Dr. Zoellner and Clay Clark Teach How to Become a Millionaire | The Emotional Tradeoffs That You Must Make In Route to Becoming Super Success

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 multimillion dollar businesses altruistically invest 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. They started from the bottom. Now they’re here. It’s the Thrivetime 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 Zoellner. Two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses.

(singing)

I’m a big fan. Get on the floor. Work it.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Steve Currington. You have been a client working with me for how long?

Well, 2015, so that’s-

Seven years.

… close to-

Now it’s eight years.

Six, seven years, yeah.

Your company’s SteveCurrington.com. You’re a mortgage provider, correct?

Yep. I do the home loans.

Are you in all 50 states, or what states are you in?

Yeah, I’m in all 50. Not physically. I’m not omnipotent, or whatever they call it, omnipresent, but I lend, yeah-

Are you trying to say you’re not impotent?

That too. I do lend in all 50 states.

Great transition. Way to go.

Yeah.

Okay. What we’re talking about on today’s show is something you can all follow along with us on if you go to thrivetimeshow.com/millionaire. Now, Steve, this is my new book here. It is called A Millionaire’s Guide, How to Become Sustainably Rich. A Step-By-Step Guide to Becoming a Successful, Money-Generating and Time-Freedom Creating Business. A Step-By-Step Guide to Building a Successful, Money-Generating and Time-Freedom Creating Business. We’re going to be continuing this conversation on page six, so you go to thrivetimeshow.com/millionaire. Steve, we’re on page six. Steve, tell us what you see on page six here.

On page six, it says, “The emotional trade-offs of a successful person.”

Okay. Let’s walk through these, okay?

Okay.

We’re going to go through them rapid fire, and I want everyone to just … Because a lot of people say, “Clay, I want to have success,” and I tell them what to do. I teach them how to do it, Steve.

Yep.

But there’s trade-offs you have to make.

Yep.

May wife calls them trade-ups. That’s her kind of positive spin on it. I call it trade-offs, but whatever. Let’s talk about above the water, because when you see a duck swimming, right, a duck?

Yep.

A duck, it looks calm above the water, but below the surface, a duck is paddling away … Right?

Right.

I’d like for you to read what’s happening above the water, and then I’ll talk about what’s happening below the surface, and then we’ll work through it, okay?

Got it.

The first thing, if you see somebody, if you see an organization that’s doing well, Steve, above the water, you typically see what?

Accountability. You’re saying-

Yeah, you see organization.

Yep. You see organization.

Page six.

They’re organized.

It’s an organization, and you see it’s organized.

Yep.

Because … Right? Then to make something organized below the surface, an organized person has a to-do list.

Yep.

Now, Steve, you’ve gone through parts of your life where you’re very on top of it, very organized. Right?

Yep.

There’s been times where you haven’t been. Same thing with me. Right?

Yep.

I figured out how to be very organized around the age of 18 or 19, because we were doing 4,000 weddings a year before I sold the company, DJConnection.com, and to do that many weddings, you have to stay organized.

Yeah, yep.

I was taught at a very young age, you have to have a very detailed to-do list to stay on top of it. Now, Steve, you guys are doing mortgages all over the place at stevecurrington.com. How many mortgages do you think you’ve done throughout your career?

Man, I need to get that number. Thousands.

What would happen if you didn’t write down the names of the potential applicants, the potential mortgage acquirers, your potential customers?

I would not have their names, and I probably wouldn’t have their numbers either, so I wouldn’t be able to follow up.

How often have you worked with a small business owner, bless his heart, or a big business guy and he forgets to call you back because he didn’t write it down?

Yeah, or just doesn’t answer the phone in the first place.

How often do you see that though, seriously?

All the time. Actually, that’s a reason I’m successful, one of the big reasons.

It’s because you have a-

I just answer the phone.

You got a concept of answering the phone.

It’s really sad that that’s what-

Phone answering technology, patented by Steve Currington.

Yeah. You set yourself apart by getting up every day and going to work, and not working from like 2:00 to 4:00. Okay.

And answering the phone.

The next thing. Above the water, you see a calm business. You see success everywhere, but below the surface, you don’t see … Steve, what do you see above the water?

I see some accountability.

That means people, you show up at the business and everyone’s busy. You know how it is up here. You come up here, all the employees are busy.

Yep.

Everyone’s working hard. No one’s screwing around. You always come up here and there’s an energy, right? You see-

Yep.

