Entrepreneur Podcasts | 11 Major Attributes Of Leadership With Clay Staires | Episode 1

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I break down the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wiping kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Today we are joined with Clay Stairs, the millionaire school teacher. And Clay, you’re a man who’s literally moved from the classroom to the point where you travel now all around the world. Companies call you and ask you to teach leadership and success and how people can move from where they are to where they want to be. I figured there would be nobody else to interview about the 11 major attributes of leadership that were originally defined by the late, great author Napoleon Hill, the guy who wrote the book Think and Grow Rich. I’ve read that book. That made a big impact on your life. Yeah. So, now here’s a little stat here for you, just to kind of get us introduced into this. I like it. According to a recent Gallup poll, over 70% of American workers are either actively or passively disengaged from their work, meaning 70% of people don’t really care about their job. Now, this is a troubling statistic. Not only is the human cost immense, the U.S. economy takes a $370 billion hit from this army of the disaffected. The message is clear. Leaders have to do a better job at building employee buy-in and job satisfaction. Now that quote comes from Forbes magazine, 2014. So Clay, in your mind, why are most leaders so bad and are most employees so disengaged? Well, I think first of all, the primary reason why employees are disengaged is because the reason why employees get up, just so you know Clay, because you’re very different than most other employees. The reason why employees wake up every day and go to work is to get the paycheck. That is the reason. If there wasn’t a paycheck, I’m not getting up and coming to work. It’s not going to happen. And so the whole motivation and the whole inner drive to engage in a company all comes from what can the company give to me? And unfortunately so often the companies are in a position of saying no what can you give to me? And so you’ve got the employee you know a lot of times we see in fast food or something like that you go up and order a hamburger and you get a young kid that you just kind of wonder, are you going to touch my food? You know, well that kid is there for a paycheck and you’re saying, will you give me money? But the employer is saying, I want you to be here because I want you to represent my company. And so from the very beginning there’s this real tug-of-war between the employer and the employee just in their mindset, their motivation for coming and showing up for work that day. And so this idea here of 70% of American workers are either actively or passively disengaged It’s just because we’re just not hitting on the same. We’re just not we’re not touching the same value systems Now what I have found is it you know? It seems as though the leaders who can really inspire people and really Get people to perform at a high level, they all do these 11 attributes that Napoleon Hill wrote about. They all found a way to be able to grow personally and then to ultimately grow others. And Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, he says this, before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. Now when you become a leader, success is all about growing others. And I know that’s what you help people do in your books entitled Grow. Bingo. All about helping people to grow. And so let’s dive into these 11 attributes. I’d like to get your feedback on this and hear how we can apply them to our own lives. Sounds great. So the attribute number one, unwavering courage. Napoleon Hill writes, unwavering courage based upon knowledge of self and of one’s occupation. No one wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long. Clay, from your experience, why is it so important for someone to demonstrate unwavering courage if they truly want to become a leader? Well, I think first of all to make sure that we have a, for me, to make sure that we have a good definition of unwavering courage. You know, I think it can be pretty easy for us to get this picture of Maximus. And he’s the man with the sword and he’s the strongest guy around and he’s ruggedly handsome type of thing. And he just, this guy is the picture of courage. But Clay, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have very many of those moments when I was starting my company where I felt like I was the guy with the sword. Follow me. But my unwavering courage was just not stopping. Just keep going. Even when I’m freaking out, because I was planning on that client signing up, but they didn’t. I was planning on selling that product, but it didn’t happen. And so for me, unwavering courage was just keep going. Don’t stop. I found this, and I don’t know if you, it seems like that, you know, and we talk about this a lot on Thrive, but it seems like that, you know, the motion is what we have to do if we want to get to success. I mean, your success is over here. We’ve got to take motion. But it seems like we get the E in the way, and it just kind of blocks all the momentum here. We can’t move because this E, the E motion is in the way. It seems like we just can’t really move. We get stuck there. Oh, completely. So if I’m somebody who’s struggling with this principle of unwavering courage, I feel stuck. I’m not actually moving. I’m somebody who’s not taking the kind of action that you’re recommending. What can I do in my mind or what kind of activity can I do to get unstuck and to keep that action going? Well, first of all, I think that where we have a tendency and where