Forbes | Forbes Senior Editor Zack O’Malley Greenburg | How Did Kanye West Create the Yeezy Brand? How to Optimize Your Weekly Schedule + Celebrating the PeakMedicalTech.com Story + Tim Tebow Joins Clay Clark’s Business Conference

Audio Transcription

Hey, how’s it going? I’m Thomas Croson, owner and founder of Full Package Media in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been a coaching client with Clay Clark since the beginning of our business. We started about a year ago, August of last year. I had no clients, no idea what we were doing, no clue really what was going on and now we’ve grown to where we’ve got six photographers, got office space here. I have an admin sales person that works for us full time, developing an online system and a lot of that growth we attribute to Clay helping us and there’s so many things that no I mean this stuff is not you know revolutionary it’s not this crazy walk on hot coals and all this stuff it’s just real real stuff. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather. And man, people are so excited as they come in. Is a comment. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement that you implement. Now Michael LeVine, writer of many many PR books, the man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, George Bush, he is standing by and speaking to the people here at our conference talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here at our conference talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one. It was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers. Michael Levine. We just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called Rustic Cuff talking about the power of the Dream 100. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds. Hey guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two. Follow me. I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. OK, folks, what we’re talking about today is, again, the 14 steps to building a successful company. Now, I want to be very, very clear. Hopefully, if somebody out there could write this down and think about it, and really work through this idea for a second. Forbes magazine lists the wealthiest people in the world. So Forbes, wealthiest people in America. By the way, on part two of today’s show, I’m gonna interview Zach O’Malley Greenberg. And he’s gonna share this story with people out there. And the story that he’s gonna share, you need to hear it from him, because if you hear it from me, you’re gonna think, ah, it can’t be true, okay? But he is the guy who put up, he created or helped to create the list of the wealthiest people in the world every year, Forbes. This is Zach O’Malley Greenberg, the guy who’s the Forbes editor who puts together this list, Zach O’Malley Greenberg. He’s actually been to my house. He’s been to my house. He’s been to the office. There he is, Zach O’Malley Greenberg. He’s been to my show. He’s been to my house. He’s been to my living room, he’s been in my basement, in my man cave area, he spent two days with me, etc. I found him to be an enjoyable person to be around, but what he did is he studies the most successful people in terms of income and how they do it. So you put together this list, you start to say, okay, well, Bill Gates is the top, is he a great guy? I mean, okay. And you look and you go, you know, Jeff Bezos, is he a good guy? David Green, is he a good guy? You start to make a, you say, the world’s wealthiest people, who are these people and are they a good guy? When you look at who they are and you say, how did they get to the top? You look and you say, Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest guy, is he a good guy? Is he a good guy? Jeff Bezos, is he a good guy? Larry Ellison, is he a good guy? Warren Buffet, is he a good guy? Larry Page, is he a good guy? Bill Gates, I mean, are we finding good guys yet? I don’t know, I mean, people need to ask the question is, are these people good people? That’s the question. So Zach O’Malley, he wrote about Jay-Z in this thing called the Ace of Spades. And again, Zach O’Malley Greenberg. He’s an editor for Forbes, and he did a deep dive into the studying of Jay-Z. How did Jay-Z become a billionaire with the champagne company? Do you know about this there, Amelia? Do you know about this story? I do not. You know about this story, Austin. I have no clue. Okay, I’m going to walk you through it. It’s going to be very vague. I’m going to be very specific, but I’m not going to make you suffer through rap videos to see the point, but I’m just trying to give you enough meat that you can know I’m not making these things up, okay? So here we go, I’m trying to keep purity in the eyes, but you also need to know the other thing, okay? So Jay-Z, he runs around pushing this $300 champagne called Arman de Brignac, and people go, oh man, I gotta buy this stuff. There it is. And I know people who have this in their homes. And they go, oh, this is the best, $300 per bottle, it’s the best. Oh, I know somebody, I get a discount for $250. Oh, this is the best. What most people don’t know is that Jay-Z knows business. And I’m not saying that makes him a good guy. I’m saying he knows business. So he found antique gold, a beverage that was priced for $60 a bottle that nobody was buying. So what Jay-Z found out was that, wow, there’s a bottle of champagne no one’s buying called antique gold. And that’s interesting. So Jay-Z in his song, okay, in his song it’s called Show Me What You Got. This is Jay-Z. Okay, this is the song it’s called Show Me What You Got, Jay-Z. He in the video introduces the world to Ace of Spades. People didn’t know that Jay-Z simply found antique gold, or as Ace of Spades. So they brand it was previously $60 a bottle that no one would buy. Jay-Z through his songs and through his pushing of it, convinced people that this was a new beverage. They didn’t know that the beverages, he literally took the packaging off of them and repackaged a $60 beverage and was able to convince people to buy it for $300 a bottle. Wow. I’m going to read to you just a little bit about this. It says, me in the hip-hop world took the comments as a major slight. Some sensed racism, including Jay-Z, so he called for a boycott of Cristal and stopped rapping about it. Later that year, a mysterious gold bottle appeared in his video, Show Me What You Got. The public was soon introduced to the new bubbly Armand de Brignac, nicknamed Ace of Spades after its bold logo. Or at least it was billed as new, sort of. Representatives from Cartier, the French company that makes the champagne, described it as a wine that was making its North American debut this year. After enjoying success as a premium high-end brand in France, bottle bore a striking resemblance to antique gold. A brand discontinued by Cattier in 2006, priced at about $60. Though Armand de Brignac has since earned its share of praise, frequently from Jay-Z and his own songs, some wine critics have given it ratings much lower than Cristal and closer to whatever brand, a fine champagne to be sure, but one planted firmly in the same 60-hour price range as antique gold. New York wine buyer Lyle Fass was less kind, dubbing Armand de Brignac the biggest rip-off in the history of wine. While reporting Empire State of Mind, I decided to travel to France to get to the bottom of the story. I arranged a meeting with the head of the Cattier at the company’s beautiful headquarters in the tiny village of Chigny-les-Roses and headed across the pond. Upon my arrival, the guide took me to a tour of the catiers 150 year old cellars, which served as part of a network of underground shelters during the second world war. There I saw thousands of gold bottles, glowingly, faintingly in the damp dark, each waiting to be stamped with an Armand de Brignac spade logo that would differentiate it from antique gold. The company’s commercial director told me that Cattier’s history and explained that Jay-Z had discovered Armand de Vrignac at a New York wine shop. He insisted that there was no financial involvement and that money or less, Jay-Z simply liked the champagne so much he decided to feature it in his videos. But Armand de Vrignac didn’t ship in the United States until the fall of 2006, months after the gold bottle appeared and Jay-Z showed me what you got. Video! When confronted, the folks at Cattier about this, they backtracked. Uh, there’s a misunderstanding regarding how Jay saw the bottle. A company publicist said, it was in New York, but not in a store. Oh, okay. Anyway, turns out that Jay-Z made millions of dollars by relabeling the champagne, not changing the taste of it at all, not changing the, nothing about the champagne changed, but Jay-Z changed the way it was perceived. Now, some would call that evil, some would call it misleading people, lying to people, shaming people. Some would say that’s how you get to the top of the Forbes wealth list. I’m just pointing out the principle and or the fact that you have to know how to run a business or you’re going to find your $60 bottle of champagne sitting in a cellar that nobody’s buying. But if you know how to do marketing and branding, and that’s sort of, again, you have to read the Bible every day and rebuke whatever doesn’t go along with the Bible. So we get into it now. So step 11, if you’re good at marketing and branding and sales, it doesn’t mean that you’re good at the rest of your life. So Amelia, you work in a store where we, it’s a kind of a high-end men’s grooming lounge. Have you ever met a very rich customer that was miserable? Yes. So you’ve seen it? Yes. Was it shocking to you the first time you met a very rich, miserable person? Yeah. I mean, you have this perception of people and then it changes. And people pursue wealth as though it’s the ultimate goal. Am I correct? I mean, Austin, do you see this? It’s common around me, yeah. Do you see it? Yeah, I see it in the world. Well, so I mean, so this is what I would encourage everyone to do today, okay? By the way, this just in, you don’t have to have my goals. Okay, so you have to determine your goals, write them down and block out time to achieve them. That’s the reality of it. So one of my clients named Ethan, I’ll share with you his story on part two of today’s show, it’s a true story. He found out at the age of around 40, I believe, that he wanted to learn how to play the guitar, how to be a really good husband, how to be a good friend, and how to really get into fitness. And so he focused time on that. And so a lot of our coaching, once we got him to where he wanted to go financially, was focused on optimizing his schedule. It wasn’t about optimizing his income. Hopefully that makes sense for people. You know, a lot of our meetings were, how does he optimize his schedule, not his income? Because he already was making more money than he wanted. When we started working with him, and we helped him grow his business, I don’t think he ever thought that Peak Medical Tech would become that big of a company. But once it was, he still wanted to optimize his schedule. So again, you determine your goals, write them down, and block out time to achieve them. So in part two of today’s show, I’m going to share with you the peak medical tech story. On part three of today’s show, I’m going to share with you the Terry Fisher story, one of the most successful people in Tulsa. And Terry Fisher has a very optimized schedule, but it’s very different than Ethan. But both of them are very happy people. They’re good husbands, good dads, people like them. They’re good folks. But they’re not focused on the endless accumulation of money. So that’s something to think about. So I’m going to just keep a notable quotable. And again, if I read anything on these notes that goes against the Bible, please go with the Bible. But it says, nature will not tolerate idleness or vacuums of any sort. All space must be filled with something. When the individual does not use the brain for expression of positive or creative thoughts, nature fills the vacuum by forcing the brain to act upon negative thoughts. Now I might say that idleness is the devil’s workshop and that people that have a lot of idle time tend to be involved in more gossip, more betrayal, more lying, more cheating, more stealing, and so I would encourage you to not find yourself in those situations. Napoleon Hill uses the word nature where I would use the word God. So I don’t really do the whole nature, I believe in God. That’s how I would look at it, but I think it’s important that we understand the principle. It is true, if you have nothing going on, bad stuff will probably happen. So Amelia in the stores, I’m sure none of the employees that you manage ever do this, but when do you notice that gossip happens, theoretically? But when there’s downtime, theoretically. Yeah. Boston, have you ever noticed this? Yeah, yeah, sometimes not when there’s downtime. Sometimes they carve the time into what’s supposed to be a productive time, so. And so I just encourage everybody to block out time for what matters. So I’m gonna continue reading. This is all step 11 of our system. It says, remember, what gets scheduled gets done, and what does not get scheduled does not get done. So take out a pen and fill out the following goal and time blocking questionnaire, and let’s get serious about helping you to turn your dreams into reality. So faith, what are your faith goals and when will you block out time on a weekly recurring basis in your schedule to pursue your faith goals? I’m not saying this so people think anything great about me. I’m not a prayer warrior. I’m certainly not God’s gift to God, right? Okay. So, but you know, I do block out time every night to study the gospel because I want to know. Now I’m not saying that to impress anybody, I just do. So that’s what I do every night. No, I’m not saying that’s a good thing, I’m just saying it is my thing, right? And so when do I do it? At night. I also do it in the morning when I get up, you know, take a shower. I’m always listening to stuff as I’m getting ready. That’s what I do. Family. What are your family goals and when will you block out time on a recurring basis to schedule, in your schedule to pursue your family goals? I’m taking my family to go see the Bassmaster event here in a couple weeks. Doesn’t mean I’m a good guy because I’m taking my family to see the Bassmaster. It just means that I am taking my family to see the Bassmaster. But this week is spring break. Now this is crazy. My family is going on a spring break trip without me because I refuse to take off spring break because I don’t want to take off spring break. So my family’s going to Branson or wherever and I’m not going why because I’m not gonna take off the week to go now Amelia I want to get your thoughts on this and Austin your thoughts. I think Most people in America are gonna go on spring break because they’re told they should go on spring break And I think that most people will go along and do that Never having the thought of do I have to take off spring break? I think they just do it I think those people celebrate Easter. They don’t think about it. Most people celebrate, you know, why are we celebrating Easter? What’s the egg all about? What’s the rabbit? I don’t know. Christmas? I think people just blindly celebrate stuff and don’t think about it. Like a Christmas tree, I don’t know why I’m putting it up, but I’ll put it up. Is that in Jeremiah? I don’t know. Let’s put it up. I mean, right? So these are the things that people do. So I want to get your thoughts on this. Do you think that most people, Amelia, that you know are intentional about blocking out time for family or are they just sort of, it just, whatever happens, happens. No, I would say 99% of the people that I know, it just, very go with the flow. Just like you say, if it’s not in your schedule, it’s not gonna get done, but they don’t have a schedule. So they just do whatever. What do you think, Austin? Yeah, I completely agree with that. Go with the flow. You know, if you go with the flow, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards. I’ll tell you this, if you want an example of, if you just want to get crazy for a week, folks, if you just want to really, really make everyone around you irritated by doing nothing but helping yourself, decide to only eat, let’s say vegetables or only eat, just change your diet radically to improve your health. So let’s just say you decide I’m only going to eat vegetables and that’s all I’m going to eat are vegetables and fruits for the next month. Or if you go on like a water fast, or