5 Essential Steps That Take You Where You Want to Go with the NY Times Bestselling Author of 20 Million+ Books & Psychologist, Dr. Henry Cloud + How to Fix Problems Before They Become a Pattern

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 Zilner. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. Folks, on today’s show, we’re talking to a gentleman who has 20 million copies sold of his books. Think about this, folks. This gentleman has written 30 plus books. and has sold 20 million copies, including the multi -million copy bestseller, Boundaries.

You see, Dr. Henry Cloud is one of the most influential voices in leadership and personal growth today. He was named by Success Magazine as a top 25 leader in the field and praised by the New York Times, which called his book, Integrity, the best of the bunch. Dr. Cloud returns with a new book, Your Desired Future, the five essential steps that take you where you want to go. And with that being said, Dr. Henry Cloud, on the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m good, Clay.

Good to be here. Now, you’re Dr. Henry Cloud. What are you a doctor of for people out there that are going, what kind of doctor are we talking about here, sir? I’m a clinical psychologist by training. When did you decide, self, I want to become a clinical psychologist? Well, actually, I came about it honestly.

I hit bottom in college and got really depressed. And I was a business major. I had gone to college to play competitive golf. Psychology was nowhere on the screen. But in the working through that and getting better process, got really interested, changed my major, and here we are. Now, as a gentleman who’s had success, I mean, you’ve written books that have sold millions of copies at this point.

When did you decide to become an author? Like, when did that moment occur for you? You know, it’s weird, Clay. I don’t think of myself as an author. I write books, but I’m a practitioner. And that’s where I spend my life, most of it.

But what happens is, in my work, I tend to, I’m kind of a model builder, and I tend to see patterns and stuff like that, get really interested in them. And then something emerges, and I’ll look for a tool about that. I can’t find one. I say, well, this should be a book. And so the first time it happened, it was an organization I was working with. And they said, I was teaching some stuff in their trainings.

And they said, is this written down anywhere? I go, no. And they go, well, you got to write a book. I said, I don’t know how to write a book. My dissertation was a nightmare. I can’t even imagine it.

And they actually hired a consultant to walk me through the process. And that’s how I got started. And when you wrote a book, when did you recognize, like, wow, this, you know, maybe what I’m writing resonates with people? Like, when did you recognize that perhaps, you know, you might want to write another book, or that you were getting some traction as a practitioner who happens to write books? Well, it was weird. It was probably my first book got some traction, but there was a section in that book called Boundaries.

And I had a psychiatric hospital company at the time, and we were doing big citywide events and seminars on all of that content. And we were in a training session one day, and a facilitator said, when y ‘all go speak on this, what are all the questions on? And we laughed and said, boundaries. And he said, why don’t you write a book on boundaries? And I laughed again. and said, that’s a great idea.

We’ll write the book and never have to talk about this again. And I thought that would be the end of it. But what happened was, it really hit a nerve. And we didn’t expect that. And it just kind of blew up from there. It was crazy.

It wasn’t planned. But boundaries are a big issue in life, or all of life, our whole life. And the context changes, but the issue still remains. And that kind of, that sort of Blew up and then I started writing leadership books later and integrity, which you mentioned was my first one. the New York Times kind of blew that one up and then I don’t know that’s how it happened. Now before we get into your new book could you tell us about boundaries just a little bit about the boundaries of it with by default where are people getting it wrong as it relates to boundaries.

A few places. The big need for boundaries, especially in the beginning, was, you know, boundaries are basically a property line. And we have personal property lines, what defines me and what’s not me. But a lot of people, they want to be extra loving, and they want to be patient, and they want to help other people and all this. And so they end up taking responsibility for other people’s lives and their behavior. And they start enabling and then they get hurt.

And sometimes they can’t say no to abuse and control. And what The Boundaries book was about was to actually help them wake up about that. You know, you don’t have to take all of this stuff and you can say no and still be a loving person. And actually setting limits with somebody abusive or addicted or controlling. can actually be the first step and they’re getting better and that’s what it was about. Now let’s switch gears here into your new book here.

So your new book, I’ll pull it up on the screen so people can see the book. Give me one second here, folks. You shouldn’t do a podcast while operating a screen, but I’m doing it. Here we go. So the website here is Your Desired Future, the five essential steps that take you where you want to go. Again, Your Desired Future, the five essential steps that take you where you want to go, written by Dr. Henry Cloud.

