Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living With Peter Jones + What Is the History of the Seven Deadly Sins?

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 bunny, Dr. Robert Zuckner. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. Describe this guest. It’s like he’s an entrepreneur. He’s an author. He’s a historian.

He’s somehow put it all together and he’s talked about uh, he’s come up with this concept of self -help from the Middle Ages. Now, again, I’m a historian, I like history, so I’m very fascinated in this story, and here to talk about it and more is Peter Jones. Welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? It’s wonderful to be here.

Thank you. How would you describe yourself? Are you an entrepreneur, historian, author? How would you describe what you do? And I have to say, I’m not an entrepreneur in the traditional sense. I’m a historian, you know, through and through cut me in half and history is written on my spine.

I am. Look, I’m, I’m a historian of the Middle Ages, right, first and foremost, but I’m someone who’s got a deep, ongoing interest in, in challenging the way we think about the mind and emotions now. So for me, the best way to understand, you know, the difficult things that we go through things like burnout, depression, and anxiety is to take a deeper look. And as a historian, I’ve been fascinated in digging back 1 ,000 years into how those things have been thought about. Now, what got you interested in this premise of self -help and then digging into the years of history behind it? What was the first thread you pulled, or what was that initial aha idea that inspired you to write this book?

Okay, so I have a quite an interesting story. I was teaching history in Siberia. I worked at a university there, I was fairly lonely, I was extremely cold. And I, you know, I was kind of losing, losing a grip on why I chose to be a historian in the first place. And I chose to teach, I wanted to teach the Middle Ages in an accessible way. And the Seven Deadly Sins popped up for me as a concept or as a way in to think about the Middle Ages, that my students might find, you know, engaging.

And I was reading some of these texts. And I started reading this text from the 1200s. It’s a text that has been totally forgotten. Now, William Peraltis’ Summer of Vices, I guess is not a bestseller now. And there’s a guy called John Gerson, who was a master of the University of Paris in the 1400s. He said, if all the books and all the libraries of the world burned, but this one book survived, then we’d be okay.

And that’s William Peralta’s Some of the Vices. I was reading this, and it just grabbed me like nothing I’ve read before, like, because this is a book written in torturous handwriting in the 13th century. It’s extremely difficult to read. But some of the sentences just jumped off the page. One of them was, you know, when you are suffering from a kind of midlife crisis, when you think your life and your career are going nowhere, it can feel like you’re standing in the middle of a freezing cold river that’s rushing at your legs and you find no way to move forward.

He describes how, you know, hold on, because, you know, sometimes the fields that grow thistles and thorns go on to have sweeter fruit than those that never had any thorns or thistles at all. I found some of these lines just really, really arresting, really grabbed me. And I realized that there’s something in this wisdom of the mind from 700 years ago that can still speak to us now. Now, your book, I’m going to pull up the book on the screen so our listeners can see it and really, it can kind of connect with everybody here. It’s called Self -Help from the Middle Ages, What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living. How is this book organized?

Like, how can people, if someone picks up a copy of it, how did you decide to organize the book from the front to the back? Well, I wanted to tell two stories, or three stories, really. I want to tell the story of the seven deadly sins, you know, and how this system of thought went from the desert of Egypt, where it was just one guy’s thought experiment, one politician who had a sex scandal, retired to the desert, and started playing this kind of game with his brain. Could he write down every negative, pessimistic, tempting thought? and he compiled them all. And he decided they belong in eight categories.

And he called these the eight generic thoughts. Okay, this is what then evolved becoming our seven deadly sins. So trace that journey from the desert to this, this system that dominated really self help in Europe for about 1000 years, it was the go to system. If you had a crisis, if you were had, you know, too many tempting thoughts, if you didn’t know where your life was going, you’d come down to you’d have a sort of counseling session with a priest, and the seven deadly sins would be the way you organize that problem. So it tells that story.

It also tells the story of the sins themselves. So like, these seven are pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust, right? And we probably know what most of these words mean now. They all have different meanings, deeper, richer meanings in the Middle Ages. You know, for example, pride was really a way to talk about ego, to talk about narcissism, to talk about that moment when you turn your back on your friends and family because you think you know best. Envy is not wanting what other people have.

Envy is wanting other people not to have it. And it’s kind of a pretty dark impulse that way. Sloth was never translated properly. It’s not laziness. It’s not idleness. Sloth is a kind of It’s like you’re a huge ship and you’ve got no way to move in the sea.

