Dealing with the Hand That You’ve Been Dealt | Are You Using Your Circumstances As an Excuse or As a Catalyst? – A Knowledge Bomb

Audio Transcription

Grab the duct tape and mentally prepare yourself for yet another mind expanding knowledge bong from America’s number one business coach, clay Clark

dr Z. It is always ecstasy when you are next to me. And bugs are not near me. No they aren’t. But you know the bugs could be near me, but they have chosen to hire platinum pest control, the Tulsa Pest Control company to come into the man-cave area and to remove any potential bug threats. There are no snakes by the Lake. There are no mosquitoes near the Cheetos or mojitos. We are a bug free zone. There’s nothing. There are no leaves near my knees. [inaudible] mosquitoes really like mosquitoes there. See I’m telling you what the spiders are no longer fighters cause they’re dead. You wouldn’t know because now your mojitos are mosquito free. [inaudible] and it’s cool as this man cave is. What bug would want to come in here and set up camp. I mean seriously, no start bug. This would be like camping one weekend one set up one Oh one Jared and Jennifer Johnson with the platinum plus team platinum Pesta team.

Jared, how are you sir? I’m doing great. And ms Jennifer, how are you ma’am? I’m terrific. Well, I wanted to, I just got an impromptu show here. I was listening to a TD Jakes, a sermon. Uh, let’s go three days ago and when I knew you guys would be here, I want to get your take on this cause you’re very uh, family focused, a couple and a Z. You’re a guy who’s, uh, started from the bottom. Now you’re here. Yes. And I’m going to queue up this audio just into like a little 42nd audio clip from a pastor, TD Jakes where he’s sharing about this idea of are we using our circumstances as an excuse or a catalyst? Are we using the things that happened to us to be an excuse or are they the thing that, are they the very thing that serves as the catalyst for our lives?

So I’m going to play the audio and thenZ , I’d like for you to break down what this means and how this is applied to your life. And then Jared, I’d like for you to share about this because there are a lot of families out there with kids who are saying, because the world around us isn’t raising our kids the right way. I’m just going to give up. I’m not going to set the standard. I remember going to a high school with the kid and his dad, I was probably 16 years old and his dad said, uh, Hey clay, pleasure to meet you. And I said, how’s it going? I never met the guy before. And he says, well, Hey, I’m, I know you guys party anyway, so I want you guys to know as long as you don’t leave my house, you can party here.

And it was an unbelievable variety, a buffet of, uh, things that, uh, you can’t have till you’re a 18, you know, and, uh, till you’re 21 do things you can’t have. And his old theory was, you’re going to have it anyway. You might as well have it here. Um, I remember this. And so he had kind of that worldview and uh, his worldview was, well, you know, these things are gonna happen, so I want to be the, I’m just gonna do it in a controlled environment. Okay. Maybe that’s your game plan. Um, I’ve seen other people who have said, because my brother didn’t make it to the NBA, I can’t make it to the NBA either. I’ve also seen guys who’ve said, because my brother didn’t make it, I’m gonna make it. I’ve just seen, I’ve seen people react to the environmental things I’ve seen people say because one relationship didn’t work out. No relationships will. I’ve seen other people say, well, because the first one didn’t work out, I’ll make every other one work. So I’m going to keep this audio right. And I’d like for you just to personalize this and share maybe how this applies to your career as an entrepreneur. So here we go. All right.

Yeah. That, that becomes your excuse for your temper tantrums and your razors and your obsessions and your excesses. You always categorize it. I’m drinking because of the way I was raised. Said, the twins was raised by an alcoholic father and one of them grew up and became an alcoholic and they said, you’re acting just like your daddy said, why are you, and I called Holly. He said, because I was raised by an alcoholic, the other twin never touched a drink in his life. They said, why are you not drinking? He said, because I was raised by an alcoholic.

So Z, let’s talk about they don’t care if its alcohol. I don’t care if it’s drugs. I don’t care if it’s rejection you received or, or a relationship that didn’t work out or growing up without money. We could, all, everybody listening today could make an excuse. Talk to me about how you’ve been able to use circumstances that maybe weren’t super positive and turn them into a catalyst to, uh, build the life and career you have today.

