#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
Are you feeling stuck in life, wanting to grow, improve your income, or build a stronger community? Join performance coach Jordan Edwards as he interviews world-class achievers—including the Founder of Reebok and the Co-Founder of Priceline—who share their success stories and actionable strategies. Each episode provides practical tips on how to boost your personal and professional growth, helping you implement changes that can make a real difference in your life.
This podcast is designed for anyone looking to make progress—whether you're aiming to improve your mindset, relationships, health, or income. Jordan distills the wisdom of top performers into easy-to-follow steps you can take immediately. Whether you're stuck in your career or personal life, you’ll find new ways to get unstuck and start moving forward with confidence.
How to get unstuck? It’s a question many face, and in each episode, you’ll hear stories of how successful individuals broke through barriers, found purpose, and created systems to overcome obstacles. From building resilience to developing a success mindset, you'll gain insights into how high achievers continue to evolve and grow.
Looking to improve your income? This podcast also dives into financial strategies, offering advice from entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built wealth, created multiple revenue streams, and mastered the art of financial growth. Learn how to increase your income, find opportunities for advancement, and create value in both your personal and professional life.
Jordan also emphasizes the importance of building community. You'll learn how to expand your network, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive environments that contribute to personal and professional success. From philanthropists to community leaders, guests share their experiences in building impactful, values-driven communities.
At the core of the podcast are the 5 Pillars of Edwards Consulting—Mental Health, Physical Health, Community Service/Philanthropy, Relationships, and Spirituality. Each episode integrates these elements, ensuring a holistic approach to self-improvement. Whether it's enhancing your mental and physical well-being, giving back to your community, or strengthening your relationships, you'll receive actionable advice that’s grounded in real-world success.
This podcast is for everyone—whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to advance, or simply someone seeking personal growth. You’ll gain actionable steps from every conversation, whether it’s about increasing your productivity, improving your health, or finding more purpose in your life.
Jordan’s interviews are designed to be perspective-shifting, giving you the tools and inspiration to transform your life. From overcoming obstacles to building stronger habits, these episodes are packed with practical insights you can use today. Whether you're looking to grow in your career, improve your income, or enhance your personal life, you’ll find value in every conversation.
Join Jordan Edwards and a lineup of incredible guests for thought-provoking conversations that will inspire you to take action, improve your performance, and unlock your full potential. No matter where you are on your journey, this podcast will help you get unstuck, grow, and build a life filled with purpose and success.
#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
#215 - Transforming Business Strategies: The Power of Consumer Research with John D. Marvin
Unlock the secrets to transforming business strategies through the power of consumer research with John D. Marvin, President and CEO of Texas State Optical. John shares how understanding customer needs isn't just good practice—it's a game-changer, likening it to the preparation needed for a successful first date. From the intricacies of the eye care industry to the evolving world of consumer expectations, his insights provide a masterclass in connecting authentically with both clients and team members.
John's journey from having his career path dictated by others to taking the reins himself is an inspiring testament to embracing change. As he recounts his experiences leading Texas State Optical since 2001, listeners will discover the importance of a positive mindset and the transformative power of surrounding oneself with a supportive community. By reframing challenges as opportunities, John illustrates how seizing the moment can lead to significant growth and success.
The narrative goes beyond business as John urges listeners to find purpose and create value in their daily endeavors. The story of expanding Texas State Optical into numerous new locations serves as a prime example of turning obstacles into opportunities for growth. By empowering young optometrists and recognizing the broader impact of his entrepreneurial decisions, John reminds us that small beginnings can lead to substantial outcomes. This episode is a compelling exploration of perspective, intentional decision-making, and the enduring power of making a difference in people’s lives.
