TORI GORDON | Dreaming Big and Avoiding Self-Sabotage

he can't be in the planning phase forever and just absorbing and collecting information and knowledge becomes a form of self-sabotage it's something that you can get off on that makes you feel like you're making progress makes you feel good about yourself hit a dopamine but you really aren't doing nothing yep what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the Travis makes Friends Podcast today I'm making friends with Tori Gordon Tori is a trauma informed breath work facilitator Peak Performance coach and award-winning content creator as the founder of coachable LLC she has helped nearly 1 million people worldwide achieve success and fulfillment through engaging content seminars coaching programs you name it Tori has been featured on major media Outlets including NBC CBS and Fox News and her popular podcast the coachable podcast has been named one of the top five podcasts to get you through covid as an award-winning mental health influencer Tory is a brand ambassador for international Brands such as Nature Made Better Health organifi natural cycles so many more she was named by Yahoo news as a top 10 mindset coach in the US and is now highly sought after speaker hired by organizations such as the United Nations Tori welcome Michelle thank you it's a very warm generous uh introduction so thanks for having me of course we don't know how to welcome people anything you know it doesn't work as well anyway you can give cold introductions for people well thank you I'm happy to be here uh so you're a Vegas local yes as well but only for the past year or so yeah so where are we from before that new transplant from Atlanta okay but originally from Alabama so East Coast though yes how do you like how do you like being on the west side I love it except for my skin does not love it it is um it is quite it's a little dry out here dry yeah but um I am happily like very very aptly like settled here and Vegas has surprised me in all the good ways yeah so you're from the East Coast talk to me about early stage Family Life uh living out there you know seven eight year old Tory Gordon set the scene for us what's life like what your parents doing yeah grew up in a very nuclear family older sister four years older than me and my parents we're married for 36 years both of my parents were both Educators and musicians so um I grew up with a big value of education and curiosity and so my parents really instilled in me resourcefulness in the way of like if you want to know something ask the right questions and learn to ask the right people and you you can be unstoppable so that was kind of instilled in me since I was really really young and um also was super competitive as a kid so athlete I thought you were an MVP in three different yeah yeah over the Sports basketball softball and soccer okay yeah any of them that you liked better than the other softball was my main sport okay yeah I was a pitcher so nice there's an element of liking to be in control there and but also just like I think as a kid um I wanted to be as involved in every play and now looking back I think I've seen so many of the ways that's like actually shaped me um more than I thought as a kid but I think it really started somebody was like hey we need a pitcher who wants to volunteer you know as always the one to say yeah I'll do it what kind of ways do you think it shaped you um I think it taught me to be a leader in a lot of ways a team player but and it taught me how to work hard it taught me how to go for a goal know what I want put in the work put in the Reps and get better every day but at the same time I think on the uh darker side of that I think it taught me uh like this need that I like if if I didn't carry the team or if I didn't make the play happen I kind of felt like this pressure that it all like was up to me and so I've actually been thinking about this in the last few years more as I became a business owner and was doing like starting my own team and that kind of thing is like how to actually trust my team members to take the ball and be fully responsible for their role for the team yeah and not overcompensate and think I need to do it all you can't be responsible for everybody's role yeah do you feel though that the pressure is helpful in some ways like where does it become unhealthy I guess is the question because I I tend I played a lot of sports Growing Up played a lot of basketball I tend to feel kind of the same way especially in business business contacts everything Rises and Falls is on leadership and if you're the person at the top and the person people look to then you take more accountability than everybody else does and with that comes a lot of stress and comes a lot of pressure and comes a lot of anxiety and uh I think that some of it's extremely necessary yeah but where at what point does it become you know unhealthy or you know I guess I guess that's really my question I'm asking is like where do you think that it stops being valuable because it's just constantly Weighing on you or you're taking more than you should be taking or whatever yeah I think it it requires self-awareness to even be able to take inventory and stock of how stressed you are and how much pressure you're actually under and how that's impacting your results for me I am able to notice internally what is that what is my internal environment like and typically my body and my mental health are going to give me cues when I'm like I'm operating out of a really like a stressed response out instead of out of like an intentional conscious grounded decision-making place and I think part of being a real leader requires you to be humble enough to say I need help and I'm taking on too much and be able to delegate and that's been a learning curve for me especially um in business as I've grown and scaled and still operate a very very small team of people that I only like deeply deeply trust because like in business of any kind like no one there's this idea that no one's going to care as much as you care right and no and you want people to take care of your baby it's like this is my baby this is what I'm working on and pursuing every day and you want the people that are working on your team to care as much about the product um so I think for me it's really having my finger on the pulse of my own internal environment and really doing intentional check-ins and like how am I doing like yeah and my results tend to speak for themselves when I'm when I'm like the tension is pulling to where I'm like fraying at the ends that's the time where I'm like okay we need to take some of that tension off yeah and it's time to take a day in what ways when we do that yeah uh how do you how do you like to work through that is there like an activity you do in action that you take a meditation you try conversations you have people you call what's your process all of the above all of the above um yeah I've got a lot of tools so breath work is one of those for me it is an immediate State changer yes um it helps it is a hack it is a hack yeah because just in a couple of minutes I can go from a stress response to down regulating my nervous system and feeling more grounded and in control of everything happening and so that's like an immediate