All right. Hello. My name is Leslie Cain. I'm the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, why not today?
I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often did say, why not today?
I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, D.C. And I'm
excited about my guests today. And thank you everybody for listening and joining and watching.
My guest today is Willie Jolly. And I met Willie Jolly. I always talk about connections and how
I met people. And years ago, one of my team members, I don't know, well, I guess she was a Mary Kay,
worked for the Reston Chamber. And they were looking for a speaker and reached out to Willie.
And he graciously came and spoke. And I heard him speak. And then you did several Mary Kay events
and just kind of connected with you. I remember we went to a Zig Ziglar event years ago, right after
September 11. And just have watched you, admired you, been inspired by you. And the other day,
I'm just like, I'm going to have Willie Jolly on the podcast. So I'm super excited to have you.
So for those people that don't know who you are, share a little bit about yourself and a fun
fact, and then we'll get into the courage stuff. Well, I thank you for having me. And for those who
know me, know I always start the same way. I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it.
It's forced upon me, I can't refuse it. I did not seek it. I did not choose it. But it's up to me
to use it. I must suffer if I lose it, give account. If I abuse it just a tiny little minute,
but I will turn it to you to wrap it up. And it's I'm grateful for this minute, this moment,
this opportunity to be on with you, Leslie, and to share some ideas with your listeners.
Buddy, I used to be able to recite that with you, but I guess you're facing a while.
I'll do that again. So that's taken from my book, It Only Takes a Minute to Change Your Life. It's
called God's Minute written by Dr. Benjamin Mays, who was Martin Luther King Jr.'s mentor.
And so I'm very grateful that I have become known for that one minute. I am a speaker who started
as a singer. I was a nightclub singer who was doing really well in the nightclub business and the
jingle business. And then I had a setback during the karaoke craze of the 1980s. I got caught up
in a club I'd been performing at. They told me, we love you and your guys and your band, and we all
won all the awards, but we still want to get something cheaper. That's what gives us a better
return on investment. So we we're going to go with the karaoke concept. And I was devastated
because I worked so hard to build their business, to build their clientele, but I still got fired,
replaced, downsized, re-engineered, whatever you want to call it. It's still really the same thing.
Fired. And so I didn't know what I was going to do. I took a job with the Washington DC
public school system as a drug prevention coordinator talking to little kids about staying
away from drugs. And it was during that year, I discovered an ability I did not know I had to
use words to communicate. So the little kids, the teachers would say, can you kind of my teachers group?
And someone there would say, can you kind of my church? And someone there would say, can you
kind of my company? And they started growing. And Les Brown, who you just mentioned, heard me
speak and sing and invited me to be on a tour he was creating called the Music and Motivation Dream
Team, which featured Les Brown, Billy Preston, and S-Nite. And I was the opening act. They
allowed me to meet some media people. I got a little radio show that got popular,
got syndicated. You can now hear me across America every morning on Get Up Mornings with Erica Campbell
and Praise Network. That led to SiriusXM, where I now have the number one self-help
down in the country on SiriusXM, channel 141. And that led to a book publisher hearing me on the
radio and saying, I like your ideas. I like you to consider writing a book. And I wrote a book
called It Only Takes a Minute, Change Life, Came a National Best Seller. Then a setback as a setup
for comeback became a global best seller, then turned setbacks into greenbacks and matted to
the backslut. And the newest book is Make Love, Make Money, Make It Last, a book I wrote with my wife
of almost 40 years. And we talk about 10 steps to create a great marriage. We haven't had an
argument in over 35 years. And people wonder how. We give them the tips on how we have had this
great marriage and how it was started off rocky, but we learned some valuable lessons from some
wise mentors that we embraced and they worked and we put them in the book. And then in 1999,
I was named one of the outstanding five speakers in the world by Toastmasters. Next year, I was
named the motivational inspirational speaker of the year by Toastmasters International.
Then in 2005, inducted in the Speaker Hall of Fame, 2013, named one of the outstanding five
leadership speakers in the world. Then in 2016, and named the legend of the speaking industry.
And this year, earlier this year, I was given the Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement Award,
the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. And earlier this summer, I was honored to be the
recipient of the Kavett Award, which is the Oscar of the speaking industry, the highest award in
the speaking industry. And so I'm very grateful that I get to do what I do and go around the world
and share with companies and organizations how to win more. I want people to win more in their
personal life and professional life and their finances and their families. I want them to win
more. And that's what I help people to do to win more when they are tired of losing, tired of maybe
not reaching, achieving the goals that they've set. I want them to win more. So that's what we do.
