Thick Skin, Thin Skull: Why the Best Leaders Never Stop Learning

You should learn to have thick skin and a thin skull versus thin skin and a thick skull.

Perfect.

Yeah. It's an honor to be sitting here and this brings up so many, you know, memories and emotions of the last. You know what, here's the number for you. I got started in financial services in 94. It's 25. So if I'm doing my math right, that's 31 years that I've been involved in financial services with your firm, Larry. And I've always been one of those guys that's, I feel like any. Well self assessed, of course, but I always feel like I'm super grateful. I try to live that biblical principle that you have to have gratitude to really receive ultimately the depth of the gifts you've been given. And I'm not good at quoting scriptures, but I heard that on a Sunday one time and I went, you know, I probably should make sure I stop throughout the week. And I really do try to just take it all in. And I've been so grateful for, you know, so many people in my lives. But you were one of those that's just made such a significant impact. But one of the things, we were in Aspen one year at a leadership conference that you used to run there, and I don't know exactly who said it or where it came from, it might have been the great Ginny Virginia Carter, but I think it was, you should learn to have thick skin and a thin skull versus thin skin and a thick skull. And I sat there and I went, you know, it was one of those moments that hit you. And so, you know, you influenced so many lives, you produce so much content that helps people. But maybe you want to speak to that because I look at you and I go, you really do have thick skin. But you've always had a very thin skull from absorbing new stuff. You've always been the leading of technology. You've always been a leader in innovation in our firm. You've always been a leader in we need to be progressive in this area. Whether it was mortgages, a buy term invest, the difference, you know, managed accounts. You've always been at the cusp of saying, hey, we have to test our mettle and change and grow with the times and, and so maybe you can speak to that, to your audience.

Well, I think it's just a matter of a lot of things where you understand that first of all, nobody knows everything. And you know, just about anybody that you run into, no matter how stupid they might seem to you or are frustrating, they might say you can Pretty much be sure they know something about something that would benefit you. You know what I'm saying? Everybody knows something. And so, yeah, it's also Brian, you know, there's a side of it is like, you say there's a things. There's a reason things happen in life. And, you know, like, you say to yourself, like, there's a reason I'm in this situation. There's a reason I get stuck talking to this idiot at a party or something like that. You know, it's like that.

I'm gonna write that one down because I remember that because sometimes I'm sitting at a party going, why?

What's going on? Yeah. And so if nothing else, you could turn it into a game. Like, okay, it's like, I'm gonna turn this boring phase of my life into a treasure hunt. And I'm going treasure hunting inside this idiot's head to see if there's anything in there that I'd be interested in. And usually you find stuff, you know what I'm saying? And so, you know, that's part of it. But the thick skin part of it, Brian, comes from being on the move. You know, it's like when you're, you know, when you're a monomaniac on a mission. You know, I've seen you in action, and you were the godfather of causing me to think of this example that, you know, it's you that caused me to think of this example that I've told a million times. And that is you could teach most people, you tell them something, the thing they need to do, you know, even if they ask a question, you could tell them a thousand times before, they'll do it once. I don't know why, but that's the way it is with most people. On the other hand, there are a few rare people, you tell them once and they'll do it a thousand times. And you are that person.

That's cause I'm just not that smart. There wasn't a lot in there, so if I had a good one, I just needed to keep doing it.

But I've seen you in action, you know, as an illustration of this. I've seen you in action. Like, you know, we're solving some kind of problem, you know, and like. Like the axle falls out of the bottom of this truck, and we're the middle of boohoo Mexico with. With federales that are all 19 years old with guns around us and. And nowhere to go. And the axle falls out of the bottom of the pickup, and, you know, you Say, okay, we got to fix that thing. I don't know what you. But you dive like a maniac. No hesitation. You're under the truck, you know, you see, like, what's the problem Axle there? Okay, I'm under. But, like, you know, I've seen you like a monomaniac on a mission throughout your life. And the thing is, when you're in that mode, you're not listening to everybody else is, like. Because your mind is so. All you can hear is kind of like, you know. You know, it's just like, you know, your wife, when your babies are being born, you know what I'm saying? She's not thinking like, well, the nurse is sitting out there in the hallway saying she doesn't think she looks good as a blonde. She thinks she should, you know, be a brunette or something. You know, it's like.

