I found Mr. Catledge to be a great public speaker and very entertaining. I wrote down a lot of what he said. And he challenged us to go find his YouTube clips, which I did. It was very an enjoyable hour.
I love how he came from a humble background and really worked his way up. If you're going to have money, that is the way to do it. He couldn't even get into BYU and couldn't get a job with a car. He found it quite perplexing that he couldn't get a job without a car and he couldn't have a car without a job. But like all successful people, he made it work by working at a car dealership until they gave him a car. From there he went into sales, for a radio station. He found this pivotal because he got to see many businesses, and their business models.
One of his most important lessons was that he learned not to care about what others thought of him. The herd always goes the way that you don't want to go. If you want to distinguish yourself and really find greatness, you're going to have to be somewhat of a contrarian.
While working for the radio station in Provo, UT he came in contact with a guy that owned Miracle Ear franchises in Vegas. The man offered him a job to manage the businesses. James thought it was a good opportunity and went. He found it challenging to be a boss of guys twice his age but he felt that he learned a lot. His boss up in Provo had him send $8,333 every month from the businesses to him. And that was whether they had the money or not.
Mr. Catledge felt a little used in some of the things he did, including working for the financial services industry. But he stressed that you should be okay with being used while you learn. He eventually started Net Worth Solutions after he saw that investment houses, analysts, and brokers touted the securities they wanted customers to buy and not necessarily what would be best for the customers. In light of recent lawsuits against the big investment banks, and their outcomes, it seems that he had a valid point.
Other important points:
Whatever the baby boomers do as a group will create a financial windfall.
Fortune Magazine Nov. 2006 did a study on greatness. They found that the single biggest factor contributing to greatness was concentrated effort.