if you go on a carnivore diet or whatever it is you’re doing, and you don’t change the – I’m not going to walk up to you, Amelia, and say, you can only eat meat. I’m not saying, Austin, you can only eat vegetables. But imagine that you do that. Everyone around you hates it. And they start to say things like, why are you only eating vegetables? What’s wrong with you? And you’re going, why is what I’m eating impacting you at all? Right? Exactly. Because most people want to stay in the main stream. Okay? Think about this for a second. The main stream, you might also think about the word broadcast. There’s a television that tells a vision on a broadcast, a cast that goes broad. So there’s a lot of that. So you talk about broadcast. What about the narrow cast? I mean, if you’re looking at it from a spiritual perspective, the Bible says the narrow gate, the narrow path is the path to heaven. So again, most people are going to Broadway though. Yeah, that’s true. Broadway is a home of entertainment, mindless entertainment, Broadway, the Broadway, think about it. Okay, so we go here to financial goals. What are your financial goals and when will you block out time on a weekly recurring basis to pursue your financial goals? Fitness, what are your fitness goals and when will you block out time on a recurring basis to schedule, to pursue your fitness goals. Friendship goals. What are your friendship goals? And when will you block out time on a recurring basis in your schedule to pursue your friendship goals? The other day I got a guy, I like him a lot, he’s a nice guy. He said to me, hey, you want to come over and watch Oppenheimer? I said, uh, no. But I love you. You’re a great man. I don’t want to watch Oppenheimer. He says, why not? I said, I really have no interest in watching a 3 hour movie with you, but I appreciate you. But I just, no. And it bothers people. When you know what you want to do, does it not? Yeah, they take it offensively, I don’t know why. But it’s true, right? Right. So when you start organizing your schedule, man, you start moving mountains, you start getting stuff done, you start having massive productivity, but it bothers people. It’s wild. I mean, it’s wild, but you got to do it. Okay? Fun. What are your fun goals? One of my goals are fun. And when will I block out time on a regular basis to pursue fun? Is that okay to have fun? I don’t know. I mean, what do you like to do? One of my clients likes to take his kids out deer hunting. That’s what he does for fun. Okay. If you like going out to the woods and waiting for a deer to come by and you shoot the deer and that’s exciting for you, okay. But you’ve got to block out time for it. Now, next, Napoleon Hill writes, every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent benefit, equivalent advantage. Once you start blocking out time, you’re gonna see you’re gonna have adversity. You’re gonna have people that are mad that you are no longer going to hang out with them. But there’s also the advantage that now you have time to get stuff done. So again, I just encourage everybody, if you start time blocking, I mean, this is going to be a, you’re in a rare air if you start time blocking. Amelia, why do you think I put it so far down on the, on the, the, the, the proven path? Why am I talking about this with clients on, you know, step 11 and not step one? That’s a good question. I don’t know, actually. Come on. It’s so divisive. Okay. This irritates me. Yeah, it does. So much. I have a long time client, I won’t mention her name, she’s a great lady, and we’ve been working with her for years. And she came up to me and she’s like, I noticed that like in our coaching, you’ve never really gone down step 11. I said, well, do you have time freedom? Yep. You have financial freedom? Yep. Okay. If we start talking about step 11, our relationship’s gonna change. You know, you and your husband and us, it’s good that I work with a husband and wife, it’s gonna get weird. She’s like, how’s it gonna get weird? I said, because we’re gonna start talking about your life beyond your business. And I grow businesses. I’m not a life coach. Back to Forbes, the world’s wealthiest people. Are they great people? I’m not a life coach, I’m a business coach, you know? So she was like, well, we’d like to try it. I’m like, okay, great. So what do you want to do? And this lady was, you know, five, seven, five, eight, you know, and she’s like, I always wanna work out every day. I wanna work out every day. I feel so much better when I work out every day. So every day, she’s like, every day I wanna do it. Well, the husband’s like, when are you gonna do that? And she’s like, well, I have to do it in the morning. Like, I get six. And he’s like, well, I don’t, but if you work out at six, who’s gonna get the kids ready? And he’s like, well, and then all of a sudden now we’re having some conversations and I’m not a life coach. Yeah, yes. Right. I’m like, whoa, it’s me. It’s getting weird, folks. And she’s like, no, stay in the room. I remember. I remember like a just a stay in the room. What would you do? I said, well, what if you work out at five? Find a gym where you can work out at five. And that way your husband can because he has his business. His business starts at seven. So if you work out at five you can get back in time still get the kids ready then he wouldn’t then he wouldn’t have to or you’re gonna have to move your office meetings and reschedule the way your office runs to accommodate your wife’s workout but those are the only two options right and he’s I’m not moving my staff me we’ve had the same staff meeting for ten years and his wife’s like well I’m not gonna get up at five I never wake up at five okay and we’re not cooking. You know, and then it’s like, okay, let’s move on to faith. And I said, so what do you guys, do you guys have the same faith? Yeah, we do. So, what are your goals? She’s like, I’d like to go every Sunday and demonstrate to our family that church is important and I want to go every Sunday, I’d like to go Wednesday too. And he was like, every week? The pastor just talks about the same stuff. And she’s like, honey, it’s important to me. He’s like, well, I don’t want to go. And she said, well you need to go. And all of a sudden we’re like, whoa! Because all she’s doing is saying she wants to work out every day and go to church twice a week. These are reasonable things, right? So I go to him, like what do you want to do? And he’s like, I want to live cheap. I said, you want to live cheap? He goes, yeah, we keep buying stuff we don’t need. Like I’m so tired of buying the newest car, the newest house. I just want to live like in the woods somewhere cheaply. And she’s like, oh really? Oh, so you want to work all the time and live in the woods? And he’s like, no, I wouldn’t work all the time if we did live cheaply, because I wouldn’t have to work so much. And so these two, it was like a battle ax meeting. I thought people were going to die in the meeting. I’m serious, I was worried. So about a year later, about a year, because I was like, I don’t want to, I just want to focus on growing your website, growing your online traffic, selling more stuff, hiring, firing, systems, processes. About a year later, she shows up in the meeting, and I notice it every week, but she’s probably 50 pounds lighter. And I said, wow, you never want to compliment the figure of another man’s wife, but I’m like, I got to ask you, are you eating food? What are you doing? And her husband was there, and he was like, she works out like every day now. I go, really, every day? That’s incredible. Wow. You know? And I’m like, wow, that’s incredible and he’s like yeah You know she decided to do the 5 a.m.. Workout thing. I decided to help get the kids kind of ready I’m like in the house. What’s that? We actually just finished building a bard dominium in the woods, and we’re out there. It’s great super cheap I’m going wow But that was like a I mean you know I mean now now now Yeah, I won’t mention her name or anything, but now you would have no idea that she used to ever be 70 pounds heavier. You’d have no idea that they used to live in a McMansion, in a gated community to wow people and could barely afford to do it. You’d have no idea that he used to work, you know, seven days a week grinding. You’d have no idea that she used to be in the office while trying to run the kids, trying to raise the kids. Now she’s at home with the kids full time, she’s working out all the time, he’s in the office five days a week. The whole thing is different now. But you start talking about someone’s schedule, people, yes. So this is some dangerous stuff here. Okay, this is some life-changing stuff here. I don’t know that I’m a life-changer. I’m a business grower guy. I mean, this is like you go to the muffler repair guy and you say, can you fix my muffler? And he starts telling you about Jesus. You know, it’s like, wow, I appreciate your knowledge of the book of Daniel. Wow, I had no idea. Thank you for telling me about the Nephilim. I had never thought about Genesis that way. Thank you. But it’s like way more, I’m a shallow, business growth is like a shallow. Again, you could be on the Forbes list of the wealthiest people and I don’t know that you know the Bible. So I just, and I think in our culture, we idolize athletes and business people. I think if someone makes a lot of money, I mean, would you agree Austin? I think if people make a lot of money, they’re like, this person must be right about everything. Yeah, that’s the way it is. And it’s sports too, right? Yeah. It’s like, wow, this actor is so good at acting. Wow, they must be right. We deal with attractive people, attractive men and women, but at the end of the day, we’re a business growth company. We’re not a life optimization company because money just magnifies you. Now, if you want me to help you on step 11, but as a coach, you probably will not talk about that with many clients other than just blocking out the stuff for the business. So you block out time for the business, but we don’t really talk about, are you blocking out time for fitness? Because then it gets crazy. But I’m gonna read this to you. It says, having worked with thousands of clients to help them turn their goals into reality, I have become a master of time blocking and great observer of the fact that what gets scheduled, gets what? That what gets scheduled gets done. Gets, gets, what’s get scheduled, gets done. And those who actually take the time needed to block out time for the pursuit of their goals. They have the, they, they have for their faith, their family, their finances, their fitness, their friendship and fun are the most happy and the most successful. Need a place to start. Want to see an example listed below is my schedule. And I just put my schedule in there, not because it’s ideal, but hopefully it gives you an example of someone that does block out their time. And I’m very pigheaded about my schedule. Next, it’s okay for you to judge me and my schedule and to say that I’m not blocking out enough time for what matters most, but it’s not okay for you not to judge yourself as well. You need to get serious about time blocking and time blocking now, because no one drifts to success. You make it your top priority to define your goals and to block out time needed for the achievement of your goals. Make sure you’re setting goals that motivate you, that fire you up, and that make you want to leap out of bed each morning to turn those goals and dreams into reality. That’s why I like, if I’m on a vacation at a place I don’t want to go, I want to sleep in because I don’t want to get up and go walk on the beach all day. Now, maybe I’m a horrible husband, but I just don’t want to go to the beach. So therefore, like to me, going on a beach vacation is not like, well, I’m excited. Let’s go. I’m more of like sleeping for seven consecutive days. Do we do it? It doesn’t excite me. What it does excite me is time with my family. So once my wife and I kind of make a schedule that seems exciting for the both of us, then I go, OK, now I’m excited about this trip. But just going to the beach and like napping on the beach all day is not my idea of fun. I know there are people I know who like to lay out on the beach all day. I’m not that guy. So, I like hanging out with my kids on the beach, but I don’t want to lay out on the beach. Hopefully I’m communicating that idea. Okay, so now the trade-off, this is Zig Ziglar, he writes, you don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. So if you’re out there today and you’re like, my schedule’s crazy, I hate my schedule. You’re going to have to start making a schedule right now. So now the trade-off of being a super diligent and high performing person is that you can no longer be a drifter. You can no longer be a slacker who’s aimlessly drifting through life and doing nothing most of the time. Now Austin, you work at the mall, you’ve been up at the mall, you’re doing some work for us at the mall. It is possible to do nothing all day, is it not? It’s very possible, yeah. You just can sit there and have pointless conversations if you really want to. You could, but the goal is, you know, to show people what we do and gather reviews. That’s why we’re there. But you gotta be intentional about that stuff. And I know some people, they’ll go to the mall and they might gather one objective review all day. Other people maybe gather 30. And a lot of times the same person has the dynamic range of that. You know, you’ll see one guy who will get, we had one guy who used to help me at trade shows back in the day with my DJ entertainment company. And he would book like 40 wedding appointments at one show and then the next show he’d book two. And you’re going, how did you, what happened? And he’d say, ah, I’m just going through a thing. I’m going through, and one day I had to point out to him, you’re always gonna be going through a thing unless you’re dead. If you’re dead, I don’t know what you’re going through, but it’s probably even more significant than, you know? So, but get serious, man. So if people say, I don’t have time, I don’t have time to get these things done. Okay, okay, here we go. So in order to become super successful, you’re going to have to stop doing certain activities. So make a list of the activities that you will stop engaging in beginning now to create the time needed to achieve massive success. Stop watching TV, stop scrolling through social media, stop going out to eat every night, stop gossiping with friends at the local coffee shop, stop, stop, stop, but you gotta say no to grow. And I’ll leave you with one final quote. And again, if I ever quote something that goes against the Bible, please go with the Bible. But Chet Holmes, the legendary best-selling author of the Ultimate Sales Machine says, mastery is not about being special or more gifted than anyone else. Mastery is a direct result of pig-headed discipline and determination. I agree with that in the confines of growing a business. But I know people, have you ever met someone Austin that’s unbelievably talented? Yes, I have. Have you met someone who’s unbelievably talented before there, Amelia? Oh yes. Okay, so I agree with what he’s saying and that’s why I love business so much. If you do business, you don’t have to be super talented. But this guy here, Amelia, do you know who Charlie Puth is? I do. Okay, so this is Charlie Puth and he is performing with Boys to Men. He has what’s called perfect pitch for anybody that studies music and it’s where somebody almost doesn’t have the ability to not be perfect to pitch and he his mom says that like you know as soon as he could talk. So he hops in with Boys to Men, a group he’s not a part of, and he’s the fourth man. This is Charlie Puth, the white guy here. And just listen to how he nails it. Oh, baby, please don’t cry. Oh, it doesn’t have to end this way. I swear to think of all the nights I’ll be alone. Now, real quick, what’s going on with this stuff behind them? Oh, man, harmonizing. That’s nice. You know, I mean, this is, I mean, look, look at this. Look at the artwork behind him for a second. What is this? What is going on? I look at it. Just for a second. What is this? I, threes everywhere. You see this? So it’s like, as a Christian, I really, as a human, I really like the sound of the music. What’s going on in the background? Pyroglyphics? Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this often? I am, yeah. Can you please explain what you’re seeing back here? Yeah, that’s the Hindu symbol in the back. And on the left of it, you’ve got the zodiac, which is, you know, the false, not the false cause, but they’re… Hindus celebrate, or they worship the false gods. It’s spelled 200, so… Um, yeah, that’s all pagan symbolism. Pagan symbolism! Yeah, and that might actually be more. I can’t really see. It’s blurry on the left. Huh? I’m trying to see the tapestry on the left. Right, you’ll see it. But the thing is, we’re watching it because they’re good singers. That’s why I tell people, if you look up the world’s most successful people, are they good people? What’s going on with that? You know, but I’m saying it so people are mesmerized and attracted to wealth. And they’ll follow wealth, they’ll pursue wealth, and they’ll follow it off a cliff because they never take the time to think about, like, is this what God would want me to do? And so it’s this weird balance that we’re in because we’re trying to grow a business and we say by default, I’m trying to grow a business, I have my family, we all say that, and to, you know, if you’re a Christian you might say to support the kingdom. Right. But then you’re like, yeah, but you work at a vape shop. And you’re hot to young people who get become addicted. And yeah, but I’m doing it for because it’s legal. You’re like, oh, so it’s legal. So this is probably the only part of the business coaching that in my mind is almost like a no-go zone. Where I try not to ever talk to my clients about anything other than blocking out time for their business. So you talk about setting your goals for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness. I just tell my clients, hey, we’re just here to block out time for your finances. You deal with the rest of life. I don’t wanna be your life coach. But I’m just telling you as a cautionary tale, when you’re working with clients, be very careful about don’t go into that. Because then it gets weird. You’ll lose the relationship because someone’s like, are you judging me? Cause I don’t block out time for fitness. And you’re like, no, I’m not judging at all. In fact, I’m not, I’m not even, I didn’t even. So just when you, I give people the plan. So if they want to block out time for those areas, they can. Right, so touch on it, but just don’t sit there and don’t hit it. Once you touch it, don’t hit it. You know, another example, Amelia, you grew up in ministry, right? Yes. So let me just give you an example. If I was a pastor of a church, I might say, folks, this month we’re all reading the book of Daniel and we’re really going to study the life of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian empire. That’s what we’re going to do today. And I would like for everybody to read Daniel, the whole thing. It should take you an hour. Read it this week. Now, the next Sunday I get up and I’m not a pastor, but just imagine the situation. I get up and I go, folks, here’s the deal. If you haven’t read the book of Daniel I want you to get up and you can never go to church here again Cuz you’re a bunch of liars. You told me last week you would do it You’d probably have no one going to your church because you followed up on something That is a personal thing and it make sense. Yeah, I see what you said Good, you know, maybe on a lesser level as a pastor say I’d like everyone to be here next week. Can we try that? Just be here physically. And if you’re a volunteer, I really need you to be here. So you just want to keep it just a little bit more shallow. Otherwise, you have weird relationships with the client. Yeah, just keep the business. Yeah. So if you’re out there today, folks, and you want to grow a business, and you don’t want someone getting up on your business about your fitness, all you got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com and schedule a consultation. That’s Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the, you go here on business consulting, you click the button, you can schedule a free 13-point assessment. I will go over the 13 aspects of the business with you. It’s a free consultation. And then on part two of today’s show, we’re going to share the peak medical tech success story. And we’re going to share the Terry Fisher success story. Now, full disclosure, Terry Fisher is not a client of mine, has not been a client of mine, but he’s been a mentor of mine, a friend of mine, a guy that I really think has done a phenomenal job as a husband and as a father. I think there’s a lot to learn from him as a business person. But I encourage everyone to take notes, and any time you hear anything on these shows that ever goes against the Bible, go with the Bible. And also we’re going to fit in Zach O’Malley Greenberg on today’s show. So it’s like the mega show. You got Zach O’Malley Greenberg. How in the world did Jay-Z become who he is today in terms of wealth? How did he do it? How did he grow the brands? Peak medical tech. What’s that all about? Terry Fisher. It is a blasty blast. It’s going to be a great show, folks. So I encourage you to listen in to part two, three, and four of today’s show. And again, if you want to schedule a free consultation, do it at thrivetimeshow.com. That’s thrivetimeshow.com. And by the way, we interview the Forbes senior editor, Zach O’Malley Greenberg, on how Kanye West created the Yeezy brand, what it’s like to interview Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and other super successful entertainers. On today’s show, Zach O’Malley Greenberg shares his path from the campus of Yale to becoming a senior editor at Forbes Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show on the top, teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s what I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’re so happy. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Dr. Z, my friend, what do we commonly refer to as our business bible? What do we always say? We always quote Forbes. Forbes is our business bible. If it’s in Forbes, book it. Book it, Dan-o. That’s Oklahoma Man Law 1.273. Always. I mean, every entrepreneur, if that’s on their bucket list, to be on the cover of Forbes. I can be on the cover of Forbes and one of those little inserts in the corner. That’s all you need. Just in, Clay and Robert, they’re boomtastic, they’re boomerific. This guy writes Forbes cover stories. I’m looking at the website, it’s zoegreenberg.com. Kendall, if we could put the camera on it. Z-O-G-R-E-E-N-B-U-R-G, Zoe Greenberg, you can see here, this man has done the article with Katy Perry, the cover story. Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber just did a sit-down interview with Kanye West. Zachum Alley Greenberg, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you? Alright, good to be here. I am so glad you came to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit us, my friend. Have you been overwhelmed, underwhelmed so far? What’s going on as you’re processing all things Tulsa, Oklahoma? I’ve been very pleasantly whelmed. Whelmed? No! Overwhelmed feels like a bad thing sometimes. You don’t want to be overwhelmed, you want to be underwhelmed, you want to be pleasantly whelmed. Wow, that’s well said. I give you a mega point. Okay. Yeah, he does get a mega point for that. How would you describe what you do for Forbes now? I think a lot of people don’t know. When they hear the phrase senior editor, what does that mean? Sure. It means a lot of stuff, and not all of it is editing. For me, the kind of bread and butter of it all, for me at Forbes over the past decade has been doing these big stories on the biggest figures in media entertainment, particularly music and particularly hip-hop, which is kind of my passion over there. Dating back to the very beginning of my time at Forbes, the way I got into it was an editor walked into my cubicle, and this was 2007, I just started, she said, Hey, you’re under 30, do you like hip-hop? I said, I love hip-hop. She said, great, we’re going to put together the first ever list of the top earning rappers in the world. And let’s go do it. So I did it. We put it out. Jay-Z, Diddy, 50 Cent were in the top three, in that order, I believe. And they were so excited to be recognized by Forbes that they made a song called i get money the ford’s billion-dollar remix yeah and then we were off to the races that editor came back and she said you should make this your thing i did she left got a contact uh… started kind of growing this this part of the coverage and And kind of brought it up to you know all the way through the rest of media and entertainment and music and started writing books On the side previous to working at Forbes. What were you doing before that? I was in college at Yale I was writing for the Yale Daily News not really about rappers Unfortunately, did you would you enjoy your time at Yale? I did. You know, I got to say, college newspapers, you know, a lot of times have the kind of the setup and the resources, you know, that a lot of major publications, you know, don’t these days, especially in smaller towns, you know, to actually have all these different desks, editors, people working. I mean, part of it is that we’re all working for free 40 hours a week. So of course, you know, you can make it work and not have to charge for subscriptions. But it really was a truly functioning news organization on a small scale that had a pretty big footprint. I got to strengthen my writing muscles over there. Were you into writing a lot as a kid growing up? Yeah, my parents are both writers. They wrote about everything that I didn’t end up writing about. So my dad wrote humor and thrillers and my mom did kind of true crime stuff. So I do business, hip-hop, music, immediate entertainment, all the other stuff. Your wife’s a psychologist? Yeah, a full-on psychiatrist. Psychiatrist. That’s probably four extra years you’re talking. She determined why, on a deep, dark, psychological level, why you write about entirely different things than your parents once wrote about. Is there some thing, do we have a label for it? Oh man, you know, we’d have to get her on the line. Have you guys talked about this? You know, we had an idea, actually, for a blog, which was that I would interview people and then she would psychoanalyze them. But we thought that that might be breaking both some kind of journalistic and Hippocratic oath. I was going to say, yeah. Okay, so what we’re going to do now is this is going to be- But it sounds great, though. I mean, the concept is pretty cool. This guy went from the cubicle to the top in terms of the top, you know, one of the top of people, writers at Forbes there. And what I want to do is this is going to be a shameless name drop show. Oh, let’s do it. So what I’m going to do, and I know when you’re interviewing people there are certain things you can share about the interview, certain things you can’t, but I just want to go, I just said nothing but name drops, okay? So here we go. So when you’re sitting down with Katy Perry and you’re interviewing her for the cover story of Forbes called America’s Pop Export, did you come up with the title for this? I believe it was collaborative process, but I think I’ve suggested at least part of that one, sure. Who had the idea to interview Katy Perry? That was me. I thought she’d be a great fit for a lot of reasons. At the time I did the story, I think it was 2014, 2015. She was one of the top earning, I think top two or three earning musical acts in the world. people like Taylor Swift, maybe Lady Gaga were getting a little more ink and You know, I thought one of the really cool things about Katy Perry was she sat down with me two hours You know, no, no publicist. No, no handlers. Nobody in the room and that was just the first interview and she really dug in to her journey as an entrepreneur and She wasn’t kind of afraid of talking about money and wealth in the way that a lot of people I interview are. I think a lot of entertainers, they think, oh, if I talk about my wealth, people are going to think I’m a sellout. Not so much with hip-hop. Hip-hop, it’s sort of like, no, you know, we’re going to go get it and we want you to enjoy this journey with us. But a lot of pop acts in particular are afraid that they’ll be seen as sellouts. And Katie really owned it. She was like, you know, no, I want to be a role model to all those young women out there and you know, to know that you can be your own boss you can go get the thing that you want and you know build a business be an entrepreneur and you know I really want to own that as opposed to sort of shying away from it so I really I really respected that a lot and I think it it really made the the story come alive also we did a second interview in Italy which was the you know in Italy getting this in Italy in Rome and that really made the story pop I thought that was became the intro of the story and where a lot of the color and the drama came from. Who pays for you to go out there? That’s Forbes, yeah. So Forbes, so you fly out there and you’re interviewing. Do you use a coach? You know, but yeah. Do you use a pen? Are you using a pen? Are you typing? Do you record the interviews? Yeah, recorder and then usually notes as well. Notes, okay. Sometimes two recorders just to be safe. And you go in with all the pre-written questions. What do you bring to the table before you interview the person? I usually bring, let’s say a dozen or so questions depending on how long the story is going to be. But I find the best kind of interviews are the ones where you’re not just kind of ticking through a list. You’re having a conversation with this person and you kind of just ask follow-up questions, see where it goes. You follow the flow and I think in a way it almost stops feeling like an interview anymore. It stops feeling like a chore. Instead, you’re just having an interesting conversation with an interesting person. Bring it back! I usually bring, you know, let’s say a dozen or so questions, depending on how long the story’s going to be. But, you know, I find the best kind of interviews are the ones where you’re not just kind of ticking through a list, right? You’re having a conversation with this person. And you kind of just ask follow-up questions, see where it goes, you follow the flow and I think in a way it almost stops feeling like an interview anymore, it stops feeling like a chore. Instead, you’re just having an interesting conversation with an interesting person. You end up after four hours with Katy Perry, how much material do you have at this point? How many pages of transcripts are we talking about? Probably dozens of pages, but then there are the notes. The notes I think really made this story come alive like I was alluding to earlier. The beginning of the story, you find me in a Mercedes van, roaming the streets of Rome. That would get edited into something a little more descriptive. When in Rome, I eat Italian food. Okay, there we go. And on, you know, the phone, my phone rings. It’s like, all right, you know, you need to stay in the, you need to stay in the van for one more mile. And then at the end of that, you know, journey, you’re going to get out of the light and you’re going to walk down the street for 200 feet until you see the red arch. And, you know, it’s like out of a spy novel. Oh, wow. I get out of the car, I walk the mile, and I turn and I look. I’m like, which arch? It’s Rome, there’s gonna be a lot of archs. And you know, it’s like, okay, you’re gonna look for a lady in a big white hat, lady in a big white hat. And I look down, and there’s a lady in a big white hat and sunglasses. And you wouldn’t know it if you hadn’t had her security team on the phone, but it was Katy Perry. And so they had to do this whole charade because she was being stalked by a paparazzi. So they had two Mercedes vans, and she was in one and I was in the other, and I didn’t realize I was the decoy. Oh wow. And to kind of get them off my back and so you know the door opened and out pops some American guy and they’re like alright whatever off they go and then I go meet up and we do a tour of the Coliseum and the whole story was about you know it’s here’s Katy Perry this giant arena act but here we are in the original arena, the Coliseum in Rome. And that was kind of, from there we jumped into the business. Do you get nervous when interviewing? When you’re interviewing Katy Perry, I mean, have you ever found yourself saying, Katy? You know, what was your name? I mean, sorry, I mean, can I, you know, do you ever get nervous at all? Have you ever gotten nervous? Um, you know, maybe in my first year doing this, a little bit I’d get butterflies and stuff, but you know at some point people are just people and you know and It’s it’s fun to interest It’s fun to interview interesting people whether they’re famous or not and you just kind of get used to it It’s like if you interview somebody who’s really really tall you know you’re like dang You’re really tall, but if you’re only interviewing basketball players. It just sort of stops being yeah, they’re all Just like okay. It’s Katy Perry funny. Yeah, she’s funny, and she’s very earnest I think people don’t maybe realize that there’s there’s um you know not like she doesn’t put on airs she’s very direct yeah she seems like a down-to-earth kind of girl just stop stopping I’m gonna ask you this question just like oh first thing that comes to your mind of all the interviews you’ve done of celebrities and list celebrities which one has surprised you the most first thing to mind. You know, the name that pops into my head is Ludacris. Okay, explain. Yeah, uh, you know, I mean he has this kind of outrageous persona in his music. Right. Outrageous name, I mean… Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think the name… What do you expect? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I was interviewing him and he was kind of getting into, you know, his portfolio and these businesses that he owns and this and that and he’s creating this company that he wants to hand off to his daughter when she gets old enough and in this kind of stuff and and i was like you know so how do you kind of justify that side of you with you know yeah and um… and he said well you know if you think about it like if you have a buddy like you think about think about your best friend and it’s like what’s your best friend’s name julian okay well was a victim like jobs you know you never know. So, just like that, you’ve got Chris Bridges on the weekday, but he’s Luda in the club, and he really kind of bounces back and forth between these two different personas as needed. But I think he kind of inhabits both of them pretty well, I’d say, and to great financial advantage. When you’re sitting in the room with Kanye West, you went to Kanye’s home, correct? Indeed. And people could look up the article. What’s the name of the article people can look up? It’s called Kanye’s Second Coming. It’s on Forbes.com or there’s magazines floating around with it too. So when you fly out to his home and you arrive there, how would you describe the interior of Kanye West’s home? It’s almost like a monastery. It’s just very simple, alabaster color. Everything is high-ceilinged. In fact, all the floors are made from this special paste that you can only get in Belgium. The crew that makes it is based in Belgium, and so if you so much as scuff the floor, they have to fly in all these guys in Belgium to fix it. I walked into this interview wearing my Air Jordans because I thought it would be an interesting conversation piece. Yeezy said, yeah, yeah, yeah. The minute I walk in, they’re like, oh, you have to put these little booties on your Jordans. But it wasn’t because of any hatred for Air Jordan. It was because he didn’t want his floor scuffed. So I did that, and that was kind of like a nice little twist, but then Kanye walks in in his own easy with no little cloth booties on and he’s like, whatever, it’s my place, do what I want. What is he like? What is his personality type like? I know you were with him in a room for a long time doing the interview and people can see the actual videos, some of the videos of you interviewing him on Forbes. What was it like sitting down with the guy? How would you describe the aura he puts off, the energy. Yeah, I think, you know, he will just sink his teeth into whatever idea is on his mind, you know, at the moment and he won’t let go. I’ll be working on home designs and looking at references from 3,000 years ago and reading Old Testament at the same time so it’s like a soundtrack to the visuals of the shapes and the idea ideas and ideals of what we’re creating and you know he can’t really I think he he can’t let himself give it up until he’s he’s you know kind of like perfected it to his specifications. And you can tell he has so much passion for each individual thing that he’s doing. So for me, when I was interviewing him, I think the thing that he was the most fixated on was this housing concept. He was building, he wanted to build these special design homes that were done in the style of his own home, but for low income folks to try to scale up something that could help people in the local community in LA. And he was talking to me about this in the interview. And we finished up around midnight, and he goes, alright, well, I want to show you something. I said, okay, so he takes me outside, and I follow him back, I’m like, maybe he’s got a workshop, whatever. And no, instead, he ushers me into his Lamborghini SUV, and he cranks up the JS Bach and off we go barreling down the hill in the middle of the night and after about 15 minutes we come to a little bungalow in the woods. I’m like, all right, we get out. Inside there are three guys mashing away on laptops and on these laptops are these presentations that they’re about to give on this housing concept. And he’s like, I changed the font there, changed the color of that and after about a half an hour he seems satisfied and he says, I want to show something else, come on. So he opens the back door, off we go into the woods and now it’s one in the morning and we’re somewhere in the Santa Monica mountains, the foothills of Santa Monica mountains, pitch black, middle of the night, by the lights of our iPhones we’re going up this trail deeper and deeper into the on this land yes ok or at least that’s what I had been making sure that led to believe in otherwise so but my main concern this point is you know I’m gonna get a mountain lion and and and Kanye will too and I’m just gonna be a footnote exactly so after about 5-10 minutes we come to a clearing and in the clearing, you know, so he stops wordless And we look up and in the clearing are these like 30 foot tall structures and uh, you know kind of like oblong oval type shape things and um, and he leads me inside and and they are the physical embodiment of Of these structures the prototypes he’s been trying to create. And I’m like, well hey Kanye, can I turn my recorder on so you can explain what we’re looking at here. And he goes, no I want you to paint a picture with your words. So I’m like, alright, well I’m just going to have to get out my little notebook here. Sure, sure. Scribbling away. Get some words down. Five minutes later he’s like, are you good? Yeah, I’m good. Back down the hill into the Lamborghini and back to my rental car and you know, in bed by 3am. When did you start your interview with him? 8pm on a Sunday night. 8-3 with Kanye? Yep, yep, yep. Was his wife around? She was around. She offered us water and stuff like that. Did she have anything to do with the interview? Did she sit down and be part of it at all? She talked to me separately for the story. She talked about how they bounce business ideas off of each other and some of the ways that his sensibility through his work is different than mine. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good thing. about how they bounce business ideas off of each other and some of the ways that his sensibility for design has helped some of the projects she’s worked on. But yeah, I mean, that’s what really stuck with me. I mean, the story was about his Yeezy empire and he was definitely, that was clearly like a huge consideration for him, but he was so focused on this housing concept that he just couldn’t move away from it. Yeah, it’s his next thing. Yeah, it’s always the next thing with an entrepreneur So did he talk about the easy? How did he what what was the? How did he get into the how did he get into that? Yeah, you know he he always loved to draw He always loved to design and when he was a kid growing up in Chicago He would you know be sketching sneaker. He would be sketching Jordan ones actually. Oh really yeah Just just drawings that he’d because he liked them. And he would get in trouble with his teachers because he was doing that instead of his math equations or what have you. And I think it took a backseat to the music for a while, but once he gained a certain stature, he started being able to do these collaborations. So he began with Nike, he did a few different designs there. You get marginalized by the corporations in what your messaging can be. Now this is one thing where the conversation changes when you have a child. Because it’s always cool that they marginalize me and I ask them when the Yeezy Red October is coming out. I ask them, me Kanye West asked Nike when is it coming out. They told, they said we’re not sure yet. You know, they let me design two shoes over five years and I’m happy I could design them but they ain’t do me no favor because Eminem designed the shoe and Pharrell designed the shoe. I just designed the Yeezys, I turned up. Because I was in fourth grade designing Jordans and I brought back that feeling. You ain’t never felt about a shoe since the Jordans, the way people feel about the Yeezys. I put that feeling, and the same feeling I put in College Dropout, and Graduation, and 808s, all that feeling that day, I put that feeling there. So then I started turning up in a BBC interview and they came and said, okay cool, we’re gonna give you a bigger sandbox to play in. It’s not even like I even got a joint venture. I’m like, at least give me some royalties. Like Michael Jordan got 5% of that business, 2 billion, he makes $100 million a year off of 5% royalty. I said, I need some type of royalty. Nike told me, we can’t give you a royalty because you’re not a professional athlete. I told them, I go to the garden and play one on no one. I’m a performance athlete and also I’m a thinker. Did you say that in the meeting? Did you really say that in the meeting? Did I really anything? Yes. Did I really everything? 100,000%. I’m 100,000% at all times. I would love to go on the meeting tour. I want to go to the meeting tour. Because the thing is, it’s people that work in offices trying to tell me how to think. When I got a better perspective, I live in Paris. I love, I love, I love, and I was there last night. I was there last night and I was moved by your rant last night. And then several years ago pulled it over to Adidas and it was because he insisted on ownership even when he was with Nike they weren’t really paying him but he owned the concept he owned the Yeezy brand and he took it over to Adidas where he continues to own it but because he insisted on that 100% outright ownership, it enabled him to make that move. Rapid fire. We have time for three final questions. We have four minutes, three questions. Here we go. Wes Carter, what question would you like to ask senior editor from Forbes who made a series of poor life choices and has ended up in Tulsa, Oklahoma? He’s not in Manhattan today. We’ve got him inside the studio here. What question do you have for him? I’m wondering, out of all these interviews, I know a lot of them talk about their side projects going on. Have any of them really opened up about their thoughts on wanting to transform the music business itself with all the new things coming out with streaming and Spotify and Apple Music? Do they gravitate towards their own business in the music industry, or do you see they really focus on some of their side projects that they’re trying to get other stuff going on? You know, I think it’s a mix of both But if you want to talk about changing the music industry, I think one of the most fascinating Cases to look at the three kings of hip-hop Jay-z Diddy. Dr. Dre. I say three Kings that was the I wrote a book the same title in 2018 and in that book and also my new book a list angels I talked about how Those three guys were like, you know what, we became entrepreneurs by necessity in the late 80s, early 90s because people were interested in hip hop. We created our own record labels, we created our own clothing lines. Now, we’re going to create our own streaming services or we’re going to invest in existing ones. So Diddy invested in Spotify, Jay-Z bought Tidal, and Dr. Dre had Beats Music, which then became Apple Music. So they each found a way to not only create the music, to create the stuff that comes out of that, but to own pieces of the next platforms that would deliver the music as well. And I think that’s the kind of change, that’s the kind of vision that the best of the best have. It’s not just how to create the next big product, how do I create the next big category. I will say this, if you’re out there today and you’ve not yet purchased a copy of Three Kings, Diddy, Dre, and Jay-Z, and Hip Hop’s Multi-Billion Dollar Rise, that is an incredible book. In my hands I have an early edition here of the new book, A-List Angels, How a Band of Actors, Artists, and Athletes Hacked Silicon Valley. I’m just telling you, I’m so fired up to read this book because, Zach, you’re going to love these books. But if you’re somebody who likes music, which I do, you’re going to love these books. Now, if you’re somebody who likes entertainment, you’re going to love these books. It puts them all together. Because so many books, they’re just drivel about, you know, we’re just sort of talking about how successful somebody is, but his book deals with the messy middle. It tells you how they did it, how they got there. It’s really the detail in here. A-List Angels, check out this book. I’m excited to read this book. Thank you for hand-delivering it, by the way. Dr. Z, we have time for one more question before we hit up our next guest on the phone line. And Cory Minter with Trinity Employment stepped in. It’s a laser show. I know. It’s a laser show. Zach, what’s next for you? What’s next for you, man? Well, you know, I think the next thing I really want to do is bring more of the storytelling to people in person. And so, you know, if you check out Zogspeaking.com, there’s more details on, you know, sort of my, some of the speeches that I give. But the idea of like telling these stories, bringing actionable advice to people, you know, from having sat down with a lot of the leading figures in show business, what are the things that I can bring to the average entrepreneur, to the average person that they can use in their careers, in their journeys. I think it’s actually kind of surprising how much overlap there is. Do you like speaking or writing better? Man, I think it depends on the day. You know, it’s just… Piss it off what you’ve been writing last week or speaking. The grass is greener. You know, you do a few big travel gigs in a row and you’re like, I just want to sit and write. But then, you know, if you’re… And a lot of times when I’m really in crunch time on the books, I’ll take a week or two off from Forbes and I’ll just kind of go hard on the book writing. And man, you know, after a couple of weeks, it’s like you really would love to be out speaking to human beings again. If you guys go to ZOGspeaking.com, that stands for Zach O’Malley Greenberg, so Z-O-G speaking.com, you can see samples of him speaking. So you can see, but I’m just telling you, if you’re listening out there today and you own a company, a lot of times when your employees get a chance to hear stories about Justin Bieber and Kanye West, but it’s practically, it actually practically can be related back to your business, that’s fun. It’s entertainment, it’s education. We call that edutainment. That’s what we call it. And now, without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, BOOM! Stop what you’re doing and think about this for a second. What would happen if your company was suddenly able to generate exponentially more quality sales leads? That would be incredible! What would happen if your company came up at the top or near the top of the Google search engine results. Well, I would just feel overwhelmed with all that business. How many thousands of dollars in lost sales or millions of dollars in lost sales are you missing out on simply because your potential customers can’t find you when they go online to search for the products and services that you offer? I refuse to think that thought because I don’t want any more business. In my new book, Search Engine Domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate the search engine results. What do you mean by dominate? We will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate search engine results. Download your free e-book copy today at thebestseobook.com. I repeat that’s thebestseobook.com. My