Clay Clark | The George Washington Carver Story With David Robinson

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. David Robinson, how are you, sir? I’m fantastic, thanks, Clark. Hey, you’re going to the playoffs tonight. I will be going to watch my San Antonio Spurs win again. Big predictions. It’s a win. Are you going to win the championship this year? Is this going to happen, you think? Yes. Yeah. I wish I could see that far ahead, but we certainly have the best chance out of any of those teams to win. Okay. Awesome. Well, we were talking about the George Washington Carver story and specifically kind of how he overcame adversity. When you retired from the MBA, you started a school that you funded with nearly $10 million of your own money, and then you chose to name the school after George Washington Carver. Obviously, you thought something magical about this person, or you had an affection for his legacy, or you had an admiration for him because you named your school after him, but why did you name your school after George Washington Carver? Well, I was prompted really by down in the inner city there in San Antonio is the Carver Cultural Center. And it’s been a part of this community for about 75 years. And it was really, it was a great reminder of the importance of George Washington Carver to not just our community, but this great, great nation we live in. And so Carver had always been an inspiration to me growing up, and I felt like we needed to promote what this wonderful man had done in helping people, especially people of color, as they were coming out of slavery, helping them to gain lives that could not only involve good jobs, but education as well. And so you felt strongly enough about this that you didn’t name the school after yourself. Yeah that would have been put like a weight on the kids shoulders. It would have been like dragging around a ball. I feel like my life is still a work in progress and I’m very excited about the things that I can possibly accomplish in my lifetime, but George Washington Carver is a proven commodity. And I’m more than happy to give the kids his legacy. When did you first become fascinated with his life? Do you remember when you first heard about his life story? Or was it sort of just a- When I was a kid, we studied a little bit about him. And we got just bits and pieces of some of the things that he was able to accomplish. And we always knew him as kind of the peanut man. But I think as a kid, I really didn’t know all the things that he was able to do. And then when we came down and we met at the Carver Cultural Center, I sat down and really looked at this man. I looked at his life. I started reading books. I started reading a book full of his letters that he wrote. And it just blew my mind, the impact that he was able to have given his beginnings. And I thought, what a great example I can give to these kids who may not have had the best circumstances. Their father may not have been home or may have been in prison or they were raised by their grandparents or they live in a neighborhood where everything seems to be going against them. No one’s encouraging them to do well in academics. That’s a tough situation. But here’s a guy who grew up it in slavery who had no resources and who was able to overcome that and become such a prominent figure in our history what a great example that puts it give to the kids and say don’t tell me you have less than this guy don’t tell me your situation was worse than this guy you can do what he did one of the magical things about the medium of video is that you and I can talk and people can watch it and really learn a lot from it. But I think one of the dangers of it is that we can say quickly, well, George Washington Carver grew up like this, and then he did this, and then that’s kind of the story. But he had a lot of adversity he dealt with. I mean, a ridiculous where it would be, if you’re watching this right now and you’re growing up poor, well that’s check. He was poor. A lot of people say, well, you know, I don’t have a lot of stuff. I don’t have an iPad or I don’t have maybe a cell phone or I don’t have… He just had a book. One book. Up to the time he was 12. It was the only book he had, the Bible. The Bible. And then he was growing up with the racism and all of the… The whole world is divided a whole community that did not think that he could accomplish anything and did not give him the benefit of the doubt physically he was weak uh… he was the uh… a sickly boy and uh… and really couldn’t do much uh… really up into the time he was you know uh… late in his teens so he had a about everything you could have going against his mother was kidnapped and you know taken back into slavery. His mother was kidnapped and taken back into slavery. So you talk about someone who had a hard time. He had everything going against him. I lost those guys. Right. It was tough. But, then to have your mother kidnapped. Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of like, it seems like in every area, no matter how bad it is right now if we’re watching this, he sort of trumped us. I mean, it’s sort of like… It’s really hard to beat that. I mean, when we talk about, man, I got it tough, man. I’ve really had some challenges. I understand. And I feel, I mean, I feel for you. When we’re in the midst of a challenge, there seems like a pile of dirt that’s on our heads that we just can’t move. I mean, it’s a cloud over our head that you just can’t seem to shake. I mean, it’s a bad feeling. So I would never downplay what a person is going through because the challenges are very real. But it is encouraging to know that we can overcome those challenges. It’s encouraging to know that there’s a reason we’re here. You know, and that if we push forward and we continue to show resilience and toughness that really, really good things can happen just like it did for Carver. As I was researching him, and I was researching him originally because when I was researching you, I saw what a big impact that he had in your life. Absolutely. And it’s hard for you to deliver a talk or to connect with a young person without sharing his story because it’s had such a big impact on your life. Well, I know that because of him, I have opportunities. And that’s a big deal to me. I mean, I always admired my grandfather. And my grandfather grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and faced a lot of those challenges around that time when they were segregating schools. And he worked at the post office, and they were not promoting him. And he had a lot of uphill battles. Yet, he raised children who were very successful children and then now here as his grandchild I get to represent the family and continue to take the family to another level. What a joy for me that is. And I respect everything he went through so that I could have the lifestyle I have now. There is five principles that I took away, and there’s probably 50 principles I could take away from his life. But I want to go ahead and dive into these five because I think they’re powerful. Sure. So the first one is, you know, I took away that we have nothing to complain about. That’s true. Well, we all have lots to complain about. The question is, will you complain about it? It’s really not worth complaining about. That’s probably a better… Whatever we have, our complaints do nothing for us. And as a matter of fact, they hurt us. Because it reinforces, your words reinforce the negativity. They reinforce all of the things that are bad about your situation. We need to be positive, speak positive. We need to come out of the situation, not stay mired in it. When you were in the NBA, you had a lot of criticism there for a while. Oh, absolutely. Where it was, David can’t win the championship. David is, he’s soft. He just, you know, Hakim is better, or Shaquille O’Neal is better. There was just a lot of that criticism there. All very sharp barbs that, you know, to this day still hurt when you say them. I’m sorry. No, you know, those are, you know, those are things you face, you know, you question yourself. I mean, there’s, you question your abilities, your competence, your, everything about you. I mean, that’s, that’s the, that’s the challenge. How do you overcome that? How do you, how do you begin to, to put that stuff aside and say, no, they’re wrong. You know, they’re wrong. I can’t achieve what I want to achieve. Even then, when you were getting those sorts of complaints, did you still feel like you really shouldn’t speak it and you really didn’t have a whole lot to complain about in comparison to George Washington Carver? Absolutely. I think part of it was tuning a lot of it out. That’s a real key. You can’t continue to listen to the foolishness. That’s kind of the first step is when people are criticizing you uh… put yourself in a position where you can kind of move that aside and and focus on the positive focus on what needs to get done and that’s what i did it in my career as people would criticize me uh… i would i would understand a they’re not me they don’t step out there on the court and do the things that i do people can say you’re soft all you want but i think i was a little late in the key i’ve got to go play against you kill so in my mind i i knew that it was a uh… it was people without experience without my understanding just talking about it you recall some of those sports commentators and point out to them that they in fact for soft uh… from the many times i can’t go i i thought to myself you know when i would see someone in particular criticized me i would say uh… i would say to myself uh… you know i’d love to see this guy out there get elbowed in the head by Carl Malone. We’ll see how you respond to it then. It’s easy to talk. It’s easy for everyone to talk. That’s what they do best. I think the first step is really putting that stuff aside, getting out from underneath the mound of foolishness. Now principle number two is we want to be a part of the solution not just this chorus of complaints. And I thought that what George Washington Carver was able to do is that he wanted African-Americans to be free financially and free in the true sense of the word. He wanted… Now it’s easy to say that and it’s easy to look that hey the African-Americans are now basically farming cotton and the soil is depleted oh there we’re all farming cotton see this is a bad we could talk about that he could have talked about it right but instead he got to work rolled up his sleeves and got to work can you explain a little bit about what work he did yeah well at the time you know cotton was the cash crop it was an easy way to make money for not necessarily the farmers now the farmers who were doing the work didn’t necessarily make the money, but it was an easy way for the overseers, the people around, the white people to make the money. The farmers really didn’t do well on cotton. Not only that, the cotton destroyed the land. It sucked all of that nitrogen out of the land, so within six or seven years, that land would become dry and really unfarmable. Carver, instead of sitting there complaining about our plight and we don’t have any power and we can’t do this and we are stuck in our situations, we’re