Highest and Best | Life Optimization with Vanessa Clark

Audio Transcription

Welcome back to the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download, and for those of you who are just now finding our show for the first time on itunes or spotify, welcome to the thrive time show. Here. We’re focused on teaching you how to build a successful business, but why? What we’re trying to help you have success in the f six life. We want you to have success in the areas of faith and your family and your finances and your fitness and your friendship and your fun and so when possible, we have my wife on the show, Vanessa Clark. We’ve been married for 17 years and on today’s show she is talking about operating at your highest and best. Now this applies to you whether you’re talking about your marriage or your business or any aspect of your life you want to. It’s called the parade toe principle.

And the Credo principle is basically a principle that points out that 20 percent of your effort usually produces 80 percent of your results as an example, like if you have a team in your office, usually your top 20 percent of of employees does 80 percent of the work. Um, if you have a business, usually your top 20 percent of customers by 80 percent of your products. Typically if you look at a sports team, the top 20 percent of fans by 80 percent of the apparel, typically 80 percent of where you’re spending your time is a waste of time. And so at Predo pointed out was that if you could take 80 percent of your time and focus it on the 20 percent of the things that move the needle the most, you would really get a lot done. So, Vanessa, welcome onto the show. How are you this morning? I’m doing great. Awesome. Awesome. So, okay, talk. Talk to us about this operating at your highest and best. Why are you passionate about this subject?

I think it’s just because we all are limited by this. The same thing, you know, space and time. We can only be in one place at a time continuum. Exactly. And you know right now I. I’m pretty excited because last night our three of our children performed at the drillers game, cheerleading and I was expressing to Calais how much joy this has brought me to have three little cheerleaders. I was like, God just gave me a great gift. You know, we put our first and tumbling when she was younger, a Havana, and she just didn’t like it. So I’m like, yes, Michael, it’s not do this like this. This isn’t what you’re all about. But you know, again, we’re limited by space in time and there’s only so many things I could be doing. And I was just thinking how grateful I was to be able to be at that event or any of the events or practices that I’m able to with those kids. No one else can be me for those three girls at that place. Does that make sense? But someone else can be, you know, running errands, doing bank deposits, I’m cleaning the home. Other things. So just, I think really thinking about in your business, in your life, in your home, in your relationships, what are the things that only you can bring and deliver on and that’s what you need to be doing

and when you have seven principles you’re going to be teaching us today. So we’ll go through the principles. One by one I’ll read off the principal and then uh, uh, Vanessa want you to break it down and then you can interrogate my wife relentlessly about what this principle means. Okay, let’s do it. And then Steve, you can sort of just our ridicule saying Eric Chop throughout the show outside figure was my role. Okay, here we go. So principle number one, there are a lot of things you can be doing, but you want to be doing what your highest and best use is. So give us an example of Vanessa and the world of business where there’s a lot of things you could be doing but you maybe shouldn’t be doing it.

I think you and I did this for awhile, is that, um, you know, as a small business owner, you wear so many hats and in the beginning it is just you. So in, in the beginning it was you and I and we had to get it all done and we did, but at certain point, you know, I think that maybe you are doing some things or I were doing some things that maybe weren’t our highest and best you. We used to sit down and do accounting together and you know, he’s a great salesperson and the best thing for him to be doing is being out there selling, yeah. Getting in front of um, customers, potential customers and he is a phenomenal edit. And we did a great job doing accounting together. But I just took away time and it wasn’t until years later that we really.

Well, what I want to explain that this is, this is the dynamic, um, years ago we first got married. We were living in an apartment and Vanessa nigh as a couple decided to not turn on the air conditioning to save money. We’re living on the second floor of an apartment behind the Marriott hotel at oral Roberts near Oral Roberts University over 71st. And because we ate at 71st and Lewis, if you look up to that, that Marriott Hotel, you can find it. I think now it’s like a crown plaza or something or. Anyway, so that’s where we lived in this apartment complex and we’re trying to save money, you know. So we had one car, we’d, we’d walk to Walmart all the time. We got these ninety six cent ninety six cent chicken, put it in the budget. Gore may section, which is a contradiction in terms the budget gourmet. It’s not possible in America.

So we went in there to get our 96. I mean, I’m not kidding, you look at the thing that had like 75 percent of your sodium for the day. The year in one serving had two servings in it and it was ninety six cents and it was just horrible for you. But is 96 sentences food. Right. And so we, we did that. We walked though to a walmart to say money. We turned off the air condition to save money. We, uh, she worked at office depot and Oru. She cheered while she’s going to school. Um, then I worked at applebee’s and target and direct TV always had two or three jobs going at one time. And so we’re, we’re really a delaying gratification living below our means. And uh, one area where I thought I could really save some money was a haircut. Uh, even even to this day, I don’t enjoy haircuts.

Um, I don’t enjoy. Again, you were talking about, you’re talking, you’re hearing from a guy who, you know, I don’t like, you know, vacations or, or, or games, board games, board games. So I don’t like a lot of things. There’s probably 95 percent of things in the world I don’t like. And there’s maybe just a sprinkling of things I do like sprinkles. Yeah. He loves to bring you back. I’m saying is for me haircuts, I would always just go to the first place available and I’d say just cut it how you want it. They’re like serious. Oh yeah. Just two on the sides. Leave me. So in the front, let’s move on,

I’d like to add a tip, but you know, this is when we were coming out of him being kicked out of. Oh, are you? And uh, so we’re, we’re just college kids and at Oru I believe, was it Jake Aldridge? He invented my haircut called the duck, but I think it cut your hair. So you had been getting free haircuts are trading out on something. Okay. So for a long period of time. And so now we’re married and he’d been used to some guy in the dorm cutting your hair and cut.

You put a two on the sides, you know, you do too. And then you leave some hair in the front. The rest of it’s pretty much like a shaved head with little hair in the front. That’s it. That’s it. It’s called. It was called the duck, but that’s right. And I, I did that move for years and, and so we built elephant in the room. Some of the things as Justin and I were working on building the brand together. It’s a men’s grooming lounge. We, he just had me make a list of things I hated and we did this together, brainstorming and I’m like, I hate all the magazines. I hate like people magazine US weekly. The only thing that I don’t care about, like the thing I care about the least probably in the world is anything related to celebrity gossip. I just don’t care.

I don’t care. Like if they said Ah, if an article came out, all the celebrities died. Okay. Like are all celebrities are having an affair? Cool. I don’t care. I have no interest in that topic. So. But that’s what you sit down. It’s like us weekly. It’s a Kim Kardashian and Kanye and then you’re sitting on blue chairs. Those little school chairs don’t like those little third grade chairs. I don’t like those things didn’t like school and I like the chairs that reminded me of school don’t like that, don’t like linoleum now that I know at granted is Vanessa introduced me to Grande. I hate linoleum. Step Up. I don’t like anything that’s plastic. I hate plastic things. They’re just kind of gross and tacky. I don’t like it. So basically I don’t like all the options. So I said, Vanessa, could you cut my hair? By the way, that’s why elephant the room is the opposite of that is just an eye. Both hated the average hair experience. So I’m. So I said, Vanessa, will you cut my hair? And she’s like,

no, I think I had a choice. It was like, no, they’re cutting my hair.

Remember it, remember it? No, this way did. I went to target and I bought the machine that cuts hair for like 60 bucks. I still have it in the bathtub. The, it’s like this buzzer.

That’s a really loud buzzer.

Hey Vanessa. I bought this thing for like 60 bucks, which is a big purchase for us at time and it’s like, you know, the cost of six haircuts, but can you cut my hair for me? And she’s like, I don’t know, I, I, I dunno, I dunno if I’d really want to do that. I just. And I said, come on. She said, no, come on. No, this is how I got married by the way too. I’m not kidding. I asked her when she asked her if she wanted to get married and the entire time she’s like, well, after college, but come on tomorrow. I’m did we not? Did I not have to. It was probably a three month sales pitch to get her to marry me. So that was the deal. But the point is that I’m like, come on, come on, you know you want to cut my hair, you, you were born to cut here.

You have a here passion. Look at those hands. Those hands are just as all you have to do. You know, you instructed me, it was really easy. Just do this side and then on top make the duck, but where it switches up and nuts and you had like this level here, a certain number in this level here. How can I mess it up? He goes, man, let’s go on. And somehow she’s like cutting me. That’s like, it’s like you’re petty, but it’s like you’re petting a cat. Backwards is going against the grain. It’s pulling my hairs out. She turned into a torture setting. She turns like pulling here. It’s like, yeah, that’s what he’s doing. He’s yelling at me when I’m cutting his hair saying you’re face down in the sink. Yeah. Oh, but then she’s like, well, look on if you want me, if you don’t like it then you can go get your haircut somewhere else.

I’m like, no, you will cut my hair. I hated it because I’m like, I just get yelled at. I don’t even want to cut it. Like I don’t even want to. I’m afraid. Every time I tried to save it buddies a head in high school and I somehow messed it up like it was all streaky and I took a big dividends, so every time I get razor burns necessarily, please don’t make me do it. No Way. Come on, cut my hair, please, please. There’ll be different this time. And he’s like, okay. He kept insisting that it was pulling the hairs out one by one. I’m like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about it as a machine, like there’s nothing else to add it in good for two years because chuck, I’m a quick learner, right? About two years of that I thought, Gosh, about every 30 days I make my wife crazy and it’s always around the same time.

