Why Small Daily Wins Beat Big Goals: The Adrenaline Hack Billionaires Use

If you don't wring it out, if you don't let it all on the field, if you don't go all in, it ain't coming all back to you one day.

Hello, everybody. We're here today. We're going to do something special. I've got my longtime great friend Brian Maimon with Rolling Bones Adventures, the largest outdoor application and whatever. Go ahead and finish that.

Brian Adventure Service. Yep. We say we're the world's leading resource in all things application and adventures. We do about 70,000 applications a year and we have vetted outfitters and expeditions all over the world. And, and so, yes, that's what we do.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah, we have a white love concierge service that supports people and we have agencies and advisors all over the United States.

And because there's so many people who hunt that, that are hiding from the woke public that you would never know about. Brian knows so many celebrities you would not imagine. But they, they, they want to keep their hunting adventure secret.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Because they don't want to get canceled from their income making opportunities on TV so they don't tell anybody about it.

Yeah. So if any, when they get around Brian, they, they behave themselves because they know that he's the keeper of the secrets.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah. You know that, you know what that is? That's your retirement fund there, Brian. And so anyway, I asked Brian who, who I know very well, who knows me very well, and we always enjoy spending time together. We thought my podcast, if you don't like this, blame it on my podcast people at Fame. And if you need a podcast, you ought to look Fame up. But they're the ones who suggest, you know, for the holidays, let's, you know, as they say, people want to know about the host. And so rather than get on here and rattle on about, about myself, I thought it'd be fun to just let my good buddy Brian come in and let him quiz me because he's got a probing mind and he's a great communicator. He's got his own podcast and to tell, tell the story about that rolling. Which is great. You can't tell. There's too much how you got your name for your, your rolling bones. The whole idea to do it. Yes.

So two seconds, it was we, you and I and 52 other constituents were able to take a company public April 1, 2010, many years ago now. And on Wall Street.

On Wall street.

On Wall Street, New York, ringing the bell. I was down on the Podium. But you were. But I was down. I was down with the little ingrates that were there with.

And Adam was up there. Me and Adam, we were up there.

You and Adam were up there. And anyway, 52 of us were on Wall Street. I think it's 52 or 58 of us, but anyway, the number's irrelevant. I left that day. The next day, there were several of us that went and spoke to our sales force over in New Jersey. And when I got in the town car to head to the airport, I said to my wife, I said, lindley, I said, lily, I'm going to start a business in the outdoor industry. And she just about lost her mind. She said, are you kidding me? We just took a company public. You were with your best friends in the world and you're thinking about starting a different business? And so I said, well, I read Larry Waddell's book, Serial Entrepreneur, and I'm one of those. That's me. So anyway, fast forward. In October of 2010, I was on a. On an adventure trip, hunting trip, and my buddy said, I was there two months earlier and it didn't go so well. He invited me back. I went again. I watched him hand some money to a rancher. He got in the car and I go, hey, how does this work? And he said to me, he said, well, you should start a company that networks outfitters and hunters and all these people together because applications and adventures are harder to organize every day.

And.

And you should start a company and you should franchise it around the world. And I said, yeah, right. And then that night I went to. But anyway, he said, what are you. What would you. I asked him, I said, nah. But I said, out of curiosity, what would you call it? He said, I call it Rolling Boats. And I said, okay. So I wrote it down. He goes, he goes. I said, what would your logo be? And he said, a skeleton of an elf. So I sketched it out and the. The company started. And today we have eight franchises sold, 175 advisors nationwide. And about. Yeah, we do about 70,000 applications. But, yeah, that's us. So anyway, and a funny thing was with all that, if I may, you were influential in all of that because we became buddies a long time ago and you have been a mentor of mine forever. So I'm excited to do this podcast and ask you a bunch of questions today.

All right, thank you, Brian. And hopefully people know a little bit more about both of us. Although I've had you on the podcast before, but I don't think we got that story yet?

Yeah. So anyway, it was fun and our, our podcast is called, it's called Hunt the World with Rolling Bones Outdoors. So anyway, we just talked about adventure travel all over the world and we have a lot of fun doing it. I'm going to have you on soon, so thank you. So you tell me, but I do have a list of questions for you and I would love your audience to know about you. And I'm gonna, if it's okay with your staff, I'll post this out all over our social media everywhere. Okay?

