Rock Thomas | Whole-Life Success 101 and the Importance of Having an Intentional Positive Irritator In Your Life

Audio Transcription

Speaker 1:
Thrive nation. On today’s show, we interview the whole life success expert rock Thomas. And on today’s show, he shares with us about the importance of having an intentional, positive, irritating in your life. So many to push you to the next level. And somebody who knows the way and goes the way. So I’d ask you today rhetorically, who is that mentor in your life? Who is that coach in your life? Who is that person who has gotten to where you want to go and who can show you specifically what you need to do to go from wanting to be successful to actually becoming successful? And now our interview with rock Thomas,

Speaker 2:
get ready to enter the thrive time show. [inaudible] got up from the bottom.

Speaker 3:
Now we’re on the top time you the systems to get what we got. Convictions on. The hooks are pretending the books will seize Brigance of wisdom and the quote look as the father of five. That’s why I’m a dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them how to get the C and C, uh, [inaudible]. And now three, two, one. Here we go.

Speaker 2:
[inaudible]

Speaker 1:
yes, yes, yes. And yes. My nation. It is a very special occasion because as you know, we always talk about the importance of having success in all six areas of your life. We talk about having success in your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. And so on today’s show, it is a, it is an honor to interview one of the world’s top success experts, rock Thomas. What one of the thrive time show? How are you sir?

Rock Thomas:
I love the six apps. That’s beautiful. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1:
So you are a whole life success expert. What does that mean for people out there that are just now hearing your voice for the first time?

Rock Thomas:
Well, you know, it means don’t make the mistakes I made and becoming wealthy and giving up your health and your relationships. And fortunately today I learned from those early mistakes and now I have a very beautiful relationship and incredible health and I’m financially free. So you learn from your mistakes. Now I help people do the same thing.

Speaker 1:
What was your, uh, your first business where you really hit it big?

Rock Thomas:
You know, I tried so many things. I had a retirement home, I had a restaurant, I did a lot of things badly. But the first major success was when I met a mentor in my late twenties that took me from farm boy, from worker, from construction worker into the real estate business and really helped me define my communication skills. And I went from one sale the first year to 30 to 45 65 onto a hundred then he sold me the company and I took it from 300 million to a billion dollars in sales and sold it 10 years later for 4 million. So real estate was my lane.

Speaker 1:
Who

Rock Thomas:
was your mentor? He was a broker owner. He was a CPA. He was a happily married a family man with two kids. They were all in the business and I just admired and respected him. And I think that’s what people should look for in a mentor. Coaches are great. They can hold you accountable, mentors, somebody you admire and respect.

Speaker 1:
So with the, the, the mentorship, how did this mentorship come about? I mean, did you have to seek it out or did, did he approach you?

Rock Thomas:
You know, I think it was a little bit of scouting in the real estate business. You’re always looking for great salespeople and he was observing me from a distance. He saw my work ethic. He saw how tenacious I was, but I was running East looking for a sunset. I was, I was a fool without good work ethic and he brought me in. He said, with your work ethic and my faith in you, my belief in you, I never had that growing up. My father always told me, you’re not doing it right. You’re not good enough. You could do it better. And it was really foreign for me to really have somebody that took me under their arm and looked me in the eye and said, you can do it. So I did exactly what he said. And that was a secret formula. I think that anybody that could be mentored by somebody for say six months to a year where you virtually have access to the mentor every day so you can course correct rapidly. The pains of failure are not too intense that you keep on going, you hit momentum. And that’s exactly what he did for me.

Speaker 1:
So what was your life like growing up on, on that small Canadian farm near near Montreal?

Rock Thomas:
Well, you know, for awhile was fun and then it was lonely and I was the youngest of seven kids and um, they called me pizza face and bone dog and gave me a lot of labels that, uh, disempowered me and made me feel quite lonely. But adversity makes you stronger if you’re given the context to grow through it. So I became pretty resilient, but it really, I carried those wounds at me into my adulthood and I did a lot of personal development, a lot of therapy. And you know, you, you, if your childhood, you don’t heal your childhood, you carry it into your adulthood. So I was a warrior as a child and my warrior as an adult, I learned how to become a little bit more empathetic and compassionate. Now that I run my several businesses. So, you know, it served me.

