Winning in the Oil Business with CEO of Panex Robert Burr

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 again with Robert Burr and what a interesting conversation we're having. He is CEO and president of Panax. They're an oil exploration production company.

They're.

I don't know, it shows us. We looked you up. 300 barrels a day. Is that pretty much?

Well, that's a good start. We're getting there. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good start. What is Bur Wright Owner, Burrite, a.

Subsidiary of Panax that's also our company. Bur Wright, just to give you a little definition, Aaron Burr ran for president and this sort of thing. Vice president. The people that supported him were called Bur Wrights. Ah. And I always wanted to name one of my companies after using that name.

Okay.

That's a wholly owned subsidiary of Pennx. So we, that's our umbrella. We have buried acquisitions of Louisiana Burrit, acquisitions of Texas Burrit Inc. And of course, that umbrella is headed up by Panax.

And the purpose of those other companies are what?

Well, we operate in Louisiana, so we need a corporation there.

Okay.

Same same way with Texas legal. Yeah, legal.

Legal and tax entities, things like that.

Yeah, yeah. That's what the lawyers tell me to do, and that's what I do, you know?

So tell me, tell me about, tell us, tell us how somebody wins in the oil business. How did you learn how to win in the oil business?

Well, my brother was working for an oil company in Dallas and I was in the insurance business. Like I said, we, we live very comfortable. I made a lot of money in insurance. And he calls me and they fly me to Dallas to look from Beaumont, Texas to look at the deal. And that day a bunch of money came in and they're drilling wells and this sort of thing. And I like what, I liked it. I liked the revenue streams. The problem I had in the insurance business is I was 27 years old and I was selling $3 million worth of whole life insurance a year, which is pretty good. And I was selling 300 policies. Well, my mentor was 65 years old and he was selling 5 million a year from 20 policies. So in my little mind at that point in time, I said, well, that means I've got to let my Crew grow up. I'm already there. I know where I'm going. But I gotta let my crew grow up. And then they'll start buying million dollar policies when I'm 50 or 55. Well, you know, as my wife says, Bob, and time wait for no man. So I saw this deal and I saw the potential of it. And so I asked my brother. He was a Mensa IQ of 170 or whatever. Very, very sharp guy and a good salesman. He couldn't match me, and that's just a fact, and he knew it, but he was good. And I said, can you run the business, Gene? I said, if you can run the business, I'll raise the money. He said, I can run it. He said, you don't want to work for these guys. I said, no, not when we deal with people's money. I said, we deal with that money, and I take that as a sacred trust. I knew that right then that no one would deal with the money but me. If I'm raising it, I want to know where that damn money's going. And so that's what we did. And we started out just kids and never looked back. I sold our first deal and here we are today. So that's. I just finished a book called Leaving the Pack. And you'll find this very interesting. It's a short story.

Leading or leaving?

Leaving the house. Leaving the Pack.

Leaving the Pack.

And is it on Amazon or how.

Can people find Amazon? You can just check with our website if we have one here on it. I think there would be one for folks to call in or something.

Okay.

And I'll set that up. Okay. But I'm 18 and I'm leaving my hometown. And I went up to see my papa, and bless his heart, he's my grandfather. He's. He's about to pass away. Live back that old Louisiana swamp. Very, very, very intelligent man. Not much education, but as much common sense as anybody I've ever known. And he looked at me as on his old deathbed over there. And I'm not dramatizing this. This is a true, absolute true story. And he said, robert, he says, you got a spark. The rest of them how? He said, now, when you leave here, take that dirt road there and go back to the river, five miles back there. He said, take your time. He said, get out and walk down to the river. Get back in your car. He said, come up that dirt road and look at what's here. He said, son, there's nothing here for you. You've got to go to the lights. The lights for him was the city, and, Lord, I'm going up that road. And it really touched me because he gave me permission to leave that pack. I had to find my own pack. I had to do my own thing. And he gave me the confidence and the permission to do just what I was going to do. And he reconfirmed my belief in myself and each stage in my life. I finally left the insurance pack. I left it for the oil business. I never worked for anybody once. I broke on my own. I've never been. They put me on a draw selling insurance. $500 a month. That was a lot of money for a kid. Well, hell, I made 3,000 first month. So I went from Lake Charles, Louisiana, over to Beaumont, Texas, and I said, I want my money. I worked hard for that money, and I want it. Well, no, I think we'll keep that for you in a kitty because you may not have a good month next month. I said, oh, yeah, I will. I'll have a better month, but I want my money. I'm going back to Lake Charles with my money. And so he wrote me a check for my money. Well, that was the only draw I ever been on in my life. So I've always worked. Hell, I've always worked for me, where I made my money to pay me. But I've left the pack a couple of times to increase my pack and satisfy my needs. As far as a challenge, I just love a challenge. I love for somebody to say, you can't do something. When I was a kid, a little story you may really enjoy. But I would read these autobiographies. Thomas Edison, Mr. Ford, all these people. And hell, I'm not 10 years old. Nine years old. And I would think, well, why didn't one of my papas do something like this? Hell, man, we all. We're 21 years old. We're free. Nobody else owns us. We can do anything we want to do. Why didn't one of them get off their butt and do something?

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.

And I never could figure that out. I said I'm going to do something. I don't know what the hell it is but it's not going to be what they did. Right. And so I was leaving my pack when I was 9 years old and didn't know it. When I got into sales they started talking about Think and grow Rich Napoleon Hill Master Keys to Riches, Super Cybernetics. What is his name?

