There Are Two Americas and They Experiences Are Completely Different with Gary Kornegay

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell, and let's get started. We are back with Gary Carnegie, and Gary has talked to me many times. We've covered. I guess we've already done a couple of episodes for this podcast, but Gary has really unique insight on the situation we're in today and something we all got to make our minds up about if we're going to take charge of our life and we're going to move forward. And this is really close to Gary. He deals with it all the time, and probably there's nobody better to deal with this subject. So. Welcome back, Gary.

Glad to have you, Mr. Bardell. How are you doing, Larry?

Good, good. And we were talking in the past, and you brought up the attitude that people have got to get their head around and accept about where we are in the world today and where they are and how they've got to navigate if they're going to deal with the world that we live in and are gonna be living in. So talk about that. What is that? How would you describe that subject?

Well, I'll tell you, Larry, honestly, when I got a chance to hear from you 32 years ago, when my first venture into my own business and kind of understanding this whole world called free enterprise, I'd never heard that language before, but I was told, probably what you were told, go to school, get education, get a job, you know, with a big company. And back then, the big company was Sears. I don't know why. My parents love Sears, you know, and then, well, get a job at J.C. penney's, you know, or get a job with Sears, you know, that was a big thing. And so you hear that your whole life, and then all of a sudden, you wake up one day and you now want to have the guts or the audacity to step out and start your own business. So I started learning from you and the many other great entrepreneurs that came before me this language called free enterprise. You know, I never heard that language. Like, what does that mean? You know, and then I started understanding that America, there's two Americas, there's an America, okay, for employees, and there's an America for entrepreneurs.

Right?

Right. And their experiences are totally different, you know, And I would say, you know, that even, I'm eventually saying even that maybe America could very well be. If it was a human being, it would be a human being that has two personalities, you know, and you may meet the America through a job, and you go, wow, America's mean. America is cutthroat. America, Right. Let's say it was a person, you know, name America.

Right.

And I would say to you, Larry, that's not the America that I met. Are we talking about the same person, Larry?

Yeah, right.

Because you're talking about a mean America. You're talking about a discrimination America. I don't know that America. The America that I know. Are you sure you're talking about the same person? Because the America that I know gave an African American from the inner city of South Central an opportunity to own my own business. And I flourished in it. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I had to grow. Yes, I had to get better. Yes, I had to read more books. Yes, I have to have more experiences. But we got to do that. Whether you're in the bad America or the good America, you still got to go and learn and change it better. Anyways, so I decided to do it under this thing called the American Free enterprise system. And guess what? I'm experiencing a different America at the same time as my brother is experiencing a different America.

Yeah, right.

And we have two different points of views, yin and yang. And so I like to tell people in the world we live in today is that if you step out on faith and you have the courage to go into business for yourself and you go through the ups and downs and the struggles, I know it takes capital sometimes in most people's mind to start a business. But if you deal with the peaks and the valleys of that and you come out on the other side, you're going to experience a whole nother America. It's two different worlds. Would you agree to that, Larry?

Absolutely. And where does that come into play in people's lives? And how does that inform how they make up their mind about that? How does that inform their responses and their way their life is going to turn out?

Well, you know, most people, like, if you look at corporate America, how structured, whether it be private sector or government sector, you know, you and me, you go get a job at 16 years old at the local dairy, you know, what do you want? You want to do what? Be promoted? You want to be a manager, you know, and you want to have people that, what, report to you one day. See, everybody wants to be a boss, whether you're a corporate structure or on your own. Everybody. And you'll be lying. You said no. Everybody wants to be a supervisor. Everybody wants to have people that report to them and get paid. Cause we all complain about our costs and we complain about our supervisor, Right? So now you take that same thinking that you have in corporate America about you want to advance up and put that thinking, Larry, into your own business. The same thinking. It's just now you're taking the risk, not your boss who started that furniture company.

Yeah.

