Clay Clark | Business Podcast | How to Overcome Adversity & the Art of the Comeback + Doctor Robert Zoellner’s Wall Rugs (Tapestries) + Overcoming Poverty + Tim Tebow Joins Clay Clark’s June 27-28

Audio Transcription

I think your best book, though, of all was The Art of the Comeback. And I love that book because I think that’s the book today, given the state of the world economy, is we’ve got to come back. And if we all give up, if the world gives up, we don’t come back. And I think that’s the greatest lesson we, I think you imparted, was can you come back? Do you have the strength to stand back up, dust yourself off, and step forward again? Well, the word you use, strength, is very important. You have to have that strength. And I don’t know if that’s God-given. I don’t know if it’s something you’re just born with or you develop it. And frankly, it’d be wonderful if you could develop it, but I’m not so sure you can. But you need strength. And I had a great time writing The Art of the Comeback because I knew I was doing well, but a lot of people didn’t think so. And I knew what was happening. So I’m writing a book and I know things that nobody else knew and when I did come back much bigger and better than ever before in the 80s I mean to a point where many times it was like fun for me so I had a great time writing that book it’s interesting when I make speeches you talk about education and life and everything else but when I make speeches people say why do you do it thousands and thousands you’ve seen it thousands of people show up we’ve had 55 60 thousand people show up and I really do it because I love education and I have learned a lot both good and bad and if I can part impart that to a lot of people sitting before me so that their lives could be made easier and they can have just a better life and you know it sounds terrible say make more money but making more money makes your life easier you don’t have to worry so much about education and doctor’s bills. And so it does make your life better. 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. 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Thriving Time Show. Now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Yes, yes, yes, and no. Oh my goodness, you just snuck in a no? Well, Z, today’s show is going to be a fabulous show, but before we get into the show, let’s talk about the new friendly confines here at the Man-Kid. This is your first time in. I’m blown away. We have made certain changes due to the flood, mainly pulling out the water. The great flood of 2019. Removing the water, sucking out the water, demolishing. We demoed all the walls. But I think last time you were here, there was not a pool. There was not a hole in the ground. A lot of the things have changed. A lot of things have changed. I’m blown away. I tell you what, you had a vision, and you’re decking, and you’re outside, what do you call it? You’re outside deck. We’ve got the pergola, the deck, we’ve got the man cave. Yes. I’ve got a little hot tub going on. All of this stems from a conversation that you and I had at your man cave five years ago. Isn’t that great how you can cast a vision, walk it down the aisle, and then marry it? What I’d like for you to do is, if you could kind of refresh. Now, at the time, I believe that you had had a few sips of Lagavulin, and I had had a few sips of some girly wine of some kind. But could you explain the overall genesis of that conversation, or the origin of that conversation about setting big goals because it was a really powerful conversation that I don’t really think maybe, maybe you did realize, but it was a life altering conversation that we had and I’ll never forget it, but I think the listeners need to know about that conversation. It was, you were casting a vision about a business that you could help people around the world start and keep a business going. Right? You know, for Forbes, what, 80 to 90% of all businesses start up fail. Right. And we hate that number. We hate it. And you had taken on with all the successes you had had, you had taken on being a business coach and you were very successful at it. Just said. In fact, anybody out there want to challenge this, I would challenge them, a business coach walk off with you. I’m not sure how that looks, but I think it’s like on Zoolander where you guys are walking down a runway. Anytime you can reference Zoolander, please do. Yeah, of course. We could see the best business coach win, and I have my money on you every time. But when you were casting this vision, I thought, wow, getting Shark Tank, and I thought that dog will hunt. I love the idea of this online business school with really guys that are out there that have done it, that are good mentors, because as we know, it’s our theory that, and we think it’s almost a law, you’re going to learn by either mentors or mistakes. I don’t think the listeners know about it because we probably don’t talk about it enough, but when you do subscribe to the online school for $20 a month, you get to come to a workshop too. You pay $250 for a year, you get to go to the workshop and the videos. It’s amazing how we have a conversation and then you and I team up together. Now I think last year we had a little over 2,000 people attend those conferences, which is a good number for us because we’re full. We don’t have other places to put people. I mean, it’s full in there. And then you started challenging me about beyond just growing the business, you said that I need to do what? Well, I mean, the other thing I thought was kind of fun is we’re sitting there and you’re casting the vision. We’re casting it. I mean you’re painting a picture and I’m sitting there just watching you paint, sipping my Lagavulin. And I looked at you and the profound question that I had for you, when this is successful, what are you going to do with that success? And you looked at me almost like a deer in headlights and you were like, what do you mean? And I said, well, okay, let’s dream a little bit. What are you working towards? What is your big goal? And you said, to build this business. I said, I know, I get that, I get that. I get that you want to build the business and you want to change lives around the world. I get that. That’s good. That’s noble. That’s awesome. And if you’re not careful, it’s going to put a little money in your pocket. And you were asking to dream, and I’m thinking, I clearly have articulated what my goal is, and then you’re like, yeah, but what’s your goal? And again I go, what does he mean by that? I mean, it was a very, I thought I wasn’t trying to be difficult. And the core reason that you didn’t get it at the first pass was you had five Fs in your life. I had a goal for faith, family, finance, fitness, friendship. What else could there be? What else could there be? What other F could be out there that you don’t have in there? And so then I humbly submitted a sixth F. And I said, Z, is this a four letter F? Is that what? You’re free. I said, Z, is this a bad F? No, no. Is it the F I don’t want to know? No, no. I couldn’t. You can’t say this F word. It’s fun. What? Right. And that is that the journey you’re on in life, you’ve got to have some fun along the way. You’ve got to have some things that are enjoyable along the way. You’re a workaholic. And I tip my hat to it. You’re up very early. You stay up. You grind. You’re a grinder. Love the grind. You love the grind. If you don’t know how to do something, you figure it out and just grind through it. Grind, grind, grind, grind. And so, I think that sometimes when I look in your life, I thought, that guy needs to have a little fun. Other than watching a Patriots game. Which is so fun, by the way. By the way, hey, last night, I know this show’s going to air probably in Tulsa, it’ll air tomorrow, but nationally this show will air in November at this point. We’ve recorded up through mid-November now. But the Patriots last night, was that not an excellent display of Bill Belichick losing I believe he lost four coaches this year. Four assistant coaches, one to the Dolphins. He’s losing top coaches. He lost multiple starters, Hogan and Patterson, big-name players, and he just showed up with a laser shot. It’s incredible. They look like they are Super Bowl ready yet again. And how he does that, he really is the GOAT of coaching. Greatest of all times. In my humble opinion, and the game was just an absolute beatdown. They weren’t just playing the Miami Dolphins that are tanking. They were playing the Steelers. You’re playing the Steelers. I’ve got audio of you last night watching the Steelers game. Where were you watching the game last night, by the way? My ranch house. I apologize for miking you without your permission, but this is what Z… I believe this is what you said. It might be the wrong audio clip, but this was you. Okay. Were you with Bo? Were you with Bo last night? Yes, I was. Okay, so you’re with Bo. You’re watching the game. And my brother, Eric. And your brother, Eric. And Josh Gordon catches a ball. Yes. Josh Gordon, who previously could never stay on the field and keep it clean. Yes. He’s sober. He’s on the field. He catches it and takes a hit like a man, like a gronk. Oh yeah. Shoves the dude aside, kind of kicks him off, and goes into the end zone like, come on buddy, at least try to tackle me. It’s easy. And this is what Z turns to Bo, and this is what he says here. He says, let me get it. Son of a, you get ready to stroll, until the glory of God. And I’m going, wow, I mean that’s exactly what I said. That’s a pretty hot take there. I thought that was a mic hanging from the ceiling, but you’re never sure. You’re never sure. You’re never sure. But I should assume, because you are pretty much the king of the mics. The master of the mics. Yeah. How do you get them inside the brains? Because sometimes you mention that you mic people inside their brains. Well, Z, have you ever had a colonoscopy? Yes, I did. That’s the process. You’re going to feel just a… Seems like a long way to go. You just tell somebody, you say, you’re just going to feel a small pinch. Yeah, that’s it. And then just, bam! Wow! Now, let’s talk about this, though. So you’re challenging me to have dreams. Yes. And I’m going, I clearly have articulated I want to grow an online school, and I still do, to help millions of people. That is my goal. Check. And you’re like, if it’s $19 a month, we’re going to need a lot of subscribers. I’m like, yes. And you’re like, but then once you do it, what? What then? I’m like, we’ll return an investment to the investors. And you’re like, but then what? We’ll do more videos. But then what? We’ll help more people. But then what? I’ll get up at 3 a.m. And then what? Record more videos. And why? Because that’s what I was called to do. But then what are you going to do? Record more videos. Yeah, exactly. And you were just kind of in a fail loop. I mean you’re just in a loop and I said, I said, bro, bro, bro, no, no, no, you’re not, you’re not tracking with me. What, what are you gonna do? What’s your, what’s your, I know that’s a passion of yours, but for your family, for your friends, for your fun factor, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do if I gave you X amount of dollars right now and you had to spend it on something other than work-related? What would you spend it on? And that’s when your eyes lit up. Yeah, and I said, well, I think I’ll have it in a man cave like this. Because we were at your man cave. Yes. And for the people out there who have not been to your man cave, which is everybody, it is a beautiful, you can fill in some adjectives here, but it’s a beautiful chimney, like a fireplace. Yes. And it was a lot of rock. It was a real deal. It was brick. Brick and rock. Brick and rock. And you actually had to poke the fire. Not one of those gas things. You poke the fire. It’s a real thing. By the way, that fire pit is going in right there. It’s going to be super sexy. So you poke the fire. And you had a thing that came down that blocked out the bugs. You hit the button, it comes down and blocks out the bugs. And then the back wall was an aquarium. So you could kind of look into the house, but see your gym tang. Is that right? The gym tang? So you could see that. And then the lights, I think Bo got you a gift where the lights would change to the colors of the teams that were playing. Yes. And you would look back behind you. There’s a pool and then the pond. And I’m going this. Now, this is ballin. Ballin. I remember asking you about your chairs. You had these chairs that were the size of like three and a half chairs. Yeah. Big, big and those things. I don’t remember the I don’t remember the question exactly or your answer exactly. I remember I asked you, why do you have these massive chairs? And you said something like, well, because I can’t. And I’m like, oh. Because they’re comfortable. But I mean, it was like, and then I said, dude, that rug on your wall is bigger than most people’s room. How big is that? Remember, how big was that rug? Oh, yeah, that’s a big one. It’s a tapestry, actually. Tapestry, my bad. A tapestry. And, uh, this funny story. It’s massive, isn’t it? I was calling, I was ordering out of Europe, and the guy answered the phone and he was like, excuse me. Excuse me? I said, yeah, I’m calling about this tapestry. Thank you for calling the tapestry store. And I said, I want to, he goes, oh, what are you going to do with that? And I said, well, I’m just going to hang it in my living room. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. It’s much too large for that. I said, no, I think it’s good. There’s two rules in Europe. You can’t have a large tapestry and you can’t have a toothbrush. You can’t have it, he goes, you don’t understand, it’s listed on, it’s listed in the program in the metric system, so you may not really realise the scope of it. As an American we understand, you probably don’t understand it. Yes, being from across the pond and all. With a small brain and everything, you’re cowboys across the pond. Yes, you’re distant cousins. Right. And I said, well let me tell you how big the wall is. I want to hang on it. I’m going to hang it on and how big the room is. So I gave him the dimensions and he said, oh my Lord, it’ll fit perfect. I’ll ship it tomorrow. Really? So you got that thing shipped to you. Oh yeah. And you had, you have great armor in there, by the way. Oh, you’ve got to have armor. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. It was far beyond what I would dream of. And so for me, my whole thing is like, I just make money and put it in the bank. I know, but it was funny because whenever you started, you said, okay, I think I’m following you Z. I want to have a cool man cave. I reached up and I knocked your big melon. It’s so big, it’s such an easy target. You could just flail around and you’re going to hit it sooner or later. Huge boo- and Z, I have audio of you hitting me. I did just hit record on my phone. I’m like, if you’re going to hit me again, at least let me record it. That’s fair. This is you here. Slap me around here. I believe this is the audio. If I can find it here. Let’s see if we get the maybe, maybe, maybe not. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but you’ll find it sooner or later. Oh, there it is. I think that’s the right there. It is. Here it is. I got now. Oh, come on, baby. Make it work. But you know what, man? There we go. Sonic boom. That’s right. Boom. Yeah. So what I said is I said, no, no, no, bigger than that. And you’re like, OK, bigger than a really cool man. And this one that I’m in right now, it’s your man cave slash studios for the Thrive Time show. Love it. I just walked into it today, right before we started filming or taping, I should say. And it is super, super cool. You did, I mean, you were telling me about your vision for it, and it just came, it’s just wonderful. Really, Clay, you did a great job. It’s coming together, and I just, this show’s about you, the listener, today. I want you to think for a second. Think for a second. Think! Think! Because today’s show is going to be called, Let Your Nose Be Your Yes. Oh! Yes! So here we go. So right now, in somebody’s mind, there’s some blockage. It’s called your thermostat. Alright? So Z, what temperature do you like to keep your home at? What temperature do you like? Right now I have it set at 70. And then when I sleep, I knock it down a few degrees. But you like 70 when you’re awake and then 68 when you’re sleeping? There’s somebody though that would come into that house and say, wow, this house is freezing. Yes they would. Somebody else would say, wow, this is a little bit too hot for what I’m used to because I’m used to 67 or 68 or whatever. And the thing is we all have a thermostat, our comfort level, where we’re kind of comfortable. And so, when you grew up, did you have wood floors, beautiful wood floors in your house? Did you have granite countertops? No, sir. So I didn’t either. Linoleum, were you into linoleum? Was that your deal? That was the move. And what about like, regrettable wallpaper? Did you grow up around regrettable wallpaper? Do you want to hear a funny story about linoleum? Yes. So, I am in Branson, Missouri. The home of the ducks, the tourism. The Missouri is kind of a touristic community for those who are not familiar with it. Silver Dollar City. There we go. Okay. And driving down the main strip, they had a museum. It was called the Titanic Museum. Really? Artifacts from the boat, stories from the boat, self-guided tour. You know, you put on a little headset thing and you walk through this museum. And I said to myself, you know what? I’ve got a few hours to kill. I’m going to go check it out. And so they actually built inside the museum an exact replica of the grand staircase that you see in the movie that was actually, they got the blueprints and they made it resplendent with the same colors, the same exact two specifications. Real quick, so you’re in Branson at the Titanic Museum. I have audio of you there, by the way. I want to just cue it up real quick. This is you at the museum when you walked in. Oh yeah. Typically you don’t travel with a recorder. But apparently that particular time you had that recorder with you. Oh yeah. I don’t have my flute. Yeah, you’re a flautist. This is Dr. Z in Branson. I’m a little bit off right there. This is so good. I couldn’t believe anybody recorded that. Oh my gosh, look at it. This is so good. You’re so good on the… Okay, back to you, sir. Sorry to play that audio. People had to hear it. And they had… the flooring was the new in the house. It was the new in the house. It was the new in the house. It was the new in the house. Sorry to play that audio. People had to hear it. And they had the flooring was the newest, latest, greatest, sexiest, sexiest flooring that was available at that time when they built the Titanic. And guess what it was? Linoleum? Linoleum! Really? Yeah. Are you serious? True fact. I did not know that. So it turns out that was a hot move in 1911, was having the linoleum. The year the Titanic was built. Well, that was the newest, latest thing, and people were like, ooh, and an all-in-one over it. Ooh, linoleum. So what happens is, we then get into this thing, I call it the wage cage, where you begin to exchange your hours for money with no hope of anything better. You’re in the wage cage. You think that’s why 67% of the people out there listening right now want to start their own business? According to Forbes, 67% of people want to start their own business. The statistics show, I mean, it’s a very large number of people that want to start their business. Now, here’s what’s crazy. This is what’s crazy is I want to invite everybody into this room with us, into this conversation called possibilities. And once you realize, once you get to the top of the mountain and you can look and see, wow, there’s so many opportunities, you don’t have to be in… Somebody out there listening today owns a business and it’s a stupid business. Like, just a stupid… I met a guy at a conference a few months ago who said he’s been listening to our show and as a result of it he just sold one of his businesses. And I said, why? And he said, because it’s stupid. It’s low profit, I work a lot of time, and I could be doing something else. And so he, at the age of late 40s, sold his business. I can’t remember what industry, it was some kind of printing business I believe. He’s into a different industry where he goes, it still involves managing people, but I make a lot more money. There’s somebody out there listening right now, you should be getting into LASIK. Somebody out there says, well why should I get into LASIK? LASIK is a profitable thing. If you’re a doctor, gee, can’t you be a doctor of something that’s very unprofitable. What division of the medical field where you would go, wow, this is how you don’t make money. I know people who are radiologists or anesthesiologists, they make a lot of money. They can’t if they want to work. I mean, there’s any education out there, if you don’t have the work ethic to go with it, you’re not going to make a lot of money. But you could, hypothetically, graduate with a degree. You could go to college for seven years and get an MBA or some type of degree that has no practical value. A lot of people get doctorates in areas. So I guess you’d call them a doctor. They’re maybe not an MD or DO. They’re maybe not a physician. I’m a doctor of history. We’re a white lab coat. It’s possible, though, to do that. Well, absolutely. You could get a lot of education. A lot of people that go longer than most physicians go to school. They’re just almost professional students, and when they’re done, they’ve got three PhDs, and they’ve got this, and they’ve got that, and you go, what are you going to do with it? I don’t know, probably teach. I’m like, you did all that, so now you’re going to go teach. Yeah. And some people feel like that’s how it has to happen. And you know what? The 23 or the 33% of people out there that don’t want to start their own business, that’s okay. But what if you do secretly have ambitions, right, for things that are beyond the wage cage, and you let your life slowly go by and never realize it. That right there is sad. That’s called regret. That is called regret, and that is sad, and that is one, I think, one of the main pillars of why we’re doing what we’re doing, is try to… I mean, it’s not easy, but it can be done. Right. I don’t want to sit here and say, oh, starting a business is easy. Oh, it’s easy. Having a successful business is so easy. Why aren’t you doing it, man? You must be a dopehead. Come on now, get with it. I mean, don’t you have any motivation? People look at me and go, it’s so intimidating. Where do I start? What’s next? What’s the second step? What’s the third step? What business do I even do? That’s why we talk about franchises. That’s why we talk about doing some things that you love to do, because there’s going to be tough times ahead. So let’s pretend for a second that, just for a moment, just for a moment in time, you the listener, your good friend, opens the wage cage. Your good friend, Dr. Zahner, opens the wage cage. This happened to me. Clifton Talbert did this to me. He screwed me up. Clifton Talbert, this guy, the first African-American west of the Mississippi, he screwed me up in a good way. He said, Mr. Clark, I would love to meet you for lunch. Now, wait a second. He wasn’t the first African-American west of the Mississippi. To open a bank. There you go. I know you left that off. Wow. He’s not that old. Okay, father time, my good friend. Sorry, sorry. Technicalities. We just want the truth spoken on the program. This just in. Thank you, Anderson Cooper. Okay. So anyway, so what happens is, the first African American west of the Mississippi to open a bank. Clifton Talbert says, I will be happy to meet you. He launched the Stare money program. He’s a big believer in the idea of a bank. He’s a big believer in the idea of a bank. He’s a big believer in the idea of a bank. Clifton Talbert says, I will be happy to meet you. He launched the Stairmaster. He introduced the Stairmaster up to market, the Stairmaster. His life was turned into a movie called Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored. Google search the guy, Clifton Talbert. He says, let’s meet for lunch. Let’s go. We’ll meet up at Southern Hills. And how did you get the meeting to get the meeting? I cold called a ton because I decided to let my nose be my yes. Oh, there we go. You said Cole called a ton. Really don’t… I mean, give me a number. I would say… And what did you say when you called? At least three dozen times. And how did that look? Is somebody out there going… Usually Doug would answer the phone or somebody. Carl. Yeah, somebody who worked there. And they would say, thank you for calling the building of the Community Institute. And I’d say, yeah, I’m trying to set up a meeting, a brief 10 minute meeting with Mr. Talbert. I’d like to pick his brain.” Well, right away, they’re like, this guy speaks at Harvard. He speaks for, what’s the world, the global organization, the world organization, the United Nations. He spoke for those guys. Wow. Big, big organizations. Yeah. And big honorariums. And you don’t have time to let every rando pick your brain. You don’t. When you’re a bestselling author, people call all the time. Sure. And they kept saying, he’s really busy, maybe we could look at, you know, three months down the road, maybe January callback. And I’m like, okay. And I kept calling, and eventually I realized I’m going to have to set an appointment. So I said, hey, I’d just like to go and book it like six months out or whenever the first availability is. I just want to book it. I want to do it. And they’re like, well, you want to book an appointment, you know, six months out or five months out? Yeah, sure. So I booked that appointment, baby. So anyway, so we meet and he takes me to Southern Hills. So this again, I’m encouraging the listeners, let Dr. Z take you up to the mountain real quick. And first off, we hop in the car and he has a Mercedes SUV. Now I’ve never been in a Mercedes or an SUV that’s a Mercedes. Seriously, at this point in my life, I was 19 years old and I’ve never been in one. So I get in that thing and it’s sturdy. The door on the Mercedes Z, your Land Rover is like that. Sturdy. Your Porsche is like that. It’s like quality. See, quality. My Ford Escort wasn’t that quality. No disrespect out there if you’re driving a hatchback 1989 dent resistant Ford Escort. I respect you. Are they dent resistant really? No. So I’m in there driving around in my Ford Escort. I get into his car now. We go to Southern Hills. Now we go to Southern Hills and they open up the gate, you know, the gate kind of opens up, and there’s a dude whose full-time job is to keep people like me out. Yeah, absolutely. The guard gate guy. Oh, yeah. I’ve never been to a place where there’s a full-time guard gate guy to keep people out. Oh, yeah. So he says, Mr. Talbert, who is your guest? I said, Mr. Clark. I’m like, that’s me, because I’ve never heard Mr. used before my name, unless you’re in trouble at school so mr. Clark so they let go they let he’d they all let us in we drive it’s kind of a winding serpentine serpentine you’re weaving between the three golf courses and the fairways and whatever and you get into this beautiful country club and I get to the door and the guy asked me if he wants to take my coat and no exaggeration I was like no cuz I didn’t want to touch my coat like where’s he going with my coat? I want my coat. So, Mr. Talbert says, well, you just give him your coat and he’ll hang it up. I’m like, okay. Because he knew, he remembers where he came from. Sure. And I didn’t come from the bottom like him, but I came from halfway. So then we go to the bathroom. Can I use the restroom real quick? Sure. So I go to the restroom and there’s a dude in the bathroom. Zeke, can you explain why really fancy places have a dude in the bathroom? Well the dude in the bathroom is an assistant to help you with the… When you have to wash your hands to get you soap, you may want some cologne, you may want some… Your mouth freshened. And he’s there as a bathroom attendant, and then he also cleans up after you. That’s if the next person comes in and has the same experience that you have. Do you feel like that job is necessary? Do you like that? I mean, seriously, if you could… I mean, you could choose, but do you feel like that’s a little too bougie, a little too swaggy, or do you like that guy? I like that guy. I’ve learned to like that guy. At first, it was a little over the top. But the first few times you encounter some dude just hanging out in the bathroom looking around trying to talk to you, it’s kind of like— I’m going, this is the origin of the word butler. Yeah. I’m like, that’s where the word comes from. I’m a bathroom butler, I like it. What does lure mean? Lure means attendant from the original word but. But attendant. There you go. Because the guy’s offering me, like, I get out and he’s like, you want a mint? And I’m thinking, I don’t know that I want a mint. That’s my initial thought after I use the restroom is, he first offered me a soap and towel. Oh yeah. And he’s like, do you want a mint? The movie is, what’s really fun is to go in and ask for something that’s completely ridiculous that they don’t have and then just be like, ah, super, that little. Because those guys will usually make it happen. Those guys are all on it. I mean, there’s, so anyways, we go there and I come back and Vanessa’s like, how was the lunch? And I’m like, well, I asked Mr. Colbert. I made a spread in the bathroom. Yeah, I said, babe, I’ve learned a lot. There’s a Bible verse I’m going to read to you, Z, that we’re all familiar with probably. Matthew 5, 37. I’m going to read it. You tell me what it means. It says, But let your yes be your yes, and your no, no. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. What does that mean? That’s pretty intense. Well, you break it down really harsh, or completely, it’s don’t lie. Don’t tell someone, yes, I will be there tomorrow to help you move that refrigerator, knowing that you’re not going to be there tomorrow to help you move that refrigerator. And the American cousin of lying is this. You know when I come out and say I’ll be there and then not show up. That’s a little shady. That is shady. But here’s the non-shady move. I’ll try. I’ll try to be there. I’ll try to be there. I’ll try to be there. You know me. You know me. And if I can be there. If I can be there, I’ll be there. If I, whatever I have to do to do it, I’m going to make sure that I try. I’m going to try to move a few things around. I’m 100% all in. I’m going to try to be there I know you need some help and I’m your huckleberry and I’m gonna give it my my best if you’re around super successful people Like Clifton Talbert like like dr. Zellner get ready for the candor cannon that you’re not ready I remember asking Z one time I said Z we do this show We’re gonna do about nine shows a week And I clearly don’t value Life balance like you do you know so I remember I said will you be on all the shows? I’ll never forget this. I wrote this down, but you said, Clay, I will be there 100% of the times that I’m there. And I’m going, what? What does that mean? I repeat it again. I will be there 100% of the times I’m there. I’m not going to tell you, yes, I’m going to do nine hours. You do the show prep. It’s 10 hours actually. 10 hours. You do all the show prep, and you do that and book guests and I’ll show up and I will share my experiences but I am not going to commit right here to you to be here this many hours a week. I’ve worked, you know, you didn’t have to get into the whole reason why but you were very clear with it. Right. So again, let your yes be your yes and your no be your no. I agree with that, yes. But what I’m saying is when Talbert told, when his people told me he’s busy, call back later, or no. I thought, I think he means yes. And you just keep calling. So I asked Talbert, and Z, see if you can guess as to how it happened. I said, Talbert, I said, Clifton, Mr. Talbert, how, at lunch, how did you help market the Stare Master? And he said, well, I was a banker, and a group of guys came in, they kept getting rejected for funding. And one day they came in again, and I said, I’ll help you market it. And they’re like, you’ll help us market it? You’re a banker. Now, again, this is the first African-American west of the Mississippi who served in the military, by the way, served in the army, first African-American west of the west of Mississippi to become a banker, who grew up so poor and so segregated, he wasn’t allowed to walk into a bank when he grew up in Glen Allen, Mississippi. He could not go into the front door of a bank in Glen Allen, Mississippi. And this guy owns a bank, Z. This is a different kind of story here. It’s pretty cool. So when that guy says to you, this is how you do it, I’m going, okay, this is how I do it. I’m going to write this down. He says to me, what I did is I went to trade shows with my wife, Barbara, every weekend for about three years and then I made a certain number of cold calls every day for about three years, three and a half years. And then a member of the U.S. military said I represent the whatever, he went through the labyrinth of the military to find the guy who makes the purchasing decisions after three and a half years who makes the purchasing decisions for the Army’s physical fitness equipment. And this guy says, I’m the decision maker and we’d like to order one. And so he’s like, one? What? You want to order one? One? And he perceived this as a good thing. So the guy ordered one, and he had to have it shipped, I believe, to Annapolis, Maryland, the home of the Naval Academy. And so, Z, how do you think that Clifton made sure it got there? He drove it himself. Right? Yeah. He put it on a truck and drove overnight, and he shows up, and the guy’s like, Mr. Talbert, I didn’t expect you to be here. He says, well, I drove it here. I wanted to make sure I set it up to give you the product demo myself, to show you how it works, to answer any questions you might have. by how it worked and his all-in-ness that he ordered thousands, thousands, thus making millions of dollars of revenue, thus Clifton Talbert. Now you know the rest of the story. A Mercedes SUV. That’s the story though. But what if he had perceived no to mean no when cold-calling? When you’re trying to grow Z, what happens if you perceive no to actually mean no? You’re missing out on opportunities. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Because no just means you haven’t convinced me enough yet. When I hear the word no, I hear it mean, I think I need more information. I can jump harder. So what I want to do is I’m going to go back and forth, you and I are going to go back and forth, and the one upsmanship that you would only experience in the world of entrepreneurs, letting people peek into the top of the mountain. Top! And we’re going to one-up each other on stories about where you were told no and then you got a yes. We’re going to keep doing it until we run out of stories. Okay. To build the faith of the listeners. But before we do that, I want to make sure we get this. Now Mr. Talbert, or Mr. Zellner, has taken you to the top of the mountain, but now you have to go back in the cage. Ugh. Now we’re going to shut that cage. Now something is terrible when you know how things could be. Now that you’ve seen it, it’s hard to go back. Once you’ve seen it, it’s hard to go back. Once they shut that cell door, Z, once you’ve been out before, that’s why it’s so hard to go in prison, because you want to get that freedom again. Right. The people that I’ve known that were poor and then became wealthy and then lost it all, we’re having a much harder time. Yes. And the people that had just remained poor their whole life. Cause you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Right. So now what we’re going to do before, before we tell you these stories, I want to make sure we get this idea. Once you open the cage, and you say, I want to get out, I want to get out of the wage case. I want to get, well, let me tell you what. Everybody I’ve ever met says they want to be super successful. Oh, yeah. Except for certain members of the homeless community who I respect and love, and they always have a Sharpie available, and they always have a piece of cardboard available, and a cart, a shopping cart. Tips to being a successful homeless person. You need A, a Sharpie. Sharpie. Check. B, you need the cardboard, shopping cart, and a sad look on your face. And the phrase, I will work for food, followed up with the actions of choosing not to work for food. Well, of course not. But you want to say you will. Well, yes. That’s called marketing, by the way. But everybody out there says, I want to be successful. So now I’m going to open the cage for a second, okay? And let me tell you what you find outside of this cage, the wage cage. Let me tell you what you find. Ooh, tell me. One. One. There is a bag of cash. Ooh, nice. And that bag of cash is tied to the tail of a dog. And you’ve got to go chase that cash. Ooh, wow. Meanwhile… That was done really fast, dog. Meanwhile, that dog, though, is covered in sacrificial lamb’s blood. Wow. Okay, the picture of the dog, this dog is covered in sacrificial lamb’s blood, it’s got the bag of money, and now there’s a lion chasing you. You’re chasing the dog with the money. Gotcha. You don’t want to hurt Fido, you want to protect Fido, but Fido somehow got part of some weird end times lamb sacrifice, and all of a sudden that lion can smell blood and it wants blood. That’s called the competition. Wow. That’s called haters. Wow. That’s called lawsuits. Z, that’s called disgruntled employees. So once you get out of that wage cage, Z, talk to me about the pressure you can feel sometimes when you’re out there just trying to get your money and you’re being chased by a line. How does that feel? It feels horrible. Just last week, just last week, with one of my optometrist clinics, a gentleman walks up about 2.04 in the morning. Get out of him. And puts a hoodie on, proceeds to take some type of rock or some type of big impediment and crashes through the glass of the front door, crawls in, smashes the two Nike frames, takes all the Nike frames, cuts up his arms pretty good, I should check the emergency room, blood everywhere. And then scurries out of there with a handful of friends. All on video, you can’t see his face because he’s got the hoodie on. Talk to me about the futility, because I remember one time I interviewed a guy, I want to say his name on the air, but it just takes everything within me to not say his name, because I know who he is and he knows who he is. I interviewed this guy for a job for DJ Connection, and he clearly wasn’t a good fit because he showed up high. So I let the guy know. I said it was nervous. Yeah. So I let the guy know, though, hey, you know, it looks like it’s not gonna be a good fit. He showed up very late, probably 20 minutes or so. And so I just said, it’s not gonna be a good fit, but I appreciate you. He’d wanted to work for DJ Connection for a long time. Well, who doesn’t? So the next day I get to work and I see him cutting the lock off of my trailer filled with equipment and driving off. Well, he was going to show you how good he could DJ. So I called the police. That’s called initiative. Isn’t that initiative? Dude, I called the police and I actually went to his house and I saw the equipment in the garage. There it is. But because he claimed it was his and it’s DJ equipment and I knew it was mine but it was equipment I had bought years before. Unless I could prove the proof of purchase or had the serial numbers for each speaker, which by the way, who keeps serial numbers for speakers you’ve had for seven years? Let me guess, you didn’t have them. Right. So I go back to my office to try to find said documents, because I do keep a lot of things, and he sells it in the meantime. And I watched it happen. And here I am trying to employ people. This is a guy who applied for a job, and my reward, no good deed goes unpunished. Am I correct? It seems that way sometimes. So again, there’s a lot of things that are going to chase you. So Z and I are going to one-up each other today. Well, let’s look at the facts on that guy. One, he needed a job, so he needed money. If you were going to hire him, well then, you know, he was just going to take the DJ equipment. It’s old. He probably could stand to get some news. I was so frustrated because I had finally just caught a bag of money. I had just got my bank account to $25,000. I just got $25,000 because I had a big goal to get to $30,000. And he steals it! He stole like $25,000 of crap! And I had cameras set up. The cameras are better now, but I had cameras set up. I had insurance. I called the insurance company. They said, well, where’s the equipment now? I said, well, it’s, I don’t know, stolen. They said, well, our insurance for that trailer covers the contents if they’re in your parking lot.” And I’m like, what kind of insurance? And that’s when I discovered I shouldn’t use crappy off-brand insurance companies. Ta-da! I mean, that thing covered nothing. Yeah, nothing. Nothing. I see a lot of people are pretty proud of their insurance policy that you got really cheap. See, talk to me about the expense, how expensive it is to have a cheap insurance policy. You know, there’s a saying, and sometimes you hear it and you go, yeah, whatever, and they go, you get what you pay for in life. Now, you can overpay for something. I get that. But you get what you pay for. And so if you buy cheap insurance, there’s a reason why it’s less expensive. Think about that. There’s a reason why it’s less expensive. Maybe if they never pay out, they can make it really cheap. Maybe they’re just pigs and not hogs. You know, my number one lesson in business, you know, my first lesson, and that is, you know, don’t be too greedy. And we all know some insurance companies out there can be a little greedy. There is some money to be saved, but still, when you buy that dirt, dollar, key… You know what I mean, when it’s like 10% of the cost of everything else. You know it’s shady. You got to know it. They got a lot of small print. By the way, if you’re out there listening, Z, and you’re paying your people minimum wage for every single position, can you talk to me about the dangers of getting what you pay for when you pay people the least amount possible? You get the bottom of the rung. You get the bottom of the barrel as far as people go. And their life issues. And yeah, and I’ll tell you what, unemployment now is at its lowest rate. It’s hard to find good people, as everybody says. I always give the analogy, it’s like shopping at TJ Maxx. You gotta dig, but you’ll find a good one. I pay $12 an hour across the board for elephant in the room positions. And there’s bonuses and stuff, too, so I think the average is probably $17 an hour. But it’s a lot more than minimum wage. I can’t tell you how many great employees jump ship from the competition. I never go after them. They just jump ship and they’re like, I’ve worked at this job for five years or six years. I make $8 an hour over there and I make $12 for you. I’m switching teams. I mean, you’re going to get, I’m just telling you, don’t be cheap. Now, again, we go back to the theme though. We want to escape the wage cage. We know what we want now. We want, Z, when you go out to eat, do you typically not look at how much it costs? Well, I’ve already been to the restaurant, so I kind of get a feel, but yeah, not too much. I mean, you look at… are you stressed out? You go to Outback, are you stressed out? No. Oh, boy. I wonder if it’s $27 or $42. I wonder if I could just buy half that steak. But you do remember the time when we both did that kind of thing. I didn’t even go to Outback. But you and I remember that to the time where we never went out to eat. So if you want the time freedom and financial freedom, okay, if you want to get to the mountaintop, what we’re going to do now is we’re going to one-up you, Mr. Listener, with stories of horrible bad things that have happened to us, or times where we got told no, and how we still fought through it, and here we are. So I’m going to start off with my first time I got told no a lot that ended up being a yes. The phone book. Ah. I remember talking to Mr. Talbert. I said, I’m having a hard time getting leads and I work at Applebee’s, Target and Direct TV and I currently cannot afford the advertising that Dr. Zellner is recommending. Can’t afford it. Yellow page ad, I’ve got three jobs. How did you get your first customers? He says, we got this thing called the phone book. He said it nicely. He’s a very nice guy. He says, well Clay, there’s a phone book and they list names alphabetically, both for businesses and people, and I would recommend you open up to the A section and call. And I’m going, come on. Really? You know, because I’m too awesome, right? I’m not called for entry level. I’m supposed to be a manager. I’m called to be the boss. You’re the boss, a jefe. Anyway, so after much mental pushback, I started doing it. So I started calling the apartments, apartment complexes. And see, I’ll role play the call. You can be the apartment complex manager, who by the way, they typically answer the phone because they’re salespeople. Sure. I’m going to call you and here we go. Hey, I’m trying to reach the apartments here for the Vintage on Yale. Do you know who’s in charge of the apartments there? Well, you happen to have him. I’m the manager of the Vintage here on Yale. My name’s Clay Clark. What is your name? Fred. Let me ask you, what kind of events do you typically organize for our residents? Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s a very good question, Clay. I have the calendar right here. We have a spring meet and greet. Do you ever use the DJ or a band? Oh, you know, I think on a couple of the parties we have. On a scale of 1 to 10, if 10 is like the best entertainment of all time and 0 is terrible, I mean, if 10 is like awesome, like it’s the best ever, you know, like Michael Jackson or Steve Martin or somebody great and a 0 is terrible, how would you rate the quality of the entertainment you’ve had in the past? Well, it was actually a friend of one of our residents, you might know him. But it was pretty average. I’d give it a five. So, in your mind, what would make it great? Well, I think his equipment was not quite up to par. I think that… Did they do a lot of announcements? Any announcements? Are they funny? No, they didn’t really talk hardly at all. Really? They just got up there and kind of played the playing field. Did you do a cannonball contest or a limbo contest or anything like that or was he just playing music? Just played music. I think he just put it on his playlist and just walked away almost. Well here’s the deal. I’ve got a special right now. I own a company called DJ Connection and I’ll do your first event for a dollar. That’s what you’d pay. That’s the deposit. It’s called DJ Connection. No, how much? A dollar. Oh, okay. And you pay a dollar and this is how it works. I typically charge $500 per show and after the show you can just pay me what you think I’m worth. So if it’s really good and you’re like, well that’s great, I’ll pay $100. I’m not going to be upset. I won’t guilt you into it. But it’s a dollar. And then if it’s great, you know, whatever your budget is. What’s the catch? There’s no catch. I just want to build a long term relationship with you. Now I want to build a long term relationship with you so you can use me every year. Now with that script that took me a long time to make, by the way, feel free to steal that if you’re listening. I used that script and I always said, the language is very careful. I said who’s Who typically organizes our? Resident appreciation party on that our they think they think I’m a resident sure anyway I did that and for every hundred calls I made I’d usually book four to five appointments, and I’d usually book two even at that low of a rate So in 2001 when I was named the Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the City of Tulsa by the Tulsa Chamber, I bet you a third of my portfolio of clients that I worked with were apartments or companies that started their company’s name with an A or a B. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah, you got to see the details. So Bank of America, I got them from cold calling. Bank of Stillwater off of Cherry Street, I booked them. Bank of Oklahoma, the first national bank. Vintage on Yale Apartments. I mean, A’s and B’s, baby. And I was just crushing it in the A’s and the B’s. But again, I had hundreds of rejections for every Juan deal. Where would it usually fall apart? Because that’s a pretty strong pitch right there. It was because I was 19. Too aggressive? Too fast? I was 19. I spoke too fast. And they thought I was going to forget the date. I just didn’t inspire credibility due to my lack of self-awareness. And so I discovered I didn’t have a fancy technology, but I went to Radio Shack and I discovered that if I recorded my phone calls, I could hear… Like if you go to the Juilliard dance school, you have to dance in front of mirrors. If you play in the NFL, you have to watch game film. I discovered that I was horrible and I didn’t know it. And I had this epiphany. You know how you leave someone a voicemail? Yes. And it says, to submit the voicemail, press star. To listen to it. Occasionally people have those voicemails like that where it’s like press start listen to the message. Oh yeah. So I’ll hit it. Yeah. This is how it sounded. Hey Pam this is Clay with DJ Connection. I wanted to see if I could DJ your holiday party. Give me a call back at 918-481-2010. 918-481-2010 where the fun begins by… I’m going no. Because I was cold calling so I started to sound fast and rehearsed and scripted. You gotta get through them. Right and so I had to learn the moves in Z. But if I would have stopped right there, I wouldn’t have had the money to then buy the advertisements on the yellow pages. It all, you’ve got to have some success, and sometimes that success comes with a lot of negativity. I mean, you probably booked your first one, you had 50 no’s, 25 no’s, 30 no’s? Yeah, at least. A hundred no’s? Yeah, and then I did the move, and I’ve shared this on previous shows, but I wasn’t a Christian at the time, and I had just turned 21, and I was like, I’ve got to sell something. I’m so nervous. I know what I’m going to do. Every time I get rejected, I’m going to slam a beer. Oh, there you go. And so my wife works at Office Depot, Roberts University, and she’d come home, and I didn’t even know this until about four or five years ago, because I didn’t talk about it, but she’d come home to check on me. Hey, babe, how you doing? I’d always have gum, I’d be chewing or something. But seriously, I had had four to five beers before noon most days. That’s how I made those cold calls. And by the third beer when you haven’t eaten anything, you’re a courageous man. You are, you’ve liquid courage, as we call that. You can get up there and do a toast at a wedding, or you can make a cold call. Absolutely. They’re very similar. I’ve thought about setting up call centers at receptions. Why wouldn’t you? Everyone’s in a good mood, they’ve had three or four beverages. Absolutely. Now see, that’s my no. That’s my first no. You can one-up me. When was the time where you got told no, whether it’s from banks, investors? When I first got out of school, when I first got out of optometry school, I had a deal to buy a private practice here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it wasn’t a whole lot of money. I look back on it now and I go, well, that wasn’t a whole lot of money at all. I got my little portfolio together, got my business plan together, got the moves. I didn’t have a suit, but I made sure my pants and shirt, and I even had a tie. Oh, come on! You had a tie? Oh, yeah. And I had a hard, it was a Samsonite business little attache case, or a little case I carried around with me, and it had the little you know the little side You know you click them and like that and then you can open I know nobody can see what I’m doing with my hands So did you bring your flute with you most places? I’ve waited a lot and you can never practice your flute enough in my opinion, okay? My humble opinion right and I would get all slicked up, and I thought Here we go. And I would ask the front desk person, I need to speak with a loan