Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #53: Tank Sinatra And The Power Of Perspective

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

What if you could change your life by simply making a decision and then backing it up with the action it takes to make that decision a reality? Tank Sinatra explains to us that it actually is that easy. However, it doesn’t end there. Trusting the process you’re in becomes your most treasured asset if you can realize that everything you do will lead to your betterment and growth, which means you will always get what you want out of your endeavors and what you’re looking for will indeed present itself.  About The Guest:  Tank Sinatra is the largest and most prolific meme creator on the Internet. Possibly the most reposted/plagiarized man in the world right now, and loving every second of it.  Sinatra hosts The Think Tank podcast as well as a weekly IGTV series on Tank's Good News Instagram page. “Currently developing stand up comedy material in case the internet decides to stop caring about me”. More From Tank Sinatra: Listen to The Think Tank Podcast  Follow his many Instagram accounts: @influencersinthewild  @tank.sinatra @tanksgoodnews @thethinktankpodcast Click if you’d like to donate to the True Hero Fund  To inquire about the May coaching program opportunity email me here: [e-mail] Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this LINK and when you DM me the screen shot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!  My book Confidence Creator is available now! get it right HERE If you are looking for more tips you can download my free E-book at my website and thank you! https://heathermonahan.com *If you'd like to ask a question and be featured during the wrap up segment of Creating Confidence, contact Heather Monahan directly through her website and don’t forget to subscribe to the mailing list so you don’t skip a beat to all things Confidence Creating! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited. You're here today. So much is going on.

It's, well, obviously, so much is going on for everyone right now as quarantine continues. And there's tremendous uncertainty. And in a weird way, I have to tell you, for me, it's almost. become easier, the longer we're in it, right? So the first couple of weeks I was freaking out, I thought I was going to die. I wondered, you know, can I get this thing? Is something going to happen to me? I'm scared. I didn't understand what was happening. Now I understand if I stay inside and stay safe, I will be healthy and okay. So I'm in control of that. I feel anyways, much more in control of that. And so that's been really great. I've created a quarantine routine,

which is so random and weird, but I am so excited to clean my house all day Saturday with my hip-hop 90s music playing, which is insane. I never thought I would say that in my life. Okay. Strange times. So anyhow, my routine is getting a lot better. I started eating more normal. I was eating out of control the first few weeks and definitely gained weights.

And now I'm trying to reverse that on the back half of the quarantine. And luckily, I have my peloton, so I'm able to work out. every day, which is a lifesaver. And my son, you know, homeschooling is a challenge. I'm not going to lie about that. It's tough to keep him focused on his schoolwork and keep him in a routine without his athletics is really a challenge, you know, and without being able to see friends. And he's doing a really good. And I guess overall, you know what? We're thriving. We are healthy. We are good. And I'm hoping you are good, that you are healthy and you are thriving too. So some very interesting things I wanted to talk about today. First of all, this is so crazy just a couple weeks ago,

literally two weeks ago, when I realized that the majority of my speaking engagements have been canceled and I didn't see money coming in from that pipeline any longer, I had time to do what I had been asked a lot, always listen to your audience. My audience is always asking for mentoring, one-on-one coaching, et cetera. And so I said, you know what, if I'm going to do it, it's right now. So I'm launching a coaching program for May 1st. I decided this in the second. in week of April. And I just put a few posts out there saying May mentoring coaching program. Now, here's what's super important for everyone to know. Successful people will have confidence in themselves that they can figure things out, even though there is no rhyme or reason to it. Meaning,

I had no idea what a coaching program entails. I've never signed up for one. I've never taken one. But I do believe in me. And I believe that I will always over-deliver. I do. Don't let people down. And I know how to mentor people because I had thousands of employees in corporate America. And my books and my speeches have connected with people since I've been on my own, my podcast. You know, so I just thought to myself, I might not know the minutia, you know, the details. Like how do you handle the onboarding? You know, I don't have the website up.

I don't have the outline of what everyone's going to get. I don't have the testimonials yet because I haven't done it yet. But I could, for, you know, a bridge play, I could use testimonials with people that have worked with me in the past, you know, shine a light on basically what they think of me and what working with me is like, you know, so I've been able to kind of spackle together a plan in very little time with nothing prepared. I'm recording us right now. Tomorrow's May 1st. I've done all the emails for the month. So I have everything queued up. I'm trying to automate as much as I can so that I can step away from this because the more we can have systems automated so that

we can spend our time working on other projects, the more efficient, effective, and the stronger the ROI for us. So I've got a lot of clients in, and I committed a lot to these clients. And it's very, very funny because I did a pre-call with a few of the people that had questions, which is very time-consuming. And that's why it will be helpful once I have the whole website built out, because that will answer everybody's questions. I won't have to jump on calls with people, which I don't recommend. It's a time suck. But I want to do it now to understand, you know, what are the frequently asked questions so that I can build out the right website. Anyhow, so I'm on a call with someone and she happens to be a person that does coaching for a living.

And she says to me, Heather, do you know how much you took on with us? And I said, well, I'm really starting to figure it out as I'm doing it. I gave a lot of my time. She said, well, just so you know, other coaches charge 10 times what you're charging for the amount of time you put into this. So that was a real eye opener. I way undervalued my program, or what I could have done, conversely, is I could have peeled back a lot of the offerings and it still would have sold. So, you know what, you win some, you lose some, but I really wanted to go to market fast. I wanted a product people were going to rave about

so I could use those testimonials to then translate into a future pipeline for June, July, and beyond for this business. So I'm learning as I go. I offered too much for too little, which I won't do again, because basically what it's doing is, taking up a tremendous amount of my week each week in the month of May. And, you know, the way that I set it up is I guaranteed each person gets a one-on-one call with me each week. Plus, I do a weekly team meeting with the entire team. Plus, everyone gets a daily email from me. Plus, they get a strategy for me. So I layered on so much value that it's really going to cut a lot into my month, a tremendous amount. Lesson learned. Okay. So we pivoted.

and we just move forward. We say, you know what, I'm learning a lesson and I'm going to do a better job for next month. And I'm going to have really happy clients, which is always great news. Okay, so the funny thing about it is I didn't know how I would build it and I'm building it on the fly. It launches tomorrow and we're going to figure it out. But something pretty cool happened. I did this presentation, virtual presentation for Harvard, I think two weeks ago now, and the results were amazing and I got unbelievable feedback, which is great because I've had to pivot my speaking business into a virtual model. to try to secure and basically recoup some of those dollars that I had lost from the keynote speaking engagements. And getting those testimonials from Harvard really helped me. Well, what also helped is I also did another virtual summit a week ago for the Bright Side. And those two examples for me taught me how to be a better virtual speaker. Well, wouldn't you know, I got hired to be a virtual speaker this week coming up on Tuesday for a company. And now I feel prepared because I've done two different events. And tomorrow I'm launching another virtual event with my coaching team.