thing getting in nature is really big for me um it helps me to ground because when I get in the states right it's like you're really heavily operating in your mind the mental is it's like you're thinking about all the things you need to do yeah you're thinking about your laundry list of personal and professional things that are taxing on you you're thinking about what could go wrong what could go right whatever and so but mostly what could go wrong yeah the big part of it is like let me get reconnected what's actually true and what's actually real because my mind can play games and I don't need to believe everything I think and what matters right right because like that that's I do a lot a lot of the same things try to you know spend a day or two by myself at the beach or something like that I get by myself for sure um and then try to get out even if it's just like I said smoking a cigar with a beautiful view at Sunset somewhere with a drink in my hand and a re-engagement into what it means to be alive and an appreciation for just being because that's already a blessing to just be and then realizing that anything I build on top of that is just icing on the cake right you know what I mean it's like on I first of all I'm here at this with this beautiful view and enjoying time with myself smoking a cigar with a whiskey and having a great evening and if that's all life provided me it would be a [ __ ] great yeah life yep but I got the opportunity to do all these other things and if I can figure out a way to make sure that I can re-engage with me with with Travis it's deep down in here somewhere the real version of me uh then I think that that that version is much more likely to be able to go conquer a bunch more things because you know the life is not a zero-sum game it's not a you win or you lose type of a thing it's like there's multiple ways to make it happen um so yeah I do a lot of the same things try to give it myself well and everything you just said is like uh are things that help us get present right and when you're in the mind you're not really present with you're not an Engaged relationship with life you're in a relationship with your mind and all the thoughts that you're having and so whatever practices that I tend to use are ones that bring me back into the present moment of actually what's really real and what's actually really going on so I can either tune and meet my needs or just again come back to the the truth that like everything is okay yeah right even if it's seemingly not it is it really is uh um that's one of the reasons I love having a show too uh because I get to sit down and have conversations with people like you all the time and when we dig into their story there's inevitably periods of of uncertainty where there's obstacles you're not sure how to overcome there's huge problems there's bankruptcies there's people losing tens of millions of dollars on deals there's people that have built up a nine figure net worth lost it all that like their every successful person I've talked to has these moments and these these periods of time where they're like what am I doing am I qualified to do this I don't know exactly how I got to where I am now and I don't know how I'm going to get to where I'm going and I'm totally underqualified and nobody believes me and I don't believe in myself and I should just go back to flipping burgers or whatever and so one thing that really helps me is trying to think about what I want my story to be in 10 20 years from now like five years from now Travis 10 years from now Travis 20 years from now Travis what part of my journey is this going to be when I'm telling that story on stage or at a podcast in 20 years from now right this is going to be that part where I'm like yeah I thought everything was over you know what I mean like oh I'm losing this or I'm I'm not in control of this thing or I'm under a lot of stress or pressure but if I can take myself out of that and put myself in 20 years from now Travis and be like look I think that's what's so important about committing to the long term is that I know that I'm in the game long term so I know it's going to work out at some point because there's no way it's not going to because I'm in the game that long if this is just part of the story yeah that's that's the perspective that I think most people Miss and don't and I think having that perspective is the differentiator between long-term success or not because here's what happens you're out where you are wherever anybody listening is in their life whether it's they're unhappy with their career their relationship status their financial status whatever it is and then they think about where they want to be right in five years and they imagine that compelling future that they want to become that version of themselves and then there's the gap between where am I where do I want to be and this what feels like insurmountable distance between those two things and what they do is they Define where they are and they make up a story about where they are and what that means about where they're going and their ability to get there so what I see a lot of times and I think one of the reasons I've had the success I've had is because I've switched this mentality is I never make where I'm am mean anything negative about where I want to go meaning if I think that I'm not where I want to be at and I think that means I'm not a good leader maybe I'm not creative enough I don't have the skills I don't have the experience all the stories we tell ourselves but if you think long term and you knew without a shot of a doubt you were going to get to that destination and that it was or even something better that or something better if you knew that and had that confidence and had that belief and you could see 10 years down the road and see amazing how amazing your life was you wouldn't make where you are mean anything but this is just a stepping stone absolutely and that's how I approach my my life and I'm like oh where I am at is exactly where I need to be because it's where I'm at right now and if I was meant to be somewhere else I would be but the fact that I'm experiencing this in this moment is means it's for me and I get to figure out what's in this for me and if I'm not experiencing gratitude or if I'm experiencing tension or overwhelm or stress I just come back to that it's like what is this trying to show me because it it's for me and it's trying to move me towards the direction of who I I think I want to become yeah we're absolutely a reflection of the obstacles that we overcome and the pressure that we face and and moving past that pressure and I think that if you if you don't learn how to stomach that now that you're never going to get to the destination you're trying to get to or the better one that may end up coming that was kind of the realization that I had lately because when I started yesterday we raised this money to see the the software company I never started software company for not a developer I'm not a product guy I'm not any I didn't have any business starting a software business we raise money for it from a bunch of people that I trust and admire and look up to and all these you know different um people have built relationships with over the years and it was it was