That's all the different things different. The risk shifts. I will admit to that. The risk shift from your boss over to you. But the thinking is the same. You want to be at the top of what you're doing.

Yeah. And if you were going to write a book about that subject, what would the forward the introduction be? What would the title of it be? And what. Because I'm always trying to get people with the success. You have to start thinking about writing a book and because you've accumulated a lot of wisdom that needs to be passed on. So maybe we get your mind thinking about that right now.

And I'm thinking of two Gary's. There's one side of Gary that likes to play on words. So I'm an author. I have written this two books, right?

Oh, you have. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I'm learning stuff. Okay.

And so I like the caption of a book. The title grabs people and sometimes it kind of plain Jane titles, you know, become an entrepreneur. That's plain Jane. I would like to probably write a book about this. It would be something like the new Slave. You know, something like it's a person to stop you walking through the. The airport, you're in the bookstore, waste of time, and you see the new slave. You want to grab that book and just kind of shape people. That corporations are really plantations, but now we cooperate. What they call them corporations because now we volunteer to show up to the plantation and they let us go home on the weekends.

Yeah. Right.

And we come back on Monday. So I would probably call up a new slave, honestly.

And how would you. What kind of introduction would you have to this, this book?

Well, I would probably introduce people to the mindset of really what this book would be about is really freeing people's mind of being dependent on an institution or a government and being responsible individuals. Get it. That you have to obviously live in a country that has to, you know, that's big on democracy. Right. For this to really work and thank God we live in North America. But I would talk about how you need to break the yoke and the chains of dependency. And so in that forward, I would talk about when you read this book, you're gonna learn, number one, where you're at, you know, what your core values are. You dependent, independent person. Are you Interdependent or codependent. There's four dependents. Codependent, you work and your boss gives you a check. You're co dependent, he depends on you and you depend on him.

Right.

Dependent, you're on welfare, sex aid, food stamps. You're literally dependent on the government to take care of you with your tax dollars. Independent, which means you're going to do it all by yourself because you want something done, you do it by yourself. That makes you independent contractor or interdependent when you work with a team. So I'm gonna probably talk about that in the forward or how to become independent and then interdependent, but definitely not dependent or codependent.

Now, I think we both would point out to people that what we're talking about is you being weak. Or this is a core belief, a core decision you need to make about the world and your life in it. And it's going to directly relate to whether you're weak or you're strong, whether you're going to use your gifts, your power, your strength, your resources, or you are going to life get just ignoring those and focusing more on what you don't have and what others have and this, that and the other. And you can't control that, but you can't control your. And therefore you're. You're weak. And so this relates to, are you going to have a strong, definitive life you can be proud of or not really.

Yeah. And I think that's big too, Larry, because I think most people don't think that they're in control of their own future. They think that, you know, society has a stronghold, you know, the government has a control, their parents have a control, their authority figures. And to some extent there is a little bit of that. And I think we should have that. That's just called. That's called structure.

Right.

But other than that, you have to realize that you are the author of your future. Like you really are in the driver's seat and most people are in the backseat letting somebody else drive them.

Yeah.

And I think you get to realize that it's okay. You can get the front seat, you can drive your own life. It's okay as long as you take responsibility. If you have an accident, get it on the way, try to become successful. Just look in the mirror, go, you know what? Yeah, I had a little fender bender. Trying to become successful. Get back in the vehicle, Right. Don't turn the steering wheel over to a job or somebody else, because then they'll control your life. So I think people need to be okay with, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that fear or perceived fear that they could literally get out there and control their own life.

Yeah. Because it's kind of like, are you gonna go through life riding on somebody else's bus? Or, you know, are you gonna. You're gonna get a situation where, you know, are you always gonna ride the bus? Or when you get, you know, you maybe you have to work in a corporation. You know, most people, most people are gonna go through their lives being employees, working for somebody else. But what we're talking about is the big faceless bureaucracies and the big corporations where you really are just a number and they really do pay you a dollar more than if they paid you this much, you'd quit, and then they pay you a dollar more so you won't quit, you know.

