Business Coach | Do Your Job: Bill’s Management Principles

Audio Transcription

During this business coach podcast, Clay Clark and Dr. Robert Zoellner are talking about how hard it can been when you have to get rid of employees that are not grasping the same vision that you are setting before them. Find out a couple examples of how to deal with difficult people and how Bill Belichick deals with team members that do not cooperate.

Podcast Transcript

Clay Clark: All right, thrive nation. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. My name is Clay Clark and the former SBA entrepreneur of the year, sitting here to teach you how to start and grow a successful business. Today, I am feeling a little bit froggy as we were trying to help you break through that foggy. We’re trying, we cut through that foggy like our names are the entrepreneurial Mr. Miyagi. Are you feeling me Z, there? You see what I just did right there?

Robert Zoellner: Absolutely. That was a well done for a free on Friday. Everyone’s survived the week. We’ve got the Super Bowl this weekend. It’s exciting.

Clay: Anytime you can to reference Mr. Miyagi, froggy and foggy, all in it–

Robert: On a Friday.

Clay: –on a Friday, it’s a beautiful thing.

Robert: It’s a move. It’s a move.

Clay: I tell what makes today even more beautiful than the typical fabulous Friday. We have Mr. Merton Hoff. Tulsa cannot get enough of Mr. Merton Hoff. He’s the praise and worship leader and sensation over there at Metropolitan Baptist. Merton, what’s up, man?

Merton Hoff: What’s up, man? It’s just breautiful. It’s breautiful.

Clay: Nice.

Robert: Nice.

Clay: Let’s me ask you. Merton, what do you have? What kind of musical stylings do you have and store for us on today’s Friday program? What do you have already out there my friend?

Merton: Maybe a little soulful jazz, maybe a little gospel.

Clay: Will you give us just a little samples size.

Robert: Little taste, a little appetite. [music]

Merton: [singing]

Clay: Unbelievable. You’re feeling it over there like a petting zoo.

Merton: Yes. [laughs]

Clay: All right. What we’re talking about today, we’re heading to the Super Bowl Sunday. This is our final broadcast before the Patriots go out there and run up the score on the Falcons beating by–

Robert: Remember now we have a gentleman’s wager. The gentleman’s wager was at lunch. What’s our gentleman’s wager again? I’m trying to remember. What was that?

Clay: You have to go to Oklahoma Joe’s, personally–

Robert: All the trite.

Clay: –to buy me some burnt ends and baked beans. You have to personally–

Robert: Or you have to do it for me.

Clay: Yes. You’re the ultimate delegator so this will be tough for you to do. For me it’ll be brutally tough but for you it’s almost impossible to actually not delegate that.

Robert: Exactly. It’s only fair that you would eat them on Facebook Live wearing that Atlanta Falcon jersey.

Clay: [laughs] Okay. That sounds great. I have to wear a Falcon’s jersey on the air–

Robert: Eating your Oklahoma Joe’s that I personally purchased for you. No, no, that. Yes.

Clay: It just got weird. It’s just, I would be wearing a Falcon’s jersey while you’re eating.

Robert: Yes, okay. I got it backwards. Yes.

Clay: I have to watch you eat them and I don’t get to have any.

Robert: Yes, yes.

Clay: That’s what it has to happen.

Robert: Smell the aroma.

Merton: That’s rude.

[laughter]

Robert: See the pleasure on my face as I’m– those baked beans.

Clay: You know why I’m confident in this bet though and making this bet with you?

Robert: Why is that?

Clay: It’s kind of like betting against the Earth’s gravitational pull. It’s something that could change over time but it probably won’t. It’s a scientific law that the Patriots are going to just dominate this weekend.

Robert: I got one word for you.

Clay: What is that?

Robert: Julio.

Clay: Julio? What?

Robert: Julio.

Clay: You talking about Julio Jones?

Robert: Julio. Oh, yes.

Clay: I don’t know but my sources say that he’s going to complete emotional breakdown. [laughs] I wouldn’t pray for a man to be injured. I would just pray for a psychological breakdown.

Robert: [laughter] 24 and 48 hours. That’d be nothing crazy.

Clay: Nothing crazy. I just want him to get all worked up, get all emotional and just declare early retirement right before the game. He can come back later.

Robert: Yes. He can make a massive comeback next year.

Clay: Today’s show as always, it’s not a sports show. We’re not on a sports talk show. We’re a business show. We are talking today about do your job. Learning Management Mastery from Bill Belichick.

Robert: He’s the best.

Clay: If you look at it, objectively, the reason why I like the Patriots, why I love the Patriots is because of Bill Belichick. If you took him off the team honestly I’m not that passionate about it but I just love the way the organization runs. I also love how Bob Kraft, the owner, allows him to do what he needs to do. I’ll give you an example here. Bill Belichick, was the coach of the Cleveland Browns for a while and very unsuccessfully. They did not win very much. Merton, do you follow a lot of football, man?

Merton: No, now the whole lot. I don’t know about that.

Clay: It’s okay. You can overtime just get in to it.

Merton: Yes.

Robert: You want to have to give up your man card.

Merton: I gave up when I was in– I lived in Atlanta, five years. Falcons just didn’t do what we thought it should’ve done back then so I’m surprised to see them make it. Glad for them.

Robert: Are you getting back on the bandwagon?

Merton: Yes. I might jump back on. I don’t know. I might support this year.

Robert: Well, why not?

Clay: Here’s the deal. Belichick, he’s over there coaching in Cleveland and just losing consistently. What happened is the owner wouldn’t let him do this first principles, Z. He wouldn’t let him do this first principle that idea was, “Hey, you’re the head coach but you just can’t be–” Here it is, “You got to be candid with your team. You got to be candid.” Z, if you have to explain what the word candor means from your perspective and how that flies in the face of what a typical business owner may do, when you’re being candid with your staff, what does that look like? What does it look like to not be candid with your staff?

Robert: To me being candor with my staff is being open and honest and just being frank with them. Just tell them the way it is in the way you see it and letting them know where they stand in the organization. Letting them know how they’re doing because that’s always confusing when you send that mixed signals. When you said they’re going, “Billy’s not doing a great job but every time I go by Billy like fist bump and you’re the best, and rock on Billy and go get them, Billy for president.” and all that kind of stuff you said Billy. Because you just don’t want to confront the elephant in the room.

Clay: We couldn’t get Bill Belichick on the show today but we do have some audio of him. I want to play this great call.

Robert: Are they calling you when you report some stuff?

Clay: Apparently he was trying to could get a hold of you so you would thought you’d put him on hold. He’s leaving voicemails, it’s crazy thing. We were able to capture this audio here. Here it is my friend. I’m a place for it. I want you to break it down for me, okay?

Robert: Okay. Go ahead.

Clay: This is Bill Belichick talking to the press.

Bill Bilichick: You know there’s nothing more important to me, personally, than the health and well-being of our players, staff and support people in the organization. That’s the way it is with this organization and me pers–

Clay: When he breaks it down, you don’t get a lot of hyperbole, a lot of adjectives. He’s just explaining that this is how it is, he cares about the health of the players. It’s a pretty direct.

Robert: And the support staff, by the way.

Clay: And the support staff. [laughs] Here’s the second point. This is the one where I love it because this is Bill Belichick, he continues to be candid in the interview. Here we go. This is where it gets kind of fun.

Reporter: Specific to chairman, how much what would happened affect your usage, with the way you use them in the game against the cheese. What happens in Sunday weekend?

Bill: We’ll find out on Saturday. I could just xerox you to cover the game plan and send it over to Kansas City if you got that mean. It might be easier for all of us.

Clay: [laughs] He’s just telling the reporter like, “Buddy, I’m not going to give you my game plan.” That’s typical Bill Belichick. He’s just candid all the time.

Robert: His candid all the time, he’s to the point all the time. He doesn’t mix words. If you’re his teammate, you’ll love it because he doesn’t give away any secret sauce. He doesn’t have any poker tale. At the poker table, it was all about the tales. You can pick up with the guy, how what the guy’s going to do by the way he acted, by the way he said. With Bill Belichick, his cards are close to his chest, he’s just my monotone and he doesn’t give up anything. That’s what makes him so upset is because he doesn’t even give him a little– he doesn’t even tease them a little bit with something.

Clay: I want to ask Merton, your take on this Merton, being candid there. The church, the Metropolitan Baptist is known for a great many things. One is it’s been around for 100 years.

Merton: Yes, absolutely.

Clay: That’s crazy.

Merton: A long time.

Clay: The second thing, that was the music there’s always on point. That’s like a cherry on the top.

Merton: Thanks, man.

Clay: It’s always, you guys deliver out there.

Merton: Thanks, bro.

Clay: Have you ever had somebody? You know The Voice Z? Where you have somebody who– that they audition on The Voice and they’re impossibly bad. You and I as viewers know they’re bad and everyone knows they’re bad but they don’t know they’re bad.

Robert: Well, because somebody wasn’t candid with them.

Clay: I want to ask you–

Robert: Like a mom or an uncle.

Clay: Yes. How do you deal with that? I mean it’s a church, somebody tries out for the choir. Has this ever happen and you’re going, “Uh oh.” Has this ever happen?

Merton: [laughs] Yes, absolutely. I have to tell him, “I’m listening and I want to make sure I can find something that fits your voice. It doesn’t make sense to put you up and run a hundred, thousand people to there–“

Clay: If you were to sing in the parking lot that would be a great usage of your–.

Merton: Yes, start there.

Clay: Seriously, have you ever had to have that uncomfortable conversation ever or is everybody just– do people know? I just want to know. Have you ever–?

Merton: I’ve had to say that doesn’t fit your voice. I’ve had to literally say, “That’s song is not going to work for you.”

Clay: You sound so nice. I just feel like it’s not– I don’t feel like it happens that nice though. I feel like there’s emotions their Z.

Announcer: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.

Robert: Merton, come on now. That song doesn’t fit your voice. I mean you really– [laughs] have you ever had to tell someone, “Dude, you can’t sing?”

Clay: Like your voice doesn’t fit any song.

Robert: Yes. [laughs]

Merton: Not in the choir, I have to be– not in the choir as most people there can do really good. There’s people who come to want to join the choir, they can’t sing. I’m like, “No. You’re not good. You need to go Usher. You need to maybe–“

Robert: [laughs] You did go. Your voice is really–

Merton: Join the reader’s ministry or something.

