Clay Clark | Bill Belichick’s & the New England Patriots’ Former Character Coach, Jack Easterby | Why You Must Hire for Character & Train Skill + Tim Tebow Joins Clay Clark’s 2-Day June 27-28 Business Growth Workshop (29 Tickets Remain)

Audio Transcription

Most things in life, the dynamic range between average and the best is at most 2 to 1. Like if you go to New York City and you get an average taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab driver, you’re probably going to get to your destination with the best taxi cab maybe 30% faster. In an automobile, what’s the difference between an average and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player and an average CD player, I don’t know, 20%? So 2 to 1 is a big, big dynamic range in most of life. In software, and it used to be the case in hardware too, the difference between average and the best is 50 to 1, maybe 100 to 1. Easy. Okay? Very few things in life are like this, but what I was lucky enough to spend my life in is like this. And so I’ve built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players, but really going for the A players. And I found something. I found that when you get enough A players together, when you go through the incredible work to find five of these A players, they really like working with each other because they’ve never had a chance to do that before. And they don’t want to work with B and C players, and so it becomes self-policing, and they only want to hire more A players. And so you build up these pockets of A players, and it propagates. And that’s what the Mac team was like. They were all A players. And these were extraordinarily talented people. But there are also people who now say that they don’t have the energy anymore to work for you. Sure. Oh, I think if you talk to a lot of people on the Mac team, they will tell you it was the hardest they’ve ever worked in their life. Some of them will tell you it was the happiest they’ve ever been in their life. But I think all of them will tell you that it is certainly one of the most intense and cherished experiences they will ever have in their life. Yeah, they did. Some of those things are not sustainable for some people. USA Today once asked the question, is the Patriots secret weapon their character coach? With a record of 225 wins and 79 losses over the past 19 seasons, England Patriots have won a total of six Super Bowls and have appeared in nine, en route to becoming the NFL’s most dominant team. And they are the NFL’s only team with a full-time character coach on their roster. In a world where Inc. Magazine now reports that 85% of American job applicants lie on their resumes, and where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and CBS News now reports that 75% of employees steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly. Why would the NFL’s most successful head coach, Bill Belichick, be the only head coach that has decided to invest in the hiring of a full-time character coach? On today’s show, the former Super Bowl winning Patriots character coach Jack Easterby shares about what makes Patriots captain Matthew Slater such a valuable teammate. The coaching mastery and intelligence of head coach Bill Belichick. The power of self-reflection. The importance of being intentional about whom you surround yourself with and whom you spend your time with. How he organizes the first four hours of every day. His favorite book recommendations and much, much more. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my interview with former New England Patriots character coach, Mr. Jack Easterby. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men. Eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Timeshow. Now, three, two, one, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get there. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now he is. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thrive Nation, on today’s show, I am super honored to interview today’s guest. This is the former character coach for Bill Belichick. Coach Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. Mr. Jack Easterby, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, I’m great, Clayton, and I’m excited to be here. I’m thankful for you guys having me on, and just blessed to continue to learn together and grow and try to make a little bit of a difference here. Well, you and I share the same faith, and so I’m very excited to hear a guy like you who’s outspoken about character, and I think a lot of our listeners are wondering, what is a character coach? Can we start there? What is a character coach? What was your role on the Patriots during these past five years? Yeah, well I think, you know, when you are any business or any organization, you try to do the right thing for the group that you’re with. And I think for the evolution of 50, if you look at all the, you know, Fortune 500 companies or Major League Baseball or any, you know, big companies, you’re dealing with the needs of people. And so what the evolution of character coaching has kind of come into is that, you know, people have needs, right? We’re human beings, not human doings. And so people have needs and they have needs that need to be taken care of weekly, monthly, yearly. And so my job is to service the needs of the humans, the people side of the business, and to make sure that we’re out in front of any leadership or potential bumps or issues, leadership challenges that may be out there for our players or coaches or staff. So it’s been an honor to serve and learn and do anything we can help to be the glue of the team. Now, I think a lot of people might say, character coach. Is that even a position? I think a lot of people are looking at their roster of their favorite team right now going, character coach? Yeah, that’s interesting. So I, first of all, I would just say growing up as an athlete, you know, I always loved team. I always loved being with teammates. I loved being on teams. I played multiple sports, as many people did growing up, and just always loved being around the team, whether that’s team meals or it’s team building or it’s hanging out with your team at birthday parties when you’re little. I always loved being around the team. And so my professional career was a bunch of different things, but they always centered around team. You know, I played sports in college, uh, at Newberry college and then left there and went and worked for the Jacksonville Jaguars and salary cap, which was just a way to learn about team, uh, how a team is constructed and how a team is built. And then I left there and went to South Carolina and worked as a campus director for character at South Carolina and worked with a bunch of teams. And my goal there was to build teams. So I did team building exercises and we had Bible studies on campus and we did leadership for athletes and field trips for athletes to meet athletes they looked up to and those types of things. And so it was always about building the team. And then when I went to Kansas City, it was about finding ways to build team and serve Scott Pioli in that role there. And then with the Patriots, the same thing. So my professional path, I would say there’s been different facilitators of that. But for me, it’s always been about the team. It’s always been about trying to help the team to do right by the team and to build into the team. And the current title is character coach, but it’s about the team. I I’m sorry to hop around to not be linear, but I’m just so curious about so many things you’re saying here. Go back to, take us back to your childhood, how you were raised. How are you raised and how has that impacted who you are today? That’s a great, great question. I think our childhood impacts all of how we are today, whether it’s good, bad, indifferent, or it’s just in the way and the shaping of your parents or grandparents or guardians who ever raised you. I would say the two greatest insertions in my life, the two greatest things that I was given as a combination were love and truth. For me personally, I think that love and truth as a combination is what grows the human soul. I was blessed to have a great relationship with two greatest generation grandparents who I spent a lot of time at their house growing up, and they inserted love and truth from a faith-based prism to me at telling me they love me, but also telling the truth about decisions I was making or principles that they believed would be timeless. And then my parents, the same way. My mom was a banker, my dad was a counselor, and I heard from them love and truth, whether it was the circumstances of playing on a field or it was going to youth group or being a part of all-star teams, I always heard love and truth. And so I think for me, if I could say anything to parents or leaders out there, if you’re shaping youth or you’re shaping young people, to me the insertion of love and truth as a combination, as a one-two punch, that’s what people need whether you’re 50 years old or whether you’re a 12-year-old playing little league baseball. You need love and truth. You need to be unconditionally loved and you need to be told the truth even when it hurts. Let’s get competitive for a second here. I have five kids. Now, how many kids are you going to go for? What’s the max number of kids you’re looking to have? I’m at two right now, but the shot clock’s not out. Okay, okay. I’m at two. If we’re competing, I’m behind, but the clock’s not out. My clock is out. So my clock is out. Various things have been done. So my wife and I have been married 18 years and she said, you got to go see whoever about that thing and then we’re done. So I’m done. But are you thinking like five kids, four kids? What’s the number? I don’t know. You know, it’s interesting. You put some pressure on me with that. We’ve talked about adoption. My wife and I love, we’ve always loved foster parenting and we’ve got two beautiful girls. My girls are going to be, I always say, the first girls to win the Miss America pageant in full body wetsuits, right? That’s right. Because I’m never going to let them wear a bathing suit in front of a guy. There we go. Amen. No, I’m just kidding. We love children. My wife is a teacher by nature, and so I could see us adopting a couple more, but if the race is to five, I think I’m going to let you have that one. I appreciate that. I get one mega point right there. So even though I might be losing other categories. One point for me. That’s great. Now, talk about your career playing as a player. Newberry College, how good were you as an athlete? And what position did you play? Yeah, so I played basketball and golf. And I was blessed to win. We played for a championship in both. We won the championship in golf. We did not win it in basketball. We lost in the finals of our championship. But yeah, I was good. I mean, I was good enough. I competed. I was a role player in basketball and golf. I was one of the better players on the team relative to starting and being in the top five and going to all the tournaments. But I wouldn’t say