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Hey, what's going on, guys? I've got a special guest here today for the Hashtag Clocked In podcast. We have John D Marvin. He's the president and CEO of TSO, which is Texas State Optical. Texas State Optical is the oldest eye care organization in Texas and has provided complete eye care for more Texas families than any other eye care organization in general, which is incredible. So, John, in our pre-call, you have a very interesting journey and one of the things you brought up was consumer research and you say how important that is. So tell me a little bit. Why is consumer research so important for businesses and just in general, for people to learn about their own customers?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, thank you for the invitation to be here. I really appreciate that and the opportunity to talk about this, because it means a lot to me. It's a big part of my story. You know, consumer research is a fancy title for talking to your customers. And you know, even from a basic experience like when someone drives onto a car lot and they're considering buying a new car a good salesman will come up and say tell me what you're looking for, what brings you here today? And then they will listen to you and you'll say well, I'm needing a new car, any particular model that you're interested in.
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of like a four-door sedan. I don't really go for the sports car. Great, is there a particular color that you're interested in? And just through a series of questions and answers, then that salesman is better able to take you to the precise place on the part a lot and show you the cars that you're interested in.
Speaker 2:Otherwise they just start showing you stuff and unfortunately, a lot of small businesses today just throw a lot of stuff at a customer, hoping that something will stick and instead of taking the time to learn about their customer and to find specifically what it is that they might be looking for in a provider of the services in our example in optical services. And when I first got involved in marketing in college I kind of studied that in college we took a whole course on consumer research and I'm reading this and I'm going this is like cheating. I mean all this competitive game of business that we get involved in. So few companies actually take the time to go out and talk to customers that if those that do have a distinct advantage, and.
Speaker 2:I just thought this is like something I want to be involved in, because I've always said I'm ambitiously lazy, and so if I can figure out a way to get there quicker by maybe using something like research, then I was all in for it. So that's kind of how it came to be.
Speaker 1:I love that. And the crazy thing is for the audience to realize is that this isn't for just optical, this isn't just for coaching, this isn't just for business, this is for life. Whenever you go into these consumer research situations, you hear consumer research and, like John said, it's like this big, scary word but it's really just asking people what they want. So if you're on a date with someone, you ask them what do you like in a partner? And they say this, this and this, and it's like all the answers and it's like okay, now you don't have to guess anymore and you can have a better relationship with those family members or that date or whatever you're trying to do or make that friend. And it's just really being curious in the beginning, because there's so many times where John's right, you do have the car salesman who just goes you got to get the new hummer because he gets the biggest commission and the guy wants to drive a prius.
Speaker 2:it just doesn't work yeah, well, to use your date metaphor, um, you know, it's like taking your first date and getting her a shrimp cocktail, which is you're splurging a lot, only to find out later in the ER that she's allergic to shellfish. You know, I mean, it's like if you had just asked on the front end of it, we would have avoided the hospital visit. And so it's just as simple as talking to people and learning about them, finding out not only what they want, but why they want that, why it's important to them, and so that has really been kind of a fundamental part of my approach to running a business, because it applies, as you point out, to internal customers like employees.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, and the better you understand the people around you, the better you understand why they want to come on. And that's why, like even with the podcast, I asked beforehand I'm like what do you want out of this? How can we make this successful for you? What is it that you want? And so, john, for your journey, what ended up happening where you were actually doing consumer research as a job? Like how did that end up being?
Speaker 2:Well, I was in the eye care space working in ophthalmology, the surgical piece of it and a little bit so at that time this was in the 80s and at that time the biggest, the ophthalmology, was very involved in providing cataract surgery. They still are.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But in the 80s the number one line item in the budget for Medicare in the United States was cataract surgery.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Budget for Medicare in the United States was cataract surgery. Oh wow, and more people. I mean. Medicare spent more money on providing cataract surgery to people than any other health care procedure and at that time they were paying about $3,000 to the surgeon per eye. So and the surgeons, the good ones were doing anywhere from 50 to 60 of those a week. So all you just run a calculator on those numbers and you can see there's a lot of money in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it is paid for by government. Then they decided well, we don't want to pay that much. So today that's about $600 per eye.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So you can see the difference right. Well, as that began to come down, the surgeons that I was working with said we've got to come up with another way to make money, and so I thought, well, let's go out and talk to people, let's find out what it is that we could do, and one of the areas that was most fertile for us were people that were buying glasses, so they don't need surgery. We just wanted to talk to them about what they wanted, and we saw an opportunity to have refractive surgery.
Speaker 1:And now.
