Your Transformation Station - 45. Do You Have Any Good Advice

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? Join Greg Favazza podcast host and creator as he speaks with (Tony Loyd) about the nuances of business, creativity, and his experience in multiple "Fortune-500" corporations.  https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/s2e45 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming up on your transformation station. Every company, they sell things, they staff, they source, right? And then many companies share. And so the companies that I work with or that I have interviewed on my podcast or that I'm interested in, they find a way to bring a social or environmental benefit to one or more of those areas. Welcome to your transformation station. This is your transformation station. We're tapping in to surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern day

and honing in a new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance you never knew. This is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favaza. The definition of success. If I could go back, there's not many things that. I would go back for it. What do you do when you lose your purpose? It's okay to struggle. It's okay that you're not okay.

I am your host, Greg Favaza. Together, we will go on a journey. This show is all about surpassing our internal dialogue, rediscovering your true identity, honing new foresight. We have a chance to make the world a better place for our children. start living in the example today and become your future self tomorrow. If you can leave our viewers with some good advice to follow, what would you let them know?

These things that you're afraid to do? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your transformation station. How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? This question is often what I think about. Suppose you're someone aspiring to learn how to connect to the world, just as I am. Tune in on how to decode ourselves through others' realizations, focusing on what we need in developing our voice through a shared experience, reestablish ourselves through education, connections, and challenging public perceptions.

If you want to support YTS, but commitment isn't your strong suit, I totally get it. But a one-time donation is better than nothing. Help YTS out today. If we can improve our equipment, we can deliver better content for everybody. Just use PayPal.com. And make a donation for any number. We appreciate you.

Make a donation today. I want to stay up to date on your transformation state. exclusive content, go to our Patreon account. In our exclusive Patreon content, we connect with entrepreneurs, social influencers, keynote speakers, and health professionals, gathering today's insight into tomorrow's guidance. This is how we learn how to be our future selves today. Stop by our Patreon. Sign up through one of the options that are available.

and start collecting some inside knowledge on how you can grow your business as well as refine yourself. For those that subscribe to our mailing list on podpage.com slash your transformation station, swing by today, sign up to our email list and get your name in a drawing. We are doing prize giveaways. It can be from hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, anything cool. something different every month. I like to rock the style of your transformation station. So join me on this quest for YTS blingage and sign up to our subscription.

We're tapping in to surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern day and honing in a new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance you never knew. This is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favaza. How you doing? Greg, I'm well. How are you? I'm doing it right myself. Good.

Good. Again, I do appreciate your time and I'm excited for today's recording. No worries. To get things started, let's begin this episode with a brief overview of your track record. You were a former Fortune 500 executive with companies, such as John Deere, Metatronic, and Buffalo Wild Wings. The purpose of your work is the title to your TEDx you were featured in in 2018. You are the author, Crazy Good Advice, 10 Lessons Learn from 150 Leading Social Entrepreneurs.

You are a podcast host to Anti-Racist Voter, Thrive, Connect, Control, tribute and social entrepreneur. Now I want to avoid the use of this derogatory term, Jack of all trades, Master of None, which applies. Why not? We could use it.

We could use it. And propose a counter argument here is that learning comes with an opportunity cost. On the other hand, knowing a little of everything is all. and better than having one expert skill. Your work illustrates mastery of multiple. Do you agree?

I don't know about mastery. Like you said, you know, not necessarily master of any, but I do think that I have a lot of interest, right? So part of my style is that I just put out a general question to the universe. And I just think, you know,

what impact can I have? or, you know, there's this person or this group of people who are suffering. So how might we do something? And I never know what the straight answer line is going to be. And so I tend to just sort of, there's a phrase that I like a lot. It's hold tight to the vision, but let the form be flexible. So all of my work has to do with facilitating the growth of others and making an impact in the world.

So, you know, when I, I'm an author, I'm a speaker, I'm a coach, I'm a podcaster like you mentioned. But I think that all of that is in service to this idea of facilitating the growth of others and making an impact. So, yeah, I do a lot of things, but the vision is still very clear. My question for you is, what caused you to leave the corporate world and started this? new journey as an entrepreneur. Yeah. So there was a lot that led to it, but I'd just say I've always been about that idea, about facilitating the growth of others and achieving impact.