You've got amazing accolades.
Yeah, well, tell us a fun fact. And kind of that was your acolyte, your history.
Tell us who Willie Jolly is. You mentioned Zigg Ziggler. And us meeting and going to his
Zigg Ziggler event, it was at the it was the Get Motivated tour. And it was at the Verizon Center
in Washington. There was another name at that point, but there was the Verizon Center.
And we sat in there, we took notes. Well, here's a fun fact that that was prior to
2010, I believe, in 2012, Zigg died. And in 2013, and I was honored to get the call from the Get
Motivated tour replaced the Ziggler. So, before then, I was sitting there taking notes from Zigg Ziggler.
And a few years later, I'm standing in his spot. That's pretty cool. That's a fun fact.
Did the COVID, COVID disrupted everything. And I went virtual and I've been doing a lot of work
virtually as well as now starting to get back on the road speaking. Yeah, we're going to talk about
that in a minute. So, and I love the full circle. Zigg Ziggler. And cool fact too is, you know,
my career for the last 29 years is a sales director with Mary Kay and Zigg Ziggler, Mary Kay,
we're very good friends. Absolutely. Kind of good friends. They're both out of Dallas. That's
right. Yep. Exactly. So, share with us. What does courage mean to you? Courage to me is a great word
that I use often. Courage is first, be willing to go full without worrying about fear. Not the
absence of fear, because you're going to have fear. But courage is going full in spite of the fear.
Being willing to face the fear is still move forward. That's courage. And it takes courage
to be kind. Maya Angelou said, courage to be kind, courage to be loving, courage to be fair,
to be courage to be just. It takes courage to do right. And so, I think courage is the
ability to do what is right, to move forward on your goals and dreams in spite of your fears
and your anxieties and your questions and doubts. Totally agree. Yeah. So, you've done lots of things
in your life. And I love all your stories and all your history going from like a nightclub singer to
being on stage, replacing Zigg Ziggler. So, talk about some of the things that you've done that
took courage and what you had to do to, you know, the podcast is Why Not Today? And some of those
things we just have to like say, I'm going to do it right now. And I'm, you know, so share some of
your Why Not Today stories of your career and history. That's a great question. One of the
things to courage to do is quit my job. So, I can live my dreams. I was working for the DC
Public School System. As I said, when I got fired from my job at the nightclub, I took a job at the
school system. That's where I started speaking. And at that point, I didn't know there was such
thing as a professional speaking business for a long time. And I made a decision one day,
but this is not where I'm supposed to be. I need to, I really need to live my dream. And I
set my goals and wrote some dreams down. But still to be willing to quit that job because
all the income sales I had at that point, with the wife and two children at home,
it was frightening. It was scary. But I did it. I quit my job and I went forward. And
I never looked back. So, is there something that happened in that job that you're like,
all right, today is or? Actually, it was. And I think back to that day. So,
I had a boss when I got hired by the job, who was just a great guy. Great guy. He was very
supportive, very encouraging. And he kept saying, I'm going to give you a raise and help you get
more money. I know you got a family. One day, I went away on a Wednesday to a men's conference at my
church. And I left on Tuesday evening. I was gone Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. And I
came back Tuesday to find out that my boss had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Wow. And was
already buried. It was over. So, what? Wow. So, the new boss who came was a woman who was the
complete opposite of this guy. She was not supportive. She was not encouraging. And when I
told her that he had said he was going to position me for a raise, he said, I didn't say that.
Well, I couldn't care what he said. And so, every March, May, every year, my wife and I,
years ago, had bought a time share in St. Martin. And we would take a week to go on vacation.
And so, this time comes up, it's time for me to prepare for the vacation. I went in and said,
I need to take some leave, but I'm going on my vacation. And she said, no, you're not.
Because you don't have, in your position, your position doesn't come with annual leave.
You got sick leave, but you don't have annual leave. You're not going anywhere.
And so, I was like, she shut it down. And so, we had a lady who was taking, who was like a nanny
for our kids. And she was my wife's best friend. She needed a place to live while she had gone
through a divorce. So, she helped us. We helped her. So, we didn't have much money. She needed a
place, I don't know. So, I had to have her every day call, every morning, say, Willie's too sick
to get through the cold. So, that week. And so, when I got back, here's what happened.
