The Importance of Unlearning What You Learned In School | Formal Education versus Practical Education

Audio Transcription

Long today we discussed the importance of unlearning what you’ve learned in school and we discussed the difference between formal education and practical education while also breaking down what two of our conference attendees learned at our last in-person thrive time show business conferences.

Yes. Thomas, you’re back inside the the box that rocks my friend. How are you? I am great. How are you? Thanks for having me on. Hey, I, I’m, I’m excited. You’re here today on the show and I know that, uh, you traveled via Tesla, uh, to get here to a or D or did you fly in this time? Nope. Drove, drove, drove the Tesla. Drove me and Ken the Tesla get you to Tulsa on on one charge or do you have to stop multiple times? It’s close, but it can get about 20 miles left after the drive. Now if it’s really windy, does it require two charges? When do you call that you have to go through Oklahoma city and adds about two hours? Really? Yup. Is it still worth it in your mind? Absolutely. Okay. Now for the listeners out there that don’t know who you are and what you do for a living, can you share who you are and what you do for a living?

Yeah. My name is Thomas crossing. Again, I owned full package media. We are a real estate photography drone, videography, 3d tour company, uh, with locations in Dallas, Texas, and Austin, Texas. And we’ll be franchising here starting in 2020. So beer from the great state of a, of Texas. That’s correct. And we assure the listeners out there that don’t know how long have you and I worked together. And how would you describe our, uh, working relationship? Uh, both good or bad, you know? Yeah. So we’ve been working together for about three years now. Just hit three years, I think about a week ago. So, uh, our relationship is a business coach and business relationship, also a mentor type relationship. Uh, I get told that I’m wrong at times. Uh, and kind of I told you so, but that, that’s what it’s all about. Now. You are working right now on the, uh, franchise disclosure document and you now, um, I, I took the original one and, and, and clean that dude up and, and just dozens of hours invested into cleaning up that paperwork.

Um, but I wouldn’t be helping you franchise if your company wasn’t already profitable. Um, could you share with the listeners out there about what, what your business does and kind of your, your path to growth maybe the last couple of years? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, the kind of core service of what we do is a photography, videography, 3d tours and other marketing services for primarily residential real estate agents. That’s about 95% of what we do. And then the rest of the 5% being a commercial photography for different venues, event spaces, that sort of thing, but mostly residential real estate. And we’ve grown in the past three years since when I started it, it was just myself, uh, and had pretty much no idea what I was doing. Uh, now we have a team of about 21 photographers full time, uh, call center staff. Um, and this year we’re on track to do a little over a million dollars in sales.

And uh, so your first year you did about how much in sales your, your first year, about 400 and your second year, about eight 80 and then this year you should be what number on track to do about 1.2. And what kind of profit margin are you trying to stay at for your own business or are you focused on a 10% or 30%? I know like Shaw Holmes was in attendance, they do a 6% profit margin. What is your, uh, profit percentage did you aim to achieve? Yeah, our aim is right at 25%. We’re a little bit lower than that right now, about 20 to 22%, because we invest a lot of money back into the business. Got to do the franchising process and software development to kind of help us grow in scale. And when you say reinvest in the business, how much of that is the barbecue budget?

The barbecue budget a couple years ago was quite significant. About 6,000 miles of driving to visit the top 50 barbecue places in all of Texas. This Justin, now Thomas, how are you still spelling your name before I, before I begin to interrogate our next guest here. Thomas is pretty easy, but crossing is the one that, uh, how do you, how do you spell that? C R O S S O N instead of N O N. really? That, that’s correct. Unfortunately your name is misspelled and many, many books. That’s quite a shame. So nice. All right, now know Jennifer a welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you? I’m good. Thank you for having me. Hey, we’re so excited. Now you flew in from Houston, am I correct? Correct. And did you, is it a direct flight or do you have to make a connection

made sure it was a direct flight. Most of them are not. Um, but I worked at around, I have a hard time navigating in my own city so I wasn’t gonna try to navigate near airports.

Now did you a flying on Southwest or what airline did you plan? Okay. Okay. Now could you share with the listeners the name of your business and what you do?

Um, I own legacy home decor. It’s a retail store, front and pear land, Texas. And we saw him decor and furniture.

What, what would make it different? Again, some people think of home decor, they’re thinking right right away. Okay. That’s a hobby lobby. What makes your store different than like the big chain? Like a hobby lobby?

We have about half of the store is handmade home decor from local artisans. And then the other half would be a more of your manufactured product. So we kind of have both in there. So you get a little bit of both and mix them up.

And if the listeners out there wanted to learn more about your website and the products that you sell, can they buy products? Can anybody all around the world buy your products?

Can we ship all over and a website and a shop legacy to core.com

shop legacy decor.com. Correct. All right, so you guys both came to the workshop. Um, Jennifer, this would be your, your first time attending a business conference and Thomas, you’ve been to, how many business conferences now? Man? Probably six or eight now. Okay. And so I’d to get your take and then I would like to start with you Thomas. That way Jennifer can one up you because Oh, eight time we have a female guest. They’re always just a little bit smarter than, than the male guests anyway. That’s always true. But then when you go first, it really she can show, show some a separation and really just be able to show that’s all he has. And I’ve got this much more, so I’ll let you go first there, Thomas. So what did you get most out of this conference? Uh, this past conference? Or what did you like most about it?

Yeah, so each conference is a little bit different. Uh, and that’s kinda, um, what’s great about coming back and going to so many is you kind of get a little bit different, uh, content material out of each one. Uh, I think one thing that this conference really showed was that, um, it’s not as much about the individual people or that business, uh, the individual businesses. It’s all about the systems and the processes because, uh, you come to these business conferences and you see these kind of testimonials from different, um, clients that work with, uh, the thrive time show and that no matter what the business is, whether it be a solar panels or home building or photography, uh, or homed good sales, it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what it is. If you follow the kind of process that the thrive time show teachers, it, it will work.

I, one thing that always blows my mind is when you’re at the conference, and I noticed how similar all of the successful people are. That’s, that’s probably the one thing that I, it blows my mind is regardless of their race or their religion, they’re always on time. Yup. That is regardless of their race or their religion, they’re always taking notes. And for anyone who’s not been all the business conferences start at 7:00 AM, which is a, you know, your, your other conferences out there with unsuccessful people probably start at 10 or maybe noon on Sunday. A lot of them, a lot of them do. And I noticed that people who are always successful are ones who are already driven. They would, they would cook, they would, um, call themselves self-starters. Others would refer to them as self starters. Uh, they’re, they’re, they’re kind of alpha, they just get stuff done and they’re, they’re taking notes.

And I find that the people that don’t have motivation and that can’t seem to get there on time are the ones that don’t do well. Have you, if you noticed that phenomenon, that’s funny. I don’t notice it at the conference because typically those humans are not there. Yeah, I just, I’ve noticed that, that, that’s an interesting phenomenon. I will say we had one gentleman that, uh, came to the conference and I spoke to him just briefly and he was wanting to know, you know, how much time we’re gonna spoke focused on motivation. I said, well everybody here should be thoroughly motivated. We focus on the execution of the proven path, not the how we feel about the path, but the execution. We focused on getting it done, the application of the knowledge. And he was like, Oh, I didn’t know that. A lot of business conferences I’ve been to, it’s always, you know, two thirds motivation, one third sales pitch. I think he was expecting that because he said, you know, yeah, I still worth it though because you always get one good idea. And then he came up through the end of day two and he’s like, I’ve got a book of ideas now. So I think that’s a big, is that different than one? That’s definitely different than other other kinds of business conferences or even other podcasts that are out there where it’s all about motivation and how you feel. And at the end of the day, no matter how you feel,

if you, if you don’t get Google reviews, if you don’t make cold calls, if you don’t, if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, if you don’t do a good job, uh, it doesn’t matter how motivated you are, you’re still not going to have a successful company. Now, Jennifer, what, what is your last name? Nate Dougald. Mick. How do you spell that? There? MC. Yep. D. O. U. G. a. L. D. McDougald. It’s almost like it’s a past tense. It’s at, yeah. Actually I didn’t pronounce it right when I was dating my husband for like a month before he told me. He’s really nice. Nice. It’s complicated. So I fake people to get it right. On average, it takes clay three years to get your last name spelled right. True. True. I’m working on it now. I know now you, um, uh, have attended the conference for your first time. Uh, how would you describe the, the conference and maybe what are some of the things you learned at the college?