Speaker 2:at that time it was called radial keratotomy or RK, but later today it's called LASIK.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay, Okay.
Speaker 2:So today it's LASIK, it's done by a laser. In the late 80s it was done with a blade and you did incisions on the cornea itself, and so we saw this was a great opportunity. So we started supplementing the cataract surgery with RK surgery, and that really was the first application in eye care that I had experienced with, and the company that I'd hired hired me away from the surgeons to try to develop this area of research for them.
Speaker 1:Meaning eye care eye care.
Speaker 2:And so I joined that firm and started developing research customers for it Only 18 months later to get fired from that job. But in the meantime I had came across this company out of Beaumont, texas, called Texas State Optical, and at that time they had the largest share of what we call primary care eye care. Primary eye care patients, people buying glasses and contacts and so forth. And once I went to them with what I had learned with the surgeons, they became impressed with all this information and I ended up selling them a big research project from the new firm that I'd gone to. So I just got back in my car, drove back over there and said now I'm in the selling business, so why don't you buy something? You'd said you were interested and I did.
Speaker 2:That took two years and I learned a tremendous amount about their business, ended up consequently getting hired by the franchise group a large franchise group to help direct their marketing strategies. Ultimately that led to the franchise group buying the company and asking me to come on as the new president. So that's kind of the short version. So consumer research had I never had one, had the government not reduced what they were paying for cataracts and forced us into coming up with a different line of revenue, I wouldn't be president of Texas State Optical.
Speaker 1:And that is just enlightening to me, because so early on and so many times throughout our career, we don't realize how long our careers actually are and we don't realize that the bad things might be the good things and the bad things might might be the good things and the bad things might lead to the good things. And it leads to curiosity and it leads to different opportunities every single time. Because, no matter what, even if something's going really well, if you're not with the times and you can't change, you're not seeing those new opportunities, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we develop a set of skills and sometimes those skills are optimized in certain environments that we're in. And I use an analogy of sports, professional sports. We've all known the second baseman that was just so-so with a particular team and then gets traded and becomes this phenom that under a different manager, different teammates, they're given a different opportunity to apply their skill sets. And it happens in business. I've known so many people that are in jobs that get frustrated, they don't perform well. Some of us get fired and then we find ourselves with a different team and a different environment and it just opens up like a flower blooming. So yeah, you just got to keep. You have to keep believing faith and keep pursuing.
Speaker 1:So for you, how was that journey going from going to have to sell and getting into that research, Like when you got fired, were you? Were you down? Because I kind of want to move to a little bit to the mindset where you're, like, where it really applies to the audience, because they sit there and they go. I've been fired. Like it sucks. Like how did you go from fired to president of an organization like you?
Speaker 2:know what I mean most people sit there and go.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, but that's that's what happened, you know yeah, well, I, in addition to the eye care client, texas state optical, I had developed, uh, three or four other big clients in the research business. So I got fired. I got fired because I took on the vice president. It was a small research group. Most research companies like I deal with consumer level are small, meaning they've got a couple hundred employees, so it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2:But the owner and the number two person were married to each other and the number two person was the person involved with gathering the data. So in a research firm you've got the analyst side and then you've got the collecting, the data collection. So the person was the one who's responsible for the phone banks, you know, calling the surveys and interviewing. Well, I caught her cheating. I mean, she had a project for me that she had done a hundred surveys for me and the demographics were so skewed that I knew that this wasn't accurate. And it turns out they were not making the phone calls, they were handing out surveys and people were just filling them in.
Speaker 2:And it happens more than you might want to believe, by the way. But I called her on it and I mean, within a matter of an hour and a half I was fired and sent out the door. So I had these clients that I had developed and I called them on my way home, not knowing what the heck I'm going to do. Called them on my way home to tell them that I was fired and they said well, we like working with you. Would you continue to do the work for us on your own?