Robert: –Really yes. Your voice is really, would be wasted up here where it should be used at the front door saying, “Good morning. How are you doing?” [laughter] At the front desk or your voice should be used to pass around the bucket. [laughs]

Clay: Do you guys ever remember the show The Office? Remember The Office?

Robert: Yes, of course. I loved it.

Merton: Yes.

Robert: Yes, Steve Carell.

Clay: There’s a guy on the show who’s– I’m thinking of the movie Office Space. I’m thinking of Office Space.

Robert: Office Space, even better. Yes.

Clay: There’s a guy who basically is offload his job. They kept moving his desk, farther and farther away from everybody else but he is like why am I in the basement.

[laughter]

Robert: [inaudible 00:10:07] They keep taking stuff off of his desk too. So it is always like, “My stapler. I’m trying to find my stapler. My stapler, where is my stapler?”

Clay: No one is to tell him that you are fired. So he is like, “There is no check here this week.”

[laughter]

Robert: They stop paying [laugh] and they moved his desk.

[laughter]

Clay: I see this in business all the time where somebody— what will happen is everybody knows they say okay, “Carl, listen here you are my friend we would love for to sing but we just don’t want you to sing this year national anthem.” and Carl says, “No, no, no. I’m an Olympic gold medal athlete I want to sing the anthem.” And they say, “No Carl, it’s okay. Our schedule is booked we are very busy your schedule is busy you have a lot going on, you have a lot going on. You’re an Olympic athletic you have got a lot going on.” and Carl says, “Hey listen, I will make myself available. I will travel to where I need to be because I will sing that national anthem.” Then this happens.

[music]

[Applause]

[laughter]

Clay: I want to know what are you doing? The thing is if you’re not candid that happens and I see it all the time in business. I will tell you where I see it in small business.

Merton: Why is that?

Clay: Because in small business we don’t have the budget to go out there and hire exactly who we want sometimes. When you first start you got to hire who is available. So it is like your mom doing sales calls. Maybe your mom is a great lady but maybe your mom chain smokes and just doesn’t like people.

Robert: How are you doing? Mr. Abbot said I’m calling you to see– [crosstalk]

Merton: Hey, how are you doing today? It’s good to see you.

Clay: And you’re going mom is that really the way to talk. “Hey, listen If you are not going to buy something don’t call back.” and you’re like, “Mom, that’s not really—” and she is like, “Am I doing things wrong?”

Robert: Don’t make me come to the phone. [laughter]

Clay: You’re like, “No mom you’re cool.” “Alright great, I will keep doing this then, fine.” and you see it where it says– I’m not kidding I see it in family business all the time. Where you have one member of the family who is destructive and the other one who is trying to get thing– there is no candor. There is not candid conversation occur.

Robert: But how do you overcome that? Let say it is a relative that is working for very little, let be honest. Maybe, Maybe not maybe they are not. Maybe they’re making all the chili, but how do you coach up a business owner Clay, who’s intimidated by one of his employee for whatever reason to be candid with him?

Clay: You have three moves that you can do. When we come back I’m going to get into the three moves because there are three specific ways to do it. One way–

Robert: Hold on, just hold on one second before you do that, it’s Friday everybody is going to lunch, and if you haven’t decided where to go to lunch on this beautiful Friday day you need to go to Oklahoma Joe’s. Right now, just drive just go.

Clay: It is a thing where we care enough about you that we don’t want you to screw up your entire Super Bowl weekend by feeling remorseful and saying I wish I would have gone to Oklahoma Joe’s but I did not and people are watching the game having a good time and you are just sitting there looking remorseful.

Robert: Remorseful, and I will tell you what. You know what chips are a wonderful snack. Dip is good, little fruit trays are good but Oklahoma Joe’s baked beans when you are watching the game is probably pretty spectacular.

Clay: Close to spiritual but not quite spiritual.

[music]

All right thrive nation welcome back into the management mastery conversation. We are talking about, we are teaching about, we are preaching about, we are coaching about how to become a management master. We’ve distilled the management masterly moves of Bill Belichick the head coach of new England Patriots America’s team. The team that is guaranteed to win the Super Bowl. And for some reason if Tom Brady is abducted by an alien we are okay.

If Bill Belichick is abducted by an alien we are in trouble, but short of that, it is almost a guaranteed victory. So Z and I have this little wager going and if I lose I have to wear an Atlanta Falcon’s jersey on the air. While he eats Oklahoma Joe’s baked beans and I can’t have any. I just have to watch it.

Robert: Purchased by you, with your little hands, with your little DJ hands.

Clay: I have got to buy them myself?

Robert: You got to buy them yourself with your own hard earned money. You can’t send Vanessa.

Clay: You can’t do a trade out.

Robert: You can’t send one of your minions.

Clay: Can’t send minions. No delegation. Here is the thing Thrivers we are getting into his management principles. The first one that we talked about was be candid with your team. If you are going to be candied you would ask who do you do it? What is the move?

Robert: I mean here you are, you own your business, you hired some folks, and you just don’t have the nerve to confront them on things they are doing wrong and you kind of let if go for this awkward amount of time and now you are kind of going [sound]

Clay: Now there is an almost a habit force that has begun, where it has become almost normal if you are not careful. And so Merton mentioned something of the air and I want him to dive into it. Then I want to get into the three moves for how to be candid. Merton had said it is almost like two people want to go a different direction– talk about that Merton. What were you saying there?

Merton: I feel like we are so often trying to take people where they don’t want to go is not practical for as to. If you and I have the same flight from here to Atlanta that is one thing, but if you are going to New York and I’m going to Florida it is not practical for me to try to go through your gate.

Clay: Can I offend half of our audience real quick? Is it okay if I do that?

Robert: Just half?

Clay: It is not a political show. I want to give an example of this.

Robert: You give the other half to the second in the next segment.

Clay: I will give the other half. I want to make sure both halves are equally offended it helps to increase listenership. Here is the thing my dad, unfortunately, this past year my dad was dying of ALS-Lou Gehrig’s disease, and in our family, certain members of our family cannot stand Donald Trump. Certain members of the family love Donald Trump.

Either way, he is now our president but the thing is there was this kind of no one was being candid. So there is this pseudo side comments.

Here is an example, this actually happened, we’re having a party for my dad and a relative says to me they go. “Hey, can you move the car so have room for the guest who are visiting your dad to come and see him while he is still alive.” and I go, “Yes, absolutely I will move.” then they go, “Okay great.” then when we get back, “Is that your Hummer? Okay, great. When we get back you and other Trump fans can talk about whatever.” They just mention Trump fans because I have a hummer. They just tied it in right there.

I’m realizing that this person doesn’t like Donald Trump. It sort of that tension. Because It is family my goal is not to be super productive. My job is not to say you are going one way I’m going the other way let’s just not discuss it. I just avoid that.

Robert: Sure, that is what you do.

Clay: You got to do it in your family, you got to keep it. Because you don’t what to have arguments. In the workplace, though if that was the same situation and if you had an employee or team member obviously what to go in a different direction and there is some friction. It worked totally opposite from everywhere else in the world you would want to bring it to a head right away.

You would want to say, “Okay, so you don’t like Donald Trump?” and they would go, “Yes, that’s right.” and I would go, “Okay, here is the deal we work together so let us just not speak about it let get stuff done. Moving on boom.” But in families, it is like almost a non-natural thing to do. It is almost the opposite of what the human race wants to do. So when you have to do that it can’t be awkward. And so I have three moves that I’m going to teach all the Thrivers for how to be candied. Z, are you ready for move number one?

Robert: Absolutely, I can hardly wait. I think a lot of new entrepreneurs struggle with this because they want things to work out and they are working hard, and they’ve hired someone, and they’re paying them money, and they have invested time and energy and resources into this person, and then all of sudden they are not doing something correct. So what do we do in this crises? Move one, I’m writing down. I’m taking notes.

Clay: This is a paraphrased move from Jack Welch, but it is the kick and hug.

Robert: Jack is the best. The old Indian move, kick and hug.

Clay: So here is what you do. Let say I was correcting Billy. Z, can you pretend you are Billy.

Robert: Hey Mr. Clark, how are you doing?

Clay: Hey Billy, our shows starts every day at 12.

Robert: I caught some of it the other day. It was really good.

Clay: The thing is we were going to start here in just a minute and you are five minutes late so the whole show is waiting on you.

Robert: I’m sorry the traffic was horrible there was car wreck, or a dog got hit or something out there. Hate when dogs get killed like that. I’m real animal person myself.

Clay: Here is the deal the show is going on in 60 seconds, I don’t hate you are a beautiful man, but what you did was is not acceptable. We can’t have you be late again, but you are a beautiful man. You are a great American. I love the way you smell you smell like a winner. Then he kind leaves going.

Robert: Are you saying you are a cat person? I don’t get what you are saying.

Clay: if I just add a little bit of humor he might go, “I get it.” He chose not to be mean but he just told me that is not acceptable but he has a little bit of fun with it. That is usually my offside. I literally I will say this words. I will say “Hey, you know what? You are a great American, you are beautiful, you smell terrific.” something like that. And I just move on because they know I just told them–

Robert: Was that creepy, you’ve been smelling me Mr. Clark?

Clay: You know how crazy it is, when you have to tell somebody, “Hey, did you park in a handicapped?” and they go, “No, I didn’t.” “Okay, I’m seeing your car and it is definitely there. That is you.” “Someone must have moved it.” So someone took your key. No, you are being dishonest.

[laughter]

Who amongst us hasn’t parked in the wrong spot occasionally?

Robert: I pulled my calves muscle so I’m kind of handicapped. It was close to the building. No one parks there. Come on, why you are getting all worked up about Mr. Clark?

Clay: I would have to be real and I would have to say, “Listen, it is unacceptable to park there. And if it happens again that will be a problem. But, here’s the thing. I just want you know you’re a good person. I’m excited to have you on the team, but don’t do it again.” And I have to somehow have that candor. But I have to end it with a positive note, otherwise it’s just lingering. I’m just telling you if you want to try to go in and be directing and keep it light at the end, kick and hug.

Robert: Kick and hug. A little rabbit trail off that.

Clay: Wrap it off to kick and hug.

Robert: Just a little bit [sound]. You brought a little rabbit hunting. It is that any time– if you own a business out there, someone’s going to call you with bad– someone on your team is going to call you with bad news.