Absolutely, absolutely. Feel free.

Okay, so I'll let you take over. I feel like I'm hijacking it, but I got a bunch. When would you like me to start asking questions?

No, I want you to hijack it. I mean, it's your show now. You're, you're the podcast. You're, you're, you're, you're in the center console now.

I, I, I'm just so everybody knows, like, I don't have this big education and I wasn't built to be a millionaire. But I will tell you this. I was wired to be a entrepreneur and I built the components through resources. One of those resources for me was Larry Waddell. I landed in our financial services firm and I started doing pretty good in my branch. And Larry is like one of those guys that's always looking for talent so he can get with them, glean information with them, and if he can mentor him, great. If he can't, he's always absorbing, like from everything around him, you know, he's like SpongeBob SquarePants. He's sucking it all in everywhere, you know what I'm saying? And so just all the listeners know, he called my office and I thought my staff was joking, so I picked up the phone and it was his office staff. I think I was pretty rude. I'm like, yeah, what the heck do you want? Yeah, right? This is a prank call. And they go, excuse me, sir. No, this is really Larry Whannell's office and he would like to speak with you. And I was like, oh my God, I was so embarrassed. So anyway, Larry flies me out to North Carolina. I'd never had Steve Bass. I'd never rode in a town car. I'd never flown first class. And he flew me out on his dime and landed. And he said, tell me what you're doing. And I was like, dude, are you kidding me? So my first question you day is, Larry, why would you call a 30 year old guy, 20, 29 at the time 29 year old guy that you have tons more experience and send him a first class ticket, have him picked up in a limo and meet you at a fancy restaurant. Why would you even do that?

Well, Brian, it's kind of obvious. You know, you put on meetings, I put on a zillion, you know, a million three day meetings. You, you need to have, you know, if you're going to have a show, you have to have a headliner. You know, it's like even at the super bowl they go in and they try and get a headline act. And whether you hate them or love, at least it gives people something to talk about and get it helps know you leave no stone unturned when you're having an event and you like to have, you know, people you could bring in that people have heard about, they've seen about, but also people are going to bring excitement and energy. And so I saw what you were doing out there and you were in the age group that a lot of our people could, that were in the same age group that they were in and they could relate to. That's what I was trying to think. And the deal is like, let's, let's bring in somebody that, you know, plus you're way out there in Milwaukee, I guess at the time. And you know, you know, we're in North Carolina so we didn't see each other hardly ever. And so, you know, it's, you know, the other thing, Brian, is, you know, the further you are away that you fly in, you know, it's like nobody's an expert within 25 miles of where they live. You know, they just take it for granted. But you over the 25 mile level, then you be starting to become an expert. And the more thousands of miles in between, the bigger experts. So right off the bat, you came in as a big expert, people heard your name and so there's a lot of excitement. It was fun for me too. And you know, I don't know that there was any more thought on that than, you know, we, you know, we wanted what you had and we knew you could deliver. And so I was looking forward to what you could bring to the table.

Well, that's interesting to me because I just wrote down the word frequency because I think one of the things that I've noticed that I've gleaned from you in the years when Lindley and I talk about Larry Waddell is that you have three qualities that I see. Number one, you're a world class listener. At lunch that day you sat there and asked me questions and listened and. And it was funny because one of the smallest little things I got to tell you, and I digress for a second here to your audience. So I apologize about that, but I'd never been in a fancy restaurant like that. And I saw you pick up the salt shaker and you salted your hand, and then you salted your food after you tasted it. And I went to myself, well, what the hell would he salt his hand for? And then it hit me. Oh, he wanted to know how fast the salt was coming. This thing get. This guy thinks through everything. My God, he thinks through everything. But what I noticed about you is that you are a great listener. Okay? Number two, you want to surround yourself. You have an insatiable appetite to surround yourself with talent. Okay? And then the third thing is you have an expectation of yourself and everybody else around you that literally brings their frequency up to yours. And so I wanted to ask you also, um, what. Where was that developed when you were 20, 25? Who initiated this frequency expectation that you have that you just are so processed in your approach to everything?

