The Formula For Consistently Creating Wealth
3 Jun 2022 · 20 min
Omar Periyu, who immigrated from Cuba and built major health-club chains, shares how he trained five million people and worked with two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies. He credits mentors like John Maxwell and emphasizes strong, steady action and becoming a problem solver as the formula for wealth creation.
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Hey everyone, it is Matt Glogli with the Practice Profit System, and I want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, you are going to be hearing some interviews that I did with speakers for an event that was hosted with Top Doctor and I Am Champion Events. This event was hosted June 3rd through the 5th in Miami, down at the Four Seasons Resort, and these are interviews with speakers, and I thought that these speakers that you're going to hear from over the next month were the best, most intriguing ones. So, I'm really excited for you to hear this and to share this information with you. Now, you might notice that through the audio recording, we actually talk a little bit about the event. Again, that event, most likely by the time you've listened to these, has passed. However, there will be events like this in the future. That is our hope and our goal. So, I really hope you enjoy these. I really had a great time interviewing these folks. You're going to hear a lot of really cool new stuff. Some of it's personal development, some of it's on the medical side. in our continued quest to expand our information that we share with you and help you become the absolute best medical practice owner, business owner that you can possibly be. I appreciate the opportunity to continually help you in your transformation. Take a listen. I look forward to talking to you and meeting you face-to-face in the near future. Carpe diem, everybody.
Welcome to the Practice Profit System Podcast. Do you own a cash-based practice? Are you looking to start one? Tired of working endless hours and still not making enough money? Want to fire your insurance company? Then you're gonna love our podcast. Each episode is full of insights and proven strategies to grow your practice to 7 figures and more, allowing you to take more time off, make more money, and no longer have to take insurance reimbursements. Plus, get a free copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, where I detail my entire journey to creating my own 7-figure practice. Just go to www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/podcast. You just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, and you'll also get over $1,197 in free bonuses. That's www.srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Now onto our show.
Hey everybody, it's Matt Gallogly again with Top Doctor, and we're here with one of our, uh, big keynote speakers for the Health, Wealth, and Self Summit in Miami on June 3rd through the 5th. And that is Omar Periyu. So Omar, thank you so much for, uh, joining us today. I'm really excited. You know, it's really kind of the— I've known of you over the last couple of, uh, years or something like that, but gosh, you know, it's a real opport— it's a real pleasure to meet you. Tell everybody how you got started in this. You were in the health club space, right?
Yes, I was born in Cuba and my father felt communism would cripple the Cuban economy. I'll give you the Reader's Digest And so we escaped, mother with the children, father came later. We got to Miami at the Freedom Tower and they had a program called the Peter Pan Program where they sent Cuban families without all the parents to different parts of the country. We were sent to Joliet, Illinois.
Oh my gosh, I'm from Chicago. I know Joliet.
Yes.
I'm sorry they sent you to Joliet in 1960.
Yeah, so we landed at O'Hare Airport, big blizzard. Uh, no money, no credit, no friends, no family. We don't speak English and we've never felt cold air.
Oh, that was great.
Yeah, yeah, Cubans in Chicago. No, no. So anyway, but we met some really nice people. My parents went to work right away. Anyway, I couldn't speak English, so I didn't do well in school, but I did do well in music and sports, so I excelled there. And I went to— you probably know, Joy Catholic High.
Of course I do. Yeah.
I did really well there and still hold the record for the 100-yard dash there. So I did well in sports, made the Olympic trials for the 100-meter and 200-meter. And then I held the AU record for bench press, 400 pounds for my weight class. I had this— I inherited my mother's beautiful voice. So I had 3 scholarships going to college. I went to Southern Illinois University, SIU.
I know it well. My brother went there.
Yeah. And, uh, they have a great music program, but my father, not even speaking English, had accumulated 3 gas stations and auto parts, 10-stall garage, and a block worth of real estate. My dad says if he would've had me, and as you know, I've written 25 bestselling books on leadership, sales, uh, wealth, customer service, you name it, negotiations. He said he would've lost everything 3 times. So he knew how to accumulate things but not keep them. So I had to quit school and go get a job at Vulcan Materials. You probably remember that name.
