Entrepreneur | Part 1 – Public And Professional Speaking: Confident Communication With Jim Cathcart

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear 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 where 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, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. Clay, I have something for you. This is a pewter acorn. I found a company, a jewelry company, that makes these. And it’s just a little acorn made out of pewter so that it picks up your body heat and it’s Nice to hold in your hand and if you’ll notice an acorn any acorn has three parts Okay, it has a stem a cap and a seed. Okay. Okay the stem represents the legacy of Everyone who existed in your line before you whose DNA is encoded into yours. So you’re carrying the legacy of everybody that ever existed in your family line going back through all of history, right? Good, bad, and ugly, all those imprints are in there. Probably the bad and ugly is what I’ve inherited, I think. The cap holds onto the seed until it’s ready to grow by itself. So the cap represents your coaches, your mentors, your role models, your parents, friends, the people who have inspired you. And the cap, once you’re ready to grow on your own, lets go, and the seed contains the potential that still lives within you and the potential of all future generations that will come from you. Wow. So you have a responsibility going forward and you have a legacy going backwards. And this is your acorn. Thank you, my friend. Nurture your nature. I appreciate that very much. You’re very welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Well, okay, we are talking about today something that you are probably, I can think of, you know, ten people on the planet who should be giving this talk or this training and could do it the way you’re going to do it. Because you are an award winning speaker. You actually won the Golden Gavel award there, which is the honor that’s given by Toastmasters for the best speakers in the world. An award that has been, the previous winners include Zig Ziglar, perhaps you’ve heard of him, maybe you haven’t, maybe you go, Zig Ziglar is Zig Schmigler, who’s that? No. So maybe you say, I don’t know, Les Brown, maybe you say, I don’t know, I don’t know of this Les Brown. What about firewalking Tony Robbins? You say, I don’t, I, I did the firewalk with Tony Robbins in San Diego in 1980 something. Did it hurt? No. No? Okay. We’re going to have a whole training on that. We’ll get back to that. Tom Peters, Tom Peters, best-selling author. And again, I’m just going through some of the names that I think everyone will know. Robert Shuler, Dr. Robert Shuler, noted for his, he’s kind of a theologian, author, business guy, unbelievable. Earl Nightingale, I mean, Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite, are you kidding me? I mean, so you, you, with the exception of Cronkite, these are all people I knew. And Cronkite, I was in his audience live in San Diego a few years back. I’m just amazed. So I, all I can say is we’re going to, we’re talking, we’re talking today about public and professional speaking, confident communication. And I could spend hours with you on this. And we have a lot more trainings that we’ll be doing with you that will feature this and I just want to get into this though is when as a speaker if you get up there and you bomb so if you get up to speak and this is how I used to do my speaking events because I by the way was not trained to be a speaker I was a business guy and they said because you won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award would you be willing to speak? Oh sure yeah I’m good at business I’ll go. And so you talk you have the handshakes going, and then you start to get the sweat going. Confident business guy, but not a confident communicator. You sweat, and you get to, I get to, I’m pale. America, America. So I get the little blotches of red that are letting people know that I’m excited to be there. And then you start to kind of just, settings quickly, and then you make eye contact with the back of the room. Right? Not anybody in the audience. Over their heads. And then you stay tight. And you just… That’s right. Today we’re talking about… And then just… it’s awful. Yeah. And then at the end, your wife goes… That was… okay. Yeah. That’s how most of us… Gee, dear, you suck today. Yeah, I didn’t want any candor there. That’s typically how most people view speaking. Yeah. And then there’s all sorts of research, all sorts of data that shows people would rather die than to give a speech. So we’re getting into this. I’m going to start off with this quote from Warren Buffett. He says, if you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get your ideas across, you’re giving up your potential. That’s Warren Buffett. This is a powerful subject. So first off, how many public speeches have you’ve done over the years, do you think? Paid speeches I’ve done over 3000. 3000 paid? Where I was paid a fee for speaking at that event. Being that you’re 32 right now, how many events were you doing a year at the maximum? At the peak, 123 talks in one year. And that’s almost all of them out of town. So it was, you know, 246. Wow. Air trips in order to do those 143 and 123. And I wake up in a city. And I was mentioning this earlier today. I’d wake up and, you know, look around. And the whole world looks the same from the inside of a hotel room. True that. And so I would grab the little notepad and it would say Sheraton. And I’d say, yeah, but which Sheraton? You know and then I’d have to think oh yeah I’m in Stamford, Connecticut okay you know and then I could go on but there was that little moment of disorientation at the start of some of those days because I was traveling so much. And your clients over the years I mean I’m just hitting on a few and people if you have some other ones. Over 2,000 clients. 