Business Book Bonanza

Unlocking Success: The Power of Business and Motivational Books

In this episode of 'Minding Your Business,' hosts David Praet and Scott Merritt dive into the transformative power of business and motivational books. They emphasize the importance of going above and beyond in your job to create opportunities for growth and development. 

Books Discussed:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Life is Tremendous

What to Say When You Talk to Yourself

Secrets of Closing the Sale

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Transcript

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One of the things, and this is what's great about reading books, you can find all this information, develop your skills before you're given a job. I always used to say to people when I worked with them and they were looking for more responsibilities in a greater role in an organization and today's world, we have this thing called quiet, quitting, or working to my pay level, right? Okay. So the, if you're paying me 10 bucks an hour, you're gonna get a$10 an hour performance. I'm not going above and beyond, right? So that's that whole quiet, quitting thing. Not gonna do more than expected. Gonna meet the expectations and done. That person will not get the opportunities to grow and develop in an organization. Never. I used to say, and it's backed up by Stephen Covey, by Zig Ziglar, by everybody you read. Do the job you want before you paid for it, right? A good company's not gonna take advantage of that and continue to let you do that without giving you opportunities. If you perform well above what your pay grade is, you are going to rise to that level. You will earn more, be more, and get more than anybody else on the team because you're doing it already. Wow, that intro music gets me pumped up and ready to go. Woo, feels good. Hey everyone, welcome back to Minding Your Business. I'm David Praet. As always, I'm David Praet. Joined by my treemendous co host, Scott Merritt. Do you feel tremendous, Scott? Absolutely treemendous. Today, we're going to be diving into something we're both passionate about, business and motivational books. We're going to share some of our favorites, break down what makes them so powerful, maybe even argue a little about which one's the best. Arguing is the best thing. We just talked about that, but before we get into it, let's talk about Why reading matters, why picking up a book can sometimes be one of the simplest yet most transformative things you can do for yourself. And I'll say this, back when I was a youngster, if you wanted to learn something new, books or a teacher in person was kind of the way you did it. Nowadays, in this wonderful, glorious time that we live in, we've got other options as well, We've got, YouTube, we've got chat, GTP, wait, how's that chat, GPT, and we've got podcasts. Yeah. Podcast. Which is what this is. Yeah. So I use all of those now when I want to be motivated or learn something, but nothing takes the place of having that physical book in your hand where you are learning from somebody else. Who's. Perhaps gone through what you are going through, they've kind of solved what you're trying to solve or you just need that motivation, right? absolutely. And you know, it's fun. The interesting about all that. It's not like a lot of people will read a book just the past time, right? They'll pick up a trash novel and that includes, you know, thrillers, whatever. but it's really about growth. So if you're just looking to sharpen skills, boost your mindset, or just figure out how to get through a Monday morning before you lose it. Absolutely. But it's like a cheat code, right? They give you access to the best ideas, experience and lessons from other people. And the key with reading a physical book versus watching TV shows. YouTube videos, et cetera, your mind engages as you read versus just passively getting this inflow of information. So reading a book is critical. Yeah, I've, I've, I do audio books. Most people do usually when I'm in the car driving. And if you've ever done that, do you ever find your mind kind of wandering? Absolutely. And I guess that could happen with written, with written word books too. But you're right. I think you absorb it in a different way. it seems to stick better for me when I'm reading it on a page. and a book can sneak up on you. It's funny how you can sometimes just flip through a few pages randomly. I don't know if you've ever done that, and you find the exact thing that you kind of needed to hear at that time. Like it just, when you're seeking the answers, what's that old parable, the teacher will present itself. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like a magnetism, right in, in one of my quotes that we're going to talk about later that, that is one of those things he talks about. So as you seek to find knowledge. The knowledge is presented to you because you're seeking a certain thing. And it's like this magnetic draw, the law of attraction, right? It's kind of that, oh, that's what it's all about. So we're going to bring the law to you today. Uh, we've picked our favorite business, motivational books, maybe we're going to unpack a little bit of why they stuck with us, and maybe convince you to add some of those to your shelf and, and maybe try some of those for yourself. We'll put all these in the show notes. obviously we would love to hear from you. What are some of your favorites? scott, you ready to kick this off? Yeah, let's get this thing rolling. Whoo. Before we get too far. You did bring a quote in here that I thought was really interesting. In my whole life. I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time. None zero. I thought that was interesting and the guy that can read and doesn't read. It has nothing on the guy who can't read at all. Who are those quotes by? well one of them was by this guy named Charlie Munger and then Ralph Waldo Emerson is the one that did the, the ability to read and not reading has no advantage over the guy that doesn't read, can't read. I don't know Ralph Waldo. Charlie Munger was, I think he recently passed away. He was the kind of the right hand man and business partner of Warren Buffett. So the guy knows a thing or two. Yeah. Yeah. Good reason. Good people to listen to. Okay. So I'm going to go first, if you don't mind. Oh, please do. So, some of these are, kind of old school because I'm kind of old school and these are some of the first ones that had an influence on me. All right. So I'm going to start off on this one with a little bit of trivia for you. Uh, this book has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Uh, back