You’ve lost your rudder. You’ve fallen out of love with all the things that used to drive your life forward. So the book does two things. It tells the story of the seven deadly sins of the system, but it also tells the story of each of those seven sins through really vivid ways. And I wanted to bring these medieval people to life so that we can see that actually their crises are very similar to ours. I think that a lot of entrepreneurship involves hours and hours of loneliness.

Our audience are primarily business owners or people who want to be, you know. So there can be a profound amount of loneliness that occurs when you’re working on a workflow. What am I saying? A linear workflow is the system you need to scale a company. And someone says, That idea doesn’t connect with me. Okay, reading a book.

You know, I have on my desk, I have books that I’m always reading. And when I read books, I mean, the way I read a book is I’m taking crazy amounts of notes. And this is not like a group activity. You know, when I’m going through and reading books, let me plan another one here. This is not like, you know, I’m not getting a team of people with me to tab. and take notes.

And so I’m just showing as I’m devouring content, it’s not necessarily a group activity. And what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs, they’ll tell me, man, Clay, I feel so lonely. And now that I’ve built this multimillion dollar company, I feel lonely. And I think in those moments of loneliness, that is when a lot of people make bad decisions. I think idleness could be the devil’s workshop. Has your research shown you anything about when people tend to give in to these seven deadly sins?

Absolutely. And it’s a fantastic point about loneliness. And yes, the Seven Deadly Sins, the main point of the book, right, is that these things aren’t bad in themselves, right? Ego, temptation, you know, gluttony, all these things, they’re not bad in themselves. Like medieval thinkers didn’t think that the answer to all our problems was to get rid of all your temptations and get rid of all your desire. they said that there was a moment where these desires start to consume us, like when they stop being necessary, decent social things, like ego, right, can be a social thing, right?

You know, I have to have some pride in my abilities, right? I have to have some sense and some confidence that I can do something better than others, right? Otherwise, you know, then I know what my talents are that I can contribute. But there comes a point where you switch into an antisocial gear when you start blocking out other people and saying, I can I this thing matters more than what other people are doing or saying. Classic example, like gluttony, the problem with gluttony, as they said, isn’t that you just eat too much, you know, it’s not that or that you desire food, it’s actually your obsession, your obsession with food is the problem, you become so obsessed with food or drink or whatever it is, and getting it and securing it and cooking it and preparing it and talking about it, that you start to shut out other people like the food matters more than your social relations. So I think the main message and this is where it can pivot into entrepreneurial stuff is that, you know, the sins are a problem when our obsession with one thing, one temptation, one desire gets

in the way of our relations with other people. How often do you find that, I mean, do you feel like a pie chart of what sin people give in to the most? I mean, did you figure out, is your research shown that like, oh, you got seven deadly sins and 42 % of people give in to this sin more? Or do you find certain sins are more prevalent or not? Talk to us about the pie chart of the seven deadly sins. Okay, right.

So there’s two ways to slice up this pie. On the one hand, there’s a hierarchy, did you know, right? So the medieval hierarchy, pride is the worst sin, the most terrible, because it is pure self absorption, pure self obsession, pure shutting out other people. And then it goes down the hierarchy, envy and anger. These are the kind of sins of the mind. Okay, there are obsessions right up there in our brain that are sort of driving us to do kind of antisocial things.

Envy, you want other people to fail. Anger, you want it always to be right. Sloth is in the middle there, that’s kind of falling out of love with everything and it belongs on its own. And then at the other end of the spectrum, we have the kind of physical sins, right, you know, so greed, gluttony, lust, these are just desire for money, for food, for sex, and those things aren’t, they’re sort of lesser in the sense that they’re, you know, they’re more redeemable, should we put it that way. But how do we slice it up? Right, yeah, believe it or not, there is a statistical thing.

In the Middle Ages, they would make these huge, like telephone directories of, you know, sayings and advice on the different sins. And by far by far, it’s avarice and gluttony, which is greed and gluttony. These are the big ones. This is where the sort of like it’s something like 80 % of the medieval advice in these telephone directories is on greed and gluttony together. I don’t know why that is. I think like there’s a theory that European society became more concerned about greed when we get this commercial revolution. It’s in the 1200s when the road networks are starting to connect up when we have businesses that are investing in profit enterprises down in the Mediterranean, like investing in ships that are going to trade commodities.

