Candid Conversation with Host Adrienne Barker, MAS

The sun is shining. You have the world's best smile. And who did you get it from, your mom or your dad?

My orthodontist, actually. I had braces for 3 years in junior high. Thank you to my French grandmother, my mamie, who paid for all 4 of us to have braces when we were in junior high. So back in the old days, it was the "Ten Grin is In," right? You remember those t-shirts?

No.

So, uh, since I spent so much time, uh, you know, with headgear and, uh, going to see the orthodontist and going through that misery in junior high, I always just tried to follow the philosophy that, you know, just floss the ones you want to keep.

I mean, you embody just like you just brighten a room. And it's funny because a lot of people will say that about females. You'll hear that often, right? A female brightens the room. So when I heard you— so I first met Frank. We don't really know each other. I first met Frank at 1 Million Cups. I didn't know anything about you. And I'm like, I'm like, his smile is like the best smile ever. And then I got the courage because, you know, I need courage too to take the microphone and say to you about your smile. And then afterwards, learning about who you are and Daniela explaining. So tell, and tell, can you just share who are, who's Frank Stewart? Who is Frank R. Stewart? Take the mic.

Okay. Well, if you remember a few years back, we had those big hurricanes that came through here in the northeast coast of Florida, 3 and 4 years ago, right? Anyway, I was a sales manager at an oceanfront resort for vacation ownership with a top branded name in the industry. and we got closed down for a little bit because of the hurricane coming through. It was a big Cat 5. So I've got about 30 years of sales and sales management experience after college, and I'd had a couple, a couple years before that I kind of decided that, you know, as time was going to go by, that I wanted to have an opportunity to fly my own flag, become an entrepreneur, and do my own sales training and speaking and things like that. Because I've done a tremendous amount of speaking to groups what we call a group podium presentation. And that's where you talk to 10 to 20 families at a time about their vacation lifestyle, and you present the idea of owning their vacations versus renting them, right? And, and to get people in the room, well, we'd have to bribe them, right? We'd have to give them a gift, you know, for 90 minutes of their time. And about 15 to 20% of the people that we invited in would choose to buy, right? So I did that successfully for about 20 years. Selling an intangible item, vacation ownership, on a one-call-close situation. So I've talked to about 20,000 families over the years about what's most important to them, and I'd always want to find out, you know, find out the why. What is it that motivates them in their life, right? And as we've learned over the time, and that kind of came naturally just by following my dad's advice, but um, just, you know, learning because he was in real estate sales as I was in college. So he always tried to teach me, you know, to find out what people wanted and then try to find a way to give it to them, right? So I just kind of took that philosophy to the kind of the high-pressure, one-call-close environment that vacation ownership or timeshares is commonly referred to as. So I did that for a long time, and most people don't make it in that industry for very long. You know, they make it for 3 months, 6 months, a year maybe. But so I lasted 20 years. I personally shook hands and closed deals on almost— it's a— we tallied it up a while back, $60 million in sales. And the average transaction was right around $15,000. So That's a lot of handshakes. It's a lot of talking to people about what's most important to them. People always answer back, you know, one of four things when you ask them what's most important in their life. It's their faith, it's their family, it's their health, and the wealth. And whatever order it would be, would be, you know, varied depending upon who you're talking to, but those were always the four things. So the advantages of vacation ownership were pretty simple, that you would just have, you know, a plan set in place that when you had the time you had a method or a manner to stay in world-class accommodations. It's more expensive up front to own that than it is to rent and pay as you go. But once you, you own it outright, then, then you travel for just your maintenance fees. So it does save money, but it takes a long time, 10+ years typically, to hit the break-even. So, you know, but the, the good idea, you know, financial considerations— are they based on the short run only, or are they based on the short run and the long So most people would agree that it's a short run and a long run. The philosophy that a family that plays together stays together, right? Because you get— there's more to life than just working and getting by. So it makes it easier to get away when you have a plan. A lot of people need a plan. So failure to plan is planning to fail. Most folks don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan. Would you agree?