And for a long time, I felt like the working in Fortune 500 companies, and I rose up through the ranks. I went from, you know, manager to director to vice president. And it gave me an opportunity to, work with global teams to, and my primary work area was around learning and development, leadership development, executive planning, you know, organizational design, all the kind of stuff. So I felt like I was having an impact. But in the end, I just felt like working within the framework of a publicly traded organization

probably wasn't going to allow me to work with the kinds of people I wanted to work with. and to do the kind of work I wanted to do. So I made a decision that also was driven by my values, right? So corporations, God bless them, they do a lot of good in the world. Thank heavens for a lot of corporations. I've produced the goods and services that we use in the world. And at the same time, publicly traded corporations, especially, they have this fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders,

to the people who own the stock of the company. And when it comes time for a choice and tradeoff, often the planet gets second place or our communities get second place or our employees get second place or even our customers or our suppliers or our government regulations. They all fall in second place below that primary mission

of increasing shareholder value. And that doesn't make them evil It just, that's the way the structure works. So I was interested in finding people who made a dollar and they made a difference. They made money, but the money is in service to a mission. And so that's why I found social entrepreneurship to be so inspiring and to be an area where I wanted to work. What makes a dollar makes a difference with that saying, is that what makes a company sustainable, profitable, and able to grow? Yeah, yeah. You know, there's, we used to say that for a company to be sustainable,

we needed sustainable, profitable growth, right? So we needed to, we needed to grow. That was important, because if you don't grow, you're dying. Somebody else is overtaking you. We needed to grow in a way that was profitable because if you're losing money while you're growing, you're going to go out of business. And we need to do that in a sustainable way. You could, you could have a flash sale. tomorrow and you could just sell a whole bunch of stuff and you can make some profit. But if it's not sustainable over a long period of time, that just doesn't work. But what I found was that those are only three legs to a stool, sustainable, profitable growth.

And it's the one, that's the framework that a lot of executives work from. But it's sustainable, profitable growth for good. That's what really makes the difference. Right. So when a company can, and I could give you several examples. of these kinds of companies, but when a company can do something that is the social good or environmental benefit is baked into their mission in such a way that you cannot separate those two things, that's where you really make some progress.

You know, any company can say, hey, this year we've had a lot of profit, so we're going to give money to goodwill, or we're going to give money to the Red Cross, or we're going to give some money to some local charity. And that's cool. I'm really happy that that happens. But how do you bake the social good? Let me try that again. How do you bake the social good into your company in such a way that if you aren't doing

social good, you aren't doing the thing that your company was designed to do? So that's what's really interesting to me. And, you know, Greg, you know. how hard it is to start up a company. You know the pain of what it's like to try to be an entrepreneur. Now, imagine if you put another constraint on your company that said, yes, we're here to make money. Yes, we're here to serve customers.

Yes, we're here to do all the things that a traditional business does. But by the way, while we're doing it, we want to have an impact on society or an impact on the environment and that if we don't do that, then we're not going to do business. That really, it sort of chokes your opportunities for growth and chokes your opportunities for who you're going to do business with and how are you going to do business. And suddenly that inexpensive supplier in China that makes sense to a whole bunch of other people, maybe it doesn't make sense to your business. Or, you know, this material that you're going to put into here, it's unrecyclable.

well, maybe you're not going to do that because that's not what you're about. So it lays another layer of difficulty. You know, in the Olympics, they talk about the difficulty of the dive, right? You know, it's not just that you dove up the diving board and you hit the water and that you made a small splash. It's that you, on the way down to the ground, you know, or to the water, you're doing a full gainer and a twist. And I don't know what, you know, I'm not a diver, so I don't know all the way. works for it, but still, there is this degree of difficulty. And the other thing, you know, related to you and your work, you know, I know you're all about transformation.

Entrepreneurship brings up your stuff, right? You know, if you've ever thought, gee, I'm not good enough or I'm not enough or what if people don't like me or whatever, it will just push all your buttons, right? So now imagine, not only am I this startup? this entrepreneur and it's just I have all these internal battles, but I also have this other battle of how do I do this in a way that does social good or has an environmental impact. So it's a big ask. And because it's a big ask, it's worthy of the challenge. It is something worthy to do.