Speaker 1:
What kind of businesses are you involved in now?

Rock Thomas:
So in a bunch of real estate companies up in Canada where we sell residential real estate, I have a multiple mastermind groups where we help people with common values March toward their goals by putting them in an ecosystem that’s online and doing events, and we mostly help them get out of the rat race. The thing that bugs me is people that are doing a job that they hate. And if you’re not loving your job, you’re wasting half of your life. But we showed them alternative ways to think, to experience life new perspectives, introduced them to my mentors that helped me write a book or an online product or sell product online or promote other people’s products so you can get residual or affiliate fees where you can eventually not have to work every day and you can go golfing on a beautiful Sunday day sun, sunny day when you feel like it.

Speaker 1:
So I want to get into the specifics for a second. Let’s say there’s somebody out there listening right now and they have done well financially. Their business has done well financially. They’ve made money, they’ve made it past that break even point, but they’re working all the time. Walk us through what a day in the life of rock Thomas looks like. I mean, what time do you wake up and how do you organize those first four hours of every day? What time do you wake up and how do you organize the first four hours of every day?

Rock Thomas:
Well, I’m a yoga guy. I wasn’t always, so I used to get up and go to the gym and workout and now I get up and they go to yoga at five 30 in the morning. So I’m typically up around four 30 take the dog for a quick walk. I’m directing the inner narrative, my body. Most important thing you can do, not look at your phone, but look inside yourself. Then I go to yoga, get centered, get balanced, align my body with my mind and then I lie there at the end of the class for about five minutes and I do creative visualizations on the things I want to attract into my life. The people I want to experience, how I want to respond to things, how I want to show up. Then I come back and I usually have a healthy breakfast with my lady and discuss a couple of things with her, play with the dog a bit, and then they come into the office and they usually get on some calls for three to four hours in this world of Krone. Virus is not that different for me because I do a lot on zoom, already interact coach, lead groups, get into meetings for my various companies around the world. And then by the time it gets to noon, I usually head off to the pool or the golf course and then relax for the rest of the day.

Speaker 1:
Now my understanding is that you studied alongside of some of the world’s top, um, motivational or inspirational or thought leaders, including Tony Robbins, uh, T Harv Eker, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Stephen Covey. What mentor has made the biggest impact on your career from that list?

Rock Thomas:
Beyond a doubt, a Tony Robbins, I’m a trainer for him now. I’ve done 74 events, uh, followed him for 20 years. And his level of energy is intoxicating. His commitment to excellence is rivaled by nobody I’ve ever met. And so I chose to make him the core foundational parts of the way I see the world. But I’ll tell you that you know, you can have a main course meal. It’s always great to have a side dish of a T Harv Eker that helps you master your money blueprint or a Wayne Dyer that helps you be a little bit more grounded or centered. So 50% Tony, and then a smattering of some of the others.

Speaker 1:
If I’m going to a, a fire, a shot across the bow, and I’m going to ask a question that the listener, I know there’s some listener out there that wants to ask this, but they’re not going to, so I’m going to ask you the question and then you can just, you could just hit it out of the park. So, so many people say there’s, what’s the point of motivation? What’s the point of inspiration? Because once you get motivated and you get inspired, then it, then it wears off and then you, and then you tell me, tell the listeners out there the importance of, of motivation or inspiration for somebody out there who’s a little bit cynical about the idea of seeking extra training on the art of sustained motivation or inspiration.

Rock Thomas:
Clay, it’s a really great question. I’m glad you asked it because I don’t believe in motivation. I believe in more of an irritational speaker. What we’re trying to do is give people strategies that work and motivation is lifting people up for a moment. It’s like a warm bath. It’s like seeing you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, but my mentor, he and he gave me belief in myself and I think a great coach or a trainer sees in you the part that you know is there that you haven’t given a voice to and remind you and they, and they feed that part like you know what? You got a book in you. I see a book in you. You’ve got a great story. When are you going to write that book? And then they come at you and they have, and they give you resources and they affirm that.