2,000 clients I mean you’ve spoken for Bank of the West, Bank One, Chase Manhattan, Farmers Insurance, John Deere, New York Life, Everybody, State Farm, Transamerica Insurance, U.S. Bank, Everybody, the U.S. Treasury. I mean, is there anybody else? I mean, you’ve worked with all these big organizations. I’ve worked with from the sublime to the ridiculous. I’ve had companies you wouldn’t even think would exist, you know, or associations. How about the Association of Wiping Cloth Manufacturers? Is that real? Yeah. What? That was in Boston. And I’ve spoken… I knew it would be in Boston. I knew that if it existed it would be in Boston. I’ve spoken for Pricewaterhouse and KPMG and groups like that. I’ve spoken, you know, for Chevrolet and Ford and Mercedes-Benz and BMW. I’ve spoken for American Airlines and United Airlines, all the hotel companies, not all, but most. Name it. I’ve spoken for them. Well, I want to keep you humble before we get into this, because I noticed that you have not spoken at my mom’s bunko parties. Haven’t seen you there. I’m so sorry. Yeah, so you’re missing out. I didn’t see the invitation when it came through. But this guy says it’s not valid. I would have made a priority of it. It hasn’t been there. OK. OK. But what we did is the Thrivers have asked us a lot of questions about public speaking. I love that you call them Thrivers. Well that’s what we, they’re people who’ve decided to thrive. Yeah. You move beyond surviving, we’re saying, we’re crazy, we’re delusional. It’s a different mindset toward the world. To win this game of life. If you’re not just going to succeed or not just going to comply and you set your standards to thrive, you’ve required more of yourself. And that means you’re going to bring more because the only way you get is by giving. Well, I want to, I appreciate you saying that. The Thrivers have looked and asked us for a lot of different things about speaking. There’s 13 areas that I keep seeing over and over requests for. Perfect. So I wanted to dive into those 13 today and then allow you to give us your wisdom on that. The first is being natural and genuine on stage. Let’s hop into that. So being that, how important is it to be genuine and natural on stage? It’s powerful. That’s why it’s important. And it’s also true, which is why it’s important. You know, people say, well, you know, I could get an A in speech class, but that’s not the goal. Yeah. You get an A in speech class is doing all the behaviors. And it’s not about doing the behaviors. I did one of the recent seminars I did on speaking, I stood up and said, I said, what’s the most important thing in a speech presentation? Is it the speaker? Is it the audience? Is it the message? What is it? What’s the most important thing? None of the above. It’s what the audience can do with this message. In other words, it’s the value that you’ve brought to that audience. That’s the most important thing in the presentation. So it’s not about the presentation. You could be awkward. You could mispronounce things, use the wrong word. But if you got the intention across, if you caused the impact of the influence on the other person that you wanted, that was a successful speech. So it’s not about the speech. It’s about the impression or impact or value of the speech once it’s done. People say, well, you just you know, you’re a speaker and you get a lot of standing ovation. You just do it for the applause. No applause is an indicator as to whether it worked and how well it worked. But there are some speeches that I’ve given where the last thing I would want is applause because I want to deeply unsettle these people on an attitude they have and cause them to choose a new direction. Last thing I want is them going, Yeah, that was so cool, man, you can motivate an audience. Wow, I want them to I want them to walk out of there and go, Oh, man. He’s right. You know, I never thought about it like that. Gee, we need to make some changes. So sometimes the goal of the speech is to cause a change like that. You know, we I used to own a wedding entertainment company. And so before I sold it, I want to say that I’ve probably been a part of really screwing up or hopefully making better 20,000 weddings-ish. Wow. And so, you know, when you’re doing that, you see a lot of guys do the best man’s test. The guy gets up and he says, this is what he… Don’t do… If you’re the best man in a wedding coming up here, don’t do this move. But they’ll go, I didn’t write anything down. You’ve known the guy for 20 years. Write something down. Well, you notice when you asked me that question, I immediately started expanding into all the things I’d like to know about in order to design that speech. I was once called by an engineering company, and these were process engineers. So these are highly sophisticated, linear, and systematic thinkers. And they said, we’d like you to work our company, our convention theme into your speech. OK. And I said, OK, my speech is on relationships and relationship strategies for dealing with different types of people. What’s your theme? She said, optimization and application and process control. Well, it’s easy. Rolls off the tongue. Yeah. And I just I just sat there in a fog and I thought, whoa, whoa. And then I started reflecting, OK, why am I speaking to this group? How does it matter? OK, what does it mean to optimize, to make it the best but not the most necessarily? OK, good. Application, what does that mean? Means to use it, to apply it, to, OK. Process control, process, well, that’s a system or sequence. Control means being able to manage it. OK, I said, I got it. Really? And she said, well, fine. So she introduced me. She went to the back of the room. I’m up at the front of the room. Thank you very much for that introduction. My topic today is relationship strategies. And I’m not going to talk about how do you optimize your connection with another person. Okay, how do you, and we’re not going to talk theory, we’re going