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3 Keys for Your Journey
Business and Community Leaders sharing key principles.
3 Keys for Your Journey
Jeff Cooper's Guide to Purpose-Driven Achievement
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Jeff Cooper, a distinguished leader and All-American athlete, who uncovers the transformative power of faith and trust in his journey. Ever wondered how strong family ties and a purpose-driven life can serve as a foundation for success? Jeff shares stories that highlight the joy and fulfillment he finds in family, including the special role of being a grandparent, as well as the profound insights he's gleaned from his time in full-time ministry and the challenges of church planting.
Explore the keys to success with Jeff as he passionately discusses the importance of investing in people and the impact of taking prompt action. Rather than allowing procrastination to stall progress, Jeff encourages immediate action to open doors for future opportunities, setting a foundation for productivity and growth. His message is clear: to achieve greatness, one must dedicate themselves to hard work and exceed expectations, underlining the belief that people are the greatest asset in any undertaking.
In the final segment, Jeff invites listeners to engage in self-evaluation and prayer, offering guidance on how to recognize opportunities for growth both personally and professionally. His commitment to building others is evident through his business ventures, including initiatives like the Rhythm of Rest program, which supports nonprofit leaders and foster families. As we thank Jeff for his invaluable contributions, we extend an invitation for future discussions and encourage listeners to connect with us at OCFO info to continue exploring these powerful insights. www.justlikehome.rentals
Thank you for listening! YouTube - @3KeysforYourJourney -Tune in for a new episode every Sunday. Connect with us at www.ocfo.info
Success meets strategy and leadership takes center stage. Today's conversation is with Jeff Cooper, all-american athlete, top 1% sales leader and expert. Communicated with the passion for helping individuals and teams unlock their potential, with years of corporate experience and a proven track record in leadership development and strategic growth. Record in leadership development and strategic growth. Stay tuned as he will share insights, tools and stories that will inspire and empower you on your journey to excellence?
Speaker 2:Are you ready to unlock your potential? Tune in to Three Keys for your Journey podcast, where business owners share invaluable insights and empowering strategies to guide you toward success. Based in Oklahoma City, our host, greg T Jones, will inspire and motivate you every week. Get ready to join our conversation as we build community together.
Greg Jones:Jeff Cooper, we got you in the house. Yes sir, yes sir, Welcome to the podcast my brother, welcome, welcome, welcome, I mean, there's only one, Jeff Cooper.
Jeff Cooper:Oh man, it's such an honor to be here with the one and only Greg Jones.
Greg Jones:And I have to say this, like now when you get to know Jeff, you can even call him Coop.
Greg Jones:Yes sir, yes, sir, wow, man, it's a pleasure to have you on our podcast today and, man, I'm just thrilled to have you here. Man, we think about just life in general and there are a few people that come your way, that you can actually call friends, man, and you're one of those guys, man, you're one of those cats, as we would say yes, sir, yes sir, absolutely and I'm honored to say the exact same thing about you One of a handful.
Greg Jones:But our listening audience man, a lot of people do not know Jeff Cooper is. So take a few minutes and, just you know, introduce yourself. Tell us who you are.
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, yes, sir, man, that's quite a question. Who am I? My name's Jeff Cooper. I love the Lord tremendously, so really I'm a servant of the King. Faith is extremely important to me, and so I'm a business owner. I work in corporate America. I've worked full-time vocational ministry, but my life is ministry, and so that's who I am, that's what I do. I have two daughters. I have one granddaughter who's 18 months, and I love my family. I have a nephew who's now here, a freshman at Oklahoma University, so he and his family live in St Louis, so it's neat to have him here in town with us as well too.
Greg Jones:Well, that's great. Now, I'm not a grandparent yet, but tell for our listening audience, what does it mean to be a grandparent?