Rock Thomas:
And then you start to change your identity. You start to have awareness. I got a guy I worked with who was 65 years old. You wanted to spend time skating with his son. He had an identity of overweight and dieting his entire life, 65 years old, 265 pounds. I shifted his identity to athletes, ask them questions on what an athlete would do, how they would behave, how they would consume food. And in nine months he got down to 199 pounds and instead of skating around the rink for two minutes with his son, his grandson, he skates now for an hour and a half. We shifted his identity and we didn’t motivate him. This, his motivation and leverage came from his grandson who said, you can’t last more than two minutes, but the strategy and the identity came from us.

Speaker 1:
So you’re, you’re telling me that it’s, it’s important to have an intentional irritating in your life.

Rock Thomas:
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.

Speaker 1:
And Andrew, you, uh, just so you know RockEye Andrew who you spoke with earlier, he was born, I believe. Andrew, were you born yesterday? Uh, last week actually. Oh nice. Okay. And how old are you, sir? Me. Yeah. Okay. I’m 21, 21. Okay. So you work with adults, you know, a lot of times people come to our conference and that you see some clients that really implement everything they learn true. Yup. And some people given the same information, implement nothing they learn in one case rock. I’m a great teacher, I’m awesome teacher. And the other case, I’m a bad teacher. I’m a horrible teacher. Andrew, you, you, you as an implementer work with clients to help them implement things. What questions would you have for, for rock about maybe being that intentional, irritated, or about being that I want to get your, I want you to build, ask any questions you have because you

Speaker 5:
work with people all the time, all the time trying to help them make those shifts. What questions would you have for rock? Yeah. Um, so for some people maybe who don’t have that inspiration, maybe their reason, what they’re trying to go towards, you know, for you said for, uh, this guy you worked with his grandson was his inspiration. Uh, how do you help people find their inspiration or realize what it is?

Rock Thomas:
Well, anytime I want to work with somebody, I want to ask them questions to elicit what’s important to them and to find out what their points of leverage are like I did with him. And when you have a series of questions that I’ve been trained to NLP into life’s experience, into watching Tony Robbins for years, you can help motivate people or inspire people or change people’s focus by asking great questions and then bringing the future to the present. You see a mentor as comfortable with your future and your friends are comfortable with your presence. So your friends are like, Hey man, we went for beers last Friday. Let’s go for beers again. Your mentor is going to say to you, where’s your life going to be in five years? What does that look like? How will it feel? What won’t happen in your life if you go out for three beers tonight and they start to direct your focus to a more inspirational, Epic life.

Rock Thomas:
And I just think I’ve become very good at that. And if people are open and they’re willing to do the work and they’re coachable, I believe I can inspire them. I can put spirit in them, I can encourage them, I can put courage in them to take actions that they weren’t taking before. I can explain to them that there’s no winning and losing. There’s winning and learning. And if you want to take action and you win, great and take action and you learn great. So you stay in action mode. And when you start to sell people on that belief system, people start to take action. They feel better, they feel better, they start to take more action and then you can’t pull them back.

Speaker 5:
Anthony, I want to get your take on this. Uh, you, you, you are a business owner, a rock, just evil intro. Anthony Bochum as a business owner. A. And B. Anthony, how old are you right now? Oh, don’t mute you. I’m up to it, but I’m a passive aggressive on festival. Passive aggressive hosts. How old are you sir? I am 28 28 okay. You’ve got the man, the myth, the legend. You’ve got the rock. Literally. You’ve got the rock rock Thomas here. What questions do you have for rock? Hey, so my name’s Anthony and I’m known as the persistent idiot. So I spent five years in industry, which is a car industry and I really didn’t make any money until the fourth or fifth year when I started to kind of figure things out. So my question, you work with a lot of business owners, how long do you typically think that someone needs to stick to their industry to learn the intricacies? You know, get to a point to where their experience is actually like an advantage. Um, cause you know, a lot of people give up too soon after one year, two year, and they think it’s just not going to work, but they just don’t know the industry or the things that might give them an advantage going forward.

