Don’t Let Your Employees Hold You Hostage by Clay Clark and Jonathan Kelly (Full Audiobook)

Audio Transcription

Don’t let your employees hold you hostage by Clay Clark and Jonathan Kelly. Fun fact, 75% of employees steal from the workplace. Whoa. And this candid, polarizing. In fact, Phil Book, I explained to you how you can prevent your business from ever being held hostage from your employees again. Yes. Throughout this book, I feature a character by the name of Kermit who you will quickly see represents most employees. And over time he has a progression that is predictable or a regression that is predictable. Over time, he loses his enthusiasm for his new job. He begins to show up a little bit late, dress up a little bit less, uh, be a little more passive aggressive call in sick, not call in at all, and eventually he actually tries to hold his employer hostage. And that my friends is what will happen if you don’t implement the proven best practice systems in this book. If you’ve ever been held hostage by your employees. This book was written to help you

Don’t let your employees hold you hostage who’s written by myself, Clay Clark, and Jonathan Kelly. However, this book will be read by myself, Clay Clark and Mr. Jason Beasley. Jason Beasley, how are you sir? I am doing fantastic. Are you prepared psychologically and physically to read your first audio book? I am so ready. I’ve got enough rest. Just hoping we do something epic like this today. And I, and my understanding is in preparation for a reading this audio book, you have actually managed people in the past. I have. How many, uh, people have you managed at one point at a elephant in the room, men’s grooming lounge at the most. It was around 40. 50. Okay. And look, and I just want to take a moment to brag on some of the great people you’ve managed, I believe. Did you ever manage Katie or wish Katie was Katie before your time? Katie was before my time, but to hear that she was a legend.

But you managed or you’ve worked with Carly? Carly does a great job. She does Carly out in South Tulsa. An unbelievable, unbelievable employee. Absolutely. Manna does a great Joe man is the best man. He does a great job. There are so many great teammates. You’ve managed over the years. All right, for sure. This, this book is not a, a negative book. It’s not meant to hurt anybody or attack anybody. It’s just meant to get the hard facts out there. It’s not, it’s not a comfortable idea. Uh, but it’s true that according to the u s chamber, uh, 75% of employees now steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly. Right? It’s not a positive idea or a negative idea. It’s just a fact that according to inc magazine, 85% of employees now lie on their resumes. But yet you’ve done a great job finding people, managing people.

What would you say was your most difficult part of managing the elephant in the room? Was it, was it ordering equipment, was ordering supplies, was it managing the real estate? Was it handling the sales? Was that the biggest issue or what were, what was the hardest aspect of managing the elephant in the room and the three different stores and the 4,000 plus customers? So what was funny is the 4,000 plus customers were easy cause we are providing the service for them. Okay. All right, but the hardest part for me was definitely team management, managing humans, managing humans. So this book was written, uh, for people like you. Yeah. If I had had that book when I started, cause I ordered this off of Amazon last week and did some, some deep diving and if I’d had that book before I manage, I would’ve been a much better manager.

And you know what? I am a horrible person because I hired you previous to writing this, but now Jonathan Kelly and I have written this book together and with your permission I’m ready for you to read while I sit back and judge. Yes. Okay. Here we go. A quick hard statistical look at the truth about America’s current employees. Note truth is, oh, see, this is when you read an audio book. What happens is, is weird things happen because you now realize you’re reading a book, right? Okay. All right. Continue. No to truth isn’t negative. Truth is just knowing the facts. True. Okay. I’ll tell you what, you read the next page and I’ll read the next page after that. All right. Sounds like a plan. We go as of the time that I am writing this book Aku the unemployment rate in America stands at a rate that is hovering between 3.75% to 4% yet according to the US chamber, a, the US chamber and CBS News, 75% of employees are stealing from the workplace.

According to INC magazine, 85% of employees caught applications for employees, cut applications, fibbing on their resume applications. [inaudible] 85 think about that for a second. Thrive nation, 85% of employee of employers caught applicants fibbing on their resumes or applications. Think about this. The Washington Post here, the Washington Post, this is a a story you can find that are called five myths about cheating. It says 78% of men that you are interviewing have admit to having cheated on their partner. Well, someone’s going to cheat on their partner and someone’s going to lie on their resume and someone’s going to steal from the workplace. That means 75% of the people you’re managing, you probably can’t trust. That’s true. Was that shocking to you when you first discovered that Jason? At first, yes. And then less so as I went on. It’s kind of like managing a pirate ship is how that’s true.

I forget. I feel like being a manager today is like managing a pirate ship. Now, why is this important to know? Wow. It’s important because the vast majority of people you’re managing are not behaving like good people. Most people are not good people. And before reading this chapter, I believe that deep down you want to believe that most people are honest, decent and hardworking Americans who are just trying to do the best they possibly can to earn a living and to prep and to provide for their families just like you once did, just like I once did. However, this belief is only true if you’re running a business that only employs the honest and hardworking 15% of the population, which I actually have thought about doing. And I think in most of our companies now, we have, I would say Jason. Now, do you think that 85% of our people are really good people now? True. But we’ve had to sift through the bad 85% so many through so many people. We just wanted to hire good people. We’ve had to sift through so many people. My friend, most employees on the planet earth are going to come to work with you because they’re excited about the new opportunity for growth, and then they’re going to go through the following predictable cycle by default that I call spoiling on their expiration date.

Well, these guys are great readers. It’s my favorite audio book of all time. They should take the show on the road.

Why shouldn’t it be seen to take back the White House?

Oh, look at that super sexy thing over there. Look at that. That appears to be a new job opportunity. Oh, she’s hot. I think I’m just going to run out over there and apply for that job. Cause that that sexy job could be my job. So

there used to be a lot of candidates here with this job interview, slash, Bar, but today I’m wearing the blue shirt. I got my butt dazzle jeans on. I’ve got a bar name, I mean fake resume. And I’m going to go up and see what happens.

Step one, the dating phase, they’re going to dress up every day for their new job like they are going on a first date during the job interview process. And when Kermit showed up to work for his first day of work, he dressed to impress. Oh yes. He did dress to impress. And do you know why? Do you want to know why he dressed to impress? Because he wanted you to believe that he was a nice dressing, high quality and dependable employee who you could trust. In fact, subconsciously I believe that at this point in the hiring process, Kermit actually believed that this was finally going to be the job where he could gain traction because he had decided that he was not going to screw things up this time. He believed that he was actually going to try hard at this job because here he can make a career with you.

He could make a career at your job, he could make a career. And for those first few euphoric weeks of employment, Kermit honors the promises that he made himself and to you. In fact, at first, Kermit not only showed up to work on time, but he actually showed up to work early to show you that he was serious about his career with you. And although Kermit knew that you were busy managing the other 50 plus on your plate at any time, and as an employer or a manager, he knew, he knew that that you, you, you, you could’ve made a little more time for him. He, he felt just slightly frustrated that you didn’t even recognize him for arriving early to work for three days in a row. Fun fact, 85% of job applicants lie on their resumes. Ink Magazine. Think about that. 85% of job applicants lie on resumes. My friends, that’s the truth. [inaudible] really liked the way you guys and your chapters and everything. This book is awesome. If you guys ever thought about taking this show on their own,

and then we’re going to Washington d C to take back the White House. Step two,

the excuse phase. [inaudible]

hey boss, I hate to leave you a voicemail here, but the traffic on the way to work here has been incredible. Today. I think I’ve come down with something and I’m going to have to go to the doctor. So my tire’s flat and I don’t know how to change it. So I’m going to go to a mechanic and have it towed so I’m not gonna make it in today. I’m not sure what kind of, what’s wrong with the alarm company, but I bought an alarm, a very nice alarm, and the alarm did not go off well. I just, I just have to say emotionally, I’m not prepared to handle the day, so I needed to take a personal day. I overslept and I must have been something I ate. I swear I blogged my phone and I know I set seven alarms and I just, none of them went off.

