CLINT ARTHUR: Host of The Greatest Show of All Time on 77WABC Radio in New York City, Celebrity Entrepreneur, Personal Branding Expert, Wharton Business School graduate, Dan Kennedy’s GKIC Info-Marketer of The Year, with 20 years’ experience running his own gourmet food company. Clint’s #1 Bestsellers include Break Through Your Upper Limits on TV, followed by What They Teach You At The Wharton Business School, and his latest manifesto: Celebrity Entrepreneurship.

Show Notes:

3:16 – Clint Arthur introduction

4:37 – What mentorship means to Clint; Tony Robbins, Dan Kennedy

16:43 – Getting your celebrity snapshot ready

19:51 – Attitude message for those who think they’ve hit it, but really haven’t

24:14 – Breaking from addictions – addictions to celebrity, negative thought, behavior, beliefs, etc.

31:40 – Stop focusing on the wrong stuff – stop focusing on what you can’t be, can’t do, and can’t have

33:39 – Attitude lesson about birth

35:05 – Attitude lesson at 10

37:39 – Attitude lesson at 20

42:17 – Attitude lesson at 30

45:25 – Attitude lesson at 40

51:09 – Attitude lesson at 50

52:51 – Word of encouragement

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Clint Arthur

Creating Celebrity Attraction Through Mentoring

Everyone, I want to welcome you and please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. Most importantly, we need you to share the show on every social media platform that you can. We are with one of my personal mentors. This could possibly lead to the best show that we’ve ever had. You are fortunate enough to read and learn from the one and only Clint Arthur.

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Here we are to get some fantastic entertainment and to learn all the secrets that it’s going to take to get attitude. We are with the one and only Clint Arthur, celebrity entrepreneur, and host of The Greatest Show of All-Time on 77 WABC Radio in the one and only New York. Clint, welcome to the show.

It’s great to be with you.

I’m honored to have you. I was telling many people about who we are getting ready to have on. We’re excited to have you and the wealth of information and knowledge that you bring. The reason that the ABCs of Attitude became a reality was because I sat in a hotel room with you in Atlanta and, as you worked with me, the ideas flew. There’s no question I’m here because of you. It’s an honor to have you. Welcome.

We are here to talk about Attitude Booster #5: Have A Mentor, Copy Him Or Her. We don’t have anybody better than Clint. Let’s go ahead and start with that. I’d love to know your definition of attitude, but I’d also love to know who some of your best mentors are or were and maybe some of the best lessons they taught you. What does having a mentor mean to you?

I’ve had 1 million mentors. That has propelled my success and allowed me to achieve, do, be, and have so much more impact, influence, and income as a result of modeling and studying these mentors. Who are some of the mentors? Tony Robbins is a great mentor. What I do is called celebrity entrepreneurship. What that means is not that you’re famous. Being a celebrity entrepreneur doesn’t make you a famous person. Most celebrity entrepreneurs are not famous.

In fact, I say Tony Robbins is not famous. You go into any bank, supermarket, teller, or cashier and say, “Do you know Tony Robbins?” They’re going to say, “Tony, who?” You go into any place and you say, “Do you know Grant Cardone?” They’re going to say, “Who?” These people are not famous. Only their customers and prospects think that they are somebody special. That is your goal as a celebrity entrepreneur, to have your customers, clients, and prospects predisposed to hire you.

You want them coming in and saying, “If I could get Glen Bill to work with me, I’m signing up now.” The wife’s going to say, “How much is that going to cost?” He’s going to say, “I don’t care how much it’s going to cost. I got to have Glen Bill. If I could get him, I’m going to sign.” That’s what you want. You can accomplish that if you do what these celebrity entrepreneurs do in order to position themselves as being somebody very special in the eyes of customers and prospects. I study with them. I model all of my efforts on what these people do.

You gave us one that was Tony Robbins. Give us a couple more people that mentored you. I know the idea of celebrity entrepreneurship came from your DNA and your gut. You’re the one that coined it, but who helped you?

I did. I wrote the book.

Who helped pull that out of you, like you helped pull ABCs out of me? Do you remember?