Rock Thomas:
Yeah, it really depends on what your identity is around a student. I have an identity of I am an excellent student student. I pay attention. I cracked, captured the essence and applied it at a level of mastery even more. Right

Speaker 5:
now, if we go play volleyball

Rock Thomas:
down at the beach

Speaker 1:
and I’ve never played before, I’m going to pay attention. I’m going to ask questions, I’m going to get the best player. I’m going to ask him what I need to do. I’m going to seek out the nuances and the distinctions that I’m going to learn rapidly. So somebody that has that mindset might be able to learn an industry in a year and a half versus the typical three years. So it really depends. Are you being mentored? Are you seeking course correction on a rapid basis or are you just going through the motions instead of people? Tell me what you do before eight o’clock in the morning after eight o’clock at night, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life because the margins inside the nine to five are easy for everybody to fake. But you write your book in the morning, you study a new skill that makes you better with handling an objection and work in the morning or in the evening when you do your daily audit. So you need to be strategic and then you can compress time and you can do what some people does in three years. You could probably do in three months if you had that kind of a mindset rock. Uh, is there a certain message that you want to get out to the listeners today? Is there a certain, a website or a certain program that you’re offering for the listeners to, I want to make sure we have an opportunity for you to, uh, offer some valuable tools for the listeners.

Rock Thomas:
I would say, you know, you gotta, you gotta find your vibe that that is in a tribe. And I have a tribe of people that seek to live Epic lives that constantly want to learn and contribute to other people and support, encourage and challenge people to be their best. There’s no complaining and blaming and criticizing of each other. There’s no comparison for the sake of feeling better or worse. There’s comparison for inspiration and modeling, so if you are somebody that wants more, you’re hungry, you’re a little dissatisfied where you are. You want to find a group of people that are going to support, encourage and challenge you. You’ve got to check out, go [inaudible] dot com G O M one.com and check out that tribe and see if it is your vibe

Speaker 1:
rock. Are there a certain, is there a book that you’d recommend for the listeners or maybe if a few books that you’d recommend that had the biggest impact on you and your life?

Rock Thomas:
There are many, but let’s go with the untethered soul by Michael J singer. It’s about letting go. It’s about not trying to control things on the outside, but more focusing on the inside and really listening to that inner narrative. I think it’s a great book and he’s got another one called the surrender experiment. If you like that one, get those two.

Speaker 1:
Now you’ve got the mic. You have listeners all over the world and you can say anything you want to say to them. At all, you know, be nice. I know you’re a nice guy, but I mean you can say whatever you want to say. Maybe you’ve had her maybe, maybe had a rough morning and you just want to get it off your chest, but as a general rule, you only say positive things, but I mean, what is maybe a message you want to communicate out to the thrive nation?

Rock Thomas:
Most of the people I work with that struggle and never get ahead are so caught in the how they need to know how to open a business. They need to know how to work out. They need to know what’s going to happen to trying to control everything. What I say to people that has been one of the greatest activators is say yes to what you want to create and figure out the details later. Say yes to things that are bigger than you and grow into it by figuring it out. When you’re in the arena, don’t analyze everything from the stage of the stand and be a spectator. Get dirty, get in there. The learning will happen when you’re in the experience and you will figure it out when your ass is on the line to say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker 1:
Do you like Adam Sandler movies?

Rock Thomas:
Some of them I do. Some of them. He’s a little bit, little bit too dumb, but some of them, yeah. He’s got some good 51st dates. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
Have you seen the movie, uh, Tommy boy does that movie Tommy boy changed your life? Have you seen the movie Tommy boy with uh, Chris Farley?

Rock Thomas:
Uh, gosh, I don’t think I’ve seen that one.

Speaker 1:
Okay, well I’m going to cue up this audio here and, and if you don’t like it, just kind of suffer through it. But I want, I’m trying to tee up an idea. In the Bible it talks about he who walks with the wise shall become wise. He was a companion of fools, shall suffer himself, shall suffer harm. Um, Jim Rone says, you know, you’re, you, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Everybody has that. It’s a universal principle. And there’s somebody out there listening right now who is surrounded by jackasses on all sides, on off to your left, to your right. There are just jackasses everywhere. And so this audio clip here is meant to, uh, enter into the world of jackass, Surrey. So that way the listeners can go, Oh, Oh, that’s me. Because if we are motivated and we are hanging around jackasses, I want to get your tips on how to escape that. Okay? So I’m gonna put the audio. This is what it feels like folks to hang out with jackasses. This is a, a clip here from, from Billy Madison and incredible movie. Here we go.

