Laboring on Labor Day | Disciplined Diligence Creates Success

Audio Transcription

Like I do my best. I did my best. I did feel by bad

Andrew, what day is it? Today’s Monday Labor Day. Isn’t it ironic that on the day where Americans have decided to set aside a holiday to celebrate the hard work of Americans, hard work that most people take the day off and don’t labor. And what I have found is when people just do their best and they don’t actually put in the work needed to succeed, they will lose. They’ll fail. I have found that God blesses the hands of a diligent and punished as the slackers. Right. I have found that if you are trying to become self-employed and you allow yourself to be distracted by all these bogus hallmark holidays, Columbus Day festival, it’s president’s Day, Earth Day, Labor Day, you will lose it says it both in genesis and an exodus. Work six days and rest on the seventh. Now, Luke, um, this is your first time being on our business coaching show. This is your first day of work.

Yes. Great to be here. And you started on Labor Day? I did. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any doubt that I’d be working on Labor Day? There was no possible doubt in my mind. I was asked if I wanted to come work today. It wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation. I knew I was going to be here now. How did you first hear about our business coaching team cause this is your first day of work. How did you first hear about the thrivetime show where we’re working with team thrive? You know, I got to be a part of an incredible organization called life church and a heard that my senior pastor Craig Rochelle was going to be on the show and listen to the show and was just totally blown away and knew that this was an organization that I wanted to be a part of. So,

well, you know, we’re, we’re honored to have you on the show and you have worked with, you know, life church. Could you explain about the level of discipline and diligence needed to make that organization to run the way it does? Because when you get to church, if you show up on to a life church campus, there are always people waving at you out front volunteers, they always have music playing in the lobby. When you get there, the coffee served, there’s people guiding the vehicles to the right spots. Things start on time. The services end on time. It’s a, they have great praise and worship, great kids fellowship, great kids classes. Everything about life. Church is huge and great, well done, which is why with a spirit of excellence that is now grown into the largest evangelical church in America. Talk to us about the work ethic and the diligence that you see starting from the top

over there at life church. Yeah, without a doubt. Pastor Craig is the hardest worker I know and I’ve ever met in my life and it just trickles down all the way to the staffs. The expectation on everyone is to bring a high level of intentionality, a high level of leadership and everything that is done is on purpose. Everything that you see is done on purpose. It is one of the most well run organizations that I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. What kind of, I heard one of his sermons recently where he talked about how he spends 15 to 20 hours preparing for every sermon. Yeah.

What are some other examples of the kind of diligence that you’ve seen where you say, this guy, one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever seen. What are some other examples where you would say whether it be Craig or someone else at life church, where you say that right there as an example of having an excellent work ethic?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I look at pastor Craig, I mean he’s, he’s the most disciplined person I have ever had the opportunity to encounter I think. And so, I mean even when it comes down to just his discipline and eating and exercise, I mean, that man will not miss a stinking day. And it, one of the principles that he teaches the staff and teaches everyone who gets to be a part of the organization is that don’t try to bite off the whole elephant. Right? Take one bite at a time, at one discipline a year and build that into your lifestyle and over the years, that’s what’s going to trickle down and make you into the person that you want to be. As you brought up one, one bite at a time,

what made you, uh, the proudest working with life church? What was, ah, some of the things, cause I, I have found we’re cultures have high expectations. Yeah. There’s a lot of pride. Not in a way where you’re uncoachable coachable and you’re out running around town bragging on yourself. I’m talking about there’s a certain ownership you feel when you’re held to a high standard. Yeah. Um, can you talk to me, I mean, what, what kind of feelings did you have about working there? Was, it, was it, was it a pride? Was it, was where you, were you excited to be part of that team? Uh, to talk to me about what it felt like to be part of that team?

Well, one of the key components of being a part of that organization is that everything that is done comes out of the mission to lead people, to become fully devoted followers of Christ. And so nothing is done that does not directly relate back to that. And so everything that we do, everything that we’re asked to do, everything that we get to be a part of flows out of knowing that you’re making a difference in this world and you’re gonna have an impact on people because it all leads back to the mission statement.

Andrew, how old are you? I’m 21 are you sure? Uh, I had to think about it, but yes. Okay. You’re 21 years old. Are you, are you married? I am married. How many rental houses do you own? I have uno. One. How many a wives do you have? A also one? Hmm. Oh, it’s kind of a theme there. So one rental house. One life. What time did you wake up today? Today I woke up at three so not one. Not The way. Let’s play the game again. Changing it up. How many wives do you have? Got One. How many rental houses for now? One. What time did you wake up? Three. I thought the whole theme for you is going to be, hold on, hold on. I wake up at hon one rental house. I have one wife, I have hot. You know I thought it was going to be up at Kwan but you did the one one three move.

Yeah, I didn’t wake up at one. You woke up at what time again? Woke up at three. You can change that tomorrow if you want. I think a lot of people, yeah, I like a lot of people though. They want to have success but they’re just not willing to put in the work and so today’s show show’s not meant to beat anybody up. It is just a show where I go through, I’ll teach you the business principles. I’m going to walk you through the specific principles that have been shown to work time and time again and then I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you want to be diligent and disciplined to implement the systems. But a today’s show was recorded. I was walking up and down the riverwalk this morning from my phone. So if you hear like birds or water or traffic or if you, if you hear any of that kind of stuff, uh, that’s cause I was on my phone recording the show, but I wanted to record the show. Um, and a little different format, maybe one that’s a little bit more memorable for the listeners. It feels more personable because, um, it’s once you get the idea that a having a bringing excellence to everything and specifically your work ethic, you will absolutely win. And the game of business and in the game of life. And so now, without any further ado, we talk about how discipline will create the life you want, how discipline and diligence will create the success that you seek.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in the writer to introduce a show, but this show dies too, man. Eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 moat time, million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome

to the thrive time show.

[inaudible] got it from the bottom down.