Or her feet.

You know, the nurses are out there talking about her fingernails or something. Like, you know, it's probably been a week or two since she had her nails done. Good Lord. You know, if you knew you were coming to the hospital, you think your wife, any women is giving a crap what anybody is saying? Their relatives are saying this? No, they're.

That baby there.

And so when you're on a mission, you know, I would say this, and I think you'd agree. If you're hearing those voices, you ain't busy. You're not doing something important to you, and you need to pick up the darn pace. You know what I'm saying? And, like, I use this all the time. Winston Churchill said, if you listen to all the dogs barking on the side of the road, you'll never get to where you want to go. And.

Ain'T that the truth.

Hey, let me give you the end of my example about winning and losing and adrenaline from winning. You know, we were in Vegas this last weekend. I mean, Adam and I were out on the course, right, because they. They open it up to the public, you know, they race through the town and they put up all the barriers and everything, but they can't lock that down 24 hours a day. They lock it down, you know, like four hours a day during the race, while the race is going on. But the rest of the time, they. They take the barriers down and let you drive, you know, up and down the Strip and around. And so that's what we were doing. And like, we were. We were in there around 12:30, and right as we got, we were leaving at 1:00'. Clock. They were starting putting barriers up and get Ready for the race. But. So I was really interested. See, it was the final, you know, it was the final day, so I was really interested to see how it turned out. Well, all I know is Max Verstappen won with, you know, I think with Red Bull he won. And no surprise here, he's one. You know, he wins most of the time or a lot of the time. But. But the guy, Lewis Hamilton, who's won like seven or eight or nine championships, you know, he went for like almost a decade of winning everything with Mercedes, I think. But anyway, now he's with Ferrari, so he's with the new team and he ain't winning. And I forget he came in fourth or came in six or something like that, but he lost and he's used to winning. Okay. And this is the whole thing about why do I keep on going, Brian, there's. You've never won enough Super Bowls where it's okay to lose this one. And pat Patrick Holmes, the Chiefs, you know Patrick, you know, what's his. McComes or Holmes or whatever his name is. The quarterback. Yeah, the whole. The. The. The quarterback or Andy Reid, the coach. You think it's all right for them that they're having this crap season and it looks like they're not going to the Super Bowl? No, no. They're madder than hell. You know, they're depressed, you know, and in fact, hey, Andy, look at all the ones you won. Patrick. How about the. No, that doesn't mean nothing now because I'm playing this one. And. And they know losing, losing, the phenomena of losing and winning is still active. You lose, it sucks the life out of you. If you win, you get a shot of adrenaline to keep on going. And what happened was Lewis Hamilton got beat. And I just love the quotes in the paper, Brian. Lewis Hamilton saying, God almighty, this is that the other. I don't know why even keep racing. I thought I would be winning right now. We got beat here. He said there's two more races this year. I don't even want to get on the plane and go to the next two races. I'm sick of all of this. This is like a 10 time champion and. But Max Verstappen, oh, man, I can't wait to get to the next race. This is so much fun. I love racing.

I think you're right once you get a bite of that. But that's interesting to hear you say that because money, cars, homes, travel. I mean, you have two homes. The primary homes, Aspen and Palm Beach. Right, right, right. And Literally before we started this, she jumped on, said hi to you and she thanked you, which I don't thank you for, you know, introducing her to these stupid cars. Stupid cars. I mean, just like for me, I need a truck to get me from point A to point B. I got other things to think about. And Lily's like, no, no, no, Larry has a point here. So years ago you introduced her to Mercedes and, and I think I was sitting in the back of your Mercedes and you looked at her and you said, lindley, why would you want to drive anything else other than the most sophisticated well engineered vehicle? I'm like, What the hell did you just say, Larry?

No.

So anyway, yeah, that's funny.

Good. So my question still stands, Brian, why would you. Oh yeah.

Which she agrees with your thinking.

She knows the answer now.

