Personal Responsibility 101 + How to Move Beyond Just Dreaming & Never Get Stuck Again w/ NY Times Best-Selling Author, Jon Acuff + Move Beyond Procrastination & Into Activation! Overcoming Predictable Emergencies

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

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 altruistically 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 on their hands. This started from the bottom, Now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U .

S.

Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. Folks, on today’s show we’re interviewing a best -selling author, a leadership expert, a man who has a reputation, he has a history of being able to motivate both individuals and organizations with practical tools that they can use to go from where they are to where they want to be. A few years ago, he lowered his standards and agreed to be on The Thrive Time Show. And now here we are, six, seven years later, he’s on The Thrive Time Show again. John Acuff, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show.

How are you, sir?

Standards still low. Still low standards.

Yeah, they haven’t raised it all.

All right.

Well, great to see you.

You too. Now, I have to ask you here, for people out there that maybe are not as familiar with your background as I am, walk our listeners through how your career got started, because you’re one of those people that has actually had success. You know what you’re doing. You actually put up results. But there are a lot of leadership charlatans out there and people that don’t know what they’re talking about. But you do know what you’re talking about.

Tell us about your background.

Yeah, so I spent about 15 years or so in corporate marketing. So I was a copywriter with companies like Bose and Home Depot and Staples and did a bunch of freelance for companies like Chick -fil -A. And I started a blog during one of those seasons and the blog grew faster than I expected. And I got to write a book out of that experience. And then a guy named Dave Ramsey in Nashville said, hey, I want you to come talk to my team. And I went and did that and it went well.

Then I came back a second year and it went well and I came back a third. time a year later. And he said, Hey, I want to show you how to do this on a bigger level. So I moved from Atlanta to Nashville, spent three action packed years working with Dave Ramsey, learning how to write books, speak on stage, really serve people with ideas. And then after about three years, I wanted to do it on my own, start my own thing. And so 13 years ago, started my own company.

And at this point, I’ve written 12 books, I’ve got one that just came out procrastination proof, and then another one that comes out in a couple months. And so that’s kind of a snapshot of what I’ve been doing.

Now, I won’t spend a whole lot of time obsessing on it, but on The Thrive Time Show, I am a big fan of Dave Ramsey and the debt -free philosophy that he teaches. Talk about what it was like to be mentored by Dave Ramsey directly.

It was a fire hose. I mean, it was I went from talking to 80 people in rooms of, you know, less than 100 to 8000 people in about a month. He said, hey, I want you to warm up the crowd when we do an arena tour. So he threw me in the deep end. He was one of those people that believed in me earlier than most people. And so I’m very grateful for that.

And then I always joke that any time I felt busy, I would just look at his calendar and realize that there’s other gears. And so for me, it was a huge learning experience.

It was like a greenhouse for being an entrepreneur or greenhouse for running a business in a very practical way.

Now, as far as this idea of moving from procrastination into what’s called activation or getting things done, you saw it patterned by Dave Ramsey. You saw it. You saw how he keeps his schedule. You saw how he keeps his to -do list. Let’s start there, and then let’s move into what you’re teaching today. I think by default, most people don’t have a to -do list.

They don’t have a calendar. They’re not intentional with the way they organize their day and therefore they just sort of react.

Let’s talk about intentionality and how our listeners can move beyond being stuck in the doom loop of infinite acquisition of knowledge and not doing anything.

Yeah, so it’s funny you mentioned the infinite, you know, collection of knowledge. A friend of mine the other day told me the 10 success podcasts he listens to, and they’re all CEOs interviewing other CEOs, billionaires interviewing other billionaires. But he hadn’t changed his life one bit in the last year. He was a success voyeur. He was watching other people be successful. So I think you’re 100 % right there.

My biggest suggestion when it comes to doing that, like actually stepping into activation is my favorite definition of discipline, which is make tomorrow easy today. Make tomorrow easy today. What can I do today to make tomorrow easy? So I think a great exercise is a set of you know, for me to spend 10 minutes today, what can I do that will make tomorrow go better? How can I plan tomorrow?

I like to think, how can Monday me hook up Friday me? How can Tuesday me hook up next Wednesday me? What are some gifts I can send to the future, the future me that’s going to be doing these items? And that’s where planning, you know, really comes into play is can I coming up with a plan to make sure you execute things the way you want to execute. Most people don’t think of planning that way. And so they wake up on a Monday and they feel overwhelmed.