All right. Welcome back to another walk in talk edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. Now on today’s show, um, I’m going to talk about something that is so obvious, so clear, so easy to grasp that I think people don’t want to see it. It’s this thing called discipline. You see Jocko Willink, you know, the, the, the famous, uh, ex Mil, a marine, um, bestselling author. He talks about this a lot. Um, proverbs talks about it a lot. Proverbs 10, four, the book of proverbs talks about diligence, but here we are. It is Labor Day of the day where America celebrates the hardworking nature of our culture by taking the day off, which makes zero sense to me. Um, I, it does make sense to me that the first state to adopt these celebration of Labor Day was Oregon because Oregon likes to take the day off.

I get it. I, they’re very progressive state. But here we are. It’s Labor Day and I’m at the office working, laboring on Labor Day. Why? Because I want to work on Labor Day, which is why I can’t lose. It’s so easy for me. Growing a business has always been super easy to me because I don’t struggle with, uh, suffering from a desire to do anything other than to work during my work day. I’ve never had the thought of, Oh wow, I’m at work. Ah, why don’t I go on Facebook? I’m not, I’m not even tempted in the slightest bit to look at Facebook’s. I realized Facebook is, is stupid. It’s a waste of time. I’m not tempted during the day to go on Instagram and like things and to share things because it’s a distraction. I don’t, I don’t feel a need to take the holidays off because it’s a distraction.

I don’t want to take the day off. I mean, I maybe, maybe if you’re listening to them to help there, maybe, maybe, uh, you don’t agree with me on this, but I do believe that the Bible was written in Hebrew. We know that the original Bible was written in Hebrew and, uh, maybe, maybe you don’t agree with this, but I believe that it is true. I believe that the Bible itself is true. That’s where I find my truth. And in the Bible it says that God created the earth. And how many days was the five days? No. Was it four days? Nope. Nope. Nope. Was it three? Nope. Was it seven? No, it was six. It was six. This God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Interesting. So in 1938 comes around now, not in 1938 pop quiz is 1938 in the Bible.

No, 1938 was not in the Bible. So Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was a socialist, FDR, a socialist, he came up with a thing called the for the 40 hour work week. The 40 hour work week was developed in what year? 1938 booboo. That’s right. What year? 1938 by who? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now, I don’t know what you like to do or what some people like to do at or in their downtime, but I like to read. Why? Because I value wisdom. So I have read the biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt where they really said they really celebrate him and talk about how great he was. And it’s a big old big book and a, I read another smaller book about him. I’ve read a lot about the guy and I am thoroughly convinced that he was a socialist and therefore a socialist wants to do what? They want to take money from the people who are earning it and give it to the people who are not earning it.

Not all of it like a communist, but a lot of it. Half of it. We want to take half of your money and give it to other people. Well, think about this for a second and the late in the early 1970s, mid 1970s, um, if you get a chance to do your research on this, there was less than a hundred million dollars of venture capital available to fund tech startups and tech growth. All right? So certain smart people got together and thought, why? Why aren’t more wealthy people willing to invest their martyred money in stocks in tech companies? Well, it’s because the capital gains tax was 50% so why in the world would you want to risk your money if you lose half of it? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to invest your money to earn more money when you have to give half of it away?

So people were saying, this is stupid. We shouldn’t have to take half of our money and give it to the government. So we decided as a country, or they’ll the legislature, the legislators at the time, the elected officials, they decided to lower the gains tax, the capital gains tax to 15% why? So you can keep more of your own money. And guess what happened? People started investing in tech companies and then guess what happened? Our country started growing. Well, let’s go. Let’s go back. Let’s go back to Plymouth rock. Can we go back there? Okay, so Columbus 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We have some pilgrims hanging out. How many days a week were those guys working? Was it five days a week? Was it for, was it three? Was it two? No, they worked however long it took to achieve what they needed to achieve, Aka to grow enough food to not die.

Right? That’s what they did. They worked as hard as they had to work to make as much money as they needed to make or to grow as much corn or to grow as much, you know, to get as much fish as they need to just survive. Why? Because there was no backup plan and it was that industrious work ethic and spirit that created this great country and now America is sort of coasting on the fumes of the hard work that was done before. So now, now 1938 FDR, Remember Plymouth Rock, you go back to Plymouth rock. 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Right? Then he got here, his team got here and they had to work. Did they have to work 40 hours a week? No. Did they hit Labor Day off? No. Did they get Christmas Eve off? No. What about thanksgiving? No. What about New Year’s Day? No, they had to work, had to work as much as they needed to work to get it done cause there was no backup plan.

When we go back to the Old Testament, go back till tests, we go back there in Genesis and exodus. It says that we are supposed to work six days a week at rest on the seventh observe the Sabbath, take that day off, but work six days a week. Why do we have to work six days a week if you want to be successful? It says in proverbs ten four God blesses the hands of the diligence. Well, let’s define diligence. What does that mean? It means six days a week people cannot compete with me and the various businesses I’m involved in because I don’t get distracted and I don’t seek a vacation. The word vocation means calling. I don’t, my co, I don’t seek, I’m not being called to go on vacation. Vacation meaning to retreat from. I don’t want to retreat from anything. I love what I do. I love what I do and it’s interestingly, here we are, 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue there.

They work as unto the Lord. They arrest on the sabbath the seventh day and they are blessed. Then 1938 ain’t it great. Here comes FDR with something bizarre, something that seems kind of weird. Something that seemed maybe unethical or or or out of bounds or something that hadn’t previously happened. He throws out the idea of the 40 hour work week and people cheer. Woo. People Cheer. Yes. Cause people don’t want to be disciplined. They don’t want to be diligent. People want to take the day off because that’s what people want to do. It’s easier. Water flows down hill. People want to eat ice cream. We want to take the day off. But I and you entrepreneurs, we don’t want to take the day off. We like what we do. We love the feeling of satisfaction. That is a result of the massive action that we take. We don’t like distraction.