She definitely knows the answer. And I will tell you this, when I drive those vehicles, I do go, wow, this is super nice. But I guess if you're going to have to drive a vehicle, you might as well drive the best one possible.

So why not?

So I saw, I've seen your podcast, I watched your podcast and that you've had some of the most brilliant minds in business today. Guys who have billion dollar real estate things, empires, technologies, people that have led the industry. What made you say, I want to start a podcast and have it be about having this mindset of being a millionaire. And then that's the first part. And then the second part is because there's other things. I mean you could be on a golf course, this takes a lot of work to put this together. Work with your editor, work with your producers. And then the other question would be, did you ever think that you'd have Grant Cardone on and all these guys that are just absolute empire leaders and builders?

I would say, Brian, you know, when you start it, you don't think about who it's going to turn into. Just like with your hunting company, you don't think that I'm going to have this famous band and this famous actor and you know, that are hunting with me and all of these celebrities. You know, it just kind of comes with the deal. But the thing is, as you know, in our company we produce more million dollar earners than any other company out there. So that just kind of comes, comes my world. And I just have a curiosity to prove the, it really goes from when I wrote the book. You know, in the book I wanted to establish serial winner, the book that at the top you hear all this thing that you know, you can't get any agreement in politics, you know, you get two people in the room, they're going to argue about everything. And my point has been not necessarily, because when you get two high achievers, people have gone to the top of their profession. Let's just say you get Roger Federer and Tiger woods in the room, okay, With Michael Jordan. Oh, they're going to. And you talk about competition and sports and winning and living your life, you're going to find a lot of agreement. Put David, Beck, Beckham in there. You know, all of these. You know, Ronaldo, all these guys, you're going to find you. Because there's a lot of ways to lose, but very few ways to win. You know, the road to the top becomes narrower and narrower, and it's crowded. That's why it's crowded. That's why it's narrow at the top. You know, it's just like it, narrow at the top. There's always room at the top, folks, like a pyramid. It's like, you know, it's always room at the top because there's a point up there, but it's always wide at the bottom because everybody's got their own ideas. And the sign of. It's like the sign of the failure of man. They talk about in the Bible where, you know, in the beginning, everybody was, you know, worshiping God. And then it was like everybody started doing what was right in their own mind. And so what you have is most of the people out there doing what makes sense to them, what they feel about this, what they feel about that. No reaction, relationship to reality, Brian. And, you know, they're out there spending their life dumbing themselves to death, repeating the same mistakes. And as a result, they're boring. You know, they need help. They're like sheep. And a lot of them are sheep being led to slaughter. And they need direction. They need to hear a loud as possible voice of people saying, no, not that way, this way. And they need to hear from people who know what they're talking about. This is why I've always been an enemy of the false prophets. You know, like false news, fake news. There's also fake experts. And just because someone calls themselves an expert or writes a book on something, it sounds. And just because they sound like an expert doesn't make them an expert. It's like, look at their background, look at their accomplishments. So on the podcast, you know, for years, I'd elevated people from inside the company, and I said, you know, I want to go out and raise the pro, do what I can to put the spotlight on some of these really powerful people outside of the company, you know, in all walks of life. And get there, let them weigh in on what, how you make your life count, how you have, you know, their answers to all these common questions everybody has. Who wants to be independent, wants to make above average income, wants, wants to do well in life and wants to be fulfilled. You know, let's just say this, Ryan. You know, I want to get a million people in my community because I want people.

I want to get a million people.

With a burning desire to do something great and harness that energy and let them play off each other because the world needs that kind of input. We need people coming up the ladder, doing great things. You know why? Because people are screwed up. Even billionaires are screwed up, Brian.

100%.