They wake up on a Monday and there’s already a million distractions and it’s hard to kind of get back in control of their week.

Now, I happen to personally manage a team of over about, well, not thousands of people, but hundreds of people. And when I manage our team, you know, Monday happens and, you know, you have people calling in sick, you have a child support situation. These are just today, people calling in sick, child support situations we’re dealing with, people whose cars don’t work. There’s all those every Monday. I know that’s going to happen just every Monday. And so I have kind of a flow and a pattern with which I organize my day.

What would you say to somebody out there watching this show that has 100 employees or more, and they find that they haven’t yet developed a strategy for moving beyond the reactionary Monday?

Yeah, I’d say pay attention to the patterns. Don’t be surprised by repeatable emergencies. You just said, I know this is roughly going to happen in this season. And the season could be this type of day or this like we know these things always happen in this type of season. Like when I worked for Home Depot, sometimes we would act surprised that Christmas was in December. Like we would all of a sudden look up and go, Oh my gosh, we’ve got all these sales things we need to focus on.

And we go, we’d get through this fire drill. And then in January go, who knows when Christmas is going to be this year. Like look for, I think a leader’s job, part of it is to look for patterns and kind of with systems that simplify the things you’re going to repeat again and again and again, because every time somebody calls in sick, it’s not the first time you guys have a system. There’s a cascading system that deals with that. So I think as a leader, you have to look for patterns and then come up with systems that eliminate emergencies.

I would say a soundtrack I teach leaders is accept uncertainty, accept it. It’s going to happen. You don’t control it. tariffs, you don’t control the government, you don’t control the weather, but increase certainty. So what are the things you do control? A leader has to often hold two opposite things in their hands at the same time and that’s part of leadership.

Now I’m going to pull up your book here for people out there that want to look up your newest book. And again, you’ve written, how many books total have you written at this point? You said like 12, you said?

12, yeah. This is the 11th, and the 12th comes out later this fall.

OK, so here we go. This is A Procrastination Proof. That’s the cover. You got the turtle with the jet pack with the, looks like a firework jet pack there going. It says procrastination proof. There it is, folks.

I’ll put a link to it. Tell us about the title. Tell us about the cover. What are you trying to convey here in this new book, Procrastination Proof?

Well, one, that it’s possible. I had a comedian friend named Dustin Nickerson say, oh, jeez, you wrote a book on procrastination. You’ve never procrastinated. And he said, I rolled my eyes when I saw that title. But that just means he didn’t know me for the first 34 years of my life. I mean, in my early 20s, my mid 20s, my late 20s, my career was a mess.

I had six real jobs in eight years. I had a pretty average marriage. I was a pretty average husband. I was out of shape. And in my mid 30s, I discovered this crazy concept called personal responsibility. It’s very unpopular, but it’s also very powerful.

I realized no one’s showing up. I’ve got to figure this out. And so I started to deal with it. things like overthinking, and perfectionism, and procrastination. And so between zero and 34, I wrote zero books. Since 34, I’m 50 now, I’ve written 12 books.

And so I couldn’t have written this book as book two. If I was 37 and tried to say this is how to become procrastination proof, it would have been fake because I didn’t know how to do it. It would have been a guess. But by book 11, I feel very good saying, hey, I figured out some some tricks, some resources that’ll help you get the things done that you really want to get done. And so what’s fun about procrastination is it just a mindset issue.

It’s not a physical problem you have to face. It’s an imaginary issue, and it’s mindset. And we can deal with mindset issues. That’s why I wrote the book now, was I felt like after 16 years of dealing with it in my own life and consistently beating it, I had something worth saying.

Now, one of the things I find, I work with everybody from pro athletes to doctors, dentists, lawyers, people that are striving to be successful, is a lot of times people, these are people that take maximum responsibility. You know, the top entrepreneur, they take maximum responsibility. The top athlete, they take maximum responsibility. And as part of that process of taking maximum responsibility, they take maximum ownership for learning everything. And then they begin to get overwhelmed with overthinking. Let’s deal with that first.

What does your book talk about for the guy who’s taking maximum responsibility? He’s overthinking everything because he wants to know everything before making any decision ever.

Yes. So to me, there’s four permissions I teach people to give themselves permission to dream, permission to plan, permission to do and permission to review. And four different types of people get stuck in those permissions. Dreamers get stuck dreaming. No surprise there. Thousand ideas, zero actions.