Absolutely.

That's when you say yes, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I'm listening to you. I'm thinking you're not just selling to a family. They're already in there thinking to themselves, how can I get rid of this 90-second, 90 minutes, get my free gift and get out? Is that, is that the mentality or—

100% of the time. So you have to turn them around. You have to do a 180. And so how you do that is by asking questions, right? Is by making a friend, finding out what they like, by asking questions and then taking— letting them know that it's going to be okay. I always joke around and say, you know, I'm not going to lose any hair over it today if you don't buy. It's going to be okay. And, and, you know, when you help relax Yeah. And so whether they bought or not, you know, it's okay. But just like we bribed them to come in, we would give them a good deal and we bribe them to help them say yes. It's called a first visit purchase incentive, otherwise known as bribery, really. But I did that for 20 years and I had my fill, you know, and it was time to do something else. So when the hurricanes came through, I found myself with some extra time. And so one of my mentors, my first real mentor outside of family and friends, through a book and audio cassette tapes was Zig Ziglar. Remember Zig? You remember Zig, right? His core philosophy that I can get everything you want in life if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. So on the banner behind me, it's got my name and the Ziglar logo. So I'm one of a couple hundred people in the world that are a Zig Ziglar legacy sales trainer and public speaker. Earlier this morning, I was on a webinar with Tom Ziglar, the proud son of Zig, and he has a book out. It's called Choose to Win. So in that, he does weekly webinar trainings for the Ziglar family on the Choose to Win principles of success. So today, one of the spokes of the wheel— there's 7 different spokes of the wheel— we were talking about the physical set. You know, a lot of people will say that, hey, well, you know, it's your mindset, your soul set, your physical set, and it's your heart set. In fact, that's Robin Sharma that likes to call those 4 terms. Have you heard of Robin Sharma? No. He has a best-selling book out right now. It's called The 5 AM Club. It's a great book. But so I decided, you know, a few years back to start to plan my escape from corporate America and to position myself not only with the sales experience and the sales management experience that I have, and the skills that I've developed along the way, but to have the credibility of being certified. So Zig still has, even though he's passed now 7 years, has over 5 million fans on Facebook.

Wow.

5 million. That's quite a few. And he has, you know, 30-something books. He's spoken 100+ countries. Talked to millions of people. A lot of people remember Zig from the Get Motivated series of seminars and conferences that came around real big a few years ago. In fact, check it out right here. I've got a little coin on it. It says PMA. Get it to the screen. Maybe you can see it. It says Positive Mental Attitude. This was actually given to me. Yeah, on the other side it says Negative Mental Attitude. Anyway, it was given to me at one of those conferences by Zig when I bought his book. And so his whole philosophy was something that I embraced and learned the approach of how to earn business the right way, how to ask questions, how to respect people in a manner with which that they would feel comfortable in allowing their business to be earned rather than try to sell. So that was what, you know, I always tried to emphasize the difference when you're trying to earn somebody's business is that you find out what it is they want, and then if you can provide a solution, then, then that's fantastic. But if there's no problem, there's no solution. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Yeah. So then when the next hurricane came through, I was still in the industry, but But we had some more time off and I decided that, you know what, I was definitely gonna go ahead and pull the trigger on this. So I left corporate America and my comfy, cushiony job of being a sales director and decided to go fly Han Solo and open up my own deal. And at the same time, too, my parents needed to move out of Oklahoma to have some more healthcare. And so I moved them into my house and my mom and dad. And dad was in hospice about 7 months. I don't know if you— you know, that's a long time. He's passed now a few months back. But so I took the time off to be with them. And I also— one of my favorite books is called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, right? Seen that book, right? So I spent 9 months last year going through the foundation of Think and Grow Rich to earn their certification. So graduation actually comes up in June. It's supposed to be a big event there at their headquarters in Virginia, but this year it's going to be a digital event, and that'll be pretty cool anyway. And I'm looking forward to that, and that's when I'll officially be— I can say now that I've completed the coursework for the certification, and in just a little bit I'll be A, uh, you know, almost next month I'll be an officially certified Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich, uh, trainer and speaker.