So that's how I think about it. There is a lot there. We could dissect. And I want to hold that and we'll come back to that. Let's look at you. What is your mission statement and how did you come up with it? Yeah. Well, you know, I facilitate the growth of others.

That's the primary thing that drives me. And, you know, that has looked a lot of different ways over the years. So, you know, when I was 14 years old, I had a near drowning accident. And I literally, I was sort of blacked out and I was on the bottom of a lake and like my eyes were closed and it was dark and like something caught my attention. And the thing that caught my attention was cold mud on the back of my head. And like I opened my eyes and I realized that I am in the bottom of the lake and that I am about to die. And so I knew in that moment, you know, I'm just laying here. Like I could have just gone, okay, I'm dead, right?

But in that moment, two thoughts hit my head. The first thought was, I want to live. Right. So I need to figure out how to get off the bottom of this lake and get to the surface. But the second one was, if I'm going to live, I want to live. I want my life to have the biggest impact possible. I want to, I don't want to die with my music inside of me. I want my life to have mattered to the world.

I want to leave a big ding in the corner of the universe. So, you know, to move the story forward, obviously I got off the bottom of that lake. I found something solid that I could put my foot against and I pushed against it and I got up to the surface and I caught a breath. and I managed to make it to the shore. But at the time, I'm 14 years old. So let's have some grace for that kid, right? You know, this 14 year old goes, I want my life to matter, by golly.

That can look a lot of ways. And I kind of feel like what has happened over time is I've done these experiments where it looked a different way and it worked. And then there were ways in which it didn't work. So it was time for the next experiment. And so I did something else. and then that worked until it didn't work and then I did something else.

And today I feel like I'm honing in on it. You know, all these years later, I'm now 62 years old. And every time I say that sentence, it surprises me. I go, really? Am I? But so all these years since the time I was 14 years old, that's really what I've been about is how do I make an impact in the world? And my gift has always been about facilitating the growth of others.

So that has shown up as me being a training. or a teacher. That has shown up as me being a pastor of a church at one point. And that has shown up as, you know, as me being an executive with teams that I oversaw that I was able to impact the lives of so many people. So it has shown up in a lot of different ways. The way that it shows up today is that I facilitate the growth of purpose-driven business leaders. And what I have found is, is, and Greg, I think you'll appreciate this. Most people that I say, I facilitate the growth of purpose-driven, purpose-driven business leaders, sorry, purpose-driven business leaders, they have a hard time identifying with that

statement. They go, well, I'm not a purpose-driven business leader. Who am I? I can't do that. That's not who I am. I'm, you know, I'm just me. So what I have found now, my next layer down is that I have begun to work with people. people who aspire to be purpose-driven business leaders.

And so here's the struggle that I find that they have. They have an idea for something that they want to do in the world. Or maybe they have their hands on an innovation that could make a difference in the world. Or they're really clear on the impact that they want to have in the world. Like, this is my purpose. This is the big thing I want to make an impact. But there's like this huge gulf from idea to innovation to impact. And no matter where you stand on any of those three stones in the middle of the stream,

you know, you need some help to get from one to the other. And so that's what I do. I provide a blueprint. I work alongside people. And we build a bridge from idea to innovation to impact so that they can make a bigger change to the world. So that that's kind of how that mission has shown up in a lot of different ways in my life, but it's it's how it shows up today. First off, the cold mud on the back of your head. That is chilling to hear that. And in your case, to wake up to that in the moment.