I click on it. There’s the cover. What inspired you to write this new book there, sir? Well, Clay, as I said, I’m a practitioner and I spend probably 80 to 100 days a year with CEOs. businesses and companies and their teams and all of that. And there’s so much leadership and performance stuff out there and really good stuff.

But I’ve asked teams of leaders before, what do you guys do? You’re leading this company. What do you do? five different answers from five people at the table. And I thought, wouldn’t it be helpful to have a simple model where somebody wake up every day and I’m trying to move something from here to there. And I can look at this little model, this GPS, and ask myself, are all five of these things happening?

And that would be a guide. And so that’s what really inspired it. And I built the model, started using it in companies and also with individuals. They started adopting it. I’ve got I’ve got multi multi billion dollar organizations that use it as their operating system all the way to individuals who are trying to increase performance and everything in between. That’s how it happened.

So you talk in your book about these five essential steps, and I don’t want to give the whole book away, but could you walk us through what these five essential steps are, just kind of one by one, and give us maybe just enough so that we’ll want to read the book if it piques our interest, but I think there’s somebody out there that wants to know at least a framework of what these five steps are. What’s interesting about it is they’re not going to be new to anybody. I mean, everybody, when I go through the five, you will have heard of these, but the secret sauce is everybody, you know, we all know these, but there’s certain components to each one of them that actually make them work. And a lot of times we think we’re doing it, we’re not going to do what makes them work. And if something’s left out, we’re just not going to get there. So simply stated, what I did in the book was I used the model of the human brain

and asked the question, how does a human body get from here to there? And the reason I used the human body was it’s the most complex performance machine and organization that we have. I mean, everybody’s all excited about AI. All AI is trying to do is what we do. It’s trying to approximate that. I asked this question, how does the human body get from here to there?

And I went to neuroscience and neuro anatomy and physiology and psychology and the performance stuff and all of that and clay it was it was amazing. You can take all of that literature and it basically fits into five things that the human body does starting with if I’m here. Okay, and let’s say we’re having this podcast here, but I go guys just in the best play, you know, it doesn’t really feel I don’t know. It would be better if we did it over there. Okay, that’s the first thing that happens in your prefrontal cortex. You have the capacity which other species don’t to imagine and see a desired future that doesn’t exist today.

That’s called a vision. And it’s what happens when we have a clear vision, all these systems begin to activate inside and take the next steps to get you there. The second thing that happens is your brain realizes, I can’t get there by myself. and it starts to send out recruiting emails to the specific talent and help that you’re going to need to get you there. I’m going to need a couple legs. It wakes up the legs.

It calls them into action. I’m going to need, you know, two eyes to focus. I’m going to need an inner ear to balance me. How about that? pinky? No, probably don’t want to call them to the party.

But it gets the talent around them that’s going to be needed. Now, that’s not our talent. That’s the other talent that’s going to help me get there. Let me give you an example. When Tom Brady got the call, hey, go to Tampa Bay. They hadn’t won, hadn’t had a winning season in 14 years and got in there and won a Super Bowl.

Well, The first thing he did was, he had the vision, he knew how to do that, but he looked at that team and he said, you know what, you’re not gonna win a Super Bowl with that talent. And he isolated three or four positions, talent that was needed in order for them to get there. So that’s the next step. We gotta, you know, it may be inside the company, it may be inside your circle of friends, it may be a mentor, it may be a consultant, it may be a new hire. It may be somebody that’s sitting in their chair right now that doesn’t really have the skills that that chair requires, but we got to figure out, how am I going to get there? Who’s going to do what?

Okay, so now I’m ready to go. So, all right, well, let’s go. Well, number three, how am I going to get there? I look over there, I see my future, I’ll call an Uber. Well, If I examine the context, and this is what your brain does, it looks at the context and goes, well, Uber doesn’t make sense, and riding a scooter doesn’t make sense. You know what?

I think I’ll walk. That’s the best. Number three, that’s the best strategy, how I’m going to win. And what your brain does is it begins to isolate that strategy. and the executive functions of the brain eliminate and inhibit anything that would get in the way of that. That’s how we lose focus when we don’t have that.