And the only one in Volusia County, all of Florida? Where does that— because that's a big deal. So obviously Volusia County, we're proud to have you. Is it all of Florida?

Like, well, that's worldwide. I'll, I'll, you know, I'll be able to go and speak and teach the 17 Principles of Success uh, worldwide. And that's exactly the plan.

I love it.

Well, absolutely. You know, I have a lot of ties here to the community, you know, with Volusia County. And in fact, um, I've got a couple of seminars, a couple of conferences coming up here very soon. Uh, the Think and Grow Rich conference, uh, Choose to Win, uh, we had originally scheduled in Palm Coast May 7th is postponed. You know, its rescheduled date is to be announced, you know, sometime relatively soon, we hope. I had something lined up on June 4th over in Deltona with the Boys and Girls Club as a participating charity. Up in Palm Coast, it was going to be Boys and Girls Club as a participating charity along with the American Cancer Society. So the event in Deltona was specifically designed to benefit In fact, the majority of the profits were going to go to them there for that event because it's a fundraiser designed to help the Spring Hill Suites, and particularly the Spring Hill Suites Club of Boys and Girls Clubs there in Deland, where Ms. Thea Ross-Shavers is the club president or club leader. And she was going to be on stage. She will be because we're going to reschedule this. She's gonna be on stage speaking a little bit, and I'm gonna have a couple of other people. Sean Donovan is going to be participating. You know Sean from 1 Million Cups, and Echo Karras will be participating as well. She's a Solutions Expert. So Echo, Sean, and I are kind of a trifecta of a package of entertainment and teachings. And so when you go to one of my conferences, you always leave with something tangible. So you're gonna receive a performance planner plus a follow-up coaching session. And then in addition to that coaching session, we'll offer a second package called the Deuce. The Deuce is designed to help you with your goal setting and achievement. Because I have happened to have right here one because I'm rewriting a couple of my own goals. We're all kind of taking this time to reestablish what our goals are, to kind of pivot, right? Pivot and redirect. So, uh, I took Zig's goal setting process, Brian Tracy's, Tom Hopkins, and my own, uh, and I added in some extra emotion into the goal setting process. So the deuce package after the conference, because it's like this, Zig always used to say, he says, well, you know, if you come see me live, I can give you a positive attitude for the day. But if you buy my cassettes, I can impact your life. So I always try to give you something tangible to follow up on. I don't have cassettes made yet, but I am working on my digital content right now. And I'm gonna have digital webinars and podcasts, plus a whole program that we'll make available via digital downloading and things like that. So all that's to come, but we're just in the process of launching. You know, we had the Roar Snore Seminar. Did you go to the Roar Snore Seminar at the Hard Rock back on January 10th?

I know. Oh no, I was out of town.

