Clay Clark | The Importance of Work Ethic, Punctuality, and Responsiveness With Johnny G + The Lee Cockerell Story – Breaking Through Adversity & Making More Money

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zulman. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, let me show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, let me show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Now we’re here. All right, Johnny, we are talking now about something that I know you are into, something that I know you live, you believe, feel very strongly about. So don’t hold back. We’re talking about work ethic, punctuality and responsiveness. So let’s unpack it. What does work ethic, punctuality and responsiveness mean to you? Work ethic is a reflection of yourself. So if you pride yourself, then work ethic is and where ethics is going to be like majorly important. To me, I’ve spent lots of time in lots of different jobs. And from my first job at 17, selling clothing on Saturday morning in an African outfitting store in South Africa. I used to stand outside in the cold. I used to wait for my dad to pick me up in the cold. When the store closed, I was the first to arrive and I was the last to leave. Okay. So work ethic to you is just whether it’s cold, whether it’s hot, whether you’re tired, whether you’re not, get there early, stay late. It’s whatever you need to do to get the job done. That’s what work ethic means to you. Yeah. When at the heart of my career, I actually did a ride, 2,000 people in the year 2000. That was the last person to leave. And if you can imagine so many people, the introductions, the commitment that it took, it was way, way, way into midnight. Now I’ve seen people arrive and they have the big show and they do their thing and they very quickly out of there. I always felt that my business, my life was a reflection of who I was as a human being. What about punctuality? Being on time, you know. I’m a crazy one with punctuality. Really? If you want to spend time, then we’ve got time, but it’s just beyond time. Do you prepare for things going wrong? So, like, for example, if you have to catch a flight, or if you have to be at somewhere for a speaking event, or somewhere for a demonstration, or somewhere, do you plan on everything possibly going wrong to allow you to always be punctual, or at least as much as possible? I once saw a friend of mine. He was a really busy professional. And I walked in five minutes late. And he said, I charge my time. And he said, it’s not a matter of you being late. It’s like you either have to leave where you’re going early, or you have to make a commitment to be here because it’s like my office and my time is not me charging you not to show up, but you having the respect to value my time. And it was like I sort of got it, didn’t get it, and then I really got it. And I related to what he was saying. And this was at a time where I needed to have things on time. To answer your question about the little things, yes, as an athlete I can relate as an athlete. My races that I did were called the race of truth. Race of truth? The race of truth. I never raced in a pack. I race solo. Which means the time watch clicks and when you cross the line it stops. So everything in between is what can go wrong. And each time you feel the threshold of pain you have a choice to back off, to tolerate it or go through it because when the clock ticks at the end of the day at the end of the event you can’t bring back a second so it was called the time trial and if you go into the internet and you look up time trialing the name for time trialing is the race of truth because you’re racing the clock and if you’re late you can’t bring back the clock and win. So the time trial in the Tour de France or the time trial in any major time trialing event is all about beating the clock. It’s about being there before somebody else hits that moment. So how maniacal do you take this as far as being punctual? I mean how intense are you? At that time? I mean that time and now. I mean how intense are you about this? Not respect. At that time it was a religion. So let me ask you this. You can’t win a race by being late. Apparently Reg Park, that’s the guy who was what Schwarzenegger’s mentor, mentor, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mentor? Yeah. The first man with the 20, you saying 20 inch arms? 20 inch arms and the greatest physique of all time. Back in the day, you were weighing, I mean, at the peak you were weighing maybe 220 or so, you were really into the weights? Yeah. And this guy was the guy who helped mentor you? Yeah. Tell me about his intensity, about punctuality and how that impacted you. Reg, if I was a minute late to pick him up to take to the gym, I don’t think that Reg would have ever shown up to allow me to have the privilege of driving into the gym, let alone learning from him or him writing my programs. Reg ate on time, he walked into the gym the second minute before the clock struck. He was so fastidious about his naps and his routine and I think that’s what made Reg Reg. So you picked up a little bit from him and a little bit from somebody else. You’re a guy who lives with a sense of calm. I mean you built a dojo paradise for yourself. So you’re still punctual but you also allow time to relax. I’m not going to say that I have time, connections. I plan my own travel. Okay, wait a minute. So let’s get into this. I’m going to unpack this. So I’m going to book you for a speaking event. Today is Tuesday. And you’re going to speak in Tulsa on Thursday. I’m