Howard Partridge | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #57

Welcome, everybody. This is Jeff Duden, and we are on the home front today with the phenomenal Howard Partridge. Welcome, Howard.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, I'm so excited about today, Howard, because anytime that we spend time together, I always leave inspired and educated and a little bit entertained. So we just spent some time together at Donald Miller's house in Nashville. The the great business coach and consultant behind Building a Story brand. You were gracious enough to invite me to that mastermind, and I was so thankful to get to be there. So I. I just can't get enough of of you, Howard.

Thank you. We're just getting started. I know I owe you an email and that's been on my list. So I'll get some stuff up there for you. And I got some ideas and I think this is just the beginning. So thank you for your support.

Well, that sounds great. So, Howard, tell us a little bit, if you don't mind. Who is Howard Partridge? Where are you from?

Well, I'm originally from la, Lower Alabama, and my wife doesn't laugh at my jokes either, so it's okay.

No, I laughed.

Yeah, I. Most people don't. I'm originally from Mobile, Alabama. I grew up on Welfare. There were seven kids crammed in a little 600 square foot shack. The roof on that house was so bad that every time it rained, we had to get out all the pots and pans to catch the leaks. My mother fed us on a hundred dollars a month from the welfare department. I don't care when that was. It just wasn't a lot of money. And when you grow up in an environment like that, what are you likely to turn out like? For me, I was rebellious teenager. I got kicked out of the house by my stepdad, had no money. Still, I scraped up 39.95 for a greyhound bus ticket to Houston, Texas to live with my real dad that I only met twice in my whole life. He left when I was a year old and I arrived here in Houston, Texas with 25 cents in my pocket. So that's how I got started.

That. Wow. So you're living with your father. You did he. Did he take you in? Did he let you live with him?

Yes, he was hesitant at first, but his new wife, who I'd also met, encouraged him to let me stay there. My sister was living with them too. And so he was a little bit, you know, hesitant at first, but we became great friends. He helped me a lot in my first business. So I became a waiter and I worked in all these really high end Restaurants where we did tableside cooking. Steak Diane bananas Foster cherish you worst tuxedo to work. And setting stuff on fire inside at that age was pretty cool. But I always wanted to have my own business. But I still just really made enough money just to pay the rent. Then I met my wife, Denise Conjet Antoinette Pinella. Now that's Italian. She's from New Jersey. I'm from lower Alabama. This is going to be a good match. So I marry in this Italian family. And when you marry an Italian family, you don't get wedding presents, you get cash. And so, in fact, there's a little purse that's made to match the wedding dress that's the perfect size for envelopes. And each of the relative comes and relatives come and gives you an envelope. It has cash in it. Might be a hundred bucks, might be 500 bucks, you know, depending on, you know, their income level. And so after the wedding, we spread out all those envelopes on the bed, and there was $3,000 there. That was all the money that we had to our name. And there was a friend of the family, same age as me, 23 at the time. He was tooling around a little red Mercedes convertible. And that got my attention. I said, I want to know what that guy does and I want to know if it's legal. Well, it turns out that he had his own business. And so I get back to Houston after the wedding and I spend the entire $3,000 starting my first business out of the trunk of my car. My wife was really thrilled about that. She's like, you're going to do what? I said, I'm going to do what Billy does. So I started my first company and for the first 13 years, I made good money. I made $100,000 net every year, except for the first three years after the. After the first, for 10 years in a row, 100 grand a year profit. But I worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I became a slave to that business. And in 1997, I learned that you got to have systems in your business. As Michael Gerber, my friend Michael Gerber says, you got to work on the business instead of in the business. And so I started working on the business, transform that business into a multi million dollar business, which is turnkey. I still own it today, but I have a team that runs IT systems. I don't have to be involved ever. It's turnkey. And I started 25 years ago. I started coaching and helping other small business owners do the same thing. I help them Build. We help them build systems in their business, build the right team, become a better leader. And so been doing that for 25 years and of course franchised my business coaching in 2022, a year and a half ago or so, I guess. And, and so now under the brand Phenomenal business Coaching powered by Zig Ziglar, and I became the exclusive small business coach for Zig ziglar. I published 13 books. My 13th book is coming out next, next month. And so it's been quite the journey in coaching other businesses and watching them succeed. So currently we have coaching clients in 100 different industries in 20 different countries.

Howard, how many times do you see this story play out where somebody grows up in absolute scarcity, hungry, competing for resources, family situation, and you end up with the entire flip side being thinking abundantly and, you know, committing to a business probably every day that you're running that business, which was in the service industry for that 13 years, you were thankful and grateful for the opportunity to put food on the table, to raise your wonderful family, to provide, to support. And then you, and then you take it that step further and you say there's other people out there that could learn from the lessons that, that I've, I've experienced. And you take it to that next step of abundance and you become one of this country's greatest and business coaches for, for small business today. And it just, it's just never lost on me as we, as we're on the home front here and we get people on. If you go back far enough that there's, you know, there's a, there's a reason that people do what they do, and part of it is there, you know, when, when you actually live, actually live without a net. And, and if you fall like it's the hard floor or it's a bed of spikes, you get resilient. It allows you to, you know, you realize that most of these things aren't fatal, that you can really survive on very, very little. And then, you know, you turn your mind towards, you know, this idea of, well, then if I can survive that, I don't, I don't, I don't have to worry so much about risk. I don't have to worry so much about loss because the worst is ever. I will never get put back deeper or farther underneath than I started.