So all these things, even though it's a lot of work and, you know, I'm figuring it out as I go, it's also preparing me for these paid opportunities that I'm going to continually be able to leverage those testimonials to go out and charge more money for my virtual events. So interestingly enough, along this whole situation over the past, however many weeks we are now six weeks, I was thinking about how we can not see the value in something in the moment or not realize what could potentially come from relationships we have. And there's two examples I want to share with you that just came to fruition this week. The first one, I was in the radio business, I'm sure as you know, for 20 something years. and I was a keynote speaker for a huge event in New York. It's called the LOAC in NYC each year.

It's a media conference. And I was a keynote speaker for either two or three of those years. And the founder and the man who ran the event became a friend of mine. We hit it off. We just got along great. I actually wrote a chapter in my book Confidence Creator about him. He was someone that I admired, but I never wanted to pitch for me to be a speaker because I was scared that he wouldn't think I was good enough.

Fast forward, he saw me. speak at a conference randomly and text me while I was on stage, holy cow, you're a great speaker. And that prompted me to send him an email and pitch myself to be a speaker for his event, which he declined the first time I sent the note, but the next year he gave me an opportunity. And the following year, he gave me the main stage. So it was just one of those reminders to me that you don't need to wait for someone to show you they're interested. Ask for what you want when you see the opportunity.

don't wait for someone to give you permission or invite you to ask. So anyhow, so this person has become a friend of mine, and then I left the media industry, and we didn't see each other very much. And I heard, this was about, I guess two months ago now, I heard his conference was coming to Miami. And I was kind of sad. I thought, wow, just because I'm not in media anymore,

I can't believe he didn't reach out to me. He's flying speakers in from all over the country. I wonder why he didn't at least send me a note and ask me if there was any way he could book me. So it kind of bummed me out and I moved on. Okay. So then it really started bumming me out and I said, you know what? I'm going to send him a note.

So I sent him a note. This is a couple months ago. And I just said, listen, I don't know how you're doing, but I heard that you're coming to Miami and I can't believe you didn't tell me. I know that we aren't in the same industry anymore and don't see each other as much. And maybe it's a little bizarre because the woman that fired me is actually a client of his. So maybe that's a conflict of interest. I don't know.

But I just wanted to say hi. And I wish I could have been considered. for a speaker for you since I did a great job for you a number of times. He responds back, oh my gosh, Heather, forgot you were in Miami. Yeah, right. And, you know, of course I would have considered you, but we already have a locked and loaded schedule and so, you know, happy for all your success. Very nice email. But I was a little bummed out. Okay, fast forward to this week. So this week, I get an email from him, remind you, I hadn't spoken to him in a very long time over, at least over a year.

And he had C-Ced someone on the email. And it was an introduction to me as one of the best speakers that he knows for motivation, inspiration, and sales. And this person was looking for a keynote speaker for her virtual conference in May for her sales organization in the publishing business. And this person was recommending me. And it was so funny because it just goes back to, this is someone that I've known from my past life.

I know years ago that I did a great job for, that we had a great relationship, but we went our own way. And when I heard he was coming to Miami, I just sent him this ping. And I think that that's what kind of put it in his mind again. Oh, yeah, she's still out there, you know. So I just wanted to remind you, it's so important to take good care of relationships, even if they're not a primary relationship, but staying on people's radar in a positive way, you know, offering to help out where we can, or even just reaching out and asking, hey, I heard your conference is coming up this year. I'm excited for you. looking, you know, just reach out to people once in a while because I really think that's what prompted him to get me this opportunity, which then in turn I called the woman he connected me to,

and I landed the speaking engagement. So now I've got another virtual speaking engagement during this time that I didn't know I would be able to land any. So, you know, and then I'll leverage that review that she'll give me, and I'll put that on social, and that will drive more business for me. So, you know, just don't forget about those people that we have in our contacts, in our networks, in our life because you just never know which one of those dots might connect to bring you more business or more opportunity. And likewise, in a very similar sense, my guest today, who's such a fantastic, fun, successful guy with such an amazing story, I was introduced to him virtually. We did not know each other face to face, which is so crazy, but virtually through a mutual friend

of ours in New York. I was in New York a lot last year doing press and interviews and whatnot and promoting my book and doing speaking engagement. And I was working with James Altichere and some other friends on doing a live event. And it came up that this person, Tank Sinatra, was going to be one of our headliners. We had four headliners, James, myself, Tank, and my friend Amy Morin. And we were so excited about this event. We ended up getting the whole event underrated by a magazine who wanted to be the lead sponsor. That's where the problems actually came in. However, We were all working together virtually on email, phone calls, and whatnot, and the event ended up falling apart because the magazine did not like, they didn't think we were putting enough effort in to selling tickets ahead of time. It was a complete disaster.

But what we all agreed, the four speakers, is that we wanted to work together again. Everyone went their own way. After that happened, I reached back out to Tanks Sinatra to tell him. I love getting to know him virtually and that I really wanted the chance to interview him. him in my podcast at some time when his schedule would allow. And he agreed. He said, let me know next time you're in New York. Well, every time I was in New York, he was either out of the city or committed to different events that he was in. It just, the timing wasn't lining up. Well, of course, now that we're in quarantine, suddenly people are free. And I sent him a DM and he replied right away. Yeah, Heather,

all the days run together. Days don't matter anymore whenever you need me. So Tank Sinatra is this amazing person because he's got such a great personal story of overcoming adversity, of fighting through tough times and coming out the other side, and a lot of personal struggle around believing in himself and confidence that I know you're really going to relate to because I still relate to it. But it does make me feel better when I hear these people that are uber successful that they still struggle too. It just reminds me, you know, we're all in this together

and we all share those feelings at different times. Tank has three different accounts on Instagram with millions of followers per account. And you're going to hear him explain to you how for a long time he was afraid to take the leap and just go to work for himself. Now he has huge brand deals, brand sponsored deals. He said that right now this year, he's killing it more than ever. I'm so happy for him. I'll be it a little jealous, but super happy for him. And I actually just saw on Instagram this week that he's doing the first ever virtual fundraiser for Instagram. He's hosting it. And the talent that he's interviewing and hosting with is unbelievable. You've got to check him out. And influencers in

the wild, which is one of his accounts, is the funniest thing I've ever seen. The guy is hilarious. He's as real as it gets. And I'm so excited for you to meet him. So hang tight. We're going to be right back with Tank Sinatra. And welcome back. I'm so excited for, wait, I'm excited to meet him. I was supposed to meet him a while ago. I'm excited to be here. And I'm excited for you to be. here too with Tank Sanadra. Tank, thanks for being with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, living that coronavirus life.

