Let Your No’s Be Your Yes | Why You Must Get 100 Rejections for Every One “Yes” and “Success”

Audio Transcription

Yes, yes, yes and

No. Oh my goodness. You just snuck in to know what Z. Today’s show is going to be a fabulous show, but before we get into the show, let’s, let’s talk about the new friendly confines here at the man cave. This is your first time in too blown away. Yeah. We have made certain changes be due to the flood, mainly pulling up the water, the great flood of 2019 removing the water, sucking out the water, demolition that we demoed all the walls, but I think last time you were here, there was not a pool. There was not. There’s a hole in the ground. A lot of the things have changed. A lot of things have changed.

I, I’m blown away. I tell you what, you had a vision and your decking and you’re outside a, what do you call the trout side?

Did I get the pergola, the deck, I do it. Or do we have the deck? We’ve got the the man cave. Yes. I’ve got a little hot tub going on and all of this stems from a conversation that you and I had at your man-cave five years ago.

Isn’t that great? How you can cast the vision, walk it down the aisle and then marry it.

But I’d like for you to do is you could kind of refresh now at the time, I believe that you ended up a few sips of lack of Uhland and I had had a few sips of some, a girly wine of some kind. Yes. But could you explain the overall Genesis of that conversation with the origin of that conversation about setting big goals? Because it was a really powerful conversation that I don’t think maybe you did realize, but it was a life-altering conversation that we had and I’ll never forget it, but I blinked. I think the listeners need to know about that conversation. It was,

I seen a vision about a business that you could help people around the world start and keep a business going as we know for Forbes, what 80 to 90% of all businesses startup fail. Right, and we hate that number. We hate it. And you had taken on with all the successes you had had you had taken on being a business coach and you were very successful at it. Just trust in it. In fact, anybody out there on a challenge this, I would challenge them. A business coach walk off with you. I’m not sure how that looks, but I think, I think his, he had like a, like a zoo Lander. You guys were walking down a runway and you tell me you can reference zoo Lander. Please do, please. Yeah, of course. We could see the, I’m the best business coach when I had my money on you every time. But when you were casting this I thought, wow, that you know, getting shark tank and I thought that dog will hunt. I love the idea, this online business school with really guys that are out there that have done it, that are good mentors because as we know it’s our theory that, and we think it’s almost a law you’re going to look, you’re going to learn by either mentors or mistakes.

I don’t think the listeners know about it cause we probably don’t talk about it enough. But when you do subscribe to the online school, you know for 20 bucks a month you get to come to a workshop to, you pay two 50 for a year and you get your other workshop and the videos. So that again, it’s amazing how we have a conversation and then you and I team up together and now I think last year we had a little over 2000 people attend the conferences, which is a good number for us because we’re full. We don’t have, we don’t have morals, we don’t have other places to put people. I mean it’s full on. And then you started challenging me about beyond just growing the business. You said that I need to do what?

Well, I made, the other thing I thought that was kind of fun is as we’re sitting there and you’re casting the vision and we’re casting it, I mean, you’re painting a picture and I’m sitting there just watching you paint, sip and my lack of Olin. And I looked at you and I in the profound question that I had for you. When this is successful, what are you going to do with that success? And you looked at me almost like dough, like a, like a deer in headlights. And you were like, what? What do you, what do you mean? And I said, well, okay, let’s dream a little bit. What are you working towards? What is your big goal? And he’s like, I to build this business. I said, I know. No, I get that. I get that. I get that. You want to build the business and you want to change lives around the world. I get that. Right. That’s good. That’s noble. That’s awesome. And if you’re not careful, it’s going to put a little money in your [inaudible]

Puck. And you were asking to, to dream. And I remember going, I just remember you wanting me to dream and I’m thinking, I, I, I clearly have articulated what my goal is, right? And then you’re like, yeah, but what’s your goal? And again, I go, what does he mean by that? I mean it was a very, I, I, cause I thought I, I wasn’t trying to be difficult.

No. And the, and the core reason that you didn’t get it at the first pass was you had five F’s in your life.

If I had a goal for faith, yes. You family. Yes. Finance. [inaudible] Friendship. What else could there be? What else could it be? What another secret

It could be out there. I’m like, what? That’s your, that you don’t have in there. And so then I humbly submitted a sixth

And I said, Z, is this a four letter F is that, is that Z? Is this a bad F? Is it that I don’t want to know. I couldn’t, you

Can say this F word. It’s fun. Right? And that is, is that the journey you’re on in life, you’ve got to have some fun along the way. You’ve got to have some things that are enjoyable along the way. You’re a workaholic and I tip my hat to it. You’re up very early. You stay up, you, you grind your grinder, the grind, you love the

Grind. If you don’t know how to do something, you figured out and just grind through it. You know grandma grind, right. And so I think that sometimes when I look in your life, I thought that guy needs to have a little fun than watching a Patriots game, which is so fun. By the way, Hey, last night, I know this show’s going to air probably in Tulsa. It’ll air tomorrow, but nationally the show will air in November. At this point we’re through, we’ve recorded up through mid November now, but the Patriots last night was that not an excellent display of bill Bellacheck losing, I believe he lost four coaches this year. Four assistant coaches, one to the dolphins. He’s losing top coaches. He lost like multiple starters, I mean Hogan and Patterson and big name players and he just showed up with a laser show. It’s incredible. They, they look like they are Superbowl ready yet again.

Right. And how he does that, I mean he really is the goat of coaching, you know, greatest of all times and in my humble opinion and, and the game was just an absolute beat down because they weren’t just playing the Miami dolphins that are tanking. I mean they were playing the Steelers and I’ve got audio of you last night watching these Steelers game. Where were you watching the game last night, by the way? At my ranch house. Okay. Well I apologize for miking you without your permission, but this is what Z a, I believe this is what you said. I could, I might be the wrong audio clip, but this was you. Okay. Bo, where are you with bolus? Yes. Okay. See what Bo, you’re watching them together. Eric and your brother Eric and Josh Gordon catches a ball. Yes. Josh Gordon, who previously could never stay on the field and keep it clean. Yes, he’s sober. He’s on the field. He catches it and takes a hit like a man, like a Gronk. Oh yeah. Shoves, the dude kind of kicks him off and goes into the end zone, like, come on buddy. At least tried to tackle me. It’s easy and this is whatZ is. He turns to boat and this is what he says here. He says,

Gloria.

And I’m going, Oh wow. I mean that’s exactly what I said. Pretty hot, hot take there. But can we not, that was a mic hanging from the ceiling. But you’re never sure. You’re never sure. You’re never sure. But I, I should assume because you are the pretty much the King of the Mike is the master of the mix. Yeah. How do you get them inside the brains? He sometimes you mentioned that you might get people inside their brains. You won’t see. Have you ever had a, have you ever had a a colonoscopy? Yes I did. That’s the process.

You’re going to feel a long way to go. You just tell somebody to say you’re going to get up, feel a small pinch and then just bam. Wow. Now let’s talk about this though. So you’re challenging me to have dreams. Yes. And I’m going, I clearly have articulated, I want to grow an online school. Should I still do to help millions of people? That is my goal chick. And you’re like, if it’s $19 a month we’re going to need a lot of subscribers or like yes. And you’re like, but then once you do it, what, what then? And I’m like, we’ll return on investment to the investors but then what? We’ll do four videos but then we’ll more people. But then what? I’ll get up at 3:00 AM and then what record more videos and why? Cause that’s what I was called to do. But then where are you going to do record more videos.

Yeah, exactly. And you were just kind of in a, in a fail loop. I mean you were just in a, in a loop and I said, I said, bro, bro, bro, bro, no, none here you’re not, you’re not tracking with Shannon. And then what? What are you going to do? What’s your, what’s your, I know that’s a passion of yours, but for your family, for your friends, for your fun factor, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if I gave you a X amount of dollars right now and you had to spend it on something other than work related, what would you spend it on? And that’s when your eyes lit up. Yeah. And I said, well I think I’m having a man cave like this. Cause we were, yeah, we were at your man cave. Yes. People out there who have not been your man cave, which is everybody.

It is a beautiful, you’d kind of fill in some adjectives here, but it’s a, it was a beautiful chimney. Like a fireplace. Yes. And it was a lot of rock. It was real deal. Like it was brick, brick, brick and brick and rock. And you actually had to poke the fire. We’re not one of those gas tanks. Oh no, no. You poke the fire. It’s a real thing by the way. That bet fire pits going in right there. By the way, right there. It’s going to [inaudible]. You poke the fire. Oh yeah. And you had a thing that came down that blocked out the bugs. Oh yeah. You hit the button. It comes down and blocks up the bugs. And then the back wall was an aquarium. So you could kind of look into the house but see your, your gym Tang and doesn’t, right. The gym tank.

Oh that was, yeah. So you could see the, and then the lights, bang Bo got you. A gift for the lights would change to the colors of the teams or playing. Yes. And you would look back behind you. There’s a pool and then the pond. And I’m going this now, this is balling and I remember asking you about your chairs. So you had these chairs that were the size of like three and a half chairs. Yeah. Big, big ones because those things, and I don’t remember the year, I don’t remember the question exactly or your answer exactly. I remember I asked you like, why do you have these massive chairs? And you said something like, well cause I can’t. And I’m like, Oh, these are comfortable. But I mean you. But it was like, and then I said, dude, that rug on your wall is bigger than most people’s room.

How big is that? Remember how big was, how big was that rug? Oh yeah, that’s a big, was a tapers tree actually tapestry my bet. Tape history and this funny, funny story. It’s, Oh, it’s massive, isn’t it? Well, I was calling, I was ordering out of Europe and the guy answered the phone. He was like, Oh, excuse me, excuse me. I said, yeah, I’m calling about this type of stress on a client, take this street store. And I said, I want to. He goes, Oh, what’d you going to do with that? And I said, well, I’m just gonna hang up. My living was out. No, no, no, no, no. It’s much too large for that. I said, no, I think it’s to two rules in Europe. You can’t have a large tape history and you can’t have a toothbrush. You can’t have it. He goes, Hey, you don’t understand.

It’s listed on, it’s listed the program in the metric system. So you may not really realize the scope of it isn’t a matter of where can we understand? You probably don’t understand it. Yes. Being from across the bone with a small brain and everything. Precal boys across the autistic cousins. Right. And I said, I said, well, let me tell you how big the wall is. I want to hang on it that I hang it on and how big the room is. So I gave him the dimensions and he said, Oh, my load will fit. Perfect. I’ll ship it tomorrow. Really? So you got that thing shipped to you? Oh yeah. And you had, you had, Oh, you have great armor in there by the way. Oh, you’ve got to have armor. And it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. It’s far beyond what I would dream of.