Start just going about activities. You got to know how you’re going to win and there’s got to be a focus to that. And that works in a certain way with a specific plan. And then the next thing your brain does, now we’re ready to go, we start walking, but if I see a bird at the window and I start to wander over there, your brain has already built in a measurement and accountability system that measures, am I doing what I said I was going to do that was going to move the needle? And if I wander off, it holds me accountable to that.

And number five, it quickly fixes that problem. Now, you put any endeavor in life, whether it’s business or personal, and you’re going to see if it works, all five of those elements are going to be there. And if it’s not working, one or two of them is missing. And the problem is we’re not naturally drawn to or good at all five. We just have to make sure they’re all there. Now, I’m going to go one by one through these just to kind of get some clarity here.

One, years ago, I grew up crazy poor. Somebody watching this show probably grew up more poor than I was. But what I did is I worked at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. I remember talking to my young wife at the time once we built the business, DJConnection . com, which I haven’t owned since 2005. But I remember talking to my wife saying, hey, we can’t do air conditioning, and we can’t do heat, and we’ve got to have one car, because we’re going to build.

the largest DJ entertainment company in America. That’s a vision. And I remember people thinking, I was nuts. But I had a vision. And I knew where I wanted to go. And I got clarity about my vision by recognizing my wife worked for an optometrist who was very successful.

And I went to that optometrist and I said, sir, how did you go from poverty to success? Because I kind of knew his story. And he said, Clay, You gotta know where that, where is success? Once you get to success, what does that look like in your mind? I remember that was the first time that someone had asked me that. I remember thinking, if I could do 4 ,000 weddings a year doing the magic.

I could hit my goal. I got to do 4 ,000 weddings a year. That’s 80 weddings a week. It was really powerful. But by default, I hadn’t clarified my vision. Why is it that we, by default, don’t clarify the vision without leadership, like what you’re providing in the book, or mentorship, like what I received from Dr. Robert Zellner?

You know, it’s a really important question because a lot of times our vision is limited either by our own experience or by the voices in our head or by our fears. There’s a lot of interference that comes into play when we’re coming up with a vision. And what I did in the book was in each five of these, I went from the concepts and how they work down to the look at these personal things about yourself. Because a lot of times somebody’s background has limited what their vision could actually be given their context or talents or abilities. And we got to begin to get those voices and limiting beliefs out of our head, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes that means doing what you did, which is getting out of our circle and into where we’re seeing things and learning, oh my gosh, that’s possible.

I didn’t know that. And then it’s getting bigger. So Clarity is really important, but sometimes it may be too small. And we got to figure out why is that? Now, it’s interesting, you somehow instinctively, let’s go to the next two. Even to get from here to there on a vision, you went and engaged talent.

to help you come up with a vision. You went to this optometrist. So you’re already engaging outside talent of yourself that you didn’t have. And then, voila, you had a strategy. You didn’t say, oh, I’m going to start playing songs on every corner and birthday parties.

No, you said, how are we going to win? We’re going to get 4 ,000 weddings. That’s a strategy. Now, I want to get into this talent and resources thing, because I work with business owners. What I do for a living is people hire me to grow their dental practice, their law firm, their haircut chain, whatever. I grow companies.

And what I do, just so you know, not that you’re super curious, but I work with people for really inexpensive, and I get a small percentage of the growth, which turns out to be a great deal if you do it at scale. So for 21 years, I’ve done the same thing. And I find that so many entrepreneurs are, for whatever reason, so reluctant to reach outside of the circle and the cycle of perpetual jackassery. Someone says, what’s jackassery? It’s a commitment to poverty. It’s a commitment to doing what doesn’t work.

It’s like the stubbornness of a jackass mixed with the verb and the action of an entrepreneur. It’s jackassery. It’s circular 360 life changes. And I always tell people, listen, if you’re stuck, great. Write that down. You know how to be stuck, but you have to reach out to somebody who knows how to help you.

And even if I’m referring a law firm that’s reputable or referring any outside vendor at all, a lot of times entrepreneurs go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve got my guy. Why is it that people are loyal to dysfunction by default? Or maybe you don’t even agree. I just want to know, why are people, maybe you don’t agree with me, but I think I’ve just found over 21 years, a lot of entrepreneurs are loyal to dysfunction by default. Why is that? Well, we’re wired.

I mean, we have patterns. And one of the things that I talked about in the book, I start the book with the story of my Doberman, who has a job. She’s protecting the house. Somebody comes to the front door, she runs to the door and barks. Scary bark. I mean, the FedEx guy tosses stuff on the porch and runs.

