Here is the transcript of this episode. — please excuse any typos.
Hey and welcome to another episode of cool things entrepreneurs do. Thank you so much for pulling your chair up to the cool kids table. I started this podcast five years ago with the intent of just being able to expose myself and others to some really interesting ideas, thoughts and theories. I’ve conducted over 400 interviews, uh, about a hundred episodes or just me chatting away with the audience. But in those 400 interviews I have talked to entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, business leaders, and people who are doing just really cool things in their career. And I believe that success leaves clues. That’s why we are so lucky to live in a day where we have access to so many people through, you know, podcasts and other mediums that we didn’t have just a few years ago. So hopefully you are actively listening to lots of podcasts and not just this one. There are some really interesting shows out there.
In fact, one of my sponsors is a podcast called the bias disruption. So human behavior. It’s a complicated thing, especially when it comes to working and living together and understanding why and how people behave in certain groups. That’s what my friends, Dr Josh Packard and Megan Bissell, it’s what they do for a living. Their podcast, the bias, disruption, answers questions like, what is the ideal team size? How do company Cultures Change and where does innovation even come from? If you’ve ever wondered how to make change in your business, that will last. That’s what their show is all about. Megan and Josh use social science, real world experience and humor, uh, to share it. They’re powerful insights. Plus they play really nerdy games. So go check out the bias disruption. So today’s show is going to be really short. Today’s show. I want to challenge you to go out of your way to help people.
So I think that it just helps your business when you go out of your way to do good things. I’ve had a couple of experiences lately that have reminded me of this. It is so easy to get caught up in being busy, right? We all are so busy chasing our own hopes and dreams and trying to put together our own businesses that sometimes we just sort of forget that we’re not in this alone. You know, it really does take the conglomeration of the people who you know, who you’ve met, who come in and go in your life to really be able to make things happen. And I understand this. Sometimes I forget and I just get so caught up in trying to make things happen and I’m just looking at numbers and I feel it’s, I’m lost at me and my balance sheet and it’s not big enough and I just, I feel lost.
And I know in talking to people that other people feel the same way. So recently I gave a speech at a conference and they had picked out a little piece of something I had talked about in another speech. I had talked about the importance of helping others and giving and mentoring and being there for folks along the way. And they wanted my whole keynote to be on that. And so the meeting planner and I sat down and sort of mapped out what it would look like and we came up with a talk that we called give, gain and grow. And I’ll be really honest, anytime you do something new, I mean that’s a, that’s a little piece of what I talk about in my, you know, connecting with people in a gadget, crazy world, sort of the new networking keynote that I do. However, to make it the whole keynote, that was sort of out of my comfort zone.
And so I reached out to a couple of people who, who being a giver is sort of their a main topic. And I asked her some suggestions and you know, it’s interesting because somebody would say what you reached out to a speaker who talks on that topic and asked him for help. Yeah. And you know what they did? They gave me some suggestions of how to map and create my own talk in my own way. I wasn’t stealing their stuff, although I did quote Bob Burg, uh, and Adam Grant, uh, his research in my talk, because I think those are the two people who really have done the most powerful work. Both Adam grant’s give and take and Bob Berg’s the go giver I think are two books that you really should go read if you’ve never read them. Anyway, long story short, the speech went really well.
The client was really happy. I got some really great feedback in emails and on Instagram from people who were in the audience and I realized that it’s a really important topic that matters to people. I centered in a lot on this whole piece about don’t say you don’t have time to be there to mentor someone else or to lend a hand or to just give that little boost that people need. Even the most busy people can open up some time to help you. So I kind of had an experience like that yesterday and that’s what sort of led me to wanting today’s podcast to sort of just focus on that. I don’t really have permission to say who it was, but somebody who is one of the most successful people in the professional speaking business. He’s not in the speaker hall of fame, but if ever there was somebody that should be, uh, have that designation.
It’s this particular person. Uh, he’s been speaking for 20 years, he’s been featured on every major network as an expert on his topic. And he travels the world and he’s one of the highest paid professional non celebrity speakers that you’re going to know out there. And he does some really breakthrough work. I’ve known him for a long, long time. And he reached out to me and said, uh, let’s get together. And so I met up with him and we went through my website and he said, you know what, let me just help you make it better. And it’s gonna take a lot of work to take all of the advice that he did. But I literally came home and, and when you get the opportunity of someone who, who steps up and says, let me help you, I want to spend a few minutes and just give you my advice to make you better.
And I asked him later, I said, you are so busy, why would you do this for me? And he said, because I like you and I think you do good work. And I think that that’s what we have to do in this world. And it really hit home with me that that’s a message that I needed to put out on this podcast. It doesn’t matter if you’re a speaker, if you’re a plumber, if you’re a consultant, I don’t care what kind of industry you work in. I don’t care if you’re the, if you’re the brand new, newest hire or anywhere in between. I think if you remember that, hey, there are people out there who maybe don’t have the level of success that I have and they’re doing well and I liked them and I admire them. Maybe there’s something I could do for them.
And it really, really was helpful. I went, I mean, if you want to jump over to Tom singer.com and look at my website, you may not know what it was like before, but, uh, just the changes I was able to make last night. I shared it with a friend who had looked at it before I made the changes and then looked at it right afterwards and he said, that took you like 40 minutes. Oh my God. It’s so visually you know better and actually had some better, uh, words used in, in places. So here’s the thing, that person donated an hour of my time. We had lunch together and we chatted about some ideas that he had to help my business. But what he really did is he kinda touched my heart that we need to get back to this thing of how do we help everybody.
