7 Steps to Designing Your Life as a Family Unit

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Announcer 1: And now. Oh. Broadcasting from the center of the universe and the Thrive 15.com world headquarters. Let’s go. Presenting the world’s only business school without the BS with optometrist and entrepreneur Dr. Robert Zoellner and the force small business administration entrepreneur of the year in your ear, Clay Clark. It’s the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170, 3-2-1 Boom!

Clay: All right Tulsa and welcome back. It is Monday. It is the day before Election Day. This is not a political show, but we recognize that tomorrow, it very well could be “the end of the world.”

And, so we’re talking today above the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit, “before the end of the world” because tomorrow, I mean if the guy on the right or the lady on the left wins, I mean some of you are pretty convinced that tomorrow definitely is going to be “the end of the world.”

Let’s go ahead and design the seven steps, take the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit. And in all sincerity, I have the co-hostess with the mo-ostess Ms. Sherita Benton in the house. How are your ma’am?

Sherita: Hey, I’m great. Going enjoy this last day before the end of the world.

Clay: “Before the end of the world”. The main thing is before the end of the world, I want to make sure I get everything in line. I want to have a great plan for my life. I want that 23 hours to be incredible, and so I have my incredible wife, Ms. Vanessa Clark here on the show tonight. Ma’am, how are you?

Vanessa: You better believe I am prepared. I have Sam who’s in the house today building a well for me. So, for our family.

Clay: Building a well, to be prepared before the end of the world.

Vanessa: You know where to go for the water.

Clay: Not even kidding though.

Vanessa: Not even kidding. I will have a well.

Clay: We’ve got the well. Oh wow. And we are broadcasting here from the man cave, the place where every man wants to be. We’re broadcasting the Thrive Time Show. It is the business school without the BS, and what we like to do is because we like to help you have a successful life.

We want to teach you how to have a successful life in the five areas, the F5s. You have the faith, the family and the finances, you got the friendships, you got the fitness. We want you to have a successful life.

The show is about business school without the BS, but yes, sometimes we do talk about designing a successful life as a family. So step number one is you want to determine your income goals.

Ms. Sherita, we have a notable quotable for the one Napoleon Hill, the bestselling self-help author of all time, and the personal assistant of one of the world’s most successful people Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Can you give us the notable quotable?

Sherita: I can. He says that drifting without aim or purpose is the first cause of failure.

Clay: Alright. So the thing is, if you are listening right know, I want you to take the action step. I want you to go ahead and determine right now, write it down. What are your annual financial goals? That’s a big thing.

It’s a big question to ask as what are those financial goals. For some of you, you go, “I didn’t even know where to start on that.” All right, what you do is you want to figure out, you want to write down all the things that you would do or want to do if money were not a limiting factor.

It’s good to write them out. I mean for your faith, where you want to go? Maybe, “I want to go to Israel. I want to go to Israel. I’d like to also go visit that one little thing that’s kind of religious to me, and I kind want to visit [unintelligible00:03:25] was born.

But, you have kind of religious goals right, your family goals. You want to write down your family goals. Maybe go on a family vacation. Maybe decorate your kid’s room. You got your finances. Your friendships, maybe you want to fly off to Seattle and visit your friend. Your fitness, maybe you want that gym membership, that personal trainer, whatever that is, but you got to go and think about your annual goals.

So, I’m going to tee it up to Ms. Vanessa, my incredible wife of 15 years. Why is it so important that you as a family sit down and determine your family’s financial or your family’s income goals?

Vanessa: Well, you have to know where your wanting to go as a family or you 100% won’t get there. You might not even be on the same team. One of you might be thinking they want to live out in the woods, on a bunch of acreage and the other might want to live in Suburbia–

Clay: I want to live on the woods–

Vanessa: Or in the middle of the city.

Clay: –in a truck.

Vanessa: So, you’ve got to determine where, okay, if you wanting to live in a city. What do you need to make to live there in your– So you are not living in a rat-infested apartment, but–

Clay: I want to live downtown or one of the finest–

Vanessa: If you are living in New York City, what’s it going to cost for that apartment, for private school or whatever these things that you are wanting as a family, and then you can start there to look to your business about, okay now how we are going to achieve the income to reach these materialistic or not even materialistic, maybe you want to be able to–

Clay: Oh, you said materialistic.

Vanessa: –maybe your goal is to be able to have tons of free time to meditate and do yoga, whatever. But you’ve got to have money sitting around to do that to do nothing.

Clay: Yes. Now, Ms. Sherita I want to ask this, because you know a lot of people, if you are listening right now, you know people. In fact, you are people. In fact, we have other people, we have people who are listening right now who it’s debatable whether you are people, maybe some people who are going, “I’m not really people what I’m is I’m the person. I’m not people.”

But, if you’re listening right now, the chances are you’re probably a human and you’ve probably never taken the time to write down your financial goals, because the majority of the people have not. So, Ms. Sherita, what question do you think a lot of people have if they’re listening right now about the financial goal setting? Where do you feel like a lot of people missed the boat?

Sherita: Yes. I wonder maybe do people think–

Clay: Sorry. Sorry. I am sorry. No. No, I am sorry because the debate is going to end. The big vote is tomorrow.

Vanessa: And I can’t wait.

Clay: It could be “the end of the world” and a lot of people are fairly distracted. So please reset. I am so sorry. Mr. Trump just want to interrupt us with an announcement.

Vanessa: Listen, I am excited. I am excited about this.

Sherita: I am glad for it to be over. Everyone go vote tomorrow.

Clay: Okay. Sorry about. He just got me excited.

Sherita: No. It’s no problem. I think most people maybe are trying to decide should I be like conservative? Do I need to start really small and then stair step? Do I dream really big and go extravagant? Where do you start? Do you start small and grow?

Vanessa: I think your ideals. You start with your ideal. You are not going to get there overnight, but this is the pinnacle what you’re going to and shooting it in, and Clay will tell us the action steps to break it down to the baby steps to get there.

Clay: I think about Vanessa and I when we lived in our first apartment, it was hot.

Vanessa: I remember.

Clay: It was hot. We couldn’t afford air-conditioning.

Vanessa: No AC.

Sherita: I remember. Well you chose not to, right? Because you’re pretty [unintelligible 00:06:26].

Clay: Well, here is that, because we had no cable and no AC, but what we did have, we did have was we had Chicken Panini, because that stuff was available in the frozen.

Vanessa: $0.96 cents.

Clay: $0.96 cents. A budget gourmet. They take budget and the word gourmet and they merge it together in kind of a car crush. They put it in the frozen food section at Wal-Mart.

Sherita: Is it still there?

Clay: It was. I don’t know if it is now?

Vanessa: It’s not $0.96 cents anymore.

Clay: It was definitely sodium inspired. I mean it was all salt over. What we did, is we decided that we, as a couple, we’re going to buy a yellow page ad. Now back in the day, that was hot.

When you got a yellow page ad you were the boss. So, what you do, is the yellow pages were sorted alphabetically. So, if you were in A, if you are a crafty guy, like Andrew one of our produces, you would name your company A+ DJ service.

You got the A and the plus, boom, you’re top. So, I had to move. I bought a decoy ad. A decoy. This was an ad that you would call, but when you would call I was never available. And, I will refer another company. It was hot. My code is called always and forever wetting DJ service.

Vanessa: You got that A place there.

Clay: “Always and forever”. And so you answer the phone, “Thank you for calling Always and Forever DJ services, this is Marvin, how can I help you?” And, they would go, “Yes, Marvin I am looking for a DJ” and you go, “I’m sorry, we are just all booked and we are just boom, this summer is huge, we are just busy, but I will tell you, the best company in town, the only competitor that I respect, the only one, the pinnacle of awesome is DJ Connection.

Sherita: Love it.

Clay: Now you want to call them. I just happen to know the number. I happen to know. It is 481-2010 where the fun begins. It’s DJ Connection and you want to ask for a guy by the name of Clay because he is magnificent, super humble, give him a call. So, then I’m like, bu-bu-bu, the phone rings, “DJ Connection this is Clay.” And, they’re saying, “That sounds like Marvin,” DJ Connection this is Clay. Hey, I did this.” They’d say, “Clay, um-um,” all day, and they’d say, “Clay uh-uh, this guy named Marvin referred me to you and he says you’re the best. He says you’re super humble” I’m like, Wow, well you know.”

Vanessa: They’re like, “I know him. I know Marvin. He’s a good-good.”

Clay: He is a good-good guy too, Marvin.

Vanessa: People would try to book that Always and Forever all the time too.

Clay: But tomorrow is the Election Day it won’t matter because it is, “the end of the world”. The thing was, I did that move. I referred myself.

Sherita: I love it.

Clay: It was beautiful. But, my wife and I to afford this ad, to afford my-– I don’t think she knew about the Always and Forever ad for a while. But, to afford the ad, she’s working at the Office Depot.

Vanessa: Yes, I would bring, I don’t know if you remember, but attending our meal plan, I would bring us food. I would bring Bagels to Clay. That was the move.

Clay: That got me on that high carb diet. I was just eating, it was all Bagels, cream cheese, you’re bringing like–

Vanessa: It had to be something that lasted.

