PILLAR 1

Participating in Your Own Rescue

If you want to be that first-generation millionaire, if you want to succeed, if you want to reap the benefits of your hard work, you must be willing at all costs to participate in your own rescue. You must have the mindset of a winner. Not a whiner. What’s the difference? Let me tell you a story.

It was early fall of 1995. I was 20 years old. I had finished my degree in acting school and was focused on getting a job that would allow me to go to auditions. Becoming a sales rep seemed like the obvious choice; I could control my schedule and set my own hours. To meet that goal, I started working in the sales department of a national insurance agency. In Texas, you can get a temporary 90-day insurance license, mainly to try it out to see if you like it enough to stay in the industry. At the end of the 90-day trial period, you take the test to get your permanent license. By the end of my trial period, I was one of the highest-earning agents in the United States. Out of thousands of licensed agents, as a temporary licensed agent, I had risen to the top 50 agents in just 90 days; deciding whether to take the test and get my official license was not difficult at all.

After failing the test twice, I finally passed the test on my third go-around with a just-passing grade of 72. That’s 3 points over failure, but it was enough! I had paid for my own classes, and I had paid for the test three times in less than four weeks. This was me participating in my own rescue, but this was just the beginning. The unknown massive rejection was still awaiting just around the corner.

Still superexcited that I had passed the test, I mailed in my application and test results, and then I waited for my license to arrive. Finally! This was my major reset button on life. This was my foundational point of personal redemption, from homelessness to failing in school to that teenage felony arrest. I was now a professional licensed insurance agent for the state of Texas. Eagerly I awaited for what seemed like months, and a week later, a letter from the Texas Department of Insurance came in the mail. I saw the postmark and return address and actually jumped up and down. I was so excited to start the next phase of my life. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. As I ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter, my smile faded and my unwrapped Christmas present turned into an obituary. The words floated off of the paper.

“Sorry to inform you.”

“You cannot represent the state of Texas.”

“Felony arrest.”

My past—my teenage mistakes—had come back to haunt me. I had to make a decision. I could wallow. I could yell about how I was trying to build something for myself and my girlfriend, Crystal. I could scream about how “The Man” wasn’t letting me climb out of my old life. I could sit there and be a whiner. Or I could stand up and be a winner. I could take responsibility. I knew I deserved what I got based on the decisions I had made. I actually started talking to the letter. “I do have a felony arrest. I know I did it. It’s only by God’s grace and mercy that I am alive and not in prison.” I could own my past or bury it. I decided to own it.

I didn’t mope. I didn’t punch a wall. I didn’t get drunk with my friends. Right then and there, I decided to kick down the door to the rest of my life. I was on fire. I had just turned 21. I had just graduated with a performing arts degree with a major in acting. And now the state of Texas was telling me no? Nope. Not today! As William Ward said, “Adversity causes some to break, but it causes others to become record breakers.” I was going to break or become a record breaker.

Instantly my inner giant—my inner winner—woke up. In that moment, I decided I would exercise faith, commitment, and value simultaneously. I knew in my heart that this decision on whether to accept failure or participate in my own rescue would literally make or break my future in my career as a licensed insurance agent. With the letter still burning in my hand, I called the county clerk at the courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas. It was the exact courthouse that had lifted my felony arrest to a lowercase misdemeanor. I was painfully aware that it was unlikely the clerk would even take my call, but he did. To my surprise, the clerk remembered me, and so did Judge Wayne Salvant.

“Listen. I was in your court about a year ago, and I am really working to get my life on track. I know that my felony was dropped to a class C misdemeanor. If possible, can you please, please, write a letter on my behalf simply stating anything that will give me another chance?” To my surprise, they wrote the letter on my behalf. No promises, no guarantees, and no expectations. Just a simple letter.