In fact, it’s the same within the same 10 minute window. Who am I going hurt when I get my hair cut, steve? Right. So that’s like, if I had to narrow it down to one particular thing that’s really making my wife mad, what could it be? I don’t know. I don’t really know. Turning on the haircut thing sounds like a really long story short. I decided to get my haircut somewhere else and I think Vanessa probably shed a tear of joy as like, thank you so much. That was not my highest and best use. And so again, I’m asking you rhetorically thrive nation. What is one area of your life right now where you’re just wasting huge amounts of time? Chuck, you’ve seen your parents run a business, you were part of running the business. What are areas as a business coaching where you see a lot of your clients before you help them wasting massive amounts of time? No. Um, one big thing is, and, and like Vanessa said a minute ago, as your, as a startup, you got to wear all the hats, you’re doing everything, but a lot of people get stuck either like cleaning their office or cleaning things or they just don’t clean and that’s disgusting. So that’s not good either. A lot of paperwork, phone calls, answering emails, a lot of that administrative work that needs to be some of the stuff you get off of your plate because it is not your highest and best use.

And I think sometimes people struggle with as you grow, when is it time to take off that hat and give it to someone else and how, what does that look like? How do you do it?

Can I share one more thing that I, that I want to. Because you’re talking about hats and take it hats off. I think it’s important to hear is it like there’s got to be something. You’ve got to just think about it. Think just take a Meta moment. You got to think about it and go, what

am I doing? Do I need to stop doing? And Vanessa can chime in here because this is like, you’re so busy working, you won’t see it, but I know and I had this revelation so when I came back to help out a lot more at the office, I feel really confident in doing what I do with the finances. Right. And I and I, I love the accounting firm we work with, have, I feel very confident in that area, but I would be there during the day when my kids were with their teacher, Ms Dot Christy and I loved that I could be at my kid’s lessons with them and so I can also be with my kids. I’d come home and guess what? The house was a mess because no one had cleaned that when we were gone. Right. I mean it doesn’t clean it

clean itself. And I started getting really frustrated with the situation and I’d be like, can you help me? Can you help?

I will never help. I’m not in ever. I will never listen here. Our nation. I will never help. Never. I was never helped do it

fine. But I had a revelation. I realized. I told my friend, I said, I think I should just hire someone 100 percent. Dude, you should hire someone. She’s like, how would you do it? You’re not there. And I was like, that’s so true. I wouldn’t say this.

I have. I. Vanessa knows I don’t mow lawns. I don’t. I’m not going to do laundry or mow a lawn. I think it’s a complete waste of time. You hire motown, Tulsa to do it. I’m not going to do it though. I’m just not. I am not going to go out there and mow a lawn now. Chuck knows there’s one time I did mow and I parked my son’s mower to just because my son at the time is 10. Like how hard can it be to write a mower? Will they call that mower the Funky firestarter? Are you talking about on? You burned down the yard. I’m writing a mower over a pile of leaves and somehow the friction, it causes a fire, a literal fire underneath the deck of the morning.

Oh my gosh. Be back out the window and were the kids

didn’t, not a little blase, but a massive tree. Still have scars. I think a lot of listeners like burn victims listeners are trying to find time freedom and they’re not asking themselves the right question. The right question is what do you need to stop doing? What is think about your clients? Yep. I’m going to think about things in all of our clients should stop doing right now. That will for sure. Save every one of our listeners at least 10 hours a week. Here we go. Give it to you right now. Stop checking your email during the day. Stop it. Just stop. Just stop interviewing every job. Candidate one at a time. Interview as a group, a group interview. Yeah, and if you have leads, you need to check. Have your leads go to your phone or wherever you need to be on. If you to answer them, if you need to call the leads right away.

Have just the leads. Go to your phone, but your general email do not have it. Go out of that thing. I’m never under any circumstance. Go on facebook, ever, never go on facebook ever until you have your stuff done, whatever that is, so if you need to take your spouse on a date, you need to read your Bible. You need to do your homework, you need to do your schoolwork, you need to sell something, you need to get your mortgage bill page, need to do laundry whenever you need to do to all that first and do not go on social media. Don’t go on facebook or any other social media platform at all, and so you’ve got that done and for the love of God is holy turn those notifications, all of jumps on facebook.

Oh, whoops. Oh, that was updating what you were saying. No, I got another one. This sounds counter intuitive, but you will actually save a ton of time by starting to look at your finances weekly instead of waiting until there’s a crisis or an emergency or once a year and you spend 40 hours trying to figure out what’s going on. So if you’ll just stay on top of it for 15 minutes a week, it’ll actually save you time.

These are all things that will save you time, other things that will save you time. Never ever, ever stop advertising, never, ever, ever stop advertising because if you ever stop advertising, what happens is now you have to deal with weird clients because you don’t have enough to choose from. I talked to a lady the other day who was a interior designer and interior designer and uh, she is dealing with verbally abusive clients and she owned. He has to take them because it’s the only business she has. So she said on the clients that I have, like I, I can’t say no to them because they only have a certain number of clients. And I said, well, do you advertise? She said, no. All my business is word of mouth. So she’s dealing with people that are verbally abusive and they’re referring them to their friends and people who are jerks hang around Europe. So again, never stopped.

I want to, I want to chime in on that point, how important that is. I was meeting with a company last week and they had the realization in our office at the table, I can fire this client that because they were. They’re coming in week after week complaining about this one client. I said, how much business do they do with you guys? They were like, man, they’re like one of our smallest, maybe a couple hundred bucks a month. I was like, what are you doing?

Put a link to it on the show notes. It’s the book is called the service profit chain. It’s a Harvard case study where they actually advocate firing the bottom two or three percent of your customers because they’re negative. They’re rude, they show up late. They are unreasonable. They demand things and unrealistic timeframes. Just get rid of those people. Now, principle number two, what is the f six life, a faith, family, fitness, finances, friendship, fun. I want you to rate yourself on a scale of one to 10, 10 being awesome in this and one being terrible. Okay, so let’s, let’s, let’s go ahead and take just a moment here and let’s take a moment. Get a piece of paper or maybe an etch, a sketch,

maybe a yellow pad. I want you to write on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest in one big, how highly would you rate your satisfaction with your performance in the area of your face? How highly would you rank your performance in the area of your family? On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest? Stop looking at the person’s favor. Next, don’t compete with them. With yourself. Fitness, on a scale of one, 10 fitness, a scale of one to 10, 10 is you are comped off your huge, unbelievable state. You have no body fat and then the one that’s okay. You’re just a shape on a scale of one to 10 finances it what? Finances. You have the money in the bank you need. You’re not stressed out about it one bit.

You got to sell something right now. There’s no way I could keep that meeting [inaudible]. I got to sell something.

Sweet. Let’s give them a 10. Rate yourself with your satisfaction to areas of your friendships. 10 being you have great friendships. You have are great by the way, it’s better to have fewer relationships and have deeper, better ones as opposed to a wide and a ton of acquaintances because the people on facebook aren’t actually your facebook friends. They’re called facebook acquaintance, photo trawlers, facebook. There are facebook, facebook, you like. Those are casual acquaintances that you have given your family photos too and because they are your. They checked the friend which actually is supposed to be to the acquaintance button, right? They now can look through all your family photos and make judgments and read through your posts and passively aggressively engage with you about political disputes that neither one of you can solve because you’re typing. They get more intense. You can post negative pictures of President Obama.

President trump. Go on tangents and you can take photos of yourself and heavily edit them so you look younger and slimmer and then every once in a while someone will post something that’s funny and that’s all that’s allowed. And facebook, he’s so big and then there’s fun. On a scale of one to 10, rate your fun. 10 being like you just, you’re so happy with UFC, a lot of fun. You enjoy your schedule, you love it, and one is everyday. It’s just an arduous, terrible soul sucking experience. You can’t finish suet. Vanessa, why is it so important?

Nobody self analyzes their happiness and satisfaction with their life in the all F six areas.

Well, I think that you can’t make any improvements towards where you want to go until you honestly assess where you are today and how that lines up to where you want to be. Maybe you are where you want to be a or maybe you say, you know what, I I’m way off course, or you know what? I’m making steps in the right direction, but I need to keep going, but you’ve got to keep that in focus or your ship will never get to the correct shore.

I’ve got a good notable quotable hood that pulls off that from Jack Welch. Jack Welch, he says, control your own destiny or someone else will, and this is a way to roadmap out your own destiny by checking in on these f six goals everyday. I’m just examples of things my wife and I have discovered over time together and I’m not saying this is what you should do. I’m just saying this is really important for you to ask yourself, um, when somebody like invites you to a wedding as an example, you don’t have to go, you know, you don’t have to go. But when we were first married because of the nature of sales and marketing and, and uh, what I do and, and I, we were getting invited to a lot of things. Like there was probably a time, you know, six years ago we were going to have to dinner like almost every.

It’s like every two nights, you know, dinner with people, you know, and I’m going to weddings. And so just now as we, as I, as I kind of more comfortable with knowing myself as I get older, um, I’m very comfortable with no with you knowing as a default that I don’t want to go to anything I think. But I think you know, that like anything at all I can by default it’s like, no. And I know that you’re also normal and would like to go to some things, so it’s kind of like we’ve had to find that balance that we’re always working towards. But I think if you’re not careful, if you have a business, I mean every business owner that I’ve met who has a lot of business, anyone who is doing millions of dollars of sales, they’re going to dinner at least two or three nights a week out with chamber events, political events.