Clay: She’s like, “So, for tonight I brought home Blueberry bagels or Blueberry bagels.” You just eat that every night. The diet consisted– By the way if you were thinking about trying to just survive, you can eat Ramen noodles, bagels. Ramen noodles were four for a dollar back then. I’m sure they’re a dollar now, but the thing was that was a good– I want some Ramen noodles.

Sherita: Sometimes I miss them too. Here’s the thing though, real talk that I respect about you both, just because I have known you for so long and been a part of your life as you built your businesses, is that you are not just telling people to do things that you have not done. That you have legitimately done these things, that you’ve made the sacrifices.

Vanessa: You know I have one memory I want to share.

Clay: Oh share that memory.

Vanessa: I remember we had these candles that we had gotten for our wedding, and they were the tall skinny candles.

Clay: Very, very tall, very skinny. We lived in the second floor of the Fountain Crest apartments–

Vanessa: And he rises, and the summer’s here, how hot and humid it was and just the heat had risen, and we had like a bazillion computers up there.

Clay: The smell of cat pee rises too, cats and the smell rises, it does. The heat and the cat thing.

Vanessa: After we lost the cat to poison, we were– Clay was like,” We will not lose another,” so we weren’t allowed to let them out, and I got that so to get rid of them.

Clay: Marvin was my cat’s name, and the company, Marvin–

Sherita: I remember him, Marvin.

Clay: –he’d eat with his paw.

Sherita: He was so smart.

Vanessa: What poisoned him? It was so sad. Anyways, but I remember coming up and the candles being completely dumped over like upside down U, they had completely melted, it was so hot that the candles were melted.

Clay: The thing was when it was hot, it led to nudity and five kids and so there was a thing also it did, it just was very hot–

Vanessa: It worked in your favor.

Sherita: Beneficial.

Clay: Yes, but no seriously, we decided, we made a decision, we came together, it wasn’t a drifting moment, and we decided “Now that we found love what are we going to do with it? And, we turned off the cable, and then we said, “Okay, now that we found love, and we don’t have cable, what are we going to do with it?” and we turned off the AC and then–

Vanessa: We never turned those things on, but yes.

Clay: Eventually we didn’t turn them on seriously, but over time the business started to build, some money came in, and I said, “No, we cannot turn on the AC, that would be too easy, what we must do, is we must buy one more speaker.”

I’m sure Vanessa was like, “I want more speakers.” We kept doing this until one point we had 40 some-odd DJ systems. But if you delay that gratification, you keep buying those lights, buying that equipment, buying that stuff, and pretty soon you start moving closer to your goals as a family unit.

Vanessa: Pays off in air-conditioning.

Clay: Now step number two, we’ll be coming back here, we’re going to be talking about determining your goals as a family, step number two.

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Announcer 1: Live, local, now, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: What is going on Thrive Nation? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. You see its business school without the BS and yes my name is Clay Clark, the former SBA entrepreneur of the year in your ear, and I’m joined here as always, with just a– It’s like a pageantry, it’s almost like a festive atmosphere, it’s a cornucopia of awesomeness here. We have the co-hostess with the mostest, its Ms. Sherita Bent, how are you?

Sherita: I’m great.

Clay: And we have my incredible wife of 15 years, Ms. Vanessa Clark, how are you ma’am?

Vanessa: Doing wonderful.

Clay: And we are talking today about the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit. Now here’s the deal, is that you are out there, you’re inspired, you’re driving home and you’re like, “The Election Day is tomorrow, and I want to have a really inspiring evening.

I’m excited, I want to take my business to the next level. I am pumped up, and even though tomorrow may just be the end of the world, I am at least going to design the next 24 hours to be incredible, because even after that election, if it all goes wrong and the wrong candidate gets in there, and pretty soon it’s just everything goes to crap, as the communists take over in a series of nuclear periodic vents.”

That might happen tomorrow, it may not, but the thing is, in the meantime let’s go and design that life that we want to have as a family unit. My wife and I been married 15 years ago.

I honestly tell you that about every 90 days, I irritate her so much that it creates that deal where you know what, you go from– The thing about it is when you really irritate that wife, you start to bring up that– You create that tension and the only way is to just deal with that tension, is a different show, we’re not going to talk about it.

We’re talking about step number two today, is determine your goals as a family, so Ms. Sherita can you read our notable quotable here for determining your goals as a family.

Sherita: Yes, I can. I was going to tell you we’re on a 60-day rotation at my house. I like that you get 90 days.

Vanessa: I don’t know.

Sherita: More like a 60-day rotation.

Clay: But it’s always the guy’s fault. We’re always like– And this is what happens, you push her to that limit and you, this is what you say guys, you go, “I don’t even know what I did, what did I do?”

And then they think because you don’t even know, now they go, “The fact that you don’t even know what you did, that is the biggest problem, that is the problem.” Say we’re moving on there, I’m sure that’s just our family’s, not you, moving on.

Sherita: Not you guys, just us. This notable quotable of all is from Jack Canfield, and he’s the best-selling author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series.

Clay: But it is the best-selling book series of all time.

Sherita: Really?

Clay: Ever.

Sherita: Wow.

Clay: Just throwing that out there.

Sherita: Go Jack Canfield. He says, “Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them.”

Clay: Time out, let’s break it down line by line here. So, who here is listening right now and maybe your family, someone in your family is sick. Someone in your family is going through a divorce, someone in your family is upset, maybe your job’s not going so well, maybe your business is struggling to get off the ground, maybe you can’t find the remote.

You’re like, “Freak, I bought this remote to turn on this music station, I’m stuck on 1170 am. I wanted to be able to use a remote even though it’s so close to my hand.” Have you seen those remotes?

By the way you can buy a remote for your car radio. What’s going on, have we got that lazy? “Those extra two inches are too much, I want a remote,” so you’re stuck at 1170, like, “Who am I listening to here? Why am I stuck on this station?” but the thing is you can’t find the remote. Maybe somebody who you woke up today, who’s had the day when you wake up and you had a no good very bad day. You get pulled over?

Sherita: Terrible, no good.

Vanessa: Four tickets, I’ve never got a ticket before, and I got four tickets in one pullover, and I had gone from no tickets. I remember that day, I’m over that.

Clay: I remember nothing, but we all had– My wife and I teamed up to pay those tickets, so it’s not so funny there thrivers. Anyway, so the thing is, no matter what’s going on, no matter what’s going on first up, no matter what’s going on around you, successful people maintain a positive attitude.

I’ll tell you this, you do not have a good attitude, unless you have a good attitude when things are going bad. Back to you Ms. Sherita.

Sheereda: He goes on to say, “They stay focused on their past successes, rather than their past failures, and they look to the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals, rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.”

Clay: Okay, I’m going to ask Sherita because she observes me on a daily basis, and she’s supports us, treated her. She’s got that, I know you can’t watch right now, but if you’re listening, she gives this shark eye, and sharks they have eyes on either side of her head.

What they’re able to do, is they’re able to look and just kind of– And then she’ll look and she’ll notice things that I do, that are idiosyncrasies, I have so many idiosyncrasies, it’s bizarre.

Vanessa: And she will call me and she will crack up and say, “I just I have to tell you this, I have to tell you,” she we’ll be crying, laughing.

Clay: One, is the focus move. Can you describe to the thrivers, the paranormal activity that is the Clay Clark experience?

Sherita: I love the focus because, Vanessa, you say this about him, and Clay too, he has this myopic ability to just focus on something, and he will not be distracted, so you have your to-do list, if he is on a phone call, if he is talking with someone, he is so great at seeing nothing else, absolutely nothing else. If something else tries to come in, if someone else tries to come in, and I need to tell the story about when I saw you, I have to.

Clay: Do it.

Sherita: He’s talking on the phone with someone, it said it’s a conference call of some sort, he’s closing a deal, and someone comes up, and you can tell that this person wants to get his attention, but he cannot get his attention away right now, because he’s on a call.

He takes off before the person can even– It’s like flash, he was moving so fast, and it was so funny because he’s on this sales call, totally rocking it, closing the deal, but sprinting, like the president when he’s taken down in the bunker–

Vanessa: Didn’t you tell me he went and hid in the closet and shut the door?

Sherita: It was so funny, and finished the call, landed the deals of course, but it was hilarious, and no one saw it but me.

Clay: Today, I have the funniest deal. I talked to a lady, East Coast lady, she’s living out there that New York city area, talking having a great call, and I basically, the office could not, we just kept, “Hey, do you have a second, do you have a second?”

And I get it, so I hopped in the car, and then I drove around in a circle, and I did it for like an hour. I kept the car idle, never touch the gas, and I do some idling, and I think Danielle got behind me and honked at me, but I’m just going around and around.

And I guess there was some big vehicle that drove by, I don’t know, but the lady goes, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on at the back here?” And I didn’t even know what was going on, I looked up and I realized, oh, crap, there was a lot going on, but the thing is some of you listening right now, it’s so easy for you to focus. And focus means focus on your core tasks until success. But some of you, it’s harder.

But either way, you have to focus in on these three areas. Vanessa, go on and unpack. First of all, there’s raising kids. We as a family, as a couple, we’ve decided to raise kids that are self-sufficient. Can you describe for the Thrivers what that means?

