Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 276 with the amazing #IAmMovement founder Rock Thomas.

Rock Thomas [0:11]
Hi, this is Rock Thomas and you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:19]
Well, I am so super pumped to have Rob on the show today. He has such an amazing and credible story that I just love to share with you because it will inspire me to see what’s actually possible. He went from farm boy to real estate and business guru, mentor, and self-made millionaire. Rock is The World’s #1 Whole-Life-Success Expert. He’s a best selling author and the host of the “I Am Podcast” and he has created a real #IAmMovement. You will learn more of how he was brought up and what has happened in his life but I think what’s even more important is from his humble beginnings, he now impacted over 100 million lives with his teachings. And his Goldcast video alone was viewed over 100 million times. So I’m going to put that definitely in the resource section. But let’s dive right in with Rock today. So you learn more of who he is, and why you should be listening to his story and learn how to create your own money blueprint.

Christine Schlonski [1:32]
Well, I am so excited to have you on the show Rock welcome.

Rock Thomas [1:36]
Hey, it’s a thrill to be here, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [1:38]
I know we waited quite a while to make this happen. And I am so looking forward to dive into your story, to give people inspiration and motivation to really go for their dreams, no matter where they are on their journey. And you know your video has been watched your Goldcast video millions of times. Where you actually share your story, but not every listener has probably seen it. So take us a little bit back to the beginning. Where did you get that determination? And that will, that drive to become so successful today?

Rock Thomas [2:17]
Well, I grew up on a farm I was the youngest of seven children. And if I didn’t start fighting for my own food, and for my own showers and bathtubs, and towels and stuff, I wasn’t gonna get anything. There was scarcity in our household. So I learned at a young age, I had to be strategic, I had to be clever. I had to fight for what I wanted. I had to protect my plate at the breakfast table. And eventually, it was survival. And I really believe that people may be born with a preset amount of drive or, or character. It’s so hard to know after 30 years of doing personal development, even though everybody people aren’t sure, but here’s what I do know. Events occur in your life that shape you. And you can consciously be shaped or you can unconsciously be shaped. And for me I, fortunately, reacted mostly in a fight not a flight way, I went and attacked back, I wanted to be seen, I wanted to have something that my life represented. And in so doing, I started to look for the path of success. And seek and you shall find.

Rock Thomas [3:31]
So there are elements to learning one of them is you have to access courage. The to be willing to do what is scary, what is risk-taking what is afraid, and I learned and I coined a phrase called to say yes, and figure it out later. So it can be as simple as this. Christine, you’re on the first day of class at school, whether you’re an adult going back, whether you’re building a business, whether you’re a kid school, the teacher asks a question go, oh my god, I want Yes. I got that one, and the whole class turns and looks at you. What is up with that person? And you answer it. Whether you know the answer or not, it doesn’t matter. You forced yourself to the edge of your comfort zone.

Christine Schlonski [4:16]
Yeah.

Rock Thomas [4:17]
If you’re starting a business and you’re afraid to ask for business, go and ask a stranger that you know will not buy your business. Develop the muscle of asking, even though you know the result will be lousy because you condition yourself to get into action. So I started to figure that out and I started to get really good that and I just started to say yes to a lot of things start to say yes to things that were bigger than me. I was the first person to jump or like, okay, let’s jump from here 20 feet down into the lake. I’m like, okay, I’ll go. And when that started to happen, people start to look at me as a leader. Rock will do it. Now squawk you’ll do it. Right. And so then it became part of my identity is and as if we have a chance to talk about it I have this podcast called the #IAmMovement, The Words That Follow “I AM” Follow You. So once you start to consciously describe yourself with intention, then you play up the part. And that’s been my journey.

Christine Schlonski [5:19]
Yeah, I just love that and the power of I Am is the power. I mean, once you start tapping into those statements, and you create what you want to see, for me, I journal a lot and I do write down I am statements. Especially after reading the book of Wayne Dyer, “Wishes Fulfilled”.