How would you describe the energy, Steve, when you come up here during a typical work day?

It’s like a party. It’s like a party, but everyone’s working. [inaudible 00:05:36]

It’s just go, go, go.

Yeah. Yeah, except for Devin.

Okay.

He seems to be just hanging around-

Devon’s working hard.

… by the water cooler, talking.

Devin, if you’re listening, we love you.

Talking stories.

No, no, that’s it-

It’s all joking.

We love Devin. Again, above the water, you see accountability, but below the surface, what do you not see, Steve?

Well, you’re probably irritating some people.

Yeah. You got to hold people accountable.

Yeah.

I see people, they say, “I want accountability in my office, but I don’t want to irritate people.” Now, we were talking yesterday about a particular individual who’s a mutual acquaintance of ours.

Mm-hmm.

This is a young buck, working for one of our clients, and his sole job as the online social media manager for this big business is to get Google reviews and to get Google reviews. His entire job is to get Google reviews from their actual customers.

Yup.

He isn’t getting Google reviews, so as the business coach or the consultant, I pointed out, “Hey, you are not getting any Google reviews ever, but this week …” Because I talk to my clients every week, so next week, I’m like, “Between this week and next week, get at least one review a day.” The next week, you see the guy, he has zero reviews. I bring it up again, bring it up again, just relentless. Follow up, follow up, follow up. Eventually, Steve, it irritates people.

Yeah. He hates you now.

That’s because you follow up, and that’s what accountability looks like. Next, Steve, if you see someone above the water, you go, “Wow, that person’s very well-read. They’ve read a lot of books.” What do you not see below the surface, Steve?

That they don’t sleep as much.

Right. They make a trade-off.

Because they are reading more.

They’re like, “You know what? The hours I was going to sleep, I chose to get up and read.” Now, Steve-

We’ll sleep when we’re dead, Clay.

Above the water, Steve, you see somebody who sells a lot of stuff. You see someone like yourself, who drives Lamborghinis and has a lot of success, and you go, “Wow, Steve has his on plane and he has Lamborghinis. Man, that guy does a lot of sales.” What they don’t see below the surface is a lot of rejection, a lot of getting told no, a lot of hang-ups. There’s a lot of people that reach out to me for help as a business consultant. They say, “Man, Clay, I want to grow a business like you.” I go, “That’s awesome.” Today, I just talked to that lady that I just got off the phone with before we hopped in the studio here.

Yeah?

I called that lady probably 20 times to get her on the phone, and that’s not to sell her anything. That’s just because I wanted to follow up with her because she’s on my to-do list.

Yeah. To get her on the show Tuesday.

Right.

You got it done.

Right, but I called her 20 times.

Yeah.

Again, to get sales, you have to have rejections. Now, the next. Steve, people say time freedom. They go, “Man, Clay, I came to your conference and it just seems like you were able to be there with us, entirely mentally present the whole day. You never had to get up and go anywhere,” and that’s because below the surface, Steve, they don’t see …

Big tip I got from Dr. Steve Green, God rest his soul, was, say no more.

You got to say no.

You got to say no to the things that are going to distract you from what your focus is, because then you don’t have time freedom, and you can’t figure out why. The reason why is because you say yes too much.

Steve, I ran into this. This is very often with you, specifically, and also with Shaw Homes, and a lot of the Tulsa clients I work with. I don’t work with your competitor, I don’t.

Right.

Recently, it’s the new year, so a lot of people are going, “Ah, man, new year. This year, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to set some goals,” and sometimes, their goals involve reaching out to me and trying to offer me money to go work for them, and I say, “I can’t work with you because I’m working with your competitor, and I honor my agreements.”

Yeah.

Steve, if I wanted to, I guess, not honor my agreements and not say no, I guess, I could be a duplicit person and try to work with two companies simultaneously. Uh-oh, and God is watching, so God will figure that our real quick, but also, eventually, you create chaos when you’re a duplicit person. I think, a lot of times, people don’t start off wanting to be shady, but they just can’t say no to things.

Right, yeah. That’s, honestly, you deal with it every day too. I do. I just had someone message me on Instagram today that said, “Hey, man. I don’t want to waste too much of your time. I want to learn how you do what you do.” Literally, to myself, I’m thinking, “That’s a 30-day conversation at the very minimum, and no.”

No.

