Clay Clark | Mass Marketing 101 With Seth Godin, Michael Dell & Wolfgang Puck + Interview With Wolfgang Puck + Tebow Joins Clay Clark’s June 27-28 2-Day Business Growth Workshop (29 Tickets Remain) + 13 Testimonials

Audio Transcription

Henry Ford said you can have any color car you want as long as it’s black. He didn’t say that because he liked black. He said it because black paint dries four hours faster than any other color. And if you can make a car four hours faster, you can make a car a little cheaper, and so the system. But the system was built on mass. How many people can we get to all buy the same thing? I’m slightly ashamed to say that the two most popular products in American refrigerators were American cheese, we basically named the worst possible flavor of cheese after my country, and Heinz ketchup. Both products made an enormous quantity. Both products marketed to everyone. That’s what industrialists need. Sell it to everyone. And that led to this whole idea of marketing. You know, this is Fancy Feast Gourmet Cat Food, a very popular product in the US. Let’s be clear. Cat food is not for cats, because if it was, it would come in mouse flavor. Cat food is for the people who buy it. That we tell a story to people that makes them happy to serve it to their cat. So I’m going to talk about marketing today, consumer marketing like this, not cat marketing, and business to business marketing, which if you do a Google search means you have to shake the hands of a lot of men wearing suits. Apparently in B2B marketing we spend a lot of time shaking hands, but the story is still the same. And the story revolves around industrialism. Polishing off the edges, figuring out how to do it again and again, make it more reliable, make it a system, do it the way you always do it. Hey Andrew, I have this idea. Okay, let me hear it. We’ve got a little bit of downtime before we interview our next guest, so why don’t we cold call Wolfgang Puck and see if he actually picks up the phone. Let’s do it. Okay, here we go. This old school rotary phone is awesome. Where did you find this phone? How do you use this thing? Seriously, previous to now, have you ever used a rotary phone? I haven’t. Have you ever used a phone that’s plugged into a wall? Hello? Are you Wolfgang Puck? Who is this? Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men. Eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Time Show. Now, one, two, one, here we go! Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive Nation, on today’s show we have the incredible opportunity to interview this celebrity chef whose soup I bought for my wife last week, the tomato basil. Mr. Wolfgang Puck, how are you, sir? Excellent, thank you. Wolfgang, I’m not sure how much money you make per can of soup, but I bought two cans of soup last week. It had nothing to do with interviewing you. I just buy two cans of your soup every week for my incredible life. So now I can keep my kids in school for the whole year. That’s nice. That’s nice. Well, you know, you have had so much success, but I’d like to start off at the bottom and the very beginning of your career. And I want to talk about your mother. Your mother was also a chef, and I’d love for you to share about her love of cooking and how that influenced you, and now your love of cooking. You know, my mother was an incredible person first, a great mother and everything. The only mistake she did in her life is marry my stepfather. You know, I don’t even want to get into that. Into the stepfather was like, you know, like a terror risk for us, for the family. We are drunk and this and that. But my mother was like a saint. Now, every summer when I was like 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, I spent time with her in the kitchen in a resort hotel on a lake in Carinthia where she used to work. And that’s how I got interested already, first in pastries. You know, if you’re 10, 12 years old, anything sweet, if it’s ice cream, a chocolate cake, whatever it is, you know, you get a little wedge of it and you are happy. So every time I did that, and then I used to help her bake shakes at home and things like that. So I got interested fairly early on and became friendly with some of the male chefs in the hotel where my mother worked. Little by little, I became 14 years old and then I had to decide what to do, to go to school, a tech school or whatever it would be. I wanted to be an architect, but they only had one school in Vienna. So then I talked to my mom and said, you know, maybe I’m gonna become a cook or a pastry cook. And then she had, her boss found me a job in Philak at the Post Hotel. And that’s where I started at 14. I left my home gladly because of my stepfather. And I started to cook professionally at 14. So if you’re out there and you’re feeling sorry for yourself that you had to start working at 18 or 19 or 20 I mean I worked at Target and Applebee’s and DirecTV all at the same time I was working 60 hours a week on a slow week 90 hours a week on an average week if you feel overworked because you have to work as a young guy I have a motivational quote for you from the incredible American philosopher, Adam Sandler. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I’d love for you to share with the listeners out there, we have so many Americans that listen to the show and they’re not familiar with your culture. Why at the age of 14 did you have to choose a profession or a technical school? Can you walk us through your culture you grew up in and why you had to make a decision so young? Yeah, I was, I come from Austria in the southern part, really in the countryside, totally, you know, there were only 11 houses, two farmers and a few houses. There was no street name, no asphalt on the streets, only dirt roads and everything. If we wanted strawberries or mushrooms, we went up in the forest and picked them in the summer. In the winter, we skied. So it was really, in the rural Austria, we had no running water, no central air, or anything like that. The toilet was 100 meters outside in the garden, at the end of the garden. So I grew up fairly, you know, modest, I would say. You know, we had meat once a week, generally on Sundays. And then the rest, my grandmother and my mother, they’re really good cooks. They cooked a lot of sweets, like a dish called palachinken or kaiserschmarrn or grinschmarrn, all this famous Austrian heart-based treats. And I think some days we had Wienerschnitzel or fried chicken, that was our big splurge, you know. And I think I got lucky because it was all farm to table, really. You know, when my mother made vegetable soup, she went in the garden, picked up a leek, had two potatoes, some carrots, a little cauliflower, maybe beans or peas, chop them up, cook them, and you say, oh my God, they taste so delicious. And even today still, or when I used to go when she was alive, I always told your mom, make your vegetable soup, and I went in the summer, right from the garden. And you know, she made it, and I said, oh, it reminds me of my childhood. So your mom was the queen of organic farm-to-table food before it was a thing. Before it was a category, your mom may have been the innovator of farm-to-table. Now, when you were 17, I understand that you decided to leave and you went to France where you stayed for seven years. What motivated you to move to France and stay there for seven years? We had a restaurant from Dijon called Trois Faisons. they came to cook in our hotel for a week and cook that specialty of Burgundy. So in Burgundy, the famous thing is now, you know, with the garlic butter and they bought it. They bought the shells with it. And I know that’s not yet. Yeah, there’s no say in this. You know, I see them in the garden. But when it’s raining and appearances, then they are cooking with a lot of wine like they make this soup too with red wine and I don’t know how many bottles they use and everything. So I thought you know this is really exciting the way they cook. So I said I want to go to France. So I wrote them a letter and they accepted me as a stagiaire and I started to work there and then after one year we get a sign to get Michelin and I look through the guide and there are one star, two star and three star restaurants. So I said, I’m not going home to Austria. I want to work in a three star restaurant. And the first restaurant who said yes was Beaumontier, Raymond Thillier at Beaumontier. And I think that was my luck really, because up to then, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to stay as a cook. You know, I liked it, but I wasn’t really passionate about it. So but when I saw it, Juliet at Bowman, yeah, he was the chef and owner. The passion he had for the ingredients, the passion he had for cooking. I said, I want to be like this guy. And I still remember, you know what this is what I want to do on top of it he had three stars and cooked amazing food. You are a guy who I know the listeners out there are listening today they’re taking notes can you give us the recipe how many bottles of wine do you have to consume before snails become appealing? You know what? It depends where you grow up probably You know, it’s like people eat duck feet or eat the eyes of the fish or eat the brain So, it really depends how you grow up. You know, you look at the Chinese days, everything possible Wolfgang, you said duck feet? Did you say duck feet? Yeah. Wow! That is… You cook them, you obviously clean them of all the outer shells really well, and then you cook them in a good sauce until they get really gelatinous. Obviously, before you cook them, you cut off the nails and everything so it looks better. You don’t want dirty nails in there. And then you eat them and say, oh my God, this is really delicious. Okay, now you, my understanding is that you started hearing about Cadillacs, Chevrolets, American movies, and then you got inspired to move to the United States. Do you remember that moment when you thought, okay, I’m