So, Jeff, as a business coach, I want to ask you because you are a psychotherapist, when somebody finally finds their mission, and they’re not pursuing it, can you talk to me about the feelings of dissonance or what dissonance means?
Jeff: Yeah, I sure can. I really believe while we face difficult things like you just said about your dad, the greatest pain of all is the pain of a wasted life, and we know we’re wasting our life when we’re not moving toward the goals and the callings of our life. And I don’t know how we know this as human beings. Dogs don’t sit around and wonder this I don’t think, but we do as human beings. We can contemplate our own existence, so we need to really work to survive. That’s important. But then, we need to connect with people, we need to achieve the things that really matter, and we need to develop a sense of self-mastery that is listening to that voice.
Clay: Now, Thrivers, I’m going to give you an example real quick about the second step, which is you must find a mentor. You must find an apprentice. You must find a business coach. You must find a GOAT, the greatest of all time. You got to find somebody who knows what they’re talking about because after a formal education, you must begin what I believe to be the most critical phase of your education and that’s the practical education. So there are different phases under this step. So phase one, Marshall, you’ve got to learn to value learning over money. You got to sometimes take a pay cut to learn from a Jedi Master business coach. Talk to me about how you’ve seen this happen with your clients. You’ve seen it in your own life. Walk me through the Marshall marination perspective of this concept of working to learn, not just to earn.
Marshall: So, if you’re always working for the money, the money being the goal, if you’re always looking at that, then you’re never going to improve. And so, the thing that we have to fall in love with is the process and the process of learning. And once you’ve made the process of learning and continuous improvement the goal, then forever you will continue to reap more and more reward, more exponential reward. So with my clients, they’ve been humble enough to say, “Look, I don’t know everything. There are certain areas in my business that, regardless of who it is, I need a coach. I need somebody to hold me accountable to what it is that I need to do.” And so that’s what they’ve reached out, and that’s the role that I serve for all of my clients.
Clay: So phase one is you want to learn to value the learning over money. You want to focus on learning over earning. Phase two is you want to become coachable. Now, coachable is a weird, weird deal because coachable is saying … I’m going to give you a notable quotable that someone needs to write down right now because if you write this down, it could change your life. This little phrase I’ve given to so many clients, and they’ve told me, “Oh, my gosh. That was the one that did it for me.” If you always seek criticism and not praise, you will always get a raise. If you always seek criticism and not praise, you will always get a raise.
So what’s happening is many, many people, thousands of people area now going to the business coach thrivetimeshow.com, and you’re clicking on conferences, and you’re booking tickets. So you’re coming here to this event. And do you know, Thrivers, why when you come here, you get to sit at a big desk? Do you know why there’s multiple screens surrounding you? Do you know why you can ask questions? Do you know why we have a coffee bar? Marshall, do you know why we have four speakers that envelop the room? Do you know why we break every 45 minutes? Marshall, do you know why we do all these things?
Marshall: Why do we do all these things? Educate me.
Clay: Because the customer, we asked them, “Hey, what can we do to improve your experience?” And I have personally given over 1,000 speaking events for Hewlett Packard, O’Reilly’s, Valspar, insert the big brand. I’ve been there, done that, dropped the mic. Boom. So now, we come here and I’m wanting to know, “Hey, what could we do to better serve you?” We surveyed Thrivers, we called you guys, and what’s happening is is the feedback is phenomenal. You guys are going, “This is exactly how I wish a conference would be. Oh, my gosh. You guys are geniuses.” No, no, no, no. I am not a genius. I am a master. How did I become a master? Because I gained mastery over. How did I do it? Because I sought out and I said, “What can we do to make it better?” Then, over time, we built this for you based upon what you wanted.
Now, phase three is you want to move toward the pain, toward the struggle, and toward the resistance. So I watched for the 20th time, not that I have a problem, but I wanted Pumping Iron with Arnold Schwarzenegger again this weekend with my son. And Arnold talked about how if you work out until you have pain, you’ll never gain. But if you work out past the pain, he says, once you can’t do anymore, try to do two more. That’s where the growth is. I want to ask you this, Jeff. Psychologically speaking, I’m not qualified to talk about it, but why is it that it seems like that you people learn, as a general rule, as a result of …? It’s kind of like failure is a prerequisite to success almost.
Jeff: Yeah, I agree.
Clay: Unless you have a mentor. Walk me through why do we have to move towards that pain?
Jeff: I always tell people that all victories in your life are going to be v-shaped. They start with a great vision and lots of energy and then, in your own energy and your own ignorance, you ruin it or it doesn’t work. Then, you begin to pick yourself up, persevere, get better at what you do and then find yourself surprisingly, serendipitously thriving. And it’s really a cool thing to see people do that. The people that don’t do that have never persevered, so they haven’t set up a feedback loop that teaches them to get into it, right?
Clay: Now, this next phase, phase number four, is deep observation versus passive learning. Now, deep observation, so just this past Thrive Time workshop … What’s so fun is we have them every month, and the Thrivers you’re coming back and bringing friends. You keep telling your friends. The reviews have been awesome, and you guys keep coming back and back. You’re bringing your friends from all over the world. It’s exciting to see this happen. But, Marshall, when you just did your last talk you had people that were cheering. They said very nice things, but you still were asking them, “Hey, what could I do better to serve you? How could we improve? We want to make this better.” What is wrong with you? Why are you deeply observing, and why are you not just passively learning? What has caused you to do that?
Marshall: Okay. So you have to do the deep observation, and so, if you look at the business coach Lean Startup method, it comes from a gentleman named Eric Ries. He talks about the Lean Startup method, and it’s four parts. One, define. Two, act. Three, measure. And four, refine.