This is like a walk down home. Yeah, just walk down memory lane.
Yeah, Vulcan Materials is a big quarry next to Route 80. That's where I worked. It's my job to keep those pulleys clean and greased. I hated that job. I don't know if any of you ever hated a job so much that Used to fake going to the bathroom. That was, that was my job. Anyway, I, I wanted to sing, so I, I saved up my money. I went out to California, thought they'd be waiting for me. They weren't.
Yeah, they had no idea who you were.
Yeah, on the way out there, there's a big snowstorm in Colorado. I don't know if you recall those days, they used to clamp the U-Hauls to the top of the car. I had an old GTO and a big gust of wind hit. It was snowing so bad, Matthew, I didn't even know it. When I stopped for gas, I looked at my car because, you know, you drove and you had like clothes and stuff on your side and your back, and then I had the U-Haul, so I couldn't see much. I— and I go to get gas and I'm like, something looks really different. I lost my U-Haul. It went down the side of mountain there, and I found it, but I couldn't get to it. So I, uh, got to LA. I paid cash for the deposit, so they took my deposit. And I look up, it says $51 a week for a studio. It's a terrible place, uh, easy to get around, you know, had like a Murphy bed and the table would come out. Anyway, I had to get a job because that was the money I was counting on to become a recording artist. And so I got a job as a personal trainer, and I trained— I was really lucky, I got to train like Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Jerry West, Um, wow, Tom Selleck. Yeah, the guy from Dukes of Hazzard. So I was her personal trainer, and so I thought, well, this is okay, at least I'm doing something I enjoy, because I had all these records for bench press and track and all that. But I saw salespeople making a lot of money, so I go into sales and I failed miserably. And the man that owned the clubs, uh, his name is Tom Murphy, and he managed speakers. He managed Tom Hopkins, worked with Jim Rohn, Dennis Waitley, Bob Proctor, all the big names, Brian Tracy. He owned a company called Champions Unlimited and managed these speakers. And so he'd send me to all their trainings and I became a top salesperson in health and fitness. And then he was the investor. So he became my investor. We built the largest health clubs in the United States. I had a piece of like Sports Connection. We owned the Westwood Centers. Westside Sports Centers, Marina Athletic Club. And then, uh, the people that I trained and mentored for 8 and a half years ended up taking over and, uh, built the largest health clubs after me called LA Fitness. So I'm really proud of Chiny and all of them. Uh, they've done very well. Yeah, so that's my story. And, um, I haven't had to do anything since I was 31 years old last year, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Well, Hey, anti-aging is great stuff, isn't it?
That's right. That's right. That's what we're gonna do. Yeah. My thing is to help everyone. Like we were talking before, Matthew, Mike, I've been really lucky to be mentored by the best of the best of the best. And in fact, they did the forewords. Like Zig Ziglar did his last foreword in his life for me. Uh, he only did 3 and he did it for my book, From Management to Leadership. Tom Hopkins did my book Investigative Selling. Mark Victor Hansen from Chicken Soup for the Soul. You've probably heard of this book, The One Minute Meeting. Uh, so that book went crazy. Bob Proctor did, uh, From Zero to Wealth. So I got pretty lucky, right? All these— oh, John Maxwell did another book for me. Yeah. So, um, in fact, I like him so much I named my boy after him, Maxwell.
So, uh, great guy. I met John. Yeah, I had John at one of my events. He's a great, great guy.
He's a great guy. Yeah, he lives like 30 minutes from me. Yeah, I worked with him for 10 years. Great guy.
Wow.
So I got lucky. And so now my, my whole thing is to help others. So what I do is I, I do these events. I'm on the biggest seminars in the world, Get Motivated and Success Resources. I only do those big, big events. I've done 10 events for Tony Robbins. And, um, I do this because I love it. Of course, I get paid a lot of money for it, but I do it because I love it. And, uh, so we're gonna be helping everyone at this event, talking about From Zero to Wealth, how I became financially independent, so can you. Also—
Awesome.
sell better, customer service, lead better, recruit, train, and maintain a superior team, right?
Yeah.