in Tulsa on Wednesday. So you’re in Tulsa on Wednesday. I’m in Tulsa on Wednesday. Why? You’re not speaking until Thursday. It doesn’t matter. I’m in Tulsa on Wednesday. Do you catch the early flight or the late flight? What’s your mind? What’s your mindset? Time to take time so I have time to be early. Okay. So if a connection gets lost or bad weather happens or your flight gets delayed, you’re still going to be there on time? I’m going to be there on time Boom, okay. So you’re the punctuality is a big thing for you. This final one thing is responsiveness Just before we jump to the next question. Sure once in my career Germany Delay like 300 people. No on the bikes Planes late trains late, have to show up in a pair of karate pants and clogs at the time. No cycling shoes, no gear, no team gear. Straight from the airport to the event, everybody waiting. Tough day at the office. I go to Columbia and I get a call from the president’s wife. She wanted to have a meeting because she was a spinning fan. 450 people waiting for a ride. I was sweating. I was late. I arrived at the event late. There was a great excuse. Didn’t make an excuse. Felt uncomfortable, awkward, disconnected. disconnected and this possibly is now something looking back in the early years yeah is something that possibly took to extreme I was a time trialist. Time trialing and the bike was everything in my entire existence. I don’t think I could have been a champion or have won a race if time wasn’t as important as it was. So at the end of the day, just to distill this for all the thrivers, it is super important to have a great work ethic. But if you underscore that by being consistently late, and you are super non-responsive, like when people need you, then it doesn’t matter. So I wanna talk about this third part about this responsiveness. I realize that you personally don’t answer the phone for every single customer service call that comes in, because you have thousands of customers, millions of customers, millions of people who are part of the international movement you’ve created. But you expect your company to handle the customers responses and your customers questions on a responsive level. And you expect your direct reports to be responsive to you. Is this correct? Absolutely. And can you unpack what responsiveness means and why that plays into work ethic? If I’m running a business or you’re running a business and this business is based on feeling good about your product, the consumer or the person supporting your product is going to have a bad experience or a good experience. If a call comes in where someone’s anxious and you don’t get back to them, not good. Not good. If you have a deadline to meet and you don’t meet that deadline, not good. Not good. So we sort of accept some behavior, but in reality, punctuality, performance is really, really important because you’re taking somebody into account. That person you’re taking into account has feelings. Those feelings are either going to make them loyal or not loyal. Is it possible for somebody to achieve massive success in your mind without one, a solid work ethic, without two, at least a strong attempt to be punctual, and three, being very responsive? Is it possible to achieve success? No. So no matter how many of these episodes you watch or how much training you’re learning about how to make prototypes and build websites and accounting and sales and PR, if you can’t do these basic three, no go. No go. No go. No go. For years. You have a trade show. The trade show doors close at six o’clock. The loading dock closes at six. Closes at six. You arrive with all your product, your products out there, but it doesn’t hit the loading dock till six. What happens? You don’t get it in the shell. And if you don’t get it in the shell? You don’t sell any stuff. Yeah, and then you possibly don’t have an opportunity to sell any stuff because the people you’re representing aren’t going to give you stuff to sell. Tank. It’s huge. morning. He went to sleep in his cranking t-shirt. I just skyped with him and he picked up the call. He wanted me to give him some information so at nine o’clock this morning when he walks onto that trade show floor he feels like a champion. That information that I gave him was really, really, really important. If I wasn’t responsive he would have walked onto the trade show floor anyway. But his example on the trade show floor to represent me, the brand, the product, the people that brought him to Japan, wouldn’t have been the same as if his boss, his driving force, wasn’t responsive. On behalf of some of the Thrivers for Watch, I know they’re thinking this. How do you set boundaries for work and life for you personally? I mean, when you are, so let’s just say it’s Sunday, okay? Sunday, Sunday, it’s Sunday. You have people here and you’re having your Super Sunday. I don’t even know what that means. We’re having a Super Sunday at the dojo. Things are going on. We’ve got various people that you’re here to have a good time with. It’s not a work day. And the guy from Japan is calling you because he has a trade show in the morning. How responsive to you are you on Sunday? I’m responsive on a Sunday. You are? Why should a Sunday or a Monday or a Tuesday in the course of someone’s life, if it’s business structure, I open my shop at 9, I close my shop at six. These are my boundaries. The shop opens at nine, five minutes before nine, the employee is in the office, the shop opens its door at nine, and at six o’clock the till is empty and the door closes. On Sunday, Sunday is a day of rest