Clay Clark | The Trade-offs of Being Self-Employed

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zulman. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get there What is going on, Flyb Nation? You are listening to the number one business building program on the planet. It’s the Flyb Time Show, and I’m your co-host, Captain Clay Clark. I’m joined here with my main man, Dr. Z. Dr. Z, how are you, sir? I am fantastic on this. Happy Monday. And we have one of America’s most incredible humans, Miss Sherita Benton, in the house. Miss Sherita, how are you? I’m great. Now today, Z, we are talking about a couple of things. One, we’re talking about how much Zayquil can I drink? We’re talking about that. That will be a recurring theme. I literally woke up this morning feeling as though my entire nasal cavity was flooded. I have that dizzy thing. If I look down too fast, I get a headache. The whole game, the whole allergy thing is a taxman. I love the glazed over look of your face. If you’re not seeing this, you need to get on Facebook Live and look at him because that is a good look for you. It’s beautiful. And medically speaking, you were telling me that vitamin D is produced by being out, by being exposed to sunlight. Which I’m not sure you’ve ever been exposed to sunlight as white as you are. No, no, no. And vitamin D apparently… Is he the palest man you know? He is. He is. God love him. He is. Well, the thing is that vitamin D apparently can help you fight sickness or nasal congestion. And so rather than going outside ever, I’m just drinking an entire bottle of Dayquil. If you’re watching on Facebook Live right now, I’ve got my Dayquil, I’ve got my Tropicana juice, I’ve got the whole thing going on. I need to send one of the guys to go get some vitamin D. Maybe we can load you up with vitamin D. Yeah, and the Dayquil is orange. I’ll be getting better on the show. Orange juice, yeah. Alright, so here we go. We’re talking about today specifically the five trade-offs of being self-employed. Five trade-offs of being self-employed. I’ll tell you why we’re talking about it. Because you’re listening right now and you’re somebody who’s going, you know, I want to start a business someday. According to Forbes, 57% of the people listening right now, 57% of America wants to start a business. Wow. Now you got a lot of people right now, according to Forbes, and this is all Forbes, do you guys, why do you guys quote Forbes so much? I’ll tell you why we quote Forbes. One, it’s a great magazine, and two, our main man Jim Stovall teamed up with Mr. Forbes to write a book called Ultimate Productivity, and rumor has it we’re going to have Mr. Stovall on the show. So we’re always just plugging that, Forbes. But 65% of the jobs on the planet are created, or in America, are created by small businesses. 65%. So here we go now. We’re going to get into this, okay? It’s the five tradeoffs of being self-employed. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out, time out. Sure, yeah. Are you saying there’s trade-offs? The thing is, you can’t just be self-employed and start your own business. That doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, nobody wants to hear about trade-offs. Yeah, I mean, come on. Let’s talk about the fun stuff. Come on, let’s hire, let’s fire somebody today. I’m good at firing. Oh, yeah, let’s do something fun. Let’s pick out a logo for our new business. Let’s do something fun. Social media. Social media, yeah. There you go. Okay, stop the insanity. Here’s the deal. Here’s a statistic, a mystic statistic. This just in from our home office off the coast of the Arkansas River, where it’s never empty. Here’s what it says here. It says 57% of small business owners say they work six or more days each week. This is right here. This is from Gallup. I didn’t make this up, okay? 57% of small business owners say they work six or more. Are there more than six days? I was going to say, I think you work nine days a week. I’ve seen you, so I think there’s more days in the week for some people. Technically, I’m just going to use a little math here. I’m just going to put some math in there. Seven days, technically, in the calendar. Mathematically speaking. Yeah, so you are from a different planet, Clay. That has been determined. So on your planet, there could be nine days. Nine days for clients. I’m convinced. On planet Klaytron that’s where we have nine days. But look, trade-off number one is, I want you to unpack this for us, but trade-off number one is sacrifice is a pre-requisite. Trade-off number one, sacrifice. The idea that you have to sacrifice if you want to be a successful entrepreneur. So I’m just going to ask you this. Why is it so important for anybody listening right now that they go ahead and go in eyes wide open and make a list of all the things they’re willing to sacrifice if they do indeed want to become successful. Would I have a young man come to me and say, hey, listen, mentor me. I’m going to start a business. Coach me up. Of course, that’s why we have now Thrive15.com, so you can do it to all the young men and women out there in the world. But one of the core tenants of mine is that you have to… I’m writing a book. It’s called The Business Pig. The Business Pig. The Business Pig. I love it. I love to give pig analogies. You’re about the farm. You love the farm. I love taking it down to the farm. You get a little farm logic here. Alright, Z. Alright. And there’s a reason why the bank on your desk as a small child was shaped like a pig. You had a piggy bank. I did. Is it because money is circular? Some of the coins? No, no. I thought it was because bacon is good. Well, all of the above. It’s hard to argue with that, Sherita. Bacon is good. Remember that. That’s a tenet. Now, what I tell young people when they come up, listen, you have to learn how to delay gratification. What? In other words, you don’t spend the money. You put it in your little piggy bankie. Yes. But I want to spend it all right now. All of it right now. Well, if you do, then when the rainy day comes or you want to really start your business and you don’t have a war chest, you can’t crack open that piggy bank and then take that money and go start your thing. That’s one of the problems. A lot of businesses fail because they’re undercapitalized, i.e., they don’t have enough money. And that’s because people were living on what they were making. What? It’s a foreign concept now. Yeah. So you have to delay those gratifications and live on less than what you’re making. It’s the only way you can save up some money in your little piggy bank. I want to read you a little notable quotable. Z, are you ready for this? I love your notable quotables. This notable quotable comes from a guy named Ben Horowitz. I’ll tell you why I love Ben Horowitz. He loves rap music. He loves hip-hop music. Yeah. And he always is quoting rappers while he’s, you know, making his big business speeches. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 117. But before he was making business speeches, and before he became one of the founding partners, the biggest venture capital firm out there, there’s two big ones, there’s a bunch of them, there’s two huge ones. There’s Sequoia, you’ve probably heard of Sequoia, they’re funding major, these big Silicon Valley companies, Sequoia. And there’s Andreessen Horowitz. So there’s Andreessen and there’s Horowitz. This guy is Horowitz. Some people go, oh my gosh, it’d be nice to be a billionaire. Yeah, yeah. He sold his business for $1.6 billion in cash to Hewlett Packard. It was called Opsware. Nice. But what people don’t know is he went through hell and back and he wrote a book called, this company is called The Hard Things, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. But anyway, I’m going to read to you. He says, every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, yeah, that’s fine. But that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation. The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those great people develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. Let me repeat that part. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. Sorry to crush your dreams, any of you who like to walk on coals and read self-help books but not do anything. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare. Wow. So, let me tell you a nightmare story. You want to hear a nightmare story? We started the elephant in the room, the first location down there at 16th and Boston. And let me tell you what happened. We had this beautiful build out. We had unbelievable lighting. We had great barber chairs. We had guys who could do the hard part. You know what I’m talking about, the hard part? Right. Where you get out the razor and you kind of do that hard part deal. Literally the hard part. The hard part, yeah. And we had the whole thing. We had uniforms. We got the whole game going on. And you know how many customers we had every day? How many? Twelve? Twenty? Zero. Six hundred and thirty-two. Zero. Wow. Now we’ve been in business for five, almost five years. And today we had a dentist. Last week we had a NFL football player call me. And these guys are recognizing the system works can I buy one I’m getting these calls all the time nice and let me tell you what 60 months ago mm-hmm it was like we will pay you to cut your hair the thing was we don’t forget yeah how did that happen but we didn’t know how we were gonna market it and furthermore we had a hard time explaining to people what it was now I can articulate and say it’s a men’s grooming lounge for a guy who’s looking for an experience and not just a haircut. And oh, by the way, your first haircut is always a dollar. And so it’s easy to like a dollar. But Z, we have these haircuts that are $44. Now Z, have you ever had a $44 haircut or do you routinely get $44 haircuts? I know we haven’t converted you yet to the elephant in the room. We’ve been trying, but you’re loyal. You’re loyal to your dude. My haircut costs a lot less than that, but I’m a big tipper, so it ends up costing more than that. You have a $94 haircut. Let me tell you something. I wish I could come to Elephant in the room because women pay way more than $40 for their haircut. So you need to sneak me in or something so I can get a $40 haircut. In the world of dude-dom, most guys, you have three options. One is you have your wife cut your hair. It starts to cause conflict in the marriage. You just say, hey honey, could you cut my hair? And you do that when you get out of, when you start a business and you’re doing those trade-offs and you don’t have a lot of money, you have your wife cut the hair. The next move is you kind of upgrade and you start to go to a place where about every six weeks when you start to have so much neck hair people think you’re a Yeti. That’s when you go. And then when you get into that professional phase of your life, you start to go, you know what, I want to look clean every four weeks, every three weeks. And we’ve kind of built the business for those people who want to look clean, look sharp, that kind of thing. I’m not allowed in there. I’m banned from that place. I still look like a Yeti. Oh my. Yeah, but anyway, I just want to say, the sacrifice that my brother-in-law made, I was making the financial sacrifices. I’m writing checks, he’s writing some checks, I’m writing a lot of checks, I’m getting, writing some checks, but he’s out there passing out cards, passing out cards, passing out cards, trying to get people in. He’s practicing sales moves, but he understood that sacrifice principle number one trade-off number one that sacrifice is a pre Requisite now coming up next after the break. We’re gonna be talking about trade-off number two, which is this trade-off of a sense of security Oh, man, now Z a sense of security since you’ve you’ve been an entrepreneur You have a top optometry center you’ve your investor an investor in a bank. You have an auto auction You’re involved in a medical supply company. You’re involved in a lot of things. Have you ever had to give up that sense of security, Mr. Zeke? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And after the break, I’m going to kind of break it down and tell you some things about that. But that’s one of the things that’s also – I’ve got a little secret. I’ve got a secret to tell you for everybody out there punching the clock. I’ve got a secret to tell you. For all of you out there punching the clock, would you want to be the guy that’s having the other people punch the clock for you. If you want to be the dude who is the dude, you want to stay tuned for Dr. Z’s secret moves. What’s up Tulsa? Welcome back here to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on 1170 Talk Radio. I am your co-host with the most, Clay Clark, joined here with the doctor of business, Dr. Z. How you doing, sir? I’m doing fantastic on this Monday afternoon, driving home. Drive time! Drive time at your drive time. Come on. Some people are stuck in traffic right now. We’re just trying to make it a little better. We’re just trying to make it a little better. Now, we also are joined here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Ms. Sherita, how are you? I’m great. Happy to be here. Now, we’re talking about the five tradeoffs of being self-employed, and in case you missed it, we just talked about the tradeoff number one. Tradeoff number one, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, is sacrifice is a prerequisite. And you had a question about that, Sharla. I do. I know Z is going to share his secret here in a little bit, but first I just wondered, you know, what do you guys have to say as far as sacrifice is concerned? Because I feel like my grandparents knew how to sacrifice, but something has happened in like recent generations as we, you know, come down. It’s hard to sacrifice and you’re almost perceived as weird if you are willing to sacrifice. So what do you think has happened culturally? Like there’s been a shift, don’t you think? Well, anytime that there’s a question asked that’s that profound, that I believe that is going to end up talking about something so dark, something so powerful, a universal cosmic wealth repulsion system that I call Jackassery, I have to hit this button. The force is what gives the Jedi his power, so it binds the galaxy together. It’s Jackassery. And this is Jackassery. What’s happening is, as a culture, we have people out there who believe that they are not going to sow seeds, but they’re going to reap a harvest. And it’s just as simple as that’s not the deal. So you have people showing up at a job, they’ve been at the job for a week, and now they want to be the boss. a manager. I mean everybody that I know, everybody that I went to college with, everyone that I went to high school with, the default move was let’s go to college. So everyone goes to college and everyone wants to be a manager. No one wants to start off at the bottom. And then even people who start their own business, they go, well I’m going to hire a guy to make cold calls. Okay, cool. Well, how much are you going to pay the guy? Well, I don’t have any money. Right. Well, so you need to make the cold calls. No, no, I don’t want to make cold calls. I’m going to market myself via social media. Okay, cool. You’ve got to promote those ads. No, no, no. I’m going to try to be viral. Right. Be viral, bro. I’ve heard these things. That’s the goal. I hear this a lot with young entrepreneurs. Their marketing strategy is, I’m going to be viral, bro. I’m just going to be totally viral and I’m going to just dominate. And I just see it’s a deal where it’s really not complicated. It’s more than, it’s just like a, there’s a cause and effect and if you don’t understand that the cause of your success is going to be hard work then you’re not going to have success but Z what do you want to add to that I see it all the time I mean I’m right on what Sreediva was saying she said it’s almost like weird and I’m like yeah if you want to be an entrepreneur you’re gonna march to a little bit different drum and I would say embrace the weird okay embrace it if that’s you know because everybody out there’s getting a new car, they’re getting a this, they got the latest this, they got the this, they got the boom, boom, boom, da, da, da, da. And you’re like, you know, hey, I’m going to try to not get a new car this year and save some money. Hey, I’m going to try to, you know, live in a smaller home and try to save some money because my dream is, you know, it’s going to take sacrifice to get there because no one’s going to give it to you. Unless, of course, you’re bro, you just go viral. Go viral, bro. I have a story for you. Is it a viral story, bro? Bro, it’s an awesome story, bro. Bro, cool. When we were going to start this thing called drive15.com, the world’s best online business training platform, I knew that it was going to cost millions of dollars. I knew it would. I knew it was going to. Millions. And so what I did is I had sold a business. I had a lot of success. And I basically was just, you know, I guess, sitting around eating bonbons. But I decided what I’m going to do is I’m going to sacrifice. So my wife and I downscaled what we did, how we lived, so that we could upscale our investment level. Because if you’re going to put millions of dollars into something, something has to give unless you get an NFL contract. Or you win the lottery. Right. Which a lot of people are counting on. They never look at those numbers. Can I say something about the lottery real quick? I hope you’re not a huge sponsor, but can I say how I feel about that real quick? He’s going to say it anyway, no matter what, right? Can I do that? Why do you act like I even have a shot at containing you? Why do you act like that’s even a thing? He’s going to say it anyway. What is it? We’re all the way across the room. If I couldn’t even unplug you by the time you say it anyway. I have some very, very, I have three tips that I would like to do this year to help balance the budget in every state of the union. Alright. One, just make gambling super. Just tax the crap out of it. Because it is a dumb tax. And if you’re playing that slot every day and that’s how you plan on winning, if you’re having fun, I get it. But if you’re just really thinking that’s how you’re going to win, you can’t stop that person. I want to know how much you want to tax. I would double the cost of every poll. I would just, whatever that is. If it’s five dollars, I would take five dollars for tax. And then for cigarettes, how much are cigarettes now? Are they like $5 a pack or something? I don’t know. I’ve never bought cigarettes. I’d crank that up to $10 a pack and give it all back. Because the thing is, people who do that aren’t going to stop. I’m all about just send tax, send tax, send tax, because it doesn’t really… It can’t be stopped. You have some great moves. You said three moves. That was two. Well, I’m kind of going around the horn with my send tax. I just feel like you should do this for all of it. So you’ve got the alcohol. You’ve got the alcohol, you’ve got the cigarette move, and you’ve got the lottery. I’m just all about, if we’re going to do it, these commercials are like, help support Oklahoma’s kids and play the state lottery. Meanwhile, I’m going on a trip. I went on a trip down to Dallas with a guy years ago for a bridal show. This guy is working with me, and I know he’s not making more than about $1,000 a week. I know he’s making about $50,000 a year. I go to the bathroom and I said, hey, bro, where were you? And he goes, I said, we hopped in the car. And where were you? He goes, oh, I was just getting some tickets. This guy, he’s in the back. Just scratch him up. And I’m like, how much you get? He’s like, oh, just a few. Eighty bucks. Eighty bucks. You’re listening to the thrash on show on talk radio. Eleven. But it’s eighty bucks every time. Wow. Like every time. And so we were on the trip. We went to Dallas and we come back up and this was when gambling had just become legal in Oklahoma where you could buy these things. But I’m going, dude, I’ve watched you personally spend $100 on this trip on the way to Dallas and back. How often do you do this? He says, well, you know, every week. Yeah. He says, you’re never going to win if you don’t try. But I was doing the math and I said, I’m a genius. Right. So $100 a week times, you know, typically the standard years have 52 weeks. That’s $5,200. And again, when we got down to the core and I sat down and I really talked to the guy and we had kind of that weird time when you’re on a road trip with dudes where you get into mandem. It’s all dudes in the car. All dudes. And it’s like, so bro, what’s your savings plan? And I go, well, you know, one thing I do is I don’t buy lottery tickets. It’s not a strategy. That’s good advice. Yeah, I mean, you know. Especially $100 worth. So what I’m saying is, this whole sacrifice concept, it’s something you have to sacrifice. If you want to buy a lot of lottery tickets, then you have to sacrifice as well. Right. That kind of thing. So moving on to trap number two. Well, actually, you had a little secret thing here, Zee. Secret sauce. A little secret sauce. Well, number two is a sense of security. I know a lot of people that have their job, they’re 9 to 5, and they’re punching their time clock, and they have a dream though. And their dream is to have their own fill in the blank, snow cone shop, pizza shop, I don’t know, some business, you know, build shoes, something. Petting zoo. Yes, petting zoo. And I say, well, you know, they’re talking to me about it, their dream, they’re casting their dream, and instead they just light up, you know, and I go, why aren’t you doing it? And they go, oh man, you know, that security, that paycheck, that, you know, I punch that time clock and I get that paycheck every two weeks and I can’t, it’s hard to walk away from. And I look at him and I said, you think that’s all that security is? I mean, what keeps you from getting fired tomorrow? What keeps that business from going out of business? I mean, you know, really, you don’t control the business and so someone can make a bad decision, someone can do a bad thing and all of a sudden that business is going under, or needing to lay off people, and now all of a sudden you’ve given up your dream for that paycheck that is no longer there. Wow. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the sacrifices that Zee and I have personally made, the sense of security that we’ve given up, and some of the sense of security that you might have to give up if you want to live your dream. Coming up next. Hello Thrive Nation, you are listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. I am the co-host with the most, Clay Clark here. I’m joined with America’s doctor, the doctor of choice for Oklahoma, the doctor of choice for Tulsa. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. How are you, sir? I’m awesome. Someone was asking me the other day, they said, hey, this radio show, it sounds awesome, it’s really cool. Now, what exactly is it that you guys are doing? And I said, well, Clay and I are like the Hans and Franz of business coaching. We are here to pump you up. Pump you up. Listen to us now and believe us later. You got to, you got to pump the business up. If your business is at the bottom and it’s slabby and it’s weak, you got to pump it up. You got to take the steroids, like, no I didn’t say, I didn’t say, I didn’t endorse steroid use. But if you do take them, they do work. They do work. And on this Monday, a special little treat. Yeah. Sharita. Yeah, Sharita. And that rhymes with margarita. So it’s like a margarita for your drive home. Basically what that is. Not while you’re driving. When you get home. No, while they’re driving, because we’re sharing Sherita, which is like the margarita. Non-alcoholic version. I have to share something. I have this congestion caused by the allergies here. And what I’ve noticed is that it says here you shouldn’t operate a vehicle, a motor vehicle, if you’ve had a lot of this day, Quill. Yeah. But it doesn’t say you can’t operate a radio show. True. You know what I mean? Well, and that’s why we’re still on the air right now. All right. So here we go. So we’re talking about here this idea of this trade-off, this sense of security. We talked about it before we went into the break that we would tell you some of the trade-offs that we’ve made as it relates to a sense of security, but there’s a notable quotable Z that I want to read. Oh, please do. Okay, here we go. Next, a bit of quotables. Okay, here we go. A bit of quotables. It says, you jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down. Who said that? Reid Hoffman. Reid Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn. He’s one of the founding board members of PayPal. And I want to tell you a story about a trade-off this guy made. Here we go. The sense of security that he made, okay? When they made PayPal, it’s, by the way, it’s Elon Musk, you know the Tesla guy. Oh, yeah Do you want smart dude smart dude, and they’ve got Reed Hoffman? They’ve got Peter Thiel who’s still you want to he hope he’s the first investor for Facebook. He’s genius They call themselves the PayPal mafia if you Google it, okay, I like that name. Oh, yeah, you know the problem with PayPal We do what the problem with PayPal was no what it worked very well, but there was a coding error So if you charged your credit card for like a dollar somehow they lost like a small percentage of a cent on every one of the transactions allow so they were processing like a hundred million dollars you know of revenue like a week but they would cause them to lose like two million a week goodness and so they go in as a story is told by by Reid Hoffman he says at one point they go into one of their adventure capitalists they said we in there 20 million he goes well why so the revenues are great. Tons of money is coming in. We’re finally getting users. And he said, we took all that money and used it to pay what we were going to lose that next week. And like, the big investor says, do you guys realize that if I were to take money and just throw it off the roof as fast as possible, $100 bills, I could not spend money as fast as you guys are? And he said, yeah, but we’re going to fix it. So the thing is, as far as sacrifices that I’ve made, I’ve never made that big of a sense of security trade-off where Reid Hoffman says you jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down. That’s what entrepreneurship is. But what I have done is when I started the DJ business, I basically had no customers and I had a big vision. I had a backpack, a small backpack. It was a Vans. What was the Vans? I think Vans makes the backpacks. It’s a black backpack. I had flyers. I bought my cards from Kinko’s. And I bought $20,000 of DJ equipment. All the money that I had. I saved it up from working a year of construction. I remember this. And I had a hand-painted 1990 something Mazda MPV. It was maroon. I bought it with 200,000 miles on it. And I rented a mini storage unit over there. It had just been built off a river road. You know where it kind of curls around there? Riverside. And I bought that thing and it was $187 a month and I bought a yellow page that was whatever it was per month. I don’t remember. But I remember going, if I don’t book something in 60 days, I can’t make these payments. Let’s do this. Let’s do it. Wow. And I didn’t sleep and I was highly motivated and I brought a passion when I was on the phone with people and I sold some stuff and I’m glad I did it. How did that feel the first time you sold that thing? I remember talking to a guy and he said, how many weddings have you done? And I remember going, we do a ton of weddings. We are like the wedding animals. We’re the best. And I remember talking to him and I feel bad about it now. Not super bad, but I did feel bad at the time. But the thing was, I was like all of 19 years old, and I don’t know what I’m doing. He’s probably thinking, you’ve never been to a wedding. And I say, we are the best. I kept saying we. I always referred to we. He never said me. We. And the guy was like, are you positive that you’ll do a good job at my daughter’s wedding? And I looked him in the eye and I said, absolutely, sir. It’ll be outstanding. You can call me any time you need me. Here’s my cell phone. Hoping he doesn’t call because remember the inbound minutes? There was a restriction on the number of calls you could take. I remember. I’m like, I hope he doesn’t call me. I hope this wasn’t when you were still having your business meetings at McDonald’s. It wasn’t that time frame? It was. Or was it the era? It was during the McDonald’s phase. Oh no. I knew that was the early phase, but I didn’t know if it was like number one early phase. No, it was a bad deal. So I can just tell you, that’s kind of the deal there. I will just tell you, if you’re listening right now, you’re going to have to trade off a sense of security. And Z, can you kind of t.s. up about a little bit of a fond memory of the time where you really went all in and gave up a little security for a chance to do something huge? Well, I’ll tell you what, any time you start your business, you’re giving up security. Because if you were working, you had that paycheck coming in. Oh, yeah, where’s my paycheck? I could budget. I knew my paycheck. I got my paycheck. I got my paycheck. Give me a little paycheck. Remember that song? It’s called Shop Paid. Oh yeah, it’s Friday night. And so you had your budget and you kind of knew what the paycheck was going to be and then when you go strike out on your own and you give that up and now all of a sudden I was sitting there and I was looking down this little long thin hallway and I thought, Lord I hope somebody walks in that door. I hope somebody comes in that door and wants eye care from me. Living on a prayer. And then you had that door open and you hear that little ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling at the door, you know, you’re like, you see someone coming down, and then they come get closer and it’s the mailman. You’re like, oh no, he’s dropping off the mail! And people start asking you, how are things going with your business? You’re like, it’s great, great, great! You want glasses? Alright, well coming up next, we’re going to be talking about trading off social life, trading off of social life, it’s just in. Alright, Thrive Nation, welcome back to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. I am your co-host with the most, Clay Clark, joined with a man, the myth, the legend, the man who’s put the Z all over Tulsa, it’s Dr. Robert Zellner. How are you sir? I’m kind of like the Sasquatch of Tulsa. You kind of are. You don’t really see me, but you see maybe markings that I was there. Rumor. Absolutely. Z everywhere. Rumor. Do you have kind of a deal where you’re worried that people are going to forget your name? Is that what’s going on? Is it kind of a complex? No, I’m just taking advantage of the fact that there’s not a lot of Z’s out there and it’s kind of unique. You’ve got to represent. Yeah, so you represent, you just own it. You know, I became, people were actually, if you look at my last name, it’s not pronounced how it looks. Is it Smith? No, the O, it says, everybody was always mispronouncing my name. So then it just got to be easier to go short and just go Dr. Z. Everybody could get that right. So then it became Dr. Z. And then, as you know, I’ve advertised a lot in Tulsa over the years. And so it was just easier for the radio guy to be doing, just call me Dr. Z. Because then I’ll be Dr. Zoellensheimer. I’m like, where do you get that from? I don’t even know. Yes, very David Hasselhoff-esque. Yes, yes. I get compared to him a lot. We’re also here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Yes, glad to be here. And we are talking about the five trade-offs of being self-employed. And we’re getting into one right now that I believe we have to really, really get into it. We’ve got to dive into it. We’ve got to just dissect it. Because I know there’s somebody listening right now, and this is the part of the toilet that you’re in right now. You’re wanting to go from the toilet to the top. And you are in it. You’re spinning around here. And you know what’s happening? What? You’re giving up your social life. Oh, I don’t want to do that. And you’re saying, I want to have a life. Right. And I want to have a business. I want to have a life. And I want to have a business. So I’m going to give you just a little bit of a mystic statistic. OK? Here we go. This is from our good friends at Inc. Magazine. It says, the majority of small business owners say they work at least 50 hours per week, according to a recent poll. Far more than the national average of 33 hours per week. So real quick, this is offensive stuff. If you’re working 33 hours a week and you can’t make it, go to work some more. What? I know. You’re talking crazy. Is that that day cool talking? It is. He’s drank a whole bottle today. He’s, yeah. But I talk to people all the time. They’ll come to me at a speaking event and they’ll say, what is the secret sauce to success in real estate? I know that you’ve done it before in real estate. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen your real estate businesses. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen your photography businesses. I’ve seen your haircut businesses. How have you done it? And I said, well, tip number one, if you’re real estate, what you want to do is you want to make 100 calls a day. What? How long does that take? Four hours. 25 calls per hour. You’re going to talk to on average three people. You’re going to book two appointments a day. And people go, so they go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and they call. And then when they’re calling, then they see a Facebook update come in. Right. You know that little sound it makes now? Whoosh. And they go, oh, looks like somebody has a cat video. And they like it. Don’t get me started on cat videos today. And their grandma is like, good Lord, what are you doing during the day? Do you even have a job? And they’re like, yeah, yeah, I’m a freaking realtor. Say right back, I’m a freaking realtor. And their friend says, why are you talking to your grandmother in that tone? Now they’re in this Facebook, they’re sucked into that. And then a friend of theirs posts a YouTube video with a Chuck Norris joke attached. And they’re like, okay. That’s funny stuff. And now they’re in that rabbit hole. Somehow they’re on Reddit now, now they’re on Craigslist, now they’re over at Louie’s getting a chicken sandwich. And the day is gone and they wonder why they didn’t sell any homes. But they had a social life. Right. You know, they had that whole deal. Right. But isn’t that important, like to interact with people and develop connections? Can’t you find some sort of balance? And fun. Don’t you want to have fun? Yeah. Are you anti-fun? Are you like zero fun? Are you like no fun factor? I’m going to give you the F5 and this is what I believe matters here. So I’m a 35 year old man. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. I’m 35, I look 84. I don’t go outside very much. But here’s the thing is, there’s the F5. So if you’re listening right now, I want you to go ahead and get on a piece of paper. I’m driving. Well just pull over. Pull over. Pull over. As you understand, I’m in rush hour. I can’t pull over. I’ll lose my spot. He got your non-alcoholic margarita. Pull over. Well, when you get home, you just have to go on ThriveTimeshow.com and listen to the show again. So here we go. I want you to pull over and I want you to write this down, though. Okay? The first F is faith. You have to have a goal for your faith. A goal? I want to go to heaven, but first I want to disappear in a pillar of fire. Maybe that’s your goal, but what’s your goal for your faith? I’m asking when are you going to do it? When? Faith. Boom. Second is family. So when are you going to spend time with your family? When? So faith, family, finances. How much money do you need? Because I will tell you this, if you’re chasing money for the sake of money, it’s the love of money that’s the problem. It’s not having money It’s just loving money for the sake of loving money. So faith family finance there’s fitness, you know We got to take care of our bodies because if you have a ton of money, but you die That’s not very good and then friendships and it’s it’s all about just defining what you value So for me, I really really enjoy spending time with guys like Sean Copeland, you know He’s your partner Z with Regent Bank. Great guy. He’s just dad. Love spending time. He’s very uplifting. But you know what I have no time for, Sherita? What? I have no time for negative people. Well, because you said, you know, friendship. So that’s why I was wondering, how does that work if you have to give up your social life? So when I went to college, I went to Oral Roberts University, and I have some very close friends from ORU. They’re really good guys. But there’s some people that I wish I hadn’t met. And so I just quit hanging out with them. I wasn’t like a confrontational like hey go away I just could not make the list leave me alone Well, you’ve got to block out time for what matters and so and not every relationship matters Just because you ran into somebody you really have to define your boundaries I want to ask you Z because people see you right now. I know you know how long have you been married now Is it is it seven months almost 30? It feels that way. Right honey? 32 years. Almost 32 years. I caught you guys making out in front of the Thrive15.com headquarters and I was curious. It was one of my goals. So that’s why we did it. So 32 years? 32 years. Okay, so 32 years. And you take your wife on a date. Is that right? Yes. How often? Kind of explain to the Thrivers what’s your dating move? Well, we try to do a date night and we try to do it once a week. Sometimes you’re on a vacation or you have family over or friends over and you can’t really get scheduled. But we try to schedule it once a week. And the date night move you’ve got to do it like this. It’s got to be just the two of you. You can’t go out like on a group date and do a date night thing. Yeah, because that doesn’t count when it’s a group. It can’t do it. It’s just the five of us. You and me and Kerry and everybody else. Number two, we take turns planning them. So what I’ve done is I’ve written down some of my ideal what I would like to do on the date night. You know action movies, we’re gonna shoot off dinner, you know my moves and then she’s written down her moves so when it’s my turn to do date night I go over to her list and I look at what she’s got on there. She likes to do like home and garden shows. Cool. Yeah. Yeah of course. It’s so much fun. It is fun. It’s so great to see it. It is. Go shopping for furniture. Get all these ideas for your home. Oh, it is. Isn’t it fun? Yeah. Do you ever go there and find plants, but they’re not real plants, and fake plants? Do you ever do that where they almost look real, but they’re not real? Do you feel like you should get a real one or a fake one? Yeah, boat shows. Things like this. There are certain things. So she has her list. So when it’s my turn, we say, okay, Friday, I need you to wear this kind of outfit, and hey, do you want me to surprise you with it or not? And sometimes she says, yeah, surprise me. And sometimes not. And so then we do the date night. And then you don’t talk about business. You don’t talk about negative things. You talk about fun things like where would you, if you could buy a vacation home, where would you buy that? If you could, where would you want to go on your next vacation? What great thing happened today? You know you don’t talk about the problem with the toilet upstairs and the plumber didn’t show up today The kids and and the kids oh the kids you don’t you just you keep it light-hearted You keep it fun, and you’re always building a sense of team when you’re on these date nights team. That’s very important very important It’s us versus the world It’s us against them out there Yeah And and you try to just really bond with each other on these date nights. Those little moves right there on date night will help it. So you do that now, but when you were starting your optometry clinic, how many days a week were you working, man, when you started Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates? Seven days a week. That’s every day. Yeah, unless you’re from planet Claytron, which we determined to have nine days on that planet. I’m going to ask you this, bro-chacho. So you’re working seven days a week. How many hours? You’re working like two hours a day? Were you working two hours a day? You’re a doctor, come on. I was working like nine to six and then you know you had to, and then that was seeing patients and then you had to work on marketing and advertising and all your different moves you’re going to do, you know. Would you say like 12 hours a day? I wonder about that. Like what would you say is a number like to quantify that for people? Well you got to work to get it done. I mean it depends on, I mean like I didn’t, you know, nine to six was the move for the office to be open so that’s kind of set. And early on there was chunks of time where I didn’t have patience so I could do some of the marketing and some of the stuff in those times. Then I’d go home and you do dinner and you put the kids to bed and then you might need to work on something, design something, work on something, a flow chart that you’re working on, you’re going to hire a new employee, you’re looking through resumes, all kinds of different moves you have to do. See I’ve got something here for you. Deep thoughts. Do you know what it takes to be successful, Z? Mmm, uh, the want to? It takes whatever it takes. It takes whatever it takes. Wow. One of the most gratifying moments of my life is right now. It takes whatever it takes. I’ve got a little secret. I often get asked this question, but I’m going to reveal it after the break. I’m going to reveal it when we come back. It’s something that a lot of people struggle with when starting a business. So, social life. You’ve got to stick around. You’ve got to check it out. It’s going to blow your mind. Hello, Thrivers. Welcome. People listening from all over the planet. We have people listening from Oklahoma City. We’ve got people in Independence, Kansas. We have people listening in Omoge, in Tulsa. We have people in Bentonville, Arkansas. We have people listening right now in Australia. How is that possible? What’s happening is they’re going to the Thrive Time show, and they’re re-listening to it, and they’re sharing that beast. That thing called the internet. It’s starting to catch on. Wow. In Australia. I think it’s just a phase. Well, there’s two things in Australia that are catching on. One is it’s kangaroos. Kangaroo-ism. It’s a new kind of government system. It’s beautiful. And the internet. Wow. Yeah, well this just in. Now we’re talking today about the five tradeoffs that you have to make if you want to become a successful entrepreneur. And the one that we’re really deep diving into is a social life tradeoff deal. Because so many people are going, you know, I want to be successful. I want to be successful. I want to do it. I want to be success. And you’re just saying, success, success. And you’re looking in the mirror going, I want to be successful. And you’ve got your Tony Robbins book and you’ve got your Napoleon Hill going on. Do I have the hot coals I’m walking on yet? Hot coals. You’re walking on hot coals. I’m not doing that part. I’m not doing that part. You’ve got the whole thing going on. And then you’re going, and I also want to be the most popular person on Facebook. You’re right. Wow. Period. We want it all. We want it all. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to have a lot of time freedom, and I want a lot of financial freedom, and I want money right now instantly, and so that’s kind of where we’re stuck. And so we’re talking about this trade-off of a social life. And I want to read you a quote here before I pass it back to my main man, Dr. Zellner. So here we go. Conrad Hilton. Who’s Conrad Hilton? This is the guy who started the Hilton Hotel chain. Now, a lot of people don’t know this story. Z, are you ready for the story behind the story? I love stories behind the story. Me too. Okay, here we go. Conrad, do you know what kind of business he started out with? Do you guys want to guess? I just thought it was the hotel. I didn’t know anything before that. He basically wanted to get into the oil business. So he goes out and he starts, he wants to become an oil guy. Wow. And he loses it all, has no success, and he realizes, crap, I’m out of money. So he checks into a crappy hotel, and he’s sitting there in the lobby, and the guy goes, that’s hotel, I hate this hotel. And he goes, why do you hate the hotel? He says, because everybody’s here all the time out there making money in the oil business and I’m in here running this crappy hotel. And he goes, I’d like to buy your crappy hotel. And the guy says, you’d like to buy it? He didn’t tell the guy, he just went into bankruptcy. So he says, yeah, I’ll run your hotel and we can do an owner finance, you know, so you can just, every month I’ll pay a little bit. So he ends up taking over the hotel after failing in oil and he failed to start his own bank. He tried to do oil and now he became a hotel guy. But here’s the deal is, he has this notable quote that blows my mind. He says, achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. Success seems to be connected with action. Think about that. Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. Now how does this relate to a social life? Well if you are in friendships, you have friendships, but you also have to keep moving with your business. And you can’t just take massive periods of time off until, I always tell people, until you get your business into orbit, you can’t be going on spring break with your friends or you can’t be headed out of town on these extended ski vacations when you’re trying to get something going. You’ve got to be totally committed. And once the business gets into orbit, you’ve got to use a lot of fuel to get up there. But once it gets into orbit, then it’s okay. Once the space shuttle gets up there… Have you ever watched a space shuttle take off? Yes, I have. You know, they take off, and there’s just a ton of fuel and energy used to get into orbit. But once it’s up there, that’s when you can kind of take off the pressure, take off the heat, take off the energy a little bit there So Z what do you have to add about the whole social life dynamic? well You have to choose what you want. You can’t you can’t have it both You know you the old saying I want my cake and eat it too is well That’s nice, but it’s physically impossible so when you start a business you have to be focused on it You have to be committed to it. You have to use my number two rule in business, do you remember what it was? You know, I’m working on a wall in the conference room right now where I’m going to document these. Oh yeah. And I have, my mind is like this. If you take a drill bit and you just drill into my head, once it’s stuck into my cranium, I’m good. But right now, I have no clue what your rule number two is. Well, it takes you back to the farmyard. What’s that, Zane? What’s that? The farm. I love farm analogies. And I love using an endearing creature on the farm, the pig. Alright. And now, you gotta understand this in your social life, because in business you’ve gotta be the pig, and not the chicken at breakfast. Why you gotta be the pig, Z? What does that mean? What I mean is you have to be all in. See, the pig gave his life, gave everything for the business. The chicken’s just like, well, I think I’ll try this and I hope it works. And you know, I’m just going to be a little, I’m not going to be committed. I’m just going to be involved, you know? So there’s married people listening right now. Yeah. And I’m married and I have a wife and I want to stay married. Yeah. Because I have a wife. Yeah. And how do I do that? How do I be fully committed? How do I be the pig and be a married pig? You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. How do I become a married business pig? I love the married pig. How do I become a married business pig? Well, first of all, you cannot, I repeat, and everybody listening out there who’s punching the time clock and you’re thinking, I want to start my own business, that’s why I’m listening to Thrive Time. It’s business time. These guys are going to coach me up. Right. They’re going to coach me up. And I’m going to tell you guys something out there. If you’re married, and you’re going to start a business, you have to, have to, have to, have to, have to have the blessing, the stamp of approval of your spouse. Wow. That’s good. Now, there’s a Whitney Houston song back in the day, because if you remember Whitney Houston, before the drugs, before the Bobby Brown, before the whole… She was like the queen diva. This lady just could bring it. What a voice. She wrote a song called How Will I Know. I’m going to cue this up real quick here. How Will I Know. Now the question I always have, Thrivers always asks me is, how will I know when I’m out of balance, when I’m working too much? How will I really know? Do you guys remember this song? Yes, I love it. I’m a fan. I love Whitney. Hey Thrivers, have you ever had a jean jacket or a big button on your denim? Let’s get the big hair. I got big hair. If you had a big perm back in the day, shoot us an email. Remember the big bangs? Here are the blonde ladies with the big bangs. Aquanet hairspray. And why were women wearing their song leotards over their… what was that? It was a style. Tights and they were wearing like… That was a kind of a thing there. It was a style. Olivia Newton-John did that I think. Yeah, Olivia Newton-John screwed up the whole game. The 80’s was pretty awesome right up until that point. Then it was kind of like… The push down leg warmer. Yeah, Reeboks. Oh yeah. Okay, so Whitney sang the song, How Will I Know, and Zee, I want to know, how will I know that I pushed my spouse too far. How will I know that I’ve got work in too many hours, Z? Well, I have a secret to tell you. What is that secret? I get this question asked a lot, actually, by people that are in business. Because they sit there and they tell me, man, I’m just, I’m working so hard, and I’m trying to build this business, and man, I just, you know, how do I know? How do I know? I ain’t seen my wife in 12 months, man. I ain’t seen her, man. I’m just totally committed, baby. When I’m working too much, when I haven’t been home enough, when I’m giving more to the business than I’m giving to my family. I haven’t seen her in three years. How do I know? I don’t know my kids names man. Oh no. And there’s a way you know. You know what that is? Your spouse will tell you. Oh! That was so simple. It’s profound. That’s huge. Maybe that’s what Bobby saw in her. I tell young entrepreneurs that it’s a pendulum game. That pendulum swings one way and you’re work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. How do you know when it’s going to start swinging the other way? Because your wife or your spouse, your husband, whichever it is, will look at you and say, you’re not home enough. Have you ever pushed your wife? I’m going to take the kids and I’m going to move to another home. Have you ever pushed your wife to that level? Have I ever pushed? Oh gosh yes. Can I tell you a confession? Is it confession time? Hold on. I just feel like I need to. I want to confess something. Get it off your chest. Get it off your chest. This is a safe place. This is kind of like confessional music. See? Yeah. I like working a lot. And in fact I prefer working over going to Disney World. And I often choose to work over going to Disney World. And statements like these that I shouldn’t make on the radio have caused me to literally spend the night outside holding a young but massive great Pyrenees dog. And I slept out there one night. And you know what the thing is? Marriage is a commitment. This is not a marriage show. I’m going to tell you something. Business is a commitment. And what you want to do is you want to commit. You want to say, hey, you know what? What could I do wrong? What could I do to fix this? But you have to ask your spouse, are you committed to the business before you start? Going back to the main point, you have to do that. I’m going to say this, in your social life, ask yourself, because you can’t ask a spouse because you’re not married yet, hypothetically, if you’re single, ask yourself, what are the relationships I want to hold on to during this process? I want to give you an example. Ryan Tedder is a pop star. He’s a guy who’s very successful. His new album is coming out on October 7th, I believe. Unbelievable talent. It’s called Oh My My. He writes for Beyonce and Adele. I went to college with the guy. And I can tell you what, I’m not in that top ten circle. I’m not in that circle. I knew him from college. We stayed in touch. But he’s very successful. One Republic. Yeah, One Republic. But he had to at some point set up boundaries, I’m sure, of this is a new phone number. This is my new thing. This is my thing. But in order to become a guy who’s writing songs