If you had the chance to meet your idol, but you had to play hookie at work to be able to do so, will you do it? In every business, you need to take risks because you never know if playing hookie now and would get you to be painted as a hero later. Most of the time, you will be both hero and hookie, especially if you’re going to do it to meet Tom Hopkins. Learn the story of a successful person willing to help out and give back when he is given the time.

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Playing Hookie To Meet Tom Hopkins

This episode’s topic is about heroes and hookie. I would love to know for those that are watching and listening to us, I would love to hear about your most interesting hookie story. I’m not talking about go out and smoking in a hookie pipe. I’m talking about literally playing hookie from work as an adult, not as a kid. I’m talking about things that you were working at a pay job or salary, and you called in sick. I’m talking about something you did when you couldn’t afford to do it and you went and did it anyway. I’ll tell you my biggest hookie story.

For a short period of time in 90 days, I worked for Palm Harbor Homes. They’re a big modular and mobile home company. I was working for their modular department but I still sold their mobile homes next door. You learn a lot about mobile homes when you go through their training program and start selling mobile homes. I was working for them for short period of time. I was on salary. I was doing what I could to help market and do some other things. I wasn’t enjoying the job that much.

Have you ever been to a big event, been to a bigger city, or been a part of an organization? Oftentimes, you’ll see these event marketing things where they have a big sales guy, Grant Cardone, or some of these info seminar companies will come through and they’ll send out a sales guy to introduce you to things. They had a guy show up at our offices and they pulled in about twenty people from four of the nearby Palm Harbor offices. This guy gave a presentation on Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Sales, and then Ron Marks, who’s the time management guy. They were coming to Austin to spend a full day going through that give the presentation.

They offered up tickets to the event. They weren’t going to give us the day off for that. I guess we were about two weeks out. For you that don’t know, I absolutely love come Hopkins. Tom Hopkins is one of my idols. I read a lot of his books, How to Master the Art of Sales. If you’ve ever read, understood, or heard his story, it’s a pretty interesting story about how he got started in real estate sales. He got so good at selling real estate that he was basically averaging one sale, one closed transaction per day. It’s just interesting stories on getting started off.

One of the stories that comes to my attention is when he was out of high school, he was showing up to his first listing appointment. He rode his bike. He didn’t have a jacket so he wore his band jacket from high school that had all the sequins on it, showed up to show this lady this house. It was just a debacle. It didn’t stop him from having success. Two weeks rolls by and here comes this event. I’ve been sitting here like, “I want to do this. I want to do this event, but they’re not going to give us the time off.” Managers helping, they come in and we’d get some nuggets on time management from you guys and that’ll help us in our job.

They’re cheap. Tickets were $97. I’d kept the guy’s card. The day before I called the guy, I’m talking to my wife at the time and I decided I’m going to go to it, and I’m going to call in sick and play hookie. I remember money was a little tight and $97, as I called the guy they had coming through say, “I’m coming but I’m playing hookie. They wouldn’t give me the day off. Can I pay at the door?” He’s like, “No problem. Actually, don’t worry about it. We’re sold out but I’ll give you a free ticket inside. I’ll have a name and we’ll call you.” That was great.

Here I am, I’m driving my Ford Mustang 5.0, middle of the summer, hot and wearing a shirt and tie, khakis, looking sharp and the proverbial, “I’m sorry, I’m sick. I can’t come in.” I drive down there. It’s at the Hilton downtown. Big event with main conference, probably 2,000 people in there, and there are a ton of real estate people, realtors, mortgage brokers, and all types of people. My standing audience in the first half of the day was Ron Marks who talked about time management stuff. That was good. I got some good nuggets from that. The second half of the day was Tom Hopkins. That’s who I wanted to hear speak. From 1:00 to 5:00, Tom speaks and I’m just writing copious notes. I’m loving it. I’m like, “It’s great, I can take this back.” By then, the entrepreneurial bug beforehand, I was just working here at Palm Mobile just to get a paycheck in to cover some bills like many people have done. I’m like, “He’s cool.” The entrepreneurial bug wants to get back into finances, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do exactly.