extremely stressful after we closed the round counter-intuitively it was like you know typically typically people will kind of Praise that you know like oh you raised over a million dollars for us for a software startup great job and to me it was like as soon as we closed I was like the most stressed I've ever felt in my life now the works are yeah because like that's step one and yeah it's a difficult step sure but now the real work begins where I have to go turn this money into more money you know what I mean or I risk losing my reputation and it weighed on me so heavily for six to eight months maybe almost like not even productive and eventually it got to the point where I was like if this is the path that I'm choosing meaning that even if like regardless of what happens with guestio we go bankrupt or we sell for 100 million dollars whatever happens I'm still going to be taking risks like this for the rest of my life because that's who I am and that's the path that I'm choosing so if I can't learn to stomach the risk of like a small amount of money of a million bucks like what makes me think I can go raise 12 million dollars or 20 million dollars or start a real estate fund and and buy you know multi-family properties that are 150 million dollars in our portfolio like what makes me think that I can go do all those other things if I can't stomach the pressure that comes along with a million bucks and it it just forced me to figure out a way to deal with it you know it's like I the the solution's not going to come tomorrow right you know what I mean like we're in a build here this is going to take multiple years to figure out and if I can't figure out how to stomach the pressure now I'm gonna have ulcers and gray hair by the time I'm 33. how did you how did you do that what was the thing that you figured out how to deal with that like what's so like the first thing was like getting to the root of the problem like what is the thing that stresses me out the most about what I do which is typically what for me some kind of fear like if you like strip it all back it's like what's the fear there um it wasn't necessarily fear for me it was more of a lack of alignment in my skill set okay versus what I was spending time on so the solution for me became hire somebody that's an operator that can take all the things off of my plate that I don't want to do even though they're an expensive hire even though it's a big risk of a hire because it's the most expensive higher I've ever done um that like bringing in that person and taking that pressure off of me will allow me to do the things with my time that I think I'm uniquely qualified and very good at right that most people are not good at and that is a better seat for me to sit in and this person can handle this thing so it took us like four months 30 interviews and stuff we finally made an offer like six weeks ago we brought on or like two months ago we brought on an operator for for that business um and it's already taken loads of stress off of my shoulders um yeah yeah even though it's a like again it's a big risk it may not even work out like I hope it does I think the guy's really great um we like I said 30 interviews and we did two or three rounds of interviews met in person I get good feelings from the guy he's working well with the team everything's going well um but it's a risk nonetheless but I think that it was one that was worth it so like I said for me for me it came down to an understanding of what like what is the thing that's really stressing me out the most and it's like I feel under qualified and under educated to do this particular role within the company yet this is where I find myself in the majority of my hours during the day and it was absolutely just not working at first I was like I can wear the hat you know I'll put that hat on put this hat on put this head I just want to save money run the company really frugally I'll do it yeah exactly uh which is a a really great strategy until it's not exactly yeah so it became not really fast and uh and that became the root of the the problem for me was just like how am I spending my time and what will free me up to do the things like I said that I'm good at that other people would not be able to do well again I think it requires humility to even be able to admit that but for anybody that watches the show and for me personally like I always tend to look at where do I have what do I have the most resistance around you know because that's what is why is that resistance there and what is that trying to show me and it might be that I'm out of alignment somewhere and because when I'm in alignment that resistance intention kind of goes away and I always think about it as like going to the chiropractor it's like when I get back into my role that I'm good at that I'm uniquely qualified for and I'm not trying to be everything to everybody I'm not trying to be someone I'm not and I'm letting that person be really good at what they're good at and it then there's just this release of yeah the pressure that's built up right yeah now it's super important yeah for us to do to make that decision um but I I really want to get back um we skipped a bunch of things here in your story that I'm really interested in so I want to get back into that so uh Sports competitive uh parents in education and and then oh so so did they push you down to a certain career path like I typically find that people who's whose parents were really into the education side don't really end up like in the online World they they tend to have like more kind of traditional career paths traditional College University get a job you know be an accountant or a lawyer or something like that did they push you in that direction at all was that ever part of your path did you have any inkling or desire to go down those directions um yes and no so they never push me in any One Direction um and I actually sort of always had this entrepreneurial Spirit since I was a kid like I was the kid that would bring like get my mom on Saturday and take her get her to take me to Sam's or Costco and buy like candy and bulk and take it to school and like sell it on the side to my friends nice and then I ran in college I ran a um a photography business would you in school I went to the University of Alabama oh okay so I started in photography thought I wanted to be a commercial photographer had a great business in college and my sister got sick with cancer and I did this uh portrait photo shoot of her after she uh shaved her head and lost all of her hair and it that was such a profound experience and for some reason it kind of stole my joy for photography at the time so I that was actually I put the camera down after that and didn't really pick it up for a really really long time and all of a sudden I was like I wanna take my life in a different in a different path and I didn't know what that looked like um but I knew I wanted like most people to help people right I was like what do you want to do I want to help people what does that mean what does that look like and I didn't know and like many people in college are kind of trying to figure that out and a friend of mine was like well I'm in social work and it's easy and so I followed that and sign me up but the thing was my parents