And so for me, my whole thing is like, I just make money and put it in the bank. I know, but it was funny because whenever you were talking, you started, you said, Oh, okay, I think I’m following you Z. I want to have a cool man cave. And I reached up and I and I, and I knocked your pick melon, which it’s so big. It’s such an easy target. Huge. You could just flail around. You’re going to hit it sooner or later. Huge boot and see, I have audio of you hitting me. I did just hit record on my phone. I’m like, well, if you’re gonna hit me again, listen, let me record it. Well, that’s fair. This is you. You’re slap me around here. I believe this is the audio. If I can find it here. Let’s see if we get the, maybe, maybe not.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I bet you’ll find it sooner or later. Oh, there, there it is. There it is. Here it is. I’ve got it now. Oh, come on baby. Make it work. But see, you know what man, it, boom. There we go. Sonic. Boom. That’s right. Boom. Yeah. What I said is I said, no, no, no. Bigger than that. And they were like, okay. Bigger than a really cool man cave. This is one that I’m in right now. It’s your man cave slash studios for the thrive time show. Love it. It’s somebody. I just walked into it today, right before we started filming or taping, I should say. And it is super, super cool. You did. I mean you were telling me about your vision for it and it just came. It’s just wonderful. Really clear. You guys did a great job. It’s coming together.

And I just I, this is the show’s about you, the listener today. And I want you to think for a second think first. Like think, think, cause today’s show, today’s show is going to be called, let your nose be your yes. Oh no. So here we go. So right now in somebody’s mind there’s some blockage. Oh yeah, it’s called your thermostat. All right, so Z, what temperature do you like to keep your home at? What Thurman, what temperature do you like? Right now I haven’t said it’s 70 and then when I sleep I knock it down a few degrees. But you like 70 when you’re awake and then 68 when you’re sleeping. There’s somebody though that would come into that house and say, wow, this house is freezing. Yes, they would. Somebody else would say, wow, this is a little bit too hot for what I’m used to cause I’m used to 67 or 68 or whatever.

And the thing is we all have a thermostat, our comfort level where we’re kind of comfortable. And so when you grew up, did you have wood floors? Beautiful wood floors in your house? Did you have granite countertops? No sir. So I didn’t either. Linoleum where you into linoleum? Was that your deal? That was, that was the move. And what about like a regrettable wallpaper? Do you want to hear a funny story? One of them? Yes. So I am in Branson, Missouri. The home of the, the, the, the ducks, the tourism, the Missouri is of a touristy community for those who are not familiar. Silver dollar city. Here we go. Okay. Yup. And driving down the main strip, they had a museum, it was called the Titanic museum. Really? Artifacts from the boat stories from the boat, self guided tour. You know, you’re putting a little headset thing and you walk through this museum and I said to myself, you know what, I’ve got a few hours to keel. I’m going to go check it out. And so they actually built inside the museum an exact replica of the grand staircase that you see in the movie. That was actually, they got the blueprints and they made it resplendent with the same colors, the same. It was exact to specifications. Real quick. So you’re in Branson at the Titanic museum. I have audio of you there by the way. I was queued up real quick. This is you at the museum when you walked in. Oh yeah. Typically you don’t travel with a recorder,

But apparently that particular time you had that recorder with you. Oh yeah. Yeah. You’re a flutist. Dr Z in Branson. I’m a little bit off. This is so good. Believe anybody recorded though. This is so good. You’re so good on the, okay. Okay. Back

To you sir. Sorry. Sorry to play that audio. Just people had to hear it and that had the flooring was the newest, latest, greatest, tremendous sexiest flooring that was available at that time when they built the Titanic and guess what? It was linoleum. Linoleum. Yeah. Are you serious? For fact, I did not know that. So it turns out that was a hot move in 1911 was having the linoleum near the Titanic was built. Well, that was the newest, latest thing and people were like, Ooh, and an ANOVA. Una. No, Liam. So what happens is, is we then get into this thing, I call it the wage cage, where you begin to exchange your hours for money. Yes, with no hope of anything better. You’re always in the wage cage. You think that’s why 67% of the people out there listening out right now, I want to start their own business.

According to Forbes, 67% of people want to start their own business. This is statistics show. I mean it’s, it’s a very large number of people that want to start their business. Now, here’s what’s crazy. This is, what’s crazy is I want to invite everybody into this room with us into this conversation called possibilities. And once you realize, once you get to the top of the mountain and you can look and see, wow, there’s so many opportunities. You don’t have to be some, somebody out there listening today owns a business and it’s a stupid business. I could just a stupid, I met a guy at a conference a few months ago who said he’s been listening to our show and as a result of it, he just sold one of his businesses. And I said, why? And he said, cause it’s stupid, it’s profit. I work a lot, a lot of time and I could be doing something else.

And so he, at the age of, you know, late forties sold his business and I can’t remember what industry was, some kind of printing business, I believe. And he’s into a different industry where he goes in and still involves managing people. But I make a lot more money. There’s somebody out there listening right now. You should be getting into LASIK. Somebody out there says, well, why should I get into LASIK? LASIK is a profitable thing. And if you’re a doctor, gee, can’t you be a doctor of something that’s very unprofitable? Is it, I mean, what kind of medical what division of the medic, cause you’re, you’re, you’re a doctor. What, what division of the medical fields where you would go, wow, this is how you don’t make money. Is there a specific, where you say, I know people who are radiologists or anesthesiologists, they make a lot of money.

They can if they want to work. I mean there’s any education out there. If you don’t have the work ethic to go with it you’re, you’re not going to make a lot of money. But you could hypothetically, I mean graduate with a degree in you, somebody out there could get, you could go to college for seven years, get an MBA or some type of degree. It has no practical value. A lot of people get doctorates in areas, so I guess you’d call them a doctor there. Maybe not an MD or D O there, maybe not a physician. The doctor of his term wear a white lab coat. It’s possible though to do that. Well, absolutely you can get a lot of education and a lot of people that go longer than most physicians go to school. They’re just almost professional students. And when they’re done, they’ve got three PhDs and they got this and they got that and you go, what are you gonna do with it?

I don’t know, probably teach. I’m like, you did all that. So now you’re going to go teach. Yeah. And some people throw it. That’s how it has to happen. And you know what, the 23 or there’s another 33% of people out there that don’t want to start throwing business. That’s okay. But what have you do secretly have ambitions, right? For things that are beyond the wage cage and you let your life slowly go by and never realize that that’s a, that right there is sad. That’s called regret. That is called regret. And that is sad. And that is one, I think one of the main pillars of why we’re doing what we’re doing is try to, I mean it’s not easy, but it can be done, right? I don’t want to sit here and say, Oh, starting a business. It’s easy. It’s easy for successful businesses.

So easy. Why aren’t you doing it man? You must be a dope Adam. And come on now. Get with it. I mean, no, JP, any motivation, people look at and go and it’s so intimidating and where do I start? Where do I, what’s next? What’s second step? What’s third step? What business do I even do? That’s why we talk about, you know, franchises. That’s why we talk about doing some things that you love to do because it’s going to be tough times ahead. So let’s, let’s pretend for a second that just for a moment, just my moment in time, you the listener, your, your good friend opens the wage cage, your friend, your good friend, dr owner opens the wage cage and this happened to me. Clifton Taulbert did this too. He screwed me up. Oh, Clifton Taulbert this guy, the first African American West of the Mississippi. He screwed me up in a good way. He said, can we, Mr. Clark, I would love to meet you for lunch. She wasn’t the first African American or West of the woods. The sippy to open a bank. There you go first after you left that off. [inaudible]

Oh wow. It’s not that old. Okay. Father time. My good friend technicalities. We just want the truth spoken on on the program. This Justin. Thank you. Anderson Cooper. Okay. So anyway, so what happens is, is the first African American West of the Mississippi to open a bank Clifton Taulbert says, I will be happy to meet you. He wants to stair master. He introduced a stair master up for market. The stair master. His life was turned into a movie called once upon a time when we were colored. Google search, the guy Clifton Taulbert, he says, let’s meet for lunch. Let’s go. We’ll meet up at Southern Hills. And how did you get the meeting to get the meeting? I cold called a ton because I decided to let my nose be my yes. Oh, Oh, cold. Called a ton. How really don’t, I mean, give me a number, I would say.

And again, I w and what did you say when you call? At least three dozen times. And why did that, how’d that look? Cause someone out there to go, usually Doug would answer the phone or somebody Horrell. But yeah, somebody who worked there and they would say, thank you for calling the building and the community Institute. And I said, yeah, I’m trying to set up a meeting, a brief 10 minute meeting with mr Talbert. I’d like to pick his brain. Well, right away they’re like, this guy speaks at Harvard, he speaks for a Z. What’s the world? The global organization, the world organization, the United nations. He spoke for those guys, big, big organizations and you know, big honorariums and you don’t have time to let every random pick your brain. You don’t, when you’re a best selling author, people call it the time.

Sure. And they kept saying, he’s really busy. Maybe we could look at, you know, three months down the road, maybe January call back. And I’m like, okay. And I kept calling him. Eventually I realized I’m going to have to set an appointment. So I said, Hey, I’d just like to go and book it like six months out or whenever the first availability is, I just want to book it. I want to do it. And they’re like, well, you want to book an appointment, you know, six months out or five months out. Yeah, sure. So I booked that appointment baby. So anyways, so we meet and he takes me to Southern Hills. So this again, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m encouraging the listeners. Let dr Z take you up to the mountain real quick here. And first off, we hop in the car and he has a Mercedes SUV.

No, I’ve never been in a Mercedes or an SUV. It’s a Mercedes. Seriously, at this point in my life, I was probably 19 years old and never been in one swanky. So I get in that thing and it’s sturdy. The door on the Mercedes Z, it’s like this thing. Give me your land rovers like that. Sturdy, sturdy, your Porsches like that. It’s like a quality. Good German. See the quality quality. My Ford escort wasn’t that quality. No disrespect out there. If you’re driving a hatchback, 1989 dent resistant for an escort. I respect you, but didn’t resist it and really a no. Okay. So I’m in there driving around in my Ford escort. I, I get in his car now, we go to Southern Hills, now we go to Southern Hills and they open up the gate, you know, [inaudible] the gate, the gate kind of opens up and there’s a dude whose full time job is to keep people like me out.

Yeah, absolutely. He hit the guard gate guy. Oh yeah. I’ve never been a place where there’s a full time guard guy to keep people out. Oh yeah. So he says mr Talbert who is your guest? I said, he does Mr. Clark. And I’m like, that’s me. Cause I never heard, you know, mr used before my name, I’m sure. Unless you’re in trouble at school. So Mr. Clark, so they, they go, they let eat they let us in. We drive. That’s kind of a winding, a serpentine, serpentine. You’re weaving between the three, the golf courses and the fairways and whatever. And you get into this beautiful country club. And I get to the door and the guy asked me if he wants to take my coat and no exaggeration. I was like, Oh no. Cause I didn’t want him to touch my coat. Like where’s he going with my coat? I want my coat. So mr Talbert says, well you just give him your coat. I’ll hang it up. And I’m like okay. Cause he knew, he knew. He remembers where he came from. Sure. And I didn’t come from the bottom like him, but I came from halfway. So then we go to the basket. How can I use the restroom real quick? Sure. So I go to the restroom and there’s a dude in the bathroom. Z, can you explain why really fancy places have a dude in the bathroom?