in most people’s calendar. If you’re doing international business, or you’re working on global time, Sunday is actually not Sunday. In Taiwan, it’s actually Monday evening. Oh no. Yeah. So if you’re gonna be international, every day is a work day. Australia, Japan. Sean woke up right now at 6.30 in the morning in Japan. Really? Tomorrow. So just to wrap this up here, if you want to be successful you’re telling the thrivers you definitely have to have a solid work ethic, you definitely be punctual, and you definitely be responsive. Absolutely responsive. And that doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries. Okay, hit on boundaries. What do you mean? That is such a good one. What do you mean? When you say boundaries, I mean, the boundaries like, you know, hey, you just can’t step over here into this area. So to call an employee at 11 o’clock at night would be crossing a boundary. OK. To expect somebody to take time away from their family on family time in a business relationship could be crossing a boundary. Asking somebody to do something outside the nine to five may be crossing a boundary. So what battle is your team structured to fight? And who is your team that’s structured to be support in the battle that they need to fight? So if you’re running a basic operation in a city or a town where you have a structural time to do your business, I get it. My vision as a visionary and a motivator is slightly different because it’s global international and always has been global international. The team structure works on a different operational mentality. set of needs. Some companies in the past would be forced to have offices in each country and to do business with an office in each country. Yeah. Addressing the time zone of each country. The internet has made things possible to be alive 24 hours a day in any time zone, anywhere in the world. And you, do you with, you know, your staff, because you have a, it’s a business, it’s international, I mean, it’s all over the world, I would argue that the people who work with you probably would not work for you or work with you if you didn’t have a strong work ethic. And so, I guess it’s a capstone thought, final thought for the thrivers. If you may be able to kind of look into the camera and talk directly to the folks at home. If somebody’s struggling with being punctual, having that solid work ethic, and being responsive, what do you want to tell them? I’ve never seen anybody in business who had any success, huge success, that wasn’t punctual, that had no work ethic, that wasn’t committed to the process of taking care of others in the same way that they would take care of themselves. I’ve seen people pick up checks, I’ve seen people go to work, but as entrepreneurs and business owners, these principles are possibly being successful in your endeavor. I do believe that with all my heart. Thank you my friend I appreciate it. You’re welcome. In your career what are some of the most challenging times that you faced or what is the most challenging if you think back to your career some of the most challenging moments where you’re going man that was tough. Well certainly it was tough the night the waiter hit me and I went to the hospital and the union went on strike if they were they wanted the union wanted the hotel to fire me and caused me that I caused this and the hotel stood up for me frankly and that was stressful I was in New York or when I went to Chicago to work at the Conrad Hilton there was a chef who was about 40 years older than me and I was a young kid and I was putting pressure on him and my boss told me to stay out of the kitchen. Don’t bother the chef anymore. You know when you’re young and people don’t want you to be doing the right thing because you’re too young. Yeah. That was a setback. Certainly getting fired was a setback. Back to… How old were you when you got fired? I was about 29. Yeah. So you come home, you’re married at that time. Yeah. Come home to your wife. Do you go, hey I got fired today. Or how does that, yeah I got, came home and said I got fired today. Priscilla, God bless her, she didn’t say I told you so. She said, good, I don’t like it here. And we moved on. And she was great about that. You know, it could have gone the other way. Because under stressful situations and those kind of situations, so often people end up with divorces and all kinds of problems. But she was great. And so that was tough. I would say some stressful days were 9-11. I mean really stressful. 9-11. Handling that, our business went down 35% overnight. We had to cut costs dramatically. At Disney. At Disney. 35%. We had to take $350 million out of our cost base in a few weeks. Because our sales dropped. People wouldn’t fly. Dealing with the hurricanes. Those were not so stressful for me. I managed through them pretty well but you know nine thousand cast members couldn’t go back to their homes after the hurricanes. Just to give a quick clarity for people who don’t know, you’ve had three hurricanes that hit Disney World and Orlando had never really been hit by hurricanes and you had three in a row, is that right? Yeah, we had four in Florida in one month and three of them came right down Interstate 4 less than a mile from here. And you have thousands of guests staying there. 