going to go to the United States of America? You know, as kids in Austria, we watched cowboy movies, and we watched these movies, I think, about the cops in San Francisco and everything. And that was amazing. And then the pastry chef, I was working at McCain’s in Paris, but they’re all at the beginning. I mean, I just started there. And he came back from Chicago. McCain’s has opened an outpost in Chicago. And he told me, you know what, you’re young. You should go to America. You’ll make so much more money. And it’s amazing. And this and that. And he walked me into it and then by accident a year later a guy came to me, his name is Sander Neuer from New York, and he needed a chef and we had the same friend. He lived in New York already, but he had a friend in Paris who was also my friend and they talked and just, you know what, I have this young Austrian and see us and who wants to go to America, let’s talk to him. And so they talked to me and I got all excited and came to New York. So what was the first job that you landed in New York? So my friend Jean Desnauliers, who is my friend now, brought me over to be a chef in his restaurant in New York called La Coulee. They all had a few different versions of it. They just opened a new one, I think, on 61st Street and Madison. But at that time, it was 70th Street and Madison. And I walked into the restaurant and I said, this is not the cooking I want to do. They had like this piece, you know, like where they had that steak frites and just simple dishes, you know, good dishes, maybe, but simple. But I cooked in street style restaurants like Bon Bon Noir or Maxine’s or whatever, that was in Monaco and so forth. So I said, no, I don’t want to cook here. And then a friend of mine who owned La Grenouille in New York, Charles Marson, I went to see him. I knew him from Paris. I went to see him. Maybe he had a job. And he says, you know, I don’t have a job right now, but let me call my friend in Chicago. He called his friend in Chicago and they said, we need a chef in Indianapolis. And I said, Indianapolis, my eyes lit up because I know of the 500 mile race they have there that we made. And then I said, you know, I want to go because Indianapolis, I lived in Monaco, you know, I said, Monaco, you have to take out the race. And I said, oh, that would be probably similar to Monaco. So I took the Greyhound bus with the last hundred dollars I had left and took the bus from New York to Indianapolis, which took like I think a day and a half or something to get there. And I got there and I said, oh, this is Indianapolis. Nothing like Monaco. But I had no more money and I got a job there as a chef in a French restaurant. Now, who first inspired you or what first inspired you to become a restaurant owner? When I came from Indianapolis to LA and I worked in a restaurant called Mama’s Own. Mama’s Own at that time did like $20,000 a month in business. I mean that was in the 70s. And little by little we went to $50,000. A year later to a hundred thousand a month. That was the total revenue a month. And then we grew and grew and grew. But Patrick, who was the owner then, still didn’t trust me really. We still had to manage our time with Bex when he wasn’t there and everything. Even I was a top owner too. They didn’t have the money to pay me, so they gave me like 8 or 10% of the restaurant. And you know, at that time it was 8 or 10% of nothing really, because we didn’t make any money. Everything was on COD. You know, when I went to the fish market, I bought the lobster shells to make lobster soup and some famous restaurant there, of course, they bought the lobster meat to make lobster cocktail. So we had no money, but I became successful with the restaurant. People loved the food. It became one of the most talked about restaurants. I remember having awesome wealth come every day for lunch and I used to sit and talk to him, even wrote a little introduction for my cookbook. So we became very friendly with a lot of other people too, like Billy Wilder, you know, the outstanding movie director and writer, and with Chuck Lemon and Susan Blanchett and Bob Newhart. So they all used to come like two, three times a week to our rest to my maison. But Patrick didn’t really trust me. And then I said, you know, I have to do my own restaurant. I want to be in charge. I don’t want to ask somebody for a raise. I want to decide what I’m going to cook. Even I did that there anyway, but if I wanted more money, if I wanted to change the plates, anything like that, I had to ask him because he signed the checks. So I said, I will not sign the checks. I want to be the one in charge. And then in 1981, I found a space on Sunset Boulevard and in 1982, in January 16, I opened Spago and the rest is history. My friend, how did you first get the money needed to open your restaurant and how did you market Spago? Okay, so I had a cooking school called my cuisine and I had a lot of lawyers, I had dentists and some shrinks and everything who used to come to my cooking classes because I made it participation. So they’re all there working, drinking and I always had a case of wine there too. So I had like 18 people in my cooking class and one day I announced that I want to open my own restaurant but I don’t have the money. So I drew up a business plan with a lawyer and said, okay, we’re going to get investors. We need $500,000 and hopefully we have the space on Sunset Boulevard and hopefully we can raise the money. So we raised the money. I went to the bank and got, and And we put together then I think like 550,000 and then I took the place, signed the lease and built the restaurant. And the funny thing is when I left, my mom told me, you know, you will be back crying for your job. You know, you have a good job here, but you’re leaving this and that. Well, I’m not coming back. And as a matter of fact, so we opened in January, it was a whole new way of the restaurant, new style of the restaurant with an open kitchen. We had a wood-burning pizza oven, a wood-burning grill. Now it seems like every restaurant has to have that, but at that time it was nothing in L.A. like that or in California. We talk about this often, but probably not enough. If you’re going to open up a restaurant or any kind of business at all, you must be remarkable. And Wolfgang Puck just explained to you how his first restaurant, Spago, was different than the other restaurants of its time. It had an open kitchen where nobody else did. It had an open wood-burning stove, and nobody else did. It was just a different kind of restaurant. And if you’re out there in this cluttered world of commerce and capitalism, and you want to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers and be successful, you’re going to have to be remarkable. But one of the byproducts of being remarkable is that nobody ever receives unanimous praise, ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re the President of the United States, if you are the President of the United States, and you are President Obama. Nobody receives unanimous praise. Even President Obama, who had a very high favorability score at one point, would only be approved by 58% of Americans, 57% of Americans. Even President Ronald Reagan, who was loved by Americans for a while there, his approval rating isn’t going to go north of 60%, 65%. Nobody receives unanimous praise ever. And you cannot afford to die the death of a thousand compromises with your business. You must absolutely fight for that purple cow that’s going to differentiate your business and make you stand out. Because if you are not memorable, you are forgettable in this cluttered world of commerce and capitalism. And now back to our interview with Wolfgang Puck. We opened a restaurant and it became this immediate success, bigger than I ever thought. I wanted to have a little neighborhood restaurant, but it became huge. And I think it was the hardest thing. Every morning I went to the fish market, I went to the farm down in Rancho Santa Fe, the Chino farm, picking up vegetables. So we used really basic food and didn’t make it complicated but we just used the best ingredients. And I remember I had customers like Johnny Carson, you know, we made pizzas at that time. So we made the smoked salmon pizza, duck sausage pizza and things like that. And Johnny, every Friday used to come and take 10 pizzas home. And I said to him, oh, Johnny, what are you doing with 10 pizzas? He had a party. I said, no, I put them in my freezer. And then when I play cards with my friends, my housekeeper makes me a pizza and it’s just as good as yours. He said, that’s not possible. And that’s actually how I started my frozen pizza company, because he can cook them as well. So it ended up in another business. So Johnny Carson is the inspiration for your frozen pizza collection. Yeah. I want to make sure we don’t skip over some powerful knowledge bombs that Wolfgang Puck is breaking down. One, he talked about every morning he would go out and pick out fresh vegetables and fresh produce and fresh meat. Every day he would pick out the freshest ingredients, every day. And as you listen to this interview, think about how hard Wolfgang Puck was working at the time. You see, success is built as a result of daily diligence that is implemented over the design of a decade or over five years. It’s not about being diligent one time. It’s not about being highly motivated for one day or having that one big idea. It’s about being consistent. The diligence is the difference maker. Diligence means the steady application of effort. And the diligent people always win. Now I want to tee up this particular portion of the interview. I want to make sure you’re not skipping over this part. He said that Johnny Carson and others would basically buy pizzas from him and bring them home and put it in their freezers and then reheat them later. And he noticed that people were doing this and then that became a product. You see, products just solve problems