to talk use, we’re talking application here, okay. So how do you do that, and when you think about a relationship, actually a relationship is a process. It’s a back and forth and it has a lot of identifiable moving parts and what you want to do is have the consciousness and the spirit to be able to control that in ways that gets the outcome you want. So really what we’re talking about here is optimization and application in process control. And she’s going in the back of the room. That’s awesome. Thank heavens I was able to think it up, you know, on the spot. But I was definitely nervous before I came to that realization. But notice how I had to think in order to find that. I didn’t just make up some silly little poem, you know. Yeah, well let me ask you this. If I want to look more natural on stage, I want to feel more natural, obviously we know the more you speak, the more you’ll get more natural. Just like, you get better at it, the more you do anything, the more natural. But the natural starts in here, not out here. So you’re saying step one, an action item we need to do is make sure you know who you’re speaking to and why you’re speaking if you want to appear genuine, and you want to look more natural, you have to do that. Yeah, and tell the truth. If someone introduces… Forget the speech class things and think this is not about getting an A, it’s about getting the message across. So when you get up there, be you. Smile and look at them. What I do when I first walk on the stage is I grin and look at the audience and I say good morning or whatever, you know, the appropriate greeting is. And one time I was addressing an international audience and I said, now several languages and countries represented. I said, good morning. And a few of them said, good morning. And I said, good morning. Good morning. You know, you have some of my piggy, you know. And I said in my native tongue, hey, how are you all doing? I said, I’m from Arkansas, southern part of the USA. And they all laughed. And I started into my speech and it was just a fun way. You know, now I couldn’t have done that had I not talked with the people. Yeah. And said, how do you pronounce this? Does that mean good morning? Right. Would it be appropriate to say that at this time of morning or should I use a different greeting like good day? Yeah, you know and so I had a list and I carried it around in my pocket and for about a half day I was practicing that and Then I used it and it had a lot of fun with him and they went right into my speech Oh, there was a guy who I saw it was a CEO recently gave a talk. It’s phenomenal and he is Not charismatic. Uh-huh. He got up and he said, hey, today’s talk, we’re going to talk about such and such. I’m the least charismatic person I’ve ever been around, and I talk slow. So what I’ve done is I’ve come up with some little things to keep me entertained, hopefully keep you entertained. And he kind of owned the fact that he’s not charismatic, and he’s not, but the audience kind of laughed with him, not at him. And as the talk went on, he said, now, this is where typically a charismatic speaker would say this, so I’m going to, and he just had fun with it. Yeah. Well, he was natural, he was genuine, he was sincere. Now, I want to ask you this because… Well, hang on a second. Yeah, sure. I want to make sure to comment on that. Yeah, go for it. Exactly. A lot of people think, okay, if I’m nervous, I should talk about being nervous. If I’m not a good speaker, I should admit that I’m not a good speaker. No, we’re going to know. Trust me. You know, talking about it, making excuses for it, whining or, you know, I’m not worthy, I don’t know, I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy, I don’t belong up here, you shouldn’t listen to me, I’m scum and you’re good. That’s not a good thing to do. That’s just basically disenfranchising your audience. What he was doing was very strategic and he was surgical in the way that he went about it and it worked, okay? But you shouldn’t be making excuses, you know, like, oh man, you know, I just got here at the last minute, I didn’t have time to prepare and I don’t know who you people are but I’m sure you’re important to yourselves and so I’m gonna give you my stuff and then you just pay me and I’ll get out of your way. So self-deprecation is okay as an intentional move, you know, making fun of yourself, having some fun with that, but bringing down the expectations of the audience and apologizing for being poorly prepared is bad. Yeah. Now moving on to the second question thrivers are asking us a lot. They’re saying, how should somebody properly structure a speech? That’s a big question. Yep. How do you properly? Structure the speech lots of ways to do it, but the basic idea is here’s why I’m talking to you today Here are the main points of it. Here’s a story or illustration to You know drive home each point and in summary. Here’s what I just told you. Thank you. See you tomorrow So let’s do that again. Here’s why I’m talking today. Then the next is the main… Here’s why I’m talking today is here’s why you should listen to me. Here’s why you should listen to me. Okay. But you don’t want to say that. Here’s what I’m talking about today. Here’s why I’m here. They asked me to be here because this subject is what we’re going to talk about. Here’s what matters to you. Right. So you’re selling the topic, not you. Then you have the main points. Yeah. This is what we’re going to talk about. And it should be a few points, not a lot of points. Okay. Because the more points it is, the more it needs to become a workshop or a seminar, and have handouts, and have exercises to keep them involved. And the longer it goes, the more the dynamics and expectations change. And then as you go from main points, then we go, can we say there’s the main points, then you have one of a story or an illustration with each main point. Yeah. And then you want to go ahead and