75,000 guests in the hotels. Wow. All these cast members. But I’ll tell you what, it was a great day. The cast members volunteered to stay overnight so they could get up, clean up the place, and get us open the next morning. It was incredible. You had employees volunteering to work overnight? The only thing they wanted to do is be able to bring their dog with them. They wouldn’t leave their dog at home alone. Now, a lot of people, I know myself, there’s all different definitions of poor. Some people, we have one guy who works with me now who actually grew up homeless. Other people have grown up on food stamps. Were you ever on food stamps or welfare? Did you ever grow up with it? I guess we probably could have been, but we had family who took care of us. When I think about it, we were pretty poor. We got married, I think we had three or four hundred dollars and a baby on the way next we slept on a couch for like a year because we didn’t have no money by a bedroom set and One of those roll-out couches what you can make into a bed at night and Yeah, we it was touch and go we didn’t have a car for a couple three years We lived in New York and got rid of the car because we couldn’t afford it. If I told my grandkids this stuff, they can’t believe that’s possible. So you went from poor though, I mean you basically started with nothing and worked your way up to where you are today. Priscilla owed me $100 when we got married. She had borrowed from me. So I think I had $300 and she had $100 or something. And I had a job making $8,000 a year and we could basically pay the rent and live on that. But there was no room for vacation or extravagant dinners. I think it’s super important for people to know that because I think a lot of people feel like, gosh, I can never get ahead because I’ve grown up in poverty and I know that all the research I’ve ever read shows the majority of the world’s wealthiest people started off poor and work worked their way up. Was there a savings plan that you and your wife had put in? Do you ever like a set percentage that you saved or anything like that just as far as? I don’t think we ever set a percentage but we’re very frugal. I mean we saved our money and I early on started investing and got a broker who happens to be at Merrill Lynch in Oklahoma who took care of my mother and he did quite well by us and we just put a little bit away at a time and we never had any debt. We were never in credit card debt. We never had, you know, I paid my mortgage off very quickly when I had a mortgage. We never bought something unless we could pay for it. Even today my wife drives a seven-year-old car and I drive a seven-year-old car. And we never outlived our income. And so we weren’t able to, but there’s a lot of things you can do. We went to the cheapest restaurants, you know, the international restaurants, the Lebanese restaurants where it was cheap to go to dinner, or a Mexican restaurant or something. So we, yeah, until things got better. Now, you’ve had a lot of success, and I know that one of the things that through Thrive we really want to communicate is that everybody has success, but it’s usually on the other side of failure. Were there some failures that you’re okay discussing, or was there like a big mistake? I guess, what are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve had in your career where you’re like, man, I can’t believe I did that? Well, my biggest mistake was arrogance. I’m highly disciplined and organized. And when you’re highly disciplined and organized and you’re insecure, you can be abusive and misuse your title and position. So I pushed people around and made them do it because I was the boss. And one time I went out to El Paso, Texas to visit one of my food and beverage directors. By then I was the vice president at Disney. I was the big man. I went out there to visit him. I’d never met him before. And when I got there, he had been transported to the hospital because of stress. He had passed out. And they brought him back that night. He was okay. And we had dinner and he told me he was totally stressed out because of me coming. My reputation had preceded me that Lee will always find something wrong. He’s my nickname was Doberman. Really? I was not talker Spaniel. And, uh, I was embarrassed over that. I really thought about, we had a good talk that night and I, I started really rethinking, went to some leadership classes, started reworking that because I didn’t like, my mother and grandmother would have killed me if they had heard that story. Because you want to be respected but not feared in my mind. It’s insecurity. People who abuse people are insecure. I mean I guarantee you that’s the number one, people who raise their voice, insecure. People who don’t respect people, it’s an insecurity, trying to make themselves be bigger. And I know that more today than any. Now for you when when you heard that that people thought that you were Doberman that was your nickname when you heard that how did you feel when you heard like this is the nickname you guys have given me? I mean how did you feel about that? I didn’t feel good. I felt bad and I knew I’d been raised better than that, and I knew that my grandmothers, but particularly, would be very disappointed in me. And I had to go through a lot of thinking about that. I immediately went and signed up for a one-week leadership course down at the University of Kentucky. It was being put on. I went down there and listened to people talk about leadership, how you get things done. And I started reading about leaders who had no authority, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and these people how they changed the world with no authority. And I thought about Nelson Mandela being in jail for 27 years, you know, as I’ve gone through my career. Martin Luther King and these people, they went all the