Vanessa: When you are looking at your goals as a family, it’s your husband or your spouse, some of you might be men, so your spouse and yourself–

Clay: Yes, we’re all men.

Vanessa: The foundation, you are the foundation of the family. If you guys break apart, the whole thing crumbles. So, you are the foundation and then you’re looking on to the next generation that you’re raising up your children.

So, what are your goals for them? I’m guessing you want them to be self-sufficient. For us, we want them to be raised to know Jesus is the Lord.

Clay: Pause. Thrivers, ask yourselves. What are your goals as a family? Let’s go ahead. Let’s do it. This isn’t about the Clay Clark and Vanessa Clark Show. We’re just trying to get your mind activated. Kind of get you going, because tomorrow’s the end of the world.

You want to have a great last day, but we want to help you before for the election to think about– What are your goals for your family? What are your goals? Now, what was the next goal that you mentioned?

Vanessa: We really desire to raise children who can share their gifts with the world, and in order to share your gift, you have to find your gift. Kids don’t just know what it is. So we expose them to a lot of different things.

And you know what, some things they are not very good at and you find it out pretty quickly. And, I think you know what, I don’t want them spending so much time on this, because I see a gifting over this area. Let’s spend more time and invest more money in this area where I’m seeing a gift.

Clay: I think my wife maybe has different kids because my kids are good in all areas. I will say that, I’m forming the objective, I’ve seen them do anything, and they put their mind to, boom, they’re off.

But seriously, when we come back, we’re going to be deep diving into step number three. Which is determine where you will live in the country, in the city, in the Male Hotel. Maybe you want to live in a van down by the river. Maybe you built yourself a bunker, you’ve got dehydrated food, you’ve got the water because tomorrow’s the election, the end of the world.

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Announcer 1: You are listening to the Thrive Time Show. On Talk Radio 11-70.

Clay: What is going on T town? It’s about to go down. It’s the throw down known as the vote. Now, you see, you got 24 hours. Some of you– Andrew, one of our producers– You’re undecided and what you’re doing is you’re going “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve listened to a lot of things that make sense,” so I’m going to give you some clips. Ready, Andrew, I’ve got some clips queued up for you. I’m sorry I played them earlier, I’ve got them, I want you to use just two clips. You can decide who you’re going to vote for. Here we go, here’s clip one.

Donald Trump: I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.

Clay: That’s argument number one. Trump is just saying he will be the number one jobs-creating president God created. Now let’s give you one more here.

Hillary Clinton: And like many across our country and around the world, I believe the person the Republicans have nominated for president cannot do the job.

Clay: So you have to decide tomorrow who are you going to vote for. And you can’t just get in there and not vote. Because the line has to move, Andrew. You got to get in there, you got to vote.

So tomorrow is voting day, it’s election day. We encourage you to get out there. Many people fought for that freedom to vote, and we just encourage you to get out there.

Pull an all-nighter, decide who you’re going to vote for, and go out there and make an informed decision, and if you can’t make an informed decision then just go out there and visit our very, very good friends at Oklahoma Joe’s and eat barbecue until you’re sick.

Vanessa: That’s right.

Clay: Start at 10 AM, because I think it opens at 10 AM, then they close 8:30, and they’re going to go, “Don’t you need to vote man.” And, you’re like, “No, bro, I’m just going to eat until my brain explodes, because tomorrow can be the end of the world.”

So, anyway, that’s what we have on tap here. But, today specifically we’re talking about the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit. My name’s Clay Clark, I’m joined with a lady by the name of Shark a.k.a. Ms. Sherita Bent and my beautiful wife, Ms. Vanessa Clark.

We’re talking about step number two, determine your goals as a family. Now, Vanessa, off air you had said you had something new to add there. Step two, determine your goals as a family. What do you got?

Vanessa: I think you need to discuss practically what that looks like in your life. Does that mean, like we said the husband and wife are the foundation and then the kids are, the ones you’re growing up, pushing out into the world.

So, how do you achieve your goals? Are nights and weekends, is that something you have off? Or do you work every other weekend? Do you travel? And then what family activities are you involved in?

But you are going to have to take some time, if it’s nights or weekends, it’s okay to accomplish this strong foundation with my spouse, I’m doing a date night every Friday or every Saturday night. And I’m going to– You know, I’m a huge Doctor Laura fan, she says–

Clay: You’re a huge Doctor Laura fan.

Vanessa: I love her. Love Doctor Laura.

Clay: You tried to rush past that, I want to make sure.

Vanessa: Huge.

Clay: I know that alienates half the audience, they’re like “That’s me and I’m tired.”

Vanessa: I know. I’m sorry, I’m not sorry I love her. I love her.

Clay: Keep going.

Vanessa: But, she says– And I don’t even achieve this, this is a goal sky and high, I wish I could do this. But, she says there needs to be 30 minutes of one-on-one time that you spend per kid. I have five kids.

That would take me two and a half hours a day of just one-on-one time. But she’s like “You have got to–,” to reach these goals, what are the practical steps you are going to take to feed into your spouse, to feed into your kids and accomplish the goals?

Clay: What I do is I’ll get up early about 3 AM, I’m working on my to-do list and I just stand over them for 30 minutes. And they wake up “Oh my God, what’s going on?” “Go to sleep.” I’m standing over 30 minutes.

Vanessa: This is not quality time.

Clay: That’s my quality time. No, I’m just kidding.

Sherita: Now, I have something with the notable, quotable. Because I think it’s easy for people to listen and forget– Jack Canfield is saying “Focus on the positive and focus on your successes.” Because I think sometimes, it’s easy to think about the areas where you messed up or where you failed and Clay, I know is big on this, I know you can attest to that. What are the action steps that we need to take?

Clay: Yes. I just know that right now everyone listening, you have sort of a stupid story– We’re done with tonight. Whatever that story was you had, I want you to go ahead and just take your history, kind of get it all wadded up, just get it all, and then just throw it away.

Get it out of here.

Because you’re going “My dad wasn’t there for me as a kid and so I’m stuck there for my kids, I just that’s why–” or you’re going “My mom was a screamer. My mom, she’d walk into a room and she’d called to go, what the crap?”

And, you’d say “That was the way I learned.” Someone else goes “My father actually used to beat me until I–“, and you’re like “Your father would beat you?” “Yes.”

These are all things that we are dealing with, some things are funny, some of you had a dad that used to just do bizarre, weird things like when he’d sleep– Like, your dad, he puts his hand up in the air.

Vanessa: Yes. I’ve got some stories with my dad that–

Clay: Her dad, Vanessa’s dad when he sleeps he puts his hand up in the air.

Vanessa: Vertical in the air and he would tickle his own arm. This is true.

Clay: He’s watch me like, “Are you okay here?” By the way Thrivers, I’ve written a book called “17 steps to making you not put your arm in the air while sleeping and tickling yourself.”

It’s a very best seller. People in Latvia love it. Okay, anyway. Step number three is, determine where you will live. This is big. Because this is a song that is indicative of where I want to live. And, I’m sorry, for those who don’t like country music, it’s okay, but work with me, okay here we go.

[Music plays]

Clay: This is my song.

Singer: In the town where I was raised. The clock ticks and the cattle graze.

Clark: I was raised in Cokato, Minnesota.

Singer: Time passed with amazing grace, back where I call home.

Clark: 2038 people, and I’ve discovered–

Singer: You can lie on a river bank–

Clark: You could lie on a river bank. I decided that I basically just want to live away from humanity.

Vanessa: We couldn’t do Cokato, though. That’s too much.

Clark: I really do love living away from humanity. I love my invite selected people.

Sherita: Right.

Clark: Like, I love when Sherita enters into the man. In all sincerity, I really like being around Sherita, I love Doctor Zoellner, there’s people that– You live in that tight neighborhood– We lived in a gated neighborhood.

Vanessa: You hated it.

Clark: And the neighbors come over and you’re like “Hey, I just wanted you to know, you have a fire pit, which is a violation of–.” Like, “Hey, above the city ordinates, there’s a thing called man-law. And you have violated the man-law henceforth I won’t even look at you.”

The thing is, I realize I can’t be in a neighborhood because I don’t care about the covenants, I don’t care about the rules. I don’t care about the rule like, “If you’re not going to do trick-or-treating this year you need to put off your lights.”

I’ll put on my lights when I want to put on my lights on. The thing is, I don’t do the whole neighborhood flow.

Vanessa: And that always made it hard also because then you would go to work and I’m the one who know wanting to deal with the confrontation.

Clark: Yes. When we come back, we’re going to be talking about how to irritate your HOA, which by the way I did become the head of for a while, oh yes. You don’t like the organization get in charge of it. We’re also going to talk about step number four: Determine times that you spend together alone.

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Announcer 1: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show, on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Hello, thrive nation welcome back to your inspiration station, where we’re talking about things that matter to you. Specifically we’re talking about the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit.

In all sincerity what happens is, you get married because you is a dude, if you’re a dude listen to me. My name is Clay Clark and I am a business coach. I’m a former SBA entrepreneur of the year.

I’m a man bear pig in a dude I’m joined with two non-dudes to keep the conversation balanced. You see it takes two non-dudes to equal one pig-headed dude. But, seriously I’m joined with Ms. Sherita Bent, how are you?