name is Amy Baltimore and I am a CPA in Covington, Tennessee. I’ve been working with the Thrive team now for about a year. One of the first things that they did was to update my website and my search engine optimization. I prior had a website, but I was not being found on Google, and all of my new business was coming through referrals from friends, family, etc. And right away, I started to see results. People were calling and coming in saying that they found me on Google. They just googled CPA near me and there I was at the top of the page. And so it’s been a great help to my business. Again you can download your free ebook copy today at thebestseobook.com. Hey this is Dustin Huff. I’m with Keystone Harbor Marina. We joined Thrive back in January and have been working with these guys for about seven months. During that time period, we have moved up our Google rank through reviews and SEO processes that we’ve compiled through these guys. Our leads have gone from about four weeks to now 165 a week. So the process works. I will tell you from experience, once you begin, you have to stay with it. As long as you continually do this week in and week out, month in and month out, you’ll continually grow. The system works, but nothing works unless you do. You’ve got to take some action. Download the e-book for free today at thebestseobook.com. Hello, my name is Daniel with Daniel’s Heating and Air here in Amarillo, Texas. The way Google has affected my business, we have got a lot of calls from Google. Right now it’s July and we’ve had the best month ever. And it took us about eight to 10 months to get on top of Google and I’m glad we did. Remember, nothing works unless you do. You have to go to thebestseobook.com today. Download the ebook for free. Just download that ebook for free and you’ll be off to the races. Hi, my name is Christina Niemus. I’m the owner and operator of Angels Touch Auto Body and Detailing in Bourne, Massachusetts. We have been working with Thrive and their coaching for say eight to nine months and it took us about six months, five to six months to get on the top of Google and with their help with the website and marketing and the SEO and retargeting ads with Google and it has been phenomenal. We just have light and day business coming in, phone calls coming in, walk-ins, referrals, it’s just through the roof and we couldn’t be happier. At the moment, we are up 50% this year from the previous year and not only is that part of our own hard work and diligence, but also with the help of Thrive and what they’ve done for us and getting us on the top of Google and you know all their knowledge and coaching and yeah so super grateful super pumped to see what the future holds for all of us thank you. This is your year to thrive, success you will find. Today is your day and now is your time. Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. Proverbs 10 4. I’m here to tell you, you can do it if you can just motivate yourself. The masses had to cut off a few, so on the day D, you and I could rendezvous. A misshapen tree that I had to prune. I had to make cuts to be here daily at noon. So, like a tidal wave of knowledge monsoon, I could rain on the parades of those who doubt and you Are you the next Rockefeller or the next guru? Or the next Dr. King who’s changing the rules? What was in your way would you run right through? Like a running back, just a warning, it’s up to you I remember my days back in the dorm room Tuned to the gloom like the temple of doom Overwhelmed with the doubts that try to consume I hoped for the future that I could pursue But from the mountain top now I can conclude That you have what it takes if you want the view to work. This is your year to thrive. Success you will find. Today is your day and now is your time. It’s your year to thrive. Success you will find. Today is your day and now is your time. This moment is profound cause you’re a perfect clown Your road might’ve been rough, but what you got now is now We’re here to pick you up, and to even show you how But you gotta be responsible with that old plow plow Started from the bottom, but I worked my way up With my 4am, I’ve always been prayed up Rise and grind, now’s your time, don’t dare let up You gotta get it, don’t quit it, till your streets grow up Seriously, it’s your year to thrive Success you will find Today is your day. Ain’t nobody saying. And now is your time. It’s your time. If you’re here to thrive. Come on, come on. Success you will find. Today is your day. Today is your day. And now is your time. It’s your time. We all have a wish and we all want to win, but we cannot begin without self-discipline. If you fall on your face, get yourself up again. I taught yourself to close the door with a friend. When the storm’s getting rough, I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. I’m here to help you. You got money to burn. Sing it. In due time you got money to burn. Sing it. In due time you got money to burn. Sing it. In due time you got money to burn. Sing it. In due time you got money to burn. With this beautiful miracle, I’d like to shout down the doubters. Kill the weeds that be killing your dream flowers. Empower you to devour. All the obstacles that make your sweet dreams tower. As for me, I used to stut stut stutter, but now I’m on the microphone smooth like butter. If I can do it, I know you can too But you must stick to it like postage do And while Merton’s on the chorus, singing what he sings I encourage you to three big dreams Today is your day Today is your day And now is your time It’s your time This is your year to thrive Sing it, sing it Success you will find Today is your day It’s your day And now is your time. Today is your day, and now is your time. Today is your day, and now is your time. Hi, my name is Ethan Lin and I’m the owner operator of Peak Medical Technologies and we’re based out of Boise, Idaho. I’ve used Clay for about a year now and generally speaking he’s helped me quite a bit just in business. So, we have weekly meetings, we go over an agenda. He gives me tasks to do and he holds me accountable. So things like making sure that we’re doing group interviews, making sure that he has all the information for me needed for the Google searching work that he’s doing. So I’m constantly leaning on him for business questions, business kind of things as far as how do I do this or how do I do that, how do I handle this contract, how do I handle contractors. I’ve learned a lot from Clay about how to work with contractors. We are building some software products right now and I think his visual team is very good. So they provide visual selling kind of brochures, pamphlets and they look really professional. They came up with all of my websites. They did all of my logo designs. So from a business perspective, it’s been very, very good for me. Not just that, but having a coach that is holding you accountable, that’s there to help you. So it’s been, as a business owner, it can be really, really lonely. So that’s been a really, really good thing for me. So, yeah, if you choose to use Clay and work with him, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. He’s got a lot of energy and I think he tries to impart that energy to his clients and it’s infectious. So, it’s been a very good experience. So, yeah, good luck. On today’s show, one of my longtime friends and business coaching clients, a man by the name of Ethan Lin with Peak Medical, recently had an opportunity to sell his company for a life-changing amount of money. So on today’s show, we talk about his process of starting his company, growing his company, and ultimately selling his business. There are so many knowledge bombs during today’s interview. I know it is going to help you and your business. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation, on today’s show we have a good friend and the super guest by the name of Ethan with Peak Medical. Ethan, how are you sir? I’m doing great, how are you Clay? Well, I’m excited to interview you my friend because you have reached the peak of Entrepreneurship the summit of Mount entrepreneurship Could you tell the thrivers? About what just recently happened in your life. You have to get into all the nitty-gritty details obviously, but what just happened Sure, sure. Yeah, so I started working with you a couple of years ago and just sold my company. So I’ve been in business on my own for almost 20 years and sold the company and there you go. Talk to us about those 20 years. When you first started Peak Medical, what is Peak Medical now and what was it when you first started? Sure. really is a, it was and still is, a consulting company. And we deal, it’s a niche market that we deal in specifically with pathology laboratories across this great nation. And so we do consulting services, IT consulting services of all kinds. So interfacing, laboratory information support, adjunct staffing, you have it, whatever kind of has to happen with the laboratory system at a pathology laboratory we were dealing with. And so it was basically kind of a lot of, I guess we were in one aspect of the business, and we were purchased by a software company who felt that we were a good, I guess, additional resource for them. So they have obviously a software package that we’re looking to put out in the market and they needed people with experience who were working with all the different laboratory systems out there and that so we kind of are going to be their integration arm for that. So but it was a it was interesting I guess if I could see down the line what would have happened I never would have seen this happening. Now when you started Peak Medical how did you go about getting your first 100 customers? How did you make that phone ring? Well it was kind of interesting how it happened. It wasn’t that I had to go and find the customers. In the beginning, the customers were coming to me. I had learned a software package at working for a hospital and decided to go out on my own because I had met all these other software users and I could tell that there was a market for it. And people were asking me to help them, even when I was working at this hospital. And so, you know, initially the customers weren’t the difficult part. So you found a problem, you saw a problem, and did anybody come to you and announce to you if they wanted the solution, or did you have to come up with a solution and see if they wanted it? Walk us through that. When you first saw the problem, did people say, hey, I would pay you to do this? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was actually meeting these different people. Every year, they had a user’s conference for people across the country that used the same software package. So I started meeting all these people across the country while I was working for this hospital. And towards the end of my time at the hospital, you know, these user conferences, people were starting to ask me for me to help them. So it was kind of handed to me on a silver platter, so to speak. It’s a little different than some of the other entrepreneurs that go out there. They start from scratch and have to drum up all their customers from phone calls or whatever else they’re going to do. Ethan, do you like Apple stuff, Apple products? Are you into that? Do you care about it? I don’t care either way. I mostly use PC, but Apple’s software is cool. Apple stuff is cool. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, I mean, something that I certainly don’t have this level of genius, and I’m not saying that you’re not a genius, but you are doing what I would consider to be 90% of entrepreneurship. You’re looking for a problem that you can solve. Whereas like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, these guys are sort of geniuses in that the world wasn’t running around saying to Thomas Edison, hey, I would like a light bulb, please, because they didn’t exist yet. Or no one was going up to Steve Jobs saying, hey, the mainframe is too big. I want a personal computer. They were just unaccessible by the average person. What Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX right now and Tesla, that’s kind of that genius level entrepreneur. And I feel like what you’re doing is like the very realistic entrepreneurship that anybody out there could do. However, it had to have seemed a little scary when you first started Peak Medical. Do you remember what it was like to start the company? Oh, it was terrifying. It was terrifying. You know, going on your own and leaving that warm place, you know, is a very terrifying experience. Yeah, it’s just a matter of, you know, I got to a point in my life where I was like, it’s either now or never. And I never liked the idea of somebody kind of holding the purse strings and holding things over my head and making decisions that I didn’t know about. So to me, it was, I weighed the goods, I weighed the bads, and the goods out far outweighed the bads as far as I was concerned, and we just got to go for it. Now, did you and your wife talk about, like, hey, when I get this much money in the bank, I’m going to start the company? Or did you have a certain jump point that you determined? Or how did that decision to go full-time, all-in, starting your own company come about? Well, at that time, I actually wasn’t married. Oh, wow. The decision was fully mine. OK. And I actually got offered a consulting contract by a different hospital. And so the reason that it was easier for me to take that jump was I did have a level of stability. I had a full year contract with them. And as an independent consultant, I was able to bring on other customers as well. I wasn’t hindered by a non-compete and that kind of thing. So it was the best of all worlds. Had I not had that contract, maybe I wouldn’t have got out of Miami, I don’t know. And so how did you pay the bills when you were first getting started? Like how long did it take you to actually make a profit? I was profitable right off the bat. And I know that’s kind of a unique scenario. But I didn’t have a few months where I was really digging into my savings. I didn’t take any time off. You know, I kind of quit one job and started right the next and that’s what made me comfortable So what was the hardest part in growing peak medical as you look back two decades? What was the hardest part? well, the hardest part for me was was as the market changes and as the job changes you have to kind of look internally I think in and and and change the way that you look at the business and change the way that you operate. And it’s easy to get kind of set in your way, so to speak. And one of the great things that working with you was is that you forced me to take a look at things and reevaluate. And I think that’s one of the most important things. You’re a very coachable soul, which is awesome. I know like for me, I might have no idea what I was doing wrong with my businesses. I had no idea early on. I just was doing it because that’s what I always do. And then I get to a point where I knew I was stuck and I knew that I needed some help, but I didn’t even know where to turn to for help. So I turned to a lot of these contract consultants where they sign you in for like a one year deal and they talk in circles about metaphysics and then you don’t have any action items and it’s just sort of like you just leave with feeling like I must be an idiot because I’m not getting it, or I definitely don’t want this anymore but I’m stuck with a contract. I think the neat thing with us is when you told me you’re selling the company, I’m not sitting there every month going, well, you know, you need to pay me for two more years. You know, there’s none of that kind of stuff. And I was really excited for you to sell the company. Walk us through the process of selling the business. What were your initial emotions when somebody contacted you and said, hey, I want to potentially buy your business? Was it a negative? Was it a positive? Was it… What were you feeling? Oh, gosh, it was across the board. You know, my first thought was like, you know, this guy is just kind of blowing smoke. Smoke blower. Yeah, exactly. And so, and when I’m… That was the first time I’ve ever done it. That was the first person that ever come to me asking me, you know, potentially to buy the business. So I, you know, my first thought was like, wow, this is really different. And I guess going down the line, I was getting kind of excited about it. But one of the great things about working with you was that you were looking at it from a very, you know, conspiracy theory type of, I guess, a point