Clay Clark | Part 2 – The Story Behind The Story: Famous Entrepreneurs’ Success Stories With Deedra Determan

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, let me show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, let me show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Have you had any personal demons that you’ve had to battle since you’ve been self-employed? Like, is it doubt? Is it maybe frustration? Is it negative? Anything like that? You just get kinda… No, I think perfectionism, you know, just trying to do everything perfect, doing too much, and you can’t be perfect at everything. So, you know, that kind of, whether, like I said earlier, balancing work and family life. So if I’m diving into my business, then what’s suffering at home? Or if I’m with the kids, you know, all day on a field trip, there’s 15 clients that have called and text, and I feel bad that I wasn’t there for them. So I think it’s kind of, as a mom, that balance that way. I think I’ve done what you’ve said in reverse. For me, my thing is, my wife is awesome. Baby, if you’re watching, you’re awesome. And she’s awesome, and she’s great. And growing up how I grew up, when an entrepreneur calls and says, could you meet me for lunch, I really want to help you. I want to meet him. But when I do, it takes time, a personal time with my wife. And then my wife’s like, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, check it out. There you have like, we have five kids, right? And then we should maybe see them for even a minute a day. What’s wrong with you? And then, and so for me, it’s over committing. It’s over. I over commit, yeah. And so I know it’s what I do. I also, I also deal with like, I’m passionate so it’s sometimes communicating my passion to somebody who’s less passionate. A source of anger. Right. You know that kind of thing. So I would say for me it’s anger over committing. You know I know for me a lot of times it’s feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. Since we’ve had some financial success I tend to like be somehow like if someone’s having a financial problem problem. They come to me, hey we’re coming to the castle. I’m like no, no. And then I’m like, okay you can stay here my brother, my friend, my neighbor, my cousin, my you know whatever. So we’re always, it gets over committing. Yes. We all have a demon though. We all have something that’s going to eat away at us if we’re not aware of it. Now George retired from boxing to become a pastor. Have you ever felt called to do something with your business where you’re like, you ever felt like, I need to do this nice thing for this person and it’s not something that I want to do. Have you ever felt that in your business? Yeah, I do that a lot. You do? Yeah, I overcommit for sure. Okay, so you’re like, oh this. I do everything at school and church and yeah. Everything? I do a lot. You’re that mom, aren’t you? I’m that mom. Who wants to volunteer to lead the PTA? And everyone’s, and then she’s like. Yeah, I think, you know, you can find yourself over committing to wear oil. I feel like they need me, so I need to commit because who else is going to do it? Funny story about why not to over commit. I one time volunteered when I was 21 or 22 to be on the Homeowners Association. So we moved into this neighborhood. It’s a neighborhood where basically a lot of wealthier people lived. I’m like the young guy. They’re like, what happened is parents bought the house for them. One guy even said that. Well, did your daddy buy this house for you? So I’m in this neighborhood and I volunteer. All of a sudden, like one dude drops out, somebody else. I find myself as vice president of this association. And Wendy, bless your sweet, sacred soul, I bet you’re not an entrepreneur, so you’re not watching this, but Wendy used to call and Wendy would say, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And it’s, you know, answer the phone. Such and such, Homeowners Association. And she’d go, yeah, somebody is parking in their obnoxious vans. They’re like painted, they’re DJ vans. They got vans painted. They’re right in the neighborhood. It’s gross. I’m pretty sure they’re running a business out of it. It’s like a kid. I’d like to file a complaint. I’m like, I’ll tell you what, you’ll need to put that in writing. It states in the Homeowners Association bylaws that you need to submit that in writing. And I’ll make sure that that neighbor is notified and then I’d hang up the phone like I’m not going to notify myself. You know well this game went on for a long time and then it started getting crazier like somebody has a DJ band it’s like painting graffiti and it’s blocking part of the sidewalk and I walk by and it’s like he smiled at me like he’s taunting me and I’m like you’ll need to just fill out the form and I will make sure I notify the neighbor and then she’s like, are you, where do you live? And I’m like, oh, I live in a vast part. I remember something BS. Like I live, I live on the far side. Like, oh, I live in the far side. I live way down west. Well, it’s not that big of a neighborhood. Where west? Right over there around the, about the, oh, that’s not next to me. No, it’s around the, oh, what, what address? I don’t know. You don’t know your own address. Okay, fine. It’s me. You’ve been talking to me, Wendy. You know, I find myself as the head of this homeowners association, and I’m going to meetings now. Wendy’s filing complaints. I’m counter-motioning. Dumb. Now, what I do is I move into the neighborhood, and I realize they can’t, by law, force me to do anything, so I just do whatever the heck I want. There we go. So that’s what I do now. So moving on now. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Yeah. So if you’re in my neighborhood, you see fireworks going up. Yeah, I don’t care. Okay. So here we go. Donald, the Donald, the guy with the crazy hair. He says you’re fired. There are so many thoughts that would come to mind when you hear the name Donald Trump. But for me, the only thoughts that flood to my mind are of a man who lost it all multiple times, but who is pigheaded enough in his determination and tenacity to never give up. I think of a man who has consistently taken on projects that no one else would because he believes in himself and his ideas so much. When I think of Donald, I think of a man with enough self-confidence to actually have lost it all and yet still markets himself as a success story. Think about the psychological nudity that must be going on to market yourself as a guru when you have lost it all. You basically had that yo-yo career. I know I think of a client who lost it all one time and then they’re just down the dumps. This guy went though basically lost it all and he keeps marketing himself that way. Donald would simply not give up and one thing that happened, this is a true story about Donald Trump and I want to share with you. He basically had lost it all and he owed a ton of money to banks to the point where like they were gonna foreclose on his property. In the book called Think Big and Kick Ass with Bill Zanker, it explains the story, but he doesn’t have the money to service the loan. So he decides, well I’m just gonna go to dinner to dinner, I’m gonna show up at a dinner with the banker that I’m going to go in who’s going to put me into foreclosure. I’m just going to show up. So, he puts his tuxedo on, takes his limo out, shows up at a dinner to meet with the guy who’s going to foreclose on him. And during dinner, the guy who’s going to foreclose on him is sitting where you’re sitting. The CEO of the entire bank is there and he says, hey, let’s pretend it’s Deidre. He says, well, hey, you know, Deidre, I want to bring it up. This is over a formal dinner. I know you’re going to foreclose on me, but I figured as a bank, you guys probably don’t know how to run a hotel, and so it probably cost you a lot more to foreclose. So why don’t we just, as a group, decide right here, sir, if you think it’s a good idea, if we go ahead and take over running a hotel, because I don’t think you guys could. I think it’ll probably cost you a lot more to take me into bankruptcy than it would to just let me not pay. So I’m proposing no payments for two years. And a big dinner party, did he just come in here? And he’s like, well, I’m not, and I’m just telling you guys, I won’t pay anything at all, but at least you’re not losing money. Think about it. Sales guy. And he like saved his career. And he says in this book, that’s the only reason he’s still in business. That’s insane. It’s crazy, that’s real talk. So when you think about these people, they are tenacious, they’re bold people, they have that never say die attitude. Trump essentially lost it all basically, but he continues to recover. How do you see, when you see these business owners, you see a lot of them, are you noticing that there’s a, are we weird? Are we dumb? Are we dumb people? Are we numb? What is it that makes us grow back like bamboo? Yeah, I mean I think there’s definitely a mentality with an entrepreneur that you can lose it all and keep going. You know, whatever it is. You could lose it all and keep going. Yeah, I haven’t ever lost it all. Luckily I have that sweet husband at home that’s got the job. Yeah, Jared’s a good dude and I don’t know if you want to just send in your checks. You just write Jaret. How do you spell that? Is it J-A-R-E-T? It’s actually Jaret. J-A-R-E-T-T. J-A-R-E-T-T. T-T, yeah. Jarrett. Jarrett, he’s a beautiful man, and if you’ll just write a check to Jarrett, and then just put J-R-R-E-T-T. We would love it. Very little we’ll actually get to him. Okay, so. Absolutely, though, putting it all in there, putting it out there, and be able to pick yourself up and go again. Do you feel like some entrepreneurs who are the most successful are stupid? Are we dumb? I don’t think stupid, but definitely maybe that little screw loose that just says you know they’re willing to take the risk and go for it all and those are the people that make millions. I gotta say a funny story while you’re holding that super expensive camera gear. We had a like 400 people on our database who had said no to Thrive. It would never work. It’s not. Why do people, why do entrepreneurs need to kill? No people don’t want to practical training Yeah, and then I get a guy who says yes When I was the head of a bank, I had no idea how to do accounting and I wish I had something like this Yes, the guy says I’m an optometrist. I wish I would have had that. Yeah when I was starting out. Yes You keep hearing yes, yes, unbelievable. 