We like the feelings of satisfaction. We don’t like the feelings of distraction. We don’t want to go to a bar to sit down and talk about nothing for three days and we’ll call that a vacation. We don’t want to go on Facebook for four hours into talk about things that don’t matter. We don’t want to watch an endless barrage of movies. We like what we do and it is our quest and our search for satisfaction that causes us us to take the massive action and because customers, again, we go back, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and in the Hebrew language, the word work and worship or the same word. The word work means worship and the word word worship means work. That’s what it means in Hebrew. Worship is not something you do on Sunday, one day a week before church. It’s something that you do.

It’s not something you do on the way to church. It’s not something you do at church. Worship is something that you should do every single second of your day that you have a job every day you’re at work, you work as unto the Lord. Your work should be your worship, but people get that twist. They say, no, no, no. I want to do my worship the right before the pastor gets out to talk and that’s when I’ll worship and I’m just saying to you, there’s a lot of people who call into question my ethics. I say, do you think it’s ethical to work six days a week? Absolutely. I’ll go as far as to say, I think it’s unethical to not work six days a week until you get to your goals and once you get to your goals, your work as little as you want.

But until that point, you can’t say with your mouth that you want to have success, but be unwilling to put in the work and needed to do it. It’s ridiculous. It was, this would be like me wanting to run a marathon, but being unwilling to train. This is like me wanting to get into shape and be unwilling to change my diet. You have to have some sort of discipline and those who can not be disciplined, who cannot be self-disciplined, require discipline from authorities. People that can’t pay their taxes on time, deal with the IRS, people that can’t figure out that the speed limit is 60 get a ticket. Why? Because if you’re not disciplined, you will be disciplined by the market place. That’s why people go out of business. So some of these principles I’m going to teach on today’s show, they’re not super complicated.

They just required discipline. And the same kind of discipline that makes me and Jonathan and the members of our business coaching team come to work on Labor Day. The idea that we would even want to be off on labor day is foreign to us. I don’t want to be off on Labor Day. I would not want to be off on Labor Day. Why? Cause I don’t. It’s like going against my goal. If I’m trying to get in shape, I don’t want to eat ice cream. Why? Because it’s going against my goal. But if you’re out there listening and you don’t want to have success, then you’re gonna want to take Labor Day off because you don’t want to have success. If you did want to have success, then you would want to put in the work. But if you don’t want to have success, you’re going to want to take vacation. So let me give you some principles here.

All right? This is from the book, the service profit chain. It’s a Harvard case study and it says a 5% increase in customer loyalty can produce profit increases from 25% to 85%. Several companies have found that their most loyal customers are top 20% of total customers. Not only provide all the profit for the business, but also cover losses and cursing and dealing with less loyal customers. Okay. Obviously when you wow a customer, they’re going to refer somebody, right? But we don’t, it requires extra work. Clay. Oh my gosh. I mean, think about this, years ago I worked with a carpet cleaning business. This is years ago, many moons back. And I told the guy, after you clean the carpet, give the customer a gift. What kind of a gift? I said, give him, give him a nice gift. Get them not attack. He gift. You know, give him like a $20 Starbucks gift card.

You know, you will five it’s like mayor, but give him a 20 it’s wow, you give him five it’s like man, but you can 20 how’s that sound? Again, if you give them a $5 gift certificates, Kinda like man, but if you give him a 20th wow. And he’s going, well gosh, but then I can be cutting into my profits. Oh Geez. Now I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also guarantee you’re going to be there on time. How many of you have paid to have your carpets cleaned and had to wait half a day, all day waiting on some carpet tech who’s not aware of the space time continuum and the EBITDA does not. It does not seem to be familiar with the concept of setting a specific appointment. So you spend your day waiting around for the carpet guy. How many of you ever waited for the cable guy or the the plumber guy?

You’re waiting on these contractors, so will you do, I told the guy, you just get there early. You say, I’ll be there at 11 and get there at 10 45 or 10 50 and then always give them a gift. Well guess what happened? He started doing it. Started delaying that gratification, giving the customer a gift after each carpet cleaning. And you know, it started happening. He started getting referrals, people referring people. People are going to say, people were going around town saying, wow, my carpet guy, this guy gets here on time and check this out. He gave me a 20 yard gift card. He’s better than everybody else’s prices and I got a gift card. This guy’s great. So it’s the law of reciprocity. When you render more service than for what you are paid, people eventually want to refer you. Oh, it’s like the boomerang effect, but people don’t want to actually put in the work.

Now let’s talk about this firing people. According to Jack Wells to CEO who grew GE by 4000% during his tenure there, he says, public hangings, our teaching moments, every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and Blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it. Oh, interesting. Jack Welch is saying, you should fire bad people and do it publicly. Sometimes. Most people would say, that sounds mean. I say, that sounds awesome. Now, if you read the book Genesis, I get, I hate to go back to that book, but genesis a Adam was told Adam, hey Adam, don’t eat from the what? The tree. Don’t eat the tree. Don’t eat the forbidden fruit. Don’t eat it. Boom. He ate from the tree.

Did he not? And then what did God do? He kicked him out of the garden, right? And did God feel bad? I don’t know why this happened. God did God lament? Did God experience guilt? I don’t know, but he did it. It’s law of cause and effect firing people. And again, people just don’t want to do it. And if you do want to have success, you’re going to want to fire bad people. Like right now I’m on this walk and I want to tie my shoe, so I’m going to tie my shoe. Now I’m tying my Yeezys. I’m putting the phone down to time. I use these. I’m going to tie my left shoe. Now, if I said to you that I want to tie my shoe, but I never actually tie my shoe, somebody out there who’s got some deep psychological business coaching training explained to me what would happen if I wanted to tie my shoe but never actually tied my shoe?