I live in that quarantine existence, baby. I mean, it's so weird because I wrote a tweet a while ago about people saying nice to e-meet you in email, nice to e-meet you. It's like you don't have to say that. This is like where we live. Like this is who we are now. It's just nice to meet you. You meet people over email and I'm saying, thanks for having me here.

Like, I'm home. And you're home. Thanks for being here. Thank God this didn't happen, whatever it was. Like, what's the sweet spot of the internet kind of like being around but not really accessible like 15 years ago? Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh.

If we didn't have the internet to connect right now, this would be horrific. Yeah. I mean, it's a double-edged sword, right? Because you have the connection of all the technology and that's why this thing spread so fast. And you look back to the pandemic of 1918 and it was contained because travel was limited, but it was still devastating. but they had no way to communicate with each other. All they had was news.

The newspapers, actually, there was no TV. It was just newspapers. That'll be interesting to, after this is all over, to look and see how that affected people mentally. That'll be really interesting to see if it was harder on them being more isolated and getting less news or if it was harder on us getting so much news. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it was tough.

I just found out when this whole thing kicked up, my grandma was a big figure in my life. She just was, when I think of like the, the human form of love. Like she was just full, full of love. And I found out that her sister died in the pandemic of 1918. Her sister was five years old and she died of, I know, terrible. And she died of diphtheria.

She didn't even die of the flu, but the hospitals were so overrun, she couldn't get the care. And to think that there's somebody, like, to think that there was somebody out there who could have been like my grandmother that would have been another person for me to meet and to love me was, you know, it was a whole. thing, but I just read, and I'm not sure if this is true, I guess you can look it up if somebody listens to this and they want to know. But the pandemic of 1918 that you hear about was actually

the second wave of the pandemic because people were doing social distancing. They were staying home. And then the war ended. The people came home and they were like, yo, I want to see my family and my friends. I want to like hang out. And that's what the wheels in motion of that devastating pandemic. And right now you look at what's going on with people protesting. And like, I get it. I totally understand. People are having a hard time to struggling. If you're struggling financially and that's your motivation, fine. But you look at these protests, they're not,

and I'm not trying to set the tone here with politics, but they're not protests. They're Trump rallies. That's what they are. If you look at them and it's like, I just feel bad for people who can't do the right thing, even against their own better judgment. They think that everyone's lying to them, you know?

And it's just, I hope that we get through this. and there's one round, and then the second round is less devastating, not more devastating than the first. It's crazy to even think of. I've disciplined myself during this time to, I live in a no judgment zone. I've just declared it, and I refuse to judge anybody because sometimes it's my nature to comment on how someone's being a knucklehead or this or that. And at the beginning, I was getting so angry at people when I would hear, even my own friends that weren't taking this seriously. and I was getting so mad. And I've just decided that I'm not judging anyone

because it is so easy to go down that road right now. It's scary. I feel like anytime you do something for the first time, it's difficult no matter what it is. Yes. So here we are collectively all going through this thing for the first time together. And every day is another first time.

Because it's like, okay, I did the right thing for a month. Now we're into week five. I want to get back to work. I'm hungry. Like I can't pay my bills. I'm scared. I'm frustrated. I'm lonely. All these different things. And people are handling it. People are handling it differently. And I just feel very, I've never felt more grateful to do what I do than during this thing. It's amazing. Yeah. And that's, I really want to talk to you about this because, number one, and I mentioned this to you earlier, so many people think, oh, I can be an internet celebrity and I'll just launch an Instagram handle or a YouTube channel and I'm going to get paid millions, aka my son tells me this all the time.

And, you know, you actually did it. I would love it if you could share the story of who you were back in the day, the adversity that you faced, the career changes and chances that you took to get you to where you are now, having millions of followers and making a living online. Yeah. So it's been a long road. It really has. I think that people in general, myself included, especially when I was younger, people think,

And it's so hard for me to get this thought out because it's convoluted. But essentially, I believe that people think that whatever phase of your life, they discover you at, that's where you've always been. Like, you just started to exist when they discovered you. Yes. You were never a baby. You were never a baby. You never got bullied in school. You never struggled.

You never went to college and failed. Like, believe me. And I say it very succinctly, I made every single mistake you could possibly imagine. I had so many different jobs. I talked to this guy Robert Green, who's an author. He wrote the 48 Laws of Power. And we went through kind of how many jobs we had. And we were pretty close.

I think his number is like 68 or 70. And I'm right there. I'm like definitely over 60 jobs. Just because some jobs I had for one day, some jobs I had for a week, some jobs I had for a month to three months. But I just wanted to try as many different things as possible. And so there was a couple of pivotal points in my life.

One was when I was in California and I was living there on, and I know this sounds weird, but I promise to you it's the most New York tough thing I could possibly do. I went there on a spiritual journey. Everyone has images of like stay and ponytail and linensos when you say spiritual journey. But I really went there just to go mitzvah myself essentially. Like I was a 29-year-old man. I felt like I could coast through this life.

you know, I knew every road on Long Island. I knew my favorite deli. I knew the good ones, the bad ones, my favorite restaurants, my least. Like I knew everybody everywhere. I couldn't go to any place without seeing somebody I knew. And I just wanted to see what it was like to go somewhere and be, not get a fresh start, just go struggle on purpose for an indefinite period of time. So I went for, it wound up being a year.

And in that time, the IRS caught up with me. I worked in restaurants and restaurants are notoriously bad at reporting income. and, you know, I felt like the restaurant reported improperly, so I just never paid my taxes. So, the IRS, they don't take that excuse. Eventually, I woke up one day, and I went there with $10,000 in my bank account. And for me, at the time, that was a ton of money. That was the most money I ever had in my life. And I drove to California.