Dan Kennedy. I became Dan Kennedy’s Info Marketer of the Year at the end of 2013. If you know who Dan Kennedy is, then you think that Dan Kennedy is a living legend. In fact, Dan Kennedy is such a living legend. He inspired my event at Carnegie Hall in New York City. I had Martha Stewart, Ice-T and Coco, his beautiful wife, Jerry from Ben & Jerry’s, and Michael Gerber, Scorpion, the smartest man in the world. I was supposed to have Dan Kennedy as one of my speakers, but as you may know, Dan Kennedy ran into some health issues. He was in hospice. He was supposed to die.

I said, “Dan Kennedy is not going to die. Dan Kennedy is going to get sick and tired of trying hard, working so hard in hospice, trying to kill himself because he didn’t want to compromise his lifestyle.” He couldn’t have the Dan Kennedy lifestyle driving his racehorses and driving around in Dean Martin’s Rolls-Royce. He couldn’t live the way he wanted to on his terms. He didn’t want to live. I predicted that he was going to get to a point where he said, “If I’m going to be working this hard, I need to be getting a check.”

He ultimately checked himself out of hospice, and now he’s back on the road to recovery as I predicted. Dan Kennedy’s my main mentor. Once I won his award as Info-Marketer of the Year, I started looking at, “What is Dan Kennedy all about?” I started traveling the country, going to his seminars, and studying him closely. I heard him say a couple of things that have completely shaped my career.

He said, “Your number one job as an entrepreneur is to raise your status in the eyes of customers and prospects. You need to be becoming a bigger who in their eyes. If you’re not who-ing, you are doing the wrong thing.” Here’s how it comes down. A lot of what I do is work with clients and people like yourself, and I custom design specific plans of action of how you are going to become a bigger who in the eyes of your customers and prospects. When I’m doing that, I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m not supposed to be doing that or taking my time delivering services.

What I’m supposed to be doing is this, appearing on broadcasts, on podcasts, having my radio show here at WABC Radio in New York City, going on TV, and speaking on stages where I’m getting not just audiences, customers, and prospects, but also raising my status because it’s high-status speaking opportunities like when I’ve spoken at the Harvard Faculty Club, NASDAQ, Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola, and West Point, all of those things. It did not just give me opportunities to get in front of audiences of customers and prospects, but now I’ve got the photos and videos of those appearances.

If you look for Clint Arthur on the internet, some of the videos you’re going to find are those very videos of those high-status speaking engagements that I talked about. Those contribute very powerfully to my ability to earn seven figures a year, year after year. I’m having a record year after record year over and over because of the way I’m positioning myself as somebody very important, a celebrity in the eyes of customers and prospects.

We have GAPers that are at the top of their game and are personal development nuts, but we also have GAPers who are down, stuck, and in a rut that go, “There’s no way I could become Clint Arthur. There’s no way I could become a celebrity. I don’t have the resources or the drive.” I want to talk about attitude and taking those people, the GAPers who need a hand up and who are at the bottom of the rung right now. Were you ever at the bottom of the rung? How did you get out of it? What was your attitude? Tell us that story and give us some hope for those people that go, “All this CNN is great, but I’m hurting right now. I need a hand. I need somebody to save me.” Talk to those people.

Where were you on December 31, 1999? Were you partying with family and friends? Were you getting Y2K cash out of an ATM? I was driving Yellow Cab number 6087 in Los Angeles, California. I was going into my sixth year of being a taxi driver. In the back of my cab that night were these two guys who were NBA interns at Goldman Sachs.

I was listening in on their conversation as I’m driving them to a party in the hills, “Did you hear about Mr. Carrera? They made him the last partner at Goldman right before the IPO and he cashed out $1 gazillion.” I’m like, “Are you talking about Chris Carrera?” “How do you know Mr. Carrera?” “Chris Carrera was a pledge in my fraternity when I was an undergrad at the Wharton Business School.”

