The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Be Great: The Five Foundations of an Extraordinary Life in Business – and Beyond by Peter H. Thomas

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Be Great: The Five Foundations of an Extraordinary Life in Business - and Beyond by Peter H. Thomas https://www.amazon.com/Be-Great-Foundations-Extraordinary-Business/dp/0615302572 https://www.instagram.com/peterhthomas_/ Peter Thomas has lived a tremendously successful and fulfilling life, despite personal tragedy and occasionally grave financial circumstances. He founded and built Century 21 Real Estate into the largest real estate network in Canada, and profitably spearheaded dozens of large-scale real estate developments all over North America. He has founded several more wildly successful businesses, the not-for-profit organizations LifePilot and the Todd Thomas Institute for Values-Based Leadership, flown a helicopter, dived to 850 feet in a submarine, and raced motorcycles. So why him? Peter Thomas doesn't believe he is a particularly gifted person or any smarter than the average man or woman in the street, but his achievements in business and philanthropy are world class. So what is the secret to building an exceptional life? The answer is that there are many paths to success, but what they all have in common is being true to the people on them, and you get to have to pick your own. Thomas shares his life, experience, and wisdom with you to illustrate his Five Foundations for achieving the life you want: Values: Clarify your personal values and live them. Focus: Understand the power of focus and how to apply it. Visualization: If you can picture your goal, you can work towards it. Inspiration: Celebrate the genius within you. Reflection: Tap into positive forces you control. For Peter Thomas, learning and applying these principles has brought him fame and fortune, aligned with a resolute conviction to help the less fortunate. There is no limit to what we are capable of achieving. Be Great is a manual for unlocking human potential.

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Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss here from the chrisvoss show dot com ladies in the our ladies things that makes official welcome 16 years going on 17 of the chris voss show 2 500 episodes people you ever sitting around you're like god i wish you had something to do today there's like hours of knowledge and details and stories and things that will change and improve the quality of your life you'll the more you know The more you learn, the more you educate yourself, the better you can do life, eh? Do the life program, eh?

Anyway, we're going to be talking with a wonderful young man today. But in the meantime, go to goodreads.com, Fortresschusch, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch, Chris Foss, and Chris Foss won, the TikTokany, all those crazy places there. Today we have Peter H. Thomas on the show with us. We'll be talking about his first book, or one of his early books, called Be Great, the Five, foundations of extraordinary life in business and beyond out October 9th, 2009. We'll talk about some of the other work he does as well. So we'll get into it with him. He is the one-minute mentor, a renowned entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. He founded Century 21 Real Estate Canada, growing it to a $9 billion sales and develop the four seasons resort in Scottsdale.

Have I been there? Scottsdale's so beautiful. champion of values-based leadership. He reached Life Pilot, or he created Life Pilot, and the Todd Thomas Institute. And as Chairman Emeritus of the Entrepreneurs' Organization, he continues to inspire through his mentorships and books like Be Great and Never Fight with a Pig. That sounds like politics, maybe. I don't know. We'll find out.

Welcome to the show, Peter. How are you, sir? Good. Fine, thank you. Chris. Nice to be here. Pleasure to have you as well. Give us your dot-coms.

Where do you want people to know you better on the internet? In my website, or my, yeah, Thomaspride.com. Mm-hmm. T-H-O-M-A-S-Pride, one word, dot com. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in this book of yours? I'm pretty, you know, I've written four or five books, but that's my book I'm most proud of, be great,

because really what it was, I developed a program called Life Pilot. I went through a tragedy some 20 years ago. I lost my son. And as a result of grief and various other things, and the way Todd lived his life, I developed the program called Life Pilot, which really is a program to teach people to understand what their values are and then live their life in alignment with those values. And I found that over the years, I belonged to an organization called YPO, Young Presidents

organization and as you travel all over the world and you meet people you see lots of people who are successful you know and this is every organization but who are very very successful but they lose track of what they're what why they live why they're alive why they're living the different roles and sometimes business or some other thing will take them focusing on all other things maybe other than the important things you know and so what by developing what your values are individually, you can understand where you should be spending your time and your priorities. And so tell us a little bit about your life. You have quite the background and stuff.

And do you still live in Canada or do you live in Scottsdale? Yeah, sort of a, we live in three places. We live in Canada. We live in Scottsdale and we live in Mexico. Ah. We got a place in Port of Ayarta. You're just keeping bases in the North continent there. Yeah.

