Clay: You know, someone needs to write this down. It’s a profound business coach tip get-down here, so write this down. It says, “Inspiration is the reward. But inaction … So not taking action, but inaction is your giant, right? And action is your sword”. Again, “Inspiration is the reward. But inaction is your giant. Action is your sword”. So a lot of you are wanting to be inspired and then you’re gonna take action. But I’m telling you when you take action and you actually do what you’re supposed to do, you’re going to sow those seeds and your results are going to create inspiration for others.
As an example, Jennifer, one of our business coach clients and Thrivers, flew in here from Tucson, Arizona, to our most recent in-person Thrive Time business coach workshop. Which, by the way, you can get your tickets at thrivetimeshow.com. The next one is coming up April 21st and 22nd. It’s fifteen hours of power from 7am to 3pm. She flies in. And she says … A Thriver is pulling her aside, talking to her. And says, “Hey. How have you benefited from the Thrive15 platform?” And she says, “We’ve grown from three physical therapy centers to six in the past eighteen months”. And they’re like, “What?” It’s not because she was exposed to knowledge. No, it’s because she was exposed to knowledge and she decided to take action.
Now what’s exciting is, when we come back, … He’s kind of a mysterious character. A lot of you have kind of discovered this guy. He’s the founder of the Elephant in the Room men’s grooming lounge. And full disclosure, he’s my brother-in-law and a business coach client. And he has been building this business and many of you are members now to Elephant in the Room. And so you’ve started to Google the guy and you’re going “What motivates this guy? What makes him tick?” And I bet you you’re wondering, “How does he deal with the feedback?” I mean, there’s people who write hateful things on Facebook, they write great things on Facebook, they write hateful things on Google reviews, they write great things on Google reviews. On the average, people love the place. On the average, the business is growing. But how does he fight through those daily battles where everyone’s trying to distract him and reach out to him? It’s got to be tough.
And I know a lot of you are wanting to know how do you, , how do you Steve Currington … You guys are some of the top in your field, the top in your industry. You’re the top in Tulsa. How do you achieve your life goals when everyone’s pulling you to do something that really isn’t on your to-do list? How do you do it? I mean, how do you get through the emails? How do you get through the questions? How do you make it happen? Stay tuned. Thrivetimeshow.com
It’s the Thrive Time Show on the radio. My name is Clay Clark and I am joined today with two men in Tulsa who have been … They’ve been presented the opportunity that we’ve all been given. The only thing about them that’s different is that they have applied diligence on a steady basis. They’ve basically done what they needed to do when they didn’t want to do it. And so now they are what you would call a “success story”. Now people say, “How did you do it?” And so we have the leader of Tulsa mortgages, the guy who’s leading the mortgage industry in Tulsa. It’s Steve Currington of Total Lending Concepts. And we have , the guy who has built Tulsa’s best local men’s grooming experience. And you say “Best? Well, isn’t he your brother-in-law?” He is my brother-in-law. “By what measure do you define ‘best’?” Well I would say Google reviews, I would say the amount of gross revenue, I would say the number of members, I would say the amount of facial hair. These are all categories he’s winning in.
: Definitely my facial hair.
Clay: It’s wonderful by the way. It looks great. Amish Paradise. Now , I want to ask you, for the Thrivers out there who want to know, because we’re getting text messages in right now to 918-851-6920 … How do you focus on achieving your goals and fighting through those daily distractions now that the business has grown to a certain point?
: Yeah, so the daily distractions … It can be generated from in-house, maybe employees. Steve, you just said [inaudible 01:07:18] “Hey you got a minute Steve?” You know? If you take everyone’s calls to that, you’re gonna have no minutes for what you need to get done on your plate and your to-do lists never get done, or your F6 goals over there, Clay. So, prioritizing. Staying in your lane. So you’ve got to have that driving force. So ultimately, you do have to care about your employees, ask ’em how their weekend is. But if they then … That’s their whole goal then that day, their task. They’re sharing everyone their story from the weekend. You wouldn’t believe what happened to me. You’ve got to pull that person aside, you’ve got to have the conversation, you’ve got to stay on track.
So 1: you’ve got to manage your own self and your own time and know what your lane is. Because ultimately, if we’re sitting around talking and not making money, we all don’t have jobs at the end of the day.
Clay: I’ll give you an example of … T.D. Jakes has a sermon about this, and I’m sure what I’m saying will disagree somehow with T.D. Jakes ’cause you got to sort through the scripture yourself. But T.D. Jakes talks about turtles and giraffe. Now he says a turtle sees the world from its perspective. It’s on the ground, Steve, its belly is on the ground and it sees insects and dirt and mud and, you know, animal dung. Turtles are pretty low to the ground.
Steve: Especially animal dung.
Clay: It’s pretty gross. And then you have a giraffe. Now, a giraffe, from your professional experience, having been a mortgage professional, having watched various programs as a kid, going through the school system … A giraffe would see what?