Psycho Cybernetics.

Yeah. Robert Kiyosaki Rich dad. Right. And I just stayed in those books. I just read and I read and I read. If anybody came in my office negative I would physically throw them out of the office physically because nobody was going to get in my subconscious and give me a potentially plant a seed in there that could change my directions. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put up with it. And that's, that's how strong I was in that direction. Nothing was going to stop me except the good Lord taking me out here. But I mean I just, I just don't understand. I don't understand anyone not participating 247 in the game of life. God is fun man. I mean it's fun to wake up at 4:30 in the morning bright eyed and bushy tail ready to roll. And that's what I do every day. I was up this morning at 4:00 and I do that every day. I just need six hours sleep and I'm gone. Now I do as I've gotten older, take me a little power nap in the middle of the day but that's okay too. So you know, that's just the whole energy level around my place where, when, where I'm involved is always high, it's always positive. I just don't put up with negative stuff. And we drill dry holes, we have losses, we do that.

Where did you start drilling and who when you say your brother ran it was. And you raised the money. It was his job to figure out where we're going to drill, how we're going to drill, all of that stuff.

Because you're starting a new, you know.

No, we started, we started together. It wasn't that complicated. 2 and 2 is for. I understood that you know, geological backgrounds on a prospect and I'm a quick study. It didn't take me, I just didn't want to do all administrative garbage. Right. And bills and all that. I wasn't, that's, that's not my cup of tea. And I've always had a crew in my businesses that handle that chore for.

Me, that back office.

Yeah. One time we had. I don't know, we had 50 accounts. And I could tell you within $5 of every balance in every account, my mind just. It just grabs a hold of that type. I mean, that's just how it is. And I know where my money is. I know exactly where we stand all the time. Somebody does the labor of paying those bills. But don't think for a second, I don't know, wherever nickel is, I do, I have the ability to. I just. I just know. And we get it done. You know, we raised a lot of money. The show in New Orleans this past past week. We down there all last week for seven days, I believe it was. And I got to speak four or five times. And I met a guy there. Here's a good little story you'll love. I met a guy there 25 years ago. He walked up the hall of the convention center where the booths were, exhibitors were stationed. Little Dapper Dan fella, had a gray golfing apparel on and had a golf club in his hands. So we struck up a visit and he became a partner of mine. And over the years, he. Just one of the greatest human beings I've ever known. He passed away last week before last at 97. Well, his name was Paul Broyhill. He was the founder of Broyhill Furniture.

Okay.

One of the largest international furniture companies in the world. And his son is 65. Hunt. We're still partners. They still do business with old man all the time. But we lost him last week. But I met him years ago over a handshake coming up a hall in a convention. And so, you know, people stay with me. We don't win every time. And I'm not. I would never tell someone that. We. We put it right out there the way it is. The great thing about oil and gas is going into the deal. The government subsidizes the investment by 35 or 40% because you get to write off 90% thereabouts of every dollar you put into the oil business. Eventually you'll write it off, all of it, all because you'll depreciate the equipment. So starting off, if I can break you even in two years or three years, I've made you at least. I've made you what you saved in taxes as money in your pocket. Right now, the oil business is just how it's going, nuts. The price has gone from a negative to $85 a barrel. Gas prices have gone from a dollar or less to 5, $6 1,000 cubic feet. So we're in a perfect, perfect economic situation. And I believe, you know, I believe it's going to be here for at least seven to ten years. We're not. We're not independent of our own production needs. Now they've. They stopped drilling. Now they started back drilling the majors. And we were able to really get some beautiful properties during this downturn. Okay, all right. It was a time for us to push your money out on the table. When it hit, I actually was playing golf, and the boys were doing a deal, and I saw my phone Google where it had gone negative. Yeah, we just finished nine holes. Me and my guys play with them damn near every day. I just told them, I said, boys, I gotta go. I gotta roll. And they didn't know where I was going. But I was heading to the office. I have my own office building. And I came in and the boys were here, and I said, let's go in the office. I said, there's a happening right now that will be unmatched in your lifetime. I said, you will probably never see all negative again. I said, now what that means to us as a family, if we have the intestinal fortitude to push our money out in the middle of the table, There's a lot of properties that's coming available to us that we have never seen. We've got to have the blood to do it. So we had the blood to do it, and we bought two oil.

Gotta have the blood to do it.

You got. You got to have it. If you don't have it. And my old mentor told me years ago, he said, bob, two or three times in your life, the train will come along and the opportunity will be so strong. He said, you'll probably miss the first one because it won't be there long. He said, but be ready, son. He said, be ready. Don't get weak. Look at all the situation, look at all the economics, and make your decision and push the money out in the middle of the table. And that's what we've done. We bought a field over in Choctaw, Alabaton region, Louisiana, that we've got 200 wells to drill the next 7, 8, 10 years. Tremendous reserves that we bought for pennies on the dollar. And it's just been. It's just been beautiful. I hate that the opportunity came to us because of the coronavirus, but it did. It did, and we took advantage of it. You know, you always buy in fear and sell and happy. I mean, that's how it works. It's too late when everybody else is buying. Hell, the sugar is gone. But we got right down there in the bare ground and got us, got us two beautiful, beautiful places to develop. So now my boys are covered. I can relax. I can go home, hit my golf balls, and keep on rolling.

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 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.