to Warren Buffett. He credits this book for his communication skills and it's influenced leaders such as Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Lee Iacocca. Originally it was self published by the offer off Originally it was self published by the author. Easy for me to say. Um, and a lot of these principles are used in sales training, leadership programs all around the world. So, number one is. How to win friends and influence people. I was going to guess that. Really? Is that on your list too? My, one of my very favorite. In fact, we just hired a new salesperson and he's like, what do I do? And I said, you need to read this book. First and foremost. So what I did with my books is I kind of put them in categories. And so this category for me, how to win friends is in the category of people skills. because I think if you want to get better at your people skills and how to deal with people, interact with people, that's what this book is. it was first published in 1936. It's gone through many iterations throughout the years. There's Different versions for different segments of people. I remember when, uh, one of my daughters was a teenager. We found a copy that was geared toward teenagers. but the original one was in 1936 and The core values still are, uh, remain relevant today for sure. I assume you've read that book at some point. Oh, I have. Yeah. In fact, last month at the Williamson County Chamber, no, I take that back. Spring Hill, Spring Hills Chamber has a lunch every month and they brought in a professor and a dean of students at the Jones Business College at MTSU. All business. Uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Business majors are required to take a Dale Carnegie class to the school. But one of the things that the professor said is these are, these are common knowledge things that are not common in everyday practice. We don't do it every day. How to treat people because we're all looking for ourselves. Right? So what, what can I get? Not what can I give? Yeah. And sometimes the, subjects topics are, it may seem super obvious, just like. Hey, everybody understands that, but, you're right. Sometimes it's not common anymore. so some of the topics are fundamental techniques in handling people, the big secret of dealing with people, ways to make people like you. And these are not manipulative tricks necessarily. It's just. Hey, there might be a better way you could phrase that. You're saying the same thing, but it's just how you say it. You're a big believer in body language. so some of these kind of go along with that. It's, it's, how you make somebody feel as opposed to necessarily what, what you're saying, how to win people to your way of thinking. A lot of leadership topics. So here, here's an example that I'll pull from it. example one is a boss is assigning a work task to one of their employees. So the bad way, the way he might say it is, I need you to stay late and finish this report. It has to be done by tomorrow. But as the employee, how does that make you feel? Not appreciated, not respected, and not motivated. So Dale Carnegie says, maybe you could say, hey, you've done excellent work on reports like this before, and I trust your expertise. This report is important for our client, and I'd really appreciate your help to get it done. Would you be willing to help us wrap it up? Makes the employee feel more valued, empowered. You said the same thing, but it's just kind of how you've said it. So, there's many, many examples like that on how to frame requests in terms of benefits to the other person. You know what needs to be done, you know what you want them to do, but how do you frame it in a way that it's in their best interest to motivate them to want to do it? Because We all do much better when we're being pulled rather than when we're being pushed. Exactly. Yes. win win. That's the whole, that's the whole concept, right? I win, you win. one of the biggest things that I think of at least once a week that I got from this book years and years and years ago, and I'll take a quote directly from the book. He said, a person's name. Is to that person the sweetest, most important sound in any language. That is profound. It is indeed. And I think about it as well because I'm really good with names. Yes, you do a really good job with that. Sometimes I call people the wrong name. But you say it with confidence. I do. And if, and then they walk away, my gosh, I guess my name really is Steven. Even though it's George, but no, that's one of the things that, that was the gift they were given by their parents. Right? Right. So that name was important to their family and that if you can remember their name and use their name often, it makes them feel important to you like their parents did. Wow. So that's the connection. yeah, that's if you were ever in a crowded restaurant or in a, any area and all of a sudden somebody yells across the room and it's your name, you don't miss that. Right. You hear it every time and you don't really, you might get embarrassed at first because everybody's looking at you. But at the same time, there's that pride that's like, Oh my gosh, I remember me. So that feels good. I always feel that way. Yep. A couple of other things to wrap this one up. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. So when you're in a social setting, you are in a networking event. You want to make a good impression. What do you do? You talk to the other person, you ask about them. You ask a lot of questions about them and let them talk. People love to talk about themselves. They indeed do. Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving. So again, for me, how to win friends and influence people. It's all about people's skills. It's all about how to lead people in a way that, they want to be led. But just a foundational book for anybody that wants to get better at people skills. Yeah. And develop relationships with anybody. So I love that book. One of my favorite books in the world. All right. So back to you, what you got? Okay. So uh, you know, I put a list together of about seven different books, but I'm going to talk about, something from a leadership perspective. when dealing with other people, and so like a lot of leaders, they walk in and sometimes that leadership role, and this is a good debate for maybe a future show is our leaders made or they developed. But one of the things, and this is what's great about reading books, you can find all this information, develop your skills before you're given a job. I always used to say to people when I worked with them and they were looking for more responsibilities and a greater role in an