Flourishing Isn’t Luck, It’s a Skill with New York Times Best-Selling Author, Daniel Coyle + Why the Quality of Your Life Is the Quality of Your Relationships, The Power of the Pause & Creating a Beautiful Mess & Creating a Group Flow

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi -million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, Now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U .

S.

Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re at the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hooks. I break down the books.

See it’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the fuck you see my wife and kids up on your right. Ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we’re interviewing a New York Times best -selling author who believes that flourishing is not luck. In fact, flourishing is a skill, and a skill that we can all learn.

With that being said, Dan Coyle, welcome on to the Thought Times Show.

How are you, sir?

I’m good, Clay.

How are you doing?

Thanks for having me. I appreciate you carving out time for us, and I’m assuming that some of our listeners maybe haven’t looked into your bio as much as I have. Could you walk us through how you got from, let’s say, high school to here?

Like, what was your path before you became the New York Times bestselling author expert guy?

I was growing up in Alaska. I was positive I was going to be a doctor. positive like a hundred percent and Realized just after I took the MCAT exams when I was applying to med school that I didn’t really that didn’t really excite me so I took this left turn into journalism and I loved science so it kind of went that direction and developed this career of Basically looking at the machinery beneath magic like finding people who are super talented and finding out how they did it It looks like magic. It’s not magic. There’s a thing there And so my life has been kind of looking at that machinery at the individual level like how individuals get talented how groups perform, and now what makes a fulfilling life.

Now your book, The Culture Code, has been named as the best business book of the year by, and I’ve got my notes here, by Bloomberg, BookPal, Business Insider, and you’ve worked with top organizations. I mean, you’ve been brought in by Google, Microsoft, other organizations. What is it that you’re writing that’s resonating with organizations and thought leaders?

They need to understand that machinery of performance. They’re curious about that. We’re brought up and trained on a lot of ideas about what greatness is made of, what great performance is made of, that are, frankly, outdated, inaccurate, traditional, top -down, command and control kind of stuff. And when you actually go out in the field and look at the science and visit these places, what you find is, whether it’s Pixar or the Navy SEALs, or IDO, the design firm, or a beautiful neighborhood in Paris, how they function is not like a machine, how they function is more like a living organism. And living organisms have these principles that they follow around creating safety, around sharing vulnerability and around defining what the purpose is. And so I think what people are attracted to is the idea that I can provide them a framework, not an answer,

I don’t give you the, there aren’t any answers, but there are frameworks and some frameworks are more useful than others. And that’s what we ended up talking about and connecting the dots. When you actually say, wait a minute, what Pixar is doing, they’re making a movie, they’re self -organizing, they’re moving through obstacles, they’re moving in a certain direction. What are the Navy SEALs doing? They’re self -organizing, they’re navigating obstacles. Who’s in charge?

It’s kind of hard to tell. They’re navigating in a direction around obstacles toward a goal. What happens in a great classroom? Exactly the same thing. So my books end up being like these lenses that you can use to put on your situation and see it clearly by connecting it both to the science and to what other great groups do.

Now I’m going to pull up the book here real quick. I’m pulling it up on the screen so our listeners can see it. Flourish, The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment. Tell us about the process of writing this book.

What inspired you to sit down and write the book, and what was your process like for putting it together?

Thanks. I’d been writing about super top performers for a long time, and I’d noticed a pattern, a pattern that you’re probably really familiar with too, which is that you can get to the top of the mountain And what you find are more mountains. You find there can be an emptiness to success that we bump into time and again. And I saw a lot of people experiencing that. And at the same time, I was seeing that in our larger society. I was seeing what I would call kind of the emptiness epidemic.

Things keep speeding up and getting more fragmented, right? Where are people finding that depth? that deep connection, that real sense of meaning, that real sense of relationship. And so that’s the question that drove this book. I went out to find places that were impossibly generative, places where they were creating new innovations and leaders and people were growing. For instance, this little deli in Michigan named Zingerman’s that’s grown into a $90 million community of businesses.