Well, we sold out, as a matter of fact. We worked with the United Way, the Hard Rock, Boys and Girls Club, Flagler Broadcasting, Kirk Keller up there, and we sold out the Roxy Room. Charity donation event. They had to pack in extra chairs. It was a fantastic, fantastic event. Raised a lot of money. We had a lot of great people contribute to both charities. And I was very thankful and grateful for everybody who showed up and for their contributions. Very, very nice to be able to give in that respect. And Johnny, Johnny Nomad, Johnny McGill, who's also a photographer there at the— yep, he's awesome. And so he's my videographer and photographer. So, uh, you know, he did a lot of promotional videos that we announced and relayed out through the charities and through the Chamber of Commerce as well. It's a big help. So I've learned how to promote these live conferences, you know, through having charity sponsors. In fact, Gary Yeomans Ford, Robert Macklin over there at Gary Yeomans Ford, was instrumental in sponsorship. He and Tyler Grant, very nice sales associate there, In fact, right after the event, I bought another Ford. That's 2 Fords I bought from Gary Thomas. So they were my official sponsor of the event. And Laura Radford over at the Hard Rock was fantastic as well in making the space available because initially I was just gonna be at the conference room at the chamber, but Laura stepped it up and she's a member of my small business group. My RBC there through the chamber. So she offered to help me, you know, with a nice rate, and if we would incorporate the Boys and Girls Club. I was like, absolutely. So that's how I got involved with the Boys and Girls Club, was through Laura Radford and the Hard Rock Hotel. So that's how I met Robin Marcus, and Robin is fantastic. Robin is such an unbelievable business development outsource for the Boys and Girls Club of Blue Chip Flagler. Very blessed to have partnered up with a lot of great people. Daniela Baylor, from her social media presence, you know, she's helped grow my organization from my Carpe Diem Facebook page. I had a little over 100 followers when I met her, and it's all organic, you know, it's just friends of mine, people that I knew. She helped me grow. In fact, it was Ursula Amon, actually. Ursula started to help me out to get that page launched, and then I started using Daniela out of the chamber because I'm involved with the chamber. I did some last summer's adult education series. I did the goal setting and achievement for them, and that's when I met Daniela. So that was a pretty big deal. I've got— now have over 520 followers on my Carpe Diem. So just with one event, and I'm doing also right now, actually, I'm doing Zoom meetings on Fridays at noon. Have you participated with one of those yet? No, no, I will send you an invite, okay? And in fact, if anybody wants to attend, this week is going to be awesome. It's a Zoom meet Friday at noon, and it's on the Principles of Success with Napoleon Hill. And this week's topic is Applied Faith. That's the third step in the 17 Principles of Success. You've got Definiteness of Purpose, Mastermind Alliance, and then Applied Faith. And Applied Faith is huge. It's where the rubber meets the road, and it's all about taking action. Overcoming your fears, you know, because action cures fear. Faith, faith beats fear back. You know, you can't have both faith and fear at the same place in your mind at the same time.

I do agree. Also, you can't have fear, you can't have fear and gratitude at the same time. So when I start feeling the fear, I go to gratitude. And that really seems to help me. So I love that. And I think it's the same concept, but Because honestly, it took me a lot to do this. I was told about 3 years ago that I should go in and do these conversations, and I was like, I, I'm like, I, I knew I could do it, but I was scared, and I had a lot of fear, like that, you know, the equipment and would I sound awful and just everything. And then because of COVID-19, I'm thinking to myself, I want everyone to meet the people that I know because I, I, we all share these like-minded people. So getting to know you, I I want other people to do that. And I'm so impressed with how you've also, you've like, it just feels like you've taken Volusia County business community by the storm. And I'm jealous with that. Like how, you know, cause that's not easy to do because I still have that fear. And I still am, I always tell people it's hard to sell yourself, but maybe I'm not as great of a salespeople as a salesperson as I think I am because I do have a hard time selling myself. I could sell you, you know, the gadget, that's on my phone, which is really cool. Check that out with a custom imprint. But trying to sell my, like, corporate etiquette speaking, I'm not good at that. So I love, like, learning from you and understanding. And, and I also just have a lot of respect and admiration for just what you've offered to the community. And one more thing, I have to say this. My parents were very hugely involved in the Boys and Girls Club of Broward County. Offering and donating a ton, a ton of art. And they received the— I think it was called the Godfather, some amazing award last year. And during that time, my father had a heart attack and he ended up in the hospital. My mom passed away all within like a week of— oh no, but it was like— I know, I am too. But it was, it was, um, they just loved the Boys and Girls Club so much. There was a real love, you know, and they would go and they loved the man. Like you said, Robin, They love the man that ran it in Broward County. And so I think that that's a really great organization. That's just, just one of the best. I love that you're doing things for them.

