Dr. Zoellner explains the importance of focusing on what you can control and unplugging from the world to become a person of action in the information age.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver
grab the duct tape and mentally prepare yourself for yet another mind-expanding knowledge bong from America’s number one business coach, Clay Clark off the wing
being a person of action. Z, I really would like for you to to talk about this because it is very possible in this information age for you and I to know we have access, unbelievable access, eed information. Everybody out there, we have [inaudible]. You remember back in the day you and I used to have to go to the library and get out the microfiche. Can you explain what the microfiche was and how you could use that to find information back in the day if you wanted it? Yeah, I’d up show them. Micro fish is a fish expert, but it’s basically this big contraption that they had everything that they had photographed and kind of minimized it and then you could, you could put it underneath there and it Kinda projected into the thing and you can move around the thing and I don’t know, I’m not doing for a good job.
Just think, just look at things. Let’s say the back of the day though. Let’s say that you wanted to learn how to, let’s say, put in a retaining wall and to decide what kind of drain tile to put in, uh, to, uh, to you want, you want to put in a nice French drain system. Okay. Back in the day you were thinking about hiring a company to do it for you and you wanted to get yourself well coached up and you wanna get educated about the subject before you make a decision. Sure. Back in the day, you, you, you could we go on Google back in 1992? No. And then back in 97, it was like, Eh, God, forget it. Yeah. And so you’d have to go what to go, you’d have to go buy that, that book series that Bob Vila made available that series by do, do it yourself little house, this old house.
Or you would go to the library and you’d talk to somebody who would say, welcome to the library. They always whisper wearing glasses around their nose. Welcome to the library and you’re going, I’m trying to, um, find a book about landscape. Sh you’re the library. What was your question? So it’s this competition with the quietest possible. Sure. And you could spend a day there trying to find and they were so happy or there and yet they just seemed like they were so annoyed at the same, they were so annoyed. But they’re so happy you’re there because they were like, someone’s in mind, a library. I mean, yet they didn’t want in the library it’s kind of like you and your neighbors come over to your party. You’re like, you want people there, but then you’re like, hey, we don’t want anybody in my house. But yet you threw a party so you don’t want your, the normalcy to show up.
I remember I had a family member back in the day, used to invite people over for holidays and then read a book. Yes. Just be bitter there, there, read a book while you’re there. Just give you skunk guy the whole time. I’m like [inaudible] you shot yo credit. Read this. Look while you’re here. That’s why I invited you. Right. Okay. So the court conversation I want to have here at the the core knowledge bombs, we’re in the age of information. So how do you avoid information overload and to become a person of action and the information age, how do you become a person who’s not so overwhelmed by all the options that you actually don’t get anything done in this time where we have so much opportunity and access to information, how do we become a doer in the age of information overload? And the way I do it is I just unplug someone the other day, do what?
Don’t you hear about the latest with x, Y, z? And I’m like, no. And they just looked at me like, oh, how could you not know that I go, yeah, you know, good thing about politics and good thing about life in general for the most part on that, on that level is that you go back in a year like, like it’s like watching the, these days of our life, days of our life. Just watching them last night. Yeah. You can skip a year and then like in 15 minutes you can flip it on. You know you’re home for lunch one day and thinking, I wonder what’s going on with Becky and Susan and Billy and days of our lives or whoever they are. You turn it on within 15 minutes, you’ve cut off the whole year. I mean, it’s nothing happened. So unplug, quit worrying about it. Quit blogging about it. I don’t know.
The law is gonna go up. I think the walls going down, but I care about the walls going up. I hit the wall. I learned the wall. I mean z where the optometry clinic, how are you going to mitigate risks? Risks during the third quarter of all the 20 only 20 2024 yeah. It’s just going to be epic. Who’s gonna run? Who’s not gonna run? What are they going to run on? How are they going to do what? How do you feel? What’s your approval? Right after performing constantly China will. Amtrak. Did you hear what he said? Did you hear what he’s saying? Or have you decided to expand to the auto auction? Are you worried about the cost of concrete go home? What do we do with China? Chinese, Chinese coming, Chinese coming in, but where do we going to be trying to Chapman.
Seriously. You’ve heard people [inaudible] have you not heard this kind of stuff? I mean I, dude, I just, I block it out. I don’t watch the news. I have, I, I used to read two newspapers a day and I quite frankly don’t even read the newspapers anymore. I don’t look at the newspapers. I’m very purposeful in knowing what I need to get done, what I can control. I’m not a control freak because I use like I travel freight know, listen, you’ve got your lane, stay in your lane and you’re laying the step that you can get done yourself. I can’t, no matter what phone calls I make, the wall is not going to go up or go down. I can’t. So because Trump tastic is trying to get that wall built. That doesn’t impact your dad. Don’t pay attention to it because a Cortez is raising minimum wage.
You’re not shutting down. Shutting down my businesses because regulation, increased regulation and the changing of Obamacare was impacting the medical industry. You’re not getting out of the optometry clinic? No. Tell me the, tell me the new rules and I play by him. Tell me the hoops. Because Warby Parker is an online dealer selling glasses. You’re not going to put your head in the sand and cry crush Warby Parker. What do I know? Z? Because there might be another auto auction move into town. You’re not going to just stop expanding your auto auction. Correct. Because the economy might be tightening up due to inflation and we might have to raise interest rates during the year 2021 you haven’t stopped growing. No. And that’s the thing about it is here, here’s, here’s what it is folks. And I know it’s easier said than done. Here we go. But I think the number one thing that keeps me from doing action steps, in other words, if, if, if everyone have every listing right there right now and if I said, listen, when is one thing he could do today that would better your life, better your business better your who can tell you?
Hopefully you could tell me something. Yeah and then I would look at you. The next question would be why aren’t you doing it? And I think the number one thing that keep people from doing things that they need to know that they know they need to do is fear, fear, fear, fear. Fear is, I think if I could stamp out one thing in this world, if someone said, hey, here’s a, here’s a magic wand, you can stamp out, well if Tony Robbins were here and Tony Robins is not here, but if he was here, he would say that fear is false evidence appearing real. And although Tony and I disagree on a great many things, I agree on that. I do agree on that. We agree. [inaudible] point for Tony. Good Johnson. Yeah, there you go. Mega point. He can spin that at a business conference. Um, so I think that that that’s what happens. The fear of failure, fear of not succeeding, fear of and fill in the blank. Fear of looking like a fool. Qaeda fair.
I know Parallon and have not started companies waste. I know people, it’s not started companies because they’re afraid of all kinds of a lot of things. It’s kind of like, well, I don’t know. I don’t know what the economy’s going to do with this new administration, so I’m going to sit back and wait. Now think about this. George Washington, George George Washington carver, George Washington carver once wrote, he said 99% of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. 99% of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. My friend, if you are out there trying to get stuff done in this age of information overload, information overload and data smog, here are doctors. He’s two tips. One, focus on what you can’t control and to unplug. Baby. Unplug. Unplug on what you control. Get some action steps. Step one, step two, step three, let’s get it done. Let’s get her stuff done. I love that. Get her done. We see we’ve got to go get her done. We got an interview, a general McChrystal here in just a second, so we’re going to go, here we go. Three, two, one, boom.