“But I love you and hey, I’m glad you’re following me, and I’m glad things are … but no. Because it’s not like I don’t like you, or I’m mad or anything, but no.” If I spent my time responding to Facebook and Instagram messages, and trying to tell people … The other day, these mover guys were moving into my building because we have a new tenant, right?

Yeah.

They see my Mercedes V12 S65, which by the way, a sweet car. It’s awesome, all blacked out. They’re like, “Man, how do I learn to do what you do? Give me some tips.” I’m thinking, “Yeah, right here in the parking lot, let me just go through my entire history of how I got to where I am.”

That’s why we do this show, because I want to teach people how to become successful. For anybody out there listening today, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com/millionaire, you can download this book, and you can read the whole thing, and you can also come out to our in person workshops, where we’re going to teach you all the systems. Steve, you often come to the workshops, and you’re able to be there sometimes and greet people. Let’s go through the final three trade-offs, that most people don’t see, of success. If you see somebody mentoring somebody, below the surface, you don’t see somebody …

Getting screwed.

Steve, I’ve had this in this book for years. I’ve had it here. I recently got screwed again. You saw it happen.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, the most recent way I was screwed was this. A current client tells me, “I’m going to sell my business to my sons, and so therefore, I’m not going to be working with you anymore because my sons are going to be running the business, so therefore, the commission agreement where I owe you money, I’m not going to pay you anymore because I’m selling the business to my sons.”

Yeah.

Then I find one of my former employees working with my former client, and I discover that my former client made up a story about selling their business, and basically just went around my back to hire employees away from me to go work for him. That’s just my most recent way I was screwed, and the people screwing me are people that I have mentored.

Yup.

Thank you.

Yup.

It always happens. It’s like if you’re a mentor, you’re sort of training up the future Darth Vaders of tomorrow.

Yup.

Right? You’re Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re like, “Hey, Darth …” Darth, why are you breathing like that?” “Anakin, stop.”

It’s not a matter of if, it’s-

It’s going to happen.

Yeah.

“Hey, young Anakin,” real quick, “Hey, young Anakin, this is a lightsaber …” “Hey, kid, why are you sounding like that?” “I must destroy you.” “Hey, stop. You’re a little kid. I’m just teaching you how to use a lightsaber here, buddy.”

Yeah.

The next thing you know-

You’re dead.

That’s what happens every time.

Yeah.

Now, the next couple things, the final couple trade-offs most people don’t see is saving money. People always say to me, “Clay, why do you choose to live the way you live?” Well, a big part of it is I can because I save money.

Yeah.

If you save money, what they don’t see is …

It’s delayed gratification.

People don’t see that. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com, you can go to thrivetimeshow.com/millionaire, you can go to page six. You can get this diagram. You can pull it off. It’s a great way to remember, but if you see somebody who is able to have time freedom, it’s probably because they’ve developed the habit of …

Saving.

Saving money-

And delayed …

… which requires delayed gratification.

Now, I have an opposite way of doing that and that’s that, it’s not that I don’t save money, but I definitely don’t delay gratification. I just buy whatever I want and then I have to get up in the morning because I have to pay for it.

That’s a unique motivational strategy. Now, the final trade-off a lot of people don’t see is when people see somebody who has a very organized day. They see somebody who’s on top of it, who’s very productive, that gets a lot done. They say, “Wow, you’re good at managing time,” but what they don’t see below the surface is …

They actually use a calendar, so they don’t try to remember things.

I just encourage people, if you’re out there today and you’re saying, “Man, I want to become massively successful,” you’re going to have to make some trade-offs. I encourage you to start making those trade-offs today. You can start by making those trade-offs by finding out how you’re going to carve out time to attend our next in person business workshop. The way we do our workshops, I’ve always done it this way. This is something I do. I tell people it’s $250 to buy a ticket, or you can pay whatever price you want to pay.

If you’re out there listening today and you’re in a tight spot, you still got to come up with the money to get to Tulsa, Oklahoma, but you can get those tickets at thrivetimeshow.com, thrivetimeshow.com. Steve, we’re going to end this show with a boom because no matter what you learn, nothing works unless you actually do the work, and it requires a big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum to get things done. Steve, are you ready to bring the boom?

I’m ready.

Here we go. Three, two, one, boom.

Three, two, one, boom.

All right, Thrive Nation, first off, that is James right there. James is here. He is an attorney in New York. James, how long ago did I first hear about you, or you first hear about us? How long ago did we first meet?

Oh, we first met in February 2020, but I’d been listening for about a year and a half or two years before then, so probably sometime in February 2018.