Half of the billionaires are miserable. And you see some of them, you know, the thing is, it's like, that's not right. We need to get our billionaires organized for greatness. They got to get those things untangled just like everybody else. You know, billionaires need to, you know, keep learning, keep growing, you know, and, you know, just because they're a billionaire, you got guys that are 23 years old that are billionaires, you know, they came up with some software thing or this, that and the other. Just because they're billionaires doesn't mean anything. Doesn't mean they know anything. All of the things about life, you know, the things that they need to know to have the balance, successful, long term, successful life. And so I wanted to get a community where you could get the up and coming bright stars and you could mix them with the billionaires and. Because everybody's on the same track to improve, to get better. Because when you improve, it's like sharpening the knife. And it gives you. Every time you improve, you get a shot of adrenaline, it makes you fresh, and you take that back into your business, your community, your world. And billionaires are more vulnerable than anybody else to getting sidetracked, having bad advisors around them and, you know, getting, you know, having, turning lukewarm, losing their intensity and everything because they've got such a hectic life and all. And so the, the work that can be done with billionaires is every bit as powerful an impact or more than you could do with the up and coming stars, you know, because they don't have that big of an audience and everything, you know, so. But the billionaires got a lot to lose if they go sour. They start to, you know, cool and their intensity and everything. And so you Know, we need to get the billionaires back on track. You know, we need to get where they're happy and they're excited, where they can give back to other people, and they're living fulfilling lives and inspiring other people to greatness. And that's why I wanted to turn the spotlight on the people who really know the reality of what to do, how to take the right fork of the road when you're presented with it. And they have a track record of credentials to prove that they know what they're talking about. Let these people talk, give them a loud voice, and let people hear from people to know what they're talking about, rather than have a void there. Like the Bible says. The problem with throwing the seven evil spirits out of the house, there was a house that was full of evil spirits, and the disciples wanted to throw them out. And. And Jesus said, the problem with that is if you throw the seven evil spirits out, 70 more will come in that are worse than them, you know, because there's a void. And it's like you got. If you, You. You don't just throw out the bad, you got to put the. The good spirits in there. You know what I'm saying? And so in your life, it's not enough to stop people from doing wrong things. You got to give them the positive things that they can use as building blocks for permanent transformation, permanent personal development. And that's not going to come from a professor that's just written a book because they've interviewed a bunch of people, you know, and somebody thought up a theory.

Yeah, which is. That's a whole other podcast. We should do a podcast on that. We'll do that one on mine because we can offend more people, but we'll do that one on mine about. About the, the, the. The college professors and educations. But, you know, you write a book, so this is what I just heard you say. I just want to. Because I want to repeat this back to make sure you said you don't have the idea of what it's going to become. You have an idea of who you want to help, and you then find purpose in that. I was. I was on a. I got a phone call about, I don't know, five, six years ago, and a guy goes, hey, I got a guy you need to meet. And he just bought a business, and he wants your help, and he would like to see if there's any way.

You can.

Collaborate together. And I said, okay, what do you want to do? He says, hey, there's a buddy of Mine that owned a company out of Utah, and it was a hearing protection company, and it was called Sportier. Anyway, his name was Ray. And Ray called me up, he said, brian, you need to come down here. I know a guy who owned the business. He could use your service. He might be interested in doing business with you. And his name's Brent. He founded a little company called a Host Gator, or Gator Host sold for a billion dollars. And I said, all right. So I flew down and I met Brent. Brent Oxley. Great guy. Spent two days with him. Him and I got to know each other, you know, still speak about once a year or so. And there was another guy there, a shitty guitar player. You might have heard of him, Ted Nugent.

Yeah. Right.

So here I am sitting in a room with Ted Nugent, Brent Oxley, you know, Ray, myself, and. And we're sitting there having this conversation, and. And what I realized is, is that these are brilliant people. Ted Nugent is one of the smartest guys I've ever met in my life. Two days. Real brilliant people. Brilliant people. But one thing all three of those guys had is they had a purpose. They had a purpose, and they were eaten up with providing that purpose to people. Maybe you could just touch on that, because that's one inherent thing that you is in every part of your fiber. Because in wrapping this up here in the next 10, 15 minutes, serial winner. That's you.

Okay?

Best selling author, art gallery owner, artist, personal coach, podcast producer, influencer dad, business owner, financial services empire owner. Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of offices, tens of thousands, advisors that wake up every day inside of your organization and your business that you own. And I'm sitting here going. I'm sitting here going, purpose. You have to live your life without. With purpose. What purpose? Where do you find that strength? What. What. Where do you derive that purpose from?