Actually, I learned a lot. I really enjoyed the conference. I, you know, agree that, um, it’s a great conference for people who don’t want to go to the pep rally, who really want to go to class and learn something. So I had learned a lot over the podcast over the last few months, but I really got to at the conference, come in and kind of do a deep dive on learning more in depth about, you know, things that you can only cover topically on the podcast. So it was really great to have, you know, some thorough explanations on how to execute some of it. Now, what were some things that you took away? I know there’s so much in the boom book, there’s a lot of specifics, but for anybody out there who’s on the outside listening right now who has a company who has a business and they’re on the kind of that threshold, they’re going, Oh, I want to attend, but you know, is it worth flying from Houston?

Is it worth making the trip? At? What, what, what, uh, did you take away from the conference? And it absolutely was worth the trip. And I would definitely suggest that others come and do the same cause you can only learn so much from podcasts. You can get, um, topical knowledge and [inaudible]. But as far as learning how to put things into play and actually being able to go and, you know, fully exercise it and implement it, um, you know, the deep dive really did help me a lot with that. Uh, specifically the, the side of it that used to really intimidate me about the business, the SEO, the, you know, understanding how to run ads at run ads, but none of them were working. And um, so just getting that technical information that I can actually use and I’m not so intimidated by that anymore and I feel like I can go back and implement it now.

I always tell I was still our clients. I kind of refer to it as a search engine optimization myth busters kind of a thing. Cause I think there’s a lot of people that feel like only an Amazon or a Yelp or a Nike could ever possibly rank. Right. And I don’t think they did. They realized that the folks who made Google, Larry and Sergei actually made it so that, that, so they made it for the little guy. So that cause back in the day, if you wanted to beat us a big business, you’d buy the bigger yellow page yet or more commercials or, or, uh, and they wanted to make it where you could really go out there and wage war. That’s what is exciting for a business like yours. Jennifer’s, that you could go, you know, you could be the next pioneer woman in your own way. And that’s just fun to see, to see that. Thomas, when you discovered how search engines first

worked, uh, walk us through what you were thinking. Were you thinking a, you know, this probably won’t work and then B, it definitely will not work. And then Holy crap, it’s working. Or T tell us, walk us through what you were thinking when you first heard about how search engines work. Yeah. It’s interesting that you mentioned the kind of the big companies and uh, that kind of misconception that it’s only meant for the Nike’s, the Amazons, the apples of the world. To be top of Google because that was totally my thought, my opinion, uh, when we first started, I remember having that conversation of like, well, we need to focus on referrals and how to do the best networking because that is what matters in our industry. And you’re like, just trust me. We’ll, it’ll take time, but we’ll get there. Um, and it’s definitely not a overnight thing.

Uh, but nothing that’s truly successful is, uh, and it was years and years. Uh, you know, we started seeing results, uh, off of Google. Probably about a year into is where really started picking up traction, talking about, it’s like every day we get a lead from God. I bet you it was about 300 articles in before we saw any success. 300 pages. There’s probably about six months of my push back before I, uh, I think it took about 300 articles though to, to do it. And I think that that, um, Jennifer way as you were learning how Google works and meeting people at the conference who benefit from it and have it and who people who have benefited from it for years, what were some of the thoughts going through your mind as you’re hearing how Google works?

Well, um, I was actually really relieved when I found out how it worked because I always thought it would take, you know, like these big companies have deep pockets to be able to end up getting my business that high on the ranking. And so to find that there was another way to do it, um, just with some sweat equity and commitment, then I would be able to actually get up there and compete with, you know, competitors I wouldn’t be able to normally compete with.

Now you were able to get an insane amount of reviews. You have very, um, loyal customer base that really enjoys the products that you sell. How many reviews were you able to gather and just, yeah,

one day and one day we were able to get 141 Google reviews on unbelievable. 141 in one day.

Amelia came into the meeting and she just could not get over it. She was just like, this lady is just, I mean, we have a lot of clients that do really, really well on gathering reviews

all in one day. That’s, and that’s impressive. Yeah. I’m pretty competitive. I had been in a coaching program for like 24 hours and I said, okay, tell me the top number, what’s the highest number? And she told me it was I think 35 at the time. Yup. I said, okay, well tomorrow we’re going to beat that. She’s like, tomorrow. I said, yet tomorrow. And how did you, um, did you email your folks? Did you call them? Was your plan? So I have a group on Facebook where we have more of a community. We kind of interact a little more than we do, like on a personal level than we do, like, say on the main business page. Got it. Um, and they’re, they’re my tribe, you know, if I need something, they’re there. If, um, you know, they, it’s a sense of community. They followed me around for a few years. They are loyal supporters and basically, you know, it wasn’t about me getting the Google reviews, it was about, you know, I ask them are we going to let their customers beat our customers? And so my customers are competitive as well and they decided they wanted to be the top, um, Google review for the other companies. So they beat their customers. And like I said, it wasn’t about me, it was about them versus them.

That is awesome. Now Thomas, a lot of people come to the conference and say they’re having a hard time firing a finding good people. A lot of people would come to the conference from all over the country and say, my big issue is I can’t find people. I’m here from California and I have an auto detailing company and I love it, but I just can’t find good people. I hear another person say, I, I’m loving my business. The sales isn’t a problem anymore. By the way, once you, once you solve your marketing problems, it becomes a human resource problem. A lot of people come to the conference saying they can’t find good people. When you first heard about the group interview system that we teach, what was going through your mind as we were teaching? As I was teaching you that thing over, over a phone call.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. The group interview system was something that we really pushed back on a, in the beginning with kind of the mindset of we quote unquote need to find good people. Uh, not just kind of random people. Uh, and so we sat at Starbucks I think for like eight hours and wasted a bunch of time and interviewed like two people that were one-on-one. Yeah. One on one at eight hours. We thought we were different. Um, and now we do group interviews, uh, and we kind of over time have increased the frequency. Uh, and now we do them every week, every Tuesday at six o’clock when it’s the best. Uh, and you know, it’s something that so many businesses struggle with on, you know, quote unquote, finding good people. But we had a, we had a great person last week. Craig, great person. You, you, you didn’t meet the person.

They were great. And by the way, this show is going to come out in October. So I can say great last week I’ll get myself in trouble here. Great person. And then they just send a text message this morning, you know, doing the whole, I just, it’s not for me. Yeah. Makes you think, but we don’t even care cause we just hired two new people today and I’m sure you saw yeah. Last uh, yeah I saw the new people today, last Thursday, right before I left to con, uh, to leave, to come up here for the conference. Uh, had to part ways with someone and it was so freeing to know that it’s like, Hey, we’re not a good fit. Thanks for your time. Uh, but I know that today, Monday, uh, we’ve got a new person who’s starting training. So it’s, you don’t even, when you get to the point where you don’t have to worry about it, you don’t have to think about it.

