Ep299: Larry Levine – Your Tragedy Could Be the Story That Brings You Success

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk. But to win big, you've got to reduce it. This episode is sponsored by a stance Academy which offers online courses that help investors, aspiring professionals, business leaders and even beginners to improve the finances of their lines and their businesses go to my worst investment ever.com right now to claim your discount on the course that suits you. Most fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz and I am here with featured guests. Larry, the Veen Larry, are you ready to rock

00:45
this? Let's get going. Let's get going. I'm looking forward to this.

Andrew Stotz 00:49
I am too. So let me introduce you to the audience because there's something pretty cool about what you are doing. Larry Levine is the best selling author of selling from the heart, and the co host of the selling from the heart podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, stop listening to this podcast right now and go search for selling from the heart podcast. Now that you're back in a post trust sales world, Larry helps sales teams leverage the power of authenticity, and love that word to grow revenue, grow themselves and enhance the lives of their clients, various quotes coached sales professionals across the world. From tenured reps to new millennials entering the sales force. They all appreciate his practical, real, raw, relevant, relatable and street savvy nature of his coaching. There is not shy when it comes to delivering his message in a world full of empty suits. There he is passionate about helping sales reps succeed by helping them to uncover their true value before they get visible. There he is leading a revolution of authenticity, integrity and substance in the sales profession. Can I get an amen?

02:11
Hey, man, how's

Andrew Stotz 02:12
that, Andrew? Absolutely. And I know the audience just gave one. So yeah, let me take a minute, we can already tell how this podcast

02:21
is gonna go right and

Andrew Stotz 02:22
have some fun, man, we're gonna have some fun. I'm really excited. I want to learn more about you. But also I want to learn I want to become better at sales. And I think you are the man to share. So take a minute and filming further tidbits about your life.

Larry Levine 02:36
I always say this. I'm a sales nerd and a sports geek. I love everything about sales. I geek out on sales, anything about sales. I've grown up in the sales world my whole life. I've I love sports. There's always those tie ins between sports analogies and sales analogies. I could talk all day long about it. I live in Southern California. I wake up at the ripe time of three o'clock in the morning, seven days a week. It works for me. Doesn't work for a lot of people. But it works for me. I learned a long time ago to capture the morning really well. And it helps kickstart your day. I didn't really realize that it was going to be three o'clock in the morning. It works for me. I I love it. It gets my I love the mornings. I love every single aspect of the morning.

Andrew Stotz 03:29
So I know the listeners are dying for me to ask this question. What time do you go to sleep?

Larry Levine 03:35
I go to sleep at the ripe early time of 830.

Andrew Stotz 03:40
Okay, so you're single, no wife, no kids?

Larry Levine 03:45
No, no, I'm happily married. I have three kids.

Andrew Stotz 03:48
And how do you manage that?

Larry Levine 03:52
It's interesting. Well, first of all, my kids are old. They're older. And you know, they're for the most part, they're out of the house. So I just, you know, even when the kids were in the house, and I still I made it work. I just figured out I remember a long time ago, an old mentor of mine shared some of the best advice I had when I was in my younger days. Find out when your brain works the best and capitalize on it. And I just found out that my brain works the best at extreme early times in the morning till about early to mid afternoon. And then after that it starts fading. So I try to get all my all the work I do on myself. All my career work, everything that I did in sales I always tried to do early in the morning till mid part in the afternoon.

