5 Steps to Becoming a Good Manager
Audio Transcription
Learn 5 proven steps to becoming a great manager from America’s number one business coach Clay Clark.
SHOW NOTES:
5 Steps to Becoming a Good Manger
1. Determine Your Team’s KPIs (regardless of the people who work or who don’t work with you)
2. Determine Your Daily KPIs
3. Time Block
4. Accept and Embrace Your Tradeoffs Eyes Wide Open
5. Burn Your Boat / Refuse to Quit
What’s up? Welcome into the man cave. Josh Merrill here with America’s number one business coach Clay Clark and another amazing business coach Mr. Tim Redmond. We are here today in the man cave. Clay, on today’s podcast, what are we talking about? We are talking about how to become a good manager or a very good manager. Anybody listening right now who wants to be an entrepreneur, who is an entrepreneur, who has a business, who has a job. Eventually, once you get very good at your job, you will be promoted and at the point, you will have to manage other people. And if you can’t manage people, it can absolutely cost you hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of potential income. So I am serious about the importance of today’s training. Boom. We have an awesome mailbag question so let’s get into it. This is from anonymous. Anonymous says “I have made several attempts at building businesses. They usually tend to fail because of poor management systems, including rudimentary client tracking and follow-up. I made attempts to develop the systems and have failed thus far. My current system has been much more productive, but as far from acceptable. I’m the fire, the creativity, the salesman, the technician, but I always drop the ball when it comes to managing my business.” Okay, so on a deep level, talk to me Tim and tell me if you agree with me. Would you guys like a friend who always told you when you did something wrong, who always pointed out how you could do it better, who at all times judged you for what you did yesterday, and only cared about the outcome of what you got done? From a friend level, would you choose to be around someone? The keyword is friend. The whole framework is friendship may not allow you to just be jumping all over like that.
Let’s try it again. I am just going to tell you an example of me failing as a human, so that way you feel good about yourself. I don’t suffer fools very well. I don’t like being around people that I think are not trying. if someone just doesn’t care about success, trying to be a good dad or a good business person. I have a hard time being around them physically. So my wife has pulled me around occasionally and said “hey babe, you know on the airplane, you walked in there and I noticed that you didn’t save me a seat. You could have done that, but you didn’t.” I have an A class pass. I always go to the back left part of the plane. And I go there and I sit and I have a hooded sweatshirt at all times. So you can’t see me. The flight attendant will come and say “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to be flying on flight 737 from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Dallas. We will be making a short stop there and then heading on over to Phoenix. From Phoenix, we will be going to San Diego. If you need anything, when we get to 10,000 feet we will be serving our.” “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like an adult beverage, we have that available. We have coffee.” It is 5 in the morning. I always put my hand up and order a vodka because I am afraid of flying, I don’t do well with altitude, crowds or packed situations. Honestly, i get like anxiety who is sitting really close. I don’t like flying, i don’t like traveling, I don’t like not having my to-do list. I fear not being in control of my environment. So a guy on the plane says to me, “hey bro, you are having a vodka at 5 in the morning. Are you alright bro?” Yeah, absolutely. I probably just need to have 1-4 so that I can forget that I am on the plane with you and other people. It is very stressful for me to be on the airplane. I get motion sickness, so it is either that or I take a bunch of Dramamine. Either way, I am passed out. He just keeps attacking me the entire flight. Like he just keeps talking to me about alcohol, vodka, flying. He was a guy that worked on the oil and gas rig. He was talking about how he fell and hurt his back and he will just not stop talking. His personality was like “bro, yeah I fell and I hurt my back.” I have not responded to him for a half hour. I don’t respond because I am either asleep or trying to be asleep. “Bro, that’s what I am saying.” So I go to sleep, I wake up, go back to sleep and wake up and he is still talking. So my wife points out to me, she goes “I perceive that the person next to you didn’t enjoy your company too much.” Initially, I do not want any feedback. You jump on the plane, you are trying to avoid any human race, you are trying to sit in the back left of the plane, but your wife offers you feedback. Well, my wife is a great lady so I am open to the feedback because she is my wife and I want to hear it, but I want to seek good criticism. But the average person, do you want.
