Pastor Craig Groeschel | The Pastor of the Largest Protestant Church In America Teaches How to Scale An Organization & How to Create a Highly Productive Daily Routine + 2 Long-Time Clay Clark Client Success Stories

Audio Transcription

A quick story about a young Coach Meyer. He would drive seven hours to hear Tom Osborne speak for about 15 minutes and then drive all the way back through the night and be ready for the next day of practice. But that was his hunger and that was the that was the such a part of the culture that we had was a hunger for improvement, to be better, to find the next steps, no matter what it took. 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 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 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 Zunich. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women.

13 multimillion-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 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 some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s the C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go!

We started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, now we here. Pastor Craig Rochelle, shares his daily success habits, how he spends the first three hours of his day, the importance of finding great people early on when building something, developing strength through systems, how to build a great family while simultaneously growing a great organization, the importance of saying no, how his first remote location actually didn’t go very well How he proactively retrains his mind by intentionally creating neural pathways

How he deals with criticism on social media why he has two phones and much much more Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men. Eight kids. Co-created by two different women.

Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Nation, welcome back to another exciting edition of the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. On today’s show we are interviewing a pastor who has led a team that has now created the largest Protestant church in America. They started this church in a two-car garage equipped with a borrowed overhead projector because that’s the key to success there, it’s the borrowed overhead

projector, that’s the thing. He went on to co-create six kids to one up me. He co-created six kids, hopefully on today’s show we can ask him how that’s possible, and he also created the world’s most popular Bible app called the YouVersion Bible app with over 350 million downloads and he’s also the best-selling author of the new book Hope in the Dark, Believing God is Good When Life is Not. Pastor Craig welcome on to the show sir. Hey Clay, Dr. Z, I’m glad to be on with you. Thank you for having me.

Hey, I got to ask you this because you are a man, I feel like you have so many things going on. You got the book going on. You have the 30 campuses going on. Every time I turn on YouTube, you’re there. Your leadership podcast, one of the clients I coach,

a company called Master Machine, they love your leadership podcast they were just talking about this morning. You appear to be everywhere. So, I want to ask you, what time do you wake up every day and what do those first three hours of your day typically look like? The latest I’ll get up is 6.30.

Sometimes I’ll be in the office as early as maybe 5 in the morning, that’s maybe one day a week, possibly two. The first three hours of the day is kind of boring, but what I try to do is get to the office as fast as I can. So I eat, I come up to the office and and I do a five-minute kind of brain training where I’m focusing my brain, meditating.

I do my Eversion Bible reading plan. I spend a few minutes praying, and then I kind of attack the day. I try to spend the early part of the morning before other people get in doing study time because the office heats up around 8.30 or 9. So I’m most creative in the morning and that’s when I’m knocking out the kind of stuff that I study.

And so I wish I could tell you there’s more secret fun stuff, but that’s about it. It’s pretty boring. Okay, when you are meditating or training your brain, is what I’m picturing see and maybe I’m maybe I’m getting this wrong but I picture something where it’s like I’m training my brain. There it is. That’s me training my brain. To do better brain. Is that how you do it?

That is so weird because that’s exactly what it’s like. Oh wow! We got that. What does that look like for you? I think someone out there wants to know, like, okay, they could be a fly on the wall. Are you standing upside down on your head?

Are you levitating rocks with Yoda? What are you doing? I’m sitting back in my chair, leaning back with my feet up on the desk, listening to an app and having some guy tell me to focus on my breathing and stuff like that. Really? Yeah.

Okay, so now you have built this church, this overnight success story. It’s happened overnight by the way, this just happened overnight, and you started in 1996, that would mean I was 16 years old at the time. And now here we are 2018, I’m 37, so you’ve been doing this for a long time. We have a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are starting with nothing, just like how you started the church, which is what intrigues me about your story so much.

Can you talk to us about starting a church with approximately 40 people in a two-car garage equipped with a borrowed overhead projector? Where did you start? What did the process look like of starting what we now know as Life Church? Well, that’s pretty close. The only going to finish not accurate as they actually donated that the overhead projector so we did on that and all

there we are and i think that was a about that honest to goodness was the extent of everything we have is borrowed from you know god bring in his keyboard keyboard and we had borrowed green felt back chairs from a Sunday school class that I would not wish on anybody. I think the you know anytime anybody’s starting anything it’s incredibly difficult.

You second-guess yourself the whole time. To me, it’s always about trying to find the right people early on. That’s what’s really, really, really challenging to do. When it starts growing and things start to make it, it gets really chaotic. That’s when you have to start putting systems in place and such. So we had some kind of early success. We had someone write an article on us and we boomed up to 164 people. So the church fell back down to about 80 people because we just didn’t have the right systems.