officer. Mr. Barnes will see you in 10 minutes. Yes. Every time. So it’s very formal. Yes. It sucks the fun out of the room. All of a sudden it’s like, in 10 minutes Mr. Barnes will be with you. No overhead music, by the way. Right. There’s a certain intimidation factor of the banks. It’s a big building, usually high ceiling. Oh yeah. Marble floor. Oh yeah. And then Mr. Banks comes in. And they make you sweat it out there in the waiting room. And I was sitting there thinking, okay, these guys are in the business of selling money basically. Right. They have to want a deal. And I’m coming in wanting what they’re selling. I want what they sell. I mean, when I own a business now, if someone walks in the door and says, hey, I want to come in and buy a hundred frames, I’m like, oh, come here, let me hold you. Typically, when you are selling something, you don’t berate or act in a condescending way to your potential customers, typically. But in the banking world, not always but often, many banks will say, so Robert, tell me about your business plan. And then you tell them, and then they poke holes in that plan for what, 10 minutes, 30 minutes? If they don’t have anything to do, they might just be having fun with it. No, they do. A lot of guys like to screw with you. Oh, sure. Do you remember a specific time where someone screwed with you the most, where you got really pissed? I mean, was there a time specifically where you’re going, I’m not looking for the bank’s name or the person’s name, but one where you’re going, this guy really has some hate in his heart. I won’t say the bank and I won’t say the guy’s name, but there was one guy that literally laughed at me. I mean, is he still around? I don’t know. That’s a good question. Gosh, that’s been 27 years ago? I just, man, I just remember, I remember going in and that banking theme and setting up my account with this wonderful, I went to a bank in Tulsa, around 70, it was like an Arvest or something. And they were very nice to me, I went to a different bank that was not nice to me. And then I went to another bank called NBC Bank, and Debbie was my lady, right off the 71st and Riverside. And Debbie says, now what’s the name of your business? And I said, it’s DJ Connection. And she says, is that a doing business like a DBA? Is that a DBA? Is it a sole proprietorship or an LLC? And I’m going, yes. Yes. She says, I don’t. What do you mean? I said, well, I do business and people pay me and they write me checks. She says, to who? To Clay Clark. She’s like, do you have your paperwork for your LLC?” I’m going, uh, what does that mean? She’s a limited liability company. I said, oh, I don’t have a lot of customers. I don’t really have a whole lot of liability. And she’s like, well, who typically files your taxes? And I’m like, well, I got TurboTax, where the program for the CDN. And I do it. I call online now, too. And I do it, you know, I just fill it out. And she’s like, do you, do you, um, who’s advising you? Do you have anybody? And I go, nobody. She goes, well, honey, and she took the time, super nice lady. She probably took, seriously, dude, probably an hour. Just sitting there with me going, well, draw me pictures on the wall, like in a little napkin and stuff. This is a company, this protects you from liabilities, called it limited liability. You need to go ahead and form that. Right. So I’m like, well, who does that? She’s like, well, you need to call an attorney. I call and need an attorney. And he’s condescending too. I didn’t have a great attorney like Winters and King now. I have a great attorney now, Winters and King and Wes Carter, but I didn’t have a great attorney. I didn’t have the knowledge. It was like the bank was mean to me, except for Debbie. And Arvest was nice to me too. But Arvest was professional, but Debbie was kind and helped me. Sure. She mentored you. She did. And the lawyers I called were just mean, and I talked to some guy, he charged me like multiple thousands of dollars, like three or four thousand dollars to form my LLC and my minutes, and my operations agreement, and all these things, and I found out later he was just scamming me. Oh yeah. And see, are there attorneys that scam people? Yes. Yes, there are. Homeboy sent me a letter saying that I had forfeited on some verbal agreement and I owed him a ton of money, so I had to pay him, I thought. If an attorney says you owe him money, don’t you have to pay him? No. So then, the next one, I should have bought my- But, I mean, the deal’s a deal, so I don’t know what your deal was with this guy. I had no agreement. I just asked him about what it would cost to set up an LLC, and we talked for like 15 minutes on the phone, and he sends me a bill. It’s crazy. No, no, that’s kind of what it is. So then I, I, I, we got, finally I figured it out, I’m making some money now. 2002 I got ads, Yellow Page ads on. Oh, you’re rocking. Here comes my next rejection. I want to build my wife a house. I had that idea. I’m going to build my wife a house. Oh, that’s noble. And by the way, to this day, that turns me on. There you go. I like getting my wife stuff. That’s my thing. So I’m like, I’m going to build you a house. So I called around town. Got bank approval first, because I’m a smart guy. And I called this builder, and he said, let me show you the houses. And he quoted me, and he goes, Clay, well, what kind of house do you want? I said, well, I’m looking for about 4,000 to 5,000 square feet, because in my mind, bigger means better quality. I don’t even care about… So he says, do you want wood? No, that stuff warps over time. No, I want… You want granite? No, I want linoleum. Oh, yeah. You want smooth walls? No, I want that rough stuff. You want whatever ceiling? No, I want the popcorn thing. You want… So he’s like, okay, I’ll get you a lot of house. So I come back, I’m proud. So I’m here for $250,000. I got myself a McMansion. McMansion! Gee, seriously, almost 4,500 square feet for $250,000. I mean, I’m… What year was this? This would be 2002. Okay. And I’m like, this is going to be… So Vanessa and I meet this guy, and he was a disaster of a man, which fit for me because I was a disaster of a person. And Vanessa the whole time is like dying a death in her soul, thinking that I’m going to… Because she wants to be encouraging for me, her husband, who’s buying this house for her. We get in the car and I’m like, babe, what do you think? And she says, no. Do you see the houses he builds? The ones we’ve toured are all terrible.” I’m going, what do you mean they’re terrible? She goes, they’re big. She says, well, you could get a big tent. That doesn’t mean I want it. I’m like, what? You hate my dreams. So anyway, I decided not to use that guy. Then I went to another guy, Rob Brewer, who did a great job. The Brew Crew, Rob Brewer, check him out. I think it’s called Spartan Building or something. Rob Brewer, the Brew Crew. If you’re looking to build a house in Tulsa, I do love that guy. I do work with Shaw Homes. Now they’re my client. They build hundreds of houses, but if you want one house to be built custom, Rob Brewer’s a great guy. He’s your man. So Rob builds me a great house. My wife wants to put in a wood floor. It’s a lot of money. Anyway, the builder that I previously had rejected calls me and says that he feels as though that I have verbally committed to the home due to his time investment in me and that he will be suing me if I don’t move forward with the house. True story! Have you ever got a shakedown letter? Oh, all the time, sure. I remember getting that in the mail. So I called the guy, because I knew the guy from some church relationships, and I said, Hey, you’re suing me? He’s like, you’ll have to talk to my attorney. I’m like, you’re suing me? He’s like a 55 year old guy. You’re suing me because you asked you asked me the question you said if We can work out a bit a plan that works for you and the financing Would you want to move forward? I said well if we can work out a plan the whole yes selling crap Oh, yes, we’re like so if we could get a plan that you like at a price you like would you want to move forward? I said well if I could get those things and yes But we never did get those things and he’s like but you said you would and I could I’m willing to do whatever changes I have to do to get your business. And I’m like, put your… Why would you ever want to do business after they’ve shut you down? That’s one thing I… You never, ever, ever get the business tied up after a shakedown letter. So this is what happens. So I call a guy who I think is a good friend of mine. And I thought he was a friend of mine. And I said, hey, you work for this guy. Does he do this crap a lot? He goes, oh yeah. And by the way, he uses particle board instead of good quality lumber. He gets the cheap lumber, you know, putting the studs in your house. Anything you can’t see is second quality, which is why I don’t work there. And I said, okay, so you would never work with him again. He goes, no way, dude. Do not work with that guy. I worked with him for two years. I would never work with him again. He’s shady. So I called the guy back armed with this new information, and I said, hey, I’ve talked to a couple of your former employees, one in particular, who I’ve known forever, who says you’re shady. And I know you’re shady, so I’m definitely not using you and I’m not paying that freaking letter. I’m like yeah Me of course not and my buddy though tells me that he does this crap all the time. It’s like a move of his It’s those dirty advertising companies that mail you invoices for stuff You didn’t sign up for a dirty move dirty move and so the guy on the phone’s yelling at me And he’s like you tell me you tell me the person’s name who said that about me. You tell me well I’m thinking my buddy. I’m thinking I know this guy well, and I don’t know how life works yet cuz I’m like 21 22 You know oh, and I’m like his name is such-and-such. Oh, no, so that guy immediately calls my bud He’s like hey your buddy. Just used your name and said that you think I’m shady. I’m suing you now, too You’re not gonna hear the end of this that slander I was your boss for two years so now I got my friend who I thought was my friend mad at me Oh sure I got the builder mad at me. Oh, yeah, and then my wife’s like so what do you want to do? I’m like well I think maybe we should go back that big tin idea I said, maybe we should just hire him to build the house, and she’s like no Why would you possibly think that I’m like well? It’s easier because then I can appease and Then I realized the Gen Z that was sometimes Adversity gets in the way of the obvious right decision right absolutely be easier to lay down and not fight for it Absolutely people out there are wanting passive income and they’re wanting to get to a place where you don’t have to fight for the money anymore. But if you’re listening right there, if you’re listening right now, wherever you are, and you are coming into adversity, it’s because you’re doing something. The only way to avoid adversity is to do nothing. Right. Right? Right. What if I want to avoid adversity? Should I just probably hop back in the wage cage? Get back in the wage cage. Wouldn’t that be the best advice for somebody out there who doesn’t handle adversity? Just get back in that wage cage? I would say that, but there’s still adversity in the wage cage. There’s still things you have to do in the wage cage. There’s still a boss you have to deal with in the wage cage. There’s still life that goes on in the wage cage. What if I want to be an entrepreneur, but I hate adversity? Then you need to just buy lottery tickets and go punch a time clock. There’s a church, Z, that I was a part of years ago, that said that if you’re a member of the church, they would like you one week per, one weekend per month, to go out with other members of the church at a set time to invite the members of the church, to invite neighbors to come to church. So you knock on the door. Knock. Hi, we’re with the local family church and we’d like to invite you to church. And we have a great family fun thing this weekend, it’ll be inflatables for the kids. Here you go.” Not a hard, like, salvation pitch, but more of like, hey, just come, just come, just come to church. And the church grew remarkably. Imagine that. Because they had to do that. Also a requirement was if you’re a member, a member, not just an attendee, but if you’re a member, you have to volunteer one Sunday a month in the kids’ church, the youth, or you have to be like a greeter. Sounds fair? Sounds fair. Hello, welcome. Church is now very, very big. Big church. Most listeners out there probably know the church. It’s huge. Now, a small church that I was talking to at a conference, this is about two years ago, he says, well, I don’t have a big budget. What tips would you have to grow my church? I said, well, and this guy, by the way, full disclosure, has never been a client. He’s just a conference guy. And I said, well, what you want to do is you want to make sure that all your members, how many members do you have? He says 300. I said, make sure all 300 once a month have to volunteer to go knock on doors four hours a month, invite people to church, put out inflatables, or they have to volunteer as a kid’s ministry outreach, or they have to be a greeter. That’s the move. That’s the move. And he’s like, yeah, but certain people in my church don’t want to do it. And the board, some of them don’t like it. And then we, one time we did it and we got some people that got mad at us. We did it one time, one time, which is, we did it one time and we had somebody who got mad. So now we don’t do that anymore. Well that’s why you’re not growing. Right, right. You’ve got to bust through the adversity. Bust through the adversity. So get one of me. Give me another time where somebody told you no, and you just pursued doggedly until it happened. There’s got to be another time. Oh, there is. The ranch that I currently own. I love that ranch. Beautiful place. Beautiful place. Z66 Ranch. Google it, folks. Rockin’ Z Ranch. Rockin’ Z Ranch. Google it right now. I’ve spied on that thing from Google Earth. It’s a beautiful thing. Rockin’ Z Ranch. Rockin’ Z Ranch. OK.com is the website. Rockin’ Z Ranch. OK. And you guys went out there and did that drone thing? The drone? RockinZ Ranch. RockinZ Ranch. RockinZ Ranch. Anyway, I called up the guy, found out he owned it, called him up and said, hey, I want to buy your ranch. He said, well, sir, I’m sorry, it’s not for sale. There we go. And I said, well, I don’t care. And he goes, who are you? Because, you know, I was just kind of having fun. I said, well, I don’t care if it’s for sale or not, I want to buy it. He goes, who are you? I told him, I’ve heard of you. I said, let’s meet for lunch. Let’s just meet for lunch. We’re going to meet for lunch. So we met for lunch. And every month, we’d meet for lunch for six months. Where’d you meet? Wherever he wanted to meet. Give me one place, your Ruby Tuesdays. Olive Garden, I think, was one of the places. Rocking the Zia Rancher. Rocking the Zia Rancher. That’s the Ruby 2’s that have the nice croutons. The croutons! The croutons! I’ve got a ton of salad in my refrigerator right now, I really do. I have a ton of salad up there. Oh, that’s very nice. I’ll give you the salad. The croutons are the hard crunchy and then sauced in the middle. Sir, would you like a meat to grind to pepper? A piece of hard pepper. So we would meet once a month, and so we kind of warmed up to the idea, and so the first time he said, well, okay, I’d sell it, but it’s got to be this much money. I said, oh, you’re crazy, get out of here, I’ll see you in a month. And so we met, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, The first time he said, well, okay, I’d sell it, but it’s gotta be this much money. I said, oh, you’re crazy. Get out of here. I’ll see you in a month. And so that was our game and it took about six months and after that time frame he finally threw out a price and I reached across the table and shook his hand and said, you got yourself a deal and I’ve got myself a ranch. When you got the deal, did you guys meet at kind of a sexy swanky wine bar to consummate that deal or was it more of a you know, Italian feel? You know what? We’re gonna, I said, excuse me, waitress, waitress, come over here. I need a cheese tray and a glass of your finest bubbly. Sir, this is Olive Garden, we don’t have champagne here. He said, okay, fine, just get me some cheap boxed wine and a cheese tray, please. To celebrate. Now, let me ask you this, seriously, when you got that deal done, how good did it feel? It felt great. Did you? Because it was a lifelong dream of mine as a small boy Because I said I used to grow up watching like bonanza and gun smoke and Lone Ranger And just that whole time frame was always like the guy that the Ponderosa did he say yes to you Did he say yes handshake was it like okay? Was it email was the call? And I said I said you finally came up with the price It’s reasonable again, and you finally want to sell this to me come on you want to come on baby come on Yeah, you know it. Are you kind of through the first three couple three months decided he wanted to sell it to me. Now we’re just haggling over price, you know? And so then we finally said, OK, I’ll sell it to you for this. I reached across a smile and reached across shake his hand and said, you’ve got yourself a deal. And then what point did you because I have audio, I believe this is of you guys finishing the deal. Yes. Have you ever seen the movie Ghost