that they were naming buildings after me or anything there, but I participated. And I would say my time as an athlete, the thing that I learned most is we had six coaches in four years for two different sports. And so getting to know a lot of transition and getting a chance to meet people that were in and out of my life as leaders that did it different ways. And some were barkers and some were servers and some were strategists and some were people guys. And so I think just learning different transitions and having a transition through people was a huge advantage to me in my college playing career because if you think about it, so many people learn one way and that one way may not be reduplicable in a different circumstance. For me, college was really a great set the table moment for me to be able to learn transition and leadership. My partner and I, we’ve built 13 multi-million dollar companies between the two of us. He’s 54 and has three kids, and I’m 38 and have five kids. About 18 years ago, I began this obsession with Coach Belichick, and it was beyond just football. It’s the philosophy of management. I’m obsessed with it. We actually named a room in our building, in our 20,000 square foot facility, the Bill Belichick Room. It has the nameplate on there and everything. I’m obsessed with Coach Belichick, and is he a perfect human? No. But I just love the principles and the philosophies and the culture, and I know that a lot of it is behind closed doors. I’m not asking to paint you into a corner or ask you stuff that you obviously can’t share, but what did it feel like to work on the Patriots organization and to be a part of one of the most winning organizations over a two-decade span of any organization in professional sports history. What did it feel like to work with Coach Belichick and the Patriots? Well I would say it was a complete privilege. Every day, every minute, every hour. I took pages and pages and pages of notes. Bill is one of the smartest people I’ve ever interacted with. His mind is a gift from God. He has a tremendous analytical mind that can be used in so many different ways to lead people and put them in the best situations to be successful. I think he knows people’s gifts well. He knows what they do well, what they don’t do well, and he’s just got an amazing gift. He cares for people. You know, the perception some people always share with me about what they think in the media is just not the truth. Bill has been amazing to me and my family, and I’m so thankful for him. It was really a life-changing experience for me to work for him, and I’ll still maintain that relationship the rest of my life. I think that it was an honor. It was a privilege. I’m just eager to see, as I continue to grow, how many of these lessons I’m going to put right into practice, because he truly changed my life and the Patriots, the way the Patriots operate in my small piece in that really helped me to become better, the best version of myself. I have one Patriots, Bill Belichick story that you don’t know, but it happened during your tenure, okay? So here we go. My mother-in-law was a flight attendant for JetBlue. And they hop on the mic, you know, they make the announcement, they say, ladies and gentlemen, we have a mom who wants to sit with her child. If anyone’s willing to move, we’d like to make room so that a child can sit with her mother. They make that announcement several times. And Jack, it starts to get awkward, because they’re doing it again. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to make a… If someone would like to volunteer, we’re trying to make room here for a mother to sit with her daughter. And nobody’s moving on a JetBlue plane. Nobody’s moving. And guess who gets up and moves? It’s Bill Belichick. He gets up and moves. And no one knows who he is until everyone discovers who he is, because no one moves. So he moves, doesn’t make a big deal about it. And my mother-in-law, the way she tells the story, apparently people start going, oh my gosh, that’s Bill Belichick. He’s moving his seat. And people kind of start clapping, and they’re like getting all excited for the guy. And apparently he does these kinds of things all the time, but he doesn’t like to get up there and hop on social media and talk about it. Could you brag on Coach Belichick or something maybe that was up? I’m not asking you to share a secret, you know, but the kind of things that he would do behind the scenes where you would go, I’m proud to work with that guy. Yeah, I mean I could give you hours and hours of stories, my phone would go dead, you know, just because of the intentionality. You know, the one word that I always say about Bill when I think of his leadership is intentionality. You know, I think there’s nothing better to say about a leader than he intentionally did that, and whether that’s how he’s reciprocated his investment in Navy and what they meant to his father, or whether that’s how he’s invested in his children and his now grandchildren. I think his wisdom of the investment of intentionality is You know you think about what most people do with success right? What do they do with it? What do they when you get successful? What do you do? Yeah And I would say when you get successful it shows a lot about who you are and so Bill has been Extremely intentional with his success. You know he gave I’m sure you saw the rich eyes and thing where he gives to Rich Eisen every year at the combine about what he’s thankful for Rich and how Rich makes a difference to St. Jude there. So I just think that the word that comes to mind beyond a specific story is intentionality and man, I’m blessed. We’re so blessed to have the overlap and I’m proud to call him friend. Yeah, and I hate to have to preface every question, but you know how it is, you guys are in the limelight and so I’m sure you’ve been on interviews before where there’s always somebody trying to trick you into some question, some headline thing. So that’s not my goal, and I just met you, so I’m just prefacing all this. Is that what happens? Is that what happens? You know, I feel bad for some of these players, you know? Some of these players are doing interviews, and someone’s trying to trick them into it. They take one line. You know how it is. And it’s just unfortunate. And so our podcast is a long-format show. I’ve been doing this for years. But I just want to preface this. There’s a lot of players that get a bad rap. You know, there’s all sorts of statistics you’ll see where it says eight out of 10 NFL players go bankrupt within five years of retiring or two years. And that’s like a shocking headline. You know, people go, oh my gosh, wow. I’m a business coach. I’m a consultant. I own businesses and I coach businesses. And I’ll just let everybody know nine out of 10 startups fail. So, I mean, actually more people fail as a startup business owner than NFL players. But talk to me about working with a player and some of the character, I wouldn’t call them issues, but character coaching opportunities that you see. Because a lot of these players, you know, come from broken homes. A lot of them come from two-parent families. Some don’t. What does coaching look like on a daily basis with these players? What kind of things do you go over? And again, I’m not looking for any specifics or any specific players, but what kinds of things do you talk to with players, talk to players about? Well, let’s think about it like this. So you made a great point there on your analogy of that data. I think here’s what I would say. Let’s start with this, right? For every single person, and this includes non-athletes, but my specific calling is with athletes is we’re not necessarily born winners or losers, but we are born choosers. And I would say making choices is going to determine how your life begins to unfold and the choices that you make will ultimately make you. And so what I believe is that my work with them is almost strategically and specifically centered around them being a better decision maker. So for example, okay, you are getting ready to navigate NFL. Like who are the people that are going to do this with you, okay? And so we do a circles exercise, for example, and we say, okay, who are the top three people in your life? Who are the top 10 people in your life? Who are the top 30 people in your life? And as the circle expands, what are the different layers for your life? What is something that somebody has to have to be in your circle? What are the values that you have in your life? And we make them do self-reflective things that we’re going to make them evaluate who they are because in the end, you can’t make a good choice unless you’re being self-reflective and evaluate the prism in which you’re making that choice. And so I would say all the things I do with our players and really anything I’m doing in general with trying to make an impact in this culture is around being a better decision maker because you can’t be with someone all the time to make choices for them and do it for them. You have to make them a better decision maker. So when the heat’s on and the speed’s up, they make good choices. So we’re not winners or losers. We are born choosers, right? And you make your choices and your choices make you. So I think in the big picture, everything I’m doing is about making choices and trying to help them be, have a better prism to make those choices. And I know as a character coach, you know, you don’t want to share personal anecdotes with specific players, but I just would like to brag on someone that I don’t think the listeners get to hear enough about. Matthew Slater is just a great human. Everything I hear, Matthew Slater, great guy, great guy, great guy. Patriots have so many high character guys on the team. When you think about your time with the Patriots and these high character players, do you have a highlight or a part of your career where you thought, man, that was cool being on the sideline winning that Super Bowl or maybe it was somebody like Matthew Slater Slater doing work in the community or maybe a charity event you participated in was there was there a highlight during your five years with the Patriots You know, I don’t think There was one specific moment where I would say, you know what this is why I was here. I will say when Matthew won the the award that they give out for character to all of the NFL athletes in action gives out a character award each year and Basically what they do is they have Bart stars. They call it the Bart star word, but they have Bart stars wife call the recipient and they like to do it like with the owner of the GM or You know, maybe specifically the head coach. Well for us it was we were in the playoffs and we ding and so I kind of tricked up and had a Bible study that we were going to have and I filled the entire room with all of Matthew’s best friends and teammates. And I had basically had her call me on the speaker phone and give Matthew the award in front of, let’s just call it 30 of his teammates. And so it was one of those moments where, you know, he was emotional