Why Most Super Successful People Have Failed Early and the Advantage It Gives Them with Robby Clark

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 Wydell on winning.com webinar 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 talking with Robbie Clark, and we're talking about winning. Hello, Robbie.

How you doing?

And you tell me you're out in LA right now?

Yeah, yeah, my old. My old home. I lived here from, like 2005 to 2007. And, you know, I consider myself a Canadian who, you know, American who was raised in Canada. So lately I've been spending a little more time in the U.S. but, yeah, I'm in LA right now.

And let's give people a little background on it. You came up with what a lot of people think they would like to do, and that is you got into acting. And we're really in a lot of movies and TV shows and we won't name drop forever, but people like Will Ferrell, Charlie Sheen, and even Wayne Gretzky. I didn't even know that he acted, but.

I did a few commercials with him and stuff back in the day. I played his kid once. I played him as a kid at one point or something. And like, that was actually my first part I ever got was a commercial with Wayne Gretzky, but worked with him a couple times after that. But, yeah, that was my base at 11 years old. My dad was in the Chicago Opera. My mom was a Broadway singer. So we were kind of, you know, involved in the arts from an early age and then started acting around 11. And like you said, I've worked with a lot of people. Emilio Estes, Charlie Sheen, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon Olsen, tw Like, you know, everybody who's a who's who at that time, at least in Canadian productions, I was very successful from, you know, 11 through, like 18, let's call it. One of the reasons I feel I did so well is a. Because of work ethic. I was. I was always very committed to whatever I was doing, whether it was, you know, sports at the time or really acting. When I got into it, I really wanted to be good and be the best that I could do. And I had a very encouraging Asian at the time, too, Norbert Abrams, who was like, you know, compare him to, like, the Ari Gold of Canada. So he's very hard on you, but he's making sure that you're doing the Right thing. So, unlike other, you know, kids my age at the time, I would always show up to auditions completely off book. So I didn't matter if it was three pages or 10 pages, I would know everything by heart, didn't need to look at the script. And it was that work ethic that allowed me to be successful at a young age. At 15, 16, though, I started getting other interest and more into, you know, athletics again in women and the things that come along with, you know, having a little money at that age as well, too. And, you know, I was able to maintain acting or keep acting for a while because of the momentum I had. But eventually that momentum runs out if you don't have the work ethic put in place. So that was kind of my first experience. I didn't know it at the time, but first experience with what it took to be successful. And then by the age of 21, like, I was completely done with acting. I'd actually filed for bankruptcy because I'd made seven figures. But then I managed to spend it all because I had no financial education. And then from there I went to actually serving tables for a while before trying to figure out how business and money and those things work, because I had no clue.

Well, let's let people know how well you did. You won two young artist awards and 2001. 2002. And that's a big deal.

Yeah, yeah. I was flown out to LA for that. It was a huge deal at the time, like in Canada, not to, like, you know, toot my own horn, if you will. But we. I know for my age group, I had more days on set than any other Canadian, like, kid my age at the time. Right. So I was very successful. It's not quite like the States where, you know, you get paid more for every single production. There's kind of a cap in Canadian productions, even though a lot of them are actually just American productions filmed in Canada, works a little bit differently. So, yeah, no, you know, at 13, 14, 15, even 16, 17, when my work ethic stopped, I was convinced, like, you know, I'm going to be a movie star. This is the way it's going to go.

Well, that's the problem with, you know, I always tell young people, the test of you when you're young is will you be consistent or not? Because usually success, it's not, can you be successful? But will you be consistent? Because it's hard for success not to go to your head. You have, you know, you don't have. You haven't been out there on Your own long enough to have your root system and support system in place and to where you've been establishing your own order and structure in your mind, basically about, you know, what you know, you've been doing what you've been told, you know, and it's almost inevitable that, you know, bright young successes go haywire early on if they don't have someone to say, hey, this is what's probably going to have to, you know, congratulations, take a picture of yourself right now because you're getting ready to go right down the toilet. If you're like most young successes, because you're going to take it for granted, you're going to lose that work ethic. But if you can be that rare 1 out of 100 that has success and keeps your head together, enjoy, have some enjoyments, but realize the bigger payoffs are down the road. If you stay on the success track, the hard work track, you know, what you're tasting right now is just a small fraction of what could be there for you. If you have someone kind of explain it to them. Why to stay on track, there's a chance you can avoid it, but otherwise it's inevitable that you're going to do stupid things, you know, because we all develop the ability. I used, I've always told our training, our trainees at. You develop the ability to spend 25% more than you make. When you make the biggest check you've had in your life, you also develop the ability instantly to spend 25% more.