When I got back, a couple of weeks into getting back, the Washington Post came out and did an
article about me speaking to kids and how I was so entertaining and engaging. And kids were really,
there was a lot of buzz about me. And it was the front page on the Washington Post. When this
boss, who did not like me, saw it, she said, oh, so you're famous now, huh? Well, we're going to
shut you down. How are you like that? You're not speaking anymore to kids. You're going to do a
job. Wow. You're going to do a desk job. How are you like that? That was the day I said, nah,
I'm not supposed to be here. So, sometimes your courage is amped up by an experience,
a life changing experience that gives you the impetus to say, I'm going to do what I know I
should do. And I'm telling you, it was that day I said, I'm out. I walked in and I said, I'm out.
Goodbye. Good for you. And aren't you glad you did because look at the lifestyle you've
created because of that. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm so grateful. Yeah. I mean, I had a similar
thing leaving my job. I mean, I found Mary Kay and I thought, okay, this is better and
much more positive environment, but I had not replaced an income. And it was one of those,
like, you know what, the games that were played in the corporate arena were awful. And it was
dispute about a commission check. They were changing their rules every time. And I worked
with a coach and kind of resolved that. And as soon as I did, I just slid my resignation in front
of my boss and like, done, I cannot work for you. And the same, and that would be gone for 25 years
and the same stuff is going on. So I really use this platform and this podcast to encourage people
to do those things, to stand up for themselves. And because you just never know what's on the other
side when you say yes to yourself. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So any other courageous things
that I mean, I know you've had plenty years. I've had courageous things. I didn't know what
courageous at that point. Right. They turned out to be courageous. Talking about wife and to marrying
me was courageous. She's amazing. I love your wife. Tell her I said hello. She is amazing.
And talking to her into to marry me on a lunch date and going off and eloping right there where
she wasn't even planning to marry. In fact, she told me no or no. Oh, wow. That was courageous.
Being willing to to change from the youth market to the corporate market, because I was very popular
in the youth market and I could have stayed there forever, but I wanted bigger. I wanted more. So
that was courageous. Being willing to start my own publishing company, being willing to start our own
media business. All of those took some level of courage and you wonder what happens if it doesn't
work. Well, I want to give you four questions you must ask yourself to help you with your courage
when you have to take a risk. Number one, what's the best that could happen if you do this?
Number two, what's the worst that could happen if you do this?
Number three, what's the most likely thing to happen if you do this? Number four,
are you willing to live with the worst to get to the best? What's the best that could happen if I
quit my job? I can live my dreams. What's the worst that could happen if I quit my job? I can
lose my house. What's the most likely thing to happen if I work hard enough? I could somehow
keep my head above one. Are you willing to live with the worst? Lose your house. Get to the best.
Live your dreams. And mom's death was not one of the options, I can get another house.
And so the answer was, yeah, I'm willing to take that chance. I'm willing to be courageous on it
because I've calculated the risk. So sometimes you ask yourself those four questions,
it will help you calculate the risk. So true. And the same thing I kind of did with when I
quit my job was like the worst thing that happened is I'm eating, going to my mom's
to eat dinner, I'm not eating Starbucks and I'll get another job. And six months after I did put
my job, my dad had a major stroke, you know, I was able to be there and I'm so grateful and so many
things in life I've been able to do because I made that courageous decision. And I always thought,
you know, if it doesn't work out, I'll get another job or I was going to bartend at night,
but 25 years later, I have not done yet. Wow, that's good. That's good. Yep. So I've listened to you
speak and you've taught me so many things and motivated and inspired me. So always ask in the
podcast, you know, what would you say to encourage somebody else? And I love the questions you just
ask, but other things. And I love your, it just takes a minute book, your setup is a set of
a clip coming up. And I see that book behind you. I have it on my shelf. Yes. So share some of your
Willy Jolly wisdom. And I love you do your minute one minute thing on the radio and every once
while I hear you, I'm like, I know him and I'll text you. I'm like, just heard you. So I encourage,
first of all, everybody to go to winwithwilly.com, win with Willy, W-I-L-L-L-I-E.com. On there are a
suite of sites. I got my motivational site for business, motivation site for personal. I got a
faith based site, motivation for young people, our marriage site, our music site, our speaking,
if you want to become a speaker site, we got a bunch of sites on that one place where you can
kind of have access to all my world, the world of Willy, right? They winwithwilly.com. The second
thing I would encourage everybody to do when you go to winwithwilly.com. Sign up for my newsletters.