Steve, you used to be the master of lunch. Did you not go on some serious copious, crazy amounts of lunch? They called you the lunch mastered and they were. You’re not the lunch king. No. Seriously. Yeah. You could tell by looking at me too, because I was a chubby man. I didn’t miss any meals. That sort of two lunches. I’d be like a soul to deals and eat two cheeseburgers. Setup pre, pre dinner, whopper waffle Lapa no, but Steve, seriously. Talk to me about that because you’re a mortgage guy and that’s what realtors want to do. All the realtors that aren’t selling any houses at all. You always want to take mortgage people to lunch and it’s just a mortgage. People that aren’t selling any mortgages take realtors out who aren’t doing anymore as the city of sales and they’re just having lunch and passing out cards and there’s the chamber events.

Yeah. Then there’s the rotary. Yup. Then there’s the realtor association. What’s the group called? A guitar. The Guitar. The Greater Tulsa Association of Realtors. Yeah. What else does it. There’s got to be humble or something. Young business. Oh yeah. There’s a type rose, the home builders association. There’s business after hours. Yeah. There’s all the business after. Then there’s other chambers because you’ve got to be a member of like jinx and Tulsa and bixby and broken Arrow because you can’t just be a member of. To quote the guy who said it and I want to quote the way he said it so that the listeners can hear what I thought and I just wish that he would’ve started off his talk by saying, hi everybody. I’m a jackass and so what I’m going to say next is wrong, but he didn’t, but this is what he said.

Is that a networking event? I wrote this down. I remember. Oh my gosh, this changes everything. I went to my first breakfast, a chamber event. It was in the morning. It was like at 7:00 AM at the Renaissance Hotel or something and this is what the guy says. The guy says, alright, did everybody. I wanted to let you know that if you’re not networking, you’re not working. He’s from India and I’m going, what did you just say? He’s said, if you’re not, I mean there’s hundreds of people, but I’m thinking, what did you just say? You said it a bunch. I was just talk was, if you’re not networking, you’re not working day there, dude. And I remember. No, seriously, Vanessa remembers this, so all of a sudden I’m like, oh my gosh. I gotta like I gotTa do thing. So I went to every breakfast for every chamber, every time, lunch, lunch, sometimes days that were jam packed with seven lunches later.

I’ve been ready to go to the fountains restaurant for lunch with one vendor that wanted to refer me and I’d have like three lunches in the same day. Then I would drive down the road, go to meet her dropoffs, nothing. Go to the renaissance dropoff stuff, go to five folks, drop off stuff. My entire day was spent doing that. Then I had an opportunity to, to have uh, uh, you know, kind of reflection and I was looking at my schedule and I stumbled upon a book called the ultimate sales machine where he talked about think about what you’re paying yourself per hour, you know, and if you want to make four grand a week, 40 hours a week, is it possible based upon what you’re doing? And if it’s not stopped doing that, I realized it’d be better for us just to spend more money on bridal shows instead of bridal show book, like 80 weddings.

And if I was a great network, I maybe got one referral from a networking event. So I stopped doing that and what Vanessa was talking about, his reflection. And so jump Ray Dalio has a notable quotable. Can you read that to us? He says, the most valuable habit I’ve acquired as using pain to trigger quality reflections. If you can acquire this habit yourself, you will learn what causes your pain and what you can do about it, and it will have an enormous impact on your effectiveness. Is that what you’re always slapping yourself at your. Okay? Yep. That’s fine. For those who don’t know who ray Dalio is, he is a billionaire investor and arguably the most successful hedge fund manager of all time and anytime he encounters a bad thing in his life, he always asks himself, how can I make sure this doesn’t happen again? And he does it on a daily basis when she feels is like a secret principle number three, Vanessa, you will make progress more quickly, more quickly towards your goal. When you focus on less things, you will make progress more quickly towards your goal. When you focus on doing less things, what are you talking about? Staying

focused. So first, like we said, identifying the things that you actually need to be doing that are your highest and best not doing the things that you can have someone else do, they can assist you in, but then putting your full focus towards the things that you need to be doing and you’re going to accelerate that much more quickly. Like I said, when when we separate it out and clay is a 100 percent sales, I’m 100 percent accounting. We both had more success than it. Then it’s like, hey, your sales. But then also

dabble a little bit in accounting here and there. It was harder for him and I would say the only reason that my wife and I can do that and why most of our listeners can’t, is it, I think my wife is the best person in the world at that. Like I would hire her. So out of a group of like a thousand people I interviewed, I would hire her. Uh, yesterday my daughter and I were talking, we were research where all the good conversations happen and the conversation about like, you know, because she’s 13, you know, tuck it a little bit about, you know, this guy at school and what’s he doing? What’s going on? I said, hey, well we’ll live. What’s his name? He’s still say it. Don’t say no. Just kidding. No, no, no. I said little unsolicited unsolicited advice here. This is where I’m gonna. Tell you advice. I said, listen, you have debt advice. Well, it takes me about 30 seconds to arrogant. Like he’ll say a joke and then I’ll go, wait for it, wait for it, wait for my mind is going.

And then I did that right away. Every

time I look at chop because he’s like a walking, he’s so funny. Screw off. But now here’s the deal. I was just telling her, I said, hey, you know, when you start dating people, you never ever want to date somebody without ambition ever. Because if people want to have success but they don’t have a work ethic, it’s not, don’t do it. So don’t. Second, I said, the only reason that I married your mom is I like her brain and I liked her salt. That’s it. And she’s like, what? I’m like, well, because like if she got in a car accident and her face was mangled, it wouldn’t impact why I love my wife. There’s no I don’t. I honestly, that’s what I am attracted to my to my wife. That’s what attracts me to my wife. She’s very, you’re very worked up. No, you’re very good though.

Sure. It’s smart. Like we’re on a. We went on our second date, we went to Friday’s and our first date was at a zoo. Does he goes, it was, it was a Unos, Uno’s pizzeria and then she didn’t talk at all during that date because he didn’t, he just looked at me and I thought, why am I here? What am I doing? He was like, am I being sold right now? But then. But then we went on our next date to Fridays because I was classy and I had gift certificates from Tina and my uncle Ron. I went there and we were on that date and she said something like, you know, I feel like such and such and such a sage, and so not wanting to seem dumb. I’m, I’m thinking myself, what is that word? So the rest of the night we were talking, I kept thinking like, don’t forget that word.

I need to look it up. So I go back to my dorm room, I look up the word sage and the word sage is in reference to somebody who has a disproportionate amount of knowledge about something. Somebody who is kind of like a wizard of that topic. It’s somebody who is, um, a really a genius. It’s like sage wisdom, you know, and it long story short is, is I never heard the term, let alone, didn’t really know how to use it in a sentence, you know, and over time, um, I thought to myself, Gosh, that’s a, that’s an incredible word. A sage taught me the word sage, a person who’s regarded as being wise then Vanessa, because of the way she was raised as a kid. There’s a lot of stuff that happened in the family. And she chose to take her time where she could be complaining or whining about how life was working at the time or what was going on with her family rather than complaining about some of the marital issues that were going on with her family as a kid. She decided to pour her time into reading books and listening to Dr. Laura. Vanessa, can you talk about your time listening to Dr Laura and reading books?

Oh, reading books. I think they came because we just had so many of them in the house on these topics it seemed like. So I really did read them. And I think that in a way you’re an outsider when you’re a kid and you’re watching these things, you’re, you’re, you’re an insider because you’re in the family, but you’re an outsider because it’s your parents. And so the one thing I, you know, every kid wants this for their parents to be able to get along. And so I just remember reading those books and thinking I’m never going to get married. I didn’t. But I thought, what if I do like, I’m going to make sure, like I’m the best

you ran all these books and I’m, I was somebody who really didn’t start reading anything until my senior year of college because I finished classes early in Minnesota. If, if you want to take your high school faster you can. So I was essentially done with high school as a junior in high school. So my senior year, you can’t leave though, you have to go to college classes, but you can actually graduate until you’re, it’s ridiculous. So I uh, went to college at St, cloud state and I started reading Newsweek. It was my first and then writers. I read articles about certain famous people I think, wow, I wonder what else there is about that person. I’d read more and that was Kinda the first time I started reading was probably my senior year. So it’s probably, you know, 10 years behind her in terms of reading and acquiring knowledge. But the point is, is that I, I really didn’t have a profound knowledge of, of how life worked. I didn’t really know anything about anything. I just wasn’t ambitious, I had a goal, but I didn’t really know much about anything and so what attracted me to Vanessa was that she seemed to know more about life than everybody else because the guy’s dorm, a chap. I want to give up the listeners kind of a sneak a look into the guy’s dorm. This.

No, seriously, this is what would happen in the guy’s dorm on a, on a, on a desert. Just a typical day. This is one. One day, knock on the door. Hey, what’s going on? And a guy say a guy, we’ll call him chuck. We’ll call him mark. Okay. Now that guy knocks on the door, got on the guy down the hall. I don’t want get to our, our, my former roommates in trouble. So I’m just making up the names here. So this is a different guy. My roommate, his name was mark, but this is a different person. Mind he knocks on the door and I said, hey, what’s going on? And I look and he’s naked. I get totally naked. And he says, yeah, I want to come in here and play some video games. So I don’t own any video games, I don’t play them, but my roommate did, so he sits down completely naked on my pillow there and he says, Hey, so uh, I need to start talking and I’m going, dude, you have to get out of here and you’re sitting, you’re naked, but on my pillow.