I get my car to go back at the end of the day and it’s just backed up. If you’ve ever been to downtown Austin traffic on a Friday, it is a cluster. It was bumper to bumper. I was like, “I’m not leaving the underground parking garage for a couple hours, so I might as well go back upstairs and grab a beer.”I parked my car, go back upstairs to the bar here at the Hilton. I’m sitting there and it’s just packed. The bar’s packed and all the tables are packed. I’m hanging out like two other people over the side with a beer. Suddenly, I see Tom Hopkins roll right in, without a posse, without a ton of people, without his wife or anybody with him. Tom’s literally by himself. Nobody knows who the hell he is. I’m like, “All you people just heard this guy speak for four hours, and you’re not saying anything to him.” I’m standing there like, “Oh my God.”

Suddenly, two people from the bar pay their tab, they get them and walk away. Tom sits on one of those chairs. I’m sitting there, “Somebody should buy this guy a glass of wine, a beer, or something. Somebody should go up there and buy him a glass of wine.” I was not having the confidence initially to say, “That person should be me.” I’m sitting there for ten minutes watching Tom. I’m 50 feet away and said, “Somebody should go up there and do it. Somebody’s going to beat me to the punch.” I was finding every excuse I could say in my head not to take action. “He’s going to think I’m stupid. Here’s this guy’s success and I’m down here. He has nothing to do. I’m going to bobble it, I can barely pay my bills.” All that negative self-talk I could think of was running through my ears.

Finally, I get the huevos, I get the balls, to finally walk up to Tom. “I’m going to go do this.” After ten minutes waiting for somebody else to find success and trying to wait for others to do it before me, I said, “I’m going to go do it.” I walk up to Tom. I tap him on the shoulder and I go, “Hi Mr. Hopkins. My name is Scott Carson. I was just through your seminar. I’m a big fan. I read all your books. Would you mind if I bought you a glass of wine or a drink?” He’s like, “That’d be great. I’m just finishing my first one.” He goes, “Let me see if we can’t find a quieter spot where we can go sit alone.” I’m like, “What? You actually talk to me?” The hair was standing on the back of my neck. Sure enough, he walks over around the corner and there’s a couple chairs there and people are getting up to walk away.

He’s like, “Scott, come on over here. We’ll sit down here.” I get through the line and I’m stressed a little bit. Have you ever done that? You pay for something and I don’t know if my card is going to go through. I can laugh about it now, but when you’re there you’re scared to death. I get him a glass of the house merlot. I walk over, we sit down and I get to spend 45 minutes with Tom Hopkins one on one. He’s asking me questions about who I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m wanting to go. I’m talking about how I’m not happy with where I’m at and where I want to be.

Then another guy comes over and sits down. Some guy who’s just listening in came and sat down and we had a talk with him too. For that 45 minutes, I had lightning in a bottle poured into me. Tom shared some amazing things like, “I get where you’re at.” He goes, “You’ve got dreams. You don’t know where you want to go. You’ve got to take a job to get what you want to be. Do not give up on your dreams. You may have to take a back seat for a little while to do the things you need to do, but don’t give up on your dreams.” He has to get up after about an hour. “Scott, I’ve enjoyed visiting with you. Best of luck to you, I’ll see you around, but I got to get back. I’ve got a dinner reservation with my wife and the crew.” I’m like, “No problem. Thank you.” I can remember walking out of there. I don’t think my feet touched the ground when I go home. I get home. You don’t think I’m loud already.