[sound]

They just do. They call you with bad news. The kick [screams]. They just kick and they just call you and they dumped it on your lap because as a boss you make big obstacles seem–

Clay: Small.

Robert: I love the way you finish my stuff like that. So, what will happen is every time they do that– it happens sometimes. Every time they do it, when they’re done, I stop. I absorb it. We talk about it. And I’ll say, “Okay. Now, before we get off the phone you’ve got to tell me something great. You got to tell me something positive. You got to tell me something awesome.”

Clay: Here we go.

Robert: You got to tell me something that’s going on good in the business that’s exceptional. And then they pause and they think and go, “Oh, what.” I’ll go, “Listen, if you’re going to kick me you got to hug me.”

Clay: It has to end in a positive mood.

Robert: You got to end with a little hug. Just a little. Even if it’s a little like sideways, a little church hug.

Clay: We don’t have a church hug by the way. If you want a church hug it’s at the Metropolitan Baptist.

Robert: They will give you a hug now.

Clay: They are huggers.

Robert: Huggers.

Clay: Yes.

Robert: The first time they’re going to give you a hug and a mug [sic].

Merton: Of course, we give you a mug too.

Robert: [laughs] They’re muggers.

Merton: We’re not muggers, but [laughs]

Clay: That didn’t come out the right way.

Merton: .Yes, my bad.

Clay: The second part of being candid okay, is we have to sometimes actually write people up. And that’s the part where you go, “Well, how do I do that? I’ve got my handbook. I’ve got my little write-up sheet. What is the specific brass tacks? What is the detail? How do you actually write somebody up?” We’ve heard about it. We hear it all the time when you need to write somebody up. But, how do you do it?

Robert: I want to build– I want you to hear, because we’re going to be talking about management styles. We’ll be talking about ultimate managers. Bill Belichick, I wonder if he’s ever had to write somebody up.

Clay: I’ve watched the documentary Do Your Job. And his write-up is more of a curse out.

Robert: More of a talk out.

Clay: More of a talk out. Stay tuned to Thrive Time Show.

[pause]

All right, Tulsa, Oklahomies welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. It’s business school without the BS and yes, my name is Clay Clark. I’m a former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year sent here to help you learn to make your wallet grow, how to make your business expand. And to help me do what I have inside the box that rocks the man with the plan, the co-host with the most, the guru who knows what you need to do. It is Dr. Robert Z to the oellner. Dr. Zoellner, how are you sir?

Robert: [laughs] Hello Thrivers out there in thrive land. It’s Friday. You made it another week. And this weekend is going to be an exciting weekend whether you like football or not, you’re probably going to go to a Super Bowl party. Let just call it what it is. We’ll all go. And whether you like football or not you’re going to watch because the commercials are awesome. I’m going to just call it what it is.

Clay: And you’re going for– we have Merton Hoff inside the box that rocks, the praise and worship leader here from the Metropolitan Baptist. I’m sure you wouldn’t do this, Merton. But, there are some of us who are just looking for some good guacamole.

Robert: Well, yes.

[laughter]

Clay: We might go to two or three parties.

Robert: You might choose a party based upon the homemade guacamole. But you know what? I’m going to tell you what. I’m going to teach you how to take your Super Bowl party to the next level.

Merton: Help us.

Clay: Wow. You’re going to do this?

Robert: I’m going to give you the secret sauce.

Clay: Now? Are you going to this–?

[crosstalk]

Robert: Right now.

Clay: Oh my gosh. Let me write this down.

[crosstalk]

Robert: Right now, I’m fired up. It’s fired up Friday. What you need to do is this. When you call Oklahoma Joe’s Barbeque.

Clay: Oklahoma Joe’s Barbeque.

Robert: You need to get some takeout for the big game. And then when your friends come over and they can– you have all of the different meat products out there, make sure you get a lot of burn ends, because it’s just like meat candy. And if you have your baked beans on the other side they are going to go, “Oh my gosh, this is the best Super Bowl party ever.”

Clay: And we’re talking about this management mastery and how to be candid. Here’s what’s going to happen. Some of you out there are not going to call Oklahoma Joe’s. And I’m not mad. I’ve heard certain people saying, “Barbecue is not my thing.” That is okay. Overtime, perhaps you could be educated and coached up into what is good. But what happens is some of you are making some nasty food. Merton, you know what I’m talking about.

Merton: Yes, I know.

Clay: Z, you know this. You are the person who brings the dish. Now, for in Minnesota we call it a hot dish up there. Every meal in Minnesota is a hot dish.

Robert: [laughs] Really?

Clay: Yes. So what you do is you show up and you go, “All beyond, how are you? Are you good to see you?

Robert: Stan, I’m good. Thank you.

Clay: Yes. I brought you a hot dish. My Margaret made it. And it’s all, “Hi, good to see you Russian golfer.” And you’re all bringing this dish.

Robert: [laughs] If it’s something cold, then you still call it a hot dish?

Clay: A hot dish. It’s almost anything. A hot dish is basically some soup mixed with tater tots, mixed with some vegetables.

Robert: [laughs]

Clay: Though I’m not–

[laughter]

You already have this? You’re seeing this?

Robert: No, I haven’t.

Clay: Because when they do a little they’ll take beans. And they’ll say, “Well, here are some beans. Now, let’s go ahead and throw in some tater tots and then let’s throw in some soup and it’ll be a dish. It’s a hot dish.

Merton: Definitely.

Robert: It’s a hot dish.

Clay: And everyone knows that they don’t want your hot dish. You know that it’s a plague. It kills Super Bowls. But for whatever reason you are committed to serving and no one’s going to be candid with you. They just keep avoiding it.

Robert: [laughs] You get your bowl, the host, if they’re nice pours them, “They love your hot dish.”

Clay: You know what I’m saying. I’ve been to your house Z for thanksgiving. I’ll say one thing. You have some great people at the house and then there’s great dessert. And everyone knows the great dessert. It’s gone.

But the other stuff people are like, “I don’t want it.” And you have to just be nice. And family is a general rule. You’re not going to be super candid. I’m not going to walk up to Merton. I’m not going to say, “Merton, are you are bringing some nasty hot dish?”

Merton: No.

Clay: “Merton, this is hot dish you brought is unacceptable. I’m going to do a write-up.”

Merton: [laughs]

[crosstalk]

Clay: Every year, year after year we just put up with it. We tolerate it. But yet in business if you are serving,if that was your food was hot dish and it was some nasty hot dish that no one likes, the customers wouldn’t come back. They’re not forgiving you. You’ve got to eventually be candid and go, “Here’s the deal. The food that you’re putting out there Mr. Chef is not good and our customers are not coming back. So, stop messing up.”

Announcer: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.

Clay: At a certain point you got to be real. So now we move on. The first move is kick and hug. The second move though is you got to have that write-up. A write-up is tough to do.

Robert: It’s tough to do, because it’s the move that you have to know. Kick and hug can be something casual. And I know you’re not being fun, but you’re saying something–

Clay: Trying to keep it low.

Robert: And then, yes, you’re not doing that in front of people. You don’t want to embarrass someone in front of people. You always want to take them off the floor. You want to get them some place private to do your kick and hug. But the write-up that’s an official thing now.

Clay: This is where it escalates. And this is how the write-up goes. So you could say, “Carl, can I see you in my office real quick?” And everyone knows when you say my office it’s almost [laughs], “You’re going to the office.” It’s like–

Robert: All right.

Clay: Merton, did your mom use your middle name while referencing you?

Merton: Yes.

Clay: Did she ever say– Merton, what is your middle name?

Merton: My middle name?

Clay: What is your middle name?

Merton: Sorry. I really don’t have a middle name.

Clay: What?

Merton: Yes.

Robert: Let’s make one now.

Merton: My dad goes by Melvin. So, she calls me Melvin Junior when she’s upset. She’ll say, “It’s Melvin Junior.”

Clay: So, when you’re getting into trouble it will be Merton, Melvin Junior? Did she ever do that move?

Merton: Yes, absolutely [laughs].

Clay: Wow.

Robert: Wow. She’s really mad then.

Clay: And when that happens you know what’s going happen before it even happens?

Merton: Yes.

Clay: You will just start beating yourself to save her the time.

Merton: [laughs]

Robert: The thunder is coming.

Clay: Yes. And so that’s how as a deal when you say– even if you say it lightly you can say, “Carl, I need to see you in my office real quick.” And he knows that you know that we know what he’s been doing.

Robert: Yes. But the problem is though when you go to write somebody up, here’s one thing you’ve got to be ready for. All the kickback they give you. Okay, I’ll be Carl or you want to be Carl or I’ll be Carl or Billy. You’re going to write me up. So, let’s role play for the thrive nation audience.

Clay: I would like to be Billy.

Robert: Okay, you’ll be Billy.

Clay: I’ll be Billy.

Robert: Okay. So, I’m going to– “Billy, can you come to my office for a little bit?”

Clay: Yes. What’s it about?

[music]

Robert: [laughs]

Clay: What is it about?

Robert: Well, Billy remember last week when I told you about coming in late?

Clay: Yes. I have a late problem.

Robert: You’re a great guy. You smell good. You’re great Americans.

[laughter]

You smell good. I don’t think I do the smell good. But–

Clay: No. When you said it always get a laugh.

Robert: I always get to laugh.

Clay: [laughs]

Robert: But you’ve continuously been late. I have your time card here to verify that and it’s inexcusable. And now I’m going to have to write you up and put it in your personnel file.

Clay: What does that mean?

Robert: Well, that means that our policy which you broke about being late, you continue to break that policy and you’re not going to be employed here any longer.

Clay: Every time I get a good job this happens [laughs].

Robert: Yes. All the kickback there I always hated it and my manager always hated it. And so they’re like, “Well, I’m not the only one who’s late. Sam was late too.”

Clay: Well, the human race only has three push backs we’ve only come by. I’m the human race. I have three push backs. The one is the comparison move. “Well, Charlie is late too.”

Robert: Yes. Charlie was late yesterday, yes.

Clay: Now the second move is this, “I didn’t know.” I love that one.

Robert: Ignorance.

Clay: My final but my favorite move is, “There must have been a miscommunication.” That’s the best one.

Robert: There must have been a miscommunication between who?

Merton: With your alarm clock.