Steve: They would see a lot more of the world. Because they’re high. It’s like being tall or … You know if you’re real short and you’re walking through the Wal-Mart, all the clothing racks are higher than you are so you don’t know what’s going on around.
Clay: So a giraffe, though, would see the blue sky, the green trees … These are things that would be true from their perspective. If you said, “Mr. Giraffe, what do you see?” They would say, “I truly see blue skies, green grass”. You say, “Mr. Turtle, what do you see?” “I see insects, I see mud, I see cow dung”. Both are true statements. The thing you have to understand, Thrivers, is if you want to become successful, your network is your net worth. Who you surround yourself will become your normal. And so I don’t want to get into all the specifics on today’s show but I will just tell you, being around Dr. Zoellner, or David Robinson, the basketball player who’s a partner of thrive15.com. Or Michael Levine. I remember interviewing Michael Levine, he’s the PR consultant for Michael Jackson’s estate, for Nike, Pizza Hut … Huge companies. When you’re around these guys, these business coach guys, their standard of excellence is so much higher than that of the average person. And it becomes a thing where you want to raise up your game to rise to the occasion. And all I would say is if you’re not surrounded by people where you are consistently the dumbest person in the room, you’re probably not going to do very well.
So Steve I want to ask you about your first mentor. The guy who made the biggest impact on your life. Wasn’t it Mr. Green? Is that right?
Steve: Yeah, Dr. Steve Green.
Clay: How was his ‘normal’? His temperature, if you will, different from where you were living at the time, or his mindset … What kind of things did you learn by surrounding yourself with someone as excellent as Dr. Green?
Steve: Well, hit on it earlier, when you were talking about your team and receiving feedback. I learned real early from him that the praise and the “Oh, you’re doing a great job” is like all fun and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But if you can be a receiver of the negative feedback that is there to help you get better? Then you’ll grow and you’ll get better. A lot of people don’t want to hear what they’re doing wrong.
Clay: You know, there’s a notable quotable I’ll give you right now. “If you seek criticism and not praise, you’ll get a raise”. Carleton Pearson told me that and he goes, “If you will just seek criticism and not praise, you’ll always get a raise”. And I thought, “Man. That is so true”. And just the other day he was at our house, he’s been helping me on some speech coaching and helping me improve my game. We’re getting great reviews on the Thrive Time workshops. But I want to be best in the world. I don’t want to be best in Oklahoma. People are saying, “Oh you’re the best in Oklahoma, best I’ve seen”. Well maybe you haven’t seen everybody.
He sits there and gives me feedback. He goes, “Well this is what you could have done better. This part here was really good. This part here that we need to do better, here’s how you could have done better”. How hard is it though to learn to seek criticism? ‘Cause that’s just taught … It’s almost like society or the people around you tell you that’s not normal to seek criticism.
Steve: Well I think … You can open any business coach book and find that you learn in your failure, not in your wins. Everybody’s growing more when they fail than they are when … Here’s the other thing, too. Everybody’s by your side when you’re winning.
Clay: “Oh you’re the man, bro! Bro, you’re the business coach man!”
Steve: But when you’re failing, there’s nobody around, right?
Clay: They scatter.
Steve: So my thing is I think I’m pretty smart, right? So I kind of figure I gotta fall down and get knocked down and get beat up and fail and get hurt, like as quick and as fast as I can so that I can learn. Being an expert, Dr. Green taught me, is ten thousand hours. So the question is, how quick can you get to ten thousand hours? How you can you get there? They also say you can cut that time down by getting a coach or somebody who knows what they’re doing. And that was my goal. So I don’t know –
Clay: And that’s what a lot of people … I’ll tell you, the one thing people tell me they love most about our business coaching program is that … , you tell me if this is weird or not, okay? But you own Elephant in the Room. there’s probably many people that are related or not related who want to give you feedback about the business. But they don’t know the first thing about running a successful company. And so when they give you feedback, it’s kind of like, “That’s not criticism I need”. But if a guy like Dr. Zoellner gives you feedback, that’s feedback you need. Can you talk to me about how you learned to seek criticism from mentors and not just from randoms? ‘Cause I think there’s a lot of randoms out there that don’t know what they’re talking about. And it could be easy to seek criticism from the wrong people. Talk to me about how you’ve been able to do that.
: So I was talking to someone the other day and … It was actually an employee. And the conversation came up about a place and they said, “Oh your goal is to treat everyone equal, the same. Everyone’s opinions matter the same”. I said, “No, you’re wrong. They don’t”. But if you want your opinion to matter, if you want someone to come to your advice, you have to know the system. So there was actually someone who came into my shop recently that we are related to, won’t mention any names. And off the bat it’s like, “You know what you should have done? You know what you could have done? You know what you need to do?” And I just look over their shoulder to see if people were following them, I look at their bank account, I look at maybe the car they drive. Right? These material things –
Clay: You look at the fruit.
: You look at the fruit, right. If they have good relationships in their life and with others. And then I go off that. So when I was twenty-six, no one gave me feedback. But as soon as you gave me feedback at twenty-six, I started listening and things started happening.