and then his dad had also won that award when his dad played for the Rams. And so I just, that was a moment where not only did we have 50 people in Bible study that day, which was awesome, but we really celebrated character and the unseen things. You know, we tend to celebrate seen things in our culture, but really one of the things that I’ve been encouraged by is celebrating unseen things. You know, how people are treated when nobody’s watching, how people communicate to try to encourage confidence. And Matthew obviously is to me the pillar of that in the sporting world, not just in football but in the sporting world. He’s the epitome of character and what it means to be a true Christ-centered leader in a tough place, in a tough locker room, not just in our building, but just the NFL in general So I think I would say that was a moment. I’ll never forget because it was kind of a setup slash event slash celebration of character slash team-building all at once but Man, I don’t know man. I could our phones would go dead again talking about how often My time in New England was and it was life-changing. Do you remember getting the call or the email or the text or the invite to become part of the Patriots organization? Do you remember where you were when you got that invite? Yes, I do. It’s so funny. I’ve never told this story before to anyone publicly, but I’ll never forget. I was in Fort Caswell, North Carolina. I was speaking at a Southern Baptist youth convention, and there’s a lady there named Mary Johnson, and Mary Johnson was one of the best. Her husband had left and passed away early in her life, and she had two unbelievable boys that were great to her, and her boys played in the band. And so I was speaking, I got done speaking and I went for a walk on the beach. And I had a 508 number that was left on my voicemail and it was Bill. And I’d never met him and introduced himself to me on the phone, like he was, you know, just a regular old guy. And I called him back and we just had the most amazing conversation. It was so genuine. I never will forget that moment because it was one of those things where you’re talking like you’re talking to the boss you already were working for, you just didn’t know it yet. It was great. It was a great moment and a life-changing moment. I’ll never forget the first time I met Matthew Slater. I’ll never forget the first time I met Devin McCourty. I’ll never forget my first hug with Nate Solder. Those are all moments that God just kind of stopped time for, but I’ll never forget when Bill called me because that was truly life-changing, no question. Coach Belichick talks a lot about you want a higher character over skill. If all things being considered equal, if a guy’s got a lot of skill, low character, go with the character guy. You hear about that all the time. I followed the team long enough to see that play out over decades. You see that consistency there. Let’s talk about it on a bigger picture. I know now you’re doing speaking, you’re doing leadership training, you have so many things going on. Let’s look at it from a bigger perspective as a culture. Where is culture going the wrong way right now, in America specifically, as it relates to character, and what can we do to correct the course? Well, I really think that, you know, we never want to evaluate things and say this is wrong, this is right, because usually every decision or everything that happens is a product of other decisions, right? So we really want to make an evaluation of whether it’s culture or team or person. We need to do a deep dive on what the prisms are that we’re making our decisions by. And I think that one of the things that I’m seeing both in leadership and in really, whether it’s specific position leadership, like government or companies or people that lead like that, or it’s position or just leaders in general, people and families and businesses that are just interacting in the social realm. I think for what I’m seeing is we’ve just lacked the route, we lack the thorough approach of evaluating every nook and cranny of our lives and realizing that you can’t relegate character, you can’t only put character in part of your lives, you can’t only ask hard questions in some things in your lives. You really have to do a deep dive and look at who you are in every circumstance, in every part of your life, every nook and cranny of your building, every nook and cranny of your heart, and really take a thorough look, an X-ray of who you are in all areas. So man, you may be a great leader in this area, but what about some other areas that may come up? Because what we’re seeing in culture is people are celebrated for the one or two things they do well, but then the things they haven’t addressed end up costing everybody they leave, whether that’s a scandal, whether that’s an addiction, whether that’s an area where they don’t take a real hard look at themselves in the mirror and get over themselves from an ego standpoint. But the truth is that we got to take a harder look at ourselves, and that’s me and you and everybody included, to take a more thorough look at every single area, personal relationships, professional relationships, what vernacular we’re using, what habits we have, how we carry ourselves, eye contact, body language, saying please and thank you, all the things that we’ve all heard growing up and many people have heard just in general, but I just think we need a more thorough look. I don’t think it’s one thing that the culture is missing. I don’t think it’s one thing that the culture said, all we got to do is this. I think it’s about being more thorough. I think our leaders need to be thoroughly vetted so that when they get in charge, they can give a charge and not just be in charge. There is just a lot of opportunity for you now. You’re in a time of transition where I’m sure a lot of teams are reaching out to you. I know the organizations are asking you to speak. What do you see over the next 12 months? What do you feel like God’s looking for you to do over the next 12 to 18 months? Maybe what do you feel like you’re called to do? Just talk to us about what do you see the Jack Easterby show doing over the next 18 months? So 12 months, man, I’ll tell you what, I’m thinking about 12 hours right now, I think, you know, for my family, I think. And I would ask you, you know, or anybody, if you’ve got the 12-month plan for your family, I want to see it because I don’t know how many people can do 12 months and 15 months at a time in this day and age. But we as a family are just evaluating some things, and we’re looking to see where can we serve and where can we come alongside some people that we know are, you know, being willing to use the gifts that God’s given us and serve. And again, our time in New England was absolutely awesome, but just looking to serve and to continue to learn. But we haven’t really, we’re not gonna rush that. We’re not looking to copy and paste. We’re looking to just continue on this journey. God’s given us a few assignments here, Jacksonville and South Carolina and Kansas City and now New England. And we’re just wanting to learn. We’re to learn, serve, do everything we can do to leave each person better than we found them. Will you ever go into full-time ministry as a pastor? You ever see that in your future, maybe 20 years down the road, 10 years down the road? You know, I don’t know. I love the church. One of my best friends is a pastor here in Massachusetts. I don’t know. I love God’s Word. I love teaching Scripture. I think our culture needs people who have values and lead with conviction. But I don’t know. I haven’t nailed that down yet. It’s intriguing. But I couldn’t tell you what 15 years from now holds. Well, I know that a lot of people want to hire you to speak. On YouTube, you can see examples of you speaking. If somebody does want to get a hold of you for speaking, are you doing that right now? Is that something you’re open to? Yeah, I have several opportunities to share and will and you know, the same way you guys did our contact is just thegreatestchampion.org. We have a staff there that gets back to you, and that’s our foundation where we do orphan scholarships and we do camps for churches, mainly in South Carolina, for basketball camps. We also do character curriculums for coaches that are trying to lead, and we believe in the way that makes a difference through character and leadership development. But yeah, that’s where we go there, and trying to do a few things but not overwhelmed. Or not trying to get overwhelmed by any sort of speaking tool. We just want to serve and do right by people and use the opportunities we’ve been given to make a difference. Jack, Patriots fullback James Devlin has described you in a USA Today article saying, before every game, and I mean every game, he comes to each of us and tells us he appreciates us. Why do you do that? You know, I’ll tell you, pregame in any sport is such a, and you’ve probably been a part of a lot of sports where pregame or when you’re in a golf round, you know, warming up or anything, there’s always a element of ritualistic performance by everybody. You know, I mean, it’s, you got your verses you read and you got your tape that you put on your arm and you got your certain, you know, eye black that you wear or whatever. For me, I’ve always thought if we go on the playing field, no matter what we’re doing, if we go on a play field, I just want every single person I’m interacting with to know that I’m thankful for them, if I can. And you know, again, time doesn’t always allow for that. But I just want them to know I’m thankful for them because I think if they’re going to play and give all they got, the best thing they could know is that they’re, again, going back to love and truth, is that they’re cared for and that they’re gifted and that the gifts that they have have been given to them by a giver who wants to bring glory to his name through their gift. And so I try to just thank them, man. Hey, thank you for who you are. Thanks for the man you are. Have fun today. Just try to make sure that that authentic interaction will wash off any pressure or any outside influence that may be distracting. You know, Matthew Slater is not a household name for most people, unless you’re an obsessive Bill Belichick fan like I am. But Matthew Slater is not a name that most families know. But yet he’s the captain of the team, special teams, specialist there. In a locker room celebrations, you know, he brings it in there to the team, you know, brings it in with everybody. You guys celebrate and you yell all yeah together You know before him Teddy had the honors of doing that. Can you talk about the postgame celebration of the oh? Yeah, and what that’s all about You know I’ll tell you this Matthew does an awesome job with that he really does he you know It’s one of those things you pour into and I think the NFL Specifically people see you pour into the week all week long and no one sees practice on Wednesday and film study early in the morning. These guys lifting weights and running