for your ideal and likely buyers at a profit. Again, entrepreneurs, they simply entrepreneurs, business people, successful business entrepreneurs. All they’re doing is finding a problem that is being experienced by many of their ideal and likely buyers and then they solve that problem at a profit. It is so important that you learn the process of finding a need and filling it. Every entrepreneur I’ve ever met who’s super successful, they have this ability to see the problem that the customer is expressing or speaking about that nobody else really sees. They seem to be able to see the problem that Johnny Carson had. Johnny Carson wanted to have Wolfgang Puck’s frozen pizza, but the market didn’t, the product didn’t exist yet to fill that market need. And so Wolfgang, after he saw this, Johnny Carson routinely buying his pizzas and freezing them, he realized, wow, that’s a problem that the market has and I’m gonna fill it. I’m gonna find a need and fill it. And that right there is why I’m so fired up about Wolfgang Puck. Grab a pen and a pad and let’s get back into the lab as we interview Wolfgang Puck. Your life is a fascinating one and I don’t expect you to do a bunch of research on me, but I did a bunch of research on you. I grew up poor. It sounds like you grew up with very humble beginnings. I don’t know what it’s like to not be on my feet and to work 12 hours a day. I don’t understand. I’ve never had a nine to five job where I take a break. I started my first business when I was 16 in my parents’ basement. I’ve been self-employed for a long time. Can I ask you, how many hours a week were you working when you launched Spago? Well, let me just tell you how I started. When I interviewed somebody for a job, then they asked me how many hours they work. I told them 12 hours is only half a day. If you want to work half a day, it’s fine. People looked at me and said, what are you talking about? I said, yeah, isn’t 12 hours half a day? They said, yeah. So I said, well, you can work half a day or you can work more. And you know, obviously I paid them and everything. But so we, or myself, or for sure, never counted the hours. You know, I- Can you, just for me, just for the benefit of our listeners, there’s about a half a million people that just want to know, what time were you waking up when you were launching Spago? Were you waking up at four or five in the morning? I used to go at 6.30 in the morning. So I woke up at 6.30 in the morning. I used to go to the fish market downtown, pick up the fish, and then come back to the restaurant, you know, maybe by nine or so, have a coffee, maybe go home, take a shower. I didn’t live too far away. And then went back, talked with Mark Beal and Nancy Silverstone who were the chef at the pastry chef, what we’re gonna do that day. We looked at the fish I bought and everything. And then walked and finished the last customer maybe at midnight. Midnight, 12.30. And often I used to sit at the end of the night and looking out the window and I said, I don’t know how I’m going to run this restaurant. People want to come. I tell them, come at 10.30. They said, OK, we come at 10.30. So we were cooking from 6, like the service was from 6 until 12, 12.30 at night. And what gang was that? Seven days a week? It was really like crazy. I never thought we’re gonna go that, gonna be that busy. And I remember the second month we were open, we were positive. We made money. Were you open seven days a week? Yeah. I know you’ve never counted the hours, but I’m just, I’m going to help you here because I know you don’t want the listeners out there to know. It sounds like you’re working at least 18 hours a day and seven days a week. You probably logged 126 hours a week. I think that’s a fair estimate. That is awesome and that is so encouraging for somebody out there who feels like, man, I’m working so hard because now people look at you and say, wow, but a lot of people don’t want to focus on the grind and the energy and the effort you put in all those years to build this thing. Can you comment on, there was Japanese investors that reached out to you to open a Spago in Tokyo. And if I get this very correct, I think they said, we would love to open up a Spago in Tokyo. We’d love for you to help us, but if not, we’ll just open it on our own. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. As you begin to scale your business, somebody is going to want to copy your business plan in your systems. Exactly. It’s going to happen. So just go ahead and emotionally prepare yourself. So what happened is this Japanese people came over, and because we got so much press so fast, you know, the whole new sensation and open kitchen, nobody had the right tablecloth restaurant with the kitchen open and it was like a theater stage and everything. So when they came over and they wanted to do a restaurant and just first I said, no, forget it. I barely can run one restaurant. How can a restaurant be a running restaurant in Tokyo so far away? So that came back maybe three or four months later and with the plans, with the kitchen layout, exactly what I had at that thing. It’s a matter of fact, it was funny because just like Spargo, you might say it was up the hill a little bit on from sunset. They found this thing on the second floor of a little building that you have to go up some steps and they lined the kitchen up with the pizza oven, with their pasta cooker, with everything. The cold station. Exactly like I had it. They took pictures of the furniture, they knew where to get the chairs, where to get everything. If you are an entrepreneur, I’m telling you, trust nobody. You have so many competitors out there that are looking just to copy your stuff. They’re going to want to copy all your business cards, your print pieces, your strategies, your processes, every checklist. People are going to want to copy it. So once you begin to nail down your business model and the systems that work, now you want to look at copywriting and trademarking the things you’ve worked so hard to build and test in this marketplace. Again, get out there. Try to sell it. Get it in front of the marketplace. Don’t listen to what people say about your product, but look at whether people buy your product. Don’t sit there and run your product idea by a bunch of your good buddies, and they all say, yeah, I’m definitely going to buy it. Go out there and actually market the product and see how many people buy the product. And then when people don’t buy the product, ask them what you could do to improve that product or service or restaurant or business. And then once you get that business model refined, that product refined, once you create something that the world likes and the world wants to buy, it is absolutely vital, as soon as possible, once you nail it down and before you scale it that you take the time to trademark and copyright the core aspects of your business model that make it unique. So they basically told me that, you know, and I didn’t copyright the name Spargo or anything like that. So they told me, you know, we’re going to open Spargo with you or without you. So I said, OK, let’s open it with me. So they gave me one third of the business. And then we went and the year after, in 83 in April, we opened Spago in Tokyo, which was a trip. And I took, you know, the pastry chef with me and I took the chef with me and the manager with me and they all stayed there. I stayed there maybe two weeks. And it was, it was an experience for me, I must say. You know what, I never thought that after a year, I can open my second restaurant so far away. And then six months later, in September, I opened a restaurant in Santa Monica called Chinois, which was my version of a Chinese restaurant. And that came like by accident. Somebody owned this little building there, and they said, oh, Jochen, we want a Spago in Santa Monica, which is like 12 miles from the original Spago. And I said, no, no, I don’t want to do another Spago. It’s too boring doing the same thing. And they said, so what do you want to do? I said, I want to do a Chinese restaurant. So then, uh, the guy said, okay, whatever you do, I’m sure it will be good. So we opened this, uh, Chinese restaurant, but I didn’t know about Chinese food. I’ve never cooked Chinese food. I never cooked in a wok. So I said, okay, I want to do my style of Chinese food. And it really became this sensation. And even yesterday, it was Chinese New Year, we celebrated at Chinoise, a group of Chinese people who came from China and ate the food. And the first thing they said, they said, you know, we never had Chinese New Year. We never had a menu like that in Beijing. They were from Beijing. They said, we’re going to come now for every Chinese New Year celebration you have. So even the Chinese said, you know what, this is really interesting. Now some local Chinese restaurants didn’t like it because we were packed. You have to reserve two weeks ahead of time. And their restaurant was maybe half empty and it was different. And they said that’s a Caucasian cooking Chinese food. How can that happen? So there’s some controversy with it. I’m going to keep harping on this idea because it is so important that somebody out there Gets this idea today Seth Godin the best-selling author of the purple cow Transform your business by being remarkable rights. It’s remarkable. It’s likely that some people won’t like you That’s part of the definition of remarkable Nobody gets unanimous praise ever. The best that Timot could hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out. Wolfgang was out there in the marketplace generating a buzz. He’s out there creating Chinese food, but yet he’s a Caucasian guy. And you know what happened? Certain people got upset with him. And you know what’s going to happen to you? Certain people are going to get upset with you, because if you are remarkable, somebody won’t like it. Just read my iTunes reviews to see. Nobody ever receives unanimous praise. It doesn’t