The following article features a transcript of business coach Clay Clark, Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, and Clay Staires, The Millionaire School Teacher, talking about the wage cage trap on Thrive15.com, one of the most affordable business schools in Florida.
Clay Clark: If I’m watching this and I feel like maybe you how you felt, where I’m kind of stuck in a business coach wage cage or I guess I’m sacrificing the potential to make a lot of money for this maximum security of a salary, what would you encourage me to do? What should I do if I want to maybe make that jump from being a schoolteacher to becoming a millionaire. What would you recommend I do?
Clay Staires: I think first of all I would be doing cartwheels just in celebration that if you were in the wage cage that you even knew that it was possible to do better. See, that’s where I was trapped. It’s not like everybody out there in the wage cage is going, “Oh, I wish I could get free and use my wonder twin powers.” They don’t even know. They don’t even catch it, Clay. I mean they are locked in. This is how the world works, you know? This is my paycheck, and I have to make my life fit in this paycheck. If somebody else comes along and says, “Well, you know you can do better than that.” They go, “No, you’re trying to sell me something. Get away” type of thing. My brain was so trapped that I didn’t even know there was another world. I didn’t know that there was another world available to me.
Clay Clark: Let me ask you this. If I’m watching this … I know you’ve read a lot of books that have made a big impact on your life. Is there a book or two you might recommend that I read if I’m watching this that might help me sort of break out of that wage cage? I mean do you like T. Harv Eker’s books? What’s a book that you might recommend?
Clay Staires: I would say the very first book that I dove into was a bbook called “Think and Grow Rich,” by quasi business coach Napoleon Hill.
Clay Clark: Oh, really?
Clay Staires: You’ve heard of that before.
Clay Clark: There you go, my business coach.
Clay Staires: There you go. You might have heard of that. As a matter of fact, I just went to a birthday party this evening and gave that book to a kid who was turning 30 years old.
Clay Clark: Boom!
Clay Staires: Bam! Because his whole idea is he’s wanting to be entrepreneur. He’s wanting to move forward. He’s beginning to feel this wage cage himself. I said, “Man, to start your journey, do as I do as a business coach.”
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Clay Clark: I’ve interviewed so many people about their path from poverty or their path from kind of average income to something sensational, and I hear that business coach book all the time. “Think and Grow Rich.”
Clay Staires: Clay, I’m reading that book now. I’m sitting on the beach down at Mobile, Alabama. I’m sitting down there, and I’m reading this thing, and it is so offensive to my brain. It just doesn’t fit. I actually scream a few times. My wife is, “Hey, are you okay?” I’m going, “I’m gonna be fine.” I throw the book down into the sand. I’m picking the thing back up because I’m going, “Augh! I’ve got to get this thing into my head,” because it was so outside the box for me. I mean I was chained in the wage cage. I never did know that there was a world available to me. Now for you that would be great. For other people, it was like everybody else had this pixie dust, and it was possible for them.
Clay Clark: I know when I read the book for the first time it felt like … You know, I have pretty poor vision, but when I put on my glasses for the first time, it allowed me to see clearly where I was going. Wow! I can’t believe what I’ve been missing. That’s how I felt when I read that book.
Clay Staires: It just pissed me off.
Clay Clark: Really?
Clay Staires: The whole thing. The whole thing just pissed me off. It just made me mad. Then after that I jumped into “The Millionaire Mindset” by T. Harve Eker. That came across a little bit better. All of a sudden I was going, “Okay, that thing go me all worked up. The first book got me all worked up. T. Harve Eker came in and actually started putting some legs on it. Then I ended up going to a weekend intensive down in Dallas. Holy Cow!
Clay Clark: Wash that good?
Clay Staires: Oh, yes! I mean that weekend I know will continue to be for the rest of my life a real signpost, a real change of direction for me.
Clay Clark: Does your wife recognize … Did she recognize there was a huge change when you went to that conference?
Clay Staires: Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. Because I came back and I mean I was all T. Harve. I was kind of wearing his shirt, had the face on it. It was kind of scary. I spent the first four months when I came back every morning out on our back porch, sitting with my hand over my heart, just speaking all of the wealth mindset to retrain my brain. That thing rocked me, just really messed me up. It was when I came out of that that I actually saw for the first time that it was possible.
Clay Clark: I think what’s amazing is that we can be going through life, and there can be something that can be introduced, just a new thought, and it can serve as a catalyst that can forever change the direction that we’re headed. That is just awesome. Clay, now you have a great website people can go to if they want to get your book and learn more about you. It’s claystaires.com.
Clay Staires: That’s right.
Clay Clark: What’s the title of your book?
Clay Staires: My book is entitled “Grow.” It’s a field guide to personal development. Clay, if you’re wanting to grow, if you’re wanting to expand, if you’re wanting to increase your capacity to process more complexity, then I can guarantee you this is the path you’re going to go on. It might look a little different for you than it did for me, but the signposts are going to be the same for every single person. It’s a wonderful field guide to know what should I expect. Even as you read through the book, you’re going to be able to discover. I’m right here in chapter 4. This is where I am. You can look at chapters 5, 6, and 7 and say, “Okay. Now this stuff is coming up. I can be prepared for it, so when it does come up I don’t just fall apart and start sucking my thumb. Not that you’ve ever done that.
Clay Clark: No, no.
Clay Staires: I did it all.
Clay Clark: I appreciate you so much for giving up your time here. I know you’ve got a lot of things going on with the family and the business and the speaking and the traveling. I just again want to tell you thank you for taking time out of your schedule to mentor people that maybe haven’t had the epiphany yet or maybe feel that the need to hear a story like this. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
Clay Staires: It’s great to be here, Clay. Thank you.