Dr. Zoellner | What Would Z Do? Doctor Robert Zoellner Teaches the 10 Principles He Uses to Start Several Multi-Million Dollar Businesses + Join Tebow At Clay Clark's Dec 5-6 2024 Business Conference (Recorded 2018)

Who dad is a Dr. Z? Oh man, that's Dr. Z. Who dad is a Dr. Z? Hey! Oh man, that's Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and I'm Tometry. Dr. Z. Number one

Awesome, bitches. Fuss X1 2020 gonna get it. He ain't tall, but then dude.

He's a good guy no matter how you spin it. He put a ring so he don't have to win it. Dr. C. Dr. C. Never one doc in a time of treat. Dr. C. Dr. C. Another one doc in a time of treat. Dr. C. Dr. C. Number one doc in a time of treat. Dr. C. Never one doc in a time of treat.

The optometrist is second, that's the truth. He's ready, back, start trying to play Lord. You have to wear his eyes behind him in his shoes. He always shows up like a tanto. Moving fast, right, poor Spider-Man is cool. He's funny like Filmy and Candy Shack go. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and optometry. Because he's Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Number one, Doc and optometry. Dr. Z. Dr. Z.

He loves a ruba, dudes a straight shooter He came from nothing but now he's a sofa spooner He loves an obstacle than the sietuna Born in 64, now that man had even seen us He loves a meditator but not into the Buddha He loves a football man cheering for his sonas If he was big, he would be the big kahuna He's got Jack Welch stuck in dancing at a pooper

Dr. Z, number one doc in a time of tree Dr. Z, number one doc in a time of tree Dr. Z, number one doc in a time of tree Dr. Z, number one doc in a time of tree Dr. Z, number one doc in a time of tree

So many different times in my life, I've played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it.

Some shows don't need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does.

in a world filled with endless opportunities. Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses outruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use?

because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time in their hands. They started from the bottom, now they're here. It's the thrive time show starring the former US Small Business Administration's Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist bunny. Dr. Robert Zooner. Two men.

Eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses.

I started from the bottom and now we're at the top, teaching me the systems to get what we got. Colton Dickson's on the hooks, I break down the books. Sees bringing some wisdom and the good looks as the father of five. That's why I'm alive, so if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi.

It's the C and C upon your right to your and now three, two, one. Here we go!

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Ask Us Anything segment of The Thrive Time Show. And on today's show, we are answering the question, what would Z do? And we are going to be breaking down 10 knowledge bombs that I know are going to bless you. But what I want to do, I want to ask all the listeners for a quick ask, a quick favor before we get started here. I think it's only fair.

Everybody out there. I want you to get a piece of paper or a notepad, maybe an etch-a-sketch. Get something that will allow you to take notes because what you are teaching now, is he how old are you right now? I'm 54, or I was going to say if you're a millennial, you could use the notes section on your smartphone. Talk to text. Yes. Right. Okay, so just clarify. You're 54 right now. Correct.

For the people out there that maybe won't have an appreciation for what we're going to teach here in just a second, I want to tee it up here. Okay. Throughout your career, Dr. C, you first built a what kind of business? Optometry clinic. What's your first locate? Where are your two locations now? Approximately 31st and Harvard and 71st in Memorial. How would you describe the size of these compared to the average optometrist?

Um, they're above average. Okay. It's a couple of humble. Yeah. I mean, you know, what was the second business that you started? The second business was the diet was a diagnostic sleep center. Okay. And what is that called? Dr. Z's sleep center. Get it. I see what you did. Get it. Now nine out of 10 startups fail according to Forbes. It's true. And Z, did any of those fail the first two? Do they fail? No, they became in fact, the largest in the region.

Okay. So what was your third business that you started? I started a auto auction. What's that called? Z 66 auto auction. Okay. And does it do well? Is it okay? Yeah, it's the largest in the state currently. Okay. And what was your next business? You started a DME company, which stands for durable medical equipment company. And we do several things. But the main thing we do are the CPAP machines that for people that have sleep apnea that we diagnosed in the doctor's sleep center.

Did you not invest early on in Regent Bank? You and Sean Copeland. It was funny because Sean actually a good friend of mine approached me to be to use their bank and I said, well, I'm tired of switching banks. Let's go buy a bank. He said, great idea. Let's go buy one. So Sean, did you know Sean previous to him approaching you?

I was doing a lecture or I was speaking at one of those organizations, you know, one of those lunch groupings I think could have been I'm not sure if it was Fellowship of Christian businessman or you know business dudes that are you know really serious dudes? I mean, I forget the name of it. Okay, but I was speaking when maybe there's a when those luncheon minimum

of integrity. Men of integrity, the luncheon series. Yes, yes, yes. Like, like red cars. So you guys, I was speaking at that. He came up to me afterwards and handed me his card to introduce himself. And from that point on, we became friends and built a relationship and then he was trying to woo me to start using the bank. He was working

currently at and I said, I'll forget that. Let's go buy one. So we do a little backstory with Sean is if you're out there and you don't know who Sean Copeland is one Google search search the guy. It's Sean S E A N Copeland K O U P L E N. He is a guy who's kind of like the Joel Osteen of banking. No doubt about it. And he's an author. He's a lecturer. He's a great guy. I mean, he's a guy's ever he also gives you a bro bro. When he meets you, he gives you a bro, a appropriate bro hug. Does he not?

Yes, it's sort of bankers. I know that gives a basketball style handshake hug combo. Well, he was a basketball player. You know, back in the truly, I know, and just amazing combination. So Sean Copeland, I knew him when he was a citizen security bank. He was one of the youngest people at that bank rose to the top. He became the president of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. I knew him when he moved to a grand bank.

And then now Regent Bank. And so you said, hey, buddy, let's just go buy one. I know you're going to move to different banks and try to drum up deposits. You know, it's going to be a top performer. But why don't we just buy a bank? You know, the thing about a bank is this is that I've said on different shows that I don't get involved in a business unless I can control it. But a bank is so controlled by the federal government, by the organization that they're under that I felt comfortable owning a minority piece of a bank because we decided when we went to buy it, we started on a set up a format that nobody would have a controlling interest. Everybody would have

You know, say 10 guys each own 10% kind of thing. And as part of the Illuminati, don't you control the government? Okay. All right. So, so now here. Tell a funny Sean Copeland stories. Yeah, please, please do it out there. Well, his grandfather was a cattle farmer out by where I had my horse ranch. They're actually neighbors of mine out there. Yeah. And so, um,

Anyway, he was telling me a story that some land came up for sale next to their ranch. And the grandfather said, we got to go buy that. You know, we don't want any mobile home parks moving in. It'd be the worst. I mean, we got to go home parks. We got to watch our flanks. We're going to protect our flights. They're coming to get us. We got to protect our flight family. And they looked at him at the dinner table and said, that's the grandpa. You know, that's three miles now from where we live. We've protected it pretty well.

There's seven layers deep. That's across the moat. It's kind of far away. The reason why I say all that is because, yes, you're my friend. Yes, in many respects, I consider you to be kind of like my business dad. You've been there for me. You've been more than a brother, more than a friend. It's awesome what you've done for my wife and I and our family. First, hiring my wife, and it's just little things, but my wife

worked for your optometry clinic and I didn't know you super well, but the standard of excellence that you guys created there was inspiring to me. So I would go in the lobby and I would spy on the business and look at the checklists and I didn't have a, we didn't have smartphones yet where I could take pictures, but I would actually draw.

I'm just, I would draw pictures of the checklist. I would go in there. I would like, why does he set up retail this way that way? I just, I, I studied your company and it created a source of inspiration for me to see a guy killing the game in optometry. Then at a time in our life where we didn't have a lot of money, we were starting DJ connection.com. I worked at Applebee's Target and direct TV, a time where you probably should not have said yes.

You agreed to meet with me for lunch and taught me a lot of things about the game of business. One of the first guys who's adamant about advertising. And I can say, this is the easiest part of business is marketing and branding so easy. Fun stuff. Sales so easy.

Is it marketing branding? It's so easy. It's fun. Sales is easy. But then you get into managing people and you have to get to a place where you have core principles that you adhere to, pretty much 100% of the time. You don't have core principles that you adhere to. And Dr. Z said, well, you know, Clay, I have these 10 rules for success. I want to teach you 10 business pig rules. Z, when did you come up with these rules?

This has been, you know, I formulated them over the years of business. But when did you get down to 10? I would go back to one thing you said. First of all, thank you for all the kind words. And I do see you as a business younger little brother or son. I like both of those. And when your father passed from ALS a few years ago, it was a really bonding moment for the two of us in time we fit together, getting you through the grieving, you know, motion of that.

But I will give hats off to your wife, Vanessa. That used to work for me. And that's how we met was through her. The fact that she could see the inner man that you were, because the dude that you were when you came to pick her up was a dude that we all sat around the break room and thought,

What on earth is with him? The combination of dumb and aggressive made it tough. Oh, I mean, really? I mean, the fact that you could see through your, your crusty outer. Crusty. Crust outer shell. No. Soft little inner jelly goodness that you are. Get it like if you're Jason talked about this morning in one of our meetings, but if you're Kanye West and you're known as having the Kanye scowl, that's cool because you're Kanye West. Right.

If you're M&M and you're known as being like, you know, intense, but in your M&M, that's cool. But if you got nothing, and you're just dumb and aggressive, that's not a move. You pull up in your car and the wall's a rattle. I mean, you had to think cranked up so loud. He's like a clam, right? There was a criminal in all, you know, sneaky eye and looking. So I got to ask you, so when did you, when do you finally distill your, uh, your observations from years of experience running companies into these 10 rules?

Well, what happened was I got, I got, like you, except I didn't get paid. I got asked to speak at an event. And so I, you know, you, you speak and then you keep your notes and the next time you work on it, you keep your notes and people love, you know, hey, I'm going to teach on my 10 points today. Oh, they just made a little light up. They're like, Oh, 10 points. I don't want to miss one of these, you know.

They're writing them down and they're focusing on it. And it kind of helped direct your, you know, your conversation. Then you get a theme and I got a, I themed it up and I got one that's a little unusual. It's not an unusual to have a pig as your theme. Let me get a woodblock. It's not unusual. Okay, back to you soon.

But so I kind of drew speech writing. I formulated these 10. This was a speech that I gave. And so it kind of forced me to sound and go, what are my, what are my, okay, here's what it looks like. How can I put that into this format? And so. And all of this goes under the title of what would Z do in my mind?

So, I'm going to read the principle and then the business pig principle. I'm calling these, these are Dr. Z's 10 business pig principles for success. Right, exactly. And I would tell everybody out there that owns a business. If I walked up to one of your employees and said, hey, how would you handle this situation? One of the things that should go through their mind is how would my owner slash boss handle this situation?

And if you haven't taught them or given them the ability or the action steps in order to do that, I would encourage you to do that. Because it got inspired by those little bracelets years ago that came out. There's a little, you know, rubber van bracelets here. Yeah, what would Jesus do? You know, and that's a really good way to kind of think through it. You're at a fork in the road, in which way would he go? What would he do? What would he do?

And so that's just the real kind of principle that I've always enjoyed having because a lot of times I haven't employed come to me with a problem. And I look at them and I'd say, well, what would I do? And they go, oh, well, you do. Just to demonstrate the mastery of how locked in you and I are now. Yeah. Well, we're going to teach you a principle. And then I'm going to play a song on the cowbell. Oh, and you can guess what song it is. Perfect. See if you see how locked in my favorite songs. Yes, my favorite games. I mean, here we go. So principle number one, name the tune.

pigs get fat, hogs get butchered. What does that mean? What does that mean? I was taught by that from a judge that I met from racing pigeons, which is a whole other show. We'll get into that. You're making this up. No, no, no, no. It's a thing. Google it. It's a thing. Racing pigeons.

I did that for years. His name was Dick Ott. And anyway, pigeons? No, he taught me that saying. And as soon as he said it, it was just like a light bulb went off of me. So it's like my blood started to boil. I just thought it was one of the coolest things ever because what it deals with is greed.

It deals with greed, and there's a lot of ways business owners can be greedy. One of the ways business owners can be greedy is pricing their product or their services. So high. So high. Hey, how much is your smoker cost? 1.2 billion dollars. What do you think about the philosophy that has been taught by many consultants all around the world? If people are willing to pay for it and not complain about the price, you should just keep raising it.

Well, there is something about that. But then the point is is that the pig raises it till he gets one or two complaints and then goes, OK, I know I'm probably there. The hog continues to raise it until he stops selling it. You see the difference? So the pig goes, you know what? Hey, I raised it five bucks, no one complained. Hey, I'm going to raise it another five bucks, no one complained. And then when he starts getting a little bit of pushback and some complaints, he probably knows

It's, they were kind of wanting to complain before, but they just didn't know how to verbalize it. So now he's at the, now he's at the, you know, but my philosophy was this is why raise the price when you can expand the building, when you can hire more doctors, when you can do more, when you can just expand that. I mean, there's always a limiting membrane. Don't let the price or the greed be your limiting membrane. And, and the other thing too is with employees. I know so many people that just beat up their employees on price. They will not pay them well. Yeah.

