Business Coach | Never Stop Learning

This business coach post explains why you must never stop learning.

Business Coach Tips & Advice to My Younger Self:

Dear Clay,

I’m glad to see that you survived high school and have successfully made it into college at Oral Roberts University. I know you currently disagree with the theology being taught at this charismatic Christian university, but I think we can all agree that you actual making it into college, in itself is a miracle of Biblical proportions. The fact that you escaped arrest and conviction for throwing eggs at police cars as they drove by is truly miraculous and right up there with walking on water and parting the Red Sea in my 2016 mind. My friend and younger self, there had to be some divine intervention at work when those gang members you taunted in that St. Cloud, Minnesota gas station decided not to kill you. Truly, the fact that you are alive and not in jail is truly miraculous and all the proof I need to believe in the presence of a higher power. Likewise, it’s a modern miracle that  (although you took Algebra three times and required CPR courses numerous times without ever actually passing) you actually graduated from Dassel-Cokato High School in Minnesota. My friend, you also have to give thanks to the Almighty that on your third attempt, you were finally able to earn a score high enough on your ACT to get into college.

However, Clay, the dark forces of jackassery are now beginning to take root in your life. I know that you are starting to hate learning as a result of the great memorization-and-four-year party called college. I know that the apathetic professors who take attendance in your social science or humanities classes filled with 300 students are making you believe that you actually dislike learning. I know that these proud syllabus-toting professors want to convince you that they can determine your potential based solely on your ability to read large portions of text and memorize meaningless facts in a way that allows you to regurgitate the words onto a piece of paper called a test. I also know that you are beginning to feel as though learning is a waste of time. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Your ability to learn practical business coach skills is going to ultimately determine your ability to earn. Listen to what some of history’s great minds have to say about education:

• Albert Einstein, one of the planet’s most famous inventors and scientists, once said, “It’s a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”
• Peter Thiel, the man who will eventually start a wildly successful company of the future called PayPal, and will fund a billion dollar company called Facebook will say, “Colleges are like the subprime mortgage lenders where people are being conned into thinking that this credential is the one thing you need to do better in life. And they’re actually not any better off having gone to college; they typically are worse off because they’ve amassed all this debt.”
• Carol Dweck, Ph.D., who will soon write a powerful book called, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success about how your decision to either have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset determines how much success you have says, “What on earth would make someone a non-learner? Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn. Infants stretch their skills daily. Not just ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk. They never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort. Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk. They fall. They get up. They just barge forward. What could put an end to this exuberant learning? The fixed mindset. As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart. I have studied thousands of people from preschoolers on, and it’s breathtaking how many reject an opportunity to learn.”

Dear Younger Self, hear me out. You must become a voracious student of practical business coach skills if you are going to become a success.  Things are changing at a rapid rate and that rate of change will only increase in the future. I know that it seems impossible now, but I need for you to hear this. In the future, people are going to stop using the Yellow Pages! I know it doesn’t seem possible, but you must believe me. I’m begging you! Soon, when our family members are calling “from long distance,” it won’t matter because everyone is going to have unlimited long distance built into their cell phone plans! This is going to happen! I know it is almost impossible to believe, but soon people are going to actually have cellular phones that aren’t the size of a brick. My friend, nearly everyone is going to have more computing power in his or her phones than you have in that Micron computer you just purchased for $6,000. Clayvis, soon the World Wide Web will become known as the Internet, and people will be able to log onto the Internet via their phones without hearing that insane screeching nails-scratching-against-a-chalkboard-horrible sound.

Listen man, you must learn how to build websites and optimize them so that other people can find your business when they are searching for the products and business coach services they need. In the future, this skill alone will help your companies earn millions to beat the crap out of your competition. Clay, you must stop spending time memorizing facts about the Byzantine Empire and the nuances of Egyptian culture, and you must begin scheduling 30 minutes per day to learn practical business coach skills. I know I told you this before, but it’s worth repeating again:

• 88% of wealthy people read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs. 2% of poor people.
• 86% of wealthy people believe in lifelong educational self-improvement vs. 5% of poor people.
  (Stats taken from DaveRamsey.com based on research findings reported on Tom Corley’s Rich Habits Institute.)

Just to briefly demonstrate how little you know about the practical business coach skills that actually matter and have the potential to make you more money, and how much you know about the things that do not matter at all, I want you to attempt to answer the following questions:

• What is a permalink?
• What is the name of the two most famous member of the Wu-Tang Clan?
• How do you write a press release?
• Describe what photosynthesis is all about.
• How do create a business pro-forma?
• What is the name of Q-Tip’s #1 rap single and Top 40 hit?
• What is a Pitch Deck and how should you deliver one to venture capitalists?
• What was the batting average of the San Francisco Giant first baseman Will Clark during the 1989 season?
• What is your t-shirt company and mobile entertainment company’s profit per customer?

Clay, you have to wake up! Both now and in the future, most people don’t block out the time needed to develop the jobs skills and mindsets they need to find or create the jobs they want, so most people must settle for jobs they dislike.

• In 2014, Tami Luhby will write an article for CNNMoney.com called, “The American Dream Is Out of Reach.” Research for that article will show that 59% of Americans do not believe that the American Dream is attainable.
• Research conducted by Gallup around that same time will show that only 13% of employees are mentally engaged at work.  Once you have better Internet speed in the future, you can check out those statistics at http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx.

Why am I telling you all this? I’m telling you this because I know that YOUR SUCCESS IS GUARANTEED when you commit to learning and implementing practical and proven business success strategies. I also know that your failure is nearly guaranteed if you don’t. You have to choose, my friend. The choice is yours. You must stop wasting your time learning about things that do not matter to your future. You must spend more time learning about sales, marketing via the Internet, accounting, public speaking, motivation, overcoming adversity, how to raise capital, customer service, leadership, and management.

My friend, in the future you will build a website where thousands upon thousands of people from all around the world will be able to access all of this practical business education, but for now you need to get started reading and applying the concepts found with the books listed below. To make your life 2% easier, I put a note next to each book title. Clay, every day that you don’t live by and make decisions based upon the proven principles and success strategies found within these books, you will be forced to pay a “dumb tax” for not knowing this knowledge.

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill – This book has been read and endorsed by over half of the millionaires that you will meet before your 35th birthday. This book was the book that inspired W. Clement Stone to found Combined Insurance, Oral Roberts to found Oral Roberts University, and countless millionaires to take their vision for their life to the next level. This book is the result of the most exhaustive research ever conducted into the success principles and mindsets of the world’s most successful people.
• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – Dale Carnegie’s writing, courses, and training schools are legendary. In fact, one of the world’s wealthiest men, Warren Buffet once said, “I actually have the diploma (from Dale Carnegie’s School) in the office. I don’t have my diploma from college, and I don’t have my diploma from graduate school there, but I have my Dale Carnegie diploma there because it changed my life.”
• Soft Selling In Hard World by Jerry Vass – Clay, in the future, the best-practice sales strategies and systems found within this book will take your career to the next level. The secrets found within this book will allow you to help Maurice Kanbar (the man who founded Skyy Vodka) successfully market his real estate, help a bakery triple their sales in 16 months, help your photography company become the largest in your city, and help the men’s grooming lounge business (you are a partner in) become sustainably profitable. Clay, THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! No matter how good your current ideas are, if you do not learn how to influence other people and convince them that your idea is truly worth buying or investing in, you will never get to where you want to go.

I know what you are thinking, because I am you. I know that idea of reading all of those books and looking for the lesson nuggets found within them sounds daunting. But until your video-based business school becomes a reality, just shut up and read those books. My friend if you promise to read those books immediately, I’ll let you in on a little secret as long as you promise not to freak out. In the future, you will partner with NBA Hall of Famer of the future, David Robinson. You and David Robinson will officially announcing to America that Thrive15.com has launched! Yes, I’m talking about the future Hall of Fame basketball player, David Robinson, who will average 17.8 points per game during the 1999-2000 season! I told you, I’m from the future! I know this stuff. Look, you have to believe me! At the risk of destroying the universe by revealing information about the future, I’m going to give you a quick betting tip. He will win two NBA Championships – one in 1999 and one in 2003.

All right Clay, now calm down and get to reading because right now, you are allowing the spirit of jackassery to prevent you from reading the books you know you need to be reading. Clay, You must not let formal education get in the way of your practical learning. On June 12, 2005, Steve Jobs the founder of Apple will say, “The minute I dropped out (of college), I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.”

Clayvis, you must start reading the following books as soon as they become available for purchase:

• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
• Soft Selling in a Hard World by Jerry Vass
• 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
• Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
• Guerilla PR 2.0 by Michael Levine
• Scale by Jeff Hoffman and David Finkel
• Time Management Magic by Lee Cockerell
• The Service Profit Chain by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger
• The Value Profit Chain by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger
• Winning by Jack Welch
• As I See It by J. Paul Getty
• Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
• Built to Last by Jason Collins
• Good to Great – by Jason Collins
• Crush It – by Gary Vanyerchuk
• Do You – by Russell Simmons
• Life and Def by Russell Simmons
• Eight Habits of the Heart – by Clifton Taulbert
• From Lucky to Smart – by Chester Cadieux
• In the Words of Great Business Leaders by Julie M. Fenster
• Made in American by Sam Walton
• More Than a Hobby by David Green with David Merrill
• Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe For Business & Personal Success by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg
• One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
• Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time by Howard Schultz with Dori Jones Yan
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Raving Fans by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
• Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
• The $100,000 Club: How to Make a Six-Figure Income by D.A. Benton
• The Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
• The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin
• The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie
• The Education of an Accidental CEO by David Novak with John Boswell
• The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris
• The Laws of Success In Sixteen Lessons by Napoleon Hill
• The Maui Millionaires by David Finkel and Diane Kennedy
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D and William D. Dank, Ph.D
• The Most Successful Small Business in the World by Michael Gerber
• The New Conceptual Selling by Stephen E. Herman
• The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
• Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
• Get Rich Click by Marc Ostrofsky
• The New Imperialists by Mark Leibovich
• The Slight Edge – Secret to a Successful Life by Jeff Olsen
• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
• The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
• Radical Marketing by Sam Hill and Glen Rifkin
• Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation by Brian Tracy
• Stand and Deliver – How to Become a Masterful Communicator and Public Speaker by Dale Carnegie
• Titan by Ron Chernov
• Who Owns the Ice House by Clifton Taulbert and Gary Schoeniger
• Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen
• Pitching Hacks by Venture Hacks
• Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff

Tip from the future: A wealthy mentor will tell you, “Rich people have big libraries and poor people have big TVs.”