You know what, when people say negative things over you, you could do one of two things. You could take that haterade and you can let it get you down. You can, yeah, you can take it to heart. You can think, well, there must be some truth to it. You can really let it be a speed bump in your life or you could do the other thing. You can take that haterade and you can put it over there in a blender with some ice and maybe some your favorite ice cream and you know maybe a beverage of choice and you can blend that up. You could make herself a fine daiquiri that you enjoy in the evening as you’re sipping and planning on your world domination takeover.

Somebody has said to you, maybe not a specific person, but something that was said to you or set over you that was just really not nice as a young guy, young entrepreneur. Maybe in those formative years where you were thinking about becoming an optometrist or an entrepreneur or maybe opening up your second business or your first business, something where somebody really made a statement over you that wasn’t kind. Was it nice that that turned into motivation for you?

Yeah, I mean th th two parts. One was early on in my education choices, I had family members. I tell the aunt Connie’s story. If you haven’t heard it yet, uh, go back a few more podcasts but, but the and story was basically a family member, someone close to you that knows you, watched you grow up, cheered for you, and then whenever you make life choices in their mind think that they should have been something different. You know, your career, your, where you went to school, your even classes that you took and why and why are you interested in that when you should be interested in this here, that whole kinda, you know, Monday morning quarterback, you know, and, and you just have to not let that bother you and you have to understand everybody has their opinion and the fact that they’ve voiced it doesn’t mean that it gives any more credence to whether they’re just thinking it and then you have to own where you are.

You have to be able to, you know, provide answers to why you’ve done the things that you’ve done. It’s someone that’s enclosed in your life instead of just saying, Oh, you don’t know anything in March off, you know, and then soak on it. You’ve got to be a look at them and say, you don’t appreciate your opinion, but here’s what I’m doing. Here’s why I’m doing it, and here’s all the good that’s happening because of it. And then they look at you and they go, Oh, okay. And then it’s over right? Now on the flip side, I had a lot of people in my career look at me and say, why are, why are you doing other businesses? You’re an optometrist, why aren’t you in there checking eyes? That’s what you’re educated to do. That’s what you’re doing. That’s your lane. Why are you going outside your lane and opening up other businesses?

What right do you think you have doing that? How does that overlap with optometry? How does that tie into that you’re a disgrace to the industry and the progression because you’re doing $99 first exam, right? I mean you are pulling down the whole genre and cheapening the brand seven days a week, your open. Well, and the other thing is that the back to why am I doing other things? And I look at them and I say, well, I’m really an entrepreneur. I love other things. I love other businesses. If they’re not, there’s no overlap between having an Ottawa auction and being an optometrist with the eye clinics. I mean there’s, there’s, I think you could say to say both. Well we had a lot of dealers that couldn’t stay cars very clearly, so I thought, wow, you could see it obviously. Okay, I’ll tie the two together.

Integration vertical does, it’s not, it’s completely different. You know, sleep centers, completely different. Durable medical equipment companies. Completely very different. Different doing an online business school, completely different. Having the thoroughbred horse ranch completely different, different. So, you know, as I go in life and I do other businesses and I enjoy doing that, um, you know, I’ve kind of gotten, people kind of stop asking that question so much, but I tell you what, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. You have to be comfortable in what you’re doing. There we go. And if you don’t have an elevator story, if you don’t have a story that if someone comes up to you and says, why like you two over here, Jared, Jennifer, why are you guys doing pest control? Really what gives you the right, the idea that you think you can walk into my house price spray spray came up was around what, what, what sets you apart? What makes you guys different? Why, why do you guys think you’d come knock on my door and try to convince me for you guys to spray whatever that’s in your little bucket there. Whatever’s secret sauce you have

that you’re sneaking around the neighborhood barbecue sauce. Try it this way on the doors. If you sign up, you do get the good stuff. If you don’t, we sprayed the barbecue sauce last Sprite on your back door. But um, but you know, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta be ready with that story. You’ve gotta be ready with the answer. So I’ll ask you guys that question. What makes you think you can have a pest control company and go out there and spray stuff on people’s houses? Yeah. So is the question more in long lungs? Why did we start up the company in the first place? Yeah. What gives you the right to do that? Come on now. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I picked my way through school by selling pest control door to door. Right. Oh really? Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, and so I learned how to get the business and I knew I always wanted to start a business and something that I could work alongside with my wife.