You know, when we started the company, Brian, I guess we came up with the idea. We had the opportunity to build. It was a sales company. We went independent. A bunch of salespeople went independent. And the idea came, you know, like, how do you. It's like you. You know, you and Lindley are gonna build the dream home. You know, you start getting out the plans and how do we wanna put it together? So one of the things he said, what's our aim? Because we knew we were gonna be recruiting a bunch of people eventually and taking this thing big time. So he said, what is we want to be known for? And we said, we want to go out and create a company where you can reach Any type of financial goal you have, but also professional goal. And it wasn't really discussed that much what that professional goal meant, but I just instinctively understood it to mean, you know, that whole thing of people, they work their whole life. You say, I don't want to be the guy who works all my life. I look back and I say, all I did was make money. Who did I help? The professional goal is like, you made a difference, you helped people. And so the idea is, I think for long term momentum and satisfaction inside. There's two sides, Brian, to our brains, right? You got the creative side, the logical side. And I think that in your purpose you got to have your motivation. You know, you can get too complicated, but basically you got to have a motivation to where you're gonna, you're gonna do numbers, you're gonna have, you're gonna stack numbers, you know, the 70,000, this, that, the other, and you know, and it turns into income. You know, those are important, you know, to have the numbers to make the impact. You know, we're in 90 countries or, you know, around. I don't know how many countries are you in, but probably more. But the thing is that those things matter, you know, because that's how you establish that people are responding to this and everything, but. And the money, you know, follows that. But the impact, you know, like when they, like as Art used to say, when they pat you the face with a shovel or, or today is happening to most people in Florida, when they stick your butt in the crematorium and burn you to shit to a lump of coal, you know, what are they going to say that you accomplished? And they're not going to say, so is the so and so he made. You know, this is Elon Musk. He made a trillion dollars, you know, from running one company, good old Elon. And then he makes him. Okay, we've got our $4 trillion career guy, Elon. No, they're going to say Elon Musk. He went out there and invented these industries. He got, you know, reinvented, re. Energized the space industry he created brought in a whole new era of electric cars and, you know, and all of these other things he's done, you know, I can't keep up with them. But the deal is it's like, what did you accomplish that made the world better? That's what you, that's what your real long term value is, I think, because, you know, let's face it, the dollar value is always going to be inflation and it's not going to Seem as much down the road as it does today anyway.

You know what, that's such a profound statement though, because in financial services we sell the time value of money, but there's a time value of your career too. And the money doesn't keep up with the value of what you create. Because I don't know how many millionaires you've created, I don't know how many million dollar earners you've created. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of hundred thousand dollars earners you've created or that have gleaned something like myself that has went and changed their life. But I heard you say earlier today, and then we did a call a few weeks ago and you said something else and they were both in the same spirit. You said, today you gotta have daily goals and you got to get them done. It's funny because this morning, every morning I wake up, I have my daily goals. I don't, you know, I have a goal, this and this and this. But today is just my daily goal. Can I move this ball? You know, inch by inch? And then last week or two weeks ago, you said something about Elon Musk. You were reading something on Elon Musk that right now he's just got this week. This is what I'm getting done and these are the balls I'm moving. And that's all I'm worried about. And so maybe you want to touch on that because obviously you've mastered that with all the things you've been able to achieve in your life.