Sherita: I’m great.

Clay: And my incredible wife, Ms. Vanessa Clark my accountability partner,

Vanessa: Doing so good.

Clay: But, seriously what happens you’re dating a girl, this is what we do guys, this is what we do. If you didn’t do this then you go, you’re bonkers, you’re at college, you’re running around the campus, and you’re like, “So, what’s your major?”

That’s the only question we have, “So, what’s your major?” Which is code for, “Whoa” but the thing is we’re saying, “So, what’s your major?” and their name is Ashley or Amanda or Karen or Vanessa or whatever, and you’re, “So, what’s your major?” Which is again is code for, “How you doing?”

And, then she says, “My major is–” and you don’t even hear it, you’re just like, “Wow” no matter what she says, “Wow” and then you say something clever like, “So, you guys want to go to Brahms?”

That’s almost two syllables Brahms, “I’ll pay with my parent’s credit card that I’ve almost maxed out.” Dear God, I hope I get a job sooner. You go there and you’re going to college, you take the girl on the date, you’re going out there to a place, you’re going out to eat, and you’re doing the deal, you’re sweating it because you’re going to someplace fancy, something exclusive, something luxurious like all of garden.

You go there and the guy goes, “What would you guys like to start with?” and you’re going “I hope she doesn’t order an actual beverage, because I don’t have the money for it,” and she goes “I’ll take a water” and you’re like “Yes.”

And you say, “I’ll take a water too.” And, then you look at her, she looks at you and she goes, she’s going, “I don’t want him to think that I eat a lot because women don’t usually eat a lot. I’ll offer to share.”

The guy you’re going, “I am so glad she’s sharing right now, I hope she shares because if she actually orders a meal I’m going to bounce my parents debit card oh-ho, bounce that thing like tigger.”

So, this is just begins. “So, guys can go and take your order,” and you’re like, “I’ll start with her,” and she says, “I’ll go ahead and have a soup or something. We can split it.” “Well ma’am, we don’t actually split the soup and salad, but I could bring out some extra bread sticks,” and you’re going “Okay, I guess we’ll split it.” You are going yes, “I can afford this meal.”

You go out for the meal, you tip the waiter something nice like $2, and then you end up getting your car that barely works, and you try not to keep her, you’re trying to distract her she doesn’t realize her handle doesn’t actually open, and you open the door for her because her handle, she’s technically locked in the car. It’s disturbing.

So, you come back and what happens is now what you do is every day your goal is to chase her around, and what you’re hoping to do, is you’re hoping to say the right things and be interested, you hang on every word, she says a statement and you’re like “Oh, really why?”

Didn’t matter what she says, you’re just like, “So, what did you do tonight?” She’s like, “I went to the cafeteria to eat.”You’re like, “Oh, wow why?” She’s like, “Well I was hungry and I just went with my friends.”

And you’re, “So, which friends did you go with?” And you’re having an outer man experience. You have lost your man card. A friend of yours goes, “Bro, you want to go out tonight?” You say, “No, I’ve given up my man card.” He goes, “You gave up your man card?” “Absolutely bro, I can’t live with you forever.”

Then you chase her around, you propose, you’re married. Now, you’re done baiting the hook, some of you, not you listening at home, no, but some of you start drifting now. Things that used to be you’re always getting closer, but now you’re drifting farther away.

Now you’re in a dingy, and just to get her attention you have to say, “Hello are you there?” and she’s like “What?” and then you sit on your couch and you each update different Facebook profiles while drifting through some random Netflix show, and you’re getting farther apart, and that is where we start.

Here we go, we have a mystic statistic in February, this is from Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, I know some of you are like “It’s Debra, it’s Debra. Hillary Clinton it’s the end of the world.” Some of you are like, “It’s they don’t even like Trump that Huffington Post they’re–” end of world. But, the thing is they said in February 2012, they did a study on this.

They do studies every year, they said that marriage is 40 to 50% of marriages are ending in divorce, and we tend to assume that the 50% who stay together do so happily. There’s a substantial evidence however to show the opposite.

It’s like many of the remaining couples aren’t even happy.

So, Vanessa, I know this is a hot-button for you, before we move into this step number three, determine where you live. Why is it so important for people to try to have a happy marriage, instead of just a marriage where they stay together like it’s Al Green’s birthday?

Vanessa: I think there is two important reasons here. Number one because you can it’s possible–

Clay: You can?

Vanessa: Why not, yes, you can and number two it’s in your control. It is completely in your control. I know there’s two people in the relationship, but I don’t know any why anyone would want to stay in a marriage when they’re not happy, like why wouldn’t they–

Sherita: You know what I think happens?

Clay: Chicken that.

Sherita: I think it becomes like this standoff, it becomes like a game that people kind of play–

Vanessa: What are they standing off, I don’t understand?

Sherita: It’s like some cold war old-school standoff, don’t you know people like that?

Vanessa: But they’re hurting themselves, why wouldn’t they just feel like if they’re really not happy, “I’m going to go.”

Sherita: -and “I’ll try to improve,” I agree with–

Clay: Judgment, judgement, the reason is why is judgement.

Vanessa: I don’t really understand the whole standoff idea, what you’re saying, I’m like, if there’s a standoff then one of you needs to say let’s–

Clay: You let the shark have the floor. The shark has a thought, and the shark has spoken.

Sherita: I agree with you, but I think what happens is people get locked in, like Clay said you start drifting, and then you’re so far away and then maybe it’s harder to say, “Okay, where do we even, where did we go wrong, how do we fix it?” and then you kind of like your pride gets in the way you’re in a standoff, you know what I mean?

Vanessa: But I wanted people to realize that it is possible and they do have the control to fix it. So, those two things that you can really internalize and realize, it is in your power, you can change your whole life, change your children’s lives and your whole family, I mean you have the power.

Clay: What happens is thrivers, step number you have to determine your income goals, you want to agree on that together, start moving closer. You determine your goals as a family, now you’re moving closer.

Step number three, determine where you’re going to live. You have to do that, you got to figure it out. You can’t have this constant frustration that you live in a neighborhood like me.

But, anyway what I did, because I was in a neighborhood for a while, and what happened was is I was in the neighborhood and I realized this HOA has gone bad. And, I’ll tell you why it’s gone bad, because I have a fleet of like six disc jockey vans. My first company is called DJ Connection.

I added on a $20,000 driveway edition. I built a 12-foot high fence. I installed seven trees, side by side so you couldn’t see them. You open up the gate you knock, poof, poof, poof. You knock and you say, “Who is it?” and they go, “It’s a DJ” we open up, we opened up the vans, pull in.

I’m unloading seven DJs working out of my house there in Silverwood. People start to complain, they’re like, “I have a voice, I just wanted to leave a report. We have a man who’s– A bunch of young men actually who appear to be loading an equipment. There might be a theft here at the entrance of Silverwood. It’s in 1100 Memorial. We need to go and report this.”

I’m not kidding. Cops would show up, neighbors would show up, and I started getting reported to the HOA the Homeowners Association, so here’s what I decided should happen.

[music]

Clay: You suckers, you guys want to do this?

Vanessa: I remember him concocting this plan.

Clay: I said I will get as many votes as I need to get. I’ll go door to door and house to house. I’ll this mother out. No one knows the neighbors anyway, I’m going to promote Clay Clark. I’m going say this Clay Clark guy you vote for him, if you vote for him he’ll be the best– secretary of the HOA ever. And then one by one I put them on.

Vanessa: You wouldn’t get the complaints call to you, so you wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Clay: Soon through various things, the vice-president quit. I move up. Did he quit or was he framed? I don’t know. Now there was the president left. He looks at me, I look at him and I realize and he realizes this guy is not playing around.

This is pasty male, he wants the presidency. He is a 22-year old man. People used to say, “Do your parents live here?” “Who built this house?” “You live with your mom and dad?” I built it myself son using my DJ money. I’m in charge of this house.”

Vanessa: They thought we were drug dealers. I remember it hurt my soul. I was like, “This is too stressful.”

Clay: Imagine Eminem being your neighbor. So, I did what I had to do. I’ll just leave it at that. And the president, he resigns and now guess who is in line? Yes. And, so now I put in my iron rule and people would call, they would go, “I have a concern about somebody who is parking their car.”

I’d call back, ”Ma’am that’s a concern that we do not recognize as the HOA, and the man who has the DJ band is a good American supporting jobs. You see the covenants because no one else will look at them again.”

Hang up. Next call. “We have a man who is parking his cars they are all hand painted. He’s got like 20 employees. He is running a business out of his house.” I go, “Oh really?” “What’s the concern, because I don’t care because I am the head of the HOA and I’m here to stay baby.”

And then one by one I began to achieve total self actualization. I’m in charge of my neighborhood. I could do whatever I want. Sometimes I’m just parking up my car on top of the entire sidewalk so that nobody can walk by it.

When I look at the people who complain I know that they must submit to my rule as the head of the HOA. And you know what it did? It irritated and freaked out my wife.

So, when we come back, we are going to talk about the conversations I didn’t have. It cost me to almost live on the couch. When I’m gone my wife complains. She is chilling with the neighbors.

I am creating nuclear chaos. When the bombs are going off I’m like, “I’m going to go on vacation.” So, we are going to talk about it when we come back here.

