Blaze Your Own Trail - From Selling VHS Tapes on Ebay to Helping Organizations Grow From the Inside Out with Tom Healy

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

In this episode of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, host Jordan Mendoza speaks with Tom Healy, a lifelong entrepreneur and mentor. Tom shares his journey from a creative child with entrepreneurial spirit to a successful business leader focused on empowering organizations and their people. The conversation delves into the importance of mentorship, the value of college, building a personal brand, and the significance of authenticity in overcoming fear of failure. Tom emphasizes the need for a people-centric business culture and offers practical advice for entrepreneurs looking to grow and succeed in their ventures.Takeaways Tom's entrepreneurial journey began at a young age selling VHS tapes.Mentorship plays a crucial role in shaping one's career and success.College can be valuable, but it's not the only path to success.Building a personal brand is essential for networking and opportunities.Authenticity is key to overcoming fear of failure.Regular one-on-one coaching sessions can significantly improve employee performance.Understanding what an 'A player' looks like is vital for recruitment.Creating a people-centric culture leads to better retention and satisfaction.Feedback is a gift that helps individuals and organizations grow.Never get comfortable; always strive for improvement and growth.Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Tom Healy's Journey04:39 The Impact of Mentorship on Success09:10 The Value of College and Personal Growth13:52 Building a Personal Brand and Networking18:34 Authenticity and Overcoming Fear of Failure23:42 The Importance of Mentorship in Business28:03 Strategies for Empowering Employees32:50 Creating a People-Centric Business Culture37:28 Final Thoughts and Advice for EntrepreneursConnect with Tom:Website: https://peopleops360.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetomhealy/Connect with Jordan:Connect with Jordan:LinkedInInstagramTikTokOrder a copy of Jordan's new book The Life-Changing Power of AdversityJoin Jordan' weekly group coaching community HEREThe Blaze Your Own Trail Podcast is exclusively sponsored by CityGate Studios   Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail Podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host, and I've got another incredible guest today. His name is Tom Healy, and I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. All right. Thanks for having me, Jordan, looking forward to this conversation. We'll have a lot of fun. I can tell just by our conversation that we had before you hit record.

I'm 41 years old. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. Been out here for almost 20 years now, and I'm a lifelful. entrepreneur. So started selling stuff on eBay when I was a teenager and always had it in my mind that I would work for myself and blaze my own trail and have never looked back. And as we sit here today, I do a lot of work with organizations around getting the most out of their people, which I'm sure we'll talk more about, but just a real passion for entrepreneurism, being entrepreneurial, and then really helping organizations of all sizes get the most out of their people so that those

people succeed and the organization as a whole succeeds. Love it, love it. Yeah, I'm definitely about that life as well as a former eight-year corporate trainer, you know, trying to make people better. So there's a lot of fun we're going to have diving into these conversations. Well, everyone that listens knows my favorite part of the show is really taking a rewind and getting some deep context into my guest story, their journey, and really what they're made of because that's what trailblazing's all about.

And you said it yourself, you felt like you've been a trailblazer, your whole life. and entrepreneur your whole life. Where did it start? I know you've been two decades plus in Scottsdale, but like where were you born and raised? And what kind of kid was little Tom? What did you get into? Were you into sports? Was academics the thing that you focused on? I'd love just some context. Well, you spoke to me before we hit record. So you should probably know that academics weren't my focus. No, I, so I was the kid that had his seat moved around a lot. I probably had ADD, but it was undone. diagnosed or wasn't a thing all those years ago like it is now. I was social. I wanted to talk to people. I was the class clown. It was hard for me to sit still. I wanted to be everyone's friend.

I was just outgoing. Fortunately in second grade, so in first grade, I was a problem child. But in second grade, I had a teacher that still, you know, many years later, I stayed close with Mrs. Natali. And she really channeled my behavior towards writing, creating things. So, I mean, I wrote stories and I just was able to channel that in a good place. So I was always that creative type with a big imagination and then found entrepreneurialism. So I was raised by a single mother and I had two mentors that were men, both of whom owned their own business. So I looked at them and I said, well, I want to be like that when I grow up personally and professionally. You know, there were a lot of traits they had in common, but they both owned their own business.

They called the shots. They had their name on the building. And I want to be like that when I grow up. I told you I started selling stuff on eBay as a teenager. The statute of limitations is long gone. So I can tell you that what I did, and I'm dating myself here a little bit, but I recorded every episode of Saved by the Bell. I removed all the commercials.

I put them all in order. And then I had a double VCR that was cranking out copies of this. So I would sell on eBay a VHS set of the entire Save by the Bell series. and I was getting $100, $125 a pop for those. My grandfather bought me all of the VHS tapes and didn't charge me for them. My mom shipped them all out and didn't charge me for them.