Well, first of all, I want to say, you know, I'm sorry to hear about your mom and dad, you know, having just gone through that. I know how, you know, and for it to be a double whammy like that. Wow, that must really have been tough. So I can certainly emphasize and sympathize with you for that, you know. And also, I wanted to say thank you so much for the kind words, uh, you know. And you're— I think you're a better salesperson than what you realize because you sold me on the idea of coming in here and talking to you, right? So that's true. And, you know, there's a saying that how you, how you think determines how you act. Right? How you act determines how others react to you. And it's easy sometimes to get a little stinking thinking where you need a little checkup from the neck up, right? And it's easy to drop into a negative mode because negative emotions— and you're so right, you know, how do I get out of negative mentality? Attitude of gratitude. Is a fundamental, tried-and-true, proven manner or method of getting out of negativity. They'll— woe is me and pity me parties. You know, the only problem with pity party is that nobody shows up, right? And those that do don't bring gifts. We need to do a t-shirt with every line out of the punchlines. So, but I think you're doing great, Adrienne, you know, and it's been a pleasure to get to know you through the Million Cups. What a, you know, a wonderful group that is down there on Beach Street, Wednesdays at 9 AM prior to, you know, virus, but you can still go online and see the older ones, and now they're doing two speakers per session, which I think is fantastic because it, you know, it's easier to be entertained when there's a couple people, you know, because all of our attention spans get a little short these days.

I want to ask you a question. Do you think back on what it was, what day things seemed to change for you with COVID-19? Like, I'm in leadership Daytona, so like, I remember the Friday that we were having class, and then we were talking about the next week, and then it just seemed to all of a sudden— like, what was it like for you that when you realize, uh-oh, we are actually in trouble here in the USA?

You know, that's interesting that you say that about the Leadership Daytona. I was going to do that. I was talking with Ken Meeks about that, but because of my dad's condition, I chose not to because I knew that I wouldn't be able to honor the commitments with respect to, you know, going back to Oklahoma for, uh, for all the things I had to go back for. Um, but looking back at March on my calendar, I don't have a date really specifically in mind other than it seems like around the 18th. That's the last date that I had, uh, a lot of appointments and things that I was doing. Seems like around the 18th. Uh, what about you? What date?

I think you're right. Where a lot of the St. Patrick's— they were closing some of the St. Patrick's in downtown. They did close the party, but I think I remember a few bars did continue.

You know, and Bike Week, Bike Week, the first weekend of Bike Week was big. You know, there was a lot of things going on. And then it was during Bike Week, everybody started across the country, people, events were canceling left and right. And I remember, uh, I mean, because how can you stop Bike Week? You know, first of all, it's 100,000 people in 3,000 different areas, you know. So the, uh, and those free-spirited individual people, you know, you're not going to cancel them when they're in town. So I think the chamber and the local government did right by the fact that, hey, it's an outdoor event anyway, and they were already here, you know, for the most part. So hindsight's always 20/20. I hate it when people go, you know, they'll blame game, like going on in the media right now. Oh, we should have done this, we should have done that. Well, guess what? We didn't. So So we did what we did when we did it. Everybody makes decisions based on the information they have at the time that they make those choices, right? So, right. But for me, that was when it, you know, it was that, that weekend, Bike Week. So, so things started slowing down there for sure.

