thing about it is just look at, you know, one of the things I've thought about too is how most people live their life. I remember when I went to my 20th year class reunion. Jill and I were on the way home and I said, man, I said 20 years, I mean, cause that 10 year class reunion, people change. 20 year people really start to change. Right. Okay. So on the way home I said, Jill, man, I don't know, man, I would love to go back to high school. If I go back to senior year, even for a short period of time, there would be some things I would take not as serious. There would be other things I would have taken a lot more serious. The problem is you can't go back. So you can't go back. But what I can do is make sure in 10 years from now, 2032, I'm not looking back on 2022 with regret.

Absolutely.

Every, every day is important. Every day is a gift. And you know, you know, the thing about is I, the other thing that I believe is trying to look at how, look at how most people live their life and do exactly the opposite. And it'll probably be awesome because most, most people are just going with the flow. And one thing I know is most, most of the things that float downstream are dead. And so if we, you know, swim upstream, do exactly the opposite of most people, then things are going to do well, whether it's in your family life, your spiritual life, your business life. You know, I tell people, look, be different, by all means, be different. I mean, you know, do not go with the flow.

So yeah, that is fantastic. And a fantastic wrap up, David, to what we've covered today. Thanks so much. Say hello to Jill for me.

Thank you, Larry. Appreciate you, man.

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 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.