We get basically we get this We get a capitalistic awakening in Europe in the 1200s, and avarice, greed becomes the hot sin for that 100 years. If people don’t pick up a copy of your book here, Self -Help for the Middle Ages, what are they missing out on? What’s somebody missing out on if they don’t pick up a copy of the book, read it cover to cover? What’s somebody going to miss out on there, sir? Oh, Clay, they are missing out on so much.

I’ll tell you what, they’re missing out on a wonderful human experience of what it was like to live in the Middle Ages, you’ll discover how much it costs to buy a pillow to rent a home. In the Middle Ages, you’ll discover how many how much wine people drank in a year, you’ll discover how they dealt with narcissism, how they dealt with depression and anxiety, you’ll discover the first universities and the envy culture that kind of ripped those institutions apart. So you’ll discover that I hope a fun adventure, you’ll discover that it was warmer in the Middle Ages by a couple of degrees because of this strange climate anomaly. There’s so much in there that I wanted to bring the Middle Ages to life. And the message of the book, the main thing I want people to discover that we think sometimes that like depression, burnout, and all of these other problems are our own. They’re a modern problem.

They are not. these things have been with us for so long. And you know, the strange thing, guess what, we are not the experts on this, we think we are maybe, and we’ve got some wonderful cures for these things. And you know, I’m not doing down therapy, and you know, all kinds of medical cures. But the best and brightest minds for 500 years, they didn’t go into finance, they didn’t go into law, they went into the church, which which meant what it meant they, these top minds wanted to cure lost souls to write treatises on you know, anxiety and the mind and temptation. So I think that they understood the brain in ways that are absolutely fascinating and invigorating.

So yeah, those are the two things. The third thing, the message of this is the deadly sins were never deadly. Okay? They were not things to avoid at all costs, like prison. The deadly sins were natural human tendencies and this is a really forgiving system.

Read the book and discover that actually they had a really forgiving and humane take on temptation and sin that will surprise you and it’s kind of really life affirming. I know that a guy like you is passionate about sharing this book, because you’ve been obsessively writing it and organizing it. Could you tell us about what kind of research that went into writing this book? I mean, what was your process like? Did you take a year off of life and just obsessively read everything you could about that time period? Or what was your process like of getting all this knowledge and getting to a point where you could overflow with a passion for the subject?

Well, it was 20 years of absolute passion, because I’ve been a medieval historian, you know, on, you know, along with other things in my life since I was in my 20s. Right. So I’ve, know, it’s a lot of research over the years, like everything is basically the greatest hits of everything I ever found inspiring, moving, you know, beautiful in the Middle Ages, I’ve put in there. But you know, in specific terms, yeah, I live in Madrid now. I was very lucky I had a research position, I was able to only teach one class a year. And this research position let me fly to the Vatican to the libraries in London, Oxford, Cambridge, I had a charmed life, I have to be honest.

And a lot of this was archived you know, going through manuscripts that haven’t been edited or published or printed before and sort of diving into them and having all of these electric shock moments where you realize this book, which is only accessible if you’re wearing rubber gloves and you’ve handed over your passport, can speak to you so fresh and so alive. So yeah, there was a lot of that and it was exhilarating, I have to say. Tell me about living in Madrid. What’s that like? Oh, well, look, it’s a fantastic city. It’s undersung.

There’s no Eiffel Tower. There’s no the river is is a stream. Let’s be honest. And the food. Well, look, they love it. I’m not gonna say anything bad about the food.

But it’s not France. It’s not Paris in no sense. But I think that’s one of the great strengths about Madrid. It’s not a it’s not a city that already arrives in your imagination complete, you have to find it and discover it for yourself. It’s got incredible parks. It’s got you know, the mountains right on the doorstep.

The pools in the summer are terrific. But the art galleries are amazing. And this book actually, you talk about the research, a lot of research was going to the Prado, one of the great art museums on the planet, and the collection is just unparalleled. I spent so many, you know, that glorious research leave, I was able to spend a lot of time in the Prado and just, and I’ve reproduced those quite a few of the paintings from the Prado in the book. So I hope it’s a kind of an advert for visiting Madrid as well in that sort of subtle way. Now, what is the, what kind of feedback have you been getting from people as they’ve read this book?