A week later, I got another envelope in the mail. It wasn’t a letter from the courthouse. It was in the same sized envelope as before, and it looked exactly like the enveloped I had opened weeks before that had carried my denial letter. I did not open the letter as fast as I had done previously. I prayed to God first. I took a moment to reflect. I made a personal decision that whatever was in this envelope was what I deserved and what I had earned. I knew in that moment that I would take personal ownership of that reality. I took a breath and opened the letter. To my surprise, there was no letter, there was no explanation. It was only my license. I was official! Johnny Dewayne Wimbrey, Health & Life Insurance Agent, Texas Department of Insurance. This single piece of paper represented my personal vindication, my reset button on life. I went on to become one of the top insurance agents in the nation within nine months. Before I was 25, I would earn a regional vice president contract enabling me to recruit and train agents for multiple territories in the United States.

Why did I get my license? Because I had the mindset of a winner. The only reason I got my license was because I took that next step. I participated in my own rescue. This is what I want you to focus on. If you want to be a winner, I challenge you to participate in your rescue. Take that extra step.

I could have gotten really pissed off at the state of Texas, but the whole episode actually pissed me on. Getting pissed off makes a person feel empowered, but in reality, it is an average personality attribute that even toddlers have. Getting pissed off is not a gift, and it’s not a talent. It just means you are a normal, everyday human being. Success and normal are oxymorons. Whiners are normal. Winners are not! I want you to stay in the land of the winner, to run away from being a whiner. You have to take action if you want to participate in your own rescue. I could have sat and wallowed when I got that first letter, but I refused to. Where would I be now if I had never picked up the phone and called the courthouse? I can’t even imagine all the paths I never would have taken if I had just given up.

You are already participating in your own rescue by reading this book. Reading even to this point means you are committed to seeing yourself through this journey. But remember, this is not one of those books that you will finish in a day and never refer to again. As you go through this process, understand that this is not a race. I want you to appreciate the process just as much as you will the results. Keep track of the big moments and the big breakthroughs, and document them. Keep a journal, and write down how you feel when each of those big moments hits you. I want you to form an emotional connection with the high (and low) points of this journey. Keep track of your progress as you go along, and come back to your notes after a year, or two, or three. Write notes in the margins, and highlight the parts that really speak to you. This book will be your companion for years to come.

Exercises like this will help you internalize the ideas in this book so that they stick with you, and we will keep coming back to this idea of participating in your own rescue so that sticks too.

This is important because I’ve seen countless people wander away from their own rescue when things got hard or uncomfortable. Don’t be one of those people. Stay the course! Warning signs that you have stopped participating in your own rescue are these:

•   Acting like victims: Victims spend their time and precious energy blaming their problems on others and on what is going wrong around them, instead of thinking of and actively trying to find ways to fix things. Anyone can be a victim, but a true champion focuses on the solution or how to respond to this experience to become bigger and more powerful.

•   Focusing on obstacles rather than opportunities: Obstacles are everywhere. They are obvious and easy to find, so if you focus on them, you will only expand them. Instead, channel that focus and your energy on finding opportunities. Seek them out under rocks and in trees. They may be harder to find, but they will flourish under your attention.

•   Arguing for your limitations rather than your abilities: When you focus on limitations (such as “I grew up poor” or “I have been raising my kids for eight years, so no one will hire me now”), you are too distracted to see your abilities, which are much more important. Focusing on your abilities would lead you to say, “Sure, I grew up poor, but I want more for my family. I have plans.” Or, “My skills as a parent are ones I can use in the workplace. Organization, budgeting, and time management are all valuable in business.” If you argue only for your limitations, you will keep them. I need you to start arguing for your abilities. Remember, whatever you focus on expands.

If you find yourself wandering off the path in front of you, it is in your control to get back on the right path—and only you can do that. No one else is going to take you by the hand and tug you back to where you should be. The best ways to get back on track are these:

•   Focusing on creating personal victories big or small: No matter how tiny the victory is, celebrate it. Get addicted to the feeling of winning. Once you get a taste of it, you will never want to stop. If you are quitting smoking, celebrate going one hour without a cigarette, then two, then three. Each victory deserves a celebration, and I want you to be addicted to the things that empower you. If you do fall off the path for a moment, it will be easier to get back on it when you know what winning feels like.