Yes. Which we enjoy that. That west coast, up and down the West Coast. well that's the way to move. Travel with the weather. It was funny. I, when we have Canadian folks on the show, I always will pick up the A-Boot, or the A's. Yeah.

And when we were teenagers in high school, we must have watched Bob and Doug McKenzie, that movie, like about 50,000 times. Oh, yeah. So we'd walk around saying A. So usually I pull all the A's out, and it was funny pre-show. Mike Myers was doing that, too, I think. Yeah.

It's like they try and hide the, Some of my Canadian friends will try and hide the A's, and I'll start dragging out of them. Yeah, you come around and see me, eh? I love it. And Canadians are the best people, too. I don't know how you guys put up a living next door to us. We're like, you guys like the polite brother, and we're like the drunken idiot brother who's always like, let's start a war. Well, I explain it more like it's living beside an elephant.

No, is that what it is? Yeah, and when the elephant, you know, just stretches, they don't. doesn't realize what that causes the area is close to it or when it takes a giant dump yeah well that's any any any facility that it does yeah yeah that's us man meirka yeah whatever i don't but the uh just getting back on be great on that book be great so what it does is i travel all over the all over the world we're teaching this for our seminar of values and really sit down chris and i if i was doing it with you i'd say chris what are your values and you might say well what do you mean what values well for example my values are health

freedom happiness integrity and legacy and i know that you know so if i'm since health is one of my values if you said peter let's just you out and go get drunk tonight together i might say well come with you chris but i might not get drunk because that wouldn't be one of my values you know so you don't pour your values on other people but you're very very serious about what you stand for as an individual. And so teaching people to once they, I liken it a lot, you know, like if you're flying a helicopter and the weather closes in on you, and well, as long as you're, you can fly by your signals, you look down at your signals, they tell you how high you are, where there's anything

around you, which way you're wobbling, are you full of gas, are you empty? They tell you everything you need to know. Your values are the same way. A lot of times we get into business or we get into our teeth into something, and it takes a hold of us and takes us different ways than we planned on going. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've experienced that a few times in life. Yeah. And when you were motivated to write this book, what was the proponent behind it? What made you want to do that?

You know, at the time, I was suffering from grief. It was an antidote. Todd was a very special young man. He was very, very caring, very loving and very caring about people. and it sort of was inspired by Todd's life and I feel that Todd's my chairman on this project you know and so I can relate with them I can still enjoy

conversations and thinking I really do get a lot of personal benefit by doing this in collaboration with my son that's awesome what a great memorial and homage to him yeah

Now, I kind of led into this, but I segued in the Canani and stuff and got a little lost. So tell us about your life. You built some interesting things. You built the Century 21. I think that's a big brand here also in America, real estate, if I think, in the same brand. But you built that in Canada. How did you get involved? What was some of your upbringing and entrepreneur and influence about you into those spaces?

Well, you know, Chris, I started when I was, I left home when I was 16, joined the Canadian Army. Really? Yeah. And the Army then offered you two years of school. You could, if you signed up for five years, they would give you two years at school. So you do your, I happen to have grade 10, so I got grade 11 and grade 12 in the Army.

They called it senior matriculation. So they gave me senior matric, and then you're on your own. So I took those two years of school. Then you give them three years back to pay for the two years they just gave you. So that's five years. But then they give you an option

to go for two more. And I was crazy. I took the two-year option. as well. I love the Army. I loved, you know, I was, you think of it, 16 to 21, 22, you know, I saw the world, you know, I got to be a, grew up to be a man learning from other men, you know, and I really feel that all my lessons of life were really right there in those first two years that was in the Army. There's a lot of discipline that you get taught in there were regimented discipline that, you know, it seems a little bit overburden some of the time, but, you know,

some of the best leaders come out of the military. I mean, they form the best leaders and discipline's important. You know, I look back at the incineracy, the discipline was one thing. But, you know, Chris, getting thrown in a hut, we used to call them huts, but, you know, they were barracks. But getting thrown in the hut with 30 strangers who all come from pretty sketchy backgrounds, you know. There was no scholars in there. They were kids 16 years old, you know, some big, some little, some drunk already, you know. all these different habits, and you had to sort of maneuver your life through that.