conclude and tell them what you told them? Yep. Okay. And that’s the old tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell it to them, and then tell them what you told them. Okay. Or attention, interest, desire, and action, which is the old sales AIDA. Grab their attention with some point or some reason for being there. Develop their interest by telling them what this means to you is, and that’s a good phrase, what this means to you is. And then you’re forced to illustrate, right? And then stimulate the desire to act. You know, we need to take action on this now because, and then join me in taking the first action. Get out your pen, let’s write this, you know, whatever. Now Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said, the quote, he says, speech is power. Speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. What you’re doing is as a speaker who’s spoke at thousands of events, is you are, I want to make sure we’re getting this, you are converting, you’re compelling, you’re getting the audience to take action in a meaningful way to improve their life. It seems like when you’re… And a lot of times I am, but but there are so many different reasons for a speech, purposes for it. So it’ll be… Let’s go ahead and let’s go ahead and break those off for a bit, though, because I’ll just give you an example. I get asked all the time to do workshops. Yeah. Can you give a talk, they say. Sure. So I’m here to give a workshop. I’m here to teach. I teach search engine optimization, or PR, or a skill. I’m teaching a skill. Keynotes, I’m going to kill my keynote career here, but I don’t like keynotes. I don’t want to do keynotes, personally, because I’m more of like getting into the details and the fastidious how to do something. I love keynotes, by the way, so we’ll make a good package. We won’t take all the awesome. But the thing is, I enjoy watching a keynote because there’s a magic to it. I enjoy watching that. Well, it’s a performance. It is. So a keynote’s a performance, whereas a seminar or workshop is a training or learning experience. And if you look at it in the terms of a keynote, would be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, let’s say, in length. And it’s one way. It’s me talking to the audience. There’s not much audience involvement. There might be a raise your hand if you’re from the western region kind of an interaction, but that’s all. Then you go to like a two or three hour session. That’s a seminar. And the seminar is me teaching and you asking questions and me giving you a few exercises to do that are simple and short. And with a seminar, I probably have a handout, but it’s not a handout we’re going to work in. It’s one you’re going to take home. Yeah. So maybe it’s a copy of my book or it’s something like that. A workshop could be an all-day program. All day. It could be six hours long of classroom time. Typically, what I do is I tell my clients, these are the ways that my fees are structured for a keynote speech, a seminar, or a workshop. And it’s up to 90 minutes for a keynote. 90 would be a really long keynote. Up to three hours for a seminar and up to six hours of platform time. Mm hmm. For in platform time specifically. So you’re not counting breaks and things like that for a workshop. Now, what’s a workshop? Workshop is exactly what it says. Work, meaning they’re going to do things. So it’s more involvement. Yeah, yeah. Getting groups of three and talking, you know, work this exercise, do a case study among your group and then come back together and report. So that kind of thing. I think when people go online or they call your agent or they book you, yeah, what they’re doing, though, is they they’re planning an event and you do this as a career. So I think if you’re as a speaker, everybody watching this who wants to become a speaker or you are a speaker, you have to educate the event planner by presenting to them the options. So a lot of times I’ll say… Well, you’re teaching them how to buy. Yeah, you’re saying, you know, do you want to do a keynote, a workshop, or do you want to facilitate, or are you doing a seminar? And they’ll go, I didn’t even know there was options. What’s the difference? Yeah. And you really have to clarify who you’re speaking to, why you’re speaking, so you have to clarify what kind of format. Yeah. On my own website, CatCard.com, I’ve got a whole section just for meeting planners. And it’s one button you click and then there’s a whole menu of items that are all about every element like that that would constitute one of the moving parts of the meeting that somebody might ask about. Now this is where the, this next point, this next question, Thrivers asked a lot about, they said, what about on-site preparation? So this third area we’re going to tackle is the on-site preparation. Now I want to share a story of what not to do. I recently did an event at an ambiguous location somewhere, I won’t mention the name, the place, the people, but the point is I was doing it and I get there and the people were awesome people and I asked, you know, ahead of time I have a checklist. Audio, visual, diva stuff. Audio, visual, you know, are we in a room that has electricity, you know, these little things I want to get in. So I get M&Ms and have all the red ones removed. There you go, yeah. So I’m going through all the details and I get through this and as I’m going through I get there and I realize the guy says, well, it’s about 10 minutes before I get up, hey do you know how to turn this speaker on, he says to me, and I said, well as a recovering DJ I definitely can help you. Well he doesn’t have the cables, he doesn’t have the cords, he doesn’t have the cable. Oh my. It’s an audience about 250 and there’s no Audio period and then he says I’ve got an idea So he grabs one of those terrible like karaoke things that you buy like a guy It’s like maybe like a sixth grader. Yeah with the mic so it’s like You know and so I’m