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The Grit and Grow Podcast
The Grit and Grow Podcast delivers in-depth, unfiltered interviews featuring emerging entrepreneurs and start-up founders. Join us as we dive into their vision for change, explore their sources of motivation, confront their fears and failures, and uncover the pivotal moments that propelled their ideas into reality.
The Grit and Grow Podcast
Navigating the Labyrinth of Success: Don Clark's Manifesto on Business Mastery and the Power of Principle | #gritandgrowpodcast
Welcome to a journey of transformation and timeless wisdom with the remarkable Don Clark. Although he began his career with Ford Motor Company, Clarke spent most of his career as an executive in retail companies. By the mid-1980s he was serving as chairman of May Department Store's Venture operation. He was chairman and CEO of Caldor Corporation from 1986 to 1998, both before and after it split from May Department Stores in 1989. Clarke then returned to work for May as president of Lord & Taylor. As he narrates his rise from the humble beginnings of Rexburg, Idaho, to becoming a powerhouse at Ford Motor Company and later in the retail industry, you'll uncover the essence of reaching beyond the expected. This episode is a treasure chest of life lessons, where Don, alongside stories of friendship with titans like Sam Walton, lays out the five bedrock principles that can catapult you to success.
Settle in for a heartwarming exploration of how success in the boardroom intertwines with nurturing values at home. Through Don's anecdotal tapestry, spanning from his transformative voluntary work at Southern Virginia University to life lessons in Bolivia, we unravel the profound impact of a 'fixer' mindset. This chapter is not just about accolades and achievements; it's about the profound influence of honesty, feedback, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge in every facet of life.
This episode is a must-listen for everyone from budding entrepreneurs to seasoned veterans in the throes of their career journey. Don's insights, enriched by the experiences of his son Todd Clark, offer a guiding light through the often-tumultuous path of professional growth and personal fulfillment. Join us as we unpack these narratives and arm you with the wisdom to blaze your trail, uplift others, and sculpt a legacy of success and principled leadership.
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#gritandgrowpodcast #entrepreneur #donclarke #ford #lordandtaylor #businessleader #mycitylender #mycityoffice #talkshow #podcast #interview #homeloans #purchase #refinance
🔔 Subscribe to our podcast and channel on YouTube 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@MyCityLenderTV?sub_confirmation=1
Follow The Grit and Grow Podcast on Social Media:
https://linkin.bio/gritandgrowpodcast
Thinking about purchasing or refinancing your home? For sound mortgage advice visit www.mycitylender.com or call 480-945-4545 today to connect with an experienced loan advisor!
LO Licensing (BRIAN): AZ LO-0924243 NMLS ID:1069978 LO Licensing (JAY): AZ LO-0911512/NMLS-162250 | Company Licensing: AZ MB-1036604/NMLS-2344442 | Equal Housing Lender
2250 E. Germann Road, Suite 12, Chandler, AZ 85286 | (480) 945-4545
You're tuned in to the Grit and Grow podcast.
Speaker 2:Guys, welcome back to the Grit and Grow podcast, the show where we get the opportunity to sit down with amazing entrepreneurs who have great stories of the journey from going from nothing to something, everything in between, what inspires them, what motivates them and, ultimately, what led their pursuit to turn their ideas into reality.
Speaker 2:Something, everything in between, what inspires them, what motivates them and, ultimately, what led their pursuit to turn their ideas into reality. And we're doing something a little different with this episode. You might recognize Todd Clark across the table. We just actually shot an episode with him, and in the room was his dad, don Clark, who, as it turns out, is a highly accomplished former executive, with presidential executive, with a retail company, and had some amazing nuggets of wisdom that he started to talk to us about, and we said you know what we need to interview, don, let's do it and get those nuggets. And so I'm going to give you the floor, don, but I just want to quickly say that he's going to give us the five characteristics that he believes makes you successful. So, don, take it away.
Speaker 3:Sure. So first of all, it's an honor to be here today. I know my motto is younger next year, so you may think I'm older than you. I like it. I probably get up earlier than you do still, so I'm honored to be here today and to share. I grew up in Rexburg, Idaho. Population back then was 5,000 people. My dad was a bricklayer. I was a hut carrier. Now, you've probably never been a hut carrier.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:If you would have been a hut carrier, you would have studied really hard.