Right. You know, I was just thinking about that earlier today because, you know, I don't know, your, your mind just goes there from time to time. It's like I could get down to nothing and still not be worried, because I know that I can. I can come back. I do a lot with Ellen Rohr, and you saw her at the Mastermind that we did, and she's like, you know, I could lose everything. I'll. I'll. I'll rebuild it. Because once you understand the formula, right, then you can rebuild it. But I think one of the things that holds people back. I wrote a book called fti Failure to Implement. The number one reason people don't grow or do as well as they could or reach their bigger dreams and goals is. Is because of what I call fti, Failure to Implement. And there's a lot of books on productivity. Like my friend Brian Tracy wrote one of the most popular books on productivity and implementation called Eat that Frog. And it's a great book. But what I did in FTI is I unpacked why we failed to implement. People know that. That they had. They need to do X, Y and Z to get to where it is that they want to get to, but they just don't do the things that they need to do. And the question is why? And my mentor, Mr. Zig Ziglar, said that the secret ingredient of success is desire. Desire comes from a vision. And the reason that we don't have desires, we don't have a vision. The reason we don't have a vision is because there's some belief in us that has been caught more than it's been taught that either. Oh, that's not me. I could never do that. There's a. There's a fear somehow inside. Right? And so the opposite of fear is faith. So not in a religious sense, but just belief. Right. And. And I always just had this. Even when I was. I was. I was bagging groceries in Mobile, Alabama. I was making more per hour than my mother was. And I just believed that I could do anything. I mean, I would. I would. I would see a situation. I would see a person. I could go. I'd go, that needs to be better. So I think that there's strengths that. That different people have. Fortunately, I have one called Futuristic on the strengths Finder. And. And so I see things, maybe. And so some people have vision, some people don't, right? And that's okay because we need visionaries and we need integrators, right? We need people to implement. Right. We need a team that just wants to get in and grind every day. But as far as business ownership goes, everybody has a different tolerance for risk, right? I probably have a lower tolerance for risk than somebody, for example, like Tommy Mello, I mean that guy that. Just no fear, right? You know, just like we'll just, I mean who gets a master's degree while they're running 200 million dollar company? You know, just, no fear. Just, just as one of my clients said one time, he said, I don't have, I don't suffer from fti, I suffer from, let's see, ftsi, failure to stop implementing, you know, and so there's something inside. And one of the things I've learned through Zig and other people is that 90% of our beliefs are hidden. They're subconscious beliefs. They haven't been taught, they've been caught, right? And when you. I think one of the best things that we can do is from a personal development standpoint, from a leadership standpoint is become self aware, right? So if we're willing to take a look at ourselves and say, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I not do the things that I need to do? And sort of start unpacking that then and we can start coming to terms with our belief systems. This is why people need a coach. This is why. Michael Jordan had several coaches. In fact, I met his trainer a couple months ago. Tim Grover trained Michael Jordan and he trained Kobe Bryant. And Michael Jordan did not have the natural ability to do the things that he did. In fact, when they were doing the documentary the Last Dance about the Chicago Bulls and their last season, their final season of that particular team, anyway, the documentary, the documentary people, the film crew came into the gym early one morning when they were training and they spotted the big poster of Michael Jordan just flying through the air, you know that, that famous shot, you know, Air Jordan. And they, they looked at MJ and they said, so how do you do that? And he goes, I don't know, ask him and points to Tim, his trainer, right? So a good coach will bring out, help increase the belief level, number one. And they will, they will help to help you unpack some of the stuff that's holding you back, right? So everybody needs a coach. Every, every successful business owner needs a coach. Every successful athlete needs a coach. Every person who wants to perform at the highest level needs a coach. People who bury their head in the sand say, no, I don't, I don't, I got my own way. I don't want to hear. They're, they're not vulnerable. See, ego is ego. A high ego is an indicator of a low self image. A high ego is an indicator of a low self image. It's fear based. Now Absolutely. So we need some level of confidence. See, there's a difference between confidence and ego, right? We need a certain level of confidence. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but I'm going to take the step by faith. If I fail, I fail. And as John Maxwell says, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. I learned from that. Okay. I learned another way that, that not to do it. So anyway, the point is, is that there's usually a belief issue, right? There might be a belief issue. For example, I just wrote a book that's coming out next month called how to Build a Phenomenal Dream Team that can run your business for you if you have, if you have multiple locations like, like you did and your, your first. Well, maybe not your first, but in your franchise organization that you ran and you have multiple businesses right now, you have to have a team that runs that stuff for you. It can't be. It can't revolve around you, right? But at the same time, people who want to build a business, they're walking around going, can't find good people, can't find good people. Nobody wants to work. Oh, and these millennials, all they do is stare at their phone, you know, and the. And so they're reinforcing. The other thing that people don't understand is that, is that, that everything that you say is, goes into your subconscious and just reinforces your belief systems, right? So you, you know, you got to be careful what you say because those words turn into actions and you'll reinforce the negative belief system. Something that's not even true is not true. I mean, I have a client. His name is John Torres. He was at the meeting. You sat at the table with him.

I sat right next to John Torres, yeah.

47 million last year, three locations. They're in the restoration, slash reconstruction business. 185 employees. The average age is 28. You have never seen so many just, just young, smart, focused, engaged people in your life that are just phenomenal people. So you know this. There's a lot of lies. Oh, you can't do this, you can't do that. And you gotta, you gotta just take that out of your vocabulary and say, what one man can do, another can do. Now, it may or may not be what some other person does. May or may not be what exactly what you want to do. Because the greatest business lesson that I've ever learned is this, is that the one and only reason your business exists is to be a vehicle to help you achieve your life goals. And so if Business owners would first understand what their life goals are. And I've been blessed to be the, the exclusive small business coach for Zigler, to be their first leg Ziglar legacy certified trainer to help Tom run that business and be a partner with Ziglar to understand that personal development piece and that wheel of life, that, that comes first. Because the fact is, is that your business can have a tremendous impact on your personal life. Right. And that, that.

Yes, that.