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, yes sir. So it's really neat. I had a chance over Thanksgiving, pretty much had my granddaughter for about a week, and it's neat to see your children, my daughter Jordan, jordan, my daughter Jordan. I know you have a daughter named Jordan as well. My Jordan is an amazing mother and to see that flesh out in my granddaughter is just one of the most rewarding, neatest experiences on the planet. I mean, my granddaughter was almost perfect for this entire week. I mean, she listened, she didn't whine, she didn't cry. She was almost perfect and it was just a function of walking out. You know what her mother has been teaching her and how her mother has been shepherding her for 18 months. So I don't think there's a greater joy.
Greg Jones:Wow, Well, thank you for sharing that, Jeff. Now also part of your life is spent, I think, one of the things that I, when I think about you.
Greg Jones:I think about people first, yes, sir, and people come first and you try to put them first and you try to live your life in such a way to where you have the opportunity to share with them things that have been put in place in your heart. And just being obedient to that and I've experienced it myself several times and I know that's the way you walk and live, and so, you know, part of our podcast today is for our listening audience. Somebody out there is listening and we think about keys to your journey, and I narrow it down to three. You may have way more than three, but, as you thought about our conversation today, are there some things that you think have been instrumental to you along your journey.
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, absolutely. And you've given me a heads up talking about three keys on the journey, so I apologize, I kind of have four. The first one, I think we'll call it point one. One one. The first one, I think we'll call it 0.111. Three ones, three ones.
Greg Jones:Yes, sir, 0.111. Yes, sir, okay, I like that.
Jeff Cooper:That's the first one and it's overarching. I can't talk about keys for success without talking about the first one. I mentioned earlier that faith is extremely important to me, and so trusting the Lord and doing what he says that is the basis of everything in my life. That's the number one key to success.
Greg Jones:Talk about this for a minute and just elaborate when I hear that word trust in. Yes sir, give me the point. Point, point, point. How do you trust in?
Jeff Cooper:the Lord. Yes, sir, yes sir, that's good, that's good. So the point one, one one, it's the father, the son and the Holy spirit, um, trinity, three in one, um, which is faith, that that I have. And so just doing what he says and knowing that he's got everything taken care of, um, there. There was a moment in my life not too many years ago, probably about six years ago. There was a moment in my life not too many years ago, probably about six years ago, less than that, five years ago and so I'd been saving up some money.
Jeff Cooper:I was in full-time ministry, you know, church plant, part of a church plant. So, as you know, oftentimes in church plants, you know there's not a salary for a pastor. You basically spend money to serve the community, community builders as the organization, and just pouring money in and serving. I had a little bit of money saved up in Dallas, had a house and that was going to be my retirement, because I know that in ministry you're not going to make a ton of money and that's fine. So I had this house set aside for my retirement and it came time to come up with some more money to build the church and serve the community.
Jeff Cooper:So I thought I'll just sell that house. And then I thought I can't sell that house because that's what I'm going to retire on once I hit 65. And then I felt like the Lord told me so you've trusted me to take care of you up until now and you think I'm going to stop taking care of you when you hit the age 65? I've got you covered, and so that rang true with me. So I sold the house. And then, lo and behold, five years later we went from the one house that we sold to actually 10. And it's not about the houses at all, it's just about trusting God.
Greg Jones:Now you mentioned houses. Is this part of your business?
Jeff Cooper:Yes, yes. One of the businesses that we have is called Just Like Home Rentals, where we have 11 homes right now that we rent out.
Greg Jones:Wow, yes sir, yes sir, and that's a testimony right there within itself. Yes sir, yes sir, but it starts with trusting God.
Jeff Cooper:Trusting God. Yes, sir, so that's kind of the overarching, you know. The point one, one one.
Greg Jones:Okay.
Jeff Cooper:Love it. Yes, sir, but the first key to success, I say, is building people first and being committed to building people first. And we've heard that people are the most important asset of any organization, of any business, and I believe that, to its core, people are the most important asset, are what makes the world go round, and so not just in business, but in life. And so if you always invest in people, that's what life is about. And there's a quote, howard Hendricks, one of my old professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, he said that the measure of you as a leader is not what you do, but what others do because of what you do. And so putting people first and pouring into people and building people is essentially my life's mission. So that's number one key to success.