Do you get motion sickness? I do not, I do alright on planes. Do you get motion sickness? I do, so I have to watch it. I feel like I am going to throw up at all times and someone is next to me going “yeah bro, bro, bro, bro.” He is just high energy. It is beating on my head. My wife gave me feedback and I wanted some feedback. If anyone else would have given me some feedback on the plane, I would have lost my mind almost. If you are going to manage people, you realize that you are going to people and you are giving them feedback when they are not wanting it. I am married and motion sick and I still don’t really want to hear it. I am here on the window side and I told him that was my wife. He was like “oh that’s cool bro.” He was in the middle! He is giving me feedback the whole time. If you are a manager right now, that is about how people are feeling sometimes. Someone just got a job at Subway, they just got a job at Target, at a department store. They are just trying to get a job and your job is to be the large man sitting in between the wife and the husband, somebody might be motion sick and you are trying to give people feedback and they don’t necessarily want it. That is what the problem with management is. You are trying to give feedback to people that do not necessarily want the feedback. We are going to be talking about how to become a good manager on the Thrive timeshow.
We’ve got 5 steps to become a good manager. We are going to start with number 1 here. Determine your team’s KPIS (key performance indicators) regardless of the people who work or don’t work with you. So let’s go with that plane example. So we are on the plane and you say, “Clay, the whole point of this plane is to network. We’ve got to meet 5 people on the plane.” So I am always sick; planes, boats, trains, speed, water. So I don’t feel good, but you said that we have to network with 5 people. You might have to pull me aside and say “hey, I don’t know if you are the right guy for our team because we hop on planes.” A better example would be. I know of a business that I can think of right now and they are travel agents and they literally. She will go on to cruises and she would find people who would travel often and she would try and land clients. That was her whole deal. She would book a cruise and go on the cruise and try and get 100 people’s information and try and book 10 or 20 of them as lifetime customers. She is a travel agent so she gets a discount. So she would book the cruise. Imagine as a client if you get chronically sick, you get motion sickness. You as a manager would have to say “our business model is booking cruises and networking. You cannot be sick.” So again, you have to determine your KPI. You have to look at your team and say “team, everybody on our team has to get out and meet at least 50 people and collect their information.” Regardless of my personality, my sickness, my motion sickness, my emotions, my background, my prejudices, my attitude, my age, my whatever, you have to determine your key performance indicators for every member of your team. Gino Wickman, best selling author says “what get’s measured gets done.” So when you meet every night on the cruise with all ten travel agents, and I go “Josh, did you pass out your 50 cards and collect the contact information of 50 people today? Tim, did you collect the contact information for 50 people. Clay, did you?” And I am just like “I don’t feel good, I spent the whole day below deck.” You would eventually have to say when we get to land, hey you are not a good fit for this job. And that is hard to do. It is very very important that you make sure that you are holding your team accountable to their daily numbers and you know what those numbers are, regardless of whether the people on your team want to do it or not.
So Tim, you grew an accounting association from two people to over 400. What were some of your daily key performance indicators, in terms of mailers, marketing activities. What were some of the things that you did to grow from 2 to over 400? Each department had key activities that could be measured and so we are taking about what is really going to drive the results. So with sales, we had an X number of call outs that you were going to have to make in a day, support you had to have things resolved. We would actually measure the length of the call to see how fast you resolved it. You would hold people accountable to certain number of calls? We love results. You know the more I hear you guys talk about this, the more it just makes me think of the analogy. “Business is a machine. A business is like an automobile and the problem with business is that we get feelings involved. With your car, if your AC is not working, you are going to fire whatever piece of machinery is not working. If your tires are bald, guess what? That tire is out. But I took that tire to Disney world. It doesn’t matter! it’s gone! The E gets in the way of motion. Don’t do it. Cross it out. Move on.