Rock Thomas [5:44]
Okay, nice.

Christine Schlonski [5:45]
And so yeah, it’s just that I am, I am confident, I am love, I am whatever I want to be strengths, health, happiness. It really, really changed the way I feel, and it’s so empowering because we give ourselves our new identity. And it starts within. So I love the topic of your podcast and of your movement basically, that you help people to empower themselves. We’re starting to think in a different way.

Rock Thomas [6:18]
Yeah, and it’s a there’s steps to that people. It’s not as simple as just going, I’m a millionaire, or I am sexy, or I am smart. Because your brain will look for references and go, No, you’re not a millionaire, you’re dead broke and you’re lousy with money and you hate promoting. You’re gonna be broke for the rest of your life. Right? Yeah. So there are elements that help one is surrounding yourself with people that will echo where you’re going. I say your friends are comfortable with your present, future mentors are comfortable with your future. You must be around people that see you in your future itself. Otherwise, they will constantly be pulling you back like two crabs in a bucket. So you gotta find yourself around people that see the greatness in you I think that’s one of my gifts is when I’m around people I’m looking for their potential, I’m looking I’m excited about where’s their greatness what treasure chest has not been opened yet what do they not have given themselves permission to lean into?

Rock Thomas [7:16]
And then I want to shine a light on that and I want to get them excited so I’m most people say, rock after I spend time with you I feel energized. Yeah, you feel energized because I’m looking for the best in you. And maybe it’s because I didn’t have a father that did that for me. Yeah, my father was constantly telling me you’re not enough. You didn’t do it right. Go do it again. I don’t care about your marks. Just tell me what you learned or as many great lessons but there was also a great divide. very lonely feeling growing up when tough Love is the daily diet. It’s learned that the human spirit responds best under three conditions, support, encouragement, and challenge. Yeah. But if you support a child too much, and you make their lunch and driving to school and you pull the umbrella out when it rains a little bit, and you fight their battles for them, they become soft and they can’t handle life.

Rock Thomas [8:14]
If you encourage them all the time, and then they get into an environment with no encouragement. They’re like, well, we’re all the people cheering me on how come I’m doing this all on my own. This sucks. I’m not going to do this, because they don’t get validated. If you challenge people like I was challenged a lot, and you turn into Mike Tyson and you want to bite somebody zero off because you feel that the only thing that you can do is to attack everything. So in my businesses, and in my coaching, I assess where people have come from, what doses of those three things they’ve been exposed to, and then understand what they need and what they respond to. For instance, if I’m in a competitive environment. Some of my colleagues know if we’re going to play a sport to tell me I don’t think you can do it rock. You can’t cover that guy. This guy’s too good. Try it. But I mean, if you did, it would be spectacular would be unbelievable.

Christine Schlonski [9:18]
That triggers you.

Rock Thomas [9:20]
Triggers you. So you as a coach, you’ve got to be able to identify what has triggered people and serve them in the past, and what is going to just crush them and make them become passive, aggressive, or unresourceful. And to me, that’s fun to try to figure out with people, and then to respond, and then bring the best out. I have this mastermind group where we’ve just created our 59th whole life millionaire. You don’t in four years create 59 millionaires by not understanding how their inner fabric operates. And that comes from years of being curious about, you know how our brains work.

Christine Schlonski [9:57]
Yeah. Let’s try to give people some advice who are listening, so the listeners of Heart Sell! love what they do, they have really really great intentions to make the world a better place with their gifts. But when it comes to the sales piece, while they might lose confidence, they might totally forget to make an offer. And there’s not really this drive necessarily of, or the thinking I need to get somebody to buy. So that I have a commitment and I can help someone to transform but also I can grow my company and at the end of the day, can I make my own dreams come true? What advice would you give people to have more fun in the sales environment?

