A 4Year Old Taught Me How to Live Life by Brett Holcomb

[Music]

how’s business

right anyone who has a business you hear

this

all the time right you tell people hey

i’m in business

so they’ve decided they want to ask you

how’s business

so the thing with that is depending on

how well you’re doing

right would dictate your answer

if you’re having a little down year you

know it’s

yeah man i mean you know business is

cool you know um you know we just kind

of

got some marketing issues you know

operations so on and so forth you know

if business is good the whole world

knows it anyway they don’t even have to

ask you you already told them right

the thing with that is that 96

of businesses fail within 10 years

okay on the contrast to that

you look around today you pick up your

phone

you’re on instagram swiping up and what

happens you see

a 19 year old millionaire telling you

how he just made

10 million dollars in five hours right

so you’re sitting there like wow

this is this is amazing you’re just

great everything is perfect with this

person

exact precise sales funnels right

too many customers for them to handle

the

processes and systems are impeccable

he’s doing everything right he’s just

killing it

so you know to the rest of we mere

mortals we’re kind of sitting there like

oh yeah good for you man that’s really

good congratulations

so i wonder i started thinking about

that a little bit

and i think that i found an

answer to some of these questions to how

we could do better as business people

anyone interested in that

okay cool all right so

i have a disclaimer

i didn’t create them i thought i knew

all this stuff about business

i thought you know i hey man you could

do this this this this this

but it wasn’t until

i met my match in my own house

introducing sunny got me

meet sonny everybody so this is my

four-year-old

guru right she has literally taught me

a new way of doing business so this

happened one day i was kind of sitting

in the house

and um i’m in the we’re both in the

living room she has

all her toys from her room and half of

the kitchen

in the living room so i’m like okay

what’s going on

so i’m just watching her and she’s just

mixing things together just amazingly

like so

you have a barbie doll with uh empty

toilet wrapper or something to make up

the dress and you know a little

she took the the little twisters from

the bread and she has a belt and

you know it’s just this amazing mix of

things she starts doing so i’m like

she’s very creative this is interesting

so okay cool so

as time goes on i’m watching her more

and more

and i see these little hints every time

i learn a new lesson from us so in this

succession of time i’m just picking up

these hints and so i figure i share some

of them with you

and so i’m going to start here the first

one

is partnerships okay so

as you can tell she’s a little small

right she has

a few constraints right so she was smart

enough to know in order to get some of

the things she wanted done

she had to bring for a partner

so she commissioned

my 11 year old daughter okay so my 11

year old daughter she has autism

right but don’t worry she kind of

knows how to maneuver very well with

this autism in fact she leverages it as

far as i’m concerned

okay so the two of them together make

this incredible

incredible team so that’s zory

that’s sunny there so as you can see

this is almost a before and after zory

is just sitting there just you know

what’s going on

sunny is sitting there she’s got her

rubik’s cube but she has a plan

so i call them pinky in the brain right

anybody familiar with pinky in the brain

right sunny obviously is a little big

head one with all

ideas trying to take over the world

every day

right zuri is just there for the

entertainment basically all right what

do you need me to do

so they run capers such as

obviously zuri is a little tall you know

so what we try to do is we try to keep

the snacks

all the way at the top of the cupboard

right so our first plan is

okay not only do i want zuri to take

these snacks

um you know i need a bag you know we

need a place to go divvy up the snacks

so she lays out her elaborate plan

she gets zuri they i come in i’m

watching them i just want to see what

they’re doing she goes grabs the snacks

zuri she’s passing them down in a bag

sonny has a bag open

up and um yeah they run back into the

room so

their hideout is a closet so when they

go in this closet that’s where all the

divvying up happens right

there’s been times when maybe a couple

of months later i’ve come and i found a

bunch of things in that closet

rappers you know little specimens of

some sort i don’t know i couldn’t really

identify them

but the point to this is that this first

lesson is about partnerships a lot of

times as

business owners we try to come in and we

want to be the superhero

we come in and we know how to do

everything right we

we do all the accounting we do all the

sales we do everything

and what you find is when you find the

right person

or the right people to put together to

create a real team

a lot more magic happens a lot faster

so first lesson is on partnerships