We weren’t able to track people. We weren’t able to follow up with them. And so you kind of have to grow at a healthy pace. As you guys know, as entrepreneurs, you can grow too fast, you can not have enough cash or whatever. And so little by little, we tried to do the next right thing and we went from a little

two-car garage to an elementary school and then we bought a 10,000 square foot bike factory and made it into a church and then three years later managed to get a real building out of the ground. The thing that I’m most impressed with about you is from what I can tell it appears as though you have a good relationship with all six kids and you have a great relationship with your incredible wife who by the way I don’t know if she’s seen you because

you think you’ve tricked her into marrying her marrying you she’s a I’ve heard you talk about that before I mean don’t go see her Make sure she doesn’t see an optometrist like Dr. Z. We’ll keep her just a little blind. Amazing, yeah. So how do you, when you’re starting a church, I did it wrong, I didn’t start a church, I started a business.

And I did it wrong, I didn’t do this. So this is me looking back at it in hindsight, but I put every second of every day into starting DJ Connection. I got to work at 4 or 5 in the morning every day. I would finish working at 7 or 8 o’clock at night. And then I got to a place where I was pretty positive my kids didn’t know my name. And then I thought, why am I sleeping on this couch? Can you talk to us about the balance? How have you been able to balance your

schedule? How do you do that? How do you get it all done? Well, so we really, really, really do honestly have a super strong marriage. Things are really healthy and we haven’t had any real marriage, you know, massive marriage problems, but I will say I have not always gotten it right. In the early years, I had a wake-up call. I was a lot like you. My daughter one time said to me, my oldest daughter, she said, I said, I’ll see you tonight when I get home, and she said, Daddy, you don’t live here. This isn’t your

house. You live at the office. And so that’s, I really was like that. The advantage that I had is kind of that Andy was all in with me. So there was never, it wasn’t like I was building something that she felt like was bad or competing with the marriage. She was invested with me. And in the later years, we have to work really, really, really, really hard to keep things leveled out. You’ve got a lot of kids. You can have two kids and they can wear you out with the schedule. It’s just that what everybody teaches is you have to put the big

priority places in first. That’s what we work really, really, really hard to do. We’ve been kind of religious with a date night, doing one almost every single week. We fight really, really hard for one full day off and try not to compromise that. And then we have to just be really really intentional with our kids because there are so many of them

and they get older, they get more complicated. But there’s nothing, there’s not a trick to it, there’s nothing easy about it. It’s just intentionality and it doesn’t matter if you have no kids and you’re working somewhere. If you’re not intentional, you will be overwhelmed. I mean, you’ll just do stuff like spend hours on social media or playing games, and life will take over, and we have to fight against the normal trajectory to have something that’s

really different. Pastor Craig, would you address somebody out there who’s listening right now, and they say, oh, it’s a pastor of a church. I bet he never says no to anything. He’s got all these people and answering the phone and his schedule, you know, people calling him up and, and cause you know, I’m struggling with what, you know, when to say no, when

to say yes. Can you address that in your life and the transition you made from probably saying yes a lot more to probably saying, I would think maybe no some more now? Well, in the early years, I had to say yes most of the time. It was the right thing to do.

There wasn’t anybody else to delegate to, and so I had to do most of it. Today, I don’t want to sound weird, but my default answer is no. You know, in invitations to go places, it’s almost always a no.

It has to be pretty special even to get in front of me for me to consider saying yes to it. It’s just with so many moving parts, all your entrepreneurs will realize is to grow any organization, you have to say no to other things and say yes to only the things that you can say yes to. As we grow, we’re going to do fewer and fewer

things to add more and more value, but if you don’t say no to other things, grow we’re going to do fewer and fewer things to add more and more value. But if you don’t say no to other things then you’re going to keep other people from rising and being invested. And so it’s actually selfish and saying too many yeses not only will hold you back and hold you down but it’s gonna hold your organization back. So We grow with strategic no’s. and saying yes to only your best. Well, yeah, you have to say no to the good things so that you can make room for the great things and Pastor Craig, he does a phenomenal job talking about this.

You gotta allow yourself the ability to say yes to these great things. You know what I want to do? I want to create a new neural pathway. New neural one. And I’m going to go ahead and bring it back bring it back to grow any organization come on now you have to say no to other things and say

yes to only the things that you can say yes to as we grow we’re gonna do fewer and fewer things that add more and more value as we grow we’re gonna do fewer and fewer things that add more and more value. As we grow, we’re going to do fewer and fewer things to add more and more value. As we grow, we’re going to do fewer and fewer things to add more and more value. Building new neural pathways.

As we grow, we’re going to do fewer and fewer things to add more and more value. Changing habits. Fewer and fewer things to add more and more value. Marshall, although I know the listeners and I things to add more and more value. Marshall, although I know the listeners and I want to just play that back over and over and just

marinate rotisserie, slow rotisserie style, you know when you get some good meat and you just marinate on it? I know a lot of listeners just want to marinate on that all day, because doing fewer things that add greater and greater value is a profound knowledge bomb for anybody trying to nail it and scale it. I mean, if the elephant in the room, we do not create a new marketing strategy every

week. No, you don’t have to do 17 different marketing strategies and come up with a new idea of the week every single week to have success in your business. You gotta do fewer things in order to have success. But as a culture, people are addicted to new. New girlfriends, new jobs, new churches, new material goods.