Those are the lessons, the bullies, how to handle bullies, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, you kind of learn from that. My parents, we moved around a few times when we were young, and you would have to go to a new school and adapt, and there'd be different cultures or people that you have to adapt to. And then you had to learn to try and fit in or get along. Exactly. People were like, hey, there's a new guy.

and you're like, oh, great. Fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meat. Fresh meat, for the bullies. There he's, he's arrived. Yeah, and you learn pretty quick where you're going to, where you should step out and maybe stand up for yourself or let it go. Yeah, or let it go. So it's a great, it's great foundational.

So was your childhood unstable, fraud, what motivated you leave at 16? Yeah, it was, you know, well, I, my loss. my dad, right at the beginning of the war, in England, and at the end of the war, Mom remarried a Canadian soldier. So that was like about five years later, and she married a Canadian soldier and bought me to Canada with her. So I came over to Canada, in Northern Alberta, and then stayed there, I was sort of, that's, I was ready to leave. Like I, you know, I was always restless and always excited about what tomorrow always excited about tomorrow and so I I saw the ad in the paper and I said you know mom this is what I want to do and

if I don't if you don't sign on let me go I'll probably leave on my own you know one of those so mum was glad to you know that was history I signed on then I finished my seven years in the army I got out and I come to Calgary Alberta which above Montana and decided and looked for a job and answered a job as a salesman for a securities company and they were specializing in mutual funds so they taught me kind of how to sell and I never because I didn't know any of that skill sets and so I learned how to sell mutual funds I did that for for five years and yeah I rose up to the I went to got to the leading guy in the company in that company and had a great time I

The biggest thing I've had, Chris, is I've had incredible teachers. I just got lucky. I can point to human beings in my life that turned me completely, like, from going this way to going that way. Wow. Yeah. And they just seem to show up at the right time. Yeah.

It's interesting how that works sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What we're sometimes searching for, you know, I think sometimes we do that through, or maybe our subconscious, what we're searching for makes it easier to identify the things when they become, they come before us. You know, I'm kind of that way.

I'll search for things and I'll kind of start talking to people and polling people or asking people what they think. And I'm trying to define what is kind of something I'm reaching for. And I'll keep reaching and, you know, sometimes I, like you say, I find the person who has the answer for me. And usually I can identify. I'm like, that's it right there. That's what I've been looking for. And sometimes, you know, after talking to people, I'm able to complate enough of it where I know, okay. I think I've talked to enough people to learn.

Yeah, it's interesting how that works. And, you know, I can think of, I wrote about my book, Beacons of Leadership. I can think of, I think there's two or three stories in the book where someone did something charitable for me when I was young that changed the whole course of my life, teaching me sales, keeping me in sales, teaching me out of clothes. And these folks, I shudder sometimes just thinking back sometimes. I'm just like, what if I had never met that person? What have they never been charitable to me?

What if they had never helped me? Where would I be? And I'm just like, I'm scared to think sometimes. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're so true. You know, a quick story, but people are helping you when they don't need to, you know. When I was in the Army, I got little jobs outside the Army helping load moving trucks and things like that. And also, I worked.

I used to shine other people's shoes, press their uniforms, you know, charge of the money. you know and to make to make so always seem to have cash flow there's always good cash flow so now i'm sort of 17 and i think well yeah i'm about 17 i should buy a car i want to get a car so i went down to the car dealership that was in this town and walked in and said you know i'd like to buy what so show me this little it's called an austin an austin a 40 a baby a baby austin car so how much three hundred dollars okay yep so uh so i sign up for it he's going to sell me the car and he and he an And he, I signed and I said, well, I'll make an, I'll make an assignment on my paycheck from the army. He said, what?

He said, what? From what? From what? Oh, and he ripped up, he literally ripped up the page, the contract and said, we don't sell soldiers. You can't, we can't deal with you. I couldn't believe it. Wow. Just threw me out.

So I go back to the camp and I was sitting on my bed, sitting pretty morose and kind of sad, you know. Yeah. And the sergeant walks by. What are you doing here, Thomas? Because it's a weekend, I should be not there. Well, you know, I said, him, blah, blah, blah, blah, and a guy wouldn't say, I'm in the Army, you know, grubble, grubble. And he said, what?