trying to talk and I’m just testing it. It’s like like check one more I’m just going homes. I’m just gonna go without so I had to change well when I did that though luckily I’ve done thousands of events But it messes with your psyche. Yes, it does you’re thinking about all this stuff Yeah, you’re thinking about the audience and your message, and then someone says Do you really need a microphone? Yeah? And the answer is of course no, I don’t need a microphone. They go ah I said, but I’m gonna hear it all if you want them to hear it They need me to have a microphone And this is where I want to get into it with you because I want to set the stage for this because I’ve had events Early on in my speaking career where they said just don’t stand here and here is like right where you want to stand I know because of the stage it doesn’t just don’t stand here or there’s the one where the guy says hey I’m just so you know, I know it’s a 45, but you have 14 minutes. Yep. You have 14 minutes. It’s a 45-minute talk, but you just have 14 minutes left. This is my life. There we go. That’s very familiar. And so I just want to make sure. Hey, don’t step back while you’re speaking because the pool is right behind you. And we didn’t have a meeting room, so we’re meeting on the edge of the pool. And we had to arrange it so that where you’re standing is right by the diving board. And if you step back, you’re going in the pool. So be careful. Just be careful. And I want to say… What do pools sound like? Wom, wom, wom, wom, wom, wom. I want to mention this because I want to mention all this because I don’t want people to get the idea that Jim or you or other top level speakers are divas. You’re not. It’s just these are things we need to get in. Some of us are. Well, it can happen. A little diva. All I’m saying is you want to do a great job to impact the audience. Right. Go through and just kind of rattle off some of the pre-event, on-site preparation that needs to happen. Well, first thing, you’ve got a responsibility to the person who’s bringing you there, the meeting planner, the event planner, the chair, the host, whoever it is. They are worried about the whole meeting. They’re worried about the catering. They’re worried about the attendees, the hotel check-in. They’re worried about transportation. They’re worried about the room decor. They’ve got the sound guy to work with. They’ve got everything in the world going on. The last thing they need is a high-maintenance speaker. Right. So your job is to make their job easier. Make their job easier. Job number one, let them know you’re in town so they can go, I don’t have to find a replacement. Good, our keynote speaker is in town. Or I’m in the hotel. I let them know the minute my plane lands or the minute I get to the hotel so that they can relax a little bit that Keynote speakers here. I tell them look I’m day labor. I’m you know you brought me in to do a specific job I don’t want to eat up your time. Don’t worry about hospitality for me. I can take care of myself I don’t need somebody to Be constantly thinking well is this going to be okay for our speaker if you need me Since you hired me to come in here and in this case is paid speech. I’m yours. So let me know what you need. And so then we’d meet, we maybe go to the meeting room or I’ll go without them to the meeting room and look at it. Look at the lighting and the delay of the land, figure out where the light switches are, figure out if there’s a movable wall on the next room and they’re going to have a Dixieland band and a political rally in there during our quiet memorial service for the founder of this company, you know, or something equally inappropriate and mixed. I want to ask you this about familiarizing yourself with the room. Yeah. One guy who’s been a big impact in my life, Clifton Talbert. Clifton is a best-selling author. He’s one of our mentors on Thrive and Clifton told me, he says, you need to familiarize yourself with the room. And I was just questioning like, no, I don’t want to do it. I was just saying, why do you want to do it? Just because the room affects the energy of the people in it. OK, there you go. I was in Santa Barbara one time at I think it was a Sheraton resort right on the off of the beach, you know, on Korea or whatever that is that runs along the beach. It’s beautiful wherever it is. Yes, gorgeous. Santa Barbara. So I go up there from San Diego, where I was living at the time, and I go to this meeting room and it’s set up in a U-shape like a railroad car, you know, a long tunnel with a little patch at the end. Oh, wow. And it’s for 60 people. And I was you know, we had requested classroom style with a center aisle. OK, so they set it up you shape and I the people that were going to be my contacts weren’t around But there was a house man there who had helped with the setup Yeah, and I said, excuse me, but this room set up in the wrong way for our meeting You know, it needs to be classroom style. Can we get it reset? So now I’m the keynotes, but I’m the guest. Yeah, I’m I’m the guy that’s going to be standing there speaking for like two hours Eva yeah, so I said, all right, please leave my room You’re the diva. Yeah. So I said, all right, please leave my room. He said, what? I said, I need to reset this room. Please leave my room. You know, and he gets kind of huffy and he goes out of the room. Well, he’s already in a bad mood. He’s not a solution for me. So there’s no sense pushing against that. So I locked the door to the room and I stripped to the waist and I completely reset the meeting supposed to be and then I unlock the door and I peek out and I put a shirt on and I go down the hall to the men’s room and I freshen up and I put my suit back on and I come back to the room and I greet the meeting attendees as they come in the door. The meeting planner said, hey I’m sorry I couldn’t get by here earlier it looks like everything’s great. Yeah, everything’s