Speaker 1:working with you. Would you continue to do the work for us on your own? Oh, again, another. You stayed to your guns. You stayed doing the integrous thing, doing the right thing, and even though it didn't pan out specifically right away, but you were able to get these clients again, which is just the I, yeah, I applaud you for that.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't go into the details. I didn't see any reason to throw my former employer under the bus, necessarily, and I was not soliciting, I was just letting them know so that when they called me no one answered my phone that they'd know what happened to me. And then they said would you be willing to? I had a couple of projects, finish these projects and honestly I thought to myself sure, I need something to make some money While I look for a job, I'll do this and that turned into my own business. And I did that for about 10 years, during which I had also turned around and picked up TSO as a client and and began doing work for them. And we still do every year. We still do some form of consumer research.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's so important to people realizing this that, no matter how big your company is, no, how, no matter how much you've done, you should always be getting to know the customers better, getting better to know the people that you're around getting to know your employees getting to know your franchisees.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so for you. How did it really? Because the interesting thing to me is like you created your own story. You know what I mean. Like you went on your own journey and you just found different opportunities here and there. Like, how did you always leave yourself open and available to these opportunities?
Speaker 2:Well, I figured that if I either I was going to create my own story or I was going to allow somebody else to create my story for me, and I had just come from a circumstance where their story for me didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, and so I thought, well, I don't want to go there again.
Speaker 2:And so I just began to try to seize on opportunities as they presented. And I didn't sit down and make some business plan and formula strategic plan or anything like that. I just got basically got out and started calling on prospects and seeing if I could sell them some research, working my network and letting people know what I was doing. And one would lead to a referral. And you know, I didn't have to have 200 clients, I just needed about a dozen that periodically, over the course of a year, would do research with me. And so, and frankly, some of those early clients are still some of my best friends. I mean, I just I stay in touch with them and we haven't done work together in years, but I stay in touch.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that Because I think it's really the building of a real career is when you find that true happiness and you're around the people. You really enjoy and like with you being at Texas State Optical. What year did you become the president? Again Like 2001?
Speaker 2:2001.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you've been the president again, like 2001? 2001,. Yes, yeah, so you've been the president for quite some time. And what's kept you there? What's really kept? What's so special about it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that the same thing that attracted me in the first place and that was I saw the potential in the company and really looked at it. I say all the time it was like this great fixer-upper, and so I thought this will be a good project. I kind of consider myself a builder, yeah, someone who I want to accomplish something I'm not a manager so much as I am a builder and then I try to influence, have a good, positive influence as a leader, and so that building just never. You know, it's like the fixer-upper you keep adding additions onto and it's just the opportunities continue, marketplaces change, the circumstances around the company change and you're always needing to adapt to survive.
Speaker 2:We're good, yeah, I don't know what happened, but we'll just keep rolling. Yeah, so you know when, when you're with a company, nothing stays the same. Yeah, and so your ability to adapt to change is invigorating for me. It's energizing to me. If everything stayed the same, I'd have gotten bored and left a long time ago, and so that's yeah I mean there's two things you brought up that I think are fascinating.
Speaker 1:One is that you identify yourself as a builder, as someone who's going out there and doing the work and building the, the company, and embracing that. And then you're someone who you also mentioned, you embrace change. And I bring this up just because for the audience it's super important to realize are you identifying yourself with these positive markers or you're saying you're not enough or not able to do this, or it's not possible? Because if you're doing what John's doing, then you're able to create these incredible careers for yourself and these incredible experiences, because if you label yourself correctly, you'll have a much better existence. You'll have a much better existence. So, john, yeah for you as a builder and someone who embraces change. How do you embrace change?
Speaker 2:because I know that's such a problem for so many people in our society well, the good news is you don't have to go out and hunt for it. Change finds you and then all you have to do is accept it and look for the opportunity in it. And that sounds so cliche, but to a greater cliche is something a friend of mine told me that I believe, and that is John you always find what you look for.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I think that, from a mindset standpoint, if you look for disaster, tragedy and chaos, you'll find it.
Speaker 2:If you look for opportunity, you'll find that as well. Now it doesn't just manifest itself in immediate success, but if you look for the opportunity in it and you have confidence and belief in yourself which is not easy, easily said, but a lot of times we're beaten down and people especially if you get fired I mean that's pretty abrupt suggests that you're not of any value. It's easy to kind of get caught up in that. So you have to surround yourself with support and good people, fill your mind with things that help you to grow, and so the change is inevitable. It's going to happen. You just have to accept it. And I use a phrase that I tell my children. I said you know, when something happens to you that you didn't expect and it's not real positive, the best thing is to just think about it and say, isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? And then contemplate it. Because if you take that approach, instead of freaking out, then you're more inclined to be able to see the opportunity that will present itself as well with it.