Uh, my shoe wouldn’t be tied. Yes. So if you don’t fire people, you’re going to hit bad people and it’s just bad. People are going to repel customers and your good customers are going to tell her people don’t use them. They have jerks. So the customer will discipline you if you don’t fire bad people. Which again, the service profit chain reports that have 5% increase in customer loyalty can produce profit increases by 25 to 85%. So if you have a church right now, if you have business right now, I want you to write down on a piece of paper the jerks right down the people on your team who are freaking idiots. Write them down. And I want you to every single week for the rest of your business life, ensure that your organization conducts a group interview. I do mine every Wednesday night. And you know why I interview candidates every Wednesday night because I want to be able to have the leverage needed and the ability to fire idiots.

You don’t believe I do it. Go on glass door and read the reviews from the idiots that I’ve fired when I interview people. It’s a group interview. The candidates I like, they can shadow when they shadow, they can ask any questions they want but certain morons don’t believe in cause and effect. They’ll actually take the job knowing that they are fake, that they don’t have a real work ethic. And then when they get fired they have to do what they do cause they’re trolls. They go on the Internet and they write a bad review. Why? Because they have no power. That’s all they got. And because the internet is created for the average person, it allows anonymous people to leave reviews. I would love, love Glassdoor if it would list the specific person and who they are and why they’re writing that comment and if the owner could respond back with their side of the story. But the problem is most people don’t want to hear the owners side of the story because most people aren’t disciplined enough to become an owner.

Forbes writes, over 50% of the working population now works in small businesses. Gallup rights, 57% of Americans surveyed say they want, want, want to start their own business someday. Do you really? Do you really want them to start your own business someday? If you own a business, do you really want to make it a successful company? I don’t know because today I recall waking up at two 30 in the morning on Labor Day. Why? Because I’ve got stuff to do. Why? Because that’s what I signed up for. You can’t grow a men’s grooming lounge called EITR, lounge.com elephant in the room, lounge.com you can’t grow that business. You can’t help to mentor and coach up a business like tip top canine. You can’t do that if what? If you just want it. You have to do it. You see, you can’t help minter up and coach of those guys.

That tip top canine are great people. Rachel, Rachel and Ryan Wimpy, but not only did Rachel and Ryan want it, but they’re willing to put in the work for it. You see, that’s the trade off the trade up, the trade off. That’s the discipline thing. They wanted to be successful and they asked me how to do it and I taught them, but they’re a client. They say, I signed up for that. So I have to meet him this morning at 6:00 AM I met with complete carpet. Why did I meet complete carpet at 6:00 AM because I have exchanged my time for compensation. We go back to the Bible that he word Hebrew and the Hebrew language, the word money means a certificate of appreciation, a certificate of appreciation. That’s what the word money means in Hebrew. So they’re paying me their hard earned dollars and so I took their money and therefore it is incumbent upon me, it as my responsibility to what?

Deliver the service. Am I going to say, Hey, I can’t meet this week guys because I’m on vacation. No, I’m not. I’m going to suggest a different time to meet if we had to or whatever. But the whole world wants you and me to take off Labor Day. But they did not take off on Labor Day and do you know why they didn’t take off for Labor Day? Cause they’re the real deal. Complete carpet, baby. Complete carpet. That’s the real deal. Local business right here in Tulsa. I won’t business coach any other carpet businesses outside of Oklahoma because of my role and helping work with Oxi fresh over the years and my friendship with Jonathan Barnett with the oxi fresh, who also is an owner of elephant in the room, men’s grooming lounge. But it’s so easy to grow a business. You just got to put in the work. Think about this for a second.

Steve Jobs, the cofounder of apple and the former CEO of Pixar once wrote, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, Karma, whatever. I think Steve Jobs has a little more faith in me. Yet it would be hard for me to not believe that this planet was immaculately conceived and created. I, I can’t have that kind of faith to believe that just through sheer randomness the world was created. It’s too detailed and too, uh, it’s like, it was like a master architect designed a, this, this plan. I don’t have the kind of faith needed to believe that, that, that that didn’t happen. But with Steve, he didn’t have a faith like I have. I have a faith in proverbs. You know, God blesses the hands of the diligent. Proverbs ten four. You got everybody listening right now. You should just read proverbs because there are so many profound things it says, it says in there, if you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat.

Geez, I wish they would just maybe teach that in college. Just if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Let me maybe teach that to our legislators that be, maybe teach that to the congress and then pretty soon, guess what? If you don’t work, you won’t eat. And then people that don’t work and don’t eat, we’ll probably do what? Get their ass motivated to get a job. How’s that going to do? But Oh, by the way, the word ass is found in the Bible check ass. So you got it. You know, if you’re a jackass and you’re not working, you don’t deserve to eat. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But we screwed that up somewhere along the way. We thought about, well 1938. Well if you don’t work, ah, maybe you can eat a little bit and we’ll just take some of, you know, Bobby’s, we’ll just take some, uh, Bobby’s food here since Bobby’s really good.

We’re going to take some of that food and give it to you. Think about how to have jacked up the game of basketball would be if they did that. If they said Lebron James, you are just dominate and you are so good. So we’re going to take 12 of your points and give those points to a little Bobby over here cause it’ll, Bobby only averages 12 points a game. And Lebron, you’re averaging 30 points again. So we take 12 points away from you and give that to Bobby. Now Bobby average is 24 points a game and you only average 16. But then that wouldn’t be fair. So what if we uh, lend a little more to you, Mr Lebron or we have you pay a little bit of a graduated tax system or the point is it just caused an effect. And if you cannot grasp the idea of cause and effect, if I were to cancel my meeting this morning was complete carpet and papa gallows and Redmond growth and Digi systems and these different businesses, you know what would happen?

They wouldn’t meet with me. What? Yeah. So if I canceled the meeting, they wouldn’t be meeting with me. If they weren’t meeting with me. That means they’ve paid for something they didn’t get and then it wouldn’t work. So it’s interesting how over time, if you look at my clients that make the most money, they’re the ones who always show up, not just to my meetings but to everything. They show up for their staff meeting, they show up for the group interview, they show up to pick up the phone and to call their leads. They show up and you’re the clients that lose. It’s the ones that I blow up. No. Why would I blow up a client who’s wanting to pay me money to help them grow their business? If you’re not not willing to do your action items, I’ve got a fire. That’s why my program is month to month.