great. Yeah. And I went on and did the meeting. The meeting went well. You would have lost, the customer wouldn’t have been happy, the customer would have thought your speech wasn’t as good Everything would have been a loss for you If you wouldn’t have been fastidious about getting into that room early enough to make a difference because I was there ten minutes before Too late now. Let’s get it. If I had tried to make do with the setup. Yeah, it would have Bombed because you got two people looking at each other all the way down and like 11 people can see you. And this is we’re talking about how to do great speaking and notice we’re talking about moving stuff around we’re talking about because you have to get there early enough. And not whining to the audience that the room was set up wrong and I had to reset it myself. I just did the speech. Let me ask you this, what do you do after you’ve walked the room? What’s the next thing you do? Next thing you do is you want to know first off not only the setup for the room but also the functions of the room, like sound and light and stuff like that. Then I want to get with someone with the client company and know what’s going on, what’s the heartbeat of the patient, my audience, right now. What’s going on? Did they have a tour of the factory today and some guy fell and broke his arm? Did they have a company announcement that the eastern region is going to be laid off because it’s no longer viable. Yeah. Did so-and-so announce retirement, surprisingly, and everybody goes, oh my gosh, I didn’t see that coming. And you know, what’s going on in their mind at heart? I need to check the patient’s vital signs. This is a super move, and I’m so glad you’re hitting on this because I can think of just so many events, but there’s one I went to recently where most of the people were millionaires who are in the audience and They were gonna go on a yacht a yacht tour and a couple guys had told me I got on a stupid yacht tour tonight You know, so what else you guys gonna be doing the next next I go the next table What’s what are you guys doing tonight? Oh, what a stupid yacht tour and just and you just heard it So I realized that this was something they didn’t want to do. So the entire talk, I made a couple changes on my outline, and every time that I got to the theme, you know, to the reoccurring phrase, I said, because we’re going on a boat. And the audience is like, and then the second time, I said, because we’re, and everyone in the audience started saying, we’re going on a boat. By the end of the talk, everyone’s like, because we’re going on a boat. Yeah, anyway, when I get on the boat with the people, they’re all high-fiving, and we made this event they didn’t want to go on for you for a creative But it was kind of a deal where you is a keynote you have to you you really are Responsible for the emotional state of that audience because your message and your energy and your attitude Becomes the key note that is played throughout this whole orchestra. No, come on now notice the meeting that’s the key note that’s you hear say when you when you look at it at a song that’s being performed by a musical piece being performed by an orchestra What’s the keynote? You know the key? This is the key of C. Okay, we’re all playing in C So if I’m in B flat, I got a problem that’s now visited on everybody else because you can all hear me. It’s amazing Yeah, this on-site Preparation we’re now we figured out the heartbeat of the audience What else should we do before we get up there and actually deliver the talk? Manage you okay first off get to bed early enough the night before you’re gonna get a good night’s sleep Don’t stay up late watching TV You know last thing before I go to sleep on the night before a speech I reread the client materials and and think through my speech one more time Then I go to sleep and I might watch a movie on the TV in the room if I have that much time in the evening, but I’m not going to watch something that’s going to keep me disturbed and up all night, or that’s going to be so long that, you know, I’m, oh man, it’s midnight, I got to, I definitely got to turn this off at midnight, you know, no, no. Get some rest, okay, then the next morning, get up early enough that you can be fresh and alert and engaged by the time they first see you. You don’t want to look like you just woke up. No. And I always make sure that when I first get up, and I go through just the usual routine of getting clean and dressed and ready for the day, but then I go to breakfast alone. And lots of times my clients say, okay, I’ll meet you for breakfast in the morning. And I say, well, I’d like to have breakfast alone to go over my speech one last time, and then let me meet you, and if you hadn’t had breakfast yet, fine, but I’m gonna have my little oatmeal snack, you know, before I get together with you, and I, you know, hope that’s not a problem. No, it’s okay. And so they meet me for a cup of coffee, and we talk about last-minute details, and then I go to my meeting room well before I’m expected to be there. Yeah. And I make sure wherever I am in that meeting room, the meeting host can see me. So they know. Where’s Clay? Clay is our speaker today. Is Clay in the room? No. I want them to know, because they’ve seen me, that I’m visible and they can, you know, when it’s my turn, first off, there’s a direct line open between me and the stage, the platform, so that there’s not some obstacle in the way that I have to, at the last minute, think about how to get around. Yeah. And I want to keep my legs uncrossed so that I’m not inhibiting circulation. Yeah. Do stomach breathing to relax my diaphragm and then smile all the way to the platform. I want to really unpack a couple of things you said because to me it’s important that we don’t lose track of this. One is you said manage you. Yeah. I would argue if you take that principle to every day. Like I know for me, I