Well the dude in the bathroom is an assistant to help you with the, when you, after you’ve washed your hands and get you soap, you may want some cologne, you may want some, your mouth freshened and he’s, there’s a bathroom attendant and then he also cleans up after you. That’s what the next person comes in. Has a the same mix.

Do you feel like that job is necessary? Do you like that? I mean seriously, if you could, if you could be, you could choose. But I mean, do you feel like that’s a little too bougie? A little too swaggy or do you, do you like that guy?

I liked that guy. I’ve learned to like that guy. At first it was a little over the top of the first few times you encounter some dudes just hanging out in the bathroom looking around to talk to you.

I’m going, this is why the word, this is the origin of the word Butler.

Yeah. I’m like a bathrobe. Butler

W what does blur mean? Alert means attendant from the original word but but attendance, cause the guy’s offering me like I get out and he’s like you want a mint? And I’m thinking, I don’t know that I want a mint. That’s not my, not my initial thought after I use the restroom as he first offered me to a soap and towel. Oh yeah. And it’s like, do you want a mint

Movies? What’s really fun is to go in and ask for something that’s completely ridiculous that they don’t have and then just be like,

Ah super. That’ll oof. Cause those guys will usually make it happen. Those guys are all on it. I mean there’s gonna cry. So anyway, so we go there and I come back and Vanessa’s like, how was the lunch? And I’m like, well I, I asked I, mr Talbert, I said, babe, I carved a lot. Carl, there’s a Bible verse I want to read to you,Z that we’re all familiar with. Probably Matthew five 37. Okay, I’m going to read it. You tell me what it means. It says, but let your yes be your yes and your no, no. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. What does that mean? That’s pretty intense. Well, you break it

Down really harsh or completely it’s don’t lie. Don’t tell someone, yes, I will be there to help you move

That refrigerator knowing that you’re not going to be there tomorrow to help any American cousin of lying is this. She’s never want to come out and say I’ll be there and then not show up. That’s a little shady. That is shade. But here’s the non shady move. I’ll try, I’ll try to be there. I’ll try to be there. I’ll try to be, you know, me, if I could be there, if I w whatever I have to do to do it, I’m going to make sure that I try. I’m going to try to move a few things around. I’m 100% all in. I’m going to try to be there. I know you need some help and I’m your huckleberry and I’m going to give it my best. And if you’re around super successful people like Clifton Taulbert light, like dr zoner get ready for the candor Canon that you’re not ready.

I remember asking Z one time, I said, Z, we do this show. We’re going to do about nine shows a week. And I clearly don’t value life balance like you do. You know? So I remember I said, will you be on all the shows? And I’ll never forget this. I wrote this down, but you said, clay, I won’t be there 100% of the times that I’m there. And I’m going, what does that mean? If I repeat it again, I’ll be there 100% of the times I’m there, but I’m not going to tell you yes, I’m going to do nine hours a week. You do the show, press hit and he was 10 hours actually 10 hours. You said you you do all the show prep and you do that and book guests and I’ll show up and I will share my experiences, but I am not going to commit right here to you to be here this many hours a week I’ve worked, you know you need to, you didn’t have to get into the whole reason why, but you were very clear with it.

Right. So again, let your yes be your yes and your no be your no, I agree with that. Yes, but what I’m saying is when Talbert told to his people told me he’s busy call back later or no, I thought, I think he means yes. Then you just keep calling. Call. And so I asked Tolbert and Z see if you can guess as to how it happened. I said Tolbert, I said Clifton, I’m mr mr Taulbert. How at lunch, how did you help market the StairMaster? And he said, well, I was a banker and a group of guys came in. They kept getting rejected for funding and one day they came in again and I said, I’ll help you market it, and they’re like, you’ll help us market it. You’re a banker now again, this is the first African American West of the Mississippi who served in the military.

By the way, he served in the army, first African American West West of the Mississippi to become a banker who grew up so poor and so segregated. He wasn’t allowed to walk into a bank when he grew up in Glen Allen, Mississippi. He could not go into the front door of a bank in Glen Allen, Mississippi and this guy owns a bank Z. This is a different kind of story here. It’s pretty cool. So when that guy says to you, this is how you do it, I’m going, okay, this is how I do it. I’m going to write this down. He says to me, what I did is I went to trade shows with my wife Barbara every weekend for about three years. And then I made a certain number of cold calls every day for about three years, three and a half years. And then a member of the U S military said, I represent the whatever. He went through the labyrinth of the military to find the guy who makes the purchasing decisions after three and a half years. Who makes the purchasing decisions for the Army’s physical fitness equipment? And this guy says, I’m the decision maker and we’d like to order one.

And so he’s like one hot, you want to order Hawaiian [inaudible] and he was, and he perceived this as a good thing. So the guy ordered one and he had to have it shipped, I believe, to Annapolis, Maryland to the home of the Naval Academy. And so Z, how do you, how do you think that Clifton made sure it got there? He drove it himself, right? He put it on a truck and drove over night and he shows up and the guy’s like mr Talbert, I didn’t expect you to be here. He says, well, I drove it here. I wanted to make sure I set it up to give you the product, demo myself to show you how it works, to answer any questions you might have. And the guy was so wowed by how it worked and his all in this did he ordered thousands, thousands, thus making millions of dollars of revenue.

Thus Clifton Taulbert Ted. Ah, you know of the story. A Mercedes SUV. That’s how, that’s the story though. But what if he had perceived no to me? No. When cold calling, when you’re trying to grow, see what happens. If you perceive no to being no to actually mean no, you missing out on opportunities because no just means you haven’t convinced me enough yet. When I hear the word no, I hear it mean I think I need more information. Do I get job harder? So what do I want to do is I’m going to go back and forth. You and I are going to go back and forth and, and the one, the one upsmanship that you would only experience in the world of entrepreneurs. Ah yes. Letting people peek into ah, the top of the mountain top and we’re going to one up each other on stories about where you were told no and then you got a yes and we’re going to keep doing it until we run out of stories.

Okay. To build the faith of the listeners. But before we do that, I want to make sure we get this. Now, mr Talbert or mr Zelner has taken to the top of the mountain, but now you have to go back in the cage. Oh, now we’re going to shut that cage. We lock it. Now here’s that. That’s the sound of a lock apparently. So you lock that cage, you lock that door. Now you’re locked in the wage cage. Now something is terrible when you know how things could be. Now that you’ve seen it, it’s hard to go back. It’s, it’s, once you’ve seen it, it’s hard to go. But once they shut that cell door Z once you’ve been out before, that’s why it’s so hard to go in prison cause you want to get that freedom again. Right. The people that I’ve known that were poor and then became wealthy and then lost it all, we’re having a much harder time.

Yes. The people that had just remained poor their whole life. Cause you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Right. So now what we’re going to do before I forget, before we tell you these stories, I want to make sure we get this idea. Once you open the cage and you say, I want to get out, I want to get out of the wage Galloway. Y’all want to get. Want me to tell you what everybody I’ve ever met says they want to be super successful. Oh yeah. Except for certain members of the homeless community who I respect and love and they always have a Sharpie available and they always have a piece of cardboard available in a cart. Shopping cart tips to being a success. A successful homeless person. You need a Hey Sharpie, Sharpie Jay. You need the cardboard, cardboard shopping cart, shopping cart, and a sad look on your face.

Sad look. And the phrase I will work for food followed up with the actions of not being able, not choosing, not to work for food. Well of course, no, but you want to say you will wait. Yes. Okay, so that’s called marketing by the way, but everybody out there, everybody out there says I want to be successful. So now I’m going to open the cage for a second. Okay. Okay. Let me tell you what you find outside of this cage. The wage cage. Let me tell you what you find. Ooh, tell me one one. There is a bag of cash. Ooh, nice. And that bag of cash is tied to the tail of a dog and you’ve got to go chase that cash. Oh wow. Meanwhile, really fast down. Meanwhile, that dog though is covered in sacrificial lambs blood. Wow. Okay. The picture of the dog, this dog is covered in sacrificial lambs blood.

It’s got the bag of money and now there’s a lion chasing you or chasing the dog with the money. Gotcha. You don’t want to hurt Fido, you want to protect Fido. But Fido somehow got part of some a weird end times lamb sacrifice and all of a sudden that lion can smell blood and it wants blood. That’s called the competition. Wow. That’s called haters. That’s called lawsuits Z. Oh yeah. That’s called disgruntled employees. So once you get out of that wage cage, see, talk to me about the pressure you can feel sometimes when you’re out there just trying to get your money and you’re being chased by a lion. How does that feel? It feels horrible. Just last week, just last week, just last week, one of my optometry clinics, a gentleman walks up about a two Oh four in the morning, get at him with a hoodie, with a hoodie on, proceed to take a some type of rock or some type of big impediment and crashes through the glass of the front door, crawls in, smashes the two Nike frames, takes all the Nike.

I don’t like to store the Nike frames that cuts up his arms pretty good. So are you serious? I should check the emergency room. Blood everywhere. And then scurries out of there with a handful of frames all on video. You can’t see his face cause he’s got the hoodie on. And talk to me about the futility. Cause I’ve had, I remember one time I interviewed a guy, I want to say his name on the air, but I want to, Oh, it just takes everything within me to not say his name because I know who he is and he knows who he is. I interviewed this guy for a job for DJ connection. Okay. And he clearly wasn’t a good fit cause he showed up high. So I let the guy know, I said nervous. Yeah. So I let the guy know though, Hey you know, I, it looks like it’s not going to be a good fit.

He showed up very late by 20 minutes or so. And so I just said it’s not gonna be a good fit, but I appreciate you. He’d wanted to work for DJ connection for a long time. Who doesn’t? So the next day I get to work and I see him cutting the lock off of my trailer, filled with equipment. And driving off. Well he was going to show you how good he could DJ. So I call it the police initiative. Is it that I called the police and I actually went to his house and I saw the equipment in the garage there it is. But because he claimed it was his and it’s DJ equipment and I knew it was mine but as equipment I had bought years before unless I could prove the purchase, the proof of purchase or had the serial numbers for each speaker, which by the way, who keeps serial numbers for speakers you’ve had for seven years.