I don’t normally do this, but I did. I forgot it was scheduled the day. You don’t think of what had happened was I thought it was a two day and then it was Wednesday and then I was like, oh, I’m just going to level with the Airbus. I drank too much last night, so I’m not going to be, I lost eight pounds of blood last night out of my body, but I should be fine today. My ex boyfriend is in town and I know I shouldn’t, but I have to just go talk to him to see if we can make things better. So I’m going to have to take the next three days. I have a massive rash and it is burning all over my body and I just, I want to show it to, I need to show it to somebody. I just, mentally, I’m here, but physically there’s something wrong, so I’m going to need to go to the doctor.

I have a massive sunburn. It’s like the sun’s solar rays just fizzled. My body was fizzling, so when I was like, oh my God, I forgot to make it versus I woke up and I’m like, oh my gosh. My body has been burned. My Kid’s knees in my face and now I’m pretty sure I have chicken pucks. My back hurts really bad. The lower board, it just, it’s all down there and it’s like tremors. It’s like a tremor. I don’t know what it is. I do not have enough money in my bank account to fill up my car so I’m not going to make it in my babysitter bailed hardcore. I mean this is just unplanned. An old plan and everything. I have a huge sinus issue. I was canoeing down the river and our canoe got stuck. I really need this job and I hate to leave you this voicemail, but when you get, this is what you know. I did my best I this job, but I got logged inside the bathroom at the gay bar. I checkout on the handle. Okay. I channeled it by glad. Come to get out. I’ll be there 10 minutes,

step to the excuse phase, dressing up less and showing up to work at late on occasion. After 41 days on the job and over time you begin to notice Kermit dressing up. Less and less and actually beginning to show up to work wearing clothing that is slightly out of dress code while being one to two minutes late for every meeting after working diligently for you, a three incredible weeks in a row. Kermit is growing frustrated with you and the job because you have yet to recognize him for his potential to be the best employee you’ve ever had and you haven’t yet promoted him to super levels of management based on his first three weeks with you. Let’s, let’s break that down. Kermit has been with you’ve now for three weeks and he again his face going up just a little bit frustrated that you haven’t promoted him to super levels of management based upon these three first outstanding weeks, so on a Thursday night, Kermit subconsciously wants to teach you a lesson when he agreed to go out with his friends for Thirsty Thursdays at a local club, Walt dancing, partying and hanging out with his ambition, less promiscuous party people and friends.

Kermit quickly lost track of time and ended up waking up in a young lady’s apartment the next day at 9:15 AM, which means that Kermit was one full hour and 15 minutes late to arrive for his shift and got to work still wearing the clothes from the night before. Oh yes, but clever Kermit sprayed on some Cologne so that at least he smelled fresh and clean. You talked with Kermit One-on-one to make sure that he was okay and yet he felt singled out and like you are judging him despite the fact that he had been to work on time and consistently for the previous three weeks, Kermit made the poor life choices. Yes, Kermit made the poor life choices, but Kermit is now mad at you and you yet again, because you are the only person in his life attempting to hold him accountable. Fun fact, the Kermit’s of the world hate the following verse.

Proverbs ten four lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. Here’s a notable quotable for you. Understand people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself, your worth, your abilities, your potential. They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably it is has a political purpose. They want to keep you down. Robert Green, the bestselling author of the 48 laws of power mastery, the 50th law. You should read his books by the way, go out there and get the book, the 48 laws of power. Read that book, read his book, the laws of human nature, and you’ll understand that what Robert Green is saying is true. I’ll, I’ll read it again. It, it’s worth repeating. He says, understand people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself, your worth, your abilities, your potential.

They will often disguise this as their objective opinion, but invariably and as a political purpose to it, they want to keep you down. Jason, have you ever had to, as a manager, ever had to mention to somebody that they were running a little bit late and you to hold them accountable and then they attacked you as a result of you just asking where they weren’t every time somebody late? What kinds of things do they say? If someone’s late by 20 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes and you say, Hey, uh, well first off, how do you even approach it? What do you, what do you say to somebody when you’re trying to do a little, little, little correction there when somebody late the first time? So I always approach it from an area of understanding. It’s like, Hey, you know, I hope everything’s okay. Um, is there anything that I can do to help?

Just try to figure out if there is like a bigger life issue to let them know I care what kind of response you usually get from that. Like what, what do people say? Well, you get anything from, I don’t control the flow of traffic. I do not control the flow of traffic. Right. My favorite is, have you never been late? Yeah, that’s a good one. Have you, have you never been late? So what I want, what I want to throw out is the human race has three excuse mechanisms. Just there’s just, there’s just three. There’s only three. Okay. One, it’s always, I forgot cause who hasn’t forgot something. So we like to say I forgot. So whenever you hold someone accountable for anything, whether it’s being on time, whether it be charging the right price, whether it be zeroing out their cash register, whether it being um, charging sales tax, no matter what you try to hold an employee accountable for.

There are three excuses. The human race has come up with this Justin excuse number one that you’re going to hear often. Excuse number one, I forgot, I forgot that. That’s a, I forgot. I’m so sorry. Said it’s kind of hard to write somebody up or correct somebody when they say that. The second one is, well there must’ve been some kind of miscommunication. Again, it’s the month to be in some kind of miscommunication. Cause what had happened was that I thought you would said to be here at nine and so I would hear it nine, um, you know, could throw with thought. That’s what I was told. Right. And miscommunication. It’s like, okay, maybe you could do a bit better job of communication. I think if people with better communication from the management that we would not be having this conversation. Right. Jason, have you ever heard that?

Yes. Yeah. So it’s like if there was all of a sudden we’d, we hate to attack the, the management overall and we say if there would have been better communication for management, I think I would’ve been here on time. It’s like the power move. I’m going to shift all of the blame onto you and your organization to make it look like more people than I failed. No. Okay. So again, what you do is you, what is it that people say? I, I wa I forgot [inaudible] second, there must’ve been a miscommunication. And the third is the emotional attack. Either people take it really high or they take it really low or high would be this. Um, uh, Jay’s, let’s, let’s, let’s role play. Let’s pretend that I am late [inaudible] and you give me the correction and I’ll take it to the high level. Gotcha. I, here we go.

Ready? So a duper duper do. Hey boss, I’m running a little bit late. They’re a little traffic. Woo. You’ll just, just, I was out there driving a little bit of traffic and I’m going, okay. I had to stop by Starbucks, you know, and I just, the traffic there, it was crazy. You know, it’s all, I’m sorry about that. You know, hey, you know, I completely understand these things happen. Um, typically what I would do if I was late is I would set my alarm about 30 minutes early. That way it allows me to kind of beat that traffic and stop at Starbucks and still be on time, if not early to work. Really. Okay. I had a personal issue. Got Up, my ride was so bad, and it’s just like,

yeah.

You ever had that happen? Oh yeah. I know. It’s when they start to break down and cry and you’re like, course correcting. Then the tears come out. You’re like, ah, and then they start to do, then they start to distance. Like you’re not going to argue, they’re going to tear it out. So you go and you’re going like, how do you deal with that? Because they’re taking it to I say hi. There’s a lot of crying on a tears. It’s like,

hello.

It’s it. It would be pretty girls getting out of speeding tickets. Right. Have you seen the pretty girls tend to get out of the speeding tickets? But that’s that Ma. Oh ma’am. Can you step outside of the vehicle? Ma’Am? Can you step outside of the vehicle so you pull over your car, pull up, pull over the car. Uh ma’am. Uh, hello. Uh, can I see your driver driver’s license and registration? Uh, ma’am. Do you know your, uh, do you know why I pulled you over?