Greg Jones:Love it. Number one I got it Okay.
Jeff Cooper:What about the number two? Number two condensed timeframes. There's major value if you want to be successful in life, in my opinion, in condensing timeframes, and actually this came about many, many years ago, probably in 1993. I was listening to a success tape. I guess I'm giving away my age just a little bit.
Jeff Cooper:It was cassette 12 cassette cassette tape by Brian Tracy called the psychology of achievement, and one of the things that he said is that successful people have a lifestyle of doing things now. They don't procrastinate, they don't wait, they do it now. You know they do things now and and I've adopted that and talk about it as condensing time frames you know you don't wait before you do something. Take five minutes and do it right now, because what happens is you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. So why put off something till tomorrow when you can accomplish it today? You need to leave room for tomorrow to do what tomorrow might bring.
Greg Jones:Well, thank you for that. That's a confirmation because I try to live by that same principle and I love what you said because it's so true. If I can take time to do it now, go ahead and do it, knock it out. Knock it out, man for somebody out there.
Jeff Cooper:That just changed your life. I know, yes, sir, yes sir. And one of the unique things about operating that way is not only do you make room and create space, you never know what timing is like. You never know what timing is like. You never know what somebody's going through, what they're doing at a particular moment. They might have time to respond right now, they may not have time for the next three weeks, and so what might take normal people nine months to accomplish, you can accomplish in nine days if you do things right away and if you do them now.
Jeff Cooper:And the other thing here's a secret that it does is it teaches people how to work with you. If you respond right away, then they respond right away. If you take a week to think about it, contemplate, it's crazy. People feel like they can take a week to think about something, and then when they get back to someone, they expect them to respond immediately. You just took a week thinking about this, meditating on it, and why would they respond in an hour when it took you a week? So we want to respond in five minutes and then maybe they'll get it done in five hours. We hope it's going to take longer than what you did, but it sets a model, an example, and it creates a system of condensing time frames which expedites your journey to success.
Greg Jones:Wow, I just want to let that sit for a minute.
Jeff Cooper:That's good, that's good, that's good stuff. That's good stuff, yes sir, that's really good stuff.
Jeff Cooper:It's been a blessing for me tremendously, and the funny thing is that people think that what it does is okay. I can wait nine months. It doesn't have to happen in nine days. For me, Nine months is okay. But what we don't realize is there's so many steps and so many pitfalls and so many obstacles that occur over nine months. It ends up not happening most of the time. So it's usually not the difference between it being done in nine days or nine months. It's the difference in between it being done in nine days or not at all. Wow, Wow.
Greg Jones:Yes, sir, and for those of you that are listening that may deal with that idea of procrastination, this is a good tip or tool that you can begin to adopt, because if you start living that way, you tend not to procrastinate, yes, sir, and everything else you say falls right in line. It gets done and you make space right. Yes, sir, you create space for tomorrow to be tomorrow. Yes, sir, wow, especially if you're living by a .111.
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, oh, that's good, that's good. And if I'm transparent, I had to adopt that philosophy, because what happens in my life? If I don't do something now, I forget about it and I'm not getting it done at all, someone will call me back two months later. Hey, did you ever? Oh man, I forgot about it. So I actually have to do things at the moment, because once an hour goes by, I don't know if I'm going to remember.
Greg Jones:That's good, especially as we get a little older. Yes, sir.