Perfectionists get stuck planning. What you just described to me sounds like a perfectionist, meaning what they say is I’m going to change the world just as soon as the plan is perfect. I just need a little more data. I want all the information. And we haven’t lived in an all information world in 300 years. 400 years I think about Thomas Jefferson they used to say he owned a copy of all the books meaning he owned a copy of every book

had been printed. No one could do that now. There’s too much information. So for leaders, they get enough information, they make a decision, they act, and then they iterate when they get new information. So somebody like that that’s saying, hey, I just need more information. I need more data.

I need, you know, to run the numbers more. I’ve got to kind of really take ownership of every little detail. That to me feels like perfectionism. And I think there’s a lot of things where they’ll get stuck in the planning stage versus actually doing what they need to do next.

Mental patterns your book you talk about mental patterns there’s patterns people have when it comes to procrastination most of my clients frankly don’t deal with Procrastination a lot. These are entrepreneurs that are hyper focused on taking action, but maybe they’re taking the wrong action However, they have a lot of managers assistant managers employees that do procrastinate a lot And so whether you’re watching this and you’re a procrastinator or you’re managing procrastinators or whatever your reality is Can you talk about that or okay?

What kind of patterns do you see with perpetual procrastinators?

Well, I’ll tell you one is kind of over hustle, meaning you’re really, really good at doing, but you never stop to review. So sales teams struggle with this. I know sales teams that’ll say, you know, I don’t have time to fill out paperwork. Any degree of paperwork feels like bureaucracy. And the leadership team will go, we just need you to fill out three fields, the name of the person you sold it to and their address so we can fulfill it. And they’ll go, oh, it’s the Magna Carta.

Like, get me back in the streets. I’m built to, I’m built to sale. So hustlers often will go right right from dreaming, skip planning, go right to doing, and they make a ton of progress just off and right off a cliff, right in the wrong direction because they never pause to go, are we still making the progress we want? So that’s a big pattern. Another with dreamers is, right as you get ready to finish a project, they go, you know what would be cool? I have a new idea I’d like to introduce.

And you want to kill them because you’re about to launch the thing. and they get really creative right at the right at the last second so the way to fix that or one of the ways is to be really clear as a leader about which part of the project you’re in meaning hey we’re in a this is a dreaming meeting we are going to brainstorm Or, hey, this is a planning meeting. We already have the ideas we’re going to do. No new off the wall ideas. That’s not helpful. Or this is a review.

We’re reviewing what we did. We’re pausing what we’re doing. And so I think a lot of the patterns come from not understanding which part of the project you’re in and then being led in a way that makes that obvious.

Now, I love waking up at three a .

m.

.

Love it.

Love getting up at three.

That’s what time you get up.

You really get up. I do. And I go to bed at nine. What time you go to bed? Nine. That’s my move.

So I’m a, I’m a go to bed at nine to wake up at three guy. I like to be done working at six.

So, oh yeah, we got five kids.

So as of the time of this recording and like an hour and we’ll call it 47 minutes, I’m taking my wife on a fun little date with the kids and I’ll basically from six to nine family time and then I’m going to bed.

That’s my flow. How old is your oldest kid? Our oldest is 21. So Havana is 21. My son is 18. They got a daughter who’s 17 and twins that are 16.

And I love that routine. But night me versus morning me, very different me. I love getting up early, knocking, and I love it. I love the uninterruption. I love other people watching this. They’re more active at night, and they don’t like getting up early.

And everybody’s got their own flow, and I’m not here to pass judgment as to whether getting up at 3 is a good move.

I find most successful people that I meet tend to wake up early, maybe not that early, but they wake up early. Talk to us about what your book has to say about the nighttime you versus the morning you and what your research has shown. Well, the big thing is to one, get them aligned and to figure out what they’re individually good at. So when I mean aligned, I think for me, what happened was morning me wanted to get after it, but he was exhausted and And I’d go, hey, night me, what happened last night? And night me would go, oh, we doom scrolled until midnight and we ate a lasagna at 1130.