Speaker 1:So I found out.
Speaker 3:This is what not to do right. I found out that diligence is more important than intelligence. Right not to do right. I found out that diligence is more important than intelligence, right and um. So I think that if we decide we're a diligent person, then we have an opportunity to become something that nobody ever thought we could become. So who would have ever guessed? Yes, my wife and I have been all over the world. We she grew up in Twin Falls, idaho, and nobody would have ever guessed.
Speaker 3:If I'd have written my story back then, what would have happened to Don Clark when I was in the first grade? If I'd come to school late, I'd turn around and go home and then I had a phenomenal thing happen. I was captain of the football team, baseball team and the basketball team in high school and when I was there, a principal came to me one day and asked me to run for vice president of the high school. Never in a million years had I ever thought about running for vice president of anything. I ran and I won.
Speaker 3:So now I'm in charge of the assemblies and to get up in front of the whole student body and have Miss Idaho come, or whoever else would be. Our assemblies changed me, so I'm always thankful to my high school principal, hal Barton, that he would have cared enough about Don Clark. That made a difference in my life and I think we find as we go through life that happens for all of us. If we'll look for those people that care and are willing to invest, we can always find people that will make us better along the way.
Speaker 1:So that I could tell story after story, but anyway, so Don, what was it really quick, though. What was it that it said? It changed you. What was it that changed?
Speaker 3:you what changed me? Because I was not on the basketball court. I was great at throwing passes, at football I was great. I could turn a double, play a second base. But to get up in front of people, that wasn't who I was and so I had to overcome.
Speaker 3:Listen, when people say I can't do that or I'm just not like that, that doesn't work for any of us. The question is how do I want to be? And we all have potential. I read recently that the human being uses about 20% of their potential. And if you think about it, about what's happened just in my lifetime because people decided you could do things differently. So I always say there's always a better way to do things, always a better way. One time, general Motors sold 50% of the cars in the world. Today, they're not even the largest car dealership in the world. What happened? So you always have to keep deciding that there's how am I going to get better? How am I going to do this better than anybody else? And there's lots of ways to do that, but you have to decide that yeah, they left a lot of space.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's what you've come you know so anyway. So I started my career at Ford Motor Company in finance. I have my MBA, and Ford Motor Company was probably the best place to ever work for a finance guy, because the finance people were important. It was run by a guy by the name of McNamara who was Secretary of Treasury at one time, and at Ford they taught you that you could have influence in the business. So while I was there, eventually some people left the automobile industry and went to work in a retail company. In fact, jl Hudson was downtown Detroit and my friends went to work there and they moved that from a 1% profit store to a 10% profit store, and so eventually I got recruited to go to work for a make company in St Louis, missouri. My first job was to save 10 times my annual salary $35,000 I was making a year, and in one year I'd saved a million dollars.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So you exceeded by three times.
Speaker 3:So what happened? So what happened? They started giving me all the stuff that had problems, love problems, love life. If you can solve problems, everybody always needs you, and if you can save money, just think would they ever get rid of my $35,000 salary?
Speaker 2:No way.
Speaker 3:Not if I can produce a million dollars, nope, and the list goes so. Every year in our business we would save $20 million a year. And every year you know what they would say? The guy oh, there's no more ways to save money, $20 million more. Now let me tell you one more story. And so I.
Speaker 3:Eventually, after I had done my career, I went to work for a small. I volunteered at a small university out in virginia southern virginia university. When I got there, I did three things I taught business classes, I was assistant basketball coach and I was on the president's council. Their expenses were a million dollars higher than their revenues. You know what they told me? There's no way to save money here. Oh gosh, I said give me your 10 best business students. I took the 10 best business students. We meet at seven o'clock in the morning and I'd assign them. I said you go work in the library, you go to the lunchroom, you go here, you go here, you go here. Within nine months we'd saved a million dollars, and because we did that, they could become accredited. But when I got there, they were not accredited. But there's always a better way to do things, always so what are your top?