Number 2: You have got to determine your daily KPI’s. Now here’s the thing is one, determine your team’s KPI’s, but then you, as a manager, you have to determine your KPI’s. Like you, as the manager, what are you going to do. So me, I have a rule. My inbox is at zero everyday before I go to work. I always make my schedule before I go to work and my inbox is at zero. But you know why? Because that is the rule that I have set for myself. I can tell you, that after I sold the DJ business. I sold djconnection.com. I made a rule that no one can email me. I would just tell people don’t email me. People would say that they emailed me and I would say that I don’t respond to email. You know why? I only do one communication platform. If you need me, call me or text me, but I am not going to do Facebook or email because that is not my thing anymore. I was so responsive for years and now that we’ve built this online school, I have people on my team and I demand that their inbox is at zero. As a manager, I demand for myself that my inbox is at zero and I have responded to everyone that has texted me or called me that day. That is hard because a wonderful lady today. Michelle called me today and I said that I am definitely going to reach out to Michelle. I did that because she called me and she deserves a call back. If she calls me 9 to 5, she deserves a call back 9 to 5. For the companies that demands the same standards. So Tim, let me ask you, when you are managing 450 people, what were your KPI’s? What did you hold yourself accountable to? Was it training the team, was it walking around, was it meeting with people, was it having a workshop? Yeah, I had a number of them. I would mentor two levels deep so I always had somebody that I had in mind that I was going to pour into. So that is one thing. I would also meet with each of the managers for 30 minutes, once a week, individually. I would go to their office to see them in their environment. I would want to see how they are operating. That’s not a daily, but it’s a weekly. I had 7 managers that reported to me. I wanted to meet with them in their environment for 30 minutes. I would look at their environment to see how they are operating in their environment. I am going to quote Clifton Taulbert, because Clifton Taulbert is one of our Thrive 15 mentors. He grew up in a time in American history where African Americans could not go into banks because of legal segregation. He opened up a bank. He said this, “Clay, I determine what I am going to get done everyday, regardless of my circumstances. Regardless.” Meaning, whether there is an issue or not, I am going to get this done. It becomes a mindset that you have to have. What else, Tim, did you commit to doing? WE had to get so many callbacks. We created like 40,000 demos in a years time. We would send out our software in a trial format and it would usually be between like 40,000 and 45,000. It was huge volumes so we would break that down. We would measure cash, measure AR and AP, we would measure a bunch of financial things. We also measured the number of demos and the follow up with those demos. So we would want to make sure that we were 100% on those demos. Those things were our life and if you did not follow up with a demo, our chances or closing were almost nil. So we tracked it very very close. I wouldn’t actually do the work, but I would measure the work and make sure that the work was being done. But you committed yourself to that every week. You would hold yourself accountable to that. And I am just telling you, if you are listening to this right now, if you are a manager and you don’t deliver on what you promise for your team, what happens is one, judge you, and two, people start to go, well if he doesn’t take his or job or she she doesn’t take her job seriously, I don’t either. So why don’t we do this quote here from Steven Covey. Steven Covey is obviously a famous bestselling author, most notably for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline. Carrying it out.” So leader can say “hey, this is what you need to do”, but the manager has to make sure that it gets done. So to our anonymous person asking us this question, the reason why you’ve struggled in the past is because one, you didn’t define what they needed to do and two, you didn’t define what you needed to do.