always really encouraged me to find my way and they believed in me and they were they trusted me that I would figure it out and that I just they just continued to encourage me to pursue the things that were real and true and interesting for me so I got into social work and although I found it interesting in psychology that's where I started at my toe in Psychology um I figured out very quickly it was not going to provide the lifestyle I wanted and it was really heavy and dense and intense and so I went the corporate path right out of college it was like what my dad always said was like but you do have to pay your bills and you got to figure that out so I took a job in uh software sales right out of college and did that outside sales for six years before I went in-house to do sales operations training and onboarding for like Performance Management we were selling legal software and services to large corporate legal departments in the biggest law firms in the country how was that experience for you worked for a really toxic boss which taught me a lot though about teamwork and collaboration outside of that and culture toxic in what ways um oh gosh don't even get you started yeah uh just abusive um just an abusive power yes um but also even the the hiring structure he hired so his HR like hiring manager was a former Miss USA and his whole his whole um strategy was to hire girls that had been in the Miss USA pageant system because they were beautiful and they could talk and they could hold a conversation and um men enjoyed giving them sell better yeah they sell better and that was the whole strategy and as you know so that was the environment you come into it was here's a Tiffany bracelet during your onboarding process but I'm not going to give you health insurance that was the environment that I lived like I worked in for six years um and it was interesting though thinking back like a touch of misogyny sort of became like this the the in some ways this person that the other my like co-workers rallied around because I wasn't really afraid to to stick up for myself and I wasn't afraid to um stand up for the other people that I worked with and he didn't love the fact that I balked at his authority no no it's so strange so um eventually I have such a great relationship with your ego but there's a cost and a payoff to everything and I realized that there was a cost to working for them but there was a payoff right I had flexibility there were definitely making good money and I was always weighing the options you know weighing is this worth being here or not and I for a while it was a very strategic move to stay as long as I did um and then when those the cost outweighed the benefits sure I was out okay you also probably gained a lot of experience in selling totally which was invaluable pretty beneficial to the rest extremely valuable um because then I ended up going working for the top country in the industry um yeah top company and doing all their sales training and teaching their sales people how to go out and sell got so that was two separate companies so we did outside sales for this other company and then moved to inside Sales Management yep sales operations got it yeah and um then I ended up starting uh podcast and the response from the company at the time because I posted on LinkedIn um I got a call from my boss and her boss and they didn't love the fact that I'd started a podcast so why the response that I got from them was that this looks like it takes a lot of time and how do we know you're not doing it on our dollar because I worked from home full time and they made a lot of assumptions out of the gate thinking they were afraid in their opinion that I was gonna like sell like giveaway Trade Secrets and stuff but they didn't even realize because they failed to listen to the show it had nothing to do with it was sales or anything that we did um so that put enough of a bad taste in my mouth to really want to pursue what felt good for me because at the time I was going through this whole separate kind of come to Jesus moment Spiritual Awakening and my personal life that was completely restructuring my priorities and what was really meaningful and important to me yeah and so that was my first Act of creating something that I was really proud of that felt like Tori that was rejected in such a public way and a formal way yeah that I was like all right this was the push I needed yeah to go actually bet on myself and see what I can do on my own why did you start the podcast to begin with I wanted to bottle up conversations that I was that I had had with my parents my whole life you know sitting on the patio having wine grilling out and having really meaningful profound helpful useful conversations that I realized as I got older other people didn't have access to other people didn't have parents like mine they didn't they weren't encouraged the way I was they you know and I was like people need this and it was sort of a selfish Endeavor because I was very much trying to heal from a lot of the things I'd experienced in my life and it was my opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with somebody who could actually provide me useful tools and so it really started as like my desire to work on myself by interviewing people who'd had worked on themselves were you a podcast listener for a while before that a little bit okay yeah um but not too long you know I there were a couple of podcasts that I listened to that were very much in the coaching education side and what were some of the first ones that you liked the first one was uh by woman and Christine Hassler uh it's called over and on oh yeah um she became a coach of mine for a little while during that period And I heard uh Aubrey Marcus yeah Mastermind event like four years ago so similar type those types of shows aubry's show being one of them um as well and so I was at a place personally where I was doing a whole new level of self exploration and self-discovery of like who am I why do I do what I do why am I pursuing the things that I'm pursuing what do I enjoy and um so those shows kind of allowed me to be a sponge but there was always like a moment where I was like okay now I need like a good thing about it yeah yeah it's like you can just absorb as much information as you want there's knowledge out there everywhere but a plot like that doesn't necessarily make you powerful you have to apply it and integrate it and use it yeah totally so yeah they're yeah it's kind of the same thing with the idea things like ideas are a diamond it's so funny when everybody you get people that are that have like an idea for a company or something and they're so secretive about it I learned this when I was pitching for for gestio because you start realizing like in the angel investors VCS and all this other stuff like you're initially thinking hey please uh sign this NDA because I'd want to protect my IP or whatever no serious angel investor is going to sign an NDA to look at your pitch deck you know like because they know more so than most people that ideas are literally a dime a dozen there is zero value in having an idea the only value comes in the execution of that idea and it's the same the same concept you can soak up knowledge all day every day and still work