Hi.

Uh ma’am. If you could stop talking [inaudible] stop crying. I just want to let you know you were going 45 in a, in a 30 in a school zone there. And I just wanted to let you know you need to slow her down

a baby by payments.

Ah, man. What, what about your baby?

Yeah.

Um, uh, no, no, no, we’re cool. We’re okay here. No, no, no ticket issue too. I had a young lady do but going through a lot here, we’ll, we’ll let her go. Uh, uh ma’am. We’re good. I know you don’t have your license, uh, you, you need or your insurance and I know that your tail lights out and your tags are expired and you were driving 45 and 30, and I know that you were driving the wrong way on the incoming into incoming traffic and you, uh, I’ll have a what appeared to be a solo cup filled with straight a wild Turkey and vodka mix, uh, with purple drink. But you know what, I am gonna let you go this time.

Yeah.

Um, ma’am. Uh, just be safe on the road. Okay. There. Okay.

[inaudible]

officer drives away and then she’s in the car going, yes. Woo. Yes, I tripped him. No ticket for me. Okay. That is that not a move? It’s a super move and it works for the female. It doesn’t work so well for the dudes. No, no. Let me go with the dude move. Okay. [inaudible] to do just trivial cruisy through Bluetooth. No. Hey Man. You know what happens though? Let’s go ahead and get you set up and then you know, tomorrow maybe leave about 30 minutes earlier and I think we’ll be good. Are you really good at talk to me like that. Are you kidding me? Alright, listen dude, listen, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna threaten you. I’m not gonna say that I’m gonna beat your ass, but I will stop. But I let me, let me tell you man, you, you just don’t want to get started with me cause I am the kind of person who typically beat it.

I’m not going to beat your ass cause I’m not an ass beater today cause I’m in a good mood. You want to get me into a bad mood? That’s fine. This is me having a good mood. Oh, have you seen that movie? Yeah, the violent threatening guy does it’s way past passive aggressive. It’s just full frontal aggressive. I don’t want to do is they use a pompousness a lot. Like, I’m not, I’m not going to call my friends and tell him to come by here and kick your ass. I’m not, I, I’m not kicking. That’s not what I do. I never use the word. I would never ever say the word. I have never said the word. Not going to say the word, but I’ll tell you this. I would typically it in this kind of a situation. Yeah. Um, I’m gonna get back to it. How many do you not see that this is, this is super high then shut it off. Right. I’m just saying if you’re out there today and you are managing employees and you are at step two, just recognize step three is a a blast blast and it’s coming up now.

Step three, the, yeah, but phase. Yeah, but it was on this day that Kermit began to passively aggressively disagree with you during a meeting for the first time during a meeting with your team. You said it’s super important that our website interfaces easy to use for 99% of customers. And Kermit said, well, if our website doesn’t provide extensive questions, badges and certifications of completion, then how can we really call ourselves the best in the world? Well then you said, Kermit, we improve that. What we, we’ve improved the lives of our, our clients over the years of hundreds of our clients over the years. And uh, you know, but in front of your whole team, this once coachable Kermit shouts so you don’t have a chart somewhere that could statistically prove that you know what you’re talking about. Current says this. Well, being out of dress code, wearing skinny jeans and sleeping with your former and still married secretary, which are both violations of your handbook.

And listen, your handbook says, I guess, I guess, I don’t know if mean you put in your handbook that you can’t sleep with your secretary who’s married to someone else. I’m not sure if that’s, I don’t know, will be an HR compliance thing we can talk about later. Approximately four weeks ago, Kermit was appreciative, coachable, and committed to helping you achieve your goals. Now. However, Kerman has become frustrated and has become a passive aggressive member of the, I have the courage to complain, but I don’t have the courage to quit club. And being a, an exclusive member of this club allows Kermit to feel as though he has the upper hand now and that you as the owner and founder should somehow feel bad because you don’t agree with the consistently wrong world views, strategies and ideas of Kermit. This is where your employees start to attempt to take you hostage.

Although they did not start the company, they did not put equity into the company. They did not work for years without a salary. They’ve been paid the entire time. Oh yes. They now are officially a member, a card carrying member of the, I am too valuable to fire club and so their entitlement starts to set in. Now, Jason, have you ever seen this condition happens? We have. We have a really, really great team of people at the elephant in the room now. But as we’ve sifted through people that maybe were not so great to get to the great team we have today, have you ever seen it to get to a place, if you ever seen a situation where an employee gets to a place where they actually begin to think and even maybe say that I am too valuable to fire, oh 100% of the time, and what do you mean what, what happened?

So you, you have the person that will start to show up late or start to call in excessively asking to leave early. And then the second that you put a new policy in place or you tried to just do some simple course corrections, just some management, like first and foremost, how dare you, I’ve been doing this for I don’t know how many years. I have all these certifications. All of my people love me. So let me give you an example that, uh, uh, the human mind can handle that. It’s real, very specific. That relates to my early, uh, one of my first, my, my first business venture DJ connection.com. I had a policy, you tell me if this policy is crazy or not. Okay. All right. I had a policy I put in that said all of the Djs must have all of their cds.

Back in the day we had cds, there was dinosaurs running around the planet. People used to call in long distance. Whoa, boop. People would call that long mirror that and that, boop, boop, boop, boop. And then the phone would ring, ring, ring, and the phone was attached to a wall. All that stuff was going on and there were cds and when those CDs compact discs were used, that’s what we would use to play the music for the wedding receptions and corporate events that we hosted and the guys would come back. And the CDS, I noticed that over time they were getting less and less organized. Some guys even putting the cds back in the cases after playing them, they would just leave them floating around loosely and the cds could get scratched. And so I made a policy that after your event, your cds, your compact discs had to be an alphabetical order.

Now why do you think I made that policy one? So they would actually go back in the case but also to to see who was doing it. So I made the policy that after you unload your equipment, after the show, you need to take as much time as you need to to unload your gear properly, which they’d always done. But now you have to alphabetize your cds, which should take like five to 10 minutes or no minutes. If you stay on top of it right before you leave. And if you don’t, if you don’t, I’m taking 40 bucks. The 40 bucks bonus we had, we had, we had a bonus we had that we’re giving guys for certain performance metrics. I’m taking away the bonus for that particular show if you don’t stay and do it right. What do you think the reaction was by these 45 guys?

When I introduced this is policy to make sure that Bo, by the way, we could actually find music at weddings and then, oh by the way, the CDs wouldn’t get scratched and then, oh by the way, we would be professional because nothing’s weirder than being in a wedding reception where the, there’s dead air cause the DJ can’t find the music. What do you think the reaction was? Do you think this reaction was greeted with great enthusiasm that this idea that we could improve, that this quest for excellence would be a greeted with cheers and applause by the, by the disc jockeys. What do you, what kind of reaction do you think I got? Well, me before managing, when I was first getting into it, before I had run into things like this, we’ll say, oh, they probably thought that was a great idea. It’s going to save them time.

It’s going to be more structured. It makes sense. It’s part of a checklist. But having tried to implement systems, even as easy as they are, just holding people accountable, I can almost guarantee that they fired back to you immediately. Oh, that’s a big waste of time. That’s not fair. Anything in that ballpark? Well, this is what Steve Jobs says and I think, I think it’s very important that, uh, if you’re out there looking to manage people, you might want to look at people that have managed a lot of people. You don’t want to talk to people. I mean, you know, a guy like Dr Zelner has managed a massive team of people for a long time. So a lot of the things he told me, um, you know, um, I, I w I maybe at first they seemed counterintuitive. At first they didn’t, they didn’t feel uh, good.