Number 3: You’ve got to time block. If you get a chance to go to thrivetimeshow.com, you can visit the home website of our radio show. I am telling you, we have people all over the world listening to this. What happens is, when I am with you guys, I am not with my wife. I love my wife and your wives are great. But by being here, we are choosing not to be somewhere else. If you are listening right now, we are committing to you. We are saying that we are bringing the very best that we can to help you to start or grow a successful business. We are blocking out time. I have a 105 missed emails today, on Facebook, I have 12 and messages, I have 99. So what I do is I don’t respond to Facebook and I don’t respond to LinkedIn. I only respond to my emails and I am very close to not doing that anymore. I commit to what I am going to commit to and that’s all I am going to do. I block out time so if I am on the show right now, I am committed to the show. I am not going to be checking my Facebook while I am on the show. I am blocking out time. I have a great notable quotable here from John Maxwell. “Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the key to maximizing the time we have.” Let’s just break that down, okay? So what he is saying is John Maxwell, the author of 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership, which Tim Redmond is featured in. He says that time management is an oxymoron so what he si saying that it is not really possible. It is a contradiction in terms. Time you can’t control that. We all have 24 hours in a day and the clock keeps ticking. You can’t stop it. Priority management. The answer is that time is not going to stop ticking so what I am going to do is I am going to do this, but not this. And that is going to frustrate some people. So this week, I had a young guy that said “hey, I would really like to meet you to explain to you about a direct selling opportunity I have.” I said “are you talking about multilevel?” He said “I am talking about multilevel. I said “that there is no way in Haides that I am going to meet with you at a $7 salad bar to discuss with you the intricacies of how to sell for your triple black diamond executive of your multilevel or whatever it is. I am not doing it.” Tell me what you did. I came home about 5:45 and turned on my TV. My son watches any video that he can find about landscaping devices. He has watched how to mow a lawn, how to weed eat a lawn, the blower on the lawn because my son wants to mow lawns. He’s coming of age, becoming a man, becoming an entrepreneur and he says that he wants to mow lawns. I watch those freakin videos with him and I watch the ones with zero turn radius. The one with a zero turn he is excited about. I told him that in the month of October, I will buy him a brand new mower, if he does A, B, C of that video. And you know what I did when I finished watching that video? I had a little sweet potatoes that my wife made, it was so good. I remember this like it was yesterday because it was yesterday. You know what I did after that Tim? I tried to have baby 6. I tried to create our 6th kid. But what I did is I didn’t go to Panera Bread to talk about how to multilevel a product that I am not interested in. It’s not a bad product, it’s just that I am not interested in it. The clock keeps ticking, Josh. It keeps getting louder and louder. My dad is dying of ALS. It is the final days. it’s sad. I go by and visit him faithfully. i love my dad. I am aware of my fatility as a human. I am here right now because I know that this is where I am supposed to be. So I am asking you where you are supposed to be. So start blocking out time for what matters. Quit getting distracted. Don’t feel bad all the time that you missed 99 Facebook messages.
Number 4: Accept and embrace your trade offs, eyes wide open. The thing is that you are going to have to trade off and say no to some things, yes to some things. People are going to get frustrated. The soap box derby. Can you walk us through the origins of that, Tim? I don’t know. They originally just raced in soap boxes and the name just stuck. WE carve the food. In the youth soap box program, it began in the United States since 1934. The world championship final is held every year in Ohio. I think everyone knew that. People get competitive. Have you ever seen this before, Josh? I have only seen it on an episode of Full House. My son was asked to be on a team. I love my son and do a lot of things with my son. They asked him to go and I said what day and he said that it’s a certain day of the week, that day of the week, I am already with clients. This is a good father and son opportunity. I don’t care what your views of a father are, I am not just going to go to a soap box derby because you told me. I don’t care. I didn’t value you it with my dad, I don’t value it with your dad. The thing is, this guy wanted me to do it. So somehow, I don’t know how I did it. I had an appointment that cancelled and I was able to get out to this thing. And I am so glad that I didn’t attend consistently. This father is calling another father. They are putting a stop watch as it is going down the ramp. I am so glad that I am not part of this culture. All I am saying is that there are people out there that will pull you into their bunko parties, their home fellowship group, to their soap box. If you feel that you are supposed to go to the home fellowship, then go. If you are supposed to be with your wife, you do it. But don’t let other people put their stuff on you.