She does her job great, but she does it as she’s already wired. as she’s trained to do, instinctively. But I’ve never heard her run to the front door and bark and then stop and go, I wonder if that was helpful. Or ask the bigger question, I wonder if that bark will get me closer to where I want to be on Thursday. That step is what you’re talking about, that people don’t get above themselves and observe what they’re doing with a question of, maybe there’s a different way that I don’t know. And sometimes, you know, you talk about addicted to this.

It’s so interesting. You’re a DJ and you know, you spun the vinyl when you were, you were doing that. He said they go around and around. Yeah. But there’s, there’s a few things. One of them is arrogance.

I mean, just simple there. I know better. Get out of the way. I’m going to do it. But one of them is fear. And the reason that that comes into play is whenever, and you talk to an entrepreneur, whenever they’re talking about doing something new or different, by definition, new and different registers to the maps in our brain as an error.

Now that’s not bad, but it activates what? The fight or flight or freeze part of our brains. And so if I’m doing something different, that’s going to call into activation some kind of anxiety and some people are wired that they’re going to move away from that. And so they just go do what feels secure, but it’s not going to get them there. But you’ve hit on a really important point. It comes from physics.

You know, the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy. And what it says is everything is running down over time. It’s getting worse, you know, things rust chaos, you know, clean up your house. everything. But that only applies to a closed system. And the way you can reverse entropy and get to higher orders of anything is opening up the system to two outside forces, a new source of energy to pump fuel into it, which you as a coach do, and new intelligence to organize that energy into higher order functioning.

And as long as they stay a closed circle, they ain’t going to change nothing. It’s just, it’s mind boggling that we’ve never talked to before, but some of these patterns that you’ve distilled in your book, I could not agree with more. Now moving on to step three, just recapping these, these steps here, strategy and plan, developing a structured approach to achieving your goals, including the specific steps and strategies, folks. It’s so important. You do that in your book. You get more into that for sake of time.

I want to get into step four because this is an awkward moment for many people. Awkward. It’s measurement and accountability. Yeah, I tell all my clients I say we measure what we treasure because by default we slack where we don’t track So what we have to measure what we treasure because by default we’re gonna slack where we don’t track and and you know Nielsen I’m gonna pull this up on the screen here real quick so you can see this this is mind -boggling to me Nielsen now reports the average American is spending eleven point three hours per day consuming social media 11 .3 hours per day. What? I mean, I knew it was high.

11 .3 hours a day? According to Nielsen, yes. And by the way, this number grows every year. So it’ll grow. And so I talk to entrepreneurs. I say, how come we didn’t get the thing done?

And they go, I ran out of time. I go, OK, let’s do this. Let’s take the next 10 minutes, and let’s make a list of everything you did yesterday, starting at what time you woke up. And every time, every time, they say, holy moly, I didn’t recognize I spent two and a half hours at lunch. And I say, well, Mr. Entrepreneur, I would just get a little protein shake, maybe some organic, you know, healthy thing and meal replacement.

And you have that. And that should take four minutes. And I’ll give you back two hours a day. And they go, what? What? And so it’s like once you’re very aware of where your time goes and you’re measuring your results, powerful things can happen.

One of my clients is an NBA coach, and he measures everything, everything, shots, turnovers, assists. It’s unbelievable how he tracks. Can you talk about why is there a resistance within many aspiring successful people to tracking results? Clay, I’ll tell you a funny story. I started doing this a long time ago with one executive team. And I said, you know, you guys have got to develop a peer accountability system.

And instantly you could see them like when the word accountability brings to mind in everybody’s limbic system, like fear, anxiety, I’m gonna get spanked, I’m gonna, you know, I gotta go to the principal’s office, I’m getting evaluated. The first thing that we have to do is we gotta get rid of that negative emotional valence to being measured and being held accountable. Because a lot of people have had really bad, you know, whether it’s parenting or teachers or whatever it is, if I’m gonna be measured, I’m gonna be spanked in some way. And that’s not a good thing. Think of it this way. What I try to get individuals to do is to see accountability in the way that it’s supposed to work.

The word actually means, etymology means to answer to a trust. Now, if you’ve entrusted yourself to a team member or even to yourself, to answer to that trust means that in a relationship, we are going to talk about and see how we’re doing. Why? To be in trouble? No.