Listen, if you don't take good care of your employees, especially your good ones, somebody else will. And that's another component. It's also a dating tip. Yeah. Okay. But that's another component of greed. The third area.

that I see so many times is people that own a business just want to beat their vendors up. They want to get in there and that sales reps comes in the door and they pretty soon they come in every two weeks and now they're every month and now they're every six weeks and now you don't even see them anymore because they're tired of getting beat up on price. Come in and go, well, you need to knock that thing down. Another two points, two percent of the points. They get about making a switch. I'm thinking about sitting this back up for negotiations. It's got to be a win-win.

Let me give, let me give some specifics to this that I've asked Dr. Z about over the years. I think Chef will be helpful to add to the show notes. One, as you just said, we need to make a win-win in all scenarios. You should be a win for the customer, a win for the employee. Right. We call it the three P's. You want to have a business that's profitable. Yes. You want to have a product that you're proud of, right? Yes. And you want to have people that you like working with. The three P's. Absolutely.

Also, you want to make a profit of about what Z 20 to 20 percent 25 percent is sort of that Target some industries are higher some are lower like home building somewhere between 20 and 30 is is a pretty healthy margin if you're shooting for more than 30 you're kind of getting the hug You see guys are like I made a 70 percent margin on this sudden you hold me bottle. Yeah, it's my only one I've ever gotten though, but I crushed it Okay, that's not good Johnson. I got him good

Now, see, I'm going to queue up our first song of show name at two. I want you to think about the song. I'm going to play it as I play it on the cow, but I want you to ask yourself to see what song is this on this edition of name that tune.

I'm a former DJ. I know I know hundreds of thousands of songs and I'm not it could be any song I know so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a genre that way we narrative no no no no don't don't even I don't keep in this moment no I just look at a song that was a sang by a male artist okay got it good thing in here I already I already gave it away here we go oh that's easy Michael Jackson beat it yes

That was impressive. Well, thank you. I don't know how you do that every time. It's just crazy. It's crazy good to demonstrate how out of sync Chup and I are now. I'm gonna tee up a song here. This song was sang by a male artist and I'm gonna play it. I want you to see if you can guess what I'm ready.

I know it, on top of old Smokies. No, it's purple rain. Purple rain, a purple rain. It's so obvious. You haven't spent enough time here to get more in Osmosis, more in a flow. Okay, principle number two, from Dr. Z's business pig principles for success. Principle number two, be the pig at breakfast, not the chicken. What does that mean? What does it mean? Well, let's look at the rolls at breakfast.

My love rolls. Oh yeah.

Place that place where you throw them at each other. I went there this weekend. Lambert, Lambert. Lambert, no. We'll just shout out to Lambert. Hey, you know what? Are you serious? They only. I went there on Friday night. Let me celebrate this moment. Yeah. You went to Lambert. I was at Lambert's. I was at the throw of all the restaurants in the world. He could have possibly gone to. How did that happen? Z and I are in safety. We can't make this stuff up. Wow. So being that pig means you gave your life for bacon.

Ham. Ham. Sausage. Sausage. That means fully committed. In other words, you are all in. All in. The chicken lays an egg. And you know, it's kind of like maybe I lay an egg tomorrow if I feel like it. Let me let me let me go off for a second. Let me go off for a second. This is something I hear all the time. I see people say all the time.

I'm gonna try out this idea and see if it works. Cause if this idea works, then I'll go ahead and keep pursuing it. So I'm just gonna try this, but my fallback position is his other job. I put a little bit of money into this coffee shop, but if it requires work and I don't get traction, I am going to stop. See, why is that such Jack Assery to not be the pig at breakfast? I'm gonna take an example. Yes.

I was mentoring a young man who wanted to open up a kind of a swanky clothing store, kind of, you know, that kind of that swank that they have those pants with swagalicious kind of stuff that Caleb would buy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, you know, the kind of cool t-shirt, you know, very stylish, you know, crazy socks and all that stuff. And a few months later, you know, we have another meeting and he comes by to kind of

Commism rate and I'm like, what's that because I think I have to shut it down? Damn bro. I'm like, oh What's going on? He goes well try to find good help and I've got this dude on Saturday's just keeps stealing from me I think you know man just giving free stuff waiters friends Robbing the kitty and man all that kind of stuff. I'm like, well, why don't you just why don't you get in there work on Saturdays? Oh, no

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bro, that's leg day. Hey, I have it. I have audio of what this person said to you. I know it's kind of unethical for me to have miked a private conversation between you. You do it all the time, man, that you are mentoring to start this clothing company was it was. Yeah. I have a dashery. I want to make sure it was a clothing company because I mike all conversations. Yes. It's hard to sort through my audio files, but this is what he said to you. You said to him, you said, buddy, you got to be willing to do whatever it takes. And this is what he said to you.

Surely you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. I don't quite understand the exchange, but that's what happened. Well, that's the thing about it is, is that when you, in Napoleon Dynamite's book, he talks about burning the boat. Burning the boats. And what that means is that from one island that would go and attack the next island. Yes. And the idea was, is that there was no retreat, there was no plan B. We're either going to take this island or die. I mean, that's a huge thing about that. Just think about that. Think about that. The mindset of that.

This after reading that book I read that book 2000 ish mm-hmm then I had a lunch with you teed up by Kylie your manager who's still there by the way super excited for the holiday party Christmas party coming up very soon clay I just want to point one thing out when you can you pull that for lunch and you lit your car on fire it's not the same thing okay

It's not burning. You don't have to burn your car. Bro, it's you get to be literal. Burn the view. That's not. I had also I was also one of the early jihadi recruits. And so I just went ahead and pulled out the manual for car bomb. Okay. Now the point is the point is no seriously. Um, I had just finished reading that book and I met with you and I remember this. You said Clay, can I be frank with you and I go.

Okay. I thought you were Robert, but okay. But you said this. You said you have got to advertise. You eventually have to buy an ad. You have, and I remember kind of like having, well, but yeah, but I can't afford it. And you're like, listen, I'm not a paid consultant. Just buy an ad. I had, you were just very direct on that. And I remember going,

This guy's a jerk. You got up. No, I'm not kidding. You got up and went to the salad bar. I remember going, I wrote that down like this guy. Because Vanessa and I were in a spot where I was working at Applebee's Target and Direct TV, three jobs Vanessa had a job at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University. And I remember going, I don't know how we're going to do this. And so I went and talked to Vanessa and I'm like,

I burn the boats, Dr. Z. It's like an hour long wind up. And I'm like, we're going to have to turn off the air conditioning or the heat. We got to do something.

I don't know. It was a powerful moment in your life. No, seriously. And we actually sold. We had a white car. I can't remember. It was like, I want to say it was it was an American model, like a Buick or something. My parents had sold for me. I mean, my parents sold to me for like nothing. It was very low cost. But I sold that. And we just had the Mazda MPV and she started walking to work and she would drop me off at my jobs.

and we decided to buy a yellow page ad uh... from uh... sally who is sally louis who is the mother of one of your clients kevin louis louis roofing and it was like two grand a month to see

See has there never been has there ever been a better time in American history? I mean right now you can turn on your YouTube ads or your Facebook ads month to month man week to week See do you remember the times you had to commit to an agreement for like a year? You have questions America's number one business coach has answers. It's your brought up from Minnesota Here's another edition of ask clay anything on the thrive time business coach radio show

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Ask Us Anything segment of The Thrive Time Show. And on today's show, we are answering the question, what would Z do? And we are going to be breaking down 10 knowledge bombs that I know are going to bless you. But what I want to do, I want to ask all the listeners for a quick ask, a quick favor before we get started here. I think it's only fair.

Everybody out there, I want you to get a piece of paper or a notepad, maybe an etch-a-sketch, get something that will allow you to take notes because what you are teaching now, is he how old are you right now? I'm 54, or I was gonna say if you're a millennial, you can use the notes section on your smartphone. Talk to text. Yes. Right. Okay, so just clarify. You're 54 right now. Correct.

For the people out there that maybe won't have an appreciation for what we're going to teach here in just a second, I want to tee it up here. Okay. Throughout your career, Dr. Z, you first built a what kind of business? Optometry clinic. What's your first locate? Where are your two locations now? Approximately 31st and Harvard and 71st of Memorial. How would you describe the size of these compared to the average optometrist?

Um, they're above average. Okay. It's a couple of humble. Yeah. I mean, you know, what was the second business that you started? The second business was the diet was a diagnostic sleep center. Okay. And what is that called? Dr. Z's sleep center. Get it. I see what you did. Get it. Now nine out of 10 startups fail according to Forbes. It's true. And Z, did any of those fail the first two? Do they fail? No, they became in fact, the largest in the region.

Okay. So what was your third business that you started? I started a auto auction. What's that called? Z 66 auto auction. Okay. And does it do well? Is it okay? Yeah, it's the largest in the state currently. Okay. And what was your next business? You started a DME company, which stands for durable medical equipment company. And we do several things. But the main thing we do are the CPAP machines that for people that have sleep apnea that we diagnose in the doctor's sleep center.

Did you not invest early on in Regent Bank? You and Sean Copeland. It was funny because Sean actually a good friend of mine approached me to be to use their bank and I said, I'm tired of switching banks. Let's go buy a bank. He said, great idea. Let's go buy one. So Sean, did you know Sean previous to him approaching you?

I was doing a lecture or I was speaking at one of those organizations, you know, one of those lunch groupings I think could have been, I'm not sure if it was Fellowship of Christian businessman or, you know, business dudes that are, you know, really serious dudes. I mean, I forget the name of it. Okay. But I was speaking when maybe there's a, uh, when those, uh,

A luncheon, men of, men of integrity. Men of integrity, a luncheon, seriously. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, like red cars. So you guys, I was speaking at that and he came up to me afterwards and handed me his card to introduce himself. And from that point on, we became friends and built a relationship and then he was trying to woo me to start using the bank. He was working.

currently at and I said, I'll forget that. Let's go buy one. So we do a little backstory with Sean is if you're out there and you don't know who Sean Copeland is one, Google search the guy. It's Sean S-E-A-N Copeland K-O-U-P-L-E-N. He is a guy who's kind of like the Joel Osteen of banking. No doubt about it. And he's an author. He's a lecturer. He's a great guy. I mean, he's an all around guy's ever. And he also gives you bro, bro. When he meets you, he gives you a bro hug. An appropriate bro hug. Does he not?

Yes, it's sort of bankers. I know that gives a basketball style handshake hug combo. Well, he was a basketball player. You know, back in the truly, I know, and just amazing combination. So Sean Copeland, I knew him when he was a citizen security bank. He was one of the youngest people at that bank rose to the top. He became the president of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. I knew him when he moved to a grand bank.

And then now Regent Bank. And so you said, hey, buddy, let's just go buy one. I know you're going to move to different banks and try to drum up deposits. You know, it's going to be a top performer. But why don't we just buy a bank? You know, the thing about a bank is this is that I've said on different shows that you have questions. America's number one business coach has answers. It's your brought up from Minnesota. Here's another edition of Ask Clay Anything on the Thrive Time Business Coach radio show.

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Ask Us Anything segment of The Thrive Time Show. And on today's show, we are answering the question, what would Z do? And we are going to be breaking down 10 knowledge bombs that I know are going to bless you. But what I want to do, I want to ask all the listeners for a quick ask, a quick favor before we get started here. I think it's only fair.

everybody out there. I want you to get a piece of paper or a notepad, maybe an etch a sketch, get something that will allow you to take notes because what you are teaching now, is he how old are you right now? I'm 54 or I was going to say if you're a millennial, you could use the notes section on your smartphone. Talk to text. Yes. Right. Okay. So just clarify. You're 54 right now. Correct.

For the people out there that maybe won't have an appreciation for what we're going to teach here in just a second, I want to tee it up here. Okay. Throughout your career, Dr. C, you first built a what kind of business? Optometry clinic. What's your first locate? Where are your two locations now? Approximately 31st and Harvard and 71st of Memorial. How would you describe the size of these compared to the average optometrist?

Um, they're above average. Okay. It's a couple of humble. Yeah. I mean, you know, what was the second business that you started? The second business was the diet was a diagnostic sleep center. Okay. And what is that called? Dr. Z's sleep center. Get it. I see what you did. Get it. Now nine out of 10 startups fail according to Forbes. It's true. And Z, did any of those fail the first two? Do they fail? No, they became in fact, the largest in the region.

Okay. So what was your third business that you started? I started a auto auction. What's that called? Z66 auto auction. Okay. And does it do well? Is it okay? Yeah, it's the largest in the state currently. Okay. And what was your next business? You started a DME company, which stands for durable medical equipment company. And we do several things. But the main thing we do are the CPAP machines that for people that have sleep apnea that we diagnosed in the doctor's sleep center.

