The Doctor of Marketing (Ph.D) Steve Greene) Provides a Practical Marketing Education to the Thrive Nation

Audio Transcription

All right. Thrive nation. Welcome back to the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. I think a lot of our business coach clients or listeners out there, according to the research that we’ve done and just interacting with you, the average listener, you are are entrepreneurial minded. You have a you, you kind of see problems and you want to solve them. You’re a goal orientated person. You’re somebody who wants to achieve big things in your life. You want to create time freedom and financial freedom and you’re somebody who by and large did not go to business school and I think I think there’s a lot of anecdotal research out there that would indicate it’s probably a wise idea for many people to not go to college. I think there’s a lot of reasons out there that that many entrepreneurs really, really should not go to college because I’m going to college for a lot of people is a complete waste of time and the reason why is because a lot of people are going to go to college and they’re going to spend a massive amount of time getting in debt and they’re not going to learn any practical skills.

A lot of people are going to go to college and not gain any practical skills. However, there is a time that people might want to consider going to college and that would be if you have a specific goal in mind and a specific skill you’re looking to obtain. And if you know the professors who are teaching you actually know what they’re talking about. Now, that’s a big if, because there are a lot of professors that I have met over the years who have no idea what they’re talking about and they have never run a successful company and, uh, they basically hide on the campus. However, today’s guest, Mr Steve Green. Dr Steve Green. He previously worked as a business coach or consultant for Mcdonald’s Stanley steamer and Jiffy Lube and other companies before becoming the dean of the business school for Oral Roberts University. Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with oral Roberts University will put a link to oral Roberts University on the show notes, but uh, some of you might be saying to yourself, hey, isn’t oral roberts the school that kicked you out?

This is true. I was kicked out of Oral Roberts University. And you might be saying to yourself, well, if they kicked you out, didn’t, why are you having the former dean of the school on the show? I feel like the school, by and large was a great school. Many great things about it. I just feel like for me, I learn anything at Oral Roberts University that I could directly apply in my own life and business at all. Now, chip, that might be different for you. I mean, when you went to college, did you find there are things that you learned while attending Oklahoma State University that you actually used while either running your own business and slash or today coaching businesses?

To be completely honest, the only thing college did for me was give me a little bit of chance to grow up and be an idiot and not make too much of a mistake in my life because I was on a path, but literally for four years of college I went to five different schools, two business degrees, one marketing, one management, and there is not a single thing that I use from that that I remember or use today.

Surely you can’t be serious. I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.

I agree. I agree. I mean there’s just. But I have friends who have attended oral Roberts University and they swear that Dr Steve Green really pushed them. In fact, one of our current clients, Steve Currington and his co is company total lending concepts. One of our clients will be coached today. Steve says, I trust you because I’ve known steve for almost three years now. Steve says that Dr Green really changed the trajectory of his life and really helped him get on the straight and narrow business coach path. Really helped him to discover what it means to be responsible, taught him how to build systems, taught about about marketing, and was really the coach that he needed in his life. And so I thought I’m going to do some research into this. Steve Green, this, this character he’s phd is this guy’s the real deal. Yeah. And so what is gentleman upon further review, this guy has actually worked directly with Mcdonald’s Stanley steamer, Jiffy Lube, and other top companies as a strategic advisor. Turns out he’s not so green. He’s legit. He’s not green light. Is it Joe? Let’s hear it for the Phd. And the former dean for oral Roberts University. Let’s welcome onto the show. I realize I can’t hear you clapping, but I’m going to do it. Oh, why does it gentlemen, here we go. Dr Steve.

Great.

Dr Green. Welcome on to the thrive time. Show my friend. How are you?

I am great. It’s so excited to be here. Wait a minute, I kind of asked you about this 834 or five. That’s just an amazing way to go.

Cool. Thank you. Thank you so much. We’ve, uh, it’s interesting because we’ve had about 500 people that have left us reviews on Google and now that we had to chop 600 people sending video reviews on Youtube, if not more than that now. So it’s kind. Everyone has their own path. Some people can’t figure out how to do the itunes reviews, some people do Google, but does you know, it, it Martin

got average. This is beyond excellent. It’s almost unheard of in our industry. So. Great job.

Well, I appreciate you so much. I want to clarify for the listeners out there, um, what was your role at Oral Roberts University because you were teaching there when I was a student there. What was your role at Oral Roberts University?

Both. I was the dean of the College of business and the dean of distance learning and of course I took a very active teaching role in marketing. So I, I believe, taught every student during my tenure there four or five years.

Steve Currington, his company, total lending concepts is a client of ours at the thrive time show and we worked with 160 brands as a business coach at any given time. That’s the Max we take on and as we have kind of a waiting list in different categories. And so I’ve worked with Steve now for, for years and uh, Steve always bragging on you. So before I let you brag on you, I’ll let Steve. Steve, what, why, why did, what kind of impact the Dr Steve Green make in your life? I mean, why are you such a big fan of our legendary podcast guest?

Oh Geez. I wish I could write a letter of recommendation like he did for me and I probably can, but I can just tell you that at a time in my life when I was building my business, he stepped into that coaching role for me. And this was end of 2008, 2009 both as a coach. Um, as the pastor of my church, I went to his church, a big speak community church that he was pastoring while a running several businesses and doing his own coaching thing and the school of business being the dean at Oru. And so I just got to know him through. I mean Dr Green knows I was his armor bearer at church. I would actually bring him out onto stage and bring his Bible out and get it out there every single Sunday for years. And so we just built a really, really strong bond and he became somebody in my life a much like you have now, clay, since we’ve been hanging out that I just listened to. And so I take my book recommendations from Dr Green. I take my marketing cues from Dr Green. I took every single step of me building my mortgage business, which was mediocre at best until I met him. And, uh, he was really that implementation artists that helped me kind of decide what the right thing to do was and then to get it implemented in my business so that I could execute it.

No, no dark dot. Uh, a green, I want to, I want to get your take on this because a lot of our listeners aren’t as familiar with you obviously as Steve Currington is, or as I was as a student oral route of oral Roberts University. Um, could you share with our listeners a little bit of a look into your background and how you were you started and how you got to where you are today?

First, let me just say what I feel about, you know, we all have our, you know, some people like to collect trophies and medals and awards and you know, I like to collect success stories. I think you’re like that to click what I’ve seen in Steve and these growth years and even since I’ve left and uh, you, you’ve certainly taken them to heights that I didn’t get into, but he’s, he’s such a business coach learner and you know that, that he absorbs anything that you throw at him. And I think the biggest thing to say about his business, it just gets it done. He takes care of people. If you tell somebody going to get it done, it gets done. And that’s why it’s different, that’s why it’s leading the pack in the mortgage industry and you know, he’s just been a, a dear friend and somebody that I feel like understands the principles of getting it done, execution, go to work.

Oh, where did I come from? You know, basically I was a kid and probably still am an academic. I came, I had my marketing degree, a phd in marketing in 1983. So I’m a college professor for a lot of years. And like most people, I got kind of tired of answering that question if you’re so good, what are you doing in the classroom? And we all know if you can’t do it, ut. So I had to get rid of some of those cycles that people were trying to put on me and I just ended up stop teaching, consulted. I do a couple of gigs. You’ve listed some of those folks I’ve worked with and worked amazingly with it. Just so many good stories to tell over 83 television markets and uh, and spent a lot of time with NBC and their products and their clients and really learned the industry on the street, much like you have in hand to hand combat, working at the retail level, making it happen at the cash register results.