all just farmers and we can’t make any money, Carver said, well, what’s the solution? We need to grow some crops that, not just the crops that are profitable for those people, but we need to grow some crops that will replenish the land and create a market for those crops that we do grow. So he said, hey, you know what? The best crops in replenishing that nitrogen are peanuts and sweet potatoes. So let’s plant those. And people said, oh, peanuts? Well, that’s trash. That’s a weed. Why would we plant peanuts? Nobody wants a peanut. So he went about the process of saying, well, peanuts have a tremendous use. They’re full of protein and they’re a fantastically healthy thing to eat. He made meat out of peanuts and people said what is this we’re eating? He said it’s a meat made out of peanuts and so he was incredibly creative in the way that he thought about it. It’s amazing how he saw the need for nitrogen in the soil well first he saw that hey we as a people are depleting our land we need to find a way to make our land more fruitful. Then he decided that okay we need to put more nitrogen in the soil. I’m going to make a list of these plants that do that. Then he invented all of the uses for the plants. It’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s unbelievable. It is unbelievable. It was incredibly creative. But here he took a problem, a real challenge, an oppressive challenge. It was oppressive for a lot of people. So it was a monumental challenge and he got out from underneath the mound of criticism and complaints and said, this is what we can do. So being a part of the solution is a real key to overcoming adversity. So being a part of the solution is a real key to overcoming adversity. You did this with the school you started. And today, a school that didn’t exist before, the Carver Academy now is set to open up 20 schools in the next five years. In San Antonio. In San Antonio. And you said you’re going to be doubling the amount of kids that are graduating from high school that are from. Matriculating, low-income kids that are matriculating to college. We will double the number if we do what we’re supposed to do because all of our schools now, down in the Rio Grande Valley, we have 22 schools down there. All of our schools have 100% matriculation to college. So I think this was the first year where we had maybe one or two kids that didn’t go to college or haven’t yet. We will get them there. So we’ve had a phenomenal record of getting kids into college, and especially low-income kids, because down in the Rio Grande Valley, 97% of those kids are low-income kids. And over half of them are non-English as a first language kids. So here we come to San Antonio, our Carver Academy was the first school in San Antonio. We’re gonna build up to 20 schools. We opened three schools so far, two more schools coming online this year. When we have 20 schools, and we’re operating, we’re graduating kids from our 20 schools, we will be effectively doubling the number of low-income kids going to college every single year here in this city. So that’s an ambitious goal and I believe it’s a very achievable. And I realize that you’re not anywhere close to the potential that you’re going to ultimately get to, in my mind. I think that’s pretty awesome that you saw a problem, you’re driving, you know, to the arena, going to the game, and you see poverty everywhere, and instead of saying, well, this land is depleted, we’re in trouble, you said, hey, we’re going to go ahead and build a school, maybe not 20 schools at once, we’re going to build one, and we’re going to solve the problem for maybe, how many kids were in the first class? 60 kids. We’re going to solve the problem for 60 kids, which for some could feel like, well that’s not really going to help. That’s a ripple in the ocean. Yeah. That’s nothing. You know, you’re right. It started even back when I was in college. When I came out of college I was in Washington DC in the Maryland, DC, Virginia area and I visited like 20 different high schools there and I talked to all those kids and my feedback from those kids was it’s easier for us to sell drugs. We can make a ton of money selling drugs. Why would we go to school? There’s nobody in our lives telling us that that’s important or that there’s any kind of reward for that. The people that we see, that we admire, have cars, have money, they have everything they need and it’s because of the drug culture. So why would we not do that? So that was a good argument. There was nothing I could really say to them except, well, you’re hurting other people by selling drugs and it’s not, you know, it’s something I can’t respect. Which is not a great argument. So, you know, here I come and I get a chance to take these kids at, it really prompted me to come back and say, hey, there’s a massive problem out there, we are losing a generation of kids because they don’t see the opportunity, they’re not seizing the opportunity. On one side, I see these kids who are begging for some way to get out, and on the other side I get Harvard calling me, Ivy League schools calling me saying, how do we increase the number of minorities? We can’t find them. We’re looking for these kids. We will pay for their college. All the Ivy League schools now will give, if you’re making under $120,000 or $180,000 a year, you will go to school there for free. Really? So how do I connect this group of people that want to give the opportunity to this group of people that desperately need the opportunity? And I saw education as a means of doing that. So that was my solution. Love it. I just love the