Did you not invest early on in Regent Bank? You and Sean Copeland. It was funny because Sean actually a good friend of mine approached me to be to use their bank and I said, I'm tired of switching banks. Let's go buy a bank. He said, great idea. Let's go buy one. So Sean, did you know Sean previous to him approaching you?

I was doing a lecture or I was speaking at one of those organizations, one of those lunch groupings I think could have been, I'm not sure if it was Fellowship of Christian businessman or, you know, business dudes that are, you know, really serious dudes. I mean, I forget the name of it, okay? But I was speaking when maybe there's a, when those,

A luncheon, men of, men of integrity. Men of integrity, a luncheon, seriously. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, like red cars. So you guys, I was speaking at that. He came up to me afterwards and handed me his card to introduce himself. And from that point on, we became friends and built a relationship. And then he was trying to woo me to start using the bank. He was working.

currently at and I said, I'll forget that. Let's go buy one. So we do a little backstory with Sean is if you're out there and you don't know who Sean Copeland is one Google search search the guy. It's Sean S-E-A-N Copeland K-O-U-P-L-E-N. He is a guy who's kind of like the Joel Osteen of banking. No doubt about it. And he's an author. He's a lecturer. He's a great guy. I mean, he's an all around guy's ever. And he also gives you a bro. Oh, when he meets you, he gives you a bro hug. An appropriate bro hug. Does he not?

Yes, it's sort of bankers. I know that gives a basketball style handshake hug combo. Well, he was a basketball player. You know, back in the day, I know. And just amazing combination. So Sean Copeland, I knew him when he was a citizen security bank. He was one of the youngest people at that bank rose to the top. He became the president of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. I knew him when he moved to a grand bank.

And then now Regent Bank. And so you said, hey, buddy, I know you're going to move to different banks and try to drum up deposits. You know, it's going to be a top performer. But why don't we just buy a bank? You know, the thing about a bank is this is that I've said on different shows that I don't get involved in a business unless I can control it. But a bank is so controlled by the federal government, by the organization that they're under that I felt comfortable owning a minority piece of a bank because we decided when we went to buy it, we started on a set up a format that nobody would have a controlling interest. Everybody would have

You know, say 10 guys each own 10% kind of thing. And as part of the Illuminati, don't you control the government? Okay. All right. So, so now here. Tell a funny Sean Copeland stories. Yeah, please, please do it out there. Well, his grandfather was a cattle farmer out by where I had my horse ranch. They're actually neighbors of mine out there. Yeah. And so.

Anyway, he was telling me a story that some land came up for sale next to their ranch. And the grandfather said, we got to go buy that. You know, we don't want to go home parks moving in. It'd be the worst. I mean, we got to go home parks. We got to watch our flanks. We got to protect our flights. They're coming to get us. We got to protect our flight family. And they looked at him at the dinner table and said, that's the grandpa. You know, that's three miles now from where we live. We've protected it pretty well.

There's seven layers, dude. That's across the moat. It's kind of far away. The reason why I sail that is because, yes, you're my friend. Yes, in many respects, I consider you to be kind of like my business dad. You've been there for me. You've been more than a brother, more than a friend. It's awesome what you've done for my wife and I and our family. First, hiring my wife, and it's just little things, but my wife

worked for your optometry clinic and I didn't know you super well, but the standard of excellence that you guys created there was inspiring to me. So I would go in the lobby and I would spy on the business and look at the checklists and I didn't have a, we didn't have smartphones yet where I could take pictures, but I would actually draw.

I'm just I would draw pictures of the checklist. I would go in there. I would like, why does he set up retail this way that way? I just I studied your company and it created a source of inspiration for me to see a guy killing the game in optometry.

Then at a time in our life where we didn't have a lot of money, we were starting DJConnection.com. I worked at Applebee's Target and Direct TV, a time where you probably should not have said yes. You agreed to meet with me for lunch and taught me a lot of things about the game of business. One of the first guys who's adamant about advertising and I can say this is the easiest part of business is marketing and branding so easy. Fun stuff.

Sales so easy. Is it marketing branding? It's so easy. Sales is easy. But then you get into managing people and you have to get to a place where you have core principles that you adhere to. Pretty much 100% of the time you have core principles that you adhere to. And Dr. Z said, well, you know, Clay, I have these 10 rules for success. I want to teach you 10 business pig rules. See, when did you come up with these rules?

This has been, you know, I formulated them over the years of business. But when did you get down to 10? I would go back to one thing you said. First of all, thank you for all the kind words. And I do see you as a business younger little brother or son. I like both of those. And when your father passed from ALS a few years ago, it was a really bonding moment for the two of us in time we put together, getting you through the grieving motion of that.

But I will give hats off to your wife, Vanessa. That used to work for me. And that's how we met was through her. The fact that she could see the inner man that you were, because the dude that you were when you came to pick her up was a dude that we all sat around the break room and thought,

What on earth is with him? The combination of dumb and aggressive made it tough. Oh, I mean, really? I mean, the fact that you could see through your, your crusty outer. Crusty. Crusty outer shell. No. It does soft little inner jelly goodness that you are. Get it like if you're Jason talked about this morning in one of our meetings, but if you're Kanye West and you're known as having the Kanye scowl, that's cool because you're Kanye West. Right.

If you're M&M and you're known as being like, you know, the bad boy rapper, yeah, but in your M&M, that's cool. But if you got nothing, you're just dumb and aggressive. That's not a move. I mean, you pump in your car in the water bottle. I mean, you had to think cranked up so loud. He's like a clam, right? There was a criminal in all, you know, sneaky eye looking pick up. I got to ask this though. When did you, when do you finally distill your, uh, uh, your observations from years of experience running companies into these 10 rules?

Well, what happened was I got, I got like you, except I didn't get paid. I got asked to speak at an event. And so I, you know, you, you speak and then you keep your notes and the next time you work on it, you keep your notes. People love, you know, hey, I'm going to teach on my 10 points today. Oh, they just made a little light up. They're like, Oh, 10 points. I don't want to miss one of these, you know.

They're writing them down and they're focusing on it. And it kind of helped direct your, you know, your conversation. Then you get a theme and I got a, I themed it up and I got one that's a little unusual. It's not an unusual to have a pig as your theme. Let me get a woodblock, start on usual. Okay, back to you soon.

But so I kind of drew speech writing. I formulated these 10. This was a speech that I gave. And so it kind of forced me to sound and go, what are my, what are my, okay, here's what it looks like. How can I put that into this format? And so. And all of this goes under the title of what would Z do in my mind.

So, I'm going to read the principle and then the business pig principle. I'm calling these, these are Dr. Z's 10 business pig principles for success. Right, exactly. And I would tell everybody out there that owns a business. If I walked up to one of your employees and said, hey, how would you handle this situation? One of the things that should go through their mind is how would my owner slash boss handle this situation?

And if you haven't taught them or given them the ability or the action steps in order to do that, I would encourage you to do that. Because it got inspired by those little bracelets years ago that came out. There's a little, you know, rubber van bracelets here. Yeah, what would Jesus do? You know, and that's a really good way to kind of think through it. You're at a fork in the road, in which way would he go? What would he do?

And so that's just the real kind of principle that I've always enjoyed having because a lot of times I'll have an employee come to me with a problem, and I look at them and I'd say, well, what would I do? And they go, oh, well, you do. Just to demonstrate the mastery of how locked in you and I are now. Yeah. Well, we're going to teach a principle. And then I'm going to play a song on the cowbell. Oh, and you can guess what song it is. Perfect. See if you see all this stuff locked in my favorite songs. Yes, my favorite games. I mean, here we go. So principle number one, name the tune.

pigs get fat, hogs get butchered. What does that mean? What does that mean? I was taught by that from a judge that I met from racing pigeons, which is a whole other show. We'll get into that. You're making this up. No, no, no, no. It's a thing. Google it. It's a thing. Racing pigeons.

I did that for years. His name was Dick Ott. And anyway, the pigeons? No, he told me that saying. And as soon as he said it, it was just like a light bulb went off of me. So it's like my blood started to boil. I just thought it was when the coolest things ever, because what it deals with is greed.

It deals with greed, and there's a lot of ways business owners can be greedy. One of the ways business owners can be greedy is pricing their product or their services. So high. So high. Hey, how much is your smoker cost? 1.2 billion dollars. What do you think about the philosophy that has been taught by many consultants all around the world? If people are willing to pay for it and not complain about the price, you should just keep raising it.

Well, there is something about that. But then the point is that the pig raises it till he gets one or two complaints and then goes, OK, I know I'm probably there. The hog continues to raise it until he stops selling it. You see the difference? So the pig goes, you know what? Hey, I raised it five bucks, no one complained. Hey, I'm going to raise it another five bucks, no one complained. And then when he starts getting a little bit of pushback and some complaints, he probably knows

is they were kind of wanting to complain before, but they just didn't know how to verbalize it. So now he's at the, now he's at the, you know, but my philosophy was this is why raise the price when you can expand the building. When you can hire more doctors, when you can do more, when you can just expand that. I mean, there's always a limiting membrane. Don't let the price or the greed be your limiting membrane. And the other thing too is with employees. I know so many people that just beat up their employees on price. They will not pay them well. They won't pay them well. Yeah.

Listen, if you don't take good care of your employees, especially your good ones, somebody else will. And that's another component. It's also a dating tip. Yeah. Okay. But that's another component of greed. The third area.

that I see so many times is people that own a business just want to beat their vendors up. They want, they want to get in there and that sells reps comes in the door and they pretty soon they, you know, they come in every two weeks and then out there every month and out there every six weeks and now you don't even see them anymore because they're tired of getting beat up on price coming and go, well, you need to knock that thing down another two points, you know, two percent of the points. They get about making a switch. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm going to, I'm thinking about sending this back up for, you know, negotiations that think about, it's got to be a win-win.

Let me give, let me give some specifics to this that I've asked Dr. Z about over the years. I think Chef will be helpful to add to the show notes. One, as you just said, we need to make a win-win in all scenarios. You just be a win for the customer, win for the employee. Right. We call it the three P's. You want to have a business that's profitable. Yes. You want to have a product that you're proud of, right? Yes. And you want to have people that you like working with, the three P's. Absolutely.

Also, you want to make a profit of about what Z 20 to 20 percent 25 percent is sort of that Target some industries are higher some are lower like home building somewhere between 20 and 30 is is a pretty healthy margin if you're shooting for more than 30 You're kind of getting the hug You see guys are like I made a 70 percent margin on this sudden to hold me bottle. Yeah, it's my only one I've ever gotten no, but I crushed it Okay, that's not good Johnson. I got him good

Now, see, I'm going to queue up our first song of show name at two. I want you to think about the song. I'm going to play it as I play it on the cow, but I want you to ask yourself to see what song is this on this edition of name that tune.

I'm a former DJ. I know I know hundreds of thousands of songs and I'm not it could be any song I know so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a genre that way we narrative no no don't don't don't even I don't keep in this moment no I just look at a song that was a sang by a male artist okay got it good thing in here I think I already I already gave it away oh that's easy Michael Jackson beat it yes

That was impressive. Well, thank you. I don't know how you do that every time. It's just crazy. It's crazy good to demonstrate how out of sync Chup and I are now. I'm gonna tee up a song here. This song was sang by a male artist. And I'm gonna play it. I want you to see if you can guess what it is. Ready?

I know it. On top of old Smokies. No, it's purple rain. Purple rain. Purple rain. It's so obvious. You haven't spent enough time here. We need to get more in osmosis. More in a flow. Okay. Principle number two from Dr. Z's business pig principles for success. Principle number two. Be the pig at breakfast, not the chicken. What? What does that mean? What does it mean? Well, let's look at the rolls at breakfast.

My love rolls. Oh yeah.

What is that place where you throw them at each other? I went there this weekend. Lambert, Lambert! Lambert, no! Shout out to Lambert. Hey, you know what? Are you serious? They only... I went there on Friday night. Let me celebrate this moment. Yeah. You went to Lambert. I was at Lambert's. I was at Lambert's house at the throne. Oh, the throne's in the world. He could have possibly gone to. How did that happen? Z and I are in sinking. We can't make this stuff up. Wow. Okay. So being that pig means you gave your life for bacon.

Ham. Ham. Sausage. Sausage. That means fully committed. In other words, you are all in. All in. Lays an egg. And you know, it's kind of like, maybe I'll lay an egg tomorrow if I feel like it. Let me let me let me go off for a second. Let me go off for a second. This is something I hear all the time. I see people say all the time.

I'm gonna try out this idea and see if it works because if this idea works, then I'll go ahead and keep pursuing it. So I'm just gonna try this, but my fallback position is his other job. I put a little bit of money into this coffee shop, but if it requires work and I don't get traction, I am going to stop. See, why is that such Jack Assery to not be the pig at breakfast? I'm gonna take an example. Yes.