way. Abraham Lincoln getting 13th Amendment passed. What he was, man, he just like, nobody, everybody hated him, and he got it done. And so I gradually, and I was getting more successful in my career, so my confidence was rising. So I was a little less, I had a little more confidence than I did early on. So I was, but it took time. Over several years did I slowly give up the control. I wanted to control people. I tell everybody I tried to control Priscilla for 25 years. It didn’t work too well. The day I quit criticizing her, she got better. This control thing is a problem. You’ve in your books, one of the themes I’ve, and I may be wrong in my understanding of it, but as I’ve read the books, I feel like leadership is a skill anyone can learn. It’s kind of your philosophy. You can learn it, it’s not just something you’re born with. Could you maybe dive into that for a second about just how you can learn this? I’m a good example of that. I was not a good leader. I was a good manager. I could control anything. You know, management’s defined as the act of controlling. When you’re in charge of something, you’re supposed to keep it under control. If you’re a project manager, under control means on time, on budget, cleanliness, friendly, safety. I was good at that. I mean, I can control anything. And I have high energy and I was organized. Leadership. Somebody told me once, I didn’t understand the concept of inspiring people to do it because they wanted to do it, not because I was making them do it. And I finally learned that. And that was the difference of, you know, I remember Frances Hesselbein telling me who wrote the foreword for Creating Magic. I said to her, I said, what’s the difference between management leadership, Frances, I just heard you tell the army that if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be free. She said, Mr. Cockerell, management’s how to do. You got a day planner, you put in there the hardest things, you check them off, you get them done. Management’s doing, leadership’s about how to be. How to be there for your people, how to be trusted, how to be a person of ethics, be a person who can be there for your people when they need you, how to be a person who be, not how to do. And I think a lot of people are doing a lot and they’re not being a lot in our society today. Are you being enough for your family? Are you being there for your wife? Are you being there for your children? Are you being there for your employees, for your church. Are you being? Are you being? Yeah. It’s a behavior. It’s who you are, not what you do. And I used to be, all of my self-confidence grew from what I did, not who I was. But now today, I do not define myself by anything I’ve done in my past. People say, don’t you miss Disney? I say, no, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I didn’t lose any identity when I left Disney. Because a lot of people can’t leave their job because that’s who they are. Disney? No. I know who I am. Today, since I’ve interacted with you, I know that you’re very confident. You also own your mistakes. But did you ever have the feeling that in your career, like you were going nowhere? Did you ever feel like, what am I doing? I think a lot of people feel, I meet people all the time around the country who, they’re out of a job, maybe they call it a dead-end job. Do you ever feel like you’re going nowhere at all? I think I got lucky because I didn’t know I was supposed to go anywhere. So every time I got promoted, which was literally about every 18 months or a new job, so it’s pretty quick. So I never got stuck in a job where I couldn’t get loose and I was winning business where you had to move and get promoted To go to another hotel and if somebody’s watching this and there may be At a job where there’s no way to get promoted or there’s no do you recommend that somebody maybe looks for another place? Absolutely. People call me all the time said I hate my job. I don’t I’m not going anywhere They won’t put me in management or I can’t get promoted. I said, here’s my advice to you Get up every morning be it. Just keep doing your job better than anybody else. An hour or two a day, look for a new job. But keep doing the one you got until you get the new one. Now, this is a question I have for you is I think a lot of people here, it’s often said that fear has killed more dreams than failure ever will. So people who are afraid of leaving that job or afraid to go to Paris to take the job or afraid to, how have you battled fear in your career? Probably I’m just stupid. I don’t know. I just always know it’s going to work out. I know that it’s going to work out. I mean I said to people after I left Hilton, I got out of the Army and it worked out. I left Hilton. There was life after Hilton. There was life after Marriott. There was life after Disney. Wow, I hope there’s life after life. Is the idea that it would work out based off of just this optimism or is it based off of maybe a religious faith you have? Where does that come from? I think I just know that I can always get something going. And I always have. And the more you get things going, the more you know you can. And then all of a sudden, people start thinking I was really knew something they didn’t know. I actually I tell people my speeches, I said, I know things you don’t know. And I don’t think you should know. And the reason I know them, I’ve been through the trail. I’ve been down that path. So if I’m watching this right now and I’m saying, you know, I have this fear that it’s not going to work out. And I agree. Every