It took me two weeks, and by the time I got there, I had like $4,500. I was just living like Brewster's millions on the drive across the country. I was just spending, I was like buying souvenirs and leaving in places. I was just wasting money. So I still had $4,500, which at the time was only half as much money, still more than I had ever had up to that point. And I went through so fast and I was doing mortgages and it was 2009 and I was selling mortgages and I was closing deals. But they weren't funding because the financial collapse and the real. estate markets had totally collapsed at that time. So I was broke, broke, broke, broke. I woke,

I woke up. I had zero dollars and zero cents in my bank account. Chase sent me a text. They were like, Chase was like, yo, what the hell? You said you were going to keep $200 in this account and there's no money in here. So I called, I started reporting. I was like, this must be fraud. I don't know what's happening. And the woman was like, no, the IRS has levied your account and they've garnished, you know, they took, they emptied my bank account. I didn't even know they can do that. They can do whatever they want. The IRS can do whatever they want when it comes to your money or money i guess because so this is the pivotal point i was complaining to a friend of mine which i don't ever do anymore but i was in a time in my life where i needed

to complain and i was like i don't know what i'm going to do i feel like you know every which way i turn is a dead end i don't know how i'm going to get out of this and he looks at me and he goes and i also believe this but not for me he goes he goes dude some just people are not some people are just not meant to have money and i looked at him and i go yeah not me And this guy who was tying his shoes in the locker room, I was like, oh, damn. Like, this guy, this guy means business. And that was the first time in my life that I had made a decision to be successful.

And I believe decisions are only decisions if they're backed up by action. Otherwise, they're just thoughts. That's not a decision. And I decided to come home. I started working to my friend, fence company. I committed to him. And I started the Instagram page while I was working. for him just as like a side outlet. I've always had some kind of outlet. I started a blog in

2003, then I had another one in 2005, then I had a video blog in 2009 when I was in California. I had a website called IFodoneytoday.com that I won a Webby Award for. That was a cool deal. That was in 2012. And the Instagram thing was really just like a pastime. It was never meant to be something. I always, when I started it, I did feel like this could be interesting if this works out. But if it doesn't, I'm just going to self-end and be a family man and support my family that way because it was such a great job. Then it started to really take off. And then what happened was I signed a deal for a year with a dating app. And I figured I have a year to breathe.

During this year, I'm going to figure out some other stuff. And I feel like time is time. I believe mental energy is more important than time and less easy to come by. and I said, if I can free up all my mental energy, maybe I'll come up with a great idea that will allow me to, you know, to step into this thing even further. And that's, you know, I came up with Thanks Good News in November of that year. And tanks good news grew and exploded. Then I started, you know, doing sponsorships on that page.

I started doing sponsorships on Tank Sinatra. The whole time I felt like it was a fluke up until very recently I started influencers in the wild and that page grew to a million in three weeks. And I was like, maybe I do know what I'm doing here, and I should stop second-guessing myself. And just enjoy it. And if it ends tomorrow, I had a good run. Like, it's been almost three years now.

I feel like at this point, even if I don't do Instagram for the rest of my life, I feel like I've done what I came to do, and everything else is just gravy now. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest

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Don't wait. Go to quince. com slash confidence for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash confidence to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash confidence. I think it's so important, I feel like for people to understand that you were a salesperson, you were working in restaurants, you were traveling around trying to just get by until you, like you said, you had that pivotal moment, you committed to something, you went all in, yet you still

had this creative outlet, and you weren't clear that that was going to be your income or your future, but you just kept going and kept building and suddenly it became it. Yeah, because I had the fence job, because I was still selling fence, I was able to build up a lot of trust with my followers and not do a ton of ads and not do ads for like sex toys and, you know, we'll write your papers for college students. Like I didn't do any of that stuff because, A, they weren't offering enough money. B,

it just didn't make any sense from my page. So I turned down, I mean, tons of, not tons of money. I turned down money that I definitely would have taken had I not had defense job. But now I'm in a position where I'm, you know,

I'm just like any other. It's still sales. Like when I quit my job, my wife was a little nervous, like 3% out of 100. She was like, I don't know. It just seems like there's,

security in the fence company and I said no honey it's sales like there's no security I'm as I'm as employable is my most recent sale how big that's done my next one and it's the same thing here except the the sales are much more lucrative in this game than the fence business and the analogy that you're giving is the sale is creating the content and putting it out there um no the sale so the sale would be I guess so I mean I do need to sell people to come to my page or to stay on my page with every post, but more so the brand deals that I get where I, I don't know, I just feel like my page is unique and special because it's my own. And because of that, I won't, I don't take what they offer. I try and get, you know, as much as I possibly can. And I've been able to make a nice living

doing that. And just, you know, talking to people about building relationships. And the other big thing is besides the sale, besides asking for more negotiating and standing your grounds and all that stuff. Being easy to work with is huge, huge. Probably my single most beneficial piece of advice that I can give to somebody is be easy to work with. Don't be a pain in the ass. Push back on what's important to you, but just be easy. Don't nag. Don't annoy. Don't be panicky. Don't have anxiety. That turns people off. Just like it turns people off in dating, it turns people off in business also and they don't want to work with you anymore. They do one campaign with you and then they're done. They're like, we can't work with that guy anymore.

It's so interesting because right now, I feel like so many people are everything that you just listed off, panicky, stressful, annoying, right? I mean, it's like everyone's immersed in that, and it definitely is a discipline to manage that and decide I'm not going to show up like that today. Yeah, you know, I spoke to a friend of mine who's been working for, it was timing for forever and now it's the Meredith.

He's been with them for 20 years as a salesperson, and he's still nervous he's going to lose his job every three months. Why? And I'm not saying that as that's a bad thing. I'm saying like that actually made me feel better because when you like there's absolutely on paper no security to what I do. The only security I have is in providing content for people that they enjoy, stick around for, tell their friends about the page grows and the ability to create content

for brands that makes them look good but also fits on my page. You know, makes them look like they know what's going on in the meme world. and it's very up in the air. It could be. Or I could have faith and say, no, I trust myself to be valuable and I deserve the success and I shouldn't feel bad about it and I shouldn't worry. I signed a year-long contract in 2017. In June of 2017, I sent invoice number six and I said, oh, my God, I only have six months left

on this invoice. And then I did the same thing in 2018 and 19. And then I did it again this year. And I said, no, like you can't live your life secure 50% of the time and insecure 50% of the time. You're good right now. And that is literally all that matters. You're totally fine at this exact moment. And if you keep making this exact moment productive and fruitful and valuable, I guess you're now in six months is going to be the same way.