What? He said, stay here. Like, our, you know, sergeants are gods, you know, when you're my level. So you stand, like, literally, when you're, when you're with a sergeant, you stand like this, Chris. You know, you stand. So this, he was almost treating me civilly. Yeah, he'd come up, and he said, get in the car.

Like, come with me. and i went with him and said get in the car and his car i go in his car we we go to the dealership about 15 miles away and i'm sitting in the car beside him i never sat back close to the sergeant before you know wow and so i'm sitting like stiff all the way into town yeah i'm not a friend he's i'm one of 30 guys that you know that's it no relationship we he says to stay here i sit in the car and he goes in and i could see him through the window to him leaning in and the guy leaning back and then the guy leaning in you know they were going like this and he walks out And he said, go get your car and just walk.

So I get out of the deal. I get out of his car. I go in. The guy had the contract all made out. And so I signed it and took the car. So I paid it off. Again, about sort of nine months. Like I paid a three-year contract off in about nine months.

And I guess this thing in the mail, Chris. And when I opened it up, it was, you know, thank you, bye-bye, I paid up contract. I looked at the back of the contract and Sergeant Vart had signed for me. He had signed the contract. He'd been the guarantor, maybe? Yes, personally. So, you know, I just, and I still right now get little bumps thinking what he did for me, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And at that age, I think, you know, Chris, that was one of the biggest things he did, like somebody did to me for nothing. He was nothing in for him, and he did for me, and it just made me feel so special. That's great leadership, too. Oh, it was everything.

It was everything, yeah. And I, I've always been looking to give back, ever since then, you know, and the main thing about it is you don't want anything for it because it ruins the giving back, if you can understand. And that's why I did the one, that's what I'm doing with the one minute mentor, because I get no recompense, so I don't, there's no money for it, but it seems to be popular. People seem to be writing it, you know, but it's a form of me being able to, to give back and have some purpose. What a great lesson. I mean, we all should learn from lessons like that. That, you know, lessons of charity, giving back, not having selfish reasons. You know, some people say there is a selfishness to that, and it's very core.

You know, we want to make ourselves feel good. But, you know, that's a great example that you give, how that pays forward, you know, someone showed you charity and grace, and you go, I'm going to model that example. And it's too bad we don't model more of that example in our politics. our in our world and how people interact sometimes day to day. I used to go to Starbucks, the Starbucks nearby my house, and every morning when I go, somebody had started a pay-up forward thing. So they would be like, your orders paid for. Do you want to pay for the car behind you? And it would just continue on for, I don't know, all day long. But I mean, it's a

great, it's a great lesson. And, you know, it's a thing where a rising tide lifts all boats. We have to think in terms of abundance instead of scarcity. So how did you get started with the real estate business in Century 21? Yeah. Well, I got out of the – you know, I did my seven years, got out of the Army, got that job selling mutual funds, and had a great little lesson there. I worked there for five years. I moved up to the top salesman in the company in about two years, and then went into management. And I was killing it.

I was having a great time. And I realized then, I got started learning about taxes and things and recognizing that you can't make a bunch of money. getting paid a salary, you know, or commission. You need to get equity. You need to own a piece of the deal. So I go to these guys who I thought, you know, they thought I was, I got all kinds of accolades for what I was doing. So I said to my boss, to Ken, Marlon, I said, no, Mr. Marlin, I'd really like to get some equity in this company. And he said, well, I think that's a good idea. He said, I think it's a great idea. He said, let's, I'll set you up an appointment with the boss, you know, Mr. Cormney, the big man. So he sets it up about three weeks

so took me to get there. Finally, I get into the big man that I'm sitting there, and the big man he owns 97% of the company, and Ken, my boss owns 3%. That's what they own. And so Ken says to the big man, he said, you know, Mr. Cormney said, you know, if you know Peter quite well, you've watched his progress, he's a great

guy, he's really good for the company, and he wants to buy some equity in the company. And Cormey doesn't say anything. He looks at him, he says, well, I said, that's good, that's good, Ken. He said, why don't you sell him some of yours? Oh. And that was it. That was it.

He had no desire. He couldn't care less about me. And so lesson number two. You know, I thought, boy. So I couldn't believe it. So what I said is I went back to my guy, my boss, and he said, well, I said, I don't know, Peter. I don't know what happened. I said, well, you know what?