But if we can transition to your book, Crazy Good Advice, 10 lessons learned from 150 leading social entrepreneurs. Yeah. Why that concept? Yeah. Rather than using that title. Yeah. So a couple of things about the book. One is that all the advice that is in the book, it comes from people that I have interviewed. So I have a podcast called social entrepreneur. And so I talk to these people who have made a dollar and a difference. And the podcast is very successful. We're doing well with it. But at one point, somebody approached me and they said, I'd like you to start a radio program that talks about the same stuff. So I knew that I didn't know anything about how to run a radio program and I was going to need some help. So I made a decision to do a crowdfunding campaign. And I reached out to a friend of

mine, a guy named Tom Dawkins, and he runs a crowdfunding platform called Start Some Good. And Tom said, look, I can, I can, I have this platform and you can use it. You can raise funds and you can use those funds to hire some help and to launch your radio program. But here's the thing about crowdfunding campaigns, whether it's on Kickstarter or Kickstarter or Indie Go or Start Some Good or some other platform. he said your friends are going to, you know, contribute to your campaign. They are going to give money in support of this thing that you're doing. But their friends are going to be motivated by what's in it for them. And so you need something that you could give to these people that is unique.

That is something that only you can provide. It's the only place they can get it. And so we brainstorm some ideas. And so at one point I said at Tom, I go, look, I've, you know, I've just hit my 150th interview mark. Excuse me. I've just hit my 150th interview mark. And I am, you know, writing a blog post about the lessons learned.

And here's the thing. At the end of every episode, I ask my guess. So what's your best advice for aspiring social entrepreneurs? And so I had a little spreadsheet. And in the spreadsheet, I had written down the, the advice from each of my guests in the first 150 episodes. Then in the next category or column over, I had put a category or a bucket or something and say, you know, what are they saying here?

And then I sorted the spreadsheet and I found that there were really only 10 key pieces of advice that I heard again and again and again. So I was trying to write a blog post at the time and this thing was just getting out of hand. It was just massive. And I said, maybe that's a book. and Tom's like, yeah, I would totally read that book, you know. And then one of my guests has said, look, when you tell your friends and your family that you're going to launch a new business, that you're going to be an entrepreneur, and they tell you that you're crazy for doing that, they're right. Yes.

You have to be a little bit crazy to do this work. And so that's where the title comes from. crazy good advice, 10 lessons learned from 150 leading social entrepreneurs. So we wrote the book for the crowdfunding campaign. It's a fun book. It's highly illustrated. It's, you know, very graphical kind of in a way. It's an easy read.

It's, you know, just lots of stories that I collected from these first 150 guests separated into these 10 different lessons learned. And so we gave it away in the crowdfunding campaign. And then at the end of the crowdfunding campaign, we have a book. So we're like, well, what are you going to do with the book? Well, I guess we'll put it on Amazon. And so we put it on Amazon. And when we did, it became a bestseller.

And so it was like, well, I didn't see that coming. And so after a year, actually the radio program, it started, it ran. And, you know, it just wasn't really worth my effort. I wasn't giving a lot of sponsorship. So the radio program ended. But the book remains. And then that led to speaking engagements. And I'd done some TEDx talks.

And, you know, it's just been kind of a wild ride from there. It's kind of like, you know, this moment of serendipity where something I intended didn't happen, but this thing that I didn't know was going to happen did happen. But it's still a great little book and it's available still today. Excellent. I'll be sure to link all of that in the show notes for our listeners if they want to know more. Speaking of our listeners, how could the listeners or business owners who are listen to this podcast, create an effective mission statement that is using the golden trifecta

of sustainable and profitable and is able to grow. Can you give us a recommendation? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think, I think, you know, I'm not an expert on writing mission statements. I have over years taught that concept of writing mission statements. But here's what I would say is what is your place. in the universe. What is your, like a friend of mine describes it like this. It's kind of like at the center of your being, right in the center of your chest, let's say, there is this golden gong.

And the gong is sort of held up on either side. It's like one of those big giant Chinese gongs they use in ceremonies sometimes. And like so it's held up on either side by wooden posts. and there's a wooden post structure at the top and it sort of hangs from this wooden structure. And sometimes when things come at you and they're not true for you, it's like they come at you

and they just sort of hit that wooden post off to the side because they didn't hit your true center. And when it does, it kind of goes clunk, right? And it's not really true to you. But when something comes at you and it strikes you right at the center. It's like this gong kind of vibration. You go, this is so true for me.

So the first thing I would say is pay attention to what's true for you. And don't worry about formulas and it has to start with this and it has to have this thing in the middle. And then you finish with this other flare over here and all that. So don't worry about that. But I would say, think about two things. Think about one, what breaks your heart, right? So is it hunger?