Yeah. And that, that, that impact can be positive or negative. It doesn't have to be negative. Right? Yes. We all have to grind. We all have to sacrifice, especially in the early days. But something that I remember that you told me was when you realized during Katrina that you're going to be away from your family, you said, that's it, I gotta, I gotta pivot. I gotta, I gotta change my business structure. So my message is get clear on your life goals first and build the business that's going to help you live your ideal lifestyle. Now, it might be a hundred million dollar business, it might be a million dollar business. You know, everybody has different life goals. I could, there's a lot of things that I could do that I don't even think about or pursue because that would keep me from living my life goals. I'm called to do what I do. And if I. Because every decision that you make in building your business is going to affect your life goals. But at the same time, there are three things that I like to share with people that are required to have a phenomenally successful business. Number one, you gotta have systems. And one of the great things about the franchise systems that you guys offer people is there's a proven system in place. Maybe there's, you know, proven systems for marketing. Maybe there's proven systems for, for, you know, doing the actual technical work, of course. And maybe there's accounting systems, just different ways that you do things that are success systems. And a lot of franchisees, they buck that system before they even try it, you know, so, so one is follow the proven system. A process takes the pressure off the person, both the, the person who is doing the work and the person who is leading the group or that owns the business. It takes the pressure off of everybody. I just did a webinar this morning on this and, you know, had several bullet points on having a process. It's one of the principles, it's one of the 10 principles that I talk about in my book FTI. So we got to have systems, because if you don't have a system, you can't train people. You can't delegate. You can't put people to work. And to, to properly implement a part of your business and get free from it, you're going to always be stuck to it. If you're the one, you know, having to always make the decisions and always be there to, you know, you got a minute? You got a minute? No. We have a system where everybody on our team is empowered in their position to take ownership of their position. Which brings me to the second thing, and that is leadership. Most small business owners have never been properly trained on leadership. The clues that we get from on leadership come from corporate America. And so we take our clues from corporate America. Guess What? Corporate America. 70% of American workers are disengaged. 18% are actively disengaged. They hate their job. And so we decide to be a boss, just like, you know, corporate America. Well, no wonder nobody wants to work for you. No wonder people quit. No wonder people are texting their friends like, I hate my boss. I hate, you know, no, you got to turn that around. That's what my, my next book is all about. There's three parts, actually. Where are you going? That's part one. And I walk them through seven questions about how to determine where they need to be in their business or businesses in their career, whatever, and then, then number two is leadership. All right. You know, John Maxwell's known as the number one leadership expert in the world by Inc. Magazine. I'll be with him this week. I'm leaving tomorrow to go down and be with John. I've known him for many, many years, and he says that leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less. And the way you gain influence in someone else's life is by adding value to them. Mr. Zigler said his most famous quote, his favorite quote to the day he passed away, November 28, 2012. He said, you can have everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people get what it is that they want. And it turns out that everybody wants the same nine things out of life. So it's really not that. You know, the thing is, is that most success principles are simple. They're just not easy. Right. They're simple, just not easy. So if you just go out and add value to people, help people, help them get what they want, guess what's going to happen? Yeah, they're going to want to work for you. So that's how John has so many young people on his team. I've hired three in the past. I just hired a young lady who's phenomenal. I got two kids who, who are 22 and 23, respectively, that have been with me for a little less than two years. And these guys are fulfilling roles like rock stars. I mean, they're just going straight to the top. So in order to do the third thing, which is to build a phenomenal dream team, first, you need to have systems. Second, you need to be a phenomenal leader. Third, in order to build a phenomenal dream team, you got to be a better leader. You got to be a stronger leader. And so part of our work at Phenomenal Business Coaching is to help business owners not only learn or use the systems that they already have, they're in a franchise system, use those systems, become a stronger leader, so that you can then notice people. They're all around you, notice them, connect with them, attract them, and so that they'll want to be on your team. And so the third part is to build a team, because as my friend Dave Anderson says, if you have a dream, and every entrepreneur has a dream, now some people may buy a business because they want a better job, a job to work for themselves. And you know how that that works out is if you don't have the entrepreneurial spirit, if you don't have a dream, if you don't have a vision, you're just trying to get a job, it's not going to work out that well. So put your. Your leadership hat on. Have a vision. My personal definition of leadership is leadership is effectively communicating your vision. So first, you need to have a vision. Second, you need to spend time thinking about where you really want to go, what you really want. That's part one of this book that's coming out. What do you want? Why do you want it? What's your biggest challenge? What do you need to know? Who do you need to work with? What's the plan? What's the completion date of your goal? And so being skilled at leadership and building a team, understanding how to communicate your vision to different kinds of people. That's why I love DISC and those personality profiles and strengths finder and all that stuff. Because I. You know, Jeff, what's crazy is when I first started my business, I just. I wanted to work for myself. I just want to make people happy. I didn't want to know anything about accounting. I didn't want to know anything about leadership. For sure. I didn't want to have. I didn't even want to think about what makes people tick. I just wanted to. I was a waiter. I just wanted to serve People make them happy, right? And then I discovered that, wow, I could have a turnkey business. And why did I want to have a turnkey business? So I go to the beach anytime I wanted. And then I found out that I had a passion at a calling to help other business owners. So I got in the coaching space. And the point is, is that if you're going to get up every morning and have joy in your life, if you're going to get up every morning and be fulfilled, and you're going to get up in the morning and be excited about your life, then you need to have a vision, you need to have a purpose, you need to understand what it is, and therefore, you can enjoy the ride, so to speak. But what I learned is that not only do I need to understand people and understand how to communicate with them, and I need to understand how people think. And I went from not wanting to know anything about human behavior to I want to know everything about human behavior. Everything. I mean, as ugly as it might be, I want to know. You know, I'm just so curious about humans today. You know, after having coached, you know, thousands of people over the years, it's just like, that's interesting, you know. That's interesting, you know, how do you get from. How do you get. How do you get there where you are? You know, it just. It's just. It just. It blows my mind. Human beings blow my mind.