And I was like let me guess you didn’t have them. Right. So I go back to my office to try to find said documents cause I do keep a lot of things and he sells it in the meantime and I watched it happen and here I am trying to employ people. This is a guy who applied for a job and my reward, no good deed goes unpunished. Am I correct? But it seems that way sometimes. So again, there’s a lot of things that are going to chase you. So Xena are going to one up each other today. Well, let’s look at the facts though. It that guy one, you needed a job. So he needed money. Right? If you were going to hire him, well then you know, he was just gonna take the DJ equipment. It’s old. He probably could stay in to get some news.

I was so frustrated because I’d finally just caught a bag of money. I had just got my bank account to 25 grand. I just got 25 grand cause I had a big goal to get to 30 grand and he steals it and he’s still like 25 grand of crap. And I had no cameras set up. The cameras are better now. But I had cameras set up, I had insurance call the insurance company. They said, well where’s the equipment now? I said, well, it’s a, I dunno, stolen. They said, well our insurance for that trailer covers the contents if they’re in your parking lot. And I’m like, what kind of insurance? And that’s when I discovered I shouldn’t use crappy off-brand insurance companies today. I mean, nothing covered. Nothing. Yeah, nothing. Nothing. I see a lot of people are pretty proud of their insurance policy that you got really cheap.

So he talked to me about the expense, how expensive it is to have a cheap insurance policy. You know, there’s a saying and, and sometimes you’re going to go, yeah, whatever. And they go, you get what you pay for in life. Now you can overpay for something, right? To get that. But you get what you pay for. And so if you buy cheap insurance, there’s a reason why it’s less expensive. Think about that. There’s a reason why it’s less expensive. Maybe if they never pay out can make it really cheap. Maybe they’re just pigs and not hogs. You know, my number one lesson in business, you know, my first lesson and that is, you know, don’t be too greedy. And we all know some insurance companies out there can be a little greedy. So there is some money to be saved. But still when you buy that dirt, you know what I mean?

When it’s like 10 10% of the cost of everything else, you know, and you got to know lady, I think I got a lot of small print. It’s, by the way, if you’re out there listening and you’re paying your people minimum wage for every single position, can you talk to me about the dangers of getting what you pay for when you pay people with the least amount possible? Oh, you get the bottom of the rung. I mean, you’d get the bottom of the barrel as far as people and their life issues and, and yeah, and I’d say what unemployment now is at its lowest, right? It’s hard to find good people as as, but he says, I always give the analogy, it’s like shopping at TJ max. You gotta dig, but you’ll find a good one. I paid 12 an hour across the board for elephant in the room positions.

And in some people theirs, there’s bonuses and stuff too. So I think the average is probably 17 an hour, but it’s a lot more than minimum wage. And I can’t tell ya how many great employees jumped ship from the competition. I never go after me. They just jumped ship and they’re like, I’ve worked at this job for five years or six years. I make $8 an hour over there and I make 12 for you. I’m switching teams. I mean, you’re going to get, I’m just telling you right. Don’t be cheap now. I’ll get it. We go back to the theme though. We want to escape the wage cage. We know what we want now, right? We want Z. When you go out to eat, do you typically not look at how much it costs? Well, I’ve already been to the restaurants. I kind of got a feel, but yeah, I’m not, not too much.

I mean, you look at me, are you stressed out? You’re going out back. Are you stressed out? No. Oh boy. I wonder if it’s $27 or $42 I would if I could just buy half that steak. But you, you, but you do remember the time when we both did that kind of go to Outback. Oh, but around you and I remember that to the time where we’ve never went out to eat. Well of course. So if you want the time freedom and financial freedom. Okay. If you want to get to the mountain top, we’re going to do now is we’re going to one up you mr listener with stories of of horrible, bad things that have happened to us or times where we got told no and how we still thought through it and here we are. So I’m going to start off with my first time I got told no a lot.

That ended up being a yes, the phone book. Ah, I remember talking to mr Talbert and I said, I’m having a hard time getting leads and I work at Applebee’s target and direct TV and I currently cannot afford the advertising the doctors owner’s recommending can’t afford it. Yellow page ad, I’ve got three jobs. How did you get your first customers? He says, we got this thing called the phone book. He said a nicely, he’s a very nice guy. Says, well Claire, there’s a phone book and they list names alphabetically, both for businesses and people and I would recommend you to open up to the a section and call.

And I’m going, come on. Really? You know, cause I’m too awesome, right? We’re not called for entry level. I’m supposed to be a manager. I’m called to be the boss. You’re the boss, the heifer a. Anyway, so after much mental push back, I started doing it. So I started calling the apartments, apartment complexes and Z all, all roleplay the call. Okay. You can meet the apartment complex manager who by the way, they typically answer the phone because they’re salespeople. And I’m going to call you and here we go. Hey, I’m trying to reach the apartments here for the vintage on Yale Jews in charge of the apartments there. Well, you happen to have him. I’m the, I’m the manager of the vintage here on Yale. My name is clay Clark. What, what is your name? Fred. Let me ask you, what kind of events do you typically organize for our residents?

Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s a very good question. Clay. I have the calendar right here. We have a spring meet and greet. Do you ever use the DJ or a band? Oh, you know, I think on a couple of the parties we have one a scale of one to 10. If 10 is like the best entertainment of all time and zero is terrible. I mean if 10 is like awesome, like it’s the best ever, you know, like Michael Jackson or Steve Martin or somebody. Great and a zero is terrible. How would you rate the quality of the entertainment you’ve had in the past? Well, it was actually a friend of one of our residents. You might know him. But I was, I was pretty average. I’d give it a five. So in your mind, what would make it great? Well, I think his equipment was, you know, not quite up to par.

I think that did they do a lot of announcements? Any announcements or do they funny? No, they didn’t really talk hardly at all. Really got up there and kind of plays, do a Cannonball contest or a limbo contest or anything like that. It was just me playing music, just played music. I think he’s put on his playlist and just then just walked away on most. Well, here’s the deal. I’ve got a special right now I want come to call DJ connection and I’ll do your first event for a dollar. That’s what you’d pay. That’s the deposit. It’s called DJ connection. No. And how much? How much? A dollar. Okay. And you pay a dollar and this is how it works. I typically charge 500 per show and after the show you can just pay me what you think I’m worth. So if it’s really good and you’re like, well that’s great, I’ll pay $100 I’m not going to be upset.

I won’t guilt you into it, but it’s a dollar. And then if it’s great, you’d be dope. If you do whatever your budget is, what’s the catch? There’s no catch. I just want to build a longterm relationship with you. Catch. Now I want to build a longterm relationship with you and you so you can use me every year. Now with that script, that took me a long time to make. By the way, it feel free to steal that if you’re listening. I use that script and I was said the break the language is very careful. I said, who’s who, who typically organizes our resident appreciation party on that hour. And I think they think if they think I’m a resident. Sure. Anyway, I did that and for every a hundred calls I made, I’d usually book four to five appointments and I’d usually book to even at that low of a rate. So in 2001 when I was named in 2002 when I was named the young entrepreneur of the year for the city of Tulsa by the Tulsa chamber, I bet you a third of my portfolio of clients that I worked with.

It’s crazy. But third of my clients were apartments or companies that started their companies name with an a or a B in that crazy. Yeah. You got to season two, bank of America. I got them from cold calling a bank of Stillwater off of cherry street. I booked them. Oh yeah. Bank of Oklahoma the, the first national bank vintage on yellow apartments. I mean A’s and B’s baby and I was just crushing it in the A’s and the B’s. But again, I had hundreds of rejections for every one deal. Where would it usually fall apart? Cause that’s a pretty strong pitch right there. It was because I was 19 too aggressive. Too fast. I was 19. I spoke too fast. Yeah. And they thought I was going to forget the date. I just didn’t inspire credibility due to my lack of self awareness.

And so I discovered I didn’t have a fancy technology, but I went to radio shack and I discovered that if I recorded my phone calls, I could hear like if you go to the Julliard dance school, you have to dance in front of mirrors. If you play in the NFL, you have to watch game film. I discovered that I was horrible and I didn’t know it. And I had this epiphany when I, when you know, you leave someone a voicemail. Yes. And it says to submit the voicemail, press star to listen to it. Occasionally people have those voicemails like that where it’s like press star to listen to the message. I saw that, I’ll hit it and this is how it sounded. Hey Pam, this is clay, but DJ connection. I want to see if I could DJ your holiday party, give me a call back.

And I’m like 41 2010 I might 41 2010 where the funding gets by. I’m going, no, because I was cold calling. So I started to sound fast and rehearsed and stripped. It threw him right. And so I had to learn the moves and Z, but if I would’ve stopped right there, I wouldn’t have had the money to then buy the advertisements on the yellow pages. It all, it all, you got to have some success. And sometimes that success comes with a lot of negativity. I mean, you know, you probably did book your first one to what you had 50 knows. Oh five knows, at least a hundred knows. Yeah. And then I did the move, and I’ve shared this on previous shows, but I wasn’t a Christian at the time and I had just turned 21 and I was like, I’ve got to sell something and I’m so nervous.

I know what I’m going to do. Every time I get rejected I’m going to slam a beer. Oh, there you go. And so my wife worked at office Depot, you know Robertson Versiti and she’d come home and I didn’t even, she even know this until about four or five years ago, cause I didn’t talk about it. But she’d come home to check on me, Hey, how are you doing? And I always had like gum. I’d be chewing or something, but I seriously, I had had four to five beers before noon most days. That’s how I made those cold calls. And by the, by the third beer when you haven’t eaten anything. Oh yeah. You’re a courageous man. You are. You liquid courage is what you can get up there and do a toast at a wedding or you can make a cold call. Absolutely. I’ve thought about similar, they’re very similar.

I’ve thought about setting up call centers at receptions. Why wouldn’t everyone’s in a good mood? They had three or four beverages. They’ll see that’s my nose. That’s my first, no, you can one up me. What was the time where you got told no, whether it’s from banks, investors. When I first got out of school, but everyone’s kind of optometry school. I had a deal to buy a private practice that are here in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it wasn’t a whole lot of money. I look back on it now and I go, well that wasn’t a whole lot of money at all. But that’s when I started. I got my little portfolio together, got my business plan together. Yup. Got the moves, got the moves. I didn’t have a suit, but I made sure my pants and shirt and I even had a tie. Oh, come on.

You had a tie. Oh, I had a hard, it was a Samsonite business. Little you know, attache case or a little, you know, little case, you know, I carried around with me and it had the little, your, the little side, the little and like that. And then you can open. I know nobody can see what I’m doing with my hands. Do you bring your flute with you most places you’re allotted? Never practice your flute enough? In my opinion, my humble opinion and I would get all slicked up and I thought, here we go. We go like catching fish in a barrel and I would walk in, here we go and I would ask the front desk person, I need to speak with a loan officer, Mr. Barnes, we’ll see you in 10 minutes. Yes, every time. So it’s very formal. It’s like it sucks the fun out of the room.