Imagine me all fired up and not intoxicated, but fired up with something like this. I was so loud and so excited. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had a hard time going back to work. That next day on Saturday, I had to go back into work and suddenly, I felt better. What’s funny is that one of the bosses had been at that event had seen me there. They didn’t fire me. He mentioned it about two weeks later. He goes, “I can understand why you went in and that’s awesome. I would probably have done the same thing, which is really cool.” I gave my notice that two weeks later. I figured out this was not going to be what I wanted to do long-term. This is not where I wanted to go. It was taking me away from my focus. I just spent that next two weeks finding something else that I could go to, someplace I was likely to work at, that would allow me to be a step closer, a ladder higher on that rung to where I wanted to be to be able to make enough money to do what I wanted to do.

The reason why am I telling this? Why am I telling you this story on The Note Closers Show? The most successful people are the most willing to give you their time, a lot of times I found. People that are most successful always want to give back. They may not always be able to do it based on their timing and the schedule, but they are often willing to do something. They’re often willing to help you out. The biggest thing you have to do, I didn’t come to Tom Hopkins trying to say, “I enjoyed your four-hour thing. Can I buy you a glass of wine? Can buy you a drink?” He was laughing for sure, because nobody else was coming up to him. I met Tom again a few years later on different circumstances at a stage.

I came up to him again and said, “You may not remember.” He goes, “Actually, I do remember you. I was most impressed that nobody else came up to me and you came up to me, and said something to me. I’m glad to see that you’re doing different. You’re doing well now.”That’s the thing I want to tell you guys. For those of you that are struggling, your things that are getting rock and rolling, and you’re just dragging on and you’re not having this much success, there’s two things that can be happening. One, you’re waiting for success. You could be like me sitting there waiting ten minutes finding every other excuse of why you won’t find success. You’re delaying your own happiness.

You could do, “I’m not good enough. I hate my voice. I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what I’m going to say to investors. I don’t want to talk about.” You have to realize that’s normal. Everybody goes through that. That’s why you network. That’s why you are part of, hopefully, the WCN Crew. That’s why you go to workshops. It’s why we do so much stuff with our videos and our blogs, to help you guys succeed. I love seeing these stories and hearing from you on what you did to go do something that was obviously important to you.

What happens oftentimes though is that our pain isn’t more damaging than what our dreams are. Our pain of getting outside our comfort level often holds us back from doing something. Our pain or self-doubt keeps us from being able to advance our own dreams. We believe that we’re going to get shot, killed or fail. We all know that never, ever happens. The worst mindset you could have never, ever happens. You are going to suck. I remember talking to Tom, basically stuttering, and he just put his hand on my shoulder saying, “Just relax, it’s good. Let’s visit.” It flowed from there.

If you don’t take action, if you’re not going to get outside your comfort level, you’re only hurting yourselves. Our comfort levels in the industry are a variety of things. Maybe it’s making offers because we’re scared we don’t have the money. Maybe you’re afraid to write an email because you don’t believe that there’s anybody in your database that would say yes to you. When you go to the meet up groups, you’re afraid to go up and talk to people because you’re brand new.

One thing you have to realize, we all start at the same spot. We are brand new at something to begin with. Every one of us, whether it’s riding our bike, dancing, going into our first kiss, driving our first car, taking a first job interview, working at the job for the first time, making a first offer on houses, sending out yellow letters, whatever it is, we all have to start somewhere. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll find success. The only way to get better at what you do is to get in the game and start doing things. The only way to do that is that is focus on it. If you’ve got to play hookie, play hookie every once in a while.

You never know what will happen with your passion. Maybe it will light a fire on it. Maybe it will rekindle the flame inside when you’ve had to take a step back or you’ve got to take a job. We’ve got plenty of people out in note nation that are working full time or working part-time jobs. They’re using the notes to supplement their income, but are working to get that full time. I get it. It’s great. That’s awesome. Keep doing it. I’m not going to sit here and tell you to go quit your job. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is make sure you maximize your time as best you can. Make sure you’re doing smart things, not dumb things, with your time so that you can maximize your energy. We all drift.