Well, that's the puzzle is people are the puzzle. And businesses that do the people piece well tend to have an easier time with it. Less turnover, less friction, less lack of, you know, more clarity, all of these types of things. Yeah, yeah. Howard, how did you first meet Zig Ziglar?

Well, it's funny, back in the day, not at no Peter Lowe at the time, I didn't know Tamara Lowe at the time, but back in the day, must have been 1990, maybe year 2000. Anyway, so Peter Lowe used to host these big arena events, right? 20,000 people in the Toyota center here in Houston.

Like a big Tony Robbins event type thing.

Yeah, actually bigger than that. These are like. That was like 20,000 people. They. Because they would have, like, ex presidents there. They would have celebrities there, you know, and zigzag was like the glue to all of it, you know, And Peter and Tamara had a relationship with Zig that, you know, previous to that. Anyway, so back in the day, when the real big arena events were popular, I took my team. They had like, you know, you bring your whole team for like, 49 bucks or whatever, and Then, of course, throughout the day, they're going to sell thousands of dollars of product, you know, the whole deal. And nothing wrong with it, by the way. But anyway, so Zig came out and did his thing, and they had this. They gave away this. This package, and they were going to have a drawing for the package. So everybody who's on the floor level, several hundred people, had a ticket in this big barrel. That's a big, you know, barrel of golden tickets, you know, and they would crank that. That barrel and pick a ticket. But in order to give this package away first, Zig had to tell you all about the package, right? Oh, it was brilliant. It was brilliant. He said, you know, this book right here, this tape right here, I mean, you know, let me tell you about that old boy down there in Beaumont, Texas, and what happened to his business and what happened to his family. So do a testimonial around every package. He wouldn't sell it. He's the big guy, right? He would just tell you what it had done for other people. Then what's supposed to happen that didn't happen that day is whoever was supposed to come out and say, all right, go get your Zig Ziglar package. Here's where you go. They blew it. Like, they. Zig went off the stage. Nobody came back to the stage. The lights went up and Everybody. You had 20,000 people twiddling their thumbs going, well, is it over? Is it over? We're on break. You know, it's the middle of the day. So we knew it wasn't over, but, like, I guess we're on break. Let's go to the restroom. So I elbowed my buddy, I said, I'm gonna go find Zig Zigger. Because I knew that's what had happened. I didn't know that game yet like I do now, but I knew that something was wrong. So I go circling the hallways of the Toyota center, and I find Zig Ziglar's table. Long, L shaped table. There's all these Mary Kay reps. They had a relationship with Mary Kay where they would come and serve because Mary Kay and Zig were friends back then. All these Mary Kay ladies are there at the product table, ready for these thousands of people to sell these pallets of product. There was about three people that had stumbled on that table.

Nobody there. Well, nobody knew. Nobody knew where to go.

Nobody knew where to go. Zig, it didn't seem to bother him at all. And he had his granddaughter there with him. And now that I have grandkids, I understand. He talked about his granddaughter the whole time. It's like, I want to talk to him about other stuff. This is my granddaughter. And, you know, I was like, okay. So we got a picture together, and one of the. The three other people that was there, that were there, want to talk to Zig. So I moved on, and the sales manager was there. And so I got the sales manager. Now, the sales manager was white as a ghost. Like, okay. What's going through his mind is we've sent thousands of dollars of product down here, pallets of product that are going to go back to the warehouse. So I said, his name is Brian Flanagan. I said, brian, nice to meet you. Da, da, da, da. I said, so how does one build our relationship with the Zigler Corporation? He, like, looked up and down that table, and he said, become a distributor of Zig Ziglar's products. Okay? I was like, okay. Now, I had been coaching for. Well, let's see, this was 19. Well, when I finally connected with Sigler, it was 1990, 2008, I think it was. So I guess I'd been coaching for about 10 years at that point. So I had an audience. I had. I was doing conferences. I had members. And I thought, man, we can sell this Zig Ziglar product at our conference, no problem, right?

Sure.

So I said, okay, Jeff. I don't know why. I have no idea why. But for five years, five years, I FTI'd, didn't call on the Ziggler Corporation. Why? Every time I come back from Dallas, I'm like, why did you call on Ziggler Corporation? Put it on the notes. Put it on my action list next time you go. And I don't know why. Well, I do know why now. Because there was something happening in the spiritual realm. I wasn't supposed to know him at that time. And when you look back at the story of everything that's happening, the timing was perfect, okay? I didn't know it at the time. I thought, man, you're, you know, gee, how many times you going to blow it here? Anyway, so I was heading to Hobby Airport, and I was going to Dallas to do a presentation. I was like, ziggler. So I make the call, get a voicemail and get on the plane, get there, do my presentation. I get a call back from Ziggler on my voicemail, go down to see them, and, making a long story a little shorter, met Tom. And at that. That day, I made arrangements for Mr. Ziggler to come and speak at my conference.

And Thomas Just for clarity, Thomas, Zig's son, Zig.

Son, yeah.

Yeah.

And so. And Tom runs the company, so. So I invited Zig to come and speak at my conference. He came, Tom came, his daughter Julie came and got to know each other. And I started building a relationship with Tom. And then Ziggler decided to go into the coaching business. They want to go into business coaching. A longer story behind that. And so Tom called.

How old. How old a man is Zig at this point in time?

At that point, he was. I'd have to do some math. He was 86 when he passed away. So let's say 82, maybe, something like that.

Okay, so he's. He's. He is 82 years old, actively engaged up to something, going somewhere, looking to start new things.