Z? Oh, I love that movie. So this is the scene where you guys finally agreed. Oh yeah. Is that where we get out the pot of clay? Yeah! And you were kind of seated behind him. And he’s working on that potter’s wheel. We’re forming a beautiful bowl. A bowl. And it’s spinning out of control. It’s not looking like a bowl. He let it go too fast. I couldn’t help it. And you reached over and you helped him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, of your future success. Your no’s are what’s in the way of your future yes. I’ve got some of my more fun stories. One of yourself. No, wait, I’m sorry. No, okay. I’ll go one of you. Okay, you go and then I’ve got a fun one. This is fun. 16th and Boston. I was looking for office space and I called a lot of office buildings to lease space and everyone was not calling me back. No one was cooperating. Nobody was being easy to deal with and I get a hold of the landlord and I the building doesn’t say for lease Call the guy Make it a deal. I say hey, I would like to lease this much space He says no, so I think about it. I go. I’d like to lease the whole thing then he says yes Then I think to myself Holy crap. I’ve just leased a lot of office space and then I use my entrepreneurial mind and I sub leased out Unneeded space extra space to other people thus it cost me less than to be in the original building I was in when I needed to move, but again. I probably had 50 50 buildings I called on or landlords or tenants or whatever and no one would lease me the space No, no least he’s the space the very house that I’m in right now the guy who owned the house told my wife No repeatedly and now we’re in it. Yeah, does he know yet? He’s actually a client of mine now. It’s funny. He actually became a client of mine. He was like, wanting me to help him. I just think it’s so important, though, that you are out there, if you are out there, and why do we fear rejection so much? What’s the deal with the fear, the rejection? Because that’s what’s going on, is somebody out there is saying, I can’t handle that type of rejection. I can’t handle, see, I can’t handle. Because we all want to be loved, Clay. We’re all looking for love. And when someone, when a hater comes up, or they hand you a bottle of haterade, you just go, that’s not what I’m shooting for. That upsets me. You remember Back to the Future, the movie Back to the Future, before Michael J. Fox learned how to… Make fly. He went back in time and realized what his life would be like if he was somebody who feared rejection. And there’s a scene where he wants to become a best-selling author, he wants to become a writer, and he’s telling his girlfriend why he won’t pitch his book deals. I mean, what if they say I’m no good? What if they say, get out of here, kid, you got no future. I mean, I just don’t think I can take that kind of rejection. Think about that for a second. This is what someone’s playing in their mind. They’re saying… I mean, what if they say I’m no good? What if they say, get out of here, kid, you got no future. I mean, I just… That’s where you’re at right now by default. Exactly, then you go to the next publishing house. Come on now. That’s how you do it though. See, I have a theory that eventually we’re all going to be dead soon. This just in. And so if you know you’re going to be dead as an eventual reality, and you know that you currently don’t like your current reality, what could possibly stop you from trying? Yourself, and that’s what it’s… Self. Yourself. Yourself gets in the way. Self. Self, I’m going to take a time out from you, okay, for just a few minutes, and I’m going to go try to get this thing going. If I sound irritated, I’m irritated on behalf of your future self that wants to get out of the freaking wage cage. We’re from the future, folks, and we’re here to tell you, you can’t do it! Do you know that Craig Rochelle used to be a Methodist minister? Craig Rochelle. I think… did we go over that when we had him on the show? He was a great interview on the show. He was. I’ve somehow become obsessed with all things Craig Rochelle, just researching the man. We need to have him back on again. I want to. He was so fun. Yeah, he was great. I’ll tell you this, this guy, he… Now some of you may be listening out there going, who’s Craig Rochelle? He’s the pastor of the largest church currently in America, the Protestant church, the largest non-Catholic church in America, and he used to be an associate pastor at the United Methodist Church. Now there you go. And now he’s the head of Life Church. Now what if he had just stuck within the United Methodist Church system? He might have been able to put a little bit of energy and some juice back into that. His church is much different. Much different. Much different. Do you think the United Methodist Church would allow you to have a Marvel comic theme series? Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t. I don’t know. But I think it took courage. I don’t know. It took courage, though, to leave the cage. It did. So sometimes you have to. Other times, you’re going to recognize that you are, A, what I would call an intrapreneur, and you aren’t called to work within an organization to make that organization successful, because you may be married to somebody who maybe you can handle, Z, the rejection. You don’t have fear, but your partner does. Correct. Your spouse does. Correct. How many times have you seen that where a man is bold and has history and a vision? He has a history of big vision. He has a vision for success. He has a history of success. And he marries somebody later in life that doesn’t have the same vision, someone who fears rejection. Or you see a young woman who is very ambitious as a high schooler or a college student, and then they marry somebody who is not ambitious. What happens then? Well, you’re not on the same page, and you have some fighting, and you’re not together. And that’s one of the things that you need to make sure that whenever you pick your spouse that you sit down and you do some of that dreaming with. What do you think about this? Dream, dream, dream, dream. I mean, it’s like sitting down with someone and going, you know what? I’ve been married to my wife for 10 years and guess what? I never knew she didn’t want to have kids. I mean, these are things that before you seal the deal, you might want to talk about future things and make sure you’re at least… On our wedding night, are we going to have sex? Possibly? I don’t know. I’m going to try to get there. I want to save myself for retirement. I’m going to save myself for… Maybe that’s the time to hit the exit ramp. Maybe you said, do you want to have kids? And maybe they say… Well, that would involve sex. I’m not into sex. You’ve got to figure out what is causing you to be stuck in the wage cage. Is it fear of offending somebody? I won’t get into the specifics, but Z, have you ever started a business model, a niche, an industry, anything at all that potentially could offend somebody? Oh yes. Just today I had a guy reach out to me. He wants help with his business. I think I might work with him and help him. The problem is, he is competing with one of my former friends. Ooh. And a friend is some… When you say former friend, is he still a friend? I think a friend is someone I share time and values with. I don’t share the values with the person or time with them. I disagree with their worldviews about everything. But then he’s a former friend. Right. So I’m going, yes. And I’m kind of a competitive guy. I’m going, I would love to do that. But again, what if I feared upsetting the former… I see a lot of people… You’re going to upset him. I remember years ago, there were two young women that I met, one of which had this idea for a business. She had it in her head, and she told her friend. And she said, let’s do it together. So the two friends are planning this business together, right? Now the friend who did not come up with the idea, the friend who was just brought to the party Yes, says I just don’t want to put up that kind of money. I think we should not do it, right? So the friend who had the idea had her dream killed by the friend who didn’t have the faith So the friend who had the idea went out and started the business on their own Yes, and then the friend who didn’t have the courage called the friend who sees their success and says hey You left me you did it without me. I can’t believe you did that. You left me behind. Why would you do that? You betrayed me. I thought we were friends. So here’s the sad story. The friend who originally came up with the idea shut down their baby business that was just beginning to be profitable to save the friendship. And now the two aren’t friends. I’m glad I don’t have a firearm right now because I would shoot myself. You see these things a lot though. It just wears me. One up me with a no good, very bad rejection story. It’s so terrible. Here’s one. Here’s one. Here’s one. I used to love this challenge. Yep. We would get, this is back before you have Google reviews and all this silliness right now that’s going on. And I say silliness because it can be sometimes pretty silly. It is silly, very silly. One of my businesses fires a guy and he writes, so we get the next day two one-star reviews and everybody in the business is horrible except that one guy. Right. It’s so silly. But anyway, so we used to get the letter, right? We get the letter or the phone call, a very irate patient. I’m never coming back. I hate you guys. You’ve ruined my life. I mean, you know, some really bad stuff. Pretty tough. Yeah, pretty tough. Whoa. And you’re sitting there thinking, wow. Is this the only job in America? Wow. Can you move on here? Wow, we told them, wear glasses, be ready in a week, and it took two weeks. Uh-oh. I mean, we’ve ruined their lives, you know. Your lives are ruined. Yeah. And so my fun was, and I’d often have a little crowd of people around me, because when it got to me, that meant my manager couldn’t appease this person. This person was still on the war path. They were on the war path and they were going to do whatever. They were going to call the news station. They were going to call the President of the United States of America. I was going down in flames. My business was not going to… I mean, it was all epic. They can take your joy from you if you’re not careful. Don’t let them. I would call said person, get them on the phone. This is Dr. Robert Zellner and I just received your letter or your messages or however you want to do it and I’m just calling to talk about the incident or talk about… And so then they just, I mean, they’re just, they’re wowed. I was answered two weeks into my classes and you promised one week. I swear I’m not happy with my marriage and I’m not happy with my job and I’m not happy. This is the only outlet in the world. And here’s how you handle that person. You listen to them. You have an acronym that’s kind of fun. Blast. Believe. Listen. Answer. Satisfy. Trust. Believe what they’re saying. Right. Listen to what they’re saying. You’ve got to listen. Don’t interrupt. Provide them answers. Yes. Try to solve it if you can. Try to satisfy. S. Satisfy. And then build that trust. Do what you said you’re going to do. And you have to own it. Own it. You have to own it. You can’t argue with them that it didn’t happen. You can’t argue with them that your employee didn’t say that. You can’t argue with them. And you say over and over, it’s my fault. Yes. No, it’s my fault. You own it. Buck stops with me. I’m embarrassed that you were treated that way. Oh, shame. And I am so sorry. I am. I did not start this business to treat people that way. Come on now. In fact, we don’t sit around in the morning going, okay, let’s do this. Today, the 10th person that walks in that door. We’re gonna mess them up real good! You wanna fight yourself to the point that people don’t have to fight you. Right, you wanna own it, and then you wanna… And then the key, the biggest question I’d always ask him, the biggest question, and the key question, you wanna know the key question? What is the key question? The secret sauce. I do, let me queue up my secret sauce. What is the secret sauce? My secret sauce, I mean… Okay, we’re ready for the secret sauce now what can I do to make you happy because listen you don’t assume you know what they want and 99% of the time they’re extremely reasonable and they say listen I’m gonna make you do you can’t refuse I’m like a free pair of glasses. I want to own this business. My cousin Luigi would also like a free pair of glasses. I want you not only to fire that employee but take him out back into public flogging. And I want you to piss on the grave because I don’t want to disrespect the dead bodies. And I want you to walk through the mall naked with a billboard sandwich saying how big an idiot you are and how right I was. I heard you have a favorite horse. I want you to rip the horse’s head off. And put it in that employee’s bed. And take a photo of it. And I want you to take a picture of it. And I want you to take a picture of it. And I want you to take a picture of it. And I want you to take a photo of it and send it to that Instagram of fallen mascots. All I’m asking is just a few simple things. No, 1% of the time they’ll be off the charts like I want $100,000 in a letter that I can publish that you’ve apologized for it, that you’ve come up with a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I would say, as a stat, I agree. I think about 95% of the time, they’re willing to be reasonable. That’s what I found. You know what? Maybe I’m just nicer and I have a… When I use my honey voice, maybe it just works higher. Maybe I’m thinking because I only deal with people who are nuclear mad, maybe that’s because it only gets to me at this point if it’s nuke mad. Right. So I guess I’m saying, I guess I’m saying 95% of the nuke mads. Oh yeah, you might be right. And I may, 99, I may be wishful thinking on that. I mean you have thousands of customers, so at the store level, for something to get to you at this point, it’s going to be pretty bad. Yeah, but I’ve probably, I’ve less than 10 patients, and you’ve got to realize that we’ve seen millions of patients. I’ve probably less than 10 people, I’ve red-exed them. And red-exed means… Don’t give them service again. Coco, Coco, Coco Puffs. Don’t let them in there. And call the police if we see them, no trespassing, if they cannot come on property. And that’s less than 10. It’s probably really less than five. I can think of five. There’s a book called The Service Profit Chain, where it encourages you to break your customers into categories. There’s five categories. Category number one is an apostle. That’s somebody who loves you so much they will tell their friends to use you for free. They don’t need a kickback. Correct. Two is a loyalist. They show up over and over. They don’t tell anybody about it though. That’s like 70% of your business. People just come back. They repeat stuff. Repeat. Third is that mercenary guy. He comes in with that coupon, that hot special. He will not buy from you unless you can save that $5 of $2. He’s a mercenary. Oh yeah. Fourth category, not so positive, it’s a terrorist. Yes. And if you have more than about 1% of your customers are terrorists, there’s something wrong with you. But, again, a terrorist is somebody who just is mad about everything. There are certain people that are mad about their job they lost, the divorce they had, the loss, the death of an animal. The haircut they got the other day. And now they want to attack you as a way to cathartically deal with it. Sure. And then the final group is a hostage. Now that’s where you upset somebody and you’ve taken their money, but they’re stuck with you. I would call this contractors who are shady. When you have a contractor you’ve paid to finish a wall or building a deck or a building or something, and you’ve paid them but they won’t finish the job, and now they’re holding you hostage. Right. That’s a weird vibe. But again, if you own a business, I have found this is what I have found. I don’t like it. I have found we make a mistake usually with your hair because we’re cutting someone’s hair. Yes. Three percent of the time. Now let me show you something. I use my head as a demo for haircuts. Because you can have like six people cut on it. It’s so big. It’s a massive head. But it’s like a hair buffet. But seriously, whenever we have a new stylist, I always let them cut my hair. So sometimes if we have a bunch of new people, they cut the hair of the employees in the office for free. And then we have a lot of dudes up there that work in the office. And sometimes when we run out of male models, I go back a second or third time within like a week and a half. So look at this. Look how short that is. Wow. Bro. Look at that. We mowed that thing pretty low. Wow. That’s impressive. That’s like my third demo cut in like seven days or something. Wow. That’s impressive. But anyway, my hair is where, you know, but again, we try to train our people, real people who are not paying, to get them to be great. Even though they all have licenses and went to hair school, I have found statistically we make a mistake about 3% of the time. And how do you handle that? I mean, it’s… This is how it works. If you get a bad haircut or you’re not happy in any way, if you’re walking out and you look displeased, our managers are trained to say, were you happy with everything today? If you said no, then we give you a free haircut. What if someone is unhappy and they don’t say no, because most people won’t? Well, we look you in the eyeballs and we’re trained to say, were you happy with everything today? I’m trying to figure that out, you know? Kind of like fancy restaurants will say, does the food taste all right? When you first take your first bite of steak, does everything look all right? That’s kind of a move. We try to preventively go after it proactively. Do they re-book right there? Yeah. Everyone pre-books. Is that a red flag when they don’t want the person to just cut their hair? Yes. Okay. If they won’t pre-book, it means they’re mad. Okay. And if they want to pre-book and they don’t want to use the person they just used, that’s a red flag too, right? Right. Okay. I’m learning the game. And we have, though, about 3% of people, we make a mistake of some kind. But again, if you’re shooting free throws, dude, and you make 96% of your free throws, you’re going to Hall of Fame. If you make 96% of your haircuts, people boo you. Before do. You know what I’m saying though? Sure. Because people want perfection except for in their own job. It’s their hair, it’s kind of like, oh man, why did you screw up the guy next to me, not mine? Remember, people want perfection except for in their own job. Let’s think about the standards we hold ourselves accountable to. Anyway, that’s a thought. So we get in there and we make that mistake. The move is to believe, listen, answer, satisfy, trust, refund. If they’re really mad, the process- Encourage refund. Yeah, blast. The next one, if they’re really mad, is the front desk people are empowered to give you the autonomy to give you your next haircut free, too. So I’m giving you now, at this point, we’re talking $76 of free stuff minimum. Yes. Usually $84 of free stuff. If it’s next level, and let me tell you about that, there was a guy recently, I’m old enough to, everything seems recently, but a couple years back, who got his hair cut and he said he had a job interview. He was flying in to Tulsa for his haircut. I think he lived in Houston or something. And he came in for a haircut and he claims that So he said when he applied, he didn’t have any confidence, and that’s why he didn’t get the job. So therefore, you owe him the salary for the… I’m not kidding. Now, think about this. You and I, if we got a bad haircut, we would own it. We’d walk in and go, hey, I just got my haircut, and I made a couple mistakes, so I apologize for the distraction, but here we go. But this guy said he lost his confidence. And I said, hey, what can i do is this well as you have a hundred thousand dollar job can’t do much can’t do much unlike so uh… we’d like a refund no you’ll never hear the end of this time all go on yelp and i’ll make your life hell buddy and i’m like will cables and i can do to resolve this no i’m just tell you what i’m gonna do i’m going to go on yelp i’m gonna make your life hell buddy. Now I think for a grand I could probably stay off of Yelp. Oh Here we go hostage. I said what state are you in? He says I’m in Texas What state am I in Oklahoma? It’s true story. I said well, we have a thing called clarity voice, which is a call recording software And I’ve recorded the words Out of your mouth. So I got an option one is I could take this video. I’m very good at optimizing. I could take this audio, turn it into a YouTube video, and when you type in your name in Google, this is what the world will hear. I could do that. You could go on Yelp. Now I’m really good at optimizing, really, really good. So I mean, you type in your name, I’ll make you famous. You come up top, every job interview you come to, and we can hear this 20 minute conversation of you just ripping my team, ripping your, you said the person you applied for was a moron anyway, but you mentioned the name of the company. I could do that, and I won’t do it anonymously. It’ll say, from Clay Clark. So people will know who posted it. You could go on Yelp anonymously and complain. Correct. Both of us could do that. Or why don’t I just give you a refund?” He goes, longest pause ever, I think I’ll just do a refund. I’m like, okay. That’s a good answer, buddy. But that kind of crap happens. And that would have killed a 22-year-old version of me. I would have cried. Oh, yeah. But as a 37-year-old guy, I’m like, come on. I’ve seen this before. Doesn’t it… all these no’s, doesn’t it build up the callous? Talk about the palace of the callous. When you have so much callous that it doesn’t even bother you, you’re like, these lawsuits or litigiousness or jackassery or sabotage or betrayal. It’s the concept that I have. We’ve talked about this before. It’s such a good concept. I’ve done so many shows now. No, you’ve got to talk about it. It’s a high water mark. Once you reach a new high water mark, any other floodwaters that go below that, eh, no big deal. And what I mean by that is once you have one of those epically bad runs of a lot of no’s or a lot of people breaking into your place, I mean, just all the, the lion gets you and mauls you almost to death. The next time a dog comes up and bites your ankle, you’re like, I’ve been mauled by a lion. That’s not that big a deal. It’s not, though. And once you get there, once you get to a level of where you’ve had so much. I watched Josh Gordon and that game catch the ball in the Patriots. And a hit that would have made me cry. I think you saw that, that touchdown run where he was dragging the team down the field, he’s dragging the defender down the field with him. He took a wallop, and then he’s like, keeps on going. He’s a 240-pound man. I would have cried. I mean, I don’t care how big. I would have died. I heard an interview where they were talking about Rob Gronkowski, and I guess he had over a pound of fluid that was being drawn off of his thigh after games last year because of all the swelling and all the stuff. This is audio of me having a pound of fluid drained off something. Why me? Why? Sir, you’ve got to stop crying. You have an NFL game tomorrow. You’re getting paid $18 million to do this. Where’s my money? I mean, I couldn’t handle it. No, I mean, those guys are tough. If you want to be an entrepreneur, just understand you’re a linebacker and you will get hit, because entrepreneurship is a contact sport, is it not? It is, but I don’t know too many businesses you can start where part of the requirements are going to pull a pound of fluid out of your thigh every day, or every week. So that’s, albeit for an NFL, you know, Hall of Fame potential player who’s big and rambunctious and gets a bunch of hits. I can see that, but the idea though that you’re going to have to actually draw fluid off your thighs to open a business is really more of a metaphor, right? So, Z, let’s think about this. Final thought before we wrap up today, before we end with a boom. Let your nose be your yes. Let your nose be your yes. Right? Think about this. Let your nose be your yes. You’ve got to get a hundred rejections for every one yes and success. You’ve got to do it. Okay. Somebody out there who’s in their mind wrestling with this idea right now. They’re wrestling with the idea. Do I really have to get a hundred rejections for every yes? Can’t I just make a click funnel? Can’t I just automate my success? Can’t I put no money down? Can’t I just get rich quick? Because there’s people out there that will sell that dream to you. There’s a lot of money to be made selling you what you want to hear. But give somebody the tough love they need. This comes from love. Someone who says, I don’t want to get 100 rejections. Here’s the deal. Can I preach? I want you to preach. I feel like I am prepared. I don’t have my questions completely manned up. I feel like I’m prepared for you to preach, but I have to. It’s been a while since I’ve hit this button here. Let me find it here. It’s been a while since I’ve hit this button. It’s been a hot minute, I know. It’s been a hot minute. You know, right now, I’m just going to hit this button. Let me just do, I have a sound effect that leads us into preaching, but I don’t have to preach music with you right now. I’m working through some things. Okay. Okay. Now I got it. Here we go. I got one side. Here we go. Okay. I got it. Here’s the deal, folks. In order to go up, you must first stop by going down. You must choose before you can infuse. Oh! What does that mean? That means as you’re walking down the rocky road towards success, you’re gonna step on some rocks. Oof! You’re gonna have some no’s thrown your way. Oof! Like little fiery darts. Shun! And what you gotta do? Oh! You gonna just fall over and die the first little dart to hit you? No! No! No! What we talking about, Z? What are we talking about? You gotta walk through, you gotta persevere. You gotta push through. You gotta take that no. And replace the N with the Y and the O with the E and an S. Ow! What’s that spell? Yes! Yes! Yes! Listen, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. If it was easy, you wouldn’t have 89% shutting down after they’ve opened up. This just in. I mean, we’re talking about people that have gone through the hard parts of opening a business and they’re not able to keep it open. You mean when you do hard things, life gets easier? It is. And the harder you work, the luckier you get. And you have to understand this. Everybody out there is getting the nose. And the successful ones are the ones that shake it off. Like Taylor Swift tells you. Shake it off. Shake it off, baby. Shake it off. Shake it off. Haters be haters. Don’t stop, can’t stop grooving. There you go. Something wrong. Everything’s gonna be alright Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate Something’s gonna run, run, run Back to you is that it’s going to be hard. Come on. But you can do it. You can do it. You can do it, man. You can do it. You can do this thing. All night long. You can do it. It’s just business. You got to push us. You got to push through the adversity. You got to push through. And the thing about it is that, and you hear this a lot, you’ve heard it in movies, you hear it even on our show, it’s nothing personal. When people tell you no, it’s not a rip on your character. When they tell you no, it’s not… It’s just… They’re not there right then. Come on now. They’re not there right then. It’s not person. You can’t take a person. John Maxwell told us no and then told us yes later. There you go. Years later. Years. After asking every year for him to be on the show. Years and years. Wolfgang Puck has told me no and now he said yes. We’re getting huge people reaching out to us now because we’ve taken a lot of rejections. Behind the scenes, underneath the water, there is a duck looking calm on the surface, but below the surface, it’s paddling those feet. There’s an iceberg dead ahead. Iceberg! You just see the tip of the iceberg. What’s beneath the water, it’s the big iceberg. People don’t want to look at the stuff under the scenes. No one wants to look at the magma and the lava that made Hawaii. We want to talk about Hawaii. But my friends, there is hope. There is hope. the lava that made Hawaii. We want to talk about Hawaii. But my friends, there is hope. There is hope. There is hope. And that you have found the right team. Come on now. You have found the right place. Yes. You have found the right men. I testify. And we have some women on our team too. That’s right. But you found the right people, the right tribe. You got to get out to a workshop. A leak in arm and arm. You got to get to a workshop. To help you. Help you. Get your dream. Yes. And Tank, let your nose be yeses. Oh. And you know what? And all your dreams come true. Because really, we are here to help mentor you up. We’ve done it. We’ve been there. We’ve had a lot of no’s, a lot of rocky steps along the ways. But you know what? If we could do it, if a guy like Clay can do it, if a guy like me can do it, we’ve got this thing kind of sort of figured out, we can help you. And we’re here to help. That’s why we built all this. That’s why we do our radio show. That’s why we do our podcast. That’s why we do our online business school, thrive15.com. You can get to it at thrivetimeshow.com. And that’s why we do our in-person workshops. If you’re out there today, just seriously, fork over $250, okay? Fork it over, you’re going to come out to our beautiful facility, 17,000 square foot, 20,000 square foot facility, you’re going to come out to our facility, you meet the team, attend a workshop, and you get a year of videos. Now if you don’t do that, see I have an audio clip of a person towards the end of their life, who is in his late 90s at this point, and he was giving a tip to a young man, and he said, son, this is how you’ll feel after a life spent avoiding adversity. Oh, this is how you’re gonna feel. Perfect. And I got a cue. Let me get it right here. Like eating a spoonful of Drano. Sure, it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside. Ooh. Let me try that again. Like eating a spoonful of Drano. Sure, it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside. You got nothing got nothing so if you’re out there, and you got nothing. Let’s make it something Okay, book a ticket today to attend our in-person workshop We have a capacity for 2,400 people a year to attend that thing let the seating capacity be our problem We’ll figure it out you book your tickets. That’s dr. Z. Hey, we can pull up. There’s once There’s one famous movie quote from Braveheart where he’s telling the guys they’ve got an opportunity to do something that day. And yes, they’re afraid, and yes, it may end up in epic failure. But he asked them a question, and that question, if you can find it, is powerful. What’s the question? What’s he talking about? I’ll just say it, because you may not be able to find it. But the question is, if you could trade, he goes, you’re going to die, we’re all going to die, but if you could trade all the days from now until you’re in your deathbed dying to come back here to come back to today and and fight for your freedom would you do it and so that’s what I’m asking everybody out there right now every day of your life you get older every day of your life you’re taking one more day towards wall here we go here was a seven feet tall yes killed men by the hundred there is a review of the year it’s been a great fireballs don’t make this about somebody else this show is about your life correct don’t make this about somebody else also like I am William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen. You listening today have the capacity and the tenacity to be the next William Wallace, or you could just watch life pass you by. Fear and defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men. And free men you are. You got to understand there’s a lot of people, a lot of people have fought to give you the opportunity to get out of the wage cage. Right, and I’m going to tell you right now, everybody listening out there with ears to listen, you are an entrepreneur. It’s in your DNA. You can do it. You have the ability to do it. Right. See how he does that? He calls them out, he calls them out as countrymen. Now they have their own country. What will you do without freedom? Will you fight? Will you fight? Are you gonna fight? What will you do without your own business? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna just talk about it? No! No! Right? Against that? No! We will run! And we will live! Alright? Fight and you may die. Run. And you’ll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom! There it is. And if there’s somebody out there, there’s somebody out there who you cheer in this scene in the movie. You love this movie, but you love it because you’re watching somebody else have success. I would invite you, instead of watching reality shows, make a life so good that people want to make a reality show about your life. Oh, wow. That’s something we could do. That’s something we could do. And on that note, I want to end the show with our first boom as we christened the new studio here. Oh, that’s just good stuff. And then I think my wife has some sort of paycheck for you, so it’s a boom and a paycheck for you. Perfect. Are you ready? Yeah. All right, here we go. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather. And, man, people are so excited as they come in. Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the grill gun. Hi, I’m Bob Healy. I’m the inventor of the grill gun and the civy gun. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. And a lot of people, you know, they followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslim. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like real estate sort of things. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind nine round boxing he’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Russel, Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. And now the best-selling author of The Carnivore Diet and the multiple-time Joe Rogan guest, Dr. Sean Baker, joins our two-day interactive business growth and life optimization workshop. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t want to get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He’s going to say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t want to get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist, Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s gonna be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you could afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. You start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa, Russell. It’s I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you go to if you type in Thrivetimeshow and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You. You’re going to come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re gonna give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich you’re going to leave with a workbook You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical It’s actionable, and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrive time show calm again That’s thrive time show calm Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California Where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military. And he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins. And he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day. podcast and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Live time show two-day interactive business workshop if you’re out there today folks You’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast a broadcast you want to get him you want to improve your marketing if you’ve ever wanted to improve Your marketing your branding if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales You want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th, Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com. James, one more time for more enthusiasm. ThriveTimeshow.com. I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment we own it. Thrivetime show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get small business loans? 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 gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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 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 they’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 get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, 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’re going to 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. And now you may be thinking what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you gotta do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. As Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing, but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, “‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad?” And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. I owe a lot of that to you. I just want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you, sir, for changing my life. Not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the academy in Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. 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. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us and getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. 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. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively. They’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence, that businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do, and he gave me the road map out step by step. He’s set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it’ll be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. It’s never been super fun. It’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition is going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. 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. This is our old house. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is nice, right? 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 14, 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 ten 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. So we really just want to thank you Clay and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the ThriveCon workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Plays office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews, and just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews completely eliminates that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It’s real critical if I’m going to grow and change. It’s probably really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Hey Flyover family, come join us June the 27th and 28th, 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’re gonna be there with Clay Clark, an amazing group of individuals that have made such a difference in so many people’s lives. Do you wanna increase your production in a job? Do you wanna make more sales? Do you wanna own your own business? Do you wanna have breakthroughs financially? The key to that is knowledge. Clay Clark is anointed to help people in business. We’ve watched him over the last couple of years and we’ve been blown away. He is part owner of over 160 businesses, $2.4 billion in sales. Before politics and the great reset came into Clay’s life, he had the number one rated Apple podcast and he interviewed people like Anthony Robbins, Seth Godin, the top authors, the top business minds in the world. At this specific event, there was an interesting cast of characters that come from gangs to American Idol. Some of the guests that are going to be there, Michael Levine, Colton Dixon, Peter Taunton, John Lee Dumas, Mondo De La Viga. And Tim Schievo. They’re there to share what they’ve done and their breakthroughs and what their story is. And then Clay lays his map of business success, calls the path for every person to follow. So you may be sitting there thinking, okay, okay, I get it, I get it, what do I have to do? Go to thrivetimeshow.com. When you get there, the tickets are $250 or whatever you can afford. Yes, you got that right. $250 or whatever you can afford. You can name your price. So there are no excuses. You have to join us there. There are only a few VIP tickets left, like David said, special dinner and special time with the speakers. That is five hundred dollars. Why they last. So five hundred dollars, only a few left. If you want to be a ticket, we want to meet these speakers as well. So we got VIP. I want to meet Tim Tebow. I do, too. The date is June the 27th and twenty eight two thousand twenty four in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Go to Thrive Time Show dot com to get your ticket. chicken. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire And man, people are so excited as they come in. The conference has kicked off. This house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Hansen’s Bashawna up there. We’ve got Steve Barrington’s Little Winter Blossoms up there. Talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the improvements. So exciting. People are going crazy. I’m Michael Levine, writer of many, many PR books, and a man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, George Bush, Stanley Pottinger, speaking to people here at our conference, talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here at our conference talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one, it was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers, Michael Levine, we just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called Rustic Cuff, talking about the power of the Dream 100. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds. That’s how you know the show is on. One song, that’s right. Luke Erickson, come on in. Hey guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two. Follow me. Woo! Woo! Woo! I tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break, and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15-minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them Bathroom break and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his drill gun Melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time But we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside, you can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again, and one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hoods and Hood CPAs. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up. It just imparts so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of our teamies. Hey there Thrive Nation. One of the things that we love most about our business conferences is that we want every entrepreneur to leave with their questions answered. So what we do is we let them put the questions up on the board here so that they can ask their specific questions and Clay will not end the conference until every question is answered. Behind this Clay Kilar community answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions so that they’re the most set up person to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at Thrivetimeshare.com. Hello, I’m Wes Carter. I’m one of the shareholders at Winters and King. My favorite thing that Thrive has helped me accomplish here in our firm is thinking a little bit outside the box. They do SEO, they do printing, they help us with a lot of things from the day-to-day marketing for the firm, but they also help us think of things that as attorneys we probably wouldn’t normally think of that help us market our services to our clients. One of the things I love about working with Thrive is that they make it enjoyable to actually do work with them. It’s not dry. It’s usually fun. But it’s always very enjoyable and practical. They give me things and ideas that I can put into place. It’s not just some theoretical spiel that they give me. We get practical steps that we work on together to do my job better. So me personally, I would easily recommend Thrive 15 services to my friends, my families. I’d recommend them to my clients. I think they do a good job. They’re passionate. They care about their clients. And I think it’s actually a valuable service they provide to people that are in the business world. My name is Jeff Thomas. I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s all about getting to the grindstone. It is about putting the… It’s one thing to have a specific vision or a dream, but knowledge without application isn’t knowledge at all. So that’s nothing. Really funny, the atmosphere is very lively. Everybody that is working for Clay is very upbeat and not tired, not sluggish, not complaining, not whining. They don’t have anything to do with those types of characteristics. It’s all about getting to the grind and having fun while you do it. I haven’t actually been to any conferences in the past, but what I will say from what I’ve seen on YouTube and what from other friends have told me is this isn’t like a motivational kind of thing, so just, you know, hoo-hoo, rah-rah, it gets you motivated, but it’s like practical steps that if you do take them, which most people aren’t willing to do, then you will grow and you will achieve the specific things that you want. Well, for one thing, I would say that this isn’t necessarily for everyone. So if you’re not willing to work, this isn’t for you. But I would say that if you are willing to work and you know you’re just getting started, but you have actually taken a step in that direction, then this will actually help you grow further exponentially than you could ever imagine. My name is Taylor Hall. I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers professional hockey team. You know, our goal every night here at the BOK Center is to try to fill the seats with lots of people and create an exciting environment so when somebody comes to a game they want to come back. Working with Clay and the staff at Thrive, they’ve really helped us in many, many ways. Website and graphic design and video production, a lot of things that go along, and a lot of businesses, including ours, doesn’t have a staff or a full-time videographer or graphic designer, but the biggest thing that we noticed was the needle mover. More sales, more attendance, more successes in business. We had a record year last season working with Clay for the first time. Our average attendance is higher than it’s ever been. So there’s a lot of really cool things that we did and they worked. That’s the nice thing about working with Clay and the team over there. It’s just not one person, you get the entire team. If you need video design and editing and production, they’ve got that. If you need graphic design, if you need some coaching, your sales people and call scripts, PR, they offer all that. Clay was instrumental in helping guiding us and getting us on the right track so that we could really raise the bar and become ultra successful. So it’s been an amazing experience for me. My name is Kaitlyn. I own a tumbling gym called Justice Tumbling Companies. Working with Clay is so helpful. He’s being diligent with everything and making sure we execute our goals and really make things happen. It’s fun, it’s fun, it really gets you energized and going and makes you really want to work. To get the momentum going, to really just like get that buzz, really give you the energy to get up and make it happen. I’m Bob Healy. I’m in the charcoal grilling industry, and the name of my business is Grillblazer. How will I apply what I’ve learned so far into my business? I’m actually a client of the Tri15, and I learn so much from what I’m learning at this conference and my regular weekly attendance that it’s helping me establish the business and get it off the ground. Clay’s presentation style is just blatant disregard for what anybody wants. He just has fun, it’s him, everything that you see is authentically Clay. It’s just great fun. There’s not another conference like it. You just don’t go to a carnival atmosphere and learn like we do here at the Thrive Communities. It’s great. The reason people should attend at least one of these conferences is because it’s common sense. And everybody’s said an entire line about the way you should run a business, but until you actually experience running a business, which is, candidly, what you learn here, how to run a business. You don’t know what you’re doing. My name is Tyler Hastings, and this is my wife, Rachel, and our company is Delricht Research, out of New Orleans. During our time working with Thrive, we’ve had numerous successes. When we first started, we were working with one physician, we had one research site, and we were seeing on average between 10 and 15 patients a week. Since working with Thrive in the last 18 months, we now have four research sites. We work with over five physicians, and on average we’re now seeing over 60 patients per week. Recently, we’ve been the top enroller worldwide in seven studies, which is just incredible considering where we were two years ago, 18 months ago. Thrive really differs from the other conferences that we’ve been to and the other kind of programs that we’ve been through because they actually really practice what they preach and they implement the same systems and the processes that they teach you about and they give you real life examples that really work for them and show you with the training how to implement that yourself. For example, Tyler and I actually got the opportunity to come out to Tulsa and we’re fortunate enough that the Thrive team took us out to some of the businesses that they own. And we really got to see in real life, real time, some of the systems and processes. And it was just incredible, a real life example of some of the businesses and the things that they’re implementing. Having a coach is important to us. They act as not only an accountability factor, but they’re someone we can talk to on a daily basis as we go through the problems of running a business that inevitably come up. They always understand what we’re going through and they’re always there to help us or guide us through the problems that we experience. The best part of our experience working with Thrive has just been seeing our relationship grow. So at each step as our business grows, you know, if they have something else to provide us with, they’ve got the resources, whether it be marketing, graphic design, website development, or even in the accounting practices, maybe we need a new insurance policy. If they have someone they can connect us with, or, you know, if they have the direct resource we need to speak with for any of the problems we face. Someone’s thinking about signing up for the coaching program, I would highly recommend that they call in for a free 30-minute coaching session And see exactly what the team can do for you to speak with someone I’ll let them know what you’re going through and I think you’ll find that you know regardless of what you need There’s someone there that can help you Clay’s presentation style it’s very real and raw like it just gets real down to the bone of it, and the real purpose of it. There’s no, like, fluffy vagueness about it, you know? So, he really gets to the point. I’m always reminded about how important it is to be intentional, and to really, really pay attention to how you schedule your time, and really honor it. Because whatever schedule gets done. That’s what he said from Lee Cockrell. So, just constantly hearing that and getting reminded helps me to reinforce that in my own life. It always helps to get an outside perspective, and especially from a guy that’s run so many multi-million dollar businesses. It doesn’t hurt. My name is Nick Guajardo. I heard about the Thrive Time Show workshop through Andy Mathren. He’s my, Andy Mathren and Larry Montgomery, they’re my bosses at Restore Home Health. So I work with a home health company called Restore Home Health. And my role is pretty much to bring in business. So I was hoping to learn kind of the sales process on top of just kind of the responsibilities and help understand what it looks like on the SEO side and just kind of an all around what it looks like to own a business because that’s something I want to do in the future for sure. How I would describe the atmosphere here at Thrive is great professionalism, great people. It’s just a place you definitely want to visit. He plays delivery style, humorous, professional, hilarious. I haven’t seen someone do it better. So he does a great job. The most valuable thing I’ve learned so far, a lot of it has been extremely valuable. But one thing that’s always really stuck out to me is learning the SEO stuff. I mean, that is, I think, things you don’t really even think about, and then you hear it and you think you know it, but you don’t know it. So I feel like that was the most valuable. Well, they’re missing out on just coming down to just basic applications to be a business owner. I feel like it’s an absolute necessity to come here and learn the ins and outs. And maybe come here once or twice if they take good notes, that kind of thing. Why? To just, it’s the experience here and what you can learn, like absolutely. So marketing and SEO seemed like something that would be very scary, but then in the way that Clay and his team described it, it became very clear and concise and something that’s very accessible to any business owner. I’ve learned a lot about marketing at this conference and a lot about business management and HR, really everything, the key components of anybody’s business, they’re going to give you the best tools to be successful at it. So most workshops or conferences can be really boring, really one-note, or they just seem so theatrical that it’s a joke and it’s not even giving you tools that you need or that you came there for. But here, it’s still high energy, it’s still fun, everything’s to the point, but it’s very professional. And, yeah, you’re missing out on easy steps to use in your business that are very accessible and very clear. My name is Abigail McCarter. The best thing I’ve learned so far is definitely like organization, schedule wise, always keeping a to-do list, keeping your calendar organized. I’m kind of all over the place, so that’s always good to know. So, Clay’s presentation style and the atmosphere is electric. It’s so energetic, it’s so fun. Clay’s hilarious, but also knows a ton, so it’s just really great all around. This conference is much different than any other conference I’ve gone to. Again, because it’s fun. A lot of other conferences, it’s really quiet, really cold, and you just kind of get bored. But this one, you’re always engaged. You’re always learning something. And the staff is amazing. They’re always super helpful. So it’s just been really great. My name’s Clint Howard. We’re a personal training and fitness training facility. So, really just the importance of being at the top of Google, how Google works and why it’s so important to go out and get video reviews and testimonials and getting Google reviews. And so, all those things we can take back and really apply that immediately. So it’s really cool to see not only how to do it, but really the relevance and core of some of the long-term strategy of the business. Now, it’s amazing actually the way in this morning and yesterday I was videoing as I was walking in the front entrance. And actually me, I go to a lot of seminars, I go to a lot of conferences, massive minds. I’ve been doing that since I was like 22 years old, so gosh, almost 20 years now. And this is by far the most entertaining. Not only the content, the content’s amazing, but Clay and you guys do a great job mixing in edumatizing entertainment where it’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s lively, you never get bored. And I heard a study one time that the reason that children learn so much quicker is because it’s fun, learning is fun. And so obviously Clay is nailed that, where it’s very fun to be here and keeps you awake, keeps you energized, so I’m having a blast. Yeah, I think any business owner or someone that wants to own a business or considering owning and starting a business should definitely come. I know that I was referred here by friends of mine and clients of mine, and I’ve referred other people. Again, just to understand what it takes to make a business successful, to have a good time, obviously, you know, I go to the sand, have fun. The network is where people can learn from and there’s a lot of great things to talk to other people. I think this is a must-attend 3D-bait. It owns the business. I’m really pleased to start this. My name is Jamie Fagel. I’m with Jameson Fine Cabinetry. I heard about the conference through Andrew. He’s the coach that I deal with here at Thrive. The most valuable piece I found even working with Andrew, but it’s been solidified when it came here, was you gotta actually do the things that they’re telling you. With no action, you’re not gonna get anything from it. I would highly recommend this to almost anybody in business today. I have recommended it to some of my other business partners. It’s phenomenal. It’s really something that, if you wanna start a business, the old way of doing things is gone. This is what you gotta do. It’s the only way it’ll work. Hey, this is Charles and Amber Kola. We’re the owners of Kola Fitness. The way we’re able to do that is working with Clay for the last three years. He has really readjusted our thinking and taught us that our business is here to serve us and by doing that we’re able to live the lifestyle we want and take off on a random vacation last minute. We had totally planned on being at the conference so wish we could be there and meet all of you. We know you’re having a great time. So, thank you. Yes, Clay in the last three years has helped us build all the necessary systems, checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks, audits that are always running and the right capable lieutenants to keep track of all that so that you too can get time freedom, financial freedom. And that’s what we have done and Clay has helped us do. We’ve got multiple companies in multiple states and they’re all doing very well getting ready to go to more locations in this next year and Co-op Fitness has a really big future. We’re teaming up with a couple other groups and we should scale the company here shortly. Hopefully we’ll open like 50 locations in the next 10 years. So but yeah we’re on the way. We’re gonna probably more than double our company, maybe triple our company in the next eight to nine months and it’s just awesome. God is working in our business and we’re making Jesus and changing lives. We’re a strong Christian company that focuses on making Jesus famous and changing lives in the fitness field. And this is Charles and Hammer Cola. Thank you Thrive. Hit your action items. We love you guys. We wish you were there. You guys have a wonderful day. Bye bye. My name is Jennifer Johnson. I’m in the pest control industry and also weed control fertilization. And my business is platinum, pest and long. Some of the things that, I’ll be able to apply a lot of the things that I’ve learned in our business because this is not my first conference, and so a lot of the things that we learned we’ve put into place and now we’re doing the next level of refining the processes for just a different concept, and so it’s getting better and better. Things that were just big processes before, we have the foundation laid, and now we’re able to make it better and better And I’m hearing different things now that we’ve implemented things and so we can just make it even better implemented in our own business Clay’s presentation and the atmosphere is very exciting and fun. It keeps you awake It makes it interesting you have a lot of information But if it’s not going to be entertaining your brain is going to tune it out. But Play makes it just entertaining enough that you retain what you learn. Lots of rhyming and catchy things so that you remember stuff. What makes this conference different than other workshops or conferences that I’ve been to is that there’s a lot of people here in my same situation. Most of us are pretty small businesses wanting to improve, and we want real life information and something that will work and that’s attainable, and not just some crazy magic formula, but actual action items that we can implement in our business and actually see a difference. Everyone should attend a drive type business conference, whether you’re a business owner, it has practical applications that you can apply to so many different parts of your business. And then you need to come back for more so that you can keep doing more of the wonderful things that you learn. But secondly, I am also a mom of three kids and a lot of the concepts can actually be applied to home. Like getting routines and getting, setting systems at home has just seriously made a huge difference in my life at home. So I’ve been able to improve our business, but I’ve also been able to improve things at home. And so that’s why everyone should come, no matter what your station is in life. My name is Nolan Kew. I’m originally from San Francisco, California. The industry that I’m in is financial services. I’ve learned a ton so far, but what I can best apply from this conference is the opportunity, that hunger to go out there and make a big difference in my district. Clay’s presentation style is amazing. He’s got an endless amount of energy. It’s contagious. And yeah, by being here, I really do want to go back and be able to face all the adversity that the industry has. Yeah, this conference, the thing that makes it different is that it’s special because it has a unique set of individuals that all share that same energy. I think he picked it as a dragon energy, but yeah, that’s what we do. Everyone should come to multiple, but their first would be very special. Yeah, you’re welcome with a lot of enthusiasm. That’ll last for a long time. My name is Gabriela Cruz. Our business is HDS Electric. My husband’s the owner, but I’m involved with that, and so we’re a luxury company. Well, here at the conference, they talk a lot about consistency. And so to stay consistent with different things in the business, I feel like applying that to our business model will really help us grow. The atmosphere is very positive, uplifting, and it’s very fun and energetic. And so it gets you pumped, and it gets you excited, and it encourages you to do big things. Probably how real they are. They tell you up front what you need to do and what’s like a no-go. And some conferences are, they kind of trigger code things. So I like how real they are here. I think it’ll definitely, if you want your business to grow, I think this will be a great experience. And then not only that, it’ll encourage you and inform you on so many things you don’t think about on a daily basis. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I’ve definitely learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards, it’s 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 definitely helps it breaks it up. But the content 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 who’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 their thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses To me just that is it’s priceless. That’s that’s money Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they, where it was great information and then they upsold us like half the conference and I don’t want to 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 want to 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, it 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 going to get is just very very beneficial and the mindset that you’re going to get that you’re going to 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 Keynight 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. This is our old house. This is where we used to live years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? 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 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. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crocker, or Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers and they run a hundred and sixty companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running a hundred and sixty companies. In the weekly he’s running a hundred and sixty companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups, go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system, critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal, and they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or You know navigating competition and an economy. That’s like I remember we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to Just survive through all the Kovac shutdowns lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have three hundred fifty thousand dollars of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. But he was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing and I encourage you if you haven’t worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to help magnify you and there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working, and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day, and he loves it. So anyways, this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank you, Clay, and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay, it’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys, bye-bye. Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. We’ll see you guys. Bye-bye. real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes and then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing 800 million in sales over a 15 year career I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And, I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four-month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not gonna regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full time. I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people. I love building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time. And he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient, and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. We’ve got air and antistress shoppers up there. We’ve got sneaker-eating, timber-throwing, and mining concepts up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do this. It’s so exciting. People are going crazy. Michael Levine, writer of many, many PR folks, the man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Robert Straszny, George Bush, Stanley Pines, speaking to people here at our conference, talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here at our conference talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one. It was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers. Michael Levine. We just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called Rustic Cuff talking about the power of the Dream 100. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds. Hey guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two. Follow me. I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break, and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15-minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them, bathroom break, and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his grill gun melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside, you can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again. And one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hood with Hood Team V8. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up and just impart so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of the things that we love most about our business conferences is that we want every entrepreneur to leave with their questions answered. So what we do is we let them put the questions up on the board here so that they can ask their specific questions and Clay will not end the conference until every question is answered. Behind this, Clay Collard can be answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions so that they’re the most set up to be able to go home and start implementing. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions so that they’re the most set up to be able to go home and start implementing. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions so that they’re the most set up to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at Thrivetimeshow.com. We have come to the end of the 2019 Christmas conference. It was incredible. These entrepreneurs have gotten so many tangible things that they can go and they can implement. Check us out for more information at thrivetimeshow.com and as we always like to do, we want to end with a boom. 3, 2, 1, boom! Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are you know you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence, that businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort, and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do, and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference like motivated me and also gave me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things, they’re stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun, super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up those taggets. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. If you decide to not attend the drive time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere plays office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. It depends on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom but find your purpose in your business, and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.