Speaker 1:I love that because it makes you realize, and it has you set there, what allows you to be even keel, what allows you to see the opportunities and what allows you to capitalize on those opportunities. Because, like you said, like there's um, if it's a bad thing, it's a problem, if it's a good thing, it's a surprise. They're both the same thing. No one ever goes. Yeah, I had a surprise this morning. My, uh, my toilet flooded and you're like, flooded the apartment. No one ever says that. They're just like. I had a horrible morning. This happened blah, blah, blah. And it's that, realizing that, no matter what you do, it's the frame you view it as, and absolutely, and I think that opens up a lot of opportunities. So where did that happen? Where did that open opportunity happen with Texas State Optical or what might be an example of that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, having taken the helm in 2001, and I helped to orchestrate I helped the franchisees to buy the company. That's kind of what helped put me in a position. They were a client the Franchise Association that I helped to create and eventually that was in the early 90s, by the end of the decade, the franchisees had decided they wanted to purchase the company and so, being the only real business person in the mix, they turned to me to help them negotiate the acquisition, and when I did, I realized that the motivation that they had to purchase the company was not coming from a place of wanting to build and grow. It was coming from a place of wanting to be left alone. And so, once we got it acquired, the general attitude among the board of directors, which were the franchisees that bought the company, was now leave us alone. And so I thought, well, this will be a pretty good gig. I mean, no one's going to expect anything out of me.
Speaker 2:And so for about 18 months they were left alone, and then at board meetings, somebody said we need to grow, we need to add locations, and I said well, we got a little bit of a dilemma with that, because no one's going to really get excited about me charging them money to leave them alone.
Speaker 2:And so we're going to have to come up with a value proposition. So what was very frustrating I laugh about it now, but at the time no one wants to be put in a position somebody who's a builder that basically says, no, you just sit here and make sure that the checks get cleared and no one bothers us. That was very frustrating. So I could have just said you know what, I'm not going to put up with this and gone someplace else. But when the opportunity I saw in them they wanted to grow I said, okay, well then, how can we grow?
Speaker 2:And I looked at you know, what we can really be good at is helping young optometrists who want to own their own business, and we could become really good at helping them find a location, get the financing, design the space and do all the things that are necessary but young ODs have no clue about doing.
Speaker 2:And so that kind of became our value proposition and we started growing and we added 85 locations to the organization from startups and we practiced fundamentals in a startup and after about a dozen of them, it got pretty predictive as to okay, here's what you're going to do your first year, your third year and here's what you're going to do your fifth year, and when you can put together a pro forma that's that predictive then you attract others that want to get in on that, and so that's how I turned what might have been a very frustrating circumstance into a great opportunity and, honestly, today some of those people we helped open practices now have been in their practice 10 to 12 years and I realized that what I was doing was helping them live a dream that they wanted and help them send their kids to private schools or drive nice cars and do things like that, yeah, and that's really what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Because I watched a video and it was about Jeff Bezos and he's like, yeah, they always have a Forbes list for me and he's like, I don't care about the list for me, I care about the list for the value created for other people, actually helping other people. So you made 85 families, and that's just from the person who was the franchisor, let alone the receptionist, the other doctors they hired, all the other people You're looking at hundreds, if not a thousand plus people that got impacted in a positive way because of that decision to let's grow. You know what I mean? It all starts with a let's grow and then you're able to actually go out there on that mission and I kind of applaud you for it, because I think there's a lot of people who would have been a little too off putting by staying in a job for too long or staying in a job that they don't really like find their purpose in. But, like, once the opportunity turns, you have that moment to take advantage of the situation, and I find that happens a lot where sometimes we're just too early to it, like I have that with the podcast a little bit.
