Champion Your Life: How to Navigate “The Punches of Life” as an Entrepreneur with Tom Telesco: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Imperfect Action. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down how to champion your life, how to navigate the punches of life as an entrepreneur. And to drop these value bombs, I am brought to Tom Telesco and to EO Fire Studios. Tom is a high-performance coach, author, and keynote speaker, and he also has the privilege of being a member of the teaching faculty with his wife, Tanya, for John Maxwell's Global Leadership Company.

0:41And today, Far Nation, we'll talk about your dream, how it's worthy of you, and it's waiting for you to show up. We'll talk about how your past patterns of behavior or your cycles of success can give you great clues as to what could be next, and reviewing the tale of the tape, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Tom and our sponsors. As business owners, it's part of our job to stay ahead of the curve. And with AI stealing the show these days, it's time to study up. But where do you even start? Start with HubSpot. HubSpot's AI power tools, including their content assistant and chat spot, are changing the way you create content and communicate and serve your customers.

1:22Take HubSpot's content assistant as an example. It helps you brainstorm, create, and share content in no time. And you can do it all right inside their super easy to use CRM platform. and with ChatSpot, HubSpot's conversational bot and CRM whiz, you can not only quickly pull reports for data and metrics, but also learn how to automate manual tasks inside HubSpot for better engagement with customers and more closed deals. These tools run on OpenAI's GPT model and both are designed to help you get more done all while growing a better business faster. Find out more about how to use AI to grow your business at hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence.

2:01Want to live better, longer? We all do. And that's why LifeForce is making proactive and personalized healthcare easier than ever. Start your membership today and receive$200 off. Visit MyLifeForce.com to get started now. That's MyLifeForce.com. Tom, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Fire Nation, what is going on? Well, something most people don't know about me, I've had two big dreams in my life. The first one was a childhood dream. When I was nine years old, I wanted to do nothing but be an all-star catcher for the New York Yankees.

2:51And ironically enough, during that period of time, the catcher for the New York Yankees got killed in a plane crash. What? Yeah. This was back 79. This was a long time ago. Way before your time, my friend. And I believed so much that I was going to be able to play for the Yankees, that the only thing that was stopping me was the fact that I hadn't reached the age of 10 yet. I was 23 days away from becoming 10 years old because my parents told me I could do anything I set my mind to as long as I didn't quit. So there was no thought in my mind that it was not possible. I didn't realize that the reality of the situation didn't match up with my age.

3:37And then my dad sat me down and I said, dad, I need to quit the fifth grade. I want to go try out for the Yankees. And he just looked at me and he put his hand on my shoulder. He's like, little buddy. He's like, don't give up on your dreams. When your time is right, you're going to get your chance. Now, when he said that, I thought the only obstacle was that the catcher for the Yankees, Thurman Munson, he had an orange chest protector and mine was blue. So I thought that was the obstacle. And I think right now in this day and age, every champion, every entrepreneur on fire needs to go back to that mindset of a child where nothing is impossible because it's our time right now to rise up and to take some ground.

4:24Well, Tom, I will say that I was actually born in 1979. So you're right. I wasn't really aware of that situation with a Yankees catcher, but I had a similar dream in the first 10 years of my life. I was going to be the shortstop for your rival, the Boston Red Sox. Because guess what? Back then, Spike Owen was the shortstop and his batting average was 237. And I said, if that guy can bat that crappy 237 average and be a shortstop for the red socks i can too obviously i'm gonna bat at least 300 in the majors you have to we had very similar dreams my friends mine were probably shattered a lot earlier than yours were um because i i realized that wasn't going to happen for me but we all have these dreams fire nation and the question is at what point and why do we let them go and that's where i want to shift because tom we're talking about how to navigate those punches of life as an entrepreneur.