But you don’t become successful as a result of doing new things all the time. You have to cherish the things you have. You have to be a good steward of your marriage, a good steward of your business, a good steward of your favorite pair of shoes. Marshall, preach the good news for somebody out there who’s bought into the lie and the addiction of new and constantly doing new things, new technology, help somebody out there. Doing things new every single week is

a product of believing in this get rich quick scheme. It’s not possible. There is something such as get rich slow and you gotta go low and slow. Did you hear it took him three years to build his first building? Three years! My main man Craig Richelle has been doing this since 1996. 1996.

Now what year is it right now Marshall? 2018. Doing some math. Doing some math. Yeah, last time I checked. This just in, that’s 22 years he’s been committed to daily diligence, the consistency. And now back to our exclusive interview with

Pastor Craig Rochelle, the pastor of the largest Protestant church in America. Over 100,000 people attend the church, a quarter million people watch online each and every week, and 350 million people have downloaded their Bible app. Mind-blowing. Your entrepreneurs, they’re gonna have great opportunities to go and do kind of good ideas. Too many good ideas will take them off the great ideas. We have

to be strategic in saying no and you grow with no’s more often than you grow with too many yes’s. Well that’s a great word. That is a great word. Thank you for sharing that. That right there, that was powerful. You grow through the know. I’m going to put that on a shirt and sell it and give you all the money. I think that’s incredible. That’s an impressive, that’s where my mind goes anytime I see a good quote. We can put that on a shirt and sell to the conference. Absolutely. Now Pastor Craig, your church is very proficient in technology.

But I would say that most churches that I’ve ever worked with as a consultant or pastors I’ve ever, churches I’ve ever attended, they seem to be kind of clumsy with technology. Now that’s a broad statement, but you know what I mean? Like Church of the Move in Tulsa is great with their technology. But a lot of churches are

kind of clumsy with the video and the audio and how they do things, and you guys are excellent. You obviously didn’t start off excellent. When did you decide to put the church on the video? When did you decide to broadcast to multiple campuses? Well, I think churches are becoming better, so I’ll kind of speak up for my friends. So what happened is we got our first building out of the ground in 1999, three years into it, and we kind of outgrew the building. So we were turning people away.

Literally, we couldn’t fit them in for fire code and such. So we didn’t know what to do. The church was really young, and 22-year-olds don’t have the financial capacity typically that most fifty five-year-old and so we couldn’t afford to expand the bridges were stuck someone said and i wouldn’t remember who it was what if we did church in another location

this is nineteen ninety nine uh… maybe two thousand and that was pretty much unheard of i I didn’t know anybody else doing it and and so we said, is it legal? Can we try that? And we did. We rented a movie theater seven miles away and we put a second band up there and we did church in our main building and then in a movie theater. Well, one Saturday night after I preached on Saturday, my wife gave birth to our fourth kid, about four in the

morning, and so I wasn’t going to leave her to go back and preach. We didn’t have time to get one of the pastors kind of ready, and so we said, what if we ran the video from the Saturday night service and just played it on Sunday morning people understand that just had a baby and such well we did it and we’d we’d never really realized but in the size of our auditorium people rarely looked up at the person they were often looking at the screens and so it kind of

went off without a hitch. In fact, even though they told the people I wasn’t there, a lot of people didn’t even really remember. And so we started scratching our head, I wonder if this would work if we just showed video teaching. So we tried it in a second location and it didn’t work.

It failed because we thought, hey, if we show video and kind of have an emcee up there, then it will work. Well, we misdiagnosed the opportunity. And that’s when we had to kind of change everything that we do. We build leaders that then build churches. It’s not video teaching that builds churches.

It’s spiritual leaders that build churches. I have a little confession. Since you’re a pastor, I feel like I should make a confession here. Confess. I’ll say you’re forgiven. I listen to T.D.

Jakes every single morning. And I like to listen to the same sermon over and over. Right now, I’m listening to the sermon, Nothing is as Powerful as a Changed Mind. I listen to it all the time. All the time. All the time. Well then, one of my clients with a company called Master Machine, they said, Hey, we listen to Craig Rochelle’s Leadership Podcast in our office. We listen to it all the time. You should listen to

it. And you did this one about the mind recently and how the mind works. I think it was a series called The Mastermind. And it was mind-blowing for me. So I just want to confess to TD Jakes, if you’re listening, I’m sorry that I’ve been kind of cheating on you a little bit here and checking out Pastor Craig’s podcast. There’s only so many hours in a day, so I had to skip a couple days to listen to yours, so I don’t know I’m in a moral conundrum. We’ll deal with that later, but talk to me about this new series,

the one you just released, and what that was all about, because it was so powerful for me and I know for the guys at Master Machine. So I told you earlier that in the mornings I try to train my mind. I’m fascinated with this, but my mind is kind of one of my biggest challenges. My self-talk can be really negative, can be hard on myself. And so I love both the spiritual truth about how the mind works and then science, just, I mean, God created the mind, and so learning how God designed the mind is really fascinating. We know now that the mind is not fixed, that is, you know, we study neuroplasticity, that

the mind is evolving, And so what I’m trying to do is rewire, the Bible would call it renew your mind, or we might say retrain my mind with truth. And I’m trying to create new neural pathways. The more you think a thought, the easier it is to think that thought. And so if I think I’m not good, I can’t do this, I’m tired, I’m overwhelmed, I don’t have what it takes, there’s never gonna be enough time to get it all done, I’m

basically creating a self-defeating narrative in my own mind. So what I tried to do in that message series is to help people understand where we’ve created wrong thinking, wrong neural pathways, and then replace those with truth, with what Scripture says and what’s positive, so that we can then think the truth, which leads us into a much better life.