I used to make those little punks dance around the living room of the house when I was the pledge master with their tidy whites on top of their heads. This punk cashed out $1 gazillion and made $513 on New Year’s Eve of the Millennium driving that cab. I know what it feels like to be down and out because all of my fraternity brothers were becoming millionaires. Some of them were billionaires with a B, while I was surviving behind the wheel of a taxi. It was that low point that helped me to rebound because as they say, “Your setback is a set-up for your comeback.”

That’s from Les Brown.

You got to have that. I asked Martha Stewart a question that will help all of you guys who are at the bottom. There are two questions I asked her. First of all, I said, “What’s the most important thing you ever learned?” She said, “My daddy told me that I could do anything, and I believed it.” Look what she’s accomplished. She has done it all. Somebody specifically asked her the second question. I’m pretty sure it was Melinda Stallings’ question, which was, “How important is a positive attitude to your success?” She said, “A positive attitude is everything.”

When she was in prison, she didn’t call it going to jail. She refers to it as going to Yale.

A lot of rich people go to Yale, and they don’t even come out. They come out in a body bag. Martha Stewart came out bigger than ever. She went and sold their company. Now, she’s on the board of directors of the company that bought her. She’s bigger than she ever was. That’s all because of her positive attitude. She is not allowing a few months in Yale to get her down. If she could do that, think about how far she fell.

You think you’re having a hard time. You’re bemoaning your fate and how difficult it is for you, yet you got nothing on Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart fell from being an international celebrity to going to jail in a Federal prison. Now she’s bigger than ever. How do I know? I paid her more money than I’ve ever paid anybody. I was happy to get her. That’s what this is all about, finding customers and prospects who are going to be excited, happy, and predisposed to buy you if they can get you. How do you do that? That’s by becoming a celebrity entrepreneur. That’s not being famous. If you go into any Starbucks, “Do you know who Tony Robbins is?” “Who?”

You go to Monticello, Indiana, the White County, and the stop and shop. They don’t know him, but 90% of America doesn’t know him.

Did you go to Business Mastery?

I’m a graduate of Tony Robbins University. I’ve forked over all kinds of money for him.

You must be up to six figures with Tony. You have a picture with him. That’s like your most prized possession. I’ve seen it.

He walked up to me. I had my University of Attitude because you taught me it’s about your costume. I had it on. He saw it and looked at me. He said, “Let’s take a picture,” and I did. I was ready because you taught me to be ready for those celebrity snapshots. Give us your teachings on being ready for the celebrity snapshot and what that’s done for you.

I have made so much money from celebrity selfies. It’s not even funny. More important than that is the impact and the influence that I’ve been able to achieve with customers and prospects because the work I do is meta. All my clients are like you. They’re leaders, change makers, difference makers, and having an impact in the world on their own.

When I advise you, for example, to write a book about attitude and you do, look at the impact that that has because now it’s turned into this show and Attitude University. It’s all these things. It’s touching many lives. The power of these selfies is that being in pictures with celebrities rubs off. Their stardom rubs off on you. It’s my favorite technique of celebrity entrepreneurship, being in photos with famous people.

That’s why I have this event coming up in June with Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew, a NASA astronaut, the real Patch Adams, and the Surgeon General of the United States. For anybody who’s in medicine, it’s a no-brainer. This is how you should be feeling, “If I can get a ticket to go to that event and get pictures with those people, I’ll pay whatever I need to pay to do that.” If you’re in medicine, that’s for sure, but if you’re anybody, you should feel that way because Dr. Oz is no longer just a medical guy.

He has a talk show. It’s called the Dr. Oz Show. Donald Trump was on that show when he was running for president. This isn’t a political statement. I’m saying Donald Trump is not a medical guy. He’s somebody famous and all kinds of famous people go on the Dr. Oz Show. To me, he is the top celebrity working in the industry and celebrity business because of his talk show, wide-ranging interests, and appeal to all kinds of people who love Dr. Oz.

I’ve been and seen what Clint’s events do. They’re worth every penny. This is the instant marketing miracle for experts and entrepreneurs with Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew, and the Surgeon General. If you guys want to buy a ticket, you need to go to IMM20.com and look at what it takes, especially if you’re in the medical field. We have a lot of medical field entrepreneurs in our audience, which is great.