parallels. I love how you took a story from someone you admired and you implement those practices in your own life. It’s exciting. Now the third principle I gained from his life was that he basically determined that success is a choice. Now, David, I obviously know we cannot control every aspect of our lives. Yet George Washington Carver firmly believed that you could basically all but guarantee success if you were committed to working hard. He said this. He says, when you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world. Absolutely. I mean, so that’s something we can all do. I mean, no matter what we are, no matter what job we have, if we do it in an uncommon way, we can’t help. I mean, I’ll just give you an example. When I worked at Tax and Accounting Software Corporation, I was an intern, and I just, for some reason, I kind of caught the bug of over delivering and working hard. I’m starting to figure it out a little bit. I remember just trying to really do a good job at a certain point. I remember the supervisor going, Mr. Clark, we’d like to keep you for another… I was an intern. And so they basically kept me on for a little bit longer and gave me a raise. And they kept kind of acknowledging me and kind of, I worked up a little bit just by doing the common thing, working in a call center in an uncommon way. Yeah, absolutely. People notice the… It’s crazy. You talk about a quote like this where Carver says, do the common things in an uncommon way. Now, we can look at something as simple as saying hello. I can look at you, I can walk by you in the morning, I can say, hey, how you doing? And just keep walking. Or I can come, I can look in your eye, and I can say, hi, so good to see you today. And then I can walk away. And those two things would leave two entirely different impressions upon you. The next time you saw me, you would be like, that was a nice guy, he really stopped and he said hello to me the other day, as opposed to, that guy didn’t give me the time of day. We went to Subway with you. And I’ve seen other athletes do this, where somebody says, can I take a photo with you? And the athlete will say, no, no. Or the way it comes across, it comes across like they’re upset. The other day I was in New York, though, and there was a guy who’s on the team. And he’s not an all-star. He’s not one of their top players. And I just saw a fan reach out and say, hey, can I get your autograph? And he just kind of ignored the person, wouldn’t talk to him. And I saw it happen again and again. And I’m going, OK. And I could see maybe if I’m an athlete, I get asked that all the time. Maybe I just want to enjoy family time. I don’t know the guy’s situation or what he was going through on that day. But you’re at Subway the other day. We’re going to Subway with you. And you got asked by numerous people if they could get a photo with you. And you did it. And you looked him in the eye, and you didn’t have to. And so it seems like you’re doing the ordinary things, and are you doing the common things in an uncommon way? Are you intentional about this, David? Is that something you try to do? Absolutely. I think it’s, if they’re easy things, it’s not even hard things, you know, and that’s what’s so great about it. That’s what makes this quote just genius, because we all face these things every single day. It’s not like there’s not one person out here who doesn’t say hello to people in the morning or who doesn’t have an opportunity to be kind to someone. Or even half of us are married where you don’t have the opportunity to get up and really say something nice to your wife. We all have these common things. How do I say hello in the morning to my children? Do I come in and pull the sheets off the bed and have them fall on the floor or do I come in and give them a big kiss on the head and say, sweetheart, it’s a new day. And so there are these common things that we do, and we have an opportunity to be very, very uncommon in those things. And it’s unbelievable the impact that it leaves on people when you do them. Do you do this because you believe that God is watching at all times, or do you do this because you’re trying to secretly get ahead? Or what is your motivation? That’s my goal. When I was taking pictures at the subway, I was looking to get ahead. I figured the lady working behind the counter could really do something for me next week. She was a potential investor. She’s a potential investor in my next fund. That’s not particularly my motivation. My motivation is because I feel like I have that responsibility. God’s given me these gifts for a reason. It’s to lift people up to encourage people and and however I can use my gifts I will try to use them in that manner if I’m watching this right now, and I say Why should I have to do common things in an uncommon way? What can you know if I’m somebody who’s really I grew up without financial resources And we can get into that mentality where we’re upset. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired We’re just upset where we feel like the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, my boss is not a good guy, the economy’s bad, my house is terrible, we make this list of issues, and we’re kind of in a place right now, somehow somebody’s tricked us to log on to this website and we’re going, why do I have to do this? Well, I would tell you don’t have to do it. I mean, it’s your choice. Success is a choice. So, you know, I think the thing is is that I’ve had plenty of bosses who I didn’t particularly respect or like. Not plenty. I’ve had a few bosses that I didn’t particularly think had my best interest in mind. But that didn’t stop me from supporting that person. If he was in a position to be my boss, my job was to encourage and support him and make him look good. That was my job. And so I took that very seriously because that that that’s a reflection on me it’s not a reflection on him it’s a reflection on me and and so that builds my character and it builds my strength my reputation I’m gonna mention this but I’m not gonna mention the specific coach or the specific team because I don’t want to get you in trouble here but you played for a guy allegedly who was a likes to curse guy likes to just freak out all the time in practice and yell at everybody. The point where you- I had a couple of those guys. Okay, to a point where it become almost, the game of basketball could almost become miserable because of just the joy-sucking, hate-filled animosity anger thing is going on here. How did you process that in an uncommon way? Like how did you try to deal with that adversity in a way that was still high character? How do you do that? You just always reflect love. And like I said, they’re still your boss. Okay. You know, your job is to make them look good. That’s what you’re supposed to be doing. And so you never give hate back to hate. I mean, that creates a cycle that is unstoppable. It has a force of its own, its own life of its own. But as much as it’s in your power, you know, that’s why I love the Bible, because it just has this great common sense stuff. The Bible says, as much as it’s in your power, live at peace with all men. I mean, that’s a simple thing to do, right? So even if somebody is treating me wrong, it’s filling my power to live at peace with them. And if he’s my boss, it’s still my responsibility to work for him. Success is a choice. You make that choice. You decide whether you want to have that. And that’s not just business success. You know, it’s life success. It’s a mentality. You have success if you have peace today, joy in today. And you can have that, regardless of how mean your boss is or how unreasonable your boss is. You have a choice to have peace in that day. First one, number four, is there are no shortcuts to lasting success. One of my favorites. Now, David, George Washington Carver said that there is no shortcut to achievement. What did he mean by that? Wow, there is no shortcut to achievement. And if you go on that quote also says that, you know, veneer means nothing. There’s no shortcut to achievement. Every day, you have to do the little things. You have to do the little things to find success. It’s in your power, it’s in your choice to do these things. And if you want to be successful, you can’t cheat. There’s no other way to get there, but to do those little things. When you played in the NBA, one of the things that I know there’s always TV people that are critical of athletes, but one thing that people were never critical of was your work ethic. You were kind of almost a grinder. I mean, you were kind of like, you just would continue being relentless trying to get the rebound or trying to block the shot, and just the aggressiveness that you played with. You were kind of like a collison on the thunder almost, but you were like really talented and gifted in a lot of other areas where you had that freakish athleticism, but you also had that battering ram, I’m just gonna keep coming back, sort of mentality. Where did that come from, and how did that sort of, I think that, you didn’t have a shortcut. It seemed like you just grinded out every game. Yeah, that was my mentality. This is a principle I understood. I never felt like I was going to pass people up. There were many times in college, in high school and in college, where guys were much more talented than me. I remember seeing guys who had incredible handles, 6’10”, could do all kinds of things, 6’11”, or guys who could shoot the ball beautifully. And I was an okay shooter. I was more of a scorer. I just attacked the ball, the basket relentlessly. But I never felt like I was necessarily more gifted than everybody else. I just felt like if I wanted to beat them, they were gonna have to overcome my will. That was what I had more than anything. So I just, that was my mentality. Take one step, keep taking another step, and never stop. So that relentless understanding, hey, there’s no shortcut to getting here. I, you know, they’re not guaranteed, I’m not guaranteed, but only one of us is gonna get there. So we’ve gotta take the steps to get there. And if you cheat your way there, sooner or later somebody’s gonna come along who’s a better cheater than you and he’s gonna cheat your stuff from you. So you know you but if you go up there and you earn your stuff even if you lose your fortune you’ll be right back. Now did you how would you if you had to rate your own handle on a scale of one to your ability to dribble on a scale of one to ten, ten being like just ridiculous and one being you know very new to the dribbling a basketball how would you rate your ball handling skills? How would I rate my own ball handling skills? Yeah I’m just curious how you would i would say i was somewhere in the five department probably with the ball you were relentless but attacking the ramp so absolutely although i was going to take it from the if i had to troubles or less if i had to bring the ball up i was in some serious trouble of challenges like a notch in a frenchman dot so that one while uh… i did occasionally take the ball coast to coast that was not my strength. So I tried to stick within my strength. I just love the fact that you were aware, you were self-aware, and you’re