Than that, at least. Yeah, no, for sure. I think that's an important part. But you know what? Like, I always feel like I had a, you know, with my mom, at least a good support system, at least in terms of being encouraging. But ultimately I've found that the most successful people have failed and they've needed to fail really hard and bad. And I think that some of the issues sometimes you see with entertainers or athletes growing up as if, you know, if they haven't failed big, sometimes they don't come to that realization until that happens. Like, the best companies I see run from people around my age who have failed. The one big difference that they make is they no longer take things for granted, whether that's their team or their clients, they don't take them for granted. And I've noticed that the people who have not failed big, and I see this a lot, and it could be from momentum, like I said, you can see this in athletes, celebrities and business owners. If they've not had those big failures that they've had to overcome. A lot of times they take other things for life and granted. And I think that's a very important lesson. I wouldn't be where I am today had I not fallen flat on my face and had to figure it out from there. I could be in the same position or I could bounce back. But I think failure is a big part of. Of life that's necessary for true success.

And how much did it hurt you to go through the bankruptcy?

I mean, it was more embarrassing than anything because growing up I was like, you know, a Canadian celebrity in my schools and things like that. I had six credits in high school and everything like that. So it was more embarrassment. I didn't, you know, at the time, all I knew I constituted everything to an hourly wage. Because even when I'm filming, even though I make, you know, hundreds of dollars an hour or thousands a day, when I go out and shop for something, I'd be like, okay, this is what it cost me to make that once my head was completely out of acting. Like I said, I had to switch my mind frame. But it was really embarrassment was the biggest thing. Like, I remember serving tables and I'd see people I know come in and I'd be immediately embarrassed because they knew me as, like, this, you know, the guy who was on tv, you know, the Audi and all that stuff. And, you know, so it was humbling.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management, and has done.

Well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Yeah, and there's always people looking for reporters looking for a story. You know, you see that on online all the time. Look who used to be on there, you know, had their own TV series. It's now waiting tables.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I guess that wasn't big enough for those artists articles yet, but I know, you know, it's still to the same degree. You're right. Right. Like it was. It was for me, a big pride shock because that's not where I thought I'd be. And it took me a while to find a new path and attack that.

And so now talk about where you went after that. So that was age 21. You got that lesson, and now you decided not to run back to the acting world. Show business. But you wanted to get in a business. Why did you want to get a business?

Yeah, like, I began to hate acting around, like, 18, 19, probably through no fault of my own, you know, because I wasn't. I wasn't putting in the time. And I would tell people I was, you know, doing it for the money, and that's that you're never going to be successful thinking like that. And, you know, because I didn't have much of an education in school, I was actually doing a little bit of singing at the time. But I started reading probably, you know, around 23, 24. And, you know, one book that obviously stands out for a lot of people is Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. So, you know, when I started to understand that, I've always looked at sports and everything like a topic. If I want to get good at baseball, I got to go to the batting cages. If I want to get good at wrestling, I got to hit the mats, right? And to me, money and business is the same thing. It's a topic. And once you know that and understood I knew that at 24, I just knew I'd never studied the topic. And when I started reading those books, I was like, you know what? I got a couple of ways I can go with this. Do I want to staying entertaining? Do I want to continue singing? I felt like I was a couple years away in singing for being able to do something in my head. Like my writing was getting better, my voice was okay, but it needed to get better. And I had a background in singing, so I wasn't coming from scratch. But I made the decision to get into business because I was like, you know, ultimately, if I'm successful here, I could probably just go to recording studios with whoever I want for fun. And I was tired of struggling, you know, every week wondering, like, you know, stuck in the same situation of serving table, spending it all and doing the same thing the following week. I had to find a better way. Nobody was going to pay me an absurd amount of money because I wasn't educated. So the key for me was starting to really hone in on learning at about 24 years old, bought my first property at 25. And then I've successfully made every mistake stake you possibly can in order to get to where I am. And the biggest key has been perseverance through that. So I've Never been afraid of perseverance on things that I'm committed to. And that's been the journey. And it's still a journey because I still read every single day audio books, one to two hours a day. That's the majority of what I do with my day, is trying to learn because I feel like that changes my context in the way that I make my decisions on a day to day basis.

And so talk about that transition, how you did that, how you worked your way into that transition.

Yeah, so I remember driving into work to go bartending and I would, you know, I switched from like practicing my music to going full time practicing learning. So I'd listen to audiobooks on the way to work. If I was walking somewhere grocery shopping, I would just absorb information from the smartest people I could find online and mainly through audio because sitting down and reading is very like, it's time consuming. And so I figured, hey, if I can go out and put it on one and a half or 1.75 speed and just listen, I'm going to get four or five hours of reading a day around the wealthiest and best business people in the world. And from there it's going to change my context and get me, you know, smarter, if you will, in that world. So, you know, once I made that commitment, I knew I'm like, this is, this is a lifelong thing. And you know, my, the good thing about business is like, you know, as an athlete, you only have a certain period of time. Business is something you can get better at as you grow. You can grow with business. Right. And so it was just changing my mind to be focused and zoning in on that. And once I do that, I feel like I'm pretty, you know, competitive with myself to be as good as I can be and do as much as.