Speak loudly and when you can deliver results at the small level, you get to play in Aa, aaa and a family, you know, made it to the majors. I went to San Francisco and had that opportunity to work in a major market, uh, with a major television station and felt like I’d done that. And uh, you know, it comes at a great big price and I got to an age where I wasn’t willing to pay that time price any longer and then came back and went back into academics, ended up at Oru and it, there was another revisit to why was born and asked to teach in a college classroom and to teach young people now that are not in the classroom. I still work with people everyday as you did.

I begin my apologetics tour for all the academics out there because this is something I want to shed light into. I remember when I grew my company, I’m Paul, you probably experienced this, but as you’ve grown hood CPAS, you know, I was growing DJ connection.com and I remember I was at a breakfast event and I was speaking there a Dr Green. I was speaking to the Tulsa Bridal Association and one young lady, she says to me, she says, I have a question, how do you get your website to the top of Google? And I tried to explain it to her and at the rate of which that I act at the speed that I act and I found that I was really good at doing it but really bad at teaching it really bad. So it’s like, you know, people say, well, if you’re not good at doing it then you probably should go teach it.

Right? So all the teachers aren’t good at doing it. That’s why they teach it. Right. If you’re not good, then you should probably just teach them. But then I’d also say it’s as an entrepreneur, I remember this lady, poor lady, Jennifer puts her hands up, she says, how do I get to the top of Google? And I said, well, you need to make sure that your permalinks are correct, your title tag, your description, your keywords, you have a thousand words of content per page. You need to have the most reviews you needed. She’s like, why? And I realized that the curse of knowledge was occurring. I knew so much about what I, uh, had a, um, what I, I just, I just did it every day. It was intuitive to me that I struggled to teaching. And so only through the process of writing books was I able to clarify my ideas and make them a succinct enough for other people to follow them. And I’d like to ask you this because you’ve worked, oh, that’s a stupid example. You’re working with a stanley steamer or, or, or Mcdonald’s. You had to know your subject well enough to teach it to them. Like what kinds of things would you teach to Mcdonald’s or, or Stanley steamer or, or Jiffy Lube?

What was your question? What kind of, what kind of things would teach to them? I mean, when you’re working with Mcdonald’s or marketing, what kind of marketing? What kind of things would you do with Mcdonald’s in terms of marketing or Stanley steamer?

Great question. Basically design help owners communicate with big McDonald’s, Mcdonald’s, the franchise versus a Franchisee, learning to help franchisees take what comes from Mcdonald’s and make it work and get profitable to execute better. So many store managers and owners still have trouble executing. Believe it or not, even in Mcdonald’s, they can’t do what they’re led to do and there’s a room for someone in the middle of those two organizations to help build them up. So really clay, it’s what you teach everyday. It’s execution. Get it done. Here’s how, until you do things their way, it’s going to be tough on,you know, you have of people out there that listen to our business coach podcast who think right away when they hear somebody is a doctor, immediately they say, oh, this is going to be terrible. This guy, he probably, uh, uh, right away. Uh, Paul, when someone hears the word accountant, they hear right away, a lot of people, as soon as they hear the word accountant, this is what they say internally. A lot of people just don’t want to talk to academics or accountants.

And then it’s hilarious now that Dr Green, you’re a marketer and we have you on the same podcast is we have a CPA, one of our show sponsors. So I want to, I want to ask you this question, Paul, and then I’m gonna go to Steve with the same question here. How are you different than the typical accountant? Because the perception of most accountants is that you have no emotional intelligence, that you have no practical knowledge and that you basically talking circles and encourage everybody to file extensions because you’re on, you’re not on top of your crap. That’s the average person’s perception of an accountant. Talk to me about how you’re different than the average account. Well, unfortunately that perception is probably true for the average accountant. Why I’m different is, um, most accountants are accounts because of the, uh, their technicians, they, that’s what they chose to do because they were good at math.

They really didn’t like people, you know, they wanted to put on the green visor and pile their desk high with files. I’m a people person. I like to be around people. I enjoy life. I enjoy success just like you, Dr Green. I enjoy success stories and I discovered that through being a CPA and a and a registered investment advisor that I can play a role in helping people become successful in their business and personally versus the average CPA or accountant just takes historical data and puts it on a tax return, are historical down and puts on a financial statement. So I like playing that role of helping people be successful. Clay, you know, Dr Green. I’ve heard a lot of people outside of Steve Brag on how practical your classes were at oral Roberts University. A lot of people bragged on it. It’s, I, I’ve heard that from other people. The folks out there who don’t know how you are different than the typical academic or professor of marketing from an esteemed university, can you explain to us of what what, what makes you or what makes your approach to marketing different from the typical or I guess what people believe to be the typical academic in the field of marketing?

Well, first of all, many academics, they just stayed in the university level. What I’ve been on the street for so many years, literally working in hand to hand combat with retailers. I’ve also owned businesses. I’ve owned restaurants and you learn to tone of writing that check to a marketing that doesn’t work. What makes me different is I want to hold every single dollar. I’m very much an accountant in this way. I understand cost accounting and knowing how to keep score and if we don’t know how to keep score, we don’t know how to win. It’s kind of understand what those numbers mean and so the very first thing I want to do is be held accountable for the result of advertising. Dollars spent so many years since the fifties, sixties, we’ve gotten away with these kinds of marketers have gotten away with this. Trust me, it’s going to work. Give it time, give it six more months. It’s going to work. This is how we do it. We’ve got to build brand. Those days are over clay. We’ve got to get it done now. We’ve got to get results for investment now.

So that’s how I’m different. So you’re, you’re results focused marketer, which uh, and you happen to have spent time in academia. So don’t hold it against you. This is what I’m hearing.

Yes sir. Right? Frankly, I think I’ve, I don’t know enough theory of course, as an academic, I’ve written a lot of scholarly papers, but so what I feel I can translate it to a store owner, to a business owner, to an entrepreneur translated into profitability to spend the least money you can. And that’s the, our CPA friend and his job is to spend the least money you can and yet still be legal and, and do everything right? So I’ve got to get results. It doesn’t do any good to save money. If we don’t get results, we’ve got to spend what we need to spend to get the word out and to get people inside the store and coming back. It’s that repeat purchase that makes most marketers stop at getting him in the front door. We’ve got to have the backdoor handled

and I’ll just tell, just tell you. Um, I think there was a period of about two years when I was working with Dr Green that um, he did a training in my office every, I think it was every Tuesday and Thursday with training at 7:00 and we just started inviting anyone that wanted to come. And it got to the point where we like ran out of room and it was funny joke between me and Dr. Green is I think for about two years he would ask the question and the answer would always be business coach systems. And so you remember this Dr g dot, I would say system because everything was built around and that’s where he really helped my company launches. Just getting, you know, that first book he assigned, which was his get rid of me book. If I read it, he would meet with me, but if I didn’t then he would never talk to me again because I didn’t read the book and it was called The e myth revisited by Michael Gerber, which I know you’ve read and it’s a systems book.