Now that we’ve talked to the people that may be down and out that are at the show because they need to kick in the button, bridge the gap, and get over it. We also got some readers who are successful that need to push it to the next level. Tell us your attitude message for these people that are successful, some uber-successful, but we can always grow and go. What’s your attitude message for those who think they’ve hit it, but you know, they haven’t?

If you are not Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Martha Stewart, or Dr. Oz, you haven’t hit it. I’m sure you’re doing well. All my clients are doing well. They’re all making a lot of money and having a lot of success. Those are the only kinds of people who I work with. If you want to go to the next level, then you have to play the game that the real successful entrepreneurs are doing. What would Apple Computer be without Steve Jobs? How do you become a Steve Jobs? You need to become a Steve Jobs. There are very specific action items that you can do. There are five action items that you can do. That’s what I teach in celebrity entrepreneurship and celebrity selfies are my favorite.

I teach all of these action steps and what you can do at the Instant Marketing Miracle. Here’s the beauty of what I deliver, and this is something that every one of you should be thinking, “How can I do that for my customers and prospects?” What I deliver is you show up and you get the transformation. All you have to do is show up. How can you deliver that for your clients?

I’m not talking about putting a Band-Aid on a bleed. It’s not about a Band-Aid. It’s about deep internal bleeding that gets cured by showing up. That’s the power of what I offer. “How does your product or service offer the same thing for your customers and prospects?” That’s what you need to be thinking about. What I have found is that the real pain that people have. For my clients, as successful as they are, they’re worried deep down it’s going to go away.

I’ve got Facebook Ads all figured out, but Facebook Ads could go away like that or Google could switch the algorithm and you’re no longer on page one. It could be your media or whatever you’re using. Maybe you’re advertising on TV, doing LinkedIn work, or whatever it is. If you don’t control it, it can be taken away. That’s the deep bleeding that I cure because when you walk through the portal to the Instant Marketing Miracle with Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew, and me, where I teach in-depth how to make celebrity entrepreneurship happen, then you no longer feel like they can take it away.

You no longer feel like your employees can steal the business from you, that your competitors can steal your customers, or that you need to come up with new stuff because you will feel that you’re enough. That’s the deep wound. How are you healing a deep wound that your customer and prospect are suffering from? Think about that and answer that question that was worth every minute of this blog that you are reading.

I’m going to start calling you Dr. Clint. You’re freaking good. Guys, you got to go to ClintAthur.tv and to Celebrity Launchpad. I have done and paid for this. I’ve 10Xed my investment. I’m eternally grateful for Clint and his advice. I talk about the three biggest mistakes in attitude. I’d like to get your quick, not to turn negative, but this is important because you can address this. The first biggest mistake is this thing called Attitude Addiction. Are you addicted to your attitude? Talk to us a little bit about addiction and what addiction means to you.

The one thing I know about celebrities is Americans have no idea how addicted they are to celebrities. That’s one thing that we’ve talked about. I don’t know if you said that or somebody else told me that, but I think it was you. I went, “You’re right.” There are readers that are addicted to some negative thought, behavior, beliefs, or something. Talk to us a little bit about addiction, how you break the addiction, and what you see with the people you work with. What are they addicted to that they need to overcome?

I know a lot about addiction. I went to this raw vegan retreat in December 2009. One of the rules was no drugs or alcohol. As a result of that, I stopped drinking and smoking marijuana on December 14, 2009. I started drinking as soon as I got out two weeks later. It broke either an addiction or a very strong habit of smoking marijuana back in 2009.

My life has rocketed since I stopped smoking pot. I don’t know why anybody would smoke pot. If it works for you, okay. I hear you, but all I know is that once I stopped smoking marijuana, weeks later, I made my first of 109 television appearances, and my career as a celebrity entrepreneur was launched. My big goal was to get on the Today Show to share my message about living as if this is going to be the last year of your life.