It just something that’s totally off your plate cause you just have a system and process that kinda runs. I love to when it scales, not really, um, stressing out at all. I mean zero stress. I love the idea that yeah, you can replace him, that you have candidates, but I love the stress free nature of it because for a long time was built my DJ business, if I had one guy quit last minute, man it would just stress me out. And about a week ago, my business partner and I, we were, we were sitting there talking and she was like, I think we’re getting good, you know, where we’re kind of staffed. And I was like, yeah, but let’s just, we’re not going to stop because just in case. And then like I said last week had to let someone go and boom. We’ve already got someone filled that spot. No, no stress here. Um, did the, did the principal or the concepts of Jennifer, of the, of the group interview, uh, all all make sense to you? And did you have any questions about the group interview process?

Um, I don’t have any questions. I too, that if I’ve, you know, kind of pushed back, I haven’t pushed back, but in my head thinking, you know, I’m such a small business at this point, I only have, you know, three people on staff. So I’m trying to understand why I would do a group interview every week.

Yeah. Well let me walk you through that. Yeah. Let me walk you through this. Um, your business. Um, Steve jobs talked about, he says the dynamic range between an a player and a C player can be like 10 times as much. So as an example, um, my consulting program consisted of, of me and, uh, like 40 clients for a long, long time and it was very profitable. I enjoyed doing it. It was great. I would charge a client, you know, $4,000 a month. It’d be me and the client and then I would do with the majority of the backend work. And I had a very, uh, after I sell an after selling DJ connection.com I had a, a nice team. And, uh, then I hired John Kelly. Now you’ve met John and there’s probably only one John Kelly in the world of, uh, humanity. There’s as many idiosyncrasies that make this man wonderful.

But I decided he was uncertain on our search engine team. And once I found John Kelly, I realized, Hey listen, we could scale the search engine program to beyond just my 40 clients. It could do more, but you need someone with that kind of integrity to do the check, to make sure no one’s copying content. You would need somebody to kind of rigor needed to hold people accountable. And then that, and I did that by them and by myself with the 40 clients. But to grow at a certain point you need a John Kelly. So then we expanded to where we had like 80 clients and it was myself and you know, John Kelly and a certain team and to speak to Jennifer’s comment of only having three people. Um, we were there obviously a about 18 months ago. Yup. And I used to only do the group interview kinda once a month or kind of as needed.

But then I still had just constant stress about someone quitting. It’s like one of three quit now you just lost 30 30% of your workforce group interview and then every week. And then even if you don’t hire someone, that’s cool. And then if someone does quit, you’ve got just a whole list of good humans that are ready to go. Well you said is a hundred percent correct. And, and just kind of, I’m hammering home the importance of the group interview when your small is when, when John got really good and I gave him more tasks than I thought. Okay, right now this is the biggest we can get with the current configuration. Well then we started doing more group interviews and more group interviews and Marshall who’s worked with me for a long, long time. Marshall’s like wait, I’d like to step up in this particular position and I would like to help, uh, coach any additional coaches.

If you want to grow that direction, I’ll be happy to, to do that part and the group interview. Cause I, I’d done the group interview for the previous like 12, 13 years, you know, so I said, okay, so now you’ve got Marshall doing the group interview, he got him coaching coaches, you got, um, John over here managing the system. And again, you get to a certain point in your life. We’re, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re good here. We’ll then, uh, been out here. Amelia’s husband, Ben says, Hey, you know, I really would like to, um, you know, manage the team and I’m like, you want to manage a team of search engine people? Are you sick? Are you a crazy? Are you sure? And he decided to do that. And then that led to even more expansion. So what happens is great people, a players allow you to elevate.

When you delegate, you can delegate down tasks and then you can elevate what you’re spending your time on. But if it’s always stuck with you and two people that are very good, let’s say, or three, they’re very good, but they’re not at the same level as you, you get kinda stuck. Right. You know, and John is funny in, in certain ways. He’s been sort of my, my coach this year, so this crazy guy’s like, Hey, why don’t we book such and such on the podcast? And I’m like, uh, well, I probably should, but I don’t have the time to do it. I don’t have time to reach out to these people. And John’s like, well, I know your method so I can just do the method for you. And I’m going, you know, there’s nothing in the budget to pay you extra to book him. He’s like, Oh, I know, but I mean, don’t worry about that.

I’ll just book him. So then over time there’s more and more, um, uh, you know, big, big guests on the show. And then John says, Hey, if you didn’t have to do ABC one, two, three, how many books a month could you pump out? I was like, I can do one a month. And he’s like, well, let’s try it. So we’ve done like four books this month that I had had on my list for about three years because he’s been able to take certain tasks from me. So I had, you know, four books that are pretty much 80% done. In order to finish up, you got to focus and John’s been able to sort of look at my schedule and find that, uh, the 80% of the stuff I should not be spending my time doing. And it’s been able to do that stuff. So that way that I am, I’m freed up to do an idea, which he knows, ironically we’ll pay him more actually because as I’m able to do what I do, there’s more things for him to do and it’s a win win.

Now at the other area of the conference I see a lot of people pushing back on is the whole idea of call recording or video recording surveillance in an office environment or in a retail environment or in a call center environment or a Thomas, did you have any pushback on, on call recording and or surveillance? You know, I would say that’s probably the one item that I didn’t push back. Ooh. Yeah. Um, but yeah, we do a, we do call recording. We use RingCentral. Uh, we do video and audio recording in our office with nest. Uh, and, uh, it’s another thing that’s kind of freeing, uh, where you don’t have to kind of deal with the, the lies that a team members will tell you. Uh, and you can just in front of them say, Hey, let’s pull the call. Or Hey, let’s pull the video.

Uh, let’s take a look and we’ll watch it together and then we’ll go from there. And do you have people that have lied to you and said, Hey, I’ve definitely was on the phone. I was doing this, I was doing that. And then you found out they weren’t even there. Yup. Or I definitely was not vaping in the office. It was just a natural smell. Yeah. Was just a smells like nicotine all the time for some reason. Yeah. Cameras are super helpful. I am actually found someone drinking out of the whiskey bottle. Wow. I didn’t ever, maybe it was water, but I found it on the camera. Just looking for something else. So there it is. Speaks truth. So anything else Thomas, that you sought the conference that you thought, wow that that is a pushback area that maybe you used to have or that certain people have?

Because I think once people learn how to hire people, once they learn how to market, once they learn accountability, uh, things get so much easier once you learn these systems. Is there any other area that you saw at the conference that we covered that you thought, wow, that I’m so glad we do that now, but maybe a back in the day it was an area of pushback. I think two things. One is the kind of consistency mindset that you have to have in order to start and, or grow a business where you just stop thinking about, um, you know what the ad says or stop thinking about how much you’re spending. Just automate it and set it and forget it. And you know, you want to look back and see what the numbers are and make sure it’s working. And make small tweaks as needed, but don’t make an emotional decision every week of how much should I spend on ads or should I do ads this week cause businesses up a little bit this week.

Just do the ads and just don’t change it. And then the other thing I thought was really interesting and I don’t, I don’t hear it talked about too much on the podcast and kinda uh, kinda opened my eyes to a good thing for some of the lessons out listeners out there is if you don’t have a business, the conference can still be and is super valuable for you. So I think there was a three or four people that were at the conference that, uh, you know, have a job currently, but they’re looking to start their own business. And coming to the conference I think is a great idea for people to kinda start off on the right foot and understand what it, what it takes to start and grow business and how to do it the right way. And although it is self-serving a to dimension this, you know, one of our thrive time show guests we have on a lot is Matthew Klein with the Oxi fresh and obviously I’m a, a big fan of Oxy fresh and I’ve worked with them over the years.

