Episode 139: How Profit First Can Change Your Life with Clay Hantz

Chris, let me tell you, we're going in, like, with a bus with no wheels. I don't. First of all, there's a monitor here that I had right my face. It was like this before. I couldn't even see Christina. It's blocking it and blocking me. The recorder doesn't work, so we're on the Scarlett system, the 2x2. So it's blending the audio, and I'm down the instant sound button thing. I have no sounds.

And.

And this room is 1,000 degrees.

Oh, it's so hot.

It's perfectly insulated now, so there's less noise, but it's insulated, and the sun is beaming in. That's how we're rolling in on this truck.

So let's freaking do this. This is the Profit first podcast.

Get jacked with us on episode 139. Yes, that's right. Come on, Clay. Jeez, dude. Come on.

He might have heard those sounds earlier today.

I did. It's TR a few.

Man, oh, man. Well, welcome, everyone, to the show. This is the Profit first podcast. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Pause youe Life and Fractal Recording.

And the grunter over here, that's my. Me. My name is Mike McAllow. It's Mike. Yeah. And I am the author of Profit first, which is out there in the market today. The revised expanded edition. All new stories. You're gonna hear an amazing story today.

Amazing.

And I'm here in studio with my business colleague, Christina Balt.

Hello. Hello.

And you. You are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is the show where we discuss all of the elements of profitability from how to make money, how to keep money, and how to grow money. Every single angle.

And with. Sometimes we even talk about saving money.

Yeah, sometimes.

Never know. Well, this show is not about revenue, because revenue might be a folding chair.

But profit is the stuff on your back that's like hair. I wanted to use the word hair. That makes no sense.

There you go. Click. Everyone just dropped off. That's. Well, you can find us as a podcast anywhere. You hear podcasts on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, and, of course, the website profitfirstpodcast.com. go there. All our previous episodes. Episodes. Binge. Listen, I was confusing. I was combining episodes and binging.

I know. Episodes.

Just.

Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, Mike, how you been, man?

I've been well, thank you. I just returned from a retreat. I was down in Florida for five days, and it was like an author's retreat that I facilitated with Another guy named Michael Port, very famous author. And all these other aspiring offers came in. Amazing people. But we did in Reunion, Florida, which is outside Orlando. And the houses there it is mansion after mansion. Not McMansion after mansion after mansion. But they're on top of each other. So the properties are still, I don't know, half acre. And literally the house uses the whole half acre. I was looking at houses, I'm like, oh, there's a Motel 8. And I'm like, oh, that's not a Motel 8. That's someone's house. There were just big boxes. Massive. Yeah. I was impressed, but I was like, I would never want to live in that kind of space.

No. Not right on top of each other. You need some space.

Yeah. Chris, we've been up to my bra.

Oh, this morning has been terrible. Fighting with an iPad and a frickin Mac, you know, to get one frickin sound clip onto your frickin iPad. Jesus Christ. We need a frickin surgeon over here. Why is it so hard, dude?

Did you make it difficult?

I know, I know.

Apple sucks.

Really?

Well, I'm pissed off this morning. It's frickin 2017 and I can't put a frickin mp3 on my frickin iPad. Really?

How?

Fire.

And I'm in the frickin music business, dude.

Christina, he's the founder of paw.

Holy crap.

He's the founder of Pause youe Life.

Christina, what are you up to?

Not too much. Just, you know, getting over a sinus infection and all that fun stuff. But I'm back in the office. I'm feeling good.

Yeah. You had to be out for a few days.

Yeah, I was out for like a week. It was bad. I had a. It was just bad.

And let me know today we made her go for a walk.

I know. I get back and I'm still not feeling well. Let's walk five blocks up a mountain. And I'm like, okay.

We went.

Yeah.

For a company walk up a mountain, so. A New Jersey mountain. Just let it be known, you know, in a second we're going to be writing on Clay Hans. And we had a private phone call a few weeks back about what he's done to implement profit first in his business. I think it will blow you away. I think it will blow you away. And I think there's lessons to be learned for your business. But before we get Clay in, I do want to thank our community. You got any shout out?

We have a big shout out today. So this goes out to Russ n. In Ohio. He works for Collaboration Insiders. Actually, I think he's the owner of Collaboration Insiders. But he wrote into us and he said that he's a huge fan of our podcast. He listens to every episode and he goes, no, Mike doesn't pay me for it.

Nice.