at Starbucks for the rest of your life many many people whose lives who do are are in the like they're getting the results they're getting and it's not because they have a lack of resources or information and I think it's Jim quick who's like shelf help is not self-help shelf help yeah he does call it yeah he's like you're buying a book and it's sitting there collecting dust or even you read it but you have yet to apply one principle oh that sounds good and I'm gonna post a quote on my Instagram or tweet this but yet I've done nothing differently right you know a lot of times just consuming a bunch of information is actually counter-intuitive to the path that you should be going down because because there's so many conflicting views I would talk about really like success is not a diver it's not there's not success or not success linear you can you can have success in a multitude of ways and so if you listen to this person and you listen to this person and you read from 14 different people they're all going to have different opinions about what you should be doing how you should be spending your time what like at the end of the day you got to just do you gotta do something and then the next thing to do will probably show itself to you while you're doing the first thing exactly if you just sit and wait and hope for this Revelation it's just it's not going to come and then that's when you those are the people that that have one year of experience 20 times over like they'll tell you like I've you know I've been working this job for 20 I have 20 years of experience it's like no no you have one year of experience lived 20 years over because you've never done anything different and all you're hoping for at the end of the year is your little cost of living raise your seven percent increase on your pay and you keep talking about all the things that you want to do and you keep thinking about all these ideas and you have a dream board and a vision board and you've watched the secret 42 times on Netflix but you don't do anything if you don't do anything Nothing's Gonna Change yeah you know well and I think that's that's the kicker right you can't be in the planning phase forever and it that's when just absorbing and collecting information and knowledge becomes a form of self-sabotage honestly absolutely because it's just another distraction it's mental masturbation it's something that you can get off on that makes you feel like you're making progress makes you feel good about yourself but you really aren't doing nothing yep and I would rather follow somebody and like learn from somebody who goes to a workshop goes to a retreat reads a book and then spends the next 60 90 days doing the thing yeah and falling on their face most likely yeah that's that's really what it comes down to is it's it's it's it's a operating from a place of fear and scarcity because at the end of the day you think that the consumption of the information is going to prevent you from failing at all and while it may be the case that will help maybe mitigate failure or bring you more information to light that will help you in your journey maybe shave some time off the learning curve you will fail it is a guarantee you will be embarrassed of something that you do you will fall flat on your face when you try to launch a new product or write a book or start a podcast or quit your job and start a freaking flooring business I don't care what it is you will fail it is not a matter of if it is a matter of when so the sooner you take action and start getting used to failing the sooner you learn how to overcome that failure better and the sooner you learn how to avoid that failure again in the future and if you just sit there reading and consuming information thinking that that's going to be the thing that prevents you from the pain of failure you're just wrong right it's it's just a lack of understanding of what it takes to truly become outsized successful you know what I mean it's just it's part you have to factor it in and some people can't stomach that because it sucks especially especially if it's something like this podcasting or content or something because it's such a public way to fail that was the biggest fear that I had when I started this because I had a bunch of people that I knew were hoping I was going to fail because the world that I came from there was a bunch of people that I just knew were just like I said it was it's a public way to be like I want to do this thing please help yeah right and so you have people sitting there with popcorn just hoping yeah and it's like I know that during the times where I was failing the first couple of years where I was like barely getting by and trying to get this thing off the ground and you know get to the end of the runway and have some lift it was like I know that those people were just rooting for my failure and and in some ways they got what they wanted several times over during that period of time but if you are so concerned with what's happening in the next 12 months you'll never be able to optimize for what's happening in the next 10 years and that's much a much more effective way to go about success in general yeah is thinking more long-term than short-term and being able to delay gratification and be okay with short-term embarrassment short-term failure because you know that at one point like at some point it's gonna flip it's gonna flip you know what I mean we're like that person is seemingly like there's somebody that's talking [ __ ] onto you or and actively rooting for you to fail and it seemingly looks like when you're whatever 25 that maybe they're more successful because they stayed in the corporate job right and they're getting a fat salary and they live in a beautiful condo on the high rise in Chicago or whatever and you're like eating [ __ ] living your parents spare bedroom trying to build a business it looks like they've won but in 10 years they're here because they've gotten two promotions but you're here because you've built a multi-8 figure business that you exit you know what I mean like it just it's a complete misunderstanding of priority it just reminds me of a conversation or a text I got recently because I had that exact experience basically when I started um posting on social media and starting my own business and the podcast and everything there was definitely a contrast of reviews from my friends and and people that I knew and what people thought about it from my people from work yeah right from my bosses and my co-workers to my my friends like closest friends and um I definitely lost friendships I remember one girl specifically I was really close with um she the things that she would say about me is like oh Tori's trying to be an influencer like look at what is she trying to do like making it a joke and thinking when it was funny and and um that relationship kind of dissolved and only this past week now that I'm having we just crossed the million Mark and uh having a ton of success and hit number one on the education podcast and I get this long text from her and it's been years I'm I was the Godmother of a child like we were deeply close and uh she was just basically said you're you pursuing the thing that you wanted and doing it so you know passionately and intentionally