5:21And you've had to navigate some punches yourself. And we have a lot to get through. So you're going to have to be concise here because I want to get into the meat and potatoes of this episode. Talk to us about how your entrepreneurial journey began. Well, it actually started back at right around the same time when I was nine years old. My dad was a police captain in Buffalo, New York. And whenever we would go to bed at night, if the phone rang, it usually meant something bad. So one night I was up in my bunk bed and I heard the phone ring. It was about 1130 and I heard my mom on the phone. So I jumped out of bed and I saw the light coming through the crack in her door.

6:00So I leaned in because I thought maybe she was getting a bad call from the police department. But what I saw was that she had all kinds of paper and bills and envelopes and small bills and an accordion envelope on the bed. And I realized in that moment that the problem wasn't anything having to do with my dad's safety, but there wasn't enough money to pay the bills. And my dad was already working three extra shifts a week to bring the money in. And I said, you know what, there's got to be something I can do. So growing up in Buffalo, New York, I was fortunate because we had four seasons. So from that day forward, I put my hand to anything I could find to go and make money, whether it was cutting people's lawns, raking leaves, shoveling driveways, anything to earn money.

6:48And season after season, I just added more jobs to the photocopied flyers I'd put on people's doors because I knew that at one point something big was going to come out of it. And that did eventually happen. And then when I was 16 years old, I got a cleaning contract I started a residential and commercial cleaning business with the largest automobile dealer in Western New York. But the guy said to me, if you want this contract, and he slid this clamshell across the desk to me, and it was of Think and Grow Rich. It had four audio tapes and a little paperback book. He says, if you buy this, because I make all my salespeople read it, then I'll give you the contract.

7:32And within a year, I had 35 people working underneath me, and I was off to the races, my friend. I love that story about how sometimes it can start simply with a book, with a message, with a mentor. And Tom, you've obviously grown to doing amazing things with, like I mentioned in the intro, with John Maxwell's Global Leadership Company and other things as well. So let's dive into your progression path to becoming a champion. I know you've broken this down into three concise steps, which I love, so take it away. I believe in a champion's journey, there's a three-step progression. I believe that when we first get an idea, it starts out as something that we're just viewing from the sidelines.

8:17Maybe we're crafting a vision to go somewhere, do something to become something. We start out on the sidelines as spectators. Then at some point, we get the courage or belief in ourselves. it starts to rise up and we decide to cross that line. And when we cross that line, we go from being a spectator to becoming a contender. Now the contender phase can take a long time and it'll get us to the final phase, which is champion phase when you achieve those dreams and goals, but you got to keep fighting. And one of the things that a contender needs to recognize is that if they get knocked down, that doesn't mean they're knocked out.

8:58It just means that they have to get up, stand strong, and they got to push through and keep going. So I love how you broke that down. And again, Fire Nation, that was the three steps. You started as a spectator, then you crossed the line, become a contender. And then of course you enter the champion phase. And I don't know why this came up for me visually, Tom, but I was picturing the field of dreams when you were talking about that. And it's kind of in the reverse order though. Remember when the baseball player walked across the line and went from a player to a spectator, but also a doctor who was helping the person, of course.

9:30But you just shifted uniforms, just like a snap of the fingers. And that's kind of what I'm imagining for you, Fire Nation, is here you are. You're at different parts in your journey. Some of you right now are just spectators, which, by the way, that's exactly what I was eight years ago. I was a spectator on the sideline, listening to podcasts just like this, learning, reading books, just like Tom said, of Think and Grow Rich, et cetera. And then I crossed the line and became a contender. And so you've either done that, Fire Nation, and you're listening to this right now on your journey, or you're a spectator and you're about to.

10:01Either way, there's going to be a lot of important value bombs we're talking about and taking away here. So first, I just want to commend you, Fire Nation, for either being a spectator, a contender, or hey, maybe there's some champions already and you're listening right now. So awesome. and congrats to you as well. You're going to get some value out of this also. But why? Why does the success path sometimes feel like a heavyweight boxing match? This is something I've learned from experience. That's the type of answer this is. But I believe that whether we're, it doesn't really matter what our dreams are actually.