Speaker 1:I started in 2020 and then the tech got much better. So now it's become so much easier, even though we've had a couple of tech issues today, but the tech issue, the tech's gotten so much better, so it's easier for me to do the podcast. It's easier Now people are reaching out and you just kind of start to build the momentum and it changes everything for you. But you need to be positioned for that. So I'm letting everyone know, so the audience if you want to go start something, or if you have a dream or you have something you want to achieve, you have to go start something. Or if you have a dream or you have something you want to achieve, you have to start going after it today, even though it might seem really small, but that really really small thing is going to start to build into something really special, like john just mentioned you know and you can take it one other step in terms of value.
Speaker 2:Um, I stood in front of a group of we call them opticians, that people who work in opticals, and I just asked them the question what do you do for a living? And then you know, when you're at a party or Sunday school or you're meeting little egg, and say, well, what do you do, what do you tell them? And I heard that, what you might imagine well, I sell glasses, or I work for Dr So-and-so or this and that. And I said, well, let me suggest you think of it different, think of it this way what you really do is you help people see the important things in life. You help that mother and father watch their five-year-old in T-ball. You help that mother and father watch their five-year-old in T-ball, because if they didn't have eyewear they wouldn't be able to see that five-year-old in T-ball. You help a father walk his daughter down the aisle and be there with clear vision to be able to really experience it completely.
Speaker 2:I said so what you're really doing is you're helping people see the important things in life. And when you begin to look at what you do not as a set of tasks but as making a difference in the lives of others. It energizes you to a great degree. Plus, you want to take the time to understand how you can be of most value to that mother or father or that doctor or that staff member. So you can take that. Not only was I helping these doctors, but think of the thousands of families that go to those doctors whose lives have been impacted, so it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so awesome because there's so many of us that, like you just said, I just sell glasses and it's like no, no, there's much more to that. And there was a example I heard literally yesterday where it was saying there was one guy who had a bunch of rocks and he was like hammering the rocks, and the one guy's like what are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm hammering the rocks, and he seemed kind of sad. Then the middle guy is like what are you doing? Oh, I'm making a stadium. Okay, he was like so-so. And then the next guy's like I'm making a temple and it's going to be where the communities are going to come and it's going to be amazing. And they were all building the same rocks.
Speaker 1:So you start to realize that no matter what the activity you're doing, it doesn't matter. It's the underlying purpose, which, as soon as you did that, john, I go, wow, really good leader. Like you know what I mean. Leadership is off the charts. Because you start to realize these very little minute things. Because if you can instill that in yourselves and like for the audience listening, no matter what you you do, if you can find the purpose and find the value that you're creating, then you'll have so much more of a drive to go. I don't sell glasses, I provide vision. So now, if the glasses are whatever price, it doesn't matter. Like we're helping them see, why would you not want to like? I wear glasses and contacts for the past like 15 years.
Speaker 2:It's helped me so much like yeah, think of where you'd be without it.
Speaker 1:You know it'd be very difficult to if it was through the day, yeah, if it was like the 1800s, I don't know. And that's the thing that you don't realize what opportunities we have. And, like, something I'm really impressed with you, john, is that you're still so innovative. So how do you stay open to innovation and different opportunities? Because a lot of us, as we age, get very stuck in this. I love the routine and it's like no, no, no, we have to break up the routine, we have to be open to new and we have to see the opportunities among us.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it has to be intentional.
Speaker 1:I mean 100%.
Speaker 2:And so I made a decision that I wasn't going to be satisfied with, just the status quo. I wanted more, I wanted to be more, I wanted to do more. And then I realized if I'm going to do more, I need to be more. And so I always start with how can I make myself better? And by doing that and putting the work into that, then that alone creates opportunities to contribute. Because I'm now a different person, I personally have more value, so I've learned things.
Speaker 1:would you? How would you make yourself better? What was maybe something the audience can do, like? Were you reading books? Did you go to seminars? Like, what was it that you're doing to make yourself better?
Speaker 2:well, yes, all of those things, but it starts with, um, I think it starts with daily reflection. Okay, and so I build into my day, first thing in the morning, an hour for me to just contemplate what yesterday was like, what I've got on schedule for today, and deciding whether that's moving me towards what I want to accomplish on a bigger level. So I use the week between Christmas and New Year's every year to plan out my coming year, and I actually start that process mentally probably around Thanksgiving. You know you start wrapping down, and so I've already got some things that I'm planning to do and ideas. But I get more formalized that week I put together a reading list these are the things I want to get better at this next year and I plan out if there are workshops or seminars I want to go to, I plan those out.