So he's got a kind of a long thing here. I'll try and paraphrase, but he goes, this morning, I broke out the candles, cued the George Michael, and massaged the kale. No, that's not a euphemism. He goes, my wife asked what I was doing, which was awkward. But the big difference in my lunchtime salad. So I'm sold. In all seriousness, before this podcast a few years ago, I've tried to eat more healthy. The specific thing I've noticed are far fewer canker sores, eating more fruit and vegetables. Stick stopped that in very short order. That are very. That very small thing convinced him to keep doing what he was doing in his business. He said, mike and team, please keep doing what you're doing. Very much appreciated. So I went on Russ's website and his company is all about engaging employees, unlocking their creativity and innovating for success. And he actually has a page dedicated to Mike Michalowitz. And he's like, why I want to meet Mike McCallowitz. What he does, what his concerns are, what the podcast is about. This guy is he's out there, he's promoting us and what we do because he believes so much in it. So thank you, Russ.

You are a rock star, A George Michael rock star. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I think you're about to meet the polar opposite. Clay smashes faces for a living.

Oh, my.

He does not like candle. He does not like candles. He will stick a candle up your schnoz if you. If you mess with him and he teaches others how to do it. Now, I'm keep on teasing, but I do have this shout out to one more group. It is our corporate partners who make the show a reality. We'll give you full details on them at the end of the show. But I do want to thank Fundera, Fundbox, nextiva, Receipt, Bank, Xero, and of course, Pause youe Life. And we'll give you more details and groaning and moaning sounds when we talk about them in just a minute. But now let's talk about Clay. So Clay emails me and it was this line that got me. He said I hadn't given my children gifts for. I think it was for Christmas, and I believe it was in seven Years. And he then implemented profit first in his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy, and for the first time gave his children gifts.

And.

And you want to talk about the ultimate tough guy. His wife just had a baby this morning at 2:37.

Clay was at the time at 2:47? Yes, sir.

To 247. His wife had a baby and still came on the show because his wife said, I'll kick your ass if you don't go on that show. She's the tougher of the two Clay. Welcome to the program.

Thank you very much, Mike. I'm very happy to be here, man.

So first, tell me about the little babies, Penelope, that you had this morning. A little girl, huh?

Yeah. So this is my third girl. And all of them been born during the day, actually no later than five o' clock. And, you know, we do all of our births naturally. We don't go to the hospital. We've. We've done midwife birds for the last two, and this one was no different. So o' clock in the morning, we're hauling but 20 miles to. In easterly direction to go bird the child. And here she came a few minutes later.

So as miraculous now, is your wife back home already or she's still at the birth?

Yeah, yeah. We came home about four hours after and everybody's happy, whole and doing well.

Wow. Wow. So, again, congratulations to you, but I really want to congratulate you on the turnaround of your business. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your academy, how you got started, and how the financials were working prior to discovering profit first.

Okay, well, I'll correct you first. The gifts. I didn't. I wasn't able to give my kids gifts. My one is four. So I was able to give her a gift for her first birthday and Christmas.

Okay.

And then I. Then I opened my academy and there was absolutely no income. That's. I went from having a nice paying $75,000 sales job that I hated and was. Did pretty well with, and I just left it. I quit, couldn't stand anymore. I was driving myself crazy, and I wasn't doing what I loved. I'd already retired from mixed martial arts, and I was just grinding the wheel against something that doesn't want to grind. And it came to a head. So I quit and started my Academy with about 7 years of professional mixed martial arts experience, along with Brazilian Jiu jitsu. And I chose that. You know, I chose jiu jitsu. It's just the one that I like. It's the one I won all my fights with, it's the. I'm not punching kids in the head or punching. I don't have egos walking through my gym or anything like that. It's a wonderful lifestyle. But to start, man, you know, I started with 14 people, and I kept 14 people for two years.

Wow, what kind of pay do you get from 14 people? What were they paying every month?

That was 1400 dollars and my rent was 1300 dollars. I was. I was shoveling rocks and picking up dog crap and doing all kinds of crap. Just not have a corporate position and have to go somewhere where I had to work for somebody else. I'm not the most amiable person, especially when. Especially when you're telling me what to do. And that was just a better choice for me to be my own boss. And I didn't open my gym because I was good at business. I opened my gym because I was really good at jujitsu. And I thought that that was really going to carry me through, but no one gave a crap. No one cares. Like, karate is jujitsu and jiu jitsu is Taekwondo. Like, it's all the same. Nobody gives a shit. And it's what really changed. I was closing the doors, you know, two years after only having $1,400 income. And, you know, there was a time, it was September, October, November, December of 2015, where I took home $0. I didn't. There was. It was cold outside. We couldn't mow lawns. We couldn't do anything. It was, it was rough. It was really rough. And we were on government assistance on to the hilt. You know, we were getting full benefits for everything. And I felt so guilty against that. You know, growing up, it was, it was always preached against that that was the, that was the bad thing to do. You know, it's your. It's bad to be on. On government assistance. But, man, if I didn't have it, I'd be gone. Like, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. My kids wouldn't have what they have now, and I wouldn't be sitting here. So.