So we're gonna be doing a lot of stuff, and I know that I'll be sharing the stage with you, so I'm looking forward to that, Matthew. That'll be our first time, and, and we're just gonna go there and give everybody a lot of content so they can take their practice or their businesses to the next level.
I want to talk about leadership because this is something that I'm really passionate about. And you talk about John Maxwell, and obviously, you know, this is the Law of the Lid, right? John's— the law number 1 in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. And I read that chapter. And at that time I was running, I was in the private club business. I was a PGA golf professional. And the club I was running was having a hard time growing, right? And I read that chapter and it completely changed the way I thought about leadership and my role.
Wow.
One of the things about that, I know Zig talked about it, and I'm sure you talk about it in your books, but the organization can only grow to the level of the leader, right? I mean, that's the general concept. And so, people think that they need to get another machine or learn another procedure, but it's really about their personal leadership of themselves, right? Talk a little bit about, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Exactly. And it's funny that when I was touring with John for uh, 10 years, he would talk about the law of the lid. And he'd always say, you know, I'm a lid knocker-upper, right? So your job is to work harder on yourself than you do on your dream so you can become better as a leader, because, you know, people only follow strong leaders and stay with them. So he would talk about the law of the lid and he'd say, you know, what's your lid? What is your number from 1 to 10, right? And then he'd say the question, would others agree with you? Other people that know you, would they? Then he'd say, what's your plan to raise your lid? And then the 4th question he'd say is, what is your organization's lid? Because your organization's lid tells you what— whatever that number is tells you what your real leadership capacity is. So he'd say, you know, again, number 1, what is your lid number? What do you believe it to be? Number 2, what, what do others think you are? Number 3, What are you gonna do about it? And number 4 is, what are your people? Because your people will tell you what you really are, right? So I learned a lot being with him. In fact, I don't know if you know this, he used to be the top trainer and the top author for all the, uh, ministries and churches.
Oh yeah, that's where I found him. Yeah.
Yeah.
So funny story, his agent is my agent, Celie Yates. So he lives— he's out of Newport. And he, by the way, John got me Sealy Yates, and we became such good friends. He was instrumental in helping John go from just doing churches and ministry to being mainstream. That's why he moved from La Jolla, California to Atlanta, Georgia.
Mm-hmm.
So I've got a big history with him. So it's funny you should bring him up. But yeah, the bottom line is, you know, you cannot outgrow your leader. The more developed you can become, the more you'll be able to recruit, train, and Have a superior team.
You know, I've always felt that, and I tell my clients this as I'm working with these practice owners, and, and they go, well, you know, I'm not growing at the level that I want to. And I go, well, let me get you— let me give you a little bit of insight. You don't own a medical practice, you own a training company. You, you met— when the— you and I were talking at the break and before we started, and you said the folks that acquired your health clubs, they all worked for you and you helped grow them. Right. And you said that that gave you a tremendous amount of pride about what they were able to build after you sold to them. So speak a little bit more about that because I think it's something that people really need to understand more.
Absolutely. Uh, he who is the president of, uh, LA Fitness, he, uh, worked for me for 8 and a half years. I hired him and I trained him, I mentored him. In fact, he, he gets up and thanks me and he said, thank you, because without you, this— nothing, none of this would have happened. That's where people go.
We—
that, you know, I was the founding— one of the founding members of LA Fitness. That's because he worked for me, his mother Kay worked for me, his sister was my aerobics director, and, uh, the brother-in-law just came into it after that. But they're wonderful people. And, uh, I trained the heck out of my people. I learned how to train because my mentor Tom Murphy owned Champions Unlimited. So all these speakers became my mentors. And you take materials like Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar and Dennis Waitley and Bob Proctor— and Jim Rohn was his best friend— and I got to hang out with these people on the weekends at his house and just talk and hang out and barbecue. And I mean, that was like more valuable than the seminars. So because Bob was always teaching, you know, all of them, and Jim Rohn. And so I believe that people need to realize that the only way you can become and build your business is by duplicating yourself if you're that good. But if you're not that good, then you got to go back to the Law of the Lid. And like John Maxwell says, become that great leader, right?
You have a saying, and I want to— you said strong, steady action and the right attitude is the key to becoming a millionaire.
Yes.