together and all that. They just see the three hours or four hours on Sunday. And I think that that’s the culmination, that moment where Matthew shares with the team about how hard their work was this week, how much he appreciates everybody in there and as a captain, how he cares that all of them understand the power they have of influence and leadership in the community and over their families. And when they give that all, yeah, it’s everybody agreeing that, man, we put it in and let’s do it again next week. It’s a great tradition. I love that. You know that the Patriots, obviously, you guys are obsessed with practice and preparation over there. Can you share with the listeners about the Hills, what these Hills are? They’re kind of legendary. If you do a little bit too much time searching online, you can discover the hills and the legend of the hills and the Patriots practice. What are the hills all about? Well, I think any coach wants to do things to grow his team. I think that one of the things we’ve done here is opportunity to run some hills. After practice, during training camp, during certain specific times to get better and Moses Cabrera, our strength and condition coach and Bill and others thought that’s the best way to continue to develop a mental and physical and emotional and growth process. It’s not that complex, it’s just a little hill, but just like other things in life, sometimes it’s simple but it’s what makes you get over the hurdle to continue to get better. Now my final three questions for you. On the Patriots, there appears to be a strict no-fighting rule and a strict don’t-talk-trash-about-the-other-team rule. You know, if you watch a Patriots interview, when they interview the players, the reporters are always fishing for antagonistic statements they can use against the other team, you know, the headlines. And the Patriots just don’t participate in that. It seems like every single player does not ever speak negatively about the other team and doesn’t seem to… there’s not a lot of fights in practice. Is that intentional or is that just a random thing that happens? Well I think that speaks to the kind of people you have, right? I mean each, that’s not one person’s decision, that’s a, you’re talking about a litany of a wide myriad of people that, you know, have made that same choice. So that shows you that the culture is intact, that people, you know, don’t see benefit in slandering other people and creating a bunch of nonsense that’s going to be out there for no reason. It also shows you that no business in fighting your teammate. Let’s save that and let’s work on the techniques we need to get better so that we can go fight the opponent. I think that really speaks more to the character of the men in the locker room and Bill’s leadership. Now you on the Patriots, you guys are very intentional and you come across as a very intentional person individually. How do you typically spend the first four hours of your day? What time do you wake up every day? That’s a good question. I get up at different times throughout the year. During the season, it’s usually 4.35. I’m in the building and reading my Bible and starting to find a way to put notes out in chairs and encourage guys. I think for me the first couple of hours is about energy to continue to get the day going for the players and coaches and get around as many people as I can. In the next two hours it becomes real functional, knocking out a lot of to-dos and meetings with our staff and making sure we got what we need while the players are meeting with their coaches and then we do all the support staff stuff and then, you know, as it gets to practice, go to practice and make sure that goes well. And then after practice, the personal stuff, the relationships with the guys and meeting with them personally one-on-one and helping any meetings we may need to have to help make sure nothing’s in the way of them being the best they can be. And then in the evening, serving the coaches, you know, if that’s getting coffee, if that’s doing anything we can do to help them have fun and be who they’re called to be and who they think they need to be and prepare them for helping us be prepared to win on game day. So yeah, the first four hours I would say, you know, five o’clock, get going in the office by five and rolling. But you know, it just depends on the day for what we’re really trying to do from a systematic standpoint. If you get to work at 5, have you ever beat Bill Belichick to work? No. Have you ever left at 2 in the morning just to see if he’s… I mean, have you ever left after him? You know, I’ll tell you, when you get in a season slow, you’re always working, you know, so it’s… The NFL, obviously, there’s a lot of… He’s mystical. A lot to do. I’ve heard he never leaves the building or never actually gets there. He’s just always there. Well, I’ll tell you this, he’s the best leader and amazing mental strength and capacity and vision and just can’t say enough good things about Bill. Now, final question for you. Books. Our listeners love to read books. Love to read actionable books, principle books, books about leadership, vision, management, entrepreneurship, business, character, the gamut. If you could recommend two books, it can be any two books for the listeners, what are two books that have made a big impact on your life where you would go, you got to buy this book and that book? If I could just do two, well, I would always say the Bible because I think leadership has its origins in the ability to make decisions. You’re not a winner or a loser, you’re a chooser. And I think the prism in which you make decisions it will matter most. But I would, you know, I think there are two books that I’ve read. Well, let me give you a few more. I would start with the Y. Start with the Y. By Simon Sinek, I think that’s a good one. I think that Good to Great is a good one by Jim Collins. I think I’ve read recently emotional intelligence 2.0. Daniel Goldman. Good one. I think yeah, we just had him on the show. Oh Great. Yeah, I think that’s a really good one. I think is how to read others emotions and understand how they You know just just function You know and then and then I’ve always liked that. I think there’s more than seven habits of highly effective people, but the seven that he outlines to me have challenged me as a leader. So those are a few. Jack, I cannot thank you enough for being on the show today. I know our listeners want to support you, get behind you. Is there a specific website you would encourage everybody to check out, or is there a newsletter you’re putting out, or anything where you’d say, hey, the best place to stay in touch with me is to go here? Yeah, I think, again, just thegreatestchampion.org is our foundation. Our goal is to make a difference through leadership and curriculum and sports and trying to make sure we’re influencing influencers. That’s the goal. Again, your podcast does that. I’m thankful to be on here. I’m thankful to be noticed at all by people because the goal is to serve and do right by those that we influence and interact with. And humbled to be a part of the Patriots, humbled to be a part of all the different teams at South Carolina and Kansas City and Jacksonville I’ve been a part of. And I’m just, again, just excited about what God’s teaching our family, and we’re going to do our best to continue to serve. Jack, thank you for what you’ve done with your career, and I know your next stop will be just the beginning of something even greater, my friend. Thank you for being on the show. Thrive Nation, there are so many nuggets of knowledge that you’re just not going to find in the typical business college that were unveiled on today’s show. But here are a few action items I would encourage you to think about and to just write down here. Get out a sheet of paper. Write down these ideas. We’ve got two action items I want for you to really marinate on the first one is I would ask yourself. Who are you hanging around? You know, there’s so many quotes that say I’m paraphrasing but Jim Rohn the best-selling author are oh h in Jim Rohn He says that your network is your net worth. We’ve heard Porter Gale the former virgin Executive said the same thing your network is your net worth Tim Ferris the best-selling author the award-winning podcaster says, you become the average of the five people you spend your most time with. Any self-help book, going back to Napoleon Hill, where he talks about the mastermind, at the end of the day, the people around you become sort of the average of what you allow into your life, you know, in terms of financial mediocrity, moral character, moral excellence, moral mediocrity, financial integrity, financial mediocrity. Just every aspect of your life really is dictated by the people you spend time with. So be very intentional today about who you’re spending time with. And I would encourage you to write down the names of the five people that you do spend the most time with in your life. And if you’re hanging out with idiots consistently, chances are you will become a higher character person. Now action item number two is I would encourage you to take a hard look at yourself in every area of your life and to evaluate yourself in the areas of faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, fun. Is anybody perfect in all these areas? No. We all know people who are super physically fit, people that are in great shape physically, who are just the biggest jerks. We know people that are financially well off, that are in bad shape physically. We know people who are the best of friends, but the worst of providers. We all know these things. Let’s look at ourselves for a second and say, in what area am I dropping the ball? In what area can I improve? Who am I talking to? How am I talking? How am I thinking? How am I saying things? It’s just so important to look in the mirror and to become very clear about where you’re at. If you cannot be transparent with yourself, if you can’t know thyself, it’s very hard to improve yourself. A lot of times we take selfies and we optimize the photo when we post it. Let’s ask ourselves, where are we at right now in the areas of our faith, our family, our finances, our fitness, our friendship, and our fun? Those are the action items I would have for you today. If you learned something from today’s show, or if you’re a Patriots fan, or if you’re somebody who just says, you know, Clay Clark, I appreciate you putting these shows together. Or maybe you say, Clay, I don’t even like you. But I like the team you have. I like the team of people that helps you produce this show. If you learned something today and you could find five to ten seconds to share this with somebody on Twitter, on Facebook, via text or email, it would mean the world to myself and the entire Thrive Time show team. We like to end each and every show with a boom. And so now let me further edu. Three, two, one, boom! Why you must hire character and train skill. Hiring people in a world of moral relativity. Think about that. Again, hiring people in a world of moral relativity. In today’s world, people are taught, if it feels good, do it. And who am I to judge you for saying that’s wrong? My friend, it is imperative that you and I hire for character and train for skill. Especially in today’s twisted and hyper-politically correct world, where 75% of employees steal from the workplace. According to the U.S. Chamber and CBS News. My friend, today over 80% of potential employees are now lying on their resumes. In this litigious, hyper-politically correct world we live in, you must hire for character and then train for skill. Again, you must hire for character and train for skill. And so on today’s show, I thought I would celebrate my favorite web developer and coder while also showing how many coders I’ve had to go through, how many web developers I’ve had to go through in route to building one of the top three search engine optimization companies on the planet. Our web optimization company, Make Your Life Epic. 