Is it clean water? Is it environmental degradation? Is it systemic racism? What is so what breaks your heart? What is the thing that is true for you? And then at the same time, what inspires you? Right. So maybe there's somebody in the world who's doing something that you go, wow, I love what they're doing.

I just recently got, you know, fresh frames on the prescription glasses and they come from Warby Parker. And Warby Parker, every time they sell a pair of glasses to somebody like me who can afford them, they give a pair of glasses or multiple pairs of glasses to people who can't afford them around the world. And there's a whole big mission around that and I can explain more about it. But it's very inspirational. And you're not going to get me to buy glasses from anybody but. Warby Parker. I mean, that is just what is going to happen for me because that's their mission. That's the thing that they do. And it inspires me. So think, first of all, what is that breaks your heart and what is that thing that inspires you? And then think about you as a unique individual.

What talents, what skills, what are the things that only you can bring to the table? And, you know, this goes back to the thing we were talking about earlier where all of your stuff is going to come up, right? You're going to like, wait, wait, wait, who am I to do any of this stuff, right? But think about, you know, I've got skills. I know how to do this kind of thing. I bring some gifts to the world. Here are some strengths. And if you don't know, then do, you know, some things. There's a thing called the Strengths Finder assessment you can do. There's a thing called the VIA assessment that comes from the University of Pennsylvania. It's like your strengths in a different way. It's a very interesting self-assessment. There's a bunch of ways

to self-assess yourself and then think about these are the gifts that I bring. And then think about what does the world need right now. Right. So there's this thing that breaks my heart. There is this unique set of gifts and talents that I have. And then what's the thing that the world needs right now? because you're going to find that product market fit when you bring something to the market that really puts a salve on the place where the world is hurting today. Right. So, you know, you may be interested in education. Education is very interesting and that may be something that you're passionate about.

And yet, how do we do education in the middle of a pandemic with, you know, people who often don't have resources or, you know, kids who don't have access to a laptop? or rural people who don't have high-speed internet. So contextualizing it for what's happening in the world today. So when you think about that, bringing those three things together about, you know, what breaks my heart or inspires me, what unique gifts and talents do I bring to the table? And then what does the world need right now? That, to me, is like a sweet spot for you to be working.

That covers a lot. And it can be integrated not only in. your personal mission statement, but in your business mission statement, that is very beneficial. You said something that caught my attention with your glasses, with Warby, and what they're all about. How can we utilize that approach in our businesses? What are tips that we can do to grow our own business utilizing that model. Yeah. You know, let me just, I'm going to tell you that every company, they sell things,

they staff, they source, right? And then many companies share. And so the companies that I work with or that I have interviewed on my podcast or that I'm interested in, they find a way to bring a social or environmental benefit to one, or more of those areas. And so, you know, a good example of that, you know, what you sell. There's a guy I interviewed recently, his name is Sebastian Sajou, and he has a company called Arclight.

And what they do is they take unrecyclable plastic and they shape it into this, what they call smart gravel. It's a lightweight gravel that is highly sought after by the construction industry because it has it's lightweight it's easy to transport it um it can be used in building on uh low pressure uh spots where you can't put heavy concrete on right so the the ground is shot softer shifting or something also it is a better thermal insulation and it's better sound insulation so the the construction industry wants this stuff and he is taking stuff that is it's called laminate plastic and it's a multi-layered plastic that is mixed waste and therefore cannot go into the

recycle stream. And so he's taking that laminate plastic. He's turning it into the smart gravel and he's selling it. So the more of that he sells, the bigger the impact he will have. You know, there's what you share is a woman here in town named Susan Elwer. I'm in Minnesota. And her name, her, let me. try that again. The name of her company is Spoonful Apparel. And Spoonful Apparel, what they do is for every,

they sell these inspirational t-shirts and, you know, or T-shirts with inspirational slogans. And for every T-shirt that they sell, they take half the profits and they give it to feed hungry kids. Now, she was a preschool teacher. She noticed a kid that was hungry. She wanted to do more than go home and just make a sandwich and feed this hungry kid. She wanted to be able to make a bigger impact. How do we sustain that impact over time? So she set up this company and today they're making lots of money, making lots of donations, and feeding lots of hungry kids.