At first I thought maybe, um, he, uh, was maybe even wrong. Maybe because I thought, well, you know, maybe he doesn’t know that unique situation that I’m, I’m in here. Well, this is what Steve Jobs says. Steve Jobs says some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. Steve Jobs said, some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. And he goes on to talk about how as a manager, it’s your job to set the bar. You have to set the expectation, you the employees are not going to by default perform at a high level. You have to set the level of excellence. If you’re listening right now and you’ve ever played a sport and you’ve ever had a great coach in that sport, let me tell you what about, let me tell you about that relationship. Okay. One that every relationship that probably wasn’t super positive at first, you probably didn’t love that coach like he didn’t want to hang out with the coach.

You probably the coach who made you run a little bit faster. Who made you lose that weight? Who made you memorize that playbook? Who made you show up on time? Who insisted that you hit that block or that you did that thing or that you did the proper, the PR that you use, the proper posture or pop or proper form or if you were in band, the coach that insisted on you using the, the proper ombre. Sure. They, the, the, the, the person who insisted that you played the scales the right way on the piano, that teacher that helped you improve in speech, the teacher you had, the pastor who held you accountable. You probably didn’t like them at first. And I’ll tell you why you didn’t like them at first because they pushed you to be your best and when you get pushed to be your best, it is a,

uh, ooh

human nature for you not to like that kind of accountability. Why Jason? Why do people typically not most people, not typically. What do people typically not like to be pushed? If somebody doesn’t have like aspirational goals or the mindset that they want to improve, typically they’re not going to get the value or the benefit out of being pushed because they, they just wanna they don’t want to come up with a solution. They want the solution given to them. They want to have everything just clear, defined. And so even if you’re doing all of that and you’re holding them accountable at the same time, like how dare this person, who is this person, why are they saying this? Do you know? Koby Bryant, d NBA Hall of Fame Basketball Player who played, you know, 20 years in the NBA. The Mamba made the all star team, I believe 18 of those 20 years.

Wow. He was an NBA MVP, one five National Basketball Association championships. He said this, he says, I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t want to understand you. I don’t want to understand you. Kobe Bryant. I mean Koby Bryant, he just is. I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you, my friend. You cannot lower your expectations to meet the demands of your employees because let me tell you what, you can never get low enough, no matter how low you set that bar, Jay is what happens if your employees are late on average by 15 minutes. And so you say, okay, I’m gonna make a rule. You’re not going to be considered late unless you’re more than 15 minutes late. What happens? They would start to be 30 minutes late, right?

Is that not what happens? So absolutely. If you single time, if you still have a policy that says like a Disney or, or you know our company elephant in the room, you can’t bring your cell phone into the workplace. What if, what happens if you let somebody bring their cell phone into the workplace, we’ll know where it gets done or they indulge in other passive aggressive acts and it just, it creates this weird negative storm that our customers feel like we’re not taking care of them. Right? It’s another distraction. They’re not listening to you, my friend. If you find yourself in this phase of the business, you might say, well, okay, I know the problem. What can I do about it? Well, what you can do about it is every single Wednesday night at six o’clock, what do we do, Jason? A group interview. What does that look like?

Well, it looks like we have people that show up and we do basically your standard hour long interview where people present their resumes but they all sit down. It allows you to vet everybody in one place. You go over everything as far as like expectations, compensation, the general vibe of everything. Would you be okay if I actually played audio from one of our group interviews? Absolutely. I’m going to do it so now that any further ado, here’s audio of me actually conducting a group interview. Well on second thought. Before we do that, let me, let me just say this, the group interviewed in order to conduct an effective group interview. Let me explain what the group interview is and why you would do the group interview and all the questions you may have about this. We post every week on indeed craigslist, Facebook, Linkedin, you know all of those things.

Linkedin, Facebook, indeed, craigslist. We post every week that we’re now hiring, right? We never turn off that ad, that step one, never turn off that advertisement because you always want to have a pipeline of new candidates coming into the business. Otherwise your business gets stagnant. What if we’re already fully staffed? Never stop that advertisement. Just keep that ad on forever. Never stopped the now hiring philosophy. Then all the candidates who apply for the job respond to them and let them know that you’re going to be interviewing them this Wednesday night at 6:00 PM or whatever night you want to go with, but you don’t interview them during the middle of the day. Why? Because if they already have a job that would cause them to have to lie to their current employer to even get to the interview. So what you want to do is you want to make sure that you post your job posts when every week on what indeed craigslist don’t have for complicated places where people are looking for jobs.

Put your job posts out every week, then respond all candidates and let them know, I will be interviewing. I’d love to interview you this Wednesday night at 6:00 PM and then have all the candidates show up at one time and then interview them all at one time. Why? Well, because like half of the candidates won’t even show up at all. They’ll just ghost you to 85% of the resumes are completely fictitious. If you look, if you read the research from inc magazine, it’s crazy. 85% of the resumes are completely bogus. So don’t waste your time reading those resumes. I mean, it’d be, it’d make more sense to read a fiction book like Star Wars, just read star wars instead of resumes because it’s the same thing. It’s both fiction based. Um, and then you might end up interviewing a wookie anyway. So the point is just make sure that you don’t read those resumes.

So step one again, post every week, craigslist, Facebook, indeed linkedin post step to respond with, hey, I’d like to interview you this Wednesday night at 6:00 PM. Boom. Then interview them all at one time in this. This saves you that hours wasted by reading resumes, the wasted hours by having people not show up or show up late. The wasted just awkwardness of meeting them, another man one-on-one and talking to them for a half hour about bogus things. Like what’s your biggest weakness? And then the, and then they’ve already read that question the way online, like how to respond to that. So they’re going to say something insincere, like, well really my sweetness, I tend to be what you would call over organized. You know, I over organize myself. I over work, uh, tend to, I tend to not know when to shut it off. You know, I, lot of times I go home at seven o’clock at night after working three hours for free.

I tend to get to work three hours early. I tend to just put in, I burned the candle at both ends, you know what I mean? I burned that candle and I go Kendo in the wind. I just, I just work. I just, aw, just, I’m just too organized. I’m too humble, you know, a lot of times I’m just like, we know who won, who, who’s the best in this business. And I’m like, well I’m hate to, you know, Brag on my shelf so I’m, you know, I’m not gonna do that. You know, I don’t Brag on my, I, I’m too nice. Sometimes I’ll let people up. People let people walk all over me. But, but not too much cause I’m, I’m a really effective manager. I’m almost too effective. That’s like, I’m so effective, I leave people in the dust. But I wouldn’t say that cause I’m so humble and I’m always on time. I’ve never been late. Even the Times I’m late, it’s like just cause a traffic, you know what I’m saying? So what was the question again? I mean that’s the kind of crap you deal with every single time you interview people. So this is me, this is actual audio of me conducting the group interview, uh, for your audio benefit.

step for the, for the good of the brand phase. At this point, Kermit is now going to openly disagree with you during a meeting where a large number of your teammates are present and he will start asking Gotcha questions during the meeting. We’ve all seen this. These are, this is when Fox interviews, Obama or CNN interviews Trump, the reporters trying to ask a Gotcha question. The kind of question that paints the interviewee into a corner. All right. So at this point, approximately 85% of employees, not everyone are going to openly disagree with you during a meeting where a large number of your teammates are present and they’re going to try to start asking Gotcha questions during meetings. As a hypothetical example, they will say, I know that you say that social media is a waste of time during our work day yet I saw you actually post something on Facebook.