I was mentoring a young man who wanted to open up a kind of a swanky clothing store, kind of, you know, that kind of that swank that they have those pants with swagalicious kind of stuff that Caleb would buy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, you know, the kind of cool t-shirt or stylish, you know, crazy socks and all that stuff. And a few months later, you know, we have another meeting and he comes by to kind of

Commism rate and I'm like what's up because I think I have to shut it down. I'm down bro. I'm like oh What's going on? He goes well? It's hard to find good help and I've got this dude on sari's just keeps stealing from me I think you know man just giving free stuff waiters friends Robbing the kitty and oh man all that kind of stuff. I'm like well Why don't you just why don't you get in there work on Saturdays? Oh no

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bro, that's leg day. Hey, I have it. I have audio of what this person said to you. I know it's kind of unethical for me to have Mike, a private conversation between you. You do it all the time. The man that you are mentoring to start this clothing company was, it was a clothing company. Yeah. I have a dashery. I want to make sure it was a clothing company because I Mike, all conversations. Yes. It's hard to sort through my audio files, but this is what he said to you. You said to him, you said, buddy, you got to be willing to do whatever it takes. And this is what he said to you.

Surely you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. I don't quite understand the exchange, but that's what happened. Well, that's the thing about it is, is that when you, in Napoleon Dynamite's book, he talks about burning the boat. Burning the boats. And what that means is that from one island that would go and attack the next island. Yes. And the idea was, is that there was no retreat, there was no plan B. We're either going to take this island or die. I mean, that's a huge thing about that. Just think about that. Think about that. The mindset of that.

This after reading that book I read that book 2000 ish mm-hmm then I had a lunch with you teed up by Kylie your manager who's still there by the way super excited for the holiday party Christmas party coming up very soon clay I just want to point one thing out when you can you pull that for lunch and you lit your car on fire it's not the same thing okay

I was also one of the early jihadi recruits and so I just went ahead and pulled out the manual for car bombs. Okay. The point is, the point is, oh, seriously, um, I had just finished reading that book and I met with you and, uh, I remember this. You said Clay, can I be frank with you and I go.

Okay. I thought you were Robert, but okay. Either way. But you said this. You said you have got to advertise. You eventually have to buy an ad. You have, and I remember kind of like having, well, but yeah, but I can't afford it. And you're like, listen, I'm not a paid consultant. Just buy an ad. I had, you were just very direct on that. And I remember going,

This guy's a jerk. You got up. You got up and went to the salad bar. I remember going, I wrote that down like this guy. Because Vanessa and I were in a spot where I'm working at Applebee's Target and Direct TV, three jobs Vanessa had a job at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University. And I remember going, I don't know how we're going to do this. And so I went and talked to Vanessa and I'm like,

I burned the boats, Dr. Z. It's like an hour long wind up. And I'm like, we just, we're going to have to turn off the air conditioning or the heat. We got to do something.

I don't know. It was a powerful moment in your life. No, seriously. And we actually sold. We had a white car. I can't remember. It was like, I want to say it was it was an American model, like a Buick or something. My parents had sold for me. I think my parents sold to me for like nothing. It was very low cost. But I sold that. And we just had the Mazda MPV and she started walking to work and she would drop me off at my jobs.

And we decided to buy a yellow page ad from Sally, who is Sally Lewis, who is the mother of one of your clients. And it was like two grand a month.

See has there never been has there ever been a better time in American history? I mean right now you can turn on your YouTube ads or your Facebook ads month to month man week to week See do you remember the times when you had to commit to an agreement for like a year to buy a yellow page ad? I know I tell you a business owner starting today. I've got it that part of it much easier It's so it's so easy so much easier than we had it back in the day But I remember I tell you what you put that picture in there and you make sure you had the big ones here up front. I mean, oh, no, I was like hot

It's like fishing for fish and a barrel. Jeff Ramsey was my first inbound call. You remember? Jeff Ramsey. Oh, yeah. It's crazy you were saying the other day on the show, Clay. You had to commit to whatever marketing strategy you're going for for a year. There was no A.B. testing. There was no trying things out. It's like, let me tell you what I did. Dr. Z said, if your ad doesn't grab somebody by the throat, can you explain what kind of ad you want? If you're going to launch an ad, what could your ad has to do in terms of getting the attention of your ideal and likely buyers? Well, you've got to have a call to action.

The ad has to inspire you how many times right now you're listening right now you've heard an ad on the radio you've seen an ad in a magazine or newspaper you've watched an ad on TV and you go huh yeah I don't know and then the ad comes along that makes you laugh makes you remember it makes you go I've got to have that thing if I don't have that thing I may

I may not make it. I might not. I might not. I have to. My quality of life. I do need a hammer from the hamlet. I need a hammer in the hamlet. Honeycutt ham. Honeycutt ham from the hamlet. You have to have a call to action. And in order to do that, you have to have some kind of component of a deal that just is so awesome, so incredible. So back in the day, now it's like you want to drive into a website, you want to drive into something else. But back in the day, my whole goal was to get them big of the phone and call me. But I want to have something so crazy.

So outlandish. So over the top call the action, they have no choice but to pick up the phone and call because that was the move back in the back in the day. And so my all I all I did was I looked at my competition and they had an ad that said something like started in 1984, founded in 1984. Yeah. So I'm going.

Well, uh, conceived in 1980. Yeah, that was. Okay. And then it said, we have over a hundred thousand songs. And I thought to myself, talking to Z, I mean, I could conceivably get up to a million songs. Right. So I wrote something like, we can get up to a hundred and 10,000 songs.

or something just more than him. And I just won up them. And I said, we'll be any competitors price. And my ad was smoking hot, dude. It worked. It got attention. I put my head. That's what advertising does. It done correctly. It makes the phone drink. I literally, all the ads were kind of conservative. I took my head and put it on a body of a person in a suit using Photoshop. So it was like a caricature head, like a bobble head on a normal sized man body, like a five times larger head. And it worked, dude.

Clay, I don't want to be mean and I don't want to be disrespectful. You know, you know, I've got a lot of man love for you. I mean, you know that, right? Yep. But your head is really, really big. No, I got to be honest with you. I did not enlarge the photo at all. Thank you.

See your picture. But I mean, when I went out there and launched the ad, I had to be the pig at breakfast, I had to commit to it. And that's one of the things that I think, you know, why we have such a high fail rate on businesses, according to Forbes, which is kind of our business Bible. We like to quote Forbes a lot because they've done a lot of the research. And it's the easy button. We don't have to go do it. To be honest with you, they've already done it.

And 90% of business fail up to 80%, 90% of startups and then 80% of businesses fail. And that rate is way too high. That's one of the things that started us down this pathway of building a business school online, doing in-person workshops, doing the radio show, which is now a podcast, having one-on-one now even, you know,

when I went coaching, business coaching. A quick clarification. A lot of people might have misunderstood what you just said. When you said Forbes, you weren't saying F orbs. Nope. No, I'm saying Forbes. Spherical bodies are globes. You have no problem with those. When I meet an entrepreneur that has that fire in their eye and says, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to do this no matter what.

study show that people that say I have a plan B, I might fall back. I'm not going to burn my boats. I have a, I have a, I have an escape door. Right. I have a parachute. I have a parachute. Yes. You think that's wisdom. That just sounds wise. That sounds, you know, a prudent man has, you know, has his, you know, what they print. No, no.

Be the pig, fully commit, get your mindset wrapped around. It's because 67% of you out there, according to Forbes, again, want to start a business. And we want to help you start it and grow it. Be committed to saying, you know what? I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. We've talked about this in the past on the show, but the thought of a founder's mentality, that means there's urgency within your actions. And if you've only dipped in a toe in the Jacuzz, if you're only trying out the waters... Oh, the Jacuzz?

Yeah, if you're only testing out the waters, you put out the, I'll tell you what you did. If you did, if you did, you brought it, I can see up right now. I got a nice double. You expected. I'm taking my shirt off right now. Let's see. Oh, you're written all time for today's show. The entire foot, the entire focus of today's show is what would Z do?

Yeah, I get the jacuzzi. Who wants to eat you? The business picks 10 business principles for success. All right. So see, I'm going to keep my next song from name that tune here. I'm going to play the song. This song is a male artist from the 80s. A male artist, think about it for a second. Think about it. OK, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I transmit the signal to you. Is it an individual or is it a boy band?

I couldn't get that much. Okay. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you

Oh, that's easy. Bobby Brown, don't be cruel. I don't be cruel. I will never be that cruel to you. It's so simple. No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm trying. I'm trying. Okay. So principle number three, business pig principle number three that has allowed Dr. Z to build multiple multi million dollar businesses. It's no one to cook the pig. What does that mean? What does it see?

Audio. Quick audio. This is quick audio here. Okay. You're saying it weird. All of it. Where do you get off? I just don't get what you're saying it that way. Why I'm saying what? What way? Okay. Now we've clarified what you're saying, Z. What you're saying. Talk to me. Talk to us about what you mean when we say, no, when to cook the pig.

Well, I always love those scenes in Hawaii. Of course, she doesn't love Hawaii. I mean, you know, come on. They have the luau. And in the luau, one of the, one of the standards in the luau is a pig. You know, with an apple in its mouth. I mean, the whole, like the whole pig being cooked, right?

And it's always a celebration. There's always a big family celebration. It's a wedding. There we go. There we go. There we go. Keep going. So the idea that you're going to cook a pig means you're partying, means you're having fun, means you're celebrating, means you are having a good time. Oh, nice. It's a season. And so for me, it's very important.

So for example, this December 8th, yes, we're going to have a probably what I'm 500 people at our Christmas party. It's going to be epic. Employee Christmas party. It's going to be epic. They're at the famous.

male hotel iconic iconic in the chris stork yes in the crystal ballroom oh wow where they actually have original it's like original old-school marble crown molding the detail there i mean you talk with the did they don't make hotels like that anymore they don't history

So I'm gonna take your business owner out there and your team has, you have some wins. Go celebrate it. Hey, take him to a pizza joint. Go bowling, go to a billiard. You took my wife and I to Magoo's. Yes, which is a billiard. You took all your employees to Magoo's. Show important billiards. We had a great time. Great time. Fabulous time. I'm just telling you, at the time though, when you did it, Vanessa and I couldn't afford to go on dates.

It was a huge highlight for us, man. It's a win-win. One, selfishly as the employer, I get my team bonding together, even tighter friends and fired up. And they also know that they work hard, and they hit the numbers, and we have a successful month. Guess what? Chicken butt. Exactly.

No, it was you. That was a great night out. It was exciting. It was very fun. Also, I remember the Christmas party. It was the first time we had a formal event since we got married. It's so much fun. And the casino theme going on. Remember back in the day. It was so much fun. So I'm telling you out there, business owners, if you're not celebrating the victories with your staff, you're missing an opportunity to not only bond with them, but to also show them that they're in the boat with you. I have a question on behalf of a listener who couldn't be here today. Yes, sir. And Chappell kind of tee it up here.

So, Dr. Z, why can't you have a cheap-ass Christmas potty? Why can't you have just the cheapest-ass thing? You know, the cheapest, the most unbelievably tacky, because for years I've been buying my employees. I've been re-gifted, you know what I mean? I re-gift and I, it's been kind of a secret thing. No one really knows, but I've been re-gifted. And it's been working well. Why do I have to spend all the time and the money to put together a holiday potty? Here again, these are one of the things that helps you build a culture of the environment of your workplace. Come on up.

And when you ever you when your staff knows that there is something there is something at the end of the rainbow. I mean, it did a suck if you ever get to the end of the rainbow and there's no pot of gold and you're like, oh, I thought I was old. He's after me like a charm.

So the idea is that your team building at the same time, you're celebrating the victory. And so when I went to listen to one of my favorite business gurus of all time, Jack Welch, one of my favorite business books, Winning. He's so good. I just love that winning because that's what's about people like, well, don't you think we need a shit? No, win, win, win. We're about winning.

And when he got up there on stage and basically said the same thing, he said, listen, you've got to go out there, you know, make sure you hire people you want to celebrate things with because if you don't want to go out and hang out with them, then you shouldn't have hired them to begin with. There was a caveat, but he said, go out and celebrate, celebrate victories. And I thought resonated with me and I thought,

Can I come up there and give you a bro? But I mean this though. There's many hotels we could have chosen. But we it's a nice place. We could go tacky with the buffet. We could. But we don't. We don't. The whole thing it's it's a really it's a chuff you've been there before you describe the the energy because for anybody out there who's listening right now who is attending our our December conference December 7th and 8th.

as a little sneak attack, kind of a little thing here. We're going to be doing a drawing to see who gets to have lunch with Michael Levine, the great one, the PR consultant for Nike, for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for pizza, and we're going to be doing drawings to see who wants to attend the Christmas party.

You'll get to see it firsthand and in person. It's a game changing a bit. Can you explain what the party was like last year? It's fun. I saw Dr. Z do the double splits. It's first class. It's an amazing experience. I'm still a therapy after that. You see the back in that contest. It was awesome though. And the thing is, like Dr. Z was saying, it is an awesome bonding experience. I met tons of people that work at other businesses Z that you own. And it was awesome to meet these people that are all bought into the same value and same culture and celebrate together like he was saying.