I don't know, other than I can tell you what I think it is, you know, and, like, it's a couple of things, but Adam has this thing where he explains that if you don't have really low lows, you can't really appreciate the high highs, you know, and he's, you know, from the bodybuilding thing, he just came in, almost won a big bodybuilding competition out in Vegas this past week, and the came in second, you know, big national competition, but I've been with him for years, where he went in and he. He came, he. He. He bombed. Let's just say he went out on stage and it was humiliating. And, you know, to the point where I was humiliated. Everybody's humiliated. But, you know, he. He just had amazing ability to shrug it off. And the thing was, he always was moving forward. And because he's experienced those things, I mean, it was really sweet to see him up at least in the morning session. I felt it looked like he was going to win the whole thing, but he was in the middle where they placed the winners, you know, in the judging. And it was just an exhilaration just in that part of it. And, you know, the thing is that, you know, if you're not great, you know, God bless the people that are great athletes, great, you know, just geniuses, and everything comes easy for them, you know, that's just wonderful. Unfortunately, they never learn how to work hard. You know, and they're basically ruined for life because they can kind of dance their way. You know, I'm the prettiest person, you know, prettiest girl in the school. Everybody, you know, bows down when I come in. Everybody wants to be my friend. I'm the smartest person in the class. All the professors, all the teachers love me. But see, when you get out and I don't even have to study, you know, and so the thing is, when you have to work hard, you know, you're. You don't. You don't have to be the dumbest person out there. But, you know, I had to work hard to get anything, you know, and in sports. But we played sports all the time. There was nothing else to do. And so we played sports and it was never. There wasn't a sport that I ever had the thought of going pro in or even going to college in, but I just enjoyed playing. And, you know, we got and get as good as we could get out there. But you had, you know, you had to go through all the motions, this, that, the other. And I learned from sports, Brian, that when, you know, I got the lesson that served me well. And I'm not sure how many people get this lesson, but I got the lesson that winning is better than losing. Yes, it seems obvious, but, you know, you got. Athletes played their whole life and they really not clear on this issue because otherwise they would screw off in the off season. Screw, you know, you know, person who's got the idea understands that Tom Brady, you know, he never takes him. Michael Jordan, you know, people like that, they understand that. Kobe Bryant, they understand that lesson. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, those people understand that lesson because, you know, they don't screw up. Jack Nicklaus in golf, Tiger woods in golf, you know, they. And the reason they do it, not because they're workaholics so much, but they want the reward of winning. And they know. I learned in high school that not only is winning better than losing, anything you do at the highest level, the better you get at it, the more you enjoy it and the more there's rewards. And so it's worth working hard at whatever it is you're doing so that you can win number one, but if you can excel, the higher you go, the better you get, the more fun it is. You know, most people, like, if I say, do you like check? You like play chess? They say, no, I don't like chess. And you know why? They're no good at it. They've never played it. They can't remember the rules. And, you know, I don't like chess. You know, it's like why I don't like opera. I don't like opera. You know, I really, I really don't have much of a taste for jazz because I'm just not that of a. Much of a music fan to where I'm going to sit there and listen to him play all that noise. And so, you know, I, I like popular stuff. I like it where it's easy, you know what I'm saying? I got the same music taste I had in the 60s. And so the thing is that I like, you know, the things that when you go to the top, let's just talk music. You go to the top of the music business in the 60s, they're still playing your songs today, you know, you know, Fleetwood Mac, how many times am I, you know, the whole catalog. These guys are still raking in the renewals, you know, from writing those songs, performing those songs in the record company. So when you do something the highest level, it seems like you just never go away. And people always want to come back, you know, because you can relate to succeeding generations. And so everything's more enjoyable. Plus, everything is a pain in the butt to do. It's a pain in the butt to go on a hunting trip like you do. It's a pain in the butt to go to Hawaii on a vacation with all your kids vomiting on the plane, you know, got it, you know, right in the middle of everything, you know, that your beautiful six year old daughter's got to go poop, you know, right as everybody's, you know, you're hanging on the things and daddy, I got in the bathroom, Dad's guy's pulling his hair out. What am I going to do now? You know, the line's 100 miles long and I got to take her right now. And you know, it's just. I feel so sorry for some of these pair. Everything's a pain in the butt. And however it's worth it, nothing's more pain in the butt. Skiing, you gotta lug the skis and put the boots and this, that and the other. But you get there on the slopes, you forget all about that stuff, you know what I'm talking about? Because you did a lot of skiing. You just, you know, when you get there on the vacations and the change of pace and the travel and the fun things, once you get through it, it's so much fun, you don't even think about that stuff. I mean, I'll tell you, a pain in the butt. Go to Disneyland, Disney World. You know, you're walking the hot sun, the kids are whining. You know, you got lines to wait in. This is fun. But anyway, you get on the ride and you forget all about it. You know, we had the exit pictures with Mickey Mouse and everything, and it was a fun adventure. But everything's work. My point is, everything's work. But the better you get at it, even, you know, the better you get at, the more rewarding it is, you know? You know, you and I have a mutual friend, Omar or Pesa. And Omar is gone to. He's gone to Disney World so much. He's a genius at Disney World. I mean, he's taken his kids so many times. He knows everything. He knows how you pull up. He knows when you check in. You know, he's got everything down to his size. He knows how to cut the corners. Here he'd get the special deal. I swear, they start waving at him when he drives in the gates. And.