All of a sudden it’s like in 10 minutes Mr. Barnes will be with you. No overhead music by the way. There’s a certain intimidation factor of the banks. It’s a big building, usually high ceiling, marble floor, and then mr max comes in and make you sweat it out there in the waiting room for the baby. And I was sitting there thinking, okay, these guys are in the business of selling money basically. Right? They have to want a deal and I’m coming in wanting what they’re selling. I want what they sell. I mean when I own a business now, if someone walks in the door and says, Hey, I want to come in and buy a hundred frames, I’m like, Oh, come here. Let me typically when when you are selling something, you don’t be rate or act in a condescending way to your potential customers? Typically.

Typically, but in the banking world, not always, but often many banks will say so Robert tell me about your business plan. Yes. And then you tell them and then they poke holes in that plan for what, 10 minutes, 30 minutes as much. If they don’t have anything to do, they might just be having fun with. They know they do. A lot of guys like to screw with you. Oh sure. Do you remember a specific time where someone screwed with you the most where you got really pissed? I mean, was there a time specifically where you’re going? I’m not looking for the bank’s name or the person’s name, but one where you’re going, this guy really has some hateness I w I won’t say the bank and I won’t say the guy’s name, but there was one guy that literally laughed at me. And is he still around?

I don’t know. That’s a good question. Gosh, that’s been 27 years ago. I just, man, I just remember, I remember going in and that banking theme and setting up my account with this wonderful, I went to a bank in Tulsa around 70. I like our vest or something and they were very nice to me. I went to a different bank that was not nice to me. And then I went to another bank called NBC bank and Debbie was my lady right up at 71st and Riverside. Okay. And Debbie says, now, what’s the name of your business? And I said, it’s DJ connection. And she says, is that doing like a DBA? Is that a DBA? Is it a sole proprietorship or an LLC? And I’m going, yes, yes. She says, I don’t. What do you mean? I said, well, I do business and people pay me.

And they write me checks. She says to who? To clay Clark, she’s like, do you have your paperwork for your LLC? I’m going what does that mean? She has limited liability company? I said, Oh, well I don’t have a lot of customers don’t really have a whole lot of lab liability. And she’s like, well, who typically files your taxes? And I’m like, well, I got turbo tax the program, put the CD in and I do it and I call it online now too. And I do it, you know, I just fill it out and you know, and she’s like, do you, do you who’s advising you? Do you have anybody? And I go, nobody. She says, well honey. And she took this, she took the time. Super nice lady. She probably took a seriously dude probably an hour just sitting there with me going, well shout out me pictures on the wall like in a little napkin and stuff.

She went, this is a company, this protects you from liability. It’s called it limited liability. You need to go ahead and format, right. So I’m like, well, who does that? She’s like, well, you need to call an attorney. I call the attorney and he’s condescending too. I didn’t have a great attorney like winters and King. Now I have a great attorney now, winters and King and West Carter, but I didn’t have a great attorney. I didn’t have the knowledge. It was like the bank was mean to me except for Debbie. And our vest was nice to me too, but the Arvest was arborist was professional, but Debbie was kind and helped me. Sure. The shit mentored you. She did. And the lawyers I called were just mean and I talked to some guy, he charged me like multiple thousands of dollars, like three or $4,000 to form my LLC in my minutes.

Operations agreement and he, all these things and I found out later he was just scamming me in Z or their attorneys at scanned people. Yes, yes, there are. Homeboys sent me a letter saying that I had forfeited on some verbal agreement and I owed him a ton of money. So I had to pay him. I thought, cause he’s, if an attorney says you owe money, don’t you have to pay him? No. So then the next one I tried to buy, but I mean the deal is a deal. So I don’t know what your deal was with this guy. I had no agreement. I just said asked him about what it would cost. It’s set up an LLC and we talked for like 15 minutes on the phone. He sends me a bill. It’s crazy dope. No, that’s, that’s kind of what it is. So then I, I, we got, finally I figured out, I’ll make it some money now.

2002 I got ads, yellow page ads, all you’re rocking. Here it goes, my next rejection, I want to build my wife a house. I had that idea. I’m going to build my wife. Oh by the way, to this day, that turns me on. There you go. I like getting my wife’s stuff. That’s my thing. So I’m like, I’m going to build you a house. So I called around town, got bank approval first because I’m a smart guy there, you and I called this builder and he’s let me show you the houses. And he quoted me those clay. Well, what kind of house do you want? And I said, well, I’m looking for about four to 5,000 square feet because in my mind, bigger means better quality. Sure. I don’t even care about, I don’t, you know. So he says, do you want wood? No. That stuff warps over time.

Now I want you went. Granted, no one will know Liam, you want smooth walls? No, I want that rough stuff. You want whatever ceiling though. I want the popcorn thing you want. So he’s like, okay, I’ll get you a lot of house. So I come back, I’m proud because I’m hearing for $250,000 I got myself a McMansion man, Z seriously, almost four to 4,500 square feet for $250,000. I mean, I’m on here was this would be 2002 and I’m like, this is going to be so Vanessa and I meet this guy and he’s, he was a disaster of a man, which fit for me cause I was a disaster. But first there you go. And Vanessa, the whole time is like dying a death in her soul shaking that I’m gonna cause he wants to be encouraging for me, her husband who’s buying this house for her.

We get in the car and I’m like, babe, what do you think you’re when she says, no, do you see the houses he builds? The ones we’ve toured are all terrible. And I’m going, what do you mean they’re terrible? She goes, she says, well, you can get like a big tent. That doesn’t mean I want it. And I’m like, what do you hate my tapes? So anyway, I decided not to use that guy. Then I went to another guy, Rob brewer, who did a great job and the brew crew, Rob brewer, check him out and it’s called Spartan building or something. Rob brewer, the Bruker. If you’re looking to build a house in Tulsa, I do love that guy. I do work with Shaw homes now. They’re my clients. They were, they’d be, they build hundreds of houses. But if you want like one house to be built custom. Rob brewer is a great guy. He’s your man. So Rob builds me a great house. My wife wants to put in wood floor. It’s a lot of money. Anyway, the builder that I previously had rejected calls me and says that he feels as though that I have verbally committed to the home due to his time investment in me and that he will be suing me if I don’t move forward with the house.

True story. Have you ever got a shakedown letter? Oh, all the time. Sure. And I get that. I remember getting that in the mail. So I called the guy cause I knew the guy from some church relationships and I said, Hey, you’re, you’re suing me. He’s like, Oh, you have to talk to my attorney. And I’m like, you’re suing me. He’s like a 55 year old guy. You’re suing me because you asked, you asked me the question, you said if we can work out a plan that works for you and the financing, would you want to move forward? I said, well, if we could work out a plan, that’s that whole yes selling crap. Oh yes. He’s like, so if we could get a plan that you like at a price you like, would you want to move forward? I said, well, if I could get those things and yes, but we never did get those things.

And he’s like, but you said you would and I can. I’m willing to do whatever changes I have to do to get your business. And I’m like, but you’re, why would you ever want to do business after they’ve shut you down? That’s what the guy, you never ever, ever get the business tied up after a shakedown letter. So this is what happens. So I call a guy who I think is a good friend of mine and I thought he was a friend of mine and I said, Hey, you worked for this guy, does he do this crap a lot? He goes, Oh yeah. And by the way, he’ll move. He uses particle board instead of good quality lumber. He gets the cheap lumber, you know, putting the studs in your house, anything you can’t see his second quality, which is why I don’t work there.

And I said okay, so you would never work with them again. He goes, no way dude, do not work with that guy. I worked with him for two years. I would never work with him again. He’s shady. So I call the guy back armed with this new information and I said, Hey, I’ve talked to a couple of your former employees, one in particular who I’ve known forever, who says you’re shady and I know you’re shady, so I definitely am not using you and I’m not paying that freaking letter. And I’m like, yeah, with no attorney to defend me. Of course not. And my buddy though tells me that he does this crap all the time. It’s like a move of his it’s those dirty advertising companies that mail you invoices for stuff you didn’t sign up for. Is it dirty move, dirty move.

And so the guy on the phones yelling at me and he’s like, you told me, you tell me the person’s name, who said that about me? You tell me one thing and my buddy, I’m thinking, I know this guy well and I don’t know how life works yet cause I’m like 21, 22, you know, and I’m like, his name is such and such. Oh no. So that guy immediately calls my bud. Oh. He’s like, Hey, your buddy just used your name and said that you think I’m shady. I’m suing you now too. You’re not, you’re not going to hear the end of this, that slander. And I was at your boss for two years. So now I got my friend who I thought was my friend mad at me. Oh sure. I got the builder mad at me. Oh yeah. And then my wife’s like, so what do you want to do?

And I’m like, well, I think maybe we should just have big 10 ideas. I said, maybe we should just hire him to build the house. She’s like, no, why would you possibly think that? I’m like, well, it’s easier cause then I could appease and then I realized again, Z that sometimes adversity gets in the way of the obvious right decision. Right? Absolutely. It’d be easier to lay down and not fight for it. Absolutely. People out there wanting passive income and they’re wanting to get to a place where you don’t have to fight for the money anymore. But if you’re listening right there, if you’re listening right now, wherever you are and you are coming into adversity, it’s because you’re, you’re doing something. The only way to avoid adversity is to do nothing. Right? Right, right. What if I want to avoid adversity, should I just probably hop back into wage cage, get back in the wage?

Wouldn’t that be the best advice for somebody out there who doesn’t handle adversity? Just just hit back, get back in that wage cage? How I, I would say that but I mean there’s still adversity in the wage cage. There’s still things you have to do in the wage cage. I mean there’s still a boss you have to deal with in the wage cage. I mean there’s still the life that goes on in the wage cage. What if I want to involve, what if I want to involve in, what if I want to be an entrepreneur but I hate adversity. Then you need to just buy lottery tickets and go punch a time clock. There is a church, aZ that a, I was a part of years ago that said that if you’re a member of the church, they would like you have one week per weekend per a month to go out with other members of the church at a set time to invite the members of the church to invite neighbors to come to church so you knock on the door, hi, we’re with a local family church and we’d like to invite you to church and we have a great family fun thing this weekend and be inflatables for the kids.

Here you go. Not a, not a hard like salvation pitch, but more of like, Hey, just come just camp. Just, just come to church. And the church grew remarkably imagine that because they had to do that. Also a requirement was if you’re a member, a member, not not just an attendee, but if you’re a member, you have to volunteer one Sunday a month in the kids’ church, the youth or you have to be like a greeter. Sounds fair. Sounds fair. Hello, welcome, welcome churches. Now, very, very big big church. Now pictures speak. Most of the listeners out there probably know the church. It’s huge. Now a small church that I was talking to at a conference, this is about two years ago. He says, well, I don’t have a big budget. What tips would you have to, to, to grow my church? And I said, well, and this guy, by the way, full disclosure is never been a client.