And so I think that’s where the practical application of what Dr Green nose is just getting those systems into place. And I remember him telling us stories about him sitting in the parking lot of Mcdonald’s and counting how many people went through the drive through and then parked their car in the parking lot and ate. And how many people came back and you had a term for him. They called him shoes are super heavy users. People that ate at Mcdonald’s seven to 10 times a week and they were keeping that metrics and putting those systems in place so that your, um, so your franchise owners, um, had that data, the, the two check system where people would get the wrong order that you put into place is a system that was set up in order to keep the errors out. And I think that’s where Dr Green’s application really comes full circle when you take a book like emails, which is a great book and it talks about systems and then people actually implementing it into their businesses where it was helpful for me.

And by the way, Dr. Green l Strube, uh, I think, I think her last name now is like Ackerman. Is it strictly, is that her name? She got, she got married. She, she bragged on you all the time. She worked with her name like eight times. She was El. She was Elizabeth. She was bad. She knew of l. Oh yeah, definitely.

She bragged on Dr Green all the time. So again, as Steve Currington, als and example. So I want to, I want to get your take on this. He wrote a book called Love Leads are reading your book is going to say controversial is my take on it because you’re advocating, um, that love leads like love is the best way to lead in a world where, um, the statistics would show, and I’ll put them on the show notes. So Eric, Eric, we’ll put it on the show notes, but the US Chamber of Commerce reports, they didn’t, they didn’t report with CBS News. They showed that 75 percent of employees steal from the workplace on ink magazine showed that over 80 percent of people lie on their resumes.

Gallup shows that 70 percent of people hate their jobs. So there’s a lot of negativity out there. And you’re writing a book called love, which is about, um, can you explain what love leads is about proper listeners out there in your statistics? Prove my point. You know, these things happen because they’re mistreated at work. This is not a new problem that I’ve discovered. I’m just riding into a single factor. If you look at the cover of my book, you’ll see that I’ve got the word strength knocked out because the average leader thinks it’s being strong and tough is the answer to everything. Bang, Bang the desk yell, scream, Holler, throw out some choice words and people will get better. Threaten their job. That’s Frederick Taylor back in scientific management days, like scare them into oblivion. And this pervaded our work system of factories. Uh, everything that was started was started out of a position of you must keep fear in the workplace if you do that long enough claim, we don’t have enough time to deal with it, but if you do that long enough, you create a culture of fear.

And that culture of fear says that I might as well steal, cheat, lie, or do whatever I can do to try to survive because they’ve got me in a survival of the fittest mode instead of coaching people up like you, to treating people with excellence, believing that these people that we’re working with can be something bigger than they’ve seen in their lives, to build them as you built your business. I’m a people builder and I believe that that concept, if we can get that concept in the depths of every organization, if we can change things, and I’m not, I don’t have rose colored glasses on. I’m a realist. I’m 65. So I’ve seen it, you know, and I’ve been at the victim’s end of, of work troubles, you know, being yelled at and treated badly. But when you start to treat people with a belief that you’re dealing with a human asset, we talk a lot, a lot, lot. We’ve got a CPA, friends sit in the studio with you that knows what it is. They have a ledger with assets on it, and yet our human assets are mistreated and undervalued.

You have a lot of concepts in the book that I think are controversial concepts that are counterintuitive, that slide in the face of conventional wisdom, which is why I think it warranted writing a book. So what I want to do is I wanted to. I wanted to ask you directly to distill or to break down three concepts in the book you wrote about and I thought, Gosh, I’d love to hear it direct from the source for even the listeners out there who say, you know, I purchased the book and I had a question about this. So concept number one is relationships. Proceed, influence, relationship. Proceed influenced. Break that down for us.

I’m sorry I interrupted you. Say it again, sir.

Like break it down. Relationships proceed. Influence anywhere on the skype. There’s a little bit of a delay, I apologize for the overlap there, but relationships proceeding influence. What do you mean by that?

So let’s flip it and see how bad this is. An influence proceeds relationship. You just know instinctively that’s not right, that everything starts with a relationship. I can’t influence you because I tell you to do something. If I influenced, that’s just an order and I choose to do it or not do it, but influence come. You have to put a piece of string. Steve knows this analogy, I’ve used it so many times. Put it down on your table where you’re sitting and push that spring, push it and it’ll just wrinkle up, but get ahold of one end of it and pull it and it’ll come and follow you on a straight line. Pretty much. And and so what I teach is that I have to first grow relationship first show share before I, before I started telling anyone will make join a company that I’m working with.

I want them. I want to know them, I want to care about them. I want to have dinner with their family. One of the other kids I want pictures, I want to get to know them in such a way that I understand who they are because I don’t hire people quickly, really slow to hire because I want to know that they’re a cultural fit that we can influence them but to be excellent, so I’m really believe that if we go first, I want to go first as a leader, build a really their jobs, not to build a relationship with me that’s wrong. That’s old school, that’s theory X. I want to build a relationship with them based on trust, build high trust and then link them by influencing and influence comments because I care first care. Then give orders.

Dr. Green. I am struggling to remember the name of the book. It was early on my career. I think it was maybe a maxwell book, but he talks about permission leadership versus position leadership and a lot of people don’t understand that that principal that that just because your boss, just because you’re over somebody doesn’t mean they’re voluntarily following you. You just happened to be in position leadership and you have to earn permission. Leadership, is that Kinda what you’re, what you’re talking about.

I use Barney fife at Andy Griffith. Bonnie had a position, but he had no influence and he didn’t care about his position. He just influenced. Bonnie had a badge and a bullet and andy just kind of walked around and and built relationships with people and judge pickle context. That’s the leader. That’s a model leader who when it came time to do what had to be done, he got listened to and people fell in line, not out of a some form of rule, but because they wanted to. They trusted. Andy said no. Trusting. Mocked Bonnie five, the positional leader.

Eric job. We call our colon from a south north Chicago, an elderly man, and this is what he had to say about Dr. Green’s most recent take.

Okay. That was Harry Carey had sounded like heroes. You know, all he had to say right there. That’s all he had to say. No, this is. This is A. I want to make sure the listeners get this idea. I don’t disagree with anything Dr Green just said, but I will this that if you don’t heed the advice of the founder of Southwest Airlines and shepherd want you to pull that from the tape boys interview as well because it’s such a powerful quote. You want to hire character and train skill. You know the founder of southwest airlines, Herb Keller, a cofounder talks about this. All the founder of Kwik trip, a convenient stores talks about this. Any, any Jack Welch talks about this, so again, I a hundred percent agree. Relationships proceed influence, but shame on you. If you hire a low character to time convicted felon to work in your call center and you’re shocked that they don’t do well with this kind of leadership.

I’m just telling you, I mean, again, you want a higher character and train skill, so if you’re finding somebody you, since they have some character, I do encourage you to build relationships with them, but at the same time if a and Steve, you’ve seen this in your call center, my call center, and you have a great team right now, but you’ve seen people where it’s like this person is trying to steal from you day one because they have multiple arrests for stealing violent crime theft. Wherever. Paul, you’ve seen that before. Someone applies for a job. I said I graduated from Oklahoma University and yet they didn’t actually graduate. I mean, you’ve seen that. So again, this system works. What he said works, but please don’t be an idiot. I mean, don’t just sit there and hire a, a two time convicted rapist. And a guy who says, I enjoy plundering on the weekends when I’m not watching the show. Vikings and then names Kathy Farrell, Captain Jack Sparrow. Okay. So business coach concept number two, uh, that I wanted to have you break down is the importance of managing entropy. Now entropy, the definition means the lack of order or predictability, gradual decline into disorder. That is the definition from webster. So can you talk to me about the importance of managing entropy in what you’re talking about?