like triggered me because I wasn't growing you out you I was afraid you were gonna leave me behind and as a result outgrow me and and so it's interesting away yeah exactly sure it happened exactly and it's just interesting because like you were saying it really does come down to like the longevity and like thinking long term because these things you know aren't built overnight they all take time they all take time and but yet the people who you know are the doubters or the haters who there will be and they want to see you fail the the moment that you start to have success the moment that they're like it's the come to Jesus moment where they realize they were wrong yeah absolutely and um where they can't say anything about it anymore right you know so their only option is to support right because you're going to be successful regardless yeah you know yeah it's it's unfortunate that works that way but that is how it works and it's the same you know for for anybody that's trying to do something anything different if you're if you're just trying to do something different you're always going to get this reaction and it's going to be most painfully from the people that love you and care about you the most yeah and sometimes it's because of what you know your friend was saying but other times it's because they don't want to see you fail they don't want to see you get embarrassed they don't want to see you um you know do it for eight months and then realize that you quit your job and now you don't know how you're gonna pay like they don't want to see that pain either so even the people even some people are just they're doing it from a place of of love for you yeah it's just misplaced absolutely because it's a misunderstanding of what I value in life it's just like I don't want to work for a corporate corporation that doesn't doesn't value what I want I want to do this thing even if it means less money even if it means late nights even if it means uh downgrade in my lifestyle for a little while you know it's a worthy Pursuit and I'm fine with and I need you to be fine with that well that's the projection it's a projection of their own fear that they're putting on to you and they're calling it love and they're saying I'm trying to protect you and I Want to Love You by keeping you small and um that's unfortunate like you said it is it's just misplaced and yeah it is yeah like as a parent you know as a parent it's your job to keep your kids safe of course so it's really hard when they like become an adult and they start doing stuff that you perceive as being inherently risky yeah it's like wait uh before you do that you know I'm like let's make talk about this for a second well I was encouraged when I started it was like from a lot of people I deeply respect they're like you need to have this much in savings you need to be able to pay your bills for six months if something ever happens and I was like that's all nice advice and I really appreciate it I'm gonna listen to it but I'm not gonna take it and I you know and I not everybody will take the same path and but I had a conviction personally I knew I needed to put myself on the hook to show up to actually put in the work that which is necessary to get it done and it can be a great accountability partner yeah well and if I had that cushion I wouldn't have had the pressure right to actually go out to make it happen yeah right no sometimes you need it yeah you know and most the time my advice is different for everybody especially like you know if you're in your 40s and you have four kids and you you know what I mean it's like it's going to be a little bit different absolutely if you're in your 20s and you're single yeah and it's just like just do something try things do like take big risks you were literally in the optimal time of life yeah to make those big decisions and put yourself in a position that is potentially extremely risky and to me it's like I always looked at not always one thing that I've recently gotten better at I should say is looking at my current problems in the scope of the future version that of of myself that I want to become and it really puts things into perspective because most people would look at a five thousand dollar investment a ten thousand dollar investment a twenty five thousand dollar investment as intrinsically a lot of money but I always knew that I wanted to be somebody that at least was worth eight figures at the time now I'm my goals moved on to nine figures but at the time it was like if I could be worth 10 million dollars then like that's a great goal and I want to do that before I'm 40. like I want to be able to have the option to retire before I'm 40. was my goal when I started everything it's a lot higher than that now but at the time it was still made a twenty thousand ten thousand five thousand dollar investment super insignificant if you look at it in relation to where you want to be you know what I mean like I want to be worth 10 million dollars but I'm gonna let this five thousand dollar investment prevent me from getting to where I want to be even though it's astronomically more than what this you know what I'm saying absolutely you you you've got to be able to adopt a future versions of yourselves identity before you reach that level or else you're going to keep making the decisions of the person that thinks ten thousand dollars a lot of money yeah you're gonna keep making the decision of the 50k a year person if you keep taking the actions and adopting the mindset of a 50k your person you're always gonna be a 50k you're a person well you might make progress It's just gonna be incremental and you get your eight percent you know cost of living raise right exactly yeah and you're going to come up against a lot of frustration of why am I not making progress at a quicker rate yeah but it's gonna be uh compare like it's going to be um in proportion to the risks that you're correct to take yeah correct yeah because I I hesitate to give the advice to people but I but I tell them this is this is my story you know like you don't have to do what I did but I'm telling you like if you want to know how I got from where I was to where I am now in this period of time this is what I did I'm not telling you you have to do the same thing because I understand it's risky and sounds insane you know like I when I started when I started the show and wanted to move my business online uh because I was doing door-to-door sales at the time I had I pulled out a zero percent interest credit card and I filled that bad boy up it was a 42 000 credit limit I was 24 at the time 25 at the time and I've filled up forty two thousand dollars in debt on a on a credit card but talk about like putting your feet to the fire I knew that I wasn't gonna set my family back and not pay that card off so before I ever paid a diamond it was 18 months zero percent interest I think it was like the Chase Freedom unlimited or something and before I ever paid a diamond interest on that I'd pay it off the entire card with money from the online business and paying off that debt was like a oh my gosh I can't believe I did that you know what I mean but it sounds again it sounds insane like to say like hey pull out credit cards and spend a bunch of money on them the problem is that