How you staff, there's a restaurant here in the Twin Cities and it's called All Square. And it is a grilled cheese sandwich shop, which is just, first of all, that's just brilliant to have a grilled cheese sandwich shop. You know, people can get an inexpensive meal and it's good and it's delicious. And then they do all these different experimentation with different kinds of sandwiches. Some they'll add like jerk chicken to and different things. So very cool little hip shop. But what they do is they hire people who have been recently incarcerated.

So people who are just coming out of the justice system and they are putting them to work. they're training them in culinary skills and then they're putting them to work. And so by the more people that they're able to hire and train and staff in their restaurant, then the bigger the impact they're going to have. So, you know, they make a difference by how they staff. And then, you know, how you source, there are a lot of stories that could tell about this, but I've really been enjoying this story lately. There was a nonprofit and they went to Central America.

and they met with farmers. And this nonprofit, they were all about how to be better at farming. So they had expertise in agronomy, and they knew how to access low-cost fertilizers, and they had some technology that could be used in poorer countries to increase productivity. And so they went and they visited with a bunch of farmers in Central America. And they said, you know, how can we help? We have all this expertise. And the farmers said, you want to help us?

buy our coffee beans at a decent price. Like we are just getting crushed. We do this. A middleman buys our coffee beans. And then we don't make any money, but the middleman makes all the money. And so if you could pay us more for our coffee beans, that would be all we needed. And they're like, well, that's not really what we do. Right.

You know, we appreciate that. Thank you very much. They patted their little hands and said, you know, thank you very much. But, you know, let us help you in this other way that we have expertise. Well, a few weeks later, the CEO of this. nonprofit is sitting in her office and she gets a phone call and this person on the other end of the line says this is the port of Los Angeles we have 38,000 pounds of coffee on a palette. Where would you like it delivered?

She's like, I guess we're in the coffee business now. So they figured out how to roast the coffee and how to sell the coffee and that became their new business bottle and they eventually spun off a company as called Peace Coffee, P-E-A-C-E, Lee Wallace is their CEO. She's pretty amazing. But, you know, last year they bought like 735,000 pounds from 12 countries and 20 smallholder farmer cooperatives. And they paid out like $370,000 in fair trade premiums in addition to buying the coffee at a decent price. So, you know, they make a difference by how they source.

So those are some ways that anybody with any company and any idea, If you could figure out how to sell something that has a social impact, how to source something, how to staff, or how to share, then you can make an impact in the world with a business model. With making a donation, I have a little question just for myself as far as how I can utilize that in this podcast. My focus that I want to apply this to is the selfless service industry to that industry. What would you suggest to me on how I can get that started? Yeah, I would say build a partnership with somebody who's already there. You know, there's the old saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together, right?

And so, you know, figuring out who would be a great partner for us and then thinking about who aligns with your values, right? So, you know, an example of that might be, I don't know, wounded warrior is one of those kinds of organizations. And I know a few years ago they had some controversy and they had some management problems and all that. I think they're past that now. I think they've kind of gotten on the other side of that. But maybe they're not the ones. Maybe it's another organization. But, you know, who speaks to your heart?

And then think about, you know, it's great that you want to make a donation, but where does that revenue come from? So what's your revenue model that's coming in? And then do you want, do you want to give 5%, 50%, how much of your, of your, and do you want to give of revenue or of profit, right? So if you give 50% of your revenue away and then you're not able to pay your bills, you're not going to hang around very long. But if you, you know, if you find ways to generate that income, and, and, and, and, you're not able to pay your bills. And I don't know what your income model is, Greg. I mean, honestly, I don't. But if you're doing consulting or if you're, you know, if you are, you know, building courses or, you know, you're building a community that has a Patreon kind of thing or whatever that might be.

So however your revenue is coming in, you know, and then being able to say, hey, not only are you supporting us, but by supporting us, you are supporting this cause, then that's really important. So I like that idea that you have a, it resonates for you that what I care about is this selfless service. And so who on the backside needs service, you know, and then it always comes down to, you know, who do you serve? What's their problem? How do you solve it? What's the larger impact you want to have? So clarifying that vision. But often you don't have to start something new.

