Today, I spoke with Larry Winget, who is a four-time New York Times/Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He is a member of the International Speaker Hall Of Fame. He has starred in his own television series and appeared in national television commercials. In this interview, Larry talks about how passion is irrelevant to success, why you need to make decisions and accept the results, why we sabatage ourselves and some advice for getting by in this bad economy. Larry ends up talking about how important authenticity is, using himself as an example!
What is more important to an entrepreneur, passion or excellence and why? 
When I appeared on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, I told him that, “Passion is a total load of crap.” Believe me, that got Donny’s attention. But I’m right. I know people who are passionately stupid, passionately wrong and passionately incompetent.
“The key is not passion but instead two completely different concepts: Hard work and Excellence.”
Hard work alone isn’t enough. If you aren’t excellent at something, you are only going to be working hard to promote a mediocre product or service and end up failing.
You will say, “But I worked so hard!!!” Big deal. Hard work isn’t enough. Excellence isn’t enough either. To be amazing at something and then not work hard to market, sell and service that product will still leave you a loser in the end. It takes the combination of hard work and excellence. Forget passion – get good and go to work instead. Besides, passion is an emotion. Emotions are not the way to run a business. And sometimes your passion, or leading with your heart, will cause you to make poor business decisions.
Why do people make poor career decisions and end up depressed at their job?
This one just ticks me off. Make a decision and then go to work to make that decision right. Don’t get depressed about the fact that you don’t like the decision you made. Either live with it or take responsibility for it and change it. Just don’t whine about it. Depression is a choice. You change your situation by making a new decision. People get depressed and experience stress NOT because they made a mistake, but because they wallow in their mistake. If you find out you made a poor decision – get over it – fix it – and move on.
What are three ways people are sabotaging themselves and what can they do to resolve it?
In my new book, People Are Idiots And I Can Prove It: The Ten Ways You Are Sabotaging Yourself And How To Overcome Them, I go over the ten sabotaging behaviors and what to do to fix them in great detail. However, I’ll quickly give you three.
1. People are lazy. It’s easier to watch television than to take action on your life. People spend on average, an hour and a half per day online cruising the internet, then they spend on average six hours per day watching television. They don’t exercise, they don’t read. Yet, they wonder why they are fat and stupid. Duh!
2. Poor priorities. Your time, your energy and your money always go toward what is important to you. If looking cute is important to you, then you spend your money at the mall. If having a secure financial future is important to you, then your money will be used in making sure that happens. Want to know what your priorities are? Just look at how you spend your time and how you spend your money. Forget what you say is important, instead, track your time and spending to find out the truth.
3. People don’t have any plans. When you plan your vacation you know where you want to go, who you want to go with, how you plan on getting there, what you want to do along the way and how much it is going to cost. Very few people have applied those five concepts to their lives. Only 3% of our society have written down plans for their lives.
How can people who just get laid off find work again and be happy? What is your best advice?
Happiness is a choice so I have no comment on that. You CHOOSE to be happy and you can be happy under any circumstances. About finding a job: Take ANY job. You aren’t too good to work regardless of what the job might be. When I lost my company twenty years ago, I did anything I could find to bring in a buck. Yes, I USED to be the company president but now I was unemployed and needed money because I had commitments. So
I mowed yards and trimmed trees and even sold plasma.
Was it beneath me? It was beneath my skill level but it wasn’t beneath me. I’m not too good to do whatever it takes to take care of my family and pay my bills. People need to work! Take any job you can get until you can get the job you really want. You will feel better about yourself when you are taking positive action to fix your problems.
What advice do you have for businesses that are struggling in this recession?
Businesses exist for one reason and that is to be profitable. If you aren’t profitable, you close your doors. Only two things will impact your profitability: You can either reduce expenses or you can increase income. You should do both. Look hard at how you are spending your money. Always know that the most expensive thing in your business is people. That might mean you need to cut people. Sad? Yes, but it is the job of the leader to keep the business alive so it can serve as many people as possible, so if a few have to go to save the rest, so be it. Next, look closely at what you can do to increase income.
What can you do to serve your customers better? You have to figure out ways to do both of these things to survive these tough times. These tough times will hurt many, however, the hard times will also weed out the weak and those companies that were only still in business because times were so good. Get tough, make your business the kind people want to do business with. Communicate with your employers, suppliers and customers.
You know a lot about being authentic and true to yourself. Why is this so important?
Authenticity is the key to my personal success. I used to be a typical motivational business speaker. I was full of happy platitudes that I could spew from the stage with the best of them. And I was making myself sick! I am caustic, irreverent and a bottom-liner by nature. I believe that your life is your own damn fault. I hate whining. I believe in hard work and honesty and integrity. Yet, I wasn’t saying that from the stage and wasn’t being true to myself.
When I became so frustrated that I was ready to quit the business rather than continue being inauthentic, that is when I decided to be true to myself. That’s when I started giving my true self from the stage and in my books. And that is when I became truly successful. I believe that ultimately that will work for everyone. It is based on my philosophy that says:
“Discover your uniqueness and learn to exploit it in the service of others and you are guaranteed success, happiness and prosperity.” I did that. I suggest that everyone discover their uniqueness and learn to exploit that uniqueness in the service of others. It will work for individuals and also for businesses.”
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Larry Winget is the pitbull of personal development and best-selling author of Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get A Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life, It’s Called Work for a Reason: Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault, and You’re Broke Because You Want to Be, and teaches universal principles that will work for anyone, in any business, at any time, and does it by telling funny stories. He believes that most of us have complicated life and business way too much, take them way too seriously, and need to lighten up, take responsibility, and keep it all in perspective. Winget can currently be seen on A&E’s reality series Big Spender and in his appearances on CNBC’s The Millionaire Inside. His most recent book is People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!: The 10 Ways You Are Sabotaging Yourself and How You Can Overcome Them.