organization and today's world, we have this thing called quiet quitting or working to my pay level. Right? Okay. So, if you're paying me ten bucks an hour, you're gonna get a ten dollar an hour performance. I'm not going above and beyond. Right. So, that's that whole quiet quitting thing. Not gonna do more than expected, gonna meet the expectations and done. That person will not get the opportunities to grow and develop in an organization. Never. I used to say, and it's backed up by Steven Covey, by Zig Ziglar, by everybody you read, do the job you want before you're paid for it. Right. A good company is not going to take advantage of that and continue to let you do that without giving you opportunities. If you perform well, above what your pay grade is, you're going to rise to that level. You will earn more, be more, and get more than anybody else on the team because you're doing it already. Yeah, and most companies are desperately looking for leaders. Yeah. They're waiting for somebody to kind of rise above the crowd because they've got more opportunities than they have eligible, qualified people to take over those positions. Exactly. So one of my favorite books that I've read. And there are classes that go into this similar to what the Carnegie leadership team does, but it's the, the seven habits of highly successful people by Stephen Covey. Another classic. Another classic. Wow. These are all old school. Yep. First of all, we're not in our twenties, so everything we do is going to be old school. But the reason why they're so popular and they sold so many copies is because they work. They're appropriate, they're relative, relatable, all that good stuff. But real quick, the seven habits. Be proactive. So going back to what I just said about doing a job before you get paid for it, don't wait for somebody to ask you to do something. You see a job that needs to get done, do it. And then it gets recognized. People see things that you don't think they see. Yep. And so let me, let me add to that real quick. If you are working for a company that doesn't recognize that, I guarantee you somebody else will, and it may be at another company. Absolutely right. One of the biggest reasons people leave a job is lack of appreciation and that is aiding, according to the carrot principle, and that's not on my list, but, um, the carrot principle, the guys that wrote that book, and I don't have the author's name. They talk about specifically that so more important than money more important than titles is that appreciation and recognition. So if you really appreciate the job I'm doing, you're going to recognize it. And that's going to be rewarded in other ways, sometimes cash, sometimes not, but you get opportunities that way. I bet you, you've probably, you, you're looking for new employees all the time. Good, good employees. I bet you've probably hired people that were your waiter or a retail salesperson that just wowed you, right? Because of how good they were at whatever it was that they were doing and you recognized it. Oh yeah. Yeah. In fact, similarly to, you know, a good salesperson looks for opportunity everywhere, a leader is going to look for talent everywhere they go. And so when you see those people in that environment and you get to know them a little bit. So going back to that, you know, the first book about how to win friends and influence people and you're learning more about them, what their dreams are. There was a, I had a great experience at a restaurant down the street. This girl, the second week we went in there. And it'd been at least seven or eight days, brought all of our drink orders, knew him from the week before. And I'm like, what is that? And I'm like, what are you doing? What's your goal? And she was studying at Tennessee State and she had huge ambitions to grow and be something else. And I said, listen, instead of doing this part time job at a restaurant. Once you come work for us, we'd love to hire you because your ability to identify us, recognize us, know what we did, know what we're going to probably order for our drinks. That ability to be proactive is what makes you a highly exceptional person. We want that on our team. she, her schedule wouldn't allow that to happen, but. Yeah, fantastic person. And those are the people you recognize. She had the opportunity. Oh, yeah. And she will never be short of opportunities in this world that we are in today if you're an exceptional person, you have no reason to fear for an opportunity. the habit of a highly successful person is to begin with the end in mind. So if I want to build a big house, I've got there, I've got to see what that looks like. And then I go back to the beginning. You got to reverse engineer it. Exactly. You got to put first things first, that hard job. You got to do it first. The one that you don't want to do, eat the frog, eat the frog. Love that book too. Think win win. That goes back to what we talked about. So the things, the decisions I make and the way to get somebody to do something that we want them to do that may not want to do is to create a win win opportunity for both of us. I love that. seek first to understand and then be understood. there is a leadership void with people. And John Maxwell's writing a new book or he's been talking about it for the last couple of years. It may already be out. It's called high road leadership. And that's kind of the foundation of that is let's understand where everybody wants to go. And then this share what my vision is and let's create some next step synergies together. So synergy is one plus one is four, You know, whatever it is. So the components of all of these things are greater than the sum of things individually. And then the last one is sharpen the saw. how many people, you know, whether leaders. Employees, whatever it is, they burn this candle at both ends until they burn out or until they fail or they end up in a hospital because they've overworked themselves. It happens. Yep. You've got to take some time to sharpen the saw. And there's a great analogy. They talk about the wood cutter. Yep. I was just about to say, I think that was, was that Abraham Lincoln? Maybe. I don't remember who it was, but the quote was, if I had six hours to chop down the tree, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the axe. Yep. And the idea is that you're, a sharp tool is going to be more effective than a busy employee. So what does that look like in real terms? So in reality, so as, as you're working throughout the week, so you got self care, And people in HR world, we, we, you know, you talk about a work life balance. Don't overwork on one thing. Everything's got to be