How much have you grown your law practice since we first met?

Okay, yeah. I wasn’t really sure where that question was going, but the law practice, well, just from June 2021 to June 2022, comparing those two months, it’s 79.4%.

Really?

Really.

You’ve grown 79. how much? 79. what?

79.4%.

79.4% growth. Okay. What’s your website?

From June 2021 to June 2022. If you give me a second, I could look up the numbers from when we first started until now, but I-

Yeah. Now, what’s your website for people that want to look you up and make sure you’re a real person?

My website is thelawerjames.com, thelawerjames.com.

thelawyerjames.com?

Yeah, thelawyerjames.com.

Is that T-H-E, or is it D-A laywerjames.com?

We reserved that one also. The, the, thelaywer.james.com.

How did you-

I don’t know. I’ve said that so many times, and people do dlaywerjames.com. I don’t know how to do it.

No, how did you initially hear about us? How did that happen?

Speaker 1:

Speaker 2:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Business Podcasts | Dr. Zoellner and Clay Clark Teach How to Become a Millionaire | The Emotional Tradeoffs That You Must Make In Route to Becoming Super Success

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

Clay Clark:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

James DeCristofaro:

Steve Currington:

Group:

Steve Currington:

Through a friend of mine who was an accountant. I had worked with a couple of different coaching companies before that, and they were great in terms of motivation, but the issue that I was missing was what to do when … Step one, step two, step three, step four, step five.

Well, I thought what we could do right now is we’ll just walk people through what we’ve done to help your business, and that way, people out there, to anybody out there who’s listening … People always say, “What do you do? What exactly? If I’m a business consulting client, what exactly do you do?” Well, first, step one, folks, I need talent. I need a male model like James DeCristofaro, so if you go to thelawyerjames.com, and if you’re not this beautiful, don’t fill out the form. Don’t waste your time or my time. We have to find a male model of the caliber of James DeCristofaro.

Now, so what you do is, now I’m going to walk you through the steps. Folks, we go to thrivetimeshow.com, and you can see I’ve been doing this since 2006. I didn’t realize when I built my first successful company, DJConnection.com, that most people didn’t have successful companies, or companies that were stuck. I didn’t know that. When I built DJConnection.com, and then I went on to build EpicPhotos.com, these are both companies I don’t own anymore. Then I went on to build ElephantInTheRoom.com, just I could go on and on alphabetically listing companies. I just went through the D, E, E, but anyway, growing companies is what I do. That’s my skill set. In 2006, great people like James began reaching out to me because I was doing speaking events for companies like Farmers Insurance, or Maytag, or Valspar.

People in the conference would go, “Wow, you taught specifically what I need to do to grow my business. Can I hire you?” What I do is I charge people 1,700 per month, so $1,700 per month, and I typically also get a small percentage of the growth. Now, you don’t have to be a partner to work with me, but James, how long have you and I worked together? Because our program is month-to-month, but how long have we worked together now?

Since February 2020, so that’s two years and what, four, five months?

Okay. On thrivetimeshow.com, if you click testimonials, I’ve got thousands of testimonials of great clients, just like James, we’ve helped to grow their companies. I want to hone in on the James business. Okay? Step one, if you want to schedule a consultation, you just go up here, and then there’s a button here. You look here and you say, “I’m looking for business coaching,” and you just get started right here, and you schedule a consultation. That’s how it works. You just, business coaching, you click on it and get started. A lot of confusion there, business coaching. Click right here. Get started. That’s how you do it.

Okay. Then we’ll schedule a consultation. The consultation is always free and it’s always with me. I only work with 160 clients because I want to make sure you achieve financial freedom and time freedom. It’s hard to do that if my team can’t focus on our clients, so we only have 160 clients I work with.

Step one, if you want to improve the brand, want to improve the brand. Now, the brand would be like your website, your business cards, your print pieces, anything that the clients see, anything that potential clients would see. James, have we done work on your website? Tell people out there. What kind of work has my team done for you?

Everything. A complete revamping. Everything that you see on that your team did, from the simplicity of thelawyerjames.com, which is in the top-left there. You see it?

Yep.