You go tell Mr. Cormey that I give him one year notice. I'm giving him one year's notice right now. That was four years. So I give him one year notice. he never talked to me again about it my one year came and passed and I left and I left and you did leave then oh yeah I left it

I left for the one year and as it turned out because it was the best thing I ever did because look at I did afterwards yeah they didn't know that you know I saw a competitor basically is that what they did no no no I didn't do anything they did because I went out and syndicating real estate on my own okay well first of all I did do a little mutual fund company but I

didn't that wasn't where the money was the money then I learned about real estate yeah I actually do have a little story about it but I bought a so about a house the salesman lived next door to our office you should know him real well and he sold me house and he said Peter you can rent it out you know just for so I said okay how much is it was 10 grand this is back you know 60 years ago house was 10 grand and I needed a thousand bucks and I said we're we're not worried about the nine but what about the thousand dollars where do I get that from because I can borrow nine so he said well I can I get you the $1,000. I said, okay, we'll do it. So I borrowed the 10, bought the house,

we rented it out, and then he came along again, the salesman and said, Peter, I can trade that house I just sold you for 10. It was about 10 months later. He said, I can trade it against his apartment block. I'll give you 18 for the house against the apartment block. And that was about 50. So I said, okay, done. And then, about three or four months later, he sold the whole deal for about 80. So I made, I made about sort of $40,000. And I said to myself, what am I doing? Like, in my regular job, I'm making like 40 grand a year, you know. Yeah.

And so I became a real estate, a real estate guy. Awesome. What an amazing story. From that deal. Yeah. What an amazing story. What a journey, too. Oh, yeah, incredible journey.

Yeah. So you build this thing into, I guess, a juggernaut, a multimillion-dollar company, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how many years? We did about eight, we did about eight billion. in sales when I sold the company. Wow, that is amazing. And so after that, you've just kind of

focused on different ventures and giving back? Yeah. Well, I've been charitable always having charity, but what I did primarily with my business deals is I just started, you know, I started investing in real estate and then, you know, selling the, selling some of it when it was ripe, you're ready to sell. And then once you get into that market when you're a buyer, you know, you get all kinds of deals offered to you. And the next big one that came along was I was offered this project in San Antonio, Texas. And it was a whole, it was 1,246 acres of land, all service. If you know where the big playground in San Antonio, what's it called?

Awesome. No, no, all the people go there. It's a water, kind of water park. Big Park. Yeah. Anyways, it's huge. I mean, it's crazy. It went on the last resolution trust that went, took all the, all the, all the bankrupt deals,

the government took them all and dumped them into this one trust. And then they offered the assets in that trust to different people who had money. And so I bid on this asset. And I literally paid $9 million for it, and we sold it for $150 million. Oh, wow. But I had it. It took 20 years to do that. Okay.

But it was a lot. Me and some partners. I put some partners, some friends and partners together, and we bought that. That was one major transaction. Oh, that's a great return, too. Yeah, it was all good. It was all good, you know. So I get kind of doing deals.

What advice when you give to, go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Oh, no, no, no, like ideas like hotels and everything. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Well, first of all, I tell them to get their values together. Understand what you stand for. That's number one in the world. The first thing that a person going into university should start doing is thinking of their values.

You know, it's hard when you're in high school. It's hard to, because you're just developing, you know, it's too, I think it's too premature, but once you, because you're getting values from your parents and from your friends and uncles and aunts and, you know, different people, you're learning about life. But then once you learn about life, and I'll just assume that somewhere in that 15 to 20, then in that area you start thinking about values. and what you stand for. Like, for example, I didn't mind health, freedom, happiness, and integrity, and legacy.

So, and the legacy only came in recently, the rest of it. But like health, you know, I've looked after my health all my life, you know, ran marathons, and health is just part of me. So it's easy to do. It's not difficult. Uh-huh. And so taking your direction from your values, you then look for a career that kind of fits those values, was, to me, there's nothing better than being an entrepreneur, and real estate is one of the

most exciting areas of entrepreneurism. There's many exciting areas, but real estate's one of them. And, of course, for a guy like me who really has got no education or no college, no, no university education, you're pretty, you're limited a bit. I didn't realize I was limited, but you're limited a bit. I just happened to hit the right vein of gold, you know, because there's nothing to hold you back at all. When you go into real estate, as hard as you work, when you're You can raise the money. You can do the deals. The qualification is really your success as you move ahead.