And how do you do that? Because you, you did have a job now. You started your own business. You can still approach the local government and say, here's my situation.

Okay, yeah, you can. And, you know, if you're not making any money, you know, you're not making any money, right? And, you know, I hear this, I hear this kind of story all the time with, with business owners, and there's a popular one out there that it was a lady, you know, driving a Mercedes, but she had it paid for and why sell it to go get a worse car to, you know, have higher payments. And I was lucky enough that we own our property, we own our house, we own both vehicles. So really all I had to do was keep the lights on and pay a phone bill and that was, that's pretty much all I did for two years and ended up hating what I love to do. Yeah, so I was training for an ultra marathon, actually with one of my best friend. Actually, I wasn't trying. Screw that, I wasn't training. He was training and I was helping him. But yeah, he ran like 43 miles in the Arizona desert. He's an idiot. But we were doing this and he was running and listening to you in his headphones and I could hear this, this goofy voice, oh man, what the hell are you listening to? And he saw me. I can't pronounce his last name, but it's, it's Mike and it's a pumpkin plant. Alright, that sounds really cheesy. What's going on? And you know, we finished that day's workout and I literally went home and dumped out $23 out of my big 5 gallon water jug and went to Barnes and Nobles and bought your book and change. And man, I'll get emotional when I talk about this because this is a huge life changing thing for me and I was closing the business. So I just dove in and I automated what I could automate. I spent pretty much every dime inside that little, inside that five gallon bucket just trying to implement plans, cut cost and make it work. And it did. So I listened to it and then, you know, profit first was, was right after that and I said, why not, right? And dove all in on that. So February of 2016, I had 14 students. And as of December of 2016 I had 95 students. And I didn't, I did not gain one student until September. Two weeks after I read the punctu plan, my school blew up. And I had September. I had 17 students the next month, I had 25 students the next month. It just grew and grew and grew. So it was, it was all because of what I read and what I applied. I had to have the reckless abandonment. I just, I didn't have anything else. I had to trust myself and what I read.

So I am so proud of you, my brother. So proud of you.

Thank you. Thank you.

And the end result was, I mean, remember the Christmas gifts? Why it stood out and I'm sorry I got the number of years wrong during this time. I think you said you couldn't afford to buy gifts for your children.

I could hardly buy groceries.

Right, right.

So of course a gift was way out of, way out of line.

But I, you know, a child doesn't, I don't think can get it. But this December, this past Christmas was a little different at your house, wasn't it?

Oh, my goodness, man. I bought my wife, you know, I met her on the 19th of December and that's. We got married in September, but that's our, that's our anniversary as far as I'm concerned. And I was able to, you know, have something really nice for and for Christmas and for all my kids. It was my family. I was able to buy things for my family, which I hadn't done and since I was a teenager. So it was a moving month, man. This is, it was the last quarter. It was the best, the best quarter of my life. Not just financially, just in general. It was, it was really a, an eye opener.

Yeah. So what, what was it like for your wife that your partner going through that horribly dark period as you're trying to build your business, was it for her?

Well, you know, my wife is. I married her because when I'm gonna sound ridiculous, my catch flack for it. But when I, when I married her, when I, when I knew I was gonna start dating her, I told her that jiu jitsu was my first love and that it always would be. And she looked at me and said, okay. And that was it. You know, I knew, I knew that's what I was gonna have to. She was gonna have to be signed up real quick.

Yeah.

And we did. And it wasn't just one year. You know, I was a professional mixed martial artist for seven years. And it's not easy, you know, you're. You're not making hand over fist punching people in the face and getting your head smashed. It doesn't work like that. I think my first paid paycheck for my first professional fight was $400. Your pains. Yeah. And that's six weeks worth of work. You know, my second fight was 600 and I had 15 of them, so my last payday was the only one that was worth anything. It took me 10, 15 fights to get there.

Oh my gosh.

And yeah, it was a ride.

I suspect maybe your first love is your wife. It just, just.

Yeah.

Because your actions are so extraordinary. Yeah. So what shifted in you.

As far.

As, well, you said, you said when you first met her, your first Love was jiu jitsu. That's.