I’m not going to put up with somebody who wants to have success, but it’s unwilling to keep something as simple as a weekly meeting. The consistency of actually calling their leads or doing quality control calls. And if that idea of doing a stupid repetitive tasks over and over, if the idea of Kaizen, of continual improvement as the Japanese call it, if the idea of continual improvement as the Japanese call it Kaizen, if that idea is hard for you, and if I hear you talking about I just want to make passive income, I’ve got to get you off my field cause you’re gonna, you’re not going to be successful. But let’s, let’s play that out for a second. Let’s say that you actually bought a piece of real estate so you can make some passive income. Passive income. Well, if you bought a piece of real estate so you can do that passive income thing, do you not have to collect from the renter every month?

Yeah. You do. Do you not have to mow the grass if they don’t do it? Yep. Do you don’t have to fix the air conditioning if it goes out? Yep. Do you don’t have to evict people that won’t pay. Yep. How passive is that? Do you don’t have to consistently market to make sure that you are never without a tenant? Yes. That’s not passive at all. Being in business is like being a gardener. You have pulled those weeds every single week and somebody out there needs to hear this message, but somebody out there is trying to come up with a, a, a hack or a get rich quick move that allows you to have all the weeds pulled at one time. You’re looking for a pesticide or a some kind of something that’s going to kill the weeds and it’s gonna. It’s gonna. Well, what happens is shocking.

There’s poison in it. Shocking. It turns out it’s not good for you. Shocking. The point I am trying to make is that discipline is what creates wealth. It is easy to be successful, so easy if you’re just willing to put in the work. Think about this deep business coaching thought for a second. I knew survey from career builder of more than 2,500 hiring managers found that 56% have caught job candidates lying on their resumes. That’s from Time magazine. The articles called you won’t believe how many people lie on their resumes. Now, that was an old school article, a newer article by INC magazine reports that 85% of employees now lie on their resumes. Is that shocking? No, it’s not shocking to me. Clay, you’re not. It’s not shocking to you. No, it is not shocking, which is why I do the group interview every week. But somebody out there is saying, well, because they’re family, because they’re friends, because there’s somebody I knew from college, I can’t fire them.

I can’t do the whole move of, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. I can’t do the move of, hey, if you break the rules and you eat from the forbidden fruit, if you eat from the forbidden tree, I can’t kick you out of my garden cause I’d feel bad. If you’re not down with cause and effect, you’re not going to be successful. And this is the rub. This is the tough part of being an entrepreneur. You have to set the standard and the rest of the World gonna say, you’re so mean. I can’t believe that you would fire somebody. I can’t believe you’d work on Labor Day trying to guilt me into feeling that I couldn’t believe that you would work on labor day. I mean, how could you possibly, oh, by what what? I have seen so many men in their forties and 50s that have never missed an opportunity to take off.

They’re off on labor day. The day before Christmas Eve called festivus. They’re off on Christmas Eve. They’re off on Christmas, they’re off the day after Christmas and that whole week might as well. They’re off on New Year’s Eve. They’re off on New Year’s Day. They’re off on Thanksgiving eve, they’re off on thanksgiving, they’re off the whole week of thanksgiving. They take off for every possible holiday, every birthday. They cannot possibly possibly ever skip a kid’s soccer game to get something done to honor their commitment to their customer. They can’t ever skip a soccer game to finish the home remodeling project. They they promised to finish. No, no. That’s why when I hired contractors, the vast majority of the time, they don’t hit their deadlines. Why? Cause they’ll call me and say, clay, here’s the deal. My son’s plan in a third grade baseball tournament and I don’t want to miss it. My daughter has a tournament. I can’t miss it. I need to go to the eighth grade graduation.

I can’t clay, I can’t. I can’t hit the deadline that I promised I would hit because I want to be [inaudible]. Oh good dad. Are you kidding me? You’re going to teach your kids that a good dad drops the ball at work to attend a third grade baseball game. No, you got to honor the commitments you signed up for. And those are the people who are in control and people like that who I’ve met, who’ve never missed an opportunity to skip work and to enjoy a holiday. Those are always the broke ones. The ones that are broke are always the ones that always come to me. 40 year old man, 45 year old man called clay. I just have off. Always overwhelmed. Yeah. Cause you take a day off all the time. Leads keep coming and you can’t take a day off. You’ve got to work six days a week and take off on the seventh and then once you hit your goals you can hire somebody else.

You can’t put a sign up that says I’m closed today because my kid’s having a birthday. I mentioned if Starbucks work that way or southwest airlines, I mean imagine the, how the titans of industry would work. How, how well would it work if hobby lobby and Guitar Center and target put up signs that said, we can’t come to work today because Bobby’s having a birthday. Nobody cares about little Bobby’s birthday. They’re there to buy speakers and home decor and whatever the crap they’re buying it, whatever the store it is, you can’t sit there and let your personal lack of consistency impact your business. You can’t run your business. Can’t feel like an emotional person. It can’t, Gosh, I’ve been partnered with so many knuckleheads in the years past who are, I can’t work this month cause I’m going to go skiing this week and the next week I’ll be back from skiing, but I’m going to go visit my grandma.

Are you kidding me? You can’t do that until you’re at a certain level. The tipping point when I want you to get to the top, if you want to do whatever you want to do, you can do it, but you can’t. You can’t do it that way. It does. It doesn’t work that way. It’s all about discipline. Here’s something crazy for you. This is cause this is a crazy idea here. According to Fast Company, the article’s called, here’s the truth about lying at work. A global survey of workplace management company. Kronos found that as many as 58% of employees call in sick on days when they want to watch or attend a sporting event, 58% 58 identities, not high enough. I don’t think. I don’t think it’s that low. I’ve had a lot of employees, hundreds of people, thousands of people. I don’t agree with that stat, but I don’t have my own stat to argue with.