Again, talk a little bit about that, and where do people usually fall short on that?
Well, what happens is I believe that people give up right when they're about to have a milestone, and I think that people just give up a little too soon. And I think that, which we will be talking about at the event, about failure, rejection, falling in love with the word no, uh, handling people. You know, I have this little saying on my books, become a BPS. professional problem solver, right?
Yes.
That's what you teach your practices, to become a professional problem solver. Because if you can do that, you can solve anything. So your goal is to take any problem and solve it. That's the goal of everybody, right? So for me, that strong city action means persistence, tenacity, and to stay on track, right? Stay on the path. Things are going to happen. But you gotta be strong and flexible because things are gonna happen to you. You know, Zig Ziglar used to say to me— he became like a grandpa to me because I never got to know my grandpa— and he'd say to me this quote that he uses on stage. He says, Omar, you're the one, you're the one guy. I go, what is it? He says, you're so motivated and so persistent that, uh, you'd go after Moby Dick with tartar sauce. So I used to— I love that guy. I miss him so much. I used to walk with him every night after we did Get Motivated for an hour because he used to be a big runner, but then he couldn't run as much. So we'd walk for an hour. But he was a great guy. He had these zingers that I just loved, you know, strong, steady actions, stay the course, stay focused, and don't let anything— I mean, people told me, you're gonna build health clubs? You don't even have a degree. I didn't finish. You have no money, you have no credit, you have to— I said, I don't care. And I had Mr. Murphy who had all that, and he needed me. I was sweat equity, he was money. So then, you know, the balance changed once I got going, but I knew what to do and he had the money. So we started building these health clubs.
Well, Omar, you are the quintessential American success story. I mean, you know, if anybody ever thinks that it can't happen for them, all you have to do is to talk to someone like you that Came to this country, didn't know the language, didn't have any money, wound up in a snowstorm. And worst of all of that, you were in Joliet. No offense to anybody from Joliet, but I've been to Joliet, and especially back then, it was, uh, I'm sure it was an interesting place.
Yeah, there's a lot of nice people though, good people there.
Oh, there are great people. I, yeah, I've been to Joliet many, many times. There was an annual golf tournament that we used to play every year in Joliet when I was a kid growing up. So yeah, I know it well.
Inwood Golf Course?
Yes, that's it. That is it.
Yep. Yeah, no, it's, it's, uh, wonderful people. And I have friends that I still visit when I go to Chicago. We meet and go for pizza and stuff and hang out and, uh, go to the pub. And but yeah, no, I mean, look, if you're like me, all you got to do is follow what you do and I do, Matthew, and be mentored and trained and work with us and let us help you. And when you do that, we'll— you'll be able to duplicate yourself much faster than you would have by yourself. Because we have systems, tools, and foundation that can help you get there faster than you ever dreamed of. So look, this stuff works for my students, it works for me, I know it'll work for everyone that's going to be at the event. I mean, I've trained over 5 million people. I trained 2/3 of the Fortune 500 companies, biggest seminars in the world, Get Motivated, Success Resources. So, you know, I'm excited to be with everybody those days and, and hang out and And take it to the next level.
All right.
Well, folks, in the description and in the comments, you'll find a link to go ahead and get registered. There's a couple of different pricing options. This isn't just for the medical professional or doctors and nurse practitioners, but also we're helping people get connected with those doctors so they can learn more and take more control over their healthcare. This is the Health, Wealth, and Self Summit. It's going to be in Miami, June 3rd through the 5th. We'll be at the Four Seasons right there. Uh, right in downtown Miami. And Omar, I'm looking forward to meeting you. I'm looking forward to, uh, sharing the stage and, and helping people live their wildest dreams here in this wonderful country of ours.
Absolutely.
It's going to be a great event, and I'm looking forward to meeting you, Matthew, and getting to know you and helping all these folks and go to the next level.
You got it.
All right, everybody, we'll see you in Miami June 3rd through 5th. See you there.
Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, take a moment and share it with your fellow medical professionals, or post a positive comment and rate it on wherever you just listened. Now, don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, for free. Just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling, plus you'll get over $1,197 in free bonus material. Simply go to srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. That's srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.