Low one skill and we’re going to hire a slope.

I think a lot of people hear what you’re saying and polarity and they go, oh, so I just build a relationship with anybody. This will work. But you’d said, I think we’ll skip over that. You said slow to hire. He says, slow to hire. Quick to fire. That was always.

And that comes along

and I’m going to echo that like a choir. Who’s on fire? You are acquire who’s on fire? Okay, so Dr Green, the importance of managing entropy. What do you mean by that?

Alright, first of all, the entropy is the example clay, and that’s really a good visual that you have a good spring cleaning project and get your closet perfect. Everything’s good.

Oh, it’s so good.

And then by old, two weeks, three weeks, maybe a little longer. You get chaos

too close to home. Eric Drexler in here. He hasn’t looked at your closet. I don’t know where my wife listens to this show. Come on.

I can tell you that you’ve been around restaurants. You’ve coached restaurants, just walk away from your restaurant for two, three days. You won’t come back to the same place. They won’t look the same. You Ceos, leaders, business owners have got to put a lot of attention on whatever it is they own. That’s one of the things that he meant. The Myth is that entrepreneurship is freedom. That doesn’t owning stuff. It gives you nothing but the opportunity to work really hard life and to do everything you can to create a franchise system to create multiple units and to create systems that help the operation will work better, but it’s not going to happen on its own. If you leave it alone, it’ll move toward entry. Our job is to create negative entropy where we get ahold of that growth curve, throw it on our back and Yank it up because it won’t do it by itself. Nothing like that. Not Organisms in business are going to grow without attention from a leader.

You know, I, I agree with what you just said and I want to make sure listeners are, are, are grasping what I’m saying to you because it might seem again counterintuitive to what you perceive, but I’ll give you example. Elephant in the room, our men’s grooming lounge chain chop. You send this, you’ve been there. He was a client when I was in Tulsa. I want the listeners to know this. We have a staff or a team of about 100 employees, about 100 people work there between the three stores. Ish. There is never a week where I don’t fire somebody and I wish there was. So as an example this week we had a lady, she said, this is what she said, that I would like to get your take on this because you are into management and marketing and you, you tell me what you think about this.

The lady now remember most guys wanna get their haircuts after five then to get a haircut after five or on the weekends and she says, I’m a 100 percent committed team member. I just can never work after five or on the weekend. Oh yeah. One hundred percent committed to working here. I’m 100 percent committed now. People don’t realize that this young lady recently got married and so she no longer needs to work, but for the last two years she did. And almost immediately upon getting married, she says, I’m 100 percent committed. You know, me, I’ve been here for two years, which is true ride or die homie. But I am definitely not going to be able to work after five or on the weekends, which by the way, we’re closed on Sundays, but Saturday is our biggest day and evenings. And so we want to leave her with a, uh, um, grace.

But she said today, this is true story. She said today to one of our schedulers, she said, and I can only work two hours a week right now for the next four weeks to hours. So what she’s saying with her actions is, hey, I’m kind of wanting to quit, but I don’t want to quit. Right? And because I know this person, I know of what’s going on. And I know that entropy by default, we would have a person that we’re counting on that’s going to be on their way out, so I know that we’re going to drift towards disorder. I said, let’s set up a one on one meeting with her on Friday and let’s find out her longterm goal and see whether it’s time for her to move on and to leave with a great letter of recommendation or whether she was, let’s find out what’s going on, but I don’t abdicate. I delegate. I’d like to get your take on abdication versus delegation abdication being just let it run on its own. Let entropy happened. Delegation meeting. You follow up. You have to. You know what’s going on. Talk to me about this. This idea of, Hey, I’m going to. I’m going to. I’m going to buy an elephant in the room, franchise and then not know what’s going on. Talk to me about that.

A leader who is not leading anything, you have to delegate. You have to trust but verify you handle this. This is the way I like you to handle them, verify that it’s been done, it trust, but I want to, I don’t know, verify that about half of the way that I’ve asked you. This is a classic case in service businesses of saying one thing with your mouth, the person that you need to deal with and then not being able to deliver it with her actions and you know you have a responsibility to all the people that work there and then all of your clients, by the way, is a former client. I want you to know I still get phone calls. They still are trying to get me to come

Florida and I have a great home. Now you’re enjoying the Florida life. I mean you’ve got a beautiful house, but yeah, you definitely need to fly in America. It’s not that expensive little flight. Dr G, it’s allegiant. Sorry,

the therapy in that, but I loved it. I absolutely loved the place.

Sounds like a franchise.

Really. Every one of your clients deals with this, and the answer, in my opinion, is lovingly let them go lead them onto a greener pasture because it isn’t here. Here’s how we work here. This is our system. Here’s how we do things here. We wish you well.

I appreciate you saying that because I think for a lot of our business coach listeners who think with a book called love leads are thinking, this guy’s a pacifist. He actually Switzerland rebound. He’s going to talk about never ever holding people accountable, only holding their hands right now. Get no concept number three in your book that I find to be controversial and maybe maybe you don’t, is the golden rule of leadership. Um, I think we’re in a culture now without values, or at least we have situational values. Let me give an example, a chump. You’ve seen this, I’m sure, even though I will say I’ve seen this. Yeah, you’ve never seen this as a business coach. I’ve seen this because I’m not a good coach. This is why I had a, a client of mine, true story, a client of mine who’s talking to me about him thinking about leaving my wife and I wanted to know the strategy to minimize my tax implications.

Yeah, true story. Uh, this person also though wanted to know, um, it was kinda like, oh, and by the way, I want to fix my website and I’m going, ah, I have a business coach. Not as a big ball hanging out there a true story and jump. You were in, I think you were in the meeting where we had a person who claimed to be a document. True story Dr. Drew’s story. This person claimed to be a doctor. She claimed to be a doctor and she wanted us to get her to the top of internet searches for testosterone and estrogen, but she was not, in fact a doctor. It’s a problem. So I said, we need to put your resume on the website. It helps instill trust, will get more conversions. And she says, well, I am not a doctor. So I wanted to see what’s the best way to kind of hype up my resume, hard to instill trust that. So I mean, I mean seriously, this is the thing that I said, hey, you know, you can’t be a client. That’s why we only take on 160 clients. For us it’s about sorting. And if you don’t have consistent values, I can’t help you, you know, no one can help you. So the golden rule, even that phrase just seems so old school, you know, it seems like, oh my gosh.

Through talking with Steve and knowing your reputation as a great business leader, very successful with clients and how you expect people to perform could do their thing. And so your basic core value is that treat people the way you want to be treated.

There’s nothing wrong with that shit.

I’m not finished. What I’ve taught Steve and what I believe is my way of living is to treat people better than I expect to be treated.

I know,

but it’s how you will. If I give more than I expect to get, I’m going to win. I just believe that. And I may not win with this client, for the client, for the next come on, but overall I’m going to over deliver and overdeliver everyday to every person will come in contact with,

I’m going to say this to you because you’ve been screwed. I’ve been screwed because we overdeliver. And then someone says, oh, cusser overdelivering, you’ve been working with a client. You’ve emotionally invested in that client. You’ve helped him grow dramatically, and then they cancel because, oh, by the way, paying you $3,000 a month or whatever you’re charging is actually a little bit less than the $15 an hour employee who sucks, but because they’re in the process of buying a boat, they’re going to cancel you. You’ve had it happen. So I’m going to queue up my gospel music here and I would like for you to preach the importance of always over delivering regardless of what other people do to you. Without any further ado, jump. Here comes the gospel music, Steve Green, bring it. Take us to.