I think, you know, that's my cake on it. That's so good. There's so much value in what you just share it. And I appreciate that you share that you don't always feel. confident. On the outside looking in, and I'm looking at the fact that you've created three beyond successful handles, millions of followers, that's shocking to me. I mean, you have so much staying power, so much talent, you do know what you're doing, but it definitely makes me feel like in good company because I know for me, anytime I do something new or, you know, go all in on something,

I doubt that myself, I wonder if it's going to work. And it's normal, I think oftentimes to continue to have some underlying doubt. And to take that a step further, yeah, when you get into something, you wonder if it's going to work out, I'll gaslight myself and look at something that is definitely working and be like, something's missing here. Something's not right. Something feels like, no, dude, you're fine. I don't remember exactly the wording, but I remember reading something that was like, when

you look back on your life, it's so easy to see how the puzzle pieces fits together. Yes. Everything worked out to your advantage. So if you always look back and know that, use the same glasses or perspective looking forward and just know that everything is always going to work out and lead to your betterment and growth. And even if it feels like what you didn't want, you do want growth. So you get what you want. Like you get what you want either way.

So looking back, looking forward, I feel like knowing my whole story and looking from the inside out, I know things that you don't know, but I have to look at it from where you sit or where someone else sits and think, I'm just going to take the long view here and not know every single thing about myself and not make everything a big deal. I read a lot of Ryan Holiday and Stoic philosophy, which is, I love that guy so much. He does a good job of putting ancient philosophies into modern terms. I'm looking. I have the obstacle as a way right here in front of me. Oh, it's so good. So good.

It's so good. So just taking different perspectives on things and assuming the perspective of someone from the outside looking in, would I judge myself as harshly? No, absolutely not. I try and look at myself how, like how I look at my son where he has things that he does that I wish he would do differently, but nothing will change the way I see him. I try and have that same feeling about myself because otherwise I can get hung up on the smallest infraction that is going to have no lasting impact on my life

and has no real significant impact even in the current moment and say, this is who I am now. I am a piece of shit and I don't deserve anything good and that's just the way it's going to be. And even if something good happens, I don't let myself enjoy it.

So I try to not do that, joy, the big things and the little things. I'll tell you what, I get a lot more joy typically out of little things because I'm trying to extract joy from it than the big things. The big things I'm just trying to. get through without blowing them apart, you know?

hilarious to me. I would imagine because of Tank's Good News, which literally I message you this the other day, I cry my eyes out at least once a week from that feed. I freaking love it. If you haven't checked out, Tank's Good News, you have to check it out. It's amazing.

And I would imagine you must get so many DMs from people thanking you for sharing those stories that must just melt your heart. I'll tell you what, not that I'm numb to it now. I had my own experience. I did a campaign where this company wanted to put together a good news newspaper. And I had to go back through like six months of stories and scroll through and get the, you know, get what I thought were the best stories. And I had a similar experience to what I imagined people who just discovered a page would have where I was like, holy shit. I cannot believe all this good stuff happened in the past six months.

And I had moments where I didn't enjoy myself where I felt down and frustrated or like the world was crumbling. And it's like it really 100% is about your perspective and what you're looking for. Because not only will you find good stuff when you change your perspective, as you know, we talked about it on the Marie podcast, the reticular activation system or whatever it is, what you're looking for will present itself in a way that could not have happened before had you not decided this is what I want to see now. I want to see this in the world. Or, you know, the only example that everyone relates to is when you're shopping for a new car and then you start seeing that car everywhere on the road, everywhere. So if that applies to cars, that applies to everything. I'll tell you, there is, and I like this because specific to us going through this new

and very difficult uncertain time, you had posted a story, I believe it was a FedEx driver who had sanitized a package for. for a home that had a young girl that was sick, I think it was? Yeah. And that story to me, just seeing that in this horrible time, people are that caring for someone they don't even know and how much just affects me. So you're right, if you want to change the way that you're feeling,

if you want to not feel negative and stressed out, dive into that page, go through that feed, and you will come out a happier person. Yeah, if you're open to it. I like to say I salute my brain with positivity. because not everything I look at has a big effect on me, but I never know when that information is going to present itself in my brain when I need it most, whether it's 30 minutes from now or two weeks from now where I remember something.

There was a period of time where I was having a lot of different revelations and thoughts and new things were occurring to me. I was seeing things differently. And I realized it was a few months after I read like five amazing books. And I was like, oh, I'm the smartest person. person in the world. I know more than everybody. My wisdom is unmatched. I can't believe I didn't realize this before. I'm going to write a book. So I started reading books to like kick up new ideas in my head. And I read these books and I was like, every single one of these ideas is from these

books that I thought I came up with. Listen, the way you packaged it was different. You know, if no one's ever going to have, I really do believe it. And I've had people, I wrote a book two years ago and I've had a couple of people say, you know, do you mind if I use some of the ideas from your book or the structure or the editor? And I always say, I don't care because here's the thing that I've learned. No one is going to have, tell it the way I tell it. No one's going to have my life experiences or your life experience, right? You're going to always put your own flavor on it, which is going to be different. And at the end of the day, everyone is really preaching the same things ultimately. I thought I was

the first person to write so much about gratitude until I found David Meltzer's book, until I saw that Tony Robbins has been talking about this forever, you know? So sometimes we're just living in our little bubble and we don't even realize we're just regurgitating things that are already out there. Well, yeah, I mean, there's no original thoughts anymore, which is great because that means that the playing field is level and it kind of opens everything up where you can just say whatever you want. And listen, plagiarism is obviously a different story if you're taking full pages or passages from the place. But it's just like a chef. Like the chef was using the same ingredients as the other chefs and he might even be making the same dish but it tastes different

when he makes it because he puts his spin on it. That's a great analogy. So tell me, I have to tell I struggle so much with Instagram, which I know so many people do because it's an opportunity for us to build our business, build our reach, our audience, et cetera. So how do you create the level of content that you do a day? What happens? What does that look like? What does my, screen time look like, you mean? Yeah, like a day in the life of you creating content. What is that like? So I've been doing it for a while now. So I kind of have a little bit of the system. I'm not scrounging so much for content anymore. I also have a good knack to know what's going to do well and what's not. If something's going on or I have a meme that I want to make, I will find a picture

to match that sentiment or I'll just look at pictures and hope a caption pops up. But I also have time hop, which is an app that pulls up whatever you posted on. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter from a year to three, four, five years ago, whatever it is. And much like, I guess, a comedian built his act, I have content that I've made over the years that if it still applies, I'll post that for the day or I'll post that for the timing. And then if something else comes up, I'll post that. But I just enjoy it. I just enjoy creating or putting a spin on something, like you just said, like might even be

a similar meme to one that was already made or if somebody makes a meme that's similar to what I made. I don't care because I used to care a lot. You used to care a ton. When I was just growing my account, I would police everyone and everything. I'd be messaging people on Reddit. Like, give me credit for this. Like, not one person is leaving Reddit searching for Tanks & Nachon Instagram and following me, let alone thousands, which is what I thought it was.