This actually happened to me years ago. So you know, I pointed out to the employee, um, it’s an auto responded auto posted auto. It’s a HootSweet and I’ve already thought through the posts for the next month and those posts at times at intervals that I’ve already chosen. Second of all, uh, when that doesn’t happen, I have other people on our team who update our social media accounts and post out content during the, during the day. But, uh, no, that was not me. But right there, why would someone do that? It shows that they now disrespect you. You get to see who they really are. So about 10 weeks ago, Kermit was honored. He was honored. I remember the word he says. Kurt was said, I was honored to earn a job on your team and probably wrote some nice thank you notes about how you changed his life and how he will never leave you because he’s too grateful.

But now, but now, oh no. Now he has begun to openly disagree with you in front of your team, the team you started, the company you founded, the business you manage, because Kermit is now officially air quotes officially on his way out now, he will never announce to you that he is fully committed to quitting because Kermit has now recognized the incredible super move called the power to complain while lacking the courage to quit. Kermit now looks unhappy most of the time while trying to play it off like a fourth grader that has just fallen off of their skateboard.

Skateboarding’s what I do escape votings of what? Our new little trick little, Ooh, Ooh, skateboarding is what happens so easy. We’ll look at that sexy lady. Hey, sexy. Oh Wow. Here we ooh. Check out this movie.

I’m fine. I’m fine. Just a lot of internal bleeding, but I’ll be fine. Wow. Take a moment and look up this fun fact. Just just take a moment and do it. The US Chamber of Commerce estimates that 75% of employees steal from the workplace and it most do so repeatedly. Think about that. Here’s a notable quotable, a little word of encouragement from Ben Horowitz, the bestselling author of the hard thing about hard things. The man who built a company called Opsware, which he later sold to Hewlett Packard for 1.6 billion billion, billion, billion, billion dollars of cash blamed with a B billion. He knows what he’s talking about. He went from a startup to selling a company to Hewlett Packard for one point $6 billion. What’s his name? His name is Ben Horowitz, and he says, every time I read a management or self help book, I find myself saying that’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.

The hard thing isn’t setting a big hairy audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off. When you miss the goal, the heart thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those great people develop a sense of entitlement entitlement and they start demanding unreasonable things, the hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is when is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The, the heart thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The heart thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream has turned into a nightmare. Again, I repeat. The heart thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat on the dream turns into a nightmare. Jason, everybody out there who’s listening right now and they’re struggling to manage people.

Um, don’t you? Would you agree or what are your thoughts on this? Um, do you think it’s possible to manage people the way we do and hold people accountable to the standard of excellence that we have? If we weren’t always interviewing, would it be possible? No, it wouldn’t be. That’s what I’m saying. What would be, what if we didn’t do the group interview? How would we have to do it? We would have to schedule out time, spend all of the time that we’re using to help grow the business, work on the business, whatever. Full time job for somebody. Just recruiting people. Yeah, because case in point, what Monday, one of our, uh, one of my clients came to the meeting and he had eight people that showed up at that group interview. That’s an entire workday for him. If he decided to sit down and do those in one day. That’s very, very true. So if you’re out there today, do the group interview, don’t fight the system. The system works.

Hey [inaudible],

oh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Step six, the passive aggressive phase, they openly defy you by asking passive aggressive questions. Like, do I really need to be at this meeting? I don’t know whether I’m really adding value to this meeting or not all attend. I mean, if you think that this meeting actually adds value that see that right there, that that right there is a culture killer. I remember years ago we had a member of the team who their job was to record content. I’m not even record the kind of, their job was to take the content that was being recorded and to transcribe it and to add in the right keywords for search engine optimization purposes. But when you’re optimizing content on a website, let me tell you, it takes a while to see results. I mean, Jason, think about some of your clients right now who are starting to get big results.

Give me one client who’s having some really good results with the search engine right now. Maybe let’s, let’s go with the Roofer. Yeah. Marty, Marty, what’s his company called? So Marty has advanced commercial systems here in broken Arrow and Tulsa, and he’s now coming up top and the Google searches for broken Arrow commercial buildings, commercial roofing. I mean, how long did it take him? Do you remember how long he said it took him? He said that it took him all in all nine months, nine months to get to the top of Google. Well, we’ve taken so many companies to the top of Google in our own companies to the top of Google. I mean, if you Google Tulsa cookies, you’ll see one of the companies we’ve helped Barbee cookies. If you Google Tulsa mortgages, you’re gonna see one of the companies we’ve helped total lending concepts. If you Google so many different phrases, you’re going to find the results of the search engine optimization that we do for clients.

But let me tell Ya, a company like oxy fresh, if you Google carpet cleaning quotes, carpet cleaning quotes, a company like Oxi fresh that’s now top in Google with over 160,000 objective reviews that kind of have company a, that kind of success just does not happen overnight. It’s not going to happen overnight. So if you want to get your company to the top of Google, you’ve got to hold your team accountable to doing it right. A member of the team who was like, well, we’re not top Google yet, and he kept saying like every day, well, we’re not topping Google yet. I mean, I’ve been doing this all day. We’re not talking in Google yet and I’m going, yeah, Google doesn’t work that way. Google allows you to get to the top of Google only if you consistently over time follow. Therefore, there were four variables, four variables that will you to get to the top of Google.

There’s variable number one is whoever has the most objective, Google reviews, whoever, whichever company has the most objective, Google reviews gathered over time will be top in Google too. It’s whoever has the most original html text content. The company that has the most hypertext markup language content, the company with the most original words that relate to that subject, the most original relevant words, whoever has the most words related to that keyword gets to be top over time. That’s how it works. Then third, it’s the company that has the most mobile compliance. You gotta make your website work on mobile devices and forth. That’s the website that has the most Google canonical compliance. Are you following the systems? Are you following the rules set forth by Google? If you are doing those things, you get to be at the top of Google. But it doesn’t happen overnight.

Why? Because if Google at any company get to the top of Google that wanted to be the top of Google, instantly you wouldn’t use Google anymore. I mean if you, if any company could be at the top of Google simply as a result of wanting to be at the top of Google and putting in work for an hour, you wouldn’t trust the search results cause it’d be flaky. They’d be changing all the time. So I pulled this guy aside, he’d been with us for years and I said, you have to follow the system. And he’s like, yeah, but I mean, when am I going to see results? And I’m going, it doesn’t matter. You’re getting a paycheck, just do your job. And this guy was like, what do I do? I do. I really need to come to these meetings too. And at that point I knew regardless of how long he’d been there previously, he’s done right.

The moment someone questions you and says, do I have to come to this meeting? You know they’re done back to the story they tried to trap you to get to yet another gotcha question. If you require them to actually be at the mandatory meeting, they will soak and add no value. Thus bringing the energy down in the meetings. Oftentimes they will then openly attack anyone in the meeting that has tried to come up with the pragmatic and practical solution to the problem. They no longer ever come up with their own solutions. They just attack the others who do provide the solutions. If you told them no, they would get their feelings hurt and they would still sulk. This is a lose lose situation and this is when the not showing up to work phase begins

tomorrow. Tomorrow I might not show up to work tomorrow. Maybe I will digitally to digital tomorrow. Tomorrow. I probably won’t show up to work to do tomorrow unless I too

beat up old people.

[inaudible] like I pick the wrong week to quit smoking. Like I took the wrong week. Quit drinking like I picked the wrong week, but I’m [inaudible]

step seven. The checked out phase, the art of the no-show. Passive aggressive people have the courage to quit at their job emotionally, yet they lack the courage and the financial capacity needed to quit showing up to their job physically. These people start saying completely insincere statements like, can I just call in for today’s meeting or do I really need to meet this week? We pretty much just go over the same stuff every week, right? I mean, and this is if, if they actually decided to show up or call you at all, their appearance becomes increasingly more and more rare. It is during this time of lamenting, venting and secretly sharing their frustrations with everyone. But you the boss, but you the employer, but you the person who has the capacity to make the changes needed. They don’t share with you the issues they share with everybody else, their issues, they share with everybody.