Yeah, I think to myself, I really questioned, like I say to myself, because my son is in Shanghai, so I was knowing everything that was going on with him, and he was telling me exactly his stories. He said to me, and now I can understand, he said, Mom, walking outside without a mask— this was in January— is like walking outside naked with two machine guns. And I was like, I don't— I thought it was funny, but I didn't really get it. He was trying to say everyone looks at you, you are like the center of attention. And then he said every sneeze and every cough is like a gunshot and you duck. But I didn't, and it took him a long time to get a mask. He had to wait, and he said, why would I wait in line with everyone who has a mask and be the only one in line without a mask to wait for a mask? Because everyone who already had a mask wanted more masks, and they were. And so he finally got a mask. But I'm like, it's weird to me because I think to myself, and never at any point did I say this will happen here. And so I try to like come up with why, like I have my own question, why did I not myself think this could be happening here. But I was told to buy toilet paper, and I did. I was literally— my friend David's like, you need to go out and buy a lot of toilet paper. And I was like a zombie. I come home, I'm like, I have enough for like 28 days, as long as my husband— some of them are one roll a day. So, uh, but it's just, you know, sometimes I just think of that. And then the changes— what, what do you see the changes for your business now? Like, you're waiting, are you going to do things digitally if we're not back up and running by July?

Exactly. You know, it's, it's increased the speed with which I think business here in our country has embraced the Zoom technology, the group. You know, if you talk to Chris Toews at Toews Communications, he's talked about, you know, he's, he's out there leading the forefront on communication processes. And he's got a lot of great ideas. And so I've spoken with him several times about upgrading some of my equipment, and I'm going to be doing some of that just so that we can better facilitate this digital process and change so that I can provide a solution not only on content but on how, you know, leaders, you know, communicate with their teams. So kind of coaching the coaches, so to speak, right? So that's, that's definitely, you know, the change, the digital revolution. And the other thing too, I think, is really nice is two things that are side benefit from all of this. One is that we're slowing down, you know, as a society or as a country and taking a little more time to remember what's most important, you know, about who we are as people. It's much friendlier, you know, Everybody's out, you know, it's kind of like going back in time with respect to when I grew up, everybody played outside, you know, the kids were outside till it was dark, you know, you knew you needed to be home at dinnertime. And so everybody's getting a little more quality time at home with people that mean the most to them. Nothing more important than quality time with family. So for me anyway, it's how I feel.

So true.

And are you— what about—

sorry, the sound says, are you alone? Do you right now with your mom, or—

my mom lives with me until— in fact, we were just talking about that. So I've got my dog Jakey Boy, but, um, my mom is going to be moving to my sister's house Colorado. And in fact, we're going to try to get her there by Mother's Day so she can be there with my sister and her two grandchildren, the M&M girls. So we're gonna try to get them over there, get her over there by, by that day. So then I'll have my house back to myself. But the other thing, you know, and you're right on the beach, are you on the Well, I'm close. Um, uh, you know, I'm off of Granada, Breakaway Trails, Highway 40. Yeah, so I like it out here because it's quiet, it's peaceful, it's gated. You know, I've got the big 5-bedroom house, so there's plenty of room. Uh, and the beach is just down one street, so I just go down, try to catch all the green lights. That's—

I love your pictures.

How about you? What do you think has been, you know, like for me, I was saying that I felt like, you know, the chance to spend more time with family, plus the chance to, to reflect, you know, to kind of reassess where you are and where you want to be. You know, the pivot when you do your goal setting, you have to have what it is that you want. But you also have to have a flexible plan so that you can pivot, right? Go one way or the other. And so now we're in a pivot. That's all it is. You know, when we come out of this, there's gonna be opportunities. There's gonna be plenty of opportunities. So the people who are preparing, those are the ones who are gonna be best suited to take advantage of those opportunities when they come along. That's the old definition of lucky, right? It's when opportunity and preparation cross paths. So when you're able to do that, I think you have much better, you know, if you're spending all your time watching Netflix, video games, is that getting you ready to come out of this, you know, going gangbusters? Because I think pretty soon, you know, first the euphoria of having a few weeks off, you know, that's kind of come and gone. Now it's the itching to get back to work and money concerns and things like that. So everybody's wanting to get back out there. We still need to lay low a little bit longer, right? So to make sure the virus doesn't come back. But once we do get that all clear, you know, are you going to be prepared? Have you positioned yourself correctly to advance in the direction that you really want to advance? I mean, it's about putting your passion behind a plan. You know, you apply daily persistence to your passion and a plan, then you're going to be successful. And if you start to program your mind like Napoleon Hill teaches, you know, your thoughts, you got to program your thoughts, tie them into a positive emotion, to what it is that you truly want. And when you're working towards that, you're unstoppable. It's just a matter of time before you hit all the goals that you want, as long as you're doing it for the right reasons and you don't give up. Never give up.