successful person I’ve ever interviewed, every successful person I’ve ever met, whether it’s the founder of Hobby Lobby or yourself or founders of big companies, it seems like all of them have that belief that you can’t connect the dots moving forward, but you just have to know that it’s going to happen. How would you encourage somebody to get out of that if they’re kind of in fear? How would you encourage them to get out of that mindset of fear? Yeah, they may need a psychiatrist. I don’t know what’s caused that. A lot of that is caused by the way they were raised or they have insecurities and they’re afraid. People who won’t move to another state, they won’t move to an international assignment, they won’t leave their company. You’ve got to be careful where you get stuck. Because if you get yourself stuck, sometimes it’s too late to move. You get five kids and a big house, and you hate what you’re doing, it’s hard to get out of that. So stay in an apartment and don’t get in it early on you got to decide early on are you happy doing what you’re doing I mean do you like it and early on I love the hospitality business so I knew there’s always a job but people I hear this all the time my wife won’t move I can’t move we live near our parents and then you end up with 40 years of waking up every morning not enjoying what you’re doing it affects your health it affects your relationship you end up getting a divorce, your wife leaves you. I mean, a lot of bad things happen when you don’t wake up excited about what you’re doing every day. Well, if you had to give somebody advice, I know in my career since I’ve been in business, my son was born without the ability to see. We’ve had partners do weird, crazy things. We’ve had health issues. And I know everybody I’ve ever met as a successful entrepreneur has adversity they deal with. What would be your advice for somebody who is having a hard time with adversity to plunge through these setbacks and failures? Well, I think the biggest thing is people have got to quit underestimating what they can do. If you need help, go find it. Maybe it’s watching movies and these films and Thrive or maybe it’s going and talking to somebody who can kind of redirect you. I redirect a lot of people who are in a position they don’t like and they ask for my help on how they can get in, what they can do, what should they do to prepare to get a job at Disney or the Hilton. And I know and they don’t know. And so I just help them. And so go get an expert. It’s like my computer. When it’s down, I don’t try to fix it. I go get an expert. I have a trainer that I can’t, when I lift weights by myself, I get hurt. He doesn’t get me hurt because he knows what he’s doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. So don’t try to do it by yourself and go find the help. Sometimes you just need some encouragement and somebody helping you open the doors. So don’t get stuck and reach out to some help from advisors. And be careful who are your friends. Are these people that are positive and have positive influence? Are you in the wrong organization? Are you hanging out with positive people? Are you out meeting people? So you can make those contacts, because most people get a job through contacts. And are you being positive? Are you going around, oh my god, this is terrible, my life is terrible, it’s not fair? Let me tell you, at the end of the day, it’s kind of like working at Disney. I do it anyway, but I said to the people at Disney, you know, you don’t have to be happy to work at Disney. You’ve got to act happy for eight hours. If you start acting positive, you get more positive. When people start telling you, Lee, you’re always so good positive, you never complain. Let’s hit on that for a second. You’re saying act before you feel. Like you act happy before you are happy. Yeah. Be professional. Even if you’re, you know, don’t be unprofessional when you’re at a professional job. When I go to work in the morning, if I’ve had an argument with my wife or I’m not feeling well, my people never saw that. Never. Because if the boss is down and… Everyone’s down. Oh, forget it. I mean, nothing bothered me. 9-11, I was cool as a cucumber. And I was upset. See, I love what you’re saying here because I work with so many different small businesses. I know you see them too and you speak with them too, but you’ll see the owner who’s going through a tough time and they project that onto their employees which then creates more failure and more negative feelings. It sounds like a capstone thought. You’re saying that right now if you’re dealing with failure and adversity, one is just act before you feel and then the second is reach out to a mentor or somebody who can help you or an expert to kind of help you get out of it. Somebody told me once, act like what you want to be. And I think about that a lot, you know, you just cannot go around being… Just go back. When you put on a Broadway show, I guarantee you the lead actress and the actor, the main parts, they go up there some nights, their husband’s been diagnosed with cancer, their mother fell and broke her hip, they’re going through a divorce, but what happens when they go on the stage? You never see it. They are enrolled, they perform their part because they got an audience, people paid for that ticket. That’s what professionals do. Professionals, it’s what time do professionals quit thinking about their job? Never. Even when I wake up at 3 in the morning, Priscilla said to me one morning, she said, Lee, what are you thinking about, darling? I said, you. Now that’s the