Oh, everybody. They share it with their hairstylist. They share it with their mom. They share it with their neighbor, their cousin, their boyfriend, other coworkers. They share it with everybody. They want their toxic feelings to be known by everyone except for you, because to your face, they will look at you and they will smile, but they share their feelings with everybody. But you, while they pursue a job at a company that directly competes with you while you’re paying them, you’re paying them during the day and doing, using your $10 an hour, $12 an hour, $20 an hour, whatever you’re paying them per hour. They’re taking at least half of that hour to go on indeed and craigslist and look for other jobs. Oh yes. While they’re driving around on company time, they’re looking for other jobs. Yes, they call in sick and they’re applying for other jobs. They look great the next day, but they call in sick today to go look for another job.

I’ve seen this process of becoming an anti your business terrorist hundreds of times and what, what happened next is never positive. Put on a helmet because you’re about to be attacked. Fun fact, the unemployment rate has crept up to 4% even though hiring remains quite strong. Market Watch. Why is that a good? What’s the point? Why does it wasn’t encouraging? Well, it’s not that encouraging. It’s actually, it’s a thing where we have, as an American, as an American society, we, I mean it’s amazing that the, that the unemployment rate is at 4% right now because there are, there’s much more than 4% of the population that is unwilling to work. I mean, we’re like begging people to work. Now in today’s economy, there are people that won’t you all, we all know somebody who doesn’t want a job and if they do get a job, they show up late and complained about the job.

How remarkable is that that we have such a great economy, that 4% is the unemployment rate when really it should probably be 50%. I mean, right. If we, if we only hired the people that wanted to actually work, the unemployment rate would probably be at 50%. Here’s a little encouraging, notable quotable for you. For Andy Grove, the former CEO and one of the founding partners of Intel. Andy Grove says only the paranoid survive. Now, Andrew, you have, uh, worked with us for how long have you worked with me there, my friend? I think it’s about three years now. And what position did you originally originally start, uh, in when you, when you started your, your, your journey on the Clay Clark expedition? Ooh, I was a wedding photographer at the very, very beginning. And, uh, where did you work at before? Before coming to work at epic photography?

Before epic, I was at Chick-fil-a. Okay. And, uh, had you ever done a professional photography before? I had not. Okay. So you learned the photography skill. Yep. And then you’ve also learned web development. True. You’ve learned a, so coding, you’ve learned graphic design, coding, wordpress, graphic design. What else have you learned? I’ve been able to learn videography on top of the photography, video editing. Um, I was able to learn sales calls, sales calls, and I did that. Um, I was able to learn SEO, search engine, optional, how to write, how to upload, how to optimize. Um, and uh, again, what development and business consulting. And you’re married and I’m married. I learned that here. How old are you? I’m 21 now. 21. And you, uh, you own a rental house? True. Or you on the verge of maybe buying another one or what’s your plan for the next one?

Yeah, maybe we’re, we’re looking and you, uh, save what percentage of your income? A total between my wife and I, we save about 50% of our entire income. And now your wife actually manages all three elephant in the room. Locations. She’d not man is doing a great job. So you, you, you’re a couple, you’ve learned a lot. You’ve been with us for a long time. Um, you’ve seen the process of coaching clients, you’ve coached some clients yourself. Um, can you talk to me about what happens if you stop doing the group interview? You stop recruiting people on a weekly basis. What starts to happen? Yeah, so once you stopped doing the group interview or if you don’t start, uh, your employees will hold you hostage and you will have people quit or you will have people not show up to work because they want to take a personal day, which I don’t know what that means, but, um, they will do that.

They will take a personal day, they will take a sick day. Uh, they will just say someone else in their family is sick and they will take a day off for that or they will just up and quit because they don’t want to work there. Jason, uh, how often have you seen this happen with your clients or with the, within the elephant in the room where you’re managing people and they get to a place where you know, they’re ready for all out war next. Do you know the employee is ready? I mean they don’t have the courage to quit. They just keep showing up. But you see the hostility, you see the anger building. You can sense it building. It’s getting worse every day getting worse. It’s getting more intense. There’s more passive aggressive comments and you can see those be fighting words. Oh absolutely. You see this on? Yeah, and it angers people because I’m that kind of person like I don’t want to say that I’m non-confrontational.

I just don’t like arguments like we can, we can have a conversation and then we could like try to grow, but I don’t. I also do that weird thing where like if you say something that’s ridiculous, I’ll laugh. Which has gotten me in trouble growing up with, oh I’m going to say we’re very, very close here to be at in a horrible situation as employer. When we go into the all out war phase, if you are not doing that group interview, what’s to happen? You are going to lose an employee, which is going to hurt your business. And then potentially if you are not doing the group interview and they decide that they’re going to take their buddy who also works there with them, you are double screwed. So thrive nation readers have this great book. Don’t let your employees hold you hostage.

Get ready for step eight

pear for war phase. I’m gone. Call

step eight the prepare for war phase, they now have become full page keyboard warriors who love to communicate exclusively via email. Oh yeah. When an employee has the courage to complain, but not the courage to quit, get ready for the all out war. Get ready for get pitched. Prepare for the war phase, my friend, the people who have decided to quit working with you, but who don’t have the courage needed to actually quit getting paid by you. Love to communicate with you via email. Oh yes they do. And in fact, they love writing this to you via email and certified mail certified mail. Oh yeah. The people who you haven’t heard from in five years, three years, six years, they’ve been sitting on it now and here they come. They, they’re all lawyered up baby, they’re ready to go and they’re going to communicate to you via email or certified mail because their attorney has advised them to do so because the things they would never say to your face, oh no, no, they’re too weak to say them to the, to your face, but they, they, oh, they’re too weak to say them to your face.

They’re not going to be direct with you unless they are high or drunk or less. They can use their wife or an attorney as a scapegoat to make statements like, Hey, my wife just thinks I don’t get paid what I’m worth. Or, Hey, my attorney has advised me to do it this way. The types of these types of emails that the types of emails that they send are always full of half truths and continents, 99% emotional. It’s a feelings over fact. Okay. Feelings over facts. I feel like you don’t appreciate all that I have done for this company and for you and the I need to finally get paid what I’m worth. I’ve slaved away for for you for years as no, they don’t have opportunities to work somewhere else. Right. I said I have slaved away for you as though that paycheck wasn’t something they received.

I slaved away for you as though the education they learned wasn’t good. I slaved away for you and I just can’t believe that I’m being treated like the dog that you truly are. How long did it take them to think of that pithy line and things like that? They don’t ever remember that you are the one that taught them everything and that they now know and that they are now using what they, what you’ve taught them to compete now against you. When they send those types of emails, you can also guarantee that they will not be in the building later that week for you to discuss it in person. When if they finally do show back up, they are all smiles and never ever mentioned sending the email at all. This is assuming that they ever send you an email. Many times they will talk to you about, they will talk about you and in a derogatory manner while hanging out with their other employees who currently work for you.

They try to make everybody dislike you or their newest to live in girlfriend or their newest living boyfriend. They love to tell people that false things about you. They love to write false things about you on reddit. They love to be courageous under in an anonymous screen. Name the courage that they have to right under that anonymous screen. Name the half truths on Reddit or glass door or what? Google or Facebook. They love to write on these things. Yes they do. They love to leave comments. They say, if you want another real truth about this person, let me tell you, I worked there for five years and this is what happened and before they leave, they want to create a weird atmosphere for both you and your current team. Andrew, it’s sad when this happens, but what? Why do you, why do you think that most people have the courage to complain to everybody else but not to actually quit?