of view. And you really helped me to kind of stay grounded on that stuff. And because I think you have to during that process. Right. It’s not a fast process. It takes a long time. You have to do due diligence. It’s a very involved process. And you can’t get to the point where your son is saying, okay, forget it, whatever. You really have to, it’s kind of like you’re redoing your house. Right. And you know, it starts getting difficult and you say, forget it or whatever. And then in the end it looks like crap, right? Right. So, that was a fantastic service that you provided me as far as keeping me grounded and helping me through the process and looking at it from a conspiracy point of view for sure. Now when you went through the process of agreeing on some initial terms, what was going on on the home front there? Was your wife a big fan of this idea? Was she saying, don’t do it? Were you saying, I’m going to do it? Was there any back and forth? Was it a deal where she was like, please sell and you wanted to sell? Was there no discussion at all? What did life look like at the home front at that point? Well, the home front, and I guess I’m very lucky on the home front end, is that you know, my wife is very, very, she’s not somebody that’s going to sit there and tell me not to do something simply because she has a problem with it. You know, we always work together on that kind of thing. But there was definitely a lot of discussion around it. We looked at the goods, we looked at the bads. In the end, the goods from the sale far outweighed any of the bads. Again, it takes looking at yourself, it takes looking at the business, and it takes re-evaluating everything. When I looked at the whole picture, it was a good thing for my employees and it was just kind of a merger that I felt just good all around. Something interesting is that as soon as the sale went through, three days later, we’re in major discussions with a couple of potential customers, whereas if I hadn’t merged with those people and they hadn’t merged with me, then those discussions never would have happened. And I know you really care about your team quite a bit. So before you sold the company, how many people were on your team? I’ve got five people on my team before, and I’ve still got five people now. Okay, and I know that weighed on you. You wanted to make sure that everyone had a job, they had a future, they weren’t in a bad spot. So after you had all those issues resolved in your mind, and then you agreed to terms. The moment that the wire came through, you know, when the money comes in, whatever that amount was, right, they wired in, did you get a big check? Did you get a sound effect? They said, you know, did you get a Facebook message saying, bling, bling? Did you know, did Ed McMahon show up and say, hey, I mean, what happened? Well, obviously, I was looking at it from a conspiracy point of view as you were coaching me on. And so my biggest worry was that I was going to sign everything and they’re like, oh, wait a minute, we’re not going to pay you. Yeah, right. So basically it was a long drawn out process ended on basically a Friday morning. And as soon as I docu-signed the documents, I kept watching my bank account. And within 10 minutes, the wire actually was initiated. So I can see it as a pending in my bank account. And so it was something that was, you know, it was a big relief. And when the money came through, what were you feeling at that moment? Were you going, yes, or uh-oh, or what were you thinking? Well, definitely a range of emotions. My first one was like, thank God, you know, that I had, you know, that in the end, you know, they came through on their promises and I did as well. And it was a big relief actually because the whole selling process is really, you know, I was very much out of my comfort zone. You know, it’s going through something that I had no idea. You’re spending a lot of money on lawyers. You’re spending a lot of time and effort, you know, reviewing. You’re signing your name to reps and warranties that you’re pretty sure on, but there’s always places where you can forget things or that. It’s a stressful process. When the money finally came through and everything was signed, it was a relief. You mentioned you have to sign these representations and warranties documents. What other kind of documents did you have to sign? There’s got to be other listeners out there who are trying to sell a company right now. They’re going through this right now, what are the kind of documents that you have to sign? So obviously the process starts with the due diligence, which basically means that you have to disclose all of your contracts, you have to disclose all of the company’s assets, you have to basically have an open book to everything that they may have an issue with. The idea being is that you want to be as forthcoming as possible because the company that’s purchasing you, you know, doesn’t want to, you know, get down the line and think, oh, I didn’t know that. And so, you know, hopefully, you know, if people are out there selling their businesses or trying to, you know, one of the big things that is, you know, a strong bookkeeper that knows how to do those kind of things. So my bookkeeper has been awesome and so our books were tight. They were good. There was no real, you know, serious questions from the potential buyers. So we got through the first due diligence process and then, you know, a big old fat contract comes our way which is basically the purchase agreement. And so the purchase agreement really you’re going through there and, you know, you’re negotiating back and forth on that on different terms. There’s, again, you’re warranting certain truths about the business that they understand it and that you understand it. Yeah. You’re disclosing any kind of contracts that may be in conflict. You have to look at it that way. And in the end, I also signed an employment agreement, so, and a non-compete. So by selling my business, I was agreeing to not compete against them, and I was also agreeing to work with them for two years. Okay, so I’m gonna make sure, and again, I’m not trying to hold you accountable to remembering every single document you had to sign, but this is powerful stuff for somebody out there. Did you guys sign a non-disclosure at some point? Did you sign that? Yes, yes, yes, we did, 98, correct, yeah. And was that pretty quick, pretty quick into the deal? Yes, that was a quick, that was a very quick. And then you had a due diligence document, which basically let them know like, hey, I’m going to provide conflict of interest, my contracts, as far as any contracts have. You’re going to full customer disclosure, full asset disclosure, a purchase agreement. All these things are being agreed. Is there any other documents you remember that you had to look at and go, what is this? I know you’re leading me somewhere, but I don’t recall. No, it’s okay. I had a rule I wanted to share with all the listeners out there. And I don’t know if you and I ever had to go over this rule because you had your stuff together. But a lot of people, I have to go over this with them. They say, I want to sell my business. And I go, yes! And they go, here’s my problem. And I say, what’s that? And they say, I haven’t really done my accounting for a couple of years, man. And so I’ve been having a lot of these brownies, man. And I’ve been running around the mountains, having success and having these brownies. And a lot of times people are going to get to a level where they’re profitable. And if you have loose books, you really don’t get any second looks. Because if somebody calls you and you’re way behind on your taxes or your numbers aren’t accurate, that would have been a nightmare. Now you’ve used the same bookkeeper for a long time. Was that a full-time bookkeeper? No, she was a part-time bookkeeper. Oh wow. And so yeah, and you know the good thing about working with her was is that she had access to a fantastic CPA. Yeah. So you know all of our taxes and that kind of thing were really in order and so that was really the easy part of the whole process. You should probably buy her a big burrito or something. I’m sorry. You should probably buy her a big burrito or something to celebrate her bookkeeping-ness. Yeah, exactly. Do you have a Qdoba in town or a Chipotle? What do you guys have in Boise? Yeah, we’ve got a Chipotle here. We also have a local co-op that actually has fantastic burritos. Oh my gosh, yeah, you probably have to get a nice co-op burrito. That’s probably what you have to do there. There you go. I’ll tell you that. Now that you have worked out an agreement, and obviously this is a show that hundreds of thousands of people listen to, so I’m not going to get into the details of the math. But now that you’re in a spot where you really, you know, you don’t have to want for money in the near future, and you’re also part of the team, which is cool. They wanted to keep you around for a couple of years there at least. That’s pretty cool. How do you feel? What’s going on in your head? Talk to me about the future of Peak Medical as you see it, and what title did they give you? Is your title like now, are you the assistant water boy? What title did they give you as part of the new deal? To be honest with you, I don’t even know what my title is. Oh, nice. I don’t think they gave me, they actually gave me a title. But to me, it’s a different perspective because when I was on my own and everything is resting on my shoulders as far as making sure that everything is taken care of. You know, everything with the business owner rests with that person. And so now, and so the money is always a worry. And I’m a worrier anyway. So to me, I was always worrying about money. So now that, you know, that’s not really a concern anymore. It’s a different perspective for me. And I’m able to concentrate more on the work. I’m able to concentrate more on what I want to be doing. And so there’s a sense of relief there. And so, you know, I’ve got, you know, the job is the same, but it’s I’m learning a lot more. I’m seeing kind of ways that I should have been doing when I was running it by myself. Yeah. I’ve given my employees a lot more room to grow in their own in their own careers. I’ve given them a sense of, I think, a little bit more of relief also because with the new company they’re able to get medical insurance. So everything there has just been a big relief for me. Now I think you know this, I know you know this Ethan, but our listeners don’t know this. A lot of times there’s business coaching programs that what they do is they’ll say, I will coach you for this much money per month, but in the event that you sell your company, I still need to be paid after the transaction and I will help you negotiate the transaction for an extra fee of You know some set of paying somebody two thousand a month all of a sudden. It’s four thousand a month now because they’re gonna help you negotiate You didn’t have to pay me any extra fees throughout the process But how helpful was it to know that you had somebody kind of? Looking out for you during the process who actually was sincerely excited for you to sell it and that you didn’t have some obligation afterwards to continue paying? Oh, the whole thing was fantastic. Yeah, the obligation piece and the payment has always been fantastic with you. And just having somebody there to help me through the questions that I have and to keep me grounded, that was so, so valuable. Like for instance, you know, we weren’t even done with the due diligence and I wanted to go and tell everybody, you know, like, Ethan, you got to keep it quiet, which was absolutely the right advice. You have to wait until things are more concrete because it’s an up and down process and you have to be concrete before you tell people. So just having you to talk to every week, talk about the problems, helping me get through it was invaluable. Now, since I won’t be talking to you on a weekly basis with our coaching anymore, you can still text me. I’m available. But at the same time, I kind of feel like I need to just talk to you weekly to get my weekly fix of Ethan here. So this might just be like a podcast format of the future here. But in all sincerity, we’ve worked together for a couple of years, essentially. Can you share with the listeners how you and I first met? Did you stumble through a dive bar and I was there, like the Jabba the Hutt of the bar? Or how did we meet? So I’m good friends with Brett Denton, who is owner of Cadell Academy here in Boise, and he’s a business owner also. And I was going through a rough time in my business, and I asked him for advice. And looking back, I think the issues that I was dealing with were maybe over his head a little bit, and he got me in touch with you, which was really great. And so it was definitely through a friend, but I’m just so glad that we were able to get hooked up and everything that you’ve been able to help me with. And I want to make sure that we go over a few things with the Thrive Nation that you know obviously, Ethan, but the listeners probably don’t. Your website that we’ve helped you modify and build, I mean, you’re fully aware that you own that website and you don’t owe me any ongoing fees afterwards, right? I mean, I think you know that, I know that, we all know that. But again, these are things that a lot of companies hold these things over your head, all the deliverables. Could you kind of explain some of the things that your Dropbox account, some of the assets that Peak Medical has now, some of the deliverables that you have that we’ve helped you build over the years that are yours, and part of that sale that we don’t make commission on, just so they can kind of know what all the things are that you got to keep. Sure, yeah, like everything. Yeah, so I guess for the listeners out there, when you work with Clay and the group there, he assigned you a Dropbox folder. So in that Dropbox folder, he starts putting things as you start working with them. So sales scripts, you know, we worked on so many sales scripts to kind of work those out. So those are all there and available for me now to use. All the branding, all the look and feel, the business that’s all there. We did a lot of headshots of me going in there. And I didn’t keep 87 of those for myself. I just kept 87 of those for myself. Just something I’m into is your headshots. Nothing weird here, but when you come to Tulsa next time, we’ll have a fat head of you on the wall. Nothing weird, just a fat head of you on the wall. Continue, I’m sorry. Excellent, excellent. No, no, all the head shots are there. I still use them here and there depending upon what I’m trying to do. Obviously, everything on the website, client lists. There’s also a bunch of flyers in there about different things like the deal wheel. So just everything that we’ve worked together is there and available still for me, even though essentially we’re not working together anymore. So what does the future look like for you now? I mean, now that you’re a big baller, now that you’ve got the spinners on your… Oh, you get a nice Honda with the spinners on it. What kind of car do you drive? What do you drive? What do you drive? I drive a 99 Volvo. I’m definitely a cheapskate. Okay, you and Bill Belichick are driving the same vehicle, essentially. Okay. Now that you’ve added spinners to your Volvo and subwoofers to your Volvo, and now that you’re running around wearing a mink in the office, and you know, now that you’re getting Botox done on your face at all times, now that you’re kind of at Jerry Jones phase of your life, what do you see the next 12 months of your life being like? What do you picture for the next 12 months to, let’s say, five years? Well, so the next 12 months, I’m just going to continue enjoying my work that I’m doing now. It’s a lot of the same work I was doing before, but just on a bigger scale now. And I’m learning a lot and having fun. As long as I’m having fun, I’m going to stay. So again, I got a two-year contract, so we’ll see what happens after two years. I may stay on if possible, or I may just want to go do something else. But I’m definitely not somebody who’s going to sit around and do nothing. it is, is that I have now the, I guess, the means and the kind of, I will have the time to kind of figure out what I want to do and then be able to do it. What advice would you have for anybody out there that is in that startup phase of where you were, you know, 20 years ago and they’re going through a rough patch. They started the business, they had some initial