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Announcer 2: Broadcasting from the center of the universe, featuring optometrist turned entrepreneur Dr. Roberts Zoellner and US SBA entrepreneur of the year Clay Clark, this is the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right thrivers, it’s a Monday, you are driving home you are starting that work week. You know that tomorrow is the day of the big election. Many of you are excited. That political fatigue has reached an all-time high.

Many of you want one more scandal. You just want one more, you’re like, “I just want to know did he send an email that was salacious?” So you are going, “If I could just get one more allegation against her, that’s what I need to give me the satisfaction.”

But the majority of us for what political fatigue is kind of set in, and we are wanting to talk about something proactive, something positive. This is the Thrive Time Show. It’s business school without the BS. Normally Dr. Zoellner is here with us but he’s out expanding his vast empire tonight, and so I’m joined here– We always try to bring in some of the elite minds. Some of the geniuses of our time.

We like to bring in here the different people that can bring in different life experiences and can relate and can really shake us. One of the things you want to do is when you have a radio show, you always want to make sure that you listen to someone who’s being authentic. That’s being real.

That’s being maybe not necessarily politically correct, but someone where you go, “I don’t like him maybe sometimes, but at least I know him. I know what they are all about.”

So, we brought in, we’ll call them validators. People who have known me since back in the day, and so we brought into the hostess with the mostest Ms. Sherita Bent, how are you?

Sherita: Great, I’m great.

Clay: And we brought in my incredible wife of 15 years, the mother of five kids, the great American Ms. Vanessa Clark, how are you?

Vanessa: Hey, hey doing good.

Clay: And we’re talking about the seven steps to designing your life as a family union. We are talking about where do you want to live? I gave you my story about the HOA, which by the way didn’t end very well, and it caused me to move, and then move again, and move again.

And, now we live off the grid, and I broadcast from the man cave, and I’m planting trees everywhere so I cannot see a human face. That’s my goal for the year.

Now step number four. Determine the times that you will spend together alone. Now first off before we you into it I’ve got this music I got queued up here. Here we go. Oh yes. And we get going. Oh, you see alone time. Some of you are going, “Oh yes.”

Some of your husbands are going, “I know what this means. This is business. This is the business show. This is business time on the business show and I know what they are talking about here. I love this guy because he’s got five kids, he’s got to have some tips for me. Work the middle.”

Okay. Moving on. Work the middle. That’s a Leo verse. Rock the boat. That’s a great sound. Work the middle. Anyway, shes’s talking about the middle of the country. It’s an election thing. She is saying you got to work the middle. You got to promote to the base.

Vanessa: I was wondering where we are going with that.

Clay: Now, step number four is, determine the times that you spend together alone. Ms. Vanessa what does that mean to you?

Vanessa: Well, I think a consistent thing like establishing a date night is great because you can look forward to every week. You know you are going to have that day to connect. And, then also big things that are fun like an adult-only vacation getaway. If you guys are going to take maybe just it’s a weekend.

Clay: Like to Office Depot.

Vanessa: Or if you are going to do a bit bigger thing, but just to reconnect in that honey-moon spirit. But, I also think it is really important just to have time where you connect about issues.

Where you can be authentic and say, “You know what, this is a concern,” or whatever and you know there’s not going to be distraction of kids or work. It’s so important. You are the entire foundation of your family, not you and the kids. You and your spouse. That’s it.

Clay: I have a peeve I want to get into. Ms. Sherita, I want to hear Sherita’s take on this. Can I have myopic focus? You talk about my superpower. Focus. The thing that is my weaknesses is my superpower.

Many of you listening right now your superpower is your weakness, like you are so good at business, but then there may be family things harder. Maybe a great family but you are like, “I have never made a sales call in my life because I’m always chasing my wife around.”

I got a friend of mine. He is a very good husband, very, very good husband. Nice guy. If you have met the guy you would go, “He’s great.” I don’t know he’s ever brought home a check that approaches anything that you could afford to feed your family with, but he is just like, “I’m home all the time. I worked 10 hours a week probably.” Because you don’t have a job.

So, the thing is, everyone’s got their own weaknesses and stuff. But, Ms. Sherita, where do you feel like quality time in this day, the digital age. You got the smart phones. You got all the distractions. You got soccer games. You got tournaments. You got things, pony, ballet. There is teacher conferences. There’s just all this stuff. Where do you feel like that quality time is going for most of our listeners?

Sherita: Well, I think it’s going to vary from family to family depending on your dynamic. But, what I found, ideally I would love to say, “Hey, every Friday is going to be date night,” or “Every Monday.”

I think that works for some people, but depending on what season of life you are in, like with us we got a kid. We have soccer. It doesn’t always work. So, I don’t know like is the answer to be flexible? Are you planning it every week, because I think people are well-intentioned, but how do you deliver?

Clay: I have some rules that I have and if you are listening right now, you don’t agree with my rules it’s okay. The idea is to stimulate your thought. You are trying to get you to plan, design the life you have.

You see by default you drift. But here are some things. I love family time. I love having my mom over. I love having my brother-in-law over. I love having the sister-in-law. I love the extended family coming over on that Sunday. And I love these people. They are good people.

And I can tell you this, they probably think, “Oh I kind of put up with them,” but the thing is I’m sure they want to see me. At least we get together on a Sunday night for two or three hours, and I’m sure they go, this is what happens. Some weeks they are like, “If I have to see that man again–” they’re referring to me, “If I have see that man I swear I’m going to–.” Or sometimes they go, “Oh, it’s exciting to see him for 30 minutes.” But, the thing is, some of us we have no boundaries with the family. That’s area number one, rule number one. You got to set boundaries with the family, like when can the extended family come over?” Two, and these are things that are going to frustrate some people. I grew up playing sports, and you’re going to listen right now and you’re going to go, “I disagree with you.” I grew up playing sports, this is just my perspective, you don’t have to agree with me. I don’t want my kids to play them at all because I hate them.

Vanessa: He’s telling the truth.

Clay: I love Tom Brady. I love the Patriots. My son played hockey, and I had to go to all these events and there was great parents. I don’t want to stay in the Holiday Inn, in Bentonville, Arkansas and get together at 6 AM on a Sunday and then sit in the meat locker known as a hockey rink while looking I’m just scrounging around for change, they don’t take credit cards–

Vanessa: It almost killed him.

Clark: –to buy Ramen noodles. I seriously was like, “I hate this thing,” and then they’re like, “Let’s all get together for a carb night. You want to do carb overload?” I’m going, “You guys read the science on this?”

But, the thing is people are eating spaghetti the night before a game. Then they’re like, “Let’s get to a banquette and let’s determine each players attributes,” so every kid has over their trophies.

They’re giving trophies for like, the most motivated but semi-focused award. The kid with the most potential reward which is code for didn’t play very much. They have all these different awards and I just as a kid I remember going to, and this is my perspective as a kid. I remember going, “I don’t want to go to proms with the other kids.”

Vanessa: You already had this focus that you have now though as a kid. From the time I met you and hearing all the stories, yes.

Clark: Baseball, I remember just going, get me off the field coach, just get me out of here. Soft ball, these sports we have different church leagues.

Vanessa: There are so many stories of you fighting people.

Clark: This is an example of during my baseball, I remember base ball was a funny story. I’m left-handed and I could just hit for some serious power. I used to bat third or fourth and I usually would hit pretty good Meta bombs. Every third or fourth game I’d go along.

I would hit one poof, and then I hit it and it was like when the Barry bonds was a big deal, so I hit it poof. Then I’d pause and I’d look at it, and I’d look and I’d point to it. My coach is like, “Run Clark you’re never going to see this field again, if you don’t run.”

I’m taunting the pitcher like, “Oh look at that ball went a long way, didn’t it buddy?” Then they’re talking about, “You shouldn’t taunt the other players,” and all this.

The coach is like, “You need to sit there and think about what you’ve done.” I’m like, “I love what I’ve done, I’m going to think about it all day, because I love it.”

My dad comes down, “You can’t be that way. You’re going to end up just being alone,” and you’re right, I’m an entrepreneur and I freaking love it, top of the mountain by myself.

I’m up there going, “Oh I like it up here.” The thing is, but everybody has their own deal. If you’re listening right now and you want that team work, you want your kids to learn the work ethic, and the diligence, and that focus, and that family, and that commitment and the whole thing that sports is, that’s cool, but don’t let society put it on you.

The first is that family, then the sports. The third is social media. Just because someone sent you an update, who the heck cares, maybe you do care. Maybe you go, “I just want to be liked by as many people.”

For me if you write a hateful comment, you know what I do? Hit that de-friend, then I go boom closed the loop sucker, boom. Another thing is I want people only to be my Facebook friends who agree with everything I say all the time.

Therefore I only write things that I don’t really, they don’t even matter. Things like my ice cream today was green. It’s so good, it’s–” I don’t really write anything that’s controversial because I don’t want to get– You know what I’m saying?

Sherita: Waste time fighting with somebody.

Vanessa: Yes, he don’t want to deal with it.

Clark: Some people really get into that stuff.

Vanessa: They do.

Clark: I’m just telling you my big three, you’ve got to set boundaries for the family, for the sports, for the social media, but necessarily you want to set that time for it. Otherwise it pulls away from your quality time.