His Bentley has its own spot.

Yeah, right. And you know, they. It's just like he's been there so much, he'd become an expert. Now, I'll tell you, Omar will enjoy Disney World a whole lot more than me. And you would if we, you know, took a bunch of kids there, you know, because he knows the ropes. He's, you know, he's taking the time to get good at it and. But the thing is, we still enjoy it. You know, it's a vacation. You have fun, but it's still a pain in the butt. You know, there are elements. There's elements of work, anything you do. So the thing is, I learned that winning is better than losing. I learned that everything is better at the top, more enjoyable at the top. And those were some of the stuff I learned. And the other thing, Brian, here's the element about winning and losing every game you play. I'll give you an example of this chapter. This weekend in Vegas. Every competition, you have a winner and a loser. You know, in some races, you have, you know, you have one winner and everybody else is a loser. But anyway, there's winners and losers. You know what happens? They both. Both of them will pretty much burn the same calories during the game. They pretty much will make the same effort, pretty much, you know, exert the same effort most of the time. But you go in the losers locker room, they're dead dull, disillusioned, miserable grump. Because losing sucks the life out of you, okay? You know, you go to the same after the same game. You go over to the winner locker room, they're jumping up and down, they're happy, they're delirious with joy. They can't wait to the next game. They're slapping high five. Now, they both went through the same. You think they'd be worn out, exhausted, Too many? No, no, because winning, here's the thing that I've never heard anyone say. Winning gives you a shot of adrenaline that supercharges you to keep going. Losing gives you a shot of death, basically, that sucks the life out of you and drains you. And the thing is, Brian, it even is down to the smallest thing. Like if you and I, you know, like when we go out on hunting trips and this, that and the other problems comes up, questions go, how do you get into this gate? How do you go over here? Where are we going to eat tonight? You know, how. How do they do that here? What happens is. And this is why your company is so efficient. I mean, so successful. I know, in hunting, because there's all kinds of things that even you got to go through before you even set the thing up, you know, but when you do, here's the great thing. Every time you get an answer, you got a problem. You know, we've had all the problems we run into with these hunting trips, you know, like with Mike Tunnel even where you're going to eat for dinner, someplace where you could eat and not get sick in Mexico.

Well, after the first year, after the first year of that, you and I knew that wasn't his choice anymore, right?