Just, you know, like I mentioned Susan Elwer, who feeds hungry kids. well, she didn't go out and build a nonprofit to feed hungry kids. She partners with nonprofits that already feeds hungry kids in order to do that. So, you know, that would be my number one suggestion. Figure out who's doing the thing you want to do. And also think about your listeners or the people you serve. Who will they resonate with too, right? So you could pick somebody who has a very high, let's say, a political,

kind of agenda that goes either left or right or wherever. You know, you can you can exclude a whole bunch of people from the thing you're trying to do by being too political with that. So think about what impact will my association with them have and their association with me and then just, you know, pick an organization, figure out what they need, ask them what they need, and then, you know, provide that. Wow, that is a bear you just hand it off to me. And I'm sure our listeners will appreciate that as well for those that are in the same position or in the future will be there soon.

And if we could transition to our wrap up as far as I just have a couple more questions. Sure. What is some good advice to follow and some bad advice to avoid? Oh, wow. Oh, that's, I wish I was more prepared for that question. That's a good one. So, well, you know, I wrote a whole book called Crazy Good Advice. So, you know, I think, I think when you think about it, clarify your vision, right?

So get really clear on who do you serve, what is their problem, how do you solve that problem, and what's the greater impact you want to have? calendar your strategic activities. That I find that a lot of people I end up working with, they come to me saying, but I tried this and I tried that, and I tried this and I tried that. And their energy is like a sparkler going off in every direction.

And when you align your calendar and your activities with that strategic vision, then you begin to make progress, right? So know what your one year plan, your 90 day plan, your 30-day plan, your daily habits, all that kind of stuff. And then you have to close your skill gap. You have to say, okay, I'm trying to do this thing.

But because I'm trying to do this thing, I may not have all the right skills to do that. So do I want to, A, learn new skills, B, find somebody else who already has those skills that I can outsource to, or C, find a partner that I can work with, somebody who has that set of skills so that we can partner together and do these things. So close your skill gap. And then make sure you're creating an optimized environment. Because if you, and I'm going to give you three ways for that. One is your physical environment, right? So if you want to be a podcaster, you kind of have to set up a studio at some point, right?

You have to do something. And if you don't invest in your physical environment, you're not going to be able to do the things that you're trying to do. but also not just your physical environment, but your people environment. So who are you hanging around with? Who are you connected to on social media? Who are you paying attention to? And then your ideas environment. What are you reading right now?

What are you feeding your brain? What podcasts are you listening to? How are you controlling the information environment? And if you get up in the morning and start doom scrolling your way through Twitter, you're feeding your brain doom, right? So controlling your environment, creating your environment, and then curating a masterful mindset, and we've kind of come around this a few times, but, you know, success is an inside job. And anytime you try to step out and do something big in the world, 90% of success is going to be internal stuff, right?

It's going to be, you know, that internal struggle, all your stuff, it's just going to bring up all your internal dialogue. You know, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. You know, my parents ran over me with a car when I was a kid and stopped me in the glove compartment and beat me with a fire hose, whatever that might be. You know, it's all going to come up for you, right? So I think that that's the primary good advice. Clarify your vision, calendar your strategic activities, close your skill gap, create a an optimized environment and curate a masterful mindset.

Now, the bad advice is to chase every trend that comes along. You know, Facebook Live is kind of hot right now. It's almost, you know, it's sort of peaking a little bit and it's sort of coming on across the other side. You know, at one point, gosh, I can't think of the name of this. Periscope. Periscope was like this hot thing. Like, everybody was on Periscope.

And you had to be on periscope in order to be anything or do. anything in the world. And like that was the hot trend. And then webinars and, you know, and write a book and start a podcast and do all, you know, like you could chase 10,000 things. But, you know, stop. Just stop. And, and get grounded on who am I? What breaks my heart? What does the world need right now? What are my key strengths? And put those together and, and go forward from there. That right there, the trend statement, oh, that I've seen myself do that numerous times and I would have to literally do breathing exercise to ground myself back down.