Um, but with like Oxi fresh as an example, one of the attendees came to the conference and there they can’t buy an Oxi fresh cause we’re sold out in their area. That’s what they were saying. Well what other kinds of business could we do? And once you come to the conference, you’re going to know what kind of business you can handle, what kind of business you couldn’t handle. And there’s a lot of great franchise opportunities out there, which is why we’ve decided to help you a franchise, your business, a full package media here, hopefully in 2020 that’s the goal. If somebody were to go out there and buy a full package, they go to full package media.com and we can’t, you can’t sell one right now. But in the future when the franchises are available. Um, why do you think a full package media might be a good franchise opportunity for us?

For somebody? Yeah, I think a full package media is a great opportunity for a lot of different people out there, regardless of what your kind of situation is in life or with, you know, different family dynamics, whatever it is. I think it’s a great opportunity to have some time freedom and financial freedom because we’re as a franchisor, we’re going to take a lot of the stuff off the plate. So we’re going to do, we’re going to handle all the calls for you. We’re going to handle the sales, we’re going to handle the ad management, we’re going to handle all the editing, all the post production, all the customer service. Um, so it’s really a, your, your job where you’re out and about. You’re meeting great people, uh, mostly residential, real, uh, real estate agents, uh, and shooting, kind of capturing that content. And then we’re handling all the post production and booking appointments on your calendar and setting those appointments for you, uh, for you to make money.

So your state, if somebody buys a full package media, essentially all they’re, all they’re going to have to do is to a, uh, actually take the, the, the, the photos, take, take the videos. Yup. And then B hire, train someone else to, to take, to take the photos and videos. Yeah. Group better view, hire people, fire people as needed, do quality assurance on all the media that you do and then just meet and kind of develop relationships with three Altos. So if I owned a full package, basically I would wake up every day, I’d have a schedule filled with shoots. Correct. I go shoot those shoots. Then I upload the content to you and your team edits them. Yup. Can you answer the phone to book the appointments? That’s right. So all I have to do is hire people and train people correctly. That’s all. You’ll never have to respond to customer service calls, sales inquiries, emails from customers, even complaints. We’ll, we’ll handle all that for you. All right. All right. Now the, the consistency mindset, uh, there, Jennifer talked to me about, about that and how you keep yourself motivated as you’re, as you’re growing your business.

Um, I, you know, I’ve always had my eye on the ball. I did go through a period when we first opened. I really wasn’t anticipating the success that we would have right away. Um, so I spent a lot of time just trying to stay above water. And then when I finally got that under control, I decided to, you know, take it to the next level. And that’s when I sought out the coaching and, um, really going into the next phase with the plan. Um, and also, you know, I don’t want to do the next chapter like I did the first chapter where I had to figure things out the hard way. So the coaching program is, you know, educating Lisa to the conference on what to expect, you know, at different steps that, um, I may not be at that level yet, but I do plan on getting there.

So having that knowledge ahead of time and going into it more prepared I think will get me further faster. Um, but motivation is, you know, it hasn’t really been a big issue for me. I’m typically pretty self motivated. But um, having a coach definitely keeps you on track cause you know, you’re in communication all the time and that definitely, you know, just I have to have a personal trainer, you know, I want to work out and I, I’ll show up at the gym but I’m not going to push myself to that next level. You know, I just go do it and I check it off my list. So I

think a coach is like having a great partner too because you get to be right. So I mean you get to ask for [inaudible] a all the times you’ve a partnership, it’s 50, 50, and maybe the two parties can’t agree and ends up in this discord. And there’s that passive aggressiveness. But I love in a coaching meeting every time I’ve ever had a coach in my life and my business is, it’s great that you have someone you can bounce ideas off of, but you know if you absolutely don’t agree you can decide what you want to decide. And I and I like E T to your detriment sometimes, but you can, you can decide that right now we had a thriver that emailed in a question and I thought we would take some time about 15 minutes or to break this down because she was talking about at the conference the epiphany she had was that there’s a difference between formal education and practical education.

Like a huge difference between formal and practical. And so I thought I would go over with the listeners the differences between formal education and practical education. Cause I think right away when you hear of a conference you might think of formal education. So step number one, if you’re out there scoring at home and I, and I know you are there, you say step to step number one for getting rich. Step one for getting [inaudible]. Step one, determine your goals for what rich looks like. You know, determine your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, your funds. I mean really sit down and write that down. What are your goals for your faith? When are you going to practice your faith every week, your, your family. Like tonight I’m playing my kids one on five basketball. The basketball goal is now in the pool.

Okay. My daughter is a sweet shot. She’s 14 my son can, my son pretty good, but Havana can just shoot from anywhere. But my goal tonight is to beat the kids. There you go. And if I win, they don’t get any ice cream. Now if they win, they’ll get ice cream. So my, my goal is to make sure they don’t get ice cream. I’m defending team diet here. Um, they though want that ice cream. Is there something exciting about going home and knowing that about five o’clock central standard time I will be destroying my kids. There we go. And we’ve got the oldest is 14, they got a 12. You got a nine year old to get some seven year olds. I want to, I want to whip up on why did, I do I do but it, but there’s something liberating, exciting about having a goal, you know, um, a goal for your faith.

You know, I was listening to a Craig Rochelle’s, a sermon, uh, this week that the pastor of life church is just something beautiful about crossing off the to do list going, Oh, this, I liked it, you know, and then finances, I love, uh, going and checking on the bank statement and seeing it go up every week. That’s fine. I just something fun about the financial goal. Um, fitness. There’s something, there’s something that feels great when you’re on a path and you’re following a path, you’re making progress. Friendships, there’s something great about being around great people only. I mean, there’s just something wonderful about being around people who choose to see the positive side of life even even if they’re going through something. I just loved being around people that choose to see betterness and not, not bitterness. And there’s something great about, has setting goals for your, for your fun.

Now I don’t know that any of these things are discussed in college because I went to college and maybe your college experience was different. Uh, Thomas, but, um, did you, when you were going to Baylor, I mean, did you ever have a professor sit down and say, guys, the entire purpose of this program is to help you gain practical skills so you can go out there and pay some practical bills that are caused by you living the life you want. Did any professor ever say the purpose of going to this school is to learn how to make enough money so you can achieve your goals? Did anybody ever talk about that? No. Definitely not. I don’t even think college, uh, goals were well-defined. Uh, and certainly no kind of actionable steps scheduled to attain those goals. It kind of, more of everything general, uh, so that you can get out of school, get a general job in whatever and just kind of live a general life that is lame.

It’s interesting. But there was an article written by Suzanne Lucas and she’s talking about, it’s called why your barista probably has a college degree and it’s explicit. There’s articles explaining that there are more and more baristas that have a college degree. Uh, Jennifer, in your mind, how is it possible for someone to graduate with a college degree and didn’t know and have no idea how to optimize a website and have no idea how to sell anything? I have no idea how to manage people, have no idea how to do marketing for a business. How is that possible?