for U2 and Beyonce and Adele and, you know, huge artists, you can’t just answer the phone of any person that calls, period. And a lot of these artists go nuts because they try to, you know. And so I just want to encourage you right now, ask yourself, what are those boundaries? So what are my boundaries? Ask yourself, what are my boundaries? And what, where do I want to hang on to with my social life do I still want to be in the bowling league Z do I still see do we still want to be in the league where you get your name embroidered on that shirt I just want to come and get the shirt at least if or not let’s get it’s make some thrive time show shirts up like that you know I feel bad that I’ve invested the money to put a rose inside of a bowling ball and now I can no longer bowl with my thrive embroidered bowling shirt and one of these days, when the rocket ship is in the orbit, as you said, you’ll be able to reach up on that shelf and get that bowling ball with the embedded rose in the middle of it. Up next, we’re talking about the spending habit trade-offs. Spending habit trade-off. And you are listening to the former Entrepreneur of the Year in your ear. My name is Captain Clay Clark and I am joining you just before dark on your Monday. Your Monday, Monday fun day. I’m joined here with really probably America’s number one host here, Dr. Robert Zellner. If you’re a captain, what does that make me? Am I like a general or a lieutenant, left lieutenant or a… Can I tell you why I call myself that? Governor. Governor. I’m really kind of the water boy, kind of the cabin boy. You know that movie Cabin Boy, that terrible movie? I’m really the cabin boy. I just call myself Captain to kind of hype myself up. I need that sort of pump up, pump up, you know, that pump up moment there. And then we’re here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Yes, can I be the first mate? You are the first mate. We are talking today about the five trade-offs that entrepreneurs have to make if they want to be successful, okay? And we’re on to move number four, move number four. And this is one that I’m passionate about. It’s called spending habits. Now the spending habits, now this is the deal. Travis, our main man Travis, he started Uber. A lot of people are going, well Travis, he started Uber, he must be like a billionaire. Well let me tell you the story behind the story. Do you want to hear the story behind the story? I do. I love the story. We need the story behind the story of music, by the way. We do need that. But for right now, I’m just going to put inside the ear of all the entrepreneurs, this is the song that I choose to do. Because the last segment we had this song, and I just want to play it right now. It has nothing to do with it, but I’m just going to play How Will I Know because I love it so much. That J. Quill is kicking in over there, I can tell. He’s at the bottom of the bottle. He’s at the bottom of the bottle. Okay, let me read this to you here. He says, fear is the disease, hustle is the antidote. But the story behind the story was he spent all of his money starting a company called Red Swoosh. Okay, Red Swoosh. You ever heard about it? Never heard of that. That’s right. That’s right. No one has. You know what happened to it? It failed. So his homeboy, he dropped out of UCLA to start a company called Scour Inc. Okay? Never heard of that one. Yeah, didn’t do so well, he got sued. Shut it down. So then he starts the next company called Red Swoosh. Did okay, but didn’t do that great. Then he starts Uber. You ever heard of Uber? Yes. But you know what? He made a lot of financial sacrifices to start Uber. And so a lot of people listening are going, you know, I want to have success. In fact, I want to be successful. You know what? Show me what successful people do and I’ll just do that. Okay, cool. Walt Disney. Let’s play the Walt Disney game. How many bankruptcies did Walt Disney have? Two, three. Two. Two. And Walt Disney one time was trying to save money on maintenance and you know what he did? What? Killed his mom. What? True story. I didn’t know that. What? I’m going, I don’t understand. It’s a true story. He was trying to save money on maintenance. What do you mean? And they were having a hard time. I’m being serious. Disney World had just started to get a little traction going and he was trying to save costs and they had a handyman and he sent the handyman to work on his mom’s house. It was a new hire. And he messed up and they caused a gas leak and she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Oh no. Yeah, and Walt Disney, he went bankrupt twice and he accidentally killed his mom and he lost all of the money of all the people he knew twice. Could you imagine what that’d be like to get all your friends? This is not venture capital. This is not Sequoia Capital. This is not some ambiguous SBA loan. They didn’t even have those. This is a guy going to everyone he knows saying, well you invested me, and they invest in him, and he comes in with a mouse called Mortimer the Mouse. Mortimer, okay? And Mortimer, long story short, he lost the rights to his character, loses everything, boom, loses it all. Nick, could you imagine what it’d be like to lose it again, and then to get to what you consider to be the peak of financial success. Disney World is finally going good, but you really learned you gotta be frugal because you’ve been a big spender. Now you’re frugal and you kill your mom. Wow. I’m just telling you like… That would be enough to stop right there you think. Yeah. And you know what though? Good for him. Entrepreneurship is hard and you’ve got to keep going. And so I’m just going to tell you this. We’re talking about these spending habits and I’m just going to tell you what. You’ve got to learn the trade-offs of spending. So I’m going to go through the hit list of where people right now are not doing well as entrepreneurs. Hit list area number one. You’re buying too big of a house. You’re living in too big of a house. You’re unwilling to move to a smaller house because you feel like, I still want to live in the gated community while starting my new startup. You’re going to have to do a trade-off. And Z, I want to ask you, financially, has there been a time in your life with your businesses where you had to go, okay, we’re going to tighten up the belt, we’re going to cut some things, we’re going to make some trade-offs when you were starting out. Did you ever have to make some pretty big trade-offs to buy the new laser for the optometry center or to invest in something big? Absolutely. We’re living in an apartment, basically it was a townhome. I guess technically that’s what it was. A townhome. A townhome. Renting a townhome. Sounds so exclusive. It does. So exclusive. But I had, from early on, when you grow up with, I had a big advantage because I had nothing growing up. So it was a lot easier for me to do with very little because that was just the way it is. It’s normal. It’s the way it is. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. So when you don’t have much growing up, I can relate to that a little bit. I know what it was like for my wife and I. We were eating 96-cent Budget Gourmet was the brand. Budget Gourmet, which is an oxymoron. Budget Gourmet in the frozen freezer section of Chicken Panini. It was Chicken Panini. Now you’re just bragging. At Walmart. I’m jealous. I mean, that’s really… Well, I heard Z was living in a townhome, and I thought… You’ve got to take it up a notch. What would be better? I didn’t even shower for like four years. No, I’m just kidding. Anyway, back to you, Zeke. You know, and I mean, my whole mindset had been to work hard and to lay gratification from a young age. I mean, I can remember all through high school, I had a job and I didn’t go to one of my high school football games. That’s bad, isn’t it? That one. You know, I’m still alive. It didn’t kill me. Do you go to OU games now? Every now and then, yeah, I get down there to an OU game. And you sit in a nice seat. Boom, boom, sooner, baby, boom, sooner. And you sit in a nice seat. And you sit in a nice seat. just you know they can’t stand it they’re just eating out every single night and that’s a very expensive way to eat. Well if you’ve got the money you’ve made it you do it God bless you go do it you know but if you’re starting out a business that’s you know food is a way that you can save a lot of a lot of money and then obviously your your cost of living just you know the clothes you’re wearing where you’re living the car you’re driving I mean my first car I paid cash for was a 1974 Pinto four-speed runabout. That sounds hot. Didn’t those blow up or something like that? But it was so uncool. My older brother, and he’s probably listening right now, he would not be seen in it. He wouldn’t drive around in it with me. He would rather walk someplace than get into my Pinto and let me drive him around. I always have to share a little bit of Patriots wisdom. Oh gosh. Bill Belichick. I’m watching this behind the scenes film of Bill Belichick. He’s running around talking to his players and one of his players, he just bought a new truck, another nice truck. All these players are instant millionaires. And the guy buys this really nice truck and he says, hey, you just bought another truck? All the players are doing stretches and Bill Belichick’s walking around while the guys are stretching. He goes, you just bought another truck? And the guy goes, yeah. And he goes, you think maybe you should stop buying trucks? And this is from Bill Belichick who wears the same nasty sweatshirt all the time. And he drives this beat up car. He’s been driving a beat up car forever. My mother-in-law flies for JetBlue. And guess who’s flying coach? Belichick. Yeah, and check it out. Bill Belichick, I guess there was a lady who wanted to sit with somebody. So he got up and sat in the middle. You know how terrible that is to sit in the middle seat? He got up and he goes, I’ll move. He sat in the middle so she could sit next to the family member or whatever. But the reason why Bill Belichick has done great as a coach is he understands trade-offs. He understands sacrifices. And we’re going to talk about that and the Patriots and the Patriots and even more. Not the Patriots. Not the Patriots. But in all sincerity, we’re going to be talking about the final trade-off that entrepreneurs make coming back after the break. So if you have ever wanted to start a business and be successful and you found yourself unable to get any traction, unable to get the capital, unable to find the time. We are going to teach you how to unlock the time and the capital to get it done. Hello, T-Town. How you doing? This is your co-host with the