So I had 100% margin business. And I did that until I finally got a cease and desist from the studios saying, please don't do this anymore. That was it. That was my foray into entrepreneurship. I went through college, was heavily involved as a student leader, did all the student leadership stuff, president of all the fraternities,

did some cool internship. and just had it in my mind, I wanted to do something for myself after I graduated. What I decided to do was write a book for college students on all the things they didn't teach us. So it was called the course they forgot to offer. And I didn't approach it as a know at all. I just said, here's the things I wish I would have known. Here are what a bunch of successful people did in their 20s. I surveyed over a thousand people and said, what are your biggest regrets?

What would you have done differently? What advice would you give to someone in their 20s? Wrote that book and sent it out to a bunch of people. of college campuses and said, I wrote a book and I'd love to come and speak on this topic if you'd have me and led to a bunch of speaking opportunities. And that was how I got my start. But just a kind of gritty entrepreneur and obviously a lot of successes and failures along the way through that journey. Love it. Yeah, definitely a lot to unpack. Let's go. Let's dive back to you're a kid. You see, well, obviously you come up with a great idea and you execute on the

idea and you start slanging videos of a show that everybody loves at that time, right? Everybody who didn't, who didn't enjoy saying by the bell then? And then you basically are told to stop. So I'm sure that was frustrating. Also pretty cool, right? That the big network reaches out just to somebody that's doing, making these transactions and sales and stuff. That had to have been surreal that it actually happened.

but I know just in what you told us, you didn't let it affect you, right? You just went back to the drawing board. And I think that's a lesson for a lot of people to learn is that in life, you're going to be faced with way more rejection than successes. And we're just in such a culture now where when one person gets told no, they're down for like three weeks. And it's like, no, you're going to get told no every day a lot. I did door-door sales for five years.

I was rejected. Like I was woke up knowing I was going to go get rejected a hundred plus times. and was excited about it. You know, now it's like people's mindset so it's shifted and tilted. And I think we could say the pandemic maybe had an effect on it or whatever, but it's just like if people don't have success right away, they just give up, you know? And so I want to, I've got two questions for your mentors. The first one is what was one of the biggest lessons they taught you,

whether it equated to dollars or it equated just to knowledge? And then what would you say to them? And if they're still here, you could literally say it to them. But, you know, how valuable is it to be able to go back to a mentor and say, thank you. Like, man, you don't realize how much at a pivotal moment or a time in my life that you made such a big difference. And I equate a lot of that success to you. Great question. So in terms of their traits, I can give you the obvious ones.

They worked hard. You know, they were gritty. They were risk takers, good husbands and fathers, blah, blah, blah. But I will tell you to me something that I thought was far more important than any of that stuff. I used to watch how both of them treated people. And their employees, their children, their spouse, the maintenance person at the golf club they were a member of. Didn't matter who it was. Knew the first name, knew all the information.

They treated people incredibly well. And so that was, I noticed it when I was a teenager. And it always stuck with me. And I just, I said, you know, that's how I want to be. And it's not an act. It's not, you know, when people are watching, but just treat everyone really, really well, no matter who they are, no matter if there's nothing that you feel you can gain from them, just treat people well. So that was a big thing that I observed and I, I've always tried to emulate from both of them. They're both still alive.

I'm very, very close with both of them. I often tell them how much I love and appreciate everything they did. The biggest thing for me was being around them, things just rub off. Okay. And it's no different if you have a great mentor, a great manager. The best characteristics become yours without you even realizing it. Whether it's a firm or handshake, whether it's asking great questions, whether it's how you treat people, whether it's holding the door for somebody, right? just being polite, whatever that is.

And so it's all those little intangible characteristics I got from them that just rubbed off on me without even trying. I think that's what I appreciate the most because where else would I have gotten that? Just because you read it in a business book, just because you hear it from a speaker on stage, doesn't mean it's going to become a hardwired behavior of yours. Yeah, yeah, I love it. You got it honestly through osmosis, you know, through environment, through watching, through modeling. subconsciously. Yeah, so you got it in a lot of different ways. And I love that you called that out. I know you're in Scottsdale and I actually a guy that used to play in the NFL. He lives in the Scottsdale area, JJ Burden. I don't know if you know JJ. Her have seen him. He used to play for

the Chiefs. He went to school at Oregon. And one of the things he said when I interviewed him a couple years ago on the show is he said, and this is to your point, some things are caught and some things are taught. You caught all of that. It was just, it was coming at you and you, you were taking it in whether you knew it or not. And, and to the fact that they're still part of your life and the fact that they're still adding value and then you're also still thanking them. I mean, that just shows a lot about your character as well. But I think it's important that, A, we let people know and B, that we do talk about it early and often. I got a chance I went to this podcast conference in Orlando last week.