And it totally, you know, ruined what morning me could do. So first I had to get morning me in alignment with night me. And then I had to realize morning me as a wonderful doer. Morning me will run through a wall if you’ve picked out the right wall first. But if I wake up at 8 a . m.

on a Monday without a plan and the phone’s already ringing, and the day is already going, I feel overwhelmed. So what I learned is night me is a great planner, morning me is a great doer. So if I’ll make 10 minutes of plans at night the night before, I can hook up morning me. So once I divided the labor the right way, then I could figure out, okay, this is how I work my best. And then you start to go, when do I do my best work in the day? And you realize things like, Don’t give gold time to bronze activities.

I’m at my most creative from 7 a . m. To 10 a . m So guess what? I don’t do meetings from 7 a .

m.

To 10 a .

m Because meetings are a bronze activity for me most of them There’s an occasional meeting where like it’s a gold meeting and I have to really focus on it But if a friend says hey, I’d love to pick your brain at 8 a . m. Over coffee I say why don’t we go for a walk at 4 p . m? Like I’d love to do a walk with you at 4 p . m On Thursday because I know in my week where there’s gold time and then I match the right activities to that right time.

And it takes about a half hour to get that thing moving. You’re not really sure what you’re doing. You’re priming it. You’re shaking it. You’re putting in the right. And you could probably get another one.

But instead, you do what you have to do.

You try to conjure up some level of activity from that mower. And a lot of people are like that. A lot of times, people, it takes a half hour to get moving. You get a good idea, but it takes a long time. good half hour to get settled in and to get moving. Tell us about this this half hour and what your book has to tell us about this 30 minute start gap.

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing you have to think about there is, does that actually lead to your best? Like, is the 30 minutes, have you actually tested that? Have you actually been deliberate about that? I think most times people haven’t. If they, you know, they haven’t spent a lot of time looking at the real process of going, oh, I could cut this part or I could cut that other part. I think that high performing leaders, the ones I know, have a lot of preferences, but not a ton of requirements, meaning there’s a lot of ways they want to do things.

And if the day turns out differently, it doesn’t, it doesn’t ruin the day. Like they prefer this flight and this seat. But if the day doesn’t allow that because there’s conflicts, they don’t go, well, I can’t do my day. I need a 30 minute startup. I need a perfect time. So I think there’s this great deal of flexibility.

Like one of my favorite soundtracks for leaders is plan like an engineer, live like an artist. Plan like an engineer, live like an artist.

Plan your day specifically, have it dialed in. But then during the day, if you’re interacting with humans, humans are messy and you’re going to have to live like an artist. A rigid goal is a fragile goal. The best entrepreneurs I know have a degree of flexibility and they’re able to respond to the market. They’re able to move quickly. They don’t have a fragile, rigid structure that falls apart.

Folks, there’s so much gold here. And again, this book, I encourage everyone to pick it up, because this is a thing where you have taken the time to write a book. And for anybody who hasn’t read your books before, we had one member of our team years ago who was first telling me about your books. And he said, listen, his books are action -packed, Clay. You’re going to love his books. And I said, I don’t know.

I don’t know. I read Napoleon Hill.

I read a lot of John Maxwell.

I’ve read a lot of Jim Rohn, a lot of Bruce Willis. These are books that I’ve read. And then there’s a lot of books that kind of missed the mark. There’s a lot of authors that kind of half -bake their self -helpness. And so there was one of your early titles, the one that first took off. Quitter?

Start was one that took off.

I think Start’s the one.

But it was like, it was all about like just And I remember Dave in my office, Dave Berlin gave it to me and Dave was like, Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. And he’s like, you got to read this book start. And I just remember there was a book about rhinos that was coming out at the time and he was trying to get me to read these books. But I just remember reading your book and going, wow, this is well, well written. It kept you kept the pages going.

Can you talk about your just approach and your philosophy towards writing books?

Totally. So first, I find a problem I have in my own life and then I spend a couple of years trying to solve it. And then if I get a really good solution, I go find out to other people have the problem, too. And if they have the problem, then I spend a few more years researching it. I test it with thousands of people. I usually will hire a Ph .

D. named Mike Peasley to help me with the research. He’s a professor here in Nashville. So by the time the book comes out, it’s been tested with real people and I’ve also taken it on the road. Like, you know, I’ve spoken to companies like Range Rover on Walmart and Microsoft, you know. And so I’ve tested the ideas with real companies and real leadership.