Only block off time for what matters to you and your family based upon the five F’s: faith, family, finance, fitness, friendship. Block out time for that, everything else, not so much. That is how you do it. Josh, you have a notable quotable. I have a great notable quotable here from Steve Jobs, former CEO of Pixar, co-founder of Apple. Steve said “People think focus means saying yes to the thing that you have got to focus on, but that is not what it means at all. It means saying no to the other 100 good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I am actually as proud of the things we haven’t done, as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.” Josh, people all over the world are reaching out to you saying “hey, could you help me make a video, could you help me make a commercial.” How many things do you say no to? Do you wait once a month or once a year? Do you ever do that when you look at something and said “I can’t do it.” Yeah, I have looked at something and said yeah this is no longer worth the time that I am going to put into it. It’s time for someone else to do other things. Tim, have there been times when you have looked at something and said I can’t just find my time here? Oh yeah, saying no is very powerful. There used to be a group called the Tulsa Bridal Associations. But I started it as a way for wedding vendors in Tulsa, Oklahoma to connect and to network. Over time, the group met weekly and then a monthly meeting. We met, we met, every time. We had a Panera Bread and we met in the little banquet room there. We started a wedding show and it was called the Tulsa Bridal Association Show. We merged that Tulsaweddingshow.com. The tulsaweddingshow.com is still available today and it is still actually a show. So we merged that with that show. We became the biggest show in Oklahoma. Things began to take off, we began to make a lot of money. And then I accomplished my goal of creating a wedding show that was successful. And then I got asked if I could speak at this event? Could you speak at this event? Could you go to Oklahoma City to speak as our ambassador. Now I got a problem, I don’t want to go to Oklahoma City. Then they said could you speak at this event we have it’s in Las Vegas with wedding professionals. We really like you though. You are our Tulsa guy and it would be really great to have you represent. What I am representing a bridal association in Las Vegas? What? It would be great if you were our delegate. Then the U.S. chamber reaches out and says it would be really great if you could represent Tulsa business owners by coming to this conference. I really did not want to do that. But do you know what I did? I went to it. You know what I can’t get back? Time. So I remember it’s on youtube. I went to DC for an event and I went, “what am i doing? I don’t even want to be at this stupid event. I am in Washington D.C. talking to politicians about who gives a crap. And there are all of these politicians. You get four minutes with them, three minutes with them and it’s not a conversation. It’s not a discussion. They’re not asking you how they can help. They are going “oh it’s so great that you won this award. I would love it if you could get this photo.” And the politician is going “Oh it’s great to meet you, Craig. Oh yeah let’s get a photo. Oh Tulsa, I love Tulsa, I love Oklahoma. thanks for representing district whatever.” So last year, we won an award for Thrive15.com and you know what I did, Tim? I think you stayed home. That’s right. I didn’t go. You did send your delegation. But yeah I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t going to produce me more time, not going to make me anymore money. So yeah, I didn’t care. But I do focus on the things that I do care about. I am not going to hire somebody to go to my kids events for me. I am not going to hire some guy in the office and say “hey I know it’s kind of weird, but my wife likes to have one on one emotional conversations and I am kind of more like an action guy. But is their anyway that you could come over and talk to my wife about how she feels and I’ll come in later.” No! You can’t delegate certain stuff. Quit being an idiot. So I am asking you if you are listening right now. What are you trading off? You are trying to do both. You are trying to do this. You are trying to do that. You can have a great family and a great financial future, but where are you dropping the ball because you are trying to do everything?
Tim, is there anything that you’ve had to stop doing ever? I know you have had a lot of success, but is there anything ever? I remember when I was writing my book. It was a big process. It was a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be to have that level of quality that I wanted. And I had to say no to casually watching TV when my brain is tired because I had to protect my morning by watching my evening. How i treated my evening determined the quality of my morning. And it’s in the morning that I would wake up early and I would just crank 2-3 hours in the morning. That is how I just plowed through and got it done. So that is one illustration. If I wanted to get something done I had to say no to at least one or two other things. I find, Clay, that the more successful you get, the more you get to say no. It is profound. I will tell you. I have been on the homeowners association for a neighborhood. Josh, here is the call. “Thank you for calling Silverwood. Unfortunately, we are not available to answer your phone. Leave your name and number after the beep and we will be in touch.” This is the voicemail every time and I am changing the name so that I don’t get in trouble. “Hi, um my name is Ashley Smith. I live at 100 S. 86th and I wanted to..well, technically, my phone number is 918-481-5756 and I had a question. Well not a really a question, but a concern. There was somebody who has parked their car. And the way that they are parking their car