Okay, well, actually, here's what happened. So Zig had fallen down the stairs. He had short term memory issues. And so when he spoke on the stage, he would tend to repeat himself. So he. He'd have to have Tom or Julie with him to keep him on track, you know, and because he'd repeat himself, and then one of them would have to say, dad, you already told them that. And he had so much wit, even though he had, you know, brain damage. Basically said, yeah, but those two guys on the front, they weren't listening. He was still so funny. He could remember everything that happened for all these years, all his stories and all that, but he couldn't remember what happened five minutes ago. So he'd get on this loop, you know.

Well, that's how it happens.

Yeah. And so what happened was they finally decided, all right, Zig's not gonna go travel anymore. He's not gonna go, you know, speak anymore. So they went to see a consultant in Chicago. The consultant in Chicago looked at all their stuff and said, okay, you guys are perfect to go on the business coaching space. So Tom calls me and asked me if I would be willing to work with the Ziglar Corporation to do business coaching.

And your answer was?

My answer was, let me get my people to talk to your people. Maybe we can work something. I was. No, I was like, how many Howards do you know? You know that you called Howard Partridge? Right? Let me get that part straight first, okay? And so it was just a God thing. I mean, when I look back and so get this now, you gotta. You know, everybody here understands that Zig Ziglar is American legend. Seth Godin. Seth Godin called him a national treasure. And he was what I loved about that man. He's. He was the Same guy as he was backstage, as he was on stage, authentic. And finished 86 years of his life without a blemish on his record.

And so that man, I mean, I, I, how would I see you getting a little emotional about this? I mean, did you, did you love that man?

I still love him, yeah. Changed my life. Part of my personal mission is to extend the legacy of Zig Ziglar's philosophy, to keep that alive, you know, because it's so good. And of course, I used to tease them, you know, I said, you know, I said people, you know, I tell people that that quote that you have, you can have everything in life you want if you're just helping up other people get what it is that they want. I said, you know, you stole that from the Bible. And because, you know, the Bible says give and it'll be given back to you. Press down, shaken together and running up. He said, that's all right. I know him personally, you know, he was just so good. And so, yeah. And so the thing is, is that here's a man who, who touched an estimated quarter of a million lives, or quarter of a billion lives, 250 million lives on the planet, okay. And to be in a position to lead that company and that legacy forward is just. And to have the last chapter of his last book based on my quote, I mean, talk about phenomenal. Over the top.

That's incredible.

It's incredible. So Tom and I built a framework. If you get the book Born to Win, the last chapter is called Born to Win for business leaders. It has our business assessment and our basic framework. And then I wrote another book called the Five Secrets of a Phenomenal Business, the one that's in red right there. When people get on my website and opt in, you can get that book for free. And it's all about the systems, building the systems. But, but yeah. So to have the opportunity to represent him, to be as involved with his legacy and his business is what a blessing. I mean, wow.

You know, Howard, you deliver what amounts to be your life work combined with the Ziglar work combined with all of the experiences that you've had working with all the other thought leaders around personal development, business coaching. And you've just, you just have lived an incredible life and built. Are highly respected inside of these networks, with the Maxwells and all of these other people. How explain the different ways that you deliver to small business owners or really anybody. I mean, I know you work with, with business owners. What if somebody's a prospective business owner? Is it too early for them to get involved with your products and your programs. Can you talk just a little bit? Because I know there's people out there that are going to say, well, how can I plug in with Howard? What are the opportunities that you have for people to connect with you today through your programs?

You bet. Well, first off, the main thing that we do is work with business owners who have been in business for at least three years, who have at least three team members. Because that's just our niche. Okay. That's our focus. And what happens is.

Got it.

And what I do is a membership. I do a membership. It's called Phenomenal Business Coaching is our brand. That's what we're, that's our external brand powered by Zig Ziglar. So what we do is we have a membership program where people can learn the proven systems in the areas of leadership, marketing, sales, service and financial for a small business. Then we have group coaching and one on one coaching. So it's a, it's a membership program where people can, small business owners can get involved. And then what happens is in the community and we do conferences every quarter for our membership. So our coaching members, what happens is then they get the business improved, but then they get the Zig Ziglar philosophy. They get, I've written several personal development books. They get the whole phenomenal philosophy and so it ends up changing their life. So there's a lot that we have even for small business owners. I've got a couple marketing books. They're going to need systems and we have a program for smaller businesses or people who are just starting out. It's not our primary focus, but it's there and so they can learn the all, all you have to do is go to Howard Partridge.com Howard Partridge.com and you're going to opt in. You're going to get my book for free. You're going to get free business training. And when you opt in, you put in your, your criteria and we, we send different things to people who are. People who have a team who've been in business for three years who are doing a certain amount of revenue and then we'll send something different to the newer people or the people who are like let's say new independent agents. And we're gonna have a lot of more, a lot more stuff, A lot, a lot of things that, that people like that are going to be able to take advantage of. One thing is our franchise Phenomenal Business Coaching. If you, yeah, if you're passionate about small business coaching, you want to help small business owners like I do, we have a turnkey solution for that. Right. And so you can do what I do and help people the way I help people using my systems without having to go through all that I've had to go through. Right.

Yeah. I think your particular franchise offering is so rich in as much as you have all of the content that you built over a lifetime, but not only that, you've built it into very easy to use sophisticated delivery mechanisms all online so that your franchise owners immediately take advantage of all of these things with their clients. And it's really, it's really unique in as much as the, you know, the tried tested proven systems are. You know, they don't even need to operate the systems. They really are customer acquisition coaching. They get to focus on the clients and they get to really help the clients use the tools, internalize and be better because, you know, you, you've built these systems really over decades.

Yeah.

That are the framework and kind of the strong foundation and infrastructure for the phenomenal business coaching franchise.