10:36I mean, a small dream or a big dream, it's all the same because it's relative to the person that carries it. But I believe that, you know, in entrepreneurship and building businesses and casting vision, that life feels like a heavy boxing, heavyweight boxing match. Because, you know, some days we're standing strong in the ring and we're taking ground, we're offensively moving forward. And then there's other days where life just fights back and it can come from anywhere. And then when life hits hard, those are the days where, you know, when I say life hits hard in this situation, it could be something as simple as a delay or a distraction or a denial.

11:16But every entrepreneur and high-level leader goes through it. So sometimes those stops and starts really, I guess you could say internally, they can cause you to feel defeated. And other times they might make us wonder if it's even worth fighting for that dream that we're setting out to fight. But here's the key thing. The key thing is this. You have to remember this. The key thing is that your dream is worthy of you. And it's waiting for you to show up. You said it best, JLD, when you said it's just like the field of dreams. That progression went in reverse order. They walked backwards from being a champion to starting to build the field.

12:02One of my favorite movies, by the way. Your dream is worthy of you. Like, I really want those words to sink in, Fire Nation, because they are powerful. Now, obviously, when we move from spectators to becoming contenders, we're going to make some mistakes in that progression and that transition. But it's always good to avoid some mistakes if we can. And so how can we avoid the biggest of the big mistakes that contenders just always seem to be making? Well, I think one of the biggest things, and especially in this day and age, can be distraction. Every person that writes a book or is given an inspirational speech right now will tell you that distractions are the problem.

12:43And that's true. But this is what I believe. I think a lot of times when hard-charging entrepreneurs and leaders, they get run down. I'm sure some people can associate with that. When they get run down or battle weary, they shift to somebody else's strategy before they reevaluate theirs. They forget a couple of their steps because when they're weak and weary, they haven't gotten back to their corner yet to get their cup man and their trainer speaking into their ears. They're like, hey, there's another thing that might help me get there quicker. So I believe that we have to reevaluate our own life strategy, our own battle plan, because truly our past patterns of behavior or our cycles of success really do give us great clues to what we could do and what we probably should do next.

13:34Sometimes we just have to step back and breathe and we need to reframe where we are, what we've been going through and where we're headed. Fire Nation, these are powerful words. It's a powerful message. And Tom, you know, we're on this theme, like, let's stick with it as far as like just going to the classic movies. Cause as you were going through that portion, what was coming up for me was Rocky three. It's actually my favorite Rocky. Um, he, I just love it. I love how Mr. T comes in and he just does such a good job as clubber laying. And what I love about it to, you know, make it a great analogy for you are sharing is guess what happens?

14:11Rocky forgot himself. He forgot what happened in Rocky one and Rocky two to make him the champion. He got soft, you know, he was taking easy opponents. He got soft. He changed his strategy. He forgot the steps he had taken to become a champion. And guess what? Clever Lang was hungry. He was getting just nasty. He was working out and he came and he destroyed Rocky in that first fight. Of course, you know, then Rocky found his, his way with Apollo Creed and went out, you know, to the West coast and trained. And I don't know, man, like whenever I feel like I need some motivation to get back into like great shape, I watched that movie.

14:48Cause I just like see the transition that Rocky made. I'm like, I can do that too. But that fire nation is just such a clear analogy for me of like, this is why you know what got you there. Like, don't forget those steps. And we have so many more value bombs coming up to you. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship.

15:22One of Scott's recent episodes was with none other than Jack Canfield, where they discuss adapting to life's twists and turns. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Ready to look, feel, and function at your best? Then I've got the perfect next step, a LifeForce membership. LifeForce gives you the tools and support you need to optimize your health and performance through a membership that combines biomarker testing, functional medicine doctors, certified health coaches, and advanced nutraceutical and hormone therapies. Here's how it works. Every three months, you'll draw blood to see where you're performing well and what needs work based on 40 plus biomarkers that drive your mental and physical health, all from the comfort of your home.