Let me tell you it’s going to be. I’m never expect anyone’s gonna do what I,

but I’ve always got to do what I say I’m going to be that way. You know,

over the long haul. When I’m at the finish line,

you got a great line. You have a lot

people want to be. You want to have a kind of numbers you delivered. They want to live the life. They just don’t understand where they are yet and they think you’re cutting out on it

someone after you’ve already made up their underwear.

Oh, okay. Now, speaking of Incredible Gospel dissertations, you recently interviewed the man that I feel like I know better than anybody else in the world who I’ve never met. It’s so weird. I don’t spend an hour a day with even my best friends and I spend an hour and a half every single day with td jakes. Oh yeah. Literally every single day. I listened to td jakes now through a Unicorn event, a winters and king, one of our clients that we work with. We’ve worked with winters and king now for four years, helping them with their marketing and they represent brother, td, jakes, and brother Craig. Rochelle and Joyce Meyers from both from a legal perspective, so I’m trying to get him on our podcast, but because I think the man has class, he has priorities. He’s yet to commit to be on our podcast and yet he has been on your podcast and so you obviously are kind of a big deal and you have a great reputation that proceeds you, so I want to ask you about how you got td jakes on your podcast and what you learned most from him being on your podcast.

Because I listened to your podcast twice. It blew my mind. My grey matter exploded out of my head in a figurative sense. I had to put it back in. Listen to it again. I’m just telling you I absolutely love brother td jakes and the fact that you had them on your podcast was unbelievably exciting for me knowing that Steve speaks so highly of you. I thought to myself, this has to be a highlight for Steve. Talked to me about interviewing a td jakes. What it was like. I mean, talk to me about having him on your podcast.

So first, let me ask you how many times I’m not asked the question that you were going, because if you’re sitting in that seat list and you’re going to say, ask him this push here. How many times that happened in the show?

Oh, at the entire time I’m taking notes and I just kept saying get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready. Because I kept going. He was hearing he was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peter, but peanut butter and jealous. Oh Wow. No, I’m being serious. I was so excited about having him on podcast. It blue. I love td jakes. And He, uh, everyday about four, 15:00 PM I’ve thought. I think this thought. Steve, Dr Steve, you can tell me. I think to myself, is it ethical or legal to kill a man? Just one right now. I don’t know. And I’m so mad. And then every morning I go to, I go to bed at night and I every morning I reset. And Td jakes does such a good job about sharing the context of the scripture and the story around it, what it meant, what it means to you, the context of that time.

And he made the Bible relevant to me in a way that only Carlton Pearson had ever previously done. And when Carlton Pearson Switched Teams, um, he Carlton’s still a friend of mine, but when he decided to no longer be a Christian and to switch to becoming a universalist or whatever that is, I kind of felt violated. And I felt like I knew God was real, but I felt like I’d lost a brother or a close friend. The only person that ever made the Bible real relevant to me was Carlton Pearson. Ever Carlton switched. I thought, gosh, I don’t know what I’m going to do to make the scripture aluminate to me like it did before. And I remember meeting with Carlton Pearson for lunch because he was. I hired. Carlton helped me become a better speaker. And Carlton had told me, brother td jakes is one of the most talented people that he’d ever worked with.

And he had said that he’d heard seats spoken so highly of her brother. Jake’s did. I actually started listening to him and this was before youtube and different things were available, so I had to buy vhs tapes and get my hands on whatever I could. And uh, I honestly believe td Jakes is a, is a, a guy reading my breaking point. Not I was going to lose my faith, but it was a guy that I was gonna lose my motivation. I think td jakes was there for me to pick me up as I started to fall. Can you talk to me about just td Jakes, interviewing him, your relationship with him? I just want to hear you talk about your relationship with td jakes.©

We have a lot in common. Katie Jackson, a speck on his back. I’m a long way from being the kind of man that he is, but what I know about him is he’s a business pastor. He’s got a marketplace ministry. In other words, he spends as much time with business owners as he does with parishioners in this church. Entrepreneurs. He’s got an entrepreneurial spirit that’s as strong as yours and what he does with that as he, he finds out how God’s in the marketplace. We’re not living in an agronomy economy like Jesus walked, you know he could just talk about we and feeds and fig trees. He could see where she talked about what that life was. Now we’ve got a guy like td jakes who can speak very clearly to men like you and I and other business owners and speak to them about their dreams and what they want, and he is very much dream a caster with a very strong sense of reality.

He will call you out if you’re just a dreamer without being a doer. He’s got a lot on one line is that it was just so powerful, but they’ll catch you to your heart until you understand what it means to execute. Td jakes is an executer and he’s working in the entertainment industry. He’s big and he helps people and he sits across the business coach desk from someone like you’re speaking of. Now, what he does is he makes it come alive. It makes it real and he doesn’t belong to us, the Gospel one bit, but he talks not down to them, but with them he’s just got a way of waking up the drinks that are already planted in front of us. God’s got dreams in us. He’s planned when there, and we’re just too lazy to execute. Unless you, you and people that don’t have studio with you right now. They’re all doers. I would believe that everyone who circles in your a gravity here and when it’s around you get things done or they go away. They are executor’s td jakes. That’s why he resonates with you.

There was a time that oprah attended td Jakes Church in Dallas. Yep. And a oprah has a different faith than the Judeo Christian faith and she sat down in the service. They were doing a behind the scenes, kind of like, what is td jakes? What is his ministry all about? And I only watch this because I watched the movie the Butler. Have you seen the Butler? Dr Green. Have you seen the Butler?

I don’t think so, but

I respect your time so much. I will only give you one recommendation and that is to watch the button.

I’m writing it down now.

Uh, the Butler was the,

so we started talking because I knew you would.

That’s the only, that’s the only recommendation I have for you and all the listeners is that, uh, the Butler was the story about the first African American ever working in the White House and he was working as an assistant, the Butler to the president. So he heard the president saying things that were crazy confidential, like on the, on the, on the verge of war, on the verge of, of epic, racist confrontations. He’s the fly in the wall that here’s everything. If the walls could here, it would be the butler. And when Oprah decided to produce that movie, which by the way, if you watch that movie, I’ve never seen an actress perform with more sincerity and purpose than Oprah in that movie. I’m telling you, I’ve watched that movie a half dozen times and I want to watch it a half dozen more. But Oprah, a produced the movie and she watched the credits and I noticed at the end of it td Jakes, I’m going, what in the world does td Jakes do for Oprah?

So I started searching and I started in long story short, Oprah’s a huge fan of td jakes. So she travels to his church in Dallas and he’s talking about the loaves and how the fish and the loaves now, Christ was able to multiply those things and she explained to td Jakes, do you see her on camera? If you watch us on youtube, it’s oprah visits. Td Jakes, find it on youtube and we’ll put it on the show notes so listeners can find it. And Oprah begins to cry and she explains the Td jakes that she had never got the message of that part of the Bible ever. And it was only through what he taught that illuminated it. It made it real for her. It became alive. And I feel like that’s what td jakes does. And I feel like that’s really what you did as the dean of College of business at Oru business could be boring. The swot analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. You might say, gosh, it’s so boring. How? Talk to me about your passion for making business relevant and illuminating it and making it interesting for your students. Where does that passion come from?