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, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. So Devin, how long ago did you start working here? This is a staff meeting. I started back in 2014. 2014. For almost 5 years. Okay, so 5 years. I believe at the time you were doing graphic design on the side and working for Walmart, I believe. Graphic design on the side, wife worked for Walmart. Okay, so your wife worked for Walmart? Correct. And you do graphic design on site? Yes. And how did you hear about this job? There were a couple people who heard about it through Arthur Greeno. Arthur Greeno from Chick-fil-A fame, a good friend of mine. And so you wanted to come work here? Right. And a person similar to what you experienced, Felicia, because Felicia you were told that you could never be a what? You were told you could interview what? Photographer. What again? Photographer. The mic can barely hear you. So you were told what? I was told I was never going to be a photographer. Right, and the same geniuses that said that also told Devin, he doesn’t have what it’s needed to be a coder. Is that right? Basically we’re not hiring right now? Yeah. So Devin said, I’m going to come work for, how much did you charge us? Free. So he came to work for free. And how long did you work for free? Three weeks. Okay. So now because we’re going to turn this into a podcast, we can’t mention the names because when you mention the names it’s considered slander if it’s true. But it’s considered to be not slander if you lie about it. Think about that. It’s slander if it’s true, but if you consider you lie about it, it’s considered… Think about that for a second. It’s slander if you tell people what’s true. But if you fly about it, then it’s not. So, let’s think of the coders. We’ll start with Mr. T. Mr. T, how many coders were here? How many coders have you seen come and go? At least five? At least? What kind of weird stuff would Mr. T do? drugs, take weird photos of himself, ordered hookers online, that’s ordering hookers online. See? And then I think gave an STD to a client. I think that’s what happened. A married client. A married client. These are all real things. So then I’m like, well, probably should fire the guy who, for a variety of reasons right so I bring it up the way we should fire the guy that is brought to me well you’re slandering this person’s character how is it slips being honest I mean if anybody here wants to order hooker online today that’s grounds for termination in my mind or drugs maybe that maybe you could order the hooker but you couldn’t do the drugs to or maybe you know getting a client who’s married a sexually transmitted disease maybe that so you move on so that was a negative one. What kind of abominations did you see? Cause he’s the last man standing. What kind of stuff did you see? Never coding. So we have one guy who would break the site on purpose so that it would be broken. And then he would send us notifications about tickets that had to, like, he’d break it so he had to fix it so he could create the self-sustaining job. He would literally break the site every day and then say, something’s wrong with me, you fix it. And there’s these three guys that can… You saw that. Oh yeah. So we brought in another guy, we brought in outside coders from another company. We’ll call it Mr. B. And he brought in Mr. K. Mr. B, Mr. K, Special K, B. What did Mr. K do? Or B? They work sometimes, not very often. I’m paying like, I think I was paying 7,000 a month to each guy. And did they ever do their jobs? No, I don’t think so. In total, how many coders have been here and out of here since Jeffrey? I mean, think about it. Think about all the coders, we add them up, maybe count on your fingers. How many have we gone through to find the diligent debit. Sent from heaven, a gift from God. I almost cry when I see him walk in the building every day. Sometimes I’m just like, what about you? How many coders? Oh gosh. Counting up, I think we’ve probably had, we’ve had at least eight. Eight coders. It’s crazy. So what makes Devin awesome is he has this awesome character. And so I just wanted to peek into your mind and see if you could share with everybody. Why do you not screw me over on a daily basis? I think part of it is just going, I guess, how I was raised. You know, you always want to treat people how you’d like to be treated. Another part of it is just a lot of reciprocity. For me and my family, like Clay and Vanessa and all the Thrive team has just meant so much to us, just as a family, because whenever I started working here, I wasn’t making very much, doing design on the side, doing freelance stuff. So my wife was bringing in most of the income just working full time at Walmart. Once I actually started getting paid here, it was enough that she didn’t have to do that anymore. Now, she gets to be home with our kids and have fun with them, raise them, teach them stuff that public schools wouldn’t necessarily be able to do. It just means a lot to us. that. And so just going off of that, you know, why, why would you ever want to repay that with, you know, anything other than just thanks and coming in trying to do my best every day. But he does his best everything. And is he perfect? No, my perfect? No. But the idea that he’s been diligent, but I want to make sure you put this. I had this idea what seven years ago to mentor millions was the goal. Seven years ago. I think we’re down right now in our country to 17% of Americans that have care. You say, where do you get that number? Inc. Magazine says 83% of people lie on their resumes. 83%. Now, according to US Chamber, what percentage of people steal from the workplace? 75 is the number. And then what percentage of people this is what’s great what percentage of people in America now how many you don’t need website is Ashley Madison website is what’s that website what does it do right in America right now we just passed for 55 million accounts in America so that means in our one out of six people has an Ashley Madison account. 78% of the men surveyed by Washington Post checked the box and said they’ve had an affair this year. 78%. And I said, we kind of have a bubble here, because I think John does an awesome job managing. Doesn’t John do a great job managing people? So we have vetted it the best we can to make sure there’s no morons here. Now if there is a moron, you’ve got to tell me so I can get him out of here. But we’ve got a really cool team here because you guys are diligent, hardworking people. But I just want you to know, sometimes you don’t hear the stories, but Devin, when you were seeing people all around you screwing us and turning in false invoices and all that, I mean, did you think to yourself, you’re going to get busted? Yeah, I knew eventually it would come out. I mean, anything that you try to hide is eventually going to come to light. So, it’s not worth it. But Devin has been very, very diligent. When he started, he was, I’d say, okay at coding. And I would say now he’s gotten very, very good at it. But I just want to encourage you guys, because you’ve been here how long again now? Just about five years. Five years. And he’s been an honest, diligent guy. He’s a great husband. He’s a great, you know, dad. He’s awesome and I don’t have any reservations about him up coming over my house or whatever feel same way about rounds so like that I feel that way about but I was you know given superpower is diligence and I would encourage you just up listen podcast that has been a great guy for a long time but I can’t express you guys how much diligent people need me cuz they’re so rare what happens is you discover Mr. Matt is what someone works for me, they get fired for being a squirrel. And if I tell you what actually happened, that’s called slander. Is it not? Remember? Because when you applied here, you told me what? What did you say? Which part? You asked me, you said, hey, I’ve heard some things. Oh, yeah. What did you say? I’ve heard some things from a former employer about you that you’ve done in the past. I just kind of wanted to bring him to light and see what you’ve said about him. It’s just interesting though, but if you tell someone the truth about what someone actually does, it’s slander. But if you say what’s not true, so if I were to say, oh that person was a great guy, he got let go of for personal reasons, then I’m like a good guy. But if I were to tell you he got fired for hiring hookers, then I’m a bad person. You see how that works? Our culture, how jacked up that is? So I just want to give a big freaking round of applause for Devin for being the most diligent. So, you know, we’re here all day to high-five Devin, but know that he, when we are coaching clients, if we couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t log into a client’s website and do weird stuff, if we couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t screw people over by taking their passwords, or we could… A lot of web guys do that crap. And if we couldn’t trust Devin, a lot of things would fall apart here. So, throughout the week, just high-five Devin. Let’s hear it one more time for Devin. Yeah! Yeah! Great! Hire for character and train for skill. Trust me, I’ve learned the hard way. If you have somebody on your team right now who’s super talented, but super nefarious, super low character, and somebody who has got serious psychological and life problems. Somebody who’s hiring a hooker from your office computers, somebody who is having an affair with employees in your office, somebody who is stealing your headphones, somebody who is stealing your equipment, somebody who is perpetually showing up late. Get them out of your life as soon as possible, because if you don’t do it eventually they are going to create a high drama situation. They’re going to cause a big problem in your organization and you’re going to say I wish I would have fired him earlier. Again hire for character and train for skill. And now without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom! You may not feel like you’re living to your highest potential because you’re stuck