So we make sure we’re getting there. Now think of your airplane pilot, your airline pilot. She has a vision. You’re going from New York to LA. She’s got A team, right? She’s engaged in talent.

She’s got a co -pilot. She’s got the people on the ground. All the players are there. She files a flight plan. That’s her strategy in her flight plan. 40 ,000 feet, 500 knots, certain heading.

Then she takes off. She would never take off without her measurement and accountability systems. They are going to help her to get there. She goes, supposed to be at 40 ,000 feet. She dips down to 38 ,000. What happens?

Either the tower or instruments say, United 712, plan shows 40 ,000. You’re at 38 ,000. What does she do? She goes, oops, well, correct, because she knows at 38 ,000 feet, she’s burning too much fuel and she’s going to be late. It helps her get there. But there’s got to be a mind shift before you’re going to be able to move towards it instead of away from it.

And we know from all sorts of research, anything, like you said, anything that’s measured basically all of a sudden somehow starts to get better. You know, your book is so hot, I’m burning my retina just thinking about it. It’s so good, because in the world, folks, I’m going to give you some stats here. I’m going to put this on the screen. And again, I don’t expect you to believe my stats. And I’m going to put them on the screen so you can say, Clay, I rebuke your stats.

It’s fine. All right, I’ve got to put my glasses on here. Here we go. Ink Magazine, Ink Magazine. This is Ink Magazine, a magazine that many entrepreneurs read. Some people don’t like it.

It’s OK. But Ink Magazine reports now that 96 % of businesses are going fail by default in a total of 10 years. Okay. So you look it up. Someone says, I don’t like that stat.

You’re a negative person. Okay. That’s Inc. Magazine. Someone says, I don’t like that. Okay.

Another one. Let’s type in 2015 in America in 2015. Okay. 2015, the number of self -employed people. okay employed people in 2015 what was that number you look it up okay the bureau of labor and statistics someone says that’s from the government you can’t trust that okay whatever they reported in 2015 15 million people reported as being self -employed back in 2015. Now you go to US Debt Clock, and you look at that website, and you look at this thing, and you figure out how many self -employed people are there today.

Maybe you don’t like that site. Find your own site. What I’m finding is, by default, there’s very, very few people that are entrepreneurs, OK? So there’s very few people. We’ll call it 3 % of our population, approximately, is self -employed. We’re finding that the average American is spending 11 hours per day consuming social media.

You’re finding that 96 % of businesses are failing by default. What am I saying? I’m saying success is a choice, but it’s not normal by default. Success is a choice, but by default, I don’t think it’s normal. And maybe you disagree. That’s why I think your book is so powerful is because by default, people are not going to have success by just drifting through life as it’s presented.

I think we get busy, we go to work, we go to church, we go home. We go to work. We watch a three -hour podcast. We get a burrito. We go home. We go to work.

We’re on social media. We go home. It’s like a fog of just perpetual distraction. Well, it’s kind of worse than that, because you’re talking about drifting. There’s actually everything drifts in one direction, backwards, if you don’t have an engine pushing against the current. It’s powerful.

It’s powerful. So I want to ask you this here, as we’re looking at this book and why everyone should pick up a copy of it, adaptation and problem solving. In your book you talk about adaptation and problem -solving, move number five here. What do you mean by adaptation and problem -solving, sir? Okay, so this is really, really an important thing. The adaptation and fixing problems, if you notice, that comes right after measurement and accountability.

So if we have defined, through our strategy and our plan, that these are the activities that are going to move the needle, which most people don’t do, they measure themselves against the goal. How are our sales? Well, we said we were going to sell this many last week. We didn’t. And the boss goes, well, go out and sell more. You know, you start to push.

No. Your measurement accountability, if it shows that you didn’t do certain activities that week that are going to move the needle, the first question should be, why not? Why not? because you got to do a root cause analysis or the same thing is going to happen next week. When you ask, why didn’t we do it? You might find, well, we got somebody’s not performing or you might find we didn’t give them enough resources or the sales deck is horrible.

Nobody can read it, whatever it is. You’ve got to quickly, to your point, fix that problem first or it’s going to happen again. And if you don’t fix things quickly, You don’t have a problem anymore. Now you’ve got a pattern. Problems are normal. That’s what entrepreneurism is about.