Andrew Stotz 04:39
So I'm going to tell you a funny story is that, you know, there's a lot of coaches out there and executive coaches and all that maybe 15 years ago, a young guy came to me and he said, I'm gonna coach you and I was like, I'm pretty productive, but you know, no, I can get you results and all that and I said, Look most important thing that I just want to tell you is Please don't tell me to get up an hour earlier because I'm already waking up at 4am. But now I learned maybe his advice was right, I should have gotten up as three. And then I could have been even more successful. But you and I have that in common. I wake up without an alarm clock every day at about roughly 4am. And I either start work, or I exercise, you know, work, I love to do exercise I don't love to do. So I try to do it in the morning. And it's such a great feeling. When I have ridden my bicycle, for instance, around the neighborhood around the city of Bangkok, when there's nobody out, and then at like, five in the afternoon, I'm walking through the city. And I walked by place, I think Yeah. Did I exercise this morning? Oh, yeah, I did. It's already done. So I love capturing the morning, too. I do it every day. And so I just love that. And for the listeners out there, you know, wanting time may not be your time, but for me, and obviously for Larry, it is the time to capture our energy.

Larry Levine 06:05
Yeah, it's so true, because I just I've tried to trick my brain, Andrew, and I'll try to go Okay, Larry, what would it be like if you just didn't do it? Right? What would happen if you woke up at four? And you end so you actually slept in for an hour? And then you didn't do what you did at three? And all of a sudden it plays on my mind? And I feel sometimes I feel guilty? Gosh, I actually slept until four o'clock. I missed an hour?

06:35
Because I'm certainly not.

Larry Levine 06:36
I'm such a routine oriented guy. Oh is like that in my sales career that I go. Okay, well, I just lost an hour of productivity. So now you know, I have a sickness. Right, so.

Andrew Stotz 06:48
So let's just, before we go into the question, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the journey of how you ended up with this book. But also, why should the lead listeners, you know, get this book? What are they going to get from? I mean, come on, there's lots of books about sales and selling. What is it about yours that really can bring value to the listener?

Larry Levine 07:12
Um, I think the biggest thing is, I'm going to take everyone on a quick journey, but it'll be a quick journey. And then it'll share you know, why the book and what why it came to be, I spent 28 years in probably the most chaotic, dysfunctional backwards sales channel, in my opinion that's ever existed. I sold copiers in Los Angeles my whole entire career. It's brutal. It's cutthroat. It's doggy dog. It's highly commoditized. But that's the channel that I chose. I didn't expect to be in this right. I didn't expect that parlay, you know, 28 year sales career in copiers, I expected to stay in it a year and parlay that into something else. But I'm a big believer that a lot of people are products of how they were raised. And I was raised in a generation where my parents are raised the same way you find a job, you find a career and you stay in it and you don't job hop. And I remember that early on in my career, I go, man, you know, I kind of chose sales, and I chose this crazy world of selling copiers. There's no way I could go back and try to do something else because I'd let my father down. So what I did is I just doubled down on myself and I said, Hey, you know what I'm gonna do the, I'm gonna create the best possible situation for me. And I learned the difference. And this is early on in my career, I learned the difference between sales reps and sales professionals, because I had a very inquisitive mindset. But I share this with you because throughout my whole 28 year career, I was on some pretty dysfunctional sales teams with dysfunctional managers. And I can I remember, this is plain as day Andrew, there is not one manager, I had not one leader, so to speak, that ever helped me become the best version of myself. All the training that I had, all the workshops that I went to was always to enhance the skill set of my career. It was never do enhance me. So I had a life altering moment at 50. And we can get into that in a little bit. But when I decided to write selling from the heart, it was to bring me to the forefront. It was to bring sincerity, substance and heart to us to a profession that's got a black guy that lacks trust that lacks credibility that lacks integrity. And the way I wrote the book was this is the first half of selling from the heart is all about working on yourself on bringing to the forefront the things that nobody helped me do. I figured out for myself, that if I didn't do the inner work if I didn't, if I wasn't, if I didn't self reflect. That's, by the way, reason, one of the reasons I get up so early. So I work a lot on myself in my mind, that if you can self reflect become self aware of who you are, and work on the inner part of who we are. It feels your outer success. And that's when I go, you know what I'm bringing this to the forefront, it's long overdue, I'm gonna push the message on sincerity, substance and heart, in the sales profession. And I'm gonna, I'm going to really encourage people, you got to work on yourself, if you fail to work on yourself, it's going to hamper you from becoming the best version of yourself. And somewhere down the road, your sales career, whatever career you're in, will not, will not be fulfilled until you work on yourself.