Speaker 2:Then you have to get a budget. I mean you have to sit down and go. You know that seminar is going to be five grand, so I need to figure out a way to make sure I've got that budgeted for. In addition, I do this with my staff at the company their annual review. They know now that they are obligated to come to me with how are you going to make yourself better in the coming year? Because the better you are, the more value you are to the company, and so it has to be intentional. You don't just wake up after 20 years and go, gosh, I'm a lot better than I was then. No, no, you got 20 years of the same experience. You're not any better, so it has to be intentional and it becomes unique.
Speaker 1:And so it's pretty funny because this will probably come out in maybe before the new year, maybe right around that time, because, uh, I did new year's resolutions, probably five years ago I think, and I thought the new year's resolutions were so silly. I go this is so like what resolution? No, I want new action steps. And then I realized that with New Year's, like you have all these goals right, so it's like I'm going to go to that conference. Well, you buy the tickets for the conference and then you go to the conference, Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So I set these different goals for myself, where some of them were like run a marathon or start a business or do with that, and I would hold myself accountable to them each and every week. Like you're saying, you're doing it daily, which is incredible, but it's this idea of you have to hold yourself accountable to whatever those goals may be. So if you're sitting there contemplating like what do I want to do for next year, you make a list of things that you're like that would be really cool. Okay, what are these that we can actually move towards and move the needle forward in our big goal of what we want.
Speaker 1:And the other big thing that John talked about was success, and like everyone's definition of success is different, Like so everyone can do different things Some people want to travel, some people want to build the biggest optical company in the world Like everyone's got different goals and that's cool, so it just. It just you got to realize who you are and learning more about yourself, I think is so important. So you taking the time to do this is, I mean, you're leading from the front, which I think is amazing.
Speaker 2:One of my mentors makes the statement that nothing in your life will change until you change what you do daily.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't have to be huge. But you have to every day do something that contributes towards accomplishing what you want changed in your life. If it's losing weight or running the marathon, you've got to do something daily towards that, and the most difficult part is figuring out what it is you want to do, Because literally you can do anything.
Speaker 1:Yes, the crazy thing. That's what blows my mind, Because I do reference back to the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s in my head and I'm like they didn't really have a lot of opportunity. It was like do this or do that. And nowadays we have so many different options that it's hard for us to even think about anything because we're always going a bunch of different directions. So, for you, how do you stay focused on? What is the thing?
Speaker 2:how do you stay focused on? What is the thing? Well, I it starts with um. I went through this exercise. That helped a lot because otherwise, you know, every year I had a whole new list of things I wanted to do. It's like I didn't get anything done last year, so let me pick out some new ones, and and so I read a biography of benjamin franklin okay and it talks about Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues.
Speaker 2:Today we'd call them values, personal values. And so I sit down and I made effort to come up with a set of seven personal values that I, above everything else, this is what I commit my life to, and from those values leads me towards a direction, and from the direction it leads me towards a goal, and from the goal it leads towards steps. You break it down and you accomplish it that way, and so, for instance, one of my personal values is health. It's to be healthy. Well, that gives me direction. And so then I have to say, okay, what is my goal going to be? Towards becoming healthy? So each of my goals in my life not resolutions for the year, but goals in my life is to are aligned with those values.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, but without that core set of values for me at least, it made it difficult to pick where my goals were, because they were all over the place. Yeah, you didn't know what the most important thing was yeah, I, so that helps me stay focused and every morning, every morning, I read through those list of values and I pick one every day that I'm going to focus on for that day oh, wow.
Speaker 1:What are the other values, if you're open to sharing?
Speaker 2:Sure they are, so I don't make sure I'm missing anything here.