I just a conference guy and I said, well, you want to do is you want to make sure that all your members, how many members do you have? He says, 300. I said, make sure all 300 once a month have to volunteer to go knock on doors four hours a month, invite people to church, put out inflatables, or they have to volunteer as a kids ministry outreach, or they have to be a greeter. That’s the move. That’s the move. And he’s like, yeah, but certain people in my church don’t want to do it in the board. Some of them don’t like it. And then we, one time we did it and we got some people that got mad at us. We did it one time, one time, which is what we did at one time. And we had somebody who got mad. So now we don’t do that anymore.

Well, that’s why you’re not growing, right? You got to bust through the adversity Buster, the adversity. So get one on me. Give me another time where somebody told you no, and you just pursued doggedly until it happened. There’s gotta be another time. Oh, there is. I the ranch that I currently own, I love that ranch. Beautiful place. Beautiful place. Z 66 ranch. Google it, folk rock and zero rockin Z ranch. Google it right now. I’ve spied on that thing from Google earth. It’s a beautiful thing. Rocket and Z ranch. Rocket Z ranch. Okay. Dot com is the website rockin Z ranch. Okay. And you guys went out there and do that drone thing. The drone where you have to us beautiful. I can see ranch. Breck is Iran. Anyway, I called up the guy found out who owned it, called him up, said, Hey, I want to buy your ranch.

He said, well sir, I’m sorry it’s not for sale. Here we go. And I said, well I don’t care. And he goes, who are you? Cause you know, I was just kind of having fun. I said, well I don’t care if it’s for sale or not, I want to buy it. He goes, who are you? And I told him, he goes, I, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve heard of you. I said, well let’s meet for lunch. Let’s just meet for lunch or we’ll get her to meet for lunch, going to lunch. Does he get Rancho? And so we met for lunch, Jake. And every month we’d meet for lunch for six months. Where did you meet? Wherever he wanted to give me one plate. You’ll Ruby Tuesday’s olive garden I think was one of the places rugged doesn’t get Ryan chest rocking does he? I ran, I said at the [inaudible] at the time, I got a ton about it.

I’ve got a refrigerator right now. I really do. I have a ton of [inaudible] the Kirk does at a hard crunchy and then softer, sir. Would you like me to Grande zip at my friends? We would meet once a month. And so we kinda got kinda kinda warmed up to the idea. And so the first time he said, well, okay, can’t sell it, but it’s gotta be this much money. I said, Oh, you’re crazy. Get out of here. I’ll see you in a month. And so that was our game and it took about six months. And after that timeframe, he finally threw out a price and I reached across to heaven, shook his hand, said, you got yourself a deal. And I’ve got myself a ranch. When you got the deal, did you guys meet it? Kind of a sexy swanky wine bar to consummate that deal or was it more of a, you know, you know what we’re going to, I said, excuse me, waiter, waitress.

Let’s come over here. I need a cheese tray. I’m going to class if your finest bubbly. Sorry. This is off guard. We don’t have champagne here. I said, okay fine. Just give me some cheap box wine and some cheese tray please just set up now let me ask you this. Seriously, you got that deal done. How good did it feel? It felt great. Did you, cause there was a lifelong dream of mine as a small boy cause I said I used to grow up watching like Bonanza and Gunsmoke and lone ranger and just that whole time frame was always like the guy that the Ponderosa, did he say yes to you? Did he say yes? Handshake? Was it like a, okay, was it an email? Was it a call? And I said, I see if you finally came up with the price, it’s reasonable. Okay.

And you finally want to sell this to me. Come on. You want to sell it? Come on, baby. Come on. Yeah. He kind of threw the first three, couple, three months, decided he wanted to sell it to me. Now we’re just haggling over price, you know? And so then when he finally said, okay, I’ll sell it to you for this, I reached grass mound, which crush, shook his hand, said you’ve got yourself a deal. And then at what point did you, cause I have audio, I believe this is you guys. I’m finishing the deal. Yes. Have you ever seen the movie ghost Z? Oh, I love that movie. So this is the scene where you guys finally agreed, Oh yeah, we got the pot of clay or we’re actually kind of say seated behind him and he’s working on the Potter’s wheel. We’re forming, we’re forming a beautiful deal, bow a bowl bone, and it’s spinning out of control where you’re, it’s not looking like a bowl.

It’s like, let it go too fast. I couldn’t help. And you reached over and you helped him. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here’s you gotta go slower. Oh yes. Oh my gosh. And so that that’s how the deal know that. Alright, well there’s just things that I know I typically will use a Potter’s wheel and make me a surrender. Somebody out there starting to get the idea that I have no yeses until I go through the nose. Let your nose become your yes. Your, your, your nose will be the yes of your future success. Your nose are what’s in the way of your future. Yesterday I’ve got some of my more, once you’re stuck waiting, I’m sorry. No, you okay. Okay. You go and then I’ve got a fun, I’ve got a fun one. This is fun. 16Th in Boston, Austin, I was looking for office space and I called a lot of office buildings to lease space and everyone was not calling me back.

No one was cooperating, nobody was being easy to deal with and I get a hold of the landlord and I, the building doesn’t say for lease, call the guy, make it a deal. I said, Hey, I would like to lease this much space. He says, no. So I think about it. I go, I’d like to lease the whole thing. Then he says, yes. Then I think to myself, Holy crap, I’ve just leased a lot office space and then I use my entrepreneurial mind and I subleased out unneeded space, extra space to other people. Thus it cost me less than the be in the original building I was in when I needed to move, but again, I probably had 50 50 buildings I called on or landlords or tenants or whatever and no one would lease me to space. No one at least sees the space.

The very house that I’m in right now, the guy who had owned the house told my wife no repeatedly and now we’re in it. You have, does he know yet? He’s actually a client of mine now. It’s funny. He actually became a client of mine. He was like a want me to help him. I just think it’s so important though that you are out there if you are out there and why do we fear rejection so much? What’s the deal with the fear? The rejection because that’s what’s going on is somebody out there is saying, I can’t handle that type of rejection. I can’t handle. I can’t handle. Oh want to be loved, clay. We’re all looking for love. When someone, when a hater comes up, they hand you a bottle of haterade. You just go, that’s not what I’m shooting for. That upset you.

Remember back to the future, the movie back to the future before, before Michael J. Fox learned how to fly. He went back in time and realize what his life would be like if he was somebody who feared rejection and there was a scene where he wants to become a best selling author. He wants become a writer and he’s telling his girlfriend why he won’t pitch his book deals. I mean, what if they say I’m no good? What did they say? Get outta your kid. You got no future. I mean, I just don’t think I can take that kind of rejection. Think about that for a second. This is what someone’s playing in their mind. They’re saying, I’m no good. What did they say? Get outta your kid. You got no future. That’s where you’re at right now by default. Exactly. Then you go to the best publishing house.

Come on now. That’s how you do it. They see I have, I have a theory that eventually we’re all going to be dead soon and so if you know you’re going to be dead as an eventual reality and you know that you currently don’t like your current reality, what could possibly stop you from drying yourself and that’s what you, yourself, yourself gets some self. I’m going to take time out from you, okay. For just a few minutes and I’m going to go try to get this thing going. I sound irritated. I’m irritated on behalf of your future self that wants to get out of the freaking wage cage where from the future folks and we’re here to tell you can’t do it. You’re the Craig. Rochelle used to be a Methodist minister, Craig Rochelle, I think. Did we go over that when we had him on the show? He was a great interview on this show and I have someone to become obsessed with all things.

Craig Rochelle, just researching the man and came back on again. I want to, yeah, he was great. And I’ll tell you this, that this guy, he said, my baby, make me listen out there. Going to, who’s Craig Rochelle. He’s the pastor of the largest church currently in America. The Protestant church. Largest non-Catholic church in America. And he used to be an associate pastor at the United Methodist church. No, there you go. And now he’s the head of life church. Now what if he had just stuck within the United Methodist church system? It might’ve been able to put a little bit of energy and some juice back into that. That’s, that’s his church is much different, much different, much different than the United Methodist church would allow you to have a Marvel comic theme series. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn’t. I don’t know. But I think he took, it took courage.

I don’t, I don’t know. It took courage though to leave the cage. It did. So sometimes you have to, now other times you’re going to recognize that you are a, what I would call an intrepreneur and you weren’t called to work within an organization to make that organization successful because you may be married to somebody who may be, you can handle Z, the rejection, you don’t have fear, but your partner does. Your spouse does. Correct. How many times have you seen that where a man is bold and has history and a vision? He has a history of big vision. He has a vision for success. He has a history of success. Any marries somebody later in life that doesn’t have the same vision. Someone who fears rejection or you see a young woman who’s very ambitious as a high schooler or a college student or, and then st Mary’s, somebody who’s not ambitious, what happens then?

Well, you’re not on the same page and then you have some fighting and, and you have just, you’re not together. And that’s one of the things that you need to make sure that we have. You pick your spouse, that you sit down and you do some that dreaming with. What do you, what do you think about the history is dream, dream, dream. I mean it’s like sitting down with someone and going, you know what? I’ve been married to my wife for 10 years and guess what? I never knew she didn’t want to have kids. I mean, if these are things that this is before you seal the deal, you might want to talk about future things and make

Heist on our wedding night. Are we going to have sex? Let’s try to get there. I want to save myself for retirement. I’m going to say, I’m going to say maybe that’s the time to hit the exit ramp. Maybe. Maybe you said you want to have kids and maybe they say, but that would involve, ah, Sachs, I’m not into sex. I’m just saying you’ve got it. You got to figure out what is causing you to be stuck in the wage cage. Is it fear of offending somebody? I won’t get into the specifics, but Z, have you ever started a business, a model business model, a niche, an industry, anything at all that potentially could offend somebody? Oh yes. Just today, I had a guy reach out to me, he wants help with his business and I think I might work with him and help him collect, you know, the problem is he is competing with one of my former friends.

Oh, you know, and a friend. And when you say former friends, he’s still a friend. I think a friend is someone I shared time and values with and I don’t share the values with the person or time with them. I disagree with their worldviews about everything. So then he’s a former friend, right? So I’m going, yes, I’m kind of a competitive guy and I’m going, Oh, I would love to do that. But again, what if I feared upsetting the former? I see a lot of people are going to upset him. I remember years ago there was two young women that I met, one of which had this idea for a business she had in her head and she told her friend and she said, let’s do it together. So the two friends are planning this business together right now. The friend who did not come up, the friend did, who did not come up with the idea.

The friend who did not come with the idea of the friend who was just brought to the party says, I just don’t want to put up that kind of money. I think we should not do it right. So the friend who had the idea had her dream killed by the friend who didn’t have the faith. So the Fred who had the idea went out and started the business on their own. And then the friend who didn’t have the courage called the friend who sees their success and says, Hey, you left me. You did it without me. I can’t believe you left. Why would you two that you betrayed thought we were free. Here’s the sad story. The Fred who originally came up with the idea is shut down their baby business. That was just beginning to be profitable to save the friendship. And now the two aren’t friends.