Oh, my goodness. She stuck with me three, four years after that, I. I moved to Dallas. This guy landed in. In Dallas, and he was world renowned. So I moved. And she stayed here for three months and took care of the house, built it up and rented it out and moved to Arlington with me. And from there, we started our journey. And I ended up fighting three times on national television. And I think the largest audience was a couple million people. Of course, it was my last fight, and it was also my worst fight. But, you know, I'm the only kid in this area that has done something like that. I'm the first of a lot from my area, and, you know, I'd like to be. What profit first has shown me is, you know, that there is no end. 98% of martial arts places fail within a year, and I lasted two before I was ready to close. That's only because of my contract, and I didn't want to pay out the.

Butt for it, but for that lease of that. That space.

Yeah, yeah. So I would have closed well before that. And I beat the odds, and I just stuck with it, man. And that's something that my wife showed me, and just reinforcing that. That ideal through profit first in the pumpkin plan, it was just. Just trust yourself, trust the plan, go balls out and do it. And I did it. Saved my life, saved my family's life.

Give me the tactical stuff. I mean, on February 2016, you got 14 students. You're just waiting two years. You read the pumpkin plan. What did you do? What are the things you did to start that stratospheric growth?

The first thing I did is I got rid of all the bad pumpkins. I pull up my weeds, and I did that by not accepting any kind of cash. And I did everything through automated. That way, people couldn't come up to me on the 15th of the 1st and go, oh, dude, I forgot, or, oh, shit, I'm broke, or whatever it was, I got it. Regardless whether they were there, where they weren't, I got it. And that right there took me out of a hole. From there, I was able to afford a few more, you know, amenities like a website. And then I hired a business coach, and a business coach that is familiar with my industry also. He owns two very successful schools in Pennsylvania and in Texas. So he's doing very well with them. And I just hired him. I put whatever money I could into that, and it's turned over for me there, too.

Well, let's give him A little shout out maybe. There's other jiu jitsu schools.

That's Jeremy Henderson at Zombie BJJ in the Lee county area, Pennsylvania. And Abilene, Texas, here in Texas.

Okay, Christine, let's put that in the show notes. Jeremy. Yeah. Congrats for what you did. But, so, Clay, what did Jeremy teach you? What were some of the other specific things? You grew so fast. There must be more. Just a great website.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He's really shown me what marketing is. And the marketing that I learned was actually from the pumpkin plan. Like, screw everybody else and just get you good clients. And that's really what I did. And, man, I found these guys that I didn't even know where my target client. And then I read your book and I'm like, oh, those are the guys I need. So started going. And actually the. Around here, if you've ever seen Friday Night Lights, the movie, that's Odessa, Texas. So, okay, everyone is professional sports around here or not professional. Excuse me. Everyone's, you know, football here.

Yeah.

And that's the biggest sport. So, you know, if I walk in somewhere and go, hey, I got a jujitsu school, nobody cares. But if you talk about football, because I played Division 2 football also, so they. They. They relate to it. Oh, well, he might actually be an athlete instead of some dude that wears pajamas and likes to choke people. It's. It's just a little bit of a relate thing. And like I said, I'm not a very social person. And you, you did. You forced me to be sociable and to ask questions, not only to people, but to myself. And that was a really big deal for me is those. Those deep questions. The better the question, the better the answer. And what's silly about this is I tell my students this and I've told them that for a couple years, like, ask questions, ask better questions, ask deeper questions. But I never followed that advice for myself. And you know, reading. Reading, you. You made me do that. Just answer, ask better questions, get better answers. I did.

Yeah.

It turned everything over for me. So as far as Jeremy's done, he's. He's turned me on to Internet, like how to actually build my website. I built my website for over a year. And he got on. He's like, man, this sucks. So that's good. That's what I want to hear. You know, if I have everything perfect, then I need to be somewhere else. If you're the best one in the room, then you need to find a new place. And he continues to push me so, and that's something that Jiu jitsu has taught me, that, you know, if you're not learning every day, there's other martial arts that you can learn. You know, get a black belt. Three years. It took me 10 years to get a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And that's the average. That's the average to get that. And it's so deep in, you know, if you're not learning, if you're not learning every day even after you've mastered it, because you never really have, you just got to keep reaching, asking better and deeper questions. So, so that theme really falls into my life.

I gotcha. I want to go back to the football. You said you found your community. Who are these 95 students now? Are they many of them aspiring professional athletes in the football space or what's the deal?