And he says, that’s how you get pink eye man. No, he says, he goes, he says, he says, oh, okay, sorry about that. That he moves over and sits on my rest of my bed naked and I’m going, what? In the what in the world? Like I hate, I hate nudity. I hate swimming. I hate swimming with other men. I hate seeing men without clothes on. I hate. I don’t like swimming. I don’t see myself naked or anyone else under any circumstance. I can’t stay at. I don’t like, I don’t like men who are running up running down riverside without a shirt on. It’s not that hot. Steve, put your shirt back on police. No, but seriously, I can’t stay. I don’t like watching guys down. Riverside running without shirts on. I just, I can’t sit there. I don’t like parks and rivers and places of gathering because people would always, oh, it’s so hot.

I should take my shirt off. No, actually it’s a lot of people still have their shirt on wall, same temperature. But anyway, I just don’t like it. So anyway, the point is then I’m thinking to myself, this is, this is terrible. It’s like my first day of college, so I go down into the bathrooms and there’s a guy there shaving his face. His name was nate and I’m like, nick was one year older than me and I’m like, Hey, is this normal for everyone to be naked all the time? And he’s like, dude, it’s college man. Just got used to it. And I just. Why I hated sports. I hated football locker room. Hey, I locker rooms. I hate cultures. Where’s the gun in our dorms? Um, who’s big guy who used to grab your nipple and twist and he goes to go purple Nurple, but he’s a senior in college.

All these things. But he wasn’t, she was like, listen, he’s a senior in college and he’s finding freshman and twisting their nipples. Then at the second day of college too, well, he’s doing it like, listen, this is, this is 100 percent real the second day, so I’m trying to go to sleep. I always go to sleep early and get up early. I wake up like at three or four in the morning, go to bed like at 10. It’s like three in the morning and the guys, you can still hear him down the hall going, who wants to do. I have some beer and some there. Just yelling all the time. Basis all the time. Music’s playing overhead. I can’t share a bathroom with even my wife today. I hated college. I hated every single person I went to college with. I will say he didn’t have a single roommate that lasted.

I hate. I hate it. Every one I disliked, every disappeared. I disliked every single aspect of college. Then the next morning I wake up. I got to class like a nine. I can’t stand late. People. Every guy goes to class late. All of them are late and none of them care and they’re all sitting in the back sleeping. I’m like, if I’m paying to go to my own, if I’m paying for college, why the crap that I sit in the back? So I sit up front and I asked questions and I have some Jack ass professor. True Story. This is humanities teacher. He says, well, if you would have read the book, then you would know about the Monroe doctrine. And I said, I remember this was a big deal, and I said, hey, brushed her domus does no one ever talks back to the professor and a group of 300 people.

I said, hey, I did read the chapter. I’ve circled the specific page here and I know it would freak you out to actually do your job, but I have a freaking question. If I’m paying thousands of dollars, I’m your boss, and he’s like to the office. We go, so we go to the office in the office. He’s continues to yell at me, and I said, listen, just because you hate your life and you hate your profession, you don’t make enough money. Doesn’t mean you need to bitch at me and other people. What the crap is wrong with you. Long story short, he goes, I’m going through a divorce. I’m like, of course you are. Who would it be married to you? Freaking idiot. True Story. When I got kicked by a desire, that’s what this is my first week of college, my first. Then it college. The entire time in college, everybody wants to play musical instruments for about a week, so you’ve got about 50 people who are trying to play the guitar for the first time so you get these people that they’re all trying to play the guitar shop.

Have you seen this? Every freshman guys trying to play the guitar and they all start for like a week. You have three chords down and they never pick it up again. Everyone’s trying to play the drums for a week and so you got that going on and then these are the kinds of conversations that are happening at night. Every night there’s a guy that lived across the hall from me, he says, so here’s the deal. I’m going to tell her like four or five guys are gathered around, two guys are playing video games. The other three are kind of listening. He’s like, right, I’m going to tell her I love her because that’s when the panties drop and we’re at a Christian college and I’m like, you can’t do that. He goes, no, no dude, it works when you tell them you love her. It happens every time and I’m like, you’re the worst person ever.

The other guy next to him says, what I like to do is you invite girls on a date and then we take them to a hot tub, but I didn’t invite them so they don’t have a swimming suit and that that has like a 50 slash 50 chance of getting weird diabolical. And I’m like, but they always do this. All of them let me. There was like, I could think of maybe five guys on my floor. I, Jacob Odom, Adam Guthman, good people. There was like about five or six guys that were good people, but the rest of them I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I, I seriously wouldn’t shake their hand. And they’re like, once it started that burger place know what guys. No, that wasn’t good except it was like they started the burger place. I’m just saying though, is that like I would hire you like that’s I would hire you to do the job and a lot of people, their, their, their husband is not good at math and he’s lazy and you’re having him do the accounting and jump. You see that all the time, not all the time. And if you have your lazy husband who’s not good at math, do accounting, how’s that going to go? It’s terrible and it’s either going to ruin your business or your relationship or both. Most likely. Or if you have your sarcastic daughter making the sales calls, how does that go? Terribly, right? I mean how does it go? It’s all. It’s awful because a year, it’s

weird. You’re. If you’re not going to hold her accountable, so they need to get out of that spot in the first place.

I’ll speak to this, of all the business coaching clients I’ve ever coached in the past 12 years, I would say 80 percent of them are failing because they’ve hired a dysfunctional member of their family to do a core task and they’re terrible and they have the courage to yell at them, but not to fire them. Yeah, so I’ve had a client recently, this was probably about a year ago, interesting story. We were talking and I said, do you understand that she is so bad at sales, we’re, we’re, we’re listening to the recorded calls and when you hear the recorded calls, I mean chapters. No, you can’t deny what’s going on. That’s the truth. And I said, do you realize this person is so bad at their job, they’d be fired from any other job and you are killing your business. And he’s like, well, I pay her $600 a week, and I said, here’s what I want you to do. Go to her office and say I’m going to pay you $610 a week, but you have to promise to never come to my office. That’s awesome. Yes, and he says, that’s right, I’m doing it and I’ve used that move at least a dozen times, at least a dozen times since I’ve been business coaching. Do this for 12 years, at least once a year we do that where we just pay a family member to go away and it is awesome

and when the business grows, you replace that money very quickly. When you see how bad of a job they were. Actually.

What if Vanessa wasn’t good at accounting? So if you’re out there listening and you’re like, oh, I wish with my husband and I will do that, I’ll do accounting and he’ll do sales or vice versa. That would not work. If I wasn’t awesome at sales and she wasn’t awesome at accounting.

I’ve done that in multiple family businesses and now I get paid about $3,000 a month to not go to a bunch of businesses. So it’s amazing. It’s like a passive income and really work it out. It’s a passive, but you have

to be honest with yourself and your team. Is this member of your team good at their job? And I just say Vanessa could get a job tomorrow. She has, she has a degree. Uh, I mean we just finished selling a home that Vanessa completely renovated every time that she does the decoration or design of a house, it turns out great. She can be a home flipper. I mean she has a lot of skills that she has and that’s why she has the job. I didn’t, she doesn’t have the job just because we’re married and that’s really the only reason I married her is because she’s wise. That’s it. So I just want to share with listeners out there. She’s a wise woman now. Principle number four. Don’t miss out on the great because you’re so busy doing something good. Vanessa. Break that down. Break it.

Yeah. I just, um, there’s going to be so many. Really. This applies to every area, but I see it for us happen in business a lot or I guess it’s before my eyes in business a lot because we have so many opportunities. I honestly just from people hearing us on the radio show or people who are subscribers to thrive, everybody wants to partner, yes and and, and they have great ideas and these are great people, I guess good ideas and good people and that they could be great ideas and great people, but I want to just jump at every idea because you can’t. Again, we’re limited by time and space, so it’s been a challenge for a client. I had to sit down and think and say, okay, where do we really want to invest the time or money? Just because this person’s bringing this opportunity to us doesn’t mean we need to say yes and there there’s other options for them, but that has been a challenge and you need to be able to do that in every area you know, in, in, in your business,

and those, those are. Those are fighting words every 60 days. Those are fighting words. Let me just explain to you how the argument essentially goes. Every 60 days we’ll have a member of the thrive nation that will reach out to me by emailing Info at thrive time, show.com and they’ll say, Hey, I’ve done my research and I want to be your partner because I’ve seen what you’ve done with tip top canine or I’ve seen how you’ve coached, you know, Rick Research or I’ve seen the success of phone doctors or whatever and I want to team up with you. I’ve seen fears and Clark really, I’ve seen barbee cookies. I know what you do. I’ve seen it and I would like to skip the whole let’s meet and greet. I just want to partner with you and I’m willing to give you a percentage of my revenue, you know, pay the monthly fee of the $1,700.

Plus I’ll pay, you know, five percent of my revenue to, to, to be my partner. And I love being with my wife and my kids and then Kinda like, that’s Kinda all I like doing. You know, it’s like I like going to the store with the kids. I love taking the kids for me, like the highlight as go taking the kids to the store, but as the knows this, I love to go to the store with a kid. You want to go to hobby lobby or I’ll say something like you to go to the woods.