The Lawyer James words in the circle. Love that. They also put that little play button. They did everything with the website, but things of note, we got client video testimonials up there. We have our about us video, which you just pulled up. We’ve also got in the news. If you scroll down a little bit, you can see the media. Those are video testament. We got video testimonials. We’ve got the Google … What do you call them? The Google reviews. I got over 350 five-star Google reviews, and what else? The media- [inaudible 00:20:00]

Now, so step one though is we go in there and we improve the branding. That’s step one. We get that done. Now, again, we need to optimize your Google Map. Okay. We need to optimize your Google Map. We need to optimize the social media. This is all part of the … All part, because again, if you have people that come to your website and they aren’t wowed, or if they’re unimpressed, then they don’t fill out the form. Now, step two is we have to do marketing. Now, James, we create a three-legged marketing stool. We create a three-legged marketing stool. Now, where are you based, James?

I’m in Manhattan, New York City. New York, New York.

For anyone out there who doesn’t know, are there any people in Manhattan that are not attorneys?

Yes, there are.

I mean, how competitive is the attorney market in New York, honestly.

It is very, very competitive. Just, you Google search yourself, you’re going to find pages, and pages, and pages of attorneys.

Okay. We go in there and we do the search engine optimization, we build a social media marketing campaign. In your case, I believe, and I correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we’re doing search engine optimization. You have the ongoing social media, online reputation management, and then you have mailers that you do. Is that correct?

That’s right, yeah.

I don’t want to get into all the nitty-gritty of all that. We’ll help you with that. Do you ever get calls now from the internet? Does that happen?

I do a weekly tracking sheet, and I used to send out about 100 mailers a week. Now I send out about 2,000 per week. My traction rate from the mailers is between, I would say, two and 10 leads per week, and from the internet search engine optimization stuff that you’ve been doing for us, double, triple, quadruple, or if not more than that. I get between, I would say, five and 30 per the online leads.

Now, obviously, you’re an attorney so you’re incredible with math, but it would seem as though, for people that maybe aren’t quite as incredible with math, it would seem as though that’s a good thing.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so again, step one, we improve the branding. Step two, we create a three-legged marketing stool step. Three, we want to create a turnkey sales process. This would be like the sales scripts. What do you say on the phone? This would be, we need to create sales scripts. We need to create emails, email auto-responders. We need to create the one-sheet. It’s like your value proposition. We need to create a pricing model. It’s just a lot that goes into that.

Then after that, we want to go ahead and create a tracking sheet because you have to measure what you treasure. Now, measuring the results, does that help you on a daily basis just to know where you’re at? Do you like that? Does it irritate you? What are your thoughts on the tracking sheet?

It does irritate me, but I do like it because I need the accountability for my weekly call with Andrew, so while it’s, I guess, it’s a labor of love, but I love to see the numbers at the end of the day because then it shows me where I need to focus, where I need to put some energy, what we’re doing right, what we need to tweak.

Then next, what we have to do, is we have to focus on hiring, inspiring, training, and retaining top talent. A lot of people say, “I can’t find good employees,” and we have created a system for that. We’ve implemented this thing called the group interview. There’s a lot. You got to create the job post, get people to fill out the form. You got to create a group interview. It’s an interview process. We have to create … There’s a lot. We create a shadow process. At the end of the day, James, how has the group interview impacted your ability to find good people or find people?

Well, when I do it, it’s great. It should be done weekly. I first started doing them out of your office there in Oklahoma, and I absolutely loved it. That’s the next thing that I’m very excited to do here in New York as we grow. Because, as you know, we had to get the systems in place to manage the growth, and we finally got that, and I love it. I love conducting the group interview process, and you can see, immediately, who the good fit is, who the people are, what they think like. They ask you questions the whole time. And who shows up late, and that’s also an important thing to know as well.

Then the next thing we want to do is we want to create an accounting process, a system to measure what you treasure. Again, with each, some clients really like us to go deep into their financials and really get in there. Some clients don’t like us to get as close into their numbers. Everyone’s got their own flow. James, how has that helped you, just having somebody that’s available to talk about the numbers, look at the math, figure out where money’s going? How has that impacted you?

That very short answer is that it’s impacted tremendously. The reasons how, I could get a little bit deeper into this, is after reading several books on your book list and talking with Andrew about them, for every dollar that comes in, you see where it goes and how it’s spent. If you’re wondering why, at the end of the month, or the week, or the day, you don’t have any money left in your bank account to do payroll, to take your significant other out to dinner, or to spend any money at all to improve the business, then it’s very telling once you look at that, once you look at your numbers.