And so that’s a one-minute summary of four weeks of teaching. The amygdala, the part of the brain, the almond-sized part of the brain that controls the emotions. It’s amazing, we’ve had more and more experts on the show, we’re having a lot of Silicon Valley gurus on the show. We had a woman on the show yesterday, Ms. Ellen Petrie-Leans, she was on the show and she actually studied what the brain, what the smartphone’s doing to the brain, these

constant interruptions. And Psychology Today came out and said that the average person has now interrupted 85 times per day minimum and that people are now having the critical thinking skills of like third graders because they’re constantly in a state of perpetual distraction. You have so many data points. How many people go to your church on a typical Sunday do you think or are watching online? There would be anywhere between 80,000

and 100,000 that comes to a building and another probably quarter of a million that would watch it live online. Okay and so when you do a sermon as an example you did the one about demon possession that I watched and you did that and I remember watching it I was in a hotel with my wife and I’m going what is this guy talking about? This is what I said. I’m like, what is he talking about?

And then it made sense to me later, but at the beginning, I’m like, what is he talking about? Because you’re kind of teeing it up. Now, I didn’t go on social media and write, I strongly disagree. But that’s what a lot of people do. They just, I strongly disagree. You have to have at least a few complaints every week, right, from social

media or Twitter or people that disagree with what you’re doing. How do you handle the amygdala and how do you protect it from allowing that small almond part of the brain to control your entire body? Yeah, well sometimes it does, unfortunately. The fight or flight, the amygdala says, strike back. So there are times when someone gets personal, I just want to say, here’s my address, and name the time and show up.

As a pastor, I’m just not allowed to do that. So on a good day, I stay above it. I don’t let it get to me at all and tell myself it’s just a part of it and try to keep focused on the mission. And I always tell myself if you’re not doing anything, you’re not going to be criticized. So don’t worry about it when you are.

Worry about it when you’re not. Marshall, I hate to have to replay it multiple, multiple times again, but this is yet another marination moment. I mean, this is one of these knowledge bombs that we need to hear it at least two more times. Marshall, are you prepared to bring it back? I’m mentally, spiritually, metaphysically prepared. Bring it back!

I always tell myself if you’re not doing anything you’re not going to be criticized. So don’t worry about it when you are, worry about it when you’re not. I always tell myself if you’re not doing anything you’re not going to be criticized. So don’t worry about it when you are, worry about it when you’re not. I’m starting to get it! I always tell myself if you’re not doing anything you’re not going to be criticized. So don’t worry about it when you are. Worry about it when you’re not. I’m starting to get it. I always tell myself, if you’re not doing anything, you’re not going to be criticized.

So don’t worry about it when you are. Worry about it when you’re not. It’s so good, it’s blowing my mind. Don’t worry about it when you are. Worry about it when you’re not. Oh just one more time just one more time. Don’t don’t worry about it when you are worry about it when you’re not. Marshall I’ve got to let it go. I’ve got to move on. I’ve got to let it go. We got to let it go. But I don’t want to let it go I just want to hear it again and again. It’s so good. And it’s so good. Somebody needs to hear this right now. It was so good when it first hit my ear, the ear area, and then it moved into my ear hole and then thus communicated to my cranium and then my synapses were just firing and all

of a sudden, just talking about it right now, I have to move on. We gotta go back to the interview. We gotta go back. On a bad day, it’ll get me down. If someone comes after someone that I love, I get real sensitive. But as leaders, that is part of the territory.

You can’t be … You’re entrepreneurs, they’re going to create waves, they’re going to have haters, and it’s just … you know, we have to train our brain away from it. And I talk myself, I tell myself we’re gonna be, if we’re gonna make a mistake, we’re gonna be four people, we’re gonna be positive. I’m gonna try to train our people and lead without being defensive, meaning as a pastor I can train our people to become combative,

which is, well, the people don’t like us, and we’ve got to stand up for ourselves, and some pastors won’t tell you the truth, but here’s the truth. What I’ve just done is pitted myself against other people theologically, so I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be positive. Here’s what we’re for. Here’s what we stand for. We don’t have to be defensive and try to create a culture that is more obsessed with doing good than defending what other people are saying. There is one of the businesses

I’m involved with is called Oxifresh. There’s 400 franchises around the country. It’s been around for over a decade. And as of today, we have 142,000 Google reviews. So if you Google carpet cleaning quotes, we’re now top in the world of all categories everywhere in the world. That’s a lot of reviews on carpet cleaning. Yes, and it’s the world’s greenest carpet cleaning system. Okay. So some people don’t

like that they were niched on that. You know, ten times less water than Stanley Steamer’s kind of the pitch. Or the haircut chain I have elephant in the room. It’s like a country club for men’s hair. It’s membership based. We don’t take walk-ins.