Why? Why do you think that is a, I don’t know. And they, they, I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense, but, um, they just see it happen though all the time. I do, I see it happen multiple times in a, a lot of different companies. But, um, your employees, they’re not going to have the courage to walk up to you and to tell you what they’re thinking or what they’re, they’re just gonna do everything, uh, behind your back and they’re gonna, they’re gonna try to, uh, they, they don’t want to have that conversation with you because it’s rejection. It’s hard. It’s like a weird, difficult conversation. I want to avoid the conflict. Exactly. Yeah. They don’t say shit, right. They want to do what’s easiest. Yep. Water flows downhill. That’s right. So, Jason, if we didn’t do the group interview though, if we stopped doing that group interview, if we stopped recruiting people, what happens?

What do you think it happens right here? When you’re in the war phase where they don’t have the courage to quit, but now they’re sending full-page emails complaining about management under an anonymous email. What happens then, Jason? Oh, if you weren’t already hiring now it’s going to hurt. It could potentially hurt your image. But on top of that, you’re still employing somebody. You don’t have anybody in the pipeline to get that negativity out of there. So that weird environment that they’re trying to manifest just keeps festering and growing bigger and bigger. And we had a rabbi Lapin on the show. He was talking about the Old Testament and what the old testament means, literally. And he talked about how in the word and the Hebrew language and Hebrew language, the word money, uh, means certificate of appreciation. So if you’re paying somebody who you don’t like, so when you’re doing a bad job, you’re appreciating, you are cheering for poor performance. You’re saying,

Woo. Yeah. Oh yeah, you’re late. Oh, I love that. Come on you. You don’t do that checklist. I love when you don’t do that. Check this. Come on baby. I love it. Oh yes. You don’t follow the script up and you don’t follow the script. And if you, you

complained about the employee and don’t have the courage to fire them, you’re in the same boat. You guys were in the same boat going in a different direction, which is weird. You’re in the same boat, you’re each paddle and fast the other way, trying to rip that boat apart in the middle. You gotta you just gotta have that confrontation. You don’t have that conversation. And you’ve got a business running a businesses like playing chess. So you’ve gotta make sure that the timing is correct. The timing has to be right. So you have to do, you gotta make sure that you always have a steady pipeline of new candidates applying for jobs at all times. And we come back. Step number nine, step number nine, step number nine, Jason, what does step number nine all about? Tip number nine is the all out war phase. Now we’re in the all out war. Get ready cause it’s about ready to go down.

Step nine, the all out war phase. At this point they have begun passive aggressively using slight legal threats like will you will need to speak to my attorney or my uncle is an attorney and has advised me to speak to my attorney before communicating with you further. Once a chronic under-performer discovered that they are going to be fired once, once the PR, but think about this once the chronic under-performer discovers that they are going to be fired from the job that they quit mentally showing up for mentally months ago. They then go out and hire a no talent ambulance chasing attorney to represent them. This person who wants to talk to you about every issue in their personal life, they needed rides to work. They needed you to coach them, to mentor them. They they, they, they, they had a lot of personal issues that you needed to help them through.

You are their mentor for years now they say, I have to, you have to talk to my attorney. They said, well, my attorney has advised me to not speak on that further. My attorney, it’s all about my attorney. My attorney says, once the Kermit’s of your life have moved on and if started something else, most of the time they will end up directly competing against you or stealing your clients or stealing your clients to compete against you and they will create a business based on all of the things that you taught them, their entitlement and bitterness, doing underappreciated or undervalued for not allowing them to build their personal brand. Oh boy has created this big monster, this, this, this, this new monster called rage. They now begin using this rage in the form of suing you or invoicing you for work they did in the past.

They can begin invoicing you for work they did in the past that they forgot to turn in. There is, this is a no wind wind zone here. This is, this is a complete no win-win zone here. The damage is done, the relationship is irreparable. They will go around town dragging your name down through the mud. So a super move is to call everyone that you know, both that you’ve, that you both know first you want, you want to call everyone that you both know that they’ll mutual acquaintances and you want to let everybody know what actually happened. Cause let me tell you what happens when you do not tell people the truth of what happened. They do this, they say, Hey, just wanna let you know I went out and started my own thing. It’s because they weren’t paying me well. They were abusing me, taken advantage of me.

They never let me build my personal brand and I just want you to know. So now your reputation gets dragged through the mud as a way for them to say, oh, as a way for the employee to thank you for the years of Paychex you’ve provided them. Warren buffet once said, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. So be sure to protect your reputation from lies and slander. Robert Green, the bestselling author of the 48 laws of power rights reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone. You can intimidate and win once you let it slip though, however you are vulnerable and you will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Notable, quotable, Winston Churchill, the British politician, the army officer and writer, he was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 he wants, said this member, this is Winston Churchill.

This is the guy who stood up to Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was trying to take over the world and he was dominating Europe and they, he was threatening to kill. I mean, England was the last free portion of Europe and he said, listen, Mr Mr Winston Churchill, this is what Adolf Hitler said. He said, if you will turn over your Jews and become part of the Third Reich, become part of the Nazi regime, I will spare the lives of your people. That’s, that’s the offer that was being made and Winston Churchill could have done that, but he decided to stand up and to fight against Adolf Hitler. The only one willing to do it. This was before the American support. Look up the history. Look up the timeline. America was not coming to help. Winston Churchill wanted to die fighting if need be. Beauty was now he was not going to submit to the tyranny of Adolf Hitler and he said, you have enemies.

Good.

That means that you’ve stood for something sometime in your life. I could not agree more. And during the next chapter we talk about the can’t move on phase. Step 10 the fight, the final phase, the final phase of this incredible book, this incredibly humble book. Don’t let your employees hold you hostage because after the employee’s finally moved on, for some reason they struggle to, they just can’t move on. Well, once, once they physically moved on, they don’t want to go work there. They just for some reason can’t move on

dear glass door. I mean diary. I used to work for Clay Clark and if you only knew about the form of mental abuse I faced while working there, he may be shocked to work out and when I just stole some headphones, I mean party headphones, I just, I forgot they were all in. I took the book and I did reach out to one of his current clients and try to steal them away and start my own business forever. Turn away business to my own brand, my stealing the client. That’s that’s what happens, right? They can’t move on

there. What are they lamenting and her journal at night? No, they’re not limiting on their journal there. They’re lamenting on reddit. They’re lamenting on linkedin. They’re forming anonymous Google accounts and leaving you bad reviews. They’re writing bad about you on Youtube. Comments there. They’re doing whatever they can because they can’t move on because they are a no talent ass clown. I hate to slap your baby, but 75% of employees steal from the workplace. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, 78% of men have an affair. According to the Washington Post, at 85% of people lie on their resumes according to inc magazine, my friends, we live in a dark world and you are called to be the light. It’s not mean. It’s not negative. It’s just the truth. The facts are important to know you can handle the truth and you must understand that most people are not that great. All right? I hate to be the bearer of bad news and I hate to slap your baby, but we must move on knowing the truth.

[inaudible]

step 10 the can’t move on phase. Since your ex employee had no money and they did not have any immediate success, they decided to invest their idle time, which is all of their time suing you, booing you and writing bad online reviews about the success that you have built. Their bitterness is out of control here. They have decided to commit their days to sit in there and soaking while smoking pot. Hey Man, they, oh, that’s what happens, right? They end up sitting at home smoking pot, talking about their anxiety, leaving bad online reviews about you randomly unliking photos, unsubscribing to things blocking you on Facebook, blocking you on Instagram. We’re all connected so much with social media. It takes about a half of a nuclear half-life to just remember all the ways you’re connected. You’re like frank, I got on. Unlike them, unlike their business kind of defriend them kind of an Instagram among like him, got on Youtube, subscribe, gotta get off the Twitter, got to quit, follow him on Twitter, got to block their phone number, going to block their text messages, got to block their bed, switch addresses, got up all my clothes and becoming a hippie.