That’s how I live. I was at a men’s self-help campfire back in 2008. The Shaman pointed at me across the yellow and orange crackling flames and goes, “You don’t know it yet, but you’re already dead.” I’m like, “What are you talking about? I’m the most successful guy on this team. Eight years ago, I was driving a taxi. Now I live in a mansion. I’m a millionaire.” “You’re already dead. You just don’t know it.” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

That became a way of life for me. I started living as if, “What if this was going to be the last year of my life what would I want to accomplish?” At the end of 2013, I got a call from the Today Show. I was on there with Brooke Shields and Willie Geist. Willie goes, “You have a great idea. If you ask yourself a question every year, what’s that question?” I said, “If this was going to be the last year of your life, what would you want to accomplish?”

That’s an amazing question. That question took me all the way to Today Show. The amazing thing was on New Year’s Eve 2013, I went out partying with my wife. The next morning.  I woke up and I said, “I’m done drinking.” She’s like, “What?” She didn’t like it. She did not cooperate in my cleansing to try to quit drinking, but here I am, years later, stone-cold sober. It isn’t easy all the time to stay sober. It’s not easy to break addictions, but I continue to look at what I get by maintaining my vigilance against my addictions. What do I get by not drinking or smoking?

I can’t even believe it. I get so much more confidence and belief in myself, and less paranoia and doubt about what is possible for me because I’m not consistently programming my own mind to believe that I’m less. When you’re drinking, you know you’re impaired. When you’re smoking, you’re not as good as if you were clean and sober. You know that.

I did a celebrity entrepreneur adventure video all about How the Harsh Reality Is You Cannot Lie to Yourself. When you’re spending 6, 7, or 8 hours a day impaired with alcohol or drugs, you know you’re not as good that carries over to the rest of your waking hours. If you could possibly do anything to break those addictions, do it.

We’re going to Attitude Mistake Number Two, which is bad beliefs. Talk to us a little bit about believing in yourself, bad beliefs, what’s your whole attitude towards what goes on in people’s heads, and what they believe.

Whatever you believe is what you’re going to achieve. It comes down to that. The real power of that is believing that you deserve what you want. I discovered that when I was volunteering at a men’s weekend seminar. I met the Shaman after I was a graduate of this men’s weekend. I got introduced to the men’s groups, and then I went back and volunteered at the men’s weekend.

I was setting up tables and chairs and arranging the plates, forks, and knives so that they were perfect. I’m sitting there and thinking to myself, “What am I doing, volunteering at somebody else’s seminar? I do my own seminars. I shouldn’t be a cog in the wheel. I should be the leader of something like that.” I sat down with the newspaper and I opened up the sports section. I’m not even a sports fan. I’m looking through it. I see an ad for a BMW X5. That was my dream car.

They had one. They were advertising, “For $498 a month, you could own a two-year-old BMW X5.” At the time, I was driving a six-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee with 100,000 miles on it, and I was paying $482 a month. I’m like, “I deserve that X5. I’m paying for an X5. Instead, I got a six-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee. What am I doing?” Do you know what I drove home in the very next day? That BMW X5 because I deserved it. Not only did I believe I deserved it, I knew I deserved it. I was paying for the BMW X5, and I was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

The lesson for our GAPers there is sometimes you got to stop and analyze what you’re paying for and what you’re getting. That’s how you shed the light. The question for the readers is, do you take the time to analyze your life, your business, or your relationships? Do you take the time to analyze your customers and, most importantly, your celebrity?

We’re going to go to the third biggest mistake that people make. I call it the Can’t Conundrum. The Can’t Conundrum is simply those people who focus on what they can’t be, can’t do, and can’t have. They’re comparing themselves to others, not what they can be, do, or have. Talk to me a little bit about that mindset of people that you work with that are focusing on all the wrong stuff or the attitude of focus and what it’s done for you.

You came through Celebrity Launchpad. You know that in my little Celebrity Launchpad notebook that I give you, on every page, it says, “Who am I?” That’s a big problem, “Who am I to think that I can do this? Who am I to think that I could do that? Who am I to think that I could be on the Today Show like Clint? Who am I to think that I could be a superstar like Glen? Those guys could do it, but I can never do it.”