Andrew Stotz 10:35
There's a lot of things, I think one of the things that I would like to mention is just the fact that my father graduated with a PhD in organic chemistry. And he went to work for DuPont. And when he did, it was, you know, an opportunity of a lifetime to work in the labs in the, you know, in the early 60s. And for those people listening that remember the movie, the graduate, it was Dustin Hoffman, and the guy that said to him was, you know, what's the future and he said, plastics. And that was my dad was literally right at the beginning of them. And then my dad decided that he really enjoyed working with people much more. And then he became a salesman, and he became a sales man that knew the technical aspects of the products, plastics products. And then we moved to Ohio and started selling plastics to the car companies, and you know, others. And my dad built a career in sales, and put me through school and had a great retirement and with my mom and had a happy life, when I came to Thailand, it's interesting that there really isn't a sales culture. In fact, sales is kind of just looked down on as people dragging things through villages trying to, you know, schlepped their wares, basically. And I realized in one of the businesses that I have in Thailand, you know, it's hard for all of our businesses to get people to sell, because of the fact that it feels like, Oh, it's not that sincere or whatever. Now, of course, my dad, you know, I from a young age, I saw him sell in an institutional framework, let's say, not necessarily, you know, b2c or something like that. But, you know, I'm just curious about that, you know, for countries, like in Asia, where selling is really not a respected profession. Why should it be?

Larry Levine 12:29
Well, he, you bring up a real you bring up a fascinating point, because it's so interesting sales, if you ask if you if you ask most people, they're gonna go, why do you even get into sales? sales is such a dirty word. But to me, I believe everybody's in sales without selling. What do you think happens? The economy, right? We must sell things right. When when, and it was, it was so interesting, I have a friend of mine, who's a hedge fund manager, and he buys and sells companies and things like that. And he said, when money stops moving through the economy at the rate that it used to the way that it's going to get back to where it is, you got to sell things. Again, and sales. To me sales is the art of the help. But what's happened is, and this is where I'll point the finger back in sales people and sales leaders in general, is they've created this perception. And I'm a big believer and your perceptions reality, and rightfully so, is if you ask, you know, ask 100 people, they're going to give you 100 of the same responses. They have no respect for salespeople, right? They're liars, Cheaters, snake oil salespeople, and rightfully so it doesn't have to be that way. And that's why a lot I write in my book a lot about the difference between a sales rep and a sales professional. There's a huge difference. But it's what you do to carry yourself and how you change perception. And what you personally do, I knew this for 28 years, I was in sales, I control what I can control. And that's how I go to market interact with people and change their perception of salespeople. Hmm.

Andrew Stotz 14:18
And I mean, it's an interesting thing about sales that when companies start, let's say, startups and others, and they try to get out there and sell. It's all about, you know, it's hard to get salespeople to think about how can I make this client's life better with my product. Or maybe my product doesn't make this person's life better, and there's a better product out there. But the idea of thinking about it from their perspective, because I often say that the thing about sales, it's really the only career that is a truly emotional roller coaster. It's the only career where you have to reveal yourself for rejection that must come as you, you know, proceed through the calls and things that you have to do. There is no other one that I can come up with that has that day to day raw. It's almost like a general in an army's is behind the troops. But those infantry men and women are on the front line, taking the hits. And that's really how I see sales. But I just curious how you think about it.

Larry Levine 15:24
Now, as I say, I write about I said, sales is a full contact sport. full contact sport, you're gonna get knocked down, you got to pick yourself back up. You're going to get told no, a lot more than you're going to be told Yes. And I remember I took rejection personally, for years. And for decades, I took it personally. Because I always wanted to be the best and I go, man, if Andrew told me no, maybe it's something I did, right. But more often than not, it's no it wasn't directed at me. It was the message or how I delivered it. I just didn't earn the right. And I started and I just started to reverse engineer all this. But we just have to learn that rejection is not personal. But we take it personal.