Now, we’ve worked with you for a long time, and so you’ve attended the workshops, you’ve benefited from the podcast, the one-on-one consultation. How would you describe the workshop? If there’s anybody out there, I’m going to put a link here. If people are thinking about coming to the workshop, how would you describe the workshop experience?

It’s like being fed in the mouth with a fire hose about all the information that you need to know to run a business. It’s like your 500 … I don’t know. I forget the name of the checklist, but you have one if you want to sell your business.

Oh, yeah.

That thing is just … I read the first 10 or 20 items of it. I started getting a headache, but in a good way because it just shows you how much you don’t know, what you need to do to be successful, and it’s a proven … If you want the proven formula for success, you attend one of these workshops, but it’s not just one of these things where you go and attend, and you get credit for attending, and all of a sudden, life is going to be easier. That’s the first part of it. The second part of it is there’s a system that you need to implement, and that’s where it’s simple but it’s not easy.

Now, our program is to work with people that are sufficiently motivated. I am not a motivational program. In fact, I’ve had clients who’ve told me, they said, “Clay, what you’ve taught me is demotivational. Knowing what I need to do is actually not motivational at all, but the success feels great. The money’s good. I love the money. I love the growth. I love the success, but I guess, I wanted …” A lot of clients will tell me they thought that the answers I would give them would, perhaps, be more motivational, but I break it down into a step-by-step system. How would you explain implementing the step-by-step system, as a client, for anybody out there that’s maybe considering scheduling a consultation?

Well, I have a perfect example. I remember I came into the office there on a Saturday. I had lost a couple of sales that I should have gotten, and you said, “Come on in here.” You diagrammed out the sales process for me, and I said, “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to do it.” I said, “I’m not going to,” but I did because I know that it would have made sense for me to do it, and I did do it, and it just worked wonders. The reason why I say that, and I say it that way is because even though it might not sound intuitively correct, it’s a proven path. Clay knows what he’s doing. If you just do what he says in the timeframe that he says to do it, you’ll get results.

Now, 96% of businesses, according to Inc. Magazine, fail within their first 10 years. Now, I’m going to put a link here. You’ve seen people, James, file bankruptcy. As an attorney, you’ve seen this. I’m not attacking anybody out there that’s gone into bankruptcy, but most businesses fail by default. I don’t think people, maybe, think about that a lot.

The way I explain what I do for people is, imagine that we had a minefield. I’m going to pull up … It’s like, imagine that you were running down a field. This is the field. You click here. You look, you’re in a field. Imagine I’ve already gone through the field. I’ve already made my way through here, and here, and …. I made it through the end and I’m here. Woo! There is mines on the way, but I know where the mines are and the mines aren’t. It might make sense to follow the guy that knows where the mines-

Did you say mimes?

Mines. Yeah, not mimes.

Did you say mimes?

Not mimes, not a lot of miming. These would be explosive devices. If there is somebody who has made it through the minefield of life and had success, and you could just follow them down the path and not blow up, that would be great. Another way to look at this would be like if you look at a mountain path. If you’re somebody out there and you’re like, “Gosh, I want to get to the top of the mountain, but I don’t want to fall off and die. I want to get there before nightfall.” If you have an experienced guide who’s gone down the path, you can have them lead you down the path, and it just gets done. It makes sense. Nobody dies in the process.

I think a lot of people in business, they fail because they just don’t know how to scale their business. They don’t know the proven processes, they don’t know the systems. Now, once we get the accounting in place, the marketing, and the sales, and the tracking, now we have to create systems for everything. By doing that, that’s what creates time freedom. That would be checklists, that would be workflows, that would be processes, this would be documents. These are all the things you need.

If you are out there today and you say, “I want to grow my business now, woo!” Okay, that’s great. I’m glad you’re excited. What you want to do is you want to go to, right here, thrivetimeshow.com. You can do /eofire. You can schedule a one-on-one consultation, or you can come out to one of our workshops. Our workshops are the highest-rated small business workshops on the planet. James, for anybody out there that’s thinking about filling out the form, thinking about needing help to grow their business, what would you say to them, sir?

Do it.

Oh, wow. Wow. Now, again, not everybody can hide behind their physical beauty in the way that James can, so if you’re out there today and you’re like me, where you don’t have the beauty thing working for you like James … James could be an actor. A lot of people, I’m sure, do business with James just because he’s a beautiful man, but for anybody out there who’s a mere mortal like myself, I encourage you to fill out the form. We work with a lot of great, normal people just like James. James, I’ll give you the final word. Anybody out there that’s thinking about working with us, what would you say?