Clay: Have you ever text somebody and you text them and they responded to you, “Yes, I’ll be there,” and then they said, “There must have been a miscommunication”?

Merton: Yes.

Clay: They’re like, “Wait a minute. Oh, no. I did text back.”

Merton: I say it wasn’t between us. It was someone else.

Clay: [laughs]

Robert: That’s the problem with text messaging. I didn’t know what you meant by that. I thought it was a miscommunication because I thought you were teasing. You weren’t teasing? I mean, I thought that you didn’t mean, which is kind of sad.

Clay: Now, the next part is real talk. Rule number three. This is a real talk. Now, real talk is where we get to a different level of sincerity and clarity and details. I’m going to give you a Bill Belichick quote. This is an example of real talk. He’s been interviewed after a game. They asked him, “Tell him to tell us what’s your team’s performance,” and he says this, “This won’t be good enough. It wasn’t good enough today. It won’t be good enough against anybody else either.”

It’s like, okay, that’s how he feels about that and we now understand him and we move on.

[background music]

Sometimes you got to be super candid and you got to have that real talk, Z.

Robert: Well, I tell you what. That’s one of the challenges of a businessperson. Now, I want to encourage everybody out there. When you start your business or say you’re in management and you’re listening. The nice thing about this week’s show is doing all these management stuff, is that you don’t have to own your own business to get a lot out of this show. Attack it early. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.

Clay: Thrivetimeshow.com.

Speaker: Friday, February 3rd, our one-segment more stand by.

Merton: Do we close the door?

Clay: Yes.

Robert: I need someone to–

Merton: I’ll get it.

Clay: All right, Thrive Nation. Welcome back into the conversation and we’re broadcasting today live from the beautiful Thrive15.com box that rocks. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year in your ears, sent here to teach you how to start and grow a successful business. As always, I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zoellner. He is the optometrist-turned tycoon.

Sir, how are you?

Robert: [laughs] Tycoon. I like that. It’s Friday. How can you not be having a great day? I eat my Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue. It’s Friday before the Super Bowl. I can hardly wait to see the commercials. I think the Falcons might pull it off.

Clay: Why would you say that? It’s almost blasphemy to say that word.

Robert: [unintelligible 00:32:22] They got Matt Ryan, Julio Jones. Their team is loaded. You’ve got to admit. They’re a serious team.

Clay: Who is this team you’re speaking of? Does Atlanta even have a team?

Robert: Well, the last time I checked it, yes.

Clay: Okay. There’s a lot of bias coming from your microphone, so I’m going to keep this solo.

Robert: I’m just trying to be “Fair and Balanced” for like Fox News, but we’re not the news.

[laughter]

Clay: Okay. Fair enough. We’re not the news.

Robert: We’re not political radio, but we’re trying to be fair and balanced.

Clay: All right. Well, here’s the deal, Thrivers. We’re talking today about the management mastery. We’re trying to teach you how to become a management master. Specifically, we’ve distilled Bill Belichick’s management moves, his methodologies, and what he has done to allow the Patriots to be winners for the last, basically, 20 years. We’re not going to teach you how to deflate a football. We’re not going to teach you how to film the other team, but we’re going to get into some of the best practice moves that Bill Belichick has distilled.

Inside the box that rocks, we have a very special guest here. We have Pastor Ray with the Metropolitan Baptist Church. They were celebrating a hundred years of existence this year. Pastor Ray, how are you?

Pastor Ray: Hey, I’m great. Good to be with you tonight.

Clay: Hey, well, thank you for being here, my friend. Now, I want to ask you this, because every Sunday you put on a laser show. Every Sunday. I want you to know. You and Merton, it’s like a combo, but somehow you guys keep me on straight and narrow until about Thursday. I don’t know how you do it. Every week, you have these great messages. What’s your methodology? How do you go about writing a good sermon, my friend? What’s the plan? How do you do it?

Pastor Ray: Well, you use the operative word “plan.” We do a lot of planning at the Met Church. When you get there on a Sunday morning, either the nine or eleven o’clock service, what you don’t see is the hours that people like Merton and I have spent thinking about how we want to take people to the place where we’re intended for them to be by the end of the 90-minute worship service. There’s a great deal of planning that goes on.

Clay: Now, I think there’s a lot of Thrivers who are listening. A few of them actually. I’ve talked to several of them that are actually pastors of churches. There are some that are business owners, entrepreneurs, managers. What happens is this principle number 14 that Bill Belichick does is hard for them. Bill Belichick, his principle here is, “Don’t allow bad habits to infect your team.”

Bill Belichick has a notable quotable that I want to read to you, guys, and this is what he says. He says, “One thing that could be a problem is breaking old habits. It’s not that you don’t understand what the new responsibilities or plays are, but just the fact that you’ve been doing something a long time and you’re kind of used to doing it, it’s a habit.” That’s not what’s required in the other system and it means undoing something before you can even start doing something new. If I’m listening right now and I got some bad habits in my office, I want to ask you there, Pastor Ray, and I want to ask Pastor Z. I want to ask you, Dr. Z and Pastor Ray. Pastor Ray, how would you fix those habits if I see my team going the wrong way?

Pastor Ray: I love that. I love the idea of not allowing bad habits to infect what I call the culture of an organization. In our organization, we have a defined culture and it’s built on certain rituals, certain habits if you will. Be at work on time. A standard of excellence. These habits become a part of what everybody expects. It’s kind of hard to live in that culture when your habits don’t align with the habits of the culture, so you obviously become kind of an outcast or somebody who is not fitting in with how we do things.

Clay: I want to ask a real talk question. If I can be real, I want to ask you a real talk question. Here we go. I am in my church. Let’s say I’m a pastor of a church in Tulsa and I have a meeting that starts at, let’s say, 8:00 AM for rehearsals for maybe a 10:00 AM service or something, and I have used maybe even Bible verses as examples. I’ve talked about Proverbs 10:4, God blesses the hand of the diligent, punishes the slacker. We’ve had the meetings. This person is late again. How do you– what are the words, coach me. I’m taking notes. I’m a listener. What do I say to my people?

Pastor Ray: Yes, so I have dealt with that. In fact, you know what, I’ve tried to sing in Merton’s choir and come in after the worship services started. That’s not allowed, so here’s how we approached this. We approached it from, first of all, stating the expectation. Here at the Met Church, we expect everything to start on time. Nine o’clock worship begins at nine o’clock. First of all, just state the expectation.

Clay: Okay, stating the expectation.

Pastor Ray: And then we talk about how this person’s actions is not in the line with the expectation. We start at nine. That means at nine o’clock, there’s a minister at the microphone who starts with the call to worship. Well, if I have a minister who walks in at nine, and so that minister’s not at the mic and, one, the expectation is we start at nine. Two, we then want to talk to that leader or minister about how his actions or her actions do not fit with the expectation, and then there we go on to talk about what we expect to see in the future, so the next time–

Clay: If they won’t change it, if they’re just someone who says, “I just have a problem”?

Pastor Ray: Yes. At our place, you can’t stay.

Clay: You can’t stay?

Pastor Ray: We have to have people who fit within the culture, especially the leaders. I mean, you can only have so many opportunities to make that kind of mistake. It just won’t be tolerated.

Robert: Well, I would think one thing that would be different in the church environment. You’re Pastor Ray. You’re pastor of the church. We can talk about that a little bit. That’s different in the business environment. You can get in the business environment too, but you get a lot of volunteers, so people that you’re not paying and they may have a little bit different mindset. In business, we have what we call “interns” and it’s people that maybe who want to learn about your business, and so they do the intern move or they come in and say, “Hey, I want to shot at you. I want to follow you. I want to see if I want to be a,” fill-in-the-blank, from my case, “optometrist.”

Now, you’ve got an intern, Pastor Ray, and so I don’t know what they’re thinking different, “Well, I’m not getting paid.”

Clay: Can I role play this? Can I role play this here?

Robert: Oh, please do.

Clay: Okay. I’m a new attendee to your church. I’m a volunteer. I’m from Boston. I love the Patriots, as this is the situation. I’m supposed to be an usher, all right? I’m supposed to be an usher, so here we go, okay?

“Pastor, I’m sorry. I’m 37 minutes late. I just like the whole profundity of the Super Bowl being today. My mind is just totally elsewhere, but you could understand the previous four times my car would not work and now here we are. I’m so sorry.”

Pastor Ray: “Right. I am so sorry to hear about your car situation, but we are running a church here and there are 900 people who will be in worship service at either nine o’clock or eleven o’clock who are depending on us to connect them with the God that they come to experience. Your car situation can’t be an excuse for their not having the opportunity to connect.”

Robert: Ooh, real talk. That’s candid talk right there. Come on now.

Clay: Do you want a bumper sticker? I have an extra bumper sticker. That’s how you’re talking? That’s how you would say it?

Pastor Ray: That’s how I would say it.

Clay: Okay. Now, Z, I feel like if people are listening and they go, “But it makes it sound so easy when you guys do it. What’s the gap that you’ve managed hundreds of people? Where’s the gap where you see?” I’m just telling you by default. Every organization drifts by default and it’s the job of the leader to know the way, to go the way, to hold people accountable. How do you do it, man?

Robert: Well, I tell you what, by always Number one, holding yourself to a higher standard. Number one, holding yourself to a higher standard and letting your staff, letting your employees, letting your volunteers, letting your interns see you being held to a higher standard. Okay, that’s number one. Number two, always learning. I think that’s why, Clay, it’s so exciting about our in-person workshops.

We have a next one coming up, February the 24th and 25th, and what you could do is you can come in and it’s biblical. Iron sharpens iron, you have all this room full of business folks that are in your same shoes. Either managing, or starting, or trying to build a business, or just trying to– they got that little entrepreneur bug in there, and they’re just trying to, they’re learning, right, and so you get in there, and then, all of the sudden, you go, “Wait a second. I shouldn’t be putting up with that. No, you know what, I’m going to head back to my business, I’m going to fix that, because that’s not right.”

Clay: You know, pastor Ray had a great sermon about this. I was taking some notes. I take copious notes. I’m almost like a scribe, just writing as fast as I can, but he’s talking about the thermometer versus the thermostat one time in a service, and you mention that the thermostat. You can explain the concept with thermometer and thermostat, the difference there?

Pastor Ray: Right. The thermometer will only tell you the temperature of the space that it’s in. All it does is record what’s around it, but thermostat actually has the power to control the temperature of the space.