Yeah, exactly. So that's a picture of that, cooking the pig, because you know, when you cook that pig, you know, you've got a celebration. In fact, I'm ashamed to say that in all the celebrations I've done with all my employees, over 20, almost 27 years now, I've never once cooked a pig.

Hey, can we bury a pig in your backyard clay sometime? Can we do that? Can we cook a pig in your backyard? I know how to do it. The chicken complex. Clark, I'm committing right now. This has to happen. Oh my gosh. I saw the wheels turn and just look at him light up. This has to happen. Yes.

You thrive nation. You can't see this, but I he's freaking out right now. Put it on the notes. Seriously, we have to do this. This is this has to happen. We have to cook the pig. Let's cook a pig. I'm not sure we have the land. You know, we could do for for a person conference. I bet we can bring one out then cook one. Put it down.

That's on there. Put it down. Put it down. Put it down. When the barbecue places must have it. No, seriously, you've got to get a sample on the to-do list. We have to activate this idea because when you just have ideas, you don't act upon it. It's just hallucination. I'm going to put it on my to-do list. Let's do it. We should cook the pig. That's a thing. That's a thing. OK. See, next, just to show how locked in we are, this next song was written by an artist. OK. And it's a song that- That's too much. Too much. I only give it all away. It's a song people know.

Just song that you know, no, no, no, no. People know this song. I'm going to queue it up now and again. What's the job? A lot of people are saying you're making a mockery of this name that too. No, I'm not. This is sincere. Name that too. Chup. I'll say this. I'll play the song first and you guess. We'll see if you get it right. And then Z you get to go second. Okay. I like this. I like this. Here we go. I'm set up for success. Here we go. Here we go.

We already did if I could turn back time Clay in the last show. By share? Yeah. No. Okay. Okay. See, here we go. That's easy. Bruno Mars locked out of heaven.

Lock that up. Yes. Yes. That's right. He even slowed it down a little bit. Are you still got it? That's amazing. See, that's amazing right there. It's a gift. What can I say? What can I say? What can I say? I knew you would go a little hip-hop on me. I knew you'd go a little bit of hip-hop. You've been all over the board doing old school now, new school. I know. I know your action. Okay. So now the next principle number four, piggy bank. What is the piggy bank all about my man? How many people do you think I'm going to offend with this?

Uh, 17.27%. That's fair. I think it's a fair number. I was gonna put it at 20, but I think you're, you know, I'm aggressive. Kind of a godfather, kind of a theme here that way. It's more palatable. I think that'd be appropriate. I think that'd be appropriate. All right. See, so, see, tell us what's, what's, uh, what's the principle of the piggyback?

Here's the concept. Everybody have to listen and say to yourself. So? How much money am I saving every month? How much money am I saving every month? And if you say to yourself, I'm not saving any money because I go paycheck to paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. Why can't I talk to snakes? He's got a problem. Every now and then I get a little overtime and guess what? I get to go and, you know, blow it on something else. Because that's what you do, right? Well, if I got a zero money down, I got a... That's not to leave for no payments for 24 months.

To get some research, the average American family has $400 in savings. That's only a field of crediting the Federal Reserve and looking at the statistics and relax. That's a crime. That's a crime. They only have to have the bank. That's a crime. You got to live below your means. You got to lay gratifications. You got to use the family. It's a picky bank for a reason. You got to save some bunch of shops and no money in that thing. Take it off the top, feed the bank for you, feed anything else.

Take the big before you feed yourself. Does anyone ask you a question or a quick answer? Do you know what snakes is? What snakes? I don't know what snakes is. What snakes have snakes has all my money to the front paper bag. We can't bother him. He's sneaky. I know what snakes is again. Thank you. Okay, but

Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Everybody out there is getting a paycheck. Raise your hand. Right now, if you're listening to this, you could be wherever you are. Put your hands in the air, like you just don't care. Keep one on the wheel, but I know you do. Raise a foot if you're driving, left foot up. If you're getting a paycheck, boom. Now. Now.

If you're saving money, raise the other hand. And there's not as many hands. I'm going to cross the country. Real quick, Andrew in our office. Yes. Andrew Blumertchup. How much of a percentage of his paycheck is he now saving automated? 25%. Dude. Sexy. That's aggressive. I'm sexy.

I always coach people five to ten, five minimum. He hasn't been living at the office. Yeah. No, but seriously, he has been saving 25% and see that that that's enough to pay the future rent, right? Well, I'm telling you, folks, is this is that what'll happen is you may go, well, I don't need I don't need to save any money right now because I'm making good money. I mean, hey, I'm I'm living the dream. I get it. You can't take it with you. I get it.

But what'll happen is in about a year and a half to two years, maybe three years, maybe four years down the road, you're going to excited yourself. You know what? I'm done punching time clock and I want to start my own thing. There you go. What are those guys I used to listen to? Yeah, the thrive time guy, get on school, get on online business school. I'm like, baby, baby, baby. You have your idea. You're like, this widget will change the world. This widget will change everything. It's brilliant. And then you'll say, now I need as money to start.

So what I'm saying for this, say for a rainy day, because rainy days come, I know Southern California, you're listening to our podcast right now, you do get rainy every now and then, because all the fires out there, I'm sorry to hear all the destruction, but you do need some more rain, but rainy days come folks. So you need to have a savings. Number one, if you own a business, you should be able to not make any money for a month and survive. All right. These are huge. These are huge things. Okay.

and by getting a war chest, I call it a war chest because starting a business, if you don't think of it as going into battle, you really don't have the right mindset to start it, okay? But having a war chest enables you now to put your own skin in the game, enables you to start your business, enables you to

change your life, change your stars. So I know you may not have the business I did today, but you know what, you'll have it down the road. I still love when my DJ competitors who go out of business, those put their gear for sale on Craigslist, 30 cents classified Tulsa world back in the classified ads were a thing. Craig wasn't even born yet. And I could buy that equipment for 10 cents on the dollar. Nothing like buying this kind of DJ gear from a former competitor.

beautiful, beautiful, but saving allows you to buy opportunities. Now, see, this next round of name that tune, just to show how locked and step we are, I'm going to just kind of queue it up here. By this time, I will give us a little bit of lyrics. Okay. Over the lyrics. Here we go.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Well, wouldn't it be nice if I could touch your body? I know not everybody. It's got a body like you. What song is it? I have no idea. I know what it is. But I got to think twice before I give my heart away. I know all the games you play because I'll pay them too. Come on, Z.

It's right said friend. Oh, but I need some time from that emotion cause he time to pick my heart off the floor. Come down without devotion. Well, it takes a strong man, baby. But I'm showing you the door. I gotta have faith. I gotta have faith. The faith. Baby. Okay, sir.

Well, keep going. I'm actually starting a cowbell band. We're huge in Michigan. On the wood block. Huge. Huge. Yeah, faith. You got to have faith in the systems. You got to believe that what you're teaching actually works. These are principles that have been proven to work. And see, these are these principles you haven't just sat around on a lily pad thinking, well, even though I have never started a company here are principles that I want to teach someday.

Where do you make any money in the self-help industry? Do you just are a business owner who, by the way, has taken the time to distill the common denominators of the principles you've learned over the years? You know what's sad is I have friends that make $100,000 and they're broke. I have friends that make $500,000 and they're broke. And when I say broke, in other words, if you said, hey, can you write me a check for $5,000 or $10,000, they'd be like, no, bro. I'm like, why? I mean, no, it's a payday.

Are you crazy? Oh wait, yeah, you can say I need to do this over there. Why would you ask about me anyway? The point is is that it goes all across all socioeconomic Dividers in the country. Yeah, and that is is that people aren't saving

And we're told not to. We're, hey, credit cards. I mean, this whole culture of America's spending money, spending money, spending money. And a lot of that was formed back in the days of, you know, when we have social security, take care of you. We got your back end, you know? So a lot of that is trickled down to every generation. But I'm telling you what, folks, use that piggy bank and the fact that it's, you know, it's a pig and kind of fits with the old kind of business, big content, business, big concepts, you get it. Okay. Thank you.

But if you're not saving, I would really encourage you to do it. Yeah, you may have to get rid of a third car. You may have to get rid of some other luxury item that you have. Third girlfriend. You may have to get rid of that. Second girlfriend. So maybe even that third party in your marriage. You know, you may have to get rid of cable or you have to choose between cable or dish. I mean, I know it's a tough thing. You don't like the party. There's there's things on dish that I can't get on cable and vice versa, bro. So bro, come on, man, bro.

So, here we go. We have six more principles in six minutes. Here we go. Oh, God. Next principle. Are you kidding me? No, principle number five, Showtime, Blue Ribbon Pig. What does that mean? That means that when you're at work, when you're doing your thing, the most important thing you can be doing.

is what you're doing. And what I mean by that is this is that there's a lot of things that get in your brain throughout the day. You know something going on on the house, you know the toilets plugged up at the business. I mean to watch my hands completely. But what I'm saying is that our society is so far so much about not being there. I mean I go around and I look at people in restaurants sitting there across the seat from each other and they're both sitting on their phones.

They're like they're not even around each other. Here's a picture of my food So I used to have a little thing I used to do and I know this sounds silly and corny But it worked for me and that is every time before I'd walk into an exam room I'd clear my head

I'm not saying to myself, Showtime, the most important thing in the world. The most important thing right then and there was to walk into that room and to smile, to greet that patient, to connect with that patient and to solve that patient's problem and to answer the age-old question of, why are you here and what can I do for you?

Without thinking about all the things that are pulling on me, without thinking about the phone calling you to make, without thinking about the, the guy that just yelled at me because a car was parked in the wrong spot out and just whatever, all the stuff that happens, all that peripheral stuff, you know. And I think that's what happens. A lot of times you see employees do this. Well, they bring, like you tell them that, you know, leave your family problems at the door when you come in the business. It's almost impossible to do. I realize that. I mean, things affect us. They're at the front desk singing.

Last Christmas. I gave you my heart. Welcome. Why are you? Welcome to the business. How are you going to help you? You see employees though. Seriously. There's a guy there today at a local convenience store. I said, how are you? He goes, I'm good as soon as I get down with my shift.

Yeah. Exactly. And I go, okay. Well, I mean, seriously, I say, how are you doing? Just like that. He goes, oh my goodness. He's like, I've done my shift. And I'm like, okay, well, uh, so, uh, I'd like to go ahead and buy an ice drink and some gas. All right. Whatever, bro. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. I mean, wow.

Wow. So I wanted to hit him with the, the stick that I used to beat the cowbell. So if you, if you own a business, say you own a construction business and you're given a quote, forget all the negative in your life when you walk up, when you go, when you go to that family, then you're going to talk about give them a quote to build a pool in their backyard.

You be connected with them and the show time is, it's show time. And that's where you connect and that's where you build your business. That's where you make your money or those show time events. And if you sit there and not your phone, your phone's ringing the whole time and excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.

Real quick, now, if you decide not to bring Showtime every day, this is the motivational. This is what's going to happen to you. See, if you decide not to bring Showtime on a daily basis, this is what is going to happen to you. And luckily, Z, we were able to mic somebody who is a former employee for one of my companies. He decided not to bring Showtime on a daily basis. And without his permission, I put a lifetime microphone. I embedded a chip deep inside his epidermis. He thought it was a flu shot. Right.

Oh yeah. And this is what, this is the motivational talk he recently gave to a group of young high school kids who talked to him about how they just didn't want to bring Showtime on a daily basis because they wanted to keep it real. They wanted to be transparent. Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, hey, I'm going to go out and I'm going to get the world by the tail and wrap it around and pull it down and put it in my pocket.

Well, I'm here to tell you that you're probably going to find out as you go out there, that you're not going to amount to jack squat. Oh, great job. OK, so you don't want that to happen to you? No, no. So you have to be purposeful. And you also have to understand the important moment. It's kind of like having a to-do list. And there's maybe one thing on the list that is a must-do today. It's kind of the same thing. I mean, when I was getting ready to walk into that exam room, nothing else mattered. Nothing.

nothing else. It was show time and the show was for me to laser show given great eye exam, connect with the person and make them happy. What I've seen a lot Z is that people just aren't mentally aware of themselves, right? So when you're saying show time, look at yourself, pay attention to actually how you're acting, not just how you feel.

Absolutely. So those are those moments you have them throughout the day. And then when you're out of the exam room and you're out from in front of that patient, for example, and that's my example that I have for my optometry clinics, then you go back in your office and then you can do all the stuff you need to do. Throw stuff against the wall. Big, big eats first at the trough. What is this principle? Principle number six. This is the one across the board. Every time I give this speech, every time I talk about my 10 principles, this is the one that gives me the most backlash.