And I got to see a mentor for seven years. I've known this guy. This guy encouraged me when I was down. I didn't believe in myself and told me I have a bigger brand than him one day. And a lot of these things came to fruition. So you better believe when I saw that knucklehead in person, I gave him a big hug. And I said, bro, like, you don't know how you've impacted my life. You know, and I know there's listeners.

You have that person in your mind. You see their face. Go tell them. Text them. Call them. You know, we just never know, right? You just never know. So that's my encouragement right now.

It wasn't planned, but I think it just came honestly in the conversation that that's something that we need to be better. Even myself, I'm talking to myself, like, be better at that because it makes an impact. And I know that they feel it every time that you look them in the face and you tell them that and it's meaningful for them. So let's talk, you know, so after high school, we're on a different path. So I feel like the first part, we were like twins, like getting in trouble, disruptors. You know, I was breakdancing in the halls.

getting Josta and gummy bears instead of going to class, you know, that was kind of my world. But then you go, hey, I'm going to go to college. I'm like, no, I'm going to sell stuff. So I went door to door for five years. You went to college. And so talk about that decision, A, because I think it's important that people know that college isn't for everybody. I mean, I knew it back. I was very self-aware then in the 90s that like I was going to go waste someone's money or party and it would have been just a big mistake. But not everyone's that self-aware, Tom. And you know this. So talk to the people. Like, who's college for in 2026 and what value did it add to you? And then if you look back in hindsight, would you've done anything differently?

We could spend hours on this. It's a topic I have a lot of thoughts and strong feelings on. A couple things. I think, first of all, if I had not gone to college, I still would have ended up similar to where I am now. Okay. I just believe that for most people, they're hardwired the way they are. They have the characteristics they have.

So I'm gritty. I have drive just like you. We're going to be successful and the path may be different. I was fortunate. My mom saved up enough money to put me through college. And she said, you pick where you want to go. We have this covered. And so I was blessed to have that.

Obviously, it's something that I am very thankful for. And she knows that among other things that she's done to help me over the years. So that's one situation. If your parents have the ability or a family member does great. And that's the right path for you. Take it, run with it. But when you're on campus, you better work your ass off to make that a good decision for them. And that was always my mindset.

This woman gave a lot to put me in this position. She sacrificed. She didn't buy stuff for herself. I better make her proud. I better give her a good ROI on this. I better do more than, you know, drink and get Cs. Okay. So I went into it with that mindset.

That, again, but it's just one use case. Other people, hey, studying's not for me or I would have to save up all this money. So there's so many different situations. But in my situation, I said, I need to get the most of this. I got super involved. I ran for every leadership position I could. I went to every leadership conference I could. And I partied my ass off, too.

the difference with me and a lot of other of my peers is I got up in the morning. I went to the gym. I got involved in leadership activities. I went to class. So it was just that mindset of, and this is, I still feel this way to this day, you can have it all. But what's it going to take to have it all? So, you know, these people that go, I have no time to golf or I have no time to go the gym or I have no time for my kids or you can do everything. okay but you have to map out a day by day hour by hour plan to be able to do that so you can have every single thing you want but you have to work for it and and that was the mindset that I had in college and so got a lot out of it it was a great experience and used that to go to the next level that being said these people that say oh well poor me I'm a victim because I can't go to college

and well you could if you wanted to but maybe you shouldn't and it's not going to make a difference at the end of the day anyways. And one other point about this is there's plenty of studies out there. Where you go to college doesn't even really make a difference in terms of how much money you make over your career. And people say, oh, but if you go to an Ivy League school, you make more money. And my argument would be, well, you went to an Ivy League school because you were exceptional. So you were going to make more money whether you went to that Ivy League school or not. So I just believe all that other stuff doesn't really matter. And it's just, you know, we, the cream rises to the top, right? And so, and again, I'm not saying it because it's your podcast, but we blaze our

own trail. We can do whatever we want. There are no obstacles anymore. That's my belief. Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah. Especially with information, right? What do you, Jordan, what do you want to know? You want to learn about AI? You want to take MIT courses. Whatever you want to learn is free and in the public domain. There no longer is, and this is the point I'll make about college, there is no longer a barrier to information. It used to be, if I want to learn about this, I need to go on a college campus and get the book and learn from the professor, all that's gone. It's all on the internet for free. Yep. Yeah, 100%. And I'm a big believer that anybody can blaze their own trail. You know, you have to be willing, though, to step on the dang turf. You can't blaze it from the sidelines.