That is a problem that everybody has. Even Donald Trump has, “Who am I?” I remember three weeks after he got elected president, I was watching a show of him on TV at a ribbon cutting. He goes, “Could you believe it? I’m the president.” Even the president of the United States has, “Who am I?” It will never go away. You got to expect and deal with it. The way you deal with it is when you start hearing that voice that says, “Who are you to think that you could do this, that, or the other thing?” you got to say, “There’s the who am I. I’m going to put it aside and keep moving forward.” You’ll be amazed at what can happen in your life if you keep moving forward.

We are going to go into what we call Knowledge Through the Decades. I don’t want to put you on the spot. I don’t know if you can remember when you were born, but some of our guests have the ability to. I want to know the attitude lesson about birth.

I love it because I was watching a little baby the other day, and it jogged this memory for me. When you’re born, you don’t have any insecurities or doubts. You deserve what you want. What you want, you demand it. Until you get what you want, you won’t stop screaming. Unfortunately, that gets beat out of you. As soon as you’re 1 or 2 years old, they make you stop crying. That’s what marketing is. If you’re an expert, an entrepreneur, an author, a speaker, or a coach, you need to be getting attention. Luckily, we have much more sophisticated ways to get attention. It’s not about crying, but it’s achieving the same exact thing, “I deserve your attention.”

“I deserve it.” That’s the attitude lesson from childbirth. I don’t know where you grew up or where you were born. I’d love to know before you answer this question, but hopefully, you remember when you were ten years old. I think it’s third or fourth grade. I want you to put yourself back in that time and tell me the attitude lesson that you learned. I’d love you to tell me what school you’re in, who your teacher was, and what the attitude lesson was.

I grew up in New York City, Midtown Manhattan. I was living on 23rd Street and 2nd Avenue. I know exactly the attitude lesson. The attitude is what is important and focus on that. For me, the only thing that mattered in those days was Little League Baseball. That’s all that mattered. All I was interested in, the only thing I cared about was getting up to bat and hitting home runs. I was the hitting home run star for the Lions and the Orioles. I was a Little League Baseball star. That’s all I cared about, all I focused on, and all that mattered.

I have two questions. Did you bat cleanup? Were you fourth or third?

I was fourth.

That’s something we need to bring. You got a program in you about batting cleanup. We need to work on that program. That could be good. What position did you play on defense?

I was shortstop.

That’s where the best player is. Do you remember your coach from those teams?

I don’t.

It was a long time ago. What is important? Focus on it. I was on stage the other day and I said, “No matter how old I get, I’m never going to let the kid inside of me die.” I think that’s what you’re talking about right there. GAPers, don’t let the kid inside of you die. Don’t let the ten-year-old baseball superstar die. Focus on what’s important. You know what it is. You can feel it. That’s good.

There’s another aspect of that. What you wanted when you were a kid is probably what you still want deep inside.

That’s been talked out of you. It’s been stomped on and you don’t deserve it, which is our attitude lesson from when you were a baby. Now, I bet things started getting fun for you. You’re twenty years old. You probably were at the Wharton Business School. Tell me, do you remember your twentieth birthday? Where were you? What was the attitude lesson when you turned twenty?

I remember my twentieth birthday. I was working at the Swiss Bank Corporation and the number One World Trade Center. I was going for my big goal. I was a junior at the Wharton Business School. I had my internship at the bank where I had been working for years. I was all about being hardcore. I was the first one there every single morning. I was the last one to leave in the afternoon. I wore a suit and tie and took the subway to work every single day. The attitude lesson of being twenty years old is that if you are dedicated and you have a dream and you pursue that dream, you can make anything happen in this day and age.

You are still one of the few people that wear a suit and tie. That’s why I honor you because I’m a suit-and-tie guy. The question is, not many twenty-year-olds have that work ethic. Why were you driven at twenty? What caused that?

When you were growing up, did your parents ever argue?

Yes.

When I was growing up, it was like, “What weren’t they arguing?” In my early teens, I read about this guy who went to something called the Wharton Business School. He was a fabulous international successful business tycoon. I said to myself then, “If I could become somebody special like that, maybe my parents would stop arguing.”