matter how hard I work on this podcast, it doesn’t matter how hard you work on your business, it doesn’t matter what I say on this show or what I don’t say on this show, it doesn’t matter what you do in your business or what you don’t do, even if you do everything perfectly to the absolute best of your ability, you will receive criticism because the best that Timot can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out. You don’t look Chinese to me. Do you have any Chinese ancestry at all there Wolfgang? Because you make some incredible Chinese food. You know I tell everybody I’m half Chinese. My mother was Chinese, half Chinese. It’s also a joke. I also said joke, but no. But I think today, you know, you look in America, it doesn’t matter if you are from Africa or if you are from England or wherever you are from, you can cook great food as long as you love food and as long as you love passion. Now we interviewed recently a man by the name of Shep Gordon, a man who I know you know very well. Yeah. Could you talk to me about your relationship with Shep and the role he played in helping you to become the celebrity chef that you are today? You know, it’s so interesting because when I met, I know Shep Gordon for many years, so you could be a first-class guy who passed away already. So when Shep was in LA, he produced movies, he was in the record business with Alice Cooper and all these guys. And we became very friendly because he liked food. You know, I became friends with anybody who likes food. I ate in New York, Dumpers, or somewhere else. And then I got Seth Gordon. So one time, we did the whole thing in Hawaii. I think it was on a big island of Hawaii, like a chef’s thing, you know, like for the bounty of Hawaii. So we had different chefs from all over the country, a little bit like Paul Cushom, or Alice Walters, Jonathan Batchman, I don’t know, maybe a few more. And we were like the main thing. So then, when it was over, the next day, we were all sitting there for lunch, and I had my chef from Pustio make lunch for us, and then they gave us a bill. You know, I was full-life because we have some salad, but we actually went and made the food. And then they gave us the bill, and he said, what is wrong with this picture here? You guys work here? He said, did they pay you? I said, no. They gave us a free room and paid for the trip. And he said, yes, but they talked to every customer, and not even talked to you. So he said, you guys have an agent? I said, no. And he said, maybe we have to get in and plan it better. So I called my friends, I called Paul and Alice and Emmerdale and Jonathan, and I don’t know how many we are, maybe eight or 10, Jeff Mark Miller and Larry Pagione. And so then we all sat together in a restaurant in San Francisco and decided we should become our agent. Now at that time, I started to get really busy already. So what a chef really did a lot and for being fairing, I was so busy already because I owned all these restaurants already by then. You know, I did consulting for an airline, I did consulting for the mansion in Dallas, for the Hannah Ranch in Maui, for the Remington in Houston. So I didn’t need really a chef to do work for me because I couldn’t go and cook in New Orleans or in Dallas or whatever and get $5,000 a day. It’s at that time for us was a lot of money, but he helped a lot all these other guys who did not have DD experience. Like I did the Johnny Carson show and David Letterman show and Good Morning America from 86 on. So I was already on TV at that time. There are no chefs really was on TV as much as I was. But you know, he helped a lot of other chefs and we did a great job with them. We are still great friends. Now, did he influence my career? He did. Why? And what was really positive, he said, don’t sell yourself cheap, so charge enough money. Now your food, your name, your brand is synonymous with cuisine, with gourmet, with celebrity chef. Why have you decided to put your name on all of your products? A lot of people pull back from that. Why have you decided to put your name on all of the products? You know, curiosity. I am very curious about doing all the French eggs. So in the 80s, a friend of mine told me, OK, we don’t have any good soups there. You know, you have Campbell’s soup and progresso, but they are not really quality. Why don’t you devise recipes and make So we went then and made that a really delicious soup, just like we made it in the restaurant. Now we had to put it in a can too, but at least the ingredients were good. Like at that time when you taste it, like my Panjanian soup and their Panjanian soup of the other companies, it was like the end night. So that became pretty successful too then. So I was always interested in different things. So then I remember Lou Wasserman came up to me and said that they built a universal city walk and says, well, Ken, you know why you don’t build this cargo up there? You know, we really need a restaurant. I said, you know, city walk is a touristy idea. People don’t wanna spend that money on that much time. They come and visit the universal film studios. So that’s when I started the first cafe and now we have cafes like that in airports around the world and in Disney World and places like that. So I think for me, when there’s something new, I really love it. And then years later, in the 90s, I was friendly with George Foreman. And George Foreman and a friend of mine made up this girl, the Foreman Girl, which became a sensation and was really successful. And then the guy who worked with you told me, I said, Wolfgang, why you don’t do something like that? I said, well, okay, you know, and then we started to make pots and pans. We tried to sell them on QVC. I didn’t know how to sell them or what I want. I think we did away with the frontiers and whatever. So then we sold them off at H&M and then I talked with the people at H&M and we made a cheaper version of that still good quality but not as expensive not as thick the the iron and everything. So then that became a really good business all of a sudden. So I stayed with it and I’m still there for over 20 years now. So why why do I do it? Sometimes I ask myself, why do I do all that stuff? Two years ago, the Wall Street Journal did an article about me. And then they asked me, Mr. Wolf, can you do all these things? And what is your dream? What are you still thinking of? And I said, my dream would be to go to Harvard. I never went to high school. I never went to college or anything. So enough, a few days later, the Dean of Harvard Business School calls and says, Wolken, I have the perfect thing for you. It’s called OPM, Owner-President Management. It’s about three months long, not in one course, it’s three times a month. You should try to do that if you really want to go, if that is really your dream. So what did I do? I enrolled at Harvard, so I have one more month to go. So in March, end of March, I’m going to have to graduate. Well pre-congratulations! That’s exciting, my friend! I said, who would have known that I come from this little village in Austria, you know, where the school had two rooms only, two classrooms, and now I’m going to, I went to Harvard, you know? It’s like, to me, it is like the dream. Sometimes when I think, is it really true? You know, it’s funny. But what it is really is my curiosity, I think. I’m interested in so many different things. I’m curious with so many different things. So that’s why I do so many things. And sometimes, Gaily, my wife, tells me, when you gonna rest? When you gonna be, you’re not so young anymore, you think you’re young, but you’re not that young anymore. Why you don’t just relax and don’t do all that stuff?” I said, well, but I like it, so. My friends, you see, Wolfgang Puck isn’t in a rush to retire because he loves what he does. And I’ll never forget, years ago I was reading a book called Life and Death, which is written by Russell Simmons. And Russell Simmons is the legendary co-founder of a company called Def Jam. They introduced the world to the Beastie Boys, to LL Cool J, to Jay-Z, and other massive hip-hop artists. He essentially is known as the father of hip-hop. He also launched the Def Comedy Jam, and he was the founder of the Fat Farm clothing and apparel line, but he says the goal is to be able to live your life the way that Michael Jordan played basketball or Marvin Gaye sang a song. To be able to feel the way you feel when you laugh at a joke, but to feel that way all the time. Wow. What would it be like if you could build a business that would allow you the time, freedom, and financial freedom to do whatever you wanted to do on a daily basis. To pursue your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. What would it be like if you could do that? Because once you get to a place in life where every day is a perfect day that has been perfectly designed by you, it is so exciting. Yeah, there will be some interruptions and a few frustrations along the way, but that is infinitely exciting for me. I can honestly tell you that’s what I love about doing this show, is because I know that every time I interview these guests, this is what the Lord wants me to do. I’m doing what I’m called to do. I’m helping great people like you, and I know that you’re going to find that business model that’s going to create that time and financial freedom for you as well. Now back to our interview with Wolfgang Puck. I am 69. You look like you’re probably 34. If I had to guess, you’ve probably eaten all that organic stuff your mom taught you about as a kid. That’s probably what’s going on right there. I want to ask you this because there’s so many listeners that are just infinitely curious about this. How do you organize the first four hours of your day, and what time do you typically wake up? So I get up like at 6 in the morning. At 6.30 I wake up my son Oliver and then you know I read the paper a little bit I wake him up and then we have a trainer who comes and he exercises