You can't blaze it in your mind. You got to go take action. And so let's talk about action a little bit. So you finish school. It sounds like you were involved in leadership, fraternities. You were crushing it, essentially building a brand, if you will, before brands kind of existed. But people knew you. Did that help get your foot in the door from an internship standpoint, from a career path standpoint? Or what did you have to do to rise to the top after college? No, everything was easy because to your point, I built a personal brand.

It wasn't called that back then. It didn't exist. but I had a roll-a-d-d-x of people that knew who I was, would take my phone call, and thought highly of me. And it's not because I'm anything special. It's because I was a nice, hard-working person. And if you're a nice, hard-working person, there will always be opportunities. And you see this all the time, Jordan. How many times do you see a business owner that says, hey, I went to this restaurant often,

and I had this waiter that was just a really nice, hard-working kid? and, you know, he had no sales experience, but I brought him into my company, and now he's my VP of sales, and he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So by acting a certain way, by showing up a certain way, people will notice, especially when you're young. And so that's what I did. And so when I, you know, went to people and I, I mean, how I ended up in Arizona, I said, it's warm outside, and I want to live somewhere warm. So I didn't know anyone. I had no network out here, but I started reaching out to people and said, do you know anyone in Arizona? And so before I decided I was going to be an entrepreneur, I did go on job interviews.

I went on eight interviews. I got offered eight jobs because I walked into all these situations warm, right? Like it was someone at the company that said, hey, we're bringing this guy in and we're interviewing him. So there was a warm endorsement and introduction into there. But I just leveraged that roller decks. And I can't believe how few college kids do that now. I'll tell you another thing. I used to get made fun of in high school because, among other things, people would be

partying like in the basement of the parents' house, I'd be upstairs talking to the old man about business, about life, about whatever, right? I just loved talking to adults. I loved learning from other people, asking them about their business. I mean, that's how those mentor relationships formed were out of conversations like that. So just networking with people, being genuinely curious. If you know people, you will always have opportunities. 100%. If you know people and you treat people well, and you try to add more value than you take. Those are definitely ingredients that are going to get you to some semblance of success.

And again, success is different for everyone. So let's talk about some of those relationships that you built that turned into, I know you went on the eight interviews and so I'm assuming you decided you didn't take any of them. So like what did you do? Did you say, you know, I'm going to do my own thing now. Like I want to create something. Yeah, I mean, I went into the big companies, some of which you've probably heard of. did the interview and there was a sales position and it got offered to me, but it just never

felt right. And I, you know, there's, you know, another term that wasn't thrown around a lot 20 years ago that is now is authenticity. What's authentic to you? What's your passion? What feels right? And, you know, a big lesson I've learned over the years, when I've made bad decisions personally or professionally, it's usually by trying to make someone else happy, not being authentic to myself, veering away from what feels right. You know, there's times where, again, you just look at yourself and you go, well, I'm not a suit and tie guy, or I don't want to do that type of work, or that's not really what I'm passionate about. So, you know, I've just always tried to say, you know, what, what do I want to do? What's my path? What's right for me? And another thing that you mentioned earlier,

And I don't know what triggered this thought. But, you know, one of the challenges with social media that we face right now is I think people are more afraid than ever to fail. Because people are so concerned with how they're perceived by other people. And maybe it took me longer than some people. Maybe I was quicker than other people. But I will tell you that over the last few years, maybe five, seven years now, I've realized I just don't care what anyone thinks of me. I hope my family and my close friends love me, respect me, think very favorably of me. But I'm not concerned what an acquaintance from high school or college perceives of my life.

I don't care. So I have no one to impress. But when I was in my 20s, man, I was so afraid of failure because I'm like, well, what are people going to think if I fail as a public speaker and I fail as an entrepreneur? I was so concerned what everyone else thought. And I just think when you can flip that switch, and it comes with age and maturity, and some people never get there, you can tell by social media

that they need to be accepted by their acquaintances. But man, I got to that point where I'm like, I just don't care. I don't care. So I need to be true to myself. Love it. Yeah, and that's, there's so much freedom in that, you know, and so like, you know,

as a dad of six that break dances and plays basketball and does all kinds of crazy. stuff, got startups, and I'm in different countries, you can't take yourself too seriously, and you have to just be you. Because again, at the end of the day, like, I left corporate because it was corporate. Like, I was exactly what you were saying. They made me wear the suits. They made me, like, dress up. I remember one holiday season, like, during Christmas, other knuckleheads had these like reindeer antlers on and all. I had a backwards Seattle Seahawks hat, go Hawks. We're going to Super Bowl again, baby. And I had a Seahawks long-sleeved shirt on. I kid you,