Oh I’m glad I don’t have a firearm right now cause I would shoot myself.

You see these things a lot though. It just wears me one up me with a no good, very bad rejection story. Here’s so terrible. Here’s one. Here’s one. Here’s what I used to love this challenge. Yep.

We would get, this is back before you have Google reviews and all this silliness right now that’s going on. And I say selling this because it can be sometimes pretty silly, silly, very silly. Yet one of my businesses fires a guy and he writes, should we get the next day to one star reviews? And everybody, the business is horrible except that one guy, right? It’s so silly. But anyway, so I we used to get the letter right. We get the letter of the phone call, a very irate patient. I’m never coming back. I hate you guys. You’ve ruined my life. I mean, you know, some really bad stuff. Pretty soon you’re thinking. Yeah, pretty tough. Whoa. And you’re certainly thinking, wow, is this the only job in America can move on here? What’s the wow, we told them we were glass. It’d be ready in a week and it took two weeks.

I mean, we’ve, we’ve ruined their lives, you know? And so my fun was, and I often have a little crowd of people around me because when it got to me, that meant the, my manager couldn’t appease this person. This person was still in the war path. They were on the war path and they were going to do whatever they were going to call the news station. They ever going to call the president of the United States of America. And I was going down in flames and my business was not good. I mean it was all Epic and they can take your joy from if you’re not careful. Oh, don’t let him. So I would call said person, get them on the phone, do two, two, two, two. This is dr Robert Zellner and I just received your letter or your messages or however you want to do it. And I’m just calling to talk about the incident or talk about, and so then they just, I mean there are just,

I was mad. Took me two weeks to get my glasses, but you promised blood breaker. I got [inaudible] with my marriage and I’m not happy with my job, but I’m not happy. This is the only outlet in the world

And here’s how you handle that person. You listen to them. You have an acronym that’s kind of fun.

Blast, bleed, listen, answer, satisfied, trust. Believe what they’re saying, right? Listen to what they’re saying. You’ve got to listen to my answers. Yes, try to solve it. If you can try to satisfy S and

Then build that trust. Do what you said you’re going to do and you have to own it. Own it. Have to own it. You can’t argue with them that it didn’t happen. You can argue with them that your employee didn’t say that. You can’t. You say over and over, it’s my fault. Yes, you own it. Buck stops with me. I’m embarrassed that you were treated that way and I am sorry I am. I did not start this business to treat people that way. Come on now. In fact, we don’t sit around in the morning going, okay, let’s do this today. The tip person that walks in that door, what’s up real good? You want to fight yourself to the point that people don’t have to fight you, right? You want to own it and then you want to then the key, the biggest question I’d always ask them the biggest question and then, and the key question, one of the key questions. What is the key question? That’s the secret sauce I do. Let me queue up my secret sauce. What’s the secret sauce? My secret. So I mean we’re ready for the secret sauce. Now what can I do to make you happy? Because listen, you don’t assume you know what they want and naggy 9%

Of the time look straight and reasonable and they say, listen, I better make you two you can’t refuse. I’d like a free pair of glasses. I prepare because I like, I’m like a 300 new cars. I like a free pair of glasses. My cousins show to own this business cousin in the week. She would always watch it. I’d only fire that employee but take him out back and do what you love. Like flogging and then I want you to piss on the grave cause they don’t want to. I just want to disrespect you. I want you to walk to the ball naked with the billboard, Savage chin, how picker, what you know, right? I was, I heard you have a favorite horse. Once you’re at the horse’s head off and put it in that employee’s bed and take a photo, take a photo of it and set a two minutes to grab. That’s all I’m asking.

It’s simple. Just a few simple things. Know what percent of the time there’ll be off the charts like, I want $1,000 that I can publish that you publish or make it matter anyway. 99 times, 99% of the time they’re like, they’re there. They’re shocked. Shocked that you’ve owned it, that you’ve apologized for it, that you’ve come up with a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Just say as a, as a stat. I agree. I think about 95% of the time they’re willing to be reasonable. That’s what I found. You know what? Maybe I just, maybe I’m just nicer and I have a, what? I use my honey voice. Maybe it just works harder. Maybe I’m only, maybe I’m thinking because I only deal with people who are nuclear mad. Maybe that’s cause it’s only gets to me at this point and if it’s nuke mad, right. So I guess I’m saying I guess I’m saying 95% of the new commands you might be, you might be right. And I may 99 I may be because I mean I’m a store level. I mean it’d be wishful thinking on that. I mean you have thousands of customers, so at the store level for something to get to you at this point it’s gonna be pretty bad. Yeah. But I probably, Oh I could I less 10 patients and you’ve got

To realize that we know we’ve seen millions of patients. I probably less than 10 people. I’ve read X them and red X means don’t give them service again, Coco, Coco puffs and let them in there and called the police. If we see them, no trespassing. If they cannot come on property and that’s less than 10 it’s probably really less than five I can think of a book called the service profit chain. Britain courages you to break your customers into categories. There’s five categories. Category number one is an apostle. That’s somebody who loves you so much. They will tell their friends to use you for free. They don’t need to kick back. Correct. Two is a loyalist. They show up over and over. They don’t tell anybody about it though. That’s like 70% of your business. The people who just come back then repeat stuff, repeat that.

Third is that mercenary guy. He comes in with that coupon, that hot special. He will not buy from you unless you can say that $5 was $2 he’s a mercenary. Oh yeah. Fourth category. Not so positive. It’s a terrorist. Yes. And if you have more than about 1% of your customers are terrorists, there’s something wrong with you. But again, a terrorist is somebody who just is mad about everything. There are some people that are mad about their job. They lost the divorce, they had the loss, the death of an animal, and now they want to attack you as a way to cathartic. We deal with it. Sure. And then the final group is a hostage. Now that’s where you upset somebody and you’ve taken their money, but they’re stuck with you. I would call this contractors who are shady. When you have a contractor, you’ve paid to finish a wall or building a deck or a building or something and that you’ve paid them, but they won’t finish the job and now they’re holding you hostage.

Right. That’s a weird, a weird vibe. But again, if you own a business, I’m just saying welcome to the big leagues Z with 4,000 customers and elephant in the room that we see routinely. I have found, this is what I have found. I don’t like it. I have found we make a mistake usually with your hair cause it’s, it’s we’re cutting someone’s hair. Yes. 3% of the time. Now let me show you something. I use my head as a demo for haircuts and you can have like six people cut on it. It will help big, massive head. But now it’s like a hair buffet. Seriously, I, whenever it’s, we have a new stylist, I always let them cut my hair. So sometimes we have a bunch of new people, they cut the hair of the employees in the office for free. And then we have a lot of dudes up there that work in the office and sometimes we run out of male models.

I go back a second or third time within like a week and a half. So look at this, look how short that is. Wow bro. Look at that. Oh, we mowed that thing. Whoa. Wow. That’s like my third demo. Cut in like seven days or something. Wow. So, but anyway, pressing my hair is, is where, you know. But again, we try to train our people with real people who are not paying to get them to be great, even though they all have licenses then went to hair school. I have found statistically we make a mistake about 3% of the time. How do you handle that? I mean this is how it works. If you get a bad haircut or you’re not happy in any way, if you’re walking out, did you look displeased? Our managers are trained to say, were you happy with everything today?

And if you said no, then we give you a free haircut. What if someone is unhappy and they don’t say no cause most people won’t. Well we look in the eyeballs and we’re trained to say, were you happy with everything today? I’m trying to figure that out. You know, kind of like a fancy restaurants. We’ll say where does the food taste? All right. When you first take your first bite of steak, does everything look all right? And that’s kind of a move. We try to prevent preventively go, go after proactively every book right there. Yeah. And everyone, everyone pre books. Is that a red flag when they don’t want the person to just cut their hair? Yes. Okay. They won’t pre-book. It means Vermette. Okay. And if they want to prebook and they don’t want to use the person they just use, that’s a red flag too.

Right? Right. Okay. And so I’m learning the game and we have though about 3% of people, we make a mistake of some kind. And but again, I mean that’s, if you’re shooting free throws dude, and you make 96% of your free throws, you’re going to hall of fame hall of fame. Maybe if you make 96% of your haircuts people boo you vote for, do you know what I’m saying though? Sure. It’s cause people want perfection except for in their own job. It’s their hair. It’s kinda like, Oh man, why didn’t you screw up the guy next to me? Not mine. Never. People want perfection except for in their own job. Let’s talk about the standards we hold ourselves accountable to before we, anyway, that’s a thought. So we get in there and we make that mistake. The move is to believe, listen, answer, satisfy trust, refund.

Yeah. If they’re really or the process courage refund. The next one if they’re really mad is the front desk. People are empowered to give you, they have the autonomy to give you your next hair cut free too. So I’m giving you now at this point, we’re talking $76 of free stuff. Minimum. Yes. Usually $84 of free stuff. If it’s next level. And let me tell you about that. There was a guy recently I’m old enough to everything seems recently, but a couple of years back, who got his hair cut and he said he had a job interview and he was flying in to Tulsa for his haircut and he lived in Houston or something and he came in for a haircut and he claims that the haircut was so bad. He lost his confidence.

He said when he applied, he didn’t have any confidence. That’s why he didn’t get the job. Now, therefore you owe him the salary for, I’m not kidding. Now think about this. You and I, if we got a bad haircut, we would own it. We’d walk in and go, Hey, I just got my hair cut and they made a couple mistakes. So I apologize for the distraction, but here we go. But this guy said he lost his confidence, Lau. And I said, Hey, what? What? what can I do? He says, well, unless you have $100,000 job, can’t do much. Get do much. I’m like, so you would you like a refund? No, but you’ll never hear the end of this. I’m, I’m, I’ll go on Yelp and I’ll make your life hell buddy. And I’m like, okay, well is there any I can do to resolve this?

You know? No, I’m just telling you what I’m going to do. I am going to go on Yelp. I’m going to make your life. Hell buddy. Now I think for a grand I could probably stay off of Yelp. Oh here we go hostage. And I said, what state are you in? He says, I’m in Texas, let’s stay to Mayans, Oklahoma. It’s true story. And I said, well we have a thing called clarity voice, which is a call recording software and I’ve recorded the words out of your mouth. So I got an option. One is I can take this VM break optimizing. I could take this audio, turn it into a YouTube video. When you type in your name and Google, this is what the world will hear. I could do that. You could go on Yelp. Now I’m really good at optimizing. Really, really good.

