Part 3 - The New Motivations Driving Danielle Oropesa's Business

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. As your business expands right now, what is the payoff for you other than money? Because I'm sure you're not paying attention to the money.

Yeah, I think at some point it stops being about money and it's never was all about. It was about having the money, having freedom, being able to have so many choices and options, not having money, not having money, be able to control our choices and options. That was really the immediate goal was we wanted to get to a place where we had enough money, invested enough money coming in, where our choices and our options were fairly unlimited when it came to money and we didn't have to choose to do or not do based on money. Then you get to a point where, and even along the way, a lot of it too is the competition. We would go to trips and we would see there were times when we were winning all the awards and then there were other times where we didn't win as many awards. So then we would be like, oh, that's not a good feeling. We don't like the feeling of not winning 20 awards. And obviously these other people are doing what they need to do. So we need to get back on it, get back focused and raise our game. And that's even now, that's kind of where we're at as far as it's twofold. I think it's that we still want to compete. We don't like to get to a level where we're not really where we're just kind of like, okay, we're good, but we're not competing at the high level. And we. The more time and effort that we put into the business, I mean, there are lots of people in our business that need our help. There's people in our office that need our help. There's people that have their own offices that just us communicating with them or dropping in on them or doing a little meeting for them or calling them on the phone and different conversations that we can have that we can affect changes in them or give them some inspiration and some guidance. And I think at a point it becomes more about how many other people can you help to get to those levels that you're at. You find such a sense of accomplishment when you have people open up their own office and then they grow and people that you've been very, very good friends with. There's people that have been in our business for all the 20 years that we've been together or 10 years or 12 years. So we're close with them, we're close friends with them. I'm friends with the wife and we're close together. Like we know their kids and they know our kids. And when we see them raising their game and raising. Growing their business and knowing that they have more options and opportunity because of the choices that they're making, because of some example that we have set, that's a really amazing.

And it's more likely that they're going to have that growth in their career. As long as you're continuing to push in your career because you're setting the attitude and the tone and the direction for the company. And if the company now starts to cool off and there's not as much talk and emphasis on growth in numbers and growth and expansion and territory, their opportunities are pretty much going to be stuck in their spot. And so it relates to keeping your people fired up too. It's just always been easier for me to get people excited about going for number one, going for a record. If you can't go for number one, at least go for a record, set a record. There's something exciting about setting a record. One thing I learned about sports from playing sports in high school and growing up is like winning is better than losing. I learned winning is more fun.

For sure.

I learned that lesson. I don't have to be professional athlete, caliber person to learn are to know that winning is better and also know that no matter what championships you've won in the past, what we're talking about is no matter how much, how many successful years you guys have stacked in a row up till now, if you go out, if you won the super bowl, like Tom Brady, read the super bowl. He's won 800 Super Bowls. He's still going to be madder than fire if he plays another year and they lose all their games. Or it's not going to be all right for him not to go back to the super bowl next year. It's not going to be all right to lose. It's not going to be all right for him. No matter hall of Fame quarterback, it's not going to be all right for him to have an interception next year. It's because you want to win. And once you get that thing, that taste of winning, you want to fight for it because that's what validates the winning, validates all the effort you've been putting in especially when you have a team, it validates it for all the people that help the team win. Because maybe they couldn't go out with a national championship by themselves, but they can make a contribution and they can wear the national championship jersey, they can feel part of the team. And so the leaders got to be unapologetic in pushing forward and not let the naysayers back you off. But on the other hand, you can find things, ways of offloading, time consuming, annoying type stuff. That's part of you being able to handle the bigger numbers and everything with staff and things like. But you got to learn, you got to develop that skill too. How to delegate, how to hire. And it's an ongoing type thing. I've always said I always want to keep enough of a business going where I can have a pretty big staff so that for my computer breaks, my phone breaks, I call somebody, they fix it. If I got to make a trip, I call and I say have them make the trip. A car rental, all the arrangements. No call the office, they do it. If I go to the hotel and things are not right, or if I put a charge card in and it doesn't go through, all I, I just dial. Somebody say boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Otherwise you got to handle all of this stuff yourself. But how's your staffing as you've expanded now? How has your staff, what kind of staff and help do you have?

In our office we have two full time people. They're fully devoted to everything in the business. They handle everything in the office. Like you said, anything that we need, that anything goes wrong, any challenges, we have any, you know, the client. And anytime clients call, any of that stuff is handled by our two office managers who are amazing, Vanessa and Audrey. Give them a little shout out. So they're really awesome. They've been with us for a really long time. They know exactly what we need. And we have also Loose who works with us here at home. She's here with us every day, five days a week. And she does everything at the house. She's amazing. She's been with us also 16, 17 years. We actually found her when we lived in the townhouse. She's like part of our family, but she handles everything at the house. She does all the groceries, she does all the errands, little errands and that kind of stuff. So she helps me a lot.

