Larry Weidel argues that winners don't master everything. They "major on the majors": focus ruthlessly on the few high-impact activities that drive growth, then scale those. He uses examples from marketing, home building, and golf coaching to show how specialization beats being good at everything.
Good afternoon, Larry. This is Julian Martinez here in Miami.
Hey, how you doing?
My question for you, Larry, on this myth about winners. When somebody makes a decision like I have made that I'm sick and tired of just kind of being in the crowd and just want to stick my head up and become a winner, are winners the people that are succeeding? Are they good at everything or. Or is it that they focus on certain things and they just master those skills in those certain areas? What do you say about that?
Well, here's the thing. Over time, you wind up eventually, just through exposure, you get good at everything. You know, it's almost impossible. It's like being in the ocean, you know, Pretty soon you get to see most of the fish out there because you live underwater, you know, so what you want to do is. Here's the phrase. What you want to do is major on the majors. That's what winners do. They spend the most time on the most important things. What losers do is they major on the minors. They sweat all the details, and eventually you're going to learn everything. But it's. What you want to do is say, this is why I recommend if you run training programs or you're working with, you know, even if you have you and one other person, you're going to be training them. Your focus has got to be. If you're in marketing, I'll use the marketing business. Whatever your business is, your focus has got to be on what moves your business forward. Here's the operating principles. Grow or die. So the main thing is you want to be doing things that allow you to grow, where you're getting more done, more activity, you got more people. And usually that involves more prospecting, more. You're doing more of the things that the company, whatever business or company you're in pays you to do. And so those are the things that winners focus on. They focus on the things that will cause them to move up the ladder on income. And usually that is in the arena of activity, it's the amount and the quality, quantity and quality. If you're successful in anything, let's just say you start. I started as a home builder. If you start as a home builder, you'll take any job, any repair, any this and the other, any house. But what you do is, as you're successful, you want to get up to, like, say, the number of houses that you can build per year, a good number that you can handle. Then you want to get higher and higher quality. You want to get the best, the most profitable, the ones that give you the least grief, dealing with a client you want to cherry pick, this is what you find. Like, let's just say if you are a golf coach, let's use golf. Butch Harmon started off, he was. He's got five brothers. His dad was a pro. All of his five, four brothers are golf pros. He's out in Vegas. He coached Tiger woods on the way up. But now what happened with Butch Harmon eventually got where he coaches pros only. You know, he gets better and better and better. High quality. It's houses here if you're building over here. It's pros if you're coaching. And the ones he likes, the ones who will listen to him, the ones that are pleasant to be around. So right now, you know, Tiger woods left him long ago, but he's got like, Phil Mickelson and, you know, he's got a lineup of superstars because he's known as an outstanding coach. So you've gotta. He can pick and choose. You want to get. So you, you want to get to where you can pick and choose who you work with, what you spend your time on, and make the biggest impact. And so that's what winners do. They major on the majors, whereas the losers just run around trying to learn everything, do everything with everybody. You see, winners are focused on results. They're not just going to do anything with anybody. They're going to do it if it's worthwhile, if there's a payoff, and. And they don't really care if it's unpleasant, pleasant, or whatever. They're going to do what's necessary. They don't even know if they like it or don't like it. They do what's necessary. Because if it's necessary for you to grow, for you to move up, well, it ain't going to go away if you ignore it. So let's do it and get it over with and get to the other side. That's what winners do. Losers, they avoid it, they ignore it, they do other stuff, and they pretend to themselves they live in denial. So hopefully. Did that help you at all? That's something to get you started.
Yes. Yes. No. That was tremendously helpful. Thank you.