not, I got ostracized after the call saying how unprofessional I was wearing my hat back. And I said, let me ask you a question. Did the workshop that I facilitated turn out way worse than you thought because of my backwards hat and my shirt? Did the associates not get the proper instruction or engagement or value out of what I did because of what I was wearing? They couldn't answer it. And then they put, and then they wrote me up and put me on a BIP and that was my, and I left. I left after that, right? But because it was like, you know what, I invested a very fast, and you'll appreciate this. When you do sales your whole life, telemarketing, door to door, flipping sneakers, baseball cards, you know how much rejection you get? Like, you get a lot. So by the time I made it to corporate at 24,

it was the easiest 15 years of my life. And some people may get offended by that, but it was not hard. Like, I'd already been, had guns pulled on me. I was beaten by police at 12. I had 53 B stings in fourth grade. Almost died at 19 and almost lost my right leg. You think writing me up is going to make me afraid because I didn't wear the suit that you wanted me to wear? Like, get out of here.

You know what I'm saying? But people don't take the time to see what you're made of. They didn't know any of these stories I'm telling you or that when I wrote my best-selling book last year that came out called the life-changing power of adversity. They didn't know any of that, but guess why, Tom? they didn't get to know me. They didn't want to build contextual relationships with me.

They were interested in what I could do and what I could be for them. And I was realizing that it took me a long time to realize that I'm blazing their trail, not mine. And so when I left in 2020, when I started Blaz Your Own Trail podcast, January 1st, 2020, by the way, we didn't know there was going to be this global pandemic,

which ended up being a massive gift because now I have access to everybody who's at home like me. It was really cool. A year later, I left, right? Because I started to see the patterns. I started to see that I wasn't valued. I built so much and I was building their dream.

And I had to go blaze my own trail so I could encourage other people and say, listen, you can have a whole career in an industry and leave the next day in a completely different industry and be just fine. And that's what I did. I started a social media marketing agency. And now I've got a tech company in Belgium and I advise startups and I've got a couple books and doing it with six kids. And it's like, I'm having the most fun I've ever had my life, Tom. And there's no knucklehead in corporate with a stupid suit on that's telling me what to do.

That's freedom. That's real freedom. And I think, and there's a lesson in there too around, and other people have said this. It's not my quote, but you've heard people say, you know, what I do is not who I am. And you've heard athletes say that. You've heard musicians say that. And it's just, it really resonates with me. I mean, we have a running joke with my close friends. They're like, Tom, I have no idea what you do. And I said, who cares? It doesn't matter.

You know, it's not my identity. I don't, you know, I want you to like me. I want you to like having a beer with me. I want you to like playing around a golf with me. I want you to enjoy our daily group text exchange. That's what I care about. You know, so it's not that in my identity, and I know you'll resonate with this. And all the entrepreneur stuff and the businesses,

it's all fun, but your identity is, you know, how you show up to your family and probably a handful of close friends. And I'm the same way. That's what I care about. And I think sometimes people lose themselves of, oh, my identities that I'm partnered a law firm. Is it really? And is that really what you care about? Is that really what you're going to be thinking about on your deathbed? And do your kids even like you? Does your spouse even like you? Maybe you should focus more on that. The work stuff takes care of itself. One thing I've, and this, This another mentor of mine, I looked at him one time and I said, Bob, one of the things I really respect about you is you've hit a home run in two different areas as a person and as a professional.

My belief is either of those is easy. It's really easy to be a good person, be present for your kids. And I think it's really easy to be super successful professionally. Put your head down, do the corporate grind, make partner, go to med school, be a great salesperson, whatever. I think either of those things are easy to do. What's difficult is doing both of them at an incredibly high level. And I said, Bob, that's one of the things that I respect so much about you is you're a top-notch person and a top-notch professional. That's it. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up mentors. I know that they play a big role in your life, you know, from the childhood days, just learning from them and getting things through osmosis through having probably a handful of people that you could pick up the phone, you know, any time of day, any time of night. and actually you reach out to.

And so what would you say mentorship has done for you as a person, but also has it attributed to the growth of your businesses? Well, mentorship, to me, it's two things, right? I mean, I've told you a lot about the mentors that I have, but I've also been the mentor to people. That's the most rewarding thing in the world, right? Starting to pay it back a little bit and finding those, you know, guys that are 10, 15 years behind me and hopefully help.