You know, as you’re giving the book to business people and people that have jobs, people that are leaders, people that are, you know, people that are heads of organizations, people that maybe want to become a head of an organization. As you’re giving this book to real people every day, what kind of feedback are you getting? Well, I’m delighted to say that I’m getting good feedback on both halves of the title, right? The title is Self -Help from the Middle Ages. On the one hand, I’m getting emails from medieval historians who are really delighted I’ve brought medieval thought to life. But more importantly, I think in a way, because this is a book for a general audience, you know, there’s like a therapist have written to me saying, Thank you, you know, this is a work of self help, which actually, you know, works for self help, you know, that means a lot to me.

I’ve had real estate agents, lawyers, people contact me and say, this book’s really moving, and it’s affected them. So, you know, I don’t know, I mean, is it too early to see what kind of real time feedback? This is a book, I hope, that anyone can use in any situation like we all struggle with ego with desire, temptation on a daily basis, right inability to work or indecision. I personally don’t go through a day where the sins don’t speak to me and where I don’t think about these kinds of remedies that I’ve discovered in the Middle Ages. It’s a book that is about, I hope, can be read and reread as it dramatizes so many crises and crises we all face and gives us just little bits of wisdom that I think are kind of surprising, you know, like when we start to think of anger, for example, as an addiction to being right and as a buzz that, you know, and like this kind of short circuit in the brain that makes us want to be right again. Sometimes we don’t often think of anger that way we think of as a natural reflex response.

But when we start to think of it as an addiction, it can kind of turn it on its head a little bit. So I hope that I hope it speaks to loads of situations we’re all in, or, you know, hopefully not in too much, but in quite a lot in our lives. Now, Ryan Holiday has been on our show before. Ryan Holiday, we’ve had him on the Thrive Time Show. Robert Green, the best -selling author of 48 Laws of Power, we’ve had him on our show as well. Does your book fit into that category of the Ryan Holiday, Robert Green sort of book, where it’s like a historical, look into something and then make it relevant for today?

I mean, I don’t know if you like that comparison or in that category, is that kind of how it reads? Or what would you say for anybody out there who’s Baby Red Ryan Holiday or Robert Green? Oh, absolutely, it does. And I think, you know, if you like Rowan Holliday, then yeah, you’re ready for something similar, but different. You know, I think Rowan Holliday looks at the Stoics, and I think he’s done a fantastic job of bringing that thought system to life in ways that’s really refreshing and people can use in their own existence, day to day. Yes, there is something that this is an applicable book, you know, you can read the chapter on anger or envy, and you can think about your life.

And there’s, you know, it can connect, I think, with things that we’re all going through. On the other hand, the difference there is, well, on the other hand, there’s also kind of, I want to show you the middle. Ages in Technicolor. And I want this to be a thrilling journey through an often misunderstood period. And I kind of often think that this book is, it’s self help for people who like the Middle Ages. And it’s the Middle Ages for people who like self help.

And I kind of think you I’m hoping readers will buy it for one thing and get the other as well and enjoy that. But you know, I think the difference there is the Stoics, for example, right? We’re trying to fight our feelings in some way or trying to not be affected by our feelings. We’re trying to stand outside our feelings and say, look, you know, I’m going to be calm in the face of a crisis. What I love about medieval self -help is it says, no, no, no, you have to feel those feelings and work through them. The answer is not to step back and say, I’m above the feelings.

It’s to admit that to feel temptation and desire and negativity is to be human. And how we work through the mess of that is what I hope is the beauty of the book. Final two questions I have for you. For anybody out there that wants to look up you or look in more to your research and into who you are, where’s the best place people should go online to find your voice or to hear your thoughts or just to learn more about you? Yes, I’m a mysterious figure in this sense. You know, I suppose I don’t have like a social media presence, particularly.

I think, look, you know, I’m in the process of, of writing more things that you will find, you will find my articles, you’ll find my journalism. In places like the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, BBC, I’ve written a piece for Apple News, which is all about my time teaching history and my medieval history in Siberia at university and the crisis and difficulty of that and what it reveals about Russian politics at the time. So I’ve done a lot of writing, it’s out there, but you can’t find me necessarily in a kind of accessible social media space. Maybe that’ll change. What I would say is that I’m writing more and more and I’m hoping that you’ll come across me organically on your feed very soon. YouTube is another place.