Vanessa: No, I think it was so good what you said about extended family, because I think you and I don’t think about it because we’ve done it for so long.

Clark: Yes.

Vanessa: But, it was revolutionary when we first did it, otherwise people can stop in like work at anytime, and it would be upsetting if you were having your own personal time with your husband and you weren’t planning on other people coming over.

Clark: No, I have a song I want to play for you thrivers out there. I hope this idea gets stuck in your head. It’s called quality time. Oh yes, big shout out. My dad passed away recently but before he did, he was from Waco, Waco Texas where these guys are from.

High five, oh quality time I’ll be right there for you. Think about it? When will you be there for your spouse? Will you be there, on Sundays, oh Saturdays? Because they’re tired of that same old line right.

You’re tired of hearing that. I’ve got something to do, right? You’re tired of hearing it, right? Your spouse is tired of it. But you’ve made up your mind, here we go.

Because you really want to be with you, right? You’ve got to decide right now, when are you going to be with her or him? When your pager rolls off, you still have a pager? Who has a pager? But when your pager would roll off, that was a big concern in the early ’90s.

Vanessa: It was.

Clark: When your pager would roll off.

Vanessa: You ignore it.

Clark: You ignore it baby, because he really wants to be with you. The thing is I’m encouraging you right now seriously. I want you to right now put it in your calendar, when will you spend that quality time?

When your pager rolls off, will you ignore it? Or are you going to answer it? When the social media happens, when the soccer team says “Hey, I hate to tell you, but we’re not going to leave soccer teams by the way. We love to travel.”

For some reason the further away we travel the bigger the tournament is. It’s still small to like, “We’re going to play this weekend up in Michigan versus the miniature wolverines.” They’re seven, why are we travelling 14 hours? “Because they’re really tough in Michigan. Their competitive league is, we’ve been scouting them.”

You mean you’ve been watching seven year olds with a video camera to scout? You know how it is, we always travel and you’ve got to set boundaries because there is always one more tournament, one more game, one more family thing, one more social media post.

We’ve got to set those boundaries. Now when we come back, we’re going to be getting a little more into step number four. But, I want to talk about step number five which is determine time to spend with the kids.

The kids, you’ve got to spend time, with the kids because the kids will have it– Because the kid starts off small. You start feeding them, and then you go into the store, and you’ve screwed up and you forgot to buy the organic, you know those hormones.

Then your daughter is wearing your shoes. She’s as big as you, borrowing your shirts, ruining your cloths. Kids get big, stay tuned.

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Announcer 1: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clark: All right thrivers, it’s Monday the day before the end of the world. The election is tomorrow and half of you are saying, “If the wrong person wins tomorrow, that’s it.” Then you start to go, “Wait a minute, this is the sixth time I’ve thought of this and the time is almost, it’s actually six something right now. My receipt yesterday was six jars, it’s the mark of the beast, she’s going to win and it’s going to be over.”

Some of you go, “If he wins, if he wins, if the hair wins, we’re in trouble. Putin’s going to come get us.” The thing is, it’s okay thrivers we might have one more day with you guys, just one more day. And, so what we want to do is we make this day a reproductive day. Because it’s the Thrive Time Show.

It’s business school without the BS, and yes my name is Clay Clark.

I’m the voice of choice doing verbal cart wheels for you on the daily, on the Thrive Time Show. I’m joined here with our co-host just with the mo-ostest, just Ms. Sherita Bent, and my incredible wife of 15 years, Ms. Vanessa Clark.

We’ll talk about the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit. Step number one, determine your income goals. Step number two was, determine your goals as a family. Step number three, determine where you will live, and step number four was determine times that you’ll spend together alone. You had something Vanessa you were going to say or going to add on there.

Vanessa: Yes, just kind of a tip for everyone out there. Women when our husbands emotionally connect with us, and they take that time and you schedule the time because it won’t just happen. You schedule alone time without the kids, without business to emotionally connect. Then we always want to intimately connect, it’s just that’s how it’s related. it’s how it goes.

Clark: Yes, thrivers come on now. Come on, some of you men, you got married 15 years ago. That was the last time that you, you know what I mean. You watch no see Alice commercials. You don’t know your friend’s having kids and you’re like, “I swear I don’t know what I have to do, but if I can be emotionally connected, I’m going to do it tonight because what I want to do is I want to clone myself. I want to turn myself into another human. I want to procreate.” Anyway, it’s a family show. I don’t know why you always mention that, why you always have to go there.

Vanessa: It’s like a bonus point.

Sherita: It’s a bonus point.

Clark: I’m always trying to talk about business and she’s talking about business time.

Vanessa: I knew you’d love it.

Sherita: Get it, I love it.

Clark: Wow, I love that song. I want to keep that cue up, at any moment I might just go back to that moment. Anyway, so step number five determine time to spend with your kids. Now Oprah Winfrey has a notable quote. Ms. Sherita can you read this Oprah quote? I love myself some Oprah.

Sherita: Me too, I love her. She says “Surround yourself only with the people who are going to lift you higher.”

Clark: This is something I want to get off my chest, get off my body. About three years ago, we had a neighbor before we moved to the Camp Clark and chicken palace. The place where men roam free.

We have enough trees now where I can stroll through my property nude, with an attitude, and no one will see me, but right now I’m going to get reported so I don’t do it.

The thing is, before we lived there I lived in a neighborhood, in a gated neighborhood, and I had a neighbor who would not let their children hangout with my children because of my profession.

My profession, former profession was, I was a disk jockey. A guy, I wound up becoming DJ Connection–

Sherita: What was wrong with that?

Clay: At one point it was the world’s largest private entertainment company. We did close to 4,000 events per year, djconnection.com. It still exists, the new owner Jason Belly is a fine man, he runs the company, does a lot very well,#.

I also run a party rental company which is now called Party Pro. I sold it Party Pro boom. Had a weeding show, things went well, but he would not let his kids come over because of my former profession. What I did because I’m a fighter. You want to irritate me, that’s cool because I am very content with myself.

Sherita: But wait, what was his problem with–?

Clay: Because I was a former disk jockey.

Vanessa: Because he had been a deejay.

Clay: He thought that was like a bad deal, my kids heard about it in church and they started to feel like, “Uh-uh”-

Vanessa: Felt left out–

Clay: Yes.

Vanessa: –my most innocent — Anyone who knows to start–

Clay: I didn’t do it, but I was very closed to going over there and explaining to him, showing him up close and personal, I was just kind of help him rearrange his face a little bit.

Sherita: Face stickers.

Clay: I was getting ready to get to that level. And, so what I did, though I did, I said act of maturity, I said after about 45 minutes of nonstop cursing by myself, I said, I am going to cut this person out, not even worry about it.

And, I’ve had to do that because what happens is, I’ve had to surround myself with people who only lift me up. I don’t have time to sit there, so the elephant in the room, this is an example, was one of our business system, it’s a men’s grooming lounge.

By the way if you’re listening right now the elephant in the room is a high end men’s grooming/air cut experience, barn wood decor, a beverage of your choice, it’s just great and your first hair cut is always a dollar.

She went, “A dollar, someone says a dollar, you just say a dollar, nothing is a dollar.” Yes, we have three vocations to serve you, 91st O’Neal, 16th in Boston broken anyway it’s a dollar. And some people come in and they go, “I don’t like it, I don’t like it, you know what I don’t like about it, I don’t like the fact that there is an adult beverage offered. I do not like the fact that there is barn wood because I would rather not have the barn wood. I do not like the whole thing about somebody custom styling and grooming me. I don’t want the straight razor shave. Thank you very much, what I want is I want it cheap, I want it fast and I want to read an old people magazine, this is what I want.”

And I go, “Oh that’s cool, that’s cool, you know that’s cool hommes.” We move on, I don’t try to go and convince you.

Vanessa: Right.

Clay: Now there is a family, there was mums this is like mums have a struggle with this, I think some mums right now, you as mum’s, you’re not able to determine how to cut off things because you’re trying to right every wrong, every time your kid gets harmed you’re actually that bubble parent, that kind of that– What do you call them, “Helicopter parent?”

Vanessa: Yes.

Clay: Who is hovering over trying to write every wrong, and you don’t get any quality time with your kids because you’re always on the phone going “Why can’t my daughter be at the peak of the pyramid on the cheer squad?”

Sherita: [laughs]

Clay: “What is the deal? I know she is bigger, but she has a call to be at the top.” What advice would you have for the mums out there who are struggling to spend family time, because around Facebook trying to right every wrong, they’re running around every PTA arguing with people, always trying to argue with the coaches. What advice would you have there, Ms. Vanessa?

Vanessa: I think the biggest thing you can do for your children is by investing time in them, you’re building their confidence. I look at our oldest daughter today and she amazes me. She is confident in herself and those who like her, that’s great she sees herself as a benefit, and if they don’t, she’s like honestly not even worried about it.

And I was not that way at all at her age. I know it’s a 100% because of what we have brought to her. Don’t worry about what other people are doing, what other parents are saying. You spend that time with your kids, and invest in them and you’re going to see them be able to take care of themselves.