is making it hard for my husband and I to do our nightly walks. When we walk, we have to walk around. It is hard to explain, but the back of their car is blocking the sidewalk, even though technically it is on their driveway and I wanted to see if you could check the ordinances because I have a concern.” Next message. “Hi, this is Ashley Smith.” and it would be at least 90 seconds before she would explain her name and phone number. She would repeat everything at least 3 times. “There was a man who is smoking. When I say smoking, I mean nothing illegal. What he is doing, is he is smoking cigarettes and the smoke is going into my yard. Now he is down the road. I just didn’t know what the rule was for second hand smoking. I was looking in the covenants and I wanted to see if you could address it at the next HOA meeting. Also, the meeting, I have noticed those are on Wednesdays and those conflicts directly with our church time. And I wanted to see if that would be something that you would be willing to address with the board.” So, I tried calling back these people. So this is my move Josh. It was super shady, but I felt good about it. So Josh, role play like you are this person Ashley. “Hi, this is Ashley.” “Hey Ashley, this is Clay up here with this HOA. How are you doing?” “Clay, hi.” “So I was reading in the covenants and apparently you have to talk to the neighbor personally about any concerns that you have and at least 3 times and document it. When you do, call us back, but I need you to talk to them at least 3 times.” “Oh I didn’t know that.” And she would always push back. “Oh I didn’t know that. Could you do it?” “Here’s the deal. I am walking in, I have a meeting right now. I am gonna call you back. Super important to me. But I will talk to you later.” “Okay.” Now this only got awkward when I ran into this person at a pool party. I go to a pool party and they go are you Clay? and I am like “uhhh, yeah.” “So you are the one who parks the vehicles over the sidewalk.” “Uh, yep.” “So all of the complaints went to you?” “Yep.” And she was so mad, but I felt good all year. So all I am saying is that I ended up getting out of that HOA. So the guy that was president, Mike. He was like get me out of here. And this HOA is such a stupid group. There was like 150 homeowners that would just. People are paying like $195 to be a part of the HOA which maintains the grounds. And they act like they have been elected to congress or that they are a part of some sort of part of the military. And some guy, he was a big guy and he would go, “hey man, I have a concern. You guys purchased some new lawn chairs and them lawn chairs, man, I don’t know if you got a good deal on them because I saw them at Lowe’s for $99 and it seemed like I saw that you bought em for $129. And I need to talk to you about it because after what I put in.” I used to do this, I would call them and I would go “hey, how much do you think I could of saved by shopping at Lowes?” “Man, i tell you what. It would probably be about $29 per piece.” “Here is the deal. How many did I buy?” “18.” “I will write you a personal check for 18 times 30 if you don’t talk to me again.” I just got to the point where I am like screw you guys because I committed to it. I am just telling you, beware of serving on boards and committing to crap that doesn’t matter. We are talking about the five steps to becoming a good manager.
Okay, we are going to do a quick review. Number 1: Determine your team’s KPI’s. Number 2: Determine your daily KPI’s. Number 3: Time Block. Number 4: Accept and embrace your trade offs arms wide open. And number 5: Burn your boat; refuse to quit. This is huge. If you are going to manage. If you are going to get in the world of management. If you are going to try and run a company and hold people accountable, you have got to be the warrior leading the charge. You have got to be the guy running out front. Remember Willy Wallace? Oh yeah. How does Willy Wallce sound by the way? He says “ You can’t take away our freedom. You can take our lives, but you’ll never take our freedom.” If you remember that from Braveheart, it is a thing where he is out front though. Anytime that you watch a great company, a great business, the leader is out front. Putting in the capital, dealing with the criticism, working the late hours. It wasn’t like Walt Disney was sitting back in a hammock going “Well, you guys should probably market these disney characters a little bit because i am over here sipping margaritas and I don’t have time for that.” The business owner is always working. The senior pastor is always working. The founder is always working. Grinding. So you have got to decide: Are you going to be out front? Are you going to be that painted face warrior out front? I want to give you a story and Josh is going to read the story. And Josh, can you kinda read this story, read it in a way that kind of takes us back and into the moment. Here we go, Josh. “Along while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which ensured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe. Who’s men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into his boats, sailed to his enemies countries, unloaded soldiers and equipment and then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle he said, you see the boats going up in smoke? That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win. We now have no choice. We win or we parish.” And they won. So, max out your credit card and start a business. Go get a small business loan, go start a business. Go for it. Have 5 kids, be a dad, go for it. I can’t go back and go “Well kids, here is the deal. Your father’s discovered that he doesn’t want to be your father because it is too hard.” Well, you can do that, if you want to be weak. Many do. If you want to be weak, a weak soft boss, a weak father. I know a lot of guys that do that. You suck. If you are listening to this right now, get