We’re all going to drift. You’ve heard me talk about drift before. Napoleon Hill and Sharon Lechter’s book, Outwitting the Devil. We’re all going to drift. The biggest thing you can do is steer back to the left or back to the right a little bit. Get back to that center. Focus on that point. If sometimes you need to pick up the phone and call somebody, pick up the phone and call somebody. If you are struggling, feel free to shoot me a text message. My number is 512-585-3810. I may not answer it immediately but I promise you I will answer you. I’ll reach out to you. I promise that I’ll jump on the phone, spend fifteen minutes with you the best I can, going through some things. I want you to succeed. I want people to do things.

This episode is all about playing hookie. Have I played hookie at other times? I played hookie going to games before when I was high on jobs. I just played hookie for an interview before. I’d done that before a couple of times. One of the things that we have going on is we’ve developed with a lot of people coming, “Scott, do you have a membership besides your workshops?” We do. We started this weeks ago. It’s called the WCN Crew. I was challenged by one of my mentors and a good friend of mine at Traffic & Conversion that had been talking about doing this for six months and never gotten around to it. We’re doing our beta membership drive.

The first 100 people that get signed up for our WCN Crew membership will get our monthly bonuses and monthly things at $97 a month to infinitive as long as they’re in good standing. After we hit our 100 mark, the price goes up to $147. Once we get through Note CAMP 5.0, we’ll close it down for new members for a while. What are we doing with the WCN Crew? We’ve got some great stuff. We are sending out monthly swag. We’ve got little bit different monthly training.

It’s been very overwhelming from our vendors and some of our cohorts in crime. We’re coming together to give discounts to our member crew discounts and I want to use discounts on your boarding. If you’re doing something with Laughlin Associates, the Court Mill Production are throwing an LLC for you. We got monthly books coming out on monthly swag discounts to events like Paper Source or the Virtual Note Buying. We’re also working on discounts for a few other larger events out there. We are coming up on our 100 members. We’re pretty close to it. It’s $97 a month. You can cancel anytime. I see a lot of people that have gotten there.

The first signs have gotten their swag already sent to them with a t-shirt and a couple of books. We’re excited to do that every month, send something out. It’s our book of the month  club without reviewing the book every month. Stuff that I read, these books are going to be either people in their note game or something I picked, maybe a Gary Vaynerchuk book next month, who knows. We do have a couple ideas for books for next month that are in the process of being shipped here for that. It’s a cool thing. We’re doing special training and special discounts with that group.

If I can’t make you or save you $97 a month with the membership, I’m doing something wrong. If you want to get signed up for it, drop me a message. It’s bit.ly/WCNMembership. We’ve only just sent out a couple of emails recently as we’re helping people get signed up for it. Beautiful thing is that with the WCN membership crew, not only do they access to these videos, they’re also the ones who have access to the replays, besides our Mastermind group for our Note Night in America, along with our Virtual Note Buying workshop replays as well too. WCN members can also re-attend the virtual at no cost.

We’ve changed that now where not everybody can re-attend nonstop, no cost. We’re coming up on our 100 members. If we hit 100 members, the price goes $147. You want to save yourself $600 a year, get signed up at $97 price. It’s good to infinity and beyond as long as you stay in good standing with us. What does that mean? If your credit card gets declined or expired less, then you get another one. If we call you and say it’s not working and you don’t respond for a month or two, it’s not in good standing.

We don’t want you to miss out on the bonuses and some of the fun things that we’re doing with that. We’re pretty stoked about a lot of people enjoying it already. A good big shout out to those that are sharing it on their social media. I truly appreciate you sharing the posts of the stuff that’s coming in that’s getting shipped to you. These will all be in some of the monthly newsletters that go out as well with updates and member spotlights. If you’re interested, drop me an email at Scott@WeCloseNotes.com or shoot me a text message. Go out, make something happen. If you got to play hookie, play hookie well. Make it worth your while. See you all at the top.

 

Important Links

• Palm Harbor Homes
• How to Master the Art of Sales
• Ron Marks
• Outwitting the Devil
• Laughlin Associates
• Paper Source
• Virtual Note Buying
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• bit.ly/WCNMembership

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