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Business Coach Applying Your Knowledge

Business Coach Rob Zoellner: Woah woah woah. Do that again.
Clay Clark: If you want to get a raise, you have to seek criticism and not praise That is what a  would tell you. . And so just as an example, when I had Carlton Pearson sit down with me and analyze my speaking and how I could improve, I wanted to say what could I do better. Don’t just tell me what I do well, tell me what I could do better. Put my feelings over here, I don’t really care about my feelings. Just give me that feedback and as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be intense about learning from sincere criticism from your customers and you’ve gotta observe them. And so Z, the elephant in the room, I’ve noticed there was two weird things that men would do when they’d come in for a haircut at our place.
Rob Zoellner: Just two?! Okay. All right. Let’s get weird on today’s show.
Clay Clark: So Jeff, you tell me if this is you. You book a haircut appointment let’s say the appointment starts at 12.
Jeff Rant: Yeah.
Clay Clark: How long could you read an old people magazine or an old, whatever the magazine Us Weekly or whatever, how long could you read an old magazine before you’re annoyed that your haircut hasn’t started yet? How many minutes could you endure not starting on time?
Jeff Rant: Ten minutes.
Clay Clark: Ten minutes. Now most of our clients are upscale. They’re millionaires. We have one guy, I remember, he actually came up to me and he said, “I just want you to know, I’m the CEO of a hundred million dollar business, and for me waiting ten minutes for a business coach it really … ” And he let me have it. And so we were just starting our business coach program. This was about five years back. And so we decided, you know, we’re going to create a membership model so you can prebook your time and we will always start on time or very close to on time. There’s no walk-ins. So we actually had to turn walk-ins away.
So now the elephant in the room, we don’t really take walk-ins. So if you want to walk in and just get a haircut, good luck. Because unless something canceled, we’re probably not gonna be able to fit you in. But that was observing and there’s no way I would have known that but because it’s an upscale place … It’s kind of like tee times, Z, you know?
Rob Zoellner: Oh yeah.
Business Coach 105