Speaker 1:I'll look through yeah, no, because I think this is so important and I really appreciate you sharing this, because if we don't know who we are, we don't know where we're going and a lot of us don't know ourselves. So the more we know ourselves and we more we know and value what's important to us, we can learn so much more about the world. And like, one of the things for me is like I'm very curious. Why am I curious? That's why I have a podcast, so I can ask smart people silly questions, so I can learn about the world. I mean, in all honesty, people don't realize that, but you can ask anything you want of people and they're much more understanding.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if you have the values pulled up, but yeah, yeah, I do, and and I it's's important because I'm going to give you like my one. I'll just read through them. My first value listed is faith, and so I define that for myself, and that is to live each day with a heart of faith in Jesus Christ, god, my father, and eternal love and care for me, and only by placing all of my trust in his will for me will I live my life of its full potential and free of fear. Second one is love, and then I define that for me.
Speaker 2:Third one is honesty and integrity. Fourth is joy and happiness. Five is achievement. Six is continual learning and seven is health, mindfulness. So, like I said earlier, each day I pick, like today is continual learning, and it's just whatever I decide on every morning is I pick one and I say, okay, today I'm going to focus on that value and do things that will line up, align with that um continual learning and um for today, and, frankly, this podcast is an exercise in my learning and so A hundred percent, and I think the really interesting thing is that.
Speaker 1:The other big thing I want to bring up is that a lot of us get preoccupied with, like I want to be doing so much, I want to read a hundred books, but what John did here was he read one book and that one book changed everything. And now he's got a value system and he applies that value system day in and day out. So it's not about the number of books you read, it's about how much you get out of the books, and I think that it's so incredible that you built this value system and I appreciate you sharing this, because it is built this value system and I appreciate you sharing this because it is super, super important.
Speaker 2:I mean, it helps to keep me focused as you kind of was the question in the beginning and grounded in things, and by contemplating every morning and selecting one over time, one over time, I put more of that into my life. Yeah, by kind of affirming to myself that continual learning is important. Yes, so I look for opportunities to learn, I'm open to those, you know I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think this is really, really fascinating and I'm glad you shared this with me because and the audience, because it gives you something to realize that you look at these people and it's not like, oh, they just aimlessly go to their job, go to dinner. No, it's very intentional living, and intentional living creates an intentional life, which creates an exciting life and a life of a lot of journey and excitement. So I think that's absolutely amazing life and a life of a lot of journey and excitement. So I think that's absolutely amazing. And the final thing I want to touch on is if people want to get better at decision-making.
Speaker 2:So it broke up a little bit on you. You're good, can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Yeah?
Speaker 1:So I know that when you make decisions, so I know that when you're utilizing data, it helps you make better decisions. So, for you, how have you utilized data in your life and really thought about these different components? Because a lot of people are scared to make decisions. So this isn't an indecision a long time, and I think that there's a point of you make the decision, you get more data and then you can make a better decision. So I mean, how has data been impactful for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a believer that anything you want to accomplish can be measured, and if you're not able to measure it, it's not worth accomplishing. And so even the little, the set of values, love. So you think, okay, how do I determine that I've enveloped that into my life and you can translate that into generosity, and generosity can be. You can then define it generosity as actions that you've taken, and so you can quantify most everything you want to do. I have found that the difficulty is not so much in measuring or quantifying, it is an actual decision-making. And that is like my friend who told me the best way to learn how to climb a mountain is to climb a mountain. The best way to learn how to make good decisions is make a decision, and if it's not good, then change it and make a different decision.
Speaker 1:Well, the funny thing is that most people don't realize that they're always deciding. So, like you might have lived in your same house for however many years, people don't realize that that's a decision every single year and every single day to be like I still want to live here, I still like this community, and this is something I do because most of the time we plan, take the action and then we never replan. So it's a very interesting, interesting thing. But, john, you've been absolutely amazing and where can people learn more about you in Texas State Optical.
Speaker 2:Well, tsocom is our website and there's a feature on there to contact us, and they can certainly reach me through that. My email address is jdmarvintsocom. Okay, if you'd like email me, I'd love to hear what's going on in your life in terms of your growth and what you're doing to make yourself better, and I'm happy to share my story If it can be a value Great.
Speaker 1:Awesome, John. I appreciate the time you bet Nice to be here.