Some people hate the fact we don’t take walk-ins. You know, it’s a different business model. And again, the big issue for me is allowing myself just windows when I’m allowing myself to check. So I turn my phone off on Friday at noon and I do not look at it again until Monday. Can you talk to us about the boundaries that you’re setting? Because I would imagine at any moment in time if you ever go look at the comments on your

YouTube videos or Twitter or Facebook, there’s probably always one person that is complaining. I mean, what are the boundaries that you’ve set up for yourself in that area? There’s several different things I do. So during study time, I’ll leave my phone with my assistant and then she’ll only interrupt me if it’s family or something. That’s just for pure interruptions.

Then I actually have a second phone that I travel with and so if I’m gone with the family I leave the leave the other one behind and I take a second one that only a few people have and I’ve got it locked down so I can’t go on Safari, I can’t download apps, I can’t look at social media, I leave my computer behind and it just it takes me out if only for four days from looking at what anybody’s saying it’s like a hundred percent focused

uh… then nine o’clock in the evening uh… we try to put the phone aside we don’t always do that we try to put on the side and say you know at the end of the day i don’t want a little blue light in my eyes and i don’t want the laughing to do

didn’t have been but it was almost at this crazy on on face book or to be engaged with with people uh… the people my home and so those are some things that we we work toward we don’t always get it right but uh… the whole second phone, I know not everybody can afford to do that, but oh my gosh, when you’re just, when you have no ability to get to that other

world and you’re just fully present with people, that’s a pretty special gift. Pastor, I think there’s a knowledge bomb. Pastor Craig, I want to end up the show on a little personal note, I may which which and this is transparency for the Thrive Nation There we go. Which animal group. Do you do you like the least cats or squirrels? Yeah Cats are yes easy cat. Well, they’ll lift their tail and show you their backside when they walk by that’s not Christian. That’s easy. Nice!

He’s thought about it. That’s impressive. He’s thought about that. He’s thought about that. See, that deserves more cowbell. That did.

Pastor Craig, I appreciate you being on today’s show. Your newest book, Hope in the Dark, Believing God is Good When Life is Not. Again, Hope in the Dark, Believing God is Good When Life is Not is available in bookstores everywhere. Get it on Amazon, get it at your local bookstores, check it out today. Hope in the Dark, Believing God is Good When Life is Not. And now without any further ado, we like to end with a boom.

3, 2, 1, boom! Marshall I don’t want it to be done. He just gave us a boom but I’m not ready for it to be done. It’s like, Marshall you know how like your, maybe your prom or someone’s wedding or some highlight moment in your life, maybe it’s after the Cubs won the World Series and you just want to sit there in the stadium after the game and just say, well you remember

when the Cleveland Cavaliers, when your team won the championship? That’s right. Remember that? You just kind of want to revel in the moment. You’re not sure and they’re going, attention ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to leave but you can’t stay here We’re like no and you’re gonna wanna you’re just it’s on like a you’re on sacred ground You’ve just seen LeBron James bring a victory to the mistake by the lake Ouch, you’ve just seen LeBron James bring a championship back to its roots

But that’s right because you knew he’s gonna peace out soon and go to LA, so you didn’t want to just leave, you wanted to just let it happen. Yeah, you gotta stay there, you gotta stay on that. You’re one of the first people to call the fact that he was leaving, by the way. You mentioned that he was leaving for LA, you mentioned that right after that championship, you called it. But the point is, I’m not ready to move on. So I’m going to play one more knowledge bomb that he shared with us that blew my mind. I’m going to play it a few times because I think if we, what we’re doing America and

potentially the other planets who are listening from alien solar systems, alien galaxies, we’re doing them a disservice if we move on without everybody getting this next point. It’s not about this video work or not. Video obviously works because we pay money to stream it all the time. The key ingredient to make video teaching and church work is not the video, it’s the quality of the leadership of the place. Gosh man, time flies. I’d say right around four or five years ago, I just kind of felt like we were stuck and I wasn’t, my wheels weren’t moving and I had this goal and I just didn’t really

know how to get there. So you guys actually helped me with that. I mean, I reached out to you guys, we started our relationship, we started our coaching sessions and you guys helped me build a lot of the systems that we have now. But you know Clay, had I not actually sat down and took the time and the energy to reach out to you and then set aside time every single week to actually work on the specific goal of scaling Window Ninjas, then it would have never happened

and we wouldn’t have the it wouldn’t have come to fruition like it is today. Gage Salinas, welcome to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? I am wonderful, Clay. I’m glad to be here with you today. And just to give people a little context, how long have we worked with you in your in your business, sir?

A little over three years, Clay. We’ve been together for a little bit of a journey now. And I think we picked the best of times and the worst of times to work together. I mean, it’s like right at the peak of the geopolitical craziness. That’s when we started working with you, but you’ve continued to grow. What kind of growth have you seen over these past three years? Just so the listeners know that you do have, in fact, a business that can navigate through difficult times.