It comes from how every time until I met a faculty member who took an interest in me. I love to teach students that Steve is a little bit of a cmo.

Oh

No, it’s just no teacher ever saw it in him. You know, so many of us get labeled real quick and education. We don’t color inside the lines real good or if they don’t cover right, what happens? You get granted. You get labeled, you get back up the class, you get put into a special room. The idea is to speak into the potential. I love to see a c student become excellent and to fight for it and work hard and it have someone stand in front of room that believes in them as people. I think that’s td jakes as well, brother, and I think that’s what oprah saw in him. He just makes people see things in themselves to begin to dream. Steve current gives a dreamer, but he’s a doer to go with it.

How did you arrange to get brother td jakes on your podcast? Did you guys, you guys met him or you, you guys been friends over the years or do you have any relationship with Tj?

We’re not best buddies. I can talk to you off offline about maybe some things to try and put a letter in for you. He’s a good man and you’re, you’re speaking to the kind of people that you’d want to speak to. So I don’t think there’s a real hard thing to do. He’s a good man. He cares about people. So I think you’ll be your show

and I want to, I want to give you. I appreciate that. By the way, I want to give listeners a notable quotable that would let the listeners know that you are in fact not crazy. Um, because you said you want to teach cs students and uh, someone might be saying to themselves and that’s a little crazy right there. See Students. Albert Einstein once said, Albert Einstein once said, education is what remains after one has forgotten, one has learned in school education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school, not Dr.

it’s so good brother.

Well, I, I, uh, uh, this is my passion and uh, anytime we can get a unicorn like you on the show, we want to make sure we deliver. Now, you, you, you. One of the things you talk about a lot, I’ve, I’ve heard you talk about, I’ve heard people talk to me about you talking about it. It’s unit economics and right away when somebody hears the phrase unit economics, this is what most people think in their minds mentally.

I am your.

I think a lot of people though, again, when someone starts to talk about unit economics, I have an audio clip, Paul Hood. You would appreciate this. This is an audio clip of a CPA, a colleague in your industry, explaining to a group of college students what unit economics is all about. And Luckily I was able to mike his classroom without his knowledge or a adjunct professor. Paul, one of your competitors, one of your peers, and I’m going to play this for you and you can tell me whether this seems accurate. This is what he had to say to his classroom of 300 people, 100 of which were asleep.

Lot of pressure. You got to rise above it. You’ve got a harness and the good energy block out the bad harness energy block that feel the flow happy, feel it. It’s circular. It’s like a carousel. You pay the quarter, you get on the horse, it goes up and down, and the round, circular, circular.

No one has any idea what’s being discussed. I mean, it’s just. It’s crazy. Paul, have you ever felt like that you’re in a class at Osu or any other college where you’re thinking to yourself, what is this guy talking about? I’m pretty sure I had a class with that. That guy taught me at Oklahoma state. Okay, so Dr Greene. I’m giving an opportunity to teach and to preach and to share because you care, my friend breakdown unit economics. For all the listeners out there, why does it matter? No, I will not. I’ve never done that.

Here it is. First of all, you got to know your customer count. How many customers do you need at your average ticket? What is your average ticket? How much you make on the average visitor?

No, they were going, Eric. Eric trump is putting these on the notes. He’s putting on the business coach show notes, so let’s repeat that real quick because Eric was putting these on the show notes for the listeners.

Alright, we’ve got an on average ticket. Price is 10 bucks, $10 and somebody walks in the door. That’s on average, so I’ll be lower so it’d be higher. Now, how many people are going to come in the door? How many people do I need to come in the door to cover my fixed costs? Just on a break even basis. How much you can do this on a Napkin. I taught it in my high level, senior level class. This is how we dumbed it down. Do It on a Napkin or it’s not good enough. Real quick spreadsheet. It doesn’t help me.

Thrive nation, if you’re out there listening and you say to yourself, I don’t need to know the number of customers I need to break even, you might be in the same camp or company as one of our listeners called in chap and he said, you know, I read a little bit of what Dr Green talked about. I’ve, I’ve, I attended a class or two just kind of observing and he told me what to do and I decided not to do it and this is what happened to me, and he wanted to share a testimonial, what, what, what happened to him as a result of deciding to hear what to do and then not do it. So I’m very excited to. The listener was able to be on the show. Is this good? It’s good that you have all this audio equipment with you. This is awesome. He left the voicemail chapter. You can record calls for quality assurance. So here we go.

First off, I am 35 years old, am divorced and I live down by the river.

Okay? Right.

So that’s what happens. If you don’t know your break even point back to you, Dr. Green,

don’t care about unit economics. They don’t care about the business side of things. How about this in a restaurant, I just always wanted to cook food for your chef and cook food at high. Have real high food costs and overdeliver. Have 60 customers per table. I’m sorry. I have six servers per table and just do everything and overdeliver and run out of business as fast as I can.

There is a listener out there. What happened? There’s a listener out there who decided. They said, you know what? I’m not going to listen to Dr. Green and economics and voice, and they left us a voicemail and they said he talked a lot about unit economics, but I was too busy because I’m so passionate about the food that I really couldn’t implement what he said and so we were able to record the voicemail. He left through the call screen who won’t let everybody through and they said you don’t qualify to be on the show, but if you’d leave a voicemail we’d be happy to play it, and so then any further a new chip, this is what a listener out there had to say who was passionate about their restaurant and the recipes, but not so passionate about knowing their numbers.

Like I picked the wrong. We quit smoking, quit drinking. Like I picked the wrong week when I’m Philomena,

so I mean it’s not going to go well for you if you don’t know your numbers and what. Have you ever seen an example where somebody did have success that did not know their numbers?

I don’t know of one.

Surely you can’t be serious. I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.

Okay, so it’s very rare. I mean to Steve Currington. You wanted to chime in there a funny joke between Dr Green and I. Every once in a while I’d go Dr Green. I think I want to open a restaurant. What’s your response? Why don’t you just give me a million bucks now? Save the tide, always giving you $500,000 back in three years and then you will not pay for. Nice. That’s the funniest. Okay, Georgia Green. We have to know those numbers and again, just kind of repeat. What are the things everyone has to know? The it’s the average ticket price. What else?

Talk about the elephant in the room.

You don’t know how many customers are walking in that door and what your average ticket is. You have a real difficult time projecting revenue. We’ve got to build a project revenue so we can do something about it and make sure we cover our costs. So we started right back at square one. Make sure we have a real good, clear understanding of, first of all like you do, you drive up that average ticket. You’ve got an assumed average ticket, but the job, everybody inside the store is to sell add ons and you commissioned those and yeah,

an example, Paul Hood with Hood Cpas, they don’t want to just do your taxes because if you just do your taxes, it’s a reactive thing. It’s like, Hey, this is how much you owe. Boom. Here’s your taxes, this is how much you owe, but if they can help you strategize and he hit, that can help you even save three percent of your income. If they can even help you save three percent of your income proactively, they know that it’s mathematically impossible for you to retire broke. If you start early enough. I mean, Paul, why are you passionate about not just being a transactor? Why do you want to be, hey, we want to be a proactive accountant. Well,

you know, I just, I’m not that guy. I’m not that guy that wants to sit in the back of the room and not talk to people and I want to bring value to, to, to the people that I’m meeting with and you know, anybody I can hire the people that’ll, that’ll do those tax returns and I review my, my share. But the exciting part of life is like Dr Greenspan and taken and I don’t know if they would be a c student, but as a person that’s willing to work extra hard, they just don’t know what to do. And, and I love getting in front of them. And help them, guide them through the principles I’ve learned from you, claim the principles I’ve learned from experience and acquisitions and I owned a restaurant and got out of it. Um, but to be able to take somebody that is just an overcomer and that just doesn’t know what to do and help guide them. And that’s what we do at Hood Cpas.