You know, that's a great question as relates to answering so many things, Brian, like how do you build your systems? How do you know where you know how to evaluate your people? You know, well, first of all, you got to have your goals. You got to have a set up your system. But then you find out, you know, you have your method, methodology. You know, like we, that's one thing we have inside the community. You know, if anything's going to work long term, you got to have a method. You got to have a method to your madness and otherwise you're just doing it by the seat of your pants. And we know the seat of the pants is, is the way the amateurs go. Pros, pros have, are organized for success. You know, they're set up for success, organized for success. I used to say that the pro knows what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and they do it where they feel like it or not. And the more productive you're going to become, the more you're going to be more professional in your approach. But as you do that, Brian, what will happen is barriers to that will show up. Okay, it's like, I want to get organized for success. I want to have this, I want to this, that and the other. It's like, wait a minute, you know, whatever. Whatever it is you want to do, the barriers will show up and then what you can. Some. The people who never get ahead, they never face those things head on. And Sandy Weil, I remember Sandy Weill had these 11 rules of running, you know, and he went to the number one company in the world in the 90s and, you know, from scratch really. And he. One of his was, as soon as a problem comes up, jump on it immediately. Don't like, table it, you know, I'll get to this next week or whatever. And it's like, handle things right now, you know, be a now person and get. Put your. And when you're doing that, you know, I believe that you could say Musk is a multitasker, but at any given moment, he's laser focused on one thing, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, my brother worked with Tom Petty for 40 years. And Tom Petty, anytime they were in the studio, he gave everything he had on whatever that song was that they were working on. There was nothing else mattered in the world. Didn't matter. They'd written hits before. That particular song had to be the best it could possibly be. Every. Every concert. He never took any concert for granted. Every time they did a concert, that had to be the best possible one. And you say you build by focusing in with everything you've got and you don't let things. The alternative, Brian, is you let things slide. Well, you know, you know, our system's working, except for some things here that means it's leaking. You got to look at. When you have a system, you have an operation and something is not working, you got to look at that as a leak. And you got, you know, a leak and a dam. A little leak in a dam will bring the. Eventually get bigger and bigger, bigger, bigger and bigger, and the whole dam will come apart. So as soon as you see a little leak, you know what you want to do, you know your time frame and. And as soon as you spot a little problem, you know, you know how many. My gift in medicine is that, you know, my curse in medicine, a lot of people have a lot, you know, they've got this, that and the other deal. My curse is I get skin cancers. I've had 40 Mohs surgery, probably 45. Most skin cancers. I'm a veteran. I'm like a pin cushion. I have made my dermatologist career out in Basalt, Colorado. And the thing is, I'll go in there and they'll say, you know, and everything's fine. You know, check me. And they do the wellness check. You know, they check your body, and they'll say, what's this little thing here? And I'll say, oh, that's nothing. Well, they noticed one. One time, it was like, on my nose, Brian. It's like. Like over here. It's like, wait a minute. What's this little thing here? Nothing there. I don't feel anything. No problem. Let's just do a little biopsy. And then by the time they got through doing the biopsy, it's cancer. They'd cut off about half of my darn nose. And fortunately, the body is miraculously designed and it grew back. But the thing is, like, a lot of problems don't show up much, but show up a little bit. But if you're an eagle eye and you know this thing is supposed to work, right? Dadgummit, you know, and you're expecting this thing to work, right? Because you're expecting results. And then when it doesn't, there's a little squeak over there. You better oil that squeak, because it's going to turn into a bigger squeak, and eventually it's going to rust out that joint and fall apart. You know what I'm saying? Like bearings and a car wheel. And so the deal is, you got. You run your business for success, high intensity, no apologies. And then when things start to go wrong, jump on it. And don't let it get key. Stay in control. Don't let. Because the only thing. You know what I found out in my life? Here's a rule. The problems come from areas that you ignored.

I think that from my perspective, it might be why I was so attracted to being involved in having your influence in Lindley and I's life. Because when we got together, I was just enamored with how focused you were on everything. And I used to sit there in meetings, and we would just hear these guys say, just do it. What do you do?

You just do it.

And I love that. I'd get up, I get so excited, and I go, okay, but now what the hell do I do? Like, I didn't. I was like, I don't need to be a bigger motivated idiot than I want to.

I am.

So when I. When I met you, it was what to Say when to say it, how to say it, what to do. And I use this still today in everything. What to say, when to say it, how to say it, what to do, when to do it, how to do it, teach that, train that, keep it in front of people. I learned to be positive, polite, honest, and poignant. That was something I said. I use the PPH formula for everything. Be positive, be polite, be honest, and be poignant. That was Larry Waddell to a T. You know, you were positive, you were polite, you were brutally honest sometimes and super poignant. And so I was like, that worked for him. Let me put my personality in that and let it work for me. And then I think that the other thing was that you wanted to challenge yourself to stay in front of your focus, not behind your focus. You were always in front of your focus. Larry Waddell was always in front of his focus. And that was the results. To produce results for people produce results. No matter what it was. Whether you were an author, running a podcast, building a financial services empire, you were always in front of your focus with what to do, what to say, when to say it and how to say it, what to do. You know how to do it, and you never deviated from that. You were brilliant at it, and you still are.