400 nos. 400 nos. We have a spreadsheet. That’s a lot. Sweet. Yeah. So it’s awesome. I got David Robinson as a partner and all this neat stuff. Amazing. Now, how many times a day is your attitude or fortitude tested, Deidre? Twice? A lot. Really? Yeah, I would say a lot. Like at least once a day? Yeah, I mean it’s because I help some clients with sales or PR pitch and you get the no and you just keep going. Do you tell anyone about it? No, I mean my husband. Okay. Yeah, see my wife. I’m working through this. I don’t really tell my wife when I get rejected. Yeah So there’s a perception that I’m awesome My thing is I tend to not talk about any rejections because I don’t think for me It’s healthy to relive it. Some people it’s better to discuss it with someone But we’re gonna have to find a way to process it. For me, I just act like it didn’t happen. Moving on to Steve Martin. Steve Martin, the father of the bride, a wild and crazy guy. You can see him up there. He’s a phenomenal guy. He did the King Tut skits. He wore the white suits when he did the comedy. To me, the name Steve Martin brings thoughts of a young man who wanted to be a musician, a comedian, a magician, but who lacked the talent to do it. I think of a man who decided to plunge himself into the process. A man who was so persistent that he understood that he had felt over and over that he would win long-term. This is what the dude actually did. He literally went from crappy bar to crappy bar performing in his book called Born Standing Up. He tells the story and he gets off the stage and he goes, well that wasn’t funny. And he writes it down. He literally starts making like a post-it card of the jokes that don’t work and then he gets up the next night, alright folks there’s some jokes here that people there tonight said were awesome so I’m going to try them out on you guys. People start laughing at the fact that he’s going off a list, like that becomes funny and he’s like, that’s funny. And then he’s like, okay, it’s funny though, the person who went before me dressed funny, that’s funny. So he’s like, I’m going to get a white suit so he comes out and he’s all right everybody He wears the white suit and he comes out and he’s got bunny ears on He’s like I’m gonna read you some jokes to people there nights that were pretty funny So here the people like is he really reading a list and then when they don’t laugh He’s like, okay, and he just does this and then he then he realizes I’m a really crappy musician So and no one wants to hear the banjo. So he starts having the banjo delivered slowly from the ceiling. And then it comes down with a white suit, the ears, the lid, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And he’s like, everybody clap now, ding, ding, ding, ding. And he’s like, everybody sing along now. No one knows the song. He’s like, come on, everybody, sing along. And then he starts going, we’ll go through my list of jokes. And then people kind of, and he’s like, okay. I realized that if I get the banjo, I get my, now this happened over a period of like three years. He said he performed like virtually every night, anywhere. He would just show up in a city and be like, can I perform tonight? We ended up getting a deal where he has the crappy music, the crappy magic show, the crappy jokes, the list, the outfit, and he becomes famous. And if you get a chance to look up Steve Martin and read his book, Born Standing Up, you will discover he is right when he says, thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent. So let’s think about Steve Martin for a second. Steve Martin compensated for a lack of talent with persistence. Are there any areas where you’ve compensated for a lack of talent, connections, or money? Yeah, definitely. So I was not the entrepreneur that wanted to put the house up and risk all that. That was too much. We really started with no money, as little as we could possibly do. And one area was get media partners. We knew we knew the media. We came from media. We had no advertising budget, even though we’re selling advertising. I’m telling people, buy my advertising, yet I’m spending zero on advertising. We didn’t have it. So we partnered with a radio, television, and print partner in our