16:00Within a week, you'll receive your results and get a personalized plan written by a certified clinician, plus the opportunity to schedule a free telehealth appointment to talk through your results and next steps. Members also receive a certified health coach for one-on-one coaching and accountability. No wonder 85 % of LifeForce members report improved quality of life within their first three months of membership. Better energy, more focus, and deeper sleep are all within reach. Start your membership today and receive$200 off. Visit mylifeforce.com to get started. That's my, L-I-F-E-F-O-R-C-E.com.

16:34So Tom, let's be honest with Fire Nation. The punches of life, they are going to knock us down. You've been knocked down by the punches of life. I have. Fire Nation will too if they take the step from spectator to contender and move forward. What are the best tips to get back up? You know, it's simple and it comes from one of the greatest philosophers of our lifetime, Mike Tyson.

17:01he says, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face from that. And like I said, this is life experience just, you know, to go back a little bit. Um, I've reached what I define as the pinnacle of success twice in my life. And I know that those measurements are different for everybody. I could easily say it like I've reached the American dream twice in my life, only to have lost it all. But by going through that stuff, that gave me the greatest success strategies that I've ever been able to realize. And I believe that we have to come up with our own strategy so that we can stand strong when the punches of life start to come at us.

17:43Because to have a strategy afterwards is great in retrospect and moving forward. But sometimes we have to identify systematic steps that have worked best for you in the past. And then this is where some people stop. You got to follow them. You got to follow those steps because it's so true that both success and failure is going to leave clues for us. So I say it in a strange way and I do it sometimes just to scratch people's record and make them pay attention. But sometimes we have to go back and do an autopsy of our failures as well as our patterns of success. And when you do that, you can see the tracks that have led you in the right direction and things that have made you jump over the curve and over the guardrail on the side of the road.

18:35Success leaves clues, Fire Nation. And I love what Tom added there. Failure does too. Failure leaves clues. And I'm just going to keep this, you know, movie and television theme going because I was just like last week finishing, which I think is the best documentary I've ever seen. It's called The Last Dance with Michael Jordan. And there you had Dennis Robin, who's widely considered one of the best defensive players and rebounders of all time. What was he great at? He was great at reviewing the tape. He knew how every player shot, where their ball was likely to be heading if they missed after they shot.

19:11So if player A shot from this point on the basketball court, he's probably going to have a ball that bounces this way if he misses. Like Dennis knew that for every single player. So he always positioned himself in the exact right place for the highest percentage opportunity to get those rebounds and to play amazing defense because he really studied the tape. So I know we briefly kind of discussed this in the last topic that we just shared, but when reviewing the tale of the tape, why is that part of the archbishop process just critical and crucial to our success? Well, I think it's one of the most relevant things.

19:48And just to frame the experience, I think you did a great job with that story of Dennis Rodman. But when you're watching a boxing match or an MMA fight, you're going to see in the beginning of the match, you're going to see where they show statistics to see some of the advantages or maybe some of the disadvantages that each fighter has. And I think that just like two fighters can be compared to each other, we can use that same comparative index or gauge or however you want to say it. And we can take a look at our champion progression so we can evaluate where we are. Are we sort of sliding back towards being a spectator?

20:27Are we really a good contender right now, or maybe are we in the champion continuum and we can do that by reviewing our tape. And that way we can accelerate our dreams and goals. And like I said, my dad was a police officer, so I know police terms, but again, it has to do with knowing your ML, your modus operandi. And that's really your particular method. You specific your particular method of doing something, especially one that's really well established. So that's why it's so important to review our tale of the tape. That means going back and looking at your past, past history, past fights, things that you've done that have gotten you to the next level and things that have tripped you up.

21:11Now, you have five defensive strategies that you've broken down into an acronym. You have five offensive strategies that you've also broken down into an acronym. Now, I want to go through both of these right now, but I just don't want Fire Nation to freak out as you're going through this because you've also created this amazing five-day challenge that Fire Nation, you're going to have the opportunity to take a part in and you're going to be going into some really in-depth, valuable knowledge when it comes to these things here. So we'll talk about that in a minute, specifically the challenge Fire Nation.