Clay: Now Ms. Sherita what advice would you have for the mum out there listening who goes, “I just cannot find time to spend with my kids, I’m just — I cannot find the time, I work I just–” What advice, what are some of the struggles you have, or what advice would you have for someone listening who’s going, “I just can’t find that time.”

Sherita: Sure, I think it’s a matter of priorities, or touching as well what Vanessa is touching on. There are things that you are doing, so you may have to cut out some other things. Maybe you won’t be able to see your friends as much.

I know for me in this season of life, I don’t see my friends as much as I would like to. I would love to see my friends more, but the reality is I have to set my priorities and it’s family first.

Clay: Yes, I tell you what. As a guy who runs a business, and I’m very involved in a lot of things, I really, really, really have to be selective about where I spend my time, and I will just tell you this right now.

I want you to go ahead and take out a sheet of paper, If you’re driving right now maybe just look at your dashboard intensely at a stop light, and then just remember it by looking at that dashboard and then printing it with your mind on the dashboard console.

But, the thing is you have to determine when, I want you to think about when are you going to spend time with your family, when is the phone going off? When? When?

Just write down when, it might not exactly happen, but when because you are going to have to start to tell your boss, “Hey this is my deal” you have to start to tell your friends, “Hey this is my deal” you’re going to have to start to tell some people, “I can’t go to this tournament because this is my deal, this is my jam, this my thing.”

If you don’t determine when, check it out I’m going to review the week. For most weeks it goes like this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday typically you go into Friday, and then you go into a Saturday then you go typically you go next into a Sunday, but some of us are wanting some day, and some day is never going to happen. You only have today, we might not even have tomorrow if the election goes bad.

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Announcer 1: Live-local-now you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Hello, thrive nation, welcome to the inspiration station with your business coach. Your refuge from the world, the wacky world out there, where you have a lot of stuff that’s not positive, not encouraging, not helpful. This is just, this just in, “Man in Tulsa, killed. All right, go back to your family, this just in.”

“Our car star looks to be a man who was killed next to the car that was stolen, this is just in” and you’re going “This is not a very encouraging thing,” and we live in a world like that though.

And, so instant news talking about a lot of negativity, this is a show for the positive. This is a time to take that little refuge from the funk to help you kind of dust off your goals, dust them off, dust them off, that’s my dust off sound, “puh-puh-puh.” You dust it off and now they are your goals.

Remember those goals? Remember those? We haven’t seen them in while, high school, college you’re like, someday I want to grow up to be Mayor that’s it. I’m going to be Mayor.

But, then eventually you kind of lose those goals, and you begin to go, “I just want insurance,” and then you start to lose them, you go, “I don’t even care about insurance, because I am drunk.” And, then you start to go, “I don’t even care I’m drunk because I’m living in this ditch.” “I don’t even care I don’t have my pants on, because I’m living–“

You start to drift, and suddenly you’re going, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” The thing is though, this is the Thrive Time Show to help you get out of the ditch, put the pants on, go ahead get undrunk, go and get motivated, get that job, it’s the Thrive Time Show, business school without the BS, and yes, we’re talking about the seven steps to designing your life as a family unit.

And, if you missed some of it, you can go to thrivetimeshow.com to hear the podcast again, thrivetimeshow.com where every broadcast is archived and sharing is caring. You can share that thing like Sonny Bono and share a tribute album.

You can share that thing, and your friends and family can benefit from it too, but Ms. Sherita you had a question before we move onto our next step.

Sherita: I did well, in step five we talked about determine time to be spent with your kids, together as a family, and then because step six is determine time to be spent investing in your kids, I wanted you to kind of break down what’s the different there?

Clay: Well you got to block off time. The first step is you have to block off time. That’s step number six you just got to block off the time. If you don’t block off the time, it’s just not going to happen, and I just know for me there is always one more thing, and as I’ve got older, I have got saltier about it.

This is a true story, I’m getting into my car and a girl today I’m on my way out and she says “Hey, could we talk?” and I said, “No, I hop in my car and then I have to head and record the show.” And, she is like, “Could we?” I said, “No, seriously the show will start, and I’m going to be there.” Boom.

Sherita: Right.

Clay: And, I didn’t feel bad, but I used to feel bad. So, I would get into my car, I would call the person, then when I get home I’d be thinking about, “Did I do it right?” Now I’m like “I’m only going to live once. I’m going to go and call that person in the morning.

We’ve clearly established these boundaries. We have a morning hurdle every day at the office right? 9 AM a hurdle. There’s a hurdle, if you have an issue we can talk about it then. Step number six is just really– Step number five is just blocking off that time, but step number six is determine this time that you’re going to spent to invest in your kids. Now investing is different, because you have to prepare for that investment. As example, if you want to teach your kids drums, then you have to have a drum set.

So you got to buy the drum set, set up space for the drum set, think of a time when you’re going to do the drum set. My son I’m always teaching him business, which means I have to bring him to work. I have to bring him with me, we have to do tasks.

Vanessa is always teaching the kids dance and teaching them manners and behavior, and really my wife just– My wife is kind of like a beautiful hand in a rooster’s body.

She’s just, “Stop eating that.” And she’s intense, the roosters always intense. By the way we’ve chickens, I’m in the agricultural thing. My wife’s intense. She wants the kids to do the right things, and you have to be because in her case she’s home schooling five kids.

I get to be Mr. Entertainment, Mr. Fun. I come home, “Hey, everybody we are going to eat ice cream.” But, she’s got to have those rules, but you’ve got to block-off time to invest. Vanessa you had something else you wanted to add there.

Vanessa: Yes, I think when you’re spending time, step five, you’re spending time with your kids, I see that as maybe you guys are making a pumpkin pie, or you are working on cleaning your room or doing your project.

You’re getting some quality time in there, you’re making time to spend with them. But when you’re investing in your kids, I see that as you were finding the gifts that God gave them. I really wanted Havina to do gymnastics.

We tried, we tried, we stuck it out and you know what, she has some other gifts that I realized why I’m I wasting–

Clark: Phenomenal artist.

Vanessa: –phenomenal artist, unbelievable with animals, just a pure gold heart and phenomenal on the piano. But, we would have never found that, if I kept saying, “Just stay in gymnastics, just stay in gymnastics.”

But I looked and I said, “You know what as hard as she is working, I think you have some other gifts. Let’s go and find them.” You’ve got to take the time to find those gifts for your kids because then they blossom.

They’re going to share those gifts with the world, and their confidence grows as they see this is a true gifting. And, she could have continued to do gymnastics, but her heart wasn’t in it, when I asked.

And you see these other things. So, you’ve got to find that time to invest in– Those gifts aren’t just going to show up. You’ve got to invest the time to find those things in your kids.

Clark: Which is why I have chosen the career of gymnastics for myself. I started off, it was a little rocky, I would say my best because I was called their best client. My well, my splits were tough, but now I’ve worked to a point where I can do– I can move my joints to any point, really, at this point.

I’m like a chiropractor, I just get it done homeys. No, but seriously you have to think about, right now, what skills do you want to teach your kids? What’s thoughts do you want to empower them with because if you don’t do it, check it out, check it out– This is that heavy handed motivation I am going to give you. That what’s going to happen, is some day you’re going to be in a wedding.

[background music]

Clark: They’re going to play this song and you’re going to go, “Why is he playing this song? My daughter is 16, they’re playing Butterfly kiss, this is wrong. I have invested the time.”

[background music]

Clark: She’s wearing her mum’s shoes. You are going to start to feel bad. No, you are not because you are not going to live in regret because this is going to be your best year yet.

You are not going to be living in regret, no, no. Even if you had a rocky patch, you have been busy, you had some things, today is the first day of that renewed relationship with your spouse, with your kids, maybe just with yourself. You’re going to be positive to yourself, but today, right now, the day before–

[background music]

Clark: –when the election happens tomorrow, you have decided to change that frown, turn it upside down and begin to live positive. This is your year thriver’s, this is your time to do it.

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Announcer 1: You are listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right thrive nation check it out, this is your inspiration station. We are approaching the final hours as we head into this pre-election. We have just hours, we literally have like five and a half hours until what could be– I mean what many have predicted, what some have said this will be the third term of President Obama.

Because he’s going to come in there, all of a sudden and bring some drama and take over the world, or Trump could win and when he wins all of a sudden his hair starts making decisions. His hair starts getting us in word wars.

His hairs starts building walls, or Hillary gets us involved and with those emails, she starts going, “Putin please bomb us. Putin please–.” She has this email she’s teaming up with a terrorist. She’s working to get either way, either way tomorrow is the election, we encourage you to vote, it’s your right to do so.

And really this isn’t a political show, what this is, this is a business show. We talk about business school without the BS, and one of the areas of business that really irritates me, that really frustrates me, is so many people are focused on winning, but they don’t think about why they’re winning.

I’ll give you an example. In the photography business, I just sold a company called Epic Photography. And, for Epic Photography we were dominant, we did a lot of great things. We did the most weddings of any photography company in Oklahoma or Texas.

If you Google Epic Photos Tulsa it’s well documented, we dominated. But, the thing is I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever mislead a customer to book the wedding and then run around feeling good about my life but having screwed up someone’s wedding on purpose.