all right second one first impressions

all right

sonny is the queen of first impressions

probably some of y’all already got to

know already she’s sitting out there

you know she doesn’t have to introduce

herself she kind of grab it she has this

halo effect right

so

the first thing is we’re like regulars

at the local publix right

around our neighborhood so we go to

publix and

you know we walk in everybody in public

knows her

on a first name basis at this point

right so we walk in

we have a pattern we go directly to the

bakery it’s over to the right

we go there and the reason why we’re

going is because publix gives out free

cookies

okay and so to kids this is supposedly

the thing

right so i want to be clear on that you

know i i know some folks around here

anyway

so we go we make our round and one time

you know this is how crafty she is we

we pull up and you know i pull up the

counter’s right there sonny knows the

person they built rapport somehow so

they’re talking

so i turned my back because you know

these oatmeal raisin cookies and

a couple of snacks look real good to me

so i’m checking out my snacks or what

have you

and so i turn back around

and remember you’re supposed to get one

cookie i turn back around sonny has

two cookies in the hand and he says here

daddy this is your cookie with a third

cookie

so i’m like oh okay what’s up sonny so

i’m looking at the guy he’s looking like

i’m like okay cool i get it now i get it

so

my lesson with that was that when you

build the right first impression when

people like you

they will do a lot more from you you

know there’s pretty women in here right

you guys are

you know we we have this argument a lot

of times amongst my friends

beautiful women have this privilege to

them right so

they have a safety net anything goes

wrong

you know they can kind of get out of it

you know what i mean right

the the fellas around here know what i

mean by that right yeah

yeah i see it’s real quiet now isn’t it

okay anyway so

i digress though so let’s get back so

the point being is that

you know your first impression goes a

long way

and it can travel with you in your

business to success

all right the next one is timing

okay so in this slide

this is being sitting at the table this

is sunny over here

has a hand on her hip she’s probably

lecturing me on something so what i know

about this day is that

over the course of probably an hour

she’s been asking me for a snack snack

snack dad can i get a snack

dad can i get a snack that okay so it’s

probably

every 10 minutes she asks for a snack

right okay cool

no is always the answer no no so

finally the phone rings and

she realizes that this is her

opportunity to attack

uh-oh right so now

the request happens every 10 seconds

daddy can i get a snack daddy can i get

his thanks daddy that’s all you hear

and i’m on the phone and she knows it’s

an important call

and she she knows she’s got me sonny go

get the snack just go get the snack go

go let’s go hold on go get the snack

right she gets it

she’s the master of timing um

she also has a special way of throwing

fits

at the right time right we’re out and

about you know we’re in a

especially in the grocery store once

again these people know her so they used

to they know what’s coming

so suddenly sunny is unhappy and has to

jump out the cart and she’s

crying in a fervor ironically in front

of the potato chips

right and so that’s just timing to its

finest so

i say that to say with in business

everything is about timing right i use

the analogy of

the ocean and you’re a surfer in the

ocean

and ultimately after you’re studying the

ocean you’re seeing the patterns you’re

watching the waves as they come

and obviously you don’t want to go

against the waves you want to ride a

wave in so you’re studying these waves

and it’s only until that right wave

comes

that you can really really really ride

the wave all the way to shore

so timing is really important in

business so

that was my third lesson from sunny

the next one is being decisive

okay so with this one sunny burns the

ships

right she literally burns the ship

vernon ship

came from uh gentleman cortez

back in 1519 and he talked about

um well excuse me he didn’t talk about

he was

pulling up to uh

veracruz in mexico and they were going

to invade mexico

he ordered upon them arriving his crew

to burn the ships so they were either

going to

conquer or die that was just their order

so

he ordered them they burned the ship

well sonny does the same thing

when it comes to snacks right

when it comes to whatever she’s into so

if it’s gymnastics she’s going all-in

she’s burning the ship she’s literally

saying okay i’m gonna get this cartwheel

and i’m literally

not gonna focus on anything else until

i get this cartwheel down pack that’s

just what she’s gonna do

um

yeah that’s that that’s her in her deep

focus

uh practicing being what’s her name

moana

right so that’s a moana character and

she’s in deep focus because she has to

hit the right dance move in this case

here so that’s

a version of her focusing and obviously

in business

a lot of times we get caught up on the