them out and being that to them. And so, you know, I've tried, even people my age where not that I know it all, and I never try to show up that way, but can I be a helpful resource? Can I be a coach? Can I be a mentor? Can I ask you thought-provoking questions? I mean, I'm fortunate for eight years now. I've run a group of entrepreneurs here locally in Scottsdale and some of them older than me. But how can I help you in some areas? How can I challenge you? How can I ask you tough questions. I don't have to know it all. So I think both receiving that mentorship and giving that mentorship is really important. Yeah. And there's a second part to the question that I forgot. What was your second part? Yeah. I said how much has mentorship added to the revenue growth

of your businesses? I mean, look, it's if you look at it over the course of a career, it's millions and millions of dollars, right? I mean, it just, it just has to be. And between how it's help me personally, how it's helped me balance work in life, ideas. One of the things that I've gotten in the habit of doing, I probably should have done in my 20s, but one of the things I do now is I feel like every three to five years, maybe three years, I have a really big decision to make. And so what I now do is I go to three to five adult men that I respect that are older and more successful and more seasoned than me. And I say, here, what questions do you have? What would you do? What advice do you have? And because they're different people with different strengths, they come at it completely differently.

The accountant looks at it different than the salesperson, right? So they all come at it differently. But that's been incredibly helpful. So I've heard some people call it like your life's board of directors. But I would just say that when you have a difficult decision to make or you've got that fork in the road or you're going through a tough time, have those two, three, maybe upwards of five people that you can go to and just have that conversation with. The clarity and wisdom that you will get after those conversations makes the decision exponentially easier. So that's a big way that I use them now. Love it. Yeah, no, and that's, I love the advice. It's super important to have people you can count on, people that doesn't matter what the circumstance, what the situation. Sometimes it's a question.

sometimes it's just tears, right? But whatever it is, you need to have people that trusted advisors that you can go to in those types of circumstances. So yeah, I love it. So let's talk a little bit about the business. And, you know, you work with a lot of entrepreneurs. You mentor a lot of entrepreneurs. And I think that was great advice too.

It's like, hey, if you don't have a mentor, be one to somebody else, you know, go start paying it forward, add value to other people's lives. So can you talk a little bit about your companies, the model? And, you know, as we have entrepreneurs from all walks, we have people that are just starting. We have people running multimillion-dollar businesses that listen to the show. So there's everyone in between. But, you know, I'd love for you just to share a little bit about how your businesses work. You can talk about them a little bit.

And then I want to actually go into tips for folks that are either just getting started or they're at a stagnancy point because I know you've been probably in both of those in your career. So let's start off first with what your companies do, how they help. And then let's go into some tips for folks that might be either struggling. and getting started or stuck? Yeah, so professionally, I'll make it short and sweet. You know, the niche that I've carved out for myself, really for the past 15 plus years now,

is helping organizations perform at a higher level by empowering their people. So what does that mean? Well, it means a lot of things, right? So I may do personally do leadership development work for them. I may build them an internal knowledge center that has all of their training and onboarding and ongoing development in one centralized location. We may take over the entire HR apparatus for an organization. So anything related to

we need better people, we need to up-level their skill set, we need HR manager to just do all this for us. All of the work I do professionally plays in those areas. You know, if anyone ever wants to talk, it's just a casual conversation. I think you can tell you. I'm a pretty casual guy. If there's a way I can help, great, if not, point them in the right direction. But I just do a lot of work around helping CEOs and entrepreneurs with all of these people-related issues. And that's the work I do.

And obviously, I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone. Well, we're cut from a similar cloth because I was a training and development manager for eight years for Gables residential. So they own and manage 50,000 units. And I did all of our sales training, all of our marketing. I got certified in Myers-Briggs. I did our leadership development, six-month programs,

and got certified in sales enablements. And so I was the facilitator. I had to build all the learning management systems from Salesforce to workday, from all of that. And it sounds like that's kind of the world you're in. It's about human capital. How do we make our people better? How do we make the organization more profitable

by having better people that are teaching their people well and treating them well? And I love that. I love that that's what you're doing because there's such a need in it. It's one of those things. And you get this more than anybody, but whenever there's an issue, everyone thinks it's, it's training.

And typically it's, it's not always, you know, sometimes it's the leaders or sometimes, you know, we need to take a step back at rollouts and how many are coming out because people are just burnout and inundated. So, yeah, I love your thoughts on the industry as a whole. And what are you doing to differentiate yourselves from the people that are doing the fire hose stuff? Because I know you see a lot of that. And it's just not really conducive for growth for people to get so much in such little time and then expect to be able to retain it.