Well, we have over doubled our business here at Window Ninjas since working with you. I actually went back and looked through our numbers and I looked at some of our goals that we had set in the original conversation that I had with your team. And we have surpassed my original number

that I wanted to hit with you guys. And I was quite shocked at how, I won’t say easy, but systematic it was for us to be able to get to where we wanted to be. So information is key. Making sure you’re following the process

when it comes to marketing accurately and repetitively is something that we do over here and we have really really really scaled it to the next level and you know what Clay you guys are the ones that taught us that in the beginning and we have followed through with that for over the past what four or five years now that we’ve been working together. We have spent the last seven years scaling this business and, and, and we have these checklists in place with the help from your team, Clay.

And it just creates success for all of our customers, all of our franchisees, me here in my corporate office, all of our call center employees, our accounting department, all of our leadership center employees, our accounting department, all of our leadership teams, I mean it really, really, really solves a lot of problems. So as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel, man, just grab a checklist that somebody has already taken the time and the energy to develop for you, use it, and then master it, and then reap the benefits with the revenue that you’re

going to earn from doing those specific things that are on that checklist. It’s super powerful, Clay. It’s the best thing. I mean, I know that I can come into this office whenever I want, whether if I want to be here at seven o’clock in the morning or if I don’t want to be here at seven o’clock in the morning, I know that I’m gonna have people that are going to be here doing the specific

tasks that everybody in this operation needs them to specifically do. Having having good key people is important. Are you gonna lose some of your key people? Absolutely. But if you are always looking for great individuals, great people, and encourage them to come work for you, and then you teach them the systems,

and you teach them what their specific job is, and you let them know how important they are. Clay, well, first of all, thank you for having me again today. We’ve been doing this for quite a while. I’ve been working with you for quite a while. Anybody out there that’s looking for a coaching system I would definitely give Clay a call. Hey I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born to be here. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty

awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks.

It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Play is hilarious.

I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, and so the humor definitely helps, it breaks it up.

But the content is awesome, off the charts, and it’s very interactive, is awesome off the charts and it’s very interactive you can raise your hand it’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak you know the wizard teaches but the wizard interacts and he takes questions so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely… It’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the

thought process of someone that’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches. Getting in the thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they upsold, where it was great information, and then they upsold us like half the conference,

and I don’t wanna like bang my head into a wall, and she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her. Like, it’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh, I wanna strangle you, shut up, and go with the presentation that we paid for. And that’s not here. There’s no upsells or anything, so that’s awesome.

I hate that. Oh, that makes me angry. So, glad that’s not happening. So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. I went to a small private liberal arts college

and got a degree in business. And I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15

conference. The information that you’re gonna get is just very very beneficial and the mindset that you’re gonna get that you’re gonna leave with is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark.

Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy.

This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that.

We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month.

Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now

instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13- reviewed business workshops on the planet. you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan?

We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered.

The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this, and because there wasn’t anything like 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 you’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, getrich-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’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 it. All right. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to bring up my good friend Ryan Wimpy, my good friend Ryan Wimpy, and his dog, Odin. This dog has the ability to eat me, so I’m sort of concerned. I’ll pass the mic to you. And, Odin, you can have your own mic if you want, whatever you want, Odin.

Okay. I’m a little bit afraid of Odin. Hi, I’m want, Odin. Okay. I’m a little bit afraid of Odin. about internet marketing or advertising or anything at all. Just dog training. And that’s what’s so great about working with Clay and his team because they do it all for us. So that we can focus on our passion, and that’s training dogs. Clay and his team here, they’re so enthusiastic. Their energy is off the charts.

Never a dull moment. They’re a thrive. We’ve been working with Clay and his team for the last five months, two of which have been our biggest months ever. One, our biggest gross by 35%. Clay’s helped us make anything from brochures to stickers, new business cards, new logos, scripts for phones, scripts for emails, scripts for text messages, scripting for everything. How I would describe the weekly meetings with Clay and his team are awesome. They’re so effective. It’s worth every minute. Things get done. We’ll ask for things like different flyers and they’re done before our hour is up.

So it’s just awesome, extremely effective. If you don’t use Clay and his team, you’re probably going to be pulling your hair out, or you’re going to spend half of your time trying to figure out the online marketing game and producing your own flyers and marketing materials, print materials, all this stuff like that. You’re really losing a lot as far as lost productivity and lost time.

Not having a professional do it has a real sense of urgency and actually knows what they’re doing when you already have something that’s your core focus that you already know how to do. You would also be missing out with all the time and financial freedom that you would have working with Clay and his team. We would recommend Clay and his team to other business owners because they need to be working on their business, not just trying to figure out the online game, which is complex and

changing daily. So, and no one has a marketing team, too. Most people don’t. They can’t afford one, and their local web guy or local person that they know probably can’t do everything that a whole team and a whole floor of people can do in hours and not just weeks or months. There’s a definite sense of urgency with Clay and his team.