with me in the morning or sometimes he doesn’t exercise, when he doesn’t have to go to school or whatever, but at school, he goes to his five minutes away, so it makes it really easy. So then after that, you know, I take a shower, get ready, and then I look what are my appointments for today, which I have to keep, you know? So, and then by nine o’clock, I leave the house and I go out to Spago or to the Bel Air Hotel or to Casa de la Revolución. Look what’s going on there. Now on Wednesdays, I might go in the morning early like right after the exercise is 7.30, I go to the farmers market in Santa Monica. Sometimes I go downtown or go to the fish market still. I don’t have to but I like it. So again, at 12 o’clock, generally I go to Spago because we have lunch or they pay us, we have lunch, but then two hours there. Then I come here to my office and look through all the things I have to do and, you know, plan new restaurants and do all that stuff. And then at six, at six o’clock and sometimes at four, four 30, I go and play tennis for an hour. And if I, especially if I’m stressed about something, then it’s good because I can hit the ball as hard as I want to. He doesn’t talk back. Yeah. So then I go do that. And then around 6.37, I have dinner with my wife, Delilah, and my two boys, Alexander, Oliver, and right now, Byron also, who is, you know, Tony, the chef, and the rest of our dinner too. And then I go back to the restaurant maybe for a few hours like last night. I was down at Chimor for Chinese New Year and I sat with the Queen and Puck for a while and with Dr. Alatraz who is the doctor for the Rams and he talked about the Super Bowl and walked to the kitchen and talked to Chef Rainier for a while. And then I had 11 o’clock at home. So you went home at 11 o’clock last night? Yeah. Now, you are a guy who, you’re involved in a lot of things. You got your own brands of food. You have books you’ve written. You have restaurants you’re running. How many different businesses, and maybe you don’t even know the exact answer, but how many different businesses are you involved in right now, or different locations? How many different businesses? OK. To make it simpler for you, we have really three divisions in our business. I have three divisions in my business. One is called fine dining. You know, we have all the restaurants. We have 27 restaurants around the world. Like we are in LA, Las Vegas, Dallas, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Detroit, Washington, Orlando, London, Istanbul, Singapore, Bahrain, Qatar, and so forth. Maui. So we have 27 of them. I am two more in the building process. I’m born in Washington, D.C. and then one in Los Angeles here at the pantry hotel. That is going to run the whole food service. So we’re working on that right now. And then the most exciting part is that in a few years away, we are working with Frank Gehry to open a restaurant on the beach here in LA. So that’s going to be a big project, but it’s a few years away. Now I want to ask you two final questions for you. You have this restaurant in New York that you’ve launched. Tell us about this newest venture and what it’s like and why all the listeners should go check it out. Yeah, no, you know what? Cutting in Newark at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown is really a jewel in a way. You know, it is a steak restaurant, a steakhouse restaurant, but with a lot of different options. If you’re a vegan, you can go there and have the most exciting vegan meal. Like I was there and I had the risotto with celery and black truffle. I said, you know what? I don’t need meat if I have a dish like that. But you also have turbo, which is my favorite fish. We also have black bass, which is great and lobster. And then we have meats from all over a little bit, but also a lot of local ingredients. You know, we use local beef and local lamb from New York state, actually. And from Pennsylvania, we get the duck and chicken. So it’s really locally oriented. And it was designed by Jacques Garcia, who’s really an amazing designer. So you can come to the bar and have little snacks at the bar, from the mini burgers to a steak tartare or some Asian-influenced dishes. And like we all have little biscuits, like a Southerners biscuits with caviar and smoked salmon. So you can have that all you go to the restaurant and then you have great appetizers, great raw fish dishes and things like that, salads. And then if you love steak, like one of my favorite one is the double New York steak, cooked on the bone. And I cook it like medium rare and cook the bone really well done so it gets really hot inside too. And then just keep it simple, you know, put a little sea salt on top and maybe a little salt from a French fries because I love French fries and onion rings. And then for dessert, I love pies. You know, one of the great legends in America is all these different pies. If you say a pecan pie or a key lime pie or a banana cream pie or a raspberry or blackberry pie or blueberry pie. So I’m bringing this whole new idea of modernizing and bringing it there so people can have a great steak and maybe a blueberry pie with some blueberry icing for the syrup or maybe a pecan pie. So for me, it’s really exciting also to reinvent the old school dishes and make them new again. Wolfgang might. I think if you cut, I think you can come to the bar, hang out at the bar, have a drink and have some bar snacks. But really good into one like right now, we have a great sourdough right there. And you make a good cheese sandwich with black truffles. And you know what people say I just gonna have to dinner with that have a glass or two glasses of red wine and have that for dinner you know the good season for black crackers or people don’t want crackers we make it without the crackers but I think it’s really simple and really really tasty. Now for listeners out there that are taking notes where’s this located again you said it’s in the Four Seasons? In the Four Seasons Hotel downtown on 0th Street. Okay, now my final question for you. Listeners out there who won’t get a chance to talk to you one-on-one, if you’re sitting down there with a young entrepreneur today and they’re asking you for Wolfgang, what’s the one piece of advice? What’s the one, if you could give me just one piece of the golden keys to the universe, talk to me, what’s the advice you would give all the entrepreneurs out there? Well, I really believe, you know, if you are passionate about whatever you do, if it’s in the food business and the tech business, I think you have to follow your dreams and don’t take no for an answer. There are so many naysayers out there who said you won’t be successful. And like when I told people, you know, 38 years ago that I’m going to make pizza. They said Wolfgang, you’re crazy. Nobody’s going to come to your restaurant and eat pizza. You know, and then we invented the new style of pizza and it became all the rage. And then, you know, it’s formed up hundreds of restaurants that make different pizzas. So don’t take no for an answer, but also be patient. You know, a lot of people think success is overnight. Success is like walking up steps into a big building. You know, it’s one step at a time. And I think that’s really important. But I tell all the young chefs, especially, to be patient. Go to work and go to restaurant. Make the mistakes there, learn there. And then, if you’re ready, you say, okay, I know cooking is an important part of the restaurant business, but you have to manage a lot of people. You know, you won’t have to make money because if not, you won’t stay in business. So it’s a lot of components, you know, to run a restaurant or any business. Wolfgang, it is an honor to have you on the show. Hopefully this is not the worst interview you’ve ever been on. I thank you so much, my friend. Never, never, never. You know what? I really think for me, if I can inspire some young people and tell them, you know what, I started with nothing. I had not a penny left when I went to Indianapolis. I had to stay in a motel I couldn’t check out. I had no money to pay for it. But I think at the end of the day, if you work hard and you think for yourself, 12 hours is only half a day, I guarantee you if you’re patient, you have passion, you will be successful. Wolfgang, thank you so much and I hope you have a great rest of your evening. I know, I’m getting ready for the Oscars almost. Oh wow! Thank you. Will you take care, sir? Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Alright, so if you’ve been listening to today’s show, there’s a lot you can unpack. There’s a lot of specific steps that Wolfgang taught, but I just want to kind of recap a few of the knowledge bombs that I think that every listener out there should be very aware of. One, Wolfgang Puck was willing to work seven days a week to make his dreams happen. I’m not saying you should work seven days a week, but I think you should ask the question to yourself rhetorically, how many hours per week am I actually willing to work to turn my goals and dreams into reality. Because Wolfgang Puck was willing to work seven days a week. Maybe you want to work five days a week or six days a week, but you have to be intellectually honest about what you’re asking for. If you want to be great, you’ve got to be willing to invest great amounts of hours. And if you want to be average, you’ve got to put in an average amount of hours. And that’s just what’s required to be successful. Second teaching point. Wolfgang Puck talked about this. He said that he went out there and borrowed, he raised money, he raised over half a million dollars of investment capital to start his first restaurant, after he’d been working for years for other people. And I would ask you this, what’s your risk tolerance? Are you willing to raise a half a million dollars to start something you believe in? Or maybe $10,000 or $20,000 or $100,000. But you’ve got to be very self-aware about your risk tolerance