kind of a balance. That may or may not be true. If I don't work hard enough, I ain't eating and I ain't eating, I'm not healthy. And if I'm not healthy, I'm in a hospital. So there's, you obviously got to do the right thing and make the right decisions. But the point is that you can work smart, read a book, know how to do certain things a better way so that you can be better at your job. So you do some training with your team. You can, um, provide them opportunities to grow and develop their mindset and their skill set. And then by virtue of doing that, if you, we have a small team at access, we're 25 employees. If each one of those people develop and get incrementally better, the whole team rises and we all become better. So just taking the time to sharpen your saw, make sure that you're good to go. And then. I know that's kind of a vague response to your question, but, you know, what I think about is, have you ever been just grinding it out and your mind just is not there and you take a vacation? Oh yeah. And then all of a sudden you have all these creative ideas for your business and you, you come up with all these, wonderful plans and it just gives you a total totally different perspective. Yeah. Some clarity you got. It's like, like the old adage of, you know, you can't see the forest through the trees, so you step back a little bit and you get a different higher level picture of what it, what it is that you're trying to accomplish. Yeah. When you get out of the mindset. and you're grinding away and I'm trying to get a sale or I'm trying to get a new employer. I'm trying to whatever it is and you step away from it. There's another book that I've got in here. Oh, and it's called what to say when I talk to myself by Shad And the basis of this book is that you are from the day you were born until about 10 Oh my God, you're the best little boy in the world. You can do anything. You can grow up to be the president. And then you start getting your own dreams. I want to be a football player. I want to be this. I want to be that. I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, whatever it is I want to be. Well, yeah, but you know, Scott, you're not so good at science. You may not be the best doctor. Maybe you should have a backup plan. Well, you know, I know you want to play football. But you know, you're not big enough, you're not strong enough and definitely not fast enough. Maybe you should have a backup plan. So all of those things that we were told that we could do now, well meaning people, our parents and teachers and friends are saying, well, yeah, you may not be that good at that. You might want to think about something else. And you're inundated all this data, all the positives and negatives, your subconscious mind files, every one of those things away. So going back to what we were talking about, like your subconscious mind, the reason that you can think about those things when you step away from the problems, cause your subconscious mind didn't stop working on the problem. And so the more you can feed positive information into your mindset, the more likely you're going to have positive solutions to challenges that you are trying to solve. And so when you step away, And my subconscious mind is, is a faithful servant to what my goals are. And that's the basis of this book. You're going to step away from your everyday life, go on your vacation, step in the shower, and all of a sudden, holy crap, light bulb comes on. That's the solution I've been looking for. And I can take that back to work and then boom. And that all works. Man, that was a great segue day. All those good. Why do all the good ideas happen in the shower where you can't write it down? You're not the, yeah, I'm kidding. So best in mention ever is a, I say a dry erase board, but you need to make sure it doesn't get wet, but you, you got something that you can write on a shower or a recorder to get electrocuted. Hey, Siri. Hey, can you remember this? Please wait a minute. Did we go into your second book? Yeah, the second book was, my second book was, what to say when you talk to yourself by Shad Helmstetter. Okay. So that was my second book. And that's the one that talks about And you, we see it and I mean, it's a funny skit on Saturday Night Live. You know these positive affirmations, you're a good person, you can do it. Stuart sw. Yeah. So has a very a basis in scientific fact the more that you can. Tell yourself good things about yourself. So today's in, you know, so many people are anxious. They have, body dysphormia. They, they don't feel good about themselves. They don't think that they have a future. They're scared of everything that's going to happen to them because somebody told them to be safe, stay home. You don't have to worry about anything. You won't get in an accident if you don't leave the house. You know what else ain't going to happen if you don't leave the house, not a thing. We put ourselves in our own cages. All right, what about you? What do you got next? So my next book is one that you have never heard of, I bet you. Okay, let's see. So again, old school. This one was published in 1967. Very short book. I put this in the category of motivation and something you are very good at, Scott. Enthusiasm. Woohoo! So this book is all about enthusiasm. It is called Life is Tremendous. And it's by, uh, an author named Charlie Tremendous Jones. His nickname was Tremendous. Charlie Jones. Charlie Jones. Motivational classic. You're right. I have never heard of that book. It's a easy read. It's short. he's got some funny stories in it. got some cartoon pictures. So this That were drawn in the 60s. It's it's just an easy read when you just need a little boost, and one of the stories that he had in the book that I remember i'm pulling this off the top Of my head Was everybody wants to win the lottery. I want to win a million dollars in the lottery. My life would be fantastic and uh this little story in the book says Gentleman woke up one day. He won a million dollars in the lottery But, here's the catch, everybody else in the world also won a million dollars, So what did everybody do? Everybody immediately quit their job. So this man that won a million dollars, he went to the coffee shop to get his regular cup of coffee, but he couldn't get it because there's nobody working. All the baristas quit because they're millionaires now and then he, you know, he went on and on and on. And, the point was, be really good at whatever you're doing. really appreciate where you are, give everything you've got, you know, there's no such thing as, unimportant work. That's another concept. If you're going to be a janitor, be the very