And one of the bakers there used to work at the Ritz Carlton, Paris, and she left to come back to work in Ann Arbor at Zingerman’s. They are doing stuff like that. And that’s the kind of place that I ended up visiting for the book.

And so my process was as it is with most other books, go in the field, spend time in these places, spend time in these places, see what they’re like, see what the people are doing, see what the behaviors are, and then connecting it with the best of science to figure out what the framework is. Now I’m going to pull this up on the screen so you can verify what I’m putting up on the screen, and perhaps it’s hack science, perhaps I’m making these things up, but 96 % of businesses fail by default according to Inc. Magazine. Now maybe someone says that’s not credible, that’s okay, but that’s Inc. Magazine showing 96 % of businesses fail. I find that by default Most businesses are not succeeding.

And by default, most entrepreneurs are not succeeding. Most people are not achieving their goals.

And so by default, I believe it is statistically probable that most people will not hit their goals if they don’t change the way they view life, the way they approach things.

So let’s talk more about this book. If someone reads your book, what are a few principles, routines, maybe super moves that they would gain from your book that they wouldn’t otherwise have by default? Let’s talk about a few of them. I mean, the first one is the power of the pause. You know, the places I visited were geniuses at pausing. You know, we’re taught in our life that it’s all about, you know, decisive action.

And I found decisive action in these places I visited, but what I found more often was the ability to stop, let go of control, and notice what is most meaningful to you. Notice it because it’s already there waiting for you. At Zingerman’s, that deli that I mentioned, they’ve refined this into a practice they call visioning. Whenever they have any project they’re working on, if they want to change the coffee machine in the coffee shop, they will write a vision for it, which means you stop, you get a piece of paper, and you project yourself into the future. You go, okay, we’re in the future, it’s five years from now, the Thrive Time Show, what’s happening?

Just take me through a typical day on your Thrive Time Show, and you start writing it down. Don’t even think, just write down. And then you notice what you wrote, what matters to you, what your day is gonna be like, who are you interacting with, what’s bringing you meaning, what’s challenging you, what’s bringing you joy, and you surface what’s already inside you, right? You surface that. So that kind of pausing is what I saw in these places. That’s number one.

Be good at pausing, stopping, and noticing what your values are, noticing what’s already there waiting for you. And the second thing they were good at was creating a beautiful mess. creating a mess, like finding something to explore and exploring it in ways that are kind of like that flock of birds moving through the forest where they’re, well, here’s an example. Like there’s a rugby team, one of the best rugby teams in the world. For one day a week, they have players organize practice. The coaches swallow their whistles, the coaches set on their clipboards and the players organize practice.

Is it well -organized? Nope, players aren’t good at that, right? It’s a little messy, it’s a little messy. But what do you get out of that? a sense of ownership, a sense of agency, a sense of energy, a sense of connection and freshness and newness. And they’ll make discoveries that the coaches never would have made.

And when the game time comes, you don’t need to give them a pregame speech because they’re ready. They own it. They own it. And so that’s what I saw in leaders over and over again. And in these places, the ability to do those two things.

pause, see what really matters, stop, fully stop, then explore and create a beautiful mess in the direction you want to go. And that generates new patterns that generates creativity that generates energy.

Now in your book, how do you organize the book?

Like if someone were to pick up a copy of it, how are you going to organize it? this book and what kind of a cadence or rhythm can people find inside the book. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s very story heavy. I’m a believer in in in storytelling and so it begins with the story of the Chilean miners, which some people already know, right? They know that they survived 33 people under 100 million pounds of rock. They somehow created this brotherhood down there.

And I tell the story of how they did that. So there’s stories like that threaded throughout, but then between the stories, the two big structures, the first one is making meaning. skills for making meaning, skills for that pausing, that connective pause that makes meaning.

And then the second piece is building community, is creating that group flow, that sense of connective exploration. So there’s two big pillars of skill and within each of those pillars is probably 10 to 12 stories that capture what that looks like and make it real, make it vivid. Now, if I’m watching this and I’m an entrepreneur, most of our listeners, they’re doctors, they’re dentists, they’re lawyers, they’re home builders, and they might be going, this sounds a little woo -woo. I don’t know if this applies to me. Why is this a book that everybody should pick out? Let’s say I’m a home builder.