I mean it’s just people, they have a hard time moving on and then they only remember the times that when you had to pull them aside and tell them to be on time to get their job done, to hit deadlines. Now they re they never resent you for ever having tried to help them become a better version of themselves. They hate you for your success and they want it for themselves. But without making any sacrifices at simply put, they load the UW, but they always load to you, but they lack the courage needed to ever talk to you about it or the brain to resolve it and move on. So what do they do? He spent all their free time. Let’s face it. They do have a lot of free time. Here’s, since they aren’t employed bashing you all over social media suing you and making up false stories about you, it is best to ignore them and they’re burning passion for hating you flame out, much like their passion for working with you once did.

Now here are some Bible verses for the Kermit’s out there for the employees who try to hold you hostage. They’re not going to like very much, but I thought we should put them all together at one time and read them to you. So proverbs 24 says, what Jason? Whoa. Hey, I got him. I cut him off guard it cut off guard. There was tricky trick to clear my throat. Proverbs 24 sluggards do not plow in season. So at harvest time they look but find nothing. There it is. If you’re a slacker, go back to the agric agricultural society, the aggregate in society, you had to sow seeds to reap a harvest and just like that, and today in modern times, you got to do work to get paid. Proverbs six nine reads, what? Jason? How long will you lie there? You sluggard when you or when will you get up from your sleep?

Think about that. Proverbs six nine it says, we’re asking a question here. It says, how long will you lie there? You sluggard. Ooh, that nice little champ there. When will you get up from your sleep? Wow. Proverbs 2125 reads, what Jason? The craving of the sluggard will always will be the death of him because his hands refuse to work. Proverbs 2125 reach the craving of a sluggard will be the death of him because he, his hands refuse to work again. The cravings of a sluggard will be the death of him because his hands refuse to work. So now that you’ve heard all this stuff, what’s, what’s the conclusion? What do you need to do? How can you prevent yourself from ever being held hostage again? How do you keep yourself from ever allowing your employees to hold you hostage again? Well, the whole point of this book is to show you what can and will happen to you if you let employees and or problems fester.

Between my partners and I, we’ve employed thousands of employees. Think about that and I can honestly say that there are, there are a few great exceptions out there that do not fall into the 85% of employees for the most part being terrible. I believe we have those great people on our team now, but I’ve had to sift through a lot of idiots to find the right people today. I employ a great team of people who are here for a season to grow and are thankful for what they are learning and what they have learned, but there are also the terrorist employees that will try to hold you hostage out there. Don’t let this happen to you. On the following pages, you’ll see some action steps that you can take to make sure you are never being held hostage. Step number one, never stop hiring. A small team of a plus.

Players can run circles around a giant team of B and c players. Steve Jobs again, the cofounder of Apple, the former CEO of Pixar and the founder of next Steve Jobs says, a small team of a players can run circles around a giant team of B and c players, even when you are fully staffed, never ever stop looking for great employees to make room for constant recruitment allows you to never put, never be put into a bind and it allows you to ever be to put yourself into a corner where you’re painting yourself into a corner. Constant recruitment allows you to be, to never be put into a bind again or those awkward situations where an employee decides to move on and you can’t cover the work that you’ve promised to do for your clients and your customers. Step two, never stop the group interview. Steve Jobs says, and against Steve Jobs.

This is the man who modernized, who revolutionized the entire computer industry, the music industry, the animated film industry. This guy used to be the head of Pixar. This is the guy who got all the record labels to team up together to make iTunes possible. This is the guy who revolutionized the personal computer. He said some people, some people aren’t used to an environment where what excellence is expected. Again, he says some people aren’t used to an environment where what? Excellence is an expect. Let’s try that again. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. The group interview is a system that I’ve refined over the past 20 years of self-employment. I’ve been doing this since I was 16 years old. Okay. I’ve been employed, I’m 38 I’ve been 22 years, 22 years I’ve been self employed. The group interview is the system that I’ve refined over the past 22 years of self employment where you can interview multiple people at the same time for the same position.

This is powerful because it allows you to find or look for good people for an hour a week instead of having to allocate hours and hours to sit down and interview each and every person, half of which you can’t figure out how to show up on time. Step three, Jason, what do you got here? What step number three? Never stop having people shadow you. So Andrew Carnegie, the man who became one of the world’s wealthiest men in his lifetime, says, what on the subject, Jason? The older I get, the less I pay attention to what people say in. The more I look at what they do. After you find a seemingly good person from the group interview, they have to then shadow you for a day for the following reasons. Anyone can pretend to be awesome for an hour during an interview, but holding up that facade for several hours is a little bit more tough too.

This is their opportunity to see what it is you do and for them to build a foundational relationship with you to build, to see they like you and you like them. Let’s see if they actually would like to work in your environment and would you like them to work in your environment. This is your opportunity. Point three. This is your opportunity to see how they think and what level of skill they have for the job that you’re hiring them for. Now, step number four, Jason, what step number four? Never push an employee past their lid. The leadership expert, John Maxwell, the guy who wrote the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership says the leadership expert. John Maxwell says, he talks about how each person has their own personal lid or their limit of the limit of their competence to competency. How much can I handle? And once you try to push someone to be greater than they want to be, they will resent you for it. Step five is what Jason never teach an employee the entire business. Each employee can have specific roles within the company, but once you teach an employee all of the ins and outs of the business, you’ve created your future competitor. Step number six is what Jason Mentally Fire uncoachable people. When you watch an employee go from being coachable and eager to learn to being, not able to receive any feedback at all, any constructive criticism at all, mentally fire that person and replaced them at the most convenient time for you, the business owner.

Really? Is that what you do? That’s what you do. Why? Because we’re playing chess here, okay? You don’t have to broadcast to the world. You have to tell the world, hey, hey, here’s the deal. Germany, we’re going to be bombing you at a two oh two in this ridiculous, easily offended world. We like to think that we should tell America our game plan for engaging in war. Think about how that would work. Work, Jason, excuse me, I’m Mr a Hitler. You there? Okay. Mr Hiller, I just want you to know I’m representing America. We will be attacking you tomorrow at two 47 with 27 tanks, 1000 infantry. Just want you to know to make sure it’s fair. You get Outta here. It’s war. If somebody is screwing you, choose the time to let them go and make sure it’s convenient for you. Dr Zellner, my partner and cohost of the thrive time show podcast says a business exists to please the owner, a business exist to please the owner, Dr Robert H. Zilner has been a successful optometrist and entrepreneur within the city of Tulsa for 22 years.

However most would consider him to be an entrepreneur first and an optometrist. Second, third, fourth or fifth as a self made millionaire and entrepreneur who started with nothing but passion. His current business ventures include xe 66 auto auction, Rockin z ranch, Dr z’s sleep center, Doctor Robert H, Zoellner and associates and thrive fifteen.com. He has served as the director of the board of the bank regent bank, the invested in in 2008 Dr Zoner, uh, is one of those rare entrepreneurs that decided to go buy a bank. I’m not sure if that gives them any credibility there, but he went out and decided to buy a bank instead of depositing in a bank. He said, let’s go buy a bank. So in March of 20 of 2008 he was the director of the board of Regent Bank, the bank that he’s an investor in part owner of, and he did that from March, 2008 through January of 2013 he’s known for consistently saying, I’d rather invest in a business that I have control over and he has made enough money that he is now in that I’m going to wear a soccer jersey and shorts everywhere. Phase of his life. He deeply cares about humans and is involved in countless philanthropic causes, not the least of which includes his benevolent tasering and mentoring of myself. Clay Clark, and again, doctors’ owner says, a business exists to please the owner, my friends. Now that you know what to do, it’s up to you to implement. It’s up to you to never let your employees hold you hostage by Jonathan Kelly