Who Were Your Influencers? with Special Host Bill Orender

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 wydellonwinning.comwebinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here with Bill Arender. Hey, Bill.

Larry. Hello. Hey.

We're going to continue our series of you grilling me.

In my dreams, Larry.

And the thing is that the only thing that I'm scared of on this is that you're going to get me in a whole lot of trouble because I just take my filters off and let it run. So hopefully I won't get in too much trouble.

No, you won't. You know, Larry, one of the big things that everyone wants to know, who are the, the people in your life that had the biggest influences for this success that you had here? And maybe not their whole life, but who are the few people that kind of set you up for that success that, that eventually came? And when it came, it was astounding how fast it came for you. And who are some of those people?

Well, Bill.

I.

It wasn't complicated, you know, unless you have some kind of hang ups, you know, kids expect the best, you know what I'm saying? Like they want tennis shoes, they want the Michael Jordan million dollar ones, you know, and I just was, had a environment where that, I don't know that they encouraged it that much. I don't know if they expected anything great, but they didn't kill it, let's say that. And so it's like what, it's an extension of what I said earlier.

That.

I just liked winning.

And.

You know, growing up, it's just naturally you look at the best people in whatever it is you're doing, you know, the best athletes, the prettiest girls, the smartest people, the, the most fun people to be around. And I know you have those on.

Your podcast too, by the way. Seems to be that, that same kind of trend.

Yeah, if I, if I can. And yeah, because, you know, people who capture, you know, it's the thing about the wild thing, people that capture your imagination, you know, they, they don't just do things, they do it at a, another level. You know, like even if they're talking, they, they can phrase things a different way. You know, they just have something different about them. And what you, you know, once you get it in your mind that what anybody else is doing, you can do you know, any ideas are using, you know, and if someone uses a phrase, you can use that phrase. You can explain things that way. In fact, everybody in different specialties of life have their ways of expressing things. They have their language, and a lot of them are. Will apply in other areas, those concepts and. And you can pick those things up. And so I gravitate to people who've got. I always have gravitated to people who have something special about them, and that's what that are fun to be around. And also, you learn things from and you get things you can use to make your life better or solve problems quicker and, you know, move through life a little faster and with a little bit more fun. But that's why, like I said, you know, we always. You were the big speaker that we always gravitated to in the early days of our business because, you know, you always had something fresh, a different take. You'd obviously thought about things and had a way of expressing it that, you know, was entertaining rather than just plowing through the same field, you know. And so, you know, it's not just planting plants, but putting some flowers in there, you know, and, you know, having some variety people. Monotony causes people to lose interest fast. And so you, you know, you look for the people who could do special things. They basically, they have a gift and they're using it. You know, they're. And they're special. And so I gravitated to special people. And in the company later, I looked back and I found out that, you know, I'd always done this kind of. I wasn't really aware I was doing it growing up, but like at Georgia Tech, you know, I got involved in Campus Crusade for Christ. And, you know, they had programs and they had leaders that would come through and I'd gravitate to those leaders because they had ways of seeing things, saying things, expressing things that were unique. Fascinating insights. But, you know, my cousin, I tell you, my oldest cousin.

Right, right.

Edward invented the personal computer back in Albuquerque in the mid-70s, and that's where Microsoft came from. Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked for him. And so he always had a different way of saying things. He was. He was a powerhouse. But. And I asked him, you know, I asked him for advice. You know, he. He got straight A's when he. I mean, he had the military put him through college. And he stayed so long, they finally said, you know, you got to graduate, Edward. And in the last year, the last quarter, he took courses and he wound up with like 7 degrees.

Wow.