But it says only 58% of employees call in sick on days. They want to attend a sporting event. This very simple kind of twisting of the truth can cost organizations 8.7% of payroll according to the study, 8.7% of payroll, I believe. I believe that now these new easy shoes, I have these, these new easy shoes that were given to me for my, by a given to me from Colton Dixon, Colton Dickson gave him to me. He’s a, uh, Atlantic recording artists. He gave me these Yeezy shoes. I love, I love the shoes and the look of the look of the field, the look of the shoe, the feel of the shoe. These are the Kanye west shoes. However, these shoes tend to come on tide often. So I’m going to tie my shoe again. Maybe this time, extra extra glide. But what if I didn’t tie my shoe?

What if I just said I want to tie my shoe? Then my shoe would not be tied. What is going on with employees? So you want to be self employed when you can’t come to work every day. If you work for me, you will see my car in the parking lot by 3:30 AM virtually every day. Why? Because I want to do something massive with my life. What is that thing I wanna do? What is it that I want to do? What do I want to do? I wanted to get to a place in my life where I never had to worry about finances and I wanted to teach people the proven steps needed to achieve success. That’s what I wanted to do because my vocation is my, what my calling my vocation is my, your vocation should be your, what you’re calling and the word vacation means to retreat from.

Why would you want to retreat from your calling cause Labor Day. No, no tea. This is why it would be, it’d be very, very hard for you to compete with me if impossible. In fact, if if I’m competing with you and you’re competing with me and I work six days a week and you worked five and almost any endeavor, it would be almost impossible to beat somebody who works one extra day a week. Can you do now the Atlantic, the Atlantic publication, they have an article called the secret shame of middle class Americans, which reports at 47% of respondents say they have less than $400 saved, 47% that’s a large number. What are people doing? I go down to eat a lot. What are people doing watching a lot of cable? What are people doing with their money? They’re going on vacations that they can’t afford.

Do you recognize how crazy it is? How often broke people travel. I’ve noticed that the brokest people travel the most. I’ve seen it. I’ve know I’ve discovered this is an interesting pattern as I’ve coached a lot of businesses, I’ve discovered it. The ones who traveled the most usually can afford it the least. Usually, not always, but usually. Now let’s talk about time management for a second. Managing top time management. According to Forbes, Forbes writes the articles called wasting time at work. The number of people who now admit to wasting time at work every day is a whopping 89% 89% of people at work are doing what? Nothing. No thing. They’re on Facebook posting about their getting their grind on. They’re talking about coffee. They’re talking about going to lunch. They’re talking about going out to eat. They’re talking about inner office drama, but they are not working.

No, no, no. A lot of people are not working or what are they doing? They’re not working. Why aren’t they working? I don’t know. They’re just not working. I couldn’t imagine a world where I would go to work and not work, but that’s what people do and they say, I’ve been, I’ve been here as boss, I’ve been boss, I’ve been here for six months and I don’t understand what happened. Been promoted yet. I don’t understand boss. I don’t get it, boss. How come I haven’t been promoted yet? And you say, well, the reason why daisy, this is a real situation. The reason why daisy got to be promoted to be the head of the call center literally is because she showed up every day and did a great job. Every day. The people around her couldn’t figure that part out. We had one lady, bless her heart, she’d come to work and about every, you know, I don’t know, 10 minutes, he had to go vape.

She had to go vape. She always calling in sick, had to go vape. I don’t know. Vaping causes sickness, but constantly vaping, talking about anxiety, want to talk about vague principles and ideology. Constantly went to to debate about everything, about our pricing, whether we charge too much or not enough or her opinions of this or her opinions of that. And the only thing she didn’t want to do at work was to work. And so guess what I had to do, put daisy in charge of her. It’s unbelievable. You got a guy in her office named Ben. Ben used to work at Lowe’s. Now he’s the head of a search engine and search engine team. Why? Cause he’s diligent. It’s unbelievable. You know how many people have started in his spot who couldn’t handle the heat and do what he does? Just the consistency of doing it every day.

I’m going to say for every 25 people we hire, we might find a guy like Ben, maybe one in a 50 people we hire out of every 50 people we hire, we find like one bit. I did the group interview every Wednesday at what time? Six every Wednesday at six when I interview all the candidates on Wednesdays at six you how many candidates? I interview usually 30 to 40 I usually have every week at least 50 people that say I’m going to be at that interview. And then we probably have, you know, 20 to 30 that actually show up on a high week, 10 on a low week. And I interview them. And guess of those 10 that actually show up, how many of them can be on time? Usually four and then the six that aren’t on time, they wonder why I’m not going to hire them. They can’t seem to figure that out.

And then we have the four, we have them shadow and other, the people that shadow, we usually have two or one that can handle the idea of doing a job. They’ll say, so what does the job require? And you say, well since it’s a starting position, you’re going to start off right in search engine articles where you’re going to do sales and you do what most people say. They say, but I want to be a manager. Why? Because I have a degree. Okay, so because you went to school for Awhile and spent four years of your life learning how life doesn’t actually work, taught from a professor who’s never left it left the campus just because you’ve been filling your head with four years of Socialists crap, it doesn’t empower you to somehow be worth anything. On a practical level in the workplace, you got to learn practical skills to pay the bills.

So you start somebody out there like Ben and Ben gets promoted and people say, how did he do it by he gets paid more than I do. How did he do it? And you tell him, you say he showed up to work on time every day and he did his job and then it’s like, yeah, but what else? What secrets? What hacks? What, what? How did he, there is no shortcut to success. The long road is the short road unemployment. Check this out right now. According to Gallup, it says, right now we’re hearing much celebrating from the media and the White House in Wall Street about how unemployment is down right now. As many as it lists out, you know, the millions of people that aren’t currently employed. But I’m asking you how many people, how many people do you know it have a job and don’t deserve a job?