Andrew Stotz 16:16
It's hard not to

Larry Levine 16:17
it's it's hard not to No, you're absolutely right. But that's why you know, I'm a big believer, this is a my I, there's three things I love discussing, I held myself to a high degree of standards with this. And it helped me with it is I'm a big believer in mindset, skill set and heart set. And it's a triangle that's connected, we must always be working on our mind, we almost always must be working on our heart. And we always must be enhancing our skill set. Because when we work on our heart and our mind when we're told no, we don't take it personal. It's just no not right. At this moment. I need to provide a better reason for you to say yes.

Andrew Stotz 16:59
There's just so much to discuss about it. But I think we're gonna continue that discussion. So let's get into the question of this podcast. And that is, it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Larry Levine 17:20
So okay, so I mean, I got a lot of them. But this is this is an investment I've made recently. And it wasn't it's not a financial investment, Andrew, but it's it's a career investment. I was with I was of the same company, I helped start a company here in the LA marketplace in 1994. And I stayed there all the way until 2013 and 2000, I bought into the company, and then we rapidly expanded throughout the Los Angeles marketplace. Well, 2012, I noticed that it's just I sensed there was a sixth sense, it was time for me to move on, it started to become toxic, it can became dysfunctional, and it was just, maybe it was just time. So I sold, I sold my shares of the company back. And I hung on for about another eight months. And then I decided you know what, now it's time to exit. But I knew that mentally a year and a half before and I knew if I sold my shares back then I would have made an easy career exit when the time was right. So I made that exit after almost 20 years with the same company. I poured a lot of you know, blood, sweat and tears into the company. And then I made a career investment going somewhere else. And I decided it was time for me to go from a small mid sized company to a large corporation. So I be in the big leagues, right. So I made the investment in myself, but I made the investment in the person who brought me to that company. And this was the summer of 2013. And I walked into a brand new situation right, I left 20 years behind me. And I invested in a brand new situation in a brand new Corporation on a corporate major account team and now I here I am the newbie on a corporate major accounting. I was number 18 on an 18 person corporate major account team in downtown Los Angeles. And all of a sudden I walked into this place the summer of 2013. They give me this exorbitantly high quota for the year. They said by the way, we're not going to give you any current customers. It's all brand new business Welcome to insert name of company. I go holy, you know what, what did I walk into. But I doubled down on myself. Because I was always investing in my career. Well, I believed in what I could do and I invested in this person who brought me over and for 90 days, it was a rough roller coaster. But then I took everything that I've learned, I've hold myself to a high degree of standards. And I rose in one year from number 18 to number two, I build out a million and a half dollars of brand new business. Got all the way up to number two. And then in the spring of 2015, at 50 years old, I was fired.

Andrew Stotz 20:29
That's the corporate world. That's the corporate world.

Larry Levine 20:34
But it was the investment that I made it myself is the investment that I made in somebody else that I trusted. And then all of a sudden, you know, what, I just got dealt that, you know what, and at 50 years old, the spring of 2015, I find myself for the first time ever without a job.

Andrew Stotz 20:59
And when I think about the rejection that a salesperson faces every day, personally, I know the feeling that a man feels when you lose your livelihood. And of course, women who are working also feel the same way. But there's something about a man derives self confidence, a sense of meaning from their work, I guess, if you go back to caveman times, you know, our work was providing for the family. And, you know, so I know that feeling. So tell us what happened.