I used to have to ride other web people, really, I mean really ride them to get stuff done, and stuff is done so fast here and people, there’s a real sense of urgency to get it done. Clay Clark is here somewhere. there’s a real sense of urgency to get it done. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats his chickens his dogs So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen right his entire life clay Clark his entire life is is marketing Okay, Aaron Antis on March 6th and 7th March 6th and 7th. Guess who’s coming to Tulsa, Russia? Oh Santa Claus no, no, that’s. March 6th and 7th.

You’re going to be joined by Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki! Best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Probably the best-selling, or one of the best-selling business authors of all time. And he’s going to be joined with Eric Trump. He’ll be joined by Eric Trump.

We got Eric Trump and Robert Kiyosaki in the same place. In the same place. Aaron, why should everybody show up to hear Robert Kiyosaki? Well, you got billions of dollars of business experience between those two, not to mention many, many, many millions of books have been sold. Many, many millionaires have been made from the books that have been sold by Robert Kiyosaki.

I happen to be one of them. I learned from the man. He was the inspiration. That book was the inspiration for me to get the entrepreneurial spirit as many other people. Now, since you won’t brag on yourself, I will.

You’ve sold billions of dollars of houses, am I correct? That is true. And the book that kick-started it all for you, Rich Dad Pornhub, the author, the best-selling author of Rich Dad Pornhub, Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that kick-started your career,

he’s gonna be here. He’s gonna be here. I’m pumped. And now Eric Trump, people don’t know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. There’s not 50 employees. The Trump Organization, again, most people don’t know this, but the Trump Organization

has thousands of employees. And while Donald J. Trump was the 45th president of these United States and soon to be the 47th president of these United States, he needed someone to run the companies for him. And so the man that runs the Trump organization for Donald J. Trump as he was the 45th president of the United States and now the 47th president of the United States is Eric Trump. So Eric Trump is here to talk about time management, promoting from within,

marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. I mean, everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest

brands on the planet from a business standpoint. I mean, who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean, look at it. And this is the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it. So you’re talking we’re into nine going into 10 years of him running it and we get to tap into that knowledge. That’s going to be amazing. Now think about this for a second.

Would you buy a ticket just to see Robert Kiyosaki and Eric Trump? Of course you would. Of course you would. But we’re also going to be joined by Sean Baker. This is the bestselling author, the guy who invented the carnivore diet. Dr. Sean Baker, he’s been on Joe Rogan multiple times.

He’s going to be joining us. So you’ve got Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Eric Trump, Sean Baker, the lineup continues to grow and this is how we do our tickets here at the Thrive Time Show. If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it. It’s $500 for a VIP ticket, we’ve always done it that way. Now, if you want to take a general admission ticket, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. And the reason why I do that,

and the reason why we do that is because we want to make our events affordable for everybody. I grew up without money. I totally understand what it’s like to be in a tight spot. So if you want to attend, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay.

That’s how I do it and it’s $500 for a VIP ticket now We only have limited seating here with the most people we’ve ever had in this building was for the Jim Brewer Presentation Jim Brewer came here that the legendary comedian Jim Brewer came to Tulsa and we had 419 people that were here 419 people. Yeah, and I thought to myself, there’s no more room. I felt kind of bad that a couple people had VIP seats in the men’s restroom. No, I’m just kidding. So I thought, you know what, we should probably add on. So we’re adding on what we

call the upper deck or the top shelf. So the seats are very close to the presenters, but we’re actually building right now, we’re adding on to the facility to make room to accommodate another 30 attendees or more. So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to thrive timeshow.com, go to thrive timeshow.com. when you go to Thrive Time Show dot com you’ll go there, you’ll request a ticket, boom, or if you want to text me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now, just text my number, that’s my cell phone number, my personal cell

phone number, we’ll keep that private between you, between you, me, everybody. We’ll keep that private. And anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody. That’s my private cell phone number. It’s 918-851-0102. 918-851-0102. I know we have a lot of Spanish speaking people that attend these conferences. And so to be bilingually sensitive, my cell phone number is 918-851-0102. That’s not actually bilingual. That’s just saying Juan for a Juan. It’s not the same thing.

I think you’re attacking me. Now, let’s talk about this. Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show workshop? So Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So let’s talk about it. I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re gonna learn here, okay? Okay. You’re gonna learn marketing. Marketing and branding. What are we gonna learn about marketing and branding? Oh yeah, we’re gonna dive into, you know, so many

people say, oh you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand. You want to get that brand out there. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is? And make it a household name. You’re going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that. You’re going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something.

This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell. So we’re gonna teach you sales. We’re gonna teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you how to manage how to manage people. Aaron, you you I mean, you have managed no exaggeration, hundreds of people throughout your career and thousands of

contractors. And most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well because first of all people are you either have great people or you have people who suck and so it could be a challenge you know learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But if you have the right systems, you have the right processes and you’re really good at selecting great ones.

And we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable, they’re driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction. So we’re going to teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization. We’re going to teach you accounting. We’re going to teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance. We’re going to teach you time management. How do you manage your time? How do you how

do you how do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization? If you’re not organized? How do you do? How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart? Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two day interactive business workshop. Now let me tell you how the format is set up here.

And again, folks, this is a two day interactive 15. Think about this folks. It’s two days. Each day it starts at 7 a.m. and it goes until 5 p.m. So from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. two days, it’s a two day interactive workshop.