off our show. Go apologize to your kids. Get it back together. Come back talk to us later So a lot of people. I met a guy, true story, about a year and a half ago. He says “I really want to come work with ya. Here is the deal, I need to come home on the weekends to visit my kids. We’ve all been through stuff. We have either been married, divorced, we have all had some issues.I’ve been married for 15 years, but maybe you were married and then you got divorced. Maybe something horrible happened and you lost your spouse, I don’t know. I’m not judging that. All I am saying is. I am talking to the guy and He says if I could buy him a ticket to go visit his kids. And I said okay, fine. “Why aren’t you with your kids?” “Well, the thing is in a relationship where I decided to see somebody else and it ended badly. So I want to go see my kids.” “So, you chose to end the marriage. Does she want to be with you?” “Yeah.” “Do you regret it?” “How many kids do you have?” “I have quite a few. I have four.” “You have four kids and you only see them twice a week?” “Well, technically I haven’t seen them in about a year, but I wanted to start to see them twice a week. I wanted to know if you guys could buy me a plane ticket to maybe go see them maybe once or twice a year.” And the profundity of what he was saying alarmed me was that he had kids on a trial basis. He had a marriage on a trial basis. He had jobs on a trial basis. You, my friend, are struggling with commitment. So, the reason you are failing in your marriage, in your family, in your business, is you struggle to commit. So committing means burn your freaking boats. If you are all in, be all in. Don’t partner with me, don’t say you want to start a basketball coaching facility or you want to start a hair cut business with me, or you want to partner with me. Tim, you and I work together a lot and I bet. Once a week I piss you off, once a week you piss me off. But you know what, we are committed to winning. And you know what, when you commit, you come together and you say “I am going to move the I out of the way. I am going to commit. I am going to come together, but I am going to commit to the goal here.” Get the I out of the way. The letter I is right in the middle of the way, but you get it out of the way a little bit. I am going to get this done. And that is hard sometimes, to move yourself out of the way and say I am going to do what I said I was going to do. Sometimes, Tim sent me an email and said can we get this done. and it’s like on a Sunday. I don’t check my emails on a Sunday. I get up on Monday about 2 am and I go “Frick! He’s emailed me this huge thing.” And I have to get it done because I have committed. I am a partner with Tim, I work with Tim. He is invest in Thrive 15.com. And then we have the radio show. We are so excited to be the Thrivetime show which is on talk radio, 1170. So exciting. You can go up there and check it out. Thrivetimeshow.com. We’re excited they have committed with us, they have teamed up with us and said we are going to put you on the air live. Millions of people can hear you a week. But they want certain things to be done at their standard. “frick! You mean I have to do what I said I was going to do?” Yeah. So if you are struggling right now, whoever you are, to manage people, I’ll tell you why. Because you are probably too comfortable. And Clifton Taulbert, one of my business coach mentors, he told me this. I wrote this down and I am going to read it to you because he gave it to me. Google Clifton, C-L-I-F-T-O-N T-A-U-L-B-E-R-T, he is the guy that helped introduce the stair master into the market. He grew up in times when he could not go into banks, but he ended up starting a bank. he could not go into banks because of the color of his skin due to legal segregation. And then he ended up being a partner and founder of a bank. He says “Well, if you’re satisfied and comfortable, you won’t ever move forward.” So if you are completely satisfied and you are comfortable, you won’t ever move forward. So maybe you are listening right now and you are like “Man, I am completely satisfied. I have a job that sucks, I am comfortable. I have a house that sucks, but I am comfortable with that. My house sucks, my job sucks, my marriage sucks, but I am comfortable with that.” Well get uncomfortable. Find a way to get a business coach or a mentor, or someone who can help you. And that is why we have the mentors available at Thrive15.com. We have one on one sessions. We have, for 19 bucks a month, you can have the online training. But you have to surround yourself people that will make you uncomfortable. Tim, do you have anything else that you want to add about burning your boats and refusing to quit? Yeah, there’s something that happens when you do that on the outside, burning the boats, there is something that happens on the inside of you that sets in motion certainty, a faith. I don’t care what it takes, I am gonna pull out my can of whoop ass and we are going to make it happen. That’s tough. What the world really needs is that thing locked up on the inside of you wanting to get out and when it gets out, you feel a lot better. It is really hard when you don’t have a backup plan. With the radio show, I’ll tell you what. When you go to the Thrive Time Show, it’s two hours everyday live. And we have committed to doing it. I’ll tell you what. I did not sleep at all for 48 hours. I had to get our search engine reports done a couple of months ago and there was a critical error and i promised my customers that I would get em done. I did not sleep. And I am not exaggerating, I did not sleep for about 30 hours. It was a 48 hour window and I did not sleep for 30 hours because I promised that I would get something done and I got them all done. And I just ended up passing out when I got done. People say “How do you do it?” Because I commit, I get nervous, I get upset, I get anxious if I don’t honor my commitment.