Larry Levine 21:34
So, you know, we talked with just a little bit ago, we talked about rejection, right? And we talked about accepting No, well, guess what, this was the hardest rejection I ever had in my whole life. I took this one really, really personal. I cried for days, literally cried for days, I had to figure out what do I do with myself at 50 years old? Do I go back? Do I go back and do what I was used to doing? Which is the only thing that I knew how to do. I came out of the office technology world. I saw copiers my whole life. Do I just go back? Right? Do I bite the bullet? Do I go back to the old company that I sold my shares back to? And right, get on my hands and knees and say, Hey, you know, what will you welcome me back? Which I knew they would have taken me back? Do I go to a different company and be a vice president of sales and ride off into a complacent sunset? And I mean,

Andrew Stotz 22:34
those are all the options don't feel good.

Larry Levine 22:37
I know. I'm not going man. I go. You know what, somehow I just rather be unemployed then go back to some of those, right? But I read I remember having a conversation, my wife and I go Just give me 45 days give me 45 days to figure this out. And the response was, hey, pal, you don't have 45 days to figure this out. You got to figure this out. We got mouths to feed we exactly. So I started to dip into my network. And I started to ask my network for help. I went right to my closest friend at the time, picked up the phone and I said hey, this is what happened. I was fired from my job. I'm a I'm out there on the market. Now. Do you know anybody I'm tapping your network. I'm asking for help.

23:29
I'm

Larry Levine 23:30
about two days later, my cell phone rings. My very near and dear friend who two days before I kind of shared what had happened. This person says Larry, he goes you got to go back out into the corporate world. And you got to coach salespeople on what made you so successful in a dysfunctional chaotic sales channel. Have you ever thought about becoming a sales coach and trainer said if I had no, right, there's no way there's no way I could do this. I tried managing once and I was horrible at it. But I remembered something that just always stuck in the back of my head. And what drove me in sales and what drives me still to this day is you had mentioned that your dad was a chemical engineer, right. My dad was an aeronautical engineer. My dad was a rocket scientist, excuse me was a rocket scientist for the United States Air Force. My dad had a PhD in aeronautical physics from two Ivy League schools by the time he was 20 years old. That's what I had to grow up with. And I got into sales. So the whole time in sales. I had to look at myself and go Mike good enough, right? And so I pushed myself and I pushed myself and now at 50 right? I have no job. I gotta go now tell my dad at 50 years old. Guess what, dad? I don't have a job. So what drove me then as I said, You know what? I took my friend's advice and I said, I'm going to double down on myself, I'm going to show my dad that I can do something different. And I said, Okay, I'll do this. And I went out, I invested in myself. And I started to cook, I went right back into the sales channel that I knew. And I started to coach office technology reps. On the things that made me meet in the copier channel, and three and a half years ago, as we're recording this, I said, you know what I want to bring selling from the heart to the forefront because that was Larry Levine. I wore my emotions on my sleeves. I connected deeply and I built meaningful relationships with my clients. What would that be like if I brought that to the forefront? And in three and a half years, I started a podcast. I wrote selling from the heart, it's opened some massive doors all over the world. The message is resonating like no tomorrow, but it's because you know, sometimes you have setbacks in life, Andrew, and those setbacks in life will actually propel you forward. I made you know, I made an investment years ago when I started a company. And then I sold I made an investment in myself, and I made an investment in a friend who brought me to a corporate setting. Well, it didn't work out. But instead of crying about it, I did. I just picked myself up. And I said, I'll double down on myself. And I dove into the deep end of entrepreneurship. I tell people, I was a forced entrepreneur. I didn't choose this right, I was forced into it,

Andrew Stotz 26:38
which is a lot of people in that situation right now with COVID, that the thing they weren't doing, it's just doesn't exist anymore. I'm sorry. It's painful. But it's time to reinvent. And I think that's, you know, a great message coming from what you're talking about.

Larry Levine 26:56
No, you use a word that's near and dear to me reinvent. I love our E words. And, you know, it was, whether it's reengineer, or reinvent or get reacquainted or re educate. There's no better time than right now to do that. And sometimes, right, we just get, we just get dealt the proverbial You know what, we got to learn how to deal with it. I mean, I could have just, I could have just crumbled and then just spiral downhill. But I chose to double down on myself and reinvent myself, I always share with people, we all have aha moments. It's what we learn from them, whether that be a bad career investment, whether that be a bad financial investment, we all get those aha moments, but we got to pick ourselves up. And we got to dust ourselves off, and we got to just push forward.