He had taken. He had studied everything up to where the last required course. And then he went on and studied something else. But he always got straight A's in everything. So I, you know, even before I went to Georgia Tech, I was. I went down and had a special session with Edward on how to get great grades. You know, and I'll always remember, he said, sit in the front of the room. Write down what the professor thinks is important. You know, things like that. And. And, you know, so he is brilliant as he was. He had a method. He had a system for, you know, going to class. You know, he just didn't assume, you know, I'll be a genius and get a straight A now. He had a system. And so I was picking brains, even. That's kind of one of the earliest ones I learned about. But when I got in the business here, I got with, you know, with Bob Turley and Art Williams, the founders and you and people like Bob, we saw Virginia Carter. You know, I wanted to pick your brains and find out everything you knew. And of course, we were in the sales era, and so you guys were like, naturally, it seemed to me, naturally instinctive, charismatic salespeople. I didn't know how hard you had to work to get good at it. You know, it just seemed like it was a natural, and I was not a natural. And I always thought that was an advantage to me, Bill, because when you're not a natural, you have to dig harder. And it means more to you when you get it and you take the knowledge serious, seriously. And Art always bragged that he was an incredible instant success at every level, and that's why people could relate to him. And I told him, I said, no. I said, I think you got that backwards. I said, I think they can relate to me because I was always floundering and mediocre at every level until I figured out how to make it work. And I said, I think more people can relate to me, Art. And so they. But I was always looking, following the best and brightest, mainly because it was more fun. I mean, you're looking for the wow. You're looking for the excitement.

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Move up if somebody else is doing. You know, I did hear this. You know, I heard a couple of phrases that really locked me into this, which was, great ideas don't care who use them. Mediocre people are a dime a dozen. You know, the thing, things like that, you know, great ideas are a dime a dozen of the people who use them are priceless. And so the idea that these were tools, ideas, phrases, things out there that if somebody else was doing them to be successful, you could find, you could unravel what they were doing, how they looked at something, what was in their mind, and you could do the same thing. But you had to figure out how they were looking at it, what they were doing. You'd hear what they say, you'd see what they do, but that's what I was always doing. And then when we went independent and we decided we were going to spread this thing all over the country, and we went from a handful of people to what, 150,000 or more now, offices everywhere. It was like recruiting and training. Well, you guys did. You know, that was not your expertise at that point. You know, everybody got good at it. But at that point, you know, we were kind of figuring it out. And then some of the early people who charged out of the gate, I was picking their brain and trying to figure out and put together pieces from them. So I've always followed the leaders, Bill, and it's like, I just don't want to waste my time. I did understand that there's great recognition goes to inventors, but I didn't want to be Thomas Alva Edison with 10,000 failed experiments in the basement. I wanted to be. I wanted to learn. Get the formula for how you make light bulbs, license it from somebody, if you had to license it to get. Get the formula, and then build factories all over the country making light bulbs. That's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to invent. The lonely life of the inventor was not ideal. Plus, we weren't getting paid for that. We were getting paid to market a product, take the message to the masses. So I wanted to take the message to the masses, and I wanted to build a massive army to take the message to the masses. And so people who figured details out.

About that.

I studied them seriously. You know, I took it dead serious. And, you know, the more you do it and then you have success from it, you'll naturally kind of refine it, put your own slant on it. But the core foundational principles are the same. You know, the rest is just kind of personalization, you know, window dressing. But what happens is you teach yourself. The more you use something, the more you teach yourself about it. You know, somebody else can teach you the fundamentals of swimming, but there's a lot of it you're going to have to teach yourself by getting in the water and just, you know, interpreting what you're told in your body, you know, and pretty much any kind of performance type thing. So see what you know. We've all got to find out, Bill, is what works for us because things don't. That's the whole thing about the vaccine. I won't get on my thing about the vaccine. But there is no God blessed vaccine that'll cure everybody because we're all different. You know, you take vitamin C and you know, take 10 people to give them 1,000 grams of milligrams of vitamin C, you're going to get 10 different absorption rates. So one guy might have to take 10 times more than the first guy to get the same absorption rate. So we're all different. So you got to find out what works for you. Other people can be brash and bold and funny and bully people a little bit and maybe if you try it, everybody gets offended and hates your gut. So you got to figure out because meek minded people can be super leaders, big braggadocio guys can be leaders and everybody loves them. But big Bragg kadosio guys can also alienate everybody. You know, it's a matter of, you know, you got to get yours, develop your style and find out what works for you. And you know, that's what I was doing when I picked up and I would be picking up ideas from other people and pretty much the results, I went by the results, whatever we could get results from, I say, okay, that stays now what do we need to refine? Because you can always refine things. No matter what your project is or your program, there's always lots of moving parts, beginning, middle, end.

And.

You know, a lot of cycles you go through in that and the people involved in it processes you all in. And so there's always places to improve. And so when I look for improvements, any little particular thing, I look for who's the best at that and go talk to them.

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 and put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.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.