best janitor there is, and take pride in the fact that, you know, I sweep floors at the hospital, but what I do matters because it allows the physicians to do the work they do. It allows the nurse, you know, on and on and on. One of my favorite stories I used to tell my staff at the resort, we, cause you have housekeepers, one of the most thankless jobs in the world, maintenance, are the most self important people at the resort, and then the sales people, even worse, you guys wouldn't have a job if I didn't do my job. There's and I don't know if it was Zig Ziglar. I can't remember the person that wrote this thing, but he talked about bricklayers. It's guys walking down the street. I love that story. See guy building. He's stacking bricks. He go. What are you doing? I'm just laying bricks next guy in line. What are you doing? Oh, I'm building the wall so he was a little bit better than the first guy. The next guy. Well, what are you doing? Oh, I am building a house. That's going to be the safest house. A beautiful fame is going to live here. And it's going to be, it's going to last generations. This is going to be the best house on the, on the block. So, who do you, who would you want on your job? So, the idea is that everything that you do as a signature on, if you were to put your signature on every task that you did a job, and we kind of do now, right? We've got an email. If you send an email with my job, my report, whatever it is, I put my name on it, said it's done. It's done to my standards. How do you want to be remembered by that? So, that's the same thing that you just talked about. Yep. Tremendous. Life is Tremendous by Charlie Jones. Ah, it's a great book. I have not read it, but I look forward to it. Alright, well, I've already talked a couple of those. So, now, as you can probably tell, David, I'm a positive mindset person. Absolutely. Nothing in your life. Is good or bad except for how you feel about it, right? It's whatever happens, right? you can control a lot of that by your attitude and your ambition. But as a salesperson, I wanted to get into sales at a young age. I was told when I was dating this girl, her mom and dad always said, my God, you're going to be a car salesman when you grow up. I took it as a compliment. I know it wasn't meant as one, but because I'm a positive person, I looked at that as a, as a positive thing. I said, okay, yeah, I actually did sell cars. Sometimes I was good and sometimes I was bad, but because I started thinking about what I was going to get versus how I can help somebody. And in Zig Ziglar's book, The Secrets of Closing the Sale, Zig Ziglar talks about different things, negotiation skills, great relatability stuff. But one of the things I took out of that book, if you believe enough in a product to own that product, yes, you can sell that product. Absolutely. Now, and you should own your product if you're selling. Yes. Yes. Now I was in the timeshare business for 25 years and any of my friends that ever listen to this show I love what you do. Love what we did together but Timeshare is not for everybody, right? Right. But we try to convince everybody that they needed to do it. We did the whole thing and try to convince people. You used the word earlier, manipulate people. We made people feel bad about making a decision. that didn't give their family the opportunity to build memories together. Now that's a powerful closing tool. It's horrifically manipulative because there's a million other ways you can vacation. It does not put your family in financial risk. but that was a great book. And so now that I'm in sales still, and I enjoy my career, I work for an amazing company that rewards us for what we do. But more importantly, I believe wholly. And holy being W. H. O. L. L. Y. fully believe in the services that we provide. And I know that the team that works at Exodus is as good, if not better than any other team out there in our space, and they take great care of our customers. I can sell that all day every day. And I do I love it. Yeah, that's a good one. So that's my night in the next one. so that was called secrets of clothes and sale by zig ziggler another old school classic Gosh written in the 50s, I believe Yeah, that's amazing. And I think the story Was at the time zig ziggler was selling pots and pans door to door And these were not inexpensive pots and pans. No You And he was young and recently married and didn't have a lot of money and really couldn't afford the pots and pans himself. But you know what? He bought a set of pots and pans because he knew that if he couldn't sell himself, he couldn't sell anybody. Yeah. And he found by doing that, that he believed in the product. He had it at home. Yes. He used it every day. And he could stand in front of that customer and say, I own this product. I use it every day. It is amazing. Let me tell you why. Yep. So the belief in your product goes up exponentially if you own it, because if you don't, because theoretically, I believe in it, but no, no, no, no. I'm, you know, the old commitment thing, right? your breakfast, the, the, the, what's the word fully committed and committed. So what's the difference between commitment and contribution? Yeah. So the hen is contributing, laying the eggs, but boy, that pig, he's laying down the bacon. He's committed. All right. My next one, my next one, I'm putting in the category of finance and investing. And this one, when I read it. Changed my mindset and I think if you haven't read it and you do and you will read it You it will change your mindset as well This one is rich dad poor dad by robert kiyosaki Have you read that one? I have that one came out in 97 another one that's been around a while, but this one changed my mindset because I think we're all Old groomed and brought up with the employee mindset, right? Go to school, get good grades, continue to get good grades. If you do that, you'll get hopefully hired by an employer. if you keep your head down and work hard for that employer, they will take care of you. And that's not true. Little secret. Not always. And so this one was. basically saying, you know, if you look at the people who have made it, the rich people, they don't work for money. and so, you know, he kind of went back and forth when the story of having his real dad, who was the poor dad, and then he had a mentor who was the rich dad and he learned lessons from both of them, what to do and not to do. So poor dad was working hard for a paycheck. Rich dad. said, Hey, you've got to make money work for you. So focus on assets, not just earning wages. So this one, is mind expanding. And one of the concepts in it is the four quadrants, top