most. Your voice of choice. The dude with the attitude. The broda from Minnesota. The man who needs no introduction, but gives himself five. I am Clay Clark, and you and I are joined here today with Dr. Robert Zellner, America’s Optometrist. I’ve got to come up with some of those. I’m going to start writing. Maybe next segment I’ll have a couple in the bag. I rhyme all the time because to me it’s easy and never cheesy. That’s how it works. Yeah, I love it. You know the show, The Princess Bride, the movie? Yes. When I saw that I was so entranced by that. My next couple of months of commercials I made them all rhyme. And the co-host, the on-air disc jockey would just be so frustrated by that. So, in all sincerity, your Christmas commercials this year were epic. Love the Christmas commercials. That’s my favorite all-time commercial. I run that one every Christmas now because it’s just it’s beautiful. It’s America. It is America. It’s capitalism. Now, we’re also here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Hey, hey. Now, Sherita, we were talking about the five trade-offs that every entrepreneur must make if they want to be successful. And this next one here, we’re talking about this work-life ratio. This work-life ratio. And you’ve got to sit down and really calibrate and figure out what you’re willing to give up versus what you want to get. So I want to read you a little excerpt from an article that was in the New England Sports Network. It was on their website there. An article written by Jeff Howe. And I know you guys are saying, would you stop with the Patriots references? Yeah, I was thinking he’s going to circle into them. You’re driving me crazy. And I’ll tell you what, after this I might. Boston Business Tips, lobster. Alright, so he writes, some Patriots report to Gillette Stadium as early as 5.30 in the morning. Others will watch film at the facility until midnight or 1am. However, Belichick, that’s Belichick, Belichick as in a sub-deity, Belichick, every one of them says has been in the building at each end of the spectrum. They know there are nights when Belichick sleeps at Gillette and some patriots have wondered, seriously, jokingly, whatever, if he ever leaves. See, that’s the thing about Belichick, who in the last decade has unquestionably become one of the greatest coaches to ever walk the sidelines with Tom Brady and Lobster. When everyone else is sleeping or tweeting or playing Madden or lounging around, Belichick is dominating. They didn’t say that, I wrote that, but Bill Belichick is studying the game, whether it’s that week’s opponent or one of these old playoff itineraries. The point is, Bill Belichick is obsessed with winning. Now I want to tell you something bad about my main man Bill and something great about my main man Bill. Read a book about him. And he definitely did not stay married. And he definitely said, going into it, I wish I would have clarified with her that I was that committed to football. And so he’s pretty unapologetic. His son’s on the sideline with him now. He’s like football first, everything else second. And that’s why you said, Z, as a tip, you’ve got to get your wife committed, your spouse, your husband committed to your business before you start? Sure. But you’ve got to figure out that work-life ratio. So I want to ask you, Zee, what kind of work-life ratio did you have when you started and what kind of work-life ratio do you try to keep in mind now that you’re going? Well when I started it was probably 90% work, 10% life and then as that pendulum swung over there my wife, Kerry Jean, if you’re listening, hi Kerry Jean, then she one day took me up by the lapels, the lapels on my shirt, on my suit, and she kind of shook me a little bit, and she said, um, you need to be home. So it went probably 80, 20, 70, 30, you know, da da da da da. Did you respond with, uh, but I’m kind of a big deal. You’ve seen me in such commercials as Dr. Zona’s, the $99 special, you might as Dr. Z. My office smells of rich mahogany. Yes, rich mahogany. You didn’t do that, did you? I did that once and then it took about three days for the pain to subside. But as a young man we all make those stupid mistakes every now and then. I took it to heart and then I would come home and I would take the pressure off like the teapot, let that pressure escape and I go back to work again and then pretty soon she would pull me to the side and say, hey, I need you here, here, right here. Here’s a little tip I want to give to everybody listening here. You need to define your KPIs, your key performance indicators, and what you want to do is you want to commit to those and be realistic about how long they take to do. So as an example, when I started my DJ company, my entertainment company, I wanted to drop off Krispy Kreme donuts or some kind of delicious inexpensive delicacy to wedding vendors all over Tulsa. You know, different venues, different hotels. So I wanted to stay top of mind. And that took me every week approximately, and I had it all mapped out, I had an old chart, but it took me or my team about 25 hours a week to do it. So I had this big vision and I didn’t have enough money to pay anyone else to do it, but I still had to do it. I had to be realistic about the time it would take. And I sat down and had what I believe to be a mature conversation. Looking back at it, I could have done it better, but the conversation with my wife letting her know expectations, this is when I’m leaving, this is when I’ll come back, this is what has to happen to take the business to the next level. And I just think a lot of times entrepreneurs, we operate in entrepreneur time. I know I’m guilty of it, where we think everything’s going to take 10 minutes. You hear me do that all the time. I go, it’ll take 10 minutes. And we’re always doing that. And what happens is that you have to be realistic about how long things take. So I would just encourage you, if you’re listening right now, go ahead and make a list of your key performance indicators. Think about the things you have to do every day to grow your organization or your company. And right next to it, how long it’s going to take. Put it into your calendar and start to go, what’s going to give? Because something’s got to give. Something has to come out if something’s going to come in. And that is super, super important that everybody listening to this right now, that you have been very transparent with yourself about how long things are going to take. And so if you’re listening right now and you’re going, I just, I don’t even know where to start. We have a little fun thing for you. If you will give us a call, you just go to thrive15.com, we actually will sign you up for a little assessment and you can actually hop on the phone call. We’ll do a free coaching session with you. It will help you determine kind of how to find that perfect work-life ratio for your life, your goals, and your values. And coming up after the break here, Z, what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be getting into the final kind of nuances, the final little nuggets, some secret moves about the five trade-offs that you have to make to become a successful entrepreneur Drivers listening from coast to coast in Oklahoma People listening in places that are not in Oklahoma other planets other other universes other galaxies We welcome you back to the thrive time show and I I am your co-host with the most I’m a guy I’m the kind of guy that really doesn’t need an introduction. But I’m going to tell you what, I’m kind of a big deal. No, I’m just kidding. But I’m here with Dr. Robert Zellner, who is a big deal. This guy, his name is on every building all over. All the buildings that you own. It’s weird. It’s not on every building around town, but it is on every building I own, I think. Every company you’re involved in, you did the crazy thing by putting your name on it. And so people have seen your name. It is crazy, I know. Yeah, you have a great Christmas commercial. It’s beautiful. And we’re joined here today live with Ms. Sherita Bench. Hey, hey. And we’re talking about the five trade-offs that every entrepreneur must make if you want to become successful. And Sherita, we were talking off air a little bit, and you have some questions for Dr. Z. Because Dr. Z, people know him now. They’re like, yeah, but you own a bank, and yeah, but you own an auto auction, and yeah, it must be easy with your little, you know, with your optometry thing and your, if I had that kind of, you know, time freedom, I would, I would be successful. I would have, if I had that kind of money, I would have the time freedom, but people don’t want to talk about the trade-offs you had to make to get to where you are. So you had some questions for Dr. Z. So let’s go for it. I did. I love how you were talking about when your business, you were working on it 90% and then maybe you were, you know, at home 10% and how Carrie was like hey buddy I need you home I wondered as you transition and went to maybe 80% 20% did you have to keep revisiting it or did you just like enact one plan and then you just you know followed that plan was it an ongoing assessment or what it’s a constant tweaking a constant tweaking because what will happen is if you own a business I mean which is what’s more important your business or your family it’s like saying which is your favorite child, you know? But what will happen is that, you know, so you start spending time at the house more and all of a sudden your business is like, we need you back here at the business. It’s on fire. We need you back out there. It’s on fire. So then you’ve got to swing that up, pendulum’s got to swing back to that, you know, and you’re over there, you know, putting out the fire and you’re over there, you know, you’re saving puppies out of trees and all that kind of stuff or cats out of trees. Anyway, you’re doing something very important. And then the family, who are you? We need a father. We rented a father the other day. Come home a strange man and say, hey. Can I tell you the number one example of jackassery? Yes. This is something I did and you are going to listen right now as a Thriver and you are going to go, if that idiot was able to have some level of success with that small of a mind I know I can do it. Listen, if you’re listening out there, you can do it. We are living proof. So this is what happened. My wife was having baby number one. And do you know about me, Dizzy, with medical stuff? Yes, I know you are kind of a lightweight. That’s saying it nicely. That’s saying it radio. I’m a little bit of a weenie. I don’t have the power. But anyway, seriously, my wife says, you know, we’re going to have a baby. And Dr. Thompson, a great guy in town, he says, we’re going to induce on this day. So we’re going to St. Francis and I said, babe, can I have Josh go instead? And she says, Josh? Now Josh is like our top DJ. Josh Smith. He’s probably listening right now in Dallas. I watch it like a family member. And she goes, what? And more she said, what? And I go, hey, no seriously, I don’t do well with the human body. The whole body. I don’t do well with the body. I think Josh should be good. He’s qualified. He’s dependable. He gets stuff done. And she goes, well, you do good with part of the body at certain times because obviously you made a baby. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Margarita. Right? Right? That’s some, that’s some, well, anyway, serious. Some sass talk right there. Truth cannons. Anyway, the thing is, I’m trying to explain that it’s more productive if I have Josh go. No, you did not. No, you did not use that word. I did. And I went through, I had three moves I was trying to explain. There’s like three or four. I said, listen, hey, listen, I don’t do well with the human body. Oh gosh. It’d be more efficient. I could be in the office. Not efficiency, Clay. Not efficiency. And three, I’ll just come by and visit. So now I’m there because I lost that discussion. Right, of course. So I’m at the hospital. Shocking. Shocking. You have such a sound argument. Right, right. So she’s trying to give birth, but I’m making cell phone calls. No. I’m trying to book some stuff. And then she’d be like, hey, what are you doing? He’s got hotline bling going during the delivery. Absolutely. And so finally, with the baby 2, I realized that’s not the move. Right. Somebody listening, that’s not the move. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. But in all sincerity, if you’re listening right now, and I know you are, otherwise you wouldn’t be hearing this, but here’s the thing is, you have to, you just have to right now get out the paper, get out the pen, and figure out what you’re willing to trade off. Bill Gates has a famous quote. Bill Gates says, he was asked at a conference, some kid put this quote. I know what his quote was. Did you pay for that software? No, he said that. But here’s the quote. There’s some young man at a speaking conference, and you can Google it and find his quote here, but he says, what’s the key to success? And he says, I didn’t take a day off in my 30s. Wow. Wow. And the guy was like, what? I didn’t take a day off in my 30s. That was something pretty hardcore. Now Elon Musk, if you Google Elon Musk and you look for his quote, he says the key to success is work like hell. You just have to work 60 to 80 hours a week to be successful, you know, to get your business to where you want it to be. Now, Z, I want to ask you, how many hours a week are you working in the optometry clinic, or can you even comment on that? How many hours a week are you in there seeing patients? Now, how many hours a week are you in there dilating pupils and fitting glasses and recommending frames? A lot less than I did when I started off. I worked seven days a week when I first got started, and now I work a lot less than that. But owning other businesses, too, which is fun. You know, I’m working all day, it’s just on a, you know, you kind of chop it up amongst the different businesses, you know, so. And I think today’s lessons, the five things that we went over today are just so powerful for people out there listening, saying, hey, I’m tired of punching the clock, you know, I want to be the boss and I want to start my own thing because I have a passion for it, I want to do it, I want to make money on it. If you could, listen folks, if you could do one thing out there and make, say, $100 on it. In other words, you say, hey, I can do this one thing, and I can make $100 profit. All you have to do now is listen to this show, learn how to scale it, learn how to mold it, how to guide it, and you can have a thriving business in no time. That’s the key. When you said scale it, learn how to scale it, I want to make sure that we’re not skipping over something, because I used to not understand that idea. But scaling is where you can repeat that thing over and over and over and over. And that’s why it’s so hard because it is, as an example, the sun’s rays, if you take the sun’s rays and you just go outside and you go, dear son, please burn this leaf, dear son, son, and you look around, I want the sun to burn the leaf. And you’re mentally going, I want the sun to burn the leaf. And you’re starting to chant, burn the leaf, burn the leaf, burn the leaf. And you get some buddies in there, everybody, let’s burn the leaves, burn the leaves. And your friends are going, burn the leaves, burn the leaves. And they’re not going to burn. We get this magnifying glass out. Ooh. You harness the sun’s rays. And you put that on that, I’m not going to put it on a worm. Don’t call it EPA. Don’t call it the PETA. I’m not going to burn a worm. But you put the little thing there, you put the magnifying glass on that leaf, and it just, and then all of a sudden, the flame happens. And I’m telling you what, that is what it takes to start and grow a successful business. It’s focused, what it stands for, focus on core tasks until success. If you’re in your car, tell seven people. Okay, I have a question though. Say I am listening to what you guys are saying, I’m receptive to it, I want to do it, but I don’t know how. I don’t know the steps to take. What do I do? What is a tangible, doable, what’s the next step for me? Well, step number one is you need to drink a ton of Dayquil because that’s what I’m doing today, just to be here. I’ll tell you what. No, but step number one, you need to go to this little website called thrive15.com. And when I say this little website, it’s a site that Dr. Z and I and a team of people, we spent millions of dollars building what many are calling a Forbes. Forbes, if you go on to Forbes, if you type in Thrive15 and Forbes, I challenge you right now, take the Forbes challenge. If you Google Forbes and thrive15.com, you’re going to see that Forbes said that thrive15.com is one of the top websites for entrepreneurs to learn how to start and grow a business. You’re going to see that we teamed up with David Robinson, the NBA Hall of Famer. Tall guy. You’re going to see we were on Bloomberg. You’re going to see that we’ve been in Fast Company. You’re going to see that this is the number one resource to start and grow a business. We have on there, we have thousands of video courses. Do we not see thousands of videos? Thousands of video courses and you can look at those either by category, or you can look at them from mentor, the guys that did it. Or you can just kind of, we’ll feed them to you, however we feel is best to feed them to you. Accounting, sales, marketing, search engine, it’s all there, all the knowledge you need. It’s business school without the BS. It’s all right there for you. But wait. But wait, there’s more. That’s not all. Are we throwing in the free Cutco knives? Oh gosh. I was going to ask how much it costs because I thought if I don’t have thousands of dollars. It’s thousands of dollars. No, it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s not. Tell me how much it is. Well, the basic package is $19 and that’s full access 24-7 to all the videos and you can throw in workshops, you can throw in downloadables. It’s all there. And if you want one-on-one, you say, hey, I ain’t got time for that. I just want a one-on-one coach to teach me the moves. That is available for you as well. Thrive15.com. We have certified Thrive15.com coaches, people that know what the heck they’re doing as relates to starting a business. So you’ve been listening to the Thrive Time Show. Come back tomorrow. It’s Tuesday, and you’re not going to want to miss out on the Thrive Time Show. It’s going to change your life, change your wallet. Boom. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the two-day interactive Thrive Time show business growth workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. 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. 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, Tim Tebow’s gonna 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. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business. That is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcup.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world Jill Donovan the founder of rustic cuff dot com has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops we have the guy we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson a man by the name of Ken Schmidt he has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops folks I’m telling you these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the 2-Day Interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question-and-answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15-minute question-and-answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com. You’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. 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. 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 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, 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. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrivetimeshow in 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. Who? You. You’re going to come. Who? You. 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, 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. 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 and 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 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. And 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 love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. 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 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 in Kings 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 I have a special guest today. The 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 since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s 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 Thorne 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. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said no. My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed, to the business owner, to the investor. I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted 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, but I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve 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, changed my life. I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.