wins, you know, some early customers, but now they’re like a decade in, and they’re in that wilderness, and they don’t know what to do next, and they’re just sort of, I don’t know, you know, they’re just overwhelmed by, you know, just trying to tread water, but also knowing there’s a problem and they’re just kind of… What advice would you have for anybody out there listening right now who wants to get to where your company is now, and they’re not there yet, they have, you know, they’ve got some initial wins, some early customers, they can pay the bills, but they’re just overwhelmed and stuck. Yeah. Well, first piece of advice is definitely call Clay and get business coaching. Well, I appreciate that. That’s number one. Yeah. But I guess the first question I think you have to ask yourself if you’re going through a rough patch in your business, which I don’t know of anybody who hasn’t. And it’s a difficult process, number one, because if you’re a business owner, it’s a very lonely place to be. But I think that you have to really ask yourself and be honest with yourself. Do I believe in the business? If you believe in it, then I say, keep going. Don’t give up. Because if you do give up, then all the work you put into there is really, you know, potentially may be for nothing. So I just say, keep going and figure it out. There’s always a solution and it’s just a matter of keep going and figure out that solution. And that’s really what it’s all about. And I think that, you know, I loved working with you because you did tap into a lot of the different resources. I mean, you came to Tulsa for headshots and video and we did print pieces and stuff. We also did some software enhancements, you know, where we made the software look better graphically for you. And then you came to a conference. Can you explain for the Thrivers out there what your experience was like at our conference? And feel free to air your grievances too if you’re like, it was bad. I mean, please feel free to share. No, no, no, absolutely. So the conference actually was a really great experience. Number one, what I always really appreciate about anything that, all the times I’ve come to Tulsa to work with you or to be there is, it is, everything there is very positive. The minute you walk in the door, everything there is positive. The people that are there, I think, feed off of that. And so it’s a very, very just kind of good experience to be there because you’re talking with other people. You’re learning about new things. You’re able to kind of figure out problems and talk to other people who have gone through the same issues that you are. And there’s just a ton of information that you can take away, too, just simply about how to hire people, how to do interviews. You know, everything that you struggle with with your business, you know, you guys have gone through and figured out solutions for. So you know, if you’re struggling with your business, if you’re doing, you know, and if you need help, I definitely recommend going to one of those conferences. Number one, because it’ll make you feel good, but two, is that there’s actual practical solutions that you’ll learn there. And I feel like at the conference you came to, and it’s been a while, but I feel like you came to the conference where the Delrics were in town, the people from the clinical research facility in New Orleans. Did you meet those guys, Tyler and Rachel? Do you remember meeting those guys? Absolutely, they’re fantastic. I had lunch with them. Okay, I was gonna say, yeah. So, I mean, I just wanna make sure the listeners out there know, too, I mean, you’re not an idiot, they’re not idiots. I think one great thing to be is be in a… It’s really hard to have a positive environment when you’re surrounded by idiots. Could you maybe talk about the quality of people you met there and maybe our super high pressure sales techniques that we did between every session, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. No, definitely, everybody that I met there was very of a high caliber person. So there definitely were no high-pitched sales in between. It was basically you guys wanted to impart your knowledge, which was fantastic. So as far as the people there, they’re great. It was just a great experience. Well, I’ll tell you what, Ethan, we have a lot of listeners who listen to this podcast all around the planet. And I know that you have a niche business, you know, a niche business. But maybe there’s one out there listening right now that could benefit from your, you know, from your company. Can you tell everybody what your web address is and what exactly you do? Yeah, definitely. So I was peakmedicaltech.com and now I’m, we were hired by, or sorry, purchased by a company called Gestalt out of Spokane. And what Gestalt does is basically they bring the digital age to pathology. So if you think about radiology, people or doctors looking at radiographs and determining broken bones and those kinds of things, they took that technology and moved it into the realm of pathology, which is looking at slide images. So the idea being is that you can have a pathologist who’s a doctor sitting in his office and he can be getting slide images from all around the world or the country and be looking at those slides and making diagnoses with them. And so, what Gestalt does is that they have a software package that is really a digital platform. So, back in the day, historically, pathologists have always looked at the actual glass slides. And that type of technology is really, or that type of workflow is really kind of going away with the advent of digital. So it’s a very exciting time. And so if anybody’s out there looking for a digital platform for their pathology business, definitely look us up. And my final question here for you, you know, a lot of people say, gosh, you know, sometimes if I sell a business, there’s a secret rebel inside me, you know that entrepreneur rebel rebel spirit that I used to have you know And I thought you know that I’ve sold my business. I’ve kind of In order to become the man I’ve had to sell out, you know, have you find yourself wearing like cutoff? Peak medical t-shirts to work and just chanting peak peak peak peak even though you’re now clearly a part of good good stilt Well, the transition was a good one for me. So I’m actually excited to be a part of Gestalt. And I’m kind of jumping in with both feet. The people that I’m working with now are fantastic. And so it’s just a good thing for me. Is that a subliminal way, passive aggressive way to explain that you’re wearing Peak-branded shoes? Yeah, exactly. Okay, nice, nice. Well, hey, I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to share about the transition. I’m so glad that it worked out well for the three Ps, the people who work for you. That is so cool that the people who work for you, you thought about them before making that transition, so they’re in a great spot. That’s awesome. Two, it’s awesome that the purpose of this business now, the two businesses combined are going to be able to achieve so much more than they would have been able to have done individually. And then three, it’s great that you made some profit there, man. I’m excited about it. Yes, it’s a great experience. Well, I tell you what, my friend, don’t be a stranger and text me if you ever need something. And I just am super honored to know you and I appreciate you taking the time to come on this podcast. We have so many of our listeners that have reached out about wanting to sell their business or are in the process of selling the business, and you’ve imparted a lot of wisdom that I think that through the first-hand knowledge that really is hard to come by. Well, thank you, Clay, and I appreciate everything you’ve done. It’s been fantastic working with you. All right, my friend. You take care and have an awesome day. Andrew, how are you doing, my friend? I’m doing fantastic. You and I are at the same phase of what I would call Defcon 7, a project we don’t recognize that we’re sick. That’s true. What are your symptoms over there? You know, the good old stuffy nose and cough. What about the meat sweats? Do you have the sweat like you eat too much meat? Like spicy meat? I wasn’t going to bring it up, but… Okay, so you’re experiencing the spicy meat sweats. Do you have the nasal thing going on? Yeah, the nasal thing. You sound like you’ve smoked a lot of packs of cigarettes. Your voice is a little different. Yeah, it sounds like I’ve been smoking a lot of cigarettes. What other symptoms? Are you at the bottom right now, or are you at the peak? I feel like I’m coming out of the bottom. Same here? Yeah. Here’s what happens. We have a process here, a system, a culture, a theory, a principle, a way of life really at this primetime show that we call No Days Off. Oh yeah. And why do you and I really not take days off unless we have to be in the hospital? Because if you only work on the days that you feel like it then you can never get anything done. Think about how screwed we would have been this week if on Monday I didn’t come into work. Right. And you didn’t come in. So then somebody would have to fill in to run my meetings, someone would have to fill in for your ad reports and your meetings, and then the person who was filling in now is going to have to fill in for them, and pretty soon you’re running out of people to fill in, and all of a sudden you’re like, oh man! So if you’re out there today, I just want to make sure that everybody here does your due diligence. Do some research, because I want to brag on this guy, Ethan with Peak Medical Tech. This guy has been a client of mine for years. He was referred by a friend of his, Brett Dittin, over there at Cavell Fit, a fitness facility based in Boise. Two different industries. He was referred by a friend. He’s been a super coachable guy. However, Andrew, nothing works unless our clients do. It’s true. So what if we had recommended for Ethan to get his website updated and he didn’t do it? Then it would never happen, he wouldn’t have any progress in his company. What if I asked him to record, you know, monthly podcasts that you can find on his website, but he never did it? Well, he would never reach the top of Google. What if I advised him to lead his staff meetings differently, but he never did it? He would have, depending on how he managed it, a possibly dysfunctional staff. So are you saying that he had results because of what he did? Absolutely. Not based on what he just learned? Based off of action, yeah. Really? Yeah. That seems like a profound idea. I’m not really sure if everybody out there is getting this. This is a guy who diligently did what he’s supposed to do each and every day, which is why his company was able to achieve extraordinary success. Ordinary is just working when you feel good, but extraordinary is working when you don’t feel like it. Extraordinary is going beyond the ordinary, and that’s what Ethan’s done there. How cool does it feel to work with a company, Andrew, knowing that when he sold the business, at the very moment when he should be the most excited, he doesn’t have to deal with a business coach or a web program that would call him off a web company they would say oh by the way you owe us for your website. It’s so much relief knowing that you have everything knowing that you don’t depend on someone else at that moment anymore once you’re ready you have it. And working here doesn’t it feel good for you to know that your clients when they sell their company they don’t owe us some ongoing fee? Yeah absolutely. I think about this I didn’t charge him extra to negotiate the sale of the business either. Right. There’s a lot of companies that do that though. Yeah, they try to squeeze every penny out of you. You’ve worked with, I think about Papagallo. You were talking to them today? Yeah, I talked to them today. They’ve had crazy wins today. Crazy? What kind of wins do they have today? Today, just this past week, they’ve been trying to get up and hit a sales goal and they finally hit that sales goal. Bam! They’ve been trying to hit a thousand tickets in a week and they finally hit that. Bam! They have had the greatest sales week, they’ve had the greatest week in the bar, they’ve had just crazy amount of wins. They’re killing it. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to share some of the specific action items in the Knowledge Bombs from today’s show, just so we can unpack them. But I want to make sure that all the listeners out there know, no matter what industry you have, whether it’s a pizzeria or a biomedical tech company, we can help you grow. Absolutely. As demonstrated here. Whether it’s a B2B business, right? Be it business to business. Some people say, well, it’s my business is business to business. And so could you possibly work with me because my business is business to business. I’m not business to customers. They have a little fancy names like I’m B to B, I’m not B to C. Okay, so I’m your B to B, not B to C. Yeah, this guy’s business to business, okay? His clients include UCLA, Stanford, Oregon Health and Science University, the University of Washington. These are clearly large organizations. Let’s recap the things that he had to do in order to get prepared to sell that business. One, he had to do what… Andrew, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this a lot, but he did what I would call the 90% of entrepreneurs game. He went that route, which is he just saw a problem and solved it. I really do believe that’s what 90% of people should be doing. However, he didn’t go with the Steve Jobs move. This is called genius entrepreneurship. There’s the 90% entrepreneurship. There’s the everyman entrepreneurship. And then there’s the genius entrepreneurship. I can’t do the genius entrepreneurship. The 90% entrepreneurship is where you look for a problem and you solve it. You say, you know, the world needs snow cones. And I’m going to make those snow cones. That’s not a genius move. A genius move is like Steve Jobs where you say, world, excuse me, world, ladies and gentlemen, I know that nobody out here is wanting a personal computer. Well, let me survey. How many of you here want a personal computer? If you asked people when Steve Jobs was first creating Apple if they wanted a personal computer, there would be nobody that would say they wanted one. Because they were currently mainframe computers only used by nerds. So what he did is he said, I’m going to come up with a way to make a computer, he and Wozniak, that is going to be used by every man, and then we’re going to introduce it to the world. That is a genius. Another example, Elon Musk. If he ran around saying, world, how many of you want reusable rockets and a completely electric car? No one would want that. But he’s creating things and then the market realizes, oh man, I need that. Yeah, he’s creating a market. He’s opening a gap and filling it himself. I got nothing on that. I mean, I can’t, I’m not that smart. Thomas Edison, this guy, if he ran around asking people with lanterns. Right. So how many of you guys, by the way, in all scenarios, these inventors apparently had megaphones, but how many of you guys would like an incandescent light bulb? It’s an incandescent light bulb. No one would even know what that is! Oh, what? Because it hadn’t been created yet. Right? What about recorded audio? Imagine going back in the day and saying, how many of you want to be able to hear your voice on a piece of wax? I think a lot of people would say, you’re an idiot! Or you’re a demon! I don’t think anybody would want that thing. Those are genius entrepreneurs. And the problem is, if you’re going to be a genius, if you’re going to create like a creator, Steve Jobs, not so good with marriages. Elon Musk, not so good with the marriages. Thomas Edison, not so good with the marriages. So what happens is a lot of these complete genius game changer guys, they have to sacrifice every part of their life to get that win in business. I’m more about the everyman game. I’m about creating a business that will create time freedom and financial freedom for you. And so Andrew, you and I were talking about this, but Thomas is one of our clients with Full Package Media. Yep. And he was a paramedic. Right. About three years ago. And we’ve worked with Thomas since the very beginning, literally the very beginning of Full Package Media. And Thomas, I only met Thomas because somebody who used to work for me was running around the Dallas area pretending to be my partner and I didn’t, so they hired Thomas without my knowledge because I didn’t know that I was in partnership with this guy. It’s an incredible story. And he hires Thomas and then unbeknownst to me he doesn’t pay Thomas for the longest amount of time. He’s using my name to open a business, hires somebody using my name and then using my good name doesn’t pay the guy. So the guy’s a smart guy, Thomas. He drives up from Dallas to Tulsa, unannounced, to get paid. It was at that moment I said, Thomas, I didn’t know who you are, I didn’t know, how much money do you think I owe you? It was like two or three thousand dollars. I think maybe it was a thousand, I don’t remember, you have to ask Thomas. But it was less than five thousand dollars. And I was like, well I don’t know who you are, but I’d love to pay you, you know, for work that you do with me, but since I don’t really know you, I mean, how much do you, because he could have made up any number. And so I paid Thomas what he was owed, because he’s a young guy, he’s a paramedic out there working without pay. And I said, hey, why don’t we just coach you and grow this thing? So we’ve grown full package to the point now where it’s… Think about this, in the month of February, which is typically the slowest month of the year, dudes do a north of $25,000 a month of revenue. It’s crazy. Or a week of revenue, $25,000 a week. Think about this, if you were doing $25,000 a week of revenue, and you were doing that times 52 weeks a year, that would be $1.3 million. It’s hot. And the profit margins on that company, by the way, because it does real estate photography. By the way, everybody should look this up real quick. It’s called Full Package Media. Full Package Media, look this up. This is a company that, Andrew, what kind of a profit margin do you think you could make on 1.3 million if you had a full package of media? Ooh, off the top of my head, I don’t know, 25? 