local town and just basically gave them content. We knew we had good mom content. We had the audience they wanted and gave them content every week and and that was our advertising. I’m going to draw something for you real quick here. I know some women in the media business who are absolutely gorgeous on-air personalities but they do not spend any time practicing. They’re just like I was born with this beautiful face and then I just that’s what I do. I get paid and then you meet somebody who isn’t quite as naturally gorgeous or handsome, but the guy just works at his craft where he’s awesome. I know as a DJ I was terrible, but I could just work at it and work and eventually I grinded it to where I was awesome, but I wouldn’t start that way. I want to just encourage everybody here that if you’ve got the face, if you’ve got the money, or you don’t have the money, you don’t have the face, if you have the talent, if you don’t, we can usually just grind our way to success. Get creative, grind your way. You can do it. So can you think of a time in your career where you were able to turn any, like Steve Martin turned his rejections into refinements to his jokes. Oh yeah. Do you have any time where you can think of where you’ve turned a rejection into a positive? I would say every sales call I did for the first six months. Really? Because it was just hitting it out there. We didn’t have a huge audience yet, but yet I’m trying to go out there and sell this website. So, yeah, each time it got a little bit better, you know, to where you kind of coin your little craft and get your sales pitch out there and what they want to hear. So what worked here, okay, I’ll try that again. Okay, they want a personal story with me because I’m a mom. I’m the customer they want, so make it personal. You know, so you craft it as you go. I have found that just recovery sales is the best. When someone says no, you go, okay, what kind of service would you be looking for? I know we can’t provide service for you today, but what kind of service would you want in the future? And you can come back. We can always learn from it. Moving on to Conrad Hilton, okay? We have two more stories that we’ve gone through some hell and back, but now we know their success. This is Conrad Hilton, my main man here, okay? Founder of the Hilton chain. When you hear Conrad Hilton, do you think of Paris Hilton? Do you think, wow, they’re rich? Have you ever said, it must be nice to own a bunch of hotels? Well, when you know the story of this man who grew up poor and his parents turned their home into a hotel, their home into a hotel, it wasn’t a big home either, to make extra money, it might change your thoughts a little. When you learn that this man started a bank that failed, started a, I’m circling it here, a bank that failed. Can you imagine starting a bank? That means everyone put their money in and they never got it out. A bank that failed and was ambitiously pursuing a future in the oil and gas industry before he found a hotel that was for sale. And it was underperforming. Here’s the story. He goes, he failed, he starts a bank, the bank fails. So now he’s like, well, I’ll do it next natural. I’ll move. I’ll move to a new town and I’ll pursue an oil and gas career. He’s there waiting for, he’s trying to find a room to stay in in the hotel. He’s waiting, he’s waiting, big line, and the hotel owner’s like, gosh, just swamped, I can’t, you know, I would love to get in. He’s like, what are you in town for, son? Conrad says, well, I’m in town to get in the oil business. He’s like, well, I would get in the oil business myself. The owner says, I would get in the oil business myself. I wasn’t stuck behind his desk managing this stupid hotel. And Conrad says, well, I’ll buy it. He just lost it all like a month before. Yeah. And the guy’s like, you’ll buy it? He’s like, yeah. He’s like, well, how are you going to pay for it? Well, I don’t want to put a lot of capital because I have other investments, which is code for I lost everything. Yeah. And so what I’ll do is I’ll run the hotel, I’ll just make a percentage of the revenue. And then, so if I’m not, if you’re not benefiting, I won’t make anything. And I’ll pay you off over time and then you can go pursue the oil business. And the guy’s like, all right. So he leaves and Conrad takes over a hotel with no money down in his 20s. Well, then he starts buying up hotels, things are going good, the depression hits. He almost loses it all. He’s selling percentages of his hotel. 