the emotion begins to kick in, Clay, is when we see ourselves trying to do something really big out here, but we interpret ourselves or we perceive ourselves as being really small. And so all of a sudden between here and here is a whole lot of emotion, is a whole lot of fear that I tap into because I’m trying to do something out here, but I perceive myself as being here. All those negative tapes that can begin to play in our head and everything, you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not going to be able to do that. I think, first of all, what we’ve got to be able to do for me personally, and what I work with with a ton of folks in coaching, in helping them get to that place where the success that they’re wanting is, we’ve got to get your brain there. We’ve got to get the way you perceive yourself, your self-value out there first. And once you get your self-value out there then things become very natural, things become very smooth. So you have to believe that you’re capable of achieving big things. Exactly, exactly. And again that’s kind of where I was really good as a teacher, but even if I’m really good as a teacher, this is all I’m worth. Even though I was awesome, and I was awesome as a teacher, and I was awesome as a coach, but I was just worth that. And someone right down the hall could be like not a good teacher at all, but they were making the same amount of money. And so it was really easy for me to devalue my worth. Now, moving on to principle number two. Principle number two here, the eleven attributes of leadership, is self-control. Napoleon Hill writes, The man who cannot control himself can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate. Napoleon Hill. What he’s saying is, it sounds like, again, he’s saying that a man who can’t control himself isn’t going to be able to lead anybody else. Now when you jumped into that world of self-employment, you no longer had a schedule from the principal or from the boss or the superintendent. Exactly. How did you deal with that? I’m freaking out! Again, I tell you, it was really something. Because again, as a teacher, you sit in the class and kids, like cattle, come into your class. You don’t have to go out and find the work. The work comes to you. But then all of a sudden as an entrepreneur you and I both know, whoa, I’ve got to go out and generate things. But I never learned that before, Clay, and it had never been modeled to me by my parents or by the people that I was around. And so all of a sudden it’s like, oh, freak out mode. I’m gonna have to start doing this on my own. And so one of the things that I, the word that you’re using here is self-control. I use the same concept, I use the word discipline. And my idea with discipline is, I loved when I was a kid, I loved to push the boundaries. You know? If the boundary was here, and I make it small, not because it is small, but it always felt small, I wanted to do more. And so I would just push them a little bit. And again, I was a good looking kid, and I had all the suave, I could talk, I could kind of work the people, and so they’d let me get away with it. But eventually, that wasn’t good enough, and I, boop, pushed out the boundaries more and more and more and more. So, here’s the thing. I see a lot of 40-year-old men. Is there a problem here, Clayton? We need to talk? No. I see a lot of 40-year-old men. I see a lot of 40-year-old men. I see a lot of 40-year-old women. The why. There you go. Yeah. I see a lot of people from all different backgrounds who, you know, they get to the 40s, it’s kind of their mid-life point, and they’re stuck. And they have no discipline, as you said. Or they have no self-control. And I know you’re a fun guy, but you also are a guy who gets things done now. What’s a step I can take if I need to become more self-controlled? Does it just go out and get a day timer, or is it make a to-do list? What’s been your secret to kind of help you? We all struggle with it at some point. And all of us struggle with it even today. I know a lot of entrepreneurs who have success. I know staying in that balance is hard. But what’s something I can do as an action step to become more self-controlled if I struggle? Well, I think for me personally, I had to have some tool that brought accountability into my life. Because once again, Clay, that was something that I had always resisted. It was something that I had always pushed away. And any time a person or something tried to hold me accountable, I would just get angry and blow up, once again, manipulate the situation using emotion. Because I would push those boundaries without discipline, and all of a sudden I would create a new reality. And then when someone said, hey, you got to come back here, I go, no, I can’t. It was hilarious. First time I flunked a class in college. Flunked a class. Guess what the class was, Clay? We’re going to wait until you guess it. No, I’m joking. Humanities. Very, very close. It was basketball. I flunked basketball. I was an all-state basketball player in high school and I flunked basketball in college. And the reason was because I never went. And when it came to the end of the class, I was just saying, yeah, well, tell me how many free throws you need me to make, how many layups, you know, and I’ll do it. And she wouldn’t let me do it. And Clay, I couldn’t manipulate her. I couldn’t manipulate. She was the first person in my life that I found was a stone that I couldn’t move. And I just remember blowing up and going crazy. She was the first one that brought accountability in my life and I hate her ever since. I think self-control is so important though because I know when I have employees who work with me, we have a couple of