Oh my gosh, thank you, Frank.

Wow, I don't know what to say because that really is—

I mean, you really are hitting the right person by saying all of this. I mean, I, I feel like I positioned myself well, but, um, I do watch too much news, and though I know it's not smart of me, I still— and I've always been this way— I'm still have a, like, an addiction to news. And then I, I got a little depressed yesterday. It's weird. I felt— I went to the beach I went over to Ormond Beach Shores. Parking was beautiful. Everyone was fine. Nobody was— wasn't crazy. It was very calm. But it just— I was like, kind of like, wow. Like, I guess in all honesty, what I said to myself was, it's unbelievable. Like, there are some people that are just able to completely enjoy this. They live right on the ocean. They could— they've got their boats and they're out and they're, you know, life is good for them and they could play every day. And, um, and then I had to say, stop it, Adrian. I live over at Integra Shores, so at a beautiful luxury apartment complex, and it's beautiful and I love it. The pools are closed and everything, but okay. But I have to— so every day, so for me it's a matter of making sure I'm productive. And I had, um, Vamari last week and she said, well, on Sundays I do nothing. And I thought that would be smart for me to do, not touch anything. I Sunday. And even though I went shopping and stuff and made dinner, but like, you know, I do— I gotta take classes and I wanna, I wanna make sure that I love doing the Candid Conversation. That is amazing because it really makes my days go by faster. I'm still selling, I'm getting my programming done, I guess like everyone else. But, um, I, I don't have the energy in the morning and I wake up very hard, very difficult to wake up. And like pop out of bed. But yeah, I do get changed from the top up, and I'm trying hard to just make sure that I stay on top of everything and that I do come out— as you said, I want to come be the one that comes out of this with my plan and I'm ready to move forward. But sometimes I'm— I get like, I get down and I'm like, I understand.

Hey, I understand. We're all going through tough times, but tough times don't last. Tough people do, right? And you know, I'm one of those guys, I get up early. I get up usually between 5:30, 6 o'clock at the latest every day. Now I'm going, okay, you know what, 6:30, okay, you know, that's alright. 7, sometimes like Sunday morning I get up at 7, but here's how the key is to getting up early is how you wind down the day. When you wind down the day, think about 2 or 3 things that you really want to try to accomplish the next day. Prioritize which one's the most important to you and which one's the most difficult. Okay, what's going to be the most difficult thing I have to do tomorrow? And then what— here's what Brian Tracy calls it: eating a frog. Okay, you got to eat that frog. So what you do is you do the thing that's most difficult for you to do first. Do it, get it out of the way, because by getting the most difficult thing out of the way for you, whether it's just a normal thing, but for you, because of courage or because of fear, typically it's, it's more difficult, right? And fear is just a lie. Fear is nothing. It's false evidence appearing real. Fear is just— it takes the same amount of energy to have fear as it does faith, because they both require the same thing. It's a belief in the unknown occurring, right? It's an uncertainty coming true. So anyway, but going back to the night before, if you'll take a couple of minutes, even if it's just 5 minutes, write down 3 things before you brush your teeth or you take your makeup off, whatever it is that you do, you know, to prepare for bed, and you write down what you want to— what's most important, what will positively impact your your future, your big goal, okay? By attaching that big goal, that passion that you have, and start getting after it, get up and at 'em, rise and shine, you know, early in the morning, then you'll have success right out of the gate. And that'll give you momentum, that'll give you enthusiasm, that'll give you confidence. And, and then you attack— if you get after that thing that's maybe that's hardest for you You'll do that, maybe not first thing, okay? But if you get after it like second or third thing, no later than the third thing, get after that harder thing for you to accomplish, then look out because Adrian's life's gonna change. It's gonna change fast, and it's gonna change because you're gonna have so much more confidence in your conviction, you know, when you talk to people. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it, right? So it's your body language, it's your tonality, much more important than the actual verbiage that you use. So you do those things and you'll find that you're going to achieve your goals much quicker. So it's just my little two cents there that I've learned.