40%, 41%, 42%. He starts to get where he only owns like 51% most of the hotels. He needs 20 G’s to make a payment. He has no money. So he calls his mom. Mom, I need 20 G’s. I presented to everyone I know, all the investors I know, and no one will lend me money. She goes, well I’ll make some calls, see if I can find some investors. She calls back, Connie, she called him Connie, you have an investment group out here that wants to meet with you to fly home. They might want to do it. So these men who he’s never met, listen to him at the end of the presentation, a man stands up and says, Connie, we love your idea. We want to invest 20,000, we’ll do it. He flies home. He discovers that his mom took our entire life savings and gave it to him and that was it. And that’s what kept him in business and that’s how he made it. After basically living in a state of depression during the depression. But he couldn’t tell anyone that the Hilton Hotel was struggling because if he did it would take the luster off the brand. And I’m telling you if you read his book it’s much better than I’ve described but he’s going through tough times. It’s not easy. I hope you’re seeing a theme here guys. If you’re watching this, these people go through tough times. So Deidre, I want to ask you, I know entrepreneurs, most successful entrepreneurs have raised money from their family and friends. If I don’t have capital and I’m a business owner, what are some ways that maybe you’ve raised capital in your career that you would suggest that I would raise capital? So what we did with 918 Moms and we were growing really big and we couldn’t manage the volume that we had. I mean we know we needed to make more money, we needed more you know people, staff, all of that, didn’t want to put the house up. We actually started looking out there, okay do we get investors and really grow this thing? Do we sell? You know is that our goal? So we did end up selling to a media company and ended up working for them. But you always have that balance of, you know, it wasn’t ours anymore, yet we still worked there, so we weren’t really the decision makers anymore. That’s a tough place to be. You know, you have investors, then you have them coming in, giving their input, and you’re answering to someone else. So that’s also tough as well. But you know, there’s an organization here locally that connects investors with companies. And you can go through, and it’s actually a non-profit here called I2E. I don’t know if there’s some across the country, but I would think getting with the Chamber and researching things like that, but they actually, you know, are that service that connects people with investors. I’m gonna just throw out a whole bunch of them here and then you guys at home can hopefully marinate here. One is the Chamber. You call the Chamber, they can connect you to a lot of SBA loans, small business loans. Another area, a lot of entrepreneurs, I know it sounds scary, I know it sounds scary, this is how I did it. I never paid interest on a credit card, but I took my credit card, I would get those 18-month no-interest cards, and I would max it out to buy equipment for the weddings that I had booked for the summer. And then once I would do the weddings, I would pay off the card and buy more. I did that for like, I bought like about $700,000 of equipment over a five-year period on credit cards. So I know people that do that. Another one is family and friends. Now here’s the thing about this. I feel there’s no shame in asking money from and asking friends and family to invest if it’s something that you personally would invest in. So if you’re going to ask family and friends for money, you’d better make sure it’s a good idea. But I would argue if you’re going to invest in any business, it should probably be a good idea. So I wouldn’t feel bad about that. As examples here, family and friends, we’ve already talked today. You’ve got Hilton, family and friends. Henry Ford, family and friends. Walt Disney, family and friends. These are some big companies here. Steve Jobs, family and friends. Apple. Family and friends is big. Another one that you can do, which a lot of people do this, is an equity line. You can pull money out of your house. You got your house almost paid off, you go to the bank, you say I want to borrow against it. You can do that. Another thing that I did, this is called white guy on construction site. This is what I did and this was my, this is my theory, is I was on a largely, I was on a construction crew where I was basically the only guy that was speaking a lot of English and I worked and the job was easy to get. There wasn’t a whole lot of people that were competing for it. It’s manual labor, it’s laying down concrete, it’s tough work. A lot of people, that’s what their job. And I did that and in this job I was able to work about 65 to 80 hours a week. So that’s something you can do. Another thing you can do, again if you don’t have money, these are all things you can do, you can try to go out there and get venture capital. This is a real thing out there. Venture capital. It’s huge. You can go out there and you can go to your local bank and you can pitch your idea. You can go out there and you can try to find an investor. Final one, you can go out there and you can get a partner. These are all things that you can do. But the thing is, I know