The way we do it is we do a 30-minute teaching session and then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session. So Aaron, what kind of great stuff happens during that 15-minute question and answer session after every teaching session? I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops because here’s what happens. I’ve been to lots of these things over the years. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them. And you go in there and they talk in vague generalities

and they’re constantly upselling you for something, trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership. And you don’t, you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your marketing.

And what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks. And it’s very specific to what your business is. And what we do is we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard.

And then we take a 15 minute break to stretch and to make it entertaining when you’re stretching. And this is a true story. When you get up and stretch, you’ll be greeted by mariachis. There’s going to probably be alpaca here, llamas, helicopter rides, a coffee bar, a snow cone. I mean, there’s just… You had a crocodile one time.

That was pretty interesting. You know, I should write that down. Sorry for that one guy that we lost. The crocodile, we duct taped its face. So that, right? We duct taped… It was a baby crocodile.

Yeah, duct tape around the mouth so it didn’t bite anybody. But it was really cool passing that thing around and petting it. I should do that. We have a small petting zoo that will be assembled. It’s going to be great. And then you’re in the company of hundreds of entrepreneurs.

So there’s not a lot of people in America today. In fact, there’s less than 10 million people today, according to US Debt Clock, that identify as being self-employed. So if you have a country with 350 million people, that means you have less than 3% of our population that’s even self-employed. So you only have three out of every 100 people in America that are self-employed to begin with and when Inc magazine reports that 96% of businesses fail by default

By default you have a one out of a thousand chance of succeeding in the game of business But yet the average client that you and I work with we can typically double this. I’m just no no no hyperbole No exaggeration, I have thousands of testimonials to back this up. We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically

double the size of the company within 24 months. And you say double? Yeah, there’s businesses that we have tripled, there’s businesses we’ve grown 8x, there’s so many examples you can see at thrivetimeshow.com. But again, this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. And then you add to that Robert Kiyosaki,

the best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. You add to that Eric Trump, the man that runs the Trump Organization. You add to that Sean Baker. Now you might say, but Clay, is there more? I need more. Well, OK, Tom Wheelwright is the wealth strategist for Robert Kiyosaki.

So people say, Robert Kiyosaki. So people say, Robert Kiyosaki, who’s his financial wealth advisor? Who’s the guy who manages, who’s his wealth strategist? His wealth strategist, Tom Wheelwright, will be here. And you say, Clay, I still, I’m not going to get a ticket unless you give me more. Okay, fine.

We’re going to serve you the same meal both days. True story. We cater in the food and because I keep it simple, I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch. It’s Ted Esconzito’s, an incredible Mexican restaurant. That’s going to happen.

And Jill Donovan, our good friend, who is the founder of Rustic Cuff, she started that company in her home and now she sells millions of dollars of apparel and products. That’s rusticcuff.com. And someone says, I want more. This is not enough. Give me more. Okay. I’m not gonna mention their names right now because I’m working on it behind the scenes here. But we’ve got one guy who’s giving me a verbal to be here. And this is a guy who’s one of the wealthiest people in Oklahoma and nobody really knows who he is

because he’s built systems that are very utilitarian that offer a lot of value. He’s made a lot of money in the, it’s the, it’s where you rent. It’s short, it’s where you’re, you’re renting storage spaces. He’s a storage space guy. He owns this. What do you call that? The rental, the, uh, storage space storage units.

This guy owns storage units. He owns railroad cars. He owns a lot of assets that make money on a daily basis, but they’re not like customer facing Most people don’t know who owns the mini storage facility or most people don’t know who owns the warehouse That’s passively making money. Most people don’t know who owns the railroad cars, but this guy He’s giving me a verbal that he will be here and we just continue to add more and more success stories. So if you’re out there today, you want to change your life you want to give yourself a Incredible gift you want a life-changing experience

You want to learn how to start and grow a company go to thrive time show.com go there right now drive time show.com Request a ticket for the two-day interactive event. Again, the day here is March 6th and 7th. March 6th and 7th. We just got confirmation. Robert Kiyosaki, best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad.

He’ll be here. Eric Trump, the man who leads the Trump Organization. It’s going to be a blasty blast. There’s no upsells. Uh, Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event. I think it is incredible. And there’s somebody out there right now you’re you’re watching and you’re like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program

called smoke your way to thin. I think that’s going to change your life. I promise you this will be 10 times better than that. It’s like I picked the wrong week. Quit smoking. Don’t do the smoke your way to thin conference. That is, I’ve tried it. Don’t do it. Chain smoking is not a viable, I mean it is life changing. It is life changing. If you become a chain smoker, it is life changing. It’s not the best weight loss program though.

Right. Not really. So loss program though. Right. Not really. So if you’re looking to have life-changing results in a way that won’t cause you to have a stoma, get your tickets at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Aaron Antis. I’m Clay Clark.

And reminding you and inviting you to come out to the two-day interactive Thrivetimeshow workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you, it will be a life-changing experience. We can’t wait to see you right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Transcribed with Cockatoo