21:44But right now, take us through the five defensive strategies, which your acronym, which I love is STAND, and then your five offensive strategies, which is PUNCH. And then we'll start talking about the challenge. That's really what this is all based on. A lot of people, when they're entrepreneurs or they're launching out into a vision that they've created in their mind, they may have great strategy to take ground, to move forward, to punch through. Those are the offensive fight strategies, but they haven't planned for what's going to come. I call it navigating the punches of life. When the punches of life come, and they come in different forms for everybody, It may be in terms of a financial reversal or maybe a bad diagnosis from a doctor or, you know, some of the things that we're going through right now.

22:32But I came up with the acronym STAND for the defensive power principles to navigate the punches of life. And I'm just going to rattle through them very quickly so you get an idea. They're simplistic, but most people don't think simplistic in regards to struggle. So the first one, the S in stand stands for stay calm. What do you do when you're up against it? What is your MO? What do you do to stay calm? The next one is T. You got to take notice. You got to take notice. And that breaks into four parts. You got to take notice of what you want. You got to take notice of where you are. You need to take notice of what you need.

23:19And you got to take notice of what you still got left. And that's a gratitude lesson right there. It's hard to talk about gratitude during the punches of life. So we got stay calm. Take notice. The next one, I love this one. Activate your power. Activate your power. What can you do right now? It doesn't have to be huge. But what can you do right now to get refocused on that dream you've got set? The next one, N, is navigate the obstacles. And those are going to look different for everyone. Usually when we take two steps forward, you know what happens, my friend. We sometimes have to take one step back.

24:07And then the last letter in stand is D, determine your next steps. determine your next steps. Fire Nation, you know, I love acronyms in every way, shape and form. My favorite one obviously has always been focus, follow one course until success. But here we have stand, stay calm, take notice, activate your power, navigate the obstacles, determine the next steps. So go ahead, Tom, let's break down the five offensive strategies. Right on. So once we get our legs back underneath us, and we're ready to go, we just maybe spent some time in our corner with our coach or our trainer or our, you know, whoever's leading us in this journey.

24:47Now it's time to punch through and take some offensive ground. The P in punch is push forward. We got to push forward. We got to keep moving forward. If you're not moving forward and you're staying, or if you're standing still, you're moving backwards. The next one is you need to upgrade your thinking, upgrade your thinking. We may have to rethink our plan or we may have to re-equip ourselves with different strategies to take us somewhere faster and further. The next and every self-help program in the world talks about this, but I don't think people put enough weight in it. The N stands for notice who's in your corner.

25:27Notice who's in your corner. Now, that could be your friends. It could be your families, your business partners. but you also have to realize that we have someone on each of our shoulders at all times. We got an angel that's telling us, you can do it. You can do it. Keep going. And then we have a devil that sits there sometimes and winds up and cracks us right in the teeth. So the next one after notice who's in your corner is you have to chart a new course. You got to chart a new course. Every course correction, you have to just recalibrate. And then the last one, this is, I would have to say, this is my number one piece of advice for people is you have to hammer away every day.

26:09And that deserves some repetition. You got to hammer away every day. Fire Nation, you've heard me say it before. I'll say it again. Put in the reps. Hammer away every day. That's where champions are bred. That's where they're made. So punch, push forward, upgrade your thinking. Notice who's in your corner. chart a new course, hammer, hammer away every day. So let's talk, Tom, about this challenge that you have crafted for Fire Nation, for entrepreneurs in general. Tell us about it, and of course, where we can go to learn more. This was birthed a couple of years after the book was released, but I really started to see the need for some type of, I've turned champion your life into an actually, actually a full coaching program.

26:58But I want to be able to equip entrepreneurs and leaders in this season. JLD right now, that's what we need to step up. We need our entrepreneurs and leaders to lead the way. We're not going to get it from all the places we're used to looking, but this challenge is five days. And what I love about this challenge, because I've been, I've been in about 150 challenges myself over the last year. Um, this challenge is actually an every other day challenge because I know that the leaders and I know that the entrepreneurs sometimes can't hit the green go button on these challenges because it's, it, it, it ramps up too quick.