I thought every opportunity was a missed opportunity. And the only thing that works is, I think, or that I found, is relentless, unending consistency and authenticity. Like you can't take a day off. You certainly can't take a week off. Definitely can't take a month off, which people think, oh, I'm, you know, my take is so unique.

I'm just going to post whenever I feel like it. That might work for your hardcore fans, but you're never going to grow the page that way. And thanks good news was kind of the same way. I was looking on Reddit, looking on Twitter, just for good news. major media outlet has a good news platform, they just bury it behind the shootings and the coronavirus and whatever else is getting people upset that day. And by the way, I don't even blame them for doing

that. And I don't blame us. It's just a fact of life. Humans are programmed for negativity because we want to survive. So we think if I pay attention to negativity, then I'll live longer. And people that share it think they really think they're doing their friends of favor by sharing this article that is just absolutely terrifying. So it's nobody's fault. But the fact of the matter is the good news is buried, but you've got to look for it. But if you know where to look for it,

it's not that hard to find. And that was a great time in my life. When I was just digging for good news all the time, oh my God, I mean, it was like my whole life changed. And it was already good. I already sought out positivity, but I was forced to deliberately and in a disciplined manner

seek out good news that happened that day. It's so interesting to hear that because it reminds me of when I first became a mother and spending time reading to your child, all these beautiful books and wonderful stories. And then as he became older, we'd watch Disney movies and all these positive, you know, when you really immerse yourself in positive entertainment and consuming positive content, it does affect your brain. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Your brain is just a big... I saw a tweet the other day. the person wasn't credited, it was on Reddit and the handle was cropped out, but somebody said, oh, my brain is acting irrationally. And the other person goes, really, the three pounds of meat with electricity in your skull is acting irrationally? Can't believe it. Like, it's a wonder that the thing even works. It's literally meat with electricity in it.

It's bizarre. So the more you can, obviously, the more you can form those positive synapses, connections. It's just like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a beautiful cycle of finding and seeking goodness and positivity and love and kindness and all the stuff that makes us great. The other stuff makes us human too, though. The violence makes us human, the aggression, the envy, the greed. That's human also. It's no less human. It's just not, if I had a choice, which I do, and everyone does, I would choose not to focus on that. And that's a choice I made a long, long time ago. And it takes practice also. I have decades of practice of seeking out positivity. Well, it's so great that you've created this

account. But what's so interesting to me is how different each one of your three accounts are. And sometimes how I see overlap in the comments on Tank Sinatra, people will say, you shouldn't, you're coming too hard at Britney Spears or whatever joke you're making because you can tell they're following Tank's Good News. Do you get a lot of hate comments on that account? You know, I thought Tank's Good News was untrollable when I first started it and I found out very quickly that it's not. People being rude on the internet has so little to do with what's actually being posted and so much to do with how they're doing on that particular day. And with that in mind, I don't get too upset by comments anymore. But I do laugh when people go, oh, you know, tanks good news guys making jokes about this or that or

being rude to so many comments. Like, listen, I'm a fucking 39-year-old recovering drug addict meathead from Long Island. Like, I'm not what, I'm no Mother Teresa at all. I'm such a human being. I'm so human. It's not even funny. And obviously, the only thing that keeps me from engaging with rudeness on the internet is not what people will think of me. It's just like, I can't, because if I engage with someone, I think about them for a half an hour after it. And I don't want to think about that person for a half an hour. So instead, I just block them. I forget their screen name and it's like it never happened. If your anxiety, depression,

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That's tachiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. Oh, good for you. Yeah, I don't like those nasty comments that I see, but it does make me laugh sometimes. So tell me a little bit about how you blew up. think it had something to do with the fat Jewish started reposting. Yeah. Yeah, he was like super helpful in the beginning. And he's been helpful, but from a distance in different ways for the years. Like he's somebody who, he's so smart. By the way, like he is legitimately a genius. He was

going to be famous for some reason or another and he was going to be rich. When you look at his history of, you know, making viral videos on the internet with, you know, giving the homeless people a spin class on the city bikes, which is so funny. Or any of the stuff that he's done, the music career, the memes, the wine. Like, he was going to make it somehow, some way. And he just reposted the crap out of me the first year that I was making memes.

I page up to, like, I don't remember if it was 300 or 400, it was somewhere at 300 to 400,000. And I remember when he stopped reposting me, I became very dependent on that. I became very dependent on his traffic to my page. and I remember when he stopped I was like, this sucks, I wish I was still getting reposted and my next thought was

just build the page yourself. You have a great head start, a head start that you could have never even thought a fathomed a year ago. So make the most of it and it was about, you know, when you see the followers come in and you watch the page grow 100, 200,000, whatever, like you watch all these numbers come in.

It's just, it's kind of like gaining weight and before you know it, you see somebody you haven't seen it a while. And they're like, are you okay? You're huge. What are you doing? It's so incremental and it's so hard to feel that growth. But I remember being at a store and I was asking the owner.

I was like, how's business just chatting him up? And he goes, it's good now. It was really good. We had this guy hanging out here and he was huge on social media and he was bringing a lot of business to the store. And I was like, oh, what's his name? At this point, I still assumed that I knew everybody who had a big page on Instagram. He goes, whatever, you know, whatever the name was,

I looked a guy up. And at this point, I had like 540,000 followers and something like that. And I looked a guy up and he had like 12,000 followers. Oh, my gosh. He was describing him as huge on social media. And I didn't tell him, like, the page I had, I didn't tell him who I was or anything. But it then occurred to me that maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe I do have something really special and I shouldn't squander this opportunity and make the most of it.

Oh, you definitely didn't. So I'm so glad you had that realization. So you were recently, just at the end of last year, I believe, on Ellen DeGeneres, the show. Yeah. And there's been a lot of negative talk about her very recently that was really surprising. One of the things that, you know, I love this segment. Did you see me ducked down and disappear when you brought that? Yes, I was trying to not respond so that I could just keep going.

Because clearly, you're questioning what I'm about to ask you. No, no, no. One of the things that, a couple of things, number one, were you really on the fly with those responses or had they prepped you? Because you were nailing those potential memes that she was firing up at you. That was on the fly.

It really was? Sure, yeah. Oh, it wasn't. It was staged. Well, you know, everything is planned on that show. In my defense, not that you're asking me to defend myself, they gave me a bunch of pictures the night before and we're like, we need three captions for this one, five for this one, three for this one, three for this one. And I was like, I'm done.

I'm out of captions. Like, I don't know what else to say anymore. I'm totally, I'm toastier. So I said, just do me a favor. Give me like a little spontaneity and don't tell me which ones are going to be on the show. And then when I saw the picture, I was like, oh, I remember the funniest caption that I came up with from this one. So let me say that one. So it came off a little spontaneous, but I was prepped on what the pictures were going to be.