Are you going to be writing any books about how to survive a riot in a Turkish prison? I’m open to all suggestions, Clay. This sounds great. You have to tell me more. I don’t know. That could be a heck of a book there, but we’ll let you focus on this book.

Let me pull it up here again, folks. This is the Amazon link. This is the book web place to find it. This is the book, Self -Help from the Middle Ages, What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living. Check it out, folks. Again, self -help for the middle ages with the seven deadly sins can teach us about living.

I’m going to give you the final word, Peter. I’m sure you’ve been on podcasts where you say to yourself, what’s wrong with that host? Why didn’t he ask me this? Why didn’t she ask me that? So I’m going to let you ask yourself the final question or maybe just share whatever’s on your heart there, sir. No, this was a wonderful chat.

What would the final question be? What’s your next book, I suppose? I don’t know. I want to write about love. I think that, you know, the way we think about love is changing drastically. We have AI companions.

We have kind of new ideas about what love can be and should be. And I want to write a book about the deep history of that and of our idea of love, which actually has changed dramatically over the last two and a half thousand years. No, my final word is that the Middle Ages holds more secrets than we can ever get through in a lifetime. is a universe of thought and feeling. It’s very close. When they write, they write beautifully about things we recognize as our own, but they do it in such a strange and refreshing way.

So my final word would be dive into the medieval universe. There’s so much to discover. I can’t let you off the show without a follow -up question about the AI companions. You just threw it out. You said AI companions. I thought to myself, holy crap.

Could you maybe articulate what you were referencing there? Because I think somebody out there is going, whoa. Right, okay. Well, you know, okay, so there are AI companions, more and more people have AI boyfriends and girlfriends. that I think they call it digi sexuality. Now, an extent to which people are turning to algorithms and LLMs for companionship.

And I just find it fascinating, because, you know, it’s, it’s not been done before. It’s a new experiment in love. And it’s happening in real time. Love has always been between people. you know, animals too, to some degree, we have pets, but you know, this is new, loving code is new. And there’s so much exciting writing about it right now.

But it’s changing as we speak, as we are speaking now, algorithms are being generated, AI love is happening. So that’s what it is. It’s kind of I don’t know, does it scare? It scares me a little bit. But it also fascinates me. I think what I want is I think we need to reckon with this. And we need a new definition of what love is, so that we can confront ourselves as we confront this incredible new phenomenon, which is AI companionship, which is obviously friendship and romance and everything in between.

Whoa, whoa, and whoa, folks. Check out the new book, Self -Help for the Middle Ages, What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living. His name is Peter Jones. He’s broadcasting from Madrid. He’s kind of a big deal. I like him.

Hopefully you like him, too, folks. Check out the book there, Self -Help for the Middle Ages. Thank you again, Peter. I appreciate you very much, and hopefully we’ll have you on the show again in the future. Clay, it’s been a huge pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.

Take care. Bye -bye. 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, so 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.

His, Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, 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 have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. He has hundreds of people showing up at 5 .00 AM in Tulsa, Oklahoma, man. He’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic. Yeah, man. No, he is.

He is. He also has a wealth of knowledge. He’s worked with so many different companies and different businesses. He could take a concept that he’s used before in the past with somebody totally different industry and see how it would work perfectly for you in whatever niche market you’re in or whatever type of service you’re providing. And so his brain is just a wealth of knowledge. And just to have that type of perspective on, you know, as a part of your team and your own company is huge, super valuable.

So I would definitely encourage people to use him. But one thing is you’ve got to be coachable. You’ve got to be wanting to get feedback. You’ve got to be wanting to really grow your company. You’ve got to want to put that extra 10 hours a week to working on your business and not just in your business. And so, yes, I would recommend it to anybody who’s wanting to grow their company and provide great systems, checklists, workflows, great encouragement and have accountability.

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. After 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 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 get. 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 1800 % increase in our Internet leads going forward. 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. 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 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. And we went from expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000.

Kelsey with K &D’s Wooder Finishing, business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this company for about five years now and we started working with Thrive not too long ago. So we’re pretty excited about that. 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 and 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. 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 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 and 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 on 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 mean, 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 until 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. So it just, it’s the best thing ever.

And I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long -winded reply, but I just had so much to say, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. 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 work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach.

And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger. me. They push harder. They’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, you know, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches.

So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach. 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 you’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 love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it.

Transcribed with Cockatoo