and how much money you’re willing to bet on your big idea. Knowledge bomb number three, action item number three that I heard during today’s show, is Wolfgang created a purple cow. When Wolfgang created his first restaurant, Spago, he created a business that was very different from any other business. It was the only restaurant that he knew of with an open kitchen and a wood-fired oven. It was the first restaurant that did a lot of things differently than everybody else, and that’s why he stood out. When he started his first Asian restaurant, he was a Caucasian guy starting an Asian restaurant. Again, these are purple cows. These are remarkable ideas, and that is why his businesses stood out in the cluttered world of commerce and capitalism. So I want you to ask yourself today, what are your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun? What are your goals for your faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, and fun? And what are you willing to give up in order to achieve those goals? And if you enjoyed today’s show, I would encourage you to share today’s show with a friend or a family member You’re listening to the thrive time show on your radio and podcast Download and therefore we in each and every show with a boom because we believe that the big overwhelming Optimistic momentum that Wolfgang Puck brought to his business on a daily basis is what you need to succeed And so now that he further ado three two one boom. I was always interested in math and science and when the microprocessor showed up, I was you know, figuring out what was inside and learning about all the hardware and the software, electronics. And the thing that I observed was that the parts inside the computer, none of them were made by IBM, and I calculated it was about $500 worth of cost. And they were selling the computer for about $3,000. And that seemed, you know, kind of, well, it seemed actually at first unfair, you know, it’s like, how come they’re charging so much? And then, you know, you had these computer dealers that were selling the computers and they were, you know, people that the week before have been selling car stereos or shoes and they really know anything about the computers. And that seemed like another problem, okay. And so, you know, as I was sort of going along, it kind of occurred to me, hey, you know, we could sell the computers directly to the customer. And there’s another problem, it actually took IBM a really long time to get the latest technology into the computer. So you could read about or learn about new technology, but you get the idea. So, yeah, I kind of saw this opportunity and, you know, business took off. So, you know, that story, you were, what was your age at that point? Dell when I was 19. It was the end of my freshman year. It was one week before my final exams. Maybe not the best time to incorporate a company, but that’s what I did. Hi, Marshall and everyone at 315. This is Shannon Roberts at Lofty Beauty Lounge. I never do this kind of stuff, so I feel a bit awkward, but I just wanted to let you know that I have had such a tremendous response to all the ads you’ve created and just all the magic you’ve worked and things are really picking up super fast. I’m absolutely elated and so, so happy that I found you guys and all your help is tremendous and I just, I’m blown away. I just can’t wait for things to grow even further and work with you guys more and I really appreciate Everything that you’ve done to get me to this point thus far. So have a wonderful day. Happy holidays Hello, I’m Wes Carter I’m one of the shareholders at winters and keen my favorite thing that thrive has helped me accomplish here in our firm is Thinking a little bit outside the box. They do SEO, they do printing, they help us with a lot of things from the day to day marketing for the firm, but they also help us think of things that as attorneys we probably wouldn’t normally think of that help us market our services to our clients. One of the things I love about working with Thrive is that they make it enjoyable to actually do work with them. It’s not dry, it’s usually fun, but it’s always very enjoyable and practical. They give me things and ideas that I can put into place. It’s not just some theoretical spiel that they give me. We get practical steps that we work on together to do my job better. So me personally, I would easily recommend Thrive 15 services to my friends, my families, I’d recommend them to my clients. I think they do a good job, they’re passionate, they care about their clients, and I think it’s actually a valuable service they provide to people that are in the business world. My name is Jeff Thomas. I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s all about getting to the grindstone. It is about putting the, it’s one thing to have a specific vision or a dream, but knowledge without application isn’t knowledge at all. That’s nothing. Really funny, the atmosphere is very lively. Everybody that is working for Clay is very upbeat and not tired, not sluggish, not complaining, not whining. They don’t have anything to do with those types of characteristics. It’s all about getting to the grind and having fun while you do it. I haven’t actually been to any conferences in the past, but what I will say from what I’ve seen on YouTube and what from other friends have told me is this isn’t like a motivational kind of thing to just, you know, hoo-hoo, rah-rah, get you motivated, but it’s like practical steps that if you do take them, which most people aren’t willing to do, then you will grow and you will achieve the specific things that you want. Well, for one thing, I will say that this isn’t necessarily for everyone. So if you’re not willing to work, this isn’t for you. But I will say that if you are willing to work and you know you’re just getting started but you have actually taken a step in that direction, then this will actually help you grow further exponentially than you could ever imagine. My name is Taylor Hall. I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers professional hockey team. You know, our goal every night here at the BOK Center is to try to fill the seats with lots of people and create an exciting environment so when somebody comes to a game, they want to come back. Working with Clay and the staff at Thrive, they’ve really helped us in many, many ways. Website and graphic design and video production and a lot of things that go along. And a lot of businesses, including ours, doesn’t have a staff or a full-time videographer or graphic designer. But the biggest thing that we noticed was the needle mover. More sales, more attendance, more successes in business. We had a record year last season working with Clay for the first time. Our average attendance is higher than it’s ever been, so there was a lot of really cool things that we did and they worked. That’s the nice thing about working with Clay and the team over there. It’s just not one person, you get the entire team. If you need video design and editing and production, they’ve got that. If you need graphic design, if you need some coaching, your sales people and call scripts, PR, they offer all that. Clay was instrumental in helping guiding us and getting us on the right track so that we could really raise the bar and become ultra successful. So it’s been an amazing experience for me. My name is Kaitlyn. I own a tumbling gym called Justice Tumbling Company. Working with Clay is so helpful. He’s diligent with everything and making sure we execute our goals and really make things happen. It’s fun, it’s high, it really gets you energized and going and makes you really want to work. To get the momentum going, to really get that buzz, I’m in the charcoal grilling industry and the name of my business is Grillblazer. How will I apply what I’ve learned so far into my business? I’m actually a client of Tri15 and I learn so much from what I’m learning at this conference and my regular weekly attendance that it’s helping me establish this and get it off the ground. Clay’s presentation style is just blatant disregard for what anybody wants. He just has fun, it’s him, everything that you see is authentically Clay. It’s a great deal of fun. Everybody enjoys it. They know when you walk in they think they’re coming in to a carnival and frankly they are. It’s just great fun. There’s not another conference like it. You don’t go to a carnival atmosphere and learn like they do here at the Tri-Cities. It’s great. The reason people should attend at least one of these conferences is because it’s common sense. And everybody’s said an entire line about the way you should run a business, but until you actually experience running a business, which is, candidly, what you learn here, how to run a business. You don’t know what you’re doing. My name is Tyler Hastings, and this is my wife, Rachel, and our company is Delricht Research, out of New Orleans. During our time working with Thrive, we’ve had numerous successes. When we first started, we were working with one physician, we had one research site, and we were seeing on average, you know, between 10 and 15 patients a week. Since working with Thrive in the last 18 months, we now have four research sites, we work with over five physicians, and on average we’re now seeing over 60 patients per week. Recently we’ve been the top enroller worldwide in seven studies, which is just incredible considering where we were, you know, two years ago, 18 months ago. Thrive really differs from the other conferences that we’ve been to and the other kind of programs that we’ve been through because they actually really practice what they preach and they implement the same systems and the processes that they teach you about and they give you real life examples that really work for them and show you with the training how to implement that yourself. For example, Tyler and I actually got the opportunity to come out to Tulsa and we’re fortunate enough that the Thrive