So if you’re listening right now, and you are struggling to manage people, I am going to review these 5 with you. Tim, I want you to chime in on these as we go through these. I want you to make sure that there is nothing else, okay? So one, determine your key performance indicators for your team. Tim, what do you want to add there? You have got to be super clear there. This takes extra time here, Clay. I have fallen down and made mistakes here because I haven’t taken time to get my arms around, get super clear on the teams KPI’s. Two, you have to determine your own KPI’s. You as a leader, you have to commit to what you are going to do. Third, time block. Tim, time block. Time block is the key to living a prioritized life. If you don’t time block, priorities will escape out of your hand. You will talk about stuff, you won’t do stuff. Four, you’ve got to accept and embrace your trade off. You’ve got to be eyes wide open. Tim, why is that so big? You just have to know. Effectiveness is making good decisions and making good decisions, you’re evaluating what your moving towards and when you’re moving towards, you’re also moving away from something. You’ve got to be very aware of the trade off, of the sacrifice that your destiny is required of you. Talked to a young guy today and he told me he is going to do anything that it takes to be successful. He is an insurance agent. Anything it takes to be successful and I said “Do you watch TV every night?” And he said, “Absolutely.” “Stop doing that.” He said “Why?” I said “Because more people are available between 5pm and 7pm. Make calls during 5pm and 7pm. More people answer the phone.” “I’m not willing to do that.” It’s like meatloaf. I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that. Won’t do what? Oh no. You won’t turn off the TV to make calls for 2 hours a day, meatloaf? I mean what’s going on? And the final one: You’ve got to burn your boats; refuse to quit. Tim, what does that mean to you my friend? Say that one more time. Yeah, if you say burn your boat, refuse to quit. What do you mean by that? I burned my boat, refused to quit. What do you mean by that? You are willing. It is super clear in your mind what you are willing to give up to what you want to get. A lot of people don’t get what they want because they are not clear in what they want to give up. Make that list of what you want to get and what you want you are willing to give up and what you are not willing to give up. Okay? Make a list of your five F’s. Your faith, your family, your financial, your fitness, your goals. Make a list of what you are willing to give up and only give up that much, but give it up in exchange for what you want to get. Josh, I appreciate you being here today man. I appreciate you letting me harass you consistently. If people want to learn more about today’s program, go to Thrive15.com. We’ve got the video versions of our trainings, access to the world’s best business school, thousands of training templates, best practice downloads, exclusive access to in person workshops and ask us anything business question. Josh. You want to hear any old podcast, you want to hear the radio show, go to thrivetimeshow.com. That’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hey, becoming a good manager doesn’t end here. We’ve got so many good trainings on thrive15.com. Become a member, come to that in person workshop. Learn all about becoming a good manager. I want to thank business coach, Clay Clark. I also want to thank business coach, Tim Redmond. It’s been very educational, very awesome. Everybody wants to rule the world, you’ve got to learn how to do it. Wow. Crank that up, buddy. Let’s get out of here. It’s the thrive time podcast. We’ll see you next time.