No, actually. So kids is my area of innovation. Like there's some really good places around here that have good, good kid programs, but I have, I guess my area of innovation is actually how I teach. I understand that there's modalities of teaching and not, not everyone gets it. You know, that's one way. And you know, that modality or excuse me, the ability to know. Heck, I grew up with four brothers and sisters. I have to be able to navigate personalities. That, that really is what I expanded on. So these kids that have off season during football are going and playing sports that they don't want to play and they get into Brazilian Jiu jitsu. And it doesn't just give them something to do because it's a year round sport. It makes them better, it makes their hips better, it makes their body control better, their balance better, and it translates directly into their sport. And with a background of football and defensive and offensive, I'm able to translate that. So I'm able to, you know, tell a kid and say, hey, get your hips in front of him just like you would whenever you did a drop step or whatever the terminology would be. And that has really opened up a really good avenue for me. So paying attention to another market, which was the youth football league, opened up that market to me. So as far as my kids, a lot of my kids are seasoned, you know, select team athletes and my adults are actually business owners because, you know, all my friends are business owners. There's a saying out there. You are the average of the five people that you hang around the most.

Yes, yes.

All those guys I hang around with are black belts business owners. And increase, you know, encroaching on that million Dollar mark in the businesses. And, and that's. I want to be that average, you know. Yeah.

Now are you able, because you pick this community now of these young athletes who are playing football this the off season, their parents are paying your bills. I assume that the kids aren't. So is it important that the parents have a, the means to afford your services? And secondly, if that's true, how do you market to the parents when the kid is the one who's benefiting from the experience?

That's a really good question. And it's pretty easy to market to parents. If you make a kid happy, you've already done the marketing. And if that kid goes home and the next morning wakes up and says, hey, are we going back to Jiu Jitsu? They're gonna be there. You know, people, people around here, and I'm sure it's other places, but this is a family oriented, I mean, good old Southern home place. And, you know, it's. Whether that's good or bad, whatever. But they have a huge value on family and the kids are the most important. I mean, man, kids down here for football teams are decked out in Under Armour jerseys with like super awesome stuff. So. And this is all oil country. You know, this is one of the biggest producers in the United States for oil. So the business owners are attached to that oil and that's attached to money also. So money is never really an issue. And to some people it is, but I don't want those clients. And you know, does that make sense? I'm sure it does.

It totally makes sense. What I'm hearing is you pick a community where the money's not the issue. They just care about their, a, maybe their child advancement in football, but really that their kid is having a happy experience. That.

Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Well, I want to. I'm really curious about the profitability as you've grown your business. If we got those 14 people that said, hey, man, I've got money today. Sorry, bro, if now you're collecting credit cards. What's been the impact on profitability? How you doing number wise on that front?

Oh, my gosh, man. You know, like I said, I went from making a $200 deposit in September and my final deposit at it was personal. Actually, I won't say the gym number, but. But my personal was seven grand deposit, and that's gigantic for me. I mean, the percentage I think is 700. Yeah, that's pretty.

So are you saying in December you personally got a $7,000 deposit for you?

Yeah, and that wasn't even with my quarterly profits either.

Oh, I love that. I love when you talk dirty. Oh, that was. You just did a round spinning kick right to my.

Yeah. Oh, man. And that's a whole nother story like that. Having that profitability allowed me to. Like, I'm number one. Allowed my. Buy my kids a gift. And, you know, you tell them to do something nice for yourself. That was something nice for myself. But I also went on a bear hunt. I also went on a bear hunt. So daddy's gonna be taken care of.

Too.

You know, whether I get something or not. I like to go and hang out with my friend, and we spent a week in the Arkansas woods with Wonder Nobody around. And that was. That was something for me. Really something.

That's wonderful. But was a huge gift for yourself.

Huge. And being able to teach my kids. Like, today we went and we went to Target and we bought a piggy bank for Penelope. You know, my daughter is. My daughter. She gets a part of that bonus. She's a part owner in my business. So both of them get 5% of my profits. So I get to add that to them and that I'm able to talk to them about that. So Olive wanted to use her. Her percentage to buy gifts for Jesus. Forgetting names now, Penelope and.

Yeah. So many kids.

You know, at 4 years old to have what she's got in the bank account in four months. I mean, I didn't have. I didn't have a thousand dollars Until I was 19 years old, you know, and actually I had it when I was 12 years old because I had puppies. I sold puppies. But, you know, in the bank, at least I was 19, 20 years old. And for me to be able to talk about this, to just use vernacular that was never used when I was growing up. I mean, my parents put a VHS thing on layaway or not layaway. They leased it. They got it from, like, Aaron's Rent to Own or something like that. I was never taught money saving or spending principles ever.

Right.

You know, I got money. I spent money. Cash is in my pocket. It goes right out the pocket. And being able to pass that to my kids and having them want to save it instead of spend it or spend it on. On someone else other than themselves is.

Yeah.

I mean, it chokes me up. And it's. It's a huge. That is the gift that Profit first has given me is not just a healthy bank account for myself, but a healthy lifestyle for myself and my family and my kids.

Hi. So much love Hearing that, I'm so.