And the important work that you did for your previous employer, imagine a company with 100 employees or 50 or 150 employees. They can't afford to bring in someone like you to do it for them. And so that's really the niche we fill. In terms of kind of lay of the land, I look at everything in terms of employee life cycle. meaning everything from a job description being post to off-boarding someone and doing an exit interview. And inside of that, there are so many different things. So where I'm dangerous and the work that I do is really understanding from the CEO or the owner of the company, what's the big picture here? What's the strategy? Where are you trying to go? What culture are you trying to build? What

does this thing look like in three to five years? And I've lived that and I've worked with hundreds of companies on that. So I'm able to grab that and then say, okay, now let's talk people strategy. Because now we need that to permeate through everything we do. And are you trying to be Walmart or are you trying to be Nordstrom? Are you doubling in size or are you trying to get efficient through AI? Do you want a bunch of low wage people that are coming in and out or do you want to pay above industry average and get higher quality people that stay with you long term. Do you want to retain people forever or do you want them to churn out? So like understanding all that and then think about everywhere that applies. I mean, you get this, but the way we write our job descriptions

is based on that. The way we interview people, the way we onboard people, the way we communicate with people, the way we promote people, the way we compensate people. So that's where a lot of people in this HR human capital people operations space fall short. And I think you alluded to it, they just do the X's nose. We'll write a job description. Well, what are you basing that on? Because to me, that should be based on the strategy of the business and the culture you're trying to create. So that's all the work we do. And that's where, you know, let's not just train people on the basics. Let's burn into their mind what the culture of this organization is and how that shows up in the work they do. And that's really where my past.

is helping the CEO of the business develop a people strategy that helps them achieve what they're trying to do. Well, if you're a CEO and you're listening, Tom made it pretty clear. This is what he helps with, folks. If you, all his info is going to be in the show notes after the show air, so you're going to be able to reach out to him, get in touch. But as you can tell, just by hearing him, he's a down-to-earth guy. He's probably just going to want to jump on a call, see if you can add value, maybe give you some advice. And then if it makes sense in your good fit, I'm sure he wouldn't mind helping you.

But let's leave the audience with some tips. You know, maybe there's an organization or two that are listening to this show and they go, these are the same problems we're facing right now, Tom. Like how could somebody without your help? Maybe there's just like a few pieces of advice that you can give for an organization that's like, they're stagnant. So maybe like, you know, it's like there's some attrition,

and there's some growth, and there's some attrition, and they just can't figure out how to actually grow maybe with the right people. What would be a good game plan or something that you would give to those folks? I'll give you two things that come to jump off the top of my mind. I think first thing is really understanding at a very deep level what an A player is inside your organization. And what characteristics do they have? How do they show up?

How do they behave? What do they do in certain situations? And then once you understand that, let's go find more of them. Let's build a recruiting and interview process that attracts those types of people. And then what are we going to do with the ones that don't align with that? Are we going to tolerate it forever? Are we going to allow them to continue to steal a paycheck? Or are we going to politely offboard them?

So really understanding that. And some of my favorite case studies around this are I'll go into a company and we'll realize, hey, our best and brightest didn't go to college. or maybe they did a couple classes in community college, but they had a job since they were a teenager. They're really, really gritty, and we can teach them everything else. Well, great.

Then let's go get a bunch of hardworking, gritty people that are looking for things to do versus waiting for them to be assigned. So I think that's really important. The other thing, and I say this all the time, but if there was one lever I was trying to pull inside an organization to drive better performance out of my people, it's the importance of a great coaching session.

So think of those weekly meetings, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, supervisor talking to their team. And Jordan, if I was managing you, it would just be a matter of having great one-to-ones with you. So what can I do to help you? How can I make your life easier? Do you have everything you need to be successful? What can I do to help you get to where you want to be in this organization? I'm working for you. I'm a servant leader for you.

And I think if you have supervisors that show up that way and have great weekly coaching sessions with their team, watch what it does to performance. Because you know this. Why do people leave organizations? Because they think their boss is an idiot and they don't want to work for them. There's so many organizations out there that go, we don't do regular one-to-ones. And then I say, let me guess. People aren't held accountable. People aren't working as hard as you'd like them to. They're not being as productive. They're leaving and you don't know why. Well, because there's no relationship with the organization. They're just transacting. So I just think that's such an important lever to pull is everyone in your organization should be receiving weekly one-on-one coaching, even if it's for just 15 or 30 minutes, even if it's taking place at a job site.

I mean, it doesn't have to be high-level executive coaching, but these people just float out there. They have no purpose. But what do companies try to do? They think, oh, well, to motivate our team, I'm going to get up there at the annual all-hand. and I'm going to talk about how we're going to grow by 25% and everyone's going to be excited. Guess what? They don't care because it means nothing to them. So you got to get in there at an individual one-on-one level and figure out what makes people tick and help them. You've heard the

expression. And I think this is a great way to kind of wrap up the conversation. Because I believe it. If you help everyone else around you get what they want, guess what? You get what you want. Zing Ziegler. That's why I don't understand selfish people. People that are selfish don't get what they want. But when you just say, look, how can I help you? How can I help you? How can I help you?