Yeah. So we're looking for people, people who would want a phenomenal business coaching franchise or that would do well with a phenomenal business coaching franchise are people who love to network, love to meet people, love business owners. You go out, we give you the script, we tell you what to say to them, what questions to ask and then you just simply get them into an opportunity. Everything is scripted. You got the whole system. Once they join the membership program, our system takes over from there and all you have to do is just meet with them once a month to make sure that they're using all the resources that we have.

It's very unique, it's a very unique offering. It's, it's, there's less to do as a franchise owner than in many other service or business service or coaching type franchises just because of that infrastructure. So it's really a sales to sales and coaching. So I would expect that you would be looking for people that are passionate about helping people learn, probably have some, some business experience that they're going to use to build credibility with their clients. Yeah. So I can see people that have had success in a career that are looking to do something on their own that's really, really asset light and is, you know, you go, you one of those businesses, what does it say? You, you either take a shower before work or you take a shower after work. This is a business where you take a shower before work and so you, you stay clean out there doing it. That's right.

Well, so you don't have to buy any equipment. You can work over the phone right online like this. And you need a, a phone and wi fi. I mean, you know that you got it, you know. But yeah. You normally don't sweat.

No.

Unless you're doing your coaching call outside on the beach. And it's hot outside.

Well, and, and it's entirely possible because I know you do it.

I do.

I've been on a zoom with you down there in Destin.

Yep, that's right, that's right. Yep, yep.

Well, fantastic. Well, congratulations on the success of that. I know you've been off to a good start with it and you've got an early cohort of franchisees that are out there and doing phenomenal things for the business owners in their communities and around so. Well, fantastic. You, you said something early that belief, 90% of beliefs are hidden. I, I don't want to go all the way back to the beginning, but I can't help but think that you've got some wisdom for people that are stuck and getting people unstuck. Because the first thing we do, and I, and I coach our Homefront brands franchisees in the very first couple hours of training about self limiting beliefs and I share with them that, look, we're the same, you know, bag of molecules and cells that people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are. The difference is, is that they don't put walls up, they don't put themselves in a box of self limiting beliefs. If they decide that something needs to get done and it's on purpose with what they believe humanity needs, then they just, they don't stop until they find a way to get it done. And you know, so the question is, is, is why? You know, what is, what is the different, what's behind the variation and in outcomes for people? And I get back down to these, this, this concept of self limiting beliefs which goes back even further to the beginning of our conversation, is that when you grow up with nothing and you grow up living without a net and you grow up, you know, in risk or in peril and you realize that, you know, you, you can never go back to behind where you started because you, you started with nothing. And the, so I think that kind of a start in life gives people this belief in themselves because if, if progress is one of the greatest satisfactors in life and I'll, I'll share with people that negative progress is the biggest dissatisfactor in life.

Yes.

When you start from nothing and you have nothing, everything is progress. If you start from a wealthy family and you go to an Ivy League school and now you've got all of these expectations about the minimum that you should do, anything less than that feels like negative progress. And it's got to be. I hate to say it. It's got to be really hard for people to, you know, that grow up with this abundance, you know, and. And this. These expectations. And they don't have the benefit of starting from ground zero and building these things themselves. So I can see how that generational thing where, you know, somebody starts with nothing and they grow something. And then they give it to their kids who grow a little bit more. And then that next generation has such a fast start. They, you know, they're. They end up destroying the business or, you know, not doing as well. Yeah, there's a real interesting psychology there inside of that. Now, what I'll say is just because you start with means and you. And you have opportunities, you still need to find a way to be motivated and not to have, you know, you can. You can have. Now you have with the curse of knowledge. Now you have, you know a lot, you've seen a lot, You've been exposed to a lot. Now you have too many good opportunities. Really? How many opportunities did you have? And first of all, it's a good thing that you ended up where you did. And you didn't run out of bus fare like you just went to the.

End of the line.

If you'd have had another couple, if you'd have had another $2, Howard, you might not even have been Howard Partridge. Your life could have been different because you. You would have went to the next town. You never would have met your wife. None of this would have happened. So you had exact amount of money you needed to be you.

Yeah, well, actually, this was the destination. Because my real dad. So here's what I want to talk about.

That's right. You're going to your dad.

Yeah. I believe that this is the key. I learned this from zig. You see, Mr. Zigler said that every human being has a poor self image to one degree or another. In other words, every single person on the planet has some level of limiting belief. Right? And this is why he said that as a human being, you're born to win. Designed for accomplishment, engineered for success. Endowed with the seeds of greatness. After all, God don't make no junk. So I have my own translation of that. Because my brand is phenomenal. Everywhere I go, I tell people they're phenomenal. I had this conversation with An Indian lady in CBS yesterday, okay. She said, how you doing? I said, I'm phenomenal. She goes, oh, really? Wow. I said, so are you? I don't think so. So I have what I call the phenomenal talk, right? And why are we phenomenal? Because human beings are created different than animals. We have a creative mind and we're, we're designed for a purpose. If you ever want to be inspired, just read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I mean, how can you, how can you have hope? How can you find purpose when you're in a Nazi prison camp without even getting into all the conditions? But you got shoes that are falling apart and you're out there in the winter, you've had some liquid soup with maybe a pea in it and a piece of bread. That's all you've had. And you're getting hit over the back and, and there's no facilities. I don't want to get too graphic. How can you find meaning in the, the midst of that? And so what it really comes down to is understanding. You know, my early mentor, the wisest man that I know, said human beings fall into one of two ditches. Either the ditch of guilt or the ditch of pride. You see, most people, they don't think that they're enough. They don't think that they're enough. Other people that maybe grow up, grew up, privileged, maybe they think they're all that. And either one is going to keep us from having the right image of ourselves. It all starts with a self image, the picture we have of ourselves when we finally understand that a, we have potential. So in my book FTI, there's 10 principles. The first one is the potential principle. Understand that every human being has potential. Every human being on the planet is important that we are designed for a purpose. Everybody is designed for a different purpose. Everybody was designed for a different purpose. And also, Sharon, there, there's a, an illustrator or a, an illustration. I have a model on finding your purpose, right? And then you got to find a path. This may not be the path. I mean, you know, what did Zig do? He, he was, you know, he's a salesman. He sold cookware. And then he found out that he could, he could be good at. Get this. I mean, Zigzag wanted to quit until a mentor, a coach, pulled him aside and said, you know, Zig, his name is PC Merrill. He said, I've never seen such a waste in all my life. He said, if you went to work on a regular schedule, you could be A great one. Nobody had ever told him that he could be a great one and what to do to be a great one until that day. And so he made a decision to go to work on a regular schedule. He became a great one, and then he decided to take a job as a sales trainer. And so, you know, this path leads to that path, leads to that path. That leads to that path. But you don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great. So my message to everybody listening to this is that you are somebody, you are valuable. You are phenomenal. You're created to be phenomenal, to do phenomenal things and have a phenomenal life. Now, your job might be to be Ann Sullivan, who pours her heart and soul into one person. Helen Keller, who's deaf, dumb and blind. That might be your purpose in life. Or it might be to be the next, you know, Zig Ziglar speaking to thousands of people. See, that sounds so appealing, right? But it shouldn't be appealing if that's not what you're called to calling.