Ready for the quarters just so I can give them a check.

Right, right. I mean, like, you just took a profit distribution a month ago, but we're two months away from the next one.

Yeah.

Like, are you excited? It sounds like you're anticipating that next profit distribution already.

Well, I anticipate it for the. For them. Like, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to buy a house. So all my profit, I'll go and buy a nice bottle of whiskey, and then I put everything back in.

Nice.

Yeah. That's like, I have a goal, and I just need to snowball it till I have it. So you will.

You will.

And I want a house by this year. By the third quarter, I should have all.

Wow, Clay, when you do, you got to come back on and tell us that story.

I hope I can make it.

Tell me about the taxes, because now your income. I mean, 7,000 in a month ain't a shabby month. Your taxes are going to start growing quickly. Have you been putting money aside for taxes?

Yeah. So taxes came around this year, and I was able to pay my property taxes. I actually got money back, so I had. I think. I think I had four grand in my tax account, and I kept it all. So it was pretty cool, man, because I just used my tax return to pay my property taxes. And so my There. My profit, man, my profit was just huge. My profit was bigger than a monthly check. That was just gigantic for me. I've never had that. I've never had that. It blows me away, even when I think about it, like, what the hell? What is it?

Unbelievable.

It's like magic. Really is.

It's like magic, but it is just our behavior. As ironic is this our behavior. A little tweak around it. Well, before we wrap up, what would you suggest to other folks? There's people listening right now, Clay, who are in your position a year or two ago where they are making maybe a hundred bucks in a month. They're ready to wrap it up. What do you suggest they do to start turning around?

Change your mind. Change your mind that you can't have this defeatist attitude, and you don't suck at what you're doing. You are deconditioned. You literally are not trained in it. And if you're not trained in a specific skill, you're gonna fail. And the failures aren't bad. The failures are the learning. You know, if you. If you fail and fail and fail, it's. At some point, it's going to kick in, but you have to be learning from those failures. So if you just change your mindset, you're going to change your life. And that's my tagline, man. You change your mind, you change your life. And it's a hundred percent true. I didn't believe it when I was reading it. I didn't. I didn't believe it at all. And I said, screw it. Change my mind. I had a positive outlook on it, and the first month I was profitable. So change your mind, change your life.

You are living proof, living proof that that works. Changing your mind, Clay again, I am so effing proud of you. Please give your wife a huge hug for myself from Christina, everyone up here, and I do want to ask you one favorite. Would you. If you would send us a picture of you and your family. We want it. We have a wall here, the wall of fame. And we have a meeting every morning and we talk about you and folks just like you because I'm telling you, this is, this is why we're here. This is why I do what I do. And I want to inspire you. Just keep carrying the message. Keep doing what you're doing because it's inspiring your children, your family, your friends. People are going to rally around you and start replicating you, man.

I tell all my business owner friends, I've sent, I've sent both of your books out. I don't know.

Oh, yeah, definitely do that.

I think, I think when I spoke to you, I had sent five out. I've doubled that since. And I just, just want it out there, man. Like if, if you can do just for one of those people, like whatever their industry is, whether it's a canvas and wine or whether it's a multi million dollar wellhead industry service or, you know, whatever, just if it can change one life for the better, man, I'm, I'm all about going to, spending that 20 bucks and hand it to somebody because 20 bucks isn't anything now. I don't want, I don't have someone else have to dig change out of their pockets, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But hey, before we wrap up, let's talk about Vagabond. Your, Your training academy. Where your training academy, your jiu jitsu training academy, where can people go to learn more about you and sign up for your academy?

Oh, very cool, man. We're at Vagabond. Bjj.comv A G A B O N D V J J calm Find me on Facebook, on Instagram as well. And that's it. Like websites Better now, so you should be able to click right along, man. Mike, thank you. My. From my family and from. From me, man. Thank you. Your change. You're changing lives. I don't know. You probably do know, but it's. Thank you. I love it, man. Thank you. So.

You're welcome, brother. You're welcome. And thank you and everyone listening, listen, right now, someone is running an ultra marathon listening to this podcast, or you're driving, or you're going to be commuting through Texas. I don't care if you're going down just for one day. Sign up for a day class with Clay and experiences. First of all, you learn to kick someone's ass. I told Clay, next time I'm in Texas, I want to swing by and learn. But. But the second thing is you're going to learn from a guy that's changing the world, and that trans transcends just traditional training. You're gonna learn so much more and maybe you can, you know, fire down some whiskey with Clay too.

So there you go.

All right, brother. Go baguette to your baby. And we love you, man. Thanks.

Thanks, Mike.

Thank you.

All right, guys. I'm kind of. My breath is kind of taken away.