Andrew Stotz 27:53
I got a question on this, before we get into, you know, what you learned from this experience, and that is, I kind of want to go back in time. When your friends said to you, hey, you should really coach people, you know, salespeople. How did it go with the first approach? Because I think that there's a lot of executives, no matter what you are sales, marketing management, that do consider getting coaches. But I mean, people are like, it's a lot of money. What benefits is gonna bring you guys it's gonna make me work harder. Or I don't want to deal with that or whatever. I'm just curious if we can go back in time for your first couple of pitches to the first people that you approach to say, Hey, I'm gonna I want to work with you. And here's how here's what to do. Tell us just a bit about how that went.

28:41
Yeah.

Larry Levine 28:43
So I'm a big believer, and I'm going to flip this around on you just for a second, but it's going to answer your question is I'm a big believer story sell. Stories are powerful. And I always say the best story tellers are story collectors. Stop and think about that for a second. The best storytellers are story collectors. So what I did is I collected in my memory bank stories. And I repurposed my stories in front of sales leaders. I still remember I'll tell you a quick funny story, Andrew, it was two weeks after I was let go, that I find myself for the first time speaking in front of a group of people. My very first speaking engagement, I'm two weeks into being let go. And that first speaking engagement in front of 500 people. Okay, 500 people. My friend had set this up, right. It was at a technology event. gave me the best piece of advice. He goes, Larry, he goes, all I want you to do is go up on stage. tell your story. tell your story how you walked into this corporation with no customers and build out what you build. I promise you just tell that story for 45 minutes. All you got to do. Now go, okay, I've never spoken in front of 500 people in my life, Andrew, I get up on stage, I tell my story for 45 minutes. I have two executives that were in the crowd walk up to me go, Larry, your story was frickin fascinating. Can you train my sales people on what you just said? And I said, Yes, sir, I can tomorrow or when they start, they go, when can you start? Sometimes it's the right place at the right time. But to answer your question is I'm a big believer story sell. I just shared stories that resonated. I'm a big believer, words matter and message matters. And it was from that speaking engagement, that it opened up other opportunities. And from there, it I just went back to repurposing that story. And I started to uncover what sales issues that sales leaders were having. And I went back to my memory bank of the stories I collected and repurpose those. And that's how I that's how I flipped the script on all of this.

Andrew Stotz 31:21
It's interesting. I mean, there's so many things that we have in common, like the waking up early, the backgrounds of a father's working for one institution, all their lives, and, you know, the education of fathers and all of that. But this, the idea of stories is also something I mean, I literally, I speak out stories into my computer, and then it transcribes those and I have a collection of stories that I've that that convey different, you know, messages that I want to convey. One of the stories that I convey in relation to a particular course that I teach is that I was asked to give a speech in the Philippines and they flew me down from Thailand to the Philippines A few years ago, my speech was in the afternoon, and it was to a small audience of a bigger audience. My audience was 900 people, the biggest bigger audience was 2000 people. So I did a lot of preparation for that event. And I arrived in my mind, as I say, it was in the afternoon. But I normally, you know, arrive a couple hours before, but I decided since they flew me in I thought, at least go to the whole event. So I went and I arrived, it was about nine 930 or so. And I texted and I saw the lady that invited me and she was up in the front. And she came back to the back to see me. And I was like, she brought out the head of the whole event. And I said How you guys doing? And they said terrible. And I said why? And they said because in one hour from now we have our keynote speaker, and he's just called to tell us that he has to take his mother to the hospital, and he can't make it. And we have 2000 people waiting for his speech in an hour. And, and, and I asked them, can I help? And they said, Can you give a speech on ethics in finance, I said, if you can get one of your staff into the VIP room with a notebook computer, I'll get on the phone with my staff pulled together the work that I have on that. And I said in one hour, I'll be ready to get on stage. And in one hour, I got on stage and rock that audience of 2000 people. And then I gave my speech in this second half, you know, in the afternoon of the day, the one I was already prepared for. So the point that I make from that is that you know what I teach one of my courses is how to give a great presentation. And what I've learned is a lot of tips, tricks and tips of ways to engage the audience to do these things that make it so that you can speak anytime, anywhere. And that is a story to explain why someone should attend my course how to become a great presenter.