I’m a remodeler.

I’m a dentist. I own an organization with 50 people or less. How do the principles that you teach in the book apply to our listeners? Well, I think when you zoom out on your life, what you find is the quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. The quality of your life, the quality of your business is the quality of your relationships. And the reason somebody should buy the book is that we don’t really have a playbook on how to create great relationships and create community.

And that’s what this book is. It’s a playbook on creating and tapping into the power of community. You know, one story that comes to mind while we’re talking is, you know, everybody saw the New England Patriots go from being 4 -13 to being in the Super Bowl. But the question of actually having a chance did that is a question about community. And their new coach, Mike Vrabel, first day of practice, brings them together and they don’t practice.

Instead, he puts them in small groups and they have a pause. They have this connective pause. He has them do something called the 4 -H exercise.

Sounds like an average icebreaker, but it’s actually a bit deeper than that.

You talk about your 4 -H’s, your hero, who’s your hero? Tell me. What’s your heartbreak? What broke your heart? Number three is what’s your history? And number four is what’s your hope for the coming year?

Groups of three or four, go around, takes 15 minutes. All year long, those guys had a sense of deep connection that started the relationship. That’s the playbook for building relationships. And the book is filled with those kinds of plays. Because relationships aren’t chemistry, and they aren’t magic, and they aren’t accidental. They can be created.

We’re built to have them.

They can be created if we know how to create them.

So if I’m, you know, let’s say I’m not, member of the New England Patriots and I’m not being coached by the great coach Mike Vrabel and I’m you know going back to this dentist or I’m on this home home builder.

Are you advising that these business owners would take a moment to pause and to sit down with their staff and to have these kind of moments or what would be your practical advice if you’re sitting down with an organization that’s maybe stuck?

Yeah.

Well, I would say there was some version of that pause. That’s right. Some version of that pause. Because what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to get people to step into uncertainty together. You’re trying to get people to turn off this narrow way of seeing the world where they’re just seeing the world as an object.

I saw a great example at that deli that I mentioned, Zingerman’s.

Everybody does orientation, right? You’re a builder. Everybody has orientation for new employees. Well, here’s what it looks like at Zingerman’s. The CEO walks in the room, there’s nine new employees there. And the CEO instead of what we expect to happen is the CEO to say,

hi, here’s the organizational story. Here’s our values. Here’s our expectations. Here’s our tools. Good luck. I oriented you, right?

What happens at Zingerman’s is they start with a question. He asks, how’d you get here? What’s your story? He does basically a version of the four H’s. How’d you, what’s your story? Tell me, what do you, what do you really want to have happen in your life?

Who’s important to you? There’s a great study that they did some years ago where they took an orientation like that and they flipped it. They had one orientation be normal, they had the next orientation be all about curiosity, where they asked the new employees, hey, what happens on your best day? What happens on your worst day? They asked the new employees, hey, if we were in a desert island, what skills would you bring if we were marooned? What skills would you bring?

And at the end of it, the retention in the second group was 270 % higher than in the first group, tripled. These moments, we think of them as woo -woo, we think of them as kumbaya, we think of them as soft. They’re actually the hardest thing. They’re actually, if you reflect on your own life of who your close relationships are with, how they energize you, the things they’ve opened up for you, and the moments that created them. And relationships happen in moments like that, in moments of curiosity and openness that feel woo -woo, but they’re, at the end of the day, they’re the last thing from woo -woo. They’re the way that, The way our ancestors survived, frankly, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have people who are good at community.

There aren’t any rugged individuals that make it through evolution. It’s people who are good at community. How did your research lead you to Zingerman’s? I’ll pull up Zingerman’s deli. How did your research get you to Zingerman’s? to Zingerman’s.

What about your research took you to Zingerman’s?

There’s a lot of delis. What took you to Zingerman’s? I know. There was a guy who’s a food writer who was hit all around the world. His name was Jim Harrison. He traveled over looking for the best meal.