The thing you don’t like about books is the same thing I don’t like. I don’t like when I can tell the person who wrote a leadership book has never led. It’s like when you read a marriage book by somebody who’s been married for a year, like you can still smell the sunscreen on them from their honeymoon or they write a parenting book and their oldest kid is eight years old. And you think, oh, you wrote a parenting book. You got an eight year old. That’s adorable.

You think you’re done parenting like that is hilarious.

So for me, that’s the process is, OK, how do I make sure that I create a book that serves the real world whenever I write a book or give a keynote?

I’m thinking, great, what do I do with this on a Tuesday?

Like, great, you ran a marathon up Mount Kilimanjaro.

I’m a software executive. What do I do with this on a Tuesday? So the books I write are really funny. They’re really personal, but they are action packed because I don’t like to read books where I can tell the person had one idea and expanded it like an accordion into a whole book. This right here, let me pull it up real quick. Here’s the book right here.

Yes. Punch Fear in the Face. That’s the book.

And so all I can say is, again, folks, if you’re looking for another book by John Acuff that I might recommend there, it’s called Start, Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters. That’s a book I could recommend, because I’ve actually read the book. Back to you, though, John. Let’s talk about your new book here. There’s a lot of books people could read, a lot of books coming out there all the time. Why should everybody check out this book?

I mean, what are some absolute can’t -miss moments in the new book? Well, one of them is even just the format. So when I was researching books about procrastination, some of them are 300, 400 pages long. And by the way, no procrastinator is going to read that.

Like if you wrote a 400 page book about procrastination, you’re not a procrastinator. If you have 90 pages of notes in your book about procrastination, you’re a monster. Like that’s, that’s Jane Goodall writing about monkeys.

This is a book by a monkey for other monkeys.

So even the format, it’s 71 short chapters. Constantly winning because when I read a Kindle book and it says 82 minutes left in the chapter I groan when I finish a chapter though and get that little hit of dopamine for the accomplishment I keep going so even the format Procrastinators are gonna pick up this book and go. Oh my gosh, and then here’s the other thing We did a study with 3 ,000 people and we asked them Do you feel like you’re living up to your full potential and 96 % of them said no, so everyone, you know everyone listening knows they’re capable of more they just don’t know what to do with that and this book gives you a specific answer to that feeling. Now in the book you also talk about working with resistance and not against it. Working with resistance and not against it. What do you mean and what does your book have to tell us about this concept?

Yeah. So, I mean, I think there’s things that we try to fight that aren’t worth fighting, that we can get momentum on and go, OK, if I work with this, I’m not fighting it head on. So an example of that would be, you know, for me, this is a silly one, but I like to live practically. When I come home from a trip, I unpack immediately because if I put my suitcase down on my bedroom floor, it grows roots. It roots itself to my bedroom floor. So I use the momentum of coming in, the energy of coming coming in.

The trip’s not over until I unpacked. And I think most people go, I’m going to do it eventually.

And then they’re digging out of their suitcase for days at a time. So I don’t fight that.

I use the momentum of the reentry into the house. And I tell myself, hey, the finish line isn’t the front door. The finish line is the suitcase gets to go to its home, and you’re going to feel a lot better when you’re actually done. We’ve never talked about that offline, but that’s 100 % the method that I go with as well. So I love that. Now, guys, I saw you smile immediately.

You’re like, this guy gets it. Yeah. What I do.

Yeah. Procrastination is, is something I don’t do well with now. Got to ask you here and your book, you talk about reframing, um, how we deal with getting things. Perfect. And I tend to write a lot of music so I really understand this process because you might write a melody that you like or a lyric that you like and then you have to come back to it tomorrow morning and you refine the melody and refine the lyric and refine the chorus and eventually you get something you’re happy with. But you have to get something started before you hit save or you hit pause or you hit record or whatever that is.

But a lot of people, they don’t want to start anything until it’s perfect. They don’t want to continue Walk us through how your book talks about reframing perfectionism. Yeah, I mean, one thing you have to know is 90 % perfect and shared with the world changes 100 % more lives than 100 % perfect and stuck in your head or stuck in a laptop. So for me, I’m really deliberate about okay, like every book I’ve ever written had a typo in it. And we tried. I’ve worked, I had two books published with Penguin, like one of the biggest publishers in the world.

I said in one book that Terrell Owens, the NFL player, caught a thousand touchdowns in his career. He’s caught a hundred. I was off by a factor of 10x. So imagine if I said to myself, you can’t, you can’t release books until, until they’re absolutely, again, we had, dozens of people read them that slipped through.

