Clay Clark | Ross Golan | Prolific Hit Songwriter Ross Golan | AND THE WRITER IS…Every Week Ross Golan Sat Down w/ Celebrated Songwriters to Discuss How the Music Industry Works + Tebow Joins June 27-28 Business Workshop!!!

Audio Transcription

Ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show we have the opportunity to interview the top 40 songwriter, lyricist and podcaster, Mr. Ross Golan. Now Jason, who has Ross Golan written songs for throughout his epic music career? It’s more like who has he not written songs for. He’s written for CeeLo Green, Pink, Charlie Puth, Lady Antebellum, Ariana Grande, Chuck, Andy Grammer, The Collective. Yep. Linkin Park. The Vamps. One Direction. Eliza Doolittle. Nicki Minaj. I mean, dude, it’s huge. Did you say Justin Bieber? I did not say Justin Bieber. Did you say Maroon 5? Oh, I was getting there. Did you say Flo Rida? Flo Rida. Oh, Jason, who else has Ross Goland written songs for? I mean, he’s written for the likes of Rickston, Eliza Doolittle, Jason Derulo, Lady Antebellum. My mind can’t even handle it. We could keep reading this list all day, all day. The entire show could just be us reading the names of songs he’s written, but instead let’s get into the rest of our intro. In 2016, Ross Golan was named as the BMI Pop Music Songwriter of the Year. As a strong advocate for the music industry, Ross Golan has pushed the initiative to add the songwriters to the actual Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which means because of Ross Golan as of 2017 that was the first year 2017 was the first year that songwriters could actually receive a Grammy Award for the album of the year and on today’s show he shares about the importance of learning how to communicate effectively the role math plays in songwriting how the song my house came to be and much much more. Ladies and gentlemen I can’t even believe it we’ve got Ross Golan here with you on the Thrive Time Show. Ross Golan, Ross Golan, he’s on the show and if you don’t know now you know it. Jason it has occurred to me that Ross Golan has not written music with one very important person. Who is that? Cobra Commander. Cobra, attack! Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce a show. But this show does. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Timeshow. He’s had a lot of hits, but his head ain’t swollen He doesn’t need an intro, but I’m already rollin’ Yes, the writer is, is the name of his show and Put the red light on, it’s time for some recordin’ Grab the pin and pad, cause this one’s important He’s takin’ our show to the Golden Heights He’s Ross Golden, and yes, Thrive Nation, Ross Golan is today’s guest. Mr. Ross, how are you, sir? I am doing lovely here in Southern California, outside where the streets are paved with actor’s dreams, so they say. Well, I was first introduced to your podcast, and the writer is, by one of my clients and the Atlantic Music Art Recording Artist Colton Dixon. And I just love your podcast, my friend. What first inspired you to start the And the Writer Is podcast? Well, you know, I said it in the first episode this week with, or this season with John Bellion. I was talking to him about how I think it was important to show our generation writing music in real time versus previous generations like the Brill Building where you have the greatest writers of that generation who have only been interviewed in retrospect about what it was like then rather than, you know, having those interviews in real time. So the idea was originally just for our group of friends. I thought there’d be about 300 people who would listen to it and just thought everyone would take a turn and everyone would celebrate each other. And then it turned out that other people wanted to listen to it also. So pretty exciting. Well, Ross, for the aspiring artists out there listening to today’s show, I’d love for you to break down how the music industry fits together. I know Colton, my client, he speaks very highly of his A&R guy, David Silberstein. Could you kind of explain, what does an A&R guy do for an artist? Well, an A&R stands for artist and repertoire. It used to be where there would be an artist who would be a singer or maybe it would be a jazz musician, and repertoire would be the music that they would cover. So there were people who created the repertoire and there were the artists who performed it. It wasn’t really primarily until the 60s when you would have the Beatles starting to do it on their first album, and it was about 50-50 songs they covered versus ones that they wrote, same with Bob Dylan. And these writers started writing more and more of their own music to the point where now it’s about 50-50, you know, artists that are primarily writers versus artists that are singers. I mean, even artists that are singers do their best attempt at writing. But the word artist and rep, or the name artist and repertoire comes from artist and repertoire. Now, you write songs like, you wrote the song My House, which obviously became the Flo Rida hit. And I understand it was about you and your wife not going out very much, kind of being homebodies, and yet it got turned into some kind of hip hop anthem about having a great time at the club. What does the process of actually writing a song look like? Well, in that case in particular, it was more about, you know, we were quite literally just playing around ideas on a piano where Johann had… Basically, we had just listened to a bunch of the really early Adele versions from the second album, I believe it was 25. And we were aiming to write for that and we spent about 12 and a half minutes writing, freestyling Adele melodies. And out of that came quite literally the verse and chorus of my house, slowed down, you know, 30 BPM. And we were like, well, you know, I bet if we sped this up, it could actually be something with tempo. And then you drop my voice down a third and I sound identical to Flo Rida. So there you go. All of a sudden we had a Flo Rida song. So it was, it was a really pinpointed, um, pitch to, you know, I mean, I’m, I know Flo and I know that, you know, his A&R team around him. So, uh, we all went specifically towards Flo and, uh, he’s a great guy, super nice, always, always, you know, an easy person to work with. So it was a fun process. You know, another great guy that I think you and I, a mutual acquaintance, Ryan Tedder. I went to college with Ryan at Oral Roberts University, and we live on the same floor, EMR 4 North. And Ryan sang at our wedding, and I heard him on your podcast talking about how proximity is so important for artists and musicians. Why is it so important for the aspiring artists listening to today’s show to eventually move to L.A. or Nashville or maybe just a few other key music spots? I mean, here’s an actual example where I was working at a studio, three rooms down. The first time I met Flo Rida was I was just working literally in the same building. And somebody came in and said, do you guys want to write a bridge? And it was to work on, um, Good Feeling. So, you know, here they were working on a song that later became a number one song worldwide. And they were just, they just knocked on the door and said, hey, we need help on the bridge, do you want to come in? And we were able to come in. I mean, most of the time it doesn’t work out like that. But the idea of quite literally being in the room next door makes a big difference. And if you go back to the Brill building as an example, they were all people with pianos and cubicles. So that’s how they were making it happen. Yeah, they would literally just walk into each other’s spaces and give advice. And, you know, the best studios in LA are communal like that where they can kind of help each other out. So I do think LA and Nashville, you know, you go to these writing places off of, you know, Music Row in Nashville and you have six rooms going at once and you just hear people writing their song in their room, then it keeps a competitive vibe and it gets people, you know, working together. You meet people while you’re getting coffee, you know, you meet people while you’re eating your snack, while you’re eating your lunch. So that proximity just keeps it going, keeps you meeting people. Through proximity and obviously talent and skill and hard work, you’ve been able to build quite a career for yourself. When do you feel like you personally started to really gain traction with your career? I got my first record deal in 2003 or 2004. I started a record company while I was in college as an internship program and would write all the songs for all the singers that I met. And so I was kind of creating a publishing company and a record company at the time. I recorded my first album called Reagan Baby and there was something of a bidding war and one of the, you know, the head of EMI said that, you know, that he would help fund the record company. And that’s essentially how I got my first record deal. You know, it wasn’t like somebody opened up any doors other than you have to let the music open the doors for you. So that was the first time I had the traction. I think once you have some sort of, you know, if you get a major publishing deal or a major record deal, then you can kind of leverage off of that and just be patient. That’s where the first one. I have two final questions for you. You talk a lot about math and songwriting. You talk a lot about math on your podcast. Can you explain to our listeners what you mean by math? Yeah, I mean, we’ll probably be… I gave a speech, a keynote speech at South by Southwest about song math, and it was pretty deep. So in a short phrase, it’s really music theory for song is the gist of it. It’s more, it’s all about composition and about discipline and understanding the different genres and how, how the listener hears and how you can, um, entertain your listener to their best of ability, because they have certain expectations, so if you understand music theory and you know that’s that’s really song map is just a Modern way of calling you know contemporary composition You a question I had for you I read and during a billboard.com Interview that you did where you said one thing that people should do in their life is record themselves speaking for one hour every week and then listen back like you do on your podcast. Why did you say that? What do you mean by that? I’m sure you can relate. I mean, there’s something, a magnifying glass on how you actually communicate. I think people don’t listen to how they communicate. I think they assume they know how they communicate. But if you could actually hear how you communicate, how you listen, how you respond to people, how you respect people, what your cadence is, understanding when you say ums and likes and interrupt people, all those things have a lot of value in your daily life and no doubt if you put a microphone in front of your face once a week, you very you’ll quickly hear your faults. But fortunately, after 50 something episodes with Anne the Writer Is, we’ve been, I feel like I’ve corrected some of my initial sort of personal, at least how I perceived how I communicated, and I feel like it’s really affected me outside of the podcast realm. So, yeah, it’s been very useful. You do a really good job getting into the deep stories that I don’t think are available anywhere else. And I appreciate you taking the time to let us into a behind-the-scenes look of the music industry and also for allowing us to steal 15 minutes of your time today, my friend. I really appreciate you. You got it. Best of luck. Thank you to your listeners and to you on the podcast field. All right Thrive Nation, there is so much meat to unpack there. But on today’s show notes, we put a list of all of the artists that Ross Golan has worked with that we know of. We’ve put a link to the songs that he’s written. We’ve put a lot of information up there because I think it’s really important if you’re out there and you are in the music industry to understand how all the various parts of the music industry fit together in terms of the creative process with the actual songwriting and how that fits with the artists and how that connects to the A&R people and how that connects with the producer and how that connects with the person that masters the song and how that connects with the record label and how artists get paid. There’s just so much good stuff there on today’s show notes and I encourage you to check it out today by going to Thrivetimeshow.com. If you’re out there today and you are thinking about becoming a full-time songwriter or music artist, check out his podcast, And the Writer Is. Again, his podcast is And the Writer Is. An incredible show. Each show is fascinating where he interviews the artists behind the top 40 music that you know. And we like to make every show actionable, so I encourage you to think about it today. Think about this today. Ross Golan has written an unbelievable number of hit songs, but that required him to get rejected a lot more than the average person. And if you listen to his podcast, and the writer is, you’re going to discover that this guy puts in the work. He puts in the effort. He views his songwriting as not just a hobby, but it is a full-time occupation. And he just writes, he works diligently, he works so hard. And his songs get better year after year after year. And I would just encourage you today to rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. If 10 is that Ross Golan work ethic where you’re working as unto the Lord, you’re working so hard, you’re putting in that effort, you’re really just getting it done, whereas a 1 is just, you know, mailing it in and working when you feel like it. How hard are you truly working? Rate yourself today on a scale of one to ten. Ten being the highest, one being the least. How diligent are you being about your daily effort? Your daily diligence? Are you truly putting in the consistent effort needed to win? Or are you just mailing it in? And now, without any further ado, we’d like to end each and every show with a boom. So here we go. Three, two, one, boom. Welcome to season three of And The Writer Is. I am your host, Ross Golan. I’ve written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I’m producing this with the great Joe London, Big Deal Music Publishing, and Mega House Music Management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special events, or buy some of our merchandise, go to our website, www.andtheriteris.com. Oh, and if you enjoy this podcast, please rate us on iTunes, or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is. We really appreciate that effort. Today’s podcast is brought to you by Bandzoogle. From weekend warriors to Grammy winners, Bandzoogle powers the website for tens of thousands of musicians around the world. So whether you’re just starting out or looking for an affordable solution to build a new website and manage your direct-to-fan sales, you can use Bandzoogle’s simple tools to design a website and store that both you and your fans will love. Go to bandzoogle.com to try it free for 30 days. And be sure to use the promo code ATWI. That’s A-T-W-I. To get 15% off the first year of your subscription. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I am your host Ross Golan today’s writer producer artist has won three Grammys been Nominated for six others sold more than 200 million songs set the record for the most played song ever a top-40 radio And then broke his own record the same year it all started when he was discovered on TV before that was cool After which he got signed got dropped and got signed again from Tulsa, Oklahoma. This guy’s commitment to his craft is iconic and his loyalty to his band, collaborators, and most importantly, his wife and kids is legendary. And the writer is not just a foodie and real estate mogul, but also one of the two people who convinced me to pursue being a songwriter for people other than myself, Ryan Tedder. What an introduction. It’s kind of crazy just thinking of when we met. Yeah. You know, like we kind of met before all this happened for any of us. And you know, and to be in your new studio, which is not too far from the apartment that you were living in 10 years ago, 10 years ago, you know, where you had to walk upstairs with your crutches because you had already busted an Achilles. Yeah, that’s right. You know, and you’re like living in in that apartment 10 years ago and to be in, you know, essentially one of your places right now. And this is awesome. It’s a trip. It all started on Mansfield, man. So crazy. Yeah. Let’s give a little bit of background. I mean, obviously, I know, you know, people can look you up if they don’t know you. But let’s start with when you were born. I was born June 26th. Do I have to say the date? No you don’t. But 19 something. I’m a child of the 80s. Right, right, right. There you go. I always, I had a, my first album was called Reagan Baby. Oh yeah. But technically I don’t know if he had, I think he had won the election. I think you and I are like identical age. Yeah, I was going to say June 26th, me and Ariana. Same birthday. Every 26th I send her a happy birthday. I like that. Okay, so you’re from Oklahoma and your family’s into music? I know that they were… Yeah, I’m from Oklahoma. My family… So my parents got divorced when I was five. My dad was a gospel singer and songwriter in the 70s and actually had toured around the world with a couple of different like that’s back when you had like the up with people like the music singing groups that went around doing stuff and gospel was was oddly also in commercial music at that time like Bob Dylan was doing a gospel record and Larry Norman was having radio hits. So my dad was kind of part of that. He was writing songs. This is really funny. He wrote the entire album. Kathy Lee Gifford signed to CBS Records and my dad wrote the album. This is back before she was ever on TV. She was a singer and a Vegas performer. And so my dad was kind of the yin to her yang for a while and did a lot of that music. And then… Does she know that? She knows that, yeah. She taught me. I went to Regis and Kathy Lee back way when I was in college. I visited and she was walking past me and I said, hey you know my dad, she goes who’s your dad and I said you know I’m Ryan Tedder and she goes she like grabs me and like is shaking my face and like kissing me I mean she’s she’s she’s Kathie Lee. So yeah anyway my dad did music and you know had a couple publishing deal offers he ended up getting married young and that’s why he he ended up not pursuing music, to be honest, and I think I probably had part to do with that. Then I’m trying to think, my uncle is a, he’s signed to one of the Christian record labels and has been a worship leader for like 25, 30 years. So that’s kind of the extent of my. So they’re still into it. They’re still into it, my uncle does that. My cousin Ashley was in a band called The Clark Family Experience. They had like one country hit forever ago and then he signed to like Simon Fuller’s company. I mean, there’s a lot of weird random music in my family, but the house I grew up in with my mom and my stepdad, not musical at all. Like zero, zero music. Were any of your family members envious of your success? If they were, I don’t think they would say it. I mean, look, I had cousins that I knew wanted to pursue music and were frankly better at it than I was at an earlier age. But I just I’m kind of unfortunately, my personality type is insatiable. So once I decide I’m going to do something, it’s it is insatiable. Like I’m not stopping and I’m kind of I kind of put on blinders and just go. So I think there’s, you know, look, one of my best friends growing up was way more serious about music than I was. I mean, he talked about it all the time, being in a band, wanted to be like Oasis, and he won Battle of the Bands and was in a, you know, for the state of Colorado and was in a successful band at the time. And so, and it didn’t pan out, you know, it didn’t pan out. I had a lot of, not a lot, I had some friends and family that wanted to pursue music and for one reason or another life got in the way. Yeah. So when did you go from being a kid in Tulsa to, you know, I’m going to be a songwriter and an artist? So the truth of it is, is this. The divorce that my parents had caused me to be an only child. I didn’t have any siblings. I didn’t have any distractions. Not to say siblings are inherently distractions, but I didn’t have the normal stuff that occupied this is before you and I grew up. We had the Internet during our puberty as I pretty much when the Internet came out for you and me. But we didn’t grow up with iPhones and social media and distractions. We just like if you get home and you didn’t have a Nintendo you go outside or you draw cartoons or you read or you or if you’re me you sit down and you play piano and play guitar and and So, you know, Oklahoma somebody told me once at a an ass cap event There was a big the number one country writer that was on a panel with me and I’m spacing on his name but what he told me was and I’ve a few other writers have confirmed this for me in Nashville, there are more songwriters from Oklahoma than any other state in terms of per capita. The amount of people that are professional songwriters from Oklahoma is more than any state, and that includes artists as well. And if you go to Nashville, it’s like every other person. And so I was sitting in a room one time and I realized that all three or four writers were from Oklahoma. None of us realized it. I don’t do a lot of country music, but maybe once a year I’ll do a session. And it was like me, Carrie Underwood, another writer, another writer, and all of us were from Oklahoma. And we were like, why are we all here? And our conclusion is there’s nothing to do in Oklahoma. If you don’t play football and you’re not a big drinker, neither, which that’s me, you, you know, the odds of you, and you have loads of church. So I think that’s, how did I get from like Tulsa to this? I had nothing but time. I was in church all the time, surrounded by music, and it was my escape. I would sit at home and watch movies like they were my friends. You know, I would watch movies on repeat and I became obsessed with acting and wanted to be an actor for a long time. I actually had a scholarship as an actor that I didn’t take. Is that what you went to school for? I went to school, I have a degree in advertising and marketing and a minor which is pointless in history, as we were talking about earlier. And but acting was my my my first love and that led me to musical theater and at a young age and when I was doing I was that dude from Glee you know uh that was like would go from the from basketball practice and sneak into the theater you know my a lot of my friends I’m pretty sure were convinced and family that I was gay growing up because when you do musical theater in rural Oklahoma in the country and that’s your passion, especially when one of the first plays you star in is some like it hot and you’re in drag, which was me, you know, people make assumptions, right? And so I wanted to be an entertainer. I love theater. I still to this day, I would do theater in a heartbeat. I love being on stage. I love acting, but my teacher pulled me aside and said, look, you know, your voice, it’s something different. Like, you’re a fine actor, but your voice is something really different. You should really focus on that. And so I did for hours every single day. And at the age, I’m giving you kind of the weird chronology of it, at age 15, 14, I discovered Diane Warren and Walter Afanasyev and and why am I spacing on his name is one of them he’s right and he’s right in there with all the best huge house in Malibu I can’t think of what his name is I’m spacing on his name but um a bunch of the songwriters of the 90s you know like most people I grew up assuming that if you’re singing a song you wrote it yeah and then my dad popped my pop that bubble for me when I was about 14, 15, he said, you know, we’re sitting there watching, I forget what movie but the song comes on at the end of the movie and it was a huge hit from that movie because in the 80s that happened all the time. Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club, thank you. Yeah, it was, this would have been like probably late 80s, it might have been like Days of Thunder or something like that. So anyway, the song comes on. But the song is bigger than the movie. Where the song is bigger than the movie, that happened all the time so the song comes on I go oh my god it’s amazing you know and my dad goes yeah so-and-so wrote that and I go well that’s not who’s singing it and he goes no no singers don’t write their own songs a lot of the time and it was like you just told me Santa Claus isn’t real you know or I don’t have to you don’t have to pay taxes I mean it was literally the most mind-blowing concept exactly exactly wait what you don’t have to pay taxes and so it was the most mind-blowing concept. And so once he told me that, I said, well, who writes most of the songs? And at that time, it was David Foster and Diane Warren wrote all the hits. So then I got on the Internet and pulled up every song that the both of them had written, and my head exploded. And that was the moment that I started getting serious about songwriting. Crazy. So you moved to Colorado my senior year of of high school in Oklahoma. I told I went on a mission trip came home and told my mom I want to move to Colorado and a big part of it was and this is not like talking smack about Oklahoma because for anybody listening that’s from Oklahoma I just knew that my time there had run out. I had to get out of Oklahoma. I had to get somewhere else. And when I moved to Colorado, it’s like 97, I had my aunts and uncles who were like worship leaders and they were at least into music and culture and traveling. And those are three things that I knew I had to have in my life. Even if it was like under the auspices of doing mission trips, get me to Paris, get me to London, get me out of Oklahoma. I need to see some stuff and meet some interesting people. That’s a through line of all those writers that you’ve mentioned. You’re in Nashville with those four writers from Oklahoma. You’re not in Tulsa with those four writers from Oklahoma. A lot of times people ask, how did somebody get discovered from wherever? And part of it, most of the time, is move. Proximity has something to do with it and showing that you’re willing to give up everything to see what’s behind your number or whatever. You just quoted my number one piece of advice. Like if people ask me how to get a songwriting you know there’s let’s say call it two or three things right. Number one I was at that same ASCAP event that I was speaking at like probably five or six years ago. A lady stands up, you know, they do the round of questioning at the end of the panel. She stands up and she has this thick Dutch accent and she says to me, Hi, you know, I’m I’m I’ve have I have cuts on some, you know, European artists on major labels. I live in like Utrecht, which is a beautiful city in Holland, which I’ve toured and played and I love it there right there’s a million reasons to live in Utrecht Holland my cousin lives there actually and she goes but it’s I find it very frustrating and it’s it’s unfair why I haven’t had hits and how can I make in the music business I said ma’am where do you live and I already I already knew the answer she goes Holland I go that’s why and she was like what I was like move here we’re in like we’re in LA, move here, move to London, or move to New York, but don’t be in Holland. That’s number one. Because if you don’t, even with YouTube and all that stuff, unless you’re trying to be a singer, you know, if you’re a singer, and you’re amazing, you can get discovered and be in Biloxi, Mississippi, and labels might fly to you, right, or something, or they’ll fly you out. If you’re a songwriter, then you’ve gotta go where it is. Everybody wants the anomaly. They tell the story about, well, Dave Matthews, you know how they built their tour, because they built their fan base because they toured all the, it’s like, well, that was 25 years ago. And yeah, they did it. I’m just saying that you want to go where the risk is the lowest, in a way, so you have the best opportunity to succeed and a lot of times people fall back on the anomaly. Yeah, everybody wants to tell the story like, well yeah but this writer doesn’t live in LA. It’s like, yeah, no, I understand. I’m talking about the majority of them though choose to live in those cities for a reason. I didn’t live in LA for and so I knew it was possible if you had enough hits and a reputation that you could do you could pull it off for a while but even even he moved back to LA and so did I because it’s do you think it hurt you moving to Denver yeah no I think I think in that decade that I had my biggest it’s hard to say, the biggest hits of my career came from the time I was in Colorado. If you remove the first three, Apologize, Bleeding Love and Halo were all done in LA. Anything else that I did that was of any report in the last eight years had been done in Colorado. So it didn’t hurt me. When it started, and honestly I think it kept me sane, because as I told you earlier, I’m insatiable. When my career took off from Wonder Public, it also took off as a writer at the same exact time. Two completely independent careers. If I had stayed in L.A. and been accessible to all the labels, all the requests, all the so-and-so-ones to get together, my marriage would have fallen apart. I probably wouldn’t have had the kids I have. It would have destroyed my life. So I knew that I personally needed to get out to have any kind of actual life. And then flash forward eight years, you’re older, you’re wiser and you’re not as much FOMO going on. And I knew a year and a half ago or a year ago that I was like, I can be back in LA now and not burn up. And you know, and at a certain point too, it becomes way more taxing to not be here. It’s just you’re making it harder on yourself to not be that I’ll just mean LA London you can do London as well. You know London’s fine, New York is sadly kind of Harding window has closed and York. I still love there’s some people are putting some money into an infrastructure in New York to try to bring it back but until there’s a sort of state citywide move towards helping artists survive with no income. Yep. It’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. You’re better served moving to Toronto right now than you are to New York. You could get way more. Frank Dukes is a good friend of mine. Yeah, T-Minus is up there. Yeah, and Frank’s sitting at like number one and number two in the world right now out of Toronto. Toronto and when I’m up there I work with him he’s coming down here and and it’s kind of hilarious because I’m like dude you’re crushing the planet and you’re not in LA so but you’re doing it in Toronto Toronto is about the only other hot scene it’s funny when you and I moved to LA or you when you and I both when you know when you’re in Glacier hiking and I was in what was called Republic back in the day I don’t know if you remember this because you weren’t in the songwriter scene yet you were like considering it but the hottest city in the U.S., Atlanta. That’s where I was doing writing trips to Atlanta, which is crazy to even think about right now. Before we get there, you go, you get a college degree in advertising. Yeah, I don’t know why I did that. But well, I mean, what you do right now is kind of advertising air. There’s some value in copyright. Yes. In an advertising sense and being a chorus, somebody’s writing a chorus, I mean, on some level. Yeah, for sure. That punchline is the same. Punchlines, tags, donuts, all those, yeah. If I’m gonna be level with you, I picked the degree that was the easiest. Advertising, getting a degree in advertising, I’m sure after Mad Men, there’s a lot more people getting that degree, but I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I coasted through that. I just, I got the- Did you have a job after college in advertising or anything like that? No, no, absolutely not. I absolutely, when a guy asked me, I’m not joking, there was two brothers, Tony and I forget his other name, but they were starting a, oh my God, Tony and Adam Jones, I can’t even remember their name, they started a company in college, and they liked, I was in like a commercial for our college and and I and they whatever reason they like we hit it off they liked my personality and vice versa and um they they wanted me to work for them they already had a profitable company uh they were a year ahead of me so I was a junior they’re a senior they come and sit down and say we’d like to interview interview you for for a job and um it’s an advertise it’s in pr and advertising and I go, why? And they go, you know, because we, we, man, we like you. You’re the vibe we want for our, for our, for our company. And I said, I’m going to be, I’m going to level with you, man. I would absolutely not hire me. I’m a junior. And they’re like, what? That’s the, the opposite of what you should be saying. We’re offering you like, we can give you like 35 starting. I was like, nah, I don’t want, I’d rather have 12 grand a year and sleep on a couch and be doing something else. I didn’t wanna get a job in advertising. I switched degrees because I had some overarching pre-MBA thing that was too hard. It just took too much of my time. I knew that I wanted to go into music or acting by my freshman year, and I took a class called sequencing and digital audio my freshman year and it introduced me to Cubase and My head exploded wait a minute I can produce my own songs without anybody I can just layer Instruments what is this like and that’s what set me off the course in the music and so then any any class or course load that kept me from that room or from the piano rooms, which is where I was writing probably about five days a week, I would kill that class. So I realized, so I went to my advisor and I said, what’s the easiest degree I could get? I just want to get out of here. And he goes, PR and advertising. And I go, done, switch me. And so I switched and it freed up a bunch of time and that’s literally I am where I am because I had kind of a coast college career where and I wasn’t dating intentionally. I mean I’d go on dates, I would date during the summer but I wouldn’t date during the school year really with any you know very rarely simply because girls take up a lot of time and I saw my friends that were getting locked down freshman, sophomore year with serious girlfriends. I thought they were nuts. I’m like, look, I love girls as much as you do, but like, I’m not trying to get married right now. We’re like 19, but when you’re from Oklahoma, from a Christian community, 19 is when you should be shopping for a fiance. I mean, it’s crazy. Like they get married so young. I don’t know if it’s still happening, but early 20s is a reasonable time to get married and settle down and have kids. And it was, you know, that to me was like the polar opposite of what I wanted to do. So I just, I would skip class and go to the writing rooms. I call them the writing rooms, the piano practice rooms, but I would block out the window and shut the door and I would two to three hours, you know. Okay, here’s the deal. I am technologically challenged. I’ve always been technologically challenged. I barely know how to use this computer to record this thing that I’m recording right now. So, I can guarantee you that I cannot build a website. And when I was in a band, I just needed something to help me build my band’s website. Well, you are in luck, because today’s podcast is brought to you by Banzoogle. Banzoogle makes it easy to build a stunning website for your music in minutes. Choose from over a hundred mobile-friendly themes, then customize your design and content in a few clicks with Banzoogle’s easy visual editor. All the features you need for a professional website are already built in, including tools to sell your music and merch commission-free right on your website, mailing list tools to grow your fan list and send newsletters, integrations to pull in content from all your online services like Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, and live support from their musician-friendly team seven days a week. Banzoogle plans start at just $8.29 a month and include your own free custom domain name. Go to bandzoogle.com to try it for free for 30 days and be sure to use the promo code atwi that’s a t w i to get 15% off the first year of your subscription. Fans Google websites built for musicians. When did you start performing those songs that you were writing? I started performing them, so I wrote a song, I want to say this is the summer after my junior year, I’m like 19, and I’d already written a bunch of songs on piano, but I’ll give you, I applied for internships at five film studios and five record labels. Virgin Records, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Records. I sent out, I mean, you go, this is before the internet would give you all this information. So I would call the complaint hotline on the back of a DVD or a CD. There was always a if you have questions or complaints, please call. So I’d call the complaint hotline. I just is an idea that struck me one day. How can I get a hold of the HR department in a film studio, Paramount Pictures or Virgin Records London like Richard Branson’s office? How can I call it? Call the complaint hotline and you go, you know, I’m sorry, you know, can we, you know, I’m so and so Virgin Records, you know, what is your complaint? And I would go, oh, oh, I’m sorry I was I was actually being transferred to HR and The person go oh I can connect you and they would literally connect me to HR the person that HR would pick up who was just a just a phone jockey and I say They pick up they say, you know, hi, this is Christine. How can I help you? I’d say oh, I’m sorry I was just on hold with the director of HR. I would just like, I’m sorry, I got reconnected. Sorry, I was already on hold. Can you put me back on hold for them? Oh yeah, I’ll put you right through. And lo and behold, I would have a director of human resources at a label or a film studio pick up the phone and I’d say, hey, I know this is random, but I’m calling you from a college dorm and I don’t even wanna tell you what it took to get you on the phone, but I want to work for you for free.” And that was my pitch. And I did that a bunch of times and would take down all the information, and eventually I got turned down from Virgin, turned down from Paramount, and I kind of literally put it – I told my parents and told God, if a film studio gives me an internship this summer, I’m going into music. And I literally just, that was going to be my decision. And I get an offer from DreamWorks Records and Publishing. I come out to LA, I interview with this guy, and he goes, I don’t have a position for you, but I can give you DreamWorks Publishing Nashville. It’s like Nashville? I don’t do country music. I was like, that’s all you got, buddy. So I go to Nashville that summer do you know who that guy was because I mean yes heavy fascinating you’re not gonna believe this you got me I am 99% sure it was it was super young like junior A&R Benjamin Groff Benjamin Groff from Cobalt really that’s cool I’m like 99% sure he’s the guy that interviewed me like forever ago crazy like I can’t confirm that. I could probably find out. But I ended up working for Abby Dimesh. In Nashville, they’re called Chicks With Hits. I think they still exist. And Abby Dimesh was my main person that I was working under for the summer, and James Stroud, who ran DreamWorks, and Scott Borchetta, who was the GM, who is now obviously Taylor Swift in Big Machine and all that. And Scott and I talked about this a few months ago actually, it was funny. So long story short, I go to Nashville, I’d already written some songs in my dorm room at ORU, and the first song I’d written was this really cheesy ballad that basically sounds like fake baby face. And I’d written that in a bunch of stuff on piano. How does it go? You put me on the spot now. It’s like, is it possible? Maybe I’m not even gonna try to sing it. It’s really. So it’s a it’s a very cheesy babyface song. You can Google it. So I go into ASCAP. This is how I mean, I haven’t told the story, I think maybe ever I get to Nashville at this point. I clearly I’m I’m you know obviously I don’t really Give many shits. I will just knock on anybody’s door open it get in their living room and be like oh, I’m sorry I was already here. What’s what’s going on? And so I get to Nashville Day one I dropped my bags at this dude’s apartment couch crashing I Drive to ASCAP and my dad had told me a long time ago, ASCAP is required, if you have signed up and paid the $7 fee, they are required to service you. They are required to help you. So I go in and I’m like, I’m an ASCAP member and I need some help, I need some connects. I need you to like take me around, whatever, whatever. And I go in to meet with this guy, Mike Doyle, and he blows me off for six weeks. Every week I’m calling him and I have a meeting, he cancels. Meeting cancels. I go into ASCAP, I pay 50 bucks, I demo this song called The Look and one other song on piano on an ADAT. And 50 bucks is all I had at the time so that was pretty risky. I go in to the orientation meeting at ASCAP, I’m sitting in the room, a guy gives his spiel, welcome to ASCAP, all these people just moved to Nashville and it’s like the summer of 2000. And then I walk up to the guy at the end of the meeting, I go, hey, so I only have two and a half months here before I have to go back to college. I wanna get a record deal and a publishing deal before the end of the summer. And he dies laughing. He goes, son, there are people who have been here for 10 years that haven’t gotten a publishing deal. Like, that’s just never gonna happen. That’s impossible. And it like shattered my expectations. Long story short, I end up in a meeting with Mike Doyle. He’s running ASCAP, the pop division. I’m sitting there, he’s not even looking at me. He’s like reading a newspaper, putting eye drops in his eyes, leaning back in the chair, and I hit play on the thing, and all of a sudden he like puts his eye dropper down, stops, and gets in a dead stare, and he goes, play that again. And I play it again, and he goes, what are you doing this week? And I go, nothing. And he goes, I need you tomorrow and the next day. We’re gonna make the rounds. And he takes me around, introduces me to every publisher, writer. That weekend, I auditioned for a TRL. This is before being on television was a thing, really. This is like, I think American Idol started this same summer or year that I did this. And I auditioned at a Planet Hollywood to be on this TV show that’s gonna give you a record deal and NSYNC is somehow involved in this like they’re Lance Bass and you know Brian McKnight is a judge and Pink is a judge and so I go up everybody’s doing cover cover songs some boy bands and all this I get up with the acoustic guitar and sing the song and I come down and the and everybody says the the main judge Robin Wiley she goes you’re going to win this competition. I’m waiting tables at this dodgy place on Second Street in Nashville called Prime Cut and she calls me she goes congrats you’ve won the national search you’re one of four finalists you’re going to be on TRL in two weeks we’ll fly to New York we’ll give you the information blah blah blah. I go to New York. Online vote was like 30 percent of the vote and then the rest was the judges. And by the night before the competition, I had 85% of the online vote. And TRL did this expose on me and Tulsa and all this stuff. I get on the next day, perform the song, win a record deal that wasn’t really a record deal, but I win and that’s really what started my career. And DreamWorks, James Stroud offered me a publishing deal. And I turned at that point, cause I knew I had the TV thing going. I turned down every publishing deal and my attorney was like, keep your publishing, keep your publishing as long as you can keep it, keep it. So that’s really where my career started was that that whole summer in Nashville. Who is the record deal with? The record deal, that’s the dodgy part. It was Lance Bass’s company and it was basically, the fine print was you win the opportunity to have a record deal. So he was righteous, very righteous about it. He took me around to a bunch of record labels. I mean, I met with everybody. I mean, I met with everybody, Jimmy Iovine, and I met with Craig Kalman and whatever. And I had an offer from DreamWorks Publishing and a couple others and during my final year in college I’m in a dorm room and about every six weeks I get on a plane to LA or New York to play more songs and meet with more people. Did everybody in college know what was going on? They did. Everybody watched it. So that’s your first time feeling kind of like fame? It made it super awkward. I mean there were guys, I remember one guy walked up to me two months into college. I didn’t know how to act because everybody had seen it. I was known. I’d walk through the lunchroom and I’d see people pointing and whispering, that’s the kid that just won, you know, and it was so awkward. My senior year was really awkward because of that show. I remember one kid that I was friends with came up one time and like cornered me and was like, yo, you think you’re hot shit, man, just because you won this record deal. I was like, dude, where did you get that from? Like, I’m not doing it. Do you see me like flossing like, you know, fancy watches and, you know, crazy shit? Like it was, it was really People would be surprised to realize how many people who are famous that are really anxious yes, and are Highly shy and and nervous about the fact that people are watching them. Yep, and that it’s really not their goal I mean one of the things that you realize from living in La that people are famous aren’t necessarily rich and people who are rich aren’t really necessarily famous. And you’d be surprised when you see somebody that you recognize from a commercial or a movie or a TV show or a band, it’s like, they may not know how to act because it’s weird and uncomfortable and unnatural. It is very unnatural. And by the way, it makes you come off way more dickish than you actually are. Because you, you’re kind of, you’ll walk into a room and know, and then our band takes, our band blows up in like, 08, and then I move to Colorado, and all of a sudden, I’m like going into like, Christmas parties, and like, birthday parties, where in Denver, I’m the only famous person in that room, and we’re everywhere at that point. And I didn’t know how to act. I probably came across as an absolute dick, not because I was, but because I didn’t know. I was so awkward to have everybody. I spent most of my life liking disappearing into the background. It’s taken me, I think it took me five or six years of being in that band and doing television to finally enjoy it and be completely natural in front of camera, in front of people, not be insecure, not be weird. It took me half a decade to come to grips with that. Longer, it took me 10 years to come to terms with that. And I think how most bands get about one song shot worth of learning about all these mistakes and how to deal with people. And that’s why so many artists have, a lot of artists who are one hit wonders is because when you get that one hit, how to become a human in that case is so difficult. It’s so difficult. It’s so difficult. It’s so difficult. And because I think you said it, it’s not natural. It’s just not natural. And you know, so to finish, I’ll do a very succinct summary of the chronology of those last leading up to when I met you. I finished college by the skin of my teeth. I finished college. I still don’t have a record deal, but at this point, I’m moving back to Nashville because it’s the only place I know. Even though I wanted to go to LA, Nashville is way cheaper. In between that, I moved to New York. I graduated college. I moved to Hoboken, and I’m living in this house with these guys. I got recruited to be in a band, and then I get there and I find out it’s a boy band. And funny enough, the person that told me to run was Timberlake. I’d met Justin through this whole TRL thing. So I’ve known Justin since probably 2000 for a long time and been, you know, friends with him. We’re not like besties texting each other in the morning, but we’re, you know, been close enough for the last however many years. And I’m in the studio with him while they’re finishing Celebrity, like they were doing, you know, Dirty Pop and all that stuff. And we’re kids. And he goes, what are you doing in New York? And I go, let me play you some songs. I play it for me. He goes, man, that ain’t you. Like that’s not you. You need to be a solo artist or start your own band. Like you don’t don’t mess around with if it’s not a band band, don’t mess around with it. Don’t do this. And he was like referring to boy bands. And I was like, no, I know I’m not doing that. I just have to figure out what my sound is. And he’s like, well, whatever you need to get, get the hell out of that, like run for the hills. And so I walk away from that. I moved to Nashville, right. I was living in New York basically up until the Twin Towers fell, which was weird because that was my little jogging path was from Chelsea down to the Twin Towers and back. That was like my three mile route. And so it was kind of weird to have that happen. But I moved to Nashville. I spent a year and a half in Nashville just writing, kind of leveraging the TV exposure I had to get me into sessions, getting some cuts here and there, getting some more publishing offers. Flash forward to like 2002, let’s say, and I have the idea of, 2002, 2003, I have the idea for Republic. And what happens is like at some point in 03, like the beginning of 03, I write, I sit down at piano and I just like bust out some chords. I’m like, ah, these chords feel good. And I’m looking for a sound. I’m spending a year and a half looking for my sound as a solo artist. And I’m playing some chords and I’m at my dad’s house in Colorado and I stumble upon the chords of Apologize and I immediately write the chorus. I have the chorus like that and then like the opening two lines of the song. Were you apologizing for something? No, I was writing and as people know One Republic, we don’t do a lot of songs that are, you know, the blessing and the curse of my band is that 99% of any hits or records we’ve had, they’re not relationship driven songs. We write about life and kind of experience and like in internalism and all these things, which makes it way harder to have hits, by the way. Don’t start a band, don’t start a band with that as your primary script because it’s way harder. But Apologize is the only song, really, that was like ever, that was a relationship, and it was me writing like my kind of pent up angst and disappointment over every relationship I had in high school and college. And there was like two or three girls in particular that like really I mean broke my heart They genuinely did and I was very serious about my interest in girls. I wasn’t just like dating to play around and So I got burned and that’s what led to apologize it I think that’s why people connected with it, but that’s kind of the chronology of Nashville to New York City to in 2002 and three I was in New York a ton and I was in Nashville. Timbaland happened to watch that TRL show. He calls me a year later out of the blue and we talked for three hours on the phone. This is him while he’s doing Nelly and Justin and Missy Elliott. He’s at the peak of his career and he calls me out of the blue in my 300 a month apartment in Nashville. Says I want to sign you to a production deal. And I’m going to fly you to Miami, fly you to New York, and we’re going to start writing. And I end up spending about two years, a year and a half, two years from mid-mid-oh-one or like, no, beginning of oh-two to basically oh-three following Timbaland around the country, jumping in on some co-writes with him, doing Bubba Sparks, doing background vocals on Missy Elliott. Like I heard Cry Me a River the night they did it. You know, I was there for all those moments, for a lot of them. And so I got that kind of, you know, that vibe got into me. And so what I apologize in the sound of One Republic is effectively the music that I grew up loving, i.e. Brit pop rock, Oasis, The Beatles, Doves, a lot of British bands. It’s moody British music combined with like hip-hop, which is i.e. the Timbaland years. And so that’s kind of what informed the sound of our band. And that leads me to meeting you. You get signed to Columbia. Yes. And then get dropped by Columbia. And then signed to Mosley, which is Timbslittle, Interscope. Interscope. Is it the same band? It’s all the same, not all the same guys, it’s some of the same guys. The original band was called Republic and it was, the original band was Jared Bettis, who is now a writer producer that I think lives near you actually. Jared Bettis, me, Zach Filkins, Timothy Myers, Tim Myers, who’s a successful musician, songwriter, jingle writer, all this stuff. And that’s the original four. And then Drew Brown, who joined… Zach got married and he filled in for a week during his honeymoon in like 2004. And when Zach came back, we said, Surprise! We have five guys in our band now. Yeah. So, and Drew was in a Screamo metal band. And so that’s the original band. It was Republic, which I still kind of wish it was Republic. I’ve always loved the simplicity of that. And then it evolved. As every band does, we went through four drummers. Four drummers and two bass players. And the band as it is now is from 2007. So it’s basically been a little over 10 years. First gig that we ever played, this is gonna kill you, first gig we ever played as a band as One Republic like signed to, or I think we might have been where we signed or dropped at this point, I forget, but was with Glacier Hiking. Wow! Yep. Yeah, my man, my cat. Dude, USC, USC. So I sent an email to a bunch of people I knew at USC that were still students and stuff and I was like you guys have to come see this I promise you like this band’s gonna be huge you know we had just sort of started our thing and I remember telling them like you gotta see this and they didn’t realize that and like what they missed because I think we played for about 30 people yeah we did we played for 30 people and then a marching band showed up yeah like that and then he was in by the way I was freezing it was like the coldest day I’ve ever experienced in LA people don’t realize that like like when we played at the Roxy maybe I don’t know maybe we played together a few times. I think we played probably three or four times. Yeah and there was one show we played at the Roxy and it was right maybe right before or after the Timbaland album came out and the next time I saw you guys was at Madison Square Garden Yeah, and that was six weeks later six weeks And I remember thinking like when that when it breaks it Breaks it breaks. We gotta give a shout out to Brett stair shout out Brett stairs, so Brett stair comes into the picture And Evan Bogart and Evan Bogart, so so this is alright So let me you know what talking about what we said earlier about moving to LA moving to the city that matters. Evan Bogart, Brett Stare, that’s why you moving to a city that matters, moving to the city that has what you want in it is so critical. These two guys were instrumental in our career as a band and me as a writer. Evan, I met, God, forever ago in Miami when I was signed to Timbaland down at the Hit Factory. And Brett, I’m at an In-N-Out in 2004. I’m at an In-N-Out getting burgers and Brett Stare goes, Ryan Tedder? And then Brett’s like, yo, Ryan? And I’m like, yeah. And I go, oh, my God, Brett Stare. And Evan Bogart, who some people listening may know goes yo I met you in Miami like two years ago and it was this weird alchemy of just like they were agents at APA they were agents at APA we didn’t have an agent we had nobody to book us nobody to do anything long story short I said hey yo we’re playing a show Friday I’m in a band we’re playing a show Friday at like the knitting factory or the troubadour fill in the blank wherever Brett goes yeah man I’ll come down. I just signed up as a junior agent at APA. They come down and they loved the songs and the show. They ended up signing us. And Evan then helped us get signed to Columbia. And Brett, both of them combined really were instrumental in guiding where we went, where we played. We toured, California is so amazing. It’s so big, you can tour it like a country. So, 2004, 2005, 2006, we toured the hell out of California, as I’m sure you did too. And I remember opening up for Quiet Drive. I remember opening up for The Bravery at Chain Reaction in Orange County. We played with The Bravery, Quiet Drive. We opened up for, we opened up Sherwood, the big California, Northern California band. We opened up for, oh my god, what’s the, Plain White T’s. Remember, that was the moment of the Plain White T’s. I think we had like, same era, we played with Chaim at The Echo, and we played with Ray LaMontagne opened for my band in 2004 or something. It was like his first show in front of nobody. Dude. I think maybe like six people were there to see Ray LaMontagne. I’m jealous. Yeah, and he’s an icon. He’s sitting there going, travel! Yeah, no, and literally, yeah, Tom, because there was one, Jamie Serretta brought him in. It’s a whole other thing, but anyway, yeah. To Brett Starr’s credit, I mean, now he, you know, he found you. They were in, he, out on glacier hiking, he found Bobby Antonoff, Bobby Enternoff is now about to release something with Hollywood and Sarah Hayes who’s had number one songs as a writer in Nashville. So Brett found a lot of a lot of talent and the hard part is being an agent in LA or a talent scout and he worked for me for a while as an A&R way before I was ready to have a label or an A&R or you know you the other thing that happens if you have a huge success on a label, labels will oftentimes kind of force you to take an imprint record label, which is more or less what happened to me. Like, what do I do with this? I don’t know, but you have to go sign people. And Brett, I just thought, I loved him, and he had good ears, and he’s a good hang, and so I brought him along for the ride, which was fun. But Brett and Evan both have a unique history in finding talent like seven years before it pops. Like Evan discovered Eminem. Yeah. Little known fact. In LA people know it. People at Interscope know. Evan was in the mail room. He got the tape, sent from Detroit, listened to it, thought it was amazing, brought it to, you know, bring it up to Jimmy’s office. Like he, he discovered Eminem. Brett, you know, more or less, you could argue he helped discover Wonder Public. And you as a songwriter. Yeah, so you guys now are OneRepublic at USC, well not at USC, you play the show at USC, you’re signed to Timbaland now at Interscope. No, when we did the USC show, you’re right, you’re right, right around that. When we signed, sorry, when we played USC, we were in the process of signing to Timbaland. We broke, the one little element that we’re leaving out of the story is when we get dropped, we get dropped by Columbia the week we play Coachella. So, and this is important to say just because it’s part of the true history of this band, our first album that was going to come out on Columbia Records was an alternative rock album with a couple pop songs. Our first single was called Sleep, which is a five and a half minute long Jeff Buckley kind of sounding record. We were an alternative band, that’s all I listened to. I wasn’t trying to do big, you know, we had Apologize and Stop and Stare. Those are the only two kind of pop leaning records we had and they didn’t sound like the Timbaland version. Tim did the remix and when we get dropped by Columbia, which I thought was a huge middle finger, they dropped us and Katy Perry in the same month and we get home and I Change our status on myspace from signed to unsigned because I thought we’re unsigned now Technically Columbia owns the music but screw them. We’re gonna post these songs and I told the band I said guys I’m gonna put up apologize and stop and stare online This is the ad you know before SoundCloud and YouTube was the thing myspace was the jam Quarter billion people on planet Earth trolling myspace. I’m gonna put up these songs if we don’t get a reaction from these songs we should dissolve the band but if we don’t get a reaction from apologize or stop a stair I shouldn’t be a songwriter like I should literally consider picking a different career so we post apologize stops here within three months apologize was the most played song on myspace and we were the number one unsigned artist on MySpace. And Colby Calais was the artist right before us, and she got signed off MySpace. She was with Bubbly, that song that her and Jason Reeves did. Ironically, she was the girl, the 16-year-old, sitting on the couch in the studio while we did all our demos. She was just a local. She lived in the neighborhood, in Agora Hills, and I knew her from that. And then she blows up, and Timbaland found us again on MySpace with Apologize and calls me and goes, I want to sign you to Interscope. And we were doing our own shows at that point, playing the Avalon and the Observatory and all that stuff that APA had booked for us. And when Apologize the remix came out, it blew up, as you know, very quickly and the only problem was it didn’t sound like the band. And so we went from being an alternative band that was going to break at Alternative Radio, which is still in our core where our heart is, to Alternative Radio won’t touch us with a 10-foot pole because Apologize was a huge pop record. And I kept saying, I remember telling Kevin Weatherly, but it’s a remix! It’s a remix, dude! Come on! Stop and Stare is perfect for K-Rock! And he’s like, no man, we can’t touch it. We can’t touch it. And so that was a huge moment in our career because it it it basically gave us a you either become a pop band or or you’re done. And so we’ve kind of last 10 years been navigating all starting with that one remix. So crazy. Yeah. When you mentioned Coachella, I just feel like we should do this segment here called What Would Benny Blanco Ask Ryan Tedder? And he says, Would you rather headline Coachella Sunday night and get $0 or get $2 million and play the smallest 10 stage at noon on Thursday for 100 people? Headline Coachella Sunday night $0. Okay, but let me answer it like Benny. Yeah. I don’t know that. The question’s weird. That’s a stupid question. Uh, yeah, Sunday night’s better. Okay, so you guys are, and that’s really impressive. So you guys are, you guys are, become the biggest band in the country and one of the biggest bands in the world with this single, you know. Which brings me to the next segment, which is what would Brent Kutzel ask Ryan Tedder? And he says, Goat cheese or Smirnoff ice? Smirnoff ice. Interesting. Smirnoff ice. Anybody that knows me. There are like two or three things on planet Earth that that I find more repellent than Satan and goat cheese is one of them. OK. So you’d rather smear it off ice? I’d rather smear it off ice and like, yeah, I would rather get iced. Is he here? He’s not, but… Okay, because I iced him just a few days ago. Okay. Okay, I’m like looking around the studio, wait a minute, I’m going to get iced today, I can feel it. Okay, so apologize is huge and, you know, the thing that’s crazy is when all the parts of your career take off at once. And you couldn’t plan it any better or worse. Better or worse, yeah. You know, you end up with… Apologize is just so big. It’s so big. It’s everywhere. Everybody listening to this knows it. It’s one of those things where all you want to do is write a song where you can say the name of the song and people can sing it. You know? And then right on the heels of it is Bleeding Love. And I know you’ve talked about this before, but in the context of going from, you were singing the feature of Glacier Hiking, like that song, during this. How crazy is that to be, you’re like writing songs and doing some stuff with friends and living in an apartment in LA and with the two biggest songs in the world, like, how do you cope with walking up two flights of stairs to an apartment and also knowing that you have the biggest songs, two biggest songs in the world, one and two, and breaking, both of them are breaking records. I’m a person that appreciates irony. And you know, I don’t, while I appreciate the finer things in life, I also am actually pretty basic. And like we’re sitting in this nice studio here that costs way too much and is bigger than I need. But you know, a sob 900 that suits my needs. So I appreciate Irony and the guys in my band do too. So for me, I thought it was hilarious. And part of me being in Denver, I think the first three or four years, the Irony alone just kept me elevated because I was like, I’m living in Denver doing Adele and Beyonce and that I’m not doing it in LA, I’m not doing it anywhere, I appreciated the irony. And so for me, there wasn’t even a coping thing where I think that, and I thank God for that, I think that’s from being raised how I was in Oklahoma, I was like, well, this doesn’t change who I am. And I actually, if anything, was a little bitter. I go, cool, everybody’s calling me now. Where were you three months ago? I was just as good a songwriter 90 days ago as I am right now. I’m not demonstratively better and yet because Bleeding Love, which I was told to my face, quote unquote, is not a hit, shouldn’t even be a single. And you know, like, I, you know, I had, I appreciated the fact that it was, you know, some kind of vindication. And, you know, for me, it was also the impetus that got me to leave L.A. because it created a watershed thing. Here I am in Austria, I’m like in the airport in Vienna, you know, taking phoners from a radio station in Chicago for One Republic while I’m in hotel rooms trying to finish, you know, the mix on Jordan Sparks’ Battlefield, you know what I mean, or whatever the next song was that I was trying to get out, and I was juggling, spinning so many plates, and so for me, I was like, I can’t be in LA. That’s it. I mean, in a weird way, those two things happening at the same time was what led me to leave LA. I was like, it’s too much. I gotta get out of here. I have to have some kind of gate that prevents everything from pouring in. I need to get out of here. I was in Western Romania during that same time. As you do. I was eating goulash in a town somewhere between Arati and Timisoara, Romania. And Apologize came on. I was with my family. And they had seen us play together. And they’d be like, see this is what you kind of aim for. It’s like you write a song in LA and it’s possible that it could be at this random like a truck stop kind of thing in Western Romania. And it gets so big so fast you can’t, you know, no matter how much you tour, you write or you record, it’s like a hit does a kind of tour that you can’t physically do in your entire lifetime? A hit record is a true smash is ten times better than a medium sized hit because the medium sized hit requires all the work in the world. It requires getting on a plane and circumnavigating planet Earth. A true smash does the work for you. And you know, I mean, ask Sia. She doesn’t promote anything. But you know, when it but when she delivers a smash it’s like she is promoting it you know and and yeah you’re absolutely right a buddy of mine on our second album I think around the time secrets was out the secrets are good life he was in he was in a van with 30 Nepalese people on the outskirts of Kathmandu and it was playing on the radio and he texted me from Kathmandu and was like, dude, this is ridiculous. You’re touring those places. Yeah, you’re touring, yeah, exactly. You’re culturally part of their, you’re in the ether, kind of everywhere in the world. So having apologized and bleeding love in 2007, then 2008, you have Halo and you have Stop and Stare, that’s basically when they at least peaked. They were written before that. But to have Halo you co-write with your agent and your friend, Evan Bogart. At that point, because that song’s huge, do you start thinking it’s easy? I would say if any song made me think it’s easy, it would be Halo. And that’s a tricky thing. Because you weren’t supposed to be writing. I know sort of the story. You know the story, yeah, yeah. And Evan will tell you, it was written in under three hours and produced. I was producing it as I was writing it. I was throwing the track together. Part of what made it easy was, and other, any producers listening can relate to this with me, you have moments like, you know, the craft of songwriting is a very specific thing and if you truly understand the craft, there shouldn’t be an era or a time where you’re not able to write a hit record. And I know that sounds stupid for me to say, but I truly believe that. Maybe not every month or not every – obviously not every day. Sometimes you’ll have years, but you will always end up finding – culture will align with what you’re writing. Producing is different. Producers, if you have a hot hand as a producer with a sound and your sound gets big enough for a moment, then the world wants that sound. So, because you’re not chasing, you’re not having to adhere or pay attention to what’s current because you are creating what’s current. I was in that like window that there was a three, I’ve had a few of those windows. That was the first one. There was like a two to three year window where I’m not listening to what anybody else is doing. I’m literally just sat down, threw up some drums that felt dope to me, some chords that felt right, some sounds. I’m not overthinking it. And Evan and I both had a very good relationship in writing. So that part was easy and it was easy I’m not gonna lie and in it and I think battlefield and already gone they’re all like yeah already gone sound they all sound really natural and sound like you they sound like me. Battlefield already gone Stop and Stare, Halo they all feel yeah like like like me because that at that moment I was a brand new producer and so my sound was derivative of only myself. And so, there was no copying anything. It was just, this is my sound. Now my sound’s evolved, I still love that vibe, but you evolve as you do. And then shortly after that two or three year window, literally I would say at the tail end of, if I thought long enough, I could tell you what the last kind of big record I did in that moment was, it was probably around 2009 or 10, and then it became, you get to 2010, and it becomes Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Kesha, Katy Perry, Land, like that just takes over the airwaves. And it shifted, it represented a unique shift in the sonic taste of the world. And so then when that happened, of course, naturally guys like me and whoever else had had a bunch of hits those previous years, we’re all going, okay, time to pull up our bootstraps and figure out our voice in this new era. And how do we… It’s hard. It’s hard. And I do it… You then have to… As people always talk about the sophomore album and how hard that sophomore album is, but the sophomore equivalent album as a songwriter is also a thing. It’s also a thing dude. Yeah it’s like people people have to follow up their runs in a certain way and become something different because eventually it dries up. That time when you get to the end of let’s say Already Gone because that would have been a run of about five there’s five or six starting with like going back to Natasha Beddingfield and then and then going through to Already Gone was probably about a three-year window and apologize and the wonderful stuff. We get to 2010. We’re at the beginning of Gaga and Black Eyed Peas, Boom Boom Pow and Kesha and Dr. Luke is beginning to have his run. Max is having it, you know, ushering back in his run. Benny is entering into the scene. All, you know, our friends and collaborators, well mostly our friends, and in that moment’s happening and I’m having a panic attack internally because from a band’s perspective I’m going wow and the era of the band is coming to an end, like the sound right, and we drop all the right moves which took like nine months and then finally turned into a decent size hit. And that’s the song that I had written and produced in a hotel room in Luxembourg, which is just, I don’t know why I just remembered that, but it was so random. And I remember being in a panic with a band going, guys, we don’t sound anything like this. Luke’s sound is so big that it’s like, if you don’t fit into that, there’s that nervousness of like, oh my God, we’re not going to, it’s not gonna work. And we just rolled the dice, rolled the dice completely and said, you know what, we’ve never chased what anybody sounds like, yet we still somehow sound modern enough. Let’s just do what we do. And so then as a band we put out Secrets and Good Life and those two connected, bigger than All The Right Moves, and that’s what carried us through the next two years. Good life is huge. Good life. And then as it that became a licensing beast and that’s funny enough another song that makes you feel like writing is too easy I wrote that and I’m not joking I wrote that song in like 20 minutes. It was literally just like I heard that beat that drum loop and then I started doing the oohs and the ahhs like layering in and it just I think the brand and I envy those songs because I do this every day, like when a song takes 20-30 minutes you’re just like, why can’t that be every time? Like seriously, why do some songs take literally a month? Like you’re just revisiting, revisiting, revisiting it. And I try not to get jinx-y about it, you know, like if a song really takes digging in, doesn’t mean it’s a bad song, you know. Apologize took six months for me to crack. Meanwhile, Halo took three hours and Good Life took 20 minutes. You just never know. Rumor has it it comes out the same time. Rumor has it in Turning Tables. Well, no, Turning Tables didn’t come out. Rumor has it came out. Yeah. Adele. I mean, as big as anything you had done before, singles-wise, like, that Adele album is, you know, all-time kind of thing and equivalent wise it would be thriller if it was 1985. I mean it’s a, I guess it’s 83 but whatever the case. The idea of Adele being involved in that project, did you have any idea that this was going to be the real, in a weird sort of way, like a real game changer and a real evolution of you as a writer, it feels like? I had one call with my manager when there was a moment when I briefly misplaced the session files and I was calling the studio in LA, or in London for, rumor has it, panicking. Because what happened is Rick Rubin, she went in to do the whole album with Rick Rubin after getting our demos from me and Paul Epworth and a bunch of others and then ended up coming back to the demos. I didn’t know it was going to sell 30 million copies. I knew that it was the most important thing I’d ever worked on. I told my manager, I remember yelling at her at the time because I was so distressed. I said, you don’t, she goes, why are you so stressed out? I mean, well, you know, it’s Adele. She’s nobody even knows. I go, you don’t understand. You don’t understand. This is the most important thing I have ever worked on. Most important thing. I don’t care what her past is or what you think of her. This I’m I’m telling you, this is the single most important thing I’ve ever that I’ve ever worked on. I just knew I didn’t know what it was going to go on to do, but I knew in my in my gut. Furthermore, and you’ll see is now that now that I can tell that we’re going chronologically through songs, you’ll see these gaps. Whenever you see a gap in my career as a songwriter, those are the moments when One Republic has taken over. Like time. Like I’m on the road, touring, whatever. So I had had our second album, I think this is around the time of our second album, I had been furiously working on that and blown off every other artist. I think I did one song, I did Happy with Leona and I did like, I’m leaving something out. I did one other single. I’d done barely, I did like something with Adam Lambert. I did barely any writing with other artists for like a solid year other than one. And the only artist I worked with really in that time was Adele. So it had, I was, there was so much pressure for me internally as a writer, because I’m trying to keep both careers going at all times, which is a nightmare by the way. Still is. And so Adele for me, being that those are the only two songs really that I did in a year with anybody that was not Warner Public, it was so precious to me that it did sound right and that it did work. And I was so proud of Rumor Has It. In my brain I knew that it was the most interesting thing I had produced. And in the strangest way, that specific… We did Turning Tables first, which is me basically trying to write Colorblind by… Why am I spacing on their name? I’m counting crows. But rumor has it, I sat down that day, and this is before the whole folk gospel thing had exploded, so it was really strange because I was like, are you cool if we do a dirty bluesy gospel thing? And she goes, I can’t believe you just said that. I just did a song with Paul Epworth. And I go, who’s that? I didn’t know who that was. Nobody knew who he was at the time. She goes, I just did a song with Paul that is that vibe. And if we do one here now, that could be like the sound of the album. I didn’t know, but the song she was referring to was Rolling in the Deep, and I come in and do Rumor Has It, and I just started stomping and playing this kind of Radiohead guitar riff, and I mean, first thing out of her mouth, she ain’t real, she ain’t gonna be able to love you like I will, you know, like immediately. She wrote it, Stream of Consciousness, she knew exactly what it was about. And, um, again, another one of those days where you kind of pinch yourself and go, why was that so easy? Why can’t every day be that easy? That sounds offensive to me because that’s one of the few songs in the last, you know, ten years that I’m like, fuck, I wish I wrote that. I’ve had a few of those that I wish I wrote, trust me. Um, you know, Love Somebody and Maps, Maroon 5 hits, they’re a different situation. So I think it’s different when you become part of the defining songs of people’s careers. You have to say those weren’t defining songs, but like, you know, the Bleeding Loves and Halos and Burn for Ally Goulding, like those things to me feel like they’re career defining. Love Somebody, We Got Lucky, I’ll just say this, I did it with a dude. We were chasing. I think it’s fair to say with the songs you’re always chasing. We love somebody me and Nat from 303 who lived in Boulder came in to do one session in Denver one day and 303 had had their moment and we wanted to do Robin. What is it? Boyfriend or whatever. I think it’s the song, girlfriend, what is it called? It’s the one that’s like, dun dun dun dun dun dun. Like it’s not dancing on my own. It might have been, it’s either dancing on my own or whatever the song is that’s called like your girlfriend. I wish I was your, I’m forgetting the name on it. We were chasing a Robin record and I’d done Lucky Strike with Adam. He came out for a week. This is right after The Voice popped off and he came out for a week in Denver. We did Lucky Strike, which I was hoping was gonna be the first single. But the funny thing happens about getting the last single on an album, because I’m actually, I think I’m dealing with that right now, you either kind of want to be the first or the last, because, and I’ll say this and songwriters listening can appreciate this, it may not be the career-defining song, but I’ll Be Damned If Loved Somebody hasn’t outplayed everything. I hear it every week. And when you’re the last song on an album, for whatever reason, radio stations, they will play it ad nauseum until the first single of the next album comes out. So you kind of get this free bandwidth, which is that that’s my only story about that song, about Love Somebody, is that we got all this free bandwidth. And I will say Max Martin helped us finish it and then refused to take publishing. He did the same thing with Dangerous Woman and we, you know, where he came in he did all the vocal production and stuff like that and we went through like a thing trying to figure out how to give him writing credit on it. He wouldn’t take it. He wouldn’t take it. a really interesting situation because we can name four or five songs that we’ve discussed on this podcast that he maybe wrote the hook. Or maybe wrote and didn’t take publishing on it, which should teach a lot of our generation. It kind of helped teach our generation versus the people who are maybe half a generation or a generation older that would take any publishing of anything that they are even close to versus what he does which is, you know, sometimes you’re the publisher or in his case in that album he’s the executive producer. So he’s already getting it. He’s already doing it and if in rather than taking credit, even when credits do sometimes it’s like, you know what, I’m going to play publisher right now. I’m gonna play executive producer. And I’m not gonna go and do a money grab for the sake of money grab. And I think it’s important to note, there are, and I’m not gonna name names on this podcast, but there are, you know, we hear it, I hear it on, I’d say on a monthly basis, of writers who are, I find out, are credited on hits that are out currently, that I know and everybody that was in the room knows wasn’t, didn’t do anything. Or sometimes a song will get passed around for a few writers and the session you were in on it Got erased and is no longer there, but people will still make claim on a song which I Personally if you can sleep at night doing that fine. I’ve never done that I Won’t tell you while the mics are on but when the mics are off I will tell you to hit records that I wrote the chorus or a huge part of that. I have zero credit for and credit for. And one of them hurts me. One of them will probably always hurt me. One of them won’t. And we’ll leave everybody guessing on that. The artist just simply forgot or didn’t want to address it. And I’ve been blessed and lucky in life. And I truly believe that it will come back around or that it already has. And you can’t make money guys, but I will say Max on Love Somebody, the post-choruses, the melody, and the bridge, which was for some reason a nightmare. And we know, like, nobody loves bridges, right now anyway. He hates bridges. That bridge exists and the post-chorus exists on Love Somebody, which probably has half a million spins at this point, and Max did it, and with us, but he did it. And I was like, you know, Adam and I were like, Adam was like, yeah man, I think you can get like 20%, like 20, like 20, and I was like, yeah, sure. So I texted him, Max, we’re giving you 20. He said, absolutely not. No, I refuse. And I mean, you’re talking about love somebody. You’re talking about we are who we are. We’re talking about what’s the want to want me. You know, the post of Dangerous Woman, he changed. He’s like, I like this rhythm better. And Jay Cash told me what he did on We Are Who We Are, which makes the song. Yeah, it makes the song. I mean, he makes some of these edits and it’s just because he’s better than everybody else. Being a finisher is supremely important. There’s a lot of guys that can get a lot of songs started. Understanding when a record is done is hypercritical. Totally. Okay, so, Welcome to New York, Taylor Swift, also a huge album, but it really doesn’t compare to Counting Stars, which I think is like, you know, maybe the last song that we’ll talk about is like an individual single, because redefining, the two things that matter for a writer is defining an artist or redefining an artist. And then there’s all those songs in between. And as an artist, to have the kind of longevity where you have the intro and then to have the sort of redefining thing. I mean, as big of a song as you’d had in between, Good Life, all those things, County Stars is a different level. It’s a different beast, yeah. Do you feel like you have to repeat success now that you’ve had this long of a career? You’d be lying if you said you didn’t. Of course I do. Counting Stars turning into what it did and again another song where I’ve had A&Rs and labels people tell me it wasn’t a hit and it shouldn’t even be a single. So lesson number one is you trust your gut. If you’re here, you’re here for a reason. You have to trust your gut. At the end of the day, shut up and always don’t let too many cooks in the kitchen because they will absolutely muddy the soup and it will just taste like like horrible if you let too many people add spices to it. And accounting stars fell in danger of that. And finally, we took the reins after two singles. Also never pick a single based on a campaign. If you have like Chevrolet wants to use your song for a thing in March and it’s whatever. If it doesn’t fit your timeline and it’s not exactly the song that you want to put out, do not align yourself with the campaign. There will be others. Get the song right and then everybody will come knocking. The first two, the thing about OneRepublic’s songs are weird. You know, we have these, every album has these career-defining records, but we still have all these other songs that connect. You know, like, this isn’t me propping us up or bragging, this is just the metrics that I deal with within OneRepublic is unique, because I understand what moves the needle for us globally and what doesn’t. So like, you know, on our most recent album, before I pulled the plug on it, which I pulled it right after we dropped it, because that’s a whole nother topic that just you can find on the internet, articles of me talking about almost having a nervous breakdown. But we put out a single called Wherever I Go, and we’ve done, I think it’s triple platinum, right? Everyone’s, oh, that’s amazing. Three times platinum, three million sales, that’s amazing. When you’ve been around as long as we have, a song, if a song doesn’t go really crush, like globally connect, and it just sounds like 1% of 1% problems for me to complain about, but it’s true, every time we release a single, I leave my family and my kids, all five of us do, I was gone 240 days out of 2016 without touring. That’s just promo. Everywhere in the world. Because once you break globally, you can’t just do promo in Stockholm and London, you gotta do Sydney. Well that’s the opposite part of the world. And then you’re trying to also make money in that time. Oh we booked up a private gig in Istanbul, we need to go to Istanbul. And when you release a song, it is such a commitment of your life. You trade time, which is the only thing you have with your family and friends. You’re gone, man. You’re just gone. Your relationships crumble. Things fall apart. So I take picking singles so carefully now. And it helps to have streaming and all this stuff. Now you can kind of get gauges of stuff before you really pull the trigger. But Counting Stars was kind of our, okay, this is how Wonder Public singles work. We put out Feel Again because it was with a campaign. It did okay. If I Lose Myself wasn’t doing great, but then Alesso did the remix and that did great. Yeah, it did. But we still hadn’t had a like a true smash yet. How we knew that Counting Stars was the song, this is weird. We were in Beirut. We were playing, we had just played Tunisia and we were playing a festival, NRJ festival in Byblos, Lebanon, which is the, Google this everybody, it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Cool. Yeah, it’s kind of a cool fact. I ate goat for the first time, by the way, tastes pretty good. So we’re playing this festival. I remember standing on the edge of this deck, looking out over whatever the Mediterranean or whatever it is there, and we looked to the right and we’re towards Syria. ISIS is just popping off, like literally that month. And it was just an interesting time. We had dropped two singles that had done okay. It was like, you know, One Republic style hits or whatever you wanna call them. And I’m knowing that I’m facing a whole tour going, like, Counting Stars is coming out. If we don’t connect this, we’re screwed. We go on stage, we perform pretty much our whole new album. We get to Counting Stars halfway through the set. This is in Lebanon. And I think there’s like 7,000 people there. Every single person screamed every lyric at the top of their lungs from the moment we started playing it to the end of the song. And I turned to Brent and said, that’s our single. And we shoot the video in New Orleans on a shoestring budget, which is hilarious considering the views it ended up getting. It was like, it was the first time that we took the reins. So we’re doing the video. I’m writing the treatment with the director. We’re doing it in the city. We want to do it. Nobody else stopped talking to us. We’re putting this and it represented, for the first time ever, Counting Stars, that song in that album, represented what truly was the best use of my voice, and it tapped into the gospel thing that I’d grown up listening to and singing, and the organic nature. We figured out how to sound like a band, but still be modern, and to this day, if you’re in a band, that is a nightmare. I mean, today I’ll be working on new, I’ll be working on new One Republic stuff today. And, um, we did like 10 new songs, uh, the week before Christmas, 10 or 12 for a new album. And I finally have cleared my head and gotten over my fog of, of what 2016, 17 was. And I now feel like I know what that sounds like, what I want it to sound like. But I’ll be damned if I, if I didn’t want the sound of that era. That the Adele era, the Counting Stars, that era that even Avicii, Wake Me Up, that kind of gospel soul folk thing. I loved that era so much. I was talking with a writer the other day about it. He was going, don’t you wish that could have just kept going? Of course. Oh my God. For songwriters? For songwriters. I mean, it’s like real songs. I mean, to everybody listening, was 2014, 15 not the best two years of like the last two? Well, what’s weird is those are the same years that you also had Call me maybe and you’d also have a go to a go to a somebody I used to know. Yeah I mean 2015-16 you had like a whole range of like songs you had fun really kind of came out around that time, too So you’ve been like it was a rock band dude. It was incredible. That was my favorite time go to somebody I used to know your time out songs you wish you wrote that that is in my top five songs I wish I wrote. Yeah we are young at that same time that oh it’s phenomenal we are young it’s phenomenal that hurts me a little bit fun guys get back together come on um okay so um we’re gonna go to a segment called uh I’m gonna name five things and just say it off the top of your head um One, Ron Lafitte, your manager. Stable, consistent, smart, relentless friend. Noel Zan Canela. Hilarious, smart, bizarre, talented, homie. I mean, you guys have done a lot of work together. He was a guest on this show also, so shout out to him. Shout out to him. Shout out to Noel. Noel’s been my longest signed writer. He did Good Life. I walk in one day and I hear this beat and I go, who did that? And Brent goes, Noel did. Or more or less that’s how the story went. And he was engineering for us in Denver and I immediately was like, dude, let’s do a publishing situation. And so Noel’s been with me for eight, nine years now. And he is one of my favorite human beings on earth I was with Nolan Brent when you guys had just shot the video for a good life and you they You had emailed it or something We were at the village in LA and we played it there and I was like, oh, that’s really cool And it was we were in the smallest room. It just room that we wouldn’t be in now No, I rented a room because I had an artist. I told you I was I was handed a record label from Interscope kind of it sounds weird but forcibly Jimmy Jimmy was like you’re gonna take you’re gonna take this deal you’re gonna yeah I’m gonna give you a label you’re gonna take it because cuz I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen you’re gonna walk out the fucking door and you’re gonna go sign with somebody else and I’m gonna have to kill you so like he gave me a record gave me a record label and I had to sign an artist truthfully had to and found one with Brett and she wanted to camp out at the village, so I locked out that room for like six months. I never stepped foot in that room, by the way. I did. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Unicorn. Ambitious isn’t a strong enough word. So, unicorn. Taller than you think. That’s right. Smarter than you can imagine. Effortless. Insatiable. Adele, beautiful, the best effortless mother, human, Genevieve, your wife, just in case. I was like, just in case. OK, of all the Genovese in the world, the best, smells amazing, forever. What’s the advice you’d give to up and coming writers? Well, if we haven’t put too fine a point on it, move to where other writers live. I would recommend London, Toronto, L.A., and obviously if you’re in Canberra or Perth, maybe get to Sydney. Advice, I would say, be very cautious to chase what you hear out there now, ever. Because by the time you have mimicked that perfectly, the weird amalgamation of influences and music and life experiences and hate and love and loss that you’ve experienced in your lifetime makes you the most unique human being on earth, period. Because that is what the world hasn’t heard yet. They haven’t heard your soup, your combination of all these experiences and all the music you’ve taken in, however weird and abstract it may be. And so to water that down or brand that with somebody else’s brand is a disservice. And if you have any shot in the world, the only shot you have is being the absolute most dialed version of yourself. And I would also say this, I walk into every room ever, any studio or meeting, assuming that the person sitting across the way from me or that’s in there with me, the artist in there with me, might be more talented than me. So the only thing, and I realized that early on, I operate under that assumption that everybody’s more talented, whether they are or they aren’t, is immaterial. Operate under that assumption. The only thing you can control if you can’t control God-given ability or talent is the time you put in. And so if you put in more time, but Kobe is more talented and still is there before people get there and he stayed until people, after people left shooting free throws. So bottom line is, if you outwork everybody, all things being equal, you’re gonna win. Yeah. You stick it out. The other thing I would say, don’t surround yourself with yes people. Be your own worst critic. One of Luke’s best qualities was he was the single most self-critical person in the studio and blunt as hell and would tell you you suck and the song sucks and the idea sucks. Be critical of yourself so the world doesn’t have to be. When you put your stuff up on SoundCloud or, not SoundCloud anymore, but Spotify or whatever, it behooves you to be your own worst critic because otherwise people are going to tear it apart anyway. Sure. I think some of that’s like taste too. When people send music to me, it’s like, well, would you take this song and post it all over your social media and say, this is mine. And I usually mean that when it’s somebody else who’s like, hey, will you listen to my cousin’s music or my friend’s music? Is this great? Yes, is it great? Is it great? Is this something that you would compare to Oasis? Do you think this is as good as Wonderwall? If you think it’s as good as Wonderwall, I’ll listen to it. The difference between good and great is the Grand Canyon. Yeah. And it seems like it might be just a couple words or lines. You know, I have a song right now that is Wonder Public that we have a phenomenal chorus, like 10 out of 10, smash chorus. And I’ve been icing the verse for four months, not four months, four weeks, because I know the verse isn’t right. It’s driving me insane. And I’ve had people, I’ve had voices tell me it’s good, it’s good to go. Mix it, let’s go. And I’m the only solitary voice in my soul knows it will come out and it will be, yeah, and this sounds again like me boohooing, but yeah, we’ll get, my worst case scenario with Wonder Public when we’re going to put out new music is you drop something and you get 200 million streams. It’s like, oh, it’s successful. No, it’s not. You have to set a higher standard, a higher bar. Every single album, every song is your first song. It’s your first album, every single time. And if you don’t treat it like that, then it’s just a matter of time before nobody’s calling. I mean, that’s the truth. In terms of being self-critical, Sheeran is a good guy to use an example. Ed and I have done a number of songs together, one of which made this most recent album, and is coming. But he’ll do on average six songs a day. When you do a session with him, I went to his place in the UK, or LA, New York, wherever he is, you’ll tear through five to six ideas, and I swear to God, we will shoot down hit records left and right in the room. You’ll be staring at him like incredulously, just like, how are we walking away from this idea and this feels massive. He’ll be like, yeah, but it’s not my brand of massive. Or like, yeah, but I think it’s good. I think it’s really, really good. I don’t think it’s great. And he has that innate sense of, like I say, if it doesn’t have the chance of being in number one, then why are we even wasting time on it? First of all, thank you for doing this. Dude, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for being here. We’ve obviously known each other now for a long time. We’ve gone to friends’ weddings together. This is years ago, but I think it was something you said early on, you said, you know, compare and despair. I remember you saying that somewhere. Yeah. And, you know, when you’re friends with somebody who is far exceeding expectations of your group, of our generation, you know, it’s like, here we are all in bands together and, you know, you’re in a band and if you look, Ricky Reed was in a band the same time, and so was Evigan, so was Sean Douglas, so were like all these, a lot of songwriters who were like all in the same sort of like, the same situation, and then you see, yeah, and you see somebody get so successful and develop their brand, and you end up becoming such a brand that you’re on the cover of Billboard magazine, you write with all these people, you get Grammy nominations, you do all these things. And in that thing of like, do you, how do you stay yourself? And it helps when you have a friend who throughout their career stays themselves. Yeah. Because you’re like, oh yeah, well no, I mean, work for Ryan, it’ll work for all of us. Let’s just stay ourselves. And we all have ended up with this some sort of moment partly because we had friends that led the way in being themselves. And so, you know, I always looked up to you and to Evan because you guys were like, hey, you can So thank you for changing my life, man. Dude, I was just racking my brain to think where I was and I actually think that the moment I said that, I think I was at your apartment. Yeah, it’s possible. Is it yours or Brett’s? Because I remember sitting, I remember there’s a staircase in the middle that went up to the second level of this apartment complex. That was Brett’s. That was Brett’s. Because you were at Brett’s. Yeah, Brett. You were at a party. Brett was passed out. He was passed out drunk. We drew dicks on him. We drew dicks on his face. Yeah. Oh, man. That was amazing, Brett, if you’re listening. Yeah. You’re welcome. Yeah. Yeah, he was so passed out. Yeah, that was his birthday. Yeah. And, yeah, I remember that very well. But I think that was the time that you were, or you were starting to, maybe. It might have been sooner than that. But regardless, dude, I was so happy. I’ll never forget, it was like four years ago, four years ago, five years ago, you had the first non-glacier hiking, non-whatever, you had your outside big hit. And I remember, I didn’t know you had written it, Luffman told me, and I was like, yo, I really like this song and he’s like, yeah, it’s like, you know, you know, Ross, I go, yeah, and he goes, Ross wrote this and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, Ross Golan is like, yeah, Roscoe. I was like, what, what the hell? And and then I remember going online and like pulling your name up and talking with Evan and he’s like, yo, he’s like, he just went from like zero to like 90 just in the last six months. So congrats to you, man. I think it’s phenomenal. And like, you know, the other thing too is it’s a small world in songwriting. And so you know when people contribute and people are a good vibe. And I can say that like, and this is something that you would never know unless I told you, but like, within the writer community in LA, like everybody loves you. Everybody that ever writes with you is like, oh my God, he’s one of my favorite people to write with. And I just want to tell you that because it’s like, um, there’s a lot of people that people don’t say that about. Yeah, that’s a rare commodity. Huge compliment. It’s a rare commodity. Thank you. Yeah, I want to draw dicks on your face the next chance I get. Dude, on that note, thank you. And here we go. All right. Thank you. Thank you. 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. It is hot in this place. We got grill guns over here. It’s starting to show up for the conference. 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 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 civi 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 follow 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, they’re gonna have to come and find out cuz I don’t know Well, I’m just saying tip team is gonna 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 gonna walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym into business It is gonna be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslan also this is the first thrive time show event that we’ve had where we’re gonna have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some 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 $100 million 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, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody wanna hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, cause 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 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 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 gonna be coming. You say who’s Michael Levine? I don’t 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 best-selling 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 gonna 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 recording 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? I don’t know what 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 can 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. Did 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 or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m 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 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia Oklahoma. It says Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show 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. Who? 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 give 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 a business training we’re gonna give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich you can leave with a workbook you can leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company it’s practical it’s actionable and it’s T-Boat time right here in Tulsa, Russia get those tickets today at thrive timeshow.com again that’s thrive timeshow dot com. 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 L.A., 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’s Tim Tebow and that’s Michael Levine. 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, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire 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 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 before it leaves you. The Rive Time Show. Dot com. Everything rides on tonight. Even if I got three strikes, I’ma go for it. This moment, we own it. I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. The Thrive Time 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. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like 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 gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. 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 got to 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 at 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 of 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 a mr And so 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? What just- Well, 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. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, 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, 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, at King’s 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 in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place, so 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 business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the M6 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. 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 motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do this. 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. 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 these tactics, so you better give it to me. You know 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. We’re going to move in here. We’re going to move in here. We’re going to move in here. Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 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 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 wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Music If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. Music The Atmosphere Place 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. I 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 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 teaching you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find a 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, Fly Ever 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’s 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, top business minds in the world. At this specific event, there’s an interesting cast of characters that come from gangs to American Idol. Some of the guests are going to be there. Michael Levine, Colton Dixon, Peter Taunton, John Lee Dumas, Mondo De La Viga. And Tim Tebow. 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, we call it 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 $500 why they last. So $500, only a few left if you want a VIP ticket. We want to meet these speakers as well. So we got VIP tickets. I want to meet Tim Tebow. I do too. The date is June the 27th and 28th, 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Go to thrivetimeshow.com to get your ticket. 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. The conference is kicked off, this house is packed, we’ve got Aaron Hansen from the shop up there, we’ve got Steve Barington from the Total Winding Concepts up there, talking about what is possible when you just implement, you implement, you do the provenance. It’s so exciting, people are going crazy. I want to do the provenance test. People are going crazy. Michael Levine, writer of many, many PR books. The man who represented people like Michael Jackson, Armistice, George Bush, and Stanley Pfeiffer. Speaking to people here at our conference, talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here on 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 Harrison 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. in for day two. 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 have 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 CBAs. 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 our TV’s. 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 in the conference until every question is answered. Behind this Clay Clark answering all the different questions that are 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 the lay always wants to make sure that they answer all of their questions and 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 ThriveTimeShare.com. Hello, I’m Wes Carter. I’m one of the shareholders at Winters and Keen. My favorite thing that Thrive has helped me accomplish here in our firm is thinking a little bit outside of 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. 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 such as, 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 will say that this isn’t necessarily for everyone. So if you’re not willing to work, this isn’t for you. But I will say that if you are willing to work and 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 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 and 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 was 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 you know, really, you know, raise the bar and become ultra successful. So it’s been an amazing experience for us. My name is Kaitlin. I own a tumbling gym called Justice Tumbling Companies, we call them. Working with Clay is so helpful. It’s being diligent with everything and making sure we execute our goals and really make things happen. It’s fun, it’s high, it really gets you energized and going and makes you really want to work. To get the momentum going, to really get that buzz, to 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’m learning at this conference and my regular weekly attendance that it’s helping me establish business and get it off the ground. Clay’s presentation style is just Clayton disregard for what anybody wants. He just has fun. It’s him. Everything that you see is authentically Clay. It’s a great deal of fun. Everybody enjoys it. They know when they walk in, they think they’re coming into a carnival, and frankly, they are. It’s just great fun. There’s not another conference like it. You just don’t go to a carnival atmosphere and learn what they do here at the Thrive Company. 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 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 were 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, we know that 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. They have someone they can connect us with, or they have the direct resource we need to speak with for any of the problems we face. If 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. Just speak with someone, let them know what you’re going through, and I think you’ll find that regardless of what you need, there’s someone there that can help you. Clay’s presentation style is 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 pay attention to how you schedule your time and really honor it. Because whatever gets scheduled gets done. That’s what he said from Lee Cockrell. So just constantly hearing that and getting reminded, it helps me to reinforce that in my own life. It always helps to get an outside perspective. And especially from a guy that’s grown 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 is 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 the sales process on top of just the responsibilities and help understand what it looks like on the SEO side and just 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 high energy, great professionalism, great people. It’s just it’s a place you definitely want to visit and yeah. Plays delivery style, humorous, professional, hilarious. Just he does it. I haven’t seen someone do it better. So he does a great job. 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 what comes down to just basic applications to be a business owner. I mean, I feel like it’s like an absolute necessity, you know, to come here and learn the ins and outs and maybe come here once or twice if they, you know, take good notes, that kind of thing. Why? So 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 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 the 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 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, plays 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. Like a lot of other conferences, it’s like really quiet, really cold, and you just kind of get bored. But this one, you’re like 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. Oh, wow. I’m learning a ton. Like this morning so far, it’s been search engine optimization. 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 the importance of it and the long-term strategy of your 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 ones. 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, their content is amazing, but Clay and you guys do a great job of mixing in entertainment where it’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s lively. You never get bored. I studied one time that the reason that children learn so much quicker is because it’s fun, learning is fun, and so obviously play is still that, but it’s very fun to be here and keeps you awake, keeps you energized, so have 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. So I think this is a must-attend for anybody that owns a business and wants to start this. 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. 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 Hintz is 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 going to 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 Lawn. 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 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, implementing it 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. We’re all, 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 or not. A, if 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 learned. 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 have 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 Q. 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 industry. The PlayStation sensation style is amazing. You’ve 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 is the owner, but I’m involved with that, so we’re an electric company. Well, here at the conference they talk a lot about consistency, and so just staying consistent with different things in the business, and 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 so conferences are, they kind of sugar coat 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 is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Play is hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, and so the humor definitely helps, it breaks it up. But the content is awesome off the charts and it’s very interactive, 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 the thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where it was great information and then they upsold us like half the conference. Now I don’t wanna like bang my head into a wall. And she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her. Like it’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh, I wanna strangle you. Shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for. And that’s not here. There’s no upsells or anything so that’s awesome I hate that. 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. It’s…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 your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive15. 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? 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 4 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 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, tons of times. 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 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 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. 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, like 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 him. 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. 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. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. 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. 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. Anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or 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 get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns, because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 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 gonna 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 for maybe six hours a day and literally the rest of time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and 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 Koloff. We’ll see you guys. Bye bye. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in 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 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 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 going to 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. 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 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. Conference kicked off. This house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Antosh, the shop owner, up there. We’ve got Steve Kerling, Tim, the total inventory process up there. Talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the provenance. So exciting. People are going crazy. Now Michael Levin, writer of many many PR books, the man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, George Bush, is standing behind me 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 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, you go, 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, a good CPA. 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 us Clay Kilar is answering all the different questions that on force 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 are the most set up business to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at tribe timeshare dot com. Music 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 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 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. The 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 motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is gonna do it for you. I can see the marketing working. And 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, it’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s gonna come eventually, or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere plays offense 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. 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 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. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.