I can do that process. You're waiting on tables. So your parents didn't say, hey Robbie, we're going to float you some money while you find your new deal. They let you go all the way down to labor type whatever you could find. It sounds like.

Well, my dad had passed on unfortunately by that point. But my mom was, I had a stepdad too, but they'd gotten divorced and no, there was like, sorry. My mom let me live in her basement and that was, you know what I mean, rent free. So I mean that, that essentially was, was doing it in. But she like, you know, she could support herself. But you know, her biggest support that she ever did was our mental support. Like even on set she, she committed her life to her Kids and didn't take. It's not like she was stocking money away from our acting. Right, so. Right. So yeah, she was always there support wise but you know, financially. Yeah there too because I lived in her basement. Right, so.

Your first. So you went through, you went through that stage. How did you get out of the basement? What was your business and why did you choose it? You know, because obviously you want to get out of waiting tables and living in your mother's basement. So how did you make that happen and how fast did it happen?

After I started learning, I think it happened within like two years. When I say started learning, started really focusing on education and business because you know, I started my first business while I was still technically living at home. I also bought my first property while we still lived at home as well too. So by 25 or 26 I got in a place where I could store equipment as well too. You know, I had a few properties by that point so I was investing and building and stuff and at that time, but that's the first time I moved out and obviously never moved to moved back in. But it took yeah probably two solid years of learning and a lot of mistakes I could have. Like, you know, hindsight is 20 20, what I, what took me two years would take me two days. Now I made a lot of mistakes there that you know, I wouldn't. I still spent money in bad ways, but I was just beginning my, my learning process at that time and so.

How did you finance those, your, your first houses?

Uh, my first. Oh on the purchase side. So I've always. My personal residence I've typically leased because we live in decent areas and it was cheaper to lease than own. But my first rental properties I bought actually got together four partners and we literally put $2,500 together each and we bought a 100 or five. Five partners but $127,000 home and we were able to get it at 5% down, which was the first and only time it ever happened and. Cause you can't really do that in Canada at all anymore, especially for rental properties. But this is like2012, I think nine years ago or so. So. But yeah, so that's the first way I did it. The second home we financed because we sold out. I sold that one. Sorry. I paid out the other partners with our profits because we sold it for like 167 or 170 and bought it for 127. Didn't put too much into it but fix it up a little bit and then Sold it the following year. So I then use those proceeds to finance the second purchase.

So now, were you. Was it all hands on deck fixing these places up, or did you. Were you the one. Were they just silent investors and let you take the lead and do all the work and wait for the sale?

I mean, one of my partners in that deal is like one of my best friends, and he does a massive amount of real estate himself, too, Matthew Moxness. But we always decided it was better since we can, you know, do our own thing, to just cry on each other's shoulders when we run out of money instead of partnering together on a lot of projects. But, you know, I felt I did a lot of work there, I think. I think, you know, a couple of us probably did, but we, the ones who did, decided, hey, we can do this on our own as well, too. And so, yes and no, I'm not. I can't even put together the simplest IKEA thing. So I've never done any. Maybe a couple days of painting and stuff here and there, but I've always hired trades for that. So I try to pretend in business that I'm terrible at everything, even the things that I'm good at, because that allows me to build a complete company in business. Right. And I know from a smaller standpoint that's impossible. You're kind of involved in everything. And I certainly was. I was going on site, I was, you know, meeting the tenants, things like that, for the first few properties. But that was always important to me because, like, you know, in order to build a company and provide the most value, you shouldn't be taking up all the jobs and the resources. And, of course, at a smaller stage, you can certainly have maybe 5, 10% more efficiency if you're involved in absolutely everything. But then you're also creating a pattern and a habit for yourself that's gonna, you know, run you down as you grow your company larger and larger, and at a certain point is impossible. So I'd always known that because, again, I started with books of, like, you know, biographies on, you know, the real tycoons or, you know, reading up on Elon and these different guys and how they were able to build amazing businesses over time. And it certainly didn't start by doing absolutely everything and pretending that you're better at everything than everyone.

Yeah, very interesting how you cobbled together your game plan and resources and made a big shift in your life to really give you the chance to move up. And, you know, the thing about an actor, you're always gonna be. You're gonna be always auditioning unless you're, you know, Tom Cruise, you know, sometimes.

Him, but yeah, even him, you know.

It'S an insecure, you know, can be rewarding, let's say fabulously rewarding. But there is an insecurity there. You know, you got William shatner at age 90 plus, hustling for announcing gigs and, you know, TV spots and, you know, not, not to single him out, but at 90 years old, you know, there he is. And so.

And he didn't look at day over like 60, 65. So he's a miraculous person in himself, in his own right.

He's a miraculous thing. And he made probably a trillion dollars off of that travel. Yeah. Site.

Yeah. He works for fun too. It's. But it's incredible to see him embrace, like he's cryptocurrencies and he's so. He embraces change, which is, which is really unique for someone in their 90s, right.

Absolutely. And probably been the reason why he's been so successful for so long.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works and in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.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.