You like missions, you like being sent on a mission. Hey Hon, can you go get these things for me? Yes, I’ll go do it. Let me grab the kids, but I,

I, I’m just, I, I disliked strongly parks, games, vacations, long conversations, things that don’t relate to solving a problem immediately. Things that don’t involve precise times, dinner parties, vagaries gatherings, social events, church events, community events, picnics, waterparks. We could be here all day. Treehouses going outside and so delighted. So working though to me is like a Cathartic thing. I like it and so I always want to do it in Vanessa is like, listen here buddy, you can’t work on another project unless you take another one off of the calendar and this is where we’ve had A. I think the last couple of years, in my opinion have been very good because I, I now understand that, so just this month I’ve talking to John this morning actually, but we’re trying to take off two things off my schedule right now, but I don’t add anything else. And John’s like, here’s the deal. Every time you take off to, you want to add into

and you don’t have three love having John here because he sees what I see. No, no. And I always want

to take off too. And then like kind of add to. He’s like, no, no, no. The goal here is to allow you, because the podcast, it really is a four to five hour a day production between the show research, the show notes, the upload

good is your highest and best no one else can do that, but you

and it and it’s like it’s what I’m good at and it helps a lot of people and it just, it just sometimes I just, I want to do just one more thing and so I’ve had to just go down to the man cave and the other day I laughed at myself. I laugh at myself a lot actually. That’s kind of funny. If I’m in the shower and I’m taking a shower and I’m in the man cave, I’m taking it. You’re taking a shower, you’re laughing at yourself was. I know I’m in the shower. It’s the best of us. I’m in the shower and I was saying, I said, I’m so mad. I’m like, did the shower? I’m like, I’m just. I’m literally saying these words out loud. I’m like, I’m so pissed. Why can I not? Oh, I could easily just do it and solve the problem. Why can’t I? And they realize I’m a naked man of shower, yelling about the restrictions that my wife has sent on my life for the benefit of us. And I’m like, yeah, I’ll go upstairs and apologize.

Well I want to say this back in Dj land. I mean it grew so much. It was wonderful, but it was to the point where like, he was like barely functioning health wise because he would, you know, he seems to hang every Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and on Sundays like he wouldn’t move. Like he couldn’t,

I would just, I would literally lay in the closet and I’d be like hell it is. Because if I had a show on once, gray whale pulled ahead a show on Friday night, I would pull an all nighter Thursday night, laying out every song in order for the wedding. So I pre made the playlist every time.

And don’t forget about the 80 other shows we had going out to had gun.

I mean I would mentally prepare. I mean I’m not kidding, four hours for a four hour show for every show. So that’s like three a week. Then when the guys would get back from their shows, I would unload them all and maintain gear, so I am not exaggerating. I would work at least 48 hours between Friday and Sunday every week and it was awesome and then I would tell them,

but he got to a point where he was lying in bed, like being like, no, don’t make it.

No, it’s the life of an NFL player. If you listen to the life, if you listened to any of the videos, interviews with former NFL players, they’ll tell you any given Sunday. They love the game. They love tackling people. They love breaking tackles. They liked to play. They like watching the game film. They like the whole process, like the camaraderie. But the dudes can’t walk on Monday because of physical pain. It as it was happening. And so Vanessa pointed out like, you know, you, you need to stop deejaying. And so I, I emotionally processed that as a, you know, very logically and very calmly and

Oh dj, I dj until I’m dead. Well, and I, I didn’t tell you, I just said, hey, I think I told you I saw something else kind of. I was like, I think because he at this point he was, while he’s taking all this time doing this, he will be meeting people for lunch, helping them start companies and they were saying, hey, we’re gonna pay you for it. We’re going to. That part never happened. But like, so I was just like, I see this like you’re going to be doing this, like you’re already doing it on your own, like this is what you’re going to be doing. And he did have that exact reaction that he just shared with us. But you know, I, I do, I always do when I talk to Jesus about it. And then Jesus got them to a point where like he like came with like I cannot do this anymore. Like help me figure this out. Like how, what is our strategy? Like I don’t know how to do this anymore.

Oh, what are you. One thing, I have clients that paid us but it was a kind of a different way. It would be like the Renaissance Hotel would have but say a problem with their marketing. So I’d go in there and just fix the whole thing for them and then they would refer me every wedding as a result of that.

That is true. I’m talking about the people who didn’t have a bit. Okay. Help me start this business from the ground

referrals. Yeah. But I’m just saying, but you ended up. So you have to like really be intentional about what you’re going to say no to. And I just, I, I just say Vanessa does a very good job at that job.

One good thing that I’ve learned from Dr Z, um, when we talk about this subject of don’t miss out on something great for doing something good is he always says if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. And so yeah. And, and then so kind of use that as your compass to what you want to say yes to. But like what Vanessa said, one of the biggest issues I see with clients and people that attend the workshops or right into the show for questions is that they don’t take something off their schedule. They just pile it higher and higher and higher and then the next thing you know, they’re just completely out of time.

Check with. My wife told me I had to stop deejaying.

I just said, I think this is what’s going to happen. We it, it’s pretty clear that he’s back. I think he blames you for not being like, you know, I will say this. I mean I definitely, he did say this. Listen,

listen, if I wasn’t married to Panesa I would definitely still be dj.

You live in a van down by the river though. When it came time to you were the one who said he. Because believe me, anyone who knows clay, if he didn’t want to sell that business, it would not be sold. So I guess I brought it up, but he said, nope, don’t want it. And it’s probably like a year of me praying and a year later he came back and was like, help me figure this out. How do we.

What I’m saying is I, I agree that it’s a positive thing. I’m just saying I would definitely still be deejaying today if Vanessa didn’t make me stop because I would have just continued dj because I just, I do, I don’t have, I don’t need ever to socialize. I don’t know how to explain the idea, but I don’t. Whatever it is that makes people want to. If you’re out there listening right now and you like to watch tv, I don’t like to watch TV at all. And if there was a party like wants to watch a movie, that’s the part of me that doesn’t want to watch a movie. It’s like, oh my gosh, let’s all go out for drinks and see a movie. I’m thinking, Hey, why don’t we not go out and not see a movie? And then let’s. None of us hang out.

Let’s just be me by myself. So Vanessa knows all. Spend the vast majority of every second of every single day by myself and so I don’t have any hobbies or interests at all outside of what I’m doing in deejaying was awesome and I love music and I liked selling things and I would dj and I’m like, I’m getting paid to mix music and make crazy announcements will be funny. It’s like a low level comedian, but I made this too for Vanessa. Am I rage there it is. I put on the show notes. Chip. I made this for Vanessa. Dj Clevis Franklin. Yeah, it’s my head will come like Benjamin Franklin. Openness. I would Dj until I’m 90 or whatever. So that is what I made my favorite picture of him and I’m like, that’s going be so hot that it’s going to be my final show right there.

Me Rocking the mic with a skullet. It’s framed in our house. I think you need to start working on a haircut right now. It’s beautiful. It’s already good. Alright, so now the next, the next principal, next point number five. What can be delegated from what you are currently doing? Ask yourself what can be delegated from what you’re currently doing in home work life to free you up for your most valuable things. So I’m going to let Vanessa go first and then I’m going to go second chip. You’re going third and Steve’s batting cleanup. We all want to share with you things that we do that free up time for us that you maybe want to consider in your life that will help you free up more time. Vanessa, what? Say you were in the beginning. We all started off initially wearing all the hats. So we were doing everything.

But as, as the company started growing, at a certain point, you can’t grow anymore unless you delegate things. A, you’ll be in your own way. So either maybe that’s hiring an HR company. Um, we work with a great hr company here in town, Trinity Employment, and they do a wonderful job in that. They just focus on bringing in candidates. Maybe you need so many candidates at this point that that is what’s hindering your growth. Maybe you need to hire an assistant. You know, John, he freed up so much. He’s not an assistant, he, he manages the whole company, but he intercepts every email. He, he’s my assistant. Hey, I’m saying without him, I mean that was the thing that gave you the most time freedom. I think you were spending like three hours in the morning on emails happens every morning you get my inbox down to zero.

And what happened was we were business coaching 15 clients for ever. Vanessa and I were doing that by just myself and then I got to western 40 clients by myself. Um, and then I just meet a client every hour and uh, it was, it was great, you know, because clients are and a lot of clients, you know, are, are paying significant mathematics money to me, you know, and it’s me and I didn’t have like a whole team. It’s just me and a couple dudes. And that was it. It was like my, my team, you know, so I didn’t want it to, with Braxton built to build our fears and Clark. I show up. I brought a of executive desks, an unbelievable amount of decorations. I brought it my squad at the time I had cody brought cody and I brought different guys and then we got the top of Google, we did all the marketing, Bam.

Um, and that’s how we would do it with businesses. Well, as we decided to grow and to mentor more people, um, you know, it was Kinda like, well, I have to make, if you go to thrive time show.com and you click on downloadables, uh, Vanessa, I don’t have you ever seen this before, but if you go to thrive time show.com, we’ll put on the big screen. If you go to downloadables, these are the things that we don’t talk about as a couple, but these are the things that, uh, here we go pull it up. So these are all the downloadables that I’ve made over the last 12 years. So it’s a template for every possible thing you could ever need as a business owner. They’re all free to download by the way. We go to thrive time show.com forward slash. I think you’ve got to be a subscriber.

You don’t have to be that. Those are, those are free. Now, if you want help implementing those, you have to be a subscriber. You have to be a business coaching client and if you want to email us your questions, you have to be a subscriber. If you wanna attend the workshops, you have to be a subscriber. If you want to have vip access to our event should we subscriber, but those are free to download there. You can get those at thrive time, show.com, forward slash downloadables, but I just want to speak to you and I know the amount of time that was put in the people and how valuable that can be to people. Everyone don’t. I mean go check it out, go look at it. They can really, really help your businesses, so it isn’t really valuable items. You want me to just just illegal documents.