Every day, Monday through Friday, I send out a one minute video. So if you can hear it on the
radio, great. But if you don't, it'll be in your email box and you can listen to or see a video
of the same message that's on the radio every day, Monday through Friday. Okay, next thing I would
encourage people to do is I would encourage people to, if you can get a copy of my book,
a setback, and a set up for comeback, do so. Because I believe that book, as I told you,
grouped this today. It didn't come from me, it came from me. And I believe that book really had
an anointing on it because so many people had news that turned their setbacks into these great
comeback stories, like the stories I've shared in the book and outside the people who turned their
setbacks into great, amazing comeback. What I want to say to everybody is this, that life is a fight
for terracot. It's a fight for terracot. And when you stop fighting for what you want,
what you don't want automatically takes over. It creeps up on you. So what is it you want? You're
gonna have to fight for what you want. You're gonna have to fight for your health. I encourage
everybody to work hard. Number one goal, you can have goals. And I hope everybody has goals. And if
you don't have goals, go to winwithwilly.com. There's a goal setting class. Because we encourage
people to set goals. But that's what turned my life around from a both-plus and nightclub
signature to becoming a world-class and your own new-round speaker. But when you write your goals,
you gotta make a decision that this goal is important. And so if you're gonna live your dream
and make you, you gotta set big, bold goals. And then you gotta be willing to fight for those goals.
Life is a fight for territory. So write your goals. Then after you write your goals, I give you four
steps. First, you work on your vision. Your goal. What is it you want to do? What did you want to
achieve? What did you want to accomplish? What is it that you want? You ask most people what they
want. They'll tell you what they don't want, but they can't tell you what they do or what do you
want. That number one. Number two, what are you presently doing to get what you want? Okay,
so you want to get, make more money. Okay, what are you doing to get what you want? And make a note
of that. You want to lose weight. Okay, well, what are you doing? I'm exercising two days a week.
Okay. Number three, after you've just, you've determined what you want and what are you doing
to get what you want. Number three is what more courage you be doing to get what you want. What
you say you want. I want to lose weight. I'm working out today. Maybe I can work out for
a year. Maybe I could change my diet. So what do you want? What are you presently doing to get
what you want to answer that before you answer number three? What more could you be doing to
get what you want? And here's the outs question. What must you stop doing in order to get what
you want? So you say you want to lose weight. You were presently working out two days a week.
Could you work out more? Yes. So you didn't modify your diet yet. What else, what must you stop doing?
I got to stop eating ice cream every night before I go to bed. So I said, these are questions I've
had to have my, I've had to deal with myself, but I want to lose weight. And so what, what
would I do? I was working out. But what more could I have been doing? I could have been modifying my
diet. What more could I have done? I could have eaten more vegetables and fruits and vegetables,
nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables. What must I stop doing? I loved, I loved pretzels and cranberry
every night before I got those, those, those, those, those, those nibblets. I love those nibblets with cranberries. But I had to stop. I had to stop
riding them. I had to stop eating them because that, that dough was just making me gain weight.
And much of my life, well, I had to say no, I can't do that. I had to stop eating desserts. There are all these fancy places I go to speak. You always have a dessert.
When you're sitting up on the, on the rostrum and, and there's all the dignitary they bring you your meal, then they bring you dessert. I have to say no dessert. I only eat desserts on Sunday. That's my only dessert thing.
And that's, that's it. I had to, I had to say no to things. So I think those important things that will help you to achieve your goals and dreams, help you have greater success.
Yeah, I love that. And wrote those questions down. I'm going to have to revaluate some things in my world. So thank you for that. So what, since the life is world has changed the last three years, what are you doing now? I know you told us how to find you, but
Yeah, first of all, yeah, what are you doing different? How can we support you?
A lot of new stuff. One is we're focusing on helping people win.
That's our number one goal now that we pandemic help people to have greater anxiety. You know, the surgeon general recently said that there was a new crisis in America of loneliness, depression, anxiety as a result of pandemic.
So we want to help you wherever you are in your life to win more personal, publicly, professionally, relationship wise, financially, family. That's number one.
Number two, I started a one man show that I launched in June and did it through mid July. And then I had a bunch of speaking events. So I couldn't get to the month of August.