People can't stand it. They love to boo this one. They cannot stand it. They cannot stand it. Poor people love to boo this one. Oh, they do. Oh, they do. They will line up after this after you speak and they will sit there and break you. Their hands as soon as you ask for questions, the first question happens about this one. Why do you hate people? Yeah, why? I don't understand. I don't understand your point six. It's point six. Big pig eats first of the trough. What do you mean by this? I'm telling you what, folks, if you're starting a business, this is going to be a concept. I don't want this to sound

mean, but it should be for you for you. Come on. It should be for you. The business exists to serve you. It does. It's so many times I hear people say, well, I want to open up a business to, uh, to fill in the local community. I mean, to, you know, to, you know, fill in the blackness and change, you know, change, change people's life. The life you're going to change.

most is yours. Well, I'll say it again. The life you're going to change most is yours when you start a business. We're going to teach you how to grow that thing. And then you're going to figure out how to have time freedom and financial freedom. You know, kind of a segue on that. Jack Wilcher was giving a speech was talking about. He had a bunch of bunch of his staff come to him and said they wanted him to create a green light bulb. Yeah, make it green. Make it green.

It was safe for the environment. And you know what, let's change the world with a green light bulb. And they did all the engineering on it. And it was going to be like 10 times the cost. But not be that much more. It's not going to last longer. It's not going to have those kind of features. I can see one that maybe last 10 times longer being 10 times the cost. But it was just going to be a green environmentally safe sound, more sound product. Not like green light. Yeah. And Jack Welch says, oh, that's a great idea. That'll put us out of business.

And then we can all go find other jobs because then what we're going to do is we're going to make inexpensive light bulbs do the same thing and then make a lot of money and then with that money we can go change the world. There you go. And then we have a business. And so so many times I see business owners really suffering because they have let other people take their business hostage.

Principle number seven. I love this principle. Happy as a pig in the mud. I love this principle because it's so applicable for everybody out there. If you're a business owner and you've ever had to decide what overhead music will be played or what volume it will be played or what decor you're going to have or where the decor will be or what the logo is going to look like or what the color of the logo is going to look like or

made any decision at all, it is impossible to universally appease every single member of your team. But yet as a culture we're taught, you know, if you shouldn't bring candy to school, unless you bring enough candy for everybody else, you shouldn't make a playlist unless everyone approves it. Everyone gets to chime in on a song. Z talked to me about this idea of making an environment where you are happy as a pig in the mud.

Well, here we get it. It goes back to this idea that your business and you, you have an idea of what you want for your business. Don't let anybody take you hostage for it. And just a real quick thing that I, I generally came up to me the last time I was speaking and gave me this little, little love nugget and a little love nugget. And it's really fun. And, and the idea goes like something like this. There's, there's a book out there called the Bible. People could be a bibble. I think it's Bible. Um, and in there, it says love your neighbor as you love yourself.

love your neighbor as you love yourself. And that implies that you have to love yourself first.

Now, getting on to this point about picking the mud, I mean, I think that when you walk into your place, you should be so happy to be in there. It should have the right smell. It should have the right sound. The right people. The right people. The right everything about it, because it's yours. It's your baby. And you can, you know, you don't have to do the gamble of the genetic gamble, right? When you have a kid, you're like, oh, well, it just turns out good. The thing could go in the way. It guess what? It's yours. It's yours.

You know, so when your business, think of it as a baby that you can create. And you need to make sure that you have an atmosphere that you love to be in, just like a pig loves to be in the what?

You know, speaking of creating babies. One thing I just love, I just love this thing, another show. Okay, now, okay, we're moving on. He had to stop himself. Molly's back. I just wanted to say that you just looking so nice and a lot over there. Something over there that someone there just says to me. I just said, I want to email myself. I just emailed myself right now. I said, still, that is nice. That is nice. Okay, so moving on now.

Yes. Principal number eight, the Ocho. I don't know whether I want to move on right now. I just want to recycle it like it's out. No, it's no. No, it's like it's Al Gore's birthday over and over. Just recycle. Reuse it. Reuse. Thank you. Let's reduce. Okay. Principal number eight, Ocho.

Pickheaded, but don't be a fool. Pigheaded, don't be a fool. See, what do you mean by be pigheaded, but don't be a fool? Well, I mean, don't be pigheaded. Don't be a fool. Pigheaded is a term that people give that, that are people that are being foolish, that are being, you know, they don't have any flexibility. They're being pigheaded. They're being a fool. And I, uh, years ago, you, you, you, by the way, you have really worked wonders.

with me about this.

And this can happen. If you're somebody who's very principled in your religious views or your worldviews, this can be very tough to learn this. This is a very valuable lesson for me and many people out there like me. Talk to me about

Don't be a pig headed fool, but you also have to be in a resolve to certain principles. I mean, well, give us the balance. Yeah. Well, there is a balance. Thank you for asking. And so it's, you know, the, there's so many, so many principles and so many things I can talk about. One of the things that I'm really want to encourage everybody out there on a side note, side bar, side note, side bar is, is the, your top five friends around you, if any of them are not encouraging, edifying and, and life giving people that they are what we call the,

They suck the joy and the bone marrow out of you when you're around them. Get rid of them. If they're idiots, you know what I mean by that. I'm not being hateful. I'm just like, if they're just people that take you down the wrong road, over and over, they're negative people. What do you say when punting people that are negative perpetually? What do I say to them? What do you say? Well, I tell them that they're fired for my life.

Do you do this really? Yeah, nobody. Here's the thing, folks. Nobody likes to be ghosted. This whole ghosting concept of just kind of forgetting, you know, just kind of like, you know, when I got a new phone, lost your number, I mean, who are you? You know, this all this kind of stuff. All the jackass where you do. I have purposely sat down with a few men in my life and I said, listen, I'm, I'm just going to tell you right now that I'm, I'm, I'm just not going to spend as much time with you. And I'm moving on and I'm moving on seat.

And, you know, so have a nice life, but don't be offended if I don't text you back immediately or I don't call you back or I'm moving on. I'm moving on. My time, I'm busy. I've got things to do and you can kind of soft sell a little bit to them. You don't want to be mean. But on the flip side, you're being mean to yourself by having, by being a fool and having those kind of people have access to you. Now, in business, you know, you have to make your decisions. What's best for the business?

And yes, sometimes somebody may be in there to scam you out of whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. But understand this, what's best for the business? We had a patient come in and the lady came in and she was really upset about her glasses she had picked out.

Well, they fit her fine. The prescription was fine. Everything was good on them. It was very refined. I think what happened was that she went home and whenever kids or her husband made a comment that they didn't like the way they looked on her. And that got her all twisted. Oh, yeah. And so she couldn't just come in. She didn't think she could come in and say, you know what? I made a mistake in picking out this style or color of frame. She kind of went out. There was a little edgy. She kind of went out there. It was kind of fun. Looked good on her.

But she came in and she was just so she thought she had to come in kind of be demonstrative and be like I can't see I can't see anything in these classes are horrible. This could be on just I need my money back in these classes. Good Lord. I can't see anything these classes are terrible. I can't even see ya. I can't believe you.

You sold these to me. I swear, Robert, you as a... Are you going back in time? I'm calling it the BBB. I'm calling the... And so then you just calm them down and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, who

45 minutes helping you pick them out. We were there. You know, that's your deal. Now, if you want to know something else, we'll do it. No, no, no, we backed up. We said, you know what, we're going to have to eat, eat some of this, but that's okay. We made her happy. You backed that thing up. Yeah. Listen, listen, listen. And I looked at it and I said, listen, for whatever reason you want to exchange us for another pair.

That's okay. It's okay. You just settle down. It's okay. That's all right. We're here to help you. We want you to be happy. We want you to see clearly, comfortably and be happy with your choice.

Principle number nine, three little pigs. What do you mean by that? It's so awesome. Well, if you show up on December 7th and 8th, which is our next in-person workshop, really, I think we had a few tickets left. Do we clay or we all sort of? Ah, we're down to the top. They're down to the final 20. Okay, we got 20 tickets left. So if you're listening to this, come on out. And one of the things we teach is whenever you're advertising marketing, you want to have three

three different branches of that. We call it the three-legged stool. You can call it some other things. But in the story, the three pigs, the person that used just one, i.e. straw, a form of advertising, got his house blown away by the wolf. And the wolf denotes your competitors. Because I know this sounds mean, but your competitors

don't have a lot of love for you. They might, they might greet your hand and smile them when you're in Costco with them or Reese's or, you know, Walmart, they may slap you in the back and ask you health, you know. Good to see you there, Dr. Robert, I love to see you. I'm so glad you're here right now. Yes, of course, you know. I buy your groceries for you in fact. Burns, did you cut his brake line?

Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. I mean, just kidding. Right. I mean, they are like, they are like the wolf in the story. The second one used just sticks, I believe something like that or mud. Trying to remember now. And so boom, blown away again. And the third one had a combination sitting there and make a brick. You take straw, you take the clay, you take some other components. So I'm trying to remember two parts will pass.

smash it with your hooves. You big it down, you know. And now I was saying by having three different areas, you build your house, it was stood the enemy which your business wolf down the road. If you don't have three ways to market your business all going simultaneously, you will lose.

And that's what we teach in our workshop. And so to me, it was a kind of a three, three, three, three practical elephant in the room, men's grooming lounge, one of my companies. We never chop. You see the ads. We never stop our Facebook ads, never stop our YouTube ads, never stop our retargeting ads. That's our digital presence. Then we never stop getting online reviews ever ever. And we never stop putting out our signs and doing our mailers.

We just never stop. Never do it. Never stop. That's how we get in new customers week after week. Final principle, we're going to teach you as we're short for time. Principle number 10, Dr. Z, let the fun begin here. Here we go. Pig advice. Well, let's fire through these and you can kind of see how you can have some fun with each one of these. But if you're a pig, give me another pig advice. What would you say? You'd say, hey, listen, buddy. Hey, how do you want you eat well? Okay. Okay. Keep your snout clean. Okay.

Never squeal on your friends. That's so big. Don't be gossiping. Don't be talking about other people that work. Come on. Be curious. I mean, I pick as curious by nature. It's, and that's one thing that I love to see when I see a young person that's curious because that curiosity leads to inventions, leads to businesses, leads to ideas to grow, start businesses.

I'm curious, do you know the next song that I'm going to choose for name that tune, the final song I'm going to choose? This is for, this is for 4,000 megapoints. Ooh, 4,000. Now Chup, if you get it wrong or right, there's 4,000 megapoints involved here for the right. For the wrong, you lose a total of 5,000 megapoints, which means you're going to have to wear a Christmas suit at the Christmas party. So Chup, I'm going to, I'm going to play the song and the category is going to be songs that were sang by men. Okay. Here we go, Chup. Are you ready?

Super easy one, by the way. Let me try again here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. I got it. I feel like that was a Madonna song play. Nope. First off, you need to deal with your whole gender bender confusion. I thought you said, man, and it was a Madonna song. I'm going to go back. Here we go. Can I take the song? OK, I know what I got confused. What was it? It was Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crue.

No, no, okay. See, here we go. Here. This harkens back. This one is a special one because a hark is back to Clay's college days. Ryan Teder when his good friends now does one Republic. What does it see? Apologize. It's too late to apologize. It's too late.

And you got to weave in the Timberland, uh, uh, beating of the seal. I think that was more of a gray whale. Okay. That you made it. Okay. Nice. So if you're out there and you're saying to yourself, you know what? These 10 principles are principles that I need to apply in my own life and business. Go to thrive time show.com. Click on the podcast button. There you can find two pig. Wait, archived broadcast and Z has two final big jokes.

This is by George Bernard Shaw. Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it. Oh, wait a minute. There you go. OK. And this next one's from the Great. I mean, the Great Winston Churchill. I mean, come on. Come on. Really? Really? I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

It tastes great, too. A sidebar. A sidebar of the pig is the animal that has the closest internal organ systems as a human does. That's a little sidebar there. Look at this guy. Look at this guy. Look at this guy. I think you're going to just know that by just looking at it. I'm trying to tell you that. Have you ever seen a pig's colon? Yes, actually. It's called sausage. So size.

Want to attend the legendary Thrivetime Show business workshop for free? Subscribe on iTunes, leave an objective review, and send us confirmation at info at ThrivetimeShow.com to claim your tickets. Want to live in a van down by the river? Come by and see us at our Riverwalk offices, and we'll be able to make your dreams come true.

All right, Z, we're back. We have 10 bonus questions. And here are the rules, Z, for the final bonus 10 questions, all right? I'm going to ask you the 10 questions. And per question, you have approximately three minutes to answer the question. Should you go over, it's your show. You do what you want. Oh, my. But three minutes would be preferable. So we have enough time to get all the questions. Perfect. OK. Here we go. So question number one, coming in hot.

What have been the hardest trade offs that you have had to make in order to become successful?

Ooh, the hardest trade-offs that I had to do. That was delaying gratification. Number one, number two was choosing to spend time with the people I spent time with. In other words, I had to say no to people I really kind of wanted to spend time with, but I couldn't do it all. Also to another, I remember when I was a dishwasher, when I was a teenager, I was a professional dishwasher. You may not know that. You probably do.