And they asked him, what’s the best food emporium on the planet? And he’d been to every great one in Paris. Istanbul and London, in Rome. And he said, you know, it’s kind of funny, the best place in the world is Zingerman’s. That got my attention. And I had a friend who worked there and he kept telling me about it.

He kept telling me about it.

And then I went there for myself. I went to Ann Arbor and it lived up to all the expectations. These places, we feel them, you know, flourishing is not some kind of, that castle in the sky thing, it’s all around us. If we take for a second and think about that bakery down the street or that school or that family, those places that have got that sense of aliveness, that sense of curiosity, that sense of creativity, that sense of energy, you know, that’s the nice thing about flourishing, that it’s not something that you have to like move heaven and earth to get, it’s something that we’re actually pre -wired to do if we’re good at pausing and getting a little bit messy. Now, if I’m watching this right now, and I’m thinking about picking up your book, there’s a lot of books that are out there. This just in, there’s more than two books that are out there.

And I think a lot of people, they get overwhelmed by all the different options that are there, especially if you listen to our show.

We interview New York Times bestselling authors all the time. And not every book is right for everybody, but who’s your book right for? Who’s the kind of person that should pick up a copy of this book? That’s a great question. It’s so interesting to hear. I’ve gotten letters and messages.

There’s the book that I think I’m writing, and then there’s the book as it lands in the world. And so what I’ve found is that this book has appealed to people who are craving community. This book has resonated for people who are trying to create that in their job. That’s one thing that AI has done, I think. It’s really put a spotlight on what it means to be a person and what human beings can add to the conversation. AI is good at answers, but it’s not good at asking the right question.

It’s not good at knowing what to ask. So people that are hungry in this age of AI for like authentic connections. So I’ve heard from. pastors who are reading it as church groups. I’ve heard from like Silicon Valley firms that are trying to create more community in their world. I’ve heard from small businesses.

I’ve heard from school leaders and I’ve heard from professional sports teams.

Everybody’s kind of hungry for community. And so hopefully, you know, there’s a little something in this book for everybody because this idea of building a beautiful, building a strong, vibrant community applies to your family. It applies to your workplace and it applies to your neighborhood. Now, as far as this book, how long of a book are we talking about? Is this a book that’s like, are we reading like 48 laws of power?

I mean, are we talking about, are we reading like the Bible or, okay, so it’s a manageable size, manageable size. And what kind of feedback are you getting from people that have read it? Like what kind of reactions are you getting from the people that have read it and given you feedback? It’s been great. People have been saying, like, this is the book I need right now. I really needed this.

But this world that we live in right now that is speeding up and feeling more and more fragmented, people are craving a toolkit to let them create community. And I think the stories in this book resonate. They pluck that guitar string inside us, right, that says, oh, that feels like home. that feels like what I want in my life. And hopefully it delivers the message that it’s not that hard to get. You know, this one neighborhood that I talk about, it used to be this very disconnected, dystopian neighborhood, and a guy on one afternoon put a really long table, longest table in Paris, this neighborhood happened to be in Paris, and he invited everybody for lunch.

Everybody comes out on the street and lunch, and then he starts organizing and lets them self -organize into interest groups, and pretty soon there’s a biking group, and there’s a cheese group, and there’s a museum group. And that neighborhood today is like a little village. Like, it transformed itself. these big community meals and these small interest groups. And the only rules in the group, there’s two rules. You can’t bring negativity or politics.

That’s one rule.

And you must gather around a joy device, which is food, wine, coffee.

It’s doing these things is is you know, and you can doing versions of that in a business level doing versions of that in a sports team doing versions of that for a tech company. It’s it’s an exciting moment, it feels like we’re living through a bit of a I’m calling it I’ve heard it called the humanist revolution humanist revival, you know in this tech world we live in like to have a little revival of what it means to be a human being feels good to people. When you’re not writing books, what is it that you do. I consult with the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, major league baseball team. I’ve worked with them for 13 years.

And I have to mention that over those, over that time, and it’s not because of me, it’s because I’m on a really good team of people and they’re brilliant leaders in that group.