team took us out to some of the businesses that they own and we really got to see in real life, real time, some of the systems and processes and it was just incredible. A real life example of some of the businesses and the things that they’re implementing. Having a coach is important to us. They act as not only an accountability factor, but they’re someone we can talk to on a daily basis as we go through the problems of running a business that inevitably come up. They always understand what we’re going through and they’re always there to help us or guide us through the problems that we experience. The best part of our experience working with Thrive has just been seeing our relationship grow. So at each step as our business grows, they have something else to provide us with. They’ve got the resources, whether it be marketing, graphic design, website development, or even in accounting practices, maybe we need a new insurance policy. They have someone they can connect us with, or they have the direct resource we need to speak with for any of the problems we face. If someone’s thinking about signing up for the coaching program, I would highly recommend that they call in for a free 30-minute coaching session and see exactly what the team can do for you. Just speak with someone, let them know what you’re going through, and I think you’ll find that regardless of what you need, there is someone there that can help you. Clay’s presentation style is very real and raw, like it just gets real down to the bone of it and the real purpose of it. There’s no like fluffy vagueness about it, you know, so he really gets to the point. I’m always reminded about how important it is to be intentional and to really, really pay attention to how you schedule your time and really honor it, because whatever gets whatever good schedule gets done. That’s what he said from Lee Kopperel himself. Just constantly hearing that and getting reminded helps me to reinforce that in my own life. It always helps to get an outside perspective, and especially from a guy that’s grown so many multi-million dollar businesses. It doesn’t hurt. My name is Nick Guajardo. I heard about the Thrive Time Show workshop through Andy Mathren. He’s my, Andy Mathren and Larry Montgomery, they’re my bosses at Restore Home Health. So I work with a home health company called Restore Home Health. And my role is pretty much to bring in business. So I was hoping to learn kind of the sales process on top of just kind of the responsibilities and help understand what it looks like on the SEO side and just kind of an all-around what it looks like to own a business because that’s something I want to do in the future for sure. How I would describe the atmosphere here at Thrive is high energy, great professionalism, great people. It’s just a place you definitely want to visit and be at. Plays delivery style, humorous, professional, hilarious. I haven’t seen someone do it better. So he does a great job. Most valuable thing I’ve learned so far? A lot of it has been extremely valuable. But one thing that’s always really stuck out to me is the learning the SEO stuff. I mean that is I think things you don’t really even think about and then you hear it and you think you know it but you don’t know it. So I feel like that was the most valuable. Well they’re missing out on just what come down to just basic applications to be a business owner. I mean I feel like it’s like an an absolute necessity to come here and learn the ins and outs, and maybe come here once or twice if they take good notes, that kind of thing. Why? It’s the experience here and what you can learn, absolutely. Marketing and SEO seemed like something that would be very scary, but then in the way that Clay and his team described it, it became very clear and concise and something that’s very accessible to any business owner. I’ve learned a lot about marketing at this conference and a lot about business management and HR, really everything, the key components of anybody’s business, they’re going to give you the best tools to be successful. So most workshops or conferences can be really boring, really one-note or they just seem so theatrical that it’s a joke and it’s not even giving you tools that you need, or that you came there for. But here it’s still high energy. It’s still fun. Everything’s to the point, but it’s very professional. Yeah, you’re missing out on easy steps to use in your business that are very accessible and very clear. My name is Abigail McCarter. The best thing I’ve learned so far is definitely like organization, schedule wise, always keeping a to-do list, keeping your calendar organized. I’m kind of all over the place so that’s always good to know. So Clay’s presentation style and the atmosphere is electric. It’s so energetic, it’s so fun. Clay’s hilarious but also knows a ton so it’s just really great all around. This conference is much different than any other conference I’ve gone to, again because it’s fun. Like a lot of other conferences, it’s like really quiet, really cold, and you just kind of get bored. But this one, you’re like always engaged, you’re always learning something, and the staff is amazing, they’re always super helpful, so it’s just been really great. My name’s Clay Howard, we’re a personal training and fitness training facility. Oh wow, I’m learning a ton. Like this morning so far has been searches and optimization. So really just the importance of it over the long term strategy of your business. It’s amazing actually the way in this morning and yesterday I was videoing as I was walking in the front entrance and actually me I go to a lot of seminars, I go to a lot of conferences, massive ones. years old, so gosh, almost 20 years now. And this is by far the most entertaining. Not only the content, their content’s amazing, but Clay and you guys do a great job mixing in entertainment where it’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s lively, you never get bored. And I heard a study one time that the reason that children learn so much quicker is because it’s fun, learning is fun. And so obviously Clay is nailed that, where it’s very fun to be here and it keeps you awake, keeps you energized. So I’m having a blast. Yeah, I think any business owner or someone that wants to own a business or considering owning and starting a business should definitely come. I know that I was referred here by friends of mine and clients of mine and I’ve referred other people. Again, just to understand what it takes to make a business successful, But have a good time, obviously, you know, go to the stadium, have fun, and network. There’s a lot of people here you can learn from, and there’s a lot of great people to talk to, other people. So I think this is a must-attend for anybody that owns a business or that wants to start a business. My name’s Jamie Fagel. I’m with Jameson Fine Cabinetry. I heard about the conference through Andrew. He’s the coach that I deal with here at The Thrive. The most valuable piece I found, even working with Andrew, but it’s been solidified when it came here, was you gotta actually do the things that they’re telling you. With no action, you’re not gonna get anything from it. I would highly recommend this to almost anybody in business today. I have recommended it to some of my other business partners. It’s phenomenal. It’s really something that, if you wanna start a business, the only way of doing things is, Don, this is what you gotta do. It’s the only way it’ll work. Hey, this is Charles and Amber Kola. We’re the owners of Kola Fitness. The way we’re able to do that is working with Clay for the last three years. He has really readjusted our thinking and taught us that our business is here to serve us and by doing that we’re able to live the lifestyle we want and take off on a random vacation last minute. So we had totally planned on being at the conference. So wish we could be there and meet all of you. We know you’re having a great time. Yes, Clay in the last three years has helped us build all the necessary systems, checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks, audits that are always running and the right capable lieutenants to keep track of all that so that you too can get time freedom, financial freedom, and that’s what we have done and Clay has helped us do. We’ve got multiple companies in multiple states and they’re all doing very well getting ready to go to more locations in this next year and Co-op Fitness has a really big future. We’re teaming up with a couple other groups and we should scale the company here shortly. Hopefully we’ll open like 50 locations in the next 10 years. So but yeah we’re on the way. We’re gonna probably more than double our company, maybe triple our company in the next eight to nine months and it’s just awesome. God is working in our business and we’re making Jesus and changing lives. We’re a strong Christian company that focuses on making Jesus famous and changing lives in the fitness field. And this is Charles and Amber Cola. Thank you Thrive. Hit your action items. We love you guys. We wish you were there. You guys have a wonderful day. Bye-bye. My name is Jennifer Johnson. I’m in the pest control industry and also weed control and fertilization. And my business is Platinum Pest and Lawn. I’ll be able to apply a lot of the things that I’ve learned in our business because this is not my first conference and so a lot of the things that we learned we’ve put into place and now we’re doing the next level of refining the processes for just a different concept and so it’s getting better and better. Things that were just big processes before, we have the foundation laid and now we’re able to make it better and better than hearing different things now that we’ve implemented things and so we can just make it even better, implement it in our own business. Clay’s presentation and the atmosphere is very exciting and fun. It keeps you awake. It makes it interesting. You have a lot of