Louis D. Spagnuolo

The definition of a Hero, is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. With this being said, without a doubt it would have to be United States Navy Seal Chris Kyle, who became famous from the movie American Sniper. With a record of 255 kills, this hero risked his life on a daily basis to save the lives of hundreds if not thousands of brave Americans who fought to defend this country, so if that does not exemplify courage, achievement and noble qualities, then I don’t know what does.

Truthfully I wish I had received advice in any form, but the reality is that this is something that has never come to fruition. What has shaped me the most is the mantra of never giving up. I tell people all the time that the best decision I ever made was that I didn’t give up. In every venture whether it is personal or professional there are going to be an assortment of adversities, so in the end what really matters is how you handle them and pick yourself back up and keep punching!

I can write a whole book on all the mistakes I have made, so this one is a bit of a challenge. However if I was to narrow it down to one single mistake, I would say that it would be listening to the advice of other people who have not accomplished as much as I have. I learned from this that decisions should be based on facts and evidence and not simply opinions, so when someone now offers me their opinion, I immediately ask them what evidence is that based upon.

The first hour of my business day is focused on conditioning my mind and mentally choreographing the highest and best outcome for all the components of my day. I called this the “Mind Muscle Workout” because what people don’t realize is the brain is actually a muscle that is no different than a bicep or tricept muscle, where at if it is not consistantly stimulated then it will experience mental atrophy.

Typically we focus on two ends of the spectrum when it comes to target customers. One being the Ultra High Net Worth Individuals who are interested in flying with us privately, have an affinity for Hedge Funds, control large insurable assets and enjoys coming to our world famous events and participating in our once in a lifetime special invitation only “memory moments”. Our second focus is on what we call the masses or the 300,000 million plus people that live in the United States. This target customer has an affinity for our Guaranteed Life Insurance Products, our Involentary Unemployment Insurance, all of our retail goods and products as well as our e-learning and business education verticals. The lesson I learned here is to never play “in the middle”. You either want to service the very best of the best or a large volume of potential clients.

With all these “Fantasy” companies getting funded based off of irrational exuberance, I stress to everyone on my team, that before you bring me anything to consider investing in, show me that it can make $100.00 a day. If it can’t do that then no matter how great the idea may be, I’m not interested. In the past I have thrown millions of dollars at “ideas” that on paper were sure things, only to realize that this is not an exact science and the more “pre-production” and due diligence you do, the greater your chances is for success. The bottom line is you need a monetary foundation to build on, even if you are only making $20.00 a day its still a start and something you can nurture to grow and expand.

I would say it would have to be a combination of embracing technology at every level of your business, while keeping with the fundamentals of always outworking your competition until they no longer exist. One of the biggest voids I see with today’s entrepreneurs is their inability to understand how to actually “scale” a company. Since this is not something that is taught when you get your M.B.A., I feel there is a huge lack of education when it comes to this because I see very few entrepreneurs executing this correctly.

To be honest, there is never a day I wake up and feel successful. Regardless of how many cars, watches, yachts or jets that I own, I still wake up every morning feeling like a “loser” and have to force myself to mentally condition my brain and persona to expect that only the highest and best will come to me. Ultimately success is all about having abundance. This is really the holy grail of life. If you have abundance in your family life, your professional life, your friendships, your passions and your philanthropy that you have “succeeded”.

Without a doubt it would have to be Calvin Coolidge.

(The 30th president of the United States of America)

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.