like, hey, I’m not going to maybe dribble around you or be the most, I’m not going to cross you over, but you’re just going to relentlessly attack the rim. Exactly. You know, being self-aware I think is a real key to a lot of this. Understanding what your strengths are, what they aren’t, and playing to your strengths. I mean, sometimes we focus too much on what we can’t do and we try to spend a lot of our energy really Improving what we cannot do And I think that’s not an efficient use of your time if you are very good at something focus on your on your strengths You can build up your weaknesses, but focus on your strength now the final principle And there’s again there’s probably 50 principles. We could take from this guy’s incredible life Yeah, but the fifth principle is success is measured by your service Not measured by your bank account, so this is this is what he says. He says, it is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobiles one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. That means nothing. It is simply service that measures success. What does that quote mean specifically to you at this stage in your life? Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of quote where, I mean, we could talk about it all day and there’s still a lot of people that it just won’t sink in. Okay. I mean, it just isn’t. I mean, the whole idea of success is so intricately tied with what I have. It’s so, I mean, you go to a city like Los Angeles and, you know, hey, if you don’t drive a Mercedes, you’re not successful. I mean, it’s just, it’s big grain in the culture, you know? And, and so there’s this, so for some people, this is something that’s, you can’t even separate the two. But success really is about you being pleased with where you are and being pleased with what you have. If you have that, because the world can keep throwing things at you. I always like to think of it in terms of my faith. The devil always has something else to offer, right? So he can always offer something else. But that is not going to complete you. It’s just going to get you to the next stage where he’s got to entice you with the next bone. So you have to find peace in today. It’s measured by your service in what you’re able to do. I want to leave a legacy. I want to leave something behind that my children can carry on. I want to be remembered for something real, not how much money I had, because somebody else is going to take my money when I leave, or what kind of car I drove, because that car will be on the trash heap within the next few years. But by what I’ve left in people’s lives, that’s what’s going to be remembered. So you measure success by what you’re doing for people’s lives. That’s to you how you measure your – How I’m spending my talents, yes. That’s how I measure my success. That’s awesome. I think one thing that – there’s a huge principle on Thrive for anybody watching this is that every one of the Thrive mentors that we’ve assembled, you’ve used business as just a vehicle to get them from point A to point B. So as an example, if you’re watching this and you own a bakery or an insurance agency or you’re a sports agent or maybe you’re an athlete yourself, we view our jobs as just a vehicle to get us from where we are to where we want to be and how we can help and bless other people. That’s the whole idea. Because if you just collect a bunch of stuff and you die, there’s no real point to it. And business is a great vehicle. I mean, it’s a great tool. Not only is it fun to do and exciting and you learn a great deal and you can impact people through your business. I mean, if you provide diapers or you build homes, there’s a lot of wonderful businesses that you provide a great service. But in your life, your business is just one vehicle to express your talents. I don’t expect you to answer this question if you don’t want to, but I’m just going to ask, because some people have different views on this question. Some people say you should share your goals with everybody, and some people say, can I keep them kind of, you know. But if you had to measure your success at this point, because how old are you right now? I’m 48. 48. So you’re 48 and you’re kind of, let’s say, halfway there, you know. Do you look back and say, wow, that was awesome, or do you look forward and say there are so many great things to come? I’m more of a forward looker. You know, I look at the Bible and I see Paul, and Paul says, I count all things as lost. All things in the past, it’s done. I’m past all of that. It was wonderful. It allowed me to get to where I am today. But I anxiously reached forward. I look forward to all the things that God has still for me. I just think there’s a road out there, and it’s wide open. And there’s just wonderful things. I still have something left to give, I hope. So that’s what’s exciting to me. When I retired from basketball, I remember the very last day. And we won the championship in 2003. I was so excited. And I remember sitting in that press conference, and I was ready to retire. I had told people at the beginning of the year, I’m retiring at the end of the year. So this is it. This is my last run. So when the game ended, I was very excited. I thought, OK, that phase of my life is over. I’m excited. I’m moving forward. And at the press conference, one of the reporters asked me, aren’t you going to be so sad now? This is gone. This whole this all this is what you, you know, what you were all this excitement and all of this celebration. It’s all over now. Aren’t you going to be aren’t you going to really miss this? And I just thought to