How many people do you know right now that have a job that frankly don’t deserve a job? I can think of many people that I’ve had to hire over the years that don’t deserve a job. They just cannot show up to work on time. They can’t be consistent. But you got to have somebody, right? So they have a job. How sweet of an economy is that? Where people who shouldn’t have a job have a job? It’s a sweet economy. So let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s make this very actionable. Let’s teach you some proven principles that you can apply and then you can decide right now whether you wanna do something about it or just be pissed and sort of be in this weird cognitive dissonance phase of your life where you know what to do but you don’t do it. Because that would require doing something.

Branding. Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prints for Michael Jackson, Charlton Heston. He writes, if you give someone a gift and you give it to them a Tiffany box, it’s likely that they’ll believe that the gift has a higher perceived value than if you gave it to them and no box or a box of less prestige. That’s not because the receiver of the gift is it fool, but instead, because we live in a culture in which we gift wrap everything. Our politicians, our corporate heads are movie and TV stars and even our toilet paper. Well said. So what do you do with that? I’m asking you on a scale of one to 10 right now, how highly would you rank your website in terms of the appearance on a scale of one to 10 if 10 is a perfect, beautiful website that converts and generate to a lot of leads, you give yourself a 10 if a one is you have a website that looks great but you don’t get any leads or you have a website that looks terrible and you don’t get any leads, give yourself a rank.

Give yourself a rank right now of I’d say, well, let’s, let’s watch. Let’s let’s think like an entrepreneur. Let’s make it a one or a 10. Nothing in the middle. Don’t give yourself a seven. Seven gives you permission to not act. On a scale of one to 10, one or 10, how highly would you rank your website? 10 or one discipline, discipline. Think about this for a second. Chet Holmes, the business coach who has since deceased, who worked with Charlie monger, he wrote the book called the ultimate sales machine. Charlie monger. If you look up Charlie monger, he is m. U. N. G. E. R, the billionaire you’ve never heard of. He’s Warren Buffett’s partner. He writes the missing ingredient for nearly all of the 1000 plus clients I have worked with to directly improve their businesses is pig headed discipline and determination? That’s right. We all need a Phd, pig headed discipline and determination.

We all get good ideas at seminars and from books, radio talk shows, and business building gurus. The problem is that most companies do not know how to identify and adapt the best ideas to their businesses implementation. Not Ideas is the real key to success. Discipline. On a scale of one to 10 10 being very disciplined, you’re very disciplined. You get to work every day at 3:00 AM you knock your stuff out, you get to work at 4:00 AM you knock your stuff out, you get to work at whatever time you have to get to work to knock out your commitments. You follow up, you follow through, you deliver on your commitments. That’s a ten one is more often than not, you’re always a dollar short. A day late. You wanted to write your book, but you couldn’t find the time you wanted to write your call script, but you couldn’t find the time.

You wanted to watch your servants to see how you could make them better, but you couldn’t find the time. You wanted to start the process of the group interview, but you couldn’t find the time you wanted to. You always just don’t have enough ton. Scale of one to 10 rate yourself right now. 10 being the best, one being the worst. Give yourself a ranking of a 10 or a one education. Steve Jobs. When speaking to President Obama, he says it’s absurd. He added that the American classrooms are still based on teachers in a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials and assessments should be digital interactive, tailored to each student providing feedback in real time. What Steve Jobs is talking about is that the education system currently consists of, all right now today I want you to memorize this. Everyone read pages 100 through 200 by tomorrow for the history class and read about the Byzantine Empire and then memorize all that crap and then we’ll take a test tomorrow.

So pulling on iter, you memorize all that crap, you put it on a piece of paper, right? You go to school, you read crap, you memorize the crap, you regurgitate the crap and you keep doing this while you’re getting a B or an a. If you’re really good at it, you get nay. If you’re okay at it, you get a B and you keep doing this and now we go, Yay, look, you’ve graduated. Well, what does the word commencement mean? The word commencement means the beginning home skill that you’ve just be gone and let me tell you what the game of life and the world of business doesn’t involve a whole lot of memorization. Just today, John updated some passwords and he told me the password and five seconds later I forgot it again. Why I don’t have a great memory and most successful entrepreneurs I meet don’t have incredible memories.

They just grind. They just grind. Education is learning practical skills that will allow you to pay the bills. I’ll do. Education is learning practical skills that will allow you to pay the bills. Thomas Edison, he says, vision without execution is hallucination. Thomas Edison Vision without execution is hallucination or you hallucinating or you out of your freaking mind. Are you hallucinating? Are you somebody who’s talking about success? But I’ll be unwilling to put in the work. Are you just hallucinating? Are you just buying the gym shoes but not actually working out? What are we doing here? Are we buying books and not reading the books? We buying a bike and riding the bike. What are we doing? Are we hallucinating? Can I can be successful. I want to be successful. Calm down with all these journals about getting my cried out. I got my grind on journal.

I got my power woman journal, my power man journal. I’m talking about, put down the business coaching journal for a second and the, and the great little sticker you put on your laptop that says, get my grind on it. Actually grind clay. I’m not a morning person. Wogan you’re screwed. That’s what it comes down to. You’re just screwed. If you can’t block out the time. Well, clay, my wife wants me to cuddle with her on a Saturday until noon. Well, then you’ll be broke. As a result of that habit, you have to actually put in the work. It will make you Missouri try to have success. I mean, unwilling to put in the work. Now, mentorship. Brian Tracy says, no one lives long enough to learn everything. Everything that they need to learn starting from scratch to be successful. We absolutely positively have to find people who have all ready paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