Robert: That’s what people leave our workshops knowing they go, “Hey, I can control the destiny of my organization, of my business,” they go, “From bottom of Google, I can get to the top of Google. If my sales are terrible, I can improve them,” and Thrivers, if you’re listening right now, and you’re going, “What was the day on that again?” It’s February 24th and 25th. We’re going to be right here live to two-day 15 hours of power in-person workshop. We’re going to be here, the Thrive15.com world headquarters on the left coast of the Arkansas river, and we have a scholarship program available, Z.

Robert: Right. Let’s say my car’s been broken for four weeks, for earlier example. I got mechanical bills, and I got stuff I got to do [crosstalk]–

Clay: It’s hard to afford that when you’re paying for Patrick’s premium packages.

[background music]

Robert: [laughs] The nice thing about it. We have local business people that have contributed money for scholarships for anybody out there who wants to attend the workshop.

Clay: Here’s the deal, Thrive Nation. We come back. We’re going to get deeper into Bill Belichick’s management systems, and specifically, we’ll talk about maniacal preparation. Maniacal preparation? Yes, stay tuned.

Robert: That’s a little funky.

[pause]

Clay: All right. T town, Green Country, Oklahomies. People in Tennessee. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio. For those of you downloading the podcast for now in Australia, we have Singapore, we have Canada, we have Mexico. Rumor has it we have a ton of people in Boise, Idaho right now. I don’t know what that is. It’s something in the water. Maybe it’s the blue turf that’s drawing them, it’s attracting them? I’m not sure of the blue turf connection, but for some reason, there’s a lot of Boise people downloading the podcast. Boise, hello to you. We’re talking there about management mastery. Heading into this fabulous weekend here’s Super Bowl Sunday.

We’re breaking down Bill Belichick’s management mastery, and we’re moving on to the next principle. Principle number 15 from Bill Belichick’s masterful career as the head coach of your New England Patriots. He says this, “Insist on maniacal preparation.” What does that mean? I’m going to give you a notable quotable, and I’m going to have Z, I’m going to pick your brain, and I’m going to pick pastor Ray’s brain on this.

Here we go. He says, “I think practice preparation is always an indicator of game performance. Not necessarily a 100%, because there’s still a lot of variables, but it’s still an indicator.” This is a man who practices with a certain level of intensity, and I have a little audio clip, Z. I have queued up. I want to play it for you. This is Bill Belichick in practice. This is what he’s actually saying this actual team in practice. Here we go.

Robert: I can hardly wait.

Bill: I can’t put you on a game if you don’t know consistently what to do. All right? I just can’t do it. Paulies first in 20s, first in 15s. We can’t play that way, all right?

Clay: That’s the deal. He’s talking to his players. He’s just explaining them, I call the play. You don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t put you in a game if you’re not prepared. Z, break that down. Why is preparation such a– it’s almost like an art that no one studies. It’s like a thing that’s so important. It’s like the elephant in the room. Why is it that no one focuses on preparation?

Robert: I tell you what. Thank you, Clay, for all the preparation you put into this show. For those of you out there that listen to us every day from 12 to 2 on Talk Radio 1170, then in Chattanooga, Tennessee, thank you for tuning in, but you realize the show’s a two hour show, and you may think, “They just show up and they just roll the mics and go with it. Wing it.”

Clay: Basically, we just wing it. No big deal.

Robert: But for every hour that we do, so that’s two times two right now, what I’m saying per day, Clay has about three hours of preparation that he does for the show.

Clay: No, wait a minute. You just said three hours for every hour. That’s like seven– That’s six hours, Z. Six overall, basically. You round that up.

Robert: [laughs] That would be math. Let’s see. Add from odd, carry the one. Yes. That would be, you carry, I was going to carry the one, and yes, that’s six hours. You may say to yourself, “How can that be?”

Clay: That’s longer than the show.

Robert: Yes. His notable quotables, all our stats, all our research, all the things that we’ve put into it to make this show– It’s a number one show right now.

Clay: That number one business show.

Robert: The number one business talk show in Green Country.

Voice-Over: Holy cow.

Clay: That’s right.

Robert: And little side note–

Clay: Little side note.

Robert: We are, I think, the only business talk show.

Clay: You always bring that up to take the room down. It’s just not a nice thing to do. I think–

Robert: I want to be humble. We just got to stay humble, but it is what it is, but point is that you have to be maniacal, you have to be obsessive in your preparation, and anytime you’re preparing and you step up, just still the jitters of the performance that used you got to make the pitch, you got to make the sales call, and someone’s answering it. You’ve practiced in front of the mirror. You’ve gone through your script. You’ve prepped, and prepped, and prepped, and prepped, and still, when phone rings and someone goes, “Hello?”

Clay: And you go, “Oh no.” [laughter]

Robert: It’s a little like when you call the girl back in junior high, when you were like, “Oh yes, Becky’s going to get to the phone, I’m going to the phone and hang up real fast,” [unintelligible 00:46:23] [crosstalk]

Clay: You had it all wrong. What you did, if anybody is old enough to remember a cassette tape, what you do is you call your dream woman, and then what you do is you play the tape. You had the button and you play that song, so you call and you say, “Hey, girl,” and she says, “Who’s this,” and you say, “This is Clay. I was calling you, I got this song in my mind,” and you hit that Luther and it just plays.

Robert: That’s the move? I didn’t know that. As a young man, I did not know that.

Clay: Pastor, haven’t you ever played the tape?

Pastor Ray: I’ve never done that at all.

[laughter]

I think I’ve missed out on something. That’s probably why I didn’t get as many dates as I wanted to, back then.

Robert: Then, at AT&T, an mother Bell, they got that caller ID, and then boom, we’re all busted. You can’t now or it’s done. It’s over, it’s done.

Clay: You got to get a cue for the right part of the Luther Song. It’s a whole thing. I’ll play the tape, just a minute. You’ll get it. You’ll get it. You’ll play the tape.

Robert: For the young men, listening out there, don’t make the call.

Clay: Now, pastor Ray, I’m going to ask you this. Before I do, there’s a lot of people in Tulsa that don’t understand the hidden gem that is the Metropolitan Baptist. It’s about 10 miles north of downtown. Is that right?

Pastor Ray: Not even 10 miles. We’re about five miles north of downtown.

Clay: Here’s the deal. I haven’t heard about it, because I’m on the far south end of it, and a few people told me about it, so I’m like, “Okay, two people, two confirmed people who have seen it. I’m going to get out there.” So I got out there, and this is pastor Ray does. I’m going to a describe pastor Ray sermon. This is good.

Robert: Here we go.

Clay: He starts off, and when he does, he gives you the announcements, and I feel like he’s conserving energy, because he knows that he’s sitting on almost a thermo-nuclear detonator of awesomeness.

Robert: Little dynamite. Little dynamite.

Clay: The profound truth nuggets that he gives you are just knowledge bombs left and right, but he’s got to save those, so he works on it. He marinates, he works through, and he crafts it, and next thing you know, you are excited, he is excited, they are excited. It’s a very interactive presentation and you leave so excited. It’s like my hair is on fire, but I like it, and the whole week, I find myself remembering the three or four key points, and I’ve never seen anything like that, Z.

Robert: Pastor Ray, you do a sermon and you preach on Sundays. Let’s say you preach what? For about 45 minutes to an hour? I’ve been to some of the services. How long do you preach for?

Pastor Ray: Not that long, doctor Z. It’s about–

Robert: About 30 minutes?

Pastor Ray: 30 to 45 minutes.

Robert: Okay, 30 to 45 minutes. It was beautiful, wonderful, and anytime that I have look at you watch from you guys up there preaching the good thing. Seriously. Now, for that, how long do you prepare, folks? We’re talking about maniacal preparation. We’re talking about preparing for your moment. That’s your moment. That’s your moment. On a typical week, how much preparation you’re doing?

Pastor Ray: There is a secret to sermon preparation. Never wing it. Wing it? Never.

[laughter]

Every Sunday morning sermon. It always feels like 30 minutes to me, but all the people in the congregation say it’s at least 45 minutes.

[laughter]

30 to 45 minutes sermon takes 15 to 20 hours of preparation, 15 minimum. If I haven’t put 15 hours in, I’m not ready. 20 hours usually is about what it takes.

Clay: I want to pile on there, because we have these 15 hour workshops that we have. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com, you can find out more about them. They’re on February 24th and 25th. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop. Literally all the systems that Z and I’ve used to build the world’s largest wedding photography company, the Elephant in the Room men’s grooming lounge chain, the optometry clinic, the auto action, everything we do, all those moves are taught. People get this word book. I’ll pass that to you, pastor, right, you can flip through, but that’s a copy of the Boom Book, that’s our playbook, and that thing has been cooked and marinated and edited and changed so many times to get it in that final form, that we’re proud to give it to people.

Announcer: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.

Clay: It takes forever to do that, and once I finished making it I go to sleep and then I go “what was I writing?” and you go back and you fact check and you research. I want to ask you, talk to me about the specific kind of moves. Do you sketch it out first and then go back and cite it all? Because you’re so good about telling the scripture in context and the story, how do you do it?

Pastor Owens: I start with the scripture, I know here is the piece of our sacred text we want to study this week. I read everything I can get my hands on for several hours. I take lots of notes, then I have a focus. I say in one sentence, “This is what I want to accomplish.” If I can’t say it in one sentence, then I’m trying to do too much. Once I have my focus for the sermon, then I spend several hours, literally, writing out the manuscript. I know the moves, I know where I want you to go with me. I know where I’m taking you, I know what the ‘ah-ha’ moment is when people are still trying to figure out, “Where’s he going? Why’s he telling this silly story about his grandmother?”

Clay: I have a question here. If you’re on Facebook live you need to see this. If you’re not on Facebook live, we’re going to give you a second. Get on Facebook live. You have this move, you have a certain physicality that you do. You have certain analogies that you bring, certain illustrations. Do you even think about that ahead of time?

Pastor Owens: Absolutely. I plan it out, I know when I want to actually use a bigger, bolder, and fuller voice, absolutely. I have to practice in the mirror, believe it or not. My daughters think it’s the funniest thing in the world, but I do it.