Yeah. And so the thing is, you can always staff up as you're growing and you'll know to do that when you get there. No one had to Tell you about hiring. Was it loose? No one had to hire you. I mean, tell you about that. It kind of comes to you folks. So these things, as you're living the life, a lot of these light bulbs will go on, but. And the reason they're not going on now is maybe you don't need them, but your subconscious will turn on a switch in your mind when you need it, because you'll either have the answer or you'll know what question to ask to somebody to get the answer, to solve the problem, to keep moving forward. But what would you say to the people that are at a point in their life where they don't really need to keep pushing? What would you say to them? As a last word, we'll wrap this up. Let's just talk about the ability to give out and help other people. You know, the richness of being able to give back and help other people. Not only make the trips you want, be able to support the causes you want and do things like that only comes because you've kept pushing. You have this excess. You've created discretionary time, discretionary income, where you can now decide where the money's going to go, where your time is going to go, either personally or to recharge as a family, or to go out and get behind some of these people. You got doctors that fly to countries all over the world on their time off, week or two at the time, to do free surgery here and, you know, really in all specialties. But they only can do that because the success they have that allows them that independence. So what would you say is a fine say? What is the, to you, the biggest advantage of continuing to keep this momentum? Because I know you guys have had a spectacular growth year in spite of the COVID and the quarantine. What is the advantage of, as you're looking at your business now after a huge growth year like you've had, and gives you the energy to want to keep that going. How would you explain that to people that are coming up the ladder?

I would say that it's great to get to a level where you're good. It's great to get your business to a level where your family is comfortable and you have all the things that you feel like you need, but that isn't the level where you can start to really affect other people. There's a big difference between being good, your own family being good, and getting to a level where you have really so much resources and so much time that you can see where you want to put those Resources. I have a lot of time. Not only am I able to be there for my kids all the time, pick them up everywhere, drive them everywhere, go to every event that they have, not ever miss anything, but I'm also able to spend a ton of time. Omar jokes like I'm full time employee that doesn't get paid at the school because I am able to. And that brings me joy that I can do stuff at the school, that I can help out the school, help out the teachers, help out the other kids, do things that are fun for the kids and being able to give it our church, give plenty of money to the church where we're helping out different charities and and then also being able to have that time where we're able to continue to help develop other leaders. It's all part of being able to help not just your own family, but other families because you really can't. Until you get to a certain level, you can't really, really inspire anybody else. You have to get to a level where you're. Where other people look at you like, wow, what you guys have done is really great. So if you're going to talk, I'm going to listen to you. And I think that that's what keeps us going, is that it's really, we're at that point point where it's fun to keep growing, it's fun to keep competing, it's fun to we don't like to lose. Like you said, winning more fun than losing. So we want to keep winning and we want to continue to be at a place where we're able to help other people, to inspire other people. When people need some support and they can call us and we can walk them through how to get through the challenges they're going through. That's what keeps us going, I think.

Yeah. And the thing is, it's just such a joy to inspire other people and your past success. Like people who have retired, they've been successful in business or whatever and people know them, there's a certain inspiration of hearing them talk or meeting them in person. But like, let's just say golf. Jack Nicklaus was always very inspiring. Even when he retired, when he couldn't play that much, more or less retired, he retired from the full schedule. But he wasn't nearly as inspiring as it was when in 1984 he played, I think it was 84. He played in the Masters and won the masters at age 44. He inspired a whole lot more people when he actually went out there and he was red hot and playing and so the thing is, when you're red hot, if you have this ability that you've developed that's made yourself successful, why not use it? That's what you're the best at. Pass that on. You earned the chance to be that good. Like you said, not just good in the sense of taking care of your failure, but really when you can communicate things that people need to hear, you could be a difference maker. That is very, very rewarding. And that's why you spend. You see so many people that are successful giving back, looking for places where they can help. Because it's just a real joy to be able to inspire other people and see them win and go out and have success. After you've spent a little time with them, of course they get all the credit. But to have a chance to be a little part of that and just get up close and personal with that whole journey is just rewarding. And so many benefits of being. Well, I'll say this, there's so many insane benefits from staying on the attack, continuing to make knock down barriers, learn new skills, expand to where you've never been before, meet new people, new motivated people. But I just don't know of any advantages shuttering your doors and cooling off. If you have a car, you need to crank that sucker and go somewhere. Your car sitting in the garage is not a lot of fun. All these guys have, all these luxury cars are sitting in our warehouse. That's great. But most of the time it's like a tree in the forest, whoever sees it. The thing is, get yourself cranked, stay cranked and go out there and see what kind of adventures are out there because that's where the real joy of payoff is. And thanks for explaining this. Want to say one last thing in.

Parting, One last thing as you're talking, I thought of too, is that with us, we have middle school kids. The another benefit for us staying engaged and staying focused is that they get to watch that at their age, you know, because if we just kind of relax back and weren't really working towards anything, these are the years. In my opinion, these are like the most important years, their teenage years, their high school years. So the longer that Omar and I can keep working towards goals and dreams and have vision and that we're able to really keep impacting our kids, I think, which is really important to show them that that's really how you're supposed to be in life. You need to keep working and keep striving.

Great point. Thanks so much for adding that. Danielle, you've been so much fun to talk with. Wish you the best and we'll have to bring you back down the road and see what you're learning, see what life is teaching you as you guys continue to go out and compound and grow and even double your business. Next time we talk, you'll probably be in all 50 states with your business. It'll be probably international too, so it'll be fun to catch up down the road. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thank you, Larry. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the final part of this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. Great ideas, care who used them. If you're motivated to move up in a big way right now, I've created a free training video to remove the mystery on how to set yourself up for big success. This is the information that has changed so many of our lives and it can have the same impact on you. And the video is completely free. You'll find it@widelonwinning.com join us over there. And thanks for being part of our community.