If there’s $100,000 of legal documents up there, they’re templates that you don’t have to go pay someone else to do. There are powerful that are game changing. They will absolutely help you out with your business. Now again though, ask yourself, what are some things that you shouldn’t be doing? I’m going to fire up a whole bunch of them. Here we go. Chuck, are you ready for this student to keep up my man? I don’t know. Let’s see. Here we go. Item number one I would never do is I would never mow my own lawn. If you can afford to do it, you don’t like to do it. Don’t mow your lawn to. I would never under any circumstance, ever go get my own lunch ever. I would never, ever, ever, ever go get lunch ever. I don’t do it. I don’t understand it. I hate it when people say, Gosh, how do I get so much done? I have a chip. You work with me. I never like, hey guys, where do you want to get lunch? I never leave.

No. My shadow day almost three years ago. Um, you know, start at 6:00 AM or whatever and it’s like 3:45 PM and I’m walking behind you and you’re like, oh yeah, you’re probably normal. Do you want to eat something? I’m like, if that’s cool. Yeah, I don’t mind.

No, that I kind of view it as a sign of weakness when hit it stupid place for lunch. What do you need? Air Water. Very aware of my ridiculous standards anyway, so I would just add, it’s like you don’t need to though, get food everyday. All you need to do is just bring in the morning or you can be this on wheels, wheels real quick, the whole ivy thing, but that’s what the Chinese government use to train your athletes athletes for the Olympics. True Story. They weren’t allowed to eat food. They did ivf and they also had to wear diapers while I do that anyways, which is gross, but it’s true. That’s why I’m glad not to live in China, so again, these are just things that can free up your time. Next is refused to communicate with anybody who you’re not selling something to or somebody who hasn’t bought anything from you via email, just refused to communicate with the world via email.

Next week, this will free up two point three hours a day for the average person. Don’t use social media unless you’re selling something. Two point three hours per day, the average person spends on social media. Next move. Don’t ever watch TV unless you’re watching a specific show. Just watch purposeful TV. The average person spends. It seems crazy to me. The average person, according to Nielsen, has her TV on five point two hours per day. Channel Surfing. Yeah, hard. That would be. You’d meet them and you come home from work at five and I guess from five to 10, you’re just sitting there. Nobody talked to a guy the other day. He literally asked me, he said, what are your tips for stopping playing video games?

Don’t press the power button. I don’t know. Don’t sit down. Here’s a tip for people on that vein is that if you stay super busy throughout your day and get a lot done. Like for me, I don’t sit down when I get home until I’m done because we’ve been working for a lot of hours and I will start to pass out. So like I just keep going. Do Dinner, you get stuff done, play with willy, do whatever I gotta do, and then when it’s time to crash out, then it just crashed and you don’t really have a choice but to go to bed early.

Other things you could do. Um, I know of a very wealthy family that I’m very close friends with. They hired somebody to take their kids to school and home from school, but they didn’t hire someone to raise their kids. So the kids get home there were with the kids, but they just don’t pay. They don’t leave work to pick up their kids. You know, they have someone that’s paid to do that, that they trust and that person does it for a few families. That’s a move. Other moves, other moves. Think about the things that are recurring in your life and find a way to make them not be weekly activities if possible. Vanessa’s really good at that. She’s really good at going, is there a way we could set their paychecks up in a way where I don’t have to think about that every single day or is there a way to simplify the way we pay our employees? Is there a way I could simplify that? That’s a legitimately tough question to ask yourself, but how can I get more done while doing less? Vanessa, is there another. You mentioned hiring someone to clean your house to possible. Is there anything else you’d recommend for the listeners out there as a way to free up time or chuck, what do you do you have? You have another one?

I tap. You go got. Yeah, I’ve got one here. This is what I have, um, have about the last year I’ve stopped doing this, which I used to do a lot like home renovation projects. It’s fun, it’s fulfilling. You can save a lot of money, but it takes up all of my time. Like if I want to do some over the weekend, I’m working on it all weekend, so now I’m hiring that crap out so I can focus on. Amen, brother. Yeah. It occurred, what do you got? I had a guy that, uh, if he ever listened this hill, no, I’m talking about that worked for me. That took vacation for a week because him and his dad built a shop on his property that’s like 30 feet by 20 feet

and they did the whole thing and they ripped it and they did everything and he was like, save 12,000 bucks. And I’m like, Bro, I made $24,000 bucks while you were off work. I mean, you know what I’m saying, but it’s right. You send up spending a bunch of time where you think you’re saving money, but this guy works at a commission job where he sells mortgages. He couldn’t have been hustling.

I’ve got a lot more. These are ones that are. Well, these are, these are best practices. These aren’t my ideas. These are best practices. One, Lee Cockerel the tell you, most executives take the first flight out, take the first flight out. It’s never late because it’s already there. The planes already there, it’s never late. So always take the first flight. The first flight out, you are chances of losing your baggage or being late, or almost impossible to always take the first flight out. It’s like less than a one percent chance. Your flight will be delayed if you take the first flight out. Okay? Another, another tip here. This is from Steve Jobs. This is from Barack Obama. President Obama, where the same thing every day. Just wear the same thing. President Obama did it. Steve jobs did it. Mark Zuckerberg did it. Clay Clark did it a lot. Uh, a lot of successful people were the same thing everyday.

Bill Bellacheck, another one. This is bill belichick always carry your to do list. He always has a pencil in his ear. If you watch, he always has a pencil in his ear and he writes down things. As soon as he thinks about if you ever watched the Patriots game, he is one of the only coaches I’ve ever seen who has a little yellow note pad. Have you ever seen, have you ever watched him do this in the game? He will stand aside. That little note with a little notepad is a pencil in his ear and he’s always. He always has the pencil in his ear and you know why he wears hoodies? Sweatshirts, because there’s a pocket. So he always has. Yeah, I mean this is. This is real, but you know, he’s a mark and Marsupial. He keeps pins. I want to make sure that. I want to make sure that listeners get this done. Pencils. Want to make sure that listeners get this. He’s the only coach in the nfl who is not a member of the NFL coaches association because he doesn’t do any thing like anybody else does it, but he has a pencil in his ear at all times. Whenever something happens, he always writes it down. I wonder who sharpens his pencils for

because she probably has a guy that’s his whole job. She’s out there taking the air out of the footballs

in his yard and is his name for real, for real. Clay knows him and he’s like, he has names. Burst version is Jerian. It’s in a jj. a r I a n and your face. Okay. Hey, I’ll pull it up here at that. No, this is what birch does. I’ll pull up in the show notes. Chop, if you can google this article to burden gre. This is blocking for the Patriots coach so he can do his job here. He has versus Jordan. He’s not in ever in photos. There is as Berge and Berge does is during interviews. He stands right behind the person interviewing bill and if the person asks a question that’s not approved, he’ll grab the mic. He also reads all bill belichick’s emails, social media. He does everything, so bill check does not have to an ever interact with the outside world. So next move is hire somebody to do most things that need to be done, like hire an assistant, hire somebody to love that.

I need a man assistant hire unmanned systems. John has been amazing for us and he manages the office, but not only that, over time clay started to look at the things where he was spending so much time, but it was again keeping him away from his highest and best. It was limiting the time he could spend interacting with clients or helping a client, and it was these daily emails. I mean John taking over that gave you so much time. I’m also, I know he does a lot with the phone.

He does real time, so he’ll do is he always keeps the inbox zero throughout the day, gets it down to zero in the morning. Then throughout the day he can do that. Where I’m in meetings with clients and I’d say 90 percent of business coaching involves coaching people through emotional dysfunction that’s blocking their success. It’s like they know they need to get google reviews, but for whatever reason they’re watching the voice and they don’t do it. They know the need to add articles to their website, but rather than doing it, they just email me the same question over and over and over. Why do we need to add content? Instead of making the sales calls, they’ll email you. What is it? Ethical to record calls in Oklahoma. It just goes on and on and on, and people love to be keyboard warriors. The most weak people in the world loved to sin all caps.

Email. If you’re just a weak person, if you’ve got like limp, little fragile risks, you’re a brittle little boy. You love to be a keyboard warrior. You Britt a little boy. You’d love to just write those big old emails with the all caps. You know the parental boy likes to write these unbelievable huge threats via email. All these skinny idiot, stupid pencil pushing attorneys. Loved to write you big old intense, but is there a face to like op just will weasels, right? Assami. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I did it probably seven months ago. There was a guy cursed him out in the office and he walked out like a brittle little boy head down because he likes to send me an email. I think I remember this guy, this guy. He’s just really funny for art, for the thrive time show, we’re a program will explain how it works.

When we build you a website, you have to actually write the content for your own website because you are the professional attorney, the doctor, the authority. The person who actually knows your current, you understand, I don’t know, every career, I know sergeant, so if you’re a neurosurgeon, a whole page about what your approach to neurosurgery is and how it’s different from other people in about your resume, you’re going to have to write it, you’re going to have to do it, and so this brittle little boy who’s good at memorizing things and so now he’s a doctor. He could buy his wife big shiny things. He emails. He’s powerful statements like it’s been three months since I’ve been working with you and Arthur I site still hasn’t launched yet. The Brittle little boy, so then I call him up and I said, hey, this has been the twelfth consecutive week.