Read whatever Clay tells you to read. Read whatever Clay’s team tells you to read. I’ve got three books that I think should have been lumped into one. They’re all by Robert Kiyosaki. They’re great books. One of them is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Yeah.

The next one is Increase Your Financial IQ, and the one after that is the Cashflow Quadrant. They’re amazing books. The guy was homeless, living out of his car, building a new business. Built it. At one point, a few years later, he purchased $85 million worth of real estate, and he’s just a great inspiration, I think, for everybody, and talks about some of the keys that you need.

Again, that’s Cashflow Quadrant. I’ll put a link there to it.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Increase Your Financial IQ, and Cashflow Quadrant. All three of those books by Robert Kiyosaki.

Hey, listen, you are bringing these in fast. You give me just a second. This is … Okay. I got the link to the Cashflow Quadrant, and you said Financial IQ is the next book?

There’s, the first one was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Then the one after that was Increase Your Financial IQ.

Increase Your Financial IQ. Increase Your Financial IQ. I see it. Ooh, ooh. Okay. Rich Dad. Okay, I see it. Putting a link to right now. Feeling the flow, working it, linking it, putting the link. Ooh, got it right there. Again, folks, if you’re out there, you’re saying, “I don’t where to start.” The thing is, the mind is what the mind is fed, so if you are out there putting books in your mind, and there’s a lot of stuff out there. There’s Tai Lopez, and there’s all this motivational stuff that it feels good, it’s exciting, but do you leave actually knowing what to do? I don’t know. I just know our program, it’s month-to-month.

I’m definitely excited.

What’s that?

I’m definitely excited.

That’s right.

[inaudible 00:33:03]

Putting a link here. This is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Okay. Then, James, for anybody out there that’s looking for an attorney in New York, if they want to get ahold of you, do you work with clients all over the country or just New York, or how does that process look there?

All over the country. It just depends on what the case is about, but yeah, the best thing to do is just to give a call, 212-500-1891, 212-500-1891, 212-500-1891. We have folks standing by that’ll answer your phone at anytime, phone call, and you just schedule a 10-minute call with me.

James, I guess, my final question would be here, what kind of cases do you want to work with, and what kind of cases do you not want to work with? Just so we don’t waste your time or somebody else’s time.

Yeah, so it’s primarily, business litigation and real estate. Business litigation is, for instance, breach of contract case, something like that, or a case where an investor invests cash and has trouble recovering it, or real estate transactions in New York, commercial and residential, and commercial disputes when two businesses fight each other.

I think a lot of people, James, are going to struggle with the spelling of your last name. Could you walk us through the spelling of your last name?

Sure. It’s DeCristofaro, is the way you say it. The spelling is D-E, capital C-R-I-S-T-O-F like Frank, A-R-O, DeCristofaro.

James, you’ve worked with our team for a long time. You met our photographers, and our videographers, and our web team. How would you describe the web photography, video, the whole … All the stuff we include with the consulting?

I’ve got one word for it, and it’s accommodating. There are more words, professional, accommodating, skilled.

James, I tell you what, you are looking like you smell terrific, and I appreciate you being here with me, and I will talk to you soon. All right?

All right, Clay. Thanks very much.

All right. Three, two, one, boom.

Boom.

All right, Thrive Nation, check it out. We have our business workshop. Our two-day, interactive business workshop is taking place here on the second week of November. It’s the second Thursday and Friday in November. I’ll pull up the screen so you can see it here. We have just under 35 tickets remaining for this. Now, I know you know me from the Reawaken America tour, and that’s what we’re doing, but I do business workshops, and I’ve been doing them for over 10 years. I do them every two months. They’re very interactive, and we have over 2,000 client success stories that you can see right there if you go to thrivetimeshow.com.

This two-day, interactive business workshop is hosted at my office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s a two-day, interactive how to grow your business workshop, where I teach you everything you need to know to start and grow a successful company. I’ve built several multimillion dollar companies, and I’m going to teach you how to do it. If you want to know how to do the marketing, the branding, your accounting, your sales, your workflows, search engine optimization, online ads, everything you need to know, we’re going to include that for you.