myself, what a crazy question. I have so much to look forward to. I get to go home and be a dad to my children now. I get to watch them go off to college. I mean I get to spend time with them and invest in their lives. I get to go be a husband now, which for the last 14 years I see my wife every once in a while. So now I got to actually be a husband and who knows what business things God has out for me. Who knows what’s out there. What’s in front of me is far more exciting. You know what I had, that was great, but you know next year somebody else is going to win the championship and they’re going to take this trophy out of my hands. This stuff is wonderful, but it’s gone. It’s time to move on. And so, that to me is what is exciting, what lies ahead. So what is your big goal for this year, Super Dave? What is the goal for this year, 2014? What are we trying to do? Really, I’m in a phase right now where my family is at the top of my list. So my goal this year is to continue to grow in a wonderful relationship with my wife and to get my last child off to college and move to this, what they call the empty nest phase, which I’m very excited about. So that would be my biggest goal is to bless my last son, my third son, and get him off to college. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your heart. It means the world to all of us here. Thank you so much. Thanks, Clay. Appreciate it. Take care. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion Would you need profits to get your team to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business, but you have 15 million dollars of expenses It’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right. So the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they understand how you said the website The three is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas No, that’s that’s clear. Okay, so that that could be a deck of be true So I would encourage everybody check out thrive timeshow.com Ford slash credit dash cards right time show.com board slash credit dash card What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees. Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. We get in there. We get in there. There’s probably some someone out there. Okay. I would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. It’s because you can compare rates, you can save money, and you know, the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to to see if they could save a total of three thousand dollars a year on average i am at a loss and i cannot think of any other shampoo is better i go on first and clean the hair conditioner is better i leave the hair silky and smooth oh really fool, really stop looking at me, Swan! Let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, you know, like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Yeah. Oh, God. No. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question. What’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod. Do we have it? The brand name of the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. All right. Let’s go, let’s go. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So, what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And it’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews, that way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists, that way everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency and doing those has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase, month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy’s just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listened to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems 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 gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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 you’re like oh But we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their phone. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t, without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked. Now, so, I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7, 8 years and I’ve got doubled 5 times. Which is just incredible. I mean, the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating new, some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day on that script. Somebody out there is having a hard time. Call them script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011, maybe? Or maybe even further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012 and at that time I had five years removed from the deep from the DJ business And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software. It was about 10 11 years we met How did we remeet? What was the first interaction or some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to hideaway pizza, but you remember when we first reconnected. Yeah Well, we had that speaking thing that… Oh, there it was. So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses, implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then again the the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here you can’t you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence and then as your call to that standard here you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship, that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people. In short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay. I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day actually. I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. Then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.