left, top, right, bottom, left, bottom, right. First one is, uh, the first quadrant is I have a job. I work for a paycheck. I exchange time for money. I'm looking for job security, benefits, blah, blah, blah. The next quadrant is S, self employed, uh, which is I am my job. They work for themselves, but they're still trading time for money. If they stop working, their income stops. an example of this would be a doctor, a lawyer, they have to show up to work every day to earn money. The next quadrant is B for business owner. I own a system. You build a business that runs without them. They earn passive income by leveraging other people's time and effort. And then the last one is I for investor. Money works for me. I invest in real estate, stocks, businesses, or other assets to generate passive income. Yeah, those are great. One of the things that I learned at an early age too is while you might be in that E quadrant, the biggest mistake you can make is that you don't work for yourself. Obviously you got to have something bigger than just the job itself, right? But I choose where I work. I choose what my wage is. I dictate what my value is. At work. So the talk today, and it's super popular in different areas, is this minimum wage, right? Minimum wage should be a livable wage. I should be able to afford a house or an apartment with minimum wage. Now, when I first started working, Dave, and I don't know, I, you're a year or two older than me. When I first started working, minimum wage is 3. 27 an hour. That sounds about right. In 1982, I could not pay rent on 3. 27 an hour. The same holds true today. Federal minimum wage is 7. 25. I should not be expected to pay, be able to afford an apartment. Minimum wage is a, is kind of that standard. And this is my belief that says, this is what everybody, an entry level, non skilled non experienced person is going to make teenager, a teenage kid that goes to work at McDonald's first job, first job. What was your first job, Dave? Uh, my first job, my first real job was working at the Ramada in In Meridian, Mississippi, cutting grass and landscaping. I was kind of the gopher for the maintenance guy, I suppose. So any job that he didn't want to do, I would get cleaning the, the pool, learned a lot. but they hired me. I didn't have any skills, So I deserved a minimum wage, but the key was I got better. I learned things. I understood, I started to understand how business works, which made me more valuable. so then I parlayed that into something bigger that wasn't minimum wage. Yeah. A foundation, right? so a minimum wage to me. is just that. I don't have any experience. Don't have any skills. I'm here to learn. Teach me. I'm not going to be able to buy a 300, 000 house just because I got a job. You got to work your, your way into it. But that's just me. I'm not one of those big believers that I should pay everybody 15 an hour minimum wage just so that they can live. when I was young, when I was 20 years old, I literally worked over 100 hours a week. It was not easy. I had 20. I had a daughter. I had 21. I had two kids. So to feed them, to house them, to clothe them, My wife and I both worked a lot. So, we sacrificed a lot of stuff, but we worked. Yeah. And they didn't learn anything else. They learned that you, there's 24 hours in a day. Everybody's got the same time. Right. What are you gonna do with it? But rich dad, poor dad, if you want to understand how money works, how to make money work for you, how to break out of the rat race, that's one of his big terms, the rat race. So the whole goal is to learn these concepts, get in a position where you own something and some type of an asset that is going to work for you so that you one day don't have to work for a paycheck. Yeah. I love that idea. And get out of the rat race. Well, and more importantly, as you grow older. When those assets mature and you're no longer paying a mortgage, you could mortgage on it. And obviously your renters are hopefully paying for that rental asset, but you have some equity and you have every bad thing that's ever happened to me in my life. I was like, man, I wish I would have done that so that when this happened, I didn't have to stress. So if you have that, you have that, that peace of mind really. So there's no difference between the rich dad and the poor dad, except for his outlook on, on the best way to leverage his income. So one invested, one just kept working and yeah. Yeah. What's next on your list? well, my last one I want to talk about. Did I talk about blink? No, I did that with when we were off air. Um, there's a book by Malcolm Gladwell, which is called blink. The art of thinking without thinking. Now, it seems like an interesting title, and it seems like Why would I want to read any of that? But it really goes into people's mindset and that gut instinct that people have. That gut instinct is based on hundreds and hundreds of decisions that you've made over your life. Some were great. Should I go drinking with my buddies on Friday? Probably not a good idea depending on what you got to do on Saturday. I had a lot of friends in high school that went drinking on Friday and we had a Eight o'clock practice in the morning and they didn't really appreciate eight o'clock practice. Um, they were behind the shed puking, but, not a good decision. So hopefully they learned through that. But anyway, I use that as a, as a very outward thing. But the thing that I loved about this book more anything else, And we go back to that body language thing, and there's so many people today that misunderstand misinterpret, and that whole miscommunication thing. And when you break everything down in the communication. Realm, there's this 7 percent of all communication is verbal. 