Howard. You know, I. One day I was. I was asked to come and speak to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the local high school. And high school kids are tough, by the way. And I've spoken. I spoke. There was a new Quinnipiac university up in the Northeast, was starting a franchise program. So they asked, like, five franchise executives to come speak, and I was the first one on the schedule. So I, I. Planes, trains, and automobiled my way up there and, you know, to. To speak. And it was a big. I mean, I'm telling you, it was. It was a big inconvenience for me to get up there and to do this. And I had an hour and 15 minutes with these kids, and I. I just. I gave them the best I could on franchising. And I could tell you, man, they just. They just weren't really that interested that day. Like, it was just part of the class. You know, I didn't get a lot of engagement. It was. It wasn't. You know, it was kind of like the Kitchen Confidential of the, you know, that Anthony Bourdain did. I told him what franchising really was and what it was. And I think what they were looking at, it was because the. The instructor, who was a brilliant man and a kind man, you know, he had drawn up on the board, you know, well, this is a factory, and this is how products are distributed. You know, it was like the technical, you know, going along with their. Of advanced degree stuff. And I gave them the Kitchen Confidential version of franchising. Like, this is what makes it successful. This is what you got to do. And. And, you know, so I left that, and I was just like, wow, that was the. One of the toughest rooms I've ever had, to be honest with you. They couldn't wait for that bell to ring and get out of there. So I go to this. So I'm. I'm actually, you know, speaking from, you know, big rooms, but I. I'm going into this fellowship of Christian athletes with 20 kids in there, and I'm like, what am I going to tell them? And, you know, I think the thing that I ended up with that day was I'm going to challenge each of you to find a way today to say, give somebody an unsolicited compliment and to smile first, because I can tell you, and I know that you can, too, there's people in your life 20 years ago, 50 years ago, you know, that said that took 30 seconds to say something to you that impacted your life so greatly because it gave you value as a person, it gave you direction, it gave you a thought in your head that without somebody putting it in there, you would have never, ever thought that it was possible for you or should you even consider that for you. And that is the reason why what you do is so important. That's the reason why people need coaches. It's not that this stuff isn't available to everybody. It's the fact that people don't get it, and they don't get it when they need it. And, you know, we all have got to have, you know, whether, you know, whether you're 12 or 22 or 52, there's always somebody that's gonna. That needs to speak into your life and tell you just the right thing at just the right time. Because, you know, there's. It just. It. We can't visualize ourselves into something unless we've been exposed to it or somebody else has maybe suggested that, like, this is what I see for you. This is what I see in you. Because sometimes other people can see things in us that we didn't really see for ourselves. So. And, you know, so the, you know, what you do in terms of the coaching, what I did in terms of coaching 30 seasons of my kids sports, and I look back at. I look back at the pictures I have on the walls. I look back at the notes and the cards that I got at the end of every year. I would give the kids a video of every game, and I would Write them a letter. And I can tell you, you know, I'll be walking around town, and somebody will come up to me and they will say, you know, I remember when you said this. So it's just. It's those little things that make such a big difference in other people's lives. And, you know, you just. And it. And it's. You never know when the opportunity is going to come up to do it. I had a guy call me the other day. He cold called me. And I don't know if it was interesting because I picked up my phone for whatever reason, and a lot of times I don't. Just. Because if I don't know who it is, and I don't know if it was a gimmick, but it was a young kid, and he was doing sales calls for a piece of technology, and he asked for my son, and he said, I just need to talk. And I don't know if he knew it was me or if it wasn't me. And I didn't tell him who I was. I said, well, you didn't get his phone, but I do work with him. Tell me what you're. Tell me what you're trying to tell me. You know, tell me what you got. Like, what's the deal? Like, how. What. What do you want to talk to him for? And he says, well, I was referred by this person, and I knew that he kind of wasn't. He might have. He might have been, but I knew he kind of wasn't. But he did such a good job on that sales call because he was respectful. He answered my questions, and, you know, and I just said, well. And after about a minute, I said, well, I can tell you that we're not a candidate for this because we already do this, and we're heavily invested in this direction. So I can tell you from my perspective that this will. This is never going to be something that we're going to use. And he said, well, who are you? And I said, well, my name's Jeff Duden. I'm the CEO of the company. And he got all flustered or acted like he did, and he's like, oh, geez. I. He goes, well, I guess you would know. And. But then I was like. And I was gonna hang up the phone, but you know what? I took, like, a minute, and I just. I just gave him some coaching on a sales call, and I complimented them, and I told them, and I encouraged them. I said, you know, keep doing what you're doing. I didn't hang up. You Were you had just the right mixture. You know, you didn't come across as salesy, you didn't come. You came across as respectful but also professional. So I just took a minute just to encourage him. You know, I could have just hung up the phone and said, thanks for calling. But I just felt like, hey, this is an opportunity to have this random interaction where you can speak into somebody's life and you never know what that does for that person. Now, incidentally, that he reached out to me on LinkedIn and connected me and with, with me and all these things, so who knows whatever comes of that. But yeah, it could be that bit of encouragement that he, you know, maybe he's looking at a career change or maybe he's looking at something else, but it could just. Or maybe he was getting ready to quit because he was defeated and, you know, the neck. And it's going to encourage him to, to make that next call because I always tell people, you know, you get the next opportunity by succeeding in the one that you're in.