Right. They pay you just enough. And, you know, and I'm okay with that. I think it's important that people understand what we're saying here. I told my daughter, she's an artist and she has her own art gallery at 21 years old. But I always told my children, if you ever go work for someone, you're there for two reasons, not three, to strip them of their knowledge. Right. They're going to pay you to learn how to work in a restaurant because you're going to own your own one day.

Right.

Number two, get the paycheck and use that as seed capital. Don't get the paycheck and start buying cars and homes and jewelry. You know it. Now, you need that job. But if you get the paycheck, your boss could literally be your venture capitalist for your own barbershop. Get it. And then walk in and say, Mr. Wydell, thank you for five years of service here at this company. I appreciate it. But the hundred thousand that you paid me over five years, I use as a deposit to start my own barbershop.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Well, Gary, thanks so much for all your insight. And I think people know now why I was so fired up to have you on and hear you express things and that we all think about and make sense out of them and simplified, you know, make the choices really obvious. And I think we both would encourage people to just make those choices. Don't sit. Think about it forever. And it's a lot easier when you hear from somebody who knows of what. Of. Of what he speaks like you do. And so is there one last thing that you would like to. You know, of course I'm going to get you back on from time to time. And I've got some other ideas I want to try with you sometime. But you and I get a subject, and we bat it back and forth and see how we look at this and how, you know, and kind of just for. Just for fun, but. But also bring out things that we. Ordinarily we see, but we don't really talk about because to us, it'll be very obvious, you know, so I'm going to kind of create some situations like that. But any one last word that you want to have to. I'll give you the last word to wrap it up, that you want to pass on to the people listening who.

Want to move up.

You know, they may.

They're incredibly successful, but they want to move up.

You know, they want some more fun. They want some more adventures. They, you know, they want. Want some more impact in the world, you know?

Yeah. I think I would leave with this. You know, is that. Number one, you know, don't be so hard on yourself. You know, people have, you know, they have this ability to speak bad things to themselves or about themselves, you know, but when they speak to the public, they speak like they have it going on.

Yeah.

But internally, they say things that kind of work that tears into their belief system. So I would tell people, number one, you know, don't take life too serious like that. You're gonna beat yourself up, and you can't get up in the morning because you done a job on your own spirit, you know? So I think that's important to really just try to work on your own inner belief system of how you feel about yourself. That's important. Okay. And I think if you can fix you. You can fix everything around you, because energy does actually play into some of the results that we get, whether you like it or not. So I just want to leave the conference. The conversation with just people. Just believe in yourself. Stop being so hard on yourself. Don't take life too serious. In that case, if you're going after success, just know everything has a process. Everything has a process. You know, it takes nine months to create a human being, you know, inside his mother's womb. Anything before that, we call it premature.

Yeah.

You know.

Right.

That's the biggest thing, Larry.

All right, thanks so much, Gary. Have a great afternoon. I know you got meetings to run to and a lot of adventures in front of you, and so appreciative of you sharing this stuff, and I'm gonna be looking forward to the next time, man.

Yeah. I thank you, Mr. Whitell, for the opportunity I've been obviously a big fan of yours for 30 plus years. You know, the fact I'm having a webinar with you is kind of like so surreal that I've grown up and became a 57 year old man. And you stuck around, which is good too. Okay.

Yeah.

A lot of guys check out, you know, but you're stuck around to be able to, for you immediately have this conversation. Just feel like I'm in another world right now.

Yeah. And you become my hero. So, you know, there you go. That's, that's really full circle. I want to come see that Home of Beverly Hills, please.

I would love to take care of you, man. Come on out. Couple days.

Okay, let's do that. All right. Thanks so much, Gary. Goodbye.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelawnwinning. Com. I'm the Million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go.