It’s about solving problems and things don’t work. Great, you fix it. But if they don’t work twice, we don’t have a problem anymore. Now we’ve got a pattern and a pattern is a mutation from the strategy, from the plan and mutation are in DNA and DNA becomes your identity. And now we’re no longer the company that missed a product launch, we’re the company that misses product launches.

And so if you measure something accountable and you say you’re not doing it, your first step is to ask why and solve that. Now, if the answer comes back, yes, we did do it. Then you got another question you got to ask, did we get the results we expected from that activity? Because if the answer is no, then you got to say, oh, we got a strategy problem. We need to change what we’re doing because that ain’t working. You know, Peter Drucker said a long time ago, there’s nothing worse than perfectly executing the wrong things.

And so that fix and adapt thing, the big deal on that is quickly. before it turns into a pattern, because patterns will kill you. This interview has blown my mind, and I’m so excited to have today’s guest on the show. And if you’re out there today and you don’t hate yourself, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book. Let me put you on the screen here. If you’re watching today’s show and you say, I don’t hate myself at all, pick up a copy of the book, Your Desired Future, The Five Essential Steps That Take You Where You Want To Go.

Again, Your Desired Future, The Five Essential Steps That Take You Where You Want To Go, with a best -selling practitioner, author guy, really knows what he’s talking about. He sold over 20 million copies of his books. Now, if you’re watching this show and you say, I kind of do hate myself, then get a copy of this book so you’ll stop hating yourself. Everybody get a copy of this book. Someone says, well, I don’t know. It’s $25.

I kind of wanted to buy a regrettable burrito and put on some unneeded and unwanted weight. Don’t do it. Go on a one day fast. carve out the money needed to buy this book. It’s a hot book. It’s a great book.

Dr. Cloud, I’m gonna give you the final word here, final 30 seconds. Sir, what say you? If you are stuck or you’re not getting where you wanna get or you wanna get to a bigger place than you are now and it’s not working, first thing you gotta do is Get rid of the guilt and the shame and the self -loathing because if you’re feeling judged by your goal, your goal has become an adversary and we don’t move towards things we feel judged by. Okay? Instead say, okay, this is normal. This is how things work.

Things don’t always work the first time. I got to learn some stuff, but I’m going to stop beating myself up from it. And instead, I’m going to get curious. And I’m going to get above what I’m doing. And I’m going to take this little model. And I’m going to ask, OK, what’s missing?

And where can I go get that? That’s the way that things get done. Dr. Cloud, you are a great American. Thank you so much for your time there, sir. And I look forward to talking to you, hopefully, on the show in the not -so -distant future, sir. Clay, I loved it.

I love you. You make it easy. You make it fun. All right. Take care. Have a great day, sir.

Bye -bye. OK. You too. Bye. 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 client Clark 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 could I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes. Hundreds of people showing up at five a . m. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader.

He’s fantastic. Yeah, man. No, he is. He is. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark.

Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry.

He’s written books with like Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40 ,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10 ,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day -to -day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week.

So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 -step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi -millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system.

critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him.

He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach.

Through the course of that, we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal. And they were super excited about working with him.

And he told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, he doesn’t, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And, um, anyways, just, just, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot.

Um, he’s helped navigate anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about, uh, how to run the company or, uh, you know, navigating competition and, and, and, and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to, how to get back open, how to, um, uh, just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. Cause our clubs were all closed for three months and you have 350 ,000 of bills you’ve got to pay. And we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that. And of course, we were conservative.

that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. He was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing. And I encourage you if you haven’t worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does.

He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day. And literally the rest of the time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day. And he loves it. So anyways, this is Charles Kolaw with Kolaw Fitness. Thank you, Clay. And anybody out there that’s wanting to with Clay.

It’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye -bye. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis 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,

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 expectations. wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything.

I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with clay. I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month.

Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800 % increase in our internet leads going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing.

I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did.

My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people, I love working with people, I love 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.

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. low -quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great.

Luke’s 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 great. 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 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 happy. 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 till 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 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 You know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach. You know what I mean?

And so my coach pushes me. They’re younger than me. They push harder. They’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, you know, 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. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach. The Thrivetime Show two -day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. We teach you everything you need to know here during a two -day, 15 -hour workshop. It’s all here for you.

You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop.

And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying. And I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction.

I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, Are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it.

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Transcribed with Cockatoo