So, I mean, you type in your name, I’ll make you famous. You come up top every top job interview you come to and you, you, we can hear this 20 minute conversation of you just ripping my team, ripping your, you said that the person you applied for was a moron anyway. You mentioned the name of the company. I can do that and I could put, I won’t do it anonymously. It’ll say from clay Clark, so people will know who posted it. Yeah. You could go on Yelp anonymously and complaint. Correct. Both of us could do that. Or why don’t I just give you a refund? He goes, longest pause ever. I think I’ll just do a refund. I’m like, okay, that’s good answer, buddy. Put that kind of crap happens and that have killed a 22 year old version of me. I would’ve cried. Oh yeah, but as a 37 year old guy, I’m like, come on, I’ve seen this before.

Doesn’t it? See all these nos? Doesn’t it build up the callous? Talk about the palace of the callous when you have so much callus that it doesn’t even bother you. You’re like, these lawsuits are litigiousness or be Jack Surrey or sabotage or betrayal that I have. We’ve talked about this before. I know it’s such a good contact. We’ve done so many shows now to talk about it. It’s the high water Mark. Once you reach a new high water Mark, any other floodwaters that go below that? Yeah, no big deal. And what I mean by that is what you have when those epically bad runs of a lot of nodes are a lot of people breaking into your place. A lot of, I mean just all the, the lion gets you and malls you almost to death. The next time a dog comes up and bites your ankle, you’re like, I’ve been mauled by a lion.

That’s not that big a deal. It’s not though. And once you get there, once you get to a level of where you’ve had so much, I watched Josh Gordon and that game catch the ball and the Patriots and I hit that would have made me cry. Think you’ve saw that that touchdown run where he’s dragging the team down the feast, dragging the defender down the field with him. Oh yeah. He took a wall up and then he’s like, keeps on going. He’s a 240 pound man. I would have cried. I mean, I don’t care how big hide. I heard a interview where they were talking about Rob Gronkowski and I guess he had over a pound of fluid that was being drawn off of his thigh after games last year because of all the swelling and all this stuff. This is, this is audio of me having a pound of fluid drained off something.

Hi

Sir. You gotta stop crying. You have an NFL game tomorrow. You’re getting paid $18 million to do this.

Where’s my mom? I mean I couldn’t

Handle it. No, I mean those guys are tough. If you want to be an entrepreneur, just understand you’re aligned backer and you will get hit because entrepreneurship is a contact sport. Is it not? It is, but I don’t know many businesses you can start. We’re part of the requirement is they’re going to pull a pound of fluid out of your thigh the day or every week. So that’s, I’ll be up for an NFL, you know, hall of fame, potential player who’s big and rambunctious and gets a bunch of hits. I can see that, but, but the idea though that you’re going to have to actually draw fluid off your thighs open in businesses is really more of a metaphor. Right? So see, let’s think about this final thought before we wrap up today. She’ll bring it in with a boom. Let your nose be your, yes, let your nose, but your, yes.

Right? Think about this. What your nose beer. Yes. Okay. You got to get a hundred rejections for every one. Yes. And success. You’ve got to do it. Okay. Somebody out there who’s in their mind wrestling with this idea right now they’re wrestling with the idea, do I really have to get a hundred rejections for every yes. Can I just make a click funnel? Can’t I just automate my success? Can I put no money down? Can’t I just get rich quick? Because there’s people out there that will sell that dream to you. They, there’s a lot of money to be made selling you what you want to hear. Oh yeah. But give somebody the tough love they need. This comes from love. Someone who says, I don’t want to get a hundred rejections. Here’s, here’s the deal. Can, can I, can I get some, can I preach? I want you to preach. And I think I, my, my, I feel like I am prepared, manned up. I feel like I’m prepared for you to preach, but I have to cause it’s been a while since I’ve hit this button here. Oh yeah. Let me, let me find it here. I, it’s been a while since I’ve hit this hot minute. I know it’s been a hot minute right now. I’m just gonna hit this

Button.

Well, let me just, do I have a sound effect that leads us into preaching, but I don’t have the preach music with me right now. I’m working through some,

Okay. Okay. There we go. Now I got it. Here we go. I got one slide. Here we go.

Oh, got it. Okay. There we go. Okay, I got it. Here’s the deal, folks.

In order to go up, you must first start by going down Shunda. You must deep fuse before you can hit puke. Oh, Hey, what does that mean? I mean it’s as you’re walking down the Rocky road towards success, you got to step on some rocks. You could have some notes thrown your way. Oh, I do a fiery darts and what you got to do, Oh, you’re going to just fall over and die. The first little dark hit you. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? You’re going to walk through. You’ve got persevere, push Bruce, you gotta take that note and replace the end with that. Y O S Oh yes, yes. If it was easy, everybody be doing it.

It was easy. You wouldn’t have 89% shut.

I to go come down. I, we’re talking about people that

Have gone through the hard parts of opening a business and they’re not able to keep it open. When you do hard things, life gets easier. It is. And the harder you work, the luckier you get. And you have to understand this. Everybody out there is getting the nos and the successful ones or the ones that shake it off. Like Taylor Swift tells you, shake it off. Shake it off baby.

Oh, shake it off. Shake it off. Shake, shake, hater, hater. Then don’t stop and stop group. Everything’s gone up. Be all Rakim thrive. Hey, that’s going ahead

Back to you. Okay. Wow. You’re welcome. Thriving. I did a little little audio. How did I do it? A little audio diamond for your ears and miracle. It’s a nice little red velvet cake for your ears, right folks. You bet. You’re welcome. So what I’m telling you is this, is that it’s going to be hard. Come on, but you can do it. You can do it. You can do it, man. You can. You can do this all night long. It’s just be his name to push it. You got to push through the adversity, push through and to think about it as does that. And you hear this a lot. You’ve heard it movies, you hear it even on our show hits nothing personally. Oh, when people tell you no, no. It’s not a rip on your character when they tell you no, it’s not. It’s just that they’re not there. Right then come on now. They’re not there. Right then. It’s not person. You can’t take it

Personally. John Maxwell told us no and then told us, yes. Later. There you go. Years later after asking every year for him to be on the show, Wolfgang puck has told me no and now he said yes. We’re getting huge people reaching out to us now because we’ve taken a lot of rejections behind the scenes. Underneath the water there is a duck looking calm on the surface, but below the surface it’s paddling those feet. There’s an iceberg dead ahead iceberg. You just see the tip of the iceberg. What’s beneath the ice? Neath the water. It’s the big iceberg. They be going. People don’t want to look at the stuff under the scenes. No one wants to look at the magma and the lava that made Hawaii. We want to talk about Hawaii

But my friends, there is hope. There is hope, there is hope. And then you have found the right team. Come on now you have found the right place. Yes you have found the right men. I testify and we have some women on our team too. But you found the right people, the right tribe. You got to get out to a business conference. Arm-In-Arm you got to get to a business conference to walk through that Rocky road. You got to get to a business conference to help you, help you get your dream. Yes and tape. Let your nose be yeses. And you know what chicken, all your dreams come true.

Cause we’re, we’re really, we’re here to help mentor you up. We’ve done it. We’ve been there. We’ve, we’ve had a lot of nos, a lot of Rocky steps along the ways. But you know what, if we could do it, if a guy like clay can do it, if a guy like can do it, we’ve got this thing kinda sorta figured out. We can help you and we’re here to help. That’s why we built all this. That’s why we do our radio show. It’s why we do our podcast. That’s why we do our online business school, thrive fifteen.com you can get to a thrive time show.com and that’s what we do. Our in person busines conferences.

If you’re out there today, just just seriously fork over 250 bucks. Okay, fork it over. You’re going to come out to our beautiful facility, 17,000 square foot, 20,000 square foot facility. You can come up to our facility and meet the team, attend a workshop, and you get a year of videos. Now, if you don’t do that, see, I have an audio clip of a, of a person towards the end of their life. Yes. Who is a late nineties at this point. Oh, and this is what he was giving a tip to a young man and he said, son, this is how you’ll feel after a life spent avoiding adversity. Oh, this is how you’re going to feel perfect. And I got a cute, let me get it ready here.

I’m eating a spoonful of Draino. Sure. It’ll clean you out. They’ll leave you hollow inside.

Oh, let me try that again.

I’m getting a spoonful of Draino. Sure. It’ll clean you out. They’ll leave your hollow inside. When you spend your whole life,

Avoid adversity, you’re going to feel hollow inside. You’ve got nothing. You got nothing. So if you’re out there and you got nothing, let’s make it something. Okay, book a ticket today to attend our in person business conferences. We have a capacity for 2,400 people a year to attend that thing. Let the seating capacity be our problem. We’ll figure it out. You book your tickets. That’s dr Z.

I need to pull up. There’s one, there’s one famous movie quote from Braveheart where he’s telling the guys they’ve got an opportunity to do something that day and, and they, and they, yes, it’s, they’re, they’re afraid and yes it may end up in an Epic failure, but he asked him a question and that question, if you can find it as powerful. What’s the question? What was he, what’s he talking about? Oh, I’ll just say it cause you might not be able to find it. But the question is if you could trade, he goes, well, he goes, you’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die. But if you could trade all the days from now until you’re in your death bed, dying to come back here to come back to today and, and fight for your freedom, would you do it? And so that’s what I’m asking everybody out there right now. Every day of your life. So you get older every day of your life. You’re taking one more day towards,

Here we go. Hi, I’m William Wall. Oh, here we go. Just seven feet tall. Kills men buds a hundred. There it is under view it consume the English with fire bolts from his eyes.

Don’t make this about somebody else. This show is about your life. Correct. Don’t make this about somebody else.

Bolts of lightning from his house. I am William Wallace. Hello. You see? Oh man, my Countryman.

You listening today have the capacity and the tenacity to be the next William Wallace. Or you could just life pass you by

Tyranny. You have come to fight us three man. Three man, you are.

Yeah, I understand. There’s a lot of people, a lot of people have fought to give you the opportunity to get out of the wage cage. Right? And I’m going to tell you right now, everybody listening out there with ears to listen. You are an entrepreneur. It’s in your DNA. You can do have the ability to do it right. I love to see how he does that. He calls him out and he calls them out as country men. Now they have their own country freedom.

Well, your fight

Will you fight? Are you gonna do with that? Your own business? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna? You know, just talk about it.

No, we will ride and people live fight and you may die run and you’ll love at least a while. I’m dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to train from this day that for one chunk jumped one shot. Don’t come back here. They may take.

There it is. And if there’s somebody out there is somebody out there

Who you cheer in this scene in the movie, you love this movie, but you love it because you’re watching somebody else

Have success. I would invite you instead of watching reality shows, make a life so good that people want to make a reality show about your life. Ooh, wow. Then something we could do, that’s something we could do. And on that note, I want to end the show with a a our first boom as we christened the new studio here. That’s good. And then I think my wife has some sort of paycheck for you, so it’s a boom and a paycheck for you. So are you ready? All right, here we go. Great.