Okay. I mean, we, I see a lot of people that go to work and they work long hours and they come home and they have a small time they can dope devote to the family. Right. And so I was seeking financial freedom and time freedom, but also, um, when I was working or when I am working to be able to spend that time with my spouse. Um, so we can work on that together. And then by doing that, it helps us grow together. So the purpose was to develop the time freedom and the financial freedom and be able to build a strong family bonds that we were, that we were hoping to do.

And you went that suite with platinum pest. Um, it’s a company that’s done well. Um, but there’s got to have been some moment where something negative happened, Jared, where you could either as a couple, as a business, you could of used it as an excuse to take the low road to give up, to quit, whatever that looks like. And I’m sure you’ve been abandoned 10 pound away to use that adversity to be a positive thing. Do you have any examples of that, maybe from your career starting the business or growing the business where you’ve had some serious rejection, but it hasn’t actually set you back at all? It’s actually motivated you. Yeah. Well first of all, we started with

business by going door to door. I went door to door. Um, I, uh, I served, I sold the accounts, I service the accounts. Um, you know, I called a schedule schedule. Everybody love this. And the next year we hired a few more people, mostly family members, um, to come out and do it. Now that summer was probably the most stressful summer of our lives. Um, I was, I was doing everything from, uh, now we held daily sales training meetings with, with the sales reps for the house. I love it. I love, I love this story. This is, I love this. This is great. Yeah, absolutely. In the house. It definitely was a family business, right? 18 month old. I love this too. I can relate to this. This whole thing is great. Yeah. So, so before we even had an office, and so when we took phone calls, you know, I’d get a phone call and I’d run outside or run into the garage if our, if our a little boy was crying at the time. Right. Just so they didn’t hear that, that, uh, the noise over

the background, but you could have made it an excuse. You could have said, we can’t afford an office yet, so now we can’t have, we can’t have success. Yeah. But instead it became kind of a motivating factor. Right. The family became a motivating factor as opposed to a distraction. Absolutely. Right. And Jennifer, what kind of adversity have you run into? Cause you, you handle large aspects of the company. You help with the billing and the accounting and the systems in your, your kind doing a little bit of everything there. Um, but what, what are some areas where you faced some adversity or some rejection where you could have easily quit but you’ve chosen not to?

Um, one thing that comes to my mind is that I, so over time my role in the business has kind of ebbed and flowed and I didn’t really have, uh, a specific role in the business. Um, I mean I did the accounting, but other than that there wasn’t a ton of it. But then there was a point when Jared and I decided that I would become more involved in the business more in the, um, overseeing, um, the office staff a little bit more. I just, you know, we started to define my role more definitely. And, um, before that I had been mostly a stay at home mom, um, helping out when I could. And when I decided to start working more at this point, we had, um, our baby, our third Bay child was about six months old or so. And someone close to me had, was through good intentions, was kind of given me a hard time about working more and not being there with my kids.

Talking about, I hope you don’t regret it, Sunday can relate to this. Yeah. And it really, it really made me think, what is the longterm goal? What, what do I need to balance? Can someone else do part of these things that I’m doing? Um, and so it made me look at, you know, what I was doing at our family life and we were able to find, I had to talk to this person to be like, we’re solid in our answer. But first I had to think about at first for me about the why we are doing it. And um, and after that it was, it was really good for me because it was a good clarification for me of why we’re doing what we’re doing, finding that balance of time with my kids, um, with Jared in the office. Because that’s also, you know, that helps us at home when we build our relationship working in the business. Our marriage, you know, gets better as well. So

he knows. He, I had a, a fun little story for you. I wanted to wrap up today’s show with, I think it’s kind of fascinating. Um, we were building DJ connection.com in the year was 2002 I think. And I got into my first wedding show, the one it was ever there at the Warren, a DoubleTree Warren, first time I’d ever got into that wedding show. You have to pay a fee, get a booth by 10 booth. And the lady who sold me the booth, nice lady, great, great show, well produced and we’re, we’re, I’m dressed as you know, in a, in a suit and a tie and my wife’s dress sharp and you can kind of picture us for 22 years old doing the best we can. And we’ve got a couple of guys helping us and a lot of brides, one by one would walk up and kind give me the stink guy.