Rock Thomas [10:46]
Well, angels have wings and people say, well, why do they have wings? Well, because they take themselves lightly. So I think that people make things more important than they are and they envision negativity versus creativity. So I teach a leadership course. And the first thing is you need to be a visionary, which means you use your creative imagination to see things the way you want them to be. And then you get strategic by thinking and you and I were talking before about journaling and learning about yourself. So there’s a process to it. But here’s what I’ve learned is people have a money and success blueprint that’s established while they’re growing up and being exposed to their environment. And, you know, we’ll use Donald Trump because everybody knows him. Donald Trump became a billionaire, then he lost everything and then he became a billionaire again, because his money and success blueprint is that he needs to be a billionaire, being worth 10 or 20 million doesn’t cut it for him. So he will fight to find a way whatever.

Rock Thomas [11:48]
Whoever’s listening to this, whatever your bank account shows, whatever losses you’ve made in a year, that’s part of your money blueprint. And until you become conscious about how you’ve grown created that you’ll continue to re-attract that. You might make a lot of money and then invest it and lose it. You might struggle to get some and then get into a partnership with somebody who gets sabotaged. You might think that you shouldn’t have to promote your product. But it’s a story you tell yourself because you’re really afraid of rejection cause one day you sold Girl Scout cookies and somebody yelled at you. And you thought that felt terrible and you wrote your operations manual. Don’t ever talk to strangers about something that they might not want.

Rock Thomas [12:32]
All these unconscious beliefs operating underneath the surface. But in order to know that they are you just have to look at your results. And if your results are that of struggling with finances, you need a money and success blueprint upgrade. You need to make a shift internally, not just externally. Right, successful people have a sense of urgency. Successful people like a challenge are willing to do things that are difficult. When I own two real estate offices of 250 salespeople, the same salespeople regardless of Coronavirus or whatever is going on, adapt, and do well. Everybody else spends a lot of time telling you about all the reasons why they can’t succeed. Well, they don’t allow us to do this anymore. The new law you can’t park here, you can’t call people you can’t visit, you got to wear a mask. You got to do this.

Rock Thomas [13:28]
They tell excuses winners are not interested in excuses. They’re interested in results, and they’re interested in extreme ownership of those results. Christine, in other words, if they mess up and do poorly, like when Coronavirus came in my real estate companies for two months went sideways. But we adjusted, we started doing a lot of training online, and now we’re pulling out of the pit faster than the competition. And I promise you by the end of the year, we will have to recoup everything and more. So you’ve got to look at your money as success blueprint. You’ve got to ask yourself, you know, journal, what are the reasons why I don’t want to promote most struggling people are not good promoters. And they have a long list of reasons, by the way as to why they’re not going to promote or why shouldn’t have to people, I’ve got a great product, they should come to me. I’m busy doing my accounting, my paperwork, building a website, redoing my landing page, yada yada, yada. Judge, not your day by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant.

Christine Schlonski [14:35]
I love that. can see it again, please.

Rock Thomas [14:39]
Judge not your day by your harvest but by the seeds you plant. A great salesperson, plant seeds every day looks for new customers every day, asks for business every day. Request that is people that they’re just in the habit. The last, the waiter, the chef, the kitchen person, the person that table beside them, like if I was in real estate, hey, are you thinking of buying real estate? I am a real estate buddy. Boo Boo Boo with everybody? And they’re doing it because it’s the muscle that serves them. Not when it’s appropriate, not when it’s right not when they think the person but there’s a second part to that is you ask and you don’t get the answer you want. You don’t take it personally, you evaluate. I live in Arizona, which is very hot. Selling winter tires in Arizona in July would be foolish to think you’re going to get a lot of yeses. So you have to be strategic. But if I wanted to build my muscle of asking, I could do that. No knock on doors as hell What would you like to buy someone two tires? I probably find somebody that’s a Canadian down here. That would say how much right?

Christine Schlonski [15:51]
Yeah.

Rock Thomas [15:52]
So it’s about being excited about taking action and then being evaluated by feedback. So you can be appropriate and intelligent about it might be.