A chip. I think for all listeners out there who disagree with what’s being taught, there is an alternative out there that there’s a parallel universe. There’s a parallel country out there for all the listeners out there who say, I don’t want to know my unit economics, I just want to focus on my passion for haircuts or bakery goods or fitness or whatever the crap you’re industry is. I’m and I want to share. I want to make sure it’s equal and balance. I want to make sure it’s always. She always wanted the show to be fair and balanced. And so I’m gonna read a notable quotable from a really a man who has a lot of respect from the people who are required to respect him. Kim Jong. Uhm, and so in a rare show, benevolence, I will read a notable quotable from Mr Kim Zhang own

socialism is a sacred cow for realizing the demand and desires of the masses. The people for independence is a revolutionary cause that advances a mid tier struggle against imperialism and all other counter, counter revolutionary force. And Oh, by the way,

do systemically raped people and village. My people signed Kim Jong. I mean, seriously. I mean, if you don’t embrace capitalistic principles, I mean, I guess you could go to North Korea and as long as you’re Dennis Rodman, you get right in. You fit right in. Next thing you know, you’re playing on the basketball team. You’re watching dolphins with Kim Jong Goon and you’re all good. I mean Dr. Green, what do you think? Dennis? Rodman and Kim Jong UN and having common. Have you ever thought about that? Like their heights? No. Seriously. What is made them like best buddies?

That’s it. That’s all I can tell you. Done any research on this matter, but they’re just, they don’t dance to anybody else’s drum.

That’s probably what they’re into. They’re like, Hey, are you sick? Freak, yeah. I’m a sick freak. Are you cool? I’m serious. I want to. I just want to ask you, because appall I mean you, you, you can obviously be the Monday morning quarterback here. You can want ups to you, but have you ever thought about like what America. We’ve had a country that for 50 plus years we haven’t been able to find a single diplomat that can get into North Korea, can penetrate the society of secrecy and communism and come out with some answers and yet we sent in a basketball player with green hair and as many things as possible and he’s the best we’ve got. What is, what is Kim Jong UN and Dennis Rodman having common? Okay.

I think it’s really simple and I think you mentioned it in Dr. Green, Mitch, and this different way. I think people that are successful and success is defined by different things are freaks are different than the average person. You’re a freak clay. I mean you, you, you grind, you work, you, you spend time. Yeah. I’m a freak as far as CPAS are concerned. And fitness. Yeah. Whatever. And you know, we’re all freaks and, and Kim Jong. Ooh, he’s a freak. Dennis Rodman’s a freak. It just, they’re freaked. Just happened to match up. And so you got a freaky, freaky, freaky.

Let me say this guy’s too. To sum that up, I want to give listeners a notable quotable they can hang their hat on. I want to. I want to sum up that whole dialogue right there. Then we’ll get back into some hard hitting questions with Dr Green. I want to sum that up. This is what I have to say about that. See abroad to get laid down and smack them. I have no idea what that means from an airplane. So what an incredible movie airplane was. Okay. So Dr. Green, where do most companies get it wrong when it comes to marketing?

Wait, we think we’ve got a good product. We’ve built a better mousetrap, we build a better piece of technology and people are gonna want it? Not Everybody can get away with what Steve Jobs did. He created something and nobody had a need for autonomy. The needed them to want it. That’s a rarity. That’s,

he’s a guru, he’s the next level. I mean, that’s like trying to instill, give a basketball player and I’m trying to, it would be like,

he just knew it.

I would say this though, this is Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, those are disruptors and that’s like one out of a million entrepreneurs. But if you’re out there and you say why can jump off 52 inches? And uh, I, you know, I’m, my name is Michael Jordan and you go ahead and do that. I mean if you can jump in, but I mean, step one, if I was teaching the listeners out there, step one, I want to be like Michael Jordan. Okay. Step one, be six foot six or six foot seven and have a natural shot by the way, step one, step one, step two, jumped 45 to 50 inches off the ground. I got those covered and then we’ll continue with the program. I mean, that’s, I mean, so again, I mean Steve Jobs had an intuitive knowledge of what people wanted, but you’re saying for everybody else, myself included, where do we, what people need?

You have to feel me, right.

Comes from filling, satisfying a customer that’s got an itch that he’s not been able to scratch and you come up with a niche scratcher.

That’s it.

Suddenly overnight success, right.

Took you 20 years chip. I feel like that Steve Just said, Steve Just said something very, very practical, but I feel like a lot of people are thinking to themselves, you know, Gosh, I just. It seems like it’s so me. Did he say in that I can’t be like Steve Jobs. I just have to solve a problem that people have. Chuck, as a business coach, where do you see people getting that wrong?

Yeah, they come in like a Dr. Green was saying, and this idea of this business is their baby, and so they think everybody’s gonna love their baby as much as they do beautiful bay. Before you had kids and you get guys in the studio and Dr Green, did you guys ever ride a plane before you had kids and there was a kid on that plane? It’s a great thing. I hated children until I hit it. Other people’s kids crying, my favorite. That’s what I see is that they think that I don’t even need to market. I don’t even need to advertise. I don’t need to be different because everybody’s going to love. My baby is so beautiful that other people love it. I mean, you think about it looks just like her father and his is awesome. That just think about the bigger, the size of where he’d then all their friends tell them their baby is so beautiful. That truly ugly. No, seriously. That’s what it is.

Blinded by the beauty of your baby. And I hate to slap the baby. Paula. Slap your Mama. I will. I hate that. So, ah, that’s a different show. I hate to slap your baby out there, but I’m going to tell you the hard facts there. Thrivers

nobody cares about you except the fact that you bring a baby on the plane. Can we open up the emergency exit 10,000 baby out? Because if it doesn’t stop crying. I want you to get a lead pipe baby stuff. What are we doing with this lead pipe clay? So again,

I mean it seems harsh but I mean a lot of people don’t care about your business at all at all at all. So Dr Green, we live in a culture and a time in which approximately 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. And yet you and your wife Annette had been married for 45 years. Is that accurate? Or even married? Longer than 45 years at this point. Congratulations. Now we. I did. I had Dr Zellner who’s an optometrist on do some research and one of the things he’s done for me to help me out. And this is a tip I would give to you if you want, if you want this tip. I actually my wife, I met Dr Zellner as a result of my wife being his front desk lady 19 years ago. And so I. There’s no proof. I had this conversation and Dr z doesn’t remember the conversation, but the point is this is how I felt it went. I said figuratively or mentally through telepathy to Dr. CSS through telepathy. Dr C, is it possible? Possible, possible.