Listen here. Dr Zellner and I have built 16 now 16 multi million dollar brands. Either we’ve partnered with people, we’ve built them ourselves. When you think about this, just recently, we’ve coached a full package media full package media.com we’re in the process of taking that to a franchise level. You’ve got tip top canine, which I did not start. I’m just helping them franchise that thing. A tip top, canine.com you can learn more there. E I t r lounge, elephant in the room, our men’s grooming lounge, DJ connection.com Dr Zellner and associates, the z’s 66 auto auction z actually teamed up with Sean Copeland to buy a bank to buy a bake. Yes, we, we know the answers. We know how to grow a business, but we can’t help you if we don’t get a chance to meet you. Go right now. You can do it. Fight through the carpal tunnel and go to thrive time.

show.com thrive time show.com I can’t find a pen. Pull over. Oh wait, but I can’t pull over. Oh my gosh. Go to thrive time, show.com go there, click on the testimonials and look at real people who’ve gone from just surviving to thriving in less than 24 months. Look at those people and ask yourself are are they successful through just look. Cause I think a lot of people love to talk about that. Look, oh they love to talk about this. It was just serendipity and just luck and you just never know what’s gonna happen. And so you just have to trust that God has a plan. God might have a plan, but I know a lot of people that are do not believe in God at all who do very, very well financially. Do you know why? Cause they do have a plan and I have a plan and I will teach you the plan.

It always works if you have a real product or service that actually solves problems that people really want to buy. Now, if you have a product or a service that people don’t want to buy and you’re out there looking for a group to get together and talk about startups and the efficacy of startups and giving back and global mission outreach and the ethics of entrepreneurship and the future of the economy with robots and just inter artificial intelligence, 3d, whatnot. This is not a conference for you, but if you want to learn how to grow a business from real people who have actually grown a successful company, book your tickets right now to the thrive time. show.com workshops, saving money. Dave Ramsey says this, saving money. What kind of show is this? You’re talking about saving money. Clay, I can’t save money. Why? Because I’m spending so much money.

You see, Dave Ramsey says, you must walk to the beat of a different drummer to become successful. The same beat that the wealthy here, if the beat sounds normal, evacuated the dance floor immediately. The goal is to not be normal because as my radio listeners know, normal is broke. Most people are broke. They are broke. Yes, they’re broke emotionally, morally, and financially. They’re broke. They’re trying to run around, appeasing everybody. They want to take off labor days to not offend somebody, but they also want to become a ranch. Make a lot about, hey, but I want to take off. I want to be the new TD Jakes. I want to be the next pastor, the best pastor in America, but I’m not willing to do what he was willing to do. I want to be the new pastor, Craig Rochelle, but I’m not willing to spend 15 to 20 hours a week writing my sermon.

What are you? Are you nuts? What are you doing, clay? I want to be, I want to be an unbelievable, I want to be very proficient in search engine optimization, but I’m just not willing to pay attention. Are you kidding me? You can’t be that kind of person. You cannot be that kind of person. It’s going to make you crazy. Now starting, you might say, cause I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have a lot of money. Come on now. George Washington carver. All right. This is the famous inventor who was born into slavery and it went on to advent, countless uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes, which helped empower millions of poor families who then grew these crops as both their own food source and income. He says, start where you are with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied.

I started by working at direct TV, Applebee’s, and target, direct TV, Applebee’s and target. Where are you going to start? You’re going to start with something, man, I turned off my air conditioning to afford those advertisements. What kind of sacrifice are you going to make? Well, clay, I want to make, I’m going to make big sacrifices starting after Labor Day. What are you celebrating? A socialist holiday? What are you doing? I don’t know. A whole lot of successful entrepreneurs who were taken off Labor Day and route to their success. I just don’t know a lot of them. I’ll tell you what you named me right now. Somebody who’s built a billion dollar business or a multimillion dollar business by working 38 hours a week. I know if one multilevel person don’t get me that multilevel crap, you know that’s going to implode. It always implodes, right? Genesis pure. How’s that going?

What? Melaleuca, how’s that going? What systems? Michael Gerber, the bestselling author of e-myth books series writes, most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because they’re working in their business rather than on their bed. Yes. You see, you’ve got to schedule time right now to make the systems. You can’t be having just a bunch of verbal traditions where you tell your people, go over here and do the s and do that, and you’ve got to have systems. It’s gotta be written down a checklist. What is your process as the Canadians call it? What is your script? What is your system? What does that look like? You’ve got to have systems, scripts, checklist, processes, operations, manuals, handbooks, all of these things take time. Clay, how long did it take you to write your handbook?

50 hours. It took you a whole week. Yup. When did you find time? Three in the mornings. A great [inaudible] time, less than interruptions at three in the morning. Now, Warren Buffet goes on to talk about systems. He says, I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner or later, one will, my name is Clay Clark and I would encourage you to labor on this Labor Day and every Labor Day. I’m not sure when this podcast will come out, but I would encourage you to work on Labor Day. I encourage you to work on a Saturday. I’d encourage you to work as unto the Lord six, six days a week. I would encourage you to work six days a week as unto the Lord and quit celebrating, made up American holidays work six days a week. Proverbs 10 fours had God blesses the hands of the diligent work as unto the Lord all your work to be your worship.

Do the best job you can while you’re customers. Sit down. Make those checklists. Do the work you have to do. Make those sales calls. Delay your gratification because then someday you can live like nobody else. You can go into Atwoods and run into me there and we could buy, I don’t know, seven or eight silky chickens and we’re not worried about the cost. We could go to guitar center and buy a speaker and not stress out about what it costs. We could go on a trip if we wanted to. We could stay home if we want to. We can put a pool in the backyard. We could every want because we have delayed gratification. That is the conversation. The way that gratification and you will dramatically increase your compensation. My name is Clay Clark and I’m laboring on Labor Day because God blesses the hands of the diligence and diligence means a sixth day working on the sixth day interviews. We’re on the sixth day wrestle the seventh read it an exodus and genesis. Look it up. Look up the Hebrew definition of the word work. Notice it means worship. Notice that work means working six days a week.

Well, now I’m just going to go back and do some more laboring on Labor Day.