Larry WeidelMentor and Coach Empowering Million Dollar Earners

💡 Why Mentorship Speeds Up Success

21 Apr 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:23

In this episode of the Big Hitters podcast, host Larry Weidel interviews an unnamed guest about their journey toward entrepreneurship. The guest recounts an early conviction that they could become a 'mover and shaker,' inspired by a strong role model— their World War II‑veteran grandfather who was a community and church pillar. Despite this confidence, the guest lacked direct exposure to entrepreneurs and only began to understand entrepreneurship in middle school. They pursued a corporate career in information technology, managing the IT department at Washington, DC TV stations Fox 5 and WDCN. While working there, they experimented with side ventures, learning through trial and error. A key insight emerged: without a mentor to guide and demonstrate the path, progress is exponentially slower, underscoring the episode’s central theme that mentorship accelerates success.

Chapters

Hi, I'm Larry Weidel. On our podcast, we sit down with the top entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders to explore the moments that shape their failures, breakthroughs, and the mindset behind lasting success. Come join us at Big Hitters. Tell us, how soon early in your life did you get the idea I could be a mover and shaker out there in the world?
I always felt and knew I could be one. I just didn't know how to do it through entrepreneurship. Through my parents, through my grandparents, My grandfather was an amazing man, World War II veteran, pillar of the community, pillar of the church. So seeing it in front of me, I had great role models. But then the other thing is, like I said, I knew I could be great. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur probably by the time I got to middle school, but I didn't know exactly what entrepreneurship looked like. I didn't have entrepreneurs in my family. I didn't have business owners around me. So it took just a while to figure out what that was. In the meantime, I started a career. I worked corporate. My background was in information technology. I ran and managed the IT department at one of the TV stations in Washington, DC. Fox 5 and WDCN DC. But while I was doing that, I kept trying to figure out on the side, like, what does it look like to be an entrepreneur? I kept trying different things that I would try that wouldn't necessarily be successful, wouldn't work. But probably one of the first things I realized is that if you don't have somebody that can show you and you do things on your own, it'll take you exponentially longer to get the results.