Speaker 3:five.
Speaker 3:So, I'm going to give you my top five things that make a real difference. First of all, those that can get things done can be counted on. You say I'll do it, you book it. If you have to walk through walls, you do it, you do it. Okay, and there's nobody that comes back with excuses, because the world, as I mentioned earlier, is full of excusers and complainers, and if you don't believe it, just do your own little survey and you'll find out. But it's very few that say, hey, I can solve that. Second question is you have high expectations or high goals and you deliver. So that means when I say I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it and I'm going to find a way around it to make it work.
Speaker 2:Do you shoot really, really high or do you try to be intentional to set goals you can meet, or somewhere in between to try to retire?
Speaker 3:No, the question is it depends on who you are Okay. So, people, this goal setting thing is really visionary Okay, and you have to decide, listen to set goals that are unrealistic and then come in short and then talk about how good it was. That's ridiculous. You teach bad habits. So what you have to do is teach that, hey, this is what we can become, and I've counseled with my team and I believe this is where we're at Now. Sometimes things come in and you have a lousy year. We can become, and I've counseled with my team and I believe this is where we're at Now. Sometimes things come in and you have a lousy year and so you say, hey, I didn't do a good job this year, but most of the time you can hit high, okay, and you can achieve. So I'm used to, you know. I mean, how would you want somebody to start out and say, hey, I think I'm a 70% guy all the time? Do you want them operating on you?
Speaker 1:Okay, no not me no.
Speaker 3:So that's what you have to do and you have to have the skills to do that. I don't know if you've ever heard of Khan Academy, but Khan Academy is an educational process. Khan was at MIT. I think he was valedictorian of MIT and he eventually left and started an education process. But in Khan Academy I've been on it and in math, you can't go on to the next step until you get 10 in a row. Right, but how many kids do we send on to the next step in school? And the trouble with math is, if you don't understand this, you never understand this. So you go to a survey how many kids today don't know math? Why? Because nobody ever demanded that they learn it.
Speaker 3:So if you learn the skills that it takes to make it work, then you can achieve your objectives. So that's the second. You've got to have high expectations and you've got to get them done. The third is you have to be able to influence people, because if you have people that are always worried, you don't want people to get ahead by pushing other people down. What do you want them to do? You want them to know that if they elevate other people up with them, they get credit. Okay, and there is only one that gets promoted, and I understand that. But if everybody's doing better and the company's doing better, then everybody can do better. Everybody benefits.
Speaker 2:Everybody benefits, and so what you want to do is have them believe that their job doing better, then all everybody can do better.
Speaker 3:everybody benefits everybody benefits, and so what you want to do is have them believe that their job is to make teams work better, make it work function okay. The fourth is you have to be hungry to learn. I just mentioned earlier that I knew Sam Walton personally.
Speaker 3:Sam Walton knew that everybody knew something that he didn't know, and so early in his career he was a pilot and he used to fly around to his stores and before he'd go visit his store he'd go visit the competition and he'd go in and say to the guy hey, this is what are you selling here. This is a great looking store. Probably wasn't. And the guy would say, well, we're selling lots of these. I mean, these are really, really hot. So he'd write it down and he'd do that all week long and then every Saturday morning he would gather his buyers together, he'd have his list of all the things that everybody else was selling and he'd talk to each buyer do we have this? No, how, I wanted in by Friday. So all of a sudden they had 25 new items. Okay, that people wanted people wanted.
Speaker 3:So what you want to do is you want to see somebody. If you see somebody doing something good, I mean that's what you're trying to do here in this podcast, hopefully seeing some people doing things good. And I'm glad and honored to be here with Todd today. They asked me how I wanted to be introduced. I said call me Todd's dad, that would be good.
Speaker 2:He used to take me to do recon in stores. By the way, that's a true story.
Speaker 3:Oh cool, oh yeah, oh yeah, we spent all your time in the stores. You don't know what's going on in your office, I promise you that. But anyway. So that's, you've got to be hungry to learn, and that hunger covers all parts of your life.