Speaker 6:
Move. Get up there, Kyle. One, two, five. Move it or lose it. Hi, Ms. Vaughn. Nice to see you. Veronica Vaughn is one piece of a, I know from experience, dude. You know what I mean? No, you don’t. Not me personally, but a guy. I know him and her got it on. Whoa. Well they didn’t. No, no, no, they didn’t. But you can imagine what it’d be like if they did. Right? Huh? Huh? Everybody on good. Great. Wonderful.

Speaker 1:
I think we all have so many in our life. Rock who is, um, dumb, aggressive, distracting. How do you escape the force field of Jack Ansary? If you find yourself surrounded by idiots,

Rock Thomas:
uh, you joined my tribe. That’s when step number one. But um, they’re everywhere does assess festival of mediocrity out there. So you gotta level up on a regular basis. But probably the biggest thing you have to do is accept the fact that you’re going to leave people behind. It’s just a fact of life. If you’re going to be great every time somebody like Michael Jordan, you know, worked through teammates, he didn’t, he didn’t, you know, cry about somebody that couldn’t step up and say with them or got traded. He just took the next person. When Scotty Pippin went down, he went to Rodman and he built him up. And that’s what leaders do is they take the people around them and they build them up and they give them a vision, a compelling vision, and they empower them and they move away from the people you know, with intention and find other people that will share a common vision. So you just gotta be willing to leave some people behind and we all want to belong and connect and matter. And sadly, people give up their dreams so they can belong on to, you know, a small little group of people that hang out at the local bar or wherever their local hangout is.

Speaker 1:
Anthony, we have time for one more question for the rock. So I’ll let you have the final question here. And again, if you, if you paint the rock into a corner and you ask him the kind of question, that’s not a good question as deemed by me. I’m going to hit the blue button. I’m going to hit this button and you don’t want me to hit this button. So go for it. Ask whatever you want. But you do risk

Speaker 5:
the, the, uh, the ability to be publicly booed by the blue button. So go for it for sure. Awesome. Well, this question actually relates to a personal experience. So for years, you know, I really had a hard time waking up early, doing that kind of thing, keeping the sustained motivation, as some people call it. What do you find are the top three most powerful motivators for people to kick start themselves into the consistent action? Like for me it was a sense of timer to see and just like a sense of I’m not going to get this back. And that’s really frustrating. So sense of urgency and value for me really kicked me into where, you know, I wake up at four every day, work 12 hours a day, that kind of thing. And taking things more seriously. But what do you see as the top three and people that you work with?

Rock Thomas:
Yeah, you know, I think it’s, motivation is an interesting word. I don’t think when you have a compelling future things that excites you, you’re going to play golf tomorrow morning at five 30 or you’re going to go to Hawaii for a trip. You don’t need to motivate yourself because it excites you. It’s what you love. The problem is most people are doing jobs they don’t love. They’re working out because they don’t eat properly and they’re trying to get rid of the seven beers they had the night before. When you create a compelling vision for what you want, when you have reasons to make a difference, when you have people that on you, like the children in your family or a charity you’re going to give to, you will do anything. I recently got a new puppy and I’m up every two hours every night, but this cute little adorable thing, I can’t let it suffer.

Rock Thomas:
So I’m compelled. I get up and I get up with energy and enthusiasm. So the answer to the question for me is fill your calendar. When you look at your next week to the next month, the next quarter, if there’s not stuff in there that makes you feel so excited, so alive, that you’re salivating to get to it, then you’re going to spend time motivating yourself and eventually you’re going to run out of self discipline. So fill your calendar with things that excites you. And if you can’t afford them or you don’t have the time, then it will force you to say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker 1:
Rock, you are a phenomenal guest. I appreciate you, you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today and everybody out there. I encourage you to do a quick Google search for rock Thomas rock Thomas, and learn more about the man, the myth, the legend, the rock rock. Again, thank you for being on today’s show.

Rock Thomas:
Hey, your energy is infectious. I feel I’m, I’m fired up now. I’m ready to climb a mountain. Thank you clay.

Speaker 1:
Hey, take care. And now without any further ed two, three,

Speaker 7:
boom, boom.