My daughter, I'm going to take your advice. I'm going to share it with— this is my 14-year-old. This is Mr. Frank R. Stewart. It's just— and I'm going to do this with her a lot. You and I have a little project to do every night. Thank you, Frank, because that's amazing. And she could take the hardest homework that she has and do that. I love it. What I— thank you so much for this amazing conversation.

You are really— it's been a blast to be here. I really enjoyed getting to know you too, you know. And I look forward to seeing you again soon. And you know what, I think I'm going to start doing it. You know, you've inspired me. I need to start doing an interview series because I've had it in my mind as one of the books I want to have. I'm going to have Sean Donovan publish it for me, my second book. I've got the idea, I'm going with it. And the first one is going through the Ziegler family, but the second one I'm going to have Sean help me out with that. You know, his book just hit number one Amazon bestsellers list in the self-help category.

It did? Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean, look, let's see. I've got it right here. Number 1, number 1. Here it is right here. Investing in yourself. My Sean Don. Wow. Okay, he runs the meetings, right?

He's a tall looking man.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. He's a tall guy there. He's getting married to Thais. She's the great artist, does a lot of the murals and has a store there. Her store is right there on Granada. Anyway, so Sean had a bestseller. In fact, when I was going in to order another book, The Real Truth About Vitamin E, because I'm all about health, you know, I want to be healthy and wealthy because your health is your wealth. That's what I learned by talking to 20,000 families. Talked to a lot of guys who'd had strokes and things like that. And, you know, it doesn't matter how much money you have if you have bad health, because your bad health is going to take all your money, it's going to take all your happiness. So happiness is a combination of things, and you got to have— got to have great health. So, so I was getting this book called The Magic— uh, what was it? Uh, The Real Truth About Vitamin E, and how important vitamin E is, not just this synthetic vitamin E that you get for $5 a bottle from all these synthetic vitamins because those, those vitamins are no bueno. You got to have real natural vitamins that your body can absorb, you know. And so I was getting this book because I wanted to learn a little more about taking better care of myself because it's just been that philosophy, how you take care of yourself now. You know, I'm in my 50s and my middle 50s. So how I take care of myself now is how my body is going to take care of me 20, 30 years from now. Does that make sense? So I'm getting leaner.

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, taking the time to be more physically fit, uh, spending a little more time in that area because, you know, the— an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?

I love you, Frank. I am going to follow you now. I'm gonna— please send me the Friday so I can try that.

I can't wait. Yes, it's called the Positive Thought Alliance. It's an alliance of like-minded people just like you. There's about 20 to 30 of us each week right now. That number's growing, uh, but it's a Positive Thought Alliance, Fridays at noon. It's a Zoom meeting. And it's a lot of fun. We just talk about an idea. This one's on applied faith. And then everybody participates, chimes in their thoughts and the best practices. So, you know, it's not a, it's not a college course where the instructor is a blowhard of information. It's about sharing beliefs and perspectives.

Oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you for the invite. I'm excited about that. I'm excited to follow you. And, and, and, and learn more from you. So very nice. I look forward to when you start to— thank you— the training and whatever. I'll be in the front row too, because I like to look up at the big smile and I don't like distractions. I even— give me the front, the front of the class.

All right.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure and I'm very happy to be on. You've helped. You've inspired me. To do something somewhat similar but in a slightly different way. So I think this is a great, great forum that you have here, and I wish you the best of luck going forward.

Thank you, thank you. I will see you.

Bye.

Thank you.

And then bye.