in a rut, with your head down just trying to survive. When people are trying to get out of a rut, the first impulse is to often dream of a new destination, a new job, a new location, and maybe even a new career. Most people think unlocking one’s highest potential requires a new vision or a new destination, and many books actually encourage that type of thinking. However, Carly Fiorina believes that this is where most of us get off track. It’s not a destination, it’s a path. And being the type of person who will take that path, you may know Carly Fiorina as the first female CEO of a Fortune 50 company. But you may not know that she started out as a secretary and rose to success one step at a time by solving the problems in front of her and empowering those around her. Her new book, Find Your Way, will help you choose your own path to unleash your highest potential. Start your journey today. Please visit findyourwaythrivetime.com. That’s findyourwaythrivetime.com. Or purchase a copy of Find Your Way wherever books are sold. All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful CPA who we’ve had the opportunity to work with over these past few years, and I really do want you to hear her success story because she’s been a great client to work with, and she’s a great woman. Amy Baltimore, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you? I’m good, thank you. How are you? Oh, I’m fired up to interview you today. So I want to ask you, having worked with you from 2017 to now, how is your life different now, 2023 versus 2027? Well, in 2017, I was not paying myself anything and I was having to borrow money to make ends meet. I had so many employees and just trying to cover payroll and get the work done and train all these employees because we were so unorganized and inefficient. It was, it’s just looking back on it now, it was a miserable experience. And I just looked at year over year from last year, our, I am down last year, from this time last year, I’m down 12 employees because we have become more efficient. And my net income is up January, February of last year to this year, it’s at $38,000. My take-home pay is at $30,000 and our equity in the company is at over 120,000. Amen, that’s great. So Amy, I guess for anybody out there that’s thinking about hiring you, who’s a good fit for you there, ma’am? So I work with small businesses, partnerships, sole proprietors, S-corps, things like that. We’re kind of becoming more niched into the contractors area, home builders, subcontractors, flippers, roofers, things like that. And we’re working with them about getting their getting their finances under control their daily work schedules under control and making sure that they have the money that’s coming out of the business to support their lifestyle. And who do you think is a good fit? Well, I think I was a good fit. Yeah. For one. But you know, you have to, it’s a lot of work. You have to be able to put in the work and the time and listen to the coaches and listen to what they’re recommending and actually follow through and do it. Amy, it’s been an honor serving you over these past six years. I’m so glad you’re in a great spot and it’s just wonderful to hear that and that’s why we do it. So people out there can prove that you’re not a hologram. What is your website people can go to if they’re looking for you? It’s amybaltimorecpa.com. amybaltimorecpa.com. And how long have you been a CPA? Oh, probably about 30 years, I guess, by now. Really? Yeah. What made you want to become a CPA? I grew up on a farm in Kansas, and so my dad had me helping him with his accounting work, and I just kind of moved on into that through college. And where is Amy Baltimore, CPA.com, located? Where’s your business located? We are in Covington, Tennessee, which is just about an hour north of Memphis. And I know it’s been many years, but how did you first originally hear about us? From another one of your clients, actually. Really? Yeah. And what were you kind of needing the most help with at the time that you first met us there? Oh, my business was just kind of out of control. We were growing faster than I could keep up. I couldn’t get my, I couldn’t get employees. I couldn’t get trained. We were unorganized. It was, it was chaos. And how long ago was that? Do you remember how long ago that was? I’m gonna say it was maybe 2017. Okay, yeah. And so you have grown and a lot of great things are happening and you’re gonna be taking your business into a completely, a new level, a new direction here very soon. You’re offering some new services. Can you kind of talk about some of the growth that you’ve experienced since 2017 to now? Yeah, so when I first came on, I was just your typical CPA. We were doing tons of tax returns and a lot of work, low profit margins, a lot of stress. And then we went through COVID and the IRS shut down and the chaos with that. And my clients kind of started struggling. And I started realizing that there was more that I could be offering to help my clients and to help myself actually. And I was working with Derek at the time. And so we started kind of reorganising the business and I became more of a valuable asset to my clients and to myself actually. And I started hiring better, more qualified people and it’s just all of a sudden it started to come together and I was more organized and more efficient and so you know things are going great right now. And what are all the services that you provide at amybaltimorecpa.com? So we’ve moved away from just the individual tax returns and kind of like the retail side of the practice and we are more into what we call CFOs for small businesses. And so we don’t… The larger companies that can hire a CFO and handle their finances and things, but we work with the smaller businesses that can’t really hire a CFO, that they can share one. And are you working with clients in all 50 states or are there certain states you’re focusing in on? No, we work across the country. So we have less clients now with larger profit margins and so we don’t work in as many states as we do with the tax returns. But we’ve got clients in Utah and Idaho and Florida and Georgia. So if people want to hire you or learn more about what you do, how do they get a hold of you? What does that process look like? Well, so they can get on my website and see my phone number, and there’s also a little link there where they can contact me, and we will give you a call back. business model that we have now is they have more access to me. And so once they sign on, I have three different packages. If they sign on with the middle or the larger package, I get my direct phone number and I will pick up the phone when they call. Got it. And so you’ve grown the business quite a bit. If you go back and kind of go back to 2017 when we first met you, what kind of changes did we help you to implement, or what kind of changes did you make in the business? Well, we got more organized for one thing, and probably the biggest asset that we came upon was the morning huddle. My employees love the morning huddle. We get together, we talk about our burning fires, and we train, we find things that people have questions on and we drop what we’re doing right there and we train on it. So the clients and their employees, I mean, they’re more involved in the business, they are more hands-on now and they’ve started training each other, which is pretty awesome to see. It’s not all falling on me now. Amen. Now what kind of, for people out there who are listening, who are thinking about becoming clients of ours, I know we’ve helped you a lot with the websites. Can you kind of talk to the listeners out there about maybe some of the work we’ve done with you on the website or marketing materials? So, when I first came on in 2017, I had created my own website through one of those canned programs where you just go on and change your name and boom, you have a website. So you guys helped make it a little more professional, more customized to what I was doing. And then over the last year, we’ve actually customized it even more. And then you’ve also helped me with the search engine optimization, which has been huge. Are you getting more leads now? Or how many more leads are you getting now than as far as leads that you used to be getting before we started working with you guys? Oh yeah, I used to not get any leads from my website. Now all my leads come through the website and we’re to the point now where we’re turning people down. They Google me and I’m at the top of the search and so they call me and I have to turn them away. We’re maxed out. You know, and our whole thing, much like yours, is we only work with 160 clients. And so it’s kind of a thing where like, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time who’s not a good fit. But I also want to help people that are a good fit. How would you describe how the business coaching has helped you since 2017 to grow your business? Oh, it tells me how and who exactly I want for clients and who’s a better fit for me? And so we’ve done our immutable laws where we can determine what kind of clients we want and we were able to weed out the ones that just were not a good fit for us. And now we’re, now we have hounded into the type of clients that we want to work with now. Our maximum that we have, but we do, we want small business owners who are serious about, you know, making a successful business and not just the business, but their own lifestyle, but their families and their own personal time. And then we also help with their financials, their investments and retirement planning, succession planning, things like that. 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 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? Mm, well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslim. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. 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 a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind nine round boxing. He’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Tauton has to say? Because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. And now the best-selling author of The Carnivore Diet and the multiple-time Joe Rogan guest, Dr. Sean Baker joins our two day interactive business growth and life optimization workshop. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He’s going to say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t 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 going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow 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? 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 could afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. You start out with a million dollars in the bank account. No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get an inheritance from parents 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 27th and 28th. 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’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrivetimeshow 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. So when? June 27th to 28th. 