We didn't let him choose dinner, the eating place. But the thing is that even, you know, every time you have a problem, a question, every. And you get an answer, it's like, yes, okay, you know, there's a little shot of adrenaline every time. That's why small goals are so important on a daily basis, Brian, to have. Line yourself up. Small, achievable, don't give a. You know, you want to get things you can do and you can exceed. Because when you do that, you're going to get a little shot of juice, a little shot of adrenaline where you can say to yourself, you, yes, it's happening. Okay, I'm getting there. You know that that problem's behind me. You know what I'm saying? It's like a checklist thing. Yes. Yeah, it's not that you just got it done, but you got. It's like turning in your homework early, you know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, I got that off my back, you know, it's just, that's one thing that goes along with winning and losing. So I had all that in my mind. And that's one reason I always, you know, pushed. But as you know, I got out there and worked 100 hours of work a week and four years in construction building 100 houses and 80 hours a week. Basically. 80 to 100 hours a week. I built 100 houses in four years, coming out of Georgia Tech with my building construction degree and still got laid off, you know, because the economy went down. And I said, the heck with this, you know, you know, bust my rear for four years and excel. We excel. I built the houses. And guess what? Once the economy opened up, I'm gone down the road, I've lost, you know, because our company couldn't pay support. Me and the other guy. So I. I went, I went like laid off type thing and said, I. Because I said, I'm not putting up with this anymore. He stayed with it, and guess what? He was elected president of the Atlanta Homebuilders association the next year. That's how good our houses were. And I built the houses, okay, but I still got laid off, you know, and because why? Oh, there was an oil embargo in the Mid east. And, you know, they, you know, the sphincter muzzles of all the banks tightened up and nobody could get a loan. And so, you know, there's a house that sit out there and the contractors are sitting on all these construction loans, having to pay construction loans on, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight houses that were already finished. It should have been sold, but then buyers couldn't come up with the money. So that's why, you know, I was out on the street and I said, this industry sucks. You know, it's too much of a roller coaster. I said, I'm going industry shopping. And so I went out there. But I think the fact. So I had to go on food stamps and unemployment, but I didn't mind doing it because I knew I had, I had, I had to find a better industry. And fortunately, I had the inspiration to ask the question, what industry did well during the Depression, the Great Depression? What industry did the best? And someone said, financial services. I said, sold. And I'm going to find a way to get into financial services because I ain't going through this crap again. If I ever work 100 hours a week again, that's going to be in an industry. This work worth putting that effort in. And so the thing is, when I came in, you know, I've been on the Bottom, you know, I've been at the mediocre level, having to work, like in school and where you had to work to achieve any kind of greatness. And so I understand effort, I understand work, and I understand you can improve your, your position. But, you know, I, I've, I've had, I've gotten hit with a hammer and knocked right down the toilet, blindsided by something. I couldn't control the economy. But like all things, it turns out, to the good. God uses things that happen to you to the good. Because it forced me over earlier on into a really wonderful industry, which was financial services. And so without that surprise there, I would not have, I would have made the change. So the thing is, I've been put through the paces, right? So I guess that's, those are elements that come to mind when I say, why am I such a lunatic?

Well, it's just, it's interesting to me because I watch your, you know, I'm big on frequencies. And then I try to, you know, I try to put everything in a vertical in my brain, okay, this person's this way, this person's that way because of this, because of that. And I think human nature wants to create these silos or verticals and, and say, let's departmentalize their success because of this. And you know, there's a million books written on success and winning and all that, but when you get a chance to talk to somebody, I feel like these podcasts are so good, this particular podcast, and I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I don't even listen to my own podcast, and it does really, really well, but I don't listen to that crap. So anyway, but you know, I don't mean crap like crap. I'm just not. But, but I've listened to this one and I really enjoy the approach that you have. Your hat says hustle. Er, let me ask you a question. Is that your hat?

No, It's a company in town. It's an interesting story at Red Vanley. And it's three brothers that came from a family of kind of like, you get the meat business and now your son's going on into the, you know, doing well in it, you know, and you, like you showed me before we started this, you got a big, big operation, you're getting ready to open big retail center for meat, old town, old style butcher shop. And with, with what Lindley found, you know, from inspiration she got from over in England. And so the thing is, they do the same thing in clothing. And I can't they make the hats. I love the hats.

Oh, I love the hat.

The R is for Red Vanley, you know, and I'll give them their credit, but they nobody makes white bill black hats. So until I find someone to make these hats, then I can put big hitter across the top or other, other type things. That's a work in progress, Brian. But I love this hat. And I said mine, mine.