a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are only doing one of these things and we think we’ve done our best. When I was getting venture capital for Thrive, I remember thinking, I was going, Thomas Edison had 10,000 failed experiments for the light bulb. Surely I can have 400 rejections. The time was like, surely I can have 50. Then it was like 100. Then it was one thing, and Liz, my assistant, was like, how many of these are we going to send out? I’m like, a lot more. And then we just kept, and then it was like, hey, when are we going to know… when are we going to stop sending them? Never! And then I get in my car and I’m like, wow, we’re sending out a lot of these. And then, so I’m just telling you though, but 10,000 experiments is how many failed experiments is how many experiments Thomas Edison went through before he invented the light bulb that ultimately worked. 10,000! Look that up. It’s crazy. It’s a lot. So final example, and this one is near and dear to me because this dude was in the same dorm as me in college. Ryan Tedder, the guy that founded OneRepublic. He writes songs for Beyonce, Adele, Natasha Bedingfield, all these megawatt celebrities. He’s done so many songs it’s crazy. But here’s the deal. Ryan went to Oral Roberts University, which you might not know, but Oral Roberts University is not necessarily like the birthplace of entertainers. You don’t… Kathy Lee Gifford went to Oral Roberts University, but there’s not really a ton of megawatt celebrities coming out of there. He studied PR and advertising. He took the same classes that many other people took. Sure, he took time out to play in our murals with us and to go to hall meetings, and sure he did the courtesy performance at our wedding, but his commitment to his music career went far beyond that. This crazy guy was willing to spend every dime he had on musical equipment. I could never forget that. I mean, he was spending every dime he made on musical equipment. He would stay up all night writing songs. He was willing to sing an hour every day in the dorms. Can you imagine being a man in an all-male dorm singing by yourself, practicing vocals? That’s insane. He held himself accountable to singing and playing instruments hours upon hours. He participated in countless music contests and he actually created his own big break by performing in a talent contest with Lance Bass. If you go on YouTube you can look up Ryan Tedder and type in The Look and you can see him singing there as a young guy on MTV. He did all these things and he put all the time needed to prepare to win this contest and he did win the contest but not because he was lucky. Because he played over, by the time he played the song, we were like, we know, we know the song. This guy was willing to commit himself to taking crappy jobs after graduation at retailers and restaurants so that he would have the time needed to hone his skills. This guy interned for free for Timbaland. Could you imagine interning for free for a multi-millionaire? You might be saying, oh that must be nice. And I’m not sure that, I’m sure you’re not saying something, this week’s sauce is saying, well, I would be working for Timbaland for free too. Well, most people wouldn’t. Most people would not work for Timbaland for free, but he did. And then Ryan worked for years and years trying to get his big break. And then when he finally was offered a contract, he turned it down. Because it was going to be a boy band. So then Ryan, I mean, can you imagine you got out of college, you’re five, six years out of college, your parents are like, when are you going to get a real job? And you’re like, I’m working for free for a celebrity. Yeah. What? And I work at Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn, get off me. It’s pottery and it’s a barn. It’s legit. Two words, you know. I mean, pottery barn. And then he says, you know what? We’re gonna move to Colorado and I’m gonna get a MySpace. Remember MySpace? Did you have a MySpace? Yeah. You did? Yeah. Awesome. Okay. That was awesome. I want to get a MySpace now. Okay. He went on MySpace and he ended up becoming the most popular band on MySpace with their songs. And then Timbaland calls back and says, your song Too Late to Apologize. If you guys look up Too Late to Apologize, the non-Timbaland version, the original version, you’ll hear it. Great song. But he says, hey, I want to kind of jazz it up, add in my beat to it. And then I want to say Timbaland featuring Ryan Tedder, but we’ll produce this song. So there he is. I don’t remember the exact age of his life, but I’m going to say like 10 years after starting this quest to be a success he became an overnight success 10 years in now. I remember how excited Vanessa and I were and everybody was for him We’re like man you deserved it. Yeah, and I know people today. They’re like let me nice. Yeah, no, it wouldn’t be nice It’s a deal. It’s not fun to be a lot of work You got it you