So for me to produce as much as I produce, I can’t afford the luxury of perfection. I just can’t. And the best entrepreneurs I know recognize that and they try to make it as perfect as possible. But they also know there’s going to be some things that we would have done differently if we had the right amount of time or had the right amount of resources or had the right amount of information. And so, yeah, I think to be like your choice is prolific or perfection. And I choose I choose prolific.

The reason I have 12 books and have sold a million copies in 30 languages or whatever is because I don’t wait for perfectionism. I just don’t give myself that luxury. Now, with the final couple of minutes we have here, I know a lot of our listeners, they love to hear this portion of the broadcast. I’m going to give you the mic to share whatever you want. I encourage everyone to check out your book there, Procrastination Proof.

Never Get Stuck Again. I’ll put a link in the show notes. Procrastination Proof, Never Get Stuck Again. But you’ve got the mic. You’ve got the floor.

You can say whatever you want to say.

I’ll kind of get out of your way in the final 90 seconds. What is the message you want to convey with our listeners today that are eagerly taking notes, sir? Well, I mean, I think a really easy next step is to figure out where are you going to get stuck in DreamPlan DoReview? Where are you going to get stuck? Is it in dreaming? Is it in planning?

And so we built a simple quiz. It’s John. .com com slash quiz. I think we even have one just for your listeners. Johnacuff .

com slash thrive time where you can go answer a couple of questions and figure out automatically, oh, I’m going to struggle with hustling in the wrong direction or, oh, I’m going to struggle with negativity and I’m going to be an analyst who gets kind of stuck in that section. So I’d say be curious about yourself. I think you I think a lot of people Half of life is convincing yourself to do things you really want to do that you’re not going to feel like doing. You are the best you, salesman.

Clay, you are the best Clay salesperson because every decision you’ve ever made, first you talk yourself into it. So once you recognize that, go get some other sales tools. Figure out what you want to talk yourself into. Success is easy. It’s thoughts turn into actions. Actions turn into results.

The things you think become the things you do, become the things you get. So if you want to figure out how to have a really amazing life full of results, start with some thoughts, procrastination is a mindset issue, and get into action. John Acuff, thank you so much for your time.

I encourage everyone to check out your book.

Again, folks, if you missed it, I encourage everyone to check out the book here.

You say, what’s the title of the book?

It’s Procrastination Proof.

Never Get Stuck. Again, I’ll put a link to it on the show notes. John, I really do appreciate you, and we can’t wait to have you on the show, hopefully sooner than six years from now. But we want to have you on the show again. Thanks, Clay. But Clay Clark, man, he is one character.

It’s a good word for character. Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart.

And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother and she just says she just lets him be Clay Clark.

I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother. and he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. His, Clay Clarke starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning.

Oh, it’s incredible.

Yeah.

He’s, he’s like, he’s, he’s a machine. He’s a machine.

But his, you know, I got, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes.

Hundreds of people showing up at 5 .00 AM in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man. Oh, he is. He is. And it’s, so it’s, it’s, um, you know, for, for the folks that aren’t familiar with you and by a few and far between, I first came across you.

Gosh, probably 15 years ago or maybe even 20.

Clay Clarke is here somewhere.

Where’s my buddy Clay?

Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs.

I met his chickens.

I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. My honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

You know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you.

So congratulations.

Sean, guess what’s happening on June 5th and 6th right here in Tulsa, Russia.

Uh, we are probably going to have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa Ruslim.

Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur. Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies. Do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day.

How often? is is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost it’s like maybe 90 % of the issues as people are trying to grow their businesses. time management and his approach to personal self -discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here.

Also at the two -day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? creating leads, is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops? Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers You know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area.

And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay.

You love to hammer on time management.

It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now, I’m going to pull this up real quick here because we’re going to go through it.

If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here.

OK, the two day interactive workshop. This is my 20th year hosting workshop. So I’m telling you, folks, we’re in rare form here. So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals. Would you agree or am I off my rocker?

No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to establish the revenue goals. And generally speaking, we have a vague idea, but not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily goals for sales. And so that’s a really big part of it. Now, next is the break even numbers. What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even? Yeah.

Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? You know, what is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique from all the different businesses in a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial Brown cows, the analogy of brown cows. How can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil?

Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand? Box number six, branding. Marketing, your three -legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed.

If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads. Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth.

So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more. leads, but they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven, box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system.

Sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre -written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business, whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you gotta have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight, What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build an organization if you’re not organized. We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization.

Bye. number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people, on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people. Box number 13, accounting.

This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, What is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over that. What is the point of even achieving success?

How to design a life that you’re excited about, how to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re going to spend your focused time. We’re going to go through that, all this and more. Now the workshop, Sean, it’s June 5th and 6th. It’s a two day interactive workshop. Tickets, we always do it. It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford.

Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available? if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You know, you could be at a startup phase or you could be, you know, way along in your business, but we want to make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad.

And, like, it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that, you know, you’re just, your average people out there have access to the things that work. Now, 7 a . m. to 5, Sean, why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days?

I mean, it’s 10 hours a day.

20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back -to -back workshops? We do a 30 -minute teaching session, we do a 15 -minute question -and -answer session, and then we take a break. 30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question -and -answer, then we take a break. Why do we do that format, Sean? That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved.

We really encourage people to ask questions, and that’s really where the juiciness of the conference conference

is you can put your personal situation and your questions on the board, and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program, you can get direct coaching from Clay.

It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot. Sean, final 60 seconds, pop quiz here.

What date is the conference?

June 5th and 6th, 2025, this year. Question number two, who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in -person two -day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards?

P -M -U -R -T -C -U -R -T. I -R -E.

Ooh, that took a long time.

I’ll have to listen to this. All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, and inviting you to come join us at the in -person Thrive Time show, two -day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Russia, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am excited to have this event. I’m excited to see you at the event, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tim Tebow, baby.

It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia.

We’re doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here.

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens.

I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right?

His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing.

Guys, Luke Erickson.

here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference, and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man, people are so excited as they come in. People are so excited to be here for day two has in store Here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that?

What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break.

And what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them. Also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. It represents our life, right? We’re here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency so that we can make the most of the time that we have. Systems and processes.

I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none. It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say. Just something every entrepreneur, I think, would appreciate and love.

I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars. Maybe you’re high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you could take back and implement, you know, the following Monday, where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say like, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview.

I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable. It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far. I think they’re missing out on expert advice from somebody who’s been there done that built companies has learned a lot of lessons. You know, that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from that’s ahead of where I am. And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business. Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes.

I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden. So I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So, honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed.

After doing $800 million in sales over a 15 -year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually, in a four -month period of time, has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month, just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own.

So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry.

I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because The results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental.

It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic, and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way.

I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1 ,800 % increase in our internet leads, going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years, and my three kids started school, and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. has been suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people.

I love the building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing, I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be.

So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage our real estate brokerage eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents.

But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else.

I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself.

I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out.

But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63 ,000 embezzlement.

I lost multiple employees.

Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan.

He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do.

I hear The ripple effects from you are good ripple effects. You know what I mean?

People rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations. We’re expecting maybe $200 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000. So we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that. Pretty much just listening to what they have to say, their hiring process, has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly.

such good insight, the resources they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience, so I’d recommend it to anybody. What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system, and it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with on a day -to -day basis. Hi there, my name is Stephanie Pipkin.

I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services.

We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid -June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid -February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I’m going to check my notes here. So in four months, my leads have tripled.

I was getting probably like two leads a week. Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day.

Hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now, and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time on interviews. low quality candidates anymore.

Um, and your coach will hold you accountable. I mean, which I love again, the tough love is really great. You know, looks like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them. So that’s just a great, um, worth every penny. I mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but, um, I would just say, go for it.

If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working until you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that.

But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute, because I have all this stuff in the background happening, and I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team. working really hard to make sure that I’m a success and I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that they’re so excited for me so it just it’s the best thing ever and I would suggest to anybody to work with them so sorry for the long -winded reply but I just had so much to say and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are but thank you to to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me. And I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach.

And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach. And so my coach pushes me. They’re younger than me. They push harder. They’re trained. As my rich dad always said, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches.

So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. You’re on it, man. You’re on it. You’re on it. Everybody, listen to this guy.

He knows what he’s talking about. You have the macro picture. Very few people have that point of view. Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. And as they say in Stoic, the obstacle is the way.

And so if you let You let these pinheads get in your way, you’re in trouble.

Transcribed with Cockatoo