I, I, my treasure. Oh, Brian's. I never, yes, I never went to a high school football game because I was always working because Friday, Friday nights were the big money nights. I mean, that's, you know, hey, date night and couples out and I'm busing. I get tipped out by the waiters at the end of the night. So, you know, you make, you make decisions, you make choices and you have to then live with them. And so I think one trade off that you've made that you did not just say, and I looked at it from the outside. So if you disagree with me, it's fine. Oh, no, no. Go ahead. I feel like you've held yourself

and your businesses to a certain high standard, which has caused you to have friction that you don't often talk about on the show. But like you've held employees and people accountable to a certain standard, right? So eventually I'm sure, I'm sure you've never been screwed over. You've never had a key employee leave you. I've never had someone try to download your database and give it to a competitor. I'm sure you've never involved.

in litigation. I'm sure you've never had people that you'd call buddies or friends or even family screw you and get mad at you as a result of you holding yourself and the company to a high standard. Has this ever happened to you, my friend? Oh, of course it has. And if you're successful, you know, you're going to have those challenges and you have to overcome them and then you have to make decisions. And I think that you're answering your question on what did I say no to

Um, at times, uh, there were, you know, times I would miss when my kids were real little, I would miss time being around them. But then I was purposeful knowing that, you know, when they're one, I don't think they're going to remember too much. I think I'm safe there, you know, but when they're 10, it's a whole different game then, you know, then, then they remember, then they get a little fussy if you're not there. So.

You know, hopefully you start your business before your kids come around and then you kind of build it before they're while they're young. And then when they get a little older, you can actually carve a little time out for them because that's very important. You know, we just, we just did an interview with Daniel Goldman. He's probably the top psychologist on the planet and on the planet and I asked him a question at the end of the show, you know, my last kind of hitting question. I said, if you could go back, you know, in time, a couple of decades ago, what would you tell yourself?

And he paused and he said, spend more time with my kids. I thought that was powerful. Okay. These questions are hot, hot, hot questions. Next question, question or two. I give you time to think about this. Here we go. When building your businesses, did you ever partner with somebody that wanted to grow past your original goals? So you had a goal for, let's say, the auction.

or the optometry clinic, or some business you're involved in. And somebody who worked for you, someone you partnered with, you know, you set an original goal, I'm just making it up to sell 500 cars every Friday. But they grew, they wanted to grow well beyond that goal.

Does that ever happen to you? You know, ironically it hasn't. I'm sitting here thinking about all the businesses I've started. It hasn't. I mean, I'm a pretty aggressive guy by nature. And I set pretty high goals. So my goals were always a tad bit higher than

And when I say partners, I mean, you know, even like a good general manager, I kind of feel as and treat as a partner. I mean, I think that that's, you know, when I introduce some of my general managers, I sometimes even introduce them as my partner, you know, because you are a partner in the growing of the business. And that term doesn't have to mean that they have stock or that they're, you know, financially. They are financially invested because if the business doesn't do well, guess what? Chicken butt. They lose their job.

You know, I mean, it is all proper sharing because it's there's no profit. You can't share anything. Okay. Okay. More more questions about humans working with humans. Okay. All right. How do you handle insubordination? Do you move past it or deal with it right then? Now quick caveat. Okay.

I'm giving you these questions because people ask these questions. I know how you handle this. I do know. So this is not me asking. I'm just saying, I know now, but when there's somebody who is just out of their mind, but you can't fire them. How do you handle it? When there's somebody out of their mind and you can fire them, how do you handle? I mean, just when someone's in subordinate, talk to us. How do you handle these scenarios? Can I tell you a story? Yeah. And in this story, you'll see how I handle it. Oh, nice. Okay.

So I have at the time, I believe I had five, maybe six doctors working for me. Yes. And you were up at seven days a week, so there's a big schedule and people are working hard. Right, right. And we're extremely busy. Yes. Well, they have fun stuff. And so I had one of my female doctors, her name will remain nameless.

came up to me and said, my husband got transferred, and I'm unfortunately going to have to leave. And I don't want to, but I have to keep my marriage together, that kind of thing. I said, well, I absolutely respect that. She said, our deal was for me to give you 30 day notice. I'm giving you my 30 day notice. It's very fair.

And I said, you know, I do. We did an appropriate hug. HR would have been happy. Nice side hug. High five. Yeah. Then a high five. High five is kind of my move anymore. It's quick. It's quicker. It's quicker. Or fist bump anymore. Fist bumps are really good. Fist bumps are good. But girls really don't elbow bump from across the room. That's the new move. That's another thing too.

And so, I was like, okay, well, I gotta get to work. I have to sit at my desk, I'm starting to get online, I'm starting to get a letter, start it up, you know, to send out. Looking for, looking for, looking for, you know, good person, good doctor. And little while I hear knock on the door.

There you go. Open the door. It's another one of my doctors. Just coincidentally happened to be on the field. Real quick. I want to clarify. The door did sound like this or more like that. More like the second one. Yeah, the second one. OK. So she comes in and I say, well, hello, how are you? What's this? I'm doing great. I'm doing fantastic. That's fabulous. She's doing all pleasant trees and she says, well, here's it. Can I shut the door? May I shut the door? May I shut the door? It never goes well when the door gets shut.

That's just a rule. It's just a rule, not hard and fast. Unless, you know, it's a marital discussion and you shut the door. And she looks at me and she says, I hate to say this or I hate to do this. With all due respect. I go with it. I'm thinking about why are you doing it? Why are you doing it?

She said, well, I just heard that so-and-so is put in her 30-day notice. Oh, yeah. And, well, I just want you to know that I'm going to have to put in my 30-day notice if I don't get a pay raise and a schedule change. Oh, well, that seems terrible. That seems the way you negotiate those kind of things.

First off, you negotiated your facial expression. I'm sure you've negotiated your facial expression. Oh, I was just concerned. You're the best poker player ever. And I'm listening with deep concern and I'm nodding and I'm listening. And then she said, I know, I know it'd be really, really, it's going to be hard to replace one and two. That's going to be really tough on you. And I hate to put you in that position, but that's where I am. And I stopped. It took me about not even a half a second. I smiled and I said, do you know what? You've been such a great employee. I think you deserve a raise.

And that schedule, well, he should have given you that cheesy, sweet, scheduled long time ago. You get both of those things. In fact, let's make him start today. And she smiled real big, and she's really good. Absolutely, would never want to lose you. And what am I really thinking in the back of my mind? You're fired. I've got to go higher too now. Now, OK. I want you to break this down. Because there's somebody out there that right away is struggling with this. And I want the people out there to know this.

Uh, John Kelly, Marshall, Marshall knew me when I was the other way.

Yeah. So the other way was immediately, and I don't know if you ever saw me dip it immediately, I would just fire you. It's the first sign of insubordination. And then I would always, as a penalty, half the DJ, Marshall, every weekend I do. Yeah. I'm serious. If someone was insubordinate to me, they would say, you know what? I don't appreciate, because what happened? You'd come back from the show and your CDs have to be organized in order that the CDs have to be alphabetized and open up the case.

And I would, if you hear that this person, I saw that their CD case was disorganized. And I would say, we need to go ahead and organize them very nicely. And they'd go, whatever, dude. And if they said that to me, I said, excuse me, what did you just say? Whatever, dude. I go, whatever, dude, your ass is fired. And I was like, yes! Woo hoo! Yeah!

And then you started sort out the CD case. And then I had to DJ every night. We had to see these alphabetical orders continue though for almost a decade. Okay. So when you taught me the story, this was like matrix for me. It's not immediately I did the move. This is what I shouldn't have done, but everyone does this. I did it. Whenever you struggle to understand a principle, understand how chess is played. This is the question I asked you.

Is that ethical? Yes, of course. I remember man, man cave. I said, is that ethical? Absolutely. I tell you what employees will, will quit you on their time. Oh, and we feel like it's bad for us to fire them on our time. And that's just not the way that it is. It's your business. You, you deal with it the way you want to deal with it. So what I did is I went out and hired two new doctors. I got them in place. And about a month later, about a month, I called her up to my room. Hey,

Could you send so-and-so doctor so-and-so up to my office? Oh, nice. She comes beboppin' in and she's in a fantastic minute. Oh, absolutely. She's comin' in there beboppin'. I mean, she's comin', she's like, you know, this has been the best month of my life. She's boppin' the beep. Keepin' the boppin'. The pay raise I've always wanted. I got the schedule that allows me to do the this or that, the this and that. Things are great. I mean, you know.

I have, I have audio of what she was, what, what she heard in her mind when you called up to the office. Cause last time she came up there, she got a raise, got the schedule she wanted. Things were great. So this is what she was hearing in her mind. Yes. Here it comes. She might be giving me another raise. Unbelievable. Oh, yes. The great benevolent dictator calls me out. This is how, this is how Rodman probably felt every time that Kim Jong-un sent him a text.

Yeah, absolutely. But I want that tater. This is great. So she walks into my office and I'm going to save any entrepreneur out there, any business owner hours, hours of your life. Come on now. Hours of your life. I was at her and I said, uh, doctor, so and so things just aren't working out. You're fired.

In fact, you were fired 30 days ago. I just not get the privilege of being able to say it. Oh, you love that story. Pack up your stuff. I love that story. And hit the road, Joe. I know that that story is not in any way sexual, but it's sexual to me. It's that good. It's that good. It's an orgasmic story for business. And I can't make something up that. No, it doesn't happen. I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't leave that, but it happens metaphorically daily in all the businesses. So this is the question I'd like to ask you then.

So, let's say that you know that that employee is screwing you. The contractor's taking advantage of you. You know it. You know it. You know it. And they know it and you know that they know it. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows it. How long do you pretend like everything's okay because you need them to keep doing their job? How long? Until I can replace them.

unless I wanted to do the work. Now I could have fired her that day and I could have, you know, dusted off my scrubs and picked up a few more days and I could have gotten in there and got down in the, in the, you know, the.

you you know you know about uh... my my punching my brother don't tell you about this oh gosh yeah well this is a funny story for the thrivers out there my dad contracted he got you know a a l s came down with a l s was diagnosed the disease and uh... we talked it was really funny for my dad goes son i'm gonna be dead soon so i've got a couple of questions a couple couple asks i said what what's up and try to keep it light he can still talk fine he goes

Um, I want to record a video so I can share with you some things I want to share with you on video for you and your, your brother. And I know you guys don't get along at all because you never have, and I know you don't like each other. And I know, but just until I'm dead, could you please, when he, when he, if he talks to you and antagonizes you, cause I've seen it happen, would you please just go with it, go with the flow and I'm going, okay.

That seems like a reasonable request. Yeah, so we go to my dad's house and right away I parked my Hummer over here, parked my Hummer over there. And my brother says to me, could you move the Hummer?

And I think, yeah, I could move the Hummer. I said, move the Hummer. And then the whole day is like, hey, is your vehicle, by the way, how much gas mileage does it get? And I'm like, it's like eight. He goes, oh, OK, pretty environmentally responsible of you, right? And I go, OK. And then he's like, hey, did you vote for Trump? And I said, yeah. And he's like, OK, so as a Judeo-Christian, you like a guy who's had multiple affairs his whole life, who really just is morally reprehensible. That's your guy, right? And I'm like, OK.

And then it's like the entire day is like this. And so. I'll just try to get you to take the bait. And I'm not kidding. I made a mental commitment to my wife. I'm like, I am not going to knock him out until his body is in the ground. So that was like my thing. And I put up with it for so long and after the funeral, I knocked him out. Bam. And I, but I mean, I do a backstory at my dad's funeral. You know, he's talking about, he had just, he's not happy about the way he was raised and not happy. And I, I'm telling you, it was so hard for me. And then

The family, it's hilarious, but the family that gets me, there's a few of them. One guy, he was a pastor of a mega church. He texted me and he says, this is the text message. I'll never forget. He goes, what your brother said at the funeral was F'd up and he typed it out and hit send. And you know there's that like correction tool? Oh yeah. And he's like, good job. But the rest of the family is like, why would you hit him? Why would you do that? Why would you do that? And I just hit block, block, block, block. And I've had, I've been the happiest guy since that moment.

But I mean, I was delaying gratification for the longest time and I think I'm serious. And I do that all the time. I remember elephant in the room. We had a person who worked for us. This is at the very beginning who I knew was duly employed for us and a company he was starting.

Like he literally was starting his own company while working for us. Sure. But he was in my brother-in-law's wedding and I didn't have the heart to tell my brother-in-law at that moment because he's getting married like that day. You know, like, sure. Hey, by the way, in the last week I've discovered that your best man is screwing us. Yes. And I just told him after the wedding. And I don't regret doing that. I think there's a lot of timing things. See, there's timing. I think there's time. I think...