•   Starving the negative thoughts: I want you to starve those negative thoughts and anything else that is giving your energy to obstacles and excuses. Your power is always in the now. The faster you can starve negative thoughts in the now, the more victories you will have without falling into negative thoughts and actions.

When you feel that opposing energy or opposing thought, stop yourself immediately. Reaffirm your thoughts by revisiting the moment you said “Yes!” Get back to feeling invincible as soon as you can. Remind yourself why you are on this journey in the first place. Talk yourself out of the negative space, and refocus on your abilities and on that feeling you get when you celebrate a victory. Your self-talk should be feeding you life, not making you feel less than or regretful.

I have come across so many people who have chosen to participate in their own rescue. They have been people who have come from nothing, who have faced every adversity, and who had every reason to give up. The ones that made it big never gave up on themselves. They stayed the course. They knew that no one else could save them but themselves.

Anytime you find yourself wanting someone else to put more energy into your own rescue, you are no longer the authority of where you are headed. You have allowed yourself to become the victim. Rescuing yourself requires all of your energy with zero expectations of any outside support. Of course, help is always appreciated and welcomed, but it is much more beneficial when you start with the old-adage mindset, “If it is to be, it’s up to me.”

If it is your desire to master the millionaire mindset and become a first-generation millionaire, take personal control of your final destination and be open for others to help you, but always keep your hands on the wheel with full access to where you are headed. Those who allow others to orchestrate their rescue will always be subject to someone else’s opinions, limitations, and direction.

A mentor of mine told me, “Johnny, never allow others to create your world for you because they will always create your world smaller than you can personally visualize for yourself.” No one is qualified to see what you see for yourself.

My closest friend and mentor Holton Buggs, also a first-generation millionaire, is currently the wealthiest friend I have. He is a perfect example of someone who has participated in his or her own rescue. “Where I was growing up in Tampa,” he told me, “I only hung around people who created a lid for me. I thought I could only go so far, because I wasn’t exposed to anything else. I had thought I was exposed to a lot as a kid and in high school, but when I left home for the first time, I knew what I knew was nothing compared to what I could have.”

But even as a child, he knew that he was around people who were not even trying to participate in their own rescue. His entire childhood was spent watching people who were waiting for someone to come along and rescue them. No one wanted more than what they had. No one wanted to escape the cycle they were in. It was not because they went out and looked around and decided not to try. It was because they didn’t even go out and look around.

Luckily for him, his father’s family owned a grocery store. When he was a kid, he would go to the wholesalers with his dad and buy food that he would resell to the kids at school. He went from selling popcorn bags for 25 cents a bag at recess to selling enough candy to buy a bike. Once he got a taste of entrepreneurship, he started cutting hair at his father’s store for $4 a cut, and he earned enough to buy a car. He didn’t know it at the time, but Holton was participating in his own rescue.

He took this mentality with him when he left home, and he built on it over and over again. Holton went on to make billions (no, that’s not a typo) in revenue in network marketing, and he has recently opened his own company. He had to unlearn decades of watching his family members reach out a hand and take what was given instead of going out, making a commitment to a job or career, and working for their own success. It wasn’t always easy, but he did it. He made this new way of looking at the world his.

We all are going to face curve balls in life. After all, life is a game. And right now, I am officially giving you permission to play the game to win.

I do want to acknowledge the reality that life happens to us all, and we will talk about mastering the art of response to unforeseen events later in the book. But, for now, I want you to master the art of staying in the driver’s seat on your way to where you desire to be.

Anything that gets between you and your destiny is a temporary situation. It is not permanent. Be very careful to never allow a temporary moment to take up permanent mental residency. Allowing a difficult moment to become permanent will cause you to become bitter, and becoming bitter will be a catastrophic distraction to your personal breakthroughs. Mastering the art of the millionaire mindset is mastering the ability to become better, not bitter. Bitterness is the enemy because it leads to personal destruction.