Okay. what the pictures could potentially be. Appreciate the honesty there, but it was very good. All right, and then to the point that people have been coming out just recently saying that they did not have good experiences on the show, while you were on the show, you started talking about what a fan of hers that you are and how you think that she is just the nicest person.

What was your experience like? So I don't know, like I didn't meet her before the show or after the show or anything. I only sat with her for those few minutes on the stage. But here's what I do know about her. I know that she had a horrific upbringing. I don't know if you watched the Letterman interview with her. She talked for about an hour about how she was raped by her stepfather for years when she was growing up. She was chastised by Hollywood for being too gay. Then she was chastised by Hollywood for not being gay enough. When she let Kevin Hart come on, she was chastised by people for sitting with George Bush. I don't know how she is, but I have to imagine

she's got a little bit of like, fuck you about her. She has to. You can't, you can't, I don't think you could be at that level and be at that level of of scrutiny, you know, living under a microscope and not get frustrated and not want things the way that you want them because there's too much at stake. You can't do this wrong. You can't do that wrong. Like there's literally hundreds of people's of jobs at stake.

There's tens of millions of dollars at stake. you can't make a mistake. And I did get a feeling on the show that everyone was like under a lot of pressure. But I got that, I get that feeling on every show I've ever been on. Like, we don't want to upset the host. Like we have to do this right.

You have to say this, you have to say that. You have to walk this way. You have to stand this way. Don't go that way. Don't look over here. Like, you know, the area where you walk out where you see the people walk out on the show? During the show, I forget who was up right before me,

but I I recognized the Christmas trees and I was like is that the Christmas trees? And I went like this and I like looked out and they were like, get back behind the stuff. They were like, what are you doing? You're going to be, you know,

your head's going to be poking out. And I was like, okay, like you're out of your element here. Just listen to these people and do what they're telling you to do. So I've been, I read some of those threads. I don't know how much validity is to the,

there is to the claims. I know that I don't, I hate concerns. conspiracy theories because basically what happens is people are bored, paranoid, frustrated, and scared, and they apply whatever is the worst possible thing that could be interpreted out of the situation, that's what they take as the truth. And that says more about them than it does about the situation. But I don't know. Like you don't know what to believe anymore. It could be this whole thing could be Russian bopped. It could be a 4chan campaign where whenever something crazy happens like

4chan is typically behind it in some fashion. I don't know if you know what 4chan is. It's like a Reddit, but horrible, like super bad. There was a thing happening where they launched this. It's like they think they're pranks. Like they call them pranks. Like where Justin Bieber, apparently, according to 4chan, wanted fans to cut themselves to prove that they were fans of his.

Obviously, he didn't do that. but there was a campaign going cutting for Bieber and teams across the country were uploading pictures of themselves, cutting themselves, or Justin Bieber. That was a 4chan prank. It's not a prank. I mean, it's a diabolical scheme. You never know what to believe anymore. I can only go by my experience and my experience. I do know this about her. I know that seven of her executive producers and producers have been there since the day the show started. So that says more about her than some Twitter thread. I think that's a good point, but I do see this a little bit differently than you. I just want to share this perspective that my experience, I've been on Steve Harvey, I've been on Dr. Drew, CNN headline news. Mostly when you go on set, people are pretty cool. I don't get that sense of walking on eggshells.

I've seen it maybe once or twice, but the majority of shows I go on are more people being super supportive. They want you to be calm and feel relaxed. That walking on eggshells vibe, I don't think that's the norm. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. I also know that, like, I was on the Mel Robbins show, and she's great. She was unbelievable. Her staff and crew were unbelievable. That was a very relaxed atmosphere. But Ellen is, you know, Ellen's however many times besides. I mean, it's a much different animal. Yeah, I would agree with that. I will tell you this, I had a better time on the Mel Robbins show.

Of course. Of course, because once people make you feel comfortable, you really can show up as your best and be yourself and not, feel nervous that you know you're going to blow it that you're going to stick your head out at the Christmas tree too early yeah and it's still so foreign being on TV is so far into the human experience that even if it is relaxed it's still not like totally relaxed and I remember when I walked out at the Ellen show I have it's not on the YouTube clip it was on TV and I recorded it on my phone I'll send it to you so you can see it it's two seconds it tells you everything I everything you need to know about how I was feeling inside at that moment because you walk out, and I do jujitsu.

I've done stand-up comedy. Like, stand-up comedy taught me not to be nervous before, and jujitsu told me to handle my emotions in the moment because, like, you have to control your adrenaline, and adrenaline makes everything worse or better, depending on how you use it. And when I walked out and the lights were blaring and 800 women screamed,

my caveman inside was like, I have to fight every single one of these women right now. the only way I'm going to survive it. So I was feeling like that, but then the whole interview was a few minutes. It took me about two minutes to be able to breathe. Oh my gosh. You were just so overwhelmed by the whole situation.

It's overload. It's so much overload. And what happened was when I got off the stage, I saw the producer. I was like, sorry. I blew it. No, I don't know what you want me to tell you. No, you did great.

I loved it. I thought it was great. That's what he said. He goes, no, you did. great. I said it didn't feel great. He goes, let me tell you something. And he pointed a picture of Diddy being scared by the clown. He goes, Diddy's a world-class performer. And that was one of the first scares we ever did. And we didn't know if it was going to work. And it worked fantastically. And what we discovered is that we're able to scare people. Everyone says,

I'm not going to get scared. The thing jumps out of the box. I'm not going to jump at all. And he goes, what happens is they forget who they are and where they are when they're on that stage. Everybody. Every single person. So I was in good company feeling uncomfortable, basically. And out of my element. Good for you. You did great. I can't wait to see that clip.

All right, before I let you go, I know that you have a lot to do, a lot going on. You made a major announcement today about the True Hero Fund. Yes. So the True Hero Fund was started by a guy named Todd Chafee, who is a VC. He's in Silicon Valley, very successful, early investor on Twitter, Kayak, Snapchat. He's just like, he knows what's going on. and he was going to invest in Thanks, Good News, and that didn't work out. There's no hard feelings.

It just was, he's a late-stage venture capitalist. I was too early. The deal didn't make sense. I said, let's not do this, but let's definitely keep in touch. And it reached out to me and said that he started in this thing, the True Hero Fund. And we had always talked about an event, like a Tank's Good News event, where we would honor local and national and global heroes, people that just kind of step up and do the right thing for the people around them.