I’ve waited for you to write the content. Our program is month to month, so if you can’t hack it month to month, quit get out of here. I’ve got every other neurosurgeon in town that wants to work with me. Get out of here. I don’t want to work with you. You, Brent, a little boy quit bigger. A wonderful keyboard. Be I’m serious. There’s a little boy. You’ve seen that personality type emails, so stupid social media. People love to be just social media, so bold. They love to write. Well, if I was, if I was trump, I’d make them all stand you would because if you would do it, that means that means you’re to get death threats, homey, and if it, if that’s true to your character, you’re the kind of person would make all the players stand or kneel or whatever you would do, but people on email, they’re so bold and they’re so sincere, emotional and just ridiculousness and because John is removed, he doesn’t know these people.

It’s easier for him to just look at it logically, which is why he doesn’t like to come in. Client meetings where I’m dealing with the emotional state of adults who literally are asking, what are your tips for waking up at 8:00 AM? Start by waking up five hours before the. You understanding I’m not kidding the hall and talk to people and I’ll say, you know, you’re not a good fit for the program. What do you. What do you mean I, I want to be successful, like do. Just because you’re a doctor doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. You have to wake up previous to eight and if you’re a 40 year old man emailing me, what are your tips for waking up? And we got bigger problems here. We’ve got. I mean you might want to go see a therapist or a psychologist because I’m not, I’m not as good a job at another doctor’s office.

Definitely go get a job because if you can’t manage yourself, you need them. You need a manager. Wow. Other things you can do to save time, hire somebody who’s better than you at an area your weekend. So like for me, I hate computers. I hate them. I just like computers. Totally. All technology. So like at the house, do I know how to turn on our TV? Right? I don’t know how to change channels. Don’t know why I did that. So maybe I don’t know, but I’m just saying, you know that I have that consistent. He can’t consistently, you know that I avoid the remote. Do I not pass it to me? I’ll pass it back. It’s hot potato. No, I’m serious. I have no idea how the technology works in our house and I don’t want to know how it works because it stresses me out.

I is. The thing happens. You’d have to fix it. Here it goes. No, I get anxiety. I get anxiety when I’m near computers. I don’t like it at all. I just, I don’t. It’s not my normal. I don’t like how your wheel house. So I hire people like Devin and Andrew and I’m like, so my phone all the time. I say, Devin, I’m 37. Please make this fun work. Do I not do it all the time? All the time. Every day. At least four or five times. That’s why I’m on vacation. I’m like, I don’t know what to do because there’s no one who’s like my nerd traveling when something goes wrong. You do? Yeah. You’re like, that’s the next saint. Ecab it traveling nerd traveling nerd.com. These are other moves. I’ll have more moves for you. These are best practices. Um, many successful people, and depending on where you’re at, income level wise, they’ll actually hire a driver and you’ll say, really?

Yeah, will it drive? Or if you paid somebody $600 a week, that’d be 30,030 4,000 a year. You pay them. And what is their job? They drive you to work. They drive you home from work, they pick up your lunch, they’d handle your mail, they mail, they pick up your mail, they mail your mail, they pick up your dry cleaning, they do all that. And then you are free to do what? Make sales calls on the way home, close deals, closed deals, whatever. I’m just telling you these are, these are moves that top high level successful people do. I’ve got a few more for you, a few more for you. Don’t discuss religion ever with anybody ever that you ever want to get paid from, ever, ever. Never, ever, ever in your office, ever discussed religion and less. You want to waste time because the moment you start discussing religion, oh, it’s awesome.

And Steve, you’ve lived in Tulsa long enough to see this, right? But yes, here’s an example. Recently there’s a person. This is about what? About two years ago, there’s a woman in my life, she was a client at the time, she’d mentioned, she says, I have a question. If you were invited to a gay wedding and the person who invited you as your friend, would you go? And I said No. And they said, why? Why? I thought you were a Christian. I said, the question you asked me was what I go and I said no. And they’re like, well, why would you not go? I said, I’m one. I wouldn’t go to anyone’s wedding. Horsetrading say, yeah, you wouldn’t get any so gay or straight. It wouldn’t go. But also like, I don’t believe that the homosexual marriage is endorsed by the Bible. So the law of the land is they can get married.

Yay, go do that. But I don’t want to show up. Well, this person begins like arguing this point because they don’t want to focus on their action items. And I said, hey listen, I know you want to argue about religion as a way to avoid the fact that you did not write your content for your website yet again, but we need to actually focus on that. Then they’ll switch the topic to. You’ve seen this Steve Politics. Yup. Hey, what do you think about the new law? They’re going to raise the minimum wage to $15. One thing about the lock, because I don’t watch the news, right? You cause I’m making calls and sales calls. So it wasn’t like next move. Never discussed religion ever in the office. Don’t do it. Next was never discussed politics. Another topic. Never discussed how you feel because nobody cares how you feel if you’re the leader of a company.

Steve, if you walked into your office and go guys, I just feel kind of down today. Does it not set the emotional state for the whole team? Yes. And too many people do it. I have other moves their whole don’t get a dog unless you really want a dog. Don’t get a bunch of cats. Yeah. Awesome. No, I love our cats. I’m being real though. I see a lot of time suck. I see a lot of business owners that go out there and they buy a dog, but they don’t have the time needed to care for the dog. Yeah. If you. If you buy a dog and you don’t have the time to care for the dog and to train the dog, you shouldn’t buy dog. Yep. You just Chuck d. How often do you see that? Where somebody is a busy professional, they buy dog.

They keep the dog locked in the house all day. It’s either that or the other. Extreme opposite. The literally ruins their life. They have to leave work to go let the dog out or they have to go water. Whatever the dog when they should be. They’re working, so yeah. Got More. More tips, more tips. You’re right. Another one. Don’t buy things when possible. Don’t buy things. As an example, if you’re going to the lake today, I would recommend if you’re going to the lake today, that you would rent a boat and not buy a boat. Steve, do you know why? I think people should rent a boat and not via boat.

Yeah, I know exactly why because if you buy a boat, a vote stands for bust out another thousand because what you’ll do is you’ll drive the boat, like, you know, like in May or June at the beginning of the summer and it’ll break and then you’ll take it to the girl. She’ll buy the boat and it’ll just sit there. So you should just spend like

you’ve got to maintain for the times you do it, which is why I have friends that have boats and lake houses and they never, they never go to them every know and they’ll let you use them because they’re like, wait, you someone should use it. It’s just sitting there. So just bring about 400 bucks. And all the clients I’ve ever worked with that have boats and lake houses. I mean all of them. I think of all of them, hundreds of them, maybe three ever go there ever, ever. They never go there.

There’s a guy at Grand Lake, uh, and I don’t know him. I just know that we have seen this house. The guy that mowed the lawn basically owns the lake house because he liked Mosley, guys grass and then his entire family hangs out there and the guy literally hasn’t been to his lake house on like three years. Right. So some other guy lives in it and maintains it and it’s huge. By the way, it’s like 7,000 square foot mansion. Like rot on the water. Yeah, the mode. The guy that knows it.

I’ve got another. I’ve got other tips to free up more time. Say No to everything by default everything. And then let the exception B. Yes.

Maybe that’s why the guy has a lake house. He doesn’t go to saving time. He’s like, I got a guy to mow the grass, Andy.

There has been time to go. It’s really important that you say no all the time. Next tip to free up more time. Turn your phone off. Ninety percent of the day, 90 percent of the day. Turn your phone off. Now. This is something I’ve seen just telling you. Paul Graham, he invented Airbnb, dropbox. Read it. He’s very successful. Steve Jobs. No. Clay Clark. I just see this. Lee Cockerel, people I’ve spent a lot of time with, just keep your phone off by default and they turn it on to make a call, receive a call, but they don’t keep it on them all the time. Otherwise you have. This is a digital leash where you’re constantly being harassed by people. I’ve got a question for you, I’m sure. Do you recommend for people in sales or people that need to be on the phone during the day to have a separate cell phone turn off and.

Yes. Personal, yes, for sure, because if you’re doing sales, you want to be reached or if you, if you and your wife want to reach each other, whatever your rules are as a family, I’m just saying don’t sit there and be upset that you can’t get anything done because psychology today says the average person gets interrupted 85 times per day by either a text or a voice message, an email or a social media post. Another thing you can do to free up time, we’re talking about freeing up time to focus on your highest in best. Don’t hang around emotional people. Steve, tell us about hiring an emotional person and what that’s like in your business when you have them working for you, what does that like on a daily basis when you have even one emotional person in your call center or in your life at total lending concepts?

I have an emotional person and this is how I deal with it. I don’t speak to them, so actually have somebody that I don’t have control of hiring and firing that that has to work on our stuff or files a super emotional and so we just have a rule that we don’t speak to this person, so we handle everything by email so that we don’t have to have any interactions and this is not a bad person. They’re just. They’re good at their job. They’re just super emotional side. Always a thing. I would label him as a bad person. That’s just my day. Yeah, but you know when you have somebody like that, it’s. It’s emotionally draining on you whether you want to believe it or not and you can’t. You can’t fix people, and so if you have somebody that’s there, they’re going to drain.