Christine Schlonski [16:03]
Yeah. So what was the very, very first thing that you ever sold?

Rock Thomas [16:07]
I know when I was around 11 or 12, I lived on a farm in the city kids came out to ride horses after school. On Saturday mornings, I set up a little hot dog and coffee stand and I sold that to the parents that came out there there were standing around watching their kids. I don’t know if that was the first thing but I remember doing that. And I was very proud of myself and a little coffee machine and, and I bought my parent’s little table, I set it up and it was like 25 cents or something like that. And I’d make 5 or $6 a day, which is like 500 a day now probably. But I was very entrepreneurial. And I think that’s another part of being a business person is to look for the opportunity. How much opportunity is there right now in the market. I was telling My tribe, as we all get on these zoom calls when Coronavirus hit, I said, I zoom stock it was 105. It’s at 200 today. Was there an opportunity? Did it take a rocket scientist to figure that out? No. But most people even when you talk about it, they hesitate. They wonder and they ponder. I think smart people would have looked at that they would have done their research, they would have triangulated like Ray Dalio says runs the most successful hedge fund in the world with two other people have merit and go, you know, what does that make sense? And then they may maybe pull the trigger and they could have made a 100% return on their money in the last two months. The same goes for airlines today and different things. But most people are afraid and they’re uncertain, and they lack confidence. So even if you only had $1,000 to invest in you, you made $1,000 in two months. That’s not bad. Some of us put 100 or $200,000 in that’s pretty good. So there’s opportunity everywhere, but it requires a lot of soul searching and personal development.

Christine Schlonski [18:06]
Yeah. So now I mean, you’re so confident today and you said you always will have this entrepreneurial gene. Like how did you deal with rejection? How did you or was it always okay for you and you just moved on?

Rock Thomas [18:23]
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that I got rejected so much by my brothers and sisters. That and I, we did grow up without a TV. So I went to the school when people would talk about the shows, I didn’t know about the shows. I had a lot of acne growing up, I was called pizza face and never really felt like I belonged. And then one day, we were playing football, American football and because my brother used to chase me all the time to beat me up. I got used to running through the horse fields and through fences and over, over obstacles and bashing and darting I just didn’t know how to play football, but I kid streaming the ball and nobody can catch me. And I also got all this attention for being really good at stuff. So I think that was one of the what I call these Tripoli’s extremely emotional event that shapes you for the rest of your life, like a car accident or rape or something like that.

Rock Thomas [19:19]
In my case, I thought, if I’m really good at sports, everybody, everybody’s are picking me first on their teams. Like, where’s Rock? Where’s Rock? Where’s Rock? Right. And I got all this attention. So, for me, I joined something called Amway Multilevel Marketing when I was 19 years old. And I was a big dreamer. I wanted to make a lot of money because we didn’t have money. People ask me, why did you become rich, I go, try being poor for a long time, you’ll find that being rich is a lot better. So I start to knock on doors. And I think Christine the expression I got on people’s faces when I would never give up made me feel good. Maybe it was a scrap. But I had these CEOs I would knock in I lived in a semi-knocked on doors and semi-rich area and knock on doors. I would have a little stand outside make okay, I’ve got some soap to sell you and they’ll excuse me? But I was so passionate and so excited, enthusiastic, they listened to me. They wouldn’t buy it. But why can’t you got some good Moxie, you go get it, you’ll get one day kid. You’ll be successful one day.

Rock Thomas [20:34]
Focused on not the result of winning so much, but my ability to not get discouraged in spite of the feedback. That’s what I focused on. How many times could I get punched in the face and still smile? That’s what I lived for. I had a story in the movie. I was 23 24 years old. They were filming In the movie, I was in a gopher just running around building the set and stuff. And then the scene in this boat both Patrick Dempsey I don’t know if you know who he is a famous actor here in America. And he was losing his virginity to a playboy bunny or whatever it was one of those silly little camping movies and, you know, lose your virginity and it was supposed to happen in a boat in the water. And the boat was supposed to be rocking up and down as you can imagine the activity and they had set up at night and the lights and the cameras and everything and they’re like action. And the boat didn’t move. And they’re like, action and the boat didn’t move and then the directors like guys, the boats supposed to be moving.