I thought in my adolescent mind, in my subconscious that I could fix things by becoming more, by being more, doing more, and having more. I fixed on this thing of going to the best business school in the world and becoming somebody special. At the best business school in the world, the thing to do was to go from Wharton and become an investment banker. That’s what led me to banking and all of that.

Ironically, I graduated from Wharton the year after we’re talking about. I go home to get the attaboys. What happens? My parents get into the biggest argument of all time. My dad storms out of the house. I turn to my mom and say, “The way he’s been resenting you all these years, have you been cheating on Dad?” I’m sitting on the couch in the living room where I grew up my whole life. I’m thinking, “Where did that question come from? I never thought that before. What kind of a rude son of a gun asked his mom a question like that? That’s the rudest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I’m thinking, “Why aren’t you answering the question?” She goes, “He’s not your real father. Your real father was a doctor at the fertility clinic we went to for six years. You look just like that guy.” “Say what, Mama?” That rocked my life and changed the direction of my world, and I decided, “I don’t want to be an investment banker anymore.” The next day, I call up the investment bank. They’re on the 87th floor of the number One World Trade Center. Talk about ground zero. I said, “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve decided I don’t want to be an investment banker anymore.” What did I do? I ran off to Hollywood.

To be famous?

I didn’t know what I was going to be. I wanted to find myself. The irony is most people go to Hollywood to lose themselves. I went to Hollywood to find myself. I found myself becoming somebody special. I became the Wharton taxi driver.

You have a book, What They Teach You at The Wharton Business School. People can go to ClintArthur.tv and buy that. Ground zero is like in more ways than one for sure. It’s a great analogy. You’re out in Cali. I don’t know if you remember your 30th birthday, but I bet you were fun when you were 30. What was the attitude lesson when you were 30?

When I was 30 years old, I was driving a taxi. I had a little baby, and I was about to get kicked out of the house by the baby’s mama. It wasn’t much after I turned 30. The attitude lesson that I learned is I remember how beaten down I was by Hollywood by that point. I had been told, “You’re worthless. You suck.” I started repeating those same things. I remember we had moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills. I was paying for it by driving a taxi five nights a week. I was earning more than $1,000 a week driving a cab. That was a lot of money for me in those days. Could you imagine $1,000 a week? How suck is that?

You now make $1,000 a minute. It was a tough time.

I remember we were like arranging things and my daughter’s aunt came over to the house. She goes, “What are we doing over here?” My desk was right there. I remember specifically saying, “That’s my desk. That doesn’t matter.” That’s where I was when I was 30 years old.

Attitude lesson, “I don’t matter.”

If you say you don’t matter, believe me, nobody is going to think that you matter. If you say that you are somebody special and you are demonstrating how you are somebody special, you’re a lot closer to becoming somebody special. Whatever you say and believe about yourself is what the world is going to give you.

Our GAPers need to pause. It’s important that you take an inventory like looking at that ad for that BMW. Who’s communicating with you? What are they telling you? Do you keep playing that record in your head? That’s the attitude lesson. Be careful what you are putting in. It’s not junk in, junk out. It’s junk in, junk stays. That’s the issue.

We’ve got these repeating tape loops in our minds, these subconscious programming that goes on every day telling you that you are either great or you suck, one or the other. You can have control over that programming. I know I do. I work on that all the time.

I have a feeling your breakout starts coming when you’re 40. You probably had an interesting 40th birthday. What was your attitude lesson? Is that when things started to change?

This was fascinating because, by the time I was 40, all I wanted was to be a regular person. I wanted to have a normal life. I got to the point where on New Year’s Eve of the Millennium, I was 35 years old. I was scared that I was never going to be able to have a normal happy life. By the time I was 40, I had gotten out of taxi driving and got into the gourmet food business. I had started investing in real estate.

I had already done a fixer, flipped it, and made $100,000. I have already done a teardown and built it into a three-bedroom house. I was in the process of building a house that would ultimately be one of the biggest scores of my whole career. I sold it a couple of years later, in 2007, at the very peak of the real estate market.