Well, um, I actually, I didn’t know you went to Baylor Thomas Sodo di I went to Baylor, I did not finish. Um, I ended up having my daughter early, but I, I tell everyone, I’ve always been someone, you know, I’ve always sought personal development and education, but what I was learning at Baylor for, um, an obscene amount of money, um, was not anything that I could actually apply in life. So I will say I got about 10% of my education from Baylor and 90% from Barnes and noble. And that’s back before podcasts. But that that’s truly where I developed my business skills and where I learned, you know, how to manage money and how to manage people. And

it’s so interesting whether I have an ophthalmologist or a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer or a retail store owner or a, everybody I have on the show who has a degree always is always says, you know, I’m, I met some good people. Uh, you know, we’ve got some sweatshirts to prove I went there, but I didn’t learn anything that I use on a practical basis. Now here’s a little fun factoid for you. When I say fun, I mean, this is, this is a kind of a fun, fun fact. We put us BP put kind of a spin on it here. The latest student loan debt statistics for 2019 according to Forbes, show how serious the student loan debt crisis has become for borrowers all across the United States. There are now more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe one point $5 trillion in student debt in the U S alone student loan debt is now the second highest debt behind only mortgages.

Wow. Think about that. It’s crazy because the, you know, they say it as a problem as the debt. And now the problem is that tuna people are going to college and not learning anything. Now think about this for a second. Um, Jennifer, when you bought a house or Thomas, if you go out and buy a house or you got a loan to maybe to buy a car or something, you ever heard of this concept called the appraisal? Yes. And they usually look at the house and say, Oh, it’s cool, Jennifer, you want to buy that for 200,000 or 300,000 or for whatever. It’s cool. You want to buy that car for 30,000 but how much is it actually worth? And the bank will only lend you a little bit less than what it’s worth because in the event that you can’t make your payments, Thomas, what does the bank do to your property?

Take it and sell it. So why don’t they have appraisals for degrees? You know, if someone wants to study history at oral Roberts university, currently it’s $41,000 a year. If they did that, then there’d be a lot of unemployed college professors. Right now, if you went to the university of Tulsa, it’s 59,435 so imagine you sit down with a student and you say, Hey, what do you want to study? And they say, history, you go, okay, will you take 60,000 roughly per year at Tulsa university? It’s 59,435 times four years. Well, you’re going to be out $240,000 and a year is a history teacher. The most you’re gonna make out the gate is X amount. They would simply not offer that degree anymore because nobody would ever get that degree. So step two and step one is write out your goals. Step two, determine what it costs for you to achieve those goals.

That’s where I see a lot of people getting it wrong. Determine what it costs for you to achieve those goals. So as an example, I want to watch every Patriots game. I’m blacked out right now though, for the free season. Yeah. And I’ve watched all the highlights, but it’s an abomination. But to watch the games, it’s like $120 a month or something for NFL direct ticket and the whole cable apparatus and all I ever watch is that. So my, my family will laugh cause it’s never on except when they play. But that’s 120 a month to watch my guys. So that 16 games a year, let me go to the playoffs usually. So we got, I got 20 games a year, you know what I mean? 20 games a year for, we’ll just call it, let’s say $1,200 let’s say $120 times 12 months. So I’m paying 1440 to watch my 20 games.

So I’m paying per game 72 bucks a game. That’s cool. That’s a great deal in my opinion. But that’s what I want to do. Therefore I have to be able to earn enough money to, to pay for that. Yup. What’s sad is when people don’t factor that in, when they go and get a degree and now they have a job that pays them, you know, $72 let’s say now, well they get about $72 a day and they’re working about five days a week and they’re going, okay, I make, Oh no, I make four 54 and $50 a week barista at a college and I have a degree. Now you know, you try to make those student loan payments. You can see why somebody students are defaulting because they’re now making $70 a day, $72 a day as a barista using a degree and that that’s an abomination right there.

Thomas D about this 72 times five that’s a 300 360 yes, they’re making, they’re probably making about a hundred dollars a day as the barista right now. Yeah, that’s hard. When you have a, on your earlier math at $240,000 loan payment, you’re making 1250 an hour and you’ve got a huge payment. Wouldn’t you rather have a house payment? Yeah. Or, you know, I think back to starting my business with literally $0 million. Uh, and if I would’ve had the money that I spent on college to start my business, it probably would have gone so much better, so much quicker. And there’s this book that is sold at college. It says you meet the best of friends. Now I, this is now again, if you’re out there and you would be your best friend, you met him in college. That is great. And if you have friends from college, that’s great.

Dude. Let me tell you what, my wife’s very, very good friend, her name is Heather. She loves Heather. She thinks Heather’s great. We watched the beaches last night. That’s the Tierra Thun. We watched beaches and, and her and heaven. He used to watch that a lot. Well, Heather’s great. If my wife didn’t meet her in college, you know, and uh, Thomas, you’re a great guy. I’ve known you for three years. I didn’t meet you on a college campus. That’s correct. Ah, I dunno. No, John Kelly out there pretty well didn’t meet him on a college campus. It’s like we’re getting to become friends with Jennifer didn’t meet her on a college campus. I feel like there’s this Jack ass theory that says that the only way you can meet people as in your formative years of college, because I find that people change a lot during college and they’re not the same person when they get out as they were.

And I find very few people stay in touch with college friends, not in touch with any of my college friends. This is what I’ve discovered though. I find, so actually I think if they were to say colleges where you meet the, where you meet the, and you had to fill in the blank where you meet the people you’ll never talk to again. You have the people you talked to for during college maybe for a little bit. And then that’s it. And a lot of colleges is like this forced, um, expectation of let’s have a beer. Here’s sort of that false expectation of let’s have a beer. Did you not go to college experience that, that, that sophomore year where it’s like, Hey, we got to go get a beer? Oh yeah. Like every, every meal. It’s like we got to get a beer look at every moment.

Like we, we gotta, we gotta get a beer. That’s true. And then when you get out in the real world and you own a business, it’s probably the last thing you’re thinking. Like, let’s go get a beer. You’re like, I gotta go places. Yep. That never crosses my mind. Yeah. So again, I just think that the car, like the guys who are like the college celebrities too are almost always the ones that can’t get a job. Yup. They’re the baristas. That’s right. That’s the guy with all the beer. That’s it right. Now, step three, if you want to get rich, you got to write out a list of problems that we write out, a list of problems that you plan on solving in exchange for the amount of compensation you’re seeking. Again, write out a list of problems that you plan on solving in exchange for the amount of compensation you’re seeking.

So I’ll have Jennifer share with us about the problem she solves. Thomas, I’ll have you share what the problems that you solved. Um, I’ve got some problems that we could solve. I’m hungry. So yesterday I went to a Chipotle, a paid them because I was hungry. It was incredible. I didn’t have to make it myself. I paid them. Yes. Wow. So that’s a company I paid the solution that’s called a product or a service. Um, people don’t want to cut their own grass. So yesterday I paid someone to cut the grass. I come home and smells like, you know, fresh grass being cut.

It’s a Sunday. My businesses are off on a Sunday. His businesses on a Sunday. Great. Boom. The pool guy. I love my pool guy. Never met my pool guy. The guys doing all the pool maintenance. Never met that guy. That’s perfect. I love that guy. We’ve got a good relationship going. Never seen him see the truck leave with the pool stuff in it. The pool guy leaving paid the pool guy. Cause I don’t want to maintain my water pH levels. Right. I just want to hop in the pool. Um, splashy splash. I don’t want to be thinking about what are my pH levels. Somebody says, well, clay, you could save a lot of money by learning about the acidity of water. I think it’d be very dangerous to have, you know, full Kim calm. I don’t want to haul off. Hey, behind my house, we got a lot of hay.

Lotta, you know, also pay someone to do that. What happened to Aubrey? He gets fired from Mon. There’s a lot back there, bro. It’s getting wild. He’s just a young man. It’s a bigger mower. Yeah, it’s crazy. Um, people don’t want to walk their dogs. There’s a company now called a wag. Wow. Yeah. And they will come and walk your dog for like Uber for dog walking on. People don’t, people want to get from a to B, but they don’t, don’t, maybe they don’t have a car with them. So Jennifer, you use Uber today, right? I’ve used super this whole trip. Say that. Okay. People in country clubs want someone to handle them. Hand soap, which I don’t understand at all. That’s weird. Have you seen that Thomas? Hey, it’s uncomfortable. Have you been to places like that? I have. Have you been at the places like that?