Yeah.

And, you know, failing. You know, it's okay to make a change if it's not going where you want it to and it's not progress for you, but you always need to finish it impeccably, whatever it is. And so I just wanted to, I just wanted to tap on that with the importance of work that you do. I know how passionate you are. I know how much it means to you, and I just really am. Every time I've learned some stuff here that has really inspired me, you know, these, these. The ditches of guilt and pride are. I, I think that's, there's a lot of wisdom inside of that.

Yeah. So good. Well, John Maxwell told me one thing, one something, one time. He said, you know, once you get a taste of significance, success will never satisfy. You know. And so what I'd encourage everyone here to do is if you're in that place where you don't feel like you're enough or you're. You're suffering from the comparison disease of look what this person has and look what that person. And poor little. The plum disease is what Mr. Zigler called it. Poor little old me. The plum disease. If you're suffering from the plum disease, get around people who not only inspire you, but that, you know, that care about you. It's called community. And we all need community. Listen, if you, if you are a business owner, you get in our community, we have a level where you can just be around all of this and, and, you know, listening to stuff like this and being inspired that, you know, what one person could do, another can do. You're going to have your own unique path. But the way we stay inspired, the way that we grow our belief system, is being around other people who are doing what we want to do. They're the kind of person we want to be. In fact, that's the greatest life lesson that I've ever learned. That is get around people who are already where you want to be and who also have a plan for you to follow. Because there's some people who are successful and they, like, they got some kind of windfall. It's like, I don't know what happened, but some event took place and they. They were smart enough to take advantage of it or whatever, you know, they struck oil by accident, but, you know, so they may not be able to tell you exactly how to do it, But a good coach, a good mentor will help you. Like you said, Jeff, see the gifts that are inside of you, because every single human being on planet Earth has unique, specific gifts. You have a unique fingerprint. And so having someone in your life that can mentor you, that can coach you, that can. I wouldn't be here today had I not had the coaches and the mentors over the years of my life. I mean, the man that I told you is the wisest man that I know. I wouldn't even know about systems if it wasn't for him. And he was a pastor, but he studied business models because he applied them to church. And then I learned about systems, and I learned about leadership. Then I learned about team and people and. And, you know, so get around people. And you're listening to this podcast because there are people on this podcast that are already where you want to be and have a plan for you to follow. So you just need to engage, stay connected, and follow that plan.

The universe creates an unending supply of brokenness and a unending supply of opportunity. And, you know, sometimes we. Some, you know, to. To. To get our ego where it needs to be to have the growth. A lot of times it takes somebody else to, you know, care enough about us to tell us the truth and to. To love us enough to see it through.

Yep, that's right. Yes, sir. Well, thank you for being one of those people for me.

Well, likewise. I appreciate it. You gave me incredible opportunity. Oh, man. A couple years ago now, it seems like to, you know, you have 400 companies in your group, and you asked me, without even validating whether I could do it or not, you. You said, can you come speak at our event. And he gave me the opportunity to keynote it and to do a couple of workshops. And I didn't think about it until I was there, but I said, wait a minute. This is. This is not a room. I'm walking into this room, and nobody knows who I am. This isn't a franchise room. This isn't a room of people that I've got exposure to. Like, this is a room that I'm going to have to earn every bit of credibility from the. I'm going to have to establish credibility. I'm going to have to bring value and the confidence that I got from that opportunity that you gave me to be in front of that huge room, simulcast across your entire network. It was just. It was great. I walked out of there, you know, 10ft tall. And really, since then, I, you know, there's never been a hesitation. Let me just find a bigger room, and let's just continue to spread the word about what we're doing and the things that we believe for. For business owners and people in general. So I really appreciate that. You've made a big impact in my life.

Well, thank you for that. Well, you're one of those people that has. Has been where that. That has been where a lot of people want to be. You've done a lot of things that other people want to do, and you have plans for them to follow. So, you know, you're one of those people. And I'm new to the franchise world, so I'm just looking forward to learning more about you. I should have probably connected with you more a year ago. So. So look for my phone calls and my emails, because we're just getting started.

We are just getting started. Howard, last question.

Yeah.

If you had one sentence to speak into somebody's life, what would that be?

God loves you, so go love other people.

Perfect. Nothing else to be said there. Howard Partridge. How can people get in touch with you?

Howard partridge.com. just remember either the Partridge family or Partridge in a pear tree if it's Christmas time, Howard Partridge dot com. Get the free business training.

Outstanding. Howard, as always, it's been an incredible pleasure. Always enjoy spending time with you, and we appreciate you be on the home front here today. And let's see. I think that's it, Howard. I think we're out. Anything else? Final words?

My pleasure. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Howard Partridge, for being on the home front with Jeff Duden and everybody out there. Thank you for listening.