We’ve won as many games as the New York Yankees and we spent $1 .5 billion less money than the Yankees because we’re growing players, we’re growing people, we’re growing talent. And so that’s, that’s been, you know, So I do that, I spend my summers up in Alaska, I got four kids, play music, go indoor rock climbing, stuff like that. When you say you play music, what kind of music do you play? I’ve got this band of guys that we play kind of old folk rock stuff.

We’re actually going up against our… My daughter also has a little group, so we’re having a battle of the bands in two weeks in Brooklyn, where the old guys are gonna come and try to defeat the young, far more talented kids.

We’ll each play like a short set.

So you’re into music. You said you’re also into rock climbing. Yeah. These guys that I play music with, they kind of got me into rock climbing. There’s a concept I write about in the book actually called yellow doors, where it’s like, we’re always looking for green doors, which mean go and red doors, which means stop at yellow doors.

which this Columbia professor taught me about, are when you get a mixed signal, like, should I do that?

And five years ago, a friend got divorced. I said, I got to get people, some guys to do stuff together. I’m lonely. And so we chose indoor rock climbing and I’m afraid of heights. I find rock climbing to be like finicky and kind of stupid, like, you know, but I did it.

I’m like yellow door.

And it turns out the guys were totally delightful, and they’re some of my closest friends in the world today.

So, yellow doors. When you’re working with the Guardians, what do those sessions look like? When you’re sitting down with the players, what is your role, or how do you engage with those guys? You know, we have a great leadership and development department. And so they work across the organization, but it’s run the same play all the time, which is identify the question that matters and then circle up with a group and explore it together. Identify the question that matters and circle up with that group and see, and that can look different.

in different settings. With a young player, it looks like, let’s identify the vision of the player you can be and let’s see where you’re at and let’s see where you wanna go. Let’s talk about how to get there. Let’s bring in people in strength and conditioning and nutrition and mental performance and create that conversation. So it feels slow and inefficient at times, because you’re always stopping and you’re always circling up and you’re always exploring questions. It’d be much faster if you had all the answers and just do this, do that, do this, do that.

But this slow way actually, turns people, gets them on, gets them turned on, and creates energy, and curiosity, and exploration. So coming at it from this super humble point of view, which is we don’t have the answers, but we can identify the questions. Let’s explore those.

Let’s figure that out. Let’s do some experiments. Let’s learn from those experiments, and let’s get better. Now, throughout your career, I mean, you’ve done a lot of interviews. So I’m going to let you, I guess, is there a certain question that you maybe that you would be asked?

Or maybe a certain topic that you definitely want to talk about here.

I want to give you the floor to share what’s on your heart with our listeners out there that are looking to you as a source of wisdom. Maybe what is it that’s on your heart that you want to share with our listeners? Or maybe what’s a question that you really want to be asked on today’s show? I don’t know, there’s something, you know, I’m a science guy and I’m really, really grounded in, you know, evidence -based journalism and really not getting sort of carried away by the woo -woo stuff. But what I saw in these places was like, it was kind of the power of love in these places, whether it’s the deli or whether it’s the baseball team or whether it’s the neighborhood. And that just doesn’t sound very scientific.

And if I saw it written down, I’d probably roll my eyes. And yet, It feels real and looks real. And there’s something about that quality of attention that those people have. And so this idea that what’s a good life made up of, I’ve kind of come to believe it’s like love and projects. Create love, do projects, and you end up with some really special stuff. What project do you do?

It kind of doesn’t matter, as long as it’s meaningful to you. Where’s the love happening? Is it in the neighborhood? Is it in the office? Is it on the baseball field?

Is it in the family? It doesn’t matter. But creating that stuff and the power of combining those two things is just, I don’t know, it just strikes me as being really powerful. So Dan, the book, you got to flourish the book here. You have an audio book version. On the audio book, do you prefer for our listeners to listen to the audio book or read the physical copy or buy the physical copy?

What do you prefer?