Then you get everything you want. Yeah, love it. Yeah, that's such great advice. You know, feedback is a gift. And if we ask the right questions, we get the right answer. But a lot of times either we're afraid to ask or we're afraid to try something new. And what we don't realize is that's the one thing that the people need. You know, everyone wants to be heard.

Everyone wants to have a voice. They want to know that they matter, that they're cared about. And it's like, you didn't know that, like, my dog bit the neighbor kid. You know what I'm saying? But you also didn't ask, you know? And people aren't just going to spill the beans and tell you you got to be intentional. And I think the word here, folks, is being purposeful to connect. It's being purposeful to build relationships.

Because that is worth its weight in gold when you can get context that other people don't have. you now all of a sudden become that go-to person for them, that confidant when they get into trouble. They're going to remember the way that you treated them. And to your point, Tom, when we taught our six-month leadership program, guess what part of the program was, yes, there's an eight-hour session each month for the cohort, but we do individual one-on-ones during the month as well. Why? Because people need time to process. People need time to go through content and actually started to apply it and then get stuck and have somebody there that can help them. So we saw, I think it was about 30% of people that regularly made the one-on-ones

got promoted within six months after graduating the leadership program. Why? Because people invested in them. And folks, if you're not being invested in where you are, that's an issue. And you need to speak up. Don't be like me, the knucklehead that just said, you know, I'm going to take this till I can't take it anymore and then I'm going to leave. Probably. not the right way. I probably could have said something, but hindsight's always 20. When we look back, it's very clear. But don't make the mistake that I did and actually make sure your voice is heard. Now, does it mean that it's really going to be heard? I don't know. But you at least have to voice it and take that shot, that opportunity to give feedback. And one quick point I want to make on that

is what you just laid out, it doesn't matter if it's white collar, blue collar. It doesn't matter if the employees young or old, this is just human behavior. So the things you described, every single person wants that. The 19-year-old hardened man that's on your assembly line wants that just as much as the 63-year-old woman sitting behind the front desk. Everyone needs that. But if you're not giving it to them, they may not be getting it anywhere else in their life. And that's not a good thing for people. No, no, absolutely not. So yeah, be the person, right? Be the one that gives it to them, be the one that invests in your people. Literally, that's the way that a lot of these organizations can be better is just care, simple four letter word, care about your people, care about what they're

up to, ask questions, you know. And I remember when I first started, you know, back in early, mid-2000s, it was like that, but we had a restructure, we had a recapitalization. And then the waters get muddy and then things start to become former semblances of themselves, right? And again, we see this through the dawn of time. These types of things have been happening, but it doesn't mean that we still can't be great humans. So Tom, man, great advice today. I loved hearing about your story. And, you know, you've been an entrepreneur your whole life, which entrepreneurs are the real

trailblazers. We look as someone goes, hey, you got to go left and we go, right, looks, it's great. You know, didn't realize there was a rattlesnake, right? But that sucked, but let me just keep going the other direction. And we just kind of figure it out. And we fumble our way through failure to get to the other side. So I appreciate you taking the time. And one other thing I'll add to that is I always prescribed to ask for forgiveness,

not permission. Yes, yeah. If you couldn't tell, I'm a rule breaker, Tom. So yeah, I'm the one that breaks the rules all the time and I'm getting fussed at by my wife. She's like, do you think that's like, I don't know. I just thought I would try it. My wife's a rule follower or two. Yeah, it's, isn't that fun?

It works. Believe me, it works. Because if they were like us, we'd be in big trouble, brother. Well, hey, Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show. I do want to give you an opportunity to share a quote. Any other piece of advice as we're closing up? I'll give you a weird one, but it's something that I've often said and really believe in, which is operate paranoid. Now, I'm not saying it's healthy to wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat

and being stressed out, but I'm never comfortable. All right, I always assume that every client could leave tomorrow. Everything could come crashing down. I'm very paranoid in, I believe, a healthy way. But I'm constantly, I'm never comfortable. And I think that it's important for us, especially for the entrepreneurs listening, new or seasoned, to just run level. Okay. Don't ever get too carried away with the highs.

Don't ever let those lows bring you down too low. Just run level because this just. journey is an absolute roller coaster and never get comfortable, never assume anything's going to be perfect and smooth forever. It's a wild ride, folks, but we all love it. You know, trailblazing is not easy, but it's so worth it. Tom, thanks so much for coming on the show. I know our audience is going to get so much value learning from your story and journey. Folks, run to the show notes. Don't walk. Make sure you connect with Tom. We're going to make sure all his info is down there for you. Until next time, brother, keep blazing your own trail.

Have an awesome day. Thanks, Jordan.