Well, I love it too. It reminded me because and every time I see you in that hat and on social media and stuff, I think of the old saying, hustle, don't take talent. And that's what I think of every time you tell that story and I've heard it lots about the construction, the food stamps, finding a new career. You hustle and I would love you to tell this story. So this is less of a question for you about this but, but it is a question because I think everybody that's listening, you told a story one time, I've heard you say it a few times, where you work your butt off. You didn't know it was going to go. You moved into a new area, you had comfort here, you were doing great up here. Everything was good in this location. You said, I'm going to go for some ungodly stupid reason. That's what our spouses would say. But there's something in you that said I'm going to be somebody and I'm going to go do this again in a new area. And, and you talk about that you had a deadline and you literally fell asleep in a hotel with your suit on and woke up 10 hours later and you hadn't moved a muscle. And I think your audience should hear that story because it's easy to go, oh yeah, Larry, you want a billion dollar financial services empire and you know, you have all these businesses and you've done so great with all this communication and training and systems and income driving opportunities. But what was it that had you make those breakthroughs? And I think that that challenging yourself and those breakthroughs and getting through those self built limitations really do open up new doors that go, dude, if I did that, I can go do this, then maybe you want to tell that story.

Well, it's a combination of stories really. You know, but the thing is, but the first thing is the reason I moved from Atlanta was, you know, we're expanding company and you got your, you know, you got your own McDonald's for example, like your own store, your own training center as being a regional vice president, an rvp. And Art said, I'm Putting a. I'm putting moratorium on promotions to RVP in Atlanta, Georgia, because we want to expand nationwide. So if you want to get your own thing and get your own training center and be able to build other offices, you got to get out of town because we got to expand.

We don't want to.

We don't just want to inbreed here in Atlanta. It's like. And here's what. I was fine with that because I didn't want to ever leave Atlanta because my father got moved. Every 15 seconds in the military, any day a letter could come moving, you know, saying, you gotta move.

Then we don't.

We don't give a crap how happy your son is, Larry in town, and how many friends Larry has. You gotta move to the other side of the world. Sometimes we go to, you know, overseas. Sometimes we go to New York. Sometimes we go to Houston, Texas. Sometimes they even moved us to South Georgia, which we were delirious with joy about. Cause we're. We were like, you know, an hour away from my grandparents. Praise the Lord. Unbelievable. Three months after getting down there in South Georgia, they said, okay, now you're going back to Oklahoma. And it's like, what the heck? And so I resented the mailman bringing these letters. And I said, you know, if I. When I get, you know, one. When I become an adult, I. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I ain't moving around every 15 minutes. And so I never wanted to leave Atlanta. That was my mindset. But, you know, you grow and you change, and you. You got to be flexible. What happened was things change. And Art said this. Art Smart, he said, you know, for those of you all you want to, you know, you don't want to move, you know this, you know, you know that. The idea of relocating and everything, you don't want to do that. You're happy in Atlanta. You're doing well. That's great. But he said this, but if you reach the point. You reach the point where you want more, you know, that's for the bank. Well, that's what I offer. That's what you offer with your. Your. Your guide service, your planning service. That's what I do in my community. And the podcast is like, if you want more now, if you want more, that's your problem. That's not my problem. You know what I'm saying? Like, if I did not want more, I wasn't ready to go. Ari couldn't make me ready to go. He couldn't make me move. But he said, if you get ready where you want more, you want to move up and we have a place for you, we're going to, you know, we'll handle that and you'll wind up moving out of town, but just don't worry about it till you're ready, you know. And so that's what it is in life, you know, we can't, I'm never, I'm not big on this for selling thing in the tree, you know, Tricky Dick sales techniques you learn from the sales gurus, you know, like, and throw the pen across the paper and get, you know, because, you know, you know, you could force people, you know who you force in, Idiots, weak people, you know, the kind of people, the kind of people that a serial killer which would spot walking down the street and, and tell by their body language, they're weaklings, they're insecure. I could go kill them, you know, because I could talk them to get in my car and I can talk them into doing anything. That's who you could sell with all these little Mickey Mouse sales techniques. But I think.

I, by the way, I love that. I love that. I agree totally. I do sales tactics one time couldn't, I shouldn't, I wouldn't have. I. I felt like I needed to shower for a week afterwards.