Right now, so I'm so taken back. I didn't say much because I'm just taking it all in. Oh, my goodness.

It's funny. He says Clay's like, I'm gonna get emotional. You start tearing up, I'm starting to tear up. He's a remarkable man. Yes, A remarkable man. Well, what we're going to do in just a minute, guys, is we're going to discuss what we learned from. From Clay, and we love to hear what you learned too. So share that on the podcast, the comment field. We want to know what you learned first. I do want to thank our corporate partners who make this show a reality.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. So. Oh, yeah, yeah. So first is Fundera. You know who Fundera is, Christina?

I do.

Do you want to say who they are? You want to share some details?

Fundera is your one stop shop for hooking, getting hooked up with a loan.

That's right.

Boom.

You come back from a sick week and you just one. One time up to bat and you hit a home run right there. Boom. All right, Chris, you're next, bro. Tell me a little about nextiva, my brother.

Oh, nextiva is voiceover IP phone system. This is. It's a real phone system, like a fully functional with all the features, but it's voiceover IP and it works great. And you guys just rave about their service. I mean, you guys don't stop.

I just ordered another phone.

I know.

Every week.

Every week, every episode. Oh, it's worth another phone. But it's true. It's true. It's an amazing system. Is only getting better. And the word on the street is that in this first quarter, toward the end, they're going to be releasing a CRM that ties into the phone system.

Interesting.

Pretty. Pretty cool. All right, I'll do Fundbox. They are a cash flow accelerator. And what that means is I don't know if Clay would want to use them. He could have in the past, when he wasn't getting money, if he had invoices, those clients, Fundbox would release the funds to him its entirety. And then when he collects the money from his clients, he returns it. Now, I'm not suggesting it's appropriate for everyone. And based upon what Clay did, his solution was absolutely perfect. You get some automated system, and that was the right solution. But if you're in a circumstance where you have to invoice and you're sitting and waiting on the money, Fundbox will release those funds to you right away. All right, two more businesses. I want three more. I want to talk about Receipt Bank. That one's to you, Christina.

Receipt Bank. Store all your receipts in one place online.

Yeah.

And you can scan it from your phone.

Yeah.

In like two seconds.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Amazing. Kelsey. Oh, I. We're on the same team today. Fireball. We. Same team. We want a free lunch.

You did.

Problem is, I'm the jackass who has to buy it, but when I do buy it, I'm buying it for her. I am scanning in with Receipt Bank. I also want to tell you about zero. Zero is cloud accounting software. It was built from the cloud up. So if you want a system that's totally modern, cutting edge for your accounting system, it's zero. And the last but certainly not least company is Pause your Life. Chris.

Yeah. Pause your life dot org. My wife and I started a non profit, so you can hit the pause button and regain your sanity. So when. When iPads get you angry, you. You balance that out. Because that's real.

Yeah, that. Right. I mean, it's the definition of life. Like, I think, Chris, so many people think, oh, you know, life is just like, you have to always be in Zen mode. But that's not reality. But you need to give yourself those Zen opportunities, which is what Pause youe Life does.

Yeah. Little balance. Balance goes a long way.

Geez, Chris, I want to know what you learned from Clay today.

Well, first of all, I really like his attitude of gratitude. I mean, Right. You can tell that he's very thankful for everything. He's not just some big macho jackass who's out there saying, I'm gonna rip people's heads off. He's a real human with a heart, and he's passing this down to his children. I mean, if there's one thing that I appreciate the most is that passing this knowledge and this wisdom. Because it's wisdom. It's not just knowledge. Passing this wisdom down to his children is amazing. I love it.

Yeah. Remarkable. Christina.

Oh, man. He. When he said this, I almost, like, fell off my chair. If you are the best one in the room, you need to find a damn new room.

Yeah.

It's so true, though. If you're not learning, you need to keep asking better questions, as you say, and deeper questions. It. You know, because it. It just furthers your wisdom of life. And I don't think you can ever stop learning, even when you've mastered something. If you're. You always. You should always be a student.

Always. Yeah. That's amazing. There were so many tips. To me, though, was something that he didn't say, but I heard it in between what he was saying. He said his last fight in the professional fighting arena was his worst loss, and it was his biggest fight. And my head said, no, his biggest fight was to overcome his. His training, if you will, by his parents on how to manage money or not to manage money. And he grew up under their guidance. And I'm not saying that. That they intended to set him off to a difficult start financially. That's all I assume they knew. But he grew up under that. And he stood up and said, there's got to be a different way. Change your mind, he said. And I'm telling you, 12. Not even 12 months. Christina. February 2016. 11 months. He's. He's making more income, take home more income than he ever, ever has in his life, and he's catering to a community that is starving to have this experience, this. Not. They're. They're not doing something that's negative or, oh, I have to do it. No. They're now finding that this integrates into. Into their lifestyle. I think he's won his biggest fight.