Larry Levine 34:02
So it's so good. It's so I mean, it's so interesting how much we have in common. But, you know, I'm a massive believer in this and why still to this day. I love telling stories. As humans, it's how we connect and relate to people. We have grown up for decades in years and centuries. Go all the way back to cave people. They all connected based on stories.

Andrew Stotz 34:33
Exactly.

Larry Levine 34:35
And it's why that I use our words a lot in these things that you know, I talk about real and relevant and relatable. People want to know Hey, are you connected to the message? Right? Are you real? Are you somebody I can relate to? Are you relevant? Are you a practitioner of what you say?

Andrew Stotz 34:58
Yep, you No, I think we've got to pause for a moment, because I want to switch now and talk to the audience. For those of you listening right now, I would suggest that you take a moment, pause this podcast, and either record on your phone, or write down with a piece of paper, a few of your stories of things that happened to you, and lessons that you learn from them. Get those stories written down, if you don't have time to do the whole story, no problem, just list out those stories. Just take a moment. And I believe that this is one of the big lessons that Larry's bringing to all of us is get your stories together. So Larry, tell us what lessons did you learn from this experience?

Larry Levine 35:46
Yeah, that I was, I think the biggest thing is I was capable of doing a lot more than I thought I ever was. In I say this wholeheartedly at there's no way. So just so you know, as we're recording this right now, I'll be 56 years old tomorrow. And which is actually the 19th, where you're at? I'm still on the 18th of November as we're recording this. But there's no way if I look back over the last five and a half years of my life, there's no way that if you and I are having this conversation at 49 years old, and you said, Hey, Larry, what would you be doing at 5556 years old, there's no way on Earth, I would tell you exactly what I'm doing right now. But the big, the biggest thing that I've learned is I'm capable of doing a whole heck of a lot more than ever thought. The other thing is the more uncomfortable I got over the last five years, the better I became. I'm doing things now that there's no way I would have ever thought I was doing three years ago, there's no way I would have started a podcast but I doubled down on myself in a really want your listeners that really keen on this because I've said it before his words matter. And message matters. You ask people to pause the podcast and write their story. I'm a big believer, everybody has a story that needs to be told. It's how we tell the story. biggest takeaways is I just learned that all the stories of my life that I played out, are now coming true that I'm capable of doing a whole lot more your listeners are capable of doing a whole lot more. And if we if there's anything that I've learned in 2020, and through all the chaos that's happened is doubled down on yourself and doubled down on how uncomfortable you get, the more uncomfortable you get, the more comfortable it will become.