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. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa. Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine. 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 up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveled all the way from Prince Hill, Rico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend in person June 27th and 28th Thrive 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 improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you wanna 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 with more enthusiasm. Thrivetimeshow.com. I’m a go for it, this moment, we own it. A, I’m not to be played with. B, cause it could get dangerous. C, these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. 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 small business loans? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you 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. Whoa. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Herbert Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, 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 his show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. 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. Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. All right. There’s a guy named 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. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, no. My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed, to the business owner, to the investor. 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 too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not 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, 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 and 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’s 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, 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 got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the roadmap 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. 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, 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 and 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, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the drive time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at the office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews, and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews 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. 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 the business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Hey, Flyover family. Come join us June the 27th and 28th, 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’re going to be there with Clay Clark, an amazing group of individuals that have made such a difference in so many people’s lives. Do you want to increase your production in a job? Do you want to make more sales? Do you want to own your own business? Do you want to have breakthroughs financially? The key to that is knowledge. Clay Clark is anointed to help people in business. We’ve watched him over the last couple of years and we’ve been blown away. He is part owner of over 160 businesses. 2.4 billion dollars 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 was an interesting cast of characters that come from gangs to American Idol. Some of the guests that are going to be there. Michael Levine, Colton Dixon, Peter Taunton, John Lee Dumas, Mondo De La Viga. And Tim 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, calls the path for every person to follow. So you may be sitting there thinking, okay, okay, I get it, I get it, what do I have to do? Go to thrivetimeshow.com. When you get there, the tickets are $250 or whatever you can afford. Yes, you got that right. $250 or whatever you can afford. You can name your price. So there are no excuses. You have to join us there. There are only a few VIP tickets left like David said, special dinner and special time with the speakers. That is $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. Come on, come on. Hey. Hey. Hey. 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 Eric Andrus with Sean Williams up there. We’ve got Steve Kering, Tim Stoll with the concepts up there. Talking about what is possible when you just implement, you implement, you do the improvements. It’s so exciting. People are going crazy. Michael Levine, writer of many, many PR books, the man who represented people like Michael Jackson, Arbor Streisand, George Bush, he’s 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. That’s why you don’t smoke today. Come on in. 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. Come on. Come on. Come on. I tell you what. People are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, 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 grill gun melting an ice sculpture, it is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside. You can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again. And one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hood with Hood CPAs. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up. It just imparts so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of 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 Clark is answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions because they are the most set up people to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at thrive timeshare.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, and 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 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 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 to just hoo-hoo, rah-rah, get you motivated. But it’s like practical steps that if you do take them, which most people aren’t willing to do, then you will grow and you will achieve the specific things that you want. Well, for one thing, I would say that this isn’t necessarily for everyone. So if you’re not willing to work, this isn’t for you. But I will say that if you are willing to work and you know you’re just getting started, but you have actually taken a step in that direction, then this will actually help you grow further exponentially than you could ever imagine. My name is Taylor Hall. I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers professional hockey team. Our goal every night here at the BOK Center is to try to fill the seats with lots of people and create an exciting environment so when somebody comes to a game, they want to come back. Working with Clay and the staff at Thrive, they’ve really helped us in many, many ways. Website and graphic design and video production 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’s a lot of really cool things that we did and they worked. That’s the nice thing about working with Clay and the team over there. It’s just not one person you get the entire team. If you need video design and editing and production, they’ve got that. If you need graphic design, if you need some coaching, your sales people and call scripts, PR, they offer all that. Clay was instrumental in helping guiding us and getting us on the right track so that, you know, we could, 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 Company. It’s awesome. Working with Clay is so helpful. He’s being diligent with everything and making sure we execute our goals and really make things happen. It’s fun, it’s tight, it really gets you energized and going. It just makes you really want to work. To get the momentum going, to really just like get that buzz, to really give you the energy to get up and make it happen. I’m in the charcoal grilling industry and the name of my business is Grillblazer. How will I apply what I’ve learned so far into my business? I’m actually a client that does a dry 15 and I learned so much from what I’m learning at this conference and from my regular weekly attendance that it’s helping me establish this and get it off the ground. Clay’s presentation style is just blatant disregard for what anybody wants. He just has fun, it’s him, everything that you see is authentically Clay. It’s a great deal of fun, everybody enjoys it. They know when you walk in they think they’re coming in to 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 like they do here at the Thrive Club. It’s great. The reason people should attend at least one of these conferences is because it’s common sense. And everybody’s fed on the entire line about the way you should run a business, but until you actually experience running a business, which is, candidly, what you learn here, how to run a business. You don’t know what you’re doing. My name is Tyler Hastings, and this is my wife, Rachel. And our company is Delricht Research out of New Orleans. During our time working with Thrive, we’ve had numerous successes. When we first started, we were working with one physician. We had one research site. And we were seeing, on average, between 10 and 15 patients a week. Since working with Thrive in the last 18 months, we now have four research sites. We work with over five physicians, and on average we’re now seeing over 60 patients per week. Recently we’ve been the top enroller worldwide in seven studies, which is just incredible considering where we were two years ago, 18 months ago. Thrive really differs from the other conferences that we’ve been to and the other kind of programs that we’ve been through because they actually really practice what they preach and they implement the same systems and the processes that they teach you about and they give you real life examples that have really worked for them and show you with the training how to implement that yourself. For example, Tyler and I actually got the opportunity to come out to Tulsa and we’re fortunate enough that the Thrive team took us out to some of the businesses that they own and we really got to see in real life, real time, some of the systems and processes and it was just incredible. A real life example of some of the businesses and the things that they’re implementing. Having a coach is important to us. They act as not only an accountability factor, but they’re someone we can talk to on a daily basis as we go through the problems of running a business that inevitably come up. They always understand what we’re going through and they’re always there to help us or guide us through the problems that we experience. The best part of our experience working with Thrive has just been seeing our relationship grow. So at each step as our business grows, they have something else to provide us with. They’ve got the resources, whether it be marketing, graphic design, website development, or even into accounting practices. Maybe we need a new insurance policy. If they have someone they can connect us with or if 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. It just gets real down to the bone of it and the real purpose of it. There’s no like fluffy vagueness about it, you know? So, he really gets to the point. I’m always reminded about how important it is to be intentional and to really, really pay attention to how you schedule your time and really honor it. Because whatever gets scheduled gets done. That’s what he said from self. Just constantly hearing that and getting reminded helps me to reinforce that in my own life. It always helps to get an outside perspective and especially from a guy that’s around so many multi-billion dollar businesses. It doesn’t hurt. My name is Nick Guajardo. I heard about the Thrive Time Show workshop through Andy Mathren. He’s my, Andy Mathren and Larry Montgomery, they’re my bosses at Restore Home Health. So I work with a home health company called Restore Home Health and my role is pretty much to bring in business. So I was hoping to learn kind of the sales process on top of just kind of the responsibilities and help understand what it looks like on the SEO side and just kind of an all-around what it looks like to own a business because that’s something I want to do in the future for sure. How I would describe the atmosphere here at Thrive is high energy, great professionalism, great people. It’s just it’s a place you definitely want to visit and be at. 