Oh, yeah.

And he's got. You know, this guy is really tough. Not as a fighter, per se. I mean. I mean, he's extraordinary. Yeah. I saw a picture of him, and I actually peed myself a little bit, but because he's he looks extremely tough that way, but he has the courage to come on a show like this and just put it all out there. He doesn't say, oh, I wanted to cloak my name or, or, you know, or cover my voice with some kind of cheesy sound effect. He just says, this is who I am. This is what I experienced. I think just by doing this. What a great inspiration he is for all of us.

You know what I like that he said about profit first is he said there is no end, there's only growth and you have to stick with it and you have to trust yourself. But that is so true. This isn't like some six week program or gimmick. It's changing your lifestyle so you, you can have the best possible for yourself and for your family.

I really like that. And another thing is that, you know, things aren't always what they seem. And I think as entrepreneurs and business owners, we can look at someone who's, you know, fighting in the MMA on tv and you must think they're making a boatload of money.

Yeah.

And another thing is too, you can look at businesses who, for instance, have, you know, 10 employees and you think the owner must be making boatloads of money. Things are not always what they seem. And this is the wisdom of not only profit first, but the pumpkin plan and all your books, Mike, is that you got to win the real game. And the real game is how much money is going in your pocket and how do you make that sustainable until you're, you know, nice and old and you could sit back in a rocking chair and still make money?

You just double jujitsu me in the face. And the last thing I do want to share one more thing. You know, I think when he says, I took home 7,000 this past December, a lot of us, the normal belief is, oh, his in his GROSS Income was 7,000, then he probably had taxes taken out, you know, so it's probably like really 5,000 and there's no nothing beyond that. That's it. That was his net, like that's the bottom. So a lot of people don't understand that. Profit first. When we talk about what kind of compensation or owner's pay taking that is the net. Net net. That's literally what comes home, his taxes. The company paid for that and actually he even got kickback from that. And on top of it, he has a profit check that comes out that I suspect with that kind of income, it's pretty sizable.

Yes.

Okay. I fell in love with it.

Yeah. Oh my Good. So listen, you're hearing this right now. You can also comment on this post. We want to know what you learned. What did you learn? Or what question do you have for Clay or Mike or Christina? So go to profitfirstpodcast.com and find episode 139. You can comment on that post. And of course, you can always get in touch with Mike directly. And of course, you can rate and review our podcast. You can hear us wherever you hear podcasts. Make sure you subscribe and rate and review. And of course, the backbone, if you will, behind this entire sound waves that are going into your ear right now is Profit First Professionals. This is the solution. There's been a problem for so long that people didn't even know there was a freaking problem. Profit First Professionals is the solution. Right, Christina? Oh, yeah, yeah.

And we've drawn. Oh, yeah, we've drawn the line. You know, we had a meeting this morning. We had our awesome meeting this morning, and we kick it off. I said, I go around the room, sometimes unexpectedly, I say, christina, why we're here? And our tagline, our motto is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. But then I say, but what's your reason to be here? And we won't talk about it now, but we dig into our personal calling, and I think all of us are called here to. To do this.

Yes, we.

We want to serve the clays of the world, and. And we want to serve you, too. That's why we started Profit First Professionals. We want you on our wall. For God's sake, get on our wall. Get on the wall of fame. Here's how you get on the wall. Go visit our websites. Profit First Professional. You know that coach that Clay was talking about? We have coaches who specialize in profit first. So you go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, you click on the find button, then the responsibility is on Christina, myself, our team here, Obi Ron, Fireball, Hillage, the Wine, Lumberjack Mo. Our team will jump, Kravitz. Our team will jump on it, and we will find you the perfect coach or perhaps bookkeeper or accountant who can bring profitability to your company, just like Clay. And I don't care where your business stands today, we can turn it around, bring profitability, and that will be the next step to eradicating industrial poverty in this world. So go to proffersprofessionals.com right now, click on find, and let's do this together.

It's like having the Godfather on your team standing behind you, just waving his hand toward profit.

I don't want any problems in this room. Just take care.

There you go. Profit first. Professionals, dot com. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We're happy to be part of your profit journey, and we'd love to hear from you. Seriously, reach out.

See you next time.

All right, until next week. Great job.

Thank you. Yeah, I like that.

I wish we had to shut up right now.

I know. I have no problem. Shut up. Yeah, I love that. Oh, nice, Baron.

All right, see you guys.