But I think initially I used to feel like, I gotta tell somebody right away, I feel bad. Well, it's like that song, you know, living on Tulsa time. You should be living on your time. Living on your time. Timing is a huge thing, though, isn't it? Living on your time. Is it timing huge? Oh, it is. And as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you have to do it what's best for you. Always put it through that filter, but what's best for the business? What's best for the business? And sometimes it's you eating

What you want to say and then smiling and being nice and going to flow and knowing It's just it's a little season. It's just a little moment It's just a little hot minute a hot minute you're getting through but you'll get through it and then once you get things in place then you can Drop that let's say that something really

irritates you, really makes you mad. How long do you now allow something to make you mad before you get over it? How long does it take you to get over something that's really just making you mad?

I mean, you're talking about an employee doing something or just anything. Well, it doesn't work. It's like, okay, as an example, John Kelly, you can relate to this. John Kelly wanted an identification badge to get into the Riverwalk office. Okay. He asked somebody, can I get an ID badge? The person said, yes, I'll get it to you tomorrow. And this went on. John, you can yell it out. How many weeks was it? Two weeks, four weeks, three weeks.

Was it four and a half weeks and he every day it's like hey could you get me an ID badge? Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow for four and a half weeks and then finally I look over there and I watch John Having this discussion and then John just went off and I let it I let it happens. Yeah, I was like this is awesome This is a cage fight that has needed to happen for a long time. Yes

But for John, it was four and a half weeks of needing an ID card every morning. But then I think he got over it really quick. I think he was mad there, and then it was good. Again, John does a very good job of recovering real quickly. How long does it take you? Yeah, the older I get, the less mad I get, the less I stay mad. I mean, I try to do it immediately, because I always...

Focus on the positive folks you do good and so when something bad happens and bad is gonna happen You're already kind of preset up for it. You already know I mean the idea that someone's going through the day thinking oh my gosh I didn't realize something bad might happen today. How do I handle this? I actually think now

Why hasn't something bad happened yet? I wish it would happen earlier in the day. So I just get it over with. Right. Get it out of the way. I think there's some ways that you can think about things and you should whenever something comes up that irritates you, you can let it grab a hold of you and you can be irritated. I've seen people be irritated the rest of their lives. They're lives. I mean, I know people that have held on to grudges for 30, 40, 50 years. People talking about the breakup that happened 10 years ago. Oh my goodness.

You know, the divorce had happened 30 years ago. 30 years. I mean, are you kidding me? It's still fresh. I mean, really? Too soon. Too soon. Too soon. Too soon. Too soon. Stop telling the Whitney jokes. It's too soon. It's too soon. Okay. Now, if you could give advice to your younger self right now, you're saying younger self. Okay. Uh, here we are. Uh, you're now 30 and I am 58 because I am you and the distant future. No, no, I'm 54 because I'm the current me, but I'm talking to my past stuff. The point is you're 30. I'm 54.

This is what I want to tell you. Stop doing this and life will be better or start doing this. What advice would you give to your 30 year old self now that you are at the ripe old age of 54? I would have invested in real estate sooner. I would have grown faster. I would have delayed even more. I would have been more aggressive in opening up more businesses sooner. That's what I've ever told myself. I said, listen, you're you got a great life ahead of you. You go get them. Just just go a little faster.

So this is, this is a question that, that may be a little rough. And if you don't like it, I'll pick up on that cause you won't answer probably. Um, but, um, for somebody out there who has family and their family wants, they yearn to be an entrepreneur, uncles, sisters, cousins, sons, brothers, whatever, they say, I want to, I see your success, Dr. Z and I want it.

Sure. Everyone can make that statement verbally. Sure. But when it is abundantly clear that they do not have the work ethic or the grind needed to do it. How do you handle that? I tell them not to quit their day job. And if they want to do something on the side, start it really, really, really, really, really small.

and see how they go, and what'll happen is, or what's even better is I say, I think that's a great idea. Why don't you give me a, why don't we, you know what? That's your best move by the way. Before you jump into it, why don't you give me, why don't you give me, let's go over a business plan. Why don't you make a business plan? And then that just kills it right there, because you know, they don't have the work ethic to even make a business plan.

So have you ever had to sit down with somebody in your extended family? And again, just we can be very vague, so it's very safe. Very safe. Where you sit down with someone who is just perpetually failing in the game of business, and you've had to sit down and give them that tough love that wasn't wanted. Or do you just let it go? I mean, it's somebody fairly close to you. It's just bombing time and time again. How do you have that conversation? Or do you?

That's a very good question. And there's a lot of different categories that can come into. Some of it is they're bombing affecting me financially. If it is, then I feel like I have the open window to talk to them and give them the hard talk. Because now I'm financially involved in the bad decisions that they're making. And that's happened. And that's no fun. And that's me bringing out the paddle and the black hat and explaining how the cow eat the cabbage.

And then trying to get a plan and then trying to put some guardrails on this deal to where we could turn it around or make it better. The other one is casual friends that you just see, they're just headed for a train wreck. And sometimes I'll say, would you like some advice? And oftentimes they don't want advice. They think they have it nailed down. They think they have it going on. I've got to unlock.

And I think that's one of the strengths of why we started Thrive 15, why we started our online business school, why we started the radio show, the podcast, the in-person workshops, the one-on-one business coaching. It's because we know you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of times you can see things. And is it me not to mention it? Well, I think it is. It's kind of like, sir, you're getting ready to run over your foot. I mean, you want to

You know, you can help point things out in a way. Now, some people are receptive to it. You know, some people listen to our podcast and learn from it. We get a lot of testimonials, you know, emails back and going, hey, this has been a game changer, a live changer. Thank you so much, guys. And so, you know, those have ears to listen. I mean, you know, we're talking and listen and we're helping and anything. We're not covering that you need to be covered.

Email us, ask us. That's what we're doing today. This is one of these ask us, ask us segments. But different categories, Clay. I mean, you've had a season young man that you see were train wrecks. What's the best, what's the worst way you've handled that over your course of your life? Well, I did something I regret and maybe you and I have, maybe we differ in this idea. I used to every time I saw somebody heading for a train wreck, if they asked me for advice,

I would give them candid and honest feedback. I used to always do it. Sure. And it almost universally caused resentment. So as an example, one young man years ago just told me he couldn't get stuff done. He's just struggling, can't get it done. Oh my gosh, I was struggling. I said, well, here's the deal. What time do you wake up every day? And he goes, oh, I can, you know, seven. Okay. And what time do you go to bed? And he's like, I like two a.m. I go, well, what are you doing during the day? We make a list of all the things he's doing. The point is he's not working very hard. Sure. So I said, here's the deal.

your business is not doing well because you're not focused. So you are going to not, you're going to need to not go on any trips, date anybody or watch TV like you're doing every night until you're successful. Once you get there, then you can do whatever you want. But until that time, it's not going to work for you, okay? And it was a car rental kind of business, okay? And the guy was like, are you trying to tell me?

that I can't date somebody, that I can't enjoy my week. That's why I started a company. I'm like, I know, but you're not there yet. So you wanting to enjoy and bask in the ocean view is a lot like me going halfway between Oklahoma and Florida, parking my car in Arkansas and going, let's stop and enjoy the view. It doesn't make any sense, man. Not there yet. You can't live like that.

It's a good analogy, by the way. But I'm very passionate. Arkansas is in halfway, by the way. Well, because I'm very passionate, though, about this. I'm going to Google that. Marsh, will you Google that? Yeah, I'll pull it up. I'll pull it up. See, you know what I'm saying, though, when you're passionate, though, and I'm trying to tell somebody, I really, really care about you, man, and I'm telling you, you're going to lose everything. Get serious. People don't like that.

They know they don't and that's that hard talk that but they're asking me for the feedback they are and I tell them and they're like Yeah, but what you do when you see somebody that doesn't ask you but you see them get you see them headed for a train wreck I will say is it Oh, do you want any feedback? And if they say no, then I I would sadly I would say nine and ten people don't want feedback. No They want to learn through the minefield. They're like I like to discover the minds by myself. Yes I'm just gonna run through the minefield and see how I talk now. Hey, look there's one over there. I lost a

I mean, it's unbelievable. It's okay. So I would just say I don't ever give feedback to someone unless they want it, but I do ask, hey, would you be interested in feedback? Sure. And they always go, yeah, but your industry's different. I mean, DJing's different than or real estate's different than photography or photography's different. Or that's mean, you know, I have a lot of times I'll have a business owner come up to me and just rail and rail and rail about an employee and then look at me and go, what do you think it should do? And I go, it's easy to welcome.

And it's just almost like they're like, oh my God, that's the meanest thing you can ever do. We took a guy out to your man cave at your house one time. Yeah. And you had like some hammer laying out there because someone was doing some work by the pool or something. And you told this guy was the funniest thing ever. You told this guy, you said, listen, you need to fire the person. And you're like, yeah, but her friend or family, I can't do it.

I don't understand my industry's different. It's hard to find good payable. And you're like, you're just telling me they're costing you more than you're paying them. They don't show up to work on time. They never get something done. And you said, can you pick up the hammer? So get picks up the hammer. And you said, every day you don't fire that person. I want you to just hit yourself in the crotch because it will be less painful. And that guy, the next, there's a chiropractor or something. Yeah, I like it the next Monday that he's like that.

I just never heard. He tells me he was like, that was just the worst. That was the most mean, most cruel, most inhumane advice. Now true story, probably 90 days later come back. He goes, that's the best advice I ever got. And that truth, but he had to like endure it for 90 days. I don't, I don't understand. And he got mad. He got mad that we gave him. He wanted to ask you

The question, I'm like, no, no, you don't want the truth. You can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth. Right. And that's the thing about it is, but sometimes that truth and that directness is what you need and you need to just deal with it. And when you know things aren't right, you've got to do the right thing to fix it. And sometimes that's the hard thing.

So, okay, here we go. What advice would you give to someone who has not yet hit their financial goals, but has to balance a family life, a growing family with a growing business? That's a tough one. Uh oh. And what I always tell them is this, hey, your significant other, they'll let you know. Work like heck. Work as hard as you can.

and whenever you get that text message from your kid or your spouse that says what's your name again and what do you look like what if there's a significant other is a a communist a socialist or an unmotivated human seriously seriously what if i mean i'm i'm i ask this because uh... my wife as an example is ambitious to a point she gets it she does she gets it but my wife she she but there's still there was still a day there's still a day and multiple days where she says honey

today was right. Today. Today we had the cup she said today. So she said, she says, baby, you have to stay up until nine PM every night. There you go. And I go, what? She was, you can't go to bed at eight, 30 more. You'll step to nine. I'm like, Why are you so hateful? Because she knows my normal, I love the flow at Z after the kids are going to cheerleading. Oh, yeah. I'm going.

I'm going to sleep right now. And I'll go to bed like it's seven. I love it like at seven thirty. And then I wake up like it midnight or one. So today she lays it out. She says, listen here. Here's the deal, buddy. You have to stay up till nine o'clock and I'm going. You also are forbidden from waking up before three, which causes you to go to bed before nine. It's exactly what happened just today.

That's what I'm saying. So make sure your spouse has permission. Say, listen, I'm doing this for us. I'm doing this for the family. I'm not always going to work this hard, but it's startup. It's like put that rocket ship up into orbit. I mean, it first takes a lot of energy, a lot of fuel. I mean, so much fuel that what half the rocket is just the fuel to get it up out of the atmosphere. But then when it gets up there in the orbit, it's just a little thruster.

What if your wife is a communist socialist or has not very much motivation? Hopefully there's a lot of benefit. Yeah exactly. Hopefully things are going well in other areas.

Well, I don't know, maybe if they really feel that way and they just don't understand why you're working and why you're just not home and collecting your free food stamps and chickens and things that they do in the communist countries. That's a tough one because when you go into business, you have to understand that your spouse is your partner. Now, when you sit down and you say, listen, here's what I see.

Are you on board? Are you on board? Are you on board? Matter of fact, trying to make it science. Are you on board? If you think of just say what you want, but I don't get out of contract to make them. Hey, here's, here's what's going to happen here. Are you on board? And then have that. And then the next time they, you know, fuss at you for work and have, or whether you're working, you pull out your country. So that was our deal. I want to give this encouragement for anybody who's single. Napoleon Hill did a research of what causes people to fail. The 30 causes of failure. Yes. And one of them was being married to a low ambition person.

Now, if you are married to a low ambition person, I've only seen it work in two scenarios. I have two scenarios. I'll be very vague so no one can guess who they are. Okay. One person worked for me years ago, comes to me and says, I want to be successful. I go, okay. I've lived at the 89th, Lynn Lane, 8900 Lynn Lane office at the nice house that they assumed I was doing well. I was doing well. They said, I want to know how can I become successful? This is a person who's really struggling in life. And I said, you need to read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

and thinking grow rich. Basically buy assets, not liabilities, buy assets, whatever you can, buy an asset, real estate, whatever, with your savings, and then read, think and grow rich, implement. Well this guy reads, reads, he grew up poor, he reads the book in Z. This is like a renewed mind. This guy's coming to work like perpetually an oversleeper, getting to work. He goes, what time do you get to work? I get to work like at six. This guy's getting there at five.