Clay: I’m just telling you, Thrivers, let’s say that you’re a person who doesn’t believe in the Judeo-Christian faith and you’re going “Here’s the deal. I know two things. I know that Brady is perhaps going to be our next President of the United States. At some point I know that the Patriots are going to win. Those are two things I know, and I want to know a third thing. I want to know where can I find absolutely the best pastoral presentation? The best speaker in Tulsa?”

I will just tell you, if you get a chance to go out there and take some notes as you, Mertin and the team put it together, it’s a masterful performance and the motive you have, you’re trying to help people and encourage people and give them hope and inspiration and guidance. I will go to the service and I will take notes, because I love how it all comes together. I want to ask you, Mertin, when does the music element come into his sermons? I’ve seen sometimes that you guys are in sync, like you’re reading each others minds. How does that work?

Merton: I think we’re really in tune and I believe we can change the atmosphere of music. I always tell my musicians we have the power to change the atmosphere of the room. We always pay attention to when his voice moves, when he has inflections in his voice, when his voice elevates.

Clay: At one of the church services you played The Reason Why We Sing by Kurt Franklin. I think you did that. Was that scripted or was that improv or how–

Merton: That was improv, yes. A lot of times I’m listening to what he’s saying and I’m thinking of a song that goes with it. Sometimes I’m googling songs in that moment because I don’t know what he’s going to preach.

[laughter]

Clay: Would you improv The Reason Why We Sing right now? Could you do that for the people who’ve never heard the metropolitan baptist worship experience?

Merton: [singing The Reason Why We Sing by Kurt Franklin]

Clay: That was so good, that was so good, brother.

[applause]

Merton: Thank you so much.

Clay: This next principle that Bill Belichick gets into, I see it apply at your church because he says “You want to build a versatile team,” and if you look at the Patriots, they won a Superbowl years ago and their star receiver had to move to defensive back for the remainder of the play offs. This year they’re top tied in, Rob Gronkowski gets hurt and they switch him out. They have a running back that’s hurt and they switch him out. They have a receiver that’s hurt and they switch him out. I see you on Sundays, it seems like all the musicians can all play multiple instruments. Is that a thing?

Merton: Yes, that’s the great thing about it. Our keyboard player plays the drum and the bass, and I can play a little bass so we get to switch out sometimes.

Clay: Well, Bill Belichick would applaud that. This is what Bill Belichick says about versatility, he says, “A lot of times, a player has a lot of versatility. That’s really what their strength is and what their role is.” He talks about how he prizes that over almost anything else. He’d rather have a guy that can play offense and defense than a guy who’s a specialist. He says, “With the salary cap era, you can’t afford to spend 18 million dollars on a guy who can only catch a ball. You need a guy who can also switch to defense, who can set blocks.” It’s just an interesting philosophy. When we get back I want Z to walk us into his auto auction.

You guys are selling thousands of cars there a month and you’ve got to have a certain level of versatility. There’s somebody who’s sick there’s got to be people there who can answer the phone, people who can help detail cars, people that can do title work, people that can process. You have a certain level of versatility but there’s also a certain specialty you want people to have, Z. I’m not really sure how you’ve been able to do that at your auction, then at the optometry clinic, and at A to Z medical. You have sort of a system that it seems as though you’re almost impervious to people leaving, it doesn’t bother you. You can just switch it out and no big deal, the machine just keeps rolling. It’s sort of a super power you have.

Robert: I’ll tell you what, after the break I’m going to deep dive into that. [music] I’m going to share with you the secret sauce, how you can make that happen. How you can get ‘er done.

Clay: Can I buy the secret sauce at Oklahoma Joe’s? Is that a thing, where you can buy that there?

Robert: You can buy a secret sauce at Oklahoma Joe’s, and you can bring it to your Superbowl party and put it on whatever you’d like to put it on.

Clay: And you can bring that with you over to Region Bank and eat that in the lobby and just give a high five to Shawn Coplin, the CEO and president of Region Bank. One of our proud show sponsors, stay tuned, thrivetimeshow.com

All right, Thrive nation, welcome back into the conversation. Today we’re talking about management masteries, specifically we’re breaking down Bill Belichick’s management moves that have allowed him to be the coach of the decade and maybe the coach of two decades, as the Patriots continue to win and win and win, headed into the Superbowl Sunday and, Z, I predict, I don’t know if this is a realistic prediction, I don’t know if I can really officially say this. I do know that if my team, the Patriots, beat your team, the Falcons, I do know that you have to personally drive, you can not delegate it, you must drive to Oklahoma Joe’s and procure me some burnt ins and baked beans.

Then you must watch me eat those baked beans and those burnt ins. That’s part of the bet. If my team loses, which is like if the Earths gravitational pull stops, but if my team loses then I have to do the same thing for you but I have to go wear a Falcons jersey. Is that humane?

Robert: That is humane and it’s only fair because you are the favored team and you are supposed to win, but you know what? That’s why they play the game Mr. Clay Clark.

Clay: We’re going to win 88 to zero, at halftime the other team will just call it. They’ll just be like, “I can’t do it anymore, we’re just a bunch of birds competing against men with muskets. It’s not fair, we’re–“

Robert: With triangular hats.

Clay: Triangular hats. Now, Z, we were talking about these management mastery moves and you were telling me off the air, you said, “Clay, I’ve got some super moves here that I want to unveil.” Rumor has it, these moves have the potential to pump people up, so I have an audio clip I’ve cued up in honor of these seven super moves.

Robert: Shocking, wow.

Clay: Oh yes, Z. Break it down my friend.

Robert: That’s a classic deal. You had thrown it to me on how do you manage your team, and if someone’s sick what happens, do you shut down the business? I mean, the auto auction, we’re selling thousands of cars every month and the key is having people cross-trained, obviously and having them motivated to get cross-trained. That’s what we do at the optometry clinic, we do it in the auto auction, so if someone’s sick, someone didn’t show up, someone’s car breaks down, or they’re on their way to work and a dog got hit and they have to stop and get out and help it to the animal rescue thing. I mean, it’s a thing. Things can happen.

Clay: So you cross-train people?

Robert: You’ve got to cross train people, but in order to cross-train people you have to have your people motivated.

Clay: Motivated?

Robert: You have to motivate them. There’s seven secret little moves here and you can use all of these, you can use some of these, you can use actually none of these if you don’t want to.

Clay: I’ve got a way to motivate everybody listening right now. You ready for this?

Robert: How’s that?

Clay: Every time I played this song it goes one of two ways. One, your day goes up to the top or B, it goes down to the bottom. Here we go. Here we go, Z.

[playing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley]

Did that not just take your day up by 10%?

Robert: Oh my, there we go, Friday right there.

Clay: This guy’s the worst dancer of all time. This guy needs to get over to the [unintelligible 00:59:24] and have some rhythm therapy. This guy can not break it down.

Robert: Yes, he’s not good.

Clay: Anyway, great song. Rick Astley.

Robert: One of my brothers loves to play that song, and one of my brothers hates it with a passion. When they were young men, they were doing a road trip to Washington D.C. and the rule was, whoever was driving got to play their music, right?

Clay: So he’s just going, [sings] “Never gonna give you up–“

Robert: So my brother, Chuck, he played this on the cassette tape, just wore that cassette out playing that song, and my brother, Phillip, I think he dove out of the car a half a dozen times into the ditch. The truck stops, I think finally-

Clay: Things got bad.

Robert: -his eardrums burst. It’s a sad, bad deal.

Clay: It’s a bad deal.

Robert: Okay, now here’s the deal. We want to get our people are cross-trained, we want to be able to say like Bill Belichick does, “Next up–” “Hey, I’m a trained quarterback.” “Well, you’re playing wide receiver today.” “Okay.” “Hey you are a quarterback and now you’re going to play linebacker.” “Okay.” Cross-training, understanding the roles, understanding the parts and the positions of the other players, and you may have to do it. Here’s how you motivate people, because you might, “Oh, why have I got to do that? I don’t want to do that.”

Clay: “I don’t want to motivate people.”

Robert: Number one is finances. Money. In other words, you want to try to make sure that there’s a financial for anybody on your team. A little financial gumball for doing that, okay? You give them a little bonus. Obviously, you’ve paid for the training, but you want an incentive for them to be able to do that. That’s move one, money.

Clay: For the non-profit side here, Pastor Owens, how would you incentivize a volunteer? Maybe because of certain rules, there’s volunteers and budgets within the church, how would you motivate or incentivize somebody, if you can’t just pay them cash?

Pastor Owens: If we can’t pay them cash, we have some other ways to incentivize good action. If they are an employee, time off. That’s always a big bonus. If they are volunteer, we do things like give them gift cards to Oklahoma Joe’s or to an establishment of their choice. We do a lot of that gift card thing.

Clay: One think you could do, you could say, “I promise I will not play this song.”

[playing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley]

[laughter]

Clay: “I’ll do what I need to do. I’m motivated.”

Robert: I’m motivated not to hear that song any more. Step two is, you’ve got to provide meaningful feedback with them on a regular basis. Especially if they’re doing great, you’ve got to give them the feedback. People want to know where they stand. People like talking about themselves. They like it when you come up and say, “Hey, Billy, let’s talk about your performance.”

Clay: “As the new social media marketeer for the business, I don’t understand why you’re so frustrated. ‘I can’t log on to Facebook.’ That’s a passing fad, see. I’m telling you what, You’re so negative on me. I don’t need to worry about Instaface and Snapchat and all that whosit. At the end of the day, it all just does comes down to people being people. I’m the social media mogul.”

Robert: You know what the thing is, now this might go a little weird on you. This might go a little weird. There’s a book out there called People’s Love Languages.

[romantic music playing]

Clay: That just got weird.

[laughter]

Robert: This is the month of love, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. And we’re a gift, might really make someone feel loved. The next person might be that encouraging edifying word. Mertin, you’re doing awesome. You brought the heat today.

Clay: Why are you playing the song while you’re edifying Mertin?

[laughter]

Robert: I know that sounds weird, you can get the book, you can kind of research it, but the different things stimulate, encourage, build up different people.

Clay: Nothing weird here, just four guys inside the box that rocks playing Songbird by Kenny G. Nothing weird, just move along, move on. [laughs]

Robert: Move on, move on, move on. Anyway, you might go, “I give this guy a gift card, he just looks at me and goes, ‘Oh, thanks.'” Sometimes things motivate and knowing that and knowing your staff, and having that intimacy with him them that regard can help you know how to motivate them.

Clay: I’ll give an example. If I worked on your payroll. My love language is, “Don’t talk to me and just let me win.”