most people would take that advice and then they go buy a TV and a bunch of and like a MacBook Pro and stuff like that I wasn't doing that I was buying coaching I was paying for masterminds I was buying proximity to people that figured it out I was buying knowledge information and I was taking action on all the knowledge information I was getting right um and I had my sales ability to rely on to where like I knew I could sell stuff if I had had something to sell so paid off that card when I started my uh software company the first version of the software I pulled out ninety thousand dollars in zero percent credit cards three or four different ones he's my buddy uh Bill Jennings has a company called pathway Financial they help you you know get lines of credit from credit card companies um at zero percent interest so I took out ninety thousand dollars in zero percentage credit cards put the first version of the build of guest EOS like seventy eight thousand dollars on my dad almost 80 grand and built out the first version of the platform and then used that to go raise 1.4 million dollars right to take myself out of debt put myself in a position to succeed and start building the company those are big risks it easily could have been the opposite of that it easily could have been I have 80 000 on this credit card nobody will give me any money and I can't figure out how to make money and now I'm just 80 000 in credit card debt and now I'm paying interest you know what I mean like that could have been the story but the bottom line is I was okay with that version of the story because I want this to be worth more than 90 grand one day and at the end of the day even if I'm on the hook for 90 grand it's still just not enough to be able to take me away from the pursuit of what I really want to achieve which is in 10 years from now want to be able to not have to work again yeah you know what I mean so if you if you first of all aren't thinking about your current problems in contrast to your you know future desires that's one thing but then secondly it's a good way to make sure or measure up what your future desires are and if they're big enough because sometimes I think people just have a misunderst like they have an underestimation of what it's going to take I agree I agree I think one of the things I've actually been working with a lot of clients on recently is is creating a new orientation to dreaming big because I I've been struck by how many people have so many limitations around like really dreaming big especially women because they've been told to be a certain way and like that they need to fill certain roles and that they don't need to outperform their you know their parts or their spouse or whatever and yeah and so I've actually that's been a conversation that I've been having with several people recently is that it's safe it's safe to dream and it's safe to dream really really big and it's safe to want more you're allowed to want more and also be grateful for where you at where you are and what you have right now just because you are pursuing something that feels audacious and big doesn't mean you're not at the same time grateful for what you have sure and see your privilege in the position that you might be right now totally this this house that we're in right now about this a couple years ago one of the reasons we bought it was that we had a perfect view of the strip like the whole strip it was just like an empty dirt lot behind us so on our balcony we can see like all the Vegas Strip and it was beautiful view sitting out on the porch at night and the glass of wine whatever four or five months ago we find out that they're doing this huge commercial development behind us and it was like oh man that's going to take away part of our view but we're like ah it's not oh it is what it is you know it's a half mile from the house and they're putting in some cool restaurants and a good place to go walk around and hang out so that's pretty cool you know take the good with the bad whatever but then a couple months later they were like uh right like right behind our house there's another development going in and they put in a bunch of like freaking uh uh like two-story three-story uh like eight plexes and they're like luxury condos so it's not like they're gonna be like not great neighbors but it's 10 feet from our back wall and it eliminated our view by the time the project is done our view will be gone completely and all we'll be looking at is the stucco of other people's places and my immediate reaction was like well let's pack up and move you know let's let's get out let's go somewhere else let's find that view like be able to get a bigger yard or something yeah and it was kind of what you're just saying it was like a realization that like you know what it's not smart to do that right now the real estate Market's completely different we bought it a great time our interest rates extremely low um we have a next-gen apartment that we have a renter in that pays US money and rent every month like we keep our expenses extremely low so I can be really Nimble and take big risk of my business and it's just a face and and we just have to we we need to be very grateful for where we are because it's still a beautiful home and we're very grateful to have it and we're lucky to have it it's a it's you know better than what we lived in in any other place we've been um we have a lot of equity in the home because again we bought it a great time our interest rates like there's so many things to be grateful for but you can always get in that [ __ ] get caught in that like yeah but I want that yeah yeah but I want to be there and it's like I it's so good to have those big dreams and goals but it's also so important to remain extremely grateful for the position that you're in and recognize how far you've come as well or else you're just gonna drive yourself crazy absolutely well it's always on to the next best thing where you don't ever stop to actually appreciate where you are and knowing what we were talking about earlier this is a phase this is a part of the journey so if me in five years was sitting in my mansion with amazing views of the strip and having the last wine with my wife is looks back and is like remember when we were in that house you know what I mean it's like that in in your mind you're like that is a guarantee that's gonna happen exactly you're resourceful you're committed to doing the long work overtime and fail forward and it's like okay so this too shall pass and for night right now the grass is going to be green where we want it where we water it and we're going to water it where we are that's exactly right yeah um Okay so keep going back to your story and getting sidetracked so your uh College uh you get the corporate job start the podcast how does that start turning into money for you what what are you doing to start building a business I immediately um sold my house okay I bought a beautiful house 25 26 had a it was just on the East Coast still in Atlanta um started the business but I was like I need to get myself off the hook for this mortgage I need to give myself a chance to actually be successful sold my house moved into a tiny apartment and that was and then covet hit oh wow okay so I did everything out