Clay Clark: So the guys just don’t want to wait. And the second thing we observed, is that guys don’t want to have their hair stylist complain about their life while they’re getting their hair cut. They don’t want to feel like they’re the therapist for the stylist.
Rob Zoellner: True that.
Clay Clark: They don’t want to take Jeff’s job, you know. They’re going, hey go see Jeff. They don’t want to hear … So we actually had to structure the conversations that happened inside the elephant in the room where people who work there are not allowed to speak negatively about any aspect of their day so these are just things that you can learn through observation.
Rob Zoellner: How’d you break down … How many therapists do you have or hairstylists that are man verse women?
Clay Clark: Almost all women but we didn’t start out that way.
Rob Zoellner: Oh really? Oh wow.
Clay Clark: We stared out with almost all men and now it’s almost all women. There’s 84 employees over there and it keeps growing but it’s almost all women.
Rob Zoellner: That’s a lot of estrogen running through the room, by the way.
Clay Clark: They’re all my life coaches. All these smart women. I the business coach and they are the life coaches.
Jeff Rant: Makes your hair grow fast.
Clay Clark: Stay tuned. We’re talking more about how to prevent drifting. Stay tuned.
All right Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation. So Thrive Time Show on your radio. My name is Clay Clark. Some people say that I talk fast, while others think that I talk slow. So we’re gonna just try to talk in the middle here today. We want to make sure that we educate you but at a medium pace Z. We don’t want to rush the success. We want to make sure that you not only learn but you can apply the principles we’re teaching and that’s our whole focus is to teach you these things you can apply, my friend.
Rob Zoellner: I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking that you talk slow. That’s the part about that your whole intro that just was like have you ever really talked slow in your life?
Clay Clark: I’ve been listening to a lot of the thrivers’ feedback and one of the things that we’re hearing, is some people go I had to go back up to Thrive Time Show to get the podcast and hear it a couple of times because you guys are just firing threw stuff. And then there’s some people who listen to the show who are already at the precipice of success. I know we have at least four or five listeners that I’ve run into personally around town who are multimillionaires who say, “I listen to the show because I find it both to be entertaining and educational.” Specifically, do you know who just sent us two books today, Dr. Z?
Rob Zoellner: A local businessman or national?
Clay Clark: Yeah, we’ll go with local businessman. Jeff, I’ll give you a hint.
Jeff Rant: Okay.
Clay Clark: He has written a book with Steve Forbes.
Jeff Rant: Yeah.
Clay Clark: He is friends with Steve Forbes. He’s one of the most well-known speakers in Oklahoma. Any guess there? Any guess?
Rob Zoellner: Oh yeah! The one guy with the ultimate gift, the-
Clay Clark: Jim Stovall!
Rob Zoellner: Jim Stovall. Yes.
Clay Clark: He listens to every show when possible.
Jeff Rant: Oh wow.
Rob Zoellner: Little shout out love to you. Love your books. Love your stuff. Love your story.
Clay Clark: So he’s sensational. He’s a successful entrepreneur and he loves the shows and he’s a guy who’s already achieved success and he just loves the stuff that we talk about because we’re talking about practical things that really happen. And so we’re talking today specifically about how to prevent yourself from drifting. So Z, I’m gonna give you the scenario and I want you and Jeff to kind of break it down. Okay?
Rob Zoellner: You know, every time you say that it makes me think of those car movies where the dudes and those really fast, cool cars and I’ve never done this but it’s something I’d like to do, when they drift around the corners. That kind of drifting. So anytime you say that, I’m thinking oh that’s cool.
Clay Clark: You don’t want to drift, okay? So here’s the drift. You don’t want to drift.
Rob Zoellner: Like a doughnut drift, like a-
Clay Clark: So here’s how it goes, from a business coach viewpoint.
Rob Zoellner: All right, I’m getting serious now. Let’s get serious. Business coach time.
Clay Clark: If there are a hundred people in a room, and you ask those hundred people what do you want to do with your life? Let’s say they’re 18 or between 18 and 30. You ask all of them. I say 1 to 30 because these are people who typically aren’t in debt yet. They’re just starting out in the career. They would say, “I want to be successful.”
So step one, if you want to be a pathetic loser or super successful, you say I want to be successful. No matter who you are. Very few people say, “Hey, you know what to ease my cognitive dissonance, I actually want to be unsuccessful.” So then step two is the successful person will keep the promise they made to themselves. They say, “I’m going to set up that mailbox. I’m going to set up my website. I’m going to have a meeting that starts at seven.” And they do it.
Rob Zoellner: I’m gonna build my home out of cardboard and live underneath the bridge over on South Yale.
Clay Clark: And they do it. So here’s the thing is, everybody starts off by saying I want to be successful but this is where the fork in the road is. Successful people do what they say they’re going to do and as a result, inspiration is the reward that they get. They now feel inspired because they did the thing where unsuccessful people don’t do the thing, and now they experience dissonance, which is that feeling of where your thoughts and actions are opposite of each other. You sort of feel guilty, almost bad. Like you lied to your mother and then because you feel bad, then you don’t take action and you’re waiting for others to inspire you.
So we’re talking about how to keep you from drifting. So I’m going to go with Dr. Z for 5,000 points and then I want to ask you there Jeff. When did you first notice that you maybe … What did you catch yourself when you’re starting your business, maybe drifting have you ever caught yourself drifting where you ever made a big goal and you noticed you know what I said I was going to do this and maybe I didn’t do it. How did you self-correct Z or how do you keep yourself from drifting?
Rob Zoellner: Well, yes. The short answer is yes and then let me explain the scenario. When I got out of school, my goal was to have my own practice and I had found one that was for sale. I had done the contract. I was excited. I had put in the little caveat that I would work for this gentleman for next to nothing while we’re doing the process of closing on the business and what happened was that I found myself drifting. I never closed on the practice. The next thing you know, I’m looking up and I’m actually working for a few other eye doctors optometrists and I was in that loop for about a year and a half and about six months into it, I thought you know this is not … I’m not headed in the direction that I thought I would be headed right now. Ineed to start my own practice and hire a business coach if possible.
I kind of pulled up my bootstraps and said okay. I moved down the lot and I took a job on my way to being a business coach. I lived kind of below my means, saved some money. And I was able to come back to Tulsa about a year later and start my own thing. But it was … At the time I was working at an optical store over in one of the malls and I remember walking through it and I was like, yeah this wasn’t my plan a year ago. This wasn’t … If you asked me where I was going to be in a year, I would not tell you window shopping in a mall waiting for a patient to come in.
Clay Clark: So you found yourself drifting. Now Jeff, I want to ask you this. When you coach clients, from a psychological perspective, not as a business coach, talk to me about the … I hate to use this word because it’s a family show but talk to me about the damning consequences of forming a habit of drifting.
Jeff Rant: well, drifting is a problem because of lack of action obviously and you’re right. It creates cognitive dissonance. It’s my belief that we all know where we’re supposed to go in general. We may not have a vision of where we’re supposed to go but when we do it, it energizes us. Like we know we’re on the right track. We can all have vision but then we all start from a place where we don’t feel good when we look at all the problems there are to overcome and all the things that you have to do to create success in your life.
So it’s easy to want to dream about doing it. Feeling good and being kind of a poser and not really doing it. But when you do it, you’re right. You create a feeling of liveliness that causes you to thrive and causes you to grow toward who you’re supposed to be and be more successful. A success loop is created.

 

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