these guys on the set who beat me to work sometimes and it frustrates me. But the thing is that as an entrepreneur you want to set the example. Things aren’t always perfect. I know this year we’ve dealt with my dad having cancer, some of the employees here, one of the guys, his mother passed away. We all deal with challenges, but they look to the leader to say, how’s he going to handle this adversity? How’s he going to handle this fatigue, this whatever? And I always try to lead by example, being one of the first people there. I try to lead by example of just to hold myself to a higher standard. And for me, my accountability came when I hired somebody, because I never wanted to let that person down. Or some people, it comes with management. I’ve seen some of the guys on our Thrive crew, the more responsibility they have, the more they step up their game. That’s a great way to add that element of discipline there. A couple other things I would bring up. I know two entrepreneurs who have an accountant they meet with weekly who holds them accountable to their spending. I know another entrepreneur who has their savings automatically withdrawn from their checkbook. And Braxton Fears went as far as to say that he has a check card. He’s one of the Thrive mentors and a venture capital partner. He has a check card that simply shuts off at a certain point. So he can never spend more than his budget. Oh, man. And these are the people who are the most successful, though. So that’s really a neat deal. And Clay, I’ll tell you, too, when I’m talking with a potential employee, or if I’m wanting to move someone from worker to manager, or from manager to leader, some of the questions I ask them have to do with accountability. Because if they don’t have resources or tools in their life for accountability, I guarantee they don’t have discipline. Because people that don’t have discipline hate accountability. And it’ll just make them mad. And so I ask them, well tell me a little bit about, you know, do you have this, do you have this, do you have this? And if they’re going, nope, don’t have that, don’t have that, don’t have that, immediately I know you lack discipline. So if you don’t, if they don’t have a day time, they don’t have a to-do list, they don’t have a schedule, you know. I know. I know. Now let me ask you this, point number three here, this is point number three, this is Napoleon Hill, he’s talking about having a keen sense of justice, principle number three he says without a sense of fairness and justice no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers as a keen sense of justice now you ran a camp and keen sense of justice. Keen, that’s not a word you get to use every day no and I feel like I don’t really write the word justice much either so that’s kind of a I like that. Easy for me to write. Keen. You’re really keen. Yeah, I want to just have to cross that out and just go with right there. That makes me feel more special. Okay, so with a keen sense of justice, you ran a camp. Yes. And I know a lot of people, all joking aside, who have came to your camp and have left to change people. There’s one young man in particular I can think of who, much like a lot of kids unfortunately, he doesn’t have a mother figure or father figure that was stable in his life. And he comes to your camp and it changes his whole life. He came and he went to the camp, and some people go to camp and it’s a fun thing. He left with a whole different worldview. And one of the things he talked about is how you ran the camp in an honorable way. But there’s kids that disagree with each other, right? I mean, there’s employees that are fighting. So how did you keep that keen sense of justice and make sure that you, you know, made decisions that were fair? I mean, how did you keep yourself from favoring other people? What’s kind of your code for that? Well, I think first of all, to get to a sense where you can even consider other people, you know, before you can go to that justice, you have to have a capacity to be able to think of somebody else. And part of my training in my life was going through a 13-year period of just the wheels coming off of my life. Because remember, up until that point, till my early 20s, everything had come pretty easy to me. And so even though I had leadership positions, Clay, I was a pretty harsh leader, because I just expected everybody to be able to do it, because I was able to just do it. Does that make sense? And so, it was only when all of a sudden I began to experience things in my life that were outside of my ability, outside of my capacity, that I began to learn. I’ve gone through that process of having to think outside of myself. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we wanna do is we wanna share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts, to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And it’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists that when everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives, and also it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know… The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. We just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing the use of services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. And they run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start ups go from start ups to being multi millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listened to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. Whoa! The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this, and because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same system that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.