What if every single person who hears this episode, and I’ll be honest, I get about a thousand downloads per episode. I don’t know how many of you listened to the seven or eight minute mark where we are now. But, uh, if, if, if, let’s say it’s half that people, if 500 people listen to this and only half of them said, you know what, I’m going to reach out and give a little boost to somebody. What would that do? That would be 250 people who would reach out and help someone else who they know, who they like, who they admire, who might just need a hand up or a kind word. Think about that for a minute. What if 250 people did that? Who knows who one of those people who were impacted? Who knows what they would do with that? So I think that that’s the messages is that if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, the most successful people I know do help other people.
This particular particular gentleman is one of the most successful people I’ve ever met and he’s gone out of his way to be helpful. Now I like to think I already do that. I talk a lot about the people who I mentor. People call me all the time who want to become speakers and I’m not. And I take the call and I help. Uh, there’s a person I’m going to talk to later today who was a friend of a friend who is looking at moving to Austin. And so I blocked out a half hour of my day to answer all the questions that she might have, but I still think we need to do more. I think all of us need to do more. So I’m going to keep this really short. I’m going to give you a little bit of a challenge, but first I’ve got to thank the other sponsor of this episode.
So this episode is brought to you by pod fly productions. Pod Fly takes the time and the headache out of creating your own podcast. They set you up with the right equipment, training and guidance to ensure that you sound amazing. Pod Fly does all the heavy lifting and the technical work so that you can focus on creating great content and growing your podcast. Hey, if you want to start a podcast and I know that some of you do, first of all, email me at Tom at Thompson [inaudible] dot com I’ll answer any questions that you have in keeping with the theme of this show. I’ll live by it. The second thing is jump over to pod fly.net/cool things and check out the offer that they have for the listeners of this show. So here is my challenge and my offer to anyone who’s listening to this. So my challenge to you is if you’re thinking I don’t have time, I don’t know who I’d help, I don’t know what I do.
As soon as this podcast ends, I want you to take out a piece of paper or take out the note section of your phone or send yourself an email on your phone and just write down two or three people who are in your industry. Or maybe you’re just people who you know, who you think, you know what? Maybe they could use my advice and then reach out to all of them, two or three people and just say, I was thinking about you today and I’d love to help you in some ways there’s something I can do for you. Or if you know the answer, tell them I would like to do this for you. Just like this person said, I think I can give you some advice to make your website look better and pop just a little more so that when people find you, they’re able to, you know, be a little bit more driven to make that call.
So offer up whatever you can to somebody and just see what happens. Go do it. Some people will say, I do it all time. I go through my linkedin all the time and I write to people and say, is there anything I can do for you? Most people ignore it. The second most thing is people write back and say, no, but every now and then somebody says, you know what? Yeah, I could really use this advice and then I’m willing to do that. So I’m just challenging each and every one of you to look for two or three people who you can do. It just takes 10 1520 minutes, an hour tops of your time to help somebody in some way go out there and do it. Because if you give, you’re going to gain. It makes you feel good. But they also say that there’s no better way to learn than to teach.
And so you’re going to grow by going out there and helping other people. So give gain and grow. Now here’s my offer. If anyone’s listening to this and there’s anything you want to ask me, maybe you want to start a podcast, maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to be a speaker. I’m not the oldest, most successful person you’re going to find out there, but I’ve done all these things and I’ve made a whole bunch of mistakes. So you can either email me or you can reach out to me on social media and ask me any question you want. And I promise I’m going to write back. And if I break that promise, ping me and say, hey, you broke that promise and then I definitely will write back because it is true. We do get busy, we do get, you know, kind of taken down the rabbit hole.
But I want to make sure that I’m living the way that this guy who helped me is living and I want to make sure that that’s what I’m encouraging everybody else to do. So it’s a little bit of a challenge. Today’s episode is a challenge to go find some people and just serve them. And I promise you if you do that, probably something’s going to come back your way. I don’t know what I’m going to do for this other person, but I’m going to do something big. Uh, I want to repay him in some way. When that opportunity comes across me, and I know if he ever listens to this, he’ll be like, you don’t have to do anything for me. But the fact is is that’s what we have to do. We have to be out there helping people who are maybe not as successful of us, but also people who are more successful than us.
They sometimes need things. So keep your eyes open and find a way to go out and serve other people. Hey, this is a really short episode, but we’re going to be back on Thursday with a great interview and you don’t want to miss it. Plus we’ve got some other cool ones coming up. We’ve got a first part of September. We’re going to have a new episode for the Austin Technology Council co-produced episode and I’ve just got some fun people who are scheduled to be interviewed. So I’m really excited. Additionally, um, I am going to be at the MC for two really big events coming up. Uh, which means that I am going to be traveling. Uh, but when I get the chance to go and emcee these big events, I’m usually totally inspired by the speakers who I see or the people who I meet, which means that some of these new Tuesday episodes that are just me talking are going to be totally cool because they’re going to be a whole new outlook, and I expect that I’m going to get very inspired at these two events that I’m going to be at in the next couple of weeks.