Speaker 3:If you're a parent and you see somebody with great kids, why wouldn't you ask them what do you do to have great kids? Or if you see a great marriage, what wouldn't you ask? Or if you see somebody that's doing things right, you say, hey, how do I learn to add to? And even at my age, I'm trying to do different things all the time. They'll say, hey, I see this happening. And that goes on.
Speaker 3:And then, last of all, you need to have the skills to analyze and solve problems. The world is full of problems full, and so you have to be a great analyzer, figure out what the problem is, and then you become the fixer. When I'd meet with people, I'd pull up my wallet and say I made a lot of money solving problems, a lot of money. And so those were things that mattered to us, and so we tried to separate performance reviews from attributes, because if you have a bad year, it doesn't mean that all your attributes are bad. You know, like in your real you mentioned, the real estate business was lousy last year because interest rates were out of sight. You know you didn't cause it.
Speaker 2:But, believe me, we've gone through that mental exercise of what could we have done differently.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Because when you ever say that I did everything I could, that's false doctrine. Nobody's ever done everything they can and all you have to do is look at your if you ever want to do a great evaluation. Time is really money and we spend our time, lots of time, on stuff that really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about this yesterday.
Speaker 3:Ironically, guaranteed. So you have to decide. Here's the fact that people lay a list down of 10 things On the thing is, lunch is the bottom 10. They'll always get lunch done. Yes, oh yeah, they'll always get lunch done, but they didn't get the first thing that really mattered most, yeah, and so you have to decide that how will this matter to our business?
Speaker 3:Let me tell you a sweet story. So after I finished my career and then I spent time in South America I was in Bolivia. So we used to send young people down to help business in Bolivia and we could triple their business in sometimes three months, wow. So how'd that happen? Very easily, I told my people. I said, when you go down there, don't have them do anything that doesn't help them make more money. And once they understood that we really cared about what? Because people in Bolivia are poor it's the poorest country in all of Central and South America. They're poor. It's the poorest country in all of Central and South America. They're poor. And so a little bit more money. Then they would do what we ask them to do.
Speaker 3:So one time we had this business, we went in and we're going to help it, and the electric wires are filed down here. And so one guy comes oh, we need to get all these wires fixed. I said how much more money are they going to make if we fix the wires? He said, well, they could get electrocuted. I said have they been electrocuted yet? So we didn't spend any time on the wires, but we did spend time on how to cut the cost of producing the product. Three months tripled the business, and so-.
Speaker 1:Tripled the business, tripled the profit, tripled the profit Tripled the business.
Speaker 3:Tripled the business. Tripled the profit. Tripled the business, tripled the business.
Speaker 2:Without fixing the wires.
Speaker 3:Without fixing the wires. Now listen, the wires needed to be fixed Eventually. They didn't have any money to fix the wires okay, eventually. Now the problem with helping small businesses is they become bigger. Their problems become bigger.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, okay, your son knows this well Guaranteed.
Speaker 3:And if you don't and that's why many entrepreneurs you know most small businesses fail, and that's the facts of life. Yep, 90% plus. And because they became a small business, because they had a niche of something that was good but they let all the other parts fail and they started to spend more money than you know, I mean, and all those things that happened. So, anyway, it's been like I say, nobody would ever imagine that whatever's happened to my wife and our family would have ever happened, and it's really. Heaven blesses you okay, but there's also heavenly principles that if you apply they work okay. It's not so different. Family principles, business principles good ones work in families. Family principles work in business. And if you're one person in business and another person over here, then people need to come to know they can trust you and to let people perform poorly.
Speaker 3:One of the big problems in business today is nobody ever tells people how they're performing. They're afraid to be honest. So what they do is they wait until there's a cutback and then what do they do? They lose their job. If you're not honest with people, then you're doing a great disservice. I used to tell my people if I really love you, or if I care about you, then I tell you what I really think and I help you improve. And that's what these characteristics were about is we wanted them to do better. I didn't want to lose anybody characteristics were about is we wanted them to do better? I didn't want to lose anybody, but their choice as to whether they want to step up or not. So, anyway, I appreciate the opportunity to expound and teach a little bit of who knows.
Speaker 2:Good nuggets of wisdom right there. What role has your marriage played, and did it play, in all of your success? I didn't prep you for that question.