Jennifer? I have not. I don’t get out much. It’s like a wedding and there’s like a guy who courage. You stand in the bathroom. I encourage you one time in your life, find a way to get to a country club and just walks down. It’s scary. I can’t believe it’s a real job, but there’s somebody who offers you a meant there’s someone who’s dressed like you looking sharp. If you’re in the men’s restroom, it’s usually a guy, women that women’s wear, but they’re dressed up and they’re like, would you like a mint? Yes. I’d never had that thought of like, yes. I mean I don’t even know how to talk to that person and they’re just in there waiting for you. They don’t leave the room when you’re in there. They’re just strange. Like, would you like some mouthwash? Probably. You went to college degree, right?

Would you lie? There you go. Would you like some soap? Now people in country clubs though, turns out they have enough money, they want to pay someone else to hand them soap. I wonder if, could you clips going to roll out a guy that feeds you soon? No, that could be a move. All right. And then people want to shoot compelling marketing videos. Turns out Thomas real estate agents, they want to, why would, what would a real estate agent pay you to shoot photography and videography over there at full package media as opposed to doing it themselves? So most of what we do, uh, is, uh, very high quality, a lot higher quality than they could do on their own. And it’s also saving them time. Uh, so they could go out and buy a nice camera. They could invest in the time to learn and train on how to do it, but instead they can just pay us a, we knock it out for them.

Very kind of one stop shop for them. You know, people when they get get gasoline, like backup, uh, gasoline, they typically don’t want to put the gasoline and like in like a cup they want to put in their pocket. They don’t want to put it in their hand. They want to put it into a container. True. And I met the guy who invented the red gas can. Turns out he’s rich. I bet why everyone has a gas container for emergencies. It’s a move. Also. This just didn’t, most people don’t want to cut their own hair because they don’t. We are able, Oh yes, we are able to charge them for their haircuts over at elephant in the room. They don’t cover these things at college at all. It’s really at college we’re fascinated with learn things that nobody cares about. That’s true. It seems like like, okay, so now that you know about pirates, what problem can you solve?

None. Thomas river. That one time that I said to you, God can’t find my pencil or my pin or my extra sketch on my computer or a calculator or my phone or any other writing device at all. There is the papaya Russ and you said, I got it. Yup. Back pocket. And I said, Hey, do you know cuneiform? And you go, yes I do. I mean, seriously, no one, no one cares about your vast knowledge of things that don’t matter. That’s correct. I think it should be criminal to teach these things personally, but we continue. So step three, write out a list of the problems that you can solve. Jennifer, one of the problems that you solve that your business.

Um, well we offer online, we do a lot of business online and um, we have, our market is typically busy moms, busy running kids around and working and so we sell online. We ship. Um, also a lot of people have trouble putting things together. So our staff will help you, you know, you can send a picture of your room, your wall, and we can help you piece it all together and save you from having to pay like a designer to come out and tell you what to do. So we’ll kind of do like an in store, like one-on-one consult with you

in what kind of products do you see as a whole? So home decor, gifts, I mean, what are some of the things you can find in your store?

Home decor, gifts, furniture. Um, I mean everything from pillows to wall hangings, um, signs, some handmade, like I said, some manufactured kitchen items for every room in the house. We have a lot of bathroom humor signs.

Oh really? Really? Yeah. And what, um, and what is your website again?

Shop legacy decor.com.

No, I don’t want to paint you into a corner, but can you uh, we’re, we’re trying to picture this here.

Um, we’ve all mentally gone to our restroom. What are some of the bathroom humor signs or, or maybe just so we get kind of a mental picture.

One of them says no cell.

He’s in the bathroom, puts another one and another one says, text me if you run out of toilet paper

on your phone. What’s another one?

And there’s another one that gives the bathroom like a [inaudible]

four and a half star rating.

Well, right.

Johnson’s laugh there. That’s a gift. What? Oh, is there one more? Is there one you can think of? Let me think. Okay, here we go. Here we go. We’re going back to her.

We’re pondering what better way to make your bathroom echo and to be funny than by calling our good friend over here, ms Jennifer to get, what was that website? One more time.

Shop legacy decor.

[inaudible] that’s great. Oh, it’s impressive. I want to have that sound clip. I said it funerals, that way of a funeral ever gets kind of really down. Just hit that action button there. Dr. Timothy Johnson, our ophthalmologist client has perfected the art of laughing, laughing. And did you see how the conference, he was asking questions that appeared on our whiteboard. Well, not being at our conference. That’s wow. Did you see that special? He’s texting Justin [inaudible] and Justin Prince putting up questions on the board that I know pertain only to him. That’s awesome. That’s impressed. That’s sneaky. Okay, so now we talk about some. So step number three, you write out a list of the problems that you can solve. Now if you already have a business, right? A list of all the problems you can continue solving, what are other problems you can solve? At the end of the day, you get paid to solve problems.

So what are other problems that you could solve for your existing customers? That’s a powerful thought. Now it college, I pulled up the, uh, the curriculum here, um, for, for the, for the oral Roberts university, some of the, um, general ed classes. And Jennifer, I would just like for you, I know you went to Baylor, but this is oral Roberts university where my wife and I went and I’d like for you to share with me if you ever use these particular skills at your job right now. Okay. Um, art history survey three. Nope. Okay. That, that, that didn’t go well, so, okay. What about advanced ceramics?

No. I look at ceramics, but I don’t know how to make ceramic advanced sculpture. No. Really biblical Greek, no. Biblical Greek to [inaudible] new Testament introduction. I took new Testament. Haven’t used it at work. Anyway. Jewish civilization, no. Hermeneutics. Principles of biblical interpretation. Negative Hebrew X, a G X adjusts. Oh no, the word Hebrew is in one of our signs, it says that men are supposed to make coffee because God said he brews.

Nice. Nice. There we go. Tim Johnson.

Here we go. All right, so here we go.

Now you’ve got human ecology laboratory. Do you ever use that? No. Thomas, what about this one? Do you ever, uh, okay, here we go. Senior paper. Do you ever, you ever write big papers and business? Nope. Have you noticed it in bit? Have you noticed in college they want you to write a big paper and in business they want you to write a small pithy paragraph? Yup. That’s so true. Banks hate large proposals and business people do too. Seriously, if an employee gave you a 25 page document, wouldn’t you almost be irritated times they have and I have been irritated. What about travel study? Thomas, do you ever use that? Nope. Phonetics and conversation? Nope. Team ministry? No. None of that. You wouldn’t use any of this stuff? What am I? Okay. How about this? Well augmentation and persuasion theory and practice? Nope. What about a, Oh, I’m just trying it.

There’s soap. There’s so many. Non practical claiming. This whole this whole page was filled with things that I’ve never would. Quantitative literacy, it seems like it doesn’t even make sense. Music therapy. Oh that a thing. How is this a thing? This is a thing in your parents out there listening. If you want to get $59,000 a year in debt, what better way to get in debt that by having your kids take classes that don’t apply at all, how is it possible now, Peter teal couldn’t be here today because he was rejecting me yet again. But Peter teal, one of the early investors of Facebook, uh, he worth over a billion dollars, writes pretty harsh here. He says, university administrators are now the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers selling you a story that you should go massively into debt. And it’s not a consumption decision. It’s an investment decision.