Do we make some mistakes? Yes, but I would never ruin someone’s wedding intentionally so that I could make an extra dollar, or the Elephant In The Room our men’s grooming lounge. We would never intentionally overcharge a customer to make an extra 2%.

I mean those are just not things we do, but a lot of times what we do unintentionally, this is the dangerous part, this is the part we all need to check ourselves. Because I know that I do, and I have to check myself, you have to check yourself. We unintentionally begin to destroy and rip apart our family as we grow our business. We want to start a business.

According to Forbes, 57% of us want to start or grow a business, and then we go out there, we read the stats from Forbes that say eight out of 10 businesses are going to fail. And we go, “Over my dead body, it’s not going to fail.” And, so literally your dead body is going to work, you’ve had 18 Red Bulls.

You haven’t seen your wife in seven months. You got a beard that looks like you’re a member of the Harley Davidson Rally Group. You’re just looking gnarly. You haven’t slept in three months. You’re just getting weird, but the thing is your business is growing.

We’ve got to find a balance. I know it’s hard, I do, trust me. I know it is hard. And, so today we’ve talked about these seven steps for designing your life as a family unit.

Family meaning you are coming together husband and wife, your kids, you are coming together having a great family. If you missed the other steps, I’m sorry, but you can go to thrivetimeshow.com and listen to it again. It’s thrivetimeshow.com and you can listen to it again.

My name is business coach, Clay Clark, I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the year in your ear. I’m joined here with Ms. Sherita Bent and my incredible wife of 15 years, Ms. Vanessa Clark. How are you Ms. Vanessa?

Vanessa: You are doing great.

Clark: Shark are you doing good?

Sherita: Yes. Yes.

Clark: All right, so step number seven is determine, determine time to be spent working. Now, Sherita we have another notable quotable from Zig Ziegler, as we talk about determine the time you’re going to spend working. Give us that notable quotable.

Sherita: He says lack of direction, not lack of time is the problem. We all have 24 hour days.

Clark: Okay. Real quick, this is why I spent all that time in my car.

Sherita: Yes.

Clark: You know where I got out to the car Vanessa?

Vanessa: Yes, I do.

Clark: Because today I’m just telling you. We have thriver’s all over the world who have Goggled us, they found thrive15.com and they’ve discovered, “Wait a minute, Tony Robbins is charging $3,000 for his conference and I’ve heard he upsells people a lot.

Robert Kiyosaki is charging like 1,0000, he charges a lot. The Mastermind seminars for early Master minders are 30,000. The email seminars are thousands, but I could go to a Thrive15 workshop and for $500 dollars, I could learn to start to grow a business.” They want to come out–

Sherita: And no upsells. You’re not trying to sell them anything else.

Clark: Guaranteed, they come out there, and what happens is there’s so many people reaching out right now. We’re drastically altering the look of the office.

We’re expanding, we’re adding in speakers and AV equipment, we’re adding in lights, all these things, and I’ve got to get these things done. But, I could spend my whole day in the idle chatter talking about things that don’t matter, right?

Vanessa: And, it would always be something else to do and get done.

Clark: That’s right. I have to determine the time I’m going to work and the time I’m not. This is what I’ve done this year, and I don’t necessarily encourage this as a move, but this is my move.

Clifton Tolbert, my mentor and business coach, one of my mentors he’s a guy who helped introduce the Stairmaster into the marketplace. He’s a bestselling author and he’s one of the first African-American men to be involved in being a founder of a bank here, west of the Mississippi.

He’s a great guy and Clifton Tolbert’s life was made into a movie called Once Upon a Time When We Were Coloured. One of the things that struck me about Clifton as I said, “Clifton, you’ve written many successful books. I mean many. Some of us have struggled to write one book.” If you’re listening right now and you’ve struggled to write one, how does a guy write many beyond one or two?

I thought I’m going to ask this guy. I said, “Excuse me, wise wizard. How do you find time, because my wife typically doesn’t miss me before 9:00 AM?” “8:00 AM, 7:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 5:00 AM, you can choose any time you want early, but never late.” If you want stay late, it’s cool. You probably just won’t be married.

I remember his advice was like, “Wow.” At the time I wasn’t a super early guy. I found out that I wasted some four, five hours in the morning between 3:00 AM and 9:00 AM because I was ambitious.

He pointed out so eloquently, “A penalty of ambition is you must have trade-offs. If you have ambition, a penalty of ambition is trade-offs.” Vanessa, what narrative would you like to add here?

Vanessa: Just to add what you’re saying, you’re talking about, you’ve got to do all these big things for the business right now to ensure its growth, the things we’re adding to their office. They have to be done, and if not, if you neglect it, it’s going to hurt the business, right?

Clay: Right.

Vanessa: Wouldn’t you say that the same would be true for a family. If you didn’t do the things that needed to make it grow, would it also be hurt?

Clay: That’s a heavy handed question there. I think if you leave your family alone for a long period of time, eventually, they’ll just grow on their own, and they’ll become like a natural force. I kind of go with that prairie look. That natural–

Vanessa: Basically, we’re saying that the same principles that apply to business apply universally to anything that you’re wanting to see grow. You’re going to have to spend time on it. You’re going to have to protect it.

You’re going to have to invest in it in your business and in your family. A lot of these startup’s people are having to spend what? Do you think 80, 90 hours per week working?

Clay: I would say 90 hours a week is typical for a startup. You’re typically getting up at 4:00 AM, working till 7:00 PM–

Vanessa: Can you give as an example about how they curve out of those 90 hours? Sometimes, we say yes to something means we have to say no to something else. Maybe, one week or for a season that 90 hours will have to be 80 hours. You let us know, how do you carve out that time?

Clay: Today, what I did, you’d be happy about this, I sent an email to a major university that was somewhere between scathing and terrible. They said, “We’d like to meet.” Throwback I said, “I do not want to meet with you again. Unless you have a debit card or a credit, stop calling me.”

Vanessa: I believe this.

Clay: Because they keep calling–

Sherita: I love this.

Clay: –because they keep calling. And, I’m so tired of them saying, “We want to hire you to speak and teach entrepreneurship, but we want you to meet with our board.” I don’t want to meet with your board.

You see the key how I built DJ Connection, how I built Party Perfect, which is now Party Pro, how I started the Wedding Show, how I built the Elephant In The Room with my brother-in-law, how I went on to build Epic Photography, how I built the Make Your Life Epic consulting company, how I built Thrive 15, is, I’m not forming committees.

I don’t need the committee. I don’t need to work with you guys and talk to you about, what is the total impact, the economic impact on your businesses in Tulsa?” I’ll tell you what they are. “I don’t care.”

Here the thing is, “I want to start and grow a business. If you want to hire me to come speak to your school, I ain’t doing it, not doing it. What you can do, though, is you can book me to come to a workshop. You could book a workshop.

You can fly into our– You can visit our offices on the left coast of the Arkansas River, and I am there. Every Thursday and Friday, I’ll put on the Laser Show and teach you business. But I’m not going to pontificate with your board. Yes, ma’am.

Vanessa: You’re so good at this. I think people need to practically hear the thing you wait, you’re saying, “I’ve got to work these 90 hours. How do they carve out that time?” You do it. I see you do it. Will you share with them what you do?

Clay: Sundays you just go off. Sundays, your phone off.

Vanessa: Off the grid.

Clay: Sundays are off.

Vanessa: No phone, no connection at all to the office.

Clay: And, with this show that’s kind of interesting with this show because we record so many shows. Sometimes, you do four out of town, or some we have to, maybe, record one early or secret. What you do is, I turn off my phone off a lot. Basically, the weekend I’m off the grid.

Vanessa: What about evenings?

Clay: Nights I’m off the grid.

Vanessa: Okay. You’re kind of– [crosstalk]?

Clay: Nights I’m off the grid. Nights I’m off the grid, evenings I’m off the grid. Turn it off, and I have, because there’s always one more text message. Right now, I, as a business coach, want to encourage you. If you’re listening right now and you’re struggling, I want to recap these moves, and I want to make sure you commit to taking action to all of them.

Step number one. Here we go. Determine your income goals. Write them down. Two, determine your goals as a family. Three, determine where you’re going to live. Write it down. By the way, you talk to your spouse about this. Just don’t go, “I’ve determined these things, and now I’m going to do them alone by myself because I love myself. I’ve got a selfie up there on Facebook, and I’m going to Bam! or living by myself in a barn down by the river. I’ve decided.”

Step number four. Determine times you will spend together alone, like you and your spouse. Next move. Step number five. Determine time to be spent with your kids and family. Step number six. Determine time to spend investing with your kids. Step number seven. Send to us direct from heaven. Determine time to spend working. I love working, but you can’t work too much.

I’m just telling you this, people listening right now who you spend way too much family, you need to get a job. Some of you though spend no time with family. You need to be with the family.

Vanessa: Balance.

Clay: We have an unbelievable website that will teach you how to start and grow in business in more in-depth about time, life balances. It’s called thrive15.com. It is the world’s best business school. You go thrive15.com.

For as little as $19 a month, you can learn how to start or grow a business. Thousands of video trainings, templates, it’s the world’s best business school. It’s thrive 15.com. 3, 2, 1.

Clay, Vanessa and Sherita: Boom.

[01:25:35] [END OF AUDIO]