Let me give you another example of how refusing to allow bitterness to live rent free in your brain will help clear your path. Fast-forwarding to my early thirties and no longer in the insurance industry but instead building entrepreneurs in the home-based business arena: I once mentored a young man from Brooklyn. After I spoke in Manhattan one night, he was chosen to drive me from the convention hall to Newark Airport. He hadn’t had any success yet, but he had the unique ability to be coached in the moment. My leadership team knew that if we had some one-on-one time together, he would flourish. As we talked, I could tell he was driven but holding on to his past failures, and it was making him bitter. He was bitter at himself, his family, his partners, and his friends for doubting him. “I have done more than 400 presentations, and all of the people who heard my pitches said no. I just don’t know what I am doing wrong!”

I told the young man, who was 10 years younger than I was, that we could spend the rest of the drive talking about the nos, but I’d rather talk about the yeses. I tried to explain to him that if he focused only on the obstacles, he would end up creating more obstacles. I wanted him to stop trying to fix what he was doing incorrectly and start replicating what was actually working. Take what was working, I said, and do it 30 times faster, 30 times stronger, and 30 times more frequently. It took me some time to get through to him, but he finally saw the light. He stopped being a whiner and focused only on the winning parts of his life. He stopped complaining and started participating in his own rescue.

When I met this young man in 2011, he was living paycheck to paycheck in the cramped Brooklyn apartment he shared with his fiancée and business partner along with their baby girl. Today, married with three kids. They left Brooklyn and now live in a beautiful, guarded, gated community in southern Florida. In the time that has passed since that long drive to Newark Airport, they have developed a global distribution team with a sales revenue that has exceeded $100 million. With a luxury sports car in the garage and all the amenities they need, he and his family now travel the world speaking to audiences, teaching others about how they became first-generation millionaires. I completely credit this to his ability to become better instead of being bitter.

I want you to come back to the idea of participating in your own rescue. Here is your first of many hard lessons to become a first-generation millionaire. Did you skip the introduction? If yes, why? What inside of you gives yourself permission to cut corners? If you skipped it, please do not allow yourself to move forward.

Learning to flex your first-generation-millionaire muscles “in the now” by correcting yourself, adapting, and refusing to cut corners will create a “right-now” mindset. If you have already started to cut corners, you are already straying off your path.

You must commit to my complete process 100 percent if you ever desire to break the generational mindsets that keep so many content with a life that is beneath their possibilities. I want you to be on the constant hunt for a life of fulfillment, not contentment. This was my first commitment to myself when I was still broke, living with a poverty mindset: “Johnny, no cutting corners!” Now go back and read the foreword, introduction, and the dedication. Trust me, you will be glad you did. I am very serious! If you did not read the introduction, stop now and go back and read it. If you decide to continue without reading the introduction, I promise you, you are a “corner cutter,” and you most likely come from a long line of generational “corner cutters.” How much longer do you want that to duplicate in your bloodline? All I am asking is that you make a commitment. Trust me, you will be glad you did.

What is your goal? Why did you buy this book? What made you start this journey? Whatever it is, focus on a winning mindset. What are the things that are working? How have you already moved your goal forward? What positive steps have you taken? Spend your time, energy, and resources thinking about these parts of your life and not what went wrong, where you failed, and the mistakes you have made. Harping on the negative is not the mindset of a winner. Remember, whiners never become first-generation millionaires. Recognize your value and exercise that muscle. It is time to build the character you need to achieve and sustain wealth. Start this important journey on the right foot.

ACTION STEP

Focus on something you have done that was successful. If you made ten calls and one was a success—one led to something successful—that’s where you want to spend your time. Focus on what you did right, and multiply it. Just do it faster, stronger, and harder. Whiners will focus on what they did wrong and try to fix it. Winners will focus on what they did right and do it again and again and again.

Focus on where you were successful. Don’t worry about where you were wrong. Worry about where you were right.

PILLAR 1