And so that was a good thing for a guy like me to get started because the entry, the entry level was pretty low. It's quite the journey that you've done. Let's get into promoting your one-minute mentor series. How does that work and where can we find it? Well, I'm on the internet. I'm on, excuse me, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all. all those. I just, yeah, and what it is is really, I just give people wisdom, you know, an old guy's wisdom, you know, like maintain. You're not old. You're young. 87, so. Yeah, people live

into like 100, 150 now here. But, you know, a typical, what we probably will, but you know, a typical thing like I would do is, and my one-minute mentor is, you know, hi, I'm Peter Thomas, your one-minute mentor. Let me give you a tip that I found to be one of the most important tips of my life. Hang around with successful people. it's no more complicated than that but look at the people that you surround with and you know if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room

you know so get select every person that you talk to every day and what do you do to make them better and what do they do to make you better because if you hang around people that are positive you yourself become positive your journey becomes much easier thank you i'm peter thomas your one minute mentor that's what it is so they can go on the Instagrams or your other things.

They can see some of the business, wisdom, and health and life topics of the one-minute mentor. You do videos on there that talk about your life and everything else. One minute. One minute. And it's amazing. You know, I used to think, who can tell stories in a minute? But it's amazing the data you can put in one minute when you really focus it.

Oh, it is, for example. Another one is, hi, welcome to one-minute mentor. Today I'm going to talk about minutes matter. Minutes are important, and when you need to make up your MIT's every day, most important things. The first thing you're going to do in the morning when you get up, well, actually, as you get doing this, you're doing the night before. Make out a list of the things that you want to get accomplished tomorrow. And make that list up the day before so you know exactly what you're going to do tomorrow. The better you can get at that, the more efficient you will be.

That's it. I love that. Years ago, I had heard, I forget the group. great radio hosts who kind of seeded a lot of entrepreneurship and positive thinking. But he told the story of how U.S. Steel had somebody do that. A consultant

had gone into the CEO and said, you know, you want to hire me? And he's like, he's like, no, we're not hiring consultants right now. He goes, but I do have a problem. I never can get anything achieved every day. I'm just overwhelmed. Yeah. And so the consultant went home and thought about it and came up with this thing where you do that. Would you call it the MIT?

Yeah. Most important things. Most important things. And he went back to see you and he says every day, the night before you go to bed, list the top five or six things that you need to do in order of importance. And then when you come in during the day, focus on getting those things done. And, you know, anything you can do beyond that is just juice, right? And it made, they claim that that that. that sort of process made U.S. Steel, the biggest, you know, steel company in the world by focusing that. So that it does work. That's an affirmation of it. I found it does work, too. There's certain things I need to focus on every day, and it's so easy to get distracted, especially with social media and the internet nowadays. Well, you know, Chris, you're right. You said the word focus. There's a formula that I use for everything that I do, and it's got three words, clarity, focus, execution. So that finishes it off. So if you're looking at doing something, First, get clarity. Do you really want to do it?

Let's say you're thinking, I want to go to Africa. I haven't been in Africa, you know, my whole life, I've got to go to Africa. So you say, okay, get clarity. How much the cost to go to Africa? When is the weather good that you go to Africa? Where do you mean Africa? Where do you want to go to? You want to see an elephant or what are you going to do in Africa?

You know, clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity. Because a lot of times people just, they miss clarity, focus and execute. They have no clarity. So clarity is really critically important. Then you focus. Now, I got to set, I got to book the trip. Not yet, that's not yet. That's execution.

But I got to get ready. What else do I need to know? Have I got the money? Cost $14,000 go down. Okay, have I got $14,000? My $28,000. So, you know, get all that stuff, and then you execute. And the execution is easy.

That's the easiest part. I plan, plan. What are the other questions I had for you? What to do with it here? What role is failure played in your? your success. A lot of people don't realize they're aspiring entrepreneurs. You're in deal with a lot of failure. You know, first of Chris, I'll tell about, I don't think you fail. You just don't make it all the way to success. You've got different degrees of success. So if you start at zero,

and let's say success is 10, two is better than zero. So you got to two before you, before you didn't make it. I don't look at not hitting a goal as failing in, I fail just at that one little thing. You know, that's a little wee part of something. So I don't have the mental hang-up of failing. Like, I've never, I didn't succeed in everything I've ever gone to do, but I've sure succeeded

in the important things. And don't look at failure in some things as baggage and heavy and, oh my God, I lost myself worth. People get much too serious about stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. I give it a shot.