love TD Jakes. I love TD Jakes. I love R&B music. If I’m listening to R&B music and listening to TD Jakes, it’s a great day. So I do it every day. I know that there are certain… I like to read self-help books or case studies every day. I have found a way to trick myself, not manipulate, but kind of influence myself to be positive. And I do that. Now, I can tell you, this past year, my dad, he had stage four cancer, and he’s had heart problems, and a lot of that. And I remember checking my phone right before getting on a performance, just, which I’m just telling you, if you’re a speaker, don’t do this. I looked at my phone, you don’t know what text messages or emails are gonna come across. The house is on fire, have a nice speech. That’s exactly, and I checked, and I remember being like and it just deflated and then I had to get up there and I was able to do it because I’ve been doing it long enough. Yeah. But you want to be genuine and you know that’s what their first principle we talked about you gotta be genuine and I just remember that battle in my mind of trying not to go there and I just encourage everybody if you’re gonna do a speech do everything that Jim has said and as you’re doing that just make sure your emotional state is in a good place so that you’re ready to get up there and really communicate effectively. And I think that the reason why, when people are watching this training, what we do understand is the preparation is the foundation. So if you will look at the house, TD Jakes has a sermon on this. It’s fabulous. But he says, very few people go to the house and say, what a great foundation you have. That is awesome. That is great. Was it rebar? That’s sweet. Let me see your basement. They don’t do that. But they usually will comment on, oh, nice fireplace. Oh, I like your granite. Oh, I like. And the speech, the actual talk, is just the final part, the visual part. But all this preparation has to happen. And so we hop into this fourth element. This is the thing that this is another element Thrivers ask us about. They said, why does my introduction matter? Or what should my introduction look like? Why does my introduction matter? And all I can say is I got introduced about three years ago specifically at an event for wealthy people. And they didn’t say I was entrepreneur of the year. They didn’t say this guy’s owned this many businesses or he’s done this. The person literally said, all right, folks, our next speaker used to be a disc jockey. That’s it? Yeah. And so all these guys, and they’re all going, oh crap. I mean, if you know a DJ is going to speak, it’s like our next guy has no discernible talent. And you just, you have no, the audience is, oof. That’s the whole point. The introduction’s purpose is to tell them why they should bother listening to this next speaker. So it’s why is this speaker speaking at this time to this audience on this topic? That’s it. And sometimes it’s okay, ladies and gentlemen, in your agenda, you can see next is our keynote speaker, here he is, Clay, right? And they just turn you loose. That would be better than what they did with the DJ comment, because DJ comment ratcheted down expectations and made you have to compensate. And I’ve had, and I’m sure you have, they get your name wrong, they forget your name altogether. I had one guy forget my name. He had talked about me, and he said, we’ve been traveling together for a week now, and I’ve come to know this guy, and he really cares about our company. He’s got a great message. This is the third or fourth in our series, and here he is. John Kef? He forgot my name. Jackson Keff. And the reason was he had taken a nap just before. He just woke up. And he still had, you know, not all of the things were online yet. So he says, and here he is again. And so I acted like it was an act. And I ran up there and I said, wait, wait, I think I’ve got it. And I looked around and I found a brochure with my name on it. And I said, here it is, Jim Cathcart. And he said, yeah, that. And they all went, yeah, that was funny. And I went on with my speech. Yeah. Well, I will say this. If you’re watching this and you’re going to make an introduction, it’s important that the introduction, again, tells the audience why they should listen. And it’s not about you, the introducer. It is about the speaker and the message. So I’m going to give an example of an introduction that I think would be appropriate for someone like yourself. Okay. But you would want to mention, okay, today’s speaker is the recipient of this award. And if you say that, you have to give the award context, otherwise people don’t know. So if I were to say, he’s the winner of the Golden Gavel Award, some people don’t know what that means. Right. So I’d say today’s speaker is the winner of the Golden Gavel Award, which is presented to, and I would explain why the award matters, and maybe say he’s been featured in this book and that book, and he’s spoken to thousands of audiences, and you want to make them know that, why do we need to listen to this guy? And all I can say is, make your introduction. Why would you listen to this person? If it can be short, and you can make it, it can be long, whatever you need to do. Our next speaker is the author of 16 books. Today you’re going to hear about one of them. There you go. Yeah. It’s whatever is going to make the audience want to listen to you. But you have to write this for the event planner. I mean, you have to. I totally agree. And I have it on my website and print out on my person on the day of the speech. Yeah. So that even if they’ve already got it and they had it earlier that day, I’ve still got one on me because they say, hey, would you write down some things I can say about you? We’ll just use the introduction I gave you earlier today. You know, I left that in my room. Ah, I just happened to have a second. I bring it, yeah. Right there. You see there, see, I did an event in upstate New