answer. That’s not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about Disney because that’s what, it’s a curse. And you’ve got to know that you have an audience just like on Broadway. They’ve got an audience. And if you want people to come back to the show every night, you’ve got to have a good reputation. So at Disney, you know, you call them cast members and not employees. You’re called cast members. And you’re always, when you clock in at work, you’re supposed to be on stage. You’re on, you’re on. Yeah. But you’d say for anybody out there who’s serious about their career and getting ahead, the moment that you are working, you’re acting. I say get out of your car, take a deep breath and behave yourself. And be professional, pay attention to people. And by the way, what’s in, being in character, it’s easy to understand that for Cinderella or Mickey Mouse or… But managers need to stay in character. They need to, they’ve got a performance too. Everybody’s watching the manager, how’s their behavior. Just like Cinderella, there’s no difference. Professionalism, the way they interact with people, the way they’re available for their people, the sensitivity they have when they deal with an employee that has an issue, the empathy. So everybody needs to, everybody in the show’s got to know their part and then do it. If you don’t know your part, we often misbehave. If I don’t know I’m there to inspire people to be the leader, and I think I’m just Lee, old Lee from Oklahoma, and I go around using foul language and smoking a cigarette and telling inappropriate jokes, that’s not what the executive vice president of Walt Disney World does. does. That might have been what Lee would do when he was in Oklahoma. But I’m not in Oklahoma. I’ve moved up. I’ve moved into a professional. I’m a professional. You’ve got to behave. And is it hard? Sure. It’s hard to, when you’re going through a problem, it’s hard to put on a good face. It’s hard. But it’s, then don’t get into a leadership job unless, it’s like being a parent. You’ve got to behave. Yeah. You’ve got to. Your kids are watching how you and your wife interact. They’re watching everything you say. With our five kids, they repeat everything. It’s unbelievable. And everything is right. And some bad word may come out of their mouth someday that they heard with somebody they rode to school with. Yup. The next door neighbor. That’s why I say be careful who your kids hang out with. Yup. Because people think you taught them that. They learned it next door from the other kids. And we know kids want to please their parents, even if they don’t seem like it when they’re 13 or 14. They do. They learn more from their parents, and by work, by the way, everybody learns more from the leader. Role modeling is the most important way people learn. Role modeling. Behave the way you want your people to behave. Care the way you want your people to care. I know that. Is it hard? Oh, man. Those days when I went in, or Priscilla was sick, and I’m, yeah. But I still have to bite my lip and get through it. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive Business Growth Workshop. 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. 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, Tip Teeb is 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. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt, he has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you, and we want to see you live and in person at the two day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. this workshop, see the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who have been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. 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? What do 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. Thrivetimeshow.com. 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’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Tong, and 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, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Jerusalem, Oklahoma. It’s supposed to be Tulsa, Jerusalem. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Jerusalem, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show in 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. Who? You! You’re going to come. Who? You. I’m talking to you. You can 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 gonna 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, Russia. 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, 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. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what 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. else. The 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. When 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 scape 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’ve got to 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, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Keosak University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds. I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done his 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 Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. 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 want 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, you know thank you but you’ve become an influencer. You know 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. 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, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.