Jeff Cooper:Yes, I didn't want to say that part, but those are facts. Yes, sir, yes, sir, real talk. All right, what's our next point? And number three is more is required, more is required, and so this is how I flesh this out, and I'll tell you I'll give credit where this came from. All three of mine came from somewhere. We had Brian Tracy, we had Howard Hendricks, and then we have Albert Appiah and Doug Neese, but so one of the things that I always say is everybody wants to be an All-American, but very few people are willing to do what it takes to become one. And where that came about. I was a sophomore in high school. I had just moved here to the Oklahoma City area and there was a buddy of mine, albert Appiah, and he used to always want to work out and do extra sprints and extra lifting. We played football for context, and so there's workouts in the morning, there's running time in the morning and two-a-day practices, and after all of that and in between all of that, he wanted to work out more.
Jeff Cooper:And would say we just worked out, we just ran. Why am I going to stay up another two hours? Why am I going to come back on our lunch break? It's our lunch break, he would say. Cooper, he said if we want to be the best, we have to do more than what everybody else does. Everybody else comes to the morning workouts, everybody else comes to the afternoon runs, everybody else comes to the afternoon runs, everybody else comes to the two-a-day practices. But if we want to be the best, we have to do more than what everybody else is doing.
Jeff Cooper:And I was like as a 10th grader I'd never heard anything like I'd never heard of such a thing. And then another buddy of ours whose name is Doug Doug Neese, and we were just out playing. So when we go out to do this extra stuff, like there's no coaches, it's just a handful of us, and I'm trying to cover him in the parking lot, you know, with football, and he's running full on sprints, like we're in the Olympics or something, and I'm like we're just out here playing around. Man, you're killing me, can you slow it down? Dial it back a little bit? And he was like why would I ever do that?
Jeff Cooper:He takes off sprinting again and he's like you play how you practice, and if you want to operate in excellence, he takes off again. He's like you got to go full tilt all the time. And so between those two things, man, more is required. We want more, but are we willing to do more? Everybody wants, mentally, to be an All-American, but very few people are actually willing to do what it takes all day, every day to become one.
Greg Jones:So if you think about this in your business journey and for other folks that are listening out there, how do you apply that?
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, man, that's real. So when things happen that I'm not expecting to or that I don't want to happen you have no idea how much I say that phrase to myself hey, everybody wants to be an all American, but very few people are willing to do what it takes. So when you get a no or rejection, it doesn't feel good. Hey, but everybody you know wants to win, but very few people are willing to do what it takes to win. So you come up with another strategy. You keep going, you're tired, it's 10 o'clock at night and you have something, an email come through and you don't feel like it. Hey, nobody feels like it. But if you want to win, you have to do the things that most people are not willing to do. And so I'm like okay, that makes sense, I definitely want to win.
Greg Jones:So at 10 o'clock at night, pull out the laptop and start putting together the proposal, or responding to the email, or crafting a message, or or whatever it happens to be. So saying all of that, jeff, that's excellent advice. How do you provide margin in your life? How do you provide balance? How do you?
Jeff Cooper:rest. Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes sir. That's good, that's good, that's rich. So I'm able to rest in the Lord. So I spend two hours most of the time, two hours in the morning, whether it's listening to podcasts, listening to a message, reading the Bible.
Jeff Cooper:If I'm teaching somewhere, oftentimes that's the time when I'm in preparation, so I spend that time with the Lord. It's very reinvigorating to me and it fuels me and creates a sustenance and it's interesting. So, if you go to the building people first, and that our life is not really about our work, our life is about the interactions and the experiences that we have with the people, and that fuels me, oddly enough, and so, as I focus on people throughout the day, it kind of re-energizes me. Now, transparently, I do work a lot of hours between a handful of jobs and so I can do a better job at carving out some time to create a more consistent rhythm of rest for me. But I do get fueled all throughout the day because I'll stop work I don't know who's listening, but I'll stop work in a heartbeat to have a conversation with someone or to give some advice or to share something that I'm heartbroken about, and just to have that type of connection and interaction and that type of thing fuels me.
Greg Jones:Man, that sounds like a nugget right there. I'm going to take that as a key as well. So I don't know if you had four or five or six, but I pulled a few more out of there. Yes, sir, did we cover all of the keys? Yes, sir.