Like, Greg, you don't need to be doing this, this, this. This is why you can't get shit done because you feed 37 different books. You're trying to do a course, you write two books. It's like you just got to focus on one thing. Focus, focus, Danielson. Yeah. Yeah, you know, honestly, I am a course junkie and, and left to my own devices. I would sign it for every course that ever came down the pipe. And I would just, you know, I would just sign it for that course. And then it's like, you know, oh, the secret to success is this. And I'd go chase that thing for a while. You know, I just stop it. You know, pick, pick one thing. You know, honestly, honestly, Greg and I don't want to drag this on too long. But honestly, people, know what to do, right? You know, I mean, if I want to sell something online, that I need a website, and I need to figure out how to, you know, hook some kind of payment system up to that, and I need to attract some customers, and I need to convince them that this meets their need, or not

convince them, but I need to invite them in that to say, I have this thing, I think it's interesting, are you interested? Yes or no? And then go on. Honest to goodness, that is all there is to this thing. However, it's all the other stuff around it. You know, what if I do a Facebook live and nobody shows up? Oh my God, I look like an idiot or, you know, what if I say the wrong thing or what if, whatever, whatever, you know, just get over it. You know, in 15 minutes, you can have a website up and running. In 20 minutes, you can have it hooked up to some kind of payment system. In 30 minutes, you can be calling on your first customer. Everything else is mental gymnastics. That is, again, we have this goal, this whole episode right here.

This is fantastic. I was going to ask for three tips towards a business entrepreneur should go for or could utilize, but I feel like we covered quite a bit in that. How can our listeners learn more about you and where can they go to find that? Yeah, I would start with Tony Lloyd. But the only tricky bit is my last name is spelled with one L. So everybody goes off looking for the normal, and I'm doing air quotes with my fingers here, the normal spelling of Lloyd, which is two L's, but it's only one L. And as long as you spell it that way, you can find me.

You can just Google me and you'll find me. But it's tonyloid.com. They can actually download a free electronic version of my book on Tony Lloyd.com. Just when you land on the page, there's a little green button right there and click on that. If anybody's interested in a strategy call, I've been recently providing some, you know, free, free strategy calls to people who are interested in getting started. So if you just go to culture shift.com, C-U-L-T-U-R-E-S-H-I-F-T-com, this is a big green button at the front of that website, and you can sign it for a 25-minute strategy call.

If you're interested in making a dollar and a difference, if you, if you, a special, to be a purpose-driven changemaker, a purpose-driven business leader, then, you know, hit me up and we'll have a conversation. Very, very interesting. I might utilize that myself. Go for it, man. Excellent. For our listeners, if they would like to get in touch with you, is there an email or

anything that you can shoot towards their direction to get in touch with? Yeah, yeah. Just email me at Tony at Tony Lloyd.com, T-O-N-Y-L-O-Y-D with 1L. Tony at TonyLoyd.com and whatever they need, we can figure it out. Excellent. Tony, I appreciate you coming on your transformation station today. All right, Greg, thanks for providing this great platform. I really appreciate it.

You're very welcome. You take care. Every first of the month, we're doing prize giveaways. You want to get a part of that giveaway? sign up to our email list today by going to podpage.com slash your transformation station. Swing by, sign up to our email list, get updates on exclusive content for Patreon, subscribers, and free public content. But also get your name put in that drawing so you can win yourself from anything of a t-shirt, a hat, whatever I feel like. would be the monthly prize giveaway.

Get your name in that drawing by signing up today. Did you get a good takeaway from today's episode? Let us know. Like and subscribe by leaving us review. Let us know how we can continue to improve your transformation station. I appreciate every one of you from tuning in. Stay tuned for the next episode on your transformation station. You've been listening to Your Transformation Station.

Transformation Station. Rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. Join us weekly on Wednesday for the exclusive interviews at 8 p.m. Central Time. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram at YTS The Podcast. We'll be back soon. Until then, this is your transformation station, signing off. LifeLock, how can I help?

The IRS said I filed my return. But I haven't. One in four taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund, though. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.

I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud-paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.

Bye.