Actually, no, it’s a bad consumption decision. Most colleges are just for year parties. Peter teal. Oh, so step four. I’d ask yourself this as we wrap up today’s show. Ask yourself, do you need a degree to solve those problems? Do you now need a degree to solve those problems? Don’t. Don’t say, I have a degree now. What problems can I solve? Don’t do that game. Don’t get a mixed up. Figuring out what problems you can solve and then say, what? What do I need a degree to solve these problems? And if do, and if I do, what degree do I need? So yeah, you need a degree to become a doctor. Yes, you need a degree to become a lawyer. You bet ya. You need a degree to become a dentist, et cetera. But Napoleon Hill defines an educated man as a man who is well, he’s as an educated man, is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he or she may require anything that she or he wants, or its equivalent without violating the rights of others.

Henry Ford comes well into the meaning of this definition. Henry Ford, who did poorly in school but yet was educated. Albert Einstein chimes in a little bit more feisty than a Napoleon Hill. Albert Einstein writes, by the way, Albert Einstein is the only reason we’re not speaking German. Now he developed the nuclear bomb and all the theories needed to make it happen. Andy created this sense of urgency for president FDR to start the Manhattan project, which created atomic energy that we use today. And we used to blow up the Germans because they were going to drop the atomic bomb on us. They were developing it. So we’ve developed this bomb to drop on the Germans, but instead we dropped it on the Japanese first and they said, Hey, we’re good, we’re good. And we say, you want us to drop it again over there, mr Hitler? And uh, anyway, so we didn’t have to do it there, but Albert Einstein writes, the only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Ooh, that’s brutal. But true. So true. Um, another, another, a gentleman here, uh, chimes. I have so many of them. Napoleon Hill says action is the real measure of intelligence. So I’m going to read off the list of of 76 people that didn’t have a degree that’s changed the world. So the guy who invented the modern banking system, a, P, G and E and E, no degree after dropping in high school. Check that out. Number two, you’ve got the world’s wealthiest man. During his lifetime. Andrew Carnegie dropped out of middle school. Person number three. You as Andrew Jackson became an attorney. Despite being homeschooled, he passed the bar, having no formal education for Oh the princess of the principles. Aunt Byler now aunt, aunt or auntie, aunties or auntie aunties if you’re from Minnesota. She started the business, uh, without graduated from college. All right. Number five, one of the world’s top photographers.

Ansul AMA Adams, no degree. Hansel Adams, no degree. Number six, the former CEO of paramount and the CEO of Fox. No degree. Barry Diller. Number seven, the favorite polymath everybody loves Benjamin Franklin. No degree. Despite having dropped out of high school, became one of the founding fathers. Deep billionaire boss who founded clear channel media. No degree. Red McComb’s, billionaire Billy, bill Gates, Microsoft and no degree. After dropping out of college, the power of perfume, Coco Chanel, no degree. The captain of each Kentucky fried chicken, Colonel Sanders, Colonel Sanders, no degree dropped out of school at just the age of 13. The founder of Wendy’s, Dave Thomas, no degree. The cofounder of. Oh yes. The cofounder of Dreamworks, Jeffrey Katzman. David Geffin. David Geffen has no college degree. Number 14 the man whose passionate was more than just a hobby. David Green hobby lobby. No degrees started hobby lobby was $600 David carp, no degree, no to Curry started.

Tumbler David Orrick Orrick vacuum. No degree. Debbie fields, Mrs. Fields, chocolate factory, chocolate chippery. No degree. Dewitt Wallace, the founder of reader’s digest. No degree. What he writes. Reader’s digest. Yes. Does Dustin Muscadet short of the cofounders of Facebook were 13 point $4 billion. No degree. The guy who reinvented the way that we do architecture flank, Frank Lloyd Wright architect, no degree. The man who makes the world’s best engines, Fredrick Henry Royce, no degree. George Eastman, George Eastman. This is the guy who’s one of the premier developers of photography. No degree. Wayne high Zynga thing. I started blockbuster video owned the Miami dolphins. Love the afford a Panthers. No degree. Henry Ford, the guy who modernized the automobile. No degree, and I could keep reading and reading and reading. I’m going to put all the show notes on the a. All these people on today’s show notes, because you talk about Ikea, the guy who started Ikea, Ingvar comp rod, no degree, James Cameron, the world’s number one movie producer, no degree.

We’re talking about industry changers here. No degree. Jimmy [inaudible], the guy who launched Interscope records, no degree. John D Rockefeller who created rubber and modernized the oil refinery industry. No degree. We could read this list all day. But the point is that people that change things as a general rule don’t have a degree. Now, if you have a degree, here’s what you’re going to have to do. You’re going to have to unlearn a lot of stuff. So Jennifer, I’ll let you and Thomas have the final word, but you’re both educated people. You’ve gone to college more than I have at least. Um, what is, what is wavy one thing you had to unlearn that maybe you were taught in formal education, that you’ve had to unlearn other, whether it be at the conference or through the podcasts or through reading or through Barnes and noble. What does maybe one thing you’ve had to unlearn?

Um, really, I don’t remember learning too much at all, uh, at Baylor just because I didn’t, I didn’t go very long before I realized that just wasn’t going to help me. Um, knowing that I wanted to be an entrepreneur at some point. Um, so I never really went down that path. I just, I felt like it was a false sense of security that I just didn’t want to keep racking up the debt for.

Okay. So Thomas, what is something that you’ve had to unlearn that maybe you learned at college and you thought, okay, this is how life works, and then you realized, Oh, that’s not how life works. Yeah. My degree was in athletic training. Sports medicine’s a very science-based, uh, so a lot of that was research and, uh, making sure everything was perfect before it was put into practice. Uh, and I’ve learned that had to unlearn that. Uh, and with business it’s more about doing, uh, define act, measure, refine is kind of the way to do it. And that’s, uh, so much quicker and saves money and saves time. Uh, instead of, you know, if you own a business and you try to wait until everything’s perfect, then you’ll never go or grow anywhere. That’s good. So you’re saying you learned the rhythm of entrepreneurship, define act, measure, refine to get defined what you think’s going to work, act, take action. Action. Is the real measure of intelligence according to Napoleon Hill and then measure measure. Is it working? Is it working, is it working? And then refine it but never stop. Correct. Don’t wait for perfect. It don’t, yeah. If you wait for perfect, you’re going to wait forever. Hey Jennifer, I appreciate you visiting us from Houston. I’m from Houston. I know you have a flight to catch.

Yes. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. Appreciate the conference. It was super helpful and I’m going to be coming back and I’m probably gonna bring some of my team with me when I come. Would you encourage the listeners out there to come to a conference? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I would. Um, I learned a lot. It was really mind blowing. I mean the second day by like 9:00 AM I was like, wow, okay, I have a lot more knowledge. Even having listened to every single podcast there was um, still learned so much in two days that I’m going to be able to take back with me and be a better business person because of it.

You know, something’s magical when you can actually ask a question because sometimes you listen to the podcast and you kind of get it. You’re almost there but you’re like, I don’t understand that one thing. Can I ask a question?

I had a few of those that came with notes on some things and I held them in to see if they were covered in their conference and they were, and if I had any further questions and I was able to ask them during the conference so I’m not walking away with a list of questions like I was when I got here.

Thomas, I appreciate you, my friend and for anybody out there who’s contemplating attending a thrive time show business conferences, what? Say you my friend. Do you have, do you have the final word about whether we should attend to thrive time show conference or not or, or why we should or shouldn’t? Yeah, I would say just, just make it a priority. Uh, just schedule it, uh, things that get scheduled, get done. So just put it on the calendar, go to thrive time, show.com and see when the next one is. Probably October, October. Well, this one here, we’re going to air this show October 22nd. Okay. So December. Yeah, December two months. Uh, there they have one. So I would just go, uh, just make it happen. Uh, if, if you can’t afford it, then they’ll usually work something out with you. Um, so I would just go make it, make it a priority, make it a rock in your life, in your schedule.