[laughter]

Robert: Time out. I don’t think that’s one of them, Clay.

Clay: I’m being real, though. I worked for a guy years ago, who had the same temperament as myself, named Ron. Ron was my boss and Ron was a sales guy and he sold things. He realized that I wanted to be left alone. He just let me sell stuff and if you do that, the checks, the bonuses, that’s good. So, every once in a while, he would fist bump me and that was when he was really wanting to connect with me. That’s about as deep as I would go back in the day. He recognized like, “I’ve got a guy. If I just put blinders on this horse–“

Robert: Yes, just get out of his way.

Clay: Yes. As I’ve gotten older in my business career, over time your love language has changed, but he was a very good boss noticing. “Hey, if I’m going to take big time out of his schedule to talk to him or take him out to lunch, that’s not his deal, but if I just give him more bonuses, I just put blinders on that horse and just let him run, he’s going to be happy.” We had a great relationship, and we never talked.

Robert: Well, that’s the thing about it. It was purposeful, he learned that about you. You just don’t want to treat everybody that way, because there’s a lot of employees that don’t blossom in that environment. They’re like, “Why is he–? Is he mad at me? Why is he not talking to me?”

Clay: Exactly, there’s many people, they want that connection.

Robert: “I got one fist bump last week.”

Clay: “You got two, what’s going on?” Now, when we come back, Thrivers, we’re going to get back into Z’s seven super moves, and Pastor Ray Owens of the Metropolitan Baptist Church is going to help us break them down like fractions. Z’s going to be queuing them up and Pastor Ray is going to break it down. Queuing it up and breaking it down, it’s going to be incredible. Headed into the Superbowl, Sunday, baby, baby.

All right, Thrive nation, welcome back into this inspiration conversation. We are here on these magical microphones to teach you what you need to know to start or grow a successful business. You see, many of you are out there, you’re in your car, you’re at work, you have this part of you that wants to start a business, and according to Forbes, Z, we have 57% of people want to do what, my friend?

Robert: Actually want to start a business. And I did the math on that and 57% is more than half.

Clay: So the thing is, you say, “I want to start a business”, and many of you are looking for loans, you’re looking for sales training, marketing. “How do I build a website? How do I do videography? How do I do accounting?” Today, just like every day, we just break down a specific area of business mastery and say we’re going through management mastery, specifically through the lens of Bill Belicheck, through the prism of Bill Belicheck. He’s arguably one of the most successful coaches in the history of the NFL, but he has certain management moves that he’s used for two decades to help him become very successful. And, Dr. Z, we have some sub moves, seven super moves, that you’ve distilled within the context of the great Patriot dynasty, so go for it, my friend.

Robert: One is money incentive, two is feedback and timely feedback. You’re like, “Oh, we will talk about your job in 2020, April of 2020, we’ll give you some feedback.”

Clay: “Last month I was upset on a Tuesday around 8:00 AM.”

Robert: People like it. Timely feedback, okay. The other thing, number three move is respect. And you say, “Well, that seems self-evident.” But it is. It’s little evil twin is lack of respect. I tell you what, you give all your employees respect. I don’t care whether it’s the janitor, whether they’re mopping the floor, whether they’re leading the charge, whether they’re driving the bus, whether they’re delivering stuff, the sales people, the sales team, the marketing team, all of them deserve your respect.

Clay: Now, I want to ask Pastor Ray, I’m going to role play this situation, okay? I’m working in your office. If you haven’t been to the Metropolitan Baptist, you’re five and half miles north of downtown, is that correct?

Pastor Owens: That’s correct.

Clay: Okay. I’m working in your office. I’m filling in for, let’s say, Doug. Doug is a good guy. Doug’s a very respectful guy. I’m filling in for Doug. I’m a volunteer and you walk by my office. This is on a Sunday. I’ve got my music just cranked up, [music] so people are walking into church. I’m supposed to serving people, greeting people. This would never happen at your church, but at other churches this has happened. I’m just jamming out, I’ve got glow sticks and black lights going and I’m not greeting people, I’m just cranking up my music. How do you respectfully tell me to turn it down? How would you do it?

Pastor Owens: Hey, Clay, let’s talk for a minute. In order for us to talk, I need you to bring your music down.

Clay: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. The music is just– [music gets louder]

Pastor Owens: Bring that music down, let’s talk here.

Clay: Okay.

Pastor Owens: Then here’s the deal, Clay. I really respect the fact that you have sacrificed your time to greet people as they come into the door. We need you. I need your smile, I need your energy, I need you paying attention to the people who actually may be coming here and have not had a very good morning. They need to connect with you. We can’t connect, Clay, if I don’t have your attention.

Clay: Now, here’s the deal. If you do come to the Met, I’ll tell you what, you have some of the friendliest greeters and ushers on the planet. Let’s pretend, not at your church, but a far distant church, in a different distant land. Now I do the sub move, and Z, I know this makes you crazy too. I take it, I go ahead and put on my Spotify on my smartphone and I weave those headphones up through my hoodie sweat shirt. Now what I’m doing is I’m pretending like I’m not on my phone, I’m looking down and you see me texting, that kind of jamming out. I’m supposed to be greeting people.

Pastor Owens: Clay, Clay, Clay, Clay, we just had this conversation. Talk to me. What is it that you need to happen in order for you to take this job seriously?

Clay: Basically it’s Superbowl Sunday. I’ve got the Dazz Band. I’m trying to make the perfect day. Dazz Band, Superbowl, it’s so profound what is happening right now in my ear buds.

Pastor Owens: Clay, why are you here today?

Clay: I’m here to volunteer. I’m sorry.

Pastor Owens: Clay, what’s your job?

Clay: My job is to serve and greet people, encourage them, meet them.

Pastor Owens: Clay, what’s your assessment of your performance on that job today? What do you think?

Clay: I’m ready to move on. I feel like this is in the past. It’s behind me. I’m ready to go. Here’s my phone. You can listen to the Dazz Band at the church if you want.

Pastor Owens: Thanks, Clay, I need you.

Clay: It’s a great, great album. I stopped at two minutes in.

[laughter]

Clay: I know. That’s a real thing, it happens.

Robert: It’s a real thing and the thing about it is when an employee feels respected, they’re more likely to go that extra mile. They’re more likely to do that thing about the cross-training about the, “Hey, I’m gonna take you more seriously.” When you’re not around, they’re more likely to be doing the things you want them to do. When they feel respected, okay?

Clay: Moving on to your next power move, bring the power.

Robert: One of the things a lot of organizations do is they put most of their training dollars, most of the training energy into leadership instead of training all the people on the team. I would encourage you out there with your– You got a business and you don’t want to just train your leaders and give them extra training, you want to train everybody and have a good training program because train, train and more train. Train, train. Like a choo-choo train, like in Chattanooga.

Clay: Z, you know the music that reminds me of training on this NFL super bowl Sunday?

Robert: Oh no. Here we go.

Clay: I feel like that– I don’t know if it’s going to cue up for me here, Z. I wanted to get my Raiders theme song. Do you remember the Raiders theme song with the John Madden back in the day? Let’s see if I get that going. [music] You remember that?

Robert: Yes.

Clay: John Madden used to just train the heck out of that team. People running up and down the sidelines.

Robert: Boom boom.

Clay: Training.

Robert: He was a big boom guy.

Clay: Once he retired, I think that’s when Al Davis says, “You know what moving forward we’re not going to do any training.” I guess that’s what happened.

[laughter]

Robert: Well, apparently, because they took a long winter’s nap.

Clay: Yes, they’ve not been doing so well. So, Z, what’s your next move?

Robert: Well, you want to provide support for employees when it’s generally needed. In other words, if someone says, “I need a new computer”, if they really need the new computer, they really need some new equipment, you want to make sure they’re well equipped and that you support them, because you’re paying them and requiring them and wanting to do a specific task for you and you’ve got to give them the tools to do that.

Clay: I want to ask– I want to ask because this is from the nonprofit side. This is where I think it gets in– Half our audiences is involved in a nonprofit organization, the other half has a business and they’re growing the business. Let’s say that I’m involved, that I’m somebody who attends the church and I keep asking for a handout, pastor Ray, and you don’t see me putting forth any effort. I’m wanting God to do the supernatural, but I’m not doing anything in the natural. I’m not volunteering, I’m not putting my resume out, I’m doing nothing but I just keep– Where’s that balance, man? How do you help somebody getting the resources they need and then when do you say, “Okay, enough’s enough”?

Pastor Ray: In the the nonprofit sector in particular, it’s very important to position our volunteers for success. Giving people handout over and over does not position them up for success. In fact, it sets them up to fail. What we do at the Met church is we actually put people in the position where they can succeed by giving them the resources they need. We had a situation with our children’s church ministry. The volunteers wanted a better system for registering kids. We invested in a system that cost us a good deal of money but we actually asked them to avail themselves to the training and make this work for the kids and they did a great job.

Clay: Did your new system involve giving each kid a unique haircut?

Pastor Ray: No haircuts, but-

[laughter]

Pastor Ray: -our minister of music, Reverend Huff, when he’s not on the keys he can cut hair.

Clay: Mertin, can you bring that barbershop skill?

Merton: I got you if you need it.

Pastor Ray: He’s got that.

Merton: We’ve done it before, we’ve even given away free haircuts.

Clay: Really?

Robert: Talk about versatility.

Clay: He is versatile. He’s a very versatile member of the team here. He’s doing the haircuts, leading the praise and worship. Z, what’s your next move, my friend? What’s the next move?

Robert: Well, you know what I’m going to do? I tell you what, I’m going to deep-dive in these last two moves when we get back from the break.

Clay: Like Jacques Cousteau?

Robert: Like Jacques Cousteau in a submarine way down deep, when you’re actually finding creatures that have never been found before.

Clay: That’s almost too deep.

Robert: That’s how it’s going to feel. That’s how it’s going to be. Apparently, you hope that submarine has been built well. When you’re down in that region of the of the ocean.

Clay: You’re going to go so deep in this next segment. That it will be deeper than the hole that the Atlanta Falcons will find themselves in-

Robert: Oh no.