got a ride and so I would like to ask you here is, you know, you have seen people become successful. You’ve seen people like Ryan have taken off. When you see these people, do you see people that are, do they get motivated by each rejection? I mean, I think there’s that mentality, you know, if you have that tenacity, people tell you no, that gives you that, you know, fire to try even harder. Does it become energy for you? It’s energy for me. So when someone says no for you, you’re like, oh, I will. I will. I’ll get them. They’ll come back around. We shouldn’t film him, but Dan Nix is like this. This is this guy. He is the bamboo man. You tell Dan Nix he can’t do it. He’s like, I will. It’ll be better. Yeah, you know you’ll come in the next day And he’s like reinvented the internet and redecorated the office just to teach you a lesson that it can be done Dan Nix is just it’s that sort of attitude I know with an attitude like that with diligence and learn these principles will be successful if you’re watching this though and every time you get Rejected you’re like well. Maybe it’s just not meant to be you got a tase of yourself, bro sister. You got a taste Okay, so what is an example Deidre finally and in closing here, what’s an example from your career where you or a client became an overnight success after hours and years of preparation? Have you seen somebody that you just went… Well, I wouldn’t call it overnight success because that’s, you know, implies that you didn’t do all of that to get there. A lot of people like to crown you at the overnight part. Well, that’s true. So yeah, I mean, I’ve worked with talent, you know, on some of our websites that became a huge success really quickly. But it was all those big things that we put into place every single day. And it was a team. You actually have brought in talent to make… When you were doing your job, you actually had to bring in talent into Tulsa, convince somebody to come from a different market, to come into Tulsa and be like the anchor. Right. And you saw the station take off. Right. But it took a long time before those ratings perked up, right? Yeah, it took a long time. And just hitting it every single day and doing guerrilla marketing stuff and getting out and community and all of that good stuff. Well, I appreciate you hanging out here and allowing us to connect and share these stories. I can say that if you’re a mompreneur or an aspiring mompreneur and you want to learn a little something about how to grow a business, your website is D2Branding.com. It is a great place to go to learn about branding. Also on Thrive, we have a lot of stuff here. Look for Deidre potentially at a speaking event near you. But I just am fascinated by what you’re doing. Your energy is awesome. It’s inspiring. And you work so hard. You make me want to outwork you with my competitive spirit. That’s right. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Russia, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim Tebow 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. Whoa! 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 going to have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. 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 at 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 rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.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. So 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 two-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 2-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 have 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 gonna 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 how to do it, 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, Jerusalem, Oklahoma. It’s supposed to be Tulsa, Jerusalem. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies, and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful, sunny weather of L.A., 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. Thrivetime 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 gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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 motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t loan. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop. All you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba watch what a person does not what they say Good morning, good morning, good morning Harvard Keosak University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also. But very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hours. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. 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? What was the- Well, 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. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just 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. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa!