Clay Clark | Walt Disney Journey To Success

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things. Broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I love playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zurnick. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here We’re the Clydes, started from the bottom And now we’re at the top, teaching you the systems To get what we got, Colton Dixon’s on the hoops I break down the books, Z’s bringing some wisdom And the good roots, as a father of five That’s why I’m alive, so if you see my wife and kids Please tell them hi, it’s the CNC, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, let me show you how to get there. Thrivers, welcome! We are back here and we are live in 45 countries around the globe. We’re so glad that you joined us here today. I am joined by former Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, no other than Mr. Clay Clark. Clay, welcome. Hola! And real quick, I want to say this. I really do believe, I think we’re now in 47 countries. Wow. We just had an email that came in the other day that talked about, we had people emailed in and their question came from countries I didn’t recognize previously. So I think we’re in 47 now, so this is just it. There you go. Well, Thrivers, we are talking here today about overcoming adversity, specifically about Walt Disney’s 4015 night journey to becoming an overnight success. Clay? Yeah, well let me just get into this real quick. A lot of people go, Walt Disney! I love Walt Disney! He’s so successful! Oh my gosh, I would love to be like Walt Disney! And then they get a job or they start a business. They’re like, I’ve been doing this for three years. I’ve been working hard for like a year, and I just don’t feel like I’m getting any success. So I just want you to know that Walt Disney is absolutely an overnight success. And it just took him 4,015 overnights. Wow, wow, wow, wow. You know, Clay, we all know that Walt Disney, you know, we know that he was a man for, that he created Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney World, and for a man who won 22 Academy Awards. But where did he come from? What kind of adversity did he have? What kind of fights did he have along the way? Well, Walt Disney, again, to recap, he won 22 Academy Awards. 22. That’s Will Clark’s. My favorite baseball player is Will Clark. He played for the San Francisco Giants. He wore number 22. But I always think about Walt, whenever I think about Walt Disney, I always think about 22. I’m going, that guy won 22 Academy Awards. Look up your favorite actor and see how many they’ve won. 22, it’s crazy. That’s huge. But here’s the deal. He was born on the planet Earth, just like you. So if you’re watching this and you were born on the planet Earth, guess what? We’re all in this together. And he was born in 1901. And was he born into a wealthy family? No. But he was born in 1901, basically he lived on a farm, and he came to the planet with no money, didn’t come from a wealthy family, but before he passed, he was the most iconic movie guy, animation guy, family entertainment guy. I mean, he literally changed the world in a powerful way. So I just want to encourage you, if you’re watching this, you have to start somewhere. And for him, it was 1901 on a farm, and for you, it might be 1992 in an apartment. It might be wherever you’re from. And we all have to start somewhere. So I just want to encourage you. You can absolutely do this. Give us a little history. When did Walt Disney actually become an artist? Well, if you get a chance to read books about him or kind of study, you’ll find that he grew up on this farm. And on the farm, he was just bored out of his gourd. I mean, he was going, this is, you know, I mean, we have kind of a farm. If you go to campclarkchickenpalace.com, you can kind of see the farm that we’re working on. I think we have 21 chickens. My kids are in the studio today. So we have 21 chickens right now. We’ve got four ducks. We have four ducks. So things are going good. And a rooster. And we think it’s exciting because we haven’t been around them before. But a lot of people who grew up on a farm, they don’t interact with a lot of other families. They’re not going to movies. So he grew up on this farm and he’s going, you know what, up to past the time I’m going to draw. He became very fascinated in drawing and making little cartoons. So right there on the farm in Missouri, without formal education, check it, he learned how to become an artist. So if you’re watching this right now and you’re living on a farm, we have one of our Thrivers who literally is in the Sahara Desert right now. Wow. Broseph, if that’s you, you are walking through the Sahara right now. Seriously, you could just pull out a pad and start looking at other cartoons and trying to draw what you see. And that’s what Walt did. He took pictures of other cartoons and tried to redraw them, and that’s how he honed his craft. Amazing. And I understand that at age 16 he dropped out of school to join the U.S. Army for World War I. You know, however, I understand that he was rejected for being young. Can you break down a little bit of that for me? Yeah, there’s three big ideas I want to make sure that everyone gets here. Okay. Okay, so one for you is he dropped out of school. And I know there’s somebody right now who needs to hear this right now. It’s probably, I don’t want to get super emotional about this, but if you’re watching this and I talked to a lady the other day who dropped out of high school and felt like an idiot. She’s in her 40s and she said watching one of these videos, she heard for the first time that a lot of successful people didn’t do well in school. She literally starts crying on the phone. She’s like, I just didn’t know I qualified for success. I just want to throw out some people that I know just off the top of my head who Are famous dropouts who’ve done well? Albert Einstein did not do very well in school. Okay, people thought he was retarded. They really did. Okay Go, you know, well, that’s that’s an extreme. Okay, fine. So Walt Disney he you know, he didn’t go graduate. Well, that’s an extreme Okay, fine Andrew Carnegie, he started working when the dude was like a young teenager 13 years old. He’s working full-time guess what he graduated from college the world’s wealthiest man ever Rockefeller he dropped out of high school you know there’s a quite I mean Steve Jobs dropped out of college I don’t know if Steve Jobs ever quite made it I don’t know if he ever became successful I don’t know I mean here think about this he’s getting it’s invited to give the Stanford graduation speech when he in fact dropped out of college I know Bill Gates just for whatever I mean I don’t know if Bill Gates is getting the traction in his career that he wants, but I’m just saying it doesn’t matter if you drop out of school or if you stay in school. What matters is that you get practical education. He taught himself how to draw by looking at other cartoons and reverse engineering that. So I’m just telling you, if you right now don’t feel qualified or don’t feel appointed to be a success, or you don’t feel like you have the boxes checked and the diploma you need, stop thinking that. Your path to success starts right now. That’s what happened for Walt. It started right then. He drops out. He’s 16 years old. He drops out. He wants to join the Army. Well, in the Army, you have to be a certain age. They’re like, homie, you can’t join the Army because you’re not old enough. He’s like, come on, come on. He did lie about his age. He did lie. I’m sure he lied like a rug, and I’m sure that he felt bad about it. But he became an ambulance driver in World War I. So he’s running around in France. I’m sure all the stereotypes we have about the French are true, but they’re making French fries, and they’re over there watching French films, and he’s driving an ambulance. And check it out. He turned his ambulance into his art studio. Tell me about that. So whenever he would have times where he was waiting or sitting around or trying to pass time, he would draw cartoons on the canopy. It used to be a canopy. We’ll put a picture of this up. Ambulances used to be a material canopy. It wasn’t a metal structure like it was today. It was almost like a covered wagon. He would draw these animations in there. People who were… Obviously it’s war, so people were shot, injured, they were suffering in pain. They reported that they would see his pictures and it would bring them joy. He would draw more and more, and he realized for the first time that his pictures could bring people joy. Amazing. So that’s how. Wow. This lady that I talked to the other day, I was telling you, who dropped out of school and has been struggling, she has this bakery. It’s out on the West Coast. I don’t want to give away her location right now. I’ll just say bakery. And she’s just struggled. And she’s just thought, well, I can’t be successful until I get my MBA. And she’s just bought into that lie that she can’t be successful until she has this degree, that degree, whatever. And she’s like, you know, since I’m just a high school dropout, I guess I just don’t have what it takes. And she’s literally learning what she needs to learn on Thrive15.com, changing her life. That’s what it’s all about. So I just want to encourage you. You are the next Walt Disney. You can do this. Anybody, anybody can do this. I have no talent. If I can do it, you can do it. And we know that Walt Disney in 1919, he comes back from the Army. He gets his first job at a commercial art studio. Can you tell us a little bit about that after he comes back from the Army? Yeah, I want Bruce to hear this. Bruce is one of our videographers. He’s in the studio there. You’re not supposed to talk to the guys who are filming, but I’m talking to you, Bruce. I’m looking through the window. I can see Bruce. But check it out. He earned $50 a month. Now why did Walt go work at a job where you earn $50 a month? What the heck does $50 a month mean? Because someone’s going, yeah, well, that was back in the day, and so $50 then was worth like $10,000 a month now, or $3,000. No, no, check it out. If you go on to the… Use your computer here. You want to get on that computer and you want to just type this in. But you go to BLS.gov, okay? This is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You go to BLS.gov, forward slash data, forward slash inflation, underscore calculator. We’ll put the link up there. Sure. $50 a month back then was equal to $684.73 a month now. Ouch. Why would you go work somewhere right now for $684.73 per month? I will tell you, Bernie Sanders, I will tell you the reason why is because you need to get what? Practical education and experience. So he was willing to turn down other jobs to go get in the industry. So somebody here listening to this needs to hear this. You need to get in the industry. You want to own a restaurant someday? Go work at a restaurant. Well, I want to work in corporate America, and then I want to just jump right in and own it. Not going to happen. You have to start somewhere. You’ve got to get in the game. So I’m asking you right now, ask yourself, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to do? And whatever you want to do, you’ve got to get in the game. And it might mean that you make $684.73, and if our main man, Phil LaBern, Sanders, if he decides to come up with a $15 minimum wage deal, you might have to just go work for free, because the company can’t afford to pay you anything. But the thing is, everybody, you have to get in the game. And again, that’s $680. Ask yourself, how would you be living if you had $684.73 in today’s money to live on? Wow. I’ll tell you how you’d be doing. You’d get a roommate. I don’t even make enough money to live on my own. I need a roommate. Deal with it. That’s where I started. My wife and I started in an apartment. We turned off the air conditioning because we couldn’t afford to buy a Yellow Page ad and to have Walt Disney. He sacrificed. So, let’s review. It’s 1919. Homeboy was born in 1901. Homeboy meaning that’s the formal Greek word for Walt Disney. So Homeboy was born in 1901. It’s now 1919. So how old was he? 18. 18. So, check it out. You’ve got to get in the game. You’ve got to get in the industry. But age 18, he’s now in the industry. Back to you. Wow, wow, wow. And we know that a year later, Clay, he meets a guy by the name of Ub. Ub. It sounds questionable. Ub. Yeah. A former, and they together form what is called IWorks Disney Commercial Artist. Tell me a little bit about what happened there. Did he have to overcome any adversities there? Now, I obviously haven’t got a chance to spend a lot of time with Ub. So if you look it up, some people say his last name is pronounced Iwerks. Some people say it’s, you know, it worked. The point is his name is Ub, U-B, and he teamed up with Disney to start Iwerks Disney Commercial Artist. So it’s Iwerks, I-W-E-R-K-S-Dash Disney Commercial Artists. And basically what happened is these guys, they were like, they’re just working at the same studio. This is going to happen for you. They’re working in the same, they work together at this job where they make $684 a month. And they’re like, hey dude, why don’t we team up and start a business? So they’re like, hey, let’s do that. And somebody here listening to this right now is getting that idea and you’re like, I do want to start my own business. Well check it out, I want to give you some fun factoids. This just in. According to an article in Forbes, and we’ll put the link up here for you, 50% of the jobs in our country, 50% of our working population, 50% of the people who have a job, they work at a small business. So it’s not weird to start a business. It’s not usual. Maybe your family hasn’t started a business before. Maybe you’re the first in your family lineage to want to start a company. But you can do it. And 50% of our population works for small business owners. Another little stat here for you is 52% of all small businesses are home-based businesses. So do you mean I could team up with a co-worker and start a business and then run it out of my house? Yes! And that’s how my wife and I did it. I remember when the Tulsa World, they came to write a story about our business, and they were like, we’re going to come to your office. I’m going, oh, yes. Oh, no. They’re coming here. And so I ended up having to kind of clean up stuff. But literally, we walked upstairs. We’re on the second floor of an apartment over there at 71st and Lewis in Tulsa at the Fountaincrest Apartments. And you walked upstairs. And when you go upstairs, there is all my recording equipment. I got the turntables, got the mics, got the CDs, got the kitchen table, got the refrigerator, got our bed. It’s all one, it’s a bungalow, that one bedroom bungalow thing. It’s a great office. And so the Tulsa World reporter comes upstairs and they’re like, so you, this is your office? I’m like, yeah. And I felt ashamed. But you know what? We, 52% according to Forbes, okay, of small businesses are home-based. You’ve got to be able to start. So don’t put these stupid things out there where you say, I can’t start a business until I have an office. I can’t start a business until I have a degree. I can’t start a business until I retire. I can’t start a business until I get married. I can’t start a business until… Check it out. This is how the calendar works. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, say it with me now, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but there’s no… It’s just in, some day. Oh, sick. No some day. That’s a good one. That’s a deep thought. That’s kind of a little bonus nugget for you. So anyway, he starts this business with Ub, and they’re off to the races. They’re going, they’re scaling. Didn’t become an overnight success. Well, they’re trying to scale, but they’re failing. They’re two dudes. They’re starting a business. They’ve got $684 a month to live on. You add that up together, they’ve got a budget of $2 a month to spend on marketing and growing their company. But they had to start somewhere. There you go. And then we’re talking about 1919, 1920, both Walt and Ub, they get a job here working. They both get jobs in a Kansas City slide company. Tell us about that. Well, basically, these guys now get another job So they the two guys they go and they can start working the Kansas City slide company And the reason why they went to a different job is they’re trying to make some more money And I want to give you a little quote from Elon Musk because this this quote blows my mind I think that people don’t think about this just I don’t I I have been self-employed since I was 15 years old in some capacity This is my 20th year doing this you know I know I look like I’m 107 years old, but I’m only 35. But here’s the thing. This is the quote I want to give to you. Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hours per week. This improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40-hour weeks and you’re putting in 100 hours, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve. I mean, Elon Musk is the guy who helped start PayPal. He’s the CEO of Tesla. He’s sending rockets to space. He’s building SolarCity, the solar-powered company. And guess what? He just said the secret of success was to work how many hours those 80 things? I think it says 80 to 100. Who does that today? 80? Bernie Sanders? I don’t remember. Feel the burn. Check it out. Eighty hours. I’m talking about eighty hours. Well, I feel like it’s wrong for people to work more than thirty hours a week. Probably. But with that mindset, you’ll never have success. You’ve just got to do it. And you’ve got to have trade-offs. You’ve got to figure out, what am I willing to trade off? Quit watching a stupid show you don’t need to watch, or quit buying things you don’t need to buy, or quit not having a roommate. Get a roommate. But if you want to have success, guess what? It’s going to take you 80 hours a week. I’ve never met a successful person who’s ever built any business that’s worth anything that’s working 40 hours. If you’re the guy who leaves at 4.52 on Friday and you get to work at 9.01, not only are you not going to be successful, but you deserve to fail because it doesn’t even make sense. It’s like gravity. It’s like me being mad that I can’t dunk a basketball. It’s a law. You’ve got to get paid for the time you put in. So that’s how that works. Back to you. Absolutely. And these guys are like pressing through, overcoming adversity. I’m sure in those hours and starting these companies and these jobs, they dealt with a lot of stuff. And then we’re talking about these guys, while keeping their daytime jobs. They’re keeping their full-time job here. They’re working here. There we go. They start something called the Laffograms? Yes, they start a company while having a job. What? You mean they have a job and then another job at the same time? Yes! They had to work two jobs. And you know what? You have to work two jobs, too, probably. Maybe you’re watching this and you need to work two jobs right now. Dr. Zellner, our CEO, he literally owned his own optometry clinic and had another job working at another optometry clinic at the same time to make ends meet That’s how he did it. That’s the secret So we’re gonna teach you the specific strategies and systems to do but you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice So another little thing I’m gonna throw out here for you Okay, for those of you who read this controversial book called the Bible, I know some people are going That book is terrible, it’s so divisive. Anyway, Genesis 2.2 in this book called the Bible. If you want to mispronounce it, you can also call it the Bibble. This is what the verse says. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. What am I talking about? I’m talking about that God in the Bible was stating that he had to work for six days to create the earth and he rested on the seventh. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a theme to that. Maybe when Elon Musk said you had to work 60 to 80 hours and God’s saying you should work six days, maybe there’s a pattern. Probably not. Let’s just keep on working 40 hours a week and expecting things to get better. Let’s make no changes. Let’s just keep doing the same thing and let’s expect the different result. Let’s do that It’s a little bit insane there, right? Yeah, you’ve just a little literally if you want to change your life right now The great news is you can do it Walt Disney did it you can do it too. They’re going hey click and then in in 1922 Walt was 21 21 years old. He gets an investment of about $15,000. Okay. Yep to take laugh-o-grams to the next level. But what happened there? Well what happened there, and Bruce, I’m talking to you, I’m just harassing Bruce, he’s one of my favorite guys, I love harassing Bruce. We love Bruce. I’m putting extra sauce on this one today for Bruce, because Bruce is very saucy. He’s a beautiful man. But anyway, check it out here. If you think about, what is $15,000? Well $15,000 back in the day, so if you take a little inflation calendar and you look at this, I want to make sure we’re getting this, because a lot of times over history we lose the value of things, we don’t understand how things relate to each other. So think about this, 1922, if you had $15,000 in 1922, what would that be like worth today? What would that be worth today? That’s the question I ask you. How much is $15,000 back then, back in the day, how much is that worth now? Well, that would be worth $200,000, $211,000, $532.14. $211,000, $532.14. How do I do this? We’re going to put the calculator up. And there’s a thing called an inflation calculator. And a little bonus knowledge here for you. Every year, the geniuses who work in our federal government, they spend more money than they have. And because you can’t do that, they have to do what? Print more money. So how do they print more money? They invented this thing called the Federal Reserve which is not actually owned by the federal government and there is no reserve. Which is kind of funny. It’s the Federal Reserve and it’s not federal and there is no reserve but what they do is they can print money. So it’d be like if you had a checkbook and you ran out of money and you’re like well I guess I’ll just print some more money. So Bruce and I we just hit print on our little Epson stylus printer and Bruce is like, Clay this looks kind of shady. It looks like it’s a printed on an inkjet and it looks pretty, I mean we’re running out of ink here and I’m like, but it’s so much fun. Bruce, just print that. Let’s go to Office Depot and buy some more stuff. Well, if everyone in the world can do that, what happens over time? Just like if you’re pouring water into Kool-Aid, it devalues the currency. So over time, money’s worth less, right? Right. So just throwing it out here for you, a little bonus tip. You have to give yourself a 3% annual raise or you actually go backwards because your money loses the value over time. So you have to give yourself a 3% raise. is And if you work 60 to 80 hours a week and every time the boss comes into work, you’re the first guy there and the last one out, over time you start to develop a reputation. If you have a reputation, then people with a functional mind are willing to invest in you because they realize you’re a hard worker. You don’t invest in the business idea, you invest in diligent people. Every investor I’ve ever talked to, they go, I don’t even care about the idea. What I care about is who am I investing in. Wow. That’s how it works. So if you want to get an investor, you have got to be like Walt Disney and grind all the time. You have to be known as the person who is diligent. You sow seeds. You don’t expect to reap a harvest without sowing seeds. That’s what you do. So, I’m sorry I’m pretty excited about that. I feel like you’re preaching. This feels so good. Well, I’m just saying, the Walt Disney story is a story that absolutely helped me because I was going through the toilet of life and I thought that my business was terrible and I thought that I was a moron because I’d been building the business for like 18 months and I had no money and I couldn’t afford air conditioning. But you know what? I looked at Walt Disney and I realized he went through it too. So back to you. It’s amazing and thrives with those of you that are watching. Here’s Walt Disney. He’s a young guy, 16, drops out of school, goes to the army, comes back, meets up with Ub, they do a lot of things here, they start Laugh-O-Grams, and then after working so hard, going through so much adversity, Clay, Laugh-O-Gram goes bankrupt. And then he moves to Hollywood, Walt Disney moves to Hollywood, and then he decides to become a director and ended up starting Disney Brothers Studio with Brother Roy. Clay, tell us a little bit about that because this guy is going through adversities left and right. Well, let’s talk about bankruptcy for a second. What does it mean to be bankrupt? I’m going to read you the definition, okay? It’s a legal proceeding involving a person or business that is unable to pay their outstanding debts. The bankruptcy process begins with a petition filed by the debtor or on behalf of the creditor. So just as we get an idea, the creditors are going, hey, you need to pay us, and you go, I don’t have the money to pay you, therefore you’re bankrupt. That’s how that works. It’s bankruptcy. Bankruptcy laws were created so that if you find yourself in the toilet of a business, you can declare a bankruptcy, which will allow you to escape the debt that you owe. So I’d encourage you tonight, look up, just Google, famous entrepreneurs who went bankrupt. And I will tell you, we’ll add some to the screen here. But there is a long list of very famous entrepreneurs who’ve lost everything. They went bankrupt. And you know what? Because you went bankrupt financially, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be an idiot or a failure or a sob story your whole life. This is just real talk. Show me somebody who’s a genius who doesn’t have financial issues at some point in their business. If you’re starting a business, you’re going to have a financial stress. You’re going to. You’re not an idiot because you are struggling financially. You just need to course correct a little bit. But technically, based off of the definition from Webster, the United States of America is actually bankrupt. Yeah. Because we can’t pay our debtors. We can’t pay our debts, right? And other countries are like, hey, you need to pay us back. And we’re like, yeah, let’s just print more money. So technically, the United States is also bankrupt, so calm down. Don’t put yourself into that idiot zone because you went into bankruptcy. But it’s also, if you’re watching this and you are struggling and you can’t pay your bills, you might want to look into bankruptcy. That’s one thing. I mean, that’s one way to get out of that situation. I’m not endorsing you to quit, but I’m saying that the laws were created to allow people to… And there are many, many famous and successful businesses and entrepreneurs who’ve gone bankrupt. Now, when he goes bankrupt, he moves, he’s like, I gotta change, I gotta get down there to Hollywood. That’s where the action is. So he goes to Hollywood to become a director and his brother Roy decides, you know what, I know you lost everything, but you’re a hard worker and I’m gonna invest in you. So he and Roy start the company together. Back to you. What a good brother. Yeah. Mr. Roy. And now we’re talking about, he is in Hollywood is 1924 and Walt Disney begins to hire animators including you know I works again. Yep, bring him back up. And he decides to personally stop drawing so that he can focus on story development. So Walt Disney now not going to draw he’s going to focus on story development. What happened there? How hard would it be to have to get to a point when you are an artist you love to draw and when you realize the only way for you to make money is to not draw anymore. That’s difficult, man. So, it’s trade-offs. I remember when I was building my DJ company, I got to a point where I realized I cannot DJ every party anymore. I need to train other people to DJ. It’s so hard because you’re like, I could do it better myself. I feel like I love this. My passion. And if we’re not willing to make trade-offs, we can never, we cap our success. So the question I’d ask you right now is what are some things in your life that you need to begin trading off? Do you need to watch less TV to have more time to invest in your business? Do you need to begin delegating your accounting to somebody else so you can spend more time with your kids? Do you need to begin spending less time following your favorite football team so you can spend more time with your wife or your husband. Do you need to spend less time on social media? Probably not you. Less time on social media. Less time watching TV. We’ll go ahead and add to the screen here how much time the average person spends per week watching TV right now and on social media. A lot of times people say, I don’t have time. Where do you find the time to grow your companies? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not doing. I’m not on social media reading your Facebook or going on Twitter. I use it as kind of an employee stocking program. I use it as a way to do my background check for potential employees. Seriously, that’s why before we decided to bring you on, I looked for a long time and kind of followed you because I can see your life. I’m going, this guy is a good guy, so therefore I’m going to… You can learn a lot about people on their social media. I’m just encouraging you, you’re going to have to ask yourself right now, what tradeoffs do we have to make? And to make this easier for you, I have a notable quotable that I have prepared. I’ve packaged it up here for you from the late, great Steve Jobs. And this is what Steve Jobs says. He says, people think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Wait, wait, wait a minute. He’s saying you have to say no to a hundred what? Good things in exchange for the great. You can’t let the good get in the way of the great. You have to say no. You can’t say yes to every idea that runs through your cranium. You have to say no to things to say yes to things. I’m asking you right now. Ask yourself, what do you need to start saying no to that’s good in exchange for something great? Somebody watching right now is going to have to turn down a pay raise to go to your boss and say, boss, I want to work at a different part of the company because I can learn more. I won’t earn more. I’m actually going to make less money to move in this department. Somebody’s watching this and he’s like, I really need to learn accounting. So you now have to say no to your favorite bully. You’re someone who’s in a bowling league. Some of the listings in a bowling league. Guys, I’ve got to sit out this year because I’ve got to go back to school to learn accounting. Or I need to watch more Thrive 15 videos, and therefore I need to quit watching my favorite Netflix series. You’ve got to have trade-offs. You’ve got to say no to good things to say yes to great things. Back to you, Jose. Man, you’re rich. You’re rich with wisdom today. Well, I’m very surly, you know, very surly. Bruce and I, I was walking in today and Bruce challenged me to a dodgeball. Ooh. You know, he looks at me, he didn’t really say it, but I could just feel it. He looked at me and I could hear him, like, his inner dialogue going, I bet you I could beat you in a game of dodgeball. Just the way he said it, I was like, it’s on. It’s on. It’s on, man. Bruce, this one’s for you. Clay, Clay, in 1927, a film distributor by the name of Charles Mintz contracted Walt Disney Studios to create a series of animation films based on characters that Walt Disney developed himself named the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Have you heard of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? Tell us about that. Well, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was the first thing that Walt designed, the first character that Walt designed that did well. It was the first one, okay? Now the problem was when he developed the character, he was working under contract for a guy named Mince. Last name Mince. Charles Mince. So he worked for Charles Mince while developing the character. Well the character did well. It made a lot of money. So he went to Mince and he said, Hey Mince I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if Walt hosed the guy over or if Mince. I don’t know that story. But what I do know is that Walt did ask him. He said, Hey Mince, could you go ahead and give me an increased budget, you know, so we can have more animators and grow the company?” And he says, no, in fact, I’m taking the show myself. I’m done with you. So he lost the only character that he had ever developed that was even, I mean, again, we’re talking 1927. Wow. So from 1919, when he started, you know, drawing as a career, to 1927, it took him eight years to develop a character eight And then he had it what take it away and sometimes life is gonna take away Stuff that you love somebody