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Business Coach : The Care You Have Needed

Business Coach : The Care You Have Needed

-I’d like to– as we edit this, I’d like to maybe, if we could, do elapsed time, where I get like a fu manchu and then my hair grows longer, so it looks like it’s been like three years. Because I think it’s hard to understand that you worked on something– and I hate to dwell on this, because I think somebody might be watching this saying, move on, man. But three years!

No pay! 80 hours a week. What? There’s people that I know who apply for jobs here who work hard for 33 hours, and they’re like, well, it’s not working out. A business coach will tell you that 80 hours a week is just the beginning.

And then, what I’m telling you, when you see– the diligence is the difference maker, that steady application of effort. Now, Og Mandino, my main man and a business coach. This is a quote from Og, back when you named your kids Og. He says, “Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeat.” Have you seen that in every area of your life?

-I think in every area of your life. I think most people do. And I think when those stories are told and celebrated, it leaves us with the idea of what is possible for us. It’s that we do not have to stop our life at a failure or at a problem, but we can move beyond that, with the help of a business coach.

-Stairmaster took three years. Your book, from the time it was finished– from the time that you started first writing it to the day that you finished writing “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored” your life story that was made into a movie, where Phylica Rashad, Bill Cosby’s wife, right? From “The Cosby Show”?

-From “The Cosby Show.”

-She played–

-My great aunt.

-She played your great aunt in the movie. Phylica Rashad did a great job in the movie, by the way. But from the time that you got the idea to the time that that became a bestseller, how long?

-24 years. [CHUCKLES]

-Again, if we could stop this, grow a fu manchu, long hair, and just do it– I would like to–

-I haven’t– Clay, I haven’t– it appears I haven’t had many successes that have been within months. It’s like it’s always been a long time.

-I mean, we might– when we edit this, I might look like Moses by the time we’re done. For 24 years?

-[LAUGHS] 24.

-I just– the one thing I have frustration with is that when I read this book, “The Wisdom of Steve Jobs,” I read this book, and I think I read it in like two hours. Caleb Hutton got this for me for my birthday. I read it in two hours. And I said, well that’s good. His whole life wisdom, right here. Put it back on my shelf. All right.

And then I go here, and I say, oh, Jack Welch. This is a longer one. But I read everything that Jack Welch has to say– well, let me rearrange my books, here. I read everything that Jack Welch had to say about management in our trip to Florida.

The problem is that this took him 30 years to do. And the entrepreneurs that I know who are really in trouble and who are really emotionally distraught and who are really perpetually frustrated, the guys I know who are just really struggling, they keep moving on to new trees. They have that new tree disease, you know?

Where it’s like, new opportunity. Great. Let’s do this for 10 minutes. New opportunity. And they hop from job to job. They hop from opportunity to opportunity.

But the people who I know who are successful, whether it’s Jack Welch, whether it’s yourself, whether it’s Oprah, whether it’s Donald Trump, whether it’s the Amazon guys, whether it’s getting the movie “Rocky” made. I read that this guy had over 100 rejections on his play write before he finally had– I mean, I can’t imagine the humiliation of writing your movie script, binding it, flying somewhere or driving somewhere, meeting with somebody, and being told no hundreds of times. I mean, but that’s how success happens.

-Yeah.

-Right?

-Yeah. I mean, there are some rare occasions where success might happen rather quickly. But for the most part, that’s not the case at all. That is not the case at all.

-I had one of the top agents in Farmers Insurance– I did some training with the Farmers Insurance here in Tulsa. One of the top agents in the country, he’s awesome, because he chops trees all the time. And we had a young guy here who asked the question, well, it’s easy for him to be successful. He’s writing a hundred and something policies a month.

And I said, you call. You pick up the phone. You call this man. I will pay you. I will pay you. I told the guy, I’ll pay $100 if you’ll call the guy and talk for 10 minutes and just ask him how he did it. I’ll do it. Well, this guy– [DIALING NOISES]

Excuse me, sir. How many calls do you make? And he says, 14,200 and whatever. That’s his quota. He would go– he said he makes 14,000 outbound calls a month, and he sells like 122 policies. So it comes out to a 0.08. So it’s 8/10 of a percent success ratio.

He has 8/10 of a percent of success per month, and he is one of the most successful in the country. For Thrive, as we built this platform together, you and I have met– countless hours we’ve spent on this, and we’ll spend more. We had countless venture capital people that said, practical education for entrepreneurs? Boo.

Well then, got this idea in front of some very successful entrepreneurs. And they said, this is the best idea ever. But I think I had to dig deep with a business coach. Through what, 300 and something rejections before I found that one deal. And I think a lot of us, if we’re not careful, we’re going to stop three feet from gold, aren’t we?

-Yeah. That is what concerned me. And that’s why I think the Thrive platform is so important, because there will be those stories within the Thrive stories about those people who persisted. They did not stop. I mean, you need to hear someone tell you, hey, check out tomorrow. Don’t stop today.

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