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