of my time so you started the podcast in 19 or 20 19. end of 19. um but I immediately hired a coach okay because I quit my job and I was like I need to make money and I don't know what I'm selling or what business coach I'm a business coach that was focused on coaching so I started offering one-on-one in group coaching so I built out a program and started doing doing little workshops and literally it was just one putting foot in front of the other like just started with like now when I look back at my graphics and my marketing for it was just it's so cringy but like I have love for her it was me in canva for like the first two years totally totally so um it started with that and then I ran a group coaching program that turned into a mastermind that I did several times one-on-one group coaching and then in 2020 um during covid everyone's on lockdown everyone's on social media tick tock I randomly got an email from Tick Tock and I had no followers on Instagram I'd like only ever use my Instagram for personal reasons now I'm trying to make this pivot into business and use it for marketing myself and I get this random email that I almost deleted because I was like I don't know why Tick Tock emailing me about something called The Creative Learning fund that they were starting during covet as a way to bring they were trying to position Tick Tock is not just a kid's platform for dancing right and they wanted to bring other thought leaders and experts and people in other niches and verticals that were educating people sure from home so I signed up for this little program that they were doing they were like we'll pay you 1500 to make like 40 videos and start your Tick Tock and I was in the motivation like Niche and during those 40 videos during that ramp up of like I'm just going to put content out there I wasn't afraid to put content out there because I knew no one on the platform at the time and so I just went for it and in that first month of putting out 40 videos consistently I started to see immediate growth and I remember one video it was three years ago yesterday that was my first viral video and all of a sudden I sort of started to build this community in this audience simply off me talking about my life in the lessons I was learning and the things I was going through and all these people were looking to me and now considered me you know an expert in this space in some ways but people trust who they see and who they see consistently and as um and so I just started posting on Tick Tock and built a following there uh yesterday we hit 1 million followers so it's been about three years thank you um yeah it's a big accomplishment but a lot of to answer your question how did I make money um it started with coaching and then Brands started reaching out and wanting to do brand Partnerships with me and it's only been recently that we've brought on you know some other streams of Revenue I did ran Retreats and now I have the podcast and that's doing really really well and um have done Consulting it was really just be Scrappy yeah and figure out what you can offer I can you know and that's what I did for like the first year before things started to same take off yeah I was just like what can I sell what skills do I have what it was like oh I have to fulfill now right you gotta learn how to do that part of the business you know it's coming from sales you just sell and you think it's done you know and then you become a business owner you're like oh I actually have to like do the things now wait there's no Ops team that I hated this over to and you guys fulfill on delivery me I guess me I guess me yeah because I'm I'm gonna be the one to do everything now yeah so it's been a huge learning curve and it continues to be like every day I just learn more about who I am what I want to do and there was a point though a couple about a year and a half two years ago um I don't know if you've ever heard of brand builders group they're a group out of Nashville and his wife AJ Renna and I I joined them um they held personal Brands monetize and really figure out their messaging and who they are and and who they help and um that was really important for me because as soon as I started working with them one of the first things they had me do was look at my streams of Revenue and how I was making money and at the time it was one-on-one in group coaching that was like primarily and then it was like brand Partnerships and then it was a retreat and then it was Affiliates and maybe the podcast right it was and one of the things they encouraged me to do was to look at where I was bringing in money and the next thing is where do you want how do you want to be making money long term so a couple years from now what would you like your business model to look like for me it was speaking and bigger deals in the podcast and it became very very clear as soon as I defined that that I needed to make strategic business decisions to move away from just the coaching piece why get myself into a year-long contract with all these people again and come in another year when ultimately I want to be speaking and doing podcasts so that helped me to start to see where I needed to start to shift my priorities and what to say yes to and what to say no to in my business even if it seems like a good opportunity the time and this client wants to have the hardest part the hardest part but it's not aligned with where I want to go it's not it's not in my it's not in my DNA to turn down money but it has to be yep yeah so I got I learned how to say no to things that look good but not might not feel good for me long term yeah yeah well super interesting uh what's next for you you think you know I've been getting this question a lot lately and the truth at this moment in time is more of what I'm doing right now like I really feel like I'm in a place that I am I have everything I want in life and personally and professionally I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing in terms of speaking facilitating and doing this podcast so it's more of this on a bigger scale yeah um because right now I just feel really really fulfilled and that might change you know down the road but probably a book at some point yeah um that's been on the horizon we've had some opportunities and Deals come up but it hasn't been the right one and um who knows I mean ultimately I would love to have my show continue to take off and either be doing really well have its own TV show or whatever but more of what it what we're currently doing definitely well congrats on the success you've seen so far seems well earned well deserved um and uh yeah we'll be following along the journey if you're listening watching right now uh go check out some of Tory's stuff where is the best place the one place that you want them to go connect with you more the coachable podcast yeah we're gonna have Travis on very soon so you're going to be able to come hear our conversation where he's in the guest seat soon um that's where you can find us on YouTube and um Apple Spotify wherever so if you're checking this out right now the coachable podcast whatever uh podcast app you're listening in search that or go check it out on YouTube Tori thanks so much for coming on the show it's a lot of fun thank you so much for having me