Clay: -three minutes into the game, after they’ve bumbled and the self doubt starts to set in and the infighting and the arguments and the trade demands, it’s just going to get crazy, its an implosion. Stay tuned. Superball Sunday, Thrive time show. [pause] Alright, Thrive nation, welcome back into the conversation. We are joined here inside the box that rocks today with Dr. Robert Zoellner, Mr. Mertin Hoff. We can’t get enough of Mt. Mertin Hoff, the praise and worship leader there, from the Metropolitan Baptist Church. And Tulsa’s ray of hope, its pastor Ray in the house and he is the head honcho at the Metropolitan Baptist Church, where he leads a congregation. How many people go there now?

Pastor Ray: We have 2300 members.

Clay: 2300 members, and I’m telling you what, if you are looking for a church home, and I know you are– If you’re looking for a church home or you’re looking for a place of encouragement or a place to maybe find some traction, to find some coaching, to find some mentorship, I highly endorse you check out the Metropolitan Baptist. And then, if you’re looking for a good example of what you should do during the week, don’t look at me look at him on Facebook live, he’s a great guy. That’s Pastor Owens. Dr. Z, let’s break down your next super move my friend.

Robert: Okay. We’ll just recap. Today’s show has been all about the book you wrote, Clay.

Clay: Absolutely it’s called Do Your Job, A Look Under The Hoodie of Bill Belichick. The patriots, NFL, one of the most winning coaches in the history of the NFL. We’re breaking down his moves.

Robert: And it’s not a coincidence that we chose this week to break down your book because this is the week leading up to an event you might have heard about. It’s kind of a big deal, it’s called the Superbowl.

Clay: Reminds me of the, “Superbowl. Is that what this Sunday is? Oh, guacamole.”

Robert: For those of you who don’t like football, it’s the party and the commercials, so we’ve all got a reason to be happy for the Sunday event. We’ve been breaking down the 16 business management moves Bill Belichick uses to manage the New England Patriots, because he does such a great job. That team is well run and all of his principles in there are just awesome. If you’ve missed any of them and you you can break them down a little bit, Clay, for everybody. You can go back to thrivetimeshow.com and listen to our shows this week and catch all of them, okay? We got a subset on how to motivate employees so that they will go the extra mile, they will happily get cross-trained–

Clay: Bring the guacamole to the Superbowl party.

Robert: The person next to them is sick that day so they’ve got to do two jobs that day or at least one and a half, and they’re not– You want them with the smile on their face, doing it. You want them encouraged and happy and motivated and so number six move on this is don’t– I know this sounds kind of weird, but don’t be emotionally stingy.

Clay: Don’t be emotionally stingy?

Robert: Yes, you gain nothing from withholding your alcohol. I’ll kind of get a blanket term. But your encouragement, your love, your affection in appropriate [laughs] ways to the people that work for you.

Clay: “I’m sorry I had trouble writing that down.”

Robert: When recognition or praise is warranted, you should give it. You may not have gotten it when you were a kid, you may not have gotten it when you were an employee and you know what, don’t let that be your example. When you see an employee that does something that is praiseworthy or does something that’s notable, step up and tell them. Don’t be stingy with your love. It’s the month of love, don’t be stingy.

Clay: I call this the ‘verbal bouquet’ and I watch Pastor Owens do this a lot of times, where he’ll edify members of the Church who are visiting. Talk to us about how intentional are you, Pastor Owens, about specifically recognizing the contributions of the members the church.

Pastor Owens: That’s big. Public praise is a big aspect of our organization’s culture. We don’t get to pay people the huge salaries that they might get in the for profit sector but one of the things you can get in the nonprofit sector is great affirmation. Not only is that good for the person who is on the receiving end of the praise, it’s good for the people around who get to see what gets valued in this organization.

Robert: Come on now.

Pastor Owens: Guess what they do? They try to mirror those actions so they can earn that praise for themselves.

Robert: Absolutely I tell you what, you can google this, Thrivers, and see that there’s a lot of studies out there that the emotional encouragement can actually be more powerful than monetary encouragement. In other words, you’ve got a choice. Give someone a $100 bonus or to sit there and give them the emotional encouragement. There’s a lot of people out there that the emotion encouragement is going to encourage them more than the $100, “Oh, here”.

Clay: If you want to lose a weekend going down that rabbit trail trick,”I’m not gonna watch the Superbown. I want to learn about emotional intelligence.” Well, Daniel Goleman, the best-selling author, he wrote a book called Emotional Intelligence and explains it. Basically, if you do not learn how to emotionally connect with people, no matter how smart you are and no matter how many skills you have, no matter how great your business plan is, that becomes your ceiling. Your ability to emotionally connect with people, Daniel Goleman, his book Emotional Intelligence, best-selling author and psychologist, check it out. Orange cover, it’ll blow your mind. Z, back to you.

Robert: And the last thing is, you want to make sure that your senior leaders your managers your bosses are exhibiting the kind of behavior that you want in your culture. You want people to be able to walk the walk and not talk the walk. In other words, all your employees underneath them will see the way that they act. You don’t want them doing things that are not what you want in your culture, okay? You want to make sure that the model behavior that’s appropriate and what you want in your organization.

Clay: Now, Pastor Ray, I want to ask you and Mertin this, because it has got to be so hard. Because I watch you do such great messages on Sunday, but it’s got to be so hard to– You study the Bible, I know that you believe in it, I know you put God first, but it’s got to be so hard to worry about are you are you setting the right example, are you doing the right thing on a daily basis?

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Clay: How do you do that, my friend?

Pastor Owens: It is hard and we work at it, and we hold one another accountable. Mertin can tell you that weekly we have staff meetings, we talk about what’s important, our public perception that we are creating. The truth of the matter is sometimes we slip up, but then we also have to fix those problems and try harder.

Clay: If I showed up for church, as an example. If I showed up there and let’s say there is a– You are communicating with your staff and if people saw the pastor or the team or the leadership or somebody doing something that wasn’t becoming of a pastor, all of a sudden their whole pers– Everything else at that point just kind of tastes bad.

Pastor Owens: Right.

Robert: And so you guys guard your hearts there I know you work hard at it. Mertin, what do you do to set a good example on a daily basis there? How do you do that, because you obviously are at the church, when you are there or when your home and you’re out with people, how do you try to set a good example?

Merton: Well, definitely on social media. That’s one big deal for me.

Robert: Oh.

Merton: What we put on social media, I think, not just from a spiritual but even from a professional and personal perspective. The stuff you put out there, you got to be careful what you put out there, because people take that and they are looking and trying to find something. They are looking at what you got going on to see, “Hey, are you leaving this life that you preach about, are you leaving this life that you tell us to do?” So, working just as hard. They see me working behind the scenes. I’m working in the performing arts room, I’m working, I’m cleaning out under the stage, I’m not just playing the keyboard. There’s other things that I’m doing to get us ready for the weekend, so they see those things and that helps.

Clay: Now, Thrivers, if you are listening right now and you are going, “Okay, I want to be a successful entrepreneur, I want to be a successful business person”, and maybe you’ve googled my life and you said, “Okay, so you started this business out of your dorm room and then you grew that and then you started this company ad that company.” If you’ve ever been to the thrive15.com world headquarters and met the team and your going, “How did they go from here to there?” With Z it’s a little bit more viable that he did, it because his brain functions properly and he’s a doctor and all that. But what about me? I didn’t graduate from college and you might go, “He’s a man-bear-pig, how did he trick his wife into marrying him?”

Pastor Owens: [laughs]

Clay: Z and I, we’ve done the test, she can’t see me from a-

Robert: Confirmed, yes.

Clay: -medical perspective, from and optometrist’s perspective, she can’t see me. But the thing is, you can turn your dreams into a reality. In fact, Thomas Edison says that, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” So you’ve got to stop hallucinating, your life is not a mirage and you’ve got to start that business even if it’s out of our garage. So, Z, if somebody is motivated to start a business but they need that practical education, we have four ways to help them, my friend. Let’s go through way number one.

Robert: Well, two and a half years ago you approached me and said, “Listen, Z, I’ve been business coaching and I have been successful at it” and you were. I will honestly say, for all of you listening out there, Clay Clark gets my vote for the number one business coach in the world.

Clay: Wow.

Robert: I haven’t actually interviewed all of them in Russia, but in the world, I’m going with in the world, okay?

Clay: Putin’s got some good coaches, he’s over the top.

Robert: “He’s probably got some pretty good coaches, I don’t know.” Maybe Ukraine, who knows. Okay, but you approached me and said, “Listen, let’s scale this, let’s be able to business coach millions of people instead of me just being able to do tens or hundreds of people, because my time is limited.” I’m like, “How do you proposes to do that?” He said, “Well, let’s find very successful business people, let’s video tape them, let’s put them on the tape, let’s get the real stories, let’s get the real information, let’s get the real– The secret sauce that they had, that made them successful.”

And then what we can do is we can put in like 15 minute videos, hence the name thrive15.com and we can sell it in a subscription model. It’s only $19 a month and you can binge watch as much business coaching as you want, it’s business school without the BS. That’s step one. And then you wanted more and so we went to step two. What was that, Clay?

Clay: Which is the Thrive Time Show. It’s the Thrive Time Show, it’s the daily radio show from 12 to 2, we have the podcast up there, there’s hundreds of them and new ones every single day. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Move number three, we have in-person workshops, they are two day workshops two day workshops, people from all over the planet come here and check, check, check it out, we don’t believe in handouts but we do believe in hand ups. And so if you cannot afford it, we have a scholarship available for you, we’ve never turned anybody, true story.

Last week we had a lady who came here she says,” I’m going through some stuff, I had a medical situation, all I could afford is $25.” You know what we did? That’s what we did, we let into the conference, two days for $25, no student debt. That’s what we are all about, check it out, thrivetimeshow.com And if you are somebody who says, “You know what, I want that one-on-one business mentorship experience.” We have one-on-one, in-person business coaching. And, Z, there is a fifth move you could do to help yourself.

Robert: That is–

Clay: You could get out to the Metropolitan Baptist Church, baby, baby.

Robert: Oh, yes, of course, yes.

Clay: You get out there and check it out.

Robert: Yes, absolutely.

Clay: Tulsa’s number one praise and worship service, it’s unbelievable.

Robert: It’s a lot of fun, I actually went and it’s a lot of fun. Pastor Ray brings the heat, it’s a good message. Mertin over there with the keys, bring it home. Three–

Clay: Two, one, boom.

Pastor Owens: Yes. [laughs]

[01:24:58] [END OF AUDIO]