Speaker 3:Oh, this is right. This is a great question. One of the most important things that ever happened in the life of Don Clark happened in June 5th 1970, when Don Clark married Mary Ann Jackson. I'll tell you why. I used to talk to a lot of young people and I used to tell them before you marry somebody, you'll take them to climb a mountain If they complain on the way up drop them.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, that's fantastic, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:It's purgatory to marry somebody who complains all the time, never, ever, in fact. I'll tell you a sweet story. So when I was saving all this money at my first job this million dollars I went to the guy at the head and I said we're going to save $350,000 in bad checks. Okay, so I took boxes of bad checks home. This was before you had all this digital stuff. And Mary Ann that's my dear wife and I are sorting checks to figure out what the rules needed to be of what we would change. Listen, we moved. So we both grew up in Idaho. There's a good question for marrying somebody how close do you have to live to mother? You have to be real careful Because never would it ever happen if Mary Ann had to live next door, live to mother. You have to be real careful Because never would have ever happened if Marianne had to live next door to her mother. We moved. From there we went to Washington State. From there we go to Michigan, detroit, michigan.
Speaker 3:From there we go to Scotts Bluff, nebraska. From there we go to St Louis, missouri. From there we go to New Canaan, connecticut or Connecticut and we had six children and I worked a lot. But I also found time because I was the boss. I could sneak away to the soccer games in the afternoon or the football games that were held. So my kids knew that I loved them and we always Marianne's thankful. I didn't travel because I was always home in the evenings.
Speaker 2:You'd still have to choose to do that, though as a boss, it's easy to make the decision to keep working, I know, but they got more than they were, I promise you my hourly wage wasn't as good as it looked like, I promise you.
Speaker 3:My hourly wage wasn't as good as it looked like, I promise you. Okay. So I was in early and you've worked late, especially when you're trying to fix a business, I mean, because every time you turn around it's another problem, another problem. So, anyway, I'm glad to be here with Todd and we, like I said, we have six children and our. We've been blessed, they're all employed, they're all doing well.
Speaker 3:But you know this you have to decide what you want your life to be and this, like as Todd mentioned earlier in his podcast, what really matters is you know, I have five priorities in my life. So my life is really made up of this. It's, first of all, my relationship with heaven, second is my family, third is my job, fourth is my and fifth is me, and that doesn't have to be in the right order. But if those aspects of my life work, then I'm a pretty happy guy. And if you don't have good friends, good friends make you better, enemies make you worse, and too many people hang out with people that don't make them better and that doesn't do anybody any good. And then you have to decide what you're going to do to change In Todd's life. He's decided he's going to lose weight. I go to the gym every morning. The other morning I was the first guy at the gym 6 o'clock in the morning. It doesn't open until 6. I was there at 10-2. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Why? Because?
Speaker 3:I'm better the better if I do that, and so those are the things that matter. Listen, I appreciate what you're helping people do. I think we just need to share good ideas, and some of the things I talked about today may apply. Some of them may not. That's fine. Take the ones that are good and do something with them, and the ones that don't apply, I say that's fine. I mean, you have to find your own. There's a million different ways to do things.
Speaker 2:Well, we're so appreciative that you were willing to jump from off camera to be on camera. It really is what we're trying to. We want to do with the show is give people good information and wisdom, and and yes, we were trying to directly apply it to being a business owner, being an entrepreneur but we think that a lot of the principles that are communicated on our show absolutely apply to to everybody in their everyday lives and their career pursuits, whether they're looking to build their own business or not, and and so so I wouldn't.
Speaker 3:I don't know that I'd have been a great entrepreneur. I'm not sure Now. Within here, I was as creative as anybody, and so I don't know that I'm the risk taker to move out here.
Speaker 1:But again, I think a lot of what you were saying to us off camera I think it really applies and there's a lot of young people, young professionals, that need to hear what you had to say. Absolutely so, don, again, we really appreciate you just sharing your insight with us today. And, todd, thanks for sharing your dad you got it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Thanks, guys, you bet.
Speaker 1:Thanks again. Have a great week you.
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