needs to hear that again, so what sometimes life’s gonna take away Something you love um right now You know my dad he has ALS and so that is Lou Gehrig’s disease, which means that he is not going to be alive very long. And I don’t understand it. I don’t get it. I believe in God, but I don’t understand it. And we’re not going to get into it because this is not a religious program about this, but I don’t understand why my dad’s being taken away because I don’t want him to be taken away. But as he is being taken away from me, I have to ask myself, what can I learn from this? And some things that I’m learning that are massive through this is what a gift every day is. I mean, today is the day that the Lord has made and we shall rejoice and be glad in it.” This is a great day. So there’s no tomorrow. I’ve always been a sense of urgency guy since my best friend got killed in college. I was 18 years old going to college. I come back from a DJ show and my roommate, the only reason I even went to Oral Roberts University was my roommate, Mark DePetris, and he got killed in a car accident. And when you have things taken away, sometimes when things are taken away, you view life with a new sense of urgency or a new clarity or a new sincerity. You begin to look at things in a different way. Just like if you have glasses and you put them on for the first time, you can see things in a different way. But Walt says this, and this is something that is powerful. The profundity of what he is saying, the profoundness of what he is saying is powerful. He says this, all the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. Somebody just needs to hear that. I’m just telling you, I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know. But I do know that at Thrive15.com we really, really care in an irrational way about you. I know that you were put on this earth for a reason. You are here because you have a certain set of skills. That’s right. And you have a great gift. There’s something that you want to share with the world, and you can’t do it if you’re not willing to work a second job like Walt did, if you’re not willing to start the home-based business like 52% of small business owners are doing, if you’re not willing to go out there and borrow $15,000, which in today’s money is $238,000, if you’re not willing to draw your Oswald the lucky rabbit who then gets taken away, you’re not going to have success. And you can’t quit. If you’re going through hell, don’t stop. That’s it. Keep going through hell. Keep going. If you’ve been working on your rabbit for eight years, don’t send me an email going, well, I guess it’s not meant to be. If the door won’t open, kick it open. You’ve got to do it because this is your life. This is the most exciting, perfect time in the world because it’s the only time you have. This is your day. So before I turn it back over to Jose, I just want to make sure that you get this. You have to know that you have the skills, the talent, the connections, the resources. You have what you need to be successful. You just have to start. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Thrive Time Show two day interactive Business Growth Workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old and a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Hmm, well they’re gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow’s 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 going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslim. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrivetime Show business workshop. You know, over the years we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the Two Day Interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15 minute question and answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day, we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Feeling it. 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 am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It says Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show in 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 who you you’re going to come who you I’m Talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.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. Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of La Come to Tulsa because last year I did it and it was damn exciting clay Clark has put together an exceptional Presentation really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa 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 fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like 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, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates, look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you 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 in Kings Point, New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Keosak University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. As Mr. Clay Clark, he’s 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 is my age, and I can say or cannot say – 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 by the name of Jeremy Thorn, 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, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, 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 to our bad influencers. Yeah, anyway I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah, that’s 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 change my life. 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.