information, but if it’s not going to be entertaining, your brain is going to tune it out. But Play makes it just entertaining enough that you retain what you learn. Lots of rhyming and catchy things so that you remember stuff. What makes this conference different than other workshops or conferences that I’ve been to is that there’s a lot of people here in my same situation. Most of us are pretty small businesses wanting to improve. And we want real life information and something that will work and that’s attainable. And not just some crazy magic formula, but actual action items that we can implement in our business and actually see a difference. Everyone should attend a drive type business conference, whether you’re a business owner or not. A, if you’re a business owner, it has practical applications that you can apply to so many different parts of your business. And then you need to come back for more so that you can keep doing more of the wonderful things that you learn. But secondly, I am also a mom of three kids and a lot of the concepts can actually be applied to home. Like getting routines and getting, setting systems at home has just seriously made a huge difference in my life at home. So I’ve been able to improve our business, but I’ve also been able to improve things at home. And so that’s why everyone should come, no matter what your station is in life. My name is Nolan Khoo. I’m originally from San Francisco, California. The industry that I’m in is financial services. I’ve learned a ton so far, but what I can best apply from this conference is the opportunity, that hunger, to go out there and make a big difference in my industry. Clay’s presentation style is amazing. He’s got an endless amount of energy. It’s contagious. And yeah, by being here, I really do want to go back and be able to face all the adversity that the industry has. Yeah, this conference, the thing that makes it different is it’s special because it has a unique set of individuals that all share that same energy. I think he picked it as dragon energy, but yeah, that’s what we do. Everyone should come to multiple, but their first would be very special. Yeah, you’re welcome with a lot of enthusiasm. That’ll last for a long time. My name is Gabriela Cruz. Our business is HDS Electric. My husband’s the owner, but I’m involved with that, and so we’re an electric company. Well, here at the conference they talk a lot about consistency, and so just staying consistent with different things in the business, and I feel like applying that to our business model will really help us grow. The atmosphere is very positive, uplifting, and it’s very fun and energetic, and so it gets you pumped and it gets you excited, and it encourages you to do big things. Probably how real they are. They tell you up front what you need to do and what’s like a no-go. And some conferences are, they kind of sugar coat things. So I like how real they are here. I think it will definitely, if you want your business to grow, I think this will be a great experience. And then not only that, it will encourage you and inform you on so many things you don’t think about on a daily basis. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I’ve definitely learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. So having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards. It’s pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Play is hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, and so the humor definitely helps. It breaks it up. But the content is awesome, off the charts, and it’s very interactive. You can raise your hand. It’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak. The wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely, it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone who’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information, but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches, getting in the thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they upsold, where it was great information and then they upsold us like half the conference and I want to like bang my head into a wall and she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her. Like it’s good information but we’re like oh my gosh I want to strangle you shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for and that’s not here. There’s no upsells or anything so that’s awesome. I hate that. It makes me angry. So glad that’s not happening. So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business. And I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15 conference. It’s the information that you’re going to get is just very, very beneficial and the mindset that you’re going to get that you’re going to leave with is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top Canine and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s good. Right? Right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you Clay and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy’s just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways just an amazing man. So anyways impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or you know navigating competition and an economy that’s like I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take it on for a period of time. He was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing and I encourage you if you haven’t worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working, and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day, and he loves it. So anyways, this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank you, Clay, and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay, it’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys, bye-bye. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes, and then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. We’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. When I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four-month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic, and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing and I think for a lot of people they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean the thing is it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a homebuilder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand and we just rolled with it. I love people, I love working with people, I love building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing, I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business having 16 agents But I have to give credit where credit’s due and clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us Has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing Don’t ever limit your vision when you dream big big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient, and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby! Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had to the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth in some like real estate sort of things. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind Nine Round Boxing, he’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk, and not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches, so he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks, I don’t want to get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now, people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Thrive is cool. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the Request Tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket, or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27 and 28. So you might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa Ruslim. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can just get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russell, get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years, 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military, and he started recording this podcast daily in his home, to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Prince Hill, RICO, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show, two day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com. James, one more time before you leave. Thrivetimeshow.com. Cause it can get dangerous, see these people I ride with. This moment, we are winning. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop all you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does not what they say. Good morning good morning good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. The definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah, that’s that’s the greatest thrill for me today not thrill but Recognition is when people young men especially come up and say I read your book change my life. I’m doing this I’m doing this I’m doing this I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa! Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you got to go to the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the roadmap out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the roadmap out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else can do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition’s gonna come eventually or try to pick up this package. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales which is awesome but Ryan is a really great salesman so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016 we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018 the month of October it’s only the 22nd we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the ThriveCon workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. I love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. GroupMuses completely eliminates that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It’s real critical if I’m going to grow and change. This place really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. you