Uh, to get there. There’s so much value. Uh, and it doesn’t matter what stage of your, your business you’re in, if it, even if you don’t have a business like I mentioned earlier, uh, or if you have a business that’s been around for 20 years, uh, but you’re waiting to get to the next level or you’re trying to get kind of more out of the business and kind of more passive, no matter where you’re at, there’s something there that’s valuable for you. How old are you? 26. Do you remember what it felt like to have $100,000 in your account for the first time? It was pretty, uh, kind of unreal. When you hit $200,000, did your head explode? Did you go buy a bunch of burritos? I didn’t barbecue as you, as you get closer or got to $300,000, what happened in your mind? We’re getting there.

Uh, it’s, you know, it keeps going up and up. So it’s a good problem to have. I’m just trying to say out there, if you’re listening out there, the average American has less than less than $400 saved. And how old are you again? 26. And let me tell you what this guy has got. Uh, he’s 26 years old, so he probably has half as many years of experience is half of our listeners, I mean a lot of our listeners are 50, 45, and if a 26 year old man can diligently implement the plan and get at least $200,000 stacked up in a bank account somewhere, right? Yeah. And you pay taxes on and if you are 50, if you’re 60, it’s not too late. I see plenty of people at the conference, um, who, you know, um, clay stairs is a perfect example. He was a teacher for years and years and years, uh, became a millionaire through quitting teaching and becoming a public speaker.

He did not become a client of mine, I think, I think until he was like 47. Yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s not true no matter where you’re at in life, how old you are. Um, there’s always something, uh, something to do, some, some problem that you can solve. Um, there was a police officer that was here and it was like, he was like, I don’t, I don’t have a business. I’m interested in starting something. And I think in about three minutes, uh, you kind of laid out a whole path, uh, for him that he could probably do. I’ve thought about it all night, $100,000. Thought about it all night. I was thinking like, what can this guy do part time on the side? What something. And so I’d sketched it out. I, I laid it out in three minutes, but I, I lost like three hours of sleep thinking about that guy. So that was a problem. But we helped him. Patrick’s opt something. Yeah. Patrick is his name though. His son won the TB. He did. His son got the big TV. So big shout out to Patrick. Big shout out to you Thomas. Big shout out to Jennifer and [inaudible] we like to end each and every show with a boom. And so now that need further ed dude, three, two, one, boom.

Stop what you’re doing. And think about this for a second. What would happen if your company was suddenly able to generate exponentially more quality sales leads, so that would be incredible. What would happen if your company came up at the top or near the top of the Google search engine results? Quill? I would just feel overwhelmed with all that piss is how many thousands of dollars in lost sales or millions of dollars in lost sales are you missing out on? Simply because your potential customers can’t find you when they go online to search for the products and services that you offer. I refuse to think that thought because I don’t want any more [inaudible] unless you are a dirty communist that hates money. My new book search engine domination will help you grow your business. In my new book, search engine domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate the search engine results. What do you mean by dominate? You see in my new book search engine domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate search engine results. Download your free ebook copy [email protected]. I repeat. That’s the best SEO book.com.

My name is Amy Baltimore and I am a CPA in Covington, Tennessee. I’ve been working with the thrive team now for about a year. Uh, one of the first things that they did was to update my website and my search engine optimization. I prior had a website but I was not being found on Google and all of my new business was coming through referrals from friends, family, et cetera. And right away I started to see results of people were calling and coming in saying that they found me on Google. They just Googled CPA near me and there I was at the top of the page. And so, um, it’s been a great help to my business.

Again, you can download your free ebook copy today at the best S E O book.

Hey, this is Dustin Huff. I’m with Keystone Harbor Marina. Um, we joined thrive, uh, back in January and have been working with these guys for about seven months. Uh, during that time period, we have, uh, moved up our Google rank through reviews and SEO processes that we’ve, uh, uh, compiled through these guys. Our leads have gone from about four week to now, 165 a week. So the process works. Uh, I will tell you from experience once you begin, you have to stay with it as long as you continually do this weekend and week out, month in and month out, you’ll continually grow.

The system works, but nothing works unless you do. You’ve got to take some action. Download the ebook for free today at thebestseobook.com.

Hello, my name is Daniel Daniels heating and air here in Amarillo, Texas. Uh, the way Google has affected my business, uh, we have got a lot of calls. Google right now it’s July and we’ve had the best month ever and it took us about eight to 10 months to get on top of Google. And I’m glad we did.

Remember nothing works unless you do. You have to go to the best SEO book.com today. Download the ebook for free. Just just download that ebook for free and you’ll be off to the races.

Hi, my name is Christina Nemus. I am the owner and operator of angels touch autobody and T T healing in borne Massachusetts. Um, we have been working with thrive and they’re coaching for say eight to nine months and it took us about six months, five to six months to get on the top of Google. Um, and with their help with the website and marketing, um, and the SEO and retargeting ads with Google and it has been phenomenal. We just have light and day business coming in, phone calls coming in, uh, walk-ins, referrals, it’s just through the roof. Um, and we couldn’t be happier at the moment. We are up 50% this year from the previous year and not only is that part of our own hard work and diligence, but also with the help of thrive and what they’ve done for us and getting us on the top of Google and you know, all their knowledge and coaching. Um, and yeah, so super grateful. Super pumped to see what the future holds for all of us. Thank you.

This is

today is your day and now is your time. Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. Proverbs tenfold. I’m here to tell you, you can do it. If you could just motivate yourself to up. The masses had to cut off up to you. So on the day I could one day do a misshapen tree that I had to prove I had to make cuts to be here daily at noon. The way of a knowledge monsoon, I conveyed the no pervades dose of doubt in UYU the next buck or the next food room for the next Dr. King who tainted the walls in your way with your [inaudible] one. It’s up to you. I remember my days back into the dorm room like the template. Well with the jobs that tried to consume food, the future that I could pursue what? From the mountain top. Now I can do clue that you have what it takes. Do you want to thrive? Success day.

It’s your year to thrive. This moment is profound. To show above the ground. Your rope might’ve been rough with what you’ve got now is now even show you how what you gotta be assessed with the old plow started from the, I was prayed up, present, grind as a top dog. Then you got to get it. Don’t quit it till you see your YouTube success you will to say is your day and now it’s your time. It’s your youth to you. Today’s your day and now we all went to kid, but we cannot get without self discipline to fall on your face to up the piano teachers up to closed that bail with the friends when the storm’s getting up. The only thing that with yourself, what you believe, he believe in you, but not as much as God does. If you’re going through hell, he’s got nothing but God.

Apply what you learned. Increase which gun. Third apply. What’s your blurb? Increase what you burst into, Tom, you got money to increase what you burn in into tangent. Got money to increase what you burn in due time. You got money to shout down the towers, silver weeds that be killing your dream flowers. Empower you to D D devour all the obstacles that make your sweet dream sour. As for me, I used to straight but up on the microphone. Smooth. Like if I can do it, I know you can too, but you bust. Stick to it like posters too. And while [inaudible] shoot truth dreams today, okay, and now is your time. This is your year to sing it. Sing. It says, today is your day. Today is yours. It’s your time today and now we do a time. Sing it Martin. Today’s your day. [inaudible] time. I realize I can’t sing like that, but I can’t talk and

play the woodblock. Okay. If you guys need me, I’ll just be over here.