Andrew Stotz 37:48
You know, the Bangkok airport. It is a north south runway. And the majority of the times the years the takeoff is happening to the sound. But at this time of view, the take off switches and they take off to the north. Why do they do that? Because the winds from China are more powerful than the winds from the Indian Ocean. And the monsoon winds that come up. And the point is you simply cannot lift the plane into knowing and you can't lift the plane with when coming at your back. And so to talk about a reword resistance, is what really you know, that's my first takeaway of this. What you've shared is the idea of being uncomfortable facing resistance. It is this resistance that forces us to change and look for the new option. And the second thing, you know, I just had brief tears in my eyes for a moment because you said I'm capable of doing a lot more than you know, I was doing and my business partners gave me a picture of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston famous the famous knockout when he became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world, and they they superimpose my face on top of Muhammad Ali's. So I have the only existing you know, white face picture of Muhammad Ali but that that they put a saying next to it says My only regret is that I didn't realize I was capable so much more. And you know, that's your reminder of that. So for all the listeners out there, embrace the resistance, embrace the disaster, the frustration and the emotion and then use it to you know, propel yourself. I think the other thing that the last thing that I would say that I took away from what you've shared is the idea. I'm gonna just call it keep it simple, you know? We get all complicated about what we're going to do for business and for our career, and we make all these plans. But you've just brought it back to the fact that just bring your stories bring your sincerity stories are authentic, if authenticity works, so keep it simple. You don't need some fancy, you know, mumbo jumbo, what you need is real, authentic stories. And, you know, just to support what you're saying, you know, I was, when I was looking at the reviews of your book, you've got 140 reviews right now on Amazon. And it's 4.9 out of five that is, you know, very rarely achieved. And so for the audience, for everybody listening, what I would highly recommend is to embrace your, you know, your pain and your struggle, and then bring your story to the world. And you'll never know where it can take you. And I think there is a great example anything you add to that.

40:58
Knee Yeah,

Larry Levine 41:00
I always say you know, you said the embrace word, I always say embrace the suck, right? We never know when that aha moment is going to happen. We did we just never know. But I will leave that. This is one of my favorite sayings. I use it all the time I and videos that I do with this is sincerity, substance and heart will set you apart. I don't care what career you're in, whether you're in sales, whether you're in finance, whether you're a teacher, a banker, you work as a clerk in a grocery store. If you all bring sincerity, true sincerity, you bring substance and you bring your heart to the forefront. It will not only change yourself, it will change the conversations you have in ODL forever changes the relationships you have with yourself, your friends, your family and out in the marketplace.

Andrew Stotz 41:55
All right, last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

42:00
number one goal for the next

Larry Levine 42:01
app. So okay, I'm going to clue you in because this there's actually there's nobody knows that you're the first one that is really know about it. My goal for 2021 is there will be another selling from the heart to book coming out. I just started the rough outline it yesterday, as we're recording this, the outline will be done by the midpoint of December. And I'll be writing second selling from the heart come January. And that's one big goal is to continue off of selling from the heart, the first book.

Andrew Stotz 42:33
So ladies and gentlemen, if you drive by Larry's house and you see a light on at 3am in the morning, you know for the next 365 days, it will be writing out that book.

Larry Levine 42:45
Okay, so you're so as I'm listening to what you're saying So, okay, so now this is the only thing that goes through my head. So it's like I got a warped mind, as I'm listening to what you're saying. I had flashes of The Twilight Zone, going through my head,

Andrew Stotz 43:02
gentlemen, well, I know when I did my PhD, which I finished my PhD at 50. I know it took seven months. And I every morning for the first three hours of every morning, I focused on that before I went into my work. So if anybody's out there listening, that wants to write a book is in the process of writing a book. You know, make sure to capture that morning time. If you're a morning person to capture the most productive time that you have, block it off, focus in on it and consistently contribute to that time, you know, and do your core work in that and things will be amazing. Well, listeners, there you have it. Another story of laws to keep you winning. Remember to go to my worst investment ever.com to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most, maybe even the course about how to become a great presenter. As we conclude, Larry, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Larry Levine 44:13
yet? Hey, real

44:14
quick. Do I get a diploma for this, Andrew? Yeah, it's coming. Is it? Is it coming in the mail? You can just send me one usually I'll print it out. Put on my wall. Amen.

Andrew Stotz 44:25
You got it.

44:31
I just had to say that before I split. I couldn't have this. You're getting it. No, it's all good. It's coming.

Andrew Stotz 44:37
All right. Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth. And ladies and gentlemen, if you want a diploma like Larry's God. Get in touch with me. Come on the show and share. I dare you to share your worst investment ever fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying that I'll see you On the upside.