Thank you, Brian. You know, the clock is ticking, and it's a matter of being aware of the realities. You humble enough to realize you're not immune from the fact the clock is ticking. Time will run out at some point and grow. There is a. There is a law of gravity in business. You know what it is. Grow or die. And you can ignore it, or you can adjust your life, build your life around it. But if you're not growing, your diet, and it starts gradually, you know, it starts by you going stale. You know, you start to flatline. But, you know, it's just a matter of time before you go down. If you stop heading up, you're going to flat line and you're going to go down. And the thing is like, problems will always come in, but I'd rather solve smaller problems than bigger problems. And there's like, jump on them. Hammer that thing down. Rather than, you know, it's like you got a snake loose in your house. Or, you know, and if you don't kill that snake, it's going to go have babies. And now you got 20, 20 little snakelets in your house, and pretty soon your whole house is full of snakes. You know, I see a snake in my house. Okay, I'm calling the police. I'M calling the fire department. I'm calling the exterminate. We're going to get that thing before it reproduces, you know, 100%.

And I think. I think that. What, when and how.

Yeah, absolutely.

You just always kept that in front of me. What are you doing today? What do you want from this? What, What, What? When, when, when and how are you going to get it done? And so, I mean, literally, for 15 years, I got up and I hired, trained and promoted people. And I'll never forget, I was in Aspen. It was my second year there, first year here. Again, I don't know why you did it, but I told Lindley, I said. I called her from the office. I said, larry Waddell has asked me to come to Aspen. And he sent me a ticket. And she goes, okay, we'll go to Aspen and tell Larry I said hi. And I said, okay. So I'd never been to your leadership event in Aspen, and I was just starting to learn how to ski. Well, I became obsessed with skiing. I became obsessed with the mountains. I live in the mountains today because of it. I live the life I live. So your influence on me was profound, as you could possibly imagine. Everybody in my world that doesn't know Larry Waddell knows Larry Waddell because I talk to you about you all the time. But what I was blessed, God blessed me, was to be able to find some mentors. And you always said, what, when and how? And you kept that in my mind. But one of the things that I have to tell you is you changed my life by this in many ways. But the thing that really put me on a trajectory, and this is my last question. I just want to know. Not even your listeners. I want to know. Okay. You said to me, brian, you want to change your life and not make money and just make good money? Go back after this event. And you set the company record in promoting district managers for this company. And for the next 10 years, my office promoted more district managers than any other office. And that was my what, my when and my how for 13 years. And it totally changed my life forever. Ever. Totally changed my life forever. Why did you tell me that?