And I had never met these people. They’re like, wow. I’m like, Hey, excuse me. Are you interested in looking for a DJ for your wedding? Cause that’s what you would ask if people would walk by the booth. It’s a bridal show in a bottle. So you’d say, Hey, are you looking for a DJ for your wedding? No, no, we’re good. We’re good. I kept getting an immediate like, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. And I thought we smelled weird. Huh? Wow. Is there a booth where I’m looking around the booths, so I’d just start to get kinda, you know, something I said. And so one of the ladies says, I really, I appreciate you, but I just, after what I’ve heard, I can’t use you guys. And I said, ma’am, I just want to know what, what did you hear? It’s been through a very sincere, you know, and she says, uh, well at the email I got, you know, just all the, we all got the email.

I’m like, what email? What are you talking about? So my competitor at the booth who had previously shaking my hand, who had actually filled in for gigs in the past, when I didn’t have availability, I would refer him gigs. People would call it a shirt wedding and I was booked out, I’d refer him. He had made an email from a fictitious bridal association networking group thing he created says fraud alert and it says, no matter who you guys use, be concerned, don’t use DJ connection. They have a history of missing weddings and yada yada. And we just want to warn you about this vendor here. Dirty minute, unregulated industry. We just wanted to alert you, no matter who you use, just don’t use any, you know, uh, mentioned that that was a pen name he was using and that he himself was actually a DJ. Right?

His name is SAC if he listens to the show. And so Zach, um, I remember going up to Zach, I said, Zach, um, did you say to these brides or emailed them all that? I was fictitious and flown. He us and I was scamming people and said, I don’t know a whole lot about it. I, I mean it could’ve happened. I mean, you know, just that whole, that whole, that whole righteous and dignity kind of thing. And uh, I got motivated cause I could’ve just got frustrated. Well you could have, but I immediately flipped into like ultimate sales mode. And so the broad said, Hey, are you guys looking for a DJ for the, for your wedding? And they’d say, ah, not, not right now, I’m you. I just, you know, and I’d say, well, let me ask you this, what’s your main concern? And I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have normally pressed in like that.

And they’d say, well, we’ve heard some things. I said, where’s the deal? We’ve got a special right now it’s a dollar to book your DJ and you don’t pay anything until the night after the wedding if you’re, if you’re happy, you don’t pay until the end of the wedding. And you set the price. Oh yeah, the first Brian, what exactly it’s called the Zach attack. Just excuse me. I said, yeah, we have a satisfaction guarantee. A lot of our competitors don’t like it, but it’s a dollar to book it. Most of DJs are charging 600 to a thousand and it’s unlimited time and you just pay at the end of the night based on how happy you are. So you could shoot. So this lady’s like, you mean I could pay as little as like 10 bucks? I said, well you could, I don’t think you should because it’s my job and I care and I’m doing my best I can, but you can pay whatever you want.

I’ll do right now. Next, next, next, next. I get in a line. If the bottle show, when you see a line going great you can’t stand, you can’t get it. Yeah. You got to go getting in the line. Yeah, yeah, you can stay. It became this like huge thing, you know. And then after the trade show I, I wrote an email, I was very happy about my email. It’s like a group email program. We could send out the outlook, tell the brides. Oh yeah. And I said very special. I said thank you to all the vendors for just for, because I loved the show. Best show and uh, if, uh, and by the way, if we’re not available, you know, for your wedding, uh, we recommend one other company in Tulsa and it’s owned by this guy named Zach. We love this guy. And uh, Oh I pissed him off cause I was booking all the weddings and it was just like one last way to kind of in his face, you know.

And uh, anyway, his career ended up. Did you ever see him? Another guy? It was funny cause he kept getting DUIs and DWS and did you know things it’s hard not to have a cocktail at a wedding and then driving home was like multiple times. So it becomes hard to book a guy when you Google him and that’s what you find every time. Yeah. So it be of a self destruct thing, but honestly I could have just gone out of rage and attacked him and told all the brides yeah, that guy shady. I wanted to, it took everything with Emmy. But man, I have never called a list more than that list. The day we get the list on like Monday morning at 9:00 AM yeah. And I’m not exaggerating. Hit right at 500 or 600 names on that list. Oh yeah. And by like five I had called every brand-wise that haterade or just calling.