So he goes, the true hero fund, we're going to do the event. The event's going to be massive. I can't wait. But we're going to start now. And we're going to be doing mainly medical professionals who either can't buy the proper PPE, have to stay in a hotel because their kid is immunocompromise. They can't afford child care. We're going to be paying for funerals of doctors that have lost their lives to this disease.

We're going to be paying for whatever we can possibly fathom needs money. We're going to be doing that. And this guy donated a million. right off the bat to the fund, a million bucks. So right now we're trying to raise as much as possible, but he's pledged to donate a match of another million, up to a million. So if we raise a million independently,

he'll throw in another million, and $3 million is going to go a very long way. And if it's more, it's more. It just means more resources for the people that need it the most. And I'm excited to be a part of it because I love raising money and I love raising awareness. but just a quick story. There was a story that I posted on Tanksu News about this Kid Haven who was aging out of the foster care system.

So I started to go fund me for him, totally willy-nilly. And I raised like $80,000 for this guy. And I couldn't get in touch with him. The trust for him hadn't been set up by the Oklahoma Department of Health Services. The kid kind of went into the ROTC or Air Force program and just kind of vanished, which is they wouldn't tell me who he was. They wouldn't tell me his last name, how to get in touch with him. They were trying to protect him. I totally understand it.

But the point of that is that I love raising money, but I get stressed out by the distribution part of it. And he's got the infrastructure in place where every single dollar that's raised is going to go directly into the bank account of a doctor, nurse, medical professional. Anybody working in a hospital right now, janitor, whatever, whoever needs something, whoever needs support financially, we're going to be supporting them directly. And I think that's great.

I think that taking money from a large group of people and distributing into a small group of people is one of the greatest gifts of technology, especially with GoFundMe. GoFundMe pledged $10,000 to the page because they love the idea. They know that I'm involved. We have a good relationship. And it's a very difficult undertaking to collect money and distribute money. And he's got that all covered. So I can't wait to just raise as much awareness as I can around it and try and get help to these people who are literally. risking their lives. Some of them are losing their lives to save ours, you know?

Well, you can count on a donation from me, and I will put this in a show notes. We will have a link so that everyone who wants to donate can. And thank you so much for the good work that you are doing for the world during this coronavirus and for the content you put out to keep us smiling and keep us laughing. It means the world. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. We're going to be right back. loved meeting Tank as much as I love getting the chance to interview him, even though it was through Zoom, but it was still so fun. He's such a great guy and definitely share so much wisdom into his success, which with a lot of humility, which I so appreciate. I love that. Okay, so I've been getting

a lot of questions around getting fired, what to do during quarantine, how to stay positive, even if you aren't fired, how do you continue to do business? Here's the thing. The more we immerse ourselves and watching the news and being around negative people, we will clearly be negative. So fire the villains right now might look a little different. And that may mean you need to get some space from people that you're spending time with. But spending time with like-minded, positive people that are looking for the bright side, that are looking for optimism and are looking to find ways to pivot. That's how you will change your mindset and change your future. There's just as much potential looking forward. Things are uncertain. They could be uncertain and negative or uncertain and positive. I believe that because things are

uncertain, there's so much opportunity out there and I continue to focus on that. And then when I get stuck, I get on my peloton and I just let ideas come into my head and brainstorm. And then I just take chances and move fast because speed to market is critical. Right now, there are so many people creating content online, so many people posting online. If you're not doing that, why not? Now is the time to jump in. Now's the time to elevate your personal brand or create one if you don't already have one. Now is the time to put yourself first. Now is the time to curate the people that you spend time with. You know, now is that time. And I'm completely revamping my business, as you heard me explain to you earlier. I have no idea if I'm doing it correctly. I'm sure I'm making

mistakes. But it's about going all in and taking chances. And I remember when I first got fired a couple of years ago, I was petrified. I was sad. And it's okay to feel that way. I felt that way during this quarantine, too. I felt so sad that I worked really hard to get my keynote speaking business to take off and it finally was starting to. And now it's disappeared, you know, and I felt bad for me. I worked really, really hard for that. And it just feels like I hit a brick wall. I let myself feel sad for a day. And then I pick myself up and say, okay, now it's time to move on. I had a cry. I felt upset, but here we go. Again, you know, constant change is the constant.

Change will always continue. And the more we embrace it and jump ahead of it, the better opportunity we have to succeed and be happy. Okay, so say you find yourself, your business is completely dead or you just got fired. Number one, reach out to people. You know, the more that we can reach out to people and ask, how are you doing? Are you safe? I've gotten so many nice notes from people.

I've sent out so many too. It means a lot. You never know who's alone. Who's struggling or has a loved one potentially dying. You know, right now is that time to just show up. Be a light. The more good you put out there in the world, the more good will come back to you.

That is a fact. And the more you do for others in small ways, the better you're going to feel about yourself. So take the time to check in on people. Take the time to send the nice notes. And maybe you can't see your clients and your clients are in quarantine and their businesses are shut, you can still reach out to them and ask how they're feeling.

Are they safe? Is their family safe? Let them know you're thinking about them. That's going to go a long way when things change. And here's the bottom line. Things will change. They will not stay like this. This time right now is temporary.

And we will look back on it and we will say, holy cow, I can't believe what we lived through. And yes, I am adding to my. resume thrived during the pandemic. And you should too, because that is so much to say. And are all these days going to be easy? Heck no. But neither will the ones ahead of us either. There's always going to be different challenges. It's on us to find out what that opportunity is to pivot. Dig into what your value proposition is. Get your testimonials, your recommendations, and start shining them, put them on LinkedIn, share them on social, and let people know you need help that you're looking

for ideas to pivot your business, that you're out of work and looking for opportunities, there are people hiring. You need to communicate with others. You need to nurture your network and you need to shine your light and shine it bright. This is your time. If you haven't been investing in yourself, now is the time for you to start doing it. There are so many great offers online right now for different programs. I see so many people taking online courses, learning new and different things. So just start thinking about what is it that you always wanted to do? What would you do if money didn't matter?

And let's try to figure out a bridge plan to get you there. In the interim, put out content, share your testimonials, shine a light on your unique value proposition. Because when you start to do that, those dots will start to connect. I have been there. And I'll never forget posting that I got fired and hearing from Froggy from the Elvis Durant show, that he wanted to help.

I converted that opportunity in the moment, and I tweeted right back at him, please get me on the show. And he did. And that meeting and that interview led me to write my first book, Confidence Creator. Don't think that taking that risk and taking that step,

as scary as it is, won't pay off because it will. And that, I guarantee you. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I'm in this one with you.