You know, they do that with prisoners and you know, rapists and murders and this and the other. In prison they say, how do you spot victims? You know, how did you spot the victims that you know, that you chose? And they said, well, we're out there and we just watch their body language. And you see people walk in and they're slump shouldered, looking down and this, that, the other. And they, okay, okay. I'm like a lion, you know, it's like a lion in the jungle. They go out there and look for the weak animals they don't get for the biggest powerful deer or elk or whatever, you know, or elephant or whatever. No, they're going to go for the weakling, the sick, the older, the younger, you know, saying it's the same thing, you know, predators. And so I don't believe in predator sales because usually those are not really good clients. They're not going to keep it what it is for, for 10 or 20 years. A little hard to build consistency. And so, you know, so I never thought I was that great of a salesperson, but I could show it to him, I could tell them about it. But again, it was what's inside of you. So anyway, I went, I was ready to go. And when, when I was ready to go, Brian. You couldn't have stopped me. And because there was no logic for me to go, I didn't have the money to go. I'd never been, you know, I've never been up there. But, you know, I went about it methodically. And, you know, I got out. I took a year to plan the move. And every year I'd wake up in my mind and I was up there and.

Tell everybody where you were going. Tell them where you were going. Through the move.

I went up to Greensboro, North Carolina, and I got. Somehow I was in Atlanta, Georgia. My family had always gone to Georgia. You know, I went to school in Atlanta, Georgia Tech. I'd always gone to South Georgia to see my family, my grandparents growing up. My mother wound up settling there after my father died. And, you know, so Georgia was more or less home. But when it came time to move, they wanted to move me to New Orleans. They wanted me to move to Texas. They had all these ideas, and I said no, because I've been in the Southeast bulk of my life, and I like to look up. When I look up, I want to see blue skies, cumulus clouds, and. And I want to see green, you know, pine trees and green trees. And I want to feel like. I want to be able to feel like I'm at home, you know. And so I said, where can that be? Where? I don't move too far from Atlanta. I knew that I didn't need to move to, like, Vermont or some. Some place. And so the deal is that I. I got, you know, somehow. It's amazing, Brian, and I know you've experienced, when you decide to do something, how your mind opens up and shift these two little secrets. You know, it says in the Bible, God is the God of secrets. And if you want to know the secrets, first of all, get on track for what God wants you to do. He's not going to tell you secrets to do something that's off his radar. But, you know, you get yourself linked up with him and the timing there, and you find out all of these secrets start coming to you. And one secret was there is in the library a stack of magazines and they call the Statistical Numerical Metropolitan Studies, you know, whatever this magazine was. And every August, they put out a thing ranking the population centers in the United States. You know, how, you know, how many people per town, their income levels, this that, the other, and the just. Yeah, I forget the full name of that, but I never even heard of that thing. I don't know how I heard about it. But I went and got it and I did research and I found out between, you know, a real quick thing here's. I said, well, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. I can go north, south, east or west, right? Well, I can't go east because that's the ocean, you know. You know, you need to be, you know, raw material of every business back then. You're not on the Internet. You gotta be see people, you know, so back you. This is in 1978, 79. And so it's like, well, I can't go east because that's the Atlantic Ocean. I can't go south because you go to south out of Atlanta, you go down to Florida to retire. Nobody goes to build a. You know, at that time, nobody goes to Florida to build a national powerhouse organization, you know, then you can't center it there. So if you go west, you gotta go all the way to Dallas. And I don't wanna go that far, you know, and so got to go north. And so the first I found the biggest population center between north of Atlanta, between there and DC Was this town that I'd never even heard of before. Greensboro, North Carolina. Because it had a. It was the center of about 5 million people, believe it or not. You know, it's a little north of Charlotte. And it was the. At the time, was the only coliseum in Georgia. That's where they had the ACC basketball tournament. That's where they had all the concerts. Everybody was used to hubbing into Greensboro, where you spoke at that Coliseum. That was. When I moved there, that was the only one. That was the only game in town and the whole state. And so. And that was halfway between Atlanta and D.C. so I said, this is a perfect spot, you know, to radiate out and to spiral out and put other. Other offices out to build a training center.

Oh, and boy, was there, I mean, hundreds of offices up and down. Because you ended up getting up to New York. You got to all those towns.