shiny object syndrome right

all these things are kind of flashing

across us and oh we want to take

advantage of

every opportunity that comes but however

we can’t you have to focus on that one

thing that’s going to get you

to where you want to go sunny is a mess

of that

now granted it might only last per day

and obviously in business

you kind of want to have something that

lasts you know maybe

three months out a year out three years

out right but

same thought anyway right

so the next thing is being bold in your

actions

okay so

this one is a little tough you know to

protect

her in me having further problems i had

to kind of alter this image so

i used someone else right so

this one was her so some sonny has no

problem

doing number two in anywhere under any

circumstance i call it janet jackson

anytime

anyplace right so

literally one time we went to a friend’s

house

and um you know she’s also the master of

waiting to the last minute so she comes

urging daddy out of these bathrooms

she’s playing

okay okay fine we go in the bathroom now

it’s kind of like this

this is the bathroom this is all y’all a

bunch of people right bathroom this is

our in the bathroom

so sonny decides on this time that this

is the time she’s going to have this

record bowel movement right it’s just a

record it was

like her biggest ever in life right

and probably her most malodorous right

okay so

we come out and i’m like oh my god i

cannot believe this so i go to the

person whose house it is like hey

listen man things got a little messy in

there you know

you you don’t have the little toilet

scrubber you know there’s this

there’s some evidence you know whatever

i couldn’t do anything about it sorry

so again we go back to the other thing

and she has this halo effect so it’s

it’s sunny so it’s no problem oh

sonny don’t even worry about it yeah

we’ll clean it up don’t worry about it

everybody understood it was cute it was

all good for him right

in business a lot of times most of us

don’t have stories that we repeat

right if we had a story that we stuck to

and we drilled into that story

more people would buy into our

businesses and that would help us grow

our businesses so that’s our lesson from

that

finally leverage okay

sonny is the master of leverage she you

know she’s small right

again i have to protect some images plus

i couldn’t find one

but um she will use any and everything

to get what she wants right she has i i

say that

sonny is running a human trafficking

business

right so literally she is just taking

every last person from

everything to do her will for her like

she has no car

right but she goes everywhere she wants

to go not just from us from anybody you

know

she can call people on facetime people

on the hot ipad and suddenly

we get a call and auntie is coming to

pick up to bring her somewhere

you know so i thought about that

and actually i ran the test to be honest

with you on sunny

right i tried that and you know i said

hey sonny you could have one cookie

or i turned around and turned around she

said oh what she’s eating the cookie

right so

that was the end of the marshmallow test

right it’s done

um so i had to kind of

rethink that so this is supposed to be a

picture of a pot roast right

so finally okay i’m running

how much time i have okay i’m over

probably

okay you’ll be all right so um the pot

roast

i’m wrapping up so the pot roast is

ultimately

there was a story told to me and it was

about um

a girl and a mother and the girl was

like hey

her mom made pot roast but she noticed

the edge of the pot roast was cut off so

she said hey

um mom why do you cut the edge of the

pot roast off and she was like well

i don’t know i got that from your

grandmother ask her so she calls her

grandmother

she asked a grandmother grandmother says

i don’t know you know what i got that

for your great-grandmother and

fortunately the great-grandmother was

still alive so

she then called the great-grandma hey

great-grandma why do you cut the edge of

the

hot roast off she said oh it couldn’t

fit in the oven

right so it’s like so we’re passing down

all these things right that we’ve

learned throughout the generations

you know to our kids blindly without

questioning any of them

so you know kids question everything and

that’s the beauty of them

they they literally i could be dead

right on something but i’m going to get

questioned about it it doesn’t matter

what it is it’s super simple logic but

not to her i have to explain it and

she’s going to challenge me and debate

back and forth and

the whole premise behind this is that we

should all do that we should question

everything and not just allow things to

be dictated to us

in our personal lives as well as

business

so i’ll leave you guys with this quote

and um

it’s one of my favorite quotes the

reasonable man adapts himself to the

world

the unreasonable man persists trying to

adapt

the world to himself therefore all

progress

progress depends on the unreasonable man

so i say that you guys should be very

unreasonable if you’re trying to make

change or

just think about sunny and that’d be

your motivation

thank you