So as a young man at 80, how do you how do you stay vibrant excited and energetic about life what's going on and and your focus etc yeah yeah well you know i tell you a theory that i have um so the story about this guy lived up in an office building near the waterfront he'd look down from his office building he'd look down under the waterfront and you see a guy standing there looking out across the water so he looked down next day guys stand there again next day next day he's still standing there. A year goes by. He's still standing there. 20 years go by. And the guy's every day comes up there. Finally, after 20 years, the guy can't stand it.

He walks downstairs. He goes to the waterfront. He says, excuse me, sir, I've been watching you for 20 years looking out over the ocean. And then you just walk away. What are you doing? What are you looking for? He said, I'm waiting for my boat to come in. He said, well, did you send any out? so that's that that that's my i send boats out every day at least five i'm waiting for my boat to come in and a lot of people do that they don't realize that they they like you say they they are the proponents of that so they have to do something to get the boat to come in yeah they don't wait for the boat to come in you might want to wave to the boat is it's uh hey where am i supposed to dog hey over here this is uh i'm been waiting for you for 20 years

yeah just keep waiting for You keep waiting, but you got to activate it. Send lots of boats out, and then they come back with gold or whatever. That's right. Gold bullion, like the stories that you read of pirates when I was a kid. Well, final thoughts as we go out, Peter, pick up your book, utilize your services, et cetera, et cetera, how they can reach out to you and take advantage of it. Yeah. Well, the one last tip that I have, too, is try and live in 24-hour compartments.

You know, in days like we're doing right now, it's crazy. You can't keep up with what's going on. It's impossible. So you shouldn't try. And I actually tried a newsfast. I did a news fast. And I even had to take off my Apple watch because you get these breaking news comes on your Apple watch.

Newsfast is a good thing to try. But that won't last long. You won't know what's going on. But go on 24. Think tomorrow, well today, right now we're talking, Chris, this is the most important day of our lives. What you do today, the rest of today, and tonight? Just think of it as the most important.

Forget tomorrow. Don't even think about it right now. Think about today. And so that will make today as the best day of your life. And that's what you've got to do. Think in daytight compartments, 24 hours is far enough ahead right now. Ah.

And, you know, staying present, that's probably the real function of that, right? Being present. You said that very well. Stay present. Yeah. You know, one of the problems I had is I have ADHD and OCD. So it's very easy.

I can be working on any project and I can go, squirrel. And suddenly, you know, I'm fixing the car, you know. Yep. And it's really bad. And so I constantly have to be focused on being present and managing it. Yeah. And it's, you know, I'll get this thing like, you should go check on the TV.

And you're like, no, I know what you're up to, Mr. ADHD. And we're not playing your game today. But having that sort of focus and being in the present, you know, there's some people that wasteful days thinking about the past, worrying about the future. Right. The only changes now, right? That's right.

That's right. So people can take advantage of you giving back on your Instagram and other places. Give us your dot-coms as we go out and we'll wrap the show. Okay. It's just Thomas Pride. The website is Thomaspride.com. Then my life pilot is lifepilot.org. LifePilot.org because it's a charitable organization.

And the one minute mentors on whatever program you want to watch on. Instagram is the most used one. But we're on LinkedIn, and we're on YouTube and Facebook. You've got 234,000 followers over there on the Insta, as the kids call it. Yeah, yeah, good for you. It's good advice. We need positive, uplifting things, and we need more entrepreneurs, especially with the age of AI. So thank you very much, Peter, for coming the show.

We really appreciate it. I really enjoy meeting you, Chris. Thank you very much. I enjoy meeting you as well. I've just been the stories and everything else you have and the life journey that you have, or just awesome. I can't wait for the next 80s. years to see what you do with it.

Perfect. Thank you. Bye-bye for now. And thanks for honest for tuning in. Order up his book, wherever fine books are sold. He's got about, I think, four or five books. Is that it? Yeah, four or five. Peter H. Thomas, Be Great. The Five Foundations of Extraordinary Life in Business and Beyond.

Out October 9th, 20, 2009. Be good to each other, folks. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. Brain farted there.