York about what, four years ago? And I went out there and again, the event planner, like, no, I already wrote my own introduction. Yeah. And it was, and I, again, I’m not trying, it’s not about me, it’s about getting the audience to want to listen. So you’re going to raise their expectations. And the introducer is trying to be clever. Yeah. Yeah. So I would just encourage you, action step, make sure you have a written introduction that you want someone to use. And not a resume, not a CV, not a laundry list of all the jobs you’ve had. Mine says, our next speaker is the founder of Cathcart Institute, a consulting firm, da da da da da da da. He’s the author of 16 books, and one of those books is the international bestseller, The Acorn Principle, another is Relationship Selling. But there’s another side of our speaker that’s much more interesting. And it literally says this, and then it laundry list. He’s also a nightclub singer. He’s been a bartender, a bill collector, an insurance agent, an association executive, internet business owner. He may not be able to hold a job, but I understand he can hold an audience. Here’s Jim Cathcart. So that they get a laugh at my expense. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s T-Bo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma baby. Tim Tebow 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, you know, 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 gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying, Tip Teebo is going to teach us how he organizes his day, 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’ll 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 $100 million 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 Nine Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has 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 want to 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 said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, 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? What do 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. You started 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 or anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am 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’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa, Russell. It’s, I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you go to, if you type in Thrivetimeshow 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. Who? I’m talking to you. You can just get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.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 gonna give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich 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. Clay Clark 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. 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 out shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveled all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive 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 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? ThriveTimeshow.com. James, one more time for more enthusiasm. ThriveTimeshow.com. Even if I got three strikes, I’ma go for it. This moment, we own it. Hey, I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See, these people I ride with, this moment, we own it. 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 systems 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 gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna 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 gonna 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 big 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, and 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 going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t loan it. We’ve 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’ve got to 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 King’s Point in New York, acta 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 we 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. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man. And there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, uh, 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, what 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 But don’t let that play, you know, thank you, but you become an influencer You know 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, Changing a 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 Wimpey, 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 in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. 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 this facility and basically create it just on our 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 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 know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, 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’ll be answered. This conference motivates me and also give 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 in the world cake. 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 motivates me. Your competition is 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 where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is 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 van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to 14, 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 grossed 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 wanna 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 today’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. 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 a business using Google reviews and then 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. It’s real critical if I’m gonna 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 purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.