But we're going to relaunch it on the September 1st week in October. And it is got a terrific write up for the Washington Post. I think that you can see it if you go to the comeback show.com.
Are you going to make places locally in North Virginia?
One place is going to be one place is a residency. It's a church called Emory, beautiful sanctuary like a theater in Washington. And we'll do it every Saturday night.
Fantastic. It's got great reviews. You'll see some of the testimonials on that. The comeback show.com site. So we're going to do that sort of one thing we're launching some television programming.
You can also see us now every Monday night, my wife and I do a marriage relationship show. Monday nights and not a clock on Facebook live Instagram live Twitter live LinkedIn live.
If you follow us on age jolly marriage.com age jolly marriage.com, you can sign up. You can age jolly marriage or Facebook age jolly marriage Twitter age jolly marriage in Instagram and will a jolly LinkedIn live and tune in every Monday night for our marriage show.
So when we talk about the letters and the issues that are breaking up relationships and how to fix them. And so we got the TV, we got radio expanding to more radio station I just signed with Walmart to do Walmart radio in their stores.
We've got the one man show. We've got new music that's being released to get the music power book.com. All of this is at when with Willie.
I will book that calm. And so we got a lot of things going on in the marketplace that the pandemic gave me the time to focus on, on not just traveling so much, but more importantly, using that time to create more.
And so we've got more, more exciting music and television radio. I got two new books coming out this year. One book is called riches good wealthy is better.
And it's a fantastic book. And it's a book that every house is going to me. The other book is the new theology of achievement. That's a, I guess I got three books and the last one is the ABCs of a team.
So that'll be out show. So we got a lot of stuff that you like I used to, I can get more stuff now. So we got a lot of new stuff. So I'm excited about all of it.
I'm going to plug back into all this stuff. It's, and as I said, somebody mentioned less brown, like, really jolly. Not any pop in and I see some of your stuff here and there, but you know, we get so busy.
You need to start following you.
I was able to share with your listeners and hopefully they will take advantage of all the things we have.
There's some free things there on the website on the marriage site and get a free chapter from the marriage book, other free chapters from other books, music motivation inspiration all just to help you grow and go to the next one.
I will share all your contact information, the show notes. I always kind of go try to go back since this is honor my dad and his like to see I was trying to go. Okay, people are like, hadn't been to know your dad, but I always try to go back and like the connection and the connection of how I met you as my dad.
I don't know if you know this actually started the rest in chamber.
And probably when you spoke he may have been there. I mean passed away 10 years ago, but that was a long time ago that you spoke.
And, you know, you think about the whole courage piece and Shanie who got you to speak.
I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, she had to do a pretty courageous selling job on you because I don't think they paid you what you normally got paid.
That's correct.
And but you came and I'm so grateful because I was able to meet you and then you, you know, would. So went back to my dad through the chamber but then, you know, you graciously did several Mary Kay events for us and I'm so grateful for all those and definitely want to get you plugged in.
So back to your father, the car was a person who understood the power of courage.
He understood the power of legacy. And so what are flawed him for courage action and pouring into his daughter, the seeds of greatness and to see them flower and bloom and blossom.
And she continues to do great things with her life. I'm sure he's very proud of you and very excited for what he pulled into you. And so I want to applaud him for his vision that he was seeing great things years ago.
You know, they say the great ones.
They plant trees and that a piece that take 80 years to grow. And that's what your father did with you, he plant in you the seeds for greatness.
He might not have been able to see he knew he might not be able to see the fullness of the reality of what they've become but he knew he had those seeds.
And he gave you courage.
And he gave you vision. And he gave you leadership skills, and he encouraged you that you would be very fun because you would do.
Thank you. And hopefully I'm honoring his legacy and passing this on and helping and supporting people supporting people to be courageous and do those things and say yes.
Fantastic.
So, I will share all your contact information and show notes thank you again for being my guest.
Your your listeners were a little something that's out of my first book.
Okay.
So, tell your dreams. Whatever it needs. Don't be distracted by less worthy needs.
Tell to it nourishing help it to grow. Oh, your dream deep down deep with dreams well.
Follow your dream. Pursuit with haste.
It's too precious to fleeting to waste. Be faithful to loyal and all the day through the dream that you follow will keep coming true.
And a privilege and a pleasure and freedom and treasure your beyond maybe for me to be on with you as we came on your listeners and your viewers lessons to you all remember for sure folks, your best is yet to come.
And I say why not today. Why, Mr. Jolly.