Rock Thomas [21:46]
We all know what’s happening. And nobody goes, someone move that boat time is money. And I was sitting in the background it was back in the day before we had cell phones. So I ran through jumped off the deck into the dark water, cold water, I hate cold water landed in there, grab the boat and start rocking the boat like this and I go stuck my head out the side to go like this. He goes that’s perfect, hide behind the boat and roll. And the next three or four days later there was another scene they need somebody to move through mud and nobody would do it and the direct director yelled at, where’s that kid that rock the boat, he’ll do and get that kid. And it was things like that, that validated. You do things that are difficult nobody else is willing to do. You get these multiple rewards. I ended up dating the lead actress because I got this attention. I was this kid of courage. So you may people may not have those references, but you can create them the past does not equal the future unless you continue to live there.

Christine Schlonski [22:55]
What a beautiful ending to this first episode. I’m so excited that we have another interview You set up. So I want to send people to get your ebook. So tell us about it. And they can get it at rockthomas.com. What will they learn?

Rock Thomas [23:11]
So they’re going to learn how you can figure out what your identity is today, like a story that’s been scripted for you. And you live into that story. You believe you’re a procrastinator, not a morning person. You got to have your coffee before you can really get started. You have all these beliefs that are unconscious and many of them serve you and many of them don’t. So through this book, the power your identity, The Words That Follow “I AM” Follow You have the five steps and how you can rescript your life the same way I did, I went from pizza face to ruggedly handsome. I went from working hard to working smart. I went from dyslexic and can’t spell to writing books. I went from being somebody that worked, you know one job to 35 streams of income. There’s so many things you can shift but there’s a process to start internally. And then they gain the momentum externally. So that’s what you’ll get, you’ll get my free ebook. “The Power Of Your Identity” when you go to the site will be a pop-up, you can get it and a great place to start.

Christine Schlonski [24:17]
Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much. I can’t wait to dive deeper into confidence and sales. I feel there’s so much more that we can cover to support our listeners. And thank you so so much for this first episode.

Rock Thomas [24:30]
My pleasure.

Rock Thomas [24:31]
Wasn’t this just a fun and inspiring episode? I just loved it. And no wonder rock has really had this path he was on because he surrounded himself with the best teachers. If you hire Tony Robbins or work with Stephen Covey or Gary Keller and so many more, obviously, your life must improve because you become the average of the five people you surround yourself with that set over and over again. So the question for you today is, who are you surrounding yourself with? And then what kind of impact do these people have on your life in terms of your mindset, your mentality, the way you execute things? I think it’s so, so important to get really clear on, where do you want to go? What’s your journey? Who do you want to impact and who do you want to give your gifts to. And once you’re really clear on that, life will become easier because decision making becomes so much easier. Thank you so much for having been here. hop on over to christineschlonski.com and check out the show notes. You don’t just find that transcript and the show notes itself as well as the three key points. But also in the resource section. I have the link for you for Rock’s amazing ebook, “The Power of Your Identity”. And you can just go and download it with one click, as well as I have the links to Rock’s podcasts, “#IAmMovement Podcasts” and the links to his social media. So you can connect today and be inspired and learn more about the way Rock is teaching and what he brings to the world. Thank you so much for tuning in, for listening, make sure you check out the next episode where Rock is going to be back. And we’re going to talk about Fast Growth Through Seeking Feedback. That’s going to be a very interesting topic. And the topic that maybe one or the other is a little bit reluctant to but it is so so helpful. And it will catapult you to your next level. Thanks for having been here. Hop on over to christineschlonski.com make sure you get the amazing gifts that are waiting on that page for you and that you are back for the next episode. Have a wonderful day. Wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.