I never, you know, I never heard the. I remember the phone call, you know, and I wasn't sure I was getting through, but I remember. I remember the phone call, and I'm glad to hear it. But the deal is like this. The basic building block of any, you know, everything you build has got something you build with. You know, unless you're going to be pouring concrete you know, or steel. You, you got to have, you got to have a basic building block that you build with. And in business, it's teams, you know, it's like societies, free societies, Democracies are built off the family unit, you know, two to four to five, you know, hopefully family units. Dictatorships, communist societies are built off of cells five to seven, invisible, hidden, you know, because they keep the secrets. But they have all this network of cells that they can get their evil done with. But they have, they organized at the grassroots level, companies, churches. By the way, churches are big. Churches are groups of small churches. You know, the bigger they get, the more you have the subgroups, you have, you know, the things for the kids. And then, you know, a big, you know, as a church gets big. First of all, we're going to have something for the kids. And then you have, as you get tons of kids, then you have something for the elementary school kids and the high school kids. Then you get something for the preschoolers in the elementary school, in the junior high and in the high school and the college and the singles. You know, the bigger the churches get, they get teams, you know, groups inside there. And that's, you know, big is a whole lot of little. And for you to get big, you needed to have, you know, the district leader in our business was the first level of management, which is 5 to 7. That's the unit, you know, that's like the family unit, the district leader. And I knew if you focused on building those teams that you would survive. Because if you get an individual, individuals die. Individuals like individual salespeople. Those are cut flowers. They can come in, they can look great for a few days, a few weeks, a season, but they don't have any root system. Salespeople will quit. Okay? Salespeople are like cells. They'll die. A cell will die. They have a certain lifetime and they'll die. But if you have a team, if you go from a cell to an organism that reproduces, an organism can reproduce. Cells inside the organism can die, but that organism can reproduce. And so if you have a team, they might have one or two members on that team quit, but they can reproduce. And they could start, not only reproduce, they could multiply. And so for you, what I was saying to you in building your. Your thing is for you, you put your focus not on just sales, not just on recruits that are like cut flower. You get potted plants, you get plants that have roots that over time can continue to grow and turn into monster structures, you know what I'm saying? And so where you're constantly going ahead and you're not having to go backwards all the time like if you're always buying cut flowers. And so that was, what was, that was behind the whole idea of my four point game plan that people know so much about is you race a new person when they get involved to move into at least part time management as quickly as possible so that they can have some stability underneath them. You know, parents are a lot more stable than bachelor, you know, single people. And so you make. They're going to be more stable because they've got a team. They're going to learn more because people are going to be asking them the questions that otherwise you'd have to answer. And as long as they're answering those questions, they're going to learn the business quicker and they're going to memorize it because they never get a chance to quit. They're going to come to the meetings they're supposed to come to because they've got their own offspring. You know, they're not, you know, they're not going to be like the sorry dads to send their kids to church on Sunday and stay home watching tv. You know, they're going to, you know, they're going to go to all the important events. And so you're going to have a serious organization that you can build with and move forward with and compound. You can't compound if everybody's quitting all the God blessed time. So that was, that's a long winded version for that. But I never heard the result of that phone call.

Well, the reality is the result is that, I mean, it's changed my life. I mean, you know, I look back and I go, you know, I see all of what came from that development season in my life that you were involved in. And I look at now the several companies, you know, I get several, we own four different companies and it's, you know, all the employees, all the advisors, all the, all the, you know, dollars under management, the billions in sales. I just sit here and shake my head and I go, you know what? I was just a kid from Rural Route 3, Waverly, Iowa, that had an associate's degree in neat science that knew nothing about nothing in financial services, that Larry Waddell called his office and I thought his staff was mucking with me. And so I pulled a prank on your secretary and you still invited me out and it changed my life. Larry, this has been an honor to do this. You're an influencer of influencers which as John Maxwell Says leadership is influence. And being a leader of leaders is important. You're an influence of influencers at the highest level. And when they pat your face with a shovel, okay, we're not, you know, your homes, your cars, your.

All the. All the.

All the trappings of success will not be mentioned. But what will be mentioned is the hundreds of thousands of people's lives you've touched. And I just want to personally, as one of those. As one of those little starfish that you threw in the ocean to see.

If it would live.

You know that saying that the guy was walking down the beach and the guy goes, there's million starfish. What do you think you're going to do? You're not going to save these. This is useless. And the little boy picked it up and he took the starfish and it says, it wasn't for that one. Well, I was one of those. That ones. And I just want to tell you, I thank you and I appreciate you. And forever my wife and I will hold you dear in our heart. And as the one Christian to another, I love you, brother.

Thank you very much. Brian, you're very kind to do this. And let me point out that you're doing the same thing in terms of developing districts with the expansion of your outfitting business, the guide business. Because you said, how many you got already associates?

Oh, we have 165 booking agents in eight franchises.

Yeah. And so there you go. And see, when you're up to 80 franchises, obviously your company is going to be much bigger. And so now is the time to like for everybody, all of us, anything you want to have happen to explode your business. The reason I did that phone call about the districts is I was challenging you to set up a program. Like that's the priority now, Brian, set up a program to make that happen, and you did, and you stayed on track. And so the thing is, now you realize, you know, you can get the associates, you can get the franchises, everything. And so my challenge now for that business is to set up a program for it, get more of them rather than you just come. You probably already have it. But anyway.

I'm just going to do it a thousand times over. Brother.

This has been a blast. Absolutely appreciate you.