I told Vanessa, but I said, Kenny, do you want to have some dinner? No, no, no. I’m calling all night. Haterade just me and one dude. And I think we booked probably 15% of all the brides on the list and like one day. Oh yeah. With that deal we just decimated list, get a nap for came the catalyst event where we went from doing, you know, five weddings a weekend to like 20 yeah, it was just all. Thank you Zach. Thank you. Sometimes it takes someone stepping in and saying, causing a problem that gets your, your applied your Hawks, you’ve had that happen to you to get you up on your hocks and then you go, you know, it’s on now. I mean, you flipped a switch. You said you slipped the switch. You flip the switch and sometimes you need a little help flipping that switch and you know, cause you always think, when I’m here, I’m gonna close all these, you know, these brides coming by my booth, we had the best food on best booth, the best pretty wife here next to me.

I mean God is doing lazy selling. [inaudible] telling you weren’t motivated. It wasn’t already the amount of guy at that point. I thought, yeah, I got it. You’re the big fat cat. I thought I had it around up there. Yeah, I thought I hit a mouse. Runs in front of you. Don’t even care. I’m serious. I talk, I talk kind of my mindset going into it. So again, if you’re out there today, I would just ask you as an action item or something to think about is what is the deck of cards that you’ve been dealt and what is the circumstance? And right now that is bothering you, it could be someone, something that someone said to you. It could be a bank that shut you down, a bank that wouldn’t lend you the money. It could be a customer that rejected you, you know, because um, 2007 rolled around, I started to get very comfortable.

It doesn’t, it doesn’t. Six. Yeah. And I booked every single wedding presentation we had during the entire year and I was at 91st and Lynn lane and Shannon, if you’re listening, you know who you are. Shannon and her, a man friend now husband Clark came in and they rejected me. Why did they reject to, they just said book someone else. They said their Clark’s rationale was, well, everybody I know is used. Do you? I just want some variety. Is it the Mayo hotel? Wow. Oh, we’re like variety there. You kidding me? They used the variety card, but I booked every single wedding I was told, cause every time I booked them I had a little hot street, got a little Italian marker. I’d on the wall. Every time I closed the deal I’d tell her uncle Charlie went to ring a bell. Oh yeah, I was on fire.

I had like a year of no, no no’s. Yeah. Stop dropping her. He shut me down. I grew again. I was like, this woo woo comeback. Oh man. It’s like watching the movie 300 if I get rejected. Oh yeah, totally. Well, if you’re out there today, we care about you. We encourage you to not get stuck. If you do ever feel stuck and you want to ask a question to Z or myself, please feel free to email us at info at thrive time, show.com that’s [email protected] and if you have a snake near Lake, a a bug that needs to be in encountered on a rug. If you’ve got a a mosquito that’s buzzing around in your Mohito Oh yeah. If you’ve got any of these issues, you’ve got like a mouse that’s kinda at the precipice, the threshold of your house and you say, I, I want the bugs to go away.

Yes, come back. Never, never another day. Another day. What’s the a website there Jared, where people get ahold of you and pay you money for the, for goods and services? Yeah, it’s a platinum pest and lawn.com platinum Peston lawn.com and what is the no brainer offer you have for all of our listeners in the Oklahoma area? First serves is just $1. Oh. Oh, that’s sexy. That’s huh. Okay. But wrap it back around to just something you said it may have to go, um, is the reason why you weren’t use in the movie 300? I noticed that because of your body, which no, it’s just because your head was so big they couldn’t find a one of those helmets to fit over your knocking. Do you remember the movie 300 years? I haven’t seen the movie in a while because of that. I have not seen this movie in a while, but like for you to know, have you seen, you’ve seen, have you seen this movie?

Well, yes, of course. Okay. There’s this area, this little narrow passageway, right? Where all the bad guys are trying to get. Oh yeah, yeah. And there’s 300 guys that protect the Harold passageway. Yeah. And the issue was my head could not fit through the passage. Oh, I didn’t, I started temping. I was on the other side. Gotcha. With the bad guys, like workers, we only have Twitter 99 where’s clay? Where’s play? Couldn’t fit my fit. My Gore, my gourd, like sir, director, he’s still, he’s in the hot path. Cranium was scraping against the cliff. Can’t get to the hot pass. I beveled my head to try to get through there, but I just could not sit through hot butter. Let’s try to keep to the PO. Jared and Jennifer, thank you for being on the show, dr Z. I appreciate you and let’s end this show with the boom and why not? Here we go. And now without need further, ed, do three.