Are you an audio book guy? Are you a printed book guy? What would you recommend for our listeners if they’re thinking about checking out the book here? This is the first time I did the audio book. Actually, I’ve had other people read my eight other books. But for this book, because it was a little more of a journey, I decided to read it.

Well, I would, of course, recommend they buy multiple copies of all the books. the types of media there, but the audio and the other, but I don’t know, whatever suits them. It’s like, there aren’t any good answers really. I would say the book is kind of beautiful.

Like it’s a nice looking book. If you like nice looking books, that’s for you. If you like audio books, that’s for you. Folks, I encourage you to check out the book. It’s called Flourish, The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.

Again, that’s Flourish, The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment. Dan, I guess my final bonus question here. Somebody’s thinking about wasting $20 at a convenience store, buying things they don’t need, or buying a copy of your book. So why should everybody buy a copy of your book as opposed to buying a regrettable burrito at a local convenience store? Because the book is like Twizzlers, but it keeps, the bag stays full.

Like, you can go back, it’s like a never -ending, you know, bag of Twizzlers.

That’s what I’m gonna call the book. So, yeah, that’s the reason. Yes! All right.

Thank you, Dan Coyle. I really do appreciate your time, your energy, and your thoughtfulness.

And I can’t wait to have you on the show, hopefully, in the not -so -distant future.

Thanks, Clay.

It was a blast.

Thanks for making it happen.

Take care, brother.

Bye -bye.

You too.

But Clay Clark, man, he is one character. That’s a good word for him, character. Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart. And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good.

And then I met his mother, and she just says, she just lets him be Clay Clark.

I mean, he’s endorsed by his mother, and he’s doing magnificent work.

So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. oh it’s it’s incredible yeah he’s he’s like he’s he’s a machine he’s a machine but his you know i could i don’t with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. He has hundreds of people showing up at 5 a .

m.

in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man. No, he is. He is. energy, really cool atmosphere to be around, contagious I would say. Just something every entrepreneur I think would appreciate and love.

I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars Maybe you’re high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you could take back and implement, you know, the following Monday. Where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say like, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview.

I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable. It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far.

And I think they’re missing out on expert advice from somebody who’s been there done that built companies has learned a lot of lessons. You know that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from. That’s it. of where I am. And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business. Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes.

I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden. So I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed.

Doing $800 million in sales over a 15 -year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And, I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually, in a four -month period of time, has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month, just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own.

So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity. to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is is that he doesn’t come from my industry.

He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him.

From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because The results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic, and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way.

I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1 ,800 % increase in our internet leads, going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand. and we just rolled with it. I love people.

I love working with people. I love the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time. And he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent.

Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage our real estate brokerage eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents.

But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else.

I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself.

I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63 ,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees.

Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult.

He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business.

I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects, you know what I mean? people rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations. We’re expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000.

That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Pretty much just listening to what they have to say, their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly. like such good insight, the resources that they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible.

It’s been a great experience. So I’d recommend it to anybody. What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system. And it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with on a day to day basis. Hi there, my name is Stephanie Pipkin.

I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid -June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid -February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together, and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I’m going to check my notes here.

So in four months, my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week. Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15.

appointments a day. Hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews, and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time.

low -quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them. So that’s just great. Worth every penny.

I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes.

That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening. And I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited. every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that.

They’re so excited for me. Um, so it just, it’s the best thing ever. And I would suggest to anybody to work with them.

So, uh, sorry for the long winded reply, but I just had so much to say. Um, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. Um, but thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me. And I am so excited to continue to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever is important.

My rich dad was one of those persons. You’re on it, man. You’re on it. You’re on it. Everybody, listen to this guy. He knows what he’s talking about.

You have the macro picture.

Very few people have that point of view. Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. And as they say in Stoic, the obstacle is the way. And so if you let these pinheads get in your way, you’re in trouble. The Thrive Time Show, two -day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet.

You can learn the proven 13 -point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. I mean, 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 going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to 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.

And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying. And 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 systems 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’ll even give you your money back if you don’t loan. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it.

Transcribed with Cockatoo