38 percent is tone. I can say to you. Have a nice day. Have a nice day, Dave. Have a nice day, Dave. Two different things, right? And then the last, the bigger than that even is 55 percent of communication is non verbal, non tonal in its body language. So your facial expressions, your, um, just how I'm sitting in a chair. If I'm leaning forward, I'm engaged. If I'm sitting back, I'm not. Whatever it might be, I can tell a lot about that. The biggest takeaway that I learned from this book, cause they did a lot of research in different cultures, different countries, all over the world, body language is the same everywhere. So my facial expressions are the same everywhere. So I know if you're happy, sad, angry, whatever it might be, but the takeaway for me. As big as all of that was is that when they're going through this exercise and they were mimicking the different facial expressions, they literally had a physiological change in their body. If they were using a sad face to demonstrate sadness, and they kept doing that over a period of time, they literally became sad. Being the positive person that I am, I take the reverse of that. If I wake up in the morning and I'm not feeling my best, I get up, I brush my teeth, I look in the mirror and I will say, going back to Shad Helmstetter's thing, I will say a positive thing to myself. I'll smile and I'll keep that smile on my face. When my boss hired me, he introduced me to the team and he said, this guy's always got a smile on his face. And there's a reason for that. I'm happy, but am I happy because I have a smile on my face? Or do I have a smile on my face because I'm happy? Who knows? I won't tell. So Blink, Blink goes into all these subtle cues, body language. Yeah. So what if I'm, so the purpose of the book obviously is to help people get over this whole, analysis paralysis by analysis when they're trying to make a decision. Okay. So, so many people and you've been in organizations that did this, they would say, this is what we're going to do. And they put this whole flow chart on there. They use Venn diagrams. They do all these things. If we do a, B is going to happen. If C happens, we're going to go over here and we're going to change. We're going to pivot, which isn't a great word, but we'll try something a little differently. And we're going to keep doing those things until we get all the way to the bottom of that chart. And this is the result we want, right? So we got to do something to manipulate this formula. That gives us the output. Okay. Okay. Now, if I go back to, we talked about before about the the habits of highly successful people, and I work with the Indian mind, I can reverse engineer, then take a shortcut, right? Instead of letting. No offense to all my accounting friends. Instead of letting an accounting person dictate how I'm going to do my job or how I can hire people based on this, I'm going to go out there and earn the money to make sure that everybody else in the organization thrives. That's my instinct. I'm a positive person. But the goal of this book is to share that every decision you've ever made is stored. That gut instinct that you have is important. And they've shown that people that can make a split second decision are just as accurate if not more accurate than the people that go through this analysis process. The one thing that they have that separates them is they make decisions so quickly and once they make a decision, they don't second guess it. Nope. They don't think about it straight ahead. Because at the end of the day, sometimes it doesn't matter what the decision is. Just make a damn decision and go with it. How many times have you said that to your partner, whoever it was? I mean, God, we don't got to eat. Let's just go. Yeah. effective leaders seem to really have no trouble making decisions. They're not wishy washy. Which is a great point. And what happens because of that? They have a following. Oh, for sure. So those people gravitate toward that. I want to go where David's going because David has got it going on. He's got, we've got a clear direction. We know where we're headed. Going back to that. I work with the end in mind. This is what I want to get. So I'm going to just keep doing what Dave says. Cause we, he's gotten there before and he'll get us there again. So yeah. My next one is especially for business owners The E myth. Have you read the E myth? I have not even heard of the E myth. The E myth by Michael Gerber. And so the whole point of the E myth, the message of the E myth is so many people are really good at X, Y, Z. Let's say they're really good at accounting. And so they say, you know what, I'm going to start an accounting company. they get in the business and they basically are. the worker in the business and they have a job, but they never really have a true business. So when they go to sell that business, there's no value in the business because it's all them, right? So the point of the e myth is when you are starting a business, you need to be very clear about building systems. That are repeatable that anybody can come in and handle So the perfect analogy and I think he covers this in the book is mcdonald's Have you ever seen the movie about ray kroc and How mcdonald's got started it was originally two brothers who were obsessed with having the best fast food hamburgers And uh, they didn't really want to expand they were happy with their one or two stores. They had Ray Kroc came in, saw the potential, put in place systems. So now any McDonald's in the world is going to have pretty much the same consistency, they can plug anybody, any employee into that system from a teenager at their first job, maybe somebody that, doesn't even speak our language, but they can plug anybody into that system. And the hamburger comes out the same. Why is that? Because they have a system, right? Right. You have a business. So the e myth is all about taking yourself out of the business. and the key is, and you've heard this before working on your business and not in your business. So that's the e myth. I love that. There's so many ways that we see that. the people that we know, and it does become a trap. And so, when you ask any business owner, what's your goal the next 5 to 10 years, almost all of them will say, well, I want to build this thing up either to franchise it or to sell it. And if they're the ones. Behind all of this stuff and there's a great person in town. I won't say their name had a great store and I ran into them last week and they they were the goal was to franchise this concept. The concept itself was not clear. I saw this and I'm not a big business mindset person. I can walk in and play how you like it. I don't, but I walked in and I'm like, yeah, this, it's going to be tricky. You got to pick a lane. And then we did not end up doing business with them, but they're no longer open. Not because they didn't do business with us, but because they did not have those systems in place and the vision was too broad, not defined. Yeah. I heard somebody say, If you take yourself out of the business and the business can't run, you don't have a business. Yeah, you have a job. Yeah. Yep. E Myth by Michael Gerber. E Myth. So, do you have more? No, you have a sales one, too. Yeah. So my last one falls into the sales category. This is the most recent of all my books. when was it written? Uh, this, this was written in 2017. Oh, so it is new. Yep. And you'll know this one probably because of the movie. Oh. Have you ever seen the Wolf of Wall Street? Oh my goodness. Who hasn't seen? Yeah. Leonardo DiCaprio pound. No, that was, that was, yeah, that wasn't, that was pounding his chest. I heard that was that whole thing was improvised. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine doing that scene with him and he improvises it? Yeah. You realize you got to go with it, roll with it. So the, the gentleman in the movie, the real gentleman is, is Jordan Belfort. And, um, ended up going to prison. Did you know that? I did know that. Why did he go to prison? Uh, because he was selling things the wrong way. And, uh, you know, here's a funny story. When he was in prison, do you know who else was in prison with him at the same time? Oh, Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong. Oh, really? Yeah. Huh. They should have worked together. Little trivia there. They probably did in prison. You know, Jordan came out of that, uh, with a new perspective and he said, I'm really good at sales, but I've been doing it for all the wrong reasons. Why don't I now do it for the right reasons? Yeah. And so now he's a sales trainer. He's got a great, YouTube channel on sales. he's kind of hard for me to listen to because of his thick eastern accent, New York, New Jersey, wherever he's from. It's got an edge to it, but the guy is amazing. So he, so the book that he has on sales is, the way of the wolf. the whole premise of this is he's got a system that he developed called the straight line system. if you can imagine a straight line on a piece of paper, you start on the left side and you systematically go through. different points in the sales process until you get to the far right, which is the end. that's the straight line system. the whole point is you are guiding your prospects along that straight line. from initial interest to closing the deal, I like that we, you know, being in the timeshare business for so long, we had a process as well and it was very similar to that. obviously a lot of these things kind of follow, but using that straight line system By Jordan Belfort is pretty smart. because you don't lose place, right? No, you have a process. The other thing he that's really important in this. He said he calls it the three tens. So he said a prospect that you're selling to must rate on a scale of one to 10. They must give you a 10 on three things for a sale to happen. Number one, they have to give you a 10 on your product or your service. They must love what you're selling. So in the beginning, they might be at a two, They might come in at a five, but wherever they come in for a sale to happen, You have got to get them to a 10 on, on their impression or their belief in your product. Number two, they must give you a 10 in you, so they must trust and like you. As the seller, You got to build the rapport, You've got to, uh, get them to believe in what you're, you're selling. Number three, they, uh, on a scale of one to 10, they've got to give you a 10 on your company. So they must believe in the business behind the product. So as you're taking them along the straight line, Your goal is to get a 10, move them to a 10 on product, on you and on your company. that's profound. Now think about this when you're looking for salespeople, if you have a process in place, you literally just find nice people. As long as your company is reputable, right? Right. So if you have, and I'm going to be negative on this one, not really negative. I'm going to be the. I'm going to be the antagonist, if you will. If you have a super sharp, super, well, the used car guy, you think about that slimy cheesy guy that's just trying way too hard, right? And he's trying to manipulate you. So having been in all of those different environments, I can recognize when the person is more polished than the company. And so using his 310 system, those are the ones I don't buy from. So because I recognize what they're trying to do, they're trying to take advantage of me. They're not helping me. But I found that book really, it was some really practical advice and I actually worked for a company for a while that built their whole sales process around the concept of the straight line selling system. So. It's a good one. Did you have a hard time reading that book knowing what he was about in the, in the beginning? You know, or did you overlook that? I mean, he pretty much talks about how he has totally changed his life, you know, all the remorse. so, you know, he does a good job of kind of explaining where he was and where he is now. So, I guess he's getting me to attend on him as a person. There you go. I'm just curious. Yeah. but he's got some great stories. I, well, there happens true or interesting as the movie. And yeah, he had some stories. let me ask you this question. Okay. Do you have an example or maybe a story of reading a book and how it impacted your business or personal life? Well, I'll talk about the same book, but I'll talk about with my kids. So every parent in the world. And so this goes back to what to say when you talk to yourself, if you could give your kids a tool to be successful or to be a good, member of society, a productive member of society, you want them to believe they can. And so that what to say to talk to you, I, my given that to my kids and I've said to them, whether I've said something wrong to you in the past, my daughter and I had a rough, a rough relationship for a number of years, because she didn't know a whole story about different things. But, 1 thing she knows is that she can depend on herself. And so people that have that negative self image, I, We're all the same people. We all have the same fears. People that say that they're afraid, you know, they talk about how people that are afraid of public speaking get in front of three or more people terrifies them. They're they're more afraid of that than they are of dying. If you do all this stuff the day you're born to the day you die, right? He ain't got to worry about any of that stuff. But the fear of speaking in front of a group of people, if that's worse than dying for you, if you believe more in yourself and you've seen examples of people stepping in front of a crowd, wows them. And then you saw what they did the very first time. just that belief because it's life changing. So that book has done more for me. Than any other book that I've read even more than the Bible and we that's another story what are your favorite business and motivational books? Let us know at minding your business show at gmail. com or on our Facebook or LinkedIn page. We always appreciate hearing from you. Let us know if you have any suggestions for future episodes or for specific guests or topics we are here to serve. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Dave. That was a great episode.