When I was 40 years old, my birthday party was at the Picasso restaurant at Bellagio, which is the top of the world. I was married to Ali, the most amazing person in the world, super successful, beautiful, and sexy, an earner, and a smart person. We’ve had the same agenda all the whole time. Our agenda has been us. When I was with the baby’s mama, the agenda was what she wanted. I had nothing to do with anything. I was the guy who was paying all the bills and driving a cab.

A necessary utility.

For as long as she was willing to tolerate it, but once she started making money, I was no longer needed. I look back now and I see a very brave thing. I was trying to live a normal happy life as a businessman, married, being a constructive, productive citizen of the United States. I had given up on my dreams. I was no longer a writer or trying to be anything special. I was trying to make money.

By that point, at 40, is when I started to gain weight. This was 2005. I was born in 1965. By the age of 40, I was starting to pack on weight. I remember my dad came to my birthday party and I had 25 people for dinner at Picasso. The next day, we did a brunch at the House of Blues for everybody then that night, we did another party at the top of Mandalay Bay. They have a room called the Foundation Room. I had a blues concert at The Foundation Room.

You were still drinking then, I’m guessing.

I was drinking and smoking. I had a thriving butter business. I’m making a lot of money. Picasso was my client. That’s why I did the thing there. It was my butter on the table. I remember my dad said to me, “You let yourself go.” All I was doing was trying to be fat and happy. I got fat and happy. I hit 236 pounds at my peak. I was obese and I did not even realize that I was obese. I became obese because I was making money, but ultimately that’s unfulfilling. Just making money is not enough. It’s important to have money as a base. There’s no doubt about it, but you just can’t live for money.

It’s got to be more. It’s not all there is.

You’re a speaker. I’m not really a speaker. I’m a writer who speaks. I speak because I know that that’s the best way to get people to want to buy my books, invest in my courses, coaching, or consulting. Being a speaker is very helpful for all of that, but I’m a writer.

You and Jeffrey Gitomer. He’s the same way.

All this time, I was not writing. I’d given up writing. I said, “That’s it. I’m never going to write again.”

How many books have you written?

More than 30 books.

You’ve turned 50. Things are happening. That’s probably when I met you on your 50th birthday or damn near close to that. Give me the attitude. Who are you now? What’s that attitude lesson at 50?

What I learned once I became successful as a businessman is when I heard the shaman. Three years later, he said, “You don’t know it yet, but you’re already dead.” I thought to myself, “What if he’s right? What if I am already dead? I don’t know it. What if this is going to be the last year of my life? What would I want to accomplish?”

I’ve been living with that attitude ever since then. That eliminated all the fear, procrastination, and doubt. It had unleashed my ability to go for it. I will win, lose, or break even, but either way, I’m going to learn a lesson. My philosophy is I don’t want to go to my grave without having tried and done everything that I’ve wanted to do. If I win, great. if I don’t win, at least I’m going to learn that lesson, but I’m not going to hold back because I’m afraid.

What a gift. You were hitting home runs when you were ten. You hit a home run now for us and for our GAPers. You’ve given our GAPers a lot to think about. You’ve helped people understand who they are and how to get to who they want to become. You’ve given us lessons on helping people analyze where they are to go to where they want to be by bridging the gap. One last thought you’d like to give our GAPers, a word of encouragement for the people that are out there doing their best, reading this blog to get attitude. Anything you’d like to share with our readers?

When I spoke at West Point with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the same stage, I said, “What’s the most important thing you ever learned?” He said, “Nothing is impossible.” I don’t care where you’re at now. You’ve learned about my journey and how low I was and seen how high I am. I’m going higher. That’s because nothing is impossible. You can do it too.

We love you. You’re an awesome guest. I look forward to networking and attending more of your stuff. Please go to ClintArthur.com to find out about our good friend. Please go to m IMM20.com if you want to join the incredible event that Clint is putting on. We’re honored. Our GAPers are fired up. We’re going to bridge the gap. We did it, Clint. God bless you much. Thank you for all you give to our world. 

Important Links

• Clint Arthur
• What They Teach You at The Wharton Business School
• ClintArthur.com