People think that they have the influence to be able to bring the group up of the energy, but one bad person, one negative person, when super emotional people person can bring everybody down. I remember the elephant in the room is probably two years ago, we had a person who is working for us and I went and talked to this person that they’re working the front desk and I said, hey, you’re selling 10 percent on memberships. Now Chubb, if someone’s selling a 10 percent to 10 percent membership conversion rate, 10 percent, that’s when you need to be 55 percent better than nine. Better than nine percent. Forty five percent short and your mind is it mean to point out the actual statement was made was, hey, you’re selling at a 10 percent. Is that mean? No, not at all. Scoreboard is it mean if you’re saying, Vanessa knows we went to Colorado, I ran into this person again and they were giving me the state guy and being all weird around me, but Vanessa, we can’t be solvent as a company, as a franchise that we’re selling 10 percent no, and it would actually hurt.

Then they’d heard everyone if he didn’t point it out so it can be changed because eventually if we don’t hit our numbers, they kept saying he’s not around. Nobody has just what happens? He comes, he comes up to me by the bar at the riverwalk. He says, he says, Bro, you called me out in front everybody, man. Yeah, Dude. Like I can’t help it, man. There was just a lot of, I mean 10 percent. I mean I do my best. I go, you understand the reason why we have a group interview while we go over the numbers as a group is so that everybody has an accountability and he’s like, Bro, but man, I just feel like I’m doing my best. I’m like, I know you’re and your best is not good enough. So. And then he never wouldn’t get enough reviews and every time it’s emotional, every second just like, well, if I was trained better or oh, it’s not my fault, it was miscommunication or just so anyway, I just wanted me to convert people into memory. Oh, I didn’t realize that’s what we were supposed to do. So thrive nation, we just gave you 26. You can free up a lot of time. There’s many, many more. In my book, the art of getting things done, we’ll put a link to it on the show notes, the art of getting things done. Principle number six, number six, spend your time doing only what you can do. Vanessa, what do you mean? Spend your time doing only what you can do.

You know, like I said earlier, just identify the roles you have are the tasks you do that only you can do. Only you. Clay can lead and host this radio show. This podcast can go through and make the, um, the outlines can do their research, only you, but someone else can get your emails. Someone else can take on more clients. I’m someone out only you can be a dad to Havana operate Angelina, Atlanta, and scarlet that no one else can. Can Be that dad like you’re the only option. So when you identify those things, only you can can cast the vision for the company. Only you can create the culture you want.

I do want to chime in. I did try to hire a man to be with you. When you gave birth to the first child it. How did that go? It didn’t go well. She literally looked like, how did that go on? I tried to hire Josh. I talked to you. I said, what are you doing? Like what are you like? Are you kidding right now? No, I just. This is like a real thing or is he joking right now? He said it jokingly, but it was just testing the water. You have to know this white dude. He’s my friend honey. He can be there with their right hand dj man at the time because I knew him very well. I talked to Josh and Josh, here’s don’t. I don’t do well with hospitals and really don’t do world hospitals and I see well at hospitals I’m having, I’m giving birth.

I wanted to see if you could be with my wife when she’s giving birth, just be there with her, whatever that needs to get coffee and I’ll be like, be in the lobby making calls and stuff and I can be just running the office and he’s like, you sure? And I’m like, yeah. He’s like, what do I get? Okay. Yeah, you don’t have to pay me, man. I’m, I’m with you. I’ll do it. I’m like, okay. So I come home and I’m excited. I finished work. I said that this idea, you know, I don’t like hospitals and stuff. Can Josh be with you in the when you’re giving birth? She’s like, what are you saying? Are you crazy? None of my. Hey,

hey. I was just joking. Right? This is where I’m like, he’s so smart, but are you lacking the emotional intelligence? So smart. Even connecting with when, when people. I know that you know, you don’t need to be at every networking function in the world, but there’s going to be certain important aspects. You know, only clay can meet whizzy. He’s not going to send someone else Zohan and through that they’ve developed a real genuine relationship. Right? So just you’ve got to think what are the things that only you can do and spend your time doing those items, but those as rocks in your calendar and as painful as it is to let go of the other things people don’t want a lot of. You’ve got to say, okay, I’m going to now let go of whatever is these emails. I’m going to let go of all our house cleaning, our laundry, our whatever it is and whatever your spinning, I guarantee you you’re going to get a bigger return by spending your time doing your highest and best uses.

And when you delegate, you have to be okay with getting 90 percent of what you would personally do, or 85 percent if you’re okay with B or a b plus level results from the people you delegate to. You can have an a plus life and to scale you kind of have to be right, but if you want to have an a plus everything, you really will have a b minus d minus life prince will number seven, what are the things that give you life, a ray Dalio from his book principles, life and work rights. Remember that most people are happiest when they are improving and doing the things that suit them naturally and help them advance. So learning about your, your, your people’s weaknesses, just as valuable for them and for you as his learning their strengths. Yes,

I’m going to chime in here. You know, the things that give us life and it might seem like stupid, but I told clay and I said at the beginning of the show and I’ll repeat how much joy it is bringing me for Angelina, Atlanta and scarlet to do cheer. I love their business coaching. Um, they are just absolutely amazing. I love watching them work for something. They definitely, I feel like kind of came in as underdogs and I, and I actually am glad now. I’m like, just so many life lessons in this, I was telling him, clay, just a Angelina telling her like, I’m so proud of you working as unto the Lord, like you are working really hard when your coach is watching, but you’re working hard when they’re not watching and that’s what I care about and I just love that. So just these little things that maybe it’s something, yeah, I could delegate, um, someone taking them into practice or procedure. There’s gonna be certain things that are just life giving to you and they might not make any sense to anyone else. I know you clay, you’ve got things that you just would get. Yeah, you love to go out there and burn and yeah, maybe you could be doing something else, but it just, it gives you life. You enjoy it. You like having Aubrey out there, you like working with him on music. Um, so also identify the things that give you life and do take the time to spend time doing those things.

Now thrive nation. I have one little notable quotable then I’m gonna. Let Steve and Eric Chime of the final little nugget of knowledge before we wrap up today’s show. Marvin Gaye, um, is one of my favorite singers, R and b artists and he just, he loves singing. To Vanessa’s point, you know, Michael Jordan loved playing basketball. It wasn’t working. It was life giving. Marvin Gaye loved music. Well, people love to laugh at jokes. Well, Russell Simmons, the bestselling author of life and death, the Co founder of def jam records who ultimately introduced hip hop music into today’s culture and the phat farm companies estimated to be valued at $300,000,000. But to me he’s worth a lot more than that. He says, the goal is to be able to live your life the way Michael Jordan played basketball or Marvin Gaye sang a song to be able to feel the way you feel when you laugh at a joke, but to feel that way all the time.

If you take to heart these principles that Vanessa teachers on a weekly basis, she is our family’s life optimizer. She’s are a wise sage and I’m the person who just loves to grind, so I’m the bowling ball and she tells me where the pins are, you know, she points me in the right door, she tells me where the goals are and then I go get them. And I think it’s really, really important in your life. You have somebody like that, whether it be a coach or a spouse, somebody because you got to just take an inventory of am I going the right direction, Steve, you a little nugget of knowledge as it relates to operating at your highest and best that you want to share. Maybe a life lesson you’ve learned along the way.

Well, yeah. Similarly in my relationship with my wife, we’ve been married 17 years. Boom, boom, boom. Um, is sometimes when you’re super driven and you’re, you’re trying to be focused and you’re doing your thing. You have to have somebody that uh, that kind of ground you. And I think that’s where Sally’s been. Pilot copilot. Yeah. Like exactly. That lands the plane and city of crashing a plane. So I think that that, uh, feeds coming in over time, you can kind of drift away from where you, you are supposed to be or want to be or how you shared you want to be. And I think that’s what’s been good for me is having somebody that, that has done everything from keep me alive to keep me focused on what I need to be focused on. And so you’ve got to um, you have to have somebody in your life to ground you.

But speaking about highest and best use and saying no, it’s something I learned from my business coaching relationship with Dr Green who we talked about a couple of weeks ago. It was just a same like you said, like if your default answer is just no, it’s just better. Like if it’s just, people will start expecting that. Like I don’t ever expect you to answer your phone so I don’t call you on your phone unless you’ve called me. And if you call me I answer. I always try to answer. And so if you do that then you’ll kind of get the expectation. People like don’t ask him to go to lunch because he’s not going to go to lunch and you can kind of train that to where people don’t ask you to do stuff with me. It’s Lamborghini rights by the way. I have to say no to everyone because they’re like, hey, do you think no because no, I’m not going to. No, absolutely not. No. I won’t give any. Never. I’m not ever going to Steve.

Um, you, our relationship is, you know, you’re obviously a business coaching client and you become a good friend of our team and my, myself, my wife and I chop. You’re a business coach and you’re also a friend of our family. Can you tell us, tell to listeners out there maybe a, a little final bit of advice about operating your highest and best and really optimizing your life that you’d like to share with all the listeners? Yeah, sort of building off

Steve was just saying, I would say block out time for the things that you have to do and that you want to do and then delegate or say no to

everything else. And then going back to that quote from Jack Welsh earlier is control your destiny or someone else will. So the big takeaway, like Steve said, is say no. Just say no to more things. This was a huge turning point in my life. Only child social butterfly. I’m the opposite of clay in that regard. I love being around people. I love going out. Yeah, that takes up all of your time. So I just start saying no to everything. And now due to a series of bad life choices, you’re stuck with me on a podcast on a daily basis underneath the camp, Clark and chicken pox. Someday you’ll take off this ankle bracelet that I’ve got stuck to the table. Leg. All right. Thrive nation. That wraps up our conversation about operate your highest in best. And I asked you today, what will you do as a result of what you just learned? Because knowledge without application is meaningless. And as always, three, two, one. Oh.