Marshall: Want to hear more about business coach clients I have? North Carolina, Triangle Appraisal Group, Triangle Appraisal Group. That’s number two. Number three, Delricht Clinical Research, Delricht Clinical Research. And number four, Essential Oils Academy, Essential Oils Academy. And all four of those businesses last week, had the best week of sales ever for their business.
Clay: Ever. So four different businesses and business coach client
Marshall: Four different businesses-
Clay: That you’re working with?
Marshall: That I’m working with all had the best week of business coach client sales ever. Now, the reason why that’s cool for me is because that is a sustainable real change to their business as being a business coach. They are literally bringing in more money, and for me, that’s cool because I get to show progress in their business. For them, that’s cool because that’s money. That is profit that those individuals are actually taking home for their families, for going on trips, going on vacations. I had one of my clients, she said for the first time in years, she was going on a vacation. She had the ability. She had the sustainability within her business to step out of the business, and that to me is what’s infinitely interesting about being a business coach.
Clay: Now, Thrivers, here are the six steps. I’m going to walk you through the six steps. This is step number one if you want to become a business coach master, okay? One, you’ve got to determine your life’s work or task. You have to do that, and so I’m going to teach you a few strategies. And I would like for Marshall and Jeff to walk us through how they’ve been able to do them or if they’ve been able to use these to help them because everyone’s going to find your life’s work. Some people are listening right now, and I don’t know what it is, but I sense that someone who’s listening right now says, “I don’t know what I want to do. I just don’t know what I want to do.”
Strategy number one to find your life’s work or task is find something that you’ve been drawn to, something that’s within your uniqueness. So I guess an example would be an artist. I’ve met a few people that just love to draw, and I’ve encouraged them, “Go towards that. Like run towards that light, and you’ll find your genius there.” So, Marshall, I want to ask you, have you always been drawn to business? Has it always been interesting to you, or did you hit your head one day on the toilet seat thus making the flux capacitor? Or what happened?
Marshall: Yeah, I was giving someone a swirly at school or something like that.
Clay: Oh, wow.
Marshall: No, I’ve always been drawn to business. I’ve loved business which is why I am a business coach. In fact, my first taste of that was working with you in your first business.
Clay: DJ Connection.
Marshall: DJ Connection. I got in there, and I loved the processes, and I loved the taste of being in that atmosphere. Then, when I went on to work with a number of different businesses throughout school and after I graduated, I found that some businesses just don’t quite get it. So my realization that I wanted to be involved in all of the different aspects of business, of small business, that’s what I’ve been drawn to.
Clay: Now, strategy number two here, Jeff, I want to get your take on this, is you want to scratch your own niche, so maybe you find something that you love in almost a spiritual way. Maybe it’s not a talent like art, but it’s something you’re just drawn to. There’s an interest that you have. How have you been able to apply that to your life?
Marshall: Well, ever since I was a little kid, I’ve noticed that if I get up in front of people in an audience and speak, there’s something about that that I love. It was scary at first, but I noticed that I loved it, so I started developing that opportunity as I went through in life and have done that my whole life. It’s just something I do now all the time. I teach all the time.
Clay: Now, strategy number three is you want to recognize you don’t have to hate your job and love vacations. You could love both, or you could love one or the other. There’s this cultural bias we have. If I want to work, I just want to get through it because then I want to go on vacation. It’s almost like we praise the pursuit of leisure, whereas, the people who win in life love the process. Michael Jordan was obsessed with practicing, and when you listen to any of the interviews with Phil Jackson, he says, “He just loved practicing. He loved playing. He loved lifting weights. He loved all the stuff you’re not supposed to love. He loved all that stuff.” So it’s so important that you fall in love with the process. It’s just very, very important.
And the final strategy I want to talk to you about is listening to your inner voice. Maybe there’s a force or a sense within you, and you’re going, “You’re getting kind of weird.” Well, here we go. Socrates, Leonardo, Napoleon, Albert Einstein, all these people felt like they were drawn by an actual voice. And so when we come back, we’re going to talk about what do you do when you’re feeling like you’re being drawn by a spiritual voice or an inner calling. What are you going to do with that because we want to teach every listener how to become a master today?
Speaker 5: (singing)
Clay: All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation on The Thrive Time Show. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. I’m also a guy who has five kids. I have an abnormally large number of chickens. I’m obsessed with planting trees every weekend. I try to plant a minimum of one tree a weekend. I’m not a member of Green Peace or anything. It’s just something I’m into. I enjoy reading copious amounts of case studies. So when you want to go golf or maybe you want to go watch a movie or you want to go whatever you want to do, I never want to do those things because I am obsessed with becoming the absolute best in the world at what I do. So one of the things that I have decided to do is become an absolute master of my craft.
And I remember there was a time in my life where I didn’t have my mission clearly defined. So you begin to drift around looking for things. I went to college, and I knew I wanted to start a business of some kind, but I wasn’t sure what it was. So I had to start with something, and I had this inner desire to do entertainment. I enjoyed DJing. I had done it a little bit, and I thought, “You know what? I can pay for college this way.” And eventually, I remember DJing a show, and I thought, “You know what, my music set list wasn’t that great.” So I went back and watched DJ Cool. Marshall, do you remember DJ Cool?
Marshall: Let me clear my throat.
Clay: That guy, yeah. And I watched him, and I listened to the way he enunciated, the way he talked, the energy he brought. He would create his own energy, a nuclear sense of energy he could create, and I thought, “Oh, wow. My show is not good at all. I’m like a D-minus.” So I went to the next show, and it got better, and it got better, and it got better. Then, I remember I finished my first show that ever happened. I finished DJing someone’s wedding, and everyone stands to starts applauding like a standing ovation. They’re doing an actual standing ovation at a wedding, and I thought, “Oh, wow. That felt good.” But then, I started recording my shows, so I actually set up a recorder to record my own shows. I got this little Radio Shack recorder, and I would listen to it, and I’d go, “That wasn’t as good as it could be.” Then, every night, I started to want to beat myself.
And I ran into this book called The Pursuit of Excellence. This is the book that turned me on to business coach, by Tom Peters. It was talking about how the truly great among us can make copious amounts of money doing almost anything as long as you do it 10 times better than anybody else. And I started thinking, “That’s so true.” Like basketball. I love professional basketball, and those guys are definitely 10 times better than the average person. They’re maybe 100 times better. They’re just ridiculously great, and people stand and cheer. When you’re singing your life song, people cheer for that. I don’t want to get super spiritual with you, but I sense that somebody here listening today, you need to hear this show because you’re very talented. People have always said you have a lot of potential, but you have yet to find that one thing to determine your life’s work, and I would encourage you as the final strategy, and I want to get Marshall’s take on this as our tallest business coach and more handsome than Robert Redmond who is another business coach.