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. So, but one thing that’s always really stuck out to me is the SEO, 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 come 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 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 like organization, schedule wise, always keeping a to-do list, keeping your calendar organized. I’m kind of all over the place so that’s always good to know. So Clay’s presentation style and the atmosphere is electric. It’s so energetic, it’s so fun. Clay’s hilarious but also knows a ton so it’s just really great all around. This conference is much different than any other conference I’ve gone to again because it’s fun. A lot of other conferences it’s like really quiet, really cold, and you’re 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 is Clint Howard, we’re a personal training and fitness training facility. Oh, wow. I’m learning a ton. Like, this morning so far has been searches and 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 like immediately. So, it’s really cool to see, not only how to do it, but really the relevance and the proximity of a 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, I’m almost 20 years now. And this is by far the most entertaining. Not only the content, the 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 heard a study one time that the reason that children learn so much quicker is because it’s fun, learning is fun. So obviously Clay is nailed that, where it’s very fun to be here and keeps you awake, keeps you energized. So I’m having a blast. Yeah, I think any business owner or someone that wants to own a business or considering owning and starting a business should definitely come. I know that I was referred here by friends of mine and clients of mine, and I’ve referred other people. Again, just to understand what it takes to make a business successful, to have a good time, obviously, like I was just saying, and have fun. And that word, there’s a lot of people here that you can learn from. There’s a lot of great people to talk to, other people. Starting this is a must-do thing for anybody that owns a business and really wants to start this. My name is Jamie Fagel. I’m with Jameson Fine Cabinetry. I heard about the conference through Andrew. He’s the coach that I deal with here at the Thrive. The most valuable piece I found even working with Andrew, but it’s been solidified when it came here, was you got to actually do the things that they’re telling you. With no action, you’re not going to 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 want to start a business, the old way of doing things is gone. This is what you got to 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. So 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 two more locations in this next year and Co-op Fitness has a really big future. We’re teaming up with a couple other groups and we should scale the company here shortly. Hopefully we’ll open like 50 locations in the next 10 years. So but yeah, we’re on the way. We’re 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 a Mercola Thank you thrive. Hit your action items. We love you guys. We wish we were there Bye-bye I’ll be able to apply a lot of the things that I’ve learned in our business because this is not my first conference and so a lot of the things that we learned we put into place and now we’re doing the next level of refining the processes for just a different concept and so it’s getting better and better things that were just big processes before we have the foundation laid and now we’re able to make it better and better and I’m hearing different things now that we’ve implemented things. And so we can just make it even better, implement it in our own instance. 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 Clay makes it just entertaining enough that you retain what you learn. Lots of rhyming and catchy things so that you remember stuff. What makes it different? Something that makes this conference different than other workshops or conferences that I’ve been to is that there’s a lot of people here in my same situation. Most of us are pretty small businesses wanting to improve. And we want real life information and something that will work and that’s attainable and not just some crazy magic formula but actual action items that we can implement in our business and actually see a difference. Everyone should attend a drive type business conference whether you’re a business owner or not. applications that you can apply to so many different parts of your business. And then you need to come back for more so that you can keep doing more of the wonderful things that you learn. But secondly, I am also a mom of three kids and a lot of the concepts can actually be applied to home, like getting routines and getting, setting systems at home has just seriously made a huge difference in my life at home. So I’ve been able to improve our business, but I’ve also been able to improve things at home. And so that’s why everyone should come, no matter what your station is in life. My name is Nolan Kew. I’m originally from San Francisco, California. The industry that I’m in is financial services. I’ve learned a ton so far, but what I can best apply from this conference is the opportunity, that hunger to go out there and make a big difference in my industry. Play’s presentation style is amazing. He’s got an endless amount of energy. It’s contagious. And yeah, by being here, I really do want to go back and be able to face all the adversity that the industry has. Yeah, this conference, the thing that makes it different is it’s special because it has a unique set of individuals that all share that same energy. I think he picked it as dragon energy. But yeah, that’s what we do. Everyone should come to a multiple, but their first would be very special. Yeah, you’re welcome with a lot of enthusiasm. That’ll last for a long time. My name is Gabriela Cruz. Our business is HDS Electric. My husband’s the owner, but I’m involved with that, and so we’re an electric company. Well, here at the conference, they talk a lot about consistency, and so just staying consistent with different things from 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. I probably know how real they are. They tell you up front what you need to do and what’s like a no-go. And some conferences are, they kind of sugarcoat things. So I like how real they are here. I think it’ll definitely, if you want your business to grow, I think this would be a great, 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, 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. 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, 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. The wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely, it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone that’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches getting in the thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses to me just that is priceless. That’s money. Well we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they up what was great information and then they upsold us like half the conference and I want to like bang my head into a wall And she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her like it’s good information, but we’re like oh my gosh I want to strangle you shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for and that’s not here There’s no upsells or anything so that’s awesome. I hate that it makes me angry so glad that’s not happening So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business. And I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15 conference. The information that you’re gonna get is just very, very beneficial, and the mindset that you’re gonna get, that you’re gonna leave with, is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna 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, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. 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. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, 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 Crockerill, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with 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 6 to 8 weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6 to 8 weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system, critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like the 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. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal, and they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not gonna touch it. I’m gonna turn it down. Because he knew it was gonna harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or 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 Kola we’ll see you guys bye bye. Hi I’m Aaron Antus 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. 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 sales people 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 a hundred and eighty 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’ve found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s Difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and clay really brings that perspective for me It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him from my perspective The reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with Clay. I mean, the thing is it’s month to month, go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would 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 anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not 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. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards, and I own Revolution Health & Wellness Clinic.