Jeff Cooper:That you have. Yes, sir, I wrote down three, and then the one overarching, overarching, okay, the .111. .111.
Greg Jones:All right. So, jeff, man, this has been a great conversation. Somebody out there hopefully out there, if you're listening, you know you've heard some of the things that Jeff has shared and your mind, your heart, something inside of you, is swirling around and saying, man, I need something different. And so hopefully this was encouraging, inspirational to you, but also kind of a heart check or maybe as I would say you know a gut check.
Greg Jones:Or maybe, as I would say, you know a gut check, you know. I got to check out where I'm at now, what I'm doing now For somebody that may be listening.
Jeff Cooper:That's in that place, jeff. What would you?
Jeff Cooper:say would be a next step. Prayer, I would say, is definitely the next step. You know, they say recognizing the problem or recognizing the opportunity for growth is 50% to 80% of the solution. And so if we can self-evaluate where we are, self-evaluate our motivation in life and then really see what we're doing because I know this is keys to success. But this transcends whatever your type of business is, whatever your vocation, whatever your profession is to just take a hard look and see if you're really focusing, If you trust in God, if you trust in a creator that's higher than you, that gives purpose, and if you're really focusing on enhancing people's lives and building people, because you have to build people first. That's the priority.
Jeff Cooper:And is that what you're doing in your day to day business? Are you focused on you versus building others? And then, are you not being lazy, basically not procrastinating? Are you condensing timeframes, doing the things that you need to do? And are you putting in work, Whatever that looks like? Because success is not ever easy, and I think a lot of us expect it to be easy and expect to accomplish things that no one has ever accomplished by doing the same things that everyone else can do, and that's not really how it works doing the same things that everyone else can do, and that's not really how it works.
Greg Jones:Well, and, if nothing else, you said that today a number of times and it's synced in that. You know everybody wants success, but are they willing to put in the work to get there? Everybody wants to be an All-American, but are very few people actually ever know what it takes to become an All-American. So, man, thank you for sharing that out. I get this question all the time, and so I've been asking our guests. You know people want to get in contact with you.
Greg Jones:They want to learn more about your businesses. Yes, sir, learn more about what you're doing with people first. Whatever the case is, how do they reach out to you?
Jeff Cooper:Yes, sir, yes sir, Probably a good way is to go to our Web site. Just like home rentals. So if you go to WWW dot, just like home rentals. So if you go to wwwjustlikehomerentals, you can click on. There's a tab that says Rhythm of Rest. You can learn about some things that our organization is doing to help create a space for directors and leaders of nonprofit organizations, for clergy and for foster parents and foster families where they can plug in and get some type of rhythm of rest, because they work tirelessly, 20 hours a day, consistently, seven days a week, for little pay and need a break. If you're interested in funding something like that, there's a link. You have an opportunity to help fund and create spaces where they can go to Thunder Games and stay at nice houses and get retreats and breaks, and then you can always hit contact us, which will come directly to me as well, and you can learn a little bit more about what I do from leadership development and some other things also.
Greg Jones:Wow, Well, man, Jeff, thank you so much, man, for being with us today. It's been absolutely my pleasure to have you on as one of our guests and, as I said earlier, man, just as a true friend. So, man, I appreciate you so much. I do ask that you know, at some point I'd love to have you back on the show, get an update, drop another .111, or another six, seven and eight keys, whatever that may be on your heart, man.
Greg Jones:Know that you're always invited to come back and be with us here at Three Keys for your journey.
Jeff Cooper:It's been a complete honor. I just pray this is a blessing for somebody out there in this listening audience and if you go to that Web site and hit, contact us if you have any questions at all about any of the three keys that we shared or any additional questions that you might have, man, I'd be humbled and honored to be able to respond and help out in any way that I can.
Greg Jones:All right, remember to check out our website at OCFOinfo. That's where all the podcasts that we have, including this one, will be linked up, and we look forward to seeing.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining Three Keys for your Journey. Tune in next time for another episode.