My wife’s patient prescriber contacts glasses, make sure she never sees my success. That’s how we’re going to keep it together and Dr Z, who’s above above that kind of thing, he says to me, I swear, if you will just pay me $100 a week, I will make sure that I repeatedly to make sure she never sees you again, so I will meet you by the bar with your car for

a guy named sneaks. He will. He will hand you a brown bag in that brown pack. There will be various things in the brown bag, a lot of things written about Tom Brady and the Patriots and there’ll be a false prescription. I want you to take the prescription and I want you to not make eye contact. That’s where it gets weird. And I said, Dr. see you are a blessed man. And he said also for an extra $17 I could get you an indulgence which allows you to get a family member to heaven if they have screwed up. And I said, look, $34, what can I get? You can also offer for 99. You could also a free exam and a pair of glasses, and I said back, I said, that sounds like a no brainer, no brainer. This is my child. Blessed it. Are you your life? What your wife will never see you again, and if you ever meet Dr Green, make sure I could screw up his vision, her vision as well, because I want to make sure that she can’t see him because if they do, it could end in a divorce.

So outside of obviously paying Dr Zellner to miss, prescribe your wife for 45 consecutive years. What is your tip for staying married for 45 years?

Capital. Pretty good. Secret Service. Just try to serve each other more than you give more than you. I know it sounds so simplistic and so rose colored glasses, but you know, reteach yourself. I don’t want as much as I want to serve you. I just want to think about something going home tonight I can do for her and I know it sounds Mamby pamby and I get that, but that’s how we’ve done it. We just serve each other

chips, chips. Speaking of Mamby Pamby, you know what they say, see abroad to get at boody, I want to know what that means at some point for the movie airplane, a great movie. So Dr. Green, you’re a well read one or two or three books that you would recommend for all of our listeners to read. At least once

deep work got put on the list of case I don’t get to number three because it’s going to be sound effect come at me,

but I absolutely believe you cal Newport,

he’s a phd in algorithms so this is not an interesting guy. Yeah, I’m going to hang out with him. He’s going to talk geek stuff about algorithms, but he wrote a book on how to work and how to work in a completely different level. It’s a superb book. I love it. I read it six times, probably in eight weeks.

I would also say this for anybody out there who says, listen buddy, listen buddy, I don’t have time to read a lot of books. Why should I read deep work? Um, I listened to the audio book of that Multiple Times because most people just get into the epidermis of their service or product. Most people would never get into the marrow. Most getting into the marrow requires a narrow focus. A lot of people aren’t willing to get into the narrow focus required to get into the deep business coach marrow. They’d rather just focus on the epidermis of their business, the, the skin level, these surface level, they never really quite understand the customer, the never quite understand what they do for the customer than ever. Really obsess. And you must have a magnificent obsession for what you do to ever become a truly rich and wealthy deep work. Great Book Book Number Two, my friend

Harvard professor of marketing. She’s outstanding in the way she sees things in the book. Uh, it won’t interest a lot of people, but if you’re a marketer and you love to understand how marketing works and what we have to be doing today different is a great book for you.

This book is a lot of people out there, but if you are a of an Irish, Asian descent or an African American Russian, you would love this book. Just kidding with you. Very few people that can relate to that. I, I, I, I’ve, I’ve had a few of my friends that are. I have a lot of good friends were Asian, but not a lot of Asian Irish hybrids there chop and there’s not a whole new Americans up there and in the Soviet, former Soviet Union, Russia. So again, a book three, book number three. What is book number three that you’d recommend?

How will you measure your life by Clay Christensen? Another.

Hey, I’m very close to getting him on the show by the way. I’m very close to getting an innovator’s dilemma. Great Book. Try to get them on the show before I specialize in rejection with maniacal follow up and I looks like we’re putting him on the show.

He’s tough, but he’s so well you get him on the show.

He is really good. Really, really good. Like I don’t think people realize. I mean he’s a. his books are so good. They teach entrepreneurs that, listen, buddy, you might have a big idea, but you’ve got to build the processes and systems. How will you measure your life? Can you kind of explain what that book’s about? Overall?

Yes, sir. She had a death sentence on him and began to really think about what he’s done and how I measured it and how things weren’t going away. One of them that go and he wish he could do some things differently. It’s about that. It’s about setting out to know what matters most and measure your life by how you measure it. Not by how I measure it. Almost every one of my students,

Clayton Christianson, a great professor, Harvard Business Professor, read his book. How will you measure your life? Dr. Green. I final two questions. I want to respect your time. Final two questions here. You’ve obviously have a top podcast. You’ve done well with the podcast. You’ve had years of experience as a consultant working directly with businesses. You’ve taught business as the dean of business at Oral Roberts University. Uh, from your perspective, both anecdotical, anecdotal and statistical, what is the number one reason businesses fail? And how can our listeners, uh, prevented, I mean, what, what’s the number one reason businesses fail? And what can our listeners do too, to where can our listeners do about it?

A friend of your CPAS, excellent account. It is you just run out of cash.

You’re on a cash because you’re making bad decisions. You’re not keeping a good. Let me just use the language cost accounting. You don’t know where money’s coming or going and when that’s the problem, you’ll, you’ll run out of cash. And so what did you do? What the average business goes out of business that’s wrong. They go borrow. They’re out of cash. Cash is coming in. Probably not. If you’re out of Canada, something’s wrong. At least look at it with a good accountant, have a really good understanding. Businesses go out of business because of lack of cash or perhaps they get steve jobs, ruins them. You’re making cds and one day he comes out with an MP, three player. You know that you can innovate it out. But you said the average business that you. And ideal.

Yeah, most people get blown out of the water and destroyed and their business fails because of not looking at the numbers intensely enough, not because of a competitor that comes in all of a sudden and shocks people. Dr Greene, so many of our listeners have enjoyed today’s interview. I know that I have and uh, I just telling you this on the air, I’d love to have you on as a guest in the future. Um, or if you ever have a hot topic you want to talk about, I’d love to have you on again, but for our listeners who want to know how they can learn more about you or maybe upcoming projects you’re working on, um, what’s the, the one website or the one place that you would direct all of our listeners to go to to learn more about you and the projects that you’re working on?

Obviously Dr. Steve Green Dot com is the easiest way to get me and I would love for people to connect their Dr Steve Green Dot Com. Lovely book is another way of connecting with me. Either one of those to be great and I don’t, I, I just appreciate it if anybody even picks up the book that you find controversial,

you know, if you’re out there listening and um, uh, you, you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time and all, you know this, but we’re kind of indoctrinating Dr Green into our indoor, cultish culture here. We like to end every show. We like to end with one question before Dr gonna have this. Eric, I have one question. Earlier in the show, Steve Currington said something to you about tracking people that eat McDonald’s more than seven times per week and he said you labeled those people super heavy users. Did you do that on purpose?

Mcdonald’s uses.

That is hilarious. Super heavy users are the ones that eat seven times or morally this just. Yes. I just had to clarify. I wanted to know. So thank you for that clarification. We like to end every show with a boom and boom stands for big, overwhelming optimistic momentum and I believe that’s what it takes to be successful. You can learn all the things you need to learn, but Thomas Edison says that with without, he says, vision without execution is hallucination. Vision without execution is hallucination. So thrive nation don’t be a hallucinate or be a doer, and so we like to end the show with a boom and so now without any further ado, we’re going to say three, two, one. Then we’ll say boom. Steve, currently, are you ready? Are you ready to do this? We’re gonna. Go crazy. Dr Steve Green. Are you ready to do this? Eric Chop. Are you ready to do it? Alright, Paul Hood. Are you ready to do this? I am on it. Here we go. Three, two, one.