Yeah, got everywhere. You know, I actually had offices in la, San Francisco and San Diego, you know, because people. People know people and, you know, they've got a friend there. They came from here, now they moved here. They want to go back home. They. So the deal is once you start that, you know, but that. That kind of thinking that came. And so anyway, we had to get people in there and we had to put. We had to build a training center. We had to ramp it up. And you do that with, you know, you got to have your daily, weekly, monthly thing. And a big part of it was doing the big events, the three day weekends where you can show the big picture to people. You could do a lot of training. You can bring in people that high achieving people from other parts of the country that people otherwise would never get a chance to see face to face and hear from. And you know, and you kind of spread their magic. And so that's why we brought you in. And because we had, you know, when you came in, we probably had people listening from 20 states, you know, and then they would go back home and spread that when they picked up from. From you and infect the their offices. And also that was a regular six to eight week cycle we would do. Back then we did not have the communication systems. We now we've got, you know, we have the company television program, we have websites, we have everything.

Yeah, it's, it's constant communication.

Back then we had nothing. So we had to do the face to face events. And it was, you know, we start Friday night, kick it off Friday night, and then you go all day Saturday and then half a day on Sunday. But what, and so what would happen is when these events happen, well then you always have an early bird meeting for the serious people. You know, Friday afternoon you're running around all week getting ready for it. And so that particular one you're talking about was I had been on a rampage to get ready to pull this meeting off. And you know, by the end, so go all day Friday, those things. Usually you don't have a whole lot of big lineup. So I did the three hour meeting Friday afternoon, pretty much or most of it. And you're on your feet. Then you get people and then there's always one, a special group you want to take out to dinner. You know, folks that sucks a lot of life out of you to take a lot of people. You got a lot of people in for lunch, a lot of people, you know, and then you do the meeting all afternoon. Then you got to take a lot of people, they're delirious. They get to go have dinner with the big guy, you know, so you go there and then you get to the event. And then when you get to the event, you find out how screwed up completely everything is. And it's like 15 minutes to start. So you're running around moving this. Get over there and get the stuff, trying to get things organized so you can start. And then of course I was too stupid to have an emcee. You know, this is the era where we all start where you're, you're too dumb to Delegate. And so I did everything, you know, I'm introducing everybody, I'm on stage, I'm never off my feet. The whole time I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. High energy, it sucks energy out of you. You know, we got 2,500 people, maybe 3,000 in the room. The bigger the crowd, the more it sucks out of you. And so we're doing the event, you know, you're introducing then closeout speaker. And so anyway, what you're talking about, that, that event that you're talking about, what happened that one event. Surprised it didn't happen every time. But I came home and I was so exhausted I came, you know, coat and tie, suit, you're all dressed up. I came in and flopped face down on my bed. I thought for just a second to catch my breath. And I didn't wake up until like 8 o' clock the next morning.

I hadn't moved, not a muscle. You're just out comatose. And I think that that's, that's what people don't understand. A lot of times I meet so many people that they, you know, they want to go run their own business and it's like the franchisees and, or regional vice presidents or branch managers or a new contractor or a guy who wants to buy a new butcher shop or anybody who wants to go get big, what they don't. And when I say big, I'm not talking just financially, I'm talking big time. Own their own life, have their own business, not just make it trazillion dollars. But I will tell you this, you said earlier, it's better to be great than not. It's better to win than not win. And so it always makes me laugh when people go, well, I don't know if the money motivates me. Good, you know, the hell with the money then. But what about the freedom that the dollars can give you? Okay, let's just go there. But anyway, my point to that is, is that I think that that's one of the best examples I've ever heard of. Like, dude, if you don't ring it out, if you don't let it all on the field, if you don't go all in, it ain't coming all back to you one day, you know what I'm saying? God, I feel like God tests you, you know what I'm saying? Now some people get lucky, you know, blah, blah, blah, but, but not Larry's and Brian's. We don't get lucky. No.

The thing is though, but Brian. That's where we learn the things. And we wouldn't learn any other way, you know, like that. You know, it's just like, because we, we all are stubborn and thick headed and bullheaded. Run down the road and then you go like, I can't keep doing it this way. I got to find another way.