The way I do the tickets is you can pay $250 for a ticket, or whatever price you want to pay. Why? Because I grew up poor and I know what’s that like to have zero income, but to have big dreams, and having big dreams with no income, I get it. Sometimes, you need a help, maybe hand up, not a handout, and we’re here to give you that hand up. At the Thrivetime Show workshop, let me tell you what you get here. You get practical, step-by-step business training. It’s a hands-on business workshop. It starts at 7:00 a.m., and it goes until 3:00 p.m. From 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day. It’s very interactive. It’s a two-day workshop.

We’re going to teach you how to create businesses, how to launch businesses, how to scale businesses. We’re going to teach you the step-by-step systems you need to implement to grow a successful company. We’re going to teach you how to … Everything you need to know, but there’s no upsell in the back of the room. Why do I do it? I do it because you deserve it. B, I’m very good at it, and my partner, Dr. Robert Zoellner and I, between he and I, we’ve built a lot of successful companies. I built Oklahoma’s largest men’s grooming business-

Whoa!

… an independent, privately-owned men’s grooming business called Elephant in the Room, which that website is eitrlounge.com. My partner, Dr. Robert Zoellner, has built DrZoellner.com, the largest independent private optometry clinic. He’s built Z66, z66aa.com, Oklahoma’s largest auto auction. We’ve coached up and built up home building businesses, home flipping businesses, gold and silver companies. Let me just show you. If you go to thriveshow.com and you click on the testimonials button, you’re going to see over 2,000 testimonials.

Look at this. The attorney, James, from New York. We helped him grow his business by 79.4% last year. The Flyover Conservatives have grown their podcast by 16,000%, which is a large percentage. The Platinum Pest, it’s a pest control company. They’ve grown 411%. Shaw Homes has grown from 16 million to over 160 million in sales. Someone says, “You don’t have to sell me. I get it.” No, no, no. I’m going to give you more. These are just testimonials from the past few months.

We’ve got Kirsten White, a home decorator, a home design, an interior design business. She’s grown her business dramatically. You’ve got here, Placid Ajoku is a fitness, a personal trainer, instructor. He’s grown his business dramatically. You got Dan Knapp. It’s an affordable insulation company. He’s grown it dramatically. Tyler Hallblade, let me tell you his story. He went from a startup to $10 million-plus in sales. His company’s PrimoTrailers.com. BarbeeCookies.com, grown the business dramatically. Joe Burby with Back to Basics Builders.

Someone says, “No, no. I don’t need any more.” No, no. You need more. We have over 2,000 testimonials, so you can get those tickets by going to thrivetimeshow.com. It’s thrivetimeshow.com, and you click on the conferences button. Once you click that button right there, boom, you can see where you can request tickets. These events take place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at my home office. You can get those tickets at thrivetimeshow.com. My name’s Clay Clark.

After I finish connecting with you, speaking with you, I’m going to share with you a brief little commercial so you can see more about the interactive, two-day Thrivetime Show workshop. Just under 40 tickets remaining for that. It’s going to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the second week in November. Someone says, “I’m looking for a specific date.” I get it. Let me show you real quick here. The actual date is going to be … Okay, here we go. November 10th and 11th.

If you can’t make that one, we have February 2nd and 3rd, where my very good friend, John Lee Dumas, the host of one of the largest podcasts in the world, he’ll be attending this event as well. It’s the EOFire podcast. It’s John Lee Dumas, my very good friend, John Lee Dumas. I’ve been on his show, I think, eight times, nine times. This guy, John Lee Dumas, let me tell you, he has a podcast, and on the top-right of his website, he actually tracks how much profit he’s made for the month. This month alone, this man has generated $182,000 of income this month with his podcast, and he’ll be speaking at the in person Thrivetime Show workshop we have coming up in February.

On November 10th and 11th, we have the two-day, interactive workshop. The way the workshop works is we kick off at 7:00 a.m., and then at 7:40, we take our first break, and then we open it up for questions. Then we do another session at 8:00, and then we open it up for questions. Then 9:00, and more questions, so you’re getting over 15 hours of interactive training. We serve lunch both days, and you get to come to my office right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I would say a little over 90% of the attendees are not from Tulsa, Oklahoma. You’re going to have a blasty blast. My name’s Clay Clark. I’m fired up to meet you. Get those tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com, thrivetimeshow.com. I know it costs money to get to these events, but you can name your price. We want to make it affordable for you, so you can get those tickets at thrivetimeshow.com.

The Thrivetime Show two-day, interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven, 13-point business systems that Dr. Zoellner 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’ve built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. 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. I wanted the knowledge and they were like, “Oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop.”

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 Zoellner & Associates. Look him 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. We’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you.