25%? It’s about a 32% profit margin. That means that you as the owner would make $416,000. That’s hot. That’s incredible. Doing real estate photography. Now what’s really cool is we’re going through the process of franchising that. Now here’s what’s going to be crazy. My understanding is that you guys might be doing Oklahoma City? Yeah, we’re looking at Oklahoma City, yep. Speculate. What do you think it’s going to cost? We’re going through the line item list of what it’s going to cost. The way we do it is we sell the franchise for a dollar. And then if you have one, what happens is that every week a team on your behalf, so you don’t have to make these calls if you’re a franchise owner, right? You don’t have to make these calls the full package team will call the realtors for you and Schedule the first shoot so you you just wake up with a full calendar every day How much money do you think it would cost you an initial equipment to get going? Oh, man with you know, but you know, you know for cameras. I mean you got cameras you got drones Lenses, you know 30 40 grand. Yeah, we’re talking about 30, bro. Oh, man. For 30 grand to be able to generate some sick revenue. That’s a move. And you know how I build businesses. But the whole point is to create what? To create time, freedom and to reach your goals and your why. Time, freedom and financial freedom. That’s the goal, right? Steve Jobs, though, what was his goal? What do you think Steve Jobs goal was? To make a device that’s simple and can do very few things well for the masses of people. Steve Jobs, I think you’re pretty close there, Steve Jobs what he wanted to do is he wanted to create simple devices that are usable by the average person, that were elegant, that were simple, and that had unbelievable performance. But Steve Jobs, I mean his goal was to just make the best products ever, insanely great products, is something he talked about a lot. You can’t ever really achieve time freedom and financial freedom if you want to make insanely great products as your end goal. Right. If that is your end goal above your time and family and everything else, there’s a tradeoff. That’s why I would encourage everybody out there, if you go to Full Package Media today, just check out that website. If you’re out there and you’re going, I’m a doctor. I’m a foot doctor. I’m an ears, note, and throat doctor. I’m a dentist. And I don’t make $400,000 a year. I want to make $400,000 a year, and I’d love to have time freedom, too. Tell me more. Well, you’ve got to go up there to fullpackagemedia.com and check it out. This is a real guy. Just Google search Dallas Real Estate Photography real quick. Dallas Real Estate Photography. Do a search for it. And when you search for it, you’re going to see that right there, full package media comes up number one on the search engine results right there. And it’s not because I’m a genius. It’s because we know the systems. We know the processes. And if you’re out there and you want to earn time freedom and financial freedom, there’s multiple ways to do it. One of which is to do what Ethan did. In my opinion, this is the hard road. It’s where you start a company from scratch and you grow it. And Ethan said on the show, it’s taken him 20 years to do it. 20 years. If you’re somebody who has the tenacity to do it, through our coaching program, we can help you do that. That’s one way. Way number two is buy a freaking franchise. Now a lot of times you buy a franchise, they’re gonna charge you up front like, you know, 50 grand up front for the fee. 25 up front for the fee. If you get a full package, it’s a dollar. That’s crazy. Now it’s not a dollar for everybody. It’s a dollar for the first 20. So if you’re out there and you say, I’m interested, well you gotta go, what you gotta do right now is you gotta go up to full package media, look for the contact form, and just request to learn more information. And then we’ll schedule a discovery day where you can learn more about the ins and outs and how it works. And then Thomas is in the process of finalizing the franchise disclosure document. And so those will be first come, first serve really starting in June. But it’s a dollar for the first 20. So if you’re out there and you’re going, I have a dollar, check. And I could probably run up 30 for equipment. Check. You might be the right kind of fit. Now here’s the deal. You sound kind of sick, and I sound kind of sick. So you’ve got to be willing to work on the sick days and not drop the ball. Because if you’re self-employed and you only have one employee when you start, when you call in sick, what happens? You call in sick, you’re calling yourself, and no one’s going to run the business. If you call your customers and say, oops, I’m sorry, I can’t do the real estate photography shoot today because I’m sick, what’s going to happen? That’s going to cause you to have a very bad reputation. But if you want to get time freedom and financial freedom, you’re going to push through that. So one, he went with, Ethan went with a 90% of entrepreneur game that I’d recommend, which is find a real problem that people actually have now, not a problem of the future, and solve it. The next thing is he started from the bottom. He decided it’s either now or never. So you have to determine your jump point. You can talk about this forever. You could get in there and talk about, you know, someday I want to open a business. Well, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday are all going to come this calendar week, but someday will never come. The next thing is you got to understand only the conspiracy theorists survive. Only the conspiracy theorists survive, according to Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel. Think about that. So when he was telling me, Ethan was telling me about somebody wanting to buy his company, I advised him to be very skeptical of the entire thing. Stay grounded and objectively weigh the pros and the cons. Weigh the pros and the cons. Look at them and say, is there more pros, was there more things in favor of this deal or more things going against the deal? And then you’ve got to do the due diligence process. And your coach can help you through this process. But the person who has loose books never gets second looks. You’ve got to stay on top of your numbers. You’ve got to stay on top of the numbers because people try to pump them up and lie about the numbers when they try to sell the business. And if you’re lying about the numbers and you’re not paying taxes on your income, you can’t sell the business because people want to buy the business for what you’re paying yourself. You can’t say, well, secretly on the side I take a lot of money, but I don’t pay taxes on it. You can’t do that. You’ve got to have this in high integrity bookkeeping. Then you’ve got to go through this process of signing a non-disclosure agreement. Then you’ve got to go through the due diligence document where you’re agreeing to state any conflicts of interest that you have. You’re willing to say, I’m going to not compete if this deal goes through. You’ve got to agree on an employment agreement if they’re going to keep you around. So in Ethan’s case, they wanted to keep him as part of the company for at least the next two years. Then you’ve got to provide a list of all of your current customers, oh yes, and of all your current assets. Then you have to have an attorney review a purchase agreement. And then after you do a sign where you sign for the representations and warranties, you agree that what you’re saying is true, then you’ve got to cross your fingers and go through the negotiation process. And then they wire you the money and then you go buy a bunch of burritos. That’s what happens. So, again, if you’re out there and you want to become super successful, I know that you can do it. But you’ve got to decide today, are you going to buy a franchise? Are you going to grow your own thing? You know, are you going to grow that thing? Are you going to buy an existing business? What are you going to do? But don’t just wait for it because the time will never be just right. My name is Clay Clark. This has been another outstanding edition of the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download, encouraging you no days off when you’re starting a company, no sick days when you’re starting a business. Just show up. God blesses the hands of the diligent. According to Proverbs 10, God blesses the hands of the diligent and punishes the hands of the slackers. People don’t like that part. So look it up. Proverbs 10, 4. We like to end each and every show with a boom and so now without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, Boom! Hey, how’s it going? I’m Thomas Crosson, owner and founder of Full Package Media in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been a coaching client with Clay Clark since the beginning of our business. We started about a year ago, August of last year. I had no clients, no idea what we were doing, no clue really what was going on. And now we’ve grown to where we’ve got six photographers, we’ve got office space here, I have an admin sales person that works for us full time, developing an online system. system and a lot of that growth we attribute to Clay helping us and there’s so many things that, I mean this stuff is not revolutionary, it’s not this crazy walk on hot coals and all this stuff, it’s just real stuff and like group interviews, we were totally against group interviews, we were like no we’re different and we’re special and we need to do one-on-one interviews so we can find good quality candidates and not just kind of do this group interview thing. And we tried that and failed miserably. We did group interviews, now we do them every two weeks. And it’s awesome, it works good. We always have kind of influx of new people that we can train, get going. He’s helped us a lot with our website, graphic design, SEO. SEO is another thing that I thought before I started this business and before Clay, that it was kind of a joke or something that only your apples of the world and Amazon could get to the top of Google. But Clay said, no, just do these things, follow these steps and you’ll get there. And I think now we’ve looked today and we’re number two for Dallas Real Estate Photography. If you don’t believe me, you can look. So we’re getting to the top of there, that’s really cool. It’s really awesome to get leads that people call you and say, hey, I found you on Google. We want to hear about your services. So that’s really great. I’d say there’s nobody out there that’s not a good coaching client for Clay. I mean, you’re anyone, regardless of the business, it’s not about what the business is, what the specialty is. It’s about following the steps, doing what he says. You know, it’s a good thing. An hour a week, it gets you on track and keeps you kind of in line with what you’re doing and what you shouldn’t be doing. And it’s good to kind of give you some flow and future goals of your business. And I remember our first meeting, we set our goals and our goal was to do 16 shoots a week. And at the time, me and my business partner slash girlfriend Gretchen were like oh that’s we’re never going to do 16 a week that’s like crazy and today we’re doing nine and we did about 54 last week so he’s helped us grow you know we put in a lot of hours a lot of hard work as well but if you follow his steps and do what he does what he says there’s a lot of principles that he’s kind of taught and still in us that help us. So yeah, ClickHorrorFeed is the way to go. I wouldn’t venture out to find someone else. They’d be more expensive and a lot more fluff and no real actionable work and things to get your business growing. So that’s the way to go. Thanks. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s T-Vo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby! Tim T-Vo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some real estate sort of things. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. boxing he’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Russell, Tulsa, Russell, Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. JT why should everybody want to hear what Peter Totten has to say? Oh because he’s incredible he’s just a fountain of knowledge he is awesome he’s inspired me listening to him talk and not only that he also has he practices what he teaches so he’s a real teacher he’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers so you got to come learn from him. Also let me tell you this folks I don’t get this wrong because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He’s going to say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t want to get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times Bestselling Authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup. But I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It says Tulsa, Russell. It’s I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com Hello I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners 34 Grammy Award winners 43 New York Times bestsellers I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military, and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimesShow.com James, one more time for the sports enthusiasts. ThriveTimesShow.com See these people I ride with this moment Thrive time show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business Workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow You can learn the proven 13-point business system that dr. Zellner about I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this, and because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the Edithic chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop. All you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hours. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpy. I’m originally from Tulsa born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us and getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. So having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun, super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grew us 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you Clay and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the ThriveCon workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere of Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. I love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned in your career? The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow our business using Google reviews and just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that, because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purpose for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. you